Halloween Treats

Our family doesn't really do much for Halloween - we focus more on the fall/harvest aspect (plus that way all the decor carries over into Thanksgiving!). We do take the kids out trick-or-treating in our neighborhood; this year we have a knight in shining armor and a very elegant princess!

Anyway, our son's school is having a Halloween parade (all the kids march around the school) and then a little party this afternoon, and I wanted to make something for him to share with his classmates. I headed to Michael's and the Dollar store, and then made up these little goodie bags with a pencil, stickers, kazoo, balloon, and some candy. I had to incorporate some stamping in there somewhere, so I made little tags (pumpkin stamp from Target $1 bin, enjoy from Hero Arts) that I just stapled on.

$7 in supplies + 1 hour of stamping/assembly time = 24 Bags o' fun!

An Inspiring Tea Party

Well, as I'd mentioned last week, it's my turn to host the smART Cookies' Tea Party, and I chose to "inspire" everyone with this photo from Traditional Home. It's always fun to see what individual elements each person chooses to work with!





I decided to go with colors: white, black, slate gray, and soft teal. After playing around with a couple stamp sets, I finally settled on In Fashion. I started by stamping the very stylish lady in black versafine, and added just a touch of colors with my prismacolor pencils (there's actually a bit in her hair and on her cheeks as well). I wanted to use a black card base, but it looked a bit too stark, so I laid a swirly glimmer screen over it and then misted it with silver glimmer mist. Perfect! I then added a band of the soft teal cardstock, accented with a Martha Stewart edge punch and wrapped with ribbon. I stamped the sentiment on a scrap of white, then matted it onto slate gray and added rhinestone accents at each corner. The final touch was a couple prima flowers on the main panel, just to provide some balance...

Would you like to see what the other designers have created? Well, go visit Susan, Dina, Giovana & Donelda to see how they interpreted the photo.

Wanna win some stamps?

Well then head over to Susan's blog! She's the owner of smARTworks and will be giving gifts this year: stamps!

So why are you still here?!? :)

The Lord is God...

Still haven't had much time for creative pursuits, but I did manage to pull this card together. It all started with this week's sketch from Card Positioning Systems, and then the papers from Memory Box. I've had this MB paper kicking around for awhile now; I love the designs, but they all have rather strong images and I've had a tough time actually incorporating them into a card... this time, though, I started with the paper. The verse (Uptown Designs) is the only stamped element. I also highlighted the trees and the word "God" with a spica glitter pen, but just couldn't get a decent photo. Trust me, though, it's quite lovely in person! I just love the subtle sparkle the pens provide, plus the ease of application.

Well, I'm off and running again. Hope to be back soon!

Tea Party Challenge

My turn to host the smART Cookie Tea Party, and I decided to go with an Inspiration Challenge. As much as I'd love to say this is a photo of our living room, it's actually from the Traditional Home site. So if you're now feeling inspired by the colors or other elements in the room, then why not play along with us? Party will be held next Wednesday, Oct 29. Hope to see you there!

Time for a makeover!

So what do you think? Tekeme Studios set up me up with this fabulous redesign... now if only *I* looked as good as my blog! :)

Hoot!

The most recent smART Cookie challenge was to create something using the Hoot set. I know I've seen lots of owl sets lately, but most are more "cutesy," whereas this one is very realistic. I chose a very simple layout for the card, letting the detail of the image sort of speak for itself. I stamped it with black versafine onto brown cardstock, then embossed with Faith's Transcendence powder. I added just a bit of color to the branch and with prismacolor pencils, and then brushed over the moon with silver twinkling H2Os. It might be a stark card, but it can still use some shimmer! I layered it with some black (accented with a line of piercing), then made a simple tent card base.


Head over to Susan's blog to see what the other cookies created and for a chance to win a set of your own!

Simple Thanks

I wanted to send a card to a friend, and nothing I had felt quite right, so I forced myself to create something... OK, so maybe I just wanted an excuse to play with some new goodies :)

The very cute little heart tree/bouquet thingee is from Autumn Leaves stampology and I accented it with ivory flower soft. I used matte accents (Ranger) to adhere it, and it seemed to work pretty well. I ordered this stuff, not quite sure what to expect, but I love it! It's sort of plastic-y but very soft - hard to describe, but definitely fun to play with. I guarantee you'll be seeing more of this in the future :) The paper is SEI Winston, edged with a (new) Martha Stewart border punch, and the sentiment is Impression Obsession. Now off to actually get this card in the mail!

