Saturday, December 31, 2011

prototype



couple of things-


I promise they will be layered straight, lol

the 'you're invited' should be the same color as the bottom layer

under the horses neck needs to be trimmed, not sure what happened there

the bunny is a punch; not sure how better to dress it up, unless I use patterned paper-


off to get coffee and chocolate; call me and let me know!

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Outlines!

Where have I been you say? Right here, of course! Just coming out after a long period of time doing without (as much as possible) technology. We don't have a TV or cell phone, of course, but the computer takes away so much of my time that I went through a period of using it just as a resource, not as a method of communication and whatever else people say it is.

I hope to do an early retirement the first quarter of 2012, so we have been practising a 'vow of poverty'. Fun! But here is a card that was still on the camera, so I decided to get it onto the blog.



I find Outlines stamps beautiful to look at when others do them, but hard to do myself. I did a boy and a girl, and used printed papers so I wouldn't have to do so much intricate coloring.

Some doodads also helped the visual, rather than lots of glitter.


Some day I'll do an Outlines card as beautiful as the designers do, lol, but in the meantime these will have to suffice!

Friday, November 4, 2011

For Alex



Quick stamp, cut, and color. Will have to be an A-6. Will look best on a printed background, so for 15 will need 4 pices of 12 x 12. I'll play around with that tomorrow. If we do 15 with finer coloring and some more detail, their payment will need to be to take Wes for the day, since it will take us that long, I bet, to put them together. I can cut and stamp here, then bring them to you to color and glue. Next weekend or a day this week ok with me.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Waiting for Snow

I have been participating in the Halloween challenges over at www.limabeads.com. Well, actually, that just means I have been buying lots of beads from Lima, lol. This is my Halloween entry, a Spooky necklace.


The Hemp is tied in knots, and look like spider legs when it is hanging around my neck.


That's an Earthenwood pendant, with one lonely fall colored leaf- all of the other leaves on there are C Koop enameled black or gray leaves.


Halloween isn't over, it's one of my fav times of year. But with 10 inches of snow projected for tonight, I went Christmas shopping today, lol... my all time favorite time of year!!!


I am going to put some treats out this evening for the chipmunks and squirrels, and have my own Trick or Treat party. Hopefull the bears have gone to bed, and won't bother us for chocolate. Then I will sit back for the wintry show that is coming to my big screen TV overnight (think sliding glass doors looking into the woods!) and watch while I drink my morning coffee. Better than any TV you have, I bet!


My only concern? I'm by myself, and will I be able to get the car out to go home Sunday night- well, if not, lol, they can find me in the Spring!









Thursday, October 27, 2011

Inside Out cards

I'm not sure if someone else has already coined the phrase 'Inside Out Cards', but I am having fun doing it! I have been putting the phrase on the outside, and the embellishments on the inside, lol, just for fun.



The outside sticker is from a million years ago, I had to put glue on the back since it was no longer sticky. The paper is from a Recollections Halloween pad. Martha Stewart glittery bats finish the outside-




Inside, an alcohol inked background with an Inkadinkadoo witch stamped on it- and some Memory Box papers with some more of Martha's bats.



Fun!

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Finally!! Papertrey Ink!!

Oh dear, the colors are off- but I hope you get the point.

PTI ink is finally here!!! Yay!!! It is working perfectly for me, and I am so happy!!



A little close-up of some mottling, but that is the nature of the beast, so I expect it. This was the first use of Sweet Baby, and the third impression with the new stamps.


The other color ink is Momento Desert Sand. Other than that, it's all PTI products.


I have to go fast and cheap on the baby cards- I tipped up the Aqua Mist button bottle and look what rolled out~ today is definitely my day!





Monday, October 10, 2011

Bouncing Bears

Isn't it lovely when you get all kinds of pieces to match? Look how the ribbon and the stamp are the same; Suzy's Zoo. I'm just a sucker for images like this!


I used PTI's Lavender Moon as the base, then layered with white and a polka dotted paper. The stamped dots came out black of course, so I went over them with some Spica pens, and actually added more dots so it looked more like the paper.



I ran the dotted paper through the polka dot CB folder, just to add some more dimension- sweet!

Friday, October 7, 2011

A PTI Baby



I want to be using some of my Papertrey papers, lol, but since Everyday Blessings is still being sold as 6 x 6, I want to wait to buy it again until it is 8 x 8. They need to hurry, I don't have much left!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Some Quick and Easy Baby Cards

I know I have been AWOL, but the baby card making has gone on, lol, and I keep photographing them just waiting for a moment to put some on the blog. Tonight I decided enough is enough; maybe I'll start showing a couple at a time-



The first is the easiest- I used a Memory Box card and envie, a CB embossing folder that stopped near the bottom of the white layer, then stamped 'adorable' on the bottom right edge. Knot of ribbon and done!




