Baskets of Happiness

Today’s card is one I plan to send out to a fellow stamper who’s been having a rough time of it lately. I wanted something really nice and sweet and this is what I came up with:I adore this image!! It’s from a set called Baskets of Happiness from Gina K. Designs. I have to admit that I bought the whole set mainly for this particular image, but I’m sure I’ll use the others as well eventually! This was my very first order from Gina, and I’m sure it won’t be my last! I got a LOT of great stuff so watch out for other cards using Gina K. images!

As usual, I stamped in black Brilliance ink and colored with my Copics. I also added some Stickles glitter glue to the center of each flower and used a purple Spica glitter pen on all the little dots for even more sparkle. I did a bit of punch layering for the sentiment and a little bit of sewing around the whole thing. I hope she likes it!

Other materials used: Nestabilities from Spellbinders; all punches and purple ink from Stampin’ Up!; ribbon from May Arts; white cardstock from Georgia Pacific, sentiment from Papertrey Ink; brads unknown.

Plane Riley

Today’s card uses another Riley from Hanna Stamps!. This image is actually the first Riley I ever colored and after doing it I realized I’d rather have the antlers a different color, so my Easter Riley is how I’ll probably be coloring him from now on. I knew as soon as I saw this guy that I had to have him because that blank banner is the perfect spot for any saying! I also saw someone else paper piece the airplane and I thought it was the cutest idea! All the patterned paper is from a big slab of My Mind’s Eye that I got from Costco ages ago.

After coloring, I masked Riley with Eclipse tape and sponged the clouds with an old stencil I had. I didn’t mask the little clouds so they got some blue ink on them. To cover it up, I simply drew inside them with a white paint pen and I like the little bit of texture it gave. I added on the PP pieces last and you can just barely tell that I also stamped the propeller part again on white cardstock and left the blades loose for a little dimension.

You can be sure this image will turn up again since he is an all-occasion moose!

Other materials used: markers from Copic; white cardstock from Georgia Pacific; sentiment from Papertrey Ink; white paint pen from Sakura; cloud stencil from Printworks; black Brilliance ink from Tsukineko.

More awards!

First of all, I have to apologize to Jo for missing the award she gave me a while back - I don't know how I didn't see it!
Thanks so much sweetie!! You made MY day!!

Second, this award is from Gia (thank you Gia!!) and it's one I haven't seen before:

It's called the Arte Y Pico (Art & More) award and is given to bloggers who share their art and creativity making their contribution to the blogger world.

The rules:
1) You have to pick 5 blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contributes to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2) Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3) Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4) Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of "Arte y Pico" blog , so everyone will know the origin of this award.

5) To show these rules.

I checked out the original blog and it's all in Spanish, so I unfortunately can't read it (and Google did quite a terrible job of translating). It seemed to be a lot of crochet work, so I know of some of my SBS13 sisters who might enjoy it!

I'm going to be a rule breaker here and not give out my specific awards because I don't want to limit myself to just 5! I visit MANY blogs each day that inspire me, so I hope you don't mind if I don't single anyone out!

Hope you all have a great day!

Happy Easter!

Today’s card is my very first Riley card – I love this guy!!Usual details: stamped with black Brilliance on Georgia Pacific white cardstock and colored with Copics. You may be able to *just* see a little sparkle on the bow that I did with my clear Spica glitter pen.

A couple of unusual details: the green polka dot paper is actually from the packaging of one of my Papertrey Ink stamp sets! I got the idea from a card made by Julie Cameron where she actually used the box band from a stamp set as part of her card – what genious! I also used part of a box band for the paper-piecing of the egg and with the Stampin’ Up! label punch.

Second detail is the layering of the Stampin’ Up! punches which I copied from one of my stamping idols, Pam Bassett. You can see a couple samples in this post. I absolutely love the look and knew I had to try it out myself! I eliminated one of the layers because I thought it was a little much on this card, and I also left out the brads (because I didn’t want so many on this simple card) and the inking (because I forgot!). I’m sure I’ll be using this element on future cards because I think it looks great! Thanks Pam!

