Blog Candy Alert

I've been a total slacker about posting on here lately...mainly because all I have been working on is gifts for people and christmas cards so I can't post those things until they are received by people...so that's my excuse :) But anyhoo there is some A-MAZ-ING blog candy available over at Papermonkey.org You have to check it out! It's wonderful!!!

Some stuff to share...

It's been a little while since I've had a chance to make a post on here...busy busy busy. But here are a few things I've created lately. This one is a project I created for a challenge with my Stampin Up! demonstrator group...AND I WON! Woo Hoo! Our challenges involve getting a baggie of "card parts" and using them all to create a unique project. For every challenge I do with all of those extremely creative ladies I always try to think way outside the box and try to out do myself and I apparently succeeded this time. The project started as a plain silver box that my mom got somewhere and it came with some rimmer sugar for margaritas...so I ran with the idea and used my Cheers to You stamp set and really jazzed it up with all of the challenge items which included the designer paper scallop, tangerine tango ribbon, a large star brad, and a silver circle piece of hodge podge hardware. So here it is... I also made this cute checkbook cover using a cheapo planner I got at the $1 spot at Target. I just pulled out the calendar part and made my own cover using the Priceless stamp set and Bella Rose designer series paper plus some pretties from the pretties kit. I also made a cute little matching pen by rolling up a little piece of DSP and sticking in the barrel of and RSVP pen and tying on a piece of pink pirouette ribbon. Easy easy easy! I think I may make a bunch of these and sell some during craft show season next year...

Blog Candy

Some very nice blog candy over at Cindy's Blog And unfortunately, that's all I have to post today...it's been a busy week so far. But I am anxiously awaiting my newest shipment from Stampin Up! I got a brand new Valentine's bundle that is going to be available to purchase in December...It's so cute! It comes with a stamp set, a pack of designer series paper, and a punch. I can't wait to play with it!!!! Oh Mister UPS man, please hurry!

More Bellas

I've got some more Bellas to share today. I feel like I've abandoned my Stampin Up! stamps lately because I've been so obsessed with my Bellas...but the Bellas are just so much fun to color and so stinkin cute!

I know a lot of stampers like to use Copic markers to color in their stamped images, especially Bellas....BUT I can not justify paying anywhere from $3-6.00 for ONE marker especially because you need several shades of one color to get the "shaded" effect. So I've been using a combination of Stampin Write markers, colored pencils, and the real secret weapon Bic Mark-it Markers. 

I've found that the bic markers really get a nice shaded/watercolored effect similar to the look of Copic markers but with a tiny fraction of the price. They come in a pretty good range of colors too. The only thing that the bic markers don't do well is flesh tones...so that is one area where it may be a good investment to get a few flesh tone copics or prismacolor markers...personally I've been using the Stampin Write marker in Blush Blossom for the flesh tones and I'm pretty happy with it. 

While I'm doing commercials (haha) I'd also like to mention a wonderful basic black ink pad that I just got turned on to. It's called Momento ink. OMG it's soooo good. I get a perfect stamped image with it 99% of the time and the other 1% is mostly due to my own error. The best part is you can color the image with markers immediately with no drying time and there is NO bleeding! It's a truly wonderful ink and it's only about $5.00

Anyway here are the cards I've been working on. I used the Bic markers I was talking about on each of these cards.

The first one  is a "just because" card I made for my friend Amanda because she is a "Savvy Shoppah"

The next one is for my friend Katie, because she just got engaged last weekend! Yay Katie!

And the final one is a card front that I did for a "winter bella" swap. This was the first card that I used Shimmerz on and I looooove it.

More Blog Candy...

I'm beginning to look like a very greedy person from all of the blog candy posts I've been making lately...but hey, I want to win! So here's another generous blog candy from Lara

I got up nice and early to complete a challenge for some Blog Candy from Katie who is super cool and I love her blog! 

Shocker...I used a Bella stamp :)

So I might be a lil obsessed..

I've been going Bella crazy lately. They had a special promotion with free shipping for Bellas last week and I totally bought 8 new bellas! I've been stamping and coloring like crazy every night this week and last night I finally got around to actually making some cards. I think they came out pretty cute...I want to work on giving my cards more of a wow factor though...I keep feeling like my cards have become pretty formulaic. Maybe I should just buy some more bling! :)

It's (almost) the most wonderful time of the year!

Yay for Blog Candy...This one from Suzanne is getting me in the holiday spirit...I know it's still early, but I just loooove the holiday season and it can't come soon enough for me!

