Limited Supply Challenge!

People on SCS post challenges every weekday and Friday is the Limited Supply Challenge. I decided to participate tonight after finishing my work. It's a lot harder than it looks! For this challenge, we were to use only ONE flower stamp and an optional sentiment. We could not use Designer Series paper or background stamps. After quite a while of fiddling with this card, I stumbled upon a couple of clever ideas (at least I thought so!) :) I used my Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the flowers behind the main panel and I think they kind of look like scallops. Ignore the little boo-boo in the bottom left. It was my second to last scallop and I accidentally turned the stamp. Rats!

For the focal image, I stamped once and then used the Stamp-a-ma-jig to offset it and stamped again. The result is a fuller flower with a little more punch. Let me tell you, I find my Stamp-a-ma-jig indispensable!! If you are anal retentive like me, you need one too! :) All supplies are SU! I welcome any questions or comments (unless they are mean! LOL!) Thanks so much for looking!

I'm On a Roll!!

I swear, I haven't crafted this much "just because" in quite a while! Normally when I am making more than one project I am preparing something for a Stamp Camp. It's fun to just do something for myself and not to worry it will disappoint anyone. Here's a card I made this afternoon. I used my new set "Always" from SU! that just came out in this new catalog--love it! I started with the Wild Wasabi textured piece of cardstock scrap that was lying on my desk from another project and went from there. I like how you can see the Designer Series paper peeking out from the inside of the card. I love the colors in this card. It's obviously very simple. All supplies SU! Thanks for looking!

More Scrapbooking!

I am on a roll, here! I did a 5 month page for Gracie that got published, so I thought I would try my hand at one for Ava, too. I just love the colors for this page (pretty much the same colors from my other scrapbook page, just in a different configuration). Everything is SU! except for the title letters (Making Memories--old), the "sweet" tab (Heidi Swapp--also old), and the heart punch (EK Success--ancient!). Thanks for looking!

The 3 cards...

Here are the three cards I made today. I had two baby cards to make and my brother-in-law's birthday was yesterday, so I obviously had to make a card for that occasion as well. The girl card (with the "K" and flower) is for Sean's coworker's daughter. I pulled the colors out of the gift bag that their gift is in...love the purple and orange combo. In hindsight, I would have used silver eyelets for the fasteners at the bottom, but I set those first and didn't want to start over just to change that. The boy card is for our friends Kris and Angela, who just had their second son.

The onesie idea is all over SCS, but the specific template I used was the easiest I found, from Lauren Meader's blog. Basically, you just cut a length of cardstock to 4.25 x 11, score at 5.5 inches and fold over. Then use the 1 3/8" circle punch to punch a half-circle out of the folded edge for the neckline. Then punch out the two leg openings. Measure down about 1.5 inches from the folded edge and about .5 inches in from the side, use a ruler to mark from that point down to the outside edge of the leg hole, and cut that piece out on both sides. Is that clear as mud? I will find Lauren's blog later to link (the bookmark is in my IE browser and I am using Mozilla right now). She has pictures and it's very easy to follow.


I am not great at guy cards, but this one was pretty simple. I used all scrap pieces of cardstock that were lying on my desk--even the blue piece with the star punched out was a scrap from something I was testing the other day. I just stamped the background (Canvas--tone on tone Ballet Blue ink on Ballet Blue cardstock), cut the blue piece to size, and used the Stamp-a-ma-jig to line up the "and many more" sentiment in the star. Then I stamped the Happy Birthday on the Wild Wasabi piece, adhered everything, and added the linen-threaded button. I think it's against my religion to leave a button unthreaded. It just looks naked to me if it doesn't have something going through the holes.

Anyway, that's all for now. Thanks for visiting! :)

TGIF!

I took a couple of pictures of the girls together today...this isn't the best shot of Ava especially, but I had to post this one since Gracie is so cute (despite the crazy hair...we BOTH have haircuts scheduled on 3/13!) It just warms my heart to see the little bit of chunkiness in her face/chin. We have fought hard for every pound gained. Not to jinx it or anything, but she has been eating GREAT this week (smoked turkey breast, pancakes, and waffles have been her favorites for the last couple of days--she ate a pound of smoked turkey breast in 3 days!) Stay tuned later...I am planning on making 3 cards and I will post them if I do.

It's Amazing What Good Pictures Do for Inspiration!

I actually scrapbooked last night! I just couldn't help myself, what with such good pictures to work with. I am pretty pleased with the results. Very simple page, but of course it took quite a while due to planning. Once I had the design, the actual assembly of the layout was quite fast. I used one of the new cast brads from the Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware kit (released 3/1/08 in the Occasions Mini). Let me tell you, I adore the colors on this page, which I obviously took right from Ava's outfit (thanks Angela, again!)

Yes, we like to torture our children

We discovered the funniest thing the other day...Sean was holding Ava and eating a ham sandwich and she was really eyeing that sandwich. She started licking her lips and then grabbed his arm with both of her hands and tried to guide the sandwich into her open mouth. We decided to see if it was any food she would do that with or what, and it seems so. This Nutrigrain bar would have been devoured if we would have let her. Silly girl! We are definitely not going to have the problems we have had with Gracie in getting her to eat. She has liked all of the baby food we have tried (pears, peas, bananas, squash, carrots, applesauce--all mixed with a good dose of cereal).



Anyway, we thought these pictures said it all--too funny!

Rated PG-13! Happy Valentine's Day!

Today started out pretty cute...at 12:02 a.m., Sean had a virtual kiss e-mailed to my e-mail address from Bored.com. I guess he set it up previously, because he was sleeping by that point! :) When I got up this morning, there was a cute pink pig and two cards on the butcher block. The pig was for Gracie and the cards were for me...one from him and one from the kiddos. Cute!

I included a picture of Gracie with her pig...she's decked out in pink in honor of the day, although most days she is decked out in pink because she looks adorable in pink. :) By the way, I am very hair-impaired. Gracie and Ava have the worst hair mom in the world I think. And, yes, her bows don't match. We lost one of the pink bows when we went to Disney Princesses on Ice in September.

Ava will be decked out in pink as well, but she needs a bath first and I am not up for that by myself. 18 pounds of squirming baby mixed with soapy water is more than I can handle right now. :)

Anyway, like I mentioned above, Sean got me a card from himself as well as from the girls. His card said on the outside, "tonight, let's try a new position." When you open it up, it's a man and a woman hanging upside down from the couch, watching TV and eating popcorn! Very fitting with two young ones underfoot! :) I thought I would return the favor and make him a card that is a little bit sassy. I saw the idea for the saying last year sometime (I don't remember where...either on Splitcoast or on a regular store-bought card). Of course, I can't BUY a card for him, because I have approximately 10,000 supplies downstairs that I have purchased for the sole purpose of creating beautiful works of art ("honey...just think of how much money I will save if I make my own cards!!" hahahahaha!)

I will let the card speak for itself....warning, it's definitely rated PG-13! Not for little eyes or anyone who will understand the undertone. Can you tell that the sword pops up when you open the card? I crack myself up!!

I can't get it so that my post appears first and the pictures are underneath that. Does anyone know how to do that on Blogger? Well, this is a long post and Sean just got home, so I will wrap it up now. Thanks for looking!

Cards for Hire

My MIL asked me to make a set of 10 cards for her coworker friend for her birthday.

I had fun with these, using a couple of sets that I had never used before. One of those sets was a hostess set from the Fall/Winter catalog that I hadn't mounted, called Oh So Lovely (the flowers in both of the "thank you" cards). One of the cards (the "happy birthday" card using navy, pomegranite, wasabi, and soft sky) was a card that I did at my Stamp Camp this past Saturday. It was a hit and since I had all of the supplies ready I decided to duplicate it for Mindy.

I CASEd the focal points of two of the cards, the "thank you" card with the black gingham ribbon and the "rock-a-bye" baby card, from some talented stampers on SCS (splitcoaststampers). I gave both cards my own spin by changing up colors, accessories, etc. If you visit my SCS gallery (link on right hand side of this page), you can see the original cards that I CASEd.

All of the supplies are by Stampin' Up! If you have any questions about any of the techniques, please comment and I will address them. Thanks for looking!