Season of Simple Grace

Hello again, I have been wanting to make a card with a stamp set out of Stamp Up's Holiday Mini Catalog, called "Season of Simple Grace". I bought it during our demo preorder period so that I would have time to put together some sample cards with it. So, tonight I sat down at my craft table, and went completely blank. Absolutely no creative juices flowing what-so-ever! How depressing, and frustrating. Then I remembered that I have always wanted to try to make a card with only two colors, black and gold. This was a more difficult challenge than I thought it would be. But I did it, I am not thrilled with what I did, but here it is anyways. I added a close up of the phrase that is on it below, because I absolutely love it. There is actually another phrase that came with the set, along with two other images, which can be seen on SU's web site. Just click on the link on the right sidebar of my blog that mentions the online catalog. I heat embossed everything with Detail Gold EP, and the only thing on the card that is not an SU product is the gold cardstock (DCWV). I was very low on my SU Gold Supply, so I chose to conserve. I may need it for my next workshop. Well, I am off to browse my favorite blogs.

Fuzzy Handmade Spider

Hello, I was just goofing around with a few paper punches, and thought that I would share the result with you. I punched a circle with one of my SU punches, darn it, I forget which size. Sorry. The legs are made of the SU small slot punch, 2 of them glued together, and I used one of the points of the small star punch to punch all around the circle to attempt to make him look fuzzy. His squiggly mouth was made with the SU white gel pen, and of course I had to add googly eyes. That about sums it up. When I figure out what I am going to do with him, I will post that. Till then, Take care. Lisa

Fall Card and Ribbon

Hello. I am running so late tonight, and can barely keep my eyes open. Well heck no wonder, it is almost 2am. I must be nuts. My silly daughter slept in today until 12:00pm, so I couldn't get her off the computer to go to bed until way past her bedtime. Thank heavens she doesn't have school on Monday. Anyways, after I got her to bed, I was checking out my favorite blogs, and lost track of time. Better late than never, I guess.

I bought a stamp from the Archiver's dollar spot a while ago, and had not used it yet, so I decided to play around with it yesterday. It is one of those acrylic stamps (which I am not particularly fond of), but have a few, because the designs were just too cute not to buy. I am sure you know how that is, right? It is made by a company called Autumn Leaves. Since it is acrylic, it would not hold onto my Stampin Up Classic ink. It wouldn't even hold onto my SU Craft Pigment ink. So, I had to trick it by first stamping it onto a Versamark Pad, then taking my little sponge daubers and dabbing the ink colors onto the places where I wanted them. Then, while the ink was still wet, I added some clear embossing powder and heat set it. It took a lot of time and patience.

After that, I decided to try out my very first Nestibilities diecut/embossing shapes. I got the large scalloped ovals (40% off coupon from Hobby Lobby), and used them in my Cuttlebug Machine. Not realizing that in order to emboss as well as cut, I needed to have some special embossing mat. Duh!!!! So, not wanting to wait, I embossed them the old fashioned way, with a stylus. Me no likey that method anymore! My Cuttlebug dry embossing folders have me extremely spoiled! So, being out of patience, I set it aside after that and didn't come back to it until Sunday evening. This is when I put it together in the form that you see above. Now, I am still not too good with bows (I need to watch a few tutorials over and over), so please do not ask me how I made that bow. I don't mean to be rude, but I am just not sure that I could repeat it, nor do I want to. That thing took me a lo..................ng time. I am thinking that I may have to frame that card in a shadow box, so nothing will ever happen to it. It took me far too long to put into the mail. Ever had one of those days? Anyways, the punched border at the bottom was made with a Fiskers border punch. The little blings in the scallops came from Michael's, along with the pretty sparkly ribbon. They had Halloween ribbon on sale dirt cheap this past week. I picked up two other colors as well, which you can see in the photo below. Isn't it gorgeous, I love fall colors, especially when they have some sparkle. Oh, I forgot to mention that the sparkle brad on the bow is from Stampin Up, along with all of the cardstock used, and both scalloped ovals are popped up with foam dimentionals. Well, I can no longer keep my eyes open, so I will sign off for tonight. Take care, and stay healthy. Lisa

Halloween Frights

Well, I am back again. Finally. I wanted to post something that goes with the upcoming holiday, something Halloween-ish. My new word for the week. I also wanted to post something made with the Halloween stamp set "Halloween Frights" that is in the Stampin Up Mini Catalog. However, like a dingbat I did not purchase that cute wheel of the broken fence that coordinates with the stamps in "Halloween Frights". So, I hit a definite creative block. But, I also wanted to use my new scallop square punch, so I came up with the card above. It is pretty simple, and I need a smaller square punch to coordinate with that scallop square punch. Me no likey how it turned out. Anyways, The striped DSP on the left side is from the current Halloween paper pack in Stampin Up's Main Catalog, the base of the card is SU Pumkin Pie, the scalloped squares are made from SU Lovely Lilac, the stamped images are on Very Vanilla Cardstock, and the stamped images were heat embossed. One last tidbit was that I popped up the stamped images on foam dimensionals. Me likey to do that! I am going to try to attach a close up so you can see the popped up images.

Ok, thanks for visiting my blog. I will be back again sometime Sunday afternoon! Lisa