happy day

Monday means it's time for my try at Beate's weekend sketch challenge. And again with the 'no stamp' card! I'm sorry, but the designer series paper and rub-ons do all the work and with that you get the 8 minute card. Eventually I'm going to run out of these fantastic rub-ons and actually have to stamp again. Oh the humanity!

Today's card features Spring Fling designer series paper, A Perfect Day/Love & Happiness rub-ons, and a bunch of punches. The leaves behind the bloom are made from the 5-petal punch and I cut it up to spread out the leaves a bit. I used the scallop punch and white scallop rub-on for the so saffron bloom and the 5-petal punch and white rub-on for the pretty in pink flower. It's all tied together with a pink rhinestone brad from the Fire circle collection. This card makes me very ready for spring!

Have a wonderful day and don't forget to sign up for some blog candy in last Friday's post!


Details - paper: sage shadow, so saffron, pretty in pink, spring fling dsp; accessories: scallop & 5-petal punches, fire circle rhinestone brads, regal rose 5/8" grosgrain ribbon, a perfect day rub-ons, love & happiness rub-ons

5000+ hits blog candy!

These past 2 months have been so much fun and I'm so grateful you have all joined me in my crafting journey. Originally I wanted a blog to journal my growth in paper crafting and now I'm just flat out addicted! My next goal is to do more crafting outside of cards - but I'm sure cards will still be the majority of my posts for a bit.

Now for the fun stuff! If you would like to be included in my blog candy raffle, just post a comment and I'll randomly pick a winner Tuesday morning around 10 Mountain. Up for grabs is a bit of this, bit of that really - some of my favorites!

Have a wonderful weekend!

~Karen

candy includes: 4 pewter jumbo eyelets, 4 pewter build-a-brads, 4 styled silver flower slides, assortment of ribbon (soft sky, purely pomegranate, vintage violet, pretty in pink, certainly celery), and 3 clear buttons (sm circle, lg circle, lg square)

flower frenzy

Now that I look at yesterday's card, it has grown on me and I really like it just the way it is. Maybe I just needed some alone time, ha!

It's snowing here today after having a beautiful 70-degree day yesterday. Such is spring. It was actually nice to stay home and get things done around the house though. The kids are now a little stir crazy, but they're entertaining themselves quite nicely in the basement. Why mess with a good thing!?

I had some nice time to stamp today during naps since both the babies actually napped at the same time. Another simple one-stamp card too. I love how the designer series paper does all the work for me! Now I just need to use it on scrapbook pages like I had intended when I bought it...

See you tomorrow for some blog candy!
~Karen

Details - stamps: Cheery Chat; ink: rose red; paper: rose red, so saffron, brocade blue, cutie pie dsp; accessories: brocade blue grosgrain ribbon, a-muse micro dot twinkle stickers, fresh favorites II buttons, mini glue dots, dimensionals

wide open spaces

Here's a card idea that went in a completely different direction than I had intended! And what happened to balance on a card? This one is a little bottom heavy, but I couldn't figure out what else to put on it without over crowding it. I can't just put a giant cake or hat or present there can I? It's late, I think I'll tinker with this one some more and see what I can work out later. That gigantic piece of open paper is bugging me and I'll probably be thinking about it for the rest of the night, ha! Thanks for stopping by!

~Karen



Details - stamps: Happy Everything; paper: east coast prep designer paper, bayou blue, whisper white; ink: black staz-on; accessories: bold bright buttons, 3/4" circle punch, real red wide grosgrain ribbon

tea and cupcakes

Guess what?! I found another challenge and it's over at Taylored Expressions. Taylor has a weekly challenge called a 'cupcake challenge' but I don't have any cupcakes and I really liked the sketch, so I'm cheating a bit and omitting the cupcakes. I'll just eat one instead...
The card is 5-1/4 square - chocolate chip is the base. I'm using Afternoon Tea designer series paper (tea goes with cupcakes, right?!).
If you are looking for a quick card, here it is! Only one stamp! The rest is just paper and ribbon. Super simple.

