Stamp Something Challenge

Good morning! It's Friday, so time for a Stamp Something Challenge. This week's theme is "For a Friend".

I got an SU order last night with some yummy DSP and a few other things. I just love the patterns of the new solid color DSP. Way better than last year I think. I actually really like them all! -Stamps-Boho Backgrounds and Impression Obession Cupcakes
-Paper-Whisper White and Chocolate Chip cardstock; Pink Pirouette and Riding Hood Red DSP
-Ink-Close to Cocoa, Riding Hood Red and Pink Pirouette; Close to Cocoa, Going Gray and Chocolate Chip markers
-Accessories-Blender Pens, Stickles, wide Chocolate Chip grosgrain

Oh, I almost forgot. My husband and I had Chinese food earlier this week, and they always put some fortune cookies in the bag. Look what mine said! I don't think I've ever seen such a specific fortune. So I guess I have to make some cards today to see if it's true =).


Don't forget to check out the Stamp Something Challenge blog to check out the rest of the DT's fabulous samples!

Stamp Something Challenge 21

Happy Friday! Becky Carafa is hosting this weeks Stamp Something Challenge. Her challenge to us is Fancy Folds. The possibilities are endless, and you might even learn something new. Check out the tutorials on SCS if you need some ideas. I did the triangle fold.

I was having a heck of a time taking a picture of this thing open. Sorry I couldn't get a better one.

-Stamps-PTI Take a Bough
-Paper-Riding Hood Red and Very Vanilla cardstock; Dashing DSP
-Ink-Riding Hood Red, Old Olive and Close to Cocoa & Going gray marker

Don't forget to check out what the rest of the team came up with on the Stamp Something Blog.

Stamp Something Challenge 21

Good Morning and Happy Friday! Time for another Stamp Something Challenge =). This weeks theme is Simply Stamp Something. I know your all capable of that!


This was a sketch challenge on SCS a long time ago, but I don't know off hand which one. I love the way it opens! This card is standard size. The measurements of the folded pieces are: Whisper White White cardstock 3 3/4" X 8 1/2", scored at 3 1/2" and the Old Olive cardstock is 4" X 8", scored at 2 1/4"
-Stamps-Season of Joy
-Paper-Real Red, Old Olive and Whisper White cardstock; Dashing DSP
-Ink-Old Olive ink Pad; Real Red and Old Olive markers
-Accessories-1/2" circle punch, Build-a-brad, Pewter HPH and 1/4" White grosgrain ribbon.

Stamp Something Challenge 18

Good Morning! Happy Friday! Of course Friday means time for a Stamp Something Challenge! Alex is our host this week. The theme is "Fall Somethings". Make a card, scrapbook page, 3-d item, whatever as long as it's fall .


-Stamps-Give Thanks
-Paper-Close to cocoa, Whisper White and Old Olive cardstock; Bali Breeze DSP
-Ink-Black Staz-on, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Soft Sky and Old Olive
-Accessories-Aqua painter, Chocolate chip twill ribbon

Origami Christmas Ornament

I saw one of these in gallery on SCS the other day, but with no directions. So I googled till I found them. It's modular origami called a Sonobe 20 point star.

You will need 30 squares of paper for this. I used 3 X 3, which I think makes a really nice sized ornament. Then follow THESE directions on how to make a Sonobe which is apparently what the individual folded pieces are called. It looks like there is actually a bunch of different stuff you can do with these aside from the star. VERY IMPORTANT...Make sure these are all folded the same way. If they aren't they will not go together. I ended up having to refold a bunch, because I had been folding mine both ways. I didn't realize it made any difference. Look at the 8th picture in the tutorial link above. If you fold the top left corner down, do them all that way. You can fold the the right down if you want too, just as long as they are all the same!! I hope that makes sense. There are a bunch of different websites telling you how to assemble these. I started off using one that was linked from the Sonobe tutorial. That one is HERE. But I found the visuals on THIS one much better. They are put together slightly differently too, and I had better luck with the second.

Here it is partially assembled. You can see that there will be several holes in this where they connect. I think this paper is just a tad too thick, so things don't fit quite as nicely. I used the biggest most obvious hole to put ribbon is so I can hang it on the tree.

And here it is all done!


