More is More

Do you ever see a card that just sticks with you and you know you want to make one like it? Well that’s what happened to me here. My friend Amy showed me a card she was going to be doing at her next workshop and mentioned she had CASEd it somewhat from the SCS gallery. It was a little chick on top of a BIG egg and I just thought it was sooo cute. As soon as I got the little Stampendous chick from eclectic Paperie I had to make my version of the card (which I had only seen once briefly) and here it is.

Then I knew I needed to find the original card that had inspired Amy and subsequently me…so I asked Amy and she pointed me to this cute card by Tracy-Stamper. Haha – so that is how you CASE a card without ever having seen it! Mine turned out pretty different, but the concept is Tracy’s. 🙂

Base is Regal Rose cardstock with my brand new Dotted Background stamp inked with Regal Rose and the addition of a strip of Petals & Paisleys designer paper. The egg is punched with a Marvy Mega Oval punch out of the same paper, but then I sponged over it with Pretty In Pink ink and covered with Crystal Effects so it’s very shiny. Grass is made with the Daisy Fields wheel and the clouds were done by sponging Bashful Blue over the SU clouds template. I added some dots with Itty Bitty Backgrounds, some Queen & Co. brads and layered onto Marigold Morning CS with distressed edges. I was so thrilled when this sentiment from God’s Blessings fit just right in the space I had – it’s a wonderful sentiment for an Easter card! I had some Marigold satin ribbon from Fabric Barn for the perfect finishing touch with just a little pink gingham too. This is one of those cards that just tickles me. I rarely make multiples of cards (except for Christmas), but I just might need to make another one of these. I love that little chick!!

I hate to do it, but I’m switching back to my old blog template (hopefully just temporarily) while the tech guys try to figure out what is up with comments and why some go through and others don’t. So please try to leave me a comment on this pink template with the tulip – without my very own custom banner. *sad face*

On a happy note – I played the SplitCoast Sketch Challenge tonight! I used to play the challenges all the time and I have really missed them. Todays sketch was a simple and very versatile one so I made this fairly quick card for it.

The card base is another one of those patterned cards from Die Cuts With a View – really fun to work with. The main image is from a clear stamp set by My Favorite Things. The rest of the details are in my SCS Gallery. I’m wanting to do a blog candy give-away, but I need to get the comments problem fixed first – so be watching! Thanks for stopping by.

Another long note – I just love this size card! This time I used a Cool Caribbean long note along with my brand new SU set God’s Blessings. That set has been on my wishlist ever since the catty came out last June. I’m so glad I finally got it. I think it will be great for making encouraging cards as well as cards for all occassions.

The cute birdie image is from Magenta and I picked it up at the Carson Rubber Stamp Convention a few weeks ago. I drove all my friends crazy as I stood with 2 stamps in my hand trying to decide which to get. I debated and debated. *eye roll* Magenta stamps are a bit on the expensive side in my opinion but I just had to have these adorable birds (the other image I was considering was a single bird holding a flower). Of course you can’t tell from the photo, but the birds are colored in with Pebbles pearlescent chalks – such a nice shimmery finish! I also used them to highlight the words of the sentiment.

The slit punch was used to create a place to slip the gingham ribbon through. Don’t ask me what possessed me to tie a bow – I always tie knots – and now I know why – this turned out goofy – oh well! Of course I needed a little bling so a large rhinestone brad is the finishing touch here.

I apologize that some of you are having trouble posting comments while others are going through just fine. The tech guys at the host are looking into it. I’ve heard that if you clear your cookies it will work if you’re having trouble. Please go ahead and try to comment if you’d like. Thanks for stopping by!

WooHoo!!! Check it out – Curt helped me make my very own banner today – TWICE! Yes, I said TWICE! It was quite the interesting process since we recently got Photoshop 5.0 and neither of us knew much about it yet. I was planning to have a banner made professionally and I was showing some to Curt this morning (and commenting how my friend Andee had made her own with some digi scrap stuff) and he asked if I wanted him to help me make a “temporary” one. 5 hours later we were almost done…almost! And then it happened…the electricity went out ever so briefly. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!! Do you think we had saved along the way? Of course not! I was crestfallen and ready to give up, but Curt convinced me it would be so much faster the second time around! And of course he was right. It only took about an hour or so the second time. So now I have my very own homemade banner. Pretty cool huh? I’m grinning from ear to ear! Let me know what you think. I might be tweaking it some more – we’ll see.

I have also added Feedblitz subscription service – so please feel free to subscribe if you’d like to get an e-mail whenever I update. Thanks so much for reading. Hope you’re having a great weekend.

