fresh & fun

I missed too many milestone celebrations recently. I am almost at 2,800,000 hits and want to make sure I don’t miss this one. So I post a little early since are leaving for our trip to Germany on Wednesday morning.

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

One comment per person please.

 I will pick a winner with the help from Random.org tomorrow afternoon.

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles

Okay…so my sample is an hour late and it’s not quite like the challenge sketch. I just can’t stick to samples. I did keep the three images and the ribbon. I stretched the card out and made the horizontal layer bigger though.

I started with a 6″ square of textured Basic Gray cardstock folded in half.

The designer paper measures 2″ x 6″ and is from the occasional mini catalog. The paper pack is called Walk in the Park.

I layered the designer paper on Shimmery White cardstock. The bottom of that layer was punched with the Eyelet Border Punch. Kiwi Satin Ribbon was tied around the layers before they were attached to the card base.

I stamped the frame from Great Friend three times in Basic Gray on Basic Gray cardstock and cut those out. Each frame was layered first with a 1 3/8″ Kiwi Kiss cardstock circle, then with a 1 1/4″ Shimmery White circle. I stamped directly on two of those circle with stamps from Great Friend. One the third one I adhered a butterfly stamped in Baja Breeze ink and cut out. I inked the butterfly with Kiwi Kiss, stamped it off once, sponged the edges with Baja Breeze ink and a sponge dauber and stamped it again on Shimmery White. It was cut out and layered on top of the first butterfly with dimensionals.

To finish it off I added some Ice Rhinestone Brads.

Sorry I am so short. I am an hour late for my walk and it’s getting warm outside.

Cambria is the hostess for this weekend’s sketch challenge.

Make sure you visit her blog and post your entries there.

And visit

Charmaine Ikach

Jenn Balcer

Laurie Schmidlin

Lori Craig

Mary Jo Albright and

Sharon Harnist’s  blogs for more samples.

I don’t have a sample made as I type this in. I hope I get one done before it’s time to post. If not, I am sorry!!!

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles

Todays tutorial on Splitcoast is about adding Texture to your Copic coloring.

You all know I went to the Copic Class in Pensacola a month ago. Marianne Walker is amazing and shared some great tips with us. I passed some of them on in this tutorial.

I started by stamping this adorable dragon from Our Craft Lounge in Tuxedo Black Memento ink on Neenah White cardstockand coloring him with  Copic Markers.

(Dragon: YG00, YG23 and YG25; Rocks: W1 and W4; Flowers: Y35, YR04 and R27; Grass: G24, Ground: E34 and E37, Sky: BG10)

The texture was added with the Blending Pen.

The image was layered on a Black Scallop rectangle cut with Nestabilities. On the upper left I added a Jumbo Pewter Eyelet with Riding Hood Red Ribbon and a Clear Rhinestone brad. The upper right hand corner was paper pierced.

The card base is a 4 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Chocolate Chip cardstock folded in half. Next come a 4″ square in Basic Black and a 3 3/4″ square in Pumpkin Pie. The 2″ x 3 3/4″ strip of designer paper is from the Flock Together paper pack. It was sanded and the bottom paper pierced.

I stamped the sentiment and eggs on Neenah paper in Tuxedo Black, colored the eggs in the same colors as the dragon and punched it out with the 1 1/4″ circle punch. The sentiment was first layered on a 1 3/8″ Chocolate Chip circle, then on a retired Pewter Hodgepodge Hardware piece.

I kept the inside very simple and the layers similar to the outside.

I am sorry for another late post. My Internet was down this morning. Something is wrong with the splitter. I didn’t even know we had one sitting where it is. I felt like McGuyver (and hopefully not like McGroover) messing with it so at least we can have Internet, if not TV. I need to buy a new one of those things.

Have a wonderful day! Hugs and smiles

Sorry, this will be a super short post. I still have two friends over stamping. But I wanted to show you a card I stamped for the Limited Supply Challenge last week.

Stamps are all from Our Craft Lounge.

Stamps: Snail Mail, Whispy Patterns, Bear-ly Fishin’

Ink: Black Memento Ink, Creamy Caramel classic inks

Copics: Snail home: E51, E53, E55 ; Snail: YG00, YG13, YG17, Cheeks: R00, Flowers: Y38, Y68 and R27, R29, Sky: B00, Grass: YG63, YG67

I am sorry I didn’t draw a name last night. Rick was working on the front door, banging around and making a lot of noise. My computer/stamp room is right there. So I hid in our bedroom watching the new show “Kings” (I think that’s what it was called)….and then I forgot! My bad!!!

Random.org picked #48 this time.

That’s Jamie Kaufman.

Thank you all who entered in the raffle. I will hold another one soon. I missed giving out candy for too many milestones.

Have a wonderful day!
Hugs and smiles

Personal Note:

I am not sure if and how much I can share this week.  I have a lot to do before we go on our Germany trip next week. I can’t believe we are leaving next week already. I hope we have good weather while we are there. We have so many little trips planned. We can’t wait.

I made this card for the inspiration challenge last week. I picked this pillow to get my inspiration from.

The bunny reminded me of the bunny from Forest Friends. I was itching to try out that set.  So I picked the colors (Kiwi, Chocolate, Apricot) as well as the shape and the bunny from the inspiration piece and went to work.

