Monday, August 31, 2009

Color comparison


Not sure how successful I was in the evening under white light-

Left is Night of Navy, middle is Enchanted Evening, right is Not Quite Navy. Not Quite Navy has more of a green tint, EE has a bit of a teal tint, NON is 'bluer'. In the hand, Enchanted Evening is closer to Night of Navy than Not Quite Navy.

Hope that helps!

Blue Onsie

Wow, something happened in the air yesterday...it's definitely fall out there! The big yellow taxi comes tomorrow, lol, and only the adults are happy today. This has got to have been the shortest summer on record; I bet we had all of 2 total weeks of warm sunny days.



I hope I didn't show you this one already, lol. When I come off of a streak of nights, I can't remember much! I saw this card while on our Shop Hop, it was at Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA. There are three sets used here, the onsie and the background stamps are from Denami Design, the round circle sentiment is from Technique Tuesday. Sadly, the Technique Tuesday image is poorly poured, and will need the be modified with a scalpel before I will use it again. The blue patterned papers are Bashful Blue DSP, and the ribbon is a SU Bashful Blue stripe. Little bit of glitter, little bit of white gel, and we are good to go!

My search for a cabin in the mountains with a babbling brook is going nowhere- the two I came up with went under contract within a week of being listed. Hmm, since I live in the woods near the beach, I wonder if this is just a silly exercise. Still, the DH wants to go out the door and into the mountains, so I will continue to search!

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Cupcakes!

I did it. I bought some cupcakes. I have not been so fond of all of the cupcakes, but these spoke to me~ of course, it was the first stop on our Shop Hop, after the flat tire, and before dinner. Maybe I was hungry!

The cupcakes are by Impression Obsession, and they just scream glitter and sparkle, don't you think? The pink layer is SU's Pretty In Pink embossed with the CB Swirls EF. I then went around the raised edges with a glitter pen.

I punched out a green print from Nana's Nursery (from a small pack, 4 x 6) with a Fiskars edge punch. The card base is a print from the stash, it has little sparkles in the middle of the flowers. White daisies are from Jolees, and the ribbon is from Papertrey.


I think if you make the picture larger you will be able to see that the cupcake liners are paper pieced using a SU print paper. The cupcakes were colored with Prisma markers, then each of them has some sort of glitter or sparkle added as well.

One of the friends who gets my cards thinks I need to add more glitter, lol- this one is for her!

I forgot to take a picture of the inside, but at Absolutely Everything in Topsfield, MA, I found a stamp by Stampendous that says 'Everyone knows...birthday calories don't count!!!' Actually, Absolutely Everything had the cupcake stamp, too!


Tuesday, August 25, 2009

Edna's Butterfly~

Sadly, my Mom's very good friend Edna passed away last week. Not a surprise, but still sad. We've suffered our share of losses this past year, but it doesn't make any of them easier. This was a card for Edna, but I didn't get it in the mail in time. She would have loved it, she loved all of my cards.

The background is Papertrey's Flourishes done in Papertrey's Dark Chocolate. Next layer up is a yellow/orange gradated paper. It's a very thin scrapbook paper, and it's thinness made it a bit difficult to work with. I am so spoiled with thick card stock!

The butterfly stamp is by The Artful Stamper. I paid $16.75 for it, so I really need to find lots of uses for it, lol! I stamped it once is Versamark and embossed with a gold embossing powder, then did just the butterfly in the same gold embossing powder on the gradated paper. It was when I cut out the butterfly that I realized how thin the paper is, but the wings curled just a bit, so that is ok!

On a cheerier note, we spent 4 days in Jackson, NH, in a small cabin borrowed from a friend. All of the grandchildren were there, and we spent 2 days at Storyland, did some hiking in the woods, and the DH went on 2 10 hour walks, right from the front door. At the end of the time, we agreed we should look into buying a cabin of our own in the White Mountains if we can. Not sure where this adventure will take us; now don't laugh, since I live in a cabin in the Maine woods... but not in the White Mountains National Forrest!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

August Papertrey Guest Star Stamper Submissions



Before I talk about the Shop Hop, Sandy, lol, thought I'd show this month's Guest Star Stamper entries over at Papertrey. This month we were to use buttons in some way. Papertrey buttons come in all sizes and shapes, as well as colors. Each bag matches one color, but within each bag is a cacophony of buttons in a full range of tints that match.




