More digi-scrapping…

You might say I’m a little behind in my scrapbooking, since the beautiful couple below has just celebrated their 5th wedding anniversary. I don’t look at myself as behind, since I never intended to keep up anyway. I don’t even consider myself a scrapbooker, for that matter.

Nevertheless, today I spent the better part of the day working on this layout. 

I found it in a sketch challenge on My Sketch World. I was captivated by the hexagons, and went search of a great photo to use it with.

I used MDS to create the page (the digital papers came from there too), but I was delighted to find that not only was I able to use some freebie downloaded embellishments from who-remembers-where, but the program makes it very easy to change the colors of them to suit whatever I’m working with. I have tried digi-scrapping with Photoshop CS and Photoshop Elements, and MDS is by far the easiest and least stressful to deal with. I’ll keep using Photoshop for my image editing, but for scrapping, MDS is IT!

After I saved the page above as a .jpg file, I noticed I had created a page several years ago with a photo from the same engagement shoot. I don’t even really remember doing it.

Anyhow, that’s it for now. I have duly fulfilled my National Scrapbooking Day (weekend) responsibilities.

Later!

Happy National Scrapbooking Day!

In honor of the occasion, I decided to once again try my hand at digital scrapbooking using some freebie mini-kits I downloaded this morning from Sweet Shoppe Designs. And of course, using my favorite subject, my adorable granddaughter, Lilia.

I used Stampin’ Up!’s MDS2+ program to make the page, and that digital “create” stamp is from there. The layout, however, was taken from Sketch Challenge #78 on Papertake. I think it was supposed to be a card sketch, but it worked great for a scrapbook page!

I’m happy to say that this digi-scrapping thing is really growing on me, and I’m getting less anxious every time I attempt a page. Yeah, new technology makes me nervous!

Now I think I’ll go out and enjoy some of this beautiful spring weather before I lose the whole day!

On Creativity

(Be forewarned, this is wordy – but I promise to have some crafty goodness at the end.)

I’ve been thinking a lot about creativity lately. Specifically, what sparks my own creative muse? What does it take to not only inspire me, but to actually move me to create? In this case, I’m talking about cardmaking, but I suppose it applies to all other aspects of my creative life. And maybe yours.

I tried to remember exactly when I felt the most inspired, the most creative, and I realized that back in the very beginning of my papercrafting era, when I was a Stampin’ Up demo about 10 years ago, I used to wake up in the wee hours of the morning with an idea that I wanted to jump out of bed to create. I guess the newness was a part of it then.

I remember looking through magazines and finding cards I loved, and then trying to recreate them using the SU stamps and supplies that I had. There is something to be said for limited supplies and creativity. I got into a nice creative groove, coming up with designs that I could use in workshops and classes.

After a while, when I was no longer affiliated with SU, came design team work, which was exciting and fulfilling, and sometimes nerve-wracking. Being forced to produce on deadline brings about its own form of creativity. The blogosphere had exploded with papercrafting talent, and there was no shortage of inspiration out there. And don’t get me wrong, the demands were not heavy at all. But I felt myself slipping away from creating for the sheer pleasure of it.

And now that I am no longer on a design team, I need to find my way back to creating for the sheer pleasure of it. I confess it’s been a little rough, but I’m working through it, still looking through the 200+ stamping blogs in my Google Reader (don’t get me started on that) and the magazines that I still occasionally buy (I only subscribe to one now).

Today while I was eating my lunch, I flipped through a recent PaperCrafts issue called Stamp It! 3 Ways. I came across a beautiful birthday card on page 27, made by Laura Williams, that used a stamp set I didn’t have, but I suddenly felt the need to try to create it with what I had. It would make a perfect card for my boss’s birthday this week.

And so I’m pleased to present my version of the card, made with a few different PTI sets instead of the Gina K set used by Laura.

Hmmmm. Maybe I’m ready to hit a few sketch challenges next. Well, maybe we’ll just start with one...

Have you had any challenges to your creativity that you’d like to share? Any suggestions on overcoming them? I’d love to hear from you.

