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Thursday, January 29, 2009

Blog Award


On Monday I recieved the Butterfly Blog Award from Twilla at Stamp a Little Longer. It took me a few days to finish this post and get it up. Twilla has a wonderful blog, her projects are beautiful but not overwhelming, perfect for any stamper. I am honored that she chose my blog for the award, my first one.
Here are the rules for this award:
1. Pick 10 people and pass the award on to them.
2. Contact them and let them know you have chosen them and their blog for an award.
3. Link back to the person who gave you the award.
Here are the 10 blogers I have chosen to give the award to, please check out their blogs and leave them a nice comment or two!

Jayne

Barb

Jasmine

Lisa

Kimberly

Elaine

Angela

Jill

Shellie

Tai

Have a stamperific day!

Kirsten Brown

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Wednesday, January 28, 2009

More and More Each Day

While waiting outside of the kids’ school to pick them up, I had this idea pop into my head for a swap I was doing.  It was this great idea until I was about half way done with it.  I carefully attached my saying and then realized that the saying, which made the card, was not allowed because it used the retired font cd.  My interest in making the card fizzled out and I stopped working on it.  Today I decided to try and finish it up.  Here is the final project.

failed ccs

In keeping with my theme of using things that are not utilized enough I used the Mark the Date stamp set, that I just had to have, but have only used twice, well now three times.  It doesn’t really show up in the picture but instead of stamping numbers in for each date it is filled in with X’s and O’s.   (I have the hardest time photographing my pink pirouette images.)  I also used the cutter kit, which is another item that was just so cool I had to have but have never used, to rough up the edges of the riding hood red cardstock.  Since I already had used one retired item on the card, I went ahead and added a clip from the retired hardware set.  The card is not quite what I had originally pictured but I still think that it makes a great “love” card to give to that special guy in your life.

Stamps:  Mark the Date and Calendar Alphabet

Ink:  Black, Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette

Paper:  Basic Black, Kraft, Riding Hood Red, and Riding Hood Red Patterns DSP

Accessories:  Pewter Hodgepodge Hardware, Black Grosgrain Ribbon

Tools: Small and Large Oval Punches, Cutter Kit

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Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Perpetual Birthday Calendar

The other day we figured out that it was someone’s birthday and we were going to stop by her house in like an hour.  I needed to come up with something fast that I could give as a little birthday gift.  I have just about depleted my stash of gifts so I had to come up with something fast.  I had down loaded the recipe wrap up template from Papertreyink and it was just waiting to be used.  The template is here.  It was so simple and made the perfect little gift. 

bdaycal

The file came with some calendar templates but they said 2009 on them, and since I was making a perpetual calendar to be used for many years I didn't like that.  I printed up new labels on to cardstock and just covered up the part I didn't like.  Here is what it looks like open.

bdaycalopen

This is a close up on the inserts to show how I covered up the Month and Year Header, there are two per pocket. 

bdaycal lists

The template itself was designed so that you can just print it on your cardstock and cut.  Well if you are like me, and like to save every little scrap of paper for later use (“waste not want not”) I recommend a different course of action.  I just printed it out on computer paper and measured the cut and score lines and used it as a visual guide and I was able to save that 1.5 by 11 inch piece of paper that would have been lost otherwise.

Paper:  Bella Rose DSP, Kiwi Kiss and Pink Pirouette

Accessories:  Pink Pirouette Striped Grosgrain Ribbon

Tools:  Large Oval and Wide Oval Punches

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Monday, January 26, 2009

Thank you from A to Z

Last month we had a friend take some family pictures for us. She did an amazing job and really captured the personalities of the kids. They are really truly the best family pictures we have ever received. Well she would not let us pay her for taking the pictures, so I made her a card set as a thank you. (I guess it was a talent swap!) So I found out her favorite colors were pink and green and that she really likes polka dots. I added in some brown as a accent color and this is what I came up with a whole bunch of cards!