My Birthday entry used buttons from the Vintage Cream and White collection, I wish you could see the buttons in real life! The middle one is especially fun! I colored a printed paper from the Black and White collection with the Limepeel Prisma marker. The flowers are Hibiscus Burst and Raspberry Fizz, cut out with a Sizzix die. Little Savvy Stamps flowers were threaded through the button holes and glued on. Sentiment is from Birthday Basics, of course, with cream twill and a few more buttons to finish it off!









On our Shop Hop we saw lots of Amuse stamps and cards, and I fell in love with how simple they are. My Christmas Button entry used Rustic Branches on Stamper's Select, stamped in Spring Moss and Ripe Avocado. I double stamped the Spring Moss solid leaves, so that when I stamped the single line leaves, there was a bit of a shadow of leaf to one side. Next came the weensiest red buttons you have ever seen, bought at Stamping Memories in Belmont, NH (also on our hop). At 14 buttons, lol, I might win the prize for the most on a card! Actually, that center is only about 2.5 x 3 inches, so I must win for the most buttons in the smallest surface area! The printed paper is Vintage Holiday, used with Pure Poppy of course- the entire card is just about 3.5 x 4.5. It 's not an exact size, it's a leftover piece I just folded over.




I do cookies the weekend before Christmas, and often put cards on the ribbons without envelopes. Bigger than a tag but smaller than an A2 card, this will work well if I just punch a hole on the inside, and thread some curling ribbon through.



lol, here is my entry in the Big Black Button contest. I took the biggest black button, the one that wouldn't even fit in the jar, and covered it in black flocking. Strips of black cs with points at the ends became the legs; a couple of googlies brought him to life! I oopsed and gave him 6 legs before I flocked him. Later that day I watched a spider crawl by me downstairs (don't gasp, they catch the skeetos, just don't let them bite you, lol! Ok, come out of your faint, now!) and realized they have 8 legs, silly. That's how the 'BOO' tag was born.




The web is glitter through a brass stencil, held on with the Essential Glue pad tapped through the stencil. Polka Dot Basics 2 has the tiny dots; stamped on Summer Sunrise it sure makes for a wonderful Halloween background! I wrapped a bit of the darker twine around the corners of the web just for effect-




Hope you enjoyed my cards, and that they give you some inspiration!


Sunday, August 16, 2009

Christmas Carols!


Last weekend, on our Shop Hop, I bought these 2 Rosie's Roadshow stamps. When we were in the car and sharing what we bought, I found my mom had bought the same ones, lol. Yes they are that good! Just a CAS card made with Papertrey's Pure Poppy and Vintage Holiday patterned paper.
So 'fess up, doesn't it make you smile?

Friday, August 14, 2009

Tag Cards



Look at the difference in the color of the cards when the sun goes away and I don't change the camera settings!! The first card has accurate coloring, the second does not- oh well!

These are made from gift cards (with envelopes) I bought in the clearance bin at Michaels- I got 2 for 75 cents. I have seen them being sold as card tags as well, but for a bit more moolah's. You could make you own, of course.

I played around with the Sizzix scallop die, and made the second card smaller by just putting a folded card in the die with the fold lower than the original fold line- make sense? I saw the layout for just two sides of scallops in someones photo from CHA, lol! Baby sentiment is a rub-on from K & Co.

The pink card base is Papertrey's Sweet Blush, with Sweet Blush Polka Dot Satin ribbon. don't know who made the dotted paper, but it matches Lavender Moon perfectly, so that is the ink I used to sponge.

See the little white flower on the first carriage? Isn't it cute? It's there to hide the black ink mark I got on the gift card- since I did not have black ink open at the time, I have no idea how that happened!!