Stamp therapy

This weekend I’m using stamping as a means to take my mind off my mouth. Since I had 7 teeth extracted on Thursday, and am now trying to adjust to a mouthful of plastic (interim partial dentures), eating, drinking and talking are not very pleasant activities at the moment. Not so much painful, as very uncomfortable as my tongue tries to figure out where it’s supposed to go without bumping into and rubbing against the foreign objects in my mouth. OK, maybe that was TMI.

Anyhow, stamping doesn’t use my mouth. Hence, the stamping therapy. I made this last night, but couldn’t photograph it until I could get some sunlight today. This week’s Deconstructed Sketch Challenge #86 looked like fun, but I’m not big on square cards, so here’s my take on it:

The patterned paper is from an older My Mind’s Eye pad called True Blue from their Fine & Dandy line (or maybe it’s the other way around). The stamps are from 2 different Lawn Fawn sets – the bear is from Pa-Rum-Pa-Pum-Pum (yes, it’s supposed to be a Christmas set, but I’ve used it for everything but that since I’ve had it). I added the party hat with a Copic Multiliner pen and colored it with Copic Markers. The words are from another Lawn Fawn set called Just My Type, Too.

We’ll see what today brings. Maybe more stamping, maybe just curling up on the sofa in front of the TV.

Have a great Sunday!

Love is in the air…

I’m terrible about remembering anniversaries, and even worse about sending cards for them, but there’s an anniversary coming up that I can’t let go by without acknowledging it – my dad and stepmother will be married 40 years next month! They are the cutest couple, always teasing each other and looking out for each other. She takes such incredibly good care of him, and for that I am most grateful.

Anyhow, I wanted to have a card ready to go, no excuses.

They are both nature lovers, so the stamp I used was the Owls stamp from the Taylored Expressions Animals in Love series of stamps a la carte, cutting it out and mounting it on a plain white circle. The patterned paper is from the Hopscotch 6x6 pad by Fancy Pants Designs. I ran the dark brown piece of cardstock through my Big Shot with the Woodgrain impression plate from PTI to mimic the tree.

I used last week’s Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #176 for the  layout. I meant to post this earlier in the week, but extensive dental surgery kinda got in the way. At least I got it photographed and posted before the next Sunday sketch goes up!

Have a great weekend, all!

IHP DT January Challenge: Sweetened Tones

This month our challenge coordinator, Deb, gave us a yummy color inspiration (below) to work with. As you can see above, I took that frosting quite literally. I didn’t get all the colors exactly, and my photography skills don’t quite capture them correctly anyway – in real life the colors are softer. But I’m a sucker for a sweet cupcake, so I couldn’t resist using this Cupcake stamp from Gourmet Rubber Stamps. The cupcake and greeting are all on one stamp, so there’s no fussy aligning to do.

I colored it with my Copic markers and went over the sprinkles with various colored Stickles. The image, and the dot-embossed strip, are cut with Nestabilities dies. The image circle is popped up on foam dots. And just to carry the dot theme a little further, I made dots of the same Stickles along the left side of the card.

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the Design Team did with this sweet inspiration. Why don’t you hop along with me and check them out?

• January's guest designer, Kasia
• Carolyn (you are here)
• Deb
• Gretchen
• Judy
• Lori
• Taylor
• Tracy
• Kate

Have a sweet day!

IHP Design Team December Challenge: Food, Glorious Food!

Since so much about the holidays revolves around food, our challenge this month was to make a food related project. Not so much of a challenge for me. This time of year, food is never far from my thoughts. Or my mouth.

I like to give homemade foodie gifts to the people at work. It’s fun, it’s cheap (usually), and it’s always appreciated. This year I decided to make little jars of dulce de leche (pronounced dool-seh duh laycheh), a devastatingly delicious, thick, caramelized sweetened milk. It can be spread on toast or heated a little and drizzled on pancakes and waffles. You can add it to your coffee or ice cream, or you can fill cookies with it. Or you can eat it with a spoon. Just saying.

I used half-pint canning jars, decorated simply but beautifully with a tag that rests on the lid and opens for more information. To make the tags, I started by cutting a scored and folded piece of cream cardstock with a circle Nestabilities die, leaving the folded edge just inside the die so it wouldn’t cut completely. The inside with the information was computer generated and cut with the same circle die, trimming one edge just a bit to fit inside the fold, and glued in place.

The top of the tag also starts with another cream circle, but it’s decked out for the holidays. The red scalloped ring was made by cutting a scalloped circle the same size as the label, and then using a slightly smaller circle die in the center. Once I adhered that to the cream circle, I stamped the wreath and greeting, which is all on one stamp from the Flourishes Trimmed With Love set, with Memento Tuxedo Black ink. The inside left also uses stamps from that same set. The wreath is colored with Copic markers, glammed up with some red Stickles on the berries, and then that circle is glued onto the top of the folded label. Why use a separate circle for the top instead of just stamping the front of the folded piece? Because the Copic markers are likely to bleed through. If you’re using cardstock that won’t allow that to happen, by all means save yourself a layer and just dress up the folded piece. Once it was all glued together, I just attached it to the jar lid with a couple of mini glue dots.

Wanna make your own dulce de leche? The most common way is to boil an unopened can of sweetened condensed milk, completely submerged, for several hours. That seems a little scary to me. I found an awesome blog post by Monica at The Yummy Life with 2 different ways to make it: one in the oven, and one in a slow cooker. I tried both, and I liked the results in the slow cooker much better (although in all fairness, I used a different brand of milk when I did it in the oven, so that might have had something to do with it). She gives wonderfully illustrated step-by-step instructions, and she even has labels you can print out for gift-giving. I didn’t use her labels, but I did borrow her wording. Thanks, Monica!

Before I send you hopping off to see the rest of the yummy projects from the team, I just wanted to remind you about the 12 Days of Christmas Sale that Kate has been having. Each day a new sale item is posted at a steal of a price. Sale items are valid until sold out or until Christmas Day, whichever comes first! (Sorry, no restocks or rainchecks!) Inventory is low on some items but be sure to join us each day for the IHP 12 Days of Christmas!

Today’s special is all Washi Tape 35% off!

Here’s what we’ve had so far!
12/13 – Stickles/Liquid Pearls $1
12/14 – Scor-Tape 1/8” - $2
12/15 – Spellbinders 35% off
12/16 – BoBunny Flexi-ruler $9
12/17 – Scor-Bug tool $5
12/18 – Washi Tape 35% off

OK, so go shopping. Or go hopping. Or both! Here’s the rest of the gang:

• December's guest designer, Laurie Willison
• Carolyn (me!)
• Deb
• Gretchen
• Judy
• Lori
• Stephanie
• Taylor
• Tracy
• Kate

Happy Holidays!

A couple of holiday cards

Really, I haven’t disappeared off the face of the earth. So many things going on, and I’ve just been physically and otherwise drained by the time I get home from work every day. Weekends are spent catching up and trying to prepare for the holidays.

But I have been doing some card making. Here are a couple (although not the one I’m planning to send out, assuming I actually buy the stamps and get them addressed in time). These are all made with goodies from i {heart} papers, although some may no longer be available by now.

I’ve also been waiting for a sunny day when I could photograph these things. I hate winter hours, and we’ve had more cloudy, rainy days than not lately.

I made this one a couple of weeks ago (I think), using a sketch challenge that’s probably not current any more. I don’t even remember which one it is, but I liked it. This card uses the Flourishes set Dear Santa, and paper from the Carta Bella pad Winter Fun. There’s a strip of pearls, too, because pearls dress everything up for the holidays. The focal circle is stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa ink and airbrushed with a Copic marker to coordinate with the paper.

This idea has been kicking around in my head for months, and I finally got around to trying it. The door is cut with the Grand Madison Door die by Memory Box. The wreath was made by cutting a base with two nested Nestabilities circle dies, and gluing on punched out branches made with a Martha Stewart punch. Red Stickles finish it off.

And here’s what’s behind the door: The stamp is from an old Hero Arts set. I suppose I could have dress up the front of the card more, but I kinda like the stark simplicity of it. If I had given myself enough time, it might have been fun to mass-produce these. But I didn’t.

I did want to call your attention to an awesome sale that Kate is having – it’s a 12 Days of Christmas Sale, and there’s a new special every day. You really need to go check it out! The daily special will be listed at the top of the Sale page.

Anyhow, my tree is up now, and I have TONS of cleaning, shopping, baking and other preparations to do in the next week. Oh, and an IHP Design Team challenge to get done this weekend too! Better get crackin’!