Thanks for visiting today,
~Karen



Details - stamps: Live Your Dream; ink: chocolate chip; paper: Afternoon Tea DSP, chocolate chip, groovy guava; accessories: soft sky double stitched ribbon, dimensionals

mojo monday monkey

Happy Monday! Today I had to dig around the bookshelf to find a set I haven't used in a long, long time and I found this one - It's a Party. My daughter on the other hand, uses this set all the time for her friends, so it has ink all over the blocks as only a 4-5 year-old can so lovingly do to stamps. I'm glad she has such a fun time stamping with me though; it's our own little bonding session. Last week she discovered all my Fiskars paper edger scissors and was so excited that I actually had something she uses at school. Yep, I'm still pretty cool in her eyes. I'm just happy the scissors are getting some use again!
The card comes from Julee Tilman's 'Mojo Monday' sketch challenge, a fun and simple one today. Love those. Enjoy!
~Karen

Details - stamps: It's a Party; ink: close to cocoa/tempting turquoise/real red markers, real red; paper: wild wasabi, tempting turquoise, whisper white, real red, east coast prep designer series; embellishments: ice rhinestone brads, ticket corner punch.

oh my!

I just looked at my little hits ticker and it's almost to 5000 already! Wow! I'll get some fun blog candy together so I can celebrate you all for visiting and encouraging me through my little crafting journey. It is definitely getting easier to come up with my own ideas, so thank you so much for all your kind comments.
We had a fun Easter weekend and I just happened to leave my camera at my MIL's house, so I'm getting that back tonight and then I'll be able to post this week.
Alright, be back soon!
~Karen

mojo monday challenge

Hello! Happy Friday to you all. I met my new little nephew today - Dawson James - such a cutie pie and lots of strawberry blonde hair!

Alright! Today's card is a sketch from Julee Tilman's Mojo Monday and this is my rookie attempt at one of her wonderful sketches. I had made the Friends sentiment about 3 weeks ago and it just didn't work on the card I was making at the time. When I saw this sketch I thought of it immediately - woohoo! I colored in the flowers and Friends with rose red and brocade blue and then added crystal effects over them. It's better looking irl. The butterfly is colored in with rose red/so saffron watercolor wonder crayons with an aqua painter and then I just added some twinkle stickers from A-Muse on the wings. Fun, huh? All in all it's a very simple card, but fun all the same. Thanks so much for stopping by - enjoy your weekend & Happy Easter!

~Karen


Details: stamps: Time Well Spent; ink: so saffron, black staz-on, brocade blue/rose red/so saffron stampin' write markers; paper: rose red, so saffron, almost artichoke, whisper white; accessories: twinkle stickers, so saffron brads, crystal effects

new baby girl

As I was looking for some inspiration, I found a card on page 48 in the spring-summer collection and decided to copy it, but I changed the image. Still in the land of baby cards here - it's so much fun! This card is for a friend who just had her second baby girl and I wanted something fun and cheery for her. I stamped the alphabet in pretty in pink and then stamped the hand in pretty in pink craft ink, then heat embossed it with clear EP. I ordered some of the 5-1/4" square envelopes, so this card is a bit bigger than I'm used to. I'll just have to write a small novel inside - hee! It's funny; I bought this stamp set (I'm Here) to use in my son's scrapbook, but haven't actually used it there yet. Anyone else do this? All those 'gotta have its'...

Oh! I have a new nephew and I get to go down to the Denver area to see him tomorrow. Sweet little guy.
~Karen

Details: stamps: I'm Here, Holidays & Wishes; paper: certainly celery, spring fling, so saffron, pretty in pink; accessories: pink grosgrain ribbon, clear embossing powder

mega challenge

Hi! The card says it all, right? ha! Today is an interesting card since I tried to put several challenges into it. First I have Beate's inspiration challenge, seen here - the green circles are what inspired me to use my Cuttlebug embossing folder, Spots & Dots, circle sentiment and the little buttons. All things circle here! The second challenge was Kristina Werner's color inspiration #2 which was to use wild wasabi, so saffron, groovy guava and blush blossom. Can you tell from the card that blush blossom is not one of my favorites? I only had scraps to work with! So that is the reason it only appears in a small circle. The card base is wild wasabi (can't tell by the way my picture came out - still need to figure out my new computer here. Might have to change out the photo later.) I had also wanted to use the Cuttlebug negative effect challenge on splitcoast, but when I did it, it really looked, uh strange. Need to practice up on that one I suppose.

Thanks for visiting!

