It's A Loopy Thing

Happy New Years Eve!!! Can you believe that tomorrow starts a new year? Our plans for tonight are low key, my DH is going to take our two older kids to the movies then pick up dinner and come home to snuggle in for the night, make sundaes and watch the ball drop.
I haven't had much stamping mojo lately, I think I'm just coming down from all of the holiday busyness and need to take some time to catch up. One of my resolutions, for this coming year is to make sure I get more sleep at night, that means going to bed at a reasonable time every night. Ever since having my two year old my sleeping patterns have been messed up and I know I don't get enough rest especially since I have mornings like this morning were I got up at 4:45am with our two year old and didn't go to bed until well after midnight. How about you, do you have any plans for tonight or resolutions for the new year?

For these two cards today I used the sketch from Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge from this last Saturday and fun new Stampin' Up stuff! The stamp set and designer paper is from a level 4 hostess set (It's a Loopy Thing) from the new Spring-Summer Idea Book and Catalog and as a demonstrator I was able to order this bundle (stamp set, designer paper and rub-ons) before the catalog comes out on January 19th. I'm excited to get my hands on the new catalog and see all of the great new stamp sets and products! The cards are 4 1/4" square and I used my SU square punches for the images and then my Nestabilities for the mats after I colored the images with my Copics.

Supplies: It's a Loopy Thing - stamps and paper, Upsy Daisy, Copics: B00, B02, R27, R29, T0, T3, E35, E57, Nesties, Square punches, Ribbon, Buttons, Linen thread, Piercer w/mat, Pop dots. Colors: Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss, Pretty in Pink, Basic Grey, Whisper White.

Have a Happy New Year!

A Note of Thanks

The last few days our family has been busy cleaning up from Christmas, the gifts are put away and the house was cleaned up and today the tree was taken down since it seemed to be a huge beacon for our 2 year old. We've also been working on cleaning our basement, a few weeks ago my husband build some wonderful large wood storage shelves under the basement steps and now this week were going to be building some walls to enclose this area which will be our storage area. Our basement has been a work in progress for the last two years or more and I'm excited to get a little more of it completed and de-cluttered.

Today I created this thank you card and tea holder for a friend, I used the Karen Lockhart stamp Lavender & Primrose and the new Laura Ashley Designer Paper, both of these items can be found at Susana's Custom Art & Card Design store. I heat set the image after stamping it with Brilliance ink and then colored it with my Copics, then I cut and embossed the image using my Nesties and added some Spica glitter pen.

To create the tea holder I cut a sheet of card stock 9 3/4" x 3 1/4" then scored length wise at 3 1/4" and 6 1/2". The third panel then needs to be cut on a slight angle and folded in to create the pocket for your tea bag. If you plan on using a larger sized tea bag I would cut your card stock 3 1/2" x 9 3/4" to allow for more room.

Supplies: Lavender & Primrose - Karen Lockhart, Thank You Kindly & Say it with Scallops - SU, Laural Ashley designer paper, Rectangle Nestibilities, Spica glitter pen, Ribbon, Pop dots, Baubles, Scallop edge punch, Scallop square punch, Copics - R20, R32, R14, R27, BV02, BV04, YG95, G99, T0. Colors: Night of Navy, Blue Bayou, Whisper White.

Christmas Beauties

SFYTT - Bella

Can you believe its the last Saturday of the month already? I knew this month would fly by with all the rush of the holidays. It's been fun this month being Jen delMuro's guest designer, I've enjoyed creating cards using her wonderful sketches and being a part of her team.
For the sketch today I used the Stamping Bella stamp i-wish-i-looked-so-good-on-a-bike-ABELLA and stamped and colored her using my Copics, then cut and embossed the image out using my Nesties and added some Spica glitter pen and Grape Stickles. The Posies Glitter Print designer paper is from DCWV and the card stock is Elegant Eggplant, Bashful Blue and Whisper White. I used the stamp set Best Yet for the saying and added three gems to the lower right corner to finish it off.


You can see Jen's beautiful creation as well as the card that I created as Jen's December's Guest Designer here. You can also find out how to play along and see all of the great card samples from Jen's Stampin' friends Amy R., Amy S., Carole, Shannan, Susan.

