TIPsy Tuesday - Fake Torn Edge

Have you ever wanted to have a torn edge but could not because the paper was just too small?  I really wanted the torn edge look for this song sheet paper from October Afternoon but I didn't want to cut into the actual wording and images. 

To get a torn edge look without sacrificing much paper:

1. Trim the very edge with a rough edge decorative scissors.  These are from Provocraft.
2. Use a distressing tool to rough up the edge more naturally.  This tool is from Stampin' Up!

That's it.  Then you can ink as desired.  I put some Ranger Old Paper on first further onto the DSP.  Then went around the edge with Ranger Vintage Photo.  It almost looks like a burned edge.

The flower was spritzed with two different Angel's mists.  It is just a regular silk flower from Hobby Lobby that I pulled apart for this collage card.  The scallop circle is cut from newsprint and distressed.
Happy day!  Thanks for spending part of it here.

Ingredients:  Baroque order wheel from SU!
Cardstock:  Certainly Celery
Ink:  Mellow Moss; Vintage Photo and Old Paper from Ranger
DSP:  Thrift Shop by October Afternoon
Ribbon:  Gingham by SU!; Dot by Paper Studio
Saying is from K & Company

Great TV

Congratulations to my three favorite shows for Emmy wins - Jim Parsons for the Big Bang Theory, Archie Panjabi for The Good Wife and two wins for the wonderfully cast and written Modern Family!

Soon the fall TV season will be starting.  Personally, I'm much more of a traditional TV fan than a movie buff.  I want the backstory, I want to learn about the characters gradually and I want to experience their future.  Movies always leave me with more questions than answers.  I wonder if the happliy-ever-after really is. 

By traditional TV, I mean sitcoms and dramas.  I greatly dislike any type of reality TV or contest show - too much chatter, too much build-up and summarizing and I really think a lot of it is just fake.  If I'm going to watch fiction, I want to know it is fiction.

Last year introduced two new series that have become favorites in our house:  The Good Wife (Tues. CBS) and Modern Family (Wed. ABC).  The Good Wife is really smart TV.  The characters are sharp, interesting, and interconnected.  Apparently, I can't guess what will happen because I never thought they would let the husband - the cheating, politician husband - out of jail.  It would change the dynamic at home and the show was all about this wife going back to work and the kids having their father in jail.  Well, I was wrong, they brought him home on house arrest.  It's made the show far more interesting.  Another plus, the clothes are fabulous! 

Modern Family looked funny in the promo's last fall but I didn't watch it at first because I thought it would be a silly sitcom where the characters are the same 10 years down the road as they were at the beginning (i.e. Seinfeld).  It's not like that at all.  The humor is often dry.  The shows are filled with great lines and some physical comedy.  Everyone is likeable - even Phil has his strengths though not nearly as many as he thinks.

Will this fall bring a surprise show to love?  So far, I''m interested in seeing the Defenders though it looks to be a bit predictable.  Hawaii 5-0 looks like a very cheap knock-off.  But then again, who knows?  Fortunately, my husband will watch just about anything once and bring me in if it is something he thinks I'll like.

DSP Day - Cricut Assisted Card

This week's Designer Paper card uses paper, die cuts and stickers from a single collection from Crate Paper.  I started by using the Cricut to cut a leaf layout from the Storybook cartridge and went from there.  Since this one relies heavily on a specific cartridge I did not do a sketch.  Use a die cut, Cricut or Silhouette cut image as a starting point and build from there.  You can get a very rich look using all designer papers.

Project Notes:

• Detailed images often cut better from a good quality designer paper than cardstock.
• One of these flowers is a die cut, the other is trimmed by hand from matching paper in the collection.
• I decided on the ribbon after glueing most of the cut image down so I just used a strip of ribbon on one side woven around some of the unglued branches.  Another die cut and a brad anchor it in place.

Thanks for visiting today. Hope the rest of your weekend is great.

Ingredients:  DSP, stickers, die cut:  Mia collection from Crate Paper
Brad: Oriental Trading.
Ribbon:  Chocolate Chip Taffeta from Stampin' Up!

