Victoria Case Challenge

This is a card I made for a challenge over at Victoria Case.

It is using her free image, Willy the Worm and the challenge sketch.



I'm trying to figure out how to use copic markers. They are wonderful to work with but will take practice.

A Few Good Things

I have a lot of fun news to report.

My Making Memories finally arrived in the mail and there I am on page 68. Yikes. While having my LO in the mag is totally cool I cringed a little when it was one featuring my old mug right there front and center. LOL. I was a little surprised about the journalling as I was asked to include it all and the thrust of the article was to be "new beginnings- overcoming adversity" but none of the text was printed. It was a great issue this month and I'll be sad to see Memory Makers go.

A little while back Split Coast Stampers hosted a Vegas Themed Stamp Night. I was thrilled to be chosen for VSN Honors and receive one of the high roller distinctions for my Something Blue card. The talent over there is off the charts. I am incredibly honored to be chosen. If you haven't joined Split Coast Stampers I highly recommend checking them out. They have scrapbooking too :-)

and speaking of Bombshells...

I've been asked to be a full-time Bombshell Girl and I accepted. I think my love for Shannon's images is pretty well-known and continuing to work with Bombshell Stamps is an amazing opportunity for me. So expect to see a lot more Bombshell love in the future.

I finally tried out digital stamps last night. I decided to give the Bollywood set by Sandra Dry a whirl. It is a big challenge coloring open line art and I have a lot of room to grow in my skills. That said, I thought the images were decent enough to make into a note card set - what do you think? Hair is KILLER! You just have a general hair shape and have to draw in all the texture and sections yourself. Yikes!

Happy Birthday, Johanna

Happy Birthday, Johanna. Wishing you a wonderful year full of creativity and unexpected joy!

Many Happy Returns.

Stamps Used: Cupcake Creature and Happy Birthday (JJ Mix)

P.S. I used my Stampamajig for the first time today and I don't know how I lived without it. It's so much better than "eyeballing" and we;; worth the four bucks I spent. Love it!

Hello Summer

Hope you all had a great Memorial Day and are enjoying the warmer part of the year :-)

Here are some cards I've made over the last few weeks:


Stamps Used: Little Prince and Kelly's Gnome Girls with Baby Doll


Stamps Used: Ghost Bird and Boo To You


Stamps Used: For You (JJ Mix) and Birthday Sparkle Chicklet Right

Something Blue

One of the more interesting challenges at the VSN was, "tying the knot". You were required to make a card based on this picture and you had to include a knot - either with ribbon or thread.


My problem was that I forgot I needed a knot. So after I was done I added a tie closure to the card and an inside white panel for writing. It worked out well but I hate adding things in after the fact.

More VSN Challenge Cards

The deadline for most of the stamping challenges at SCS isn't until tomorrow night so I used our school time today to work on a couple of challenges. Here's what I made since posting last:

Black and Red Challenge:

Note: I saw someone put fabric - or paper that looks like fabric - under this image and I can't for the life of me remember who to give credit to. My process of elimination leans towards Claudette, but to whomever you are - thanks!

Glitz and Gleam Challenge: Completely cover an image or panel with glitter or something sparkly. I used micro-beads:

Stamp:
Sacred Heart

Use "slot machine" sketch to make a card:


Stamps:
Ahoy Sailor

In personal news, I've started physical therapy again and it's KILLING ME!!!! Actually, it's a very good thing but my back is very unhappy with this decision. Hopefully this will get me back on my feet ASAP.

Challenge Cards

Good Saturday!

This weekend is the virtual stamp night at Split Coast Stampers and I was able to participate in a few of the challenges.

I love that you have 45 minutes from start to finish. It discourages taking an insane amount of time on a project and it keeps me from being too fussy. The cards are made are strictly what I call "mom cards". My hands are still very shaky so I went out of the lines and things aren't perfect. Mom won't mind, nor will my non-scrappy friends. See - Mom cards. But they are fun and cute and I had a blast making them ;-)

Non-traditional, bright-colored wedding card:


Elvis's Late Night Snack: Colors: banana, peanut butter and "fried" (dark brown) plus music image:

Double Down: Two identical cards with vegas theme:

Pin-Up Punk Pin Tutorial

Feel like making something cute?

I initially made these with glasses from the thrift store - which had a very slim selection and cost a buck a pair. Then it occurred to me that the dollar store sells reading glasses for the same price and I have a huge selection of lenses to chose from. While I'm not up-cycling, it did make sense practically speaking.

Here's the tutorial:




Close-up of Page OneClose Up of Page Two
Close Up of Page Three

Please let me know if any part of this tutorial is confusing. I'm happy to help... but I promise it's easy as pie :-)

Giveaway Winner

And the winner of a copy of Cards Magazine is:

Kim said...
I love them all, but especially the third one (it speaks to the geek/nerd in me, I guess!)

Kim, Send me your addy and I'll mail you the magazine. Thanks for playing :-)

My Favorite Bombshells & a Giveaway

I thought I'd post some of my favorite bombshells I've made over the last year. If you've seen any of these beauties before, my apologies :-)







I am all done with my May 2009 issue of Cards and I'd like to pass it on :-) Leave a comment on this post between now and Monday letting me know which set of Bombshell Stamps is your fave and I'll draw one of you to win this luscious mag. You can see all the different sets here.

Filling My Cup

My camera is completely dead - my sweetie gave it an accidental death toss across a parking lot - so I can't post projects, dinners or any of the good stuff that makes blogging fun. I guess you're just going to have to listen to me babble *grin*

Yesterday I spent a significant portion of my day dealing with my medical issues and I really felt like God cleared my path. I called my doc's cell very early in the morning and cried. He got me an appointment first thing and moved me to the front of the waiting crowd. When walking in I noticed my physical therapist was in his office. He's a prof at the U so he's only at the clinic on evenings and weekends. I popped in to see him after my Dr. visit and he had an hour to spare because it was finals and he didn't need to be at the U. So I got an instant appointment with him too. After a thorough exam we have a new treatment plan and until Monday I'm being "actively restful".

All that time in waiting rooms gave me a chance to have some quiet reflection and I came to some very happy conclusions.


I've always been a creative person: music and dance when I was a kid, writing through my teens and adulthood and arts and crafts now. In writing especially there is a concept of filling your cup. The idea is that you can't write great stories unless you are filling your cup with movies, plays, novels, trips, adventures, new sights, sounds, smells, tastes, new people. You need all those experiences to draw from and subsequently pour into your work.

Scrapbooking and card making (for me) is very much the same. By reading blogs, magazines, books, taking classes etc. you fill up your creative reservoir so when the time comes to make something the inspiration is practically overflowing.

With my health problems I go through times when I am too shaky, sore and immobilized to make things. Instead of railing against these periods of forced creative abstinence I am choosing to use those days to fill my cup: to read, to study techniques, to blog hop, to browse magazines and organize my stamps. Then when I am strong and steady I'll be ready :-)

Miss May

This is my month to be the guest designer at Bombshell Stamps. I'm such a lover of Bombshell Stamps that getting to design for Shannon and be counted among the amazingly talented ladies on her team is a huge honor.

I thought I'd kick off my month with my entry for the Peek-a-Boo card contest. I used the sketch this week from Card Positioning Systems (CPS) - I'm such a shameless double-dipper :-)




The stamp I used on this card is Man's Ruin. I made it for my step-father who has had more than his share of trouble with women and liquor. I think he'll find it hysterical. How did I do keeping it boy-friendly? This was also my first coloring attempt with markers. They're fast, fun and unforgiving. LOL.

I haven't forgot my promise to post a bunch of money-saving tips for scrapping this week. My camera is being extremely persnickety - for example, I made a tutorial and it only saved two of the forty or so pics I took - so it's been challenging.

Sketch Class Layout

Happy Monday!

I'm pumped! I'm psyched! I'm just raring to go! This is going to be a great week. Not having the flu is like being reborn.

Today they posted the second sketch at TSR for the FREE SKETCH CLASS! I was fortunate enough to be asked to be one of the designers for this sketch and this is what I made:


If you look at the bottom of the picture you can see soot and smoke damage as this picture was saved from our house fire in 1997 - talk about distressing a photo!

Paper saving tip: See the square behind the large circle? It's not a square. I just used two strips to imply a full mat. That saved me a bunch of of paper and no ones the wiser - except you reading this of course. :-)

I have some more good news to share this afternoon. I'm just waiting for some decent light to take a few pictures and then I'll be back. It's far from a secret - in fact, if you look around this page of my blog you can probably figure it out.

See you in a few hours - now go sign up for the free class!

What's For Dinner

So... do you guys like my food posts or are they boring to the average omnivore? I am asked so often what we eat that posting about it seems natural. Please let me know.

What did we eat for dinner? Before I tell you let me pass on a rule we have in our house.

If you cook something new (aka WEIRD) then you must provide dessert or something really, really good in case it's a disaster and everyone hates it and subsequently starves.

Since I was roasting all the sad-looking veggies in our fridge I realized I need to pair them with a sure thing; in this case, a huge pan of roasted potatoes. Who doesn't like glorified hashbrowns/french fries? And even though fresh snipped rosemary classed them up, I allowed ketchup and ranch so it wasn't scary at all. This is what I made:

Roasted Brussels Sprouts:


Roasted Cauliflower:


Chickpea Cutlets with a "not beef" shallot and red wine gravy I invented. It was darn good. In fact I'd bathe in it if I could.


Do you ever feel like your efforts as chief cook and bottle washer are unappreciated? I have in the past - especially when everyone just eats, offering no "thank you" or even, "this is good". No one really cared about the hours I put in at the stove - SLAVING - and at times that got to me. Since I've started taking pictures of some of our meals I've felt very validated. Everyone elses work gets rewarded and recorded, now mine is too. Plus, if I pull out the camera attitudes shift to, "look at the special thing mom did for us." Which is a heck of a lot better than, "Where's the grub?"

vegan+cooking

Really Big News

Tammy asked me to be the Guest Designer for May at The Scraproom! Now I'm sure you ladies all know of my great and unending love for all things TSR - it was a huge honor to get to play with the kit.

You can see the design team ideas, mine included here. I hope you check them out. For my card-making friends, there are a lot of card samples at the bottom of the ideas page.

I thought it might be fun to do a series next week pointing out all the sneaky money-saving tricks I employed on each of the layouts. So be sure to check back often so you don't miss anything.

Need a teaser to get the inspiration to click that link?




Did you know all month long Susan is teaching a sketch class at TSR - and it's FREE! My kind of pricing. You have to sign up for the message board (also free) to participate and there are PRIZES!!!!!!

There are ten sketches so roughly a new one every three days. Each sketch is used by a variety of guest designers so there will be lots of pages to drool over and lift ideas from. Hope you pop in.