Cranky Pants & my mis-hap

I have to post one more time about Paper Arts A Thon and then I think I will be able to keep it to myself and not torture the ones that weren't there (if you didn't go you HAVE to do it next year!). Although I'm sure I could post new pictures and stories every day this week. LOL!!

I have to tell you about the Cranky Pants because I don't think there were pictures on anyone else's blog. I think the cranky pants were thought up by Amy (correct me if I am wrong Mom) after our weekend of scrapping at Mactaquac. I really thought Amy would be the first to wear them. LOL!!

The cranky pants were for anyone who was cranky during the 24 hours of stamping/scrapping. If you were cranky you had to wear them until someone ratted out (or framed) the next person. Each person had to sign their name and time they wore the cranky pants.

The first picture is of Holly modelling the cranky pants while they explained what they were for.








Next we have Amy (I knew she would wear them!) sporting the cranky pants.







Now for my mis-hap and how that ties in with the cranky pants. I brought some Bella stamps and was showing someone how to use them. I inked the stamp up and was going to stamp on my scrap paper. Somehow the block slipped out of my hand and landed in the corner of my layout.


The look on "J's" face I knew she felt sooo bad I just kept saying "it's ok, I can fix it". Angie who was behind me decided that I could not have the cranky pants after that. So Angie made me a "Get out of Cranky Pants free card" (thank you Angie).

By the way I never did have to use the card but it was pretty close when Amy "stole" my May Arts Ribbon.

Are you ready?

This is going to be a long one. LOL!!


This past weekend was AWESOME!!! I don't know how I am going to do this re-cap. I have been thinking about it all day and I still don't really know how to describe it so I am going to just start typing and showing you pictures.


I left my house at 7:30 Friday morning, picked up Joy and Roberta (I hope nobody minds me using real names but there are too many to try to make up names for everyone. LOL!!) then we went to Oromocto to Angies house and met Sandra, Nancy, Linda and Pam there. We left Oromocto at 8:30 and headed for Halifax. After a few stops and lots of food (in the other van-nachos and muffins) we made it to Halifax for shopping at Michaels, Carsand Mosher and Lee Valley. Then we were on to New Minas and Two Much Fun where we almost bought out all of their ribbon. LOL!!


The next stop was the "Bead Store" where Pam opened up especially for us and again those girls pretty much depleted her ribbon stock. I have to say I expected them to go in and just watch while I shopped but they had a great time with the ribbon and charms.


Next we headed over the mountain and we did a quick detour around by the water and the wharf. Mom had spaghetti and a raspberry desert waiting for us and Dad was ready to entertain (but I got one little dig in-right Sandra). Ok are you ready for a picture? I'll stop typing for a minute.

Here we all are after travelling 13 hours (well 12 for some). I forgot to mention that it was 8:30 when we got to my parents. I think we look pretty good after the long day we had :)






Ok, moving on to Paper Arts A Thon. We arrived at the Kingston Fire Hall at 9:30 Saturday morning. There were personalized goodie bags and tonnes of scrapping space. The welcoming announcements were made and there were lots of tears until Jackie came to the mic and made us laugh (with what I can't remember but she said she was the fun one).


There was a prize for the person who raised the most $. Sandra was that person with over $800 in pledges! She recieved a beautiful basket full of stamping and scrapping goodies. Way to go Sandra!!!!






Some silly person thought it would be a good idea to have a karaoke machine to pick us up a little. I really don't know who this was but please don't let Mom behind the mic again. I really don't care to re-live that. LOL!! It does make for a good pic though.



We had a few other Divas that at least could carry a tune and knew the words. (well kinda)

Taryn's game of Heads or Tails was a blast.









Our beautiful Belly Dancer at 2:00am. It was the best pick me up. Just what we needed.





















Some of the scrappers learning to belly dance.

And the last picture is of the look on my poor sister's face at 5:30am when she found out that we decided not to go back to Mom's to sleep and therefore she did not have a ride there. She had to ask a # of times if we were "for real" and why the "F" we did not tell her before she packed up all of her stuff. I am really sorry Amy, hopefully you will be talking to me again before the next time we come home. (Just kidding she called while I was sleeping last night so I guess she isn't too mad at me).

The drive home didn't take nearly as long as on the way there and we were all home by 2:30. There was one little "situation" but other than that is was a great drive home.

Anyone who has ever complained that I don't post often enough or that I don't share enough stories can not say anything for a loooong time after this post. I am sure I will still think of more things (probably while I am trying to sleep tonight) but I think that covers most of it. I do have one picture of my little "mis-hap" that I will share next time.

Tomorrow is the day!

This is going to be a quick post. We are going fishing in a few minutes then I am coming back to clean the van and pack (I tried this afternoon but it didn't work out too well). We are leaving at 7:30 so I need to have everythind done tonight.

I wanted to share this Stamping Bella card (since that is what we are doing this weekend).














Then the rest of the cards are the ones I did during VSN (just in case you didn't see them on SCS)




Have a great weekend and I'll have lots to share when I get back.

Another Bella

Do you mind another Bella card today? I had so much fun playing with my Bellas this weekend. I think I did 7 Bella cards plus a couple other cards..

For this one I stamped Flowahbella in Basic black on shimmery white (I love it & have been using it more lately) cardstock and colored her in with SU markers. Her dress is done in Barely Banana, I like how summery it is.

The patterned paper is from Spring Showers and the ribbon is from May Arts. I always like the double sided paper turned up to show the other side but it isn't something I do very often. I was going to add a small sentiment in the corner but couldn't decide on one so I left it blank. What do you think? Should I add something?

Mamabella

The last few days I have been playing with my Bellas trying to decide on a card (well 2 actually) for a swap I am in. I will post the cards I did for the swap later just in case anyone in the swap happens to check in here (you know how I like surprises).

For the first one I used a sketch I did a while ago but hadn't had a chance to try out.

I used Mamabella with Regal Rose, Sahara Sand, Close to Cocoa, Whisper White and Rebecca Paper. Mamabella is stamped in Basic black and colored with SU markers. I tied the ribbon around the Chocolate piece and added primas with rhinestone brads. Congratulations is stamped in Regal Rose and put it under the Chocolate Chip piece.

I don't know how much time I will get to stamp this week. I still have a few things to finish up for Paper Arts A Thon (and pack) so I will be sharing more of the Bella cards I did this weekend and then after the weekend I should have lots of new stuff to share! Only 3 more sleeps and we will be on the road!

I did get to do 3 of the VSN challenges on Saturday. I will try to post them later today or tomorrow. If you want to see them before I get to post again they are in My Gallery on SCS (I'm not sure if this link will work as I can't get into SCS right now-I will check it later).

Au Chocolate Bloom

This is a little later than planned but better late than never right? This is the card we did last night for the party. I made a mistake and didn't have enough Old Olive cardstock for the card I had planned on doing so this was a last minute decision ( I came up with it yesterday afternoon).

The base of the card is Chocolate chip and then I used Rose red and sponged around the edges for the next layer. For the flower I used the biggest one from Big Blooms and stamped it in Rose red on Vanilla cardstock.I then stamped one of the small flowers in Regal rose craft ink and sprinkled Heat & Stick on it, heated and then added Dazzling diamonds and heated it again. I cut both of the flowers out and mounted them on a piece of Chocolate chip that I had DTP'd (direct to paper) with Vanilla ink.

The Happy and Birthday are from Everyday flexible phrases and were stamped in Chocolate chip and then punched with the word window punch. I sponged the chocolate chip ink around the edges and wrapped them around the Rose cardstock.

I used a piece of Au Chocolate paper (from the spring mini) and mounted it on chocolate chip and wrapped chocolate grosgrain around that and the Rose red piece.

Hopefully the kids will go to bed good tonight. We had company most of the day and I am hoping that tired them out so I can stamp. It is VSN (Virtual Stamp Night) over at Splitcoast stampers so I am going to check out some of the challenges and try to do a couple of them. I think that is a good way to finish off the day. Don't you?

Click HERE to see the VSN forum.

Baby Elephant

This is going to be a really quick post as I am still working on the second card for the party tonight. It is looking really good though so it will be worth it.

I'll share on the weekend. Think pink & brown :)

I don't know what it is but I have been playing with Wild About You a lot lately so this was a natural choice for the swap cards for last night. I don't know if you can see it in the picture but there is a little diamond stickles on the elephants toenails.

The cards from last night were awesome! I am so impressed by what all of "my" stampers did. I am going to take some pictures of the cards and share them here (if that is ok with the group- if you don't want me to show them here let me know). I figure since there were 21 swappers I could post a card a day and that would give me something to post over the next month. LOL!! Just kidding........... I'll do a few group pics.

Time to go finish that card, cut it out and pack for tonight. Have a great day.

Baby Giraffe

I had to play with my Palette of Prints paper last night and though the green would make a cute baby card so I just had to use Wild about you.

The 2 patterns are from the same sheet so I just cut the background paper to the size I needed (5 1/4 x 4) and then used the scrap piece for the strip across the middle (well approximately the middle). The giraffe is stamped in Certainly celery on shimmery white and I sponged the edges with celery.

I found these cute little charms at the dollar store the other day and this green one was a perfect match (well I thought so anyway). I used a jump ring to attach it to silver cord tied around the organdy ribbon and then used the same to attach the oval piece to it.

Now I have a couple of baby cards ready for when my new niece or nephew comes in the next few weeks. I can't wait!

Mini Just Because

I made this card yesterday for the Technique Lover's Challenge (TLC116). The challenge was to do a warm up card to get you started and it should take under 15 minutes.

It probably would have taken me about 5-10 minutes if things were going right but I had to do it in 2 sittings, thanks to my kids! How sad is that? LOL!!!

The card is a 3 x 3 tempting turquoise base and I had some of the Petals and Paisleys paper still out from the last card so I cut that to 2 3/4 wide. I then cut it in half and used one side on the top and the other for the bottom. I taped them together first so I could wrap the ribbon around the pattern paper. Then I used So Saffron and Old Olive markers to ink the flower and stamped it on the white and added the So Saffron piece behind and used the ticket corner punch on the Saffron. The Just Because is from Fancy Flexible Phrases and is stamped in Tempting turquoise.

On a side note: For anyone in the swap with my Thursday night class the swap # is 21. I have had a few people ask and there was some confusion on the # but I talked to the "swap hostess" today and she confirmed the #. Can't wait to get the cards on Thursday. Mine are almost done!

Having fun with Beate's sketch

I had to do another one for Beate's sketch challenge (see my last post). I just love working with sketches and use them quite often when I am card making and pretty much always when scrapbooking. I like that you have the layout all ready for you and you just have to decide on pictures/stamps, papers and embellishments.

This card is made from the same sketch as the last card but is a very different look. This is what I like about sketches, you can look at the layout but change it to your own style.

This card is a 4 1/4" square base in tempting turquoise. I used the Polka Dots & Petals paper and used that as the inspiration for the colors (that is why I like working with pattern paper, one more decision made for me). The other color I pulled from this paper was the So Saffron which is matted behind the yellow flowers.

For the mouse and the squirrel I stamped them on the white first and then stamped them again on the patterned papers and cut their shirts out (when I showed Joe he said I was crazy for cutting those out. LOL!!). I colored the balloons with markers and cut them out and used dimensionals to pop them up.

I really had fun with this sketch and am already working on a third card with it! Hmm....that just got me thinking I bet you could use this for a scrapbooking layout. I might just have to try this. I'll keep you posted.

Beate's Fresh and Fun sketch

Beate has a sketch challenge posted on her blog and the prize is very fun! I took some time this afternoon just to stamp for fun. I really didn't have anything I was working on in particular. There are lots of things I should be doing but I decided to take a break and have some fun.

This is the first card I made using Beate's sketch and I am working on the second already! I really like this sketch and there are so many possibilities with it.

I am off to finish that card and I will post it sometime tomorrow. Go check out Beate's post HERE and try out that sketch. Of course if you haven't been to her blog (who hasn't though. LOL!!) you really need to check out the rest of her work while you are there.

Speaking of blogs you might not have been to. I am going to update my list on the right because I haven't done it in a while and there are a lot more blogs that I check out than are listed :) Watch for that sometime early next week.

CD book

This is the book I sent into Stampin' Up! for the April contest (see last post if you don't know what I'm talking about). The pictures aren't great because I was in a bit of a hurry when I took them. LOL!! I think I was on my way to the Post office and remembered I had better take some pics.

The front and back are CD's that I covered with the Petals and Paisleys paper using sticky strip. I then punched the holes with my Crop-a-dile. I started out with the jump ring to hold the pages together but when I went to mail it I changed it to ribbon to make it less bulky. I think the ribbon looked better but I don't have a picture with that. Sorry :)

The inside pages are cardstock circles cut with the Coluzzle. The pages were then stamped and I added the pictures and used

the white gel pen.

The first page is Regal rose with the dots from Polka Dots and Paisley stamped in Whisper white.

The second page is Taken with teal. The paisleys are stamped in the same colr and highlighted with the white gel pen.

For the third page I just added the white dots along the top of the picture.



















The fourth page has pattern paper on one side and the picture on the other and I used a piece of Regal rose to tie them together and faux stitched down both sides to kind of look like faux ribbon.










If you have any questions about this let me know either in a comment or e-mail me. It was really pretty quick and fun to make. Now I just have to do one for myself :)







P.S. Can you tell hubby was away all week but is now back so I have a little more time on my hands. They are playing outside now so I think I will go play in my stamp room.

One more thing. I don't know why there are big spaces between some of the pictures. I can't seem to get everything lined up the way I would like.

I'm so excited!

I have something super exciting to share but I am going to make you wait till the end to find out what it is :)

Shhh.....don't tell Mom. This is one of the cards I had done for Paper Arts A Thon but then I changed my mind and kept it to share with you.

I'm not sure how well it shows up in the picture but the lion is 3 layers. The body is Close to cocoa, the mane is Chocolate chip and the face is Creamy caramel. The Chocolate chip piece behind the lion was punched with the scalloped square punch and then pierced on the scallops. I used the Tiny mosaic (I think that is what it is called) on the Tempting turquoise and stamped "Birthdays are the best" in chocolate chip after I embossed it (I should have decided on the sentiment first because I had to press firmly to get the words to come out).