Jbox1

One of my stamping goals for the year is to use every stamp in every set I have before I can get a new one, as well as to stop hoarding and to use more accessories and stuff. With my very first SU! order I bought a couple of packs of the note cards and still had not used them, so they were one of the first things I pulled out. Too often I find myself buying a stamp set for one image and never using the others, well that is going to change! I started with the Define Your Life stamp set as well as the Defining Alphabet stamp set. I have used a few out of each but not the whole set and since they are some of my biggest stamp sets, I figured it was a great place to start. I took a few simple layouts and recreated them in different ways to create a card for each saying/ letter of the alphabet. Here are a couple of close up shots.

jbox5 jbox4 jbox3

jbox2

After I had them all made I didn't have anything even remotely close to the right size to put them all in so I made up a quick little box. Well it was supposed to be a quick box, but some how I kept messing up the measurements, adding the measurement to my score line instead of subtracting it, the whole thing was a mess and after several mis-scored pieces of paper later this is what I ended up with.

Jbox

I hope that she likes them. By the way, if there are any of you in the Sacramento County Area and would like to get your pictures taken just let me know and I will get your info to her so that she can contact you!

Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Define Your Life, Defining Alphabet

Ink: Pretty in Pink, Wild Wasabi, and Chocolate Chip

Paper: SU! Notecards, Pretty in Pink, Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip, Prints Pack DSP Hostess set (Pretty in Pink and Wild Wasabi Papers), and Close to Cocoa Prints DSP

Accessories: Pretty in Pink Grosgrain, Light Pink Gingham Ribbon, Chocolate Double Stitched Grosgrain, Chocolate Stain Ribbon, Wild Wasabi Striped Grosgrain, Linen Thread, Silver Brads, Flower Fusion Too, Pretties Kit, and the Earth Elements and Neutrals Buttons

Tools: Crafters Tool Kit, Scallop Edge Punch

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Thursday, January 22, 2009

Valentines Class

So I still haven’t found the charger for my camera, lil stinker, so I figured out how to use my webcam to take a picture.  This was my first time using it for pictures and since it doesn’t have a flash and it is raining today, it was hard to get a good picture but I think I did ok.  It was a crazy sight, I had all of the small lamps from around the house on my desk some pointed at two mirrors to reflect light and others to actually light the project.  Anyways, I have found a way to do pictures in the time being.

This is the project I did for my little mini class.  It is a Valentine’s Box.   Here is a picture of the box with the lid and without.  I got the pattern for the box from Becky Robert’s Blog “Inking Idaho”.  I did change up the compartments a little to make the box work for what I was putting in it, but her instructions were great.

                   vday box vdayboxopen

In the box we made several cupcake tags, that can be attached as gift.  This idea was also from Becky.  Although you cannot really tell from the picture the cherry is covered with crystal effects to give it that shiny maraschino cherry look.vdayboxtags

This is one of the cards in the box.  The flower on the love you much image is covered by a pink pirouette felt flower but it doesn't really show up in the picture.

vdayboxc2This is the second card in the box.  

vdayboxc1

We also made several love notes and here are two of the designs.  The one on the left is inspired by the one on the Stampin’ Up! home page, I just made it into a smaller card.  The one on the right is from Dannie Graves, I just changed the card color and a little bit of the dsp dimensions. 

vdayboxc3

Then in the end there was a little extra room so I filled it up with some dark chocolate raspberry kisses. 

Stamps:  Love You Much, Simple Birthday Thanks

Ink:  Real Red, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, Pink Pirouette, Baja Breeze, Basic Black and Many Marvelous Markers set

Paper: Real Read, Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Candy Lane DSP Summer Picnic DSP and Riding Hood Red Patterns DSP

Accessories:  Crystal Effects, Antique Brass Jumbo Eyelets, Signo White Gel Pen. Chocolate Satin Ribbon, Stampin’ Dimensionals, Flower Fusion Too,  Real Red Brad, Aqua Painter, Pretty in Pink Tafetta Ribbon, Silver Brads

Tools:  Crafter’s Tool Kit, Heart to Heart Punch, Scallop Edge Punch, Scallop Edge Punch

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Sunday, January 18, 2009

“Pretty Tailies”

