RAKs and Challenges!

Here are a couple more Christmas cards/RAKS from friends. This first card is from my friend, Chris Salyers, and of course the glitter and CE aren't nearly as sparkly in the picture as in real life. Thanks, Chris! This is one cute card, and I LOVE teddy bears! :)

This sweet kitty cat card is from Jessica George, one of my best friends in the bloggin'/scrappin' world! :) She was also a DT member at KL Stampin N Scrappin last year, and I will truly miss working with her every week. You check out her lovely blog by clicking on the link on her name. She is also giving away some scrumptious blog candy. Check out the photo to the right for more on that too.

Now these were SO much fun to create, and ya know . . . I just can't stop using this sketch from the January challenge at KL StampinNScrappin DT blog. It is pretty versatile, if I do say so myself, and I really LOVE this MS doily punch too. Using buttons was the challenge over at Sparkle's blog for this week, and I just had to play along. I am working on my Christmas card stash for 2010 so I don't have to fret over them this December -- besides I still had this one out on my craft table to use. :)

Card details for the 2 photos above:

Santa stamp from TAC stamped in Memento tuxedo black ink and colored with Copics, MS doily punch, oval scalloped nesties, Eskimo kisses paper, sakura glitter pen (in his beard but not so easily visible in the photo), misc ribbon, MS snowflake punch, Rhonna Christmas buttons, white gel pen and liquid applique. The bashful blue CS piece was ran through the divine swirls cuttlebug folder.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you get a chance to be creative this week, too! Check out the fun challenges mentioned above for chances to win!! :)

Hugs and Happy Stampin'!!

Are you ready for fall?! Wow, it has been hot these last few days, but luckily here in the northeastern United States it has not been as bad as out West. Phew, I don't want to move to California when it is THIS hot! :)

Well with my wish for cooler temps . . . Fall was the inspiration for this card with my never before inked Harvest Bear from T.A.C. and the little pumpkins are from my Happy Fall Y'all SU set. The colors are old olive, pumpkin pie and really rust with some BasicGrey DP thrown in. All of the sketches in this post are from the Anni-Verve-sary week from http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ this past week. They were lots of fun! :) Julee from Verve gave away a ton of goodies. I was a little jealous that I didn't win a set, but . . . ahh well, I still had a good time playing along.


This card also was created with a stamp that hasn't seen ink before. It is from the JustRite monogram set. I believe it is considered the 1 3/8 inch set. It was one of their early sets that I just had to snatch up before they were all sold out and the new ones in stock. I hadn't used it for months and months, but now I would love to add more to my collection. If you haven't seen them before, you gotta check them out. The dp is the pretty Bella Rose from Stampin Up and a little extra scrap of a darker red in the front that matched so well I couldn't resist.
Lastly, this set was made with the discontinued groovy guava and purely pomegranate papers and Riveting stamp set from Stampin Up. I was going to place an image in the center rectangle, but I just couldn't bring myself to cover up that pretty patterned paper. I also moved the ribbon up in the sketch challenge instead of leaving it at the bottom to cover my edge of the scalloped layer. It also has tiny half pearls on every other scallop, but later after the picture I decided to use them on each little scallop.

I hope you enjoyed all the photos, and I hope wherever you are, you are staying cool and comfy! :) If you would like to see what I created for the other 2 sketches, they will be showcased on the KL Stampin N Scrappin DT blog on Tuesday, August 18th, because they use Magnolia stamps! I hope to see you there!!

Hugs and Best Wishes,

I have gotten some really beautiful cards this year from so many of my talented friends!! I just had to show them off on here. I would love to show you a closeup of them all, but I only chose a few. The first one you see to the left is from Tina Tacker in all its sparkly-ness is the Santa collage stamp with a pretty silver layer and navy card stock. I love how Tina used the swiss dots folder on the white layer, and there is a navy layer in behind. So pretty!

Another one of my friends and local stamp buddies, Marcie, sent me this TAC Santa card. I have this stamp too, but I didn't create any of them this year. I LOVE the liquid applique making him all fluffy and very 3-D.

The last closeup is a very pretty non-traditional Christmas snowman from Karin Hoeve. I really LOVE these colors!! There is also a pretty little star brad inside a silver bead-like embellishment holding the pretty pink poinsettia in place. Gorgeous, Karin!! He definitely is a sweet image, too.

