Happy Anniversary in a Bowl & Blog Candy!

Here is an inspiring bowl:

And here is the card I created after being inspired by it!

I was away all day today teaching a couple of classes at the Papertree in Manchester, NH (Hi Michelle - Tasha - Becky and Carole!) but I missed last weeks inspiration challenge over at Split Coast because I was at The Stamping Around Weekend in CT and I didn't want to miss another one! Stef showed us a web site called Tracy Porter for us to find our inspiration.

I used my PTI damask set that I just had to have but hadn't inked up yet (!), a nestie tag trio for the sentiment and an SU ribbon slide (another thing I don't often use for some reason!) The fleur de lis's were punched with an EK Success punch.

And now - as promised - Here is some fun blog candy to celebrate my reaching 100,000 hits on my blog! Whoo Hoo!! With a big thank you to everyone who has stopped by my blog - those who come everyday - or once in a while or by random chance!!! I really appreciate it and hope that it means you find inspiration from my postings.

So here's what one lucky commenter will receive:

1. The Papertrey Ink Everyday Classics Limited Edition 2008 Set which I received for purchasing so many PTI sets last year! I got two sets so I'm sharing one with you! ( you cannot purchase this set - you have to have earned it.)

2. Thomas Kinkade Hometown PrideVignette Stamp by Cornish Heritage Farms.

3. Foxy and Birdie Snag'em Stamps by Imaginisce.

4. An Ornare corner piercing stencil.

All you need to do is leave a comment on this post by 6 pm EST Wednesday 7/22/09. I will randomly choose a comment number and post the winner on Thursday. If the winner doesn't contact me within 24 hours I will pick another number.

So good luck! and thank you again for checking out my blog - and especially for leaving me comments so I can visit you also!!

Stamps: PTI: Damask Designs
Paper: PTI: Pure Poppy, White
Ink: PTI: Pure Poppy, Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: EK Success punch, tag trio Nestabilitiy, Pure Poppy Twill: PTI, ribbon slide: SU, foam dimensionals, glue dot

A Sketchy Wedding Day

I made this card for the sketch challenge on Split Coast, as well as the Doubledog Dare Challenge I do with some SCS friends. Francie G's challenge to us was to make a wedding card. I used Waltzingmouse Stamps for my card today and Papertrey Ink papers and inks.

We'd love to have you join in on the Doubledog Dare challenge - just put DDC in the keywords when you load your wedding card into your Splitcoast gallery. You can see all the Doubledog Dare cards here.

I just passed 100,000 hits on my blog a few days ago - so there will be some serious blog candy available to win soon so be sure to keep checking back!

I may not be posting again until the weekend as I'm teaching two classes over at my favorite stamp shop - The Papertree in Manchester, NH - and I'm still preparing the materials (nothing like the last minute huh!?!?)

Stamps: Waltzingmouse Stamps: Irish Blessings, Celtic Heritage
Paper: PTI: Vintage Cream, OceanTides, Bitty Dot Basics
Ink: Ocean Tides PTI
Accessories: Vintage cream twill: PTI, Modern label punch: SU, Sizzlets Lots of Tags Label 1: SU, dew drop, Glue Dots, foam dimensionals

The Papertrey Ink July Guest Designer Challenge

I submitted this basket and card set for the July Guest Designer challenge over at Papertrey Ink. One of the categories was to use a template - another was to use the new Vintage Picnic set.

For my project - I used Lauren's Basket Basics Timeless Template as well as the Vintage Picnic set, the Vintage Picnic sentiment set and one sentiment from Mail Box Greetings (the one on the basket).
I also made 4 little 3x3 cards from Pure Poppy and Kraft card stock to tuck inside the basket - thinking this would be a cute little gift to give a friend that has moved away. I will add envelopes to go with these after I decide if I want little ones that will cost more to mail - or just use regular size ones so they will take one first class stamp postage. Or the cards could just be tucked into a gift!?
I inked all the edges of the basket as well as the Kraft panels of the cards with the Chai tea dye ink. I colored the baskets with Copics. I cut out the basket and layered it over a Labels Four die cut panel. The parcel of letters is stamped separately, colored and layered under the basket with foam dimensionals. Here are the Copics I used for my coloring.
I might have added a little more 'something' to the notes - but I was making this 30 minutes before the 11:59 pm deadline on Monday night - so clean and simple they are!! (I mistakenly thought I had another day to get them in!)

