A Wandering Mind...

I am truly enjoying my snow swirled set.  It's SO versatile!  I made this card after seeing this card.  Now, I came across that card while blog hopping the other night, was suddenly struck with the idea to try it with snow swirled and got right to stamping.  I originally wanted to start with mellow moss...but I was all out.  So, I tried old olive...but wasn't really lovin' it with the kraft, and I was determined to keep the kraft.  I decided to try pacific point and started stamping, lost almost all sight of the original card and came up with this.  All the stamping is in whisper white and I took the pic under a lamp in the living room at about 10 pm, so it's not a great rendition...but I like it.

stamps: snow swirled, everyday flexible phrases; cardstock: pacific point, kraft; ink: whisper white craft; fiber: hemp twine; tools: word window, 1 3/8" circle and ticket corner punches, coluzzle, sponge dauber; other: dimensionals

I'm a giver...

Today started out like any other Friday...doin' my work...makin' my calls...when *BAM* I found myself volunteering to fill a last minute opening for today's Red Cross blood drive at work.  The request was simple "We have a couple openings in this mornings donor schedule."  I didn't even realize what I was doing until after my email was sent...4 seemingly innocent words..."I can take one"...and I was committed.  Now, I'm sure you think I'm being a bit over dramatic, but up until today, aside from a vial here and there for my doctor, I'd never given blood before!  I signed up for a blood mobile in high school once, but got sick before I could make it to my appointment...but I digress...

After answering their questionnaire, which, by the way, is rather involved.  I had a bit of a wait and then up on the table.  Now, I've had bad experiences with nurses who like to go fishing for veins that simply don't want to be caught.  So, when Nurse kept pushing my right arm for a vein, I started getting nervous.  Ok, lets try the left...no?  right? no? hey, Other Nurse, come here...is that a vein?  They ended up using a blood pressure cuff as a tourniquet...but it worked.

When I was done Nurse and Other Nurse said "wow, you did great!" (yeah, they new I was a first-timer, haha)  I was surprised to be done so soon, so I asked how long it usually takes to fill a pint...8-10 minutes...you know how long it took me??  7.5!

So, anyway.  I now have 2 very nice stickers and a picture by cell phone, courtesy of a co-worker, that I'll be adding to my scrapbook journal.  This is me with Tammy, co-worker, stamping friend and blood-donation-moral-support.  Thanks, Tammy!!

I gave...did you?

More Birthdays

Wanted to share a couple birthday cards I made a while back for some of Kristina's color challenges.

This first is very outside my usual style, but I'm really happy with the result.  I think this may be the most layers I've ever used on a card. haha  I used the stamp-a-ma-jig quite a bit.  The cupcake is popped up with a dimensional and there is dazzling diamonds on the icing.  I used stazon ink to 

color the vintage brads black.

I also decorated the inside.  The small cupcake is from short and sweet, which is one of my favorite sets. 

Enjoy birthday: enjoy every moment, everyday flexible phrases, it's your birthday (retired) and short & sweet stamp sets; ruby red, basic gray, river rock (retired) classic and stazon ink pads; ruby red, basic gray, basic black, river rock (retired) and whisper white cardstock; dazzling diamonds; aquapainters; SAMJ; vintage brads

On this second card I used my markers to color in the flower from True Friend before stamping.  When I saw that rose was one of the colors, I knew I'd be using this DSP.  I have such a hard time using sage shadow, so this was a good stretch for me.

Flower birthday: true friend and it's your birthday (retired stamp sets; regal rose, rose red and sage shadow markers; sage shadow and basic black classic ink pads; regal rose, rose red, and sage shadow card stock; rose red prints desiger series paper (retired); 5/8" regal rose grosgrain ribbon; dimensionals

Thanks for stopping by.  Happy Stamping!!

Random Technical and Fun Stuff

Just wanted to share some random stuff from the web:

1. A great big thanks to Amanda, one of my SCS sisters, for pointing me in the direction of this wonderful post teaching me how to add that third column. I've gazed longingly at others' third columns for ages and now I know the secret. What do you think of the new layout?

2. The other day I discovered wordle through another blog...which, for the life of me I can't find...isn't that always the way?? Wordle is a site that takes any text you give it and creates a graphic showing the most used words prominently. You can then change the font, layout, and color scheme. Anyway, I decided to take the feed from my blog and plug it in to see what I got. Well, here's the "I've Been Inking Wordle".

3. Check out Babble...a wonderfully addictive online word game. It's like a cross between scrabble and boggle. And you can chat with other players for tips and hints. So great!!

4. A shameless plug for one of my favorite non-stamping blogs ... written by my best friend. Naomi's writing sytle is highly amusing, and her boys are hilarious. And, yes, it's all true. haha Trust me, I've seen it!! She's been rather quiet lately. She's got a lot on her plate right now launching her gluten-free flour business. Just amazing. Enjoy!!

Now it's your turn. What are some of your recent crazy online finds or favorite haunts?? Please share!

(Edited to add: Here's the Linda Heller's husband's blog where I first heard about wordle...thanks, Carmen!!)

I'm baaaack...

Sorry for the week of silence. I have no "real" excuse other than...life. If you found yourself checking daily (yeah, right) and finding nothing, I suggest you subscribe to my feed. It's simple. Do you see the link on the right that says "subscription"? Just click it, pick your service (if you don't have one, don't worry, it's free) and subscribe. That way you'll receive an email letting you know when and what I've posted without having to check here daily.