Lastly, you can see the many cards (and a few gifts) spread out on my dining room table. I am so blessed by so many of you!! You are all a very special part of my life, and I thank you for that!! When I am feeling blue, all I have to do is go on-line where I can see my dear friends' blogs, email you, or chat with you on SCS. The Internet can be a wonderful place getting us all together like this in our own little corner's of the world, don't ya think?! (okay sorry for the mushy stuff) *wink*

I am not sure I will be on-line much the next couple of days except for work -- so . . . I just wanted to say, "I wish you all a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS with family, friends, and especially those you hold very dear!!"

Hugs and best wishes!!

Been pretty creative the last 2 days

I am so behind on stopping by all my SBS4 sisters' blogs this week. I usually check their blogs daily or every other day at least, but this past week (well . . . okay or two) have been pretty busy with work. I haven't gotten a chance to do the fun things I enjoy very much.



Yesterday and today I squeezed in some stampin' time though, hoping to win a free stamp set from GinaK Designs. There were 4 challenges after the release party on SCS Sunday night. They had to be done by 11 a.m. this morning. Well, I stayed up late last night and then worked off and on this morning while my work was loading to finish and upload these 2 cards and the first Valentine frappucino bottle you see below.



The first card was for Sketch #1 (hosted by Carolyn). I used the fishy friends stamp. I purchased this last year when Gina used to sell them separately. Now they come in sets. I thought with those big eyes staring at the girl fish . . . "I only have eyes for you" would look just right on here. One problem, it didn't all fit on the word window punch I already had punched out, so this is the shortened version with "I Only Have I's 4 U" on it. LOL (DH still thought it was cute). Little does he know, I am saving this one for our anniversary in July (if I remember where I put it by then *wink*).

This penguin card was for sketch #3 (hosted by Erika Martin). I really loved this sketch with almost a circle in the upper right hand corner, main image a little to the right of center and then the sentiment and accent across the bottom.



I used the penguin from the Sandy Claws set I purchased around Christmas time, colored him in with markers, layered him on some navy blue cs and after layering on DP, inked the edges of the card with ballet blue, stamped some snowflakes from the SU snowflake spot set, added a strip of DP near the bottom, stamped Celebrate the Magic! and accented with a clear button and sheer ribbon (which I thought was silver, but I think it is pink now that I look closer with it on some white paper).

This bottle was made for sketch #2 (hosted by Beth).
I only stamped the sentiment from Forever in my Heart,
and then used Penny Black stickers again. They are so quick and look so pretty. I just couldn't help myself. LOL












Then tonight in about 20-30 minutes, I finished two more of these little cuties to put goodies in for Valentine's day. I asked my DH to bring home some Kisses for me and some other candy that he and DS would like for Valentine's day. What does he bring home for them you ask? Fritos corn chips ---- Ack! Now how in the world would they look inside one of these bottles?! Not very good. So after the roads are cleared tomorrow, I need to get some kit kats or M and M's for DS and Reese's p-nut butter cups for DH. *sigh*









Anyway, hope you enjoy looking at my paper creations I made the past couple of days.

Swaps are coming along

Well, the card swaps I am hostessing at SCS are coming along. The birthday card front swap mentioned below is due by Feb 29, so it doesn't seem to have as many participants. I guess maybe I made it too soon. I am also hostessing a Pimped ATC swap, and a Hanna swap, which are due April 18th and March 28th respectively. I realized that I haven't posted a challenge yet this month, so . . . I challenge you to join us for some fun swapping of cards and there will be prizes given away for the top 3 submissions. These are judged by me, family and friends. Your odds are pretty good if you have the time to send your submissions by Feb 29th for the b-day card front swap. If that is too soon, the other swaps are still open for quite a while. Check them out, if you would like.










Here are some of the cards for the birthday card front swap so far. The first one I called priceless birthday is by Sarah Wade (known on SCS as MrsE) and was created for the feminine/ladies' group.

These three were created by me for the ladies' group, guy's group and the children's group. I used a mixture of different stamp companies from Sugar Nellies to Stampin Up (SU) to The Angel Company (TAC). I have to admit, I enjoyed every one of them.

The sugar nellie was colored with prismacolors, gamsoled and then after layering a bit of different colors, some doodling, some primas (which I haven't used in a while), Stickles and 2 different ribbon to finish it off. I just had to get a few embellishments on there. *wink*


The guy card didn't have as much going on, so I opted for more layers and sponging of color to keep this interesting. The Riveting sentiment was a much needed addition to unbalance it out a bit to get away from a totally central focus.

The little boy card was fun in the different shades of green I also used textured card stock for depth, ink distressing or sponging, and my favorite technique of coloring with prismacolors and gamsoling them. I thought the strips of ribbon separated the images nicely too.

