PattyJo is the winner!

The blog candy winner is Patty Jo - picked by random.org! Please email me so that I can get your winnings to you. Be sure to check back on Friday, where I will have another blog candy giveaway! This time, I am thinking more paper! Plus I found a really cool tool to giveaway - never used!

Be sure to check www.mftstamps.com! They have 4 new stamp sets and free shipping! I went ahead and bought a bunch that I had my eye on plus the new sets too! They are totally cute!

I'll post some more creations from that same 12x12 background paper tomorrow! I have a job interview today. I detest interviews, I always feels so lame! I hope that I get it though. I drive almost 50 miles round trip each day and with this job, I would drive 22 miles round trip each day!

Thanks again to everyone who played. I really enjoyed looking at everyone's favorite card! I found some new blogs to check out and new creations too! Pin It Now!

Another sketch challenge

This is a card I made for another card sketch challenge. I absolutely love how it came out. The colors used are kiwi and star spangled blue. I found the name of this paper - MOD, I think by Foof a La. This is my prezzibella. Finally bought some bellas. I think that I need more! I used the CTMH Sewing stamps and It's a Party stamp set. I paper pieced her pants!

I then made this pocket card. I used my CTMH Friendship Blessings stamp set. On the inside, I don't know where I got this sentiment stamp. I used my Cuttlebug flower dies to cover up a smudge and I used my SU punch.
Don't you just love these colors.

Don't forget. There is still time to enter the BLOG CANDY! See two posts below for details. Thanks for looking!

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Beate's Weekend Sketch

For the first time ever, I decided to try Beate's Weekend Sketch.

The images are from a CTMH stamp set, I think it's called It's a Birthday. The colors used are Kiwi and Star Spangled Blue. I don't know who makes the background paper but I love it. A great tip - you can go to your local scrapbooking store and purchase paper a la carte for like 60 cents a sheet. I made like 7 cards with this one 12x12 paper! I'll be showing them on my website as I have time.

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Blog Candy Alert

There is some great blog candy offered here! Don't miss out. Pin It Now!

More Blog Candy!

As Promised here is more blog candy. Sorry the pic is so dark, I had to take it at night. I swear my baby never sleeps! I'm giving away this very cool black craft tote, it has tons of pockets for storing stuff. My craft area is just too small for it. I'm also including some cool sticker embellishments. This candy is only open to US and Canadian friends. I don't this will fit in a global priority envelope! To win, please leave a comment on this post, with a link to your favorite card. It can be on your own blog or someone else's. Just looking for some inspiration! Please just one comment per person, blog candy closes midnight on Tuesday and I will pick the winner on Wednesday, August 3. Pin It Now!

Rockin' Girl Blogger!

How Fun, I rock! I was nominated by Jill
To keep the chain going, I have to nominate 5 Rockin' Girl Bloggers. Here are my five:
Pamela
Kim
Stacey
Brenda
Allie
Be sure to check back sometime Friday for my next blog candy giveaway! Pin It Now!

Blog Candy Winner

Annouk! You are the winner. Please email me so that I can get your prize out to you! Another blog candy will be announced on Friday so be sure to check back then, it's a pretty good one!

Thanks to everyone who played and left comments. People really like Basic Gray and SU/CTMH, there were some other suggestions of paper that I haven't really used so thank you for those suggestions, I will be checking them out! Pin It Now!

Easy Cards and an Easy Tip

The easy tip for Tuesday is simple. When building a card - use white cardstock for your card base. White cardstock is easy and fairly inexpensive to buy in bulk. When I was an SU demo, whenever I used a colored cardstock for the background of my card, I would cut a full sheet of cardstock cut it in half and then fold using the colored cardstock as my card. By building your card on white - you will use half as much colored cardstock - with SU prices going up this will save you money. Also, I found it was so hard to actually write anything inside the cards that used the colored cardstock, especially if it was a dark color. This way, you always have a nice white space to write or stamp in! I learned this tip from CTMH.

