SCS Blogger RAK

I got this super cute RAK in the mail from Heather Phillips. You can check her blog out at www.ribbonsandink.com She's got some super cute stuff!

I love the colors she picked and the layout. I also really, really love this stamp set. I think it's fun to color but it looks great like this, too. I'll have to remember that it's ok to not color in my line art images and they can look gorgeous this way as well.

Thanks, Heather!

Two Posts in One Day?

Stop the presses, I'm posting again! Since I had plenty of time to color in some images this weekend, all I've got to do is find some cardstock, possibly some patterned paper, and embellishments and put them all together :-)

I normally do not use Brilliant Blue but decided to pair it with Pink Passion for this one and really like how it turned out. The dp is from BasicGrey's Phoebe collection and I think it's perfect for this card! The image is one that Heather RAK'ed me and I think it's super, super cute!!!! These images are from a Norwegian company and are called Rakles. They are totally fun to color in and are HUGE!!! I colored several this weekend so you'll be seeing more soon.

Anyway, I colored her in with a variety of Copics and because I was coloring in the car, I didn't down which ones I used. She's matted on Brilliant Blue and Pink Passion and adhered over the patterned paper layer with dimensionals. The sentiment is a rubon from the SU SAB set of rubons. I'm still hoarding but do plan to start using these more often. I like how crisp and white it is against the card base. I punched a photo corner from Pink Passion and added some Pale Pink Dewdrops to the photo corner. I really wanted to see what some green ones would look like but I either didn't order them like I thought or they're hiding from me somewhere right now. The photo corner is up on dimensionals as well.

This card is also perfect for Cindy's Terrific Tuesday Challenge which is to pick a color you don't often use, try to see it in a new light, and use it on your card. As I mentioned, I really don't use Brilliant Blue--I think this is my original cardstock that I got my first year as an SU demo :-) but I think it totally rocks here. So, try it out, visit Cindy's blog, and let her know you played along.

So, voila! There you have it--another card to add to my stash for those days when I need a card for someone. Hopefully it will brighten their day!

Thanks for visiting!

My goodies :-) and some stamping

I've been a little remiss in getting some RAKs posted but better late than never, right? My laptop is still out for repairs so it's hard to do some non-work related stuff on the computer right now. I do want to upload and post a little more and I hope to get my laptop back soon.

The cards are from my wonderful SBS3 sister, Heather Huggins. You should definitely check her blog out. Her coloring is amazing!!!!!!!! I wish I could color as nicely as she does. She's also doing a ribbon share that you might want to check out. I'd join in if I didn't already have ribbon coming out of my ears :-)

The goodies are from Malieta at Life's Simple Pleasures. She's one of my blogging buddies and is super, super sweet. Go check her out, you won't be disappointed.



Finally, I got my winnings from the grand opening at MCC. Look at this loot! I wasn't expecting so many stamp sets!!!! Woohoooooooooo!!!!! These sets have been on my want list since I've seen them at Verve Visual and I'm glad that I won them--free stamps rock!

and believe it or not, I do stamp every once in awhile :-) I joined Twisted Chick's ATC swap and here's my entry. They're going postal later today. The base is Textured River Rock and the diamond shaped pieces on the side are Ruby Red. I stamped the ladybug and sentiment with Versamagic Red Brick and Pink Grapefruit and the dotted trail withClassic River Rock on an embossed Very Vanilla Rectangle. This is matted on a scalloped Groovy Guava rectangle. The little piece of chipboard is cut out from the Cuttlebug Asterisk die and is sponged with Pink Grapefruit ink. There's a clear dew drop in the middle of it. This piece is mounted on dimensionals and tied off with Groovy Guava double-stitched ribbon. I think these ATCs are pretty cute and do admit that even though they look relatively simple, they took more time than my normal cards do. The die cutting took some time plus trying to sponge the little flower embellishments and attach them without them ripping was a bit of a pain :-)



Thanks for visiting!

Woohoo--I stamped again!!!!

