Joyeux noel {SFYT}}

I cannot (cannot!) believe it's the last Saturday in October already, but alas, it is Saturday, so that means another great Sketch For You To Try. I had a little free time this morning to stamp because hubby shot a deer and promised George that he could go with to drag it out of the woods, which meant quiet stamping time for me (also known as "bliss")! Here's what I came up with...

I wanted a clean sorta vintage look, so I pulled out a favorite CHF set that puts me in that vintage mood. I stamped and embossed the snowflakes and sentiment using clear embossing powder and then embellished the main image layer with rhinestones and a felt bird (SU! Birds and Blooms die). Linen thread grounds the bird, giving her a spot to rest for a bit.

Finally, I did something I haven't done before and don't know if I'll try again: I used hot glue to secure the ruffles in the black grosgrain. I did this for stronger holding power (since I'd decided to ruffle the ribbon AFTER I'd secured the woodgrain embossed layers) and while that ribbon is not going anywhere soon, the hot glue was a bit tricky, and yes, I burned my fingers a bit, snort!

Here the list of SFYTT sisters playing along this week:
Jen del Muro & Lesa Smaligo

Amy Sheffer
Amber Hight
Jodi Collins
Megan Lock
Sony Christoph
Susan Liles

Hope you're all enjoying Saturday as much as I am (so far) and have a little time to get crafty this weekend!
~Amy

We Love "The Bee"!

My daughter is starring as Rona Lisa Perretti in her high school's Spring play, The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, so I'm dedicating this week's SFYTT to her! Once again, I took advantage of two wonderful "bee" stamp sets from CHF: Sweet Bee and The Birds and The Bees (Kim Hughes Collection), and a paired them with a partial page from a discarded dictionary and some yummy Cosmo Cricket paper (Early Bird).

I added a few Tiny Twinkles to the crown and sparkly letters that spell out "t-h-e" to jazz up the central circle layer at bit. Here's a close up shot...

Let's buzz on over and see what the rest of the SFYTT crew has this week:

Jen del Muro & Angie Tieman
Megan Lock
Jenn Diercks
Amber Hight
Amy Sheffer
Kelly Lunceford
Leigh O'Brien
Susan Liles

Have a great weekend!
~Amy

Publications and a Dirty Dozen Challenge

Hi there, I've got a few things to share with you today, starting with a card that I had published in Stamp It! Cards 2010 using Green Thumb from PTI along with a sentiment from SU!'s Warm Words set.

Second up is another card I had published recently in the Mar/Apr 2010 issue of Papercrafts using another PTI set, Guidelines Two. The die cut bird and flower are from SU!'s Birds and Blooms.

Finally, a card I just made yesterday and posted over at SCS for the monthly Dirty Dozen Past and Present Challenge, hosted by Joanne Basile. The challenge was to create something full of Spring, and the birds and the bees, but you couldn't use any border punches. For this clean and simple card, I used two sets from Cornish Heritage Farm: Sweet Bee and The Birds and The Bees (one of my favorite Kim Hughes sets!).

The felt flower was made using a strip of pink felt that I straight stitched on one side with button thread (for good holding power) and hand scalloped with a scissors on the opposite edge. After I'd done those two things, I pulled the thread tight and finger teased the felt until I had the desired flower shape. I finished it off with a fun button from MFT and my sentiment stamped on a die cut label.

welcome home {SFYTT}

Happy Saturday, everyone! I'm here with the final SFYTT for February, but don't worry, there will be more coming in March. Before we leave February though, remember to play along with the sketch and link your card to Jen's slideshow to be eligible for her super dee-duper prize package and for your chance to be a future monthly guest designer for Jen's SFYTT challenges. Ok, let's get on with the sketch and then my take on it...

I decided to combine a few things that I love: October Afternoon paper (Farm Fresh), anything felt (tree top and bird wing), buttons (PTI), and Kim Hughes images (The Landing Pad tree trunk). Oh, I almost forgot--the discarded dictionary page...love the script stamps, printed papers and the real stuff! The sentiment is from PTI, another place I love! I hope my card brings you a little hope for Spring to soon arrive in your neck of the woods...

