Sleigh Ride!!

Happy Sunday everyone! I'm back in the saddle, as they say--it was great to go away and great to be home again. My dh and I had a wonderful time in Philadelphia and the weather couldn't have been any better, low 80's w/ no humidity and sunny, blue skies--the best!! We saw just about every historical site the city had to offer and walked for miles and miles (my feet will tell u the story)! The 2 pictures above are of the Liberty Bell and Betsey Ross' house (she sewed the 1st American flag ya know). We were able to relax and just enjoy each other w/o any outside distractions--a must every now and again. We always made sure to be back in our suite in time to watch the Olympics every night though--we're obsessed! Loved watching the amazing Michael Phelps swim and the US gymnastics team--we were cheering so loud, I thought the people across the hall were going to complain--LOL! Gotta love the Olympics!!

My card today uses another stamp from the Whiff of Joy line by Katharina Frei. I will tell you that these stamps are great to work with--nice, deeply etched rubber and stamp out fantastic, and fun to color (which is always my fave)! This stamp is called "Charlotte in Sled" and if you check it out on the website, you'll notice that the stamp has only one reindeer attached. Welllll, you know how I love to change everything up--so I stamped an extra reindeer, cut it out and popped it up with dimensionals to look like she has a small team of reindeer--just different & fun! This xmas dp is from Imagnisce's "Snowy Jo" line and the cs is SU's new "riding hood red" cs. All of the images are colored with Copics, stickles added to the jinglebells and snow/snowflakes. The snowflakes and sentiment are from Sweet 'n Sassy's "Snow Friends" stamp set. I added diamond glaze to the sled and some highlights w/ my Inkssentials pen. Hope ya like it and maybe get ya thinking about your Christmas cards (yeah right u say)!!

If I get all my chickies in order, I will be posting my BLOG CANDY on Monday for going over 10,000 blog hits thanks to all of you great blog readers/stampin friends out there!! I've got some great goodies to give away, so be on the lookout for that!

Until then...

Suzanne

Good Mistakes!

Hi again everyone! Yes, it's a double-posting day I guess (doesn't happen often) but I was really pleased with how this creation turned out and wanted to share, since I have something else planned for tomorrow.

This card started off as a triangular-fold card from Beate that you can see here. I wanted mine to be much larger but after cutting & scoring I realized that my measurements were off--not surprising. But I liked the look of having my triangles not reaching the end of the paper so that you can see more of whats behind it. In case you want to try it, my measurements were 5 3/4 x 12 ", after scoring and folding you will have to trim the sides of the triangles a bit. I'm calling mine the "off center triangle fold" card--lol! I make lotsa "good mistakes" that turn into something different from what I planned but sometimes I like it even better!

I used one of my new Sarah Kay stamps called "Rose's Garden" that you can get from Sweet 'n Sassy. I based all my colors off of this yummy paper from K&Co. (Marcella) and used my Copics to color her. I colored the background w/ a soft cream to mimic fabric which is why you can see some lines, it supposed to be that way--everything else is blended. I used my oval nesties to cut and emboss the image. I added some new flowers I bought by Prima which I love--I just layered 2 together and added a jewel to the center (from Doodlebug Designs)--I also colored/blended the edges of the flowers w/ my Copics for some contrast. I pretty much change up most of my embellishments with ink, like brads and flowers--makes what you have go farther. I've had these great metal sentiments hanging around in my embellies drawer for awhile and forgot about them and came across them while digging for my jewels (obviously I need to organize this drawer-lol). These sentiments are from Making Memories and I believe I had bought them at Michaels, the ribbon is from them too. I just shabbed the metal tag up with some ink so it wasn't such a bright white.

I also added a lacelike trim to the edges and inside with my Fiskars border punch (don't know the name of it) but I got most of these Fiskar punches at Target. To finish the inside off, I stamped the side panels with Verve Stamp's "filigree fantasy" set w/ SU's river rock ink. I made my card so it uses the ribbon as a belly band but instead of tying the ribbon I added Scotch's velcro circles to the ribbon to make it easier to get off. I made this card for the Limited Supply Challenge #177 on SCS (although I didn't limit my supplies, ha ha) but I did do a folding card. I also made this for Ismaki's Challenge #28 that you can find here.

All right, I'm outta here. I'm taking a field trip to AC Moore's and Borders tonight, so hopefully I'll come home w/ some goodies. My PTI package should be here tomorrow--yippee!! Until then...

Suzanne

Bee Happy!!

Happy Monday everyone! Hope you all had a good, restful weekend (like me)!! I had a relaxing weekend at my mom's just hanging out and chilling--felt good, but doing nothing tires me out--lol!! I'm used to doing something every minute it seems. I got to eat my yum-o crabs w/ lots of Old Bay on them too and we celebrated my "older" brother's birthday (he's 43) & I'm a much younger (34)-lol!! I couldn't wait to get in my craft room today and work, I really missed it. I'm like a strange addict ya know--when I've been away too long it eats at me until I can get back in there and work/stamp :) Anyhoo....

The first card up today is just a fun little card I made with one of my Stampendous bee's from their "Bee Happy Collection". I thought this was a great summer stamp especially this week when everyone is gearing up for Fourth of July picnics and barbecues. I think it's a great image of summertime cuz' most people love watermelon at their summer picnics (except me--I hate all melons, weird, I know)!! The cs is from Bazzill and the dp is from DCWV's "summer matstack" which I thought had just the right "watermelon-ee" colors in it. The tag sentiment is from Sweet 'n Sassy's "Bee Happy" stamp set and the tag is from my new nestabilities tag set that I got from Cut@Home. I cut and popped the watermelon and added Diamond Glaze to it for lots of wet shine and their are some stickles on the bee (of course). The actual sketch layout is from Lauren Meader's Saturday sketch which I usually try to do cuz' they're always fun!

The second card is made with PTI's "Boards and Beams" stamp set--which I LOVE!! You probably remember the pop-up card I made with this set before but with the farmhouse instead. This is the "city" house which reminds me of homes in Old Town Alexandria, VA--historic row homes that are so elegant & quaint. I really wanted to use this new dp from Basic Grey called "Lily Kate" that I just got. I'm posting this card over on the OCC blog (Our Creative Corner) whose challenge this week was to use Basic Grey paper. The cs is Groovy Guava from SU. The images are colored with my Copics and I stamped the topiary trees and dormer twice, colored them and then cut one set out & popped it with dimensionals. The trees have some stickles on them and the windows are coated with Diamond Glaze again. The sentiment (which I adore) is another one I got from Rosie's Roadshow. If you haven't checked out all her great stamps, especially sentiments, you definitely need to. I used my Nestabilities tag dies again to cut the sentiment out and the satin ribbon is from Offray. These two cards didn't take too long to put together--which is good because I'm working on some other things I want to share this week.

Don't forget that Wednesday night is the release party for My Favorite Things--you can check out the forum on SCS for sneak peeks. I love the "gotta have it all" package you can get that includes all the new stamps--I'll be getting that on Wed. nite!!

See ya tomorrow!

Suzanne

Bee Happy card--Stampendous bee stamp, Sweet 'n Sassy sentiment (Bee Happy), DCWV dp, Bazzill cs, Copics, Diamond Glaze, Michaels ribbon, Nestabilities tag die, nestabilities circles, stickles, dimensionals, Ranger Inkssentials pen

City Home card--PTI "Boards & Beams" stamp set, Rosie's Roadshow sentiment, Nestabilities tag die, Offray ribbon, dimensionals, Copics, stickles, Diamond Glaze, Basic Grey "Lily Kate" dp, SU cs, MM brads