Stampin! with Jaydee

Retro Rainbow

Hi Everyone. Happy Wednesday.  I played along with two challenges for this card.

I turned the sketch on its side but other than that, remained pretty true to it.   I have a PTI stamp that is in my stash and knew that this would be ideal for this particular challenge.  It also gave me a chance to use up some card stock scraps, sequins and my cloud embossing folder!

Here's my card

I cut strips of Real Red, Pumpkin, Daffodil Delight, Gumball Green, Marina Mist and Midnight Muse card stock and stuck them to a base.  I then ran my card base through my Big Shot with my SU cloud embossing folder.  I stamped the sentiment in Midnight Muse and then adhered all the layers to the card base with Stampin' Dimensionals.  The finishing touch were a few rainbow colored sequins.  Don't forget to pop along to retrosketches and addicted to cas and check out the fabulous cards.

On a personal note

Well, the weather went from 37 one day to 98 the next!  The difference in temperature was astounding.  The lucky thing was that the humidity was exceptionally low, so that helped the 98 degree temperature feel much cooler.   Of course, it was a record high for us at this time of the year.  Luckily today we are back to more normal temperatures.  The grass and the plants are loving it and have sprouted overnight.  It's amazing to see how quickly everything is coming back to life.  Even our little Juniper tree that we planted last year is going green again.  We were really worried about it over winter because it went a golden copper color.  We thought for sure it was dead.  However, it is slowly turning green and I found out that they do change color in winter!

Michelle, this photo is for you

Our Blue Birds are back and are starting to pick up where they left off at the end of summer last year.  However, we saw this little Bunting at our feeder yesterday.   

I thought I would share a photo of the Oriole Cafe.  There are seven of them hanging around and they are eating us out of house and home.  We have to take the jelly in at night otherwise we have visits from a little racoon.   However, the Orioles start to shout right outside our bedroom window beginning at about 5.30 am.   This morning I couldn't bear it any longer and had to go downstairs and put out the jelly so that I could go back to sleep!

As always, thank you for stopping by my little kneck of the stamping blogosphere.   Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a lift today.

Hugs

Jaydee

Polka Dot, Blingy Birthday.

Hi Everyone. Happy Monday. 

Quick post for you tonight as I am running very late!

There's a great challenge across at CAS-UAL Fridays this week to celebrate their 100th challenge.

 

I love Tic-Tac-Toe challenges and had so much fun with this one that I made two cards.  I went right through the middle:  Polka Dots; Bling; Black and White

I used my PTI set - Star Gazer and paired it with some SU Silver Glimmer Paper (for the little stars) and some black and white polka dot paper that I had in my stash.

Here's my card

The Leo constellation stamp puts little stars in the design.  I cut out some silver glimmer stars with a die and added those over the black stars.  It looks really cool when you see it in real life and I love the idea of being able to personalize a card for the recipient's star sign!

On a personal note:

I saw a little flash of blue in our woodland today.  I knew it wasn't the blue jay, because the bird was too small.  Sure enough.... our little blue birds are back and are checking out the blue bird house that we put up at the edge of our wetland.   I hope they like it enough to stay!   We so enjoyed having them nest in our woodpecker box last year and watch the fledglings grow up! 

Yesterday we had a low of 30 and a high of 58.    Tomorrow, we are heading for a low of 58 and a high of 92!   92!   It's crazy!  Why can't we just sit around in the 60s and 70s for a few days and at least make it feel as though it is spring!  I think the airconditioning might be put to good use tomorrow!

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card ingredients - Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Basic Black.  Whisper White
• Ink:  StazOn
• DSP:   Silver Glimmer Specialty Paper.   Polka Dot (Amuse)
• Stamp:  Star Gazer (PTI)

Wildflower Meadow for Paper Players #145 and sneak peek

Hi Everyone

It's color time at the Paper Players, and it's my turn to host!   I choose some rich, regal colors for you this week.  Not very spring-like colors, I know, but I do love them and hope that you will like them enough to play along with us! :-)  

I needed a sketch, so popped along to CASETHISSKETCH and found one that I knew would work with my new Wildflower Meadow background stamp.

I inked up the background stamp using my Gumball Green and Raspberry Ripple markers.  I stamped the image so that it would be the vertical element of the sketch and masked the part of the stamp that I didn't want to transfer to the card stock.  The markers give an almost distressed look to the flowers and I was OK to leave it that way. 

Once the flowers were on, I set about stamping the sentiment onto a tag that I had cut using a die.   I inked the sentiment from A Word for You with Midnight Muse and used a marker to go around the outside of the tag with a little dashed line.  It added more focus to the sentiment and also helped to pop it from the background.

I knew I wanted to use my new Buttons and Blossoms mold and clay.   (Available with the new catty and be ready to have some fun with it!)   I adhered it to the tag using Crystal Effects and was playing around with the placement of the tag, when Lou suggested that I move it a little to the right so that the flower on the tag would come off the stem of the background stamp.    Genius!  Seriously, the guy is good :-)   He was right!   You can add ink to the clay whilst you are manipulating it, before it goes into the mold.  However, I wanted to have variations in the color, so I let it dry and then used my Aqua pen to add the Raspberry Ripple on as a first layer.   That put down a very muted shade as a base.  I then went in with the marker and that gave me darker areas.  I think doing it this way adds more dimension to the flower.

Then... I couldn't make up my mind what color background to use.  So, I used two.  Here's the one:

and.... here it is on Raspberry Ripple

I think I prefer the Midnight Muse base... it ties the tag to the base of the card and makes the sentiment pop.   Lou thinks he prefers the Raspberry Ripple base.   Which do you prefer?   I'd really like your opinion.

Don't forget to check out the fabulous design team cards.... there are some amazing creations again this week.  You can check them all here.    Don't forget to pop along to casethissketch, too!  Lots of inspiration for you.

On a personal note.

Check this out.   This made me so VERY happy!

What is it.... anything hiding in there that you should be looking for?   NOPE.... It's just a photograph of GREEN GRASS.   Why am I so happy about this?   Well, when you live in a state where winter extends for 5 and a half months and the grass is hidden under 3 feet of snow...... the sight of green grass is astounding.  Color.  Finally.    Summer is on her way!   Seriously, it made me very happy :-)

As always, thank you for stopping by my little neck of the stamping blogosphere.  I really do appreciate your visits and your comments.   Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

 

Birthday wishes and it's all pink!

Hi Everyone.  Happy Tuesday.

In last night's post I promised to share the feminine version of the card that I made.  I used exactly the same stamps and sketch - the one from clean and simple on sunday

Last night's card might have been all masculine, but this version is all girl.  Pink isn't generally my go to color, but I love Pink Pirouette with this shimmer pink card stock.  The card stock has a very similar color to the new SU Strawberry Slush and it is absolutely yummy.  I paired it with Basic Grey ink and some Silver Glimmer specialty paper.

Here's my feminine version of the card:

With this version you can see the star gazer additions constellation much better and I love the silver stars with the pink.

Why not pop along to casonsunday and play along - entries close on Friday. :-)

On a personal note:

Another gorgeous day here.  Temps in the 70s with low humidity.  I am starting to see little pops of green on the trees and coming up in our garden.   With the warmer weather, hopefully everything will start to bud and flourish quickly.  I checked the long range weather forecast and we are expecting gorgeous weather for the next 10 days!

Lots of birds at the feeder and I even saw the turkey's yesterday.  They have finally reappeared!  However, I have had no sighting of the Oriole since yesterday.  Mmmm... seems the jelly and fresh oranges aren't quite enough for him!  We still have a lot of red shouldered blackbirds hogging the feeder and I think that might be part of the problem!

As always, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  I'll be back tomorrow with another card.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card ingredients:

• Card Stock:  Pink Pirouette (SU).  Shimmer Pink (PTI).  Silver Glimmer Specialty Paper (SU)
• Stamps:  Star Gazer and Star Gazer Additions (PTI)
• Ink:  Basic Grey
• Tools:  Big Shot.  Star die (PTI).  Stampin' Dimensionals

Birthday wishes for Cas on Sunday

Hi Everyone.  Happy Monday.

Quick post for you tonight.

I saw this great sketch across at cleanandsimple on Sunday and knew exactly what I wanted to do with it.  I have a couple of new stamp sets and thought this sketch was a great way to combine them both.

As the theme across at onlinecardclasses has been to create masculine and feminine cards, I decided to do that with this sketch, too.  I'll be sharing the masculine version with you tonight.

I purchased a set called Star Gazer and Star Gazer additions from PTI.  I loved the idea of being able to make personalized birthday cards based on the astrological sign of the recipient.  This card uses the additions background stamp and a sentiment from the Star Gazer set.  I paired it with some shimmery black card stock and loved the result.

Lou gave it two thumbs up for confirming to a masculine design!  That has to be good, right :-)

I clear embossed the constellation chart onto the base shimmer black cardstock and added a few tiny silver stars die cut from Silver Glimmer specialty paper.  I cut a large star from my sizzix framelits and adhered that to a die cut tag using Stampin' Dimensionals.  I stamped the sentiment onto the tag and added a little star next to the sentiment.  The tag was then adhered to the card base using dimensionals.

The card base was really hard to photograph because of the shimmer in it, but it really is a strong contrast with the silver stars when you see it in hand.  I'll be sharing the feminine version with you tomorrow.

Don't forget to pop along to cas on sundays and check out the fabulous design team and submission cards for inspiration.  I know the design team would love it if you played along, too. 

On a personal note:

It was 76 degrees here today.  Yes, siree, it was gorgeous.   I managed to sit outside on the deck for about 20 minutes after work.  I just looked out over the wetland and watched the birds, squirrels and deer go about their business.  Whilst I was sitting there I was very surprised to see the two wood ducks come into land on the stump.  I really wanted to snap a photo, but as soon as I moved my arm in my chair, they saw me and flew of.   A couple of minutes later I saw the Eastern Kingbird (first sighting this year) and then I saw the Coopers Hawk come into the feeder!  It was a great way to end a very long day!

Now, I am off to go feed the kittycats and cook some supper and then settle down to watch the Voice!    As always, thank you for stopping by my little neck of the woods.  Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card ingredients :

• Card stock:  Shimmer Black (PTI).  Silver Glimmer (SU)
• Stamps:  Star Gazer and Star Gazer additions (PTI)
• Ink:  Basic Black (SU).  Versamark embossing
• Tools:  Big Shot, Stampin' Dimensionals, Sizzix Tag Die, Clear Embossing Powder (SU).  Dimensionals (SU).  Star gazer die cut (PTI)

 

The Paper Players #143 - For the Birds and Quatrefancy Sneak Peek

Hi Everyone.  Happy Saturday.

Well, I had intended to play with my new goodies when they arrived yesterday.  However, the man in brown only arrived at 6.40pm!  I cannot tell you how long yesterday was waiting for him to arrive.  By the time he FINALLY got here, it was too late to get everything unpacked and make a card.  I only got a little time in my stamping space today and it was to make my card for the Paper Players Challenge.

The fabulous Ann has a great sketch this week.  The design team all did very different things with it.  I do hope you will pop along to each other their blogs and also come and play along with us.

Here's the sketch

The sketch was a great excuse for me to dip into some of my newly arrived DSP.   I loved the look of the Quatrefancy Speciality DSP when I saw it in the catalog.  The fact that it has a matching embossing folder was perfect for my challenge. :-)

This particular sheet of DSP has Pool Party and Island Indigo and that was the starting point for my color scheme.   I decided to use a new set that came with my goodies yesterday.  It isn't new to the 2013/2014 catalog, but it was one that I had completely bypassed in the last catalog.  Something about its placement in the new one made it catch my eye.   Actually, there is a LOT that caught my eye in the new catalog.  I REALLY have a long list of goodies that I will be purchasing when the catalog goes live.

I stamped the image in Stazon onto watercolor paper and used my paint brushes to color in the image.   I used Daffodil Delight for the bird.  Cajun Craze for his beak.  Soft Suede for the nest and Pool Party all the way around the image.

If you look closely, you can see the embossing from the folder on the round component behind the focal image.

The folder matches the pattern on the DSP, too!

I tried to get a closeup to show you both

It's really such a pretty sheet of DSP.  I love the little pops of Island Indigo with the crispness of the white.  I do love the little birdie sitting on her nest, too!

Don't forget to visit the design team.  You can check out all of their cards on the Paper Players website and it has links to their blogs from there.

On a personal note:

SUN.  WARMTH.  Oh, yeah!  I sat on the porch yesterday afternoon waiting for the UPS guy and could feel the warmth of the sun on my skin.  The birds were singing, the spring peepers were peeping and the Phoebe was calling his distinctive call and the mourning doves were cooing.  It was wonderful.  Finally, temps above the 40s.  We even managed to put our furniture on the deck and sit there for a short while yesterday afternoon.  As I type this post, it is 76 degrees outside.  Yep, we went from the 40s to the 70s and are going back to the 40s, with snow, later in the week!  Spring is one of my favorite times of the year, but I always tell my friends in England, that you have never really appreciated Spring until you have experienced a 5+ month winter in Minnesota! 

Well, I am off to unpack the rest of my goodies and put them away.  I also have to sort out the new colors and in colors and get rid of some of the retiring colors that I will not miss - like Certainly Celery!  Then, I am going to spend a few minutes sitting on the porch enjoying everything that Mother Nature has in store for me this afternoon.

I should be able to get into my stamping room tomorrow.  Lou is doing a 50 mile bike ride in the morning and I decided to stay home and play rather than go along and cheer him on.  He said he was totally OK with that, especially as I'd only see him for a nonosecond anyway as he whizzed past me :-)

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Island Indigo, Watercolor paper
• DSP: Quatrefancy DSP
• Inks:  Stazon.  Daffodil Delight, Cajun Craze, Soft Suede, Pool Party
• Tools:  Big Shot.  Quatrefancy embossing folder.  Sizzix small and large circle dies.  Stampin Dimensionals

 

Tiffany Boxes for Retrosketches

Hi Everyone.  Happy Friday.  It's 7.15 and I'm running really late... however, I did want to share my last challenge card of the week with you.

Retro has a great sketch - it's one I can see myself using often

I knew exactly what I wanted to do with it when I saw this sketch.   I know there are many of you out in blogland who will feel the same way as I do about little blue boxes wrapped with a fabulous satin bow.... from a little jewelry company called Tiffany :-)

Here's my version of a Tiffany box for a birthday card

Pool Party card stock and some glimmer specialty card stock were all that I needed to replicate the Tiffany box.  The sentiment is from SU's A Word for You - and it is perfect for a birthday card or even a wedding card! 

Don't forget to pop along to retro and check out their new sketch this weekend.

As always, thank you for spending time in my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.  Continued prayers for Beverlee as well as the victims of the Boston and West, Tx tragedies.

Hugs

Jaydee

Little Miss Sunshine

Hi Everyone.  Happy Thursday.

Quick post for you tonight.   I saw a great theme challenge across at simplylessismore.  The challenge is to create a one layer card with a theme of FILM.   Well, that led me straight to a set that I have had in my cupboard for a while and not used.  I love one layer cards, but rarely create them so this was a great challenge!  

Here's my take on the challenge

Perfect sentiment for the movie "Little Miss Sunshine" don't you think? :-)

Appropriate choice of themes considering we have watched three movies at the Minneapolis International Film Festival.  So far we have seen an English movie, a Scottish movie and a South African movie.  We have about 8 more to go!  We love going to see these movies as they mostly pretty low budget movies covering a set of topics not often seen in big budget movies.  The South African movie was called Lucky - about a little boy who lost his mother to AIDS and ends up making friends in the most unlikely of places.  AIDS orphans are a tragic set of children.  Many of them are homeless and have no where to go.   The AIDS epedemic in South Africa was exacerbated by the government refusing to acknowledge the existence of the disease, or the rate at which it was growing.   It's made all the worse by the fact that the medicines that could help prolong life, or save lives, is unaffordable.   This movie covered this topic superficially, but it was heartwarming in it's ability to connect the unlikelist of friends who communicated without being able to speak each other's language.

The next movie was Unfinished Song.   It covers the loss of a loved one after many years of marriage.  Vanessa Redgrave and Terence Stamp were amazing.  It was heartwarming, funny, sad and uplifting.

Our other movie was Angel's Share.  A fairly raw movie about a young man caught in a spiral of poverty and petty crime, who discovers a talent and uses that as a way to improve his lot in life, and the life of his new born child.   Don't watch it if you don't like foul language!   That aside, it was a fabulous movie.

So, that's what we were doing last night.... and that's why I didn't get to post my card!

As always, thanks for visiting my blog.  Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.  Special prayers for Beverlee and those affected by the events in Boston.

I'll be back tomorrow with another card.

Hugs

Jaydee

P.S.  We are in the middle of yet another snow storm.  5-8 inches expected.   The robin, the phoebe and the red-shouldered blackbirds are wandering around wondering where they got lost on their migration north!!!!

You are awesome

Hi Everyone.  Happy Sunday.

Well, during this latest storm where the weather cannot make up it's mind, I managed to spend a little time having fun in my craft room.   Today it has sleeted, rained, snowed, rained and is about to snow again!  We were planning to go shopping and run some errands, but decided it was probably best just to stay home and chill instead.   Which was great for me, as that meant spending quality time with some paper, stamps and ink and playing along with a few challenges.

For tonight's card, I used the sketch from casethissketch, the colors from Playdate Cafe and the theme from Casualfridays

 

I really liked the sketch - very unusual and a lot of fun to play with.   The color challenge is totally outside of my comfort zone, but I immediately fell in love with it and wondered why I had never thought to combine the colors.  The theme challenge from Cas-ual fridays is GLITTER.  Now, how could I NOT play with that!  

I decided to go with a bold and graphic card, because the sketch and the color scheme both felt that they needed some bold.  Of course, I had to pull out my silver glimmer specialty paper and combined it with some silver embossing powder.  The colors felt masculine to me, but I wanted to use them in a way that the card could be gender neutral.

I know that clean and simple often makes some people believe that you spend less time creating a clean and simple card than  something with a little more fuss, but believe me, that's not the truth.  This card took a fair amount of time to a) compose and b) create.   I used a chevron ikat stamp, which is an individual stamp, and I had to make sure that each time I stamped it I was pretty much in the center of the page - all the way from corner to corner.   On top of that, I had to stop and clean my stamp between every stamped image.  Considering I was going from Pool Party to Pumpkin Pie to Midnight Muse, that was a fair bit of cleaning :-)

Anyway, I think it was worth it.   What do you think? :-)

I just couldn't get a great photo of it.  Either I lost the shine on the embossed sentiment, or the sentiment!, or I lost the shine on the stars.  I managed to get a shot that shows the bling and I hope that you can see how glittery and shiny it actually is.  You can actually see the sentiment much better when you have the card in your hand.

I stayed true to the concept of clean and simple and I love this color scheme.

You really should pop along to all three challenge sites and check out the fabulous design team and submission cards.  There's really lots and lots of great inspiration for you. 

I'll be back again tomorrow with another challenge card.  In the meantime, have a fabulous Monday and warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.  Special prayers for Beverlee.

Hugs
Jaydee

card recipe - ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Pool Party, Midnight Muse, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White
• Stamps:  Sentiment: Incredible (Technique Tuesday).   Pattern:  Ikat (PTI)
• Tools:  Sizzix Stars, Big Shot, Silver ink and silver embossing powder.  Small stars created with an EK success border punch

Sunshine & Sprinkles redux for addicted to CAS

Hi Everyone.  Happy Friday.  YES!  It's Friday.  Finally!

Quick post for you tonight.

Here's another friend card.  I promise you it's the last one for a while.  But, don't we all have friends that we really should celebrate more often?

Addicted to CAS is still having their friend challenge, so I thought I would play along again. 

I used the Sunshine and Sprinkles DSP -again!   This time I paired it with another fabulous sentiment from the MFT Umbrella stamp set and reused a sketch from my card on Thursday.

Isn't that sentiment just perfect with the DSP?   I also love the umbrella layer against the cloud layer.   I've really had fun with this DSP!

I used Pacific Point and Marina Mist card stock and a Marina Mist button sewn onto the sentiment layer with white Baker's Twine.  The sentiment was wet embossed using versamark and white embossing powder. 

Don't forget to pop along to addicted to CAS and play along.  You have another week to join their challenge.

On a personal note:

Well.  It snowed.  Yep.  In fact, it's been snowing on and off since Wednesday.  We were lucky that the temps got warmer on Wednesday overnight, so the totals were less than originally expected.  But, we still ended up having about 6 inches.  Our garden, and the wetland are once again blanketed in snow.  Just when we thought it was nearly all melted.   Mind you, our area is under a severe drought, so, we should welcome the moisture.  However, I'm not sure our spring arriving avian friends are too happy :-)

I shall be relaxing in front of the TV tonight watching Fashion Star.   Lou is off to have dinner with a friend.  I'll be back tomorrow with my Paper Players card.   In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Rainbows for Fab Fridays

Hi Everyone.  Happy Wednesday.  Yes... we are on the countdown to the weekend!

I have another friend card for you tonight and it was created using the fabulous sketch from fabfridays.  It's a great sketch.  In fact, I loved it so much I made two cards with it!

I'd been looking at the rainbow paper in the Sunshine and Sprinkles DSP pack, but it has lots of whales and things on it.   This sketch, and a sentiment I had seen in a stamp set I bought, provided me with the opportunity to cut down the DSP and cut out the whales and highlight the rainbows and stars. 

I decided to add just a little bling to the rainbows and stars with my gelly roller. Ooo... and take a look at the raindrops... remember those!

Isn't that sentiment fabulous?  It's also perfect with the DSP.   Now, of course, I had to continue the thought on the inside.

Now, ain't that the truth?  True friends really are there to cheer us after a storm.   I stamped the raindrops from the stamp set on the bottom left corner - because they matched the raindrops on the DSP!

Don't forget to pop along to Fabfridays and check out the fabulous design team and submission cards.

On a personal note:

Remember I said it was going to snow?  Well, we've been advised that anywhere between 8 and 15 inches is likely! Are you kidding me?  Seriously?  It's the middle of April and I want some sun and warm weather and I want it now.  Stamp. Stamp. Pout. Pout!  I went out to put the garbage cans on the curb and bring in the post and noticed that it was already starting to spot!  It's almost 7pm and the building crew next door are desperately trying to get the roof on our neighbors new house.  Oh. Looking out of the window and I can see the snow starting!

As always, thank you for stopping by and thank you to all of you who have taken the time to leave comments on my cards the last couple of days.  You know I really do appreciate it.

I'll be back on Friday with another card.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.  Special prayers for Carol P.

Hugs

Jaydee

card recipe.  all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Pacific Point.  Daffodil Delight
• DSP:  Sunshine and Sprinkles
• Stamp:  Umbrella (MFT)
• Ink:  Pacific Point.  Basic Black

HI everyone.  Happy Monday.

Tonight's card is dedicated to all of my regular followers, especially those of you who comment, send me emails and let me know that you are visiting.  I really do appreciate your comments - they do warm my heart!

I saw two great challenges this week, one of them totally new to me!  It's always great to find new challenges.  Here they are:

Runway Inspired Challenge                    Addicted to CAS

      

Several things struck me about the photograph.    The yellow outfit with the white dots.  Her long slim legs.  Now, I had to decide what to do about the background.   I had an idea in mind for the image, but adding pattern to the background would have distracted from that.. so, I decided to go with a textured cardstock and a pattern across the top.  Subtle, but still some detail, especially as I needed to keep it CAS for the addicted to cas challenge.  

Of course, I found the perfect sentiment for friendship.

Here's my card for the two challenges:

Can you see the inspiration in my choice of the flower die?  I hope so!

Here's what I did:

• I used the SU Daffodil Delight polka dot designer DSP for the flower heads and added a little bit of bling using opaque dots.  
• I ran the flower through my big shot twice.  Once with Lucky Limeade card stock and the other with the polka dot paper.  I  used my craft knife to cut off the heads of the green flowers and the yellow flowers.  
• I cut my card stock 1/2 shorter on the horizontal.  I wanted to do that, so my sentiment would run off the page, but not extend beyond the usual 4 1/4 inches.
• I used an SU edge framelit to create the scalloped pattern at the top of the Whisper White textured card stock and adhered that layer to the base using glue.
• I stamped the sentiment onto a Lucky Limeade layer using White craft ink and white embossing powder.
• My flower stem was run through my sticker maker and adhered directly to the Whisper White layer.  
• I popped the flowers using dimesionals and then added the opaque dots.
• The sentiment was adhered over the top, but not before I sewed a button onto the card stock

So, lots of things went into making the card.  I know that clean and simple feels as though it should take just a couple of minutes, and sometimes it does.  However, I find that I have to be extra careful with all of the elements when making a CAS card.  It's hard to cover up mistakes.  Not that I ever make mistakes.  No... never.... In fact, I didn't make any mistakes this weekend.   it wasn't me who glued the DSP upside down on the card that you will see tomorrow.  Nor was it me who ran the "you" from last nights card through my sticker maker upside down!  No... it must have been someone else :-)

So, don't forget to pop along to Addicted to CAS and Runway Inspired Challenge.  Fabulous cards to give you lots of inspiration.

On a personal note:

OK... it's freezing.  Seriously.  It snowed today.  Isn't spring supposed to be here already?  We still have snow on the ground, too!   I love winter.  I love snow.  But I am SOOOO ready for spring!

We met with a builder to close in the area under the deck to make it mosquito proof.   I don't know what we were thinking when we built the house!  It's a great area under the deck and is right on the wetland.  It's cool in summer and helps us get really close to nature.  However, mosquitoes are the national Minnesota bird!  so why we didn't think that we would encounter them in droves when we were living on a wetland I don't know!   So, the builder will be fixing that little problem for us and it should be finished just in time for mosquito season!  I can't wait to decorate the area and make it all homey.  It's 2 season only, but that's what we wanted.   We think the cats will love it, too.

As always, thank you for visit and for your comments.   I'll  be back with another friendship card tomorrow.  In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Whisper White textured.  Lucky Limeade
• Ink:  White Craft.  Lucky Limeade (used to color the white baker's twine on the button)
• Dies:   Flowers MFT.    Embossed scallop - SU
• DSP:  Polka Dot DSP
• Sentiment stamp:  Inky Antics
• Accessories:  SU button and White Baker's Twine - colored using Lucky Limeade marker

Sent with Love for Case this Sketch

Hi Everyone.

Happy Tuesday.  Hope you are having a great week so far!

Another one of the challenges I created a card for this week is Cas(e)thissketch.   Here's the sketch.... sadly, I missed the deadline!!! I hadn't realized it closed today!  its a great sketch, anyway!

