More is More

Just a quick post as I am running around like a chicken with my head cut off trying to get ready for my little luncheon tomorrow.  What on earth was I thinking when I said 11:30?  Certainly I didn’t forget that I’m NOT a morning person!  LOL!  I’m sure it will all come together. 

Anyway I wanted to take a minute to share the Elzybells card I managed to finish yesterday despite not completing my to-do list.  This was just a fun *play* card and I fit it into one of the Mini VSN Challenges at SCS.  So who can tell me which challenge it fits?

This card started out with the piece of Orchid cardstock laying on my table with a scallop oval punched out of it – used on the last card I posted.  I folded that piece in half and just worked from there.  It wasn’t as big as a standard card so I mounted it onto a piece of Regal Rose that had been stamped with Paisley tone on tone.  The Elzy chick image is mounted inside the card so it shows through the scallop *window*

On the Barely Banana layer I cut out an oval with my coluzzle and then ran it through my Cuttlebug with a new embossing folder.  I wanted to highlight the embossed pattern so I went over it with white craft ink with a sponge dauber.  Then I got the idea to go over that white ink with the shimmer chalks I absolutley had to have but hardly ever use.  I think it gave a fun result and it’s nice and shimmery in person.  I colored the chick image with the same chalks using a blender pen.  I added some liquid pearls – the old fashioned fabric painting version – and some rose satin ribbon from Fabric Barn.  And there you have it.

I need to get to bed so I can get up early and finish getting everything ready for company.  Hope you have a happy Friday.  Thanks for stopping by.

I finally got some Elzybells from the Spring release.  I wanted them all and it was hard to narrow them down, but I finally settled on a couple of chicks, 3 girls and some sentiments.  Now I just need some time to sit and PLAY! 

My first card had to be with the Easter Chick since Easter is almost here.  I’ve never been a big fan of Orchid Opulence, but I had it out on my table from my class prep and it does remind me of Easter so I grabbed some other *Easter* colors (Barely Banana, Bashful Blue, Gable Green) and went to work.

I pulled out my Prisma pencils and gamsol -something I don’t do very often – to color this adorable little image.  I think I’ll be using them more with the the Elzys since the images are so small – the pencils just seem the easiest to me.  Stitched Background was stamped in Brocade Blue on the Bashful Blue panel.  I’m really glad I got this background stamp – it is much more versatile than I originally thought.  Jenn Balcer pushed me over the edge on that one – thanks Jenn!  Daisy Field was wheeled in Green Galore on a Gable Green strip and then scallops were created with a slit punch.

The little white flower at the bottom is a rub-on from the SAB rub-on set and then I added some doodles with my white gel pen.  Can you see the tiny rhinestones on the Easter egg and the little flowers next to it?  You know I love rhinestones and I’m so excited about this latest find.

I went to the rubber stamp convention in Carson this last weekend with my friends Joy and Leann and we spied these wonderful packages of tiny rhinestones – round, square, teardrop, hearts – and get this – they were only $2.50 a package.  I’m guessing there must be at least 300 stones in a package and check out the cool carousel holder!   I scooped up the round and square, plus a mini package of pink hearts.  When I flipped over the package to the back I saw that the instructions involved nail polish.  LOL!  They are made by Adoro Cosmetics, INC for fingernail embellishment!  Maybe I’ll take them along to my next nail appointment for a little special bling!

Lots to do today to prep for my luncheon on Friday since I work tomorrow.  I have another Elzys card started and sitting on my table – hope I can squeeze in the time to finish it.  Oh and just this morning I discovered the Mini VSN Challenge Week going on at SCS.  Not sure how I had missed that, but there sure are some fun challenges posted.  Check it out if you can.

Thanks for stopping by.

Friday night I had my class for March and I wanted to share the projects we made.

This first card uses Boho Backgrounds – one of my new favorite sets.  It’s hard to believe how versatile this little set of four stamps is, but I’m telling you…you need it!  It’s all the little details that make a card special and on this card we added piercing in the bottom corner and along the green strip, a tiny rub-on in the corner, a ribbon slide from the new silver hardware kit, a silver diamond shaped brad to the turned back corner, and a green rhinestone brad.  Card base is Groovy Guava and the designer paper is the new Afternoon Tea.

