A clearly boo-tiful day!

Ever since I saw this week’s awesome Fall-to Layout #60 sketch on the Clean & Simple blog, I’ve had this card brewing in my head. Tonight I finally got a chance to make it happen.

I love these adorable ghosts in the new Silly Monsters set by Chicken Girl Design. And what better card base to use on a ghost card than clear acetate? You can’t tell from the picture, but the ghosts are painted with Candle Light Shimmerz. Adds a nice effect. I wanted to try to stamp a reverse of the ghost to add a third one on the upper right, but I didn’t want to take the chance of messing it up!

What I used:
Stamps: Silly Monsters (available only at i {heart} papers)
Ink: Palette Noir
Paper: clear acetate, Eerie (Basic Grey), SU! white and pumpkin pie
Other: Zva pearl lines, Candle Light Shimmerz

It’s Friday! Hope you all have a boo-tiful day!

Cheer up!

Wouldn’t this adorable raccoon lift your spirits? I wanted to make an easy-to-mail card with no “bumps” and this is what I came up with. Others have had Rooco the raccoon carrying various things above his head, like a pumpkin, but I wanted something non-seasonal. I had Tracy’s new set, Happy Harvest, on my table and saw that one of the pieces from that set would fit perfectly!

I colored the image with my Copic markers, and then did a little freehand doodling around the edge, ‘cause it just needed something! Oh, and I also used some Sunshiny Yellow Fun Flock on the centers of the daisies to give the card a little bit of dimension.

Incidentally, I just have to say that Stampendous has a terrific product here with these ClingRubber stamps. You get all the advantages of an unmounted, foam-backed rubber stamp (superb impression and easy storage) along with the ability to see exactly where you’re stamping, since the image of the stamp is printed right on back, which clings to your acrylic block. And (shameless plug here) Kate has a bunch of them, including this Rooco Reach, at i {heart} papers. Just do a search for “rooco” on the site.

Hope your spirits are high!

Lookie what my Dad made me!!!

One day last month, during a slow day at work, I was pondering how I was ever going to make my 1 bedroom apartment presentable again, what with the incredibly large and growing collection of paper crafting supplies I've accumulated in the last several years. It is completely taking over my living/dining room! I sketched out an idea for a ribbon storage rack and sent my dad, who is fond of building things, an e-mail describing my concept and asking if he would build it for me. After discussing measurements, my sweet daddy-o said he'd "work it up in CAD" (it's nice to have a dad who's a retired engineer!), and a couple of weeks later he had this fabulous piece ready for me. I painted it last weekend, and finally got it hung today. Isn't it awesome?!!! (For some reason the camera lens made it look like it was not perfectly squared, but believe me, it is!)

While my SU! ribbons are, for the most part, neatly stored away in SU! ribbon keepers, my collection of Papertrey Ink ribbons was getting way out of hand. I also needed someplace to keep my ever-expanding collection of PTI stamp sets. This unit is 2' wide by 3' high, and it's appalling to me that it's already almost filled up! I still have a big drawer full of miscellaneous ribbons that I don't dare put in here for fear of not having room for whatever new colors PTI comes out with.

I really need get a handle on storing all my stuff. I think it's time for me to start getting rid of some of the stuff that I've never even used and am not likely to use {shudder}. I might even give some of it away as blog candy, since my first blogaversary is coming up next month. Hmmmm...that might be fun! What do you think?

September IHP Challenge: Large Scale Prints

This month the i {heart} papers Design Team challenge was to use a piece of large-scale printed paper in a card, which can be a challenge in the best of cases. Kate then threw in a little twist: she sent every member of the design team the SAME piece of large-scale paper and the SAME piece of ribbon to see how we would each use them. Personally, I can’t wait to see what the rest of the DT did!

The paper she sent us was from the Webster’s Pages Raspberry Truffles collection. It’s appropriately called Delish. I decided to do some fussy-cutting to make use of the big, bold flowers in one corner of the paper, and this is what I came up with:

The ribbon is a beautiful, light fuchsia faux suede, and I used my Bow Easy to make that purty bow (it’s just tacked on with a glue dot).

I jazzed it up a little with some bling. The pink stones on the large flower are from one of my Hero Arts Sparkle Clear stamp sets (can’t remember which one), and the clear bling on the smaller flowers is from Hero Arts as well.

For the greeting, I did the unthinkable – I actually cut apart one of my clear stamps so I could get the phrase on 2 lines instead of 1. Under other circumstances, I might have just inked the sections separately, but since I was using goopy pigment ink, I knew I’d make a mess that way. And to be honest, I have LOTS of “thinking of you” stamps in my stash, including at least 2 more in that very set, Everyday Sayings (also from Hero Arts).

