Christmas Year Round!

Magnolia-licious group is having a Christmas year round challenge. One Christmas card per month posted on the 25th of each month for a blog hop. I, being at CHA Craft and Hobby Show in Cal., was too overwhelmed yesterday when I got home to post it. I am sorry! I made the card two weeks ago thank goodness.

This is another easel card, they make such awesome cards because they stand up so easily.I absolutely love this card, I got the trees from Magnolia-licious, yes they are from Magnolia! They are the prettiest trees. I used liquid applique on the branches as I have seen several cards this way and really like it. That stuff is fun to play with! It really puffs up a lot. More than I expected! They are cut out and placed on pop-dots. The stamp is Silent Night Tilda and it may be out of stock at the moment at Magnolia-licious but if you email them they can tell you when it is coming back in, they get new stock all the time but once it is out of stock even momentarily the web-site doesn't show it even though they will have it again :)

I wasn't sure about this Tilda because of the poinsettia on a stick thing (must be something Swedish!) but it is gorgeous when colored! The coat, the snow flurries and her hair just make such a beautiful Winter/Christmas feel. She is one of my favorites now! The paper was such an inspiration too for the colors, it really makes this card pop. Well that is my entry to the Christmas year round! Hope you like it :)

CHA

OK here are some pictures from CHA! The first one is me with my "sewing" make n'takes, I don't sew but I must say these were fun! Next is me with Technique Junkies Pat!!! Wooo Hoo, she is so nice :) Next is the genious behind Splitcoast web development - Daven himself! Then Jenn Balcer and I, she was very nice to meet too! Last but not least is my BFF and her daughter, we were sitting on the Splitcoast couch with cool balloons made to look like flowers behind us. They were very kind and patient with this whole "CHA thing" and stayed the whole day with me. Her daughter scrapbooks and we took a fun class but my friend isn't into it and was amazingly patient with my enthusiasm towards this :) She liked the sewing too. Tomorrow I go back and will take other pictures, tonight I am beat. It was a lot of fun though!

Getting Ready to Leave for CHA

Just a little update today, no card to post. I am getting in the car and heading to CHA in 1/2 hour and am so excited! This is the first one I have gone to. I expect to be buying a few stamps that's for sure! I will let you know how it went and what I saw and maybe if allowed I will take some pictures and post them here tonight or tomorrow morning. I am going again tomorrow, signed up for some classes and am going to meet some of the Splitcoast Stamper ladies :) It should be a lot of fun!

Magnolia-licious Pretty in Pink

Magnolia-licious Highlites blog is having a wonderful blog hop of Magnolia cards done in *PINK*. Pink! Love pink! I just love all the cards the design team have made for the blog hop, you can see it by starting at Magnolia-licious Highlites blog and check them out for yourself. At the end there is a contest if you upload a pink Magnolia card of your own you can enter to win a bunch of goodies :) So this is my entry! Then this card is going to my "mingle" partner for January.

I just got the new Stampin' Up Valentine's paper and it is so pretty! Pink and red, lot's of variety so I had lots of pink to choose from. There is a lot of sparkly glitter on it too. The card stock base is regal rose and I used some very vanilla also. As you can tell this is another easel card - they are so cool to make because when you are done they stand up by themselves. This cute little Tilda is #388 Dinner Tilda and you can purchase her at Magnolia-licious, here is the link to her. She is part of the "A Little Yummy for Your Tummy" Collection. She is one of my favorites :) I paper pieced her little outfit, just seemed like it would look nice this way. The flower in the upper right is layers of the designer paper and card stock punched, soaked and crinkled, then after dried out and adhered together. Love how it looks like Primas that way! I used a bunch of my Spellbinder dies - "Nesties", I really like how they work so well together. OH! Can you see the pearls? Around her neck and wrist - I used the tiniest sticky pearls I had, I know I was extravagant with them (for me) wasn't I?! I used the new border punch from SU too - I love it's open lacy look.

I am getting ready for CHA, leaving Wednesday but I will post from there to let you know what goodies I find :) I have lot's to do between now and then that's for sure!


