More is More

Have you ever had one of those days where nothing seemed to go quite like you planned and you just had trouble focusing and really accomplishing anything?  Well today was one of those days.  I’m not really sure why, but by dinner time I was close to tears.  In reality several important things did get accomplished like the oil change for the car and the guy from the alarm company coming to check the system along with several other things.  There were lots of little frustrations like a check I deposited being lost by the bank (not yet resolved) and being charged for a missed appointment by our Doctor when in reality Curt did cancel the appointment (I got that one taken care of).  It wasn’t an unusual day but for some reason I just felt frustrated and icky.

Fortunately the day ended on a wonderful high note when I had the opportunity to stop by the 16th birthday party of Deanna (my friend Darla’s daughter).  I had offered to go over and take some photos.  Deanna wanted to do a craft at her party (a girl after my own heart!) and I was happy to help with that.  She and her Mom found these notebooks at Big Lots – Kraft with a red fabric band at the top and black coils.  They are approximately 6″ x 4″ and come with a matching pen.  I made up a sample a few days ago to give the girls some ideas and then I cut up a bunch of different designer papers and solid cardstocks for them to use.  I also bought some alphabet stickers and ribbon along with loaning some stamp sets and ink pads.  I could hardly wait to see what everyone came up – I wasn’t there while they were crafting.

Didn’t they turn out cute?

The top middle one is my sample and the rest are what the girls came up with.  I’m so glad they enjoyed the project.  Of course once I made my sample I had to run to Big Lots to buy a bunch of these notebooks at $1.50 each.  Most of the ones I got have a black fabric band rather than red.  I guess now I’ll need to incorporate them into a class sometime in the future – be on the lookout.  *wink*  So much for my self-imposed ban on buying alterables.  I just couldn’t resist!

Here I am with the birthday girl.

Remember being a teenager?  LOL!!!!

Those rabbit ears just never get old!  bwahahahahahahaha!

I’ll be attending a bridal shower tomorrow (for the goofy girl in the turquoise top in the front row – she’s not a teenager.  Hi Heather!)  so I’ll share the card I made for her soon.  I need to get a photo before I go tomorrow.  Have a wonderful weekend.  Thanks for taking time to stop by.

Oo La La!  Shopping in Paris!  Isn’t this Rubber Romance image so FUN?  And it just seemed to fit today’s Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge (follow the sketch – cupcakes not required) just perfectly.  Click here to go to Taylor’s blog for details and please come play with us!  You just might become a featured stamper at Taylored Expressions!  This week’s featured stamper is Carol at Happiness Blooms.  Hi Carol!  Congrats!  I was very lucky to meet Carol IRL at CHA this Winter and I love her blog! 

Here’s my take on this week’s sketch.

I honestly really love this card and I think it’s because I actually made it over a three day period – continually adding more and more detail (further proof that More really IS More! *wink*).  Lately I just haven’t been all that happy with a lot of my stamping…maybe because I seem to always be in a hurry to finish something.  But this card was truly joyful and satisfying!  I got the vast majority of it done in the first sitting, but then put it aside to decide later on embellishments.  Here’s some of the deets –

• image was stamped on shimmer white cardstock and colored with Copic markers and SU Metallic Pencils

• shop windows are covered in Crystal Effects

• clouds are covered in white flock adhered with Crystal Effects

• Real Red and Cool Caribbean panels are embossed with Cuttlebug folders Swiss Dots and Textile Texture

• silver SU ribbon slide is embellished with a mixture of Crystal Effects and Real Red re-inker.  I put it in the groove with the tip of a toothpick.  It looks awesome!  Thank you to whoever came up with that clever idea…certainly wasn’t me!

• trees are highlighted with Stardust Stickles

• black panel is outlined with Polymark white pearl irridescent fabric paint (generic liquid pearls)

• red corners are snipped with the SU ticket corner punch and saffron brads are added.

