Bad Day?

I made this card for a friend of mine who wasn't feeling well last week. I hope it cheers them up!



All stamps are from Clear Dollar Stamps.

Enjoy!

How's Everything At Your End?

Yesterday I'd taken my oldest son to 'How to Train Your Dragon' and we stopped at GameStop afterwards and got both boys a new game. So when we got home they were both occupied and I used some of the time to make a couple cards. This one is based off last week's sketch challenge over on Splitcoaststampers.



I turned the sketch sideways...but other than that it's pretty true to form. What do you think?



The image is from Clear Dollar Stamps. The horse's name is 'Charlie'. If I remember right I think it was about $5 for the horse and the saying. I used prismacolor pencils (light umber and dark umber) to color Charlie. I left the mane area white because I liked the way it popped.

I also made a second card that is a thank you card for a friend but I'll post that another day. Thanks for hanging in with me while I'm not posting on a regular basis. :-)

Man's Best Friend

I'm not sure how much I love (or don't love) this card and the way it turned out. It's cute but still doesn't excite me. Oh well, they can't all be winners, eh? I did do liquid glass on the dogs nose so he has a wet nose. The dog stamp is from Stampin' Up. The greeting is from Clear Dollar Stamps.



So...are you ready for Christmas yet? I am having the hardest time this year. The boys are past the 'toy' stage. My oldest only wants PS3/Computer games. My youngest won't give me a list at all...other than he wants a ferret (which I do NOT want) and a laptop (which I can't afford). Sigh.

Jane

Playing with New Stamps

Today I played with my new Changito stamps that I got at the stamping convention a couple weeks ago.

What do you think?



I even broke out the cuttlebug and my nestabilities and did the cutting/embossing on the white part and then the scallop outside. I also sponged on some ink around the outside to highlight the embossing. I thought about stamping him another time, cutting out just the hat and popping that up with adhesives. But with the main image already being popped up I figured it would get too thick with another layer popped. The other thought was to add just a bit of grey shading to the hat. It looks so stark. But I wasn't sure I could do it justice. So I left it as it was.

On another note...my personal monkeys were wrestling today and I grabbed some pictures. This takes me back to the days of my childhood. Growing up with three older brothers it seemed like there was always 'horseplay' going on. Inevitably, my Mom would eventually wander into the living room to try and break it up and about that time my brother would reach out and grab at her leg too and she'd screech. (It was all in fun...my brothers were probably late teens by then.)



Love the look on the oldest's face in this one. Even though he is older (and bigger) his little brother is more of a scrapper. So, for him to have the upper hand is truly a victory and it shows on his face. :-)



But, it didn't last for long. Now little brother is on top...



Hope you enjoyed the 'monkey' posting for the day (both the changito monkey stamp and my monkeys!) More to come later this week.

Sympathy Card

A former coworker lost her son recently and I wanted to send her a card. I had seen some cards made which used a brayer and a silohette stamp...so I decided to go with that. For me, sympathy cards are so difficult to make. You don't want them to be too cheery - but you also don't want them to be too dark. Hopefully I found the right combination.

What do you think?



Silohette stamp is from Stampin' Up. Sympathy greeting is from Clear Dollar Stamps. Ink and colored cardstocks are from Close To My Heart.

I actually had time this weekend to make a couple other cards...so keep your eyes open for more to come!

Jane

CAS Challenge

This card was based off of a CAS (Clean and Simple) sketch challenge on Splitcoaststampers. I don't love it as much as some of the others I saw...but overall I'm happy with it. What do YOU think?



On another note, someone ran into our mailbox today. We are in a rural area where there are four mail boxes per metal post/base. The post is set in concrete. Whoever hit it this time did a really good job. All four mailboxes were sheared off the base. Two were savable but the other two (including ours) was not. They actually ran over ours (you could see the tire print on it). I thought it was really funny...just because how often do you see a FLAT mailbox? I asked hubby if that meant we can only receive FLAT rate postal items now. :-P He didn't find it as humourous as I did. LOL.



My hubby dug out the hole and replanted the metal base. We got a couple older ones and replaced ours and the neighbors next to ours. So now all is relatively well with the world. The pole itself is crooked so it looks like the leaning tower of mailboxes but at least we can get mail again tomorrow!

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

A new favorite card?

I am SO happy with how this card turned out! I used one of the precut cards that I purchased at the scrapbook expo a few weeks ago. But if you have the nestabilities you could probably make a similar card yourself.