The only supplies used white grosgrain ribbon and a bunch of DSP from the prints pack. If you are using 6 X 6 you'll need 7 1/2 sheets, or not quite 2 sheets of 12 X 12. I really wanted to use Dashing DSP for this, but there is now way I'm sacrificing so much of that gorgeous DSP. I've gotten very stingy with my Dashing since it has started to get low.

Time for me to go clean the house. I haven't done a thing all day but mess around with this thing and playing around on SCS. Hope you all have a great day!

More Anni-VERVE-sary Sketch cards

Whew! I'm all done with the Verve sketches. I'm so glad I did them. They really got my mojo going! Anyway, here are the last 6 .


-Stamps-Fabulous Flowers, Much Appreciated
-Paper-Soft Sky, Groovy Guava, Whisper White and Purely Pomegranate
-Ink-Purely Pomegranate
-Accessories-Purely Pomegranate double stitched ribbon, hole punch, Stampin Dimensionals

I don't have nestabilities yet (or anyway to make an oval for that matter) but I got some in a RAK a while back. I didn't have the right colors, so I traced and cut them out in case your wondering why they look so bad .

-Stamps-PTI Take a Bough
-Paper-Old Olive, Real Red and Very Vanilla cardstock; Dashing DSP
-Ink-Close to Cocoa, Old Olive and Real Red
-Accessories-Corner rounder punch, Real Red grosgrain

-Stamps-Doodle This
-Paper-Soft Sky, Groovy Guava and Whisper white cardstock; Cutie Pie DSP
-Ink-Groovy Guava, Purely Pomegranate, So Saffron and Staz-on
-Accessories-Aqua Painter, Black Brads, Martha Stewart glitter, Stampin Dimensionals and SAB rub-ons

-Stamps-Tart & Tangy, Impression Obsession Cupcakes (sentiment)
-Paper-Real Red, Pumpkin Pie and Whisper White cardstock; Summer Picnic DSP
-Ink-Real Red, Pumpkin Pie and Old Olive
-Accessories-Pumpkin Pie ribbon, Stampin Dimensionals, 1 1/4 & 1 3/8 circle punches

-Stamps-Wild About You, It's Your Birthday
-Paper-Ruby Red, Old Olive and Whisper White cardstock; Certainly Celery and So Saffron Prints DSP
-Ink-Old Olive
-Accessories-, So Saffron Ribbon, 1 1/4 circle punch.

-Stamps-Seeing Spots
-Paper-So Saffron, Purely Pomegranate and Whisper White cardstock; Bali Breeze DSP
-Ink-So Saffron and Purely Pomegranate
-Accessories-Jumbo brads (not sure what brand), Stampin' Dimensionals 1 1/4 & 1 3/8 circle punches and Scallop punch.


Not sure what takes longer...making a card or posting it

New Stamps!!

Can you believe they aren't Stampin Up ? Yep, I finally let temptation take over and I ordered from Papertrey Ink and Impression Obsession. As soon as the PTI owl set gets back in stock I'll order that too. I don't even remember the last time I bought any stamps that weren't SU. Anyway, so needless to say my blog won't be SU only anymore, but I'm sure it will still be mostly SU. I just decided there is no point in limiting myself to one company, especially since I'm pretty mcuh my only customer. Now that I've tried UM stamps, I'm serously considering unmounting all of my SU stamps too. I still can't get over the tiny amount of space that UM take up. Anway, here are a few cards I made yesterday with Take a Bough from PTI.-Stamps-PTI Take a Bough
-Paper-PTI white, Real Red
-Ink-Close to Cocoa, Old Olive, River Rock and Real Red
-Stamps-PTI Take a Bough
-Paper-PTI white, Real Red, Old Olive cardstock; Dashing DSP
-Ink-Close to Cocoa, Old Olive, River Rock and Real Red
-Accessories-1 3/8 circle punch and scallop circle punch.
-Stamps-PTI Take a Bough
-Paper-PTI white
-Ink-Close to Cocoa, Old Olive, River Rock and Real Red

Fall Flowers

Good afternoon! I hope everyone is having a great day! I'm not too sure the flower fusion goes on this card, but I couldn't figure out how else to finish it. I really wish we had a stamp set to match that DSP, cuz I LOVE it! I'm sad to see it on the retiring list, although I knew it would be there. I hate when stuff retires. I'd be much happier if we had like a 600 page catalog.

