BIA Notebook and Card

Last week on one of the challenges at SCS was to use flowers. I had started to make a BIA address book from Beate's tutorial HERE. Lucky for me, I'd started with this Uptown Designer Paper and it's covered in flowers! I made it with a friend's birthday in mind. There are tabs on the inside of the little book but I've left them blank so she can personalize it however she likes. I hope this makes it to my friend this week! It has purple and glitter ;)

The sentiment on the front of the card is covered in glitter too! I didn't add too much glitter to the address book because it would get rubbed off eventually.

I think if you click the picture you can see the glitter and crystals a little better.

Also...

Join the Paper Pretties girls on the search for Snowflake!

Be sure to check out Joanne's blog HERE to see what is up today!

It's definitely worth checking out!

Featured Stamper and a Sketch Card

Wow what a day! It started out great didn't it?! LOL

I'm still very excited about being chosen to be a Guest Designer for Paper Pretties!!!

Sunday's on SCS is the Featured Stamper Day. Today we had an exceptional stamper though! It was my very good friend Nancy from iStamp!!! I was so tickled pink for her.

This first card was a CASE of hers HERE. I changed the stamp set and the paper.

The second card is a CASE of her card HERE. I loved the layout with the clean lines so I decided to change the stamps and colours.

Yesterday Lauren posted her sketch on her blog HERE. I am still in winter mode here in Edmonton. It's been nice the past week but we are expecting cold and snow again....just think only another 3 or so months of winter for us...ugh....LOL

On this card I used some of my Heidi Swapp Ghost Snowflakes and smooshed them in my Essentials Glue Pad and sprinkled blue glitter on them. The centers are stickers from the WinterBright SSK, I just punched a hole in them and added a brad. They are stuck on with a 3D glue dot. Not sure if you can tell but I added Cotton Candy Stickles to the pink areas on the Snowbunny Bella.

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend! It's back to work and school for us here tomorrow....
My post has gone wonky....not sure why but this laptop of mine is ready to take a flyin' leap out the window.....

Big News!

Big News!

I've been sitting on this since before my birthday and Christmas...

Christie Ortman from Paper Pretties contacted me one morning asking if I'd be interested in joining the Paper Pretties Girls as a Guest Designer! Oh my word eh? I honestly thought she'd maybe contacted the wrong person!!! haha!

It didn't take me too long to say YES!

I have to admit I am a little nervous about it. I mean, have you seen the other Pretty Girls and Guest Designers?

Be sure to check it out HERE! Take a peek in the Powder Room and Guest Room to see ;) I'm definitely in some wonderful company!

Big Sale!

They are having a big sale at the Pretties' Boutique. All regular priced merchandise will be 25% off. Just enter coupon code nwss25 when you check out. They will be adding new merchandise everyday and the sale will run through to the 10th!

Can't wait to start showing off my work for the Pretty Girls!

The Sweetest Thing

Saturday's are one of my favourite days of the week for making cards. There are always so many choices out there for things to do. I try my best to do Jen's sketch each week from her blog i{heart}2stamp.

This week I knew I wanted to use some of the new SU! rub ons. I grabbed some of my Onboard Chipboard hearts and craft inks Pretty in Pink and Choc Chip. After heat setting them, I cut out the rub on that I wanted and applied it. The buttons are some that Brian picked up for me. The flirty ribbon that runs under the panels is retired from SU!.


Don't look too close at my paper piercing...it went crooked...haha!

Sharon from No Time To Stamp? put out her weekly challenge yesterday and it was to make a card Long and Low. I haven't made a card like this since probably Easter last year! I'd already had the Designer Paper out from my first card today so thought I'd just make another Valentine's Day card.

The butterfly has a little bit of glitter on her wings too. The next photo explains the little tags better.

Here is a close up of the heat and shrink plastic tags I made. I can't remember the correct name for this stuff that SU! used to sell a few years ago. Mine is white.