~Karen



Details: stamps: NONE! paper: wild wasabi, so saffron, blush blossom, groovy guava accessories: apricot ribbon, so saffron buttons, cuttlebug embossing folder spots & dots, cuttlebug alphabet olivia (I think), circle punches - all sorts of sizes.

scrapbook page for march

I'm waiting for my stamping mojo to return. Seems I have lost it over the last week - don't get me wrong, I have a million ideas in my head, but when I try and put them to paper, it looks well, weird. Maybe the problem is too many ideas, too little time? I'll go with that...
Today's little number is from my 6x6 desktop calendar for March and that cutie patootie is Avery - although it's from March a year ago. That's how I do my calendars - last year's pictures for this year's calendar. Seems to be a good fit for me; then I just put them in a album for the previous year. Voila, instant scrapbook! Avery is my little stamping helper. She loves to stamp and make cards for her friends and cousins. I had a huge pile of scrap paper that needed to be sorted and put away, but instead I just bought one of those plastic shoe box containers and gave Avery all my scraps for her cards. Add cheap adhesive from Wal-Mart and she's set. So sorry the picture is a little dark - this was before I found the ideal place to take photos in my house, so the lighting here is terrible.
Thanks for stopping by!
~Karen

Details: stamps: warm words, watercolor vine (jumbo wheel), rough texture (jumbo wheel), paper: certainly celery, bashful blue, whisper white, fall flowers designer series, accessories: silver brads, corner rounder

fancy ribbon

It feels so good to stamp again! Normally I don't post on the weekend, but I am this weekend because I miss you all so much and I know you are itching for new stuff, right? Man! How I've missed my precious challenges - so here is my little creation for Beate's weekend sketch challenge and I thought this sketch might be a good one to use the Die-cut Blooms from the Occasions mini collection. It might actually be a bit large for the card, but I think it's still quite fun and cheery. Here's another thing I discovered - you can use rub-ons on ribbon! Ok, maybe this isn't new information for most of you, but I'll pretend like I'm cutting edge and you've never heard of this before. Can I just tell you that it looks fantastic?! The images come out so clean and crisp on the ribbon. You gotta try it! Have a wonderful weekend.

~Karen


Details: stamps: polka dot background, birthday whimsy ink: versamark, staz-on black paper: real red, pumpkin pie, certainly celery cardstock, cutie pie designer series embellishments: die-cut blooms, brocade blue button, linen thread, real red wide grosgrain ribbon, a perfect day rub-ons (occasions mini collection), paper piercer/template

up from the bottom of the shelf

Hello! I'm still playing 'catch-up' from this week's computer craziness, so I'm posting a card I made a while ago. If you've seen my gallery or store, then this one looks familiar I'm sure. This one comes from a sketch challenge a few weeks back from splitcoast. I was inpired a while ago when I got together with some other SU demonstrators and one of the swaps I got used Sweet Shapes, which has been collecting dust on my shelf for quite a while. I got the set from the Denver regional seminar way back in 2006 and I haven't used it much since. I wanted to try out faux stitching with a different color than black or white and I love how the red pops out. The zig-zag stitching was made with my paper piercer and piercing template from SU. I've seen other faux stitching using the All in a Row stamp set, so I need to try that as well.
I just need to get photoshop back up and running and then I'll be ready to start posting new pictures for all of you. Tonight I hope to stamp some after the kids are in bed and soon it will be March Madness, so that will leave plenty of crafting time while Michael watches the tournament - guilt-free stamping, yes!
~Karen

Details: Sweet Shapes stamp set; Love & Happiness rub-ons; whisper white, soft sky, real red, blue bayou cardstock; soft sky prints designer series paper; soft sky, real red, black Staz-On inks; real red wide grosgrain ribbon, paper piercer/template; stampin dimensionals.

I'm here & tagged to boot!

I finally have a new computer and my hubby and I decided on a laptop this go 'round. Saturday we got the dreaded 'blue screen' of death on our computer. I guess it was time since it's 5 years old, but come on! It has been so hard not to be surfing around all my favorite places to be inspired, so none the less, I haven't been too crafty this week. Maybe tomorrow I will since I'll be able to get my fill over at splitcoaststampers again, finally. So you know what I'm doing right now? I'm sitting on the couch in my family room playing backgammon on my new wireless laptop (very cool!) and I'm playing against my hubby who is on the couch next to me on his work laptop. Is that crazy or what? We love to play games and since we don't have backgammon in real life, this is the next best thing.
I'm very sad to say that the Geek Squad could not salvage anything from our old computer, and I am soooo mad about that. I guess a praise in all of this is I had just uploaded all of our digital pictures to Kodak and so the photos we lost were all of my stamping projects and ideas. I think I would have needed mental help if I had lost all of Katie's baby pictues, can you imagine?! I'll be good with the new laptop as soon as I can adjust to the keyboard and not having a 10-key pad on the side. I'm hoping to have all of my programs re-loaded soon too! So frustrating. I can see all you Mac people pointing your finger at me, ha!

