Everything's Rosy - Floral Friendship

Ready for more delightful images from the new Everything's Rosy release?!! I have been having so much fun getting these new stamps inky - This card is inspired by the pic below. Would you believe me if I said that I made those cookies and then gave them to a friend with this great card?

How rude of you to laugh out loud! Okay, fine - I'll admit it - I got this inspiration photo from Design Sponge. I may not have made the cookies but I did make this lovely card! I really like how the Jasmine Silhouette looks on the Modern Wood Block. I used my stamp positioner to make sure the "Hello" stamped exactly in the right place and added a few clear twinkle stickers for fun.

The petite gingham and the yellow kitchen paper add so much to this layout - funny how you can match gingham and polka-dots on a card and it looks cute but when you wear plaid shorts and a polka-dot shirt people just stare at you like you are weird or something - I'm just saying . . . .

Stamps - 9-4180G Jasmine silhouette, 9-8635B Hello FL, 6-5066J Modern wood block

Ink - Momento dye ink in Cantaloupe, Bamboo Leaves and Rich Cocoa

Paper - A Muse Green Petite gingham, Watermelon and Yellow Kitchen paper

Accessories - A Muse White Polka Dot ribbon, Fiskars Apron Lace Edge Punch, Corner Chomper

Everything's Rosy - Day 1

HOORAY - the time has come to start unveiling all the beautiful new stamps from the Everything's Rosy stamp release! I am in LOVE with these beautiful stamps - This first card features a BIG stamp - Marigold. A clean and simple design like this one is super fast to produce and makes you want to make more -
How about three more? I scalloped the bottom front of the card to break up the "white space" just a hair and added a strip of white paper behind. Did I mention that this is a BIG stamp?
Told ya!! Can't wait to be having lots of fun with this stamp! The possibilities are endless! Hope you "Have a beautiful day."
Stamps - A Muse Marigold 9-4185N. 9-8630C Beautiful day fl
Ink - New Sprout, Bahama Blue, Rosebud, Cantaloupe, Tuxedo Black Momento Dye Ink
Paper - A Muse Latte 4b notecards, Watermelon, Sage Green, Buttercup, Robin's Egg Blue
Accessories - A Muse clear Twinkle stickers, SU! Edge punch

A Muse is 9! Happy Anniversary!

WHOO HOO! A Muse is celebrating 9 years in business! What a fun week!! The stamps used on this card are from A Muse's new clear set - Happy Everything. Aren't these colorful stripes fun? I lined up lots of 1/2" strips of A Muse paper and taped together on the back. Then I twisted my Nestabilities die so the strips were at an angle when I cut. After stamping I glittered the front! Fun times call for glitter, right?

A Muse Vintage Bicycle

A Muse is releasing 2 new clear sets!! This card features the Vintage A Muse stamp set that has popular retired images in it. I decided to use the bicycle with its great matching sentiment. It is hard to tell from the pic but the clear circle sticker is over the bicycle - I seem to be grabbing these stickers all the time these days! The new cloud paper makes it look like a sunny day - right now in KY it is raining and gray so this card is my remedy. ;-)
Stay tuned for great things at A Muse this week!!
Stamps - A Muse Vintage clear stamp set
Ink - Momento Dye ink in Tuxedo Black
Paper - A Muse cloud, Sage Green Juliette and Buttercup Yellow papers
Accessories - A Muse stitched black grosgrain ribbon, A Muse clear circle stickers, Copic

FTL87 - Shimmer thanks

It is getting to be teacher appreciation time of year - wouldn't a set of these notecards make a fun and easy gift for one of the teachers in your life?? So, so simple but WOW what an impact the shimmer paper makes! Layout is courtesy of Clean & Simple Stamping - FTL87.
A Muse Apple Red Shimmer Damask (and solid) Couture paper coupled with a Martha Stewart apple punch make a great combo - Did you know that this A Muse sentiment (3-8039B) is one of my favorites? I use it ALL the time -

Painted Paper Fun!!

One day last week I decided to paint on some of my old book paper -
A BIG mess ensued - My Ranger craft mat and hands were covered in all kinds of Claudine Hellmuth paints and mediums. But, in the end, I had several "painted pages" - I used a couple of them to make the flowers you may have seen in my Lovely as a Rose post.
Yesterday, I used a few more to make this set of three cards. TIP: When making cards like this (where the pieces fit together) it is a good idea to stack all three papers and cut them at the same time - that way your pages are guaranteed to fit together! Very different, fresh and fun - did you notice the staples? That may be my favorite part - weird, huh?