I love new stamps and I especially love free new stamps!!!!! Stampin' Up! sent all demonstrators a brand new stamp set as a thank you for all of our hard work and a token of their appreciation. The set is called Time Well Spent and is an upcoming Hostess Level 3 set. I love the doodley style of this set! This is a very fun set to color in and I can't wait to play with it a little more. The card base is Old Olive and I stamped the images on Kraft cardstock with Versafine Onyx Black ink. This is matted on Real Red and then put on the card base. I colored them in with Real Red, Only Orange, Summer Sun, and Old Olive markers. I stamped the bigger flower on Summer Sun cardstock with Only Orange and punched out the center with a 1/2 inch circle punch and then used one of my Pewter Build-a-Brads to make the center of the flower. I also punched out three holes and inserted pewter brads in them on the bottom of the card. In hindsight, I should have used Antique Brass in this color scheme but I only have Pewter Build-A-Brads. I may have to rectify this in the not too far future :-)

I also got some more birthday RAKs.

I absolutely love all of them--in case you didn't know, I sorta have a weakness for Regal Rose and it's gorgeous with Certainly Celery. I love this image--it's so delicate and pretty! This one is from one of the SCS Birthday Babes and her user name is Sherrie.

The next one has the sparkliest cupcake ever! I love this card and will totally have to case this layout and idea since it's perfect for both boys and girls! Thanks Kris aka Stamping in Kansas!

Finally, I've got one of my favorite color combos--pink and orange!!! This one is from exfib at SCS and I swear, this is a card I could've made on my own. The color combo, layouts, and embellishments are sooooooooooo me!!!! Carol and I must be separated at stampin birth!

I'm gonna try to get more stampin in tomorrow but don't know how successful I'll be--we've got a cousin over for a sleepover and I have a much needed hair appt in the afternoon :-)

Thanks for visiting!

Like the new look? and some RAK's

If so, you gotta visit Dina over at http://digisigis.blogspot.com/

Dina is totally amazing and so reasonably priced. Her watermarks are top notch and you're not paying out the nose for something that you can't do much with. I love my blog banner and what's not perfect is user error and not designer error--she's gone back and forth with me almost nonstop for the past few days to get my blog banner where I want it. I really felt I was too demanding but she was ever so patient with me and pointed my non-technologically based self in the right direction.

That said, I'm sooooooo late on posting these. Work is still kicking my butt and weekends are spent with the family and cleaning things up. I got a couple bday RAK's. The bella card is from Sumtoy and I totally love it!!!!! I feel really bad that I don't own any bellas and I think they're super cute. I saw a thread over at SCS at the Bella forum about how much some people have spent and if I bought all the Bellas I want, I'd be up there as well! Card #2 has one of my most favorite color combos--I love turquoise and red together and the saffron really makes it super cool! It helps subdue the brights a little. This card is from Kim over at Kim's Basement Stamping.

I love that I got these cards and I totally love the cards! I'm so glad that the stamping community has gifted me with friends who are gonna help me celebrate my 20th anniversary of my 18th birthday!

Pay it forward RAK

I've seen a few other bloggers doing this and decided to join Donna's Pay It Forward RAK game. Look at all the goodies I got from her!!!!! I love this card and haven't gotten this set yet but oh my goodness, it's sooooooooooooo darn cute and my resolve is slowly dwindling. I also got the coolest scissor/cell phone charm that she made. My dd tried to confiscate it for herself but I had to tell her that it was mommy's charm. I also got some stamped images which are definitely gonna come in handy. Work has been extremely busy and I've been beat when I've come home so after dinner, cleaning up, getting the kids bathed and in bed, and trying to sit and relax, stamping just isn't happening right now for me. So, since we've got an extra hour this weekend, I may spend some time coloring these images in so that I can make some cards when I get a few other spare moments.

Sooooooo, wanna join the Pay it forward game? If you are interested, I'll take the first three people who want to play and RAK them with something. I've got lots of goodies that I should share since I've been cleaning up and realized that I've got so much stuff I've been hoarding for the longest time. Plus, having a reason to stamp helps me get over the hump of not stamping for awhile.

Have a great day and can you believe it's November?

Another RAK and a clean room :-)

This RAK comes to me courtesy of Debbie Fisher. I love this patterned paper and love, love, love this ribbon! It's gorgeous--Debbie, you'll have to tell me where you got it from. When you get the chance, go check out her blog. She's got skills and I love her work :-)

I'm also about as done as I'm gonna get on my stamping room. I don't know what to do with one corner of the room. It's where I've been storing mailing boxes, lunch tins, clipboards, and other misc stuff. Anyway, it's actually usable now which is a good thing because I've got 2 more birthday cards to make for tomorrow and I told myself I wasn't going to stamp until I'd finished cleaning the room up :-)



I'm also excited because I'm going to a huge sale at my LSS tomorrow. I've signed up for the 11-12:30 make and take session and will have a $15 credit. Now, that my room is clean, I can get more stuff to put in there, right? LOL. I actually want to finish adding to my collection of the Versamagic Dewdrops and will definitely do that tomorrow. Everything in the store is 25% off and the sidewalk sale stuff is 40-70% off so I'm fairly certain I'll be buying more than the dewdrops.

