Speedy Cat Challenge #56

Tone on Tone

How do you get images to pop when it’s tone on tone.  Just thought I would stamp the flower and then mask it and then inked up the brick wall with Color Box frost white and embossed it in white.  I kind of like the shabby chic kind of look it took on.  Using my wonderful special punch again.  All images are Mark’s Finest Paper.  I’m loving the new Pearl Pens that I got

from the Stamp Shoppe. They go on white and then pick up the color of the ink beneath them. If you just put them right on the paper they stay white. A great investment and easier to mail than the round pearls.

 

Technorati Tags: MFPDT,Speedy Challenge,MFP,BrickWall

Another CASED Card

Remember when I told you CASING is legal, which means you “steal” someone elses idea and make it your own.  In the stamping world the proper CASING etiquette is to change at least two things about the card and give credit to the original designer.

One of the challenges for Virtual Stamp Night over at SCS was to actually “steal” a card and CASE it.  I chose Fionna’s beauty and here’s how I changed up her original idea. Fun, eh?? Thanks for looking.

Technorati Tags: SCS,CASE

Wisconite’s and Ice Cream

Are WE nuts???

Only in Wisconsin do people wear winter coats and then buy ice cream.  Have you ever seen so many custard and ice cream places strategically placed in any other state you have been too?  We haven’t and we have almost covered all fifty of them.  What IS it about this state and why are WE so nuts as to buy ice cream cones when it is freezing out?  On April 17th, it was only low fifties and the wind was really blowing, I had on my semi-winter coat and was all wrapped up but we still had to stop at Hawkeye Dairy on our way home from Stetsonville Specials.  It’s a tradition. 

Did you notice the size?  That’s the SINGLE dip of Toasted Almond Fudge.  (now I remember why we stop there)

Technorati Tags: ice cream,Hawkeye,Stetsonville

Dandelions

What’s it like to be a grandma?

Fonnie is an Ecuadorian sweetie that has been adopted by a loving family who have four other children.  She came to them when she was almost two and she is now seven.  She was a little love bug right from the start and hugs on everyone, which we all love.

Since I’m not technically a “real” grandma, as we only have a grand-dogger, it’s wonderful to be adopted as a grandma by other children.

When I went to Eric’s Greenhouse I waited for the kids to get home from school and Fonnie came barreling off the bus and didn’t go into the house like the other kids, nope, she came charging over to us, school bag in hand and just threw herself at me with a big hug, as is Fonnie’s style.  She then grabbed my hand and said, “Janeen, come here, come and look at this field.”  And off we went to see behind the barn.  We were on a bit of a hill that overlooks their hay field and the field is just covered in dandelions. “ Look!”  She said, “isn’t that pretty?”  I had to agree, it was beautiful, with the yellow against the green and the blue sky surrounding it.  It was pretty. “ I hope they don’t plow that under,” she wistfully, said.

After I purchased my flowers and was leaving she came running to me with this bouquet of flowers and said, “some people call these weeds”  they’re not, they’re yellow!  It had to be recorded.  Just too cute for words. I wish I had had my camera with me while I was there but the best I could do was have Gilbert take this picture after I got home.   Thank you, Fonnie.

Technorati Tags: Fonnie,Dandelions

Ahhh Friday!

Why is it that Fridays carry such freedom even in the word Friday?  Today, finally I’m going to go and get some more flowers to put into the pots that I like to have around the deck and the front walk.  Yesterday I got a beautiful hibiscus and as soon as some of the blooms open I will post some for you.  Here’s the pot that I first plant. 
Jinny gave this to me for my birthday a couple of years ago and marigolds just look so “right” in here. I picked these up at Wal-mart last week.  I just had to get something going.  Now Eric has his green house open and I will go there and get some this afternoon.  Yay.

