fresh & fun

My counter crossed the 1,800,000 mark today! Thank you so much for always visiting my blog. It is very humbling to know how many of you check in with me. To celebrate the mailstone I am raffling away a Unity Stamp set.

It is an unmounted set called Daisy Days.

To participate in the raffle, just post a comment under this blog entry.

Please add your entry number (comment numbers + 1).  One comment per person. If you see the number is messed up, please don’t post again or the numbers will just get messed up even more.

I will pick a winner sometime tomorrow afternoon with the help of random.org.

Personal Note:
I started working out again and went on a 2.6 mile walk after doing my workout with my neighbor. It feels good to work out again, although my muscles are screaming today. Last night I played cards with the kids. We only have a few termites last night. Thank goodness. I have been working on SCS work and checking out all the WSC entries so far and hadn’t had time to stamp yet. Sorry! I have no stamped project to share with you today.

I was so excited when Stampin’ Up! announced that customers could order a set from the new catalog in June and hostesses could earn it for free. If you read my blog, you know I was already stressing over not having any new stamps for such a long time (THREE more month until August. Can you say TORTURE?) Demonstrators are lucky enough to be able to preorder the set this month and mine arrived yesterday afternoon. Needless to say I had to try it out right away.

While I like how my card came out, I think it will look better as a 3″ x 3″. I will try that next. I think this card has Customer Thank you for next month written all over it. I used this weeks color challenge on SCS on the card.

I added most of the stamps that come in the set in this picture. Just in case someone hasn’t seen or heard about this special yet.

My card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Certainly Celery cardstock folded in half.

Next is a sponged and ticket corner punched 4″ Blue Bayou square.

On top of that sits first a 3 3/4″ Whisper White square that was stamped in Soft Sky with the background stamp from Fresh Cuts. The branch from the same set was stamped on the upper right hand side in second generation Blue Bayou.

On the bottom half of that layer I added a strip of Blue Bayou Prints Designer paper. The white cardstock edges were paper pierced and a white gel pen dotted border was added to the designer paper. 5/8″ wide Celery Grosgrain ribbon was tied around the layers.

I stamped the background stamp again on a scrap of Whisper White cardstock, inked up first Thank, then You from one of the two sentiments that come with that set in Blue Bayou and stamped them over the background. I then punched the saying out with my 1 1/4″ circle punch and sponged the edges ever so slightly with Blue Bayou. This circle was layered first on a 1 3/8″ Certainly Celery circle, then on a sponged Blue Bayou scallop circle. From the rest of the stamped White scrap I punched out three 1/4″ circles, adhered them to the bottom right of the Designer paper and topped them off with Celery Brads.

Finally I stamped the small flower from Fresh Cuts in Blue Bayou, cut it out, adhered it with dimensionals to my sentiment circle and placed a medium clear rhinestone brad (Pretties Kit) in its center.

I didn’t get to finish my sample. I had a wonderful visit from one of my long distance downline members yesterday. We didn’t get to stamp but chatted the morning away and went to P.F. Changs for lunch. The day started so well!

I started to stamp my sample last evening watching TV. BUT….a big swarm of flying (one day) termites seemed to have landed on our house and I spend the rest of the evening vacuuming up those nasty little suckers. That is the grossest thing ever. I would never live here permanently because of that. They only swarm in May. I had them crawling in my bed!!! Under the covers!!! Let’s just say I am very tired because I didn’t want to go to sleep. I kept watch for new termites to kill.

This morning I got up early to clean up the rest of the termites that crawled out last night. I wanted to have most of them gone before the kids got up! They were as freaked out as I was (I tried not to show it. With Rick gone, I had to be the strong parent.).

My sample is half finished. I hope I will finish it up soon.

I saw a card made with this sketch by the ever so talented Patty Bennett and thought it would be a fun sketch for the Weekend sketch challenge.

To participate in the challenge and be entered in the  raffle, 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 WSC49  (NO SPACE INBETWEEN WSC AND 49) 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  with Random.org on Monday at 11:00 a.m. CST

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

Cambria Turnbow

Charmaine Ikach

Jenn Balcer

Laurie Schmidlin 

Lori Craig

MaryJo Albright

Sharon Harnist

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

SCS submissions

Here is another 3 1/8″ square card made with the largest of the long scallop rectangle Nestabilities die templates (that’s quite a mouthful!)

The card base is cut out of textured Groovy Guava and folded in half.

Wasabi double stitched ribbon was tied around the bottom half of a   2″ x 2 7/8″ strip of Tea Time Designer Paper. The strip was adhered to the left hand side with dimensionals.

The head of the rose from Bloomin’ Beautiful was stamped in Black Stazon on a Whisper White oval. It was colored with Aqua Painterand classic inks (Groovy Guava, Soft Sky and Wild Wasabi), layered on a Wild Wasabi scalloped oval and a border was paper pierced along the edges. Both ovals were cut with the Oval Nestabilities. The image was attached to the card base with dimensionals.

To finish the card off I added two 1/4″ Wild Wasabi circles to the bottom right and topped them off with silver brads.

If you have questions about Nestabilities die templates (Where did I buy them? Which ones do I own? How do you use them?) check this blog entry.

Angie Tieman wrote this weeks tutorial. It is on how to make a Mini Photo book. And when we say mini, we mean small. LOL  I had to try it out right away. My pages are super simple because well….it was late at night and the pages are small. LOL It is so adorable though. You really should make one!

The finish book measures 2 1/2″ x 4″.

I used Chocolate Chip for my cover. The corner was rounded with a long retired large corner rounder from Stampin’ Up!.

The designer paper is from the Spring Silhouette Designer Paper Pack.

It measures 2 1/8″ x 2 1/2″, was layered on a 1/4″ bigger piece of Very Vanilla cardstock and paper pierced (of course) on the top and bottom.

Chocolate Taffeta Ribbon was tied around the top. Over it I adhered a chipboard heart from the On Board Accents Pack (There is a special on any Chipboard item going on right now with Stampin’ Up! Talk to your demo for more details). that heart was first covered with Tea Time Designer Paper and paper piercing was added. On the lower left hand side a Vanilla button was added. The Vanilla ribbon strip that is tied through the button holes is a piece of Vanilla Taffeta ribbon.

My title comes from two different stamp sets. Fabulous is from Many Happy Returns, daughter is from Wonderful Favorites. I stamped the words in Chocolate Chip on Very Vanilla Cardstock and punched it out with the 1 1/4″ circle punch.

The coaster pages on the inside were covered in the same patterned paper from the Spring Silhouette Designer paper pack that is shown on the front.

All I did was layer my pictures on a Very Vanilla cardstock base and tape to the pages.

The tabs were punched out with the Round Tab Punch and adhered to the back of the pages with Sticky Strip. The back of the last page holds the journaling.

Rebecca and every other third grader at her school got to practise on a violin every week in music class for a while. Then each class played three songs on their recital. I was very worried about going. Violins can sound horrid if played wrong. 20 violins at one time playing wrong…oh my imagination was running wild. But the kids did an amazing job.

I know, I know….I am super late with this.

I totally spaced yesterday! I thought I was so caught up with everything.

Then I remembered while falling asleep! Yikes.

So here is the winner of the last sketch challenge (two days late).

Random.org picked #50, that is Jill, aka jillmacd on SCS.

I got to check every entry this week and I have to say they all turned out fabulous.

Thank you so much for playing with the sketch! I hope you had as much fun with it as I had checking out all the uploads.

Hugs and smiles

I received this beautiful card from Leanne Stover.

You can see more of her great work on her blog leanne: { all natural }

Okay…I was a slacker yesterday. After my Monday chores (dusting, vacuuming, cleaning bathrooms, mopping floors, big laundry load and baking cookies), I did my SCS work and then crashed in the backyard. I was pooped and didn’t even touch a stamp! I also didn’t announce a winner for the last sketch challenge. I will do that today, I promise.

So this morning, I got up early to make my sample for the inspiration challenge. For this card I used the top plate in the photo as my inspiration. I love how the Pumpkin flowers looked on the olive plate. I have a serious addiction. I can’t help myself. I have to have scallops on every card! It’s bad! I can’t stop!

I started creating the main image by stamping the branch from Embrace Life in Black Stazon on a 2 1/2″ x 3 3/4″ piece of Old Olive cardstock.

I colored the leaves in with a black journaling marker, went over the entire branch with VersaMarker and embossed it with clear embossing powder. I then used the VersaMarker to add shadow under the branch.

Next the En Francaisbackground was stamped over the cardstock with VersaMark ink and the layer was sponged with Old Olive ink.

I love the long rectangle scallop Megabilities. I used the largest template from the small long rectangles to cut my black cardstock. I cut it apart between two scallops and taped it together again to fit behind my Olive layer. Then I paper pierced a border on that layer.

The flowers were punched out of Pumpkin Pie cardstock with the Three for You punch, sponged with Pumpkin pie and adhered over the branch. I added black brads to three of the flowers and one half Pearl from the Pretties kit on the top flower.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 11″ piece of Basic Black cardstock folded in half.  It is layered with a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Old Olive cardstock. Each corner was punched with the ticket corner punch. On top of that are two 3 3/4″ wide pieces of Bali Breeze Designer paper . The corners were punched with the ticket corner punch as well.  A paper pierced border was added to the pumpkin paper and 5/8″ Olive Grosgrain ribbon was tied around the Olive and Designer Paper layers. Over the ribbon knot a flower from the Pretties kit was added.

Since I made my one flower stand out so much, I thought the sentiment One of a Kind would be perfect for this card. I already had it stamped on Shimmery White and punched out with the large oval punch in my scrap pile. I layered it on a sponged Pumpkin Designer Label punchout that was layered first with a 1″ black circle. I paper pierced a border on the large oval and attached it to the card with dimensionals.

Use the colors or the pattern….anything that will inspire you to create your card.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with.

Check out the cards made by the Inspiration Challenge Team:

Charmaine Ikach

Danielle Lounds

Dawn McVey

Jennifer Buck

Silke Ledlow

Susan Roberts

If you upload your image to your splitcoast gallery, don’t forget to add BIC14 in the keyword section. That way your card will appear in this search: SCS Submissions