Just wanted to send you a line…

Hi friends!  My posts have been few and far between lately, but I actually have four or five cards that I made during a long weekend stamping retreat back in APRIL that I haven’t shared with you yet!  So I thought I’d throw one of those cards up on the blog today for you to see!

During the retreat, a few of us girls escaped for the morning and went to the Adventures in Stamping convention in downtown Akron.  I spent WAY too much money in the Rubbernecker Stamps booth, and here’s a card I made with two of the stamps I picked up that day…

I just couldn’t resist those silly birds, especially the one doing his own thing!  I watercolored these… I think I used my Ranger Distress inks, but who can remember back to April, huh?  The stamp is Be Yourself from Rubbernecker, and the sentiment is Send You a Line, also from Rubbernecker.  I added a row of vellum clouds behind the main panel, using the Simon Says Stamp Cloud Bank die, and watercolored the background.

I hope you had a great weekend!  Thanks for stopping by today!

Cards, Cards, Cards…

Hello friends!  I hope you had a great weekend, and to all the mothers out there, I hope you had a beautiful Mother’s Day!  I can honestly say that my kids treated me like royalty!  And I had time on Saturday getting crafty with friends and I got quite a few cards made this weekend!  Here are a few I’d love to share with you today!

My first card was made with a really fun Comforted by Carrots stamp that I picked up from Rubbernecker when I was at the Adventures in Stamping convention a few weeks ago.  I just found this sentiment to be so hilarious!  Thanks to my sweet friend Katie, I was able to add some die-cut carrots to this card by borrowing her Rooting for You stamps and dies from Lawn Fawn…

Ha!  Don’t you love it?  That sentiment made me burst out laughing in the RN booth, so I had to buy it!  The layout for my card was inspired by the current sketch #71 at The Challenge, and I added some emerald green for Barbara’s current challenge at Crazy 4 Challenges.

Unfortunately, in the last two weeks I’ve needed three sympathy cards so here are two more I made this past weekend…

For this first card, I used the current challenge #171 at CAS(E) this Sketch, and the current color challenge #340 from the Color Q.  I stamped the two smallest flowers from the LJD Scribble Roses from My Favorite Things in Versamark, heat embossed them in white, then watercolored in shades of rose and red.  I added a Polaroid frame behind the flowers, and the With Sympathy die from Simon Says Stamp.

My second card uses my new favorite stamp, the Bunch of Tulips from Rubbernecker, and my layout was inspired by the current sketch #235 from Freshly Made Sketches.  I used Ranger Distress inks on the tulips, and again used the With Sympathy die from Simon Says Stamp.

Have a great week, and thanks for stopping by today!

Happy Mother’s Day

Well, Mother’s Day is approaching so of course I had to get a card made to send to my Mom!  I’m hoping she will love this…



This Bunch of Tulips is a new stamp I got from Rubbernecker Stamps.  Ever since I saw Debby Hughes make this beautiful card, I have wanted these tulips, and finally bought the stamp at Adventures in Stamping last weekend in Akron.  I used Ranger Distress markers to color the red rubber stamp, then applied to Distress watercolor card stock that I had pre-wet.  I used the Happy Trio Die-Namics from My Favorite Things to cut the “happy” from platinum glitter card stock, and embellished with some gold sequins and linen twine.

I’m entering my card in the Crazy 4 Challenges #334 color challenge, and the Mother’s Day challenge #94 from the MarkerPOP blog.

       

I’m pretty sure my Mom will love this! 

Have a great day, and thanks for stopping by!

My 2010 Favorites

I enjoyed posting my twelve favorite cards from 2009 so much, that I thought I'd do it again this year with my 2010 cards! So here goes, starting with January and this fun card with an image from Whipper Snapper Designs. I believe this one was for a Color Throwdown challenge.