These are a little more involved, but really, the most time was spent on finding 2 designs in the same color, lol. The bunny is an older SU stamp, just paper pieced over Spellbinders labels. I used a bit of glitter glue on the bows to make them stand out a little- Bingo!

Quick and Easy!


Sunday, September 11, 2011

I haven't had troubles...

...I just don't know where the time goes... The days are getting shorter, in more ways than one, lol!!

The rest of my list for tonight includes finishing the day with a beer and a little fire in the fire ring outside, finish a load of laundry, make 3 more baby cards, and post something to the blog. It's 7 pm, lol, and I want to be in bed by 8. What are the chances,lol lol lol??

Here's a quick boy card with my lovely new stork (The Stork Report by Whipper Snapper) that looks like a mailman. Hey wait! I guess he is supposed to be a Wall Street Stork (The Stock Report, get it? Sheesh...)

Saturday, August 27, 2011

Waiting for Irene at the cabin

I 'evacuated' myself to the cabin in New Hampshire, lol, to play and wait for Mother Nature's wrath further away from the coast. Craig stayed home- one half mile from the coast. We will see if either cabin needs a new roof Monday morning!

I had this necklace waiting to be made, so that's what I did today- Acorns and Fall Leaves!


All of the pieces came from Michael's, Joann's or Walmart, except for the bead caps for the acorns. They came from Anita's Beads.



I know it's hard to see the clasp- it is a set of Vintage Leaves I got at the show in Manchester, NH a couple of weeks ago. If you click on the picture you might be able to see it closer.


Thanks for looking, and good luck Sunday if you are near Irene!



Monday, August 22, 2011

Sweet Peas Growing in Vines

Not so long ago my Mother needed a sympathy card, so we got PTI's With Sympathy out, and started working with it. I, of course, needed baby cards, not sympathy cards, so here is what my cards looked like, lol!!

Those are older SU felt flowers with little gold half pearls in the center. The sweet pea baby is a Lockhart stamp.




Thursday, August 11, 2011

Blue bunnies- or is that white?

I've had these bunnies sitting around for a while; believe it or not they are stamped with PTI's 'new' Spring Rain ink. It worked perfectly for me this time, I could just never get a card to work that week and put them aside until now.

I am so loving Memory Box papers, and have been buying whatever packs I can get my hands on, especially if they are pastel colors. The card base is a Memory Box card, I have a bunch of those, too, lol, and need to use them up!

The 'baby' is cut with a Boss Cut alphabet with Blueberry Sky paper. this car went together so easily I can't believe I didn't think of it before!


Friday, August 5, 2011

May Papertrey Pages- Finally!

I finally finished my May Papertrey Pages, lol... and they aren't quite done yet since I have to investigate what the date was, which means going back to the store machine that can read the bigger card these are on.

The challenge was to use a recent set from PTI, so I took photos of the little boys being space men on top of the car one morning, and teamed it up with
Boy Basics: Out Of This World .


There is a die for the rocket ship of course, but not for the flames...curses!! There are a total of 8 sets of flames on the pages, lol, and they are not so easy to cut!!!


The Space Monkeys paper is by Reminisce, and matches the PTI Rocket just perfectly. I used some of the stickers and embellies as well from the set.


I colored the 8 ships with Copics and Spica glitter pens. The background paper is a green 12 x 12 from SU, and I took a little dotted wood backed stamp and went all around with Versamark, then embossed with clear embossing powder. The background photo layers are Harvest Gold and Summer Sunrise.




Aren't they the sweetest? Laser guns and all!!








Saturday, July 30, 2011

Another Dangler and a Bear in the Yard!




Just to show you can dangle these dear babies from something other than a branch, lol, here he is just hanging from ribbon!




The background is a sticker layer I got for $1.00 at a Scrapbook Show in April, a vendor who does all discount stuff. It is all glittery and sparkly, not caught in the photo. Papers are Enchanted Evening and Spring Rain, plus a bit of the green print from one of the pads-



Little Story:




So last evening in the dusk- I am all alone at the cabin, the DH won[t be in from a hike until midnight. I am sitting inside at the sliders, and look up to see a rather large brown bear ambling up the drive, just like he is Craig coming in from a swim in the lake. Gasp! I jumped up and dragged two chairs to the door and locked it, ran around and closed and locked all of the windows, then got a pan lid and big spoon and stood in the living room banging. It occurred to me that I must look like a scene from Where the Wild things Are. After my heart rate slowed down a little, and 10 minutes passed, I got the camera out and started peering out the windows, but alas, no photos for the blog today. That's ok, he was just a 'wittle bit too close last night. Besides, I think I would have had a heart attack if I had looked out of the window to see him peering in at the cinnamon rolls on the counter.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Darling Dangling Babies

It is easy to say that the new set, Bundle of Love, is by far my favorite! I haven't even inked up the other baby sets in weeks!! I've been dangling that little baby in all kinds of places, lol!! I combined him with Out of a Limb in this one.

