Sea Stamps

Didn't care for it the first time it came out, but recently I decided to order the Sea Stamps set because I've been enjoying making collages so much. I cut it out and couldn't stop playing! In fact, I entered two contests for The Angel Company demos this month with it. Here is a sneak peek at just one of my card entries...Cross your fingers for me!

I think the images are perfect for both men and women...

My husband and I powerwashed gutters and the deck today - have to stain it tomorrow. So much for our weekend get away plans, sigh...

I hope you are enjoying your weekend. To sweeten your Memorial Day, if you place an order with me on Monday, May 31 before midnight, you can pick out your favorite color of stickles - one with each $30 increment! Just shoot me an email...

Baseball and stamping?!?

Tonight is the last official game of our baseball season - woo hoo!! I just wanted to share a few of the photos...and show you how I still managed to work in some stamping.

Here is my son getting to pitch...

Here I am at a practice - cutting out some stamps! I always use this time to browse through stamping magazines for ideas or cut stamps.



As team mom, I was in charge of the banner and I just could not see ordering a vinyl one for over $100 when I could make a felt one for $20!

I used the running stitches stamp set from The Angel Company for the individual baseballs.

Hope you have a great and safe weekend, and, if you live in the US: Happy Memorial Day!

Getting Ready for Father's Day

I love pocket cards and haven't made one in a LONG time. I saw a beautiful card on MJ Albright's blog awhile back that inspired me for this Father's Day card. This was the project for my Hostess Club this month. It's our last get together and we won't restart until September. If you live in the area and would like to join us, we have some space!

The brown flourish paper is something I scored at Big Lots; can't beat those $2 paper packs! And I loved how Lois made her insert so that she could tuck in a gift card inside that bottom brown strip of paper by not gluing it down on the top edge. I think I learn as much from my group of hostess club ladies as they get out of me!!

Card Materials: all stamps from The Angel Company

Stamps: Good Timber, Victorian Elements, Celebrate Dad special set

Accessories: Assorted DCWV papers, button, twine, MS punch

Don't miss out on the special sets for The Angel Company's latest celebration!

Bringing Back Simple!

It's time for another birthday card - this one is for my son. He'll be turning 12 in two more hours, yikes! I follow former Angel Jennifer Carter's blog - she has a great, clean style and this week she featured some terrific sports cards. They really inpsired me. Every year I use this retired set from The Angel Company for my little guy, so it's important to change the layout. The baseball is popped out on a pop dot!



Card Materials: all stamps from The Angel Company
Stamps: All Season Athlete, Ordinary Greetings
Accessories: DCWV Pet stack, pop dot

Regarding my last post: You know how some folks post "removed for publication", I thought I'd post "removed for ugliness!" I asked the ladies in my hostess club for their honest and brutal opinion of my card. They all agreed that it was better in person, mainly because you could not see that the flowers were clear embossed so that you could see the text and colors through the images. Here's one more go at a better photo.



Here's hoping you have a great weekend! I got some new stamps from the May/June Jubilation that I plan to cut and play with - crossing my fingers for some "free" time!

Seeds of Blessings

Yesterday I left the dentist office (please note, tooth still not fixed!! argh...) all numb in the mouth and tongue and treated myself to a visit to AC Moore. It's in the next town over so I don't regularly go there, and, I've been trying to be "good" lately. But, I had a 50% coupon in hand and I couldn't let it go to waste. I met the nicest woman there and really enjoyed browsing the shelves and talking about card ideas with her. She even helped me snag the Tim Holtz birdcage die and gave me an extra coupon so that I could get it and this new Spellbinders Label that I have been coveting...I had really been down in the dumps and this accidental meeting turned out to be a real blessing.

This is the actual Seeds of Blessing set that is retiring from The Angel Company and is on sale through June - I especially love the sayings in this set but I must tell you about the best card I've ever seen using it. Melisa Waldorf, former Angel and talented stamper, created this beauty...scroll to the end of her post to see it.

My card is inspired by some cards I saw this weekend at the bookstore. I forget the name of the magazine but I think it may have been put out by the Stampington Company. You take glossy print (I used one of my husband's old Forbes magazines - sorry honey!) and dab on colored ink. I used Versamagic ink straight from the dew drops and smeared it on - yes, that is a techinical term I believe! Then I stamped my Watercolor Plants with embossing ink and clear embossed them. The final step was to rub on dark brown ink... This card is not my usual style I but it ended up quite dark so I kept adding things.

