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I didn't exactly commit rubbah-dultery, but I did use some "contraband". I was at my favorite scrapbooking place last month and was lured into it by the siren call of patterned paper pads, so hard to resist! Lookie:
Ingredients (SU! unless noted otherwise): Stamps - Bring on the Cake, Nature Walk; Paper - Prima Sun Kiss Collection, Papertrey Ink Aqua Mist, Marigold Morning (retired), Very Vanilla, Early Espresso; Ink - Early Espresso, Marigold Morning (retired); Other - Very Vanilla Seam Binding, Decorate Label punch, Modern Label punch, Ticket Corner punch, Metallic Brads, Prima Charmé Rose Sun Kiss, Early Espresso marker, Signo White gel pen, dimensionals, sponge wedges.
GOJUS!!! (YILM!) I love these colors, that's my only excuse...such pretty paper and then the paper Charmé roses were GOJUS too! Which takes me back to the days of my youth, when Marie Osmond made her debut with...
Paper roses
Paper roses
Oh how real those roses seem to be
But they're only
Imitation
Like your imitation love for me..
Yep, just like me, she used to be so...so...STINKIN' YOUNG!!! Sigh...amazing how getting one year older can affect you!
Well, I'm off to tear my hair out and wail...I mean, work on Artisan stuff some more. I have one project left to finish and it's giving me FITS! Ta!
This particular card took me a while to get exactly right. I fussed and fussed and moved things around...trashed a whole sheet and a half of cardstock!
Lookie:
Ingredients: Stamps - Perfectly Penned, Bordering on Romance; Paper - Twitterpated DSP, Blushing Bride, Pear Pizzaz, Riding Hood Red; Ink - Cherry Cobbler, Baja Breeze; Other - Twitterpated buttons, Baja Breeze 1/8" taffeta ribbon, Cherry Cobbler marker, 1" square punch, Paper Daisy, Bojo Blossoms punch, Signo white gel pen.
Once I got this done, I was STOKED, because it is GOJUS!!! (YILM!) I love the handkerchief edge on the front of the card...I tried to resist doing that, but I. Just. Couldn't. Resist!
Isn't this a great way to use up scraps of designer paper? Ta!
Or maybe I'm just a Freak USING the Big Shot. Heheheh.
It's that time again, time to freak out with the freaks on our monthly blog tour! If you've just arrived from Barb Mullikin's blog, you are in the right spot!
But if you started right here, fear not! You can manage to get all the way around the entire tour just by following the links at the bottom of each post.
This post is going live on the evening of the 19th, so if you find some posts in our tour have not yet posted, please be patient. The entire tour should be accessible at some point this evening. Keep checking back!
This month's theme is "The Cutting Edge - Projects Created Using Diecuts in the BigShot." I am pretty freakin' proud of what I created this month.
My mom gave me her shoebox full of photographs so that I could scan them all in. I was poking around in there recently and found a beautiful hand-tinted picture of my mom and her sister. One thing led to another and...and...and....
Ingredients: Stamps - Bordering on Romance, Mixed Bunch; Paper - Twitterpated DSP, Blushing Bride, Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze, Whipser White; Ink - Baha Breeze, Riding Hood Red; Other - Designer Rosette Bigz XL die, Beautiful Wings Embosslit, Beautiful Butterflies Bigz die, Perfect Pennants Bigz L die, Timeless Type Junior Alphabet, Blossom punch, Scallop Trim border punch, Scallop Trim corner punch, Medium Jewelry Tag punch, Basics Jewels pearls, Baja Breeze seam binding ribbon, Red Riding Hood Pleated Satin ribbon, Island Indigo Baker's Twine, white gel pen, Antique Brads, Trinket Keys, sponge wedges, dimensionals.
It's...it's...it's...so GOJUS!!! I just can't...fathom...how...GOJUS!!!!
YILM!
Some detailed views:
And another:
Now, my mom's birthday is coming up in a couple of months, so I am prepared as far as presents go! So I made a card to go with it:
It's that time again, time to freak out with the freaks on our monthly blog tour! If you've just arrived from Dawn Olchefske's blog, you are in the right spot!
But if you started right here, fear not! You can manage to get all the way around the entire tour just by following the links at the bottom of each post.
This post is going live on the evening of the 19th, so if you find some posts in our tour have not yet posted, please be patient. The entire tour should be accessible at some point this evening. Keep checking back!
The theme this month is Occasions Mini and SAB Sneak Peek! It's a smaller tour than usual (can you believe that some people let their families and friends needs get in the way of doing the Freak tour?!?!!? I mean, REALLY!) Oh, well, we may be small, but we are mighty!
