Crisis in the Magoo Household ...

All - I just want you all to know that we had a crisis today in the Magoo Household.  Everything with today's card was going swimmingly, until I went for the black organdy ribbon - and found that I was out.  Red Alert!!!  After a severe breakdown, some tears and hyperventilating into a paper bag, I was able to calm myself - and think, what would GinaK do?  Of course!  Some grosgrain ribbon - with a pre-tied into a bow!  It was a eureka moment to be sure... and the red alert status was downgraded to a yellow alert.   And tomorrow, a venture to the Hobby Lobby to acquire more of this staple of the craft room.  You all can now sleep easy knowing that all will soon be right in the world!

I give you the result of the crisis - and this weeks entry inspired by the Case Study Challenge #23!

It actually turned out quite lovely - I die-cut everything using my Slice - the red curly thingies (technical term), the black and white circles. All Slice - so versatile!! The stamps were from Verve - Hearts on Fire - and the ribbon has been previously explained.

The white/clear gems I received in last months Key Ingredients kit - and they came with Embellie Gellie, which I'd honestly never used. But I must say it is magic... magic.  And as always the inside has to be as pretty as the outside!

Pretty neat huh?  Well now that I've had my moment of panic - I'll sign off for now.  I hope everyone has a creative and healthy weekend - hug those you love and let them know.

See you next week with more exciting tales in crafting...

Cupcakes Make Everything Better - Viva la Verve Week #2

On Friday I found a new scrapbooking store!  I was so excited - it was neat, organized and amazing.  Well I found a EK Success punch there that I just had to have - had to.  It is called Real Estate Sign.  And it was perfect for sayings on cards - see:

Just the white part is the actual punch and I went through and made my own mat for it.  But its beautiful.  The stamps are from Verve Stamps.  I combined two sets: Cupcake Affair and Fairy Tales.  Fantastic huh?

And as always - the inside should be as pretty as the outside -

Tomorrow, a The Greeting Farm in its most purple form. Thanks all for stopping by!!

Flirt - Graphic45 Inspired by Love Challenge

Happy Monday! This would be my last day off for a while - so I'm planning on enjoying it.  I started by working on a challenge for one of my favorite companies.  The art on the paper made the card super easy.  Here's the challenge:

Since Valentine's Day is coming up, we thought it would be fun to have a card-making challenge inspired by love. Using Graphic 45 paper, design a Valentine's card for someone you love and post it on our Facebook Fan page.

And here's what I came up with, inspired by my love - who loves the color orange (Broncos orange - but this is close).  So made specifically for him:

The paper is Steampunk Debutante  - which is still the most amazing paper, so versatile.  And if you come across it - buy it now, because it may get hard to find.   The orange flower is Prima - and I got to bust out the sewing machine that Santa brought me.

Here's some of the details:

Enjoy your Monday!!  For tomorrow, my Viva la Verve challenge - for what would be their week two!  I'm a bit behind... but its all good.

Hope you all had a crafty weekend - and thanks for stopping by!

Viva la Verve - January 2011 - Week One

So, as I pointed out in a recent blog post - Verve Stamps have quickly become one of my go to companies for unique and beautiful images that are also versatile. I only have four sets, but I already feel like I have infinite possibilities when it comes to what I can do with them.   It allows me to step out of the box a bit and create something that I wouldn't normally have done.   This is my first Viva la Verve challenge, and I loved the sketch - it may become one of my new favorite challenges. 

I was thinking about all of the people that make a difference in our lives, and they normally don't' get the appreciation they deserve - and then I set out to make a card for one of them.

Here's what I came up with:

It ended up being extremely cute.  I used the Fairy Tales set and double stamped the circle from that set in two different colors - PTI Chocolate Brown and Technique Tuesday Lilac.  It actually made the whole image pop- cool huh?

And as always - the card has to be just as pretty on the inside as it is on the outside - so a little bit of decoration, with a sentiment from AmyR's Thank You Sentiments set.

Pretty neat!  Exciting to be entering yet another new challenge - Hope to see you all tomorrow, when I use Verve stamps to create a paper pieced bird to wish someone a fab day!.

Life is in the Little Things - CASE Study Challenge #20

Wow!  Its the New Year!  I look back at the past year, and it went so fast.  All kinds of things happened - all seem like just yesterday.  I'm so excited to be on a creative streak and to be able to share it with everyone here.  So here's a quick little post for this, the first day of 2011 or 1/1/11!

