And the blog candy winner is..........

Jenn!!!!! Thank you everyone for leaving a comment for me and participating!! I'll do this again soon and offer even more blog candy!!

I'm sorry that it took me this long to choose the winner and post the results. I had decided to have one of my guests at my Sunday Stamp-a-Stack card class pull the winner's name out of the "hat"!!

Here is a picture of Ardis taking her huge responsibility very seriously while she is "fishing" for that winning ticket!!  Isn't she just the sweetest?? She is an uber talented lady who loves stamping almost as much as she loves animals, all animals, any size, shape or species!! And boy, has she had a bunch of different animals for pets!! She has so many stories that she loves to share about the different pets she has loved over the years!! I'm so lucky to call her my friend!!

Here is a shot of the whole group, well almost the whole group ~ you can see JoAnn's red shoulder there on the right!!

We even have Edward Cullen there to watch over us and keep us in line!! hahahahaha!!!

I wish I had turned those darned lights off before I snapped the shot!! Oh well, I was just glad that I remembered to take this picture before everyone left!!

Thanks for stopping by!!

Lily Rose's Birthday page!

  I was just playing around with the "My Digital Studio" program before "Dancing with the Stars" started.  I designed the page in about 5 minutes with this easy template and then I wanted to see if I could figure out how to upload and post it here. Wow, I guess I did okay with it!! Shocker !! I am sooo "untechie"!! Now, I can share lots more of the things that I have fun creating this cool digital program!!

So I thought that "Dancing with the Stars" was good!! Holy cow, so many of the stars were GOOD!!! It is going to be a tough competition this season!! It should be fun!!

And that brings me to "Castle", my very favorite show!! That was fantastic!! I can NOT believe they left us hanging like that at the end of this first part! The writers just love toying with us poor fans! How do they expect us to wait a whole week to find out what happened to Beckett. Sheesh!!! I love Nathan too!! He's my weekly shot of "friskiness"!! And we can never have too much "frisk" in our lives, right?? lol

Thanks for stopping by!!

My Very First Blog candy giveaway!!!

I'm doing my very first  "blog candy" giveaway and hope that you all will join in the fun!!

Just leave a comment on one of my recent projects by this Friday, March 26 ~ 10am and I will pick out a random winner from all of the comments that are submitted!! It's just that easy!!  U.S. shipping only, please!!

Have fun!! And here is what the lucky winner will receive from me ~ a Textured Impressions Manhattan Flower embossing folder from Sizzix ~ a $7.95 value!! You can use it to create beautiful embossed card fronts that can be colored many different ways or can be left just plain for an elegant and formal look!!

Good luck everyone!!

A St. Paddy's Day cactus?? Really??

Has anyone heard of a St. Paddy's Day cactus?
hahaha, just kidding. But really ~ this poor thing is blooming its heart out and I am enjoying it, but I thought it was called a Christmas cactus or Thanksgiving cactus. Actually all of my "holiday" cacti (that looks so funny) are putting forth a few blooms right now. Weird. I have another one called "Golden Charm" that I bought at a fundraiser for my daughter's kindergarten class. Let's see...my daughter is now 28, so that would make it...about 23 years old!! Yikes!!!

And to tie into my whole blog theme of "exploring creativity everywhere" ~ how creative is this ~ this little plant has just naturally found a way to stand out from its peers, to shine above all of them and to make the world (at least my windowsill) a more beautiful place, for a little bit of time!

It makes me feel like spring is finally heading our way!! All I can say is "thank goodness!"

A New Spring Stamp-a-Stack card class announcement!

Hi all! I have finally finished my samples for my Stamp-a-Stack card class! I designed 5 new cards that you can use for various occasions ~ feminine birthday, new baby welcome, get well or sympathy, friend to friend and thank you. Hopefully there is something here for everyone!

The baby card may be made using blue or a combination of blue and pink if that works better for you. This particular card is so much fun to make and I'm sure that you will be able to use this technique many, many times over on your future cards once you have learned it. I know you will all LOVE it!! The birdhouse card is adorable and opens up to show the second little birdie on its own branch.  Here's a lookie at each card by itself!

