Spring-a-Bration February Blog Hop

Welcome to our February Blog Hop!  After waking up to the beautiful Hibiscus bloom yesterday morning, I felt that spring is really on it's way.  Isn't it beautiful and I managed not to kill it over winter.

Well, my son is a band instructor at a high school close to New Orleans and last week they marched in two Mardi Gras parades.  Here is my granddaughter dressed for the day.

And here is a Mardi Gras card inspired by her tshirt. 

I started by sponging on glossy cardstock the Retired Fleur De Lis from the Elegant Trio Stencil Set.  The mask I found on the following Pattern and I printed it to 50%, then placed it on our Champaign Glimmer Paper and cut it out.  I used the Bird Builder punch and punched out four wings to add feathers to the top of the mask.  First I sponged them with Gumball Green and Concord Crush inks before attaching them to the mask.  I dimensioned up the mask over the Fleur De Lis and the two nobs showed through the eye holes and they look like eyes, too funny.

The next two cards are from my Technique Class last week.  First we learned the Tie Dye Technique and made St. Patrick's Day cards using it.

First take a light ink with a sponge in a circular motion on a sheet of white cardstock. Then do the same thing with a medium color ink on top of the large light and lastly add a small circle of dark color ink. Then take a Stampin' Up! Aqua Painter and lightly draw a circle where the colors meet, then a fine mist of water.  Heat with heat gun to dry. This creates the tie dye look.

 

The next technique we learned is the Stampin' Mist Technique using the Pleasant Poppies Background Stamp.  I love how versatile this stamp is. 

 

On White card stock, sponge and ink and just rub it on your paper. After filling the paper with ink, you take your stamp and place Versamark on it, then mist it with Stampin' Mist cleaner. Then stamp it on your paper! It is almost like a bleaching technique.

Before you leave here is a picture of my newest granddaughter, Corinne.  She is seven weeks old today.

Visit our hop next month again, thanks for dropping by today.

 

 

 

Spring-a-Bration Blog Hop

Welcome to our Spring-a-Bration Blog Hop!  You must have been in awe with Stephanie's Blog, she creates all of our banners and does such a wonderful job.  So much has happened in my life since our last hop.  I am now a grandma to two beautiful little girls.  Pictures at the end of the blog if you are interested.  I have finally gotten to play with my new stamps.  I will be posting more in the future, I am really inspired by our new Stampin' Up! products.

My son-in-law, Andrew asked me to stay with them for two weeks after the baby was born to help out.  What a wonderful gift it was to see her changing daily.  I just heard yesterday that he received a bonus at his work because he put in some many extra hours the last year.  One of his favorite shows is Dr. Who and I was so excited to see an English Police Box in the sale-a-bration catalog as part of the Feeling Sentimental Stamp Set, and the best part is that I got it for FREE!  So I added a light to the top of the police box to make it look like the tardis from Dr. Who. Hope he loves his card and realizes how proud we are of him.

Tardis Feeling Sentimental

I must admit that I had a terrible time this week with getting my stamping juices flowing.  It had almost been a month since I had stamped.  So I went in search of some challenges to help get me going. The color challenge #118 is from:  Utah Divas International.

 And the sketch Friday Sketch #011813 over at Paper Craft Planet.

Recipe:

Stamps:  Feeling Sentimental(SAB), Carry On(Hostess), Collage Curios(Spring)

Paper:  Pool Party, River Rock and Very Vanilla Cardstock

Ink:  Soft Suede, Versamark

Accessories: Honeycomb Textured Impressions Embossing Folder(Spring), Pool Party Embossing Powder(Spring), Island Indigo and So Saffron Many Marvelous Markers

When my ladies first saw the Spring Catalog they were so excited to have the Sizzlits Die Pinwheel.  I wasn't as interested in it until I started seeing other demonstrators making very cute cards with it.  The next card uses it and the Wishes Your Way stamp set.  I used a reinker and the aqua painter to die the doily the color I desired.

Windy Wishes

 
 
The color challenge was from Fab Friday #10:

And the sketch challenge is from Freshly Made Sketches #70:

Recipe:

Stamps:  Wishes Your Way

Paper:  Very Vanilla and Pool Party Card Stock, Print Poetry Designer Series Paper Stack(Spring), Tea for Two DSP(Spring)

Ink: Versamark, Pool Party

Accessories:  Sizzlits Die Pinwheel, Cloudy Day Textured Impressions Embossing Folder(Spring), Tea Lace Paper Doilies(Spring), Pink Piroutte Reinker, Ovals Collection Framelit Dies(Spring), 1/8" Mini Brad, Aqua Painter

Well, my new granddaughter's name is Corinne May.  Here is a picture I took of her last week:

And here is one of Addison when she came home for a visit at Christmas.  She is wearing the cute hat I bought her at the Apple Festival.

Come back and see us next month for another hop.  Have a good month and don't forget about sale-a-bration!

Fall-i-Days Finale Blog Hop

Well it is the last Blog Hop of 2012 for us.  I can't believe that the year has gone by so quickly.  I became a grandma for the first time this year and it is wonderful!  But this time I want to share with you my beautiful great-niece, she is also a cutie patootie so I have added her picture at the end.  Last Sunday was the marathon Christmas card making class at my house.  It was supposed to take three hours and took four and a half instead.  Here are three of the twelve cards we made that day.  These were all cased cards from my favorite Pintrest.  Thanks to their original designers, they were beautiful.

Next on to Stephanie Osgood's blog, you will enjoy her creations.  She is so talented at the Stampin' Up! MDS2 and designs our header and buttons for our hops for us.