Hope you enjoy your weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Anything Goes Bellaholics Challenge

Well another Christmas is over, I hope all of you enjoyed the holiday! I was spoiled with lots of fun stuff from a bundle of Copics in my stocking, a great new chair for my craft room, goodies galore and a box of Prima flowers, gems, brads and a cute T-shirt from my daughter. Santa brought our family Wii Fit so that we could all have fun and exercise and after all the food and goodies we all ate over the last two days were really going to need it, I'm still stuffed from dinner last night, ugh!

On to the post, it's the fourth Friday of the month which means it's time for another Bellaholics Anything Goes Challenge! As the Anything Goes Challenge Queen for the Bellaholics Anonymous Yahoo group I thought it would be fun if we could create a Stamping Bella card or project and use the Spotlighting technique. I've seen this technique done several different ways, one way is to not add any color to your image other than the spotlighted area, another is to color the whole image as you normally would and add a spotlighted focal point on something in the image (ex: cupcake, beverage, flower) and the other as I've done is to use muted colors to color your image and add a pop of bright color to the spotlighted area. I think all of these different ways of using this technique look good and would love to see what you can create using the technique of spotlighting! This challenge is not just for Bellaholics Yahoo group members so please feel free to jump in and give it a try! If you create a card/project for my challenge please leave me a link to your project on this post.

Thanks

Merry Christmas

I'd like to wish each and every one of you a Very Merry Christmas!

May Your Holidays and New Year be filled with Happiness!

Thank you for your visits to my blog and wonderful comments

that help to make my days brighter!

Simple Christmas Cards

These were a few Christmas cards that I had made a while back using two Itty Bitty Lockhart stamps and a sketch from Beate. The cards are smaller sized cards and measure 4 1/4" square, the back ground Real Red panel was partially embossed using a Swiss Dot Cuttlebug folder and the images were cut, embossed and and matted using my Nestabilities dies.

I really do love these IB Lockhart stamps and how fun they are to color and make into cards either alone or grouped together.

Supplies: IB Mittens, IB Snowman, Season Greetings - Karen Lockhart, Me & My Big Ideas designer paper, Nesties, Copics, Martha Stewart snowflake punch, Ribbon, Brads, Gems, CB embossing, Small circle punch, Pop dots. Chocolate Chip, Real Red, Whisper White.

I hope your holiday preparations are going well and that you have some time to stop, relax and enjoy the season because before you know it, it will be 2009 and another Christmas will have gone by!

SFYTT - Hot Cocoa

Today is Jen's Sketch for You to Try and the card above is one of the samples I created as her guest designer for this month. Even though this Like It a Latte SU stamp set is retired I still love using it. The steaming cup of hot cocoa with marshmellows makes me thing of when I was a kid and how I would get so bundled up to go outside in the snow and mom would make me put bread bags over my socks to keep my feet from getting wet. I'd play in the snow until my hands were numb and after playing outside in the snow for so long I'd come inside and my mom would make me a big mug full of hot cocoa. I try and do the same thing for my kids when they've been out playing in the snow except they don't use bead bags to keep their feet dry, lol.

We got several inches of snow yesterday, so much that people couldn't get out of the court we live in and the schools were closed. The snow looks beautiful covering everything but its not so fun if you have some where to go.

To see Jen's lovely card and the other card that I made for the sketch as well as the directions on how to play along, hop on over to Jen's blog. For more wonderful samples using this fun sketch visit Jen's Stampin Friends: Amy R., Amy S., Carole, Shannan and Susan!

Content-to-be-a-bella

The snow is headed our way, were suppose to get any where from 6-10" of snow starting tonight and going into tomorrow. My kids are hoping for a snow day tomorrow and I'm wishing I had gotten some of their presents wrapped earlier this week when they were in school and I had the chance to get it done. Tomorrow is their last day of school and then their out until after the new year.
I made this Content to be a Bella card for my daughter who says she never gets anything in the mail. My daughter Gabrielle is a sweet hearted eleven year old girl who is a good student, has lots of friends and helps out around the house by doing her chores and also helps to keep an eye on her little brother at times. So I thought that I would make her a card and drop it in the mail to brighten her day and to let her know how much she's loved.

