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Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Easter Punch Bunny


I tripped across this totally adorable Easter Bunny made from punches and I just had to make one of my own!   Here is the link to Mercedes' blog where she has the instructions.

I decided to put the bunny on some grass and my hubby actually came up with the idea to put some eggs next to the bunny - think he just blew his cover regarding his interest level in my card making LOL!

In hindsight I realized I forgot to put a cotton tail on him.  Will be fixing that one asap :D

Thanks for your continued support and comments.  They make my day (((hugs))).





What's In It?
Paper:  Tan, Pretty in Pink, Black, Bashful Blue, Mint Medley
Accessories:  Nesties, Scalloped Oval Punch, Large and Small Oval Punches, 1 1/4", 3/4", 1/2" and 1/4" Circle Punches, Black Fine Line Marker, White Gelly Roll Pen, 1/4" Lavender Gross Grain Ribbon, Cotton Ball, Dimensionals

Saturday, March 27, 2010

Kraft Cardstock - My Newest Addiction


What a delightful mix of colours Stacey has come up with this week.  Love the softness of the colours with a pop of black.  I have often used black, pink and white together, but would have never thought of adding kraft to the mix.  In all honesty, until I became a Curtain Call Crew member and had to buy some Kraft because Stacey had it in a few of her colour challenges, I had never really used Kraft - gasp!!  I know, I 'm slow on the pick up!  However, I can honestly say it could very well become my next addiction LOL! 

Once again, I turned to Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch. Note to self -- make sure to use a different sketch next week so my card can be added to the link on her blog (which closes on Thursdays) and have a chance to be the winner of the random selection and have my card featured on her blog.  Either that, or make two cards using her sketch LOL!

Sorry, I regressed...back to the card!  The inspiration picture made me want to duplicate the wall pattern on my card, but it just didn't work with what I was trying to create so I'll have to save that for another time - which may end up being sooner than later!  Out came my Verve wreath for the circle portion of the sketch.  Each point on the wreath has a black half pearl (even though they are hard to see in the picture) and the sentiment is popped up and underscored with pink half pearls.  Since I don't have the corner punch to go with this Stampin' Up! border punch I had to wing the corners of the white panel.  Needless to say, that issue has now been rectified via an order LOL!  In hindsight I'm thinking I should have used VersaMark to put a pattern on the Kraft panel but it's too late now - something else to save for next time.

The rest of the Curtain Call Crew have some wonderful samples for your inspiration.
We'd love it if you joined us too!!  Simply create a card using this week's colours and add your card to Mr. Linky on Stacey's blog.  If  you are uploading to a public gallery, please make sure to use the keyword Curtain Call.  Each week, Stacey will select one person to receive her "I Got The Lead At The Curtain Call"  Award as well as five people to receive her "I'm A Top 5 Curtain Call Show Stopper" Award which you can post on your blog, so come on over and join the fun !




What's In It?
Stamps: (Verve) Accent Notes, Thankful Accents
Paper: Kraft, Pink Pirouette, Basic Black, White
Ink: Black
Accessories: SU Border Punch, Scalloped Circle and Circle Nesties, Black Half Pearls, Pink Half Pearls, Sheer Black Polka Dotted Ribbon, Dimensionals

Green Kitchens Here I Come


This week, Amber let us pick our own inspiration kitchen for the Verve challenge.  I Googled "green kitchens" and had a ball looking at all the images that showed up.  For a fleeting second, I thought of using my kitchen because it has green walls very close to the colour of the cupboards in this picture, but based on the state it is in, taking a picture of it was not an option LOL! 

The sketch just about sent me into a tail spin for the second week in a row.  Last week's worked me over but good and this week's has done the same.  Guess that is why they call it a challenge, right :D  I used kraft, celery, orange and white.  The picture of my card made the orange a lot brighter than it actually is and try as I might, I couldn't adjust it so just imagine it being a few shades lighter.  In hindsight, I should have scored the white panel as per the walls in the kitchen instead of using the Swiss Dots embossing folder.  Think I need to put that embossing folder in a container full of water and freeze it in my freezer so I can't get at it for a while! 

I pulled out Verve's Wishing You set for my focal sentiment and added a brown half pearl to the end of each of the curly bits on the sentiment for a little "oomph".  I kind of cheated on the tab portion of the sketch by using a Prima but hopefully Amber will let it slide...  Rest is pretty self explanatory.

Have a fabulous weekend everyone!

