Birthday Bella

Geeze...I'm having such a hard time getting good picture of my cards recently! Frustrating! I made this birthday card for a blogging friend of mine. Her birthday is today but I don't think she'll have received it on time. Since her favorite color is purple I went with a Lovely Lilac and Almost Amethyst color theme with a little sage shadow thrown in for extra pizazz. I used my never before inked Cakeabella and colored her in with my Copic markers. The lines around the Bella and under her feet are an idea I got from my friend Jennifer and I think it grounds her very well. The sentiment is from the Hanna set called Things Hanna Would Say which is a collection of 28 sentiments that all fit into the SU! word window punch...how cool is that? While you are at the Hanna Store make sure you check out the new set called Celebrations. WAY cute! Anyway, back to Cakeabella. I used my Spica glitter pen in clear to give this some sparkle. This is one card that I think will be well liked!

What have you accomplished in your stamping recently? Go ahead...link me to it! I'd love to see!

Hey, Cupcake!

While blufing (blog surfing) yesterday I stopped at one of my normal stops and saw that she had used a sketch from Stampin' Kub's blog. I thought it was worth a look see so I went to Kurtis's blog and website. Love it by the way...check it out. Anyway, he used a really simple sketch that I thought...no way...I can't do nice card with such a simple sketch. Or, at least I hadn't in the past. Well, taadaa! All the stamps on this card are from the Kim Hughes set called Hugs and Kisses and can be found at CHF. My supplies are listed HERE. My favorite part of this card is the cake part of the cupcake as I used brown flocking on it and it is SO cute in real life! There is a strange phenomenon in our house. If I make a card that I don't like and then show it to Todd and he really likes it...typically it is very well liked on SCS. When I love a card but Todd doesn't like it all that much and place it on SCS then it isn't very well liked. Frustrating! Anyway, I love this card, Todd isn't in love with it, it doesn't have many comments on SCS BUT both Kurtis and Keri Lee like it...what do you think? Am I right on this one or is Todd? It is okay to be honest just not mean, k?

***Enabler Alert...Enabler Alert!***

Oh, and I must tell you about this place I found for good buys on crafting stuff. It is called Scrapbook Pal. I placed an order through them on Wednesday and received it TODAY!! Free Priority shipping with orders over $25, too! All of their Stickles glitter glue are on sale for $1.75 each. I got Platinum, Baby Blue, Cotton Candy, and Yellow! I also got a couple of more Color Box Chalk Cat Eyes. And, my very first Ranger Distressing Inks. I have NO idea how to use them but I'm excited to try them. I picked out antique linen and tattered rose colors. If you know how to use them please leave me a comments so I can have some fun with them, too! Oh, and one more thing about Scrapbook Pal. I used their online customer service for a question and it was GREAT! I quickly got an operator and she answered my question and suggested an alternative for me. Overall...I say...type quickly to get to this store and buy LOTS!!! LOL!

Have a fantastic Friday everyone...Todd and I are going on a date tonight so I'm excited!!!

Thanks So Much

I made this fun card on Tuesday and believe it or not it came together so easily. I hadn't stamped in a couple of days and it usually takes me a little bit to get back into the groove. Anyway, Lorraine put up this layout as her first sketch challenge on her blog. I thought it would be fun to make a bright, happy card and I was right...it really put me back in the mood to stamp again! The recipe for this card is HERE.

I want to also share with you a link to Michelle's blog where she has a great organizational idea. She calls it her Inspiration Station. What she does is gathers all her materials to a specific area of her stamp room that have to do with the subject she will be stamping. In this case it is Valentine's Day but this idea would be so helpful at Christmas or just any time of the year. I am totally planning on doing this when I have my own stamp area...someday...in a couple of years...maybe. LOL!

I hope your Thursday is just great now go create! (Yes, that was lame!)

More Christmas Cards

And here are the other three handmade cards that I received this season.

The first, made with Lovely As A Tree, came from Todd's sister and her husband. I have to be honest here and say that I didn't know that she stamped so it was really neat to receive a handmade card from her. I love the direct to paper with the white craft pad on the edges...it makes it look like a picture window I think.

The second card is from a blog reader, Shannon. I love those penguins! Shannon was my Secret Angel from our swap awhile ago and is just the sweetest person! This card made me smile when I got it!