So I've been trying to use up what I had. I just found a ton of beautiful Brenda Walton stickers so I decided to make some easy cards. My mom always buys those cards from Costco and these cards remind me of those. I plan on packaging these up and giving them to her. I made probably close to 75 cards and the ones below are the ones I liked the best.

Be sure to check back tomorrow to see who wins the blog candy! Pin It Now!

Blog Candy!

How Exciting, I'm almost at 1500 hits! So I think that it's time for some blog candy. I have so much extra stuff and stamp sets that I never use, that I plan on purging by giving away blog candy every couple of weeks or so....so be sure to keep checking back. This time I am giving away a 12x12 K and Company, Brenda Walton paper pack. I used maybe 30 sheets of this beautiful paper so there are about 70 sheets or so left! I'm also giving away the CTMH acrylix stamp set A Little Bee. I just never use it and with the new catty coming out, I need to make room!

All you have to do to win is to leave me a comment on this post (1 comment per person please!) what your favorite designer paper is! I love paper and would love to expand my horizons. You have until midnight Tuesday, July 24 to leave a comment and I will use the random number generator thingy to pick a number and post a winner on Wednesday, July 25.

Here is a card that I made to use up some notecards that I had. Yep, my goal is to use up what I have because it really is hard to justify buying more when I have so much stuff lying around! I used a retired wood bee stamp set from CTMH, my cuttlebug embossing folder and sunny yellow and black for the colors.

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July Sketch Challenge

This card was a sketch challenge from CTMH Friends a Yahoo group I belong to. I really didn't care for the sketch but after creating my card, I don't think it was too bad. My card came out cute and I sent it to my Aunt with a picture of my baby.

I used my trusty Friendship Blessings stamp set. The colors are Amethyst, Crystal Blue and Sweet Leaf.

I've been so busy I didn't tell you all what I did last weekend. First, I went to a Stampin' Up garage sale. I actually found out about it on the one of many blogs that I read every day. It was only 15 minutes from my house. I bought a ton of stuff including some retired paper and scrapbooking stuff so very cool.

Then I went to the Rubber Stamp Convention in Carson. I was kind of disappointed. It seemed really small this year. The vendors that I usually like to visit weren't there this time. I don't know if the Internet has cut into their business and companies/vendors don't see a need to do little conventions anymore or if scrapbooking has taken over and rubber stamping is now a secondary market...all I can say is that I've been going for 10 years and this was the smallest and dinkiest convention yet!

Anyway, as usual thanks for checking me out.

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Masculine Challenge

This is a card that I made for Tracy's sketch challenge. It has to also be a masculine card.I think that it came out really nice and it's a good way to use up border stickease!

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Amuse challenges - Last Chance Challenge

The last chance challenge was to revisit a challenge that you were not able to do. I wanted to do the pocket card challenge but didn't have time yesterday to complete it. So here it is. All challenges done, wish me luck!

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Amuse challenges - New Stamps #2

This is my second and last card for the new stamps challenge. I used the same two stamps but used different paper and a different layout. I used my snowflakes cuttlebug for the gold paper.

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Amuse challenges - New Stamps #1

The next challenge was to create cards using new Amuse stamps. These stamps that I used for this challenge were purchased at a Rubber Stamp Convention last November but this is the first time that they've ever seen ink! So they are new to me!

I used my snowflake cuttlebug to emboss the red layer. I colored in my card using my Sakura glaze pens and my Sakura jelly pen to create the snow.

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Amuse challenges - Simple card #3

I used my tiny amuse ornament stamp, also part of the blog candy for this simple card. I used my Cricut and Mini Mongrams cartridge to make the scalloped circles. This is the last of the simple cards that I had time to make. Pin It Now!

Amuse challenges - Simple card #2

The above card uses CTMH's crystal blue paper. The stamps are Amuse. I actually won these stamps in blog candy about a week ago. I used my Sakura jelly roller pen to create silvery snow.

Then I used the same color scheme and created a simple card using the No Peeking CTMH stamp set.