 




What's In It?
Stamps:  (Verve) Wishing You
Paper:  Kraft, Certainly Celery, Only Orange
Ink:  Chocolate Chip
Accessories:  Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, SU Border Punch, Brown Half Pearls, Primas, Buttons, Twine, Glue Dots, Dimensionals

Friday, March 26, 2010

Retro Kitchen Butterfly


This week's retro kitchen pictures threw me for a loop!  I'm definitely a warm neutrals type of gal so I had to swallow hard to work with these inspiration pictures LOL!  

After trying all the combos out, I finally settled on this one because of the green - my favorite colour.  I decided to go with Wild Wasabi as it looked fabulous against the black and white. 
The butterfly on the sketch just made me have to use my SU butterfly die which is now my newest addiction.  Actually I blissfully used my two favorite addictions on this card: the butterfly die and my Swiss Dots embossing folder - be still my heart LOL!

A few half pearls on the butterfly, some bling under the sentiment, a splash of polka dotted ribbon and I have finally caught up on all the March Verve sketch/inspiration challenges - yeah!!  None to soon either, because it is Friday and Amber will have our final March sketch and inspiration pictures for us today! Can't wait to go see what she has come up with.

Wishing you a fabulous weekend with some stamping time thrown in :D





What's In It?
Paper:  Basic Black, Wild Wasabi
Accessories:  Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, SU Sizzix Butterfly Die, Polka Dotted Ribbon, Half Pearls, Bling, Dimensionals

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Embrace the Angled Panel And Make It Your Friend


I must admit when I saw Mercy's sketch this week I went "ugh" because I have such a hard time with off-angle panels.  Don't  know what it is about them, but they work me over pretty good.  However, I "embraced the angled panel and made it my friend" LOL!

I had a wonderful light bulb moment (have to take them when I can because they don't come too often LOL!) and decided to use the ribbon flower tag I had made for one of the last Verve release challenges.  It was the perfect focal piece and allowed me to make one of the fastest cards I have ever made.  Oh that I could be this creative this quickly on a regular basis!! 

The hardest part of this card was trying to decide what additional colour to add to the mix.  I dearly miss the Colour Combo Site which had Stampin' Up colours on it and allowed you to select colours and then provided colours you could mix with the ones you chose.  If anyone has a site they use for this, please let me know!  After a few tries, I settled on Certainly Celery for my punch of colour and called it a card.

Have a fantastic day and thanks for sharing a part of yours with me (((hugs)))




What's In It?
Paper: Night of Navy, Certainly Celery, Pretty in Pink
Accessories:  Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, SU Scalloped Border Punches, Label 4 Nesties, 1/4" Lavender and Celery Grossgrain Ribbon, Blue Button, Twine, Glue Dot, 1/4" Hole Punch, Dimensionals

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Roses In Winter



I just love the soft colours in this inspiration picture.  I know this picture screams "Shabby Chic", but just don't do Shabby Chic well at all so I went with a focus of roses instead - a much more comfortable working environment for me LOL!  Of course, when roses are involved, Stampin' Ups Roses in Winter is my set of choice.  This set has been poorly neglected so it was wonderful to give it some ink again!

The first two layers of the rose were stamped with Pretty in Pink and the center of the rose was stamped with Positively Pink, a retired colour that I just love and thankfully have a re-inker for!  I used Certainly Celery for the leaves and more Pretty In Pink for the small flowers among the leaves.  In keeping with the rose theme, the pink panel was stamped with one of the rose images from Watercolour Minis.  A lacy border punch added some "frill" to the card as did the sheer, pink bow at the top.  To finish things off, I added some half pearls to the sides of the sentiment panel.  Sorry it's blurry in the picture. Not sure what caused it - maybe didn't have the macro setting on.  The sentiment reads "The fragrance lingers in the hand that gives the rose." 

Thanks for popping in today.  I have really missed my blog (and all of you!) these past two weeks and look forward to posting regularly again :D   Have a fabulous day!



What's In It?
Stamps:  SU Roses in Winter, Watercolour Minis
Paper:  Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery, VersaMark
Ink: Pretty in Pink, Positively Pink, Certainly Celery
Accessories:  SU Border punch, Pink Half Pearls, 1" Sheer Pink Ribbon, Dimensionals

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

ZipTrek, I Love You!!

I just HAVE to tell you about our last trip into Vancouver over Spring Break.  The kids and I drove in one more time so we could do the Zip Line over Robson Square.  ZipTrek, who operates a large array of zip lines up at Whistler, had set up two parallel lines over Robson Square.  The starting tower was about seven stories high as you can see from the picture on the left, and the ending tower was about three stories high.  

