I don't know about you......

But getting things done around here has turned into total chaos! With 2 kids in school, and starting a diet... ugh!, my life is crazy! I wonder what I was thinking signing up for a swap! At any rate, I FINALLY got mine out, and hopefully they arrived. For this card the challenge was to use only Papertreyink stamps. I used 3 sets, Greenthumb, Faux Ribbon, and Borders and Corners.

Unfortunately the pic is so dark, you really cannot see that I stamped my image in Wild wasabi, then went back over it with a Versamark marker. I then clear embossed it. After that I stamped the peas, and then dry embossed them to pop them up and give some texture. If you are like me, you don't own a light box, so I got out my paper piercing pad, and then outlined the peas and rubbed over the interior area with my embossing stylus. Flipping the card over, I could see the outline of the pea, and again embossed the interior area. The white stock is not the best, it's so thin, but I still got a nice popped up look to add dimension.

After the peas were dry embossed, I used two way glue to add some DAZZLE with dazzling diamonds. The scallop at the top in apricot has a dry embossed small dot in the curve. I used my Crop-o-dile to achieve that,... and may I say that is a quick thing to use and add some extra texture. You just set the cropodile on A1 and the smaller eyelet piece, and it works great! Give it a try, it's so fun.

The ribbon is tied and glued on with glue dots, and I added the little safety pin to it to tie it into the theme.

I love how bright and cheerful this card is, hope the other ladies agree!

FIX that HEADER!

Ack! I hate how my header looks but can't figure out how to make it look so uber cool. Need to find a good layout or get help...... anyone got some ideas? I want to use my own script because I just love this font, just don't know how to make it nice. Help me help me!

All Jacked Up!

So I need to need to need to come up with a design, and then get cards out. Not sure why I have a mental block right now, but I need to get mooooving! I have had my Starbucks, from my new Barista machine I might add... YUMMY! We got it on clearance and boy is it good, the only thing is, now I am drinking coffee every day, strong yummy coffee, and I am jacked up on caffiene now ; 0 Maybe that is what I need to get focused and moving to the creative cave.

One day when I get things in order down there I will actually post a photo, but for now... so ugly!

New SU goodies!

Okay, so I waited extremely long to order from the new SU catty, and that's sad : (

Honestly, I have found so many other distractions to purchase that I now need to catch up to SU! I just love these new sets! So the goal was to try and I say TRY loosely, to create my own patterned paper. If you have not seen Nichole Heady's ideas for this, you are missing out, the lady is pure genious. She makes it look sooooo easy! I'm not gonna lie, it took me ALL DAY, okay at least Half a Day to make this one piece of background paper...YIKES!

Anyhoo, I started out by stamping the swirls in a square pattern, then filled in the open squares with the butterflies. I used the little flower stamp in cool caribbean to fill in the swirls, and used the round stamp with the flower in chocolate chip to go over where the swirls intersected. Since it still looked to bare, I used versamark to stamp the larger flower image in the background. Of course to make my card, I only used about an 1 3/4 of the paper, so you don't really see this so well. My Bad!

I had attempted a different card using this lovely tulip image from Anna Griffin Designs, don't you just love how BEEEautiful it is? Now if I could only learn to color. I just had to use it on this card. I stamped my Tres Chic onto the Not quite navy paper, and then stitched,... yes stitched! It took me awhile to do that since I have never done real stitching on my cards, and had to fiddle with the tension ( note to self, a new pointy needle and tension at .5 seemed to do the trick). So I glued the pieces down, and then stitched the card. I stamped the SO KIND sentiment by stamping on and then off and then ON again! heh heh! I sound like such a pro..... NOT!

I used a "pig punch" for the placement of the ribbon. For those of you who don't know what a PIG PUNCH is.... it is the double rectangle punch! My friend Lori calls it that and I thought it sounded more fun than the "double slot/rectangle punch"! BAM! Just kickin it up a notch!

The ribbon is from the new Martha Stewart line. I have been trying to use this since I bought it a month ago. Not sure why I waited so long? Guess the pressure from "MaKe iT SPARKLE Missy" Martha Stewart made me really think about it! It really was a fun card to make, and not really all that hard. Now..... back to the creative Cave to do my next card..... and I do mean CAVE! My only good light source burned out and I am in the basement by the light of a window well and one overhead bulb.......someone bust out the violins!

D-tales D-tales!

Okay, so I just uploaded 2 cards over at SCS and put a link to my new blogspot..... guess I didn't really think that through so well. Oh well live and learn. Now I can play catch up so everyone can get the D-tales... hee hee!

So I am doing a Papertreyink Swap, and here is my idea, although I hope I planned enough time to get these done...egad!

I used a curved ruler to mark the edge of my card about 1 1/2 inches from the fold on the underside, then I used my scallop scissors to cut the edge. It really helps to draw a line first, makes cutting a breeze! Then I cut out a Large scallop circle, and stamped the scallops with another little design from the Borders and Corners set, unfortunately I cannot tell you exactly which set it came from.... I have mixed and matched all the little pieces so much they are all MIXED UP! ooops!

I stamped the dotted circle over the scalloped DP circle, cut out a smaller scallop circle, and added my cake. Once I colored it in with blender pens, my favorite thing to use as opposed to a marker! You can get more control in the shading and colors. I popped the smaller scalloped circle up, and then added a sentiment also popped up. HOpe it fits the envelope ; )

I finished off the edges using the Faux Ribbon set in Pumpkin just to trim things out, and then filled in my scalloped fold with another little doo-dad from Borders and Corners. Tied a big fat bow on it and called it Bright.... and done!

Let's add some photo's

This was a fun card to make! It has lot's of little layers, and special touches that made it a nice card to give. I always seem to end up with a small piece that is my focal point, and then build the card around it. Probably why it takes me so dang long to create one.

Well this is new for me, and I am trying this out to see if I can make it go! ha ha! Bear with me while I figure things out and try and customize this baby!