Sites of the week

Happy Monday everyone! This Inky Antics Martini Girl was seeking to be inked and that’s what she finally got this weekend. There is just way too much un-inked rubber in my stamp studio!! I am making an effort to get to those under-loved stamps. The truth is that I am going to do a little more housekeeping and will probably have to purge some. So, you might want to be on the lookout for a sale here in the {somewhat near} future. Back to the card… The sentiment is also from Inky Antics. It’s actually one long sentiment that I inked twice to make it fit the circle. Now from the base up…the base of the card is Regal Rose and is layered with Whisper White, Basic Black and DP from Crafty Secrets. The Martini Girl is colored with Copics and the glass and bubbles are layered with Sakura Stardust pen. My finishing touches include itty bitty Prima flowers that have Bella Bauble centers, Regal Rose 5/8″ ribbon and a cute little martini charm from Stamping Bella.

Many of you expressed interest when I wrote about the last class that I taught at my LSS. Well, good news…I have 2 more classes coming up!!

Friday, June 13 -Friday Night Fun with Copics and new MFT stamps
Saturday, June 14 - Altered Acrylic Blocks

Here is a link to the Imprints Class Schedule for more deets. Call Imprints to sign up for my classes (or any other ones that seem interesting!)

Stamp? Not today, at least. I was in the mood to make a scrappy card and when I got done I realized just why this mood does not strike me that often. I don’t {heart} it. I kept adding to this card and I don’t think this really what I thought it was going to look like. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s a complete piece of trash, but it’s just not me. I don’t do brights or scrappy to the level that I do my everyday stamping. Know what I mean?

Anywhooo, I’m writing this on Friday night to auto post in the morning. I am going to make this short and sweet because all I really want to do right now is get under the covers and count some sheep.

Here’s the sketch…

My bright and scrappy {most of these scrap materials from Me & My Big Ideas scrap kit} sample…

May’s Guest Designer, {uber talented} Toni Whitnell’s, sample…

Be sure to check out what Amy, Carole, Shannan and Susan made, too.

I hope you will play along with us!! Please link your project to this post and use the keyword SFYTT on SCS.

When I first got the blank necklace stand from GLUE, I knew that it wasn’t going to be a necklace stand when I got done with it. First, I am not a jewelery person. Never have been, and most likely never will be, so I don’t have a lot of necklaces to display on this. However, I do have about 5,000 {give or take a few} pictures of Ellie that I could put on here. So, there was my inspiration…pics of Ellie. Last November we went to Arizona to visit my parents and I go several pics of Ellie watering the flowers {something that she became quickly obsessed with}. I took out my Basic Gray chipboard letters and fiddled until I came up with something that both fit the picture and fit inside my work space. Viola, this is what I came up with…

The flowers were created with coaster cut with a Cuttlebug die and covered in DP. The chipboard at the top is not from Basic Gray, but rather something that I picked up at JoAnn’s on sale and I can’t remember the brand {sorry!}.
I must admit that this actually wasn’t the first {or only} idea that I had for this stand. Here are a few more things that you could do with it that I came up with…
1. Decorate and use as a necklace stand {who woulda thunk?}
2. Use it as a recipe holder. The phrase “Kiss The Cook” comes to mind.
3. Cover it with chalkboard paint and use it as a message board.
4. Mod Podge some pretty paper on it and criss-cross some ribbons to make it place to put notes and pictures.
5. Make it a clock.
6. Decorate with a mirror for a make-up table.
…get my point? You could do just about anything!

Some of the Glue DT members got this stand to work with this month, and others got a cute 3×3 stand. Be sure to check out the eye candy that they have for you on their blogs.

See ya’ll tomorrow with another Sketch For You To Try! You’ll have to be sure to check up on Shannan to make sure that she does this one right.

