Penguin Doin' The Hula cards

Today I have a few cards to share with you. I was very productive today with my crafting but not so much with housework. Although I did do a load of laundry and vacuumed . . . oh yeah, and I made dinner :) Guess that wasn't too bad.

Anyway . . . I got to play with my JessicaLynnOriginal stamps today. I stamped off a few, but I really wanted to go with the Penguin doin' the Hula stamp. So . . . the first card looked more girly to me, so I added eyelashes to the penguin and softened her colors a bit to a gray instead of black. I then colored the penguins' flowers (or lai) to match my cs. The second card is really doing the hula. I created a tilt card with this one. (I should mention, I originally saw the the tilt card idea on OodabugAlley blog by Ms. Charmaine). There are dimensionals and an aluminum washer behind the little cutie to make him tilt from left to right when you tilt the card.

Stamps: Penguin Doin' the Hula by JessicaLynnOriginal

and sentiments are from GinaK Designs(Lifes a Beach and Party On!)

CS: Purely pomegranate, groovy guava, night of navy, vanilla, white, black and dp from Paper Pack (AC Moore).

Tools: Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol, Marvy (pink) scalloped square punch, 1/4-inch paper punch for hole behind tilt card, 1-inch circle for rounding sentiment, Stickles, ribbon, jeweled brads (Making Memories), and fibers.

P.S. -- See more great JLO stamped creations on the JLO Design Team blog

Couple new House Mouse Cards and Wow . . . look what I got!

I have made a couple more House Mouse cards in the last 2 weeks for swaps that I will share with you, but I will save the best for last. :)







This first card was for a technique challenge. I agreed to try faux denim (but in this case, I will call it faux jeans, because I don't want to step on anyone's toes). There is a GREAT tutorial at Technique Junkies for this, or so I have heard that really looks like denim, but I thought I would try my hand at it too. I actually loved the denim look, but I was unable to find the technique because I haven't splurged for the TJ newsletters YET. I am really thinking about it though, because I have seen so many terrific examples of her techniques out there that I would love to try. Anyway, I used an adapted version of GinaK's faux wood technique with blue and white inks to try and come up with a faux jeans look.



So first, I took the Bliss Blue (or now Bashful Blue) and direct-to-paper dabbed it around on the white cs. Then I did the same with the Ballet Blue, which I also used to make streaks. This was done with the corner of the ink pad. Once you make sure your blue is dried well, you can then press the white pigment ink around in different spots to lighten it up a bit and make streaks with that as well. I still felt like this did not have the fabric "jeans" look to it, so I used the ballet blue again with my canvas bg stamp and stamped that overtop of all the different colors/streaks. Sorry, I forgot to take a picture of that stamp. Overall, I think it looks pretty close to denim jeans, but with more experimentation you may get something that looks closer. (otherwise go with the pro and check out Technique Junkies) :)




My second card is just a simple tent topper that I created for our HM SOTM(stamp of the month) swap. It was colored with prisma colors, trimmed to size, added to a layer of cs that was trimmed with Fiskar scissors for a bit of a scalloped edge, and then stickles and brads were added. The base layer is textured barely banana with a word window punch cut out for the sentiment "Celebrate" from the Flourishes word set.




One picture shows the sparkle better, and the other shows the word in the window punch better. I sure hope the ladies in the group like them. They are so stinkin' cute and fun to color. :)

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Now for my good news! I got the most terrific package yesterday from Donna at Down the Paper Trail with Nettie. If you haven't seen her blog, you must go check it out. The link is in my side bar on the right. She has reached 5000 hits already, and she had some terrific blog candy, which is now mine!!! :D Can you believe it?! I rarely win stuff, so this has me so excited! I took a picture of my treasures . . .



but my absolute favorite part is the Address Book she created. We keep a telephone book of friends, family, and frequently called stores or restaurants near our phone (in a drawer hidden from view), but BELIEVE ME this will not be in the drawer!! It will be out for everyone to see the marvelous creation Nettie made for me. I told her my kitchen had apples and was red and green with a gingham blue and white country type border with apples, etc, and she came up with this totally CUTE book for me. Don't ya just love it?! I sure do, and she handmade it!! Doesn't get much better than that! Thanks, again, Nettie! {{hugs}}

Another Tag and Birthday RAKs

Well, after I dabbled in the Tim Holtz techniques a bit, this is the tag I REALLY enjoyed making. Although I like the look of the crackle paints, I think this embossed/grunge tag technique is a lot more fun! :) I got quite a bit inky, but it was worth it in the end.

