Stamping with Friends

Last weekend I got together with five friends who love to stamp as much as I do. We each designed a card, cut enough for 5 others to make it, brought the needed supplies and got together at my friend, Sam's house. I guess one might say we had a "Shoebox Swap." Usually when I get together with this set of friends I design the cards and prepare for everyone so this was a nice change of pace. It was so much easier to just get together what I needed for one card. I left my house with ONE bag. Nice.....

When I got to Sam's house we had lunch. Any meal at Sam's is always a yummy experience for my mouth. She made a tasty salad, a delicious ham and pineapple quiche. Who knew those two ingredients worked so well together. She also made dessert!!!! Super soft brownies with walnuts mixed in and covered in chocolate icing!!!! Yum, yum, yum. I think I ate more than one...I'm actually pretty sure I did.




We started the afternoon with the host. My friend Sam hosted our get together and here is her adorable card. She made this cute trifold birthday card that we fell in love with instantly.

My card was up next. I shared the owl card that I used the weekend before at a kids party that I did. The difference here is that I didn't pre-punch everything like I did the kids.


This lovely card is from Lori. We were loving this butterfly. It was so much fun to make and reminded us of Spring.



Up next is Vanessa's sparkling card. She used one of my favorite stamp sets, Crazy for Cupcakes. Each year she designs a birthday card and it becomes her card of the year. Super cute right? So if your birthday is coming up this just may be the beautiful card you'll see in the mail. We LOVED her Stickles. Who doesn't love some sparkle?


We moved right along to Marie's fun and super cute card. I LOVE green and I LOVE ribbon...especially in brown. These are two of my favorite colors. Marie used Trendy Trees for her card. She taught us how to stamp the tops of the trees perfectly by stamping center first and then slightly moving the stamp to the right, stamp it, then move slightly to the left, stamp it and whalla you get a perfect tree. Since it is hard to center the trees without a stamp a majig this is sure fire way to get perfect trees every time. Thanks so much Marie. We had lots of "Wow"s" while stamping your card.


We ended the afternoon with Karen's fancy Father's Day card. This is usually the hardest occasion for me to create a card for and Karen did the hard work for all of us for this year. We all adored the the handsome tux on the cover...how cute is that?

We had such a wonderful time together having a yummy lunch, chatting, and stamping super cute cards to add to our stash. I can't wait to get together and do it again.

A Stylish Blogger Award!

Thanks so much! What a nice surprise. I want to thank Kim Warne for this exciting award. Thanks for thinking enough of my blog to nominate me for this special treat.

Okay, so upon getting this award I am supposed to do a few things. I am suppose to share 8 things about myself....I can do that easily...I think :-)
1). I am a mom to four really smart, amazing and very busy kids ranging in age from 4 to 17. (Of course I'm not biased:-) Oh, and did I forget to mention cute too?
2). I have a wonderful husband who will do almost anything I "tell" him to do:-)
3).I am a teacher, have been for 20 years...did I just say that out loud? I've taught first and second grades for 6 years each, and now I am currently a Literacy Specialist for grades K-2 and loving it! (Most days).
4). I enjoy all sorts of music from Florence and the Machine, to Kenny Rogers, to Beyonce, Rihanna, John Legend, Katy Perry, The Black Eye Peas, Colbie Callat, Jennifer Hudson, Fantasia, to Jay-Z, Anna Nalick, and more.
5). I always have a book on hand to read...when the opportunity presents itself:-)
6). I LOVE watching Y&R. I DVR it to watch nightly. It's a great way to unwind from my busy day.
7). I LOVE Oprah....I am dying to go to a taping before she is off the air :-(
8). Of course I LOVE stamping and being a Stampin' Up demonstrator. Convention is my favorite time of year.

That was harder than I thought it would be...

Now, I am suppose to select 8 blogs to pass this award on to. This is the hardest part because there are soooo many wonderful blogs out there full of super duper talent. How can I judge art.....to put it simply, I can't.

So.... I nominate this award to all of the blogs out their in bloggersville. Keep stamping and keep blogging because I LOVE peeking in and being impressed EVERYDAY!!!!

From Remnants to Cards

Do you find that after a workshop or a card class you have lots of card kits left? Well, I do. I guess I over cut and then have lots of left over pieces. I'm trying to be better about creating cards from my remnants to have as a card stash for when an occasion creeps up on me, and they usually do more often than I'd like to admit. I am the last minute stamper! To combat this I sat down over the long Presidents weekend and stamped away until there weren't any remnants to be found. I think I ended up with about 16 cards to put in reserve. I am feeling good and my stamping area is looking a lot better too!

