A Berry Special Friend

I finally had a chance to stamp this weekend!! It felt so good after a couple of weeks break. I made this card for MFT's One Click Challenge. The challenge was to use gingham. I just got this new MFT set in the mail - Feelin Fruity - and wanted to get it inky.
I used a couple of techniques, but you can't really get a good look at them. For the berry on the left, I coloured it with my copics, and then put some blender solution on a rag and blotted the berry. The texture from the rag (washcloth) transferred to the berry. For the berry on the right, I coloured it with my copics, then ran it through my Cuttlebug with the swiss dots folder. Then I touched my blender to each raised bump to remove some of the colour. Then I coated them both with Crystal Effects. You can really see the detail in person but it's lost in the picture. Alrighty friends - I'm off to bed! Have a great week!

For Sale!

I need to make some room in my stamping area and have some Stampin Up sets for sale (if you click on the name of the stamp set it will take you to the set gallery over at Splitcoast so you can see pictures and examples).

Best Bar Codes $5
Crab & Company $12
Friendship Flowers $12
Mixed Bouquet $15
Petal Prints $15
Simple Sayings II $5
Terrific Tags $10
Tags So Much $10

Small and Large SU tag punches $15 each
(take both tag sets and both punches for $40)

Very Punny $7 (sayings mounted on sides of blocks)
Buyer pays shipping. I am in Canada, but am soon going to the US and can ship from within the US if you wish. Contact me and we can work out the details. If you're local to me I'll deliver!
Leave a comment or email me if you're interested! Thanks for looking!

Javabella Birthday

Hello there!! Remember me? I finally made myself stamp the other day. Mainly because I needed a birthday card for a close friend, and a store bought one or one out of my stash just wouldn't do! My friend and I share a love of coffee - so Javabellas seemed totally appropriate. I used some Amy Butler paper (my friend loves Amy Butler fabric!) and some pretty trim I picked up a while ago. I was originally going to put the trim behind the image, but just couldn't bring myself to do it. I think it looks o.k. over the image - or am I totally out of touch??

Anyways, my best friend was here visiting from Calgary all week and we had a blast! I finally got to see the Harry Potter movie (loved it!) and got the house put back together again. Next time I'll show you pics of what we got accomplished on my blogging break!! Have a great one!

FYI

Just wanted you to know I'm taking a bit of a blog break as we try and get some stuff done around the house. Hubby is off on holiday but it's a working holiday! We've already pulled up our patio and relaid it - doubled its size (whew - I'm sore!!). Now we're painting a couple of rooms! Hopefully I'll have something to post next week! Have a good one friends!

Top Note Rag Quilt

Here's another Stampin Up only card I made last week. I've been seeing all these incredible quilt cards and wanted to try my hand. Not sure if you remember this card - where I made a rag quilt for my card - so I decided to try it again for this technique. I used a square punch to make my squares and then used the distressing tool to rough up all 4 edges. I then adhered them to another piece of cardstock butting them up so they were touching. I then ran my completed piece through my Cuttlebug with the top note die and distressed around the edges of the shape as well. The cardstock doesn't distress nearly as well as the designer series paper, but I didn't have any current paper to use. It still looks good though - although most of the texture is lost in the picture.

Well we had a busy weekend - hubby and I were away in Portland, OR while my mother in law stayed with our kids. It was packed full of great times though. Hope you're having a great week! Later taters!

Lockhart Sympathy

One of my best friends recently lost someone very close to her and she asked me to make a sympathy card for the family. Although this might not seem like a typical sympathy image, it actually totally fit the occasion and the sentiment. The colours were chosen to match a small gift that accompanied the card.
The paper is BoBunny and the sentiment is from Papertrey (Out on a Limb - original version).

Hope you're having a great week! I've been busy doing some contract work and haven't had as much time lately to stamp. Hopefully I'll be able to sneak down to my stamps soon! Later taters!

July One Click Challenge

Well it was that time of month again - oops - not THAT time of month! Time for the one click challenge over at My Favorite Things. We were challenged to make something summery using polka dots and flowers. I decided to make a card for my brother who is getting married this summer. The wedding is very casual - they've rented a group campsite and are getting married there - so I wanted the card to match the occasion. The bride is going to carry daisies, so I decided to use that as my jumping off point.