You can find a tutorial here -- http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/04/april-technique.html

I definitely didn't add as many embellishments as Tim especially since it was for a swap, but the general/basic idea was the same.

Stamps: Elegant Rose by Penny Black (thanks, Eileen!), Print Pattern bg stamp from SU (retired) and Rough Edges alphabet.

Inks: Versamark, Adirondack Espresso (thanks, Carmen!), Brilliance graphite black pigment ink for the image and letters, ruby red from SU, tea dye distress ink, and gold from Encore.

Cardstock: chocolate chip base layer and tag itself cut from manila file folder, layered with strips of dp from stash.

Accessories: Ribbon (thanks, Carmen!), swirly clips, gold brads, Harlequin textured grungeboard (thanks, Susan!), and clear embossing powder.

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Look at all these gorgeous cards from my friends! :) These were sent to me over the past week for my birthday last Saturday (I turned 29 AGAIN!) Funny how that works, isn't it?! LOL


This sweet Tilda is from my friend and bloggin' sister, Chris.

The floral card to the right of that is from my good swappin' buddy and fellow blogger, Lee (it's heavy -- in a good way --with all the bling and layers).

The bathing bella beauty is from Marjorie, another bloggin' sister.

The off white one with the pink scallop is from a local girl from our stamping workshops, Tina, and this card has lots of great texture and glitter. Wow, Tina! This must have been a labor of love, girl.

This pretty pink and glittery one was made by a good friend and sister swapper, Eileen! She has a very kind heart, and we have only known one another for a short time. We are in a group who swaps HM images and cards as well. Eileen, this dazzling diamond technique is gorgeous!

The bright yellow one with the pretty wheelbarrow of flowers is from my good SCS friend who is like a sister to me, too. Tina from the Tackertwosome pair (mom and daughter).

This cute chick in the flower pots has lots of glitter and shine, but I am not sure the camera captured it. Maybe if we enlarge the pic you can see it (click to see it bigger). This is from Lena Tacker (the mom part of the Tackertwosome). She is like an older sister to me, too. Sweet, sweet lady from Texas she is. We met through swapping House Mouse cards/images.

The next card pink and brown with the vellum flower is from a SCS sister who belongs to the birthday RAK group (Michele). She is a generous soul who also belongs to the Wish group. We have swapped images before too.

This pretty rose pink and blue card is from Mary Lou another local lady from our stamping workshop group. This is terrific. I love the way she used the nesties to create the frame around the main image.

The cupcake card is from my good friend, Deb, whom I have known for a while now. Seems like years, but not really that long. We have been SCS sisters and swappin' House Mouse images for quite a while too. She knows how much I would love those cupcakes (calorie-free too)! :)

The pretty flower card made with that gorgeous DP is from a local girl and good friend, Marcie. She is also in our stampin' group. Really sweet person who would share almost any of her stampin' stuff with you if you asked. :) Thanks, Marcie!

The pretty bella in these gorgeous bright colors is from my good friend and *older sister* well secret sister anyway, but I truly love her like she is my older sister, Jessica! Thanks, so much ladies for some terrific cards. They truly made my week!

I'm back with something new

Hey there, readers!


Thanks for all of the well wishes. It was nice to see that some of you really missed me. *wink*


My computer has new "innards" now (lol). It is amazing how a new hard drive seems to make this kitten purr even faster. Gotta love THAT!


So . . . this weekend was a busy one to some extent getting everything back into the computer that I need for work and play, then my birthday was squeezed in there, and we had some family time. Although my poor mom was sick and couldn't make it down like she had planned. She got a nasty bug, so she was recouperating this weekend. {{hugs}} Mom! Hope you are back to your normal self by today :)


Alas, I did get some time to play/stamp a little. Although, I am still stumped on a new idea for JessicaLynn (have a few, but they are not coming together like I planned -- hang in there JessicaLynn, I didn't forget you darling!)

I made a few tags this weekend for my good friend, Deb Corder, who is having a grunge tag swap (inspiration from Tim Holtz). These two are my first tries . . . so be gentle. :)

The tags were cut from manilla folders, then painted with distress crackle paint, then inked/sponged with ruby red, espresso (Adirondack) and tea dye (Tim Holtz distress ink). The images were stamped on, and the number and letters were cut with the Cricut from the Mickey font cartridge. They were then painted with distress crackle paint (red brick), and ribbons were added as well as a base cs layer was added to the back. The manilla paper tends to curl from the paint. I was trying to think of a word besides strong to describe the tall pine tree on the card -- so . . . forever, enduring, etc. came to mind. I wanted it to be a word that would work with many different scrapbook pages/journaling so they would be liked by others in the swap as well. I think I may make a few with just a plain tag on them so the receiver can choose whatever word they want to stamp on there, too.



This one also has half of a grungeboard hinge added too. This was inked up with Encore gold ink and fastened with gold brads. I also wanted to highlight the heart on the birds back (made by his wings) to go with the sentiment 4-ever, so I used some Stardust stickles (as the spica pen did not show up very well in the first tag). I felt this would go with the 4-ever sentiment well, too.

I sure hope the other ladies like them.

Note: The ribbons and fibers are from my SBS sister, Carmen, and the grungeboard from SusieQ4417 on http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/. Susan was so sweet to send me lots of goodies in a secret spring swap exchange. What fun!! :D

Thanks for dropping by! :)

Did you see?! Oh my gosh!!

This is so awesome, that I just had to share it with you!! For those of you who have alcohol inks (and I don't YET, as I never knew what to do with them), Tim Holtz has a blog!!!! Yep, he has time for us stampers, can you believe it?! Anyway, he is doing a 12 days 'til Christmas theme, and I wish I had found it sooner--but he is giving away something every day. Okay, today there were 630+ comments (so my chances of winning are slim), but . . . check out his blog at http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog

You will not be disappointed!! I just adore today's Christmas tag. It is SO pretty in shades of blue. Okay, I will shut up so you can get there QUICKLY!! Hurry! :D

Snowy wishes?

I finally finished my magic snowflake ATC today for Jlazarski's technique ATC swap

I have been procrastinating a bit. I really wanted to use something other than a snowflake but still kept coming back to a snowflake (from the Frosty set) anyway. I used baroque burgundy and positively pink reinkers, my "Nests" for the scalloped circles, which were on glossy white and vv cs. The vv cs was sponged with b. burgundy and then doodled on with a mellow moss marker. The back layer of cs is mellow moss with the swirls from Frosty stamped in white. The wishes sentiment is from the Sincere Salutations stamp set too. The other two layers are navy and garden green cs. The navy was cuttlebugged with the divine swirl folder to keep with the snowy theme, and burgundy organdy ribbon added. I don't know why I procrastinated so long, after I got going, it went pretty smooth.

**note: the colors look a lot brighter after I tried touching them up in PhotoShop--couldn't get the quite right, either too dark or too bright, but I think you get the idea with the colors I mentioned above.

Happy Thanksgiving!

I did not get a chance to make a new "full-sized" card for Thanksgiving to show you all, but I was working hard on these ATCs last weekend and early this week for a swap. I made 11 of them, so I have a couple left over. Guess I better make a card early tomorrow morning for my Mom and Dad to show my appreciation. They are taking us out for dinner at a local Turkey Ranch--they have the best food--and the best turkey you can find!

Anyway, this card was made for Delfinaus' ATC technique swap using SU stamps only but NVR. We have been having a lot of fun trying different techniques in her swap. This one was made for the faux stitching technique.

It started out on close to cocoa cs, then layered the vv cs on top. It looked to "neutral," so I colored it lightly with the orange wc pencil from SU, paper peiced the apple with real red cs and the pumpkin with pumpkin pie cs, then colored with my prismacolor pencils and used gamsol to soften the pencil lines. There are yellow microbeads glued to the center of the sunflower. A white gel pen was used on the apple for the highlighted spot and garden green SU marker was used for the stitching. The stamp set is from SU-- Thoroughly Thankful, and a word window punch stamped with the sentiment from that set "counting blessings" completes the image. I hope you like it, and don't forget to count your blessings!

I hope you all have a wonderful, blessed Thanksgiving Day with family and friends tomorrow!
Take care, and I will be chattin' with you again soon!

