fresh & fun

I feel I am totally blessed.

 I have a wonderful husband, amazing kids and great friends.

Lucas took this picture of me about a year ago and I finally scrapped it. Of course…I sent it in to Stampin’ Up! They posted a call for Event Stamping helpers last month. You had to send in one scrapbook page, one 3D item and three cards. This is the page I made for it.

The page base is a 8 1/2″ x 11″ piece of Apricot Appeal cardstock. The Certainly Celery Prints designer paper measures 6″ x 8″. I taped it down and stamped my All in a Row stamp around all four sides.

The polka dotted strip measures 2 1/4″ x 10 1/2″ and is from the Cutie Pie Designer paper pack. I stapled Purely Pomegranate double stitched ribbon to the top.

Happy is from It’s All Good, stamped in Purely Pomegranate on Shimmery White cardstock. I punched it out with the 1 1/4″ circle punch, layered it on a 1 3/8″ apricot appeal circle and on a Purely Pomegranate scallop circle punchout.

The letters for the word life are from  the Onboard Lots of Letters Chipboard assortment. I applied Purely Pomegranate ink over it with a sponge dauber and taped them on with Snail adhesive.

The journaling strips are made with Soft Sky cardstock. I wrote on it with my Rose Red marker and added three flowers from the Pretties Kit. The flower centers are Jewel brads from the Fire Circle Jewel brads pack.

Krista Driessen sent me this fun card.

I love her doodled border and those funky stamps.

You can see more of her beautiful work on her blog.

Thursday’s challenge was to use the new Stampin’ Up! color Basic Gray. I love that color but admit I have hardly used it yet.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ black piece of cardstock folded in half.

I adhered a 4″ ticket corner punched square of Basic Gray cardstock and a 3 3/4″ ticket corner punched Groovy Guava Prints Designer Paper square on top of it. The Gray with this particular Background paper pattern reminded me of school uniforms. I was seeing plaid skirts in my mind.

I added faux stitching with my All in a Row Argyle stamp between the Gray and Guava layers and tied Gray Tafetta ribbon around them vertically.

For my central image I took a 1 7/8″ x 2 1/2″ piece of Shimmery White cardstock and stamped the saying from Flowers & Flourish with Black Stazon on it. I punched the corners with the ticket corner punch and layered it first on a 1/4″ bigger piece of Groovy Guava, then on a 2 3/8″ x 3″ piece of basic black cardstock.

Again I added faux stitching with All in a Row. I also added on silver brad on the top left corner.

I punched out a Basic Gray Round tab, but it was too wide for my panel. So I slid it back into the punch, lined it up and punched it a bit smaller. I added kind friend from Amazing to Zany to the top part of the tab,  and a black flower made with the Three for you Punch on the bottom left. A silver brad was placed in the center of the flower.

I stamped the big flower from Flowers & Flourish in Groovy Guava on Shimmery White cardstock, outlined it with my 03black Micron pen and cut it out. It was layered on  a paper pierced 1 1/4″ Shimmery white circle that sits on a 1 3/8″ Basic Black circle and a Basic Gray Scallop circle. I topped the flower off with another black flower punchout from the Three for you Punch with a silver brad in it’s center.

 The main panel as well as the circular accent were adhered with dimensionals.

Today I am holding my monthly stamp camp. We are making these cards.

I hope everyone will like them.

I have extra card packages with everything you need to make these cards.

If you have been a customer of me in the past, you can purchase the kits to make these cards for $10, which includes shipping.

If you are a long distance customer, who has ordered this month over $50 in product, email me and I will send you those card kits for free.

I did have to switch the velvet ribbon on the Christmas card for a Spring Moss 1/4″ grosgrain ribbon. I just don’t have enough of that velvet ribbon for everyone.

You can see the images and description of the cards here:

Joyfold card

3 x 3 Thank you

Christmas card

Bear Birthday

Simple Thanks

Sorry, the card packages are gone! Hugs and smiles

If you have time to stamp a card, or have a card already stamped, please think about sending it to a girl in Texas named Victoria. She has cancer. Her teacher set up a map and would love for her to get a card from each State.

Please help us to fill that map and lift Victorias spirit! It’s easy for us to whip out a card. Let’s do it for a great cause.

 You can read more about her story at Courtney’s blog. Courtney is also running a blog candy for everyone sending Victoria a card. I think that is a great idea. I think I will do the same. Let’s really shower this girl with cards!

Angel is offering card candy as well to stampers who send a card to Victoria.

Make a card for Victoria and upload it online, either your blog or SCS gallery. Add a link to your card to this post. Please also add your State, so we know how close we are getting to covering all 50 States.

The teacher would like all the cards to be send by the 27th of September, so I will  draw a winner on the 28th of September at 10:00 a.m. with Random.org.