Both of the above cards are very similar to recent posts. You can scroll down to find the details.

Thanks for stopping by, now go stamp something!

A Boy's World!

Here's another card using the festive Celebrations designer series paper. I am really loving this paper. It's bold, colorful, and it is great for birthday cards for kids. I teamed it up with the Extreme Skateboard stamp. I teamed these two up a couple weeks ago for a card and thought I'd do it again. I think this stamp along with the surfer one are the my two go to's for stamping boys cards. My son took this card along with a gift to his friends birthday party.

Thanks for stopping by, now go stamp something.

3 Cards for A Party

Okay, so YES, I know Valentine's Day is over but I just had to share this card. This is one of the cards that we made last weekend and by we, I mean 11 little stampers ranging in age from 7-9. There was also a super cute and very attentive 3 yr. old:-) Her grandmother stayed nearby and helped her through each step. LOVED HER!!!
Last weekend I was the entertainment for a seven year old's birthday party. I enlisted the assistance of my ten year old. I am so glad I did. She was so very helpful and patient as always. The girls were all so cute and fun to stamp with. We stamped 3 easy cards. I tried to simplify everything from pre cutting the scalloped edges, to pre-tying the ribbon, pre punching the owl, the tree, and more. I used colors that were faves of the birthday girl and even added glitter to one of the cards. What little girl doesn't love glitter, right? For the Valentine's Day, card the girls got to choose from colorful candy corn or red m&m's. I didn't get a picture of a card with the m&m's and sadly, I just finished eating the ones that remained.

Card Recipe:
Stamp set: Retired (Can't Remember the name)
Card stock: Real Red, Whisper White, Glimmer Paper, Love Impressions Specialty Designer paper
Ink: Real Red
Accessories: Red Grosgrain Ribbon, Twine, and Heart Treat cups

This card was a hit. The girls ooohed when I pulled it out. I tried to stick with all wood mounted stamps for the girls. I wanted to be sure that the stamps would stay in place for them.
Card Recipe:
stamp set:Crazy for Cupcakes
Card stock:Melon Mambo, Concord Crush, Basic Black, Whisper White, and dsp
Ink: Basic Black
Accessories: Glittter

This is probably my favorite card and it is totally cased:-) This lovely card was inspired by a card by Ilina Crouse. She is such a talented and creative beauty. So, my card looks almost like, kind of, pretty close to hers but uses different paper and a different stamp set. The dimensions for this card are 4-1/4 X 5-1/2.
Card Recipe:
Stamp set: Retired Cheery Chat (One of my favorites)
Card Stock: Retired Only Orange, Current- Whisper White, Sweet Stitches Designer Series Paper
Ink: Melon Mambo
Accessories: Owl Punch, Googly eyes

Hope you like todays cards.
Thanks for stopping by, now go stamp something!

For the Bride!

Here is a card I created for a colleague who is getting married this summer. Notice the Crystal Effects:-) This card uses the same layout as the baby shower invitation from my last post.I also added some pearls to this card.

Hope you like it. Thanks for stopping by...now go stamp something!

A Slice of Life!

My sister in-law is having a baby! It's her second baby and I volunteered to make the invites! I really LOVE doing this. I decided to use the Slice of Life hostess stamp set. Have you seen it? It has images for important moments in life...a new baby, birthday, heart for Valentines day, and more. I used the sleeper image and made two different cards using the same layout but different colors. First I used the retired, I'm Here stamp set. I inked up the feet and hands in two different colors and randomly stamped them all over Whisper White card stock and then cut and adhered to to a card base. I used markers to color in the sleeper and then added the magical Crystal effects, some ribbon and I was done. For the second one, I used retired designer series paper and pretty much followed the same steps as the first one. Which do you like best? My 10 yr. old daughter likes the ones with the feet and hands. I like the multi colored one...Can you guess why?

Stamp sets: A Slice of Life, I'm Here, Sincere Salutations
Cardstock: Mellow Moss, Daffodil Delight, Whisper White
Ink: Mellow Moss, Basic Black, Daffodil Delight marker, Riding Hood Red marker, Kiwi Kiss marker
Accessories: Grosgrain Ribbon, buttons, linen string Crystal Effects

Thanks for stopping by, now go stamp something!

