Happy Valentine's Day!

We made these cute plates at our monthly stamp club a few weeks ago. The circle pops out so you can change the image in the plate for each holiday or season. The large hearts were die cut with the Cricut, as was the "love" sentiment. The smaller hearts are from the new Stampin Up small heart punch. The stamped heart images are from the SU I Heart Hearts set and the brad is also SU, from the new mini catalog. Plate from the dollar store. I have it displayed on the table in our foyer.

Happy Valentine's Day to all!!

Joy To The World

Here's a card we did as a make-n-take at a recent CTMH party I attended. Kind of hard to tell in the picture but the snowflake has been sprayed with a shimmery paint. Adhesive pearls were added at each point and in the center of the snowflake. Very festive!

Supplies: all from CTMH

Happy Halloween!

It is MUCH too warm here tonight to feel like Halloween, but it's always my favorite day of the year! My oldest (12) had been saying all week that he thinks he's too old to go trick-or-treating this year, but as his younger brother was getting into costume shortly before sunset, he had a change of heart. Ha! So he pulled together a costume with pieces from his last 3 costumes and it turned out pretty good. They both got huge amounts of candy and began trading like mad once they got home. Hope everyone had a great Halloween!

Swap Day Aftermath

Another card swap has come and gone. This month we did a sketch challenge with a Mojo Monday sketch. I ended up changing it up a bit because the original sketch and I just were not getting along. I used the Halloween kitty stamp from Inkadinkado, stamped in black pigment ink and embossed with clear embossing powder, and colored in the moon with an orange Spica glitter pen. I went looking for orange brads to attach to the ribbon, but I couldn't find them. I came across the orange rhinestones during my search, though, and they worked just fine. The cardstock is SU and the polka dot paper is something I picked up a few years ago at Hobby Lobby.

My dining room table is always a disaster area once I finish my swaps. I can't work on swaps here in the closet since I need lots of room to spread out when I'm mass producing, and I just don't have that kind of space here in the closet. Anyhow, I've since cleaned off the table, but here's how it looked after I finished the cards. A complete mess! :)

Supplies:
Stamp: kitty, Inkadinkado
Ink: SU Basic Black Craft
Paper: SU Basic Black, Green Galore, Only Orange, Georgia Pacific white, patterned paper from my stash
Accessories: SU black grosgrain ribbon, Kaiser orange rhinestones, Marvy circle and scalloped circle punches, Spica glitter pens, SU clear embossing powder, Stampin Dimensionals

Birthday Swap

I keep forgetting to post my card for the Birthday Card Swap at the LSS. It turned out really cute though the only pic I have of it was taken at the store before I swapped them all out. I had seen a card on someone's blog using this cupcake stamp (from the Stampin Up Party Hearty set) with the toppings cut out and popped up on top of another cupcake image, mixing up the colors, so I tried that and thought it was a really fun look. The sentiment is by Stamping Bella.

Our September swap is our first sketch challenge -- any theme -- so that should be fun to see what everyone comes up with. I still have last month's summer theme swap to post here too. I'll get caught up eventually!

Soft Sky wedding

I know, I know -- more bad lighting! I made this card in the middle of the night for one of my husband's co-workers, and the only place I could snap a quick photo of it without waking up anyone was in the dining room, where the lighting isn't all that bright.

This is about a 90 percent CASE of a card I saw on SCS. I loved the Soft Sky and Chocolate Chip color combo and the layout. About the only differences are that instead of tying a bow in the middle of the satin ribbon (didn't want it to look any more feminine than it already did with the doily edge punch at the bottom), I stamped the word 'congratulations' and punched it out with the new SU Modern Label punch and I used the adhesive pearls differently than they were used on the original card.

The only downside is that now I have even less Soft Sky cardstock! Eeek! Don't know what I'll do when my supply is gone! It's sooooooo pretty!!

It's swap time again at the LSS. The theme this month is birthday. And as usual I have no idea what I'll be doing. I'll have to post my card from last month's swap later this week. It turned out much better than I expected. I love it when that happens! Hee!

Supplies:

Stamps: Together Forever set (SU); congratulations (Wedding Centers set, CHF)

Paper: Very Vanilla, Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip (all SU)

Ink: Soft Sky, Chocolate Chip (SU)

Accessories: Oval Coluzzle, SU Modern Label punch, adhesive pearls, Paper Trey satin ribbon, Martha Stewart doily edge punch

Navy Swap

I joined a swap on SCS recently in which the only stipulation was that you incorporate the color navy into the cards. And since I've always loved my Night of Navy cardstock and ink, I had to sign up for a spot in the swap! And this is what I came up with. It's quick and elegant. Or at least it's quick NOW -- I fought with several variations of ribbon before settling on this combination. First I used just the narrow navy grosgrain tied into a knot, but I thought it was too small. Then I grabbed the wider vanilla grosgrain and tied it into a knot. Too much. I even tried navy organdy but it didn't look right either. Finally I thought to try this combo, which looked OK by itself, but I thought it needed one more little something. So then I went to my old standby -- punches! And there it was, the perfect finishing detail!

I have a Father's Day swap for the LSS to work on this week. They're due Sunday and, naturally, I haven't even started yet. But days off are coming up so I'll play around with some ideas then and hopefully be done BEFORE Sunday for a change!

Supplies:

Stamps: Floral background (retired), Thanks (from Thank You Kindly set) -- both SU

Paper: Night of Navy, Very Vanilla cardstock (SU)

Ink: Night of Navy (SU)

Accessories: oval punches, Boho Blossoms punch, 1/4" circle punch (all SU); dimensionals, vanilla 5/8" grosgrain ribbon, navy 1/4" grosgrain ribbon (both SU)