Thanks for visiting!

A Rak from Yvette

I love this RAK I just got from Yvette. Petal Prints was one of the first sets I bought as a demo and even though it's retiring, I'm definitely hanging on to it. This card is gorgeous! I love pink and brown together and since this is one of my favorite sets, can I just tell you how much I love it!!!!!!

That said, it's Wednesday and I love hump day since the week is nearing the end. There's a carnival at Mason's school in the afterschool program so I'm going to try to get out of work a little early so that I can grab Miles and Maya and take them as well.

The room is coming along slowly but surely--dh gave me a hard time that I was going to disappear in there since he was leaving Tuesday morning and wanted us to spend time together. . .his reasoning is that I can work on it at night while he's gone. . .ummmmmm, that's part of the reason it got that way. I'm too tired at night! Anyway, my goal is to have a gorgeous room to show you soon and then I'm not going to keep throwing things in there. I know if it's usable, I'll use it and won't have to keep bringing things from one room to another and then just throwing them in there.

Have a great Wednesday and send some sun my way. We're having unseasonably cool weather right now.

Blogger RAK

I got this wonderful RAK from Heather Stevens. She wrote the sweetest note on the inside. I love getting happy mail and I love this card! The card base is Perfect Plum which was the first cardstock color that I purchased from Stampin' Up! way back when :-) The white layer is embossed with the Cuttlebug D'vine Swirls embossing folder and I'm not quite sure what she used to cut out the "thanks". I love these butterflies from PAPERTREYink and she used the diamond shaped brads from the vintage brads in the centers of the bodies--clever and I'll have to copy that idea since these are the least used brads in this assortment :-)

Go check out Heather and her creations when you get the chance. You should also consider joining the Splitcoast Bloggers club. It's a wonderful chance to get some happy mail and send out these cards we make to people you know will appreciate them. It won't be a quick, "uh huh, that's nice" and into the circular filing bin :-)

Have a good one! I hope you're all having great weather and are getting the chance to enjoy it!

Lookie--I got RAK'ed!

Hi all! I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. We made it back yesterday evening and I had some happy mail. I got this wonderful RAK from Debbie Seyer. She used Blossoms Abound and it's so pretty and sparkly! I love it. Can you believe that I actually don't own this SU set ;-) This is making me think that I need it. I love the soft colors of this card and the sparkles. I especially love how the focal image is attached under the slit punched edged. I do admit that I'm slit punch impaired and I totally love this effect--I just haven't figured out how to make it work for me. Debbie is super talented and you should definitely check her blog out when you get the chance.

Today, I got 2 more RAKS!!!!!!! The first is from Cindy because I won one of her FRAKS. I loved this card when I saw it on her blog but it's even more amazing in person. I'm so glad that she's my stamping/blogging bud. She is amazing talented and has a great sense of humor. You've got to check out her blog when you get the chance--it's never a dull moment over there.

The last RAK is from Allison. Allison rocks and is the blogging queen :-) I check her blog out daily and love how she highlights what's going on in the stampin blog world for all of us. Who needs Google Reader when I can check out Stampin When I Can :-) I love the patterned paper that she used on this card and the flowers. This card is sooooooo pretty and so feminine and I'm totally loving it.

But wait, that's not all! I also had a package waiting for me over the weekend from My Favorite Things. I got a few acrylic blocks and the Dino-Mite stamp set. My 8 year old love it :-) and has said more than once "that's a really cool dinosaur stamp set! Can I use it?" ummmmmm, yeah right! This is one of mommy's toys, not yours! I do have a birthday card to make and was going to do it last night but we got in a little late and dh asked me to make a Mother's Day card for his grandma (which I didn't get a pic of before he popped it in the envelope).

So, did I score or what? But wait. . .I'm still not done! I also got a little box from Ellen Hutson today. I ordered some of the Arturo cards and Amuse micro dot twinkle stickers. I cannot wait to play with these toys. The coolest and sweetest thing is that sends a little thanks for ordering so I have one of her works of art now. She is super talented :-)

Finally, since it was 9:00, I had to go to PAPERTREYink to order the newest stamp set, Little Lady, and while I was there I ordered Green Thumb since I didn't have it yet and darnit, that's only $39 and I need to spend $40 for free shipping so why not throw in some clear boxes as well?

