St Patricks Day Hybrid

St Patrick's Day is just around the corner and here is a sample of a card we made at last weekends Stamp a Stack to help celebrate the day!

This card had NO stampin' (gasp I know) but packed a lot of punch instead ... it was still loads of fun to make ... it featured the Square Lattice emboss folder for the background in Wild Wasabi, the large Heart punch in Garden Green for the Shamrock and the rainbow is made up of Real Red, Daffodil Delight, Pumpkin Pie, Marina Mist, Certainly Celery and Concord grape punched with the scallop edge punch!

The sentiment was created in My Digital Studio from the Calandar Basics and the Circle Circus stamp sets in Wild Wasabi and Garden Green colours and than printed out and punched with the 1 3/4 circle punch.

( the glitter paper is not Stampin Up - we have some gorgeous Real Red glitter paper and my fingers are crossed that they choose to sell some more colours in the future)

ETA .. a blog I follow participated in the following Blog Challenge on their blog recently - so I went over to check it out and thought this card would be a perfect one for the challenge - so wanted to share it and am looking forward to new challenges to play along with - love the challenge sites they help me think outside the box!

Bliss Butterflies

This is a card we made yesterday at our March Stamp-a-Stack ... note to self - make sure when working with white cardstock to keep fingers clean ... got a finger print on the polka dot later and than I had to 'fix it' by sponging some Pacific point on the white polka dot layer to make it look like I meant to do it ;)

This card features the Polka Dot emboss folder, Decorative Label punch, Word Window punch and the Bliss stamp set with pearl accents on Pacific Point, Tempting Turquoise and Whisper White cardstock and a Teeny Tiny Wishes sentiment.

Scallop Flowers

I have always wanted to try this technique and finally was inspired by this weeks Mojo Monday sketch .... so had to try some different styled ones - these ones feature the small scallop punch and the Boho Blossoms punch!

Stylish Blogger Award

Wow a huge thank you to Gwen for passing me the Stylish Blogger Award - I too was so pleasantly surprised to find her warm comments on my blog today!

On a funny note I just wanted to say that this was PERFECT timing for me because just yesterday I got one of those 'chain mail' emails from a friend - you know the ones that say if you do not pass this one to 20 people than starting tomorrow you will have 13 years bad luck ... and well as I deleted it without forwarding I said to myself "I make my OWN luck and nothing but good things will happen to me tomorrow "- and here we are out of the blue someone I have never met is making me feel special and appreciated - a huge thank you Gwen .... please check out her blog here .

So the way the award program works is sort of a 'pay it forward' approach - which I love because it goes back to the we attract into our lives what we put out!

So to play along we need to ...

A) thank the person(s) who gave the award to us and link back to their blog - done :)
B) Share 8 things about ourself:

1. I am passionate for cultivating creativity in myself and others - which is what drew me to Stampin' Up and blogging.
   
2. I am an Early Childhood Educator who after almost 20 years in the field chose to stay home and open up a home based early learning program - and I LOVE it!
3. I sit on the Executive Board of the Association of Early Childhood Educators here in my home town as Professional Policy, Public Relations and Newsletter Chair and help to advocate for the Early Years field.
4. I sit on the Executive Board of the London District Home Childcare Network in my home town in the role of Vice President and Professional Development Chair - we are a not for profit group that advocates for supporting parental choice in childcare through self regulation and we host a directory for helping connect parents with quality childcare providers as well as organizing professional development and network opportunities for childcare providers.
5. I am passionate about car seat safety and volunteer as a Car Seat Technician with the Buckle Up Baby program here in my home town. We hold monthly car seat clinics where parents can bring their car seat in and learn how to ensure it is installed properly and the best fit for their little treasure.
6. I am a Celiac ... so when I am not working or volunteering I am cooking all my meals from scratch whenever possible to minimize my exposure to all the gluten fillers in processed foods!
7. I am living in perpetual sin with wonderful man - we will be celebrating our seventh year of sinning this year and I am a step mother to his two children.
8. I am an anally organized multi-tasker who must have had the phrase 'idle hands are the devils work' subliminally sent to me as a child because I cannot sit still and just relax without feeling guilty - I am ALWAYS on the go!
   

C)Pass this award on to 8 other individuals that you have recently discovered

1. Liz .... who is my mentor and upline
2. Alesha ... whose expertize in My Digital Studio is always inspiring
   
3. Ashley ... whose has inspired many a scrapbook layout for me
4. Sandi ... whose wonderful challenge shares inspire me to think outside the box
5. Holly ... who I stumbled across in a search for my favorite doll and found a blog instead
6. Leonie ... has some awesome technique shares - like scratch and sniff cards!
7. Angela ... whose stampin style inspires me and wonderful blend of cards and scrapbooks
8. Rose ... has some wonderful tutorials to share on her blog and a generous spirit to share for free!
   

D) Leave a comment so they can pass along the recognition!

Hybrid Valentines

These are the goodie bags that I made for the kids back on Valentines ... I used the My Digital Studio to create the Hugs and Kisses sentiment and printed out a page full on Whisper White and punched them with the 1 1/4 punch, than punched a 1 3/4 inch circle in pink pirouette and the scallaps in Red Glitter paper - pierced them with the Crop-o-dile and than attached with a bit of pink curly ribbon!

Than I also made some 'boxed Chocolate' valentines with the kids for their parents ... each box holds a dozen of the little Lindt chocolates ... yummy!

Up close of the hybrid Hugs and Kisses created in My Digital Studio.

Mojo Monday 179 and Colour Q Challenge

So the following card is inspired from the sketch layout over on Mojo Monday ...

and the Colour Q challenge this week - however I did not have those exact colours so substituted Pacific Blue and Tempting Turquoise for my two blues and Certainly Celery for the green.

And here is my inspired card! Featuring a 2 1/2 scallop circle punch flower in Rich Razzleberry paired with a Pear Pizazz Glitter brad. Created homemade designer series paper using the Elements of Style in Versamark on the Tempting Turquoise and Pear Pizazz on the Whisper White.

Behind layers featuring Pinking Hearts Border on the Rich Razzleberry, Pacific Blue DSP and a some Certainly Celery ribbon and finished off with a few pretty pearl accents and the Life is a matter of moments sentiment!

Hope you enjoy it ... making it tonight felt like a little bit of spring to me!

Missed Mojo Monday

Happy Family Day to my Canadian friends and Happy President's Day to my American ones ... I spent most of my holiday shoveling the foot plus of snow that fell again and working on my taxes .... but I did get to spend a wee bit of time in the craft room today!

This is a card I created from a previous Mojo Monday sketch ... gave me a chance to play with my Vintage Roses ... they are so pretty!

Ode to My Kitty

A huge thank you to Leah Fedynak over om My Digital Studio for the inspiration of my attempt at a circle page ... I think she started a MDS explosion of people wanting to think outside the 'box' so to speak ... I just loved the 'circle shape' as a switch up to the traditional square layout.

My wonderful kitty - who now keeps my mom company cause she found sharing me with others too much and I wanted her to be happy and have someone who could give her undivided attention - she is a one person in the home cat!

Valentines Games

These are some cute little games that I made up for the daycare kids this Valentines ... they loved the Dollar Store version of these games from a previous b-day party goodie bags so thought making a home made version would be fun!

Up close peek ... took me forever to get them all inline for the photo - thankfully the kids are much better at this game!

... love the shiny glitter paper and it made for a nice firm backing for the games ... stamped with Greeting Card girl and coloured with Stamp Write markers and holes punched with the Crop-o-dile ... and that using the sweet treat cups added some edible silver balls from the Wedding section of the Bulk Barn for the metal balls - so with this version if the kids rip it open the little pieces are at least edible and not so much a choking hazzard than the Dollar Store version!

