Loonie Stamper's Challenge - Happy Birthday Regan!

I was contacted by one of the Loonie girls earlier this week. In confidence, she asked if Iwanted to participate in the Loonie Stamper's Challenge this week because they were going to create surprise birthday cards for Regan - since it is her birthday!! Of course I wanted to participate and created this card.

I started out with a piece of white cardstock and used my new Tim Holtz mini mask on the corner (I love that he brought out smaller sizes for us card makers!!). Then I sponged some Sweet Blush ink over the mask. I cut and embossed it using my Labels 1 die. Then, I used Demask Designs and white craft ink to create a background on Sweet Blush card stock. Finished it off with a little black mat, some black satin ribbon and a few rhinstones for some bling!!

Happy Birthday Regs!!!

For all of the Loonie girl birthday cards go to here (can't wait to see what Regan created, heehehe):

Char, Dee, Maria, Wendy, Jewels, and Regan, of course!!

Supplies: all supplies are Papertrey Ink except mask (Ranger), rhinstones (various), die (Spellbinders), and dimensionals.

Have a great day everyone!!

Donelda

Teacher Gifts

Obviously I made these forever ago but I have just gotten around to posting this.

I made these books for all of the teachers at my son's school and the cards for all of the support staff (educational assistants, secretaries). The books are actaully a journal for the teachers to reflect back on their teaching career. I used Nichole's example HERE as a guide but changed the questions a bit (to make them more Canadian and more relevant). I bought the books at Michael's. They actually have some letters or something under the main image but I knew I'd cover that up with my own creativity!!

I don't normally go so "all out" with gifts at the end of the year but my son is leaving that school and moving on to the Middle School. So, I made one journal for every teacher and left a message on the first page thanking them for making our experience at their school so great. Same with the cards, I made one for all the support staff thanking them for their part. It is really a great school and we will certainly miss the postivie atmosphere they provided over the last 5 years!!

Well, gotta go make a card. Enjoy your day!!

Donelda

CAS 25 - Little Ladybug and more

Sunday nights are always fun because that is when they post the Clean and Simple (CAS) challenges over on Splitcoaststampers. Well, I love to try my hand at CAS, even if I am not always successful....it's fun to try, right??!!

Well, this challenge - CAS 25 - was a great one based on a card layout. It is a great CAS layout and once I got started I couldn't stop!!!

Here is the card I posted over on SCS. I love this little ladybug. She is from the Love Bug set from smARTworks. I like the dotted paper below her as it repeats the dots. I tried the white on white thing (like Susan the fabulous), however, I'm not sure it turned out. So, I tried it again....

See Mr. Skunk...isn't he cute??!! I love him and all his other little friends. They come from the Twitterpated designer paper called Hey Foxy by Imaginisce. My son picked it out at the LSS and we love it!! Once I tried the skunk only using a red card base, I decided to use his friends on 3x3 cards (one of my favorite card sizes to work with these days!!).

While working wiht them I made some small changes with panel sizes, rounded corners, and dimensionals. While I love that fox, and the bird is soooo cute, the hedgehog card ended up being my favorite combination of all the elements!

And now my son is working on his own version of this card and we will post it when he is finished!! Make sure you scroll down to see it!!

Thanks for dropping in. Have a fabulous week!

Donleda

Little Friends Card Set by DS

And here are the little cards that ds made with me this morning. He used a bee, butterfly, and a mushroom from the Hey Foxy paper I had used on my cards.

I love how he punched a 1/2" circle out of the blue for the 1/4" punched circle with the butterfly would fit inside...brilliant!! And the rounded corners on the mushroom card are a perfect touch. And, when he was working on the bee card, he remembered the 'thankzzzz' sentiment from the Cute as a Bug set - retired from Stampin' Up!!

I think he made some great cards....what do you think??