Next is a clear card – the base is made from an overhead transparency.  I hope you can see it well enough.  We stamped little hearts with white Stazon around the edge of the card front.

The folded Orchid layer is attached inside the clear base and the white folded layer is attached outside.  This allows everything to be adhered without any adhesive showing anywhere.  The technique used on this card is Faux Stained glass and I saw it on a card by fellow SCSer Leann who got it from Scrapnextras here.  This is a simple and fun technique of overlapping outline images and then coloring in some or all of them.  The stamp set used for this card is the free SAB set Merci.  You can still get this (or one of 5 other sets) for free by placing a $50 Stampin’ Up! order this week! For this card we colored with blender pens and ink from markers scribbled on a CD.  We also made samples using glossy cardstock and markers (no blender pens).

Our third project was an adorable little Bagalope Basket that I found on my friend Cami’s blog.  Her directions are excellent so I won’t try to re-create them.  Click here for details.  We used Kraft envelopes and Afternoon Tea designer paper along with an image from Big Flowers and a white flower rub-on from the Occasions Mini.  We used the slot punch to create a place for some Soft Sky and Wild Wasabi ribbon to slide into in the basket handle.  I did my scoring at 1″ – Cami shows 2 variations.  Another really fun and simple project.  We also stuffed these with some Easter grass and chocolate eggs.

This was a really fun class…I have really GREAT customers!!!

This week I need to focus on lots of details for StampMania which is getting really close and of course I also have to prep for my luncheon on Friday. I’m so excited – all 6 ladies said *yes* (just one has to come late).  My wonderful friend Darla (the Pampered Chef Consultant) even offered to help me with cooking! 🙂  Good and busy week ahead.

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Saturday – it’s time for another edition of the Bible Verse Challenge – see all the details  here on Splitcoaststampers and please join us!  With Easter right around the corner I just kept coming back to John 3:16 and 17.

Salvation is the most awesome and wonderful gift we could ever receive and the fact there is nothing we can do to earn it is truly humbling.  Jesus paid it all and it is up to each of us to accept His gift – free to us – that cost Him so much.

Each month I am making journaling cards that are 3.25″ x 5″ to fit in a small Provo Craft tin.  Today I kept the card monochromatic in celery and olive using Refuge and Strength under the velum panel and Antique Cracking on the card base.

I’m late with my posting today (sorry Ladies!) and am anxious to see what the rest of the Scripture Chicks created…join me in visiting Lori Craig, Taylor VanBruggen, Nancy Morgan and Angel Wilde.

Thanks for stopping by.

I had this white card base already wheeled with the Beautiful Jumbo Wheel is Rose Red sitting on my stamp table when I sat down there this morning.  I decided that before I got to work on planning my class for Friday (aaaacckkk I never plan for class this late) I needed to just make something for fun so I decided to work with this partially stamped card.  Also sitting on my stamp table (with a huge pile of all kinds of stuff) were my Eastern Elegance rub-ons.  I’ve been wanting to make a card with the huge corner image so here’s what I came up with.

The So Saffron designer paper scrap was also found in the pile of stuff.  I just added some RoseRed/Pomegrante grosgrain (available from TayloredExpressions) with a new SU ribbon slide.  And then finished off the card with some Adorn It yellow jewels and tiny pearls (available at eclecticPaperie).  Super quick and simple card for a day when I had tons to do.

Curt called and asked me to come out near where he works and meet him for lunch. How could I refuse?  A lunch date – he paid and everything!  It was so nice!  I may not have gotten everything on my to do list done, but I did finish my samples for class Friday.  I’ll be sharing those soon.  Oh and Saturday will be the 8th – time for the Bible Verse Challenge (thanks Lori for the gentle reminder – I had somehow missed marking my calendar – Yikes!) – I hope you’ll join us this month.