I have had some fun playing with my new goodies, though not as much as I would like. This weekend was spent with family, as my mother-in-law did indeed pass away on Sunday evening last week. We had a nice funeral service for her on Saturday, and I was surprised to discover that my MIL had wanted me to do her eulogy, so I was kind of busy writing that as well as getting all the details that I needed to get done here before we went over.
Thanks for all of your kind words, they have been very much appreciated.
Back to the blog tour, I haz sum purty stuff to show ya! Lookie:
Ingredients: Stamps - Apothecary Art; Paper - Attic Boutique DSP, Pool Party, Very Vanilla, Daffodil Delight; Ink - Soft Suede, Pool Party, Poppy Parade, Daffodil Delight, Old Olive, Pear Pizazz, Whisper White;Other - Paper Doily Sizzlits Die, Pear Pizazz Pleated Satin ribbon, 1/8" Very Vanilla taffeta ribbon, gold brads, Vintage Wallpaper embossing folder, Labels Collection Framelits die, paper piercing tool, dimensionals, AquaPainter.
GOJUS!!! (YILM!) The new Framelits dies are SO easy to use. The Paper Doily die is very pretty, but make sure you put a shim with it to get all the openings to cut.
Ingredients: Stamps - Bordering on Romance, Petite Pairs; Paper - Twitterpated DSP, Baja Breeze, Pear Pizzaz, Riding Hood Red, Blushing Bride; Ink - Versamark, Whisper White, Island Indigo, Riding Hood Red, Pear Pizzaz, Blushing Bride; Other - Medium Oval punch, Island Indigo ruffled ribbon, Twitterpated Designer Button, Island Indigo baker's twine, Adorning Accents Edgelits die, white EP, Aquapainter, dimensionals, sponge wedge.
GOJUS!!! (YILM!) I love the soft colors in the DSPs in this mini! And the Edgelits are also very easy to use and add such elegance to my card!
Finally, I wanted to use the Tea Shoppe set, so I thought of decorating a tea tin that is a gift for your favorite tea lover:
Ingredients: Stamps - Tea Shoppe; Paper - Attic Boutique DSP, Blushing Bride, Very Vanilla, Soft Suede, Early Espresso; Ink - Soft Suede, Early Espresso; Other - Modern Label Punch, Adorning Accents Edgelit Die, Blushing Bride pleated satin ribbon, Early Espresso Bakers Twine, Blossom Punch, Doily punch, Large Pearl Basic Jewels, Soft Suede 1-1/4" striped grosgrain.
GOJUS! (YILM!) I punched 2 flowers with the Blossom Punch and curled their petals. I placed one flower with the petals curling up on top of the other with the petals curling down for a nice full look.
Well, that is that. I know you are going to see even more lovely projects as you go on to Wendy Weixler's blog! Ta!
GOJUS!!! (YILM!) This is easily one of the simpler cards I did for my display and it pretty much jumped out of my head and onto the cardstock without too much fuss. Except my first version was Basic Black and Poppy Parade with Calypso Coral for the greeting piece and it was just a bit MUCH. Very dramatic and in your face and while I loved it, I wanted to go a little softer for this one. The cool thing is that you just need a dark color plus another midtone with it's slightly lighter value for the greeting piece and it just WORKS. No fancy techniques, just stamp stamp stamp. Gotta love that. Yes, you do. It's an order.
This week is Spirit Week at my daughters school, which means Homecoming is this weekend. There has been much fuss and bother about dresses and accessories for dresses and what not. Meaning WHAT Mom will NOT buy you just for one night.
Now they are on to hair. I told them I couldn't afford to have their hair done this year, as I did for Laurel last year. We spent waaaaayyy too much on last year's dance, thinking it might be the last one we could afford to send Laurel to, but since things are stable, I am looking at 3 more years of homecoming for Emily, not to mention Will if he starts to dig that scene (I am thinking maybe not...but ya never know.) So I am going to attempt to do their hair myself this year, which means investing into a good hair straightening appliance. Getting a girl's hair straightened can be expensive and buying a good straightener will pay for itself. But I have to say I am not talented in the hair department.
Yes, it's true and SO HARD to believe, but there are things I cannot do well, which include cake decorating, throwing pots (I am talking about creating them on a wheel, I can toss 'em with the best of 'em), arranging flowers (which always end up looking like they were thrown in a bunch at the vase which was across the room a ways), growing houseplants (they always end up dead, no matter what) and cutting or doing hair. Hair cuts (without my trusty Wahl trimmer) that I used to attempt on Williams hair always made him look like Moe Howard.
