Holy hail!!

Downtown Denver just received a DUMPING of pea/marble-sized hail. It probably lasted 20 minutes and just poured down. It looked like what it often looks like here during a pretty good snow. The following photos were taken out of our fifth floor office window.

You can click on the photos for bigger versions of the photos if you're interested.

RAK'd by Allison

Allison of Stampin' When I Can sent me an encouraging RAK (random act of kindness) card. She was encouraging me to keep stamping and posting, and it came just when I needed a little boost! I really appreciate her taking the time to send a note my way. Be sure to stop by her blog and check it out. If you're looking for tutorials or blog candy notices, Allison is your go-to person! Thanks again Allison!

Red 50

This is for a former co-worker whose friend came to me and asked me to make a special card for her 50th birthday. This idea bounced around in my head a bit until I knew which set would be perfect and how I'd use it with the happy birthday cuttlebug embossing folder. Then, and thank goodness for this (ha ha ha), I woke up at 2:30 this morning and couldn't sleep, so I found a few stolen moments to create. Then the choice for ribbon fell into place, and the glitter Crystal Effects combination, etc. The ribbon is actually glued to the paper with Crystal Effects which I dotted on the back behind the white dots so it wouldn't show through the organdy ribbon.




Stamps: Eat Cake, Rough Edges Alpha, Headline Numbers
Paper: Creamy Caramel, Old Olive, Real Red, Night of Navy, Whisper White
Ink: Real Red, Night of Navy
Accessories: Paper Snips, dotted ribbon, cuttlebug/embossing folder, crystal effects, dazzling diamonds glitter

Welcome little one

I had stamped and colored in the bear and giraffe a bit ago using pastels, and then it just sat on my desk. Then I spritzed it a little with some so saffron. I still didn't have any ideas....Then my coluzzle arrived in my latest Stampin' Up order.

It's a great gadget and I really liked using it!

Basically, it's clear templates to layer over your image with a cutting mat to place underneath. Then a swivle blade runs through the grooves, leaving you with just two little places to snip the paper to break out your oval or circle shape. There are other shapes available, but SU only carries the circle and oval templates. After this card, I did take the advice that I spotted over on Splitcoast Stampers and traced the template using different colored Sharpie markers on the alternating rows. Otherwise, it was kind of hard to be sure of which "lane" you were trying to stay in. Then you can go back and you know which one you used for the original and you can figure out which is a step bigger for your mat.

Pretty cool!

Primas and Basic Grey

How long has it been since I've posted a card?! I've just been doing other stuff, I guess. It felt good to sit down at my stamp table last night and make up a couple cards. I'll show one today and another tomorrow because they're totally different from one another.

Hardly any stamping on this! Just the soon-to-be-retired French Script background in Close to Cocoa. I REALLY wanted to incorporate my new Essentials 2 prima flowers on this so I picked out some Basic Grey Scarlet's Letter patterned paper from one of my 6x6 pads. I also used my new favorite, the Color Spritzer, and a black marker all over the card base. Just as I went through a phase of tearing everything, I know need to put aside the Spritzer and move on!

This card doesn't feel like something I'd usually make, but I like it and its colors very much. I know just who I want to send it to!

ETA:

This is the other half of the piece of 6x6 Basic Grey paper. Someone at work saw the first one, and wanted one like it, so I got out the other half of the paper and got to work. The red dots were punched out and I layered a piece of Ruby Red cardstock behind it to pull in the red again because this half of the paper didn't have any red on it. They were previously white dots.

Oh boy! Oh boy!

LOOK at what I found on my porch yesterday from Jody over at Confessions of a Ribbon Addict!!! I believe there was some bouncing and possibly clapping when I opened it and got a peek.


I bought a share of her Essentials 2 Primas, and got these FOUR boxes. I own one tiny bottle of Primas. But they are NOTHING compared to these. And this picture doesn't do them justice. At all. They're beautiful. I just know that I've got to make some cards with them, and if Ky goes and plays poker tonight, that's just what I'll be doing. (in between laundry so I feel like a useful contributor to the running of the household)

Amy's flashback Friday

Over on Amy's blog, she's featuring some of her early cards. She inspired me so I went back to my SCS gallery and picked the VERY FIRST CARD I uploaded. I don't think there's a lot WRONG with this card based on what I had on hand, but holy moley, I think I've gotten a lot better. If I remember correctly, after making this card, Ky actually drove me to Archivers and told me that we needed to buy me a "happy birthday" stamp.

