Butterflies and Swiss Dots Anonymous Here I Come...

 

I just love the Mojo sketch this week.  Square cards are so much fun to make I really should make more.  The first thing that popped into my mind was to use a butterfly or several butterflies in the circle.  I apologize in advance as I have been overdoing it on the butterfly front lately!!  I'm blaming it on the torrential downpours we've had over the past three weeks (though today is gloriously sunny - finally!) for my desire to use butterflies as they remind me of sping.  I promise to sign up for a Butterflies Anonymous meeting along with a Swiss Dots Anonymous meeting LOL!  

When I think of butterflies I think of soft colours or bright colours.  In this case, I went to one of my "go to" colour combinations: Rose Romance, So Saffron and Certainly Celery.  Out flew (no pun intended LOL) my Verve Fluttering By set (may have to get a second one as a back up because I'm going to wear this one out!) as well as my Swiss Dots embossing folder (backup folder needed here too LOL!).  I used my scalloped circle and circle nesties and added the butterfly.  The butterfly is actually stamped in Apricot Appeal as the Saffron wasn't quite the right colour.  Some Swiss Dots to pick up the polka dot theme of the butterfly, some bling for the butterfly trail and bows on the sentiment called it a card.

Thanks for keeping me company today :D  Up next, Mercy's sketch..




What's In It?
Stamps:  Fluttering By (Verve), Savvy (Sentiment)
Paper:  So Saffron, Rose Romance, Certainly Celery
Ink:  Apricot Appeal, Chocolate Chip
Accessories:  Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Circle and Scalloped Circle Nesties, Bling, 1/8" Pink Satin Ribbon, Dimensionals 

Gift Certificate

The fifth and final Verve release challenge was to make a gift card holder.   I chose to make this gift card holder.  The timing couldn't be any more perfect as I will need a few of these for Christmas.  I found this wonderful little Studio G Christmas set at Michael's the other day and just feel in love with the tree image.  They are stamped in silver and though it is hard to see in the picture (oh where art thou light box LOL!) I added some glittery "snow" at the base of each three.  The DP is a scrap I had in my stash and I paired it up with navy and brocade blue.  The main panel was popped up on dimensionals so I could run some sheer, silver ribbon under it and tie a bow to keep it tightly closed. Now all I have to do is wait and see if I am a Verve winner :D  One can never have enough Verve!

Thanks for popping in and have a fabulous day :D





What's In It?
Stamps:  Studio G
Paper:  Night of Navy, Brocade Blue, unknown DP
Ink:  Silver, Black
Accessories:  Glue Pen and Dazzelling Diamonds, 5/8" Sheer, Silver Ribbon. Dimensionals, Word Window Punch, 1 3/8" circle punch.

Heart Pizza

The fourth Verve Release challenge was to make a mini pizza box. These are so fun to work with!  I was originally going to go with a Christmas theme but then came across this funky DP I got last year and decided to change directions.  This will be perfect to use for my daughter on Valentine's Day.

The box itself is very easy to make.  You start with a 6" x 11" piece of paper.  Score the 6 inch side at 1" and 5" inches and then rotate it to the 11 inch side and score at 1, 5, 6 and 10 inches.   Then you cut the horizontal score lines of the middle square on each side as well as one of the score lines on the top squares so you can fold it into the pizza box.  The tutorial for the pizza box can be found here.  From there, you can have fun decorating your box however you wish.  Just make sure you decorate before you assemble the box -- I almost goofed on this part (it was late and I was tired) but thankfully I clued in before it was too late LOL!


I covered the top of my box with the DP and then cut out a scalloped circle with my Nesties and ran it through the Swiss Dots embossing folder for some texture (plus it matched the dots in the DP -- any excuse to use this EF I say LOL!).   From there I punched out a heart with my Marvy heart punch, stamped the sentiment on the heart, added a silver half pearl on the dot of the "i" and finished it off with a big, pink bow.  The edges of my pizza box were decorated with the Martha Stewart Heart Border Punch.  I couldn't get a good angle of the box showing more than one side, so you'll have to believe me when I tell you it goes all the way around the box LOL!  There you have it, all ready to be filled with something special and fun on Valentine's :D

Four challenges down and just one to go -  the gift card.  This will be perfect as I need one for my mom for Christmas.  Have a great evening and see you tomorrow with my gift card and if I get lucky, my Mojo card.






