A little vacation creation

So has your weekend been? It has been cold with a few flurries here in Michigan. Hard to believe I was just sitting out by the pool in the sun two weeks ago. These pictures are a nice reminder of warmer days. Hey isn't today supposed to be the first day of spring!

My good friend Carol had given me this Maya Road mini album for my birthday last November and I just got around to making it. I made it while I was at her place in Florida and I took the pictures outside next to the pool. Carol has a beautiful stamp room that faces the canal they live on and has sliding doors right out to the pool. I could even see the dolphins from her stamp desk. It is like stamping heaven with a view. She is one lucky woman. I don't have much to post today but several pictures of my mini book. I didn't turn this into a calendar which is what the album is meant for. Instead I themed the book around my favorite paper Mariposa which is from DCWV. The paper has embellishments of it's own so I just added a few do-dads here and there.

I made the bird nest embellishment on this next page. Carol had bought one for each of us and when I saw them I knew I could make one. I made some with three white round eggs and some with brown wire. They turned out pretty good for a first try.

I stamped the branch and bird nest on this next one. Notice the little blue eggs in the nest. The chip board pieces are from Prima's Raspberry Tea collection

This next one is my favorite page along with the cover. I like how the bird turned out with the crown. Since I like birds and crowns, this was a perfect combination. The egg charm was a finding at Michaels and the flowers are from the MS water lilies punches.

This next one I stamped the sentiment and then used my Sakura Star Dust pen to add some glam to it.

This is a side view of the book. Once you flip through the pages you can flip it over and look at the other side of the page. I was able to incorporate stamped images and glitter that makes it hard to tell if it was already on the paper or not. I am going to be teaching a class at our stamp club on how to collage a book. I know this is very intimidating for some people and I wanted to show them that the paper you choose can really be the start of the book and actually do some of the work for you.

I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did making it. I guess the atmosphere I was in didn't hurt either. I was able to complete it in one full evening while waiting for my son's plane to come in at midnight. That is what is so great about these small books. I was a bit tired the next day but being able to sit by the pool in the sun with nothing to do but drink a margarita and a read good book cured that. Now I have to tackle my stamp studio. When I got home I just set everything that I brought with me and all of the new things I had purchased right in the middle of the room. Today I have to put everything away. That is going to be a challenge.

Have fun and enjoy!

Life is good....

Can you guess where this is? I have been on vacation for the last three weeks. I didn't say anything before I left that I would be gone from home for so long because I don't feel comfortable putting that information on the Internet as an invitation to a burglary.

Anyway my friend Carol, whom I visited last year in Florida, was going to Hawaii with her husband and they offered their place to my family for 15 wonderful days. I have to say it was a much more enjoyable trip this year- very relaxing and nothing but wonderful memories. We drove to Raleigh, N.C. first to visit my daughter and son-in-law for a few days. They just bought a new home in November so we had to go and check it out. From there we drove to Georgia and spent the night in a bed and breakfast. We ate lunch here at the above picture. Do you know where it is now? I'll give you a hint- Food Network. That's right, we had lunch at Paula Deen's restaurant. It was such a nice afternoon. We spent a few dollars in her store which is an attached building to the restaurant and then we walked around and enjoyed the beautiful sights of Savannah. We then headed down to Cape Coral and the drive went by faster than I thought because there was so much to look at along the way.

This is the view I had every morning on the lanai with my coffee and the morning paper. I have to say this is what I miss the most. Even though I was on vacation I was still up at 6:30 so I could absorb this image. My son Elliot was on spring break while we were down there so he flew in for a week. We saw a lot of dolphins. They would come up and down the canal looking for fish and as if right on cue, they would surface two and three times right out in front of us.

We went to Captiva Island for the day and this handsome young man (my son Elliot) braved the cold water in the Gulf of Mexico to find me some nicer shells out in the deeper water. I knew he loved his momma. It is hard to believe he will be 21 in May but he certainly looks like a grown young man in the pictures and handsome at that if I don't say so myself. We spent the day looking for shells and relaxing in the sun. I was playing with the camera and decided to take some pictures of the waves. It looks so refreshing doesn't it? The beach at the edge of the water is actually all small shells about the size of a quarter and smaller.

Captiva is known for their spectacular sunsets and after we had dinner at a quaint restaurant we were treated to this beautiful sunset to end a perfect day.

I did a bit of stamping and visited my two favorite stamping stores in Fort Meyers- Strawberry Fields and The Owl and The Pussy Cat. I had a nice little chat with Regina who owns The Owl and The Pussy Cat regarding a comment that was left on my blog last fall and my hunches were right all along. Sometimes my intuitions scare me when I see how true they are. As usual she had some wonderful findings that will find their way into my projects.