2S4Y - You Make Me Smile

This card makes me smile!! This may not be the time of year for orange and brown, what with it being Spring and all, but come on - look at all this ribbony, pearly, sparkly goodness and try not to smile!! The is the bonus 2S4Y sketch for this week designed by Heather Pulvirenti. She has such a great style to her creations, in fact, she inspired me to attempt to "artistically crumple" my ribbon. Take a couple minutes to look through her blog and you'll see the look I was unsuccessfully trying to pull off. The patterned background paper is from my Basic Grey 6x6 Offbeat pad (I am trying to use some of every pattern in that collection - it is hands down my favorite set from Basic Grey); the sentiment is from PTI; the orange sparkles and sheer white ribbon from A Muse; pearls from Zva; stamped image from SU!

CAS63 - Leaf Frond

This card was inspired by Splitcoaststampers' Clean & Simple 63 challenge. I stamped the A Muse Leaf Frond onto white glossy paper so that explains the touch of glare on the picture. Such a simple card but so striking from across the room! There are challenges for every day of the week on Splitcoaststampers - I've had a gallery on there for years. Sometimes I post a lot to it but then there are times I don't post for months. Occasionally I go and look at how differently I stamp now from when I started - a little trip down memory lane.
Stamps - A Muse 6-4167D Leaf frond
Ink - Momento dye ink in Grape Jelly, Potter's Clay and Bamboo Leaves, Tim Holtz Frayed Burlap distress ink
Paper - White and kraft cardstock
Accessories - A Muse sheer white ribbon, SU! scalloped edge punch, Tim Holtz Foam Tool (for distressing)

2S4Y - How does your garden grow?

I rotated this week's sketch from 2 Sketches 4 You on its right side - I had new pompom ribbon and some Zva pearls that I was itching to give a test run. I've been wondering what to do with the veg/fruit paper from my Basic Grey Offbeat pad when I decided to write my own sentiment - How Does Your Garden Grow - My cousin Selena (who introduced me to stamping) grows a garden every year - I was thinking of her as I made this card.

In hindsight (yes it always is 20/20) I should have swapped the veg/fruit paper with where I put the swiss dot green paper. Then the veg/fruit would've been more visible - oh well -
BTW - How often do you see patterned paper with radishes on it? When I was a little girl I once uprooted all my mom's radishes from her backyard garden and planted them in my sandbox - she wasn't too happy about it -

FTL86 - "Slice"-d Flowers

Quick post today - got lots of plates juggling in the air tonight! Kinda frazzled feeling - SIGH! This layout is from Clean & Simple Stamping's FTL86. I cut my flowers with my Slice and to get multiple sizes I ended up flipping the sketch to make a portrait oriented card instead of the landscape one on the sketch (artistic license, right? LOL). Let me tell you my new favorite thing - Making Memories Slice Hands Free Kit! I had preordered it a while back and got a chance to play with it yesterday! LOVE IT - I'd highly recommend getting it. Made things so quick and easy - that magnet is strong! Used lots of scraps to cut the flowers from - sentiment is from A Muse.

A Muse Pajama Party!!

Last night was the A Muse Pajama Party - I had SO much fun!! I've never had the opportunity to play before - Here are the rules - There was a challenge posted every half hour. You are on the honor system to not spend more then 30 minutes per card. I have a tendency to overthink and fret over even the simplest cards but I stuck to the rules and I was really pleased with how things turned out.
Challenge #1 was to be inspired by the picture on this post - This is the perfect type of card to use your paper scraps! In fact, all the paper I used (with the exception of the 4b notecards) came from my A Muse scraps! I was able to add some dimension by using foam dots to pop up the 1 1/4" circles around the sentiment.
Challenge #2 was repetition - use a stamp at least 3 times on your card. The clams were just the perfect thing for this fast and easy creation. TIP - I stamped the "colored clams" first so that they would be just where I wanted them to be in relation to the sentiment and then I used my Stamp-a-ma-jig to stamp the surrounding clams.
Challenge #3 was to be inspired by your favorite flower - I really like poppies and this stamp is so fast and easy to play with - I colored with my Koh-i-noor pencils and smoothed out the pencil lines with odorless mineral spirits and a paper stump. It is hard to tell from the photo the but black rickrack was actually cut from A Muse Slate Shimmer Paper - adds some subtle richness to the overall look of the card!Last but not least, Challenge #4 is a card for mom. Mama birds are building nests all over the place and for little baby birds, "Home is where your MOM is" certainly fits the bill. I can't tell you how much fun these challenges were - it's because A Muse stamps, paper, ribbon, etc. are so inspiring and easy to work with! I can't wait until the next A Muse Pajama Party!!
Stamps - A Muse 8-8532B Hello, 2-3140C Clams, 9-8629B Happy as clams, 2-4141F Modern poppy, 9-8588B Get better soon, 2-4118C Egg nest, 2-4075A Tiny bird, 9-8558B Home is

