Crankin 'em out!

Ok guys, I'm in crank-em-out mode again. Grammie needs birthday cards & I'm low on thank-you cards, so I'm back into cranking out simple, no-fuss cards and using up paper! These pretty fall papers are from an 8 x 8 Daisy D's paper pad (Beacon Hill) that was gifted to me by friends at a retreat a few years ago. I'm on a mission to use it up! Daisy D's is one of my FAVORITE shabby paper lines.

The berry and leaves stamp is an oldie but goodie, from Stampin Up's "Touch of Nature" stamp set. There are certain sets I will always gravitate back to and this is one of them. I've got more cards coming up soon using the bird & branch from this set too. I have SO much to show you guys so stay tuned! If you want to play along, use my layouts and start cranking out the cards with me! I've recently been making 6 at a time...why not stamp 6, it's just as easy and you've got the inks out already! Or get REALLY crazy and crank out 10! Come on girls, USE IT UP!

L.

What was I thinking?

Do you guys ever dig through your piles of patterned paper and come across paper where you think "What was I thinking when I bought this paper"? That was the case with this green polka dotted paper, (which will remain nameless).

I'm sure it had a ton of beautiful coordinating papers with it, which I failed to purchase, so I had one lone piece of this green, no match paper sitting in my file. I decided that instead of hating on it, I'd try to use it up and see what I could do with it! These cards are what followed!

I decided that the rusty polka dots in the paper would go great with fall cards, so I added some rust floral paper to it and stamped a fall tree & pumpkin for my focal image (Inkadinkadoo set from Michaels). I actually do like how they turned out; they look rustic and fallish and I needed thank-yous for my work stash in the worst way!

And the bonus was, I USED UP all the green paper! So here's my challenge to you this week. Pick out some paper from your stash that's been in it for a while and USE IT UP! You get bonus points if it's a pattern that you don't care for but were able to turn into something you like! :)

Oh, I forgot; one more thing, you'll be seeing these little flourishy chipboard swirls on lots of stuff! It's my newest obsession! More to come!

L.

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