Donelda

Loonie Stamper's Challenges #45, 46, 47, 48, and 49

Hello everyone! This is actually my second post today! If you scroll down, you will see my Loonie Stamper Challenge #50 card. I finished it yesterday and posted it to post early this morning. This morning, I worked on all the other loonie challenges that I have missed over the last month or so and wanted to post them today as well!! This card is for LSC 45 where we were to use Vanilla, Spring Rain, and Smokey Shadow (all PTI colors). I thought this was going to be the most difficult but it ended up being easy and I love the final card. The vanilla card is cut to be 3 1/4" wide and 4 1/4" high and I stamped it using the big flourish from With Sympathy (PTI) in versamark and then embossed it with clear embossing powder. Then, I traced and cut out the butterfly onto the Spring Rain cardstock and stamped the medium sized demask image from Demask Designs (PTI) using Spring Rain. I put 2 different styles of grey ribbon on, a button and some linen thread. A sentiment from Beautiful Blooms (PTI) and some rounded corners finish off the card. This is probably my favorite of the cards I made this morning. LSC 45 was to use So Saffron (SU!) and White and to make your own designer paper. Well, I totally was on a kick to use Background Basics: Retro (PTI) (as you'll see) and this time I pulled out this lines and dot stamp. I stamped it repeatedly onto the white cardstock and then covered the big dots with Star Dust Stickles (Ranger). The home-made designer paper is attached with dimensionals. The sentiment is from Beyond Basic Borders (PTI) and is stamped onto the So Safffron cardstock with So Saffron ink. The ribbon is a bit of a cheat.... what, I can cheat if I want to, LOL.... it is Very Vanilla grosgrain (SU!). A clean and simple card and I like the finished project, which looks better in real life because you can see the shimmer from the stickles. LSC 47 was the most difficult for me. It was a color combination of Scarlet Jewel, Aqua Mist, Ripe Avocado, and Lemon Tart (all PTI colors). Now, part of my problem was that I don't own any Scarlet Jewel yet. But, I took my inspiration from Steph who used some felt in that color on THIS card. I loved the look so bought some felt myself. Then, I decided I could make it look like double stitched ribbon so I cut it, and then using my sewing machine and stitched down both sides with white thread. I really like the results and I'll definately be doing that again in other colors!! Now the other difficult part of this challenge was getting all those colors in there. I was good with all but the Aqua Mist (even though it is one of my fav PTI colors) because I just couldn't get it to work with my layout/design. Anyway, a little splash of it in this button... what do you think??? I do like the green bitty dot paper (PTI) on top of the green card base, especially with the decorative cut at the top and having it popped up on 2 layers of dimensional (that felt is thick!!).

LSC 48 was a Christmas in July challenge. Well, I've been itching to make Christmas cards so this one was pretty easy. I actaully made this card with primarly smARTworks stamps!! The pointsettia is made with the plain petals from the Petal Power stamp set with the inside dots coming from the Swirly Gigs set (both from smARTworks). I love the loose flower look of the final image!! The sentiment is from Take a Bough (PTI) and is embossed in gold. The edge of the main white panel is also edged with gold. This card is simple to re-create and is flat for mailing. I will definately be making more of these for Christmas cards this year!! and finally ... LSC47 was really tough!! Not only were we to use 4 colors (brown, raspberry fizz, kraft, and white - all PTI colors) but we were also to have the following 4 elements in our design as well: flowers, brads, buttons, and ribbon! What....are you kidding me!! I know its a challenge...but come on!! Okay, enough whining and complaining!! I tried, honest I did but no matter how hard I tried, I just couldn`t get a button on there!! Sorry girls!! :-) Of course the Loonie girls` cards have been made for ages. It would totally take me too long to find all their cards and link them but I will leave a general link to their blogs. You must go check out their blogs as they are all very talented crafters and make amazing stuff!! Jewels, Char, Maria, Dee, Regan, Wendy Okay, so now I`m all crafted out (and besides, it is starting to get hot in my craft room and I`ve been at it since 5:30 this morning!!). I hope you find something here that inspires you!! Have a great day!! Now I`m off to play with Lego or some other boyish activity!! :-) Donelda

Loonie Stamper's Challenge #50 - Wedding Card

When I popped onto the Loonie girls' blogs and saw that the challenge for this week is a wedding card I thought "oh no" because I don't have too many wedding stamps but when I saw that the colors were black, white, and silver.....yikes!! Anyway, here is my attempt. I'm not really all that happy with it but figured I'd better post "something". What do I like about this????....well, not much but I do like the effect of the sentiment stamped with black onto the vellum that has silver design on it and then adhered to the white heart. It is probably hard to see the effect in this photo but the sentiment looks like it is floating on the heart, looks cool in real life!! Anyway, now I'm off to see what the other loonie girls did with this crazy challenge: Jewels, Marie, Char, Regan, Dee, Wendy Supplies" Stamps- Wedding Day, Polka Dot Basics (Papertrey Ink); Ink - Basic Black (Stampin' Up!), Silver (Colorbox Chalks); Paper - Whisper White, Basic Black (SU!), vellum with silver design (unknown - from the Dollar Store); Other - scallop punch (Marvy - actually borrowed from a friend a while ago - thanks Robin!), satin white ribbon (Papertrey Ink), silver marker (Sharpie), heart punch (Marvy).

