Rubber Cafe Creations!

These are the cards I've made for the Rubber Cafe design team. This first one was so much fun to color. The image is "Mermaid Scene" and can be found at rubbercafe.com. I used copics to color it. I used a little embossing on the edge of the circle and glitter pen and white pen to accent the waves. The DP is basic grey and the card stock is chocolate chip and baha breeze (my first time using that color and it matched the dp perfectly).






















I love this Siamese cat face. I used it to show all of the different kinds of Siamese kitties you could make with it. The image is Cat Face 2 from Rubber Cafe. I colored it with copics and sponged the background with bashful blue. I made the zigzag circle to mirror the zigzags in the dp with decorative scissors. The ovals and the circle were done with my nesties. The white one was embossed with my cuttlebug in the swiss dots folder, inked with bashful blue, then layered with ballet blue and barely banana. The dp is basic grey, layered with barely banana on a ballet blue base. The ribbon is a sheer yellow that I found at walmart.























Although we have seal point siamese now, when I was in grade school, my sister had a lilac point siamese mix follow her home. We kept him for about a year until one day he went out for his daily constitutional and never came home. So, this kitty is close to my heart. I made this for the DT challenge. It was bedding - browns and burgandy stripes and florals. When I saw it, I didn't know what I was going to do. I knew I didn't have anything like that at home. Well, I dug through my paper file and found this Cherry Arte DP that I bought ages ago. It was perfect for the challenge. The card is on a close to cocoa base. I used several punches for the sentiment and the corners. The cat face is colored with copics and inked with creamy caramel. The face is matted on close to cocoa and cranberry crisp.
























Flame point siamese are not my favorites, but I think this card turned out kind of fun and funky. I stamped the cat face in timber brown and colored it with copics. It's not quite as orangey IRL - it's more creamy colored. I went over the eyes with a black marker and then colored them blue. The cat face is matted with chocolate chip and wild wasabi. I punched the corners with the ticket punch and added little gems. The dp is from DCWV pet stack. It is matted with chocolate chip and is on a bazzill coral base. The ribbon with slider and charm are meant to look similar to a cat color with a tag.

Welcome to Frenchy's Friday Inspiration Face-off!

I found this photo on flicker, entitled Halloween Tree and thought it would be a great inspiration challenge, simply because it's a little offbeat and unique. Have fun with it. Here's the card I was inspired to make:

The card base is black layered with this great K&Co. Halloween paper I got from Danielle Kennedy at http://wilddragonflydesigns.blogspot.com/. I won her blog candy last week. The image and sentiment are from inkadinkado. I stamped the tree with versamark and embossed it with black. I let it cool and stamped it with versamark again - right over the other image, added purple to part of it and embossed it again. I brayered the sky using barely banana, certainly celery & wild wasabi Then I went in with a sponge to blend it and added hunter green and black. I used a post-it as a mask and brayered black ink for the ground. It was a little purple looking for me, so I added more black with a sponge, dabbing and pulling in a downward motion. The sentiment was stamped on white paper and cut free hand around the image. I inked the edges with wild wasabi, hunter green and black then mounted it on purple and cut it free hand again. The image is mounted on purple cardstock and then black. I had a lot of fun with this. I'm still not great with a brayer, but the more I practice the better I get. Can't wait to see how you're inspired! If you upload to SCS, use the keyword FFIF3 And, if this one's not for you, come back next week, I have a REALLY cute pottery barn image to get your creative juices flowing!

An Announcement!

I have been accepted to another design team. I am happy to announce that I am now officially part of the fabulous and talented ladies who design for Clear Dollar Stamps. They are a fabulous line of diverse (and inexpensive) stamps. I am so excited to be a part of the new design team!
I will be back tomorrow with the Friday face-off, hope to have a lot of people participating! See you then!

I've finally returned!

This card was made for my dd. I used MFT's Nature Calls Moose image. The sentiment is from SU's Moose You. The card base is summer sun, layered with leaf dp (I got it at hobby lobby, don't know the brand), bayou blue and more dp paper from the same pad from hobby lobby. The moose is mounted on the leaf paper, layerd with the other dp and summer sun. I inked the edges with wild wasabi, chocolate chip, blue bayou and summer sun. The ribbon is also from SU.

I no longer have computer access that is, well, readily accessible. So, I may not be posting to my blog quite as often. But, I will be creating and uploading. And, I will definitely be here for the Friday Face-off!

