Big Ol' Red Flower

I recently bought a new Big Shot die and absolutely love it!! It's called Flower Layers. I used it here with some retired SU paper and the Little Leaves small die. I love the look of the distressed flower. So I decided to flip the layout and make 2 cards! 

Quickie Christmas Card

I started writing all my Christmas cards and realized that I was 2 short! It's past midnight so I had to whip up 2 cards really quick. I did the same design but used different colors. I'm so happy that I got to use my Delightful Decorations stamp set and punch and my Big Shot! I sure haven't used any of them enough this season. And from all the blog photos I've seen this little spikey thing holding up people's cards. I've always wanted one of them but never knew what the heck they were even called. I finally figured out somehow that it is called a flower frog and was so excited to tell Jamie. He just said "Oh yah, they sell them at Lee Valley." So he came home one day and surprised me with my very own!! Now it's not cool and antique like most of the ones I've seen but I figured I can just leave it in the elements a bit if I want to weather it down a bit.

Mojo 117 & SPCC 28

Well I'm trying to get back into the card challenges and man, you'd never tell by the final product but it took me an hour to finish this card!! I kept humming and haaing about what I wanted to do. And let me tell you, it's really frustrating when all I've got is a Coluzzle to cut circles with. I really need to get something to cut circles and scalloped circles of various sizes. I'm debating on the SU glass circle cutter or investing in some Nestabilities. And I think I need to invest in some Nestabilities for the scalloped circles because I scalloped that circle by hand with a corner rounder! Any suggestions on what you like/have?? Anyways I've combined this week's Mojo Monday and SPCC color challenge. Off to walk the dog now!

Stamp a Stack Card 4

This is the 4th card that I did for my very first stamp a stack! I CASEd Kristina Werner and loved how it turned out.

SPCC #27

This is my very first SPCC challenge (Scrapmaster's Paradise Color Combos). I wanted to keep the card simple since there wasn't a lot of variation in color to work with. Instead of obvious bling bling that I like to usually add, I opted for subtle details like an embossed bashful blue background and scored the edges of the kraft cardstock. You can't really see it in the photo but I like the look in real life. The bashful blue looks like a blue tree trunk!

Stamp a Stack Card 3

This 3rd card was inspired by Andrea Walford. I CASEd this card and loved how it turned out.

Mojo 116

Well I finally managed to take part in a challenge. The last one was in... May!?!?!? As you can tell, I'm still a bit rusty. Here's my attempt at Mojo Monday 116.

Stamp a Stack Card 2

So I had my little mini stamp a stack yesterday and it turned out great! The cards weren't too labor intensive and it only took about 2 1/2 hours. Not too shabby for 10 cards! Here's the second card we did. We used the Big Shot embossing folder and the Top Note die with some popping pastels for this card. Hopefully the pictures I post get better and better because I'm really fiddling with my camera settings. This picture was taken with white balance adjustments. Instead of selecting incandescent light bulb, I chose a preset white balance and had taken a picture with a crazy increase in white balance so the white background I took was almost the perfect bright white I wanted. Then I just tweaked it down a couple notices on the preset white balance so I didn't have a super washed out photo. Let me know if you have any other tips for me!

Photo Frustrations

Man I just spent the last 30 minutes trying to take a good photo and let me tell you... It's flippin' hard. Jamie bought me this fancy dancy camera that I have no idea how to use. I'm trying to play with the white balance and even then, it's just not working!! Grrr. Here's 2 photos with different settings. Notice any difference? So here's a card that I'll be doing at my very first stamp a stack! I'm excited! It's a uber small group but I'm glad because I've never done a stamp a stack and it's much easier to manage with less people (at least that's what I hope!) Hope everyone has a good weekend! Mine will be filled with card making and snow shoveling!

Etsy Gift Exchange

I participated in this year's Alberta Street Team gift exchange on Etsy. We got a random member and got a little info on that person and had to make a gift worth approximately $15. I really didn't know what to make so I decided to do nothing other than more paper crafting! This is the first time I've made a full on recipe box and I quite enjoyed it! Now the info that I got on my secret santa was that she was very environmentally conscious and also liked royal purple, vintage buttons and wooden things. So those are the things I tried to incorporate.

Another Etsy Treasury!

Another fellow Alberta Street Team member picked me to be a part of their treasury. Check out some great Alberta made crafts here!