The Fresh & Fun Freebies for this drawing include some of each pink May Arts ribbon I own as well as this Lizzie Anne Cling Stamp set. I thought it would be appropriate since Cancer is one long Journey!

Please add your Entry # to your post.

Thanks so much!!!

States sending mail so far: AL, CA, FL, GA, HI, IL, IN, KY,  MA, MD, MI, MN, NV, NY, OH,  OR, PA,  SC, TN, VA, WA , WI, WV

Other countries: Australia, Canada (Alberta, BC, Nova Scotia, Ontario), France, Germany, Ireland, Newfoundland, Scottland

I received this stunning card from Heather Imhoff from Canada.

Thank you so much, Heather.

I love it!!! How did you ever guess Chocolate Chip is my favorite color? (grin)

Here is my sample for today’s sketch.

The card base is a 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Always Artichoke, followed by a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Shimmery White cardstock.

The bottom two corners were punched with the ticket corner punch.

Next was a 2 1/4″ x 5″ piece of Wintergreen Designer paper. I LOVE that paper! Again I punched the bottom corners with the ticket corner punch.

The rectangle layer is first a 2 3/4″ x 3 1/2″ piece of Certainly Celery cardstock with a 2 1/2″ x 3 1/4″ piece of Wintergreen paper adhered on top. I punched a hole with my Crop-a-dile and added white Taffeta ribbon.

The main image is a 2 1/2″ square of Shimmery White cardstock, with three of the four trees from Lovely as a Tree image stamped in Always Artichoke. I colored the sky with Soft Sky reinker and Aqua painter and washed over the tree top with aqua painter to spread the Artichoke a little bit.

It was layered on a 2 3/4″ square of Soft Sky Cardstock and a 3″ square of Always Artichoke. Once I taped it down to the card, I added Dazzling Diamond glitter with my 2 Way Glue pen on the ground and on the tree.

For the Sentiment I stamped the Holiday Sentiment from Circle of Friendship in Always Artichoke on Shimmery White and on Soft Sky Cardstock. I punched out the inner circle from the Soft Sky Cardstock with a 1/2″ circle punch and the entire circle sentiment from the Shimmery White cardstock with my 1″ circle punch.

The next layers are a paper pierced 1 1/4″ Soft Sky circle and a 1 3/8″ Certainly Celery cardstock. Last it was layered on a large Shimmery White oval punchout. I added two silver brads to each end of the oval punchout and mounted the sentiment with dimensionals to the card.

For the final touch I added about a 1/3rd of a large, paper pierced Certainly Celery oval punchout on the top left of the card with a silver brad in it.

Here is the sketch for this weekend’s challenge.  I saw a gorgeous card made with this layout at Deb’s blog. I thought it would be a great sketch for us to try out!

Thanks for the inspiration Deb!

This time the prize is a one sheet each of the retired Litte Reminder sticker sheets, as well as one 6″ x 6″ sheet of each of the matching Notations designer paper .To participate in the challenge, make a card with this layout and upload it either to your blog, or to an online gallery.

 If you upload your card on SCS, put WSC20  (NO SPACE INBETWEEN WSC AND 20)in the keyword section. That way we can look at all of them at once!

Post a link to your card to THIS blog entry as a comment. Please add your entry# to it.

I will determine the winner of the clear stamps with Random.org on Wednesday at 9:00 a.m.

I already tried the sketch on Tuesday with my card for Victoria.

It is one fun sketch!

To see samples made with this sketch now, check out the blogs of

Charmaine Ikach

Jenn Balcer 

Laurie Schmidlin

Lori Craig and

Sharon Harnist

Have fun creating! I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

SCS submissions

Joanne Basile is a wonderful stamper and blogger.

She sent me her gorgeous version of WSC18.

I love it!

You can find more of her beautiful work on her blog …just a little something…

Here is another card I made with this weeks color challenge on SCS.

I needed to make a bunch of thank you cards. For the layout I used WSC18. I think it’s just perfect for quick and cute cards.

The card base is a 4 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Really Rust cardstock, folded in half. The right top and bottom corner were corner rounded.

The River Rock layer measures 2 3/4″ x 4 1/4″ and was topped with a 2 1/2″ x 4″ piece of Apple Cider Designer paper.

I added a small photo corner on the bottom right and faux stitched the edges with the Argyle Stamp from All in a Row. Three silver brads add the final touches to the photo corner.

I used my Crop-a-dile to punch a hole on the upper half of the card and tied double stitched River Rock ribbon through it.

For the center image, I inked up the Thank you From True Friend with my Chocolate Chip marker, huffed and stamped it on Very Vanilla cardstock. It was punched out with the 1 1/4″ circle punch and layered first on a 1 3/8″ River Rock circle, then on a Chocolate Chip scallop circle. I adhered it with dimensionals, covering up the hole I made for the ribbon.