More is More

Oh Yeah! –
He’s a Keeper!!

Thanks to everyone who sent anniversary wishes to us today.

Happy Anniversary Honey! 

We got married 17 years ago today. I can honestly say it was one of the BEST days of my life! We got married at half past four o’clock on the Saturday after Thanksgiving 1991. Here we are walking up the aisle after saying “I do”.

Wow!  Happy Day!  Here’s the card I made for Curt to say Happy Anniversary.

There’s a little story behind this card.  The other day Curt agreed to stop by Linens’n’Things with me to check the price on something.  As we were driving through the parking lot we passed right by Lowe’s where there was a line of wheelbarrows on display outside.  As we drove by I spotted a woman with an adorable little dog on a leash and I let out my customary “aaaawwwwwww”.  Curt looked at me like I was a little looney and I said “What?  That puppy was cute!”  He laughed because he hadn’t seen the puppy – he’d only seen wheelbarrows.  He said “Wow – I thought you were going to tell me that wheelbarrows are the next big trend in stamping like you said owls were!”  I about died laughing.  I guess wheelbarrows make almost as much random sense as owls!  Anyway I told him that I know I have at least two wheelbarrow stamps and he suggested I fill them with puppies!  LOL!  So I did!  And here’s the inside of the card.

I was originally going to build the sentiment with my JustRite stamper but in the end I decided to print it on the computer.  Card deets – wheelbarrow is a retired SU image, sentiment on the front is from a Whipper Snapper set by Anna Wight, the puppies are part of an image from Art Gone Wild (it’s 5 puppies in a basket – I just cut out the ones I needed.)  The wheelbarrow was first embossed in black and then embossed again in red on a scrap and cut out and mounted on dimensionals.  The puppies were colored with Copics and cut out and also mounted on dimensionals.  The background was sponged using the old SU cloud template.  The circles were cut with my Coluzzle and they are mounted on dimensionals as well.  Cardstock is Real Red, White and Not Quite Navy with dp from the hostess Patterns pack of paper.  I just opened this pack of paper and I REALLY like it!  The layout for this card is Jen del Muro’s current Sketch For You to Try.  It was just what I needed for this image! 

So for us it’s church this morning and a steak dinner out a nice restaurant this evening.  It was fun to drag out the wedding album to find the above photo to share.  Seeing my little 4 year old niece (my flower girl) in the photos really brought home how long it’s been.  I just saw her on Thanksgiving and she’s almost 22 now – a gorgeous young adult.  I imagine we’ll be attending her wedding before long.  Yikes! 

PS – when people see my wedding photos they almost always make a comment about my *short* hair.  My hair was VERY long at that time – and a bright dark red .  (The BIG hair days!)  It was in a fabulous updo that day!

When I was working on my snowflake card (below) for Taylor’s challenge I actually ended up cutting the red dp squares in 3 different sizes while trying to figure out exactly the size I wanted to use.  Since I had some extra squares and I liked the sketch so much I decided to create a second card.

This one is super simple using more of the Holiday Treasures dp layered onto Old Olive and a Riding Hood Red card base.  The focal image was stamped in Old Olive craft ink and heat embossed with clear powder and then punched with the SU square scallop punch.  A little faux stitching, some Riding Hood Red taffeta ribbon and some green K & Co. rhinestones finish it off.  I was going for SUO (Stampin’ Up! Only), but broke down and added the rhinestones.  My apologies to the SU purists –  I hope you still love me!  *wink*

I’m a little bummed out today.  Curt has been gone on business most of the week (thankfully he was home Thursday for Thanksgiving) and he was supposed to be home again around noon or so today, but he got hung up and has to do another presentation this afternoon.  Now he’s hoping to be home sometime tonight.  Tomorrow is our 17th wedding anniversary.  Even though our anniversary is not today, we did get married the Saturday after Thanksgiving so today always holds a special place for me and I’m just missing him.  I am very thankful that he has a job, so I’m trying to focus on that.  I guess I should make an anniversary card for my rocket scientist, huh?  🙂

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you get to play with Taylor’s sketch this weekend!

Happy Black Friday!  Are you shopping today?  I’m certainly not!  But I am planning to enjoy some stamping.  🙂  (Oh and some sleeping in – since I’m typing this up way past my bedtime Thursday night *wink*)

Instead of fighting the crowds I’d suggest some on-line shopping in your pj’s!  Of course you can shop Stampin’ Up! on-line through the link on my SU website and there are some super fun specials this weekend!  AND you can shop at Taylored Expressions where you’ll get FREE SHIPPING with orders over $40 through Sunday as well as the JustRite BOGO sale!

Besides being Black Friday it is of course also Cupcake Friday and Taylor has another great sketch for us to create with – click here to see the sketch and get all the info to play.  I just gotta say – I LOVE how this card turned out and I’m loving the color combo of Riding Hood Red, Taken with Teal and Baja Blue!