July Blog Hop - 3x3 cards with text paper

It is Blog Hop time again with Papertrey Ink. I am really exciting this month because I have sadly missed many of the last few. The last few months of the school year are usually busy for me but seemed to be especially so this year! So, being on holidays, I jumped at the chance to play this month!! For this months hop, Nichole asked us to use text in our creations in some way. She has been very interested in text and has even released an increadible text set recently (which I don't own...yet, but you know it is on my wish list!!). I decided to use some text desinger paper I have from the old Once Upon a Time paper pack from Die Cut With a View. I started out making this one 3x3 card and liked it so much that I made another one with basically the same supplies that were out on my desk. Then, I wanted to try one of those circle flowers (recently re-popularized by Dawn McVey in this card) and used some different colors. This is probably my favorite of the three. I love those strawberries from the Green Thumb set. That set is probably still in my top 10 favorite sets! It is so versatile!! I started the card by stamping and cutting out the 2 berries onto some designer paper that matched the color of the text designer paper (both from the DCWV paper stack). I cut and embossed the text paper with the Labels One die from Spellbinders and then sponged around the edge. I added it to a piece of avacado paper and then tied the twill. The berries are added with dimensionals. The sentiment from that set is perfect, of course!

The second card also starts out with more of the berries but this time, I only used a piece of the Labels one die. Part of that reason is because the text was a bit crooked after I ran the die through my Cuttlebug (frustrating). So, I added the green on top along with a strip of brown cardstock. I put all of this onto a brown 3x3 cardbase partially covered with clear embossed polka dots. The entire middle panel is attached to the card with dimensionals for this card.

This time I switched up the colors a bit and created a circle flower with the text paper and some Plum Pudding cardstock. I used the other side of the Lables one die here. The slightly crooked text doesn't look quite so bad when you only use a piece of it, however, if I'd used the entire die, it would have made the card look crooked! I added some stripes and the sentiment with Vintage Cream ink and a bow with some brown floss.

Now off to see what the other blog hoppers created with text. I can't wait to see them all as I always get a ton of inspiration!!

Thanks for dropping in.

Donelda

Clean and Simple Challenges 23 and 24

While I was away, I missed a lot of great challenges. One that I really like is the Clean and Simple Challenges (or CAS) over on Splitcoaststampers. I completed CAS24 which was this Monday's challenge (I did 3 cards...I just couldn't stop!!) but then when back and did CAS23 as well!!

CAS24 - use the colors Yellow, Orange, and Turquoise.

Here is Card #1 and, actually, my favorite of the

bunch!! When making Clean and Simple cards, this is one of my all time favorite layouts!!

Supplies: Stamps-swirls inchie stamps by Inkadinkado; Cardstock - whisper white (SU); Ink - Only Orange, Yoyo Yellow, Tempting Turquoise, Basic Black (SU) Other - 1" square punch, dimensionals.

Here is the second card I made using these colors. My friend has lots of friends getting married and having babies so I have been trying to make a few baby cards, not something I do very often. I really like the look of the white stitching around the white block and then popped up onto a white card (white on white inpired by the CAS queen herself, Susan). Supplies: Stamps - All Year Through (SU!), Limitless Labels (Papertrey Ink); Paper - Whisper White (SU!); Ink - Yoyo Yellow, Tempting Turquoise (SU!); Other - sweing machine, white thread, dimensionals, orange button (Basic Grey), white floss (DCM).

This is my third card using these colors. No, that

yellow strip was not supposed to be there but

when I stamped the sentiment the first time it was crooked....of course!! Drat! So, I restamped it onto a strip of the yellow cardstock and added it to the card. Not as nice but will work. I do love the swarvoski crystals that I added to the centers of these awesome flowers!!

Supplies: Stamps- Garden of Life (Papertrey Ink); Paper - Whisper White, Yoyo Yellow (Stampin' Up!); Ink - Yoyo Yellow, Only Orange, Tempting Turquoise, Basic Black (Stampin' Up!); Other - crystals (Swarvoski), dimensionals. And here is the card I made for CAS23 where we were giving this awesome site to use as a place to find inspriation! Wow, you could be looking all day!! I used THIS PIECE as my inspiration piece. I've never thought of doing this with this cow from Very Punny before! I laughed out loud when I thought of it!! Certainly not my typical style but it was fun!! Supplies: Stamps - Out on a Limb, Everyday Classics (Papertrey Ink), Very Punny (Stampin' Up!); Paper - Night of Navy, Whisper White (SU!); Ink- Yoyo Yellow, Night of Navy, Basic Black (SU!); Other - gingham ribbon, white gel pen (Signo), dimensionals, copic markers (pink, black). So, next I am going to attack some of the Loonie girl challenges and maybe try to get a card ready for the next Papertrey Ink blog hop (I've missed the last few of those too!!).