CASE Study Challenge #20

So the challenge was to create something using this very beautiful card as inspiration:

So here's mine:

Isn't it lovely?  I'm just in love with Verve Stamps at the moment, and this was a set I bought about two years ago when we lived in the other apartment.  I wasn't sure what to do with them until I saw the inspiration card ... and then it was just that - inspiration!   So using my Hearts on Fire and Fairy Tales stampsets, I set off to make this creation.

 

The cardstock is from Papertrey Ink - Raspberry Fizz, True Black and Stamper Select White. The stamps were stamped using Tuxedo Black from Memento and then highlighted with a Sakura Stardust pen in Grey.  The Bling is Kaiser Crafts. 

And a card isn't finished until the inside is as pretty as the outside:

What do you all think?  I want to wish my readers a Happy New Year - I'm looking forward to meeting new crafting friends this year - trying new things - and improving my skills to share with all of you!

Funday Sunday - A Knight's Tale

Welcome to the day of the week where I participate in a contest posted by fellow bloggers, and this week its the Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge:
For this challenge I watched the movie and picked a line that I would love for someone to say to me. It seemed like a good determination of what would make a good card. I picked the scene where William and Jocelyn meet at Banquet, inspired by the tunic that is so artfully described as "green... um trimmed in a kind of pale green, uh, with, uh wooden toggles" and he said this:

Here is the front in a bit more detail:

And then the internal has the second part:

1) I printed the quotes on paper and used my largest square nestabilities to cut and emboss the first layer.

2) I then used the largest fleur-de-lis from the Damask Designs stamp set from Papertrey Ink, and embossed it in clear ink, this allowed me to age the paper a bit and give it a parchment look using my Vintage Touch inking system from PTI. The stars are from my Ahoy Sailor! Bombshell set.

3.) The quote is then layered on top of Ripe Avocado (PTI) then a layer of fiber from Basic Grey, and then gold velum and then True Black from PTI.

4) The patterned paper is from My Mind's Eye's Laundry Line. The flourishes are Tim Holtz Grungeboard colored with Avocado Mist from Maya Mist. The metal embellishment is something that I purchased in the jewelry section of my local Hobby Lobby.

I think it came together nicely!

If you're stopping by to find out who won the blog candy that was posted 1/3 then stay tuned, that post will happen at 1/10/09 at 12:00PM MST. As well as the post displaying this weeks challenge and blog candy.

Enjoy!! Thanks for stopping by!!

Kindness

Recently I was given a little present for my cat Magoo from a woman that I hardly knew. I had mentioned my cat once or twice and she went out of her way to make a little toy for her. I wanted a special way to thank her, and I had just received an adorable kitten stamp set from The Greeting Farm. It was like the stars aligned, with the help of AmyR's Friday Sketch (AMYRS74) the idea was complete:


The image is from The Greeting Farm and was just released this past month, it's called Ginger Bell and the sentiment is from AmyR'sThank You Sentiments Stamps. The stamp itself reads "How beautiful a day can be when kindness touches it! - George Elliston"

Thanks for stopping by!!

Happy Birthday Lauren!!

For Lauren's weekly challenge, she wanted us to create a birthday card based on this sketch:

So here's my take:

The image is from The Greeting Farm and is titled Geisha Anya. I got her on Saturday, isn't she lovely?! I colored her with my trusty Prismacolor pencils and Odorless Mineral Spirits. The patterned paper is just origami paper that I got from Michaels. The flowers are Prima and is a downloaded font from 1001 Free Fonts called Osaka Sans Serif printed the sentiment on my computer.

Real cute huh? Happy Birthday Lauren!!

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies:

Paper:

Card Blank - American Crafts

Origami Paper - Michaels

Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink

Stamps:

Geisha Anya - The Greeting Farm

Ink:

True Black - Papertrey Ink

Embellishments:

Flowers - Prima

Red Bling - The Paper Studio

Font:

Osaka Sans Serif - 1001 Free Fonts

My Time to Color Challenge 01

Lauren's first color challenge was to create something with the following four colors:

Here's what I came up with:


The stamps are from Verve Visual and called Birthday Surprise. I used PTI Lemon Tart, Pure Poppy and Spring Rain and matched it with a Dark Grey from my stash of scraps. I paper-pieced the balloons and his cute little hat.


