Made with Love Blog Hop

Hey everyone!  I'm so excited about today's blog hop!  My Gallery Girl buddies and I are playing along with this month's Paper Crafts Connection Gallery challenge - to make Valentine's cards.  You should have gotten here from Jocelyn's blog, but I have the full hop list below if you need it.

Let me tell you this event has taken off!  There are so many generous sponsors offering FANTASTIC prizes!  There is candy to be won at every single spot, and a grand prize too:  $90 to spend at the Ribbon Carousel (that's an actual Ribbon Carousel folks)!

There are two prizes here at my stop.

This first one is near and dear to my heart.  It's one of the new Hunk Punky albums from Punky Sprouts. 



This is such a fun little album, and I actually have one in the works as we speak.  I'll be sharing it on my blog and over at Punky Sprouts on the 18th, but here's a picture of one in action - the cover of my teammate Erica's Hunk Punky:

The second prize is from another great company - The Twinery! 



One of you lucky folks will get three spools - your choice (look at all these great colors)!  That's a retail value of $60!  



Now, onto my projects.

I made two cards to share today using a new stamp that I carved.  Here's Card #1:
I went a little embossing crazy.  I think I embossed every item on this card!  With the exception of the sentiment, everything is clear embossed. 

For the red hearts I went direct to paper with my ink pad to color the white cardstock, and then direct to paper Versamark and clear embossing.  I used that same technique for the card base (I only embossed the edges, not the whole base).



My second card is also for the Paper Sweeties' February Challenge.  Another one of the Gallery Girls, Debbie Marcinkiewicz, who wasn't able to participate in the hop this time around, is the owner of Paper Sweeties' stamps.  They have a sketch challenge every month, and they are also gearing up for their February release, so please go check them out!



More embossing here, although not as much.  The hearts on either side are white (which looks kind of off-white) embossed on vellum, the center one is identical to the one on the first card. 



The hearts are hung from the diecut doily.  I didn't cut the doily, just folded it over the back side of the card, and I added a little bit of dimensional foam tape underneath it so that it's adhered, but doesn't lay flat.  The sentiment actually combines two sentiments from Paper Sweeties' Occasions set:  "Hello Baby!"  and  "Sweet Treats". 



That's all from me.  Hope you are having a great time on the hop, remember to leave comments all along the way because each comment qualifies you for the prize(s) at that particular stop, and you never know where that Grand Prize might be lurking!  You have until February 21st to leave comments. 

Your next stop is Anita, but here's the whole list in case you get turned around:

Taheerah Atchia
JJ Bolton
Joscelyne Cutchens
Jennifer Ingle
Amy Kolling 
Agnieszka Malyszek
Wida Miller
Jocelyn Olson
Miriam Prantner 
Anita Recksiedler
Elena Roussakis
Jennifer Rzasa
Erin Lee Schreiner
Dana Warren
Laurie Willison
Tessa Wise
Nina Yang

Finally a huge thanks to ALL the amazing sponsors who stepped up to make this hop even more fun for everyone! 

Avery Elle | BasicGrey | Becky Oehlers stamps | Bossy Joscie | CAS-ual Fridays Stamps | Fresh Squeezed Stamps | Gel-a-tins | Great Impressions Stamps | I {Heart} Papers | Lil' Inkers Designs | Mama Elephant | Neat & Tangled Stamps | Punky Sprouts | Ribbon Carousel | Simon Says Stamp | SRM Stickers | Sweet and Sassy Stamps | Sweet Stamp Shop | The Crafter's Companion | The Craft’s Meow | The Twinery | Timeless Twine | Unity | Uniko Stamps | Viva Las VegaStamps

Supplies Used
Card 1
Paper/Cardstock:  CTMH - black and White Daisy Cardstock; Reflections - Vellum
Stamps:  Handcarved heart stamp; CTMH - Whoooo Loves You
Ink:  Ranger - Festive Berries Distress Ink, Versamark
Other: CTMH - Clear and Black Embossing Powder, Dimensional foam tape; Helmar-Black Zapdots; Tombow - Mono Adhesive and Vellum adhesive

Card 2
Paper/Cardstock:  Core'dinations - Vintage collection Cardstock; CTMH - Black, Colonial White and White Daisy Cardstock; Recollections - Vellum
Stamps:  Paper Sweeties - Occasions Sentiment set; Handcarved heart stamp
Ink: Ranger - Festive Berries Distress Ink; Versamark
Other: Lifestyle Crafts - Nice Doily Die; Trendy Twine - Peppermint Stick; CTMH - Dimensional Foam Tape, Clear and White embossing powders; Tombow - Mono Adhesive

Finger Painting - Basic Grey Sketch

 

 

Thought I would try out this week's Basic Grey sketch since it's a two pager, and I have a lot of photos to scrap.

