Gina K Inspiration hop: STV kit Springtime Silhouettes

Welcome to our last day of the Gina K March release inspiration hops!  I hope you have been inspired, to say the least!  Today we are presenting cards & projects using the new Stamp TV kit called Springtime Silhouettes!  It is a gorgeous collection – I believe my favorite to date!  Everyone knows the vintage, shabby look is very trendy right now and that is in full swing in this kit!  You will get 24 sheets of Pure Luxury card stock, ribbon, brads and exclusive patterned paper- everything you need to create beautiful projects. The large double sized stamp set measures about 10.5" X 8".  All for $49.95 and when you purchase just one more item, you will qualify for free shipping and get the new Celebrate in Style free StampTV anniversary set!!  I guess you may like a few details about my card?  I made my flower – that is the highlight of it!  I used Cranberry Tart cardstock, and used a bone folder against the paper and split it in half.  I’m sorry the technique name is alluding me but it makes the cardstock look like suede – it is SO cool!  Then I scrunched the layers up randomly and stacked them with glue dots and added a pearl brad to the center. This card was a lot of fun to make!

I’m so glad you joined us for the hops; I just appreciate all the comments I get!  Speaking of comments, don’t forget to leave some commenting LOVE on ALL the designer’s blogs listed, because we are going to draw three randomly chosen winners from all of the blog comments who will each get a stamp set of their choice valued at up to $24.95!

• Gina K
• AJ Otto
• Carolina Buchting
• Cathy Tidwell
• Deb Felts
• Donna Baker
• Emily Giovanni
• Giovana Smith
• Janice Whiting
• Jennie Harper
• Lee Murphy
• Melanie Muenchinger
• Michelle Woerner
• Nina Brackett
• Sharon Harnist
• Suzanne Dean
• Tami Mayberry
• Theresa Momber
• Tina Gilliland
• Valerie Stangle
• Vicki Dutcher

card details
Stamps: Springtime Silhouettes
Cardstock: White, Cranberry Tart, Smoky Slate, Crate Paper Restoration
Ink: Palette red, Distress Antique linen
Accessories: Spellbinders Labels 9, Blossom, pearls, ribbon from stash

Gina K. inspiration hop: Perfect Pennants, Cute as a Bug & Lovely Labels 3

Welcome to our Gina K inspiration hop for March’s release!  For my first card, I used Tami’s Perfect Pennants set, which coordinates nicely with the Spellbinders pennants dies!  But, you don’t have to have the dies to make fun & easy cards like I have here, since they are straight lines, they are easily trimmed with a cutter or scissors!  I made a banner with the large polka dot pennants, stamping them with versamark, sprinkling with clear embossing powder and heat setting with a heat fun.  I strung them up with some yellow cotton thread and finished them off with some turquoise buttons as accents!   

My next card was a barrel of fun to make – a bee hive with the cute bee from Cute as a Bug by Rupa Shevde!  It was real easy to make the beehive, I just cut strips of cardstock, rounded the corners, sponged the edges for depth and stacked them on top of each other.  Then I die cut an oval and sliced off the bottom for the door! I put lots of stickles on the bee’s wings and had to put some googly eyes on him – he’s too cute!

My last card is one of my favorites – uses Nina’s Lovely Labels 3 set, which coordinate with Spellbinders label dies 18, 20 and 21.  But again, you don’t have to have all the dies in order to enjoy using the set!  I don’t have the die that coordinates with this stamp but it was very easy to cut it out and I don’t think it looks badly at all!  Do you like the green & ivory flower at the bottom of the label stamp?  I made that!  It was so easy – I’ve been getting back into sewing and thinking of ways to incorporate with my stamping!

Here is a list of all the designers who have awesome creations to share with us today – be sure to leave a comment on each blog because we are going to draw three randomly chosen winners from all of the blog comments who will each get a stamp set of their choice valued at up to $24.95!