Have a great day everyone!!

Donelda

Daffodil Thanks

Have you ever met someone who is so sweet that you can hardly believe it!! Well I have and her name is Dina! Dina is the one of the first bloggers who truely inspired me, who introduced me to smARTworks stamps, and now has been so sweet to send me this Impression Obsession stamp that I used on this card!! I could hardly belive it when I went to the post office on our way out of town for our vacation and found this stamp sitting in a little envie!! A while ago, I had commented that I liked daffodils and was wondering if anyone knew of a good stamp image as I was dissapointed with the one in the Stampin' Up! catty. Well, Dina did give me various suggestions (apparently she likes daffodils too) at the time. Then, when an extra one of these landed in her lap, she actually remembered my love of daffodils and sent me it! WOW!! I can't even believe she remembered the comment, let along being kind enough to send it my way!!

So a few nights ago I set to work stamping off the image a few times and giving it some color. I used my favorite way to color images, watercoloring!! This has been made even easier with the arrival of my refills!!

I wanted the card to be simple so not to detract from the beautiful yellow flowers!! A simple sentiment, a bit of floss, and some scallops!! I also followed the CPS #124 card sketch as it would incorporate this large image. I am considering my sentiment for the element in the bottom right.

Supplies: Stamps - F1320 Butterfly with Daffodils (Impression Obsession), Wedding Day - sentiment (Papertrey Ink); Ink - Jet Black Archival (Ranger), Yoyo Yellow, Groovy Guava, Garden Green, Pumpkin Pie, Soft Sky (Stampin' Up); Paper - Whisper White (Stampin' Up!), Arabella-Porcelain collection and Pomade -Eva collection (both Basic Grey); Other - white floss (DCM), scallop scissors (Provo Craft), water color brush, dimensionals.

Has anyone done something so special for you?? Let me hear about it!!

Have a great day! Donelda

Happily Ever After

My husband and I just celebrated 13 years of marriage. It seems that every year we are on vacation somewhere and it actually takes us until half-way through the day before we realize it's our anniversary. This year was no exception!! Regardless, we always find a way to celebrate whether that day or, more likely, when we get home. Unfortunately, I always seem to forget to make a card before we leave (in the crazy time of running around finishing work, packing, making arrangements for pets, etc.). Again, this year was no exception so I made this card for my sweetie last night.

The image is actually just a small part of a Happy Hoppers stamp called Bunny Kisses by Stampabilities. Where is the bunny you ask? Well, he is holding a sprig of mistletoe over these little mice who are smooching!! I loved the little kissing mice and knew they would make a great anniversary card. The senitment is from Favor It Weddings by Papertrey Ink (perfect I thought). The image is colored with Prismacolor pencil crayons and blended with odorless mineral oil. The heart is a small rub on. If you look at the close up picture, I dry embossed some cute little hearts along the outer edge, and the image and mat are popped up on dimensionals.

I know it is all sappy but I've got to say that I truely love this man so much more today than I ever did 13 years ago!!!

And don't forget to check out smARTworks for details about the 40% off sale they are having between July 18 - 28. Ten days of super bargains!! If you end up buying make sure you tell them that I sent you!!

Thanks for dropping in to my blog!!

Donelda

SALE at smARTworks and a smART card !!

Hey everyone!! I am starting to feel a bit more myself and a bit more caught up in life since returning from our vacation.

You should know that smARTworks is going to have a HUGE sale which will run fromJuly 18 - 28th!! A ten day Super Sale that you don't want to miss!! All in -stock rubber will be 40% off!! Are you kidding me!!?? That is one awesome sale!! So head on over to smARTworks on the 18th and make sure you let them know that I sent you if you decide to buy anything!! *wink* HERE is where you can check out the on-line catalog.

If you need inspiration on using the smARTworks rubber, you need to check out the Design Team's Cookie Jar. There are lots of examples in the jar using smART rubber!!

And here is another smARTworks card make with the Swirly-gigs stamp set. I love, love, loved that particular flower in the set so I decided to make some background paper with it. I did the rock n' roll technique with it and loved the result. For the focal image, I simply stamped the outline bird in brown ink (there is a solid bird too in the set!!) and then stamped the wing bit onto an scrap piece of my home-made background, cut it out and adhered it in place. Some ribbon, brads, and a button finished off the card.

Supplies: Stamps – Swirly-gigs (smARTworks); Ink – Chocolate Chip (Stampin’ Up!), Summer Sunrise, Lemon Tart (Papertrey Ink); Paper – Chocolate Chip, Whisper White (Stampin’ Up!), Summer Sunrise (Papertrey Ink); Other – Summer Sunrise twill (Papertrey Ink), brads (Stampin; Up!), button (Walmart), white floss (DCM), Dimensionals.

