June Stamp Club Cards

Have you ever had one of those months where you didn't get anything done that you wanted to, but you were busy all the time? This has been one of those months for me. As you can tell from my (lack of) previous posts, I have not been doing much crafting or blogging. I'm starting to really miss all of my blog friends! And I've been wanting to try the Stamp Something and Sketches by Tamara challenges (not to mention Beate's WSC), but haven't had a chance. I'm hoping that June slows down a bit so I can have a bit of fun!

So this will be a "work-related" post (I can't really call stamping work, but the crafting I have been doing has been in preparation for my Stamp Clubs!). These are the cards we will be making at the last Stamp Club meeting of the year. I can't believe the year flew by so quickly. It's always so much fun getting together with my Stamp Club ladies and chatting and being creative together.

I went onto Splitcoast Stampers to find some ideas, and I found this technique called salted background that looked really cool. I basically CASEd the layout of the card given in the tutorial, but I changed the colours and stamps. I think it's a really neat background effect.

I used Bashful Blue, Mellow Moss and Perfect Plum because those are the colours of re-inkers I have! I added Basic Black accents (photo corner punch with black brads) and stamped the flower from Heartfelt Thanks with black StazOn.

The second card is an acetate card. I made it smaller (4 x 4") so that I could make two from one transparency sheet (I don't have very many left!). It's a little difficult to see in the photo, but I like how it looks IRL.

I started by stamping the acetate with my Baroque Motifs set in white StazOn. I used Blue Bayou and Soft Sky as my main colours. I broke out my Take Three set (this is the first time I've used it) for the front of the card, and I finished it off with some Whisper White taffeta ribbon.
The final card is an oldie but a goodie - the classic Waterfall Card! I think this is one of the first "specialty" cards I learned how to make. I decided to put a little twist on it by using squares of designer paper instead of plain ones on the waterfall part. I went with Bali Breeze since it's got so many fun colours in it. The base is Purely Pomegranate, and I used Tempting Turquoise and Old Olive to accent. I stamped the little words from Everyday Flexible Phrases onto the squares in Turquoise to read "my sweet special friend".

Another Swap Card

This is the second card I made for Alex's swap this month. I really wanted to use the Die Cut blooms, and the Summer Picnic designer paper matched perfectly! So I basically chose my paper colours from those (Old Olive, Pumpkin Pie, Rose Red, Bashful Blue). I curled the petals of the flowers a bit to give them some dimension. Then I used a mini glue dot to stick a Bashful Blue button in the center after tying some linen thread through it. I just love these colours together - I would never have thought of combining these colours, but they work so well in the Summer Picnic paper.

By the way, a huge congratulations to Alex, who has recently been accepted on two design teams (Sketches by Tamara and Stamp Something - both of which I just subscribed to and added to my blogroll!). What a talented lady! I feel so privileged to have gotten to know her here in Blogland. If you haven't already checked out her blog, make sure you head over to California Stampin'.

May Stamp Club Cards

This first card we will be doing at our May Stamp Clubs is a Trifold Pocket Card. It was actually a lot more time-consuming than I thought it would be! But that's okay - it was a lot of fun to make. I chose Porcelain Prints Designer Series paper as a starting point (I just love the Wild Wasabi/Blue Bayou combination). I used one of my kid's plastic plates to trace the curve at the top of the card and insert. As a bonus, I got to use my Crop-a-Dile (how much fun is that thing?)!

I used my Wild Rose set, since it matches the paper. I've found that the 5-Petal Punch is a great punch for making leaves behind flowers (as opposed to having to cut them out by hand), so I used that for the band. I just stamped the leaves on some Wild Wasabi cardstock before punching out the flowers so that they had a leafy texture.
Since all the On Board stuff is on sale this month, I wanted to use some chipboard in this month's clubs (we'll be using it in my Scrapbooking Club as well). I know this card looks a little strange because I've covered the chipboard pieces in two different ways, but that was just to show a couple ways to embellish them. The ladies in the clubs will be able to choose if they want to do both the same or not!

I had a whole bunch of chipboard hearts since I bought a bulk package of them, and I thought they matched the hearts in the Greetings Galore set pretty well. I basically chose my colours from the chunky glitter colours (so I used Rose Red, Bashful Blue and Elegant Eggplant)! For one of the hearts, I inked it in Eggplant, then embossed it with Iridescent Ice ep. For the other, I inked it in Bashful Blue, then used my 2-way glue pen to add some chunky glitter. We're also going to talk about all the MANY different ways to embellish chipboard at the club meeting.

