PaperFections

Tooth Fairy Box

My youngest daughter (almost 7) has been asking me for a tooth fairy box for about a year ... even though she doesn't have a loose tooth in sight! I hope you'll join me over at the CLASSroom today, to see how I transformed Karen Lockhart's Noel Angel into the Tooth Fairy! Read more →

JustRite City Girl Salsa

JustRite Stampers will be releasing NINE new items next week on July 7th, and one of the new stamp sets is this Preserves Borders & Centers I used today. You'll be able to find it on July 7th at JustRite's website. You'll want to check out the JustRite blog this week to read more about the summer releases and have chances to win some of the new products! This Preserves Borders & Centers set (pictured at left -- click on the photo for a larger view) is perfect for summertime canning, jelly/jam making or anytime gift-giving! They fit the 2-3/8" Wood Stamper. I'd love to be able to grow my own garden but #1-I live in the city and #2 -here in Texas if you forget to water just one day, you'll have scorched and cooked veggies right on the vine, with the 100-plus degree heat we've been having already this year! :D Since I don't trust myself to remember to water a garden each day (and really don't have the space for one anyway), I usually take the easy way out and make homemade salsa from canned goods I usually have on hand. With these ingredients, it's remarkably fresh... Read more →

WSC86: American Star Butterfly

Today's Weekend Sketch Challenge 86 is provided by Cambria ... you can find it, along with her faboo sample, on her blog this morning. I hope you'll play along with us this weekend! To get you motivated, you can find more samples made with this sketch from my buddies, Charmaine, Lori and Laurie. As always, sketches are open to interpretation and I DID take a few liberties with this one today, by moving a few elements around and not using a star shape! This sweet Star Butterfly is another newly released stamp from Karen Lockhart this week ... just in time for patriotic holidays and summer! I chose to color her in "all american" colors, but Susan Roberts shows you today over on Ellen Hutson's the CLASSroom how this butterfly can also resemble a quilt! I colored my butterfly with these Copic "American" colors: And added some sparkle with Copic Spica Glitter pens in Clear (body) and new Lipstick (dark red): Butterfly was cut out and popped up on top of the die cut calendar. Papers (4"x4" Trendy Mini Papers) and 3-inch Die Cut Calendar Cards are from Jenni Bowlin. I like this little calendar -- you can wait to... Read more →

Stamping Bella Birthday Blog Skip, Hop & Dance!

Welcome to the Stamping Bella Birthday Blog Skip, Hop & Dance, as we celebrate Emily's birthday! If you've just happened upon my blog, you can click here to start at the beginning of the blog hop at Bloggabella. In addition to the fabulous eye candy you'll see along the way, there is a hidden prize somewhere in the hop! One pre-selected blogger will draw a random winner from the comments on her post, and the winner will receive a $40 Gift Voucher to Stamping Bella! The fun part is, no one knows who it is! So as you hop, make sure you leave comments on every post so you have a chance to win. The winner will be announced on Monday in the Stamping Bella Splitcoaststampers forum. I used CPS121 for my layout. Balloonabella was stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa ink onto Neenah Classic Natural White cardstock and colored with the Copic markers you see to the left. She was die cut with Spellbinders Classic Circle Nestabilities and the edges of the image were sponged with Antique Linen Distress ink while it was still in the die. The balloons were cut out and popped up on dimensional foam tape and... Read more →

New Lockhart Window Images

Karen Lockhart released some new Summer stamp images this week! Amongst the collection are two different window images, one with the cupcakes you see here and one with a pie cooling in the window. There are three other regular-sized images, three Itty Bitty (Inchie) images and a new sentiment. Kim Hughes posted a sample of the pie window over on Ellen Hutson's CLASSroom blog yesterday and today I show you how I made an actual window card from this cupcake window image ... I hope you'll come take a look! I also hope you'll come back here today at 10am CDT -- I have my first Bella card to share with you, on a HUGE Bella Birthday Blog Hop! Poor Bella has been sitting in a drawer for several months and has just now come out to play! Then tomorrow I'll be back with the Weekend Sketch Challenge, using another one of those new Lockhart stamp images! Read more →

WSC85 Winner!