• Gina K
• Nina Brackett
• Sharon Harnist
• Suzanne Dean
• Tami Mayberry
• Tina Gilliland
• Theresa Momber
• Vicki Dutcher
• AJ Otto
• Carolina Buchting (wish the Birthday Girl a happy day!)
• Cathy Tidwell
• Colleen Schaan
• Deb Felts
• Donna Baker (you’re here!)
• Emily Giovanni
• Giovana Smith
• Janice Whiting
• Jennie Harper
• Lee Murphy
• Melanie Muenchinger
• Michelle Woerner

don’t forget -
We have hired a Stamptv Talentscout who will be cruising galleries on Stamp TV!  Every Monday this Scout will feature a gallery on the Stamp TV TalentScout page for the entire week! An Emmy Award Winning Gallery that is!  Various GKD only cards will featured throughout the week and Gina will send a little surprise Grab Bag to the Featured Stamper!  So show us your best work and fill your gallery with Gina K. gorgeousness!!!!  And check each Monday on our Facebook Fan Page to see who the Next Big Stamp TV Star will be!

card #1 details
Stamps: Perfect Pennants
Cardstock: White, turquoise sea, red hot, wild dandelion, bubblegum pink
Ink: memento tuxedo black
Accessories: turquoise button jar, circle punches, red brad,  versamark pad, clear embossing powder

card#2 details:
Stamps: Cute as a Bug
Cardstock: White, Black onyx, Wild Dandelion
Ink: memento tuxedo black, wild honey distress ink
Accessories: stardust stickles, corner rounder punch, gold brads, black glimmer ribbon, oval punch

card#3 details:
Stamps: Lovely Labels 3
Cardstock: Ivory, Green Apple, My Mind’s Eye Lush
Ink: memento rich cocoa
Accessories: cinnamon stickles, ivory brad, spellbinders labels 7

Beginning of Spring Wristlet & MFT sketch!!

I have a confession to make; I am addicted to blurfing around crafty/sewing blogs and have been every chance I get for well over a month now!  I have been getting my inspired to return to another hobby of mine that, when stamping came along, I completely put aside and that is sewing! Over the past year I have done a few things here and there, but nothing serious until this weekend! I got my sewing machine out of the shed last week, had it serviced, purchased a few sewing necessities and am so excited to share this fun wristlet I made this weekend!  I found this great pattern from Bev at Flamingotoes it is what she calls an End of Summer Wristlet but I am calling it my Beginning of Spring Wristlet!  I am going to share this on her Think Pink Sunday party so she can see what SHE inspired me to make!! 


Here is a picture of the back of the wristlet in the natural cotton fabric.  I put a little butterfly charm on the zipper which I think adds a sweet touch to it.

Here is a picture of the inside lining of the bag.  I just LOVED showing this little number off when we met some friends for dinner last night!  One of my friends was pretty impressed with it, as was John.  I have to admit, I was/am myself – this was my FIRST attempt at sewing a zipper and I think it turned out real nicely!  Oh and the lady in the fabric department was pretty impressed with my zipper work too (we went there to get more sewing supplies after dinner – because I want to make more!!)  The polka dot sections are for my driver’s license and credit card.  In this pouch I fit those, as well as a mini hand sanitizer, my lip gloss and my phone.  Thank you for the pattern/inspiration, Bev!! 
Now for all my stamping friends who came here to see a card, of course I have one to share with you!!  I just got my new MFT VIP kit in the mail – isn’t this flamenco Who’s that Girl so sexy with her frilly dress on?  It was SO fun to paper-piece!  She will be fun to use to make Cinco de Mayo cards to send to friends on May 5th!  I used the new Basic Grey Hello Luscious paper, which had these fun red, green and yellow patterns which are great bright traditional Mexican colors – ha!!  I also had an opportunity to use a crochet red flower I made a while back that’s been sitting on my desk!  It’s perfect with a button in the center!  I used this week’s MFT Wednesday Sketch {MFTWSC11}, always fun!  I tweaked the sketch a bit to work with my supplies, but I love how it turned out!!
Hope you had a great weekend and your week is a fabulous one!!

I am linking this post to the following parties:

 

Gina K. March release - time to shop!!

Happy Friday everyone!  Well depending on when you're reading this post *wink*  I have been waiting for this day all week!!  This time change has been a little rough for me - I prefer the FALL back where we seem to get an 'extra' hour as opposed to losing one!  Did you make it to the Gina K release party last night??  We had a lot of fun - at one point we had 700 people at StampTV and we crashed for a bit!  But it came back up.  The videos by Gina were wonderful, the samples by the design team inspiring, and the excitement over the sets by our fans was contagious!  We even had a few surprises *more about that later in my post*  We are celebrating the 2-year anniversary of StampTV in style!  With a purchase of $35 you will get the trendy Celebrate in Style for free!  And with a purchase of 3 stamp sets, you will get the beautiful new Stenciled Silhouettes for free!!  Don't forget as always you will get FREE priority shipping with a $50 purchase.

Here is the snippet of Tami's Perfect Pennants I shared yesterday, the full card!  I adore how this card turned out, using some scraps on my desk and a clean & simple design with black accents that create a POP that I love!  In the set is a long straight line you can ink up and hang the pennants from which I did here.  I didn't try to line up the pennants though, I stamped them on scrap cardstock and cut them out to place them perfectly in a row.  I also added some rhinestone accents in between them for a little bling. 

Now here is another Clean & Simple card I made using Nina's Lovely Labels 3  .  I love this set, it can lend itself to some beautiful vintage designs and she made the set to work for nice masculine cards.  This makes for a nice Father's Day card.  I used black detail embossing on the image so it really pops off the white. 

**So about the exciting SURPRISE last night**
We have hired a Stamptv Talentscout who will be cruising galleries on Stamp TV!  Every Monday this Scout will feature a gallery on the Stamp TV Facebook Fan Page for the entire week! An Emmy Award Winning Gallery that is!  Various GKD only cards will featured throughout the week and Gina will send a little surprise Grab Bag to the Featured Stamper!  So show us your best work and fill your gallery with Gina K. gorgeousness!!!!  And check each Monday on our Facebook Fan Page to see who the Next Big Stamp TV Star will be!

Thanks for stopping by today; I will be back no later than Tuesday with a Gina K new release hop although ALL the stamps are available for purchase NOW!!  Including a beautiful new cardstock color Wild Lilac!  After stamping for this release, I want to take some time sewing, reading and hanging out with my DH this weekend.  If the sewing goes successfully, I will share what I made with you! 

Happy St. Paddy’s Day!! Gina K Release teaser!

 Happy St. Patrick’s Day!  I am so not a lick of Irish but it’s a good reason to celebrate anyway!  I have this cutie bear from A Beary Good Year by The Cat’s Pajamas to share with you which is for Jen’s March sketch for you to try!!  I picked up this set last year at Winter CHA and had the chance to meet the owner Alma, she is so nice.  This is a fun sketch as always – I just love Jen’s style!  I had fun using papers by Echo Park – The Little Boy Collection.  I tried coloring him with copics so it looks like her has ‘fur’ but I am not sure how successful I was at it – I think I need to practice more, ha! 

Now I have a snippet of a card I made for the Gina K Release Party which is TONIGHT at StampTV!  We are SO excited about the stamp sets, samples, challenges and SURPRISES we have in store for you so I hope YOU will make it – I guarantee it will be time well spent!  Mark your calendar, set a timer, get dinner ahead of time (or order in) and join us from 7:00-9:00 CDT; 9:00 pm is when all the new products will be available to purchase in the GK store too! And remember when you spend $50 or more shipping is FREE and it will be in your hot little stamping hands in 2-3 days because Gina ALWAYS ships priority!!

Thanks for stopping by today and hope you have a fun St. Patrick’s Day! 

You Rock x 3

Hi there!  I have a fun clean & simple card to share with you using Tami Mayberry's set Live Life Loud for Gina K. Designs!  Lately my cards have been a little 'involved' and it is a comfort to me to fall back on the Clean & Simple style!  That's what I did here, in fact this card was not even 'planned', I just grabbed whatever was on my desk and I knew I wanted to just use black & white and one other color.  I used the round sponges in my ink pad and made circles for a fun focal point with the guitar and sentiment stamped 3 times and I really like how the card turned out!

Supplies:
Stamps: Live Life Loud
Cardstock: White, Black Onyx, Grass Green Pure Luxury
Ink: Vivid Wild Lime, Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: black brad

Don't forget - Thursday night 3/17 which is also St. Patrick's Day is the Gina K. March release party at StampTV!  It will be 7:00-9:00 p.m. CST!  Hope to 'see' you there!!!  As always there will be samples from the design team, fun chat, challenges, full set reveals and some other SURPRISES! 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

The Best Days…

Are spent curled up with a good book!  Yes indeed!  I’m sure if you are a book lover like me, you agree!!  This is my card for this week’s MFT sketch Wednesday (MFTWSC10).  I just loved this layout and since I have been reading more lately, I thought it would be fun to put my Well Read Who’s That Girl to some ink for it!  When you have a smaller area to work with, don’t be afraid to use just a portion of it to fit your card like I did here, I sliced off her feet at the ankles and part of the sofa is missing but it still works and looks pretty cute although now that I look at it, that sofa sure is BUSY!!  Ha.  I am reading The Help by Kathryn Stockett, it is real good!  In fact, when I get done publishing this post, I am going to read a little before I go to bed and I like to read during my lunch.  At our new office since it’s on the 2nd floor, there is a nice shaded balcony with comfy chairs to sit on so I really enjoy the escape for 30 minutes!  I used all supplies from the Key Ingredients subscription for my card. 

Gina K Designs update: I wanted to remind you that the Gina K. March release party will be this Thursday from 7:00 – 9:00 pm CST at StampTV!  Hope to see you there!

GKD Spellbinders Thank You Hop

Welcome to the Gina K Designs team special Spellbinders Thank You Blog Hop! Recently Spellbinders generously gifted each member of our Design Team with the amazing new Grand Calibur - what a blessing and exciting gift!  We are all enjoying this fabulous die cutting machine and wanted to share with you the special cards and projects we made to showcase it and why we love it so much!  Thank you so much Spellbinders!!!
You should have made your way to my blog by way of the sweet and talented Deb Felts; if not go to StampTV to start at the beginning so you don’t miss anyone along the way! 
For my projects with a Spring Theme, I used the Spellbinder’s Labels 14 dies and made a matching card & treat basket.  One thing I love about the Grand Calibur is that you can cut a whole bunch of dies at one time so you can have dies on hand to make a quick card!  Another thing I love is that if you get the Grand dies {which can only be accommodated in this die cutting machine}, you can make BIGGER/longer cards like the one I made here. 

Here are measurements for the treat basket I made.  I scored the label 14 (2nd to largest size) at the flaps and adhered sticky tape to that.  Then you cut a strip of cardstock and score it according to my measurements and adhere it to the flaps. 

Then, I attached some coordinating ribbon with gold brads on the sides and cut small strips of lemon drop cardstock to attach to the inside to cover up the brad to make it more ‘finished’. 3 peppermint patties fit perfectly inside the treat basket – that is what’s inside. 
Here is a close up of the focal image on my card, I used the same size die cut from chocolate cardstock to create a mat for it.  Here is a picture of the back.  When you do this, you will want to put something to ‘cover’ up where it is cut in half like ribbon, a flower etc.  I used some punched flourishes which I love how they look!

I hope you have enjoyed what I had to share with you today and if you make a little basket, I would love to see the link!  I’m sure you can do this with a lot of the Spellbinders dies!Next on the hop is the lovely Emily Giovanni!

Supplies:
Stamps: Spring Basket, Wild at Heart (Thank you sentiment) 
Cardstock: Lemon Drop, Chocolate, Grass Green, White
Ink: Rich Cocoa Memento, Antique Linen distress
Accessories: Spellbinders Labels 14 die, EK Success Fancy Corner punch, Cuttlebug Stylized Flowers embossing folder, yellow button, crystal lacquer, ribbon, copic markershttp://stamptv.ning.com/forum/topics/spellbinders-thank-you-blog

Baby card & what I did this weekend!

Here is a sweet baby card I made for the last SCS VSN (virtual stamp night) which was a lot of fun!  I used Melanie’s Spring Basket & Basket of Blessings with these cutie baby animals!  I just adored how she put the drape of fabric upside down and it fits ‘into’ the basket like it was meant to be!  I made the little animals peeking out of the liner for dimension.  This card is pretty clean & simple because the animals can be colored pretty fast (especially the elephant that I didn’t color at all-I paper-pieced its ear only!)
So what did I do this weekend?  Well first of all, a few months ago when I was reading my new Austin Monthly magazine, I discovered there is a restaurant in Austin that serves fried chicken & waffles!  That is one of my favorites from CA!!  So, I’ve been bugging John to take me and we went on Sat and met one of my co-workers and her husband, who are also from CA and familiar with the delicious combination.  WOW – it was gourmet and I enjoyed it a LOT!  It was a little on the pricey side but well worth it and it’s called 24 Diner (and it’s open 24 7-ha!)
Then we went shopping so we could complete decorating our master bedroom!  Last month while we were out in San Marcos, we went to a cool little store called The Paper Bear we used to frequent often and I found a GORGEOUS lightweight bedspread with the perfect combination of colors!  It was made in India (not surprised) so we trekked to Garden Ridge one of the best places to shop ever with the bedspread in tow and found items to decorate the room with.  Here are some pictures of what we found:

I just LOVED the selection of pillows!  I had it in my mind I would make my own, but with these great prices, I just couldn’t pass them up!  From $7.99 (bolster to $9.99 square) Since the bedspread was so ornate, I wanted the colors & textures of the pillows to vary and we were able to achieve that here!

We went to a fabric store and John found this nice upholstery olive green fabric remnant – it was less than $4 for me to cover both nightstands!  So I DID make SOMETHING!  I know I need more decoration here – that will come slowly. For now, I just have a candle a stamping friend made me and my cell phone.  Usually there is a book there because I like to read before I go to sleep.

Next up is a photo of the corner of the room where Elsie loves to nap with the sunshine on her.  The chair is comfy; it was handed down to us by DMIL, she used to rock John in it as a baby.  It was re-upholstered years ago by our friend’s dad and he made 2 matching square pillows for it.  I felt like it needed some COLOR though. 

Here is a closer picture of our dresser.  We found all this décor for great prices and it all went well together, bringing COLOR into the room with the bedspread.  Vases were $4 to $9.99.  Sign $7.99 and the best part about all this?  My jewelry box matched and so did our one of a kind painting by an old friend Christopher Fitzgerald who gifted it to us years ago!  It is called Bonita.   I’m just pleased as punch - oh and ready to get in that comfy bed!  Thanks for taking a peek into our room with me!
Supplies:
Stamps: Spring Basket, Basket Blessings
Cardstock: Innocent Pink, White Pure Luxury, Basic Grey Hopscotch
Ink: Rich Cocoa Memento, Antique Linen distress
Accessories: twine, pearls, paper rose

I Miss You–MFT Weds. Stamp Club & personal update

Hi there whoever is still out there!  I am still here and no, I have not been having internet issues (thank God!) I have just been chilling; taking a little breather and I am back with a cutie Pure Innocence girl from My Favorite Things for their Wednesday stamp club sketch!  This is Making a List, I just love it since I am sending it to my niece Gabby and she loves to write & color, and it’s about time I send her a card just because!  I used all supplies from the Feb. key ingredients subscription by Taylored Expressions which have beautiful My Mind’s Eye Lush papers in it! 

Personal Update: Speaking of Taylored Expressions, did you happen to see this post on Taylor’s blog last weekend?  That’s right, I made the difficult decision to step down from the Baker’s Dozen design team, which I have enjoyed all 2 1/2 years of serving on!  Since my office move further,  my commute time has increased up to 2 hours per day. I am very limited with my creative time, hence one of the reasons for the break.  I recently started listening to books on audio which makes the time not so bad at all!  But some days I am still beyond exhausted and have no energy to post or create especially when my priority is to my family & home first and I have an EARLY bedtime. It’s time now to focus on some of my other hobbies, including making things for our beautiful new home!  I will share more soon!