And the Greatest of These is...

It's Monday and that means it's time for another Hippity Hop!!  

Start at the Ippity blog for the complete list of today's Blog Hop paricipants.  Are you participating?  Do you have an Ippity stamps so you can play along with us?  Well be sure to check out the Clearance sale that I am having on my Ippity Sales Blog.  You can get your Ippity stamps at a very low price and have what it takes to participate with an upcoming Hippity Hop!!

When I saw Karen's Inspiration photo for this week's challenge, I immediately thought of the Bible verse from 1 Corinthians 13:13 which says "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."  Love is such a wonderful thing and I am so blessed to have so much of it in my life from my friends and family. I truly am blessed and so thankful for it!

I used Alphabetically Adorable to stamp the letters L-O-V-E and then also added flowers from this Spring's release set Now and Always.  I love the colors from the photo and chose to stick with those too.  I used post-it's to mask off the center around the letters.

I loved how there were birds in the image too so I also added two of the birds from the What Matters Most set.  I paper pieced them and otherwise used the ink from Stampin' Up and some Copic markers to stamp the flowers and color in some of the centers.  The DP is from Crate Papers Paper Doll Collection.

If you are interested in purchasing Alphabetically Adorable at a very reduced price please CLICK HERE!!

Enjoy the Hippity Hop and we hope you see you next week participating along with us!!

It's a Hip Hop Kind of Day!

Welcome to the Thursday edition of my blog!! Today is the day that the Unity and Ippity DT girls get to share some of the work they have been doing with their amazing stamps!!  They are so inspiring and it is always a pleasure for me to ink them up!! It's like a treat that I look forward to each Thursday!!  If you have come to me from Karen's Blog then you are on the right track.  Otherwise... please start at the beginning with the Unity Blog and proceed until you end at the Ippity blog.  Lisa H. will have a wonderful tutorial there for you to enjoy!!

So anyway... on to today's post!!  Hip Hop!!  

Maria has been so kind to provide us with yet another Hip Hop Sketch (HHSC13) to use this week!! She is really good at converting card layouts into sketches!!  :-)

I had a chance to pull out some October Afternoon DP (from the Thrift Shop collection) and have a little fun!!  Oh  how I love that OA does half the work for us!!  I used one of the stickers for the flower sprig and also for the flowers under the brads and the frame for the sentiment!

I always like to have Birthday cards on hand for when the occasion sneaks up on me and I need to send one out.  So I used the Birthday Wishes stamp from the Just Wanted to Say set to make this card! If you want to purchase this stamp set, I havre three in stock and would be happy to sell them to you!!  Please contact me through my Sales Blog to purchase them!!   I have a very nice sale going on as I am clearancing out all my sets since I won't be continuing to sell them!!  

The brads are from Basic Grey and the border punch I used is from Martha Stewart.  I am not sure who manufactures the ribbon, but I believe I picked it up from Michael's.

I have still been a somewhat preoccupied with getting some more of my landscaping done around my house.  Saturday we finished laying all the sod in my yard and then today I finished the small vegetable and herb garden off the path to my pool deck.

I keep promising pictures and will provide them as soon as I get some down time at my computer to put them into a blog post!!

Have a great day and enjoy the Hop!

Your next stop on the Hop is the fabulous Lisa Arana's blog!!  You won't be disappointed I promise!!

Be sure to join us on the Unity Forum at Splitcoaststampers for a chance to chat with DT member's and other Unity/Ippity Fans.  There are also plenty of chances to win some free stamps and prizes too!! Come join us!!

May your bucket overflow with good times and great friends!!

Paper Piecing Hippity Hop!

Hello blog friends and Ippity fans!!

It's Monday and time for another Hippity Hop Blog Hop.  If you didn't start at the Ippity Blog, then be sure to head there to see the complete list of all today's participants.  To sign up for next week's Hop, just look for the sign up thread on the Ippity Forum at Splitcoaststampers!

Lisa Henke is our hostess for today's Hippity Hop and she has also issued a new challenge for us.  This week we are to use paper piecing on our card or project.

Here is what I made...

I used the flourish, sentiment and butterfly from Ippity's Now and Always set.  Graphic 45 is the manufacturer for the DP.  The butterfly is paper pieced and popped up on pop dots for dimension.

I colored in the flourish using a coordinating Copics marker color and added brads in the circles on the flourish. The pretty trim is from Michael's.  The border punch is by Martha Stewart.

We sure hope you will participate in the challenge this week!  I can't wait to see what you guys do using the Paper Piecing technique on your card! Are you looking to buy the Ippity set you see used here or any other set for that matter?  Please visit the Ippity Blog HERE to find an Ippity Chick near you!

Have a great Monday... and please say a prayer for my sister Michelle who is having surgery today!  Thanks!

Hip Hop! For Real!!

Hip Hop!!!

