spring is near ... honest!

Another hybrid card, this one uses a digi flower set I picked up from Jessica Sprague's One Buck Wednesday offerings this past week. I love the black, white, and a splash of color combos. This particular digi set includes lots of mix and match flowers and stems. If you look closely, these particular stems have a bit of an outline - that's so that, especially if mounted on another color other than white, that they'll look like stickers ... cool idea!

I rarely post in the morning, and SHOULD be getting ready for work, but I had printed this image before hitting the hay last night ... now I'm OFF! See ya later, 'gators!

stamps: Crystal Wilkerson's Color Me Happy digi set; paper: Paper Reflections' black, SU's Bermuda Bay card stocks; ink: PC printer ink; accessories: unknown black thing-a-ma-jiggys at the bottom ... sigh ... what do you call them, again?!

my dark side

... just a wee bit o' dark humor today! This card's based on Karen Giron's SSSC54 sketch challenge. I know, for those of you who follow Karen's sketches, it WAS from late January, but better late than never, right?! It was sweet, and immediately made me think of my latest SU stamp set, Vintage Vogue. I love the vines in this set - both on the border thingy and the one I repeated on the yellow card stock. The center matted circle is popped up using dimensionals.

stamps: SU's Vintage Vogue; paper: SU's Basic Gray, Crushed Curry, Going Gray card stocks; ink: Color Box Charcoal fluid chalk, Versamark, and Tri-C watercolor markers

Pantone Unveils Color of the Year for 2010

I have regular "gals' day out" outings with 3 friends (4 buddies, 4 hearts - get it?!) and we generally take in a movie and eats. This weekend's Barb's birthday, so she gets to select the movie and restaurant (I'll post a review afterward). Here's the b'day card I made using Jessica Sprague's One Buck Wednesday offerings - the DP's Orchard & Broome's West 4th collection in cool tones (7 coordinating DPs in 12x12" jpg format). Pretty stuff, eh?! The inside matted rectangle and hearts are all popped up using dollar store dimensionals I picked up recently when shopping w Kimmie.

... AND it just so happens that I'd been intending (I recall my Mom used to tell me, "the road to Hell is paved with good intentions ...") to make a turquoise card in honor of Pantone naming turquoise the color of the year for 2010.

... which reminds me, how are YOU pronouncing 2010? Is it twenty-ten, or two-thousand-ten, or, like the Golf Channel, are you using two-K-ten?!

stamps: studio g's series 30 and VS4911 (inside sentiment), Karen's single birthday candle; paper: Orchard & Broome's West 4th - Cool DP, unknown white card stock; ink: ColorBox silver pigment

blog candy!

Interested in winning this booty? Visit Jacque by 2/28/2010!

things I've found en route to looking for other things ...

card-related - NOT! long post title, I know ... and no reason for sharing this other than it made me smile. I WAS looking for something work-related, and came across this at work today ... a photo I'd saved long ago and shared w my DH, thinking it was the best tatoo I've ever seen (no, he didn't agree to get one). sigh ... back to work!

happy birthday

Here's my fav project from Saturday's make -'n- take at Karen's. STINKIN' CUTE, eh?! I'm counting 11 layers here! I love the bright primary colors. I went home with a single candle stamp similar to those we used in class today. The double matted candle image is popped up using dimensionals.

Hope you're having a t'riffic weekend!

blog candy!

If I don't win, I hope one of my readers does! Go visit ABC Toys and Crafts! 'Nuff said!

stamping communities

Had you heard that Splitcoaststampers was recently sold again, for the 2nd time in the last couple years? Visiting Craft Critique this evening, I learned of many of the following stamping communities for my first time. I'm posting them here to share the wealth and keep the links handy to peruse at my leisure:

Craftster

Splitcoaststampers

Spotted Canary

Fiskateers

Etsy Community

ScrapGal

The Mosy Scrapper

Ravelry

Burda Style

Craft: Forums

Paper Craft Planet

Rubber Stamp Chat

Scrap Freak

I Love to Create

Scrap Love

Craftig

SewGirls

Plaid Online

Get Crafty

DigiShopTalk

vintage vogue

Another Stamp Camp treat - this is actually a card designed by a buddy of Angie's, and was my fav of the evening. I LOVE this bird/branch punch. It's one of the new ones in the latest catty. I already have a slightly smaller bird/branch 2x2 die (see it on my "peace" card) or else this punch would have been ordered in a heartbeat! Isn't it cute how we cut the wing from the stamped card stock? Oh ... and the Vintage Vogue stamp set?! Yep, it made it's way home with me at the prior month's camp!

