More is More

Happy Friday!  I think if it weren’t for Taylor’s Sketch Challenges I might not stamp at all lately.  It’s a combination of being Summer (I have never stamped as much in the Summer as other times of year), being busy with all the home improvement and organization projects, and the biggest factor by far is the hurricane aftermath known as my stamp room.  I still have less than 5 square inches to stamp in and I can’t find anything at the moment.  It’s so bad that I really almost bowed out this week, but I have a bunch of SU Holiday Mini preview stuff and I really did want to play.  So I kept it really simple and used the Holiday Lounge dp still out on my desk from last week.  LOL!

I used the rub-ons from the Holiday Mini on Ruby Red cardstock and punched it out with the new ornament punch.  I added a rhinestone brad and Riding Hood Red taffeta bow.  Super simple – so much so that I might whip up a batch of 10 or so of these when I get started making Christmas cards in earnest this year.

Now let’s see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has cooked up:

I hope you’ll play along with us as well.  If you didn’t see my last post, be sure to scroll down and watch the 2 minute video.  So simple, so sweet and so true.  You’ll be glad you took a couple of minutes out for it!  Thanks for stopping by!

  Tonight one of the girls in my prayer group told us about a video she had seen on YouTube so we all watched it.  It so touched me that I had to come here and share it with all of you.  It’s only 2 minutes long.  If you’ve ever loved a dog I think you’ll appreciate this and even if you haven’t, it’s pretty sweet.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H17edn_RZoY[/youtube]

Ceasar Millan always says “You don’t get the dog you want, but you do get the dog you need.”  It’s amazing how much joy I’ve found in a tiny little dog I wasn’t even looking for.  I’ve thanked God so many times in the last few months for dropping Tessa in my lap.  She is definitley a reflection of His love for me….even in the smallest things.

It’s Friday and you know what that means…time for a sketch challenge from Taylor…the TESC79.  I barely got this one done.  I just completely ran myself out of time last night and then when I went in my stamp room with less than 45 minutes to spare (I rarely spend less than 45 minutes on a card) I am not kidding you when I say that I only had a 5 square inch space on my stamp table to work in.  I’ve been dying to ink up Compliments to the Chef from Stampin’ Up!  It’s just one of those sets that called out my name as soon as I opened the catty.   So I was excited when I saw that it would fit well with the sketch for today.

Thank heavens for my supply of TE Key Ingredients kits – such a lifesaver when I’m short on time.  I grabbed the Early Bird KI because the colors always remind me of a vintage kitchen.  All the cardstock, dp and ribbon are from the KI.  I added some green KaiserCraft rhinestones and some pearl brads I’ve been hoarding forever!  I rarely ever tie bows on my cards, but I decided to use a bow here in place of the circle element.  The ink I used is SU! Bermuda Bay.

Now let’s see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has cooked up:

As you can see we are a little short-handed this week as several of the Crew had things prevent them from playing, so I hope you’ll take the challenge and join us!  We’d love to see your take on this week’s sketch. Just head over to Taylor’s blog for all the deets!  Thanks for stopping by.

I’m a little late in getting this posted this morning because we went to Disneyland with friends yesterday and it was a late night – lots of fun!  It’s time for another Dirty Dozen Gallery Reunion and this month our challenge was issued by Valerie Stangle (11Valerie11) – fellow SoCal Gal.  The Dog Days of Summer – feature a dog using hot Summer colors.  Well you know how dog-obsessed I’ve been latey so no way I could pass this one up.

I was excited to get a chance to play with this Elzybells doggie image.  Isn’t he so cute?!  I colored him with Copic markers and cut him out with my Spellbinders Label 2 die.  Cardstock colors are Dusty Durango, Crushed Curry, Melon Mambo, Soft Suede – it was fun to play with these new SU! In Colors!  Sentiment is from SU! Teeny Tiny Wishes.  I layered several Prima flowers over a white flower from the SU Pretties Kit and attached them all together with a large SU! brad.  Rhinestones are KaiserCraft – can’t live without those things!

You can view all the Dirty Girl submissions to today’s challenge by clicking here.  I can’t wait to see what everyone came up!

Also be sure to hop over to Taylor’s blog to see the new August Key Ingredeients kit released today as well as some incredible samples made ny members of the Baker’s Dozen.  I promise you do not want to miss those.  I was blown away!

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope you have a great day!

Hey there! Just a quick post as I am out the door to work. Yesterday I got a new *do*….more accurately it’s back to closer to my standard *do*. I had the perm straightened, plus I had my color darkened up a bit. I loved having the curls, but I was getting tired of them. I have always worn bangs and I could just never get used to not having them with the curly hairstyle. I was thrilled when I checked InStyle.com yesterday and saw that bangs are one of the hot trends right now! WooHoo! Anyway – here I am right when I got home from the salaon yesterday. Tessa barked at me when she first saw me – silly dog!  Myhair is not quite as dark as it looks in the photo and a dark color like this always fades just a bit on me so I think I’m going to love it once I get used to it.

I also have a quick card to share.  The other night I was looking through an old Paper Crafts magazine from 2004.  I saw a simple card with a punch art chick and I thought it would be fun to make something similar.

I used the following SU punches:

wide oval (body), word window (1/4 of one for each foot), scallop oval (wings), slot (beak), and the little double squares one (eyebrows).  I doodled around the edge and scored as well.  The felt trim at the bottom is from the dollar bin at Michael’s and the sentiment is hand written.

I gotta run. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

-Jami

Every once in awhile I like to go back and find a project I created when I was in the SCS Dirty Dozen three years ago (crimeny! has it really been 3 years?) and share it here on my blog since we’re allowed to share those exclusive projects after a year.  This time I not only pulled a project *out of the vault* to share here, but I actually framed it and hung it in my kitchen!  Here’s the card I made in September of ’06.

This is one my all-time favorite cards.  I can’t believe I don’t even own this stamp.  I had stamped this chicken and duck image several times at one of our SoCal girls get-togethers (I miss those!) and had it in my file.  I think it’s a Penny Black image.  The chicks in the background are from a Stampin’ Up! set.  I love doing paper tole and that’s what I’ve done with these ducks and chickens – stamped them several times, colored them, cut them out and layered them with foam tape.

I saved this card hoping that some day I would actually paint my kitchen red and be able to frame this card and hang it on the wall.  A year or two ago I found a black shadow box frame at IKEA and put it away with this card.  Well my kitchen is finally red and it was time to mat and frame this fun card!

Here it is matted with some Real Red and Shimmer White cardstock along with some black ric rac.

And here’s another view – you can click on it to see it larger.

It’s hanging on the wall right between the two doorways to the hall and the dining room/office.  It just makes me grin every time I walk by it.  Here’s a wider view so you can see where it is in the kitchen.  It cracked me up that on the wall to the left are two trivet/plaques of more realistic *artistic* roosters.  For some reason I just find the contrast funny.

Oh and you can see that I got the big Decor Elements *eat* up over the doorway as well!  This is available from Stampin’ Up! (through me of course!  *wink*)  When I first saw the DE stuff I didn’t think I’d be able to find a use for them in my very traditional house, but I have this one plus the *laundry* in Real Red in my laundry room.

They are pretty easy to put up and I’m loving them.  I keep looking through the DE catalog now to see where else I could use some.  I have to say that I bought a DCWV sentiment for our bedroom and it is almost falling off the wall.  I am not happy with that, but I love the sentiment so I plan to buy another one in hopes that the one I got is just defective.  Unfortunately I bought it at Linens ‘n’ Things when they were going out of business so I can’t return it.  The SU! ones seem to be so much better quality – at least in my limited experience.

I’ve ordered some fabric samples that I have high hopes for to be able to be worked into kitchen curtains.  I can hardly wait for it to arrive.  I was referred to the fabric source by a blog reader.  How cool is that?  I’ll show it to you when it gets here.  Thanks for stopping by.

Last week in the middle of my Stampin’ Up! Class on clear emboss resist my trusty and well-loved embossing gun died!  Oh the horror!  My wonderful hubby to the rescue with some industrial heat tool from the garage, but I was devasted to lose my old friend.  My Milwaukee heat tool had been given to me by my best friend Ruth when I very first got interested in stamping almost 15 years ago.  Her mom had taken a couple of stamping classes, bought a bunch of stuff, decided she wasn’t going to use it and passed it all to Ruth who didn’t want it.  I can’t tell you how excited I was to open that box as a brand new stamper and find that embossing gun among the many treasures.  Oh the hours I have spent with that tool!  I wanted another one just like it, but being an SU! Demo I decided it was time for me to get an SU! heat tool.  It arrived just in time for me to make this card for Taylor’s sketch today – TESC78.

Along with my heat tool I received my pre-order for the upcoming Holiday Mini.  Customers should be receiving the Mini’s in the next week or so and you’ll be able to order from it on September 1st.  I wasted no time in putting together Wandering Words for today’s challenge.  I decided to pair it with the oh-so-fun SU! Holiday Lounge dp.  Santa’s sleigh was stamped with white craft ink and embossed (with my brand new heat gun) with white embossing powder on Taken with Teal cardstock.  The moon is Sahara Sand cardstock that has been painted with another product from the Holiday Mini – Shimmer Paint.  You probably can’t really see the pretty shimmer in the photo.  The sentiment is from a new rub-on set in the Mini called Merry & Bright.  I finished it off with some teal KaiserCraft rhinestones.

 Let’s see what the rest of the Sketch Crew has cooked up for us this week:

I hope you’ll check out the challenge on Taylor’s blog and play along with us!  Thanks for stopping by.  Have a great weekend!