IHP Design Team November Challenge: Technique Tuesday

Welcome to i heart papers' November design team challenge! This month, we're teaming up with some of the girls from the Technique Tuesday team for a combined hop featuring Technique Tuesday's stamps and i {heart} papers' products. You can browse the Technique Tuesday category of the ihp store here.

Technique Tuesday is committed to offering the most beautiful, high-quality, affordable clear stamps and paper crafting products and to sharing the art of stamping and our enthusiasm for paper crafting. Whether you prefer a simple style or an embellished look, are a beginner or have been crafting for years, our made-in-the-USA products will help you create beautiful scrapbook pages, personalized handmade cards, unique gifts, and one-of-a-kind home décor items.

i {heart} papers retails the industry's best paper crafting supplies from your favorite manufacturers while offering stellar customer service and super fast and FREE US shipping with any $60 order. (We also ship internationally.) We offer a 6 month Studio AE membership where members receive automatic delivery each month of their AE set, (free in the US, a $4 savings each month) plus a 15% coupon valid for all other IHP store orders during the subscription and occasional gifts or exclusive special offers. We also provide a publication incentive for our three private stamp lines, Mint Motif, The Petal Press and Chicken Girl. Visit our website and follow us on Facebook, Twitter and our blog for news, sales, coupons and more!

Celebrate Black Friday at i {heart} papers with a 20% store-wide coupon (excluding gift certificates and Studio AE memberships) using code: black20dt through Cyber Monday 11/26. And of course, always free US shipping with your $60 order! Happy Holidays from all of us at IHP!

Now let’s talk about the card above. Technique Tuesday kindly sent me the set Coffee Break Seal (how did they know?!!) Keeping true to the theme of the card, I decided to stamp the image on an unbleached coffee filter. I cut 2 scalloped circles with my Nestabilities and offset them slightly, adhering the top one with dimensional dots to raise it up a little. Since it’s meant to be a gift card holder, I put a little pocket inside (just adhered a piece of coordinating paper to the bottom of the card). Here’s what it looks like:

 

What I used:
Stamps: Coffee Break Seal (Technique Tuesday)

Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa

Paper: Bluebell (The Sweetest Thing) 6x6 pad

Other: Zva Self Adhesive Symmetrical Pearl Flourish – white (colored to match paper with a Copic marker)

 

 

After I finished that card, I took another look at the coffee filter and realized that I could use it to create a pocket for the gift card with just a little cutting and folding! So I made another card.

For this one I used the coffee bean stamp that comes with this wonderful little set to create my own patterned paper, again using the Memento Rich Cocoa ink. I used some yummy satin ribbon as an accent. That middle ribbon is a brown double-faced satin ribbon, and the ones above and below it are actually two sides of the same ribbon: 3/8" Satin Reversible antique gold/champagne. 

 

Our designers are sharing lots of inspiration using Technique Tuesday stamps and ihp products!

our Technique Tuesday guests:

• Kris Chirhart
• Tobi Crawford
• Laura O'Donnell
• Sharyn Tormanen
• Daniela Dobson
• Teri Anderson 

the ihp design team:

• November's guest designer, Jen del Muro
• brand new team member, Stephanie Washburn
• Carolyn (that’s me)
• Deb
• Gretchen
• Judy
• Lori
• Taylor
• Tracy
• Kate

So go get hopping, and then GO SHOPPING!!!

How time flies…

I’m not quite sure how this happened, but this week my son turned 36. My firstborn. The boy who made me a mommy; the man who made me a grandma. Amazing. It is; he is.

And so of course I had to make him a card. Because that’s what I do. I make lots of cards. Unfortunately most of them never see the inside of an envelope. This one did. And it actually got mailed, too.

This card made me smile like crazy before it got mailed. I really liked the way it came out, but mostly it made me smile because it’s the first card in a long time that I just made. I didn’t (consciously) CASE anybody’s work, I didn’t follow a sketch challenge, I just made it. And it was good.

What I used:
Stamps: Big Birthday Wishes (PTI)
Paper: Teresa Collins Everyday Moments
Dies: By the Numbers, Hexagon Cover Plate (PTI)

This makes me smile, too: my son as a baby, and my son as a daddy.

