Coloring Addict

Man, someone should have warned me about how addictive copics are. All I wanna do is sit down and color! I did manage to get out of the house with the kids for a small trip to Sam's, and than I came back to the crafting desk! Totally neglecting the laundry that has built up this week! I love how they get into small spaces! Anyhow, I got two done between last night, and today. One more in the works, but finding it hard to find some paper I like for the image. So, must search more, but kids have hair cuts in a bit, and I'm so happy with these two cards, I wanted to get them posted.

Both of these images are from Sugar Nellie, by Elisabeth Bell. The DP on PenPal card is from my friend Linda, she was kind enough to send them as a surprise for my birthday. She does some beautiful work, and lives in the UK, so you should check out her blog. I've had those prima flowers for about 3 years I think. I'm always so scared to use my supplies! But they looked so pretty around the image. She was a scrap image, as her ear didn't come out perfectly, but I think it's really hard to tell on the completed project. I just sat down to play last night to see how the colors that I got worked together.

Than for the second card, I used TAC's Catelynne FWIC. It's one of my favorite lines from TAC. Seems like I say that about alot of their papers! I do love alot of their paper lines. On this card, I thought the blues and browns looked so pretty with her jeans, and the fence she's sitting on. This is Taylored Expressions sketch challenge #63. My computer won't go to the link to let me copy and paste it. Not sure what's up with that. Anyhow, I did flip the layout. On this card, I was impressed with how well the flowers blended together with a simple touch of the marker. Yea, I'm digging the markers! LOL!

Other supplies: prima flowers from Michael's, ribbon from michaels, DCWV cardstock, Wild Wasabi CS SU, stickles, pearls from michaels, SU scallop punch.

Two Sweeties on a Bench

Man, oh, man! These Whiff of Joy stamps are so stinking cute! I knew when I saw the new bench a few weeks ago, that it would go so nicely with the Spring kit. How cute are these two?! I colored them using water color crayons. I found a better way for me to color their face. I always feel like it's washed out, or I can't get the cheeks to blend as I'd like. This time I did the blush first, and the skin color, and I think it's blending much better on these two! I followed the Whiff of Joy Challenge for the week. My first time for that challenge. A lovely layout was one the site, perfect for those who love to use pattern papers on cards. I popped both my little darlings out on the bench. Cut the bench out with nesties, and popped that whole area up. I sponged my sky with SU Baja Breeze, Ballet Blue, and Not quite Navy. The grass is Cert. Celery, Wild Wasabi, and Garden Green. I used SU So Saffron, Kiwi Kiss, and Brocade Blue cardstocks. Added some stickles to Willow. The pattern paper is from Michaels, its called Chloe's Closet. I stamped the base of the cardstock, which is 5x4.85 because I'ma dope, with TAC swirlies. That one is quickly becoming a favorite of mine.

Oh, and get this. Spent the morning at the Dr's office, and guess what Trey has?! Strep! LOL! Can you believe that? It was sorta comical going to the Dr this morning! We were there last Thursday! Poor thing though is covered in the rash from it. Got some funky smelling meds too because he just had it back in Jan! Told him he got to start his spring break early!

Gabi and the Nutcracker

Did some scrapping last night. I'm a bit behind and need to do some to catch up. Like I still have the First day of school to do for both kids! This page is for Gabi's scrapbook. Gabi's dance studio did the Nutcracker over the holidays. Normally, Gabi's not a big fan of ballet, as she likes "music with words". Two Christmases ago, we watched her friends dance the Nutcracker, and she decided this past year she wanted to do it. She tried out, and was selected to be an angel. That meant I had to use TAC's Just Dream set for this page. I love when stamps and scrapping go together so well! The best part is being able to color it to match your papers. I hate finding stickers that are great, but they're in off colors from what I need to work with my page. Stamps makes it so I can make it how I need it to be! Makes me happy!