It's time for another Friday face-off! Another room from pottery barn kids. With the preparations to leave for my mom's retirement party and getting ds a gift to take to a birthday party, I didn't have time to look for something else. But, next week will be different, although I think these rooms are great inspiration! Here's my card:

I used the daisys from the bedding, the stripes from the basket, the white frames on the wall and the stuffed animals that were in the basket. This card has NO stamping, which I don't know if I've ever done before. If I have, I can't remember! The dog is from Cricut's Zoobaloo. I cut him out of a kind of fuzzy textured brown paper and chocolate chip. The base of the card is Gable Green, layered with Purely Pomagranite and So Saffron. The daisy and striped papers are from Paper Studio (found at Hobby Lobby). I scored the corners of the white frame to make it look mitered and stacked one from on top of the other using dimensionals to make it look more like a frame. I had fun making this - although I missed my coloring! Hope you'll join in and show me how Daisy's Garden inspired you!

Almost Friday

I have tomorrow afternoon off work! Why, you ask? For my mom's retirement. She has worked at the Stafford Co. Court House for over 25 years! She is the head of the motor vehicle dept. in the treasurer's office. I affectionately call her the tag hag. :) So, what could be more appropriate than this little bug from Clear Dollar Stamps with the retired tag? Well, my dad's getting her a cadillac SRX (the mid-size suv), but I didn't have a stamp of that. My dad got an Escalade last year when he retired, so I guess it's mom's turn for a new car! The sunflower represents the state of Kansas. I used real red, chocolate chip, summer sun and wild wasabi print patter dp. The brown scallops were cut with fiskars extra wide scallop scissors. The edges of all the summer sun papers were inked in more mustard and then in pumpkin pie. The sentiment was stamped on an oval then mounted on a designer label punch with a choc. chip circle layered on the top and a wild wasabi print pattern circle layered on the bottom.

My mom loves trail mix, so I made this little jar for her. The image is from clear dollar stamps. I had the stamps upside down and thought "how cute would it be to have the little squirrel hanging from the tree upside down?". So, that's how I used him. The ovals are basic grey mellow dp and real red. On the top is an oval that says "going nuts?" on white inked in creamy caramel and mounted on a larger oval of the brown mellow dp. I also got her a really cute shirt with a chick on it that says "retired chick".

Oh - don't forget to stop by tomorrow and see the new Frenchy's Friday Inspiration Face-off challenge. I have some cute things lined up for it!

And now, for a very important announcement

I have been chosen to be on the rubber cafe design team. This is my first design team and I am very excited to be a part of it! My new stamps should be coming soon and I can't wait to play!

Now on to today's card. I made this card for the precrop challenge #3 at http://sassycardsnscraps.freeforums.org/pre-crop-challenge-3-t334.html

The challenge was to use 3 shades of blue on a card. I had painted this City of David image and then set it aside weeks ago. So, when I started pulling out blue cardstock, my eye settled on this image and I decided to use it. I used night of navy, bashful blue and some bazzill bling in blue. Since my demo (my sister) has my latest SU order, but I won't see her until Friday, I didn't have those photo corner punches that I wanted to use on this. So, I cut a circle, then cut it in 1/4 and put those on the corners with a little blue gem. The bg on the bashful blue is the bible verse stamp from City of David stamped many times and embossed in gold. I used my nesties to cut out the circles and scallop.

Wanted to spread the blog candy word. You can find some great blog candy here: http://wilddragonflydesigns.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-about-candy-for-breakfast.html

Come join in the challenges

Sassy cards n scraps, a fairly new online stamping community is having their grand opening today. Come check them out and join in the challenges at: http://sassycardsnscraps.freeforums.org/sassy-grand-opening-challenges-f28.html

I started this card a couple of weeks ago! I had a person in mind, chose the image and colored it. Then I lost my momentum and it's been sitting on my desk since. Well, said person's birthday is looming and I needed to finish it or make another card for her. So, I pulled this out and began looking at different papers. I don't know what made me pull out my little 4x6 DCWV Once Upon a Time pad, but as soon as I found this paper the whole card just fell into place. It's funny, because this card isn't my usual style, but like I said, it really did just fall into place. I used pale plum (first time ever, I think), mellow moss, bordering blue and the dp. I ticket punched the layers and accented them with stick-on pearls. The image was colored with copics. The water was accented with sakura glitter pen and white inksensials pen (although it's hard to see that in the picture). I wanted to bring out the dp a litt more, so I stamped the sentiment on it and colored in the word whopper, which is just an outline on the stamp. I punched the designer label punch in bordering blue, cut off the ticket corner ends, cut it in half and mounted each half on an end of the sentiment block. I added pearls to it as well. The ribbon is a sheer blue, no idea who made it or where I got it sorry!

Brand New Challenge

Frenchy's Friday Inspiration Face-off

OK - so every friday I will be posting a picture that you can use as inspiration for a project. Here's the card I made for this week's face off:

I pulled the colors and the tree from the towels and the owl from the owl on the tree branch. I had planned to hang the top 2 layers from a real stick on the card, but it was raining to beat the band last night, so I would have had to go out in the rain, let the stick dry, etc...so maybe next time. :) Anyway I think it's a fun little bathroom - hope it brings you some inspiration. If you want to participate, leave a comment with a link to your card. If you're posting on SCS, use the keyword FFIF1.

