All Things Unity Challenge #43

I'm back with my final guest designer post for All Things Unity, this time for ATU43 which is to use a bug on your card! That's easy because there are very few Unity Kits of the Month that don't have a bug (or some kind of winged creature) in it. What's not easy is how to explain what goes on inside my head. Yes, this card is ultra weird but not if you're already laughing or if I tell you that I combined it with HYCCT1109: Things are Looking Up and used the PDCC105 colours! I meant to make this for HYCCT1127: Pickled Tink but I forgot about the splash of pink. Then it wouldn't have suited the PDCC105 colours anyway. Maybe I'll make another. I'm sure I can come up with another weird, er, humorous card. At least I'll crack myself up, if no one else. ;Þ

The frightened or amused girl is a retired Suzi Blu called Pretty Girl, the bees are from Better Together and the sentiment is from The Best is Yet To Be. All have never been inked before so they are happy now! I hope you'll play along with your Unity and Ippity stamps!! :)p>

Sources: Gina K Designs pure luxury white cardstock; Unity+Suzi Blu Pretty Girl; Unity July 2011 Kit of the Month: Better Together & February 2011 Kit of the Month: The Best is Yet To Be; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Copics

Unity Friends With Flair {Jul 22nd}

Hello, crafty friends! I'm having a fabulous day and I hope you are, too. I'm just popping in to share a sweet and simple card using Just Be You. This was actually a publication reject from ages ago that I wanted to re-work or re-theme but never found the time. As you can see in the close-up photo, the ladybug is layered and the body is made with The Twinery's Charcoal baker's twine. Since the colours fit, I'm playing along in The Play Date Cafe Challenge #91 to use black and white with a splash of colour.

I received the July 2011 Kit of the Month, Better Together, today and chuckled when my son pointed at the bees, ran his fingers across the rubber and said, "Ooooh, bees! Why (are) they always stripey?" Then he pointed at the rocking chair and said, "Hey, dondolo!" I was tickled when he said that because 'la sedia a dondolo' is rocking chair in Italian. :D

And one more thing before I go. Thanks to Angela Hathikhanavala who just got back from CHA Chicago, I was delighted to found out that one of the two cards I had published in Stamp It! Cards, Volume 8 made the big board in the Paper Crafts Magazine booth! It's the one that appears on page 142 of that issue and it also uses Unity, of course. ;)

Have a wonderful weekend and stay cool!

Sources: Gina K Designs pure luxury red, black & 120lb pure luxury white cardstock; Unity December 2010 Kit of the Month - Just Be You; SU Riding Hood Red ink; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; The Twinery baker's twine in Charcoal; Stampin' Dimensionals

i ♥ u, mom

This card uses the PDCC80 colours as well as Papertrey Ink's Make It Monday #13: Impression Plate Tricks #2 technique which super cool and addictive! I decided to add some ink to my In Bloom impression plate before running it through my machine for that letterpress kind of look. The die I used is the new Alpha-blocks die. To create a Mother's Day card, I made my own sentiment using the Alpha-blocks and Heart Prints stamp sets. In fact, this sentiment would work for any day you'd like to honour mom, right? :) I punched out the two hearts and stitched them on to the card for some dimension.

I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day! We'll be celebrating my husband's birthday and Mother's Day with my parents tomorrow night. :)

Sources: Gina K Designs 120lb pure luxury white cardstock; Papertrey Ink Alpha-blocks & Heart Prints; Vivid! Red & ButterScotch inks; Tim Holtz Antique Linen & Walnut Stain Distress Inks; Papertrey Ink In Bloom impression plate & Alpha-blocks die; QuicKutz Epic Six; EK Success Medium & Large Heart punches; Gutermann orange thread

Love You, Mom

Who could resist Papertrey Ink's April Release? Not me. I received my order about a week ago and yesterday was the first chance I had to play with them. Well, maybe I should say I haven't dared to play with them 'til yesterday. That's because I'm a bit intimidated by how well some blogland friends have used them!

Normally when I make a card, I know exactly what I'm going to do before rubber hits ink but, in this case, I didn't even have a clue how I was going to use these sets when I bought them. This is the first time I'm actually 'playing' with stamps to get a feel for what they can do and what I can do with them. This card is far from perfect but I like how it looks and my mom certainly won't notice the imperfections so it's all good. ;)

This particular card uses Modern Basics, Grunge Me and My Hero, My Dad. I was inspired by the PDCC#79 colours of red, lime and grey but ended up adding yellow so I didn't link up to the challenge. I decided to try and make a custom flower from Modern Basics. I wanted to make a one-layer card but smudged the ink on the five-petal flower. I didn't want to waste the cardstock so I made another version on a separate piece of cardstock and fussy cut it. Then I stamped smaller flowers in different colours and sizes. I purposely adhered the layers off-centre toward the top right-hand corner of white space to draw the eye in that direction. Something had to balance out the large flower so I used various patterns from Grunge Me and My Hero, My Dad to create other greenery. I actually stamped off the yellow at the bottom because I didn't want it to compete too much with the flower itself. I extended the bird's legs but it ended up looking awkwardly long so I decided to create another leg as if it's walking but then I realized that birds' legs don't bend that way. Oops. Either way, it's still cute, right? I didn't have an appropriate sentiment so I created one using a couple of words from Modern Basics and hand-wrote 'Mom' except it ended up too small. When I rehearsed it, it was much larger! So there you have it. I played, I created and I made a lot of mistakes but, most importantly, I had fun and I learned a few things.

Sources: Gina K Designs 120lb pure luxury white cardstock; Papertrey Ink Modern Basics, Grunge Me & My Hero, My Dad; SU Basic Grey, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red & Summer Sun inks; SU Basic Rhinestones; Sharpie Fine Black Pen

Unity Guest Designer Monday with a Video Tutorial {Jan 24th}

Today is the start of my very last week as Guest Designer for Unity Stamp Company! It makes me so sad but I say with great joy that it's been an amazing two months. Okay, I won't get ahead of myself. I'll save that speech for next Monday! ;) Both of today's cards use the beautiful PDCC65 colours and feature stamps from the newest Unity co-brand Marah Johnson. I love these big, bold and beautiful stamps because they are so easy to use!

I started this card by creating a mask to cover the outside border and taped that in place. Then I used two sheets of paper to mask off the different sections that were stamped alternately with Hearts of Old and Giving It All Meaning to create the background. For the frame, I used an image from the new Marah Johnson release Breathless but I removed the sentiment in the centre with an X-acto knife. I made several versions with these three colours to determine which one looked best and you'll see in my second card that I used the green frame since I couldn't let it go to waste. The sentiment comes from the Marah Johnson sets Moxie and Harmony. I finished by stitching a thick grey border around the masked background and attaching the frame and sentiments with dimensionals. I used the same foil I used for this card behind the sentiment because my husband suggested the background showing through the centre of the frame 'confused' him. See? Sometimes I do listen to my husband. LOL I could explain how well that mirror effect works with all the elements in this card but that would be getting way too philosophical for someone who hasn't had much sleep. :Þ

As explained above, this second card uses the same Marah Johnson frame from Breathless, except it's green and mounted in its original vertical position. The length of the frame makes it perfect for the shape of this card which is 6.5" x 3.25", as well as for featuring this long {puffy} heart from Samantha Walker's With All My Heart.

