Giving Thanks

One of the things I am most thankful for is our house and our neighbors. After living on a military base for so many years we got used to not really knowing our neighbors because it seemed like the minute we got to know them they moved again. Now that we have a home it feels like we really have roots here in the community. I am truly grateful for my neighbors and the support they have given us in the past year and a half that we have lived here. Today, to show our thanks in a very small way I baked mini loaves of pumpkin bread and naturally had to package them up and stamp in some way, how else would they know it was from me :) I followed the bread box tutorial by TechnoStamper Mary Jo Price-Williams.


The green plastic wrap was a little unfortunate, it kinda makes the bread look a little funky, but I promise it was yummy.

Details

Stamps: Happiness Always
Ink: Really Rust, Pumpkin Pie, Close to Cocoa
Paper: Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, Pumpkin Pie, Ruby Red
Accessories: Scallop Punch, Paper Piercer, Silk Fall Leaf

Blog Award, Me??

My good friends Joyce and Sara gave me this blog award.

I need to nominate 5 other bloggers as well. This is hard since there are so many great and creative blogs out there. Here are a couple that I visit frequently. I tried to spread the love around so not all one group got all the attention.

Here are the rules:

~The winner may put the logo on their blog

~Put a link to the person who sent you the award

~Nominate 5 blogs

~Put links to their blogs

~Leave a message for your nominees

Kim
Dorinda
Pro
Amanda
Jimmi




I feel guilty since I have not been very good at keeping this place up to date, so now I guess I should add something new for you all to look at too.

This is the card that I made for the Christmas Shoe Box Swap that I went to a few weeks ago.



I was told at the Swap that I am the coloring girl. I found that funny as I rarely colored any of my images until last fall when Kim introduced me to Copics. I'll admit that I am now addicted to them, but I still found that funny.

Stamp image using Brilliance Graphite Black on white cs. Set aside to dry.
Assemble decorative panels mount on large Not Quite Navy panel.
Color image as desired using Copic Markers
Punch corners of image panel using Ticket punch.
Mount to small Not Quite Navy panel.
Assemble onto Baja Breeze card base
Use white gel pen to add accents to card
Finally, use Stardust glitter pen to add snowy accents to image.

Encore

Yay! The final challenge tonight was to add to one of our cards. I decided to finish up the Cameo Card. So here is the FINAL version.


Upgrades:
Additions:
Paper Pierced around the image
Metal Dots in the corners
Faux Piercing around perimeter of card

Shake the Case

It's VSN time again. I love being able to participate and love the fact that DH has to take care of the kids while I stamp even more :)

I have a lot of cards to upload but wanted to get this one up first.

This card was for the Cameo Card challenge. We had to make a card that was reminissant of a cameo. I personally love cameo's and have always wanted one...so now I have one. While I was making this card I came up with a new technique, I am calling it "Shake the Case" until someone comes up with a better name. I wanted the background to look like there were veins in it and a bit uneven. I put a few drops of re-inker into a stamp case and then spritzed it with water a few times. I closed the lid and shook the case back and forth and then laid the card stock in the case and smooshed it in. I got a nice vein look this way. I may have to try it with multiple colors and see what happens as well.



I then used some Glassy Glaze on top of the image and heat set it to make it shiny. Unfortunately you lost the details of the technique by making the card stock darker. Oh well. I know it's there.

In the end this was a very involved and messy card....for me. I left several cabinets and drawers open and had cs and materials everywhere.




Here is the finished card. I need to add more to it, but in 45mins this is all I had time to do. I was actually adhering everything when the timer went off.



Details:
Stamps: Inspired by Nature
Paper: Cameo Coral, VV, Old World DSP
Ink: Cameo Coral, VV
Accessories: Glassy Glaze, vanilla grosgrain ribbon,
Techniques: Shake the Case

Here is my SCS gallery post

Wall Hangers

I invited a few friends to join me for the SBS so I wanted to make them something special for making the drive and taking the time to spend the day with Peanut and I (yes, I had the baby with me.) I saw a few of these in the gallery and thought it was an awesome idea and I happened to have all the supplies on hand.



I started with 4" chipboard coasters (I have nearly as many coasters on hand as I do paper cliips) and cut some dsp in 4" squares. I grabbed my 5" Xyron only to discover that 2 little monkeys must have gotten to it up on my counter top and pulled out the entire roll of the cellophane top layer. *Sigh* Fortunately, I was able to discover that I could still use the adhesive roll if I laid it flat and then stuck the coasters to the adhesive and pulled it back off the adhesive came off the waxy layer and made my whole coaster sticky. I was able to easily stick my 4" squares of Bella Rose dsp directly to the coaster, and they WILL not be coming off any time soon. I then trimmed 1/16" off all four sides of the coaster to square off the rounded coaster corners. I cut coordinating card stock into 3-1/4" squares and used my punches to create interesting shapes. I folded the ribbons in half and created the hanging loops. I adhered the ribbon to the back of the coasters using hot glue. Then, I embellished the panels. These wall hangers can be a cute way to display photos or your favorite stamped images.

