Fiesta!

Last night we had family over for a Mexican Fiesta...complete with homemade salsa and margaritas. We had such a good time! The food was so good...I'm still stuffed! We were celebrating a birthday, so I came up with this card to go with the Mexican theme of the evening.


I wish Stampin Up! had some southwestern themed stamps, but since they don't, I had to use this chili pepper stamp that I picked up a while back. The colors used are: Wild Wasabi, Ruby Red and Pumpkin Pie. I think they worked well together for this Mexican themed card. I also got to try out my new photo corner punch...I love that thing! I think I'm going to have to add a wing onto my craft room just to house my punches!


I think the best part of our dinner was my homemade salsa!
A friend of mine makes the best salsa, and I watched her make it again this past weekend. I decided I should attempt to try making it again. Last year I made some but it just wasn't as good as what Brenda makes...this time it was just as good, maybe even better. (but don't tell Brenda! hehehe)
It had to be my homegrown Roma tomatoes (with a few other varieties mixed in) and Jalapeno peppers that went right from my garden into the salsa...doesn't get much fresher than that! The other ingredients I had to purchase: garlic, sweet onion, cilantro and lime. This is what it looked like when I was done - makes you want to grab some chips and dig in!

I made a huge bowl, and after last night there is hardly any left...so I guess I'm not the only one who thought it was good.

The boys are gone and I've got the house to myself this afternoon, so I'm heading downstairs to stamp. Hopefully tomorrow I'll have some new creations to share.

Witching for a special on Autumn themed stamps?

Do you love Halloween and Autumn themed stamp sets as much as I do? Well...I have some good news for you then! I just found out that there will be a special in September where if you spend $30 on regular priced merchandise, you can purchase one of six fall themed sets at 30 percent off! One of the choices is the Haunting Halloween set shown here. This is such a cute set! I've been having fun coloring the images. During the month of September, this set could be yours for only $13.27!



This is another card I created with this set. I just love the little frog...and of course the cat on the broom! I colored him to look like my kitty. I used my inks pooled in the lid of my ink pads to color these images. To get the look of a spooky night time sky I used Blue Bayou ink to color the background, then after it was dry, I came back and added some shading with my black pastels.


On the top sample, I stamped the stars in black and used a little bleach in my aqua painter to bleach out the Basic Grey card stock. Then I went back and water colored the stars with Pumpkin Pie & Summer Sun ink. I like the way it turned out, but I think I need to come up with something a lot simpler for this years Halloween party invitations...can't picture myself creating 40+ of those!


Stamps: Haunting Halloween, Canvas background, Spooky Skyline & Speckled Jumbo wheels
Card stock: Basic Grey, Pumpkin Pie, Perfect Plum, Gable Green & Whisper White
Ink: Black Stazon, Pumpkin Pie, Wild Wasabi and various ink for water coloring
Accessories: Aqua painters, Stamp-a-ma-jig, large Oval punch, orange grosgrain & black gingham ribbon.

The stamp sets available for a 30% discount in September are:

• Bitty Boos Too - $12.57
• Haunting Halloween - $13.27
• Thoroughly Thankful - $16.0
• Autumn Fest - $16.77
• Elementary Essentials -$19.57
• Stem Silhouettes* - $22.37

*this is a set from the Holiday Mini catalog

Kick it up a notch

I recently joined a card swap on SCS with some other SU! demos to exchange card front samples using sets from the upcoming Holiday Mini catalog. I signed up to use the Season of Joy set. I thought I would show you the card I made for this swap today.


This is a little different from the first card I came up with. I liked the layout and everything about my first card, but I decided that I knew I would not have the patience to do the faux stitching on 20 cards! Plus, upon further examination, I didn't have enough Wild Wasabi card stock to mat the large Purely Pomegranate card front on, so this was my final card...simple enough to make 20 of them by the deadline, easy enough to show as a demo, but cute enough to look twice...at least I hope the other swappers think so. ;-)


Here is the other card I came up with...it's just kicked up a notch from my swap card...with a few more details. This shows how you can take a simple idea and expand on it to create something with a little more pizazz.

Stamps: Season of Joy, Canvas background
Ink: Purely Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi
Card stock: Purley Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi
Accessories: ticket corner punch, Wild Wasabi double stitched ribbon, mat pack, white gel pen

It's a gloomy, rainy day here...but I will enjoy it anyways, as I stamp away using some of my goodies that I haven't had a chance to play with yet. Hope you enjoy your day as well!