And now for the video tutorial on how I make my puffy paper hearts! Unity has so many great hearts with which to make these because they are large, vary in both shape and style, and so easy to mix and match with stamps from other sets. After you watch this super quick tutorial, I think you'll be amazed at how easy it is. I hope you'll be inspired to make a few for your own projects. Please let me know if you do because I'd love to see them!! Plus, there's no better time since I'm the Featured Stamper this week on Splitcoaststampers. :)

Sources for Create Harmony: SU Naturals Ivory; Aitoh silver origami paper; Unity Hearts of Old; Unity Giving It All Meaning; Unity+Marah Johnson Breathless; Unity+Marah Johnson Moxie; Unity+Marah Johnson Harmony; SU Tangerine Tango, Old Olive & Basic Grey ink; Versafine Smokey Grey ink; Ranger Blending Tool; X-acto knife; Gutermann grey thread; sewing machine; Stampin' Dimensionals

Sources for So Happy Together: SU Naturals Ivory; Unity+Marah Johnson Breathless; Unity+Samantha Walker With All My Heart; SU Tangerine Tango, Old Olive & Basic Grey ink; Versafine Smokey Grey ink; Ranger Blending Tool; Gutermann ivory thread; sewing machine

Hero Arts & PDCC62

It's my Mom's birthday tomorrow and her cards always have to feature red so I decided to use the pretty colours of the Play Date Cafe Challenge #62. Originally, I saw the colours on my monitor as coral, kraft and red but now I see that it's coral, kraft and pink. I think I need to visit my optometrist! LOL

I (shockingly only) started my collection of Hero Arts stamps in December and really wanted to ink them up. I figured the best way would be to participate in the Hero Arts January 2011 Contest! Of the three contest themes, I was inspired by the middle card on page 14 of the 2011 Catalog.

I started by using the four cute little images from Sending Smiles to create a background at the top of the card. Then I used the big Happy Birthday sentiment on the focus strip. I created a banner by stamping six Friendly Flags, coloured them in with Copics and attached them to the card base. To finish, I added some tiny rhinestones between the flags just like the inspiration card.

Sources: GinaK pure luxury Kraft & 120lb pure luxury White cardstock; SU Cameo Coral & Real Red cardstock; Hero Arts Sending Smiles; Hero Arts Friendly Flags; Vivid Red ink; SU Rose Red ink; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Copics; SU Basic Rhinestones

PDCC59, a Blog Award and an Amber Ink Winner!

This is a birthday card for my mother-in-law whose birthday is in the first week of January. Her favourite colour is purple and since purple was included in this week's Play Date Cafe Challenge #59 I used that brilliant combination for this card.

I created the sentiment panel first, then randomly stamped three different snowflakes in three different colours in the area where I wanted to place the sentiment. I punched holes, threaded the twine and adhered the label to the card base. I thought the card was missing something so I added rhinestones to the centres of the brilliant blue snowflakes.

More than a week ago, I received this blog award from the fabulous Julie Hoffman. Thank you, Julie, for honouring me with this wonderful gift!

Blog awards are dear to me because they are from very special crafty friends. I know that sounds sappy but it's true! I'm supposed to tell you three things that make me, me, and then I'm supposed to pass it on to three friends:

1. I'm possessive about my "stuff" which means I get paranoid when friends ask to borrow my books, CDs, DVDs, stamps, etc. I always write a note to remind myself to ask for them back the next week. Eeek!
2. I'd rather purchase and prepare my own food to eat at home which means I enjoy going out to eat once in a while but not too often!
3. I love to sleep and could use 10 hours of sleep a day but somehow I've been surviving on less and less, especially since my son was born. ;)

It was really difficult to choose only three but here are the beautiful and inspirational ladies I'm passing this award to:

1. Cookie Groover
2. Janna Werner
3. Jennifer Hagfeldt

After the Amber Ink Holiday Blog Hop on Tuesday, voters were encouraged to vote for their favourite card in the hop and mine was the winner! Thank you to all of you who took the time to participate in the hop and vote. The past and present torchbearers had a fabulous time creating holiday cards and they were all fabulous. I'm honoured that mine was chosen as the winner and the best part of it is that one of the hoppers who left a comment here will now win a $10 gift certificate to the Amber Ink store! That lucky lady is... drum roll, please...

Congratulations, Meg! Please email Amber Alvarez at info@amberink.com and let her know that I chose you as my blog hop winner of a $10 gift certificate to the Amber Ink store.

