Gruffies are here!

Oh my goodness, these are so adorable! House Mouse has come out with another new line called "Gruffies". They are sweet bears. And I thought the Happy Hoppers were cute, these guys are even cuter.

I have been in bed sick with the Flu all week. Came down with it 2:30 a.m. Tuesday morning (or at least that's when I woke up with the chills and a 102.7 temp!) and to top it off my 5 year old has been sick with it since Sunday. Now if I had enough strength I could haven driven myself to the doctor but by the time I did it was past the 48 hour mark for Tamiflu. So word to the wise, if you suddenly get a high fever with the chills and your body aches and you are exhausted - get to the doctor before the 48 hours has gone by! Fun taking care of a sick 5 year old from a bed, you end up getting up a lot!

Anyway back to the Gruffies. I received my Gruffie called "Tower of Presents" in the mail yesterday and couldn't wait to stamp it. I feel better today (finally getting better!) so I sat down and made a card with it. So cute! It took forever to color in each present though and I signed up for a swap with it, yikes! I used the SU watercolor pencils and blending pen. I put stickles on the bows to have something special. He is actually supposed to be a Panda Bear but I felt like doing a brown bear today. As you can tell you can color it however you want. The sentiment says "You make me happy" and I think inside I will put "as a tower of presents" or something like that :) It is a big stamp so it is hard to mat and put a sentiment on. Never the less you can see such delight in his sweet face :)

Challenge

This challenge is to use two colors and a neutral and make the card in 10 minutes or less, plus show variations using same card stock and stamp set. Well I did it, worked perfect for my Survivor swap cards! Can't say they are very fancy though but in 10 minutes you cant do too much. The colors are marigold morning and old olive with black as my neutral. So there ya go!

Shell

Here we are with this new shell stamp set again! Love it. I am planning a trip to the Outer Banks with my best friend and was in the mood for shells. We are going to see all the lighthouses, see the wild horses in Corolla and hunt for Pirate treasure.

I finally got a hold of the cheesecloth background stamp that I want to use with these shells (thanks Renae!) I foresee lots of neat designs with this combo. I had to use soft sky and bayou blue again (because I love them!) with it plus the hardware just really makes it. I also found this Martha Stewart ribbon (it's not called ribbon but I can't remember what it is called!) that matches the SU soft sky color perfectly. I bought it when her products first arrived at Michael's and never realized it matched so well.

Next post will be some quickie cards made with marigold morning :)

Lost a Post - House Mouse Card

Have you ever lost a post? That is if you blog of course. I am not finding this one on my blog. I can remember writing about it and I checked Splitcoast and I did put it there but it sure isn't here! No telling what happened. I checked my drafts too, nothing. Oh well here it is to you for the first time!

The House Mouse stamp of the month swap I am in has a bonus image and this is it. We have until middle of June to make it but I always like to get right on things. Most of the stamps I color lately I haver used my water color crayons. I know in time I will get better at them but for some reason where I think the waterbrush id going to put the color down it doesn't. To me the point is on the item but it turns out not to be and I end up making a messy image. It looks like I am coloring outside the lines! I failed Kindergarten 101, huh? Sooooo not to mess up this one I used chalks. Love them, always have. So much easier to use, no wet mess and no mistakes that you can't erase with a regular white eraser! Woo Hoo! It is also much faster and less fussy so why don't I use chalks more? Good question! I like my water color crayons, they cost an absolute fortune so that motivates me also. Just got to get the hand-eye thing better :)

The colors are from this weeks color challenge, orchid, pumpkin and celery. I used my new Cuttlebug embossing folder called floral fantasy on the celery mat. I also used one of the Cuttlebug dies for the flower, nice thing is you can cut it in three colors and mix and match. The ribbon is a satin ribbon that I received in a grab bag, worked nicely for this! That's about all, hopefully this post won't turn up missing too :)

Cards for the Paper Challenge

Here are the cards I made for our little paper challenge. This week Lori (another Lori!) sent this really pretty harlequin print paper in such yummy pastels and a glimpse of sparkle. The first card is a case of a card made by Beate, it was a sketch challenge but I used the ribbon and white scalloped edge ideas oh plus the idea of a flower on the left... The other one is a sweet little bird I was dying to work with, I made it to be a black-capped chickadee. I know, you ask why not the North Carolina one - well because it isn't barely banana (yellow) colored of course LOL! I had trouble with the sentiment, when I matted it, you no longer saw the bird as the focus so I ran the little strip through it to be different and used the brads. Not sure I like it but I am always trying to find new ways to do these things! I traced the words with a glue pen and sprinkled glitter on them.

