Happy Birthday Nona!!

It's Nona's birthday today! I actually gave her this card on Saturday when a couple of us got together for sushi and some crafty time. It was a very fun day and an early birthday celebration for Nona. Hope you had a fun day Nona!

I made this card using my fun Birthday Anya stamp. This was one of the first images I colored with my Copics, and as you can tell....I didn't have very many colors my first shipment. Can you say monochromatic? ;) I made it work though with lots of color layering and adding sparkle and some fun liquid applique. I forgot how fun that applique could be!

Materials: Birthday Anya-TGF; Basic Grey Indian Summer dp; CTMH cs, edge distresser, sanding kit and inks; Nesties; Coluzzle; liquid applique; sentiment-Amuse; Primas; Sakura "clear star" pen; misc. buttons; foam tape.

Yay to applique!

See how fun it is?! When I saw this Miss Anya, I knew I had to use it for the fur accents. This was just an easy layout with a few button accents.

Can't wait for The Amazing Race tonight! I still don't know who I want to win since I was cheering for the father/son duo, Gary & Matt. Maybe the brothers, but I like the Globetrotters too. Definately NOT Brian & Erika. Her prissy attitude annoys me.

Materials: Miss Anya-TGF; BG Eskimo Kisses dp; CTMH sentiment, inks, buttons, liquid applique; foam tape.

Snow Flurries

When I won this Snow Flurries stamp set at convention, I already had an idea of how to use them. Kraft paper+white ink. I'm in love! Add yet another Sweet November fairy, and tah-dah! Super cute card!

Materials: Sweet November stamp; kraft paper; CTMH Snow Flurries, inks, twinkle brads; BG Eskimo Kisses dp; sentiment by sassy stamps; foam tape.

Fun with felt

I found this fun snowflake felt ribbon at my local craft store. Isn't it cute?! I'm still loving my Sweet November stamps. You'll be seeing a lot of them, sorry...and to bad! Lol! ;)

Materials: Sweet November stamps; kraft paper; BG Eskimo Kisses dp; CTMH cs, ink, twinkle brads, corner rounder and sentiment; copics; signo white pen.

"Sweet" Christmas

Quick post. I made these using Amy's fun Sweet November stamps. I LOVE these and can't wait for the next release on Dec. 7th! These use a super simple layout and just a little embellishment. There going for sale at The Sweet Spot.

***BLOG CANDY ALERT!!*** Amy is giving a prize pack including one of her as-yet-unreleased Sweet November stamp! Stop by her blog here to check it out!

Materials: Sweet November stamps; Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses dp; copic markers; CTMH cs, inks, sentiments; pearls-Michael's; misc. ribbon; sponge.

Housewarming invitations

My good friend Becky bought her first house this month. Yea!! It took a long time, and some seller issues, before she finally found "The One". And let me tell you....it's gorgeous! In honor of her new life step, her and her boyfriend are having a housewarming/Ugly Sweater party next month and she asked me to make some invites.

Yet again, Amy's layout is used. I also had the perfect stamp set to create these. Becky loved how I tied the house with the Christmas paper to tie the two themes of her party together. I love how I used liquid glass in the windows to make them look like window glass. ;)

Materials: All CTMH. Jingle L2pp; Neighborhood ss; Sans Alpha ss; olive, crystal blue, and tulip inks; liquid glass; corner rounder.

Other: Coluzzle.

Christmas Card Workshop examples

Here are examples of the cards customers made for my 2nd annual Christmas Card Workshop. They made eight of each design. It was a lot of fun watching some new customers find the joy of card making and learn how easy Close To My Heart products are to use.

Materials: All CTMH. Jingle L2pp; crystal blue cs; Heartfelt Christmas ss; Christmas Melodies ss; Holiday Commentary ss; juniper, olive, black, tulip, and crystal blue inks; cranberry brads; sparkles; liquid glass; paper piercer; edge distresser.

Other: Coluzzle.

Yea!! Sweet November!

So my Sweet November stamps arrived a while ago and I've FINALLY had time to play! I'm soooo happy that Amy was able to get her awesome drawings into rubber! Congrats Amy! I also used one of my favorite card layouts that Amy does. So easy, and a great way to use up scraps.

This was also my first go at using some of my new Copic markers. It'll take awhile to get use to blending and shading, but I love them! Can't believe I waited so long!

I also bought a $120 Ott-lite for only $30 at my local Tuesday Mornings! I love how much better it is to work under this light and also how well my photos turn out. This will help a lot since whatever daylight we get here in the rainy Pacific NW is already gone shortly after I get home. :( So dreary out, but I love the rain.

Materials: All CTMH. Jingle L2pp, Evensong L2pp, white daisy cs, Say it in Style ss, olive and crystal blue inks, cranberry ribbon, corner punch.

Other: SWEET NOVEMBER STAMPS!! Copics, $1 bin sparkles, Coluzzle, foam tape.

Regional card competition entry

This card is one I made for a card competition at Regionals. I wanted to make it a little different to stand out by rounding the corners, making the matching envelope, and glittering the clear buttons. I also used paper from three different paper packs. It didn't even make the top five. :( Oh well, I was proud of it and had fun making it. That's all that matters.

Materials: All CTMH. Christmas Melodies ss, Jingle L2pp, Magic Moments L2pp, Perfect Day L2pp, Juniper ink, embroidery floss, clear buttons, prisma glitter, 3d dots, Wishes envelope template, EK corner punch.

Cards made at Regionals

Here are some fun cards we made with the Jingle paper pack. I altered almost all of the cards to suit my tastes. ;) Pretty much the first card is the only one I did exactly like they instructed. Notice on my "celebrate" and "deck the halls" that when I put glitter glue on the sentiment that it changed the ink color. Boo! My friend Nona warned me that this would happen, but I don't listen well sometimes. ;)

Layout from Regionals

Too cute right?! Twitterpated is my favorite paper pack from this Idea Book. Using the matching My Stickease made this layout fun and a breeze! A few buttons, sparkles, and liquid glass and easy-peasy! Done! I totally flew through this layout and was just chilling while the rest of the group finished. Hee hee!

Notice the cool embossed scalloped edge on the cocoa cardstock? That was made with the negative space left over from the title sticker. Such a neat trick! I also learned how to "leather" cardstock with and ink pad. Used that technique in my card class last night.

More fun things to share later!

My goodies from CTMH's Regional Celebration!

SUPER quick post....need to leave for a meeting....

First off....YAY!! GLEE'S ON TONIGHT!! I'll have to watch it tomorrow since I'm going to my meeting tonight. :( At least shows are back!

So here are all my goodies I received while at CTMH's Regional Celebration in Portland this last weekend. Look at all this stuff!! It's like $190 worth! More than what I paid to register!

Five stamp sets, a FULL paper packet, embellishments (full ones on some of those too), rub-ons, card kits, scrapbook layout kits (enough for 10 people for a workshop!), MyStickease, dimentional elements..... AWESOME!

These last two are things I WON! I guess for being cool. ;)

I can't wait for the next one! And incase you were wondering, those little Michelin Man-looking things on my name badge are "Sticky Boys". He's the first My Acrylics that Jeanette and CTMH developed and the staff randomly placed them in odd spots around the convention center for us to find. I found my first on the mirror in the ladies room, then quickly found another on the inside of my stall door! So fun!

Ok, TTFN. Gotta go! I'll share more later.

Who wants FREE stamps?!!

It's STAMPAGANZA time with Close To My Heart!!

Buy 2 My Acrylic stamps sets and get 1 FREE*!!

From now until the end of the month, with every purchase of 2 My Acrylic stamp sets you get a 3rd one for FREE! It's been a long time since Close To My Heart has offered their Stampagaza event so close to the holidays. There's no limit to the number of FREE stamps you want to get! You could save up to $22.95 per set of 3 ordered stamps! Some exclusions apply: No "E" or "K" size stamps, Stamps of the Month, or Workshop on the Go sets.

To view the current Close To My Heart Idea Book, click here. I would LOVE it if you would order through me! I don't have my own order site, but I can have them delivered directly to your house!

Stay tuned for some pictures of my goodies I got from CTMH's Regional Celebrations this last weekend in Portland! Loads to share!

OK, I give up! I cave!

Soory I haven't posted any creations lately. Going to Portland for my first CTMH convention and busy with card classes and a new special venture....

So for the longest time I've gotten by fine coloring in my images with my trusty Crayola colored pencils. I think they work just fine. I can shade and blend pretty well, plus....only $4 for 20?! How can you go wrong right?

Well, I finally caved and bought my first bunch of Copic sketch markers! Which, buy the way, Michelle at www.michellesscraps.com has the lowest prices around and is very nice accommodating. I highly recommend using her site. With all the FANTASTIC artwork I've seen on blogs and in person, I just couldn't get by with the pencils anymore. Also, (super exciting yet scary news here) I'm going to start selling my cards in a local studio downtown in Fremont!! I can't believe it! So this new venture in my life "kinda" justified my purchase of Copics. ...kinda ;)

You might remember from one of my previous post that I might have a chance to sell my cards in an actual store. Well.....

Lara, owner of The Sweet Spot in Fremont, upgraded her studio to a larger space this week with an actual store front and LOADS more retail space. I've been a client of hers for years, and a couple of months ago we were talking about her new space and she mentioned that she'd have more retail space and would like to take a look at my cards. I was kinda like a little kid excited to show off, but I didn't want to bug her too much with everything that was going on buying and setting up the new studio.

So, last Sunday I volunteered at the studio with whatever last things that needed to be done before grand opening on Monday. I had made Lara a very special card to show her how proud I was of her and her accomplishments and she absolutely loved it! She asked if I had any more examples, which of course I brought with me (just in case *wink*) and her and everyone else there couldn't get enough of them. She is totally excited to sell my cards in her studio and thinks the local community will just eat them up.

Lara is all about supporting the local working woman and both her and Fremont are all about things local and handmade. This will hopefully be the perfect place to showcase my cards and make some money doing what I love. Now onto the scary part--the business aspect. I know NOTHING about this and research is not one of my favorite things to do, but it has to be done so I can be successful with this and do it right.

See! I am "kinda" justified in buying my first Copics. I have to make my cards look more professional right? ;)

Shopping spree and a Candy alert!

So I haven't done this in a while.....

Taking pictures of what I recently bought at my local craft store, Lasting Memories.

I haven't been there in a looooong time--for a reason--so I won't spend money! Haha! I went there looking for some 6x6 pads of Basic Grey Indian Summer and Eskimo Kisses, but they were out. :( Didn't stop me from spending money though!

So here's what I bought:

8-8"x11.5" kraft paper sheets

2-MME Spider Web "Haunted Parlor" dp

2-Fancy Pants "Hunted Mansion" dp

Martha Stewart snowflake diecut felt ribbon

American Crafts "Indie" ricrac felt ribbon

4-MM orange felt flowers

Signo white gel pen

2 pack of Gelly Roll "stardust" pens

Bulk buttons in orange, yellow, green, red, and purple.

Yeah! Most of this stuff was on sale too! I only spent about $25! :)

Now onto my Candy alert:

Beth over at Inky Fingers Rule is having Blog Candy! Stop on by her blog for the rules and to enter. Drawing closes on Nov. 21st!

Sweet November stamp release today!!

I am so proud and excited for my blogging friend Amy Young! Today is the day that her new, never-before-sold stamp line goes live for sale at All That Scraps at 10pm EST.

If you've been a follower of Amy's blog, you know how great she is at altering stamps and drawing her own images. About five months ago, she shared with us her fairy creations and we all fell in love! We begged and encouraged her to try and get her awesome images published to rubber so we could have our very own. Well today, Sweet November Stamps is releasing FOUR new stamps!! I know I'm excited this day has finally arrived! I'm going to have so much fun playing with these stamps. Yeah Amy!!

Stop by Amy's blog today to enter her Sweet November release special blog candy!