I'mmmm Back!

I am back!  Did you miss me!?!?!  I was talking to Jenna on Monday evening and around 6 o'clock she talked me into coming to Milwaukee.  By 7pm, I was packed and on the road there, and stayed there till yesterday.  I got home around 9:30 last night.  It was great to see them all, and especially babycakes..little Mason.  He loves to play and is so much fun.  We had a blast together. 
Today, Zach and I ran the stall at the flea market.  It was a long hot day.  After we closed, I went over and visited with my mom for a couple of hours, then headed home.  I made a pizza for supper and have been catching up on the computer since I have been home.  I am tired out and I am about ready to head down for the night.  It sure feels good to be in my air conditioned house!

Card Recipe:
Stamp Sets: Four Frames, Short and Sweet
Beautiful Wings embossing folder, Ink: Marina Mist, Night of Navy, Pumpkin Pie, Ribbon: 4" and 8" piece
Card Stock: Always Artichoke, Mellow Moss, Crumb Cake, Whisper White
Measurements: Base: 5 1/2" x 8 1/2", 1st layer: 4 1/8" x 5 3/8", 4 pieces 11/4" x 4", 4 pieces of Paisley Petals Designer Series Paper 1" x 3 3/4"

A busy day

Hello!  I made this card this morning while talking to Jenna on the phone.  It is the stamp set Eastern Blooms and the verse is from Short & Sweet.  I used my ink pads and aqua painter to paint the flowers and I used liquid pearls for the gold dots on the stamens.  The other night I could not think of the name of glitter glue at stamping and I thought of it this morning while drying my hair.  They are called Stickles and come in all different colors.  The liquid pearls comes in a similar type little bottle that you squeeze.  It reminds me of the days when I used to decorate sweatshirts with squeeze bottle paints!  Any hoo....I digress.  I took a white gel pen to the leaves and it really made them "pop" out.  I also used the scalloped edge punch, large oval punch, and the scalloped oval punch.  I haven't played with this set for awhile, but I sure do love it when I do.  It is really fun to work with.  Mom was over this morning and I helped her with dad's new cell phone.  Then I quick popped in the shower and headed out to Lady Di's as she had asked me to go to the Rapids with her this afternoon.  Bernie had his hair cut.  So we had a couple of hours to shop.  We went to Walmart, Cartridge World, and to Lighthouse.  We ended the day with a trip to Apple Bee's for dinner.  We both had gift cards to use.  I am still using the one from my birthday from the girls.  I can eeek out almost one more meal on what I have left on it.  The gift that keeps on giving....lol  Until tomorrow!  Elaine

Wake me up when the warm weather is back!

Hello from freezin' Mayberry!  It was a cold one at the flea market today.  I didn't even go down there until after ten o'clock when it finally hit 51 degrees.  My stall faces the north and is usually about 10 degrees cooler than the out doors.  Wonderful in hot weather....not so good on days like today.  I stood out in the sun as much as I could and bundled up in my rag quilt the rest of the time.  I am ice cold and am going to go turn on the electric mattress pad and camp under the covers.  But before I do that, I have a little goody to show you!  This is the Mother's Day card that I made for my mom.  She thought it was very pretty.  The Happy Mother's Day and leaves are a digital image that I printed and colored with colored pencils and did some blending with an Aqua Painter.  The flowers were made with the Big Shot and the Birds and Blooms die.  The center is punched out of scraps with a 1/4" hole punch.  I keep a little drawer full of punched circles and use them like crazy for flower centers.  It just finishes them off.  I love the Birds and Bloom's die, and love the shape of those flowers.  It is so fun to mix and match colors and use up scraps.  "Love you" was stamped with the Stampin' Up stamp set Short and Sweet in Regal Rose and punched out with the small oval punch.  The pretty in pink buttons were embossed, and I am not sure if you can see it real well unless you click on the picture and enlarge it, but I made a strip of grass along the bottom of the flower.  The DSP is some retired paper out of my scrap bin and is mounted on Tempting Turquoise Card Stock, and the flower panel is mounted on Certainly Celery.  I used another border punch with a DSP scrap for the strip above the flower, and then a So Saffron strip I mounted underneath the card panel.  I really struggled making this card last night and haven't felt that way for along time.  It really took a lot of fiddling to make it look good.  Oh...and I almost forgot to tell you that the flower panel was sponged with several different colors, Barely Banana, Pretty in Pink, and Certainly Celery.  And I did paper piercing along the stem and sewed it with some green crochet cotton.  One last look....yep....that covers everything!  Off to my nice warm bed!  Elaine

