Pointing to the Grad

I designed this card for the My Favorite Things Challenge to create a card that wasn't a square - thinking 'outside the box'. I love this Back to School set (none of the MFT figures have heads so don't think that I cut this one off!) The Blackboard even has a little eraser in the lower right hand corner - can you see it?? I love that little detail! I colored my "black"board green as I thought that looked more colorful on the card and stamped a 1$ Michaels sentiment stamp on it using embossing ink and white embossing powder. I attached the cut out board to a thin piece of corkboard just to make it stand out a bit. I found a graduation cap on clip art in Microsoft Word that I printed and then enlarged to get the outlines of the graduation cap. It's in 2 pieces and mounted to a white base. I paper pieced the dress on the teacher using a piece of DP and colored her cuffs, shoes arms and legs with Prismacolor markers. The tassle is a braided bookmark that I had in my stash wrapped around a big brad. I did faux stitching around the edges with a white gel pen. I didn't win the competition but I had fun making this graduation card and I really like how it came out!

I'd love to have you comment on my card - click comment below!

Running Rabbits Treat Box

I decorated this round wooden box for the My Favorite Things March Guest Designer Challenge on SCS. The challenge was to create a 3 dimensional project involving candy. I wasn't chosen as the guest designer - but I do love this little box that I created!

I used the MFT Hoppy Easter set and Stampin Up Wintergreen DP. I covered the rim of the top with this luscious brown gathered ribbon. I love these cute little rabbits that are chasing each other and because it is a vinyl stamp I could bend it a little so the bunnies would print around the circle on the cover. I colored the bunnies with Prismacolor marker. There is one tiny yellow chick there filling the space left over. I used my nestabilities to punch and emboss the white circle on top and stamped it with the larger bunny as well as another tiny chick. I attached it to the cover with dimensionals. For the candy part - I punched circles out of the DP and stamped just one of the bunnies and attached the circle to small York Peppermint patties. I lined the inside of the box bottom and cover with the DP. A cute little box filled with yummie treats! What more could you want?!

I'd love to hear your thoughts about my Easter Box - click on comments below!

Happy Easter Bunny

Ok - so I'm making a quick hop to Easter with this card - jumped right over St. Patrick's Day - but don't fret I'll come back to that on another day!!

Today's card was made for the Sketch Challenge on SCS seen here . We have to make the card using the given sketch. I used some beautiful designer paper from Basic Grey called Two Scoops that I got on line at Eclectic Paperie. I stamped a scroll stamp over the dotted piece. I used my nestability dies on the bunny square and sentiment scalloped circle. I love the embossing feature you can create with these. I took my cue from Markie's Mom on SCS making dots all around the edges with my white gel pen (she does that on all her cards lately). This adorable bunny is from Stamps by Judith. I cut around the bunny's hands and slipped the carrot underneath them and you can see that he is now nibbling on it so he is a happy Easter bunny!

Let me know what you think of my bunny card - click comments below!

Paper: Certainly Celery, Buckaroo Blue: SU, White: PapertreyInk, DP: Basic Grey Two Scoops.
Stamps: bunny and carrot - Stamps by Judith, scroll - Basic Gray Figgy Pudding, Sentiment - Penny Black.

Ink: Pitch Black Adirondack

Supplies: Prismacolor markers, SU markers, white gel pen, dimensionals, nestabilities, circle punch.

Valentine Crafts

A couple of friends and I make hand stamped cards and crafts to sell at what we 'tongue in cheek' call the "Divine Card's" Table at our church's Harvest Fair each October.

We also make stamped crafts for each holiday to make money for the church during the year.

These are some Valentine's items that I made this year.

First up are these cute candles that I made by stamping on white tissue paper, then coloring in the stamping with markers or colored pencils where needed. Cut around the image leaving just a little bit extra. Then you cut a piece of wax paper that is as tall as the candle and long enough to wrap around the candle with several inches extra. Place the stamped tissue against the candle and wrap the waxed paper tightly over it holding it by the extra length in the back. Then heat with a hot gun over the stamped area - you will see the wax paper melt slightly into the candle - it happens pretty quickly. When you remove the wax paper - the tissue has become part of the candle and that's it! This is an easy process and it comes out really professional looking! I then put the candles in flat bottom clear bags that I got from http://www.clearbags.com/ and stapled a punched stamped heart layered on a paper doily to the top.

I got these cute red tins at Michaels for $1 - can't beat that! I decorated them by punching a large heart from several pretty Valentine designer papers with my Giga Marvy Scalloped punch. I attached that to the tin with Scotch Quick Dry Adhesive that I got at Michaels. Next I stamped my cute little hedgehog from Penny Black stamps onto a white scalloped circle (Marvy punch again) added a couple of jewels and attached it over the heart with dimensional adhesives. The last decorating item is to attach coordinating ribbon around the sides using super tacky tape. I filled these cute treats with white shredded paper and 6 Hershey kisses.