Sorry to be posting the Weekend Sketch Challeng winner a little later than planned ... Vacation Bible Camp has me a little thrown off schedule this week! So here's the winning project, chosen by Random.org: Here are your random numbers: 7 Timestamp: 2009-06-23 16:20:35 UTC Which is Karen Motz's adorable monster card: Great job with the sketch and such a cute card, Karen! You can find the details of Karen's card on her blog, Paper Playhouse. Thanks to all of you who played along! I hope you'll check back this Friday for another Weekend Sketch Challenge ... Beate will be back with a sketch for everyone! And a PSA: Karen Lockhart is releasing new summer stamp images this week ... more details (and artwork that I'm working on!) to follow! Read more →

JustRite Father's Day Frame

Here's the coordinating altered project to the Father's Day card I shared with you yesterday ... all finished! My husband desperately needed an updated picture of our girls for his office, so I chose this favorite from our trip last summer to St. Johns, USVI. This project was inspired by a challenge on Splitcoaststampers.com amongst all the current and alumni Dirty Dozen designers, to make a project that screams "school is out for the summer" ... anything to do with the beach definitely does that for me! A required element for the challenge was mini brads and a restricted element was buttons. I used mini brads to anchor the scalloped velvet ribbon in place. This is a 7"x9" wood frame from Michael's, covered in more coordinating paper from the Imaginisce Summer Cool collection that I used on the card. I used Mod Podge to adhere the papers and ribbon to the frame, and then gave all the papers a protective top coat of Mod Podge as well. I used the coordinating stamp center to the "Happy Father's Day" border from JustRite's new 1-5/8" Favorite Occasions Borders & Centers (that I used on yesterday's card) which says #1 Dad for the... Read more →

WSC85: JustRite Beachy Father's Day

Here's my Weekend Sketch Challenge #85 sample. We're beach people -- we love visiting tropical beaches and started our marriage/honeymoon 15 years ago on the beaches of Hawaii. Ahh, pure bliss! So that's how this unconventional Father's Day card came about for my husband ... he'll appreciate the sun, sand & surf theme. Once again, JustRite stamps came to my rescue. One of the new 1-5/8" Favorite Occasions Borders already has "Happy Father's Day" spelled out for you. Unfortunately, that size of circle border wouldn't allow me to fit the Lockhart Itty Bitty Sand Bucket stamp I wanted to use into the center. I decided to try cutting the border to see if it would fit onto a larger sized Stamper block and it worked! Just one snip of the rubber allowed me to stretch the border onto JustRite's 2" Wood Stamper (shown on the left in the photo above). The stamper on the right is the normal sized 1-5/8" Stamper that the border should fit on (it's shown with another border from the Favorite Occasions set). After stamping the sand bucket with Memento Rich Cocoa ink onto Neenah Natural White cardstock, I colored it with these Copic markers (the... Read more →

WSC85

Happy Friday and welcome to the Weekend Sketch Challenge! I'm hosting the sketch this weekend, and I hope you'll play along. If you're like me, I needed a Father's Day card for the weekend, so this sketch came in very handy for that. I'll be back in a little bit with my sample. Until then, you can see how my good friends Cami, Charmaine, Jenn and Laurie used this sketch -- I know they'll have some fabulous eye candy for you! If you get the chance to create something with my sketch this weekend, please share a link to your project below in Mr. Linky so everyone can see your artwork. If you share your work on Splitcoaststampers.com, please use WSC85 in the keywords, so everyone can find your project there as well. You'll have until Monday night, June 22 at 10pm CST to post a link to your project below in Mr. Linky, then I'll let Random.org choose a winner and feature that project here on my blog, for everyone to see. Thanks for visiting ... I hope you have a wonderful Father's Day weekend! . Read more →

Taco Salad

I kept having to call my friend, Lori, every time I wanted to make this salad because I'd forget the exact ingredients, so it was definitely time to make up a recipe card for myself! Luckily, Karen Lockhart's Itty Bitty Taco stamp was a perfect compliment! I stamped the IB Taco onto an Inchie Arts White Inchie Square with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and then colored it with these Copic markers: Copic Y00 was used to create a soft yellow glow around the taco. The Inchie was matted with a Spellbinders Scalloped Square Nestabilities die cut. My 4"x6" recipe card was made from BasicGrey's new June Bug paper. Spellbinders' Labels Four was used to cut more paper from the June Bug collection; it was cut in half and machine stitched to each side of the recipe card. Tied green buttons accent the Inchie and finish off the card. As usual, I just printed my recipe from my Word computer program onto Neenah Natural White cardstock. Here's the cut and paste recipe for you, if you'd like to have it. This recipe can easily be doubled and is usually a big crowd pleaser at covered dish events! Taco Salad 1 lb.... Read more →

TECC72: Happy Birthday Taylor!

