Wanna swap?

If you are in the US it is easier, but if you are outside the US, please check postal rates and/or see my post (i.e. Canadian swappers) for further details.

I am hosting a couple of swaps within the next few months at SCS http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ for ATCs (artists' trading card--baseball card size) and card fronts (A2 size). You can check them out HERE for the ATCs and HERE for the card fronts if you are interested. I would love to have my SBS4 sisters join me if it is feasible. I know a lot of you are out of the states, so . . . if you can't I understand. I just wanted to *put it out there* if you did want to. Any questions, don't be afraid to ask here, there or at my email in my sidebar on the right. :) Kelly

It has been a while

Oops. I guess it has been a while since I have posted. I didn't realize that I forgot to post last week, so this picture of what I have been up to fits me pretty well, I guess.

Remember me telling you that I was having trouble coming up with an idea. Well . . . I finally got my House Mouse ATC card done using the Mudpie Tells stamp. Thanks to my good friend, Lena, I was able to start on these a few days earlier than expected. She sent me some stamped off images, because I was worrying about my stamps coming in time to get started. My stamps actually came the next day. So I had a few ideas floating around in the old noggin' but this one came to fruitition.

I used real red for the background layer and dry embossed it with the cuttlebug Happy Birthday folder. After coloring, gamsoling, and fun flocking the main image, I sponged rose romance around the edges and then layered the main image on a scalloped oval cut from some SU dp (I think from 2004. Not sure of the name, as I bought this on Ebay a year or 2 ago). It is mostly white with sporadic gray and pink dots on it. The cupcake and apron were stamped from a clear Studio G set in basic black and colored with prisma pencils, pink liquid applique, and stickles. These were trimmed and glued in place. A hole punch was used on the left hand side to put the ribbon through, and the saying on the bottom was written by hand on a window punch piece of pink cs and held in place with a pink brad.

While I am on the subject of House Mouse, I thought I would also share another card I made for our Stamp of the Month House Mouse swap. We don't show them until after everyone has received them that way, we all come up with our own idea. It is so cool to see what everybody else does with the same image as you.

Here is my rendition-->

I had a lot of fun making these, and I hope they are enjoyed as much by those in the swaps.

:) Kelly

Have you seen the Everything skit on YouTube?

Okay, I have seen this on two blogs now, and I want to share it with the world. I know I won't reach a LOT of people, but I think if I show it to my friends and family, and you pass it on to your friends and family . . . well, I am hoping we can all make a difference. This is a skit from a young ministries group. If you do not believe in God, you may not be interested, but I truly hope EVERYONE takes the time to look at it. I have watched it 3 times now, and it touches me every time.

Enjoy and God Bless! :) Kelly

He is MY Everything (with song by Lighthouse)

Hot Stuff . . .

I am trying to fit a few challenges in now and then in between my swaps I am participating in. I have one due Feb 1st that I just keep getting brain block on. I think of an idea, then . . . no, that's not very original, then another . . . no, I don't like that either. I am having a hard time deciding what I want to do, and all of the ladies in this group come up with totally AWESOME ideas, so I want it to be a good one. Anyway, even thought I probably should have worked on that today, I worked on a sketch challenge instead. This one just came to me and worked out pretty good, I think. So, here is Roxie's Sketch Challenge 159 for this week from SCS.





You had to have 3 layers.
The bottom one being the card base,
then a second layer about half way up the card or a little more,
then a rectangle slightly to the left. See the picture to the right.






So, I was stamping off some Penny Black images for the Wish RAK group, and I thought this image would be perfect in a rectangle, so here she is . . . gonna give this one to my DH for Valentine's Day. See the closeup for a better view, but it says . . . "Hey, Hot Stuff!" On the inside, since we clown around a lot, I wrote . . . "Wanna Get Lucky?!" LOL (sorry if I offended anyone). I thought it was cute. I am sure he will LOVE it.


So for the details:





Stamps: Light the Night from Penny Black, a tiny heart stamp from Inkadinkado, Happy Valentine's day stamp shown used on the inside (from Canadian Maple Collection)





Ink: Basic Black and versamark





CS: Real red, black, pretty in pink and some old SU dp and Ice stickles (not showing well in the photograph).





Accessories: Heart brad, silver round brads, prismacolors and gamsol, index tab punch, sheer black ribbon and red grosgrain ribbon and paper piercing.

