Stampin Out Alzeihmers

Hey all. Sorry for not posting much this week. It's been a little crazy but I wanted to let you all know that Jen Tapler, a very talented crafter is holding an event called Stampin' Out Alzeihmers.

This is a fantastic event on this week only until Sunday May 31st. There are lots of challenges, prizes and freebies available. Jen asks that you donate $5.00 to this event. You will then be able to sign up to view and access all the great things going on at the Stampin' Out Alzeihmers site.

I realize I am posting this a bit late. I just signed up myself yesterday. I likely won't have time to participate in any of the challenges although it would be great if I could squeeze some time in. I would love it if you could join in this great event too. There is still time left to participate and $5.00 towards a great cause is not asking too much.

Go to Jen's blog and click on the link on the right side to donate your $5.00 and then go to the Stampin' Out Alzeihmers site to sign up.

Thanks so much. I hope you have fun and I look forward to seeing you on their site.

Margaret :)

Enjoy

I hope everyone had a great weekend. I know I did. I had my stampers 10 group over on Friday night. We made a Father's day card and small gift. I'll post the project here later this week. Saturday night I had a date with my handsome fiance Chris. We haven't gone on a date since before his accident in December. Most day's he is too exhausted to go out but Saturday he managed to muster up enough energy to go to the movies. Sunday was a great day as well. My dear demo friend Betty and I went to visit a former demo in TO to have a playdate. Sylvie took super care of us and taught us how to make a variety of cute little boxes and purses and things. She is a very talented woman. Once I get a chance to take some pics I will share them with you here, so keep your eyes open for them.

Today I have a simple card to share with you. It is made with last year's In Colour Groovy Guava CS. I stamped the Print Pattern background stamp in Groovy Guava ink on my card front. On my top layer I used whisper white and samped Enjoy in Ruby Red ink and every moment as well but vertically on the card. I then stamped my circle flower in Wild Wasabi and punched it out with a 3/4" circle punch. I layered this over my "o" in the word enjoy and then adhered my stamped layer to some Ruby Red CS. To fill in some of the excess white space, I sponged a bit of Ruby Red ink around my words to soften the card. Finally I wrapped some old SU ribbon around my layers. This helped place a break between my words while still allowing it to flow well.

I hope you have enjoyed todays card and don't forget to stop by to see the projects I made over the weekend.

Cheers,

Margaret :)

Punch Mania - Sneak Peek

In the next couple months I will be starting a Punch Mania class. It used to be that I didn't care for punches. They are heavy and take up a bit of room and then I started to learn how to use them for new projects and I fell in love. I am almost there when it comes to owning all the punches SU! offers and I also own quite a few non-SU! punches.

What better way for me to show my love of punches than to hold exclusive punch classes. Today's card is a sneak peek into the world of punching.

Little Miss Piggy is so adorable and she was super fast and fun to put together. I saw her demonstrated at London Regionals this year and just knew this was a great idea for a class. (Shout out to the demo who designed her) I kept this card super simple with no additional embellishments simply because it may look funny adding bling to farm animals. LOL

I hope you've enjoyed today's post.

Cheers,

Margaret!

You....

I'm taking a step back in time on this card. I used Groovy Guava CS from last years In Colours and I'll be quite honest, on its own I wasn't fond of the colour but paired up with Ruby Red, this colour just pops.

Once again with this card I took a simple approach. I used my True Friend stamp set and stamped my outside flowers in Groovy Guava ink on white CS. I then stamped my main flower in Ruby Red ink and used a rhinestone brad to draw the eye to it.

You may notice that the scallops on the Ruby Red CS are larger than our scallop edge punch. This is because was not available at the time I made this, so I used my 3/16" corner rounder by popping the corner guard off.

I stamped a partial background on my base once again with the Groovy Guava ink and I stamped my sentiment, from the Sincere Salutations set, also in Groovy Guava.

I love cards with ribbon on them, so I tied a bit of ribbon and placed in under my top layer. This was the right touch to finish the card.

I hope you all have a great day and thanks so much for checking out my blog.

Margaret :)

Lovely as a Tree

I'm sure some of you can tell I haven't actually stamped in a few weeks. Life has been so hectic lately that I haven't picked up a stamp for my own enjoyment recently. It's not that I don't want to because believe me I long to be in my stamp room. So for the past couple weeks I have been scouring my old pieces of 'artwork' on my computer and using them just so I have something to share with you. I really hope next week to get some time to just play. (but first I have to design the project for next weeks Stampers 10 group) I have so many knew stamp sets on my shelf just itching to be inked.

So today I share with you another one of my 'old' cards. This is one of the most classic sets I can think of from Stampin' Up!. With a little imagination there are many things that can be done with this set.

For this card, I took a simple approach. I have a difficult time creating masculine cards but I think this one would pass. I used Night of Navy CS for my base. My tree image is stamped on Confetti White CS using Basic Black Ink. I coloured the trees and grass using my ink pads and an aqua painter. I layered my image on Really Rust CS and attached to my card front.

The sentiment is from the Sincere Salutations set and stamped in Really Rust ink. I layered this onto a bit of Old Olive CS to tie into the grass on my image. What is a card without any embellishments, really...LOL I added two pewter eyelets just because and I popped up my sentiment with dimensionals.

This is a very basic card for me but I hope you enjoyed it.

Have a super great day.

Margaret :)

Raspberry Flower

This card is so simple yet so pretty. I used my Regal Rose CS for my base. I ran half of my White CS through my Swiss Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder and layered some Raspberry Tart DP over the lower half. I wrapped a bit of 5/8" wide Regal Rose Grosgrain Ribbon around the card and placed a large flower from the Pretties kit over the ribbon using a glue dot. I used the adorable Love You Much stamp set to stamp my sentiment in Rose Red ink. I punched my sentiment out using my 1 1/4 circle punch. To cover the heart in the center I punched out a piece of Rose Red CS with my 1/2" circle punch and added a half back pearl from the Pretties Kit to the center.

This card pulled itself together with little effort. It's clean, happy and bright. You can easily replace the sentiment with any circular sentiment stamp set to use for any occasion.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you come back soon.

Margaret :)

Wow - more blog candy

It is incredible how much blog candy is out there. Kellie Winnell, a demo in Australia has reached 20,000 hits on her blog and she is celebrating. Her blog candy pack is amazing. I noticed that she has a Magnolia stamp in the package. I LOVE Magnolia stamps (even though I don't own any myself yet).

Check out Kellies blog for your chance to win.

Margaret :)

Baby Announcement

Who doesn't love babies? They just look so precious and beautiful. Everyone loves to share the birth of their newborn baby and handmade announcements are the perfect way to let your friends know.

I used the retired Bundle of Joy set from Stampin' Up! to make this card. I began with a Pretty in Pink CS for my base. I stamped my announcement message on Certainly Celery CS using Versamark. I added silver embossing powder to the words and heat set. I then stamped my giraffe on Whisper White and used my blender pen and ink pads to colour him in. I distressed the edges as well using my handy dandy Cutter Kit. I added a silver eyelet to the corner and ta da! A simple cute baby announcement.

I hope you have a great day and thanks for looking.

Margaret :)

Penguin

Another Christmas card. Some of you may be familiar with this card as I designed him for classes last Christmas. I scanned this card, so the colours don't show as well as it would if I had taken a photo.

I wanted to use a different style opening for this card. The Chocolate Chip CS and Ski Slope patterned paper are the card base but this is not the part that opens. The inside of the card is actually in the Baja Breeze portion situated on the front of the card.

I used Punch Pals stamp set to make this card. This set really is a fantastic winter set great for your cards and scrapbooking. I stamped snowflakes on the Baja Breeze CS using the Baja Breeze Ink. I then stamped my penguin in Basic Black ink and coloured him using aqua painters and my ink pads. I used some Tangerine Tango ink to 'distress' the edges. The penguin is popped up over a piece of On Board Essentials Chipboard. I used white craft ink to cover the chipboard, dipped it in my Iridescent Ice EP and heat set it. I wanted to give the feel of sparkling snow.

I wrapped some Chocolate Chip Taffeta ribbon around the card and adhered Baja Breeze card flap to the base.

Hope you enjoyed today's Christmas card in spring.

Margaret :)

Strange Bird...

Today I am sharing something a little different with you. Instead of posting a card or scrapbook page or altered item, I decided to do a photograph.

I love taking pictures, especially of nature and country scapes. I am currently taking a photography class through my local county leisure guide program. I really enjoy it and each week we are given an assignment to work on before the next class.

Last week we were to take photos of city scapes and country scapes. Some of you may think that taking country pics wouldn't be too difficult since I live in the country but noooo, I didn't take any. Well not quite, I took some of deer in the backyard at 10:00pm at night with no flash. Now that is challenging. I think one may have actually turned out somewhat well but I haven't had a chance to look yet.

I did manage to get some great bird shots at the piers by Bronte. I must admit I was so tired in class last week I could barely remember anything that was discussed. One thing that did stick was the rule of thirds, so I did attempt pictures keeping this in mind and also worked on playing with my aperture and shutter speeds. Some pictures turned out quite well if I do say so myself.

This particular shot I wanted to share because this bird is so odd looking. When it is swimming on the surface, it looks like a duck but then when it stands up on the edge of its nest, it stands like a penguin. If anyone knows what kind of bird this is, I would love for you to share it with me. LOL

Thanks for popping in today and I hope to see you again tomorrow.

Margaret :)

Movie Night

If I remember correctly, this page was the first scrapbook page I made. It has been so long I can't even think of the set I used. It may have been Treat Yourself but don't quote me on it.

It is an 8 1/2 x 11 page and the base is Certainly Celery. I used a strip of Barely Banana cardstock and used my rectangle hand held punch to create the look of a film strip. (The spiral punch did not exist back then) I then took this strip and layered over black cardstock. I cut a square opening at the top and bottom and stamped the bottom of a popcorn holder in the lower window and popcorn in the upper window. I added some DD glitter to make the popcorn stand out more. I then used some old patterned paper as a base layer and placed a piece of white CS over top with the corners slit to use as my photo matte.

I stamped peanuts in brown ink in the lower right hand corner all stacked on top of each other and I finished with a little envelope and a pull out journalling card. Sorry if the pic was blurry, I am working on becoming a better photographer. LOL

Butterfly

I was at a Scrapbooking event on Saturday to raise money for Ovarian Cancer. I met lots of fantastic women and I had a great time. As I was a vendor at the event I had a free make & take available for the participants.

This is the card we made. I wanted to make things quick and easy so I ran the butterflies through my Big Shot ahead of time with Urban Garden DP. I also ran my Very Vanilla CS through the Big Shot using my Texture plate. This allowed the women to focus on the other elements of the card. They stamped the grass in Kiwi Kiss ink with the Inspired by Nature stamp set. They then added brads to the card and used the Mat Pack to line up the holes.

The butterfly called to me saying it needed some bling and of course I couldn't refuse, so we inked it up with Versamark ink, dipped it in Iridescent Ice EP and heat set it. We then added some eyelets to the butterflies wings to give it the look of 'eyes'. The card was layered on Baja Breeze CS and rather than just having one butterfly we had two. One was laid flat on the card and the 'glitterized' butterly was layered over top with just a dash of adhesive in the center. This allowed the butterly to pop out of the page. The women really seemed to enjoy this card and I hope you did as well.