I am loving the $1.50 roses from Michael's, paired with a Spring Moss fern punch using the Martha Stewart punch.

Here he is just dangling from the image printed on the Japanese imported paper. I also recently got Simple Phrases- you can see how perfect it is with the baby!









I am not forgetting the girls, of course! More of the Japanese paper and a Martha Stewart branch sticker for the baby to dangle from. Mounted on Sweet Blush, with a Sweet Blush bow and button!


I love that little baby!!


Saturday, July 23, 2011

Neck Deep!

I haven't forgotten I have a blog, lol, it's just that I had to escape the heat and head to the mountains and the lake! I have been sitting neck deep in Conway Lake for the past three days...lol! At almost 100 degrees in New England, we think the world must be coming to an end, lol!! I went and looked for window screens today, and saw a wee little air conditioner-lol, that was tempting! Came home with no screens and no air conditioner- but the lake is just a few steps away so all is good!

I have the camera with me, with pictures of cards on it, so will work at getting something uploaded tonight or early tomorrow... before all the Grands come and the world goes from just hot to hot and chaotic!

Good thoughts to all of you bearing the heat!

Saturday, July 9, 2011

Bundle of Love




At the time Papertrey released the Bundle of Love set, they released a die for the picnic basket from Vintage Picnic. Nichole put the baby face in the basket, lol, and I wanted to hug her when I saw it!




Here is my version- on kraft, with a score line anchoring the stork and basket. Stork is outlined with a white pen, and there is Chamomile around the edges (hard to see in this exposure). The blue basket liner is the smaller print from Men of Life-




Enjoy!

Friday, July 8, 2011

Pink Inside and Out Baby

I broke one of my own cardinal rules of baby card making here- the nurses have taught me that (at least for them!) just adding 'sweet baby' to the front of a card does not make it a baby card. Color is of particular importance to them, so I think I am ok here- a nice soft baby pink should make it feel like a baby card even though there is nothing other than the sentiment that makes it a welcome baby card.

This is so much prettier IRL then it looks here. The Memory Box paper is a soft pink, and the silk ribbon is so so so pretty! Those little paper roses are from the dollar bins at Michael's- except the dollar bins are now $1.50, lol!! The green layer is an old Anna Griffin print, and the base card is Papertrey's Sweet Blush.



The label is a Cuttlebug embossing and die cut at once set; this is my first use although I have had if for a few months. It's hard to cut just one at a time; there are several in the folder. The edges did not come out perfectly smooth, but a teensy bit of sanding took care of that- for a very pretty result!


It's a large label, which is why I bought the set- to accommodate some of the bigger sentiments from the PTI Inside and Out set. This way, I can layer them on the fronts of cards.

I'm also playing around today with a new photo editing program. Our PC has done the 'Critical Error! screen, and none of the programs are accessible. That leaves me with the laptop until the back to college sales come out. In addition, I took the photos outside- lol, when you live in the woods this is not such an easy task!

Sunday, July 3, 2011

Baby Boy Basket





No lie, the boy:girl ratio of births continues to be off, there are way more boys being born than girls. I really need to google around and see if it is a trend others are reporting! It means I struggle some days to get just boy cards made, lol!


The image is from Stamp of Excellence, a very sweet image that looks wonderful when you do it up vintage. this time, though, I did it up citrus! The paper is DCWV Citrus, and the little pom-pom ribbon is from Wrights. The layers are PTI's Lemon Tart and Enchanted Evening- very citrusy!

Wednesday, June 29, 2011








3 pretty easy baby boy cards here-All with PTI's Spring Rain put through the older Cuttlebug baby emboss and dies set. The 'Welcome Baby' die comes with the set. The 'happy' die is from PTI's new words dies. 'New Baby' is a PTI stamp as well. Welcome, Little Baby is from their Baby Button Bits set, it has the word 'bee' on the end, but I cut that off, lol. Just little bits of leftovers here and there... and a wee bit of glue put on those die cuts very carefully!!




