Petals a Plenty

embossing folder in the Stampin Up Holiday Mini Catalog is what I used to make the Christmas ornament on my card today:

I have had this idea in my head for several weeks now, and finally had time to put it down on card stock. I am quite sure that someone over on Splitcoast Stampers already had the same idea, it is not a complicated one. I ran a piece of Stampin Up Real Red card stock through my Cuttlebug machine with the Stampin Up "Petals a Plenty" embossing folder, then punched out circles of it with a 1-1/4" circle punch. If you put 1/4 of a piece from a sheet of 8-1/2"X11" card stock through with your embossing folder, you can easily punch out 6 of these cute x-mas balls, and make six Christmas cards in a flash. I chose to paint the raised dots on each circle with some of the Shimmer paint from the holiday mini catalog, but they look great plain as well. The bow was made with some gold ribbon by American Crafts. Please Stampin Up bring back the metallic ribbon! I miss it so! Gotta check my stash and see if I have any hiding somewhere.

Anyways, I need to run, we have Trick or Treaters coming to beg for candy at 6pm tonight. I hope you enjoyed my quick, clean and simple card. Oh, the sentiment is from Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set. Phew! Until next time...............Blessings, Lisa

Fall Cards

Hello. Here I am finally on a late Tuesday afternoon. I went stamping at my Stampin Up Leader's house today. She made a couple of my designs, and I made a couple of her designs. We had fun. So I thought I would share with you what I stamped. I have to give her credit, these cards were designed by Terri. She doesn't blog or post on Splitcoast, so I can't post a link for her. Sorry. There will be other times that I can share her stuff with you though. Anyhoo....The first card is made with the single turkey stamp from the Stampin Up Holiday Mini Catty, called "Gobble Gobble". I have got to get this little guy, he is quite an adorable turkey.
The card base is Naturals Ivory card stock, the layer on top of that is More Mustard, stamped with More Mustard and one of the stamps from the "Autumn Splendor" stamp set. The next layer is Really Rust with with a bit of SU DSP (I forget which one). The turkey was colored with a Soft Suede marker then his feathers were colored with various markers using the "thumping technique. We then cut out the turkey and mounted him on some Chocolate Chip card stock punched with the Scalloped Circle punch. His sentiment was punched out with the Small Oval punch; and I brushed the edges of the oval with a sponge and Chocolate Chip ink.

The second card above was stamped randomly with the SU stamp set called "Autumn Splendor" with More Mustard, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, & Really Rust inks. The card stock used was Really Rust, Naturals Ivory, and Very Vanilla. The sentiment is from the stamp set "Heard from the Heart", and the corner punch is one of the retired Stampin Up punches.

That about sums it up for today. I am in the mood to make Christmas cards, so expect that theme next time. Until then.......... Blessings, Lisa

I have been sick, sorry

Hello. I just wanted to let you all know that I am still around. I have been sick for more than a week, but I think I am on the road to recovery now. First I had the 24 hr. yucky flu a week ago Saturday. Monday and Tuesday my daughter had a fever, so I caught that from her. Then I went right into a bad sinus attack, love all of that drainage, pain and pressure in the face, clogged up nose, no sleep, no appetite. But, boy did I have an appetite come back to me on Sunday, and I slept a loooooooooong time overnight through Monday morning. My hubby had Monday off work, and let me sleep in while he got my daughter off to school. Is he sweet or what? I am going over to my friend's house to stamp with her tomorrow (Tuesday), so I promise to post something when I return in the afternoon. I have missed stamping, blogging and boring all of you with my useless stories. Until then.....................Blessings, Lisa

Fall Ornament Punch Vase

Happy Sunday evening. I was asked by a friend to make a Fall version of my Stampin Up Ornament Punch Vase from a previous post (click here). So, I thought that I would go ahead and post it on here. Stampin Up has a beautiful stamp set new to their current main Catalog called "Autumn Days". I thought of the "Pussy willow" stamp when I was asked to make this.

