Shoe Shopping!

 

What do you do when you have some extra funds at the end of the month? Go shopping. Today’s card combines Day 78 at 365 Cards with the sketch from Mojo Monday. The challenge we were given was to imagine Money. I took the theme and choose something we do when we have some extra cash. I began with the MFT set called Window Shopping. I colored the image in with copics and paper pieced the dress. All the patterned paper came from the SEI pack Claire. The brad is also from SEI and I used a bit of scrappers floss to hang the sign. What makes me laugh about this card is that I really don’t like to shop for shoes! I know most females love this, but if I could get by with the same pair each day I would!

Once Upon a Time….

 The challenge today at 365 cards was to use 3 F’s. They were fringe, fairy tale and favorite color.  I began with the fringe and worked from there. They came from a fiber pack of Sugared Basic Grey.

Naturally, I pulled out my BG Sugared paper pack. Now on to the image….I am sure there are many fairy tales that involve mice in them so Penny Black to the rescue. I colored them with copics and cut out the image with my Labels 2 nestie. The sentiment is from My Favorite Things and it is how all happy fairy tales end. The hearts are Rain Dots to finish off the card. The final F is my favorite color of the moment…..Pink (she is a pretty colorful recording artist too). Thanks for stopping by today.

TSTR #7 Comforts of Home

I have been wanting to put this card together all week but never got a chance to until today. One of our most homey comforts is to sit down with a good book. With my husband working for a library, we have a lot of books with a wide range of topics. I just wish Flopsey had a small throw around his legs to complete the picture. That is how I sit on the couch and I am not talented enough to draw that in :)

The picture on the bottom is what we were given for our inspiration at The Shabby Tea Room. I went with the colors of a few quilts and pillows shown. The paper is from Memory Box Frond, image from My Favorite Things, ribbon May Arts and the stud is by Prima.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Layers of Chocolate

Hello! Betcha didn’t think you would read another post for awhile:)  After working on transcribing some minutes for work, I thought I would reward myself and take the time to make a card. I must say my attention was divided between the card and watching American Idol and White Collar on tv.  

Tonight’s card from two challenges I saw today. The first is over at 365 Cards which was to use chocolate as your inspiration. The second is at A spoonful of sugar and you had to use lots of layers. I began with Chocolate Flopsey from MFT for my image. I then pulled out my pack of Chocolate Kiss paper (also from MFT). I totally struggled piecing the chair. That pattern was way too dark for me to stamp on, so I attempted to cut it out on my own. I colored him with my copics and colorless blender. I used my labels One and Three nesties (look closely in the corners of the middle pink layer…it really isn’t just a circle). For the bottom brown strip I tried my Fleur de lis die…still not sure I like that but it is glued on so it’s staying.

I like the card, but I think it is missing something and I can’t figure out what. I tried ribbon from the MFT Chocolate Kiss set and that didn’t work. My buttons didn’t fare any better. If anyone has a thought, please share in the comments. I don’t want the card to be partially naked :)

To Tame a Wild Chick

Here is my second post today. If this is the first one you are reading, there is another one below this. Last week I picked up this set from The Cat’s Pajamas at my LSS. Even though it is a bit early for Easter cards, I still went ahead and used it. 

I choose the layout from Mojo Monday week 122 as my starting point. The image was stamped in black ink and colored with my copic markers. In looking through my papers, I came across the MFT Spring pack and I had the matching ribbon pack also. I layered the papers with SU Rose Red paper (I have used that color alot lately). The bow was made using my Bow Easy so it would look attractive.

Here is a close up of the image. If you click on the picture, it will enlarge. Then you will see that I did not use the proper paper for copics and it bled a bit:( I layered a few primas to create the flower and punched a few MS fern branches to go behind it. Instead of just adding white dots on the scalloped oval, I saw Suzanne Dean’s blog earlier today and she made the dashes and I liked them. So I used her idea! 

If I don’t get to chat with ya anymore this week, I hope you have a great one!

A Haunting Sketch

Today is Sunday so I couldn’t wait to see what sketch Pam created at 365 cards.  Here is what she gave us to work with:

 

And here is what I did with it:

I looked at the circles in the top left of the sketch and new I wanted to use my new paper from Bo Bunny for those. I compiled the rest of the card from there. MFT Fright Night stamp set was used for the focal image, sentiment and spider. I used my SU 1 1/4 circle punch, the bats are from my Martha Stewart punch and the candies are buttons from Dress it up Happy Haunting collection. SU Modern Label punch was used for the sentiment. Here are the copics I used to color in the image:

 I think this card turned out rather cute and will be perfect to send to my youngest nephew for Halloween. I hope you enjoy the rest of your Sunday. I am off to eat some lunch then attempt my demo card.