Ready for more inspiration? Here's the crew...
Jen del Muro & Mona Pendleton
Amy Sheffer
Kelly Lunceford
Leigh O'Brien
Susan Liles

Have a good one!
~Amy

valentine, I {heart} you...SFYTT

Hopefully you all tuned in last week for the big comeback of our weekly SFYTT and were able to participate for your chance to win Jen's super duper prize package! Each time you play along with the sketch and link your creation to Jen's blog, you'll have a chance to not only win the prize package (over $200 worth of amazing stamping stuff), you'll also be eligible to become Jen's Guest Designer of the Month...fun stuff!

I'm not head over heels in love with my card, but I've got DH and little George waiting to get on with the day, so I had to be satisfied. I kept telling George that if he sat behind me on my chair while I was stamping, I might mess up and then I'd have to start all over, and then it would take me even longer finish...I think I was subconsciously hoping that I'd have to start all over, but I didn't. That George...he's such a good helper at the sewing machine, at my stamp table, and he's recently taken an interest in my Big Shot as well...uffda, he's busy!

Ok, now that you've seen what I did with the sketch, let's mosey on over to see what Jen & Mona, Kelly, Amy, Susan and Leigh have come up with.

Stamps: Polka Dot Basics II (PTI); The Birds and the Bees (Kim Hughes, CHF)
Paper: discarded dictionary, October Afternoon, Cosmo Cricket (Early Bird)
Embellishments: button, linen thread, heart die (SU!), scallop edge punch (SU!), Aqua Mist grosgrain (PTI)

Handmade Christmas??

If I had my way, I'd have oodles and oodles of time to stamp-out and craft-up each and every Christmas gift I give, but somehow time has gotten away from me again this year, and this might just be the only hand-stamped-crafted gift I'm giving for Christmas 2009. The ensemble pictured consists of a covered PTI notepad and box full of hand stamped labels for my friend who owns and operates King Bee Apiary, thus KBA.

Stamps are from Cornish Heritage Farm and Papertrey Ink. Colors are inspired by this awesome tag box tutorial by Val Stangle on SCS. The box was made using Val's tutorial with a change-up in dimensions to suit my labels.

Here's a shot of the box "half open", so you can see the acetate sleeve. Don't be intimidated by the acetate sleeve...just read the tutorial and follow Val's instructions--easy peasy!

Thanks to Val for a great tutorial and color combination! Hoping to be back tomorrow with a TCP Tuesday sketch card and my Christmas cards...

Amy

Stamp Simply #110

Hip, hip, it's hip to be square! This week's Stamp Simply Challenge, in the words of our fearless leader, Sharon Johnson:

Feeling Square - Today's challenge has to do with shape -- squares. NO rounded corners on todays card -- so that means NO oval or circular punches or die cuts -- only square shapes. The card must be square, any size, as long as it's square and all layers added must have squared corners. Only your small embellishments can be round or oval -- so you can use buttons, brads, primas, etc. as embellishements, even though they may be round. So if you're feeling a little square, today is YOUR day!

My card uses Sweet Bee by The Rummage Bin in Perfect Plum, Spring Moss and Vanilla. The subtle backgrounds (dots, script, pussy willows) are stamped in Sahara Sand, with touches of vanilla around the edges to soften things up a bit. My only not-square element is the tied plum button, and I love that it also softens the sketch and stands as the token round embellishment.

I'm excited to see what the rest of the SS crew has squared up for our viewing pleasure!

Sharon
AJ
Barb
Barbara
Deb
Janine
Jenny
Julie
Tammy will be back next week...

See you Saturday with another SFYTT!

Stamp Simply #108

I'm so lucky to be part of Sharon Johnson's Stamp Simply challenge team as October Guest Designer, and here's my creation for this week's challenge:

Krafty Black -- Today's challenge is in honor of all those who LOVE Kraft paper. The added element is that we MUST use black paper as well -- anything else goes, as long as you have both Kraft and Black paper in your creation. And, if you don't own Kraft paper, do your best to use whatever you have that is as close as possible. As always, we're an easy bunch. We just want you to play and have some fun with us!

There you have it, a fun and pretty easy challenge (for a kraft and black lover like me, anyway)! My creation is one of these fun little totes made with SU!'s Top Note die and a mini paper bag. Here is my original source for these fun little bags: akjuda on SCS.