Nicole will be picking the winners and honorable mentions today (7/15) I was fortunate enough to make the honorable mention the last two months so I have my fingers crossed again!

Stamps: PTI; Mail Box Greetings, Vintage Picnic , Vintage Picnic Sentiments

Paper: PTI: Pure Poppy, Kraft, White

Ink: PTI: Chai tea dye, Memento Tuxedo Black

Accessories: PTI: Basket Basics Template, foam dimensionals, corner rounder, Copics, large brads: American Crafts, PTI Pure Poppy saddle stitched ribbon, Labels Four Nestabilities, Tag Trio Nestabilities.

Loss Leaves a Heartache

I made this sympathy card for the CAS (clean and simple) challenge on Split Coast. We were given this art web site to browse through for inspiration.

I wanted to use my new Waltzingmouse Irish Blessings & Celtic Heritage stamps so I searched for Irish artwork and I found this lovely Celtic Cross poster . I stamped the Celtic cross with Chai ink, cut it out and layered it over a Labels Four Nestability frame with foam dimensionals. I sponged the edge of the frame before popping it out of the die and that left the nice white edge. I added the small PTI Vintage button to the center with a glue dot. I stamped the sentiment in black and the chain borders in Ocean Tides Ink directly on the card stock.

Thanks for coming by today! I'm off to make my supper now that I've gotten my card done! Gotta get the important things done first - right?!?!?

Stamps: Waltzingmouse: Celtic Heritage, Irish Blessings
Paper: PTI: white, ocean tides
Ink: PTI: Chai Tea Dye,, Ocean Tides, Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: labels Four Nestabilities, foam dimensionals, dauber, vintage button: PTI,

Stop and Smell the Basket

The featured stamper on Split Coast this Sunday was Kelly (Schirmcat) of the Naughty and Nice list fame! I found myself on her nice list last November and somehow that wasn't the list people wanted to be on!?!?! Being on the Naughty list was more prestigious! LOL!! Oh well - at least I made a list.....!

I have been wanting to use my Papertrey Ink vintage basket stamps so I cased Kelly's pretty Giving Thanks card where she used one of them. I changed the background and sentiment stamps, the contents of the basket and colors of the buttons but kept her nice layout. I inked all the edges with Chai Tea Dye ink. The flowers are stamped right on the card stock and I colored the flowers with Copics and my white gel pen. The basket is cut out, colored with a Mustard color Copic and popped up over the flowers with foam dimensionals. I also added two cute flower brads where the handles are attached to the basket.

Hope everyone had a great weekend - we had perfect summer weather for 3 days - now it's back to work in the morning.

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Stamps: PTI: Vintage Picnic, Vintage Picnic Sentiments, Background Basics Text Style
Paper: PTI: Lemon Tart, White
Ink: PTI: Chai Tea Dye Ink, Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: glue dots, flower brads: Making Memories, Copics: Y26, YG17, YG03, White gel Pen, Foam dimensionals, Vintage Buttons: PTI, cream twine: PTI

Look What We Made at Stamping Around!

Hi everyone! Here is my report from the 2nd and final day of Stamping Around Connecticut and I wanted to share with you the fun projects we made.

First is a picture of the birdhouse class that I taught last night but didn't have any pictures of to post yesterday. Aren't these just adorable?!? They are both made from free templates that Nichole Heady of Papertrey Ink had on her blog. The small house was posted at Christmas time a year ago, and the larger box one was posted when she released Dawn's bird house set. ETA - sorry - it was Melissa's bird set - released in May 2009

Then our first class this morning was taught by Debbie Corbari. Pictured are Debbie, Julie Masse and Kim Schofield.