Ok! My new stamping buddy, Amy Sheffer tagged me this week *so excited - my first tag* and I'm supposed to list 7 random facts about myself. This is a tough one! It's not very often I get to think about things that are just about ME - I became a mom and that is what I am. I live at Avery's house, I'm Avery's mom, etc.
Ok, just the facts ma'am!
#1 - I have lived in Colorado my entire life, even college. That might just be plain boring, but this state is so beautiful and the climate is fantastic - I never want to leave!
#2 - I have 2 differents sized thumbs. I can't believe I am putting this down. Now when you see me that is all you'll be trying to look at. I fondly call them Bert & Ernie. You can imagine what they look like now...
#3 - Back in the day, I loved to go on 6-day backpacking trips way out in the middle of nowhere. We packed everything we needed with us, food, TP, tents, pans, everthing. It was fantastic!
#4 - I absolutely hate to fly. I'll do it, but I'm very uncomfortable taking off and landing. Especially landing in Denver - crazy turbulence!! ugh. Oh, and flying over mountains doesn't agree with me either. You remember that movie Alive? Yeah, that did it for me.
#5 - My nickname is Kiki - comes from my parents calling me Cheeky since I was a 'cheeky' baby and then my youngest brother came along and couldn't say cheeky and called me Kiki. Short story long... ha! I like Kiki much better than Cheeky thank goodness!
#6 - I was a math major and when I told my parents this I think they fell on the floor. I had to repeat algebra 2 in high school, so their reaction was expected I suppose. I taught middle school and high school math for 4 years and then moved on.
#7 - I miss playing softball. I played for so many years on rec teams and then life got too busy and there is that thing where they don't let pregnant women play? So hopefully I'll get back into it someday soon. It's such a fun sport my hubby and I can do together, so that is the part I miss most.

Alright - now I get to tag some people! First I'd like to tag my good friend Earen who is a huge inspiration to me spiritually. Her blog is amazing and she has such a gift in her writing. I'm also going to tag Beckie, my fabulous upline and birthday buddy, Joanne, Amanda, Mercy, Jen, and Neva who leave me such wonderful comments in my SCS gallery!

The rules to go by:
• Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
• Share 7 random and/or weird facts about yourself on your blog, we all want to know them.
• Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
• Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

That was a very long post today! Hopefully you aren't scared away, *grins*! See you again soon with new projects.
~Karen

hello?

Hi there! So if you have been wondering what in the world happened to me, my computer crashed Saturday evening and I've been out of touch since! Ugh. I just want to let you know that I'll be posting new stuff soon. Right now I'm just borrowing some internet to post really quick until we get a new computer. I miss you all!! I never realized just how addicted I am to the blogging world until this week. Tell you all more soon.
~Karen

inspired

My 2-year-old has inspired my card today. Here is the story. Thursday morning I am frantically trying to get us all out of the house by 9:00. This is no small feat because our day usually starts at 8:00 and so that means a crazy dash through breakfast, dressing, brushing teeth/hair, buckling in the car seats, etc. You know what I'm talking about, right? Well apparently, during all of the rushing around, my son decided that he wanted to open up ALL of my button containers along with a couple of containers of brads and dump them all out onto the carpet. Oh my word!! So as I'm looking down at the carpet and begin to pick it all up, I see a mosiac of buttons and brads all piled up against the computer desk, spread out on the carpet and some on top of the desk and I'm thinking to myself 'I really really really need to use these things because apparently hoarding them is not working for me!' Alas, here is today's card - buttons strewn about and piled up. ha! The card is much more appealing to me though! Even in the craziness, I still find something to inspire me - is it a sickness?

Here are the details: Stamp sets - Little Flowers, Short & Sweet; paper - Papertrey's stampers select white, certainly celery, not quite navy, so saffron, petals & paisleys designer series; embellishments - fresh favorites I & II buttons, apricot grosgrain ribbon. I trimmed the so saffron paper with my pinking scissors from Fiskars (saw that on the Sale-A-Bration cover and thought it was so cute!)

Have a wonderful weekend everyone -

~Karen

a great thing

Here is a super simple card for you today - not even a stamp! Today's colors are purely pomegranate, so saffron, and wild wasabi. So goes the color challenge over at splitcoaststampers. I started off with a 4-1/4 x 8-1/2 piece of purely pomegranate folded in half. The so saffron Prints paper is punched out with the spiral punch. I need to figure out a new way to use this punch - it was a must-have and now I barely use it because it seems to be same old-same old... Anyway, I used another rub-on from my free package from Sale-A-Bration, Love & Happiness and I love how crisp and dark the image comes out. I'm getting very addicted to these! That's what I need - more 'things' to need, ha! The image is on whisper white and layered over so saffron and wild wasabi. I used 2 antique brads to give the sentiment a little something else and of course, I needed purely pomegranate ribbon to finish the card. So super easy! Sometimes I need these simple cards to get my creative juices flowing again. It's been a pretty productive week as far as stamping goes - now I need to catch up on laundry and maybe I should clean up my craft area. It's in serious trouble! Tomorrow is Friday, yea!