It's a cool sketch!   Some of you may remember me saying that I had attended one of Jennifer McGuire's onlinecardclasses called Pattern Play.   The class is all about using up your patterned DSP and combining them.   That's really something I have difficulty with, so am trying to take the team's advice and play with some patterned paper. :-)

When I looked at this sketch, I realized this was an opportunity to put playing with patterns into action.   I pulled out the Sent with Love DSP and paired the Pool Party with the Calypso Coral.  It's really such a gorgeous pairing for spring.   I paired it with the sentiment from the Sent with Love stamp set and some Calypso Coral baker's twine.

Here's what I came up with:

I used a gelly roller to add a little bling to the dots on the heart and sentiment.  I know it's a little difficult to see in the pic, but it really does add that little bit of something when you see it in real life.

I'm loving this spotted chevron embossing folder.  In fact, if I use it any more in the next week or so, I might need an intervention!

What I love about this particular card:

• That the chevron embossing folder echoes the chevron DSP behind the focal image
• That the dots on the chevron embossing folder echo the dots in the DSP at the bottom of the focal image, as well as the dots in the heart
• That the chevron in the embossing folder echoes the sentiment.
• That I got to utilize three different DSPs from the same set on the same card!
• Oh.. yeah.. and the color scheme!
• All the while, it's still clean and simple as it has lots of "white" space and very little in terms of embellishment

So, what do you think?   Why not pop along to the casethissketch site and check out the fabulous design team and submission cards, and play along, too!  I know I had fun with it.  I really love doing challenges as they do push me to do things that I wouldn't normally do.

On a personal note:

Still snow on the ground and it has been cool today.  The red shouldered blackbirds are still here and I love the shrill sound of their call as they come in to feed.  This weekend we will be cleaning out bird houses and putting out cat hair for the bird's to add to their nests.  With Norwegian Forest Cats, hair is in abundance and we might as well put it to good use, right?

I'll be back tomorrow with another card.  In the meantime, thank you for visiting and warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card ingredients - all Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted

• Card stock:  Pool Party, Whisper White
• Inks:  Midnight Muse, Real Red
• Stamps:  Sent with Love
• DSP: Sent with Love
• Accessories:  Calypso Coral Baker's Twine
• Tools:  Big Shot.  Embossing folder:  Cuttlebug (Charles)

Pleasant Poppies for Dynamic Duos

Hi Everyone.  Happy Monday.

There's a fabulous color challenge across at Dynamic Duos this week.   It's really springy and was just what I felt like using this weekend.  It also uses my favorite pink!

Ah, yes.  I am totally in love with Primrose Petals.  It's such a gorgeous pink.  In fact, I'm in love with all of the SU In-Colors from last year.  I'm hoping that some of them might stick around!

Of course, I felt I had to use Pleasant Poppies.   I opened up My Digital Studio and sized the Pleasant Poppies to the size that I wanted.   I then printed it out and ran it through my Big Shot and made it into a tag.   I then took out my Copic markers to color the flowers.  The stems were colored with a Lucky Limeade marker.  (Another one of my favorite colors!)

I then put glue on the flowers and dipped them into some really awesome chunky glitter.  I couldn't get a photo of how great the glitter looks, but hopefully you get the idea!  

I printed the sentiment from a PTI set and cut the sentiment into a banner.   I ran the card base through my Big Shot with another funky embossing folder I found!  I'm really into embossing folders at the moment. :-)  I adhered the tag to the card base using dimensionals and then adhered the sentiment.  All that was left was to adhere a button tied with Calypso Coral baker's twine.  Even though it's not the same color, it goes really well with the Primrose Petals!

Here's my card. 

Don't forget to pop along to Dynamic Duos and check out the fabulous design team inspiration cards.  Play along, too!

On a personal note:

Today felt freezing!   It was in the 50s this weekend and this morning was 22.  With wind chill it felt like 9!  Oh... I am sooooooo ready for spring.   Because I am so desperate for spring, I decided to check out the progress of the ruby throated hummingbirds.   I thought you might all want to check out where they are and ready your feeders for their arrival.  You can check out their progress at this website.  Don't forget to check out the other hints and tips on attracting and feeding the hummers!

Before I go.  A couple of you have asked what embossing folder I used in my Paper Players card this week.  You can see the card here.  It's made by Cuttlebug and is called "Charles".  It comes with the normal embossing folder and an edge one, too.   I love it!

As always, thank you for visiting my blog.   Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted.

• Card stock:  Primrose Petals, Whisper White
• Stamp:  Digital - Pleasant Poppies
• Inks:  Copic markers.   Stems:  Lucky Limeade
• Sentiment:  Spring Hills - PTI
• Accessories:  Button - Subtles.   Baker's twine:  Calypso Coral
• Tools:  Big Shot.  Tags die

Bird on a wire.....

Hi Everyone.  Happy Sunday.

I hope you are all having a wonderful Easter.

I did get some time to play in my stamping space today and went looking for some challenges to get my creative mojo going.

I popped along to CASonSundays and Casestudychallenge and found exactly what I was looking for.

CASonSunday's theme is THANK YOU and Casestudy is featuring the last card from the talented Julie Ebersole.   I am always in need of thank you cards, so the theme from CASonSunday was ideal.   With Julie's card, I was really drawn to the colors she had used.  I also loved the horizontal stamped piece which helped to ground the focal point.   I also loved that her focal image was clustered in the lower left corner.  So, I used these elements to create my card.

I've set myself a challenge to use up some of my old stuff.  You know, that stuff that we buy that gets put into a cupboard or on a shelf and is left alone, unused and unloved and gets jealous cos you use everything else instead?  Well, my SU bird punch had so many cobwebs and so much dust that I could hardly find it!   Well, not really, but you get my drift :-)  I honestly can't remember the last time I used this poor punch.  It was the ideal opportunity to get it out, dust it off, and give it a little love.

It's not exactly a bird on a wire, but it is a bird on a branch!  Here's my card for both challenges:

 

Here's what I did:

• I stamped the bottom part of the card base (Naturals White) with my woodgrain stamp using Sahara Sand ink
• I punched out the bird and the branch 3 times.   Once with Island Indigo DSP and twice with Lucky Limeade. 
• I took my card base and shaved off 1/4 of an inch on the vertical edge.  I did that so that I could get the leaf to extend beyond the card base and still fit comfortably into an envelope
• I adhered the leaves to the card base using the top of the woodgrain stamping as my guide.
• I used an old SU THANK YOU sentiment that I rubbed onto the card base.
• I then adhered the bird to the card base using dimensionals.  One more dimensional was used to adhere the wing to the bird
• All that was left was to use a dark blue pearl for the eye of the bird and add a couple of green ones to the leaves for added interest 

Can you see the inspiration from Julie's card?  I hope you can.

Don't forget to pop along to CASonSundays and also to casestudychallenge and check out the fabulous design team and submission cards.  Oh, and play along, too!

Well, I have definitely neglected my household chores this weekend.  It's 5.32 and I think I had better put my stamping stuff away and go do some housework!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend.  As always, thank you for visiting my little part of the stamping blogosphere.  Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.  Continued prayers for Nelson Mandela.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card ingredients - all SU:

• DSP:  Patterns Pack:  Island Indigo, Lucky Limeade
• Punch:  Bird
• Card stock:  Naturals White
• Stamps:   Woodgrain

Paper Players 139

Hi Everyone

It's my pleasure to host the Paper Players challenge this week and I have a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge.  Hopefully you will be able to find lots of options to play along with us this week.

I actually made three cards, simply because I couldn't quite make up my mind what to do!  So many choices!

For this card I went with the upper left and lower right combo:   Spring; a Tag; Pink and Green.

Once again, I looked to MDS for an image.  I wanted a floral image and found some fabulous flowers amongst the Green Tea digital stamp set.   I used the leaf image first, coloring it with two slightly different shades of green and got that ready to print.  Next, I chose the floral image and made 3 slightly different sizes of flower and got those ready to print.  I printed them out and colored the flowers with Copic markers.  I then fussy cut around them and dipped them in glitter.   I know it's a little hard to see how shiny it is, but it does look pretty in real life. 

Once I had the elements ready, I ran the leaf image through my Big Shot and my tag die.  I then mounted the colored and glittered flowers to the leaf tag base.   I knew that I wanted to put the tag on a DSP base, so went to my Patterns Pack and chose Pink Pirouette.  I rounded the corners and then ran the DSP through my big shot with the zigzag embossing folder.   I rounded all of the corners, to echo the corners of the tag and adhered the DSP to the Pretty in Pink base.  I had also rounded the corners of the card base, too.

Before I adhered the tag, I stuck a piece of very old polka dot ribbon through the hole in the die and stamped the sentiment.  Of course, it had to be a spring sentiment to fit the challenge!  Luckily, I had a set delivered recently from PTI that had a spring sentiment.

Once all of this was done, I was ready to adhere the tag to the base of the card.  Here's what I made

The design team took this challenge in so many different directions.  I really hope you will check out their fabulous inspiration cards.  Of course, I also hope that you will play along with us!

You can check out the design team cards on their blogs below and you can play along with us here.

On a personal note:

Spring is on her way.  Yes..... definitely... it got into the 50s today!  It was unbelievable.  It's getting back down into the 30s on Monday, but I will take these warmer temperatures for the next couple of days!

Lou treated me to a facial and a pedicure today.  It was wonderful.  Really wonderful!  I was so relaxed at the end of it that visiting with our accountant to do the taxes afterwards... well, it didn't feel too bad!

I hope you all have a blessed Easter and, for my Jewish followers, a Happy Passover.

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.  Prayers especially for the Madiba himself, Nelson Mandela.

Have a beautiful Sunday

Hugs

Jaydee

Pleasant Poppies

Hi Everyone.  Happy Friday and Happy Easter!

A very quick post for you tonight.   It's 7.30 and I haven't even fed the cats yet!

I didn't buy the Pleasant Poppies stamp.  Don't ask me why?  Maybe because it felt too big.  However, I was thrilled when I saw that it was a digital stamp with MDS.   Mmmmm... Now we are talking!

I decided to give it a try and paired it with the A Word For You stamp set - one of my favorite SU sentiment sets.  When I was looking for the color to pair it with, I found the perfect color in the new Sent with Love DSP.  Yep, Calypso Coral.  I haven't used this color much, but am really loving it since this DSP came out.  It's a much softer color than Poppy Parade; not quite as intense.

Here's what I came up with:

I know you can't see it, but I used a gold gelly roller to color in the middle of some of the poppies, so it gives it a little shine.  I then took a normal gelly roller and highlighted the areas that the artist had shaded.  The hatched areas.  It's really pretty in real life, as there is just a little bling, but not too much.

As the sentiment said "for you, from me", I thought it needed a little something to make it look as though the flowers were a bunch.  I tried carrying some baker's twine all the way across, but it looked odd.  So, I used my needle and thread, and some Calypso Coral Baker's twine, and "wrapped" just the middle bunch of flowers, instead.  I applied a little Crystal Effects to the bow to help in stay in place.

Well, that's all I have for you tonight!  I'll be back tomorrow with my Paper Players card and it's my turn to host the challenge tomorrow.

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up!

• Card stock:  Calypso Coral, Whisper White
• DSP: Sent with Love
• Embossing folder: polka dot
• Inks: Basic Black.  Wild Wasabi
• Stanp:   MDS digital stamp - Pleasant Poppies.   Sentiment:  A Word for you

Secret Garden for CAS(e) this sketch and Moxie Fab World

Hi Everyone.

Happy Monday.  The card I made today was for two challenges.  The sketch is from the talented team across at casethissketch and the technique is from the fabulous Cath at Moxie Fab World. 

Here are the challenges.  You can click on the jpegs and they will take you to the respective challenges.

I love this sketch and think it will become one of my go to favorites.

I was fascinated by the idea of an ombre card that wasn't the usual vertical or horizontal gradation.  I thought about how I could do something different and then noticed a brand new SU set sitting on my desk!  Ah. HA!  Lightbulb moment.   I decided to take the daffodil from the Secret Garden set and use that to create an ombre effect, but going from the inside to the outside.  This meant stamping the flower a couple of different times, as I wanted to create a little lift in the middle.  I think this not only gives it dimension, but also highlights the ombre.

Here's my card:

 

 

Here's what I did:

• When I was composing the card, I felt I needed to ground the sentiment and the flower, so I used an embossing folder to create a horizontal layer.  (The leaf motif of the embossing folder felt right with the focal image!) 
• I stamped the flower twice and colored them both with Copic markers.  Once I was happy with the colors I cut out the middle of the first flower ready to pop over the middle of the other flower. I fussy cut around the whole of the second flower and popped the first one on top. 
• I then stamped the stem onto Pear Pizzazz card stock and fussy cut around that.   I adhered the stem directly to the base of the card, but popped the flower to give more dimension.  
• I played with the placement of the flower, as I wanted to make sure that the sentiment was not obscured by a petal.  Once I had it right, I adhered the composed flower right on top of the stem.

I hope you will pop along to casethissketch and to moxie world and play along with these great challenges.

On a personal note:

Today was my last day of vacation.  I took a long weekend to relax and celebrate my birthday.  I also took time to do some spring cleaning.  We managed to sit outside on the front porch this afternoon. You could feel the warmth in the sun.  It was gorgeous.   It was really strange though..... we were sitting on the chairs soaking up the sun (our porch is a total suntrap) and looking out over 3 feet of snow!  It just felt strange!

