Puppy Days

Dexter and his new toy, "Purple Puppy!" He's already figured out where the squeaker is in the toy, and bites at that spot all the time to make it squeak!

Congratulations Patti & Tom!

My wonderful friend Patti Tkacz (MommaPatti on SCS) and her husband Tom became first-time grandparents yesterday to a bouncing baby boy named Daniel Thomas! So this card is to send to them! I used my new Green Thumb stamp set from Papertrey for the sweet pea and sentiment. The images are stamped with Sea Breeze Versarmagic chalk ink, and the sentiment and peas are embossed with clear embossing powder. I used my Cuttlebug die-cuts for the 2 scalloped squares behind the main image and just glued them to make a rectangle. The striped paper is the Soft Sky Pallette o' Prints paper from Stampin' Up, as is the Dotted background, and the cardstock colors of Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Cool Caribbean and Whisper White. The white organdy ribbon is from Stampin' Up, and the dotted organdy ribbon is an unknown source. I used my Stampin' Up oval punches for the sentiment, and detailed with white brads. The scallops were created by removing the guard from my SU! corner rounder punch. (Give me a shout if you ever want to learn how to do that yourself! Very easy!) I want to make another card to send to the happy new parents, too but in the meantime I can get this in the mail to Tom and Patti with my sincerest congratulations! They'll be wonderful grandparents!

Celebrate America!

My first chance to participate in a challenge on SCS in many days! Yeah! This card was made this morning using a Whipper Snapper image sent to me last week by Jen Javorsky (jen70). The image was colored with Prismacolor pencils, Gamsol and a blending stump. I sponged Bashful Blue ink around the edges. The striped paper is from an unknown source. The card base is Stampin' Up Real Red, and the striped paper and image are mounted on SU! Night of Navy. I stamped the SU! Canvas background on the card base using Real Red ink, and stamped "Celebrate" from Stampin' Up's Wonderful Words set in Night of Navy ink. The buttons are from Stampin' Up in Brilliant Blue, and are tied with light blue floss. The main image is mounted on dimensionals. After I arrived at work, and thought more about this card I really wish I had used some corner punches on it, and also some gold star brads! Maybe I'll rework it a little later! Thanks for looking!

Good Dog!

Well, Dexter is being a really good boy, and we had an uneventful night with him! The only disappointment came from the girls 'cause they wanted him to sleep upstairs with them, and he's just not too fond of stairs yet so he wouldn't go up! Got up at 5:00 and went outside with Daddy to do his business! Mommy decided to talk him for a walk about 5:40 'cause he's full of energy this morning! As you can see by the pictures... I wiped him out with just a little jaunt around the block!

Say hello to ???

Say hello to the newest member of our family!!! He doesn't have a name yet. Some possibilites are "Ranger" or "Earnhardt" but I think he'd have to be called "Jr." in that case. I also like Jackson, and call him "Jack" but we're leaving it go for a few days until we get to know him a little better. He is a 3 month old Australian shepherd, and very sweet! Come over soon to meet him in person!

10:30 p.m. It's a little sooner than I wanted... thought we give it a day or two to get to know him better before we decided on a name, but the name "Dexter" was suggested and we all loved it! So, I now officially introduce "DEXTER!"

Yummy New Ribbon

So, as many of you may know, I frequently spend a lot of my computer time on http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/. I am addicted to the daily challenges, and am late getting many of them completed this week. The Limited Supply Challenge is one I really like to do (and I even got to host it once many eons ago!) So this card was created for that challenge, which was posted yesterday. The challenge was to dust off an old stamp set or stamps that you haven't used in awhile. (All supplies are Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted.) This is a Hero Arts set that I've had forever called Long-Stemmed Flowers. I inked up the "shadow" stamp with Soft Sky, then inked the flower stamp with my Cameo Coral and Chocolate Chip markers, and stamped on Very Vanille cardstock. I matted this piece on a strip of Cameo Coral cardstock. I stamped the Dotted background stamp with Versamark on the Soft Sky piece, then adhered it to my Chocolate Chip card base. I tied a strip of this yummy new velvet, saddle-stitched ribbon that I got at Archiver's last night around a polka-dotted piece of Au Chocolate paper and adhered it to the card using dimensionals. I adhered the main image to the card with a double-layer of dimensionals so that it would really be raised over the ribbon. I stamped "a flower for you" from the new level 3 hostess set "Vases in Vogue" on Soft Sky cardstock using Chocolate Chip ink and punched it out using my small oval punch. I punched a piece of Cameo Coral using the large oval punch, glued them together and adhered to the card using dimensionals. Voila'! I am so in love with how this turned out, and might set this one aside also to consider for submission to a magazine! Thanks for looking!

Fun with New Products!

I figured it was about time I start using some of the new things I've purchased recently, so this is my first creation. This card was made using Stampin' Up Barely Banana cardstock as the base, and the large flourish from my new Pollen Dust stamp set from Fancy Pants was stamped using SU! Rose Red craft ink. I also stamped the base of the card with the Linen background stamp from Stampin' Up, first using Versamark ink, and then I inked the stamp again using Creamy Caramel. I stamped it off once, then stamped again on the card. I inked the edges of the card with a sponge and Creamy Caramel ink. The floral panel on the left is Antique Parchment Floral paper from Daisy D, and it is matted on a piece of SU! Ruby Red. I tied a piece of dotted organdy from Michael's around it, and added a small buckle from my Stampin' Up! Hodgepodge Hardware. I also inked the edges of the floral piece just slightly using the Creamy Caramel ink and a sponge. The main image is from Pollen Dust, and is stamped on a piece of Naturals Ivory from Stampin' Up. The flower was inked with SU! Rose Red craft ink, and the leafy flourish was stamped using Versamagic Spanish Olive. The sentiment is from Stampin' Up Warm Words, and is stamped in SU! Chocolate Chip ink. I again stamped the Linen background stamp on the main image using Versamark ink, and inked the edges with Creamy Caramel. This piece was then matted with a piece of Stampin' Up Always Artichoke and adhered to the card with dimensionals. Since my dear friend Gretchen bugged me all last evening to submit some work for publication, I may just find a source to submit this, if others think it is good enough! Thanks for looking!

New "Toys!"

What could be great than getting a shipment of new toys from Stampin' Up yesterday... new cardstock and ink colors, new stamp sets, new brads? Getting more new toys in the mail today! I received my very first order from Papertrey Ink today, and just love the sets I bought! Here's a card I created this evening using some new SU! cardstock and ink, and the Papertrey sets. This card measure 4.75" square (for the Ways to Use It challenge on SCS today!) The card base is Purely Pomegranate cardstock, and a 4.25" piece of Soft Sky Pallette O'Prints paper is matted on a 4.5" piece of Cool Caribbean. I stamped a flower from the Papertrey Text Box stamp set on the POP paper, and also stamped my main image in Purely Pomegranate on Whisper White cardstock. This is mounted on a piece of Purely Pomegranate, as is the sentiment piece. The sentiment comes from the Green Thumb Papertrey set. The "bling" on the flowers are new Ice Circle brads from Stampin' Up! My stitched organdy ribbon is from an unknown source, purchased from the $1 bin at Michael's. This card is going to go out in the mail tomorrow to...... stay tuned to find out! Thanks for looking!

Another fun card!

All my spare time lately has been consumed by work, and my daughters' softball games. Seems like most nights of the week I don't get home until 9:00 p.m! I didn't get around to doing today's sketch challenge at all, although I have a really good idea floating in my head, so I may get to it later! In the meantime, here's another favorite that I made recently!

This card was created using my most favorite (to date!) paper from Basic Grey called Phoebe. The cardstock base is Brocade Blue from Stampin' Up. The green panel is matted with SU! Chocolate Chip, and the 'gator panel is mounted on a piece of Rose Red from Stampin' Up. The gator and sentiment come from the SU! set "Wild About You!" I did a rock-and-roll technique on the gator, stamping him first in Green Galore, and then rocked-and-rolled the stamp in Garden Green. I was going for a look similar to the green paper on the left-side panel! The sentiment is stamped in Rose Red on Pretty in Pink cardstock, and all but one corner of that piece is trimmed with my corner rounder punch. A 1/4" punched circle, and Brocade Blue brad adorn the sentiment piece. I used a piece of stitched organdy ribbon from the Michael's $1 bin to finish this card off! Thanks for looking! I'm planning to send this card to a new stampin' friend who has been so terrific to me! She recently had a bunch of us over to her fabulous home for a shoebox swap, and I'm going to send this to her to thank her for being my friend and hosting the fun! If she comes to check out my blog... I guess my secret is out! Love ya', Gretchen!

Overslept!

Overslept this morning, and don't have time to complete the sketch challenge before I have to leave for work, so I'm going to post a card I've made in the past!

This card was made for the SCS color challenge on June 12th and the challenge was to use Cameo Coral, Certainly Celery and Chocolate Chip to create a card. All supplies used are Stampin' Up unless otherwise noted. I used Cameo Coral cardstock as my card base, and stamped the Dotted background in Versamark ink. On a piece of Whisper White cardstock, I stamped various images from the Big Pieces and Little Pieces stamps sets in the challenge colors, also including the optional color of Tempting Turquoise. I matted this piece with a strip of Chocolate Chip cardstock. I then used my corner rounder to scallop the edge of a piece of Certainly Celery to mount under my focal image. Using my Riveting stamp set, I stamped "Enjoy Your Day" on Whisper White, punched out with my 1" circle punch (EK Success), and mounted it on a 1 1/4" circle punced from Chocolate Chip. I mounted this onto a chipboard die-cut tag from my Cuttlebug. I cut off one side of my chipboard to make it a "tag," rather than a "slider." (Learned this from another great stamper, Julie Buhler... check out her blog here... http://paperpleasing.typepad.com/my_weblog/) I also stamped the star from the center of the Riveting Circle onto Certainly Celery, punched it out using my 1/2" circle punch and mounted to the center of the circle. I tied a piece of coral grosgrain ribbon (unknown source) around my focal piece, added a piece of Certainly Celery grosgrain, and tied my tag to this using Martha Stewart baker's twine in turquoise. I then adhered the scalloped Celery piece to the card with Tombos Mono-Multi glue, and mounted my focal piece over that using dimensionals (pop-dots!) I was so happy with the way this card turned, and hope you like it too! Thanks for checking it out today!

And here is another!

Bananas about today's color challenge!

I was really pleased with the color challenge that was posted today on SCS... neat combo using Barely Banana (a color I don't often use!) Here is one card I created using the combo of Barely Banana, Real Red, and Creamy Caramel.

Brand New Blogger!

Well, this is it! I decided to jump on the blog bandwagon! I really hope to be able to keep in touch with all my stamping friends though this, and hope I can keep up with it! Please stay tuned as I stumble my way through this aspect of the cyber-world!