A new Blog award!

Happy Frozen Wednesday!

It is frozen solid this morning here in Maryland.

Before I give you the card recipe, I received a nice blogger award from Jane, click here for her blog. The rules are simple, nominate five blogs for the award and name at least five of your favorite things.

Here is my list of favorite things:

1. My husband Michael

2. My wonderful boys, Craig and Chad

3. The puppies (of course)

4. Stamping and scrap booking

5. Activities with friends and family.

I wanted to create a card with a little bulk and texture. I used skewers for the side and attached it to the card using E6000 adhesive.

I am considering a re-do of the butterfly, if I do indeed re-do this card I will be using a transparency butterfly instead of the shrink plastic one.

Stay safe and warm, and have a wonderful day!

Ok, forgot to add the nominee's for the award they are as follows:

Jackie

Stephanie

Abi

Heather

Joni

Jeremiah 29: 11-14

Snickers with his face full of snow Lexie in the snow

Snickers and Chad playing

Buttercup begging for a treat!

The above pictures are of Chad and the puppies in our snow today!

Below is today's project!

Cigar box after alterations

Cigar box before alterations

Today's project is a masculine cigar box re-do. It can be used for a fancy pen and pencil set or the gentleman could use it as a box for keys or jewelry.

To begin this project I completely sanded off any identifying aspects of the box and sanded down the sides so that they where no longer shiny.

The paper was cut exactly to fit and the edges sanded and sponged. The clock stamp (unknown) is then stamped onto a 2" scallop of patterned paper.

The patterned paper (from the craft store) is over stamped with the retired office accoutrement from Stampin' Up!

Thanks for looking, as you can see we are trying to stay warm in our snowy weather!

Have a great night!

Stamping with Loretta -- club SCRAP!

Happy Sunday!

Before I get into the cute 12 X 12" layouts, I have to brag!

Chad made Student of the month at Meade Middle School and they are throwing all the student of the month kids a breakfast this Thursday to celebrate with their parents. I couldn't be more thrilled. The kid has consistently been on the honor roll and has a great attitude (most of the time) about school. So I'll be the proud mom up front with the camera and the video camera to soak it all in.

Craig sent us four letters and was able to make a brief call yesterday. He has a bunch of tests as well as physical fitness testing this week, please pray for his continued health so he can make it through the last phase of training. I am so proud of him as well!

Now onto the scrap pages. I normally scrap in 12 " X 12" albums, with the exception of gift or specialty albums. These pages (pictures from a year ago -- I know bad scrapper!) celebrate Chad's birthday number 13! Chad is a green freak, so I did the pages in fun bright shades of green to match his personality.

Will be doing a few more scrap pages today and hopefully have some stamping time tomorrow.

Have a happy and safe rest of your weekend!

Stamp Happy!

Valentine Treats!

Hello my blogging friends!

I had the post completely finished, including spell checking for errors when Internet explorer crashed. I thought I would be saved by the auto save feature on blogger -- but I would be wrong.

The inspiration for this project came from Angie. Click her name for her video blog of this project! As you can see I changed it up for my personal taste and it came out terrific.

I love you, butterfly card, the recipe! Instructions: Card base is 5 ½” X 4 ¼” Brown card stock is 5 ¼” X 4” Blue cards stock is 5” X 3 ¾” White card stock is 4 7/8” X 4 7/8” Strips are: Brown card stock is 1” X 5” Rose card stock is ¾” X 4 ¾” The circles are 1” punched from red card stock The hearts are punched from a small heart punch by Marvy. A shrink plastic butterfly (Starving artist stamps) is attached to the middle heart. The hearts are further embellished using stickles. Blue card stock nestabilities (Spellbinders) measures 4 1/8” pierce the scallop White card stock nestabilities (Spellbinders) measures 3 5/8” X 1 ¾” sponge and pierce scallop.

Butterfly is stamped onto a 3M transparency (Martha Stewart Crafts) using Versa Mark ink. It is embossed using black embossing powder (Sparkle and Sprinkle).

Cut the butterfly out after embossing and cut the wings on the top butterfly so they spread out. The transparency is colored from the back side using Copic sketch markers.

The sentiment is stamped onto the white nestabilities panel. I stapled the butterfly to this layer and hid the staple with a yellow sharpie marker.

The card is embellished with three jewels.

I sent this beautiful card into the folks who publish Stampers Sampler, wish me luck! I would love to get published in a few different periodicals!

I hope you all have a great evening. Blog candy will begin on Jan 26th, with new and exciting things. Don't forget to leave those comments, you never know if I may 'choose' a name for a surprise !

Have a great night!