I had this card up on my board at the last club meeting, and I had a few requests to make it. I used the faux cloisonne technique for this one, using an old Holiday Mini Catalogue for the flower. I stamped on it with VersaMark and embossed it with gold ep before cutting out the flower image. Then I matched the cardstock colours to the colours in the image (Purely Pomegranate, Chocolate Chip and Naturals Ivory). The squares are punched with my 1 3/8" square punch, and I used my corner rounder punch to scallop the bottom edge.

I hope everyone enjoys these projects! They're a bit more complicated than I usually do, but everyone's a pro now, so it should be lots of fun!

When Will Winter End?

Can you believe this? This is the view of our backyard this morning, and, oh yes, that's snow! It had all melted and it was raining last night, but then the rain turned into snow this morning. Where is spring?

Some "Just Because" Cards

I've been asked to make some cards for the Women's Ministry at my church to give to the ladies of our church, so I was busy this week mass-producing cards! Here are some of the cards I will be giving them.
This one is actually for Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge #45. It's been ages since I've participated in a sketch challenge, so it felt good to make something like that! Blue Bayou and Sage Shadow are my go-to colours when I can't think of a combination! I love how they look together. I used some Blue Bayou Prints paper as well, along with my Simply Said stamp set. I coloured the flowers with Stampin' Write markers and added some Dazzling Diamonds glitter for a little bling.
For this one, I used Splitcoast's Sketch Challenge 172 for the layout. I used Berry Bliss paper and matched it to Pretty in Pink and Close to Cocoa cardstock. The image is from Embrace Life, stamped in Basic Brown and coloured in with Stampin' Write markers. I used some Whisper White taffeta ribbon and my ticket corner punch to finish it off.

I got to play with my Cuttlebug for this one. I used Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip and River Rock, along with my Baroque Motifs and Sincere Salutations sets.

For the very last card, I used Blush Blossom, Mellow Moss and Elegant Eggplant as my colours and Bloomin' Beautiful and En Francais for the stamps. I coloured in the flower with my Stampin' Write markers.

Wow! I managed to post something two days in a row! Are you impressed? :) Thanks for visiting.

RAKs!

Man, I have to stop saying I'll post something on a certain day because I'm so bad at blogging lately that I never post when I say I will!

Here are some wonderful RAKs I received last week from some talented ladies!

This first one is from Amy. I just love the colours on this one! And look at all the gorgeous paper piercing on this - what beautiful details! Thank you so much, Amy. I just love it!

This one is from Blue Moon as a thank you for some blog candy that I sent her. I just love those Bella stamps! I really need to order one soon! I love the colours she put in this one, and the cute little flower bling! Thank you, Blue Moon! I hope you enjoy your blog candy!

Thank you so much for reading. I appreciate those of you who are still showing up, even though I've been a bad blogger lately! I'll work on it!

Spring Silhouettes

This is a card I made for a swap Alex is hosting (I hope it's okay to show it!). This is my first full-card swap, so I'm a little nervous! I hope everyone likes this card.

I used Splitcoast Sketch SC172 for this one. I started with Spring Silhouettes designer paper and chose my colours from there. I used Soft Sky as the card base. I layered the designer paper on some Wild Wasabi cardstock, then wrapped some Wild Wasabi double-stitched ribbon around it with a slider from the Pewter Hodgepodge Hardware (I hope you appreciate this, Alex! You know I'm a hoarder of supplies, so to part with my Hodgepodge was really hard! LOL!). I stamped the rose base in Soft Sky, then the outline image in Blue Bayou, stamped off once so it was a bit lighter. The leaves are Wasabi. I matted this on Wasabi and adhered it with some dimensionals. Then I attached the whole thing to the card base. I used the ticket corner punch on all the corners, before adhering them, of course!

I received a couple of beautiful RAKs in the mail this week from Amy and Bluemoon, so I'm going to post them tomorrow after I get a photo of them! Thanks for reading!

Thank You Boxes

Thank you all for your kind comments about my cat. I'm glad I'm not alone in this. We really miss her, but it's much more sanitary around here now!

