Valentines

I was out shopping not to long ago and happened upon some beautiful paper by Heidi Grace. This paper is from the Cherrywood Lane collection. I chose it for Valentines paper because it is non-traditional Valentine's colors. The paisleys and the colors are completely my style so I knew my girlfriends would understand why I chose this paper. The stamps are new from Lizzie Anne Designs - Tea Time is my favorite from the latest release, however I also really love Welcome Home and Damask.

The photo shows three different cards I made that all coordinate together. I'm not done with my Valentines, I have a few more to make, but I wanted to share these ones with you since I got them done. I'll share individual pic's of them over the next few days so you can see them a bit closer. Enjoy your day! I've got to get the girls started on school. We've started long division with our 4th grader and that is taking a bit longer to get mastered than any other math we've done thus far!

50th Anniversary

This card was made for a couple from our church that is getting ready to celebrate their 50th year together. Every year the wife sends out birthday postcards to EVERY member of our 450-500 member church! This year we thought it would be nice to shower THEM with greetings. This image is from Stampendous and the actual name of the image is partially rubbed off the label so I can't tell you the exact name! Hey Lorie...can you post it in the comments since you were my inspiration for this stamp! I purchased this stamp the end of December when I was out shopping with my pals. Lorie hardly hesitated at picking this one up (I say hardly because she was choosing between 2 similar but different images). When we got back to our stamping space she started playing with it and I fell in love with it as well. I went back a couple days later (so glad the stamps were still 40% off!) and grabbed one for myself. The photo is a bit washed out but the colors I used were Soft Sky and Basic Grey. I used my aquapainters and Soft Sky ink for the tops of the flowers and some Stardust Stickles for sparkle. I painted the leaves with Basic Grey ink. I was going for a muted feel on this one. Of course I used SU's Top Note Bigz Die for the focal piece. I layered it onto some Basic Grey and then just cut a border around it. Since I am a terrible straight cutter, I roughed it up so it would look ok anyway. The "Happy Anniversary" sentiment is from the SU set, Hugs and Wishes. You can't really tell, but I did use the Linen background stamp on the Soft Sky layers. I hope you are all having a great day! I'm getting ready for my Open House this weekend and will be doing some stamping this week. I'll be sharing pics of what I come up.

Jami's Valentines Swap

Another sample from Jami's swap. This time we were making Valentines, which I will admit I don't' do many of. I love looking at Valentines, but I just have the hardest time coming out with a layout that I like, I feel stuck with red and pink and for some reason that throws me off. For this sample I used the new Raspberry Tart Designer Paper and the set Always. I love that set and especially love this large heart image. I added a circle rhinestone for some bling and lots of layers. When I was done with it I wasn't so sure about it and contemplated trashing it and starting over, but after I had already cut all the layers of about 5 of them I decided that there was no turning back!

Jami Sneak Peek Swap - Sweet Stems

If you like the set Pocket Silhouettes and you like water coloring just a little, you'll love this new stamp set Sweet Silhouettes. As soon as I saw it I was put in on my New Catalog Pre-order. There are a couple of reasons it appealed to me. #1, it was inexpensive! At just $16.95 for 4 stamps it won't break the bank and #2, you know I like to watercolor so the open flowers afford me just enough space to give the images some color, yet the area is so small that it won't take long at all to color in!

This card uses Kraft, Pink Pirouette and Baja Breeze card stock. I love the softness of these colors together. They would make perfect Easter colors don't you think? I will admit that the cute little thingy's (is that a word?) in the scallops took me some time to line up. The "thingy's" are from Stampin' Up!'s All Scallops set and were heat embossed with clear embossing powder. I punched the scallop first and then put the thingy's in. Some faux stitching and a hint of dazzling diamonds in the center of the flower finished out this cutie!

More Cupcakes

Kira has a friend who turned 7 this past weekend and her favorite color is green. I usually use a retired princess set from Stampin' Up! when I make birthday cards for any of younger girls friends, but because I knew the girls would be decorating their own cupcakes at the party I wanted to use my Crazy for Cupcakes set again.

I used some retired Certainly Celery Prints paper from Stampin Up! and the pretty velvet ribbon is from a Target Dollar Spot spool I picked up a year ago. I made the tops of the cupcakes sparkly again using Stardust Stickles.

All these cupcakes have really made me crave some yummy birthday cake!!!

Crazy for Cupcakes

I got to stamp a few nights ago!! A sweet friend whose birthday is today needed a card to go along with the Vera Bradley purse I got for her. It is a Petal Pink pattern so I chose the color combo of pink and celery. I really wanted to use my Stampin Up set Crazy for Cupcakes, it is my favorite birthday set hands down! Really, a must have and I haven't used it enough!

I chose some paper that has been in my stash for sometime. I think I got it at JoAnn's and I am fairly certain I have seen it there recently. The little pearls are self adhesive and from JoAnn's as well. I stamped the image in Black Staz On and colored it in with my Stampin Write Markers. Don't you love the sparkle on the cupcake tops? That was made with Cotton Candy Stickles that I got from my friend Lorien last March.

I hope you have a great weekend! I'm hoping to stamp again tomorrow...Maybe I'll have something to share!

Blog Candy Winner

Gee, I'm a bit late aren't I??? Actually I did draw the blog candy winner and the winner was Lorie. I've already been in contact with her and she selected her goodies! Yippee Lorie! I don't know about you, but I'm excited about the New Year! I found that last year I was very disconnected from Stampin' Up! and my stamping time. Now that the New Year is here, I intend to get back on some sort of schedule with my stamping. I don't usually make a huge list of new years resolutions because I do not seem to follow them. And, each year my list gets smaller as I see the ones that I failed with the previous year. This year I have said that I want to get my stamping space cleaned and organized (it would be great if I could do that for the rest of my house to!) and keep it that way. And my yearly resolution about being a better mom, is always number one on my list! Do you have any resolutions? I'd love to hear about them.