For the Super Kid - Card Cupids

Guten Tag!  Thought I would go with the German that I am trying to learn to say "hello" this morning, haha! No joke there, I am really trying to learn German.  Slowly.  But surely.  That's what I keep telling myself anyway.  Ok, on to the stamping...

If you have been around before, you might remember me doing a couple of cards for Card Cupids.  They do challenges each month, and collect cards to give to kids along with a lot of other things in times when they can use a real pick-me-up.  I love making cards for kids, so it gives me a really good excuse to play and I have a great place to send my cards.  Now that the move is over, I can finally play along again!

The current challenge is to use ribbon, twine, or washi tape.  I went with twine on this one...

SUPPLIES

Jelly Beans stamp set - My Cute Stamps

Mix n' Match Kids stamp set - SP & Company

Background Stamp - TAC (retired)

Markers - Stampin' Up

Nestabilities Labels 22 - Spellbinders

Divine Twine - SP & Company

VersaMark Ink

When I was thinking about a background for these little birds, I immediately thought of the wood grain stamps that are so popular right now...which I don't actually have.  Started looking through what I do have and came across this old background from TAC.  While it is not actually supposed to be wood grain, the look is very similar and it saves me from buying one.  Lesson learned....don't forget to check your stash and see what you have before buying new!

Happy Stampin',

Michelle

WOYWW #163 - Having Fun With Unity!

Good morning!!!  It's Wednesday and that is something to be happy about.  Not only is it mid-week which means Friday is growing closer, but that also means it is time for WOYWW (What's On Your Workdesk Wednesday)!

I have not done a WOYWW post in many, many weeks.  For those of you who do not know, we just made a major move.  From California to Florida!  With the exception of the time we moved to England when my hubby was in the AF, this is the biggest  move we have made.  I can now say we have literally moved from coast to coast!  Have to say I don't want to do that again, anytime soon.  Moving is such a pain in the caboose!

Recently I rewarded myself with some new stamps to ease the moving pains.  Hee hee :)  I actually sat down and played with them last night and made this card.

Both stamps are from a set called Insightful Meadows (Unity Stamp Company).  I am in love with this set!  Actually, the hubby actually likes them too!  Can you believe that?  They were sitting on the kitchen counter, he picked them up and proclaimed them to be "very pretty".  I told him I am going to get a stamp made that says "These stamps have been husband approved."!

You can't really see it in this picture, but the flowers are all sparkly.  I stamped them in black, then stamped over them again with some VersaMark ink and embossed them with some glitter embossing powder.  In person they *dazzle*!

OK, on to the desk...

Not too terribly much going on, since we just moved and I am still working on getting everything unpacked, sorted and put away.  The movers were not so great at keeping things together.  I swear, some of the boxes looked like they had taken my stuff off of the shelves, mixed it all around on the floor, THEN picked it back up and put it in boxes.  Stuff was THAT jumbled in the boxes.  Ugh.

Yoshi has already reclaimed his throne, back up on top of my lamp there and you can see some of the new stamps I ordered there.  I am looking forward to getting all of the organizing done and spending lots of quality time with my new craft room.  Loving it so far and will share more pictures next week!

Pop over to see Julia at Stamping-Ground and visit more craft spaces all over the world!

Thanks for stopping by,

Michelle

SP & Company - July Blog Hop!

This month's color is Royal Blue! After you're done hopping around today, make sure you play along with this month's Royal Blue challenge (click here for details) for a chance to win some amazing SP and Company prizes!

Are you itching to win some stuff???!!! Then don't forget that the random prize patrol is watching! Leave a comment on every blog to be eligible for the prizes!! The more blogs you comment on, the better your chances are of winning something fun!


So am I the only one who instantly thinks of the Jim Carrey movie "Liar Liar" when I hear Royal Blue?  You know that scene where he is trying to lie and say "the pen is red" and he ends up saying "the pen is ROOOOOYAL BLUUUUUUUE!!".  Hee hee....I love that movie.  Anyway, back to the stamping!

This month I get to show you a new project made with the brand new stamp Even Bolder Sentiments: Time to Celebrate.

This is another of those fantastic sentiment stamps that I LOVE!  The size is fantastic for cards.  This sentiment isn't going to get lost on the front of your card.  It is big enough to be the real focal point, which is what I did with mine today.

Sami sent me these awesome papers from the Playground Collection - Kick the Can (Echo Park).  I used the blue side for the main part of my card front, then cut a few of the arrows out of the flip side to point to the sentiment.  Are those arrows fun or what?

Make sure you check out the SP Blog to see what Samantha did with the new stamps! And don't forget to hop around to each Design Team Member's blog - there are brand new projects with the stamps that came out TODAY to inspire you!

Here is the list of designers that will inspire you today:

Chrissie
Vicki 
Kelli
Michelle --You are here!
Amber
Vera

Thanks for stopping by,

Michelle

Happy Surfday!

Happy Sunday, everyone!  Hope you all are enjoying your weekend.  Still deep in the unpacking mode around here, so no major weekend happenings except getting rid of more boxes.  Yuck!  I did manage to sneak some stamping time though.  Gotta have a sanity break, right?

During the summer it seems like we are always getting invited to birthday parties with luau or beach themes.  I have already told you how much I LOVE the Paradise Beach paper from Echo park, so I decided to make a beachy (making up words now) cake with it!

