Sweet Baby Card

I got a bunch of the paper pads from Crafty Secrets, and squealed when I saw this chenille patterned paper! Look how cute and cuddly it is!

I immediately thought BABY CARD! The lace at the bottom is vintage, with May Arts polka dot sheer bows tied in between.

I got a huge box of lace at a garage sale for $3.00. AYE CARAMBA WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? Look at how sweet it is all rolled up on this vintage spool! (Thanks PIRIS!)
Even if you don't sew, who cares? THREE DOLLAHS!

ARE THERE GARAGE SALERS OUT THERE? ARE YOU REVVED UP FOR SUMMER AND GARAGE-SALE SEASON? TAWK TO ME! What's the best deal you've ever gotten when you're out 'sale-ing'?

BTW, the chenille paper is in the "pastel" pad.
http://www.craftysecrets.com/popup/product%20pages/hvp03pastel.htm

Poker night!

This awesomely tacky "dogs-playing-cards" image is so perfect for a pack of playing cards for your favorite poker-loving guy! I'm still playing with the "Wacky and Wonderful" vintage images from www.craftysecrets.com!

The boxes I got at Oriental Trading co. CHEAP! $4.95 for 12 boxes! (www.orientaltrading.com, search for large drawer boxes). The paper around the box is a Cosmo Cricket faux-wood pattern from Halfway Cafe. Crowns from "birdnotes" set, crafty secrets.

DON'T LET IT GET AWAY~

I was going to save this for Father's day but it matches my banner, so I'm POSTIN' IT!

You guys are going to get so sick of vintage, but I'm so digging all these images! www.craftysecrets.com

I gotta tell you, I've been an antiquer (is that a word? If it is, I know it's spelled wrong) for years, and always have purchased old victorian postcards in hopes that I'd be able to make cards with them. I think that's why I'm loving these images from crafty secrets, they are already reduced down to a good size for cardmaking.

Plus you can find cool paper to match them. Daisy D's and cosmo cricket have these great western-looking papers out right now. This stripe is Cosmo Cricket Halfway Cafe 'flagstaff'. I couldn't believe how well it matched these fishing guys!

You gotta look close but there is twine for the fish line, and I also poked holes in the black cardstock and made x's across it with the same black twine. I used the tiny hole punch that you use for brads, so my needle doesn't wrinkle the paper. The water is colored in with a clear Sakura gellyroll glitter pen.

Makes me wanna head up to the cabin. One week until we open it up! YAHOO!

Cheater cheater!

So most of you guys know by now I'm a shabby, vintage kind of chick. (AND DO NOT TELL ME IT'S BECAUSE I'M 42) *&$*%#@!!! So I was SO excited when friend Carol sent me a link to Crafty Secrets! I ordered some of the acrylic stamps and discovered to my delight that they also sell these cool little books of vintage images that have been reduced down to a manageable size to put on cards! I started playing with them the other night, and let me tell you, a monster has been created. On Saturday my girlfriend Bean is coming over and we're stamping the day away. Be prepped for a lotta vintage stuff comin' your way! This is one of the cards I did. It's a little rascals-type image, and the cool thing is there are words and sayings right in the pack, along with the images!

I tried to get a good pic of some of the images (see left) but photography is NOT one of my talents.

So why is this post labeled cheater cheater? Because if you look at the "king of the castle & all his little rascals" it looks like I used the Stampin up 'ticket' corner punch to embellish the corners. Instead, I just used a regular hole punch and eyeballed it, saving me the $6.00 for the punch. And shipping and handling. HA. Queen of cheap!

Here's how I did the corners...I took off the little flap that normally catches the punched paper, and turned the punch so that I could see how much of the corner is in the punch. Do it to all 4 sides, and there's your ticket punch. Hmph. Now I get to order more stuff from crafty secrets, right? LOL

http://www.craftysecrets.com/booklets.htm

Shabby Bees

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Friend Bev Barton sent me this blue crayon box as a decorating challenge. I love that it fits those $1.00 clearstamps perfectly! The bee stamp is from Eclectic Paperie, by Stampendous (Bee Happy Collection)! I love that you can use your primas with this sweet little bee!

Lisa

http://www.eclecticpaperie.com/bee-happy-collection.html

Faux metal corners!