First signs of spring arriving though..... the red-shouldered blackbird and the robins arrived in our garden yesterday!  It was wonderful to hear the cheerful call of the red-shouldered.  We haven't heard that since October and it's always a sure sign that spring is definitely on her way north!

As always, thank you to all of you for stopping by.  Your visits and comments really do mean a great deal.   I'll be back tomorrow with another card.  In the meantime, have a fabulous Tuesday and warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted.

• Card stock: 120# Gina K
• Stamps:  Secret Garden.   sentiment Inky Antics
• Ink:  Copic Markers
• Embossing Folder:   Lifestyle crafts

Feeling Sentimental for Paper Players and Casology

Hi Everyone.  Happy Saturday.

Firstly, thank you to all of you who left messages or sent me emails wishing me a happy birthday.  It really meant a great deal to me and I really appreciated it!  Lou and I had a great chef's tasting dinner at a restaurant down in Minneapolis and it was fabulous.  The rest of the day was spent relaxing and chilling. 

It's the fabulous Anne Marie's turn to host the Paper Players sketch this week and it's a great sketch!  However, when there is a sketch challenge, I find myself looking for a little inspiration and found exactly that at casology this week. 

 

As soon as I saw the theme across at casology, I knew exactly what to do for the Paper Players sketch challenge.

I opened up MDS and printed out the phone box image from Feeling Sentimental.  Sizing it to fit was a breeze.   I do love this set.  Being the age that I am, we grew up with these red phone boxes and often took shelter in them if we were out and about in a heavy rainstorm.  I remember how drafty they are and how they were always covered in graffiti and little cards advertising nefrarious services :-)  I remember picking up the old fashioned black handpiece and dropping my shilling into the slot.   So, this set is certainly appropriately named!

Once I had sized the focal image, I then typed up the sentiment and printed them both out.  My copic markers were used to color the phone box and I used a couple of different reds and a couple of different grays.  Once I was satisfied with the coloring, I took my paper snips and fussy cut around the phone box and it was ready to mount.

I didn't want to use a scallop edge along the vertical layer, so went into my crafting cupboard for a little inspiration.  Ah. Ha!  I found my simply scored edger.  Exactly what I needed!  In fact, I realized that I had never taken it out of the plastic.  Now that I have done so, however, I will be using it more often!    For this card, I used the zig zag edger on some Basic Gray card stock and then used my sanding block to give the zig zag a little more emphasis.  All that was left to do was to  sew the button to the sentiment layer and adhere the striped DSP and mount the focal element and sentiment.

Here's my finished card:

Now, you can't say that the gray pinstripe doesn't remind you of an Englishman's business suit.  Oh, yeah, and the gray reminds me of the weather, too! :-)

Can you recognize the song from the sentiment?   Call me. call me any, anytime.  Call me!  Yep, Blondie!  You are probably going to have that as an ear worm for the rest of the night.  I know it's been going around in my head all afternoon!

Don't forget to pop along to the Paper Players design team blogs and check out the fabulous inspiration cards.  Also, pop along to casology.  There are great design team and submission cards for your inspiration.

I'll be back on Sunday night with another card.  In the meantime, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  I really do appreciate your visits, and your comments.   I'm off to go cook creamy polenta and wine-wilted greens for dinner!  It's really yummy!

Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight. 

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Basic Gray, Basic Black, Whisper White
• DSP:  Patterns - Basic Gray
• Stamps:  MDS - Feeling sentimental.   Sentiment:  my own
• Accessories:   Designer Silver Basic Buttons.  Baker's Twine - non-SU
• Tools:  Simply Scored.  Sanding Block

 

Over Under Easy for Unscripted Sketches

Hi Everyone.  Happy Wednesday.

Today is my birthday and Lou and I are getting ready for a night on the town, so this will be a very quick post.

I'm also dedicating this card, that I made using the sketch from unscriptedsketches, to my dear friend Pammie.  Pammie has been my friend for over 50 years and surely deserves this fabulous sentiment!

Pammie, I cannot thank you enough for all you do, and for all you have done for me!  I love you, girlfriend!

Have a wonderful Thursday, everyone.  I will be back on Friday with another card.

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe.  All ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Summer Starfruit, Island Indigo, Whisper White
• DSP:  Vine Street
• Stamp:  Over Under Easy (Papertrey Ink)
• Tools:  Vine Embossing Folder.  Basic Rhinestones

out of this world for less is more

Hi Everyone.  Happy Tuesday.

Another quick post for you tonight.  It's already way past 7pm and I haven't finished work yet.  I broke to feed the pussycats, before they phoned the SPCA, and to do my blog post.

The challenge across at less is more this week is to FRAME IT!   I had this idea to create a card for a little boy with a cut out frame on the front and the "out of this world" set.  I really do think this is such a cute set for boys, and the addition of the cut out at the front, really adds something to it.

Here's my card:

You can tell I had such fun coloring these images.  I stamped them onto Whisper White card stock, colored them with Copic markers, and the fussy cut around them and mounted them to the inside of the card.  I stamped the stars and the moon with silver ink and went around the inside of the stars with a gel pen.  You can't see it, but they do twinkle - on the photo they are just showing up purple!  But, I promise you they aren't!

I decided to emboss the sentiment using white embossing powder and I really think it pops against the Night of Navy base.  The tip of the cone on the rocket also sparkles as I added some Cherry Cobbler dazzling details.

Don't forget to stop by less is more and check out the fabulous design team and submission cards.

I'll be back tomorrow with another card.   In the meantime, thanks for stopping by.  I really do appreciate your visits.

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Jaydee

Patio Party Hello for casestudy

Hi Everyone.

I have a quick card and post for you tonight.  I saw another fabulous inspiration card from the talented Julie Ebersole across at casestudy.  You can check out her card here. I really liked the use of the cutouts, the butterflies and the paint spatter effect.

I decided take all three of those elements into my card.  I pulled out my new hello die and paired it with the butterfly paper from the Patio Party DSP.  It was also a great excuse to pull out my markers and spray tool. Here's what I created.

There really are some great inspiration and submission cards to check out, so don't forget to pop along to the casestudy challenge site and check them out.

In the meantime, thought you might like a photo of what was visiting our garden late on Saturday.  The sun was setting and caught them in such a great light

I'll be back tomorrow with another card. In the meantime, warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe, all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted.

• Card stock:  Summer Starfruit, Whisper White
• Inks:  Pool Party, Primrose Petals, Summer Starfruit, Midnight Muse
• DSP:  Patio Party
• Tools:  hello die (PTI).   Beautiful wings embosslit

Sunshine & Sprinkles Butterflies for Paper Players and casestudy challenge

Hi Everyone.  Happy Saturday.

The fabulously talented Ann has a great sketch for us across at the Paper Players tonight.  My first card just didn't work as I could not get a decent photograph of it.  So, I scratched that idea and went looking for a little inspiration.

Whilst I was looking for that inspiration, I saw another fabulous inspiration card from Julie Ebersole across at casestudy.  Once I saw the butterflies on that card, I knew exactly what I needed to do for the sketch.

Here's the sketch

There is this gorgeous Melon Mambo DSP amongst the Sunshine and Sprinkles set.  It remind me of the splotches on Julie's card, so I decided to use that for my focal images. 

Finding just the right sentiment, which was just the right size, was a little more difficult.  However, I did find the perfect sentiment in an old PTI set I have.   All I needed was some white card stock, some basic pearls and I was ready to assemble my card.  There was only one thing that I needed to solve.... what to do with the horizontal element on the top of the card.   I tried ribbon.  I tried baker's twine.  I tried a piece of DSP.  All of them distracted too much from the focal elements, so I decided to bring out my scoring board and create three horizontal embossed lines instead.

Here's my full card:

I must say, I have been dying to use this DSP, but just couldn't find the right occasion.  I think it works really well for the butterflies!  It actually made me fall in love with Melon Mambo again!

We hope that you will join us this week and can't wait to see what you come up with.  I bet the casestudy team would be happy if you played along with them, too!

On a personal note:

No Archimedes today!  He's obviously gone walkabout!  We are hoping he comes back tomorrow.  

Even though we had two snow falls yesterday, and there is well over a foot of snow on the ground, we saw signs of spring on our drive around running errands this morning.   The weeping willows are starting to put forth their first buds.  Some of the creeks are losing their ice cover and there is running water.   On top of that the temps are supposed to get up to the 40s this coming week.  Yep... definitely..... signs of spring.  I am just going to ignore the fact that we are expecting another snow storm on Tuesday/Wednesday and concentrate on the signs of Spring instead :-)

As always, thank you for stopping by my neck of the stamping world.  Your visits and your comments are much appreciated.

Have a wonderful Sunday and warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe.  All ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted.

• Card stock:  Whisper White.  Melon Mambo
• DSP:  Sunshine and Sprinkles
• Ink:  Basic Gray
• Tools:  Butterfly Punch.  Basic Pearls
• Sentiment:  Mega Mixed Messages (PTI)

 

Woodland Folk

Hi Everyone.  Happy Friday.

Hope you have had a good week.  I cannot tell you how grateful I am that it is Friday! 

For those of you who want to know..... No sighting of Archimedes today, but he was here yesterday - and I have a pic for you.   As for our feline visitor.  Yes!  He came past last night and ate almost an entire bowl of food!    Colleen left a fabulous insight into how owls are viewed in mythology and history.  It was fascinating.  If you didn't catch it, you can read Colleen's comment on this post.  I also appreciated the kind words that she and Ann R said about me :-)

So, as I haven't gotten into my craft room since last weekend, I don't have a recent card to show you.  I had to go dig one up out of the set that I created for the Enchanted Makeover card drive.  Lou bought me a really cute stamp set from Woodland Folk when we were in the UK a couple of years ago.  The card drive was the perfect excuse to get it out.   I paired it with the SU Woodgrain background stamp and some retired SU DSP.

You can tell that I had fun coloring it.  I hope it brought  a smile to some little face!  I just love this image and sentiment.

Just in case you didn't believe the stories about owl's being able to turn their heads 180 degrees.  Check this out!

Yes, siree.  Something behind him was obviously very interesting!

I'll be back tomorrow with my Paper Players card.  In the meantime, have a fabulous Friday night and thank you for visiting.

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card ingredients:

• Stamp:  Woodland Folk.  Background stamp: Woodgrain (SU)
• Card stock:  Whisper White, Poppy Parade

You..... for retrosketches

Hi Everyone.  Happy Wednesday.

This is a very quick post, as I am running way late tonight!

I saw this fabulous sketch across at retrosketches

I decided to use a stamp set called All About You from PTI and knew that it was a great opportunity to use some of the fabulous SU Polka Dot Parade DSP.  I love this DSP because it has the large circles on one side and the small dots on the other.  Perfect for what I wanted to do. 

Of course, I had to do a third repetition of the "dot/circle" theme by adding a little pearl on the butterfly.

I punched out two butterflies using my SU butterfly punch (I love the shape of the butterflies from this punch... one of my all time favorites).  I punched one in Basic Black and the other with the Polka Dot Parade DSP.  I adhered the Basic Black butterfly with glue and then folded up the wings on the polka dot version.  I glued the middle part of the butterfly and glued that to the Basic Black butterfly.

Tip:  Want to keep those wings floating free from the card base when it goes through the post?  All I did was cut a stampin dimensional in half and placed the straight side of the one half right up against the "body" of the butterfly and pressed down the wing.  I then repeated the same action with the other wing.   This helps to give the wings "lift", even when they have gone through the post.

On a personal note:

So glad we are half way through the week.  I am so looking forward to the weekend!   For those of you that may be interested... Archi was in the garden again this morning.  Yay!

This photo was taken through the screen..... but I loved the ethereal feel of it, so thought I would share!

Have a fabulous Thursday and thank you for visiting!

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

I'll be back on Friday with another card.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Basic Black, Daffodil Delight
• Inks:  Basic Black
• Stamps:  All about you (PTI)
• Tools:  Butterfly Punch, Basic Pearls

You give me a reason to smile for SimplylessisMoore

Hi Everyone.  Happy Tuesday.

For those of you wanting to know the answer to the question, "have you seen Archimedes?"  the answer is YES!!!!  He's back!  He's been around all day and I managed to get a couple of shots of him for you, which I will share with you tomorrow.  However, no sighting of kitty.

Simplylessismoore has a CAS single layer card challenge, with a little twist.  Not only does the card have to be a single layer, but it has to feature spots and stripes.  Well, seeing as I had just received a new stamp set that has paint stripes, I thought it was the ideal time to bring it out.  I was also inspired to use a color challenge that I had seen on Nachoaveragechallenge.  Now, the challenge is over, but I loved the idea of the colors; Wild Wasabi, Certainly Celery and White.   So, I had a color scheme and a theme! 

Let me tell you, I LOVE Wild Wasabi and Certainly Celery together, they really are a match made in heaven.  I also realized that I am totally in love with the new SU ink pads!  I love the saturation of color you get with the Wild Wasabi, but also love the fact that the old ink pads leave texture on the Certainly Celery stripes!  So.... I obviously love them both for different reasons!

I embossed the sentiment with SU black embossing powder, added a couple of dots in Wild Wasabi and was ready to go.

Here's my card:

Isn't that color combo pretty?  I really like it.  Another good reason to do color challenges!

As always, thank you for spending time in my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  I know I say this every night, but I do appreciate your visits and your comments.

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight and prayers for the Cardinals who are currently in conclave trying to make a decision that will affect the lives of millions of Catholics around the world.