Check out the pearls!

You can see how it is an easel from the side

View of the bottom

Pink and Black and White (Neutral) Challenge

As soon as I saw this color combo I thought of my new Kraftin Kimmie stamp - Francesca. She seems like a gal that would wear a lot of black but then I put her in pink! It was the strawberries on her dress that made me do it :) I love how they have that bit of tweak on their faces - that's what endeared these stamps to me. I really like the one with the frog on her head (Drucilla) and the one with the voodoo doll (Lillith) but can't quite think of what to use them for. This I can use for birthday cards at least. Isn't she a hoot? The little cupcake in the corner came with her. The tag stamp on the lower right is that new tag punch and stamp set from Stampin' Up. It is tiny but cute! The background paper I got from Kelly at KLstampinnscrappin - it is the Basic Grey Eerie collection. I made this for her blog challenge here. I found some black velvet ribbon which works so well with Francesca's style too. Oh, my teenage son said she should not have rosey cheeks, she should be "pale". So there you have it, pale LOL! I wish the Stickles on the cupcakes would show up better -this is one of my favorite cards now!

Box With Drawers, ScoreTape and CHA

Isn't this just too cute? It looks like a miniature dresser! The drawers are functional and there is an actual "shelf" between the top and bottom drawers to hold them in place. You can put little goodies in the drawers too. Here is where I got the directions to make this : http://qbeesquest.blogspot.com/2009/10/darling-drawers.html. They are also on Splitcoast here. The paper pack I think is called Porcelain - an older pack by Stampin' Up, I just keep using everything until it's gone! I love the blues and greens in this set, the flowers and leaves are so pretty. The flowers on the bottom are punched with the SU triple flower punch and the ones on top are Prima flowers, 3 layers. The butterflies are the MS punch and the hardware frame is also from SU. I did put Stickles on the edges of the butterflie's wings. I love these projects because I am so mechanically inclined it gives me a chance to work that "brain muscle" LOL! I didn't read the directions, I just made mine look like hers and then the box almost folded itself. She did a great job with her pictures!

OK got to tell you this, I just got ScoreTape for the first time and LOVE IT! It is so awesome! It is as sticky as red-liner tape to me and you can just tear a piece off! No wrangling with scissors trying to guess the size at the same time or measuring and then snipping. Just lay the tape where you want it, tear it and then pull off the backing - easy! LOVE IT! ok I already said that LOL! I don't know what took me so long to try it. You can buy it from Magnolia-Licious here - try it and I will bet you go back for more! I got all three sizes and am so glad I did. I hope you like this hint as I am always looking for product hints myself :)

Now for the big stuff - I am going to CHA! Wooo Hooo! I am so excited, I have always wanted to meet my Splitcoast Stamping buddies and check out these companies I buy so much from - see what their new things are for the Spring. If you want to meet there or have any suggestions of what I *need* to do or see, please let me know! I want to do as much as possible while there since I am flying 3000 miles :) I have more goodies to show you this week so bye for now! Have a great day!

Side Step Card for Valentine's Day

OK I sort of went a little crazy and bought several new stamps but it is my gift certificate from my hubby for Christmas! This one is so adorable and sweet it makes me want to eat chocolate. I don't even like chocolate LOL! It is called Lucy Valentine by Motivet. I have been wanting to make this cute side step card since I saw it a few months back and finally got around to making it. It is easy and fun to decorate! I kind of went nuts with the hearts but a friend of mine (thanks!) let me punch a bunch of hearts from her Stampin' Up punch and I sponged them to match today. I used lots of little gemstones, I know this is extravagant for me! I also used another one of those heart charms - they are awesome in my book. Oh and the important part, I colored her with the Stampin' Up markers. Yeeee - uck. They do not blend at all. This is pretty close to the worst coloring job I have done in a long time but being the ever non-perfectionist (lazy) person I am I did not want to stamp her again and try my water color crayons or Prisma pencils. All in all because of the brightness of everything else it isn't really that noticeable and I rather like it. All except where the rose red and pink didn't blend in her ears or the caramel and choc. chip didn't blend on the heart... Oh well. She is just too darn cute to notice. Of course now that I have pointed all of this out you see it , yikes! Well enjoy the bling :) (I know, get Copics. Stubborn me is not willing to put out hundreds or thousands of dollars for markers as I would want the different shades so I could blend properly if I had them!)

