Wish Big

We returned to cold, wet Michigan Sunday evening after a wonderfully warm and sunny vacation in Florida. As I posted on my Facebook page, that's the definition of "insanity!" LOL!

We had a fabulous time, of course, but our itinerary was a little too full for me this year. Typically, we have at least one "lay-low day" and I take that opportunity to visit with my friend Kittie. Unfortunately, it didn't work out for me to visit her this year, and I was really disappointed.

I'm trying to convince hubby that we really need to move to a warmer, sunnier climate. After two days in Florida, my skin was screaming "Thank you, Charlene, for bringing in the moisture!!"
So, what does a somewhat sad woman do to brighten her day in cloud-covered, cold, and raining Michigan? She goes to her stamp room and gets busy stamping and making herself happy!

I created this card using the sketch design Roxie posted on Splitcoaststampers today.

I made my triangle shapes by cutting a 2 3/4" square of the designer paper and then cut that in half. 

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope the sun is shining where you are!


Stamps:  Stampin' Up's Bring on the Cake
Cardstock:  Black, Very Vanilla, My Mind's Eye dp
Ink:  Tuxedo Memento Black, Tea Dye Distress Ink
Accessories:  ric rac punch, stamp-a-ma-jig, dimensionals, blending tool

An Unusual Pick a Petal Bloom

Hi!  Just a quick post for now. 

Recognize this image?  It's from Stampin' Up's Pick a Petal that I haven't used in forever.  I used my stamp-a-ma-jig to line up and stamp the black outer lines first and then I stamped the solid image in Cherry Cobbler.  The stem and leaves are from Rubbernecker (Weeds #497-15) stamped in Old Olive.  After I stamped my images, I used a blender pen dipped in the respective inks to add shading to my images.  The sketch design is one Roxie posted on Splitcoaststampers today.  The polkadotted designer paper is from an old set called Bella Rose by Stampin' Up.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. 

They're Baaaaack!

The CCEE Stampers are back in full swing for the new year, and Frances Byrne is the January challenge hostess.  For this first Thursday in January 2011, Frances challenged the team members (and you) to create a card/project with checks in our design.   If you'd like to play along with us, you need to include checks of some type on your card .... be it a stamp which a check design; designer paper; embossing folder, ribbon etc. 

For my card, I used some pretty purple checked designer paper I found in my stash.  I also used it on my clear buttons so I could have a matching design on those.

I painted my Rubbernecker daisy images with Stickles, which happened to be a technique challenge issued by Joan Ervin on Splitcoaststampers (SCS) this week.  I've included the link in case you'd like to check out Joan's tutorial on how to do this.  I apologize for the poor photograph, but I find trying to capture the pretty dazzle in anything with sparkle to it difficult to do.  I used Ranger's Lavender and Turquoise Stickles to paint my daisies. 

I used this week's SCS sketch challenge by Roxie for my layout.

Please swing by our CCEE Stampers blog and take a moment to gaze upon the fabulous creations of my team mates:  Joanne, Frances, Shirley, Cindy, and Tosh.

By the way, it is day #4 of my retirement, and I am so happy and thankful that I didn't have to drive to work since our roads are snow covered and slippery this morning!  

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

We're Baaaaaaaaack!

Good morning! Well, it's been a while since we had our CCEE challenge (2 months to be exact), but after a holiday break, the CCEE Stampers are back at it, and we're kicking off the month of January with a series of sketch challenges hosted by Cindy Haffner. Cindy has a great eye for layout design and always comes up with cool challenges.

We've had a few changes to our group and schedule. I'm sad to see four of our original members leave our group: Cindy Motherway, Carolyn King, Dawn Lusk, and Deb Mills, but they haven't left the stamping community, so you'll still see them out there. On a happy note, I hope you'll visit our CCEE blog and give a warm welcome to two new members, both of whom are exceptionally talented: Joanne Grzelak and Shirley Quarry!!! Also, our challenge day has moved from Monday to Thursday of each week.

I hope you'll find some time to play along with us!




I used one of my favorite floral sets from Gina K. Designs, A Year of Flowers. I love the tulips in this set. I colored them with Copic markers and shaded all around my flowers to tone down the white in the cardstock. I felt that flowed better with my earthtone colors of Ruby Red and More Mustard.

My next card is unrelated to our CCEE challenge. I just didn't get a chance to upload it to my blog last night. This is one I made for a friend's birthday using the sketch design from the sketch challenge on Splitcoaststampers and Stampin' Up's Flight of the Butterfly stamp set. My colors in this are Pink Pirouette and Chocolate Chip.



Thanks for stopping by! I have a busy morning scheduled at work and then I'm off in the afternoon for some personal appointments, but I'll be by to visit your blog soon!