Step-by-step details:

First I stamped the image of the Light the Night image, colored it with Prismacolors and gamsoled, and then added Stickles to her earrings, purse string, jewlry, dress collar and hemline, and the beads that hang from her shawl.





While this dried, I sponged the white cs with some ruby red for added softness and depth, cut the black cs to length for the bottom (might look a little better longer) panel and added the red floral dp from SU, ticket punched the corners to add my round silver brads, then covered the seam from that layer with the sheer black and grosgrain red. I use a slit punch at the fold to pull the ribbon through to the inside of card, then secure it with tape. You can use another sheet of cs or paper on the inside if you want to cover the ribbon and brad heads.





The image was then trimmed out rather close and I made a rectangle to layer her on. I chose the pink first, but it needed jazzed up a little. A heart from the Inkadinkadoo baby set I have worked well here with versamark, but it just wasn't bright enough, so I quickly added some clear EP and heated it. Then I ran a strip of red across the top and bottom of this piece and layered it on black sc to make it pop. I still thought it needed a little something, so I got out the paper piercer and added some holes along the top and bottom. I wanted to somehow use one of these pretty heart brads I have been hoarding for about a year (given to me by a dear friend). This was placed at the top of the rectangle for added dimension. With an image this size, it is hard to add a sentiment, so I got out the tab punch and in my own handwriting printed, "Hey, Hot Stuff!" on the tab, a little doodline, adding the image to the pink layer and the note and Valentine stamp on the inside, and it was done.





Thanks for looking, and if you also take a stab at this challenge, leave a comment and link up here so we can all take a look, too. No blog candy this time, but there will be one again in a few weeks. So stay tuned! :) Kelly

Another Valentine and the Challenge Winner!!!

First the card: I have been trying some different ideas for Valentine's cards and doing some challenges on other stampers' blogs. Check out Poppicrafts for her red, white and black Valentine challenge and our own Kristine from SBS4 group for her Valentine challenge as well!

It was rather hard for me to make a Valentine's card without using pink. I submitted my last card at Poppicraft's blog telling her "it's in shades of red," but then I felt guilty that I had not conformed to the challenge rules very well, so I started with sketch 158 from SCS, made a kickstand card and used some scalloped circles . . . then I went blank. I let it set for the night and this morning it all just seemed to click. I added the sentiment from Forever in My Heart (SU), doodled around it, swiped the edges on my ruby red ink pad, punched the holes around the scalloped edge with my 1/16-inch hole punch and then I needed something for the bg.

So I used real red on my white cs base, stamped it with the little heart that says LOVE in opaque StazOn (cursing myself that I didn't just by the regular StazOn white), added clear EP and heated it . . . now my white seemed to totally disappear. . . ughhh, so I stamped some black hearts too to add more depth and color back into my bg paper. I love this polka dot ribbon (I think Jessica sent me). I have others, but it is sheer. This is more like organdy ribbon, and it worked perfectly btw.

I stamped a few more hearts in basic black on my real read cs, cut them out and popped them up on the card base. I wanted a little heart charm, but it seems I am out of those, so I stamped another in the opaque white StazOn, punched a small hole in it and used a jump ring from another charm to attach it to the ribbon. The white wasn't quite bright enough for me, so I traced around the stamp with my white gel pen to accent it a bit too. I also added a strip of real red at the bottom so that when it closes you don't see the white sticking out there, stamped the love sentiment along the bottom and added another popped up "love" heart. These are so much fun, I may have to try another one. :)


All in all, I really like how this card turned out. Isn' t it funny how sometimes you haven't a clue what you are going to do, sleep on it, and then it just all comes together?!


Here are the deets:

cs: white, real red, ruby red and black

ink: StazOn opaque white and SU basic black

acc: clear EP, polka dot black ribbon, scalloped circles made with nestabilities, jump ring for charm heart, 1/16-inch hole punch, scrap pieces of cs to pop up the hearts a little bit, white gel pen, and basic black marker.

**********************************

Oh yeah, and I bet you are wondering who the winner of my challenge is, huh?!

What you are really here for no doubt . . .

Okay, so I was going to hang out until midnight, but getting up at 5:30 . . . well, the eyelids are getting like the rest of me--pretty heavy. :) So, here is the list after Random.org rearranged the 5 ladies that participated in the challenge (with one of them making 2 different cards).