To make the cake, I just cut three rectangles from the patterned paper that I chose.  No exact science here, you can make your cake as big or small as you would like.  Just start with your biggest layer on the bottom and work your way up to the top, getting smaller as you go.  Easy peasy!  Now you can make a cake from any papers you like.

I rounded the corners of the tops of my layers with a corner rounder.  Instead of candles on top I cut three of the little surf boards from the patterned paper and glued them on top.  Once those little surfboards hit the top, this was dubbed a "Surfday" card.  Ha!

The sentiment is from Bold Sentiments III: Birthdays (SP & Co.).  It is stamped on cream colored cardstock in brown ink.  I trimmed then end to make the banner and mounted it where it hangs off the side.

Whatever you are doing this weekend, try to stay cool!

Thanks for stopping by,

Michelle

CSAYL - Vellum Challenge

Did you realize that we are more than half way to Christmas already???  Doesn't really seem possible, does it?  Time just flies.  Get a jump start on your Christmas projects and come play along with us over at the CSAYL blog!

This weeks challenge is Vellum.  Vellum is awesome for Christmas projects!  The whiter vellum papers go perfectly with all of those snowy/wintry scenes. This week I have made a tag for my challenge project.

I started out with a piece of patterned paper that I cut using my Nestabilities Labels 22 (Spellbinders) die.  I cut a strip of vellum to go across the middle.  The bottom edge is ripped, just to make it look a little more interesting.  "Ho, Ho, Ho" (Hero Arts) is stamped directly on the vellum. 

 For the tree image (Lawn Fawn), I stamped it on two different patterned papers (Echo Park), trimmed them out, then pieced them back together.  The very top and left side actually hang over the edge of the tag.

Now, I love Lawn Fawn, so I am very happy to finally get to play along with a Lawnscaping challenge again, too!  The current challenge is...

One of my favorite ways to add dimension is with Liquid Applique!  I added some white Liquid Applique along the edges of the tree, and under the stump to give it a cool, snowy effect.  Just hit it with your heat gun and watch it puff right up off the paper.  So cool.

Now it is your turn.  Go dig that vellum out of your stash, or go add some to your collection!  Be sure to visit the CSAYL challenge blog and link to your project for a chance to win this weeks prize!

Thanks for stopping by,

Michelle

Getting Settled In the New Craft Room

Hello!  I know it has been pretty quiet around here for quite some time and that is because we have just moved across the country.  Literally from one end to the other...CA to FL!  It has been a very long process of getting everything ready to move on one end, getting a place to move to on the other, and now the settling process has finally started.

We have moved many times, including an overseas move, and we have never had as many problems with the moving company as we did this time.  Our household goods were split into two shipments, the first truck got here on time, but the second did not.  Long story short, they kept giving us the runaround, changing the delivery date, and were horrible to deal with!  Finally got our second shipment though, so that is finally OVER!

And what was in that second shipment? Why...my entire craft room, of course!

My table is so clean right now.  The normal heaps of papers haven't formed yet.  Shouldn't be too long though and I will be right back to having to unearth my table before I can work on anything.  Yoshi is already perched back up there on my lamp where he belongs.

I believe that is the LAST box of craft stuff to be unpacked that you see sitting there.  Never know though, until all of the boxes are gone, one could show up anywhere.  A kitchen box ended up in our bedroom, so anything is possible, LOL!

Still have a lot of sorting and organizing to do, but I can actually use my stuff again, so I am happy!  With everything going on, there were several projects that I made that didn't get blogged.  Here is one that I did for the SP & Company team blog.

I love the black, white and red color combo!  Definitely one of my favorites.  The hat stamp is from Father's Day Fun (SP & Co.), and the sentiment is from Mix n Match Kids (SP & Co.).  The hat is paper pieced with a couple of really fun patterns.

In this second picture you can see the sentiment is overlapped a little and stamped in two different colors.  I tied a little bit of black twine around the middle and topped it off with a bit of black ribbon.

Definitely won't be as long between posts now that we are finally getting settled!

Happy Stampin',

Michelle

Make Your Chalk Pop!

Good morning everyone!  Today is my day over on the SP & Company team blog, and I have put together a little tutorial for a really cool coloring technique you can do with your chalks!


With this technique, you are going to use your chalks to give your stamped image a fantastic POP of color, like the sentiment in this card that I have made.

For this card, I have used a plain white card.  I stamped the hat and mustache from Fathers Day Fun in black ink.  I then stamped my sentiment that I put together with Mix n Match Kids, using VersaMark watermark ink.

You can see the sentiment after it has been stamped in this picture.  There is no color to it, just a watermark image.

Now for the fun part!  These are the chalks that I have used for my project.

Next, you can see where I have started to add the chalk to my project.  You can use whatever applicator comes with your chalks, q-tips, cotton balls, whatever you choose to apply your chalks.  Pick up the color you want on your project and start rubbing it in a circular motion over the image you stamped with the VersaMark.

You can see that the VersaMark ink is picking up more color than the paper around it.  This makes your image POP!  Just keep picking up more chalk as needed and gradually build up the color until you are happy with it.

Here is a close up shot of my sentiment after I finished with the chalk.  The words are nice and bold, with a halo of chalk around it.  Very pretty with the shimmer chalks!

This is such a fun coloring technique.  You can do single images, sentiments or entire backgrounds.  You can also play around with using multiple colors for some great effects!


Happy Stampin',

Michelle