Tina's Birthday Card

Hi Everyone,

I made this for my sister Tina's Birthday - which is today!  You may have seen an earlier post about my recent visit home to NM where we got to go to the annual Balloon Fiesta in Albuquerque!  It was fantastic and yes, inspiring!

The stamps I used are from Frantic Stamper's own line of rubber stamps that were sent to me by Fran herself - totally by coincidence two weeks before I left for that vacation!  She had no idea that I was planning a trip to NM where I'd see these amazing balloons in person!  These balloon stamps are "Plate #116".

The balloons are paper pieced using Basic Grey's "Max and Whiskers" DP collection.  Once I had stamped and paper-pieced the balloons and sentiment as shown in the photo, I turned my balloon scene over and drew a rectangle in the center of the panel, then followed the lines to cut it out with my exacto knife.  I layered that inside piece onto black CS with a 1/8th mat, then reattached it to the base with dimensional foam. 

Happy Birthday little sister!! 

TFL, I'm so glad you stopped by!

Mary Engelbreit Card

Hi Friends,

This week's Featured Stamper over on SCS is Lynette (aka Lynniepoo) and this is a stamper worth checking out!  She has a wonderful CAS style and I found so many cards in her gallery that I saved for casing later!! 



For todays submission, I chose her "Stickers and Sending Prayers" card.  Since I am obsessed with 3-dimensional stickers and chipboard stickers, (I probably put Michaels or any of our LSS to shame with my collection!!) this was a perfect choice for me today.  I am always scouting for cards to make using 3-D stickers!   Lynnette's card used the Mary Engelbreit stickers -- which I bought from Mike's in the dollar bin -- and a very simple design!  I love what she did with it. 





I used Nestibilites scalloped rectangle and square to create a frame for the sticker, layered it onto a white card base that had a strip of miscellaneous DP across the length and then embossed lines above and below the strip.  I stamped the sentiment over to the right just like Lynette's.  The stamp is by "Morning Star" stamps. 

I plan to make a whole stack of these as a set now that I have a great, easy, layout to use!

TFL, I'm so glad you stopped by!

Penguins Make Me Happy

Hi All,

Penguin Fun

Ever since I saw the movie "March of the Penguins" I have been fascinated and charmed by those little guys!  So I was naturally drawn to the cute Penguin Fun Christmas set by Woodware USA.  I've been enjoying this set all week!

I made this card for the Inspiration Challenge over on SCS this week.  The website is "Poster Cabaret" and this is the poster that I used as my inspiration.



The embossing technique I used is cased from a card by Gail, aka "mamaxsix" -- she shared this fun tutorial with me, the results are gorgeous IRL!!

I die cut some trees with a christmas Cuttlebug die from last year (sorry, don't have the packaging anymore so I don't know the name!!) and then used a glue stick to glue all my pieces down in a random design.  Then I ran it through my Big Shot using SU! Square Latice EF.  It embeds all the pieces together and it just looks so cool!!  I added my Penguin image (that I had colored with copics and fussy cut) and some half back pearls to the trees and left it at that.

TFL, I'm so glad you stopped by!

Fun Critters!

Hi Friends,

These two cards were inspired by this week's Featured Stamper over on SCS.  Congratulations to Laurie (aka Immanut); her gallery is definitely inspiring!

Both cards use DP and the coordinating Chipboard stickers from the Basic Grey "Green at Heart" collection -- these are available at Frantic Stamper.  The sentiments and Rich Razzleberry ribbons I used are SU!

The gopher card (I think it's a gopher??) is cased after Laurie's "Crushed Curry Country Morning" card.  I liked kept her monochromatic theme and layout but used the chipboard pieces instead of a stamped image.





The owl card is cased after Laurie's "Punch Art Lion" card (which is super cute by the way!).  I kept her design layout, but again, used chipboard pieces as the main focal image instead of the punch art.

TFL, I'm so glad you stopped by!

