You Have to Kiss A Lot of Toads ...

Happy Saturday!

Today's card doubles as my sample for both Jen del Muro's Sketch For You To Try and this week's challenge over at Our Creative Corner. I'm so accustomed to making cards with one main image panel, so I loved how this week's SFYTT forced me to think outside my box. The OCC challenge this week is to use at least two hearts. The Bittersweet background paper is full of them, plus I added two hearts to one of the toads. The images, from Anna Wight's Fish Friends by Whipper Snapper Designs, have been colored with Prismacolors and Gamsol. The sentiment is computer generated. Here's a look at the inside:



I'd love to give this to someone getting married or celebrating an anniversary. So fun!

For more SFYTT samples, visit Jen and guest designer Kirsten DuBosque at i{heart}2stamp, Amy Rohl, Carole Burrage, Kelly Lunceford, Shannan Teubner, and Susan Liles. To play along, link up your project as a comment on Jen's post. If you upload to SCS, remember to use keyword: SFYTT.

For more OCC samples, visit the OCC blog or visit the individual designers' blogs: Cindy Haffner, Dawn Easton, Denise Marzec, Jackie Pedro, Jennifer Meyer, Julee Tilman, Kim Teasdale, Laurie Schmidlin, Lynda Benden, and Silke Ledlow. To play along, link your creation to the OCC blog. If you upload to SCS, use keyword: OCCC.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a great weekend!




Stamps: Fish Friends (Whipper Snapper Designs)
Paper: Bittersweet (Basic Grey); Chocolate Chip (SU!)
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black; Old Paper and Walnut Stain distress inks (Tim Holtz/Ranger)
Accessories: Prismacolors, Gamsol, blending stump, circle Nestabilities, vintage brads, paper piercer, narrow chocolate twill by SU, Offray wide brown twill, foam tape, sewing machine, BossKut flourish die
Size: 5 1/2" square
Note: The sentiment is computer-generated. Font is New Courier.

Viva La Verve

Have you checked out the new Viva La Verve sketch challenges? Verve Diva Amber Hight has been putting out some great sketches on Fridays, and each one has a "twist," or extra requirement. And you know how it is with Verve, right? It pays to play - Julee is always giving away something! The deadline for the January challenges has passed, but be sure to watch the Verve Member Company Forum on SCS for February's sketch challenges and get started early. (Do as I say, not as I do ... LOL! This is actually last week's sketch, but I really, really liked this sketch and wanted to try it!)

The three flowers are stamped on some dp by Around the block, heat embossed, and trimmed out. The white layers are all a heavy, textured watercolor paper. I picked up a tablet of a new-to-me type of watercolor paper a while back, since my local store was out of my preferred kind. I ended up not liking it for watercoloring, but it looks great as a card stock substitute.

Thanks for visiting!



Stamps: Meditations (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Mellow Moss, Baic Black (SU); watercolor paper (Canson); dp (Around The Block)
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black (Tsukineko)
Accessories: clear ep, vintage brads, paper piercer, dimensionals (SU); black satin ribbon (Offray); lace border punch (Martha Stewart)
Size: 5 1/2" square

Verve Project Parade - Caught Being Kind

Today is my turn to post in the Verve Stamps "Kid At Heart" Project Parade. If you haven't tuned in yet to the parade so far, be sure to visit the Verve Stamps blog. There are some really darling project ideas!

I've created a little project inspired by my son's elementary school. I love his school's Caught Being Kind program, where teachers can award children who go above and beyond normal good manners and kindness, and the children who are caught have their names read on the next morning's announcements.

