Lazy Days at the Beach With The Cutest Kids!

Sorry I've been missing in action. I just returned yesterday from a couple of wonderful days at the beach. A co-worker friend of mine and fellow stamper girl, invited me and my kids to join her and her kids for a couple days of fun in the sun at Ocean City NJ. We had beautiful weather, great conversation, and five happy kiddos. We hung out all day at the beach watching all the kids, but my youngest, go in and out of the water. My youngest would not venture off of the blanket. Maybe next year...


















My friend's daughter is an aspiring young stamper. She's eleven and creates the cutest cards! Her mother brought along one such card to share with me. I forgot to take a picture of it but I did my best to recreate it so you can see her creativity! Of course hers looked way cuter than mine.

For this card I used:
Summer picnic designer series paper, Old Olive, Real Red, Bashful Blue, and Whisper White cardstock
Warm Words stamp set, Real Red ink, and Theater ribbon originals

Our Daughter, the Dancer

I bought this stamp set long ago with the intent to use it for scrapbooking pages for my daughter. She has been taking dance lessons for three years now and this is the first time the rubber from this set has come into any kind of contact with ink! Today is her recital and I sat down last night and created this little number for her. Again, I am using my new love....Basic Gray cardstock and ink.

(More on this later... the little ones want to eat...)

I am back after a spaghetti and meatball lunch break for the kiddos and me too!

Now back to the card. I decided to color in the image to brighten it up a bit. I thought I should blend in make some brown legs on this one to make it a closer image to my daughter. She appreciates and notices the brown. She comments if ever I forget. She keeps me correct:-) I tried to keep it simple and use my paper piercing tool to make little holes along the edge of the center image. I am pretty happy with the way it turned out. I hope she likes it.
Stamp sets: En Pointe and Warm Words
Ink: Regal Rose, Basic Bray, Creamy Caramel
Cardstock: Kraft, Basic Gray, and Regal Rose
Accessories: Regal Rose Grosgrain

A Card for Christopher

My nephew is being Christened today, 2-1/2 hours away from us in Maryland. He is my husband's very first nephew on his side of the family so it is an exciting time in our household. Unfortunately we are not all able to attend. Today is also my daughter's dance recital this evening. We decided my husband would travel to Maryland while I stayed home with the little ones for our daughter's recital. Here is the card I quickly stamped for him last night. I believe I saw a card similar to this one on another blog. If you know who's .... drop me a comment and I will add their info. It was quick and easy. In my life... quick and easy is a good thing when it comes to stamping cards:-)



Stamp sets: Wild About You and Warm Words
Cardstock: Bashful Blue prints paper, Whisper White cardstock, and Basic Gray
Ink: Bashful Blue, Basic Grey
Accessories: Silver Hodgepodge, Bashful Blue grosgrain ribbon

I am loving the Basic Gray cardstock and ink. It adds a nice layer and color to any card. This and a little ribbon gets the job done!

Teacher Gifts

I decided to do something quick, easy, and useful for my daughter's first grade teacher. I made some of these before in a class and they got rave reviews. I had my daughter ask her teacher her favorite color before putting them together. I made a set of 10, put a celery grosgrain ribbon around them, a scallop tag on the ribbon, and placed them in this plastic case (compliments of my secret stamper) and whalla, a gift set was created. My daughter is taking it in today. I hope her teacher likes them.

I had some scraps left over so I decided to use them for the thank you card for her teacher. My daughter had a great year with a wonderful teacher so I though we'd take a moment to tell her so. I wrote my thanks on the upper half of the inside and my daughter wrote hers on the bottom half of the inside card. As a teacher myself, I know how much words are appreciated when they come from students and parents. Remember to thank your kids teachers. It takes a lot of patience, creativity, flexibility, and energy to teach and motivate the minds of our young ones, so remember to say, "Thank you."
Thanks for looking

More Father's Day Cards

Here are more Father's Day cards for the men in our lives. This is probably the most I've used the Wanted stamp set since I got it at convention. I wasn't really a fan of it but it really comes in handy for making a masculine card. Now I am really glad that I own it. I'm lovin' the horse. He really adds a special touch to a card.
I used the All Year Cheer stamp set for both of these cards as that remains my favorite Father's Day wording stamp. These cards also use the new Dad stamp set...can't recall the name. In fact all of my cards use this stamp set. Another great purchase that came in handy for this time of year.
Card recipe: Basic grey, Basic Black, and Going grey cardstock. Basic black ink, vintage brads (using up my silver diamonds),Black hemp twine.
Thanks for looking.

Happy Father's Day!

In honor of Father's Day I have a few cards that I'd like to share. I created this first one by casing it right out of the Stampin' Success. I made it for my hubby. I hope he likes it. My two oldest kids wrote a note of thanks on the tags. My next in line ditctated his thank you and then for the little one I read into his inner most thoughts and extracted what I thought he would thank his dad for if he could articulate it. My daughter had the most fun with this. After doing this she set off to her crafty area to design her own personal card for her dad. I will take a picture of hers to share soon.
I had so much fun creating this. The hardest part was finding pictures to put in it. I originally planned to take new photos but the moment never made itself available to me so I had to make do!






















On this last page the children are going to write favorite things about their dad. This should prove interesting. I'm hoping my husband gets a kick out of it.

Lovin' the Tassels

I made this card last year for one of my stamp a stacks. At the time I had no one to give it to so away it went in my stash of cards. The opportunity to put it to good use came this year. I decided to pull it out and use it for my step-sister who is graduating from high school. I remember this card being lots of fun to create. My customers also enjoyed making it. One smart thing I did last year was to leave out the year until I knew who it was going to be for. So glad I did that!

Card recipe:
Tassel Time, Itty Bitty backgrounds, and quirky numbers stamp set, tempting turquoise, glossy white, whisper white, and basic black cardstock, black grosgrain ribbon, white crayon, sponge, and basic black ink.
I am in need of some new number and alpha stamp sets. I think I currently only own retired ones BUT I still LOVE them!!!

A Tassel with Little Hassel

Woohoo! My step-son graduated today from 8th grade! His school colors are blue and yellow so in his honor I created this "very quick," card to celebrate his accomplishments. We are so proud of him. He is a wonderful son and a fantastic big brother to his 3 younger siblings. They adore him and he them.
I figured a card with lots of thrills and frills would not be neccesary for a fourteen year old boy so I kept it simple.

Card recipe
Tassel time stamp set, Brilliant blue, Whisper white, and Yoyo yellow cardstock, brads, nd white grosgrain ribbon.

I've Been So Busy

I've been so busy lately that I haven't had time to stamp and therefore nothing to upload. This is the end of the school year for me. Not only am I a mom, a wife, and a Stampin' Up! demonstrator but a teacher too! I am a Literacy Specialist for kids in Kindergarten, first and second grades. So this time of year finds me finishing testing, writing progress reports and coming home super tired. I am counting down my last 3 days. Woohoo! Then I plan to stamp away so keep a close eye on my blog and updates will become more regular. I am so looking forward to days home with the kids and soon the count down will begin for days until I leave for Stampin' Up!'s convention in Utah. I am extremely excited about THAT! Are you going?

Some Talented Stampers

Here the make and takes prepared by some of the ladies I stamp with. These designs are either their very own creations or inspired by something they've seen on the web. I'm posting them to spread the inspiration to you. These cards were so much fun to stamp and are all so cute! I am sure you will agree. Enjoy!!!


















This fabulous Father's Day card with the origami shirt was a breeze to create. It looks more complicated than it really is. Last year Cambria made a tutorial on this. You can find her blog here: http://cambriaturnbow.blogspot.com/index.html
Check her out. She is a very talented stamper.

It's in The Bag!

This weekend my upline's upline had her annual downline breakfast feast...I mean meeting. She usually has it outside on her beautiful wrap around porch but the weather here in the northeast is really heating up so she held it indoors. When I arrived there was no one outside so I thought I had the wrong day. You don't know how much I looked forward to every stamping event in my life. What did I do before stamps? Did I exist.... and was I happy. Well let's not look back.
Any way on to the story. I peeked in her door and saw no one. I decided to ring the bell anyway and to my elation Donna, one of my stamping friends opened the door and I kew everything was going to be alright. After I found a spot at the table and put my things for the make and take I brought down on the table I went to get myself a drink. ( Gotta go, I will finish this story later. We are off to the movies.)


We are back!!! Went to see the new Panda Kung Fu movie. The kids loved it and I laughed out loud several times. A very good movie to see. Everyone is in bed now so I can finish my story...

After I got some Orange juice and spoke with some friends I then returned to my spot. When I got there I found this bright red bag sitting in my space. It read...Do not open until you get home. You guessed it. A treat from my secret stamper. She did this right under my nose and didn't see a thing. I am one of those people that don't miss too much but I must say...she's good!
Well, yesterday was an extremely busy day that I did not get to my pretty red bag until this morning. Below you will find the beautiful cards that were in the bag inside of a plastic case. These are some really cool cards. They have lots of peeks and pops to them. Somebody took a bit of time to create them. Check out the window punch where the flowers peek through and the cool use of the grosgrain ribbon adding a nice element to the card. The hard part for me will be deciding who to send them to. I have been so lucky with my secret stamper. She's been great! I have felt very special each month with all the special surprises that have come my way. Thanks to you, my secret stamper.

Golden Grads

I got to use one of my favorite retired stamp sets yet again! I just love, love, love this stamp set, especially for this time of year. It has everything you need to create the perfect card for the grad in your life. Not too long ago I created a card for a graduation announcement card for a customers daughter. She sent them out and then I received a call from a friend of hers asking me to create announcements for her young graduate. Well, I got busy creating cards with a black and gold theme as those are the school colors for this particular young graduate. It may be hard for the gold to shine through but it is the brushed gold cardstock. It looks better in person and of course a touch of ribbon makes everything just fabulous! For the card with the faux scallops I will center my circles better around the square....if she chooses that one. That was the only tricky part. Now, to email her copies so she can make her decision. I'll let you know which she chooses but feel free to comment and let me know which you would choose. I enjoy hearing what everyone has to say so please.....have your say.



































Each card uses:
Tassel Time stamp set
Wonderful Words stamp set
All Year Cheer Stamp set
Snap n' Stamp numbers (non SU!)
Black StazOn ink
Accessories: Sheer Black ribbon, Black brads, 3/4" circle punch, and large oval punch


I'm not sure if a picture will go inside. I am waiting to hear back from my customer. Which envelope would you use? White too bright. Perhaps Very Vanilla envelopes will do! Too bad SU! doesn't sell gold envelopes anymore:-(

Thinking Brown with a side of Prints

I am in a brown mood today so I decided to create a couple of cards to reflect just that! I also seem to be in a "baby," mood. No, I am not expecting a bundle of my own but just wanted to create a baby card for fun. I have about 5 colleagues who are expecting so I am sure I will get to use it in the near future. For this card I went into my archive of retired stamp sets and pulled back out the I'm Here stamp set. Not too long ago I used this set for a baby announcement I created with one of my expectant colleagues. I also used chocolate chip cardstock and ink, bashful blue cardstock and print paper, along with whisper white. I also came across my brown satin ribbon from the holiday mini that I never used. Well, no better time than the present! I really like the look of the ribbon. Liked it so much that I deceided to create another card in the brown family with the theme of Fathers.




This card was inspired by Kristina's card you can find at her blog here: www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/ . She is so creative. I tried to file the print paper on the f. The effect from the photo creates the impression that the f is a bit crooked. It really isn't, it's my filing that is crooked but I feel that, that adds to the uniqueness of the card. I hope you enjoy my cards. Thanks for looking.