My World Card Making Day Projects

I promised to share with you the projects that I made during yesterday's celebration for World Card Making Day! I had so much fun! There were challenges released every hour on the hour at Splitcoaststampers. I was behind by the second hour! LOL!! I always take more than an hour to make a card unless it is clean and simple! So I got a total of seven challenges done and meant to get the rest of them done today, but that just didn't happen!

I am going to show you the pictures of the projects that I created and give you a link to where you can read more about them in My Gallery at SCS. Any questions you have about the challenges or the supplies used will be revealed there!

Thanks so much for taking a look!

The first challenge WCMD09A was from Unity and was to use a quote on our card!

Moments to Remember

This challenge card also was entered into Unity's UBBRO3 contest, and follows the WSC100

The next challenge card I made was for Stamping Bellas Challenge WCMD09C to make a 1980's themed card!

Celebrate Good Times

This card also was entered into this weeks Way to Use it Challenge WT238.

The third challenge WCMD09D was given by the SCS girls, Jenn, Beate and Lori. They challenged us to use the color of chocolate, make a thank you card and use the WSC100.

Thank You for Being My Friend

The stamps are from Unity!

The next challenge I participated in was from Verve Stamps WCMD09E which was to choose a countries flag and then use the colors on it for your card.

Christmas Wishes

Magnolia-licious gave the next challenge which was to make an ornament or to put an ornament on your card. WCMD09F

Magnolia-licious Ornament

I made this for my great niece!

The next challenge was from My Favorite Things stamps, WCMD09G. We were asked to use pink, black and white and add some bling!

Here's to Good Friends

And the final project I was able to complete was the Flourishes challenge WCMD09H which was a sketch challenge.


Flourishes Christmas

The challenges closed at Midnight on Sunday night. Prizes will be announced on Monday. Wish me luck!! There are a lot of great prizes up for grabs!!

I Won a Stamp Set!!

I am so excited and honored that the card (pictured to the right) that I submitted to SheetLoad for their "Show Us Your SheetLoad" contest in April recieved the most votes!!

This makes me the thrilled winner of a collection of stamps from The Greeting Farm! I am hoping that I will get the Miss Anya collection, but I would take any thing of theirs because all of their stamps are so dang cute!!

Thank you to Alicia and everyone over at SheetLoad who voted for my card! I really appreciate it and you made my day!!

Well, I survived my three day weekend (barely) and went back to work yesterday. I had a busy day at work, but did manage to get in enough time at my scrap table to complete a birthday card for our dear friend Sandi. The card went together very quickly because I CASED this card from Sunday's Featured Stamper, Sparkle, who seems to love Bella stamps as much as I do. She had over 180 cards with Bella images to choose from, plus all kinds of other categories too! If you are looking for inspiration, you should check out her gallery!

Here is the card that I made for Sandi...




The Fine Print: DP: BG Urban Prairie (Ladybug); CS: SU (Baja Breeze, Ruby Red), The Paper Co. (Black); Stamps: Image: Stamping Bella (Cakeabella), Sentiment: Whipper Snapper Designs; Ink: Amuse (Black), ColorBox (Teal); Markers: Copics, Millenium Zig writer; Flowers: Prima (Red ?)and American Crafts (Blue Felt); Brads: Basic Grey; Fiber: JoAnn's by the yard; Cuttlebug Embossing Folder (Swiss Dots).

I changed the colors and DP, but tried to leave the stamped image and the layout the same! Why fix something that ain't broke! Right?? I love this image for Sandi because she is an awesome cake decorator and was the lady who made our wedding cake that was so beautiful!

Here is the picture of the "beach-themed" cake Sandi made for us...

Isn't it beautiful??

It has felt great to get back to stamping after a three day furlough... I was going crazy and now I am behind on all my challenges!! I need to get working on some more of the Unity Celebration cards in hopes of having a chance at winning their grand prize of FREE Unity Kits of the Month for a year!!

Speaking of KOM... I hope my mailman will be delivering my May KOM today! I can't wait to get my hands on that!!

Have a great day and my your bucket overflow with pleasant surprises and good news!!

Fun with new Designer Papers!

As much as I appreciate the wonderful meaning of Easter, I have to say that from a card making standpoint I am very glad it is over. I was sooooo ready to move on to brighter colors that don't closely resemble those that you dye eggs with! LOL!

