Still Here

Just wanted to pop in and say that I am still here. I have been working on projects for Stamp Camp this weekend. I am so excited about everything I have been working on :) I'll share them here after Saturday. I have a couple of cards we have done in class the last few weeks I have to take pics of and I will post them here over the next couple of days.

I'll be back soon.......time to make supper :)

Renovations

My house is covered in a thick layer of dust. Well it is mainly in the main floor and most of it is in the kitchen and dining room. Luckily all of my stamping/scrapbooking stuff is upstairs so it is fine :)

This is why:

We are opening the archway between the kitchen and dining room up a little more (because of the wood stove and the insurance company). I am happy though because it will give more room for the kids to walk in front of the stove.

We put new ceramic tile under the wood stove (which is still moved over in the middle of my dining room). We are going to take the tiles off the ceiling and gyproc it so there will be lots more dust the next few days!


Once this is done we get to paint and then I think the renovations will be done for a bit.

You can kind of see the new tiles where Ian is standing in this picture. The old ones were a dark brown so this should lighten it up a bit :)


And this is Emma during the cutting.....

Time to do a little cleaning to get me through the day without going nuts from the dust but I know there will be more when Joe gets home so there isn't much point in doing too much. I guess I'll just have to hide upstairs in my stamp room today!

Pink bear

We have had a busy weekend. Ian was sick the end of last week with a cold and then Emma came down with it Friday night. Friday night was crazy with us up all night because she couldn't breathe through her nose.

Saturday was Family Day at Joe's work so we popped over there for a bit then went for groceries and some things to do some small renovations to our kitchen.

I haven't had any time to stamp the last few days but I will be doing some tonight to get ready for next week so hopefully I will have something new (this was from a party about a month ago) to share soon.

Changed it up....

Remember this card (the first one)? I had the pieces left over for 2 cards after class and I knew I couldn't just put them back in my scraps, I had to do something with them. I was planning on just copying the card to have some extras on hand but the other day I thought I should create 2 new cards with the same pieces. Make sense? LOL!

These are the cards I made.

I kept the ink colors the same to match the cardstock but I changed the stamp set from Garden Whimsy to Priceless.

I added stickles to the butterfly and flourish, cut the butterflies out and pop-dotted them.

They are both pretty quick and easy but I am happy with how they turned out.

Faux Suede

I'm pretty sure that is what is called :) This is a technique I learned a few years ago from my upline and I did this at a stamp camp a couple of months ago.

Supplies:

stamps

ink

sponge

glue stick

cardstock (cut to size you want for finished piece)

tissue paper (about 2" bigger than cardstock)

Step 1:

Stamp tissue paper.

Step 2:

Crumple and un-crumple tissue paper 3-4 times.

Step 3:

Lay flat and sponge with ink.

Step 4:

Apply glue to one side of cardstock.

Step 5:

Place glue-side down on back of tissue paper.

Step 6:

Run a little glue around outside of cardstock.

Step 7:

Mitre corners.

Step 8:

Fold in sides, adding glue to ends if needed.

Finished piece.

This is the card I made with this piece. I love the texture the faux suede adds in real life.

The colors are a little off in the picture, they are Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Really Rust and Very Vanilla. The patterned paper is Outlaw.

I hope you have fun with this technique :)

Have you been to Jill's blog Paper Memories yet? She has some blog candy and a fun challenge. I have some plans for her challenge but haven't done anything yet............I'll keep you posted.

Christmas time!

I have a Christmas card we did at stamp camp that I wanted to show here but I wanted to do a little tutorial to go with it. I took the pictured last week but haven't had a chance to go through them until now so here it is.

Supplies: thin metal

StazOn ink

stamp

stylus

old mouse pad (or other

soft surface, here I used

my pad of grid paper

Step 1: Stamp image (with StazOn) on opposite side you want to show on metal. Here I stamped on the silver side so the gold will be the front.

Step 2: Use the stylus to trace the lines on the back of the metal. I did the outline of the tree and the swirls on the tree.

Flip it over to see that you embossed all of the image.

Step 3: I then added a border around the outside to make a frame (optional).









Finished card.