What's In It?
Stamps:  A Happy Heart
Paper:  Real Red, Doodlebug Design DP
Ink:  Real Red, Pink Passion
Accessories:  Martha Stewart Heart Border Punch, Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Marvy Heart Punch, Silver Half Pearl, Pink Satin Ribbon, Dimensionals

Verve Release Challenge #3

Challenge #3 for the Verve Release this weekend was a V-E-R-V-E challenge.  We had to use an embellishment that begins with one of the Verve word letters. For example:  V - Velvet Ribbon, E - Embossing Powder, R - Ribbon / Rhinestones, V - Vellum, E - Eyelets.  I did two "E's": dry embossing (snowflake embossing folder) and regular embossing.(paw prints with clear embossing powder).  I totally forgot about the twist part but lucky for me it worked out - phew.

This card is for my daughter's teacher of last year.  He is a wonderful teacher and my daughter had an amazing year with him so we wanted to remember him as a family this year. He owns an Irish Terrier so the Penny Black image is perfect!  My Twinkling H2O painting of the image is pathetic (oh how I wish I had the budget for some Copics!) but I'm sure he will appreciate the card none-the-less.  I kept is very basic so it wouldn't be too "foofey".

I double dipped on this card because it also qualifies for this week's Verve Sketch With A Twist.  Amber is being extremely kind to us this month and not adding any twists -- just the sketches to work with so our creativity can run rampant (not that my little "one creative gene" ever does, but it is a wonderful option LOL!)

I'll be back shortly with challenge #4 - the Pizza Box :D  See you soon.



What's In It?
Stamps:  Penny Black, PSX (paw print), Dollar Store Sentiment
Paper:  Real Red, Wild Wasabi, Basic Black
Accessories:  Twinkling H2Os, Aqua Brush, Snowflakes Embossing Folder, Clear Embossing Powder, Martha Stewart Snowflake Punch, Marvy Snowflake Punch, Half Pearl, Paper Piercer, Dimensionals

All My Favorites

 

This is the sketch for Challenge #2 over at the Verve Blog for this week's release.  The "twist" was the card had to have a thank you theme.  I decided to use ribbon and bows for the horizontal strips to soften things up a bit. I wanted dimension on the top portion of the sketch so I pulled out one of my  all time favorite Verve sets  Fluttering By.  Of course that automatically leads me to my all time favorite embossing folder, Swiss Dots. I almost forgot the "thankful" twist  to this sketch, and thankfully (no pun intended LOL) another favorite set of mine, Fancy Flexible Phrases, had a small enough font for me to be able to squeeze the sentiment in between  the butterfly and the ribbon - phew!  I used a large silver half pearls for the center of the bows and the medium sized ones for the butterfly's body.  A n easy, CAS card.

Have a great day!  I'm off to do some more of the challenges.

What's In It?
Stamps:  Fluttering By (Verve), Fancy Flexible Phrases (SU)
Paper:  Pretty in Pink, White
Ink:  Eggplant Envy
Accessories:  Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Scalloped Scissors, 5/8" Sheer Silver Ribbon, Silver Half Pearls

Priceless Verve

The first challenge for tonite's Verve release is a colour challenge.   You have to use Black, White, Olive and Turquoise on our card.   You can check out this challenge plus all the other ones on the Verve Blog.   You will have until 10:00 p.m Mountain Time on Monday, November 30th to complete the challenges and submit them and by doing so you qualify to win some Verve :D  In addition, Julee is giving some sneak peaks of the new sets and at 6:00 p.m. Pacific Time there will be a blog hop to boot!  Nothing better than a Verve day :D  The new sets look amazing!!!  Needless to say I'm giddy beyond belief at having won this entire release and can't wait to see them all never mind having them show up in my mailbox!!  Thank you once again Julee for your amazing generosity with opportunities to win some Verve!!

Okay, now to the card!  I dug through my DPs and this is the only DP I had with turquoise. in it. The green is more a celery but it worked nicely with the Olive so I used it.   Mercy's sketch from this week came to the rescue and I pulled out one of my favorite sets, Priceless, to use with the sketch.  A little black half pearl on the butterfly and some sheer black ribbon finished things off.  The white space at the top of the card was not sitting well with me and nothing I tried seemed to work, so after fiddling with what to do for way too long, I decided to pierce around the image.  One challenge down and a few to go LOL!   Sorry about another dark picture.  The weather just isn't cooperating around here!  I think it is time to make a photo box  -- maybe over Christmas break -- as I'm hating all these dark pictures!!  Thanks for bearing with me :D

To all my American readers and friends, hope you are having a fabulous Thanksgiving long weekend.  I'll be back with more Verve challenges as soon as I can get them done :D

What's In It?

Stamps:  Priceless (SU)

Paper: Black, White, Old Olive, MOD DP

Ink:  Old Olive, Tempting Turquoise

Accessories:  Threading Water Punch, 5/8" Sheer Black Ribbon, Black Half Pearl, Dimensionals

Flowers for Mercy

First of all, Happy Thanksgiving to all of you who live over the border!!   In Canada our Thanksgiving is in early October and I just love taking some time to reflect on all that I am thankful for.  Today, I am thankful for every one of you who takes a few minutes out of your day to come and visit me in my little corner of blog land (((hugs))). Enjoy some great food and Black Friday shopping (if you dare head out) for me :D

On to the card.  I managed to squeeze in some stamping time in after my son's field trip, and Mercy's Tuesday Sketch was next on my list.  I started  digging through my horizontal stamps to see which image I'd use when  flowers surrounding a sentiment came to mind.  I just love flowers .  They just make me happy, and after two weeks of being pounded by heavy rain, I needed a pick me up so flowers it was.

 

Out came my little Mary flower punch and to work I went.  As you can tell from the picture, I need some flower arranging classes as my flowers aren't exactly lined up -- blaming it on my love of "free from " arrangements (when in fact the truth is my eyes are starting to suffer from that aging thing and my up close vision isn't what it used to be LOL!).  I added orange centers to the flowers  so they would tie in with the orange trim.  Now I do have a little confession to make....I purchased this Martha Stewart Arched Lattice punch about a month ago for one of my family members to give to me for Christmas and it was screaming to be used today because it matched the flowers so nicely.  So....I dug through my  Christmas stash, opened the packaging veeeeery carefully, punched the orange card stock and then repackaged it and put it back in my stash -- good thing nobody is home LOL!   I scored the green panel on my Scor-Pal for a bit of dimension since my white panel had no embossing on it and added the brads because a little something was needed. 

That's it for today.  Have a great day / Thanksgiving and take a few minutes to think about all you have to be thankful for - it is medicine for the soul :D

What's In It?
Stamps:  Penny Black
Paper:  Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie, So Saffron
Ink:  Black
Accessories:  Martha Stewart Arched Lattice Punch, Scor-Pal, Brads, Marvy Flower Punch, 1/4" circle punch, dimensionals

Baroque Mojo

This week's Mojo sketch is one you can do all sorts of wonderful things with :D  I had a few other ideas in my head but opted to go with this one as I wanted to make a medallion and I haven't used Baroque Motifs forever.  Sorry about the dark picture, we are paying for our wonderful summer full of sunshine right now...nothing but rain, rain and more rain....at least no more wind storms for now!

As you can tell, my black ink isn't what it should be because in my utter stupidity, I accidentally re-inked it with Elegant Eggplant  instead of black!! I was re-inking a bunch of my ink pads and you and fill in the rest -- BIG "L" on my forehead right now LOL!  I sponged as much off as I could and almost ran it under the tap to get it all out but opted not to otherwise I would have no black ink pad to work with.  Guess what I'll be re-ordering soon!!  Good news is my little guy went back to school today and is feeling much better.  He was driving me nuts by the end of yesterday as his energy level soared and mine didn't keep up :D  Oh to be able to tap into his energy - I'd make millions!!

Sorry, I regressed.  Back to the card!  I opted to go with B & W since the old mojo isn't quite awake and functioning today and this way I don't have to think too much LOL!.  The medallion was fun to make and I popped it up on the card.  The sentiment was disappearing on the card so I added some silver half pearls under it to bring it some attention and added the rest of the half pearls to balance things off and give the card some pop.

Thanks so much for dropping by.  Hoping to get to Mercy's sketch tomorrow if I have time after driving for my son's ice skating field trip.  Have a fabulous day (((hugs))).





What's In It?
Stamps:  Baroque Motifs (SU)
Paper: Black and White
Ink:  Black
Accessories:  SU Scalloped Border Punch, Black 5/8" Satin Ribbon, Silver Half Pearls, Dimensionals

Over The Top Award

My fellow British Columbian blogging friend, Maureen, passed this award on to me.  I met Maureen at one of the Verve release parties and she is the sweetest thing ever. Stop in and check out her blog, Buttons and Bling, you'll thoroughly enjoy her wonderful creations!! 

