Rubbah Soul

Which Twilight Team Are You On?

2009-10-30T08:57:00.002-04:00

Sorry Jacob - you're definitely a cutie - but I'm "Team Edward" all the way - LOL!! I'm back in time for Halloween with a "Twilight"album that I've been working on. I wanted to share this because I know a lot of you out there are fellow "Twi-hards" - hee hee...I created this using my Gypsy and my Cricut - as well as my Twilight stamps from Artful Inkables and then a stamp set I found at Barnes and Noble. The first pic is of the entire book - I had to really dig into the Cricut cartridge library to find shapes to match the ones on the covers on the books...the first one with the apple was pretty easy to find...here's a close-up...
The apple is from "My World" - all my shapes were cut at 5 inches as my book is 5 1/2 inches tall. The word "Twilight" in the oval is from the Barnes and Noble rubber stamp set. I bound my book with the Bind It All and used some red ribbon to accent the binding.
Here is my "New Moon" page. The flower is from the Gypsy Wanderings - which comes pre-loaded on the Gypsy. The Team Jacob stamp is from the Barnes and Noble stamp set. I embossed all the photo mats in my album with the Argyle Cuttlebug embossing folder - I ran black Core'dinations color core cardstock thru the folder and then sanded it down really good to get the cool 2-tone effect.
Here is my "Eclipse" page - the ribbon was trickier to find - I ended up finding this ribbon on the "Wild Card" cart - I had to play around with the sizing of it and then rotate to fit it to my book. The Team Edward stamp on this page is from the Barnes and Noble set as well.
And my Breaking Dawn page - those of you who have read the book know which scene I'm talking about - hee hee...I used stamps from Artful Inkables on this page for the quote and the feather background. The crown on this page is from the Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge.

Thanks so much for stopping by and checking out my Twilight album - are you counting down to the new movie in just a few short weeks?? I know I am!! I hope you all have a very safe and Happy Halloween!!

Spongebob to the Rescue!

2009-10-13T14:55:00.004-04:00

I'm back again with another shape album to share!! This one is actually the first one that I did (before the Cars one) - I just hadn't gotten a chance to post the pics of this one on my blog. I did this album again using my Cricut and my Gypsy. My kids LOVE Spongebob and I did this little album so we could put some pics of them in their Spongebob jammies in it. I went with a Superhero theme with these adorable cuts from the Spongebob and other cartridges - here are some close-up pics of the pages - details for cut sizes and paper are under each pic...

Here is the first page - after each of the pages were designed on my Gypsy - they were cut in lightweight chipboard and covered in patterned paper. On this page - Spongebob was cut at 4 inches from the Spongebob Squarepants cartridge and the paper is from the DCWV All About Boys stack.

Here is page #2 - paper from the DCWV All About Boys stack again - Patrick was cut at 4 inches as well and is from the Spongebob Squarepants cartridge.

Sticking with the Superhero theme of the album - for this page I used the superhero car from the Paper Doll Dress-Up cartridge (it was cut at 2 inches). If you click on the pic - you can see bigger view of it and you'll see that the car was covered with a blue iridescent paper to give it some shine. The paper on this page is from the DCWV Generation Tech stack.

Here is the cityscape - this is from the Going Places cartridge - with the Gypsy - I was able to play around with the length and width to get it to match up with the other shapes in my album. The paper on this page is from the DCWV Generation Tech stack.

And the last page - the moon and the night sky - I cut the moon as a circle from the George and Basic Shapes cartridge - it's a 3 inch circle. I cut it using yellow glitter paper from the DCWV Glitter stack to give it some shimmer. The paper is from Hobby Lobby - I believe it is by KI Memories.

Thanks so much for stopping by!! I hope you're enjoying looking at these mini-albums as much as I enjoy making them - I really feel like I've been in a creative rut lately and doing something different like this is starting to bring my mojo back! ;)

Start Your Engines!!

2009-10-07T13:56:00.005-04:00

Hello everyone!! Watch out - I'm back again and I've got a new toy - hee hee...I was lucky enough to purchase on of the new Gypsy machines by Provocraft when they debuted on HSN a couple of weeks ago and let me tell you - I've been having A LOT of fun with my Cricut again now that I have my Gypsy!! This is actually my second completed project with my new toy - I posted a Spongebob album over on the Cricut messageboards - here's a link - and I'll try to get the pics posted of that album here on my blog in the next day or so. But onto this new project I have to share with you today - it's a chipboard shape album made with the Disney Cars Cricut cartridge!! I have been loving all the custom shape albums and word books I've been seeing around scrapbook land lately - so I did some research on how to make them using my Cricut machine and the Design Studio software. Well - then my Gypsy came - so I decided to try it out with that instead and am loving what I'm able to do with it so far!! Basically - I'm designing my pages on the Gypsy - then cutting the pages out in lightweight chipboard and patterned paper to cover them. Then - I go back and re-cut all my shapes for my book and layer them on. Here are some close-up pics so you can see - all cuts were done with the Disney Cars cartridge..
When all the pages lined up - I wanted it to look like The King, Lightning McQueen and Chick Hicks were racing across the finish line - so for the first page - I used the checkered flags from the Cars cart - cut at 2 3/4 in. The paper is from Hobby Lobby as is the checkered flag and red ribbon.
Here is "The King" - he was cut at 2 1/2 inches and I accented him with red and crystal Stickles. All the checkered flag paper I used is from Hobby Lobby.
Here is Lightning - cut at 2 1/2 inches - accented with orange, yellow and crystal Stickles. (I love this pose - look how he is looking over at mean ol' Chick Hicks - hee hee...)
Here is Chick Hicks - page #4 - cut him at 2 1/2 in. and accented his numbers with crystal Stickles.
And the last page - the finish line - this cut is from the Cars cart as well - cut at 1 3/4 in - I stickled the letters and the lightning. The paper is some old Karen Foster racing paper I had in my stash.

Thanks SO much for stopping by and checking out my album!! I'm guessing now that I have my Gypsy - you're gonna see a lot of scrapbooking on my blog as well my normal stamping (when I get some more free time) - I've got one more Copic class left to do for the year and then I plan on getting back to some recreational stamping - LOL!! Have a wonderful day!!!

My First Twilight Card

2009-09-04T14:25:00.004-04:00

Happy Friday!! I hope everyone has had a wonderful week! It's been an eventful week here - my youngest started his last year of Preschool this week so we've definitely had some adjusting to do. I got some YUMMY stamps in the mail today - I placed an order for a couple of Twilight-inspired sets from Artful Inkables and I have been stalking the mailbox all week waiting for them to come - hee hee...the Artful Inkables sets have to be my favorite Twilight sets - the collage image that I have used on this card is just perfect!! (Oh - and BTW - thanks to my friend Laura for sending me the link to the stamps when they were released this summer - you have officially enabled me - LOL!!) I thought it would be appropriate to make a removable bookmark card with these stamps - so you can send this card to your fellow Twilight lovin' sistahs - I know exactly who I'm sending this one to and I'm hoping it'll put a smile on her face! I used Michelle's HTDT? Tutorial from back in March to create this bookmark card - here is a link to the tutorial. All images are by Artful Inkables - the diamond background, feathers, sentiments and main image. I used the Nesties Labels2 set for the main image. The red satin ribbon is from a Michael's $1 bin - it's perfect for a Twilight card!! Here's a pic of the bookmark pulled out so you can see what it looks like...
Hee hee...I love that line from "Breaking Dawn" that's on the bookmark...**sigh**...hee hee...thanks so much for stopping by - hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend!!

Cowabunga, Dude - I found some inspiration!

2009-08-29T12:46:00.004-04:00

Hope everyone is having a wonderful start to their weekends!! Today was a big day for my youngest DS - he's 4 - and he had his very first soccer game this morning!! He did awesome - a little hesitant at first - but by the end of the game he had gotten some good kicks in. It's a fun age I think - they aren't into the competitiveness of it yet and they're just having fun - plus they're all just too cute to boot too!! :) I did do some stamping when we got home - participated in my very first Inspiration Challenge in SCS. I was perusing the Creative Wall Coverings site that is today's inspiration and came across this wallpaper border...
...and I knew exactly what I wanted to do!! I didn't have any images of dogs surfing - but I do have images of turtles surfing - so I went with that. The set I used is OCL's Hangin' Loose with Kona (an Eclectic Paperie exclusive set) - the sentiment is from this set as well. I've had this set forever and I need kicked in the behind for not inkin' it up yet because it's just too darn cute. I think I made up for it though by using every turtle in the set to create this scene - hee hee...the matching wall paper that goes with this border on the inspiration site was striped - so I drew inspiration from that too by adding some striped paper behind my image panel. I colored the image with Copics and sponged my sky on like I did on my card yesterday. I added a few flower brads for accents and even got to play with my new Nesties too - the inverted scallop circle set. Thanks so much for stopping by - hope you all have a wonderful weekend!!

Tell me if you've heard this one...

2009-08-28T09:40:00.004-04:00

...the Wicked Witch, a turkey and Santa Claus walk into a bar....hee hee...doesn't this card remind you of one of those jokes?? LOL!! I know what you're thinking - she disappears for a month and comes back and thinks she's a comedienne! ;) I'd like to give you some exotic excuse as to where I've been - backpacking in Europe, summering in the Hamptons, etc. - but alas - it's nothing that exciting - hee hee...I had some medical problems (nothing serious) that I had to deal with in June and then took some time away from blogging and DT work to make time some more time for my family. We had a great end of summer vacation though and I sent my oldest back to school last week for his 2nd grade year!! Yikes - where does the time go?? With the kiddos heading back to school (my youngest starts his last year of Preschool next week) - I feel like I'm getting back into a stamping groove and would like to get back to regular blog posts (I'll try my best). I'm still teaching Copic classes though and will update my blog later today with upcoming dates if you're in the area and are interested. Now onto my card I have to share with you today...

It's been a long time since I've had this much fun making a card - this one just sort of came together really easily too...I've been drooling over this OCL "Holiday Cruiser" set since I discovered the new releases. I ordered it from EP as soon as it was back in stock and inked it up as soon as it got here yesterday - it's such a fun set to play with - I just love the way everything in the set interchanges - the possibilities are endless really. I did a lot of masking to create my scene - and it's sort of an ironic scene too, isn't it?? It certainly feels like the holidays fly by - one right on top of the other - Halloween stuff has been in stores for a month or so now and I saw Christmas stuff out at Hobby Lobby the other day - crazy!! Anywho - I colored the scene in with Copics - well - except the sky - it was sponged on with Versamagic Sea Breeze ink. The three panels were embossed with Cuttlebug folders - the purple with the Spiderweb folder, the orange with the Pumpkins folder and the red with the Snowflakes folder. Thanks SO much for stopping by and for those of you still following me - for not giving up on me - you guys are the best!!! ;)

I'm Feelin' Fruity!! MFT Hop Around the Block

2009-07-14T22:00:00.005-04:00

Hello and welcome to the July mid-month MFT Hop Around the Block!! If you've just happened onto my blog - then hop back over to Kim's blog and start the hop from there - I'll see ya when you get back!! ;) We've got some of the cutest sets to show you along the way - I'm gonna start by sharing a card made with the UBER-CUTE "Feelin' Fruity" set - OMG - the fruits are just precious and the sentiments are so sweet - you are gonna LOVE this set!! I used the pear image from the set - I stamped one pear onto my MFT Perfect Paper panel - masked it with Eclipse masking tape - then stamped my second pear to create the "perfect pair" - LOL!! I colored them in with Copics (and BTW - if you want to see how to get that cool 2 tone effect on the fruit - check out my new HTDT? Tutorial this week here). The paper is from the MFT 6X6 Spring Collection - the buttons are from the Spring Button collection too and I don't know if you can see - I added a little stem and leaf to each one. The pink ribbon is from the yummy MFT Plaid ribbon pak.
This second card was done with the new Annie LaPoint "Harvest of Hope" set - what a beautiful image, huh?? I can see this one being VERY versatile!! The image was colored in with Copics and the new HTDT? tutorial also shows a great trick on getting shading in those small leaves and flower petals. The paper on this one is from the MFT Spring collection as well and the ribbon from the MFT plaid ribbon pak. I punched my flowers and put a small pink gemstone in the center of each of them as well.

MFT is releasing 3 sets - which will be available starting at midnight - Feelin' Fruity, Spread a Harvest of Hope (Annie LaPoint) and Bubble Bunny. Be sure to get your order in early to qualify for the "First 50" - the special "First 50" Memento Dew Drop collection continues this week with "Bamboo Leaves"!! And in honor of another Copic tutorial - this week's spotlight is on the My Favorite Copic Collection - the perfect way to either start or add-on to your Copic collection!!

Thanks SO much for stopping by - your next stop on the hop is Cindy- and I know she has some BEAUTIFUL eye candy to share with you!!!

Just Beachy! MFT July Hop Around the Block

2009-06-30T22:00:00.009-04:00

Hello and welcome to this month's MFT Hop Around the Block!! If you've just happened upon my blog - then hop back over to Kim's blog and start the hop from there - I'll see you when you get back!! For today's hop - I chose to share a card I did using the new MFT "Catch Some Rays" set being released Wednesday night at 10 PM EST - I figured it was pretty appropriate considering I just got back from a week of doing just this - LOL!! OK - well - exchange the books for an Amazon Kindle and my margarita was on the rocks - but hey - it was pretty darn close to this image - hee hee...I even included a little memento from my trip on this card - but I'll show you that in a minute. ;) I started by coloring my image with Copics - I paper pieced the umbrella with paper from the MFT 6X6 Spring Paper pak (the background paper is from this pak as well). The big button is from the Spring Button Collection and that yummy yellow gingham ribbon is from the MFT Perfect Plaid Ribbons pak (this ribbon is BEAUTIFUL!!). Now for the fun part...check it out...the sand underneath my Who's That Girl is ACTUAL sand...here's a close-up...

We just got back from Myrtle Beach and like the total dork that I am - I brought back a small bag of sand for crafting purposes (scrapbook pages, keepsake bottles for the boys, etc.) - so I thought it would be fun to add a little bit of my vacation to this card. I started by putting down 2 strips of 1/4 in. redline tacky tape - I cut the ends to fit the image. Then I just sprinkled some sand onto the sticky strips - patted it down to make sure it was nice and stuck and then shook off the excess. And believe it or not - it's really stuck on there - I thought that maybe I'd have to seal it - but it seems to be OK without it.

We've got a FUN release for you this month - MFT will be releasing 4 brand new sets Wedneday night after the new release Cocktail Party over on SCS from 8-10 PM EST (remember TLC'ers get to order the releases starting at 9 PM EST). MFT is also releasing some new polka dot ribbon - a perfect choice for those summer projects!! Also - this month starts the First 50 Memento Dew Drop Collection - for the next 24 weeks, the first 50 prize will be a Memento Dew Drop and each week - we will feature a NEW color. If you place an order each Wednesday and are in the first 50 orders - you will earn the complete collection for FREE over the next 24 weeks. For this Wednesday - the first 50 will receive a FREE Memento Dew Drop in Angel Pink with their order - how cool is that!? And what a way to complete your Memento Dew Drop collection!! Hope to see everyone at the party - Paula and I will be announcing the One Click Collection winner as well - see you then!! Your next stop on the hop...the FABULOUSLY talented - Cindy - enjoy!!!

I'm ba-aack!!!

2009-06-29T07:58:00.003-04:00

Happy Monday!! And a big hello to all my blogger friends!! I'm back!! I've missed blogging and stamping and chatting - so I'm very excited to be posting this morning! Where have I been?? I'll show you in a second - first - I wanted to share an MFTeaser of one of the new MFT sets being released this Wednesday night - it's a new set by MFTPresents illustrator Amanda Baird called "Puttin on the Glitz". Isn't she fabulous!? I love Amanda's sets - they are so whimsical and very "Vogue"!! I created a little scene with the set - drew in the flooring and colored everything in with Copics. All the silver on the scene - around the mirror and on the make-up cases - were colored in using Silver Fox Smooch Ink - these are VERY cool for accents!! This card is for the July One Click Challenge - hosted by Paula and I this month - our challenge for you is to create a card using FLOWERS and POLKA DOTS!!! The sky's the limit and I can't wait to see what you all come up with - you have until 10 PM EST Tuesday night to enter - you could win all the stamps from the July release!!! I went with a black and pink theme - my polka dots were done with circle punches and my flowers were punched as well - I added little pink gemstones to accent them.
So where have I been?? Well - we just got back from a week in beautiful Myrtle Beach, South Carolina!! Here are my 2 beach boys having fun in the water - we just had an absolute blast and I am SO itching to scrap our trip already - so you may even start seeing some LO's soon!! ;) I think I mentioned we were leaving in my last post - but I normally don't like to splash all over my blog that we were leaving our house for a week, kwim?? But I'm back now - feeling great and ready to get back to blogging!! I hope to see you all at the MFT Release Party over on SCS Wednesday night from 8-10 PM EST - and don't forget about the blog hop - it starts tomorrow at 10 PM for lots of eye candy and maybe some blog candy at the end too!! ;) See you then!!

A Little Java...

2009-06-18T11:45:00.003-04:00

...to get you hoppin'!! Hi everyone! Sorry for the week-long absence - I did not end up having my wisdom teeth out on Tuesday - I had a bit of a medical emergency happen on Sunday and while I'm not quite ready to talk about it yet - I will tell you that I'm OK and was even able to finish up this adorable little Flopsey jar this morning. I missed the MFT new release blog hop this week :( - this was one of the projects I had planned on sharing during the hop - so since I finally finished it I thought that I'd share it with you today. I started with one of the MFT Perfect Packaging squared jars and the newly released "I Need Coffee Flopsey" set. I stamped the new Flopsey on an MFT Perfect Paper panel - colored him with Copics and then cut him out. The sentiment is from this new set as well. I tied some ribbon around the jar lid and then decorated the top as well. I used a piece of the 6X6 MFT Chocolate Kiss paper as well as a button from the Spring Collection button mix to accent the top. The kicker though are the bunny ears I added to the lid - LOL!! I just die cut a couple of skinny ovals and then folded them right at the tips to adhere them to the top of the lid. The jar is filled with - well - java of course - but not just any coffee - it's filled with Dunkin' Donuts coffee - YUM!!! What java fanatic wouldn't love this adorable jar!?

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope that after my long absences - I still have some blog readers left - LOL!! I really hated not posting this past week as we are getting ready to head out on Saturday for some week-long R & R in Myrtle Beach, SC - ahh...I'm SO looking forward to vacation!! If you're looking for some MFT goodness though - be sure to check out the other MFT design team members' blogs as well as the MFT forum on SCS - there's ALWAYS some fun going on there!! Talk to you all soon!!

Just a Little Dirty

2009-06-11T11:47:00.002-04:00

Happy Thursday!! Thanks for all the well wishes on my little dental fiasco ;) - I think that antibiotic is starting to help and the pain in my tooth and jaw has really improved - hmm...does that mean I can forgo my procedure next week??? LOL!! Wishful thinking, huh?? Anywho - today starts a new week of challenges and chatting over at the MFT forum on SCS - Christina and Cindy have this week's My Favorite Challenge and Sketch challenges up - you can view them here. The card I have for you today is for the My Favorite Challenge - this week's challenge is to make a tri-fold card!! Cool challenge, huh?? I had fun with this one - I tried a style of card I had never done before (which in my opinion - any challenge that gets you to try new things is truly the sign of a great challenge;) ) - I chose to try a Triangle Trifold card. It's amazing what a couple of extra score lines can do for a card - you can really make a "wow" card in no time!! I chose to use the MFT "Maid For You" set (this is one of my fave WTG sets). I paper pieced the wallpaper, drew on the flooring and her fishnets and then colored the rest of the image in with Copics. It really is a sexy little card and I think what really sets it off is that flirty white bow holding the card closed - it's some beautiful white ribbon from the MFT Chocolate Kiss Ribbon Nest. Here is the inside of the card - and you can see how it folds out as well...

The frame around the sentiment is actually a sticker frame - it came in the same stack as the paper I used for this card came in (it's from an old paper stack by a company called Stemma - the Damask Scrap Pad). I did one of the larger Triangle Trifold cards - so the finished size of my card closed is a 4 in. square. Such a quick little card to do - but can you imagine your hubby's face when he finds it in his briefcase one morning??? Hee hee...thanks SO much for stopping by - I'm feeling better and things are starting to calm down around here a bit - so I'm looking forward to more stamping time over the weekend!

Ugh...update...

2009-06-10T10:03:00.003-04:00

Hope everyone has been having a wonderful week!!! I thought I'd pop in this morning and let everyone know that I am alive - LOL!! I was out of town over the weekend (my niece and I went to Louisville, KY to see the musical "Spring Awakening" - OMG - what an AMAZING AMAZING show!!!) and then I've been battling a pretty severe toothache since late last week and really haven't felt much like stamping. :( I finally made it in to see the dentist yesterday afternoon - it was one of my wisdom teeth that was hurting and the pain had gone all the way into my jaw - yikes! The tooth that was hurting had only partially erupted and had gotten infected which was what is causing all that pain. I'm on antibiotics - but my wisdom teeth have to be removed - ICK!! I only have 3 (one never formed) and 2 of them are fully in - so I don't think it's as invasive as a procedure as actually having them cut out - but I am still not looking forward to it. I am having the procedure done next Tuesday and am hoping that the antibiotic will kick in soon and I can get some relief before then. I am gonna try to get some stamping done this afternoon and hoping to be back to posting cards on here tomorrow. In the meantime - if any of you have had your wisdom teeth out and have any words of advice - that would be wonderful - foods I should stock for next week, things to avoid, etc. Have a great Wed. and I'll be back tomorrow!!!

