Penny Black Stamp - Good Friends Card

These pictures were taken with my iPhone. I am still experimenting with getting the lighting right for my cards. These are actually as good as my regular camera and one is actually white for the white card stock background! Which is better the warmer picture or the one with the whiter background? Anyway this is one of my favorite stamps although I haven't used it yet! One card making blogger asked what our new years "craft" resolution was and I decided to ink up and make cards out of every stamp I haven't used yet. I don't have that many but I do have some and I just don't feel right about having not used them yet. Interestingly enough most people said organize their stuff. I do that about every week! It gets into chaos real quick with me :)

I used water color to color the image. It's my favorite method, cant you tell?! I used markers on the Penny Black stamp a few posts ago but its just to heavy and dark to me when I use them. I know lots of people love their Copics but well hey I love my watercolors. I used Spellbinders dies and a Stampin Up edge punch. Those cute bigger brads are Stampin Up too, aren't they perfect for this?! I used Stickles (my second favorite thing to use) on all of the hearts. It just makes it so pretty! The paper is Twitterpated by SU, love this set as you can tell. Here is a close-up to see the sparkle.

Beach Sand Framed Gift

I saw one like this a while back and just loved it! My BFF's daughter collects sand from all the different beaches they go to so I immediately thought of her. I special ordered the vial because at the time I couldn't find them anywhere and filled it with sand that she shared with me from one of her trips. The shells are stamped onto creamy caramel card stock then embossed with white e.p. and cut out. The blue mat and the coral are both spellbinders dies. The frame is a plain frame from either AC Moore or Michael's that I painted blue then white washed. Right now I am dreaming of the beach and Summer :)

I really like this stamp and thought it was perfect for the tag: "My heart is at home by the sea".

Online Class

Did you notice the new image to the right? Move More, Eat Well. It is an online class - I have never taken one before! I embarked upon the task of losing 70 pounds two years ago and did a good job of losing it. That was my first goal with another 10 pounds to go in the back of my mind. Technically I was good at the top part of my weight range because that gives me a BMI of less than 25. However I wanted to be in the middle of my weight range to look a little better in a bathing suit since I am in one for 4 months of the year. I have only been at the bottom of my weight range when I was much younger and actually was very ill and didnt know it and that is why I managed to be so thin! That is another conversation I will spare you :) Anyway I "know it all" when it comes to eating, food, diet and exercise. I have lost 50 pounds or more at least 6 times, worked for weight watchers for several years and I read articles every single day about all of the above. I can say this much, yoyo dieting does make it tricky to lose weight. That is why I want to break the cycle, stay fit and eat well. I have done that for the most part but I am finding a few pounds creeping back on so I must stop it now. The funny thing is I saw this on another blog, looked into it and because it is scrapbooking related decided it would be a good way to keep this front and center in my life this year. I watched her video and other than smoking (never have) we have the same story becoming a runner and all! So I ordered my notebook and page protectors, printed out the first steps and am really looking forward to this adventure. All except the measuring part :) (She did say this was optional!) The picture of the shoes is the first thing she had us do - take a picture of our exercise shoes. Why 4? Well three are the shoes I have worn out running and the other are my Zumba shoes so that's what I wanted in my notebook. I might share a bit of it here and there but for the most part, back to card making. Thanks for reading my little story! May you Move More and Eat Well this year.

Thank you Cards and Calendar

Happy New Year! 2012, oh yeah! The years just tootle on by LOL! I changed my blog feed to only show the first part of the post because when I post several cards it makes a large email to people and if they get several feeds it's annoying. On the other hand some people only look at the feed and don't come to my blog to see the rest. So I'm not sure which way is best. Anyway here are the remaining cards and calendar I promised. These are once again cased or inspired from cards Ive seen, when I am in a hurry or want to make several cards I find it best to do this because creating my own design from start to finish takes me 3+ hours for one card! The owl calendar was just so darn cute I had to make them for myself and friends. I love the owl punch from Stampin Up and have used it many times with no plans of stopping! I have made a calendar of some kind every year now for 4 or 5 years so it's become a tradition.

Penny Black and Flower Soft Challenge

Penny Black Stamps and Flower Soft are having a blog hop and challenge that I had to join! So my other thank you cards and owl calendar will have to wait for my next post :) I used Love Antennae and Make a Wish stamps by Penny Black and Sweet Pea by Flower Soft. The paper and ribbon are by Stampin Up and Basic Grey. There are fruit punch Stickles on her cute heart antennae and a Spellbinders Die set for the shape. I used Spica glitter pen on her stockings and on the flowers in the other image but the sparkle just didnt show on any of the picture I took of the cards. The second picture of the Make a Wish card is to show the cute little mouse is cut out and placed up on a pop dot, hard to tell in the first image. Thanks for looking, keep your fingers crossed I would love to guest design for them!