When I was a little girl in the 70's (oops just shared my age), my grandmother had a Pussy willow tree in her back yard. She used to cut some of them off and put them into a vase inside her house. I had the very big job of holding the ones that she cut while she was cutting more. I so loved those fuzzy soft little things, they felt like kitten fur. So here is the card I have been chatting about:

I used Stampin Up Soft Suede to stamp all of the Pussy willow branches. I stamped some of them two times before re-inking the stamp, so that some would look lighter. I stamped the Butterfly from the "Charming" stamp set with yellow, then didn't like it, so I colored over the yellow with my Soft Suede marker. The design on the vase is the same as it was on my previous post also from the stamp set "Charming", and the sentiment is from the stamp set "Teeny Tiny Wishes". The card base itself is Very Vanilla card stock, and the vase is Bravo Burgundy card stock. I think that covers it. For instructions on how I made that chubby vase please click on the link above for my previous post. Thanks for visiting my blog, and have a blessed Sunday evening. Lisa

Fall Trendy Trees

Well, my daughter has a soccer game on Saturday, so I am here posting tonight. Saturdays always get away from me to quickly during soccer seasons. I had said in my last post that I would have a Fall card to show you over the weekend, so here it is.

Ha! Fooled you! Only kidding. The above photo was the card sketch over on Splitcoast stampers this week. The actual card is pictured below:

I haven't used my Stampin Up "Trendy Trees" stamp set in awhile, so I decided to dust it off and stamp. Are these the cutest stinkin trees ever or what! Love this set. This card sketch was super easy to put together too. The 2009-2010 in-colors are great for fall cards too. My card base is Crushed Curry, then Dusty Durango, then Bermuda Bay, and of course the trees are mounted on Soft Suede and stamped on Whisper White. The inks are the coordinating colors of course. I used two square punches: 1-1/4" and 1-3/8"; and the Word Window punch. The sentiment is also from the Trendy Trees stamp set. That sums it up; short and sweet. I hope you enjoy! Blessings, Lisa

Quick Christmas Tree Cards

I know, it is only October, and I am on a Christmas card kick. I seem to be particularly inspired by Christmas already. I have a couple of Fall cards to share with you over the weekend. So, here is my own handmade designed by me Christmas trees on cards.

What I did first was to take the snowflake background stamp from Stampin Up's "Serene Snowflakes" stamp set, and their White Craft ink, and stamped all over an entire piece of Garden Green 8-1/2X11 sheet of card stock. Then I cut it into sheets about 8-1/2" x 2-1/2", then at the end I had a large section that was approximately 8-1/2"x 3-1/2". The larger section is the one that I cut to make the first card you are seeing with one large tree on it. I just kept cutting these strips until I had a bunch of tree shapes. This idea makes some quick mass card production when you have waited til the last minute to make your Christmas cards.Now, the tree base is was made with my Word Window punch, and cut in half. So you can get two tree bases from one punch. The star at the top was made with my Stampin Up Star punch (the smaller one). Then my last touch was to add some bling with my favorite embellishment...sticky gems. You could just as easily use a red marker to add accents, a very small circle punch and red card stock, or even some Red Smooch, or Red Liquid Pearls (if they make that). The sentiment is from Stampin Up's "Teeny tiny Wishes" stamp set.

The next photo is my version made with the smaller strips that I cut. This one is my favorite of the two, but takes a little bit longer to make. This time, however, the SU star punch was too big, so I am used a mini star punch that I got a long time ago in some one's dollar bin. I am sure Michael's has them. I used the tiniest sticky gems on this one too. The tree bases on this one were made with my Stampin Up Small slot punch. The glitter used on the snowy hills is Dazzling Diamonds from Stampin Up. I think some chunky glitter would look better, but I don't have any of that yet, so I improvised.

I tried something new with my Picasa photo editing software today.......soft focus feature. I like this! The top photo didn't hold onto it's changes though, there is a little gremlin inside my Picasa I think. Oh well, it was free, what can we expect. I am not an expert on photo editing yet though, so if any of you have been working with Picasa or Photoshop for awhile and have any tips for me, please by all means leave me a comment. If I missed something or didn't explain it completely, please feel free to leave me a comment that I can respond to.

