Split baby

Today's technique lover's challenge on Splitcoaststampers was to do the Split Negative technique but in color instead of Black and White. I really like how cute this one is.

Stamps: Nursery Necessities and Nursery Letters Jumbo Wheel

Paper: Certainly Celery, Cutie Pie, Whisper White and Basic Black

Ink: Bashful Blue, Certainly Celery, VersaMark

Accessories: clear embossing powder, brads, ribbon, square scallop punch, black gel pen. markers

Not what I was thinking but what the heck....

I had great plans for this but somehow it did not work out as planned. The frame was at Target in the dollar bins so I figured what the heck. But when I got my new order of papers I went in a whole different direction than the original plan -- hate when I do that cuz I am never happy with the results -- oh well.




The other problem was that I could not get at the center from the back so trimming around the center part was not fun--hence the black around the opening.




I was able to use some rub ons from the new catalog and some new papers though. The words in the center are from a non SU stamp but I added the flowers that are from the Garden Silhouettes to bring it together. Not sure I like it but it may grow on me, if not I will have to send it to someone for a RAK -- hmmmm, wonder if that is still an act of kindness????

Celebrating You!

Here is one more for today's challenge. I will have a busy day tomorrow so you get two for one today. I may have time to post tomorrow too but just in case. This is such a cheerful card, I love it. The layout is super. Here is the card that I CASED. What a fun challenge.

Stamps: Fast and Fun Notes

Paper: Certainly Celery, So Saffron, Bashful Blue, Rose Red and Cutie Pie dp

Ink: Basic Black and Rose Red

Accessories: markers, brads, ribbon, glitter, paper piercer, mat pack, photo corner punch, prima flower

Loads of Love

I so seldom use this set. I just never like the way it looks after I color it. I am not good at the whole shading thing. So I chose to paper piece this with these cool circles. This layout is actually for the FS47 challenge on Splitcoaststampers. I have only done these challenge once before but they are fun. The hostess picks a gallery and you get to go in a CASE a card from it! How easy is that. Of course you need to change a few things to make it your own. Here is the card that I chose to CASE. As you can see there are quite a few changes but the basic idea is still there. Hope you enjoy and thanks for stopping by today.

Stamps: Loads of Love and accessories

Paper: Real Red, Basic Black, Whisper White and Uptown dp

Ink: Basic Black

Accessories: cuttlebug, scallop punch, brads, markers, watercolor crayons

One more for the LSC148.

As soon as I posted the last card for this challenge my delivery came from Stampin Up and it included my new papers. Aren't they beautiful! So I figured I would do one more of these challenges to show off the new papers. This is a 6 x 6 card. The image is from Fun and Fast Notes. The paper is from the new catalog it's the Ginger Blossom Collection. The coloring is just markers and the ribbon is the chocolate wide satin. I need to change it out though since the cut looks rough. Didn't notice till I loaded the picture.

We miss you.

This card is for a dear friend of mine who is deployed right now. It is created using the Limited Supply Challenge on Splitcoaststampers. The image is colored in using re-inkers and the water brush. I just bought this image a few days ago so I was glad to use it. Here are the details of the challenge.

Follow the list #6

Stamps
one stamped image that can be colored
optional: sentiment
optional: an image to ground the main image like an oval, grass, etc.

Paper
any shade of white
2-3 patterns of designer paper
NO other colored cardstock

Tools
NO specialty tools (No punches, No CB, No Piercer, etc)
any coloring tools
sponges OK

Embellishments
one piece of ribbon

Dimensionals are an adhesive!

