Day 314: January SOTM Blog Hop

Welcome to the January Stamp of the Month Blog Hop! This month we are featuring Beloved Bouquet, a gorgeous set of 14 images. I never can have too many flower stamps! You may be arriving here from NANCY'S BLOG. The complete hop list can be found here. Let's hop!

I was inspired for this project by a stunning layout I saw on Instagram by Jessy Christopher-Tham. She does amazing work, and I thought that the January SOTM would look lovely in place of the die cut flowers she used so beautifully. I used the stripe from La Vie en Rose, embossing with white powder the triangles from Crazy Good. I used Slate ink to stamp the floral spray (in a circle on the right) and the sentiments from the January SOTM. 

I got my 5x5 prints from Parabo Press, and they are so nice and thick! I trimmed the top of a gold PML overlay card into 1/4" strips so I could line two of the sides of my square print. Then I filled in the remaining two sides with so, so much gold glitter gel. Dude, it might still be slightly wet even next week. I patted some glitter gel over the white embossed triangles too, because more glitter is always good in my book. The flowers were stamped onto sanded colored cardstock. I inked only the outline images using the lightest color (like Canary or Whisper) and tapping on bolder colors here and there (Slate and Pomegranate). Then I sanded again and brushed on some Wink of Stella for extra shimmer.  

Next up on the hop is NINA'S BLOG. Don't forget that this lovely set of blooms is only available in the month of January, so contact your consultant or click here to pick your Beloved Bouquet  today!

My other January SOTM projects:
Thinking of You Card

Day 191: Have a Fabulous Day Card

This Operation Smile stamp set has been one of my favorite sets for a year now, so tonight, the last night it was available I wanted to make just one more card with it. 

I was inspired by this card I found on Pinterest. I used my Memento Tuxedo Black to stamp the images. Then I colored everything in using my waterbrush and three inks: Canary, Glacier, and Pixie. I added a few scattered images from Doodled Designs and some pen dots in the background.

I added a swipe of clear Wink of Stella to the balloons after the ink dried. I also decided to stamp the sentiment onto some Blossom paper and trim out the FABULOUS. 

Tomorrow is the day we get to start posting art from the new Idea book, so that's fabulous indeed! 

Day 189: Koala New Baby Card

Tonight I did a bit of quick coloring with my Spectrum Noir alcohol markers. 

I have been looking at this Muse Card Club inspiration card all week. Finally tonight I remembered my Cute Koalas set and suddenly I was ready to make a card. 

I didn't want to paper piece the leaves so I loaded the black leaf image with green alcohol marker ink, then blended it out in a halo of color around the leaves.  I loved how that effect came out - if you try it out, leave me a comment so I can come see your work! 

Day 69: So Cool Card

I'm off to Seattle for the CTMH Making Connections Event! I was up late working on Heirloom Pro stuff and swap cards, and this is one of the cards I made while burning that midnight oil.

I was cruising Pinterest and I found this cutie little ice cream card by Kymona Tracey.  I thought of the June SOTM immediately, and within minutes I had this cute card completed on my desktop. I had a lot of fun shading the popsicles with my Shin Han Markers, and then I topped them off with some glitter gel. The sentiment is from the May SOTM.  

You can find a ton of May SOTM ideas on this month's blog hop. See ya back here tomorrow after I get home from Seattle!

Day 66: Butterfly Hello Card

I am having the best time going through my stash and using up my favorite papers this month! Today's project uses an oldie but goodie called Dotty For You.

I saw this card by Joelle Hiller on Pinterest when browsing Dotty For You projects and thought it was pretty cute. So I flipped it and added some flowers from the Happy Birds set and a sentiment from the Artfully Sent exclusive stamp set. 

Each flower got some glitter gel in the center and I added a black sparkle to the fussy cut butterfly. I added a bit of clear jelly roll sparkle pen to the centers of the stamped sentiment. I just love a nice rainbow card!  

Friday Favorite Things Discover Joy

Today I'm sharing one of the Holiday layouts I did with ProPlayer. When I got the paper I panicked a little bit. I knew I didn't have photos to work in the theme we were given...so I had to work outside of that box. I surprised myself with a whole board of Holiday themed projects! This layout is stamplifted from a digital and Silhouette layout by Nichol Magouirk I found on Pinterest. I think this layout is the first thing I saw that made me think that ProPlayer would make adorable holiday projects!

I used the circuit board print and a snowflake overlay from Artbooking sponged with White Daisy ink to build the pattern. Then I used the Stitching guide to add the stitched details and swirls to my new patterned paper. A generous sprinkling of Sparkles finished off my handmade snowflake paper!

My title is a combo of the new E1026 Vogue alphabet and titles cut with Artbooking from our Silver Glitter Paper. The new packaging for E sized alphabets is so handy - two D sized liners (Double Ds!) tucking into our standard envelope! I used the Computer Code paper here, sponged with the same snowflake overlay from the red circuit board area. You can see a bit of the circle overlay from my Pocket Album project posted yesterday sponged into the Black CS area too.

Ready for a giveaway? I got all my bundles including my Artbooking this week - CTMH shipping is rockin'! I know there's been a bunch of new followers, and I was privileged to meet a bunch of you fabulous ladies at my classes during Extravaganza, so I want to do a giveaway every week this month...and I think we'll start with a beautiful new D1551 Swirls Around, a stamp set from the New Catalog going live in August!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Cousins Pocket Album

The very first project I made for Extravaganza was this new Pocket album. My cover design was inspired by this pretty mini album by Patricia Roebuck, which I found on Pinterest. You can find all of my Convention Inspiration pins here. You can see my favorite use for the Artbooking overlays here - tone on tone, just adding a touch of texture to the background. I did handstitch all around the outside of that overlay using the new Stitching Guide ruler. The small squares stamped with stars came from the Overlay leftovers. I love that I know have bowls of squares, circles, hexagons, etc...I'm getting one of our organizers to sort all my Cricut scraps into now that I'm entering a whole new phase of paper hoarding!

How much do you love the already welded titles on Artbooking? I backed that camera with Slate Washi tape and detailed the front with hand stitching and red glitter glitz. The Slate sunbursts are stamped with a star banner stamp from the Artbooking bundle in White Daisy Ink. 

Inside my pocket album I used the overlays in lots of different ways to add interest to an otherwise simple and repetitive pocket decoration design. Here are a few examples. On the first pic I stamped some of the circles with a star and re-glued them into the overlay, plus I filled in the small squares with red glitter glitz.

Here I sponged the overlay with White Daisy ink like a mask, then stamped the stars onto random circles. Save those inked overlays - you can totally reuse them either as templates for more inking or as an inked decorative overlay.

This was one of my favorite overlays - inked with White Daisy Ink, them filled in with red and silver glitz to look like beach balls. 

I did remove the last two pages from the album using my craft knife, and re-gluing the center binding with Liquid Glass. It was a fun and quick project, though I'd probably sponge all the overlays on to keep my album from getting such a pronounced "alligator mouth" effect. 

I'm linking this project up to the Heart to Heart Masking Technique Challenge for the overlays used as a mask!

Monthly Memories Club is Friday!

I've got a big crafty weekend coming up, starting with my Scrapbooking club coming over on Friday, then a Saturday Team stamp with my CTMH team who are coming over to make these projects! I love my job!

My club on Friday will be making these six pages. First up is a two page layout inspired by THIS lovely layout by Vicki Wizniuk. I knew as soon as I saw it that I was gonna have to make one of my very own. 

How adorable is this medallion embellishment? I cut my medallion on the Artiste Cricut Cartridge, and I found that at first going through and just folding the creases without caring if they are going back and forth into the accordion makes the whole process of building one of these a LOT simpler. Then you can go back and refold it as an accordion much more easily. To make a full medallion, cut two of the Cricut shapes, fold into accordions following the score marks, glue them together and squish them down into the medallion shape. I covered the top of mine with layers of For Always My StickEase and sparkles. Thanks for the inspiration, Vicki!

The second set of pages is probably my favorite. I Embossed those big doilies using the Pirouette stamp set, then distressed them with Desert Sand and Whisper inks. The butterflies are Cricut cuts covered with Black Shimmer tape.

The flower clusters are a combo of shaped Cricut flowers like the ones from my Butterfly album workshop kit, For Always My StickEase, stamped roses from the coordinating For Always WOTG stamp set, and acrylic flowers from the For Always Assortment. Plus a generous sprinkling of sparkles! I'm linking this project to the Heart 2 Heart Spring Forward challenge, because for me spring = flowers.

The last set of pages for Friday were a little harder to photograph. See how the background looks kind of, well, dirty? In person it's actually a super light textured stamping of polka dots and floral swirls from In the Background done in Crystal blue and Whisper ink. No matter how I lighted it I just couldn't get a good clear pic of it, but it's really lovely in person. 

All of the embellies on these two pages are pretty much right from the My StickEase, though I did add some piercing and a bunch of buttons and sparkles to embellish the stickers. 

I'm off for the afternoon rounds of school pickups and homework, but I can't wait to see my ladies on Friday to make these pretty pages. The sun is shining, the scrappers are coming over...life is good!

MUSE Challenge #1

I love a good challenge blog, and I just joined this new one called MUSE, a Card Making Club. The idea is to create a project based on the inspiration card using only stuff from your stash. So when I got the first inspiration photo from MUSE I figured that a card for Princess P's tea party would be the perfect place to start. I used the photo as a sketch, matching my proportions to the original card. I'm also linking this card to Make It Monday on an Original Belle and to ABC Challenges - Birthday Cards.

