Happy Spring!

Hi Everyone!  

Did you know that today is the first day of Spring?  

I wish I could believe it from a weather standpoint here in FL! I hope that this may finally mean that warm weather and flowers and green grass will be coming our way soon!

Fitting for the First Day of Spring, Joanne Basile, one of the Dirty Dozen Alumni has challenged all past and present Dirty Girls to make a card with spring in mind!  We were to use either Birds or Bees on our cards, and we were restricted from using a border punch!!  What?  No border punch!!  That's horrible!!  LOL!!  But somehow I managed...

 

 I knew immediately that I wanted to use this momma bird feeding her baby birdies image from Unity's Spring Unity set.  I just think it is so adorable.  Plus, it was created by my good buddie Heather Rolin who designs many stamp sets for Unity and Ippity and is also the Guest Designer for Ippity stamps for the Winter Release term.  The cloud and sentiment are from the Sweet Thoughts of Spring Ippity stamp set

The colors from this sweet Bo Bunny paper that I bought while on my excursion with my Stamp TV Buddies were perfect to fit the bill for this springy card.  I just love the oranges, blues and browns in this set!  I cut away one of the floral branches and attached it to the image panel so it looked like the bird and its' nest was resting on it.  The images of the birds were colored with Copics, and the bird nest was paper pieced.  For a final touch I also machine stitched the base layers.

If you want to see what some of the other DD Alumni did with this challenge, just click on the link below and go to the SCS Gallery.  The keyword for this challenge was DCBB310.

Birds and Bees Dirty Girl Challenge Gallery 

Changing gears really quickly, I wanted to make you aware of a wonderful charity event going on involving Stamping and Whimsie Doodles stamps...

Join Whimsie Doodles and Paper Craft Planet for the 

'Paws I Care' challenge

Saturday, March 20th through Saturday, March 27th, 2010.

To play along you must create a card using this sketch:

The card must contain an animal, any animal from any company.

If you don’t have any pet images Whimsie Doodles has a brand new digi set called “Paws I Care”. 

All proceeds from the sale of this set will go directly to a local SPCA, and it is absolutely adorable!

Upload your card to the PCP gallery {HERE} using the tag sk032010, for your chance to win a $10 gift certificate from Whimsie Doodles Stamps.  A winner will be chosen next Saturday, March. 27.

Hopefully I will be back tomorrow with a sample of my card using the adorable stamps and the sketch above!! I really appreciate Melyssa making this event as rescuing animals is near and dear to my heart!

Have a wonderful day and may your bucket overflow with Sweet Thoughts of Spring and fur babies too!!

Friday with my Friends!

As far as I am concerned there is no better way to spend my Fridays then with 50 of my closest online friends!!  LOL!! Welcome to my Friends with Flair post today!!  If you don't know what FWF is, it is where the customers of Unity Stamp Co. (and {ippity} stamps too) get to share their creations made with Unity stamps!

To start at the beginning of the list, go to the Unity blog and be prepared for some awesome inspiration!  There is also a chance for one lucky blog hopper to win 25 random Unity stamps if they are the lucky commenter on the blog who has the FWF blinkie!  Good luck and have fun!!

Today I have an {ippity} project to share with you.  I also have this posted on the {ippity} blog as today's Fresh Idea Friday because I found a unique way to use some of our {ippity} stamps!

I recently bought a mint plant so I could have some fresh mint leaves for the yummy Mojitos I like to make at home.  So I decided to make a plant label for my new plant.  I had a really fun time using some of my {ippity} stamps in different ways.    

First I stamped a portion of one of the seaweed stamps from Fishy Philosophy to be a plant.  And the planter that you see above is actually the Easter Basket from the Sweet Thoughts of Spring set with the handle and the Easter eggs cut away!  

I also used Alphabetically Adorable to make the name of the plant and a scalloped border  from Sweet Thoughts of Spring to separate the title from the image!

I used BG Origins DP because the colors were perfect to match my green plant!  I used Labels Eight  Nestability to create the frame for the label and the image panel.  I colored in the stamped images with Copic Markers to coordinate with the DP and then lightly sponged around the plant while the label was still in place to create a white frame around the image!

By running the label through a laminating machine I was able to make it waterproof.  I ran two skewers through  a hole that was punched at the top and the bottom of the label.  I really like the way it turned out and hope to make some more as I increase my collection of herbs that I want to have fresh in my kitchen for cooking!