Custom order

I made this for a cutom order. It's for a lady who likes purple, could you tell? I used almost amethyst for the base, matted with a bazzill purple and almost amethyst print patterned dots, which I embossed using the cuttlebug. I inked the darker purple with elegant eggplant and the almost amethyst with the matching ink. The MFT image is matted with black. The wall, chair and pants are paper pieced with almost amethyst print patterns. The carpet is a velvet purple paper and the rest is colored with copics. The sentiment is inked with almost amethyst and cut out with a nestie, then matted with two pieces of the designer label punch. I wish more places would come out with punches that actually fit the sentiments. All of my sentiments seem too long or too big for my punches.

A grown up card

A co-worker got flowers and this ribbon was attached to the vase. She was nice enough to offer it to me after the flowers had died. It was sitting on my desk when I got my new cats pajamas birthday sets, so I thought "what the heck". Well, when I pulled the paper out that matched it was looking rather neon, so I added the chocolate chip to tone it down a little. I like the results. The image and the sentiment are from TCP smells like cake.

I started with that yoyo yellow - never used this color before, btw - as my card base. I used a large piece of chocolate chip and added a strip of dcwv kids' glitter cardstock. I colored my image with sakura glaze, souffle' and glitter pens and copics. The image was stamped with chocolate chip ink. I used my nesties to make the circles, ovals and scallops and my su designer label punch to layer with the sentiment I punched it twice so it would fit around the bigger oval, tricky, huh?). I inked the edges of everything with the coordinating inks and embossed the chocolate oval with my cuttlebug swiss dots folder. Oh - and I tied that ribbon on up in the corner.

I didn't mention yesterday, but we spent Sunday evening in the ER with Kai. He woke up Sunday with a fever of 103. At the time, he said nothing hurt or bothered him, but he just layed around all morning. I gave him some tylenol and got his temp down to around 100. My mom (who was in town) and I went to the store and the boys decided to stay home. When we got back, Kai came and snuggled with me, he was hot again so I gave him more tylenol and held him on my lap the rest of the afternoon. It was like holding a little oven. He was so hot. Later, I asked him again what hurt and he said his belly. So, I asked where and he kind of gestured around his lower belly. So, I pressed on it a little on his right side and he just about jumped out of his skin. So, of course, I'm thinking appendicitis. Well, he jumped a little when I touched his left side, too. But, with the fever being so high, I decided to take him to the er. We were there for 5 1/2 hours. They gave him iv fluids, did an xray, a ct scan and blood and urine tests. They ruled out appendix, hernia (he's had it since birth with no issues yet) and a ut infection, so they thought it must be a virus. Well, he's back at school today with no fever and it must have been a virus, because I'm starting to feel sick. My throat is kind of sore and I'm just getting achey and tired feeling. So, if I'm not around for a while, I'm probably at home sick. But, if you know me, you know I'm here at work until I can't take it anymore.

Happy Monday!

I made this card on Saturday for my daughter. I think this little bunny is so cute. All of my kids love to read.

I used Wild Wasabi, pumpkin pie, real red and making memories blue. The DP is basic grey mellow. I stamped MFT's What's the story bunny and colored her with copics. I added an orange border around the book and little dotty lines to look like print. I also used liquid applique on her tail to make it nice and fluffy. I put her on some grass made with sponged certainly celery, ground cover (made with a stamp from watercolor minis) in wild wasabi and small handdrawn clusters of grass drawn with a garden green marker. The sky was sponged using a scallop punch to mask and bashful blue. The tree is a basic grey die cut. The sentiment is ticket corner punched and the mini buttons were light green, which I colored with a copic so they would match.

Cozy day

It's raining here and dark. I love these kinds of days (as long as I'm inside). It's one of those days when you should be at home in comfy clothes, making jam, bierocks or whatever - baking or cooking something and having some kind of crafting going on. Why am I not doing that right now instead of typing away, you ask? Well, because I'm at work! Yes, that's right, instead of lounging about inside, snuggling under blankets, making goodies, creating wonderful things, I'm stuck at work! What's worse is, our computers are being worked on, so we have to stay logged off the network and can't really do any work. So why are we here?? Because we're getting paid. Maybe it will be like this again tomorrow and I can have my dream day then.

New stamps from starving artists!