I bought these metal brads from Oriental Trading Co. and discovered that if you cut the brad part off, you can glue the corners to your cards just like the real metal corners! The advantage is, all you need is glue dots to adhere them! And they're cheap!






Check out all the other fun brads they have! OH SUCH CANDY!


Stamps are by Inky Antics, polka dot paper by Bo Bunny (Heart throb stripe reverse side), green/blue paper is My Mind's Eye Magnolia, and the blue floral paper is unknown.




Thanks Bevie for the great inky images!

Here are the brads from OTC:

http://www.orientaltrading.com/application?namespace=browse&No=32&sp=true&Ntk=all&Ntx=mode%2bmatchallpartial&event=catalog&N=377488&origin=catalogProducts.jsp

Do you like my new banner? I've been collecting vintage pillowcases for years. My banner is a scan of the pillow to the right. I love old floral pillow ticking, the shabbier the better! My family all looks for these pillows for me whenever they are out estate or garage sale-ing. My sister paid a DOLLAR for this one! OMG!

I am so thrilled that Anna Griffin and Daisy D's have been coming out with such fun shabby patterned paper. The cards below were made with this gorgeous purple "Blue Bell Paisley" paper from Daisy D's for Archivers.

My Grammie requested some sympathy cards, so I thought the pastel colors in this paisley would be perfect. The stamps are all SU, "Happy Harmony" and "Brighter tomorrow". I love using the Marvy Giga round scallop punch with these flowers.

Organization.

I always start a project, like re-arranging a room or cleaning, and somehow my attempts at organizing turn into complete chaos and a bigger mess than I started with. Does that happen to anyone else or is it just me? My house is a total disaster area right now so what do I do? Go stamp in the chaos. Avoid, avoid.

My sweet friend Carol H. (HB on Splitcoast) sent me this sweet rack with glass jars on it for my birthday! Lookit how cute it is with ribbons and buttons in it! You can see her incredible artwork here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=872

Here is the unbelievable card she sent.

THANK YOU SWEET GIRL! LOVE YA!

If you look at a closeup, she's used these gorgeous pearls from Ellen Hutson's store:

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http://www.ellenhutson.com/servlet/Categories?category=Tools%2C+Toys+and+Treasures%3ACreative+Candy&searchpath=95603&start=10&total=16

Have a happy Saturday night!

Lisa

Wingin' it.

42. Today's my 42nd birthday. I'm trying to ignore it; if I don't acknowledge it, it goes away, right? Apparently when you turn 42, you tend to nap a lot. I took the day off and by 1pm was on the couch snoring. It could be because I was up at 7am trying to clean the 6 foot tall cat-hair dust bunnies from my bedroom while waiting for the Slumberland guys to deliver my orthopedic bed. Next up, orthopedic shoes and a nursing home tour. Ahhh, gettin' older. Good times.

These cards were made by request for my travel manager. Remember the meeting I staffed during the blizzard? She likes to send these cards out to hotel staff and planners who helped make the meeting successful.

I love making these wings, they don't require a lot of coloring to make them pop! My talented friend Heather Nichols (Pinefeather) taught me this outlining technique, she uses it a lot on her snowmen images. For white images, instead of coloring them in, just outline them with your aquapainter and glitter the outline. The stamps are from SU's "Fashion Statements". So I'm off to dream of angel wings. After all, I'm 42 and it's 9:30, waaaaaaaaay past my bedtime! SNICKER!

Watercoloring 101

Happy Thursday!

Ok, I'm going to try to explain how I watercolor my images. Keep in mind this will be watercoloring 101, because there are many more talented ladies out there that can do a better job than I and have formal training.

Today I'm going to show you 2 types of images, a simple line-art drawing (bella) and a more detailed bird image from clear art stamps. Hopefully this will give you a basic understanding of watercoloring, and give you some practice on it!





Here are the images we'll work with. Let's start with the bellas.








I mainly use my Stampin Up markers & an aquapainter for watercoloring. I'll use 2 colors, a lighter and a slightly darker pink (Pretty in pink and rose romance). First I scribble the markers on an ink pad or piece of plastic. Squeeze your aquapainter lightly and get the tip wet (not dripping wet; wipe it off on a paper towel if it's too drippy). Start with pretty in pink, and go from left to right, making the left 1/2 of the dress dark, and fading off to the right so that the right side is lighter pink. It will create natural shading on line images if you always work with 1/2 of the image dark and the other 1/2 light. Then I'll pick up the darker pink ink, and do the same technique, filling in the left side darker than the right. Keep adding color until you get the effect you want. In this case, I finished off the image with a slight outline of dark pink on the right side of the dress, and filled in the sash and bow directly with the rose romance marker, no aquapainter. Click on the bella photo and take a look at the progression. Your homework: find a stamp that you own that has lots of white space and simple lines; maybe an ornament stamp or a flower, and try the technique. Left side dark, right side light. Ok? And keep in mind, if you don't have markers, you can use your ink pads (squeeze them and get color on the lid of the pad). Also, if you don't have the right colors of pink, you can 'mix' colors. To get a shade in between the 2 pinks, I would mix 1/2 pretty in pink and 1/2 rose romance ink on my 'palette' to create my own shade.

Ok. Now. Let's look at these sweet birdies. Notice how detailed these stamps are. THIS IS GOOD! Don't be intimidated by the detail, it HELPS us a lot! I'm going to use the same theory with these birds, fill in first with the lighter color and then go back over it with the darker color. Here I'm using bliss blue and ballet blue. The top birds are step one: color image with bliss blue on your aquapainter. THEN. On these images, we have help from the detailed lines of the image. Anywhere there are dark detailed lines, I'm going to color in with the darker ballet blue color. The detailed lines indicate where the darker shading should go. Take a closeup look. If you look at my finished card on the top of this post, you'll notice I made 2 colors of birds, yellow and blue, to match my yellow card and blue paper. The yellow birds are done with the same technique, using barely banana and more mustard.

Stamp images by Stamping bella http://www.stampingbella.com/ and Crafty Secrets http://www.craftysecrets.com/.

Whew! Ok. Go play, see whatchoo can come up with!

Ok, here's the card I alluded to earlier this week. Please tell me if it's a been-there-done-that layout, because I like to think I invent new things, only to find out that DUH LZ, that's been done before.

My first thoughts on these bees was to create a hive card, where the door opens up and you see the friendly, 'I'm not out to sting you' bees inside. But since I suck at drawing anything remotely close to a hive, I stuck to a square card with a sort of 'door'. I used a little metal hinge to keep the door closed.

To create the door, I 'floated' the cutting head on my fiskars trimmer so that it started on the inside of my card, not at the edge, and then cut a slit. You can also mark measurement lines on your paper to show you where to cut. (I'm a lazy stamper, therefore I eyeball everything). Then I moved the cardstock over a few inches and cut the same size slit. Am I explaining this ok? To finish, turn the cardstock sideways and connect the 2 slits. To crease the edge of the 'door', I used an embossing stylus to score the fold area of the door.

I layered white paper underneath the green cardstock, then stamped my bees on the inside of the door. Take the image out and then color it. Attach to inside of card when you're finished glittering the beez.

So tomorrow night, I think I'll tell you my lazy-girl watercoloring technique. Tami M (TMarie asked how I watercolor my images on an earlier post. Now I'm not the one you should be taking watercoloring lessons from, I'm by no means an expert in the field here. I'll have to defer to all the DD girls on this one. But I do have some basic tricks for a beginning stamper to use that can help you shade your images. More to follow. (BY THE WAY, HI TAMI M!)

Tiny transparency card.

I thought I'd give you a break from the bees tonite. They're comin' back though! I have a surprise card layout to post with the bees this week, but I need to get better pics of it before I show it to you.

When I stamp, I STAMP, so you'll see a new sample on my blog every day. I figure better to keep things fresh, even if you have to look at bees every day, rather than leave the same stuff up day after day. I have new stamps in the house from Crafty Secrets, so don't worry, I'll be movin' on soon!

I love making these transparency cards. This one was an oopsie that turned out better than I expected. It was a normal sized card to start out, and I stamped 'baby' on the bottom of it and it smeared. So I cut the bottom off, turned it sideways and made it a square card. I like the effect, it pulls your eye straight to the sweet little sleeping baby! This set is an oldie but goodie from SU, it's an old image from "Brides and Babies". I may have to make more like this! Does anyone know if they make envelopes to fit this size card? I think it measures 41/4 x 4 3/4's. Either way, it fits in a standard invite envelope.