So Many Sayings

This is such a useful set! Soooo many sayings is right! I got this Level 1 Hostess set with my first new catalog order and have been using it quite a bit, but this is the first time I used it for more than just an accent on a card.

My husband and I celebrated our 22 year wedding anniversary a few days ago and I thought the stamp with all the love phrases would be perfect to make him a card. Good thing I didn't cut this stamp all apart and mount it on separate wood blocks like I originally intended! I figured I'd try it out like it was and could always go back and cut and re-mount if I decided it was a pain to use whole. So far, inking just the phrase I want with a marker or punching out with the window word punch is working just fine for me.

Anyways...back to the card. I used the Rough Around the Edges jumbo wheel inked in Blue Bayou and rolled it randomly all over the same colored card stock. Then I inked the word stamp, also in Blue Bayou and stamped it twice, aligning the second image with the first by using the stamp-a-ma-jig. Then I inked just the portion of the stamp that contained the phrases I wanted to emphasize and stamped those on Soft Sky card stock. I punched those out with my Window word punch but extended the length by first cutting my piece of card stock to 3/8 inch and feeding it thru my punch so it only punches the one end - leaving a nice round tab. As shown in photo at right.

The "i just love you" image is from the Double-Line Doodles set. I punched that out using the 1- 1/4 circle punch and layered it on a 1- 3/8 punch in Purely Pomegranate. For the finishing touches I added the pewter colored eyelets and the Soft Sky double stitched ribbon.

Season of Joy all year!

The Season of Joy set is so cute! I think it will be pretty versatile too. I participated in an online swap with some other demos using this set and I wanted to include a thank you for the swap coordinator and this is what I came up with.

When I was coming up with my composition for this card I originally cut a larger piece of white card stock for the background. When I was done with my stamping, there was too much white space for my liking, so I penciled in a straight line just above the middle flower and cut all around the top flower and the top petal of the middle flower. The last flower on the right was stamped on separate piece of white, cut out and raised up with a stampin' dimensional.

All that cutting was kind of tedious, so when I decided I needed to make another one for my display board I cut a much smaller piece of white card stock to start with and planned my design accordingly. Here is card #2:

This card was much simpler to make, but I still think it's as cute as the first one. For this one I used the Canvas background because there wasn't much room to include a swirl coming out from behind my image like on my first card. I also added some piercing to the corners - this mimics the dotted borders in the image.

Stamps: Season of Joy, So Many Sayings & Canvas

Ink: Groovy Guava, Sage Shadow, Soft Sky & Chocolate Chip marker

Card stock: Sage Shadow, Soft Sky, Groovy Guava & Whisper White

Accessories: Soft Sky double stitched ribbon, mat pack

Big Bold Smelly Cupcake

This card really stinks! Really it does...but in a good way! The icing on the cupcake is scratch and sniff...and it smells like yummy strawberries! This is a really fun and easy way to add scents to your stamping creations.

First you need a bold style stamp set. Any stamp set will do, but sets that have food or beverage images work well with this technique. You will need:

• clear embossing powder
• VersaMark or Craft ink pad
• unsweetened or sugar-free drink mix
• heat tool

It is especially important that you do not use any mix with sugar in it or it will turn brown and crispy when it is heated with your heat tool...not pretty! You can also try sugar-free flavored creamers or coffees, cocoa mix, etc... Play around and have fun, but remember that the drink mix you choose will also effect the color of your project. I found to get the best color for my project shown here, that it worked best to use Craft ink rather than VersaMark ink. I also found that Kool-Aid provided a good color when using the unsweetened little pouch of Strawberry Lemon aid, but sugar-free Jello provided a better scent. So I mixed in a bit of each for my final project.

To mix the scented embossing powder, you will need to mix together 1 part sugar-free drink mix to 1- 1/2 parts clear embossing powder. I put my mixture into a film container for airtight storage. Then you would just use it like you would any other embossing powder. Ink your image with VersaMark or craft ink, sprinkle on your special mixed powder, and heat emboss with your heat tool.

Stamps: Big Bold Birthday

Card stock: Soft Sky, Blush Blossom & Regal Rose

Ink: Pretty in Pink Craft, Blush Blossom Craft, Soft Sky & Regal Rose

Accessories: White gel pen, So Saffron marker and Soft Sky double-stitched ribbon.

