Monkeyin’ Around

February Food Fun, yep that’s the name of the blog challenge I chose for this month of February on the Flybaby Forum at SCS.  We are taking turns hostessing a specified day to visit each others blogs.  Seems like our life here in Wittenberg revolves around food and it will be fun to see all the different stamps that have food or beverages displayed in different ways.  Thanks for joining in if you are participating and if you are just looking we are happy you took the time.  Remember to leave a hug in the form of a comment and we will know you visited us.  I’m off to look and see what the others have done. Tomorrow brings us to March and we hope an early spring.  toodles!
card deets:  High Hopes Rubber Stamps on cling rubber, Michaels paper scraps from a large pack that is 100 years old, I think.  Washi tape from Target.  Card die is from a box I was cutting up and I realized it was folded perfectly to make a card with a flap to open. love to find fun stuff like that Right hand side flap is covered with a pretty lighter colored piece of teal patterned paper from Creative Memories that washed out when photographed.      now if I knew how to shade around that monkey so he wouldn’t look like he is sitting in the open air….any suggestions?

ODBD animal/bird challenge

It’s been a long time since I participated in ODBD challenge.  Their stamps are so beautiful and they have a lot of scripture stamps which can be really useful at times.  Here’s my entry.  I love this stamp from Oscars Door County rubber stamps and I use it often.  This image is colored with Copics, edged with Spellbinders Edgeablities and using a salmon colored pearl pen.

Happy Valentines Day, Monkey

This is the fourth year now Gilbert and I have given this card back and forth to each other, every year we date and sign it.  This picture is from the first year.  Next year it will be my turn to give it to him.  The story is told on the page, preserved in my 2010 Creative Memories Storybook.  Here is the cute jibjab video i made for him as a surprise.  I set it up to e-mail him automatically so he received when he checked his e-mails right away this a.m.

The card for Edith

Also entering into Marks Finest Papers Challenge. The border is cut with my Edgeablities.  I really like the options it offers.

I enjoyed making this in non traditional Valentine colors.

CAS and Hearts

Just remembered a couple of more people that I want to remember on Valentine’s day.  Edith must have a card.  She makes so many and she loves to get mail.  I received this embossed hearts CS in a card I received today.  People put embossed cardstock into their cards when they mail them to help protect if they have bling or ribbons on their cards.  It wasn’t damaged so I was able to repurpose it.  I am entering both of these cards into MFP challenge this week. Hmm..I think I will have to do two separate blog posts or it won’t let me link the same link twice.  Here goes!  And a wonderful wishes for a beautiful Valentines day for all of you.

More Yumi and Fumi

Same image from La La Land, a sister company to Yumi and Fumi.  Quite a different look with this one.  Won’t this make a fun birthday card with a  note and an envelope of bath salts?  Or even just hand writing, Hope you have a relaxing birthday.

Pink Morning Glories

I had fun making this card for my sister-in-love.  She loves pink.  I’ve been wanting to use a doily on my card.  I knew I had one hiding somewhere.  Yep, I found it.  I like how this turned out.  This is one of the first stencils I purchased.  American Traditional.  I love the technique of stenciling I just forget to do it.  This was the second stenciled card I made today.  This is an over sized card to accommodate the size of the doily. (the doily came off an airline dinner tray, way back when they used to serve meals on airlines) The size of the card is 5 x 7.  Little kiwi colored Pearl Pen in the centers.  This makes me excited to think about spring and summer coming. I love morning glories.

Love is in the air

Love is in the air and so is moisture, freezing rain, cold and snow.  It’s a good day to stay home and make cards.  Winter does have it’s plus side.    Mark’s Finest Papers has a very cute doggie stamp set up for someone to win.  It’s got the cutest sayings with it.  The theme they have chosen this week is LOVE.  I am entering this into their challenge #146.  This is one of the four I have made for the kids in our meeting.

Also entered into Sweet a Sassy pink, brown, green release challenge on SCS.

Hybrid Card

This Sweet and Sassy image is for their digi challenge once again. I printed the image twice then cut out all the pieces of his scarf and taped them to the back of some designer paper then taped them to the uncut image.  Doesn't he look happy with his new valentine scarf?  The heart snow flakes were left overs from the  an edgeabilities die and then i hand cut one of the hearts off the string of them.  The "ribbon" is a paper scrap that looks like corduroy and then i topped it with a piece of Washi tape which gives it a nice texture look.  I did have fun making this.  This guy is going to become a favoritre.  One stamp many ways as you can see from previous posts.

