Morning Soft

Morning Soft is one of the first sets from the Spring - Summer catalog that I had to get. The artwork reminds me of Stippled Rose - a retired set I will never part with. I did this card for yet another Control Freak swap. I stamped the image in white craft ink on cardstock weight vellum and embossed it with clear powder. Then I flipped it over and colored it from the back side with markers. You can be sloppy on the back side of the vellum and it will always look great from the front! For the bottom border I stamped Lovely Lilac cardstock with Night of Navy craft ink using both the Floral and Canvas background stamps. The combination of these two backgrounds reminds me of a piece of tapestry. I finished it off with Moss taffeta and a little paper piercing in the corners with my piercer and template.

Blast Off!

Here's my last boy card and then I think I'm going to have to dive back into some flowers! I used the set Pun Fun which has the most adorable images. This month when you buy the set, you get the coordinating wheel for free!! Again I watercolored with reinkers, an aquapainter and our watercolor paper. I poked in a little clear rhinestone brad from the Pretties Kit for my rocket window - an idea I know I've seen somewhere else. I also used our new Jersey Shore designer paper. I love the blues, greens and oranges in that pack. Very boy!

Arte Y Pico Award!

Hey look what I got! Isn't it pretty? :))) This is the famous Arte Y Pico award that's been hopping around all of my favorite stamping blogs. My good friend and swap buddy Erin Blair nominated me for this award, and the deal is I have to tag five more blogs. It's a fun way to discover new blogs out there. Be sure to check out Erin's new blog. It's fantastic!

Erin Blair: http://stampwitherin.typepad.com/starssharing_the_art_of_r/

Here are my five picks:

Mary Brown at http://stampercamper.com/ I love Mary's simple clean style. We've been swapping now for a few years, and I always look forward to her creations.

Cindy Lawrence at http://onehappystamper.typepad.com/stamping_inspirations_wit/

If you look over my blog you'll see I CASE Cindy all of the time! Her work is exquisite!

Barbara Dondero at http://barbsstampingspot.blogspot.com/ I love getting swaps from Barbara. Her work is simply gorgeous.

Lisa Martz at http://lvstmpn.wordpress.com/ Lisa is the "mom" of the Control Freak swap group I love so much. She works so hard to organize our swaps, and she is nothing but positive making everyone want to put forward that extra effort on their cards. I haven't even talked about her stamping abilities yet! Last week she was featured almost every single day on the Stampin' Up! website! Obviously her work is amazing!

Margaret Raburn at http://funstampin.blogspot.com/ I've been in a couple of swap groups with Margaret and her work is fabulous.

I hope these may be some new blogs you haven't discovered yet. They are all gems. Thank you ladies for always sharing your beautiful artwork, and thank you Erin for thinking of me!

Now for some stamping!

Here's another guy card as promised. This adorable puppy is from the set For Father in the Occasions mini. It's my favorite set in there and a perfect masculine set. I background stamped with Twill on blue bayou and Sanded on creamy caramel. The puppy is stamped in chocolate chip craft ink and embossed with clear. I've been watercoloring a lot lately, so this time I used chalks to color him in and added highlights with a blender pen. To finish it off I set my jumbo eyelets with my Crop-a-dile, and tied our new chocolate twill ribbon between them.

Have a fantastic day everyone!

Go Confidently...

Here's a card I did for my last two workshops. My customers have informed me that they are tired of flowers, so I have a few masculine cards I'll be sharing in the next few posts. I guess I love flower cards because with three boys I rarely get to play with them in my scrapbooks! The set I used is Light Unto My Path with the quote from Live Your Dreams. I think it's a perfect card for graduation, retirement, or someone who just got a new job. I used Weathered and Itty Bitty Backgrounds for the base of the card. For the main image I used the Faux Linen Technique and stamped with craft Brocade Blue.

This is a super simple way to make any card a gift card holder. Just slide your word window punch all the way up, punch, slide it over a little and punch again -in order to make enough room for the width of the gift card.

