thinking of you

My SU! demo lost her grandmother this week so I wanted to send her a little something. I didn't want it to be a sympathy card per se, but wanted it to be a bit more cheerful to make her smile instead of sad.

The card is pretty much self-explanatory, except for the scalloped border on the striped paper. I created that using my medium corner rounder with the guard removed. You can see a tutorial for this over at Beate John's blog, fresh & fun. She totally rocks!



Stamps: Flower and swirl, Rhonna Farrer, Autumn Leaves; Thinking of You and small flowers (inside card & on envelope, not shown), Studio G (Michael's $1 clear sets)
Paper: Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, SU!; Candy Cane, Candi, Cactus Pink
Ink: VersaMagic Pink Petunia and Tea Leaves; Staz-On Jet Black; Close to Cocoa, SU! (inked edges)
Accessories: Anastasia's Attic Ribbon, Marcella, K&Company; medium corner rounder, EK Success (for scallops)

thank you

My old boss sent me the most hilarious e-greeting from Hallmark yesterday. It was a Hoops and Yo-Yo card called "It's Sarcastic Wednesday." It was almost spot-on appropriate for my workplace (except the part about the pizza). What's really sad, though, is that I don't work for a big corporate company; I work for a small independent firm. And we're still treated like crap. Anyway...

To acknowledge the e-greeting and tell her how much I loved it, I made a little thank you card for my old boss. I've had the idea for this card for a while now and had the pieces on my desk already. I really like how it turned out, though I don't think some of the best details are visible in the scan. The flowers are coated with crystal glitter and the vase has been covered with Aleene's Paper Glaze to give it a glass effect.



Stamps: Vase & Blossoms, Great Impressions Rubber Stamps; Riveting, SU!
Paper: Box of Cards premade patterned card base and Brights stack, DCWV
Ink: Staz-On Jet Black; SU! Certainly Celery & Apricot Appeal (for watercoloring flowers)
Accessories: Tombow markers + waterbrush; 1/2 inch circle punch, Marvy; 1-3/8 inch and 1-1/4 inch circle punch, ticket corner punch, SU!; crystal glitter, Joann Essentials; white organdy ribbon; Aleene's Paper Glaze

Though I didn't scan it, I also stamped and watercolored a little piece of the matching large background on the front of the envelope. I masked off the parts I didn't want on the stamp with tape, inked up the stamp, pulled the tape off, and stamped the little part in the corner. I want to try to incorporate something on the envelopes from now on. It just adds a special little touch, I think. (You can see the background stamp here.)

2nd altered notebook

I didn't do much crafting this weekend. I just wasn't all that inspired. I had plenty of time, but no motivation. Except for this little notebook which didn't take too long at all. I don't have a recipient in mind for it, so I think I'll stash it for a possible "prize" at my best friend's baby shower in a few months.



This notebook, which I found with the pen included in Michael's $1 bins, was so easy to cover. (I should go back and get more!) I cut a piece of patterned paper to the same height as the book, but left it overlong at first. I measured where each of the folds were and scored them. I measured where the slits should be for the pen holder part and cut those with an exacto between the 2 scored lines. Then I attached the paper, starting with the back, and folded it around to the front, gluing each side in progression. When I reached the front, I glued it down too and then trimmed the excess off the cover with an exacto knife.

The doodle flower is stamped with Versafine Onyx on white cardstock, colored with my Tombow markers and a waterbrush, and cut out. (I scribble my markers onto a piece of transparency and use the waterbrush to pick up the color. I like the softer watercolor effect instead of straight coloring with the markers.) Once I put the cutout against the background, I didn't think the color popped enough, so I traced around the black lines with the corresponding marker's fine tip.

The "One of a Kind" label is stamped in SU! Certainly Celery and punched out with the Designer Label punch. Everything is adhered flat without dimension in case it gets frequent use or tossed in someone's bag.

Stamps: Doodle Leaf Flower, Hero Arts; Designer Label, SU!
Paper: Scribbles, Autumn Leaves (Target)
Ink: Versafine Onyx, SU! Certainly Celery
Accessories: Tombow markers + waterbrush; Designer Label punch, SU!

niece's birthday card

Quick, rush, gotta get it done so it can get in the mail in time! [sigh] This is the story of my papercrafting right now. I can't seem to work ahead, even knowing birthdays and anniversaries are coming up.

This card is so not what I planned to make for my (almost) 5-year old niece. I wanted to use the Cricut, cut out a birthday cake, make the right number of candles, and maybe even use a shadowbox card for the layout. There was just no time to play. Honestly, using the Cricut is more time consuming than stamping. I can never figure out what size things are going to cut when I use an image for the first time, so there's lots of trial and error involved. While I love the fact that the Cricut cutouts are scalable (unlike some other die cut machines), sometimes it's easier to use a stamp.