I stamped some of the saying from the hostess set, So Many Sayings. I punched them out with a Word Window Punch and the small hole is with the Crop-A-Dile. I just used my heat gun to shrink them up.


I then thread them through some silver elastic cord and used small glue dots to keep them in place so they didn't move around.


Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend! Thanks for stopping by!

Thoughts of Friendship

Today has seemed extra long as I have had major problems with my laptop and wireless router...seems to be working OK right now...but I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

This first card I did for Beate's sketch! So happy to have her back sharing them again. I missed doing them on Fridays!

My girlfriend, Deb, asked if I could make a bunch of cards for her. I had tons already collected from all the challenges but I did have to make a few more. This is one of them. I don't want to show them all, as I don't want to ruin the whole surprise of opening her mail!
Rose Ann was sweet enough to mail these cards to me for Christmas and my birthday! Can't believe it took nearly a MONTH to get here...lol! Crazy! They are beautiful aren't they??!! Thanks so much Rose Ann! This added a nice cheery bright spot in my frustrating day!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Laptop Issues

Hey everyone!

Sorry I have nothing to post at the moment....well I do...but my laptop and wireless are not being co-operative~ugh!

I have some cards to show and even a couple of RAKS that came...thanks Rose Ann! Better late than never eh?

I don't want to use Brian's MAC for all my scrap stuff....he's supportive of my hobby but I don't think he wants or needs all my stuff on his computer.

I won't give up, been at it all day! I'll get it up and running again!

Hope you are enjoying your day!

Embracing Life

Are you all loving this new Ginger Blossom Designer Paper as much as I am? I have never been much of a Groovy Guava or River Rock fan BUT this paper has turned me into one! I LOVE it!

This card is for todays SCS Sketch Challenge. It's a wonderful sketch and I'm sure to use it over and over again!
The base is Groovy Guava. I layered the Ginger Blossom DP on River Rock. I stamped the flower from Embrace Life in Timber Brown Stazon onto Very Vanilla Cardstock. I then coloured the flowers with Groovy Guava and outlined them in Cameo Coral. The ribbon is from May Arts. It matches wonderfully with Groovy Guava!!

Brian had picked up some little candy tins from a LSS in November. I was soooooooooo excited when he showed them to me, but they soon ended up on my shelf of things to be altered.

I'd really like to stop hoarding so many things and use them. Out came this cute little tin again!

I covered it in some Bali Breeze DP that was on my desk. I have a little basket of images that I had stamped and coloured. I dug through it and found another little birdie. The sentiment is from Verve Visual.

Inside the tin I made 5 or 6 little cards. Remember the little ones from awhile back. Think they may have been from a mini. They are like the long notes but way smaller. Anyway, I just embellished them a little with Happy Birthday, Thinking of You, Thanks or You Make Me Smile.
I have a few friends having birthdays soon and this would be a nice gift to give to one of them.

Valentine Bucket

This is one of those projects that I started before Christmas but with all the volunteer stuff going on at the school I never completed it.

I'd had the paper and ribbon stuck to the can already. Figured I could use it as a Valentine Can. The Winter Bright SSK looks sweet doesn't it?

Not too sure WHAT will go in the can yet but I'm sure Chloe will find something yummy to put in there for a teacher.

I've had some of these cans since July when we picked them up at a hobby store in California. It's one of the things I'd been hoarding and it's now time to start using them up!

This is the top of the can. I used the Winter Bright SSK stickers on the top and then stamped the flower from Happy Heart Day in the middle.

Instead of colouring it in, I decided to use Cotton Candy and Red Stickles for a little bling.

This stamp set Happy Heart Day is now available to purchase from the Spring and Summer SU! Catty. It's so cute!

Thanks for stopping by today! I may be back later with the SCS Sketch Cards.

Fabulous Split

Yesterday on SCS it was Try a New Technique day. The technique was called Split Negative BUT we had to do it with a twist! You were not to use black and white, you had to use colours.