All went well with the dance,and this year they had professional dancers join them for this show. The girls were silly about the male dancers. Guess they saw too much of the goods, and they thought they needed pants. Oh, to hear them talk was so funny! The professionals did such a nice job, and the ladies costumes were so pretty! Gabi had a sweet part in the show where she got to walk out with the Sugar Plum Fairy. The worst part of the dance was that the angels all managed to tear their wings. Gabi tore hers during practice. Momma wasn't happy! By the end all four angels had holes in the wings!

They hosted a sweet little tea party to meet the professional dancers. We took some photos while we were in there with the ballerinas. The young girl in the lavender costume was the soloist for Gabi's group. I lose track of who is who in this ballet, so I'm not sure what her part was. The young ladies in white are Gabi's friends from school, who were in a different routine than Gabi. Those little white outfits were so pretty!

The buttons on the faces of a few of the girls are because I wasn't sure if the parents would mind me putting a photo of their kid on line. I called two of my friends to ask before posting the page to make sure they wouldn't mind having their kid put on here. My snowflakes are done with nesties snowflake dies. I used that cool glitter paper I found at Target. I love that stuff! I added shimmerz, and man, I always want to call this something wrong, blingz on the angel wings and dress. The papers are the Christmas Glitter stack from two seasons ago.

Simple and clean

One of my sets of in laws lost their pet this past week. Taz was a big boy. He weighted 28 pounds! He was greatly loved, and lived 14 fab years being spoiled by them. He was my FIL's baby. It was a little sudden, as he got sick on Sunday, had surgery to fix what looked like a cyst, poor thing didn't make it thru the recovery after surgery. I had seen the With Sympathy set from Paper Trey Ink, and being a pet lover, I knew I wanted the set for pets as well. I sat down tonight to make them a card letting them know we're thinking about them. It's so hard to lose someone you love, and fur babies touch your lives in ways that can surprise you sometimes. I thought this cat from TAC's Playful Kittens made for a sweet cat to put with the nice sentiments from PTI. I used Sand's of Time paper line from TAC.

Trey had a birthday party on Sat for a fellow classmate. I love this boy set from Elzybells. Trey loves skateboarding. Makes for perfect cards for little boys. I didn't put a lot of bling on there, because I have yet to find a male in my world who appreciates that! LOL! The paper is from a K&Co set that I haven't seen at Michael's recently. The sentiment is from a retired TAC set called Hang loose. Solid cardstock is from SU, Ballet Blue, and Tangerine In color.

Both images where colored with Koh-i-noor and primsa colored pencils and rectangle nesties.

Teacher's Valentines

I had some left over mailboxes from Target last year, so I put together more Valentine mailboxes filled with candies for the kids teachers. I made these for their teachers last year too, and they all loved them. So, I knew they'd be a big hit again this year. Nothing new and fab on that end, but always a favorite crafting project! Busy time of the year for me with the school yearbook. But I will be posting some TAC Butterfly bit cards by this weekend as part of that blog hop I signed up for. Not much free time this week!

The most difficult part about making these was finding my hot glue gun. Which is still missing! This reminds me of a story about my son from last year. They joked at school to look for it in the son's room. Last year he got into it, plugged it in, put it on the carpet, and I discovered it two days later melting on the carpet! YIKES! Sadly, I kept smelling burning stuff while I was at my crafting table, and kept looking for something that was burning, and didn't notice it! The other joke was to see if he was trying to use it to glue the fur back on the cat! Cuz he tried to shave our cat last year too, about the same time he tried to burn down the house! Sigh! That child of mine! LOL! Got sidetracked, I used my embossing gun to melt the gun sticks to attach the flowers and the buttons.

I used two TAC sets I got during the 50% off promotion. The heart is from Forever Family, I trimmed the scroll under the heart off, so they're two pieces instead of one stamp. They fit nice together still, so I can use it that way too, if I want too. The others are from Sweet goodies. I had fun with that set, putting it together with the nesties. They worked great together! Don't you love how you can stamp on just about anything with Palette ink pads? Gosh, they rock!