The Pocket Full of Posies paper from DCWV has little spots of glitter all over it. To tie in the main image, I watercolored the cake with my Tombow markers and waterbrush, then covered it with Sakura's stardust gelly roll pen. I also ran the stardust around the rings of the sentiment and over the gift in the middle. To add just a bit more glitter (she is turning 5 after all), I covered the flower brads with glue and dipped them in the glitter too. It is, of course, more sparkly in real life than the scanner picked up.



Stamps: Cake, Katie & Co., Michael's $1 stamp; Riveting, SU!
Paper: DCWV, Pocket Full of Posies 8x8 stack, Brights stack
Ink: Versafine Onyx
Accessories: Tombow markers; glitter; 1-1/4 and 1-3/8 circle punches; word window punch, SU!; Making Memories gold flower brads; Sakura stardust gelly roll

sympathy card

My guy asked me for a sympathy card for one of his instructors. The instructor lost her father last week. I find it difficult to make a card for such a somber occasion. I spent some time looking through the SCS gallery to see what other people had done for this type of card - lots of flowers. I'm not thrilled with how it turned out, but I think it looks OK. They can't all be masterpieces.



Stamps: Flower bouquet, Michael's $1 stamp; "With Sympathy" from Warmest Regards, SU!
Paper: DCWV Classic mat stack
Ink: Versafine Onyx
Accessories: Tombow markers; Southwest corner punch; Opalescent organdy ribbon

2 "geek" birthday cards

During the scrapbook treasure hunt, I bought a lot of paper. One of the sheets I bought reminded me of a circuit board. I picked it up because it was very masculine and I have a lot of geeks in my life. That paper was perfect for 2 birthday cards I needed to make this weekend.

Here's the first, for my best friend's husband who loves to "tinker" with computers. The card accompanied a gift of Mickey-head martini glasses and sugar-free martini mixes. I used Aleene's Paper Glaze to add an shiny glass-feeling to the top and bottom of the martini glass. It took some trial and error to get it to look right, but I like how it came out. (The paper glaze made my original watercoloring run, so I ended up doing the glaze on an uncolored image and then coloring on top of the glaze.) The sentiment was printed out on the computer.


Stamps: Martini, Sarah Beise, Michael's $1 stamp
Paper: Imaginisce: Trade Winds (So Sheik), Bazzill, unknown (mossy green)
Ink: Staz-On
Accessories: Tombow markers; Vintage gold square brads, Making Memories; Aleene's Paper Glaze


The second card was for the host/honoree of a birthday bash we attended on Saturday. I don't know him very well, but I know he does computer stuff for a living, some sort of programmer.



Stamps: Cake, Katie & Co., Michael's $1 stamp; Riveting, SU!
Paper: Imaginisce: Trade Winds (So Sheik), Bazzill, unknown (mossy green)
Ink: VersaMark
Accessories: Gold glitter embossing powder; 1-1/4 and 1-3/8 circle punches; word window punch, SU!; gold brads, Joann Essentials

Final birthday invite

Here's the final invitation for my nephew's first birthday party. I can't believe I did 35 of these... that's 210 balloons (105 blue ones and 105 white blackout ones)! Yay for my Cricut! Although, to be honest, I didn't end up cutting all the balloons with the stars. The stars were a pain as they didn't cut clean through, even with a brand new blade; I spent a lot of time with an exacto knife poking them out. So some of the invites has a mixture of solid blue and starred balloons.

Here's the front:


Paper: Creative Imaginations Pizzazzil (Limeade Harlequin, Heather dot), Georgia Pacific white
Cricut: Celebrations: party hat + shadow-4.5"; balloon + blackout-2.5"
Accessories: curling ribbon

The inside of the cards with all the pertinent information was created using InDesign and printed out on a laser printer, cut in half and folded. The main panel was then attached to the front.

In the end, I did the majority of the assembly, not my mom or sisters. Admittedly, it was easier for me to assemble the fronts in stages while parts were still on the Cricut cutting mats (i.e. gluing the party hat to the white "shadow" layer is MUCH easier when the white layer is still on the mat). I wasn't supposed to do the inside of the cards either, but it was a LOT easier for me to do them on the computer than wait for my sister to stamp/handwrite them all. She also flaked on gluing the fronts to the card base after she did about 5 of them, so I finished them up on Easter Sunday while hanging out at mom's.

Hopefully I'll remember this experience when it comes time to do baby shower invites for my best friend and make them much simpler. Or design them completely on the computer. (Boring! since computer layouts are what I do for a living.)

Easter card, shopping

Durnit! Leave it to me to forget to photograph my Easter cards before handing them out. Yes, I finished them up on Sunday morning, so I personally hand-delivered them. I'm a procrastinator, this I know. And of course, the design used stamps and a giga punch I don't own (yet), as I stamped them when hanging out with my SU! demo a couple of weekends ago. I think I have enough pieces to put one more together, though, just so I can get a photo. I really like how they came out, so I'd like to record them. (Asking mom if I can borrow the card back just to photograph is kinda tacky, though she probably would say yes.)