Supplies:
Cardstock
Lemon Tart, Pure Poppy, Spring Rain - PTI

Stamp:
Birthday Surprise - Verve Visual

Ink:
True Black - PTI

Delight In Life

For Lauren's VERY FIRST template challenge, I was super excited to try it!. I just had a friend who is at Vet School and just finished her huge, final presentation where she does rounds in front of the entire class of Vet students (normally around 130 people) and to celebrate I made this for her.


The bottles from Bath and Body works were 3 for $10 and the loofah was $6 but it was so luxurious that I couldn't pass it up.

To start I used the "From the Desk of" template from this month's release, minus the middle divider so that I could fit all the goodies. The box itself is made from Plum Pudding PTI card stock, then layered with Spring Moss and 2008 Bitty Dot Paper in Lavender Moon. The image is PTI's new Life set, which I'm fining that I'm absolutely in love with! It's stamped again in Technique Tuesday's Dogwood from their Spring Flowers ink line an the Plum Pudding from PTI. The flowers are Prima and the ribbon was from my stash as were the little gems.

I know she's going to love it... because I do!


Supplies
From the Desk Of - Timeless Templates - Papertrey Ink

Paper:
Plum Pudding, Lavender Moon, Spring Moss - Papertrey Ink
2008 Bitty Dot Basics - Papertrey Ink

Stamps
Life - Papertrey Ink

Calling All Saturday Sketch Fans

So here it is, my first tryout for a Design Team! I'm so excited, I've wanted to apply for a design team for over a year and I can't think of any better way to start out than to take the lovely sketches from Lauren's Saturday Sketch Challenge and give it a shot. Lauren has so many inspiring things and does such lovely work, I was afraid that I wouldn't even make par. So I spent all day trying to get these right! Please enjoy!

Thanks from Winobella

This was a super fun sketch!! I started with some lovely Basic Grey papers from the Eva Collection. I very rarely play with plum colors so this was new and exciting. For this I actually wanted to use the bigger Winobella stamp image and it would not fit in the smaller circle so I went and cut the circle out and put the image on the inside. She is colored with Prismacolor colored pencils blended with odorless mineral spirits. The scalloped circle was cut on my Slice. The sentiment was a rub-on that is on a piece of transparency which is then adhered to a piece of Basic Grey self-adhesive chipboard. I covered it with fine pink glitter.

Supplies
Patterned Paper:
Affluent - Eva - Basic Grey
Aristocrat - Eva - Basic Grey
Monarchy - Eva - Basic Grey
Stamp:
Winobella - Stamping Bella
Chipboard:
Periphery Chip Shapes - Basic Grey

Thank You!

This very simple and elegant card is almost all Papertrey Ink. (One of my FAVORITE sites!!) The card itself is PTI True Black cardstock, the black polka-dot paper is from the Itty Bitty Polka-dot set, and then a piece of Pure Poppy. The butterflies are a simple punch, and they're layered on Red Prima Flowers. The sentiment is hand written, the card is for my Grandmother and I love to make hers as personal as possible.


Supplies
Patterned Paper:
True Black - Papertrey Ink
Pure Poppy - Papertrey Ink
2008 Bitty Dot Basics - Papertrey Ink
Embellishments:
Uchida Punch - Butterfly
Prima Red Flowers

Celebrate Life

And I'll finish this set off with one of my favorite cards from today, it features the beautiful Life set from Papertrey Ink. The image was stamped on Papertrey Ink Stamper Select White in PTI Hibiscus Ink and Technique Tuesday's Dogwood from their Spring Flowers ink line. The mat is Raspberry Fizz from PTI with the sentiment stamped in True Black ink also from PTI. The flowers and raspberry colored bling are from Kaiser Crafts, the brads from Basic Grey. The Polka-dot paper is from PTI's 2008 Bitty Dot Basics paper collection.

Supplies
Patterned Paper:
Raspberry Fizz - Papertrey Ink
Stampers Select White - Papertrey Ink
2008 Bitty Dot Basics - Papertrey Ink
Stamps:
Life - Papertrey Ink
Embellishments:
Flowers - Kaiser Crafts
Bling - Kaiser Crafts

Hold Fast - Amy's Friday Sketch

*Jumping for joy* My new Bombshell Stamp sets arrived!! I was so excited I mounted all three stamp sets this evening giving me quite the blister from the scissors. So this will be a super quick post, I spent the time I was supposed to spend writing this looking for the charger for my camera... which is still in the black hole of lostness!