And here is the picture of beautiful Charlie, isn't she so cute?

Saturday Craft Fair

ONE HOT COOKIE   AND

Murphysboro Hometown Christmas  Craft Show

Saturday, December 8^th 8am – 5 pm

Homemade Arts & Crafts

Murphysboro Youth & Recreation Center  

(I will be located here)

1818 Walnut Street

Murphysboro, IL 62966

*Due to the overwhelming response we have added Vendors of all types and have added an additional site.

Murphysboro Christian Academy

Holiday Bazaar & Cookie Walk

805 N. 16^{th ST.}

SHOP MURPHYSBORO

Saturday, December 8th

40+ Vendors, great antique and gift shops

Lunch available at both sites

FREE admission and parking

Drawings every 30 minutes for Food Pantry Raffle –

Prizes include a $50 food basket & gifts from the vendors

Raffle tickets $1.00 or 6 for $5.00 OR bring personal hygiene or household items to donate to the Murphysboro Food Pantry and receive FREE raffle tickets.

Yellow Christmas for The Friday Mashup!

Yellow Christmas

I needed to design some cards for my upcoming Card Buffet class and fell in love with the challenge over at The Friday Mashup!

I decided to Mash it Up  by dry embossing the dsp and using the colors listed below.  So here is the "Mashup" Challenge:

1. Make a project with "Dry Embossing".
2. Or Make a project using the colors " Daffodil Delight, Basic Grey & Basic Black".*
3. Or "Mash it Up" and create a project with "Dry Embossing & The Color Combo". 

Card Recipe:

Paper:  Basic Grey and Basic Black, Retired DSP

Stamps:  Ornament Keepsakes

Ink: Versamark

Accessories:  1/2" Daffodil Delight Ribbon, Retired Ribbon, Big Shot, Labels Collection Framelits, Embossing Buddy, New Heat Tool, Pewter Stampin' Emboss Powder

Fall-i-Days Christmas Blog Hop

It's that time again for my friends and I to hop.  I just got home from taking care of my parents for five days and sorry I haven't had much time to fix all the projects that I had planned, but come back later next week and I will have some more ideas to share with you.  You arrived from Buffy's Blog, isn't she amazing and she blogs every day!  I wish I could get my act together to blog once a week.  Once again I have pictures of Addison Grace, but they are at the end if you only want to see paper projects.  My first project I was inspired by Inking Idaho this week.  Becky is so talented and I had to make a snowman myself.

Candle Snowman

For the next two projects I was inspired by our Stampin' Up! Holiday Catalog, just loved the ornament on the front cover.  I am sure that you have seen tons of them out on the internet, but I love mine.  In fact I have class tonight to make them.

The next project is from page 20 and they are origami stars. I did a lot of research looking for a way that I really liked how the stars turned out and found that once again I liked Frenchie's instructions on her blog best.

Well it is time for you to move on to Diane's cute cards.

Here are the promised Addison Grace pictures to share with you, I will be seeing her finally at Thanksgiving:

Fall-i-Days Thanksgiving Blog Hop

It is time again for Stamping Llamas Thanksgiving Hop and I get to start the hop off this time.  I have been thinking about all of the things in my life that I am grateful for, one of them being my faithful blog followers.  I haven't been a very good blogger this year, I must admit that one of the reasons is, my family got an iPad for me for my birthday in December.  I spend way too much time on it and haven't been happy using it for my blog or emails.  But for "fun" stuff it is great, especially for Face Time, which I use every Sunday to see my granddaughter, Addison Grace, and if you want to see more pictures of her, go to the end of this post.

Both of my cards for this hop, I used my favorite technique, Baby Wipe Ink Pad.  I thought that it was perfect for fall colors. 

Autumn Birthday

My brother-in-law's birthday is this month, and I don't know about you, but I am always challenged to make a man card.  I used the Autumn Days stamp set, which I finally purchased one month before it retired, I know, just my luck.  The main reason I purchased it was the cool wreaths made with the plant spikes, I had seen on the web.  Hope he likes this one.

 Stamp Sets:  Autumn Days(Retired), Border Banter, Itty Bitty Banners

Paper:  More Mustard, Watercolor Paper, Howlstooth & Scaringbone DSP

Ink:  Cajun Craze, Ink Refills: Always artichoke, Bravo Burgundy, Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, More Mustard and Riding Hood Red

Accessories:  7/8" Cotton Ribbon, Big Shot, 2 1/2" Circle Punch, Bitty Banners Framelits, Baby Wipe

Gratitude

I loved this stamp set from the minute I saw it.  The medallion can be inked up so many different ways.  I will be sending this one to my mother since I will be visiting Addison instead of going home for Thanksgiving, kind of feel for her, since the great grands have shown up, my generation want to be with them for holidays, and Mom is feeling left out, change is hard, but they aren't able to travel anymore, so I am going for a visit this weekend.

Stamps:  Day of Gratitude

Paper:  More Mustard, Watercolor Paper, Regal Color Collection DSP Stack

Ink:  Cajun Craze, Stazon, Ink Refills: Always artichoke, Bravo Burgundy, Cherry Cobbler, Garden Green, More Mustard and Riding Hood Red 

Accessories:  More Mustard Retired Ribbon

So, if you like, keep scrolling and you can see more pics of Addison Grace, or you can continue to Jackie's blog or start back at the beginning:

Addison & Koda

Addison had her first "professional" photography session during Hurricane Issac, you can see that it kept her awake, LOL.  Thanks for indulging a first time grandma.  I am grateful!

Go to my Shop Now button on the right and click on the promotions page to see this October special.