Keyword: LSC148

Blogger's Challenge 27

Another Friday and another Blogger's Challenge. This week we were to use something for inspiration. As I walked around my home this week I found this shell that someone special had brought back from Florida for me. It always makes me feel calm and serene when I look at it. I love the color purple and the water so that may be why. I thought that those feelings would be perfect for a sympathy card. I actually used the splitcoaststampers sketch challenge again that I used on my last post and some paper that I was challenging myself to use since it was a customer mistake. I don't really like the pattern on this designer paper but I think it is ok with this card. The base of the card is Lovely Lilac and the inks used were Almost Amethyst and Lovely Lilac. The card was almost too simple but I can not see what I could add that would not change the feel. Hope you enjoy.

A Good Thing Sketch Challenge

For today's Sketch Challenge on Splitcoaststampers. Here is the sketch..



I actually chose this layout because I had some extra paper from this card laying on my table and wanted to use it up but did not want to make any more Christmas cards! The base of the card is Certainly Celery. I cut the bottom edge off with my scallop blade on my Carl cutter. The strip that is added to the inside is from the Wintergreen collection of designer series paper. Since I knew I wanted to use the Time Well Spent set (which will be in the new catalog as a level 3 hostess set) I chose to use Pretty in Pink and So Saffron as the other colors. The flowers are stamped in basic black and colored in using markers. The circles are cut using my Coluzzle. The rest is pretty basic. Hope you enjoy.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL OF YOU! (who celebrate)

This is beautiful! Merry CHRISTmas!! {The First Christmas Gift}
I hope you are all able to view it.

For those of you that do not celebrate -- I wish you a joyous day too.

Your Worth a Mint!

These were the little treat baskets I gave to all of the Administrative Staff at my son's school. The little baskets were made from a pattern on Cambria's blog. They are actually peppermint patties disguised like little snowflake sandwiches. I made strips for the top of them that said You Are Worth a "MINT". I am sad that my son will be switching schools next year due to a re-districting everyone in this school has been so nice and so helpful.

Double Duty - Triple Shaker

This card was a true labor of love. Did you ever have an idea in your head and it just don't work out quite as simply as you think it will? Well this is that card! I knew I was way behind on Blogging and challenges so thought I would combine this weeks Blogger Challenge (a card with movement) with this weeks Sketch Challenge at SCS. I was able to make it work but it took a bit more time than I was wanting to set aside for this. Oh well it is done now. The base of the card is the textured River Rock card stock. The images and words are from the Just Like You set. The flowers are stamped on Very Vanilla in Ruby Red and Groovy Guava. The Guava Circles are created by punching the 1 and 1/4 inch circle punch into a piece of Groovy Guava and then centering the circle in the 1 and 1/2 inch circle punch and punching again. These were layered over the Ruby Red 1 and 1/2 inch circles and then over the River Rock embossed piece. I then came back in with my 1 and 1/4 inch punch and punched out the center again to remove the Ruby Red and River Rock paper from the circles. Clear as mud? The rest is just your basic shaker card. Hope you enjoy.

Jar of Cards for Teachers!

Well I sure did not get done as much as I wanted to this year for Christmas but I am out of time for teacher gifts. Here is the main gift for my son's three main teachers. I found a three pack of these plastic jars at JoAnn's. Of course they only had one package so this is all I got -- but you know I will be on the look out for more! I feel a class coming on.

I tried to keep them simple so that when they are empty they can use them other other things - like maybe a candy holder for their desks or what every they desire. I filled them with little mini 3 x 3 cards all with the Thank You theme. The individual pictures are also in this post. Not sure I will type up all the details but if you have a questions feel free to ask. This was my first experience with 3 x 3's and I really love them. I will be doing more for sure!


I really like how this one turned out. I still love this set even though it is retired. Nice and Easy Notes.









The ones that I gave to the teachers did not look as bad as this next photo. The punch was not working well on this one. I assure you the ones the teachers got look better!

