My apologies if you don't recognize my blog, apparently the background I was using is no longer available. This one will have to do for now :) I know it has been forever since I posted any cards! I have not been card making or scrapbooking this Summer, just haven't really felt like it but I am getting in the mood again. I made all of these over the last two weeks. I tried to make it simple and use the supplies I had out so I didnt make a huge mess to clean up. We moved my scrapbook room into the previously called guest bedroom and I don't have to be quite as neat and tidy now thank goodness. Crafts are just inherently messy!

All of these cards are cases but one. The one with the fishing pole idea came from one of Gina K.'s wonderful design team members and the others are various cards I have seen on different blogs. I tweaked some of them with maybe a different sentiment, stamp, paper or embellishment. The only one I can truly take credit for is the first one. I did see the double Nestabilities stacked like that but as far as the layout, stamps, paper etc. it's all mine.

I have been toying with the idea of making a blog about my diet and exercise adventures but not sure it is all that interesting. I have lost 66 pounds, I am training for a half marathon and love running and really have changed my whole lifestyle! Which is why I don't find myself sitting down making crafts as much - that seems to be more when I can't get outside or currently with a knee injury. Kind of interesting how that is working for me. I feel so much better though! All in all I plan on creating and posting as "needed" :) Thanks as always for stopping by and checking out my blog :) Get out there and do something good for yourself today! I am.

11 Random Stampin Up Cards

 

 

 

 

Here they are! The cards I made for the Survivor TV Show Swap. The rules are they have to use Stampin Up stamps and they all have to be different. It is so much more time consuming when you can't make them all the same! I think some of the ladies might be demonstrators, I am not so I just use what I have so I have no idea which ones are retired etc. I just used some sets I enjoy, all of these cards are using ideas from other cards - none are complete cases but use the layout from the cards. I have found I dont have all of the colors or stamps or ribbon of most the cards I see posted, goodness I surely have enough but don't have everything LOL! If you want to know the name of a stamp set or a color or paper used just let me know and I will look it up. In my efforts to keep my scrap room clean I put everything away after I made these and didn't pay attention to names. So there you have it. Some ideas for you now to make some cards :) Thanks for stopping by!

Mother's Day Gifts, could be Teacher's Gifts

 

 

 

 

These are card purses I made with a friend for Mother's Day. They are copied from someone who posted it online for Mother's Day ideas. We simply cut two circles, cut the bottom off and made a little bottom and side for the inside. On one we used a small white gift bag on the inside which is an alternative to creating your own pattern for inside the purse. Then we made 4 little gift cards with envelopes to put inside. The cards are the ones I made for my mom and mother in law. I haven't been very creative lately, running has taken over my life. That is a good thing, I have lost 65 pounds and feel better than ever! I do have a bunch of cards I made for my Survivor Swap which I have to get off my camera and onto the computer and cropped for my blog. Thanks for hanging in with me and checking back! I will post again soon :)

Lori

Easter Card in Pink

Well this year I was just not very good about making Easter cards! If I could get them done in an hour or less I might have done them but shoot, this one took me half a day! I don't know why it takes me so long, the coloring takes a while but that doesn't seem to be the whole problem LOL! It's the choosing paper, planning the layout and choosing which papers to go where and cutting the mats and on and on... I need to either simplify cards so I can get them in the mail or only make cards for fun and not to send out! The other problem has been we had a very cold winter and suddenly last week the weather was in the upper 70's and low 80's, no humidity and just so gorgeous I had to be outside! A lot! I even bought a patio set to sit out on our back deck to enjoy the weather :) Anyway on to this one.

I made this to use this adorable Tilda image, just as cute as can be! I found this pretty pink paper in my stash and thought it would work well for Easter not thinking about it but I had promised my dear 90 year old Aunt I would send her a card I made in her favorite color- pink so she was the one recipient of my Easter cards this year! I have always been very fond of her and she is now living in a nursing home, I had a chance to visit her when I went to CT last month and it was so nice to see her. She looks so much like my grandmother who passed away 20 years ago (aprox.) it just makes me feel good to see her :)

Stamps: Magnolia Tilda and basket with eggs (separate stamps), Stampin Up sentiment.
Paper: Cardstock basic gray color by Stampin Up, designer paper by SEI - Juliette
Punches: Marvy Uchida 6 pointed flower, SU border punch, Nestabilities round dies and labels 4 (?) die. MS butterfly trio.
Misc: Pink and white stick on pearls, white grosgrain ribbon. Water color wonder for coloring Tilda and the basket. Card size is 5.5 x 5.5.

Thanks for looking! Hopefully you will have some nice weather to enjoy too :)

Lori

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This is the card I made for the "March Mingle" on the Magnolia-licious yahoo group. It seems all I do is things for the group but I haven't had time to do anything and these are commitments I have made so they must get done! At least I have something to post :)

This cute little Tilda is part of the Hoppy Easter collection, I didn't order her but she came in the mail with some others that I did order and some of which I thought I might have ordered, needless to say I got someone else's order by accident and she is just adorable! The theme for the month was green and I didn't have anything Magnolia that is St. Patrick's Day so I went with Spring green as the theme. By the time I got done though you don't see much green! I also wanted to use the buttons, nice and bright and besides, I bought them to match the paper. The butterfly has little pearl gems across the body and there are MS punch branches under the buttons to give them some depth. The Basic Grey patterned paper is pretty but I wanted to brighten it up a bit with Tilda, she once again steals the show. Thanks for looking!

March Magnolia-licious Christmas All Year Long Blog Hop

 

This is my entry for the Magnolia-licious Christmas All Year Long Blog Hop set for the 25th of each month. The next blog on the hop is Paper Castles by Lori Palmer.