I have to say that this has to be one of my most memorable trips. To make it even better, I got on the computer and visited some of my favorite blogs. I happened to leave a comment on Tim Holtz's blog a few days earlier and I couldn't believe it when I saw that he had a random blog candy give away and I had won. I had emailed him back with my info. and told him how excited I had gotten when I saw my comment and that my husband came into the room and thought I had won tickets to Ellen- which I told him noooo, it was something better than Ellen. I told Tim that I was waiting to go dinner until after 7:00 when I could register for one of his classes in Novi. I told him I was going to have to throw my family a few more crackers to hold them over until I was registered. Yippee, I am now going to get to go to one of Tim's classes May 8th. Mario emailed me back and said he wished he had been a fly on the wall that evening and he would send me out a box of goodies when they returned home from Ranger. I can't wait to see what I won.

Sorry that I didn't post any cards today. I have some pictures of a book that I made that need editing and I was just too tired yesterday from the drive home. I will get those up and posted the end of the week.

I hope you all have a wonderful week. I will as I still am re-living some cherished memories.

A little bit of shabby

So how has your week been? As you can see from the lack of posting, mine has been rather busy. I did find some time to create this little rustic gem. As I had mentioned in my last post, I wanted to get out of my rut and spice things up a bit. So with one arm tied behind my back I put my Martha Stewart border punches away. But I didn't say I would put all my punches away.

Today's card is a bit on the shabby chic side but in more earthtone colors rather than the typical lighter softer colors. The DS paper is Double Take- Sweet Shoppe Collection layered onto hot pink card stock. I distressed the edges of the paper to pull in the shabby and then layered a piece of celery paper that had been embossed with Swiss Dot in my cuttlebug. It is a bit difficult to see but the ribbon is actually a metallic burgundy color, unless you enlarge the picture it looks brown. The pink flowers were punched out using the MS Water Lily punch and completed with Prima Velvet Heirloom Rose Leaves in Meadow. The brown flower is also from Prima that I sanded and then applied Beedz-Shimmer iridescent glue to make it sparkle. It is very easy to get the shabby look if you are using Prima or Melissa Francis products. Another product line that will help you achieve a shabby look is Maya Road. The "Strength for Today" sentiment tag is from Melissa Francis- Indexed Ticket Company the Lighter side of Breast Cancer. This was a great find in a clearance bin and there are several tags in the booklet. The scallop chipboard tag is from Prima's Raspberry Tea collection which I just love and I stamped the "best wishes" sentiment on it with sepia ink. A few embellishments and my card was complete.

Don't be intimidated by trying to achieve this look. If your are a newbie to shabby, I would suggest you start with something from Melissa Francis and build around that. Just rough up your embellishments and paper. You can even rub some distress inks on your paper to tone them down a bit or you can go the lighter side of shabby and use the whites and creams. I would love to see what you create, so send me a link to your projects. If you have any questions I would be happy to share my techniques with you.

I found time to create an easel book with my favorite paper- Maripso from DCWV which I will share with you in my next post.

Have fun and enjoy!

It's all about lines...

I hope everyone is staying warm. It looks like the upper eastern states are getting snowed in again. Get out the hot chocolate and marshmallows, light a candle, wrap up in a warm blanket and put in a good movie. Boy I must be getting old if that is a perfect evening.

I'm not at my own computer, but lucky for me I had my flash drive with me that had some of my photos on it so I could get something posted. Today's card is all about lines. I used my score-pal for the simple background around the main image from Stampin' Up. I thought it was simple yet elegant and I liked the look of the clean lines. I would have much preferred the look of the scoring from the backside of the white panel because the lines from the score-pal are more crisp and visual, except in order to achieve that look I would have had to turn the image over and score from the back side. That would have been difficult to see where my image was since I didn't want the score lines to run through the image. I also did some scoring at the bottom. The borders are both Martha Stewart punches and the scallop punch already has the double line which carried my theme for me. The newest one is the pansy border- very cute isn't it? This probably isn't the best photo but I was trying to show the shimmer that I had added to the flowers with a bit of stickles. The blue flower is from the ones I had made and posted on a previous post. I had so much fun making them that I decided this is what our project will be at next month's stamping club. I think we will set up four tables and make different flowers at each table. I guess that means I better get started on some different techniques.

I happened to go through a box of my cards and I noticed the different phases my card making has gone through. Do you find yourself doing the same thing? At times all my cards have pretty bows other times it is the border punches (which I have seemed to be stuck on for awhile now). I guess it mainly depends on what new product I have just purchased. I think I need to spice things up now and then. I have some time off and I plan to do some serious stamping so we will see what the creative juices can muster up. Don't forget- you can still get your JustRite stamps over at The Stamp Castle.

Have fun and enjoy!

Red, White and Black

Ok I know, enough of the Valentine cards already. I promise after today I will move on. I think I like to make Valentine's Day cards because it reminds me of growing up and making the container that would hold that special one from a special somebody at school. Sometimes it was a large milk carton decorated with red and pink hearts, but most of the time is was a large pocket envelope decorated with a paper doily and cupid that hung on the front of our desks. Oh how Innocent those school-day crushes were. Close your eyes for just a moment and go back to a time when you remember that special boy walking into the classroom or coming out to play on the playground. What wonderful memories. I wonder what that boy looks like now forty years later.