Back to Reality

I have gotten a bunch of e-mails asking if I fell off the face of the earth -- well although it does feel like I did and landed on my head - Let me reassure you and ME that I am still here and alive. I am so sorry for this long break but I just can not seem to get rid of this virus. I start to feel better and then WHAM there is something else. The good news is that life goes on without us and that means that my son still has his Christmas Party at school today -- which also means I had to go down to my studio and do some stamping yesterday to get the gifts done so I will post them later and try to get back to our regularly scheduled program of consistent posts. Hope every one is ready for the BIG DAY! (I know I am not even close, lol) See ya later with some actual projects to share. Thanks for the concern, it makes me feel good to know that people noticed I was not posting.

A new tradition in the making-I can't wait!

Again I have been sick. I have barely gotten out of bed except to do a few things that could not or would not happen without me being present -- even from a distance since I was contagious--I have strep throat with flu like symptoms, YUCK. I have a some time to surf and came across this and wanted to share because I thought it was beautiful. I so want to start this as a new tradition for my family. This is from the Weekly HugClub news.

A Christmas Story

It's just a small, white envelope stuck among the branches of our Christmas tree. No name, no identification, no inscription. It has peeked through the branches of our tree for the past 10 years or so.

It all began because my husband Mike hated Christmas---oh, not the true meaning of Christmas, but the commercial aspects of it... overspending...the frantic running around at the last minute to get a tie for Uncle Harry and the dusting powder for Grandma---the gifts given in desperation because you couldn't think of anything else. Knowing he felt this way, I decided one year to bypass the usual shirts, sweaters, ties and so forth. I reached for something special just for Mike

The inspiration came in an unusual way. Our son Kevin, who was 12 that year, was wrestling at the junior level at the school he attended; and shortly before Christmas, there was a non-league match against a team sponsored by an inner-city church, mostly black. These youngsters, dressed in sneakers so ragged that shoestrings seemed to be the only thing holding them together, presented a sharp contrast to our boys in their spiffy blue and gold uniforms and sparkling new wrestling shoes. As the match began, I was alarmed to see that the other team was wrestling without headgear, a kind of light helmet designed to protect a wrestler's ears. It was a luxury the ragtag team obviously could not afford. Well, we ended up walloping them. We took every weight class. And as each of their boys got up from the mat, he swaggered around in his tatters with false bravado, a kind of street pride that couldn't acknowledge defeat. Mike, seated beside me, shook his head sadly, "I wish just one of them could have won," he said. "They have a lot of potential, but losing like this could take the heart right out of them."

Mike loved kids-all kids-and he knew them, having coached little league football, baseball and lacrosse. That's when the idea for his present came. That afternoon, I went to a local sporting goods store and bought an assortment of wrestling headgear and shoes and sent them anonymously to the inner-city church. On Christmas Eve, I placed the envelope on the tree, the note inside telling Mike what I had done and that this was his gift from me. His smile was the brightest thing about Christmas that year and in succeeding years. For each Christmas, I followed the tradition---one year sending a group of mentally handicapped youngsters to a hockey game, another year a check to a pair of elderly brothers whose home had burned to the ground the week before Christmas, and on and on. The envelope became the highlight of our Christmas. It was always the last thing opened on Christmas morning and our children, ignoring their new toys, would stand with wide-eyed anticipation as their dad lifted the envelope from the tree to reveal its contents. As the children grew, the toys gave way to more practical presents, but the envelope never lost its allure. The story doesn't end there.

You see, we lost Mike last year. When Christmas rolled around, I was still so wrapped in grief that I barely got the tree up. But Christmas Eve found me placing an envelope on the tree, and in the morning, it was joined by three more. Each of our children, unbeknownst to the others, had placed an envelope on the tree for their dad. The tradition has grown and someday will expand even further with our grandchildren standing around the tree with wide-eyed anticipation watching as their fathers take down the envelope. Mike's spirit, like the Christmas spirit, will always be with us.

May we all remember Christ, and "give" in a Christ-like manner. After all, he is the reason for the season, and the true "Christmas spirit" this year and always.