Yes, it is that time again, to fly your Freak Flag and get all freaky-deaky with us Controlfreaks!
If you have arrived here from Wendy Weixler's blog, you are in the right place! But if you have started here, fear not, you can still make a complete circle by following the links at the bottom of each post and end up back here where you started!
This month's theme is FREAKY SNEAKY PEEKY, that is, new stamps and products from the upcoming 2011-12 Idea Book & Catalog with a soupcon of Summer Mini projects thrown in! Let's start out with something GOJUS! Lookie:
Ingredients: Stamps - My Friend; Paper - Pocketful of Posies DSP, Soft Suede, Baja Breeze, Whisper White; Ink - Night of Navy (craft), Poppy Parade, Night of Navy (classic), Baja Breeze; Other - Basics Jewels - Pearls, Whisper White 3/8" taffeta ribbon, Lots of Tags Sizzlit dies, Eyelet Lace border punch, sponge wedges, dimensionals, clear EP.
OMGOJUS!! (YILM!) I got this sketch from PageMaps and it was just perfect for this stamp set. I did change it up just a bit to fit with my interpretation. The leaves/flowers stamp was stamped with Night of Navy craft ink and embossed with clear EP.
You'd think after all this crafty jeenyus I would be all wored out, wouldn't ya? But noooooo! I went on to create this:
GOJUS is in dah house! (YILM!) I colored in this beautiful image with our markers only! I love these new colors...the biggest problem I have is in deciding which one is my favorite!
And finally, one of the most GOJUS projects I have ever created, as well as one of the most delicious! Lookie:
Ingredients: Stamps - Pennant Parade, Bring on the Cake; Paper - Just Add Cake DSP, Wild Wasabi textured, Peach Parfait, Daffodil Delight, Baja Breeze, Poppy Parade; Ink - Basic Black, Poppy Parade, Peach Parfait, Daffodil Delight, Wild Wasabi; Other - 2-1/2" circle punch, 3/4" circle punch, Petite Pennants Builder punch, Bitty Punch pack, Early Espresso baker's twine, Basics Jewels - Rhinestones, Scallop Oval punch, Poppy Parade marker, dimensionals; Cupcake - Just Baked, Livonia, Michigan
Well, now doesn't that just TAKE THE CAKE!!! (YILM!)
In the new wonderful IBC, there is a project like this and when I saw it I just KNEW I had to make one. There is no template provided, but it wasn't TOO hard to figure out and I really only trashed one piece of cardstock before I figured it out.
Of course, I sailed right away from direct CASEville to OVERTHETOPland, don't you think? Once I had made it, I just gazed at it for, like FOR-EV-ER. Before I could take a picture of it, I knew I would have to have a cupcake to put in it so you knew what it was. And I knew that not just any Duncan-Hines-or-Betty-Crocker-12-in-a-box cupcake would do! I would have to have something so spectacular, so scrumdillyicious that it would perfectly set off my marvelous creation. So I settiled on Just Baked in Livonia to provide this wonderful confection. I had never been there before but had heard good things, and I was not disappointed!
The hardest part was selecting the perfect cupcake and it was HARD because they had so many yummy ones. So hard that I had to allow 6 of these delicious desserts to accompany me home to audition. The one that won the audition was this delicious Black Forest Cupcake!
But don't worry! Those that lost the audition were very much appreciated! Each and every one was given an all-expense-paid tour of our insides! And the one that won also won this same prize but with the added honor of it being MY insides!
The things I do for art!
Will I provide a template for those who also want to create this marvel? Probably! But it may take me a while, so please be patient!
Well, it's time to let you proceed onward to Connie Babbert's blog! Hope you enjoyed yourself here and remember to keep your ink pads wet and your pants dry! Ta!
Welcome to the February Tour de Freaks, a wondrous exploration of what people who are anal very particular create with stamps ! If you just arrived here from Lisa Young's blog, you are in the right place! But if you started here, fear not, you will be able to continue the tour full circle and arrive back here where you started by following the links at the end of each tour post.
I know it's been a while since you've seen me and I just have to say I have been FREAKIN' BUSY, man! I have a second transcription service added to my roster and have spent the last week or so driving all over tarnation for training, as well as trying to keep up with my original service. But I could not miss the Freak Tour! Life just would not be RIGHT!
ANYWAY, this month's theme is BIRTHDAY! And I have two cards for you that I think you will LOVE!
About these cards...February has been going on for a while now, and in particular WINTER has been going on for...sniff...QUITE A WHILE NOW!!!!
I just got used to the incredible heatwave of 50-odd degrees we were having for a precious few days, but now it's back, baby. And just about this time of year I. Am. SICK. OF. WINTER!!!!