The colors in picture are a little off (sorry). The card base and strip across are Bravo Burgandy and the front is Very Vanilla. For the front piece I used my Cuttlebug to emboss the top 2/3 of the card and stamped Merry Christmas in Bravo Burgandy on the bottom. To adhere the metal to the card I used my EZ runner.

Note: The metal came from a scrapbooking store a few years ago (I think it is called metal paper).

*snif, snif.......*

Today was Ian's first day of school. I was so proud of him when he walked on the bus all by himself this morning. We were outside about 10 minutes before the bus came so had lots of time to take pictures :)

Grampie bought backpacks for both of the kids so Emma had to wear her's outside too. Emma wasn't very happy when Ian got on the bus and she didn't.....she kept crying "my bus, my bus". In the mornings he is on the Highschool bus but it didn't really seem to bother him he just said that there were lots of big kids on there.









This one is when the bus is coming. On the way home he got to sit with Madison so he was very happy about that.












I took my camera out and took some pictures of Emma while we were waiting for Ian to come home.

I have been stamping and scrapbooking a bit the last couple of days so check back tomorrow and I will have something new for you. I have also been taking pictures for a couple of tutorials so stay tuned for those as well.

We had a great weekend with Mom and Dad. As it always is, it was too short but we packed lots in and had a really good visit and I can't wait till the next time :)

I just checked Mom's blog and she has a quick re-cap of the weekend. You can check it out HERE.

Happy Monday

We had a great time at stamp camp on Saturday! We decided that since it was a smaller group we would work through lunch so we could enjoy the rest of the georgous day we were having. A couple of us went to lunch after and had a great time there too :)

This is one of the cards we did on Saturday.
We used Stem Silhouettes and inked it with markers (Certainly Celery and Rose Red) then misted with water to give it a softer look. The background on the Celery piece is Well Worn Words.

I have been scrapbooking every chance I get! I really should start working ahead on classes and September's Stamp Camp (so I won't be rushing at the last minute) but I am on a roll and I don't want to lose it. I think most scrapbookers would know what I mean (and probably anyone that crafts). When you stop for a while it is hard to get back into it.

I have to share this page because I had so much fun with it and it is my favorite of the ones I have done the last few days.
The "You" embellishment is from Hollee's demo at the yard sale last weekend. I knew I had to do a page about Emma with it.

The heart is chipboard from SU. I covered it with Dots and Dashes paper and then stamped "love" from Wonderful Words in black. The flourishes in the corners are from Doodle This, stamped in black and colored with a white gel pen.

This was my first time scanning and stitching together a layout. I'm not sure why there is a faint line going on an angle and it looks like a corner is lifted but it isn't really there in real life :)

Priceless

This is one of the cards we did at class last week. It was my first time using Priceless and I love it! This card is pretty simple but I just love the swirls and can't wait to do more with them. The colors are Ruby Red, Cameo Coral, Basic Black and Whisper White.

I am all ready for the party tonight and stamp camp tomorrow so I am hoping to get some scrapping time in today. I did a double page layout yesterday! I haven't scrapbooked since Paper Arts A Thon so it took me a bit to get going but now that I did the first layout I have already started a second one and it is soooo nice!

Sneak peek

This is one of the cards we are doing at Stamp Camp on Saturday. I punched out a mask with my Giga Scallop Square punch (one and a half times to make a rectangle) from scrap paper. I made the scrap paper the same size as the white cardstock to make it easier to line up.

I sponged Certainly Celery inside the mask and then stamped the stems and flowers from Double Line Doodles. I colored the flowers in and touched up the stems that were above the mask. I don't think you can see it in the picture but I used my white gel pen on the dots on the leaves.

For the side of the card where it opens I used my corner rounder (the old SU one-I still don't have the new one) and then added the dots to the scallops with the gel pen.

I found this card when I was going through my stash this morning and realized I hadn't posted it here yet.

The layout was a sketch from Beate's blog a while ago and the color combo was a SCS color challenge from a few weeks ago (Real Red, Green Galore and Tempting Turquoise).

The green piece is embossed with my Cuttlebug Bloom Dots folder and the red flower is from one of the CB flower die sets (sorry I can't remember the name right now). Stamp sets used were In the Spotlight, Little Pieces and Happy Everything.

Want some shocking news? As of last night (Wendesday!!!) I am about 95% ready for class tonight, a party tomorrow night and stamp camp on Saturday. I just have to finish cutting out the last project for Saturday. For me to be this ready 3 days before is unheard of. LOL!!! And guess what else...............Mom is working on projects for the end of September. I sooooo wish I could be a little more like my Mom ;-)

One more thing......Sandra asked about the Snow Writer. It is a white paint that comes in a bottle with a pointed tip (kind of like the crystal effects bottle). It stays raised so you can make snow with it or you could use it like we have used liquid applique for whipped cream on "coffee" stamps or maybe icing on a cake. You can also add glitter when it is still wet. I have only used it for snow but will share when I get a chance to do more with it.

World Card Making Day

I am still working on getting everything done for the next 3 days but wanted to let you know that I didn't fall off the face of the earth and my computer does still work.

I think I will post a sneak peek but I just have to decide what one first. It is always hard to figure out what one I will show and I like to keep them surprises. I'll do that later today or tomorrow morning :)

Did you know there is a World Card Making Day? Well there is! It is October 6th. I have been thinking about what I will do that day and will let you know as soon as I decide. In the meantime check out the website: http://www.worldcardmakingday.com/. (I'd do it as a link like I normally do but I only have one hand to type now. I am holding Emma because she fell of the couch. She's fine but wants to be held now.)

Have a great day!

I'm home

We came home on Wednesday and I have barely stopped since then. We had an awesome trip home and jam-packed as much as we could into the time we were there. We went to the beach and BBQ at the park on Saturday, Ian's Birthday party was on Sunday and then we had family over for supper after that. Monday Mom, Amy and I went to Dartmouth/Halifax for some shopping (and lots of laughs, of course). Tuesday we went to Upper Clements Park and then were back in time to have supper and go to bead class. The kids had a blast at the park and even Emma and Kaylee were able to do most of the kids rides. And the bead class was fun! We did an awesome bracelet.

Of course I wasn't ready for class on Thursday night so I had to get ready for that a good part of the day on Thursday. Friday we spent most of the day in town doing errands. We live about 30 minutes from town so we usually try to get as much done in 1 trip as we can :) Today I helped out at Compu Pro Scrapbooking's yard sale. I was demoing (sp?) the cuttlebug and a new product called snow writer. It was fun to show how to use the cuttlebug to those that had never seen the cuttlebug before (gasp! hehe).

The kids are both asleep now so I am going to head up and start working on projects for the next week. Oh yea, I did spend a little money at the yard sale today but not too much because I probably spent a little too much on our shopping trip on Monday ;)

Getting ready to go

Well, sort of. I haven't packed a thing yet. I still have to finish the last ATC and I need to do a little cleaning before we go. The hamster's cage needs to be cleaned and I have a load (or maybe 2) of laundry to fold. But before I do any of those things I have to post to my blog ;)

I already did my morning scan through most of the blogs I read so I shouldn't be on the computer again but I probably will do another e-mail check and then maybe one more scan through the blogs and check the ones I missed. I need to get my fix because Mom is on dial-up and I don't usually go on the computer there because 1) it takes too long and 2) we don't usually have time anyway.

This is one of the cards we did at class last night. I just can't seem to get enough of Baroque Motifs and when I went to stamp the monkey I thought the flourishes looked like vines. The colors are Wild Wasibi, Close to Cocoa, and River Rock.





Here are a couple of picturs from the parade on Monday. I don't know if you can see it in the picture very well but I stamped "FJ" on Ian's shirt to make it look like Daddy's fire fighter shirt. In the front seat with Ian is a "carpenter giraffe".

Emma was supposed to ride in the wagon (which she usually loves!) but
because Ian had to go slow and the truck was kind of jolting the wagon she wouldn't go in it.

The sign on the side of the wagon is a piece of bristol board. I stamped the letters in Handsome Hunter with Headline Alphabet. The tools are stamped in black. It doesn't look like nearly as much work as it was (or I made it). I figured out the middle of each word and then started in the middle and worked my way out. There were balloons on the sides of the wagon but Emma didn't like them being stuck on there so they had to be removed. LOL!

Yesterday I mentioned the marker Emma had on her legs......this is why.

