A few more cards for today

I really was on a roll today. I Just kept stamping and stamping. It felt so good to have that feeling again and the desire to create. I probably over did it but I still had a lot of fun. Here are a few more cards that I did today.

More Desperate Stamper sketches

If you remember, I participated in a sketch challenge posted by Sara on her Deperate Stamper blog. She is posting 27 card sketches in 27 days. I loved the idea and made sure I started these challenges. I sort of fizzled out after the first one. I had every intention of participating as she posted each sketch. Needless to say, it didn't happen.

Today I knew I was going to have lots of time to stamp and I started with Sara's sketches. I printed them all out as a sort of map for my card making today. I picked out the papers I was going to use and then started putting things together. I had sooo much fun. I felt so creative today. I used her sketches as a starting point and everything else just came together. I didn't make a card for all of her sketches today but I did manage a few. Without further ado, here they are.

Sketch 6:

Sketch 7:

Sketch 10:

Sketch 18:

I finally made something I like

I promised myself at the beginning of this weekend that I would sit down and stamp for as much time as possible. I tried to do it last night and I really don't care for anything I came up with. I tried following a few sketch challenges for inspiration but I think that hindered my progress even further. Then tonight I spent a while browsing the gallery at SCS. I always find inspiration over there. I settled on the Baroque Motif set and said I was going to make some Christmas cards with this set. I knew I had seen some beautiful works with this set. Sure enough I found lots of cards that I wanted to try. I ended up only have a short time left to stamp this evening and here is what I came up with.



I am quite pleased with how these came out. Like I said, I found my inspiration at SCS. I made a few changes to the designs I found and did cards in opposite colors to see which I might like better. I can't choose a favorite out of any of these designs.

I also found a new favorite product. The Stardust Glitter Pen that I received with my blog candy from Kristine at Ink Something! Those things are like magic. If you have never tried these pens before you HAVE to. They really are amazing.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming

I think I may have found a bit of my mojo. I made a card tonight! I saw a sketch posted by Sara at Desperate Stamper and I wanted to give it a try. Actually Sara is going to post 27 sketches in 27 days. You will probably be seeing me trying a lot more of her sketches. What I have seen so far has been fabulous. I think I can credit Sara with helping me find my mojo. Check them out for yourself and show me what you come up with.

This is what I came up with:

I used the Baroque Motifs set from Stampin' Up. I have had this set for about a month and have been waiting for just the right idea to play with it. I love the colors I have together on this card. It sort of suits my personality. The layer between the white and black is more like an orchid purplish color. It didn't photograph well. I also used the rock n' roll technique on the circular cutout piece with pink passion and orchid opulence. Seriously, it is really cool looking in real life. I added this piece with pop dots and topped it off with a little rhinestone in the center. These rhinestones have to be my newest favorite embellishment. That add that little bit of pizazz to almost any card design. Diane at My Little Stampin' Spot wants to know your favorite embellishment too. Go share so we can all see what cool things are out there.

Captain Crafter Sketch Challenge

I have heard wonderful things about the sketch designs by Captain Crafter. I had to check it out for myself. The most recent sketch design Challenge #23 posted most recently looked like it was worth a try. It seems like over the last week I have lost some of my mojo and I tried this challenge to get back into the swing of things. I am satisfied with my design but not totally happy with it. I used a retired Christmas set from Stampin' Up! that I was considering using for our cards to send out this year. I definitely need to play with this set some more.

Here is the card I did for this challenge:

Here's a close up. You can kind of see that I used some glossy pearly kind of paint to add the icicles to the house.

I still don't feel like my mojo has returned. Hopefully I can find it sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Celebration time!

I haven't created anything new but wanted to make sure I didn't neglect my readers. I thought I would feature one of my favorite creations. This is a Celebrate card. I think it is fitting for my life right now. August and September are months full of birthdays in my family. There are 6 birthdays in the month of August in my immediate family (myself included). September is the month of 4 birthdays in my immediate family in the first half of the month. This weekend we are going on a mini vacation to spend some time with my family. We will be celebrating 3 birthdays on Sunday. This included my youngest ones 3rd birthday. She is going to be surprised because while she knows her birthday is coming, she has no idea we are celebrating it this weekend. So you won't see me post this weekend so I will leave you with this in honor of all the Celebrations. Have a great Labor Day Weekend and Celebrate!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I am working on designing more Christmas cards. I came up with two designs this evening that I love. The first is done with faux stitching and gold embossing.

The second is more simple but elegant. I didn't stamp anything but I used gold foil stickers.

Here's the two together:

Winter in Summer?

I don't know what motivated me when it was 80 degrees with 96% humidity but I started on my holiday cards. I know I am going to need a lot of them so I figured I better start early. I thought I would try to create a holiday card while doing a sketch challenge but no matter how hard I tried I could not complete the challenge. I made about the biggest mess ever and spent about 3 hours just to make these 2 cards. It's not even like I was making 2 completely different cards. They are almost the same except I only had one snowflake button. WAIT! I just remembered that there was a challenge out there to use buttons. Now I will have to go see where it was. ...long pause.... I found it. It was over at Daring Cardmakers. So I guess I did fulfill a challenge.


