Heart Candy!

Hello everyone. Today's heart candy is a little different. I have this 7 Gypsies album kit that I had purchased and started to work on. I lost interest and just found it. I thought someone out there in blog land might like to finish it. Included in this candy is the 6x6 album and a pack of papers, and embellishments. Candy is restricted to US and Canada because it's so awkwardly shaped and a little tricky to mail! Leave a comment on this post by next Tuesday and I will select a winner when I get back from vacation Wednesday evening, August 13.

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Purse Giftcard

Isn't this giftcard holder cool? This one is for a birthday but it could be adapted for any occasion, birthday, baby or Christmas for example. It's a folded up little purse that opens up to a giftcard holder and greeting. This example uses all SU materials including the It's a Birthday, Boho Backgrounds and Full of Life stamp sets.

I haven't really seen two many exampes of this type of giftcard holder so I'm writing up a tutorial for it and it will hopefully be posted in the next couple of days so then you all can make this fun and clever card!

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Winner, Winner!

Good morning everyone! I have been super busy with my babies, packing for a mini vacation next week to San Diego and working on the sketch challenges for Verve Visuals Anniversary celebration at Splitcoaststampers! Plus, I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my new CTMH catty and my SU catty. I hope to have them both before I go on vacation!

The gal who helped me reorganize my blog and create my blog banners is Veronica. I have her little ad on the side of my blog that you can click on to visit her site. She also created a new watermark too, all for under 40 bucks! So if you are thinking of re-doing your blog, check her out!

Ok...onto the winner which is #4 Kate! Please email me by the end of the weekend with your address so I can mail your prize. I won't be mailing until the end of the week though because I'll be in San Diego from Monday - Wednesday.

Cornish Heritage Farms does now have Thomas stamps. I am considering getting a couple of them but I am not sure how much use I will get out of them. If you are interested in making these type of child friendly cards, I usually go to Michaels or Joannes and buy the character stickers or chipboard and using coordinating colors create my card. It's a very inexpensive way to make a child friendly card and you don't have to invest in stamps that you may never use again, when your child grows out of that phase.

Do check back on Friday where I will have another heart candy giveaway!

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Thomas the Tank Engine

My son just loves Thomas the Tank Engine. I actually just bought tickets for "A Day Out With Thomas". It's at a railway station in Perris, CA. If any of you have Thomas fans, you can find out information at http://www.thomasthetankengine.com/. My technician's son also likes Thomas, so I made this card for his birthday. I had bought some Thomas chipboard and used it for this card. I cuttlebugged the red piece and made a circle with my nestabilities and then attached all of the pieces. A very easy card that any Thomas fan is sure to love!

So what do you think about my new banner? I worked with a wonderful gal named Veronica. She was easy to work with and her prices were very reasonable. She not only created my new banner but she also reconfigured my blog into 3 columns. Very cool!

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Scrapbooking Shortcut

I have tons of pictures that I just haven't had time to scrapbook. Plus, they are for specific events and don't quite fit in the Vernon family album. So I bought a couple of album kits made by SEI to get some of these pics into albums and off my to do list. The top album is a 4x6 album and it came in a plastic sleeve. I think it's called Orchid Bouquet or something to that effect. I scrapbooked the party my sister had after she and her husband had gotten married in Las Vegas. I was 9 months pregnant and so I was pretty tired at the time but I was the resident photographer and took all of the pictures and my stepkids helped with the set up and decorating.

These pics are from a 6x6 scrapbook in a box kit from SEI. It has all of the directions, cut pieces and basically everything you need to complete an album in a couple of hours. These pics are from my cousin's wedding in Hawaii. My immediate family was all there but my husband and stepkids were not, a little expensive for one thing and they had school too. This album was the wedding part of our Hawaii trip. Now, preserved in an album and done. No guilt here either. Even though I have tons of paper and embellishments to do my own. I just don't have the time. I have so much to scrapbook with my two little ones and family events!

If you don't have the time, energy and not really "in" to scrapbooking, you might want to consider one of these kits!
Lily's 2 months old! Here's a rare pic of us together. Wow, I look kinda young in this picture, wierd, you can't see all my gray. Not bad for 35 huh? Isn't Lily super cute? Of course I'm biased!

