Belle Papier {pretty paper}

Another quick little project that I made last week. With Spring so busy at my house, I’m sure it is at yours as well! Quick fun projects are perfect for squeezing in this time of year. I found this darling little mini-album at Michael’s in one of their dollar bins….well, $1.50 bins here in Canada! This little album measures approzimately 3×3″ and comes in the cutest stripe. The album is part of the Laura Ashley line.  It has a flower on the front already, but it is such a perfect surface to have fun with, I covered it up with a scalloped punched circle.

This is a little different than my usual style…it is always fun to experiment and try something new! This would be a great end of the year project for girls. I have a daughter heading off to high school next year…i thought this would be a fun little gift for her friends to keep all those wallet sized school photos in. I like the bright color combo, even though I rarely use it. Pink Passion, Tempting Turquoise and Old Olive. I always like mixing up the SU color families…I think it gives them a fresher look!

To alter the front of this album, I punched out a huge scalloped circle with theGiga Scalloped Circle Punch by Marvy. Wow these things are hard to get a hold of! I had my local stamping store order one in for me special. I added to the edges, I sponged on some Tempting Turquoise ink around the edges and the pierced the scallops with my Making Memories paper piercer for a fun quick little detail.

For the main image….I first stamped the dashed circles from the Funky Florals set by Lizzie Anne Designs using Pink Passion stamped off once first. I did this a few times until I had a nice overlapping little background. I then inked up the large stitched flower from the same set with my SU markers and stamped directly to the scalloped circle, just left of the middle point. After inking up the flower again, I also stamped  onto a scrap of white cardstock and then cut out the main flower petals and adhered to the center of the flower to get a fuller petal look. For the center of the flower, I added a dab of crystal effects adn then sprinkled with some fun aqua colored microbeads that I picked up at Michael’s.

To finish off the design, I stamped Hello just to the right of my flower and then adhered the scalloped circle to the mini album. The mini Prima flower is set with a Making Memories Crystal brad and then adhered to the front of the magnetic tab with a glue dot. I had to try out a little of my new striped ribbon from Sweet Miss Daisy so I tied it onto the tab closure as well. You can never go wrong with a little ribbon for a girl project, right?!

Supply List:

Cardstock: Whisper White - Stampin Up

Stamps: Funky Florals - Lizzie Anne Designs

Ink: Pink Passion, Tempting Turquoise, Old Olive - Stampin Up

Other: Laura Ashley mini album - Michael’s, ribbon, Prima Got Flowers - Prima Marketing, crystal brad - Making Memories, Glue dot - Stampin Up, Giga Scalloped Circle Punch - Marvy, microbeads - Michael’s

I’m so excited I just had to share! My day started out great…10 am brought a fabulous parcel with my order from Jacksonbelle! Lots of yummy new goodies I just could not resist! Yay!!!! Pretty great mail day!!!

 I was making dinner tonight and one of the kids says…Mom, a delivery truck is here. Could it be?! YES!!!! I was so excited! Dinner had to wait! A fabulous box full of new goodies but the most exciting thing was two copies of Cards Magazine May 2007 issue! My very first four cards in print! I still high about it!

Tonight after visiting my mom and giving her one of my Cards copies…I stopped by the Post Office. My mail person had left a Delivery Notice in my box and I had to go sign and pick up the parcel. It was my MIA parcel of stamp sets from Lizzie Anne Designs. Yippee! I’ve been haunting my mailbox for it for the past three weeks!

So now I have new magazines, new stamps, new paper, new ribbon, new ink, new embellishments…I just need some TIME! That is the only bad part LOL! Tomorrow is busy with appointments and I’m going to have to wait until later to have some fun! I guess I’ll just have to be happy with finding a few seconds here and there to peek in my boxes!:)

I’ve been wanting to try this out for some time….I recently came across a couple Stampin Up notecubes that I bought a couple years ago. I believe they are now retired (someone correct me if I’m wrong) but I know there are various on-line sources for them. Stamp On This sells note cubes, but I have never purchased them from them so I can’t verify their quality. If you have purchased some from Stamp On This or another source, please let me know and I’ll share it on this post.

Edited to add…I received some feedback on Stamp On This…good reviews on the company and the memo cubes are great…even the less expensive seconds. HTH!

