FTL105 - Lifetime of Love and Joy - -

This card is based on this week's Clean and Simple Stamping's Fall to Layout 105 (FTL105) - I love it when a design comes together so quickly -

I'm digging my new Creamy Brown Color Box Chalk ink - the swirl is from Stampington and the sentiment (stamped on vellum) is from A Muse.  LOOK - I made crinkled ribbon!  YES, there is some color on that ribbon - just look a little more closely - it is "ivory-ish".  My boys and husband both accused me of not dying the ribbon - the coloring is subtle - good grief.  I did dye some other bundles in brighter colors but I have to ease into those - Colors scare me, remember?

The wonderful Jen Shears shared her crinkle ribbon secrets with me and if you are nice and you beg pretty please, maybe, just maybe, she will do a tutorial one day - but maybe she won't and I will know her secrets and you won't.  nah, nah, nah, boo, boo!!

PDCCC#44 - Colour Horribilis Challenge

Do not adjust your screen - this color combo comes from this week's Playdate Cafe Challenge #44 - Colour Horribilis Challenge (hot pink, navy blue and mustard).  Only such an aptly named challenge would get me to use these colors together but, I must say, I am pretty pleased with the results -

I picked up the Hero Arts Scroll Tree and the Inkadinkado circles when I was at the Doodlebug last weekend.  Rounding out the supply list are Basic Grey Granola paper, Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type stickers and Grapefruit ZING Embossing powder that was part of my 2010 Stamping Royalty loot (you know I would never buy hot pink embossing powder on my own but I was happy to have it tonight!)

The layout is courtesy of Card Positioning Systems #182.  I'm getting addicted to writing my own sentiments with the stickers.  Rest assured - my roots are NOT hot pink (sadly, they are grey)!

Tuesday Trigger - Light & Bright w/Paper Pleating

Just feast your eyes on this crazy cool card! I have NEVER made anything quite like it before and I LOVE it!! It is based on the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger - Light & Bright pictured below. When I look at this picture I think - modern, clean, bright, glass, uncluttered, comfy, etc.

It is definitely a room that I would never have in my beach house but it is very striking. My patterned paper choice is based on the one element missing from the trigger picture! I would put a patterned pillow on that lonely white chair and I'd put a red ruffled edge on it to soften it just a bit.

The Zva crystals reflect all the clear glass and I am really tickled that I wrote my own sentiment with Basic Grey and Cosmo Cricket mini stickers. The lovely Webster's Bloomers rose ribbon was a gift from my dear friend, Kim - Thanks, Chicka!! The paper treatment at the bottom of the card is pleated courtesy of the pleating lesson from Maren Benedict on Paper Crafts Connection. Make sure you take the advice of this card this weekend - "Sit a minute and relax"

OLW17 - Leaf Frond II

Time for another One Layer Wednesday from the Simplicity blog!  The OLW17 challenge this week was to make a one layer card utilizing a border stamp.  I decided to use my A Muse Scroll Border stamp multiple times ~~ the more the better, right?  Even though this is an ornate stamp the light color of ink (New Sprout by Momento) kept it from overwhelming the card.  I masked off a section in the middle of the card so there would be a nice white area for stamping my Leaf Fronds II stamp and sentiment.  All stamps on this card are from the A Muse Everything's Rosy release.

While the stamp inked in Pear Tart (my favorite Momento dye ink) is lovely by itself - the addition of some green/yellow Koh-i-Noor pencil shading and a touch of Copic Grey (W1, W2) add just enough oomph to make the image POP off the card.  Plus the multiple stamping of the border makes this card eligible for the A Muse Lounge Challenge #19 - Stick to the Pattern.
BTW - Those of you with sharp eyes may see where I mistakenly "thought" that using a border punch on the top of this card would be a good choice!!  I was very, very wrong - I salvaged it by sticking it onto another piece of white cardstock.  I had no time to redo it - Do not tell Susan!!  SSSHHHhhhhhhh!!!  I stand behind this as a one-layer card!!  Shush!

Paper Crafts Go-to Sketch Challenge #6 - KaiserCraft Wood Embellishment

Blogger seems to have added some features which means that my posts will look weird until I figure them out!!  I LOVE, love, LOVE this card!  It is all green and brown - my most "favorite-ist" colors PLUS has Zva Crystals and one my new KaiserCraft Wood Embellishments!

The layout is courtesy of Paper Crafts Go-to Sketch Challenge #6 and is a sketch from my most "favorite-ist" Go-to Gal, Teri Anderson!!  Her blog is chock-full of inspiration - so I incorporated a recent idea I gleaned from there - Scrap Shapes into this card - look closely and you can see that the circles are paper pieced.  The wood embellishment came bare so I greened it up with some spritzes of Lime Green Glimmer Mist!  Sentiment is from A Muse and the patterned papers are from Basic Grey.

GS52 - If friends were flowers . . .

As I've admitted on this blog several times, card layouts are a struggle for me - that's why I participate in so many sketch challenges. This card is based on the Get Sketchy 52 layout below. Sometimes when I get stuck on a tricky sketch (like this one) I turn it in a different direction to get another perspective - When I turned this layout upside down I saw "flowers". Suddenly a difficult sketch became an easy one!!
I got to use some of my new goodies on it too - My new Martha Stewart Grass punch and some stitched, pleated Maya Road ribbon (both available at the Doodlebug). The sentiment and patterned papers that make up the banner and flower stems are from A Muse. The flower stickers are from K&Company, all other patterned papers are from Basic Grey. Have fun and tackle a sketch today - you will be glad you did!
PLUS - this card fits into Glenda's Random A Musing Challenge #79 - Use a non-stamped flower on a card. Did you know she has a new A Muse challenge on her blog each Monday?

Paper Crafts Magazine -

I got published in the September/October issue of Paper Crafts magazine!! I have a card on page 59 (plus if you look at page 58 it is "the corner of MY card" that covers the bottom half of the page. I'll take all the credit I can get!! hee hee). Anyway - on page 66 is a little tiny picture of another of my cards that is an online bonus project - WHOO HOO! Just thought I'd show you a bigger pic of that card -
There is nothing like seeing a professional picture of one of your projects in a magazine to make your day!! I hope this is the beginning of many things published in Paper Crafts magazine but if it is a fluke (I've been rejected lots since then - bummer) I'm gonna milk it for all its worth!! I need to get another issue cause my current one is getting all dogeared from me looking at it! You may wish to buy this issue to look at all the beautiful papercrafting inspiration in it - but first look on page 59 - okay?

PDCCC43 - Mixed Bouquet

It is so nice to stamp today for fun!! I've been so busy the past week that I missed several of my favorite challenges. This card borrows the layout from Clean & Simple Stamping's FTL104 and is in the colors of The Play Date Cafe Color Challenge (PDCCC43). This is a pretty bright card for me - in hindsight I wish I'd made the white cardstock a pale lemon yellow - that would've been pretty! My SU! Mixed Bouquet set is one I will never part with!! I feel the same way about this sentiment stamp from A Muse - it is retired now but will never leave my stamping collection!
Hope you've had a great weekend - Real life starts back first thing in the AM. All cardstock is from Papertrey Ink.

Busy day at the Doodlebug!!

WOW!! What a great day I had teaching at the Doodlebug! Fourteen joined me in making A Muse Summer Vacation cards - We had so many laughs! It is spectacular spending time with people who understand how fun papercrafting is!!

These eight ladies joined me in the A Muse Marvelous Monograms class - we learned the elements of making boxes and had a blast! A special thanks goes to my "Four Favorites" - the quartet of gals who made my day by staying for BOTH classes!! You guys are hard core papercrafters!
Since I had so many students I was able to indulge in more "playthings" than normal - LOOK at all the goodies that will be showing up in future posts!

I am exhausted and even have a bit of a sore throat from all that talking but I definitely have a smile on my face! If you haven't visited the Doodlebug yet - you are really missing out! Hannah and Melanie run a gem of a store!!

CAS gone bad!!

I am up to my armpits in cutting/prepping for tomorrow's classes but I thought I'd share a card that I made a couple weeks back for the Clean & Simple Stamping FTL98. I finished this card and looked at its opulent excess and was happy -

What's not to love - dry embossing - textured watercolor paper, a blossom with a butterfly perched on top, heat embossed sentiment from A Muse, Zva pearls, ribbon, patterned paper. Nothing is missing - EXCEPT one very important thing!! The part where this layout was supposed to be CLEAN & SIMPLE!! Oops! Couldn't post this card to that challenge - so I went back and tried again -

Now this IS a clean and simple card! Equally beautiful - frankly more beautiful to me with less of all the "stuff" that I cluttered the first card up with. Two very different cards with one very simple layout! Which card do you prefer?

Class Sneak Peek - A Muse Seahorse

Did you know that I am teaching at the Doodlebug this Saturday? If you want to have fun making this adorable card featuring the A Muse Seahorse/Coral plus use Nestabilities dies, Copic Markers and learn lots of fun tips and techniques then you'd better hurry and call the Doodlebug to sign up -

This card goes perfectly with the current Color Cue challenge from Wplus9 stamps!! Click on the class picture in the left column for further class details.