PS Super blog candy at http://cardgrotto.blogspot.com/

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Black and White & Today's "Blog" Heart Candy

Today's candy is this CTMH acrylix stamp set "Love Is". To win just leave a comment on this post by Tuesday, August 5 and I will use Random.org to choose a winner on Wednesday, August 6. Be sure to check back to see if you've won. The winner will have 3 days to get back to me with their mailing address.

This is a fun card that I made at my SU stamp workshop. I'm sorry but I can't remember what stamp set was used here! All of the stamps, cardstock and ink used is from SU.
This is the inside of the card. My husband's birthday was last Saturday so I made this card for him.



We celebrated his birthday very simply. Breakfast at Coco's, a little shopping and pizza and ice cream! Which to him, amounts to the perfect day!

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Summer Stamp Winner

is Becky! Please email me with your mailing address! Thanks and have a great day!

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Coaster Post-It Note books & Bo Bunny Challenge

I know, it's not Fall yet! However, I decided to do a challenge to use Bo-Bunny paper at Mothers and Daughters Creations. I am determined to use up my scraps so I used last season's fall paper to make this card. The stamp is Witchybella and the cat is from SU. I paperpieced the witch and colored in the rest of the image with my copics. The sketch is this week's MFT sketch. I used my Spellbinders nestabilities for the long rectangles but the scallop is SU's scallop punch. The ribbon is CTMH chocolate.

Here is another cute project made with my Bind-It-All. These are coaster post-it note holders. I am so sorry but I forgot to take a picture of the inside. These little coasters were found in the Target $1 spot. Really easy, I put adhesive on one side of the SU DP and laid my coaster on it, and then trimmed around the coaster. I did the same with the opposite side of the coaster. The stamp set that I used was I believe Polka Dot and Petals and SU circle punches and scallop punch. I then bound it with my Bind-It-All. I gave these as gifts to the ladies in my SU stamp club.

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Sisterhood of the Blogging Stampers 22

I finally joined this group. It's a group to support and befriend fellow blogging sisters. I have wanted to join for awhile but really hadn't investigated it until now. One of the requirements is that I post on my blog for my sisters a little about me. I have been a librarian for 11 years, 8 1/2 at a school. I live in a suburb in Orange County, CA. Made famous by the OC, but believe me where I live is nothing like that TV show. I got married in 2005 to a wonderful man who had 2 teenage children, which is sometimes a challenge. We have a 22 month old little terror named Tyler the Terrible and a sweet almost 2 month old baby girl named Lily. Stamping and scrapping (and blogging) is not just a hobby for me but a refuge from the stress of being a stepmom, a working mom, a wife and a library professional. I love all the wonderful people that I have met through this blog and can't wait to meet all of my new blogging sisters.

If any of you are interested, there is still room in my group: http://sisterhoodofthebloggingstampers.blogspot.com/

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My first ATC and Bind-It-All Info

Well here it is, my very first ATC. I made this card for a Verve Visual challenge. For those who don't know, an ATC is like a mini card, 2.5 x 3.5. Some people collect them, others turn them into full sized cards. For this card, I used the Verve Visual stamp set Starlight, Starbright. The paper is CTMH Blue Ribbon, cranberry and outdoor denim cardstock. The stars were made with the SU small star punch and the ribbon is cranberry CTMH grosgrain ribbon. My nestabilities were used for the oval scallop.

I highly recommend visiting htt://www.zuttersisters.com/Tips.html for information on how to use the Bind-It-All. They have great instructions for using your binding tool and even have some helpful charts on what size wire to use and how to line up your holes and how to be successful when binding your project. I also saw that you can get the spacing bar for just 2.99 which I plan on doing. I hope that this link will help those of you out there looking for tips, it helped me a lot!

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My Stamping Wish List Book

Isn't this cool? This is another project that I made with my Bind-it-all. There are so many stamps and products that I want and I just wanted one place to list it all but I wanted it to look cute. So I covered two chipboard covers with my favorite new paper Blue Ribbon by CTMH. I added cardstock dividers and used my SU tab punch to make tabs. I decorated each divider simply - I made 4 dividers - PTI, MFT and MISC., CTMH and Stampin' Up. I used text weight paper for the lists. Here's a tip take a ream of copy paper to your local office supply place and they will charge a small fee to cut it for you. Saves you time from having to cut it yourself, it's relatively cheap and the cuts are much cleaner than what you could do at home.

