So, Do You Stack Up?

So I found this very cool challenge blog a/k/a Do You Stack Up? They have a new challenge every Thursday,mostly stampers and papercrafts but other things go as well. Busy holiday season but I like the idea of going in on the ground floor of something so to speak so.... check 'em out all my cardmaking buddies!

Just click on the title of this post to check 'em out!!!

Wake Up, "Maggies"! It's a Tilda Christmas.....

Sometimes on a chilly winter evening it's just so relaxing to work on art.. late, when the dog and the husband are blissfully snoring away and no one interrupts you. Right, ladies? I colored these Maggies a month or so ago during a Stampin' Up! scrapbook crop much to the fascination of all the "I do 6 layouts an hour" group, so I shall have to bring pictures to show the final results!

Some of the Maggies were colored with Copics (all faces, flesh tones and more), some with a combo of watercolor pencils, Tim Holtz Distress Inks and a water pen, and others with Stampin' Up! ink and a water pen. Can you tell the difference? All Santa hats were highlighted with Flower Soft, one of my favorite embellishments!

These little ladies are going to my great nieces (the twosome with Santa hats) and the others to my step-granddaughters, all colored as closely as I could to their "natural" hair color and, of course, their favorite colors!

Happy Turkey/Valentine's Day

The midweek challenge on Operation Write Home is Valentine's Day cards! There's just something off kilter about making Valentines while the smell of fresh baking pumpkin and pecan pie drifts in from the kitchen and the TV is flashing pictures of everyone headed home to grandma's for Thanksgiving! I just love this owl punch from Stampin'Up! And, heck, I don't give a HOOT -- if the timing's off for Valentine Day, the sketch can be a little "off" the measurements for Sketch Challenger 44. Live on the edge, I say!

Two Challenges: One Card

It's week 43 and I'm behind (and missin') my OWH card challenges... even though New Year's is 7 weeks away, I'm resolving to do better beginning today. This week's sketch is so versatile.


This card is for the OWH Sketch Challenge and for a challenge on Priscillastyles' blog to celebrate her 400th member.. This is one of Priscilla's images -isn't it gorgeous? The card is colored with Faber Castell Aquaelle Pencils, used Stampin' Up! "old olive" paper and ink for the sentiment and some scraps of purple.. a combo I just love.... thanks, Priscilla for the gorgeous image!

It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like....

Christmas! Already? I did this adorable Adorn-It tree stand a while back and it's now residing at my friend Peggy's store, Southern Scrapbooks... but soon will come home with me since our Disney trip isn't far off. Since we're going during holiday season, I did this with a Christmas theme but made some of the "ornaments" to use with Disney pics. What fun this would be to do a tree stand for Easter with different Easter eggs or even for a child's room in their favorite "theme" using pictures and momentos.

Deadline for Christmas cards for Operation Write Home has passed... and it's time for Valentine Day cards??!! Sorry, I'm still doing winter theme cards and more card to go directly to the troops overseas... never done Christmas cards in September before and Valentine cards before turkey day is just weird to me... but shipping deadlines prevail, soo.......

Crazy for Canvas

Canvas is fun to work with in scrapbooking. You can use 6x6 panels to create a multiple of things: a "Dutch door" effect on the front of a 6x12" scrapbook; the front and back of a memory/recipe/momento box (the bottom is cardstock)that you can theme to any occasion; as background for a small wallhanging of a favorite photo.



Larger 12x12 canvas is excellent for creating a scrapbook page to hang by itself, or framed for a more dramatic effect. The most unique thing I've seen uses stretched artist canvas on a frame to make a clock! I'm not sure I love this paper now that I'm done with it but using favorite cropped photos to create a theme is something that IMHO is perfect for any room in the house! I chose to use a picture of our home for the center of the clock and then small cropped photos from our yard representing the four seasons as 12, 3, 6, and 9:00.

Working with canvas isn't difficult but you don't get a lot of second chances if you make a mistake. Quick Quotes recommends using Beacons 3-in-1 glue for canvas projects and it works well so I'm done experimenting with other glues!

