Just so you know...

I'm going to be on a blogging vacation until next Friday. Taking a break from the internet and email. Hope you take some time to unplug!

All Over the World...People Skate and Stamp!

I was doing my normal blog surfing the other day, and at Nicole Cooke's blog, Stampin' Library Girl, she announced that she is the latest member of a new stamp company based in NORWAY. Yes, you read it right. You may not be aware of this, but rubber stamping is an international hobby, and this new company is called Scrapmagasinet. If you follow the link, you can see the very cute images this gal has come up with and even convert the price into dollars, should you be struck with the urge to buy.

Well, I commented to Nicole that these would make great teen guy cards, and, lo and behold, what showed up in my mailbox a week later, but some stamped images! Thanks, girl! You're so generous!

As you can tell, there's lots of white space to color in, and yet I wanted to try something different with this. Paper piecing is a fun technique that usually involves stamping an image on different pieces of paper, cutting out the parts you want from each, and piecing them together! Well, I didn't have the original stamp, but I do have a light table. So I took the image and traced the parts I wanted to piece onto the DP (SU!'s Jersey Shore), and went from there.

I pulled all the colors from the DP into the card's design, and I'm not going to put a sentiment on it yet, since I don't know who I'll use it for, and what the occasion will be. If you have any suggestions for a sentiment, I'd love to hear it! Something to do with "hang time" was all I could come up with--I'm not too hip to skater lingo!

Thanks for your comments...I really do read them all and am encouraged by your feedback.

Thank You for your Business

My resident lawnmower is starting a business. Last year, he mowed our lawn and one neighbor's for pay. This year, he placed an ad in the subdivision newsletter, advertising his services. So far, 2 homeowners have hired him to mow for them while they are on vacation.

Bob thought it would be a good idea for the young entrepreneur to thank his clients for their business. Who did he turn to for a unique thank you? His resident cardmaker! I just handcut both strips of Old Olive and mounted them on Cool Caribbean card stock. The words "before" and "after" were stamped with Summer Sun ink with the tremendous help of the Stamp-A-Ma-Jig.

Hope your week's off to a good start. I open the next 4 days in a row, so I'm not sure how creatively inspired I'll be. I'd love to hear if your children are doing anything to earn money this summer.

This is just a little larger than a 3" x 3" card, because my son is NOT a man of many words.

Saturday Putzing

It's a fantastically gorgeous Saturday here! Perfect weather and what am I doing? INDOORS stamping! I did sit out on the back deck for awhile just reveling in the lack of humidity and heat, but I'm not a very good sitter. Gotta be doing something. It's a sickness, I tell ya! But stamping helps me unwind from 8 hours at Starbucks...I think we'll go for a family walk later.

Saturdays are the day when Jen del Muro posts a sketch for her readers to try. This one seemed to be pretty straightforward, and I had this piece of patterned paper sitting on my craft table. It's not SU! issue, but I like it anyway and wanted to incorporate it into my design.

I encountered a problem almost immediately because I don't have an ink or paper that matches it. I tried to make it work, but in the end I just couldn't. I don't know how stampers and crafters do it when they put a hodgepodge of papers, inks, and accessories together from a bunch of different companies. I just can't stand the slight degree of "off" that exists!

So, I started pulling out stamps that I have that seemed to mimic the design going on on the paper. Didn't realize I had so many! They're from the following sets:

Friendly Flowers
Always
Wanted
So Many Scallops
Baroque Motifs

I chose Taken with Teal ink, since it was the closest match to the background paper, and started randomly stamping the images on a 5.25" square base of Whisper White.

This is the final result! I think it captures the essence of the sketch, although I couldn't figure out where to put a sentiment. Perhaps it'll go in that upper left corner where the two pieces of Cool Caribbean meet. I like the dot detail. I did it with my 1/2" circle punch.

Well, now there's laundry waiting to be dried and what to have for dinner to figure out. I'm so not motivated to cook these days, but it's cheaper than going out by far!! We'll see what we can rustle up from the freezer and pantry. We're blessed to have both full. Have a great rest of the weekend...

A Happy Card from a Grouchy Gal

I'm not sure what my deal is today. The weather's beautiful (sunny, mid-80s, no humidity) and nothing bad has transpired to wreck the day, yet I'm restless and getting grouchier by the minute! So as not to rub off on you, I'll post quickly and be done with it.

I was inspired by this card by Jen del Muro. I liked the three panels, the red, the crisp white, and the saffron.

All was going according to plan until I decided to add a ribbon accent. I punched the slot on the wrong side, so the panel that was to be vertical had to be placed horizontally. Still, it turned out well, I think.

The little accent on the saying is from Mark the Date set, and I think it plays off the pattern in the DP quite nicely.

Okay, I'm out of here! Here's to a better day tomorrow...

Loved...Velveteen Rabbit Style

My friend Pam is having a birthday next week. She and I have been friends since our boys were in kindergarten. We were neighbors all those years, so it was very difficult to say goodbye when we moved south two years ago. Even though we're separated by distance, miles never really separate true friends. So, her birthday cannot pass
unacknowledged.

Pam is a very talented woman, and among the myriad things she's good at, she's a published children's book author. So, when I rediscovered this Velveteen rabbit stamp I bought a long time ago (seems to be a theme this week), I knew it would make the right focal image for her card.

I've seen some gorgeous cards made using Sage Shadow and Basic Gray card stock, so I wanted to try my hand at it. In the end, it ended up being SS, BG, silver metallic card stock, and River Rock, since the rabbit needed some furry color. I had difficulty figuring out what stamp set to pair with this image. (See why it's better to buy stamps in SETS?) Since the rabbit in the story is cherished to the point of becoming REAL, and I cherish Pam, I pulled out Baroque Motifs. It contains the word "cherish" and it has some unique background type stamps.

I used my SS marker to ink up just this little portion of this larger stamp and the Stamp-a-Ma-Jig to position it. The paper piercing mat pack gave it the finished touch.

Since Pam's moving this week, I want to get this in the mail right away to give it a week to find her at her new abode. There were many memories made at the house on S. Washington St. I'm looking forward to the time when we'll make more with her and her family in their new place.

In Sympathy

I told you last week that I made a sympathy card because I knew I was going to need one soon. Well, the death I've been expecting hasn't happened, but one I wasn't did. One of my stampers, Christy, is saying goodbye to her mother-in-law tomorrow. She died suddenly, and I just heard about tomorrow's funeral this morning.

I've had this image laying around on my craft table for about 10 days now, ever since Kristina Werner's color challenge for So Saffron, Old Olive, Not Quite Navy, and Bashful Blue. I decided this was somber enough to serve my need.

The watercolor paper adds some nice texture, and it's hard to tell, but the flowers (from retired Art of Life set) were colored with markers, misted with water to blur them a bit, and then stamped. I also created a grid pattern on the paper to give further visual interest. The ribbon on the left creates balance, since the paper is significantly smaller than the standard 4.25" x 5.5" frame of the base.

The saying is a random stamp I've had for years and years, and it's my favorite to use for sympathy cards. For me, turning to God is natural during times of trouble, and it comforts me greatly to view God as a refuge, as this verse in Isaiah says. It's from a company called PrintWorks (don't even know if they're still around) and Annette Allen Watkins is listed as the designer. By the way, I had to peel the price tag off the side to obtain this information, and I paid $7.20 for this single stamp.

I don't like how life doesn't stop when someone dies. I want things not to be normal for awhile, but, of course they are. I don't want to follow my regular routine; it somehow seems disrespectful of the one who died. How do you feel when someone dies? Do you alter your day in any way in light of what you know someone else is experiencing?