Oh! I added a new link to my favorites called "check out these sites" - Kat Toys. It is on the left and towards the bottom of my blog . This gal is very talented! She just started blogging and I am just in awe of her beautiful tags and books she makes, go check it out :) Kat Toys. Good night!

Grunge Tag challenge

I have joined a swap and a challenge using the Ranger/Tim Holtz distress products and Grungeboard. This is the tag I made using these products, I am going to break it down how it is made and what I used. I must say Grungeboard is so cool to the touch. It feels very soft, almost like flannel. It looks like cardboard but it is thick and rubbery (and soft). Just the weirdest combination but totally works for paper crafts!

The base is a 3 x 6 manilla tag. I used the Acrylic paint dabber in lake mist and more or less covered the tag. Then I used the cloudy blue acrylic paint dabber and streaked it on to look like wood grain. Next I used weathered wood distress ink along the edges. Last I used frayed burlap distress ink also along the edges.

I stamped the shells and starfish with brown ink and then used the water color brush to paint on blue bayou ink (Stampin Up). Then used vintage photo distress ink along the edges and placed a few sparse spots of Stickles glitter in Icicle to make it look like sand. Set them aside and took a piece of white card stock and painted on Distress Crackle Paint in frayed burlap. Set is aside to dry and crackle. Took the hinge, label tag and the eye punched out from one of the skeletons in the Grungeboard kit (the kit is called Plain Elements). Painted the hinge with Cloudy Blue acrylic dabber then streaked on some weathered wood distress ink. Streaked and edged the hinge with frayed burlap distress ink. The "eye" is painted with cloudy blue and then painted some crackle paint in burlap, but didn't completely cover it. Took the label tag and painted it with cloudy blue, edged it with bayou blue and stamped the birds on it with bayou blue ink. Then I took my new shell collage embossing folder and ran a piece of Sahara Sand (Stampin Up) through the Cuttlebug and cut out the shell. Distressed the shell with weather wood and vintage photo distress ink. I took a clear button and painted the bottom with Icicle Stickles then adhered a piece of soft sky paper. I painted a little bit of lake mist acrylic dabber on the top of the button to make it look like sea glass rather than a shiny button. Now assembly. Adhered the cut out embossed shell to the tag. Put hinge on with nail heads - hammered them in. Ripped and distressed the edges of the crackled piece, adhered the shells and then wrapped hemp type string around it. Put label tag on with iridescent cord and adhered the cord to the paper. Adhered this to the top of the shell and tag. Adhered button. Took the "eye" and punched a hole in the middle and aligned it with the tag hole, pulled iridescent ribbon through and tightened ribbon. That's it! Lot's of little things but I had so much of this in my mind that it went very quickly and I was done in about an hour. That's quick for me! I love this tag, love the colors, love the shells but I think I like the label most of all! The birds look so cool on it. That is my take on Grunge Tags :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

The cards are not original designs but some of the colors/stamps etc. are different. Just sharing some Valentine's cards with you! I hope your day is filled with love or at least loving thoughts :)

Birthday and shells

You will be seeing a lot of these shells, I love them! I am working on something right now with them and the hints is... Tim Holtz. Some of you may know who he is and for those that don't he is one of the designers for Ranger Stamping Supplies. He has a unique style that so many people love and gives classes throughout the country and has a wonderful blog of his techniques that he creates. You might remember when I was doing the 12 tags of Christmas. Here is his blog http://timholtz.typepad.com/my_weblog/ Anyway back to this one. I was just messing around with these shells as a background paper and needed a birthday card so this is what I put together. I like the little shell on the scallop circle, and to make the Happy Birthday be more noticeable on the card I put the little swirly stamp under it. Simple but I love the shells and this style of card lets them be seen and not buried underneath.