I recently have visited two of my LSS and picked up (too many) new DP's to play with. Usually when I buy paper I buy at least two of each kind so I could make a double paged 12x12 SB layouts with them, but this time was different! I actually shopped for paper just keeping card making in mind! I had so much fun grabbing up just one page of all those wonderful new releases!

The colors out there are so bright right now!!! The first card I am going to show you uses DP from Luxe Designs, from their Polo Shirt line. I love how they all coordinate so beautifully together! (I think I still have enough leftover to do a SB layout too!!)

Check out this card that I made for a dear friend of my husband's who had a birthday over the weekend. (I know, the card was late... shame on me!) This card was cased from this card in Inge's SCS Gallery. She was Sunday's Featured stamper at Splitcoast! I changed the colors, and the stamped image, but kept her layout.

The Fine Print: DP: Luxe Poloshirt collection; CS: GP white; Stamp: Stamping Bellas Surpriseabella with Hat (Image) and Anna Wight's WSD Happy Birthday (Sentiment); Ink: Amuse black and Copic Markers; Flowers: Michael's Brides flowers, and ? Primas? (Colored with Copics); Brads: Bazzill; Nestability die.

The Next card tones it down a little bit and is currently my favorite card I have ever made! Of course it uses a stamp from my favorite company--- Unity!! The new DP for this card is from Cosmo Cricket's Girl Friday Tuesday collection. The inspiration is from this image from the Grandin Road website which was Saturday's Inspiration site for IC175. The sketch is from Technostampers Monday's Lunchtime Sketch challenge.

This card is going to go to a special lady on one of the forums that I frequent to thank her for all she does!

The Fine Print: DP: Cosmo Cricket; CS: World Win, GP white; Stamp: Unity Topiary from the March KOTM, Merci sentiment from SU; Ink: Amuse and Copic Markers; Ribbon: Ebay purchase; Paper Clip source unknown; Bellas Baubles: Stamping Bellas.

Here is a close up of the dimension. I stamped and colored the topiary balls two times and layered them on top of each other. It added some needed depth to the card and allows for nice shadowing too!

Thanks for taking at look at my creations! I am chopping at the bit to dig into some more new papers and some more uninked stamps!!

There are more Unity stamps in the mail... I can't wait to get them!!

Have a great day and may your bucket overflow with lots of patterned papers and stamps to play with!

I Made a Scene! And a Picket Fence Tutorial!

Usually when someone makes a scene, it is embarassing! But when I say I made a scene, I mean it literally! I made a scene using several stamps and different techniques and put them all into a card!! I had a vision in my head about the card I am showing you below. It didn't come out exactly as I had envisioned, but all in all I like the finished product and am happy to have experimented with some new techniques for me!

So here is the card that I made...

Keep scrolling down if you are interested in seeing how I made the Picket Fence using a border punch that was not for a Picket Fence!

This card's main image is the Huggybellas stamp from Stamping Bellas. (Oh how I love all of those girls!!) I also added the house image from Unity Stamps January Kit Club and some flowers and grass from SU. This card is really a blend of a lot of stamping companies! The sentiment was printed out on my computer as I didn't have any neighborly sentiments on stamps!

To create the background sky, I initially used SU Soft Sky blue with my brayer and rolled on some color. For more definition I also sponged some more blue too! The sun was a punched from a circle punch and cut to fit into the corner. Then I added some yellow by sponging also. The yellow ink is SU's Barely Banana. To make the sun rays I freehand drew little squigglies with my Sakura Gelly roll Stardust pen. I am really loving that pen and am so glad that my friend Tiffani told me about it after visiting our local Stampfest!

To create the grass I used Post-It Notes that were torn to make an uneven edge and then I sponged SU's Certainly Celery. I moved the the Post It's around to make a hill on the right and also make some dimension and layers of grass. I did the same thing to make the dirt on the very bottom of the card, but instead I stamped that with SU's Creamy Caramel.

The Bellas clothes were paper pieced with DP from Scenic Route. I love the plaids that this particular paper has. I was able to find just the right spot to stamp on by using my stampamajig (click here for a tutorial on using the stampamajig) with my stamped image on it and just moved it over the paper until I was happy with the part of the paper that was being selected. The same DP has both orange and green plaid spots. It is oh so summery don't you think?

