Thinking alot about Gram today

Actually I've been thinking alot about Gram for a while now.. As many of you who know me already know.. Gram.. hasn't been doing well lately (or as well as she could be).. On April 10th she celebrated her 90th birthday (sorry I don't have an up to date picture.. she's refuses to have her picture taken). She recently told me she'd love to live to be 100.. Wouldn't that be spectacular.. 10 more years of love and affection.. Well, over the past year and a half because of her diabetes's she's suffered circulation problems to one foot and yesterday endured her 4th surgery. 7 months ago she had to leave her home of almost 50 years to stay with my Aunt & Uncle. With her foot and frailty it was no longer safe for her to live alone. Today however, when she's released from the hospital she'll be going to her new home.. One where she'll meet lots of friends and have people cater to her for a change. "Maplewood Manor" a nursing home. The good news is.. My SIL is a social worker there and my MIL (the 2007 volunteer of the year !!! Way to go !!) volunteers there twice a week.. So I'm 100 trillion percent confident she's in good hands. It's just a sad reality.. This is the card I made for her to take to her on Saturday when I see her.. The background is Night of Navy, Bordering Blue and Whisper White. The flowers I colored with my matching SUP markers, huffed and stamped. The lighter flower's were stamped off (stamp twice without re-inking).. For the stems I used the Old Olive marker. The sentiment is a $1 stamp from Michael's. I hope she'll like it. I'm going to bring her a beautiful bouquet of spring flowers. She always says she wants her flowers now when she can enjoy them.

On a lighter note... How about a little blog candy..

Here's my little contest..

When I hit 1000 views to my blog I will surprise someone with a little blog candy. Not sure what it'll be yet but I will post a picture when I get it all together. All you need to do is post a comment to this post with a fond memory of your grandmother. I'll start with mine.. My brother was graced with being the first New Year's baby in 1960.. Every year my grandmother would have a huge New Years day dinner/ birthday celebration with the entire family and made her famous lasagna. No one's lasagna has ever come remotely close to beating Gram's.. YUMMY.. Why is it that so many fond memories surround food?? HUMM just a thought. LOL

If you'd like to send a RAK to Gram to wish her well on her newest journey, please email me and I'll happily provide the address.

Tutorial to share

This morning I received and email from my uplines, upline, upline.. Some where way up there in Stampin Up land.. This tutorial was so awesome I just had to share.. Thank you to Heather .. This is wonderful..

"Making your own stamp from a punch"...

Step 1... Gather your supplies. You'll need a scrap of rubb'ah Crystal Effects, a wood block, scissors and a punch of the punch in black cardstock.

Step #2. Peel the rubber layers apart from your rubber scraps. (Separate the orange/red rubber from the foam adhesive back)

Step #3. Using your punch, punch out the shape from the rubber. Be very careful when doing this as the rubb'ah is fairly thick. I suggest punch, ease up on the lever, punch again, ease up again.

Step #4. Using Crystal Effects re-adhere the punched out rubber shape on the foam backing. Let the Crystal Effects dry.

Step #5. Using your scissors trim around the punched out image.

Step #6.Assemble your stamp. Glue the black cardstock image on the wooden block and attach the rubber on the reverse side! Have fun creating your stamps!

The first thing that came to mind when reading this tutorial was making an oval punch for my "Bella" stamps. Now my "Bella's" can have a shadow beneath them. This grounds them and makes them look more finished. You can also make matching stamps for your different design punches. Good luck.. Please feel free to share your idea's.

Look what we made

Friday night was so much fun... The gal's came over and lookey here what we made. Lunch box tins... WOO HOO.. For their first ones, I'll give them a A+..

Happy Spring Fling to MEEEEEE

So I get home yesterday.. Long week but Happy it's Friday, Happy it was a 'Pay Day", Happy I have gal's coming over to make lunch box tins (check out tomorrow's post for all of their goodies.. whoops, side tracked).. I NEED TO VACUUM.. I round my corner, come up along my drive way and what to do I see.. This hu-mamoth (my very new word for just how big this box was) box on my front steps.... And for a split second I wonder what my darling hubby ordered for the car this time. I had absolutely no idea that such a huge box would be for me. So I get out of the car and when I go to pick it up what do I see??? It's for ME... Can you believe it??? MEMEMEMEMEME !!!!! and it's from SUE JENSEN.. my spring flinger.. So once I picked my jaw up off the ground and got the door open I couldn't get it to the kitchen counter fast enough.. Now where is that darn diggy camera... Ok, found it.. Now I can start to open. You'll never ever in a million trillion godzillion years believe the presents she sent me.. Here goes.. For your viewing pleasure..



Here's the global picuture taken from the plane that was flying ove head.. LOL So that you can get a good look I broke it down into 2 smaller pics.


Here on the left we have.. An entire paper of Dutch Girl paper from one of my all time fave companies... Cosmo Cricket.. I have a few projects already planned for this.. A neat purse, a 6x6 stack of Basic Grey "Stella Rubby Paper"... a Stampin Caddy.. only 3 letter's can describe this WOW.. The newest issue of Paper Crafts (got to check this out, many great idea's inside..) a Happy Birthday Box.. This will be great for my sticky notes and it's nice and big.. And finally a big clothes's pin (AKA my newest card display holder). The clothes pin, box and purse are all coordinating with "au chocolate" paper.. YIPEE... Now scanning to the right side of the photo...


We have a stack of home made cards, ribbon, 2 stickles, 2 chocolate eggs from See's.. (I've heard about this company and now I've tasted it.. YUMMY, were down to only 1 egg right now. Mr. Pink box has already met his demise).. and finally.. my most favorite of all.. My very own name plate..

Lisa's Happy Place..

This is for my stamp room and I have the perfect place already picked out for it..

Sue.. YOUR THE BEST !!! Thank you Thank you Thank you... !!!!

Bella Mania

Have you checked out Trish's "One Sheet Wonder" template on SCS? I did and check out what I did... It's Bella Mania...

The designer paper I choose has brown, pink, green and blue dots so I was able to pull those colors into each card. I choose to stay with bordering blue, certainly celery, pretty in pink, very vanilla and kraft card stock and markers for most cards.. Each stamp was from the Michael's new $1 clear stamp bin. Had to give them a try. I will just tell you the idiosyncrasies of each.. That way your reading will be kept wayyyyyyy down... LOL

Card #1 I used the sylis flowers embossing folder from Cuttlebug and swirled (back to those darn technical terms again) a little chocolate chip craft ink on with a sponge to pop the flowers a bit. The Happy Birthday metal tags I picked up at Joann's quite a while ago so it was nice to finally use one.

For the flowers on Card #2 I used the Cuttlebug flower dies to cut them out. I then ran it through the Cuttlebug flower embossing folder to add the floral design to each. Again the Happy Birthday tag is a little something I picked up in one of my "I have to just run in for a second" trip's to Joann's. If you click on the image it's a little easier to see that I've added a little glitter to the cake. What's better could be better?

Card #3..This time I an the designer paper through the textile textures embossing folder and added glitter to her dress and 'diamond' stickels to the bling..

Card #4.. Appletini anyone??? Just a little green SUP organdy ribbon here..

Card #5... this time I ran the certainly celery card stock through the divine swirls embossing folder and added a little pink sheer ribbon..

Card #6.. the 'Best Friends' was another embellishment from Joa nn's..

Card # 7... I put that Cuttlebug back to work on the certainly celery paper.. This time it was the bloom dots embossing folder. The flowers are from prima (of course wink ;) wink ;) ).. I cut out the purses from the designer paper and Xyron'ed them . Now she has 'designer bags'.. LOL oh how I crack myself up..

Card #8... This time I used the fancy corners embossing folders on the designer paper. Cut out my oval & scalloped fringe from a Sizzix die and added a few of the new sprite's Prima's.

Card #9.. Don't you just love this new scribble die from cuttle bug. It's one of their new 2-step dies. I purchased this one thinking how great it would be for big clippies.. I've added a little glitter to the flowers to dress them up a bit.

And finally.. Card #10... I just love her.. This time I used the spots & dots embossing folders. Are you starting to think that I have a Cuttlebug obsession yet. If you have the answer would be .. YOU ARE CORRECT.. LOL.. I added a few primas and Viola .. Done..

Don't be sad, I'll make more.

Using my favorite stamp set

I must admit, when Carte Postale first came out I hated this set. I had no idea what I would do with it.. But oh my godddddddddddddddd.... I love it.. I use it all the time and if you didn't buy it when it was first available in the winter mini you now have 2 choices... 1) Pray to the heavenly god's that it'll be brought back in the new catty coming out in July.. Oh please let it be so... or 2) do everything in your power to get your greedy little hands on one no matter how... If it were me, I'd be opting for the 2nd choice.. I'd never be able to wait till July... LOL But that's just the obsessed 'gotta have it now' little ole' me..

