Ornamental CASE

I was over on kwerner's blog. She was advocating simple card creation, and I had to give it a try when I saw one of her cards using the Hung Up on the Holidays set! My card is a very similar design to hers. She laid hers out so it was a vertical card - where mine is horizontal - and hers was on kraft cardstock with a larger sentiment that I didn't have. I loved her circles over/around the instruments and that the card was a one-layer piece. I whipped out 10 of my cards as a gift set for this year.

This is where I found the card I cased: http://kwernerdesign.com/blog/2007/09/just-the-basics-please.html. She has many really cute cards over on her blog. Be sure to check in on her site where I'm sure you'll find inspiration, too!

Highlighting a 50th birthday

This card was commissioned by a co-worker friend for her friend who is turning 50. My co-worker wanted a cheerful card, as opposed to a black and white, over-the-hill style card. I really liked the white gel pen highlighting that finishes off this card. I thought it came out as a very happy card and my friend who requested the card was happy, too!

The word happy on this card come from the Stampin' Up set Hugs and Wishes, and because the usual sentiment on this card is "happy anniversary" I simply used a marker to pick up only the "happy" portion. I inked it once and stamped it three times to get the color variation. The "50th" was handwritten. The light blue ric rac ribbon is from a ribbon set from last year, as is the 1/4" Regal Rose. The 1/2" chocolate chip ribbon is current from this year.

Thanks for looking!

Under a harvest moon

This card is a take on the Workshop Wow featured in the October 2007 Stampin' Success, a magazine sent to Stampin' Up demonstrators as part of their demonstrator benefits. In their card they showed multiple moons in different colors (that I didn't like because, well, Earth only has one moon...unlike Jupiter). However, I really appreciate their card because it's another reason to own the Dots Are Hot set, and I happen to own it AND the wheel featured on this card. Hooray! No purchase was necessary - I even used a spare scrap of Pumpkin Pie ribbon that was on my desk - and I like how my card turned out better than the one in the magazine. :)

Happy (early) boo to you! Have a great Friday!!

Nine years! Whoa.

I can't believe that today is our nine year anniversary. Time has just flown by during the time that we've been married. I can't imagine anyone better for me than my husband. He's so supportive of me and only wants what's best for me. He's really a wonderful man, and I'm so lucky to have him share my life.

Maybe tonight we'll go out and buy our co-anniversary present to each other... a new dishwasher. One that really works! Not a traditionally exciting gift, but we've discussed it, and well, we would both be really happy to not have to fight our existing dishwasher any more. Maybe we'll be more excited, well, ok, willing to do the dishes if there's a better chance they'll ALL be clean at the end of the cycle.

I hope you're having a good day today and that you can take a moment to be thankful for those who mean a lot to you.

No, not stamping related...

This is so very NOT stamping related, but it really had me laughing when I saw it linked from Cute Overload - the face at the end is the best.

I picture the covers making little ticked-off noises and the air being filled with "@#$! Why can't I get out of here?! What the...? @#%*!!"

Not that my dogs are ever in bed under the covers long after everyone else has gotten up....

Cover your boo-boos with glitter!

This main image idea for this card was showcased by Brent Steele, Vice President of Creative Services at Stampin' Up at this year's annual convention. He is a VERY entertaining presenter and always has fabulous ideas. His presentations also tend to include at least one "bird card." I thought it was so cute that the penguin was dragging along a tree and gifts to share.

I EVEN thought ahead and got out my Stamp-a-ma-jig for the sentiment from the Many Merry Messages set. I marked up the first line of the sentiment and got it all lined up, huffed on the ink to rehumidify it, and, unfortunately, the stamp wasn't totally clean. :( Wah! Hate that.

On the photo sample of the phantom wording above, I tweaked the contrast so you could see the faint imprint that was causing so much consternation. Grr. What to do, what to do? Especially since I'd already re-stamped and colored my main image piece for the second time when the Real Red ink smudged! I thought I'd camouflage it with my Color Spritzer and see if that did enough. I picked out blue because I thought it might look "snowier."

That helped, but didn't solve the problem. Then I wondered if I could add a flurry of glitter? Of course the 2-way glue pen was my natural choice, but it doesn't fit in the spritzer... So, I just leaned the glue pen tip on the outside of the spritzer air outlet tube with my non-dominant hand and held them together.