Until next time.......Blessings, Lisa

Christmas Stocking Card

I used another digi image from McMahon Five Designs for my card today. I am getting so hooked on digi images lately. No worries, I still love the rubber stuff too. There are so many awesome things out there in the crafting world to fall in love with, too many I think. Anyhoo... here is my card:



The first thing that I did was to color my digi image with Stampin Up markers, then I found out that I printed the image to large for my Nestibilities (oops). So, I cut the image out then cut my Rectangle and Scalloped Rectangle out with my cuttlebug, then adhered my image to the rectangle. I actually thought it looked interesting to have the image hang over the edges of the rectangle a wee bit. Sometimes, what we think are mistakes, turn out interesting instead of yucky. I used some of that new Smooch shimmer paint on the candy canes to add a little extra interest. If you look at the close up photo below, you can see it better. It is of course on of those things that looks better in person than it does in a photo. All card stock is Stampin Up, the designer paper is also Stampin Up form one of the 6X6 DSP hostess packs, gotta love those things. Then I added some Mark Richards embellishments called metal nail heads that are self stick like the sparkle gems and faux pearls that I so love to use on cards. They were on clearance, so I am giving them a try. Me likey! How about you?



Speaking of Clearance or Deals in general........Stampin Up has brought back their "Deals of the Week" for this month. This week they are offering some Sizzix di-cuts at a reduced cost. Check it out on their customer page, and if you order online, please choose me as your demonstrator.

Until next time...................Blessings, Lisa

Happy Halloween

Hello. I decided to take another break from Christmas cards and go with a Halloween card. I used the owl stamp from Stampin Up's stamp set called "Halloween Frights", and the sentiment is from "Teeny Tiny Wishes". I also decided to go Clean and Simple. So, here is what I came up with:

The owl is stamped with Stampin Up's White Craft ink, on Elegant Eggplant, Really Rust, Old Olive, and Chocolate Chip card stock, then punched out with a 1-1/4" square punch, then mounted on a square piece of Basic Black card stock.

The sentiment is on Elegant Eggplant, and punched out with the Word Window punch, then mounted on some Basic Black punched out with the new Modern Label punch. Some orange sticky gems from Hero Arts tops it off.

Quick post for me today. I hope you enjoy. Blessings, Lisa

Punched Doxie

If you have been following my blog for very long, then you probably know that I have a very super sweet Miniature Dachshund dog. Her name is Brandy, she is 15 years old and still feisty. We have kept up on her regular maintenance, fed her good stuff, and just all around taken good care of her. She sleeps alot more than she used to, lost some of her teeth and piddles on the floor sometimes (yuck), but other than that still has a great zest for life, and loves giving wet kisses. I have been waiting very patiently for someone over on Splitcoast stampers to come up with a doxie punch art thingy, as there are so many cute punch art thingies over there, but nope, no-one has yet. So I put my little brain to work and started punching out some shapes with my Stampin Up punches, arranging them on a piece of scrap card stock to see what might work together. The photo below is what I came up with:

Ok, I am back, and I adjusted the Doxie body to be a bit more slim. I am challenging myself here to use only Stampin Up paper punches, as most of my punches are from Stampin Up. The legs look a little long, but this can be easily adjusted by cutting off a little bit, or simply attach them more underneath the body further. Below is a chart that shows what punched pieces are used to put together this ultra cute doggie. The doxie head is one of the hearts from the Heart to Heart punch, and so is the ear. The doxie legs were made with the Horizontal Slot punch. The body and tail were both made with the Small Oval punch. The white lines are where I cut them, the pieces with the X's can be thrown away.

Here is a close-up photo of how I cut the doxie body. The small oval was too chubby, so, I put it back into the punch, moved it around with my xacto knife until I had it where I wanted it (as shown in the photo below), then punched it.

Now, for the tail, the discarded doxie body piece was too wide for the tail, so to make the tail, punch out a small oval. Then place the negative space back into the punch, line it up as I have shown in the photo. Make sure it is real skinny at one end (left side of photo), and slightly skinny at the other end (right side of photo), then punch.

The photo below is my real Dachshund, Brandy. She is my sweetheart!

I hope you enjoyed my punch art, I so rarely do this. If you have any questions, leave me a comment that I can respond to.

Until next time...............Blessings, Lisa