Supplies: Content-to-be-a-bella, Thinking of You - Stamping Bella, Doodle Butterflies designer paper - The Paper Studio, Nesties, Flowers, Gems, Ribbon, Pop dots, Copics:E00, E21, R20, RV17, BG45, YR16, YR68, YR31, YR23, B00, Clear Spica glitter pen. Colors: Lavender Lace, Pink Passion, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White.

O' Christmas Tree

For this Karen Lockhart Christmas tree card I used some non traditional colors and decided to go with a red and blue theme with a little gold mixed in. The tree was stamped using Brilliance ink and colored with Copics then I cut and embossed the image with my Nesties and added a mat and pop dots. The red back ground panel was embossed using my Swiss Dot Cuttlebug embossing folder. After the card was assembled I added some Champagne Designer Stickles to the string of beads running through the tree and the star on top so that the whole image would sparkle.

Its late so my post is short, my day was filled with running errands and getting more Christmas shopping done.

Thinking of You ~ Groovy Angel

For today's card I used one of the new Angel stamps from Susana's Custom Art & Card Design and I have to say that this image is so sweet and I enjoyed making a card with her. I started out by stamping this Angel image twice then colored just the legs on one image and all but the legs on the other. Then I used my circle Nesties and cut and embossed the full colored image and trimmed the legs and attached them from the other image. After assembling my card I added crystal effects to her eyes, Gold Spica glitter pen in her hair, Clear Spica pen on her dress and flowers and dazzling diamonds on her wings and a yellow gem in the center of the flower on top of her head. She really is very glittery IRL and looks so dreamy staring off into the distance.

Supplies: Groovy Angel, Warm Regards -SU, Nesties, Basic Grey designer paper, Ribbon, Cuttlebug embossing, Spica glitter pens, dazzling diamonds, crystal effects, Copics - Face:E00, E21, R20, Dress: RV10, R83, R85, Hair: Y11, Y15, YR23, Flowers: B21, B23, Y11, Y17, YG95, Out line: B000, T0. Colors: Brocade Blue, Regal Rose, So Saffron, Whisper White.

I'm just about ready to leave the door for a doctor appointment because I've been putting off going even though I know I have an ear infection. Today I woke up feeling like I was under water with more achy pain so I guess its time to go in.

Thanks for stopping by!

SFYTT - Merry & Bright

Happy Saturday everyone! It's time for Jen's Sketch for You to Try, this is one of the cards that I made as the guest designer for the month of December. To see Jen's fantastic card and the first card I created you can visit Jen's blog i{heart}2stamp, you can also find the rules on how to play along with this fun sketch! For this Christmas card I used a circle shape image instead of a square like the sketch because that's the only image I could find to work with this smaller sized card. I used some retired Dashing designer paper and the stamp set Merry & Bright for the snowman, the Merry Christmas stamp is from the Season of Joy stamp set and the rest of the card is pretty straight forward.

Be sure to visit Jen's Stampin' friends to see their creations using the sketch Amy R, Carole, Shannan, Susan.

Well my Christmas cards are done and mailed, the tree and decorations are up and my shopping is close to being done but not all the way. How about the rest of you are you ready for the holidays?

You're Absolutely Fabulous ~ Jane

Today I'm featuring a card that I made using a Rubber Romance stamp called Jane and when I look at this card the song "Diamonds are a Girls Best Friend" comes to mind because Jane is all dolled up in her little black dress and loaded with Bling! This image of Jane is so pretty and was fun to color, but not only that, Robin Ireland the owner/designer of Rubber Romance donates $1 from every "JANE" stamp sold to Breast Cancer Research. Well Susana the owner of Susana's Custom Art & Card Design carries a large selection of Rubber Romance stamps including Jane and is going to match a $1 for every "Jane" Stamp she sells from her store and donate it to Breast Cancer Research as well. So not only would you be purchasing this fabulous Jane Rubber Romance stamp but your purchase would also go to fund research for Breast Cancer.