I chose to use Soft Sky and Old Olive to go with the Fall Flowers DP I had pulled out of the drawer.

This was my first time attempting this technique but I rather like how they turned out. I didn't get the flower centered on the 3.5 x 3.5 piece of cardstock very well so when I cut the paper in half, the flower wasn't really in half...LOL! So I tried to mask my mistake by stamping a smaller flower and cutting it in half to help hide the center. Think it worked pretty well.

Both of these are thank you cards which I'm in need of after the holiday gift exchange.
Are you all getting tired of this stamp set yet? I'm not...I know this is going to be a very well used set this year!

I liked this simple sketch that Lauren made up. I was able to use up some of my little scrap papers that are laying around.

This card uses Pretty in Pink as the base. Wild Wasabi is the back panel with small pieces of Bashful Blue, Regal Rose and a misc piece of DP.

I popped the flower and the scalloped bird layers up on dimensionals.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope that everyone had a safe and Happy New Year. Best wishes to you and your family for a happy and healthy 2008!

Friendship Boat

Yesterday on SCS was Feature Stamper. I don't often get a chance to play this one on Sunday's but when I saw Danielle's gallery HERE on SCS, I knew I had to play!

You must change at least TWO things when you CASE a card. So I changed the Cardstock, DP and Stamp Set. I kept the same layout though. Why mess with something that works so well, right??

The card I CASED is HERE.

Can you believe it is the end of 2007? Wow, this year flew by! I don't know if it is because I'm getting older or if it was because our year was full of fun and exciting things!

January started off slow, as it always does for us with the holidays just ending. February we were gone the entire month on our trip across the United States(driving from Edmonton to Daytona Beach, Florida) for the Daytona 500! On our drive back, I stopped in Kansas to visit a friend. March was a catch up month for us with work and school. April and May saw Brian head down to Louisianna for work. June was a great month, end of the school year! July we left for our trip to California. Our drive took us through Montana, Idaho(where I met up with another great friend and her family), Utah, Nevada and finally to Anaheim, California. The drive back we drove up the West Coast and through the Redwood Forest(quite amazing). August was nice and quiet, just the way I liked it ;) September was back to school and work. Since heading back to school in September, time has flown by. I've had a great year and am thankful for my family and friends. I look forward to MANY great things in 2008!

Happy New Year to you and your families!

Save The Date

A very good friend of mine asked if I could make some Save The Date cards for her husbands 40th surprise party. I don't have any Save the Date stamps so I printed some off on the computer. I have never really printed onto Vellum before but I like the look.

She wanted some dark colours but I decided to add some Almost Amethyst Prints Paper too. Sure hope she likes these.

I think we will just print off all the information and attach it to the inside of the card.

Hope to get some time to stamp a few more thank you cards today as well.

Enjoy your day!

Birthday RAK

I haven't had much energy today to get crafty. Chloe and I took down the Christmas tree and cleaned the house, now I just want to veg....lol

I do want to show you a VERY sparkly card I received from Dawn Griffith for my birthay! Thanks so much Dawn!!

My goodness is it every sparkly IRL!! WOW!

Hope you all are having a nice weekend so far!

Thank You Friend

I've been wanting to use this elephant from the new set Happy Heart Day for the past couple of days but it didn't fit in with any layouts I had done. I found a GREAT layout on MJ's blog Beauty Lies Within! Be sure to check it out!

I stamped the elephant in Black Stazon and watercoloured with an aqua painter. Then I added the little butterfly stamp in the top corner and added glitter to her wings.

My sister is coming by soon so this has to be a short post....hope everyone is recovered after the Christmas holiday!

Embrace Stazon

Two posts in one day! Been awhile since I have done that...lol

I had some time this afternoon to work on todays SCS Ways To Use It Challenge. It was ways to use Stazon. What better way than to stamp with it and watercolour?! I'm still working on those skills....