I guess the saying for today is…If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again!!!

I haven’t been very motivated to stamp this week, but I’m sure it will be a quickly passing phase! I did put together this card over the past couple of days (colored the image one day, worked on layout the next and finished it off this morning). It’s a pretty simple card – just playing with a few new toys. When I went to the Rubber Stamp Convention in Carson a couple of weeks ago I fell in love with this Inky Antics Basket Full of Puppies image and just had to have it….even though I had already bought my self-imposed limit of 1 stamp that day (crazy huh?). IA didn’t have any good sayings to go with these cuties, so I went across the way to the Printworks booth and found this “count your blessings” sentiment and decided it would be great with the puppies – and verstaile for other stuff as well! So this is my first attempt at working with these images.

The card base is from an assortment of patterned cards by Die Cuts With a View that I picked up at Michael’s awhile back. I thought they would be great for quick cards with my Marvy scallop punches. The fun stripes seemed to go with my puppies too! I stamped the base with one of the Big Pieces in chocolate chip ink, added some brads, red hemp and some piercing for a “quick” card that took me three days to finish! LOL!

Oh and I almost forgot…have to share two fun blog happenings I came across today just in case you haven’t seen them…My friend Taylor has some awesome blog candy you can sign up for (click her blog link from my roll on the right)….and Julie has a wonderful story about Carol Duvall you just gotta read (see JulieHRR in my blog roll).

It’s funny – I keep feeling like I should blog in the morning, but I never seem to get to it till evening or even late at night. I’m sooo not a morning person so I don’t know why this surprises me! So tell me, is it ok to blog at night?

Wanted to share a fun quick project I made last night….it’s a genie bag! What’s a genie bag? Well it’s a concept introduced on SCS by Jen Del Muro quite some time ago – her sceeen name is genie1314 so everyone just started calling them genie bags! 🙂 I love this concept because it is so very versatile! {Thanks Jen!} And I love that she does one each month in the Dirty Dozen Gallery!

Starting with a white lunch sack of any size you simply cut cardstock to fit the front and back and use various punches to create the handle – here I used the word window punch twice. In the past I had only made the mini genie bags with the really small white lunch sacks, but I needed to wrap a little birthday gift last night and I saw some standard size white lunch sacks in my closet (I have a zillion from Smart’n’Final) and decided to do this larger genie bag. I cut down the top of the bag a bit and attached the cs and designer papers sized 6″ x 8″. I stamped the upper portion randomly with Polka Dots & Petals in Caribbean, Pixie, and Chocolate inks. The ribbon is from my Costco stash. Then I layered 3 Primas and attached with a big rhinestone brad (sheesh I think I’ve used those things on every project lately!) The letters were cut with my Cuttlebug and adhered with glue stick. To finish off and close up the bag I used my brand new SU tab punch – folded it over, stapled it and covered with a tiny Prima and rhinestone. Really a very quick project.

Oh and btw – thsi bag is for another friend named Jen who just had a bday! *wink*

What a fun afternoon we had! Curt and I decided to visit Rancho Los Alamitos. It’s only 10 minutes from our house and Curt had never been there before and I hadn’t been since high school. What amazing history is there! We got to tour the ranch house that was partially built in approximately 1800. We had a fantastic docent and there were only 4 of us on the tour. That is unheard of at any attraction in Southern California. We did see two other small tours going on while we were there. I’ve never seen so few people at a historical site. It was the perfect warm weather to walk through the old gardens and tour the house and barns. There were chickens and HUGE horses and other animals – being a city girl I love getting to see these animals close up like that!

On our way we stopped at our favorite little sandwich place and picked up lunch to eat outdoors there under a Brazillian Pepper tree. I love picnics…even if it’s just a quick sandwich

We learned some wonderful little tidbits of California history, for example how palm trees ended up here in our desert climate. Right around 1920 the Mayors of all the cities up and down the coast decided they needed to change the “Wild West” image of Southern California and came up with the idea of bringing in Date Palms from (I think it was) the Bahamas (or somewhere like that) to transform the area into a “tropical paradise”. I’ve always known the palms weren’t native, but never knew where they came from or why.

The front yard of the house has 2 of the hugest trees I’ve ever seen they are Moreton Fig Trees – I’m standing in front of one for scale. If you live in SoCal and appreciate history I would encourage to take an afternoon to visit Rancho Los Alamitos. It’s free and no reservation is required. The tour might be a bit boring for kids – take them when they are having a special event like California Ranch Day June 10th – but we found the whole experience fascinating!

I’m having touble getting the hyperlink to work so here’s the website if you’d like to check it out:
https://www.rancholosalamitos.com/