I know you'll be shocked {wink}, but my 8- and 5-year-olds (one boy, one girl) sometimes have "issues" getting along. Sound familiar? I'm thinking Caught Being Kind would be a great program to try at home as well. The idea is pretty much the same as the school's. Mom and Dad issue the awards, but instead of having their name read during announcements, the child will get a Caught Being Kind ticket at dinnertime and the family will make a big fuss over both the child and the act of kindness. To make the whole ticket thing a little more exciting, I created a special book to store the tickets. I love that they'll be able to keep track of how many they've earned, but even more, that they'll be able to read back through them as a reminder of what they did to get each ticket. Right now, I'm thinking we'll let them cash in their tickets for special rewards, like a movie date or a special breakfast out with Mom or Dad.

The cover and inside pages are cut using Stampin' Up's Top Note die. The title is done with JustRite Stamper products. I embellished with two brown-embossed hearts from Hundred Hearts. The inside pages are Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, and Baja Breeze, accented with scraps of Sassafrass Lass dp and stamped with the background pattern from Hundred Hearts.

I didn't want to set myself up for having to make a whole new page for every ticket, so I designed the inside pages to hold removable tickets. As they redeem their tickets, we can take them out and keep re-using the pages of the book.

The book I'm showing today is for the 8-year-old boy. I'll make something more girly for the 5-year-old next. (Had to get the harder one done first!)

Want to play along and be "A Kid At Heart?" To play, just link your project to THIS POST and you'll be entered to win a $25 gift certificate to Verve Stamps. Please be sure that your entries are linked there no later than 8PM (Mountain) on February 5th. The winner will be announced on the Verve blog on February 6th. Have fun and good luck!



Stamps: Hundred Hearts (Verve Stamps); JustRite Stampers
Paper: Very Vanilla, Chocolate Chip, Baja Breeze (Stampin' Up); dp (Sassafrass Lass)
Ink: Chocolate Chip (SU); Old Paper and Walnut Stain Distress Ink (Tim Holtz/Ranger)
Accessories: 7Gypsies book ring; SU ribbon, ticket punch, slit punch, jumbo eyelet, Top Note die, paper piercer, 1/4" circle punch, crystal effects, dimensionals; BossKut die; Spellbinders die; brown embossing powder; Pink Hedgehog Paper Crafts burlap string

One of A Kind

By the time this post goes live, I should be on an airplane headed to CHA! Woohoo!! I'm so excited to see all the latest and greatest in the industry and even more, to meet other stamping friends who will be there! I promise I'll take pictures (which is much better than being IN them).
Today I have two projects. Both of my Saturday challenges are sketches this week. And fun ones! This first card is my sample for Jen del Muro's Sketch For You To Try. Take a peek at the sketch over on i{heart}2stamp. That little area in the upper right where the horizontal band starts out as the top layer on the left side, but goes behind another layer on the right side (I'm probably not explaining it very well) gave me fits! On my card, the solid red horizontal strip's disappearance behind the red dotted vertical strip just looked too abrupt. I decided to add the burlap string to literally and figuratively tie it together. I can't wait to see what the other SFYTT girls did in that area. Speaking of SFYTT girls, there's a new kid on the block. Please give some love to the newest sketch sampler, the fabulous Kelly Lunceford (aka atomicbutterfly on SCS)!

Jen del Muro and guest designer Kirsten DuBosque
Amy Rohl
Carole Burrage
Kelly Lunceford
Shannan Teubner
Susan Liles

Wanna give the sketch a try? Just upload your project to your blog or SCS (SCS keyword is SFYTT), then link up your creation to Jen's post. Hope you can play along! And here's something all you SFYTT fans won't want to miss: Jen has a blog blinkie for the SFYTT sketches now! To add it to your blog, all you need to do is follow the instructions HERE. I{heart}sketches ... how 'bout you?

The adorable daisy and ladybug image is from Anna Wight's new Fish Friends set, available at Whipper Snapper Designs. The sentiment is from Friendly Expressions, also one of Anna's new sets. I stamped on white and colored with Prismacolors and Gamsol. I stamped the image a second time, colored and trimmed out the flower only and adhered it on top of the first one with dimensionals. The sentiment banner is just a little bit contoured so it bows outward in the middle. The paper is Twitterpated by Imaginesce.