The picture of the building shows you how steep the zip  lines actually were.  I totally forgot to get a picture of Robson Square below, but then, I wasn't particularly interested in looking down when I was standing on the scaffolding LOL!  You can see a bit of it in the picture behind my son.  Here is a video of what the actual ride looks like so you can enjoy a "ride" too :D   Just scroll down to the video clip and hang on for the ride.


 During the Olympics the line ups were anywhere from 6 to 8 hours long but we only had to wait three hours the day we went .  It may seem like an insane amount of time to stand in line, but it was totally worth it - really!!!  We met SO many wonderful people in line that the time flew by.  One lady was celebrating her 50th wedding anniversary and must have been in her late 60's to early 70's, two ladies were celebrating their 55th birthdays and topped things off by celebrating with champagne and chocolate dipped strawberries after they finished zip lining, and there was a mom there with two kids close in age to mine so the kids played with each other and never once complained about having to wait in line - score!!

My little guy did the fateful error of looking down when he was all hooked up and ready to go and started to cry and say he didn't want to do it. Thankfully there was an amazing lady working his side of the zip line who distracted him by asking him questions and who actually unhooked her safety line and walked with him down the four stairs and got him to step off and go.  He want from tears to a huge smile just 10 feet down the zip line.  To say it was fun is an understatement!!!  Oh my word!! I want to go and do it up at Whistler now!!  What an amazing memory and best of all it was totally free!

We carried on to more free venues including the Vancouver Art Gallery (I've lived here for years and have never gone there before) and the BC Pavilion.  The BC Pavilion had a 4D movie that had me ducking in my seat when a girl threw a snowball because it looked like it was coming right at me (thankfully I wasn't the only one who ducked LOL!), some wonderful touch screens we played with, moving salmon images on a floor that would scatter when you stepped by them, some funky wood art and much more.  We wrapped things up by visiting the Northern Pavilion where they had a stuffed Arctic fox, Reindeer, Muskox (I think that is what it was) and polar bear.  Needless to say, I don't ever want to run into a polar bear in real life because they are huge!! 

Hope I didn't bore you with our adventures.  We had so much fun I just had to share our day with you :D  Back to posting cards from here on in, I promise!


Monday, March 22, 2010

Olympic Medals and Daisies


It feels SO good to be able to stamp again!! Kids are now back in school and mommy gets some play time of her own :D

I chose this apron picture for this week's Verve inspiration sketch.  I loved the bright colours of the cupcakes and with Spring now "officially" here and my tulips beginning to sprout, it was an easy decision.  

The first thing that came to mind when I saw the sketch was "Hey, this looks like three Olympic Medals" LOL!  Think our trip to the Mint to see the medals and watching the Paralympics are still fresh on my mind! 

Pushing that thought aside, my next idea was to use butterflies and a bling trail for the vertical panels, but the trails left a lot of white space so I settled on flowers because the stems filled up the white space very nicely.  I wanted to go with tulips as these are tulip colours, but I don't own a tulip punch or the new SU bird punch with the "tulip petal wing" and was too lazy to try to create my own, so I ended up making daisies with a Martha Stewart punch.  I flipped the sketch so I would have a bit more room and used scalloped squares to frame the daisies.  I Swiss Dotted (this is a stamping word, right  lol!) the black panel to give it a bit of umph, crimped the flower stems and leaves for some texture and mounted the finished panel on a white base with some dimensionals.  I'm not totally happy with the outcome, so I just  may have to try the butterflies after all, but for now, this will have to do because I'm waaaay behind on this month's Verve sketches!

Thanks for popping in.  Off to work on more cards!




What's In It?
Paper:  Pink Passion, Green Galore, Lavender Lace, Basic Black
Accessories:  Scalloped Square Nesties, Martha Stewart Daisy Punch, 1/2" Circle Punch, Crimper, Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Dimensionals

Friday, March 19, 2010

Frustating Curtain Call Flowers

Wow, when I first say these colours all I could think of was "this is going to be one bright card" LOL!  However, they do work very nicely together and the black grounds them nicely. 

I decided to take the inspiration piece literally and create some flowers on black card stock  Heck, if it looks good on the purse, why not on a card, right??!!  Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch was the perfect match for me this week as the layout had flowers on it and basically made my card for me :D  However, that is when things came to a grinding halt LOL! 

