Whew, this has been a busy week. A spaghetti o incident, PTO, laundry,fundraisers, laundry, school plays, laundry, church, and did I mention laundry?! Really, where does it all come from? Does it breed in the laundry basket? I know it must in the kids' rooms. There is no way they wear all of those clothes in just a few days! Oh well.

I have had a little time to stamp this week, but not much. I participated in a couple of challenges over at Splitcoaststampers (SCS). And I'll share those with you today. OH!! the exciting thing that happened this week is that my starter kit arrived late Wednesday!! I am always excited by new goodies. SU has made some changes since I have been gone. One change is that all of their new stamp sets are now die cut. So you don't have to trim them yourself. But they are still unmounted so you can place them on the blocks as you would like. I can't wait until my open house so i can order some yummy Double Sided Papers (DSP)! The catty is full of DSPs that I am drooling over. Good thing the catty pages are glossy, right??

So here's the second challenge card I made. It was for Wednesday's sketch challenge. The challenge master gives you a layout of a card and you go to work!

I used the Loads of Love stamp set. Papers are old olive, pumpkin pie, summer sun (like the color combo challenge) plus black and white. I used these super square clear buttons on two of the squares. And one of my go to ribbons, the black gingham. I water colored the truck, etc with watercolor crayons and aqua pens. That is one of my fave ways to water color. And of course, I paper pierced some, too. I love to PP. It's adds so much for a little effort.

Here's today's challenge. It was a Limited Supplies challenge, which is great for me. We had to make our own "printed papers", use only one stamp set (including for the sentiment), the only embellishments could be ribbon and/or brads, and we could not use die cut machines or punches (except for the sentiment if we wanted.) What a fun challenge!!
Here I used the Heartfelt Thanks stamp set, So Saffron, Certainly Celery, Real Red, and Very Vanilla papers. Saffron, Celery and Red inks. Vintage brads and Celery ribbon. I sponged a little celery ink around the edges of the background paper. This stamp set is a 2 step stamping process, and that's how I am able to have the outline accented in a stronger color than the rest of the flower. It really gives the image depth. This one is much prettier in real life. Sorry it doesn't show well in this picture.

So there you have my challenge cards so far for this week. I hope to get some pictures up tomorrow of this Adorable - yes, capital A! - ribbon holder project I completed yesterday. It's overcast here and I am having trouble getting good quality pictures (as you can tell from the pic above, lol).
Have a Stamptacular Day!!

Playing with Food=Bad, Playing with Stamps=GOOD!

Out there in the world of stamping you can find a lot of websites that post challenges for stampers and paper crafters to try. It's been such a long time since I have played and I have really missed it. So today I had a little time and decided to play a challenge over on Splitcoaststampers. I chose the color challenge, which comes out each Tuesday. The challenge master, as I like to call her, decides on a color combination for you to try out and then you create a card or project using those colors. Today's challenge was to use Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive (or Kiwi Kiss) and Summer Sun. These colors look so great together and many have already uploaded pictures of some adorable cards. Here's what I came up with for the challenge. I used Pumpkin Pie, Summer Sun and Old Olive inks, White Grosgrain Ribbon, a Rhinestone Brad, the Pick a Petal stamp set, and the All Holidays stamp set (for the "for you"). All of these products are Stampin' Up! Playing with stamps is so much fun!! The only problem is, I loose track of time! I almost forgot it was lunch time for the babe... don't worry, he reminded me!

I am so excited this morning!! My SU starter kit has finally shipped!! Yeah!!!! Can you tell I'm happy? I should get it sometime next week. I can't wait for my new goodies to get here. I have been away from the company as a demo for a little over a year and now I am getting back into it. I had to purchase a new starter kit, even though I had been a demo in the past. But that's OK with me. Right now SU is running a special for new demos plus I always like having new goodies and buying the kit allowed me to get some at a discount. Once my goodies come in, I hope to be stamping and paper crafting away, getting ready for my Open House in March. Well, that's all for now, I just had to share my good news.

he he he lookie what i found :

OK - I am still trying to understand how to make a watermark for my projects, but since I am apparently going to take forever, I'll give you a picture without the water mark. NOW - I must tell you that the images are Copyright Stampin' Up! and that the projects are created by me. Please read the disclaimer and be a dear and do not claim my work as your own. See- we can all play nice, now can't we? I have seen some of the cutest smiley icons on other's blogs and I am wanting me some so so badly. Wait-- one thing at a time. I must get other stuff done first! Like get a water mark! ok, ok, I will.

With out further ado, here's a little peek at a card I made earlier today:


I cased this card from the 2008 SU IBC (that's demo lingo for the Stampin' Up! Idea Book and Catalog, because who has the time to write all of that??). I love this little stamp set, but I almost never use it. Do not tell my husband how many stamp sets I have that I rarely use, cause there's quite a few. But I digress. I embossed the little cricket and the words. And I paper pierced along the bottom. Why the blank stares?? Have no idea what I am talking about? You are so missing out! Take a little trip over to my SU website and take a look around. If you are in my area you can host a workshop and I'll come over and teach you and your friends all about embossing and paper piercing and so much more. It's lots of fun!

Yikes, look at the time, I must be off to carpool! Have a great day!

I am working very hard on getting some projects uploaded for you. So far, I have spent about 4 hours today taking pictures and trying to understand photo editing programs, and getting copyright watermarks, and so on. But, as you can see, I still haven't uploaded any projects. But they are coming.

What I have accomplished today can be seen in the right column. I have added many new links to Stampin' Up! catalogs, product information and projects featured on the SU website. I mean, between that and the 3 year old, the dog, the laundry, the phone, and the .... you get the picture, I think I have done quite well for today so far!

Hey, check it out!

Well, look at me go. I added a cutie patootie background and even a little blinkie all by my self. I didn't even have to ask my 10 year old to help! So I am continuing to learn about blogging and so far I love it. Soon, I'll be adding info about my Stampin' Up! business. For the time being, you can check out my SU business website here. hmmm, new challenge for me - making that a link. ok, I'm on it. Hopefully that worked!

I never claimed to be a computer whiz, I am more of a computer sorta understand. My passions are more about the crafting and baking. I do so enjoy hands on crafts.

Thanks for stopping by and I'll return soon with more additions!

let's have a little test here

hmmm...me...with a blog. this should be interesting. I am just dipping a toe in for now and I'll see how it goes. This blog will be used mainly to help share my experiences in the paper crafting world. However, knowing me, it will also include other aspects of my crazy life. And so, it begins...