How time flies…

IHP October DT Challenge: Birthday Colors

While browsing Pinterest, our Challenge Coordinator Deb came upon a fabulous website with all kinds of party treats (see photo below) that just happened to be in the i {heart} papers logo colors! What better way to celebrate our birthday than with a color challenge inspired by these lovely photos. 

Since IHP is turning 4 years old this month, I just had to make some party goodies for the occasion! 

For the goodie bag, I found some super-cute pastel-colored marshmallows at a local grocery store (they’re made in Guatemala – I know little else about them) and put them into a little zip-lock snack bag (that I bought by accident thinking they were sandwich bags). I made a topper using Nestabilities Labels 8 and paper from the gorgeous Hopscotch 6x6 pad by Fancy Pants. I used the uber-versatile I’ve Got Your Number stamp set by Mint Motif, airbrushed and colored with Copic markers, and for the requisite bling, filled in the number “4” with some Icicle Stickles. The whole thing is held together with i {stick} papers redline tape.

But what’s a birthday party without some cake? For a little party favor, how about some tiny little birthday cakes using battery-powered tealights (available just about everywhere, but I got mine at Walgreen). I got the idea from Jill George here. The directions are really easy to follow. For this one, I used more paper from the Hopscotch 6x6 pad, and punched the scalloped circles out with an old SU! punch.

Here’s another one I made when I realized that washi tape was just about the perfect width to do these! For this one I used Nestabilities scalloped circles instead of a punch, and used some glitter paper to decorate the top. The sky really is the limit with these cuties. You can match the colors of any party theme, and they’re cheap and easy!

AND NOW FOR SOME EXCITING NEWS:

i {heart} papers is thrilled to be celebrating our 4^th birthday this month! We know there’s no way we could have made it this far without each and every one of our loyal customers sharing their IHP love with their friends or following us on Facebook, Twitter, our blog or through our newsletter. So, our celebration is really a celebration of YOU and our gift to you is a 25% off coupon for the whole store, valid 10/16 through 10/20 (valid on in-stock items, not valid on gift certificates or prior orders). Use code: 4bdayDT

NOTE: Shop early! Once seasonal items are sold out, they will most likely not be restocked. Also, the store will be closed from Oct 18-25th and there will be no shipping during this time. Orders will resume shipping on 10/26.

We will also have a giveaways on the blog and on Twitter during these days (they’ll be linked from Facebook too but since giveaways aren’t technically allowed on Facebook we have to do it on the blog!) so be sure to check in daily to see how to enter.

But wait! There’s more! Long time customers know that Kate is a huge dog rescue advocate, volunteering for a local dog rescue, transporting dogs in need and doing rescue work on Facebook. October happens to also be Adopt A Shelter Dog month, as well as the birthday of one of Kate’s dogs and the Gotcha/Adoption day of the other. So, in honor of all of that, IHP will be donating 10% of all sales during the birthday sale to Home For Good Dog Rescue, Eleventh Hour Rescue and Pilots ‘n Paws. And if you make your own donation to any of these organizations, we will send you a gift certificate to IHP for 50% of your donation amount (these will be sent at the end of the month). Just email us a copy of your donation receipt and we’ll email you a gift certificate!

OK, now it’s time for you to check out what the rest of the Design Team did with this challenge.

• Carole (October IHP Guest Designer)
• Carolyn (you are here)
• Deb
• Gretchen
• Judy
• Lori
• Taylor
• Tracy
• Kate

If you’d like to play along, just use the keyword ihp1012 when you post it to the SCS or PCP galleries. And don’t forget to post them to our Facebook page to be entered into our weekly WOW Wednesday contest!

Put Your {Heart} Into It

Happy Friday!

This week the CAS-ual Fridays challenge is being sponsored by i {heart} papers as part of our 4th Birthday Celebration, and appropriately, the challenge is to make a clean & simple card with a heart in it. How could I not play along?

My card uses various sizes of hearts cut out with Nestabilities and mounted with foam dots on a dot-embossed layer. The dotted paper is from the Jillybean Soup Staples 2 collection, and the white heart is stamped with one of the lovely stamps from the Tag Lines set by Flourishes.

Won’t you play along? I hear there may be a coupon on their page that you just might be interested in…

World Card Making Day (Part 3!)

Wow, I’m on a roll! Nothing like a good excuse to stay in and play with paper all day!