Halloween peek-a-boo boxes

Well, it has been a busy weekend already. My little neighborhood had a small get together today for the children. They go trick-or-treating at our homes up here on the hill, and then we get together at the pond where the lights are strung and the candles are glowing. We usually enjoy hot cocoa, roast marshmallows, and while the children play hide 'n seek and munch us parents chat. It is really fun, and it is just a really small community marshmallow roast :)


So today, after I finished working, I finished up my Frankenstein and pumpkin peek-a-boo boxes. The Frankie one is totally CASED from papermoon04 at SCS, but the pumpkin one I came up with on my own. It is made from small ovals--similar to some of the cards I have seen on SCS, and I have been wanting to try. I think these punched pumpkins look so real and very elegant too, but I figured some of the little girls may not want a Frankenstein, so . . .



Here they are . . .

**Note: I noticed keeping the pictures small--gives you the option of clicking to enlarge them. Medium size you are stuck with what you see.**

Template can be found here from Qbee. She was very kind to print these up for us.

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Also of note--I see the blog is getting really close to 1000 hits!! Woohoo! I surely did not think I would see that any time soon, as I thought only a few of my good friends were dedicated to checking out my little creations. :) Well, I want to thank you all for looking and commenting, so stay tuned. I will get a picture of some goodies posted on here, and after it reaches 1000 hits, we will have some BLOG CANDY (maybe just in time for Halloween--less calories and much more fun).

Tutorial on Glitter Window Technique

*Note: In this tutorial you will end up with ATC sized samples. Also, the colors in the photographs are not necessarily the colors in the final project, as this was tried on a couple of different "phototypes."

FIRST STEP: You cut your 8 1/2 x 11-inch card stock (cs) with the short side up at 2 1/2 and 5 inches (I use a guillotine-type cutter made by Boston). I have had it forever. So I actually push the paper through to 6 inches and cut, then 3 1/2 inches and cut again. This gives you 3 strips (one 3 1/2 inches wide and two at 2 1/2 inches wide). You want to cut these all down so they are 2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inches for ATC size. This way is the best to get 10 pieces from one piece of 8 1/2 x 11 cs. (You will actually need 3 sets of these ATC pieces. I used ruby red for my front piece, a white one for the stamped image, and More Mustard for my back piece to cover it all up and give it more stability. The white one can actually be a little bit smaller since it is fitted between the other two pieces).

SECOND STEP: I stamped my pumpkin image on the white cs pieces. You can take the time to color them now if you would like. If not, you will need to do this before you attach the front and back for sure. Don't color it lightly, as it will not show if it is too light. Lay the coluzzle template on top of the stamped image to decide which circle you need to cut so it can be seen through the front piece.

THIRD STEP: Then I used my coluzzle (once I had decided what size) to cut the circle on the ruby red piece for the front.

*Note: You could also use the nestabilities dies if you have those. Just be sure to choose one large enough to fit the stamped image you are using (in my case the pumpkin), but be sure your tape is wide enough to cover the hole too.

FOURTH STEP: Place your ruby red cs in the embossing folder and run through your machine (i.e. Coluzzle, Sizzix, Wizard, etc.). You can also decorate the front piece however you would like now or wait until you are all done. I then placed my stamped image behind the cut out hole again, sized it up, trimmed it if needed, and taped it down to the back piece of cs. This step is to keep your image centered in the hole (ya know kinda like the carpenters say measure twice, cut once--if this is off it will be too late once you have it all together.

*You may want to use the embossing buddy to keep the static down on your front piece prior to taping and dusting with glitter.

FIFTH STEP: Place the packing tape on the back of the front piece with the sticky side out. Make sure it is tight across the hole so that you get a good window to see your image through.

SIXTH STEP: Then sprinkle with Dazzling Diamonds (DD). Tap off extras onto paper and funnel back into the dd container.

LAST STEP: Use mounting tape or double sticky

tape to adhere the front and back pieces.

Your final project will look similar to this depending on the color choices and the embellishments you used.

Hope this tutorial was helpful to you.

Quick post for Thursday night

I have had a few questions about the ATC (artist trading card) in my banner above. It was made for a technique swap that I am in, and I used 2 stamp sets to achieve that look. One of the stamps is the SU floral background stamp (also on the green bg piece but not as noticable), which was inked well and then pressed against the heart from the SU set called Forever in my Heart. Since the two stamps are pressed together, they call this the "kissing technique." The floral part adheres to the heart and then when you stamp you get a floral heart. Pretty cool, huh?!

I really liked it, but I had to order some new stamps from the catty to keep up with the technique swap this month--as I did not have anything current to use that was a big chunky stamp--like the heart. You need a solid stamp to be able to press them together for a nice look.