Card Materials: all stamps and papers from The Angel Company

Stamps: Seeds of Blessing, Watercolor Plants

Accessories: ribbon, silver pearls, versamagic ink, clear embossing ink/powder, spellbinders, cuttlebug corners and Mulberry Meadows Soar with it Collection (retired, sniff sniff)

More collage goodness...

can you handle it?!? I hope so!

This weekend Debbie Olson was featured on The CLASSroom blog and she was showing how to make ATCs into cards. Her ATC images were one stamp featuring a round cut out circle in the middle, but I thought, "hey, I can do that with what I've got!"




I stamped my circle first from the retiring (and on sale!) Circle Sampler set and then stamped it again on a sticky note so that I could mask it off. I then proceeded to use Gerbera Daisy (also on sale and retiring!), Vintage Backgrounds and Fanciful Vintage to create a collage around the masked circle. I cut out the inside of the circle and I used the Judikins Color Dusters we carry (you can find them here) to add a little color to the white cardstock. Later I dusted Violette Palette ink over the text sheet and dragonfly image and mounted that underneath the opening.

Card Materials: all stamps and papers from The Angel Company

TAC Transformation

Andrea Walford does a really cool feature on her blog that she calls Makeover Monday. Basically she takes a "designer's" card that she has seen published or on a blog, and remakes it using SU products only. I love card sketches but this idea will really save you a lot of time if you are in a pinch - or a creative rut!

So, I am calling it TAC Transformation as I start with Amy Rohl's card that I saw here. (I love Amy's style, by the way, and am often inspired by her cards!)

I am a little bummed because I could not find my large polka dot from the Awesome Blossoms set that I used on my daughter's birthday card ... so I had to make do with the flower strip from Linear Sentiments...and I picked the dragonfly from the Wishing Happiness set because that's my favorite of the 3. I hope you'll make allowances for these slight changes!! :)

and so here is my card...



Card Materials: all stamps and papers from The Angel Company
Stamps: Wishing Happiness (now on sale for 25% off!), Linear Sentiments
Accessories: Hemingway Soar with it Collection and cardstock, twine, Lemonaid buttons/blossoms, Spellbinders (TAC)

Have a super weekend!!

Rolled Flowers

I had high hopes for stamping a lot of cards yesterday...I'm just happy that I finished ONE! My son was home sick from school so I cancelled my subbing job because he had to stay home alone sick already the day before. Then, my daughter's school called to come pick her up - she was ill as well! I did get to snuggle on the couch though and watch Aliens in the Attic with him, and an episode of The Hills with her.

While I sat, I fiddled with some paper to make the Rolled Flowers featured in this week's SCS newsletter. If you missed the tutorial, you can find it here. The first go around, I threw out my efforts. I used a thinner paper, DP on one side only. But when I tried again with cardstock, I was very happy with the end results.

Once I had the flower completed, I needed something to go with it! The rest of the card came together pretty quickly as I added a few layers here and there, between loads of laundry. That's the nice thing about combining a laundry room and stamp room, you can multi-task!

Fabulous Frames made a great focal point and I am sad to see More Abundance retiring so I wanted to feature it one more time here! This set is great for both scrapbooking and cardmaking...I love it!

I have seen a lot of prisma flowers at Michaels covered with the chunky glitter - here it helps hide any "imperfections" in my flower!

Card Materials:

Stamps: More Abundance, Fabulous Frames

Accessories: text paper, CB embossing folders, Sizzix vine die, crystal lacquer and chunky glitter

Don't forget that The Angel Company has brought back it's FREE gift with purchase stamps during the May/June Jubilation. And on a side note, the baby birds have hatched in the nest underneath my clematis plant...it's so cute to see them with their beaks open wide!

Win - Win!

Random Sequence Generator
Here is your sequence: 2
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Timestamp: 2010-05-10 19:11:26 UTC

So congrats to Angela (disneychickstamper) - you won this Welcome Home set and a package of pearls...have fun creating! :)

This weekend I finally snuck in some stamping time - woohoo! I got this cute little card done and another elegant one that I can't wait to show you, I am really excited by the way it turned out!!

I called this post "win-win" because this month the Wonder and Joy set is on sale for just $14.95 if you have a $30 order...and with a $30 order, you also get a free stamp and have even more choices of discounted stamps during our May/June Jubilation!