This is another take on the IHP Color Challenge in honor of today’s holiday. Check out all the details on the IHP blog.

For this one I went with more of a light blue than an aqua color. And because I wanted to use the Tessatina border die, I needed to make it larger than a standard A2 size – this one is A6 (roughly 4 1/2” x 6 1/2”). This was NOT a quick card to make because of what I wanted to do with that die. I had to cut out the space in the kraft layer so the design would show through – that was the easy part. In order to get the inside lattice part to adhere, I ran my ATG adhesive down it a couple of times on the back, and then once it was adhered, I had to go over the whole thing with a gum eraser to pick up all the adhesive that was showing through. Tedious at best. I need to find a better way to do that if I want to try this again. Or maybe pick up the Piestra Tile die, which will not give me the same issues.

Anyhow. I used the Memory Box Vivienne butterfly die twice, once in kraft and once in brown, and adhered them together only down the middle so I could pull the top wings up. The body is cut in brown and glued on top. The sentiment, from the Hero Arts set Good Friends, is stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa ink.

OK, now I really need to get dressed so I can at least go down and check the mail – I think there’s a goodie package from IHP waiting for me!

World Card Making Day (Part 2)

I’m back again with my take on the Color Challenge part of the i {heart} papers WCMD festivities. For my Sketch Challenge card, you can scroll down or click here. And make sure you check out the IHP Blog for all the details on the challenges (which can win you a gift certificate!) and the SALE!

I love making holiday cards in non-traditional colors, and when I won this Peace & Joy set from Flourishes, my first thought was how awesome it would look embossed in gold. So I figured I would use today’s color challenge to make a lovely, beachy-colored card suitable for the holidays. This is the color inspiration that our fearless Challenge Coordinator, Deb, came up with:

As I said, I gold-embossed the stamp on cream cardstock, and then I randomly colored the letters with blotches of E31, W4, and BG02 Copic markers. I used BG93 for the leaves. I mounted it onto a piece of aqua cardstock that I had embossed with one of the folders from the Whimsy set from Lifestyle Crafts. I mounted it all onto a kraft card base, and wrapped some of this gorgeous satin reversible ribbon around it. Then I made a bow with my Bow Easy (seriously, the only way I can make a bow any more) and stuck it on.

The stamps, ribbon, embossing folder, and more, are all available at i {heart} papers, and for 20% OFF right now if you use the code WCMD2012IHP through Tuesday, 10/9.

I suppose I should get dressed and enjoy what might be one of the last warm days of the year (almost 80 degrees!) instead of staying inside and playing. We’ll see…

Happy World Card Making Day!

Isn’t it nice that we paper crafters get our own holiday?

i {heart} papers is celebrating World Card Making Day 2012 with 2 chances to win a gift certificate and a 20% off storewide coupon code. Use code WCMD2012DT through Tuesday 10/9 for 20% off EVERYTHING in the store. And, yes, you still qualify for free US shipping with your order of $60 or more.

Participate in our challenges - one sketch and one color - for your chance to win! A $10 gift certificate will be awarded for each category. Upload your projects to our Facebook page or add them to the Mr. Linky on the IHP blog. You can play along with one or both and can enter as many times as you'd like!

The card above uses the Sketch Challenge layout, except I rotated it counterclockwise to have a horizontal orientation. That’s one of the things I love about sketches – they give you a starting point to let your own creativity take flight.

The focal point of the card is this adorable stamp from the Happy Halloween set by Chicken Girl Design. It’s stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink and colored with Copic markers. After I mounted it on black cardstock and put the whole card together, the white background just looked a little too plain, so I took my Copic Multiliner and doodled some dots and lines around the edge. The patterned paper is from the Doodlebug Haunted Manor collection.

Won’t you play along to win? The deadline to enter is Sunday 10/7 9PM EST. The winners will be announced on Tuesday! And, as a bonus, WCMD projects will also be counted as entries for our WOW Wednesday! Every Wednesday we pick someone who has shared a project on our Facebook page during the week that uses supplies purchased from IHP. Share your project and be entered to win a $5 gift certificate!

I’m going to attempt the Color Challenge in a little while, so I’ll probably be back later today. Maybe even more than once, since I fully intend to celebrate this day to the max!