MDS Waterc oloring - Scrapbook page

I am so loving the 'water coloring' effect with My Digital Studio ... the Elements of Style just seems the perfect stamp set to use so after my first attempt to do this with a card I was inspired to try it with a scrapbook layout ... a great way to spend the kids nap times - SO RELAXING ... and I still had time left to spare to upload it to boot - gotta love the ease of digital scrapbooking!

So this layout features the Elements of Style combined with the new Bliss stamp set which is available both in Digital Download AND traditional clear or wood mount stamps during the Sale-a-bration event until the end of March ... and of course some pretty Half Back Pearls and Glitter brad bling and a Ribbon bow to complete the look!

February Technique card

This month we worked with Metal for our technique class ... this is the technique card that participants made to practice heat embossing on metal ... using the heat and stick powder and glitter!

Close up of the embossed metal butterfly! These butterflies are so pretty with some rubbed alchohol ink to color them, with some pearl or rhinestone bling added and so forth ... so much you can do with the metal flashing and paper crafting!

Sunday Sketchy 51

This is a card I created after being inspired by Liz Goldhawk's Sketchy Sunday over on her blog - Liz is my upline mentor and she is SO full of great ideas!

So here is the sketch ...

And here is my inspiration from that sketch ... a Just Believe Black Magic card ... the color combination of Early Espresso, Poppy Parade and Blushing Bride came from the Color Q challenge #70 last week as well.

I love the paper flowers ... they are so easy to color with a sponge dauber and some ink ... this card was just so much fun to make ... and if you like it make sure to register for my Stamp a Stack on February 26th because this will be one of the featured cards!

ScrapSketch19 - Moms Graduation

Here is this weeks Scrapsketch inspiration from over at My Digital Studio ... this one gave me a chance to play with the Autumn Spice Designer Series Paper and to use some of the new Fabric buttons!

These photos are digital conversions of my Mother's first University Graduation in October 1976 ... so I was 7 years old here - seems a life time ago!

Notably Ornate Hybrid Card

A huge thank you to Mandy Grant over on My Digital Studio website for sharing the video on creating hybrid cards with My Digital Studio and traditional stamp sets.

I played on the inspiration drawn from Mandy's video and the Color Q challenge 70 from last week of combing Poppy Parade, Blushing Bride, Cameo Coral, Early Expresso and Very Vanilla and to add in an additional level of multi-tasking my upline challenge this month was 'use your blender pens' which I did to help create the card below!

Here is an up close view of the hybrid portion of the card ... using the MDS program to cover up and interchange the sentiments that normally go with this stamp set...and you can see in the background how I used the blender pen to create shading with the flower using Poppy Parade and Blushing Bride inks!

If this is a card you would like to try making it will be showcased in my upcoming Stamp a Stack on February 26th ... shoot me an email today to register!

Valentine Goodie Bags

These are some 'Valentine treats' I made to donate to the goodie bags at our Local Salsa Babe classes for new mommies ... and nothing like a nice hot cup of herbal tea and a mini chocolate for a new mommy!

Projects featured Love Expressions DSP, filled with Love Stamp set, Love Epoxy brads, Glitter paper, Scalloped Heart Embosslit and Heart punch and striped grossgrain pretty in pink ribbon!

Close up of the inside of the pouch which is large enough to hold a nice thank you card, tea or hot chocolate package, chocolates and other goodies!

Close up of the glitter heart closure ... so gorgeous!!!

Insert 3x3 card ... featuring the Love Expressions DSP and the Filled with Love Stamp set!

Inside of the card insert ...

MDS Watercoloring WOW!

I was over on My Digital Studio on my lunch break today when I was so totally inspired by a post by Cheryl Adams where she shared the following card .... I have had the Elements of Style stamp set for months and used it several times to make my own Designer Series Paper as a tone on tone background ... however I did not think we could 'watercolor' in the MDS program until I saw Cheryl's card and had the 'ah ha why didn't I think of that' ... and so I just spent my lunch giving it a go with this weeks Colour Q #71 challenge.

