Loving them....

Wow I can't believe we are already half way through January. This is now a great time of year to spend in the craft room. The holidays are over and the snow keeps us indoors, well at least for us northerners. The new spellbinders will be on the shelves soon but I have mixed feelings about them. I was wondering with all the designs they already have, how could they come out with so many more. I wasn't crazy about the fruit or beach dies and I don't see myself buying the baby ones either. I don't scrapbook so maybe that is why they didn't appeal to me. I did like the labels and borders and the labels eleven was my favorite on the top of my list. Before you no it the new Martha Stewart punches will be out also if they aren't already. Tim Hioltz has several new Distressed Inks and die cuts coming out. It will be like Christmas all over again.

I didn't think I was going to like the corner and edge punch combinations because as I said, I don't scrapbook. Being that you can only punch certain sizes I didn't see myself using them for anything but a 3.25 x 3.25 square and the cost didn't justify that. I had bought the edge punches and a member of our stamp club said I was going to be sorry for not getting the corners. Boy was I wrong. With several different trips and coupons I found myself hooked. Today's card uses the deco fan and this one can only be purchased as a set at this time. I like this one the best even if I use them separately.

The card today uses the MS deco fan punch for the square and border. The DS paper is from DCWV-Blossoms Butterflies and the card stock is from SU- So Saffron, Baja Breeze , Soft Sky and White. The Baja Breeze and Soft Sky are retired. The scallop circles were punched out as was the "enjoy" with SU curly label punch. The stamp set is Cute & Curly from last years SU catalog. I apologize for not using current colors or stamps but this design is pretty simple that color combo or sentiment could be used. I don't have my retired supplies separated because this isn't a demonstrator website. The pearls are the Autumn Recollections line that is a Michaels product.

So go to your crafting area and get stamping. Valentine's Day is just around the corner and I will have some cards posted with the new Justrite stamps this week.

Have fun and Enjoy!

~Kim

The Best of Friends

I have to tell you it is sometimes uncanny how things work out in life. As I have told you, I had arthroscopic surgery on my knee last month and I have a little story to share with you about that. Well my knee had been bothering me ever since the middle of November and I had attributed it to arthritis because I couldn't think of any other reason for it to be hurting me for such a long time. It just so happens that my friend's knee had been bothering her for at least a year and after injection treatments were no longer working, she broke down and decided to have a total knee replacement exactly one week before I had my surgery. We were quite a pair the two of us, since it was the left knee for both of us. When I would be over visiting, we would both be sitting with our leg up. I had told her that I thought I was having sympathy pains for her and I was willing to do what ever it took to make her feel better. I guess the MRI said other wise but I am still sticking to the sympathy pain. Now that is what I call friendship . We are the best of friends and I enjoy and treasure her friendship immensely. She hobbled her way to the airport and headed back down to Florida but I will be seeing her down there in a few months. I am excited to be headed to warmer weather and away from the snow. Hope your feeling better soon Carol.

This is the card that I made for her as she was on the mend. I used the Decorative 2" Round Wide Borders and along with the 2" square borders they are my absolute favorites. You can find them at The Stamp Castle and there is a 20% off sale right now so don't miss it. Just to show you the versatility of these stamps I used a separate sentiment once I had stamped the border. It was from a Hero Arts "Take Good Care Greetings" stamp set. The designer paper is from The Paper Studio- Spring Floral Tapestry. It has a bit of shimmer to it and is double sided. The back side is pearly white. I used Su- White, Elegant Eggplant card stock and ink and my scallop circle Spellbinder Nestabilities. The eggplant ribbon was a find at Michaels. Three little peals add the finishing touch.

As a side note The Stamp Castle will be getting the new released stamps for Valentines Day in later this week. I will be posting some things I made with the new sets Loving Thoughts and Romantic Sentiments so check back next week for some new creations. Until then...

Have fun and enjoy!

~Kim

What is your name?