Speaking of the holidays, my favorite night of the whole year is coming up in ohhh approximately 45 days...not that I'm counting :) The night that I'm talking about is always the Saturday before Christmas when my dad's band goes out for a tour of some of Cincinnati's finest bars and restaurants playing holiday music and collecting donations for Shriners Hospital for Children and other childrens charities. They have been doing this "tour" for 25 years and I've been lucky enough to join them as an "elf" aka money collector for the past 4 or 5 years. I always bring a few of my closest friends with me to help with elf duties as well and we always have such a blast! It feels so great to do such a good thing while having a fun night out. If you happen to be in the Cincinnati/Mason area you should check out the Santa's Goody Bag Band website and look at the schedule so you can come out and see the show...and put a few dollars in my santa hat :)

Luke and Sophie and the Pumpkin Adventure

Today we took Luke and Sophie to a really cute pumpkin patch out in Milford. It was cold and just about nap time so we had to make it quick, but we managed to get some really cute pictures of Bubby and Sissy in their costumes. I also got a pumpkin to carve since I havn't done one yet this year. I love carving pumpkins and I always have to clean the seeds and then toast them in the oven with some cinnamon for a yummy treat. 

Stampin Bella and Blog Candy

So since I've gotten all wrapped up in everything Stampin Up! I'm constantly cruising the net looking at anything and everything that has to do with stamping...in doing so I've come across another wonderful stamping company that I am definitely getting hooked on. It's called Stampin Bella. They are just the cutest girly images and I love them! They are also sooo fun to color. I finally got a few bellas for my birthday but I havn't had a ton of time to play with them too much. I did get to make one card though...

The other wonderful thing that I've discovered since I've become an obsessive stamper is this thing called "Blog Candy". Sounds yummy huh? It's basically an incentive to get more visitors to your blog. Maybe someday I will get around to making and promoting my own blog candy but for now I've got my eye on some FABULOUS blog candy from Dannie's Blog. Of all the blog candy I've seen offered up at the numerous blogs I visit daily this is by far the most exciting. I love that it has a bunch of stamped Bella images...ooh I get excited just thinking about it! So you should check out Dannie's blog and all of her wonderful Bellas!

That's all for now. I'm crossing my fingers that I may get a chance to do some stamping this weekend, especially because I just got a huge shipment of Stampin Up! stuff from my workshop that I havn't had a chance to play with yet...but I have to work at Sephora a lot this weekend...boo!  I also have my Stampin Up! meeting on Sunday which is exciting because I have some fun stuff to show off and I get to participate in my first swap!

Yep-I'm still alive and stamping...

It's been a while since I've had a chance to do an update on here. I've been sooo busy. I started working at Sephora part time for the holiday season again this year, I had a birthday, and I was very busy getting ready for my very first Stampin Up! workshop. All the work I did for it was well worth it because my workshop was a success. It was really nice getting to share my new hobby with my friends and family. It was so funny to see my 70-something great aunt (who really just came to be supportive and to finally see my new apartment) get so excited over the Snail adhesive. She thought it was the coolest thing she'd ever seen and she bought two of them! I've always heard demonstrators say that it's so rewarding to watch people stamp and make cards for the first time and I finally got to experience it first hand. It was great...I can't wait to get that feeling over and over again.

Here are a bunch of pictures that I've been meaning 

to post for a while...

This is a spread of some of the stuff I had set up for my workshop. I used the Muirfield Designer Series Paper from Stampin Up! so everything looked coordinated and put together. I decorated the box one of my birthday gifts came in to use as my box to draw the door prize winners from. Then I altered a paint can to put some fancy flower pens in. I also used the same Designer paper to decorate a lunch box tin which I put my Holiday Mini catalogs in. Finally I altered some giant binder clips to coordinate and used them to hold my door prize slips and my online ordering flyers. The "enjoy" card was one of the make and takes we did at the workshop.

This is a close up of my altered binder clips and some RSVP pens that I decorated to coordinate with everything.

Some more altered goodies. The card in the back is the other make and take we did using the Live Life Like You Mean It Hostess set. On the left is a calender that I got at the $1.00 section at Michaels and altered it to my creative standards. I also made a cute little frame thing with some cherry coasters that I found at the $1.00 section at Joann's...which just so happened to coordinate perfectly with the cherry stamp from the Tart and Tangy stamp set.

