new toys

I'm playing with more chipboard today AND a new set I just got called Fresh Cuts, which will be in the new catty this summer. Today's card is for Kristina's color challenge (already to 10!), old olive, bashful blue, not quite navy, so saffron, and whisper white. I am so loving this chipboard, so get ready to see it a bunch, hee!

Have a wonderful weekend!
~Karen

details -

stamps: fresh cut

paper: stampers select white (papertrey, ink), so saffron prints dsp

ink: not quite navy craft

accessories: old olive wide grosgrain ribbon, ice rhinestone brads, on board blossoms & basics, so saffron brad, flower fusion accents & elements, tombo multi adhesive, clear embossing powder, corner rounder, and the kitchen sink

pardon my rough edges

I'm early getting Beate's weekend sketch challenge finished - usually I'm rushing to get it done before the weekend is over, but I got some new chipboard to play with yesterday and the kids were playing so nicely together that I had some time to myself! After I assembled my cardstock on my chipboard piece I realized I don't have a sanding tool to get into those little flower petals to smooth the edges down. Guess that will go on my always growing wish list! I sanded the outer edges of the square, but the inside flower is a little scraggly. Oh well. Just pretend it's all smooth and beautiful, will you?

Thanks for swinging by!
~Karen

details -

stamps: absolutely fabulous

paper: cool caribbean, certainly celery, marigold morning cardstock, so saffron prints dsp

ink: basic black

accessories: friends & flowers simply scrappin kit, on board blossoms & basics chipboard, celery grosgrain ribbon, mini dot twinkle stickers (a.muse), stampin dimensionals

scalloped goodie box

Hello and happy Thursday! Have you all had a chance to check out the tutorials over at Splitcoaststampers? I have tried out a couple and loved the milk carton boxes I did for a stamp camp back in February - so today I give you the 5-in-1 template box which uses the 5-in-1 envelope template from Stampin' Up! Even if you don't own the template, you can use the sketch to make your own template. I have this cutie sitting on my shelf in the office and right now it's holding *naked* doll head clothespins that I use to store my ribbon on. Just a cute little storage box to liven up my desk. The box in the tutorial has the ribbon wrapped and tied over the entire box, but since I wanted to be able to take the lid off without undoing the ribbon I just placed the ribbon over the lid and tucked it under the sides with mini glue dots. I think I may do the ribbon over again when I get my chocolate wide grosgrain because I think the narrow ribbon gets a little lost on the large lid. Oh, another thing I did differently is I used chocolate chip cardstock for the bottom of the box and then wrapped the designer series paper around the edges of it. I just wanted the box to be a bit more sturdy than it would have been using the designer paper.

Thanks for stopping by today - see you back soon!
~Karen

Details -

paper: afternoon tea dsp, chocolate chip cardstock (bottom of the box)

accessories: 5-in-1 envelope template, chocolate chip grosgrain ribbon, mini glue dots

happy together

Today I thought I'd try something new for me - yeah, I realize I'm way behind the trends here, but that's kind of how I roll, ha! I've always wanted to try a circle card and thought I'd just bump it up a notch by using my largest Nestabilities circle scallop. Does it look like a clam to anyone else, hee!

Have a great day!
~Karen

Details -

stamps: happy everything

ink: soft sky, close to cocoa

paper: kraft, stampers select white (papertrey, ink), soft sky prints dsp

accessories: soft sky double stitched grosgrain ribbon, circle and circle scallop nestibilities die cuts

peanutbee

Hello! Did you all have a great weekend? Ours was so busy, but we had a blast. Michael's cousin and family are moving to Australia next week and we got together for a little goodbye party. We are really going to miss them, especially since their son is Avery's age and they get along so well together.

Today I'm playing along in another featured stamper challenge at Splitcoast. This week the stamper is Peanutbee, aka Denise over at The Paper Landscaper. I chose to CASE this card and I remember how much I liked it when I first saw it back in April, so it was so great to get to copy it. I changed the flowers to butterflies, but other than that the feel of the card is the same. I even copied all the fun bling! The ribbon is part of another variety pack from SU that has been hiding in my drawer - I reorganized my ribbon so I can see it all and won't be accidentally hoarding it anymore, yay!

Have a fantastic day - thanks for stopping by!
~Karen

Details -
stamps: short & sweet, priceless
ink: bashful blue, close to cocoa
paper: stampers select white (papertrey, ink)
accessories: su ribbon (retired and I can't remember the name), micro dot twinkle stickers (a.muse), stampin dimensionals

weekend sketch challenge 49

Happy Memorial Day! This weekend I was able to do Beate's sketch challenge and I decided to use paper I haven't used in a long long time as well as the matching stamp set. I can't remember the last time I used Cool Caribbean cardstock! I also used some of the fun dew drops that Allison sent me the other day and now I think I *need* some of those too. ha!