THE WINNER IS . . . **insert drum roll here**

By True Random Number Service/List Randomizer
There were 6 items in your list. Here they are in random order:

Jessica
Kristine
Chris
Allieles
Kristine
Deb
Timestamp: 2008-01-11 04:20:16 UTC (this was around 11:20 p.m. ET)


Wooohoo, congrats, Jessica!

I will be getting a package around to send out to you by Monday at the latest.

Please shoot me an email with your address.

Night, ladies!! zzzzzzzzzzzzzz Kelly signing off. ;)

***********************************************************************************

Edited to show you subscribers what you missed:

I really hope I can get more of you to participate in the months to come. Maybe you were really busy right now with Valentine's day coming up and all or the new year has you busy with other commitments, but it would be awesome to have more playing in the challenges this year. I know this is new, and it will catch on, but I just wanted to show you what you missed by not participating. This lovely little collection of yummy papers, die cuts, mini envelopes and brads will be going out to Jessica tomorrow morning, as I didn't have it ready earlier, and our mail carrier has already gone for the day. Hope you play next month. :) Kelly

Hey, how's the challenge coming?!

Hey, everybody!

It's Tuesday morning, and I am having technical difficulties with work. Dang! LOL Although, it puts a pinch on my schedule and my wallet . . . I was able to squeeze in some time to make that Valentine card I had promised you. I used the sketch from before and made one with hearts as well. there was almost no stamping on this pretty card until I realized I needed a little depth to the pretty in pink cs in the back. . . so . . . I added the flower from the Forever in My heart set. I thought it's scalloped edges matched perfectly with the scallops from the nesties. The smallest circle is a 1 inch punch with the smallest of the small circle scallops used for the next layer. The pretty paper on the two circles underneath is from my good friend, Deb (Dcorder at SCS). She actually MADE that paper. Isn't it pretty? It is made with paper pulp and rose buds in a blender--I don't have all the details, but I think it is very pretty, and matched well with the hearts. Believe it or not the tiny pink hearts on those circles and the bigger ones are all stickers from Penny Black Stickeroos. I don't usually use stickers, but they were so cute, AND Penny Black, so I thought I would give them a try! These were a free gift when I ordered stickles and Tim Holtz crackle paint from http://www.2ndchildhood.net/ Great deals there and on Ebay (which was where I found their store)! Anyway, when I received those yesterday, I thought --"Wow, these will be perfect and quick for a Valentine card."



So without further ado . . . here it is. Oh, btw, the sentiment says-- The Love We Give Away is the Only Love We Keep! (the sticker was bigger than I wanted so it is handwritten on instead. Isn't that a true saying?! I really like it! Now, who will I give it to? *thinking*





I hope you get a chance to complete the challenge as I get some odds and ends around for your gift. There have been so many terrific submissions, I will probably just have to pick your name from either random.org or from a hat. I will keep you informed either way. Keep working on those cards, and I hope I inspired you a little to give it a try. Last day for submissions is Thursday. You have LOTS of time . . . come on . . . give it a try!

Thanks for stopping by,
:) Kelly

Are you up for a challenge?

Hey, everybody! I actually did another sketch challenge today from SCS. It was SC155 from from 2 weeks ago, but . . . I want to try something new for my readers this year. I am going to post a challenge for you (at least once a month) to try, and you can have a chance to win some goodies from me. It will be a small package/envelope mind you, but definitely something I think you would like and it will help you with your card/scrapbook making.

What's the catch you ask?!

You need to incorporate the following into this week's challenge:

• Use SC155 --click here to see the sketch. The different layers are numbered.


• Use either snowmen OR . . . if you are tired of snow/cold weather, use something for Valentine's day like hearts, etc.


• You must link your card to my blog by commenting here on this post so I know where to look. It can be on your blog on in your SCS gallery, but either way please let me know where to look to find it if you want to participate.
• You have until midnight Thursday, Jan 10th to play.

Here is my example with a snowman. The stamp is from Penny Black. I again used some paper from my DCWV Christmas pack (Can't believe I still have LOTS of this stuff left. A 6 x 6 pad goes a long way!) The cs is Cool Carribean and Night of Navy. I accessorized a little with a small gold eyelet in the tab on the center snowman, white gel pens, my cb divine swirls folder, and gold cord. I reused a small sentiment tag that was from a friend (*wink* Jessica), because I just hated to throw it away after the package was opened, and I used my SU markers, 1 inch circle punch and scalloped circle "nesties."

I hope to finish one later with hearts. I will let you know if I do.

Thanks for looking, and I hope you can participate too! Kelly :)