Sites of the week

As I begin to write this on Tuesday night, the rain is coming down, lightning is flashing, thunder is booming and they have the poor news guy reporting from OUTSIDE! The Saginaw Fire Dept. sent out a mass message to our phones telling us to cease all outdoor activity and to take cover if we hear the severe weather sirens. Gotta love {very early} spring in North Texas!! I have to admit that I am completely FASCINATED by weather and while this kind of stuff completely freaks me out, I am intrigued.

Knowing that this was headed this way, I pulled out my bright and sunny stamps and made this cheery card…

All images are from Stamp A Sweet Impression by Taylored Expressions, and the flowered paper is from the latest Key Ingredients Kit. Although it’s not a traditional Valentine’s card, I think this would be a darling card for a friend for Valentine’s Day. As for my details, I stitched around the edges of the patterned paper…that may even be a straight stitch {WHOA!!}. The felt flower is from Creative Cafe by Creative Imaginations, and I topped it off with Pure Poppy satin ribbon from Papertrey. In the corners and to the right side of the sentiment, I used my 3/8″ circle punch to mat silver brads.

Tomorrow I will show you the Valentine’s that I made for Ellie and her class.

As I finish this post, the storm has passed our area and we are safe.

Have a great day!

It’s been a busy weekend and I am ready to get into the groove with a new week. I need to get back on my diet and hit the gym, that’s for sure. Last night we went to get frozen custard and they had one that they should have just named “The Jen.” It was vanilla custard {the kind I always get}, raspberries {if these were the last food on earth, I could live 100 years…happily!}, Oreos {I’m surprised Ellie didn’t come out of me saying O-R-E-O with as many as I ate during my pregnancy} and then to top it all off there was hot fudge down the entire center. It was called a Raspberry Fudge Pothole…YUM-O!! Let’s just say that the elliptical machine will be getting some serious time in from me this morning!

Now onto the stamping business at hand! Yesterday was the Featured Stamper challenge over on SCS and I just love who was chosen: Vicky Gould! She is quite possibly one of the nicest stamper’s on SCS and I am so glad that she got her moment in the spotlight! Congrats Vicky! Click HERE to see that card that I used from her gallery. Here is my creation based on her card…

What I changed:
1. Used an embossing folder for my dots instead of glitter
2. Used a different color for the matting of my main image
3. Used a different cupcake image/sentiment {Love is Sweet set from Stamp a Sweet Impression}
4. Used Taylor’s Tiny Twinkles around the edges of the matting instead of hand drawn embellishments

Here is an image of Taylor’s Tiny Twinkles, which are currently on special for just $3.99. You get a TON {over 400} of these SUP-AH Spar-ka-lay rhinestones {I’m picky about that!} in this itty bitty package…

Wanna win $450 worth of stamping goodies? Click HERE to see how. HERE is the official entry post.

More blog tarts on this weeks Sketch For You To Try post HERE.

“If Friends Were Flowers, I’d Pick You” is one of my favorite sentiments, so I was pretty excited when I saw that it was part of the A Year Of Sweet Sentiments set from Taylored Expressions. It pair up perfectly with this lil’ daydreamer from the Year of Sweets 2 set.

I’m writing this as I am about to go to bed and pre-posting for the morning. I’m sleepy, so I am going to make this short and sweet and get to the point, or the card in this case…

A couple of detail shots of the coloring and of the butterflies…

How did I do the butterflies? I punched them out with my Martha Stewart butterfly punch and then covered them with Diamond Glaze and topped them off with an fine aqua glitter from Art Glitter. They took a little while to dry, but I love the BLING they give to this card!

See you tomorrow for an early ABC project!

It’s the first Friday of the year and I wanted to start the year off right by doing a project that I had never done before for ABC Friday. I know that these banners are nothing new to the crafting world, but I have never done one. I am so in love with the papers in the new Taylored Expressions Key Ingredients kit that I wanted to maximize my use of them. The Key Ingredients Kit includes patterned paper, Prism cardstock, glitter, brads and several kinds of ribbon.
The letters on the banner were cut out using the Slice {I can’t put it away!}. I cut them at the maximum height of 4 inches out of teal cardstock and mounted them on dimensionals on each of the banner pieces. I stitched each of the banner pieces, but I think that I could have done a better job with the sewing. It’s a good thing that I don’t do clothes!…LOL!!

The banner in full…

Detail shot…

The stamped end pieces, using stamps from the Love Is Sweet set…

See you tomorrow for a new Sketch For You To Try and a new Designer of the Month. I gotta warn you, I used the Slice again…LOL!

Happy 2009! I love the thought of a new year as a new beginning. Of course, all the old stuff carries over, but there is a sense of freshness and the ability to really get off on the right foot. I have several goals personally and creatively. For now, I am going to keep my personal goals just that-personal. As for my creative goals, I hope to learn more, to network more and to publish more. What are some of your creative goals?

For today’s post, I am going to show you some of the new Stamp A Sweet Impression stamps that are coming to Taylored Expressions. More cupcakes…of course! This project features images and sentiments from the Love
is Sweet set. Taylor asked us to create some sort of packaging to go along with our card, and I thought that it would neat-o to incorporate my card as part of the packaging. I created a genie bag with a library pocket on the front. When you pull on the ribbons, the card comes out to reveal your personal message {which I have not written, yet…obviously}.

Here is the bag with the card inside of the pocket. All of the paper is from the Key Ingredients kit and I added a little extra bling with some Zva Creative rhinestones…

Here is the card pulled out of the pocket…

Link to the rest of the Design Team can be found HERE.

Tomorrow is release day. I have a supah dupah cuuute ABC Friday to go along with it. See ya then!