Rose Garden

I promised Lenny we would stop at the rose garden on the way to Hilton Head this past summer.  Unfortunately, they and we had so much rain in May that the ground was sodden and the roses tinged in brown when they normally would have been at their peak.  Still, getting a break on the six hour drive is welcome.  I love to travel but I'm not much of a road warrier anymore.  About 2 or 3 hours is as far as I want to go without a meaningful break.  Walking through the rose garden, having our lunch under the trees and taking a quick walk by the waterway was wonderful.

This is the last of the Hilton Head pages for 2009.  For this layout, I trimmed up some pieces of two Basic Grey Periphery collection sheets to add to the distressed collage effect of the paper. 

The title is a combo of printing directly on the background paper, Cricut cut letters, and Basic Grey stickers.

Ingredients:  Paper and button:  Periphery Collection from Basic Grey; Rose ribbon also from Basic Grey

Card Sketch Challenge SC266

I was starting to feel like I used a lot of the same type of card layouts so I decided to participate in Splitcoaststampers weekly Card Sketch.  It was a lot of fun finding pieces to fit the sketch.  I limited myself to only paper from the Sunshine Garden kit from last year's SU! catalog.  I still have quite a few stickers and a little paper left.  These soft colors are favorites.

The stamped image is from All Holidays and is one of the few large word images I have.  Need to keep that in mind when I'm shopping for stamps.  I used Earth Elements markers to color in the words and added the flowers from an Autumn Leaves set.

The final touch was rounding the corners with my new We R Memory Keepers Corner Chomper.  I've been debating this for awhile.  I have their Crop-a-dile and it is terrific for setting grommets and punching holes in thick material.  However, the handles are wide set and tough on my hands.  The handles on the Corner Chomper are closer together.  As long as I don't go chomping through dozens of corners at once, I think it will be fine.

Ingredients:  Stamps:  All Holidays from SU!; Flowers by Autumn Leaves
Ink:  Old Olive, Creamy Caramel, Not Quite Navy
DSP and stickers from:  Sunshine Garden Simply Scrappin' kit

Sweet Pea DSP

4 days.  I made it 4 days before I broke into the new Sweet Pea DSP. 

New stuff at my house does not collect dust.  I take forever to make purchasing decisions but when I buy, I use.  New clothes, worn.  New shoes, on my feet.  New paper and stamps? Often they get opened before they even make it to the craft room!   So, I had browsed the new paper as soon as it came in.  Yesterday I made these first cards.

These use part of one sheet of the designer paper, some Cricut cut labels and a little stamping to make a fast card.  The ribbon is actually Melon Mambo but it goes great with this paper which looks to be combo of Rose Red and Pretty in Pink.


Ingredients all by Stampin' Up!:  Stamps:  Kind and Caring Thoughts  (the flourish stamp is from Autumn Leaves)
Ink:  Close to Cocoa
Cardstock:  Whisper white, Pumpkin Pie
DSP:  Sweet Pea
Ribbon:  Melon Mambo grosgrain dot.

TIPsy Tuesday - Craft Store Savings

Save money on scrapbooking supplies at the craft store by shopping in Non-Scrapbooking Departments.  Check out the rhinestones in jewlery.  Use glue dots to adhere to your cards just like you do buttons.  Speaking of buttons, the fabric departments sometimes have left over buttons on sale.  A fabric store I visit occasionally has boxes of buttons to purchase for a nickel apiece.

I also get my hemp twine from jewelry making department at Hobby Lobby. 

For inexpensive organza ribbon, go to the floral department.  These ribbons are sold on the roll often for 50% off.  (At Hobby Lobby, there are two locations for these - bridal and non-bridal).  Ribbons without wire are best.  If you do end up with a wire ribbon, be sure to trim the ends after tieing your bow no matter how pretty it looks.  The tieing process pulls up the fabric part of the ribbon leaving little ends of wire hanging out that must be trimmed.