Something's Screwy...

2009-06-04T18:47:00.003-04:00

So I took on quite a task with this card - LOL - I missed a very special little boy's birthday (well - I remembered it - I just didn't get a card there on time :( ) and I wanted to have something extra special to send down to him. I was in Archiver's the other day and I splurged and bought the Sizzix Bigz 3-D Three Tier Cake pop-up die - and OMG - how cool is this die!? It actually wasn't as hard to assembles as it first looked and this card was actually my first try with it. The base of my pop-up cake was done with some shimmery silver paper - I thought that would be a good base for a robot cake. In keeping with the robot theme - I stamped, colored and cut out one of the robots from the Our Craft Lounge set "The Botz Family" (LOVE this set - I do lots of boys cards - so this set is perfect for me!) for the topper of my cake - he fit perfectly at the top!! I decorated the sides of my cake with "cog" die cuts - I cut these with my Cricut (from the Accent Essentials cart). The patterned paper is from the DCWV "All About Boys" stack. Here's a pic of the outside of the card...

I kept it simple - because when the inside of your card looks like that - who needs a fancy outside?? LOL!! I used the same paper as on the inside - and the robot cake image and sentiment are from the same OCL set ("The Botz Family"). Oh - and this is a 5 1/2 in. square card - I had to make my card a bit bigger to adjust for how tall my robot was on top of my cake. One more pic - here's a close-up pic of the robot "cake"...

So what do you think??? Do you think he'll like it?? I hope so - I've got a million more ideas that I want to try with this Sizzix 3-D cake die - so you'll probably be seeing a lot more pop-up cards in the near future - LOL!! Hope everyone has had a wonderful Thursday and thanks so much for stopping by (again!)!

Guys Like You Are Rare

2009-06-04T12:52:00.003-04:00

Happy Thursday!! Well - first of all - let me say a big CONGRATS to the 2 newest members of the MFT Sweet Sixteen - Barbara and Kathy!! YAY!! They were the 2 chosen from the Top 4 MFT Finalists to be on the team and I definitely don't envy Kim the decision - all 4 were MFT design-team worthy!! So really - congrats to all the MFT Idol finalists - they worked so hard week after week and really came up with some spectacular projects! There is still lots of fun stuff going on over in the MFT forum - check out this thread over on SCS for the new challenges and some fun chatter. The card I have to share with you today is for today's sketch challenge - Frances came up with another awesome sketch to work with!! I used the new MFT "Who's That Grillin' Guy?" set for my card - I just LOVE this image - I think it's because it makes me think of my hubby. :) This was my first chance to color him on paper (an MFT Perfect Paper Panel to be exact) and boy is he fun to embellish!! I saw Susan's "Texas" t-shirt on her grillin' guy card and I knew I had to make a guy wearing a Cubs shirt for my hubby - yes - we are Cubs fans here. The funny thing is my son is on the White Sox for his little league - trust me - the irony is not lost on us - LOL!! I added some charcoal and some flames to the grill as well - if you haven't seen Amy's charcoal trick in this week's HTDT? post - then you must go see it - especially if you've ordered this set!!;) I stamped and cut steaks out (image is included in the set) for my guy to be grillin' - I paper pieced his apron and then colored the rest in with Copics. The sentiment is from the new set as well. The patterned paper is from last year's DCWV Summer Stack (which reminds me - I have to go buy this year's - hee hee...). I added some Making Memories metal star brads to accent my card. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

A ROCKIN' MFT Blog Hop!!

2009-06-02T22:00:00.001-04:00

Hello and welcome to another ROCKIN' MFT Blog Hop!! So have you spied those little MFT rockers "The Poppies" yet?? Aren't they just adorable!!?? If you've just happened onto my blog - then hop back over to Kim's blog and start the hop from there - I'll be waiting for you when you get back!! For my project that I am sharing with you today - I have chosen to use the new Who's That Grillin' Guy? set - this set is PERFECT for my family - my hubby grills year round - seriously - he'd stand out in freezing weather just to grill - hee hee...I wanted to use the set to make something for my youngest DS - he's 4 and wants to be just like his Daddy (of course) - so I made him a little "Grillmaster" set for him to play with!! I got the idea while perusing the kids $1 bins at Michael's recently - see - I used to teach parent/child art classes at Gymboree and this is the kind of stuff we used to have to come up with - crafts that not only kids can make - but that they can take home and play with too. I'll show you the individual pieces of the set and explain how I did each one...

Here's the apron I altered - I got the apron for a $1 - can't beat that!! And to make it match my little set I made - I stamped the Grillin' Guy onto a piece of craft fabric and then colored it in with Copics (for more about coloring on fabric - see today's HTDT? here). Once I had my grillin' guy colored - I trimmed it down and matted it onto some red fabric and then machine stitched it onto the apron. I even found a little plastic spatula to put in the pocket of the apron.

Here's the little tote bag that holds all the food in the set - it's another little $1 bin find - it's just a plain old white mini tote bag that I've stamped on. I stamped the image directly onto the tote bag using Memento ink - then once again colored the image in with Copics.

I made all the play food too - I started with sheets of the adhesive backed Fun Foam. I die cut the various shapes I needed of the foods using my nesties - the nesties cut the fun foam like a dream - I only had to run it thru once. Each food has a double layer of foam on it - so for like the hamburger - I die cut 2 circles of the same size - then peeled off the backing and stuck the 2 sitcky sides together. Also - I wanted to give the hamburgers some texture - so before I stuck the two circles together - I ran them thru my Cuttlebug in the "Mesh" embossing folder and again - the folders emboss the foam just perfectly. Also pictured here are the cheese slices (just cut the foam into squares) and the sesame seed bun - hee hee...the seeds are just some mini circles I punched from the white fun foam.

Here are our veggie fixin's for our cheeseburger - I used the scallop circle nesties to cut the lettuce - red circles with bigger seeds for tomatoes - little circles with small seeds for pickles. The yellow ovals are mini corn on the cob ears (as suggested by my kiddos - we LOVE to grill good ol' Indiana corn on the cob) - the corn was embossed with the "Bubbles" embossing folder to give it some texure. And finally - here is my little "Grillmaster" himself - enjoying the fruits (and veggies) of our labor...this is my youngest DS, Calvin...

So what all is being released this Wednesday night from MFT?? Well - we are releasing 3 brand spankin' new sets along with a couple of new goodies...the sets being released are "The Poppies" (MFT Presents), "Who's That Grillin' Guy?", and "Let's Picnic" (the new Who's That Girl?) set - the sets will be released at 10 PM EST Wednesday night (9 PM for TLC'ers) and be sure to watch out for a special one click collection price which will be good for 48 hours following the release!! Also being released is a Clear Crystal Collection and a Checkered Ribbon Bundle (perfect for our new summer images!). MFT is hosting a new release Cocktail Party on Wednesday from 8-10 PM EST over on the MFT forum at SCS - during which a couple of BIG annoucements will be made - our 2 new designers from the MFT Idol contest will be annouced as well as the winner of the June One Click Collection challege so be sure to get your entry uploaded!!

Thanks so much for stopping by - your next stop on the hop is the UBER-talented Susan - I know she's got some fabulous eye candy for you - enjoy!!!!

Not Too Cute to ROCK!!

2009-06-01T13:39:00.004-04:00

Happy Monday!! I hope you're all having a great start to your week! Summer's in full swing here as both my kiddos are now officially done with school for the year - although I honestly think they're already a little stir crazy - YIKES!! I guess we will be spending LOTS of time at the pool this summer! I've got a fun little card to share with you today - it's a little peek at the new set being released from MFT this Wednesday from the MFT Presents line called "The Poppies" and OMG - this is one of the cutest sets EVAH!!!! These are some rockin' chickies!! I chose the drummer Poppy for my card - I stamped her on an MFT Perfect Paper Panel and colored her with Copics and put her inside one of those little plastic maze toys (I had a blast in the kids $1 bins at Michael's yesterday - you'll see more fun stuff I found during this release). I used the previously released MFT "Bling 'Bet" set for the word "rock" - I stamped it in Memento Rose Bud ink and embellished it with some little gemstones from Hobby Lobby. Not sure where the dp is from - but the stars were die cut with my Cricut.

I hope to see you at the MFT new release Cocktail Party this Wednesday night from 8-10 PM EST over in the MFT forum at SCS - and there is still time to play in the June One Click Collection challenge - one lucky winner will receive ALL the June releases!!!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

You're Not Quite Extinct

2009-05-31T20:48:00.003-04:00

It's me again!! LOL - who else would it be?? Hee hee...I'm a smidgen loopy this evening - it's either the heat or the sunscreen - not sure which! ;) I wanted to pop in really quick and share this cute b-day card I made with the new Hanna Stamps "Stamposaurus" set - which will be released tomorrow night. I thought it would be fun to pair this dinosaur fossil image with this Our Craft Lounge sentiment (from "The Tribe" set). I stamped the dinosaur head first - then stamped rocks from the Hanna Stamps "Route 66" around it - colored it with Copics and then dotted in some specks of dirt with a multiliner pen. I embossed the light brown panel with the Cuttlebug "Bubbles" folder - then to give it a sort of reptile skin look - I inked over the embossing with a Versamark watermark ink pad - then covered it with UTEE and heat embossed it. It feels REALLY cool in real life - gives the card LOTS of texture!! I accented my card with a few bone buttons down the side.

Hanna Stamps is hosting a release party over on the Hanna forum at SCS tomorrow night from 9-11 PM EST - I hope you'll stop by - it's always a blast - fun chatting, prizes, challenges. etc. And thanks for stopping by my blog today!!

Picnics are a Moveable Feast

2009-05-31T11:14:00.005-04:00

Happy Sunday!! Hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend!! Ours was pretty good - although I'm nursing a fat lip this morning - yes - a big ol' fat lip - LOL!! Most of my friends and family know that I am one of the most accident prone individuals - so why my brothers would dare me to do a STOOPID trampoline trick is beyond me - LMBO!! I was at my oldest brother's house for his step-daughter's graduation party yesterday afternoon and well - when all of us get together - we seem to regress back to being adolescents - so when my big brother dared me to be the piece of "popcorn" in a trampoline game they were playing - well - I did what any other little sister would do and hopped on the trampoline and made myself into a ball. (BTW - Popcorn is a game played on a trampoline where one person makes themselves into a ball and so when the other people on the trampoline jump - the "popcorn" person pops up and down like a piece of popcorn - a safe game?? Probably not - LOL!!) I think they thought it would be funny because I was the lightest person there and boy did they have me bouncing - I lost control of my grip on my knees - my left knee came up and hit me right in the mouth - HARD - OMG - I saw stars!!! It's a wonder I still have my front teeth still intact - geesh - so I guess I was lucky I came out of the trampoline incident with only a fat lip - but boy did I look ridiculous when I woke up this morning! Geesh - one of these days I will learn not to act on a dare from my big brothers - I just thought at 32 years old - I would have already learned that lesson - LOL!!

So anywho - I do have a card to share with you today - it's for today's Featured Stamper challenge over on SCS - today's challenge features the SCS sketch queen herself - Rox - YAY!! I chose this card to case - I fell in love with it on the spot and knew exactly how I wanted to CASE it. I wanted to keep the insect theme of the card - so I pulled out the ant image and the food images from the new Who's That Girl? "Let's Picnic" set (being released this Wednesday, June 3rd) - I stamped the food images on top of the ants like they were carrying the food off and the sentiment from this new set provides a good warning for all of our summer picnics - LOL!! I kept the overall layout of Rox's card - although I did add an extra black layer to make my main panel a bit wider. I also kept the punched flowers on the card - I just changed the placement of them on my card.

Thanks so much for stopping by - don't forget to pop over and check out the June One Click challenge contest - Joanne and Christina posted it yesterday - pull out some chipboard from your stash and play along to win all of the June releases!!!

Sweet Charlotte KETTO BLOG HOP

2009-05-30T10:53:00.000-04:00

Welcome to the first KETTO blog hop sponsored by Stamping Bella!! If you've just happened upon my blog - then you can CLICK HERE and start at the beginning of the blog hop at Blogabella. I inked up the oh-so-sweet "Charlotte KETTO" for my card - I colored her in with Copics and doodled some grass under her feet. I had been wanting to try one of the Flower Pot Pocket cards from the TLC215 challenge over on Splitcoast a few weeks ago - but instead of putting a bunch of flowers in my flower pot card - I opted for one big blossom with Charlotte KETTO in the center. The flower and the leaves were cut with my Cricut (using the Walk in my Garden cartridge). I used some terracotta colored Core'dinations cardstock for the pot - I used my Martha Stewart Lace Doily edge punch on the decorative edge of the pot. The sentiment is from a Studio G $1 stamp set. Here's another a pic with the insert pulled out of the flower pot pocket...

The sentiment on the inside of the card is from a Studio G $1 stamp set as well. I hope you've enjoyed this stop on the KETTO hop - CLICK HERE for your next stop on the hop and some more KETTO eye candy!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Hanna Sneak Peeks and Some News...

2009-05-29T10:58:00.003-04:00

Happy Friday!! Is everyone ready for another round of Hanna Stamps releases?? I can't believe how fast the months fly by!! I've got a couple of sneaks for you today - this first one is from the new "Stamposaurus" set - and OMG - is it an awesome set! (Think "Night at the Museum" meets "Jurassic Park") I used the pterodactyl (sp?) images in the set to make this adorable little dino-scene for my card - I did do a bit of masking and added the clouds from the Hanna Stamps "Route 66" set (this month's featured Retro Set). The image was colored in with Copics and cut out with circle nesties. The patterned paper is from an old DCWV Fall stack I have in my stash and the green cardstock was embossed with the Cuttlebug "Bubbles" folder - although I think it looks more like the texture of reptile skin. ;) I added a couple pieces of ribbon onto a little bone clip to accent my card.

One more sneak for you today - this image as well as the sentiment is from the new set called "Five Little Dresses" and let me tell ya - you fashion lovers are going to go bonkers over this set!!! I love this mod girl's little swinging dress - and of course - what mod girl is complete without her white go-go boots??? Hee hee...this card is for today's Hanna Stamps challenge as well - which is a sketch challenge hosted by Frances - you can play along at the challenge here. I love this paper with this image - although I can't for the life of me tell you where it came from - I found it at the bottom of my dp stash - which means it's been there for a looooooooooong time - LOL!! Besides my Copics - the only other accessory I used on this card was the CB "Spots and Dots" folder to emboss the circle on the corner of my card.

And now for some news...this will be my last release with Hanna Stamps :( as I am stepping down from the team at the end of this month. I can't even begin to tell you what a difficult decision it was - Hanna Stamps will always be my first stamping love and I have made so many amazing friends on the team. There is no big drama involved in the decision though - I really just needed to free up some more of my time here at home - especially for my kiddos. I've been with Hanna Stamps for a little over a year now and it's just been an absolutely wonderful experience!! So I would like to take this opportunity to thank the sweet and extremely generous Kristi Ferro, our fearless (and amazing) DT leader Vicki Garrett and all the other wonderful ladies that I've had the honor to work with on the Hanna team - I will miss you all!!!

To end on a happy note - Hanna Stamps will be hosting another fabulous release party on Monday June 1st from 9-11 PM over on the Hanna forum on SCS - there'll be lots of fun challenges, prizes, and chatting as well as the release of the 2 new sets and 2 new Rileys - hope you'll stop by!!!

Celebrate Summer with an MFT VIP!!

2009-05-27T08:05:00.003-04:00

Happy Wednesday!! It's my turn to do another Copic installment of HTDT? over on the MFT forums at SCS. In the past Copic HTDT?'s - we've gone over basic coloring and blending and coloring skin tones - for this week's tutorial - we are talking about light source and WHERE exactly to add your shading to your images - you can view my tutorial here. I thought I'd go ahead an post my sample I did for the tutorial here on my blog as well as it also serves as a bit of a teaser for the nwe Who's That Girl? set being released next Wednesday, June 3rd. The set is called "Let's Picnic" and it's just a FABULOUS summer image!! The set comes with lots of little accessories you can put on her picnic blanket - even the little ants come in the set. So do you want a chance to own this set early??? Well - it's VIP time - for TODAY ONLY - you can purchase the VIP kit from MFT - the kit includes this set as well as lots of other goodies - you can purchase this set here - but act fast - quantities are limited - last month's set sold out fast!!

Also - don't forget to vote for your fave MFT Idol - it's the big finale this week and we'll be crowning the first ever MFT Idol after this vote - you can view the voting details here. Our finalists - Kathy and Shannon - have absolutely outdone themselves - so make sure you leave these amazing ladies some love!! I wanted to say a BIG CONGRATS to all the Idol contestants over the past couple of months - the top 10, the judges - each and every week the galleries were packed full of AMAZING AMAZING entries and SO SO SO much inspiration - everyone should be extremely proud of themselves - you guys ROCK!!!

Bubbles Happen

2009-05-22T10:39:00.004-04:00

TGIF!! Hope everyone is having a wonderful start to their Friday! With my preschooler on summer break already - I am finding that I am really enjoying these mornings where we don't have anywhere we have to be - it's been nice to start my mornings with a bit of stamping! I made a card for today's Limited Supplies challenge over on SCS. Today's challenge was to use circles on your card and to use only ONE stamp set. Well - I immediately reached for one of my Our Craft Lounge sets - I LOVE OCL sets - not only are the main images wonderful - but the sentiments are always SO clever and you get lots of fun borders and accessories. The sentiment, main image and border image at the bottom of this card are all from the OCL "Bubbles" set - the turtle is cute enough - but that sentiment - OMG - it's SO flippin' cute!! LOL!! I started by stamping my turtle and then coloring him in with Copics. I cut him out using my circle nesties in keeping with the challenge and then cut some smaller circles as well so I could make a row of bubbles with them. To make them look like bubbles - I shaded around the edges of my circles with a BG10 (Cool Shadow) Copic marker and edged them with a BG13 (Mint Green) Copic. To really give them a faded out look - I went around the edges where the BG10 meets the white with my Colorless Blender. The border image was colored with Copics as well. I embossed the light purple background with more circles - using the Cuttlebug "Spots and Dots" embossing folder. The sentiment is accented with a Hero Arts gemstone. Thanks so much for stopping by!! I know a lot of my friends in the States are having a nice long holiday weekend and if you are planning on travelling this weekend - I wish you safe travels!! Have a wonderful weekend!!

Eight ladies bathing...

2009-05-21T13:35:00.003-04:00

Hee hee...sounds like a line from a naughty version of "Twelve Days of Christmas" - LMBO!! I made this card for today's Ways to Use It challenge - you can view the challenge here. Today's challenge were ways to stamp an image over and over again and this is what I came up with. I used part of the main label image from the new MFT "Time for the Bubbly" label set for my images in the circles. When I first saw the label - I kept thinking about how cute the little miniature Who's That Girl? image was in the corner - so I decided to just stamp that part of the label onto small circles (of MFT Perfect Paper panels) for this card. (And BTW - how cute would some Who's That Girl? mini images or maybe even inchies be??? **hint, hint Kim** LOL!!!) Anywho - I colored my images in with Copics and even drew a mini hardwood floor on all of them - hee hee...the DP is 1 1/4 in. squares of the 6X6 Chocolate Kiss paper by MFT and the sentiment is from the new label set as well. I finished off the card by accenting the circle with the sentimet with some pink gemstones. This was such a fun card to make and I hope I've given you yet another idea on what you can do with the new label sets by MFT - thanks so much for stopping by!!

What's in Your Jar? **MFT Hop Around the Block"

2009-05-19T22:00:00.004-04:00

Hello and welcome to a special edition of the MFT Hop Around the Block - this month we are gonna change the way you gift!! If you haven't come here from Cindy's blog - then hop back over to Kim's blog and start the blog hop from there - I'll see you when you get back!! ;) So how are we changing the way you gift?? Well - MFT is releasing 2 new label stamp sets that are awesome for creating one of a kind handmade gifts!! One is a Teacher set (which I have used in my project) and there is also a Time for the Bubbly label set being released as well. MFT is also releasing some REALLY cool jars that can be used the new label sets - the labels were made to fit perfectly onto these jars!! So what did I fill my jar with?? I made a candy jar for my DS's teachers - but with a twist - the candy inside has been incorporated into a special message for my son's teacher - here is what the inside of the card says...

Dear Mrs. Henderson,
I can’t believe it’s the end of another school year already! I remember how nervous Andrew was about starting first grade – he thought he was going to have (MOUNDS) of homework and was nervous that his new teacher might think he was an (AIRHEAD). When he found out he had you for a teacher – he thought his eyes were playing (TWIX) on him – he was very excited to be getting a fabulous teacher like you!! And it turns out you were a (LIFESAVER) as Andrew has turned into quite the Honor (ROLO) student! I had (STARBURST) in my eyes while reading his progress reports!

So, as our thanks to you, we are going to go to Mr. Land and ask him to give you a big bonus of (100 GRAND) for being such a great teacher! Have an (EXTRA) fun summer and here are a few (HUGS & KISSES) for you to enjoy (NOW AND LATER)!

