CCEE Bug Challenge

It's time for another CCEE challenge. For those of you who do not know what CCEE stands for, it is Cheers & Challenges Eager Eight. You can see who the members of this group are in my side bar.

This week is Cindy Motherway's turn to host the challenge and it's a buggy supply challenge! Here's what Cindy sent (thank you, Cindy!) to everyone on the CCEE Stamper design team the following:

3 designer papers (1 red and 2 polka dot papers)
1 large chipboard flower
2 small chipboard flower
1 red flower brad
3 yellow brads
1 length of bug ribbon

Our instructions when Cindy sent our the challenge list was to think bugs! She also said just to use what we received to make our cards .... no special instructions this time round!





I colored my ladybug and flower with Twinkling H20s and popped up the ladybug. I also painted the chipboard flower with the H20s. Originally, I covered the larger chipboard flower with the red designer paper Cindy sent us, but it was too large for my images, so I'll save that for another creation. I then used my Cropadile to punch a hole through the chipboard flower so I could attach this cute red floral brad Cindy included in our bag of goodies. I swear that Cropadile will go through anything! Isn't this ribbon just the cutest, and I love the texture of the designer papers she sent us. Hey, Cindy: who makes this kewel dp?

I hope you'll check out the cards my friends made on our CCEE blog and consider playing along with us!

Feature Stamper - Darlene

The stamper being featured on Splitcoaststampers today is Darlene (akronstamperdpk). Darlene has quite the flair for vintage, which, quite honestly, I've never tried. She has many beautiful designs in her gallery. I chose her serene and beautiful Thoughts of You card that she did for one of our CCEE challenges. Darlene has participated in many of our challenges, and we love having her creations with ours. Here is the card of Darlene's that I cased:

And here's my casing of her card. I found this sweet Bee Bear by Penny Black at a garage sale this summer, and I absolutely LOVED coloring her with my Copic markers. I colored this image a few weeks ago, so I don't remember the Copic markers I used. She'll be fun to color using various coloring mediums, and I think next time I'll watercolor her with my SU reinkers and watercolor brush.



I had to flip the sketch to accommodate the size of my image and oval Nestabilities. As a result, my wave within the design doesn't look as cool as Darlene's. I used designer paper from a Memory Big Ideas mat pad. Darlene stamped her sentiment directly onto her designer paper, but I stamped my sentiment, punched it out with my oval punch, and then sponged the inside with Pretty in Pink and the outside with Certainly Celery as I didn't want it to get lost in the stripes of my choice of designer paper. The cute little chocolate flower is from Stampin' Up's button latte' collection.

This is also for a Doubledog Dare Challenge issued by my friend, Joan Ervin, to use a glam girl in your creation. I happen to think my sweet bear is glamorous in her own right! Don't you?

Have a great day, everyone!

Hugs,

Inspiration Challenge

Hi ya'll!

I was tickled when my sweet friend, Anne (aka Itsapassion on SCS) ,asked me if I would like to make a sample card for this week's Inspiration Challenge on Splitcoaststampers. The inspiration website Anne chose is Creative Wallcoverings ,and I chose this Black and White Cat Tumbler for my inspiration piece. It was the overall design of the tumbler from which I drew my inspiration and used that as the layout for my card.

I used my 3/4" square punch to make the diamond shaped, Cuttlebugged Groovy Guava panels at the top and bottom of the card. I then cut a 1/4" Very Vanilla piece of cardstock and wrapped black twine around that (I colored the twine with a black Copic marker). Next I cut a 3" x 4" piece of Sage Shadow cardstock and scored it vertically at every 1/4" with my Scor Pal. I then paper pierced next to the score lines and used a black marker to create my faux stitching. I then took my white Prism pencil to shadow between the black faux stitching and the score line for added depth.

The dragonfly image is from Stampin' Up's Bugs & Kisses and was first black embossed and then watercolored with Groovy Guava reinker and a watercolor brush. I glued just the center of the dragonfly to my card, leaving the wings up for dimension. I felt my card needed just a little more "oomfph" to it, so I added the black word window punches with the Groovy Guava 1/4" punched circles (what I call my faux brads). I'm not sure what occasion I want to use this card for, so I've left off any kind of sentiment.

Thanks for stopping by!

Gina K Release Party Begins!

Hop on over to Splitcoaststampers (SCS) for Gina K's August release party and check out all the new stamp sets, join the contests, challenges, and chatter going on right now (7:00-10:00 p.m. CST)!