Just for You Challenges Card

I just love the colors in this week's color challenge at Splitcoaststampers.   Pacific Point, Razzleberry, and Old Olive look great together, don't they?  This card is also for the sketch challenge.  I flipped it up vertically and used the flower for the circle in this week's sketch. 

The floral stamp set is from Hampton Arts.  The detail of their acrylic sets is great and they work so well with Stampin' Up! ink.  "Just for You" is part of a new SU! hostess set I just got in so naturally I had to use it. 

To get the tone-on-tone design in the corner only I used a square design from Stampabilities.  After inking the entire stamp, I rubbed off much of the ink from corner and the middle with a paper townel and then stamped.  This worked fine since I was using Rich Razzleberry ink on designer paper of the same color.  If there was a shadow left in the area rubbed off it didn't show and I got a corner design as desired.

Thanks for visiting!

Ingredients:  Stamps: Fabulous Flowers  by Hampton Art; Afterthoughts by Stampin' Up!; True Elegance by Stampabilities
Ink:  Pacific Point, Razzleberry, Whisper White and Old Olive; Versamark marker
Cardstock:  Old Olive, Rich Razzleberry
DSP:  Old Olive; Razzleberry Lemonade
Ribbon:  Fabric store

TIPsy Tuesday - New Pastel Case Labels

Just received my new Stampin' Up! Pastels upgrade kit over the weekend.  The upgrade kit contains the new case and all the new colors.  You just move the colors that are still current from the old case to the new one.  I like how they grouped all the reds/pinks together, blues/greens and then the violets while still keeping each row per color family.

One thing I'm not getting about this is the labeling that comes with it.  Either I'm misunderstanding how it goes, or the label seemed to be shifted over to the right.  The color family names are on the far left with all the color names following.  So the color names aren't lined up over the actual colors. 

This bugged me so I created a new template in Word with the colors lined up over the actual pastels and the family names on the far right over the eraser.    The names are only listed in English so I could make the font quite a bit bigger than the SU! version.  My new label is shown in the photo above.

If you would like to use this same color guide, click on this link to a thread a Splitcoaststampers where the files are located.  One file is for those with wide format printers so you can print this on a 12x12 page.  The other is for those who have regular printers.  In that case, the guide prints on one 8 1/2 x 11" page but you have to cut the color names and paste them on the end - literally.

files at Splitcoast - http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/forums/tool-product-talk-f128/new-su-pastels-kit-labeling-t503761.html#post17209896

If you paste your guide inside the lid over the old guide you won't have room for the foam insert.  It is a very tight fit anyway.  I don't really travel with mine so I just removed the foam and use a plain piece of cardstock to keep the colors from rubbing against the color guide.

Hope you find this helpful and enjoy the pastels.

my Maytag repairman

Do you ever have those times when it seems like everything breaks?  In the last month, I've had an expensive car repair, a very leaky faucet, a completely dead DTV converter box, and a washing machine that wouldn't spin the clothes.  Fortunately, I have a very handy husband. The car repair was too extensive this time but he has handled everything else beautifully!  Who knew I married the Maytag Repairman?

journaling reads:

No wonder the Maytag repairman on TV gets to be so lazy. If your washing machine breaks, the manufacturer recommends you just replace the damaged circuit board. How hard is that? Not difficult, but darn expensive - $200 + labor – which is bound to be high priced labor even if it isn’t that tough.


But hold on, I have a REAL repairman. He doesn’t just throw a perfectly good circuit board away and buy a new one! No. Thanks to years of experience repairing pinball machines, he can diagnose and replace the 2 cent part pronto. Yes, that’s right 2 cents rather than $200. Sounds like a deal to me.


In less than 24 hours we went from soppy clothes, to perfectly clean, spun laundry. Amazing!

Laundry is on again now - happily spinning away!
 