Just a little background on the monogram - KBA: it stands for King Bee Apiary which is owned and operated by a wonderful friend and co-worker of mine. She and her hubby have started a little honey bizness (get it?!), selling hand made soaps and honey. I can tell you from personal experience how wonderful both products are! Anyway, I just had to have this set from The Rummage Bin, Sweet Bee, and thought it would make a great little monogram for my friend's bizness with the king's crown hanging on that big ol' B. The K and A are from PTI's Fresh Alpha, so clean, so crisp!

Just for a bit of added regal-ness, I ran the kraft card stock through my Big Shot with the argyle embossing plate from SU!. I think I'd probably die cut the kraft layer first, and then emboss secondly, because it lost a bit of it's embossing the second time I ran it through with the Top Note die. I know, some of you are probably thinking, yah-duh, didn't you think of that first? I have to tell you that sometimes when I get an idea, I just run with it, impulsively at times, and don't "think" of all those things...kwim?!

Have a fantastic Thursday night/Friday all, and please play along with this "krafty" challenge, using keyword: SSNOTIME108 at SCS and/or linking your creation over at Sharon's blog. Be sure to check out the rest of the SS sisters by clicking on their names below.

Sharon
AJ
Barb
Barbara
Deb
Janine
Jenny
Julie
Tammy

I'll be back Saturday morning with another fabulous SFYTT!

happy B-day {SFYTT)

It's a new month and that means a whole new month of fabulous SFYTT conjured by the sketch master, Jen del Muro! I needed a break from the holiday stamping I've been doing that past few weeks and remembered this new set I got from CHF, Sweet Bee. There are so many possibilities with this set (baby, birthday, hubby, sweet heart), and although it's a bit intimidating to me right now, I do believe I will have the best luck using the "less is more" theory of creativity. I know what you're thinking--this card is anything but "less is more", but really, the stamping is pretty minimal, just lots of different patterns going on--sorry if it makes your eyeballs wonky!

The combination of paper is Cosmo Cricket Early Bird (red polka dot), Jenni Bowlin (black/cream prints) and a bit of SU! So Saffron. The fun accessories include a circle of rhinestones from Me and My Big Ideas, buttons from Papertrey Ink as well as the button twine, ribbon by Offray and a stick pin from Heidi Grace. Oops, just about forgot about the fun felt ric rac--also by Offray.

Let's get on with it and see what the SFYTT sisters have for us:

Jen & (new!) October Guest Designer
Amy
Kelly
Susan

and...we just might have a new SFYTT sistah with us today: Leigh O'Brien (yeah!!)

Have a great World Card Making Day today!

Hot Dog!

Today's card is a birthday card made for our 4 year old nephew using a Kim Hughes image from her set, Little Gal (CHF) along with sentiments from SU! (it's your birthday) and TCP (hot dog). The colors are SU!: Soft Suede, Riding Hood Red, Bermuda Bay and Crushed Curry. I also used my Spellbinder's Labels 2 and circle dies paired with hand cut sentiment layers. The final embellishments are punched stars and red mini brads.

I'm making this a short post as I'm having major internet connectivity issues today, and I don't want to push it by taking too long before my next outage!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Inspiration Challenge: hello, baby!

I decided to check out the Saturday Inspiration Challenge over at SCS yesterday and fell in love with the curtains from the inspiration photo below. I knew my CHF broad stripe backgrounder stamped with Kiwi Kiss ink would work perfectly to mimic the diagonal stripe of the curtains and then pulled in the other colors, Tangerine Tango and Chocolate Chip, on my die cut letters and ribbon/flower cluster. The cluster is topped off with a {hello} tag, again using my PTI set, Mega Mixed Messages (you'll notice that I also used the same stamp on my SFYTT card from the previous post). It's just a handy set to have within arm's reach!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by today. I hope to get to a few more of the SCS daily challenges once I'm on summer vacation--next week!

Tomorrow is...

...National Nurses Day, so I thought I'd share another From the desk of creation that I made for our staff to give to our school nurse. This one uses retired SU! colors and papers in Soft Sky, Wild Wasabi and Spring Silhouettes dsp along with PTI ribbon in New Leaf as well as a button from their vintage white/cream button mix.