Somebody, stop me! I've spent so much lately on non-SU items and am remembering that this is why I became a demo--to save money! I just can't help myself when there are so many cute things out there.

So, I'm watching 24 and will attempt to get a little stamping done since the kids are in bed. I've got an incredibly busy week this week. Friday is a holiday for us but I'm feeling like I'm cramming 7 days of work into 4. I'll be at work till 6:30ish tomorrow night because I've got a meeting that will go late so my dad is picking the kids up for me. I'm leaving for a conference Wednesday afternoon and am trying to decide if I'm bringing the kids home early or checking to see if my dad can pick them up again. I had to figure out a way to get my 8 year old to school on Thursday since I'll be gone over night and have that figured out. Oh, did I mention that dh is gone again? This is going to be a pretty regular occurence with him gone during the week. He usually comes home Thursday but the client just asked if he could travel on Sunday night so he's there first thing Monday morning. . .ummmmmm, I don't think so since our weekends have been sacred and are family time. So, he's thinking of starting to come home on Friday instead of Thursday even though it's a sucky travel day. Methinks it's time for him to look for a job that doesn't entail so much travel. We'll see what happens.

Thanks for visiting!

I just got a RAK! Imagine my surprise to go out to the mailbox and find out that I'd been RAK'ed by non other than Simone aka SpAzzGiRL. You can check her out at her blog: Daily Dose of Spazz. It's one that I check out daily :-) Anyway, she made this and posted it and said that she didn't really love it but I think it's awesome and I'm so happy that she thought of me and sent it to me. I love these colors and this was perfect to get today.

Big Thanks Simone!!!!!

My first Blogger RAK

Lookie what I got! This super cute card is from Donna-scs id dbaker3. You can check out her blog here. I love the sets she used and the color combo and the primas are gorgeous and soft--they feel like real flowers!!!! Donna is a former Bay Area gal who managed to escape the high cost of living up here. Dh and I talk about getting out of here every once in awhile and I fantasize about the time when I can have a normal mortgage (and more money for stamps and stuff) but then reality sets in. I could never leave my oldest ds and I can't see his dad letting me move him out of the State without a fight so here I stay. It could be a lot worse--it's gorgeous here and when the weather is nice, there is not a more beautiful place to live.

So, it's still relatively early and the kids all went to sleep without a fight. I just had my goodnight conversation with dh so it's time to get some stamping done :-)

Birthday Beauty and a Thank you card

Lilian sent me this super cute Tickled Pink card as a thanks for the blog candy. I love it and think it's so cute! I really like the Very Punny set and love this layout. I'm gonna CASE it and make up some cards so that I have a bunch on hand to send out or give out when I need them. It never fails that dh will ask me as we're walking out to something "hey, do you have a card?" and I have to scramble to make one :-)

The second card is one that I made because we've got 2 birthday parties to attend this weekend. My 4 year old was invited to one of his classmate's parties and our neighbor's daughter is also having a party. I've loved Birthday Beauty since it appeared in the catalog and got this set as a gift from my DDSS :-) This is my first time using it and while I like this card, I don't love it. I was not happy after I finished but looking at it in the morning makes me realize that it's actually ok. I used Marigold Morning as the base and stamped roses in Marigold Morning for the background. The Birthday Beauty is stamped on Whisper White with Basic Black. I colored her in with my blender pens and Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip, Marigold Morning, Cool Caribbean, and Regal Rose. She's matted on Cool Caribbean and Regal Rose. The saying is on a Cuttlebug die cut slider and the edges were rubbed against the Regal Rose inkpad. I attached it with Rose Grograin. The girl has Stickles on her crown, sash, and bottom edge of her dress. Since we're a multicultural family and many of our friends are also multicultural/racial--I use the Creamy Caramel a lot for coloring in people :-)

I'm going to attempt to get more stamping done tonight. I may redo the birthday card but I definitely want to decorate some lunch tins to put the presents in. Now, the key word is attempt. Dh and I barely made it up past the kids last night. I got all three of them in bed and came back downstairs and he was asleep on the couch. I did the dishes and woke him up and we decided we were too sleepy to try to stay up for the news so we went to bed. We're pathetic!

Thanks for visiting!