Get Well Bunny

I was inspired by a card on Jan's blog. She used this sketch from OWH Stars and Stamps blog.



I opted to use one of my new $1 stamps that hadn't seen ink yet. It is supposed to be for Easter but I also thought it'd make a cute get well card. A friend's daughter tore her knee up and will need surgery. I thought she could use a card to help cheer her up.



Think it'll work?

A Little Silliness

Sometimes I just love to "play" on words.





The donut stamp is from Michael's $1 bin. The saying is stamped using Karen Foster Snap Stamps. I stamped the donut twice and cut the frosting off the second image and popped it up on top of the first image for dimension. If I could FIND my "liquid glass" I would have used that to make the frosting looks glazy...but I can't find it (the story of my disorganized life). Also, if I had them I would have used some beads as the sprinkles on the donut. Instead I just colored the frosting area and used stickles on the sprinkles.

All in all, I still like it, just had invisioned it with the ideas noted above and then couldn't carry them through to fruition. Hate it when that happens!

A Cow's favorite lunch meat?

I didn't manage to get as much stamping as I hoped done yesterday but I did get one card made and I'm quite happy with how it turned out! The finished size is 4 1/4 x 4 1/4.



Some people ask me how I come up with ideas - so let me expound on my thought processes on this card and how it came to be. First I saw a sketch online I wanted to try (this was a weekly sketch challenge on Splitcoaststampers). Next I went to my stamp drawers and tried to find an image that would fit the approximate shape of the focal image on the sketch. I was lazy yesterday and literally decided I had to pick SOMETHING in the first drawer I opened. The sketch is really a taller image...but figured the cow would work. Then I grabbed a coordinating stamp (the cow spot stamp from High Hopes) and sat at my table. I stamped the cow. I started with the thought in my head that I was going to do a 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 card...with a black base and a white spotted background. But when I tried that...the image got lost and didn't stand out. First off...too big of a card...too little of a background. So I cut it down to 4 1/4 x 4 1/4. Still didn't like the cow spotted area as the big background. So I went in search of some other paper. I love red/black/white as a color combo...and I found the red patterned paper in some stuff my Secret Sister sent me a while back. So...back to the table with it. Ultimately, I tried several variations of the red/black/spotted/white color layouts until I decided I liked this best. Next, I needed a saying or something to go on the upper right (per the card sketch). I went online and searched "cow quotes" and ended up with a lot of choices. I tried to print in an oval (the shape on the sketch) but didn't have much luck. So, instead I opted for a circle (using wordart). I printed it out and then punched it out. Layered with a scalloped punched circle. It still needed something so I added the big brad to the center (a gift from another Secret Sister from a couple years ago) Also, as a side note...none of this is actually attached to the card base yet. I always save that for last. I pierced my holes. Used dimensional adhesives to pop up the saying and then the front was complete. I still needed to do the inside (the answer). I printed it on a piece of paper. Then attached my card base to the piece of paper with temporary adhesive so that the answer would print where I want. I put the piece of paper back in the printer and printed. Once I had that completed...THEN I attached the card front to the base...and the card was done. Whew! :-)

So...do you want to know what a cow's favorite lunch meat is?????

Bull-ogna! :-)

Have a great day!

Jane

Clean and Simple (CAS) Challenge

This card was inspired by a CAS sketch challenge on SCS. I think it came out pretty darn cute!



The cupcake stamp is from $1 set I bought at Michael's. The greeting is from Clear Dollar Stamps.



Here's the inside. I just pen stitched/doodled around the edges. Then I closed the card and used the circle cutout as my guide for stitching the circle around the image itself.

My dang dog (the puppy) has eaten TWO stamps within the last couple weeks. They are my $1 stamps I just bought. One I've used once and the other I haven't used at all. Argh!

Hope everyone has a GREAT Friday!

Jane

All Stitched Up!

Well, after a weekend of playing at the sewing machine, I have a couple things to share this week.

First is this card:



There is some real stiching on here and some faux stitching on here...can you tell which is which?

The little "ewe" is from Michael's $1 stamps. Isn't he/she/it adorable? I colored just the face and then used liquid applique on the body so it'd puff up and look like he's covered in a wooly coat.

Hope you like it! I think the blue is a little boring. More than likely (in the future) I'd add some tone on tone stamping or some embossing to it. But I'd already sewed and layered (practicing) before I decided what I was going to do with making the card. So...it's a little plain...but that's ok once in awhile.

Jane

SC216 - Hug Coupon Card

I am pretty happy with how this card turned out. I'd picked up this $1 set at Michael's. It just has two stamps...the one you see on the card and a smaller one that reads "redeemable at a moment's notice". I thought it was adorable and for $1...why not???!!