I started with a square panel of shimmer white cardstock run through my Cuttlebug with the Snowflake embossing folder and corners trimmed with the ticket corner punch.  That was layered onto Taken With Teal and then onto the Riding Hood Red 4.25″ square card base.  The focal point was created by layering 3 Felt Flurries snowflakes and attaching a super fancy rhinestone brad (forgotten where I got those – Joann’s I think) over punched circles of Baja Blue and Taeken With Teal.  In the photo it might look like one solid square of the red patterned Holiday Treasures dp, but it is actually 4 small squares (as in the sketch) adhered to a TWT panel.  The edges of the Teal panel were covered with Sticky Strip and clear microbeads were applied – gives such a nice frosty look.  The same technique was used on the horizontal strip of Teal layered with Baja.  The sentiment is a rub on from the SU set Chit Chat.  Some teal Kaiser Craft rhinestones on that panel and some Adorn It droplets in the corners finish off this wintery card.

Now it’s time to see what the rest of the Cupcake Crew has cooked up –

And this week’s Featured Stamper is the immensely talented Karen Giron at The Sweetest Thing.

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you had a super Thanksgiving and enjoy the rest of the holiday weekend.

Wishing you an early

I have a little gift project to share and some links and info you’ll definitley want to know about!  First the project – I made these little gift packets for my SU Club Members.

Included is a container of Cosmo Fine Glitter, a little rubber stamp, a wrapped Ghiradelli Peppermint Bark Square and on the back a little sale special just for them.  I used Holiday Treasure dp and Chocolate Chip cardstock to create an insert and a topper for cello bags.   Here’s a close up.

I love my Club girls and feel very blessed to have them!  I hope they’ll enjoy these little gifts and feel the love!  🙂

And now all the news you need to know….

****Stampin’ Up! is having a fantastic Bundles sale today through Monday – it’s a Holiday Extravaganza for you to shop for yourself or for Christmas gifts.  The product bundles are up to 50% off and are in limited quantities so you’ll want to do your shopping ASAP!  Here’s a listing of what’s on sale su-nov-08-holiday-extravaganza.pdf  You can shop with me 24/7 in my on-line store by going through my Stampin’ Up! website https://www.stampinup.net/esuite/home/jamisibley/promotions and don’t forget the Rub on promotion is on through Sunday as well.  If you don’t have another Stampin’ Up! Demonstrator you normally do business with, please bookmark my SU site and feel free to shop with me any time!

****Taylored Expressions has a big sale and some new products starting tomorrow (the 27th) morning.  Be sure you are signed up to receive the TE newsletter to get all the deets!

****My sweet friends Sharon Harnist and Lori Craig have a wonderful blog give-away running that includes SASI stamps AND Copic markers!  I’m sure you’ll want to register so check out their blogs Paperfections and Make a Difference.  Even if you don’t want to sign up for some crazy reason (which I can’t imagine) you’ll still want to hop over and see the cute projects they’ve posted!

****On a very serious note – please take a few minutes to read the blog post *Just Say No* by Julie Ebersole (the highly venerated JulieHRR) on the subject of image harvesting – click here – it’s becoming more and more prevelent and we need to make sure people are aware of this issue before it forces  some talented stampers to stop sharing their creations on the internet!  I already know of some people who refuse to share SU creations because of a few thoughtless harvesters.  Thanks Julie for addressing this issue like only you can!

****In this season of thanks and this season of sharing and giving would you like to send a card out to brighten someone’s day?  To offer encouragement?  I have a couple of opportunities for you.

1.  Holly (Toy on SCS) has posted a request for prayers and cards for her Aunt Marci who is battling cancer for the fifth time!  See her post here.  Please send a card to Marci if you can.

2. Laurie (Lauraly on SCS) has a 12 year old daughter dealing with a brain tumor.  Laurie’s friend Tosh has posted this thread on SCS asking for prayers and cards for little Ali.

If possible please take a minute out of the busy-ness of this holiday season to do something small like sending out a card to these 2 families to say that you are praying for them.  I know from personal experience what an incredible blessing that small act of kindness will be!

Wow!  That was a lot of info!  Is your brain fried yet?  I’ll be back Friday with Taylor’s Cupcake Challenge.  In the meantime I hope you get plenty of pumpkin pie and have lots of blessings to be thankful for! 

Glitter was one of my original loves in stamping.  I used to say *Glitter makes everything better*!  I remember a number of years ago the Art Institute Glitter booth to be one of my favorites at the local rubber stamp convention.  Back then I bought a kit that included several colors of glitter and later added some to that collection.  I even took a whole class on glitter creations with a wonderful local teacher.  Well, let’s face it – glitter is messy – especially colored glitter.  I moved to only using Dazzling Diamonds glitter and eventually just moved away from any glitter, only using occassionally.  And with the advent of Stickles, glitter seemed almost *old-school*.  LOL!

Using that Fire Engine Red glitter from the TE Key Ingredients Kit on my project yesterday re-awakened my love of glitter!  Real glitter is so much sparklier (is that a word?) than Stickles or any glitter glue!  So last night when I started working on my very first Our Craft Lounge card with Bubs the Beaver I decided to rummage through my old glitter collection to see what I might have to add some sparkle.  I found this rich and yummy cocoa colored glitter and applied it with a Sakura Quickie Glue Pen using the Rule of 3 (OK I wasn’t thinking about that rule at the time, it just worked out that way.)  Of course I couldn’t capture the sparkle of the glitter in my photo – so use your imagination!