Hope you enjoy!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Papertrey Blue

Well! On another baby card roll, here! this one mixes Papertrey's Bitty Baby blessings with SU's Bashful Blue. Found the folded card in my stash, so I can't tell you if it was purchased as a card or if I made the card from patterned and glittered paper. Either way, it sure is cute! I used Copic #'s B21 and B 91 for the shading. and Stickles Waterfall for the glitter on the carriage. The bottom Nestability circle is covered in Stickles clear glitter. The carriage circle is sponged with SU's Bashful Blue ink, and that's really wide Bashful Blue ribbon. I was lucky- I cut the ribbon at the top and bottom of the card, and it didn't fray!

Last weekend we went on our shop hop, and I got so many new to me baby stamps you would not believe it! I fell in love with some Amuse baby cards at The Paper Tree in Manchester, NH where I also bought some of the Amuse card stock. I have 4 made so far, and they look just like the ones in the store. Lol, I know that's not too original, but that's ok!

Now, the shop hop was a great thing, but only after we spent 45 minutes stuck in traffic only 15 minutes from the house, then went 10 miles and had a flat tire! AAA told us it would be 2 hours before someone could come fix it~ we would have done it but couldn't get the tire off of it's hinge under the car. Sigh. Luckily, a Knight In Shining Armour stopped and changed it for us! Took us 5 hours to go 66 miles, lol... Weren't we lucky the first stop- Stamping Memories in Belmont NH was open until 8 pm! Woo Hoo! More about our shopping trip next post!

Saturday, August 8, 2009

New inkpad holder and Two Bears

A couple of weeks ago I did some rearranging in my stamping space, and bought these two Cropper Hopper black wire ink pad holders for my PTI & Palette inks. They can stack 4 high on each shelf, which makes it easy to pull out the one I want. I can fit 5 more on these, so that takes me to October's release. Not sure what I am going to do after that, lol!


These cards use all SU products, except the half pearls on the pink card. Stamp set is Teddy & Train. The bears were water colored with SU's crayons. The blue papers are Le Jardin, but the pink card uses papers from Candy Lane and Berry Bliss. Pink and blue ribbons are both taffeta. I'm not sure what I was thinking with the single pearl on the boy card except I couldn't afford to put pearls all down the scallops, lol!

Thursday, August 6, 2009

Papertrey Pea babies!

My phone line is messed up- using recycled things to build our house was a good idea, but sometimes things come back to bite you, and our phone wiring is one! And I am late for work, so I have to run!

If you are a Papertrey fan, you will recognize all of the products, but I'll be back a little later to add them in!

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Matchy Matchy!

I absolutely swore I would never never buy another ribbon until I finished some up. But, what's a girl to do when she walks past a ribbon that matches exactly the image on a stamp?

I knew you'd understand.

Those polka dots are some of the dots from Papertrey's Polka Dots 2 stamped in Brocade Blue ink on Brocade Blue paper. Yo Yo Yellow and Glorious Green match the ribbon, so I colored the jammies in SU's markers. The bears themselves were colored with Prisma markers, with just a wee touch of blending. I colored around the black dots of the stamped image with the markers, too, to try and get the image to look like the ribbon.

No magic here, just fun!

Saturday, August 1, 2009

Pink Animal Stories


This is a SU only card- well, there is a bit of pink organdy ribbon (retired) under the pink gingham, so it doesn't qualify as 'current SU only', I guess, lol! The DD made this one with Animal Stories and Pretty In Pink...and I don't know what DP, lol! Hmm, now that I look at it, it's probably retired DP, too- well, she'll pop in and tell us, I'm sure!
But I confess... it's hot and muggy here, the paper feels different to me as I work...and all I can think about is orange and black and skeletons! I need to wait for Papertrey's August 15 release, lol, and also order Halloween and Christmas things from SU.
More importantly...
Did you see the baby bunnies sleeping on the moon coming out from MFT????? Oh, be still my heart!