That being said, I am determined to post more often. I've joined a wonderful group of SU! Demonstrators on SCS, and we're all going to keep each other motivated to post more frequently. You can see their blogs, as well as a couple more of my favorites, in the column to the right.

So, in my absence I HAVE been inking. I received the new Snow Swirled stamp set in trade (thanks, Denise!!) and couldn't wait to ink it up. I created a couple of simple Christmas/winter cards, just to see what I could do with it. There are more scraps and experiments that haven't made it to card form, just yet. But I hope you'll enjoy these.
Next month our monthly stamp-a-stack will be all about Christmas. We'll be making elegant, classy and fun cards that are fairly simple to reproduce in a larger quantity. The Snow Swirled set is perfect for this (and it's 15% off all this month!!). In fact, (you should be sitting down for this shocker) this is my first ever snowflake set...GASP!!! How did I ever live so long without such a versatile set??? I have so many ideas for this set, I hope you won't be sick of it my the time I'm done. haha


The first card is really basic. I wanted to see what I could do with just one color of cardstock, 0ne color of ink and one stamp set. The sponging on the main image, as well as dimensionals, not only add a soft touch, help it break free of the background and hold its own. This card could be stepped-up by adding a dyed-to-match ribbon along the left side or dazzling diamonds glitter to the main image...or both!!












The second card is rather similar to the first. I used a bolder color and matted the main image in a matching cardstock, rather than sponging, to give a more structured look. Also, there are 2 stamp sets used on this card. This could also be stepped-up with ribbon
and glitter. Oooo...or a rhinestone brad in the center of the main image!












This third card is actually the first I made. I've been dying to make this card ever since I started admiring snowflake stamp sets. This is also fairly simple to reproduce, with a few more supplies than the previous cards. This uses 3 ink pads, white embossing powder and a heat tool. I started with the lightest snowflakes, added the darkest and filled in with the white embossing. The trick to keeping it from getting too crowded and overlapped is to stamp much less of each color than you think you need. That way there is ample room for the other colors.






This final item is a test for a local craft fair I'll be participating in next month. I want to offer a wide range of items, rather than just cards, and thought Christmas ornaments would be a good place to start. I pulled a tile from my stash and made this. I first treated the entire tile with the embossing buddy...those tiles are clinging little buggers! I inked my image in versamark and pacific point, stamped the image, added heat and stick powder, heated just until clear, poured on my dazzling diamonds and reheated to set. I attached the hodgepodge hardware clip (retired) to the back with crystal effects. I'm thinking of tying a ribbon around the clip and adding a piece of cardstock to the back to cover the tile back and allow for personalization.

I hope my snow swirled items were worth the wait. Let me know what you think (comments keep me going...haha)

Thanks for stopping by!

Card#1: snow swirled stamp set, very vanilla cardstock, baja breeze ink, stampin' sponge, dimensionals
Card#2: snow swirled and holidays & wishes stamp sets, very vanilla and pacific point cardstock, pacific point ink, dimensionals
Card#3: snow swirled stamp set, baja breeze cardstock, baja breeze, not quite navy and versamark ink, white embossing powder, 1/4" white grosgrain ribbon
Ornament: snow swirled stamp set, ceramic tile, versamark and pacific point ink, heat and stick powder, dazzling diamonds glitter, heat tool, retired pewter HPH, crystal effects

Top Note how-to

So, here I am again. Hmmm, can you tell what I'm doing with my 3-day weekend? LOL Thought I'd do a little tutorial on how I did the square and circle with the big shot and top note die.

Start with cardstock piece 4.25x5.5".

Make your "sandwich" from bottom to top:

cutting plate, die, cardstock, cutting plate

and feed through big shot.

I always use the same cutting plate on top

and, yes, it's supposed to get cut and look like that.

I'm saving my "bottom" plate uncut so that,

should Stampin' Up! offer embossing folders,

I'll be ready. :)

This is what you get after you run it through the big shot.

Note: save all your scraps...you'll see why in a bit.

Rotate your cardstock 90 degrees and center it on the die. Use the points of the cardstock and the die to be sure to lined it up straight. Run that through your big shot.

I'm leaving the top cutting plate off for the sake of the pictures. Be sure to replace it on top of your cardstock before each cut.

This is the square you get after the second cut. You can either use it like this or continue on to create the circle

For the circle you'll take your square and turn it 45 degrees to line up the 4 corners with the points on the die.

This is what you have after feeding it through the big shot.

Don't forget to save those scraps...

Now, turn that shape 90 degrees like so and cut.

Here it is after it's ride through the big shot.

And here is your final circle piece.

Now I hope you saved those scraps...

Because this is what you'll have left over.

A frame, 2 brackets and 4 photo corners.

I hope you'll enjoy your big shot as much as I am!!

(Customer ordering begins tomorrow!!!)

Thanks for stopping by.

The Top Note AGAIN???

I just have to say, "I love the top note die!!" I made another card with it tonight. Last time I cut the cardstock 2 ways to make a square-ish element. Tonight I thought, "hmm, what happens if I cut it 4 times??" Well, the shape I got kind of reminds me of a sun. If only I had Life's a Breeze...

Here's the final product:

I even decorated the inside.

Thanks for stopping by!

Baroque Motifs stamp set; tangerine tango textured, basic gray and whisper white cardstock; basic gray and tangerine tango classic ink pads; big shot with top note bigz die; vintage brads; stampin' sponge; coluzzle; stamp-a-ma-jig