These cute little items are called "Pixie Pockets" and I made them a few weeks ago for the 'Try a New Technique' challenge over on Split Coast Stampers. The original directions were given by Anita for a Virtual Stamp Night challenge in 2006 and were resurrected by Wendella247 for this challenge in 2008. Here are the directions: cut one 7x7 inch piece of cardstock - I used red, pink and white for mine. Fold this in half so it measures 7" high by 3 1/2" wide. Open it up and cut down 2" on the center fold from the top. Fold it back and fold down the 2" top panel. Cut 2 pieces of designer paper 3 3/8 x 3 1/2 for the bottom and 3 3/8 x 1 3/4 for the top panel. Punch all corners of the card stock and designer paper with your corner rounder. Attach the designer paper to the front bottom and flap. Either sew the edges or use super tacky tape. Add stamped decorations as desired. I then made some chocolate Valentine pops and slipped them into the pocket.

I'm sure you've seen these fun decorated little metal mail boxes - they are all over the blogs and on Split Coast. They are $1 at Target and come in pink, white and red. I used wonderful directions that I found on Emily's blog I just put shredded white paper inside and let the buyers add their own candy as desired.

I found the instructions for these cute little fortune cookies in the February Issue of Martha Stewart. They are made by first cutting a 4 inch circle out of felt. Then you cut a 3 3/4" piece of florist wire and place it across the center of the circle. Attach a 4" piece of same color grosgrain ribbon over the wire using a white glue. Let this dry for a couple of hours, Then bend the wire in half and it shapes into a fortune cookie. The instructions said that you could slip Hershey kisses inside them - but I found that the 'cookie' wasn't firm enough or big enough to hold them - so I just stamped a fortune on vellum (hugs and kisses - from Papertrey Ink Sweet Love ) and attached it to the inside of the cookie. I then placed shredded white paper into a flat bottom clear bag and added Hershey kisses around it. I embossed hearts with my Cuttlebug folder on a square of card stock - folded it in half - stamped Happy Valentines Day ($1 Michaels stamp) on a punched scalloped circle and stapled that on the folded top of the bag.

My last craft for our sale is this cute little 'sour cream' container made out of clear acetate. This project was from a challenge on Split Coast Stampers also - we learn such fun things there - you really need to check out all the templates and projects in the Resources section on the site. I cut out the acetate - stamped it with white craft ink with a cute heart and dots stamp from Stampin Up. I let the ink dry overnight as it takes longer to dry on acetate. Then I put super tacky tape on the edges - folded as directed - added delicious Cherry Cream Hershey Kisses and sealed the top. Then I stamped the label with another Stampin Up stamp and stapled that to the top with a piece of ribbon.

So - those are the crafts I made for our Valentine's sale - hope you enjoyed them and that they will inspire you to make some too! Let me know what you think by hitting comments below.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Featured Stamper

Today's challenge on SCS was Featured Stamper - where you look at the chosen persons gallery and pick a card to case (copy and share with everyone).

Sarah Green was the FS today. You should really check out all the wonderful cards in her gallery.

I chose to CASE this one because I had this gorgeous stamp set from Papertrey Ink called Out on a Limb and I hadn't inked it up yet. (I've got to stop just buying stamps - and start using them!)

I really love the look of this card with all the layers - way more layers than I would usually use on my own - and that is the fun of caseing the featured stamper - you make a card that uses techniques you may not normally be comfortable with.

Thanks for coming by!

Let me know what you think of this card by clicking comments below.

Paper - Ruby Red, Cameo Coral, Buckaroo Blue: SU, White: Papertrey Ink,

Inks - Bordering Blue, Barely Banana: SU, Versafine Archival Vintage Sepia,

Stamps - Out on a Limb: Papertrey Ink,

supplies - brown micron pen, sponge, cuttlebug folders.

Inspired by Linens

Today's Inspiration Challenge over on Split Coast Stampers was a beautifully linened bed with a view of the ocean in the background. You can find the challenge here:

I immediately thought of this Cosmo Cricket paper as it was similar in design and color. I added the dune grasses along the bottom of the sentiment and the seagull flying along the top of the card to bring in the ocean influence. The card was stamped with a weathered BG stamp using the same ink that I stamped the grasses with.

I had this pretty brad that had all the colors of the DP in it and attached it to the left corner.

I love these inspiration challenges. I never really know what I will create until I'm all done with it - it might be an exact copy or something that was inspired by one little portion of the picture.

This is my very first posting on my new blog - I'm sort of flying by the seat of my pants on this - trying to figure out how I get things posted and linked and edited!! What an adventure! I've been wanting to get into this for a while now - and finally decided to just do it.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I'd love to hear what you think and I hope to see you here again!

Paper - Sage Shadow, Very Vanilla, DP: Cosmo Cricket Halfway Cafe

Ink -Pitch Black:Adirondack,Soft Sage: Memories

Stamps - Sentiment: Verses Rubber Stamps, Dune Grass & seagull: unknown,

Supplies: ticket corner punch, brad, dimensionals.