Supplies: TAC's Forever family, sweet goodies, Palette ink Moulin Rouge, and PTI Berry Bliss ink pad, PTI Berry Bliss card stock, DCWV cardstock, glitter pen, stickles, embossing powder, modge podge, nesties, scrappers floss, misc flowers, and buttons on hand.

Red Christmas Delights

It's another Sunday, and a Christmas Challenge on Sparkle's blog. This week, she said red and white! I saw a card in the Hero's Arts catty, at least I think that's where I saw it last night, where they used white on white layers. I thought it looked so cool! I had to try it today with my red and white cards. I went with easy layouts, but I feel like both cards turned out darling!

On this one, I used TAC's ornamental snowflakes stamp set. I stamped it in Palette ink Moulin Rouge. The snowflake cuttlebug folder is sprayed in Snowflake Glimmer Mist. I heat embossed the snowflake with sparkle red embossing powder. Cut it out with nesties. The sentiment is from a retired TAC holiday sentiment set.

On the next card, I used a stamp I found at AC Moore last year. I thought this image was so stinking cute! I covered the white parts of the dress with fun flock, with glitter added to it. I put red fun flock on the tree, so the tree is fuzzy. I wanted to give the tree something, but green wasn't an option, so I thought the red fuzz would do the trick. I paper pierced around the white border to try to help it show up better for the photo. I really like how it looks white on white layering. I added stickles to the mistletoe and the red dress to the center girl. The mistletoe is the only place I cheated with color. It has a hint of green stickles on it!

Supplies: PTI Pure poppy cardstock, PTI white cardsock, fun flock, stickles, TAC stamps, CB folders, glimmer mist, Palette ink Noir and Moulin Rough.

Circle yourself with the holidays!

For Sparkle's Christmas challenge this week, she challenged us to use circles on our card. I started thinking about this yesterday, and decided I wanted to try to make a circle card. I thought the largest scallop nestie would work well for the shape of the card. It worked great, but the card is a bit smaller than I expected, but I'm so pleased with the results. I than did the embossing with other nesties around the opening, and around the snowmen on the inside. I love how this turned out! It's not exactly how I envisioned, but I think it looks so stinking cute! I forgot before I took the photo, that I wanted to add fun flock to the sheep.

Supplies: TAC snowman nativity, nesties, stickles, shimmerz, stickers from Target, lyra water color crayons.

For my CC Design card, my friend Tammi sent me the image for my birthday. Gosh, such a fun image! Keep with the challenge of using circles, grabbed my CB folder, and some DCWV paper that had circles on it. I cut the image out, and put it in the circle. I love that look when people do that on cards, so I had to try it out. I love the bright colors of this card! For the brim on her hat, I used fun flock, with added glitter to it for a little more sparkle.

Supplies: CC Designs, PTI Pure Poppy cardstock, DCWV Christmas glitter slab, fun flock, stickles, SU pretty in pink, nesties.

Joyful Girl

My friend, Kim, was sweet enough to send me a few images of garden joy by TAC, which just released yesterday. It's a darling new set by Mabelle. Kim was asked to help design some new stuff for TAC, so she had this set before any of us! She also was published in the first edition of Serendipity! Big woo hoo for Kim! She says I'm her cheering squad! I'm just so happy for her!

I grabbed my Basic Grey Mellow pack and started to color this sweet heart. I got the sketch idea off of Amy R's blog. This is based on sketch 45. The image is big, and I didn't get my flowers by Queen and Co low enough. Oh, well, it still looks cute enough with them peaking out, right? Please tell me I'm right! But I do wish they were lower on the card. I had already put that part together, when I went to layer the top down, and discover they were way too close. I even tried to pull the flowers out over the edge, but that didn't work. I used a few Queen and Co brads and flowers on here. They are from the Sonic Boom collection, with I believe they retired. I used my lyra crayons to color her with. I was gonna put a sentiment, but couldn't make up my mind on which one to use! I use my rectangle nesties to cut, emboss and scallop the main image.