Love,
Andrew and Candice Lighty

So all of the candy that is in bold in the message I put in the card is included in the jar - how fun, huh?? We had such a fun time picking out all the candy we could include in the note! Here's a close-up of the jar - notice how I put a strip of DP inside the jar - it's a 2 inch wide strip of the new Stephanie Fizer School digi papers that are being released with the label sets as well - I just LOVE how everything works together!! The new digi papers are AWESOME!!! The chalk board is from the new school label set - I stamped my chalkboard on black paper and then embossed it with silver EP - my sentiment on the chalkboard was stamped and embossed with white EP. The books and the ruler images are from the set as well - I colored them with Copics and then cut them out and adhered them to the chalkboard label.
This was such a fun gift to put together and very thrift-y gift-y as well!! We went thru a lot of the candy we had at home to find candy that would work in our message - and with a pak of the jars, paper and label sets being released by MFT - think of all the teacher gifts you could put together quickly as we are fast approaching the end of the year!! I hope you've enjoyed this stop on the hop - you're next stop is the very talented Natalie - I know she has something amazing to share with you!! Enjoy!!

Don't forget to vote for your favorite MFT Idol HERE!!!!

Sunday with my Copics

2009-05-19T15:12:00.002-04:00

Happy Tuesday!! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!! I thought I'd pop in today and share the cards we made over the weekend in my Copic classes. I taught 2 Beginner Copic classes at Papertrix on Sunday and had a wonderful time!! I want to say a BIG thank you to everyone who came and took the class - I hope you all went away with a bit more knowledge about Copics and had a great time as well! ;) I got to meet some fellow SCS'ers too - so that made these classes all that more special. We made 3 cards again in each class - this first card features "Get Well Riley" from Hanna Stamps. Besides Copic knowledge - I try to incorporate some fun ideas into the cards for the class as well - so since I had bought a bunch of those little plastic mazes in bulk - I decided to share with my students and make this fun get well card. The paper on this one is from the DCWV Grade School stack.

This next one we did features one of the KETTO's by Stamping Bella - yes - Cindy carries the KETTO's in her store - how fun is that!? I'm telling ya - if you live close to Nashville, IN - RUN over there and get yours today - they are flying out of the store!! ;) This one is "Ginger Ketto" - I paired her with some paper from the DCWV Far East stack and a Hero Arts sentiment (Arigato means "thank you" in Japanese). We accented the card with some donut Schmintz from Stamping Bella - Cindy has started carrying these in the store as well and they are so much fun - the little Hero Arts gemstones fit perfectly in the middle of these! I think everyone had fun using the Ketto images as well.

The last one we did was a little circle card - this card features one of the new Shirley's 2 Girls sets that Papertrix is now carrying - this image and sentiment is from the "What's New?" set. (And BTW - I am totally in LOVE with them - I have an Airedale Terrier and this dog looks EXACTLY like my Bailey!!). We used paper from the DCWV Pets stack and a little bone clip with some ribbon tied to it. These Shirley's 2 Girls images are fun to teach Copics with because of the little backgrounds they have incorporated on them - it's a great image to really talk about shading and adding those background shadows to make our dog pop out of the background.

So I hope my gals (and guy) on Sunday enjoyed the class and were pleased with what they went home with - I think I'm getting better at creating card designs that are feasible for all levels of cardmakers and that we can get colored and assembled within the class time we have. And as long as they leave knowing better how to use their markers - well - that makes my day because that means I'm doing something right - LOL!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

A One Layer Challenge!

2009-05-15T14:54:00.002-04:00

Happy Friday!! So this week it's my turn to host the Friday Hanna Stamps challenge and have I got a doozy of a challenge for you guys - hee hee...this week I challenged everyone to make a ONE LAYER CARD using their Hanna or Riley stamps!! *gasp* I know - a ONE layer card!? Yikes - you know I love my layers - so this was an actual challenge for me - not only that - but my Copics are pretty much glued to my right arm - but for this card - since it was only one layer I had to use my Prisma pencils/Gamsol to color my image (I'm not very good with them so be kind - LOL!). I did use my Copic airbrush and air compressor to do the coloring on the background wall - when you use the airbrush - it puts on such a fine mist of color that it doesn't bleed thru the back. I used the doctor and eye chart stamp from the Hanna Stamps "Hospital" set to create my scene in the center of my card - I drew in the boards on the wall with a ruler and my Copic multiliner pen. I did the Cuttlebug embossing around my image with the CB Spots and Dots embossing folder - I used the technique seen here on the Cuttlebug Spot blog for this card. I finished off my one layer card by accented it with some knotted ribbon. I hope you'll pop over to the Hanna forum and play with me today!! You can view today's challenge here. I SO admire those who can put together amazing one layer cards and can't wait to see what you'll come up with!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Thanks for Being my Teacher!

2009-05-12T16:36:00.002-04:00

Happy Tuesday!! Can you belive it's getting to the end of the school year already?? My youngest son's last day of Preschool is tomorrow and then he's officially on summer vacation - so I needed a couple of cute and quick Thank You cards for him to take into his teachers tomorrow. We are really blessed that we have found such a great little Preschool for our kiddos - it takes really amazing and patient women to teach preschool and every year I am more and more impressed with the teachers there - they are some really special people in our lives! Calvin and I hung out in my scrap room and designed these fun cards for his teachers - he even helped me pick out the colors for the crayons! ;) I started by stamping my Changitos from the Archiver's exclusive "School for Changitos" set and coloring them in with Copics. The sentiment is from this set as well. I made the background of my card by cutting 3 crayons using my Cricut - for my fellow Cricut lovers - they are from the "My Community" cart cut at 5 inches. Such a simple card - but bright and fun - perfect for a preschool teacher!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Happy Mother's Day!!

2009-05-10T12:34:00.003-04:00

Happy Mother's Day!! I hope you all are having a wonderful day - whether you are the mother of little ones, big ones, fur babies and to all the grandmothers out there - I wish you all very special Mother's Day!! I don't have anything craft-y to share today - so I thought I'd share the 2 most wonderful blessings a mother could ask for - my Andrew and my Calvin - I lost my own mother 8 years ago and I honestly didn't think I'd ever enjoy Mother's Day again - these 2 sure make this day special again for me. For Mother's Day - my hubby took the boys over to Portrait Innovations and had their pictures taken (he even bought them adorable new outfits!!) - and then he gave me a HUGE packages of prints and the photo CD of their session as a gift for Mother's Day - the best present ever!! I picked some of my faves off the CD and thought I would share them with you all in honor of Mother's Day - enjoy!! Here's a cute one - my husband said the photographer was just awesome with them - she made them laugh the whole time...

Ahhh...gotta love these tender moments - makes me forget all the fights I've been breaking up recently - LOL!!
This one was Andrew's favorite - he's got the best laugh!!

Here are my baseball boys - Joel took them over before their opening day ceremonies at the baseball fields so he had some taken in their jerseys and hats - LOVE this one - these are their "game faces" - hee hee...

My baseball boys again...

And I thought this one was just adorable!!

Thanks so much for stopping by - I hope you all have a WONDERFUL Mother's Day and are doing something for YOU today - whether it's an afternoon nap, a day off from cooking or maybe a nice looooooooong bubble bath - HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Treat Yourself!! MFT May Hop Around the Block

2009-05-05T22:00:00.003-04:00

Welcome to a relaxing MFT "Hop Around the Block"!! If you've just happened onto my blog - you may want to go back and start the hop at Kim's blog - I'll be waiting for you when you get back!! ;) Oh la la - wouldn't you LOVE to be hangin' at the day spa with our Who's That Girl?? For this first card - I've used the new "Girls Day In" set along with some of the new GORGEOUS 6X6 Chocolate Kiss paper that is being released as well (I paper pieced the robes with it). I really wanted to showcase the set with this card - there are so many adorable images in this set - each of my panels on the card show one of the images. The pink panels are 2 1/2 in. squares and the MFT Perfect Paper panel squares for my images are 2 1/4 in. squares. For the WTG? images - I had to just stamp part of the full image on my squares and for the other squares - I had to do a bit of masking with the bottles. All images were colored in with Copics - and the white puffy parts on the robe were accented with white Liquid Applique. The sentiment is from the new "Girls Day In" set as well.

And before you go - I've got a card to share with you using the new "Birthday Flopsey" set - he's pretty much just irresistable, isn't he?? LOL!! I stamped my Flopsey on an MFT Perfect Paper panel and let his ear hang off the edge so I didn't cover up too much of my birthday cake background. I colored in Flopsey with Copics. My b-day cake background was just pieced together with various rectangles - I did emboss the "candles" with the Cuttlebug Swirls embossing folder. I used buttons for the candle "flames" (since Kim is releasing some YUMMY Spring and Summer Cup o'Button collections - I thought it would be neat to show some fun uses for buttons ;) ) The striped paper on the bottom of my cake background is from the 6X6 Chocolate Kiss paper line (have I mentioned how GORGEOUS this paper is??) The sentiment is from the new Flopsey set as well.

These 2 new sets - along with "Owls and Bluebelles" and "Snuggle Bunnies" will be released after the MFT Cocktail Party (8-11 PM EST Wednesday night over on SCS). During this release - MFT is also introducing the Chocolate Kiss 6X6 paper, ribbon and crystal adornments - new Spring and Summer Cup O' Buttons and Smooch Paint (I've tried this stuff and it rocks!!). So there is LOTS of new stuff for you to check out!! K - hope you've enjoyed this stop on the hop - it's time to hop on over to Michele's blog - I know she's got some YUMMY eye candy to share with you!!

Night Owls MFTeaser

2009-05-05T10:32:00.004-04:00

Whooo are these adorable little owls??? They are from the new MFT set being released tomorrow night called "Owls and Bluebells" - what a beautiful image!! I had so much fun creating this night scene with these little guys - I cut my circle first (out of an MFT Perfect Paper panel) - then stamped my owl image over the edge. I added my moon next - I just created a circle stencil using a 1 in. circle punch - then drew it in with a Copic multiliner pen. I masked off my moon and my owl image - then using my Copic airbrush grip and my air compressor - I airbrushed the night sky. The sentiment is from the set as well - it was heat embossed with white embossing powder. I used paper from the 6X6 MFT summer collection and the buttons are from the new MFT Cup o' buttons being released as well. Kim is releasing buttons to match the spring and summer paper lines!! I distresssed the edge of my paper with a Heidi Swapp edge distressor and then did some machine stiching around the edge as well.

MFT is releasing 4 new sets this Wednesday night after the Cocktail Party over on the MFT forum at SCS from 8-10 PM EST - hope to see you there!! Also - if you want a chance to win the new releases - check out this thread - we've changed our Guest Designer challenge to the One Click Collection contest - you still have time to enter a project - check it out!!

Beach Bum Hanna Release Day!!

2009-05-04T16:09:00.003-04:00

So are you all psyched for the Hanna Stamps release tonight?? I hope you'll pop in the Release Party tonight over on the Hanna forum on SCS - the party will be from 9-11 PM EST and Kristi will release the new sets and Riley towards the end of the party. There are some fun challenges planned and Kristi and Vicki always have fun giveaways during the party as well!! I've got another card to share with you using "Fins Riley" - I made him a total beach bum!! I created this little beach scene using images from the previously released Hanna Stamps "Fun in the Sun" set. The entire image was colored in with Copics. The paper is from an old DCWV Summer Stack. I did the sentiment using Doodlebug rub-on letters and accented it with a white star brad. I hope you've enjoyed my sneak peeks of the new Hanna and Riley images coming out and don't forget to stop by the party tonight!! Thanks for stopping by!

Eenie...Meenie...Mani...Pedi...MFTeasers

2009-05-04T12:09:00.003-04:00

So are you ready for another amazing MFT release?? There are some ADORABLE sets being released this Wednesday night (May 6th) - including this one that I've used on my cards today - it's the new Who's That Girl? set and the set is called "Girls Day In" - this set is AWESOME - not only do you get TWO Who's That Girl? images - but you get some adorable little bottles you can customize as well as those trademark perfect sentiments!! If you got the VIP newsletter last week - then you've seen my cards - but I thought it would be nice to post them here so I can list supplies and such. ;) The first card I made with the manicure image from the set - if you look closely - you'll notice that I've flocked her robe with white flock - 'cause we all know how soft and fuzzy those robes are at the day spas - hee hee... The nail polish bottles are from the set as well - I colored them to match the GORGEOUS new Chocolate Kiss 6X6 paper being released this Wednesday as well - and let me tell ya - this paper is perfect for this set!! I finished off with some of the matching Chocolate Kiss ribbon from MFT.

Here is another card made with the new set - this time I used those little customizable bottles that come in the set - I also used the awning from "Meet Me at the Cafe" set and the table from the "Window Shopping" to create my window scene - I did a bit of masking and after I stamped my titles on the bottle - I drew a box around them to make them look like labels on the bottles. On the bath salts bottle - I also added some dots with my Copic mulitliner pen to make it look like there are salts in it. The DP is the new Chocolate Kiss paper and the ribbon is from the Chocolate Kiss collection as well. I didn't have any brown brads to match my paper - so I cheated a bit - I just colored them with a Copics ;) - they dry fairly quickly and it's a great way to customize those plain old silver brads to match your paper.

MFT is releasing 4 new sets this Wednesday night after the Cocktail Party over on the MFT forum at SCS from 9-10 PM EST - hope to see you there!! Also - if you want a chance to win the new releases - check out this thread - we've changed our Guest Designer challenge to the One Click Collection contest - you still have time to enter a project - check it out!!

All Star Swimmer Hanna Sneak Peeks - Day 3

2009-05-03T18:19:00.002-04:00

Hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend!! I thought I'd pop in this Sunday evening to share another Hanna Sneak peek I made this afternoon - I used the new "Pool Party" set again - but this time - I used it in a different way. My hubby swims on an adult swim team here and he had practice this morning - well - I think that was in the back of my mind when I was looking at this new set because this is what I came up with - doesn't it remind you of Michael Phelps in his preschool years?? LMBO!! I wanted to create a swimming race with this little swimmer image from the set - so I found the perfect little border stamp from a clear Studio G $1 stamp set I had in my stash to use as the lane dividers in the lap pool. I stamped my middle swimmer first - then stamped the lane markers above and below him - then stamped my other swimmers who are trying to catch up with the one in the lead. The entire image was colored in with Copics. The sentiment was done with Doodlebug Simply Sweet mini rub-on letters and accented with a star brad. The stars were cut using my Cricut and the paper is from the My Mind's Eye Just Dreamy stack from Hobby Lobby.

The new sets and Rileys will be available on Monday night - May 4th - after the release party over on SCS. The Hanna Stamps May release party is from 9-11 PM and it's always a blast!! There are lots of fun challenges, chatting, prizes, etc. in store - so be sure to swing by!! And be sure to pop in my fellow DT blogs for more awesome sneak peeks - as well as our 2 May guest designers - Nikki Fairbairn and Pam Varnell! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Hot Off the Grill Hanna Sneak Peeks - Day 2

2009-05-02T08:52:00.003-04:00

Hope everyone is having a great start to your Saturday!! I'm up this morning with a sneak peek at the second Riley that Hanna Stamps is releasing this coming Monday - May 4th. I hope this pic looks OK - it has been SO rainy and overcast all week - I've had to play around with some lighting to get decent pics of my cards and it's been terribly frustrating all week - I want my sunshine back!! And after making this card - I REALLY want my nice weather back so I can send hubby out to grill on the patio like Riley here is doing!! :) I stamped my Grill Riley first - masked him - then stamped the patio bricks from last summers's "Lazy Days" Hanna set. I colored in the bricks and then airbrushed the sky background. I used my rectangle nesties to create the frame around my image and the mat. I cut my red and white cardstock layers first to fit my card - then cut the centers out of them with my rectangle nesties. I cut my white frame before I stamped on it - the images stamped on it are from a couple of the new Studio G $1 stamps - I bought them especially to use with this Riley - hee hee...I think Riley's become an enabler - LOL!! Once I got all of my grill food images stamped on my frame - I colored them in with Copics then layered it onto my red mat. I used some screw brad by Spare Parts (HL) for accents at the corner. I also adhered the frame with foam squares to give my card some dimesion.

The new sets and Rileys will be available on Monday night - May 4th - after the release party over on SCS. The Hanna Stamps May release party is from 9-11 PM and it's always a blast!! There are lots of fun challenges, chatting, prizes, etc. in store - so be sure to swing by!! And be sure to pop in my fellow DT blogs for more awesome sneak peeks - as well as our 2 May guest designers - Nikki Fairbairn and Pam Varnell! Have a wonderful Saturday - thanks so much for stopping by!!

Summer Fun Hanna Sneak Peeks - Day 1

2009-05-01T09:00:00.004-04:00

Happy Friday!! And boy - it's a good thing it's Friday - it's been on of THOSE mornings...you know the ones I'm talkin' about...it's raining...you don't want to get out of bed...you finally get in the shower only to find that you've washed your hair twice because you didn't remember you washed it the first time...your first grader is hiding because he'd rather play Pokemon than get on the bus....hee hee...oh well - I did manage to get my DS on the bus and on the bright side - I do have really clean hair this morning - LMBO!!! So anywho - I am a little later getting my first Hanna peeks posted than I wanted - but here they are...the releases this month are AWESOME - definitely gonna make you long for that summer weather though!! This first one I have is another one of those plastic maze cards (like my Tooth Fairy card I posted a couple of days ago) - I decided to try one out with one of the new Rileys - this is "Fins" or "Flipper Riley" (not entirely sure what Kristi has decided to name him) - it doesn't make a difference what you call him - he's flippin' cute!! (Pun intended - hee hee...) I stamped my Riley on a circle cut to fit the inside of my maze - masked him - then used my new air compressor to airbrush the sand and the sky background - I then colored him in with Copics. Once he was colored - I reassembled him back into the maze for my card. The waves were cut using my Cricut (1 in. from the Zooballoo cart) and I stickled the white caps on them. The paper is from an old DCWV Summer Stack and the sentiment is from a Studio G clear $1 stamp set. I've got one more Summer Fun project to share with you today...

This is a summer reading bookmark I made for today's Hanna Stamps challenge over on SCS - you can view the challenge here. It's also a sneak peek at the new "Pool Party" set. Today's challenge is to make something flat that is not a card - today is the start of the BOGO book fair at my DS's school to stock up on summer reading material - so I was inspired to make him a bookmark for his summer books (he REALLY loves to read). I used the bookmark style from one a past TLC challenge on SCS - but cannot find the link for the bookmark to save my life this morning ( have I mentioned it's been one of THOSE mornings?). I know I started with a 3 1/8 in square for it - I punched my bottom border first with my Martha Stewart Zig Zag edge punch - stamped my images on it - masked them - then airbrused the pool water on and colored my iamges in with Copics. I added the sentiment with Doodlebug Rub-on letters and some ribbon for the top.

So when are these gonna be released??? The new sets will be available on Monday night - May 4th - after the release party over on SCS. The Hanna Stamps May release party is from 9-11 PM and it's always a blast!! There are lots of fun challenges, chatting, prizes, etc. in store - so be sure to swing by!! And be sure to pop in my fellow DT blogs for more awesome sneak peeks - as well as our 2 May guest designers - Nikki Fairburn and Pam Varnell! Have a wonderful Friday - thanks so much for stopping by!!

That Old Black Magic

2009-04-30T11:11:00.002-04:00

Happy Thursday!! Can you believe it's the last day of April already?? Those end of the school year activities are already starting for us - school carnivals, flower sales, registration for next year, etc. - I have a feeling May is gonna be a pretty crazy month! Anywho - I was inspired to do some stamping this morning by today's Ways to Use It challenge over on SCS - you can view the challenge here. Today's challenge is Ways to Use Basic Black. Well - I've been itching to ink up my Stampotique Daniel Torrente images and this is the perfect challenge to use them for! I chose to use "Three in a Round" - one of my FAVE Stampotique images - I stamped it twice - once on white and once on black (which I heat embossed with white embossing powder). I cut them both out with my circle Nesties - but on the black one - I cut out the center of it as well to create a window. I then adhered the black one over my Copic colored image using pop dots to give it lot of dimension. I had also been itching to try out some of the Core'dinations Black Magic cardstock that I've recently gotten (Thanks, Kristi!!! ;)) - again - perfect of for this challenge. I chose a piece of the black/purple Black Magic cardstock and embossed it with my Cuttlebug Spiderwebs folder. When I ran it thru initially - it did come out with a little bit of the purple showing thru - but I wanted even more to show thru - so I went over it with my sanding sponge and wow - that color really just began to pop out of that black cardstock - what an AWESOME effect!!! I am loving this cardstock - it's gonna be fun for Halloween! I finished off my card with a fitting sentiment from the MFT "Monsters Ink" set and a black brad to accent.

If you are local and love the Stampotique images - be sure to swing in Papertrix in Nashville to check them out - Cindy carries the Daniel Torrente images and I heard a rumor that she may be carrying the new Stamping Bella Kettos as well - hee hee...I need to get down there to check out all the fun new stuff she's got in!! Speaking of Papertrix - my next Beginner Copic class is scheduled for Sunday, May 17th - I am not sure if it's full yet - but if you are gonna be in the area and are interested in the class - call Cindy ASAP at the number listed on my sidebar - I'm looking forward to getting back to teaching - we always have a blast in the classes!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Congratoothlations!