Embellish Color Challenge - Kindred Spirits

The colors in this card are inspired by the new Embellish magazine.com Color Challenge - sea foam, kraft, peach and cream.
I totally swiped the frame idea from Maile Belles - She is one creative chick! I cut the entire frame out at one time with my Nestabilities dies - ran it through the Xyron and dumped my favorite Martha Stewart clear coarse glitter over it for sparkly shine.
The big background stamp is from SU! - Kindred Spirits. Sentiment is from Papertrey Ink. When I went outside to take our youngest to school this morning it was positively pleasant!! WHOO HOO! So nice outside I had to take my pics out there too! Ignore the crispy brown grass - it hasn't rained here in forever. Looks bad but makes me 13 year old really happy when he doesn't have to mow!!

PDCCC42 - Rolled paper flower

SIGH - green and brown are my favorite colors and they look so good on this card! Have you ever made a rolled paper flower? They are easy, quick and really cute!! The Play Date Cafe Challenge #42 inspired the colors while the sketch is courtesy of Card Positioning Systems Sketch #180.

Here's a closeup of the bloom - you can loosen it to make it bigger or roll it rather tightly (as I did) to make your bloom smaller - this leaf ribbon from May Arts is the perfect touch underneath - sometimes it is hard to decide how to attach it so I opted to staple it on with my Tim Holtz tiny attacher.

The patterned paper is from Basic Grey's Cappella and Basics Kraft collections and the sentiment is from A Muse. The stamped stitching is from a Technique Tuesday stamp set and the bling is from my stash - Have a great day - it is still broiling hot here!

"Slice"-d Fabric monograms!

Look what I made last night! Can you tell what they are?

Burp cloths for our new nephew, Max! I'm super excited about these since,

1) I am not much of a sewer (a person that sews fabric not a drainpipe - actually, I am not much of either),

2) I used fusible webbing and batting for the first time,

3) I love monogrammed things (especially monogrammed with "m"), and

4) They are so stinking cute!!

To make the monograms I first stiffened small squares of fabric with some liquid Fabric Stiffener I picked up at Hobby Lobby and applied with a foam sponge on top of waxed paper. They were set aside to dry (took about 30-45 minutes) and in the meantime I cut my fabric and batting to 9" x 21" with my rotary cutter (first time I've used one of those too).

The Noteworthy Slice card had the font I was looking for -

The hands-free collar is awesome if you don't already have one! Can you tell that this fabric has already been cut?

There it is!! Super easy!

Two adorable fabric monograms!

Stitch Witchery fusible webbing attached the monograms to my fabric. Next step was to zigzag stitch them on permanently. I found the inspiration for these cuties from the Craftaholics Anonymous blog - there are loads of great ideas on this blog!! My Janome mini sewing machine - a tiny but powerful machine for basic stitching - was a rockstar on this project.

That was fun - I may go and buy more fabric tomorrow! Hope you've had a great weekend!

GS#51 - For Max!

Guess what we got yesterday - a brand spanking new nephew!! Maxwell James weighs 10 lbs. 8 oz. and is 20 1/2" long! What a boy!! Want to see him? Here he is with his big sister, Stella.

Momma and baby are doing great - the only bad thing is that they live SO far away from us! Good thing there are computers and webcams but nothing is like holding a baby! We won't get to see him for a few months at least (insert "heavy sigh" here).

The sketch is from Get Sketchy #51 and features paper (gingham and robin egg's blue), sentiment and polka dot ribbon from A Muse; buttons and twine from PTI; punch from Paper Source; and glitter paper from Doodlebug. My boys are 9 and 13 and definitely don't smell like newborns and they are too big to hold but they are my babies - maybe I'll sit them down and sprinkle baby powder on them and close my eyes and imagine they are newborns - (good thing I have a pretty good imagination!)

Moxie Fab - She Sells Seashells

This card is for the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger Challenge: She Sells Seashells. This trigger was so hard for me that I skipped it entirely but then Cath extended the challenge another week to taunt me so I relented and gave it a try - -

Have you ever seen a picture that was more "not me"?!! However, when I was much younger I was a pink girl so I sat back and tried to revisit that person. I didn't use seashells but was definitely motivated by the color of the inside of a shell - the pearly sheen is reflected in the background paper and the buttons and I pulled the gold out in the decorations.

The Jolee's boutique accessories came from Michael's - steel die is from PTI - Tissue Tape from Tim Holtz (have I made you buy any yet, Jen S??) - the newly popular baker's string - pale pink silk ribbon were all layered onto my card along with a brass bee I've had for some time.

Not sure if I like this card or not but at least I tried, right?