I made this card using some of my all time fave color combo's.. Sage Shadow, Very Vanilla and Chocolate Chip. The Fleur De leaf was stamped on the Sage Shadow in Sage Shadow. The swirl (a little hard to see) which is also on the Sage Shadow was stamped in Very Vanilla craft ink. It added a little dimension to the background. Because you know me and my cuttle bug, I then embossed the Very Vanilla with my Divine Swirls embossing folder. With a sponge I dabbed (a very technical term) on a little chocolate chip to 'pop' (yet another technical term) the swirls off the page.. The Very Vanilla was added to a strip of plain ole' ordinary chocolate chip card stock. Poor thing, you almost want to hug it and tell it it's ok to be plain.. The square tag was also stamped in the Sage Shadow & Vanilla to match the background. The bigger Swirl Design (for lack of yet another technical term.. LOL) was stamped in Chocolate Chip. I felt a little distressing was in order so using the Stampin Up distressing tool I gave the edges a little flair. Then flick, flick flick (that's me rubbing the edges of the card stock on the ink pad) I added a little chocolate chip to the edges. The ribbon is one of my fave's.. chocolate velvet (but I couldn't tell ya' who it's from.. But if I have to guess I'd say one of my fave ebay stores Jackonbelle. Once the whole thing was put together, I stamped the 'Bonjour' again in Chocolate Chip.. the Viola'.. I was done ..

Happy Spring ... FLING

Happy Spring Fling. I waited a little to post this in hopes that Melody (Kraftygirl... SCS) would receive her surprise package before everyone else got a looksee at the goodies I sent to her. I hope she likes it..

For the lunchbox tin, clip board and big clippies I used one of my favorite brands of designer papers.. Cosmo Cricket. These 2 are from their halfway cafe line 'Amarilo' and 'Winona'.

When making a lunchbox tin I always use these magnificent templates. They are wonderful and make the notch on the LBT and the top a cinch. The top of the LBT is covered with the red 'Amarillo' paper & in the center is a Prima flower with a clear jeweled button sticker. A neat little hint... when cutting your top templates extend one of the center tab about an inch. This makes it a little easier to line up the paper and really hides the seam where the 2 sides meet. The font of the LBT is decorated with Prima flowers, Cream Stampin' Up organdy ribbon and a basic grey chipboard M (which I decorated with the 'Winona' paper). The rest of Melody's name are rub-on letters from Making Memories. The divider tabs on the inside of the LBT are decorated wtih 4 large clippies using the same designer papers. Inside I tucked a few pre-stamped bella's just for Melody.

The clipboard is from Provocraft. I picked it up a week ago during one of my outing's to Michael's. I first painted the clip board in a neutral tan paint, then applied the paper with modgeopdge. The "Notes" were also rub-on's from Making Memories. Once the paper was adhered I applied another coat of modgepode to the top for a protectant. And lastly a little ribbon cause you always need ribbon to spice up any project. This turquoise velvet ribbon happens to be from Stampin' Up's flirty decorative ribbon package.

Now, if we could only get Mother Nature to cooperate and may be it really would be Spring !!

Do ya notice anything different?

Did ya???? Did ya notice ?????? It's my very spiffy brandy spanky new blog banner.. Beth at Frecked Fun Designs (eyes moving to the left.... yep that's her link) made this for me. You have ta go check her out. Shes fabulous. She also made an awesome matching watermark for me.. If I can not just learn how to work with it.. LOL JEEZE for someone whose on the computer for as many hours during the day as I am I'm pretty computer illiterate. I need a 'watermarks for dummies' tutorial.. LOL

No stampin' yesterday

I tried my hardest I really really did.. But I just couldn't drag myself up those stairs to my stamp room to do any stamping.. I did though manage to drag myself to the computer and sit there for an hour persuing through my favorite blogs. Ok Ok Ok... stamping took thinking and I didn't have enough energy to think. Well that is until I came across Michelle's Mish Mash blog. I have to tell you.. Michelle is one of my all time favorite stampers. You must go check out her gallery on SCS. I just love her. And ohhh... she regularly makes stampers showcase on SUP! if that tells you anything..

