Pet Sympathy

Just popped in for a quick post today. My neighbors and good friends lost their dog the other day. so I made a card to express my sympathy. I know how difficult it is to lose your beloved fur companion.



STAMP: Steve Fadie, Words to the Rescue - Pet Sympathy
PAPERS: SU Very Vanilla, Pear Pizzazz
INK: TH Distress in mowed lawn and picked raspberry; Memento tuxedo black
OTHER: Taylored Expressions embossing folder - Garden Party

Be back soon!



Dragon Birthday

Just a short post for you  today. Here's something new - I actually finished the Splitcoast Wednesday Sketch Challenge 597 BEFORE the following Wednesday. Wow!

I used the adorable Wild Rose Studio Dragon with Bird Stamp for my card.



STAMP: Wild Rose Studio - Dragon with Bird
PAPERS: Xpress cardstock; We R Memory Keepers - Cakes and Candles; Stampin' Up! So Saffron
DIES: Simon Says Stamp Stitched Circles; Spellbinders Circles
INKS: Versafine Onyx Black; Inktense Pencils; Pentel Waterbrush;
OTHER: Stampin' Up! Washi

Thanks for stopping by.


Shaking Up My Scrapping Buddy

Happy Monday. Did everyone have a great weekend? I don't know about you, but I am exhausted today. However, I did get my final card done for Camp Create. Hooray! This is my fifth badge:


What a fun week in camp this has been. And as I started to plan out my shaker card, I also discovered it fit in with the great theme on the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge - Animal Magic. We were to create a project with an animal theme, and incorporate Paper Smooches product if possible. So this card does double duty, even though it certainly wasn't planned that way. The best part is they asked to share pictures of our own animals. Don't have to ask me twice for that!

First of all, this is my stamping buddy, Freddie. Whenever I am in my crafting room, he is never far away. He stole some fleece material I had near my sewing machine and made a nice nest for himself.



He was actually the inspiration for my card as I needed to write a note to our trainer. Freddie and I are now going through classes with the goal of being a Therapy Dog. He has the perfect temperament for that.

I had never done a see-through shaker before, but was inspired by Stephanie's video for MFT, so thought I would give it a try.


What a fun technique. I will definitely do this again. I will list all materials below, but the shaker window was created with MFT's Wonky Window dies. For the red frame, I just cut along the outside edge the old-fashioned way - with scissors! I love this charm and tibbon from Lilac Lane too.

Here is a view of the inside:


The sentiments are from Paper Smooches Lucky Dog Two.


I particularly like to sentiment across the top and I use it on a lot of my animal themed cards. Freddie is a rescued dog, and I firmly believe in these ideas. I have done all of them, and continue to do so. It is so rewarding.

Finally, just to prove that the shaker window is truly see-through, here is my stamping buddy helping me out. You can tell he did it reluctantly.



DIE: MFT Wonky Window
STAMPS: Paper Smooches Lucky Dog Two
STENCIL: MFT Staggered Paw Prints
PAPERS: MFT Kraft, Wild Cherry, 80 lb Natural
INK: MFT Wild Cherry, Black Licorice
OTHER: Ribbon, charm, sequins - Lilac Lane and stash; Gold cord - Stampin' Up!

Well it's time for our late afternoon walk so we are off for some exercise. We wish you and your fir-babies if you have any a great day. I just got some new goodies today, so I will be playing tomorrow, or maybe even this evening. See you again soon!









Die Cuts Galore

Here we are at Day 4 of MFT's Camp Create and this is the badge for today:

I think I may have gone just a wee bit overboard on this one. I love die cutting!

So here is the finished card I made -



Lots of dimension, right? You probably can't tell from this view, but I started bu cutting the card base in summer splash using the Flop Card Oval die. I wasn't sure how to use it at first, but I think I am going to be using this and the rectangle I bought a LOT! They are so cool. I decided I wanted the oval on the middle of the front so I could hide the sentiment inside. See what I mean?



How cool is that? As you can see, I cut the oval part out of smooth white. I also used the Funky Flowers stencil and some mermaid lagoon and peacock feather Distress ink to add a subtle pattern to the inside of the card.