Obviously, every product I’ve mentioned so far is available at i {heart} papers (as if the links didn’t tip you off!). My cardstock was PTI Dark Chocolate, Raspberry Fizz, and Vintage Cream. (OMG, that sounds delicious!)

Well, I’m gonna go hop around to the rest of the Design Team to see what they did, and I hope you will too! Here — this’ll make it easy for you:

Amber (So Many Colors, So Little Time)
Cathleen (Crooked Card Creations)
Deb (With a Stamp and a Song)
Gretchen (Happiness Is. . .)
Kate (i {heart} papers)
Kendra (Kendra's Card Company)
Lynn (Stamperosity)
Megan (Megan Lock Designs)
Tracy (Who IsTracy?)

And if you’d like to show us how YOU use large patterns in your cards, feel free to leave a comment and link on one of our blogs. We’d love to see!

Honey, could you pare a pair of pears?

What a funny language we have — so many words that sound exactly the same, but are spelled differently and have completely different meanings. But that’s neither here (hear) nor there (their).

Anyway, enough linguistics. You’re here for the pictures, right? So here are a pair of pears. But not just any pears — these are very special apple-pears by Unity. This stamp is from the August Unity Store Kit, which is still available at i {heart} papers, even though the new September kit is on its way.

For the first card, I colored it to match the gorgeous paper in the new Cosmo Cricket Early Bird Mini-Deck. The greeting is from All Occasions Messages. The little apples in the corner are made with a tiny punch I picked up at the Target dollar spot about a year ago, maybe more. You can’t see it well in the photo, but the little punched apples have their stems colored brown, and they are covered with Ranger Glossy Accents, as is the lone green apple inside the pear. And look, Ma — no airbrushing or ribbon!

The second card uses a piece of the upcoming Basic Grey Nook & Pantry collection, which will be available at i {heart} papers as soon as it ships from Basic Grey some time this fall. This was a sample piece we got at CHA, so I’m teasing you with it. The green is the reverse of the pear side. On this card I used the sentiment stamp that comes with the Unity August Store Kit. And yeah, here we have airbrushing and ribbon. Can’t go too long without it.

For both cards, I colored with Copics and used my Nestabilities to cut the images. What on earth did we ever do before Copics and Nestabilities?

Big News at i {heart} papers!

Not only will they be releasing two more sets from their new line of Chicken Girl Stamps this month but they are introducing a new design line called The Petal Press, designed by our very own DT Coordinator, Tracy Schultz. I love her style and I’m sure you will too. It is very different from the CGD sets, so if cute bugs and animals aren’t your style (and even if they are!), maybe The Petal Press will float your boat. See, there’s something for everybody!

It’s going to be a busy next few weeks, with sneak peeks of all three new sets beginning tomorrow and running through September 15. The full releases will be on September 16 so be sure to check the i {heart} papers blog every day for some samples.

And, of course, with a new stamp line comes some new DT additions. Please join us in welcoming some new faces (and a couple of familiar ones who are also helping out!)

Ashley Cannon Newell
Carly Robertson
Cathleen Torina
Gretchen Belknap
Jenyfur Pohl
Julie Lacey
Krysten Ng
Tiffany Johnson
Tracy Schultz – designer
Kate Baldwin – owner

Check their blogs often, especially over the next few weeks, to see what we’re so excited about!

RU Square?

OK, lame title for a blog post. I just couldn’t come up with anything catchy to use for the theme of this, which is using 4” squares of patterned paper for an easy layout. I was inspired by Michelle Wooderson and her blog Mish Mash. Long ago she posted about how she likes to cut her 12” papers up into 4” squares to use variations of this layout, and I find I fall back on it often. Here are 2 cards I made last weekend using it.

 As I’m sure I’ve mentioned, I love coloring, and sometimes I sit and color images just to relax. If I’m smart, I pick a piece of patterned paper FIRST, so I can pull my colors for the image from the paper. Many times I have been stuck looking at a colored image and realizing I have NO matching paper for it!

 

What I used:
(top card)
Stamps: PTI Autumn Abundance & Floral Fusion
Ink: Memento Black, Copic markers
Paper: PTI White, Basic Grey Marrakech pad
Other: SU! ribbon, Nestabilities

(bottom card)
Stamps: Unity August KOM, PTI Floral Fusion
Ink: Memento Black, Copic markers
Paper: PTI White, MME Bloom collection
Other: PTI ribbon, Liquid Pearls, Nestabilities, clear adhesive rhinestones

Both of these cards went out to birthday girls this week. Hope they enjoyed them!

i {heart} coloring!

I really do. I loved it as a child, too. Nothing made me happier than a new box of 64 Crayola crayons. Now, of course, my medium of choice is Copic markers. I managed to do a LOT of coloring this past weekend. Would you believe I made FOUR different cards? And I even made doubles of a couple of them.