Next up is my sample for this week's sketch challenge at Our Creative Corner. Our January host, Jennifer Meyer, put this one together. I thought it would be perfect to use with these two fish, also from the Fish Friends set. The sentiment is from Friendly Expressions.



I watercolored the circles first, using a Taken With Teal re-inker (I know, can you believe?! I might even need to re-order Taken With Teal card stock with my next Stampin' Up order ... who'd have thought?). The fish are stamped separately, watercolored (Summer Sun, More Mustard, and Really Rust), trimmed out, and coated with Crystal Effects. The bubbles are a separate stamp and I stamped those onto the backgrounds, then dotted one set of bubbles with Crystal Effects. Why not the other? I forgot :) Except for the two brads, all those Taken With Teal circles on the middle panel are just punched 1/2" and 1/4" circles coated with Crystal Effects. The designer papers are from Nana's Nursery Baby Boy Collection by DCWV.

Don't forget to take a look at what the other OCC designers came up with. You can see all the samples together on the OCC blog, as well as individually on the designers' personal blogs:

Cindy Haffner
Dawn Easton
Denise Marzec
Jackie Pedro
Jennifer Meyer
Julee Tilman
Kim Teasdale
Laurie Schmidlin
Lynda Benden
Silke Ledlow

A special welcome and thanks to Carla, aka cmsuto, who joins us as our guest designer this week!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

Owl Always Be There For You

Today I have another look at An Owl for All Seasons by My Favorite Things. I'm lovin' this sweet, sweet set and have more ideas sketched out than I'll ever have enough stamping time for! Another thing I'm lovin' is the adorable Chloe's Closet line by Making Memories. I found the paper and tons of coordinating embellishments at my local Michael's recently and can't put it away. It's so cute!

I stamped the owl and a bunch of leaves onto Vintage Cream cardstock by Papertrey, then colored everything with Copics, and trimmed it all out. For the background, I first used an air art tool to speckle the panel with SU Bashful Blue. Then I heavily sponged the edges with SU's Buckaroo Blue. The sun is just a circle punched from Barely Banana and attached over the bacgkround. I used dimensionals to attach the owl and some of the leaves. After I had the card design all laid out, the bottom left corner of the image panel was looking a little bare. I tried buttons, brads, ribbon, but they all made the card look cluttered. I ended up adding just a little bit of piercing -- enough to break up the negative space, but not overpowering or distracting.

Speaking of My Favorite Things ... two new stamp sets are being released TODAY: Heartbreaker from the BC Dzyns line, and Paper Doll Sayings from the MFT Presents line. Some of the DT have put together an awesome blog hop for the occasion -- it all starts at Kim's blog! It's also What's Up Wednesday (WUW), which means a WUW challenge (this week hosted by Jessie Rone and having to do with ribbon), a "How'd They Do That" (this week hosted by Frances Byrne and featuring digital papers - she has some really cool tips and tricks!), and an awesome WUW Hook-Up (special pricing on the BC Dzyns Release Bundle and a free ribbon spool for the first 50 orders).

Happy Wednesday!

[Edited to Add: For the time being, I have removed my post from this past Tuesday. Some anonymous commentors were taking my reflections on the inauguration in an entirely different direction than I intended and some unfair (IMHO) assumptions were made. There are public forums on the internet for discussing the political and moral issues of our day. I do not wish this to be one of them. If you'd like to correspond, I will gladly accept personal emails (my email link is in the upper left corner of this blog, just below my picture). Fair warning - further blog comments on these issues will be deleted. Thank you for your cooperation!]