 

Don't forget, if you hover your mouse over each card you should get a popup so you can view it full sized (that is, if I did everything correctly on my end! Keeping my fingers crossed! hahahah).

Okay, so now you are probably wondering when I am offering this class, right? Since Sale-a-bration will be ending on March 31 (which is fast approaching) and I would like you all to have the opportunity to get FREE stamps I'm scheduling the class next week. I'm offering it 2 different times for your convenience ~ Friday, March 26th at 7pm and Sunday March 28th at 2pm. Send me an email to let me know which date you want to attend. It's that easy!! Oh and don't forget to let me know which color you would like to make your "Welcome Baby" card, blue, pink or mixed.

Since this is a Stamp-a-Stack class you may make 5 cards (one of each design) for $10 or 10 cards (2 of each design) for $20. When you send your signup email to me please don't forget to include how many cards you want to make!!

Oh and btw (that stands for "by the way" Jenn, heehee ;-) my classes will be held at my house, in Stroudsburg, PA.

Want to earn free stamps, paper or a gorgeous punch but you can't make either of my class dates?? Well, you don't need to attend one of my classes to take advantage of the super Sale-a-Bration celebration!! For every $50 that you spend, you may choose a free exclusive stamp set, paper or punch that is featured in the Sale-e-Bration brochure. Click on my "ORDER ONLINE 24/7" tab to go to my website where you can see the Sale-a-bration catalog, the full catalog and the Occasions Mini Catalog where you can order online instantly!! Have fun!! You have to hurry because this great offer and the exclusive SAB items won't be available after March 31st!!

 

 

I hope to see many of you at my classes!! I miss you guys!!

A Sweet Bundle of Baby Boy!

I have been scrapbooking every Wednesday for several years with a fun group of women. We call ourselves "The Scrappin' Queens". Needless to say, we have all gotten very close and have shared many joys and sorrows over the years. One of the girls gave birth recently to her first child, a son, after many years of trying. We were all thrilled for her and her husband and I wanted to make something special for the baby that they could use for many years. I love the idea of personalizing things and expressing my creativity with a handmade gift. One of my favorite new baby gifts is a set of decorated letters spelling out the baby's name. This sweet little guy's name is Spencer! So here's what I came up with!

I bought wooden letters at a local craft store, sanded them and then painted the edges of each of them with acrylic paint. The baby's bedroom is decorated in bright green, light blue and chocolate brown, a very unique choice, but one that will certainly work for him for many years. I painted 2 of the letters in each of the 3 colors, alternating them. I was able to find a collection of patterned paper that had all 3 colors AND that had a boy theme, vintage cars and bikes to boot!! How lucky was that? You know I love all things shabby chic!!

I roughly cut each letter out of the paper and glued them down to the wood.  I let them dry and then sanded the edges of each one. It was a slow and tedious job, but well worth it. I then distressed them all with some Close-to-Cocoa ink and then came the fun part ~ decorating them!!

I saw these adorable frogs in our local craft store and decided that that would be the perfect theme ~ bugs!! How does that poem go ~ "snips and snails and puppy dog tails". Well, there are no puppy dogs tails (ewwww) here, but there are snips (of twine) and a snail too!!

I added star buttons, brads, corduroy buttons, eyelets, twine and a bit of ribbon. I just couldn't help myself with the ribbon!!

I stamped the dragonfly image (Stampin Up!), colored it, bent the wings up so it looked 3- dimensional and attached it with pop dots. I LOVE how the froggie's googly eyes are looking up at the dragonfly. He looks to me like he is thinking ".....mmmmm lunch!!  Now if I could jussst stick my tongue out farrrrr enoughhhh.....".

Here is the other frog and friend and a close-up of the first two.

I think my friend was very happy with them when I gave them to her.

Enjoy them as you grow, baby Spencer!

FYI ~ Christmas is 292 days away - that's only 6987 hours!!

