Happy Spring From Michigan!

Yesterday morning I awoke to another beautiful "Spring" day here in Michigan. Even though I am sick of snow and more than ready to see green instead of white, I have to admit this sight from my front window sure was pretty! The way the snow glistened in the early morning sunlight looked magical and sent me running for my camera. However...I sincerely hope that this is the last pretty winter scene I photograph for a while! I WANT SPRING!!!

OK...now that I got that off my chest I have a pretty springy card to share with you. I made this for my Aunt's birthday this week using some of the new Afternoon Tea designer paper. I think this might be my favorite assortment yet! It is just gorgeous!

I stamped the poppy image from the Bloomin' Beautiful set and water colored using classic inks and aqua painter then added the Sanded background stamp inked in Soft Sky over the top of it. I used it on the base of my card also. It seems like I cannot create a card lately without using the corner rounder to add some kind of scalloped border. It just adds such a nice touch...so I used it again here.

Enjoy your weekend! I hope you are somewhere warm!

Morning Glory Notebook

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter! We had a really nice day even though it looked more like Christmas outdoors than it did the start of spring. Funny...we didn't have a "White Christmas" this past year but we had a white Easter! Oh well...I'm sure everything will be turning green and flowers will be popping up before we know it. Until then I'll have to be happy looking at stamped flowers!


I finally got around to altering a notebook for myself, and since I am thinking spring, this detailed, realistic image from the Morning Soft set was what I grabbed. Being that this image was going on the cover of a notebook which would get handled a lot, I wanted something that would provide a little protection to my finished work. I figured doing the cracked glass technique would be just the ticket. If you've never tried this technique you should give it a try...it's fun and the result is pretty cool. Here's how to do it:

1. Water colored your image
2. Cover it with ink applied directly to the paper from the Versa Mark pad.
3. Cover with Glassy Glaze embossing powder
4. Emboss using your heat tool - this provides an extra thick, clear coat.
5. Place the embossed image in the freezer for a minute or two
6. Here's the fun part: take it out and carefully bend and twist the embossed card stock...it will crack as you bend it creating a crackled look. Keep going until you get it cracked into a pleasing pattern. You may have to return the piece to the freezer again to stiffen up.
7. If you want to highlight the cracks even more, you can sponge on some ink which will settle in the cracks. I did this on mine using So Saffron reinker.

Here's another photo showing a close up view of the cracked glass.

The background paper is from the Porcelain Prints collection of double-sided designer papers. I applied it using Royal Decoupage medium. I knew I wanted to use this notebook to keep track of my stamping stuff so I added some card stock category dividers using the Spiral punch and some tabs to the side with the Round Tab punch.

The notebook was purchased at Target. If you want to see what it looked like before I started click here. Now I can use this notebook to keep my business papers more organized. (no more post-its all over!)

Well, gotta run...I'm in the process of creating a project that I'm really excited about. Hopefully I'll have it ready to share later this week. Thanks for stopping by! Have a great day!

Pretty O'Plum

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone! Since I don't have any stamps for this occasion, hopefully the Wild Wasabi on this card will lend enough of a festive feel to today's post! I know I'm feeling a bit festive...the snow here has almost melted and I even spotted a robin outside my window, so I'm definitely ready for spring! This Spring Song stamp set is just perfect for my mood.

I water colored the image using ink from my classic ink pads and my aqua painter. The Floral background was stamped using Elegant Eggplant on it's coordinating card stock and Perfect Plum. (my photo doesn't show the Eggplant layer as well...but it's there)

I dyed the silk flowers from the Pretties kit using the Eggplant & Plum ink pads...just kind of smoosh it on the pad and then blend the ink with the aqua painter.

The sentiments are from the SAB set Lots of Thoughts.

Enjoy your day...but don't drink too much green beer!

Easter Whimsy

I've been so busy with other things this past week I haven't had much time to stamp, post here or even browse other blogs. On my last post here I mentioned my Mother-in-law was in the hospital. Thank you to everyone who had well wishes for her. She is now out of the hospital and doing much better!

Last night my Hostess Club got together, so I'll share the projects I prepared for the group. Hope you don't mind another Garden Whimsy card! This set is just so perfect for Spring, and since I don't have any current Easter sets I thought these tulips would work great for our Easter themed projects. The Flowers For You designer papers just screams spring to me also, so I used the lavender sheet on this card. My favorite part of this card is the 3-D butterfly. It was stamped twice - one image was punched out using the 1-3/8" circle punch being careful to include the antenna, the second image was cut out - except for the antenna and then just the body was adhered in place using the 2-way glue pen so that the wings are free.

The other project we did was this cute little basket with Dove chocolates. I figured I couldn't go wrong if chocolate was involved! The basket was created using an 8-1/2 square of Mellow Moss card stock:

• score at 5-1/2 on each side
• cut each corner off - and you'll have a cross shape remaining
• score each side again at 1" to create the fold down flap
• use corner rounder punch to create scallop edge on flap
• wheel with the Whimsy jumbo wheel
• Stamp the flap section with Canvas background
• handle = 7" x 3/4" strip stamped with Trimtastic
• scalloped embellishment on front= So Many Scallops stamped on Lavender Lace + Seeing Spots stamped on Mellow Moss punched with 1 1/4" circle + Pretty In Pink DP punched with 3/4" circle with So Saffron brad in center.
  

My first attempt at a basket was this one shown at right using the cute little box shown on page 11 in the SAB catalog. I got the pattern from the SU! website which was basically a template for the tiny take out box with the top trimmed off. However, scoring and folding this was kind of tedious and in the end I had to really fool with it to get it assembled properly. The shape is really cute, but you do need a little patience for this one, that's why I opted for the easier version above for our March stamp club project. If you're up for the challenge, email me for the template. (I couldn't figure out how to post it here)

Just a reminder...only a few more days left for the Sale-A-Bration promo...last day for orders is March 17th.

Enjoy your weekend!

Garden Whimsey X3

Sorry I haven't posted anything in several days, but unfortunately we've had a medical emergency in our family. My Mother-in-Law was admitted to the hospital on Wednesday and I've been spending a lot of time up there with her. We are hoping and praying she will make a full recovery.

Today I am sharing a group of cards that we made at my All Occasion Card Class last weekend. As you can see, I used the same layout and stamps, but changed up the colors for more variety. This first one uses one of my favorite color combos right now ~ Pumpkin, Pomegranate & Soft Sky.

The Rock'n Roll technique works great with the bold images in this set...first ink your stamp in the lightest color then rock 'n roll the stamp in a darker color. I think this adds a lot more detail to the image and it's so easy!

Another color combo I've been using quite a bit lately is Pretty in Pink with Close to Cocoa. I decided to use those two colors along with Sage Shadow for this next card. The result is a very soft and calming color combo...perfect for spring. I added a little extra detail to this one with the ladybugs...I think they were getting a little jealous that the large butterfly image was getting all the attention, so I had to show them a little love (shhhh...don't say anything but the butterfly is my favorite!)

Another color combo that is perfect for spring is shown on the last card ~ Regal Rose, So Saffron and Soft Sky. This one was even quicker to create because I didn't cut out the butterfly, and just matted it instead.

See how easy it is to make a variety of cards just by changing the colors and a few accessories?

Have a great weekend!

Pretty Puppy

I wanted to make a feminine card using this set since all of my other creations using the images from the new For Father set have been masculine. I think it turned out pretty cute! I used the color scheme from the Berry Bliss papers as my color inspiration. (I just love those papers!) Don't you just want a pair of these pink boots now?

The word "Thanks" is from the Make it Count hostess set. I've had that set since my first big catalog order in January, but wasn't sure if I should mount it the way I was considering mounting it or just leave it the way it was. If you're not familiar with the set, each word has a {bracket on the left side of the word. I wasn't too sure I liked having just the one { as much as I would have liked having one on {either side} of each word. So I finally decided and separated the { from each word and mounted it on the side of the block. I think it makes this set a lot more versatile, and I'm glad I did it. I'll try to take a photo of how I mounted it and add it later so you can see what I mean.
Edited to add photo ~ I finally had a chance to take a photo of this set. Just so you know that there is definitely room to trim off the { on each stamp and mount it on the side. I mounted the rubber on the right side of the block so that I could still easily use my stamp-a-ma-jig with the set if I choose to. Also, instead of centering each word, I mounted them on the left edge so it is easier to see where I'm stamping.


The girls loved the cards we made using this set at my card class yesterday. I know I enjoyed my afternoon of stamping, snacking and girl talk with you! Thanks for signing up for my class ladies! You guys made my day yesterday!



Today Denise made my day for passing on the "You make my day award!" That was so sweet! You need to check out her blog...she always has great projects, plus...she started another blog called Lovin' Stampin' Up! which lists tons of other awesome Stampin' Up! only blogs. Also making my day was Laurie at Tip Junkie for show casing an altered notebook I made on her blog along with many other beautiful altered journals and notebooks. Thanks Laurie! I am also passing on this award to everyone who stops by here regularly and takes the time to leave me a comment...especially my friend Cheri who has always taken the time to leave me comments of encouragement from the very beginning...I used to joke saying I think she was my only reader. She doesn't have a blog, but I still wanted to pass this award onto her anyways...because she's one of the nicest people I know and she always makes my day!

Have a wonderful day!

Morning Soft

Today I would like to start off by saying thank you so much to all the nice people who have been reading my blog and leaving such nice comments lately. I really do appreciate each one! This past week I have been a bit down and you all have really lifted my spirits more than you know.



Todays card uses a technique that was shown in the January Stampin' Success magazine called Faux Tile. I used the scoring blade on my Fiskers paper cutter to score at each 1" of my plum card stock on a diagonal. Then I used the Floral background stamp over the top of it. The result looks like a tiled background where the scored lines create a subtle grout line. I'm sure you could give even more definition to the "grout" lines by using a darker ink for the background stamp if you chose to.



This beautiful Morning Glory image is from the Morning Soft stamp set. I stamped it onto water color paper with Black Stazon and then used my aqua painter and inks to color it. The finishing touch was a stick pin adorned with clear beads and pearls from the Pretties Kit.


I received this blogger award from both Maren at Zany Not Crazy and Heidi at Embellished Dreams . (Maren actually nominated me a while ago and I couldn't figure out how to include the badge (duh! turned out to be so simple)...and then I forgot. ooops!) Anyways...both of these ladies are extremely talented...so make sure to check out their blogs! Thanks Maren & Heidi! I need to do some blog cruising later and I'll pass this award onto some other great blogs...but right now I need to prepare card kits for a class tomorrow.

OK...I finally had some free time to spend blog hopping...there sure are some great ones out there!!! Here are a few that I am passing on the Excellent Blogger award to...I'm sure you will love their work as much as I do, so be sure to check them out! Nancy at iSTAMP , Shelley at Mocha Memories and Marilyn at Stamp With Marilyn.