Puddles of Love!

I've had this image sitting in my stamp room, uncolored, for a MONTH... since before the last Hanna release! I ran out of time to get all the ideas out of my head and onto paper, so this one had to wait until last weekend to be put together! The little doggies are from the Hanna Stamps "Small Breed" stamp set, and the sentiment is from "Things Hanna Would Say". I believe the puddles sentiment is meant to go with the Rainy Day Hanna, but I saw it differently when I was playing with the small breed set! This poor little yorkie was so excited to see his little chihuahua friend that he had a slight....err....accident, shall we say. At least he did it OUTSIDE the house, vs. my sister Gina's dog, who is not so courteous!

The paw prints and bones patterned paper is paper "ribbon", which was gifted to me by my Aunt Jan.

The swirl is from Autumn leaves "Swirl V.2", and the paper is old Stampin Up polkadots from a patterned paper pack. Everything is colored in with Copics. Doesn't it look like the chihuahua is laughing at him for having an accident?

I had also made this card for last month's release but never got a chance to post it. I was trying to figure out what you'd use the "New Leash on Life" sentiment for, and decided to make the dog fighting Hanna like it doesn't want to be 'tied'! Actually, this looks like what happens when I try to walk my sister's dog, who is an escape artist. No amount of tugging is getting that dog to go ANYWHERE with me!

Stamp sets: My Best Friend & Large Breed

One more Hanna sample for tomorrow night; I was at dollar tree again. Geez Louise.

Hanna Beach Cards

More beachy cards tonite, done with the soon-to-be-released Hanna set called "Fun in the Sun"! This is a tall card with Hanna in her bikini, rocking out on the beach! I used more of my pink bermuda sand to give the card some texture by gluing it on with liquid glue.

I still cannot get a vivid photo of this card! GRRR!

Here's a card using just the sandcastle and the shell images from this set. I thought they were cute enough to stand alone!

I used my Autumn leaves Swirls v.2 to make the blue wavy swirl on the bottom of this card.

Here's

a close-up shot of the placement of the glued on sand; you want enough so that it gives the card texture, but not so much that it covers up your images! The little corners are from a Heidi Grace set of borders and corners..I thought they looked shell-ish!

Hanna Week!

This Friday will see the debut of 3 more Hanna stamp sets....here's my first sneak peek with one of the new sets! This card was made with a set called "Fun in the Sun", and it has the cutest little beach theme to it!

You're gonna think I'm nuts, but a while ago I vacationed in Bermuda, and was crazy enough to take a baggie full of sand back with me. I thought that if you're gonna steal sand, it may as well be PINK SAND from a Bermuda beach! It's not very pink but it was a clean, white sand that I had envisioned using in cardmaking! Oh man. I wonder if that's illegal? This weekend I had my chance to use my contraband! I used it just like you'd use glitter....use a liquid glue, streak the glue across your image (avoiding the black lines of the image) and then slap on the sand! I think you can buy craft sand somewhere, but if you're going on vacation, why not get it free?!

I tried to get a close-up so you can see the sand on the card.

I used Copic markers to color the images in, and a Sakura gelly roll clear glitter pen to outline the umbrella, so it looks like the sun is reflecting off the objects.

I'll have a couple more beachy samples tomorrow night; I need to try to get a better photo of the cards I made this weekend because they all turned out bad. Ain't Monday a beach?

Congrats to the winners!

Happy Sunday all!

Thank you all again for entering my blog candy contest last week!

I'm putzing in my stamp room today, getting ready for the new Hanna Stamps release on Friday. This week I'll have 4 days worth of Hanna samples for you to check out. I ran out of time on the last release so I've got a mixture of new release stuff, as well as stuff I've finally finished from some already released sets.

I made a quick card with this gorgeous seed packet image from Crafty's "Summertime" Image and Journal booklet. Makes for a quick, easy card! I just distressed the edges of some pattern paper, matted the image and added a Kaiser paper flower that I altered by stamping on it.

Try pulling out stamp sets that you already have and stamp on plain paper flowers! Here I've used the music notes from Crafty's "Altered Art" sets, and the script stamp from their "Journaling" set.

See what fun stuff you can come up with for patterned flowers!

Happy Sunday! L.

And the winners are!

Congrats to all of the blog candy winners!

Random Integer Generator
Here are your random numbers:
108
141
4
Timestamp: 2008-04-27 04:58:57 UTC

First Place (4 Journal Booklets) : Lisa & Penny!
2nd Place (2 Journal Booklets) : Amber!
3rd Place (2 Journal Booklets) : ReeRee!

Send me an email at shabbychickjunk@hotmail.com and let me know your addresses!

Thank you to everyone who entered!

Crafty Secrets Drawing Tonite

Happy Saturday everyone! I'm just checking in...I'm going to do the drawing for the 4 Crafty Secrets new Journaling Images at midnight tonite! If you haven't gotten a chance to enter, you can sneak in under the wire! Click HERE to see the prizes and leave a comment to enter! I'll be giving away all 4 journal booklets to the 1st place winner, and 2 booklets to the 2nd and 3rd place winners! I have lots to show you today! These are new Penny Black "Bubbly" acrylic stamps from my last Eclectic Paperie order. I found this cool patterned paper by "Kaiser" at Anchor paper last weekend on our girl's shopping trip. Kaiser BLEW us away at CHA, they have the most inexpensive flowers, jewels, embellishments and chipboard albums! I bet you'll be seeing them in your local scrapbook stores soon! I made a bunch of these cards last weekend when I was still putzing around with my Crafty Secrets ride tickets. I thought since my Papertrey Birthday Basics sentiment matched the "wish" sentiment on my little ride ticket (Crafty Secrets Journey & Mini Memories sets), I'd add ride tickets to my cards for embellishments.

I didn't get any stamping time in today; my family came over to my sister Gina's house to help her sew a skirt for her scrapbook table. I thought I'd show you how cute it turned out! My Mom is a quilter and used to teach quilting classes in my hometown of Hudson, WI. Guess what she used to sew this skirt.... the Sew Mini machine by Janome that Camipink has been telling everyone about on her blog! So it not only sews PAPER, but it sews FABRIC! GASP! :)

I only sew on cards so I wasn't familiar enough with fabric to 'help' them out. So I sat in the comfy chair here and 'supervised'. Look how neatly Gina has all her albums lined up on this shelf! She's doing some scrapbooking tonite so I decided I'm going to join her and stamp some images off for a friend.

I tried to get a close up of the fabric. It's a sweet little shabby stripe fabric that she got at JoAnn fabric. The table is just a standard 6 foot folding table from Home Depot. They attached the skirt with velcro so that all her supplies and rolling cards can be hidden away underneath.

So that's my story for today. Don't forget to enter the drawing tonite, and I'll pop back on later and choose the winners so I can get the prizes sent out on Monday!

L.

Such a gift!

Oh you guys! I just have to tell you that you all have given me goosebumps with your stories of your Grandmothers and Mothers! I feel like you've given ME a bigger gift than the 4 booklets I'm giving out! It seems like we've all been so lucky to have such wonderful role models in our lives...I feel like I know each and every one of your Grams and Moms! If you have a chance, make sure to go back and read all the comments from everyone on my blog candy post HERE ....I speak sincerely when I say that you all have made my week and just made me realize what all this blogging, stamping, scrapbooking and creating is about.

I am loving reading all the comments about cooking, gardening, baking (Suzy Q's!) sewing & crafting & peanut butter & jelly sandwiches! I emailed Sandy from Crafty and told her to come and read all of your stories....she was so touched that she told me to pick 2 more winners and she'll send out 2 books to the 2nd and 3rd place winners!

I wanted to share this photo of my Grammie up at Roy Lake, MN, posing in her bathing suit! I'm so lucky to have been able to sit with my Grams and have her tell me the story about this photo. I commented to her about how beautiful she looked in this photo...she told me she had just lost a bunch of weight & they had gone up to Roy Lake MN with friends. She said that back in those days they couldn't afford expensive vacations, so they would put the kids in the car and drive up to a lake and rent cabins.

Here is a photo of her and my grandpa. This is typical for my Grandpa...always goofing off or making faces while Grams kept everyone in line and took care of business! They were a great team and although Grampie is gone, he's still very much present in our lives through the stories Grammie tells and the many photos taken by my Aunt Jan (we call her the paparazzi).

The beach babe photos are from the new Crafty Secrets "Summertime" Image and Journaling booklets, and the cool swirls are stamped in black ranger archival ink with Crafty's "Flourishes" Swirl set.

If you haven't gotten a chance to enter the blog candy give-away, make sure to scroll down to my previous post and leave a comment!

TIME FOR BLOG CANDY!

IT'S THAT TIME AGAIN! I *LOVE* giving away blog candy! And it's a doozy again! Sandy Redburns from Crafty Secrets gave the whole design team extras of the brand spankin' new Journal Notes booklets, and it's my turn to give some away! YIPPIE!

You will get ALL FOUR of the new booklets! Can you believe what a great prize this is? Trust me, you will have SO much fun with these images! I worked with them all weekend and created a project in between shopping trips with my sweet girlfriends!


Here are each of the booklets, so you can see some of the cool vintage images in each! The top part of the book is an image, and the bottom can be used to scribble notes on, or journal in your scrapbook with! The journaling section matches the vintage image!

I ran to my hometown a few weekends ago and Grammie and I sat down and went through her photo albums. I'm so lucky to still have her in my life, as I've had some friends go through hard times lately, losing loved ones. The new Crafty Secrets booklets gave me a perfect excuse to sit with her, and she told me about the family vacations they used to take when my Mom and Aunt were young, up at Roy Lake, MN.

I created a travel themed tin with some of the photos that I copied from Grammie's photo album. I used many images from the new Summertime Booklet! You can see all of my projects on the Crafty Secrets Blog HERE. I will also be posting a scrapbook page of my Grams looking all Marlena Dietrich in her swimsuit at the lake soon.








So here's how to enter the drawing! Leave a comment on this post & tell me your favorite memory of you and your Grandmother or Mother.. I love hearing family stories and memories , and I was so touched by all of your responses from my last blog candy drawing.

I'll do the drawing this Saturday, April 26th! Good Luck! :)

L.

P.S. The little candy eater in my blog banner is me. I still have that reaction to candy.

New product from Crafty Secrets!

I've been meaning to post these photos for a while, so I thought I'd do it tonite since we were on such an excellent vintage kick this weekend! Crafty Secrets has come out with a new product called "Journal Notes". They are such a cool concept! They are meant to be used as a little notepad, or cut out the images for your scrapbook pages, and use the notepad section for your journaling! I had fun using them as card images, by just matting them and sticking the journaling page behind the image!

They come in 4 themes: Botanicals, Children's, Homemade (cooking) & Summertime, and retail for $6.75.

I have a few projects that I'll be posting soon using some awesome travel images from the "Summertime" booklet! I'll post the link when it goes up on the Crafty Blog, so that you can check it out.

These bird images came from the "Botanical" booklet & were so easy to create quick cards with!

Here I used a huge scalloped Fiskars scissors to create the edge on the gingham paper, and then I used my Ranger Inkssentials white pen to draw dots around the scallop. Sheet music is vintage.

Happy Monday, everyone!

L.

3 Bloggers, MIA

Morning all! Thought I'd check in and account for the 3 bloggers that have been missing in action for 3 days! Heather and Carol (Pinefeather and HB) made their way down to St Paul this weekend and we've been stamping and shopping up a storm all weekend.

No store has been left unshopped. We hit Archivers, Dick Blick (HELLO COPICS!), JoAnne Fabric and a new favorite, Anchor Paper in St Paul for reams of Neenah Solar white cardstock. The credit cards are smoking and the inspiration has been flowing. Here's Carol and Piney ooohing and aaahing over cute stuff at a baby store we hit.

The store had the cutest little bibs! We were "drooling" over all the sweet kids clothes with floofy tulle skirts, too! I noticed the cutest card display on their counter.

Everywhere I go I tend to notice the card selection, for some unknown reason!

We were on a quest to find this cool store called "Hunt and Gather, that Piney found when she went to Junkmarket last year.

I could have spent *days* in Hunt & Gather, and a LOTTA money! I wanted this yellow flower bin table in the WORST way. I thought it would make a cute coffee table in my living room.

This pink daybed slipcover ALMOST went home with me. It would have, if I wouldn't have gotten into trouble at Anchor paper & Dick Blick!

Piney spent a lot of time looking in this section!






Look at the cute flash cards!






AND THE POSTCARDS!
*SO* CUTE!







This scale was THE COOLEST! It actually worked! You could plug a penny or a nickel in it to see your weight, and it was DEAD ON correct! Notice there is not a close-up of the dial that shows the weight...strategic photography, 101! :)




Look how they created cute little banners with hankies! There was inspiration galore!
So today, we are done with the shopping, and focusing in on the stamping! Happy Sunday, everyone!

Strawberry Birthday

More speedstamping cards tonite, done with a retired Stampin Up set called "Natures Sketchbook". I was back to my old stamp-killing ways at the retreat; I cut the sentiment off of the strawberry stamps and mounted it on the edge of the block, so that just the strawberry image remained. This way I was able to use this image for birthday cards, and combine them with the Papertrey Birthday Sentiments set.

Patterned paper by K & Company and My Mind's Eye, new "29th Street Market" floral paper.

Baby Blue Cards

A quick morning post today! It was so beautiful outside yesterday here in MN, that I had to get out and go for a walk, just to smell the fresh, warm air. The barbeque smells drifting all over the neighborhood made for a stomach-growling walk!

Friend Bevie Pearl Barton and I did an image swap and she set me these cute baby overall images! I needed baby cards badly! I hardly ever use this color, and it's not very traditional for a baby card, but I love working with bright colors. The sailboat on the overalls just looks summery and beachy to me.

Have a beachy day, everyone!

Delayed gratification.

See this cute little bird? Well, he was missing in action for a few days at the stamping retreat I attended a few weeks ago. We drove through St Cloud, MN on our way to the retreat, and of course had to stop & use our coupons at Crafts Direct. I was SO excited to see the new Inkadinkado stamp sets out, that I had seen at CHA in February! SCORE! I got this cute Amy Smyth stamp set called "The Flourish Pack"! I was revved up to stamp a ton of cards with it at the retreat! And then I realized I left the bag on the counter at Crafts direct. DANG! So I HAD to make do without my new stamp sets all weekend. Luckily when I called, they still had the bag sitting there, and they held it for me. So on the way home from the retreat, we picked it up. ANYWAY, last Saturday I finally got to play with this set! This layout came about because I stamped the images sort of lopsided. So I just ran with it & cut the paper so that it didn't look weird.

The birds are colored in with Copic markers. The paper was from the clearance bin at Archivers, and I forgot to keep a scrap of it with the paper name on it so that I could tell you what it is!

It's definitely Monday!

Annas Bird

BLECH. Sunday night. You know what that means; a Monday morning is sure to follow.

Tonite I'm cleaning out my filthy stamp room and throwing out old scrapbooking stuff from a lost era. I decided I don't feel guilty throwing it out if I put the paper in the recycle bin. Hopefully the old ugly patterned papers will be reborn into new Crate or Daisy D's paper through the magic of recycling. I ran to Wisconsin this weekend to my Aunt's scrabooking get-together on Saturday. Let me just say this was NOT a 100 card weekend!

I did manage to make 20 birthday cards. I've been dying to color in these Anna Wight "Pete" images from Whippersnapper, and finally got a chance to do it! I stamped off a bunch of them from friend Carol Halvorson, along with the "Happy Birdie to You" sentiment, which I think is by A'Muse. Patterned paper by Crate, "Blue Hill" Grass pattern. I used my Ranger Inkssentials White pen to faux stitch around the edges of the Cameo Coral cardstock.

Lunch Blogging

Happy Friday! I'm SO glad the weekend is almost here! I wanted to post these layouts that I did while I was at my stamping retreat a few weekends ago. This one is simple and quick and works great for tall, narrow stamps. The girl watering her flower is a Karen Stolper image from American Art Stamps. Friend Angela-digifab-Shober let me stamp off a bunch of them at our last get-together!

This layout uses minimum amounts of patterned paper, so it's a great way to use up small scraps that you may have from other card projects!

The stamp to the left is called "Sidekick Sayings" from Stampin' Up. The retreat had a garage sale the first night, and I picked up this set for $5.00! I love the sentiment on this one: "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy-they are the charming gardners who make our souls blossom. -Marcel Proust. I have QUITE a few people in my life that this would apply to! Have a great weekend, everyone!

L.