2009-04-29T14:50:00.003-04:00

Hello, hello!!! Oh my goodness - I know it hasn't been that long since I last blogged - but it sure feels like forever! I ended up pretty sick most of last week and just had zero energy to stamp :( and by the time the weekend rolled around - I had to get my kiddos ready for their first baseball games of the season and I did some cropping at Archiver's this weekend too (yes - I actually got some scrapping done this weekend - YAY!!). So - I've been using the past couple of days to play catch-up on some design team work - release time is upon us again - so starting this Friday - I'll have some yummy new Hanna eye candy for you!;) This afternoon though - I thought I'd get back into the swing of things by doing the SCS sketch challenge today - sketch challenges are a good place to start if you need to get that mojo a flowin' again, kwim? I had scene some REALLY cute cards done with these little plastic mazes you find in the party favor aisle at the store on Susan Liles' and Leigh O'brien's blogs (2 of my favorite stampers;)) and had been wanting to try it - but was having trouble finding those little plastic mazes - LOL!! I was grocery shopping (ick!) in Meijer this morning and finally found a pack of those circle mazes (I think I got 8 of them for like $1.77). I got home and popped one apart and it actually popped apart very easily - I took out the little circle cardboard picture inside and then cut a circle to fit inside of it - stamped my Our Craft Lounge Tooth Fairy on it - colored her and then put my new image inside of it and put the maze back together. Pretty cool, huh?? My son LOVES these little mazes - so I'll be putting this card up for him (we're still waiting on that first visit from the tooth fairy). I used the sketch from today's challenge for the layout of my card - you can view it here. All images are from the Our Craft Lounge "Tooth Fairy Fun" set and colored with Copics (except for the teeth on the light purple panel - I colored those in with a white gel pen) - I stamped and heat embossed the sentiment. The patterned paper is from the DCWV Pocket Full of Posies stack.

Thanks so much for stopping by!! Oh - and don't forget to swing by the MFT forum and vote for your favorite MFT Idol - the Top 5 have outdone themselves and the competition is getting fierce - here's a link to go vote!!!!

Happy Earth Day!!

2009-04-22T14:46:00.003-04:00

Happy Earth Day!!! Are we all remembering to reduce, reuse and recycle??? ;) I don't have anything crafty to share with you today - I haven't been feeling too hot these past couple of days - coughing, feverish - the dr. says it's some virus going around - so I'm hanging out waiting for it to pass so I can get back to stamping!! I thought that maybe I had some adorable pic of my boys recycling - but I can't seem to find one - I do have to tell you though that at the ages of 4 and 7 - they are AWESOME recyclers!! Their daddy has trained them well - LOL - of course - he may have trained them a little TOO well - they about pitch a fit if we are out and about and see someone throwing a can in a garbage pail rather than the recycle bin - hee hee...I did want to remind you too to pop on over to this thread over on SCS and vote for your favorite MFT Idol(s) - you have until 10 PM EST tonight to do so - our top six have done some AMAZING one layer cards for you to ogle - so go - hurry over and VOTE!!!! Thanks for stopping by - I am hoping to be back tomorrow with an actual creation (pending a good night's sleep)!!

Flopsey's so sorry!!

2009-04-20T14:52:00.005-04:00

Happy Celebrate MFT Day!! It is the 20th of the month and you know what that means - ink up your favorite MFT stamps and Celebrate MFT with us!! Joanne has posted a Flopsey challenge here - I chose to ink up "Flopsey's Flowers" for my card today - isn't he sweet?? And he does look awfully sorry - doesn't he?? Hee hee...not sure what Flopsey did - but how could you resist that sweet face?? I actually cut out some extra flowers and popped them up with pop dots - I wanted to add some extra flowers to Flopsey's bouquet and make it look like he's peeking over his flowers. There's even a little blush on his cheeks. ;) The flowers were punched and I used eyelets for the centers. The patterned paper is from the DCWV Pocketful of Posies stack. I hope you'll join us for Celebrate MFT day - and don't forget about this week's MFT Idol challenge going on - there is still time to play in the judges' challenge and starting Tuesday at 10 PM EST - voting will open up to vote for your fave from the Top 6!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Aloha...wish I was there...;)

2009-04-17T13:44:00.003-04:00

Ahhh...don't you wish you were there, too?? Relaxing on a beach in Hawaii??? Hee hee...OK - so I really can't complain today - it's 70 degrees and beautiful outside here in Indiana and I got myself an awesome new toy today - hee hee...but I'll tell you about that in a bit! ;) This is my card for today's Friday Hanna Stamps challenge - you can view Sandra's challenge here - the challenge today is to create a card using polka dots and flowers and this is what I came up with - I think it was supposed to be something Spring-y - but I am jumping right ahead to Summer!!! I used Dress Up Hanna for my main image - but rather than dressing her in one of her outfits in the set - I decided to dress her as a Hula girl. I made her bra into a bikini top (drew on the straps) - then colored it and added white polka dots with my gel pen. I made a real hula skirt for her to wear - I used strips of raffia from an old hula skirt I have recycled from a luau party my sister had a couple of summers ago - I figured why throw it away - there is LOTS of useable raffia in it! I adhered them at her waistband with glue dots and then to make it look finished - I added a few flowers to it as well and one to her hair - the red gems in the centers of them are Hero Arts gemstones. I wanted my card to resemble a postage stamp - so I enlisted the help of my Cricut and Design Studio software - the postage stamp card was cut using the Base Camp cartridge and Design Studio to weld it together. The sand are torn strips of cardstock - the palm tree is from the Dreams Come True (Disney) cartridge - and the sun was cut with a circle punch.

Now for that new toy I was talking about - I splurged a bit today and bought myself an air compressor for my Copic airbrush system!!!! OMG - I have been wanting one of these SO bad - but wow - that Sparmax model that Copic reccommends is SO expensive. Harbor Freight has one - a 40 PSI airbrush compressor that is PERFECT to use with the airbrush system - it's small too and really not that noisy (I'll see if I can get a pic later) - I don't like going into how much I spend on things - but I will tell you that this generic brand that Harbor Freight is carrying is MUCH cheaper than the Sparmax and on sale this weekend....not that I'm enabling - LMBO!! Soooooooo - I am guessing you will see a lot of airbrushed things in the next couple of weeks because I usually go gung ho with my new toys when I get them - LOL!!!

Anywho - thanks so much for stopping by - I hope you all have a wonderful Friday afternoon!!

OMG, TTYL, LOL and all that text talk!! MFT MID-MONTH HOP AROUND THE BLOCK

2009-04-15T00:00:00.002-04:00

Hello and welcome to the mid-April installment of the MFT Hop Around the Block!! If you haven't hopped over here from Jody's blog - then start back over on Kim's blog and hop from there - I'll "c u" when you get back!! LOL!! MFT is releasing 2 FABULOUS new sets today - I teased you with the new MFT Presents "What a Girl Wants" (by new illustrator Amanda Baird) on Monday and today I've got a card using the second set being released today - a new BC Dzyns set called "Text Ya Later" and how appropriate, huh?? I think I am the last person on Earth to finally learn to text from my phone (I sent my first text a few weeks ago - hee hee...) - my teenage niece finally got me into it and now she texts me all the time - LOL!! The main image on my card is the new BC Dzyns girl - I stamped her on the WONDERFUL recently released MFT Perfect Paper panels (Copics blend AMAZING on this stuff!!!!) and colored her in with Copics (and if you are interested - today's HTDT? tutorial in on coloring skin tones with Copics - you can view my new tutorial here). I pieced the big cell phone together - started with a red rectangle cardstock base - then added a gray panel for the "screen' and some small rectangles for the buttons on the phone - I used Doodlebug mini-rub ons for the numbers on the phone. The sentiment on the phone as well as the one on the corner of the card are both from this new set - I'm telling ya - it's PERFECT for those teenagers in your life!!! The patterned paper is from the DCWV Grade School stack.

If you haven't voted yet for your favorite (or favorites) in the MFT Idol Judges contest this week - be sure you do that today as well - you can view all their AMAZING projects and vote here. Also - there is the What's Up Wednesday challenge to play in as well over on the MFT forum at SCS - SO much MFT fun going on today!!

So are you ready to hop along??? Your next stop on the hop is the AMAZINGLY talented Jessie - I know she has some supah sweet eye candy to share with you!!! Thanks for stopping by!!

Breakfast at Tiffany's MFTeaser!!

2009-04-13T15:54:00.003-04:00

I'm back!!!! First of all - I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Easter!! Sorry for the long absence - boy - I really thought I was gonna get SO much stamping time over Spring Break and I got NADA!! LOL!! We just ended up doing a lot over Spring Break - we had a blast - spent some time at museums, got their dentist appts. in - that sort of thing - oh - and my little man turned 4 on Friday!!!! WOW - how time flies, huh?? So anywho - I'm back and stamping again and I have some REALLY fun MFT stuff to share with you this week - Kim is releasing 2 new sets this coming Wednesday - April 15th - and they are soooooooooo awesome!! The first set I am gonna tease you with today is a new set from the MFT Presents line by a new illustrator Amanda Baird (who happens to be the niece of our very own fearless DT leader Carole) - the set is called "What a Girl Wants" - isn't this image just FABULOUS!!!??? I'm not kidding - I literally squealed when I saw it! I knew this image reminded me of something - but I couldn't quite put my finger on it - and then Kim hit the nail on the head - doesn't she totally remind you of Holly Golightly staring longingly in the window at Tiffany's?? I was obsessed with Audrey Hepburn movies when I was a teenager - my mom had bought me a set of them for Christmas - and I would watch "Breakfast at Tiffany's" over and over again (I was a sucker for "Roman Holiday" too). Anywho - so this is my tribute to one of my all-time fave actresses and movies - I even added a little Tiffany blue and that signature white ribbon to the background. I did embellish the image a bit - I drew in the sidewalk and the bricks with my Copic Multiliner pen and a ruler and added a hint of Stickles to her tiara and some liquid pearls to well - to her pearls - LOL! This set will be released on Wednesday and as always - stop by Kim's blog a midnight for the start of another amazing MFT blog hop for more teasers of these new sets!!

Also - there is a very special MFT Idol competetion going on this week for the MFT Idol JUDGES (i.e. all those who are not the Top 10 contestants - we're giving the Top 6 contestants a much needed week off) - check out this thread for details - you could be in the running to win an MFT VIP package which always includes an unreleased set!!! All you have to do is show off your skills with those MFT stamps! ;) I hope you'll pop on over and play - you have until tomorrow at 10 PM to post your project - so there's still plenty of time to come up with something fabulous!!

Don't Mess with Granny!! HANNA SNEAK PEEKS

2009-04-06T15:13:00.003-04:00

Happy Hanna Release Day!! Tonight's the night - join us over at SCS on this thread for the Hanna Stamps Release Party from 9-11 PM EST - there'll be lots of fun chatting, challenges and chances to win Hannas and Rileys!! I've got a couple of more sneak peeks to entice you over - hee hee..meet Granny Hanna!! She is SO awesome and there are so many wonderful images in this set - I think you'll find it's very versatile!! For this first card - I combined the main image of the Granny Hanna set with the gnome image from the previously released Hanna Stamps "Patio" mini-set for this fun card. And let me tell ya - nobody messes with Granny's gnomes - BWA HA HA!! I stamped Granny first and then created a few masks so I could stamp the pile of up-ended gnomes - I hope she catches those pesky kids who messed with her gnomes - LOL!! All images were colored with Copics and Granny's dress was paper pieced with paper from the My Mind's Eye Out and About stack. The sentiment is from the Granny Hanna set as well.

I am calling this card "Granny's Night Stand" - LOL - I used the night stand from the Hanna Stamps "Get Well" set and stamped the Prune Juice and Dentures image from the Granny Hanna set onto it. The knitting basket and picture on the wall is from this new set as well. I drew in the hardwood flooring with my Copic multiliner pen and a ruler. The bead boards on the wall were added to the wall using my Scor-Pal. The patterned paper is from an old DCWV Fall stack I have in my stash and the sentiment is from Gina K. Designs. Thanks so much for stopping by - I hope to see you all at the release party tonight!!!

The Moose are Back in Town!! RILEY SNEAK PEEKS

2009-04-05T18:17:00.003-04:00

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend!! It's been a pretty uneventful weekend around our household - which is definitely not a bad thing - my kiddos finally seem like themselves again after being sick and we are gearing up for a week off of school for Spring Break - I didn't realized how much parents look forward to Spring Break too - I thought it was just us kids when I was in school - LOL!! So anywho - how about a peek at the 2 new Rileys being released from Hanna Stamps tomorrow night?? Well - I guess it's actually one new Riley and one new Sophie...hee hee...first up is Train Riley!! I am just head over heels in love with this Riley - he's SO versatile and I know 2 little boys - this stamp is really gonna come in handy!! I combined my Riley with images from the previously released "Route 66" Hanna set to create my western train scene - the clouds, sand, desert scene and rocks are all from this set. The entire image was colored with Copics and cut out with my circle Nesties. The dp is from the DCWV "All About Boys" stack and the sentiment is from The Cat's Pajamas. I die cut some stars for the bottom of my card and put a little silver stud sticker in the center of each.

Next up is Perfume Sophie - isn't she a beauty??? Hee hee...this card is for today's Featured Stamper challenge over on SCS - you can view the challenge here and I chose this card of Julie's to case. I colored my Sophie in with copics and cut her out. The sentiment and buildings in the scene in the panel behind her are from an adorable little We R Memory Keepers $1.99 set I bought at Archiver's - I believe it is from the Tiffany's collection. I stamped and colored every image on this card - the images on the very back panel are from the Hanna Stamps "In Vogue" set. Like Julie's card had a vintage Vogue fashion feel to it - I wanted my card to have sort of a vintage "Breakfast at Tiffany's" feel to it. All image were colored with Copics.

Thanks so much for stopping by!! Oh - and I had a very sweet comment in my guest book the other day asking about a "Wicked" card I made this past summer - he wanted me to e-mail him regarding the card - but I think the guest book entry cut off the e-mail address - so Kerry - I am more than happy to help you out - please e-mail me at candicelighty@sbcglobal.net. And really - if any of my readers are interested in any of the cards you seen on my blog - please feel free to e-mail me - I am more than wiling to take special orders as well!! :) Have a wonderful Sunday!!

Mommies to Be HANNA SNEAK PEEKS

2009-04-04T09:34:00.002-04:00

I hope everyone is having a wonderful start to your weekends!! You'll have to bear with me today - I've got a long post - lots to share today - but I hope you'll find some helpful info here today. Today's post serves two purposes - one is a sneak peek at the new "Mommy to Be" set being released by Hanna Stamps this coming Monday (April 6th) - but it's also a sort of study in Copic skin color combos with Hannas. As I was looking at the images in this set - it occured to me how versatile Hanna can be - she can be anyone!! So this is sort of my celebration of diversity with Hanna - because after all, isn't that what makes our world beautiful?? ;) This first Mommy to Be Hanna card uses a Caucasian Copic color combo - it's the following combo...
You can also subsitute E000 with Roo for a similiar look - I don't think there is much of a difference between the 2 colors other than R00 has just a smidgen of a pink tinge to it. On all these cards - I drew in the wood floor panels myself using a Copic multiliner pen and a ruler and colored them in with Copics. All the "bead board" work on the "walls" was done using my Scor-Pal (making a score line at every 1/2 inch). For my first card - I used DP from the My Mind's Eye Out and About stack, ribbon is from SU! and the sentiment is from a Studio G clear $1 stamp set.
For my next Mommy to Be Hanna - I thought she had a beautiful Asian look to her - isn't she a beauty??? Her skin tone turned out a little bit darker than I wanted it to be - but here is the combo I used (I'm still playing around with this one - getting the shading just right)...
For the Hanna on this card - I did draw the mat under her as well as the flooring. The DP used on this one is from the DCWV Far East stack and the sentiment is from a Studio G Clear $1 stamp set. I did some machine stitching around the card as well and stamped a couple of flowers on the hardwood floor panel with a Chestnut brown ink for some accents.

Here is the third Hanna image in the Mommy to Be Hanna set and I just LOVE her - it reminds my second pregnancy - my second son was being stubborn during labor and wouldn't "drop" - so they went and got me one of these big balance balls to sit on - just like this Hanna is doing to help the labor along. The funniest part though was that my Dad (who with 7 kids had never been in the labor room) chose that moment to come check on me and there I was rolling around on that big ball - you should have seen the look on his face - LMBO!!!! Hee hee...anywho - I decided to color this Hanna in a beautiful African American skin tone - here are the colors I used...
These colors really do blend beautifully together - I just love this combo. For this Hanna card - I used DP from the My Mind's Eye "Just Dreamy" stack and the sentiment on this one is from the Mommy to Be Hanna set.

Thanks so much for stopping by - be sure to swing by the other DT members blog for more fabulous peeks and visit our April Guest Designer's blog as well - the talented Michelle!! We will be having a release party over on SCS this coming Monday - April 6th - from 9-11 PM EST - the new sets will be released at the end of the party including 3 full sized Hanna sets and 2 awesome new Rileys!! Hope to see you there!!!

Paging Dr. Hanna - Stat!! HANNA SNEAK PEEKS

2009-04-03T08:18:00.003-04:00

TGIF!!!! YAY!! It's Friday - and for us - it means the first day of our Spring Break!! My kiddos are still getting over the illness from this week - so it was definitely nice to be able to let them sleep in this morning. We're looking forward to the next week off - we are having a "stay-cation" here at home - so I'll still be around here stamping next week too. So today starts the sneak peeks of the April Hanna Stamps releases and you are gonna LOVE them!! I'm gonna kick off my sneak peeks with a couple of cards I made with the new Hospital set being released this coming Monday. Consider this my tribute to "ER" ;) - how weird is it when a show that's been around for 15 years finally signs off, huh? I have to admit - I haven't watched it for years - but boy - do you remember those first few seasons?? WOW - what an amazing show and our first introduction to George Clooney to boot - hee hee...OK - I've gotten way off track here - onto my cards....the first one I have is a scene card I made with the Hospital set - yes - there is both a Dr. Anthony AND a Nurse Hanna in the set - plus a TON of awesome hospital related images. I started by stamping my Dr. and Nurse first - masked my Dr.'s hand and then stamped the x-ray behind him. I then masked my nurse and stamped the IV thing-y behind her. I drew in the floor and the x-ray board around my images with a Copic mulitiliner pen and a ruler - then colored the entire image with Copics. The pill image is from this set as well - I stamped a border on both sides of my card - then colored and cut a few out - popped them up with foam tape on the border to create some interest. The sentiment is from the Hanna Stamps "Everyday Sentiments" set. And then just to show you how versatile this set can be - I have another fun card with this set...
I made this card for today's Hanna Stamps challenge over on the SCS forums -today's challenge is to make a card that is black and white and red all over!! This was such a fun card to make - everything - included the background was stamped - I stamped images from the Hospital set onto my white background and then colored them in red - I did use a white gel pen to highlight the images to make them pop. I stamped the thermometer from the set - colored it and cut it out. I used my Accent Essentials Cricut cartridge to cut out the spark shape behind it - it was cut at 2 1/2 in. with a shadow. I adhered the spark with foam tape to make it pop a bit more. The sentiment stamped along the bottom strip is from the Our Craft Lounge "Running Sick" set.

Be sure to swing by the other DT members blog for more fabulous peeks and visit our April Guest Designer's blog as well - the talented Michelle!! We will be having a release party over on SCS this coming Monday - April 6th - from 9-11 PM EST - the new sets will be released at the end of the party including 3 full sized Hanna sets and 2 awesome new Rileys!! Hope to see you there!!! Thanks so much for stopping by!

Cuddle Up with Carter

2009-04-02T09:29:00.003-04:00

Happy Thursday!! So did you just LOVE all the new releases from MFT?? I know I have had a blast with them - I just love that Kim is giving us a couple of really awesome boy sets this month - I definitely think there has been a lack of boyish stuff in the papercrafting industry - so I'm loving this new trend of boy themed products!! I'm almost thru my first stack of the DCWV All About Boys stack - LOL - I'm gonna need to go pick me up another one of those - hee hee...anywho - I wanted to share my card I made with the new MFT Presents "Cuddle Up Carter" set released yesterday. This was a card I did for yesterday's sketch challenge - you can view the sketch here. I was so tempted to flip the sketch to make Carter fit on the image panel a bit better - but I loved that angled panel on the horizontal card I decided to challenge myself to make it work and this is what I came up with. I made a little scene with this new set - I stamped Carter first - masked his blanket and stamped the train from the set behind him - then I stamped his little frog beside him. Once I had my images stamped - I drew in my wood floor with a Copic multiliner pen and a ruler - I actually did a HTDT? tutorial last December on how to do these - you can check it out here if you are interested. I colored in my image with Copics and paper pieced his blanket with paper from the DCWV All About Boys stack. Once I had everything colored - I used my Scor-Pal to score the lines on the wall for the "paneling" - that was a fun little extra I added that really brings this scene to life I think. The sentiment is from the new Cuddle Up Carter set as well. Do you want to know the very best thing about this set though??? Well - for the first 6 months after it's release - $2 from every Cuddle Up Carter set purchased will be donated to a non-profit organization called Europeds (www.europeds.org) - an organization dedicated to helping children with cerebal palsy. The set was made with our very own Carole's super adorable and special DS Carter in mind - he has mild to moderate cerebal palsy and Carole has shared their amazing story with us all and how this organization has helped her precious little Carter. I love knowing the backstories to these sets - it really makes the just extra extra special - so I hope you'll pop on over to the MFT site and pick up you Cuddle Up Carter set - not only do you get an uber-adorable set - but you'll be helping some pretty special kiddos as well!! Thanks so much for stopping by - I hope you all have a wonderful Thursday and if you're looking for a little extra MFT fun this coming week - pop in and check out the new MFT Idol Challenge here!!

