Dad's Birthday

Supplies: SU: For Father, DCWV Metalic Mat Stack, Cranberry Crisp CS, Black CS. Crafty Secrets Ephemra, and YES!! Wallpaper (blue wood panel background). Embellishments: We R Memory Keepers corners, brads and eyelets, little saw is a brad from Eyelet Outlet, SU Crystal effects on all the apples, colored with Copics. I made this card for Dad's birthday. Masculine cards are always a challenge -- right girls?? Anyone have any advice for this dilemma??!! And wouldn't you know it, there are more 'boy' birthday cards needed in my family than girls. So, here we go, 2009 masculine cards!! TFL!!

Inspiration Challenge!

Oh it's great to be back to regular card making! This card is a two-fer: today's Inspiration Challenge -- see the inspiration info here MacKenzie-Childs -- and Joan Irvin's Doubledog Dare Challenge for this week. Joan wanted us to get out those Spring stamps -- flowers, butterflies, spring things!! I am so so glad to oblige!! I love flowery stamps, butterflies, and all things girly!! I made this card using some of my awesome wallpaper. Yes!! It's wallpaper from one of my many discontinued wallpaper sample books...and I'm gonna use it to death!!! You wait and see! I cut out a set of flowers from one of the wallpaper designs and placed it over a panel that I had stamped with Print Pattern from SU. Then stamped the "Thanks" from Illuminations in Versamark and embossed with black EP. Matted onto another black panel and it was done. Does this say Spring to you Joan? Sweet Dreams everyone!! Anne

My Favorite Things 2008

For the last four years, my sister Judy and my daughter Leslie and I have stopped buying Christmas presents for each other. Instead, we exchange "My Favorite Things". The concept is that we have busy lives, don't get to stay in touch as much as we would like, but definately would like to share all the great things going on in our lives. So we decided that on Christmas, we would fill a shoe box with "our favorite things" to give to each other so we can share our favorite things with each other. The shoe box is actually esoteric, it can be a bag, a letter, a tape recording, whatever. It's what we put inside that is the gift; it's not about buying presents for each other, it's about sharing our lives with each other. So we prepare a box of our favorite things to give to each participant (same contents in each box) and our only "rule" is that what we put inside has to be our favorite new things of the year. We can choose to buy the favorite things to put in the box, or just write about them, or put something in the box that represents that favorite thing (like a web page, a ticket stub, an empty shopping bag). This present ends up being the best one we each get every year. We always stop and open the boxes together, talk and laugh and share about what is inside, and in the end, we get to know a little more about how each other's year went, share great recipes, events, finds, laughs, or any other favorite things that happened to us throughout year. So, I thought I would share with you what I put in my "Favorite Things' box this year. Victoria's Visit this Summer -- My niece Victoria visited for two weeks this summer as her HS Graduation trip. It was so much fun spending time with her and getting to know her better. I put a picture of the stamp set Victoria made me and a paragraph about how much fun we had together. New Fireplace and Pergo Floor -- DH updated our den by retiling our fireplace and putting in a hardwood pergo floor. I love it, it's gorgeous, and it's extra special because he did it himself! I included a picture of the work he did. Paper Fringer -- I bought a Paper Fringer to add to my paper crafting collection. I made some flowers for them with my fringer and put them in the box. Hosting SCS IC -- First time I ever got to host a challenge on SCS! I gave them the links to the challenges I hosted. Susan Paley vases -- I started a collection of Susan Paley Lady vases, I love them!!! The ladies have holes in their hats to hold flowers. I bought a couple of them and put them in my box of favorite things so Judy and Leslie could each have one. I usually get them off of eBay. Wallpaper -- Discovered how cool and cheap (free!) wallpaper is for card making. I made a trinket box and pillow box out of wallpaper for my sister and daughter to put in their boxes just to show them how cool it is to work with. See my blog entry below for pics! Ursi's Blog -- Came across a non-stamping blog that I LOVE and am addicted to. It's like a capsule of all the fun and coolest websites on the internet. I included the link for them to check out. My Blog -- Started a blog this year and it's been so much fun discovering the buzzillion other blogs there are out there. The virtual friends I've made are my favorite past time! I printed out a few pages from my blog to give to them and they are now the first ones in my family to know I have one! Mufalatas! -- I found a great olive salad in a jar that makes the yummiest mufaletas on the planet!! I bought a jar to put in my box to give to my sister and daughter. Frances and Dolores' Summer visit - my two cousins from NM visited this past summer and we had the best time with them. We went to all the thrift shops and dollar stores and to Canton Texas for the worlds largest outdoor flea market! While we were there I picked up a couple of the cutest little angel magnets -- I saved them to put into my Favorite Things box to give to my sister and daughter. We had so much fun with my cousins that I wanted them to have a memento of the fun time we had together this summer! Toby Mac "Portable Sounds" CD -- my favorite CD this year -- a Christian rapper, which is a first for me! I am usually way more "old fashioned" than this and have never really "warmed up" to rap music!! But I loved this CD and I gave sister and daughter each a copy of it. I highlighted "I Don't Want to Gain the Whole World and Lose My Soul" as my Favorite Song this year. My Favorite Shows were "House", "Private Practice" and Martha Stewart. I printed out a still from each of these shows to include in my box. And there you are, that was what was in My Favorite Things for 2008!!