Quick Quotes Private Reserve: Wow! What a Weekend!

I love Quick Quotes scrapbook product, I really do -- their papers and quotes are designed in large part by Patsy Gaut, the "momma hen" of the company (and I mean that in the best way) and their classes at Creating Keepsakes Conventions taught by the divine Michelle G. are always innovative, fun and frantic. But a whole weekend of that? Yep, the Quick Quotes Private Reserve weekend was a fabulous, longer version of fun, innovative and, yes, those sometimes frantic projects. But it is fun, right? So getting a bit behind or just deciding that the folding on one envelope project is just more than you can handle without wine is A-ok. Simply creating the rather intimidating flower technique project in under 2 hours was a major milestone in my crafting "career" as those who have tried to show me anything involving folding, sewing or wrapping will attest. The other projects all involved at least one new technique, and the Sunday scrapbook that's almost done will be a treasured momento. The make 'n takes for a nominal fee during evening crops benefited a great charity (and they were cute to boot!) so we helped other by having fun = how great is that? And throughout all of this the giveaways and prizes kept coming, the music put everyone in an upbeat mood and we chatted, shopped, cropped, ate chocolate and were treated like queens = what more can you ask for?

This was truly the "perfect" girlfriend getaway with a group of fun, crafty friends from Southern Scrapbooks. We came home with a few prizes, a ton of free product and learned so much to enhance our creativity.. QQ ladies are wonderful hostesses who are bringin' the "show" back to Atlanta next year and we're all ready to "save the date" as soon as it's announced. Highly recommend this if they come to a town near you.

OWH Mid-Week Challenge: Christmas Cards!

I just love Christmas and winter cards and will be making one or the other for OWH until January! This week's "midweek" throwdown was to make Christmas cards. I did a couple using new Stampin'Up tissue kind of paper and Cuttlebug that I learned at a class and then glued ornaments I had punched a couple of weeks ago for my "game day dozen" cards (which turned out to be 25 because our Panthers played soooo badly, very painful to watch and also because I'll be gone next Sunday). At least my Steelers start showing up on TV down here a lot in the next couple of months.....

Hail, Fall! October's Come.....

Carol Bishop Hipps says it well: "Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter." ... although I don't look at winter as really miserable.

October's the month when the deer come back and at dusk today one of the moms brought her newest fawn to show off... she/he is a real cutie, still has her markings and hasn't figured out how to get those leaves off the dangling branches.. hopefully this means that the herd or "Santa's reindeer" as I tell my nephews will be back. Steve and Rio took kibbles out for the deer tomorrow morning so the fawn will get used to his smell... Rio and the deer have a very sweet "me watching you watching me" relationship...



Rio is old now and slowing down.. watching but not chasing squirrels and the neighborhood cats, bunny hopping up the steps, sleeping a lot.. but still loves his squeaky toys and a good half-empty cup of yogurt ...

Next week is Quick Quotes Private Reserve in Atlanta and we are all sooo excited! Peggy from Southern Scrapbooks was chosen to be the "store" for the event and it promises to be 36 hours of nonstop creativity. I need to get my card mojo working or my picture taking of cards.. must have done 50 in the past two weeks but this picture, upload, wait thing just isn't in the cards this week...not yet, anyway...

"Homemade" Autumn Scrapbook Paper! A Mini-Tutorial

I've used stamps to add interest to plain cardstock for scrapbooking but yesterday learned a great technique to make my own fall-themed paper from my great Stampin' Up! demonstrator, Maryanne. Will definitely use seashell stamps and ink to make tropical paper. It's easy and allows you to personalize the paper with your own colors, stamps.