Dreamin' of Spring!!

Commmme onnnn March 20th ~ the first day of spring! I can't wait! Not that I want to wish my life away, but being warmer and not seeing any more dirty snow would be a nice change! Just sayin'....... 

I LOVE morning glories and was heartbroken when SU! decided to retire this stamp set!! It is so much fun to watercolor! I love a vintage-y look and this card let me fully express that! Mmmmm! I don't think you can have too many swirls or pearls or ribbon!

Here is the list of the supplies (all Stampin' Up!) that I used:

Stamps:Morning Soft, Baroque Motif

Ink: Black Stazon, Close To Cocoa

Paper:Almost Amethyst, Bella Bleu designer, Very Vanilla, Basic Black

Accessories:Eyelet punch, Pretties kit pearls, Organza ribbon (shhhh, I did use dies from another company to cut out the circles and scallops). Enjoy!!

A Kind Word card

I made this card for the birthday of another sweet friend of mine. It made me think of spring! I love to watercolor and this image let me have all kinds of fun with it! The flowers aren't Stampin' Up! but everything else is! I used a card sketch from the weekly challenge over at Splitcoaststampers. Darn, I didn't think to write the challenge # down. Well, I know it was a recent one! Ooops, I lied up above.....the scalloped circle and the other circles are all Nestabilities. Sorry!!

Birdie love!!

This past Saturday I was invited to a surprise birthday party for one of my favorite people in the whole world! Roc was the friend of a student in one of my Stamping 101 classes that I taught at our local Adult Education program many, many years ago. My student brought her along to a class that I taught at my house and we hit it off immediately and have stayed friends. Sadly, we both quickly lost track of the student that brought us together. 

Roc joined one of my stamping clubs, came to all of my classes and has now even become a Stampin' Up! demonstrator with me!! She is an awesome and creative artist and I know that she just loves all things funky and "birdie" and I wanted to make her a special card and gift for this important occaision. That is what makes stamping and crafting so very special! You can customize your projects for each person  and make them something that will really "tickle their fancy" in a way no storebought gift can.

  This is the card that I came up with! I wanted to use the new Sweet Pea DSP and when leafing through the huge package I spied a piece with this big bird on it!! It was perfect!! All it needed was a smile, some wise-cracking "ha! ha!s" and a flower embellishment that announces roc's news to the whole world! I just added a strip of paper from a different Sweet Pea design and I was done!!

Now for the gift!! I wanted to keep going with the whole "birdie love" theme so I decided to use a "page" from our new On Board Bird book album that is in our new Occasions mini catalog. I decided to make it so that she could hang it on the wall to decorate her studio or use it as a door hanger to announce guests. I again looked to the Sweet Pea DSP for the base and used a piece from the Kaleidoscope DSP for the wing (which I drew freehand). I used the Naturally Serif sizzlet die with the Big Shot for the letters, which fit perfectly! I added a couple of swirls from the Priceless set, a rhinestone brad from the Circle Ice collection, a snippet of Bermuda Bay polka-dot grosgrain ribbon and finished it off with a big flower embellishment that I created using several blooms from the Pretties kit.  I had fun coloring them with those funky colors using SU! markers. Fun and Easy!!

I used a piece of jute for the hanger because I didn't want anything to compete with the ribbon around the birdie's neck. Who knew that birds have almost non-existent necks! I got the brainstorm to put a bow with bells on him and I was determined to make it work!! Mini glue dots (aka snot dots) came to my rescue to hold the ribbon in place permanently! I attached the bow loops separately to the ribbon. I knew there was no way that I would be able to tie a bow that I would be happy with and I would fiddle with it till the cows came home so I just decided to avoid that whole temptation!

And here is a picture of roc after she opened my gift. I think she looks happy with her new "birdies"! Happy birthday sweetie!! Love ya!! Thanks to Jenn for pulling the whole party together!! It was a blast!!

   I just couldn't resist adding this pic of the balloon that Jenn found for the party is it a hoot or what!!!

Love the boa look too!!