Saturday, March 31, 2012

Paper Smooches Winner Announced!

Good morning! I'm here to announce my winner from the March Paper Smooches Release Blog Hop on Thursday and that lucky lady is:

Congratulations, Karen L.! Please email me with your mailing address so we can get Pretty Momma sent out to you right away.

Thank you all for hopping along with the Paper Smooches design team for this release! See you on the Paper Smooches Blog for inspiration all month long. Have an amazing weekend!!

Thursday, March 29, 2012

March Paper Smooches DT Blog Hop!

It's Pep Rally week and we are here today to share a sampling of the Paper Smooches April stamp release with you! The three NEW clear stamp sets will be available to purchase on April 1st. You will find them HERE. Follow the Paper Smooches blog for more sneak peeks.

To add extra fun to our blog hop...we are offering up a prize! Just leave a comment on any of the five design team blogs listed below for your chance to win one of the three new April stamp sets! (you do not need to comment on all blogs to qualify) You have until midnight MT on Friday, March 30th to leave a comment. Please check all five blogs on Saturday, March 31st to see if you are one of the five lucky winners.

To increase your chances of winning:

1. Leave a comment on this blog post
2. Tell us that you Facebooked about our blog hop
3. Tell us that you Tweeted about our hop
4. Tell us that you posted on your blog about our blog hop

(which means that you have up to four chances to win on each blog)

My card features the rose and a sentiment from Pretty Momma. This beautiful set is unlike anything you've seen so far from Paper Smooches and it's primarily geared toward mothers and grandmothers but it can also be used for all the wonderful females in your life like girlfriends, sisters and aunts!

To create my rose, I stamped it four times on white stick-back canvas and fussy cut each layer. I misted each section with four different colours and assembled it. Then I used my finger to apply yellow glitter in the centre. On the card base, the chevrons from Geo-Graphic are second-generation stamped, meaning that I stamped the ink once on scrap paper before I stamped it a second time on the card. I did this to get an exact match of yellow for the centre of the rose. To finish, I attached the rose with glue dots and stamped the sentiment.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Remember to check back here on Saturday to see if you are the lucky winner of Pretty Momma!

Sources: Gina K Designs pure luxury white cardstock; Paper Smooches Pretty Momma (available April 1st) & Geo-Graphic; Ranger Archival Jet Black ink; SU More Mustard ink; Studio Calico Mister Huey's Color Mists in Custard, Cameo, Overdue & Estate Green; Ranger Stickles in Yellow; Claudine Helmuth Studio white stick-back canvas

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

Paper Smooches {Zoo Crew, April Sneak Peek + Winners!}

Hello there, my fabulous and talented friends! I hope you've all had a great start to your week. I'm here today with two Paper Smooches cards and to announce the winners of my giveaway. My first card features the alligator and leaves from Zoo Crew but also features the seagull from Surf & Turf, sentiment from Word Salad and Dude Block. As soon as I saw the alligator from this set, the science geek in me immediately thought about the symbiotic relationship between the crocodile and the plover bird.

To create this card, I stamped Dude Block in the centre of my card base and masked the top and right sides to stamp the fern leaves in two different colours. I stamped the alligator and seagull, coloured as a plover bird, and fussy cut them. I didn't stamp the alligator on the base before adhering the second layer with foam tape but I did stamp the bird once I knew the position of the alligator since I wasn't going to fussy cut the legs. The sentiment was added last.

My second card is a peek at a new sentiment set that will be available on April 1st. I know that the sentiment sets are amongst Kim's most popular and there's no doubt you are going to love this one, too! To show off the sentiment, I stamped and fussy cut the flowers and leaves from Reflections on yellow and green cardstock from the Ed Collection. I recently acquired the Crop-a-Dile so you might be seeing a few eyelets pop up here and there. I put gemstones behind the holes to give this card that extra intriguing detail. The background was created by stamping the houndstooth pattern from Debonair and I masked off the die cut section on the base for the sentiment. All stamping on this card was done with chalk inks.

Thank you for celebrating my 500 Follower milestone with me and a huge thanks to Kim for her generosity! The following ladies have each won a $10 gift certificate to the Paper Smooches Store:

Congratulations! Since these are gift certificates, I will contact you shortly with the details. See you all on Thursday for the April release blog hop!

Sources for You are Appreciated: Gina K Designs pure luxury white cardstock; Paper Smooches Zoo Crew, Surf & Turf, Dude Block & Word Salad; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; SU Bashful Blue & Wild Wasabi; Ranger Shabby Shutters distress ink; Copic markers; Judikins Eclipse masking tape; foam tape

Sources for Thanks: Gina K Designs pure luxury white cardstock; Paper Smooches Ed Collection; Paper Smooches April set TBA, Reflections & Debonair; Hero Arts Poppy, Grass & Iris chalk inks; Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Four; Judikins Eclipse masking tape; We R Memory Keepers Crop-a-Dile; Making Memories eyelets; SU Basic Rhinestones; foam tape

Monday, March 26, 2012

Cards from Friends & Family

It's time I shared all the cards I've received from friends and family in the past three months. This includes the Valentine and Anniversary cards from my husband that you've been begging to see! There are a lot of cards to show so I will try to keep my yapping to a minimum. ;)

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First up is this cutie from Alice Wertz. Eeek, penguins on a toboggan! My son tried his best to acquire this card for himself. He begged several times saying that it was for him, that my friend definitely sent it to him because it featured pinguini. Well, what was I supposed to say to that? No, I just couldn't give it to him! I told him I would put it up on the window ledge or the mantel and he could look at it from afar. He was really not happy with that. LOL

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This royal beauty is from Gay Peplow. The photo doesn't show it very well but the red border is velvet ribbon and the flowers are embellished with red glitter. The central embellishment is beaded and sequined. It's simply gorgeous!

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Next up is an awesome Chinese New Year (of the Dragon) card from Angela Hathikhanavala. She even included the dragon stamp from a•muse! I just love that glitter cardstock tucked in under the chevrons.

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I laughed when I received this Chinese New Year card from Meg Craig because she used the same dragon stamp that Ang used! I love that big silver embossed sentiment and the red woodgrain cardstock.

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Here's a super cool digital card from Lindsey M-P. How cute are those polka-dotted lanterns and the little dragon?

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I swooned over this Valentine's Day card from Emily Keaton! The cardstock is gorgeous and I had to ask her where she got it. DeNami Design was the answer. Isn't her stitching just perfect?

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Here's another card from Lindsey. Isn't it lovely? I love the shape and the way she used the kissing technique on the teapot and cup.

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This Valentine's Day card from Angela is so pretty! That border of tiny heart sequins is amazing and the airmail twine works so well with the sentiment.

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Sometimes when my son asks to stamp, he's not entirely in a 'do-it-himself' mood. In this case, I helped out a bit. He made all the cardstock and ink colour choices, and did the stamping of the bike and skunk. I did the die and fussy cutting of the bike and skunk, stamping of the speech bubble and hearts (with his instruction on where and how many LOL), plus the adhering. He said he didn't want a typical Valentine's Day sentiment and told me what to write. It was also his idea to make a skunk riding a bike and add washi tape. He loves that tape 'cause there are squirrels on it! On the inside, he wanted a heart of his choice and the scribbles say, "I love you." He gave this card to his Dad.

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This is the Valentine's Day card I threw together for my son. For some reason when there's a lot of red on a card, I can't get it to photograph well. I used the Paper Smooches bunny from A Little Lovin because it's his favourite. He said, "It's really, really, really cute!" and then tried to rip the bunny off the card.

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Here's the Valentine's card from my husband! That's supposed to be him and our son. So cute! I love that he mixed and matched penguins from The Stamps of Life and There She Goes! This isn't the first card he's decorated a corner with washi tape. You can see the other one HERE. Maybe it's going to be one of his signatures. :P

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This gorgeous vintage-style card is from Dawn Lotharius. I really love the burlap, label and beautifully coloured plants!

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Look at this stunning clean and simple card from Glenda Wyatt. Glenda and I have been enabling each other big time lately. I think we've both placed multiple orders with the same three stores this month? Even with this card, she makes me want those Spellbinders flower dies and Hero Arts sentiment set.

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Finally, here's the anniversary card from my husband! Just like he did at Christmas, he used a stamp I hadn't even inked up yet. This is Party Pals which was a Paper Smooches CHA release. Who can resist that smitten kitten with the ridiculously silly bunny? I love that he popped the balloon and I just noticed now that used my corner chomper! :O

Thank you for all of your wonderful cards!! I'll see you again tomorrow with some Paper Smooches goodness!