A quick post the winner is!

I created this card for MoJo Monday #70. It is such a cool sketch! I think it came together nicely! The winner of blog candy is!

Kerry said...

This card is so pretty...love the image and soft pink colors! Wishing you all the best in the New Year! January 1, 2009 10:14 PM

I put the names in a jar (if you posted more than once, your name was put in that many times).

Kerry, please send me your snail mail details and I'll get those goodies out to you soon!

Have a nice night -- heading out to a nice anniversary dinner with my husband!

Organizer

Hello Stamping and paper crafting friends!

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I created this organizer to be used by Cheri for organizing her swaps, secret sister details and anything else she would like to do with it.

I used 9X9" chipboard from bind it all click here for their web sight! I covered it with decorative scrap paper, ribbon, stickled and shrink butterflies. The letters for her name where purchased from my local craft store.

Each page inside the book has a small stamped image on the bottom (versa mark) and I left the tabs and pages blank. I will include the scraps so she can customize the book to her needs.

It took me about 12 hours total to completely finish it, but the time was well spent, even I am pleased with the outcome.

Blog candy is drawn tomorrow, so get those comments in!

I am hoping to video blog in the next couple of days, I'll be showing how to do the transparency butterflies.

Sorry today's post is short, I have been busy doing mom stuff. Helping Chad finish off a very important English project getting the house work complete and helping get the hubby ready for his 90 plus day deployment.

Have a great holiday!

A few altered items

I made these items for an altered item swap.

They are in shades of blue since that is the recipients favorite color.

Today I would like to introduce you folks to two new craft specific boards the first is cuppas and cards, click here for the link. It is a really new board and is taking over where coco cats left off.

The second is Craft happy click here for their web page. Both are really fun groups and there are a bunch of neat things to chat about, CASE and just enjoy the general chatter of the group!

My next video tutorial will be taped this weekend. I will be showing you how to make the butterflies from Acetate (transparencies) so I hope you will be looking for that one.

Remember blog candy will be drawn on the 20th of January.

Stay safe and warm!

butterfly birthday

Do you guys like the blog re-do? Mary Dawn click on her name for the link, re-designed the blog look! She does awesome work and is very affordable! You so Rock! I love the re-do!

I am just thrilled with the new look!

Onto today's cute project.

This is a so-safron card base with a layer of decorative paper that measures 5 1/4" x4 ", the three layers on top are the new labels dies from nestabilities. Click here for information on buying them from overstock.com

I recently purchased a few new sizzix dies at my local craft store. I cut the packaging up so I would have sheets of strong plastic to use for projects. (Hey its a great way to recycle!) I used my static bag to prepare the surface, and stamped the butterfly twice (Martha Stewart crafts) onto the acetate using Versa mark ink. I then (very carefully) embossed it using black embossing enamel. I cut the butterflies out and colored from the un-embossed side using copic markers. I cut the antenna off one butterfly and the other I split the wings down the middle. I attached the butterfly to the flower panel using an ordinary staple. I then used a sharpie marker to hide the staple! It is finished off with sponging of the layers of label die cuts and it also has a small shrink plastic butterfly and prima flowers to finish it off. The sentiment is from Hanna stamps. My next video tutorial will be how to stamp and emboss on Transparencies (aka acetate) so I hope you'll stay tuned! Have a great night!

Butterflies!

The pictures above are from the Altered Pail swap on Splitcoast stampers, I received from Cindy. Thank you so much Cindy, I really loved everything!

Here is a scan of the finished shrink plastic butterflies!

This is my first ever video tutorial! I am still working on lighting and getting a bit closer to my work, but for a first 'published' video, its not bad!

The shrink plastic butterflies are stamped using different colors of staz on ink and colored with water color pencils and a blending pen!

Just another reminder, the following is up for blog candy! Leave those comments any where on the blog until Jan 20 and I will draw the winner!

For those of you who are asking, Craig is doing very well at Airforce Basic training. He calls home when he is able and sends us some really fun letters! Last time we spoke to him he was looking forward to shooting the M16 for the first time and next week he gets to shoot a pistol.

He was also looking forward to *finally* being able to enjoy some junk food. He communicated that he had a deep desire for some good chocolate!

About the video, it was shot by my 14 year old son. I'm trying to teach him how to use the camera -- therefore making my life easier. We have some work to do, but over all the video is pretty good. So please forgive any uneven pans and slight jerks. It's our first!

Click here to view the link on You Tube!

Stamp Happy!

An update to blog candy!