The BOYS are back in town!! MFT BLOG HOP

2009-04-01T00:00:00.005-04:00

Oh yeah - this month at MFT - the BOYS are back in town!! LOL!! If you've just happened upon my blog and want to start at the beginning of this month's MFT Hop Around the Block - then hop back over to Kim's blog and start from there - I'll see you when you get back!! ;) What an exciting month of releases!! Most of you know that I have 2 little boys - so I just LOVE seeing all these new boys sets and papers and everything coming out - I was SUPER excited when I pulled out the new "Ben Paper Dolls" set by Stephanie Fizer for the MFT Presents line - what a FUN FUN FUN set and a perfect companion for the previously released Isabelle Paper Dolls set. For this first card - I dressed Ben in his Super Hero costume (I stamped the outfit first - then masked it and stamped Ben on the outfit). I also did some masking to put the city scene from the previously released MFT "Going Places" set behind him. The little super dog is from the Ben Paper Dolls set too - isn't he adorable!? I colored my scene with Copics. The "pow" are die cut letters - I dusted off my very favorite Sizzlits "Big Top" alphabet for the letters. The sentiment is from the MFT Sassy Sayings set and the paper is from the DCWV All About Boys stack. I've got one more card I made with Ben for you before you go hopping along your way...
For this card - I dressed Ben up in his spaceman oufit - I masked him - stamped the alien twice behind him (this image is also included in the new set) and I drew the planet underneath them. The entire image was colored in with Copics and I did the stars with a white gel pen. The paper on this one is also from the DCWV All About Boys stack and the sentiment from the MFT Sassy Sayings set. The stars are die cuts and the brads are from JoAnn's. Thanks so much for stopping by - and don't forget...

My Favorite Things (http://www.mftstamps.com/) is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, April 1st from 9-10 PM EASTERN. This month there are 4 new sets being released - one of which is a special charity set - $2.00 from every "Cuddle Up Carter" set sold over the next 6 months going to benefit kids with Cerebral Palsy via the non-profit Euro-Peds clinic (http://www.europeds.org/) in Pontiac, Michigan!! Head over to the MFT forum HERE to find out all the details and to find out how YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer. We hope to see you there on Wednesday night!!

OK - your next stop on the hop is the fabulous-ly talented ANA'S BLOG - I know she has some beautiful eye candy to share with you!!

AND DON'T FORGET TO VOTE FOR YOU FAVORITE MFT IDOL!!!!!!!!!!!!

Aged to Perfection April MFTeaser

2009-03-31T07:43:00.004-04:00

Good morning!! Whew - what a week - and it's only Tuesday!! I ended up with both of my boys home sick yesterday - yikes! We spent the morning at the Dr. and found out that my oldest son Andrew had never gotten over the Strep throat he had last week and that my youngest son Calvin ended up with it too - I guess I'm glad we caught it early in the week - our Spring Break starts on Friday and I would hate for them to be sick on their break and not enjoy it. I do have a teaser for you today of the new MFT "Girls Night Out" set being released tomorrow - this set is just fabulous - not only do you get this gorgeous main image and a ton of great sentiments - but there are wine glasses, a martini glass and a margarita glass in it too - lots of great images for a perfect girls night out!! I chose to use the main image for my card and go with a vintage wine feel to it - I paper pieced their clothes and colored the rest of the image with Copics. I pieced my background together to look like an old-fashioned wine cellar - I started with the dark brown base - then criss crossed 1/2 in. thick tan strips of cardstocks on it - cut the excess off at the edges and then placed brads where they criss-crossed. I finished off the cards with some Primas and a couple of branch pieces cut from the Martha Stewart branch punch. There is lots of exciting stuff happening over on the MFT forum this week...

My Favorite Things (www.mftstamps.com) is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, April 1st from 9-10 PM EASTERN. This month there are 4 new sets being released! Head over to the MFT forum HERE to find out all the details and to find out how YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer. We hope to see you there on Wednesday night!! And don't forget to vote for your favorite MFT Idol starting tonight at 10 PM EST - check this thread for more details - the top 8 will be featuring the new "Girls Night Out" set in their projects!! Thanks so much for stoppping by!!

Missing You Bunches April MFTeaser

2009-03-30T07:42:00.002-04:00

Happy Monday!! Are you ready for some MFTeasers??? April is packed full of FABULOUS new releases from MFT and today I have a card made with the newest Flopsey to share with you!! This set is called "Flopsey's Flowers" and is absolutely adorable!! Now the image itself is actually only one Flopsey holding flowers - but I wanted to do a bunch of Flopsey's to go with the sentiment - so I made 3 masks of Flopsey holding the flowers and stamped a group of Flopseys! The image was stamped in Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored in with Copics. The patterned paper is from the 6X6 MFT Stephanie Fizer Summer paper pak - I love this print and it's just perfect for this new Flopsey! The sentiment is from the new Flopsey set as well. I punched some flowers out of matching cardstock and added some little gemstones to the centers of them. I did a little bit of machine stitching around the edge of my card as well. And as always...

My Favorite Things (www.mftstamps.com) is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, April 1st from 9-10 PM EASTERN. This month there are 4 new sets (one of which will benefit a very special charity ;) ) being released! Head over to the MFT forum HERE to find out all the details and to find out how YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer. We hope to see you there on Wednesday night! Don't forget that the Top 8 in the MFT Idol contest will be showing off their best "performances" this Tuesday night at 10 PM EST over in the MFT forum - the voting opens then - so be sure to hop on over to the MFT forum and vote for your favorites - this week they'll be showing off the brand new Who's That Girl? set!!!

BLOG CANDY WINNER!!

2009-03-27T13:58:00.003-04:00

We have winner!! The randomly chosen winner of my blog candy is...

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers: 6

Timestamp: 2009-03-27 17:56:33 UTC

Comment #6 was...

Tracey said...
Love your card Candice!! The Changitos are adorable!! Thanks for the chance to win some of my own. xx

YAY!! Congrats Tracey - please e-mail me your snail mail address to candicelighty@sbcglobal.net so I can get your goodies out to you! Thanks to everyone who left comments - you guys are the best!! I hope you will all pop back in on Monday - the April MFTeasers start on Monday and these new sets are just AWESOME - can't wait to share them all with you!! Have a wonderful weekend!!

Have you voted for your MFT Idol yet????

2009-03-25T11:38:00.004-04:00

Happy Wednesday!! So while the President's news conference put American Idol on hold last night - the MFT Idol voting is in full swing!!! If you haven't voted for your fave yet - you can do so here. The girls REALLY outdid themselves this week - so be sure to head over and check out their creations and leave 'em some love too! The theme this week was masking - which I used on today's card (this is also for today's sketch challenge - you can view the sketch here) - I masked my shoes and the front table to create this little window scene. *Sigh*...I wonder how much those red pumps in the window are...hee hee...like I actually have a need for shoes like that anymore - LMBO!! This was such a cool sketch to work with - it's so nice and balanced. The shoes, tables and sentiment are from the MFT "Window Shopping" set - colored in with Copics and accented with a white gel pen. The awning is from the MFT "Meet Me at the Cafe" set - I find myself using this awning a lot - it's fun to combine with other MFT sets!! All DP is from the My Mind's Eye Out and About glitter stack - I kept that "diamond" theme in the papaer and did some decorative scoring on the blue base of the card with my Scor-Pal as well. I accented the corners of the card with some red Hero Arts gemstones.

Thanks SO much for stopping by - don't forget to vote for your favorite MFT Idol and my blog candy is still going on as well - see the post below for that!!

Greetings from the Changitos plus BLOG CANDY!!!

2009-03-23T12:35:00.000-04:00

Greetings and Happy Monday everyone!! So I'd thought I'd start out the week with a little love for my Changito stamps and offer up some sweet blog candy in honor of the start of Spring and the fact that last week I reached 30,000 hits on my blog!!! It's really thanks to all of you - you all make blogging SO much fun and I can't tell you how much I appreciate all the sweet comments you leave too - it really brightens my day and so I am hoping this blog candy will brighten one of your days too!! First - let me tell you about the card I have for you today - I recently bought the "Car Changito" cling mount stamp at Archiver's and for some reason - I kept thinking it looked like a taxi - LOL - you guys know me and the way my mind seems to twist things around sometimes. So - I added the word "taxi" and a number to the front license plate using Doodlebug Simply Sweet rub-on letters - colored it yellow - masked it in front of the cityscape from the MFT "Going Places" set - and BOOM - instant taxi - hee hee...OK - well maybe not so instant - but it was fun to make this little city scene. The die cut cityscape behind the image was cut using one of those old Sizzix border dies (yeah - had to wipe the dust off of those) and I embossed the yellow panel with the CB "Traffic Jam" embossing folder. The decorative edge at the bottom was done using the Martha Stewart Checkerboard edge punch and the sentiment is from the MFT "Sassy Sayings" set. Now - onto the blog candy....here is what is up for grabs...

I am offering one brand new in package Stampendous "Changito Hop" stamp set - this is the Easter Changito clear set and it is exclusive to Archiver's - so it can be hard to find if you don't have a Archiver's near you. I'm also offering some spring-y colored ribbon and a pak of assorted flower brads. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post to be entered to win my blog candy - you have until this Friday (March 27th) at noon to be entered to win - on Friday - I will draw one random name from the comments left to win the blog candy!! Easy peasy - oh - and if you are leaving a comment under an Anonymous ID - please be sure to leave an e-mail address so I can contact you if you are the winner!! Thanks to all of you for your support!! Don't forget to leave me a comment for your chance to win and please spread the word if you know of anyone who would love a chance to own a set of these adorable little monkeys!!

A Big Burly Moose!

2009-03-20T13:22:00.002-04:00

I'm back for one more post today!! I'm trying to get caught up on a couple of challenges today and this is for the Friday Hanna Stamps challenge - today's challenge is to use Embossing on your card - you can view the challenge here. I chose to dry emboss on my card using the Cuttlebug "Branches" embossing folder on my brown panel - and what a perfect folder for our Lumberjack Riley!! I stamped some trees in SU! Old Olive ink and cut them out for the background as well (they are from the MFT "Nature Calls" set). I decided to make my Riley a big more rough and rugged by adding some scruff to his face with my Copic Multiliner pen - hee hee...Stampin' Di did this on one of her Rileys and I just thought it looked adorable - thanks for the inspiration Di!! I also drew and colored some clothes on him - I was thinking that "The Naked Woodsman" sounded a lot like a Monty Python sketch gone wrong so I decided that maybe he needed some clothes too - LOL!! I colored him in with Copics. The sentiment was done with Doodlebug Simply Sweet mini rub-on letters - I love these - I get them in the $1.99 bin and Archiver's - the font is great and they are perfect for when you can't quite find that sentiment you are looking for in your stamp collection.

Also - I wanted to let everyone know that if you haven't seen the list of blog candy winners for last Friday's Good Luck Blog Hop - Kristi has it posted here. Check it out and if you haven't PM'ed Kristi with your deets and you are a winner - make sure you do so she can get your goodies out to you!! And speaking of blog candy - thanks to all my wonderful readers - I went over 30,000 hits this week - WOO HOO!!! As a thank you - I've got a SWEET surprise up my sleeve for next week - so check back then!! Have an awesome weekend!!

Soakin' Up the Sun on Celebrate MFT Day!

2009-03-20T10:27:00.003-04:00

TGIF!!!!!! I've never been so happy to see a Friday in my life - holy crow - what a week!! Both my oldest son and I came down with a case of Strep Throat (add Tonsilitis as well to my diagnosis) - geesh - serves me right probably - I had just commented last Friday to one of my friends that my family had made it thru the winter with exactly one trip to the Dr. and then BAM! - we all get sick - LOL!! Andrew is MUCH better thankfully - he's been back in school - I am still having some issues with my left tonsil - but the infection was pretty deep in it - so I am hoping it'll be all better over the weekend. So anywho - that at least explains why I've been pretty quiet this week - I did manage to get my blog hop post up (and still managed hardly any typos in my feverish fog - LOL) - but it feels good to have a bit more energy to be stamping this morning!! This is my card for Celebrate MFT Day as well as Cindy's MFT sketch challenge this week - you can view Cindy's awesome sketch here - I did have to flip the sketch in order to get my Who's Those Girlies to be floating in the right direction! ;) I used the "Hit the Beach" set for my card as it is MUCH rather what I'd be doing today - I know - it's the first day of Spring - feels like Winter and I'm making a card about Summer - LOL - go figure - a girl can dream though, can't she? The card really started with the image - I had been wanting to do some skin color combo tests on the new coloring paper coming soon to MFT (STAY TUNED - you guys are gonna LOVE this stuff!!!) - and let me just say - it just goes to show how really awesome the Copics blend on this paper. Skin tones can be tricky to blend - and they blended beautifully on this new paper!! It was so much fun to color WTG? in different skin tones - after all - that is what makes this world beautiful and she is our "every woman", kwim?? So anywho - I stamped my girls at random angles to make them sort of look like they are lounging around the pool - hmmm...do you think they are gossiping?? Must be - I know that's what we do at our neighborhood pool - LMBO!! I used patterned paper from the 2008 DCWV Summer Stack - I punched one of the orange slices out of the paper with my circle nesties to use as an embellie to display my sentiment on. I cut a couple of leaves out of the paper as well. I added some little ribbon accents to the image as well. Thanks SO much for stopping by - hope you all have a wonderful Friday and that you'll swing by the MFT forum and Celebrate MFT with us today!!

Feeling Funky! MFT HOP AROUND THE BLOCK

2009-03-18T00:00:00.001-04:00

Hello and welcome to another MFT "Hop Around the Block"!! If you have just happened onto my blog - pop on over to Kim's blog and start the blog hop from there - trust me - you won't be disappointed!!! ;) This is an exciting release as we are introducing a new illustrator to the already talent-packed MFT Presents line...so without further ado....MFT proudly presents...Sara Williams!! For those of you who do not know - Sara is the sister of our very own Susan Liles - what a talented family that is, huh?? There are 2 new sets being released today - 2 GORGEOUS flower-y sets by Sara - "Funky Flowers" and "Spring Sprouts". This first card I have for you today uses the "Funky Flowers" set - this set is wonderful for making beautiful flower images - it comes with lots of different blooms, stems and vases so you can make your own gorgeous flower arrangements. I did a bit of masking using Eclipse Masking Tape to make my arrangement - Susan has a wonderful masking tutorial for today's installement of HTDT? over on the MFT forum at SCS in case you were wondering to yourself "how did we do that?" - LOL! My image was colored in with Copics - which leads me to a bit of another sneak-y peek-y for you...check this out...
Here's a close-up of the image - I did this image with layers upon layers of Copic ink and not a brush stroke in site - hmmmm...must be the AMAZING blendability of an awesome new coloring paper I've recently been introduced too...it's a beautiful 130 lb. cardstock and let me tell you - Copics blend like buttah on this stuff!! I did the vase on this image with 3 layers of color plus the Colorless blender to get that transparent vase look and not only is there not a brush stroke to be found - but the color didn't "fan" out either - check out how clean and crisp my ink black outline still is. It doesn't bleed thru the back of the cardstock either - it absorbs the ink perfectly!! So how can you get your hands on some of this awesome cardstock?? Well - all I can tell you is to stay tuned - it will be made available soon on the MFT site - ohhh...and I forgot to tell you the best part - it will be available in paks of pre-cut A2 sized coloring panels - how cool is that?? Keep your eyes peeled for this paper - you're gonna LOVE it!!!

A couple of other bits of info about the card above - the big flower behind the image was done using my circle nesties. The orange striped paper is from the Stephanie Fizer Fall Digi Paper pak from MFT and the sentitment is from the MFT "Sassy Sayings" set - isn't that font perfect for these funky flowers??

I've got one more card to share with you before you go - this card was done with the new "Spring Sprouts" set - aren't they adorable?? And check out that sentiment from the set - SO cute!! I decided to stay bright and funky with this set as well - wouldn't this be a fun card to give to a little someone - maybe after like a preschool or Kindergarten graduation?? The flowers are all from this set - colored again with Copics on that amazing new MFT coloring paper. The patterned paper on this card is from the DCWV Grade School Stack - for the background - I pieced 1 in squares together on a piece of 4X5 white cardstock - trimmed it down to the size I needed for my card front and then machine stitched at all the "seams". I wanted something to go under the main image - serached and searched for some funky ribbon - didn't have any that matched - so I opted for a strip of pleated paper - Amy did an awesome HTDT? tutorial on paper pleating last week and I am totally hooked!! I needed a super-strong adhesive to adhere all those layers of cardstock to that paper pleat - so I tried out some of my new Helmar Premium Craft glue and it worked perfect - and lucky enough - I managed NOT to glue my fingertips together in the process - LOL!!

Thanks SO much for stopping by - sorry to keep you so long - I'm just super-excited by all this great new stuff - continue on your journey today by hopping over to the SUPER talented Paula's blog for some amazing eye candy!! Enjoy!!

Shop 'Till You Drop!

2009-03-15T12:57:00.002-04:00

**IF YOU ARE HERE FOR THE HANNA STAMPS GOOD LUCK BLOG HOP - PLEASE SCROLL DOWN ONE POST TO FIND MY BLOG HOP POST**

Happy Sunday!! Hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend! Did you enjoy the Hanna Stamps blog hop? I hope so - we had fun doing it and I hope we'll have more hopping opportunities for you in the future! :) I've been up since 6:30 this morning with a sick little one - Calvin (my 3 year old) seems to have a bit of a stomach bug and can't keep anything down :( - my poor little man - Daddy went to the store to get him some popsicles to see if that will perk him up a bit! I decided to play in the Featured Stamper challenge this morning on SCS between his vomiting spells - ick - and this card managed to come together quicker than I thought it would. You can view the challenge here along with TwinsHappy's gallery - Stacy has such a beautiful gallery - it was very tough to pick just one to case! I ended up choosing this card to case. And actually - Stacy's is more of a card holder/purse album - so the biggest change I made was to turn her card holder into an actual card. I turned it into a purse card. I kept the basic layout of her card and I LOVED the stacked coffee cups image on her project - I didn't have any stacked images like that so I made my own. I wanted a purse image - so I chose this adorable purse stamp from the Hanna Stamps "In Vogue" set - created a mask and then stamped my stack of purses. Wouldn't it be nice to have a purse like this - just spilling over with money??? LOL!! I chose a smaller sentiment for my card - this one is from the Hanna Stamps "Things Hanna Would Say" set. I also added a stacked flower to my card. To make the actual purse card - I started with a 4.25 in. sqaure base for my card - then made the little over hang with a seperated piece of cardstock and adhered the ribbon on between it and the base. I used the Fiskars Threading Water punch for the scalloped edge and a little Hero Arts gemstone flower for my "clasp". Thanks so much for stopping by - don't forget to scroll down for some BLOG CANDY!!!

Garage Band Hanna GOOD LUCK BLOG HOP

2009-03-13T12:00:00.002-04:00

Happy Friday the 13th - BWA HA HA!!! So are you enjoying the Hanna Stamps "Good Luck Blog Hop"?? Soooooooo much Hanna eye candy to view...if you've just happened upon my blog and want to start at the beginning of the blog hop - then pop over to Kristi's blog and start from there - there is LOTS and LOTS of Blog Candy up for grabs today!! And I'll be here when you get back ;)....OK - so are you back?? LOL!! I decided to use "Rock Star Hanna" for my card today - I built a scene around her to turn her into "Garage Band Hanna" - she's quite the rebel, don't you think?? I started by stamping my Hanna - then I masked off the amp and stamped the step ladder (from "Tool Time Hanna") behind it. I then started drawing in the rest of my garage using a Copic mulitliner pen and a ruler (it's an unfinished garage BTW ;) ) - I drew in the side of my "house" and some bricks - the wall of the garage - and also the "tool shelf" - I used more stamps from the "Tool Time Hanna" set to stamp tools and other things you would find in a garage on the shelves. The entire image was colored in with Copics. I used some DP from the DCWV Rock Star stack (of course) and I stamped the edges of my pink panel behind the image with music notes from the Rock Star Hanna set. The sentiment is from a clear Stampendous set called "Rock Out".

And now - how about some BLOG CANDY!!!!???? Yup - there is Blog Candy up for grabs on all of our blogs!!! WOWZA!! And it is courtesy of the one and only Kristi Ferro (the fabulous owner of Hanna Stamps) - Kristi is giving away one Surprise Blog Candy Goodie Bag per blog - how fun is that!? Hmmm....what will you get?? It could be anything - stamps, ribbons, brads, paper...it's a surprise!!! I'll make this easy for you today - all you have to do to be entered to win the blog candy from my blog is to leave me a comment on this post - you have until Monday at noon (EST) to leave me a comment - that's it - easy, peasy, right?? Just leave me a comment and you could win one of those Surprise Goodie Bags!!

Thanks so much for stopping by - now onto the next blog - the FABULOUSLY talented Sandra - enjoy!!! And don't forget - it is Friday - and as always - the Hanna Stamps challenge is up on SCS - Jeanne has a fun challenge today - I hope you'll pop on over and play!!

Catching Up...