I started by inking the tree from Forest Friends in Kiwi Kiss. I went over the trunk and branches with my Chocolate Chip marker and stamped it on the lower right of 3″ Whisper White cardstock square.

I added a 1/8″ scored border all around the white and then a diagonal grid with my Scor-Pal.  I did not add grid lines over my stamped image.

Then I went over the diagonal lines with the new Scor-Bug (available beginning of April, I was lucky enough to get one to review for SCS).

Because of the scored lines, I used dimensionals to adhere this layer to a 1/4″ bigger Kiwi Kiss layer that was taped down to a 3 1/2″ square of Chocolate Chip.

Chocolate Taffeta ribbon had been  tied around the Chocolate/Kiwi layers before adding the scored layer. The card base is a 4″ x 8″ piece of Apricot Appeal cardstock folded in half.  A white gel pen dotted border was added to the edge of the card front.

The bunny from Forest Friends was stamped in Chocolate Chip on Whisper White cardstock. It was colored with Apricot Appeal Classic ink and Aqua Painter, cut out and adhered under the tree with dimensionals.

The sentiment is from Really Retro. It was stamped in Chocolate on Whisper White cardstock, punched out with the small oval punch and layered on a 1″ Kiwi Kiss circle. A paper pierced row was added under the sentiment before it was taped to the top left of the image layer. A Flower brad with a small Apricot cardstock gel pen dotted circle (punched out with the Crop-a-dile) finished off that brad.

My inside is again very simple.

I added a 3 3/4″ square of Chocolate Chip topped with a 3 1/2″ square of Kiwi Kiss cardstock.

Two Scor-Bug lines were added to the bottom of the 3 1/4″ piece of Whisper White on the bottom. The other three edges received a score line.

The tree was inked the same way as for the front, stamped off once and then stamped in the bottom right corner.

Have a wonderful Sunday! Hugs and smiles

This time I will give away a special edition of this Going Gourmet set from Our Craft Lounge.

It’s one of the prototypes. It doesn’t have the printed & colored images on it’s back.  The stamps are the same great quality .

I will also give away with it three Copic Ciao Markers:

BV02 Purple, B23 Phthalo Blue and R85 Rose Red.

To enter, just add a comment under this post. One comment per person, please.

I will pick a winner with Random.org Sunday night around 7 p.m. CST.

Good Luck!

P. S.: Stamp camp was so much fun! I think all the ladies had a great time too. All my cards had insides….so it took us a while. I don’t think anyone minded though.

Hugs and smiles

I am excited.

I am holding my first stamp camp this year!

I have been a slacker since Rick came home.

These projects what we will be stamping

Crimped Envelope Card

Cute little Funky Trees

Not Quite Navy Butterfly

Baja Le jardin Botanique

Have a wonderful Saturday!!!

Hugs and smiles

Pink Damask

I love how different Jenn’s sketch is.

Make sure to participate this weekend and post your link on Jenn’s blog.

She is giving away a Splitcoast mug of your choice!

I started with stamping my little duck from the Occasional Mini catalog Wagon Full of Fun in Tuxedo Memento ink on Neenah cardstock. I colored the bill and feet with copics and outlined the duck with W1 Copic and air brushed the sky with Copic B00.

Sunshine Flower Soft was added over the body of the duck with glue. I stamped the duck twice more, one more time on white cardstock and one time on Delicate Dots Designer Paper. I cut out the wing of the white cardstock duck, popped it up with a dimensional and added Sunshine Flower Soft over the wing as well. I cut out the bow around the ducky’s neck from the designer paper and added it to the main image with dimensionals. I added Shamrock Green Flower Soft under the ducky’s feet.

The image was layered on a basic black scallop rectangle that had been cut with Nestabilities. The edges top and side edges of the image layer were paper pierced.

The card base is a 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Basic Black cardstock folded in half. It was layered with a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Delicate Dots Designer Paper. The Designer Paper was sanded and paper pierced.

I cut one Top Note Die cut out of Basic Black cardstock, one out of retired Haiku designer paper. The Haiku paper was cut down a bit, layered on the black cut out and paper pierced around the top edges. It was taped to the center of the green designer paper with a 1 3/8″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Delicate Dots Designer Paper added over the bottom. Celery 5/8″ Grosgrain ribbon was tied around the bottom.

The sentiment is from Many Happy Returns. It was stamped in black on Whisper White cardstock, punched out with the Curly label punch and adhered to the top left of the image. The image was secured to the card base with dimensionals. I added two flowers from the Pretties kit, one with a Pumpkin Corduroy Button, one with a Flower brad in it’s center. The last flower is from Flower Fusion and has a half Pearl from the Pretties kit to top it  off.

The inside is kept pretty simple.

I started with a sanded piece of the Delicate Dots Designer Paper. It was followed by a White Top Note Die cut that had been layered first with a 1 1/4″ strip of Basic Black, then a  1 1/8″ strip of Delicate Dots DP.

To finish it off I added a felt flower from Flower Fusion with a 5/16″ Jumbo Brad in its center.

Make sure to check

Cambria Turnbow

Charmaine Ikach

Jenn Balcer

Mary Jo Albright

Lori Craig and

Sharon Harnist’s blogs for more samples.

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles