Another Sweet Pea!

Another Baby girl card suing the Baby Safari paper from Precious Scraps. You can find her blog/store over on the left, and send her off an email to buy what you want! She has photos of new items on today's blog post!

The green of the plaid matches SU's old In Color, Wild Wasabi. How clever of me to have some of the double stitched ribbon left! the little pink crocheted button was in a sale bin at Michael's one day, probably a week before crocheted flowers became hot, lol! The stamp is from the dollar bin, by Studio G. There are a lot of Sweet Pea stamps out there at the moment, just about any would work here! Card base is Papertrey's Lemon Tart, and the buttons are just some random lime green ones I had. Love to use them up!

Image is colored with Prisma Limepeel, then highlighted with a bit of Wild Wasabi from the ink pad put on with a blender pen.

It's a lovely day out there today, and I have been inside working on another 8 hour lecture... battling the scanner and Power Point and CD's and DVD's and a flash drive... I have a headache!

Core'dinations Bear

Yesterday there was a review of Core'dinations paper over on SplitCoast, so I thought I would show you this card today. I recently bought a 4 piece Sizzix embossing folder, and used the full sized one on pink core brown paper. How's that for a sentence?

After I ran it through the folder, I sanded off the top layer with a CTMH sanding block. The pink core matched SU's Pink Pirouette very well, so that became the base layer. Martha Stewart has a soft pink ribbon that matches Pink Pirouette, so I was almost done!

The little bear is from Cute and Cuddly. I confess this is not my favorite set, lol, but the bear looks sweet here! He's stamped with Versafine Sepia on Papertrey's Vintage Cream, and colored with Prisma markers. His belly is colored with a Copic (The Prismas are $1.99 at Utrecht Art right now! I like them a much as Copics, and they are a lot cheaper!). Just a bit of 20% Warm Gray around him to help him stand out, then cut out with a Labels 4 Nestability~ Voila! Done!

Precious Scraps Baby Card!

I know I say this all of the time, but isn't this sweet??? I have a little bit of the green and red pea pod paper left, but I'm not sure who made it since it's in bitty scraps at this point! The green and plaid layers are from the Sharon Ann Baby Safari paper pack from Beverly at Precious Scraps. Next time I need to concentrate and make a safari card, lol!

Bitty buttons (Ripe Avocado and Hibiscus Burst) and sentiment (Bitty Baby Blessings) and twine (lighter colored one) are from Papertrey.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Olivia Is 12!

My GD Olivia turned 12 yesterday! Wow! so here's what she said to me last month:

Beth, I'm having a different kind of party this year.

Oh Olivia, and what's that?

Well, I thought I'd go to the mall, and you're invited!

So, smart girl that she is, she invited the credit card to go to the mall with her! Very clever!

I got this card front at the 2007 SU Regional in Philadelphia. Of course, I doctored it up and made a card out of it! It uses the Wanted set, and the brown paper is a small piece of Outlaw. The flower is stamped in Chocolate Chip on Groovy Guava, and there are 3 different SU brads used as well. Happy Birthday sentiment is from Papertrey, I added that! I also added more of the flowers, and a piece of Groovy guava ribbon to finish it off-

I love the swapped card fronts from Regional, you just have to make sure you get good ones, lol! This one was made by Cristal Wright from Maryland- if that's you, thank you so much!

Papertrey Blog Hop~ Use yellow!

Don't you just love Blog Hopping? I especially like it since it starts at 8 pm ET, not 10 pm, lol lol lol! And, it's the best and most productive 'challenge' there ever is, since everyone is doing the same challenge and showing it at the same time, when my brain is still thinking about what I did, and what I could have done~

Here's the first, be sure and scroll for the second!

I wanted to do something other than a baby card, since I use yellow in baby cards almost daily, lol. The bees haven't really seen ink, and yellow makes me think of black, and yellow and black make me think of bees, and well there you have it! Bee Happy! The giant flowers are Heidi Swapp white flowers, I inked them with Lemon Tart and Summer Sunrise. The one underneath is inked with just Lemon Tart. The center is another Heidi Swapp flower, but it came yellow, then on top is a Heidi Swapp Flower Center brad. Perfect!