I followed this sketch from Splitcoaststampers



I turned it vertical instead of horizontal. I stuck with one of my favorite color combos (red/white/black and a touch of silver).



So...did I do the sketch justice?

Jane

Case-A-Sister-Challenge

Good morning every one! As many of you know, I belong to a group of stampers called the Sisterhood of Blogging Stampers 4 (or SBS4 for short). I haven't met any of these ladies in person - but we are committed to visiting each others' blogs and encouraging each other along the stamping way. One of the things we do...is challenges. This month we have a challenge going on called the "Case a sister challenge". We are supposed to visit the other SBS4 blogs and choose a card that one of them made within the last month and we are supposed to copy it in a way that is recognizable. It doesn't have to be exactly the same but it does need to be similar enough. We don't say WHO we are casing...but instead the other sisters make guesses and there are prizes involved.

Anyways, that's the story behind this card. If you'd like to "play" along and make a guess of your own...the SBS4 sisters' blogs are all listed to the right of my blog. You can go check them out and guess who I am CASEing.



Have a great day everyone!

Jane

Beate's Weekend Sketch x 2

A lot of the time on weekends I hope on over to Beate's blog and check out her weekend sketch challenge. This past weekend was no different. Both of my cards differ slightly from the sketch (the cow card is pretty close...the bella card the image is way bigger). But I like how both turned out...and they both at least originated from the sketch!

Entry #1: Cow stamp from Michael's $1 section



Entry #2: Bella stamp (received the image in a swap)



Hope everyone is having a good week so far!

Jane

Happy Memorial Day!

I would like to take the chance to say...THANKS to anyone who has served our country...present or past. Also, thanks to their families for sacrificing family time and allowing their spouse/dad/mom to serve. I don't always agree with the President (well, maybe more like RARELY agree with the President) and I don't think our troops should be over in Iraq. But as long as they are there, I still choose to support them - because they are doing what they are asked to do. And it's something I wouldn't want to do. So my hat goes off to them. In honor of Memorial Day I made this simple card.



The "ornament" is one I picked up in a grab bag at a convention. I honestly don't remember from which company. The "Proud to be an American" stamp is from a new $1 set at Michael's. It's the whole reason I bought the set. I used CTMH outdoor denim cardstock (which has a white core). I sanded the cardstock to distress it. Then I stamped the saying over and over on the background.

Hope you like it. I've been busy this weekend. I have one more non-Design Team project to share. And then I've made 8 projects so far for the Design Team (and will be able to start sharing those at the end of the month). So lots of good stuff coming! Be sure to check back.

Jane

Easter Treats!

This is the project I came up with for my coworkers. Actually, I didn't "come up" with the idea. I saw similar ones on SCS so I had to make my own. I made 4 of them. I think the middle image (the larger one) should be higher...but not sure I care enough to redo it. I think it looks cute enough as is. What do you think?



Bunny image is a $1 stamp from Michael's (which I already owned), candleholders were .99 but were 30% off on sale this week, the roll of ribbon was $1.50 on sale this week (and there is lots left over). The bag of M&M's was $2. All said and done...treats for my 4 coworkers were well under $10...with leftover M&M's! Yummmmm. :-)

Jane

Thinking of You Card

Love how this simple card turned out. Once again, it's a sketch from Angel's blog. The only stamp it uses is a $1 stamp from Michael's that I'd bought and was still a inkless virgin. It's been laid by the inkpad now. :-)

It's a 4 1/4 x 4 1/4 card. I paper pierced all around the outside of the kraft cardstock. Layered on a piece of decorative paper. Stamped my greeting on white and layered on kraft. I stapled it (just those two layers because I did't want my staples to go all the way through the card front) and attached the greeting layer. Then tied on my ribbons and wa la...done!



Have a wonderful Tuesday.

Jane

It's a Bella kind of day!

I decided to dig into my stamped images envelope and find something different to play with. I don't own any of the Bellas (from stampingbellas.com) but have received quite a few images from swaps on SCS. I think this one is called Cosmobella (for obvious reasons!)



I used a couple stamps from a Michael's $1 set of acrylic stamps on this. You'll see the flower on the background and also the greeting. In addition I tried to add some interest by rounding the corners and allowing just the bottom edge color to peak out.



Going to be a long day for me today. Work till 3:30 when I need to leave early and drive an hour to an appointment that starts at 5:00 and should run till 6:00...then attend the neighbor's viewing from 6-7p.m. Can someone out there take a nap for me and do some stamping for me? Something fun??? ;-)

Jane

You're Just My Style...

The department administrative assistant at work is a major SHOE person. And she got put to the task of getting my name changed everywhere (I go by my middle name but as a new hire the phone directory, email, etc was set up under my first name). So I wanted to make her a shoe card as a thank you. I love how it turned out. Brighter than my normal style but it really fits her personality.