I am loving sewing on cards! So easy, and it adds so much. Now I'm thinking I need one of those little sewing machines. Mine is a big pain in the butt to drag out.

Beate's Criss cross card tutorial can be found HERE. -Stamps-It's All Good and It's your birthday
-Paper-Really Rust, Soft Sky, Whisper White and Old Olive cardstock; Fall Flowers DSP
-Ink-Really Rust
-Accessories-Sewing machine & white thread, Stampin' Dimensionals, Flower Fusion, Rhinestone brads, Silver brads.

Stamp Something Challenge 11

Good morning and Happy Friday! Lauren is hosting this weeks Stamp Something Challenge. The theme is "The Sweetest Thing". You can stamp candy, alter candy, make candy, eat candy, lol. Anything that involves sweets!

For this challenge I made a pull out card. Since the sweetest stamps I have are fruit, I decided to use skittles and decorate with fruit stamps. You pull the ribbon and the skittles come up. You can see the tutorial HERE on SCS. The piece of cardstock I used was 6.5 X 6 though (Scored at 3 and at 6). I wanted to stick with the skittles flavors for the fruit so I used Tart & Tangy for the lemon, orange and strawberry, and the grape is from an ancient set call Grapes. The grape is supposed to be bigger than it is, but I cut out part of it to make a little more in more in proportion with the other fruit. I didn't want to use the branch or leaves that are in the Grapes set because it would take up too much space, and the look isn't right, so I used part of the cherry stem in Tart & Tangy. The fruit is all popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals, and the Real Red piece is popped up with glue dots.

-Stamps-Tart & Tangy, Grapes and Short Order Alphabet
-Paper-Real Red, Whisper White and Pumpkin Pie cardstock; Summer Picnic DSP
-Ink-Elegant Eggplant, Yoyo Yellow, Only Orange, Old Olive and Real Red (some markers)
-Accessories-Yoyo Yellow grosgrain, Glue Dots, Stampin' Dimensionals.

SC185 Fabulous Flowers

I made this card for SC185 on SCS. I love this sketch. I actually sewed on a card with my sewing machine! I've had it for years, but I don't really know anything about them. Anyway, the last time I used it, which was probably a few years ago, the thread kept jamming underneath and I couldn't figure out why. So finally I pulled it out of the closet and starting messing around with settings. I think it was just the tension, lol. Now I can make some curtains! Or I should say TRY to make some curtains, lol. I'm really not very good at sewing, but are straight lines aren't that important, right :).

-Stamps-Fabulous Flowers
-Paper-Purely Pomegranate, Soft Sky, Whisper White & Groovy Guava cardstock; Rose Red and Soft Sky prints DSP.
Ink-Purely Pomegranate
-Accessories-Sewing machine and white thread, SAB rub-ons and Stampin' Dimensionals

Stamp Something Challenge 10

Good morning everyone! I hope your having a happy Friday! It's time for another great Stamp Something Challenge. This weeks theme is "triple play." Make one project using 3 layers, 3 colors, and 3 embellishments. This challenge was really fun. I went over on the layers, but I didn't know how to incorporate the chipboard (my 3rd embellishment). I found THIS Mojo Monday sketch that I liked, so I went with that. She has such great sketches =). The colors are this weeks color challenge on SCS.

The edges of the paper on the chipboard were sanded with a sanding block. I used a little nail file in the tight places, but it doesn't work as well. It made the edges white, but I wanted them whiter, so I put a little Whisper White craft in on a Q-tip and rubbed that around the edges.

I hope you all have a great weekend!!
-Stamps- Priceless and Boho Backgrounds
-Paper-Chocolate Chip, Barely Banana, Groovy Guava and Whisper White cardstock; Fall Flowers DSP
-Ink-Groovy Guava and Barely Banana & Whisper White
-Accessories-Silver brads, glue dots, So Saffron grosgrain, Lots of letters chipboard

Heartfelt Thanks!

Good morning! This set hasn't seen ink in a while, so I thought I'd pull it out. I really need to start using it more. It is a great set. I used SC183 for the layout again. I love this layout! -Stamps-Heartfelt Thanks and So Many Sayings (retired)
-Paper-Elegant Eggplant textured, Old Olive and Very Vanilla cardstock; Almost Amethyst prints DSP.
-Ink-Almost Amethyst, Old Olive and Elegant Eggplant
-Accessories-Eggplant ribbon, round tab punch and Pewter brads.

Tart & Tangy CASE

Hello! I hope you all had a great 4th of July weekend. This card was a CASE from one of my favorite stampers, Chat Wszelaki. You can see her card HERE. Make sure you check out her blog. She is amazing! I normally don't like to CASE, but I just loved her card so much I couldn't resist =). This card measures 7 1/4 X 3 1/2. All of the fruit is clear embossed. I just stamped like normal, then stamped over again with versamark using a Stamp-a-ma-jig.
-Stamps-Tart & Tangy
-Paper-Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive and Whisper White cardstock; Summer Picnic DSP
-Ink-Versamark; Real Red, Old Olive, Close to Cocoa, and Only Orange markers
-Accessories-Real Red ribbon, Silver brads, SAB rub-ons, white signo gel pen and Clear embossing powder.

Pocket card

So I was just playing around last night, and this what i came up with. The pocket measures 3 X 5. It was so easy!
-Stamps-Bloomin' Beautiful, Boho Backgrounds and It's All Good, It's your Birthday
-Paper-Soft Sky, So Saffron, Close to Cocoa and Very Vanilla; Rose Red Prints DSP
-Ink-Purely Pomegranate, Certainly Celery and So Saffron
-Accessories-Blender pen, Styled Silver HPH, Corner rounder punch, hole punch. 1 3/8" & 1 1/4" Circle punches, Scallop punch and Saffron grosgrain.

SCS challenges

Hello! I hope everyone is having a good week so far =). This card is for the color challenge CC173 and the sketch challenge SC183 on SCS. I really love the colors and layout. I'll definitely be using both again. I really need to start doing the challenges more. Sorry, the colors are a little off in the picture. -Stamps-Priceless
-Paper-Purely Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi, Certainly Celery and Whisper White cardstock; Wild Wasibi and Certainly Celery prints DSP.
-Ink-Purely Pomegranate and Wild Wasabi
-Accessories-Purely Pomegranate double stitched ribbon and Stampin' dimensionals.

Hodgepodge Hardware Discount

Dates: July 1-August 10 (or while supplies last)

Promotion Details:

The following Hodgepodge Hardware finishes are being offered at a special 25 percent discount:

Item #	Page #	Item Description	Regular Price	Limited Time 25% off Discount
105532	188	Aged Copper Hodgepodge Hardware	$27.95	$20.96
105531	188	Antique Brass Hodgepodge Hardware	$27.95	$20.96
105515	188	Pewter Hodgepodge Hardware	$27.95	$20.96

These finishes will be retiring, so get them while you can!

Also, if you haven't heard SU has a new product line called Decor Elements. They are vinyl sticker for your walls or where ever else you can think to put them. Click HERE to see the Decor Elements brochure. Contact me today to get your orders in! I'll even give you 20% off one till the end of July.

Bloomin' Beautiful

Wow! This set is so fun! I mentioned it a previous post that Erin sent me some images. Thanks again Erin! My favorite sets always seem to be the ones I hated when I first saw them. Fabulous Flowers, Always and now this one =). I've gotta get this set if it makes it to one of the big catalogs. The bee and half of the HPH are popped up with Stampin' dimensionals.

-Stamps-Bloomin' Beautiful
-Paper-Groovy Guava, Really Rust, Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla cardstock; Fall Flowers DSP
-Ink-Groovy Guava, Really Rust, and I'm guessing brown staz-on.
-Accessories-Paper Piercer, Stampin' dimensionals, Mat Pack, Chocolate Chip twill, SAB rub-ons, Styled Silver HPH and Pewter HPH.

I redid my blog banner and colors Sunday. What do you think? I think I might have to redo the banner though. There are some white streaks through some of the flowers. Not quite sure how I did that, lol. The side bars are a little darker than they should be too. This time I went with Purely Pomegranate, Groovy Guava and Wild Wasabi.