If you click on the close up of my Jane card you can see that I used my Copics to color and then added some Designer Series Tiara Stickles to really give the diamonds she's wearing the sparkle they needed! Then I took my Clear Spica glitter pen and added more sparkle around the diamonds and my Red Spica pen to add shimmer to Jane's lips. That's what makes this image so fun, other than coloring her, its adding all the glitter to her bling!

Stop by and visit the rest of Susana's design team to see all of their fantastic Jane cards and don't forget to visit Suzanne's blog and Susana's store for a chance to win some fabulous Rubber Romance Candy!!! Hurry you only have until this Sunday to win!

Suzanne ~ Scrap Bitz

Danni ~ Danni's Dreams

Anki ~ Kortfralst

Susan ~ Stamping Tink

Christine ~ StampynWife's Space

Supplies: Jane - Rubber Romance, Sentament - computer, Making Memories designer paper, Copics - E00, E21, E35, E99, T0, T3, N7, N9, Ribbon, Tiara DS Stickles, Red & Clear Spica glitter pen, Nestabilities, Gems, Piercer w/mat, Pop dots. Colors: Basic Black, Whisper White, Red card stock.

Bella-riffic Birthday Card

This Bella Birthday card is for the Bella-riffic Friday Challenge which was to come up with a card using Stamping Bella stamps that would be for a celebration. My inspiration for this card came from this fun designer birthday paper that I got from my talented friend Jeni (pop on by Jeni's blog and take a look at her scrapbook pages, they'll blow you away).

Supplies: Cakeabella, Happy Birthday - Stamping Bella, It's My Party designer paper - Heidi Grace Designs, Copics, Ribbon, Brads, Pop dots. Colors: Pink Passion, Certainly Celery, Pixie Pink, Whisper White.

I had a question.........is anyone ever interested in knowing what color Copic markers I use on each card? If the answer is yes then I would gladly list the colors I used or take a small picture of the Copics I used and post it along with the card.

Hydrangea Bittybloom ~ Happiness

Yes another Bittybloom flower card, I've been having so much fun creating these circular Bittybloom cards that now I want to make a whole collection! I've had a few people ask how I made the flower cards that I've posted so far so I decided to show step by step directions on how I did them. I used my Nestabilities on all of the flower cards I've created.

Step one: Stamp and color your image, then cut and emboss the image using your Nesties circle die and add a mat.

Step two: To make the card base for this card I used the largest Nestibilities circle die I had (on the other flower cards I used the largest scallop circle die) and took the color card stock I wanted to use and cut it length wise just a little larger then the die.

Step three: After cutting your card stock to size you need to score it for the top fold of your card. I took and placed my card stock and die on my Scor-Pal and scored just under the top portion of the circle die (for this card it was 4"). So when the die is cut the front and back sections will still be attached (see photos below). Then I folded and trimmed down my card.

Step four: Next I cut the base of my card by running it through my Big Shot (notice how the circle die is over the edge of the card stock so it won't get cut).

Here is what my circle card base looked like after cutting. Once I had the base cut, for this card I used my 1 3/8" circle punch and added petals and then attached my matted image to the center.

If you have any questions please email me.

Supplies: Hydrangea Bittybloom - Stamping Bella, Happiness - SU Warm Words, Nesties, Copics, Ribbon, Brads, Spica glitter pen, Circle punch. Colors: Elegant Eggplant, Lavender Lace, Whisper White.

RAKs

Cheers!

Today's card is something that I created using a Rubber Romance stamp from Susana's Custom Art & Card Design called Samantha. For something fun today and a chance to enter for some YUMMY Rubber Romance blog candy head on over to Suzanne's blog and for another chance to win stop by Susana's store because she has some awesome Rubber Romance web candy that shes giving away to one lucky winner! Good luck!

Make sure and stop by to see all of the wonderful cards that the design team members have created in honour of this fun give away:
Suzanne Dean(lead designer) of Scrap Bitz
Susan Dube (guest designer) of Stamping Tink
Danni Bindel (guest designer) of Danni's Dreams
Christine Riley (guest designer) of Stampyn Wife's Space
Anki (guest designer) of Kortfralst

After stamping this sophisticated (sex in the city, lol) Samantha image out I used my Copics to color her and then used a new Gold Spica glitter pen and added several lines of shimmery gold to the hair around her face. Then used the clear Spica glitter pen and out lined her black dress and shoes to give her some sparkle. I also used three Stampendous Silver Dot Sparklers on the punched out photo corner and some square pink gems and ribbon.