2009-03-12T14:17:00.003-04:00

Hello, hello!!! Eek - I've been quiet this week! I thought I would pop in and do some catching up and let you guys know what I've been up to this week - it's been quite a week really - my oldest son is gearing up for his big debut tonight - LOL!! He's got a speaking part in his school's Spring musical (he is in the first grade and is reciting a poem) - he's SO excited and really not nervous at all - I think Mommy and Daddy might be more nervous - hee hee...I did get a bit of stamping done - the card I did with the adorable MFT "Hooga Booga" bunch was for the What's Up Wednesday challenge over on the MFT forum - go check it out - Amy did an AWESOME paper pleating tutorial yesterday for HTDT?- so I had to try it out. I think it turned out cute - like a pretty little dust ruffle for your card! :) I did a bit of masking on these little monsters to create the scene as well. Here's some more cards I did using an MFT set - this is from the "You Take the Cake" set - I did these for a card swap I am in here locally - I wanted something fun - but that could be mass produced fairly easily - so I did these little cake cards...

The candles on these cards were die cut using a Sizzix die - but the rest of the "cake" was just pieced together using strips of cardstock. For the top layer of the "frosting" - I first did the decorative edge on it with the Martha Stewart Lace Doily punch and then embossed the top with the Swirls Cuttlebug folder to make it look more like textured frosting. The white base of the card is 4.25 in. X 4.25 in. - I hung the candles over the top a bit (like a tent card) - so the card is just as tall as an A2 size card and fits in an A2 envelope perfectly!!

So I've been chatting a bit about American Idol recently on here - and had a couple of people who have asked me about my pick for this year's Idol - so if you aren't an Idol fan - you can skip this part and go right to the end of this post - LOL! But if you are an Idol fan - I would love for you to post and let me know who your faves are too! Let's see - after this first week of the Top 13 (yeah - not sure about the whole 13 thing) - I am sticking with my gut instinct and that's Adam Lambert - he's just downright in a league of his own - which makes me think that maybe NOT winning Idol would be to his benefit - but that's a whole other debate that I will save for another day. ;) I thought Kris Allen was absolutely ADORABLE and loved his version of the MJ's "Remember the Time" - so I'll probably be keeping an eye on him too. And I know there are a lot of Danny-lovers out there too - I am guessing he's definitely around for the long haul - but something about him rubs me the wrong way. I TOTALLY sympathize with him in the passing of his wife - but geesh - he was more likable this week when they weren't harping on his back story, kwim? Biggest disappointment for the 1st week??? Well for me - it would have to be Megan - all those Michael Jackson songs and she picks "Rockin' Robin"?????? Yeah - STILL scratching my head about that one. I REALLY like her - she really is a relevant artist (think Duffy or KT Tunstall) - she just needs a bit of fine tuning - so I hope she does well and maybe that was just some first week jitters. I wish I would have posted yesterday because I could have made my predictions for who was going home last night and then you would have all been amazed because I was totally right - LMBO!! You'll just have to take my word for it - but I suppose I can't brag too much - it's always easier to predict those things in the early rounds. So anywho - that's my bit of Idol rambling - I bet no one will ever post asking for my opinions about anything again - ROTFL!!! But again - I would love to hear your favorites - so if you are an Idol fan - who is YOUR pick???

And speaking of Idol - have you been over to the MFT forum on SCS to see the FABULOUS finalists of the first ever MFT Idol contest??? Here's a link - check them out and give them a shout-out - I cannot wait to see what they'll create - it's gonna be a FUN contest!! Thanks so much for stopping by and listening to my incessantly babbling - and if you skipped some of it - well - I can't say I blame you - hee hee....have an awesome Thursday - check back tomorrow - there's gonna be tons of fun going on around here!!! ;)

DeNami Design New Rubbah Alert

2009-03-08T11:31:00.001-04:00

Good morning!! Hope you all have been having a wonderful weekend! It's been unseasonably warm here - so we've been enjoying some outside time and yesterday my hubby watched the kiddos so I could go peruse the Heirloom Stamp Show here in downtown Indianapolis - yay!! I had a nice morning there - it's a small show - which is probably not a bad thing for my bank account ;) - I stocked up on some Copic re-inkers, found some fun new stamps and fell in love with one company in particular - DeNami Design. I had seen their stamps before - Cindy at Papertrix first introduced them to me this past Fall - she had gotten in some of their Christmas images in - but I was not prepared for the cuteness that I ran into at their booth - LOL!! Their stamps are just adorable - I was particular drawn to their Mimi line (but you guys know I love my people stamps - LOL) but they do have some adorable chicks and frogs and other little animals too. Here are the ones I picked up the booth - there were SO many more that I wanted - but my goal was to NOT come out of the show in debt - LOL - which - BTW - I managed to do - hee hee...

I used the Bride Mimi and the Mimi with Flowers stamps to make the card at the top of this post - it's also for today's Featured Stamper challenge over on SCS - today's featured stamper is the amazing StampingQueenJAR - you can view the challenge and a link to Judy's gallery here. I chose this card of Judy's to case. I was really drawn to the layout of this card and all the cool corner accents. So I kept the overall layout of the card - but changed the image and the color combo. I wanted to keep those corner accents on both square panels like on Judy's card - but changed them to match my image. I added eyelets in place of the stars and some Sizzix filigree die cut corner accents to my card to match my Bridal Party image. I had to do some masking to make my Mimis into a Bridal party - I started by stamping Bride Mimi first - masked her with some Eclipse Masking tape - then started stamping her Bridal party behind her - I had to make one mask of the Mimi with Flowers as well to do the Bridal party. Thanks so much for stopping by - I'll have more cards this coming week made with some of the other new stamps I bought at the show yesterday - one thing I do love about going to these shows are that you get exposed to all these great little compaies you never new existed! Have a great Sunday!

"Not For the Faint of Heart" Hanna

2009-03-06T10:13:00.002-05:00

Happy Friday!! YAY!! And have I got a doozy for you today - my BFF Jennifer told me I should put a warning on this card - hmmm...she is kind of a sexy little thing, isn't she?? Hee hee...this card - believe it or not - is for today's Hanna Stamps challenge over on SCS - which was to create an Easter project or card using eyelets - you can view the challenge here. And I know - this isn't exactly an Easter card - but in my defense - it DOES have a bunny on it - LMBO!! I used Dress-Up Hanna for the card - and embellished her a bit to turn her into a "Girl Next Door" (think E!). I used a Copic Multiliner pen and ruler to draw in her fishnet stockings, made her bra and panties into a one piece, pieced some bunny ears on her (these were from a Changito Easter stamp - yikes - those poor Changitos!!) and then the bow tie is a punch (remember those old EKSuccess Punchkin punches??). The sentiment is pieced together from a couple of different Stampendous sets. I added my eyelets to the corners of the top panel for accents and used my Martha Stewart Lace Doily punch for the pink strip behind my image. The DP is from the My Mind's Eye Just Dreamy stack. Thanks so much for stopping by - I hope you'll indulge my warped mind today - hee hee...and I do hope you'll pop over to the Hanna forum over on SCS today and play in the challenge - show me up by making a true Easter card ;)!!!

OMG - I scrapped....

2009-03-05T10:24:00.003-05:00

....and stamped - at the same time!!! How about that!? LMBO!! Hee hee...I've been SO itching to get back to doing some scrapbooking lately and those of you who know me from the Cricut site know that I love my die cuts when it comes to my layouts - so I branched out a bit with this one and used my stamps to do a layout!! My kiddos and I absolutely fell head over heels for these new litle monsters from the MFT "Monsters Ink" set (which BTW - you can now purchase on the MFT site) - so I've really been having fun with it and it was just what I was looking for to do this little layout with. This is an 8X8 layout and all paper used was from the DCWV All About Boys stack (you KNOW I had to have that one *wink*). I paper pieced my monsters on a 2 1/2 inch by 8 inch strip - added wiggly eyes to them too. The word "little" was stamp with some foam alphabet stamps and Brilliance ink in Rocket Red. The word "monster" was done using the MFT "Bling 'Bet" - I stamped the letters using an SU! Old Olive Ink pad and then cut them out.

Oh - and if you are wondering about the little monster in the pic - that would be my little man - Calvin - he's 3 and had just eaten a cupcake with BRIGHT blue frosting - he had to be hosed down afterwards - LOL!! And can you tell that he's a total ham?? That's my Calvin!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Peek-A-Boo!

2009-03-04T20:13:00.003-05:00

So are you ready for the MFT Release Party tonight?? I thought I'd pop in on my blog for a minute to share this little "peek" at the new "Hooga Booga" set being released tonight by MFT (part of the MFT Presents line) - the little monsters in this set are SO adorable!! This is my card for today's sketch challenge - you can view today's sketch here. It's such a cool sketch - I had a lot of fun with this one. The little monsters in this set are so much fun to paper piece and I pulled out papers from one of my favorite My Mind's Eye stacks for this one. I wanted it to look like this little guy was playing "peek-a-boo" with you - so I stamped his arms off the edges - then pieced them back on and kinda curled them around to look like he was playing a game of peek a boo - hee hee...I added a nice big bow to accent and a couple of sparkly brads. OK - I'm off to watch the end of the "American Idol" results show - hope to see ya at the release party!!

Blog Hoppin' with my MFT Peeps!

2009-03-04T00:00:00.003-05:00

Welcome, welcome!! It's another MFT Hop Around the Block! If you haven't hopped over here from Kimmie's blog - then pop back over to Kim's blog and start hoppin' from there - I'll be right here waiting for you to get back!! Ok - so are you back?? LOL!! I simply adore the new "Who's That Girl" set - "Hangin with my Peeps" - what a FABULOUS image!!! And sooooooo making me long for spring! I colored in my image with Copics - added a sidewalk and some grass (an image that comes in the set) and paper pieced her dress. All dp on this card is from the My Mind's Eye "Just Dreamy" stack - I love the beautiful spring colors in this paper - it so reminded me of this set! The chicks at the bottom of my card were punched with the Martha Stewart "Chicks" edge punch - I actually ended up using the positive pieces that this punch cuts - they turned out much cuter than the actual punched border (after a little embellishing). My sentiment was cut out using circle nesties. And don't forget...

My Favorite Things (http://www.mftstamps.com/) is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, March 4th from 9-10 PM EASTERN. This month there are 5 new sets being released including a Who's that Girl who is hanging with her peeps!Head over to the MFT forum on http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ to find out all the details and to find out how YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer. We hope to see you there on Wednesday night.

Your next stop on the hop is the uber-talented Natalie's blog for more MFT eye candy - thanks so much for stopping by!!

Monsters Ink MFTeaser

2009-03-03T07:23:00.004-05:00

Happy Tuesday!! First of all - I have to say I am SO excited about the MFT Stamping Idol contest that started yesterday - I can't wait to see everyone's auditions - if you are interested in being the first MFT Stamping Idol and having loads of fun along the way - check out this thread. I have an MFTeaser of the new "Monsters Ink" set being released tomorrow (for a larger image - click on the picture) - I am in LOVE with this set!! Most of you know that I have 2 boys (ages 3 and 7) - so I grab up any sets that I can get my hands on to make projects for them and these little monsters are perfect!! My 2 just went nuts over these little guys - so I decided to use them to make some bookmarks for them. I am SO blessed to have 2 kids that enjoy reading - my 7 year old started reading chapter books last year and always has his nose in one (just like his momma when she was his age;) ) - but one thing we never have is bookmarks for him to mark his place - so I made some. I started by stamping and coloring all my images I wanted to use with Copics. I cut 2 1/2 in. by 6 in. cardstock bases for my bookmarks - then added interest with some funky angles on the ends and edge punches for decorative edges. All sentiments are from this set as well. I rummaged thru my Halloween paper stash for DP to use for these - what a fun way to use up some of that old Halloween paper and I have LOTS of it- LOL!! I finished up my bookmarks by added lots of fun ribbons to the ends. I kept layers and embellishments limited on my bookmarks as not to make them too bulky and cause the book you are using them in not to close, kwim? Thanks so much for stopping by - and don't forget...

My Favorite Things (www.mftstamps.com) is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, March 4th from 9-10 PM EASTERN. This month there are 5 new sets being released including a Who's that Girl who is hanging with her peeps!Head over to the MFT forum on www.splitcoaststampers.com to find out all the details and to find out how YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer. We hope to see you there on Wednesday night.

A Cup of Tea, A Shady Tree...MFTeaser

2009-03-02T07:52:00.002-05:00

Well - it's Monday - I hope you all are having a good start to your week! I've got lots of fun stuff planned for this week - so I hope you'll come by and visit me ;) - today I have an MFTeaser of the newest Flopsey set being released from MFT this Wednesday night - March 4th. Isn't he SO sweet!? He may be my favorite Flopsey yet - he's so whimsical - I just love that sentiment too! I colored my Flopsey and my tree in with Copics. **COPIC TIP**: To color in my white image, I added a hint of shading with my Cool Shadow (BG10) marker - and then I went back over the edge of the color with my Colorless Blender (0) to blend the color to the white. This little Flopsey set is so fun - it comes with a little leaf image that you can stamp all over your tree branches - I stamped mine with a SU! Old Olive classic ink pad. I wanted to use paper from the DCWV Once Upon a Time stack for my card - but couldn't decide which paper to use - so I sliced up a couple of small pieces into 1 in. squares - pieced the background together and then machine stitched at all the seams. I also machine stitched around my image - it felt good to fire up my sewing machine - I love sewing on cards!! I layerd up a couple of Primas with the Martha Stewart Branch punch for a card accent. Thanks so much for stopping by - and don't forget...

My Favorite Things (www.mftstamps.com) is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, March 4th from 9-10 PM EASTERN. This month there are 5 new sets being released including a Who's that Girl who is hanging with her peeps!Head over to the MFT forum on www.splitcoaststampers.com to find out all the details and to find out how YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer. We hope to see you there on Wednesday night.

I Pine 4 U Riley Sneak Peek

2009-03-01T10:44:00.004-05:00

Good Morning!!! And what a beautiful Sunday it is - well - it's deceptively beautiful here - the sun is shining - but it is FREEZING outside - yikes - bring on Spring!!! I've got a peek at the 2nd new Riley being released this month from Hanna Stamps - this little cutie "Timber Riley" along with Spa Riley and 3 new Hanna sets will be released tomorrow night after the release party (9-11 PM EST on the Hanna forum at SCS). This card is also for today's Featured Stamper challenge over on SCS - yay! - I love getting up in the mornings and playing in the SCS challenges - such a fun start to the day. Today's featured stamper is the talented Kelly_H and I chose this card to case - such an adorable outdoor-sy card!! I knew I had to try to work in Timber Riley on that tree background somehow - so for my card - I kept the basic layout of the original card, the trees in the background and that big ol' sentiment - I LOVE how Kelly did the sentiment on this card! I used some old alphabet foam stamps that I bought at Hobby Lobby that I haven't used in ages!! OMG - I remember going thru that foam stamps and acrylic paint phase in scrapbooking - LOL - I have so many of those sets and never got rid of them - I'm glad I didn't and found another awesome use for them this morning!! So the "pine" was done with the foam stamps and the "i, 4, u" were done using Doodlebug Simply Sweet mini rub-on letter. I cut my Riley out with circle nesties and colored him with Copics. The changes I made to the original card were to change the image - I added some ribbon to the top and left off the brads on the bottom of the card since my base is just one layer. Can I also say I love doing "CAS" cards??!! I so want to get better at these - there is nothing more beautiful than a strinking CAS card, KWIM?? Thanks so much for stopping by today - hope you are all having a wonderful weekend and I hope to see you at the Hanna release party tomorrow night - what a fun way to cure those Monday blues!!!! "See" you then!!

Say Ahhh....Riley Sneak Peek

2009-02-28T15:32:00.003-05:00

So is everyone loving the weekend sneak peeks?? My poor blog is usually neglected on the weekends :( - so I know it has to be enjoying all these posts - LOL!! I've got a peek at one of the 2 new Rileys to share with you this afternoon - it's Spa Riley!!! (Or Sophie - probably the better bet - seeing how she's wrapped in a pink towel waiting for her pedicure - hee hee...) This Riley is PERFECT for those little relaxation gifts you know we love to give teachers, mothers, etc. - all those women in our lives who work so hard and need a bit of pampering. I made one of Christina Fischer's Hanging Treat Boxes - you can view the tutorial here - I will definitely be making more of these - what a quick and easy gift project that gives such awesome results!! I hung my finished treat box on a bottle of bubble bath and then filled it with assorted herbal teas - perfect for a relaxing evening!! I colored my Riley in with Copics and then used hot pink Stampendous Fun Flock on his towel - here is a close-up of the fuzziness...

The designer paper is from the My Mind's Eye "Just Dreamy" stack and the flowers are Primas. I used my new wavy edge EK Success border punch on the panels at the bottom and my sentiment was done with Doodlebug mini rub-ons. Thanks so much for stopping by this weekend - I hope you all are having a wonderful Saturday!! Don't forget about the big release party on Monday night from 9-11 PM - Kristi and Vicki have lots of fun prizes planned - and you know we always have some awesome challenges in store for you too - see you there!!!!

Hanna ROCKS!! Hanna Sneak Peeks

2009-02-28T00:00:00.000-05:00

Hope you all are having a wonderful start to your weekend!! I've got some rockin' Hanna cards to share with you today - check out Rock Star Hanna - OMG - I LOVE her!!!!!!!!!! I stamped the main Hanna image from this new set along with the microphone image to create this scene of Hanna rockin' out - I colored the image in with Copics and I pieced her bling-y tank top on with a piece of red cardstock that I heat embossed with red embossing tinsel. The strip of patterned paper is from the DCWV Rock Star stack (of course) and the sentiment is from the previously released "Things Hanna Would Say" set and perfect for this wild Hanna!!

And here's another fun card I did with the accessory stamps in the set - the guitar pick image (which has been covered in Glossy Accents and cut out) and the music notes and treble clef images that were stamped on the pink part of the guitar are all from this new Hanna Rock Star set. I made the guitar card using my Cricut and Design Studio - for my fellow Cricut fans - the guitar is from the "Indie Art" cart and cut at 4 1/2 in. I strung some wire (20 gauge) on my guitar for the guitar strings. I used the same sentiment as the card above and added some ribbon to accent.

Rock Star Hanna - along with 2 other Hanna sets and 2 new Rileys - will be released after the release party on Monday night - the party is from 9-11 PM EST on the Hanna form at SCS - hope to see you there!! For more eye candy - check out the other Hanna design team blogs and the fabulous blogs of our March guest designers - Jennifer Buck and Silke K!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Wee Hanna Hanna Sneak Peeks

2009-02-27T09:19:00.003-05:00

Happy Friday!!! YAY!!! It's sneak peek time again!! If you aren't aware of the changes - the new Hanna Stamps March sets will be released this coming Monday - March 2nd. You can find sneak peeks on all the design team blogs starting today and the first set I am gonna showcase for you is one of the 2 new Paper Dolls sets being released - this little sweetie is called "Wee Hanna" - and just look our little Hanna - she can be anything she wants to be!! This precious new Hanna comes with 4 different outfits and accessories that you can dress her up in - how fun is that!? For this first card - I dressed her in her cheer outfit for a fun little card - I used some paper from the DCWV Grade School stack and punched the edge with the EK Sucess Binder Edge punch. I added some little craft pom-poms for some cute accents.

Here is our little Hanna all ready to go scuba diving!! I LOVE this outfit - look at the little mask you can put on her!! It's just like playing paper dolls when we were kids!! The paper on this one is from the My Mind's Eye "Just Dreamy" stack - I die cut a star to go behind my image and then embossed it with the Cuttlebug Bubbles folder. I stamped a couple of fish on my red strip of cardstock and heat embossed them with red embossing tinsel for some sparkle. I accented with some ribbon and added a SU! sentiment.

And check out Hanna the Pirate - isn't she ADORABLE!? She was SO much fun to color!! I paired her up with some old Sandylion Pirate paper I had in my stash. I added the little map from the previously released Hanna Stamps Pirate set for an accent. The waves on the bottom were done with an EK Success border punch. The sentiment is from Stampendous.

This new "Wee Hanna" paper dolls set will be released along with 2 other Hanna sets and 2 new Rileys this Monday, March 2nd - we will be having a release party over on SCS from 9-11 PM that night - hope to see you there!! Sneak peeks will continue all weekend on our blogs and in the SCS gallery and for more eye candy - check out the blogs of our fabulous guest designers - Jennifer Buck and Silke K!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Blog Star

2009-02-26T11:16:00.004-05:00

Happy Thursday!! So did you watch American Idol last night???? Hee hee...you know - I was REALLY trying to kick the Idol habit this year but all it took was a little Idol chit-chat from my MFT Sistahs and before I know it - I'm sucked right back in - LOL!! And can I just say Nick/Norman is a man after my own Idol heart - from the moment he shouted "Doogie" to Neil Patrick Harris in the audience last night - well - I'm smitten - not sure there's an Idol future for Nick (although I think I hear SNL calling) - but I love that he stayed true to himself and stuck it to Idol - you go, Nick!! I'm pulling for you!!! LMBO!! Anywho - I did manage to get a card done for today's MFT sketch challenge - you should really go check it out here - Frances has given us an awesome sketch to work with this week!! I flipped my sketch to fit my "Digital Girl" image - colored her in with Copics and paper pieced her dress with some MFT Houndstooth Digi Paper - I did print my paper at a small size again to scale down the pattern for my image size. The grid paper is from the DCWV Grade School stack - I punched the edge with my new Binder Edge punch from EKSucess (LOVIN' these new punches - BTW). I made my bling-y star by first die cutting a star from red cardstock - then I heat embossed it with red embossing tinsel. I added some ribbon and star brads to accent. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

There's No Place Like Home

2009-02-25T14:28:00.004-05:00

Click your heels together three times and say it with me "There's no place like home..." - hee hee...I just love "The Wizard of Oz" and for some reason (don't ask me why) - this little shoe image from the Hanna Stamps "In Vogue" set reminds me of the ruby slippers - LOL!! So when I saw the sketch challenge this morning over on SCS - I thought those little shoes would fit perfect in those little squares! I had very limited time to stamp before getting the kiddos to school this morning - so I ended up making this fun and simple card for today's sketch challenge - you can view the challenge here. I just love this sketch - it's just perfect for inchie art!! I stamped and colored my "ruby slippers" with Copics - added a touch of red Stickles to the little jewel on them and accented them with a white gel pen to make them appear shiny. And then sticking with my Dorothy/Wizard of Oz theme for this card - I dug some blue gingham paper out of my stash for a similiar pattern that's on Dorothy's dress - again - did I mention I was a stickler for details? LMBO!! The sentiment is computer generated and I added a few red Hero Arts gemstones to accent my card. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

S-t-t-t-r-r-i-i-ke!!!!!!!

