Happy Halloween!

Are you ready for the ghosties and goulies? This month got away from me without posting hardly ANY Halloween cards! So one last ditch set of cards here, done with Anna Wight's Whippersnapper "Hocus Pocus" stamp set. I HAD to play because I LOVE this witchie's hairy legs!

I had visions of using this non-traditional red, yellow and blue American Crafts Metropolitan "Discotech" paper for lots of Halloween cards, but only was able to get 2 of them done! WELL BOO!!

I drew in a little barbed wire border to coordinate with the witchie's little 'barbed wire' legs. I also used my Justrite 1 5/8" harmony stamper for the ring around the bat. The bat is glittered up with Martha Stewart Onyx glitter.

Hope you have a fun Halloween; it's the scariest, hairiest, witchiest, battiest night of the year! Enjoy!

L.

Anna's Scarecrows!

Hi everyone! I'm back in the land of the living and back in my stamp room creating again! It feels like so long since I've had a chance to just sit down and putz with whatever I felt like doing! I'm happy to say I've finally unpacked all of the gear that I packed for the Duluth Crop for the Cure, and am settling in for a....*GASP* weekend at home! I do have photos of the crop to share with everyone but have not uploaded them yet! I will get to them, I PROMISE! So tonite, I'll leave you with a couple of cards I just sat down and putzed with tonite. I had a bunch of images from Anna Wight's Whippersnapper "Harvest Blessings" stamp set, and got to sit and color them in!

I paired Anna's little scarecrow up with some new Scenic Route Sonoma Scrap Strip 2 that I bought at Archivers last week. I love the beautiful yellows, reds and greens in this paper! The cute little saying "A perfect day" is part of the patterned paper, so I cut out the sentiment for the bottom of my card. While I was sitting there thinking "fall", I decided to use my JustRite 1 5/8" Harmony Circle stamper, and stamp fall words in a circle like Apple Pie, Crisp Air, Yellow Moon, etc...anything I could think of that felt FALL to me. The scarecrow has little yellow brads holding her cute little red jumper together.

THANK YOU, ANNA, for helping a girl out! :)

Unity Sheet Music Thank-You

I had SO many ideas for this month's Dirty Dozen Gallery theme "For a Song", but not enough time to get them all done! So this week I played a little bit more, to get those ideas OUT of my head and finally onto paper. I'm obsessed with this Flourishes Poppy stamp set, so I thought it would be fun to combine it with my cool Unity Stamp Co. "Worn Music" background. This background stamp is SO cool...its stamps really DISTRESSY! I used it over the top of some old basic grey blue paper from my scrap bin to give background color, and then cut out poppies to put over the top of it.

Still playing with my Justrite 1-3/16" round monogram with the damask borders! This time I used glitter around the monogram to make it pop off the card!

Supplies: October Afternoon "Hometown" black paper. Copic markers "Prawn" and "Lipstick Red". Flourishes Poppy Set, Unity Worn Music Background, Justrite 1-3/16" round monogram, damask.

I'm BAAACK!

Hiya & HAPPY THURSDAY! After what feels like FOREVER, I'm finally back blogging & stamping again! I'm so excited that I have today off; I've been running around like a chicken this last week, prepping for the Duluth Crop-for-a-Cure that I'll be teaching at this coming weekend. I finally have all of my class kits made up, have all supplies and samples packed, and am ready to GIT R DONE! I had a brief moment last Saturday to stamp for fun, and put together these Flourishes cards, using their "Summer on the Patio" stamp set. I LOVE this cute bucket of flowers! I need thank you cards in the worst way!

I also learned a GREAT new trick from friend Carol Halvorson; she taught me to make my photos brighter by using the 'contrast' button on my photo editing software! I think this solves my DARK photo issues! YIPPIE! I now LOVE my Canon camera!

I also recently got a Just-Rite mini round 1 3/16" Luxe stamper kit, and was able to play with it for sentiments. It comes with some really cool flourishy round monograms. I need to make me some MONOGRAM cards soon!

Supplies: Flourishes Summer on the Patio set, Just Rite 1 3/16 round stamper, October Afternoon "Hometown" paper pack, Copic Markers hydrangea blue, golden yellow, pale olive, Ultramarine, Ice Ocean, Putty, Milky White.

The beans are spilled!

Hi all! I can finally spill the beans tonite, to let you know why I've been a slacker-blogger lately! I was asked to be on the Dirty Dozen design team at Splitcoaststampers, so I will be sharing my creations in the dirty dozen gallery for the next 6 months! For those of you unfamiliar with Splitcoast, they have a special hidden gallery that you can subscribe to, where you have access to new ROCKSTAR stampers every month! Hopefully everyone can be patient with me & the blog, as I'm freaking out a little bit, wondering how I'm going to handle a blog, the dirty dozen team, Crafty Secrets, a full-time job, and a BOWLING LEAGUE?! I'll git-r-done, it's just a bit overwhelming right now! The other new addition to the dirty girls team this month is Jessie Rone, whose incredible creations grace her blog HERE!