A dear friend of mine, Taylor, is having a birthday today and another friend, Jami, decided to surprise her with a blog birthday party! So unbeknown to Taylor, a bunch of extra people are sampling her Cupcake Friday Sketch Challenge today, to help her celebrate! If you'd like to play along, you can find today's Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge (TECC) #72 sketch over at Taylor's blog. I used another image from Taylored Expressions' new stamp release, For The Love Of Cupcakes, today -- I'd love to have this pretty stand of cupcakes sitting in my kitchen, how about you?!! I colored them with these Copic markers: And used YR31 to airbrush the background, after I die cut it. Star Dust Stickles was used to "ice" some of the cupcakes with glitter. I think everything else about this card is pretty straight forward, but if you have any questions that my supply list below doesn't cover, just ask away! When you go find the sketch over at Taylor's blog, you'll also find links to everyone else's cards that have used this sketch today, so be sure to check those out! I hope you have a lovely weekend and I hope to... Read more →

Embroidery Templates

Sewing on papercrafting projects is all the rage right now. Please join me today over at the CLASSroom, to see what I found to use for sewing templates! I'll be back tomorrow with a sketch card! Read more →

New Copic Sketch Colors!

The rumors are true ... Copic is adding TWELVE new colors to the Sketch line of markers (pictured above), including Various Ink refills!! The colors include: COPIC Sketch BV0000 Pale Thistle COPIC Sketch V0000 Rose Quartz COPIC Sketch RV0000 Evening Primrose COPIC Sketch R0000 Pink Beryl COPIC Sketch YR0000 Pale Chiffon COPIC Sketch Y0000 Yellow Fluorite COPIC Sketch YG0000 Lily White COPIC Sketch G0000 Crystal Opal COPIC Sketch BG0000 Snow Green COPIC Sketch B0000 Pale Celestine COPIC Sketch C00 Cool Gray 00 COPIC Sketch W00 Warm Gray 00 You can read all about the timing of the release of these new colors at Marianne's blog. *Hopefully* they will arrive from Japan to the U.S. sometime next month, but the timing for shipments to retailers is still a little sketchy (ha!). I'm sure Marianne will provide updates as soon as they are available. Read more →

TE Cupcake Friday: For The Love of Cupcakes!

Today is Cupcake Friday over at Taylor's blog, where you can find her weekly Cupcake Friday sketch challenge #71 today. I think you all know how much I love sketch challenges, so I was happy to sample her sketch today! It's a special day, too, because Taylored Expressions is releasing this brand new gorgeous cupcake stamp set called For The Love of Cupcakes AND four other new stamp sets, too! Be sure to check them out over at the Taylored Expressions blog today. I LOVE the style of this beautiful cupcake stand! I colored it and the cupcake with these Copic markers (W1 was used for shadows but is missing from this photo): Star Dust Stickles glitterfies (is that a word?!!) the cupcake. Antique Linen Distress Ink was sponged on the distressed edges of the focal image. I used Cosmo Cricket's pretty new Early Bird papers -- I thought their distressed style would fit nicely with this style of cupcake. I machine stitched a piece of coordinating paper to the focal image, to separate it from the sentiment. And don't you love the mix of fonts on that sentiment? (I do!) Tied Foof-a-La buttons finish off this card. I hope... Read more →

WSC84 - Baby Ladybug

Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #84 is hosted today by Laurie. You can find the sketch and her sample at her blog this morning. BasicGrey's new Lemonade paper was the inspiration for this card. I needed a baby card and I thought these pretty patterns were just perfect! That tiny printed paper in the center is a ladybug print, so Karen Lockhart's Itty Bitty Lady Bug stamp seemed to be the perfect accent. I stamped her with Memento Rose Bud ink onto an Inchie Arts White Inchie Square and then colored her with these Copic markers: R83, R37, YG17, and custom lighter BG000. Ladybug's dots and head are accented with pink Spica glitter pen. To make a better flower center, I adhered the white Inchie square to a piece of scrap cardstock (to use as a "handle") -- this allowed me to be able to put the 1-inch square of matboard into Zutter's 1/2-inch corner round and cut the corners off. Ladybug became the center for a crocheted flower. Machine stitching and buttons finish off this card. I hope you'll visit these ladies today, to see the fabulous samples they created for this sketch: Cami, Charmaine and Jenn and Lori. And... Read more →