i heart...

my hubby of course! I came across this stamp at Lizzie Ann Designs a few days ago and had to order it. I loved the rose emerging from behind the heart with the banner across it. I used the layout from yesterday which was a CAS challenge on SCS. I also used the colors from this week's Raspberry Suite Color Challenge to get me motivated. This was a great image to pull all these colors together!

Stamps: Lizzie Ann Designs. Paper: PTI, A muse. Ink: Memento, Copics

Here's a quick shot of Copics used to color the image.

deer friend...

I'm still working on challenges to get me stamping and this one took longer than expected. I colored 4 or 5 deer before I settled on a Copic combo I was somewhat happy with.

I've become fairly obsessed with the color teal, I bought a few packs of 'taken with teal' from Stampin Up. At a certain point I may have to hide the paper because I reach for it all the time. Brown and turquoise has become my go to color combo! Stamps: Hero Arts & A muse

I was thinking more about a Copic notebook for color combinations but until I get that together I took a picture of the markers I used in the photo.

kwerner color challenge #53

It's been forever since I've had a chance to play in my craft room but I can always count on the KWerner Color Challenges to get my mojo flowing. These colors made me think of Superman so I thought I'd go the opposite and get girly.

Stamps: A muse sentiment. Crate Paper bird. Paper: Sassafrass Lass. Ribbon: A muse.

bowl of jelly...

On April 24, 2008 I signed up for a designation for my real job, which has left me over a year to complete the certification. Surely it would be complete given I've had a year to study the materials but sadly that it not the case. I choose to wait until two weeks before it's due to even crack open the book. I've spend the last 12 hours studying and have effectively turned my brain into a bowl full of jelly. But I am happy to report that I have passed the practice test for three of the four sections. I saved the biggest and longest for last...wish me luck!




Since I don't have anything creative to show I thought I'd share a picture of my new paper storage. I picked this up a few weeks ago on clearance and I love it! I used to have my paper in rolling cart with a lid but I love that I can see all my papers at a glance. After I put it together I wished I had ordered the taller one. I was only able to put the paper that I use the most in here, of course there's like 8 shelves of A muse! Hopefully I can back in my craft room in a few days, my paper is calling me!

flock got me again...

So I thought I'd give the clean and simple (CAS) challenges at Splitcoasrt another shot. These are supposed to be quick cards with little embellishments.

This week's challenge was to follow a sketch but somehow it took me an hour to put this card together! I've been seeing a lot of felt flowers out there so I would try and make my own using fun flock. Mistake #1!!! I used the slice to cut out two flowers and attempted to flock them but had no luck at all. It seems I have good luck with flock in small areas but anything larger than a brad is a flop for me. Next I tried coloring with my Copics and that was just as bad, the colors were way off. I abandoned my color scheme and choose another ribbon. That must have been the problem because the card came together pretty fast after that, like it should have in the first place.

Lesson learned: Just buy the felt flowers!

Paper: PTI white. Ribbon: Strano Designs.

blocked...

I am having the worst case of stamper's block ever!! So the house is quiet now and I'll have a few hours to myself. Hopefully I can get some cards made because I need three before Tuesday! Off to stamp...

Cleaning Day!

I spent yesterday cleaning so I thought it would be a good time to take pictures of my craft room while it's clean. The pictures are on the sidebar somewhere on the left of the blog. I tend to organize by the colors of the rainbow, ROY G BIV. (Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, & Violet) It was a trick I learned in elementary school and it's always stuck with me. Since that leaves out black, brown and white I put them in the front of what I'm trying to organize.


I've seen lots of fancy light kits but I'm not ready to spend the money on these just yet. So I want to post my very low tech solution. It's two pieces of white paper held up by my desktop organizer. Very simple but it works

who me?

I got the nicest surprise the other day. Pamela, a fellow A muse Addict, nominated me for a Brillante blog award. So let me show some blog happiness to a few other nice ladies in cyber land.

Now for the details and rules of the award:

1. The winner can put the logo on her blog.
2. Link the person you received your award from.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Put links of those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message on the blogs of the girls you’ve nominated.

So here's who I am nominating:
Victoria
Rhonda
Lori
Nancy
Kathy
Allison
Tobey

Super blogs and super nice ladies!

The afternath...

need I say more

While I was waiting...

For my creative juices to kick in I painted a cool mural on the wall of my craft room. It's not perfect by any means and it was pretty rough to do but I think it turned out okay. I used my laptop skin as the inspiration for the mural. I used a projector to trace the image onto the wall and traced away. The hardest part was realigning the chandelier each time I had to move the projector. I had practiced initially by painting 'Diego' the animal rescuer on the wall for my son and I think that one turned a bit better. Regardless I'm happy with, try not to stare at the lines not really lining up! Also I used Stickes on the tops of the candles to simulate a glow...love those things!

Where does time go?

It's been super crazy the last few weeks. I was preparing for a week long business trip, mother's day and a birthday. It was also really stressful for me since it was the first time I was going to be away from my son. I can't complain, the class was in Las Vegas and I got some alone time with my husband! The first night we went to see the Phantom of the Opera and I loved it. It was really beautiful and I have become obsessed with the soundtrack since that night. The rest of the week went by in a blur, late nights and early mornings for class. I couldn't wait to get home, I missed my little one so much.

I dragged my sister out at midnight on Thursday night to see 'Sex in the City'. I had mixed feelings about the way the movie went but it was funny. Four hours of sleep is not a good way to start any work day.

I'm still having a hard time trying to get creative, we've spent most of the last few weeks poolside. I'm hoping something strikes me soon....

Back?

It's been a while, a long while. I took a hiatus due to moving, job change and losing my creativity in the process. It's funny the moment I was able to organize all my stamping stuff into a room I could call my own is the moment I couldn't come up with anything. I've been lurking on other stamping blogs but it never seemed to come around for me. I thought I would use the Amuse Addicts stamping night as an excuse to get back into the swing of things so we'll see how it goes...

Pencils N Things

Yesterday I had the chance to attend a class at my local LSS, Stamp Antonio. I learned about blending and coloring with Prismacolor pencils. I didn't think it was going to be my style but I really liked the look of the pencils on the stamped images. So of course I cruised them on ebay and I picked up a set of 72 pencils for $20! Wooooohoooooo! Happy Monday!

Where it all started...

When every I take on new hobbies, I immerse myself in the 'how-to' aspect of it. So when I took up stamping I bought a bunch of stamping books and began studying. I read a particular book a few times because I felt like I learned something new each time. Each time I read it I always went to the page with this stamp on it. So I hunted it down and bought it but sad to say I never used. So I decided to take it out for a spin. The other thing about this is one is the fact that I finally figured out how to do scalloped edges using the corner rounder punch. I found a lot of great tutorials on SCS but this one was the easiest for me to get. Scallop-border-tutorial

Images: Stampendous. Ink: Colorbox. Glitter: Stickles. Punch: EK Success

A little bird

I found this little stamp in the dollar section of Michael's. Very simple, very quick. I've been experimenting with scalloped edges and different techniques. I picked up this month's 'Stamp of the Month' from my local stamp store, Stamp Antonio and this was my first chance to play with it. Also I love cutting things with my craft knife; I made a mask of this bird in case I ever needed it.

images: Studio G, Sassafrass Border. ink: colorbox. punches: Marvy