This is a card I made for my great uncle who turned 90 years old today!! He still golfs and keeps very active. Woo-hoo! Way to go Uncle Russ!

I used the mailbox image from Theresa Momber's newest release called Autumn Beauty. You are going to love and want this stamp set! I stamped the mailbox in Tuxedo Memento Black Ink and colored it with Copic markers. The flourished image is also a part of this set and is stamped on the Moonlit Fog cardstock, which is a new Pure Luxury cardstock color Gina is also releasing this month! The Moonlit Fog cardstock is a grayish color with what I see as a bit of a greenish hue and others see a bluish hue. However, if you pair it with navy blue, as I did, it picks up the blue color. Very cool, if you ask me!


I used a photo corner punch in the Moonlit Fog and layered the smaller version of this punch with the navy over it and then paper pierced around the photocorners. I like the dimension it gives.

This next card is the third one I promised in my earlier blog post today. I wanted to show you how good the turquoise looks with Gina's new Pure Luxury cardstock she is also releasing this month called Pumpkin Spice. I stamped one of the other flourishy images from the Tropical Blooms set onto the Pumpkin Spice. It looks so rich with the chocolate and turquoise. Tropical Blooms is Gina's free with the purchase of three set.


I stamped the Tropical Bloom images in white craft ink onto chocolate cardstock and let the white craft ink dry before I colored the blooms with colored pencils. This is called a pencil over technique. I used various shades of yellow, pumpkin, and rust to blend the blooms and three shades of greens for the stems and leaves. I left a little of the white craft ink outline for dimension and then I added some extra white highlighting with a white gel pen. I then cut out the oval slightly smaller than my images so I could do the out-of-the-box technique with this floral array. I love how the turquoise brads in the center of the flowers just make it all pop!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you'll join us at the release party! As my friend and I always teasingly say to each other "Be there or be square!"

Day 3 Sneak Peek of Gina K's New Releases!

I am so excited to show you previews of two stamp sets being released by Gina K. Designs August 27! The first set is called Elegant Verses as designed by Nina Brackett. The sentiments are so lovely and are a perfect companion with Nina's Elegant Posts stamp set also available from Gina K. Designs. For my previews today, however, I've paired Nina's sentiments with another stamp set designed by Gina herself called Tropical Blooms. These are solid floral, leaf, and stem images that you can use in so many ways. I've created three cards with three different techniques to show the versatility. However, I'm only going to show you two of the cards for now and save the third one for the release party Thursday night (more details on the release are below).

For my first card, I used the paper tole technique. I stamped the image in each color three times, hand cut them, and then layered them. You know how some images can be so tedious to cut out? Not these! They were quick to do! And isn't that sentiment so perfect with these images? Serene and lovely, I say!



I also sprinkled glitter in the center of each top-layered flower for some added glitz. I love shades of purple and turquoise together. My photo corners were made with the polished stone technique---a tutorial Gina has available on StampTV. Now, if you haven't discovered StampTV yet, please be sure to do so here. It rocks!!!

You can see the layering better in this photo. I absolutely love the dimension of this technique, and it's not too bulky for mailing purposes!



For my second card, I wanted to show how you can also use these images to create your own designer paper, as well as making it the focal point on your card! As you can see, I stamped the Tropical Bloom in various shades of caribbean, turquoise, and teal and then I stamped another one of Nina's Elegant Verses onto the background as well. I stamped and cut out one more bloom, adding some dazzling diamonds to the embossed heat and stick powder, and put a black brad in the center. The black ribbon I used is a luxurious satin and just adds a flair of elegance. I also sponged the outer edges of the card with a sponge dauber.



Here's a close up of the bloom I sprinkled with dazzling diamonds. It's so beautiful and just sparkles in real life.



To see more inspiration with the stamps previewed today, visit Gina's blog, the illustrator of Tropical Blooms as well as Theresa Momber, the illustrator of Autumn Beauty, and Nina Bracket , the illustrator of Elegant Verses.

For even more projects with tonight's two stamp sets, these Senior Design Team Members are participating in previews today: Asela, Carolyn, Cindy, Donna, Emily, Erika Jessica, Kurtis, Lee, Lynn, and Melanie as well as our CenterStage Spotlight Design Team members:Shelly Wilson and Charlene Merrick

Our Release Party starts Thursday night at 7 pm CST. Please join us for contests questions, challenges, lots of chatter as well as a ton more samples shared by the Senior Design team members and our CenterStage Spotlight team too. See you tomorrow night!