I really like how this turned out. The Designer Paper is from the upcoming catty and is called Ginger Blossom. THAT is what made my card! The stamp is from the same set I used already called Embrace Life.

I stamped the image on watercolour paper and coloured with an aqua painter and a combo of markers and re-inkers.

Supplies Used:

Stamps: Embrace Life

Cardstock: Ruby Red, River Rock, WC paper and Ginger Blossom DP

Ink: Black Stazon, Ruby Red, Summer Sun

Accessories: Marvy Scallop Punch, Coluzzle, Aqua Painter, Dimensionals, Cream Grosgrain Ribbon, Organdy Ribbon

Embrace Life

I finally was able to put some ink to my new stamps that will be available in January. I think this set will get used often for sure! It's called Embrace Life. This is another card I made for the Sketch Challenge yesterday on SCS. I'd made a little boo boo on the Very Vanilla by dropping my Groovy Guava ink pad on it, so I sponged colour around in hopes to mask it ;)

The button was one of MANY the Brian gave me in my Christmas stocking. He bought me tons of new little goodies!

Supplies Used:

Stamp Set: Embrace Life

Cardstock: Always Artichoke, Old Olive, Very Vanilla and Bali Breeze DP

Inks: Versafine Black Onyx, Groovy Guava, Always Artichoke

Accessories: Coluzzle, Marvy Scallop Punches, Paper Piercer, Word Window Punch, Signo Gel Pen, Sponges, Misc button, Twine, Dimensionals, Ticket Corner Punch

Another new set! Isn't this mouse so cute??!! There are some great images in this new set called Happy Heart Day. Every year we are away for Valentine's Day and I have to take a card with us to give to Brian. This year....I'm ready! Yah!

I stamped the flower from the set in my Essentials Glue Pad and then sprinkled Dazzling Diamonds on. Love that glue pad! So easy to use and no heat setting it.

Supplies Used:

Stamp Set: Happy Heart Day

Cardstock: Rose Red, Regal Rose, WC Paper and Bali Breeze DP

Ink: Black Stazon, Regal Rose, Rose Red, Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery, Going Gray

Accessories: Scallop Punch, 1 3/8"Circle Punch, Dazzling Diamonds, Essentials Glue Pad, Regal Rose Ribbon, Dimensionals, Heidi Swapp Flower Jewel

Friendship bird

Oh it's so nice to just relax today, now that the big holiday has come and gone. I hope everyone had a nice Christmas!

Today on SCS they had the Sketch Challenge. I couldn't wait to jump right in!!! I have a ton of new goodies that Brian filled my stocking with but I couldn't decide which to use so I pulled out my trusty SU! supplies!
This new DP Bali Breeze from SU! is so cute! I think it will be a big hit starting in January. I wanted to make a nice, bright, cheery card. I'm sending this to my friend, Karen, in Calgary!
Supplies Used:
Stamp Sets: A little birdie told me, Celebrate everything
Cardstock: Temp. Turq., Pumpkin Pie, Confetti White and Bali Breeze DP
Inks: Versafine Black Onyx, Temp Turq, Pumpkin, Sahara Sand, Close to Cocoa
Accessories: Aqua Painter, Corner Rounder, Designer Label Punch, 1"Circle Punch, Word Window Punch, Temp Turq and Pumpkin Grosgrain Ribbon, Dimensionals, Misc Brads

It's Christmas Eve!

Aren't you excited?!?!

I can't wait to watch Chloe open her presents tomorrow and have the yummy smells of everything cooking in the house!! Today I have one last trip to make to the grocery store, I must make a list.

My friend, Karen, arrived yesterday from Calgary. We've had a blast so far! She got Chloe a Wii for Christmas so we've been busy bowling, boxing and playing tennis....hahaha....my arm hurts this morning!

Chloe and Karen are still sleeping and Brian got up at 7:00 to head to Walmart....lol...remember HE is the shopper in this house ;) I thought I'd share my two cards I made yesterday for a couple of blog sketch challenges.

This first one of Hanna is so spring like. Love the colours in the Uptown girl Designer Paper from SU!. This one has just enough Almost Amethyst in it. I flipped Jen's sketch for the ribbon and flower.

Supplies Used:

Stamps: Hanna

Cardstock: Almost Amethyst, So Saffron, Confetti White and Uptown DP

Inks: VersaFine Black Onyx, Saffron, Celery, Amethyst, Blush Blossom, Close to Cocoa, Choc Chip, Temp Turq

Accessories: Slot Punch, Ticket Punch, Soft Subtles Brads, Flower, May Arts Ribbon, Dimensionals, Aqua Painter

This one is a nice clean looking card, or at least I think so. It is a sketch from Lauren. I don't often use Sahara Sand so I pulled it out to use as a base. I originally stamped the flowers with Ruby Red but then decided after finishing the card to add some red stickles over top. I think it looks nice. What do you think? Too much for a simple card? The scalloped edge is made with 1/2"Circles that I punched out and then glued down to the edge of the Old Olive CS.
Supplies Used:
Stamps: Stem Silhouettes, Circle of Friendship
Cardstock: Sahara Sand, Old Olive, Soft Sky, WW, Fall Flowers DP
Inks: Old Olive, Soft Sky, Ruby Red
Accessories: 1/2", 1", 1 3/8" Circle Punches, Red Stickles, Dimensionals
Merry Christmas to everyone!

Wrapping up the last of my gifts...

This is the last of my gift sets that will be going out to a friend today or tomorrow. I made a whole punch of cards with Cutie Pie DP and the stamp set A Little Birdie Told Me that will be available in January from SU! I've exchanged gifts with most of my friends already but still have a couple to see. Hopefully they don't see them on here before they get them....haha! Been holding off posting them as long as I could. I haven't had crafting time today because I have spent the morning cleaning my craft area in the baseDUMP! Ugh! It's awful down there!

I don't know if I will be back to post anything else before Christmas so......

MERRY CHRISTMAS to all!!

Birthday Present

Aren't these the CUTEST Snowman Slippers???? This was a birthday gift from Chloe! She picked them out herself when her and Brian went shopping a few weeks ago. They have little snowflake grippers on the bottom. Good thing too, since I always slip on our basement stairs...haha!

Chloe still isn't feeling too great today. I think now she's getting a chest cold. Well I can deal much better with a cold than I can a fever! Whew!

I'm off to do a little shopping this morning. Then home to clean my house before my company arrives this afternoon!

Have a WONDERFUL day!

Christmas Pics of Chloe

Today has not started off the way I had hoped it would...

Around 4 AM this morning, Chloe woke me up to tell me she was going to puke....ugh...then a fever....so it begins I thought. Wonderful....sick AGAIN for Christmas!

She finally fell back asleep around 6 AM and then woke at 8:05 all MAD at me because she'd be late for school. I kindly tried to explain that she needed that sleep and she'd feel much better. I convinced her to rest the morning. Her fever seems to be gone and she hasn't gotten sick since 4 AM. She's been BUGGING me to go to school. Today there are many activities planned for them and she doesn't want to miss out :(

I'm giving it another 30 minutes and if she is well and no fever, I'll take her.

Tonight is OILER hockey night but I told Brian to take someone else and I'll stay home with Chloe. We can catch the game on TV anyway. Besides, we always lose when I go to a game...haha! Sorry Oilers ;)

Last night was Chloe's Christmas concert at school. I managed to get a couple of pictures of her. She REALLY doesn't like getting them and the nice ones I did have, well there is a microphone stand right in her face! UGH!

I'll try to be in sometime tomorrow. It's my birthday! Another busy day!

Have a wonderful weekend!