Sorry if you visited my blog earlier today when my card wasn't posted yet.  I went in to work Wednesday evening around 9pm and didn't make it home until 4 am.  It's one of the drawbacks to my job, but whatcha gonna do... right?

This will be short and sweet because I really need to get some sleep tonight.  The card I made for today's Hip Hop uses the following sketch that was one of Lisa H's cards.

I made a card for my daughter Michelle's boyfriend's Birthday.  His name is Matt and they were over last night to celebrate his birthday when I got called in to work!  Atleast we got to eat dinner first... but I did miss the cake!!  ;-(

I followed the sketch the best I could and still make this masculine.  Even Matt said that the bow I used was masculine enough!  LOL!!  I used stamps from Life's Little Moments (and masked out the center portion) and also the sentiments from the Fall For You sets by Ippity.

If you want some Ippity... please click HERE get some!

Short and sweet, but I hope it inspires you in some way!!  Have a wonderful day and please head now to the the wonderful Lisa Arana's blog to continue on the Hop!

And if you didn't start at the beginning, please head to the Unity Blog and you will be taken on the hop all the way to the Ippity blog where there will be a new tutorial for you!

Have a good day... but for me it's good night!!  ;-)

Hip

It's Hippity Hop Time!!

Hello everyone and Happy Monday!!

Did you have a good weekend?  Mine was great!!  I was on call Friday and Sunday but did NOT get called in and I had Saturday off... so it was (kind of) like a THREE day weekend for me!!  Yippity!!

I got a ton of landscaping done around the pool deck with the help of my wonderful son Ricky!!  Tomorrow I promise to do a post showing you all the things I have been doing in and around the house these past few weeks.  It will better explain why I haven't been blogging as much as usual!

But for now, let's talk Ippity!!

Lisa Arana is our Hippity Hop Hostess today and she has given us a great challenge for this week to create a one-layered card.  This isn't something that I do very often, but it is something I SHOULD be doing much more often!!  They are quick and easy and are perfect for guys cards, or cards for people that don't like all the frills.  And if you have seen Lisa's work, like I know you have, then you can see how she has mastered this technique.  She loves graphic and clean and simple cards and pulls them off wonderfully!

So hopefully you will play along with us!  One lucky participant will win 10 randome Ippity stamps just for submitting your card into the SCS Gallery with the keywords Ippity and IHHC28.

To start at the beginning of today's HOP,

go to the Ippity Blog 

and follow down the list of links for today's participants!!

Here is my single layered birthday card!

To create this card I used one of the flowers from the Now and Always set and the sentiment stamps from the  Fall for You sets by Ippity.  To keep it true to the CAS style that this single layer card was created for, I used minimal coloring and only added some ribbon and one brad.  

The coloring was done with Copics in colors to coordinate with the ribbons I used.  To add some extra punch and to make the center floral medallions pop, I dry embossed around it with a scalloped circle Nestability.

Single layer cards are great to make when you need a quick card.  They also are wonderful to make into gift sets or to send off to the Operation Write Home organization!!  Which by the way, we were asking that today was the last day to send in your cards for the OWH challenge.  So if you haven't done so already, Please do it today!!  THANKS!!

Enjoy today's Hippity Hop and be sure to create your own single layered card

 for a chance to WIN this week!!

FWF Fleeting Moments

Hello Friends!

Rather, Hello my Friends with Flair!  LOL!!

I hope your week has been a fabulous one!!  Mine has been nice enough!  Quite busy at work until after Yesterday morning.  Now I just have today to get through and then I have the whole day off tomorrow!!  Woot woot!!  I hope to do some more yard work and then get together with my family for a cook out Saturday night.

   

So here's the deal... Approximately 50 of our closest Unity friends have signed up to participate in today's Hop.  It starts at the Unity Blog where you will find a list of all the participants with links to their blogs.  

One cool blog on the list will have the hidden flair blinkie! 

 Leave a comment on that blog for a chance to win 

25 random Unity stamps! 

Got it?  

The card I made for today's Hop is made from two of this week's challenges on SCS.  The first one was Wedndesday's Sketch challenge SC284 and the second one was yesterday's Ways to Use It challenge WT274 which was to use butterflies on our card.  I chose to use this sweet DP called Flower Patch from MM.  

The butterfly and sentiment are from Unity's Life is Fabulous Stampin' Store Kit that came out this past February.  SSK's are available from retailers only.  To find a Retailer near you visit the Unity website. The butterfly was colored with Copic Markers and the sentiment was stamped in SU's Wild Wasabi green ink.

Enjoy the rest of the Hop and have a wonderful weekend!!  Don't forget to sign up for Ippity's Hippity Hop for this coming Monday!  The sign up will be posted on Ippity's SCS Forum today!

May your bucket overflow with moments that you cherish in your life!

Hip Hop Birthday Wishes!

Hello and Happy Thursday!!

It's Hip Hop time!!