I have made a few cards with the little gal holding on to the balloon (just click on Wonder and Joy in my sidebar), but I thought it was about time to use this little boy. I have seen quite a few folks cutting apart the sentiments these days and it worked perfectly for fitting in a longer saying in a smaller area. I hope you'll give it a try!

The colors match much better in real life, honestly!, but I think I over set my white balance because it was so late in the afternoon when I snapped this. He's such a cute little guy, isn't he?

I hope you have a super week!!

Potpourri

I'm still here - I'm sorry that my posting has really slowed down the last two weeks. I'm feeling better and hope to get back to cardmaking today/tomorrow so I will have something fresh to post next week!

In the meantime...how about some blog candy? I never cut the set Welcome Home and now it's on the retired list...so in honor of all the mothers out there in the world, just leave a comment between now and midnight, Sunday May 9 for a chance to win this set and a package of pearls.

On another note, I love clematis and brought this plant with me when we moved from North Carolina...only it was tiny 6 years ago! The arbor I had made when we were stationed in Panama and I just love how it's in full bloom - today all the petals are open and HUGE!

This clematis sits on the side of our house and a mama Robin has made her nest inside it...here is the "other" side which doesn't get much sun but makes for a perfect home. She keeps her eye on me from her nest as I move around the gardens...

I hope you have a super weekend! I'm baking for a bake sale and we have two baseball games for my son...

Life's Crazy Turns

Sorry that I really didn't post much last week...I knew it was going to be a busy week but I didn't expect everything to turn upside down on me! The short version of my painful story is that I ended up in the dentist's office three times (the last time was at a specialist who finally figured out the problem!) and the emergency room once because the pain in my face, neck and ear was unbearable...plus my husband was on a trip. I'm on medicine now and down to one pain killer a day (I am extremely thankful to be living in the time we do...how did people manage a hundred years ago or more?!) and my daughter was so kind and caring to me in my worst moments. There is always a rainbow in every storm!!

My son went to his third birthday party in one month, and since all the boys are from the same group, I really have to change up the card ideas! This Hang Loose set that is now retired from The Angel Company is always great for a tween card. Add a little embossing to the papers and you have the makes for a pretty "cool" card (which is important when you are 11). I had some shells in a can from when we were stationed in Monterey, California over 10 years and I thought they would balance out the card. I used BIC markers for the coloring and then went over them with some Prismacolored pencils and gamsol to give these surfboards a little more shading...


Card Materials: all stamps and papers from The Angel Company

Here is some exciting news from The Angel Company

May & June Jubilation!
May 3 - June 28, 2010

Hostess Benefits

With a $100* FUNshop our hostesses will receive
our TAC-3283 Life So Big stamp set FREE!
With a $250* FUNshop hostesses will receive
TAC-3283 Life So Big and TAC-3269 Found Joy
stamp sets FREE!

With a $350* FUNshop hostesses will receive
TAC-3283 Life So Big, TAC-3269 Found Joy and
TAC-3274 Birthday Word Search stamp sets FREE!

With a $500* FUNshop hostesses will receive
TAC-3283 Life So Big, TAC-3269 Found Joy,
TAC-3274 Birthday Word Search and
TAC-3278 When Pigs Fly stamp sets FREE!

Customers

With every $30* purchase customers may
choose from 1 of 4 fabulous, limited edition,
gift with purchase {GWP} stamps. With a $30* purchase you can also buy:

TAC3283 Life So Big for only $3.95 Retail Value $7.95
TAC3269 Found Joy for only $5.95 Retail Value $10.95
TAC3274 Birthday Word Search for only $7.95 Retail Value $15.95
TAC3278 When Pigs Fly for only $12.95 Retail Value $19.95
*Net total before shipping and handling and applicable tax.

New Angels

New Angels may choose one (1) Level A, Level B and Level C Hostess set (in any current publication) FREE with the purchase of a Starter Kit (Paperwork Only Starter Kit may only choose one Level A in any current publication).

If you’ve been an Angel in the past and would like to re-activate ~ it’s never been easier! Contact me to find out how you can re-activate for FREE!




Please note that these images will be on the company website shortly and you will be able to see them more clearly! Also...I've added a link in the sidebar to take you straight to the Final Farewell stamp sales.