So here is my MDS Elements of Style watercolour inspired card for today ... featuring Crumb Cake aka Kraft, blushing Bride, Pretty in Pink, Pink Pirouette and White!

I am not sure how exactly Cheryl did her watercolor image as there were no instructions at the time - but my 'guess' was that the watercolor trick was to use the Extreme Elements 'splash' image as your watercolor tool and just adjust the size and coloring shadings of multiple stamps to get the fill that you desired - at least that is how I accomplished it in my attempt!

This was so much fun - I will definitely be attempting with some of the other similar 'black and white' images to see if you can 'colour' them in - I think it looks awesome! Thanks again Cheryl for the inspiration!

Sale-a-bration Scrapping

More scrapbooking fun ... when time is pinched this really is a time saver for me!

Also really enjoying the Sale-a-bration downloads ... these pages match the previous sets!

This page is inspired from the Valerie Salmons Got Sketch blog. Thank you Valerie!

This sketch is inspired by one on the Julie Bonner blog - thank you Julie!

ScrapSketch17

This week I was inspired to use my FREE Sale-a-bration CD for My Digital Studio ... which has all the wonderful downloads from the Sale-a-bration catalog ... over at the My Digital Studio site to rise to the Scrapsketch17 challenge.

Here is Alesha's Challenge ...

And here is my inspiration ... featuring the Sale-a-bration DSP Ice Cream Parlor and coordinating ribbon and buttons. Also the wonderful beautiful Bliss stamp brush set! which co-ordinates nicely with the Boho Blossom punch set flower to give layering to the flower in the Bliss stamp set.

And of course a little bling with some Pearl accents.

Colour Q 70

Colour Q challenge this week as so pretty - however since I did not have the colours in traditional papers I opted for my trust MDS option!

I was a week behind in getting out my Mojo Monday - however still wanted to play along so the lay out inspired by Challenge 175.
So with the background layer Cameo Coral I layered it with the Poppy Parade and the Love Impressions Folder textured brush stamp in Vanilla with an opacity to help create the illusion of the actual emboss folder.

I than created a 2 1/2 inch circle punch and filled it with Botanical Garden DSP and than applied the Greeting Card Kids with a little heart punch in the Poppy Parada.

The banner in the background was created with the Heart to Heart punch and overlapped hearts filled with a variety of Early Espresso DSP set to a lower opacity so that the Poppy Parade shines through!

Sentiments are from the Filled With Love brush set download!

Sketchy Thursday 1.

This week I tried a different scrapbook challenge over on Sketchy Thursdays which offers up both traditional scrapbooking AND digital scrapbooking inspirations which I thought was neat!

This layout features my Grandpa's 90th birthday party ... he has since passed on to peaceful adventures on other plains and is greatly missed! This layout allowed me to trying out the new Botanical Gardens Designer series Paper and the Build a Cupcake punch... which are currently available in the Occasions mini for traditional paper crafting AND as a My Digital Studio download! Plus they have finally rolled out the Top Note in a My Digital Studio download!

In case you cannot tell ... that skinny thing sitting on the end chair beside my Grandpa is ME just preparing to turn 30 ... oh those were the days - hard to believe that was almost 11 years ago!!!

Inspired by others ...

This is a layout I created after being inspired by the work of Christine Fuson over on My Digital Studio ... she used a similar layout for her MDS content submission ... should have been a winner in my opinion as it is just so COOL!

The wave is created by first creating two square punches and stretching them to fit out a large one on the left side and a smaller rectangle on the right. You fill the left side with your choice of DSP and than the right with the coordinating color. Than you make to circles and stretch them to make the shape of the wave you want and than fill the top one with the solid colour and the bottom one with the DSP and move it around to make it blend and tweak the solid circle to be a nice wave flow. Than decorate your page as desired!

I just LOVE how the medallion stamp goes with this Love Letter designer series paper - like they were made for each other!