Moxie Fab - Lovely as a Rose

Time for the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger challenge - Lovely as a Rose. It was fun making this card. I painted old book paper with washes of paint and then fashioned them into flowers. WARNING: Old book paper is brittle and not very happy about being coaxed into flower shapes so be patient! Two of these flowers are inspired from Betsy Veldman's blog post - Make Your Own Spring.
This is the trigger picture - could you imagine getting such a bouquet? Quite lovely - These colors are so vibrant and soothing at the same time - I can almost smell the roses! I used a cuttlebug folder to add texture to the white background and added an A Muse sentiment embossed in white on green shimmer paper.
I took a pic of my card next to a beatiful pastel my older son Connor did in art class (they were studying Georgia O'Keefe at the time) a couple years back. Our master bathroom is mostly decorated in dark brown and taupe and this pic is the only splash of color in there - It makes me smile everyday!

Help, I Am Getting Frazzled!

So today I am rushing around the house - cleaning, tidying, sweeping, dusting and thinking about how "frazzled" I am getting when I got a flash of brilliance. . . maybe it just was a flash of sweat but anyhoo - LOOK at my card! BTW - all unfinished cleaning of the house and laundry is the fault of my "flash of brilliance" and we all know how fleeting those can be - one simply has to grab them when they appear!!

Got out my Harbor Freight steel stamps and made good use of them stamping out these words. This sketch is from a current Moxie Fab Challenge to use Cath's favorite sketch from the new Papercrafts Go-To Sketches. I bought this book the other day and I told myself that I could only look at one chapter a day. The ride home was 45 minutes though so I looked at the whole thing! (I am not known for incredible restraint - LOL) If you don't have it yet you might want to rush out and buy it - there is SO much inspiration!!

Wish I could tell you where the "mom" stamp is from but it is an unknown (to me, anyway) unmounted red rubber stamp. I cut the quote bubble with my Slice and used Momento Dye Inks in Rhubarb Stalk and Pear Tart to do the stamping. What is making you frazzled today?

Ricrac Fun -

Played with my new PTI ricrac die today - Did you realize that you could cut skinny ricrac? See how the bottom strip is much thinner than the upper one - that's because after I cut the first one I moved my die over just a wee bit and was able to cut a more narrow version -
Do you recognize the paper ribbon? If you enter "paper ribbon" in my search box in the right column you can see other times I've used this ribbon. It pays to take some time to make something that can be utilized again and again! I am so generous that I put a strip of the ric rac inside the card!
The A Muse Open Zinnia stamp (2-4133E) is a fun flower that is easy dressed up with some buttons. To finish, I "chomped" opposing corners because - 1) It is fun, 2) it is trendy and, 3) after struggling to cut corners with regular corner punches for years (I actually broke mine doing that) the Corner Chomper makes me feel like The Hulk.
"Take that you flimsy cardstock you are no match for the Corner Chomper - Grrrrrr!! You won't like me when I am angry!!"

They aren't called Go-To-Gals for nothing!!

LOOK!!! Isn't this card the most elegant thing ever?! I love it so much!! What makes this card really rock are the stickpins! I've been seeing elegant stickpins all over in "blogworld" these days - Want to know where I got them? I made them!

I was looking through the blogs I regularly browse when I read today's entry at Papercrafts Connection - Go-to-Gal Teri Anderson is one of my favorites - her work is so original and inspiring - so much so that I was inspired to make my very own stickpins after reading about how she did it!!

This cool sketch came from 2sketches4you - it is the first time I've done one of their sketches. If you read my blog much you know this - "Hi. My name is Michelle and I am a sketch-aholic." Honestly, I would've never thought of a card layout like this, would you? The stamps on this card are from A Muse (6-5066J Modern wood block, Monogram Frames clear stamp set), the paper is from an old book and the lace is from Wal-Mart (can you believe it??) - Have fun and try something new.

GS33 - Hello Circles

Sketch #33 from the Get Sketchy site is very different - almost scared me away completely but I am a brave girl so I soldiered on - Instead of layering up with circles onto a background I decided to dive down -
Used my Nestabilities Classic Circle dies to cut ALL the circles at one time - did you know I am not only brave but efficient also? Then I added some texture with the Cuttlebug D'vine Swirl embossing folder. I wanted the emphasis to be on the tiny sentiment (A Muse Monogram Frames clear stamp set) so I put a layer of vellum between the kraft and patterned papers.
A little PTI satin ribbon brings balance and finish - VOILA! Do you see Lily in the background? She is always on high alert for squirrels - don't know what she would do if she ever caught one but she is forever hopeful!