And of course the floral department specializes in Flowers!  Here's an previous TIPsy Tuesday on picking silk flowers:  http://lisae-design.blogspot.com/2009/10/tipsy-tuesday-where-flowers-grow.html

Happy Tuesday!  Thanks for stopping by!
Ingredients:  Stamps:  MSE
Ink:  Versamark
Embossing Powder: Gold from SU!
DSP:  Indian Summer collection from Basic Grey
Cardstock:  Choc Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Blush Blossom from SU!
Rhinestones and Ribbon:  Hobby Lobby

Quick Chicks

An easy thank you card using the Cheap Talk stamp set and some American Crafts paper from my stash.  I've had this paper a long time and I love how it coordinates with Stampin' Up! Earth Elements colors. 

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Cheep Talk by SU!
Ink:  Ruby Red, Old Olive, Not Quite Navy and Tempting Turquoise
DSP:  American Crafts
Cardstock:  Not Quite Navy, Whisper White

Project 365 - Week 4 All Digital

Just watched the videos for Erica Hernandez Digital 101 class at Two Peas in a Bucket this weekend.   Although I've been using Photoshop Elements for nearly 2 years, I never fail to pick up some tips, particularly shortcuts.  The 'key' to using Elements, I'm learning, is to learn the keyboard shortcut keys.  When I first started using this application, I thought it was the most tedious software I'd ever used. My hand would get so tired from all the mouse use. Seems odd to learn keystrokes when we have been conditioned away from keyboards for so many years.  Erica even includes a PDF of shortcuts with this free class.  What a deal!

I did this layout using last week's photos.  I'd planned to add a little bling in my embellishments after printing.  I'm much more of a hybrid scrapbooker.  I love buying stuff way too much to ever go completely over to digital.  However, everything rhinestone and ribbon competed for attention with the photos of my pin and the decorative glass decanter.  I guess 7 photos focusing on glass is enough without any outside sparkle.

The assignment for class was to use a free kit.  This one is appropriately called Give Freely and it is available at Two Peas along with many others.  Here's a link to Erica's class:  http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/education_class.asp?cl=16

(Also, if you are new to Photoshop Elements, I highly recommend doing the first few videos of Sandy Krieger's class from last year to get you started --> http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/education_class.asp?cl=7

His Majesty opts In

"Meow," squeaks Jasper in his whiny, high voice so unsuited to a cat his size.  He paws at the front door.  He clearly wants out. 

Or does he?  He stretches his head as far out the door as possible to look from side to side.  Snow everywhere, even all over the front porch!  Brr!  I think His Majesty will just spend the day (or two or three) indoors.

Hope you are warm and safe wherever you are today!

Cosmo Colors

A trendy color combo that has been popping up all over design magazines and television is black, white and a greenish yellow.  Actually most any color that makes black and white pop is popular.  Since I had some embossed black cards left from my first effort at the 4 Hearts card a few days ago, I thought I'd give this dressy cosmopolitan combo a go.

To get the greenish yellow paper, I started with white Stampin' Up! cardstock and stamped some damask images with YoYo Yellow craft ink and then embossed. I wasn't quite fast enough so some of the images didn't completely take the embossing powder adding to the distressed look.  I sponged Kiwi Kiss over the images using the Tim Holtz distressing tool.  One card has some further black embossed swirls.

For the other card, I trimmed up a piece of discontnued gray sateen fabric.  The yellow cord has been in my stash forever.  I think it was part of a fabric store ribbon grab bag.  I attempted some sort of fancy Chinese knot but after several ties, it looked a little lost on the card.  A few more embellishments and the experiement was complete. 

One of these may be my Mom's birthday card in a couple of months.  She is definitely a lady who suits this striking color combo. 

Ingredients:  Stamps:  Baroque Motifs and On Your Birthday from SU!; Flourishes (damask) from Paper Studio
Ink:  Versamark; YoYo Yellow, Basic Gray from SU!; Black pigment ink from Colorbox
DSP:  Urban Garden from SU!
Wish metal embellishment:  All My Memories
Flower brad:  Oriental Trading