Sympathy Cards

These are often the most precious cards we make as there is usually some emotion attached to them.  I often find these are the cards that I really am most satisfied with when I am finished making them.  I think it’s because it’s a warm little piece of ourselves that we can give to the recipient like a nice warm hug that seems to just help with the healing.  Here is one I made for two co-workers of Gilbert’s.  They are sisters whose father lived in another state.  I lived away from my parents too and it kind of makes me miss my dad even more to know that so much of my adult life I missed some very important years with him.  I wish my kids would have had him around when they were little. So you see, that feeling goes right into the card.
The image was stamped with Brilliance Champagne ink and embossed with clear embossing powder.  I then used a couple of Q-tips and chalked in the soft colors.  After chalking I used my own home made smooch as a fixative spray.  The smooch just set it off.  I don’t know if it shows on the picture but it has a nice soft glittery glow to the entire image.  How do you make your own smooch?  I’ll leave that for another post real soon, okay?

What I love for Stamping Cards

Some posts about my favorite tools for creating has been rolling around in my head for a while and since I made a card that generated a few questions about a particular punch, I thought that would be a good place to start.  So I bought this punch about three years ago and I’ve never seen another like it.  It’s EK Success and it punches all four corners on a folded card.  What’s the big deal about that?  Well you don’t have to layer and it’s a beautiful application.  So, let’s get started.  Here’s the punch.
Notice the little arm on it?  That’s the guide arm.  Fold a standard card.   You cardstock is 8.50 x 5.5 folded at 4.50. Now open it up.  You fold it because you need the crease as a guideline for the little guide arm.
See how you position the arm along the crease? Make sure it is right on the crease and the long part of the cardstock is pushed all the way up against the horizontal guide. 
Now punch!  See how it makes the corner punched out.  On the outside edge you use it like a regular punch.  Now the tricky part is to get the other folded side punched, I always have to think about it to get it lined up right, you need to turn the paper or the punch over from the side you are currently punching; and line that guide arm up against the fold again:  Like this-
Here’s the finished look.
Your white or layering piece is cut at 5 inches by 4.75 inches.  To give the card a finished look on the inside I cut a piece of heavy duty printer paper to size and adhere it over the holes that are punched.
Surely hope this is helpful for those of you who asked and anyone who was challenged as I was in school by those boxes and shapes on those strange tests they used to give us. They would show you a diagram and you were supposed to tell which shaped the diagram would make when it was folded….what was that all about anyway???????? Thanks for looking.

Cinco de Mayo

mmmm-mmm-mm

We had a wonderful supper for Cinco de Mayo.  Shrimp on the grill and all the fixin’s.  I grilled the peppers and onions in a grill pan that looks like a frying pan with 1/2 inch holes all over the bottom.  It works really well.  Good thing we still had leftover beans and rice from when the girls were here on Tuesday.  We played Mexican musica and enjoyed our wonderful supper at home.  We are currently accepting reservations for next year.    I wish this guy had a little sombrero on his head.

Father’s Day is coming

What is more masculine than a truck?  The mailman brought me this beautiful stamp set that I won over at Speedy the Cat for last weeks challenge. It is SO FUN! 
The image is stamped in a cocoa brown color. I trimmed down a tag from Spellbinders Fancy Tags.  It was too girly for this card.  I wanted this to look like an old photo and used my corner punch.  I cut them in half and mounted them to give just a bit of dimension.  I also stamped over them with the tire track that comes in this set. so in real life there is a hint of texture on the corner mounts. Found this green raffia in my drawer…yes I still have some.  It’s going down though.  A couple of more projects and it will be all gone.  (sigh of relief) Thanks for looking.  
Note:  all cards don’t have to be a major project and I like that!

Round and Round

Over at Simplicity we were challenged to use a circle on our card.  It could be anything, brads, round flowers, round images…I chose a round die cut and this cute little image from High Hopes of a girl in a round tire swing.  Now the challenging part is it has to be ONE LAYER ONLY.  Yep, OLW rolled around again.

I cut the circle with the die and then traced lightly inside the circle with a pencil so I would know where to position my little girl on the inside. I used a Brilliance Pad in Coffee Bean and then embossed with clear embossing powder.  The ribbon is brown and white and the cardstock is really a beautiful soft pink like the ribbon off to the left but I couldn’t get it to photograph in pink.  It washed out even without flash.  Suffice it to say the pink is really perfect.  Here’s the inside. Now I’m cheating a little because I am going to go ahead and link this to Simplicity but in real life I am going to make a tag and put it over the smudged greeting on the outside.  Did that ever happen to you??