Supplies: TAC Garden joy, SU red ridinghood cardstock, Basic Grey Mellow, Queen and Co brads and flowers, lyra water color crayons, stickles, and nesties.

Ah, that I like!

Okay, now I'm happy! I love the blog photo! And better yet, I took all the stuff I made for it, and turned it into a card afterwards! I think they call that going green! LOL! Anyhow, I love SU's almost amethyst. One of my favorite colors!

I pulled out my favorite TAC sets called Just Dream, colored her in with lyra water color crayons. I used my nesties to cut her out, and layer her in a scallop circle nestie. I paper pieced the wings with a glitter paper I found at Target. Added some stuff I had floating around, prima flowers, ribbon from Joann's for a buck, brads, dew drops, I used a new Martha Stewart punch I picked up today. The sentiment is from a new TAC set called Beautiful day which can be purchased after Feb 1. Just love how this all came together!

Supplies: TAC's just dream, beautiful day, SU's lovely lilac cardstock, Almost amethyst cardstock and ink pad, lyra water color crayons, prima flowers, Martha Stewart punch, dew drops, lyra water color crayons and Noir palette pad.

Basic Butterfly

Whew, been a busy week for me. We did a quick spur of the moment visit with family, since the kids were out of school an extra day. Sadly, Trey spent most of it sick, ended up going to a Dr out of town, and he has strep. Bad momma I am, thought it was a sinus infection, so I was holding off taking him to a Dr until we got back home. I will have spent 25 of the 31 days in Jan giving antibiotics to one of my kids! January has been rough! Than we get home, and I'm all ready for nice rest in my bed, and Gabi got sick last night. So, both kids are home today resting. Crossing fingers, both are well enough for school tomorrow.

Today is Flutter by Wed's on Danni's blog. I do like to play along. I felt a little creative and went out of my normal comfort zone. My ILS, who are wonderful folks, spoiled me for my birthday, so I have 6 new Nesties sets. Not all are from them, but we're not telling hubby that! LOL! We did tell him I purchased all of them, and he told me to get a job! One new set is the paisley set. I made my butterfly wings from the nesties. The camera isn't here, and the scanner is washing out the background paper. I used Mellow from Basic Grey, and there's a cloud paper in there, but the scanner doesn't like it! I might change out the photo later if I can capture it better on the camera. The sentiment is from Beautiful day in the new TAC catty. Solid cardstock is Ripe avocado from PTI, and all the sheets of paper are brushed with close to cocoa SU ink.

Basic Joy

Here are my two cards for Sparkle's Christmas challenge. I didn't have any liquid applique, so there isn't any on my cards. I thought I had some, but wasn't able to find it in my stash of supplies.

I used Basic Grey's Boxer line for my pattern paper. I really liked that it has the Christmas colors, but it wasn't Christmasy paper. If that makes any sense. I also liked the deep blue in the pattern. Different colors than I normally create with. I don't use deep blues often. I embossed both images with embossing powder with added extra diamond dust glitter in it. I like the added bling on the cards from it. I added Silver Bell's Shimmerz to the circles on the blue card. I cut out the word Joy, the stamp is one solid word.

Remember, TAC sets are currently on sale for half off! The sentiment is part of TAC's tag tidbit set.

I realized after I was done, I had just done the tree's sketch a few days earlier! Need to peak at more sketches to break out of the box some! LOL!

Supplies for Tree card: TAC's Joy of Christmas, Tag tidbits, Basic Grey's Boxer, nesties, one inch circle punch, 1.25 inch circle punch, 3/4 circle punch, SU's Night of Navy, Palette Jardin Moss, red ink is from Lautrec Palette four pack from TAC, embossing powder, stickles, Shimmerz, Jolee's snowflake, Martha Stewart's double scallop punch.

