Cased Cards!

I've been feeling less than creative these days but needed a couple of cards. So I resorted to shamelessly caseing some very talented stampers. I'm hoping it will jump start something!

This first card is based on this one by Kristina Werner. I happened to have the same stamp so it appealed to me. I know - who am I kidding? I only changed the color scheme and the sentiment - I used my quickutz alphabet for it.


This second one was based on this card by Mercy Kerin. Again, pretty much the same card except for the colour scheme and sentiment. Oh and I left the knot off the ribbon!


Anyway, I hate to case so literally but both cards were awesome and I needed a boost. I have managed to do a couple of sketch cards since these, so maybe it worked! Thanks to Kristina and Mercy for their amazing designs!

MFT Idol - Judges Entry Week 7

One of my good friends ordered a bunch of cards for me and I've been busy working on them. I must say that it feels good to stamp just for the fun of it - no pressure! This week's idol challenge was "frame it". I decided since I was doing a card with an MFT image anyway, I might as well enter. I made a ribbon frame using the tutorial from the technique challenge. The paper is SU's Parisian Breeze and the layout is from the Weekend Sketch challenge (I love sketch challenges!).

Hope you had a great weekend! I was very productive - purged a ton of stuff - it's that spring cleaning urge setting in!! Later taters!

Bellarific!!

Hello girlies!! I made this card for Bellarific Friday - our inspiration piece was pink and brown. I pulled out my new Wendy Papillion and paired her with some Basic Grey Bittersweet paper. I used Jen del Muro's sketch for you to try for the layout. The ribbon rose was made from a tutorial I found while blurfing one day - here it is - it's a video and very easy to follow!

I've actually had a bellarific day today! My son is off school today for a PA day and we met some friends at a new indoor playground. It was fantastic! I treated the kids to lunch and we did some errands as well. As soon as my daughter gets up, we're heading outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. I've finally managed to kick the bear of a headache I've had for the last couple of days. And I'm finished moping about not moving on in the MFT idol contest. Life is good and God is great!! Thanks for reading friends!!

MFT Idol Week 5 One Layer Card

Edited to add: HERE is the link to the voting thread!!

I had such a hard time deciding what to do for this week's MFT Idol contest. Our challenge was to make a one layer card using only MFT stamps (of course!). Way back in January I made this one layer card for the MFT guest designer contest (and won an ambassador spot with it!) so I felt like I had used up all my one layer ideas!

I decided to play with the MFT digital paper packs and see what I could come up with. Here is the card I ended up creating - it took a little playing to get it right - but I did all my work in Microsoft Word (I lost my Photoshop when we upgraded to Vista!).


I thought that I would maybe post some screen shots here so you could see how I went about it - in case you want to try it for yourself! Jody Morrow created some awesome tutorials on how to purchase, download, locate, open and print the papers using only the document viewer (I linked you to the first one, but there's quite a few of them in that same forum). But since we were limited to one layer, I needed to make a few adjustments.

First I opened a new document in Word, then I used the Insert Picture command and selected my digital paper (they are downloaded as jpegs), in this case one of the papers from the Spring pack. I reduced the margins on my Word document as low as I could and stretched the paper out by grabbing the corner and dragging. Once I decided on my card size (6" x 4.5") and orientation, I was able to determine where to drop my boxes. To make the boxes, I simply used the text box tool and drew a box on top of the paper image. I then adjusted the size of the box (to 1.5") and copied and pasted it twice so I'd have 3 identical boxes. I lined up the boxes by using the rulers on the top and left sides.

Once I had my text boxes placed where I wanted them, I decided that instead of having black outlines, I wanted them to have coloured borders so it would look like my boxes were layered onto cardstock. By right clicking on my box, I was able to select Format Text Box which is shown below. I changed the line to a weight of 6 pt. and changed the colour. For the colour, I wanted to use SU's Pumpkin Pie, so I grabbed the RGB code for Pumpkin Pie off of Splitcoast (in the downloads forum) and selected my custom colour for the line.
Once I printed off my paper, I trimmed it down to size. I then used Eclipse masking strips (so much better than post-its!) to mask around the squares so I could stamp my Hooga Boogas in the squares. I coloured them, sponged the edges of the card and outlined the boxes with a W3 copic. I decided to take advantage of the paper's striped design and weave some ribbon. I made small slits in the border of the stripes and fed the ribbon through. I think the rest is fairly self-explanatory, but shoot me an email if you have any questions!

Sorry for the epic post, but I thought there might be people who didn't know that they could use Word with their digital paper packs.

So as always, voting opens tonight at 10pm and remains open until Wed. at 10pm EST. Would you consider voting for me? I'll come back tonight and edit with the link to the voting thread! Thanks for all your kind comments and support! It really means the world to me!

