More is More

Happy Friday!  It’s time for another fantastic sketch from Taylor – TECC70.  I just hated to miss out on the fun last week, so I’m excited to be back!  I needed a get well card for a friend who had surgery last week so I grabbed Doctor’s Orders and was thrilled when the cuppie in bed image seemed to fit perfectly with this week’s sketch!

My TE Dazzled Key Ingredients kit was still sitting out from the cards I posted last night.  The colors in this kit are so cheerful that I thought it would be perfect for a get well greeting…and besides, what’s easier than using something already sitting on your table – especially when it has ribbon right there to match?! I did some paper piecing here and cuppie is stamped a 2nd time and cut out and popped up on foam tape.  Where the comforter folds back is also cut a 2nd time and popped up on very thin cuts of the foam tape.  Buttons were in my stash and the metal clip is from Stampin’ Up!  If you like the papers and colors in this card, be sure to scroll down and see the previous two posts where I also used this KI kit.  If I don’t get my table cleaned up you might be seeing a lot more of this kit.  LOL!

Here’s the inside of the card as well.  I hope you’ll play along with this sketch challenge with us.  You can get all the details by checking out Taylor’s blog.  And you’ll also want to check out what the rest of the Cupcake Crew has come up with:

This week’s Featured Sampler is Gwen Snater.  You’ll also want to hop over to the Stamp a Sweet Impression blog where Our Friday Friend Amy also has a sketch sample to share!  Thanks for stopping by!

Yep, after hardly blogging at all for the past two weeks I actually have two posts today!  And I’m excited about both of them.  This is post #2, so be sure to scroll down if you haven’t already seen my first post for today.  In this post I have not 1, not 2, but 3 cards to share with you!  No wonder I haven’t been blogging – I’ve been saving everything up for one day – LOL!

All three of the cards I have to show you feature elements from the Dazzled Key Ingredients Kit being released today at the Taylored Expressions Store.

There are four different kits being offered as part of the TE Spring Spectacular which debuts today.  These kits are in limited quantity and are an incredible steal at only $12.95 each!

My first card showcases My Mind’s Eye patterned papers, coordinating die cuts, solid color cardstocks plus ribbon all from the Dazzled Key Ingredients.  No stamping here at all – just a scrappy card.  The only things I added not included in the kit were a jumbo white brad and some liquid pearls.  The only punch used was my SU scallop border punch.  Easy-peasy 10 minute card.  Well…ok…did I actually make it in 10 minutes?  Probably not, but you could re-create it in less than 10 minutes!  LOL!

My second card is slightly larger than standard because I really wanted to use this fun frame die cut.  I thought it would be a great way to show off this cute Cuppie image from A Year of Sweets 2.

The image is colored with Copics and I just added some doodles and some Stickles for a sweet little scene.  This frame would also be super fun to create a shaker!

And here’s my third card created with the Dazzled Kit.  The flower is a cardstock die cut and I covered it with Versamark and heat embossed it with clear embossing powder to give it a thick shiny coating.  Again all the cardstock, patterned paper, die cut and ribbons are from the KI.  I added the sentiment from Branching Out punched with SU oval punches and some green and orange crystals.  The cardstock layer behind the flower was cut with a Spellbinders Label Two die.  One again super easy-peasy.

One of the super cool things about these kits is that each one comes with a full color sample sheet featuring cards created by the Baker’s Dozen girls, me and of course Taylor!  So you’ll have lots of ideas to spark your own creativity! To get all the details on these fun kits please check out Taylor’s blog.  And to see lots more samples let’s do a little blurfing: 

Oh and in my earlier post today I said I’d give more details about the supplies used on my Kona card….well have you realized yet that the patterned paper, cardstock and ribbon are all from this same kit?  It was sitting out when I started my Kona card and seemed perfect.  Plus there’s so much there, I could make a ton more cards before running out of stuff.  Anyway, it didn’t dawn on me till later that I kind of cheated since the Kona post was going up before this one.  Oops!  Well, it just shows even more so how versatile these kits really can be!

For those of you wondering about the pup in my post from a few days ago….she’s sitting in my lap as I type this.  More about her later.  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Please join me in wishing a Happy Happy Happy Birthday to my sweet friend Joy!  Joy is one of the most generous, kind-hearted, genuine people I have ever known and I am blessed to call her friend!

My birthday card for Joy is also a sneak peek of a new OCL stamp set that will be available exclusively through eclectic Paperie starting tomorrow (ETA: It’s up today!!) – it’s called Kona and I’m told it’s a big favorite of Joy’s.  I loved the little flower with the word “Dude!”…seemed to make it ok to say “Dude!” to a girl.  LOL!

I colored in our cool turtle friend with copic markers (also from eP).  I chose all the colors based on the patterned paper I planned to use.  That always makes coloring an image so much easier for me – to know it will coordinate with something when I’m done with it.  The dotted wave border punch by EK Success just seemed like a natural here.  Be sure to check out my next post a little later today for more details on supplies used on this card

I also decorated the inside of the card.   It was fun to put this computer generated sentiment on a ribbon slide (cut with a Spellbinders die.)

Thanks Cami for asking me to participate in this fun virtual birthday party for our friend Joy.  You can hop over to Cami’s blog to get links to more Kona sneak peeks and more birthday wishes.

I’ll be back at 8:00 am with another post.  Please be sure to check back.  In the meantime – hop over to Joy’s blog and show her some birthday love!

It’s been another incredibly busy week.  I even missed the TECC yesterday.  Curt is one of the people in charge of a Car Show at our church tomorrow afternoon.  If you’re in SoCal please stop by Bethel Grace Baptist Church – 10:30 for service and 12:00 for the Car Show which will include free hot dog, a bounce house for the kids, a live band and over 20 custom. exotic and vintage cars.

So tonight while working on a bunch of last minute details for tomorrow, our doorbell rang.  It was a soccer mom – we live just two doors down from a school where the field is used for soccer on the weekends.  Another lady at the field had found a little dog, but they were all here from out of town and couldn’t take the dog with them.  Plus we figured the dog was from the neighborhood somewhere….so I volunteered to take her to try to find her owner.  Like we didn’t have enough going on already.  *sigh*

She’s adorable and sweet as can be to me, but she growls as men – including Curt.  She’s fairly clean and has a pink collar, but no tags.  One of the soccer moms had already taken her down to the vet hospital (just half a block away) to check for a chip, but no.

We managed to get some signs up around the neighborhood and we stopped and bought some dog food.  I don’t know what I’m going to do with her while we’re at the Car Show tomorrow.  I sure hope her owners see one of our signs and call soon.  No way can we manage a dog right now and it would break my heart to take her to a shelter.  Please pray that we are able to locate her owners who must be missing this sweet little thing!

If you want to stop by the Car Show Sunday afternoon, we’d love to have you…info here.

Hope you’re having a wonderful long weekend.  I hope to do some stamping on Monday.  Wondering if I can stamp with a little dog in my lap????

Time for another TECC sketch challenge presented by Taylor.  Be sure to hop over to her blog to see the sketch, her sample and all the deets to play along!  I have a friend getting married next month and I decided this sketch would work well for a wedding card with the main sentiment on the front instead of inside.

The wedding colors are several shades of green along with chocolate so that’s where I started as far as colors.  The card base is shimmery white layered with a retired SU dp that is printed chocolate.  The next layer up is celery and that is mounted up on foam tape to give room for that yummy velvet ribbon (from TexasJodyLynn) and the rhinestone brad.  Then another layer of shimmery white which was embossed with my cuttlebug.  The sentiment is stamped and heat embossed with chocolate chip craft ink and Irridescent Ice ep on shimmery white cardstock.  The flower element is die cut with the SU Daisies die and layered with a white prima and green rhinestone brad.  Some KaiserCraft pearls finish it off.

And now it’s time to see what the rest of the Cupcake Crew has cooked up with today’s sketch:

Thanks for stopping by.  I hope you have a great weekend!  I think we might go see Star Trek again!  *grin*

Busy, Busy, Busy and then more Busy, Busy, Busy!  Wow!  Last weekend was a whirlwind starting with my SU class last Friday night and moving on to multiple projects around the house and garden and capped off by the new Star Trek movie at the new local IMAX!  This week has continued along the same vein!  I’m finally sitting down to share my class projects with you.  We had so much fun at class last Friday night!  Since Stampin’ Up! is running a special on designer series paper, each project featured a different line of dsp.

This first card features Walk in the Park from the Ocassions Mini Catty along with the Pretties Kit, Top Note die and filigree brads.  When I made the sample I couldn’t find my Basic Gray taffeta ribbon, but I found it before class so everyone used that instead of what you see here and it looked better!  The sentiment is Sincere Salutations.

The next card features Sweet Slumber Textured dsp (it’s yummy!) and this is a Z-fold card which was our technique this month.  This card was inspired by several I saw in the gallery at SCS and especially by one that Crystal Caspen made for one of my swaps.  I just love this litte Trendy Trees set!

In order to acheive a Z-fold simply start with a standard sized card (5.5″ x 4.25″) and fold the front in half back on itself.  This works whether the card is vertical or horizontal. Then attach your image panel only on the left half so the card can open freely.  This is such a simple thing to do, but really gives a *WOW* result.

The card base here is Sahara Sand and the matting layers are Baja Blue and So Saffron.  I love using dp to determine color schemes.  It causes me to use colors together I might never think of on my own.  A lot of people tell me they are color challenged when it comes to stamping.  A great place to start is with a package of dp along with the coordinating solid cardstocks and some ribbon in one of the same colors.  You can really go a long way with just that.

The third project we did was something I was really excited about.  I had so much fun designing it and it’s super simple!  I wanted to use Raspberry Tart dp and the stamp set Cheers to You.

This just starts off with a piece of cardstock (Regal Rose in this case) 5.5″ x 8.25″.  Score up from the bottom at 1 25″ and score twice from the left hand side at 4″ and 4.25″ to create this very simple pocket.

We made two little card inserts – one to write a message on and the other to hold a packet of kool-aid and one of those little umbrellas for your drink!  Then we just created a little tab from a scrap of cardstock and used a velcro dot to keep the folder closed.  This is really just a smaller version of a photo holder pocket card I used to demo and use as a make & take all the time when I was a brand new demo over 5 years ago.

I knew I wanted to use Raspberry Tart paper, so I chose my Kool-Aid flavor to coordinate.  Since the Kool-Aid packet also has yellow in it I decided to use Yoyo Yellow as my accent color.  This little pocket card could be used for so many different things and the size could easily be adjusted accordingly.

I have to say that the new Star Trek movie ROCKS!  I went into it with some doubts, but WOW what a way to save the franchise from extinction!  Some very clever writing to resurrect and create so many future plot possibilities…characters true enough to the originals to please this original Trekkie from way back…but yet fresh and exciting and not just silly imitations!  I never see movies twice (unless it’s several years later) but we might go back again this weekend before it leaves the IMAX theater.  Seriously – take the time to go see this in the theater – do NOT wait for video/blue-ray!

My blogging might not be quite as frequent in the coming few weeks as we are on a roll with many around-the-house projects as well as getting the yard ready for BBQ season, but I’ll check in as often as I can.  It’s weird, but I’m just not feeling like stamping as much but I know it’s just a short season that won’t last long.  So hang in there with me.  Thanks for stopping by.

Good morning and Happy Friday!  I don’t actually have news to share – that’s just the sentiment from TE Boys Will Be Boys that I used on my card for today’s TECC (Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge – *cupcakes not required*.)

So yesterday I’m working away designing cards for my Stampin’ Up! Class tonight (I don’t usually design so last minute, but I decided to totally change what I wanted to do so I started over) and I’m really happy with my progress and intending to keep plugging away so everything will be cut and ready before I get up this morning.  It’s well into the evening and I’m deciding how much more I want to accomplish and it occurs to me “Oh I need to get the Our Friday Friend post typed up over at Stamp a Sweet Impression.”  Ok – that is totally do-able. I continue with what I’m doing and I happen to pick up my print out of TECC66 and as I start to throw it away I notice that I also printed TECC67 on the same paper.  And it suddenly occurs to me that I haven’t made a card for TECC67 yet.  D’OH!!!!  So I pushed my class stuff aside and got to work.

This card came together very quickly (like I had any choice – LOL!)  I had this SU Sweet Slumber dp out for one of my class cards and this bold polka dot had caught my eye although I didn’t use it for class.  I left it on the top of the stack so I would be sure to use it soon.  This newspaper image was the one I had thought of using for the sketch earlier this week….and I was just really glad it fit so easily.  My EK Success wavy border punch seemed perfect  Some SU Riding Hood Red ribbon and some Kaiser Craft red pearls and a little hand doodling were all the finishing touches this bold patterned card needed.

My intention for the inside was to use the SU sentiment “You’re absolutley fabulous” so this card could be sent to a good friend or used as a thank you or congrats card.  Not until I was well into making this card did I realize that the headline on the newspaper is “Amazing Dad!”  Oh carp!  My choices were to be sure to send this to someone over 40, like myself, who probably couldn’t see the headline without reading glasses, or I could try to change the “dad” to “day”.  Well I chose the latter and it ended up just drawing more attention – I should have left well enough alone.  Oh well!

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

And of course you need to head to Taylor’s blog to see her sample and get all the details to play along with us.  You have a full week now to link your creation.  🙂 

I’m off to clean house and finish my class prep.  I’m pretty excited about the projects we’ll be doing and I’m sorry I didn’t get a peek up, but I’ll be sure to share soon.  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great weekend!