I've been playing with the settings on my camera and I think I've finally figured out how to get a clearer, brighter, more true to life picture. What do you think?

Thanks for stopping by - have a wonderful holiday.

~Karen

Details -

stamps: perennial favorites, amazing to zany

paper: cool caribbean, marigold morning, stampers select white (papertrey, ink) cardstock, four seasons dsp

ink: pumpkin pie

accessories: orange grosgrain ribbon (american crafts), nestabilities circle and scallop dies, clear dew drops, stampin dimensionals, corner rounder

happy birthday friend

On Sundays, Splitcoaststampers has a featured stamper challenge where you can CASE (copy and share everything) one of the stamper's cards and only change a couple things. This week the featured stamper is Dawn McVey - I love her style and I have been visiting her very fun blog for a while, so it was really great to get to copy one of her cards. I chose to CASE this card - I changed the colors and paper (since I didn't have any of the fun paper she used). The Spring Fling designer series paper was the closest I had, so I used the colors in that pattern.

Have a wonderful Memorial Day weekend everyone!

~Karen

details -
stamps: it's your birthday, amazing to zany
ink: versamark, sage shadow
paper: sage shadow, regal rose, so saffron cardstock, spring fling dsp
accessories: rose wide grosgrain ribbon, rose stitched grosgrain, so saffron button, clear embossing powder, scallop punch, 5-petal punch, mini glue dot, stampin' dimensionals

RAK from Allison

I recently received this beautiful card in the mail from Allison along with some fun flowers and dew drops that I'm so excited to use on a card soon. Thanks Allison - my first RAK! You can check out Allison's blog, Stampin' When I can.

The sun is bright and shining today, although we are again in a tornado watch, but I seriously don't think it will amount to anything. Thank you all SO much for all your well wishes - we are all just fine and all my friends that live in Windsor are all fine as well and only have minimal home/car damage if at all. If you are interested in donating funds for the town of Windsor, please use the Red Cross. They are taking cash donations at this time and will need food and clothing donations later on when everything is more organized. Also, if you are in the area, Highland Meadows golf course is donating 20% of its green fees to the Red Cross - so if you are or know a golfer, that is a great way to donate.

~Karen

a very frightening morning

This morning has been crazy here - we had 6 tornados in the area, so we spent the morning in the basement. Windsor, the town just to the east of Fort Collins was hit the hardest and there are 60,000 without power at the moment. This was such a random storm - first of all, storms here usually go west to east, but this morning they were all moving from east to west as they moved north. Plus, we don't usually get this kind of weather at 10 in the morning - thunderstorms are usually hitting us later in the afternoon. It is pretty freaky. Here is a picture from our local news of the tornado just east of Fort Collins near Windsor. Apparently the big storm is causing new tornados in Laramie WY. It's so bizzare! I've never been in this kind of weather - please send out a prayer for people who have lost their homes, farms and livestock today.
Karen

update - ok, here's a story for you. There is a daycare center in Windsor that was evacuated just in time (all the kids and staff went across the street to a bank and took shelter in the bank vault) and when the storm passed, the daycare center was totally demolished. What a fantastic staff to use the bank vault for shelter. All the children and staff are just fine, thank God.

The storms are finally calming down, but they just had another tornado touch down near Johnstown, which is about 20 minutes southeast of me. Yikes! My mom is visiting since yesterday (she lives only about an hour away) - she came up for my daughter's preschool graduation yesterday and can't leave today since the highway is right along all the storms path today. I'm so glad she was here with me today - otherwise I think I'd be a complete mess. My husband works just outside Windsor and his office lost power, but that was all. He's home safe with me and the kids now.

Alright, that's all for now. We're off to play some games and just love on our family.

little cutie

Hi! Today I finally managed to make a Mojo Monday card from Julee Tillman's blog - this was a great one, especially if you like to use patterned paper. Go on over and check out her sketch and sample - so cute! I wanted to make a baby card and thought I'd change it up a bit by using kraft cardstock, not the usual baby blue for this one. Enjoy!

Thanks for stopping by -
Karen

details -

paper: soft sky, kraft, close to cocoa cardstock, soft sky prints dsp

ink: soft sky, white craft

stamps: nursery necessities

accessories: pewter hodgepodge, soft sky double stitched grosgrain, chocolate chip stitched grosgrain, stampin dimensionals

hoarding paper again

Today is Kristina's color challenge (and her birthday too!) and as I was looking for paper with the colors - so saffron, pumpkin pie, old olive, real red and tempting turquoise - I found an UNopened Simply Scrappin' pack. What?! It has all the colors for the challenge today (or so I thought, where's the real red?) and is perfect. This one is called Party Pieces and it matches the stamp set, Eat Cake. It's retired now. So hop on over to Kristina's blog and wish her a happy birthday and you have to see what her co-workers did for her. She has to have the most fun at her office. So not like mine back in the day.