Yay, I got the pink to show up better; and the ribbon too.  So here’s how I fixed it and now I have a CAS (clean and simple) card instead of a OLW.  Sorry Susan, I just didn’t want to start over.

Hints and Tips

I promised to show you an easy way to get those border dots on the card I made yesterday.  I saw this done by Gina over at stamp TV when she makes holes for her brads.
I have never done cross stitch but I looked at the thrift store and they had several of these in a bag for twenty five cents.
It worked wonderfully well for this application.  Just lay it on your card and dot with a marker through the little holes.  Voila’ you have the perfect template for paper piercing, or marking for brads or making dotted frames. Easy Peasy right?

See how that just lines right up.  Hope this helps you out sometime.

SWAP

Giggle!  Swaps are so much fun.  you make three cards all the same and one for the hostess and you get three different ones back.  Now these cards are cards you are proud to own.  You can use them for ideas or send them on to others or send them to OWH.  Over at SpeedyTV they are running a swap and everyone enters receives a free stamp set besides the cards you get back.  Too Fun!
Here’s my card, come and and play along, you have until June 30th to get your cards in.   Here’s mine and I’m testing out the cool watermark they sent me. 
I know it looks similar to the one for Marion’s birthday.  Well, I personalized the one I kept because I liked it so much and I thought Marion deserved a beautiful card on her 90th, eh?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to me

Yep, it’s my 61st birthday.  It’s a glorious day and I told Gilbert this morning, yep, God has kept me for sixty-one wonderful years now.   Today is the first spring day.  It’s so beautiful out, I’m smiling as I type this.  Here’s a few of my favorite things especially meaningful on a celebration day.

morning cappuccino   my wonderful Gilbert  walnuts, blackberries & Fage yogurt

our colorful birds and this little fellow was sleeping in the sun.  He got up and left shortly after this picture. I love hanging clothes on the line and seeing the blue skies and feeling the breeze.  There is something poetic about hanging clothes up. 

NEXT UP: I got a very special surprise this week and it was finalized this morning.  What an exciting birthday gift.  I was chosen by Mark’s Finest Papers to be on their design team for the summer months.  It is a real privilege for me to be chosen for this.  I am SO EXCITED.  My spot starts in June.  If you look on the side-bar to the right I posted the Designers Button that they give to their designers.  So join us over there and come have fun with the challenges and you might win a stamp set.  You don't have to use their stamps to play in the challenges.  They do have wonderful acrylic sets that stamp beautifully, just like the rubber stamps.  Feel free to follow along on my blog as I stretch myself for this journey.  Thanks for visiting me.

Three of a kind

• Just my kind of challenge.  Simple and challenging at the same time.  Jennifer over at Styles Ink challenges us with One Layer Cards every Wednesday.  Fondly known in the stamping world as OLW.  I’m getting this in just under the wire for last weeks challenge number OLW 51.  The challenge:  Choose ONE image and make three different cards, the sentiments were allowed to be different.  These were so simple and fun, lets take a vote, A, B, or C?  I like them all but I do have a favorite.

A.

B.

C.

The corner frames and the frame on the green were made with a Scor-Buddy.  One of my favorite tools, a recent purchase and how did I ever make cards without one?

Tomorrow I will tell you how I did the little dots on the B. card.  I can’t believe I used to use a ruler and try to do a straight line of dots every 1/16th of an inch apart.  (am I nuts!!!) You know if you click on the picture you can get a closer view, right?  I didn’t know that you could do that on a blog for the longest time.