Last notes: You can see a little strip of pink on the right side of the card – that’s because the Cuttlebug embossed polka dots didn’t quite go all the way to the edge, so I cut off the thin strip of dot-less cardstock and then glued a strip of pink cardstock to the back edge of the card and stamped it with Papertrey’s polka dot set.

And finally – I didn’t have to do any masking when I stamped the pink oval under Riley. I just stamped the oval first, and then the green patterned paper covered up the overstamp.

Hope you all have a great day!

Other materials used: sentiment from Papertrey Ink; Mauve Mist ink, Pretty in Pink cardstock, circle and oval punches all from Stampin’ Up!; ribbon from May Arts; Nestabilities from Spellbinders; brads unknown.

I got me some Changito!

Edited to add:
Here's a link to show you what all comes in the clear set:
http://www.stampendous.com/stampsfdr/clear/pcsChicks.html

I got him at our local Ben Franklin Craft Store, but you could probably find him at lots of other places that have Stampendous stamps. HTH!

Our local craft store had a 40% off coupon last weekend so I went just to look for something to buy! C’mon… I know I’m not the only one! Lol! I was lucky enough to come across the last Changito clear stamp set that they had! I’ve been wanting it so bad but hadn’t gotten around to ordering it from the ‘net and it’s lucky I waited!

I had to make a card with it right away and here it is:
I stamped the vines with Stampin’ Up!’s Garden Green ink and all the rest of the images are stamped with my usual black Brilliance ink. I had to manipulate the word stamps a little to form that curved shape. I colored everything with my Copics, including adding little detail lines to all the leaves. You can see them a little better here (as well as the coloring of Changito):
Hope you like him as much as I do!

Other materials used: white cardstock from Georgia Pacific; Garden Green & Yoyo Yellow cardstock from Stampin’ Up!; Nestabilties from Spellbinders; chocolate satin ribbon from May Arts.

Back to the Bellas

Can you believe I still haven't run out of new Bellas from my very first order? Yes, I did go a little crazy, but I really had to make the most of the recent free shipping deal!

As I was browsing SBS13 blogs one day, I came across this post which showed a sketch that I thought would be perfect for Bella cards. {Thanks Richelle!}

Here’s what I came up with, using Cakeabella:I did my usual paper piecing with patterned paper (the pants and apron) and I stamped the cake area on a scrap of white cardstock so that it wouldn’t have the apron pattern all over it. I also punched out a couple of ¼” holes of cardstock to use to *slightly* pop up the cake (I felt a foam dot would be way too thick for such a little thing).
In the close up shot, you can see that I used a tiny little Swarovski crystal for the candle flame (I got the idea from this post by Taylor VanBruggen.) I think it adds a nice little sparkle! I also added three slightly bigger crystals to the scalloped sticker border near the bottom of the card for more sparkle, and because they fit the sketch!

I only have one new Bella left to play with, and then I guess I'll have to order more soon! lol!

Other materials used: sentiment stamp from Papertrey Ink; patterned paper for pants from My Mind's Eye; all other patterned paper and scalloped border sticker from Making Memories; white cardstock from Georgia Pacific; markers from Copic; black Brilliance ink from Tsukineko; pink ink from Stampin' Up!; crystals from Fire Mountain Gems; ribbon from May Arts; Nestabilities from Spellbinders.

A Cherry Hello

I got the cutest little Stampendous clear stamp set for ½ off at my local craft store recently so I thought I’d share a card made with it:
The focal image cherries actually had a background of little cherries and triple-dots that I thought was too busy, so I cut the main cherries out because I thought that was easier than trying to mask or use markers. I did save the background though, so if I ever want to stamp it in its original form I can.

I am so loving this Papertrey Ink set Polka Dot Basics. I used a bigger dot on the red cardstock, then a smaller dot on the green cardstock. It wasn’t too hard to keep lining up the stamp, and even if the spacing was a tad off, you can barely tell! I also used a little single dot to stamp in each of the scallops, and then I used a needle to pierce in the middle of each dot.

BTW – this is my first attempt at making a ribbon blossom following Pam Bassett’s tutorial. It’s not *quite* a blossom because I didn’t use enough ribbon bits, but I’m still pretty happy with it anyway because it adds such a cute touch. Thanks so much to Pam for her awesome tutorial! I’ll definitely be making more of these!