The rest of the Bellas images were colored in with Copics. I outlined them using Cool Gray No 1 and then cut them out leaving a little bit of outline still intact. They were the last thing added to the card and were popped up with pop dots to make them appear they were in front of the fence!

Also using the stampamajig I positioned the Unity house off in the background. My attempt (since the scales of the stamps were different) was to make the house look like it is set up on a hill in the distance. The house (not being the focal image) was quickly colored with coordinating colors to continue with the sunny theme. Don't ya just love that orange house?? LOL!!

I am kind of excited about my picket fence! It was one of those things I figured out by accident and knew I would use the technique someday. Believe it or not, but it is made from a Martha Stewart Border Punch (and not the one that is already a picket fence!)

When I punched a border for a card recently I used this same punch and after trimming off an edge that was too long I serendipitously realized that the piece I cut off resembled a single picket from a fence. So that is how this idea began! To make the pickets seems wood-like I ran the fence through the Cuttlebug with the Distressed Stripes embossing folder. This helped give the fence more dimension!

Over on the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog they are having a contest to use your Cuttlebug of course, but also to use a punch in a way other than it is intended to be used. So I will definitely add this card into that challenge and see what happens!

Picket Fence Tutorial
Using a different type of Border Punch!

Edited to add the Picket Fence Tutorial Download link:

Click here to download a pdf file of the tutorial!

At this point cut them to be the size you need them for your project!

I think it came out pretty cute and knowing how to do this might save you about $15 if you have this MS Punch already and don't want to buy the actual Picket Fence one that she sells! Plus, now you can make your fence as tall as you want.

It would be cute to add hardware to this fence piece and make it a gate that might open up on your card to reveal a sentiment! There are lots of possibilities!! Have fun and I hope you give it a try. Please send me a link if you make one, I would sure love to see what you create!

Have a great day and may your bucket overflow with money-saving ideas in this tight economy!

AWOL! No Stamp Weekend!

As much as I wish had found some time to stamp, I have to admit that it just didn't happen for me this weekend! My daughter Leah was in town and the weather here in Florida was just too awesome to ignore.





I took a trip to the beach where Tom and I married back in November and enjoyed watching the many people visiting the beach for Spring Break. It is amazing how different the beach looks at this time of year than it did in November. I love Florida! The weather has been perfect lately. I think we can safely say that our cold snaps from the winter are over!





I thought I would share a picture of something I had previously created using one of my Bella Stamps. I made this card and coordinating bag for a very good friend of mine on her birthday!

This Bella image is one of the first ones that I ever attempted coloring. I thought it looked pretty good when I first did it, but I must say IMHO that I have improved with the techniques involved in coloring with Copics and think that my later attempts look a little better!

Speaking of coloring with Copics... have you been to the I Like Markers blog written by Marianne Walker yet? She is an amazing artist who writes for the Copics company. If you wanted to know all there is to know about coloring with Copics, then this is the blog for you to check out!

The Card sketch used is Bella Sketch Challenge #29, the stamp is a sentiment from the Stampin Up set called Simple Sayings. The Double Pocket bag is a tutorial you can find here on SCS. I am sorry that I didn't write down the information on the DP and other details used on these projects.

Hopefully I will have more to post for you tomorrow!

But in the meantime, may your bucket overflow with warm, sunny days like we are having here in Florida!

Bella Sketch Challenge and Some Tildas!

Hello everyone! Hope your day is going well! I have a few cards to share with you today that I actually started earlier, but couldn't finish until last night because of how busy I have been at work. I have started to dread Tuesdays!!! Why do so many babies have to be born on Tuesdays??

Anyway, the first card comes from a sketch posted on SCS in the Stamping Bellas forum, it is (Edited to add the link ) BSC69 and here is the picture of the sketch....

And this is what I came up with using this as my starting point....

I love the bold colors of this DP from Junkitz! It is part of a birthday paper collection and it also has some paper with rows of cupcakes and party hats and even some sentiments that would be great to add to a card or a SB layout. I need to use up the leftovers and make some bright and cheery birthday cards!

I am so excited that I have finally found some time to put some ink on a couple of the Magnolias that I have recently purchased. I have to thank my friend Monica for getting me to like these sweet images. At first I thought they would only be useful if you had a little girl that you wanted to send a card to, but now they have grown on me and I want more!!!! They are just so sweet and innocent looking. I love them a lot and have so much fun coloring them!