Ingredients:  Designer Paper:  ledger paper from Basic Grey Basics collection; Marrakesh collection
Cardstock:  Pacific Point by SU!
Letters:  Dear Lizzy Blackberry and Marquoise by American Crafts
Cork accent:  Pink Paislee
Brads:  Basic Grey Marrakesh; Stampin' Up! Antique Brads 
Fonts:  Baskerville Old Face, Arial, Futura LT BT

DSP Day - Happy Autumn

For today's designer paper card, choose a stamp set that would work well in a large circle.  I selected Season of Friendship from Stampin' Up!  These fall papers were released with this set a couple of years ago.  I've always wanted to use this large leaf print paper.  Putting it on opposite side of the card from the large stamped tree balances the image and keeps the paper from being overwhelming.

Here's the sketch.

Project Notes:

• This trifold card is made from a piece of kraft cardstock 5 1/2 x 8 1/2".  It is scored at 2 1/4" on one each side.  To keep from having a gap where the edges meet in the middle, the narrow rust DSP overhangs the edge about a quarter to a half inch.
• I cut the full circle and stamped the tree image.  I did not trim off the right right side of the circle until after it and the larger circle mat were attached to the card.
• I cut a slit in the side to run the ribbon through the right side of the card only.

Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Season of Frienship from SU!; Mailbox Greetings from PTI
Ink:  Really Rust, More Mustard, Chocolate Chip
Cardstock:  Crumb Cake (kraft), Whisper White
DSP:  Autumn Vine
Ribbon:  So Saffron grosgrain
Button:  Basic Gray

Using Versamark Challenge

Today's Ways to Use It challenge at Splitcoaststampers was to use Versamark.  I stamped the background flowers above in Versamark, coated with clear embossing powder and heated. 

This card is also for Kristina Werner's A Year in Cards - August over at Two Peas.  I used the layout from the small card she did only in a regular size.  I masked the area for the greeting before stamping the background.  The butterfly is cut on the Cricut using the Storybook cartridge.  Since it is just a profile of a butterfly, I used a combo of adhesives to get its wings to stand out.  The body is glued with Tombow glue and the wings attached with tiny pieces of dimensionals. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Kind and Caring Thoughts by SU!; Happy Birthday by Cloud 9
Ink:  Versamark, Prussian Blue by Colorbox
Cardstock:  Poppy Parade by Stampin' UP!
DSP:  Pink Paislee 365 Degrees; Basic Grey Offbeat
Twine:  Martha Stewart

Biking and Canoeing

Just getting started on scrapbooking our Hilton Head pages with the kids.  I'm going to do them by activity.  These photos went beautifully with the new Basic Grey Oliver collection papers.  Several of the Stampin' Up! Regals collection colors coordinate beautifully with this designer paper.

Project Notes: 

• The photo collages were assembled in Photoshop Elements and then printed on 8 1/2 x 11" Presentation Matte Paper.  I think the matte look went better with the dark distressed Basic Grey designer papers and I really prefer working with that paper - no smell.
• The half wheel like border was cut on the Cricut using SCAL software.  It is actually a Wingding that I modified slightly with Photoshop Elements.

• The little Canoe is also cut with SCAL software.  I imported it from a PowerPoint clipart image.  It cut in several pieces.  The edge pieces I put more ink on and then used a paintbrush to apply ink to the sides of the canoe.

• The round "Fav" buttons were also made digitally, printed and cut with a circle cutter.  I wanted to highlight which activities each child liked.  Although you can tell from Dillon's expression that canoeing was not his favorite :-)

The funniest part of the biking story is how Nai Nai wanted to hang off one side and then the other of her tag-a-long bike.  She sent Jaime squealing and nearly careening with her off balance movements. 

One of the photos for the canoeing page shows an alligator head in the water.  Dillon thought it was fun to try to 'catch' the alligator with a fishing pole.  He didn't think it was much fun to ride along beside one in a canoe.  He also had a terrible time sitting still and after being fussed at several times for moving around, he had to just sit still for the remainder of the ride.  One photo shows him very tired of the whole thing. Nai Nai on the other hand is so tiny that she could wiggle all she wanted in the canoe and nobody was bothered.  She would have ridden again given the chance.

Thanks for visiting today.

Ingredients:  Designer Paper:  Oliver from Basic Grey

Cardstock:  Cherry Cobbler, Going Gray, Not Quite Navy from Stampin' Up!