I saw this fabulous flower on Silke's card and decided to give it a go. I should have known better.....being the practical girl that I am, I would never normally make this type of card because you can't mail it in an envelope, and if you did mail it, it would not only cost a fortune to send, but there is no guarantee of what the flowers would look like when they got there.  I should have changed directions right then and there.....but no....I decided I was up for a challenge.


It didn't take long to realize, Silke I am not!!!  I fought with these flowers for well over an hour.  Yes, I could have tried something different, but I had an idea I wanted to make work and I wasn't going to let some dumb paper flowers get the best of me so I kept at it.  Well, as you can tell, the flowers won - ugh!  They are a sorry looking set but at least I now know I will never try making them again!  Thankfully, the rest of the card came together very quickly.  I used the new SU border punch, added some bling under the sentiment and called it a card (insert big sigh of relief).  Just as I was finishing up, my precious daughter made the battle worth it as she said she liked the card (needless to say she got a huge hug :D).   She may very well get it for her birthday LOL!  Next week, it's back to the KISS principle LOL!   


The rest of the Curtain Call Crew have some wonderful samples for your inspiration.

We'd love it if you joined us too!!  Simply create a card using this week's colours and add your card to Mr. Linky on Stacey's blog.  If  you are uploading to a public gallery, please make sure to use the keyword Curtain Call.  Each week, Stacey will select one person to receive her "I Got The Lead At The Curtain Call"  Award as well as five people to receive her "I'm A Top 5 Curtain Call Show Stopper" Award which you can post on your blog, so come on over and join the fun :D  





What's In It?
Stamps:  Amuse
Paper:  Real Red, Pink Passion, Yoyo Yellow, Basic Black, White
Accessories:  SU Scalloped Circle Punch, SU Border Punch, Bling, Brads, Glue Dots

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Some Of What We've Been Up To

Hi everyone :D  Spring Break has been a flurry of activity, so as I anticipated, I have not had a lot of stamping time :-(    However, we have been able to catch up with friends we don't get to see very often, have hit the pool (finally got rid of the chlorine smell in my hair!), hung out and had a jammie day and have ventured into Vancouver to catch some of the pavilions that are being carried over to the Paralympics with no where near the crowds!!

On Monday, the kids and I went in to Vancouver to go see the Mint - where the Olympic and Paralympic medals are on display and you can hold them and look at them.  When we got there they said the line up was about two hours long, but as it turned out, we stood in line for about three hours.  Thankfully there were pigeons my kids could feed and chase and there was a Starbucks too --score.  Venti, decaf, non-fat latte to go :D   In addition, the Mint had a great video that showed how they make money.  In addition, there was a trading table where you could exchange regular quarters and Loonies (Canada's one dollar coin) for some special edition Olympic ones.  In addition, the people in line were very friendly and we had a great time chatting with them.  Even met a coach of the Paralympic slalom skiers and had a great chat with him.

Here are a few pictures of our fun day downtown.  You can click on them to enlarge them if you want a closer look.


This picture on the left is a picture of the back of the Olympic Bronze Medal.  These medals are round and undulated.  It has the Inukshuk Winter Game symbol and the Olympic rings on the lower right hand corner.

The picture on the right is  is of the  Paralympic Gold medal.  It is square and has undulations on it.




The Paralympic symbol along with the three swooshes they use instead of the rings are on these medals.  the swooshes stand for Body, Mind and Spirit.
They also have Vancouver 2010 written in brail on the back.  Each medal is totally unique. The undulating on the medals represents the mountains and seas in the Vancouver-Whistler area.



Before entering the mint you get one cotton glove to wear as you aren't supposed to touch the medal with your hands.  The glove is yours to keep as a souvenir.  We ended up with two left gloves and one right one so at least we have a pair LOL!  Since you were not allowed to do a take a picture with the medals doing a thumbs up, peace sign or biting it, the kids decided to do it with their glove

They  also had a case with all the medals in it as well as a large picture of them.  Here are my two kids in front of the Paralympic medal case.




 
Here are the three of us in front of the Olympic Medals.



Here are the kids in front of the Logo for the Royal Canadian Mint.









On our travels we also tripped across this cardboard image of Roberto Luongo, the Vancouver Canucks goalie who played in goal for most of Canada's games in the Olympics.  My kids took the picture so unfortunately his stick got cut off  LOL!