Submitted by: Linda Kissick

More Teacher Gifts

Here are a few more of my teacher gifts for this year. These are very fast and easy to make. I used my Colluzle to cut the large circles and the 5 in 1 envelope template for the gift cards. The jiffy pop handle is bent to go over the top of a two liter bottle of pop. The rest is pretty self explanatory. Let me know if you have any questions.

The count down is here...

Time is running out on creating your hand made Christmas cards for the year. If you have not even started yet this is a SUPER fast and easy card for you to try. This was created with the hostess set Sidekick Sayings. What a fun set this is I will be sorry to see it retire. This was the fasted card ever! Stamp the image and color with markers. Highlight words-layer on Old Olive paper. The designer paper is from the Dashing collection, the holly is from the Holiday Tag Team set and the dots along the top of the striped layer are done with a marker. (other colors used-River Rock and Real Red) Can't get much easier than that. Hope this encourages you to start those cards because with layouts like this it is NOT too late to start now!

Blogger's/SCS challenge

Man have I been busy again! I have not had a moment to work on any challenges over at SCS so I decided to combine the sketch challenge for the week with the Blogger's Challenge. Here is the sketch for the SCS challenge.




And the Blogger's challenge was to use water coloring. I soooooo love this set Holy Triptych from the recently retired Holiday Mini and will be sad when Christmas card making is over. I will need to find other ways to use it. I could use the angel and the tag part but will see what I come up with later. Now on to this particular card. The base of the card is Purely Pomegranate followed by So Saffron. Next I went back to the Pomegranate and then to the Always Artichoke designer paper. Such an easy layout and does not really require or even leave room for too many extras. The focal image is embossed in black and then colored with my water color crayons and aqua painter. I finished it off with the beautiful Pomegranate satin ribbon. Hope you enjoy!

All Spruced up for the Holidays!

This was one of the cards for my third round of Christmas Stamp and Stack today. The focal image is from Fun and Fast notes. I stamped it in Old Olive ink and then colored it with chalks. Next I covered the colored areas with VersaMark using my Versa Marker and embossed it with clear embossing powder. You can not tell from the picture.

The base of the card is Real Red followed by a layer of River Rock that has the words stamped across the top with little asterisks free handed in Real Red marker in between each phrase. Next are two strips of designer paper from the Dashing series. The red scalloped strip is over the seam and is paper pierced on both sides of the words. (again this is not really visible from the picture) The words are stamped on River Rock and punched out with the word window punch. I added some dots around the focal image with the red marker before attaching it to the large scallop circle. Finally I pierced all of the scallops on the large scallop circle. Thanks for stopin by today! Have a great one.

Skating through the Holidays.

I would love to say that this little guy skating in front of the trees from Lovely as a Tree was my idea but I have seen it many places before and just finally got around to making it when I was reminded by a new version by Kyla Maestas. I decided to create a card that had a half front with the Scallop Circle overlapping the inside portion of the card. This next picture shows the card open.



I absolutely adore the Wintergreen papers, I am not gonna be happy when they retire. The little hedgehog is long ago retired. I think he is the cutest little guy. I hope you enjoy my card today.

Supplies used: Holiday Hedgehogs (retired), Lovely as a Tree, Festive Favorites and Warm Words stamp sets. Wintergreen designer series paper, Whisper White, Sage Shadow and Always Artichoke card stock. Basic Brown, Chocolate Chip and Always Artichoke ink. markers, water color pencils, blender pen, large scallop punch, large circle punch, large and small oval punches and a white gel pen.

Stampin Up! retired list is here!

This is the list that will be retiring from the Winter Fall Catalog. You only have till the end of the month to order these sets and then they will be gone forever! There are only two I really NEED and don't have--how about you? Check out the list by alphabetical order here or by page number here.

The retired accessories list will be out on the 10th. Please be sure to order early enough to get in before the deadline. I will need to receive your payment before placing the order so please keep that in mind. Happy Saturday to everyone!