Challenge Constable Chauncy Gets a Clue

Queen Da Muddermark asked Challenge Constable Chauncy to help her and Inspector Clueso to not only help solve the mystery of who killed Old Man Boddy at Tudor Mansion, but to also keep track of all the tea partiers so that they don’t get into mischief or trouble themselves. As you can see from the highlighted words, Constable Chauncy has already solved this murder mystery and is offering up clues to the tea partiers as to how Old Man Boddy was murdered. Can you figure out Who done it? How they done it? And Where they done it in this puzzle?



Keep a lookout in the future for Challenge Constable Chauncy. He’s also been hired as the official Challenge Policeman to make sure all are in compliance with challenge requirements. There’s a buzzer waiting on the inside for all who are in noncompliance.

Chauncy is made of various punches: 1 3/8 circle for his head, ¼” for his eyes, scallop for his hair, boho blossoms for his mustache, leaf flower punch for his nose, round tab for his hat, and star. I colored his eyes with a white gel pen and then used a green Copic marker over the white gel pen to color his eyes. He is popped up on dimensionals.

For the Find a Word puzzle, I cut a 3 ½” x 3 ½” piece of white cardstock and used my Scor Pal to score it at every ½” mark both ways. I used a small Studio G alphabet stamp set to create my words. Clue words are highlighted in YoYo Yellow with a portion of one of the Seeing Spots stamps.

Here's the inspiration teapot that Queen Da Muddermark gave us this week:



I hope you can join us at Tudor Mansion for a spot of tea and some mystery today! You can get the deets at Queen Da Muddermark’s blog.

CCEE Catchy Featured Stamper Name - Grandma Overboard

If you're a follower of the CCEE challenges, you already know that Cindy Motherway has been our August hostess. She's been following a theme based on the popular 60's song The Birds & The Bees.

Let me tell ya about the Birds and the Bees
And the Flowers and the Trees
And the Moon Up Above
And a Name I Just Love!

As you can see, Cindy has used some artist license to change the last line of the song so that we can do one of our favorite challenges each month: the CNFS (Catchy Name Featured Stamper) where we select someone who has a catchy user name over on Splitcoaststampers (SCS). This month, Cindy chose fellow SCSer Grandma Overboard also known as Donna.

The requirements for our card is that it has to have a Grandma Overboard on it. She could have fallen out of a boat, off the stage, out of the tree, off of a flower, into the pool, off our card, into an oval, off of a building, off of a horse, out of a sleigh, out of an airplane, well, you get the picture, I'm sure with Cindy's ever over-active imagination. Hee-hee! She just has to be overboard!!

Meet Grandma Mertz Overboard. Her real name is Marilyn, but her good friends call her by her nickname, Mertz. Mertz loves da frosting and she loves da purple! She got a little carried away (also known as going overboard) with the frosting. She didn't just stick her little pinky in to sample the frosting, she dipped BOTH hands into it!!



And because I'm sure Cindy will accuse me of not using a grandmotherly image on my card, here's a close up of Grandma Mertz's hair (she never said the image had to be human):



The darling purple gingham dp, gingham ribbon, purple crystals, and purple heart button were gifted to me by my sweet friend, Dawn (Flowergal36), who was our CNFS when I hosted the challenge. Dawn knows I love purple and sent me an awesome goodie package shortly thereafter. Thanks, again, Dawn!

I hope you can play along with us this week. You can check out the details on our CCEE blog and you can also see the cards my friends made!

Stamps: Whipper Snapper Cupcake Mouse
Cardstock: Lovely Lilac, Black, White, purple gingham dp
Ink: Tuxedo Memento Black
Accessories: Copic markers (C1, C3, C5, E93, V12, V15, V17), paper piercer, gingham ribbon, heart button, purple crystals, MS picket fence border punch, circle Nestabilities, Cuttlebug embossing folder, silver Zig painty pen, 3-D Puffy Glue, dauber

JoJot Inspired

I was feeling quite tired earlier this evening and was going to turn in when I decided to check to see who the Featured Stamper was. Lo and behold, but it's none other than my sweet friend, JoJot!!! I instantly became alert and began surfing her magnificent gallery. Oh, if you ever need to be inspired, go to Joanne's gallery. It is full of stunning and beautiful cards! JoJo really has an eye for color combinations, texture, and layout in all of her designs. I literally spent hours pouring through the many pages of her gallery and kept coming back to her striking Nature's Silhouette's card (as I see a few others loved, too!):



Isn't her work stunning? I just love everything Jo makes.