The bee and sentiments are from Honey Bees. I stamped the bee in black, let it dry, then smooshed it onto the Versamark Champagne Dazzle ink pad. His tail is covered with yellow Stickles. The background is done with the bg stamp from Damask Designs. Turns out this stamp is defective, which I never knew! I needed to restamp each and every set to get a 'hole' in the middle covered, but I don't think you can tell.

How would you feel about opening a birthday card and finding a stinging bee on it? I'm guessing I might not think it was so swell...





Not exactly liking the bee, I decided to try another- and combine it with the CMWC that is to use buttons! The butterfly is from Butterfly Kisses, stamped with StazOn on acetate, then cut out. Glitter Art makes a clear drying glue, so I used that and Glitter Art glitter on the back of the acetate. You have to go slow and let it dry between layers, but the final effect is great!

The flourish is created by using the new set Fancy Flourishes; I used almost all of the pieces to make it grow! Buttons are from Spring Moss, Lemon Tart, and Berry Sorbet. The buttons are tied on with DMC floss # 677; a close enough match to Lemon Tart! I drove all over today looking for a printed ribbon that looked good, but came back to PTI's black satin and a bit of May Arts black with silver glitter in it.

Now off to clear the table for a Memorial Day dinner that can not be beat, and will be back to go peruse everyone elses's thoughts on Yellow!

A tatoo day~

So here's what I did for fun today...






Put tattoos all over his body, and told him to go tell his momma he was hot and needed a new shirt...

Thing is, when I do stuff like this, I watch from the window and I can't hear what she says when she sees him.

His Grandpa tells me she put him in the tub and they didn't wash off. lol lol lol!!! 'Sure hope you got pictures', he said. 'Of the tattoos' I ask? 'No, of Ems face,' he says... lol lol lol!

What did you do for fun today?

Papertrey CMWC 50

I've been on a roll the past 2 days, and have almost 10 baby cards done for the coming week! Yay! It helped that there weren't as many babies born this week, lol, that always helps me get ahead!

It also helps to use the Casual MidWeek Challenges on the Papertrey forum to get me started. It also helped this week to have the Sharon Ann Baby Safari paper from Precious Scraps to work with. I love this plaid, and am almost out- I need to see if it comes in a 12 x 12 size. I have the 8 x 8 pad which comes with lots of little tags, etc, but the 8 x 8 size paper only allows for 2 A-2 layers per sheet, and well, I need more!!

I used the sketch from the CMWC # 50. I altered a bit to accommodate the sticker from K & Co. The green base is SU's retired Wild Wasabi, it matched the Baby Safari plaid perfectly. The ribbon piece is a bit of their Wild Wasabi double stitched. The pink and green papers are from the Baby Safari pad, and I punched the scallops with the Fiskars Threading Water punch. Some narrow pink organdy wrapped 3 times finishes off the challenge~ I'll stamp 'Welcome to your sweet new arrival' inside.

It's a beautiful day outside, a great day for planting flowers or weeding the flower beds. But I can't stop thinking about the AC Moore and Michael's coupons that are sitting in my inbox, lol!

Baby Card with Papertrey's Sympathy Set!

I wondered out loud over on the Papertrey forum if there was a way to make a baby card with the flourish from PTI's sympathy set. I decided to try for myself!

Well, well, turns out there is, lol!!

Little flowers are from Heidi Swapp, I think. Baby faces are from Bitty Baby Blessings. Ribbon and button are from the Spring Moss line. I used DMC floss # 677 to tie the button on; the floss looks neutral in the hand, but matches Spring Moss when next to it! Leaves are colored with Prisma marker Limepeel. I want to know which little boy banged the tip flat, darn it.

The sentiment is from SU's Cuddles and Tickles, a pretty old set. I thought the font looked a bit like the movement of the vine. Hard to see, but the baby faces all have pink cheeks I watercolored on.

This card would make even a grumpy old bachelor smile when he sees it!

SPICE'ing Katies card!