I also decided to make a ring pillow. My future sister in law has a 5 year old daughter who will be carrying the rings, so I thought it might come in handy. The pillow is just plain muslin, stamped with a polka dot background stamp and embellished with some stamped paper flowers.

The card was made with MFT's Congrats All Around set - one that I won by participating in VSN over on Splitcoast stampers. I stamped in Versamark and embossed with silver embossing powder. The patterned paper is from Scenic Route's Sonoma line.

Well that's it for me! Hope all my American friends have a happy, safe 4th of July!!

5th Avenue Flower Pot

I've been wanting to make one of these flower pot cards for a while now - ever since they started popping up on blogs about a month ago. I finally had a chance to sit down and make one. I used Close to Cocoa cardstock and stamped it with the Sanded background in Chocolate chip ink.

I stamped the flowers from 5th Avenue Floral in black craft ink and used clear embossing powder. I watercoloured them using my ink pads - regal rose/rose red, so saffron, baja blue. I cut each one out and added some leaves cut using the little leaves sizzlet.

I love that this card is a little different, yet still fits in a standard envelope. Thanks for stopping by - I appreciate each and every one of you! Later taters!

Bella Birthday Blog Skip, Hop & Dance!!

Welcome to the Birthday Blog Skip, Hop & Dance sponsored by Stamping Bella! If you've just happened upon my blog, you can CLICK HERE to start from the beginning at Bloggabella.

While this hop is in honor of Em's birthday, my mother in law's birthday is Friday and I needed to create a gift for her. I decided to create some note cards for her (again inspired by Michelle Wooderson). I used Lauren's Desk Top Organizer from My Timeless Templates by Papertrey Ink. Here's the set:


For the card, I used Rumor Girls (Jamie/jaymerz made me get them!) - they are just so darn cute! Inside the card it reads "You're having a birthday". I layered a Label 1 nestie on top of the top note die and used some Basic Grey Urban Prairie paper.

The desktop organizer is made using Kiwi Kiss and Regal Rose cardstock and some more of the same Basic Grey paper.
Each card is a quarter sheet of Regal Rose cardstock. I tried to use the Bellas/Bugs that best suited my mother in law. There's a couple of each design included in the organizer.




And there you have it - hope my mother in law likes it! Hope you like it?

Thanks so much for stopping by! Now it's time to hop on over to LAURA'S. Have a great day!

Hey wait!! Before you go.....

How about a prize? In addition to the fabulous eye candy, we have decided to hide a prize somewhere along the hop! One pre-selected blogger will draw a random winner from the comments on her post, and the winner will receive a $40 Gift Voucher to Stamping Bella!!! The fun part is...we're not telling you who it is! So as you hop, make sure you leave comments on every post so you have a chance to win!! We will announce the winner on Monday in the Splitcoast forum. MWAH!

Teacher Gifts

I apologize that this post is a little picture heavy but I wanted to show you what I made for my son`s teachers this year.

This is the card I made (gasp - I made the same one for each teacher!) using MFT`s new Teacher Label set. I paired it with some old patterned paper scraps (Basic Grey and Karen Foster) and some old ribbon (soft sky) and a button. I think they turned out super cute!


I ordered the Take Along Tote template from Papertrey Ink and decided to stuff it with movie snacks and a movie theatre gift certificate. So the outer pockets each have a bag of microwave popcorn, and the inner pocket has movie candy. I also created a card pocket for the card itself which also contained the gift card.

I made the first set using that same Basic Grey paper and the MFT Teacher Label set.

I decided to mix it up a bit for the second (and also because I needed to create something that was Stampin`Up only - lol!). I paired images from the And Many Mower set with So Saffron, Regal Rose and Parisian Breeze paper.






So there you have it! Hope they like them!

Hey guess what....there`s a Bella Blog hop on Thursday and I`m participating! Can`t wait to show you my Stamping Bella project in honour Em`s birthday (THE Stamping Bella!). See you then!