Stamps: An Owl for All Seasons (My Favorite Things)
Paper: Papertrey Vintage Cream; SU Kiwi Kiss, Buckaroo Blue, and Barely Banana; Making Memories "Chloe's Closet" dp
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa, Buckaroo Blue
Accessories: circle nestabilities, distressing tool, Copic markers, paper piercer, Making Memories button and ribbon, SU Bashful Blue marker, air art too, binder clip and scalloped edge punch

Whipper Snapper Featured Designer

Good morning! I have such fun news to share today! The one-and-only Anna Wight has invited me to be a Whipper Snapper Featured Designer for January and February. I adore Anna's whimsical style of illustration, and am so excited to work with these new sets. Thank you, Anna, and thank you Whipper Snapper for this opportunity!

There are two new sets this month, Fish Friends and Friendly Expressions. I chose to work with Friendly Expressions first. I love floral images of all kinds, and the wonderful assortment of friendship sentiments could work well for so many different occasions, or for those wonderful "just because" cards that are so fun to send and receive. I am certain I'll get loads of mileage from this set! Take a look:



Are you checking to make sure you're at Pickled Paper Designs? Yes, I really did make this! I know it's a departure from my usual, busier designs, but I really like the vintage/shabby/a little-bit-country look! I colored the flowers with Copic markers, then added some speckling using an air art tool and a Bordering Blue marker. Most of the layers have been sponged with Antique Linen distress ink and roughed up using an edge-distressing tool. I coated the flowers and leaves with Crystal Effects. The sentiment banner is an idea I got from Anna herself - I can't seem to stop making them! Such great alternatives to the ubiquitous tag (not that I have anything against tags, lol).

Check out the rest of the featured designers. I'm so honored and happy to do this alongside these talented stampers:

Beth Matson
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/ematson
Blog: http://nevertoooldtocolor.blogspot.com/

Jackie Pedro
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/strappystamper
Blog: http://thescallopededge.typepad.com/

Lisa Zappa
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/lzappa
Blog: http://shabbychickjunk.blogspot.com/

Tosha Leyendekker
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/stamps4funinCA
Blog: http://stamptalkwithtosh.blogspot.com/

And of course ...
Anna Wight
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/sweetmissdaisy
Blog: http://sweetmissdaisy.typepad.com/

Before I go, I want to share two more things ... First, Verve's monthly Project Parade has begun today on the Verve Stamps blog. Jen del Muro kicks off our kid-themed parade with an adorable tic-tac-toe project - you must see it! Second, stop by the My Favorite Things blog or MFT SCS forum to see this week's Weekly WOW, a new feature you can find every Monday!!

Thanks for stopping by,



Stamps: Friendly Expressions (Whipper Snapper Designs)
Paper: Vintage Cream (Papertrey Ink); Buckaroo Blue, Chocolate Chip, More Mustard print (SU!); gingham dp from Chloe's Closet by Making Memories
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Accessories: Copic markers; crystal effects, air art tool, Bordering Blue marker, distressing tool, paper piercer, vintage brads (SU); button (Making Memories); burlap string (Pink Hedgehog Paper Crafts); Argyle Cuttlebug folder, sewing machine

Irresistible

I couldn't resist the corny post title, since this week's OCC challenge is Emboss Resist. When I first thought about this technique, I'll admit it sounded so five-years-ago. I think this was one of the very first "wow" techniques I learned as a beginning stamper. I wanted to try something more up-to-date, so I stamped Flourishes' Damask background onto a River Rock patterned paper from the retired Brocade Backgrounds SU pack, clear embossed and then heavily sponged River Rock ink onto it. The result is that the embossed parts show through to the background pattern, while the rest is a little more solid-color-looking. The flowers and sentiment are from Verve's Meditations set, and the black stem/vine thingy I created by cutting BossKut's Scroll die into pieces and rearranging a little. The flowers are coated with Crystal Effects. The ivory panel is cut with Nestabilities and then a smaller square Nestability is embossed inside.