You can’t put a price

 I am sure you have heard the saying “You can’t buy love”, well this cute little stamp takes it one step further. I picked this up over the weekend at my LSS. Click on the picture so you can see a larger picture.

 Today’s challenge at 365 Cards was to use a hexagon as the focal shape on your card. Well, please don’t look too close as I cut this shape out free hand. To help straighten it, I purposely chose a busy background paper *wink*. The stamp is by Shirley’s 2 girls, paper and brads by Basic Grey Bittersweet, a hint of copic and Atyou spica pens for color. I choose to use Kraft cardstock to bring out the color in the paper.

My second photo today is for an ATC swap at the Stamp Shack. The theme is Sweet so I used the sundae from MFT What’s the Scoop and sentiment from MFT How Sweet it is.

The paper is from Basic Grey Two Scoops collection. I cut a layer of vellum so the paper would seem muted. I colored the image with copics E59, E50, BG10, BG11, and R29. It is hard to see in the photo, but I spread Diamond Glaze on the sundae cup so it would resemble glass. Mini buttons were added to the corners.

Now to just put together the other 8 cards. Hopefully I will finish before the Jay Leno Show. If you watched it last night, what did you think? Was it too much like the Tonight Show?

Gingham Ghouls

 It is Saturday and I am playing catch up again. The challenge for yesterday Day 195 at 365 Cards was to create a piece of clothing with gingham as the pattern. You can stamp it, print a digital image, hand-draw it, or whatever you wish to do. So I thought about the few stamps that I had that were clothing and decided to use this set by MFT. It is called Totally Wicked.

I began by stamping the image on white cardstock. I stamped the two dresses again on pieces of gingham paper. I pieced the dresses onto  my original image. I colored in the remaining parts with copics. I had to decide whether to keep using the softer tones from the dresses or create a traditional Halloween card. As you can see, tradition won out. I used two different patterned papers cutting them into funky triangles. I placed all this on a piece of black cardstock. I felt They needed something to “tie” them together, a sewing machine would be good about now. But I don’t have a cute little Janome. So instead I used brads and some hemp. The sentiment was stamped and cut out with nesties. The bats are a Martha Stewart punch. The small panels with the brads were an after thought. The image panel even though it was layered, looked bare.

I have two more cards to finish so I won’t be too chatty right now.

Three cones of Sweetness

I thought I would never get home tonight. I had a meeting after work that should have lasted only 45 minutes but instead lasted over 90 minutes. Thankfully, I had peeked at the challenge earlier in the day over at  365 Cards. The word sweet had to be somewhere on the card. Easy enough. 

I pulled out my stamp set from MFT What’s the Scoop?” I began by stamping the ice cream cones on kraft cardstock and the scoops of ice cream on white. I colored the scoops with copic markers and added some diamond glaze so they would look wet. The shine doesn’t show very well in the photograph. I cut these out and raised them on foam tape. I pulled out my Basic Grey paper Two Scoops (how appropriate don’t cha think?). I used the pages called Pistachio Almond, Mint Chocolate Chip, Strawberry Smoothie and Spumoni. Are you ready for a scoop yourself by now? I layered the papers and added some brads, ribbon loops, piercing and pearls for extra oomph.

That’s about it for now as I am still working on a project that needs to be finished by tomorrow night.

Sunday Ghoulish Greetings

 It is not midnight yet and I am uploading my final card for today. This meets two challenges. The first is Sunday’s Sketch at 365 Cards and the second is a recipe challenge at the Stamp Shack. The recipe called for two brads, ribbon, glitter and using a punch.

The few of you reading this who personally know me are going to say “You actually made 2 Halloween cards on the same day?” You see, since my boys are older now, I really don’t get into the spirit of Halloween anymore. And for me to even make two cards in the same year, let alone the same day is AMAZING!

The paper is by Cosmo Cricket (last year’s again), the cardstock is SU Dusty Durango. The ghosts are my ribbon, the brads are glittered, the bats are Martha’s punch, sentiment by MFT Fright Night, and the main focal image is a rub-on by K & Company. I would like to say that I meant the triangle to look a bit crooked like a witch’s hat, but I have to chalk it up to the late hour and the fact that I just completed my fourth card tonight. All I can say, is thank goodness I work for the government and I am off tomorrow for Labor Day.

Hooga Booga Love

 I am really hoping that I can participate in a few challenges this week. I like working with them as it can sometimes push me to try ideas I normally wouldn’t consider. It is Day 176 at 365 Cards and the challenge today is a Super Sketch. Instead of looking through my tower of patterned paper, I went through my scrap binder.