Chipboard Letters:  Nutmeg from American Crafts

Font:  Just Act Casual from dafont.com

Brads:  Marachesh collection from Basic Grey

TIPsy Tuesday - 2 for 1 Masking

When using pastels, you can get two great designs from one mask. 

a.  Cut or punch out your design. This branch was cut with the Cricut and the Storybook cartridge.
b.  Put removable adhesive on the back of the mask.  (1 above)
c.  Ink your mask with Versamark.
d.  Apply the mask to your paper.
e.  Color with pastels working quickly while Versamark is still wet. (2 and 3 above)
f.  Remove mask. (4 above)

The card on top is the 'masked' card.  The one below it is the card made with the actual mask.  Two for one effort!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Kindred Spirits by SU!
Cardstock:  Naturals white and Kraft
DSP and ribbon:  Basic Grey's Periphery collection

A Dozen Flowers

What do you get when you combine a dozen punched flowers, 5 brads, one chipboard element, cardstock and more designer paper?  One busy card! 

This one is for the Finally Friday challenge at Two Peas in a Bucket and kwernerdesign.com.  The challenge was to use punched elements.  In her card, Kristina punched her elements from many different designer papers from the same pack.  I did the same using Basic Grey's Offbeat colletion.  Each of the dozen 5 petal flowers is a different paper and I still had a few left over!

The sentiment Love, Laugh is stamped in a circle in the center of the lower right flower.  My original idea was to follow the video and make a background of my punched elements but they just didn't come together as I'd envisioned.  They looked better as true flowers. 

It's a busy card but I sort of like it.   I think it is very upbeat and may give this as one of the special birthday cards I need for September. 

Happy day to you.  Stay cool and dry wherever you are.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Make it Count by SU!
Ink:  Baja Breeze, white gel pen
Cardstock:  Dark Chocolate by PTI
DSP:  Offbeat by Basic Grey
Brads:  Basic Grey and Oriental Trading

DSP Day - Bright Birthday

I love Designer Paper!  This is probably no surprise from my projects.  Even when I start a project thinking I'll only use cardstock, like yesterday's Favorite Dress layout, I cave.  I just can't resist buying beautiful pattern paper and adding it to my projects.  Since I can't resist the purchases, I'd better be using the paper! 

As I'm doing more and more cards with Designer Series Paper (DSP), I've decided to make these cards a regular feature of my blog.  A completed card, a sketch, and some project notes will be featured one day per week.  I'm not sure which day but for this week it is Saturday.

The card above uses some of my paper stash - a discontinued designer paper from Stampin' Up!  Often I buy DSP for scrapbooking projects and then use the remains for cards. This paper was originally used for last summer's pages about the kids visit to our house.  The bright colors are perfect for my son-in-law's birthday. 

Project Notes: 

• The DSP creates the background for this card.  Stripes and polka dots are incredibly versatile.  The stripe directed the color choices for the stamped elements - orange, green, Brilliant Blue and light blue.
• The tiny stripe at the bottom was a last minute addition to balance the card.  A little DSP can go a long way in adding a touch of color where it is needed.
• There was a large stripe paper in this collection.  I cut the tag and the strip of orange at the bottom from these large pattern stripes.
• This particular paper had coordinating ribbon and since I still have a lot of paper, I conserved ribbon by trimming rather than wrapping the ends.  The ribbon is attached with stamples.   A pleat and brad in the middle adds interest and is a change from bows - a little more masculine too.
• My Only Orange ink is dry so I stamped in Versamark and embossed to get a similar effect.

Thanks for stopping by today.  I'll plan on another DSP day late next week - Friday or Saturday.  Feedback is always appreciated.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Circles and Dots by Inkadinkado; Plenty of Paisley by Paper Studio
Ink: Garden Green, Brilliant Blue, Versamark
Cardstock:  Bashful Blue
DSP and ribbon:  Jersey Shore by SU!