We also walked through the Bay to see if they had any Olympic goodies left at reduced prices and they did - plus there wasn't a three hour line up to get in either - score!  My son found a giant size Sumi, one of the Olympic mascots, so we all took turns posing with him.


Tomorrow, we are heading back in to Vancouver to do the Zip Line.  It has been set up between two skyscrapers over Robson Square in Vancouver and is about a 30 second ride.  During the Olympics the line up was anywhere between six to ten hours long and now it is down to around two, and if you get there early, even shorter than an hour.  Just hope my little guy doesn't jam out when he gets up there because you are up about eight stories when you start!


Hope you've enjoyed the pictures.  Will try to get some stamping in later this week.  Thanks for visiting :D

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Curtain Call Colour Challenge Act 21



I just love these colours together.  Green is my favorite colour and the touch of light yellow brings in such a lovely, subtle, punch of colour.  

This week I paired the Curtain Call Color Challenge with Jen's Sketch For You To Try.  I over-stamped the wonderful Verve sentiment with Stampin' Up's Happy Harmony flowers to fill in the panel since my sponging sucks LOL, and succumbed to my Swiss Dots embossing folder for some background texture.  Next I added some one inch artichoke grosgrain ribbon which I gleefully dove for in the Michael's value ribbon bin (what would I do without that bin!!).

To wrap things up, I pulled out some Primas which I got from Stacey (aka Twinshappy) quite a while back.  I am Prima challenged, so I thought I had better jump in and use them before they are a thing of the past LOL!  I added a button with some twine to the middle of each one since I didn't have any moss or artichoke coloured flowers I could layer on top of the yellow one -- no surprise there because these aren't exactly flower colours LOL!  If I had some white ones I could have coloured them to match, but no such luck so buttons it was :D  

The rest of the Curtain Call Crew have some wonderful samples for your inspiration.
We'd love it if you joined us too!!  Simply create a card using this week's colours and add your card to Mr. Linky on Stacey's blog.  If  you are uploading to a public gallery, please make sure to use the keyword Curtain Call.  Each week, Stacey will select one person to receive her "I Got The Lead At The Curtain Call"  Award as well as five people to receive her "I'm A Top 5 Curtain Call Show Stopper" Award which you can post on your blog, so come on over and join the fun :D




What's In It?
Stamps:  Verve, SU Happy Harmony
Paper:  Always Artichoke, Mellow Moss, Barely Banana
Ink:  Barely Banana, Black
Accessories:  Circle and Scalloped Circle Nesties, Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, 1" Artichoke Grossgrain Ribbon, Primas, Buttons, Twine, Dimensionals

Friday, March 12, 2010

Happy St. Patrick's Day



Pals Paper Arts Colour Challenge this week was perfect for a birthday card I had to make for my blogging friend, Maureen over at Buttons and Bling.  She is a St. Patty's Day baby and since this card may not make it to her in time for her birthday (our mail system is crazy at best!) I'm posting it here before I send it to her so she can make sure to get it before March 17th.  Happy Birthday, Maureen!!

As luck would have it, I actually received this Bella as a bonus gift with an on-line order.  Needless to say, I thought of Maureen right away.  My follow up thought was, hey, this Bella looks like me because my hair is just as curly and I love the colour green! It was meant to be :D

My card was based on this week's Stepping Stone's Sketch, but with the Bella being as large as she was it is a bit of a stretch from the sketch.  I guess I should have made a larger card!  Anyway, I coloured her with Twinkling H2Os which reminded me once again that I am far from a colouring guru LOL!  The celery panel actually has shamrocks stamped all over it but it got pretty well covered up. I popped up the shamrocks in her bucket and added a button on the sentiment panel.  Even managed to sneek my Swiss Dots embossing folder in - grin :D

Spring Break is almost half way done now and we have had a great week visiting friends we don't get to see on a regular basis due to where they live.  I have also been able to go through all the closets to get rid of clothes that are too small etc. and have put a big dint in the basement cleanup job - yeah!!  Just need to take a run to the Sally Ann, recycle depot and maybe the dump and we will be well on our way to an organized and decluttered basement!  Thus my self proclaimed reward of some stamping time today - said doing the happy dance LOL!

Thanks for dropping by!  Have a fabulous weekend :D





What's In It?

Stamps:  Goodluckabella, StudioG
Paper:  Garden Green, Certainly Celery, Kraft
Ink: Garden Green
Accessories:  Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Oval and Scalloped Oval Nesties, Twinkling H2Os, Aqua Brush, Button, Twine, Glue Dot, Dimensionals