Other materials used: markers from Copic; white cardstock from Georgia Pacific; all Nestabilities from Spellbinders; white polka dot ribbon from May Arts; all other ribbon from local craft store; white ink from Tsukineko; circle punch (to make "ticket" corners) from Stampin' Up!; red half beads unknown.

An award!!

Sorry this is so late - I had it prepped to post, then forgot to actually post it!

Richelle was so sweet to give me a You Make My Day award! I was just telling my hubby that blogging takes up way more time than I thought it would, but that I’m really enjoying sharing my creations. And then I get this award and it makes it just that much better!!

Thanks so much Richelle – you really made my day!! Mwah!

Out on a Limb

I needed to whip up some quick thank you cards that would be good for either sex to help out a fellow stamper, so I turned to one of my new Papertrey stamp sets - Out on a Limb. I also took inspiration from this card by Nichole Heady, specifically the layout of the stamps. I did two versions - embossed notecard and layered.
They took almost no time and (I think) came out great! I was impressed how easy it was to layer the leaves onto the branch - Nichole is such a genious at designing these layered stamps!

Other materials used: Spring Moss ink and cardstock from Papertrey Ink; Chocolate Chip ink from Stampin' Up!; white cardstock from Georgia Pacific; Rectangle Nestabilities from Spellbinders.

Emmybella...

is up today. (Sorry I photographed her so crooked.)She was done pretty much the same way as the last 2 bellas. You can see in the close-up that I paper-pieced her top, pants, and both of her bags. I also did some shading on her pants and the shopping bag to make it look darker on the inside. Materials used: Emmybella stamp from Stamping Bella; patterned paper for background and top from Scenic Route; patterned paper for both bags and pants from My Minds Eye; Bliss Blue ink and cardstock from Stampin' Up!; ribbon from May Arts; markers from Copic; classic oval and scalloped oval Nestabilities from Spellbinders.

I've been tagged!

I just saw that I was tagged by 2 of my fellow SBS13 sisters - Debi and Gia. Thanks for thinking of me gals! Sorry, but it took me a while to think up my answers – these questions were tough!

1. WHAT WERE YOU DOING 10 YEARS AGO? I was in my second year at law school.

2. WHAT WERE YOU DOING 1 YEAR AGO? Pretty much the same thing as now!

3. NAME YOUR 5 FAVORITE SNACKS: choco covered gummy bears, potato chips, soy beans, Sees chocolates, and hurricane popcorn.

4. NAME 5 THINGS YOU WOULD DO IF YOU WERE A MILLIONAIRE: probably quit my job, take a trip out of the country and then buy a bunch of stamping stuff. If I only had 1 million, I’d stop there because I’d need the rest to live on, but if I had more I’d buy a new car and then re-do my entire stamp room.

5. NAME 5 THINGS YOU LIKE DOING: paper crafting, playing video games, playing on the computer (blogging, blog-surfing, visiting MBs, etc.), watching tv, and hanging with my hubby and our dogs.

6. NAME 5 THINGS YOU WOULD NEVER WEAR AGAIN: earrings that go to my shoulders, tons of thin rubber or metal bracelets, braces, clothes that make me look like a wanna-be pop star (think Madonna when she first became popular), and the shoes I wore at my wedding (ouch!!).

7. NAME YOUR 5 FAVORITE TOYS: My Copics, Nestabilities, Big Shot, iPod Classic, and computer.

Now I’m supposed to tag 5 other people, but I *think* there are only 4 of the SBS13 sisters left who haven’t been tagged yet (LMK if I missed your tagged post):
ElyBlair
Lesley
Linda B.
She

Hope you gals will play along!

Another Bella card - BSC18

I am having so much fun playing with my new Bellas that I'm actually giddy!! The paper piecing and coloring are making me feel like a kid and I can't remember when was the last time I had such a great time stamping!! *Mwah* to Stamping Bella for these wonderful images!!

Today's card uses Flowahbella:

Just like Cosmobella, she was stamped with Black Brilliance ink onto Georgia Pacific white cardstock. Then I followed this tutorial by Michelle Wooderson to stamp just her dress onto a scrap of some REALLY old K&Company patterned paper I got from QVC years ago, and also the pot onto a scrap of the same GP white cardstock.

After the ink dried, I colored her hair, skin, shoes, and the extra flower pot with my Copic markers. After cutting out the dress, I glued it onto her body and colored all the flowers with my Copics, adding in some green for stems and leaves. Lastly, I cut out and then glued on the extra flower pot, and followed this tutorial by Amy Rysavy to stamp the little shadow around her feet.

Here's a close-up of the paper pieced dress and the flowers and pot:

The sketch I used is from Jamie's Bella Sketch Challenge #18 posted on Splitcoast. I used more of the same GP cardstock for the base, and also the same K&Co paper for the background scalloped square. The sentiment is from Kitchen Sink Stamps and the ribbon is May Arts. I also sponged ink around the focal image and the sentiment strip. Thanks for looking!

Other materials used: pale plum ink and cardstock and perfect plum ink from Stampin' Up!; scalloped square Nestabilities from Spellbinders; brads unknown.

My first Bella card!

I know it seems as if I get something fabulous in the mail every day and that's because it's practically true! I am a shop-a-holic and today was another great mail day. My Bellas arrived in record time all the way from Canada! I ordered a bunch of them to take advantage of the recent free shipping offer and I love them even more in person!

I really wanted to do some paper piecing and coloring with my Copics, so I chose Cosmobella as my first "victim." What do you think?
I stamped her on Georgia Pacific white cardstock in Brilliance black ink first so the ink could dry. Then I stamped her torso on a scrap of Scenic Route patterned paper and her pants on a scrap of My Mind's Eye (a sheet from the GIANT slab from Costco way back when). After both scraps dried, I cut them out *very* carefully. I set the shirt aside and did some shading with my Copics on her pants. If you check out the close-up shot below, you can see the shading and also the very subtle pattern of the paper on her front leg that I just love.
To finish her off, I colored in all other parts of the image with Copics, added just a little Spica glitter pen to the Cosmo in her hand, and then glued on her clothes.

Lastly, I felt she needed some "grounding" so I followed this tutorial by Amy Rysavy. I didn't have any small oval stamps so I die-cut a piece of craft foam with an old Sizzlet oval die I had and used it to stamp the "ground."

In this last photo, you can see my post-it note mask stuck to the Cosmobella index paper so I can reuse it.

One final note: the "template" for this card is from Michelle Wooderson who has shown a lot of cards done with a 4"x4" piece of patterned paper. I love the look and am finding myself using it on many of my cards. I think it's great that you can get 9 cards out of one piece of 12"x12" PP!

I had SO much fun playing with Cosmobella tonight that you can be sure I'll be sharing more Bella cards soon!

Other materials used: background patterned paper from Heidi Grace; Tempting Turquoise ink and cardstock from Stampin' Up!; turquoise ribbon from Ben Franklin craft store.

So this is bliss...

After a LOT of fence-sitting, I finally ordered the full set of Copic Ciao markers!! I got them from ebay and there were a couple problems with the seller, but he fixed them all and it only took 3 days to get from California to Hawaii!

The very first thing I did was to color a little, but then I immediately ran to the computer and created my own Ciao color chart. It took me 3 tries, but I finally got it and now it's in a page protector on my work area.

Then I needed to test them out so I played more with my Doodle Factory creatures from Starving Artistamps.

First up was Yapples. I chose him specially for his excited look because the message inside the card is "I got my Copics!" This card is going to a co-worker who is also anxiously awaiting the arrival of my markers!
Next up was Zot. I picked him because the size of his eyes perfectly fit the 2 different sizes of google eyes that I bought specially for these little guys (Yapples' head was too small for the bigger size so I had to just use the little size). The inside of this card reads "mmm... coffee!"

I need to work on my photography because the shading I did really isn't showing. I'm hoping that I'll have some bigger, better samples to show off my new markers soon!

Other materials used: notecards from Michael's; black Brilliance inkpad from Tsukineko; white cardstock from Georgia Pacific; Apricot Appeal cardstock (on Yapples card) from Stampin' Up!; yellow ink (sponged around Zot edges) from Stampin' Up!; Nestabilities from Spellbinders; google eyes from Darice.