Favorite Dress

Through most of the '90's this was my favorite dress.  It doesn't look like much in the photo and I don't think I have a photo of myself wearing it.  Argh!  But I wore it for some good times and bad and it has a lot of memories.  When cleaning up the upstairs a couple weeks ago, I pulled a couple items from my closet that I'd been keeping entirely for sentimental reasons.  Since I wanted more room for scrapbooking, the memories associated with this dress seemed like an obvious thing to capture.  The dress still technically fits but it looks miles too big -only because styles have changed.  It is also a little young looking for me now so I'm passing it along.

Churning up the memories of this dress was both pleasant and painful, but mostly rewarding.  Here's the journaling:

When this dress hangs on the racks at Goodwill, no one else will know how much it meant to the original owner. No one will know how often it was worn over more than a dozen years. The fabric is still mostly in great shape, but it will just look a little large for its marked size, probably a little too out of style.



I wore the dress to church and to work. It went dressed up or dressed casual. I always felt pretty, even cute when I wore it. “Wash it, wear it, love it” could have been the maker’s catch phrase. Oddly I don’t remember where I bought it or even if I bought it myself. I could go in my closet now and tell you where almost every item of clothing came from but for some reason, not this favorite navy one. It was new to me in 1993 – that I remember because I wore it on a special trip.


A prospective buyer won’t know how I felt sitting on a Dallas-bound flight late one evening off to see my lover and best friend who later became my husband. I remember the anticipation at reuniting after weeks of his working away from home. We only had a few days and I wanted to make a good impression in my pretty new dress, wearing cute white slingbacks that pinched my toes but looked so perfect with the dress. Lenny was waiting for me at the gate in a lavender silk shirt and black jeans holding apricot roses. His smile lit up my heart for the rest of the weekend.


I have no photos of that weekend but I remember what a wonderful, relaxed time we had. He had cleaned his ‘apartment’ – a by the week rental in a complex used mostly by working men. The only other women I saw on the place was the custodian. Everyone made fun of Lenny for staying there. I remember him reading me a poem when we first got there. We went to his and my favorite Dallas/Ft. Worth area restaurants, we visited the amusement parks, ‘earned’ a gift at an arcade, we talked, we loved each other for three days and then I had to come home.


I continued to wear the dress for work. If the buyer at Goodwill looks carefully, they may see the tiny hole on the left front. I had this dress on for a teaching day in 2000 when I ran errands at lunch and had a serious accident. The impact of the crash ripped my name tag off the dress. We later found the plastic tag in the back of the totaled van amid thousands of pieces of glass. Luckily, I wore the dress the rest of the day and several more times.


The last time I put the dress on was for the funeral of a dear woman a couple of years ago. My favorite summer dress had gotten so out of style I shrugged it off and wore something else that 4th of July weekend when a church full of mourners paid tribute to a lady who touched many hearts. She wouldn’t have minded what I wore.


Closets get full and space needs to be re-purposed so eventually even special clothes need must find a new home. I’ll always remember my favorite dress and the adventures, love and luck experienced while wearing it.

I did keep a little more of the dress than the memories.  It had a large facing in the inside back so I trimmed off the edge and made a flower decoration.  I should probably just throw the dress away now but it really is still wearable and I just can't bear to put it in the trash.

Thanks for sharing a little of your day with me!

Ingredients:  DSP:  Bella Bleu by SU!
Font:  Sari's Flower from dafont for the Cricut cut border
Cardstock:  Hobby Lobby

Baja Poppy Challenge Card

Mother and I had a fun day out yesterday and I'm back to my craft room today.  Feels good to exercise the creative muscles.  Once again combining both the sketch challenge at the color challenge this week at Splitcoaststampers.  The colors are Baja Breeze, Poppy Parade, and Crumb Cake a.k.a Kraft.  For the Poppy and Crumb Cake, I only had the cardstock, not having purchased the ink or any embellishments in that color yet.  So I did quite a bit of substituting with other product.

Project Notes: 

• Rather than emboss relief the background for the daisys, I just used chalks to create the background first.  Then I stamped and embossed the daisies with Dune from Colorbox.  Worked great and the pastels didn't recolor my daisies. 
  