So on to tonite's cards. I was at Michaels last month and happened to catch my local store clearancing out a bunch of Anna Griffin stamps. I actually paid only $2.50 for this floral stamp that fills almost the entire front of the cards that I'm posting tonite! I stamped them off with Brilliance Black ink, heat set it, and then set about coloring the flowers my Copic markers, shading in the dark areas, like I did with the Flourishes Peony tutorial I did HERE.

The oval "thanks" was done with a Justrite Oval stamp (brayton font) on some striped green patterned paper scraps I had in my scrap bin.

We finally closed the cabin last weekend, so I'm looking forward to being home now and settling into fall and stamping season! Oh and one more thing; I wanted to tell everyone thank you for always supporting me and for leaving such kind comments for me. It is truly what keeps me going!

Lisa

Crafty Secrets Halloween

YET more Halloween cards using Crafty's Halloween booklet. QUICK AND EASY! I need quick and easy in my life right about now!

Crafty Secrets Birthday Boys!

On Wednesday I posted the girl card versions I made with Crafty Secrets' Birthday Kids set....so today I'm going to post the boy versions I did! I used some colors I don't normally combine on these cards; burgundy, blue and yellow!







I love this little guy playing pin the tail on the donkey!

The black buttons are from a recent score at Haupt's antique market. I got to pick out my own buttons, so I filled a snack baggie full of black and brown buttons. Those are 2 colors you usually don't see in the Foo-fa-la button bags. So I was glad I could just choose the colors I needed!





There's something about blue gingham that seems perfect for boy cards. I cut a triangle and used my Stampin Up Scallop punch to edge the corner.

Copics: Pale Sepia, Moss, Cardinal, Light Walnut, Cyanine Blue

Stamps: Crafty Secrets Birthday Kids

Paper: Crafty Secrets "Earthy & Radiant" pads

Crafty Secrets Birthday Kids!

I started designing cards a few weekends ago at the cabin for my work stash of cards, and finally cracked open this Crafty Secrets Birthday Kids stamp set! Dang, these kids are so fun to color! I really haven't even cracked the surface of the stuff that can be done with this set...Sandy designed the kids' hands so they can hold a bunch of different items from the stamp set.





They included fun accessories like balloons, party favors & horns that each child can hold! Here I created a triple pane for the main image...I want to play with this layout a little more because I like the 2 skinny strips sandwiching the main image here.













I also love that they made little "blow marks" to place in front of the kids' mouths or coming out of the horns, so it looks like they are in motion (or spitting!) ! I colored around the edges of the candles so it looks like there is a warm glow around the flames.


Copic Colors: Buttercup yellow, Pale Sepia, Red Violet, Cyanine Blue, Salmon Pink, Moss, Dull Ivory, Light Walnut

Stamp set: Crafty Secrets Birthday Kids

Patterned Paper: Crafty Secrets Radiant Paper Pad

Duluth Crop for the Cure - Oct. 25th, 2008

I wanted to kick off breast cancer awareness month by announcing that I'll be participating this year in the Duluth MN "Crop for the Cure" on October 25th! My sweet friend Heather Nichols (Pinefeather) and I will be teaching classes there, with lots of Crafty Secrets and Papertrey goodies! The crop is already half full, but I wanted to make sure that you guys all know about it in case you're interested in attending or doing a girls weekend get-away this year! The crop costs $50.00 to attend and goes from 9am-midnight Oct. 25th. Your $50.00 fee includes classes from Piney and I, prizes, goodie bags and a silent auction! You are asked to raise $100.00 for breast cancer, outside of the crop. I had hoped to participate in the breast cancer 3-day this year, but chickened out. So I'm excited that I can volunteer my time and benefit a cause that is near and dear to me, since I'm a 14 year breast cancer survivor. It's a really easy way to combine your hobby with a great cause!

You can read more about the crop & sign up here; we'd love to see you there this year!:

http://www.scrapbookroyalty.com/duluth.html

The powerhouse chickie behind this event is Alane, from Scrapbook Royalty! She and her royal court work so hard, running around CHA and getting donations for the crop each year! You should see the goodies she collected for all the participants! Alane is blogging & giving sneak peeks and updates on the crop on the Crop for a Cure blog HERE, so make sure to check out the superstar sponsors and the goodies they're donating to the crop! It sounds like Alane got the MOTHERLOAD of stuff from CHA! GO ALANE, GO! WE NEED LOTS OF SCHTUFF!

Hope to see you there!

L.

Stamp Set: Crafty Secrets "Support the Girls" set & patterned paper from Crafty Secrets "Radiant" pad.

Happy Birthday, Auntie Jan!

Hiya! It's slacker-blogger here, finally showing cards I made a few weeks ago! I made birthday cards for the birthday girls when we did the junking trip. This one was for my Auntie Jan, who has 2 fat cats named Thema and Louise. Or "WHEEZY" as Aunt Jan calls her.

I thought this party cat would be a perfect way to celebrate her birthday! The kitty is from a Penny Black Acrylic set called "Bubbly" that I got from Eclectic Paperie. These little Penny Black guys are my favorites to color.

I also used the Papertrey Birthday Basics sentiment set, because I thought the sentiment "Wishing you a birthday wrapped in happiness" would fit perfectly with the little package the kitty is presenting. Hopefully there is not a hairball inside! :)

Happy Wednesday! :) L.