Hello and happy Sunday! Above is a picture of the current blog candy offering. Remember, you may leave a comment on any blog entry until Jan 20, 2009. This is also my eighth wedding anniversary! I finally cleaned up my craft area. It was a mess. I had bunches of small scraps of paper and the backing from yards of red liner tape. I try to keep my area some what picked up, since we have three small dogs who don't think twice at getting their noses or mouths into small bits of paper or even an occasional (poor lost soul) stamp. I enjoyed lunch out today with a long time and dear friend. Between her schedule and mine we have not had much time together as of late, it was so nice to catch up and exchange Christmas gifts!

This pretty altered coaster is a post it note, I used scrap booking paper to cover the coaster and sanded the edges smooth, it is embellished with a 1 1/4" clip that is covered and layered with a scallop punch and stamped flower. The ribbon is tied over the flap and embellished with a shrink plastic butterfly! I think it came out very lovely.

Have a great rest of your weekend!

Another pretty card!

Happy Saturday!

Our weather here is terrible. Rainy, cold and nasty.

The neighbors across the street from our home moved to South Carolina last summer and they have been trying to sell or rent the home for a while now. They are dear friends to my husband and I and we cherish them. If you are in the area and interested in a beautiful home, please email me for details.

Our family along with the other members of our community have adopted the house. This morning one of our other neighbors noticed the outside unit at the home was frozen. Guys, I mean 2" + of ice on it. My husband went over and took care of the problem. We have called our favorite HVAC guy and hopefully he/she will be able to identify a problem with it and get it fixed.

Onto the card. I am in a pink and red and brown mood these days. Hey, just color me romantic!

This card has many of great layers, I used a light pink bazzil paper for the card base and layered it with chocolate chip, riding hood red and whisper white from Stampin Up. The main image is the delta stamps cherry blossom, I used a direct to rubber technique to color the stamp and then colored the image with my copic markers.

I used the nestabilities small and large circle dies as well as the labels die for the elements on the card front.

The card is embellished with stickles and ribbon. The sentiment is from Hanna Stamps, it is stamped onto the card front using memento tuxedo black ink.

Thank you for your warm wishes, I did have a nice day. I am hoping to be able to meet a friend for lunch tomorrow, so I'm praying the weather doesn't get as bad as what the forecasters are telling us right now.

Did you know that You Tube has a minimum and maximum for their video clips? I recorded a quick 3.5 minute tutorial, and they deemed it 'too short'. I am determined to start getting these things video blogged for you guys!

Have a great evening and weekend!

Hugs!

Letters from home

Hi everyone! It has been a heck of a day. It didn't start off well and hopefully it will end quietly. I was doing dishes when a glass broke in my hand and I cut my finger, not badly but enough to hurt like heck and bleed. Yuck! Then later on in the day, I almost got hit going into a supermarket parking lot, dumb driver didn't check his rear view and almost backed into me. If that wasn't bad enough I went to Michael's and my debit card didn't work. I called the bank and apparently my card had been 'flagged' you wouldn't believe the hoops I had to jump through to get everything straightened back out! Craig is in Air Force Basic training and has been really good about calling home and writing us when he can. We have all written him letters and cards this one will go postal tomorrow. Maribel the cow and the sentiment are both from Whippersnapper stamps. Click on their name to view their web sight! I used versa mark to stamp her, embossed with black detail embossing powder and colored with copic markers. The sentiment is stamped on a nesties long rectangle. They are expanding their selection and now have the new clear stamp sets as well as you can order just the rubber with cling mount now on some stamps, making it so much easier to store them! I a impatiently waiting my cut at home order they are an on line store that you can order dies from, they even have a 40% on line coupon, all you have to do is join in their newsletter! Click here for their web sight. I hope you guys have great weekend! Stay safe and warm!

Birthday greetings!

Here is my recipe!

• Card base (pretty in pink) measures 5 1/2" X 4 1/4" folded
• Brown layer (chocolate chip) card stock measures 5 1/4" X 4"
• The three kraft card stock panels measure 3" x 1 1/2"
• The printed piece of scrap booking paper measures 2 3/4 X 1 1/4"
• The Chocolate chip card stock piece measures 4" X 2"
• The printed piece of scrap booking paper measures 3 3/4" X 1 3/4"
• Scallops are 1 3/4" and are cut from the pretty in pink CS
• The patterned scrap booking paper circle measures 1 3/8" and is sponged.

The flowers are stamped onto White card stock, embossed with clear embossing enamel cut out then layered on top of scallop pieces. The stamps are circle "g" and were bought from the local craft store. The flower is embellished with stamped leaves and dew drops. Happy Birthday (sentiment from Hanna Stamps) is stamped using tuxedo black ink from Memento.

Thank you for looking!