So, like I said before. I only had one snowflake button but I wanted to make two cards. That's why you see the 2 different versions. The snowflake button is much nicer but the other one ain't half bad. And, as you can probably tell, these are non-Stampin' Up! images. It's actually from 2 different sets I have. I'm not sure of the makers. I purchased them as sets from Michael's last year.


Without further ado...here they are:

My favorite stamp set

Carla at Scrappers anonymous wants to know everyone's favorite stamps. I thought I would share. I think I already told the reasons why I use Stampin' Up stamps but one of the main reasons is that I love their images. I also love that they are sold in coordinating sets. My favorite set would definitely be Heartfelt Thanks. I had to force myself to start using other sets so they wouldn't get jealous.

Here's a few of my favorite creations with this set:

No stamping

So, I found a few sketch challenges that I wanted to try. I immediately had an idea of how to use some new supplies I picked up yesterday. The only strange thing for me was that I didn't want to stamp on this card. The idea I had really left no room for stamping on the front. For this card I fit a sketch I found at Di Hickman's blog and a challenge I found at Daring Cardmakers.

For Di's sketch I did a little altering because I don't generally make square cards. I still think it came out cute. After I had already glued down the squares I realized that I had forgotten the horizontal stripes. The card was missing "something" and I found a way to add the stripes. I used thin gold stickers. They didn't show up too well in the picture but it definitely added the little extra the card was missing. I also added tiny gold circle stickers at the bottom right.

I knew I wanted to try the Dot Dot Dot Dash Dash Dash theme when I saw it just because I like the look of those patterns together.

That's enough talk. Here's the card I created:

Marie's Card Sketch Challenge

I participated in a sketch challenge from Marie at Marie Loves to Stamp. I thought it was going to be a pretty simple design but it really took me some time to bring it all together.

I realize now that I didn't exactly follow the directions. For the 3 middle blocks it was supposed to be patterned paper. Oh well. I like the design anyhow. I guess I have to create something different to participate in this challenge.

Here is the card I came up with:

Friday sketch challenge

So, I could really get into this sketch challenge thing. I found a Fun Friday Challenge over at Whirlpool of Imagination. This was a sketch that Laura's daughter Meg created. I knew I would have to create something with this.





Here's is what I came up with:

What do you think?

My First Sketch Challenge

I participated in my first ever sketch challenge. I found it at Mama Dini's blog. I have been tempted to give a sketch challenge a try but until I saw this one I never quite caught the bug to actually do it. I saw this sketch and knew immediately that I had to try it out. It was fun and only took me about 10 minutes to pull it all together.


Here's the card I created:

So what do you think?

There hereeeeeee!

I received the Make a Wish stamp set from Stamps for a Cause. I love every single one of the stamps. There's even a bonus stamp that I think is my favorite. If you check out GinaK's blog you will see what I mean about the bonus.

I am sure there will be lots more in the near future but here are the cards I made today:

Becoming a Demo

Later in the year I discovered stamping I found out about a special that Stampin' Up! was doing to recruit new demonstrators. Since direct sales was nothing new to me and my current direct sales business really wasn't doing much of anything I really considered joining Stampin' Up!. My husband saw how much I was enjoying stamping and my birthday was just around the corner. He decided to "let" me sign on as a demonstrator.

Even if I didn't work my business I was going to get a ton of stamping supplies at a really great price. In August of 2005 I signed on as a demonstrator. I got all my supplies and gathered as much information as I could.

As with all of my direct sales businesses I didn't do all the work I should. I got a few people interested in having a show but nothing really panned out. Life happened and before I knew it I didn't have enough sales and I became inactive in this business. It certainly didn't mean that I didn't still enjoy stamping. In fact here is where my stamping really improved.

Here are some pictures of a card holder I created and a few of the cards I did with a One Sheet Wonder:

My Stamping History - Part 2

After returning home from the Stitch & B**** weekend I gave my husband a card that I made just for him and told him how very much I enjoyed stamping. I'm not really sure of the reaction I got from him but I really hadn't thought much about stamping after that.

Fast forward a few months...I was invited by my cousin to a Stamp-a-Stack her friend was having. She told me that for $10 I could make 10 cards. I was super excited to have the opportunity to give stamping another try and to get some direction on how to do this. I really had no idea what this Stamp-a-Stack really was but I was definitely game. We made 10 cards and it was so much fun and something I knew I wanted to continue doing. Since I was a direct sales consultant I ordered the Business Memos set to make cards to give to my customers and hostesses. I'm not sure what else I ordered but this was the start of my addiction.

Here are some cards I created at my first and subsequent Stamp-a-Stacks:

My stamping history - Part 1

I started stamping in March of 2005. It all happened sort of by accident or divine intervention.

I belong to an online community. Most people discover this community if they are representatives of any direct sales company. It was started for candle consultants and that was the reason I originally started visiting. I have been a part of this community since 2003.

This community held what they described as a Stitch & Bitch weekend. It was a weekend that everyone was invited to and it was basically meant to be a crafting weekend although you could go even if you just wanted to take part in the bitching part. There really wasn't much stitching or bitching. It was just a ton of fun hanging out with these people that you have come to know over time. I brought along my cross stitch supplies. I don't think I even once opened my bag. A lot of the girls were stamping and scrapping. I was showing a lot of interest in the stamping and one of the girls offered up her supplies to let me give it a try. It was fun and I made some super simple cards because I really had no idea what I was doing.

Here are the cards I made that weekend: