FS186: Monochromatic Green Blooms & Butterfly

Here is a card I whipped up today using today’s Featured Stamper challenge on SCS {FS186}.  I have to admit, I am having a difficult time getting motivated to stamp these days since the majority of my stuff is packed up while we wait for a close/move date!  But, life goes on and I have to make time for my craft!  I chose this card by Bobbiesgirl to case.  I realized afterward, the butterfly on my card is lost on the pattern paper I used on the card!  OH well *sigh*

I used Garden Party Blooms and Garden Party Critters by Taylored Expressions for my card and Vivid ink Lime, sorry I can’t remember the name of the pattern paper I used, it’s from my stash and not labeled *shame on me*. I used vintage crochet trim over the green polka dot ribbon.  I put some Clear Taylor’s Tiny Twinkles on the blooms and butterfly, applying them easily and quickly with Embellie Jellie – I LOVE that stuff!!

We found a great dining room set on Craigslist and bought it yesterday and took it out to the shed for storing.  It is a rich dark wood and we love the carved out details on it, it’s nice & comfortable too.  Easily fits 6 chairs when the leaf is not in it. The people we bought it from said they have fit 10 chairs around it before!  I can’t wait to move!!

I hope you have a great day /week!!

Center of Attention Product Spotlight - Frame Your Imagination Stand

Today, Taylor & half the Baker’s Dozen Design Team are spotlighting our Frame Your Imagination Stands for you!

This wooden stand is hand-crafted, beautifully sanded, and ready to accept a coat of paint or stain in the color of your choice. The stand was designed to coordinate with the Taylored Expressions calendar inserts, but it can be used in many other ways, as we will show you today; you can display your 6x6 scrapbook layouts, recipes, or Bible verses. The stand comes with two binder rings as shown.

I ‘imagined’ making a recipe stand for my project, and am happy with how it turned out!  I printed the vertical recipe cards from the digital download section in the store onto Choice Buttercream cardstock, cut them out and adhered onto cardstock so they could be double-sided.  I prepped my stand with several coats of latte acrylic paint, measured the stand using my Tim Holtz ruler to be sure I got accurate measurements and amazingly enough, it took LESS than one sheet of 12 x 12 pattern paper to cover it!  I finished the stand off with some brown & cream polka dot ribbon which is my favorite, adhered with some sticky tape.

Here is a close up of the sides of the frame, I cut the circle out of the paper with a fingertip craft knife (this is a MUST-HAVE tool for me since you can cut with precision and great control), and a vertical slit from the top to the circle and slipped it under the frame.  Once glued down, you can’t even see the seam!  The Frame Your Imagination Stands is on sale for a limited time (July  26 - 29) for 15% off!!  So grab one for yourself to alter and either make another for a friend or send an unfinished one for her to alter! 

Before you head off to shop in the TE store, let’s go take a look at what the other ladies have to share with us using the stand:

Charmaine Ikach
Jodi Collins
Karen Giron
Melissa Sauls
Taylor Van Bruggen

Thanks for stopping by today – I hope you have a great day!!

SC295: Well Read who’s that girl?

Did you see the MFT VIP who’s that girl ‘Well Read"’? I actually fell in love with it last week and lifted my 2-month long spending freeze until we move (just temporarily) so I could buy it!  It’s not even released to the general public yet, that’s what’s so cool about it too!  I got a big ‘ol package of goodies today so I had to play!  It had the set, a mini uppercase Wendy alphabet, mini brads, 5 different pretty ribbons, a basics white Basic Grey paper pad and the cool border Die-Namics that is not even released yet that I used for my border on the sketch!!

I used today’s SCS sketch 295, which was just PERFECT for me to showcase this set.  If you know me – you know I LOVE to read, that is why I fell in love with it!  I adore the sentiment in the set that says, ‘the best days are spent curled up with a good book’ which I agree with!  I wish I could tell you what fabulous papers I used on this card for my fun paper-piecing, but I don’t remember what they are, sorry!   I used Gina K. buttons as an embellishment though.  I finished the sentiment on the inside of the card which says THE END.  HA! 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

***In case you’re wondering about where we stand on closing and moving in, no close date yet.  We are waiting on getting last minute stuff done.  I’m getting impatient.  We got our awesome appliances delivered yesterday!  Take a look at them on my husband’s blog – just scroll down for multiple posts from him, you can even take a look at our gorgeous granite countertops!!  I can’t wait to cook in there!!

