St. Patty's Day Card

I've been busy making cards for the ladies at work. Here is one of my designs. I just love this leprechaun. It is a stamp by Inkadinkado. He is so fun to color. I used prismacolor pencils and gamsol. Then I highlighted the buttons with White Opal Liquid Pearls. They were also used for the dots on the card corners. Stickles were added to a few parts of the image to give him some bling!

Busy, busy, busy....

Sometimes I feel that there is not enough time in a day to do everything I'd like to do. Between work, crafting, shopping, and my family I am so tired at the end of the day. My recliner has become my best friend in the evenings! LOL

I've had maintenance at my apartment off and on for the last week. Our building finally has a management company that is getting all the neglected repairs taken care of. But it is a real pain to deal with the maintenance guy coming and going. Most of my repairs were in the bathroom which ment that I had to pack up everything under the sink (I didn't know I had collected so much stuff under there!) and remove all the rugs, shower curtain, etc. It's finally fixed and now I'm looking at all the boxes that need to be unpacked but really should go through and toss a lot away. I'm just not in the mood to sort bathroom junk!

I've also been trying to learn a new stamping technique and if I get it perfected I'll post for you to see. It's very simple and very cool. But positioning is everything and I'm just not getting it right yet. Stay tuned....I'll show you this real soon.

I'm also feeling my age today. Yesterday was such fun "hanging" with my Son, DIL, and DGD. We went to one of those liquidation expos up in Milwaukee. It was very odd. So many things for sale but I was surprised that most of the electronics (like computers and monitors) were actually older models that had been refurbished. But my DIL and I found purses that we really liked. I don't really know much about purse brands but my DIL says these are Coach knockoffs. I just like it! LOL

The baby was pretty tired after all the shopping too. She loves to shop and talk to everyone around her but by the end of the day she was pooped! Take a look...




She slept all the way home. I also had my very first experience playing a Wii and today I have a sore arm and shoulder from the tennis and bowling games! Getting old is not fun! LOL

Well, this got very long, but I wanted to update you all on why I haven't been posting as much. I'll try to do better if things slow down.

Take Care.

Thank you for a fellow crafter

A fellow crafter made me the most beautiful Easter wreath for my door. I wanted to give her a thank you card that was pretty, but not too frilly. My Stampin Up order had just come in and the Polka Dot Punches stamps seemed perfect for this card.





This is a 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" card base ( an 8 1/2" x 11" piece of cardstock cut in 1/2 and scored at 4 1/4") that is out of a generic dark brown cardstock. I've also used Stampin Up's Very Vanilla, and Prism's dark, medium, & light coral cardstock. The Friend DP is by DCWV.

Punches used were Stampin Up's Flower punch and Scalloped Circle punch, and EK Success 1 1/2" circle punch.

I cut a piece of the friend paper at 5 1/4" x 3", then matted it onto medium coral cardstock that was cut at 5 1/4" x 3 1/4". And the whole thing was matted onto very vanilla cardstock cut at 5 1/4" x 3 1/2". I added the ribbon ( a $1 Michael's find) around the piece after all layers were taped together then taped it onto the brown card base.

I stamped the flower stamp onto very vanilla cardstock using Stampin' Up Creamy Carmel classic ink and punched it out. I punched out another flower from the medium coral cardstock. Using the medium & dark coral cardstock I punched out a scalloped circle from each.

The flower was layered using the dark coral scalloped circle, the medium coral flower punch, and the stamped and punched flower for the top. I added a gold bead to the center of the flower.

The Kindred Spirit saying was stamped onto Very Vanilla cardstock using a stamp from a set by Hampton Art called Friendship. It was punched out with the circle punch, then layered on top of the medium coral scalloped circle. I added tiny gold beads to every other scallop.

Last I added the tiny ivory buttons to the top.

It's a pretty simple card, but I love the colors. The inside is stamped with "friends are flowers in the garden of life".

Brenda's Dahlia Fold Card

Brenda had emailed me a while ago that she wanted to try her hand at making the dahlia fold card using the instructions I had posted. I asked that she show me her card when finished.... Well I received an email this weekend and a picture of one of her terrific dahlia fold creations. I wanted to show it off because I think it is a beautiful card. She did such a great job. Check out her blog to see some of the other cards she has made. They are all so pretty! Here's a link to her blog http://brenda62052.blogspot.com/2009/03/i-just-love-learning-something-new.html
If you have a Boss Kut machine be sure to check out her videos!



Great job Brenda!

Warning....Slightly Adult Content...St. Patty's Day

I couldn't resist these stamps when I found them on Hambo Stamps. I have a strange sense of humor anyway and this guy made me laugh. It is a little "off color" so to speak but for an adult St. Patrick's Day card I think it's great!



OK I WARNED YOU....



Isn't that funny? Anyway.... I stamped the image onto Stampin' Up Whisper White cardstock and colored with Prismacolor pencils. I cut the image out and mounted him using pop dots. The Warning sign was stamped the same way. I used a white gel pen to add the dots around the outer circle. I also got to use my new EK Success border punch "Dotted Wave". These new punches are terrific. I highly recommend them. They punch easily and with the new design that lets you lock them down for smaller storage I'm very happy with them.

BTW...Hambo Stamps is an Angel Company and the back of my card has their "Image by Hambo Stamp" stamp on it. Check out their site for some funny and terrific stamps. They stamp very crisp and have a lot of "different" types of stamps. I am not affiliated with them in any way, just a happy customer!

Fishing you a happy birthday...

This card was a lot of fun to make. The stamp is one I picked up at a convention. Just the rubber and I mounted it on E Z mount cling. The card stock is from Prism. The patterned paper is from my stash.




I colored the image using prismacolor pencils and sparkling gel pens. I highlighted the edges of the image with Stampin' Up's River Rock ink. The corners were punched with Stampin' Up's ticket punch. I love this punch and think it give an extra dimension to the images.

The most fun was in creating the fish hook charm using Shrinky Dink Frosted film. It was so easy and I still giggle like a child as it shrivels and shrinks! I stamped the fish hook onto the film using Jet Black Stazon Ink. I then punched out the image using a 1 1/2" circle punch. To get the hole for the string I used an ordinary 1/4" hole punch. A heat gun was used to shrink the film.




For the inside sentiment I printed the saying onto Stampin' Up Ivory cardstock using the computer. I added a couple of fish hook stamps to the inside. You can see how large the stamp really is as compared to how tiny it becomes on the shrink film. Isn't that a blast?