~Karen

wish big

Can it be? Is it true? Is this possibly a card I could give to a man? Hmmm. If you have ribbon and sparkly things on a card, does it count as masculine? I'm trying here! It has blue and brown in it - does it count? I believe so! I'm going with it, okay? This card is 6-1/2 x 3-1/4 and I started with a piece of 6-1/2 x 6-1/2 sage shadow. I never use this color! I guess that's why you can barely see it under the chocolate chip. I wrapped a piece of wide ribbon around the chocolate chip cardstock and then added it to the sage shadow. I used my 1/2" circle punch to create a dry embossed look along the top of the ribbon. Did I fool you? ha! I really like the subtle dimension it gives this card. The cake (from Eat Cake) is done in close to cocoa, sage shadow, bashful blue, ballet blue, and so saffron. I added some creative candy twinkle stickers on the candles to give them a little punch. I wish I could get a better picture of them though. I used my ticket corner punch on the wish big sentiment and then tucked it behind the first 2 layers of the cake image. Then I added the bottom layers. I think it looks fun and different. To finish, I added the bashful blue brads to try and balance the card. Have a wonderful day!

~Karen

stepping into a new zone

I am really stepping out of my color comfort zone with this card today. I just received a package of East Coast Prep designer series paper, you know- to make more boy-ish cards, and I jumped right to it and thought I'd try out a little boy birthday card. I've never been a big More Mustard kind of girl, so this was a leap for me. I wasn't entirely sure I even liked the card until I looked at it later and it definitely grew on me. It's just fun and cheery. Then I had to tell myself that any 5-year-old boy that opened this card would instantly toss it aside to open the present it was attached to. Right? So why worry?! The card base is Wild Wasabi (4-1/4 square). I sent the more mustard paper through my Cuttlebug with the Spots & Dots embossing folder. The '5' is from Headline Alphabet, now retired, and I cut it out with a hobby blade and scissors. I can't seem to master the skinny middle of letters and numbers - anyone have tips? The layout is from sketch challenge 165 over at splitcoaststampers and I thought the little star she had there in the sample was cute, so I stole that idea too. Off to the next challenge...

Have a great day!

~Karen

stems with a new twist

We have a saying here in Colorado: "If you don't like the weather, just wait 5 minutes." Well, unfortunately, the opposite holds true! Saturday we were outside in short sleeves trimming our rose bushes, the kids were riding their bikes, drawing with sidewalk chalk - we were all enjoying our 74 degree weather. Then sometime during the night the swirly winds came and blew horrible weather in. What is up with that?! Just a sign that spring is soon to come - March is our snowiest month after all.

Sunday is featured stamper day over at splitcoaststampers and I finally did the challenge on a Sunday! Since it was so gross outside, this gave me an excuse to stamp, especially since we did yard work Saturday *wink*. This week's featured stamper is Mary aka Petal Pusher - I chose to CASE Stems with a Twist. So obviously there wasn't much I changed, but that is really the point I suppose. I qualified for some free Sale-A-Bration items, so I chose the Love & Happiness rub-ons and holy cow, they are fabulous! Super easy, super sticky, and look fantastic. On this card I tried something crazy and used 2 different rub-on sheets (old olive and chocolate chip) to create my vine. It would have worked brilliantly if I would have cut the rub-ons out. Instead I was lazy and thought "Surely this will work if I just stick the piece of paper in there and only rub off the images I need." Uh, well not really. I'll remember that for next time. So on the vine I have some oopsies - one extra branch on the right and then a chocolate chip leaf. It still looks okay though, right? I learned my lesson and cut out the flowers and "just because" on my scalloped circle. I love how you can overlap the images.

Things I changed: I trimmed down the chocolate chip layer 1/8" so I could use a white card base (easier to write a little note in), I used rub-ons instead of the Papertrey stamps, I changed the dot background to a little flower out of Little Flowers, I didn't have any old olive wide grosgrain ribbon, so I opted to double up some regular chocolate chip grosgrain instead.

Thanks for stopping by!

~Karen