Another Sweet Pea

I had great plans of showing 4 cards today, lol. but Blogger is being a Booger- and says my photos can't load... well, I guess I won't complain about a free service, lol!

So here is a sweet little pea, one of my favorite images from Lockhart Stamps; I use it a lot! Just colored with Copics, layer on a New Leaf scalloped oval, place on some pea looking paper, tie a retired SU ribbon that matches New Leaf along the edge, add a PTI pea green button... and well... there you have it!

Sunday, June 26, 2011

July Birthday

I don't have all of Papertrey's Year of Flowers series, but some day I will- I think I have all but 4, and recently I got the set of smaller ones. Unfortunately, that set arrived after I sent this card to the buyer- it would have been great with a little Larkspur in Versamark under the Birthday sentiment inside. Next time!

I put the Larkspur image on Stamper's Select in Memento Onyx Black, then rubbed on Plum Pudding and Lavender Moon ink with a Q-tip. The green stem was done with a Copic, just a single color, no blending. I also stamped the word 'July' from the set off to the side.

I cut the image out with a Spellbinders Label die, and added some matching rhinestones on the die cut.




I layered the image on a piece of Memory Box paper with colors that match Plum Pudding and Lavender Moon, then stamped Birthday on a Spellbinders label and set that on two layered ribbons, and wrapped it around the patterned paper. I placed all of that onto a square of Plum Pudding paper.


Lastly I cut the word 'happy' from the new Wonderful Words dies. The words are very narrow, but I used the blue glue pen with the tiny tip to anchor it down. It needed more depth, so I added just a wee bit of sparkle to the centers of the flowers; a matching butterfly finished it off- Really pretty~ and I am so glad I got out these flowers again for birthday cards this month!!

Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Take Three: Spring Boy Bunnies


Isn't it sweet? That is New Leaf paper cut with a new punch. the bunnies, beleive it or not, are stamped with Ppaertrey's non-functioning Spring Rain ink. It functioned fine this time, lol!! It did seem to look better with Blueberry Sky paper, go figure- and that's a Michael's ribbon that matches New Leaf well enough.



Just got a punch in the gut- my brothers son who has multiple handicaps (and is 24 hour care) has just been denied funding for the rest of the year. That means he will be turned out of his 'school' on Friday, and must come home- with no care providers. He is over 18, and Social Security should be covering him, but who knows how these things work- not me. Apparently the money is funneled through the state, and the State of Maine has said no, sorry, we have no moeny. My brother is too shocked to explain to me how that works. My first response was 'let's go put him on the governor's steps with a sign that says 'homeless' and see how fast they send him back to school, since we have no legal obligation to care for him (since he is over 18). Ok, other than that, let's all gather our calendars and see how many days we can each give without losing our jobs. Monday, July 1, we will sit down together and figure out what the options are, and which of us will have to quit their job to care for him.

If any of you are going through this, or have been through this, can you let me know what the options are??

Thursday, June 9, 2011

The hard CAS



Is it just me,or do you, too, find CAS cards some of the hardest to do? Seems like CAS is a misnomer, actually.



There's just two stamps on this card, but lining them up straight, and getting a good relationship is not easy! Not to mention getting a good coverage with embossing powder, lol lol lol!!



CS is PTI's Spring Rain and Lemon Tart. Ribbon (wide gingham is some of my favorite ribbon!) is from Joanns. The duck stamp is by Inkadinkado, the sentiment is from SU's Bursting With Joy.



The bow, by the way, was done with the Bow Easy I got from Gina K. I used her tip to tie a thread around the ribbon then put the bow on top to make it look like the bow was tied with the ribbon all in one move. Lol, it looks impressive even to me!

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Finally!

I keep checking my blog every day, and when there's no new post on it, I think I must be sick or away, lol... Ok, since I haven't posted in almost a month, I'm not sure what I am thinking I should see. So, I haven't been sick and I haven't been away- just can't get the time to photograph and edit and post and edit the post. Now that's a lame excuse, so here goes...



I bought the Art Impressions fat ladies stamp at the May Scrapbooking getaway, and have been waiting for the chance to use it. A birthday in July is just the thing!


I confess I colored it just like the picture that came with it, since I needed to color by numbers the first time. Now I have done that, I can do it differently next time. That's the way I work, usually an exact copy of something I have seen the first time, just to get the juices flowing.



How funny is that? The sentiment ends 'friend.', but I was able to make a little s pove the period and change friends to plural- phew! I drew the little martini glass freehand to get it the size I wanted. It was a bit nerve wracking to draw it, but it came out just fine! The red retired SU paper has some glitter on it, and is just so fun!