During last month's Papertrey Blog Hop, Katie Rentz showed a perfect (to me) baby card. You can see it here. Wasn't that sweet? For me a perfect baby card is quick, few layers and embellies (to keep the cost low), and be made of things I have on the shelf, lol. Katie did me such a favor by showing that card!!

My version here combined the sentiments she used on the box as well, and I also stamped the bottom Spring Rain layer. It looked great at first, but that Spring Rain ink is pretty finicky, and faded away quickly. Still, in the hand you can see the stamped image, and it looks good.

But then just a day later, the Bitty Stars paper arrived, so I did it again~ even cuter the second time!

Stampers Select, Spring Rain, Bitty Stars and Bitty Dots papers
Versafine Onyx Black ink, Papertrey Spring Rain ink
SU Nursery Necessities for the first star
Sentiments from Papertrey Baby Favors and Everyday Classics
Lemon Tart Twill and Spring Rain Gingham ribbons
Martha Stewart border punch, SU large Star Punch
Diaper pin embellishment from unknown source
Inspiration from Katie Rentz

Finally! A Midweek challenge!

I did so well catching up with the Papertrey Casual Midweek Challenges~ but as soon as I was caught up I fell behind again...what's up with that?

If you haven't looked around on the challenge forum, here's the link!

I finally got #48 done, albeit with a bit of a change. The Tea Leaves paper is so pretty, I decided not to hide it! The baby gown is from SU's Buggies and Booties. All of the paper is Papertrey, the ribbon is too. The sentiment is from Papertrey's bitty Baby Blessings, and the green Dew Drops I got from Bev at Precious Scraps. They look lovely on this green paper!

Cute Baby Boy

Quick and easy card using SU's Big on Spring, and all SU products- Cutie Pie paper, Bashful Blue and Old Olive cs, Bashful Blue DSP, Bashful Blue striped grosgrain, and a bit of highlight with the white pen. That's it!

Plum Pudding Baby

I am sitting here posting baby cards in baby colors, all the while thinking about yellow and bumble bees. I can't get Papertrey's May Blog Hop challenge out of my head; I played with black and yellow and white all last evening and this morning, lol! Am I the only one??


I absolutely love the images created with Rubber Stamp Tapestry's sets. I will confess though, if you use bifocals or progressives, they can be hard to see, lol! Tough to tell on the top of the 'stick' which side is up or down, lol, but that's just an age thing, I suppose!

This set is SWD3803- Baby Set. The baby stamp has one little set of leaves attached to it, so I think I can use it other places and in other ways. There are 3 other stamps, a single leaf, one flower, and a fern kinda leaf.

I started out by taking an oval Nestability and drawing a line around the inside on Papertrey's Stampers Select paper. In the close-up, you can still see the pencil line. You can't see it in real life. I used that line to place the flowers and leaves using Papertrey's Ripe Avocado, Spring Moss, and SU's Mellow Moss. The flower was done is Papertrey's Plum Pudding and Lavender Moon.

The scalloped oval layer is Plum Pudding, as is the card base. The card is an A-2 turned on it's side, then edge punched using Fiskars Threading Water border punch. The background paper is from the Memory Box Sugardrop set. You can get the paper at Precious Scraps- tell Bev I sent you! Ribbon is Papertrey's Plum Pudding twill with a wee bit of Spring Rain twill attached just for some color.

Now, off to try and get bumble bees out of my head!

A Stenciled Bunny

I found this stencil when I was getting ready for the stamping yard sale; rather than stick it in the pile I decided to try and make a card with it. I have oil crayons, so I rubbed the crayons on a plastic paint tray, and picked up color with a stiff brush I have. I will say two things: mix enough color to work the entire image, and stencil brushes are made for stenciling. If I decide to do this some more, I will buy a brush make for stenciling!

I punched it out with a nesty, then let it sit for like 2 weeks because I was so bummed I cut off part of the ear (and you can't see it, but part of her foot is missing, too). But of course, in a baby card making frenzy, I'll try making a presentable card from even the worst of mistakes~ and this one turned out fairly well!