See you back soon!
~Karen

details -
paper: pumpkin pie cardstock, party pieces simply scrappin' kit
ink: white crafs
stamps: eat cake

accessories: fire rhinestone brads, american crafts ribbon, white embossing powder

go confidently

Happy Wednesday! Today I needed to make a card for my brother-in-law's girlfriend who is graduating from Northwestern University. I found a fantastic layout for a card in the Spring-Summer Collection (pg 177) and wanted to use the design for such a long time, so cute - kudos to the designer! I punched out the flowers in different patterned paper in the Afternoon Tea series paper and used my 3/4" circle punch to add the cut-out on the side to hold the ribbon.

Thanks for swinging by! Have a fantastic afternoon.

~Karen

details -

paper: soft sky cardstock, afternoon tea designer series

ink: chocolate chip

accessories: mini dot twinkle stickers from a.muse, soft sky double stitched grosgrain ribbon, flower punches from ek success, 3/4" circle punch, stamp-a-ma-jig (stamp positioner)

mother's day

Hi! I do plan to post again very soon - life has been a little busy here with a jam packed Mother's Day weekend. Now I'm up to my eyeballs in baby clothes trying to sort out the old to make room for the new (gotta love getting ready for garage sales). We did have a wonderful weekend though and I got to get out to a movie with my sister-in-law, alone, no kids, it was fabulous. Here is a little picture we took Sunday and as you can tell it was an extremely bright day, but it was wonderful. That's Andrew on the left, Katie in my lap, and Avery giving the camera her 'sweet as pie' pose.

Thanks for coming on by and I'll post something crafty soon!

~Karen

throwing me in the way back machine

Hello! So when I saw Kristina's color challenge this week I was shocked to see the same colors I just used in my previous card - whisper white, bashful blue, pumpkin pie, and brilliant blue - dare I say 'great minds'? Ha! It was difficult for me to come up with another card though, but this one will do. I like how simple it is and I can't believe I didn't add a single ribbon or rhinestone or girly thing! I really like these colors together - maybe it's because it brings back good memories of Broncos parties my family went to when I was a kid - all the m&m's, chips, cheetos, orange soda and really loud grown-ups yelling at the tv. I'm a huge Denver Broncos fan (I think you have to be if you are a Colorado native) and back in the Orange Crush days I had my bright orange shirt and did my parents proud. Of course I was only about 6, so what did I know?! Anyway - enjoy!

~Karen

details:

paper: bashful blue, jersey shore dsp

accessories: cream soda thickers (american crafts), large corner rounder

simple birthday

Hi! Has it really been 5 days since my last post? Maybe I was away on a fabulous vacation... nope. We just had a fantastic weekend and I didn't do anything creative. My mother-in-law invited us over for a bbq celebrating birthdays (mine and my brother-in-law) and she was so sweet to invite my entire family as well. It was so much fun - and yes, I forgot my camera!

So here is a card I quickly made today - short and sweet. I'm still in love with this Jersey Shore designer series paper - the colors are so vibrant and the patterns are very fun.

I hope you all are having a wonderful week - see you back soon! Thanks for swinging by.

~Karen

details:

paper: bashful blue, jersey shore dsp

accessories: making memories card sayings rub-ons, bashful blue grosgrain, heidi swapp bling (borders/clementine)

happy for you

It's Friday - yea! It was a busy evening in the Giron house. We watched our niece and nephew and were daring enough to take all the kids out for pizza. 5 kids, 5 and under, in one booth (ok, Katie was in her car seat, so that doesn't really count) and Michael and I were the book-ends. They did great - pizza was eaten, not thrown and pink milk was guzzled down by all except my nephew who didn't know what to think of it really. We were doing everything to get him to try it, but in the end Andrew was the one who got to drink it. Then it was off to the mall for some play time and Avery brought some of her own money to share with her cousins for the arcade. It was a fun night.

Alright! Tonight's card is for Beate's weekend sketch challenge and I finally used some of this ribbon that's been in my desk for, I don't know, 2 years? Shameful really.

Have a great weekend everyone. Thanks for stopping by!

~Karen

details -

stamps: happy everything

ink: basic black, certainly celery

paper: spring fling dsp, so saffron, certainly celery, whisper white

accessories: ribbon from SU, but I can't remember the name. It's retired anyway. stampin dimensionals