Here are the things I changed in my card below:
1. I reversed the pink and black theme and used white embossing instead of the black silhouette
2. used buttons instead of brads
3. added a rub-on sentiment
4. did corner paper piercing only



Jo, my dear friend, I was just beyond thrilled to see you be the Featured Stamper this week! This special honor and recognition of your spectacular artwork has been soooooo very long overdue. CONGRATULATIONS and thank you so much for sharing your creativity with us; I truly am inspired by you!

It is EXCEPTIONALLY late (way in the wee early morning hours), so I am now going to bed. I know I'll sleep much better knowing I got this card done, but I have an inkling that I may just have to do another one tomorrow, if I get a chance.

Blog Award from Gloria

I received this lovely blog award from my cyber friend Gloria over at Gloria's Greetings. Thank you, Gloria, for thinking of and honoring me with this award! If you get a chance check out, Gloria's beautiful blog.

When we receive a 'Beautiful Blog Award' we are to list 5 things we love to do then pass this award to 5 other blogs we love.

I love to:

1. stamp and make cards
2. spend time with my family and friends
3. laugh, make others laugh, and uplift others
4. surf blogs
5. watch movies

I would like to pass this blog award on to some other beautiful people in my life who have blessed me with their friendship and their amazing talent :

1. Deb at DeborahLynneS
2. Sharon at Notimetostamp
3. Cindy at CindyHaffnersCorner
4. Julia at CreatewithJulia
5. Pat at StampsPaperandInk

All Aboard the Tea Party Not-So-Express!

All abooooard! Last call for the Tea Party Not-So-Express! Calling all tea partiers! For you adventurers who love the ocean, the sand, the sun, fishing, coffee, m&m candies, and touring beautiful lighthouses, this tugboat is for you! We are on our way to the beautiful province of Nova Scotia today with da Muddermark! We will be docking in Peggy's Cove.

SnoSnot (aka JoJot aka Joanne) and da Muddermark (aka Mothermark aka Cindy) are already aboard, but they ducked outta sight when Bertie (for those of who do not know who Bertie is, she is my alter ego) took this photo of the Tea Party Not-So-Express tugboat. Seems they forgot to get their passports updated, but they absolutely refuse to miss out on today's fun so they are stow-aways. Word has it that some of our lovely Canadian friends are going to vouch for them at the border, so no worries about any illegal activities.

The only thing you might want to be prepared for, though, is the fish part of this adventure. Seems we'll be required to catch about 42,000 pounds of fish on the commercial charter boat da Muddermark has signed on with on behalf of all tea party attendees. And, yes, you WILL be required to bait your own hook! Bertie acquired some special fish bait to lure some fishies to come along her; you can see some of them happily swimming right next to the Tea Party Not-So-Express tugboat. Just think how tired they are going to be by the time they arrive at Peggy's Cove....just in time for the fish slingin' contest Bertie heard about. Da Muddermark is giving her entire stamp collection to the tea partier who can fling their fish the farthest! Woo-hoo!

So bring your fishin' pole and gear; wear your fishin' attire; enjoy the beautiful sights in Nova Scotia; and party down with your tea partyin' friends today. You don't even have to bring your own lunch. Bertie is servin' espresso, lattes, regular coffee, and m&m candies on the tugboat to hold ya'll over until lunch that is bein' served up by Sabrina and MariLynn! The menu? Why, fish, of course! So, if you decide to join us today, you can go to da Muddermark's glob for all the slimy details!

Author's Note: I have so come to love Teapot Tuesday as hosted by Mothermark. We have so much fun and now Cindy even has her very own challenge thread on Splitcoaststampers that you can check out here! Please come join us. We need all the fishermen we can get today if we're going to catch 42,000 pounds of fish!!

Stamps: Boatloads of Love, Loads of Love Accessories, Lighthouse, Rubbernecker (inside sentiment which reads We Fish You a Great Day!)
Cardstock: Kraft, SU chocolate chip dp, whisper white
Ink: Tuxedo Memento Black, Close to Cocoa, Bashful Blue, Going Gray, Barely Banana
Accessories: copper brads and cord, Copic markers, SU reinkers and watercolor brush, 3-D puffy glue, daubers, fish cut outs, ticket corner punch

By the Light of the Moon

Our August CCEE hostess is none other than Cindy Motherway, aka Mothermark on SCS. This Monday, she challenged us to make a card with a moon on it. I don't have any moon stamps, so I chose to make one by masking a circle on my cardstock when I colored the bg.