Playful birds

Here's another set being released from TAC. This set is called Beautiful Day. The flowers lined up in this first card are all individual stamps. I put them together on my card. I love the sentiments for it. Beautiful is by itself as well. So, that would go nicely on so many cards, since it has such a pretty font. A few of the flowers weren't my style, so I'm looking forward to seeing what other folks do with them. I hope I did them justice with my creation, though. It also screamed to me that I should use the Mabelle paper, Bella Flor, both seemed fun and whimsy. I think they make a cute set together!

Included with this set there are 3 bird stamps, on by itself, in the card above, and two couple birds. I do think this set would make a darling congrats for a baby card, using one couple set, and the little birdie! I may have to try that tomorrow. I thought the couple sets would make a cute V-day card or anniv card for hubby. They're back to back in Feb. I kept this one more low key, cuz ya know, he's a guy! I just get looks from him when I hand him a card! The sentiment on this card is from Soul Kisses, which can be viewed on the TAC's main website under promotions.

I also released I totally want the rest of the oval, as I went to layer it, and having only the large scallops, it was too big. So, that's on my list of wants! I didn't understand what the buzz was all about last year over those nesties. Those things ROCK! Makes layering a breeze! I love them!

Supplies: nesties, beautiful day-TAC, Bella Flor-TAC, DCWV cardstock, noir ink pad, lyra water color crayons, Martha S double scallop punch, SU scallop punch, stickles.

More TAC catty release cards and Sparkle's Challenge

I'm really having a blast with these stamps that will be released later this month. I've was at my stamping table just about all day yesterday playing. It's so nice to feel sit and play, and love the finished product! I'm having so much fun with the images, and playing with the nesties. Here are two more that I made of the stamps being released in the new TAC magalogue this month.

The first card is done with a set called Showers of Love. It has some great sentiments for making shower cards, and three darling umbrellas! I used Lilly Anne paper with it, so it's a pretty spring card. My flowers are a little too far to the left, but I thought it looked cute that way, so I left it alone!

Other supplies: nesties, stickles, primas, SU punch, SU pixie pink, palette ink Cort d'Azure, chartreuse, Lilly Anna card stock, brad, gems from Michaels.

Than another one of the darling girl from Every thing's blooming. The sentiment is from tag tid bits. I used Bella Flora paper, which is currently on sale for 10 bucks. It's a very pretty paper line. I love bright colors, and this has lots of fun colors. It's was designed by Maybelle. But good gravy, this little girl is so darling! I swear, I can't get feet right! With every stamp that's standing, my feet are a touch off. I wonder if my head is tilted when I'm stamping?!

Other supplies: nesties, pixie pink SU ink, lyra water color crayons, Martha Steward double scallop punch, SU punch, gems from Michael's, ribbon.

Than I did Sparkle's Christmas Challenge again this week. You can view her challenge on her blog. She said no red or green this week. Also, there was a challenge at High Hope Stamps to do dry embossing. I used a CB folder with snowflakes, and used my nesties to dry emboss on the Christmas cards. These suckers are blingy! I used some glitter paper I found at Target, and man, does it sparkle! Two more cards done for Christmas!

Supplies: Merry Wishes paper TAC(pink)-retired, DCWV Christmas glitter stack(blue), Martha S. double scallop punch, nesties, stickles, liquid pearls, sparkle snow, lyra water color crayons, CB folder, glitter paper and snowflakes-Target, ribbon-Michael's.

New TAC stamps

Here are two cards I made tonight. This set is coming out later this month. I think she's such a cutie! I just love her boots! Her little bird friend is in several of the images too. I used my long rectangle nestie to trim the end of the diamond layer. I thought that was a clever idea on the Elzy blog when she did it with the paisley nestie.