The image was done on a piece of unknown cardstock, then layered on a pretty pink floral paper also unknown since I cut the edges off eons ago. Base card is Papertrey's Sweet blush. Welcome sentiment is from Papertrey's second anniversary set, Everyday Basics. It's stamped on a die cut ribbon slider. Buttons are from the stash (wish now I'd used some twine to tie them!), and the ribbon is Martha Stewart. The ribbon is beautiful in the hand, but very hard to work with- my hands need stiffer ribbons to stay in one place while I tie, this ribbon flops and moves all over. So, my bow is a little funky, but the finished product is pretty!

I saw this card at Stamped Designs in Dover NH. They have a web site here. It's more of a stamp store than a scrapbook store, which is good for me! They sell Copics, too, and they do a Yard Sale where you can get credit to buy Copics! Ask me how I know, lol!

See all of those little guys on wheels? I figure I can learn to use my Prisma and Copic markers by starting little!

These stamps are by the Cats Pajamas, and are so sweet done as CAS- very few layers and monochromatic. When I got home, I had a tough time doing few layers and monochromatic, lol!

The layers in the pink card are from the Sharon Ann Baby Safari papers, I got them from Beverly at Precious Scraps. I stamped the sentiment in black on the white card, then masked it with 2 punched out word window punches. I also took the white tape that's like post it note tape and went along the side and bottom edges. I stamped Papertrey's Polka Dot Basics in Pink Toille over the maskings. Looks cute!

The boy card is Ocean Tides and Aqua Mist papers from Papertrey. Neither card has any ribbons, buttons, or brads- oh my!

Martha!

Well! No lie, between the Release Party last night and this morning, I have made 7 baby cards!

These two were easy and are much cuter than the picture shows~ click on the photo and make it bigger and you will see how cute, lol! I used the Martha Stewart felt animals- You get 16 in each package for $4.99. isn't that about 30 cents each? Pretty cheap for the $1.00 baby cards! The white embossed paper is MS as well- I got both the paper and the animals at Michaels.

Now, my one complaint about Martha stuff is nothing matches in color- that's sad! Even the products sold together as a line don't match! I bought the sticker with whales and animals on them, but golly, the blues don't match. I had to dig through all of the paper I won to find a blue that matched reasonably. Wish I could tell you where the blue came from, but it was one of those big pads and I took it apart to store it, and didn't save the name.

both of the sentiments are from Papertrey's Bitty Baby Blessings. The horse tag is from Nestabilities Label 4. The tag with the whale is from a Cuttlebug tag die set. Ribbon on the whale is SU's white taffeta, ribbon on the horse is Papertrey's white satin.

Felt good to be cranking out baby cards again! Other than work, I do not have to go anywhere or do anything for over a week, lol. I am travelled, hoteled, and saddened out.

So Very Blessed

Look how lucky I was! I recieved such a nice card from Donna (donnaecrum on PTI) the other day! I think the So Very is SU, I'm not sure about the green, but the little dotted paper is Papertrey. I liked the edge so much I ran right out and bought the Martha Stewart punch that did this!

I tried to make cards today, I really did. I just couldn't do it. So I went shopping for inspiration- bought some Copics with my stamp store credit, came home and cleaned off my table... but nothing happened.

Tonight is the Papertrey release of course, so I think I will pop some popcorn and just enjoy the conversation; I'll try again tomorrow!

A very gray day~

Sometimes when you are just going along in life, something comes out of the blue that you didn't see coming and didn't expect. That has happenend to me. I have been away for a few days, and need to be away for a few more. No creating, just great sadness.

Remember, we are all mortal, and it really is the funny, sweet little things you do that get remembered by your friends and family.

Taking care of yourself extends your life you guys, and then you are around to do the sweet things your family loves.

What's that car?

ETA: Here's the addy for the paper cars: http://local.aaca.org/junior/4wheelfun/pcar.htm You have to play around a bit on the menu down the left side to find the 3 paper cars... I think it was towards the bottom, and 3 dropdowns to the right- hope that makes sense!! I just went there and it was going to take a while to open on dial-up, so you're on your own to find them!!