What a pretty color combo!

This is a case of a card on Splitcoast that I just had to do! I love the colors! The white in the layers adds so much, I would have never thought to layer with white. The colors are wild wasabi and bayou blue (from Stampin Up of course!).

I have to just say I am at a loss as to what to do with my teenage son. He has ADD and has struggled with school his whole life. However he is smart and gets 100's on his tests, he just won't do his classwork or homework. He is totally unmotivated and I for the life of me can't figure out how to motivate him. I know some people can relate because I have read things in the past about kids like him. It is so frustrating! We have taken away his privileges, he doesn't want to drive so we don't have that, he knows he isn't going to hang around the house once he is 18 and that he has to go to college (or get a job) but none of it matters to him! Ugh! I hope this is just a stage and he will find himself. I love this kid to death, he is a good kid but he is making it hard for himself and us! Thanks for "listening". Any great motivating ideas would be appreciated :)

February House Mouse Stamp

The February stamp of the month was a little bit difficult to work with. I mean the mice are cute eating cherries but what kind of card can one make? I just got the Embrace Life stamp set by Stampin Up and saw the 'embrace life' stamp and that was the inspiration I needed to make this card. I found some nice striped paper for it but I only had enough for 5 so the 6th one I had to use the striped paper on the right. I just got the March images in the mail today, whew! Nice to have plenty of time to work on them.



The second card is for my neighbor who is going to have a baby boy any day now. They are good neighbors and nice people, I am so excited for them to be having their first baby! Almost their whole family lives in the immediate area (including her parents in the neighborhood) and are waiting on pins and needles for this little boy. The theme is Dallas Cowboys hence the stars on the card! This card was inspired by (CASE'd) a card Mary Jo Price just made, it was great!

Yea! One Year Anniversary!

It has been one year since I started this blog, and I hate to be cliche but time flies! I can't believe I have kept up with this, I thought it was going to be too time consuming but I have tried to pace myself and it has worked out just fine. I have hesitated once again about blog candy because well, I can't figure out what to give away! I just am so indecisive. I could offer another card. Maybe I should make one special just for this!

Speaking of special cards, this card is soooo pretty! It is a total CASE (except the sentiment) of a card made by Petal_Pusher on Splitcoast. I was looking for an idea for my mother-in-law's birthday and saw this. She used the Ginger Blossom Designer Paper from Stampin' Up, also the card base is sahara sand and the other colors are ruby red, groovy guava and river rock. The ribbon is groovy guava too. I colored the stamp with river rock ink first then I went over it with ruby red ink. I just love it!

So that's all for today - thank you for visiting my blog and encouraging me to keep on stampin' and sharin'! I really appreciate everyone and all the comments.

Masculine cards

I needed to make two masculine cards yesterday and this is what I came up with. It is the color challenge from last week I believe. I used a sketch challenge from a few weeks back. One was for my husband's grandfather, he is having his 87th birthday. The other is for one of my nephews, he is an adult but I think he will like the frog anyway. I just liked how the colors worked together and I didn't have time to color in real fancy on the image so I added the green color instead of a white based image. What do you think? Does it look weird not being white there? I don't often see it done this way so I hope it looks ok! I am working on another challenge right now and I hope to do this week's color challenge soon. It is real red, apricot appeal and ballet blue, sounds weird but the cards are turning out fantastic! Look for those later this week.

Valentine's Cards

My church has a Crop every first Friday of the month and then every other month they include Saturday. So the gal in charge of it thought it would be fun to have a card class for everyone who was interested. She has seen my cards floating around church as I have given them to several people already. She asked me if I was interested and of course, I jumped at the chance. I love to make cards and love to share my passion with other people. I enjoy teaching it very much and I am not a sales rep for any company so I am kind of "safe" to do it (there is a rule against selling inside the church). The first card is a partial "case" and the second one is mine from a sketch challenge on SCS. Since a lot of the gals are scrapbookers I used patterned paper to show them they could use it on cards and then to introduce an idea of stamping I showed them using Versamark to make a background paper themselves. They thought it was cool :) We had a good time and everyone was happy with their cards they made themselves and got to take home.