I started by just stamping the bathtub image (Stampin' Up) near the center of the white circle. I paper pieced the towel on her head. Colored the image in with copic markers. Added a little stickles (glitter glue) to the bubbles. Once the image was finished it looked like it was just floating in the middle of the card. It needed a foundation of some sort. What better than a bath rug? So I stamped my image again on a post it note, cut out the bottom of the bathtub and put it on top of my colored image as a mask (didn't want to get pink ink on it after all that effort). Next I inked up the solid oval stamp (Amuse) in pink ink and stamped it over the feet of the tub.



Then I wanted a greeting of some sort. I picked through my greetings and didn't find anything I liked. I finally decided on just a simple one word stamp "Fabulous" (Clear Dollar Stamps). It is a polymer/acrylic stamp so I was able to curve it just a little bit on my block so it fit the curvature of the circle. Then I stamped it repeatedly - leaving a little space in between each word. The last thing was tying just a bit of ribbon at the top. This served a visual purpose as well...it hid the 'flat' portion of my circle card.

What do YOU think? I'm always amazed when I come up with a girly card that I like...because I am NOT a frilly/girly kind of gal! :-)

Jane

It's the "Digi" Easter Bunny!

Mel over at Mel Stampz offered up some free "digital images". The images themselves are pretty large (about 6 inches) so I resized mine. I also printed it a second time onto the blue paper so I could paper piece it. I'll put the directions on how I resized and hints for printing to paper piece down below.



I was able to resize just using my printer options. I clicked on the image (so it's full screen) then chose 'Print'. Then I clicked on 'Preferences', then clicked on the 'Effects' tab and down on the left there is a box that says 100% of normal size. You can choose any percentage you want. I printed mine at 50% and they are about 2 1/2 inches tall (and cute as the dickens!)

Also, a tip...if you want to paper piece but want to use scraps (instead of feeding full sheets of cardstock/paper through)...on the top sheet of paper in your printer mark one of the corners (like BL for bottom left). Then print your image. Now place your scrap on top of the printed image and adhere with a temporary adhesive. Place the sheet back in your printer tray with the BL in the bottom left corner (so you know it's going to print in the same place again). Now print it again. You can send that same base sheet through as many times as you want and you can use up some of your smaller scraps of patterned paper.

So I resized and printed my image once on cardstock and once on the light blue paper. I cut out the parachute part from the blue paper...when paper piecing you want to cut slightly inside the line. To add dimension I took my blue parachute and put it inside a cuttlebug embossing folder and embossed it after I'd cut it out. Then I layered the cut/embossed parachute onto the base stamped image. Then I colored in the rest of the image.

I got the card layout from the Clean and Simple stamping blog. I like this blog for simple layouts. A lot of time I dress them up a bit...but it's a great starting place!

My quilting get together got cancelled for today. I'm kind of bummed out but we've rescheduled it. And I made a "play date" with my former upline (I used to sell Close to My Heart) for tomorrow. So I should have plenty of new stuff to share this week!

Have a great evening.

Jane

Snail Mail

The limited sketch challenge this week at Splitcoast was to use a bug stamp, no more than 4 layers, and no patterned paper. This is the card I created...but then realized I'd used patterned paper! LOL. Duh, Jane, read the directions once in awhile! :-)



Oh well, I still like the card even if it doesn't meet the challenge criteria. That adorable snail is one of the $1 stamps over at Clear Dollar Stamps. I bought him a long time ago but this is the first time I've used him.

Yesterday I got my quilt top about half finished. I guess 72 squares doesn't go very far (sigh). Was hoping that'd be enough for the whole quilt. Guess not! The good news is that I am SO PROUD of myself. What I've done so far looks great for a first time project. My son will be thrilled with it when it is all done.

I also made a new card yesterday. It uses a stamp I've never used before (I got it in a grab bag from Viva Las Vegas Stamps) and my 'greeting' is in Spanish. So if that peaked your interest keep your eyes out for new things to come.

Have a great day!

Jane

Finally a card!

Well, last night I was feeling a little down...so it was time to make a card! This is what I came up with. I like it better in person...for whatever reason the colors didn't photograph very well. The cardstocks are a light olive green, a dark green, and a chocolate brown. The turtle is colored to match.



The stamps are all from Clear Dollar Stamps. If you've never seen their stamps...go check them out! They are clear polymer stamps...cute, CUTE sets (and singles) at a reasonable price.

Have a great day!