Rumor has it.....

Isn't this just the sweetest image? Jamie made me get it - after I saw this awesome card of hers. And what do you know - guess who is the featured stamper over on Splitcoast today? Jamie!! Yippee girl - so happy for you!

I actually made this card as a thank you for some blog candy I won to Stamping Bella from another amazing stamper - Joanne Basile (the inside reads "You're simply sweet. Thanks a million"). I used the layout from the Weekend Sketch Challenge 77 and made my card a tad bit bigger than normal - 4.5" x 6". I actually have a ton of envelopes in this size to use up so it all works! The paper is Bo Bunny and I just adore the colour combo in it. Well that's it for me! I'll be back Tuesday with my MFT Idol card! Have a great Sunday friends!

Still Alive!!

I am still alive, just recovering from traveling to Calgary (by myself with NO kids!!) over the Easter weekend and a stomach bug. I haven't stamped much lately since we were given a week off of MFT Idol and I took that to heart. I'm back at it now, our assignment for this week is to make a one layer card (OLC). Just to clarify - that's one layer of paper - one layer only!!! I've been playing with a couple of ideas - just need to see which one works best. I'll post my project on Tuesday in hopes of moving on to the next week!

In the meantime, I wanted to pass on a link that my son and I have been enjoying. This blog is not stamping related - it's a guy with a passion for photography and Lego, who takes a picture everyday of something Lego related. He's also got a great sense of humour, I enjoy the captions as much as his set up and photography. I have no affiliation, just stumbled upon his blog and we check it regularly.

Hopefully I'll be back tomorrow with a card! I've been inking up my new Bugs and ChiChis from Stamping Bella and I got an awesome new set in Calgary that I can't wait to use! Later taters!!

MFT Idol Week 4

This week's challenge for the MFT Idol contest was to use the set Build a Bouquet (that Kim so generously gifted us) and make only a card. In a way it was a relief not to have to come up with a whole project, but at the same time, hard to come up with an idea for an outstanding card.

I have been loving playing with fabric lately (I swear it was sitting next to Sherrie Siemens at copic certification!) so I decided to use the second smallest circle in the set to stamp on muslin. I used various shades of green for visual interest. I then used this tutorial to give the circles a finished edge, and stitched them together with yellow embroidery floss.

Each circle is stuffed with batting to make it puffy and 3-d. I used the smallest stem in the set to stamp some antennae and circle punches to make his eyes and antennae tips. I just free hand cut his legs. I made the grass by repeatedly stamping the grass from Hooga Booga in Kiwi Kiss ink on Kiwi Kiss cardstock and then cutting it out. I did that twice and layered the two pieces for depth (the caterpillar is in between the two layers). They're also sponged with Kiwi Kiss ink along the bottom. I used the largest circle in the set to stamp a sun in So Saffron and sponged around the edges with More Mustard.
I also used the various flowers from the set and stamped them in Pretty in Pink and So Saffron inks onto the designer series paper, also in Pretty and Pink and So Saffron. I cut them all out and layered them onto each other. I used buttons threaded with the same yellow embroidery floss for the flower centres. The stems and leaves were stamped onto Kiwi Kiss cardstock with Kiwi Kiss ink and cut out as well.
The background paper is Parisian Breeze and is sponged around the edges with Baja Breeze ink. It's layered onto a So Saffron panel and a Kiwi Kiss card base. The finished card measures 4" x 8".

So....what do you think? As always, I would love it if you would consider voting for me. There are seven of us left and the person with the least amount of votes will not continue on in the contest. Voting opens Tues. at 10pm EST and remains open until Wed. at 10pm EST. I will edit this post tonight with the link to the voting thread. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Bad Blue Dog!!

Happy Sunday morning to you!! Just a quick post before I have to leave for Church. I've been feeling a little guilty about really only posting for MFT Idol, but truthfully I didn't expect how much time and effort this contest would take! I haven't done much stamping outside of it, but am going to make more of an effort as I miss stamping just for the fun of it!

I made this card a little while ago. I actually made it for a sketch challenge going on over at the Our Craft Lounge forum but never got it posted in time for the deadline. I picked my paper and colour scheme first and then was stuck on what colour to make the dog. I guess I must have been feeling a little goofy, because I remembered all the Blues Clues we watched when my son was younger. So I made Pat the Bad Dog into Blue the Bad Dog. The paper is Basic Grey Marrakech paired with Pacific Point and Tangerine Tango.

Well, I'm off to start my day. I need to work on this week's MFT Idol entry - we were assigned to use the set Build A Bouquet and make only a card. I'll be back Tuesday to show you what I came up with! Have a great week peeps!! I appreciate each and every one of you who come here to read and comment!!