Blogger Help!

So, my daughter is in town for a week and she has been blogging for much longer than I have been.  She was able to show me how to put a connection to the catalog and my DBWS.  Yay!  I've been wanting to add those links for awhile, but wasn't sure how to do it--thanks Amy!!

The card I'm sharing today was one that I found on Facebook--it was a video that was shared there by Erin Gonzalez of Hand Stamped Style.  This is a link to her blog--the directions/video for this card is on her facebook page so you'll have to "like" it to get to it.   I thought that the card looked fun and easy, but it ended up taking me far too long to do the flower for it to be a demonstratable card.  (I think I just made up that word).

The flower is made with the Blossom Petals Builder punch.  Stamp sets used were Betsy's Blossom and Perfectly Penned.

Colors used:  Daffodil Delight, Basic Black, Basic Gray, Sahara Sand.

Love the Banners!

I'm loving the look of banners that is "in" right now in stamping AND I also love rainbow colors--always have!  So here's a card I saw and cased, but don't know who to give credit to since there wasn't a watermark on the card picture.  So if it's your card--let me know and I'll link to your blog!  Here it is--a fun and easy card:

It uses the colorful Summer Smooches designer paper and the coordinating stamp set, Bright Blossoms.  

Stampin' Up Party Fun!

It's been a busy 2 weeks since I last posted!  I did a bunch of work in my house getting ready for the Hoffman family reunion, painted, cleaned, put up over 125 dozen ears of corn, hosted 55 people for 3 meals in my home, and demonstrated for a Stampin' Up party.  

Here are the cards demonstrated--sorry to those of you who have been waiting for me to get them posted!  My first card highlighted the new set, Storybook Friends and the Labels framelits.

The colors I used were bashful blue, chocolate chip, very vanilla and watercolor paper. 

The next card I made was all about the new in colors--this card used summer starfruit, raspberry ripple and midnight muse on very vanilla paper.  I used the stamp set Betsy's Blossom.

The sentiment is from a new set--Lacey and Lovely (which I got for the sentiments more than the doily like stamps).  

The next card is a fun one that I got from Dawn's Stamping Thoughts here--it's called a Peek-a-Boo card.  It's fun and easy to make and has a wow factor to it!  

It's a bit hard to photograph, but here it is closed.

Starting to open--see the sentiments moving across the original view of stamps.

And fully open.  I used the stamp sets Bright Blossoms and Petite Pairs.

The 4th card demonstrated was this one:  I had borrowed the lattice die from my friend, Deb (thanks again!) and used it to create a background.  I then added the flower strip using Raining Flowers.  I used a base color that I don't use very often--Elegant Eggplant.

And last but not least--the hostess, Valerie, had seen the larger chickens that I'd made from ovals and wanted me to try and make a card from materials that were not retired.  It was a bit hard since all of the Big Shot dies with ovals were retired, but I got a mini chicken made with the extra large oval.  I made an easel card using the heart framelits and the chicken is made from the new polka dot dsp.

I made the tags from the Tiny Tags set.  The comb of the chicken is made from the heart on the owl punch and the beak is from one of the flowers on the Boho Blossoms punch.  The wing is the small heart punch and the eye is a tiny pearl with a dot on it from a black Sharpie.  The texture on the white heart was made with my diagonal score board from SU.

Apologies to those of you who have been waiting to see the cards we made!  Enjoy!

VC Rocks Blog Hop 2

Hi!  Welcome to the 21st stop on the VC Rocks Blog Hop 2!  This blog hop is all about "Any Size Card!"  I love seeing what everyone has created---don't you?  You should be arriving here from Krafting with Karen.  I just love the Hostess set "Four Seasons" that she used for her creation!  If you get lost on the way please head to home base for VC Rocks and you'll find a listing of all of us participating.
Here are the cards I'm sharing:

I made a set of four 3x3 cards using the stamp set Lean on Me.  I used watercolor paper, ink pads and a blender pen to color the pictures, then cut them out using the Label Framelits.  I made a little scallop box (instructions found here) out of the new Natural Composition Specialty paper.  It's a bit heavier weight than the other dsp--so it was great for a box!  You can't tell in the photo, but the design on it is embossed. I tried to change up each of the ways I made a background for the framelits.