  This is a pigment ink I bought by mistake but it is a wonderful match to Crumb Cake!  I mixed lots of pastel shades together to get reasonably close to the colors for the background.  Last week, I ordered the new Pastel color upgrade kit.
• The focus of this sketch was the decorative border.  These are the only fancy border punches I own so I attempted to cut something first with the Cricut but it was too busy - actually, it looked more like a Halloween spider web so just decided to layer a couple of the simple edges.  Kraft makes anything look classy.
• I'm not sure where this ribbon came from but it is a pretty good match and I'm sure the buttons are fabric store finds from the left over button boxes you buy for a few cents each.  I love those!

This card goes off to special friends who cooked for me a couple nights ago!  What a treat, I was so spoiled!

Thanks for stopping by today.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Upsy Daisy and Whimsical Words by Stampin' Up!
Ink:  Red from the Primary colors fluid chalk and Dune pigment ink by Colorbox
Cardstock:  Baja Breeze, Poppy Parade, Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake
DSP:  Sunshine Garden kit from SU!

TIPsy Tuesday - Cardstock Deck Updated

Earlier this year, I shared my version of a color chart for Stampin' Up! colors.  I call it a Cardstock Deck similar to a paint deck.  Since SU! updated their color families, I had to update my deck.  Also I really wanted to create one by color - like the rainbow - rather than by family.  The main purpose of this deck is to determine which cardstock I will use to match a photo or non-Stampin' Up! designer paper.  So it is much easier to have all the reds side by side so you can pick out just the right shade rather than flipping through a bunch of pages.

Stampin' Up! has created a new color coach with swatches of each color.  I haven't seen it.  I understand from someone who has that the colors are very close but perhaps not exact.  This version took me a little time but also allowed me to add all the discontinued colors I still have paper for and Papertrey Ink colors plus have the exact cardstock to match.

To make one or both decks,

1. Follow this link to Splitcoaststampers for Word documents you can download.
   files on Splitcoaststampers
2. If you are using the "By Color" deck, you may want to remove or add color names based on your own stash.  (The only two discontinued colors not listed are Barely Banana and Almost Amethyst as I was out of both of these.  There are some PTI colors left out since I don't have all of them.)
3. Print out the Word documents on white cardstock.
4. Cut into strips 2 3/4" wide.
5. Cut your paper swatches to fit below each color name and adhere.
6. Place grommets at the top of each page of the deck and put them on a binder ring or chain.

Here, I'm using the deck to match colors to a photo.  I wanted a cardstock just slightly lighter than the flowers because I knew I was going to distress the paper a little before putting it on my layout.  Summer Sunrise from Papertrey Ink turned out to be the perfect one.

If you have any questions, please e-mail me.  Happy crafting!

The Bundt Pan story

For stamp club this month, it was my turn to be hostess.  We have blueberries ripe so I picked a few and baked this Blueberry Lemon Bundt cake from Martha Stewart.  It got rave reviews at club.  Here is the link to the recipe:  Blueberry Lemon Bundt Cake

Also, if you are ever in the market for a Bundt(r) pan, I highly recommend the real Bundt brand pan from Williams Sonoma.   Linked here:  Bundt Pan

When I was a young woman, my mother did the smartest thing she has probably ever done for me (and that is saying a lot!).  She started a 'hope chest' for me.  Now this is sort of an old fashioned idea but it was terrific.  In the late 1970's there seemed to be a lot of discount stores in our area going out of business so there were opportunities to stock me up on a few household items at good prices (I'm still using a lot of those heavy duty wood coat hangers we bought for a nickel apiece!). 

Best of all the 'hope chest' gave my grandparents an easy way to gift shop for a teenage girl.  They had no idea what type of music or clothes I liked but my grandmother and my aunt knew cooking.  They knew what it took to keep house.  Every birthday and Christmas I got a few things for the soon overflowing chest - a wicker trunk in my bedroom.  One year, my Aunt Margie got me a real Bundt brand pan from Smithey's department store.  It cost her over $25 she wasn't embarrassed to tell me.  Meaning - 'you'd better take care of it.'  She knew the value of a good pan and it lasted me for decades until finally a couple years ago the inside coating began to come off.  Until then, it had made countless wonderful cakes.  I experimented with another pan, but never liked my replacement.