I hope you all have a good summer day. It is supposed to get hot here....for the first time all year!! That is good news. I think we will be heading to the farmer's market!!

Enjoy!

Donelda

Life is a Journey - CAS Green

I really love this wheel stamp from Stampin' Up! I had to buy it before it retired .... but I haven't used it - until now!! I rolled the wheel image onto black paper using Versamark ink and then added some white embossing powder. Some paper piercing and a sentiment make for a great Clean and Simple (CAS) card. Supplies: Stamps: Birds of a Feather - sentiment (Papertrey Ink), ???? (Stampin' Up-retired); Paper - New Leaf (Papertrey Ink), Basic Black (Stampin Up!); Ink - Basic Black, Versamark (Stampin' Up!); Other - white embossing powder, paper piercer and template (Stampin' Up!).

I'm home!

Well, we were on vacation for the last few weeks. We had a great time and were able to visit with my family. We are trying to get "caught up" on things like laundry and groceries. I'll be by to update my blog in a day or so. I'll also be off to visit all of your blogs....I've really missed my -computer, paper, and stamps :D Donelda

smARTworks - Birthday Flowers

I started out by stamping these funky flowers onto soem scrap white cardstock. Then, I added stripes of pink to the petals using my pink Copic marker. Some Basic Grey designer paper, some square rhinstones, an oval cut with my Nestabilities and a bit of doodling and voila!! Stamps- Swirly-gigs (smARTworks); Ink - Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko); Paper- Whisper White (Stampin’ Up!), blue (from my stash), Bonnet from the Urban Prairie collection (Basic Grey); Other – oval Nestabilities (Spellbinders), Cuttlebug (Provo Craft), square rhinestones (Dollar Store), black marker (Sakura), alcohol marker RV11 (Copic), paper piercer, paper piercer template (Stampin’ Up!), dimensionals. Thanks for dropping in. Donelda

Baseball Birthday

A simple card for a young boy. The image is stamped onto Sahara Sand cardstock and then colored in using Prismacolor pencil crayons.

The layout is one from a challenge....can't remember which because it was made so long ago.

Supplies: Stamps-Toy Box (Stampin' Up!), Cute as a Button (smARTworks), Birthday Basics (Papertrey Ink); Paper - Sahara Sand, Basic Black (Stampin' Up!), designer paper is from my scrap bin; Other - black marker.

Do you think your son would like this card??

Thanks for dropping in.

Donelda

smARTworks - Mini Butterfly Card Set

I love these wimsical butterflies!! They were colored in using Copic markers. It makes a great notecard set. Stamps- Swirly-gigs (smARTworks); Ink - Brilliance Graphite Black (Tsukineko); Paper-Rose Red, Kiwi Kiss, Pacific Point, Tangerine Tango, Whisper White (Stampin’ Up!); Other – black marker (Sakura), alcohol markers BG18, RV11, YR04, R08,YG95, 0 (Copic).

Have a great day!!

Donelda

smARTworks Tea Party - Salted Background

Happy Canada Day!! Here we are sitting in Ottawa, Canada to celebrate Canada's birthday! But before we go eat cake, I wanted to make sure I got this tea party card up for you all to see. Happy Canada Day to all my fellow Canadians!! So it was my turn to pick a challenge for this week's tea party and I decided to go with something really fun....salted backgrounds. I love the effect you get when you add salt to a wet background and you can use it as is (a full background) or you can use a piece of that background in some interesting way. So, I made a number of different backgrounds. I picked my favorite of all the backgrounds and created this card. Those reds, blues, and greens are so intense and the salt made the best designs on it. I also included a second technique on this card as well. I wanted to copy my red and green plaid bow that was watercolored on my teapot. So, I used THIS technique by Gina K. and created a plaid "ribbon" to add to my card.

Now off to see what all the other Design Team members created with their salted backgrounds:

Dina, Susan, Trish, Donna, Giovana

Supplies: Stamps- ABC Teapot Trio (smARTworks), sentiment is from Mixed Messages (Papertrey Ink); Ink - Ruby Red, Night of Navy, Olive Green (Stampin' Up!); Paper - Whisper White, Night of Navy (Stampin' Up!); Other - Labels 1 Nestability Die (Nestabilities), white gel pen (Signo).

So, did you make a card using a salted background?? If so, we would love to see it!! leave us a link on one of our blogs so we can check it out!!

Thanks for dropping in!!

Donelda