On a happier note, I was able to make some gifts this week for the ladies in one of my Stamp Clubs, as it was our last meeting of the year on Tuesday. I decided to make these 2-5-7-10 boxes for them and fill them with treats.

I used Brushed Gold cardstock for the boxes, and I embossed the flourish from Priceless all over the cardstock with gold ep before folding them up. This took a lot longer than I thought it would! But I'm pretty happy with the results. I tied the box with Very Vanilla taffeta ribbon.

For an embellishment, I embossed the flower from Priceless onto some more gold paper and punched it out with my 1 3/8" circle punch. I layered this onto Very Vanilla and punched it out with my Scallop Circle punch. Then I put the whole thing on with a dimensional. The tag is the thank you stamp from the For a Friend hostess set, embossed in gold and punched out with the Key Tag punch. I tied these to the ribbon with some gold elastic cord (I know it's retired, but it matches the boxes!). I put some candies, a tealight and an incentive stamp in each box as a thank you.

A huge thank you to all those ladies who participated in my Tuesday night Stamp Club. It's been such a fun year!

Jasmine

Today was a sad day for our family. I had to give away our cat, Jasmine, after having her for fifteen years. I adopted her from the SPCA as a kitten when I was in university. We had to get rid of her because she started leaving poop streaks all over the carpets and that's too unsanitary for my kids to be playing around (she's just getting old and can't care for herself like she used to). Plus, we can't give her the attention she needs because she's afraid of the boys (they're not mean to her, they just have too much energy for her liking!). She hides all day in the basement and we don't see much of her until we go to bed.

DH and I went back and forth about taking her to the SPCA or having her put down, etc. because she's so old and we couldn't find anyone to take her. But we didn't want her sitting in a cage at the SPCA, and she's in good health, so I couldn't in good conscience have her put down. My SIL mentioned this place that adopts cats called the Hervey Cat Foundation. It's run by a lady in our area who just loves cats and she adopts them (for a fee) and either finds homes for them or keeps them. She makes sure they have proper medical care and food, and they're a no-kill facility. I dropped Jasmine off this morning with many tears, and Ms. Hervey gave me a hug and promised to take good care of her. After becoming accustomed to the other cats in the house, she'll be one of the family - even sleeping on the bed with them if she likes! I felt like I was leaving her in good hands. Ms. Hervey is a very nice lady. She said that because Jasmine is so old, she won't adopt her out, but will just take care of her until the end. It's just sad to have to part.

Okay, enough of that. I'll post something less depressing tomorrow!

One Crazy Week!

Wow! I'm such a bad blogger! I've had a busy week (plus I'm now addicted to Facebook! LOL!).
My mom has been visiting since Friday, and we've had such a great time! We celebrated my son's fourth birthday this past weekend, so she came out to party with us. Where on earth does the time go? I feel like it was only yesterday that I brought him home from the hospital. Now he's four already, and he'll be starting pre-school in the fall!

Here he is opening some gifts with Daddy (can you say spoiled?) We had all of his cousins and his uncles and aunts, my mom and my husband's parents, plus some family friends over, so the place was packed! Adam insisted on inviting his Sunday School teacher and her kids as well. He just loves Ms. Corbett! The kids were surprisingly well-behaved and the party went very well. I was pretty impressed that he went and said thank you to everyone after he had opened each gift (we had a big talk before the party about saying thank you to people).


DH and I also celebrated our eleventh wedding anniversary on the weekend (yes, my son was born the day after our anniversary! We came home from dinner four years ago and turned around and went right to the hospital! What a great way to celebrate your anniversary - NOT!) Anyway, it was nice that my mom was visiting because she stayed with the boys and let us go out for dinner and a movie. We went and saw Leatherheads. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was a hilarious movie! I love George Clooney's comedies. Very witty and intelligent humour!

My mom went back to B.C. this morning amid tears from my boys. They had such a great time with Grandma (as did I!). There's nothing like becoming a mom to make you realize how much you appreciate your own mom!

Also, our car's broken, so DH has been driving my van to work this week and I'm stuck at home, so at least I should be able to get some stamping done tomorrow!

Well, there's a quick recap of my past week! Thanks for listening to my ramblings! I'm hoping to get some cards posted tomorrow if I can stay off of Facebook for awhile! (Come on, I know I'm not the only one! LOL!)