Today is the day that the Unity and Ippity DT members share some inspiration with fellow Unity/Ippity fans!  It is one of my favorite days of the week to post and it is definitely one of my favorite  days to visit the rest of the blogs presenting with me!  These girls give me so much inspiration week after week and I am so honored to be in the same hop with them!!

Hopefully you have started out at the beginning of the Hop from the Unity blog.  And if you have been following along, you should be arriving to me from the wonderful Karen Maldonado's blog.

Our talented Maria has given us another sketch to work with this week!  It is a great one that could be used over and over again.  So I hope that you will give it a try and join us in this week's HH Sketch Challenge (HHSC11!)

Here is the card that I came up with.  I let the papers from Kaiser Craft do a lot of the work for me and had fun pairing the style of the Ippity stamp I used with the style of the art work on the DP.

The flower stamp I used is from the new Faith Blooms set that was just released this Spring.  It also uses the birthday sentiment from the Just Wanted to Say set.  To purchase either of these sets, just click on THIS LINK to be taken to the Ippity Chick Locator page on the Ippity blog!  At the end of this Hop you will end up at the Ippity Blog with a new tutorial from Eva!

I colored in the flower with Copic markers and added some cute green pom pom trim to accent the bottom scallop.  The top scallop was created with a Martha Stewart border punch!

So without further delay... head on over to the next blog on today's Hip Hop and go and visit the talented Lisa  Arana's blog!

Happy Hip Hop and have a wonderful Thursday!!

Friends With Flair Friday!!

Hello Friends!!

Welcome to my blog for today's Friend's With Flair post!  On Friday's Unity fans come together and share projects using Unity Stamps.  One blog even has a hidden Flair Blinkie on it.  One lucky person who leaves a comment on that blog will win a prize of random Unity Stamps!


As I told you in yesterday's post I have been working on some household projects so my time at the craft table has been limited!  I didn't get a chance to finish a new card for you today, but I do have some projects that I submitted to the February Dirty Dozen Gallery at SCS!

The theme for February's Gallery was Masculine!!  

You know... it's one of those themes that we all find so challenging!!  LOL!!

The cards I made were for the More is More challenge they give us.  They ask us to make a simple card and then to make the same one but stepped up a notch or two.

I decided to make an invitation to a Barbecue!!  I mean Grilling on the Grill doesn't get any more masculine does it?

I used the Unity stamp set called Retro BBQ but I let the designer paper from Flair Designs set the theme for me!  I kept this one very simple by just stamping the words and adding some brads.  I love the red, brown and Kraft colors together!

I n this stepped up version, I kept the layout the same but added a little extra paper on the bottom for the accents and then also stamped the BBQ Grill and colored it with Copics.  I popped it up a bit and placed it on top of the DP and the sentiment panel.  Of course this is my favorite version!!  

Which one do you like better?

I hope you have a great weekend and may your bucket overflow with summertime fun like BBQ's and pool parties!! See you on Monday for Ippity's next Hippity Hop!!

Happy Hip Hop!!

Welcome to another week of fabulous Unity and Ippity DT inspiration better known as

Hip Hop!!

If you have noticed that I haven't posted as much this week, it's because I have been indulging in some household projects.  The office that Tom used to have is now going to be my son's new room and Ricky's old room is now the guest room.  It couldn't come at a better time because my daughter Leah will be spending a month home with me before she starts Vet School in the fall!

Maria has created another sketch for us to use this week!!  It is really cool and worked out perfectly for the tutorial that I have for you on the Ippity blog.  So after you finish visiting all the blogs be sure to end the Hop at the Ippity blog to see my tutorial on

Using your Ippity Stamps to Dry Emboss

Here is the great sketch... it's sketch HHSC10, so when you play along with it this week, please add that keyword when you upload it to the SCS Gallery!

The butterflies you see here are from the new Now and Always set, but instead of stamping them I have dry embossed them.  The tutorial on how I did this is on the Ippity blog!

The sentiment  and frame around the butterflies come from the Just Wanted to Say set.  I decided to make another card for this week's Hippity Hop challenge to create a card for the Operation Write Home Organization.  I hope you will join me in creating a card to send to soldiers so they can send them back home to their loved ones!  To qualify for a chance at this week's prize, you have until Sunday night to submit your card, but we are keeping the challenge open for donations until June 14th.

Can you see on this view how the embossing is raised up?  I used chalk to color the butterflies and emphasize the embossing.

I hand drew the butterflies antenna and added the red rhinestones for the head.  The ribbon is some I had in my stash but do not remember where I got it from!

I hope you like the way I used my stamps today and if you want to learn how I did it, be sure to check out the Ippity blog. You will be directed there from Maria's blog at the end of the Hop.

But in the meantime. please visit Lisa Arana's amazing blog for some more Ippity inspiration!

Thanks so much for stopping by and I will see you tomorrow for with my Friends with Flair post!  As soon as I have some household pictures to share with you, I will post them here!  :-)