I used some scraps from Pear and Partridge (sadly, sold out) along with a cuttlebug embossed panel from my red scrap bin. I added this green Cricut scroll from my bowl of random extra Cricut cuts. Am I the only one who does that? I cut a few extra just in case, then I end up with a bowl of extra Cricut cuts just hanging around waiting for just the right project. I also added some flowers I had gotten for like $1 somewhere, maybe Joanns...anyhow, forever ago. I covered the original not-so-pretty flower center with Stardust Glitter Glitz and Red sparkles. 

The whole card took me less than ten minutes, and Gabe could not wait to give it to Princess P at the party. My boys all dressed up for the party in their own ways - button up shirt (Gabe), Tie applique T-shirt with snappy colorblock cardigan (Ben), and sweater vest combo (Max). At least no one insisted on going dressed in their superhero jammies!

I get another box 'o new goodies tomorrow (hooray!!), so more sneak peeks will be coming soon!

Avonlea Monthly Memories Club Pages

Monthly Memories Club is meeting this Friday, and I'm so excited to make these pages with my Stamping Ladies (as my three little guys call y'all)! Avonlea is one of my favorite papers in the catalog - I was so excited to choose the Avonlea Card Workshop as my prize when I was Spotlighted on Jeanette's Blog because I can't get enough of it.  I purposely placed Avonlea at the end of our club schedule for this catalog because I knew that I would still be inspired by those beautiful prints even with the new Catalog sitting on the table next to me... but then December's Train of Minor Tragedies rolled in and I just plumb ran out of time to get anything done. I've got the last ten holiday cards sitting on the table at my left, a stack of half packed packages for my brother's kiddos Holiday gifts on my right, and there was just no way to cram in any more time last month. So I stamplifted these fabulous pages from two (well, sort of three) of my favorite CTMH stampers. 

How gorgeous are those white heat embossed flowers/snowflakes on this first layout? They are the creative genius of Karen Pederson, whose warm and witty blog you need to run over and follow right away. I love reading her posts,which make me feel like we're just chatting over a cuppa tea. Check out her fabulous salsa recipe too!

I stamplifted this second layout from Karen Pederson also, adding a bit of burlap to the right side of the layout. The Avonlea Canvas StickEase are just so pretty and easy to apply!

This last layout I lifted from Dawn Montanago, who told me she had lifted her version with extra stamping on the sides from one of my creative heroes (and yours too, I'm sure), Tresa Black. I added even more stamping down the sides, plus a title trimmed out of that fabulous burlap ribbon...and a ton of glitter!

For this one I went back to the Stardust Glitter Glitz, which add just a subtle shimmer. I also did some fun alternative inking on the more solid images, sliding the image across the pad in a swiping motion instead of the normal "pat pat" solid ink coverage we aim for when inking a stamp. I thought it added a nice bit of texture to the images!

One last note for my Canadian Consultant friends who have been waiting ever so patiently for a solution to the Stamping Rules Consultant Kit problem...The door is now open again! I've started building the Shop My Stash page on my blog (which anyone can shop from, of course) and now you can order kits again. Hooray! Check out the details on my Consultant Kits page and I'll be loading more products and a wider variety of products to the Shop My Stash page as time permits. Right now it's just stamps, but I plan to expand to include more retired products and page kits as well. Thanks for looking, and for your patience!

Two of my three kiddos are going back to school tomorrow, so it's (finally) back to our beloved routine. Have a great week, Stamping Friends!

P.S. Thanks to Karen, Dawn, and Tresa for the amazing Inkspiration this month!

Amazing Pam Klassen

I saw the CUTEST card the other morning by the super talented Pam Klassen made with my beloved Dotty for You papers... so I had to run upstairs and make it! I still can't believe that all this paper is just $5!!

I was out of the green stitched ribbon (gasp...must order more stat!!) so I went with the also awesome  Dark Chocolate striped ribbon. I hit my stash of clear buttons and gave up just one of my hoard of tiny chocolate paper flowers...

I am a die hard fussy cutter - love my Cricut but I can't help it. A B&T (Background & Texture) paper like this is on my table, I'm practically itching to trim out the images! So it was fun to make a card actually using the butterfly paper as a whole piece. Thanks for the inspiration, Pam!


Ooh - and my Moxie Fab Life is Tweet card got chosen as the RetroSketch Rockstar of the week - sa-weet! They have an adorable new sketch up that I'm working on right now - come on over and play too! Now if I can figure out how to add my awesome new RockStar blinkie.... you know I can't resist a bit 'o bling...

Thanks for stopping by - you are amazing!