SC181

Woohoo! I'm on a roll. This is my 6th post this week!! I think my mojo is definitely back =)...now if only I wasn't bored with most of my stamps, lol. My stamp room hasn't seen new rubber in so long. I did just place a small order yesterday though =). I got From the Kitchen and some other stuff to make a recipe box. I'm really looking forward to starting on that. Oh, and Erin Bailey sent my a GORGEOUS card yesterday with some Bloomin' Beautiful images =). I didn't even like that set till I saw her card, but now I LOVE it! You can see the card HERE. but it's even prettier in person.

I did both of these cards for SC181 on SCS. I love this sketch! And I'm so proud of myself. I haven't touched looks like spring in forever...probably at least a year. =) BTW, I got the piercing idea from Becky Carafa. I just loved the way she pierced around the main panel. I got the color combo from the verve visual blog.
-Stamps-Looks Like Spring and Embrace Life
-Paper-So Saffron, Kraft, Basic Black and Whisper White cardstock; So Saffron and Real Red prints paper
-Ink-So Saffron and Real Red
-Accessories-Mat Pack, Paper Piercer and Build a Brad

The main panel on this card was done by masking and sponging.
-Stamps-Embrace Life, One of a Kind, and Ginormous Flowers (for the leaves).
-Paper-Certainly Celery, Purely Pomegranate, Chocolate chip and Whisper White cardstock; Rose Red and Pretty in Pink prints.
-Ink-Chocolate Chip, Pretty in Pink and Certainly Celery.
-Accessories-Mat Pack, Paper piercer, Pink Taffeta and clear rhinestone brad.

Fabulous Flowers

Well, this one I'm not sure if I like yet or not. The flower was done using the Faux Shaving cream technique (directions HERE) with Purely Pomegranate and Groovy Guava. I love that technique...although, I'm not sure I'm loving it on this card =). I think I may try this one again with different colors and no faux shaving cream too see if comes out better.
-Stamps-Fabulous Flowers and True Friend.
-Paper-Kraft, Whisper White and Purely Pomegranate cardstock; Bali Breeze DSP
-Ink-Purely Pomegranate, Groovy Guava and Chocolate Chip.
-Accessories-Chocolate Chip grosgrain, hole punch (sorry, I don't know what size)

BTW, hopefully you won't be seeing cards with horrible shadows behind them anymore =). I've seen several people mention on their blogs that they use the Macro setting with no flash for photographing cards but I didn't know what it was, or where to find it. So the other night I started playing around with settings and I found it! It's a focus setting. Now I'm playing around with other buttons trying to figure out what they're for =). Oh, and I found out that my camera (that I've had for a year and a half) has a few really cool features that I never knew were there =). The picture above was taken in my stamp room (that has horrible lighting) with the macro setting and no flash. I also had the EV shift on +0.3 (default setting was 0)...not sure what it's actually for, but it seems to make things less dark. I only lightened this picture a tiny bit after I uploaded it to my computer. Normally I have to brighten A LOT.

Wild About You

Well this one came out totally different from what I started. I started using A Beautiful Thing. I love that set, but it isn't getting quite enough love (aside from the sentiment) so I've been trying to make myself use it more. So I started with the flowers, even had them cut out then decided the colors I was using just looked funny with such pretty flowers, so I went with this instead. The way I did the DSP actually started off unintentional. The DSP was a little bigger than I wanted so I cut 1/8 of an inch. I put it down next to the other piece and realized I like it, so I did it on the other side too. -Stamps-Wild About You and It's Your Birthday
-Paper-Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip, Blue Bayou, Kraft and Whisper White; Fall Flowers DSP
-Ink-Blue Bayou and Soft Sky
-Accessories-Old Olive marker, Chocolate Chip wide grosgrain.

BTW, I cut my hair this weekend! Yes...I CUT IT! I've gotten way to many bad hair cuts over the years (and I mean BAD), so I decided to do it myself. I've actually been cutting it for the last year or two, but up till this point I've been to scared to do anything but a regular cut. I found a couple of video tutorials on YouTube for giving yourself layers. I used THIS one and THIS one. I can't believe this worked! All you have to do is put your hair in a ponytail at the top of your head, hold the ponytail up in the air and cut straight. The second link shows basically the same thing, only she just put up the top part of her hair, so I used that to put in more layers. I actually put in 3 layers, but I can't seem to find the other two, lol. I tried to curl the ends so they layers would show better, but my hair doesn't like curls =).