Supplies: Samantha - Rubber Romance, Cheers - Stamping Bella, Copics, Spica glitter pens, Photo corner punch, Ribbon, Gems, Pop dots. Colors: Basic Black, Green Galore, Pink Passion, Whisper White.

Have a great day!

Super Exciting News!!!

A few months ago Jen del Muro emailed me after I had participated in one of her fabulous sketch challenges and asked if I would be interested in being her guest designer for the month of December!!!! I actually had to read her email several times before it sunk in and once it finally did I thought I would fall off my chair I was so excited! I immediately emailed Jen back and told her that I would love to be Decembers guest designer! So that's my Super Exciting News, I'm so thrilled and honored to have this opportunity to design with Jen's sketches and to be Decembers guest designer on i{heart}2stamp! Thank you Jen!

You can see Jen's beautiful creation as well as the card that I created as Jen's December's Guest Designer here. You can also find out how to play along and see all of the wonderful card samples from Jen's Stampin' friends Amy R., Amy S., Carole, Shannan, Susan. So I hope you'll give this sketch a try and play along this month! The card above that I created using Jen's sketch hits the nail on the head, cause I'm going to Enjoy Every Moment of this month!

Supplies: Enjoy Every Moment, Little Flowers, Maine Blueberry designer paper, SU markers -Bashful Blue & Old Olive, Ribbon, Button, Brads, Circle punches, Word Window punch, Photo corner punch, Scallop edge punch, Coluzzle, Piercer w/mat, Pop dots. Colors: Not Quite Navy, Old Olive, Bashful Blue and Whisper White.

Thank you so much for stopping by!

SC205 - Silver Snowflake

Can you believe that Christmas is only a few weeks away? I've been trying to get things accomplished for the holiday, yesterday we took the kids to have their Christmas pictures taken and this weekend I'm going to finish addressing our Christmas cards so that I can hopefully mail them out the beginning of next week once I get their pictures back. I still have a bunch of Christmas shopping to do so maybe this weekend I can get going with more of that too. Then there is the wrapping, the baking and the out door lights......oh boy!

Enough about all that, this card is for this weeks sketch challenge over at Splitcoast Stampers, I used the large snowflake from the stamp set Snow Swirled and heat embossed it with silver embossing powder. Then punched the snowflake out with the large circle punch and matted it with silver metallic and Night of Navy and added a rhinestone brad.

Supplies: Snow Swirled, Silver embossing powder, Circle punch, Coluzzle, Ticket corner punch, Ribbon, Brads, Pop dots. Colors: Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Silver metallic, Whisper White.


PS the winner of the Bella Anything Goes Challenge from last Friday is Tammi! Skip on over to her blog and take a peak at her pretty Polly Packages Christmas card that she paper pieced! Tammi if you could email me with your snail mail I will mail out your images and surprise.
Thank you to all that played along with my challenge!

PSS stop back at my blog tomorrow morning, I have more exciting news to share!

Sunflower Bittybloom

Happy Friday everyone! I had so much fun making the Rosy Bittybloom card yesterday that I wanted to make another so here she is little miss Bittybloom sunflower! Two of my favorite flowers are roses and sunflowers so of course she had to be next. I colored this Bittybloom image using my Copics then cut and embossed the image using my Nesties and then added yellow Stickles (have you seen the new Designer Stickles, I can't wait to get my hands on it), this card has so much sparkle to it IRL. Then I used my Nesties again and cut the scallop circle out and took my scissors to cut in between each scallop to create petals.

Supplies: Sunflower BB, Warm Words - SU, Copics, Nesties, Ribbon, Stickles, Brads. Colors: Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Summer Sun, WW.

PS did you see the new Bella's, Bittyblooms and more on Em's blog? Don't forget to join in on the fun tonight over on the Stamping Bella forum on SCS, hope to see you there!