This card that I created in February was special because it was for the Featured Stamper challenge on Splitcoaststampers that I got to host, and got to feature my BFF Barbara Anders! It was so much fun to surprise her with that challenge that day, and now she's a Dirty Girl! You've come a long way, baby! The stamps used on this card are from Rubbernecker.
In March I had the privilege of doing some guest design work back in the kitchen with Kitchen Sink Stamps! This beautiful lilac stamp was one I couldn't wait to get my hands on, and I enjoyed created with it tremendously!
In April I had the high honor of being asked to be a Guest Designer for Whipper Snapper Designs, and this was one of the cards I created using some of Anna Wight's new stamps. I was so tickled with how this turned out, with a Patridge Family theme!
A new company I found some great stamps from this past year was Stampavie, and I just adore this image of the little girl picking cherries. I picked up this stamp back in March when I visited my dear friend Joan Fricker in Indiana and taught some Copic classes at her store!
I also had the privilege of being in the Limelight at Flourishes back in June, and this stamp set was one I picked to use during that time. I created this card as a special order for an Etsy customer, and love how it turned out with the page from an old book.
In July I participated in a special birthday blog hop for my sweet friend LeAnne Pugliese, so I made this card for the hop and then sent it to her! (I hope I sent it to her anyway! I'm good at making cards.... bad at sending 'em!) The silhouette flowers used here are from Rubbernecker.
I can't remember that it was for anything specific back in August, but I sure did love how it turned out! The flowers here are from Impression Obsession, and the sentiment is Stampin' Up!
In September I took my Stamp of the Month program at the store in a new direction and started using stamps from Impression Obsession each month. This was one of the cards I made for that month, featured Versafine Inks and the beautiful Gary Robertson images from IO.
This Halloween card with a Stamping Bella image was for a favorite little buddy of mine at church!
In November I got my hands on the new Modern Homemaker paper pad from October Afternoon (thanks Bar!) and quickly set to work creating with it, using this sweet bear stamp from The Cat's Pajamas.
And this card, made just a few short weeks ago was my favorite for December, and my favorite for the whole year, I think! I grabbed this Echo Park paper at Monkey Business Scrapbook Lounge in Erie, PA on December 12th while I was there teaching some Copic classes, and couldn't resist pairing it up with this sweet Pure Innocence image from My Favorite Things!
Thanks for taking a sentimental journey with me back to 2010, and thanks for stopping by! HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Peppermint Popcorn Tins

I wanted to get the employees at the store something for Christmas, and to let them know how much I appreciate them, but needed to do it for very little expense. My solution came in these simple plastic "tins" from Wal-Mart, some candy canes, a few chocolates and a hand-stamped tag tied up with ribbon on top. And inside.... the most delicious, Christmas candy treat I've ever made! Peppermint Popcorn! Oh my stars, I discovered this recipe last night on the Tasty Kitchen website, and I know that I will never make any other Christmas treat ever again! I'm a peppermint freak anyway, so this is definitely right up my alley! I quickly made up several batches of the popcorn, stamped these tags and made up nine gifts to take to work!

The Christmas tree comes from the Snowflakes and Stardust stamp set from Rubbernecker, and the sentiment is from Impression Obsession.

Just wanted to share in case you need some last minute ideas!

Happy stamping, and if I don't get back here again before the weekend I wish you all a very Merry CHRISTmas!!!

Chocolate Box Tag

My daughter Kelsey ended up with a new bus driver for this school year, and the year initially started out kinda' rocky but was quickly smoothed out and Kelsey has come to like this bus driver very much. I always have a huge spot in my heart for the adults in our community who drive the school buses... I admire the love they have for the kids, (despite a lot of crap-ola that they put up with from some of them!), the incredible amount of patience they possess, and I can't help but choke up when I think of the awesome responsibility they take on to get our kids safely to school and back everyday. So I had to make sure Kelsey had a nice little Christmas gift to hand to Shannon tomorrow morning when she gets on the bus.