These are from September, Carina was trying out one of her birthday party gifts.  Carina is not particularly neat or precise when it comes to crafting, so it was funny to see her trying these paints out.  She was being so careful....eventually she warmed up to them, and made a big old mess, which of course I didn't manage to photograph.

I stayed pretty true to the sketch here, although I eliminated some of the 'fussy' elements.  I didn't have a ton of time to spend on this layout, and when that's the case I like to kind of strip the sketch down to the bare bones. 

I'm using Basic Grey's Max and Whisker's collection, using mostly the 'b' sides of the paper.  They have this great painted look which I thought was perfect for the event being scrapped, and I really loved that bright bold orange.  The sticker embellishments are from BG's Konnichiwa collection.

I didn't want the layout to be too plain, but like I said, I was pressed for time, so I added just a few details that are easy to do and don't take long:

1) Used a sponge tool to add some Cocoa ink to the corners/right and left sides of the layout.  Then I used a brush and water to spread the ink out a little.  It softened the white base to make it a little less stark, plus it kind of mimics the brush strokes in the patterned paper.

2) I added a bit of stitching, nothing complicated, just a little bit, which ended up being a lot more subtle than I planned because when I started stitching I realized I had gray rather than white thread in the machine, and I was too lazy to fix it. 

3) I used one of my handcarved stamps for the journaling spot in the right hand corner.



That's all for today.  Hope your weekend is going well!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  Basic Grey - Max and Whiskers collection; CTMH - White Daisy cardstock
Stamps:  Handcarved frame stamp
Ink:  CTMH - Cocoa
Other:  Basic Grey - Max and Whiskers collection alphas, Konnichiwa sticker sheet; CTMH - Texture tools, dimensional foam tape; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; Sewing Machine

Some more stamp carving

Hey everyone, thanks for all your well wishes.  Still slowly recovering, but I definitely see the light at the end of the tunnel.  Just praying for some good rest tonight!

Thought I would pop in and share some stamps that I carved recently. 

I've been wanting to get back to Julie Balzer's Stamp Carving 101 class, but the next project is to do an alphabet set, so I want to wait until I have a bigger chunk of time to tackle that.

However, my friend Alexandra recently started carving and inspired me to get back into the act, so last week I created these....they are some thank you gifts for crafty friends of mine who have really helped me along, been great encouragers, and have sent some great goodies me way recently.

Stamp carving is so much fun, and I have a whole list of stamps that I want to create.  I'm off for most of next week, so hopefully I'll have the chance to get some more done!

Hope that your week is off to a good start!

 

Unscripted vs. Scripted

Sharing a layout for Pretty Little Studio's sketch challenge today.

I wanted to document how quickly we go from photo op to chaos....literally seconds after the first photo, Ellie managed to find and put on a headband, and she's holding onto Carina who is trying to escape while hamming it up at the same time.

As soon as I saw this sketch I knew I wanted to use it since I just happen to have a bunch of homemade chevron stamps in my stash. ;)





I did add a little color to the center of the stamps on the outer rows with a Zig marker, and that arrow is just a doodle.

It's a pretty CAS layout. There's a lot of empty space on the sketch and I wanted to stay true to that. There's also a good mix of products/companies. It's fun to just look through your stash and pull out bits and pieces that work for a particular project

We've started Week 2 of Kindergarten - thanks for all your sweet comments last week. Ellie is LOVING kindergarten, and we're really enjoying our time together after school too. We've done lots of reading, bike riding, cooking dinner together, crafts, gotten haircuts, it's been a great work/life balance change for us!

Hope your week is off to a good start!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock: Bella Blvd - Birthday Boy (blue polka dot); Echo Park Happy Days 6x6 pad (black and white pattern); CTMH - White Daisy and Sweet Pea cardstock
Stamps: Custom carved chevron
Ink: Ranger Archival Black
Other: Pretty Little Studio - Monsieur Mr. Connor Bookmark Tags; American Crafts - Black Amy Tangerine Sketchbook Journal Foam Thickers; Nikki Sivlis - Gingerbread House Alpha Stickers; EK Success Zig Blue marker; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; CM - Photo Splits; Sewing Machine; Pigma - Micron Pen

More Stamp Carving and Some Changes

Wanted to share a couple more carved stamps with you guys. This are for Lessons 5-6 of Julie Balzer's Stamp Carving 101 class. I actually carved these last month on our vacation, but I'm only getting around to posting them now, sigh.

