Halloween... NOT!

Good morning and happy Sunday everyone! It's a little late, but I'm finally getting my post uploaded... Blogger would not let me upload my card. Never had this problem before, but with ALL the computer problems I've had over the last few weeks, I should be surprised! Guess I will be "forced" to get another computer, we'll see. <sigh> Onward and upward is how I'm feeling right now! I've used the adorable little cupcake kitty digi from 2 Cute Ink Digis. Just love this little image! Hope you do too. :-)

Supplies:

Stamps - cupcake kitty digi (2 Cute Ink), Seize Cupcake (Hero Arts)

Cardstock - red and blue (stash), pattern paper (Chloe's Closet)

Copics - B0000, B000, B21, B23, B41, YG0000, YG00, YG01, YG03, YG13, R20, R24, R30, R32, R35, R37, RV06, RV09, E70, E71, E74, E77, E93, 0

Ink - Staz On Jet Black

Other - Spellbinders oval & scalloped oval, cherry ribbon (stash)

Don't forget to join us at 2 Cute Ink for our bi-weekly challenges (on Fridays) and the FREEBIE, which will only be available for a limited time! You will be inspired by the Design Team's cards and when you enter your card, you will be entered to win 6 digis of your choice from the 2 Cute Ink Digi Shop. Check the blog for challenge details.

Hope the rest of your weekend is wonderful! See ya again next Sunday!

Hugs, Margaret

Halloween... so soon?

Good morning and happy Sunday everyone! Today I thought I would post a card that I did with the theme (orange, purple & black) for the weekly challenge at 2 Cute Ink. I'm not much of a Halloween person, but the images at 2 Cute Ink are perfect for those cute and fun cards. I loved making this because it was simple, fun, and turned out totally adorable (if I may say so myself!). I only wish that I could have captured how sparkly the orange gems looked. I had to use the camera in my phone due to technical issues with my laptop. :-)

Supplies:
Stamps - pumpkin love (2Cute Ink)
Cardstock - purple from stash, unknown pattern paper
Copics - YR21, YR12, YR16, YR18, E33, E35, E37, E55, E57
Ink - Memento tuxedo black
Other - Spellbinders dies, orange gems, pop dots, Sharpie white water-based paint marker

Don't forget the new challenges and digi releases at 2 Cute Ink going on every Friday! Not only will you be inspired by the Design Team's cards, but when you enter your card (you must use a 2 Cute Ink image), you are entered to win 3 digis of your choice in the 2 Cute Ink shop! ALSO... keep your eyes peeled for a limited time FREEBIE!!

Hope your weekend is lovely! See ya next Sunday!

Hugs, Margaret

Double Delight

Good morning and happy Sunday everyone! Today I'm posting 2 cards because I missed last Sunday. I had (and am still having) technical difficulties with my laptop and have no access to printing or anything. With this first card, I really had it in my mind to make a birthday card, but it was screaming to be something else. Hope you like it...

Supplies:
Stamp - sail away lion (2 Cute Ink), Happy Retirement (Papertrey Ink)
Cardstock - blue lake (Paper Source), green (Bazzill), Big Dots Blue/Green (Deju Views)
Copics - tba
Other - buttons (Chatterbox), Spellbinders dies, Sharpie white water-based paint pen

I'll be the first to admit I'm not a cat person, but I think this image is totally adorable. I really wanted to stamp 'warm winter wishes' or something like that, but while looking through my birthday stamps, I found this one that I think fits perfectly. The kitty stamp is not currently in the shop, but will be soon.

Supplies:
Stamps - milk and cookies kitty (2 Cute Ink), wishing  you script (Saavy Stamps)
Cardstock - pink and grey from stash, unknown pattern paper
Copics - W00, W0, W1, W2, R20, R21, R81, R83, R85, E93, E25, E21, E23, BV01, BV04, 0
Other - Spellbinders dies, Prima flowers, tiny buttons from stash

****Don't forget that this coming Friday and every Friday thereafter, 2 Cute Ink will have a weekly challenge AND release new images. Cards by the Design Team will be posted using the new images and the theme for the weekly challenge to get you inspired! Enter your card (made with a 2 Cute Ink digi) and you will be entered to win 3 digis of you choice from 2 Cute Ink!

Everyone loves a FREEBIE, right? Well, keep your eyes peeled for a freebie that will be available for a limited time! While you're at it, check out 2 Cute Ink's shop!