I worked the air pump bulb with my dominant hand and I got just the spritz of glue that I was looking for!! (You can see the drops of glue below - they're the shiny droplets that I've circled below. Click on any photo for an enlarged image.)

I sprinkled some glitter over the top and tapped off the excess, and, voila! A wintery flurry of snow that "just happens" to cover up my phantom words. :) Hopefully this tip will help YOU out of a jam sometime, or at least help you to pretty-up a project.

Have a great afternoon! Thanks for looking. :)

Stamp camp cards

These are the cards for tomorrow night's stamp camp. The last card photo is what I'm basing the final stamp camp card on. The third photo is actually of a commissioned card that I made at the request of someone at work for her sister's birthday. I hope my stampers enjoy these!

Birthday boy!

Ky's birthday was late in July and since I was giving him a new reel and line for his present, I went with a fish-themed wrapping. For his card and gift bag, I used the retired set, Angler.

The fish bunch was created with a single-fish stamp and masking. I stamped them in brown Stazon and then watercolored them based on a "Go-RVing" ad. When I first got the set, I just wasn't sure how the fish coloring would look most realistic. Then, I came across this ad in (I believe) Better Homes & Gardens magazine. I promptly ripped it out, and now it's stored in the stamp storage box with the set.

For Ky's card, I decided that there would be a catch of Cutthroat Trout... because I thought the colors were pretty. :)

For the bag, I pulled a plain brown handled sack out of my stash and made a bag topper using scraps of Outlaw designer paper from Stampin' Up.

Along the bottom of the bag on both sides I used the Angler set and the waves/clouds from the current set, Winds of Grace, and then watercolored the image. I made the closure using two Jumbo Eyelets (from SU) on either side of the bag, and then put a loop of Chocolate Chip ribbon through them to close it. You can click on the photo of the bag for a closer view.

Pomegranate and scallops

I made this card when I first got the Garden Whimsy set and my new In Colors. I really love how bright and happy this card is. :)

You'd never guess my love for it based on how LONG this card has been sitting in my draft post folder! It's been in there since the 6th of August. Wow.

If you're a regular visitor, you may have noticed the lack of posts. Thanks for continuing to stop by and check things out, even though nothing new has made it up recently! We just had some fun stuff going on that precluded my being able to stamp, photograph and post to my blog. Ky had a birthday this week and two weeks ago we bought a new pop-up trailer.

Now granted, this is a 2005 trailer, so it's really not new, but it's sure new to us! We had a great time, and kept being amazed by the technological advances that had evolved since the time our previous trailer was made in 1978 (see photo below). What a difference 27 years makes!


For our inaugural trip, we went camping at Chambers Lake which is up above Fort Collins, Colorado, to a campground that's up Poudre Canyon. It was so beautiful. Everywhere we looked was so green and lush. As Colorado natives, we kept saying how remarkable it was to see everything being SO green as far into the summer as late August. This is not to say that things go dead and brown here, just that it's been a wet summer for us, and it really showed in the landscape.

This is a shot of one of the creeks that feeds Chambers Lake. It has a big job ahead of it to refill the lake. When we arrived, the lake wasn't much more than a substantial pond. Ky and I were able to stand in what is normally the bottom of the lake to take the picture above. According to campground rumor, they had drained much of the lake for irrigating Weld County and to make repairs to the dam. While the lack of lake was startling at first sight, it was incredibly beautiful nonetheless. Here is a different river that also feeds into the lake and comes from a different direction. This river had a winding path running alongside of it and Ky and I hiked it for quite some way.


For one of our day's entertainment we took the Jeep and went exploring on some of the many roads branching off of Poudre Canyon. Ky wanted to go check out a campground that's located off of a road that states that trailers are not advised for it. Since we weren't hooked up to the trailer, off we went! It turned out that we probably could have made it with our new trailer, so that will be good to know for the future.

We followed another dirt road up to the Craggs (see picture just below) and stood in awe at the foot of an amazing rocky crag that jutted up out of the mountain. The picture below doesn't do it justice, but it was immense!


So that's just a bit of why I haven't been around lately! I have stamped some though, and you'll be seeing some more projects cropping up soon. :) Have a great labor day weekend! I'm off to brunch with Ky's family to celebrate his birthday.