Love the colors, and love the way we stamped our background using the white craft and gray stamps!

hi there!

This card is SO STINKIN' CUTE, eh?! It's another from Angie's February Stamp Camp that Pat and I went to last Thursday. SO unlike me to not have it posted by Friday ... dunno what's up with THAT! It just makes me happy! The stamp set's from the latest SU mini catty but I'm so lazy I'm not pulling out the catty to look it up - BAD stamper that I am!

Being on the cutting edge (pun), when Angie showed us this card, I asked whether she'd seen the fringe scissors now available.
Now, I don't know about you ... and maybe I've finally come to the realization that I'll never use all the tools I already own ... but this tool's one I THINK I'll be able to resist temptation. How 'bout you?!

just arrived

This card's for my niece, who recently had a baby boy. I'm hoping to scoot down to see baby Mason soon - cute name, eh?! My card was inspired by one I'd seen while blog trolling, and I hope to be able to edit this to give credit (if any of you know of it, lemme know; for now, I've misplaced the info). I used SU's big polka dot embossing plate on the light blue card stock ... dunno whether you can tell by the photo! I'd picked up this train stamp a few weeks ago at Karen's, intending to use it for Crossroads Village scrapbook pages, but it's sure come in handy lately (think "loco for you" for Valentine's Day?!).

stamps: CTMH's Fabric Finishes and Simple Stitches stamp sets, Karen's (untitled train), SU's Congrats (inside sentiment); paper: Paper Reflections' black, SU's bashful blue and whisper white card stocks; ink: Ranger's distress ink's black soot, SU's bashful blue; tools: SU's backgrounds 1 texturz plate

L letterpress, anyone?

Rachel of Black Eiffel blog fame did a review of the L Letterpress and is giving away a combo kit. To enter, visit her blog post and leave a comment by February 14th. She'll randomly select one comment and announce the winner there on Monday February 15th.

conversation hearts

It was Bonnie, a student who attended Kettering (insert shameless plug for my workplace here) and worked part-time in my office, who first introduced me to the term, "conversation hearts." She's long-since graduated, married and now has twin boys ... gotta get in touch and get updated pics! My, how time flies when you're having fun!

Anywho, I picked up these cutie conversation heart sayings while at Karen's today for my every other Saturday make-'n-take with a couple stampin' buddies, Pat and Kim (hi ladies!). They're the shop's own custom stamps, which, I've gotta add, the store sells at very reasonable prices. I just pulled out some soft subtle SU card stock and their ink pads, inked up the sayings, punched 'em out using a Marvy jumbo heart punch, and added the slightly larger heart as an accent using the mega and super heart punches and some SU card stock vellum, with a Bazzill corduroy button brad to hold 'em all together. Both the conversation heart layer and accent heart are popped up using varying sized dimensionals. Voila! Easy peasy!

edited to add: I HATE it when I'm inspired by a card, then can't find that link when I've uploaded my card - and here's the original card that inspired mine - thanx for the inspiration, Charlene!

nat'l wear red day

As noted on the go red for women site ... most of the time, selecting clothing isn’t that critical, but on Wear Red Day, it’s vitally important. That’s because wearing red on National Wear Red Day makes a statement about the No. 1 killer of American women: cardiovascular disease, the cause of one in every three female deaths.

We hope to bring attention, and more importantly, donations, to support medical research, awareness, education, and community programs to help women live longer, stronger, heart-healthy lives. So, please join women – and men – across America who are wearing red and speaking up to save women’s lives.

Care to donate?

it's official!

Phil's official forecast as read February 2nd, 2010 at sunrise at Gobbler's Knob:

Hear Ye Hear Ye Hear Ye

On Gobbler's Knob on this glorious Groundhog Day, February 2nd, 2010, Punxsutawney Phil, Seer of Seers, Prognosticator of all Prognosticators awoke to the call of President Bill Deeley and greeted his handlers, John Griffiths and Ben Hughes.

After casting a joyful eye towards thousands of his faithful followers, Phil proclaimed, "If you want to know what's next, you must read my text. As the sky shines bright above me, my shadow I see beside me. So six more weeks of winter it will be."

aside from SueB - did you know?! ... the first Groundhog Day was observed in Punxsutawney, PA on February 2nd, 1887