Quick note…Yesterday, a couple of you asked if I let my brads show on the inside of the card. Yep, sure do. I know that some people cringe at the thought, but there is no way that I take that long on the outside and then want to move to the inside to do more tedious work. Remember, work smarter, not harder. AND…if the person that you are giving it to doesn’t like it that way, then they probably don’t deserve a handmade card. How’s that for a dose of the truth?

Tomorrow Verve Visual is releasing FOUR new sets and I am in love with all of them! Yes, seriously! I’ve been playing with them non-stop for the past week so that I would have a ton of samples to show you. I’m gonna have to apologize now for the quality of some of the pics. Our natural lighting situation has been a little stormy here, so I have had to seek alternative means of sunshine. Catch what I am sayin’? I’m saying all this as Tony is rearranging, or should I say re-rearranging our garage so he can put his car back in his spot in case of hail {or tornadoes…EEK!}. We had to do a little, um, ahem, how to you say…”shifting” to get to some stuff this past weekend.

If you are interested in winning any of the new sets, and seeing more samples, be sure to check out the Verve Blog <--click to go there.

Here are all my samples...

First, a coordinating gift set. The bottle is from the Target $1 Spot and I filled it with bath salts...

Detail of the tag…

Just the card…

The rest are “just” cards. I really wish that I had more time to come up with clever boxes and bags, but I just ran out of time. I’ll be thinking about something for next week’s ABC Friday, tho!…

The filigree on this one is embossed with clear EP. It looks so elegant in real life.

Playing around with the Filigree Fantasy set some more. I really like how these all can go together to make a tapestry type look.

Can you say teacher gifts!?! This is the set that I have featured on the Verve Blog today, along with stuff from Carole and Susan…

I love the elegance of this set. Even though it is not clearly represented here, there are SO MANY possibilities with this set. I love how quick this came together, yet still packs a punch. Don’t forget to check out the Verve Gallery tomorrow for more AWESOME stuff from the Verve-alicious DT….

See you tomorrow for ABC Friday. I have a new Glue project to share with you.

In case you haven’t realized, I am deeply and madly in love. While Tony and Ellie will always and forever take the top spots in my heart, I must admit that the fairies in the chichiboulie line at Stamping Bella {as well as all the Bellas, and Ella and Looloo, and the embellashments…} are driving me wild! YAY, I am thrilled that I got to play along with the sketch from SCS today. I think that’s 2 in 3 weeks. Now, I’m not the challenge junkie that I used to be, but I am still excited to seet he challenges each day. Amy R is the guest hostess and she always comes up with great layouts. While this one is not complicated in the least, it did leave a lot of room for embellishments, which I took full advantage of!

However, before I get down to those details, let me start from the bottom. The red card base and the green cardstock are from Prism. I **really** like their papers. The colors are GREAT and I like how one side is textured and the other side is smooth…perfect for stamping cardmakers! The DP is from Imaginisce and is truly one of my faves of all time. As I noted above, the main image is from Stamping Bella and is colored with Copic Markers. Her wings are covered in Sakura Stardust pen. To achieve a smooth glimmery look on her wings, I traced her wings liberally with the Stardust pen and then took my aquapainter and pulled the glitter into the center of the wings. The sentiment, which I think is a perfect match not only for the saying, but for the font, too, is from Penny Black. For my finishing touches, I wrapped the DP layer with black twill. In addition, I used felt flowers from Creative Cafe and a flower ghost shape from Heidi Swapp. The brad in the center of the flowers is by Making Memories and I think I may just need to get another package of these. Cute, huh? The last touch I put on this card are the six black brads. It just looked like it needed SOMETHING, but nothing big. These worked out great. Here’s a detail shot of the coloring and some of the flowers…

Some additional notes…
Don’t forget to check out the Verve Blog to see some sneak peeks and a chance to win some free stamps. I will have A BUNCH of Verve stuff for you to ogle at tomorrow. You are just going to squeal when you see what is coming to the stamp world this Friday. I say that because that is exactly what I did when I saw these!!…yes, seriously!!