Sources: SU Tempting Turquoise cardstock; GinaK 120lb pure luxury White cardstock; SU Brilliant Blue, Tempting Turquoise & Lavender Lace inks; Papertrey Ink Fillable Frames #4 & die; QuicKutz Epic Six; Martha Stewart stamp & punch polar snowflake; Marvy-Uchida 1/8" long reach circle punch; The Twinery baker's twine in Lilac; SU Basic Rhinestones; Stampin' Dimensionals

Put On Your Party Dress

During the last big Unity sale in October, I ordered a bunch of awesome stamps and that box arrived earlier this week! Now that they're finally in my hands I couldn't be happier and I'll be making a lot of cards with them so I hope you love Unity as much as I do. ;) Today's card is for the Play Date Cafe Challenge #57 and features the Unity set Undeniably You as well as a gorgeous background called Tea Time Toile. For PDCC57, we are to use the colours shown at left. I loved working with these dark colours and making them feminine! My brown elements are the card base and dress image. I used gray for the background panel and shading on the dress. The silver is in the stitching, circle nestie and the sparkles on the necklace and belt. Since the silver paper was so reflective, it was difficult to take a good close up shot so you see the camera lens and part of my hand in it. LOL

Sources: SU Early Espresso & Basic Gray cardstock; Aitoh Silver Origami paper; GinaK 120lb pure luxury White cardstock; Unity Undeniably You; Unity Tea Time Toile; SU Basic Gray ink; Memento Rich Cocoa ink; Staz-On Jet Black ink; Copics; Spellbinders Nestabilities Standard Circles Large; QuicKutz Epic Six; Gutermann metallic silver thread; sewing machine; Stampin' Dimensionals; Gary M. Burlin silver glitter glue

Wishing You

I made this card for The Play Date Cafe Challenge #54 which is to use the colours shown at left. I thought these colours would be easy to put together but it took me a while to think of a way to make them work! The last few cards I made were a bit fancier than my usual style so for this card I decided to go super clean and simple. It felt really good, especially because I finally had the chance to use this five-point ribbon flower tutorial that I found on Elise Durenberger's blog, oh, only five months ago! For someone like me who has a ton of ribbon I never use, this is a great way to create handmade embellishments. Give it a try! I guarantee you won't be disappointed. ;)

Sources: SU Certainly Celery cardstock; GinaK 120lb pure luxury White cardstock; Verve Wishing You; Memories Artprint Brown ink; SU Certainly Celery 5/8" grosgrain ribbon; Gutermann white thread; sewing needle; Basic Grey buttons; The Twinery baker's twine in Mandarin; SU 1-3/8" circle punch; Glue Dots minis & pop up relief

Happy Holidays

Hi, everyone! I hope your weekend has been superb so far. Have you attended any Halloween parties and are the kids all excited about trick-or-treating tomorrow night? My son's super excited because he can say "trick or treat" now but he might also sing "smell my feet" and stick his foot up in the air, too! LOL

I was able to squeeze in a bit of crafting time today and made this super clean and simple card for the Play Date Cafe Challenge #53. My card features one of the holiday images from Unity's October KOTM. (Sometimes I ask my husband which photo to post and when he saw 'KOTM' he said, "King of the Mountain?" He designs bikes, is a cycling fan, and that is one of the common acronyms used in the big races. Too funny!) I wanted this image to shine on its own, pun not intended. I stamped it three times on textured burgundy cardstock, white cardstock and Amber Ink plaid. Then I coloured in the sentiment with a white gel pen, cut out the coordinating pieces and added Stickles to the strings. If you look closely, you'll see an extra black mat underneath the image. Originally, I had burgundy and plaid mats covering the entire card but it was too busy. Once I took the background away, the card felt right. Then I added the bling and ka-chow! LOL I couldn't resist that one. It's from the Pixar movie Cars. My son's too young to see the movie but we have some of the books. When I read the books to my son and accidentally leave it out, he makes sure to remind me, "Mama... ka-chow!" ;)