As I said in a previous post, there were a few cards that I wanted to post but I was sending them out and they visit my blog regularly so I didn't want to spoil the surprise. The first card was created with the SU stamp Medallion. This stamp looks great with versamark on dark card stock. The border is MS Deco Fan punch and crochet trim on the other side. The heart is also from the Martha Stewart (MS) line. The sentiment is from SU as is the Modern Label punch with the Word Window punch in cream layered on top. The card stock is SU Real Red.

The last two cards are just a different classic color version of each other- Real Red, White and Black. They both were made with the Cuttlebug- Victoria embossing folder. Again the MS Deco Fan punch for the border and hearts. I pulled out my Spellbinders Heart nestabilities for the larger red heart. The sentiment was the same as on my first card.

My latest pleasure is making my own flower embellishments. I have been searching for all different techniques and trying a few and I will show you some in the next few posts. My mind is just a boggle with all the new products that have come out since CHA and I am having a hard time trying to pick my favorites that I can afford to add to my madness. Well I better end here so I can get to work. Gotta be able to pay for all of this somehow.

Have fun and enjoy!

Love is in the air..

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you- Love is in the air (or at least on the tin). I know there are some people who absolutely hate this holiday because if they aren't in a relationship or at least a happy one, it's like a slap in the face. I say to them- just celebrate the love and kindness of friends because where would we be without friends!

Here are two projects I did for the big V day. I found both of them in the dollar bin at Target. Of course they were undecorated, because we all know that if they came as they look in the pictures they would have to be in the (at least) 10$ bin- Ha Ha Ha.

Yes I still can't get away from the MS punches. And I see she is coming out with even more. Just where does she expect me to store all of these. The shoe rack hanging inside the closet door of my stamp studio is busting at the seams as it is and there are several sitting on my desk with no where to go. Don't worry your pretty little head about that Martha, I will find room some where believe me. You just keep thinking of new designs to collect money from me and as long as I have a 40% off coupon I'll be right there in line.

I don't' know if I mentioned it but I received my valentine's day gift 2 weeks ago. I came home from work one night and there were pink roses in a vase on the kitchen island and a pink gift bag. I asked "what's this" and my DH said the roses were on sale and inside the bag was the new M.J. "This Is It" movie that had just come out on DVD. The roses were light pink with a tinge of green on the edge, and soon a bit of brown, but they looked so shabby chic that I would have loved to have been able to put them on a card. Right now they are just a sweet memory.

I have a few more Valentine cards that I made and need to post but I have to wait for the recipients to receive them so I don't spoil it for them. I am thinking I had better get started on some Easter cards since that holiday is early this year and I will be off to Florida again without anything to post. Having my morning coffee on the lanai is exactly what I need.

I am looking forward to returning to the Owl and the Pussy Cat in Fort Myers. The owner always has so many neat and unique ideas. I had better start saving my pennies.

I hope you all have a nice weekend and try not to eat too much chocolate. Did I just say that?

Enjoy!

Going Green...

So today I thought I would go green and I got out some of the punches that I don't use too often and decided to create my own embellishments. The flowers on today's card were created with two sizes of punches from The Paper Studio. I used an old dictionary for my paper and punched out two large and one small flower for each one. I will go into more detail how I made them further down in the post.

I am starting to see the new products from CHA in the stores. It's like Christmas all over again. I did a bit of surfing on some blogs while the lucky ones at CHA sent back pictures. You wonder how there can be that many new products coming out each time. I haven't seen the new Tim Holtz's Sizzix dies yet. Hopefully it won't be long. It looks like Tattered Angels had some new bling spray coming out that looks yummy. I can the possibilities for these flowers.

Today's card is using the new DCWV paper Mariposa. This stack of paper is absolutely beautiful. I bought the 8x8 stack so the images are a better size for my cards. Each sheet will give me at least two full pieces for cards. I used the Martha Stewart Doily Lace Trim punch for the vertical border. The sentiment is from the Loving Thoughts JustRite set which can be purchased at The Stamp Castle and I layered it on Spellbinders Labels Four Nestabilities. The card stock is SU Baja Breeze as is the ink I used for the sentiment. You will notice that the Mariposa paper has a butterfly in the design. I used one of the new embosslits from the Stampin' Up Jan 5-April 30 mini catalog called Beautiful Wings to punch out a few more butterflies. To give the card an overall antique look I sponged everything with Ranger Distress Antique Linen.

Now onto the instructions for my homemade flowers. The blue and teal ones were sponged with Brillance inks Jade and Sky. I did make some of the flowers with printed card stock but I like the shabby look of the dictionary print. I offset the larger petals to make the flower fuller and more dimensional. After I sponged them I misted them with water to get the edges to curl. Once they dried I glued the layers and added the button to the center.

These orange/copper colored flowers I sprayed with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist- Tiger Lilly. I also misted them with water and when they were dry I sponged on some Gold Brilliance ink. The pink flower was colored with Pink Brilliance and a bit of Gold on the center petal. I haven't decided if I like the look of the white on the underside of the flower or not. I think they look more homemade that way. Well that's it for today. I have to get ready to watch the new commercials and put up with the football in between.

Have fun and enjoy!