One different element in this desk organizer is a 5x8 covered notepad for "Nurse Notes", along with the standard one panel personalized notecards/envies and pair of jumbo clips that I've included in each of the organizers I've made thus far. The notebook paper stamp, bandage and cross stamps are from Cornish Heritage Farms, and the alphabet is from PTI (Fresh Alphabet).

Thanks for stopping by for a look-see today!

Owl be missing you...

I have two cards to show you today, both of which use patterned paper scraps from the secretary's day desk organizer I showed you yesterday. If you missed it, just scroll on down to yesterday's post.

As you can see in the first card, I paper pieced the body of my owl with a scrap of the patterned paper I created using Guidelines 2 (PTI). I also used Guidelines 2 to create a more subtle yet matchy-matchy patterned paper for the lower portion of this 3 1/4" x 6 1/2" card. Just to bling up my girly owl a bit, I added Diamond Stickles to her eyelids and then again to the center of the Raspberry patterned layer to pull it all together. This card is going to my fabulous student teacher who has been working with me for the past 12 weeks. Tomorrow is her last day and I'm really going to miss her. We really clicked and on top of that she's a fabulous SLP (speech language pathologist)!

The second card also uses a scrap of that patterned paper, and is actually a re-make of the card that accompanied the desk organizer from yesterday. In all the hustle and bustle of Secretary's Day, I forgot to take a picture of the original card, so I just had to make another to show you.

Below are the details for each of the cards:

Owl be missing you
Stamps: URA Hoot, Guidelines 2
Paper: Raspberry Fizz (PTI); Kraft, Kiwi Kiss, Basic Black (SU!)
Ink: Palette Noir Black, Pink Passion, Whisper White craft, Kiwi Kiss, Sahara Sand (SU!); Razzberry (Colorbox)
Accessories: Kiwi Kiss Corduroy button, scallop edge punch, black buttons, linen thread (SU!); Diamond Stickles (Ranger), 1" pink grosgrain (Offray)

I am a smitten kitten!

Remember the "smitten kitten" line from Friends? It was TOW (the one with)...where Phoebe tells Monica she's SO much the smitten kitten with Dr. Richard Burke (Tom Selleck). Oh how I loved that show and still do although I rarely watch any of the episodes I own on dvd.

Anywhoo, back to the stamping world: I am so the smitten kitten with my new PTI Damask Designs set---in L-O-V-E! Just arrived on my doorstep yesterday and had a little time to play around last night. Have you ever gotten one of those sets that you just love everything you see stamped with, and in turn it makes you nervous to even use? You want everything to be picture purr-fect (pun intended) every time you use it? I guess sorta like a first date, so to speak? Well, my first date left me wanting more. I don't think I'll be putting this set on the back burner anytime soon! In fact, I've already got another card waiting to be posted tomorrow, so stay tuned my little kit-kats!

Card deets
Stamps: PTI Damask Designs; CHF Broad Stripe backgrounder
Paper: Raspberry Fizz, Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, mustard (unknown source)
Ink: Ranger Distress Walnut, Clearsnap Versamark
Accessories: scallop edge punch, chocolate twill (Taylored Expressions.com), button, linen thread, felt flower

Whoot whoot, it's a Mojo Monday sketch!

For Mojo Monday #80, a fun sketch that allowed for mixing and matching patterned papers. I chose SU!'s Good Morning Sunshine DSP paired with an adorable new stamp set from My Cute Stamps, My Forest Friends. The entire stamped area is paper pieced and popped up for a little extra dimension, and the darling leaves are hanging over the main image panel just a bit. I love the look of going beyond the box, so to say, and it's so easy to achieve when paper piecing. You simply trim "the box" and then add your paper pieced portion over top, kwim?! I think you can tell what I mean as you look at the picture.

Other details include the sentiment from Kim Hughes' URA Hoot (CHF), a felt fusion flower topped with a corduroy brad (SU!), 3 Old Olive mini brads (SU!) and chocolate twill from Taylored Expressions.

Hope your day is full of "whoot whoot" moments!

Hello, Spring!

I am so ready for Spring '09 to arrive here in Wisconsin, and while we got a tease of it a couple weeks ago, it's just not quite happening yet! I am, however, very thankful for dry land on which to step, drive and in general, live upon as our neighbors to the west in MN and ND are unfortunately experiencing extreme flooding. Well wishes to all of you affecting by the flooding!