Sources: GinaK pure luxury Black Onyx cardstock & 120lb pure luxury White cardstock; AC textured burgundy cardstock; Amber Ink iPaper - Schoolgirl Plaid - Fire and Ash: Tiny; Unity October 2010 Kit of the Month - Take Time To Laugh; Memento Tuxedo Black ink; Uni-Ball Signo Broad White Gel Pen; Ranger Black Diamond Stickles; SU 3/4" circle punch; SU Basic Rhinestones; SU Stampin' Dimensionals

Happenings of the Heart

Hello! I thought it might be fun to do a random post once in a while, especially when I haven't had time to craft. Today's post will start with some announcements earlier this week that thrilled me! Did you see who won Wplus9's Color Cue {8}?

That's me! I couldn't believe my eyes. It's my first challenge win and I couldn't be happier! :D

Then I got an honourable mention for this Unity card in Play Date Cafe's One-Year Anniversary Challenge! Two toots for me this week. I don't mean to gloat. It's been a big week for me craft-wise! ;)

All this good news couldn't have come at a better time. Our poor little fur baby Pit'r hasn't been well. She had an adverse reaction to her last bout of chemo and had massive open sores on her chin. The antibiotics they put her on caused major bowel issues so we've been dealing with that over the past two days. It hasn't been fun cleaning up after her and last night we had to lock her away so we wouldn't wake up to yucky stuff all over the place. This morning it finally looked like she was feeling better this morning. Thank goodness!

Our dryer also decided to stop working this afternoon and the repairman won't be coming by 'til Monday. Oh, the things we take for granted! I had to hang everything that was partly dried, as well as the second load that was already in the wash. They are all hard and crispy. Ick.

Over the past several months, I had a series of unpleasant email conversations with a certain well-known stamp company and they still refuse to budge on their outrageous international shipping policy while citing the most ridiculous and illogical reasons. As one wise crafty math teacher put it, there's no way shipping should cost over 200% of the cost of the products. They even ignored emails sent by friends of mine so we decided that if they want to be exclusive then we will exclude them from our craft budget, too. This is unfortunate because we do love their stuff. Some people just don't know what is good for them!

As a treat for all this (LOL), I decided to take advantage of Unity's amazing 40% off sale going on right now and ordered five new sets (plus a sixth free one, being a Kit Club member)! I love the way Unity and the Unity family has treated me and all my friends so I will continue to support them. That holds true for all the other wonderful stamp companies I have dealt with and I'll say more on that subject another time.

I hope you've all had a wonderful week. What are your plans for the weekend? We're excited about the little guy's second Halloween! He's going as a dinosaur but he wants to carry the panda treat bag I made for him last year. Too cute. RAWR!!! ;)

Hello, Girlfriend

This card is for the Play Date Cafe's One-Year Anniversary Challenge which is to use the colours shown at left. I thought it would be fun to play along since it's being sponsored by none other than Unity and Cosmo Cricket! I played with the same two images used in this card and came up with this. It's not my usual style but I kind of like it. I stamped the flower image three times in each of the colours required for the challenge and cut them out. Then I tied baker's twine in the same three colours. I stamped the clouds in brown, which match the sentiment, cut them out and adhered them to the card base. To finish, I added a pink rhinestone as a sort of punctuation but then I realized it would look cool if I added rhinestones in the other two colours on the other floral panels to form a visual triangle.

That's it from me today. I hope you're all having a beautiful Tuesday!

Sources: SU Kraft, So Saffron & Tangerine Tango cardstock; Bazzill Basics textured pink cardstock; Unity October 2010 Kit of the Month - Take Time to Laugh; SU Summer Sun, Pink Pirouette & Tangerine Tango inks; Memento Rich Cocoa ink; The Twinery baker's twine in Mandarin, Lemondrop & Pink Sorbet; SU Basic Rhinestones; Forever in Time gemstone stickers; Stampin' Dimensionals