Since these little Tilda sweeties are from Sweden I have been wanting to use this Stampin'Up designer paper from Christmas of this year. It looks Scandinavian to me :) This stamp is Tilda with Christmas Tree and I purchased it from Magnolia-licious. I also used an Alota wall background stamp I purchased from there as well, Diana stocks several of the Alota stamps that work well with the Magnolia Tilda stamps so check them out.

This card is 5 1/2 x 5 1/2 square and the card stock is garden green to match the designer paper, plus vanilla and river rock as the base. I used water color to color her in plus Stickles on the "star" areas. The Christmas tree is chipboard, I painted it with crackle paint in linen and then used the green paint dauber to color it and highlight the cracks. Pretty simple but Tilda always makes a card look pretty :)

Gift Box

 

 

This is a little gift box that I made for a friend's birthday, it is a template from Lauren Meader that I purchased a while back. It is pretty easy to make, two pieces for the box and two pieces for the pockets. Then you decorate with pieces of designer paper and an image and decorations for the front and you're done! Which why does it take all day to make then, LOL?!

I used Stampin' Up for almost all of this for once. The designer paper and card stock, and the felt flower on the front, the ribbon and the stamp are all SU. I love this little bird and the sentiment is one I printed from my computer as I don't have this stamp. I love pink and green together and thoroughly enjoyed making this. Thanks for stopping by, I hope you like my little project!

Bright Tilda

I have seen several cards lately with nice bright colors and with all the rain, snow and cold dreariness of this Winter I ran out and bought a paper pack about as bright as can be! So here is my little Tilda sitting on a bench "delighting in life". I sent this card to my February Mingle partner on the magnolia-licious yahoo group. I hope it brightens her day! I thought I would try stamping and coloring on colored card stock. This is (I think) - marigold morning (remember that In-Color from SU?!) and I colored it with the SU water color crayons, even the blush color worked. I was pleasantly surprised that the colors covered the yellow card stock :) Then I sponged the edges. I used my new flower border punch from Martha Stewart - thank you Lisa for the 60% off coupon, woo hoo! I will make something other than easel cards again someday, thanks for stopping by!

Christmas All Year Long - February

 

 

 

Here is my entry to the Magnolia-licious Christmas All Year Long blog hop. You can find it each month on the 25th. I am posting three pictures of the card trying to show the color more accurately and the sparkle - some pictures show it better on the snowman and some show it better on the trees and snowflakes so with all three you get the idea.

I love this Magnolia Snowman! He is so adorable. I love his eyes, so expressive and cheerful. I also used an Alota background stamp,(which I purchased both from magnolia-licious) yes it is the same one I used for Tilda and Edwin skating :) It is my only Winter scene LOL! Anyway the designer paper is Stampin' Up! and the card stock is chocolate chip and old olive (SU). I used my water color crayons to color and also used the Tsukineko all purpose ink paint in frost white as snow accents. There is Icicle color Stickles on my cute little snowman and diamond color Stickles on the snowflakes. There is also Diamond Glaze on the bells to make them nice and shiny. The snowflakes are on a border punch by Martha Stewart that I just picked up today.

I hope you like my entry - it was fun to make and I really enjoyed coloring this cute little guy. Oh I just want to squeeze him he is so cute!

Please head on over to the next fabulous card on this blog hop journey! Paper Castles

Red, Black and White Challenge

The weekly challenge for this week on KL Stampin n' Scrappin blog is simply to make a red, black and white card. I am still using and loving this Stampin' Up Valentine's paper and the red floral is just great for cards. As you can see it is Tilda, Tilda with heart ornament which you can purchase here (if it doesn't show then it is out of stock and you can email Diana to see when they will be restocked). It is hard to tell but the heart is all sparkly with glitter and looks so pretty! This is another easel card as I had mentioned in my last post and I have yet another one I am working on for this month's exchange. So much for trying not to regurgitate cards LOL! I just love how they stand up by themselves, my cats keep walking all over my cards and knocking them over (try keeping cats off desks LOL!) and it is tiring fixing them every day. The easel cards don't fall over :) I hope you like my card!

Birthday Cards

 

Here are some birthday cards that I have made recently. The layouts are from sketches and various things I have seen that inspired me :) I print out a bunch of wallet sized pictures of cards, then I take from each what I like about it and combine them and make my card from what just kind of happens! Sometimes I start with a designer paper that I want to use or sometimes it is a stamp. I have found this method to be the easiest for me rather than sitting with a blank desk and a stamp. I have read a lot of different ways people are inspired to create their cards, some use a picture of something like a pretty comforter for a bed, a fancy cupcake, a vase or image of another piece of art, a bouquet of flowers, a color or sketch challenge etc. and it is very interesting what results!

I have seen a lot of of cards lately that look the same though. One main focal image, a bunch of rose flowers or prima flowers around it, a bunch of different matching patterned paper, tons of layers and poof the same card again. So lately I have been trying to do a variety myself and not get stuck in a rut but the above cards look like I have! I have made a lot of easel cards, I will be showing you a couple more of those - hope they aren't getting boring! I tried to make each of them look a little different though :) Until next time, Have a great day!

Lori

Lilac Tilda

I have been a bad girl! I haven't posted a new card in a week. I have several things to share just not a lot of time to write all about them. You know how that goes I am sure! This is a card I made for our hostess of the Magnolia Card Kit Swap on SCS, Angela. She has been a wonderful hostess and I wanted to make something pretty for her. I love this designer paper by Stampin' Up, the colors are so pretty! Yes, another easel card, I really like these. It was fun to create and I hope you like it and I hope she liked it! I will keep this short so maybe I will have time to post more this week. Thanks for stopping by!

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 :)