The stamp is a stamp from the $1 bin at Michael's. The saying is from SU's Haute Couture set. I used the SU slot punch to make the scalloped edge to the border and then used an eyelet guide to make perfect circles with my white gel pen. Each shoe is covered in clear stickles so it really shines.

Oh...on a totally different front...a friend sent me a link this morning that is hilarious. I'm going to see if I can post it here and get it to work. It's the Mom Song...everything a Mom would say in a 24 hour squished down into a song that runs under 3 minutes.

Enjoy! and have a great day!

Another Halloween Card

I can't seem to quit making halloween cards this year.

This uses two new stamps that I picked up (from the $1 section at Michael's). I created the card for the Limited Supply Challenge on Splitcoaststampers. The LSC80 states that you can use one main image stamp and one greeting stamp....but NO background stamps or any other stamps.

I did a little creative matting on this by cutting out areas of the image so the black mat shows through. I think it added just the little bit that it needed. I love the "The Witch Is In" stamp. I'm thinking I could be silly and use this all year round when I'm feeling witchy. Or you could cross out the W and replace with another letter just to be a smartie. ;-)

Without further ado...here's the card!



Have a great Sunday.

Jane

Happy Halloween!?!

This card uses new $1 stamps that I found at Michael's last week. Aren't they adorable? I picked up maybe 8 new halloween/fall stamps...the bin was COMPLETELY full and this was the new shipment...so I dug through all of them and made sure I got my fill of them! I even picked out a few for other people. At $1 each I can afford to do that! LOL! My guess is that there were probably 15 new stamp designs for the fall/halloween season? Since I'm running out of space for my single stamps I decided to be picky. That's why I came home with ONLY 8 (ha!)

Here's a close up of just the card:



And here's the card and the envelope I stamped to go with it:



The idea for the layout of this card was another sketch I found online. But the sketch was for a standard size card and my three circles wouldn't fit on a standard size card. So, I modified the sketch to fit a tall card and I made the tall card the right size to fit in a business size envelope.

I stamped the three spiders on white cardstock and used a medium sized circle punch to punch them out. (Tip for newbie punch users: flip the punch upside down so you can see what you are punching out and center it better.) Then I used a large circle punch to cut a contrasting circle to mat it. The rest is pretty simple layering.

I've made more halloween cards this year than ever before. I'm not sure why I'm in this mode right now...but I am! So I'm going with the flow till my next 'fancy' strikes me.

Have a wonderful day!

Jane

A sneak (halloween) peek!

Good morning everyone! I can't believe it's Friday already! I have so many things I want to accomplish before I go back to work on Monday. Today I'm going grocery shopping. I also have a couple packages I needed to mail but when I went to my PO yesterday they were out of the smaller priority boxes. So I'll have to try another PO today while I'm out and about.

I've been working on some halloween goodies so I thought I'd share a sneak peek with you. Here is a "fruit can". It's a poptop can. You cut the bottom off with a safety can opener. Empty and clean it. Then fill with candy and reseal with glue. Decorate and give away to someone who will wonder how the heck you got the candy in there!



This uses the rollograph wheel that I got at Clear Dollar Stamps (cdstamps.com)

The next thing I altered was a little tin that I bought in the Joann's $1 section. I think it came out really cute!



Have a great Friday...and welcome to the weekend! LOL.

Jane

Basic Masking Tutorial

The limited supply challenge for this week on Splitcoaststampers is to use a non-halloween animal stamp to make a halloween tent card. I figured it was a prime time to do a tutorial on simple masking.

I will be using a hippo stamp and adding a witches hat. The easiest way to do masking is to use post-it notes (at least that's the easiest way I've found. So here are the two stamps I'll be using and the post-it notes.



The first thing I'm going to do is make my mask. So I'm going to stamp the witches hat on the sticky portion of the post-it note. After stamping you are going to cut out the mask just inside (or on) the line.



Now...take the same image and stamp it onto your cardstock. Here I've stamped it onto white cardstock.



NOW, you are going to use your mask. Take the post-it image and place it directly on top of the stamped image on the cardstock.



Once your mask is in place you are ready to stamp the next image (in my case the hippo).





Now remove the mask and your image is finished!



I could have stamped a single hat on white cardstock and cut it out and then just glued it on top of the hippo's head. Sounds easier right? But if you are doing multiples (or if you don't want the cut/paste look) then masking is the way to go. If you're using clear stamps then masking becomes even easier.