I sewed the transparency sheet onto the yellow strip of paper, layering 1st the yellow strip, then the transparency, and then the patterned paper. The baby image was glued on TOP of the transparency with hermafix. If you don't sew, hermafix holds the transparency in place easily, so you can skip the sewing step.

More Bee'zzz Please!

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These bees are so haaaaappy it's spring tomorrow! They're doing a little Junkitz flower dance in honor of warm weather! Ok, I guess it's really me that's doing the happy dance.

It's supposed to reach 60 here by the weekend, and I'm going to fling open all the windows and CLEAN baby!

The flowered paper is by Junkitz, "Flowerful Dots". The floral ribbon is Michaels' cheap-o $1.99 ribbon. The white daisies are Making Memories; I've had them forever but didn't ever have the right place to use them.

Ain't nothing like a clean house. Well, maybe new bee stamps rank right up there. http://www.eclecticpaperie.com/bee-happy-collection.html

Oh you guys.

Joy has created a monster here. I stamped all weekend, and was obsessed with the Stampendous bees. I get stamping with something I love and cannot move onto anything else but those stamps! I hope you're liking these bees, because you're gonna be seeing A LOT more of 'em! I made 40 cards this weekend, so I've got lots to share with you guys!

The yellow dotty paper is a chatterbox design, called "guest eyelet". Can you believe I bought that paper weeks ago, before I ordered the bees, and almost put it back when I was at the register because I thought, "What the heck am I going to use this yellow paper for"? I want more for bee cards now! The other paper is new basic grey.

I gotta buzz outta here, I have to put back all the stuff I hauled to the scrapbooking weekend now. Geez! zzzzzzzzzzz

http://www.eclecticpaperie.com/bee-happy-collection.html

Treats O' Plenty!

I'm not Irish, but I think I'll start every word with an "O" all weekend, in honor of St. Patty's day. Hoards of Minnesotans will gather tomorrow in downtown St. Paul, parading through the streets in their green glory in search of a fun bar to day-drink green beer in. Alas, I will not be drinking anything green, as my girl gang canceled our celebration. Which means the St. Patty's day hangover is cancelled too. I'll be stamping instead, with my Aunt and her scrapbooking club in Wisconsin.

I'm not Irish, I'm Italian. So I thought instead, I'd post an Italian themed card. Ok, its a stretch, but what Italians do best is EAT DECADENT TREATS. (Ok, I lied. I don't have any St. Patricks day themed stamps, and I wanted to use my new Stampendous stamp, Tiers of Treats.)

OMG THIS STAMP IS SO FUN TO PLAY WITH. I'm so HAPPY that the stamp is a decent size, and the treats are completely fun to color in and glittah. If your local stamp store doesn't carry it, you can get it from my favorite stampin' girl, Joy @ Eclectie Paperie. They only had 3 in stock so I told everyone I'd breaka da fingers if they grabbed my treats before I could get my order in. I'm sure Joy can get more if you bug her. http://www.eclecticpaperie.com/stampendous-tiersoftreats.html I should also mention that the paper is new shabby-full Daisy D's, Butterfly Dot - Cherry Tomato.

So aside from the shameless plug for Joy, whom I adore, have a happy O'Patty's day, and make sure the beer is really supposed to be green if you drink it.

Must See TV Night!

Today is Thursday and you know what that means! It's MUST SEE TV NIGHT! I'm taking a night off from stamping to watch Grey's anatomy, and the brand new show following it, "October Road"!

I'm pretty excited to get sucked into yet ANOTHER TV show. Pretty soon it will be summer and I'll have to work off the pudge I gained from being a couch potato all winter.

I made this card last weekend; it's done with the Cosmo Cricket Dutch Girl "Klara" paper. I love that this paper has a lot of great patterns already on it; makes for a quick card. No putzing necessary!

Donald Trump

I just opened the mail, and Donald Trump just sent me VIP tickets to attend his once-in-a-lifetime financial conference next month. Hmmm.... I wonder how he got my address??? He says he can make me rich. I'm thinkin' the only one getting rich off his seminars is Donald!