Poppy Memo Cube

For this cube, I stamped my beautiful Stampendous Poppies on the sides of the note cube. To get a nice, layered look, I created a mask with some scrap paper. If you’ve never masked before…simply stamp your image on a piece of scrap paper or a post-it note works fabulous. Cut it out and layer over the image you have already stamped. Then stamp the image again, off to the side. This gives a layered look and protects the original image from being stamped on.

Quick Tip: Hold the top and bottom of the cube tightly with your other hand with stamping on the sides to get a clean image.

Having never really used cubes before…I had to experiment a little. I was trying to watercolor the poppies, and would much have preferred that, but it just wasn’t working well for me on the edges of all those paper layers. I had to pull out my markers instead and then color in the poppies. After coloring in the poppies…I decided the bottom edge still needed a little filling in so I used the brush end of my marker to make quick sketched in grass strokes.

To add a little interest and dress up the project a little, I tied the cube with my green striped ribbon from Jacksonbelle. I then added a little tag. To make this, I punched out a little tag from the Kraft cardstock and then stamped my poppies on it. I watercolored the poppies and then matted the tag with Whisper white and Pink Passion layers. After punching the tiny hole in the top of the tag, I tied it on with the striped ribbon.

This project was designed as a quick gift and is very easy to do. Today’s technique challenge TLC115, is to make a teacher’s end of the year gift and as teachers go through a lot of notes, I thought this would be a pretty but practical gift.

Edited to add …

Some reader’s tips:

Use an elastic band to hold the memo cube tightly together while you stamp on the sides.

Drill a hole near the corner of the cube (I’m assuming the corner near to the binding) to hold a pencil.

I was so excited to get some new Snap Stamps in the mail from Ellen Hutson the other day! I’d picked up a couple sets at my local scrapbook store months ago but have been dying to get my hands on the other varieties since! I just LOVE my Snap Stamps by Karen Foster Designs. They are the perfect way to get whatever sentiment you may happen to need stamped. Sometimes you can do this on the computer and I sometimes see designers with awesome handwriting, hand-letter them, but alas…this is not me! If you’ve seen my handwriting, you’ll know that it leaves much to be desired! So ….. for me, it is Snap Stamps to the rescue!

Edited to add…it was brought to my attention that Karen Foster snap stamps were being discontinued. I contacted the company to confirm this and it is correct. I was quite disappointed to hear this! If you are interested in purchasing the Karen Foster Snap Stamps, you may wish to do so soon before they are no longer available.

Snap stamps are darling little alphabet stamps that snap together…hence their name! They come in various sizes from mini, small, medium to large. I love the mini and small sizes…perfect for cardmaking and other small projects. The larger sizes, medium and large, would be better suited for scrapbooking or larger papercraft projects. The Snap Stamps also come in two different fonts….Formal and Casual. The Formal font is my fave but Casual is darling too. I believe it is one of the most popular due to the fact that I have been hunting down the Casual Mini set on-line for months!

 Now the bottom line…the stamps are very inexpensive! Yeah! What more could you want?! For the set I love to use so much… the Mini Formal set…I even purchased two. This way I can spell out the words I want without having to stop midway through the word. Just so you know, each set actually comes with 52 pieces so you do get more than one of each letter…perfect!

And now for the coolest tips…

• Turn a letter upside down between words and  snap together when you are making a phrase. This gives you perfect spacing and keeps your phrase perfectly straight and lined up. It will snap upside down and not ink up…just leaves a space
• Mix up different font sizes…they will all snap together and give you a great fun look.
• Mix it up again and try mixing different fonts…casual

I created the following birthday card quickly Saturday afternoon. Benjamin was going to a birthday party and his friend just loves all things cars…. so I pulled out this darling little race car from the retired SU set, Toy Box. I wasn’t originally going to use a card with this entry…time has been so limited this past few weeks but it seemed to work out perfectly when I had to have a card. I love the Karen Foster Snap stamps for personalizing cards or making unique sentiments. For this card I paired up the Happy Birthday (SU’s It’s Your Birthday set) with CHAMP spelled with my Small Formal Snap Stamps. The dust swirls from behind the card were made with my new So Swirly set from Lizzie Anne Designs. I had them on my desk and thought…cool…I can use those swirls for the race car to get a look of motion. I also thought it would be fun to add in this black gingham ribbon…it reminds me of racing…LOL, what little I know about it!;)

Happy Birthday Champ

Supply List:

Cardstock: Kraft, Old Olive, Whisper White, Ruby Red - Stampin Up

Patterned Paper:

Stamps: Toy Box - Stampin up, So Swirly - Lizzie Anne Designs, Small Formal Snap Stamps - Karen Foster Designs

Ink: Black, Chocolate Chip, Ruby Red, Bashful Blue, Sahara Sand - Stampin Up

Other: Sewing machine, brad - Making Memories, Black Gingham ribbon - Michael’s

Oh so yummy and perfect for summer. You don’t have to bake it and it is great to make ahead! My MIL is here for the weekend and as it is one of her favorites, as well as mine…I thought it would be nice to have a treat. Also, since one of my readers requested the recipe…I’ve been looking for a reason to make it and share the recipe with you.:)

Frozen Mocha Cheesecake

Crust:

1/2 cup butter or margarine

1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup cocoa

Melt better in medium saucepan over medium heat. (Microwave works fine too) Stir in crumbs, sugar and cocoa. Press crumbs into ungreased 9-inch springform pan, bottom and sides.

Filling:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened

11 oz. Sweetened Condensed Milk

2/3 cup Chocolate Flavored Syrup (I use Hershey’s…the kind of topping ice cream)

1 tablespoon instant coffee granules

1 teaspoon hot water

1 cup whipping cream, whipped or 500 mL of Frozen Whipped Topping

Beat cream cheese until fluffy. Gradually beat in milk and chocolate syrup.

Dissolve coffee in water. Add to cheese mixture.

Beat cream until stiff. Fold into cheese batter. Pour into prepared pan. Freeze

This recipe comes from Company’s Coming Desserts Recipe book by Jean Pare. She is a Canadian author of a huge, very popular series of recipe books. I love them because they are so practical and great family recipes. The desserts recipes book is now a classic and was one of the few recipe books I received as a Bridal shower gift 18 years ago. It now looks a little worn as it has received a lot of use in my house.:) Jean Pare and Company’s Coming were a feature article series in the Taste of Home magazine a few years ago. Company’s Coming now has its own web-site…you may want to check it out.

Check back in tomorrow for a {C’est Bon} article featuring a product I love!

I just adore this new Tres Jolie line by My Mind’s Eye! Sooo beautiful! I decided to pair it up with my Lizzie Anne Designs Funky Flowers set to see if I could give them a more vintage look. I also love copper so I decided to try stamping them on the striped patterned paper…a little fun trick I’ve been doing a lot lately…and then emboss them with copper. Copper seems to work so well with the vintage style and colors.

Copper Posies

This card is a top-hinged 4.24″ x 5.5″ card made with Kraft cardstock by Stampin Up. I stamped the darling little circles on the bottom edge of the card before layering on my patterned paper. After embossing my flowers onto the striped layer, I used my small corner rounder from EK Success to create the little scalloped edge on the pink patterned paper. To do this, just remove the corner guard from the punch….it unclips easily…and repeatedly punch along the edge, sliding the punch along after each punch. I sponged the edges of my card and also the pink floral layer to add warmth and add to the vintage look. The pink layer was adhered to the card and then zig zag stitched along the top edge. I also stitched along both sides of the lower dotted layer and then set eyelets along it with my Crop-a-dile. I then stamped the sentiment in Versamark and embossed it with Copper again.To finish off, I added a piece of Antique Brass Hodgepodge Hardware from Stampin up to frame the sentiment.

Quick Tip: Stampin Up makes a fabulous paper piercing and eyelet template (part of their mat pack) that I use all the time for evenly spacing my eyelets and faux stitching. (pages 230-231 in the current catalogue.)

Wishing you all a fabulous weekend! I’m going to be busy today getting ready for some company…check back tomorrow for one of my favorite recipes.

 Supply List:

Cardstock: Kraft - Stampin Up

Patterned paper: Tres Jolie Line - My Mind’s Eye

Stamps: Funky Floral - Lizzie Anne Designs

Ink: Versamark - Tsukinekeo, Close to Cocoa - Stampin Up

Other: sewing machine, pink eyelets - Making Memories, Crop-a-dile - We R Memory Keepers, Small Corner Rounder - EK Success, Copper Embossing Powder & Mat Pack - Stampin Up

Craft Critique has a great article today…a huge carnival of altered items links! Tutorials and loads of ideas…be sure to check it out if you are interested in crafting ideas beyond cards! They also have some great altered project articles over the past few days and I’ve sneaked a peek at the upcoming calendar…there are more altered items articles to come in the next week. Here’s the link…. Crafts Critique ….enjoy!

I just love the Transparency Quote Stacks by Die Cuts with a View! The colors and fonts and quotes are so beautiful. Lately I’ve been brainstorming with how to use them…unfortunately they can be a little tricky to adhere to your project. As you might expect, I usually enjoy stitching mine to the paper and for this design, I created a little pocket to insert a tag into.

This card today is for the Way’s to Use it Challenge that I host each Thursday on SCS. We’d love to have you join us! All levels of experience are very welcome Here!

True Friends

This card is made from a 5.25″ square Bashful Blue card base. I inked all th edges with Chocolate Chip ink for extra depth and definition. White daisies were then stamped all over the card with white craft ink and my favorite Petal Prints daisy flower. Oh how I’m going to miss that set! I then layered on a piece of the darling Lily Kate line paper by Basic Grey and added a double line of stitching up the left side.

Quick Tip: When stitching on transparencies, they can be quite slippery and prone to moving. Hold tightly and stitch slowly to help prevent this.

To create the pocket…I laid the cut-to-size transparency onto the Celery cardstock. Becuase you may get some stress on the seams when the tag is pulled out, I backstitched to help secure them. I decided I needed a little extra layer so I added a very narrow layer of Chocolate Chip behind it.

To make the tag…I trimmed a little piece of Bashful Blue cardstock and made a little pull-tab from some gorgoeus Lily Kate ribbon that I finally broke down and cut. It is adhered to the back of the tag. Both the Lily Kate ribbon and the Lily Kate paper were purchased from Jacksonbelle. On the tag, it needed  some stamping to help define the quote. The “footprints in your heart” part of the quote jumped out at me and I quickly grabbed my I’m Here set by STampin Up….I love it when things like that happen!

For my final touches, I added a gorgeous Prima velvet flower that my sweet friend Michele sent me for Christmas. At the center of the flower is a Life’s Journey Brad by K&Company. I also love to add touches of words around my design and finished off by adding special friend stamped with my Everyday Flexible Phrases set from Stampin Up.

Have you checked out the Papercraft Idol finalists yet?! If you haven’t, you are missing out! So many fabulous designs and the voting process is underway. Actually, you only have until noon Thursday (MST) if you want to cast your vote. The next finalists will be announced on Friday and the remaining finalists given a new theme. Can’t wait to see! My very talented friend Jacksonbelle is one of the finalists along with some other talented designers whose names you may recognize. Congratulations Jacksonbelle! Good luck with the contest!

If you’d like to cast your vote, it is really fast & easy! Just go to Papercrafts Idol!

I’m just playing around some more with the one Lizzie Anne Designs set I own. It has such a darling fresh look I just had to pair it up my Dutch Girl paper from Crate Paper. I love how the flower images seem to have the same design as the flowers in the paper. I’ve been anxiously awaiting the arrival of my other sets. We’ve had some postal difficulties and they seem to be lost in transit! Yikes! Every morning at 10:30 for that past two weeks, I’m anxiously awaiting the post!

Hello Dutch Girl

For this card, I decided to give a smaller size of a square design a whirl for a chance. This card is 4.25″ square, just 1 ” smaller than my normal but it fits perfectly for cutting two square cards from one sheet of cardstock instead of only one! I started off with my Whisper White cardstock base and then layered on the blue floral Dutch Girl Paper. I needed to lived it up so I added a scalloped edge piece of red Dutch girl paper under the edge of the blue. I then added a layer of red to the main central image.

I actually did the image last for this card design. I cut a square piece of white cardstock leaving lots of room for a border with the red. I then inked up my flower stamp…my favorite one of the set….with SU markers in Rose Red, Brocade Blue and Certainly Celery. I once again used first, second and third impressions to overlap the images and give to variety. To pick up the design of the stitching in the flower stems, i added some paper pierced holes along the scalloped edge layer and around the right side of the design.

To finish it off, I tied a celery and white striped ribbon around the image layer of the design and added a tiny safety pin from Creative Impressions for interest. My last step was to pull out another tiny flower from the set and stamp it at the bottom right hand corner. Dutch Girl paper and striped ribbon were purchased from Jacksonbelle.