I decorated the front of my little book with ribbons and I used alphabet stamps from CTMH as well as this butterfly stamp also from CTMH.

Don't forget about heart candy! Comment on this post.

I hope you like it!

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Euphoria! Heart Candy (blog)

I think the saying is Eureka! I love this paper! This is a sketch challenge over at Kraftin' Kimmie's Korner. I just got this Euphoria paper pack from Basic Grey. I used the DP to also paper piece the dress of this girl with flower Elzybell. The ribbon is May Arts which I purchased in a ribbon share here. The flowers matched perfectly and I got them in a blog candy I won months ago. I also used Amethyst and Pretty in Pink CTMH cardstock and my oval nestabilities.

This week's heart candy is this very cute summer acrylic stamp set from Fiskers. To win is easy, just leave a comment on this post by next Tuesday. Be sure to check back on Wednesday, July 30 to see if you've won. Winner must contact me with their mailing address by Saturday.

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More Blue Ribbon

Here is a card that I used Julee's mojo sketch. I used CTMH's Blue Ribbon paper again and Verve Visual stamps. Just a quick post today! Hopefully more later.

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CPS Sketch and Heart Candy Winner

This card is for a CPS sketch contest. This paper was from my scrap pile. I used my nestabilities and an SU corner punch. The cardstock and ribbon is CTMH chocolate. The stamp set is Hot Stuff by My Favorite Things. I paper pieced the little cup. So simple but still very cute. I just discovered that I need more thank you cards!

This week's Heart Candy winner is NicoleFurness! Please email me by Saturday with your mailing address so I can mail your prize to you. Don't forget to stop by on Friday as I will have another Heart Candy giveaway.

I hope to find some time this weekend to write up some information on the Bind-it-all. I heard that Zutter introduced a "new improved" Bind-it-all at CHA. I just got this one! Oh well...

Last weekend I went to California Adventure with my two little ones and my husband. My dad signed us in and I got to tell you with little kids, CA was a much more pleasant choice than Disneyland. It wasn't terribly crowded and the wait for rides for Tyler was only like 5 minutes. Here is a picture of my cutie. They had these little sprinklers and we were getting ready to leave anyway so we let him run through them.

Here is a pic of my husband and son on the bumper cars. Don't they look cute?

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Another Announcenment, pretty in pink

I thought that I was all done with announcements but a couple of my mom's friends bought the baby gift so I sent them announcements with their thank you card. But I had pretty much run out so I had to make some more, using various scraps from my scrap pile and CTMH chocolate and baby pink cardstock. I also used my nestabilities. I just love how it came out. This color combo is yummy. The ribbon is Target dollar spot. I used the stamp sets Bitty Baby Blessings by PTI and SU bundle of love set.

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Tart and Tangy Watermelons & Cupcake Challenge

This card actually fulfills a couple of challenges. The first is Taylors Cupcake Challenge. The second is to use nestabilities - which I used for my rectangle and for my pink scallop rectangle at http://www.mdcchallenges.blogspot.com/. The last is for Our Creative Corner - I had to use embossing and I used my Cuttlebug to emboss the background on the CTMH cardstock - Amethyst. The ribbon and flowers were from some blog candy that I won so I have no idea what company they are from. The DP is Basic Grey Euphoria. The cupcake stamp is from Inque Boutique and I paper pieced the cupcake liner with Euphoria paper. The icing was colored in using Copics and the sprinkles were Taylor Twinkles. The bling in the center of the flowers are from Doodlebug.

I can't take credit for this idea. I saw this on someone else's blog but I can't remember where! What you do is take your orange stamp from the SU tart and tangy stamp set and use your markers to color the flesh red and the rind green, stamp and then cut in half. Use your black marker to draw seeds and then I used crystal effects over the seeds to make them shiny.

On the first card, I made my own background by making dots with my black marker. All cardstock is CTMH and I used my cuttlebug.

On the second card, I used my cuttlebug and my SU slit punch to create a scalloped border.

FYI: Marie is giving away a Lavender Vanilla Scrapbook Kit over on her blog and I want to win it. All I had to do was post THIS link to Go. Be Creative. (http://www.go-be-creative.com/) here and I am in the drawing for the kit. Check out GBC if you have a minute!

Marie from http://www.mariasstudio.blogspot.com/ also has a giveaway.

Magnolia candy can be found here: http://artfullyila.blogspot.com/

Enjoy!

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