Then one day, I saw a promotion for Bundt and a new anniversary pan offered at Williams Sonoma.  They say everthing costs so much more now, but the new version is only $34 even all these years later.  And if possible, it is even better.  The old pan needed a little seasoning before it would turn out a clean cake but the first one I baked in the new pan came out perfect and they have ever since. 

So thanks to Aunt Margie I've always preferred baking pound cakes to anything else.  And thanks to my mother, I moved into my first appartment with everything I needed.  It was a wonderful gift from a practical, enthusiastic, loving woman - who doesn't like to cook but loves to shop!

Dining View page

For this page about the abundance of butterflies on our zinnias this year, I tried a few different things.  Some worked for me and some didn't:

• The butterflies are cut with the Cricut and the Storybook cartridge.  I cut a slightly smaller individual butterfly in white paper to go with the black border butterfly on the left.  I inked the white butterfly thoroughly in Versamark and then applied pastels working from the center out.  It was a little too much contrast so I went over it with a black swirl stamp.  This is similar to a pretty butterfly card in the SU! catalog. 
• For the journaling, I tried a technique frequently seen in scrapbook magazines.  Apply some paint.  After it dries, write the journaling on over the painted area.  I liked this although I have a terrible time keeping my writing straight :-(  I didn't want to draw in writing lines because I thought they would be hard to erase off the paint.  Maybe next time I'll stamp a journaling block over the painted area, but I'll definitely do this one again.
• The little black butterflies help balance the layout and cover up a place I smeared the photo when pulling it off the printer.
• 'view' is American Crafts Dear Lizzy vinyl puffy stickers and I love them!  More of these for sure.
• Probably the biggest thing on this layout I hadn't done in a very long time is to use a single piece of designer paper for the background and not break it up with borders or other designer papers.  I kept thinking it looked bare and throwing more stuff on the layout.   Fortunately, I'd saved this DSP from several years back.  It is so hard to find good purples.

To match the cardstock to the photos, I used my new Cardstock Decks just updated with all the new colors from SU!  Also, I did a deck by color - all the reds together, for example.  Visit this Tuesday for the details and links to files to make your own. 

Happy day...

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Flourishes Vol2 from Autumn Leaves
Ink:  Basic Black by SU!
Paint:  Folk Art and Anitas - mixed a couple of colors since I never have the right one on hand.
Cardstock:  Summer Sunrise from PTI; Pale Plum by SU!; Black from Hobby Lobby

How could I miss it?

For this quick Kristina Werner inspired card, I cut and assembled everything and then went looking for stickers for "home."  I searched through all my partial sticker sheets constantly coming up short on letters - usually the 'e' when it finally dawned on me there was a set of stickers right there on my work table.  I'd been using them on a scrapbook layout just a half hour earlier!  And they were perfect!  Sometimes it is what is right in front of you...

The card accompanies some cushions I finally got done for my Mother while she and my Dad were away on vacation.  I've had the cheery fabric for months!  I'm afraid I put her and me behind my customers.  Now that her cushions are done, I can finally make a bedskirt for my upstairs bedroom.   Once I get the right bed risers, that is.  My bed is comical right now as it is way too high off the floor for the size bed and headboard and without a bedskirt it just looks silly.  But it sure does give me lots of storage!
Ingredients:  DSP:  Fly a Kite and Thrift Shop by October Afternoon
Cardstock:  Kraft
White gel pen
Flower:  Petaloo colored with Summer Sun ink
Button:  Basic Grey
Stickers:  Crate Paper Lemongrass collection

Unusual card sketch

Here's my entry for this week's sketch challenge at Splitcoaststampers.  This was an unusual sketch having angled pieces hanging off the edge of the card.  The card base had to be cut smaller so that it would still fit into an envelope.  