All I know is I'm already rich. Blessed with family, friends and all the cardmaking supplies I could ever hope for!

These were inspired by the basic grey blush card ad; they remind me of patchwork quilts. The papers I used are some new Daisy D's florals and stripes, and making memories checked blue paper. You can do this with any of your leftover strips of paper, just make sure the color families match. I super-sized these cards, so they are sized 5 1/4 x 5 1/4, to fit in the large, square stampin up envelopes.

I wonder if the Donald will want to 'do lunch' afterwards? ;)

Seeing Double....

A few weeks ago friend and Dirty Dozen designer, Pam Hooten, was amazed that I can stamp so many cards in one sitting. She mentioned if she could stamp like me, she'd never be behind on birthdays! I 'fessed up to my secret. I cheat. I use the same layout and prep a ton of cards with different patterned papers & the same layout. When you use an assembly line type process, you can keep cards on hand and slap on a main image when you need a quick card.

Here's how I do it. I take and stamp the same background (canvas) in the same color (creamy caramel) on different colored cards, all at the same sitting. I may do 12 to 15 of these cards. Then I layer different scraps of patterned paper on that match. Choose your cardstock colors based on what will match your patterned paper.(See above)

Then, later on, or even in the same sitting, I'll add a main image to the card. You can use the same image with different color combos, or mix it up and do all different images. See what a different effect the same image has on each of the 4 cards? And your friends & family will never know it was mass produced, as each card is different, yet the same.

I finished the taxes! YIPPEE!

So it's pretty bad when you procrastinate doing taxes with *CLEANING*, which I did for 2 hours yesterday. Holy moly. Procrastinating one bad job with another bad job? I'm not right.

I pulled out my vacuum cleaner and there was a puff of cat hair and dust that came out of it. (Think pigpen and the cloud that surrounds him.)

I may be getting spring cleaning fever, I have this urge to clean my house from top to bottom. I'm talking, the kind of cleaning where you even dust the baseboards. The sun is shining in the windows and you can see every bit of yuck and dust that has piled up over the winter. I can't wait to be able to open windows and doors and let fresh air in.

I did these cards on Saturday, when I was playing with the Cosmo cricket papers. The white swirl (Autumn Leaves Swirls v.2) is embossed onto the paper with white embossing powder. I guess I think of that doodle as a very elegant swirl, but look how fun it is when paired with springy paper and done in white!

Happy Monday, everyone!

Happy daylight savings time day!

Is it an official holiday? Should we send cards with clocks on them? HIP HIP HOORAY, THAT MEANS SPRING IS ALMOST HERE! Only 7 more Minnesota blizzards to go this month and then we'll hit April! HEE HEE!

I started cranking out birthday cards late yesterday. I think I may be procrastinating finishing my taxes. Not sure. SNORT!

Loookit how matchy-matchy these cards are with my banner! I'm pulling out the old sets that I've grown to love and using them with fresh paper. All the paper used on these cards is from the Cosmo Cricket Dutch girl collection. Oopsie, I lied. There's that yellow polka dot from last year's SU spring mini. Here's the patterns from dutch girl, you can buy them from Joy of Stamping at Eclectic Paperie.

http://eclecticpaperie.com/dutch-girl.html

So, because we don't have that extra hour today, I may not be able to get to my taxes. I have a lotta stamping to do.

Ahhh, the wine hangover.

Please God, just shoot me now. My big plans for stamping all day have been interrupted by a splitting headache! Mojo done left the building, people! I'm attempting to do more challenge cards for Heather Nichols' "Pinewhite" challenge today, and not doing a very good job of it!

I find that it's really hard for me to stamp in anyone else's style but my own! I love taking layouts and tweaking them to my style, but for me, if I'm not used to using certain colors or papers, it's really difficult. There will only ever be one Pinefeather, of that I'm sure.

I'm always so envious of other people's styles...its hard to 'love' the stuff I create, because there's so many fabulous stampers out there that I admire! Sweet Cindy Lyles (Starlit Studio) made a comment the other day about finally realizing that she's 'GOOD'. That made me GASP, because anyone who knows her from Splitcoast could see that it was EVIDENT a long time ago.

So today, just for a minute, let's give ourselves a break and say 'I FREAKING ROCK'. Even if we don't believe it.

(FYI, I ROCKED THIS CARD!)

(NOT! I HATE IT.)

(BUT I DID ROCK MY BANNER. HA!)

I'm a little winey tonite.....

Yes, that's misspelled on purpose, Val! (snicker!) Valerie Stangle can catch a spelling error a mile away! I think I drive her a little nuts with my version of Webster's dictionary.

So tonite's card reminds me of red wine. It's a new Cosmo Cricket patterned paper called Halfway Cafe: Amarillo. I made it for a VSW sketch challenge that Heather Nichols (Pinefeather)http://www.pinefeather.typepad.com/ is hosting this weekend. The sketch layout is from a card in Papercraft's March issue. Sorry, I haven't seen the issue so I can't give credit here.

I've used a number of stamp sets on the focal image...one is Polka dots and Petals from the SU spring mini. The other large fab dotty circle is from an absolutely fun set I bought at Joanne ETC for 1/2 off. It's a Fiskars thank you acrylic set that I paid $8.00 for a few weeks ago. The great thing is, it not only has thank you stamps, but has all these fun little floral elements and circles and goodies. I've got a really bad photo of it here but I'll try to post a link in case you need a closeup.

ANYWAY. Its been a crappy crappy week, so I felt like red wine. No blizzard here this week, so I didn't have to choose between Archivers and the liquor store. The bad girls are on their way over for some Friday night drinkin and tawkin, so it's a quick post right now. I'm going to stamp the weekend away so I'll post more later.

Happy Friday, everyone!

I can't sew. Sew what?

How does it work that I can't manage to sew a button on my clothes or hem my own pants, but I can putz for hours sewing itty bitty details on a card. Ok, well I don't think it qualifies as sewing really, please don't check out the closeup image or you'll be verrrrrrry disappointed.


I'm obsessed with the big blossom now. Do you guys have to warm up to a stamp set like I do? I've really had a hard time with the sell-a-bration sets this year...not really into any of them! What I'm really craving is some good image sets, the ones where you can color to your heart's content and let a stressful day at work melt away.

I think everything has already been done with this blossom...I'm still waiting for inspiration to hit me with something out of the box for the flower blossom. I'll have to get back to you on that one when it hits! The blossom stamp was inked with saffron yellow, and then 'kissed' with various colors (pumpkin pie, ruby red and close to cocoa) and stamps from the polka dots and posy set from the spring mini. Recognize the polka dot paper? Last year's spring mini paper! I hoarded the yellow polka dot too long because it was my favorite pattern and now it doesn't seem new and exciting any more. So I gave myself permission to use it. Yikes. I'm not right.

There's noooo place like home!!!!!

I just flew home and boy are my arms tired. Ba-dum bum. Ugh, is that *not* the dumbest joke ever? I am so fricken glad to be home, it's not even funny! I do this trip yearly, but this has been the most challenging trip to date. It even tops having to carry a fullsize, 6 foot Irish HARP through customs in Mexico. Yes, you heard me right.

Anyway, in my 19 years as a travel agent, I've never seen the airline system so screwed up by a snowstorm! Everything in the book came my way this weekend. Lost luggage, people stuck overnight from missing connections, my favorite auditor stuck behind an accident on the freeway until 4am after his flight arrived at 1am. But we got through it all, I'm home, and I'm on my way to wash piles of clothes now.

I did this quickie card today for my sister, to thank her for feeding and watering my 2 stooopid cats this weekend. Is this not the key-ute-est little makeup travel bag I bought for her? It looks like a bowling ball bag and is hard sided! I got it on sale for $16.99 at the airport gift shop!Shhhhh...don't tell her what a score it was! Nothing like waiting until the last minute. DOH!

I bought this huge Anna Griffin Bailey paisley print paper at Archivers on clearance a while ago, and have put off using it because of its horribly huge pattern. I broke out the SU big blossom and slapped on a cute little circle center from the new polka dots and paisley set. Did you know that when Archivers clears out their paper, a lot of it goes in the 6 for $1.99 bin? Always check their hotspot when you're in there for fun paper. The polka dots are by SEI.

So I'm off to do laundry. Oh the glamour of travel.