2009-02-24T14:05:00.003-05:00

Hope everyone is having a wonderful start to their week!! I've been busy busy working on peeks for the upcoming Hanna release - Kristi has moved the Hanna releases to the first Monday of each month - so the March sets will be released this coming Monday - March 2nd - and sneak peeks will start this Friday - YAY!!! I can't wait to show you all the new fabulous sets! But first - I am still having fun with the sets from the February release. I thought I'd share this quick but fun bowling ball card I made this morning. I made the base of my card using my circle nesties - I chose the largest circle for my bowling ball. I then used a small circle punch to make the circles for the finger holes of the bowling ball. I wanted a glitter-y bowling ball - so I heat embossed my entire card front with red Ranger embossing tinsel - it is SO bling bling-y in real life!! Oh - and I should mention that the base of my card was cut in red cardstock to match the color of my embossing tinsel - just gives a nice even color. All images are from the Hanna Stamps Bowling set - colored in with Copics and accented with a hint of stickles. I LOVE the retro feel of this bowling set - which is why I wanted to give my images sort of a black and white feel. I can't wait until our next bowling birthday party - I know I'll be reaching for this set!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!

I Moose You

2009-02-21T13:39:00.003-05:00

Hope everyone is having a wonderful start to your weekend!! Today is a good day to be stamping here in Indiana - it's "slushing" outside - a gross mix of snow and rain - so I am curled up in my studio stamping and longing for warmer Spring days! I am playing catch up on some challenges today - this is a card I made this morning for yesterday's Hanna Stamps challenge - this week's challenge is to use metal on your card - you can view the challenge here. I used GI Jon Riley for my card - I cut him down on a small rectangle and rounded off the corner to make it look like a dog tag. I did the same with a piece of silver metallic cardstock from the DCWV Metallic Stack. I punched a hole in them and then added a piece of metal ball chain to finish off the dog tag look. The American flag was pieced together with 2 pieces of patterned paper from an old DCWV Summer Stack from JoAnn's. I added a sentiment from the "Things Riley Would Say" set and a few metal star brads. Thanks so much for stopping by - I hope you'll pop over to the Hanna forum over on SCS and play with us this week!!

You're Busted!

2009-02-19T11:04:00.004-05:00

Happy Thursday!! Hope everyone has been having a wonderful week! I have to apologize for my posts being a bit spotty this past week or so - I ended up sick and at the Dr. on Friday (all better now) and then I spent a couple of days preparing for the release and my tutorial yesterday - but I felt like I had a bit of mojo back this morning and now I've got all sorts of ideas swirling around in my brain - LOL!! So I put that creative energy to use this morning for a combination of today's SCS Ways to Use It challenge and the Hanna Stamps New Set Release challenge - today's Ways to Use it challenge is to use stripes and the new set release challenge is to make a black and white card using the new Hanna Stamps "Busted" set - well...black and white - stripes - a prison guard image - hmmm....it all just sort of fell together in this card - LOL!! Seriously - I read today's stripes challenge - that Johnny Cash song got stuck in my head and I immediately reached for my "Busted" set - hee hee...my mind is a bit warped sometimes! I stamped my image and then cut it out with my circle nesties - I colored it with Copics. I did my black and white prison stripes by piecing 1/2 in. black cardstock stripes onto a piece of white cardstock. And because I am a bit of a stickler for details - that is not a random prison number. It's my tribute to my favorite author - the king of horror himself - Stephen King. The number is the main character's prison number from "The Shawshank Redemption" - the BEST film adaptation of a Stephen King novella - EVER. Frank Darabont should really be given the rights to direct all of Stephen King's stories - seriously - "The Green Mile", "The Mist", "The Shawshank Redemption" - some of the best Stephen King films!! OK...OK...I'll get off my movie and book nerd kick - LMBO!! Anywho - I die cut the numbers using my Cricut - they are from the "Plantin Schoolbook" cart - cut at 3/4 in. I added some black brads to accent the turned square behind the image. The sentiment is computer generated. And don't forget - there is still time to play in the Hanna Stamps new set challenge - you could win 2 Hanna sets of your choice - WOW!!! Hanna Stamps is also having a fabulous sale - 25% off a ton of products including some stamps!!!! Be sure to check it out!!

Let's 'Twist' Again!! - MFT Blog Hop

2009-02-18T00:00:00.002-05:00

So do you feel "Twisted" yet?? BWA HA HA!! I hope you're enjoying our "Twisted" Blog Hop!! If you have just happened onto my blog - pop back over to Kim's blog and you can start the twisted-ness from there! I am LOVING the new "Twisted 2" sentiment set - the sentiments are SO funny - but definitely not for the faint of heart!! This set along with 2 new 6 X 6 patterned paper paks (based on the Stephanie Fizer Spring and Summer digi paper line) is being released today by MFT. I've got a couple of twisted goodies for you to check out before you continue on the hop - this first one is a fun little card I created using one of the new Twisted 2 sentiments and the "Call Me" set - I created a blinged-out cell phone!! I started with a 3.25 in. X 11 in. piece of cardstock and folded it in half for the base of my card and rounded out the corners. I cut a window at the top of the front of my card using a rectangle nestie. I the used the image (colored with Copics) as my "picture" on my screen. I cut some small rectangles for my number keys and used some mini rub-ons for the numbers. I added some bling around my "screen" and an antenna with a strip of paper and a circle punch. And check out this second card I made - this features another sentiment from the set as well as some of the new papers releasing today...hee hee..

Hey - get your mind out of the gutter - I just meant that her doggies have style - LMBO!!! Ok Ok - I know what I REALLY meant - *wink* *wink* - this is a TWISTED blog hop after all - MWA HA HA!!! I used the "Gone to the Dogs" (LOVE LOVE LOVE this set, btw) with one of the new sentiments and a piece of patterned paper from the 6X6 Summer paper pak - this paper is fabulous - it has a really nice weight to it and the colors are awesome!! I created the dog collar at the bottom with a string of embossed paper, Sizzix buckle die (embossed with silver EP), and some silver stud stickers. I stamped the sentiment on the bone image from the MFT "Friends Forever" set - cut it out and distressed it. My image is colored with Copics (as usual ;) ) - which happen to be the Weekly Spotlight this week at MFT - check my sidebar for the awesome Spotlight Savings deal!! There may also be a cool Copic tutorial for you to check out over on the MFT forum for today's HTDT? *hint* *hint* - so after you finish oogling all the eye candy on today's blog hop - pop over to the MFT forum on SCS for all the What's Up Wednesday? fun!! Thanks so much for stopping by - your next stop on today's "Twisted" hop is the fabulous Susan - enjoy!!!!

Colonel Mustard...In the Conservatory...

2009-02-12T16:17:00.004-05:00

...with the lead pipe - LOL!! I used to LOVE to play the game "Clue" when I was growing up - I was such a sucker for mystery stories - anywho - why am I talking about the game "Clue'? Hee hee...this maid set combined with this paper reminds me of that board game - I've been wanting to do a card that had sort of a vintage feeling to it with this set and I finally found that perfect paper to pair up with it!! I really wanted to showcase this gorgeous paper - it's from a paper stack by a company called Stemma - it was given to me by a uber-sweet co-worker of my hubby's - she had a few stacks of this paper and thought she would see if I would like to have it before she threw it out (all the gals at my DH's work know that I love papercrafting) - so anyway - when he brought the paper home - I absolutely fell in love with it - they really are gorgeous stacks - so thank you SO much, Dina!!! ;) So I knew I wanted to use this stamp with these papers and when I saw Frances' MFT sketch for today - well - it just all fell into place!! You can view Frances' fabulous sketch here - I hope you'll pop on over and play - remember each week - one sketch challenge participant is chosen to receive a $5 gift certificate to the MFT store - and really - who couldn't use more MFT stamps??? Hee hee...thanks so much for stopping by!!!

Hey Buckaroo!

2009-02-12T13:56:00.004-05:00

Happy Thursday!! OK - before I get into the deets on this card - I want you to know that no one in my household is walking around missing a pocket on their jeans - LOL!! This card is for today's Ways to Use It Challenge over on SCS - you can view the challenge here - today's challenge is ways to use fabric. I had grand plans to piece a fabulous pair of fabric pants onto one of my Hannas - but the thought of cutting up one of my favorite shirts for the sake of creativity -well - I reached for an old pair of my DS's jeans instead - LOL!! We recently cleaned out closets - and while we do donate most everything that my kids outgrow - there are a few things that have stains and holes in places you can't really explain - so those get thrown out - and if you have boys - you know what I mean - LMBO!! So how about salvaging the pockets from those jeans you're gonna throw out to make scrapbook or card embellies?? - you could tuck some journaling in there on a scrapbook page or a gift card on a card - the possiblities are endless. For this card - I just cut around the pocket to get it off the jeans and then adhered it to my card with glue dots. I went with a western feel to my card to match the denim - I colored and cut out Horseshoe Riley from Hanna Stamps and stamped a Cat's Pajamas senitment on my die cut stars. I did some distressing on the tan cardstock pieces with Cat's Eye Chesnut Roan ink. I added some hemp twine to some of the stars and a couple of star brads to the pocket. I did some machine stiching and edge distressing to the background cardstock as well. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Sweet Little Valentine Cupcake Cards

2009-02-10T11:16:00.004-05:00

Happy Tuesday!!! Oh boy - I am extra excited today - you know I've been complaining about the super frigid temps we've been having here in central Indiana - and today - it's a beautiful balm-y almost 60 degrees!!! YAY!! Hee hee...I just don't do well with the cold - I'm a wimp - LOL!! So I am gonna share a quick post with you guys today and then I'm heading outside with the little one before the weather turns on us again (gotta love Indiana ;) ). I am finishing up my valentines this week - getting ready for all the school parties and for my kiddos and hubby on Sat. These sweet little cupcake Flopsey cards are for my sons' teachers. We have been blessed with wonderful teachers again this year - so I wanted to make some special cards for the boys to give to them. I had to make 3 of these - one for my oldest DS's 1st grade teacher and 2 for my youngest's preschool teachers. I started my doing my stamping - I used the MFT Cupcake Flopsey set - colored him with Copics and then cut him out and added a Rain Dot heart to the tops of the cupcakes. The sentiment is from this set as well. I used my Cricut and Design Studio software for my card base - I welded two 5 inch cupcake shadows from Doodlecharms together - I did have to flip one before I welded them to get the cupcake shadows to line up. I cut out the rest of my cupcake pieces just regular - without using Design Studio. I embossed the white frosting with the Cuttlebug Swirls folder. I added some lines to my cupcake wrappers with my Scor-Pal and then stamped some hearts onto my pink candles. To bling up my cupcakes - I added some pink gemstones for "sprinkles" and some crystal Stickles to the flames.

I also wanted to thank all of my wonderful blog readers - during release week last week - I hit 25,000 hits on my baby blog!! Hee hee...considering I have been blogging less than a year and am fairly new to the stamping world - I was pretty excited!! I hope you enjoy coming here as much as I enjoy blogging. I was gonna do some blog candy at 25,000 hits - but since it came during release weeek - I am gonna do some blog candy at 30,000 hits - so be on the look at for that and thanks SO much for stopping by and all of your support - you all make blogging a blast!!!!

Oh so chic...Hanna Sneak Peek

2009-02-05T11:09:00.004-05:00

Happy Thursday!! So are you having fun with all these releases this week!? I hope you've enjoyed all the peeks I've been sharing this week - I had a blast making them all!! I've got a couple to share with you today - this first one is of the new "In Vogue" set by Hanna Stamps - omgosh - she is tres chic!!! I knew I had to find some stylin' paper to go with her - so I chose a couple of patterns from the My Mind's Eye out and about stack - the colors in it are perfect for her! This card is for today's Ways to Use it challenge over on SCS - you can view today's challenge here. Today's challenge is ways to layer embellies - so I layered up my flowers for this card. I love layering flowers - I think it really jazzes them up and it's also a good way to get thru all those lovely bottles of flowers we have lying around so we can buy more, right!? HA HA!! Anywho - I love mixing up my flowers too - so I chose a couple of felt flowers from American Crafts and layered them with a Prima hydrangea. I added a Hero Arts green gemstone for their centers. To create the scene on my card - I first stamped Hanna - masked her - then stamped the storefront window behind her - I cut the scene down using one of my circle nesties to make it look like she's walking away from the store - hmmm...do you think she bought one of those adorable dresses in the window?? LOL!! The sentiment on this card is from the previously released "Things Hanna Would Say" set.

I've got one more to share with you for now - check out this sweet Riley!! He's called good luck Riley - he's my 7 year old DS's new favorite Riley - he's been asking when I am gonna make a card for him with it - so here it is finally! ;) My son just got a speaking part in the elementary school's spring musical in March (he is SO excited about it!!) - so I am gonna tuck this card away to give to him that night. I stamped Riley - colored him in with Copics and cut him out with my circle nesties. To make the four leaf clover - I cut 4 hearts with my nesties and then just arranged them to make a clover! The sentiment was done with Doodlebug Simply Sweet rub-on letters and the gold shiny cardstock is from the DCWV Metallic Stack. Thanks so much for stopping by - all of these fabulous new sets along with both new Rileys will be releaesed tonight after the Hanna Stamps Release Party over on SCS - it's in the Hanna forum from 9-11 PM - it's always SO much fun - challenges, chatting, prizes - hope to see you there!!!!!

Need to Refresh?? MFT HOP AROUND THE BLOCK

2009-02-04T00:00:00.002-05:00

Welcome to another fabulous MFT Hop Around the Block!! If you've just happened across my blog and want to go back to the beginning of the blog hop - then hop back over to Kim's blog and start from there. If you are a regular blog reader here - you know how much I LOVE the previously released "Who's That E-girl?" set from MFT - well - I am even more excited about this fabulous new Who's That Girl? set - check out "Digital Girl" - our E-girl has gone from lounging on her couch to sitting at her desk working hard!! Isn't she fab!? She's a sequel to "Who's That E-girl?" and a definite must have - the sentiments that come with her can be interchanged with the sentiments from "Who's That E-girl?" - pretty cool, huh?? Just think of all the ways you can mix and match them! I am dedicating my card for today's hop to all my SCS Release Party friends - we all know that during a release party our best friend is the "F5" key - hee hee...gotta keep "refreshing" to keep up with all the chatter! I made the base of my card a giant "F5" key - it's a 4.25 in. square base. The "F5" letters are die cut. I also used some metallic paper from the DCWV Metallic stack for the card and the punched flowers. My image was colored in with Copics and her dress was paper pieced with paper from the MFT Houndstooth Digi Paper pak - I printed it in a 5 X 7 size so that they pattern was scaled down for my image - another great thing about the digi paper!! I even pieced on a black belt for her dress - hee hee...I was tempted to add more to this card - but just love the "sleekness" of it and decided to leave it as is - I hope you like it too!! For more fabulous MFT eye candy - continue your "Hop Around the Block" at Christina's blog - enjoy!!! And as always...

My Favorite Things (http://www.mftstamps.com/) is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, Februray 4th from 9-10 p.m. EST. This month there are THREE new sets being released including a Who's that Girl set that is GOING DIGITAL!

Head over to the MFT forum on http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ to find out all the details and to find out how YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer. We hope to see you there on Wednesday night!!!

You're Busted!! Hanna Sneak Peeks

2009-02-03T14:30:00.001-05:00

**NOTE**: IF YOU ARE HERE FOR THE BLING 'BET BOUNCE - THEN PLEASE SCROLL DOWN ONE POST AND CONTINUE "BOUNCING" FROM THERE!! ;)

You're busted!! Hee hee...I am just lovin' the new Hanna Stamps "Busted" set being released this Thursday night after the release party over on SCS. Isn't she simply fabulous!? That skirt!! Those boots!! For this card - I stamped the main Hanna image from the set - then masked her and stamped the "Lock-Up" image behind her and drew in some extra jail cell bars around her with a Copic multiliner pen. The image was colored in with Copics. I made some more jail cell bars for my card by using strips of paper from the DCWV Metallic Stack and silver brads. The sentiment is from this set as well...and want a completely different look with this set?? Check out this sweet creation made with the same set...

I made this card with the 2 donut images that come in the "Busted" set. One of my favorite things about the Hanna sets are all those cool "extra" images that come in the sets - they can really make all your Hanna sets extra-versatile! I stamped my donuts (which - btw - look like my fave Dunkin' Donuts) - cut them out using circle nesties and then colored them in with Copics. The pink panel was embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder. The decorative border on the bottom of the card was made using the Martha Stewart Lace Doily edge punch. I added some ribbon and a sentiment from a Studio G clear $1 stamp set.

Thanks so much for stopping by - if you want some more Hanna eye candy - pop on over to our guest designer's blog - the fabulous Jacqui Lines - sister of our own Stampin' Di!! Here's a link to her blog. I hope to see you all at the Hanna Stamps release party - this Thursday night - 9-11 PM EST - there's gonna be fun challenges, prizes, chatting - it's always SO much fun - hope to "see" you there!!!

What's Up, Hot Stuff? BLING BET BOUNCE

2009-02-03T00:00:00.003-05:00

So are you having fun bouncing?? LOL!! If you've bounced over here from Cammie's blog - then Welcome!! If you've just happened onto my blog - well - you're still welcome to stay ;) - hee hee...but if you want to start at the beginning of the MFT Bling 'Bet Bounce - then hop back over to Kim's blog and you can start the bouncing from there! You are gonna be over the moon for the new Bling 'Bet (if you're not already) by the time you've seen all the fabulous things you can do with this new alphabet from MFT - I've been having an absolute blast with it - yesterday I shared a card where I had blinged up those little white holes in the letters with some gemstones and the card I have for you today is a completely different way to bling up your letters!!

For this card - I bling'ed my actually letters instead of the holes! Here's a close-up of the letters so you can see how much they shine!
This was so easy to do and gives such a neat result! I started by stamping each of my Bling 'Bet letters with Versamark ink. I then poured red Ranger Embossing Tinsel on them and then heat embossed each letter! And boom - instant bling!! I left the holes open because I really think it makes those letters POP! What a cool look, huh?? If you don't have embossing tinsel - you could also stamp your letters using a glue pad and then sprinkle some good ol' fashioned loose glitter for them for a similiar look. And the few ideas you have seen so far on the Bling 'Bet Bounce are just the tip of the iceberg!! Seriously - wait until you see what the rest of the team have in store for you - so go ahead - keep bouncing - your next stop is the uber-talented and fabulous Cindy's blog - enjoy the bounce and don't forget...

My Favorite Things (http://www.mftstamps.com/) is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, Februray 4th from 9-10 p.m. EST. This month there are THREE new sets being released including a Who's that Girl set that is GOING DIGITAL!

Head over to the MFT forum on http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ to find out all the details and to find out how YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer. We hope to see you there on Wednesday night!!!

Let's Bowl! Hanna Sneak Peeks

2009-02-02T14:23:00.002-05:00

I promised you more sneak peeks today and here they are - check out Bowling Hanna!!!! OMG - she is DA BOMB!! I love love LOVE the retro feel of this set - so I wanted to make cards with a retro feel to them - when I think like 60's retro - I think funky shapes and bright, bold, striking (no pun intended - hee hee) colors. I think I almost used every image from the new bowling stamps on my 2 cards as well! For this first card - I stamped the main Hanna image from the set and colored her in with Copics - I added a dab of Stickles to the heart on her fab bowling bag. I used some of the extra stamps in the set to stamp the background on the orange panel - the bowling sign in the upper left hand corner is from the set as well - I added some Stickles to that as well after I colored it to make it look like it was all lit up!

Now this second card has kind of a funny story to it - you see - last January we had a bowling party for my oldest son's 6th birthday and I wanted to make the invitations myself - well - let me tell ya - I looked EVERYWHERE for cool bowling stamps and I couldn't find any!! So I did manage to get some invites together - but had I had this Hanna set last year - I would have went to town on the b-day party stationary and probably created an invitation that looked something like this second card here. ;) I stamped my background on again - and created a bowling "lane" in the middle of my card by putting some decorative score lines down it with my Scor-Pal. The main image in the circle is from this set as well - I colored it in with Copics and then cut out the bowling bowl and popped it up with pop dots to give it some dimension.

Thanks SO much for indulging me today - I know I've kinda thrown a lot at ya today ;) - I will tell you though that there is something SUPER exciting in the works for tomorrow - so be sure to swing back by! Don't forget about the Hanna Stamps Release party over on SCS on Thursday night either - it's from 9-11 PM EST (the new Hannas and Rileys will be released after the party) - it's guaranteed to be an absolute blast!!!!