Is that a touring car? I'm old, but not this old- the car is from a 1918 McCalls magazine, I found it out there on the web somewhere. I made a bunch of them for a wedding shower; the wedding is happening in an antique car museum!

I printed the cars on PTI cardstock, and scored the fold lines to make it easier to fold the tabs. Cut tissue circles to hold the mints. The back of the car had a little tag with the bride and grooms name, and 'Just Married', then I dangled dollhouse 'tin' the cans off with a bit of linen thread. You can get the cans at AC Moore, but they are way cheaper at Earth & Tree Miniatures in Amherst, NH.

I forgot my camera, so thanks to Lynne who provided me with this photo to share!

Papertrey challenge: A la Becky!

Have you read Nichole's blog today? If not, here it is! Just an incredible amount of inspiration in one place, lol- so much so, that at first I figured I wouldn't participate since the perfect had already been done, kwim? Well, that was probably the 'night shift worker lack of sleep' talking, so when I got up this afternoon I decided...ok, I'll play!!

The first photo is Becky's inspiration photo (here's her interpretation), the next is my interpretation! I did not veer too much from what Becky did, just tweaked it a tiny bit.

I used Beautiful blooms for the flowers, stamped in Pure Poppy, L'Amour Red, Lemon Tart, Paris Lights, Pink Toile, Spring Moss, Ripe Avocado, and Summer Sunrise. I love it when all of those colors come together! I cut the stamped image by hand to resemble a headboard, then layered on Dark Chocolate and cut it out again- lot of work, lol!

Next layer is Spring Moss with Faux Ribbon in SU's Whisper White, then all is layered on an A-6 of Pure Poppy. Sentiment is from Faux Ribbon as well, stamped in Dark Chocolate. It's always risky doing this at the end, lol, but it really is straight, although it looks a wee bit crooked in the photo.

Last, of course, were the buttons- PTI buttons, of course! while I love the buttons in the Inspiration photo (and would love to own some!), I find it hard to do off center and odd numbers- so mine are just stuck on in a straight line. I used hemp and Linen thread (both SU) to do different ties, then put them on with glue dots.

I'm glad I played! Now to try and go back to bed and dream of baby cards, lol lol lol!!!

That sweet bear~

This bear stamp had to be one of my first stamps, and it has always been one of my favorites! Color him up, and your card is half done!! It's by Inkadinkado, but I do not know if it is still available out there.

Using more papers from the box that Beverly sent~ Papertrey Kraft is the base, then a layer from Memory box sugardrop that is soft browns. The Nestability label die was used to cut out a brown and pink print from Memory Box sweetbay, then the bear was cut out and layered onto a piece of blue/mint paper that looks in a honeycomb pattern. You might be able to see that pattern if you increase the size of the photo by clicking on it. On a day when I can just play, would be fun to use that paper with some daisies and bees!

A Martha Stewart mint ribbon finishes it off- because her ribbons are so soft and silky there are many glue dots holding that bow down, lol! I think I lost money on this one, lol!!

I love Spring... Rain

The card base is spring rain- I am startled that some people wouldn't like spring rain- it's one of my favorite colors! I will admit that it is extremely close to SU's Bashful Blue- which means that the SU Bashful Blue ink works very well; I consider that a good thing!

The dotted paper is from the Little Yellow Bicycle paper from Beverly at Precious Scraps- still making boy cards with girl papers, lol! The ribbon is Papertrey's Spring Rain Dotted Swiss (sure wish they'd make the bitty dots ribbon in Spring Rain!).

The Dew Drops are also from Beverly, boy oh boy! There are 3 shades in this mix, but the dark green and dark blue are just perfect!

The little tag is from my leftover bin, it's a SU tag stamp, and punched out with the big and small SU tag punches. Stamped in Certainly Celery and layered on Almost apricot.

Other than the red, I got all of the colors of the dotted paper in the card!

Hope you have a lovely, warm and sunny, creative weekend! Me, I will be working the nights and sleeping the days, lol!! But, when you are groaning that you have to go to work on Monday, well, I'll be rested up and in my stamp room!