She's Rockin' 10!

Ten years ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby girl. My baby girl turned 10 years old today! I can't believe 10 years has flown by so quickly. She's about up to my nose a only 1 - 1/2 shoe sizes smaller than me.I think she will bypass me in every way within the next two years...except her clothes size. Thin as a pin...okay maybe a stick:-)

This card was inspired by a fellow blogger. Tammy Hershberger By inspired, I mean cased. I saw this card on her blog and knew my daughter would love having one visually similar. I used many of the same elements just swapping out some of the designer series paper that she used for hers with different sheets that I had on hand.
My new 10 year old was pretty pleased with her card. There are many steps to this finished piece but the end result brought a smile to my daughter's face, so the time put in was well worth the effort. Isn't always about the end result though? Sometimes lack of time gets the better of me and I have to scale down on the embellishments. For this card I used the Grunge Rock stamp set because I think it is the perfect amount of girlie and very appropriate for my guitar playing daughter. I put Crystal Effects on the guitar to make it puff out a bit. I had forgotten about the bit of extra the Crystal Effects adds to a card. I have two more cards using Crystal Effects comin up so stay tuned and check back.

Card Recipe:
Stamp set: Grunge Rock
Card stock: Melon Mamba, Very Vanilla, Basic Black, Brushed Silver, Love Letter dsp, and Newsprint dsp
Ink: Melon Mambo, Basic Black
Accessories:Ribbon and crystal effects

Thanks for stopping by...now go stamp something!

Turning Five!

Okay, so I should really be asleep but I wanted to post one of the things I worked on this weekend. My sons went to a birthday party for a five year old so I was put to the task of creating a card. I pulled out some of my favorite designer series paper. I'm beginning to think that they are all my favorite but this one in particular is truly fitting for a birthday card. It's the Celebrations designer series paper. Since my boys like skateboarding I figured this five year old would too. Don't they all? I used twine on this card in place of my usual ribbon. I figured the twine would help to add some boyish charm to the card. Hope he thought it was cool!

Card Recipe:
Stamp set: Extreme Skateboard
Card stock: Real Red, Pacific Point, Whisper White
Ink: Real Red, Pacific Point
Accessories: Twine

Thanks for stopping by...now go stamp something!

Got Love?

Can you see the Crystal Effects at work on this card? It's the reason the heart on this card looks so red and juicy. Crystal Effects is great way to spruce up a card and make an image jump out at you...giving your card some dimension. This card also uses the extra large circle punch and the scallop punch. These two work well together. I used the Vintage Wallpaper textured impressions embossing folder on the top layer of Whisper White on this card for a bit of extra. I am growing to love the look of white on white. What do you think? Hope you like it.

Card Recipe:
Stamp Set: Got Treats
Card stock: Real Red, Whisper White, Basic Grey, and Play Date designer series paper
Accessories: Red Grosgrain ribbon

Thanks for stopping by... now go stamp something!

It's A Cupcake Thang!

Happy Groundhog Day! Let's hope since he didn't see his shadow that spring really does come early. Here in the Northeast we have been experiencing a few mornings of ice storms. I love snow, but ice...not so much!
Here is the 3rd card from my recent card class. This one features the Love Letter designer series paper and the cupcake from Crazy for Cupcakes. Don't you just ADORE this cute cupcake? I think this paper has such a rich, regal look to it. It makes me feel special just looking at it. Did you notice the button? Isn't it huge? I love the bit of interest it adds to the card. For the image, I tried water coloring with ink drippings from my Riding Hood Red ink pad, Watercolor Wonder Crayons, and a blender pen. Funny story about this card....I didn't get it finished until after setting up for the card class. I was assembling the card and trying to finalize where and how to put the sentiment when in walks my friends seven year old son, so I decide to ask him what he thinks about the card and what I should use for the sentiment. I was really just making small talk but he suggested I punch out this particular sentiment because it would fit perfectly on the card above the image...I was thinking below but went along with his suggestion and I think...and by think, I mean know....he was right!

Card Recipe:
Stamp set: Crazy for Cupcakes, Fun & Fast Notes
Card stock: Riding Hood Red, Always Artichoke, Water Color paper, Love Letter designer series paper.
Ink: Riding Hood Red ink, Basic Grey and Summer Sun Water color Wonder Crayons
Accessories: Buttons, twine, Striped Grosgrain ribbon

Thanks for stopping by...now go stamp something!