Thank you cards

The last time I posted I told you that I was punching out DSP squares and gluing them on a 3 " square.  The focal point of these cards were what I was working on.  I had 18 of them done (without flowers) when I last wrote and was thinking about making about 30 of them.  Well...after I got them all done, I had 45 of the squares made!  And, I did not make a dent in the DSP scraps, nor the card stock bin.  But after I got done making flowers yesterday, the card stock scrap bin is noticeably emptier!  YEAH!  I have all the flowers and leaves attached to all 45 squares.  These 6 that I finished up for you tonight went very fast.  I decided to post all of these so that you could see how different they look even with all of them having the same base colors.  While I was cutting these flowers out yesterday, I also cut a bunch of different flowers and assembled them for my shoe and tell box.  All in all...I am guessing I made about 125 flowers which probably took about 12 hours to do!  SHOOT ME!  and put me out of my misery!  I must be crazy.  But shouldn't have to do any for the show and tell box for next month, maybe a couple of months as there were still flowers left in it. 
Today I marked a bunch of stuff for the flea market, put it in baskets, and put it in the van.  Sarah was also over for a visit and I gave her birthday presents as I did not see her on her birthday.  She adored the flower magnets and I let her pick out 3 for her fridge.  She also loved the other magnets I am making and she thinks all of them will sell good.  I hope she is right about that!  I need to bring home, (or find some around here) some more string tags so that I can get the rest of my stuff marked.  But I made a big dent it in today and my living room is starting to look more like a living room again!
Tonight I set up my little tv tray table on the bed and worked on attaching buttons, flowers, and little spools of thread onto my pin cushion tags.  I haven't begun to make a dent in the tin of them that needs to be decorated as I have TONS of extras, but I want to get enough done so that I have at least one for each pin cushion finished, I think I have about 8 to go and will probably finish them up before hitting the hay.  I have been up late just about every night this week.  Hopefully next week I will get on a better sleep pattern.  Have a good one!  Me

Seeing Spots and Short & Sweet

On July 1st, we will have a new catalog for Stampin' Up! This means that June 1st the retirement list will be coming out and it will be your last chance to purchase certain stamp sets. I don't know what they will be yet but I have decided that I am going to make up as many samples as I can between now and then for my stampers so that they get to see how versatile sets can be and sometimes they look so different in real life. I have 15 samples ready for Nadine's party. Usually I don't post things till after the party but being as I am ahead of the game right now, I thought I would share a card with you each day. It has always been my goal to post every day but that doesn't seems to work out but I am going to give it a shot again! I am thrilled that people enjoyed the stamping room pictures. Your comments...help motivate me to keep posting (hint...hint!) so keep'em coming.

Today's card uses the stamp sets Seeing Spots, and Short & Sweet. I did masking with the circles. I think that kind of turned out cool. This makes a great masculine card. But with a switch of colors and sentiments, it could easily be a baby card, birthday, feminine, etc. A very versatile set. I decided that I would make this into a thank you card as I will be needing to make a lot of them for Jenna for the shower and wedding. So don't be surprised if you see a lot of thank you cards made with different sets. I will put them in the rack at the flea market for now, but hope to have a nice variety for her too! I am throughly enjoying my stamping room, I haven't left the house for 3 days! Come on over and play with me! Boo

Tammy Renner's Stamping Party

Good Morning! As you can see, I am trying to get caught up on some of my posting before the month ends. Monday night I had a stamping party at Tammy Renner's house. We had a great turn out with 13 people attending! Tammy served us a fabulous meal and had the basement all set up so nice and cozy for us. Man...if I had a basement like that, we would be having stamp camp's here. But fortunately we are so blessed to be able to use the church.

I like to give my hostesses a little thank you gift from me on top of the hostess benefits they receive for having the party. When Tammy was unwrapping her hostess gift, I was telling the story behind it and she quick ripped it open, squealed, and ran and gave me a hug! Which gave me a BIG smile. It is nice when you actually tickle someone with the right gift! Now I am sure you are dying in suspense to know what it was! Tammy had been at the house one day and she spotted a pile of magazines/book's called CARDS Magazine. I just love that publication but it is too rich for my budget. Each book cost $20.00 and it is a monthly publication! Sooooo.....I put a post out on some stamping boards to see if anyone had any back issues that they wanted to sell. I had a number of people contact me and the people that were willing to sell them for $5.00 or less, I purchased them from. Any how....Tammy was paging through a couple and ooohhing and aahhing. So I found one for her later on and gave it to her at the party and she was thrilled! Later after everyone left and we were going over her hostess benefits, she said I am not sure what I am happiest about most, the benefits or the book! One little book or a couple hundred dollars worth of free stuff....what a choice....that is too funny! It just proves the point that gifts don't have to be expensive to make a person happy, just from the heart. Any hooo.....Tammy is getting the Big Shot for free!! YIPPEE!
The purse card we made with the big shot. The purse was made with two cordinating paper's and that you run through the Big Shot Machine with the Top Note Die. Then you cut each piece to 2 ", leaving you enough pieces to make a second card at the same time. The the flower's and leaves were cut with the Bird's and Bloom's die also ran through the Big Shot. I love how the flower's are all sized so that you can stack them on top of one another. What a cute embellishment for a card, scrapbook page or altered object! Think of all the color combinations you could make! "Thank you" is stamped from the set Short and Sweet. It is a little hard to see in the photo but the Riding Hood Red Card Stock that the purse is mounted on is stamped with Bella Toile. Isn't it stinkin' cute! I just love that card! And the other card is made with the Bella Blooms stamp set and Bella Rose papers which is a cute different way to use these punches and a very fast card to make.

November Stamp Camp Cards

These are the cards we made the past two days at stamp camp. I also taught them how to make sour cream containers like I made for Sarah and Zach's wedding shower.

Card Challenge

At my stamp camp's I do a monthly challenge. I have not had camp since September so I think most of them forgot about it. Sometimes alot of people participate, sometimes not. It is optional. Tonite I just had Sandy Renner bring a card. But it is a dandy!!! She is such a talented person. Normally the card challenge winner wins all the cards but being as she was the only one...I gave her a prize instead! We'll see how many bring a card at tomorrow's camp. I had them cut out a scallop circle with the big shot and they were suppose to do something with it. I think this card is awesome! It also features the felt flowers and a build a brad on it. Good Job Sandy!