I am so excited, I have two more things I made this weekend and cant wait to share them so I will be showing you my little box next and something else in a few days. Until then, have a great day!

Sketch Challenge - Valentine's Day Card

Here is a card I made for the first KL Stampin N Scrappin challenge of 2010. I used the High Hopes Stamp called Lenny's Love Me Nots. Lenny is pink today LOL! I hope he doesn't mind but it matched the Basic Grey paper (Bittersweet) I wanted to use. Here is a link to the sketch for the challenge. I had some old Valentine's paper from Stampin' Up that has "loves me loves me not" written on it and thought it would be great for this. The card stock is close to cocoa and there is one more piece from another set of designer paper there from Stampin' Up. I used a tiny heart punch for the hearts and put little pink jewels on them for some bling :) The love stamp is from a Gina K. set. I did the rock and roll technique using two different colors of pink ink and used a pop-dot to adhere it. The main image is also on pop-dots or dimensionals as the case may be. All of the edges are sponged with close to cocoa ink. Last but not least I used watercolor crayons to color the image. It is such a cute stamp I really enjoyed making this card!

My 2010 Coaster Calendar

This is a project near and dear to me, I love making calendars! I also love this paper and this shade of blue. I don't have the energy to make a different picture for every month so I tried to choose a stamp that would go pretty much all year for this one. Last year I used brads to hold the calendar pages on and they were horrible to tear off each month so this year I used a "library?" clip. I adhered it in such a way that I can get the whole clip off if need be - nothing is going to hold my monthly pages hostage this year!

The stamp is from Stampavie called Ruffles Birdwatching. CUTE! I had to make the image a little smaller to fit my 4 x 4 coaster and it cut off the chickies so I cut them out and put them on pop-dots on the bottom mat of the image. The fence is on pop-dots too which gives it nice dimension. I worked hard on the flowers let me tell you! I must have punched 30 flowers out of kraft, bayou blue, soft sky, baja breeze, the designer paper your see etc. and tried myriads of combinations until I found what I liked the most. That took a long time, actually this took probably 4 hours to make! Decisions slow me down :) Then I wet them and crumpled them to give them a more textured look then straightened them back out and adhered the final flowers in layers. I also put faux pearls in the center of the flowers. The butterflies are punched twice so there is a "shadow" underneath, I think that gives it a nice look. I wanted the calendar page or right side of this to be plain and simple so it wouldn't over power the cute image on the left. I just die cut the bird and sponged the edges, used some branches to give it something to sit on and then put a little flower in the lower corner. Then it happened. I went too far LOL! I just got these adorable heart charms and just had to find a way to fit it on this. I "hung" it from the back over the top so it wouldn't be in the way of the calendar and I am thinking it doesn't go real well but for now I am keeping it :) Thanks for reading my long explanation today!

Inspired by "pine"

There is a blog called pine is here. And so why am I telling you this? I love it! She is very inspiring! She uses Kraft paper for almost every card she makes. Since I have only been following her blog for about 6 months now I am not sure of the story behind why she does this but it is so cool. Ink looks really neat stamped on it (especially craft white by Stampin' Up)and it is great for a base. She makes her cards clean and simple yet they are the bomb! I have made some cards inspired by her designs and put them on this post to show you. I did tweak them a little bit due to not having the same paper or stamps or just had an idea. I hope you like them!

HAPPY NEW YEAR! I hope this year will be better for everyone :)

P.S. After spending half the morning resizing and trying to get the last two cards to load on this post properly, I give up. Blogger is the only site that does this to my cards! And it is random, it must automatically orient them to what it think is is "up". UGH! I give up - turn your head sideways hehe ;)