Pink snowburst

I am heading off on vacation starting Saturday - woohoo! - and part of my vacation will be a girls' stamping and scrapping weekend with some friends from college. The friend who organized the weekend is the one who invited me to my very first Stampin' Up party and got me started stamping almost 10 years ago. She rented us a beautiful waterfront home on the Puget Sound in Washington. We'll be relaxing, stamping, hot-tubbing, chatting, snacking, watching chick flicks and otherwise enjoying fall in the Pacific Northwest. I live in California now, and two of the things I miss most are fall, with the crisp, cool air and gorgeous colors of the leaves changing, and my closest, oldest friends, many of whom still live in close proximity to one another in Oregon and Washington. Anyway, I was looking for a little gift to take to my organizing friend, but since she's a stamper and taught me much of what I know, I was struggling with what to make for her. So my friend Joni (jstarbright on SCS) suggested I turn one of those tag punch starbursts into an ornament, and that's what I did here. Pink might seem odd for a snowflake, but I was kind of hampered by my selection of heavy weight sparkly cardstock and mulberry papers - I have quite a few of both, but only a couple that match! And this ornament took a whole sheet of each. The directions for the starburst can be found on SCS here. I made two of the regular snowflakes, then added a smaller one, using six tags. To make the smaller one, I just laid out three tags so the corner points met and left a triangle in the middle, then layered three more tags on top the same way. I attached the silver snowflake brad in center and attached the silver cord hanger to the brad's backside. I attached the two larger snowflakes together using pop dots. I think my friend will like it; if not, I'll hang it on my tree!

Dazzling Christmas

I just happened to have a couple of pristine, uncut sheets of this yummy Paper Salon paper from the Dazzle collection, and Paper Salon happens to be hosting a World Cardmaking Day challenge, which you can find here. The papers are blizzard and candy stripe. The challenge is to make a shaped holidaycard or tag or to use one of two sketches from PageMaps. I chose this card layout from PageMaps because it would work wonderfully with this tag punch starburst that my friend Joni encouraged me to try. For directions on making the starburst, which is made with the two tag punches from SU, visit this thread on SCS. Here are the rest of the details: mellow moss card base, Paper Salon designer papers layered with bravo burgundy cardstock; starburst uses sparkly turquoise CS from unknown source (possibly Paper Zone) and pale pink The tiny snowflakes are punched from bravo burgundy and rose romance cardstock using some EK Success snowflake punches I have. The sentiment is from MSE and inked in mellow moss and bravo burgundy. I used the word window punch to round the edges of it. The snowflake brads are from my stash, not sure who made them.
Hope you're all having a great World Cardmaking Day. I am planning to work on some other cards and challenges later, but I need to do some chores around the house, too!

Anna's sketch

Anna Wight, aka Sweet Miss Daisy on SCS, posted a sketch on her blog, Sweet and Sassy Notes. I decided to give it a try this weekend with my new Michael's $1 Halloween stamps and this sheet of K and Co. paper I picked up to go with them. The first card is the closest to the original sketch. I just love those witches' feet! The "the witch" is a partial sentiment that I inked up with a marker.
I really wanted to use this sentiment - it made me giggle when I saw it in the bin! - so I flipped the sketch to make it a vertical card instead of a horizontal. On this one, I cut out a piece of the witch from SU's booglie eyes using my Creative Memories circle cutters and colored and mounted it.
I didn't like the circle on the side, so on the last card, I put it on the top. I like this one the best. Supplies for all the cards are: SU cardstock in orchid opulence, only orange, green galore, basic black and whisper white; SU markers in orange, orchid and green; stamps from the Michael's $1 stamps and Booglie eyes; K and Co. patterned paper; CM circle cutters, diamond Stickles on the shoe buckles for a little sparkle!

A moment of bliss

Reading is a blissful experience for me - I love escaping into a good book! I always have one on the night stand and try to read a bit each night before bed - and if I'm lucky for a couple hours at a stretch on lazy weekend afternoons. Sometimes, my eyes get heavy quickly and I only get a few pages in, but other times I find myself so engrossed I'll look up at the clock and find it's 1 or 2 a.m.! That makes it hard to get up in the morning, that's for sure.
Sometimes I read paperbacks, and I don't mind dog-earing the pages of the book to mark my spot. But I also enjoy and collect hardback and oversize paperback books that I don't want to ruin, so I usually have a bookmark handy. I've even made a couple for myself and friends to use. This weekend, I made my first origami bookmark for the latest VSN warm-up challenge. It was so fun and easy! It would be a great project for kids, too.
Heather (Alcesalces on SCS) came up with the challenge and posted it today. The challenge, along with directions, can be found HERE. The VSN warm-up challenges are open until Sept. 6, but you can try this anytime. If you do make one of these bookmarks, drop me a comment here so I can check it out!
For my bookmark, I used some new My Mind's Eye paper, my Heartfelt Thanks and Noteworthy stamp sets, celery, bashful and white cardstock and turquoise, celery, bashful and black ink. It was a fun and easy project and I can't wait to put this to use tonight!

Micro Mania Part 3

This should be the last of my Micro Mania photos! The first one is the outside view of the door prize I won. Pat Bear from SCS made this cute little suitcase (I believe it's a $1 candy tin from Target) and filled it with cute foam lady bugs and tons of little Primas (see second photo!) The thing was stuffed with flowers in lots of sizes and colors I don't have. It was a great prize.
The last picture, below, is of the nametag and bag our hostess, Minnie, made for everyone. We used the bag to carry our supplies and finished projects around from station to station. And everyone got cute nametags to wear so we would all know each other's names! Minnie also came around and offered us each a cute SU incentive stamp - I'm sure she has quite a stash, since she's been a demo for awhile and does quite well at it. I pulled out a cute bunch of grapes. All in all it was a great day!
That's all for today! Not sure what I'll have for the rest of the week, since the only stamping I've done so far this week is a secret for a bit longer. Happy Hump Day tomorrow!

Micro Mania Part 2

Here's a couple more photos from the Micro Mini Stamp Mania shoebox swap I attended Sunday. Our hostess was Minnie, in the turquoise with the black SU apron above. I didn't take very many photos, but this one is a good representation of the group hard at work on projects. It was a nice crowd; I'd met some of the women before and some were new to me Sunday. A few are SCSers, but not all!
This photo is of all the projects we made (except one that I'm saving as a surprise for someone who may or may not be reading this blog!) We had quite a variety of cards and other fun things. The long cranberry and thyme book was a cool coupon or paper scrap organizer Minnie designed; it used 5 self-adhesive business envelopes. I will be CASEing that one for sure! We also had two post-it holders; the blue Delight in Life one had a chipboard cover and back that were also stamped and cuttlebugged! Too cute. The other used stamps from Office Accoutrements. Other non-card fun projects included an empty TP roll turned into a candy holder, a corkboard bulletin board, a fun pinwheel using patterned paper and a pixie stick, and a cool magnetic metal tin (from Target) covered with Doodle This-stamped flowers. One last post tomorrow should wrap up my swap photos!

Inspiration is everywhere

So last night I pulled out my inspiration notebook last night in search of some, well, inspiration! I had saved this ad from the newspaper in there - I love the color of the flowers against the black and white. So I pulled out some stamps and attempted to replicate it. I think I captured the idea, though I am not happy about the brads at the top left corner. I thought the corner needed something, but that didn't really work as well as I'd hoped. Oh, well. I defintely love the red/green black color combination! The flower stamp is from SU's Heartfelt Thanks set, one of my all-time faves. The sentiment is a Michael's $1 stamp. Colors are real red, always artichoke and basic black. Now off to find some more inspiration!

Getting better

I love this card. It's not fancy. It's actually pretty simple. But I think it represents growth in my stamping. The layout, use of layers, the good bow (I'm bow-tying challenged!) the use of blender pens and ink to color the image, the background. It all ties together for me in this card. One way I've started working on my stamping is to keep a little journal of ideas - some of them are color combos, some are stamp set/color combos, some are pictures I've saved for inspiration. This helps me in two ways: One, it allows me to save ideas for when I really have time to explore them, and I don't forget a good idea if I don't have time to stamp it right away. Two: it gives me a source of inspiration for when I want to stamp but don't have a specific idea in mind. Plus, I'm a listmaker. I like to write things down as a way to stay organized and accomplish everything I need to! The colors and stamp set for this card were in my book - I wrote them down, then a week later, found them and remembered the card I had envisioned. Maybe tomorrow I'll share some of my inspiration pieces!

Spring is here!

Yay!!!! Spring is here. I live in Southern California, so sometimes it's hard to remember the seasons. But with Easter coming and the weather turning warm, it really feels like spring right now. Tonight I drove home from work with the sunroof open - woohoo! I've also been inspired by spring colors. These are the Easter cards I made for my close friends and family. Easter ranks third in holiday cards for me - I make about 60 for Christmas, and usually around 20 for Thanksgiving, then 10-15 for Easter, followed by 5-8 each for Valentine's Day and Halloween - usually those two holidays I just send cards to my nieces, nephews and my mom. I kind of have a ranking for who gets cards for which holidays! The people I'm closest too get the most handmade cards! Anyway, the Easter cards are triangle tri-folds (instructions available on Beate's blog - linked at the left, or on SCS, where she recently posted a tutorial). I am trying to use up my retired candy patterned paper. And I borrowed the stamp set from a friend, since I didn't have time to order the new Stampin Up Bunny Hugs set. But you can bet I will order it for next year! I love that little bunny. Oh, and the one green card is for my dad - not sure I love it, but I couldn't see making him a soft pink and yellow pastel card, so I made one using inspiration from the Dots and Dashes paper.