Supplies: reinkers, baby wipes, plastic tray, French Foliage stamps.
Inks we used are Cajun Craze, Cherry Cobbler, Old Olive and Mostly Mustard

How to: Use 2 baby wipes in plastic tray and add a little bit of each of the reinker colors individually in a section of the wipe (colors will run a bit but that's okay). Use stamps on a clear block; press down onto the baby wipe but don't "squish" it or rub from side to side.. and stamp, voila! Also used a gray ink for the "postcard" text but you could highlight with "stampin spots" as well.

Picture doesn't do this justice because it's stamped on an ivory paper but in person = wow!

Game Day Dozen #1 + a Field Goal!

Okay, so last week the Game Day Dozen cards involved gluing little piece of paper to a bigger piece of paper which was one of my favorite things to do in kindergarten, I think. Coloring with my Copics reminds me of the wonderful invention known as 64 Crayola crayons, a staple in my former play diet. Now I've regressed into childhood to another of my favorite things way back then = paper dolls! No dolls in this week's game day dozen (+ a field goalfor 15!) but I did cut out 18 animals from some divine Anna Griffin paper to glue onto bigger paper (again) for "miss you" and "birthday" cards for OWH = little kids love "little kid" cards, I think, and I don't see a whole lot of those in Dixie's boxes.

If the Panthers keep playing as bad as they are, and they don't put my Steelers (Go, Steelers, 3-0!!!) on TV down here in NC I will be cuttin' and pastin' up a storm because the hometown team is just kinda painful to watch.. Need to get back into the OWH card sketch challenges.. the birthday month stuff they had looked like fun but way too much work to keep up with everyday!

"Game Day Dozen" = Sunday's Cards

Scraps really will be "scraps of time" every Sunday during football season.. In fact if the Panthers keep playing such crappy football it might turn into more than a baker's dozen of cards that I plan to do each week during football season taking advantage of TV timeouts, half time etc. Here's the first batch = it's so easy to cut some cards and then use scraps and just mindlessly glue them onto "anytime" or some weeks probably holiday cards for the troops!

Thank you! (again.....)

Last week's challenge on Stars and Stamps - as part of the ongoing Birthday Bash -- was to create a thank you card incorporating the color yellow... this week the Midweek Throwdown is to make another thank you card with an autumn flair to it. Fall is my favorite season and I love the colors (and the stamp!) in this card. The stamps are from a gorgeous set I just received called "Day of Gratitude" from the Stampin' Up' holiday minibook. The medallion is stamped with Cajun Craze on celery cardstock.

Stamps R Us Challenge for OWH

Thank you, Stamps R Us, for joining the OWH Stars and Strips Birthday Bash! The challenge was to create a birthday card for a child. Got lots of great nieces and step grand-daughters so I love making them cards with the Magnolias...

Sketch Challenge 34: Thank you!

Okay, I know I'm over 60 and that's when the mind really starts to go but I was in denial until I searched high and low for Sketch Challenge 33 and realized that the brain cells necessary to see this have apparently died. Hence, we skip from Sketch 32 to Sketch 34!

The challenge was to make a thank you card from this sketch that incorporated the color yellow. I used some leftover paper from a pack I got a Target, Stampin' Up! "Just Believe" stamps and Stampin Up! Daffodil Delight and Early Expresso ink... and again my "less is more" mantra....

Sketch Challenge 32

Great sketch on the Stars and Stamps.org blog this week = so versatile, but really easy to use. I found Chef Turkey on Elizbeth Dulemba's blog (http://dulemba.blogspot.com). She is soo talented! I'm still working on the watercolor pencil technique...

Life's Lyrics: Do You Remember When?

I just love music - pop music mostly. Grew up listening to Frank Sinatra, Frankie Valli, Paul Anka; spent college years at "Carolina" (a/k/a UNC Chapel Hill) dancing the night away with my sorority sisters to Motown; and remember songs just because I love them and they mean something to me. Soooo, when I saw a "Life's Lyrics" class offered at a recent CKC scrapbook convention, it was intriguing. Megan Hoeppner, creative editor of Creating Keepsakes magazine, taught the class and it was wonderful! Finally finished the book yesterday. I love it! I just wish it hadn't been another 6x6 book -- keep telling myself and posting stickies all over the place not not not to do these small books where everything is cut down to the bone but somehow they just lure me in~~ Here are a few of my favorite songs.....