***I’m MORE excited about the fact that my oldest sister, her husband and my niece and nephew are coming to visit in November!  Woo hoo!  It’s been a long time coming, I must get busy with my planning – ha!!

I'm so glad you stopped by for our monthly Blast from the Past Blog Hop with Taylored Expressions! 

I have a card I made using one of my FAVORITE TE sets (I have lots of favorites by the way) Beary Special in the Whimsical Wishes line illustrated by Nancy McKinney!  But, you may notice that in the set, there is NOT a bathtub - I grabbed it from the Sweet Indulgence set and masked the bear in it - fun, huh??  Even sweet teddy bears get a little dirty once in a while and need to get clean!  Papers are by My Mind's Eye Whirlybird Collection and my embellishments are these spring flowers.  I stamped the little tub & greeting on the prism paper on the bottom. 

Thanks for stopping by - be sure to hop around all the blogs for all the inspiration out there!  If you have any TE stamps, I hope YOU will participate next time because one random participant will get their choice of a free TE stamp set!  Additionally, one person's creation will be featured in the upcoming TE newsletter! 

You’re a Star!!

Can you believe Summer is almost over??  I have to admit, I have mixed feelings about it; sad because short day Fridays at work are over but happy because it means the cooler weather is right around the corner and that means we’re moving soon too!   I have a few cards I haven’t shared on my blog yet so I have some posts to share when I get a chance while we prepare for the move (I packed up all my stamp stuff on Thu night – yikes!). 

This card uses the Gina K. Designs set Quite a Catch, which I adore!  I thought it would be fun to stamp the starfish on some Sweet Corn cardstock and outlined  him lightly with a yellow pencil and some glaze/glitter pens on his face!!

I stamped the seaweed onto turquoise sea cardstock and colored with Koh-i-Noor pencils. My card base is Creme de Menthe – I really like how these colors look together!  I used some fun easy-set eyelets with my oval greeting and made some zig zag stitching with black thread (after I made this card, I realized I should have layered a little black onyx cardstock somewhere).  Oh well.  I still adore the card because this starfish totally makes me smile!!  I hope it has the same effect on you too.

I appreciate you stopping by and ALWAYS cherish your kind comments!

SC294: Recipe for sweet friendship!

Here is a fun friendship card I made using Cuppie in the Kitchen by Taylored Expressions with today’s sketch challenge at SCS!!  I have been itching to stamp since the past few days have been busy with house stuff so I had to make sure I made time to play when I got home from work.  I have already did my house stuff for the evening too (submitting a draw request to pay our subcontractors) and now it’s time to rest & relax. 

I used my Cosmo Cricket Fly a Kite papers (I love the strawberries on the paper so I made sure it was featured when I cut it!).  The TE store is out of this paper right now but there’s GOOD NEWS – there are the BRAND SPANKIN’ NEW papers in the store available!!  I added some feminine ivory silk ribbon and a Jenni Bowlin vintage cream button for embellishments!  Notice how I placed my sentiment on the sides of my panel – it’s just perfect to make the long sentiment work although my main image panel was too small to accommodate it.  That’s one thing I love about making cards, you can always improvise to make it work for you!!

Thanks for stopping by today!!

Live * Laugh * Love: Happy Birthday!!

I got a chance to play in the featured stamper challenge this morning before we got busy for the day!   I wanted to make a card to send to a dear stamping friend whose birthday is this week, Randi Barrett!  Here is the card I cased from the featured stamper; I changed the stamps I used although I managed to have the same greeting on my card using Tweet Hearts and Branching Out by Taylored Expressions.  I used Blush Red Medium prism cardstock, yellow glimmer ribbon and yellow Kaisercraft pearls.  The greeting was stamped inside one of the new Taylored Dies, Take Note frame 2.  Just like the featured stamper, I stamped the images with versamark on the cardbase.  This was a quick & fun card to make – I hope Randi will like it!

Gotta go – we are going out to the house to see what the progress was made at the house yesterday since we were only out there a short while to drop off the glass tiles for the shower and saw them just starting to build the deck.  Here’s a picture!  I think this was the most people I’ve seen at one time working on the house! There were at least 5 more guys in the house working on the tile.  It’s hopping out there now!  I’m so excited to have a deck on the side of the house to extend our entertaining area off the living room and I can imagine eating breakfast out there in the mornings on the weekends.  Bliss…

Thanks for your feedback about suggestions on naming my stamp studio – please keep ‘em coming!  I think I may have a little something to send a random participant in it! 