Here's how the emboss resist looks in more vibrant colors. This time I stamped onto one of the patterns from SU's new Raspberry tart paper. FYI, I also added some speckling using the air art tool with Baroque Burgundy and Basic Black markers. The speckling looks pretty wretched in this photo (lol), but in real life it looks nice - trust me :)




Be sure to check out the challenge details at Our Creative Corner, where you'll also find samples from all the OCC designers. For more chitchat, visit their individual blogs:

Cindy Haffner
Dawn Easton
Denise Marzec
Jackie Pedro
Jennifer Meyer
Julee Tilman
Kim Teasdale
Laurie Schmidlin
Lynda Benden
Silke Ledlow

Hope you can play along! Remember to use keyword: OCCC if you upload to SCS!

Next is my sample for Jen del Muro's Sketch for You to Try:



You can see the sketch, Jen's sample, and guest designer Kirsten DuBosque's sample at i{heart}2stamp. Carole is roughing it in Aspen for the weekend, but the other "SFYTT girls" will have their usual awesome samples:

Amy
Shannan
Susan

The cross and sentiment are both from a new set called He Is Risen from Our Daily Bread Designs. I stamped the cross onto ivory card stock, trimmed it out, then sponged with Antique Linen and Walnut Stain distress inks. All the designer papers and flower embellishments are by Prima.

As always, you're warmly invited and encouraged to play along! If you upload to SCS, remember to use keyword: SFYTT.

Before I go, I want to acknowledge two awards I've been given recently. First, Danielle at Paper Inspirations by Danielle has nominated me for the following award. Thanks Danielle! I'm honored.

"This award is given to a blog that invests and believes in PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind of bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers!"

The rule of the award is to now pass it on to another 8 people who demonstrate this spirit. So, here is my list of some incredibly talented stampers and cardmakers. Please be sure to visit their blogs and appreciate their wonderful work. Thank you!

1. Jami Bova
2. Heather Rolin
3. Jennifer Meyer
4. Dawn Easton
5. Michelle Woerner
6. Jessie Rone
7. Michelle Rodgers
8. June Houck


Next, Lisa Hjulbert of The Craft's Meow has awarded me with the Butterfly Award.

Thank you Lisa! I, in turn, am to mominate ten fellow bloggers:

1. Jerri Jimenez: I can't wait to meet Jerri when I take her watercoloring class at CHA next week! (YES, I'm going ... Anaheim-bound, baby!)
2. Betty Wright
3. Kim Crawford
4. Silke Ledlow
5. Nancy Riley
6. Suzanne Dean
7. Amy Rohl
8. Jen Tapler
9. Christine Okken
10. Michelle Petermann


If you are so inclined, the idea is to pass this award along to 10 others, as follows:

Post the award logo on your blog
Add the link to the person who nominated you
Nominate 10 other blogs and post their links as well
Let those people know that they received the award

Thanks for stopping by!




Emboss Resist:
Stamps: Meditations (Verve Stamps); Damask (Flourishes, LLC)
Paper: Basic Black, River Rock, Very Vanilla, Brocade Backgrounds dp (all SU)
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black, VersaMark, River Rock
Accessories: clear embossing powder, sponge daubers, crystal effects, ivory taffeta, vintage brads, paper piercer, dimensionals (all SU); BossKut Scroll die; square Nestabilities (Spellbinders); Diamonds in the Rough Cuttlebug folder (Provo Craft)
Size: 5 1/4" square

SFYTT:
Stamp: He Is Risen (Our Daily Bread Designs)
Paper: Always Artichoke, Cranberry Crisp, Very Vanilla (SU); dp (Prima)
Ink: Cocoa (Close to My Heart); Cranberry Crisp, Always Artichoke (SU); Antique Linen and Walnut Stain Distress Inks (Tim Holtz/Ranger)
Accessories: burlap string (Pink Hedgehog Paper Crafts); flowers (Prima); deco brad (Making Memories); cornice border punch (Martha Stewart); vintage brads, distressing tool, Cranberry Crisp ribbon, paper piercer (SU!); Birds and vine Cuttlebug folder (Provo Craft); sewing machine
Size: 5 1/4" square