Masking can be used in many ways and can be used for more indepth techniques. With masking you can place items inside other items (like placing items "inside" a basket), you can make things sit on top of other things (like a dog sitting on a chair) or you can build scenes with items in the front and then build backwards...masking as you go. It may seem daunting but hopefully the step by step pics makes it easier to understand! You can also do "reverse masking". For example you can make your mask, place it on the image and then sponge blue ink around it to make it look like blue sky. Or...I also use a variation of masking to do my coloring at times. I will stamp my image on glossy cardstock and then cut portions of it out (say all the flower parts I want to be red), then stamp the same image again and cut out different portions (say all the flower parts I want to be yellow)...repeat for each color you plan to use. Then you basically use it template. You lay it over the areas you want to color (so only those areas are exposed and sponge on ink), then use the next template. Sometime I'll show that technique. For now...here is the finished card I made with the basic masking!





Hope you enjoyed!

Jane

Happy Sunday!

Good morning all! First off...let me share another card! This one was created using Beate's Sketch Challenge #15.

The stamps are from a cheapo set I got at Michael's last year. It doesn't have a company name...just stays "distributed by Michael's" on the box. The background stamp (circles) is from Cornish Heritage Farms. It was one that was/is being retired so I got it for half off. Gotta love that! LOL!



And now that the fun stuff is over...I thought I'd share some more about the work situation and update you. I did have an interview on Friday which I felt went REALLY well. At least this time they are only interviewing 4 people...not 40 like one of the other jobs I interviewed for. If nothing else, I feel honored to have even been 1 of the 4 chosen. My main qualm about this one is that two of the interviewees are internal applicants and I know usually that gives them priority. A good thing is that the two ladies I'd be working with used to work at one of the companies I did and knows a lot of the same people (good people who will give me references).

Last night I was wide awake WAY too late and found a personality test to take which is supposed to tell you which type of personality you have and which sort of careers would be best for you. I think this one really nailed me. So I thought I'd share it with you. I am considered an ISFJ personality type...to read a description of what that means you can click HERE. And for the career types they recommended you can click HERE. What's funny is that I'd considered many of these careers but ultimately chose not to do some of them BECAUSE of my personality. I know I could never be in social work or nursing...it'd kill me because I take things too personally and want to help everyone.

Anyways, just thought that was interesting. I think if you know me personally you'll see how closely these two sites hit my personality. It was a series of about 40 questions that I had to answer. I don't think it said the name of the test, or even if it's a standard test. Regardless, interesting nonetheless!

Have a great Sunday all!

Jane

Halloween Mouse

I recently discovered that you can get SOME of the House Mouse stamp images in clear acrylic (vs wood mount). Honestly, for most things I like wood mount better. But these HM stamps are just SO big and take up so much space that sometimes less is better. Plus the wood mount stamps go for $9-15 per stamp...and I got this whole Christmas set for $10 on ebay. So it was a ganga deal.

But...it is a CHRISTMAS set which limits it's usage. I figured the mouse with the peppermint could be used year round (with a saying about being sweet) and then I saw the mouse with the Santa hat...and I knew just what I was going to do with him. I had a witch hat from a cheap set of stamps I got at Michael's. I stamped the mouse (minus his hat) and then stamped the witch hat instead. Walaa...a Halloween Mouse!

Here's the whole original set and the witches hat so you know how I started:



And here's a close up of just the card:



I got the layout for the card from Jen over at her blog Iheart2stamp.

I have another new halloween card (and another sketch that I used) but will save it for another day. It's 1a.m. here and I'm still wide awake so thought I'd come sign on and share just a tidbit of new stuff! Hope you are all sleeping soundly and not wide awake like I am! LOL.

Sharing - Roses In Winter

This stamp set was recently retired by Stampin' Up. I'd loved the artwork I'd seen made with it but wasn't willing to shell out the $30 for it new and noone was letting go of it used. Well, then it retired and it became one of those sets that consultants are letting go of to get new things. I was able to get the set for $25 including shipping. Hopefully, I'll get that much use out of it! It's a 2 step stamp set and it's on wood blocks (which makes 2 step stamping harder...that's one time where I prefer the see-thru acrylics). But luckily, it's a forgiving set and it doesn't need to be lined up perfectly. After all...what rose is perfect?

Here's the first card I made with the set. It uses Roses In Winter (for the roses), Happy Harmony (I think...the greeting), Linen background, and Canvas background. I aged it some with inks...and also added some "texture" by tearing a piece of paper to mask part of the card and then stamping the canvas only on part of the card. All stamps are from Stampin' Up.



And the second card was inspired from a sketch on Beate's blog. It uses Roses In Winter and one of the new $1 stamps I got at Michael's. I distressed a bit with ink and sanding. Popped up the main image. I'm still not entirely sure I like the card. But it was the best I could do with the sketch. Some sketches I find myself using over and over again...I'm not sure this will be one of them! LOL!



Enjoy.

Jane