So my pining for spring has manifested itself in this fun little card, featuring Kim Hughes images (bee & sentiment), a big old red felt flower topped with happy gingham, a button and stick pin. If that ain't happy enough, there's a bit of October Afternoon Depot Park paper to cheer thing up. I have to say that I've never met a piece of OA paper I didn't {love}, and this collection is no exception!

Happy Monday all you peeps out there!

Sisters!

Our neighbor girls, Payton and Shelby, couldn't be more different, so when it comes to making birthday cards for the girls, it's fun to try and fit their personalities into each. Shelby is a tomboy, is turning 5 today(!) and her favorite color is blue; Payton is a girly-girly who actually turned six in January. I think it's great that they each are such little individuals. And guess what?! They have a new girl in town--baby Ada, so it will be fun to watch her personality develop as well!

Oh, and here's a fun picture of the girls with George taken last month on the same day their little sis' was born! Can you tell how much George loves these two?!

Card deets
Stamps: Birthday sentiment (CTMH); Little Gal (CHF Kim Hughes); Small Sayings (SU!)
Paper: pink (DCWV); Pacific Point, Cool Caribbean (SU!); patterned paper (Oct Afternoon)
Ink: PP, CC, Citrine & Razberry (Colorbox)
Accessories: scallop & notebook edge punches, black grosgrain, Basic Black & Green Galore mini brads

Hello!

Just a quick post to share a card I quickly put together using some fun and happy colors with a splash of black. The sentiment is from CHF's Garden Friends and is one of my favorites--a stand alone in my book! I thought I had oodles of this polka dot organdy ribbon, but just enough to finish this card off, layered with a flower and pink button; all tied together with a piece of linen thread.

Hope this card brightens your day as much as it did mine, just making it!

Card deets:
Stamps--CHF Garden Friends
Ink--Versafine Onyx Black
Paper--Pink Passion, Apricot Appeal, Basic Black
Accessories--flower, button, linen thread, scallop edge punch

Bee Mine!

A quick post to share a picture of the valentines I created for the kids on my caseload at the elementary school where I work as a speech therapist. They had to be quickly mass produced because I waited to start working on them after parent-teacher conferences last night! My student teacher helped me put the finishing touches on them before school this morning--thanks, Lindsay!

The stamps are from Kim Hughes' The Birds and The Bees set available from CHF, and the little bitty heart is from SU!'s Small Sayings set. My 16 yo DD convinced me to color the bees in various colors and I like the result! Who said bees had to be yellow?!

Have a great V-day all you sweethearts!

Sunday's FS102 on Tuesday!

I seem to consistently be a day late and dollar short these days when it comes to keeping up with the goings-on in the blogger world of stampers and over at SCS, so the fact that I just tuned in to see that Lori Craig/stamp_momma was Featured Stamper #102 on Sunday should come as no big surprise. What is a big deal though is this "stamp_momma lady"! Although I've never met her, I can just tell what a warm and wonderful lady she is from visiting her blog and seeing the things she's doing here and there as well as the swell comments she leaves me! Go, see for yourselves what I'm chattin' about: check her out her blog or her SCS gallery and see this wonder!

To play along with the FS challenge, you choose a card from said person's gallery and CASE it with a few changes, whether it be colors, stamps, embellishments, etc.. Well, in this case there were two of Lori's cards that tripped my trigger, so I'll give links to both.

Inspiration card #1
Inspiration card #2

I used the same stamp set as card #2 and the same layout as card #1, using different colors, papers and embellishments. I also stitched a bit of red thread around the perimeter to pull in the red color of the heart in "honey". Ranger Stickles (Diamond) were used in the wings and the heart for a little extra sparkle, cause these two bees are in love and 'cause Lori did that in her card (#1)! The images are watercolored with reinkers and a brush adding sponging on the edges to tone everything down and give it a little shabby love. The trio of heart brads replace the dew drops in Lori's card (#2 in case you're keeping track!).

I had a great time perusing Lori's gallery and I always love to stop by her blog, so if you're looking for a challenge or just some great eye candy and down to earth chatter, be sure to stop by, see her and play along: Featured Stamper 102 Challenge.