Textural Birthday Balloons

I love sketch challenges, and Roxie has another fabulous one this week at Splitcoaststampers. I haven't had a chance to play in this particular challenge in some time, but I did get up a little bit earlier this morning and was able to play this week. I needed a birthday card for a co-worker, and this sketch worked fab for that.



This card came together quickly because the designer paper really lent itself well to the sketch design. My balloons were colored with Copic markers and then I embossed the image with my dotted swiss embossing folder.

Sketch Challenges and New Rubbah....oh! and Happy Anniversary!

I couldn't wait to use my new Delightful Decorations stamps and punch. I seem to have a thing for punches, especially really cool ones that punch the stamped image for you. This card is also for the sketch challenge on StampTV. A pretty clean and simple card using Ridinghood Red cardstock, dp, and striped ribbon.



I made this card for the sketch challenge on Splitcoaststampers (SCS) yesterday and never got a chance to put it up on my blog. It's also for the Mothermark Miss You teapot challenge hosted by MariLynn on SCS. Cindy is taking a couple weeks off, so MariLynn thought it'd be fun to still have a teapot challenge. Here's the inspiration teapot. Go to post #273 and click on MariLynn's link if you'd like to play along. I'm a day late and a dollar short getting mine done and missed most of the party gals.



Today is my wedding anniversary. Hubby and I are going out to a fancy schmancy restaurant out of town for dinnah to celebrate. Now, if I can just quit eating my m&ms.....I need to save my appetite for the real food!

SCS Sketch Challenge

I cannot believe July is here already! The days fly by much too fast!

Roxie has posted another fabamalajistically (I realize that this is not really a word, but, hey, it's my blog, so I'm allowed to make up new words, if I wanna!) cool sketch challenge on Splitcoaststampers. I did get to check it out first thing this morning, but, currently, it appears that the site is having some technical issues because I cannot get into it. I'll upload my card there as soon as I'm able to get back in. Basically, we were to use nine shapes (circles, squares, or whatever we wanted) on our card and then use images/embellishments/whatever that could not be larger than those base shapes. Here's what I came up with:

Either my friend Anne (jdmommy) is heavily influencing me or I love red more than I thought, because I've noticed that I seem to use it a lot. I gotta break out of my box.

Anywhoooo, I decided to make a 5 1/4" square card and use squares AND circles on mine. I don't have a square punch, so I cut up nine 1 1/4" squares on my Fiskar's tabletop paper cutter. I used my 1 1/4" circle punch to layer on top of the squares, and then, as you can see, I used a variety of stamps, punches, and buttons to go on top of the circle shapes.

The background designer paper is some of my favorite striped paper in SU's Rockabilly collection. It has this cool shiny sheen to it.

Stamps: Seeing Spots
Cardstock: Real Red, Black, White, Rockabilly dp
Ink: Real Red
Accessories: circle, heart, star, and arrow punches; buttons; dimensionals

To Sketch or Not to Sketch

Today is the sketch challenge over on Splitcoaststampers. I almost didn't participate today because I really am terribly challenged at multiple layering on my cards. I really struggle with bringing multiple colors and patterns together in a pleasing manner, and I so admire those of you who are so good at it! But then I said to myself the purpose of a challenge is to make us stretch and grow in our creativity, so I set about the task of seeing what I could do.

Now, if you could only see my stamp table from this morning's endeavors....it LOOKS like a tornado hit! I can't even begin to count how many different colors of cardstock and designer paper I cut out for the different layers on today's sketch challenge. I probably could make another twenty cards from the scraps left on my table! Ha! Anywhoooo, several hundreds of minutes later, here's what I finally settled on.

My layers on this card start with a More Mustard card base, then a matting of Not Quite Navy, a piece of Very Vanilla embossed with the Cuttlebug houndstooth embossing folder after I rubbed More Mustard onto the folder, Chocolate Chip matting for the smaller panels, and SU designer paper from an old scrapbook pack.

Aren't these little buttons cute? They are from Stampin' Up's Latte button collection. I like how the floral brown button matches the shape of the Trendy Tree. I used Stampin' Up's tag corner punch for the opposing corners on my main image panel and then paper pierced those corners. The stamp-a-ma-jig really comes in handy for lining up the tree branches with the tree foliage on the Trendy Trees stamp set.

So, how about helping a gal out here and sharing some of your tips for how you bring multiple colors, patterns, and layers together. I'd love to hear from you!

Stamps: Trendy Trees, All Holidays

Cardstock: More Mustard, Chocolate Chip, Not Quite Navy, Very Vanilla, SU dp

Ink: More Mustard, Chocolate Chip, Not Quite Navy

Accessories: SU Latte buttons, SU tag corner and oval punches, paper piercer, dimensionals, Cuttlebug houndstooth embossing folder.