Project Notes:

• All the designer paper is from one collection which included journaling cards and buttons.  To make cutting a little easier, I used the reverse side of the printed papers for the matting on each of the angled pieces.
• The quote is stamped on a journaling card.
• The ribbon flower is made by sewing a thread through one edge of the sheer ribbon and pulling it all together.  Then I sewed the button on through the cardstock.  No glue!

This will be a great card for either of two special birthdays coming up in September.  I love this quote and I hope the recipient celebrates a bunch!

Thanks for stopping by!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Cloud 9 
DSP and button:  Delight by Fancy Pants
Cardstock and ink:  Choc Chip by SU!

Trip Prep page

So good to be back to scrapbooking.  Here is a Project 365 page for the first week in July.  Not a lot happening during this week yet it I never really capture the effort that goes into getting ready for a trip. 

Project Notes:

• The sunflower is a white papery flower from Petaloo.  I added a few drops of Summer Sun SU! craft ink to water and soaked the entire flower.  Then while still wet, I used a paintbrush to add a little more slightly diluted summer sun ink to darken the center of the petals.

• "prep" is stamped, colored and cut out. 
• Printing some of the photos in black and white let me focus on just a few colors.
• I just love working with grid paper; it makes a project go so quickly when you are placing a lot of photos and stickers.  Everything just lines up magically!
• When I got finished, it seemed a little out of balance so I added some punched, stamped circles of yellow to the circle print background.

Thanks for visiting today!

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Fun Alpahbet by Inkadinkado; Little Bits by SU!
Ink:  Chesnut Roan fluid chalk by Colorbox; various yellow markers by SU!; More Mustard
DSP die cut and stickers:  Crate Paper; More Mustard for title
Font:  French Script
Ribbon:  So Saffron grosgrain by SU!

TIPsy Tuesday - Cardstock Organization

I stock Stampin' Up! and some Papertrey Ink cardstock.  Since Stampin' Up! has introduced new colors and reorganized their color families, my paper needed to be rearranged also.  I did use the same organization system I had been using -the clear storage envelopes available from craft stores.  I keep the envelopes in a paper storage unit purchased from AC Moore.  It is a bit 'rickety' but I have it and it works.  I'm also a big fan of the 12x12 Sterlite storage drawers from Walmart.  You can see them peeking out on the right.  These are used mainly for designer paper packs though I keep a few heavily used neutrals like white and vanilla in them.

One change I did make was to label each section.  I "knew" where the envelopes should go before but sometimes I got lazy and just stuck them in a slot that was close.  Maybe the labels will make me a little more diligent.  :-)

Neutrals are at the top, followed by In Colors both current, and discontinued.  Then I have my Papertrey Ink papers.  In the bottom half of the unit are slots for each of the other current color families:  Brights, Subtles and Regals.  The last few bins are for the old color familes:  Soft Subtles, Earth Elements, etc.

The envelopes are labeled with the color family and the colors per envelope.  I divide up the colors to 3 or 4 per envelope and try to keep similiar colors in different envelopes.  For example, Pink Piroette and Pretty in Pink are definitely in different envelopes as I find these colors easy to mix up.  (Seriously, did we really need two pinks so close and no lavendar???)

I used markers to label the color names to make it super easy to find the right color.  Since I don't have all the new markers yet, I used the closest marker I had and that seems to work.   The labels are nothing fancy, just some white cardstock taped to the clear envelopes with regular Scotch tape. 

Most of my storage envelopes are clear 12x12; however, I have a few 8 1/2" x 11" that I bought at Office Depot (quite a bit cheaper than buying them at the craft store.)  I like these envelopes because I keep all scraps with the paper.  I've tried a scrap bin I don't like looking in two places for a particular color paper.

I've used this system for a couple of years now and it works for me.

One other new feature this year was to break down some of my well-used designer paper packs and store DSP with cardstock.  Most SU! designer paper has at least one side of the paper tone-on-tone.  I stored theses papers with the matching cardstock as shown here with Rich Razzleberry color from the Raspberry Tart designer paper from last catalog. 

If I still have a lot of a DSP left, I just kept it all together in a coordinating collection. 

Thanks for stopping by today.  Feel free to leave a comment with your paper storage ideas to share.  Thanks!