She's All That

Here are the swaps I have for She's All That from the Occasions mini. These ladies did a fabulous job on them, but I have to say this chick is way too skinny! This one was done by Yvette Ashe. She stamped the bride in Soft Sky on white cardstock and then stamped the border with Pretty Petals (just ordered that background stamp!) in versamark and embossed with iridescent ice. She even whipped out the sewing machine and stitched around the whole card. So elegant.

This is Julie Buhler's card. She just stamped in versamark and embossed with clear. Simple! I love the shadow effect here, and I like how she layered all of her punches for the greeting.

Belly Band Card

Belly band cards are very fun to make and even more fun to open. As you can see below the main image slides right off to open the card. To make it I scored a regular half sheet at 2 and 2 1/2 inches. Then I scored the black band at 2 and 2 3/8 inches so it can slide but still hold snug. I used the set Fun and Fast Notes with the Polka Dot background. Once again I stamped on watercolor paper and painted it with aquapainters and reinkers. The colors are Purely Pomegranate with Groovy Guava designer paper. I want to send out a big thank you to Rose Kerry for her belly band convention swap that I used for a template. I can't figure out measurements on my own, so it really helped to get my hands on her adorable sample.

True Friend Journey

I created these pages a couple of months ago and I just finally got them scanned. May is coming and I'm hoping to get a lot more pages done since it is National Scrapbook Day and month! This is the card I offered as an option for those at my workshop who don't scrapbook. I copied a swap from Cindy Lawrence and just switched up the colors to match my page. Love those rhinestone brads! It's hard to see, but I used the Stitched background stamp on the card and the base color is Elegant Eggplant.

The sets I used are True Friend, Baroque Motifs, and Lovely Letters

The colors are Night of Navy, So Saffron, Always Artichoke, and Mellow Moss.

The flowers were stamped with More Mustard craft ink and clear embossed. Then I added a new jumbo eyelet with my Crop-a-dile. Hopefully you'll be seeing more pages here soon!

More Bloomin' Beautiful

These are the rest of the swaps I received using Bloomin' Beautiful from the Occasions Mini. I love how each one is so different and yet so gorgeous! This one was done by Karen Barber, a new member to our group. Wow! I can't wait to get more of her stuff! She used the new Afternoon Tea paper with Blush Blossom and Soft Sky and she stamped her background with Floral in white craft ink.

This is Joey Hartman's creation. She cut out the flower and popped it with a dimensional, and I love her use of the jumbo eyelet in the corner.

Kelly Powell showed that you don't have to color in these images with her simple collage design.

Pam Findlay stamped the flower on vellum cardstock, colored it with marker from behind, and layered it over Almost Amethyst designer series paper. So elegant!

Bloomin' Beautiful - Stamping Genetics!

Really good stampers can find inspiration for their cards from places like advertisements to pillow cases. I just look at other people's cards for inspiration....MUCH EASIER! Here is a card I came up with using the ideas from the cards below it. I like taking ideas from two or more cards to see what I can come up with. I used the new stamp set Bloomin' Beautiful and Weathered for the background. I watercolored it with reinkers and an aquapainter of SU! watercolor paper. The black gingham was a little stark, so I colored it with a So Saffron marker. The colors I used are Groovy Guava, Ruby Red, More Mustard, So Saffron, and Handsome Hunter.

This is a swap I received from Cindy Lawrence using the same set. I loved how she stamped the flower three times and her colors really pop. She also used a smidge of Crystal Effects on the flower centers which I copied in my card.

Here is the swap I received from Beate Johns using the chalk board technique. I couldn't believe we both used the same set with the same technique. I loved her elaborate layout. I can't believe she made 40 of these babies!

So the next time you're hunting for an idea, try taking a couple you like and see what you come up with. It's kind of like "Stamping Genetics." Okay so that was the geeky Biology teacher coming out in me!

Garden Whimsy

Here's a card we did at my workshop last weekend. It was inspired by a swap I received last summer from Taylor Vanbruggen. Notice the little flower ribbon slide in the knot. Those are in the styled silver hodgepodge kit from the mini. They're very fun! The sets I used are Garden Whimsy, Whimsy jumbo wheel with versamark, Baroque Motifs, and the flower from Little Pieces. The butterfly also has a little glitter on the wings.
Have a wonderful day!