Bubs the Beaver was stamped on Wausua white cardstock with Brilliance Graphite Black ink and colored with Copic markers, then cut and embossed with a Nestabilities rectangle die in my Cuttlebug.  I added some Kaiser Craft flower rhinestones.  I didn’t have a color that would work so I colored the clear/silver ones with a Copic marker.  Bubs was layered onto a Not Quite Navy mat and then onto a Regal Rose mat cut and embossed with a scallop rectangle nestie.  I traced around the scallop embossing with the glue pen and added glitter.

The designer paper is Paper Salon from eP.  I cut a small strip of Close to Cocoa cardstock and added a line of glue with the glue pen and a ruler and applied glitter there as well.  The wavy ric-rack looking piece is actually a piece of Doodle Bug Paper Frills (it was white but I colored it with a Copic).  The sentiment was stamped on dp and punched with my SU large oval punch.  I then layered it onto a NQN wide oval, but it was too big so I used my scallop scissiors to trim it down before I added an outline of glitter.  The flower brad is SU and started out silver until I colored it with a brown Copic and then added a rhinestone brad to the center.  Three brown Kaiser Craft rhinestones are the final touch.

This card cracks me up.  When Joy first told me they were going to have a Beaver stamp set I just wasn’t sure what to think, but this little guy is so cute and different and I love the sentiments in this set!  OCL has some sets in deeply etched already die cut cling rubber (unmounted, but ready to slap on an acrylic block) and some sets in clear.  And I believe they might have a few sets with a choice of either.  So if you have a preference be sure to check that out when you order.  Bubs is a rubber set.  I did get a clear set, but haven’t had a chance to play with it yet.  I’m NOT a fan of clear stamps, but I do buy them occassionally.  The OCL rubber is very high quality and the sets come on panels similar to (but smaller than) the TE Stamp a Sweet Impression sets.

Again I want to offer a big CONGRATS and WOO HOO to my friends Joy and Cami for their new OCL venture!  I love you ladies and wish you all the best!

Thanks for stopping by.  I’m off to work.  I’ll be back tomorrow with a little SU gifty item.

The morning I was preparing to leave for Texas I decided it would be fun to put together a little scrappy challenge packet for the girls staying at Sharon’s house.  I was still finishing it up when Darla came to take me to the airport. 

The Challenge rules were very simple

***Create a card or 3D item and post it on Monday 11/24/08

***Use at least a portion of each item in the packet

***Add anything you like to these materials

***Have FUN!!!

Here’s a picture of what was included in the packets.  It was just some swatches of designer paper from that pad of Me & MY Big Ideas patterns I bought at Michael’s recently along with some white grosgrain ribbon and a couple of buttons.  I thought it would be really fun to see what my friends might do with those circle elements especially.

I decided to create a genie bag and I had a blast playing More is More with it.  (Also known as *when you think you’re finished, add one more thing!*)  The base panels adhered to the mini white lunch bag are standard card sized (4.25″ x 5.5″) and I added tabs punched with the SU round tab punch with ribbon slots punched with the slot punch.

The Santa image was punched with my SU scallop circle punch and then layered onto cardstocked punched with various Marvy punches.  The Kiwi layer was run through my Cuttlebug with the Snow Dots embossing folder.  That layer was then adhered to a white layer and the white layer was closely trimmed with scallop scissors.  The tag was created by stamping the sentiment from SASI Season’s Sweetings onto a tag from the Tag Treats available at TE and then simply cutting it down to size and rounding the bottom corners.  This is a great way to make tags of various sizes and they’re such a good value I don’t feel like I’m “wasting” them!  I added some snowflakes from Snow Burst and a snippet of the dp (which I had already cut off the bigger peice to make it fit.)  I also added square green Adoro tiny rhinestones.  I looped ribbon through the tag – if you look closely you’ll see that I did use some of the white grosgrain from the challenge kit.  I wanted some bling so I added Fire Engine Red glitter (using a Sakura Quickie Glue pen) in several places – the red circle under Santa, the edges of the dp, the edge of the tag.  I couldn’t get it to really show up in the photo, but it really adds a lot IRL.  I put some white embroidery thread through the buttons (I just hate nekkid buttons!) and attached them with mini glue dots.  Then I just had to add some Liquid Pearls to the Kiwi scallops.

The final touch is the ribbon handles.  I used SU striped grosgrain and Basic Grey Sultry brads.  I rarely tie bows – I think I must have been channeling Taylor!  LOL!  So what do you think?  Did I get back to my *More is More* roots?  Now I just need to find a gift worthy of my special little scrappy bag!

I’m not certain who has had a chance to play, but I’m anxious to hop around and find out – Sharon, Lori, Jenn, Jess (since she hasn’t blogged in over a year we’ll see!) and Taylor.

Thanks for stopping by.  Happy Monday and enjoy the short week!