Father's Day Grilling

This is the Father's Day card I made for my hubby. I think I might have mentioned before that we own a couple of Barbecue stores, so I was over the moon when I saw this new set from My Favorite Things (Who's That Grillin' Guy). I paper pieced his apron and used Amy's tutorial to create the charcoal. The rest is pretty self explanatory - but let me know if you have any questions.

I also saw this idea on Kimberly Crawford's blog last week and couldn't wait to whip some up. I sent most of the batch to work with my hubby, and kept some for us. They were a big hit and super easy to make - my kids had a blast helping me. They are made out of Nilla wafers and other various ingredients. They are SUPER sweet!

Hope you had a wonderful weekend friends! I'll check back with you later in the week with my teacher gifts! Later taters!

Classmate goodies!

I whipped these up the other day for my son's classmates. Up here we're still in school - last day is on Thursday the 25th. Nothing says summer to me like Kool Aid does! I made these pockets by cutting cardstock to 4.25" x 8". Then I scored the long side at 2.5" and folded the cardstock. I laid the cardstock on the Top Note Die, with the fold not quite touching the bottom of the die and ran it through. I punched the folded edge with the scallop edge punch and adhered the two sides together. The fruit stamps are from the Tart and Tangy set and the sentiment is from And Many Mower. I coloured the inside of the Relax with my white gel pen. I think these turned out totally cute!
Hope you have a great weekend and have a wonderful time celebrating Father's Day! On Sunday I'll show you my Father's Day card! Later taters!!

Good Moms....

This was another of my VSN cards from last month. I bought this cute set while I was visiting Calgary - from a company called Darcies. I fell in love with it, even though it was a bit more than I usually spend on a set. I think the challenge this card was created for was that you had to make a card that was related to food. I believe I used a sketch from one of the sketch challenges over at Splitcoast. The paper is from MFT and the sentiment reads - Good Moms let you lick the beaters.... and the inside reads - Great Moms turn the mixer off first! Love that sentiment!

Anywho! Just a short post as we're just back from a carnival at ds's school and I need to squeek some of my contract work in before bed! I'll be back soon to show you the amazing RAK I received from my friend Kathy!

Baja in my Pocket!

This was one of the cards I made for VSN a couple of weeks ago over at Splitcoast Stampers. We were given a sketch (which I promptly flipped) and 45 mins. to create a card. I stamped the images from Pocket Silhouettes directly onto the Parisian Breeze designer paper for some added interest. I used the Polka Dot background stamp in Baja Breeze on the Kraft cardstock, and I selectively inked the sentiment so that I could fit it onto my panel. Pretty simple - it needed to be for under 45 mins.
Hope you had a wonderful weekend! We're super busy here - lots of school stuff going on before we wrap up at the end of June, and lots of summer planning! Later taters!

One Click Name Frame

I can't believe it's new release time again over at MFT! From the sneak peeks I see that they're releasing a Who's That Guy set all about grilling, or barbecuing as us Canucks refer to it! That excites me since we are part owners of 4 bbq stores - these stamps will definitely be right up my alley!

MFT runs a contest right before the release giving someone the chance to win the entire release. This month the challenge was to use chipboard. I had these Basic Grey alphabet pieces in my stash and decided to get a head start on a birthday gift for my daughter's best friend.

I coloured the chipboard using craft white ink and then covered it in clear embossing powder (it was taking too long to dry and I was impatient!). The paper is from Cosmo Cricket (Girl Friday collection). I cased my friend Kathy's idea to make poppies out of the circles from the Build a Bouquet set.

I stamped the grass from the Hooga Booga set repeatedly and cut it out twice. I stamped and cut out Isabelle and stamped a second layer to her tutu on vellum. The bunny is also stamped on vellum - he was facing the wrong way, so I stamped him coloured him, and flipped him over. I touched him up with a black marker, and he's now looking in the right direction! The butterflies were stamped, coloured, and cut out. I embossed them with irridescent ice embossing powder so they are all glittery and pretty! They're each two layers with the top layer folded up for dimension.

Hope Paige likes it! Oh, the frame was originally fake wood ($5 at Walmart) but I spray painted it white to match. Have a goodie!