The timing for this award couldn't be better.  I'm pretty sure my son has H1N1 (it's all over the school and he has all the symptoms).  He hasn't been swabbed to confirm it because the clinics aren't even swabbing any more due to so much of it in the area and the labs being so backed up.   Consequently, I haven't had a lot of stamping time this week.  Thankfully, he is on the back end of it and should be back at school tomorrow or the next day.  That means I should get some stamping time again :D  In the meantime, I get to enjoy some one on one time with my son as well as being able to share this award with you :D

Here are the rules: 

Answer the following questions using single word answers (as you can see I failed miserably!  Heck, I could have easily written a few sentences on each question LOL!)  

Pass the award to 5 other people and let them  know.

Your cell phone? Purse 

Your hair? Curly!!

 Your mother? Amazing
Your father? Remembered
Your favorite food? Sushi
Your dream last night? None
Your favorite drink? Green tea/decaf nonfat latte
Your dream/goal? NO stamping budget

What room are you in? Guest room/stamp room
Your hobby? Stamping
Your fear? Premature death of my kids
Where do you want to be in 6 years? Not working
Where were you last night? Home
Something that you aren't? Impulsive
Muffins? Cranberry orange
Wish list item? Family Vacation
Where did you grow up? Costa Rica/BC, Canada
Last thing you did? Unload the dishwasher
What are you wearing? Jeans/sweatshirt
Your TV? On (son is playing Wii) 

Your Pets? Cat
Friends? Cherished

Your life? Blessed
Your mood? Relaxed
Missing someone? My dad
Vehicle? Honda Odyssey
Something you're not wearing? Shoes

Your favorite store? Michaels

Your favorite color? Green

When was the last time you laughed? Today
Last time you cried? Sunday (Extreme Home Makeover)
Your best friend? Hubby

One place that you go to over and over? Costco/Michaels
Facebook? Sort of
Favorite place to eat? Home (hubby is a fabulous cook!!)

The 5 bloggers I would like to pass this award to are:

Dawn (flowergal36)

Stacy (Twinshappy)

Hollly (Toy)

Angela (My SU Demo)

Viv
 

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope to be back soon with a post  :D
 

Chocolate and Butterflies

This is the fourth and final Verve Sketch With A Twist for the month of November.  This week's twist was a colour challenge.  We had to use chocolate, purple and vanilla.  I loved the thought of that combination, but it turned out to be more of a challenge than I bargained for.  None of my limited stash of purple DPs worked as they all had other colours in them so I opted to go with plain card stock as I was too lazy to try to create my own DP.

Once I got that issue out of the way, I decided to flip the sketch so there would be more room for my image.  I found a fabulous little Studio G stamp set at my LSS and wanted to try it out.  I used the wonderful flower border image and the sentiment from the set.  Unfortunately,  the butterflies that go with the set were a bit too big for this panel so I went to my favorite Verve butterflies :D   I stamped them on the image panel and then again on another piece of paper so I could cut them out and add them on for dimension.  I also used some purple liquid pearls in the center of each flower but it doesn't show up as well as I had hoped.  The butterflies were finished off with some brown half pearls on the antennae.  Of course, the polka dots on the butterflies lead me right to my Swiss Dots embossing folder (insert warm fuzzy feeling) for the vanilla layer.  I added a row of half pearls under the sentiment so it would stick out a bit more and finished things off with the purple gross grain ribbon.

Unfortunately the butterflies look more blue that purple (Lovely Lilac to be precise) in my picture.  I need to learn more about Photo Shop before I can play with adjusting the colours so until then, just pretend they are more purple LOL!

The wind storms have finally settled down a bit but the rain is pouring down - yup, we are now into our typical November weather.  Good news is Whistler is getting DUMPED on with snow and are building a wonderful base for the 2010 Olympics in February.  They have set an all time November snowfall record and we still have a week to go.  Hopefully we don't get a warm snap with rain to mess things up!

That's it for today.  Have a fabulous weekend and thank you so much for stopping by (((hugs))).

What's In It?
Stamps:  Verve, Studio G
Paper:  Lovely Lilac, Chocolate Chip, two other purple cardstocks from LSS
Ink:  Chocolate Chip, Lovely Lilac
Accessories:  Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Brown and Cream Half Pearls, Purple Liquid Pearls, Lovely Lilac 1/4" gross grain ribbon, Dimensionals