• card base is So Saffron

I’m anxious to check out all of the samples created by the rest of Taylor’s Tarts (bwahahahahhaha – I crack myself up!)  Join me in some blog hopping –

Stephanie Hargis: Steph’s Stampin’ Stuff

Sherrie Siemens: Card Creme

Vicki Chrisman: This Art that makes me Happy

Mary Jo Albright: Beauty Lies Within

Monika Davis: M.A.D. Stamper

Lynn Mercurio: Stamperosity

Ana Wohlfahrt: Ink A Stamp

I’ll be without a car for most of today.  We dropped my car off last night at the dealership for an oil change. I have more than enough *stuff* to do around the house to keep me busy…and of course there’s always stamping!  *wink*  I have a super busy weekend scheduled plus tons of fun next week (I’ll share about that later), so don’t worry if I’m a little bit scarce over the next week or so.  I’ll stamp when I can and post when I can. 

SPECIAL SHOPPING ALERT!

If you are in or near SoCal – the L.A. Furniture Mart will be open to the public this weekend for a special sample sale with prices up to 70% off designer furniture pieces!  The Mart is usually only open to interior designers, so this will be a cool opportunity if you have some time available.  Hours are:  Saturday 10-5 and Sunday 11-4.  The Mart is located at 19335 Broadway.  I won’t be able to get down there, so if you go please please tell me all about it!

Thanks for stopping by.

I want to wish a Super Duper Happy Birthday to Joy tomorrow (Wednesday)!  Joy is the sweetest friend ever and such a blessing to me!  Please hop on over to Joy’s blog or to the eP Forum to join me in wishing her all the best!  I love you girlfriend!  

When I saw Beate’s Weekend Sketch Challenge I just had to play.  I finished this card on Monday, but the thick layer of stickles on the cupcake icing had to dry (there’s tiny rhinestones embedded in there too *grin*) so I decided to wait till today to post.  Darn it I just checked Beate’s blog and the posting deadline was yesterday…for some reason I thought it was tomorrow.  Oh well.  It’s never too late to stamp…never too late to share!

The cupcke image is from the Stampendous/eP set Hey Cupcake and I paper pieced it with Cosmo Cricket Honey Pie paper and used it for the layers as well.  I went a little wild with the circle punches on this one.  LOL!  In the corners I added red square rhinestone brads from SU and I’m not sure how well you can see them, but I also added heart shaped rain drops (Cloud Nine) between the letters of the word *LOVE*.  Card is 4.25″ square with a Real Red card base.

I really need to stop typing my blog posts so late at night.  I forget everything I wanted to say….d’oh!  Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Memorial Day!  Thank you to everyone serving our country and to their families for the daily sacrficies you make.  It’s important to remember that our freedoms have come with a price and have been hard won over our history.  Praying for safety and courage and strength for our deployed military today.

I hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend – we sure did!  Friday early evening we headed over to see the new Indiana Jones movie – that was a blast!  Saturday we decided to go out for a late lunch and we ended up over at the Old Towne Orange Traffic Circle where our favorite antique stores are.  One store in particular George the Second has some gorgeous antique beds we’ve had our eyes on for a couple of years.  They have a wood carver who carves panels to match the beds exactly in order to extend them into King size (since antiques weren’t made in King size).  We finally took the plunge and bought a bed – we’re so excited!  We need to get the bedroom painted first and then we’ll pick it up – hopefully in a month or so.  Curt took a picture on his phone – the lighting was bad, but you can get an idea of what it looks like.  Click the thumbnail to see it larger. 

The weather was cool all weekend and even rainy for part of it.  I’m sure glad we didn’t plan a BBQ because I would have been stressing about that.  But as it was, we were really able to enjoy the nice cool weather.  Today we mostly just hung out and relaxed and I finally got around to doing some stamping.

I was intrigued by the Technique Lovers Challenge on SCS this morning.  It’s called Pick Three and Beth asked us to combine three previous challenges by choosing one of the first 10 sketches, one of the first 10 color combos and one of the first 10 techniques.  Fun huh?  Too bad I ended up not following directions!  D’oh!  I tried – I really did!  I chose CC05 Black and White (even though I don’t usually like black and white cards – figured I would challenge myself) and I chose SC10.  I had a list of the 10 techniques and planned to choose one as I went along, but as I was working on the card it just never happened – I just couldn’t seem to incorporate one of the listed techniques – especially after I decided to use cracked glass on my main image.

Pixie loaned me this beautiful stamp set from Inque Boutique.  Since the color scheme was so simple I decided the cracked glass technique would give the focal image some depth and interest.  The background on the bottom portion of the card is also made from an image in this set and the background on the top portion is French Script by SU.  So here’s my *almost* challenge card for today.  *grin*

Tonight we watched the first half of Andromeda Strain on A&E.  It was much better than I expected and I’m really looking forward to the conclusion tomorrow night.  I read the book years ago, but fortunately I don’t remember much about it so the movie seems new to me.  It’s back to work tomorrow.  I do have another card to share if I get a chance to post.  Thanks for stopping by.

My sweet friend Taylor has been posting her cupcake challenge every Friday for several months now and I’m so excited that she asked me to be one of her *samplers*!  (I don’t think that’s the right word, but hopefully you know what I mean!)  There will be several of us providing samples each week for what has evolved into her sketch challenge – The Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge – cupcakes not required *wink*.  Sketch Challenges are probably my favorite challenges to play since I feel I’m somewhat lacking in original creativity in the layout arena.  And it’s so fun to see a bunch of different takes on the same sketch.  Click here to go to Taylored Expressions to see the sketch and PLEASE come play along with us!  If you upload your creation to SCS be sure to use keyword TECC17.  Here’s my take.

I felt like such a total dork this week when I realized I had completely missed the birthday of a truly fabulous friend so this card is for her.  Of course I started out with the sketch and the next element I chose was this fab and funky dp from the Basic Grey Sultry 6×6 pad.  That determined my color scheme of Chocolate Chip, Old Olive and Pretty in Pink and the fact that I had purchased the matching brads was perfect!  I had the idea to make the focal image into a mini matchbook style card that would open to reveal the finish of the message “You’re absolultey fabulous” – “No, really you are!”  The full size card base also opens to a birthday message.  Oddly enough the last thing I did on this card was to choose the image – kind of backwards I know.  Pun Fun was still out from the card I shared yesterday and the little party birdie was a perfect fit!

I’m anxious to see what the other girls did – come on let’s blog hop together!

Stephanie Hargis: Steph’s Stampin’ Stuff

Sherrie Siemens: Card Creme

Vicki Chrisman: This Art that makes me Happy

Mary Jo Albright: Beauty Lies Within

Monika Davis: M.A.D. Stamper

Lynn Mercurio: Stamperosity

Ana Wohlfahrt: Ink A Stamp

So do you have any big plans for the long weekend?  Curt has been traveling for work this week and I’m just super happy about having him home.  We had thought about having a BBQ, but just never got it together.  We are however attending a church BBQ on Sunday afternoon.  Other than that I think we’ll just play it by ear.  We might need to get to the movies  – both Narnia and Indiana Jones are very high on our lists!  Whatever you do, I hope it’s fun and relaxing.  Thanks for stopping by.

Last weekend I had an opportunity to attend a *More Hours in My Day* Emilie Barnes seminar taught by Sheri Torelli at our church.  I hadn’t bought tickets when they were available because I thought I had another commitmment that day, but that event was cancelled.  My friend Lisa offered me her ticket for free since her plans to go weren’t working out.  I really enjoyed the seminar and wanted to send Lisa a thank you so here’s what I came up with inspired by the Color Challenge on SCS (Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Certainly Celery).

I love the SU set Pun Fun but I haven’t used it much yet, so I have it out in my *Use me! Use Me!* basket (a pretty basket I keep on the floor by my stamp table).  This Thank Ewe seemed perfect. The celery edge was punched with my Martha Stewart border punch and after adhering that panel to the card base the whole card was scored to form a hinged base (glued together inside).  I used some Afternoon Tea designer paper along with some celery dp from the Prints Pack.  The ewe was colored with copics and punched and layered with Marvy oval punches.