Tigers with a side of Carte Postale

We went to the Tigers game last night. What an exciting game! We saw two grand slam home runs...wish I could say they were both hit by Tigers, but that wasn't the case. The first one was from the Tigers and it brought them from behind to ahead by one point...that was really exciting! But, the second grand slam of the game was hit by Oakland and put the Tigers behind...again...and they never ended up recovering after that. The final score was 10-16 - Oakland. It was still a lot of fun, but I feel whipped today...my throat is hoarse from all the screaming. It was a long game, but lots of action, so it was fun even tho they lost. Plus, in all the games I've ever been to, I had never seen anyone hit a grand slam - now I can say I saw two!


My Mom & my Step dad are celebrating their 1st wedding anniversary today, so I made them this card. I wanted it to be very elegant looking, and I think I achieved that goal with this card. I used the new Basic Gray card stock and ink from Stampin' Up! (not to be confused with the company called Basic Grey who makes such gorgeous patterned papers) Anyways...I just love this new color! I'm sure I'll be using it lots!


I wish my scan would have shown the colors a little truer, but I had to prop the lid open a bit to allow for the popped up medallion. This one really does look so much better in person. The medallion consists of many layers popped up and embossed with pewter embossing powder and that doesn't show up well. The other card stock used is Elegant Eggplant and Perfect Plum, but they look so much lighter & brighter in this scan...oh well. At least you can see how nicely the Carte Postale & Baroque Motifs sets work together.


Have a great day!

How cool is that?

If you're like me, I bet you love holiday stamp sets! Today I received a box full of Holiday Mini catalogs and my pre-ordered mini sets from this catalog. So, what's so cool and exciting about that? Well, let me tell you...ALL the sets in this new Holiday Mini catalog are die cut! Is that sweet or what? That means that there's no trimming away of excess rubber. Just break them apart, peel the adhesive and mount them on the wood as desired. Super quick & easy! I had my 2 sets mounted in no time!

Wait until you see all the fantastic new sets in this catalog! For now, I chose my two favorites - Autumn Harvest & Season of Joy...but I'm sure that before the end of November, when this mini expires, that a few more sets will mysteriously find their way to my house! hehehe

Let me know it you would like a copy of this Holiday Mini Collection and I'll make sure you get one.

I've been busy this past week working on a scrapbook project, so I don't have anything new to show you. I decided to try my luck at entering a contest that Stampin' Up! offers each month to their demos. This is the first one I've ever entered. The theme was Halloween scrapbook pages. Since I've got a whole scrapbook dedicated to just Halloween, I knew I had to enter! After obsessing over and tweaking the pages all week, I finally finished them today and got them mailed off. I wish I could show you my finished pages, but I'll have to wait on that. For now...please send good vibes my way. I want to win! :-)

Tomorrow we're off to Detroit with a bunch of family- we'll enjoy a late lunch in Mexican town (yum!) and then a Tigers game. I probably won't be posting over the weekend...so have a good one!

Many Bundles of Joy

The past couple of weeks I have been hearing all sorts of great baby news! First off, a member of my downline just became the grandmother of triplets! Can you image? How exciting is that? Then I heard some more wonderful baby news last time I got together with my stamp club ladies. One of them is expecting her first child! What an exciting time for her and her husband!

Lucky for me that I had just gotten the super cute Bundle of Joy set. (I had been eyeing this set since it was in the spring Mini catalog...don't know what took me so long to buy it?) Now I actually even have a reason to create some fun baby stuff!

I can not yet post what I made for the new grandma of triplets, because I haven't given it to her yet. (and it's killing me, because it's so cute!) As far as my expecting friend, I know she already received my congratulations card, so it is OK to post it here without ruining the surprise. I sure didn't want her to see it here before it came in the mail!

I made her a fun pocket card and it turned out pretty darn cute, if I do say so myself! I just love the little giraffe and teddy bear images in this set...they're too cute! Anyways...on to the details:


Stamps: Bundle of Joy, Flannel Plaid background, Fancy Flexible Sayings
Card stock: Blush Blossom, Soft Sky, Barely Banana & SU! Watercolor paper
Ink: Blush Blossom Craft, Soft Sky, White Craft and Black Stazon, various for water coloring
Accessories: Aqua Painter, Sticky strip, Stampin' Dimensionals, Tab, Ticket Corner and Corner Rounder punches, Soft Sky Double Stitched ribbon, Pink gingham, button brads from my stash - can't remember who makes these - possibly Making Memories?