Anyway, here's my interpretation of Amy's Sketch (AmyRS64) from this week:

I thought it turned out really cute! I'll try to edit this tomorrow at some point to give more detail. Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies
Paper:
Shimmer White card stock - PTI
Stampers Select White - PTI
Pure Poppy - PTI
True Black - PTI
Stamps:
Ahoy Sailor - Bombshell Stamps
Ink:
Fresh Snow - PTI
Extras:
Stickles
Tombow Markers

Peek-a-boo Birthday Card

So one of the challenges that is up on Paper Craft Planet for the Bombshell Stamps group is to make a peek-a-boo card using Bombshell Stamps. I got my inspiration for this project from Nichole Heady and that blog post can be found here. Well here's my entry:

1) Cut a piece of True Black cardstock from Papertrey Ink to 6" x 7". 6" will be how tall the card ends up being, so turn it so the 7" side is facing you and score it at 3.25" and 6.5". Fold at the scores, the 1/2" tab will adhere the two sides together. This will create the outer sleeve for the card. (Don't close the card just yet with adhesive, there is more work to do to make the pop-up work.

2) To make the insert, cut a piece of Pure Poppy from PTI to 3.25"x 5.75". Then a piece of Shimmer White cardstock to 3" by 5.25". Adhere the two together, centering the white over the red.

3) Stamp your image, centering it on the white cardstock. Decorate accordingly, for mine I used Tombow markers and Ruby Slippers Stickles.

4) Using a Making Memories Ribbon Slot Punch Tool, with the 5/8" attachment punch both at the top and the bottom both centered to make slots for the ribbon to run through.

5) On the sleeve, pick a side to be the front. Either of the 3.25" x 6" will work. Using your 3/4" circle punch take a notch out of the top of your card.

6) Cut a window, square, circle, any shape you'd want onto the front of the card that will reveal only part of your image. I chose to reveal her face, but you could reveal any part of her. I just used my craft knife to cut the window.

7) Cut the decorative paper for the front to 3" x 5.75". And using the window on your black sleeve, center the patterned paper on the card, and then trace your window from the black sleeve to your decorative paper. Don't adhere the decorative paper just yet.

8) Cut a piece of ribbon to approximately 12". I used 5/8" ribbon for my project, but I think any ribbon will work. Using some Terrifically Tacky Tape place one end of the ribbon to the front of your card at the bottom of the window you just created and adhere in place.

9) Run the ribbon then through the bottom slot on your insert so that the ribbon will run along the back side of the red paper. Then run the ribbon back through the top slot to the front of the insert where your image is. Allow the ribbon to slide freely through the slots.

10) With the image completely in the sleeve and the ribbon pulled taught, add adhesive to the 1/2" strip of black and close up the sleeve by adhering the 1/2" strip to the inside of the 3 1/4" x 6" so that it completely hides the 1/2" strip.

11) If it has been assembled right, a pull on the ribbon at the top of your insert should pop the insert out of the sleeve. You can add something to the top of the ribbon, and cut to a desired length. Here I used a simple chipboard tab from Basic Grey that I covered with fine red glitter.

12) Once it works as you'd like, cover the front including where the ribbon was adhered with your decorative paper. Here I used a piece of Black and White Basics from Papertrey Ink. Then finish decorating as you'd like. The flowers that I used are Prima, the red sparkly square was actually a piece of adhesive chipboard from Basic Grey that I covered the adhesive with fine red glitter.
The sentiment is from Verve Stamps from a set called Birthday Suprise and is embossed in red.

Hope that all made sense!! Have a lovely week and thanks for visiting!

Cupcakes Make Everything Better - AmyR's Friday Sketch

It's been a couple weeks since I last participated in AmyR's Friday Sketch Challenge(AmyRS63). So I thought I would this week using one of my new Stamping Bella stamps! Isn't she lovely? Here's how I made it:

1) Cut card base from Papertrey Ink's Dark Chocolate Perfect Match card stock. (8.5" x 5.5")

2) The patterned pink accent pieces behind the image are from BoBunny's Shabby Princess line. The plaid is 1.5"x4", the solid pink is Raspberry Fizz by Papertrey Ink and is cut to 1"x4". The pink polka dots are cut to 1"x5.5".

3) The White Stamper Select again by Papertrey Ink, and was cut with my Slice to 3". The Chocolate Brown behind it is my scalloped circle cut to 3.5".

4) The Cupcakeabella image is stamped with Papertrey Ink True Black ink, and colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with Odorless Mineral Spirits. The image is finished off with a little bit of Stickles and a rhinestone from Kaiser Crafts.

5) The ribbon is from Michaels and the rhinestones are from Kaiser Crafts.