Bill Murray expressed it perfectly here:
Yes, that's the way I feel...it's cold...it's gray...and it's going to last the REST OF MY LIFE!!! ACK!!!
So you can understand that by this time of year, I am ready for some bright colors and ZINGA ZINGA in my cards, right? So guess what? That's what I got! Lookie:
Ingredients: Stamps - Birthday Bliss; Paper - Celebrations DSP & Quick Accents, Bashful Blue, Pacific Point, Whisper White, Old Olive, Daffodil Delight; Ink - Versamark; Other - Big Bold Cupcakes Sizzlets, Scallop Square punch, Brights brads, white EP, dimensionals, 2-way glue, 1/8" Real Red taffeta ribbon, Elegant Lines Textured Impressions folder, Dazzling Diamonds glitter.
OMGojus!!! (YILM!) Doesn't this just help you feel warm all over! After I made it, I began to long for green grass, blue lakes, and bright...bright...FLOWERS!
So after I pulled myself together, I sat down and made THIS card:
Ingredients: Stamps - Build a Blossom, Heard from the Heart; Paper - Tempting Turquoise, Pacific Point, Melon Mambo, Regal Rose, Daffodil Delight; Ink - Melon Mambo, Pacific Point, Daffocil Delight; Other - Blossoms Petal punch, 1" circle punch, Ice Cream Parlor ribbon, dimensionals, white gel pen, 3/8" corner rounding punch
GOJUS!!! (YILM!) Can't you just feel the breath of spring on your face, the scent of flowers, the warm sun on your face, and the promise of better days to come.....ahhhhhhh...
Yes, any day now, ANY DAY NOW!!!
I was really excited after I made this card...then I checked the weather channel...
<a href="http://www.millan.net"><img src="http://www.millan.net/minimations/smileys/snowing.gif" border=0 alt="Smiley from millan.net"></a>
A WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM SUNDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH MONDAY MORNING.
IMPACTS...
* ICING ON EXPOSED SURFACES WILL BE POSSIBLE. THE WEIGHT OF THE ICE MAY BE HEAVY ENOUGH TO BREAK TREE BRANCHES AND BRING DOWN POWER LINES.
* EXTENDED POWER OUTAGES MAY BE POSSIBLE.
* ICY ROADS AND SIDEWALKS WILL MAKE TRAVEL BOTH IN VEHICLES AND ON FOOT EXTREMELY DANGEROUS... WHICH MAY HAVE BIG IMPACTS ON THE MONDAY MORNING COMMUTE.
HAZARDOUS WEATHER...
* SNOW WILL DEVELOP SUNDAY AFTERNOON... THEN CHANGE OVER TO SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN DURING THE EVENING. THE PRECIPITATION SHOULD DIMINISH EARLY MONDAY MORNING.
* 1 TO 3 INCHES OF SNOW IS POSSIBLE BEFORE THE CHANGE OVER TO FREEZING RAIN OCCURS.
* UP TO A QUARTER INCH OF ICE IS POSSIBLE BY MONDAY MORNING.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS...
* A WINTER STORM WATCH MEANS THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR SIGNIFICANT ICE ACCUMULATIONS THAT MAY IMPACT TRAVEL. CONTINUE TO MONITOR THE LATEST FORECASTS.
Any day now...any day now....
I guess you had better go on to the next person...I need to go sob quietly somewhere, so go on to Patty Bennet's blog, I am sure she's in a MUCH better mood than me! Ta!
Ingredients: Stamps - Take a Spin; Paper - Celebrations DSP, Pacific Point, Old Olive, Real Red, Bashful Blue, Whisper White; Ink - Pacific Point; Other - Glimmer Brads Brights, 5/8" Old Olive grosgrain, Game Spinner Hands, dimensionals.
STINKIN' CUTE!!! (YILM!) I just love this set, so much fun and can you imagine the person I will give this card to's face when they take it out! So much fun!
I've got a few tips for using the spinner hands:
After you put the spinner hand on the card and put the brad through the hole you made for it, take another piece of cardstock and cut a slit in one edge towards the center. Slide this under the spinner hand on the front so that the brad that attaches the spinner is resting in the slit. This lifts the spinner off of the cardstock slightly. Now after you fasten the brad on the back, when you take the slitted cardstock out, your spinner will spin instead of being trapped tightly against the cardstock.
Gently slightly bend the arrow and the ball on the opposite side of the spinner hand up away from the card. That will help it spin more freely.
Oh, and just a reminder!
Coming up soon! We are showcasing Valentine's ideas, be sure to check in right here on the 20th! Ta!