This is the fun project we made with Debbie - a cute little boxy bag (or is it baggy box???!!) and pretty layered tree card. Debbie is a stamp designer for Our Craft Lounge and we used one of her very own sets for this project called Swingin' By. How COOL is that?!?!?! We also used a really neat product called Sparkly Fluff on these cards. You probably cannot see it on the pics but we used it on the wings of the owl, the flowers and the tree trunk. It adds a sparkly fluffy dimension to the card.
Next up was Kim's class (she's one of the organizers of the workshop). We made this adorable box out of kraft card stock and 4 3x3 cards to slip inside. All the stamps on the cards are from a super set by Unity Stamps called Perfect in EveryWay .
Then we had our lunch break but snapped a great group picture before chowing down!

And here's a shot of the teachers, Debbie , Donna , Kim, Julie & Me!


After a short lunch break we're right back to stamping away - and Donna Marie Cecere had us making this really interesting layered card. The background was stamped on orange, green and red paper as well as on a piece of acetate. So using the orange piece as the base -we cut out pieces from the red paper and the green paper and attached them onto the orange. Then we colored various areas with sparkly markers. The acetate piece was attached to the Sizzix die cut frame and the frame was attached over the orange base with foam dimensionals. So what we ended up with was this great 3D look - which can't really be appreciated from this picture but IRL it has great depth to it!

Now as you can probably imagine - we are all pretty tired by all our efforts by this time (yes even we avid stampers can get exhausted!!!) But we had one more class to do before we could rest!And that class was lead by Julie Masse and look at the fun blocks that we made with her!!! These beautiful stamps are by Kitchen Sink Stamps from a set called Multi Step Berries. With these stamps you use 2 or 3 colors over-stamping lighter to darker, Each berry has 3 stamps (they are labelled on the sheet they come on) and look at the result you get from them! These are small 2" wooden blocks that Julie had already painted white for us - and we stamped the berries and leaves on each of the 4 sides. Julie is on the DT for the company so check out her blog or the store gallery to see how the stamping is done.
And one final picture - and I'm dropping into bed! We all made name tags for ourselves at home before we came to the weekend - and everyone voted for the one they liked best - and I won with my little birdhouse DP and chipboard letters name tag (Whoo Hoo!!) - my prize was this pretty stamp set by Gina K called Tropical Flowers.

When we arrived we were each given a numbered ticket and they picked tickets all day for people to win more stamps from the sponsoring companies - everyone won something. When my ticket was picked - I won this beautiful tree stamp shown below from Innovative Stamp Creations called Sketch of Nature

Ok - I'm exhausted! Sorry for the long post - hope you lasted to the end! Don't you wish you had been here with us these 2 past days?!?!? Check out the next Stamping Around Weekend that will be in VT in Sept - I'm going there too - just as a participant next time - and I can't wait to see what we'll be making (and winning!) then!!

(good night Debbie and Donna! It was just terrific meeting and teaching with you girls!!)

Hi from Stamping Around in Farmington CT!

Hey everyone! Well - I'm here in Farmington, CT - this is the building most of us here at the Stamping Around Workshop are staying it. It's at the Centennial Inn and you can see the weather is just super! There's a pool just across from our building and I'm hoping to be able to hop in it after the workshop ends. DH came with me so we're making a little mini vacation out of the weekend.Here are Kim Schofield and Julie Masse, organizers of the event. Friday night was a PJ party - so we were all wearing PJ's.They are raffling off a stamp set - one of the many prizes we could win over the weekend.

I taught the first class Friday night - we made two bird houses - both free templates from Nichole Heady's blog. You can see everyone busily working on their projects.

And here are two of my fellow teachers for the weekend, Debbie Corbari (left) and Donna Cecere (center). These girls are just a riot to be with - we ate dinner together on Friday night at J. Timothy's Tavern (a super pub type restaurant) when we first arrived and talked stamping the whole time!Well - gotta go - the Saturday classes are about to start and Debbie is up first - I'll be back later with more pics!

thanks for stopping by!!