On the card on the left I backed with 2 decorative label punches in basic black and on the right I sponged with soft suede and added a cherry cobbler seam binding ribbon (can I say that ribbon is so frustrating to work with!!)  It frays when you look at it!

The card on the left I just mounted on black and added some of the Fashionable Hearts embosslits and on the right I used 2 more label framelits (same size as main image) and offset them for a small border in pool party.  The ribbon is Regal Rose 1/8" taffeta.

Here's the box with the cards and envelopes in it--ready to give as a little present to someone. It's all tied up with Basic Black Scallop Dot ribbon.  The label uses a sentiment from "A Word for You" punched out with the scalloped oval, mounted on a basic black decorative label punch.  The heart is from the owl punch.   =-)

Now it's time to head to the next stop--Must Love Stampin' --you have to check out the adorable shaped cards that Gwyn has created!  Happy Summer Stamping!

A Little, Sweet Distraction....

No card today--I'm too busy playing with Brody, my 11 month old grandson.  Everytime I see him he has grown and changed.  He's a delight to spend time with--such a happy boy.  Today Abby (my DIL), Brody and I went to a garage sale and look what we found!  A drum set!  Just what every little boy needs in his life--noisemakers!!

I'll be back late tonight or early tomorrow with my post for the 2nd VC Rocks blog hop of 2012.  

How do you feel about Summer Starfruit?

Okay--I'll be upfront with you.  I think the new in color Summer Starfruit looks like baby poo.  I tried it out with this card....and I'm still not very excited about it.  Someone somewhere tried to put a positive spin on it and said to think of it as a green, not a yellow.  Okay.  I'll leave the judging up to you.  I don't think I'll use it much.

What I used:

    Stamps:  Betsy's Blossom, Petite Pairs,  Betsy's Petals (wheel)

    Ink & Paper:  Very Vanilla, Midnight Muse, Summer Starfruit,  Primrose Petals

    Accessories:  Punches (circle & scallop circle) non SU,  SU pearls, retired night of navy button, 

    Scallop Trim border punch

Daring Adventure

I went the whole year without really looking at this set, but I love this saying by Helen Keller.  When I was little I loved reading biographies...I got started with biographies that were in our public library intended for young readers.  I can't remember what they were called, but they were all the same size, had the same cover design and they all started with the childhood of the person being written about.  I think I read just about everyone our library had....and oh, yes....back on topic.....one of them was about Helen Keller.
I made this card for my other niece, Jordan, (Janiece's sister) that graduated from college this year.  Yes, my brother and his wife both have names that start with J so they named all their kids with names that started with J.  I'm sure you wanted that tidbit of info didn't you?

Don't you love the luxurious background in this picture?  We were driving to the graduation party when I realized that I hadn't yet taken a picture of the card--so I quickly propped it up on the console and snapped a couple of shots--hoping that the car wasn't bouncing up and down too much!

Here's what the inside looked like:

Here's what I used:

     Stamps:  Daring Adventure, Pursuit of Happiness

     Inks and Paper:  Marina Mist, Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Beau Chateau (retired)

My 100th Post!

We just got back from my niece's graduation and party in Indiana--it was a flying trip!  14 hours in the car last Thursday and 14 hours back home yesterday.  I'm always grateful for safe travel since we've done sooo many of these trips since we moved away from my side of the family.  Here's a card I made that I have been looking at in my files for around 3 months.  Love the crispness of red and white together.  Here's the link to the blog where the card was found, but it was long ago and after going back 9 pages I gave up. But let me tell you Tanya has a fabulous blog with tons of great ideas and tutorials on it!   If you do find the card--you can see that I changed it.....minutely.