This is my favorite thing that I've made lately. It's a box that contained a cute little candle that a friend got me for my birthday. The box was cute by itself with the fun crystal on top and it had my initial on the front...however I wanted to fancy it up even more. It may be hard to tell from the photo but the box is almost exactly the same color as "pink pirouette" (one of my favorite Stampin Up! In Colors). I went to town on it with my favorite Bella Rose designer series paper and some fabulous stamps and I love how it turned out!

This was the card that I demonstrated at my workshop. I got to demonstrate two different punches, including my favorite-the scallop edge. I also demonstrated the Stampin Pastels used with the blender pens. This was the card that got everyone thoroughly impressed with the Snail adhesive...how funny that everyone would be so drawn to such a simple little gizmo. I also demonstrated the beauty of being able to mount your Stampin Up! stamps with the sentiment separate from the image.

Last but not least, this is Bronx sporting part of her Halloween costume. As you can see, she's thrilled to be wearing a pumpkin hat! :)

That's all for now! Have a great Day!

What a weekend!

Whew...this weekend was nuts! Frank's best friend (and my good friend too) got married last night. It was a great wedding and it was so nice to see our good friends so happy. Amazingly amidst all of the wedding hoopla and the massive amount of errands I ran over the past few days, I somehow managed to be pretty productive with my card making and stamping. It also looked like hurricane Jaime hit my living room! I'm lucky my boyfriend doesn't mind my explosive stamping messes! This week I'm planning on finishing Cari's sisters baby announcements while I'm house/dog sitting for the honeymooners. I also hope to get a good plan down for my first Stampin Up! workshop on October 12th. Here are the cards I managed to get done this weekend...

Baby Boy Announcement Samples

I've been busy making a big mess in my living room playing with my new stuff. It seems that September is a popular month for births and birthdays so I have several cards and projects that I am working on. The baby announcements that I posted a while ago were apparently a big hit since I now have two orders for more baby announcements from some of her family members. So I am in the process of designing some samples for those...hopefully I can post them later today. But for now, here is a picture of a little something I put together for Baby Audrey. She is very precious and I can't wait to see her and give her her gift this weekend! 

Finally

I finally got my Stampin Up! starter kit! It's been a very chaotic week this week due to power outages and taking care of the twins day AND night for the last 4 days! Whew... thank god they are back with their parents now, cable and power are restored, and I have the next two days off work to do nothing but play with my new toys! 

I set the date for my first Stampin Up! workshop for Sunday, October 12th. I am excited and I hope I can make some cute stuff and get some people hooked!

Until I get down to business and make some new goodies to post, Here is a picture of Bronx checking out my new stuff...

Getting Impatient...

I've been feeling kind of bummed this week because I havn't been able to purchase my Stampin Up! demonstrator kit yet (stupid $320 bridesmaids dress and my rent killed my budget!) I realized that while I have TONS of craft supplies and papers and tons of Stampin Up! stamp sets none of it is featured in the current catalog and I have absolutely no SU! cardstock or designer paper. So all of the overflowing ideas I have for getting started on my Stampin Up! business...I can't begin yet. So I've avoided bunkering down at my stamp desk all week which is why I havn't posted anything new this week. However I was looking through the cards that I've made over the last few months and while they aren't made with 100% SU! stuff, some of them aren't half bad for a beginner...so I decided to post some of them in a slideshow just for the hell of it. And hopefully I should be able to buy my kit next week...grrr but then I have to wait for it to come :(

I'm a blogger!

Well here goes my first blog post! I've recently gotten super hooked on all things stamping and card making. I solely blame it on my friend Elly because I saw her collection of hand made cards when I visited her in Michigan a few months ago. One thing lead to another and now I am about to become a demonstrator for Stampin Up! It's a good way for me to support my habit which has become quite costly...and maybe if all goes well I'll even make a lil profit. I'm hoping to start hosting Stampin Up! parties as soon as I get my starter kit, so if you're interested in supporting me in my new venture and making some pretty cards, drop me a line! Stamping has become a great way to keep me busy and entertain me when I would otherwise be really bored. I hope that by becoming a demonstrator I can get other people hooked on stamping and bring them the joy that it has brought me. The first picture I am posting is of the baby announcements I am making for my friend Cari who is expecting a baby in September.

The inside has a pocket so she can include a photo of the baby. You can't really tell from the picture, but the onsies are actually raised from the background of the card with a pop dot. I think they came out pretty stinkin cute. She doesn't know if the baby is a boy or girl yet, so I made a sample in both blue and pink and I'll just have to wait until the baby is born to finish the announcements. So there you have it, my first blog! Hopefully there is much more to come!

Jaime