I bought this simple red candy box, and some assorted chocolates to go inside and then took a shipping tag and spruced it up to make the box special. The tree stamps I used here are from the Snowflakes and Stardust stamp set from Rubbernecker. I stamped the swirly tree directly on the tag with Versamark ink, then embossed it with white embossing powder, and I stamped the swirly stars with Versamark and embossed it with silver embossing powder. Then I sponged Ranger Distress inks in Forest Moss, Fired Brick and Old Paper around the tag to create this effect. I chewed up the edges a little with my distress tool, and sponged on more Old Paper, stamped the Cover-a-Card Music background stamp over everything, then spritzed with Perfect Pearls for sparkle! The Peace on Earth sentiment is also from Impression Obsession and is cut out with my Sentiment Flag die from Lil' Inker Designs. Some old SU! Old Olive ribbon, a red button, and some Divine Twine complete the project and this is ready for Kelsey to carry to the bus stop in the morning!

Thanks for stopping by to take a look! Happy Friday!

Trick or Treat!

Happy Halloween, everyone! Doing a quickie-blog post this morning to share with you a few last Halloween cards I've made. These are all (including the "King of the Wild Things" card I posted yesterday) for some of my favorite little kids at church today, along with some CANDY of course! I was up late finishing them last night, and have to get going this morning, so very brief details are below each card, and I'll edit later with more specific links, etc.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

for Caryne.... image from Tiddly Inks

for Caitlyn.... image from Sweet November/CC Designs

for Catrina... image from Serendipity Stamps

for Lacey and Taylor.... image from My Favorite Things

C4C60 - Boo-Frickity-Hoo!

Boo-Frickity-Hoo! Don't you just love that sentiment? It cracks me up! Our Crazy challenge for this week (hosted by the uber-talented Silke Ledlow) is to create a Halloween card. So I pulled out some of my very long-neglected Rubbernecker stamps and created this card today, using some Making Memories paper and the SCS sketch challenge from this past week for the layout.

We'd love to have you play along this week! Stop at the C4C blog for all the details, and there you'll find Mr. Linky too so you can show us your creation! And the Crazy Girls have awesome inspiration for you on their blogs, too!

Angela Wood

Barbara Anders

Cindy Haffner

Frances Byrne

Jessie Rone

Joanne Grzelak

Jocleyn Pelkey

Lynda Benden

Maria Bell

Silke Kittman

Silke Ledlow

Have a GREAT weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday, LeAnne!

To see my Color Throwdown card, please click here.

One of the absolute sweetest, nicest people I have ever known is celebrating a birthday today.... LeAnne Pugliese! LeAnne and I have been online stamping friends for several years, and last fall I was lucky enough to get to finally meet her face-to-face. I'm so pleased to get to join with some other fabulous stampers to wish her a happy birthday today! You can see the list of participants at the end of my blog post.

For my card, I decided to take inspiration from Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday sketch challenge, and used my Silhouette Weeds stamps from Rubbernecker on my oval, along with the French Script background. I was searching for something to add to this as a finishing touch, and finally just pulled out some plain pink brads to add in the corners. But something told me to just sort through my little boxes and cubbies just one more time, and I came across these golden yellow KaiserCraft pearls that my sweet friend Joan Fricker sent me some time ago, and they were the perfect finishing touch! I think they really bring out the golden yellow in the strip of October Afternoon paper across the middle, don't you?

I hope you'll take the time to stop at LeAnne's blog today and wish her the happiest of birthdays! And stop by and check out the creations from the rest of the girls who are wishing LeAnne a fabulous day today!

No Stranger to Ranger

I recently had some classes at the store (well, one was on Saturday and the other is this evening!) focusing on different products from Ranger. So often in my years of stamping, I have looked at things like Distress Inks, Adirondack Paint Dabbers, and Perfect Pearls and have passed them by, thinking that I just didn't know what to do with them. Other than sponging Tea Dye or Vintage Photo ink on the edges of cardstock to make it more shabby or Vintage, I didn't really do much with the Distress Ink pads that I have. But back in April I worked with my sweet friend Mary Jo Marshall in the Rubbernecker booth at Adventures in Stamping, and we both got some great experience in different technique with Ranger products. I saw quite a few of my Toyrifix customers at the show, and a few of them asked if we'd be doing some of the techniques I was demonstrating at the store, so I decided to have a class so that my customers could no longer be a stranger to Ranger! (LOL... my boss came up with that line!)

This first card uses the Adirondack Paint Dabber to ink up the flourishes, and then Distress Inks are applied. I really liked how this card turned out, especially because so often when we think of using Distress Inks we think of what Tim Holtz does with them.... he makes things kinda' grungy and a little dirty. Who would ever think you could get such a pretty, pastel creation from Distress Inks, right? The flourish stamp on this card is from Impression Obsession, and the sentiment is from Verses Rubber Stamps. For this card we also mixed a little bit of Perfect Pearls in pearl with water and spritzed the whole background for shimmer.

On this card, we did the Distress Ink technique you've seen me do on some other cards recently, then applied a Tim Holtz Clockworks mask on the left side, and sponged more ink around it. Isn't that a cool look? The crackle background on this card is an Impression Obsession Cover-a-Card stamp, and I think it really added a neat look to this! The sentiment is from Flourishes. On this card, we mixed Perfect Pearls gold with water and spritzed the whole background for shimmer, too.
The third card we made in class uses Distress Embossing powders, but unfortunately I haven't photographed that card yet, so maybe it'll make an appearance later on!

Thanks for stopping by today! Happy stamping!

Color Throwdown #100!!!

Well, the day is finally here.... COLOR THROWDOWN #100! I can't believe we've been doing this challenge for over two years now, and have reached our 100th one! It's been very exciting making all the preparations for this event and anticipating how much all our players are going to enjoy the fun, and the PRIZES! That's right... PRIZES! We have almost $1700 worth of prizes to give away from some of the most awesome companies around to those that participate in the challenge! I've got 3 cards to show you today, and a total of 12 prizes to give away just here on my blog so I won't bore you or take up space with all the challenge details. Instead I refer you to the Color Throwdown blog to get the low-down!

The first prize(s) I have the privilege of offering is from a company that I am so proud to design for, Rubbernecker Stamps! Dave has graciously given me FIVE $50 gift certificates to give away today!!! Rubbernecker has so many fabulous stamps in their online store... you'll have a blast spending $50 there!

For my card, I decided to use a technique from Tim Holtz that we demonstrate in the RN booth at stamp conventions, the Distress Ink technique (but I didn't go to any extremes with mine like crumpling my cardstock or applying a lot of dark ink.) I used Broken China and Shabby Shutters ink for my background, then stamped my Silhouette Weeds from Rubbnecker using Shabby Shutters and Peeled Paint distress inks. The sentiment is from the Fall Trilogy stamp set, and I overstamped the whole piece then with the Victorian Diamond Panel background stamp. The Baja Breeze background is stamped with the French Script background stamp in Antique Linen ink. I used the Mojo Monday sketch #146 for this week for my layout, choosing to use a hand-made paper "poofy" flower for embellishment. The paper I used is Olivia from Basic Grey.

The second set of prizes I have to offer you today is a $100 Gift Certificate from JustRite Stampers, AND five copies of their new and FABULOUS 2010 Catalog and Idea Book. The folks at JustRite just keep coming out with new and more outstanding products all the time, and some lucky person is going to get to spend $100 there! Plus five more lucky people will get these catalogs that are so full of great ideas! What could be better?

I discovered over the weekend that the gals over at the JUGS Challenge are being sponsored by JustRite this week, and they're having a sketch challenge to go with it, so I decided to play along with my JustRite card for the Color Throwdown today. My beautiful poppy comes from the Plant a Little Love 3 1/4" stamp set and it's colored with Copic markers. This one is maybe just a little stretch from the colors for today, but I decided to go with it just to show you how much flexibility you can have in the colors.... we always stress to just use whatever you have that is similar! :) I distressed the white lace I laid across the middle with some Tea Dye ink and also added some distress inks around all the edges of my papers to give it a more Vintage appearance. I even left the little corner turned up on the bottom right for a more aged look. The sentiment I used here is Simple Sentiments from Kitchen Sink Stamps.

And finally, I have to award one lucky person their choice of any five stamps from Great Impressions Rubber Stamps! Great Impressions is a company whose stamps I carry at Toyrifix and they have got some super-cute images! They are very well-known for their Stamp of the Month program that is in stores, but they don't have a very big online presence. When they contacted me recently for some advice on getting more exposure online, I suggested maybe they'd like to contribute to our celebration today and they quickly jumped on board! So I'm thrilled to get to offer a little shopping spree to one lucky participant in the challenge!

For my final card using Great Impressions stamps, I decided to use this sweet Framed Garden Bicycle stamp, coloring it with my Copic markers. I kept a pretty simple layout on this one, using Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday Sketch #76 for inspiration. I again used paper from the Olivia 6x6 pad (what awesome foresight Kristin had when she picked these colors 2 months ago... the Olivia papers go perfectly!) That giant ric-rac is the Die-Namics die from My Favorite Things.

You will want to visit ALL of these blogs for some great inspiration! And these are the blogs where you will want to be leaving comments in order to be eligible for the prizes offered on each one!

Tammy Hershberger - Stamp Happy (you're already here!)Broni Holcombe - Splashes of WatercolorBarbara Anders - Paper PursuitsDanielle Kennedy - Wild Dragonfly DesignsLeAnne Pugliese - Wee InklingsLaura Pryor - Lil' InkerKisa Peters - Kisa's Paper CutsCarol Longacre - Our Little InspirationsDeb Horst - Sendable SentimentsDebi Southard - Debi's Crazy LifeElise Durenberger - MamaCow CreationsJuliana Swanson - Stampin With Inky FingersLisa Kind - Kind CreationsMakiko Jones - Makink StudiosMaria Gurnsey - Scraps By MPam Speidel - Stamping With SerendipitySylvia Nelson - Sylvia's Stamp CornerTeresa Kline - Enjoy the VA SunshineWanda Cullen - Cullen-ary Creations

So, there you have it.... COLOR THROWDOWN #100! Let the festivites begin! Again, I refer you to the Throwdown blog for all the challenge details and rules, and there also you find the Inklinz widget to use to upload your creation!

Thanks for stopping by today! Good luck and happy stamping!

i {heart} copics Fabulous Friday challenge

Since it's Friday (finally!) it must be time for another Fabulous Friday challenge with the i {heart} copics team! And this week actually will be my last challenge with the team. As I mentioned on Wednesday in this post, I have resigned from this team and the All that Scraps Wednesday challenge team because I need to free up a few hours in my busy week. The music director at our church has recently resigned, and there are very few people in our church that can play the organ. Even though I don't feel like I am good enough, I really feel that God has put it on my heart to give it a try. However, I have to have a LOT of practice when it comes to something like this! It's been many, many years since I have sat down at an organ and played! So I made the decision to cut back on my design commitments to enable me to give this a try. If you're so inclined, please add me to your prayers regarding this new endeavor! I need a good boost of confidence most of all, and need practice times to result in bettering my ability!

The Fabulous Friday challenge for today is to create something using red,white and blue! Lucky for me, I recently made this card for a custom order in my Etsy shop and hadn't blogged it yet so here it is today! I LOVE it when things happen like that! My little Sailor Boy is a Little Lovin's stamp from Rubbernecker. Ain't he a cutie? He's colored with my Copic markers from the i {heart} papers store.

Stop by the i {heart} copics group at Paper Craft Planet for more inspiration from the team members, and to play along!

Happy 4th of July to all my American stamping friends, happy weekend to everyone else, and happy stamping! Thanks for dropping by!

Stamps: Sailor Boy (Rubbernecker)
Cardstock: Night of Navy, Real Red, Kraft (Stampin' Up!), white (Neenah), designer paper (Scenic Route)
Inks: Memento Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko), markers (Copic)

Accessories: Nestabilities Petite Scalloped Oval, Petite Oval (Spellbinders), Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes embossing folder (ProvoCraft), star eyelets, star clip, ribbon (craft supply).