Thank You Cards Part 1

Well it is almost a new year! 2011 gone, wow was that fast or what? I have some goals for next year but not resolutions. Resolutions don't work for me but goals do. As long as they are realistic. See that's what I think makes resolutions not work, they usually aren't realistic. Like lose 50 pounds or eat better or exercise regularly. All too vague and too unattainable on their own. Anyway here are some thank you cards I made in hopes to send out for some of the Christmas presents the family has received. Or I should make the boys write them for themselves! One of the cards is using the new Apothecary Art stamp and die set from the new Stampin Up Occasions Mini. Also there is paper there from either it or the SAB mini or possibly both. All I know is my friend who is a demo let us use all her stuff on Monday and we had a blast making cards! I made 8 cards in all and one owl punch calendar which I will post next time. My usual disclaimer of there are cards here cased from the web, the second and fourth ones. Although the little bee button idea was all my own :) the person who originally created that card probably just didn't have one!

Last (Maybe) Christmas Card & Box

This card I made last year or the year before at my friend's stamp a stack, it is embossed with iridescent ice glitter. I had to make it again this year. The stamp is by Hero Arts. It is so pretty in person! Just sparkles everywhere. Hope you can see a little bit of it in these two pictures. The rest are the Stampin Up Christmas box, my dear friend gave the kit to me to make for Christmas and brought it over for both of us to make together! What a great idea, we enjoy stamping together as often as possible. Merry Christmas!

Next set of Christmas cards

Here are the cards I made Friday and Saturday with the new stamps. Didnt get to all of the stamps yet and didnt get as much done as I wanted that's for sure! Ended up spending hours fixing my son's Windows computer - ugh its why I bought a Mac and here I am still having to fix Windows issues. Anyway it ate up my time. I have to finish by Weds. night as I am going to visit my family for Christmas and I do need to mail these *before* Christmas! I am posting a picture of my work area chaos too, I dont know how I end up with such a huge mess! I did try to clean it up, I got a box and organized some stuff I needed out in it so it was handy. Plus I watch TV on my iPad while I craft - nice and convenient size to put wherever I need to on my table.

The first card I wanted to have it far more perfect than I should have and spent three hours trying different designer papers and embellishments and layouts and finally ended up with this. I do really like it but it should not have taken so long! The next ones I did in no time. They need more embellishing or something but I got to make cards a bit faster. Too much thinking!

2nd Batch of Christmas cards

I was not happy with my card images looking yellow so I went hunting around the house for a desk lamp (which was on the floor of my son's closet...) and put a fluorescent bulb in it (no yellow with that!). Then shined it straight on my card and took the picture. Wow, what a difference, my images look so much better today don't you think?

I was very productive yesterday! Here is what I came up with, I wanted to color the girl, cat and snowman stamp a little differently so I did a couple more - I just like this stamp! I am using my Stampin Up water color crayons, they are so easy to use and since I am not good with blending or shading they do the trick. I am not real patient with coloring! I have a whole set of those brand new though that I need to sell, the set I have looks like its going to last forever so I don't need the new set. I love the reindeer stamp, even plain like this card it looks great. I got my order in from SimonSaysStamp - oh my gosh were they fast! I am so pleased with their service! So I have six (what was I thinking? Mrs. Scrooge herself bought six Christmas stamps!) so I hope to ink up at least two or three today. It's kind of hard with my son tracked out from school for four weeks but I'm trying :) Hope you like and thanks for looking!

Lori

Christmas cards so far

I am going to quickly post what I've made so far, some of these are using ideas from designers you may see on the web and some are my own. I have a couple more done and need photographed but I am far from being done! I need to make at least 25 hand made cards every year and this year I did not have a "stamp a stack" to go to! Ugh! My Stampin Up friends are losing steam, can't blame them - busy lives and busy times. It takes an incredible amount of work to set up, cut the cardstock etc. and run those. Anyway for some reason I have made an individual card of each, I need to find one I can mass produce and stick with it! But that's no fun :) Ok here they are, will post more later this week. If I get more made LOL! I cant seem to get myself into my "crafting" (as my son says) room.

Challenge Card for Hero Arts Blog

There are three challenges this month and this time I chose the color challenge. The colors are pink, blue, green and neutral. They are using pastel shades. I really wanted to make this a Christmas card and I wanted to use the new elegant saying stamp I ordered for making Christmas cards this year. I also used the envelope pattern stamp and the artistic fern stamp. I added snow and berries to turn it into a more Christmas theme. I used an embossing folder on the kraft scalloped mat that is a wood grain, it adds an interesting texture to the card. I like it, I am pretty pleased with how this turned out, I worked really hard on it :)

Halloween Digital Scrapbooking

I have a friend who designs the most awesome digital scrapbooking things! She is really good and I am always in awe of what she comes up with, some people just have such a gift I'm so jealous! But I can buy her stuff so I cant complain :) She made three Halloween pages for me though that are so awesome I had to share them here. This is her creation, not mine. I cant take credit for her great work :) You can buy her kits here and she has many other kits, she also does awesome recipe books that make the cookbooks they sell in stores look so boring. Thank you so much Tracy!!!!