Ian loves it when I get an order because he sits in the box and colors it. Sometimes he just colors it in all over and others he makes them into cars and trucks. This time they both had to have a box to color. Next time I just have to make sure we have power so I can bath her after ;)

Lots of excitement

Last night, just as I was going up stairs to finish getting ready for tonight's class and finish the ATC swaps to take to Mom's tomorrow, a friend stopped in to say that the light pole in front of our house was on fire. Joe went out to check it and called the power company then the fire dept.

You can kind of see the smoke at the top of the pole. Joe is saying "Karen please". He wasn't too impressed I was taking pictures. LOL!

The kids were all excited that the fire trucks were coming to our house. Ian was listening for the siren and was wondering if they were going to park in our driveway.





Here they are watching out the window. Emma kept hollaring out the window to "Daddy!" and Ian was trying to cover her mouth.










Ian thought it was pretty cool that Daddy was the one spraying the hose.



We had no power from about 7 till 10pm. I tried to take a couple of candles up to use for light but they just didn't put out enough light. I ended up mounting 4 new stamp sets I got

yesterday in the sun porch before the last of the daylight was gone.

Then I attempted to read a Creating Keepsakes magazine but I still didn't have enough candles going and I could only picture read. LOL!

You don't realize how much you depend on the power until you don't have it (well it is that way with anything, isn't is?). Emma had gotten marker all over her legs and I couldn't bath her because we had no water. I couldn't do the supper dishes. One good thing is the dog got a walk because Joe couldn't work in the garage anyways.

Time to go get my last ATC swap done and finish cutting cardstock for class tonight. I may be finishing the swaps at Mom's if things don't go as planned today ;)

In Colors Combination Chart

I just found this chart on Stampin' Up!. I must have missed the notice when they put it on there. I have looked a couple of times for it and just stumbled across it yesterday. Yay! I loved these charts. I used the one for last year's In Colors all the time. Hope this helps if you are in a rut.

Here is the Link.

I still haven't had a chance to do the tutorial. We have been going non-stop the last week. Saturday Joe was in the "Come Home Week" parade, Sunday we had a Birthday party to go to, Monday Ian, Emma and I (not really by choice) were in the kids parade and Joe was one of the organizers. Ian had t-ball last night and I forgot my camera! On Saturday we went to a couple of yard sales and found a t-ball "t" and it also pops the ball up so he has been practicing like crazy. I really noticed a difference last night. They weren't using the t and he had a couple of really good hits!

I have a couple of pictures of the parades I will share later. I stamped the sign for the wagon and I stamped on Ian's shirt! Right now I need to try to get my house back in order, after running around so much the last while it needs a little TLC. LOL!

More is More Bellas

I was going to show you my favorite card from Saturday's Stamp Camp but I am going to try to do a tutorial for it tomorrow so "stay tuned" for that sometime over the weekend. I am having trouble with my ears since I got water in them yesterday. I still can't hear out of them very well so I think I am going to call the doctor in the morning if it isn't better. If I end up going there I may not get the tutorial done so I will keep you posted.

I was talking to Mom today and I said that one good thing about not hearing well is that the house is a lot quieter. LOL. Maybe this isn't such a bad thing after all............just kidding :)

These Bella cards were for a challenge on SCS called More is More. The challenge was to create a card and then duplicate it adding "more". For the 2nd card I added a striped ribbon, eyelets in the corners punched with the ticket corner punch, a "pretties kit flower" and a rhinestone brad.

To color the flower I first pressed it into my River Rock ink pad and then I lightened the color just a bit with my aqua painter. Then I added a little color to the "lines" on the flower (I'm not sure how well you can see this in the picture) with the aqua painter and Old Olive ink.

I think it is almost time for bed...........or should I stamp? Hmmmm......

What happened?

I dont' know where the last few days have gone. I planned on posting some cards yesterday but I never got a chance to take pictures of them so I did a bunch this morning.

The first one is a card from stamp camp on Saturday (this is one of my favs). The colors are Blue Bayou, Soft Sky and Purely Pomegranite and I used Garden Whimsy and the Whimsy wheel. I haven't been using wheels much but I had to have this one and I am so glad I got it because I love it!

The Whimsy wheel is stamped on the white piece in Soft Sky and then I stamped the words and butterfly on top of it. The ribbon is Purely Pomegranite Double Stitched.

I made this card last night for another one of the Dirty Dare challenges on SCS. You can see the Dirty Dare Gallery here. This challenge was a sketch challenge.

I did 3 challenges last night! I am going to post them and some of the cards I have done over the last week or so in my SCS Gallery. I will probably show some of them here if I am low on stuff to share but I think there are too many to post here. I guess I have been on a little card making spree lately (LOL!). I just wish I could do that with my scrapbooking :)

I'm up...........

and I can't sleep so I might as well post something. Joe's pager went off about 40 minutes ago for a fire call so I got up with him and now I am wide awake.

Here are a couple of cards we have done in class the last couple of weeks.

The first one is one of the cards I did for the Dirty Dare Challenges on Split Coast. If you want to check them out you can click on the SCS link on the right and then go to the fan club (sorry I can't do links right now. LOL).

I have been trying to use up some of my pattern papers that have retired so this one is using paper from the Winter mini. The bird is from Double Line Doodles. Colors are Cool Caribbean, Close to cocoa, Regal Rose and Taken with teal.

The second one was from one of Julee Tilman's sketch challenges (I'll add the link tomorrow). The colors are Chocolate Chip, Close to cocoa and Very Vanilla.

I'm going to go and try to go back to sleep. I think maybe this little bit of "blog therapy" has helped and I can hopefully get some sleep.

2 posts in 1 day!

I had to show you this card I did for one of the challenges on SCS. The challenge was to bathe your card in brads. When I was trying to figure out how I would add lots of brads to a card I remembered seeing in a magazine where they had made a circle on a scrapbook page with brads (it may have been Donna Downey but I'm not sure).

Then I thought why not put a brad in the scallops of a scallop punched piece? Of course, I like to hoard my supplies so this was a little hard because I had to choose what brads to use up. These ones came from the $ store so that made it much easier (is that cheating?).

I started out by stamping the octopus in black and coloring it in with watercolor pencils. Then I punched it out with my Giga scalloped punch and matted it on a Taken with Teal circle I cut with my Coluzzle. I punched the holes for the brads with a 1/8" punch through both pieces to make it easier to hide the backs of the brads.

I used my white gel pen to accent the scallops because I found that once the brads were on there you really couldn't see the scallops any more. The 2 brads in the bottom corner were the last 2 from the pack in those colors and I figured I might as well add those too! LOL!

I didn't put a sentiment because I'm not sure what I will use it for. Probably a kids birthday. What do you think? Would you use this many brads on 1 card? I know I wouldn't have if it wasn't for the challenge (and the $ store brads). LOL! If I remember correctly there are 20 brads.

Still here............

I am still around, just haven't been at the computer much the last week. I have been getting ready for Stamp camp that is this Saturday. I have all but one of the projects done (well the samples) and I am going to try to figure out the last one tonight.



Oh, guess what? Today is my Anniversary. 9 years! Man, the time has flown by. Guess what else? I don't have a card for Joe. Are you surprised? LOL! He is bringing home LOBSTER for supper. I can't wait. I have bread in the bread machine and salads in the fridge. Yummy!

I have a card for you today. Actually, I have a few I haven't shared here that I have done over the last week so I plan to get my act together and post some of them over the next few days/week. Plus there are special challenges on SCS this next week and I have already done 1 and started the second. The only problem is I decided to use the one that is done for stamp camp....I'll show that after Saturday.

The other night I wanted to take a break from getting ready for class and stamp "just because". I had the Pretties Kit for a bit and hadn't had a chance to use anything from it so that was kind of where this started.

The flowers are from Garden Silhouettes. I used Certainly Celery and Rose Red markers to ink the stamp. The stitched ribbon is Purely Pomegranite....sooo nice!

Look at what I picked from MY garden today (this morning before it got too hot). It is exciting to pick your own veggies. And soooo yummy.

Time to get supper ready. Too bad these fresh vegetables don't really go with lobster. Anyone have any good recipies for beets or peas? We are going to have tonnes over the next couple of weeks.

One more thing.........I was just talking to Happy Stamper and she has requested "Get well soon" cards for her computer. She had to take it in to get fixed today and won't have it back for a few days so if you need to talk to her it will have to be by phone or maybe by "snail mail" if it isn't too urgent. LOL!