This one was a single, though. It’s on its way now to my sister-in-law who just had shoulder surgery. When I was out in California in the spring staying with them, I watched her go through the better part of a crate of strawberries, so I know she’ll appreciate this particular image. If you click on it, you’ll be able to see a bigger shot of it (I think). I used the rectangle Nestabilities to emboss a frame around the image.

What I used:
Stamps: Flourishes Strawberries, PTI Mega Mixed Messages
Ink: Memento Black, Copic markers
Paper: PTI White, Bitty Box Basics, SU Garden Green
Other: Nestabilities, SU circle punches 

I’ll post more of this weekend’s cards over the next couple of days.

ABC-123 Challenge

Every month the i {heart} papers Design Team is given a challenge by Deb Felts, our Challenge Coordinator. This month our challenge was ABC-123, which translated into 1 word stamp (the ABC part), 2 embellishments, and 3 layers. Yikes! I mean, I’ve embraced the clean and simple look, but limiting myself like that was, well, a challenge. And this is what I came up with:

The quotation stamp is from the August Unity Stampin’ Store kit that is available at i {heart} papers. To be completely true to the challenge, I omitted the three tiny stars that come on the stamp, approximately where the tail of the rhinestone swirl starts. That swirl is a snipped off bit of one of the Zva crystal flourishes. My patterned layer is from the new Dewfrost Collection Pad. I cut the quotation out with my Labels 4 Nestabilities, and airbrushed it with a Copic marker. The ribbon is a leftover scrap of something I picked up at Target a while ago, and the bow was made with my new Bow Easy, which I LOVE!!!!!. The base is PTI Dark Chocolate.

I’m thrilled with the way it came out! Now go check out the rest of the design team and see what they came up with:

Cathleen (Crooked Card Creations)

Deb (With a Stamp and a Song)

Gretchen (Happiness Is. . .)

Lynn (Stamperosity)

Megan (Megan Lock Designs)

Tracy (Who IsTracy?)

Loretta (Love To Create)

Judy (Joy in a JAR)

Tammy (Stamp Happy)

Lori (Inking Aloud)

Kendra (Kendra's Card Company)

and of course, Kate (i {heart} papers)

…and I’ll send all my lovin’ to you

You would think that as a card maker, I’d be sending cards out all the time. Truth is, I’m horrible at it. I tend to remember family birthdays, but that’s it. In fact, a card that I made for someone special, and thought I sent out many months ago, just turned up mangled in the bottom of my tote bag. I feel awful about it! So I made another card for her today and will make sure it goes into the mailbox tomorrow!

This card uses some Unity stamps that I got free for signing up for their monthly stamp kit. Oh, I do love free! I thought this Bloom & Grow paper went well with the flowers in the stamp. I stamped in black and colored and airbrushed with my Copic markers — no surprise there! A couple of things were a challenge, though. The butterflies stamped in black, so I went over them with my Inkssentials White Gel Pen, and when it dried I put some orange Stickles on them. A similar thing with the little heart on the envelope. For this I stamped the envelope again in Ruby Red, cut out the tiny heart, and glued it onto the envelope. Then I covered it with some Stickles, too.

Incidentally, if you love FREE STAMPS too, head on over to i {heart} papers right now! There’s a monthly kit of Unity stamps that are only sold in stores, and Kate is carrying them. If you order the August Stampin’ Store kit before the end of this month, she will throw in some FREE stamps that she won from Unity.

Sending love YOUR way!

It's your LUCKY day! FREE stamps, anyone?

See this happy-looking card? It uses the ferris wheel stamp from the new Unity Stampin' Store kit for August called 100% Happy. This one stamp alone sold me on the whole set, which is full of awesome unmounted rubber stamps. It is in stock at i {heart} papers right now, and if you buy it there from Kate this month, she will throw in some extra FREE Unity stamps. See, Kate was the lucky winner of 1000 stamps from Unity that they raffled off at CHA. Yup, 1000 stamps! And she's willing to share the joy with anyone who purchases this Unity August Stampin' Store kit before the end of August. Just type in FREE STAMPS in the comments box when you order.

About the card: After cutting the image out with my Labels 2 Nestabilities, I airbrushed the sky and ground with my Copics. In the center of the ferris wheel is a common, office supply store brad. I cut the black mat freehand, since I used the largest Nestie for the image. Wrapped around the center of the card is a piece of black glimmer ribbon. And it's difficult to see, but I stamped a pale blue polka-dot star behind the greeting.

Stamps: Unity August Stampin' Store kit, PTI Star Prints
Ink: Memento black, PTI Spring Rain, Copic markers
Paper: PTI white, SU Basic Black, PTI Bitty Dot Basics
Other: Labels 2 Nestabilities

Now go get your FREE STAMPS!