This is the first card that I ever made using a Magnolia stamp. There is room for improvement in the coloring with my copics, but I keep practicing. I LOVE to color images now that I have my Copics! I want to get some wax based pencils too, and try the OMS or Gamsol technique that Gina K demonstrated on Stamp TV today. My friend Shelley showed me this a long time ago, but I have never had the pencils to try it with. I guess a trip to Michael's is in order, huh? Tiffani (my BFF) just bought some at the recent Stampfest we had and she is enjoying this technique a lot!

Anyway... here is the first Tilda I put some color on using my Copics!

I am afraid it may have come from a sketch, but since I started this one a while back, I can't even remember if the sketch was from a challenge or not! I apologize if I am not giving someone the proper credit! Purple is such a hot color right now! I liked the final image mostly except I wish I had handled the mittens differently. I don't like how they turned out!

The second card using a Tilda image comes from two challenges. The first one is a sketch from Inspirational Card Sketches and the second one is from the SCS Color Challenge from yesterday. The challenge was to use Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip and Pink Passion colors from SU.
Here is the sketch....

And here is my card...

The Fine Print: DP: The Paper Co.; CS: SU; Stamp: Magnolias Sweetheart Tilda, Sentiment: Inky Antics; Border Punch: Martha Stewart; Flowers: Michael's Brides collection, Ribbon flowers: Michael's; Brads, Bazzill; Ink: Amuse, SU.

Well, I have to go for now, I am hoping to do some creating still today before I get called back in to work! One more day on call then I have a three day weekend! I sooooo need that!!

Have a great day and may your bucket overflow with fun stamped images to color!!

Shout Out to Sheetload!

One of my Riverview friends shared with me the Sheetload of Cards website many months ago and I finally got around to using some of their sketches a month or so ago. Unfortunately I never posted any of those cards. Well today I had the opportunity to use the sketches from their February Issue and I wanted to give them a shout out and thank them and Unity Stamps for sponsoring such a great issue and for providing this awesome sketch to use!

The concept of their sketches is that they will help you make many cards at once by providing you with all the right measurements and amounts of paper and embellishments you will need. Basically they take all the hard work out of making cards and leave the fun part, the assembling and embellishing to us!

Take a look at this month's February 09 issue and see how easy it would be to create some cards. (If that link takes you to a page showing the Unity Sponsorship, but no link to the issue, then go to their main page and scroll down through old posts until you get to the February 2nd post. From there you can click on the picture of the issue and get the download.)

What I tend to do is use their sketches to find ways to use up scraps that I have on hand from a previous project.

Below are two cards that I created using their February sketch. I varied the measurements slightly to suit my needs, but I stuck really close to the original!

The Fine Print: DP: Scenic Route; Stamps: Unity February SOTM club house image, SU Home Tweet Home, SU Fun and Fast Notes "Congratulations"; Flowers: Prima and ?, Ink: Amuse Black ink and Copic Markers, Brads: MM.

The Fine Print: DP: Scenic Route; Stamps: Stamping Bellas Belinda Bumperboots, SU A Little Birdie Told Me sentiment, Flowers: Prima and ?; Ink: Amuse Black ink and Copic Markers, Rhinestones: Unknown.

Here are the other cards I told you that I had created earlier using other sketches from SheetLoad of Cards. In these I also used up some leftover materials I had lying around. It is nice to make quick cards and have some on hand for those occasions that always seem to come up.

The Fine Print: DP: HOTP and Creative Imaginations; CS: Sam's Club (white) and Gin X (dark purple). Varied ribbons unknown, Embellishments unknown. Opaque white marker, dew drops, brads, Copic Markers and Flowers. Stamps listed below.

The first two cards come from the Sheetload of Cards November 08 issue.

The Fine Print: Stamps: SU; Fun and Fast Notes, and Nest from SU Nellie the Nest Lady

The Fine Print: Stamps: Sarah Beise Cupcake, Sentiment from SU Wishing Well

The Last two come from the Sheetload of Cards January 09 Issue.

The Fine Print: Stamp: SU Merci Butterfly, SU Sentiment from A Little Birdie Told Me.

The Fine Print: Stamps: Inkadinkadoo Party Hat, Sentiment from Verses Rubber Stamps.

It feels great to spend less time creating cards and using up my stash of scraps at the same time! I love Sheetload!!

Have a great night and may your bucket be overflowing with lots of sketches to use!