Jane

High Hopes Design Team Entry

You all have heard me mention High Hopes Rubber Stamps before and how much I absolutely adore them. Well, they have a 'Guest Designer' spot available and I decided to apply. If you are interested in applying you can find the details HERE.

The challenge was to use this sketch:



I ended up flipping the sketch and modifying it just a wee bit in order to make it work for my Posing Bunny image. The image in relatively large and when using the sketch in a vertical presentation it took up the whole card front and really hid the layers behind it. So I flipped it to a horizontal presentation. I also had the same issue with the greeting (greeting is by Clear Dollar Stamps). Even though I chose one of the smallest greetings I had...it just didn't fit anywhere on the sketch. So, instead I chose to add the greeting directly to the image panel.

Here's my sample:



Details:

I decided to "paper piece" some of the features of the Posing Bunny. I stamped the image on white cardstock twice and then again on pink and yellow paper. I cut out the different portions that I wanted to piece (the hat, the ribbon, the lace on the hat and the bunny tail). I still wanted more dimension so I ran the pink hat portions through the cuttlebug with the Swiss Dot embossing folder. Next I colored my bunny using prismacolor pencils and mineral spirits. I then used my Frost Blue Copic marker and outlined the whole image to make it pop. And lastly I glued all the pieces onto the colored image. I also used dimensional adhesive on the tail to make it stick out.

Here's a close up of Posing Bunny:



So...what do you think?

Jane

What's Moo?

Still playing with my new set from Clear Dollar stamps. Also playing with the new nestabilities. Can you see the embossing on the round circle?



I'm not generally a flower person on my cards...but this card needed a pop of girly color/style. I like how it turned out!

Speaking of cows...I'm down another 2 pounds this week on my weight loss. Why is it so easy to gain and so hard to lose? I've been really good on what I'm eating and I've only lost 8.5 for the first three weeks (and in the beginning is when you lose the fastest...it's only going to slow down from here!)

Jane

I promise...this is the last piggy card for awhile! :-) I was going to promise it was the last barnyard card for awhile...but that's not true...I made a cow card over the weekend so there is still more barnyard yet to come. All stamps are from Clear Dollar Stamps.



I'm not overly thrilled with the card...but it works ok. Sometimes the inspiration is in the "on" position and sometimes "not so much". :-)

I did buy a new stamp this weekend. It was meant more as an "office" stamp. But I have been having SO much fun with it this weekend. I'll be sharing more as the week goes on.

Hope you have a wonderful Tuesday (feels weird not to be Monday!)

Jane

Chocoholic?

I've been playing with my new sets from Clear Dollar Stamps. If you know me at all...you know me and chocolate are the best of friends (or is it the best of enemies! LOL.) So, when I saw the new release Chocoholic set I had to get it.

This is the first card I made with the set. I'm not entirely thrilled with it...but I like it ok. I just couldn't come up with a layout that I liked.



Jane

Girly - Hang In There

I got an email yesterday morning that had a sketch in it. I printed the sketch and thought I saved the email but apparently I did not. So...if this sketch is yours let me know and I'll give you credit for it.

This card kind of took on a life of it's own. It's very unlike most cards I do. I generally don't do many "girly" cards. But I absolutely love how this one turned out.



What do you think?

The greeting is actually from Clear Dollar Stamps (and went with a set of squirrel stamps...but it worked here with the image). The dress is from a grab bag of unmounteds that I got at The Hampton Company. I used two different embossing folders (paisley on the background and swiss dots on the strip).

Hopefully I'll have time/energy to create something else today...otherwise this may be it for the week. (But it's a beaut!)

Jane

Simple, yet elegant

I totally CASED this card from Madeline on Splitcoast. You can see her card HERE. Her's is a little more fancy than mine. She used another layer (or two) and used a corner punch on her layers. But I like mine a lot just how it is!



I used a coluzzle to cut a circle in some cardstock and then used that as a reverse mask. I sponged in the ink and then stamped the snowflakes from my Stampin Up "Snow Flurries" set randomly. Then I punched out the top of the "ornament" from foil (didn't have any silver cardstock but hey it worked great!). I added the hook with a silver gel pen. The greeting is from Clear Dollar Stamps. Lastly I layered onto the card and added the bow.

Easy peasy and it looks really elegant. I could see doing this card next year for the holidays.

Thanks for looking!

Jane

Happy "Black" Friday

So...did YOU get out of bed at 4a.m. this morning?

Nope...not me! In general I hate crowds - they make me crazy. So I try my best to avoid shopping on Black Friday. I went last year with my sisters-in-law and it was ok to be out with other people...but certainly not worth doing just to do it and save a few bucks!