Next came the flowers and the old Vagabond was working overtime! The flower dies are from Flashy Florals, as are the stamps used for the details. The leaves come from Flashy Florals as well as Leafy Greenery. I used three shades of green for the leaves - gumdrop green, jellybean green, and sour apple. The inks used for stamping were blueberry, jellybean green, fuse green and orange zest. For the sentiment panel, I used the Spring Wreath stamp set.



I wanted to use something a little bit different for the paper flowers, so I pulled out a Doodlebug Fun in the Sun paper pad. The prints were tiny and just the perfect colors. I don't stamp onto patterns very often, but I think I may try to do this more often. I really like how they turned out, especially after I dug out my old paper shaping tools to make sure the flowers had LOTS of dimension.

Here's one more look at the card laying flat on my counter, hiding the pretty sentiment inside. I think this is my favorite card from summer camp. Hope you like it too.



Well company is coming this weekend, so I probably won't get my last project done until Monday or Tuesday. My house is a total disaster area. It's a very good thing that my craft room is downstairs and I don't have to worry about cleaning that up too.




You Brighten My Day

Greetings fellow campers. Today I am here to share my work for the Wonderful Watercolor Badge at MFT's Camp Create. This will be my third badge. Time to get a sash for them all, don't you think? 

For my project, I decided to create a watercolor resist background. First I stamped a sheet of Tim Holtz watercolor paper with the MFT Scattered Surface background stamp with Versamark ink. I then used gold detail embossing powder and heat embossed. So pretty. Then I used yellows, oranges and a touch of red Kuratake Gansi Tambi watercolors and a Pentel waterbrush to cover the whole background. When the paints were almost dry, I painted some strokes of pearl Gansi and really added shimmer.



To construct the card, I used a pineapple card base and trimmed my watercolor paper to fit. Next I die cut an MFT Light bulb die using vellum and cut the details out of silver shine. Finally for the sentiment from MFT's Watt's Up? stamp set, I stamped in Versamark and heat embossed using Zing Butter powder. This view shows the shine a little bit better:




I was inspired by this week's MFT Wednesday sketch challenge for the layout. My layout is a little more simplified, but I didn't want to cover up too much of my shimmery, bright watercolor background.


See you all tomorrow. I think we will be working on die cuts at camp. Gee, that will be something new - NOT! Can't wait.

See you soon,











Fluttering Butterfly

Today is day 2 of MFT Camp Create. The workshop today is Sensational Sliders. This is a first for me, but luckily I had what I needed on hand. Here is the card I created:



Obviously this was also the first time I created an animated GIF too. I sure am learning a lot this week! Before you get seasick, here is a still photo of the card. I used smooth white card stock throughout and sponged distress inks for the background. The bottom edge was finished with a border die



PAPER: MFT Smooth White
STAMP: MFT Fly-by-Friends
DIES: (all MFT) Fly-by-Friends; Surf and Turf; Fresh Cut Grass border
INKS: (MFT) orange zest, jellybean green, black licorice (TH Distress) mowed lawn, tumbled glass, stormy sky; Copic markers
OTHER: Sequins

Thanks for stopping by to see my project for earning this badge:


See you soon with my next camp assignment. I have to go clean my tent first though!


MFT Camp Create Day 1

Hello! This will be a busy week and I will have lots of posts for you. Today I am participating in MFT Camp Create. This first day's Badge was a tough one for me to earn - Glitzy Glitter. I am not a glitter girl unless it comes in a Wink of Stella pen. However, Stephanie's You Tube video was so well done that I truly believed I could actually do this without getting glitter everywhere. Swiffer sheets - who knew?

Problem - about a year ago I donated most of my glitter and all I have left is some Tim Holtz distress glitter, which really doesn't work too well as it is much too chunky for the adhesive sheets. What's a girl to do? I remembered I had some white very fine glitter paper from Club Scrap, so I pulled that out. Some people may say that's cheating, but I like to think it's just creative problem-solving. Here is my glittery creation:



No only did that solve the glitter problem, but I was able to color the glitter with my Copics and the color scheme fits in with the current Color Challenge too!



The resulting card really does shimmer and shine. It's so hard to capture in a photograph.