In honor of my 'no stamping Wednesday'. Michelle has won my 'you were able to drag me away from my stamp room award'. (wink ;0 wink ;0).. Yesterday Michelle posted a bunch of wonderful idea's on how to get those creative juices flowing. Please Please Please go check out her blog. I found it to be extremely informative and I'm going to give some of her idea's a try.. After reading her blog the first thing I did was run over to Eclecticpaperie (I know... it really wasn't running but I was typing pretty fast) and ordered the Ranger Adirondack Acyclic Paint Daubers in lemonade, pink sherbet, willow and aqua as well as a bunch of my favorite Cosmo Cricket and Daisy D's papers.. At least that's all I can remember ordering.. You know me and my obsessions.. I may have ordered more.. LOL I then moseyed on down to Staples and picked up my very own composition grid paper notebook. By this point I was wearing my ever sooo snazzy ducky pj bottoms and sweatshirt.. (where's Stacy and Clinton when you need them? side note.. feel free to nominate me for an intervention I'm all in... this is what happens when you get me out of the house after 7 PM... LOL.. please take pity and say a small prayer for all of those who had to bear to witness atrocity) . My plan is to give Michelle's sketch book idea a try.. I'll let you all know how it works.. :)

A little something for my DDSS

Have you checked out SplitcoastStampers lately? One of the many many many awesome things about this website are the DDSS (SU Demo Secret Sisters) swaps, rounds RAK's.. which ever you would prefer to call them... They are aka the Dabbling Demo Secret Sisters (not to be confused with the Devine Secret Siblings (which is demo's and non-demo's).. When you participate in the Secret Sisters you have a big sis' who sends you neat gifts and cards each month. And, you have a little sis' whom you send neat gifts and cards to each month. It's so much fun getting your happy mail to see what surprise they sent you. You 'try' to stay a secret until the very end of the round when you send a 'reveal' package and reveal yourself to your little sis. But sometimes that's really hard. (And sometimes you have another sis trying to hit you up for information.. Right??? you know who I'm talking too..) I have met quite a few wonderful secret sister's and have stayed in touch with a couple close sisters. Today I'm mailing my little sis (shh... can't say who she is yet) a notebook I've decorated for her.

The books I purchased from Micahael's $ bin and decorated them with my all time fave Basic Grey Stella Ruby designer paper's. K's notes was decorated with Drinks at the Savoy and Clouds in the Park designer papers.. And M's journal was decorated with Fitting at Penny's and Morning on the Heath designer papers. The word's note's and journal are both Making Memories rub-ons. The flowers are of course.. Say the words with me.. PRIMA.. The K and M are both Basic Grey undressed chipboard alphabets which you can decorate yourselves. You can't see it from these pictures but there actually are tabs which were made from the Round Tab Punch using the same designer papers. And lastly, the tabs for the spiral bound was punched with the Spiral Punch.. You don't realize how easy this punch is to use until you use it for the first time.. It's SUPER easy and gives your notebook's that designer touch. Off to the post office they go..

Do I have a green thumb???

Happy Dance.. Happy Dance.. I'm doin' the Happy Dance...

Yesterday Mr. Postman left me the most awesome present of the week. My very own 'GREEN THUMB' stamp set from Papertreyink... All day I could not wait to get home from work to P-L-A-Y... PLAY.. Here's the very first card I made. These are for my DDSS April Birthday cards.

I used Chocolate Chip, Whisper White and a non -Stampin Up! designer paper.. The boot I stamped in Sage Shadow (is this not the cutest boot you've ever seen in the sage and chocolate. I wish I had a pair of my very own) and chocolate chip. In my garden there's no such thing as yellow dandelions. Mine are Sage Shadow and Chocolate Chip. I think that if more gardens had dandelions in these colors we wouldn't be in such a rush to pull them out by their roots.. The stems and leaves were stamped in Certainly Celery and the sentiment again in chocolate chip..

To step it up a notch I added 'patina' stickels to the sage dandelions and the designer paper was put through the 'cuttlebug' textile texture embossing folder. I then sponged on a little chocolate chip to bring out the embossing. Happy April Birthday's DDSS's.

Congratulations

Congratulations Cheryl for paying it forward...

I printed out all of the PIF comments and we voted right after dinner on Sunday and by an almost unanimous decision... CHERYL.. you were the winner.. Cheryl pays it forward through the scrapbooking swaps that she participates in by adding more than what the swap calls for.

We felt that the recipients of your swaps must feel extra special when they receive your package.