In other news, I did some mondo shopping this weekend and again today. I spent all day Saturday hanging with my best friend. We headed across the state to Mouse-town, with a stop at Violette's, a stamp/scrapbook store I discovered during the treasure hunt back in February. We were in the store for a couple of hours; I bought a bunch of stamps and my best friend got some baby scrapping stuff. I was even able to use my treasure hunt "come back" coupon, even though it had expired, because the owner was the one to ring us up. She was so funny... saying she would have given me the discount just for mentioning the treasure hunt because she could because she was the owner. I really wish this store was closer; it is really great.

After Violette's, we headed to Downtown Disney so I could buy her husband his birthday gift. I found some sugar free appletini mix at TJMaxx and wanted to pair it with some Mickey-head etched martini glasses which he'd admired in the past. I also bought some stuff for their unborn baby - Madelyn - including a Nightmare Before Christmas onesie and some pastel Mickey-head lights for her bedroom. Hee, I'm going to spoil her rotten and be a great "aunt."

Much to my amazement, I found some Autumn Leaves/Rhonna Farrer acrylic stamps at Wal-mart Sunday night. I got the Swirls set, one I've been looking for for a few weeks now (and for under $10 a set!!), along with a set of flowers and baby images. My big find today was at Joann's. They had sets of Tombow markers in the art department on clearance - $9.97 down from $29.99 originally. I snatched up all 3 sets they had. Each set also came with a blender pen. Since my Artwin markers and Dove blender have been MIA since we moved, I needed some new ones. I can't afford the SU! ones right now which match all their other colored products, so these will have to do. The Tombow ones are supposed to be some of the best for "watercoloring" and blending. So I've been spending a lot again, but on some really difficult-to-pass-up deals.

birthday chick

Do you know how intimidating it is to stamp a card for someone who's been stamping for a living for 8+ years?

I found out sort of at the last minute that my SU! demo's birthday was this week. I knew I wanted to make a card for her, but I was paralyzed in deciding what to do. I've only been back into stamping since the beginning of this year and a lot has changed since I stopped stamping in 1998. In the end, I used last Sunday's sketch challenge from Amy Westerman (a stamping blogger I {heart}), with my favorite Basic Grey paper and my current favorite stamp. I like how it turned out. Hopefully she will too, even though there's only one little SU! stamp on it.



Stamps: Autumn Leaves Rhonna Farrer Bird, SU! Riveting
Paper: Basic Grey Phoebe (Angel Island, Pacific Heights, Sausalito); Bazzill
Ink: SU! Regal Rose classic, VersaMagic Tea Leaves chalk ink
Accessories: American Crafts ribbon; Sakura Stardust gelly roll; Cuttlebug slider dies; SU! ticket corner punch

Inside sentiment: Happy Birthday to a groovy chick!

so inspiring!

I'm not a scrapper, but I'm at least familiar enough with that papercraft to know who Ali Edwards is.

I've been to Ali's blog before, but never really stopped to read much because I thought that it was mostly about scrapbooking. But after surfing to it from Gina K.'s blog (see the autism awareness stamps Gina K. designed), I started reading Ali's entries from back in January sometime. I've lost a good chunk of work time because I've become absorbed in Ali's adventures and every day life snippets. What an amazing and inspiring woman!

I wish I had time to keep reading Ali's blog after work, but I'm already skipping tonight's tag clipping for the women's club so I can finish the invites for my nephew's birthday party. They've got to go to mom in the morning, so no sleep until they're done.

VersaMagic vs SU!

Beate Johns, an extremely talented stamper over at Splitcoast Stampers, posted a color comparison of VersaMagic Dew Drops to SU! inks over at her blog. This is a fabulous reference since I recently purchased all the Dew Drops myself for use with my new acrylic stamps. Thanks, Beate!

life and taxes

How did a week go by without a substantive/creative post? Where does the time go?

Life and taxes got in the way this past week. Yes, the dreaded taxes. I kept putting it off this year because I figured I'd have to pay due to freelance work. When I finally did them, it turned out that I get a refund. And not a tiny one. So I'm happy. And that means I have some money for a large-ish SU! order.

Even though I didn't finish anything last week, I did put in some stamping time on Saturday with my SU! demo. She's got a great studio in her house and she's only 5 minutes away. I love hanging out with her; she's funny, creative, and so easy to talk to! I used some of her stamps to work on my Easter cards because I just don't have that many yet. I need to finish those up and get them in the mail this week. And I'm still working on the invites for my nephew's birthday party. Why did I design something with so many pieces?! But at least the Cricut is doing all the grunt work of cutting everything out. I can't imagine stamping 30 invites. (Oh goodness, don't even think about Christmas cards yet.)

Hopefully I'll have visuals to share later this week.