You're A Rock Star! MFT Sneak Peek

2009-02-02T10:00:00.000-05:00

Talk about bling!!! Here's an MFTeaser of the new "Bling 'Bet" set being released by My Favorite Things this Thursday night - you guys are gonna LOVE this alphabet - it's the first of it's kind - the letters have open holes on them where you can perfectly place 4MM crystals or gemstones into them and really bling your letters up!! For the letters on my pocket card - I stamped them in black and then added some sticky-backed gemstones from Hobby Lobby to them. This is just like a normal pocket card - I just added some decorative edging to the flap of the pocket with the Martha Stewart Zig Zag punch. I added a star die cut insted of a pull tab to lift the insert out of the pocket card. The words "You're a ROCK" came from one of the sentiments out of the previously released BC Dzyns "Hey Chica" set. The paper is from the DCWV Rock Star stack (of course) - hee hee...this card really is SO shiny in real life - not only are the letters blinged out - but the stars were die cut from shiny silver paper from the DCWV Metallic Stack. And let me tell you - there is SO much more you can do with this alphabet - but....hmm...I think that may be a story for another day - hee hee...*wink* *wink*

And as always...My Favorite Things (www.mftstamps.com) is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, Februray 4th from 9-10 p.m. EST. This month there are THREE new sets being released including a Who's that Girl set that is GOING DIGITAL!Head over to the MFT forum on www.splitcoaststampers.com to find out all the details and to find out how YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer. We hope to see you there on Wednesday night!!

Celebrate Freedom Riley Sneak Peek

2009-02-02T07:23:00.002-05:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and that you're all geared up for another week of FABULOUS releases!! I'm gonna kick off the sneak peeks on my blog with a peek one of the 2 brand new Rileys being released this Thursday night by Hanna Stamps - isn't he awesome!? This is my card for last Friday's Hanna Stamps challenge - Ilina gave us a really cool sketch - you can check it out here. The sketch turned out perfect for my stars and stripes patterened paper!! The paper is from last summer's Die Cuts with a View Summer stack. I colored my Riley in with Copics and used my Copic multiliner pen to make some dots to look like he was standing in some sand. The sentiment is from the Stampendous "Freedom Cupcakes" set from last July and just perfect for our G.I. Riley! The stars are punched and accented with a small gemstone.

Thanks so much for stopping by - I hope to see you all at the Hanna Stamps Release Party this Thursday night from 9-11 PM EST - we have fun challenges lined up for you and you know how Kristi and Vicki love their giveaway questions - LOL!! Be sure to stop by the other Hanna Stamps Design Team members' blogs for more peeks and I'll have some more for you later today too! ;)

Clean and Simple (and a little twisted)

2009-01-30T11:00:00.004-05:00

Happy Friday!! YAY!! I am so glad Friday is here - it's been quite a week - with the snow storm and b-days and my in-laws are coming in for the weekend - so I am thankful that today's Limited Supplies challenge over on SCS was to make a CAS (clean and simple) card - something I can make quick - LOL!! (I've still got lots of tidy-ing up to do!) You can view today's challenge here. So this is probably my first ever true CAS card - if you follow my blog - you know I love my colors and layers and embellies - so this was an actual challenge for me! I am always so envious of those that can put a striking CAS card together - I think those are the most beautiful cards - and definitely a lot quicker than one with all the layers and such. So this is my attempt at a CAS card - I know - a bit twisted - but you know A LOT of boys would love this card for their birthday - LOL!! The original idea to hang the spiders off the card came from a STUNNING card made for our last release by the one and only Jeanne Streiff - you can view her card here. This card was SO quick to put together - I stamped all my bugs (from the Hanna Stamps "Backyard Dwellers" set) first - I colored them in with just a hint of color with my Copics. I then drew little dotted lines so that my poor little grasshoppers could quickly "hop" away from those advancing spiders - hee hee...then poked a small hole in the end of each of my spiders and threaded some white embrodiery floss thru for their "webs". I mixed up some Stampendous sentiments to get my sentiment the way I wanted it on my olive strip and then put a black brad on for an accent - and boom - all done - LOL!! I really do LOVE how this turned out - I've been having more fun with this Backyard Dwellers set than I thought I would - it's turning out to be one of my "go-to" sets - I would HIGHLY reccommend this set - it's fun!! Thanks so much for stopping by - hope you all have a wonderful weekend - I'll be back for release week on Monday - YAY!!!

A Country Girl's Cocktails

2009-01-29T15:33:00.003-05:00

Everyone knows that a country girl's cocktail of choice is beer - LOL!! (Well - unless you believe the Toby Keith song and then it's whiskey - hee hee...) This crazy card is my submission for today's Ways to Use It challenge over on SCS - today's challenge is to use alcohol - it can be alcohol inks, a technique with rubbing alcohol, alcohol markers, alcohol image, etc. - you can view the challenge details here. I used "Hay Hanna" from Hanna Stamps for my card today - she holds a special place in my heart as I grew up as a country girl here in small town Indiana. I colored her in with my Copic markers - which are alcohol ink markers - you really gotta love the amazing blendability of the ink in these markers. And then in the spirit of the challenge - I added an alcohol themed stamp to my image - I masked off my Hanna image and then stamped the beer image from the Hanna Stamps "Mikey" set behind her to look like she was holding it in her hands behind her back. I chose some red gingham DP to match her shirt - it is made by Die Cuts with a View. I added some black brads and some black layering to my cards to make that red pop a little more. I also tied some ribbon to one of those little swirl-y clips and attached it to my image for a little accent. The sentiment is from one of those little Inkadinkado $1 stamp sets. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Slow Down and Stamp!

2009-01-28T12:11:00.007-05:00

Happy Wednesday!! Well - we are buried under about a foot of snow here in central Indiana - so I took that as a sign this morning that someone was telling me to "Slow Down and Stamp!" - LOL!! We've been SO busy these past few days - we left Friday for a weekend trip to Chicago and then spent the past couple of days trying to get caught up from being gone and preparing for my hubby's 35 b-day yesterday! I hadn't been able to stamp since Friday - so it felt good to do some stamping this morning! I made a card for today's SCS sketch challenge - you can view the sketch here. I used one of my most favorite MFT sets of all-time - the "Maid For You" set - I paper pieced the wallpaper on the image with some MFT digital paper from the new Stephanie Fizer line - it's the Spring paper pak. I used the paper toile technique on the rest of this image and colored it in with Copics as well. I wanted to showcase my little flowers on my card - here's a close-up of them...
I didn't have any yellow Primas in my stash to match my paper - so I decided to use some of my new Shimmerz to make some pretty little punched flowers to match!! Shimmerz are this week's featured product for MFT's Weekly Wow - and they are YUMMY!! Here's a link to all the shimmerz in the MFT store. I made my flowers by first punching them out of white cardstock - I then colored them with a pale yellow Copic marker - the reason I did this was because the Shimmerz are a bit transparent in their color and wanted my color to by more opaque. Once I had them colored - I brushed a wash of Golden Wheat Shimmerz over then - and wow - did that really make a difference - my little paper flowers turned into some little beauties!! I put some black brads in the center and then put them on my card. Want more fabulous Shimmerz ideas??? Check out Kimmie's HTDT? Tutorial over on SCS - here's a link - it is FABULOUS!!!! Thanks so much for stopping by - we're off to play in the snow!!

My Heart is Yours

2009-01-22T12:50:00.003-05:00

So are you loving the new BC Dzyns chica as much as I am??? I just adore the Heartbreaker set - and do you know what else is cool about these images?? The images of our sweet gals are so defined and crisp - that the facial recognition on my camera is able to focus on the faces of the BC Dzyns girls - talk about great images! I went a little challenge happy with this card - it's for the MFT sketch challenge for today and also for today's Ways To Use It challenge - today's challenge was ways to "pizzazz" up your patterned paper. I took some of that adorable digital paper from MFT (from the Stephanie Fizer summer pak) - and added blue gemstones to the centers of all the white hearts to "jazz" up my paper. In the spirit of the challenge - I also spruced up some plain ol' white cardstock punched flowers with some of the same blue gemstones - kinda looks like the paper and the flowers came in a hit, doesn't it? I colored my entire image in with Copics and cut her out. The sentiment is from the new "Heartbreaker" set as well. Thanks so much for stopping by (again) - hee hee...!!!!

Bad to the Bone

2009-01-22T12:43:00.002-05:00

Hee hee...OK - so Riley's really not that bad to the bone - but he sure likes to think he is on his motorcycle - LOL!! This is a card I did for yesterday's sketch challenge over on SCS - you can view the challenge and the sketch here. I wanted to do a nice clean masculine card with this Riley and I've been thinking about him with these colors for a long time - and metal of course - when you think of motorcycles - you definitely think metal. I colored my Riley in with Copics - then cut him out using my Labels1 Nesties - I really like this shape. My skinny gray panel was embossed with the Cuttlebug Skeleton Scroll embossing folder (from Halloween) and the paper on my bigger panel is from the DCWV Rock Star stack. I used a metal bookplate from my stash to display my sentiment (which was computer generated) and then accented my card with some brads. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

A Heartbreakin' MFT Blog Hop!

2009-01-21T00:00:00.003-05:00

It's that time again - welcome to today's MFT Blog Hop Around the Block!! If you haven't hopped over here from Kim's blog - then hop back over there to start and I'll see you when you get back! ;) MFT is releasing 2 must have sets today - the new BC Dzyns "Heartbreaker" set and a sentiment set designed to go with the Isabelle Paper Doll set - the sentiments are SO adorable in it and very versatile too - I'll be reaching for this one quite a bit! The first card I have for you today was done with the new BC Dzyns chica - isn't she absolutely adorable!? I stamped her first - then colored her in with Copics and cut her out. I paper pieced her heart she is leaning on - I actually stamped it twice on my patterned paper - pieced it on once - and then drew a crack for a broken heart on the other heart I stamped - cut the "broken" half off - then pieced it on the first heart with pop dots, make sense? LOL!! I used some of the new MFT digital paper on this card - from the Stephanie Fizer summer line - I am LOVIN' the new digi papers - you must try them out - they are so fun! Once I had my chica cut out and her heart pieced on - I adhered her to some circles I cut with my Nesties - then placed some Hero Arts gemstones around her. The pink panel was embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder. The sentiment is from the new "Heartbreaker" set as well. But that's not all I have for you today...

Now I know we all {heart} little Isabelle from the previously released Paper Doll set - so how about a sentiment set to go with her?? Kim has put together just the most adorable little set of sentiments to go with the Paper Doll set - this one is just perfect for Isabelle dressed up in her tutu. I did some masking to get Isabelle in her tutu - then drew in the flooring, ballet bar and mirror behind her to look like she is looking oh so sweet in her Ballet Studio. I mounted the new sentiment on hearts cut with my Nesties. The background was embossed with the CB Swiss Dots folder. I did the ribbon treatment with a mix of a couple of ribbons - I started by gathering a piece of pink organdy ribbon into folds and then sewed a seam at the top once I had it gathered to hold the folds in place. I topped it off with some beautiful ribbon done with flowers and pearls and then added my ribbon to the bottom of my card.

And this is only the start of another amazing MFT Blog Hop - continue on to the uber-talented and super adorable Chelsey's blog for more MFT eye candy - oh - and be on the look out for BLOG CANDY as you hop! Be sure to check out all the What's Up Wednesday? fun on the MFT forum over on SCS - there's a new tutorial, challenge and you know Kim'll hook you up with an awesome MFT deal too!! Enjoy - thanks so much for stopping by!!

When Pigs Fly!

2009-01-18T11:20:00.004-05:00

A card on a Sunday!? Am I on the right blog!? LOL!! Hee hee...yup - you aren't seeing things - I have something to share on a Sunday - woo hoo! I decided to take the leap and play in the SCS Featured Stamper challenge this morning - and what an awesome week to start playing in this challenge - this week's featured stamper is the very talented Lori Craig - you can view the challenge here. I chose this ADORABLE card from Lori's gallery to case - I changed the main image and the color combo. I also moved my ribbon to the bottom of the card - my little piggies weren't cooperating with it up by the mail panel - LOL!! I kept the layout of Lori's card and the overall sweet "punny" feel of her card. I didn't have a background stamp to match my piggies - so I did my background with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder. The pig image is from the Hanna Stamps "Hay Hanna" set - I had to do some masking to get the wings on my pigs to make them fly - hee hee...I colored them in with Copics and added some Stickles to their wings. The sentiment is from the Hanna Stamps "Just What I Meant to Say" set. Thanks so much for stopping by - have a wonderful Sunday!!

My Funny Valentine

2009-01-16T12:21:00.003-05:00

TGIF!! And OMG - I hope you are all staying warm - our school has been cancelled for the day on account of the fact that it's just too flippin' cold to be outside - we are just north of Indianapolis and I know those of you even further north and into Minnesota are REALLY feeling all of this - so PLEASE be careful in this arctic air - it's scary how fast frostbite can set in out in this. So we are bundled up inside today - my kiddos are having fun with new birthday toys and I was able to do some stamping this morning. There is the most fun limited supplies challenge on SCS today - it's such an adorable challenge - you can check it out here - but basically it's to make one of those little cheesy valentines we used to get in school when we were little - and it has to be simple enough to mass produce - so limit layers, embellies, etc. I modeled mine after those little valentines we use to get where you could slide the suckers into them, remember those? Well - this one is definitely NOT appropriate for a child's valentine - but how fun would it be to pass out to our friends, co-workers, etc.!! Hee hee...a little cheesy grown-up valentine...LOL!! I used the new "Backyard Dwellers" set from Hanna Stamps - I am LOVING this set by the way - I am started to really understand the fascination with insect sets - they are fun and versatile to boot. I stamped some white bugs from the set all over the black panel using Moonlight White Brilliance ink. I didn't have one of those heart lollipops - so I had to make my own using heart nesties and a candy stick. The mosquito is from the Hanna set as well - I stamped him and then just added a hint of shading with my Copics. The sentiment was done using Doodlebugs Simply Sweet rub-ons - but had I been mass producing these - I would have printed them out using my computer. To finish off my funny valentine - I added some ribbon to the bottom and cut some slits so I could slide my "sucker" thru. Thanks so much for stopping by - STAY WARM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lotsa Flopsey Love

2009-01-15T13:30:00.004-05:00

Brrr....OMG - it's cold today!! Our temps here in central Indiana are well below zero and our windchill is about 25 below zero - needless to say - I am staying bundled up inside with my stamps today - LOL!! Our schools were on a 2 hour delay this morning because of the cold - which worked out perfectly for my oldest DS - it's his birthday today (he's turning 7) - he got to sleep in and Mommy made him cinnamon rolls and everything! Hee hee...I can't believe my baby is 7 years old - he's just an amazing little boy really and I am truly blessed to have him for another year - so Happy Birthday, baby boy - I hope you're having a wonderful b-day afternoon at school!! Anywho - I made this card for today's MFT sketch challenge - you can view Frances' awesome sketch here. I am starting to think I have a weekly theme going on around here this week - masking. I masked my image yesterday and I did lots of masking with sweet Valentine Flopsey to create this little scene of Flopseys today. Once I had all my Flopseys stamped - I colored them all in with my Copics. That fabulous paper in the background is MFT Digi Paper from the new spring paper pak - this paper is delish I'm telling ya!! My heart accents were cut using my heart nesties - I also embossed them with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots embossing folder. I am not sure where the "XO" ribbon came from - I think it was Michael's - it's been in my stash for a loooooooooong time. Thanks so much for stopping by today - I hope you are all having a wonderful Thursday and STAY WARM today - I'm off to frost some cupcakes!!

Running Nose??

2009-01-14T12:55:00.003-05:00

Happy Wednesday!! Hope everyone is having a wonderful week - it's cold and snow-y here in central Indiana and after trudging around all morning in the snow getting kids to school - it was so nice to sit in my warm studio and do some stamping - LOL! Which brings me to the card I have to share today...so last week I was in Archiver's - cruising around - drooling over all the new stamps when I spotted some familiar stamps out of the corner of my eye - and there - right on the front counter - with a big sign that said "New at Archiver's" was stamps by Our Craft Lounge!! OMG - I totally geeked out - I have been wanting some of these stamps ever since they were released and it's just so cool to know where they came from, kwim? (Our Craft Lounge is co-owned by Cami Turnbow, Marianne Walker and Joy Kennedy.) Soooooooooooo....I snagged a couple of sets and am so excited to finally get a chance to ink them up today and OMG - I am in love with this "Running Sick" set - the images and sentiments are SO funny and just right up my alley!! I made this card for today's sketch challenge - you can view the sketch here - I had a blast with this one. I flipped the sketch and made it longer to fit my image. For my image - I used the tissue box and nose from the OCL set - I did have to do some masking to get the tissue boxes chasing the poor nose. The entire image was colored in with Copics. The paper is from the My Mind's Eye Just Dreamy glitter stack. The stars are die cuts cut with my Cricut and the star brads are from JoAnn's. I accented the bottom star with some ribbon and a button. Thanks so much for stopping by - and the next time you are in Archiver's - check out the OCL stamps - they are AWESOME!!!

Caught In Your Web of Love

2009-01-09T07:25:00.003-05:00

Happy Friday everyone!! What a week - I feel like I have a "Release Week Hangover" right now - LOL!! I wanted to share my card I did using the new "Backyard Dwellers" set released last night by Hanna Stamps. This set is the ultimate insect set - it has all kinds of creepy crawlie bugs in it and the detail on them is amazing!! I used the spider and some of the little bugs in the set to make this card - I colored the spider in with Copics and then did some shading underneath him which I think makes him look even more real. I stamped little flys all over the gray panel. I punched a tiny hole behind the spider and threaded some white embrodiery floss to make him look like he had just spun his web around the heart. I did the sentiment using Simply Sweet rub-ons by Doodlebug. Be sure to check out Vicki's challenge to buy the new Backyard Dwellers set and use it in conjunction with any other stamps - you could win 2 stamp sets of your choice at the next release party - WOW!! I hope everyone has a wonderful Friday - I am off to do some birthday shopping for my soon to be 7 year old - yikes - SEVEN!!??? Where does the time go?? Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Riley's Getting "Pumped"!!

2009-01-08T11:50:00.003-05:00

OK - so I was going to stagger my blog posts today a bit more - but after dragging one child out of bed for school this morning and chasing a 3 year old clad in nothing but a pull-up thru the house (it's been one of THOSE mornings) - I decided to use this few spare peaceful moments to go ahead and post this other card I did for today - LOL!! This is the other new Riley that will be released tonight along with motorcycle Riley and 4 Hanna Stamps sets. I did this card for today's Ways to Use It Challenge - today's challenge is to use stars - and I knew the EXACT paper I wanted to use - I am in love with this stack I got at Hobby Lobby called the "Just Dreamy" stack by My Mind's Eye - and it has fun bright glitter-y paper in it - this star paper is from the stack. I colored in Riley to match the colors in the paper and then used my circle nesties to cut him out. I used star brads for the corners of the top panel - I put a little orange Hero Arts gemstone in the center of each one - I think it jazzes those brads up a bit. The sentiment is from the previously released Hanna Stamps "Everyday Sentiments" set - I mounted it on star die cuts I cut with my Cricut machine. To finish off my card - I went nutso with my white gel pen and added all the dots - LOL!! The release party is tonight over on SCS - from 9-11 PM - I hope to see you there - there are LOTS of fun challenges tonight - with prizes for every one of them - fun chatting - and you know how Miss Kristi and Miss Vicki LOVE to ask those little "give-away" questions during the party ;) - so be on the lookout for those tonight as well!! SEE YOU THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Love Owl-Ways

2009-01-08T11:45:00.003-05:00

Happy Thursday!! So did you guys get your new MFT releases last night?? If not - make sure you head over to www.mftstamps.com and get 'em while they're hot - LOL!! I LOVE this new Stephanie Fizer owl set from MFT - my favorite part is all those little extra "doo-dad" stamps that come in the set that you can use to decorate your branch for your owls - makes them perfect for any occasion!! And don't forget to check out the GORGEOUS new digi papers that Kim has in the store - I used some from the Stephanie Fizer Spring line for this card - the papers just print out beautifully!!! This is a card I did for today's MFT sketch challenge over on SCS - you can view Cindy's sketch here - check out the new sketch challenge forum too - now you can find all the fabulous MFT sketches in one place - WOO HOO!! Thanks so much for stopping by!!!

Hanna Loves Her Garden!

2009-01-07T21:40:00.004-05:00

When I first saw the Hanna Stamps "I Love My Garden" set - I thought - OMG - this is such a pretty set - and then I started coloring the images from the set in and thought - OMG - this is a BEAUTIFUL set!!! The images in this set are just gorgeous and I am finding that this set is VERY versatile! The first sneak peek of this set I have for you is using the main Hanna image in the set - I colored her in with Copics and added some shading around her. The flower was stitched using a Bazzill In Stitch'z template and just regular old embrodiery floss - I added some gemstones to the center - I only stitched half the flower so that it would curve around the image. The paper is from the My Mind's Eye Just Dreamy stack and the sentiment is from the Everyday Sentiments set.

Here is my second sample I made using the new "I Love My Garden" set - this sunflower is SO fun to color and could be used for so many different occasions. I colored it in with my Copics and then added a button for the center of the flower. I embossed the yellow panel with my Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder and then used my Martha Stewart Zig Zag edge punch on the bottom. The buttons are just random buttons from my big ol' button jar. The sentiment is from the "Things Hanna Would Say" set. The new sets will be released Thursday night - January 8th - after the release party over on SCS - the party is from 9-11 PM - hope to see you there!!!