I'll be back tomorrow to share my card from the smART Cookie challenge, featuring the set Hoot!

Time for another party!

Today is another smART Cookie Tea Party, and our hostess Susan provided a sketch with a "cut out" element. Man, my cutter bees have really been getting a workout lately! :)

After all the baby cards I've been making, I wanted to use some different tones... and well, this is definitely different! The card actually isn't quite so bright IRL, but my camera just didn't know what to make of these colors. All the papers are from the BasicGrey Cupcake 6x6 pad, and I used Express Duo #1 and Deut 6:5. I modified the sketch a bit to accommodate the large verse, and I really wanted to use ribbon across the bottom, but I couldn't find anything in my stash to coordinate, so I just used a strip of paper. I stamped the verse onto a piece of white, then accented each "all" with a swipe of twinkling H2Os, then cut them out. Final touch was three dew drops along the edge for a bit of dimension.

Would you like to see what the other team members have created? Then click over to Susan, Dina, Giovana & Donelda. We'd love to have you join in - just leave a comment with a link to your creation!

Two more baby cards

I really hope these are the last "baby girl" cards I need to make for awhile - I'm getting sick of pink! :)

Both these cards were made with the same pad of BasicGrey Euphoria paper that I've been using for the past couple weeks. I love the colors - soft yet bright, and lots of blues and greens to break up the pinks & purples.

This one on the left also uses a felt heart frame (Fancy Pants) along with some acrylic pieces (Michael's). The sentiment was computer generated. For the card on the right, I just grabbed some ribbon from my stash, prima flowers (the bottom one was spritzed with pink taffy glimmer mist to pull the colors together), then stamped the word (SU Noteworthy) onto a scrap, then tied it in with the flowers. The bottom was done with a Martha Stewart border punch.

Very little stamping involved, but it still felt great to play with paper and glue!

Upcoming Tea Party

I know I still haven't been posting much; hoping to get some time to stamp this weekend. In the meantime, though, I wanted to share the challenge that has been served up for the next smART Cookies' Tea Party. Susan is our hostess this time around, and she's provided this sketch; we can use any cut-out image as the accent (shown by the circle). We'd love to have you play along with us on the 15th!

Enjoy today - and a BIG sale!!

I have two more cards to share featuring the Borders & Seals set, both simple but elegant.


For this first one, I started by lightly drawing a grid on the white cardstock so I could make sure that the images were stamped evenly. The sentiment is from Sunflowers, and it's layered with white organdy ribbon and two pearls.





For this card, I stamped the long image from the set onto taupe cardstock with versamagic ink, used sticky EP, heated, and then applied gold leaf foil. I matted the strip with black, and then adhered it to the card, where I had stamped selas along the bottom edge. The sentiment is from Bleeding Heart, and I split it using my stamp-a-ma-jig.

So would you like to purchase any of these sets for yourself? Well, head on over to smARTworks ~ it's birthday month, and all in-stock rubber is 35% off!! Order $50 or more of stamps only, and shipping is free; if your order includes accessories, then shipping is half off. Get all the details here. What better way to kick off the week than ordering new stamps! :)

Tea Party!

It's Tea Party time again, and Peggy Lamb was our hostess this week. She provided a sketch, which was to feature paper piecing on the main image. Can I let you in on a secret? I really don't like paper piecing - I get impatient with the detailed cutting (as is the case with anything that's overly involved, which is why most of my cards are relatively quick to recreate :) But I must admit that I really like the way this card turned out, and the extra four minutes of work was definitely worthwhile!

For the main image, I chose this adorable bear from Teddy Gals, and used the scraps (BasicGrey Euphoria)from the baby card I made last week on her dress and hairbow. I also unearthed a scrap of silver metallic paper for the watering can. I colored the body with prismacolor pencils, the sleeves of the dress with gel pen, and the flower with twinkling H2Os. The sentiment is from Bloomin.

Would you like to see what the other team members have created? You can see Peggy's card at Susan's blog, and Dina, Giovana & Donelda will be posting their cards, too. We'd love to have you join in - just leave a comment with link to your creation!