Mojo 112 & Color Throwdown 68

Wow. Can you believe I haven't participated in a card challenge since MAY!?!?!? I know.. I'm a little shocked myself!!! Of course I'm back to my old habits of posting late at night. This will be a short post since I have to work tomorrow. I combined mojo monday and color throwdown (some of my old time favorites!) This card was made for my friends Annette and John's housewarming party tonight.

Alberta Team on Etsy!

Boy oh boy, have I been totally slacking and NOT making any cards!! It's been tough finding time. With the whole flu season on us and all this immunizing, I've been soooo tired after work. Just wanna crawl into bed and go to sleep!

Anyways on Etsy, an Alberta Street Team member made up another treasury. It's a list of items with a certain theme with fellow Albertan crafters. Check it out HERE!

Card Afternoon at Kim's!

So we had a little card afternoon at Regan's neighbor Kim's house. We were all a bit strapped for time so there were 2 cards we made. I borrowed the technique with SU's new shimmer paint from Andrea Walford's blog with the Medallion stamp. I LOVE that stamp!! I also wanted to show a scrapbook page that I worked on for my friend Julie's bridal shower a while back. All the girls got together and each did two pages to put into a scrapbook for her as a surprise gift.

Amazing Grace

Well the card bug has certainly bit me again and now I'm trying really hard to find time to make cards. I moved my entire card making area downstairs into the basement. Originally one of my excuses about not making cards was because there was too many shows on tv that I just couldn't miss. I didn't want to be couped up in my little room making cards. So after moving everything downstairs, I told Jamie that I have the tv in front of me so I can make cards and watch tv at the same time. Turns out, I don't even watch the tv!! Now that might be due to the fact that all the shows I was following are now over... but it could also be that I find the tv too distracting. So I just have my little notebook and have the online radio going. I've started listening to the pop hits of the 1990s. Really brings back memories! Just listened to Celine Dion's "Because You Loved Me" and I told Jamie that was my very first slow dance song. Good old jr. high dances eh?

Anyways onto the card I just made. Tomorrow Amber and I are going to visit a friend who just had a baby. She's also got another older girl and we didn't want her to feel left out so Amber found this perfume called "Amazing Grace" and I made this card for her. If you're wondering why Amber picked that perfume, it's because her older daughter's name is Grace! Anyways, lets hope I can keep posting some new cards!! I definitely miss blogging and card making!

A few cards, FINALLY!!!

Well as you all know, I've been in a MAJOR card making hiatus (if that's how you spell it) and I've had a really hard time crawling out of it. I finally sat down and made a few cards that were 1/2 done from a few months ago. I know it's sorta cheating to say I made a few cards when really, I just finished off unfinished cards but hey, better than nothing!!! I'm really hoping to get back into the swing of things now that summer is winding down and it's not quite as gorgeous outside. We also bought all the cultured stone we need to do the outside of our house today. That means we've got 1500lbs of cultured stone sitting in our garage waiting to be put up. So I'll try to sneak in some card making around all the stone and siding. The front of our house has been waiting over a year to get finished. My neighbor saw us digging out plants last week from the front garden and asked if we were starting to put up siding and we said, "Not yet, just getting ready." Then she proceeded to say, "Oh.. I thought things were finally starting to move." Jab jab jab man.. haha but it's ok. I know it'll get finished and we're that much closer now because the hardest part (besides putting it up... ) was picking the stone we wanted!!! So now $2000 later... we'll see how it goes.. our goal is to have it all done by the end of September. Fingers crossed!!!

Still No Cards

Well it's definitely been a LONG time since I've made a card. I can't even believe it myself!! For those that are wondering what the heck happened... Here's my excuse. After my last post, Jamie and I started trying to get a workout in at the end of the night. That took the place of my card making time. We fell off that workout bandwagon really fast. Probably 2 weeks? And then I just never found the time to sit down and make another card. I still have no time as I'll be going to TOKYO in 2 days!! We found amazing deals for our flight. You won't even believe it!! $406 CAD round trip including all taxes.. How insane is that??? It's definitely not the best time for vacation with all our house renos not touched yet but at that price, how could we resist? We booked a week ago and booked our "hotel" on Sunday. Everything is happening sooo crazy fast!! I started a packing list and I better get going on the actual packing. If you have me on facebook, I'll be trying to update my status as we go on our Tokyo adventure. Hopefully the card bug bites me when I get back!! SAYONARA!!!

365 Cards Day 63 & CPS 114

Boy oh boy I just can't seem to get caught up once I missed Friday over at 365 Cards. Today I'm making Saturday's challenge of including 8 flowers on my card. I was poking around trying to figure out how to add 8 flowers when I came across Card Positioning Systems Sketch 114. I managed to use up some old cardstock laying around which is bonus! So in case you're counting and only finding 7 flowers, I counted the big flower as two because the center of the flower is, yet another flower! The stamp sets used are Big Flowers and Little Flowers from Stampin' Up. All paper is also SU! 

365 Cards Day 62, CTD 40 & Stamps and Smiles Sketch 13

Boy I started falling behind since I had a girls' night out on Friday after work. I'm now officially 3 days behind on my 365 Cards challenges. So Friday's challenge was to put a number on our card. I combined it with this week's Color Throwdown #40 and The Fresh Batch's Stamps and Smiles Sketch 13. I went shopping today bright and early at for some free goodies and managed to get a free American Crafts mini 6x6 album and $10 in free products. I bought a few containers of Prima flowers and 4 different colors of liquid pearls! So I used my new stuff and as I'm typing this I realized that I put the flowers in the wrong spot for the sketch!! I kept thinking it was bottom left hand side but not when I turned the sketch sideways!! Yikes! Anywhoo, this is what I came up with. The chipboard letters are from Basic Grey and all the paper is Stampin' Up. 

We did tons and tons of shopping today and Petcetera was closing one of its stores so I bought Khuno a little backpack to hold his water!! Here's him strutting his new gear! 

365 Cards Day 61 & CP Sketch 12

I'm on a roll for doubling up challenges. I really hope that the challenges I'm doubling up on aren't mad at me for doing so. I don't know if there's a faux pau thing about combining challenges or not. I did go by one challenge blog and it specifically requested that cardmakers did NOT combine challenges and that kinda turned me off at bit so needless to say, I didn't add them to my favorites. Anyways today's doubling includes 365 Cards "Leaf it up to me" challenge to include a leaf or two on my card and Card Patterns Sketch 12. Now I started off trying to use scalloped circles but then realized after I cut up all my base that the scalloped circles are too big!!! I wonder if anyone else had the same problem... Or maybe they just have more supplies can were able to make smaller scalloped circles! Anyways I changed them over to squares and for some reason I had a scalloped edge strip in my mind when I kept looking back at the sketch. It was never there but in my mind, it totally was!! All the scalloped-ness is throwing me off my game! Anyways, the stamp set that includes some leafy-ness is Pocket Silouettes and the sentiment on the front is from Happiness Always. Both sets are from Stampin' Up. The inside sentiment is from Hero Arts. Hope you enjoy! 

Fantastic SALE!!!

There's a fantastic sale over at Unity Stamp Company. 

• 40% OFF Select Stamps
• FREE Shipping on all orders! (Limited Time Only) Enter Code: CELEBRATE (all uppercase - case sensitive!)
• For every $10 you spend this weekend, you get 1 FREE STAMP!
• Order your April Kit of the Month and receive a FREE 8 1/2"x11" stamp storage solution!

Check it out!! 

365 Cards Day 60 & SFYTT

Wow it's not past midnight yet!! How amazing!! So here's another card doubling up on challenges. At the 365 Cards blog today's challenge was to say, "What!?" and include that on your card. I didn't have an ? or ! so I turned the I upside down and made due. The other challenge is over at i{heart}2stamp and it's Jen's SFYTT (Sketch For You To Try).  My little creature's name is Frozey and he's from DoodleFactory which I bought from Starving Artistamps. The letters are from Inkadinkado that I picked up at Michael's. The ribbon is from Costco and the eyelets and all the paper is from Stampin' Up! 

365 Cards Day 59 & Got Sketch 81

Another double trouble card today. There's just WAY too many challenges out there and for me to even attempt to do as many as I'd like, I need to combine!! So today at 365 Cards is to make an "I miss you" or something along those lines card. Today is also the very first time I've tried a sketch over at the Got Sketch blog which I found from the beloved and totally awesome Jennifer McGuire blog. Pop on over and try this absolutely GORGEOUS sketch because there's a good incentive!! Anywho, the paper I've used on my card tonite is from Basic Grey 6x6 Sultry pack. I LOVE this paper. I actually hand drew and cut out the little label thingee that the sentiment is sitting on because I had nothing that shape that was big enough to fit my sentiment!! So that's why it looks a bit scraggly. Also scraggly because it's late and I'm sleepy! G'nite! 

365 Cards Day 58 & Mojo Monday 84

So another late post for me tonite. It's been a busy day and I'm very very tired. So here's a short post. Today's challenge over at 365 Cards is to put at least one fishy image on your card. I combined it with Mojo Monday's sketch 84. The stamp set is from There She Goes called LOL Taglines (I think...) and the fish is from SU's retired Very Punny. Enjoy and g'nite!! 

365 Cards Day 57 & Color Inspiration 50

Well today's challenge over at 365 Cards is Super Sketchy Sunday. I've combined it with Kristina's 50th Color Inspiration challenge. I discovered Kristina's blog through my good friend Jinnee and I've been hooked ever since. Her style is so clean and slick and I love love love the cards that she makes. If you haven't been by her blog, pop and by and I'm sure you'll be hooked. Play long with the challenge as well if you have time because the prizes are GREAT. 

Tomorrow is my best friend Liz's 26th birthday and we're going on a shopping date! We've both been tight on cash lately with our HUGE mortgages so we've decided to keep it cheap this year. I wanted to make her a card and the whole reason I bought the teacher Anya stamp was because of her! Now I know she's Chinese and this Anya totally looks Caucasian but for Kristina's challenge, I couldn't use black!  The dew dots I used look a touch purple in the picture but they're definitely red in person. 

Now the inside of this card is NOT part of Kristina's challenge because I had to use black for the blackboard. Jamie came up with the idea and I LOVE IT! I should've been smarter about my equation on the black board but oh well... And another thing about the front of this card. I couldn't figure out how big to cut the middle square so I had to ask Jamie what's the smartest way and can you believe we had to bust out PYTHAGOREAM'S THEROM?!?!?! Anyways, I just thought it was funny that I had to use a part of my brain that I haven't used in a LONG time to make this card. Happy 26th Birthday Liz!! (and no, you're not that old.... yet..)

365 Cards Day 56 & My Time to Color #1

I've done another double-up card today . It combines today's 365 Card challenge and Lauren over is having her very first My Time to Color Challenge! Today's challenge over at the 365 Cards blog was to create a card for "See Through Saturday" using arylic. When I first read this, I was starting to panic because I don't have any acrylic sheets and thought, "Oh here it goes, I have to miss a challenge."

 

But I went waltzing into the living room asking Jamie and my friend if they have noticed any sort of packaging laying around that I could use that was see through. 

Low and behold Jamie produces this little flash drive that he had picked up for me! 

Can you believe a 4GB flash drive is only $10 now?!?!?! Ridiculous!! 

Anyways so I hacked away at the package and took the back of the package to make the front of my card. The inking isn't the greatest on the flower from SU's Petal Pizzazz but I tried! 

There's a hint of yellow in the center of the flower and also on the inside. The paper is from SU and the letters are from Basic Grey. Hope everyone has a great Sunday! I gotta work tomorrow so I better get to bed. G'nite!! 

365 Cards Day 55

Wow wow wow.. I can't believe it's only 7:21 pm!!! How insane is this?!?!?! I think it's because 1/2 the thinking was done for me for this card!! Today's challenge over at 365 Cards was a card recipe. The recipe is as follows: 

5x5 card (solid colored card stock - may be smooth or textured)
4x4 patterned paper (you may alter the edges if you'd like)
1 shape (circle, square, star, heart, etc.) - must be solid color
3 jewels
alpha stickers

I used Elegant Eggplant and the patterned paper is from a paper pack I got from Costco. I have no idea what the name is because I threw out the box. The letters are actually rub ons from the dollar store. The 4x4 sheet I cut into two. I don't know if that is technically not following the recipe but it's still a 4x4 sheet I promise! The little circle shape I just embossed with more circles and the little corner has 3 purple jewels to finish it off! Simple and sweet! 

Debbie's AMAZING Blog Candy

Debbie is giving out some AMAZING blog candy on her blog Passion For Crafts. It's her one year anniversary and she's celebrating by being super generous and giving back (even though she's shared lots with us already!). Swing by her blog for a chance to enter!!