Take Two Winners


WINNERS!!!
As promised, here are the winners:

Take Two, Day 1: Crappy Day


Take Two, Day 2: Pain & Pride

Take Two, Day 3: Shine, Shine, Shine


Take Two, Day 4: A Simple Christmas

Take Two, Day 5: Take Your Time




All winners, please email Lisa at dahlhousedesigns (at) yahoo (dot) com with your full name and mailing address to claim your prize. Please state in the subject line that it's for Take Two Week and the specific prize you've won. If any winners have not claimed their prize by 11:59 p.m. Saturday, March 31, 2012, we will re-draw and announce the new winner on Sunday, April 1, 2012.

Congratulations to all the winners! Winners for the Take Two kits were chosen from either Lisa's blog or my blog on the day the kit was featured. Winners for the Dahlhouse Designs watermarks were chosen from all of the comments on Lisa's blog or my blog. If you are on the Unity Stamp Company Facebook Page, please say hello to Angela Magnuson and send her a huge thanks for supporting this event!

Thank you, Lisa, for all your hard work this week and in the months prior to Take Two. You did an amazing job with your cards and with the badges and blinkies!! I love our friendship and your immense talent!

Thank you all so much for being a part of Take Two with me and Lisa! Everyone who came by and left comments on both our blogs made this week a huge success and we can't thank you enough!! We are thrilled that there are so many of you who asked that we continue this tradition. ;) Thank you for enjoying our creations and Unity!

We hope you'll be back to visit us often. Enjoy your week!

Saturday, March 24, 2012

Ciao!

Hi, I hope you're all enjoying the weekend! It's raining here so I'm having fun getting crafty in between all the Lego building. ;) It's probably no surprise to any of you that I absolutely had to buy the Hero Arts Italy Background as soon as it was available! I heat embossed the stamp on to white cardstock with clear embossing powder and then I used Shari Carroll's technique of finger painting with distress inks as shown in her video HERE. I tried to keep the colours within the range of the Hero Arts March Contest colours but, with the shading, I went a little dark on the yellow sections. My sentiment was customized using the Hero Arts Typewriter Letters set.

Sources: SU Natural White cardstock; My Mind's Eye Away We Go; Gina K Designs pure luxury white cardstock; Hero Arts Italy Background & Typewriter Letters; VersaMark watermark ink; Tim Holtz for Ranger Scattered Straw, Wild Honey, Antique Linen, Walnut Stain, Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Shabby Shutters & Peeled Paint; The Old Island Stamp Co. clear embossing powder; Spellbinders Nested Pennants; Tim Holtz tiny attacher & staples

Friday, March 23, 2012

Lil' Inker Designs March Release Blog Hop {Day 5}

This is my second post of the day. CLICK HERE for Take Two Week {Day 5}.

It's the final day of the Lil' Inker Designs March Release Blog Hop and the entire design team has made something using Coffee Cozies, Funny Bunnies or both! Both of this month's fabulous releases have been available for purchase at the LID Store since Monday and will continue to fly off the shelves thanks to your wonderful reception. I wanted to show you something you can use Coffee Cozies for other than coffee and tea. As you know, I love coming up with uses for stamps that were not their original intentions. Do you remember making telephones with cans as a kid? I recently watched a show with my son and the characters did this with rectangular spam tins which totally cracked me up! It brought back the memory and I was able to create this card based on that idea.

I die cut the cups out of textured kraft cardstock to make them seem as cardboard-y as possible. I recently purchased some sticky-back canvas to play with, die cut the cozies from it and stamped on them using the chevron pattern. Oh, how I love how they look on canvas! These two sentiments seemed to work so well together if I imagine a girlfriend calling up to say, "Good Morning," and I'd say, "Spill the Beans." The steam serves as voices going into and coming out of the cups. So fun!

Be sure to stop by each design team member's blog and leave a comment for your chance to win a $10 gift certificate to the LID Store or Funny Bunnies. Thank you so much for your support of Lil' Inker Designs stamps and dies!

---> Emily Leiphart <---

Have a fantastic weekend!