Thanks for stopping by.

Time for another swap and as always my swappers ROCK!  I wanted to keep the photos big enough for you to really see each card in the groups so I’m just posting thumbnails here – click on each one to view it larger.  If you’d like to see the cards individually with details you can see them in the SCS gallery here.  The girls are still in the process of uploading all week – please go leave them some nice comments!

Round 1

Shelley Cantrell – Live Your Dream

Janine Tinklenberg – Big on Spring

Michelle Laycock – By Ones and Twos

Jen Moneagle – Bloomin’ Beautiful

Tara Cannon – Essence of Love

Sharon Maranich – For Father

Crystal Spencer – Time for You

Round 2

Lori Craig – Just Celebrate

Sharon Johnson – Tart & Tangy

Tandra Boyer – Friendly Flowers

Tara Cannon – She’s All That

Debra Daam – Sassy Suzie

Katie Lilly – Phrases for a Friend

Jen Moneagle – In the Stars

Round 3 – Designer Papers and Rub-ons

Jenn Balcer

Michelle Laycock

Sharon Maranich

Britta Ward

Bev Gerard

Tandra Boyer

Crystal Spencer

Several of the girls used the ribbon slides from the new Hardware kit – I thought it was interesting to see the different ways they each used the slide.  Perhaps it will inspire you a bit.

It’s funny how I’m such an administrator through and through.  I love hosting swaps while I do not enjoy making cards for swaps.  I love planning StampMania and being upfront on the microphone while I tend to be shy when I am a guest in a large group where I don’t know many people.  I enjoy myself most at a party when I am the planner making sure others are having a good time.  Some people might see me as anal or uptight and that’s fine…I would say I’m thorough and detail oriented.  *wink*  I am thankful for my talent/gift and enjoy being able to exercise it.  And I love my Swappers – those amzingly talented girls who enjoy making swap cards!  Thanks for playing girls!  🙂

I’ve been wanting to invite a particular group of gals over for lunch for several months now, but it just never seemed like the right time for one reason or another.  I finally decided to just do it!  So despite the fact that this is one of those weeks where I feel I’ll never be able to finish the to do list, I spent a couple of hours yesterday afternoon making invitations.  I mean what fun is it to just e-mail people?

I had no idea/inspiration to get these started yesterday so I just started going through all my stamp sets looking for something to *hit* me.  This sentiment from Time Well Spent seemed to fit the bill perfectly “time spent with friends is time well spent”.  I think it’s so easy to get caught up in the busy day to day of life and feel like we don’t have time to just spend with people, but that time truly is *well spent*!  So  I decided the sentiment would be my focal point.  I didn’t want to use the other stamps from the set because I didn’t want to do a lot of coloring, so I kept looking.  Big Flowers and Little Flowers seemed like they would work well.  Next I had no idea what colors I wanted to use so I started looking through patterned paper and found this happy little design in a Basic Gray 6×6 pad Gypsy.  I only had 2 6×6 sheets so I cut up strips – enough for 8 cards although I later realized I only needed 6.  The only problem was that the Gypsy paper did not really match my SU cardstock very well.  Good thing I have a huge slab of Prism cardstock for just such situations.  From the Prism I chose Frosted Cobalt. Desert Coral Dark and Intense Kiwi.  I stamped the Big and Little Flowers with white craft ink on the Frosted Cobalt Panel and pierced the bottom corner of the panel.  The sentiment was colored with Copic Markers and covered with a Spica Glitter pen and stickles.  Tiny Adorn it pearls finish off the flowers.  Then some doodling seemed to be in order for a border around the sentiment.  The Primas in the bottom corner were an afterthought really – the cards just seemed too plain. 

In the middle of working on these I really didn’t like them – they didn’t feel like me.  But somehow they grew on me and now I think they’re cute.  They’re off in the mail today and then starts the waiting for RSVP’s for next week’s lunch.  Oh the agony – will anyone actually come?  This is mostly a group of women I don’t know very well, but I hope we will all be great friends.

Happy Monday and thanks for stopping by!