Bittersweet

Tonight I enjoyed a wonderful dinner with a dozen wonderful family and friends. Unfortunately, the occasion was kind of bittersweet; it was the last time we would see my son and daughter-in-law before they move to Michigan next week.

My son has worked long and hard to earn his PhD in Mathematics, and his efforts have finally begun to pay off with a wonderful post-doctorate assignment at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. So over the next 3 years, I expect I’ll become familiar with the airport in Detroit! I’m so happy for him, and happy for them to begin a new life together. But still sad. Kinda weepy right now, as a matter of fact.

Anyhow, all occasions must be appropriately marked with a card and a cake. I made the card using the Clean & Simple Fall To Layout #54. I actually made it last weekend, but couldn’t show it until tonight, because my sweet DIL reads my blog! Again, sorry for the lousy scanned photo, but I waited until there was no natural light to take a picture.

This is a simple one-layer card that uses the stamp set New Home, available on sale right now at i {heart} papers. I rounded the corners of the card, and also rounded the corners of a piece of leftover acrylic packaging to trace around for the border, which I drew with a Copic Multiliner. The image was colored with Copic markers.

Oh, and the cake. I must say that this was my favorite cake I’ve made so far, at least taste-wise. I think this might be my signature cake from now on.

This little beauty is a dark chocolate fudge cake topped with chocolate ganache. It’s filled with seedless raspberry jam and whipped ganache. The swirls on top are more whipped ganache, topped with fresh, big, fat raspberries. And the whole thing is surrounded with more whipped ganache and chocolate-filled wafer cookies. OMG, it was to die for! 6 million calories per serving, but well worth it.

Anyhow, I have an ungodly chocolate mess to clean up in my kitchen right now. And a date with some Pepcid Complete — too much good food and good wine!

Today’s the day!!!

Today is the official launch of i {heart} papers’ new, exclusive line of stamps by Chicken Girl Design!!! Designed by Jannie Ho, a very talented children’s book illustrator (you’ve probably read some of the books she’s illustrated to your kids), these stamps are made of high quality photopolymer and are so much fun to use! Kate and the CGD design team have been posting sneak peeks of cards made with the first 2 sets being introduced today (there are more on the way!), and here’s your look at the complete sets:

Hugs from a Bug

 

Into the Forest

Adorable, yes?!!!

Chicken Girl Design stamps have their own IHP design team, and I hear there’s some blog candy (can you say “free sets”?) to be found on their sites over the next couple of weeks, as well as awesome samples using these new stamps. Go check them out:

Lori
Meredith
Natasha
Shelly
Shannon
Judy
Tammy
Kendra
Loretta

Kate is giving away a free set, so check out her blog, too!

Now, I’m not technically part of that design team, but I couldn’t wait to get my hands on these stamps and start playing.

Both of these use Into the Forest. Look at the face on the squirrel! And that tree just begs to be paper-pieced. The first card uses the Basic Grey Porcelain 6x6 pad, and the second one uses Wisteria. I used my Nestabilities to cut and mask the image squares. Copic markers were used to color and airbrush.

BTW, sorry for the poor quality photos of these cards. Of course I waited until today to photograph them, and there’s absolutely no suitable sunlight to be found in Brooklyn. I’d use my photo box and lights, but I can’t find a big enough empty surface to set it up on, so I had to resort to scanning. I really do need to clear off at least part of my table!

Off to play again!

Some birdy loves you

OMG, three (3) blog posts in one day! Surely it’s a sign of the apocalypse.

Anyhow, at the make-and-take that Taylor sponsored at the SCS booth at CHA, we used (and she gave us!) this adorable pair of stamps. So I thought it only fitting to use it for this week’s Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge #76.

I took the sketch at face value and didn’t add any ribbon (horror!) or other embellishments, but I’m thrilled with how cute it came out! All patterned paper is from the Basic Grey Urban Prairie 6x6 pad. The pink layer is a frame I made using circle and square Nestabilities and is popped up on dimensional foam dots. For a little extra bling (gotta have the bling), I dotted some Diamond Stickles on the little green-ish circles and the flower dotting the “i”.

Thanks, Taylor — it was great meeting you!

Don't forget to enter the contest!

NOTE: This is my second post of the day {gasp!}. Scroll down if you haven't seen our BIG IHP News!

You still have a few days left to join our wide ribbon challenge and and win this yummy assortment of ribbons from i {heart} papers!

To be eligible to win, here's what you need to do!

• create a card (or other project) using wide ribbon
• issue the challenge on your blog and/or in your gallery post
• upload to SCS with keyword ihp0709
• receive extra *points* for using i {heart} papers products

The deadline to enter is Tuesday, August 4th. Our design team will judge the entries and then on Friday, August 7th, we'll announce the winner. The prize will be this gorgeous assortment of wide ribbons in various colors. Can't wait to see your creations!