In the coming days I’d like to share a few tips with you I learned at the seminar since I think most of us could use organizational help and more hours in our day!  Hopefully reviewing these tips with you will help me to implement some of them as well.  Emilie Barnes started writing books on organization in the late 70’s before there were Container Stores and organizational books galore.  She was one of the first.  Some of the things I heard at the seminar were not new to me, but good reminders.  But lots of little specific tips were new.

***Today’s Tip – Incoming Mail***

As soon as you get your mail sort it – throw away, shred, keep. Have a system of folders set up for the *keep* mail (this system needs to be wherever you first bring your mail into the house so it’s always handy).  You will have a folder for each family member plus  one for household bills AND a Five Minute Reading File.  This was my favorite tip – any catalogs or mail that you want to spend a few minutes reading or looking through goes into the Five Minute Reading File and any time you leave the house for errands take this file with you so you will have something to read when you have to wait for an appointment or for the kids or whatever.  Just grab it and go!

I hope some of you find these tips helpful.  I’m really trying to get back to the ultra organized person I used to be.  Thanks for stopping by!

It’s time for another monthly Dirty Dozen Alumni Gallery Reunion.  This month’s focus is OWLS.  Whoo Hoo!  They seem to be everywhere right now.  I’m a bird-lover, as you know, so I am A-OK with that!  Each month our little challenge has a required element and a restricted element.  This month’s requirement is *texture* and the restriction is no rhinestones, crystals or dew drop type embellishments (you should have heard the groans when everyone heard that one!  LOL!)

The only owl image I own is the adorable A Muse Owl Buddies stamp I won at StampMania so that decision was quite simple.  I wanted to have a moon behind the owls and I was in the mood to try a shaker card, so here is the result.

I started out by stamping the owl/branch image directly on the acetate with Brilliance Pearlescent Chocolate ink and coloring the back with Sharpies.  After the entire shaker was made I decided I didn’t like the way the owls looked so I stamped them again on Ivory shimmer cardstock, colored them with Copics and cut them out and adhered them over the original birds – ahhh much better!  (Further proof than anything can be salvaged!) The shaker frame was made by punching capucchino shimmer cardstock first with a Marvy Giga Scallop Circle Punch, then punching out the center with a Marvy Super Jumbo (2″) Circle Punch.  The acetate piece was adhered to the back of the frame with Tombow Multi and then I used small pieces of double thick foam tape (cut to half width) to form the shaker box.  The backing of the shaker is poison ivory shimmer cardstock as is the card base.

I really like the double thickness (1/8″ as opposed to 1/16″) for shaker cards and you can get it from Tayloredexpressions.  That foam tape is super extra sticky so having non-stick scissors is a life saver.  I have a small pair just for foam tape and sticky strip.  The ones I have are the old discontinued model by Fiskar’s but Taylor has the current model available here.  (Oooo – they’re on sale!)  I had a picture to show you, but I’m having trouble uploading it so take a look at her site.  All my customers LOVE my non-stick scissors in class.  It’s a tool I couldn’t be without!

For texture on this card I ran a piece of the capuchino shimmer cardstock through my Cuttlebug with the Floral Fantasy embossing folder (from eclectic Paperie) and then rubbed it with Versamagic Thatched Straw Chalk Ink to highlight the pattern.  I also heat embossed the Chocolate Chip cardstock panel with the leaf image from Carte Postale using Chocolate Chip Craft Ink and clear embossing powder.  The ribbon is SU Chocolate Chip Tafetta.  The finishing touches include Cinnamon Stickles around the shaker frame along with some die cut leaves and a large brad colored brown with a Copic marker.  The shaker is filled with clear microbeads.

It’s funny because I really didn’t set out to make such a *brown* card.  I actually had some colorful designer paper out as well, but the whole thing was just looking too busy so I nixed the dp and this is where I ended up.  I sure had fun working on this – hope you like it.  Click here to check out all the Dirty submissions – girls will be uploading all day so be sure to check back.

Oh and be sure to check out Taylor’s blog today – she is releasing her first Taylored Kit and I’m sure it will be an adorable and FUN project!

Thanks for stopping by!  Have a great day!