I had meant to post over the weekend, but it was crazy busy here. We had the girls' 5th and 2nd birthday party on Saturday, lots of fun, but you know how birthday parties are - lots of work, even for something as low key as ours was. We rented a pavilion at a local park....we had about 30 kids and probably the same number of adults.

We also took the girls to get their birthday portraits taken - we always go to JCPenney's because they have $4 portrait sheets and we have A LOT of family to supply with photos. Then there were meals with family in town for the party, preparations for school to start, bike riding, walks, sidewalk chalk, it was a FULL weekend.

I've also been busy in the craft room - just can't share those projects quite yet. And, looking forward to some great new creative opportunities. It's going to be a busy fall!

Today Ellie starts Kindergarten and I start working part time. A little excited and anxious about both. Ellie has such a kind, soft heart and I'm pray that big kid school won't change that. On the work side of things, I'm so grateful to have a boss that is allowing me the flexibility to work part time, to be able to drop off and pick Ellie up from school, but financially it will be a stretch for us, and hopefully it won't make work itself more stressful in terms of getting things done. Big changes here, but I really feel like it's what God wants for us, so here we go!

Have a wonderful week all!

More Stamp Carving

I was itching to do some more stamp carving a few weeks ago, so I got out my tools and knocked out Lesson 4 from Julie Balzer's Stamp Carving 101, which was to make a series of chevron stamps.

It was a lot of fun. Here's what I came up with. You'll notice the chevron that I used in my Triple Take layout from last week too. Some of these I definitely like more than others, but I think it's a good set.



My very favorite is the one at the top right.

I've got some other projects using these in the works, and I've been creating some more stamps too, so stay tuned!

Triple Take

Who would have thought that I would start to really enjoy these one and two photo layouts? Not me, that's for sure!

But really, this one was just SO much fun to put together.

This is this week's Elle's Studio sketch, and I'm also going to link up at Paper Issues, since I think this kind of qualifies as eclectic, at least eclectic for me.

I wanted my paper patterns to line up with that diagonal from the layout, so instead of cutting the paper on a diagonal and just fitting it onto the page, I cut the papers along the lines of their patterns. Consequently, they don't extend the full width of the page, but I like how it creates kind of a frame around the piece.

It was lots of fun choosing the elements for the layout. That doily stamp is an Elle's Studio exclusive, that I fussy cut. Layered on top of it, is a great embellishment that came in a Polka Dot Whimsy kit. Its from an etsy shop called Citron Faire that is no longer open.



Those flat red sequins also came in the Polka Dot Whimsy kit.



I used the Trinity Alphabet stamp set, and cut out the letters. Those, the doily stamp, and even those red sequins were run through the Xyron machine - makes adhering SO much easier.

I added a little line of Peppermint Stick Trendy Twine at the top, and paired some Cranberry grosgrain with an Elle's studio pennant below.

And what do you think of those chevron stamps? Like them? I've been carving again! I actually have a whole set, that I'll share with you soon.

Thanks for coming by!

Supplies Used

Paper/Cardstock: American Crafts - Garden Cafe; Bella Blvd - Estate Sale; CTMH - White Daisy Cardstock
Stamps: CTMH - Trinity Alphabet; Elle's Studio - Doily stamp; Miriam Prantner ;) - Chevron
Ink: CTMH - Cranberry, Chocolate
Other: Elle's Studio - Red Pennant; CTMH - Cranberry Grosgrain; Polka Dot Whimsy - Flat Round Sequins: Citron Faire - Layered flower embellishment; Trendy Twine - Peppermint Stick; Pigma Micron Chocolate Pen; CM - Photo Splits; Tombow Mono Adhesive; 3L - Large Dodz; Xyron - 5" Creative Station

Vacation Stamp Carving Results

As I mentioned before we left on vacation, I took some stamp carving supplies along on vacation with us. You can see the little kit I took above: ink, carving tool, mechanical pencil, ballpoint pen, Sharpie marker, and Speedball carving material. I precut the pieces before I left taking a bunch of 1" square pieces and a few 2" x 3" pieces.

I worked through lessons 1-3 of Stamp Carving 101, and also created some extra images.

Lesson 1: Heart



I wasn't that happy about my first attempt (second from left), so I did it twice. Then I created a couple extra images using the same technique. I'm most excited about the @ symbol - I think that stamp will get a lot of use in my layouts.

Lesson 2: Stripes Set



Lesson 3: Contained Chevron



I also created some stamps. The first three I'm planning to use for borders/backgrounds, and the little arrow is going to be another really useful one for layouts.



It was nice to be able to still do some creating on vacation, this class is so much fun and I can't wait to work on the next lesson!

Hope you had a good end to your week and are staying cool!