I'll be back tomorrow with another card and a photo of Archi.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe:

• Inks:  Stampin' Up!: Certainly Celery, Wild Wasabi.   Versamark
• Stamp: Wonderful Words: Hello - Papertrey Ink, Watercolor Wonder - Papertrey Ink

Happy Birthday for Seize the Birthday

Hi Everyone.

Happy Sunday.

I managed to get into my craft room twice this weekend and crafted just for the heck of it!  These days I seem to be in such a rush that I run into my craft room and make just the card I need for the Paper Players challenge and try to rush a couple of others in as well.  However, this weekend, I did my Paper Players card and sat and played... and I had such fun.

I decided to go check out some inspiration with challenges.  It's always a great way to restart my mojo.

I saw a fabulous sketch across at the fabulous Lesley's challenge site - Seize the Birthday.  Here's the great sketch:

I see this layout becoming a fall to layout for me!

Immediately I saw the sketch I knew that I wanted to pull out a die that I have had in my collection and never used.  The reason I never used it?  Because it is so fiddeley and I didn't know how I was going to get the thing stuck down, cos the stems of the flower are so minute!   However, on the onlinecardclass I did recently, I saw one of the instructors use a nifty little tool called a Sticker Maker.   Now, I may have been sleeping, but I had never seen one before.   I have one now... and it was perfect for this die cut!

Here's my card:

See what I mean?  I could never have applied that die cut to paper even with a glue pen.  With the sticker maker it was a breeze.  I ran the die through my Big Shot with Wild Wasabi card stock and a piece of Calypso Coral dsp from the Sent with Love set.   I used a piece of that same DSP for the vertical layer on the left hand side, too.

Well, you know the drill :-)  Pop along to seize the birthday and check out the fabulous design team and submission cards.  Lots of great inspiration for you there.

On a personal note:

No sighting of Archimedes today!  We think he must have been holed up for the day in another part of his range.  We hope he comes back tomorrow.

Today we bumped into our next door neighbors parents.  They were checking out the progress on their daughter's house.  Well, they are building two houses down from us and will be moving in a couple of months after our next door neighbors.  They are a fabulous couple and just as passionate about the wetland and nature as their daughter!  So, we now have three houses out of the 4 who are restoring their gardens, taking down the buckthorn, replacing with native planting and putting up bird houses and feeders!   It was really wonderful to hear that they were so excited.   As for us?  Well, anything that improves the lot for our wild friends is a good thing!

Oh... before I go.  I wanted to share a photo of a fabulous light fitting I found.   We liked the one in the stairwell going up to the bedroom level.  It was nice.   But, I saw this stunning one online and couldn't resist it.  It was really hard to get a photo of it with any sort of scale.  It's nearly two feet in diameter, but doesn't look that in the photo.

Here's a calose up of the detail.... It's awesome!

Now, I don't know about you... but that reminds me of the NY city skyline.   Or the Hong Kong skyline.  and... I LOVE IT!!!!

That's all for tonight!  Have a fabulous Monday and, as always, thank you for stopping by my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Your visits and your comments do mean a great deal to me.

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card ingredients - all SU unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Calypso Coral, Whisper White
• DSP:  Sent with Love
• Die:  My favorite things
• Sentiment:  Skipping Stones - Dandelion Wishes
• Inks:  Basic Black
• Accessories:  Calypso Coral Baker's Twine

PP134 - "out of this word" redoux

Hi Everyone.  Happy Friday.  I am really late tonight, so have a very quick post for you!

Some of you may remember that it is my turn to host the challenge across at Paper Players this week and that it was a sketch challenge.  You can see the sketch, and my original card, on this post

I did a different version of the sketch using an "out of this world" sentiment and some accompanying stars.

here's my card:

I think there are many people in our lives that qualify as being "out of this world" and I think this card is appropriate for either gender.  I love the Pool Party with the Basic Black and Whisper White, it is such a crisp, clean color scheme.

As always, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  I'll be back tomorrow with my Paper Players card.

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

hugs

jaydee

Silver anniversary for Cas-ual fridays

Hi Everyone. Happy Tuesday. There's a great challenge across at cas-ual fridays this week.

So, who didn't immediately think of the Lone Ranger and starting humming along :-)  I know I did.

Well, let me see.  A clean and simple card and an opportunity to use some silver glimmer paper.... that was a challenge I couldn't pass up.

Here's what I created

A silver wedding anniversary card.  I was really pleased with how it turned out.  I really love the white with the touch of black and the glimmer of the silver paper.

On a personal note:

Don't forget that I'm still looking for alternative sentiments for my emu stamp.  for details check out the post here.  There have already been some fabulous sentiment submissions, which proves that my fellow stampers are a creative lot.

More activity on the mansion next door.... boy... it's going to be a busy summer.  The one good thing about it, is that the family who are moving in are as passionate about wildlife as we are and are as nutty as we are about rescuing things.  They are also determined to improve the environment for the fauna and avifauna just like we are.  So, enormous house (that takes up almost the entire lot) aside... they should be great neigbors to have around.  They are also as excited about seeing their home go up as we were at this time last year.

No kitty last night.... I do hope he's OK.  Keep your fingers crossed for him.

As always, thank you for stopping by my little neck of the woods.  I really do appreciate your visits and your comments.   Rach, Lou said HI Rach!

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

 

Black and White + 1 for Cas-ual fridays

Hi Everyone.  Happy Wednesday.  Hope you are all having a great week.  Us?  Well, it's been close to -30 with windchill and we are prepping for the next storm, along with much of the rest of the country!

The challenge across at cas-ual fridays this week is to create a clean and simple card using black and white and 1 other color.

Well, I couldn't wait to take up that challenge.   I had purchased a super cool embossing folder this weekend.  I was in buying a copic marker and this embossing folder was at the checkout calling my name!  Honestly, I can avoid chocolate at the checkout counter, why can't I avoid an embossing folder? :-)

This challenge was a great excuse to use it.  So, here's much masculine, CAS card using black, white and a little bit of red!

I'm sorry the photo isn't so great.  I just couldn't get a decent, bright photo without losing the detail of the embossing folder, which seemed to defeat the object :-)

Don't forget to pop along to the cas-ualfridays blog and check out the design team and submission cards.  There's plenty to get your creative juices flowing!

I'll be back on Friday with another card and a little blog candy.  In the meantime, have a wonderful Thursday and thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  You know that your visits and your comments are greatly appreciated.  

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

 

Rainbow Crosswords for casethis

Hi Everyone. Happy Monday night.  Hope you all had a great start to the week.

I have a very quick card for you tonight.  Literally, it was incredibly quick to make.  I saw this fabulous sketch across at casethissketch and knew that it would be very adaptable.  I also knew immediately what I wanted to do with it.  I wanted to create a one-layer card with lots of interest.  I always find one layer cards difficult, but was inspired after attending the onelinecardclasses clean and simple 2 class.  One entire lesson was on one layer cards. Here's the sketch:

Recently, I've seen paint stroke/splash cards and decided I would try to recreate that kind of feel using my colored pencils.  (Another thing I was inspired to do on the class.... use my pencils!) I took out some water color paper, my water color pencils, my heat gun, embossing powder and my SU Cross My Heart set and got to work.

Here's what I created:

Of course, I HAD to do a ROYGBIV color scheme.  I turned the water color paper on it's side and just ran my pencils very quickly over the top of the paper.  Once I had all the colors down, I took my SU water brush and very lightly ran the brush over the top of the colors starting at the red and working down.  Once I had completed one swoop, I did not go over it again, as I wanted to make sure the colors stayed "clean" and didn't muddy into each other.  I've put a couple of tips for you on the bottom of this post.

I did two versions of the card.  One with a black embossed sentiment and this one.  I much prefered the white.  The black was too dark against the bright colors and I felt the white worked better with the white of the card stock.  All that was left, was to pull out a couple of sequins from my color scheme and and back the front layer onto an Elegant Eggplant base.  In all, this card took less than 15 minutes from conception to completion.  I will certainly use this technique again and will definitely use the sketch again.  For someone who is a bit of a control freak and likes everything in nice straight lines..... I mean....even angling a focal image is difficult for me :-)... you can imagine how strange it was for me to create a rainbow background that has no boundaries on two sides!   I know this isn't as random as it could have been, but this was out of the comfort box for me.  BUT... I love it!  I really like the way it turned out.

I'll be back on Wednesday with another card for you.  Another CAS card.  In the meantime, have a wonderful Tuesday and, as always, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

P.S.  Happy belated birthday to the wonderful, amazing, inspiring, Michael Jordan!

Card ingredients:

•  Card stock:  Water color paper (non SU).  Elegant Eggplant
• Stamp:  Cross my Heart
• Inks:  Watercolor pencils.
• Accessories:  Sequins
• Tools:  Waterbrush.  Crystal Effects (to adhere sequins)
• Card stock cut to A2 - top fold.  Watercolor layer 3-3/4" x 5

Tips:

• when watering over your colored areas apply very light pressure with a small amount of water.  If you press to hard to get the water flowing, the paper will become oversaturated and the colors will bleed too much
• start from the lightest color and move very quickly in upward and downward strokes towards the darkest color.  Do one sweep only to ensure the colors don't blend and become muddy

 

Sunshine & Sprinkles for retrosketches and more blog candy!

Hi Everyone. Happy Tuesday.

I have another card for you tonight.  I saw this great sketch across at retrosketches on Sunday and couldn't wait to play along.

It's a super cool sketch and I had this idea to incorporate my new Sunshine and Sprinkles DSP from SU.  Now, I would have paired it with the new SU Rain or Shine stamp set.  However, I already had a set from another vendor that I bought a little while ago!  So, I used that stamp instead and paired it with the new SU cloud embossing folder.

Here's what I did with the sketch:

I LOVE this DSP.  The colors are bright and cheerful.  Lots of dots and stripes and umbrellas and clouds... Fabulous.  I used a die cut, that comes with the stamp set, to create the umbrella and mounted it on stampin' dimensionals.  I also raised the sentiment with dimensionals.  I was really happy with the card.  I think the bright cheerful colors are perfect for a get well card.

You really should check out the great inspiration cards at retro - and I know they would appreciate it if you were tempted to play along.

On a personal note:

Still celebrating my 1000th post this week and I am doing another spot blog candy give away.  Don't forget, all comments left over my posts this week will be eligible for the big blog candy.  You can see the deets in this post.  To add to the fun I will be running spot blog candy opportunities.  Last night you had the opportunity to win Botanical Gazette DSP.   Tonight you have an opportunity to win a Stampin' Up! card holder.  It's really cute.

So, what do you have to do to win this little beauty?   How about another totally random question.  Last night it was the color you are most likely to find in my clothes closet.   How about tonight we guess how many pairs of shoes I own.  Now... Im no Imelda Marcos, but I sure like my shoes!!!   So, I'm taking guesses.  Leave me a message stating how many pairs of shoes I own.  If no-one is spot on, I will take an answer to the nearest 5.  So, you know I own more than 5:-)

And... to add to the fun.  I'll hand out another one of these little beauties to the first person who can guess my favorite shoe designer.   I'll give you clues..... he's European and his shoes are fabulous.  Even though I've been wearing his shoes for over two decades, he was made famous in the HBO series Sex and the City.

So, two lots of the card holders up for grabs tonight.   I'll leve this blog candy question open until Thursday night and announce the winners on Friday.

I hope you will join me in this little bit of fun to celebrate my 1,000th post.  It's my way of saying thank you :-)

Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.  Have a fabulous Wednesday.

Hugs

Jaydee    

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Indigo Island, Very Vanilla
• DSP:  Sunshine and Sprinkles
• Stamp:  Umbrella - Dienamics (My Favorite Things)
• Inks:  Island Indigo
• Accessories:  rhinestone
• Tools:  Big Shot, Cloud Die

Cross my Heart for splitcoast and celebrations continue with a little spot blog candy

Hi Everyone.  Happy Monday.  I hope you all had a great start to the week.

Firstly, thank you to all of you who sent emails or left messages on my blog congratulating me on my 1,000 posts.  I really did enjoy reading all of them.  I will be responding to all of you in the next day or so.

Celebrations continue and the blog candy that was listed on this post is up for grabs for all comments left through this coming Saturday on any post this week.

In the meantime, how about a little bit of fun -before I share my card with you tonight? How about a blog candy gift of some Stampin' Up Botanical Gazette DSP?  It's fabulous DSP!  Here's a quick reminder of what it looks like.

What do you have to do to win this spot blog candy?   How about answering a question.  Something totally random!  Yeah...

Question for tonight:  What is the predominant color of clothing in my wardrobe?  So, if you were to take a peek inside the fabulous new closets my darling hubby installed for us, what color would you see the most of amongst my clothes?

I will pick a winner, using random generator, for those of you who choose the correct color.

Leave a message on this post with your answer, or send me an email and I'll choose a winner on Wednesday.  So that gives you a couple of days to play along.

Now.. I guess you'd like to see a card, right?  This one is for Kathleen!

I've been dying to try the chalkboard technique that you see everywhere these days.  However, I've been trying to work out how I can accomplish that look and yet keep it CAS.  Well, this weekend I finally hit on a way to do it - and find another way to use the Cross My Heart stamp!  I saw that splitcoaststampers had a technique challenge a few weeks ago, so I missed the challenge, but at least it inspired me to try it. :-)

I actually made this card with two different backgrounds - one using the SU Woodgrain stamp and this one, using the Sizzix brick wall stamp.  Both of them work really well as cards, except this one worked much better as a chalkboard card.  You can tell I had some fun with this one!

I really wanted it to look like street art (isn't that what we call graffiti these days)?  So, I ran the card stock through my Big Shot with the embossing folder.  I used a diffuser to make sure that I kept the oval part that would house my greeting free of any brick embossing.  

I then rubbed my embossing buddy lightly over the brick embossed area - and the area for the sentiment.  I stamped it with Versamark and heat set the white embossing powder.

To create a more "chalky" effect, I ran the embossing buddy over the sentiment area again, and shadowed the sentiment with a white pencil.  I love that the embossing buddy powder left gave an uneven coating on the card and that some of the raised areas collected more than others.  I think this really adds to the chalkboard effect

The heart was created using Cherry Cobbler sparkling details.

There you have it.  A CAS card using the chalkboard technique.  Cool, huh?

Before I sign off, I thought I would share some pictures from our storm yesterday.  Now, those of you on the East Coast probably don't want to see them considering you have so much of your own!!! but I know that there are some of you who might appreciate it.  I know Jeanne will appreciate them!

We have a flock of about 30 pigeons that have taken up residence in our woods.  I really felt sorry for them when I took this photo yesterday!

As always, thank you for spending a little part of your day in my neck of the woods!  Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

p.s. don't forget the blog candy!

 

 

Cross my Heart for CAS(E) this sketch, blog candy alert and a celebration!

Hi Everyone.  Happy Sunday.

Before I get to the card for tonight, I'd like to tell you a little story!

999 blog posts ago I started to blog as I needed a place to load my challenge cards and I thought it would be easier to blog than try to wend my way through sites where you can share photos.  

999 blog posts ago, I never thought that I would still be blogging. 

999 blog posts ago, I would never have thought that I would get to know some amazing people along the way.  Many of you have been with me since the very early days.  Some of you are new.  All of you that have left comments or sent emails have helped shape this blog, my posts and my cards.

Doing challenges was something I undertook as a way to expand my newly acquired card making wings.  I still love doing challenges, but so rarely get the time.  My love of challenges also introduced me to the very talented Lesley and that led to an invitation to join the Paper Players.  A design team that I am so proud to be a part of.

My blog has become a way for me to share my creative journey with my followers; to occasionally honor those people who have been so important in my life; to occasionally celebrate events in history and to share stories and photographs of the fauna and avifauna that share our little piece of paradise. 

It has also been a place where some of my fabulous readers have helped to create over 6,000 cards for charities like Operation Write Home and Enchanted Makeovers.  That's pretty awesome for a little blog that started to showcase challenge cards!  Those of you who helped create some amazing cards for the charity card drives made the time it takes to compose these 999 blog posts worthwhile!

To help me celebrate this.... MY ONE THOUSANDTH POST..... yes, that is 1,000 posts!  I have a few goodies to give away.  More about that, after I have shared my card with you!

As my blog started as a place to showcase my cards for challenges, all my cards this week are ones that I made for challenges!   I begin the week with a great sketch from Casethissketch.  Here's the sketch

If you love clean and simple cards, you are going to love this (new to me) challenge site.  You really need to check out the fabulous design team cards.

I decided to go with a valentine's theme and the new SU Cross my Heart set.

Card recipe - all ingredients SU unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Whisper White, Basic Black, Red Glimmer Paper
• Stamps:  Cross my Heart
• Tools:  Big Shot, Vintage Hearts (Sizzix).  Heart embossing folder (Sizzix).  Itty Bitty Punch (small heart)

SO...... now that you have the card for tonight.  How about a little blog candy to celebrate my ONE THOUSANDTH post?

I have some great goodies to give away.   I will be posting challenge cards every night this week and all comments left on any of the posts starting tonight and ending next Saturday will be eligible for the blog candy.   There are some fabulous goodies up for grabs.  All you have to do is leave a comment!

So, what's on offer?

A brand new Edgelits set from SU - Adorning Accents

A brand new set of Sizzix Large Labels

A fabulous Stampin' Up! mouse pad:

A Stampin' Up! scrunchy, fold-up, rubbish bin.  Perfect for placing on your desk whilst crafting:

A box of fabulous Mica Flakes:

A box of Spice Cake designer fabric:

All you have to do to be in the running to win one of these great blog candy prizes, courtesy of MOI, is to leave a comment on any post from tonight through to next Saturday.

Thank you to all of you for your support over the last 999 posts!  I really do appreciate all of your visits and all of your comments and emails.   Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

P.S.  Don't forget to leave a comment!

Papillon Potpourri - Paper Players #132

Hi Everyone.  How about we start off with a little aliteration this evening :-)  It certainly hadn't been my intention when I started the heading for my post tonight.....

It's the fabulously talented Ann's turn to be our hostess this week and she has a fabulous bright and cheerful challenge for us all.

Now these are fabulous colors, but not ones I don't generally put together.  Which is why I love it when my design team mates choose colors out of my comfort zone.   Initially I had created a card which was all vanilla with hints of the three colors.   This afternoon I decided I needed to EMBRACE the colors, so created a different card.   I'll show you the other one later in the week!

I decided to pull out a couple of goodies that I had purchased from the spring mini and sale-a-bration catalogs.   I LOVE... REALLY love the new vine embossing folder.  The fact that it was free with my order was a great bonus!

I pulled out my Papillon Potpourri stamp set, some pearls and my So Happy For You sentiment set and got to work.

Here's my second card:

Originally I had three butterflies, but...... three butterflies and a sentiment just don't work.  All my regulars know that I like elements in odd numbers and the three butterflies with the sentiment made it an even 4.  It really looked decidedly ODD.  So, I removed one of the butterflies and stamped the sentiment  in its place.  That looked so much better.

I stamped the butterflies in Midnight Muse.  That helped pull the blue from the base of the card to the front of the card.   I know you can't see it, but I gelly rolled the elements on the two butterflies and they look pretty on the actual card.  I added some pearls and was ready to assemble my card.

I popped the butterflies from the oval hexagon layer with some dimensionals.  I cut a dimensional in half and put the straight edge against the middle of the butterfly.  This helps to lift the wings of the butterfly and they should stay that way even when the card goes through the post.

Now.. the pearls look a really minty green, but they aren't they are almost the color of the Summer Starfruit.  However, my camera and software really do treat the saturation of the card stock and the elements very differently.

The design team have an amazing array of fabulous confections for your inspiration this week.  We hope you will play along with us. 

The Paper Players Design Team

Ann Schach
Anne Marie Hile
LeAnne Pugliese
Nance Leedy
Amy O'Neill
Brian King
Jen Nelson
Justin Krieger
Sandy Mathis

On a personal note:

I apologize to my regular readers for not posting since Monday.  It has been a very long and very stressful week at work - up to 16 hour days - and I just didn't have the energy to post anything on my blog.  Yesterday I was called by my manager at 7pm because he needed something last night to send to executive management.   So, the week didn't end early for me either!  However, it is past now and I am in the middle of the weekend and looking forward to a relaxing day tomorrow crafting whilst watching the snow fall!

I hope all my readers on the East Coast are warm and cozy and not without power.  I just CANNOT imagine 40 inches of snow.... 40 inches..... It's just astonishing and scary!   We are expecting 4-8 and then this storm that passes through us this weekend will head to the east.   So, more snow for them. 

I have a huge blog milestone coming up tomorrow and have some fun and blog candy coming up this week.  I do hope you will join me tomorrow to help me celebrate and play along with the fun. :-)

Now, I am off to make dinner.  Lou?  Well, he's taping the downstairs bathroom ready for paint!  Yep... mmmmm..... more paint!!!!!

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Midnight Muse, Primrose Petals, Summer Starfruit
• Stamps:  Papillon Potpourri.  So Happy for You (sentiment)
• Embossing Folders:  Vine.  Hexagon.
• Inks:  Midnight Muse

You're my sunshine, my only sunshine

Hi Everyone.  Happy Wednesday.  Sorry about the ear worm :-)  I know that song is going to be going around in your head for the rest of the day :-)

I have a very quick post for you tonight, as I am not finished work yet and have several things to get done before I can call it a night.

Sometimes, you really need a quick and easy, single-layer card.  I saw this sentiment in one of my MDS downloads and knew that I wanted to make a bright and cheerful card.    I opened up My Digital Studio and used the image and sentiment from two different MDS sets, sizing both of them to fit my needs.   I colored the sun  in yellow and the sentiment ina bold black.  I printed it out, trimmed it to 5 1/4 x 4 and mounted it onto a Daffodil Delight base.  Voila.  A quick, easy, very cheerful card and guaranteed not to require extra postage!

As always, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Have a wonderful Thursday.

Hugs

jaydee

Love Potion for Paper Players Challenge #130

Hi Everyone. Happy Saturday. The very talented LeAnne is our Paper Players hostess with the mostest this week and she has a great sketch for us.  It's a super versatile sketch, as is evident from the fabulous inspiration cards from the design team.

Here's the sketch:

Now, I decided to turn it on the vertical and, instead of a piece of DSP, I got out one of my new embossing folders and embossed the outer portion of the base cardstock.  That gave me my patterned element on the left hand side.

Then, as LeAnne told us we could use ANY shape as the central element, I decided to go with a vertical banner.

Now... once my card was finished, I decided that I would add a horizontal layer in the form of a sentiment instead of the ribbon.   However, if I had been in possession of some suitably colored baker's twine, I would have used that on both sides of the sentiment.  But, as I only have Cherry Cobbler or Early Espresso, I knew I couldn't use either of those!  I did change up the embossing folders though.  I used the houndstooth embossing folder on a piece of Island Indigo card stock and placed that behind the sentiment.

I normally do a full SU card for my Paper Players cards, but not tonight.  I get so little time to stamp these days, that I have made a resolution to make at least two cards every time I have a stamp set out.  I had a PTI set called Love Potion that I used on this card and, as it was open on my craft table, I decided to make my challenge card from the same set.

Here's my card:

I really wanted to do something that was not the traditional red, back and white "love" card - as much as I LOVE that color scheme... I really wanted to push myself to come up with something different as my base color.   Island Indigo was my choice!  I think the card is perfect for Valentine's, anniversary - or just because.  I really had fun stamping the single image multiple times.  I then colored the "potion" bottles with copic markers and covered the entire image with sticky vellum paper to tone down the harshness of the black.  

Now, it's over to you.  We would really love you to play along with us this week.   Before you play though, check out the inspiration from the design team.

Ann Schach

Anne Marie Hile

Jaydee

LeAnne Pugliese

Nance Leedy

Amy O'Neill

Brian King

Jen Nelson

Justin Krieger

Sandy Mathis

As always, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.

hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Island Indigo, Whisper White, Pool Party
• Stamp:  Love Potion (PTI)
• Tools:  Big Shot, Chevron embossing folder.  Houndstooth embossing folder (behind the sentiment)
• Inks:  Copic markers

Sweet Baby

Hi Everyone.  Happy Thursday.

Anne Marie recently challenged us to use the colors Pacific Point, Daffodil Delight and Basic Gray on a card for the Paper Players.   You can see my original card on this post.  As it is a color scheme completely out of my comfort zone, I decided to challenge myself to use it for two other cards.  This was one of them.

Now, when I tell people I used My Digital Studio on a card, many give me that kind of eye roll that says.... cheat :-)  Well, let me tell you, MDS is a really versatile tool and has become a staple in my crafting.  This card should show you how easy it is to incorporate MDS into a card that doesn't look anything like the flat, one layer, non-textured, card you are expecting!

I opened up MDS and printed out the focal image.  I used the coloring tool to get very precise colors on specific parts of the image.   I sized it to exactly the size I needed and then printed it out.  Once it was printed, I fussy cut around the image and I was ready to build my card.

I pulled out a couple of embossing folders - Chevron and Clouds.  Ran them through my Big Shot.  Ran the Cloud embossed Whisper White card stock through my Big Shot and the Tag die. Stamped the sentiment and cut around it.  I then spent about 15 minutes getting the pieces of my card just the way that I wanted them.

Here's what I came up with..... oh... and I cheated on the color just a little, as I used some of SU's fabulous Polka Dot DSP!

Here's my assembled card:

So, what do you think?  Does it look like what you imagine an "MDS" image card to look like?  Have I convinced any of you try try MDS yet? :-)

On a personal note:

It's still bitterly cold here.  In the minus late teens with windchills around the minus mid-30s.  This cold spell has lasted considerably longer than they first anticipated.   All I can tell you is that it is due to get up to the plus 30s this weekend!   I swear, it's going to feel like summer!

I had to laugh at Rach's comment on the post last night. She made reference to the fact that it was obvious Lou and I didn't have children because of the color of our couch..... Yep, it's been a decade or so since we had to worry about sticky fingers and children crawling over couches!  Actually, I think couch would have proved really popular at the teenage girl sleepover parties that occurred regularly at our house a decade ago .  the girls always used to fight for our couches because they thought THEY were comfortable.  Well, they were... but this one is bigger and even more comfortable.  Mmmm....  Which is worse... a roomful of children - or a roomful of teenage girls?

As always, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.   Warm hugs and prayers for those that need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

 

Timeless

Hi Everyone.  Happy Wednesday.

I have a quick card and post for you tonight.  I was so inspired by the cas-ual fridays challenge to create a "long and short" card, that I created another card.  This time, I used an image from my MDS stamps called "timeless".  You can see more from the "timeless" set at this link.  There was one image in particular that was just perfect for a long and short card.

I worked in MDS to size it and then printed it, along with the sentiment, onto Whisper White card stock.  I decided that it really needed some color, so took out my Copics and added some :-)

I looked through my DSP stash and decided that a nice stripe would be perfect, so put that onto a Basic Gray base.   I adhered the sentiment and then popped up the focal image with some dimensionals.  It needed just a little something else, so I added some metallic dots.

Here's my masculine card:

It's a really cool digital stamp set.  If you have MDS - or other photo editing tool - you really should check it out.  The type face for the sentiment just feels so right for the age of the car, too.

On a personal note:

It continues to be very cold here.   -17 air temp, with wind chills down in the mid -30s.  Too cold to do much outside, so we have hunkered down and enjoyed the warmth of our new home.   It is wonderful though to be able to look out of the windows and see the snow on the wetland.   In fact, I thought I would share a photo of a part of that view with you tonight.  I took this photo over the December break.   It's also a great shot of the fabulous birds that I purchased.  Some of you may remember seeing them on an earlier blog post.  They really are fabulous!   I also purchased two red and gold Angels that I am completely in love with.  They were to go with the winter curtains that we had hung.   I love the rich deep red of these curtains for winter.   We will change them back out in Spring for the normal curtains.

Oh, I realized that it's the first time you get a shot of our couch, too..... The one that we had so much trouble with.  My regular blog readers will remember that we had to wait  6 months to get a couch.  (a short recap for those of you who don't remember: the one we originally chose arrived after 4 months and it was completely the wrong color, wrong size - they really messed up the order.  We tried to order a replacement of the same couch, but it wouldnt have arrived for another 4 months.  We couldn't wait that long because Pam and John were arriving and we were sitting on camp chairs!   We ordered what we could get in stock.  It shipped but got lost in a warehouse somewhere.  6 weeks later they shipped this one.  It wasn't the one we wanted.  It wasn't the shape we wanted.  It wasn't the color we wanted.  It was much larger than we wanted... but they promised they could get it here before Pam and John arrived!!!!) 

Anyway, it arrived.  It's incredibly deep and cushy and feels like grandma's feather bed.  But, I've grown to absolutely love the color.  It's almost 10 foot long, so it really makes its presence felt and comfortably seats 5 people.   It really was the perfect color, in retrospect, to place in front of the window!   As for the view... I wish you could get a sense of perspective, but it's impossible to capture how deep the view is on camera.  But it is so serene and we love to sit on the couch and just look out over the wetland.

As always, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Basic Gray, Whisper White
• Stamps:  MDS digital stamp:  Timeless
• Inks:  Copic
• DSP:  Patterns Pack, Sahara Sand

Love Potion for Cas-ual Fridays

Hi Everyone.  Happy Monday.  I hope you had a great weekend.  We certainly did!

I managed to get a couple of challenge cards done this weekend.  I saw this great challenge across at cas-ual fridays and couldn't wait to play along. 

It's so rare that I actually make anything other than an A2 card, that it was wonderful to take on a challenge that forced me to get out of that rut.  I had so much fun playing with a different size of card, that I made two different cards!

I really wanted to keep it clean and simple.  For me though, it often turns out that CAS cards are anything but simple!  It's so hard to hide any tiny little mistake with a CAS card.  It's also important that the elements are sized correctly.  Consequently, I often end up playing around much more trying to get it right!   This particular card has very few elements.   A very simple color scheme:  black, vanilla, cherry cobbler.   It also contains only a single sentiment.  In order to make it pop, I had to play around with horizontal lines and color.   Here's what I came up with:

It was hard to get a great photo of the card - especially as my camera battery ran out just as I was taking this shot!  So, once my camera battery is recharged I will take another pic and load it.

I used a set from PTI called Love Potion.  Want to keep it SU only? You could do something very similar with the sentiment from a set available in the new mini - the Cross My Heart stamp set.  Here's the link to that set, so that you can see what I mean.  The I love you stamp would be a perfect substitute for the one I used on this card.

The CAS-ual fridays team have some fabulous inspiration cards that you really should check out - oh, and don't forget to play along, too!

Now, I promised to provide you with the details for my Paper Players card.  I've updated this post with the details of the elements I used on the card.  Pam - you asked me what DSP I had used.  It's the Nursery Nest DSP from SU.

On a personal note:

Wanted to leave you with a photo that I took a couple of days ago at our feeder.

The pileated's still give me a thrill everytime they come into the feeder.  They are just amazing.   Oh, we also saw Mr Fox today.  I was really happy to see him as we hadn't seen him in the garden for a couple of weeks and, on a day like today - when it got down to -40, I am always pleased to see the animals and know that they are OK.

Keep warm everyone.   Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

 

 

Fantabulous You for Casual Fridays

Hi Everyone.  Happy Wednesday.

Well, I finally got into my crafting space to make a couple of cards this weekend.  Yes, siree, that seems to be a very rare thing these days!

I saw this challenge across at cas-ual fridays and couldn't wait to play along

I immediately knew which circular element I wanted to use as my focal point - Fantabulous You!   I mixed it with some Pool Party and Midnight Muse cardstock.  I colored the image using both Pool Party and Midnight muse in the pattern that would not be unknown to those who play cricket :-)

I used a PTI embossing plate to create a little texture on the Pool Party layer (sorry it's so hard to see).  I then used Midnight Muse ink to stamp the lines using a PTI stripes set.  I stamped the stripes 5 times and then punched out the focal image.  I popped that over the stripes using dimensionals.  All that was needed was a couple of pearls to finish off the circular theme.

Here's what I came up with:

I was pleased it with and was made for my darling hubby.  The reason he is so awesome is this..... these are the shelving units he spent 4 days installing in our WIC and you can see the massive amount of shoe storage he put in for me!!!!!!  That alone makes him awesome.  A man that totally understands my obsession with beautiful shoes.  And no, that isn't all of them.  I hadn't finished moving them in when I took the photos! :-)   The fact that the rest of the WIC looks fabulous due to his really hard work... well, I truly think he is awesome!

Here are some shots of the WIC for you

Yep.... Charlie decided it was a good place to check out the view!    But don't the units look fabulous?  Everything fits into our WIC now, great shelving, great drawers, my shoe storage, handbag storage and I love that he painted the walls the toasted marshmallow before he put up the units.   He really did work so hard and I really think it paid off!

As always, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.   Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

 

 

Little Additions - Paper Players #128

Hi Everyone.  Happy Saturday night.

The fabulous Anne Marie has a great color challenge for us this week

Color challenges are always the hardest challenges for me, as I really am stuck in my old ways with colors.  I don't tend to lean towards brights or pastels.  I'm really a neutrals or gem color person!   So, Daffodil Delight and Pacific Point werea real challenge for me.   However, I had the perfect excuse to use them as we needed a baby boy card.

I realized that I didn't have a baby set anymore!   I donated Baby Bundle to charity when we moved.  Mmmm.... so, you can guess what I had to do, right?   I went rushing off and opened up MDS2+ and, lo and behold, Little Additions is part of the download!   Yay! 

I used Daffodil Delight sparingly and Pacific Point and Basic Gray go beautifully together.  Once you see the design team cards you will realize what a great combo Anne Marie put together for us!

Here's my card for little Hunter.  Yep, his name is Hunter!

 

I placed the elements to create a clean and simple baby space and colored them using the coloring tool within MDS.  I then printed out the composed vignette, but printed the baby crib twice.   I fussy cut around the second baby crib and popped it over the printed one.  I really wanted it to pop a little from the page.    I printed out the sentiment and layered it over a Pacific Point layer.  I used a Gelly Roll pen to give some glimmer and sheen to the little dots on the light shade and on the mobile.  A silver metallic dot helped to anchor the mobile.

The color really is Pacific Point, but I've noticed that my camera picks up ink colors differently to the colors of the card stock as they are not as saturated.

I couldn't wait to use the new Silver Buttons from the spring mini.  LOVE THEM!  It was just what I needed to help carry the metallic theme.  I really think the card is masculine without being overly masculine and I know it has a button on it... but I think Hunter is a little too young to object!  Also, because it is silver and metal, I think it's perfectly OK for a guy card!

Here's the inside - sorry about the distorted view :-)

Now, don't forget to check out what the talented design team have for you.

Ann Schach
Anne Marie Hile
 Jaydee
LeAnne Pugliese
Nance Leedy
Amy O'Neill
Brian King
Jen Nelson
Justin Krieger
Sandy Mathis

As always, thank you for stopping by my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

 

Seasonal Sayings for Paper Players 127

Hi Everyone.  Happy Saturday.  Hope your weekend got off to a great start!

This week is the first week of 2013 challenges at the Paper Players and it's also the first week that our new guest designers will be joining us.  Big welcome to Amy, Brian, Jen, Justin & Sandy. 

My regular blog readers will know that my poor hubby has been such a trooper getting things done around the house - not least of which was doing so much repainting!  He's also worked really hard getting things ready for the arrival of our friends in October.  Over the Christmas vacation he's hung paintings, painted and outfitted our master walk in closet with fitted cabinets.  It looks amazing by the way!

I wanted a way to say thank you - and this week's challenge was the perfect excuse to make him a card!

I knew that I wanted to make something clean and simple because that's the way Lou likes his cards!  I also knew that I couldn't add ribbon and bows..... so decided to add just a little bit of glimmer instead!

I opened up my updated MDS - I recently upgraded to MDS2+ and got to work.   I found a great set - Seasonal Sayings - and one of the sentiments was perfect.  

I sized it to fit the card, got out my itty bitty heart punch, some red glimmer paper, a dimensional - and I was ready to make my card.

I love (if you will excuse the pun!) that you can size it to fit any card; you can glam it up or keep it simple - and, the great thing is, you can color it to suit your needs.  For me, I went with Basic Black and then colored the "you" with Cherry Cobbler.  Lou loved the card!

Now, you need to check out what the rest of the design team have made for your inspiration.  There is everything from clean and simple to graphic to vintage! 

Ann Schach
Anne Marie Hile
 Jaydee
LeAnne Pugliese
Nance Leedy
Amy O'Neill
Brian King
Jen Nelson
Justin Krieger
Sandy Mathis

As always, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.   Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Have a wonderful Sunday.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe:

• Card stock:  Whisper White
• Stamps:  Digital - Seasonal Sayings
• Inks:  Basic Black, Cherry Cobbler
• Specialty Paper:  Red Glimmer Paper
• Tools:   MDS2, Itty Bitty Punch, Stampin' Dimensional

Here's what else you find in the Seasonal Sayings digital download

Peace on Earth

Hi Everyone.  Happy Wednesday night.

Some of you have written asking me to show you where I get inspiration for cards.   Well, tonight, I found the perfect post to share that inspiration with you.

The other night, I noticed that the sky was turning pink in our cul de sac.  I went outside to take a look - and this is what I saw

The colors intensified....

Isn't that amazing?   No touched up colors - absolutely as I took it.  I waited a few minutes longer and the sky changed to this

It even made the snow pink and blue!  it was amazing.   Then I remembered a card that we had created on Jennifer McGuire's Holiday Card Workshop and knew that I absolutely had to replicate that card.  I changed up the sentiment, but otherwise, it's pretty much as it was shown to us on this fabulous class.

Easy to see the inspiration, right?  If you had looked at the card you would think that this is surely not a winter color card... yet the stunning sunset the other night, with the snow on the ground, proved to me that it was :-)

If you haven't tried one of Jennifer's classes, you really should.  The cards are generally clean and fabulous and the team is wonderful at sharing tips and techniques.  I'll have a couple more cards that I made from the workshop to share with you over the next week.

On a personal note:

Today is supposed to be my last work day, but I will be working tomorrow morning.  After that, I have two weeks off to spend time with my hubby.  We need the time together as Lou has travelled just about every week this year and returned on Friday last week from nearly 3 weeks in Asia.  So, some down time is needed.   I'll also be finishing decorating the house tomorrow.

As I know many of you are, I still continue to be affected by the shootings last Friday and my thoughts and prayers continue to go out to the families who have been affected.  Thoughts and prayers, too, for those of you who need a little lift tonight.

ETA:  When I visited Rach's blog last night, I noticed that she had a post which highlighted a small thing that we could all do if we wanted to do something to help in the Newtown shootings.  I will certainly be supporting it - you can check Rach's post here.

Have a blessed Thursday.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe:

• Card stock:  Gina K
• Die:  Country Landscape
• Inks:  Worn Lipstick and Concord - Tim Holtz
• Accessories:  Dazzling Details
• Sentiment:  Papertrey Ink

 

Snow Flurry for Paper Players #126

Hi Everyone.  Happy Saturday.

It's the fabulous Ann's turn to host the Paper Players challenge this week and it's a CAS theme challenge.  Right up my alley!

I decided to feature snowflakes in two ways:  pull out my Snow Flurry Bigz Die and a Sizzix snowflake embossing folder.

Of course, I had to use my silver glimmer paper and some silver metallic card stock.  In case that wasn't quite enough bling, I added a glimmer brad for good measure!

Here's my card:

We hope that you will join us and share your CAS card featuring snowflakes! 

This is the last week for our fabulous guest design team.  I'd like to say a huge thank you to Amy, Helen, Dawn and Jen who have shared their amazing talent with you for the last 6 months.  Please stop by their blogs and leave them a little love on their last card as part of the Paper Players design team. Here's what the design team created for your inspiration.

 

Jen Arkfeld
Dawn Easton
Helen Heil

Nance Leedy

Anne Marie Hile

LeAnne Pugliese

Ann Schach

Amy White

Buzbee watch....

So, what was that silly elf up to last night?  Well, he decided to hang out on the mantle and pretend to be a candle!