Sketch Challenge 31 - Coffee Time!

I'm still learning "masking" and coloring in teeny spaces with my Stampin' Up! markers and the little coffee cup and pot reflect that but I love the stamp and the sentiment for another take on an "i love you" sort of card that is truly gender neutral. I backed the navy blue card base on Kraft paper but I'm not sure if I like that or not for future cards.....

Crafty Groove = Finding the Balance

I'm not much of a crafter..maybe because I have a bum shoulder (MRI soon will reveal the cause we hope) or until yesterday it was the dog days of summer here.. and I'm talkin' St. Bernard, Great Dane Dog Days when bees didn't fly and it was so hot the neighborhood kids didn't even want to go out and swim!

So Saturday I went to my friend Peggy's shop, Southern Scrapbooks, and did a "tiered tag tree" (see above) to use for my upcoming Christmas season Disney trip (yeah!!!!!) but also for her to have as a sample for her shop = fun day playing with all her "stuff" .... This picture is from the Adorn-It sight from whence the kit came, however, since someone forgot their camera, you get the idea....

Then Sunday and yesterday dug into my Quick Quotes stash -- probably my favorite kit club and definitely one of my top 3 paper lines. I'm going to their Private Reserve Weekend in Atlanta this fall with friends and can't wait to dig into their huge new stash of divine projects. I love their layouts but also all the projects they have using canvas. Made this canvas memory box up a month or so ago but spent a nostalgic Sunday scrapping the big tags that are the "pages" for this kit.



Kind of gotten away from scrapbooking into card mania and it's time to find a balance between the two...

Sketch 30 and Midweek Coloring Challenge - a "twofer"

With the dog stoned on the bed after a good dose of Xanax for storm phobia (and a very challenging walk in the wet grass to take care of business --he kept falling over!), I needed some downtime.. a luxury of being retired :)



Love this weeks OWH sketch.. very very versatile and I used the colors in my craft room as inspiration for the coloring challenge which is an adorable image from Michelle Perkett. Decided to try my new Derwent watercolor pencils and the Aqua Painter which is still a learning curve -- love this technique!

Creating Keepsakes or Mayhem?

Whew!!! CKC-Charlotte was great event again.. quality girlfriend time, 4 of 6 classes really creative with new techniques, fun projects and an unexpectedly good one and of course -- shopping!!! Crowds were definitely down so hope it doesn't mean they will leave us next year. Made a huge deposit with Paper Loft booth again, bought a Martha Stewart scoring board to use for cards, picked up some Copics and joined Storytellers Club because it was good price, the guy was cute and Joanne and I loved their purple tote which are really the only reasons you need sometimes, right? Actually their class was very good, one of the few sold out. Had two classes with Megan Hoeppner, creative editor of CKC magazine, and she is a gem and taught some great flower-making techniques. So now it's where to put it all??? I did win door prizes this year (yeah~)one of which will help the storage dilemma a/k/a the humongous CKC hardback book on "scrapbook organization." I guess Steve knows what he will be doing as soon as he retires in 7 weeks -- ya think????

Got some great challenges out there on Copic, Magnolia and OWH sites so I need to get the juices going as soon as I can find the dining room table... where is the last ribbon for that kit????

Magnolias & Copics = Coloring 101 for Grown-Ups

When I was a little girl one of my favorite things to do was color = dolls, flowers, Disney stuff -- anything but with at least a box of 64 Crayolas to get it all "just right." Fast forward five decades, 42 years working, 8 months of retirement it's come full circle! Now it's "big girl" coloring with rubber stamps that I'm still working to stamp right on the first try, cards that I've only been making for 8 months and now Copic markers which IMHO are just the coolest coloring things on the planet and worth every penny! Just can't have enough....