Technology Woes and Prioritizing

Well, first off, my banner above is a rather pretty picture of a cloudy sky on a sort of strange fall day. I really loved how the darker cloud moved across the sky, but no rain, and the colors were still so pretty. Alas . . . blogger doesn't seem to stretch the image for me very well. I also made a rather pretty (but a little plain) digital banner to use, but it will not upload it correctly.

Then . . . just the other night, I tried to crop my picture and add a watermark for the picture I am about to show you . . . and PhotoShop had an error, which was "unrecoverable" . . . well now, I thought isn't that nice, and sounds a little serious to me. All of this STUFF (being nice) started to happen after the new HP update I received Thursday night (I believe), so I have been desparately trying to figure out how to undo an HP update. Any thoughts out there about how to undo an update? It would truly be greatly appreciated. I use Office 2003 (older version, because it was cheaper to buy, and it works well with my MT software). I have read that the new update is for 2007, so . . . not really sure why HP thought it was prudent to update my computer for me. Of course, I clicked okay without reading it through (another lesson learned).

Okay . . . enough grumbling I guess. Sorry :(

I am trying to prioritize my time a little better, and since this swap is due Feb 29th, figured I better get to it. I wanted to show you my newest creation for my Birthday Card Front Swap. It is somewhat simple, because it can't be too frilly for boys, right?! I think most boys LOVE to play with frogs and toads, so . . . here is my creation for the card swap. I used quite a few stamp sets on this one. I combined the TAC Girlz & Boyz little boy with a frog with the toad from a retired SU Teacher Time set. The Have A are from Roughed Edges Alphabet and Birthday from the sentiment in Fresh Flowers both SU sets. This is the first time I have purchased the textured cs from SU, and I toadally love it! LOL

CS: Mellow moss textured, old olive, always artichoke and white of course.

Inks: Basic black, mellow moss for sponging/distressing.

Acc: Green brad from Memory Makers, dark green ribbon from a ribbon swap from Pink Hedgehog, prismacolor pencils, SU markers, and crystal effects to pop up the toad's eyes.

Hope you have a Toadallly awesome day too! :)

P.S.--make sure you read what those updates are for *wink*

Completed set

Hello, ladies! I hope you had a terrific weekend! I made some more gift sets for family. I did a few more tiles like I have shown you already, and I am working on a few gift card sets still, but I just had to show you one of the finished notebook/tablet sets that I am giving to my niece, Shannon. I modge podged the notebook, but the tablet I did not. I thought this way if she wanted to write on here, she could.

I also have some mini calendars to make, but those did not get finished this weekend due to work and other responsibilities (mostly decorating here at home and making bows to decorate the church). I hope to post them in the next few days. Take care and keep crafting!! The Christmas holiday is fast approaching! :) Kelly


I notice now that the picture is a little blurry due to lighting or batteries needing charged. I will try and replace the pic tomorrow. Meanwhile, I guess you get the idea.

Some better pictures

These are the same cards from yesterday, just some better pictures!

The group one still has some shadows though from the other cards sitting in their light. Uggh! Okay, okay, photography was just a minor for me in high school *wink*

Santa or Elzybells?!

Oh, I think these images are so cute, I hope I did them justice. I know this picture isn't the best. I will try and post a better one tomorrow. I ran out of natural light tonight, and took these from the kitchen table. After I did it just right to get all four of them in the picture and brightened them on PhotoShop, I realized that I took the picture straight on--not the best angle to see detail and dimensions--duh, Kelly! lol





So . . . anyway, I got to play with my new nestabilities, SU dp, some old SU dp, SU designer punch, party punch stamp set and my new TAC Santa. The ribbon I used is slightly off white with gold swirls to match the swirls in the background of the Santa card (and only 75 cents at AC Moore, can you believe it?!) It was a GOOD day! :) Well . . . except for running out of work this morning--holiday's usually do that to the medical transcription profession.



I really enjoyed having the time to play though. I used a Fluffles stamp with that one Elzybell mouse, because that corner was just so bare, and this Fluffle looking down like that just looked too darn cute. He is not sure whether to stay under the missletoe or check out that mouse on a limb. LOL



So, please let me know what you think of them! The Elzybell's were a Wish RAK from a fellow swapper and friend, Sandye Curry (sgc). Thanks, Sandye!



Added 2 closeups so you could see the sparkle in Santa's beard (sakura gel pen) and the crystal effects used on the glass ornament. Sorry, I forgot to mention them earlier.