Better Bit of Butter!

Hi All,

I'm hosting the Inspiration Challenge over on SCS this weekend and the website I chose is "Better Bit of Butter Cookies"!  I was attracted to the owner's CAS design style and that's how I ended up choosing her website.  OK, I admit, the cookies were tempting too!!

The cookie I went with as my inspiration is found here in the "Everyday Favorites" category.  It's the one on the top row, 2nd from the right, click photo to enlarge.  (Sorry, couldn't figure out how to isolate pictures of the cookies to show individually!)

"Flower Frames"

I used one of the flowers from this Woodware USA set called Flower Frames.  I repeatedly stamped the flower image in Versafine Onyx Black ink in the same pattern as the cookie design and then colored them with Copics. 

I layered the image onto black CS mat and tied a yellow dotted organza ribbon around it and added a small fabric rose.  That panel is adhered to the red, embosed CS square using dimensionals, and then onto a black mat.  I used he EK Success "Double Embossed Dotted Lace" border punch to create the scallop at the end of the front of the card base cover, then stamped a tiny solid flower from the same Woodware USA stamp set in red and black in the middle of each scallop.

Be sure to head over to SCS to play along in the IC this week!!

TFL, I'm so glad you stopped by!

New Mexico at it's Best

Hi All,

Had such a great time visiting with family and seeing so much beauty while home this past week!  We attended my cousin's son's wedding, went to the Balloon Fiesta, took the train into Santa Fe for shopping, eating and site-seeing, and had a great time with my family.   The weather was absolutely gorgeous every day, how I miss that about New Mexico!!  I enjoyed every minute!



I took tons of pictures at the Balloon Fiesta and posted some of them here on this Flicker Account:  2010 Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta   I hope you get a chance to view them. This is just one of those things that photographs can't compare to seeing it in person.  You must make it there at least once in your life time! 

Here on the left are two of my sisters: Tina (L) and Judy (R), with the amazing Jester Balloon.




This Noah's Ark Balloon was MASSIVE and fascinating with all the detail of the animals hanging off the sides!!  Just amazing!!  (Remember, more Balloon photos here!!)

In Santa Fe we did lots of site-seeing, some shopping -- mostly browsing (although DH did buy me a gorgeous necklace) and lots of eating!  The picture here is one of the many stained glass windows in the St. Francis Cathedral Basilica.

These are photos of some of the shopping, so colorful, so unique, and just such a great place to be!

Gorgeous, right?  It really was wonderful, I'm so blessed to have roots in New Mexico and understand the culture and the beauty of the area.  It is a wonderful place to visit, and a great place to call home!  I hope you get a chance to visit some time -- let me know if you do!!

TFL, I'm so glad you stopped by!

Going to a Wedding!

Hi friends,

I'm posting the card I'll be taking with me tomorrow as we leave for NM (home) for a big family wedding AND to see the annual Balloon Fiesta (which if you've ever seen it, you know why it's such a thrill every year!!).  This picture here "kind of" gives you a feel for what it's like -- it's almost overwhelming it's so gorgeous!! Getting to roam across the balloon field and stand next to the balloons as they ascend is part of what makes the event so unique and spectacular.  The view of hundreds and hundreds of colorful giant floating balloons overhead is indescribable (so I'll have to show you pics when I get back! LOL!)! 

 I've got some cards pre-posted for you for later this week so I hope you'll come by again later!

Thanks for visiting me!

Dear Friend

I can't stop playing with my Cosmo Cricket Togetherness DP and matching chipboard!!  I love the colors and cute animals in this collection.  Sigh...


So here's a card I just posted over on SCS as my Case of this week's Featured Stamper: Alison.  I chose her "Nitestamper Case" card to case...just in case (corny, boo, I know). 

As you can see, the sketch and sentiment are the same, but everything else is changed out to use what's been on my crafting table all week.

TFL, I'm so glad you stopped by!