Cheryl please email me your snail mail address and a special package will be on it's way to you :)

Happy Friday

Phew.... Friday is finally here.. YEE HAA.. and it's a holiday weekend. Great food, conversation, family & friends.. what could be better. Their saying there's a possibility this may be a 'WHITE' Easter.. HAHAHA Too bad we didn't have a 'WHITE' Christmas. I think Mother Nature is a little off.. This year the little one's will be hunting for Easter Egg's in their ski pants and mittens. Won't that be a sight?

This is the 2nd card we made on Tuesday using the Watercolor Wonder Crayons..

For card stock I used So Saffron, Very Vanilla and Ruby Red along with a scrap piece of non-SUP' designer paper. The gingham is a Wild Asparagus border sticker. Mr. Giraffe (I just can't get enough of him) was stamped in black stazon and then colored with the Rich Regal WWC and colored with the aqua painter. The large oval punch was used to punch the oval in the front of the card. I then stamped the sentiment on the Very Vanilla (again with black stazon) and punched it out with the small oval punch. I adhered the sentiment to the inside of the card using a 3D pop up adhesive. I'm now ready for my next baby shower..

Watercolor Mania

Tuesday's class at SHS was 'watercolor wonder crayons'. This was awesome because it forced me (like I ever need to be forced to buy anything :P) to buy a set of the WWC's. I finally had a chance to play with them and Yep, I'm hooked. They are so much fun. Not as intimidating as they seem. This was the first card we made and I think it's adorable.

I need to play with my scanner a little. I definitely does not do this card justice (how many times have I said that before .. wink wink)..

The card stock is the cool carribean long note, green galore and whisper white.

I stamped the image and 'giggle' in black stazon on a tag I cut out with my "Cuttlebug".. (Still lov'in that little green monster.) Working with the aqua painter I didn't want to risk bleeding of the black ink.. I then colored the fish using the 'Rich Regal's' WWC and then blended with the aqua painter.

The ribbon is from Mike's and it matches fabulously. Once mounted, 'fishy' needed a little more bling so I highlighted some of his gills with what else.. STICKES.. (I get all of my stickles from StarLit Studio.. go check them out.. great prices and super speedy shipping.)

Give it a try..

And the Winner is...

WOO HOO...I couldn't choose a # myself so I had the 'random number generator' do it for me.. And it chose # lucky 6...

Heather

Please email me with your mailing address and I will get these cards right out to you.

Don't forget, just a few day's left to leave your comment with your 'pay it forward' story for a chance to win an awesome prize..

Happy Thursday :)

Shake shake shake...

Just a quick note.. before I got too busy I wanted to add our final card in motion (card #3). Again this was more for the 'technique'.. For the card stock I used Very Vanilla, Cranberry Crisp and Kraft. The crab and sentiment were both stamped in black and I colored the crab with cranberry crisp ink and the aqua painter. For the shake I used sand purchased from Wally-world.

There's still time to win these 3 fun cards in motion by posting a comment on the waterfall card telling us all what your favorite flower is.

I'm a little dizzy from all this spinning

Tuesday was a lot of fun for everyone who attended. They were surprised at how easy spinner cards are. My goal was to teach them the technique so I went with a very simple design. Unfortunately, my scanner has not been doing much justice to my cards lately :)

For card stock I used So Saffron, Ruby Red, Whisper White and Basic Grey's Stella Ruby (I LOVE THIS.. Since you all know I love my flowers so much to begin with. The color pallet of the Stella Ruby papers is beautiful)..

It's a little hard to see but the spinner flower was stamped on Whisper White card stock in Ruby Red with the flower from Bodacious Bouquet. The sentiment is in basic black.. And stickles were added to the flower for a little 'glitter'.

This is card #2. Don't forget to get in on this week's blog candy. All you need to do is post a comment on card #1 telling us all what your favorite flower is and why.

And finally, there's still time to "Pay it Forward". Post a PIF stories for a chance to win. As Yolanda Vega (our Lotto spokesperson) say's.. "You have to be in it.. To win it"...

April Shower's Bring What????

A new calendar page... LOL ... Although I must say that after what was a pretty dry winter were going to need a rainy April to bring the water tables up. Otherwise watch out lawns, instead of being your normal glorious green self, you'll be looking pretty brown this summer.

For this page I used...

Almost Amethyst & Whisper White card stock.

The stamp set is the level 1 hostess set... Bloom into Happiness

The umbrella's were stamped in Black stazon & the sentiment in Lavender Lace. I colored the flowers on the umbrella using the fine point of the Lavender Lace, Almost Amethyst & Grey markers.