I will be taking over as president at the local stamp club that I belong to. There has been quite some excitement over the change and I hope I don't let anyone down. To start the year off I want to make name tags so we can get to know each other a bit better. I had originally thought of making the tags into pins and then someone mentioned the idea of necklaces because they don't always like to put a pin through some of their favorite shirts. Here is what I came up with as a sample for a necklace. These are just counter top tile samples found in hardware stores. I just added some embellishments and hardware I had laying around. Of course I had to have a dragonfly hanging on mine as my signature. I just used stickers for my name. I used organdy ribbon because it was within reach and was black and then I slipped buttons over the ribbon to fancy it up a bit. So thankful for such a short name. It gave me extra room on the tile for decorations.

The sample tags below are all pins and were super super easy. The one on the right is just a bare tile that I stamped a flourish with Stazon and added some rhinestones. The one on the left used clear letter tiles that I colored with my copic markers. Yes I broke down and started another addiction. I purposely didn't want to start with these markers because I know myself better than anyone and sure enough- just a couple weren't enough.

I hope you all had a great Christmas. We had a nice quiet one here which is just what I needed. I have been feeling fine as far as my knee goes, but I have been having daily headaches since my surgery- I think it is just a coincidence . It is all sinus related and our weather has been crazy here in lower Michigan which has attributed to my misery. Physical therapy has helped me tremendously but with the holidays they have been closed and it has limited my days. I see the doctor tomorrow to get my return to work date.

Have fun and enjoy!

~Kim

Happy Holiday

I am usually more into the spirit of Christmas by now but the unexpected knee surgery sort of got in the way of that. I hadn't done much in the way of decorating the house and for those of you who know me you know that is hard to believe. My son is home from college and being the artist that he is, he was able to put a nice touch in helping his dad decorate the house.

I finally feel like I am back to the land of the living today. The pain in my knee wasn't anything compared to the side effects of the anesthesia. Today I was able to take a shower and take the bandages off. What a difference a shower can make.

Today's card is using the JustRite 2" round double border with a 15pt. New Time Roman font from The Stamp Castle. They are still having a sale and the new Square set is to die for.

The above picture shows the block set up with the font(oops, doesn't look like I cleaned my stamp very well). The way I find the center is to write out the sentiment on a piece of scrap paper. Then start crossing out letters from the out side in, including any spaces as if they were a letter. For example, with the Happy Holidays I would cross out the "H" and "s", then "a" and "y" until I got to the center. I didn't put any image in the center of the block because I wanted to use a snowflake. I stamped the font and then cut it out with my spellbinders nestabilities. I also used the scallop nestabilities as well as a circle punch for the snowflake. The fancy trim is one of the new deep edge punches from MS- Garden Trellis. The DS paper was last years Christmas paper from SU.


Hope you enjoy spending time with your families and all the holiday season has to offer.

Celebrate the season

How do you celebrate the season? When the kids were small we had a tradition of eggnog and Christmas music as we decorated the Christmas tree. We would spend one night riding around town looking at all the houses that were lit from top to bottom and then we would stop for hot chocolate somewhere. We would let the kids pick where they wanted go for the treat. I remember the year one of them picked McDonald's. It wouldn't have been my first choice of a Christmas memory but it was their choosing. I would spend two days making everyone's favorite cookies and fudge. Glad I was sane enough to have only three children. Christmas Eve we let them each open one present. They would spend the whole week trying to decide which package to open. Of course Santa's gifts weren't there yet so they would shake and rattle each present in hopes of making a good decision. And we always heard "this year why don't we open two presents". As they grow older I look forward to seeing which traditions they will carry on with their own children. I know we have given them plenty of wonderful memories that they will remember for years to come and that is just a fraction of the memories they have given me.

This card is one that didn't require much stamping. The paper is from Stampin' Up. The Christmas tree was in a package of 6 that I found in the tree trimming isle at Hobby Lobby- half off. The color was perfect for this paper. There were also red and cream trees in the package. The scallop border is a Martha Stewart snowflake punch.

I am having my arthroscopic knee surgery on Friday. I'm not sure how much I am going to feel like posting. I have some cards already made so you might just see some pictures without much to read. Then again what I post might not make any sense at all. I guess it depends how good the drugs are that they send me home with.

Have fun and enjoy!

New Stamps

I wanted to share with you today the new released JustRite stamps that I have been dying to show you. They are the Deluxe Round Monogram set and the Deluxe Square Monogram set both of which can be purchased at The Stamp Castle. Right now every thing is 20% off so there is no better time to buy them than right now. I guess it doesn't take a genius to tell which card is from which set. I do however want to tell you that each one comes with a different font but I used the Times New Roman font on both cards. If you have any questions about these stamps, or help in deciding which ones to purchase please send me an email.

The card above was a thank you card for a wonderful collection of Birthday goodies from my friend Carol. For her card I used DCWV La Creme with SU So Saffron and black. The background pattern was done using the Cuttlebug embossing folder Victoria. Nestabilities Labels Two made a nice backdrop for the monogram.

This card was also a thank you card for the hostess of our stamping group potluck we had last week. I didn't know her middle initial but since her first name was only three letters- I went with that. This card also shows some of the new Martha Stewart punches. I used the Daisy corner and edge punch to create the white scalloped square. I used a 3 1/4 x 3 1/4 square of paper so that the scallops came out even. I like the corner and edge combo but you do have to use specific size squares so they turn out. The other punch is the Deep Edge Garden Trellis. The background paper looks like I took a lot of time to create with white ink but in reality it is a recycled bag I had gotten from the hospital gift shop when I did a bit of shopping. The trim reminded me of winter so I thought it was perfect for this time of year.

It looks like I might be getting quite a bit of stamping done in a couple of weeks and will come back to this in a bit but I have a story to share. I have a friend who is having a knee replaced and it has been bothering her for quite some time. About 3 weeks ago my knee started to hurt but only when I stood up and started to walk. I thought it was maybe a bit of arthritis and it would ease up, only this seemed to continue to get worse. So much so that I had psyched my self up for a shot of cortisone. I told my friend that I was just having sympathy pains for her until a MRI said something different. Yep a torn medial meniscus. So it looks like I will be having arthroscopic surgery in the next week or two. Right now I am exhausted from putting up with the pain because I can only handle so many Motrin 800's a day. This whole thing has really caught me off guard. I didn't have this on my agenda for the month of December. Oh well, nobody ever said we control everything in our lives as much as we would like to try.

Have fun and enjoy!

JOY.....

Putting a little joy into your life can do wonders for the soul. No that isn't a quote from someone famous, it's just something I believe in. Stamping certainly does that for me and I did a lot of stamping during the holiday weekend. I had the house to myself (which is another joy) and I just stamped until my heart was content. I found these poinsettias six to a package at Hobby Lobby. They were 50% so that brought them down to 16 cents each. Can't beat that when it comes to large embellishments. I did have to take a Copic marker to the yellow centers as they were too bright yellow for the vintage look of my card.

I am in love with the new Martha Stewart punches. The two that I used on this card are the jumbo ones which give a wider/deeper edge. They are perfect for scrapbooking if you punch the edges of larger paper, or they work just fine on a small card. The one I used on the olive green paper is Floral Vine and the other one is Doily Lace Trim.

I used Distress antique linen to vintage it up a bit. If you notice the labels four panels you might think there are three of them but there are really only two. The top white panel and tan are really just one. When I embossed it I left it in the die and sponged it with the distress ink. The die acts as a mask and voila! The sentiment is just a small 99 cent stamp. Brenda who runs the stamping department at Mary Maxim breaks up Hero are sets and then sell them separately. I love that because then I can just buy the ones I want.

Not much to report today. I have yet to start my Christmas cards. I hope to make them this weekend. We had a Christmas potluck get together last night with a group of us who get together once a month to stamp. We didn't do any stamping- we just sat around, laughed and ate. It was a really fun night. I brought the rice as part of the main course and there was plenty left over so tonight I made rice pudding. It is in the oven as we speak and I can't wait for it to be done. Nothing warms you up like a nice bowl of warm rice pudding with raisins and Grey's Anatomy.

Have fun and enjoy!