The third card is from a friend and co-worker Stephanie. She got the neat designer paper from a scrap booking show in the Seattle area and made this very pretty card with it. Both the greeting and the cardinal are heat embossed. A very pretty card!

I hope your New Years Day was quiet and relaxing! Remember that the New Spring/Summer '08 catalog is effective starting today. If you need a copy of it let me know!

Christmas Cards...

I received a couple of handmade Christmas cards this year that I thought I'd share with you. The top card is from my co-worker and friend Debby Tillman. She is also on one of the same Yahoo groups as I am so you may recognize her name from that. It is a super cute card made with Sockafellabella. Besides the cute image and paper she also made this card with a very unique fold (wish I would have taken pictures...sorry!). When you open up the image from the right side you are greeted with a Merry Christmas sentiment and then when you open that flap from the left side it says...from our home to yours. Very cute! Debby sure has made me love the Sockafellabella image!

The other card is from my friend Pammella. She used to live here in my town and stamp with me but the Army moved them back to Hawaii where she enjoys a perpetual summer...lucky girl! Again, I'm sorry the picture is so poor but her tree is made by Origami folding some beautiful designer paper and then she added the dove, presents, and pineapple stamped accents. Do you not love the star at the top of the tree? PERFECT!!

I'll show you the other 3 tomorrow and that will give me some time to get some stamping done of my own!

Have a great New Years Day!

Excited or want to say thank you to your secret sis??

Are you so excited or want to say thank you to your secret sis? Here is the post for you to do so! I will be placing a link to this in the left column of the blog. You can go there to post as often as you'd like! You should ask for e-mail updates when you comment the first time on this thread so that you know when someone else comments (does that make sense? LOL!). All you have to do when you post your first comment here is to check the little box that says...Email follow-up comments to. When you do that each time someone comments you will receive an automatic update! Cool, huh?

Here is a reminder of how being a secret sis works...

You get to spoil your sis for a full 6 weeks! The requirement each week would be at least one card a week with a little "something" for your sis to be excited about. It could be stamped images that they don't have and want, the little Studio G stamp sets (if they are okay with that), or maybe something yummy that they like to eat. During the final week (week of Valentine's Day) you will send something with around a $15 maximum value and reveal who you are!

As always...if you have any questions at all please contact me!

Now GO...may the spoiling begin!

Did you sign up?

Did you sign up to be a secret sister through my blog? If so...you should have gotten an e-mail with your sisters information from me today! Please let me know if you have any questions at all! Also, please see my next post which will be the thank you/excitement post that will be used for those two things...thank yous...and excitement!

Promise I'll Post Artwork Tomorrow But For Now...

Do you have a sister?

You know what? I don't have a sister but I have truly always wanted someone that I feel that close to. I was thinking that I had so much fun with the Secret Angel swap and I know others did too so why not try a short term (for now) secret sister swap?

The idea is that you sign up, fill out a questionnaire (and send it back to me), I'll assign you a secret sister, I'll send you a sister (with questionnaire) and you get to spoil your sis for a full 6 weeks! The requirement each week would be at least one card a week with a little "something" for your sis to be excited about. It could be stamped images that they don't have and want, the little Studio G stamp sets (if they are okay with that), or maybe something yummy that they like to eat. During the final week you will send something with around a $15 maximum value and reveal who you are! I've been asked about international sisters and I personally think that will be fine. If you'd prefer to not have an international sister please let me know. I know I have some Canadian friends that visit my blog and one lovely young lady from Sweden. Yes, shipping will be slightly more and it will take a little more work but it will be worth it!!!

I will provide you with your sister, a link to a thank you/excitement post to comment on when you receive something (and I'll explain how to get e-mail updates on those comments), and reminder posts once a week.

So, my friends...what do you think? I think this will be soooo much fun and I hope that lots of you will want to participate. Please, though...if you have something coming up in the next month or so that will keep you from full participating, don't sign up this time around.

Because I want to get this going as soon as possible I'll need you to sign up by December 31st. I'll get your secret sis out to you on January 1st. You'll be able to spoil your secret sis until the reveal week of February 11th, which also happens to be Valentine's Day week!!!!
Won't that be fun?!

Go ahead and post here that you'd like to join and ALSO you must e-mail me (mom2kjs at yahoo dot com) your interest so that I can send you a questionnaire...just commenting your interest on this post will not work!

This will stay at the top until the 31st. Please check below for new posts!

Now go! Sign up!!!