You are out of this world

Hi everyone!  Super quick post this morning...  I used more of my Cogsmo papers from Cosmo Cricket, images by Michaels' Reminisce stamps that were colored with my Copics, and a bit of red ribbon from Hobby Lobby.  I had my guy friends in mind when I made this card..  I didn't want it to be a mushy card, but guys should get Valentines too! :)  I'll be back tomorrow with some VERY exciting news! :D


-Suzanne :O )

TCP Tuesday 143/Mojo Monday 175

Hi everyone!  I haven't done a Mojo Monday in forever, but I really liked this week's sketch:

I knew I was going to use a TCP stamp so I could also play along with their challenge- to use the words "heart" or "love".  



This was actually a bit more of a challenge for me than I realized, because I don't have that many lovey-dovey TCP sentiments.  The next time they run a sale, I will be sure to fix that! ;)  Anyway, I made it work with this little guy (does he have a name?) and I M so pleased with how I did the airbrush effect around him.  I don't have a Copic airbrush system, but I do like the look of it- your eye is drawn to the white part behind the image, in effect highlighting it.  I know some people sponge ink around the cardstock while it's still in the die, but I didn't want ink all over my Nestabilities (I'm weird that way).  Then the lightbulb went off!  I took out my neglected chalks, and rubbed a little red around the rim with a Q-Tip.  I softened it by pulling the color out with a clean Q-Tip, and I ended up with a die-cut that looks similar to those that are airbrushed!  Yesssss!  I'm not sure if I'm more excited that I scored the look or if I'm glad to find a new use for those chalks that have been collecting dust for a few years!  Either way, it made my day.  :)


Okay, enough about chalk.  I used more K&Co papers here, a bit of "bling", and some ribbon scraps from my jar.  I'm happy with how this card turned out because I was originally worried about how small the dog was in comparison to the size of my card.  I think having the circles and patterned papers help fill the space.. he doesn't look so small anymore.  :)  Anyway, I hope you like this card!  I'm almost done with my Valentine's Day cards.. time to start pulling out St. Patty's Day supplies! :D


-Suzanne :O )

Love

Good morning, friends.  I have a 2-hour delay this morning; usually I'm up and appreciate the extra time to myself, but this morning I'm dragging.  I might have to go back to sleep once I finish writing! :)

Here's another card using my last bear packaging cut-out.  I love his shorts! hehe!  I used this Got Sketch? card layout for my guide:

I used some foil patterned paper by K&Co (aqua is the flip side of the red foil) and some kraft and white cardstock.  I used a Fiskars punch to get the scalloped trim and my Nestabilities for the lacy circle and oval.  I tried something new this time with the ribbon- I put down some strips of adhesive with my tape gun and bunched the ribbon up all messy-like.  I made sure there was enough room for the circle in the center, but I like how ruffle-y it looks on the ends.

I apologize for the poor quality photo.  The bear is glossy so I didn't want the light reflecting off of that, but the foil and ribbon weren't photographing well when I tried to get a clear bear image.  I'm so envious of those out there who are amazing card makers AND photographers! :)  Anyway, hope you get the idea, thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Smitten

Hi friends!  It's a happy day today- my boss told everyone to leave at 11:45 today because of another impending snow storm!  We've been having snow on top of snow these past few weeks, but I'm loving it.  When I left, it was just flurrying, but it's coming down a bit heavier now, and I'm so glad to be home with the rest of the afternoon open for making cards!  Love my boss! :D  


Today's card uses Sweet Sunday Sketch 101:

To start my card off, I used this 5x7 paper frame that my friend gave me in a bundle of scrapbooking sheets.  The middle of the frame had princess quotes or something that you were supposed to cut out, but I knew I'd never use them, so I just covered that part up with some kraft cardstock and patterned paper by Target.  That created the fun heart border.  :)  I used my Nestabilities to cut some layers behind my main image.  Last Valentine's Day, I had a box of cookies or something with these adorable bears on the packaging, so I cut them out and saved them to use on a card this year.  I love that I didn't have to color them!  I stamped the G Studio sentiment and tied a bit of black polka dot ribbon to a strip of white cardstock, and I think that covers everything.  It's a bit busy, but I'm okay with all that pink for Valentine's Day! :)  

I hope you like this card and maybe it will inspire you to save any cute packaging for your cards too!  Thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

