Belle Papier {pretty paper}

It is beautiful and sunny here today! Not rainy at all but as I was thinking about this new It’s Shower Time stamp set by My Favorite Things, I thought about the showers of life we all get. Why couldn’t this image be used as a thinking of you card. And so the inside of this card design (computer generated) reads…Wishing you brighter days ahead.

Just to let you know…My Favorite Things is releasing this It’s Shower Time set tomorrow, Saturday September 1st!

Life’s Showers Thinking of You

I was going through my new Fancy Pants patterned paper when I noticed this Noah paper from the Sweet Pea line looked a lot like raindrops…perfect for this image! I paired it up with some white and celery for a clean spring-like color combo. It is a little hard to see in the pic but the main image is layered over a layer of acetate held in place by the white eyelets along the sides. Into one of the hole, I used a really fun tool from Around the Block…the paper tagger. I received this little green flower charm in a goodie box from cards magazine…also by the same company…and it worked perfectly as a little embellishment for this design. Because the embossed word on the other side wasn’t quite right for this design, I just flipped it over and added a little Making Memories gemstone to the center.

For the main image, I just quickly watercolored the umbrella with my classic inks and my Aquapainter and then added little raindrops with some Crystal Effects. I kept most of the raindrops to the sides and on top of the umbrella to give the effect of it keeping her dry.

The little dotted Celery strips are textured Tape from Making Memories. I just love it! Lastly, the sentiment was added in Black Stazon. I used the Thinking of You sentiment from the Simply Said stamp set.

Supply List:

Cardstock: Whisper White, Certainly Celery

Patterned Paper:Sweet Pea line “Noah” - Fancy Pants

Stamps: It’s Shower Time, Simply Said - My Favorite Things

Ink: Black Stazon, Certainly Celery, Brocade Blue - SU

Other: Textured Tape, eyelets & Gemstone- Making memories, Crop-a-dile - WE R Memory Keepers, transparency - Staples Business Depot, charm & Paper Tagger - Around the Block, edge distresser - HEidi Swapp

A quick card today for the Limited Supply Challenge…that is why it is so easy! I had to pair down what I usually use on a design! As someone who LOVES embellishments…that is a little tricky to do. Today’s Limited Supply Challenge actually involves THREE challenges. I didn’t have much time so I only did one. If you want to play along…if you do all three challenges, you are entered to win a little end of summer prize! To get all the details…check it out at LSC131 . LOL OK Actually as I go to upload…I didn’t quite read the challenge properly …. so if you are going to play along, LOL, make sure you do!

Also of note today… Jacksonbelle is having a weekend sale at Jacksonbelle Embellishements…one my favorite on-line stores. You might want to check it out too. Lots of fabulous new goodies have arrived from CHA and more are still to come!

Autumn Daisy Thanks

For this design, I used some of my brand-new Fancy Pants patterned paper from Jacksonbelle. While I didnt’ actually use any autumn-themed stamps in this design, the patterned paper and embellishments remind me of Autumn mums. Don’t you just love seeing them decorating the front of your home this time of year? The floral stamp set I used for this design is Daisy Dots from Lizzie Anne Designs. It is just darling! I love how the two flowers work together to layer and you can use just the solid stamp or the sketched if you wish.

Part of the challenge was to use less of product and what you normally use and so…it was so difficult for me! .. but I didn’t use my sewing machine. sniff, sniff I did use some faux stitching instread. I also used just one image from one set. The little leaves are made by stamping the flower again onto celery and then just cutting out two petals. For the center of the flower…I used a sheet of terrifically tacky tape and punched it out with my circle punch. The topaz beads are from the Art Accentz line by Provocraft and add to the fall theme. The little scrap of May Arts ribbon is simply held on to accent the sentiment with a staple.