Sources: Gina K Designs pure luxury ivory cardstock; SU textured Crumb Cake cardstock; Claudine Helmuth white sticky-back canvas; Lil' Inker Designs Coffee Cozies; Tim Holtz for Ranger Walnut Strain, Peeled Paint & Rusty Hinge distress inks; May Arts olive burlap string; foam tape; We R Memory Keepers corner chomper

Take Two Week {Day 5} + Unity Friends With Flair {Mar 23rd}

Happy Friday!! Today is the conclusion of Take Two Week with Lisa Arana! It's been a very busy week for me creatively and personally so I'm really happy to have a chance to relax this weekend. In fact, I was so busy that I made all my projects the night before the posts went up. What, you say? That's completely insane! I know, that's why I'm relieved it's Friday. LOL So let's get to today's projects. Lisa and I chose to work with two images from the November 2011 Kit of the Month - Take Your Time. Only two of these stamps had seen ink previously which is why I really wanted to work with it.

My first card uses the clocks and I paired it up with one of several sentiments that work with it. I am always in need of thank you cards so it was logical that I chose this one. I love that Take Your Time is so great for girlfriends! Being the mother of a toddler, I don't get to spend as much time with my girlfriends as I used to and, when I do, it's a lot of effort on both our parts to get our schedules matched up. Cards like this tell my friends how much I appreciate them after we'd have our fun. I finally got some stamping markers and this was my first time using them. I don't know why I waited so long!

My second card uses the dress form and true friend sentiment. I used a black stamping marker to ink up one line at a time and stamp it on patterned paper. It took a lot of patience but I really like how it turned out and will definitely be trying this again. One other thing I did on this card was channel Lisa's ability to use faux stitching as the perfect finishing touch! I tried doing that here so you can be the judge. :)

I'd like to express a huge debt of gratitude to and admiration for both Lisa Arana and Angela Magnuson of Unity Stamp Company for making Take Two happen again this year! Don't forget, you have until 11:59 p.m. on Saturday, March 24th to leave comments on all the Take Two posts this week. The prizes are the five stamp sets featured this week and two of Lisa's fantastic watermarks. Lisa and I will announce all seven winners on both our blogs on Monday, March 26, 2012. Thank you so much for making this week a huge success!! Oh, and if you like the stamps we showcased, there's a big sale going on at Unity Stamp Company so you can head on over there right now and shop to your heart's content. ;)

Now head on over to Lisa's blog for her take on the clocks and dress form from Take Your Time!

Don't forget to play Friends With Flair today if you're creating with Unity!

Sources for Thanks: SU Natural White, Tangerine Tango, Daffodil Delight, Wisteria Wonder & Tempting Turquoise cardstock; Unity Stamp Co. November 2011 Kit of the Month - Take Your Time; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; SU Tempting Turquoise & Tangerine Tango inks; SU Perfect Plum, Daffodil Delight & Basic Black Stampin' Write markers; We R Memory Keepers corner chomper; foam tape

Sources for A True Friend: SU Crumb Cake cardstock; Bazzill Basics textured black cardstock; My Mind's Eye Away We Go 6 x 6 paper pad; Unity Stamp Co. November 2011 Kit of the Month - Take Your Time; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Tim Holtz for Ranger Wild Honey & Broken China distress inks; SU Basic Black Stampin' Write marker; Spellbinders Nestabilities Labels Five; Uniball Signo broad white gel pen

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Just a Sweet Note

This is my second post of the day. CLICK HERE for Take Two Week {Day 4}.

Today, the following members of the Avocado Arts Pit Crew are inspiring you with more projects made with the March stamp set, Springtime Celebrations:

---> Emily Leiphart <---
Savannah O'Gwynn

I made a quick one-layer card using the dots or stones border by angling it back and forth across the length of the card using three different ink colours. I stamped the sentiment first so I could build the background around it without having to estimate spacing. To finish the card, I rounded the two outer corners and added some glitter to random dots.

This March set is so fabulous and not just for Easter! You can always pick it up any time at the Avocado Arts Store. Of course, the April release Sew Nice has been revealed in full. Isn't it fabulous?! I can't wait to share more creations with you using this set. Thanks for stopping by today!

Sources: Gina K Designs pure luxury ivory cardstock; Avocado Arts Springtime Celebrations; SU Island Indigo ink; Tim Holtz for Ranger Pumice Stone, Antique Linen & Wild Honey distress inks; Ranger Diamond Stickles; We R Memory Keepers corner chomper