A little treat

Hi friends!  I guess I've missed posting for the last couple of days- oops!  I'm back today to share the card I made for challenge #11 over at Woodware USA.  This week it's "anything goes", so you should link up a card if you have a chance, and enter to win the monthly prize!  :)


For my card, I pulled out my yummy Ice Cream Parfait set:

All of the papers are by K&Co (which are meant for Valentine's Day) but of course I had to use the sprinkles background for this card! ;)  I cut out the image panel and mat with my Nestabilities, stamped the sundae image, and colored it with my Copics.  I added the second photo above so you could see that I added a bit of  Glossy Accents to make the glass look real.  I stamped the sentiment to finish off this super simple card.  I hope you enjoy, thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Be mine, cupcake

Hi friends!  Happy Saturday!  We had *another* snow day yesterday, although we only got about 5-6 six inches and it was that light, fluffy stuff that melted by about 9am.  Today I'm having a bunch of people over for Game Day, which means good friends/family, good food, board games, and lots of laughs.  :)  I spent most of yesterday baking and prepping so all I have to do today is make the meatballs, boil the ziti, add the cheeses, and put it in a tray for later.  Normally I have lots of time to post on a snow day, but it seemed like I was in the kitchen most of the day! 


Anyway, here's my entry for this week's Woodware USA challenge to use pink, red, and white.  I pulled out my Sweet Tooth set and assembled the cupcake:

Love how you can make all sorts of sweets- tons of options in this set!  I colored the cupcake with my Copics so it would look like it's a vanilla cupcake with white frosting and strawberry sauce.  I pieced together the sentiments to fit the image.  ;)  I embossed some red cardstock with my Cuttlebug, added patterned paper scraps by DCWV and stamped the image on a Nestabilitie.  To embellish, I added some fun pink polka dot ribbon from Michaels and some epoxy hearts by Making Memories.  I hope you enjoy this 'sweet' Valentine's Day card!  Thanks for stopping by, have a GREAT weekend! :D

-Suzanne :O )

Birthday Popcorn

Happy Thursday!  I'm back to show you the other focal pieces I made.  This set uses stamps by Clear and Simple Stamps.  I love the large size of this popcorn tub, and that the label is blank, so you can stamp different sentiments in there to fit the theme of your card.  :)  I used my Nestabilities to die-cut the cardstock, and colored my images with my Copics.  The sentiments were stamped with some celadon pigment ink by Colorbox, and that was it.  I kept these focal pieces minimal, because I had male recipients in mind for the cards made using these images.  I don't have a finished card to show you, but it would be super easy to make as the focal piece itself is pretty big (3.5 X 5").  

I hope you enjoyed today's post, thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Riley!

Good morning, friends!  I have a 2 hour delay as a follow up to yesterday's yucky weather.  It's always nice to have a little extra crafty time- I've made 10 Valentine's Day cards so far, so I'm doing really well with my progress.  :)  


Today I want to share these focal pieces I made for a swap I hosted a few months ago.  My idea was to have everyone make a piece that would have all the bells and whistles, so you'd just have to slap the piece onto a piece of cardstock or patterned paper and your card would be ready to go.  I made two sets of focal pieces- I'll share the other ones tomorrow.  This first set uses my new Riley stamp.  I've been wanting Riley in some form since I first saw him a few years ago, but was never able to find him at stamp conventions or LSSs.  Back in the fall, I went shopping in the city and went to The Ink Pad, which was a tiny little store crammed with stamps.  I love how those kind of stores use every available inch of space to display their merch!  ;)  I bought the image you see below, plus one with Riley holding a turkey and one with Riley building a snowmoose (well he wouldn't build a snowMAN, would he!?  hehe).  The stamps were $10 each, which was quite a splurge for me, but Riley's just so cute I couldn't resist.  I'm sure he's half the price anywhere else since NYC's so darned expensive!  Here are the eight focal pieces I made:

I used some kraft cardstock, some cupcake paper by DCWV, a bit of ribbon, and a Darcie's sentiment that I thought fit the image pretty well. Here's a close up:

To make this birthday card, all I did was mat the focal piece with some patterned paper by My Mind's Eye, add a strip of scalloped punched cardstock and mat that piece with some more paper by MME.  See how easy it was to make the card?  