On a personal note:

My thoughts and prayers are still with those families affected by the terrible tragedy yesterday.  Violence against children is incomprehensible.  It breaks my heart.

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.  I hope you have a wonderful Sunday.  Remember to tell those around you that you love them.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Metallic Silver. Whisper White. 
• Specialty Paper:  Silver Glimmer
• Stamps:  Many Merry Messages
• Accessories:  Glimmer Brads
• Tools:  Big Shot.  Snow Flurry Bigz Die.  Snowflake Embossing Folder (sizzix).  Tag die (Papertrey)

 

Snowbuddy loves you - Paper Players Challenge #124

Hi Everyone.  Happy Saturday.

This week has been chaotic for me and I've had so little time to do anything!  I know that you all have weeks like that!  It was wonderful to wake up this morning, stretch out my legs, look out of the window, snuggle up with Merlin and know that I could lie there as long as I wanted and that someone didn't need me on a conference call at 6.30 am!  It was wonderful.

I was happy to get into my stamping space and make a card today and Ann's challenge was great inspiration.  It's the Paper Players theme challenge this week and Ann chose this:

Now, I have never been known to turn away from creating a snowman card! :-)

I pulled out my favorite Snow Much Fun. Of course, I had to pull out my Silver Glimmer paper, too!

Here's my card:

I stamped the snowman on Whisper White card stock and then colored him with my Copic markers.  I fussy cut around him and decided that he needed a little glimmery heart in his hand instead of the normal birds.  I punched out a heart from Red glimmer paper - it was perfect with the glimmery snow. 

All that was left for me to do was to assemble the card.  I popped the snowman and the second layer of the snowbank on dimensionals.  I stamped the sentiment onto a slither of Whisper White card stock and adhered it to the silver glimmer paper.  A small red button from an old stash was adhered to the sentiment and then I used one of the Basic Rhinestones in the middle of the button to cover up the button holes.

We hope that you will pop along to the Paper Players and join our challenge this week.  Also, we are still looking for guest designers for 2013.  If you've ever wanted to be part of a design team, why not play along and let us know that you would like to be considered for a guest designer spot?

In the meantime, check out the fabulous cards that the design team have created for your snowman inspiration!

Jen Arkfeld
Dawn Easton
Helen Heil

Nance Leedy

Anne Marie Hile

LeAnne Pugliese

Ann Schach

Amy White

On a personal note:

This has really been such a busy week at work and getting the cards finished and packed and shipped off really took up the only bit of spare time I had this week, so it was impossible to get to my blog.  So, I hope that you will forgive me for having been so quiet this week.  Today, I am going to start getting all the cards that were submitted for the card drive loaded into my photo editing software and then loaded on to flicker.  I really can't wait to share the cards with you.  There really are some GORGEOUS cards for your inspiration.  I hope to get those finished and start to share them with you later in the  week.

Now, I am off to go try out the new Christmas present that Lou bought for me.  I know it's not Christmas yet, but he said it was OK for me to use it now.  What is it?  A rowing machine!  I've been dying to get one for ages - since I used on in the gym on the ship a year or so ago.  I know I'm going to be stiff and sore, but it's a great form of exercise.

Before I go though, I wanted to share a quick snap of a visitor today!

I'm sorry, but I couldn't get a good photo of him/her.  His movements were very quick and I couldn't get my camera focused fast enough!  He really is gorgeous, though!

As always, thank you for stopping by my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  I really do appreciate your visits and your comments.  Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.

Have a wonderful Sunday

Hugs
Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Whisper White, Baja Breeze (textured), Night of Navy, Silver Glimmer, Red Glimmer
• Stamps:  Snow Much Fun
• Inks:  Copic Markers
• Accessories:  Red button (old stash).  Basic Rhinestone
• Tools:  Big Shot.  In the Meadow Dies (Papertrey Ink).  Stampin' Dimesionals

Watercolor Winter for Paper Players Challenge # 123

Hi Everyone.  Happy Saturday night.

It's my pleasure to host the Paper Players challenge this week and I have a sketch challenge for you.  It's the kind of sketch that you can keep CAS, or embellish to your hearts content.  Me... I kept it pretty clean and simple.

I love the Watercolor Winter set from SU, but generally end up using the poinsettia stamp.  This time, I decided to focus on the holly stamp and combine it with one of my favorite sentiments from the Bright Christmas set. 

Here's the sketch:

Here's what I did with it:

I stamped the image repeatedly onto Very Vanilla card stock, turning the stamp at a different angle each time.  This allowed me to fill up the focal image area without masking.   I then colored the leaves and the berries with my Copic markers.  I know you can't see it, but I did use a red Spica glitter pen on the berries to give it a little sparkle.

I used dimensionals to place the focal image layer onto a piece of metallic gold.  Dimensionals were used again to add the layered focal image onto Cherry Cobbler card stock.  I ran the Cherry Cobbler front panel through my Big Shot using one of my new embossing folders.   A little gold elastic cord was all that I needed to finish off the card.  I still haven't decided whether the cord adds value or not!   By the time I had vacillated for about 10 minutes, it was too late to go back!  So, the elastic cord stayed!

We hope that you will play along with us this week.  Don't forget to check out the fabulous cards from the design team.  They really have another wonderful set of inspiration cards for you.

Jen Arkfeld
Dawn Easton
Helen Heil

Nance Leedy

Anne Marie Hile

LeAnne Pugliese

Ann Schach

Amy White

As always, thanks for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a lift tonight.

Have a wonderful Sunday

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Very Vanilla, Cherry Cobbler, Metallic Gold
• Stamps:  Bright Christmas (sentiment), Watercolor Winter
• Inks:  Copic Markers
• Accessories:  Gold elastic cord
• Tools:  Big Shot.  Sizzix embossing folder.  Stampin' Dimensionals

Extreme Elements Starfruit Rocker

Hi Everyone. Happy Tuesday. We are so close to a long weekend, I can taste it!  Which, brings me to one of my favorite SU In Colors evah.  I must admit, I have been very partial to the green in colors.... Kiwi Kiss was one of my favorites.  I also loved Pear Pizzazz.  I'm very fond of Lucky Limeade... and I am really partial to Summer Starfruit.  It's such a lovely yellowy-greeny color!

Tonight's card - which is another one I made for Enchanted Makeovers - was created using another one of those $5 sets.  It also uses MDS - Extreme Elements.  Have I told you that I am loving the updates to MDS?  Nah... I'm sure I haven't :-)   The ability to size an object - and to color different portions of it with the paint brush is fabulous.

I loved this Rock On set, but didn't have the right background and I didn't have Extreme Elements in rubber.  I opened up my MDS and created the background using the digital Extreme Elements Stamp.  As I made two different color versions of this card, I was able to use the same background, but just paint it to match the two different color schemes for the card.

I then inked up the guitar and stamped it onto a piece of scrap Very Vanilla card stock and cut it out using the accompanying die.  (When I showed this card to Lou, he said I should have colored the guitar the same color as the base... and I think he was right, but it was too late by then.  However, if I do this card again, I certainly will do that.)

I added a little Hero Arts metallic dot to the guitar. Well, it needs somewhere to plug it into, right?:-) Once I had done that, I snipped it out and used dimensionals to pop it up from the Extreme Elements layer.  I used the note stamp from the set and stamped that three times around the extreme elements background.  All that was left to do was to stamp the sentiment.

Here's my card

Isn't that background fabulous?  It's Midnight Muse, highlighted with Summer Starfruit.  I was really pleased with the card.  I love the color scheme and I love the clean and simple lines.  The graphic, bi-colored background image really helps to ground the guitar.  The color scheme also makes it suitable as a card for either gender - and pretty much any age.

On a personal note:

Tomorrow is a half-day and then Lou and I are off for the weekend.  It's our intention to have a quite thanksgiving at home and to relax and chill.  We will also do our decorating for Christmas and I really am looking forward to that.   Mmmm... some cool temperatures and some snow would be nice.  It's been 20-30 degrees above average here.  This is Minnesota.  It's past the middle of November and I was outside on the porch last night, at 11.30pm, wearing nothing except a short sleeved summer t-shirt!

As always, thank you for visiting my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Your visits - and your comments - are always much appreciated.

Warm hugs and prayers for those of you who need a little lift tonight.  Have a beautiful Wednesday and if you are traveling, stay safe.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe:  All ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Card stock:  Summer Starfruit, Very Vanilla
• Inks:  Summer Starfruit, Midnight Muse, Real Red, Basic Black, StazOn
• Stamps:  Rock On (Papertrey Ink).  Extreme Elements digital stamp (SU)
• Accessories:  Metallic Dots (Hero Arts)
• Tools:  Big Shot.  Guitar die (Papertrey Ink)

Rejoicing with You for Paper Players 122

Hi Everyone.  Happy Saturday night.

The fabulous LeAnne has a great challenge for us Paper Players this week.   CAS featuring gold or silver.  Oh, yeah!  Right up my alley.

The minute I got into my craft room today, I knew exactly what stamp set I wanted to use and had a pretty good idea of the layout.

Once I had my card ready, I was about to stick down the parts of my angel and realized..... nah... it needs something behind the angel.  Some sort of texture.  I looked at my embossing folders and they were all too fussy.  So, I decided to get out my diagonal scorer and set to work.   Ahhh... word of warning... don't try using a diagonal scorer on 120# card stock when you have arthritis in your fingers!   It's great on lesser weight paper, but this was hard going.  I swear, my index finger is still numb from pressing so hard!

Here's my card

I absolutely LOVE this set from SU.  There's something about this heritage style angels that really float my boat!   The sentiment is from Christmas Greetings and remains one of my favorite Christmas sentiment.  It's so simple and the script is gorgeous.  I inked it up using Gold Versamark and then added some SU gold embossing powder to make it stand out a little more.

I stamped the angel twice.  Once with Early Espresso, and then her upper body and wings with Gold Versamark.  I cut around the wings and the trumpet, so that I could mount them separately.  All the components of the angel were popped using Stampin' Dimensionals.

Once again, the Paper Players design team have created some awesome cards for your inspiration.  You can check out their cards at their links below.  Then why not make your own CAS card and link it up to our showcase at the Paper Players

Jen Arkfeld
Dawn Easton
Helen Heil

Nance Leedy

Anne Marie Hile

LeAnne Pugliese

Ann Schach

Amy White

As always, thank your for stopping by my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  Warm hugs and prayers for those who need a little lift tonight.

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted:

• Stamps:  Rejoicing with You.  Christmas Greetings (sentiment)
• Inks:  Early Espresso.  Gold Versmark.
• Tools:  Stampin Scorer with the Diagonal Scorer attachment.  Gold Embossing Powder.  Stamp-a-ma-jig
• Card stock:   120#  Vanilla (Ginak)

 

Train Tracks

Hi Everyone.  Happy Thursday.

this is going to be a short post!  I started work at 7 this morning and still need to go back and finish some stuff.

I did want to share a card with you though.  It's another one that I made for Enchanted Makeovers.  When I was working out what cards to make, I realized that I really didn't have any children's sets.... cos I never make cards for kids!  I knew I didn't want to spend much money on sets and went searching.  I found a couple of really cute sets, perfect for the drive, that cost me $5.  You can't go wrong with that.  The funny thing is this, when I started playing with these sets - I had the most amazing fun.  Seriously, you shouldn't be able to have that much fun for $5.  This particular set was more than $5 - it cost $15... but I thought it was worth it anyway :-)

One of the sets I found is called Train Tracks.  Oh.. I had such fun coloring this.  Yes, I know... putzy, but I SO enjoyed it.   Once I had colored the train, I realized I needed to anchor it on something. mmmmm... searching through my stack of goodies I found a picket fence die I had bought ages ago!  Oh yes.... now.... I could easily turn that into train tracks... for the train to go on!

Here's what I came up with:

Isn't that cute?  It makes me smile just looking at it.  Of course, I had to add a little bit of bling - even though you can't see it, there is gelly roller on the headlight, and on some of the presents on the trailer, as well as on the clouds of steam.   I used my Copic markers for the coloring and also to add shadow under the clouds and around the backs of the train compartment and trailer. 

I cut the top off the picket fence die cut, and placed onto the card base.  First, I decided to add some texture behind the train tracks and got out my Stampin' Scorer to do that.  It looked so much better having the horizontal lines underneath the train tracks.

You could also use this card for a more mature audience - just changing up the colors to something more regal and changing out the sentiment.  It's really a super cute set - Lou totally approved!

I hope you enjoyed the card... and I hope that it will brighten the day of some little boy.  I'll be sharing some of the cards made from the $5 sets with you over the next week or so.

As always, thank you for spending time in my little area of the stamping blogosphere.  You know I appreciate it.  I also appreciate your comments.

Rach... Lou wanted me to let you know that he isn't quite yet finished with painting... but he is holding me to a pact... he'll do all the painting and stuff that I want him to do up until January.  After that... he's on his bike!  He really gets cranky when he doesn't get out and do a loooooong bicycle ride!

Warm hugs and prayers to those of you who need a little lift tonight.  Have a fabulous Friday

Hugs

Jaydee

Card recipe - all ingredients SU unless otherwise noted

• Card stock:  Sahara Sand, Basic Grey, Whisper White, Basic Black
• Inks:  Copic markers
• Stamp:  Train Tracks (Papertrey Ink)
• Tools:  Big Shot.  Picket Fence die (memory box).  Gelly Roller pens (Sakura).  Scoring - Stampin' Scorer