New Goodies and a CAS Card

It was like Christmas at my house yesterday! My goodies arrived from Stampin' Up's Spring/Summer 2009 Catalogue! What fun! I thought you might like to see a photo of my loot!

This moring's LSC was perfect for me because it stipulates the use of a CAS .... Clean and Simple card. One of my new tools is a die for the Big Shot called 'Movers & Shapers, Curly Label' so I've put it to good use! It really was quick to use ... but now I need to go and get Sarah up and make her lunch for school!

Recipe
Card #1: Stamps: Fun and Fast Notes/Cardstock: WW/ Ink: Choc Chip/Accessories: Retired Blue Bayou Ribbon, SU Markers, Movers & Shapers Curly Lable Die
Card #2: Stamps: Together Forever/ Cardstock: WW/ Ink: Choc Chip/ Accessries: Pretty in Pink Taffetta Ribbon, SU Markers, Movers & Shapers Curly Lable Die

House Mouse & Gruffies

Today's TLC on Splitcoast was to use pleats in our cards. I was a little stumped so I just did a basic folded pleat and secured it at each end ... problem! How to attach the image to the pleats? Tombow Mono Adhesive is working (so far) but we'll have to see if it'll stand up to the test of time!!! This one's for my friend Pegg (twinwillowsfarm) who raises her own sheep ... it's so bitterly cold in Northern Michigan that I thought she'd appreciate this! Here's a close-up:

Recipe
Stamps : Gruffies Wool sew for Friends
Cardstock : Whisper White, Perfect Plum, Almost Amethyst DSP
Ink : Memento Rich Cocoa
Acccessories : Copic Markers

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Sometimes we are just blown away by our friends ... like me! A few weeks ago I drove down to help out my friend Michele (myoos913) who'd had a flood in her basement. We had a lot of fun and we did a little bit of work too ... then this w/end I got a HouseMouse parcel with a stamp inside and a message from Michele saying how much she appreciated my friendship ... how sweet is that?! So last night I made her a thank you card and here it is:

All my friends know I'm obsessed with Tea ... Yorkshire Tea to be exact ... so she got me a teapot stamp ... I LOVE IT! Thanks so much Michele! It's on its way!
Recipe
Stamps : House Mouse 'Chamomile Tea'
Ink : Memento Rich Cocoa
Cardstock : Whisper White, Pale Plum, Perfect Plum
Accessories : PTI Ribbon, Copic Markers

New Stamps to Play With

Morning! I can't believe another week has flown by! Yesterday I received some new stamps in the post ... love that! My friend Sharon had made a beautiful card and she told me the stamps were from a company called Rubber Stamp Tapestry ... so I visited their site and purchased a set called Pottery Garden. So last night I played around and made this monogram card for my sister, Sarah.

Then this morning over on SCS the LS challenge was to use black as the base for our cards ... so I used the same set in a different way. I love the stamps, but I realise I do need a little more practice ... which is something I won't mind doing!

Recipe
Stamps : Pottery Garden by Rubber Stamp Tapestry
Cardstock : Basic Black, Tangerine Tango, Very Vanilla
Ink : Tangerine Tango and various SU colours for the greenery and flowers
Accessories : SU Scallop Edge Punch, Gingham Ribbon

H&M Old English Charm

... I wanted to use the cottage from Old English today ~ yesterday's card used the lamp-post from the Old English Accessories set and this is one of the cottages that goes with it! Mum, I tried to get the colour that same as The Thatched Cottage (that was the name of the house my parents used to own) ~ if I get time later on I'll scan in a photo of it so you can see the similarities, I'm due out in 30 mins so don't have time right now unfortunately! Anyway, enough prattling, I hope you enjoy this card!
Recipe
Stamps : Old English from H&M Stamps
Cardstock : Dp from Wild Asparagus, SU Sage Shadow and River Rock
Ink : StazOn Black

Accessories : Primas with brad, watercolour crayons, aquapainter

H&M Sketch

I love Wednesdays because it's the sketch challenge over on SCS. Today's stumped me a little ... I couldn't get inspired to find just the right image for the tall skinny panel ~ then I remembered one of my H&M sets which had an old fashioned lamp-post ~ perfect! The set is from H&M Stamps and can be found here ... it's called Old English Accessories. It pairs up with another great set Old English which I'll use tomorrow.

I kept it super-simple, the large panel just had the fence stamped onto it, then I layered the tall skinny panel over the top of it, and just coloured that portion. I really wanted the lamp to be the focal point. I printed out the sentiment onto Vellum cardstock and tore the edges, then plonked a prima flower down ... easy peasy!

Recipe
Stamps : Old English Accessories (H&M Stamps)
Cardstock : Very Vanilla, Kiwi Kiss, Vellum
Ink : Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories : Copics, Primas, SU Brad

YUCKY Mosaic

Happy Monday! I wasn't sure whether to post this or not because I don't like how it turned out ... but it took ages so I'll go ahead! Today's TLC on Splitcoast was to make a mosaic card. It's quite simple, you cover a piece of cardstock with sticky strip and peel back the liner, then you stick down random pieces of paper and pour embossing powder over the whole thing. I spent hours and hours cutting and trimming my paper but it appears that the gaps in between the paper weren't quite wide enough for the embossing powder to cling to ... hence this messy background of uneven embossing! Yuk. Anyway, it's good to show you stuff that doesn't work sometimes!!!

Recipe
Stamps : Love you Much
Cardstock : Pink Pirouette, Not Quite Navy, Bella Rose DP
Ink : NQN
Accessories : Sticky Strip and Embossing Powder

A Few Things to Share

I wanted to share a little project I worked on last week. In March a gang of Michigan Splitcoaststampers are off to Bay City for a weekend 'Mingle'. As part of the lead-up to the event, PattyB has hosted a couple of challenges. One was to make a pie box. I thought you might like to see what I put together!

Recipe
Stamps : None
Ink : None
Cardstock : Kiwi Kiss, Bella Rose DP
Accessories : Pink Pirouette Taffeta Ribbon, Felt Fusion Flowers, Designer Brads (all SU)

The second project I wanted to share is a VERY simple little card I made ~ it's smaller than the standard size, I just trimmed it down to accommodate the image. I matted the image which was stamped with StazOn onto watercolour paper and then I just used reinkers and an aquapainter. So super-easy to do. This set is going to be available in the new catalogue which goes live on Monday.

Recipe
Stamps : Sweet Stems
Ink : Timber Brown StazOn
Cardstock : Whisper White, Watercolour, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red
Accessories : Reinkers, aquapainter, RHR Taffeta Ribbon, gold beads

A Colour Challenge and a Sketch

Morning, I'm going to post yesterday's colour challenge from SCS along with today's sketch ... the colours were Kraft, Not Quite Navy and Baja Breeze so I put together a very simple card with my teapot stamp from There She Goes (love that!). I paper pieced the teapot which means you stamp the image onto designer paper, trim it out and stick it down onto the image ... instead of colouring.

Recipe
Stamps : Tea for Two (There She Goes)
Cardstock : PTI White, Kraft, Maine Blueberry DP, Baja Breeze DSP
Ink : Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories : Baja Breeze Ribbon, Nestablities Die, Big Shot

And today's sketch is great! I had fun putting this one together! I used a new set from the upcoming Spring/Summer 2009 Catalogue, Just Buzzin' By. I love those bees!

Recipe
Stamps : SU Just Buzzin' By
Cardstock : White, Choc Chip, Washington Apple DP, So Saffron
Ink : Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories : SU punches, Copics.

I HAVE MY 2009 CATALOGUES FOR ANYONE THAT
WOULD LIKE ONE. ORDERING STARTS MONDAY JAN 19TH.

Origami Box

So, picture the scene, I have a to do list as long as my arm ... but, I think to myself, I'll just do Monday's TLC and THEN get to my list! .... OK, that was at 8.30am and now it's 12.00!!!! Aarghhhh! Lynn gave us a challenge and a half ~ it's an origami fold box with a cover made of chipboard, sounded easy enough ... famous last words! Anyway, it's done and I have the afternoon free now to do my jobs, right?!!! Oh, and mummy ... (she's my avid blog follower!) ... don't get excited, I know your name starts with an 'S' but this is actually for auntie Sallie!!!! Sorry!!

All the directions for the challenge can be found here. Just to save you some time, the origami fold diagram is really easy ... but make sure when you fold diagram 2, you leave the corners folded in before you move to diagram 3 ... then on diagram 4 you fold everything back out again!!! Took me over an hour to work that one out!!!

I used Haiku DSP for the box and the lid was made using the backing card which comes with our Designer Papers. Just be careful when you glue the paper to the front and back of the card, try to glue it with the sheet of paper in its folded position, if you glue it lying flat, then when you fold it, the paper doesn't want to fold with the card. You'll see what I mean if you make it!

The only difference from the challenge project is, I made a belly band for mine instead of using ribbon. I just liked the way it looked!

Recipe
Cardstock : Haiku DP, Choc Chip
Accessories : Nestabilities Labels 1 Die, Big Shot, Serif Alpha, Prima Flowers, Button, Thread

Ooooh ... Pinkness!

Today's LSC (limited supplies challenge) was to use either pink, red, or hearts ~ literally, nothing else!!! It's actually quite challenging once you sit down, I was dying to use my scallop edge, but it's not got any hearts on it so not allowed! Anyway, this turned out to be minimalistic and pretty so all's good! Have a great weekend all:

Recipe
Stamps : Love You Much
Cardstock : Very Vanilla, Riding Hood Red, Candy Lane DSP
Ink : Riding Hood Red
Accessories : RHR Taffeta Ribbon, Buttons from Button Bouquet, dimensionals

Baby Stars

Happy Thursday! I needed a baby card this week for a friend so today's WT (ways to use it) challenge over on SCS fit the bill ... to use stars somewhere on your project! So I pulled out a hostess set called Punches Three and layered up the centre by stamping twice and trimming the centre portion then laying it on the other stamped image to make it 3-D. The bottom photo shows you what I mean ~ I'm not good at explaining, a photo always works for me! Then I made my stars with my 2 SU punches. The card is square (4 1/4").

Recipe
Stamps : Punches Three
Cardstock : Very Vanilla, Regal Rose, Candy Lane DP
Ink : Pink Pirouette, Regal Rose
Accessories : SU Star Punches, SU Large Oval Punch, dimensionals, Pretty in Pink ribbon, crystals (non-SU)

Tea for Two

OK, 2nd post of the day ... couldn't resist! I tried the sketch a little differently with my new Tea For Two stamp set ... which I'm in love with ... a post-christmas gift to myself! The teapot and cups are paper-pieced and the ivory cardstock is teabag stained!

Recipe
Stamps : Tea for Two ~ There She Goes stamps
Cardstock : Very Vanilla, Choc Chip, Riding Hood Red, Holiday Treasures & Sweet Always DSP
Ink : Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories : RHR Taffeta Ribbon, dimensionals, teabag!

H&M Stamps GARAGE SALE Day 2

Hope you're not sick of me yet! LOL! Here's a sketch card using H&M's Fairy Tales set which is only $3.00 TODAY ONLY. Today is the final day for H&M's garage sale so if you haven't been over to take a look at the bargains, I suggest you do it RIGHT NOW! Tee Hee! Yesterday was frantic and I know many sets sold out which is great ... all that space for new inventory. Please take a moment to visit a fellow DT member's blog, Julia Aston ~ she has H&M blog candy (always a great thing!) AND her blog is fun too!

Recipe
Stamps : H&M Fairy Tales
Cardstock : PTI White, Riding Hood Red, Parisian DSP
Ink : RHR
Accessories : Stickles, Pink pirouette Tafetta Ribbon, Dimensionals

Ready for a BARGAIN or 10?

OK, we've all been waiting for today ... it's the H&M Stamps garage sale!!! You won't want to miss this ... all stamp sets under $5.00 .... ALL of them! A few sets have already sold out so if you've had your eye on something, don't wait until tomorrow! H&M Stamps can be found here.

One of my fellow Design Team Members has a fabulous blog candy offer going on ~ Carolina's blog is here ~ I suggest you check it out!

And now onto my card for today. Of course, it's an H&M image! This set is called 'Kiddie Farm' and you can buy it today for $4.00 ... yes you did read that right! Here's a link for you.

Recipe
Stamps : H&M Kiddie Farm
Cardstock : PTI White, Brilliant Blue, Garden Green, Pumpkin Pie
Ink : Palette Noir
Accessories : SU Markers, Paper Piercer, Prima Flowers, Mini Buttons, Ribbon, Tag Punches

A Glitter Technique

Morning all ... Monday, and everyone's back to school and work ... phew! Back into a routine again at last! First things first though, the Monday morning technique challenge over on SCS. Today it's a glitter technique found here.

I used 1" and 1/4" red sticky strip and an assortment of glitters I had in my stash. Then I added the panel which was made with my Big Shot and the serif alphabet dies (love them!) Fun isn't it?!

Recipe
Cardstock : Riding Hood Red, PTI Vellum, PTI White
Accessories : Sticky strip and glitter, Big Shot, Serif Alpha Die, Dimensionals

HAPPY 2009

Happy New Year Everyone! Funny story for you {{mum will be mortified!!!}}. About 6.30pm our phone rang and I picked it up to the sound of music and singing ... my mum & dad are over in the Channel Islands with my sister and her family so it was about 11.30pm their time. Well, let's just say that the singing was so loud that mum couldn't hear me ... and she was concentrating very hard annunciating her words!!! I think that they were all 'very merry' ... let's put it that way! LOL! My brother-in-law plays the accordian (or squeeze box) and it was sooooo loud! My dad was heartily singing away ~ I wish I'd been there ... maybe next time.

Anyway, enough of that ... onto the stamping stuff!!! Today's challenge is a great one ... to use silver on your design somewhere (SCS WT199). I used shimmer white cardstock and embossed the frame in silver, I also added silver ribbon for a very simple but elegant card.
Recipe
Stamps : Frames with a Flourish, Thank You Kindly, Bella Toile (b/g stamp)
Cardstock : Shimmer White, Riding Hood Red

Ink : Riding Hood Red, Versamark
Accessories : Silver Embossing Powder, Silver Ribbon (PTI)