Have a Heart

It's fun looking at challenges this week.  So many very cute Valentine cards.  I am making cards for the youngsters in our meeting.  There are four of them.  Here is the first one.  This one fits the Simon Says Challenge and also the MFT challenge over at Split Coast Stampers and I have put it in my gallery there for that contest.  I used Spellbinders Edgeabilities.  Oh I do like the possibilities those dies offer.  Stampin Up punch for the scallops behind the sentiments.  I punched it twice in pink and brown and off set the pink.  I paper pieced the heart locket and used a bit of stickles on the key and top part of the locket.  Aren't these little mice from Sweet N Sassy so cute? 

Hey Mister!

Got most of the scraps used up.    Made this card for a southern friend that hardly ever sees snow.  After putting on the circle die cuts and snowflakes (cut from Styrofoam) it looked like it needed a bit more.  I had this Mist from Oscar’s Door County Rubber Stamps and thought I would give it a try (with trepidation) since the entire card was already made.  I like that it added a bit of texture to the focal point.  (you have to hold the card quite far from the spray bottle, so it doesn’t blob, and over a waste basket) I photographed the card as it is.  I still felt something was missing, before sending it out I put a beautiful blue seam ribbon bow across the top with the bow on the left hand side.  It looked much more finished and I have most of the scraps used up now.  Need to get in there and make a few coffee cup cards and then they will be done!!

VSN leftovers

Well it wasn’t all from Virtual Stamp Night over at Split Coast Stampers but I did, once again, clean up the craft room.  I have been a busy bee this month making cards.  January is always my biggest month to get cards out.  So lots of scraps and while I tried to incorporate as I went along it doesn’t always work.  After cleaning up and putting scraps away, etc.  this is what was left that I want to use up, fifteen pieces of things and yes I did find the rest of those calendar minis, and that means they need to be made into a card because they are toooo cute and I cannot throw them away.  On my very first card which was the last one for VSN, I used up seven of the fifteen pieces.  Who da thunk???  So here are the pieces and here is the first card made from the little bits of scraps.   Now let’s get back in there and see if I can them all used up.  Crossing fingers.

Thinking of You

 Who can ever have enough of these types of cards on hand.  Some friends from SCS decided we would all like to visit each others blogs at least once a month and also encourage us to get in there a craft a bit along with the daily chores.  We have a little Theme of the month thing going on for inspiration.  Rebekah started us out with Thinking of you Cards. 
I actually made quite a few this month.  But then this month has been a busy month for cards for sure.  Some of them I have already posted but here’s a couple more.  The craft one is self explanatory with the easy to use Washi tapes and pre made flowers. 

 The lily one, well, I was at Edith’s and saw her stamp like this one, which we both own, and I remembered a technique from way back when.  You stamp with versa mark on Vellum (remember that stuff?) then emboss with white EP.  Heat set it and then turn it over and color on the BACK of the image.  Then proceed with making your card.  I made one for her like this then came home and made one for me.  She didn’t have any green ribbon and I will take a piece along with me Sunday for her and she can complete her card.  I didn’t have any Green Pearl Pen and she loaned me hers.  I’m off to make another while I still have that Kiwi green Pearl Pen in my possession.   Well, my other one is completely different.  I cut the vellum the wrong size and then had to change my plan of attack.  Same stamp, different card. Just goes to show the versatility of stamping, right?

Various Challenges

Trying to get out of a rut and decided to look around for some challenges.  MFT had a sketch challenge and I took them up on it so this card is posted on SCS (I hope)  Also I saw a vintage challenge posted somewhere and that inspired my image but I can’t find where that one is now.    I did go and look at Our Daily Bread Designs they always have beautiful card designers there and I have to admit quite often I get intimidated by how gorgeously those ladies stamp.  But I threw my hat in there this time since their theme was love and pink was one of the colors. I think this also fits the Simon Says Challenge anything goes.  So here goes.

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February Birthdays

I have two of my February cards finished.  The pink one is a take off a a card I saw in Take Ten magazine.  What a great mag that is found it at Barnes and Nobles last spring.