Details:

Stamps: None
Paper: Bella Rose dsp, Pink Pirouette, Red Riding Hood, Kiwi Kiss
Accessories: Ribbon, Large Brad, Silk Flowers, Buttons, Corner Rounder Punch, 4" Chipboard Coasters, scallop punch

SBS Frames

Part of the fun of the Shoebox Swap was making an altered item for a door prize. I bought a few white frames the last time I was at Ikea and thought we would use them in the girls bedroom, and I got a few extras to put in that bottomless project drawer. Well, none of them are in the girls room yet, but I was inspired enough to cover them with Bella Rose dsp and use the coordinating card stock to create a mat. I think they came out very cute. I found the little silk sticky flowers in the bridal section of JoAnns and I think it accents the soft Pink Pirouette roses nicely.



Details:

Stamps: NONE
Paper: Bella Rose dsp, Pink Pirouette cs, Kiwi Kiss cs, Whisper White cs
Accessories: White silk stick on flowers

I also included a bottle of assorted white Prima flowers, but decided I needed to dress those up a little too, so I packaged them in this little popcorn box I cut using my Tags Bags Boxes and More cartridge for my Cricut Expressions. Sorry, i don't remember the name of this dsp, it was some really old Stampin' Up! paper I had in my collection.

My First Shoe Box Swap

I went to my first SCS Shoe Box Swap this weekend and had so much fun. I can't believe I was able to get everything prepared just 3 weeks after having a baby. I will be showing you projects over the next few days.

So I had my card layout all ready by Tuesday night. I was quite impressed with myself. I just needed an embellishment to go in the right corner. First I thought a flower would look good, so I went out and bought some white paper flowers and used my reinker to color them Red Riding Hood. They came out great, but I couldn't find anything to put in the center that I liked. Then on Friday I was looking at the gallery on SCS and was inspired by my friend Kathy's (BeadFreak22) card and decided to use a jumbo paperclip and add the flower. For even more guidance I went back and looked at a paperclip that Kath had sent me quite a while ago when we were first getting to know each other. Thank You Kath. I happened to find one paperclip in my drawer and then decided that I would stop at the store on my way to the Swap and get a box. Well, it just happens that they were out of single boxes silver jumbo paperclips, so I had to get a 5 pack. I now have enough jumbo paperclips to keep me well supplied the rest of my stamping life. I am sure you will be seeing paperclips on quite a few upcoming projects and I will be sending a few with ever RAK. If you have any other ideas of how to reduce my supply, let me know.

This was my project with the directions I included in my shoe box.



Bella Rose Monkey
• Stamp Monkey image on large white rectangle using Brilliance Coffee Bean ink set aside to dry
• Stamp cupcake image on small white rectangle Brilliance Coffee Bean ink set aside to dry
• Fold Close to Cocoa cs along score line
• Attach large rectangle of dsp to Red Riding Hood card stock
• Attach Red Riding Hood panel to lower right of card front
• Attach small rectangle of dsp to Kiwi Kiss card stock
• Use adhesive along top, bottom and left side of Kiwi Kiss panel only, leaving an open pocket along right side
Create Paper Clip

Creating Paper Clip

• Cover front of small chip board flower with small Bella Rose dsp flower (one small dot of Mono Multi Glue on each petal works well for complete coverage.)
• Cover front and back of one large chipboard flower with Red Riding Hood card stock
• Cover back of second large chipboard flower with Red Riding Hood card stock.
• Cover front of second large chipboard flower with Bella Rose dsp.
• Fold ribbon in half and attach to back of cs covered flower
• Apply Red Sticky Strip over ribbon flower and on back of large dsp flower
• Create flower sandwhich
o Ribbon Flower
o Paper Clip (open end)
o Large dsp Flower
• Attach small flower to large dsp covered chipboard flower.



• Use markers to color monkey and cupcake images stamped earlier
• Attach monkey image to small Red Riding Hood panel
• Attach monkey to center of Kiwi Kiss panel
• Cut out cupcake
• Attach to monkey paw using dimensional
• Use Yellow Stickles on candle flame
• Apply Stardust Stickles to pink frosting on cupcake
• Slide flower paper clip onto the right side of the Kiwi Kiss panel