The inside of my card was created with a sticker from SRM- LOVE how easy these are to use- no stamps required! :)

And that's it!  I have to get my bucket ready for work now, but I'll be back tomorrow to show you the other focal pieces I made.  Thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )

Love is in the air!

Happy Snow Storm!  My guess was right, we did have a snow day today- it's been a miserable day of snow, sleet, and ice.  It's still going strong, so thankfully all of my family is home, safe and sound.  :)  


Here's my card for TCP Tuesday 142- the challenge was hosted by Sony and she is having us work with red,  black, white or kraft, and yellow.

This card started off with a scrap of yellow cardstock.  I wanted an egg yolk-y yellow, not a pastel one because I wanted it to balance out with the black and red.  I had immediately envisioned using the large polka dot Cuttlebug folder when I saw the color combo (weird how your brain thinks about things like that, right?!) so I ran the cardstock through and matted it with white and black cardstock.  The red patterned paper is by DCWV and came all glittered up.  

I've been having fun going through my TCP stamps to try and use non-Valentiney images and turn them into love scenes.  This pair of ice skating penguins is from Penguin Christmas and the sentiment is from Puppy Love.  I stamped them on a couple of Nestabilitie cut pieces of cardstock and added some yellow gems.  Going through my stash of Valentine's Day embellishment, I came across this heart sticker by We R Memory Keepers, and had to use it because of the yellow bow!  I matted it with black cardstock though, so it wouldn't get washed out in the yellow background.  I used my Copics to color the penguins and keep the color theme going in their scarves and matted the whole card piece on black cardstock.  This card is way out of my comfort zone, but I like how intense it looks!  It's certainly not your standard frilly V-Day card!  :)

I'm going to try to bang out a few more Valentine's Day cards before my extended weekend is up.  I hope you're all having a fabulous Tuesday! :)

-Suzanne :O )

You make my heart go whirrrrr

Hi friends!  Today I'm sharing the card I made for Chris's Valentine's Day card... I think I'm safe as he rarely checks my blog. ;)  I used the Sweet Sunday sketch for my layout:

I stretched the square sketch out a bit, to accommodate the robot sticker I got at Michaels on clearance last year.  I think it was meant to be a wall decal, but as soon as I saw it, I knew it would make for a perfect masculine Valentine's Day card.  To compliment my robot, I used papers from Cosmo Cricket's Cogsmo line.  I added some gray lace and green ribbon from my stash to keep the girly-ness down, but I did get a bit girly with those sweet Making Memories epoxy hearts. ;)   

I don't usually decorate the inside of my cards, but it worked out with my sentiment and the scraps that were left over:

Cute sentiment, huh??  :)  I've been doing a lot of futzing around on the last day of my 3 day weekend, but it looks like we're going to get snow/sleet/ice tonight and tomorrow, so perhaps I'll have another day off tomorrow!  :)  Hope you're all having a great weekend, thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

Sparkly Butterfly

Hi friends!  Here's a card I made for the CARDS challenge to use butterflies.  I've had this sparkly chipboard piece in my miscellaneous drawer for a while, so now was as good a time to use it as ever! :)  I used a script background stamp by Glitz and some magenta ink to create the oval behind the butterfly.  I ran a piece of blue cardstock through my Cuttlebug, added some patterned paper by K&Co and stamped the Clear and Simple Stamps sentiment to finish up the card.  I'm trying really hard to clean out that drawer, and it's paying off!  I think this card is different than my typical style, but I really like how it turned out, especially that script background! :)  Thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )

Puppy Love

Happy Saturday, friends!  I haven't made anything in a few days, but here's another card I made when I was using my DCWV papers to make the "I Ruff You" card.  I let the patterned paper scraps guide me on this layout, and I used an image by Inkadinkado for the focal piece.  I colored the heart with my Copics, matted the image with my Nestabilities and added some pink gems by Darice.  A pretty quick card to make, but I love that I'm using up those pet papers since I don't *have* any pets! :)  


Today I'm having lunch with a friend I haven't seen in months, and tonight I'm meeting up with another friend to start planning her wedding invitations- I'm sure I'll post more on that as the year goes on. ;)  I hope you all have a great day, thanks for checking out my card! 


-Suzanne :O )

Ladies Love a Man in a Tuxedo!

Hi there!  Just a quick post today to share this card I made with Starving Artistamps images.  I've mentioned before that I'm lazy when it comes to making cards, so creating scenes on my cards is pretty rare.  I felt like going the extra mile on this card, so I started off with some sandy patterned paper by DCWV and started stamping my images.  Most images were cut and colored on white cardstock, so that was a bit time consuming.  The blue polka dot paper, which represents the sky, is by K&Co, and I stamped that hilarious sentiment right on the edge there.  Below is an SRM sticker I used on the inside of the card.





I had a lot of fun making this card, but all that paper piecing is something I'd only do once in a while.  I love how it turned out though, that penguin is so darn cute!  :)  I hope you all have a fabulous Thursday, thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )

Smitten

Hi again!  Just wanted to share the card I made for both the Woodware challenge to use hearts and the CARDS magazine challenge to use felt.  I used the same bear from the birthday card I made a couple of weeks ago, only this time, I added a felt heart to the stem!  I cut her out and added her to a K&Co tag.  The patterned papers are also K&Co, and the ribbon is American Crafts.  Not sure who made the felt heart and key since I got them in a swap (they came in today's mail, actually!).  Anyway, that wraps up another Valentine's Day card.. I'm getting a lot made using these fun challenges!  Thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )

Nuts about you!

Happy Wednesday, friends!  I got a call last night saying that school was already canceled, so I was able to sleep in this morning, only I got up at 5:15 anyway and started making this fun card!  :)  I wanted to play along with TCP Tuesday 141; the challenge was to use ribbon in a new way and you are not allowed to use a bow. I'm sure this has been done before, but my idea was to make a ruffle of sorts out of ribbon snippets.  I took a strip of cardstock and stapled each ribbon loop to it.  I kind of liked the ribbon loops being different lengths, so it has that homemade look.  The papers are all K&Co, except for the orange paper, which was in my scrap stash.  I used the squirrel and sentiments from TCP's Happy Camper set:

Super cute, huh??  This set has nothing to do with Valentine's Day, so I'm quite pleased with myself that I made it work!  LOL  :)    I colored my squirrel friend with Copics, (I seriously need more browns!) and cut a slit between his paws so he could hold the acorn.  I added a couple of cute clouds to fill the empty space and some Darice gems to finish the card off.  I used Sweet Sunday Sketch 99 again.  I hope you like my card, thanks for stopping by!

-Suzanne :O )

I Ruff You!

Hi friends!  Here's another Valentine's Day card, using this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch 99:

When I saw this card entered in another challenge, I was inspired to pull out my DCWV Pet Stack papers and go with a dog theme.  (Thanks, Jana!)  I got the dog in a swap a long time ago, and it's been patiently sitting in my miscellaneous drawer waiting for me to use it.  The sentiment by The Cat's Pajamas really ties the whole project together and makes it a Valentine's Day card, and not just a card with a dog on it.  The little row of hearts is by Inkadinkado and I finished the card off with some blue polka dot ribbon.  Everything really came together on this card- the dog embellishment, the hearts with paw prints patterned paper, and the sentiment- don't you just love when that happens?!  It was all meant to be.  :)  







I'm gearing up for a snow day tomorrow; we're supposed to get anywhere from 5-20 inches of snow, so I plan to stay in and get some more V Day cards done.  I *love* winter!  :D  Thanks for stopping by!


-Suzanne :O )

TCP Tuesday 140

Hi again!  I've been blogging like crazy lately.  It seems to me most people only post once a day or less, but I don't feel like waiting- I don't think you mind either, right? :)  I wanted to play along with The Cat's Pajamas challenge this week, which was to make a card inspired by this hat:

At one of the scrapbook conventions I went to last year, a vendor was selling packages of 12 sheets of old Doodlebug paper and letter embellishments for $4.  Since I never had the opportunity to buy much of their paper, I scooped up 3 different sets.  I think the paper does look a little dated, but as soon as I saw the hat, it reminded me of the black paper with the spots.  

I used two more patterned papers from another package and a scrap of lime green cardstock to mat the image.  My friend is turning 28 next month, so I used an image from You Say It's Your Birthday and personalized it with the "28".  I colored my penguin friend with Copics and added some Doodlebug brads.  I think that about covers this card, thanks for stopping by! 

-Suzanne :O )