Supply List:

Cardstock: Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, Certainly Celery - Stampin Up

Patterned Paper: Fancy Pants Designs

Stamps: Daisy Dots - Lizzie Anne Designs

Ink: Real Rust, black, Groovy Guava - Stampin Up

Other: Signo white gel pen, Topz Art Accentz beads - Provocraft, ribbon - May Arts, stapler, mat pack - Stampin Up

After coloring all that ice cream the other day, I needed a little something sweet. I decided to try out a new recipe that my cousin’s wife shared with me last weekend at the lake. It is sooooooo super easy! And sooooo super sweet! It has been so long since I shared a recipe here that I thought you might like to try it out too. Yes…. it does sound a little bizarre and yes, it is not cheap but cut them small and you’ll be fine! LOL sorry I didn’t get a pic…you know how it is in this household….way too many people with a very sweet tooth! I don’t even no what they are called so I’ll make up my own name for them…

Super Skor Bars

1 package of low-sodium Ritz crackers

1 can of Eagle Brand Sweetened Condensed Milk

1 package of Chipits Skor bits

1 can of vanilla pre-made icing

Instructions: Crush crackers finely and mix together with condensed milk and Skor bits. Press into bottom off 8×8″ square baking pan and bake at 350°F for 10-15 minutes. Allow to cool. Spread with icing and refrigerate.

Now how easy is that?! And trust me, it is yummy! If you make it or actually know the name for this recipe…let me know! I’d love to hear from you! I’ll be back shortly with a card design to share with you today.

I had a lot of fun dusting off my pencil crayons for today’s Ways to Use it Challenge last night. I know I’m NOT going to let them get so dusty again! If you missed the first card I designed for this challenge…just scroll down to the previous post… it is a totally different style from this one. I love mixing things up a little. I had actually meant to post them both together here on my blog but the morning got away on me and I had to run out for errands. And so, here I am, back with my other card design.

This new set features the brand-new soon to be released Lizzie Anne Designs High Hellos stamp set. This set is to be released September 10th. It is so cute! You can get a sneak peek of all their new releases right on their web-site. While you are there, make sure you take a look around. Jacksonbelle has designed a project of the month and the Lizzie Anne Newsletters are getting revved up with lots of cool stuff and are now going out monthly. Make sure you sign up!

Thinking Highly of You

I just had to pair up this darling flocked/metallic Heidi Grace paper with the ice cream cones from the High Hellos set. The circles and colors reminded me of Baskin Robbins…yummmmmmm. My most favorite ice cream EVER is the Chocolate Mousse Royale. Oh my…I think I need a chocolate fix! I think it is the exact color of Close to Cocoa and sooooooooooooooooo creamy! Anyways…I digress! LOL

The lovely fine lines of this stamp are so easy to color with pencil crayons. After coloring the design, I gave the ice cream a slick look with my clear Sakura Gelly Roll Glaze pen. i decided the sentiment needed a little highlighting too so I colored over it in a sketchy style.

I also found the cutest button in my lovely package of Autumn Leaves buttons. This one matched up the color perfectly and I loved the texture. I tied it with my May Arts ribbon and then used another piece of May Arts to accent the corner of the image. This paper just screams for a little bling with it and so, I pulled out my Making Memories gemstones and added a tiny rhinestone to the corner to finish it off.

Supply List:

Cardstock: Whisper White, Soft Sky, Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink

Patterned Paper: Heidi Grace - Fiskars

Stamps: High Hellos - Lizzie Anne Designs

Ink: Black

Other: Prismacolor pencils, ribbon - May Arts, button - Autumn Leaves, gemstone - Making Memories, sewing machine

Sharpen up your pencils that is! It is time for back to school and everyone know you need pencil crayons for this time of year. And so, today’s Ways to Use it Challenge is to find ways to use pencil crayons. I’m sure you all have some hiding somewhere! You can use regular pencil crayons, Prismacolors and Gamsol, and because of a request I’ve had…you get “brownie points” LOL for showing us how to use SU’s (or other brand) Metallic or Pure Color Pencils. I don’t own either so I’d love to see if I really need them or not. If you’d like to play along with this week’s challenge…check it out at WT129

You Light Up My Life

This is a brand new Inkadinkado Lighthouse stamp that I just got in the mail last week. LOVE it! The whole sketch line is absolutely gorgeous. So gorgeous in fact that Jacksonbelle is almost totally out of the line in a couple weeks. Don’t worry…if you like them she has more on the way and they should be arriving hopefully tomorrow but definitely by Tuesday. I colored in the image with my Prismacolor pencils. I’m just using my son’s Academic line ones…much cheaper that the higher quality line but they seem to do the trick and I’ll manage with them for a while longer. I was actually going to use my Gamsol to blend the pigment but yikes…I just couldn’t find my blender stubs last night. Time for more cleaning again! I do like the look achieved though. With the sketched pencil lines look of the stamp, I think a sketchier look for the coloring works well. To add highlights on my Very Vanilla cardstock, I used the white pencil crayon to brighten up the splashing waves and the lighthouse. I decided to add a little touch of sunset at the end. A little pink is just peeking over the horizon and a very light touch of pink light is hitting the right side of the lighthouse.

Quick Tip: Let your black ink dry for a couple minutes before starting to color with your pencil crayons. It will smear if you don’t.

I originally started this card design as a masculine birthday design…no particular person in mind. As I went along though, I was thinking how much my husband would like it. I even had straight stitching on it. LOL If I had done free-style that would have immediately disqualified it for him! He HATES crooked stitching. He wonders why one earth I would want to do that when I can sew straight quite well. His birthday is a while off yet but I remembered our 18th anniversary is coming up in October…wowsers, the way time flies that is just not far away at all. And so…I added the sentiment cherish on the outside of the card and tied the inside in quite nicely (if I do say so myself LOL ) with a computer-generated sentiment… “You light up my life” .

I love this new SU in color blue. LOL I totally forget what it is called right now…it is that kind of morning! But I’ll be back to edit it in. Because I created a 5.5″ square card, I had a 3″ strip left over. I wanted to use it to mat my image but it wasn’t quite big enough and I just have SO many scraps laying around I did NOT want to cut into another new piece. And so, what started off as frugality (yeah right…I so full of that) turned into a design element. i kind of like it. I sponged the edges of the two strips, tore the bottom edges and then adhered my image over top.

The printed paper background is a patterned paper by Daisy D’s. I love it! I have a few sheets of it and noticed the other day, I hadn’t used any of them yet and I think it works great with a vintage or masculine look. A lot of stitching and distressing by pulling the edges up with my finger add to that look as well. For my embellishments…a little metal is always great on a guy card and so I added the brads and eyelet to the design. The brown stitched May Arts ribbon was tied through the eyelet holes.

Supply List:

Cardstock: Blue, Very Vanilla - STampin Up

Patterned Paper: Daisy D’s

Stamp: Lighthouse - Inkadinkado, Warm Words - Stampin Up

Ink: Black Palette Hybrid - Stewart Superior, Close To Cocoa - Stampin Up

Other: sewing machine, ribbon - May Arts, brads and eyelets - Making Memories, pencil crayons - Prismacolor, Crop-a-dile - We R Memory Keepers

I love sketch challenges! They always make me think a little outside the box and that is a good thing. I love today’s SCS Sketch challenge. You can find it at SC if you want to play along.

This card features two things I wanted to tell you about. Flourishes has paired up with Gina K on the Make a Wish Stamps for a Cause set to help promote this fabulous cause. Flourishes does not profit in any way from this venture, except by helping out a wonderful charity. I know you’ve seen samples of this great set before here. I was on the original special design team for this project and I’m excited to help promote it again. I love this very flexible set and I love the fact that $7 from each set goes to the Children’s Make a Wish Foundation.

The other thing I wanted to tell you about is the gorgeous Webster’s papers. I LOVE them! These papers are fairly new on the market…I had never heard of them before until Jacksonbelle came back from CHA. Honestly…you really can’t get a great feel for them by looking at them on-line but I took Lindsey’s word for it and I love them! ABsolutely stunning in person.

Spring Wish

For this design I used the sketch as my jumping off point and pulled out my stamp set and my new papers. After looking through them, I thought this gorgeous print would work great with my image and I pulled my color combo direct from the paper….bashful blue and mellow moss. I tell you, it has been ages since I last used Mellow Moss but it looks so subtle and beautiful…I must rethink that color!

I actually tweeked the sketch just a tad and used a square card layout instead…you know how much I like the added design space! The main image was inked up with my SU markers and then stamped twice onto a scrap of very vanilla cardstock. After sponging all my layers, I adhered them down and started my embellishing. I also adhered a beautiful gold/green May Arts satin ribbon over the seam on the right hand side.

The image needed a little definition at the top left and I was itching to use my new Making Memories textured tape that I picked up at Michael’s yesterday. I cut off a small scrap, folded it over to create a tab and then stitched on top of the image. The Prima flower worked as the lower element to the sketch and I added a large copper eyelet with my Crop-a-dile as the flower center. To finish it off and to add another copper element, I added a row of eyelets under the center panel to add to the design.

Wishing you a fabulous day!

Halloween is not something we celebrate in a big way at our house. I guess I love the fun of the dressing up and the goodies but am just not too into the more ghoulish side of it. LOL So any Halloween card you are likely to see here is not going to be very scary. I’m leaning more towards cute and simple.

Pumpkin Card

This design is super quick and simple. I love the bold look of the Making Memories patterned paper and adhered it to my cardfront in panels. The pumpkin is super simple too. I used a Stampin Up large oval punch to punch out three ovals from Pumpkin Pie Cardstock. A little Close to Cocoa ink  sponged lightly around the edges gives it a little shape and then the ovals are layered over each other.

Quick Tip: don’t have an oval punch? How about a circle punch? Creating a pumpkin with a circle punch in the same manner looks super-cute as well…instead of tall and thin, you have a nice round squat pumpkin.

To finish off my pumpkin, I free-hand cut a little stem from Always Artichoke cardstock and then trimmed some tiny strips of cardstock. To curl them I wrapped them around the needle of my paper piercer. Be careful! It is sharp! I always love adding a little scrap of ribbon to a design and I love this black gingham for Halloween. I punched a circle from black cardstock and wrapped it around the side of my design. After setting an eyelet with my Crop-a-dile, I tied the ribbon through. Super quick card!

Today’s Color Challenge…Purely Pomegranate, Old Olive, Pretty Pink! Wohoo I managed two challenges in a row! This design uses the brand-new It’s Shower Time stamp set from My Favorite Things. I just love this set, so sweet and is designed to be used for Bridal or Baby Shower cards or invitations. It’s Shower Time will be released September 1st…just a few more days!

Floral Bridal Shower

For this design, I started off with my stamp set and the color combo. A perfect combo. Can’t get much more girlie than a Bridal Shower. On my desk, this leftover scrap of Daisy D’s paper was sitting there, leftover from a design I created for a call yesterday. It worked perfectly so I just had to use it up. The Purely Pomegranate card base is layered with whisper white, old olive and this Daisy D’s floral.

I then went to work on the image, pulling out some watercolor paper, I stamped the design with my favorite Black Palette Noir Hybrid ink from Stewart Superior. I just love how this ink resists bleeding making it perfect for watercoloring. After watercoloring my image with my aquapainter, I distressed the edges. The Old Olive layer was overlapped with a strip of the Pomegranate that I zig zag stitched at each end. I rarely adhere things on an angle but this image seemed to work well that way. Before adhering it I added two little heart brads at the top to signify the love of the bride and groom to be.

I then tucked the sentiment down at the bottom by stamping directly onto the patterned paper. This Daisy D’s paper works well for that but try it on a scrap before you stamp. Some patterned papers resist the ink and don’t leave you with a good impression.

Quick Tip: If your patterned paper resists classic ink, use a craft or Versamark ink and then emboss the sentiment to make it more legible.

To finish it off, I just had to add a little white Prima flower. I think this batch is fast becoming my favorite. I love white flowers and I’ve been waiting for Prima to come out with a great white flower. This package of white hydrangeas comes in a beautiful tin. The button is from an awesome Autumn Leaves button package and is tied with some more of my new May Arts ribbon.

Well, I said I’d be back with a card design and I am! It is a LOT later in the day than I expected but I came through! LOL I was so mixed up what day today was. We were actually supposed to come home tomorrow and I think that is what was mixing me up! LOL You’ll have to excuse my photo..I’ll replace it with a better one tomorrow!

It has been quite a while since I’ve had time to try out a technique challenge and this is one I’ve done before…long ago! It is a double resist technique combining Clear Emboss Resist with Versamark Resist. I love the extra depth it gives. I needed a birthday card for my sweet little nephew and I decided to go with a Western theme for my design. Hope he likes it!

Western Birthday

For the technique and main image panel, you first must stamp the images you want to be most prominent with Versamark onto glossy paper and then emboss them with clear embossing powder. After, you can fill in the background images by stamping with Versamark again. This time … Do NOT emboss. Simply brayer or sponge color over the top and your images will appear. Lightly wipe excess ink from surface with a tissue and your panel is ready to use. To get a distressed look to my panel, I used my Heidi Swapp edge distresser to fray the edge.

Quick Tip: distressing the edges of glossy cardstock is a little more difficult because of the extra thickness and the slick surface. I used my Basic Grey Precision file to sand the edges first ( you can also use sandpaper) before distressing to make it easier

For the main card base of my design, I used Creamy Caramel and stamped it with Linen and the Wanted Paisleys and then sponged the edges. The darling bandanna print is by Flair Designs. I stitched it to the card and then distressed the edges.

The main image panel was then matted with black cardstsock and then tied with some of my new May Arts ribbon. A tab at the top is a piece of Flair paper from the same line, punched, sponged and stapled to the top of the panel. I love my Crop-a-dile and I couldn’t resist adding a line of black Making Memories eyelets with it and then stamping the sentiment in front. The Happy Birthday is from the Lizzie Anne Designs Simply Sentiments set.

I had a comment the other day about how to get inspired to get back into scrapbooking. Now its been a long time since I had been scrapbooking… a few years to be precise. I must say, I’m only dabbling in it a little again. What actually started me back at it was a few articles I needed to write for Craft Critique. The companies that I was reveiwing, both were mainly scrapbooking companies and so, to be fair … I needed to try out a few layouts. I had a fabulous time with it again but I must say, my designing is going to remain predominantly card design and altered items. If this is what you are coming to see, don’t worry!

The biggest drawback I have with scrapbooking is time. Layouts DO take more time that cards. That’s a fact. The other thing is the thought that each page has to be perfect. It doesn’t. Just like life is a journey so is scrapbooking and designing…it all changes so don’t get caught up in that frame of mind. So…what inspires me to get started again…here is a short list…

• take photos or get out some great older ones
• go with a smaller format if 12×12 intimidates you - just bought some adorable Cosmo Cricket 8×8 that is absolutely darling and my fingers are itching to get to it, 6×6 is another great size…pages go together quickly and you can use one photo on a layout
• buy a scrapbooking kit … there are so many cool ones out there - they make it sooo easy to coordinate and take some of the stress off of you finding things to match
• buy or borrow a scrapbooking magazine…they are FULL of cool ideas
• take a scrapbooking challenge - they are always a great place to jump off from and there are lots of them on-line (I don’t have any links off-hand. Sorry! I do know that Splitcoaststampers has a scrapbook forum with challenges as well as Two Peas in a Bucket If you know of other linkes to challenges…be sure to share them in the comments and I’ll edit them in to this post.)
• buy plastic layout keepers - put paper, embellishments and photos together for a layout and then create it when you have the time
• journaling can be intimidating - hide it if you like behind an element or just keep it short and simple…whatever works best for you
• just get started - procrastination isn’t helping! Once you get at it, you’ll keep going
• just have some fun - every layout is NOT going to be perfect so just enjoy the process

I hope this helps! A lot of these tips work well for card designing and other papercraft projects also. I’m just home from the cottage last night so I’m anxious to get organized and get back to designing. Check back in later…I’ll be sure to have something to share with you.