PAPERS: MFT Primitive Cream (sub for In the Buff); Gumdrop Green card base; Blueberry; Orange Fizz (For Coral Crush); Club Scrap white glitter paper
DIES: MFT Soda Pop Bottles; MFT Blueprint 15
STAMPS: MFT Soda Pop
INKS: Versamark; Copic markers
OTHER: WOW Sparkling Snow embossing powder

Thanks for stopping by and seeing my efforts to earn my first badge.

Finally, I have some blog candy to give away. Look at the bottom of THIS POST.

See you again soon with another camp project.



Where I've Been and Blog Candy

My last post was really short because as usual, I had my card done and just hadn't posted. I think I may have told you my husband built me a new computer but instead of Windows he installed a Linux operating system "to see how I would like it." Well truth be told - I love it! So much faster than Windows and  very intuitive. BUT, and this is a BIG BUT - there is not version of Photoshop for Linux. I am in mourning for the loss of my PSE, and struggling to learn GIMP instead. I am making progress, but it is slowing down my posts.  But that is not the reason you stopped by, is it?

As you may have noticed, I haven't done any  posting for 5 or 6 weeks. This is the reason:



We went to SWITZERLAND!!!!! No, I wasn't there for 6 weeks, but there were many preparations and then there was jet lag to recover from. It takes me awhile to recover. But yes, I feel like the luckiest girl alive. What a beautiful, wonderful country. Mountains everywhere, farm-fresh cheese and CHOCOLATE! The only reason I only gain 2 pounds because we were walking, hiking and climbing the whole time. The photo above was taken from the top of Mt. Rigi. The lake below is Lake Lucerne. We started our trip in Lucerne, Here is the view from our hotel room, with the iconic chapel bridge.



So are those mountains just not high enough for you? How about this view atop Mt. Titlis in Engelberg?



I won't bore you with the more than 600 photos DH and I took (and I haven't received copes of the photos my daughter took yet), so I will share one more before getting on with the card-making stuff (and Blog Candy).

This one is of the wonderful Chateau Chillon on Lake Geneva. That little spec at the gate is my DH See, we didn't have our heads in the clouds the whole time!



So now, I have a card to share that I was hurrying to finish last night before Dave got home from work and wanted dinner. However, looking at it now, while it isn't terrible, it is missing something that I can't believe I didn't include - the LEAVES! Sheesh. That's what I get for rushing. Who needs dinner anyway?

Here's the card:



I couldn't wait to get home from my trip to play with this great MFT Flashy Florals kit. It is truly marvelous - especially when you remember to put in some leaves!

MFT STAMPS: Flashy Florals, Kind Thanks
PAPERS: MFT Smooth White, Pure Plum, Steel Grey, Inkadinkado masking paper
INKS (All MFT): ripe raspberry, pure plum, eggplant, orange zest, red hot, periwinkle
DIE: Thanks from kit

Now for the blog candy. I have an extra MFT Absolutely Fabulous die, a Taylored Expressions Thanks die, an Art Impression alligator stamp, and a Simon Says Stamp texting stamp set that I stupidly ordered twice. This can all be yours if you just leave a comment and talk about anything you want by 9:00 PM central time on Tuesday, June 21.

Thanks for stopping by and wading through this long post!



MFT Wednesday Sketch

You may be wondering where I have been, but I have a REALLY good reason for not posting for awhile. I would tell you about it, but I need to post this card NOW or miss the deadline for the MFT sketch! Please come back in a few hours and be amazed at what I have to show you. I will akso have some blog candy then.

Here is my card for the MFTWS284:



I am not totally happy because I used the wrong watercolor paper so didn't get the blending I want, but live and learn, right?

STAMPS: MFT Bundle of Blossoms background stamp
INKS: Versamark, Zig clean color real brush markers, pentel water brushes
PAPERS: Arches Hot press (should have used cold press), Vellum, MFT ripe raspberry,, steel grey, periwinkle
DIES: Blueprint Tag Builder 4, Wonkly stitched squares, hello from Flashy Florals Kit
OTHER: White embossing powder, Lilac Lane pearls

Gotta run. Come back before  June 21 for a blog candy chance.