FTL85 - Melon Berry Mixed Bouquet

Well - I am obviously not good at naming posts - It becomes a struggle after a while to come up with something snappy and today it is much easier to produce a clean and simple card than to produce than a clean and simple Title!! If you are a fan of Papertrey Ink than you know that Melon Berry is referring to the color of the ribbon and ink used. That color is so fun cause you can go either "peachy" or "pinky" with it depending on what you couple it with - Using Canteloupe and Pear Tart Momento inks slanted this card to the "peachy" side. Melon Berry, Canteloupe, Pear Tart and "peachy" - all these words highlight the fact that I haven't had lunch yet and I'm hungry!! BTW - sketch is FTL85 from Clean & Simple Stamping, sentiment is from A Muse and stamp set is Mixed Bouquet from SU!

Tuesday Trigger - Go-To Sketches

I love Tuesday Triggers!! Such fun - this week's challenge is to be inspired by a card from the new Go-to Sketches magazine (can't wait to get one in my hands!) There is a wooden button on the trigger card that caused me to go a little nutty on the basswood veneer again! (I only have about 6" left from the 4" x 36" length I started out with.)

The trigger card features a plaid background which I turned into a flower with turquoise leaves (to echo the trigger card's ribbon). I added faux stitching, an A Muse sentiment (stamped in Timber Brown Staz-On ink - dye ink runs in the wood grain a bit too much for my taste). Finished up with a few laps around the card with baker's twine simply because I felt like it! Hope you are having a great weekend -

Little Pink Caterpillar

The other day I posted a card that my good pal, Becky Rusher said inspired her to make this card - which in turn inspired me to make this pink/green confection! I've been on a paper flower kick lately - this time I decided to bling up the center with A Muse twinkle stickers!! Looks like one of those pricey embellishments you tend to hoard, huh?

Paper pieced the little bug who is sitting on the fabulous stamped Modern Wood Block (designed by HRR Julie). Do you see the sentiment - there is a super easy way to use your stamp positioner plus some tape to turn a two lined sentiment into one - I'll try to post it sometime -

Usually I post where the layout came from but today I am happy to report that the whole card design is mine!! When you have such wonderful building blocks - A Muse stamps, paper and accessories to work with then the creativity flows!

Stamps - A Muse 6-5066J Modern wood block, 7-4072B Caterpillar, 9-8414B Sittin' here

Ink - Momento dye ink in Pear Tart and Rich Cocoa, Staz-on Black

Paper - A Muse Chiffon Yellow, Fern 4b, Buttercup, Pink Chiffon and A Muse Lime Shimmer Couture Solid

Accessories - A Muse Twinkle stickers, Fiskars Treading Water Edge punch, White gel pen, Corner Chomper, Koh-i-noor pencils

SSSC63 - Hello Squirrel

This card features a happy little squirrel sitting on a pile of "ribbon grass" (an idea I stole from Heather Pulvirenti) - I seem to have gone a bit overboard with the faux stitching but it is hard to stop once you get started - LOL! - The layout is courtesy of the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge 63 - A Muse's new cloud paper makes me think of a sunny day -
Stamps - A Muse 2-3099C Squirrel, 8-8532B Hello
Ink - Momento dye ink in Tuxedo Black
Paper - A Muse Cloud, Chiffon Yellow, Petite Blue Gingham and Toffee
Accessories - A Muse Palm grosgrain stitch ribbon, EKSuccess Edge Punch, Copic Markers, Nestabilities, Corner Chomper

CP58 - Mushroom Trio

More stamping goodness with the A Muse Mushrooms Trio stamp. The layout for this card is from the Card Patterns blog - Sketch 58. After my first glance at the layout I immediately thought of buttons for the circles at the bottom of the sketch. But then I thought that it would make the card too "bottom heavy" so I worked on an alternative.
Why not simply stamp the circles?? The A Muse Big Dot BL stamp made quick work of the dots and made this nearly a one-layer card - definitely a card that would be easier to mail than one that had 8 buttons all over the bottom!
A little kraft paper under the ribbon made it pop, the repeating scallops and the rounded bottom corners make this a soft fun card that is eye-catching and different from the norm.
Stamps - A Muse 2-4122D Mushroom Trio, 8-8532B Hello, 3-5017C Big Dog BL
Ink - Momento Dye ink in Tuxedo Black, Rich Cocoa, Ladybug and Desert Sand
Paper - White and kraft cardstock
Accessories - A Muse Sheer White Polka Dot ribbon, SU! scallop edge punch, Marvy Uchida Scalloped Square punch

Quick Birdie Thanks

Isn't this card kinda "folksy" looking? I used four different papers from PTI - 2 from the Bitty Dots Basics pad and 2 from the Green Tea Leaves Collection. The new bird punch from SU! makes this a breeze!!

A little bit of dimension under the bird's wing and part of the branch helps to balance the tied ribbon on the left of the card. If you punch out a bird and cut a 4" x 4" background from each of the four patterned papers -

add a little ribbon and a sentiment from A Muse and in no time at all you have an adorable set of matching cards!! Quick and easy - just the way I always like it!