Super simple when you have such a lovely sketch to work with!

Saturday Cinema Challenge - Bride & Prejudice

This weeks Saturday Cinema Challenge provided me a unique opportunity, I'd never seen the movie before. Bride and Prejudice is a Bollywood film that ended up being very cute! So here's my entry:

My main inspiration was a sari that was worn during one of the scenes that was red and gold. It was beautiful and so glamorous! From there it was a trip to Hobby Lobby to find everything that I could have possibly needed. I found these gold medallions in the jewelry section and that was a springboard for everything else. The butterflies are because there were so many colors throughout the movie, and with the dancing it reminded me of butterflies. I haven't added a sentiment to the card yet because there are so many uses I figured I'd personalize it when I figured out what I'd use it for.

For the front:

1. The card base is 5" x 7" pre-made red card by American Crafts. On top of that is a piece of gold velum that I stamped with the circular stamp from Basic Grey's Whisper polymer stamp set. The embossing powder was a bright red to match the cardstock base. I finished off the center of each stamp with a little rhinestone flower from Marcella K.

2. Layered on top of that is a piece of PTI True Black cardstock (5" x 3.5") lined with gold metallic marker, followed up by PTI Pure Poppy also lined with metallic gold marker.

3. There is a gold ribbon, then I used my threader to thread some metallic shiny red ribbon that I had in my spares bin through the jewelry medallions. They are tied together in the center with a simple knot.

4. The butterflies are from Bombshell Stamps "Butterfly Queen" set and are stamped on cream cardstock from my scraps and embossed with three different colors, black, red and then gold. (I don't know that I invented the technique by any means, I was just playing around... no formal stamp training.) That is put on a piece of PTI True Black. Both are edged with a gold metallic marker.

5. I added bling where bling was due, mainly in the corners of all of my layers.

For the Inside:

1. Another piece of gold vellum cut to 4.75" x 6.75". In the two upper corners a bit of red embossing. The stamps are from the same Basic Grey Whisper's stamp set.

2. A strip of PTI True Black followed by a strip of PTI Pure Poppy.

3. On top of that came another piece of gold ribbon and a medallion.




Thanks to Sankari and Brooke for another great challenge! And thank you for stopping by!

Thank You So Much

Here's another quick card that I made up over the weekend but am just now getting to posting. It was made for this weeks CPS Card Sketch :


For this I used all PTI products with the exception of the Chandelier stamp that I purchased at Michaels for a whole dollar! The card base is again Stamper Select White from PTI, with the colored card stock being PTI Perfect Match Lavender Moon and Plum Pudding. The background was stamped on to the Lavender Moon card stock using my new Damask Designs set that I'm in love with, stamped in PTI Perfect Match Fresh Snow ink which I had never done before!! The Chandelier and the sentiment were stamped in PTI Perfect Match Plum Pudding ink.

I was excited as to how it turned out! Thanks for stopping by!

AmyR's Friday Sketch - #50

So just a quick post before bed.

This is my entry for AmyR's Friday Sketch (AmyRS59). I won a beautiful stamp set in the Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge, it is from GinaK Designs and titled "Hand-in-Hand". It worked well for this Congratulations card that I made. The base of the card is Stamper Select White Cardstock from Papertrey Ink. The colored cardstock is Aqua Mist and Lemon Tart also from PTI. The ribbon and brown cardstock were just scraps. I colored the image with my Tombow markers and then anchored the corners with pearls from Kaiser Crafts.



Enjoy! Thanks Amy for another great sketch!

Amy's Friday Sketch #48

So for this week's sketch of Amy's (AMYRS57), I decided to go simple, over the weekend I got one afternoon where one of my good friends and I got to sit down and create stuff. I love days like the one I had on Sunday, I get to sit and not worry about anything but what I'm going to make next. Here's what I came up with:


The kitten was super cute, and reminds me of my cat Magoo. The brown and green flowered paper is My Mind's Eye. The other green and brown card stock is Bazzill Basics. The Cat is embossed on PTI's White Simmer card stock using Ripe Avacado and a holographic embossing powder. The ribbon is from Hobby Lobby, the flowers are Prima and the rhinestones are from My Mind's Eye.

The interior was a lot of fun, however I have to apologize that I don't know where the stamps are from. They were in my friend's stash, and I forgot to write down the manufacturer. Anyway the interior says "You're Purrrfect" Which I thought was cute. I stamped fish and mice around the border of the interior.

Thanks Amy for another lovely sketch!!!