Supplies:DCWV cardstock, TAC stamp and dp paper, little whimsy, stickles, lyra water color crayons. nesties.

I think I want a sentiment for this card that says Home Tweet Home. I'm sure I've seen that some place before! I think it would be a perfect match with this image! This bird is just too cute! I think I'm gonna have a lot of fun with this set!

Supplies:Primas, lyra watercolor crayons, TAC stamp and dp paper, little whimsy, gem brad, SU word punch window, dew drops, SU pixie pink cardstock, nesties, stickles.

I'm happy with all the sets that TAC released early for the angels to preorder! I'm hoping to play some tomorrow with a different set! I'm sure I'll have to vacuum first though! Wink! Wink!

I should share with how I told Paul I got the vacuum! Our phone conversation: I have bad news for you. I was naughty today. Paul-Yea? I got a new vacuum. Oh, gosh! It was a Dyson. Oh! CRAP! It was 500 bucks. WHAT?! I paid 94 bucks for the sucker! How did you do that?!

Such a mean wife! LOL!

Blue Flutterby challenge

I was a little rushed today making this card. The kids had a two hour school delay due to fog. Believe me the extra sleep was nice, but it made me rush the rest of the day. Not enough time to get my stuff done! I headed out to a few stores, Michael's in search of some paper packs on sale this week, a new scrapbook store I heard about, and Target. I got lost in Target for too long! LOL! I did grab about 4 6x6 packs of papers at Michaels, and found Basic Grey's new Bittersweet at the LSS. So, it was a good crafting shopping day! Anyways, after school is dance for Gabi, so I got started with the card right after homework, worked for about 15 minutes, than ran out the door. Paul wanted to go look at laptops after dance, so just now finishing up the card, and posting it.

I've decided I wanted to do more challenges with stamping this year. Today, I wanted to play Danni's Wed. Flutterby Challenge. I grabbed my TAC Butterfly bits set, and one of the new paper packs by Making Memories called Chloe's Closet. Other supplies are: SU's tangerine, Baja blue, Brocade blue ink pads, PTI Olive cardstock, stickles, ribbon from Michaels, prima flower, and Martha Stewart Double scallop punch. I used a nestie as well. Trying to get the sizing down on these. Seems big to me sometimes. All in all, bright fun spring butterfly card!

A cracked cuttle bug plate!

My company left this morning, so after I took down the Christmas decorations-this took all day, I headed up to play with my new toys at 8:30 tonight. I grabbed my new Rachel Anne Miller stamp-isn't she darling? I thought she looked spring-ish, so I pulled out TAC's Angelee SWIC. It's filled with those soft spring colors. I so wanted to see what the new stickles looked like that I grabbed, so I put different stickles on the mushrooms. (The distressed stickles have a big opening, so that caused a few issues at first. Had the stickle blobs happening a few times!)

But yippie! I finally got to use the nesties. I will have to get the nesting rectangles. I really like that look where they're embossed and straight line in the middle. I'm not a double scalloper person, I guess! Ran into a problem with the ribbon on this layout. So, I'm not digging where it's located.

Than I grabbed an IRAK from Tammi to make another card. Man, she's gonna make a big fan of those Hanglar stamps! Freaking cuties! I put her thru a different shaped rectangle nestie, and bam, the darn thing cracked my B plate! And it was my nice one too! I always do my die cutting on this one, so that it's freaky looking, and the other stays clear. I was a little shocked when it stuck into the plastic when I cut the second scallop rectangle out! Wasn't expecting that! Made me chuckle while I was peeling it off. I double checked the directions, and I put it thru right, so I'm not sure why it cracked. Guess I'll grab another one when it's on sale.

Supplies:Rachel Anne Miller, Hanglar, TAC Angelee SWIC, SU card stock, K & Co., stickles, ribbons from Michaels, flowers from TAC, Versamark spots, Nesties, crop-a-dile, water color pencils and lyra water color crayons.