I probably wouldn't have put Tempting turquoise, Creamy caramel and Chocolate chip together but this combo came from the color coach and I love it! I think I will be using this again soon. I am also using my scalloped punches all the time! I love them! They are soooo much fun.

Oh yes, one more thing before I tell you my exciting news. One of my stampers did a "Bella" order and I am getting more Bellas and some Fellas! Whooo hooo! I am so excited :)

Ok, now onto my exciting news. I got a call from Stampin' Up! this afternoon and I won the monthly contest! April's contest had to be a project that was a circle theme. I had the idea for this for a while so when I saw the contest I decided to try one. Of course I held onto it for qiute a while trying to decide if I should send it in and ended up sending it express post because I was so late. Next time I am leaving myself more time. LOL!!

I took some pictures of it before I sent it but they didn't turn out very well so I will try to fix them and share with you. Oh and guess what I get for winning?!? .......3 stamp sets!! AND I have until July 15th to choose so I can get them from the new catalogue!!! Holy cow. I am so excited! I think I might have screamed in Mom's ear this afternoon. I don't know how I am going to stand it between now and July 1st....I definately won't need until the 15th to order:)

I think I need to go stamp now. I need to do something creative!

Stamp camp card and a sketch

This is another card from last weekend's stamp camp. I used Petals and Paisleys paper, Cool Caribbean, Whisper White and a transparency for the window. I punched out the designer paper first and then used that as a guide as to where to punch the CC. The flower is stamped in black StazOn and colored on the opposite side with Sharpies, I then sandwiched it between the 2 layers. I added white cardstock to the inside to make the flower stand out more.


Then I had a few pieces for this card left over so I decided I might as well do a Bella card :)

For the scalloped rectangle I punched 2 squares of old olive and then layered them to fit around the Bella image. I used the ribbon to cover up the line where the 2 squares join. I then used the other side of the paper from the card above to match the old olive. I think it is a fun non-traditional baby card. Hmmm....maybe for my Sister-in-law when she has the new baby.

Last night after class I had a few minutes to play on the computer so I decided to try to figure out how to do sketches in Adobe. I am still learning but I think I have the basics figured out (if anyone has any tips I would appreciate it). I want to do some of the sketches I did from my scrapping magazines. Last night I did a sketch for the Bella card from my last post but it seems to be lost somewhere on my computer. When I find it I will share :)


This is from the Bella card above. (I didn't notice until now that the blur at the bottom is where my name is.)

Let me know if you try this sketch. I would love to see what others do with it.

Making up for lost time

I didn't get to post again after my last post so I am making up for it now with some cards we did on Saturday and a Bella!

The first card was inspired by the raccoon card in this THIS POST by Amy Rysavvy (not my sister Amy) to do him floating away with the balloons. I love this card!
Hip Hip Horray is one of the many sets I have that are retiring but I think I will keep this one cause it is so cute for kids cards.






The second is a diorama card. I used Beautiful Beach (this one happens to be retiring too, I didn't even think of it until now). I apologize for the picture, it was hard to get one without shadows. The colors are blush blossom, close to cocoa and cameo coral. I stamped the shells on whisper white cardstock and colored with watercolor pencils and cut out. I then shaped them with the bone folder to give a little dimension. The directions for the diorama card can be found HERE.

This last card isn't one from Saturday but I just had to share it. On the weekend I went through my latest scrapbooking magazines and picked out some layouts I thought could be changed into cards. I then drew some sketches of them to have on hand. This is from one of those sketches.

I have been playing with my Bellas lately first of all because I love them and they are so much fun and second because I am in a Bella swap on SCS (invite only! whooohoo). I am really excited about this so you can expect to see more Bella cards over the next while until I find the right card. Who am I kidding? It won't stop there;)

Oh yes, in case you are wondering and didn't read it on Mom's blog I "lost" about 55 stamp sets that are on the retiing list. I will keep a few of them but the reality is they really won't get much use once I can't demo them so I won't keep too many (besides I need to make room for the new ones. LOL!!). On that list of keeps are the alphas (of course for scrapping), Hip Hip Horray, probably French Script and maybe Petal Prints. This list could change as it gets closer to the time to let them go:)

So what are your "must haves"?

Retiring List

This is going to be a quick post with no cards right now. I do have a Bella card ready to have it's picture taken and posted but I can't do it right now-the house work calling me. LOL!! Check back later and I should have a card for you.

The retiring list came out this morning and there are lots of favorites going :(

Here is a LINK to the list.

Gotta go get that house cleaning done so I can stamp later...and post to the blog, of course ;-)