Simple Peacock Thanks & more house pictures

Here is a simple card I made using the new Pretty as a Peacock set illustrated by Asela for Gina K. Designs.  My card base is Passionate Pink and the vertical panel with part of the greeting is Creme de menthe over black onyx.  I actually went old school with this panels with some decorative edge scissors, remember those?  I had a ton before but I gave them away years ago and kept a few of my favorite ones. 

I’m excited to share with you a picture of our granite countertops!  The color is Giallo Antico and we got it for a great price!!  It matches the cabinets so nicely – when I feasted my eyes on it, I got all teary-eyed!  Our dear friend Kay came with us to look at the house last night, she is like a mom to John and myself so it meant a lot to me when she praised us for doing such a great job and when we were standing at the kitchen island and she said, ‘I can imagine you here’, she had so many other great things to say!  We enjoyed our visit, I hadn’t seen her since April and missed her a lot!  I can’t wait to move so I can open up my home to friends and family!!

Here is a picture of the interior paint!  After many many weeks of deliberation, we agreed on Tree Bark on the walls (the same color as our exterior trim) and Ott for our trim.  I wanted a darker color for the trim, but John just couldn’t accept it so we compromised which is an important thing to do as a couple.  Tomorrow we watch the back deck go in, as well as the awesome tiles we chose for the showers!  Our propane tank as delivered today and our HVAC finished!   

Oh and we got our utility, bathroom, craft room and office countertops put in (this is my craft room desk).  I’ve been brainstorming about what to call my craft room – I think it needs a name, don’t you?  If you have any suggestions, I’m open to them – just let me know by leaving me a comment!! 
So the house is really shaping up!!  I spent 4 straight hours this evening packing up stuff at the house and I’m pretty tired!  I just wanted to be sure I posted something to let y’all know I’m still around!  Hope you have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!!

Mojo Monday: Live * Laugh * Love

I can’t believe I didn’t stamp for 8 days – yikes! I guess that is one of the hazards of getting ready to move, right? 

Here is today’s Mojo Monday sketch card; it’s always a miracle when I make a card ON the day the challenge is posted!  I just adore the new TE Whimsical Wishes stamp set Tweet Hearts so I had to use it for my card.  I adore the images in the set because they are quite versatile!  I used the vase bottom and stamped a bunch of hearts because I thought they resembled some flowers!  I also added a few different sized clear Tiny Twinkles in the blooms for some added interest!  I love the fresh colors here!  The inks used are Vivid (tea rose and wild lime), perfect matches for the cardstock, paper & ribbon in the July key ingredients kit!

I’ll leave you with a few photos of the progress on the house – it’s getting to be crunch time!  lots going on there this week – the cabinets are all stained (photo on the right – gorgeous, we LOVE the natural stain so the beautiful hickory shines through), the interior paint/trim is starting today and will be completed by Wednesday and our countertops will be installed on Thursday!  Friday our propane tank will come in and on Saturday, we have a deck being built from the back patio to the outdoor shower!  Oh and we still need to pick out tile for our bathrooms because it will be installed on Sat too!

Here’s another picture of the living room so you can see the bookshelves and window/baseboard trim.  It frames the windows so nicely {craftsman style}.  Now you can see how far the fireplace ‘bench’ extends into the living room. 

Something fun we did on Sat after we went out to see the house, was go to a local landscaping company.  The place was beautiful, serene and peaceful!!  The flowering vine to the right is called Passion Vine and it attracts butterflies, which is something we would LOVE to have there! Isn’t it stunning?? We are trying to plan for natural yet beautiful landscaping that needs little maintenance.  Attracting butterflies and hummingbirds to the house is definitely high on the list in the planning. 

While John was chatting with the owner who is also a botanist, I was entranced with the butterflies and took countless photos of them!  In the one on the left, you can see 4 monarchs flying around the flowers!  I found out she has yoga classes there on Saturday mornings in the garden, I do believe that’s something I may have to sign up for once we move, I used to love doing yoga.

This is the last photo I took, so pleased with the outcome, I wasn’t aware that my camera had a foliage setting on it!  Look how vibrant the colors are, I didn’t even alter this photo before I uploaded it!  It’s amazing there are thriving plants in this heat.  Next week John is meeting with the botanist to consult about what would be best for us to plant and get a plan together for after Sept. 15th to plant when it cools down a little around here!  I’ve never been much of a yard work, planting type of gal although about 8 yrs ago we planted a small vegetable garden, but I have to admit, I believe I will enjoy working on things around the property, I will have a bigger sense of ownership having the land rather than a ‘lot’ in the city and of course, it will lend itself to the overall peaceful feeling there!

Thanks for stopping by today!  Hope you have a great week! 

TE Release Day!

All the new products are available in the TE Store – here is a quick link to what is Fresh Out of the Oven so you see all the goodness in one place!!  The sample I’m sharing today uses the new Tweet Hearts set, but I wanted to show you that it’s just not about birds *wink* – I went old school with stamping by making my own pattern paper using some of the fun circle & paisley images in the set.  As stampers, we have at our fingertips great choices of awesome pattern papers but sometimes I want to make my own paper.  I even chose to leave off a sentiment so the images, colors and embellishments can take center stage on my card.

Here is a close up of the fun black corduroy flowers which happen to be on sale (8 for $2.95) with a big red button from my stash as the center. 

Be sure to check out all the wonderful inspiration from the rest of the gals sharing creations today:

Alex Maldonado
Carolina Buchting
Charmaine Ikach
Jackie Pedro
Jeanie Witmer
Jodi Collins
Karen Giron
Karen Motz
Melissa Sauls
Sankari Wegman
Taylor Van Bruggen
Stacey Shafer – our guest designer
and our fabulous illustrator Nancy is joining us today! 

Hope you have a fabulous day & weekend!

Taylored Expressions Sneak Peek: Tweet Hearts

Today Taylor & the Baker’s Dozen design team have samples to share using the new Whimsical Wishes stamp set called Tweet Hearts, illustrated by Nancy McKinney.  Since this set was inspired by the July key ingredients, it was natural for me to use them on my card, look how sweet it looks!

Here’s a close up of the lime stickles glittery tree branch I made (not sure why I didn’t color it brown and make the leaves green – oh well, that’s the fun thing about stamping, you can make your own rules and that I do, a LOT!!

Does the layout of my card look the least bit familiar?  If you visited my blog yesterday, you will see I used the layout in my sketch book I shared – how fun is that?  I’m ALREADY putting my sketch book to good use – ha!!  Take Note, Tweet Hearts and 6 new exclusive Taylored Dies* will be available for purchase tomorrow, Friday August 6th at 10 a.m. CDT in the TE Store!!  *Taylored Dies are made in the USA and are made of steel and are so easy to line up for the perfectly centered and cut impression with your stamped images!  You will NOT be disappointed in these if you are a fan of dies! 
Now go ahead and visit all the inspiration on everyone’s blogs:
Alex Maldonado
Carolina Buchting
Charmaine Ikach
Jackie Pedro
Jeanie Witmer
Jodi Collins
Karen Giron
Karen Motz
Melissa Sauls
Sankari Wegman
Taylor Van Bruggen
and our fabulous illustrator Nancy is joining us today!  Be sure to come back tomorrow for even more inspiration!!

Taylored Expressions Sneak Peek: Take Note

Are you ready for another TE release?  I hope so!! 

Did you know Taylor was at the CHA in Chicago this past week in a booth?!  See pictures here from Taylor’s blog – I was sad I had to pass on this trip, I’m sure they had a great time together *sniff* The first set I have to share a sample using is a set concept by Jami Sibley called Take Note which is going to be so fun to make altered notebooks, notepads, journals, etc!  It has 3 fun labels and part of the fun of this set is the introduction of Taylored Dies, exclusively designed dies to use in your die cutting machines!    On my altered notebook (bought at Target), I used one of the dies to make a sketch book, along with Garden Party Blooms.  The paper is October Afternoon Fly a Kite and the cherry satin ribbon can be found in the TE store as well. 

Here is a peek of the inside of my sketch book; since I am gearing up to move, I am trying to scale down all my stuff and one of the things that was taking up a LOT of space were my SU! magazines and catalogs that I’ve been saving and not even ever looking at!  It was time for that to change so I just spent a little time here and there to cut out the card layout ideas I liked and glued them to the pages.  I also left room to put some of my favorite on-line sketches in there like Taylor’s Sketch Challenge and Mojo Monday sketches!  So whenever I need a starting point, I will go to my book.  It felt SO GOOD to recycle all those magazines and catalogs!!

Next up I have a card I made using the die and the Weigh To Go set!  I thought pairing it with Basic Grey Green at Heart paper and gummies (on the center of my ribbon) would be fun, I love this old time phone image a lot! 

Be sure you check out all the inspiration waiting for you on the designer’s blogs:

Alex Maldonado
Carolina Buchting
Charmaine Ikach
Jackie Pedro
Jeanie Witmer
Jodi Collins
Karen Giron
Karen Motz
Melissa Sauls
Sankari Wegman
Taylor Van Bruggen
and Jami Sibley is joining us today!

Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you back tomorrow!

Gina K. Blast from the Past week day 2

Here is one of my favorite sets by the very talented illustrator Theresa Momber who makes the most beautiful realistic images and scenery!  I used Autumn Beauty for my sample because I am really looking forward to the Fall season especially since it will be our first one spent in our new home!  I just imagine it’s going to be amazing – even with it being hot this past Sat, there was a wonderful breeze and shade under all our trees, I just know it’s going to be 10 times better real soon – eeeks!  I sponged some clouds with a template for the background of the corn fields.  I put some sunflowers in the wheelbarrow and outlined with a stardust glitter pen and crystal lacquer, so pretty!  

…and here is one of my favorite sets illustrated by Rupa Shevde, My Cuppa’ Joe since I LOVE coffee!!  I used Basic Grey Origins, Basic Grey Manila, pure luxury ivory and chocolate brown cardstock on this card, and I have to share where the great layout came from for this card! 

Here is the card sample I have had for YEARS, it is by the extremely gifted
& beautiful Kim Teasdale – since I’ve been packing lately and trying to get rid of stuff, one of the things I came across was all my samples and this one was one of my favorites of all time – lo and behold, I realized it was made by Kim!  I’ve been a fan of her blog since last year so I emailed her to ask permission to share on my blog and this is what she had to say: “What a sweet email! It brought a huge smile to my face and I remember that card well! I was a brand new demo and fairly new to stamping and that was the first swap that I ever participated in :D” Kim, I hope I did your card justice; I like how mine turned out, but I still am in love with your card more!!  I bet I will use this layout again – be warned! 

For even more samples of some of our favorite 'Blast from the Past' Gina K Designs stamp sets, check out these participating designer's blogs:

• GinaK
• Jessica
• Melanie
• Theresa
• Tami
• Cathy
• Lee
• Lynn
• Kurtis
• Emily
• Erika

The entire GinaK Designs team would like to invite you to the virtual Release party we'll be having this Thursday, August 5th on StampTV.  It will be a bit different than our usual release party, but we'll still have challenges, contest questions, and designer samples that you won't want to miss out on!  More information on that event will be shared by GinaK soon, so stay tuned to her blog for all the details this week.

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Gina K. Blast from the Past Week!

Gina and the design team are bringing you BLAST FROM THE PAST week; she challenged us to share a favorite older set from the illustrators.  For Melanie’s, of course it’s so hard to pick a favorite because I just love them all, but if I HAD to it would be A Year of Flowers (outline) and Pressed Flowers (bold), which is what I used on my card today.  I love using using colored pencils over white craft ink (this technique is eluding me right now though).   I stamped on black onyx cardstock and layered on grass green and wild dandelion cardstock. 

 
My next card is showcasing Nina’s very first set, Bug Me Anytime; I just love the funky, whimsical feel these images evoke.  I wanted to make a shaped card so I used the Spellbinders Nestabilities Small scalloped octagons.   I also used colored pencils on Soft Sand cardstock on this card in keeping with my love for coloring on colored cardstock.

For even more samples of some of our favorite 'Blast from the Past' Gina K. Designs stamp sets, check out these participating designer's blogs:

• GinaK
• Cathy
• Emily
• Erika
• Jessica
• Lee
• Lynn
• Melanie
• Nina
• Theresa

The entire Gina K. Design team would like to invite you to the virtual Release party we'll be having this Thursday, August 5th on StampTV.  It will be a bit different than our usual release party, but we'll still have challenges, contest questions, and designer samples that you won't want to miss out on!  More information on that event will be shared by Gina K. soon, so stay tuned to her blog for all the details this week.