This was a fun look back! :)

Spritz me, baby!

I know the color spritzer is not a new thing to a lot of you. However, based only on the catalog description given by Stampin' Up, I'm surprised people have been adventurous enough to purchase it sight-unseen:

Achieve spectacular effects using a Stampin' Write marker with this convenient tool. Marker not included.

Does that speak to you, too?? Uhhh, huh. Run out and buy that thing!

The concept wasn't new to me, but at Regionals they demonstrated it, and it finally spoke to me. You know though, that Stampin' Up events are where they sell to the people who are supposed to demonstrate it. They KNOW that if we buy it, our customers will buy it.

In case you haven't seen the Stampin' Up color spritzer, here's a photo.

The basic concept is that you squeeze the bulb at the top, and it puffs a burst of air across the marker tip, creating speckles on the page. Of course, as soon as it arrived, I had to try it out! Plus, I was still working on one more project for tonight's stamp party at my friend's house.

This is a card that I'd had sitting around feeling like it was not quite done. Well, I used the spritzer, and voila! Well... at least I like it better. Still not in love with it, but it's ok. :)


Then, here's my final party card. I know that the Classic Cars set is retiring, but it's so hard to find good masculine stamp sets, that I went ahead and ordered it.

I like all the images but one, so it's a good buy for me. The background is SU's Weathered stamp that was stamped once, then rotated, inked up again and stamped again in the opposite direction. This isn't an original idea of mine, but I cannot remember whose blog I found it on. I think I'll remember, and I'll update later after verifying, but I want to get this post up before going to work!

I hope you're all ready for a great Friday and weekend. Have a great day and thanks for stopping in!

Stamp party sample

One of my work friends is hosting a girls' get together this Friday, and this is one of the cards we'll be making. Please ignore the reflections/shadows on the bottom of the white piece, I'm still working with my new light bulbs! These cards are quick and simple, but when it's finished, I think they'll really feel like they made something beautiful. From what I hear, they're a fun group of women and I'm looking forward to meeting them!

Walmart goodies by Kurio

I went to Walmart for potting soil, and of course, while I was there, I had to check out the papercrafting items. I found 3 cute things that I couldn't walk away from. Dimensional stickers, chipboard letters in a close match to Certainly Celery, and paper/glitter covered chipboard letters. They were all right at the $3 mark.



(Sorry for all the glare in these pictures! I'm trying out new desk lamp lightbulbs.)

Beautiful cards by others

Jeanine sent me this beautiful card almost a month ago, and I'm just now getting it posted! Shame, shame on me. I just love the colors she used. Her blog can be found here.


And here's another beautiful card, this time from Anna Wight. The paper is a really great textured notecard, and everything is traced with a glitter pen so it's all sparkly and shimmery. So beautiful, too! You can find her blog here.


Thank you to both of these women for taking time to send me these notes! They really brightened my day when they arrived!

Dotted Frame

This is one of 6 frames that I found at Michael's. They were all on clearance for $1 each! They were kind of a strange brown color, so I took them home and took out the stand piece and the glass and sprayed them black. I let them dry, and now I'll be adding paper and ribbon to them. I can't remember the paper company's name offhand, but I have it in my designer paper notebook so I'll update this post later.

The top half of the frame is the black spray paint, and the black and white paper is just a scrap that I had. I laid the frame on it face down, traced it and cut it out. Beause the paint is somewhat glossy and the paper is matte, it needed something to help transition between the two, so I added strips of dotted black ribbon that was stuck on using a Xyron tape runner. The paper was adhered using a Stampin' Up Anywhere Glue Stick, and smoothed with my bone folder. The paper does not go around the sides of the frame, but the ribbon does.

I love how this turned out, and think it looks really sharp!

Happy trails, little chickens

Goodbye Best of Cluck.... this is one of my favorite sets, and I'm SO SO SO sad to see it go on this year's retirement list. I feel silly being so attached to a bunch of chickens, but they're one of the first sets I bought and I'm going to miss demonstrating with it. In honor of it, I sat down and made this quick card last night using more Spring Showers DP and my Prismacolor markers for the first time. I'm not sure I love my color choices for the chicken, but they look even weirder in this photo. The markers themselves were really nice and colored very smoothly without overlap lines. I got the markers for my birthday from my mom and her husband. Thanks guys!