The Bear guy with wood grain is for the challenge at TSG stamps.  I finally got to use those die cut leaves that I got on clearance a year or so ago.  Using stuff up and yep, it feels good!  The stamp came from a rummage and hadn’t seen ink from me yet but isn’t he cute.  This will be my birthday card for Gilbert this year, and oh yeah, there’s that raffia I’m still using up.  Click HERE to play along in the Wood Grain Challenge TSG #192

Yumi and Fumi Challenge

FaceBook is so great!  It’s viral and good news spreads.  I found the Yumi and Fumi page from someone who I don’t even know, a friend of a friend.  These images are SOOOOO cute and if you like to color with copics you will love coloring these adorable images.  Well, I don’t yet own any Yumi and Fumi cute stamps, however, they are gracious enough to allow us to use images from some of their sponsor companies.  I found a digi image from one of their partnering companies to play along in their inspiration challenge.  Isn’t she cute?   Wait ‘til you see the Yumi and Fumi images.  A.D.O.R.A.B.L.E.   So here is my take on their inspiration challenge that you can find here.   There is still time to play.  It’s a month long challenge and goes until February 1st. 

Using copics to color the digi image from LaLa Land stamps I die cut around her with Spellbinders Lacey Circles and then used my Scor-buddy to score the lines to look like white wood paneling.  Cut the large circle die out of Stampin Up retired card stock.   A piece of Washi tape and some hearts punched from a part of a Christmas card I had saved.  I put a bit of Washi tape on her towel too to tie in the top and bottom of the card.  Isn’t she sweet?  And here was the photo we had for inspiration however we wanted to interpret it.    

Thanks for stopping by.

Simon Says Paper Piecing Challenge

I wanted to play in Simon Says challenge but I really would rather use stamps they sell.  I went looking through their site and saw SaraKay  stamps.  I love her cute images and I do have a couple but I could only find one and it was the perfect one for this challenge.  My inspiration came from Edith, my 95 year old stamping friend.  I visited her today and she had made several cards similar to this one.  She embossed a couple of pieces for me and I came home and wanted to create something with this right away.  I did as she had done and cut some of the triangles out with a craft knife.  Yep, she’s pretty amazing.  It’s kind of a take off from hers, I wish I had taken pictures of hers, you would be amazed.
Her little hat and halter top and patch are paper pieced.  I removed the garden scissors she had in her hand and replaced it with a heart. I stamped her twice, basic colored the bottom one, Copic colored the top image and sandwiched the two together with pop dot adhesives and then popped her up again on the card.  Lots of dimension.  Added a bit of bling to the bow on her hat and we have a cutie pie. 

Simple Sympathy

i just had to post this.  I love how it turned out.  I had no idea what i wanted to do for this sympathy card for our friend whose dad just passed except I knew I wanted to use the tag with ribbon.  I should make some more of these, however I only had a bit of the CS left that covers the chipboard tag I cut.  I love this beautiful linen finish paper i got at a garage sale.  it was perfect for this card creating a bit of a tapestry effect IRL.   I rarely use my Stamp Scapes stamps but every once in a while they are just the perfect answer.

Sweet and Sassy Digi Challenge

I thought I had forgotten how to stamp anything but the basics.  I just needed a little push.  I did some blog hopping and some challenge sketches and voila’ I’m back in the stamping world.  Here’s that Sweet and Sassy digi image in it’s full length.  It’s being entered into their digi challenge which is very popular.  It already has 78 entries.  I really like digis, just kind of forget about them.  I should set my own challenge up and just do digis for one full week.  hmmmm….Thanks for dropping by. Hope you enjoy this cuteness. 

Sweet N Sassy Sketch Challenge with a twist

I went looking for challenges on the SCS site and saw the forum where the manufacturers post their blogs.  I was so excited to find Sweet N Sassy cuz I had seen that cute little Cocoa Mouse Munchkin with the big ears on other peoples cards but I didn’t know he belonged to Sweet N Sassy.  And now I know where to find him.  They have digis of him too.

Here is a digi stamp from Sweet N Sassy.  You can check out the sketch they have here.  The twist to the sketch was it had to  have a snowman on it.  Well, this cute little guy was my first purchase from Sweet N Sassy.  I’m sure there will be more, I will have to own a Cocoa Mouse image, he’s just tooooo cute. But for now….my take on the sketch