If you are interested in purchasing any of the stamps you saw used in my project today, 

you can find them for sale at great prices on my {ippity} sales blog...  

 There's Ippity in My Bucket! 

Have a wonderful time visiting the rest of the blogs and have a great weekend!  May your bucket be overflowing with lots of new ideas for your older stamps!

Playing Catch Up!

Some of you may have noticed that I didn't do a blog post over the weekend!!  And if you didn't, that's OK too!!  But I had a wonderful time on Saturday getting together with some of my stamping friends that I met online through Stamp TV's Florida group.  What a wonderful bunch of ladies I have ever had the pleasure of knowing!!

We went to a LSS (Local Scrapbook Store) in Ocala and spent the day creating, coloring,

chatting and eating!!  It was so fun!!  

In the back row from L-R is Asela Hopkins, Paige (my BFF's niece), Tiffani (my BFF), 

Cathy Clark (our hostess) and me!  In the front from L-R is Deb Felts (my DD pal), 

Naomi, Barbara and Vianna (my partner in crime!)

Here is one of Asela and Deb! They are two of the sweetest people you could ever meet.  I have had the pleasure of meeting Deb many times before, but this was my first time meeting Asela.  What a sweet and talented lady she is!! I can't wait until we can do this again!!  It was so much fun!

I did a lot of shopping while I was there and bought some Bo Bunny, Graphic 45, Basic Grey, Creative Imaginations and SEI papers that you will surely be seeing in the future.  While there, I  spent the majority of my day working on an album cover for my puppy's first year.  It was a submission for the Dirty Dozen Gallery this month.  Our theme was critters!!  It was super fun to create for this month's gallery and my Sunday was spent finalizing my projects and uploading them for the new DD Gallery reveal Sunday night as well as preparing for Monday's Hippity Hop!!

Here is a snippet of the album cover I made for our puppy Tasha.   I made the title using the word Puppy from the DCWV Pet Tales line of paper and the word LOVE that I stamped using {ippity's} Alphabetically Adorable set.  You can see the whole picture by going HERE, but you will have to be a Fan Club Member to view it.  (Want to become a Fan Club Member?... Click HERE to learn more about it!)

I hope you will go and check out this month's  

Fan Club Gallery 

full of wonderful Critter Creations  that were submitted by the Dirty Dozen.  Unfortunately it was my last month as a Dirty Girl. :-(   I can't believe how fast that six months went!  We welcomed in two new Dirty Girls this month too that you will definitely want to meet!

Mona Pendleton 

Ann Schach

And finally I had time to catch up and play along with last week's Whimsie Doodles Challenge (WWC22) on Paper Craft's Planet.  We were challenged by Nikki to use Glitter on our card!  So I made a cute Easter card using one of the images from Whimsie Doodles Easter Sentiments collection which is available in red rubber to make this card...

While I am not a fan of eating those little Marshmallow Treats at Easter time, I did find it absolutely adorable to work with!   Doesn't it look sweet enough to eat??

 I added my glitter in the form of crystal glitter called Diamond Dust.  I think it made the peep look just like they come with the candy crystal sugar coating on top!

In closing....

Tonight at midnight my {ippity} blog candy drawing closes and I will be picking one lucky winner to win an {ippity} set of their choice!

What do you have to do?

Become a Follower of my {ippity} Sales blog

and

Leave a comment on my {ippity} sales blog!

CLICK HERE to go There's Ippity In My Bucket!

I hope you have a wonderful Tuesday and may your bucket overflow with sweetness in the form of friends, creative projects and candy!!!  LOL!!

Today's Hippity Hop is Going Green!

Good Monday Morning and Happy Hippity Hop!!

For this week's Hippity Hop Challenge  

our wonderfully talented Lisa Henke has asked that we use 

Green and a Neutral color on our creations today!

It's the perfect color combo to celebrate the upcoming St. Patrick's Day, 

but it did have me scratching my head just a bit as I decided what to do!  LOL!

Thanks Maria for reminding me that this also fits last Tuesday's Trigger on the Moxie Fab Blog!

You can check it out here...

We hope you will play along with us this week!  We are up to Ippity HH Challenge fifteen today so use the keyword  IHHC15 when uploading to Galleries.  All the details are on the {ippity} Blog and that is where you will find the list of all of  today's fabulous blogs to visit too!  We have almost 50 wonderful blogs signed up today!!  That is just wonderful and will surely start my week off with the type of amazing inspiration that I need for a week filled with creating!!  :-)

Click HERE to visit the {ippity} Blog!

I ended up taking advantage of a cute patterned paper from DCWV's Crafty Stack to lead me to the finished product you see here...

The paper came with the subtle outline of the flowers and stems that you see here.  All I did was cut one extra set out to place on top of the base.  I used the Dots border stamp from Love in Return  by {ippity} to make the flowers have the dotted pattern and I also outlined the extra layer with an opaque white pen.

The sentiment and frame you see here are from the Just Wanted to Say {ippity}set.  I stamped it directly onto my GP  paper using SU's Wild Wasabi green ink!

A faint line of stitching was already present on the paper, but I decided to follow that line using my machine to give the card more texture.  I finished off the piece with two cute little flower centers from Doodlebug Designs!

My {ippity} BLOG CANDY giveaway 

is still going on HERE.

And so is the Sweet Sale I am doing for sponsoring the Sweet Sketch Wednesday blog last week!

Don't miss out  on either of those things and have a great time finishing the hop today!!  May your bucket be overflowing with enough coffee to get you through today's blog hop full of wonderful {ippity} creations!

Have a great day!

FWF for a Friend

Usually for my Friends With Flair Friday posts I like to be kind of upbeat, but today it is a little hard because of the reason I had to make this card.  My co-workers and I learned yesterday that one of our practitioner's lost her husband in a car accident on Wednesday evening!  It is such a sad time and I never feel like I know the right thing to do or say!

So the thing that comes easiest to me at a time like this is to make a card.  I tried really hard to make a card that will show her how much I care and hopefully give her some comfort.  I used the beautiful Bevy of Butterflies set from Unity and some of the new DP's from October Afternoon.  These OA papers are beginning to become a real favorite of mine.  I can't wait until I can purchase more of it!

I started with an off white card base and added the 3 x 4 inch paper sample from the soon to be released Thrift Shop line of paper from October Afternoon in the right upper corner.  Then I counter balanced that with a swatch  of the same sized piece of black CS in the bottom left hand corner.   The look I was going for was a Vintage/ Victorian look.  I added some distressing to the edges of the some of the panels and used embellishments that were cream

One of the butterflies was stamped onto more OA paper and a strip of small half pearls that I lightly aged with some Copics was added to the center for the body.

The image panel uses the same CS as the base.  I stamped the plant silhouette and sentiment from the same Bevy of Butterflies set.  I lightly sponged over the silhouette with Versamagic wheat colored chalk ink to reduce some of the harshness of the cream color. I liked my end product, but just wish I didn't need to send a sympathy card.  My heart is heavy for my friend.

To see the rest of the blogs that have signed up to participate in today's Friends With Flair hop, visit the Unity Blog for the complet list to follow.  You won't be disappointed!!

Want to win some blog candy and 

buy some {ippity} at a real bargain? 

Please visit my {ippity}sales blog until next Wednesday to take advantage of the sweet deals!!

There's {ippity} in My Bucket

How Sweet It Is!!

How sweet it is

that I got to play along with the Sweet Sketch Wednesday sketch again!

It's been far too long since I played along with this great sketch challenge and I have missed it!  But this week is a special occasion because as an {ippity}Chick I am sponsoring this week's challenge. Please check out all the details at the Sweet Sketch Wednesday blog.  I hope you will decide to play along!!  

There is even a chance to win a FREE {ippity} stamp set for doing so!!

Here is the sketch for this week...

And here is the card that I made...

I used the Sweet Thoughts of Spring set from {ippity} 

and so did all the DT members from the SSW blog.  

The  stamps that were used to make this card include...

• The chick
• The thought bubble and sentiment
• The scalloped border

To celebrate my sponsoring the SSW sketch challenge this week I am offering a 

really SWEET Sale over at my {ippity} sales blog. 

To get this set at a great discount and 

for a chance to win a FREE {ippity} stamp set please visit 

There's Ippity in My Bucket

(my sales blog)

to find out all the details

How can you resist this adorable little chick!! Don't you just love him??  

I colored him (or is it a her?) with Copic markers.  The thought bubble originally came out of the wrong side of the cloud in relation to the chicks head, so I used my stamp-a-majig and masked it so it could be stamped on the opposite side!

Hope you like what you saw today!  

 

And don't forget to stop by my sales blog to buy this stamp set 

at a great sale price and to have a chance to win a FREE stamp set!

Have a great day and may your bucket overflow with the sweet signs of spring!!