As much as I've tried, I am a failure when it comes to using the brayer to make any kind of bg, so I used my sponge daubers to adhere the various shades of blue and gray for my snowy night sky. I used Bashful Blue, Brocade Blue, Brilliant Blue, Night of Navy, Going Gray and Basic Gray. I used my white gel pen to create the falling snow. I used MS silver glitter on the snowy ground and wish I would've used dazzling diamonds instead, but this'll have to do.

Why not pull out your moon stamps (or create one like I did using a circle punch) and play along in our challenge? You can check out the details on our CCEE blog, as well as see the cards my friends made.

Thanks for stopping by and have a fabulous Monday!

Stamping hugs,

Out of the Box Blooms

Earlier this summer, one of my coworkers asked me to make some "Welcome" cards for her cabin. She wanted to write a personal note of welcome inside each card to place in the bedrooms where her guests would be staying. Recently, she asked me to make another one like I did earlier this year with the In Full Blooms, but specifically requested the colors of Sahara Sand and Not Quite Navy to fit the beach theme of one of her rooms.



This is a relatively quick and easy card to make. After I cut my Sahara Sand base cardstock, I masked and stamped the In Full Bloom flower four times. I colored them with my Not Quite Navy reinker and blender pen and then highlighted them with a white gel pen. I then hand cut around each bloom----which also qualifies my card for our Doubledare Dog Challenge (DDC) given to us by Anne (jdmommy) this week to make an out-of-the-box image on our project. I then cut my Not Quite Navy cardstock, used the MS zig zag border punch on the bottom and adhered this panel to the inside of the Sahara Sand. I love how striking the flowers look against this panel! I paper pierced a row above the flowers and then stamped by Welcome (alphabet stamp set by There She Goes) sentiment above that. Voila! El presto done-o!

Stamp Muse - Featured Stamper

I am elated to honor my friend Emily, aka Stamp Muse on SCS, with a case of her gorgeous wedding card! Emily is not only talented when it comes to her craft, but she is also very kind and generous. A little while ago, Emily sent to me some samples of the beautiful currency paper she uses in some of her designs (thanks, again, Miss M!). Therefore, I wanted to use a piece of it in my case of her card. As you can see, Emily did a stunning job creating her monochromatic wedding card in white. I chose to use silver so I could use the piece of silver currency paper that Emily had already embossed for me with the Cuttlebug textile embossing folder. I think monochromatic cards are some of the most difficult ones to make look beautiful, but Emily makes it look easy!



It's kind of hard to tell in this photo, but I embossed my God's Beauty butterfly with iridescent ice embossing powder onto the retired SU brushed silver cardstock, added the string of pearls to its body, glued the decorative pearls behind it, and adhered it with a large pop-up glue dot. I tied my gray tafetta ribbon (SU's retired basic gray) with a Bow Easy, adhered a couple of tiny pearls to the bow, and added some silver elastic cording to my ribbon treatment. Other tools I used are the MS lace border punch, the Marvy scalloped corner punch, and the floral and script Cuttlebug embossing folders.

Happy stamping!

Some Days Are Tougher

Isn't this little guy the cutest? Do you ever have days where you just feel like things are not jellin' right? I instantly fell in love with this cutie patootie digital image entitled Sumpin' Wrong as illustrated by Maurie Manning. Maurie is a very talented illustrator and recently approached me to see if I'd be willing to try some of her digital images for card making to which I said "yes!"

I used Copic markers (EOO, E02, BG01, BG05, BG09, BG10, B39, B93, B95, E29, E37, R20, 0) and a white highlighting marker to color the image. Marianne Walker has a great blog full of Copic tutorials. I found a great one for coloring jeans. I wanted them to look stonewashed.

I generated my sentiment, which reads "some days are tougher than others," on my computer and used WordArt to put it in the circle. I wanted to roughen up some of the cardstock edges to go along with the theme of a rough day, so I used deckle kraft edger scissors. Stampin' Up's double rectangle punch was used to thread my navy grosgrain ribbon through the circle sentiment. The checked designer paper is by Stampin Up, too. The last thing I added were some corkscrew pieces of navy cardstock.