I found this piece of paper by My Mind’s Eye and designed the card around it. The stamped image and sentiment are by MFT Hooga booga set. The ribbon is also a scrap that seemed to go well with the colors. The button is by Tres Jolie that I have had for a few years now. Nothing fancy about putting this together. I think I will put this in my hubby’s back pack tonight where he will find it tomorrow at work!

Setting the scene and Pamper Yourself

 Today’s challenge on 365 cards was to create an indoor scene. I took a look at my stamps and decided the best choice would be to use one of My Favorite Things sets. I choose Time for Bubbly and a part of Window Shopping.

Once I had choose the stamps, I began looking at my paper packs. I decided that Basic Grey Sugared would do the trick. Both the “wallpaper” and the “floor” came from the pack. I stamped the bathtub and mirror, cut them out and colored them in. I used my copic markers to color the items in. I popped up the tub with foam dots and added Baby Blue Stickles on the bubbles. I re-stamped the mirror on silver metallic cardstock and cut the inner circle out. I added mini pearls around the outer edge to give it a more feminine look. The table, wine bottle and glass were stamped, cut out and glued. I used my scallop border punch with two shades of pink for the top edge. Finally, using the modern label punch, I inked the sentiment. I would love it if my bathroom looked like this!

In case you were wondering about the Holiday Open House last night, it was absolutely beautiful. They had 6 tables decorated each with a different holiday look. From traditional, Victorian, blue toned, gold toned, etc.  The trees were breath-taking! And the food….Oh my. It began with appetizers, bacon wrapped scallops, mushroom pot stickers, spicy beef with jalapeño corn relish (not my favorite) and baked brie with raspberries. Yummy. Then there was baked ham with cranberry relish and turkey with three different toppings. They had a luscious salad with raspberry vinaigrette dressing, dried cranberries and glazed walnuts. For dessert, apple strudel with home-made vanilla ice cream and a variety of cookies. It looks like we will definitely be holding our holiday dinner there this year. After re-living that meal, I am now going to eat a piece of home-made cinnamon bread. Enjoy your evening.

How to relax after work....

Today's creation is an ATC for a swap on The Stamp Shack. We had to use an image by MFT. No problem there, I have a few of those :) I chose this image as I would like her to be me relaxing after a long day at work. There are a few problems with the picture though....I don't own a brown and white dotted dress and I don't own the furniture either. Now the chocolate is not a problem. I am a Chocoholic!

I used copics to color in the image. It may seem like her dress is paper pieced, but it isn't. I colored her using E29 then added my white gel pen to make the dots. Since I just received my new SU colors a few days ago, I used Melon Mambo as a background layer. I gave the chocolate pieces some sparkle with an Atyou Chocolate spica pen. The dew drops are a new bottle named Dark Vanilla. Now to just make 9 more and get them in the mail.

I took an awesome class a few nights ago at the LSS called Altered Stickers. The instructor Nancy uses one sheet of Penny Black floral stickers and creates wonderful cards. I will try to upload my pictures after work tonight to share with you. I hope you have a wonderful Thursday!

It has been awhile.....

I apologize for not posting in awhile. My sister and my two nephews are in town for a few weeks and I have been preoccupied with them. They are in town because my mom had knee surgery and they are taking care of her.

My first card to show you was made for the swap at my LSS last month. The theme was masculine/Father's Day cards. I used my set from GinaK called Guiding Light. I began with kraft cardstock and stamped the rope image around the four sides with Sahara Sand ink. Then I stamped the main image on white and used my curvy rectangle nestie to cut it out. This was layered on Pacific Point and black cardstock. I colored my images with copics and put just a touch of Shimmerz paint on the seagulls. I cut out the tag with a ribbon diecut from Spellbinders, sponged the edges and used hemp to tie two knots.

The second card is one I will be demoing on Saturday at our monthly make and takes at Stamp and Deliver. I apologize for the blurry picture in advance. The layout is the same one I used during the recent VSN for a five layer card. The paper and colors were changed a bit and brads were used instead of dew drops. Here is a quick tip, if you want to use brads but don't have the color you need, take a sharpie marker in the color you want and color over them. This will permanently change the brad. I couldn't find a sharpie in the color green so i used embossing powder. I heated up plain white brads with my heat gun then dipped them in the powder and re-heat brad for a few seconds. You can make any color you want providing you have the embossing powder :)

The last card I am showing you is the alternate card to show another use for the stamp set at the Make and Take. I used all MFT products on this from the current Chocolate Kiss collection - ribbons, paper and bling.

The stamped image and bottles were colored with copic markers. I used Shimmerz paint for the background of the stamped area and did apply Diamond glaze on the nail polish bottles so the looked more realistic. The robe has Fun Flock on it to give it a terry cloth effect. I didn't come up with this idea, I saw it from one of Kim's DT gals. That is it for now, please leave a comment if you liked any of my cards :)

5 layers and a new Scor Tote

Here is another card I made last weekend for SCS Virtual Stamping Weekend with a Las Vegas theme to it. The 5 pm challenge on Saturday was titled Shopping in Vegas. We had to make a card that had 5 layers, 3 different inks, one image, one sentiment, 3 dew drops, sponging, stickles and ribbon.

I began by stamping the image by MFT Girls Night In on white cardstock and again on a scrap of Basic Grey Wisteria paper. I cut out the robe from the pp and glued it to my image on white. I colored in her skin and the chair. I sponged ink around this white layer. I matted it to eggplant and creamy caramel. I used eggplant as my base card also but we couldn't count that one as a layer. I picked out two more patterns from the Wisteria paper pack and added them to the card front. I stamped the image from MFT and cut it out using a Nestie ribbon die. Small scraps of organdy ribbon were glued to each end of the sentiment. Stickles were added to her robe, although they look kinda globby in the picture, they don't look that bad IRL. The last touch was to add the three dew drops to the top corner. Now for the exciting part of this card. As I was putting it together I didn't remember if the hostess was allowing us to use the card base as one layer. I opened up the chat thread for the challenge and was reading along to find out that no, we couldn't use the base. All of a sudden one of the pit bosses (prize givers) posted that the next person to tell her why they needed a scor tote would win one. I took my chance that I would be the first to answer and responded back. Well, I was the first one to reply and I won the tote! How fun was that?! When my Mom saw the card she immediately thought of her sister, my Aunt Blanche who babysits her grandkids alot. So this card will be on its way to her soon.

The Strip

The next challenge I tackled for the mini Vegas stamping weekend was called the strip. We had to use strips of paper on the card. It didn't matter whether you tore them or cut them with scissors, the only thing we couldn't do was used striped paper. I had this blue and green Bazzill cardstock left over from a birthday card so I started with those colors. My mind thought of things that would be in Vegas on the strip and I did not have anything in the line of gambling or show girls or Tom Jones for that matter. But I did have a new set of stamps from My Favorite Things called Girls Night Out. It had drink glasses on it. So I stamped them up, colored them and cut them out with my new Mega Curved Rectangle nestabilities. Added a few dew drops and the sentiment and wha la -

This is what I came up with. Now I must add, I do not like martinis at all. Chuck has had me try an appletini, Char had me try a Choclatini and I just can't drink them. They all taste too strong for me. I am a fruity daquiri or frozen margarita type gal. But I do like how these images stamped so well. OK, now pay attention, I used a martini stamp right? Now move on to my next post..

Hooga Booga

Now that I have dried my eyes after the last post, I need to post something lighter. Tonight is the monthly card swap at Stamp N Deliver. The theme was juvenile cards. I recently purchased the Hooga Booga set by MFT so I knew what stamps I wanted to use. Since Spring is officially here I chose to use the spring paper pack and ribbon by MFT for the background of the card. The cardstock is by SU in Regal Rose, Yo Yo Yellow and Old Olive. The flower is a new (to me anyway) prima that Michael's is now carrying. Nothing too fancy on the card as I only had one night to complete them. Sometimes simplistic is best:)

Tea-licious!

Well, I have broken my goal of posting something every day. Yesterday I played chauffeur to my youngest Jeffrey so I did not get this finished in time to upload last night. OK, I also was not happy with the base card color so that delayed things. I love this stamp set from MFT called Tea for Two. The patterned paper and ribbon are from the MFT Spring collection. My friend Stacey taught me the trick of adding the second ribbon piece under the knot and I love it. After putting it together, I added the rhinestones in the corner to give it some balance. The weather is beautiful here in Florida today at 77 degrees. My mom was just over for a bit and we were both commenting if the temperature could stay like this all the time, it would be heaven. I can't believe it is 5:00 pm already. Did everyone remember to set their clocks ahead? I am off to go start dinner. Enjoy the rest of your weekend :)

Happy Easter and MFT Idol Audition

Today's card has two purposes to it. The first use will be as my audition for MFT Idol Contest. Kim has created a contest on the SCS forum. The requirements are: you must use MFT stamps only and you can't be a past or present design team member. Well, this qualifies! The second purpose for this card is that I will use it next week for the La Costa Ladies as one of the class cards. They requested Easter cards and this will be the "cutesy" one. I used stamps from both "Eggstra Special" and "Hoppy Easter". Copic markers were used to color in the images. The long rectangle scalloped nestie, SU word window punch, SU ticket corner punch, Kaiser rhinestone, white satin ribbon and pop dots helped to complete the card. Stay tuned for the second class card to be posted soon.