Our two year old is obsessed with having her hair done with “pretty tailies” (what she calls her pony tails) every day.  We have this pretty blue dress for her that really makes her eyes pop but no “tailies” to match so I made her one with our pretties kit.  As I was doing that I got to thinking that I could make a bunch of them out of our supplies.  So for Christmas I made a bunch of them and added them to gifts for friends with little girls.  These are similar to bows that sell for lots of $$ in the stores and each cost me something around $0.50 to make.  I made several different kinds using our ribbons (the retired satin pomegranate and chocolate really made some pretty ones but I didn't get pictures of those before I gave them away), and then the pretties kit and the flower fusion felt flowers.  I was going to make some more and send the ideas into SU! but yesterday I finally got to see the new catalog and they have the same idea already in there, so someone already beat me to it.  Oh, well.  So since I cannot find the battery charger to our camera, which is dead, I cannot take pictures of the cards that I was going to post on Friday so I figured I would show you some of the ponytails.    I didn’t get pictures of the bows that are really like the boutique bows and I haven't had enough time to make more of them, but here is the link to the website that I found that gives you instructions on how to make them.  

YouTube Video – not my favorite style but a popular one

Lots of Styles – this website has a lot of instructions on many different types of bows that are free!

pt1

Here is Hannah so excited about her new ponytail.  Can you see it mom?pt2

This one use two flowers from the pretties kit.  I dyed the big flower first in my taken with teal ink pad and darkened it up by sponging on some not quite navy.  It then has a circle rhinestone from the ice collection in the center. pt3

This one uses 3 pretties flowers in various sizes, it has a piece of white organdy ribbon (retired) that has some of the beads from the pretties kit that is glued in between the smallest and med flowers and there is a half back pearl in the center of the flower to finish it off. pt4

This one uses the flower fusion felt flowers.  I have some olive flowers in the back to act as the leaves or greenery to make the flowers stand out a bit.  There are also orange circle rhinestones from the Fire collection in the centers of the flowers. pt5

This is just a simple bow with pretty in pink ribbon. pt6

One more really simple bow with white grosgrain.

Hannah had a blast being a talie model.  No you can all go and make some little girl happy by making her a pretty bow, or flower to wear!

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Thursday, January 15, 2009

Love You Much

I really needed to get back on track with my stamping after taking such a long break, and through the busyness of the day I found 20 minutes to sit down and stamp.  I am still on the fence with this card.  I am trying to come up with some ideas for my class next week and I am not sure if I will use this one or not. 

lym1

It uses the Love You Much punch bundle that is on sale right now.  The birds were stamped on the Candy Lane paper and cut out.  The 3 smaller hearts were also from the same DSP. 

Stamps:  Love You Much

Ink:  Basic Black, Riding Hood Red

Paper:  Riding Hood Red Patterns DSP, Candy Lane DSP, whisper white, pink pirouette, basic black

Accessories:  Riding Hood Red Striped Ribbon

Punches:  Heart to Heart Punch

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Wednesday, January 14, 2009

A few more thank you cards

Jan 14, 2009 3:50 PM

from Kirsten's Stampin Korner by Kirsten

I guess it is time that I post here again.  Boy, everyone told me that the third kid was the hardest but I have to disagree, the third was a piece of cake compared to the fourth.  Then again, things were a lot different this time around than I have ever had to deal with in the past.  I am just about caught up my thank you notes.  This is the last batch I think I have to make.  I feel bad because some of these notes are like 5 weeks late, but I hope that late is better than never.  It has been so long since I have participated in Kristina’s Color Inspiration challenge and I really missed them.  So today when I went to her blog I was excited and knew exactly what I wanted to make.  Here is her inspiration!

011309-color  #38The colors are ruby red, pretty in pink, pumpkin pie and whisper white, not my typical colors but they worked great with the Flight of the Butterfly stamp set.

btfly ty very much

  This card is a 4 1/4 square card.  I was wanting to do something a little different so I went square and not totally baby but still girly.  It is perfect for making a large batch and simple to put together.  I am really happy with how it turned out.

Stamps:  Flight of the Butterfly

Ink:  Ruby Red, Pumpkin Pie, and Pretty in Pink

Paper: Whisper White, Ruby Red, Pumpkin Pie, and Pretty in Pink

Accessories:  Pretty in Pink brads, Stampin Dimensionals

Tools:  Paper Piercer from the Crafter’s Tool Kit

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