Wallpaper!!

This is really really really so cool I can't stand it!! Run to your neighborhood paint store -- one that also sells wallpapers. And ASK THEM IF YOU CAN HAVE THEIR DISCONTINUED WALLPAPER SAMPLE BOOKS!! I promise, you won't be dissappointed...!! I stopped in at the neighborhood Wellborn Paints a few weeks ago and they were thrilled to get rid of their books -- they needed room for their 2009 wallpapers. I walked away with 12 books!! The papers are gorgeous!! I love them! They're heavy, textured, and you can die cut them, emboss them, use them to layer, use them on chipboard, use them on scrapbook pages, etc. etc. And they're free!! FREE! Just think, you're recycling, you're saving money, you can't go wrong! Pleeese!! You gotta try them out!! And when you finally get your hands on a book (or two, or three!), you have to let me see the cards and projects you're making using them!! OK, deal?? :) p.s. DDC gals, betcha can you see the next challenge I'm hosting coming from a mile away LOL!!

Thomas Kinkade - I'm in Love!!

It's been weeks since I've blogged...and stamped...but life brought priorites. My sister Judy had an abdominal hysterectomy (I know, TMI !!) on Thursday (Dec. 18) so I spent several days before that getting ready for Christmas so that I could devote my time to helping her out while she was in the hospital. I stayed with her in the hospital (and wow, the hospital was Hollywood caliber) and then stayed with her the first night when she went home. So I didn't get much hobby time, but the important thing is, she's recovering as expected and I am greatful!

This is Judy So! Now I'm home again, all the Christmas shopping, wrapping, baking, mailing is done. And that means I have time to stamp!! Woo Hooooo!!! Today I worked on getting caught up with my stamping challenge obligations from the last couple of weeks.

Supplies: Thomas Kinkade image, SU Short & Sweet stamps, brads, Nestabilities, Copics, Crystal Effects, brads, Versafine Black Ink, paper piercer, wallpaper, Pale Plum, black, and white cardstock.

This card is for Julia's (aka artystamper) DDC for last week. She sent the Doubledog Dare gals a Thomas Kinkade image to create a card with. I love coloring, and I love the detail, so I couldn't wait to get started on this.

I started by coloring the image with copics. I used a black fine pen to redraw the well's lines and some of the stones so the image stood out a little. Next I covered the well with Versamark and embossed it with clear EP. I masked over the oval shape of the frame and sponged Rose Red and Summer Sun ink outwardly from the image. Then I used Flower Soft in Heather and Lilac to make all the flowers around the well look dimensional. Matted the picture several times in black and Pale Plum cardstock and the bottom layers is wallpaper. (See wallpaper chatter above!) Finally, I die cut a Nestabilities bookplate tag and punched out the Word Window shape from SU to frame the sentiment. Attached that with brads. Yeah, it took awhile, but I enjoyed getting lost in the image and seeing it come to life.

Thanks for checking in! Anne

A Baby Card - Basic Dry Embossing

Supplies: Brass Stencil by Lasting Impressions #L9001, Stylis, Light Box, bit of ribbon, white and Pink cardstock

I totally enjoyed making this card, so fast, easy to clean up, and limited supplies needed!! This is for a montly challenge my friend Joanne (aka SleepyinSeattle) and I are doing with each other to get us using supplies and stamps that we hardly use now that we own them!! This month we're doing dry embossing. I learned this technique early on in my stamping career. (Nah, it's not really a career, just sounded good.) Since then, I've collected maybe 40 or 50 brass stencils of every kind...and I bet I've only made a dozen or so cards with them. See why this is a great challenge for us!! I'm am really going to try to use this technique more often, really.