You can't see it, but I put some crystal effects on the white parts of the cherries and the leaf.  

Here's what I used:

        Stamps:  A Word for You, Button Buddies

        Paper:  Real Red, Old Olive, Whisper White, Basic Black

        Accessories:  Circle punches all sizes from 1/2 inch to 1 1/4 inches, Decorative Label Punch,

        Real Red 1/8" taffeta ribbon

Congrats to the Grad!

I'm in Indiana right now helping my niece (and her family) celebrate her graduation from high school.  We drove 14 hours from Kansas to Indiana on Thursday--recovered during the day on Friday and watched her graduate last night (Friday).  Today is the reception at my brother's house--it's always great to get together with family and I don't get to do it often enough--so I'm looking forward to family time!!
Here's the card I made for all the grads this year--Janiece's is in purple instead of red, but essentially it's the same card.  Tomorrow I'll post the card I made for her sister who graduated from college this year also!

And here's what the inside looks like:

I used the retired set "Go Graduate"--love it!  Colored with my blender pen and inks.  I'm off to celebrate.....be back tomorrow with the other graduation card.  Here's the link to the tutorial that I used to create this card.  There is also a tutorial for the tassel.  Gotta love these uber creative demonstrators that share their ideas!

Mixed Bunch

Here's another card I found on Pinterest and cased.  Here's the original post about it.  I've seen a lot of the cards using punches and wanted to give it a try.  Very easy and striking--if you go to the link you'll see that Sharon tried it in a variety of color combinations!

Here's what I used:  

Ink:  Lucky Limeade, Calypso Coral, Basic Black

Stamps:  Mixed Bunch, A Word for You

Accessories:  1" circle punch, 3/4" circle punch, Blossom punch, SAB Everyday Enchantment brad (retired)

Paper:  Whisper White, Old Olive DSP

Love these Chickens!

About 2 months ago I pinned this cute chicken from cricut.com.  I don't own a cricut, but thought I could easily make this chicken myself with and oval and some heart punches.....take a look!

I had to use some retired polka dot paper (none of my new stuff --which is limited did the trick) and then after I got the chicken made it just screamed--or clucked at me that I needed to use a chicken wire background stamp and the old SU set Best of Cluck.  I knew I was keeping that around for some reason!  Ha!  Here's my other chicken card which I like even more....if that's possible!

Oh my goodness--love it!  I used the really small oval punch to make the little eggs.

Colors used on both--Ridinghood Red, Basic Black, Very Vanilla.  Let me know if you have any questions--may have to do a class with this idea!  =-)

Stampin' Fun.....Finally!

I've spent the last week going through my stamps, pricing the ones I want to get rid of....having a new catalog party/sale with Lola (my upline) and then going through all of my paper scraps--sorting and throwing away!  Wow--I need to do a better job staying on top of that stuff.  Take a look at my tubs and tubs of stamps for sale!  All priced under $10--wait, I think I have 1 or 2 for $10.

Anyway....on to my card for today.  My goal this summer is to do something current and something with my retired stamps/paper so they don't just sit there unused all year long!

New!  I saw a card on Pinterest that inspired this card-- it uses Betsy's Blossom and the retired sizzlet, Flower Burst, that matches perfectly--too bad it's retired.  So I guess I combined my challenge for myself all in one card!

I used the new designer paper to get my colors for this card--Lucky Limeade and Tangerine Tango.

The designer paper is from Floral District and the sentiment is from Blessings from Heaven.  I used the Lucky Limeade ruffled ribbon also.  I don't yet own the 3 inch circle die so had to use a couple of non-SU punches while I wait to get it.

I'll be back tomorrow with a card that was totally inspired by a craft project I found on Pinterest.  I'm really excited about it--love how it turned out!