Hope the rest of your weekend is beautiful and your week perfect! I've been good AND patient so I'm hoping that my computer will be fixed this week!! See ya next Sunday! ;-) 

Hugs, Margaret

School on Mars?

Good morning and happy Sunday everyone! Today's card wraps up the back to school theme with the up, up and away rocket ship by 2 Cute Ink Digital stamps. I just love the thought that maybe somewhere out there in the universe some mother is sending her child off to school. :-) This digi is not a traditional school stamp, but the minute I saw it, I knew I wanted to do a school card with it; especially since the rover recently landed on Mars.

I really wanted to do a sentiment that was related to Mars kids also having to go to school, but that just wasn't working out. So, I went through my buttons and found these fun school days buttons PLUS the little chalkboard. How fun! I knew exactly what I wanted to do with that chalkboard. Sometimes thinking outside the box *has* to go one step further. I used the Sharpie Paint pen in white for the writing. This is the oil based pen, not the water based.

Supplies

Image - up, up and away rocket ship by 2 Cute Ink

Paper - red and yellow cardstock from Paper Studio, pattern paper from DCWV

Copics - N0, N1, N2, N3, N4, N6, N10, Y28, E84, B23, B26, E000, E01, E02, E93, R22, R24, R27, Y13, Y19, R08, W0, W1, W2, W4, B0000

Other supplies - Spellbinders scalloped rectangle, Sharpie extra fine white paint pen, clear Gelly Roll pen, 3D glue dots, Dress Up buttons school pack

Hope the rest of your weekend is wonderful! Stop by the 2 Cute Ink Design Team blog and check out all the other Design Team members creations every day. Their talent will definitely inspire you!

Hugs, Margaret

Back to School

Happy Sunday everyone! It's that time again when we send out kiddies off to school. Here's a card that maybe won't make them feel so bad about it. I'm using the doggie backpack from 2 Cute Ink to celebrate their return to school and ours to sanity... Did I say that out loud? lol I also crumbled the "Back to School" paper because we all know this is what any paper that comes home from school looks like!

Supplies used:
Image - Doggie Backpack from 2 Cute Ink and typed words using DK Crayon Crumble font
Paper - Hobby Lobby cardstock, navy Stardream, School paper from DCWV
Other supplies - Spellbinders round & scalloped round dies, EK Success border punch, yellow and clear glitter glue (on backpack)

Hope you enjoyed this card. Don't forget to head on over to the 2 Cute Ink Digi Shop to take advantage of the 50% coupon code (2500FANS) before it expires today.

Have a wonderful day and happy stamping til the next time!

Hugs, Margaret

Playing with Dots

My previous post talked about the Sharpie Poster Paint and regular Paint Pens. Here are a couple samples I made this past week using the paint pens.

Stamps: Hero Arts full blossoms 1, single blossom 2, profile blossom 3, bud blossom 4; SU! Whimsical Words

C/S: various from stash

Ink: Memento black, SU! taken with teal & wisteria wonder

Copics: B60, B63, YG23, G07, BG10, BG13, BG15, V12, V15, V17, B21, YR61,YR65, YR68, R81, R83, R85, R89

Markers: Sharpie Paint Pens - pink, purple, lime green, white; black BIC Mark-It; black Micron pen 05

Supplies: 3/8" satin orange ribbon; SU! wide & scalloped oval punches; orange, green & peach adhesive gems

Stamps: SU! Pun Fun

C/S: SU! night of navy, real red & whisper white

Ink: SU! night of navy, real red, basic grey, & glorious green

Copics: 0, N0, N1, N2, N3, E50, E93, R81, R83, R85, B0000, B000, G19

Markers: white Sharpie Paint Pen

Supplies: Spellbinders classic & scalloped  ovals; SU! scalloped & oval punches; 1/2" white ribbon w/red polka dots; pop dots

Hope you enjoyed the cards. Got a few more I'm working on. Hopefully my next post will have cards using digi stamps in them. I've been in the "collection" phase of these stamps; I think it's about time I start actually using them! :-) Have a great weekend!

Happy stamping til the next time!

Love My Stamping Bellas!!

I have so many Stamping Bellas and I love every single one of them! Not only do I love them, but Holly (my daughter-in-law), loves them as well. She isn't into stamping like I am; however, she appreciates the handmade cards she receives as well as making cards for special occasions. I get such a kick out them being her favorites because whenever she wants to borrow stamps to make a card, I know just which ones she will likely go for. She does a great job too. Her and my son make their annual pig roast invitations every year together. I'm still trying to get them to make Christmas cards. :-)

Last week, before the "creative funk," I made these cards that had been sitting in my to do bin for at least a year. Hope you like it...

Stamps - Stamping Bella Balloonabella; A Muse spiral daisy, astro flower & sakura
Cardstock - Neenah avalanche white, GP white, pink & red from stock, scrap pp
Ink - Memento tuxedo black; SU! pretty in pink, real red, & lavender lace
Copics - R20, R21, R22, E000, E01, E11, YR23, Y23, E35
Supplies/Tools - A Muse sheer red ribbon, 1.25" sheer heart ribbon (Michaels?), small heart punch
Technique - paper piecing


My favorite piecing is the middle card. The colors are so soft and pretty. Haven't decided if I should make these Valentines, I love you or some other type of card. I guess the hearts make it look more Valentines like. 

Keep an eye out for the next part of the organizational series. I'll do my best to get that done this week. I'm thinking paper is the next subject. A lot of people have questions on the best way to organize paper. This doesn't mean I have the best way, but I can show you how I do it and hopefully it will help you.

Til the next time...

The Creative Process

Sometimes it's so hard to create. The idea is in your head but for some reason it doesn't translate to physical form. I think I've been in a "creative funk" for the last week. Several days ago, I wanted to make a Mother's Day card using one of Inkadinkado's new BlockArt stamps. As usual, I picked out my pattern paper and cardstock. I stamped out the image and proceeded to color it with my Copics. Then... BAM! Nothing. Nada. Very frustrating!! Normally I stamp an image several times so I can color it in different ways to see which color combo I like best. No matter what I did, I could not get the image to work out with the card I had created. I was stuck with a completed card but no image or sentiment that I particularly liked.

Thank goodness this doesn't happen to me very frequently, which is just fine with me because it makes me crazy! Now, the card is finished. This is the first time I've used so many papers on one card. Hubby thought it looked busy, but then he also didn't like the red hair on my Stamping Bella Goodluckabella. Anyhoo, I'm about as happy as I can be with the result. The sentiment is not what I had in mind, but I didn't have a sentiment that would fit in a circle. Oh well... better luck next time!

Stamps - Stamping Bella Ivy Ketto, Hero Arts On Mother's Day

Cardstock - BoBunny Alissa twirls & spunky pp, heidi grace reagan's closet pp, Hobby Lobby textured cardstock, SU! basic black & tempting turquoise

Ink - Memento tuxedo black, SU! green galore

Copics - YG0000, YG21, YG13, YG17, YG25, E00, E11, BG11, BG13, E27, E33, Y15, Y17, R81, R83, R85, 0

Supples/Tools - Martha Stewart border punch, BoBunny Alissa flowers, SU! marina mist 1/4" grosgrain, SU! pretty in pink 1/8" tafetta, 1/4" leaf satiny ribbon, pearls, light green gems, black buttons, Recollections black round gems, Tattered Angels glimmermist: patina, tutti fruity, hula hoop, SU! decorative label punch, Ranger glossy accents, Studio G glitter writer

I love how the flowers turned out on both cards. Several years ago I bought silk tulips at one of the local craft stores. They were so pretty because the petals had been treated with something to make them look like they had been rained on. I have always liked that look so when I was trying to figure out something to do with the petals, other than putting glitter glue on them, I thought about the rain touched tulips. I don't know which flowers I like better. They both turned out pretty. 

The button idea is from one of the Prima Live classes. I thought I had a bunch of black buttons. I do, but unfortunately, they are all too big to be the center of the flowers. I only had 3 that were small enough so I ended up using the 1/2 round plastic gems from Recollections. In my opinion, the buttons make more of a statement. The upside and best part is that now I have something else I have to shop for! Ya know, no matter how much you have, it's never enough...

Happy stamping til next time!

Catch-Up and Sharing

Lots, lots, lots, lots, lots has been going on since I last posted. Apparently, summer is a bad time to blog. At least for me it is, or maybe just this year is a problem, I don't know. Due to chronic back pain, once the weather breaks and it's nice outside (or even steaming hot), I am outside. The hot weather actually helps somewhat with my back pain. I am also an avid reader and love to garden to the extent that I can. In my last post, I think I mentioned that I had been working on a small garden for 2 months. Lots of work and I can only do so much at a time which is why it took me so long to get done. Is gardening ever really done though? The watering, weed pulling (try not to do that so much), transplanting, fertilizing, etc. takes a bit of time each day. In between I read, read, read. I have probably read about 50 books in the past 3-4 months! I love going to The Book Lady to trade in my books and get some "new" ones. Sometimes they are new and sometimes they are used and old, but the price is right!

Anyway, on to my short back story. Several years ago I fell down some stairs at our house. I thought everything was fine, but as each day came and went, I was getting worse. I did have surgery, unfortunately there were other things that started to come up physically after the surgery. Nearly the last 8 years have been spent in constant pain. I have been on so many medications, gone through depression, had so many spinal injections, a nerve burning, and finally because there was nothing left to try, my doc suggested going through a trial for a spinal cord stimulator. Since I had nothing to loose, I decided to give it a try.

The trial went well, but was EXTREMELY painful because I had to be completely AWAKE for the whole thing! It was like nothing I've ever felt. Why is it a male will equate the fact that you've had a baby with you being able to stand any amount of pain you could possibly go through? Anyway, a few days later, I could tell there was some relief and decided to go ahead with the actual installation. It's been 4 weeks since I had the surgery, which I was knocked out for thank God!! This procedure is by no means a cure for my problem, it kind of (hopefully) just takes the place of taking all the medicine. THAT, is something I can't wait to do --- get off all the meds. The hardest one to get off of will be the fentanyl patch. I've already tried doing it too fast and have experienced withdrawal symptoms. Not fun! So instead of getting off the patch in a month like I wanted, it will probably take a few months. Can you tell I'm a bit impatient? The stimulator interrupts the signal of pain just like the meds do sort of masking the pain, but I think the stimulator does a much better job. I am still limited to what I can do because I can still get flare ups from over doing it and end up in bed. Hopefully my time in bed will be much less now. The true test will come when the weather gets cold.

I was very lucky that my sister came before the surgery and stayed for a few days after. Then my mother came for 2 weeks. It was nice they could get away and come stay with me. My mother did all kinds of stuff in the yard so I could just continue with my regular garden routine. One thing she did was to build a compost pile. Woo hoo!! It didn't end up being a single compost pile though. We had 3 beds that had been used for raised bed gardening prior to us moving into this house which we had been dumping yard trash on for the last 8 years. So, Mom got some plastic fencing and fenced in all 3 beds. These compost piles are HUGE!! I bet each one is 3 times bigger than a normal compost pile. :-) It's great to have it though because I thought hubby was going to have a heart attack buying all the dirt I needed for my containers. That's how I've gardened over the years, in containers. He dug holes for me and I tested out a small area for planting so next year everything will be in the ground. I have lots of work for him to do this fall in order to prepare for next years garden... In the end, it will be less work.

Below is a card I made as a thank you to my sister for coming to help out. She absolutely loved the card! Of course I used my copics!! I even worked it out that I got our hair colors right. This card was inspired by some wrapping paper I bought at Paper Source. It's funny how one little item determines exactly how you are going to create your card. The wrapping paper made me want to make my own background paper based on the design which in turn made me want to use the sisters stamp by Penny Black. It turned out pretty nice if I may say so myself!




I have been taking pics of the cards I've been working on during this hiatus from my blog. I can only hope I do a better job posting than I have been doing. Tomorrow I will post my Easter card. It's a card that was made at a SU! stamp club I go to. I just messed around with it and finished it up when I came home. Something I do frequently...

Happy stamping til the next time!

Goodies in the mail

Yesterday I got a package from 7 Kids College Fund. My goodies included regular cling foam, extra thin cling for my SU stamps, All-Purpose Ink in frost white & platinum, Ink Potion 9 in cute little bottles (probably why I wanted them because I have a big bottle), empty copics, and copics from the new 0000 line. I love getting stuff in the mail!! I also love shopping, but that's a whole other story. :-) Here's a pic of my stash...

I can't wait to try the All-Purpose Ink. I need to research how to make a spray with it. I got a Christmas card from a friend who is a SU! demo and the way she sprayed the paper with the A-PI actually made it look like it was Stardream paper. The card was stunning; I'll find it and post it at a later date.

Later today, I'm going to Ikea to get some towel rods for my punches and CD holders. Recently, I have moved all of my unmounteds to CDs; unfortunately, I ended up with about 200 CDs so now they need to be arranged in a neat/organized manner. Fun for me... mostly cause I get to shop!

Happy stamping til the next time!