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Amuse challenges - Simple card #1

Hello all,

I've been working hard on some amuse challenges. I want to win some prizes so these next posts will be listing some of the cards that I made so that I can link to their site!

The first challenge that I decided to participate in was simple cards using at least 1 amuse stamp.

Both stamps are a muse and the paper is CTMH. Pin It Now!

Shopping, shopping and more shopping

What am I doing? I'm on summer vacation until school starts in September and I don't get paid until September 30! I am expecting a retro check in August, hopefully but that's beside the point! I just bought a cuttlebug alphabet on Ebay (a steal at 9.99! plus 6 bucks shipping!) and a bunch of amuse stamps too! Then Ellen Hutson is having a sale celebrating Friday the 13th and I bought all of the Spellbinder oval and rectangle scalloped dies! I can make the circle and square ones on my cricut and I even have a scalloped edge for my carl cutter! But when you read on her site the comparison to buying the punches you will probably want these too! The space savings and money savings too! Plus you can emboss with them! I will be using them in my cuttlebug! Then I bought a cute strawberry stamp and copic markers! She had them in sets but buying them individually I was able to get 21 of the markers that I would most likely use!

If you haven't visited her site Simple dreams you should. Tons of great ideas and it was actually the first blog that I ever read! Ok so now I need to actually use the stuff I bought.

These are some scrapbook pages that I made for the Cherish challenge on CTMH Friends. I used the Baby Boy paper pack which I really don't like but I am trying to use up. I created some more stuff but my stupid camera batteries are dead and I'm charging them up. I swear they barely last any time at all! Anyway, I hope to be posting some more pics soon.

As always, thanks for looking.

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Hot Stuff

I have to say my philosophy on stamping has changed. When I was an SU demo I only bought SU product. Now that I am a CTMH demo and have read and viewed so many blogs my view has changed. I want to create things that I personally like and that sometimes means buying and utilizing products that are "contraband" (not CTMH). Inspiration comes in all forms and I have been so inspired by all of those bloggers out there - SU demos, CTMH demos and just those who love to stamp so thank you!

Having said that - I used my blog candy gift certificate to Eclectic Paperie to purchase the Hot Stuff stamp set from My Favorite Things and the new Basic Gray Infuse 6x6 paper pad. After receiving my beautiful set I went back and purchased a couple more! I absolutely love it. Anyway, I had a couple of thank you cards to make so I used Hot Stuff and the Infuse paper to create the card below. I used blush and chocolate CTMH cardstock and colored everything in with my Prismacolored pencils.

When I was creating this card, I made a fortunate mistake. I ran the main image through my sticker xyron (the tiny 150 machine! tip: buy this! It's cheap with a Michaels, Joann coupon and its fabulous for adhesive on tiny letters and small die cuts) and I put it in upside down. So instead of adhesive on the back, I had adhesive on the front. What to do? I dunked my image in sugar dust which is like tiny sparkling little beads. Sugar dust is made by Stamp La Jolla. I bought it years ago at a rubber stamp convention. You can't tell by the picture but it gave my image the most beautiful sparkly look! I also used this bubbley looking embossing folder for my cuttlebug.
Not to be outdone - I made another card using the same color scheme but this time with all CTMH products. The stamp set is All My love and the paper is More to Adore.

As always, thanks for looking!

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Color Challenge

I hope that everyone had a nice weekend! I was very busy and did not have a ton of time to create. Hopefully this weekend will not be as busy. Today, I went to an Italian restaurant to celebrate my birthday with my close friends, which was very nice!

I did have some time to participate in a color challenge at CTMH Friends a Yahoo group. The colors to use were Dutch Blue, Vineyard Berry and Sunflower. I think that this is the first time that I've actually used my Sunflower ink pad. Anyway, this is what I came up with.

I only used the colors in the challenge and the stamp set Friendship Blessings. One of the commenters asked what my favorite CTMH stamp set is and right now this one is it. I only just really discovered it and have found that no matter what I do with it, my cards always look beautiful. As always thanks for looking! Pin It Now!