There are new stamps at starvingartistamps.com and they are giving away blog candy here: http://starvingartistamps.blogspot.com/

A different kind of bling

My 13 year old son came into my studio the other night as I was finishing a card. "I thought you weren't making cards anymore," he said. "Why would you think that?" I asked. I might have looked at him like he had 3 heads, because I have a lot of stamping stuff, including a few sets that haven't even been inked yet. "Well, I thought you were making jewelry now," He said. "I'm doing both," I told him. "How are you going to do both. You're always in here saying you have to make a card for this person and that person. You're not going to have time to make jewelry, too," he said. I assured him that I would have time for both and him as well, but that if he wanted to spend even more time together, he could give up video games, I'd give up jewelry and we'd spend all our time together stamping. :) I think I'm safe!

Actually, the jewelry goes pretty quickly, at least for me. I made both the above bracelet and the necklace over there in about 45 minutes or so over the holiday weekend.

I didn't do anything last night. I lifted a little bitty box at work, not knowing it had books in it and was very heavy. OUCH! Plus, my little guy had a nap at his new daycare yesterday, so didn't go to sleep well. I was getting very frustrated with him after I'd been up there for almost an hour and a half, putting him back in his bed over and over (it's easier just to stay on the stairs, rather than climb two flights of stairs everytime I have to put him back in bed). Finally, Gage, in one of his better moments, came up and said he was going to bed early. He didn't even say anything about rescuing his poor, sore-bellied mama from the naughty 4 year old. He can be a real sweetie sometimes. I made sure I remembered to thank him this morning.

Blog Bling

OK - I have to admit, when Dragona Skoro (isn't that a cool name?) from htpp://happyinker.blogspot.com left me a comment and told me that she'd left me blog bling on her blog, I had no idea what it even was. But, I'm so excited to get it! So, here's the rules: 1) the winner can put the logo on their blog, 2)link to the person you received the award from, 3) nominate 7 other blogs, 4) put the links to those blogs on your blog, and 5) leave a message on the blog you have nominated. So, here are my nominees"

Well, you know I HAVE to nominate Faith at http://stampinwithmarkiesmom.blogspot.com/blogspot.com/ She is my idol. I love her style. I don't think she's ever done anything that I haven't liked. In addition to her wonderful stamping and tutorials, she always has cute stories about her family and jokes from her sweet son, Markie.

I began visiting Heather Rolin's blog, http://www.hlr976.blogspot.com/ when I started seeing her fabulous stamps on SCS. I finally broke down and ordered some not long ago. In fact, both of today's cards are from Heather's store!

Another blog I try to get a daily dose of is Michelle's at http://zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/ I just love her art. That's right it's art with stamping on top!

A list of my favorite blogs would be incomplete without mentioning Kim's at http://paperintheworks.blogspot.com/ I look at cards a that stand out and try to figure out what elements make it stand out. I find myself doing this a lot with Kim's work.

Next is the Teapot Tuesday queen, Cindy at http://mothermark.blogspot.com/ In addition to this neat challenge every Tuesday, she has magnificent work on her blog. And, she starts each entry with "This is my story". Who doesn't love a good story??

I recently discovered Becky's blog, http://inkingidaho.blogspot.com/ She has all these awesome projects on it! It is a must see!

If you love bright, happy cards, check out Mimi's http://stampinwithmimi.blogspot.com/ Her cards are so vibrant and fun

OK, so on to these 2 cards featuring stamps from Heather Rolin's H&M stamps. I really like the way this one came out. I found this river rock colored dp, so I pulled out my old color combo sheet from last years in colors and found this combo. The card base is mellow moss with a layer of blue bayou topped with the river rock dp. The dot river rock dp is matted with blue bayou and purely pomegranite. I colored the two bears with copics, one with markers a shade darker than the other (he's the boy, don't ya know!). The circle is done with blue bayou and not quite navy ink. The hills, which you can't see mostly, because the bears are so cute and chuby are torn from mellow moss. The circle is matted with purely pomegranite. The moon is inked in barely banana and edged with marigold morning. I sponged on some cloud cover using blue bayou. I used the two su oval punches for the sentiment and then mounted them on dimensionals over some silver hardware. The ribbon is su purely pomegranite. The inside of the card says "And, have a happy anniversary". This is for my mom and dad, who will be celebrating their 41st wedding anniversary this Friday.

I am lucky enough to have had the same best friend since second grade. And, let me assure you that I must have had great taste even back then, because she is just an awesome friend! This card is for her daughter's birthday. I colored the dolphin from H&M's sea life set and the cupcake from MFT's dino-mite set with copics. I added a little glitter to the cupcake, just for fun. The base of the card is made with certainly celery and matted with basic black and basic grey two scoops. The oval is also basic grey 2 scoops, matted with basic black and more 2 scoops. All the ovals were cut with my nesties. I stamped the sentiment on 2 scoops, put it inside some silver hardware and matted it with basic black cut with my nesties. The ribbon is from walmart. I colored a light green prima with a copic to get the color I wanted, added white polka dots to the pink prima and topped them with a teal prima and a pink dew drop. I added white and black dots ala Markie's mom to finish the card off.