So...hmmm...if I HAD gone out shopping, what might my purchases have been? Some sort of digital photo frame for my mother-in-law, nerf guns for my boys (the longshot version on sale at Kohls at 50% off), and if I had mucho dinero??? A kitchenaid mixer for me!

I don't know why I suddenly got THAT urge but I've got it. But they are pricey (even for the "cheaper" versions) and I don't know enough about them to know what I "need". We (both dh and I...but mostly dh) makes homemade bread and pizza dough, I make double batches of cookie dough, I make homemade noodles (by hand right now but it'd be nice if a mixer could handle it), etc. So I know I want a version that is powerful enough to handle that...but don't know really what "wattage" that translates to. KWIM? My Mom bought us a mixer and I've had it for over 10 years (can't remember when we got it exactly...seems like I've ALWAYS had it...but know that we haven't...). It's starting to smell hot at times so I wonder how much longer it will last. I was surprised (while looking at Reviews on the Artisan version of the KitchenAid mixers) with how many folks had had problems with them...I've always heard so many good things...maybe it's this "version" in particular?

Well, I guess you REALLY came here to see artwork...not to listen to me babble. So, without further ado...here's another card I made recently.



This card features a House Mouse image (not sure the name of it...received the image in a swap). The greeting is from my new set from Clear Dollar Stamps. It is colored in with chalks (my favorite medium for the HM images).

Have a wonderful weekend!

Jane

Good morning all!

After a few days of vacation...I think my mojo is coming back! (Either that...or it's the kick in the pants I got from all the bitchin' and whinin' I've been hearing from everyone about not updating my blog.) LOL!

I made three cards yesterday. I at least somewhat like all of them. A step up from a couple weeks ago. It seems like my creativity ebbs and flows at times. Maybe there is a creative "that time of month". :-)

Anyways, without futher ado...here is one of my favorite cards...in time for tomorrow (thanksgiving). This looks a lot better in real life. The overlay is a transparency with alcohol inks on it. I can't remember who the flower stamp is from. The saying is from Clear Dollar Stamps.



So...what are YOU thankful for this year?

I'm thankful for my family, that we have a roof over our head, that I have a job and an income that at least meets the bills, that I have a few good friends, and that I have puppies/dogs who make me smile.

Have a great day!

Jane

What I create when my mojo is gone AWOL!

These are the latest two cards I've created. The first one is SUPER simple. I was just trying to get stamping again. I used a sketch from a blog called Clean and Simple. I like the cards they made with the sketch....not so much mine! LOL. Actually it isn't horrible...but it certainly doesn't fulfill my creative mojo expectations! :-)

Here is the first card I made:



Then I decided to use a different sketch from the same site. The idea is to stamp in threes. Recently I received a stamp set from Clear Dollar Stamps and the cards used on this set are from that set. I actually do like this card...a little on the simple side...but sometimes simple is good. This would be easy to replicate for a set of notecards. To get the images lined up I actually used my paper trimmer! I put my paper in the trimmer but mainly used the ruler on the trimmer (I just didn't have a ruler). I stamped the middle image first and then went the same distance either direction and stamped the other cupcake. They are colored with copics and then covered in stickles glitter.



Tomorrow my son gets his cast off! I can't believe he will heal in 4 weeks time but I guess the doctor should know. We are fighting the insurance company. We pay $1,000 a month in premiums and the insurance is CRAPPY. We went to the first ER and paid our $150 copay. They were unable to fix his arm and transferred him to another hospital that had a pediatric ER. We were transferred there and a pediatric orthopedic surgeon inserted two pins in his arm and cast him. It is my argument that this should all be part of the $150 copay. We didn't choose to take him elsewhere...the facility was unable to fix it. But the second hospital billed it as an outpatient surgery (not an ER visit) and therefore the insurance is saying we owe a $2,000 deductible before they will kick in. Argh. I'm so glad I've paid over $10,000 so far this year for health coverage...yet they can't cover a $1,600 arm fix.

I've spent the last week just feeling very depressed over the situation. Not so much the $$ but the idea of never getting ahead. I worked hard all year at work, got a whopping 4% raise (the max we can get) and now that will all go towards a broken arm because my son played on the monkey bars! It just feels like whenever I take one step forward I get knocked two steps back.

Anyways, that is part of the reason I've been AWOL. Been dealing with some personal stuff.

Have a great day all!

Jane