Uh-oh

Did you ever have one of THOSE days?  I could not believe my ears when I heard this happen.  This is the Pretties Kit from Stampin’Up.  Do you know how many little pearls and do-dads and pins are in here?  Accck!  Oh well nothing to do but pick them up.  It wouldn’t have been so bad except just about an hour before this I had opened up my chalks to use and they went flying all over too.  Now, my chalks are well used and are broken into lots of little pieces, almost as bad as this mess.    Well, I had chalk all over my fingers and my table and it’s not real easy to put all the pieces back into those one inch squares like little tiny puzzles.  Just so you know I did get it picked up…AND sorted.

Getting Older

Marian has her 90th birthday today.  Oh my!  When I look back, wow, she was my age when she used to babysit our one year old and three year old.  Really, Marian? It just doesn’t seem that many years ago. My favorite memory is when we took Marion with us  to Florida to help with the kids.  We went by car and it had no air conditioning.  It was soooo hot.  Several times when we stopped I would get out and walk with Troy and Marion would take Sarah into the ladies restroom and run her feet under cool water to cool her off a bit.  It was such a help.  I really don’t know how we would have done it without her help.  Our grown children still love her and also attended her party. It’s been a privilege to know this meek and humble lady who has gone through so much in her lifetime and yet is so pleasant to everyone and always is grateful for any little thing you do for her.  So Happy 90th Marian.

Details: Stamps: Speedy the Cat  Musical holiday/Frames and Flourishes.

Die cuts:  Cuttlebug Red Tag Sale Alphabet covered with Designer Paper

Embellishments: Pearl Accents from Good Will. 

Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge #53

Yay, I'm back in my stamping room.  When we have Hester we have her use that room because then she doesn't have to manipulate the stairs where our guests usually stay.  I try to take a few things out to stamp with while she's here but that just doesn't let my creativity flow.  Well, actually it's a challenge and I don't altogether mind that either. It is great to be back in the stamping room though b/c I have the space and I know where all my pieces and parts are.   ENOUGH!

The challenge this week at Speedy the Cat is to use a hat pin.  Do you know what a challenge that is for me?  It's not that I don't like them, I think they always look good on other peoples cards, but it's the whole vintagey thing that just isn't my style.  Ta! Da!  Mark's Finest Paper is the home of Speedy and way back in November they gifted me with this very beautiful set called Musical Holiday.  It's gorgeous, stamps beautifully and it was perfect for a hat pin card. The sentiment is from the same set. The image is stamped with Mark Holtz Lipstick Red - Gorgeous!  What do you think?

Speedy Cat Challenge #43

Black, White, One other color and paper piercing
This really challenged me. I like that! For some reason the elegance of the color combo just threw me. I knew I didn't want red to be my other color. I think b/c I didn't have anyone specific in mind as the recipient I couldn't come up with a plan. Then I remembered my brother has a March b-day. Aha! Then the brain kicked into gear. After I got it all assembled I realized I forgot the piercing. Take it all apart and make some holes!! I love it and it looks fabulous IRL. The ribbon really helped it come together. Thanks again Gina for this great technique. :)

SSIC-challenge #83

SSIC has a challenge to make a card for a child.  Here's the matching card that I have made for yesterday's post for the other twin.  Thought some of you might want to see this if you were wondering what the girl card would look like.  Thanks for stopping by.  The twins go to our meeting on Sundays and they are both pretty shy.  But over the years I have just continued to give them little things and make cards for them and now they talk to me after meeting and let me hug them and they even told their mom to send me their school picture this year.  Isn't that nice of them.  It's like God patiently giving us his love and all the good things that come from him and finally if we can be as a little child we start loving him back.  ....Thanks for the thoughts and the challenge Stamping Sisters.

OLW47 and Grab and Go # 12

Yep, I haven't forgotten.  I'm still doing Grab and Go and tonight I grabbed this lil' ole bear that has been a Stampin Up staple for years when they first started.  He's been hangin' around here for awhile.  I thought he would make the perfect card for the One Layer Wednesday Sketch annnnnddd I need another one similar to this for the twins birthday.  This will be for the boy and now I need a girl bear.

One Layer Wednesday is a sketch challenge this time.  Here's the sketch and here's the result.  Thanks for looking.  Remember to go out and vote tomorrow if you live in the States.