My first venture into Copics was in June using a hydrangea stamp I love and some free "Audreys" from the OWHStarsandstamps blog. This turned out better than expected so now it's on to the big time.



This is my first venture into the World of Magnolias. This little girl is called "Tilda with Vintage Roses" and I love her! The girl in the blue dress was my first attempt at hair, faces, etc. and the little girl in pink is a birthday card for my 3-year old great-niece, Logan, who won't notice all the little shading nuances I've yet to perfect but just loves anything pink! Soon it will be time to jump into some Magnolia challenges with my newfound friends Tilda and Edwin! Is it Irish Cream time yet?

Christmas in July? Midweek Throwdown....

I have friends who start on Christmas cards in February but I've always been a "do 'em at Thanksgiving" person.. being my first year doing the cards for heros, this Christmas card in July thing is new to me BUT if it will break the nasty heat waves we have had this summer, I'll do 'em 24/7!

So a friend had some gorgeous card fronts done with a resist technique I hadn't seen (and we also played with this technique at her stamp-a-stack) so thought I'd try at home. We used new "Liquid Pearls" in opaque to play with, but I had to change it up and try it with the silver Liquid Pearls = not! I like the opaque better!

How do you do it? Put a dollop of the liquid pearls on a plastic plate, aluminum foil (anything not porous) and spread really thin and quickly with your fingers. Ball up part of a plastic grocery bag and dab the pearls onto glossy paper - a pretty good coating but not "even." After it dried I used Distress Ink in the green pine color (Distress Inks works best), swiping the inkpad over the pearly coated paper and then quickly rubbing the ink off with a paper towel - voila! Legal patina and shine without glitter to ship overseas! Like I said, after using the silver pearls, I think I'll use the opaque next time to make it shinier. You can also use a rubber stamp dipped in the liquid pearls to stamp images and I'm going to try that with a new snowflake stamp and a light blue distress ink. If you use stamps with this technique you have to stamp quickly and clean off the stamp even quicker so the pearls don't harden on it. The stamp I used on this NOEL card is one of the "Big on Christmas" set from Stampin' Up! that I got specifially for OWH cards. I stamped, colored and cut a second ornament for the "O" to make it "stand out" a bit and and glitzed up the ornament hangar on the original stamp image with a glitter pen...but the forest green background paper still looks "black" no matter where I photograph it or how... oh well!

It's Halloween Already? The Other Half of "Half and Half"

There's an ongoing challenge due some time in August on the OWH Stars and Stamps blog to make 10 (I think) "general" cards and as many holiday cards. Not really a big Halloween cardmaker but I finished the other "half" of the challenge weeks ago with my marathon scrap-using weekend so decided to make some Halloween "holiday" cards for the other half. Just started cutting and gluing and stamping and lo and behold, ended up with 13 cards! I'm not superstitious, are you?

My friend Louanne taught a card "folding" class last month and with some help from Steve who can figure anything out, I also did early Halloween cards for nieces, grandkids etc. The card on the right is one of them! I love this kind of card because it stands up so easily and will definitely be using for Christmas cards...

Sketch Challenge 27

Been in a Copic kind of mood lately and coloring way too much for a person of my age. Experimented with some "watercolor" effects that I need to improve on as you can see. I love this stamp "Country Morning" from Stampin' Up! and found a paper pack at Target for a ridiculously low price that lends itself to fall cards!

Midweek Throwdown: Cards to Send Home to Children

My friend Sharon had this adorable girly-girl snail stamp. I stamped several of them on a new (less expensive) paper, hoping the Copics would work on the paper, but they "run." So I ran as well to my box of 20 for $5 AC Moore markers and voila! I'm not overly impressed with these markers by any means but they are okay for mass producing cards and some scrapbook borders etc...

Sketch Challenge 25: Scraps Time

Isn't this week's sketch perfect for using up scraps? Thanks, Darla!






Inspiration to cut a ton of squares for now (and later) and making some quick cards, most of which I tried to make relatively "gender neutral."