Can't you just see a lot of various uses for this precious little guy?

How Lovely Are Thy Branches

Good morning! Are you ready for Christmas? No? Me neither, but I did feel like making a Christmas card this morning.



You know how sometimes you have the best intentions to get something done? I had the best intentions of making ten Christmas cards each month when I signed up for the Christmas Card challenge on SCS last December. I think I did pretty good for about two months and then.....well, I guess the rest of life just got in the way of my best intentions. Sigh.

The color challenge on Stamp TV this week was to use a base color of red and Gina K's technique challenge also for this week is inking a Cuttlebog embossing folder. If you haven't checked out Gina's fabulous video tutorials every Wednesday on Stamp TV, you should. She does an amazing job in all of her demonstrations, and the entire site is just chockful of so many cool things to check out!

I used Old Olive to ink up my Christmas ornament Cuttlebug embossing folder and then I sponged the outer edges in the same ink a bit darker. The cute Christmas tree is a Gina K design from Spirit of Christmas (2007). I stamped it in Tuxedo Memento Black ink, colored the branches with my Olive Copic marker, and then lightly sponged Old Olive ink on the entire tree to fill it in. I also sponged the outer edges of the tree, painted the star at top gold, and used a blender pen and Ridinghood Red ink refill to color the tree pot. I cut out the image and popped it up on dimensionals over the Ridinghood Red designer paper. The ribbon is none other than the gorgeous May Arts silk ribbon that I purchased from Sharon Johnson on my stamping trip a couple weeks ago. Sharon has an on-line stamping store, if you'd like to be able to purchase some of this exquisite ribbon yourself. The brass photo turners are from an old SU hodgepodge hardware set.

Thanks for stopping by today. I really do appreciate your comments. If I haven't been by your blog lately, I apologize (crazy days lately), but I hope to do so sometime today!

Blessings,

Charlene

Buzzin By the Tea Party

Git yer buzzer buzzin,
Head out on the highway.
Lookin’ fer adventure
In whatever comes our way

Born to be wild
No, we are not mild
Our stings are deadly
If not treated readily

Hoooooowdeeeee!!! Queen Beatrice (that’s her with the red and gold crown and sparkly gold wings) is on her way with her entire entourage of hot honeys (hive and all) to Boonesville, Mississippi today for some tea, honey, and, hopefully, a little match makin’ with Uncle Beeford Bumble’s boy bees. Truth be told, I think Uncle Beeford is a few bees short in his beard and is up to some wiley tricks, but my girls are quite buzzin' saavy and know how to take care of themselves.

What? You wanna know why they have red noses? Well, it seems some of the other tea partiers (names will not be mentioned to protect those with innocent-looking faces) stopped at Queen Beatrice's hive the night before for a little hive-gaitin' party and were dippin' into the sauce that Uncle Beeford sent to da Muddermark. This is his own special sauce from his distillery in Boonesville, Mississippi. Needless to say, they got a little schnockered before take off.

So grab your bees, your honey, your netting, and whatever else you want to bring to the shindig tea party in Boonesville today cuz we are gonna have a rootin’ tootin’ good time! If ya’ll need more details as to the full story and/or what you need to do to participate, you kin check it out on da Muddermark’s blog. If yer uploadin' her buzzin' creations to Splitcoaststampers, be sure to use keyword MMTPT59! I hope to see you there!

Now, for those interested, here are details behind the making of this card:

The buzzin by beauty bees were colored with Copic markers. Each precious bee was hand cut and adhered to their hive. Their buzzin' hive was shaped with a Coluzzle oval cutter and scored with a Scor Pal. Color and shading were added by sponging the various colors with daubers and watercoloring with SU reinkers and watercolor brush.

Stamps: bee image Stampabilities; sentiment by There She Goes (ABC and 1, 2, 3)
Cardstock: Summer Sun, Black, Whisper White, Real Red
Ink: Tuxedo Memento Black, Summer Sun, Marigold Morning, Pumpkin Pie, Really Rust, Craft White, Real Red
Accessories: Copic markers, Martha Stewart glue and glitter, gold paint pen, daubers, watercolor brush

CCEE Flowers and Trees

Cindy Motherway is our CCEE hostess for the month of August, and this Monday she has challenged us to make a card with flowers and trees on it. Thanks, Cindy! I had fun with this one.



I saw this faux wood fence technique in SleepyinSeattle's (Joanne) SCS gallery yesterday (she's the Featured Stamper this week!) and knew I wanted to try it for my CCEE challenge card this week. It was so easy to do, too! I lightly ran my Going Gray, Creamy Caramel, and Craft White stamp pads over the kraft cardstock and then drew my fence lines. It really looks like a weathered fence.

Why not join us in this challenge? You can get all the details on our CCEE Stampers blog.

Stamps: Happy Day (There She Goes); Season of Friendship (SU); Delightful Doodles (SU); Bodacious Bouquet (SU)
Cardstock: Whisper White, Kraft, Bashful Blue, Barely Banana
Ink: Close to Cocoa, Mellow Moss, Buckaroo Blue, Always Artichoke, Craft White, Going Gray, Creamy Caramel
Accessories: MS zig-zag punch,flower punch, blue brads, yellow eyelets, cloud template, stamp-a-ma-jig, blender pens

SleepyinSeattle - Featured Stamper

Huge congratulations to Joanne, aka SleepyinSeattle on Splitcoaststampers, on being selected as this week's Featured Stamper! Joanne and I are on a Doubledog Dare Challenge DT together, and I have loved her work for a very long time. I literally spent hours pouring over her gallery trying to decide on a card to case. I found myself returning to her Birthday Buttons card. I was particularly drawn to the beautiful gold embossing she did on her flowers.

We are required to change two or more things when we case a Featured Stamper's card. I changed pretty much everything except for the choice of sentiment and the gold embossing. I added color and a textile dry embossed background; I used a circle Nestability on my Pale Plum cardstock; and I used a different floral stamp set.

After I gold embossed the Polkadot Punches flower, I watercolored my flowers with Twinkling H20s. My leaves are from In Full Bloom; I colored those with SU's Mellow Moss and Always Artichoke markers.

Being able to case my friend Joanne brought a smile to my face today. I hope you're having a wonderful Sunday today!

For a Friend

Happy Friday, everyone! I have today off from work as a mandatory lay-off day, so I took the opportunity to participate in Sharon Johnson's Stamp Simply challenge she posts every Friday. This is her 99th challenge this week!! Sharon's challenge today is to make a card for a friend and to make sure the word "friend" appears somewhere on it.

I was playing around in my stamp room last night and decided I wanted to make a 3 x 3 box out of this beautiful Stampin' Up Rockabilly designer paper. (I could just kick myself for not ordering more of it before it was retired.) SCS has a great tutorial for making this easy 3 x 3 box, if you want to check it out. I had most of the box done last night, but had not decided how I wanted to decorate the top until I saw Sharon's challenge this morning.




I used SU's Oval All fabulous friend stamp and water colored the flowers with Twinkling H20s. This is my first time using the H20s, and I love them! I also stamped, colored, and cut out this cherry image from SU's Tart & Tangy set and adhered it to my ovall all panel with an Old Olive brad.





Stamps: Ovall All, Tart & Tangy
Cardstock: Real Red, Old Olive, Whisper White, Rockabilly designer paper
Ink: Tuxedo Memento Black
Accessories: Twinkling H20s, ovall punch, oval Nestabilities, Scor Pal, Martha Stewart leaf punch, Old Olive brad, corner rounder, dimensionals, 1/4" circle punch, SU Real Red and Old Olive markers

Stampin' in da U.P.!!

Be forewarned: this is a very long post as I have several photos I'd like to share with you today.

Hubby and I returned home late Monday night from a five-day get away to our beautiful Upper Peninsula (U.P.) where I attended the 2nd Annual Michigan Stampin' in the U.P. event on Friday and Saturday in Baraga, Michigan (right on the shores of Lake Superior). It was a good nine-hour drive there, but it was so worth it to see old friends, as well as meet new friends and spend some quality time together with other stampers "who get it"!!

First, I have to show you the stunning view from our hotel room looking out onto the Keewenaw Bay. It had rained that morning, and when we opened our draperies, this gorgeous rainbow awaited us:

One of my all-time favorite songs is Somewhere Over the Rainbow. I especially love the lyrics from the second stanza:

"Somewhere over the rainbow
Skies are blue,
And the dreams that you dare to dream
Really do come true."

On Friday, Sharon Johnson had a few of us over to her home for a delicious lunch and a fun time of chatting and laughter. It was here that I met new friends Joan Fricker and Jackie Abigt. Joan and Jackie have been friends for 37 years (isn't that the coolest??) and traveled all the way from Indiana. These two wonderful ladies greeted me warmly with hugs as we arrived in Sharon's driveway at the same time. After just a few minutes with them, I felt as if we had been long-time friends as well. Here's Joan (right) and Jackie (seated) pictured with our wonderful hostess, Sharon (left), on the front porch of her beautiful centennial home.



And here I am pictured with Joan and Jackie:



I was so glad that Deb Saaranen was also able to join the festivities. Here she is pictured with Joan and Jackie at the dining room table (Deb had to leave before the front porch pics were taken):


If you're checking in Cindy, I did remember to give Deb that hug of thanks from you!

After lunch, we had a little bit of time to spend in Sharon's stamping room before we were off to the hotel for the stamping event.

Deb and JoAnn Mleko (JoAnn also served on the H&M Stamps design team with me last year) did such a fabulous job putting this event together. I was so happy to be able to finally meet JoAnn in person. Here's JoAnn on the left posing for a picture with Lisa.

Here's a photo collage from the Friday night challenges and shoebox swap projects on Saturday:

We were given three challenges Friday night: a sketch, color, and ways to use it challenge. I must admit that I find on-the-spot challenges tough. I feel a lot of pressure to get my cards done within the short time frame we're allotted. It literally takes me hours to make most of my cards as I agonize over each step of the process. However, I did finish each challenge card, which I was happy about.

Here are the cards I made for these challenges.

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We had to incorporate buttons into our ways to use it challenge card. This is the Merry & Bright set from Stampin' Up, and the designer paper is SU's Bella dp.

For the color challenge, we were to use 3 of the 4 colors provided in the designer papers. I chose to color these cute owls from Gina K's Owl Always Love You set.

This was the sketch design we were given. I chose to use paper tole on my Embrace Life flower.

On Saturday, Deb Saaranen spent literally HOURS providing Copic lessons to groups of threes. She guided us while we colored this watering can image (below) from Our Daily Bread Designs. I learned so much from Deb on how to use various colors of markers for blending and achieving the rustic patina affect on this can. Thank you so much, Deb!

After we colored the image, our next step was to go over to another room where Sharon Johnson would help us complete our card. Sharon provided us with packages containing cardstock, designer paper, and beautiful....and do I mean BEAUTIFUL!!!!....May Arts silk ribbon. This silk ribbon is so exquisite to the touch and easy to tie. Sharon gave us a demonstration on how to use the Bow Easy. So many of us fell in love with the Bow Easy and bought it!

This lovely lady is Helen, known as Lucy's MOM on SCS. Helen handled the registration table and has the sweetest smile and personality:



This is a group photo of Amy (AMY@MTU), Lisa, Barb (GrandmaUpNorth), and I:



Here I am with Sue (aka Sueza). Sue works at the hotel and helped to coordinate a lot of the logistics----great job, Sue! She is quite a corker and bustling with energy. I also discovered that Sue still owns a home, where she use to live, not too far from my home! Next time she "comes down under the bridge" (that's the great Mackinac Bridge), we hope to get together for coffee or lunch!



Sharon and Joan also have on-line stores where they sell a variety of products for stampers/scrapbookers. Sharon and Joan brought several of their products for us to purchase. I finally bought some items I've been wanting for a long time, such as the ScorPal, the Bow Easy and some May Arts silk ribbon, and a JustRite Monogram stamp set. Here are some pics of Sharon and Joan hard at work:

One of the last things JoAnn did was draw our names to come up to the table where each of us donated a handmade gift of some sort. I donated this clear pail I altered with designer papers, ovall all punch, circle Nestabilities, the Sizzix daisy die and ribbon. I filled the pail with small spools of ribbon, clear dollar stamps, trial size bottles of Aleene's tacky glue, and some salt water taffy.

When my name was called, I chose this beautifully decorated door knob hanger and clothes pin which was made by none other than the fabulously talented Sharon Johnson!!

Well, that's just about it. I wish to thank all of my U.P. friends for organizing such a wonderful event and thank you, again, Sharon, for a wonderful lunch!

I wish to also thank my sweet husband, Terry, who accompanied me on the trip and waited ever so patiently for me to be done each day, never complaining once. We took our meals together, and I shot this picture of him in the restaurant in the hotel, which has a beautiful view of the bay.

My sweetheart