Craft Critique Mother's Day Blog Carnival

Hey everyone! I just wanted to let you know that Craft Critique has a fabulous list of great Mother's Day projects for you to do and check out today.

And one of those projects is mine (the little jewelry/trinket box)

Click ---> HERE<--- to head on over to Craft Critique.

Click --->HERE<--- to head on over to my tutorial.

Just scroll down to see the actual box.

Thanks and have a great Friday.

3 Notices/Reminders

Hey everyone! I have 2 notices and 1 reminder to share with you today.

1. I have a review about Scor-Tape made by Scor-Pal over at Craft Critique today. If you haven't been there for a while make sure to scroll down and checkout all those reviews.







2. I have a tutorial over at Clearly iStamp today too. Its a little set of notecards and holder... very cute and easy of course!








3. Don't forget that you still have until the end of the month to turn in a challenge card for TaDa Creative Studios Blog. The challenge is super easy --- Circles. All the details are on the blog so go check it out.

Guest Design Team Member Spot and Craft Critique

Hi Everyone! Just a couple of quick notes for you. First, Lori has her post up for the Clear Dollar Guest Design Team Member spot. This would be for the month of August. CLICK HERE to check out the details. Remember, if you don't try you won't know.





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My other note is about Craft Critique. Sarah and reporters are at CHA and you should keep tabs on the blog for updates, pictures, and even some prizes.

Craft Critique and the Butterfly Project

Hi everyone! I wanted to share a worthy cause with you that Sarah from Craft Critique found and wanted to contribute too. The Holocaust Museum of Houston is sponsoring The Butterfly Project to commemorate all the 1,500,000 innocent children that perished during that terrible time and Sarah has put out a request to all of you to contribute if you can.

CLICK HERE to read Sarah's original post. There are some guidelines so make sure to read her post. Sarah's goal is to gather as many butterflies from our readers and then send all the butterflies to the museum at once.

Check out the Craft Critique blog for some very cool and inspiring Butterfly projects and ideas.

Thanks for stopping by!

Lots, Lots, Lots, Lots...

Hey all! Wow, do I have a lot to share with you today. I can't ever figure out if I should do separate posts or everything in one. I'm assuming most of you like one post especially if you get e-mail or blogger alerts - less mail in the box. If you have an opinion please share...

Just a quick statement reminding you that all the new releases are available for purchase at Clear Dollar Stamps plus even more goodies, such as.... new Basic Grey in 6x6 pads AND 12x12 pads - wowee, matching brads, new stickle colors, and if you don't have time or don't know how to crochet, there are crochet flowers available at the store made by me :)

I've got a couple of examples to share with you. You've got your choice of white and natural for now and the flowers are approximately 1" in diameter.

This first card uses some Papertrey ink designer paper... thank you (you know who you are), its just beautiful and a Close to my Heart sentiment. The paper flower was cut in different sizes using my Cricut and the Mini Monogram cartridge with the natural colored crocheted flower at the center.

The first picture is more indicative of the color of the card and the flower.

Here's my 2nd card for you. What can I say, except that this turned out much different than I had envisioned. I was goign for a simpler look, but this is what I ended up with. I started with a stamp set from a couple of months ago called Fruity Fun. The just released set for this month called Tangy Trio works perfectly with this set. I also got to use the antiquing inks from Papertrey ink and I love them. Very smooth and quick to dry. I swiped the edges of my nesty as well as inking up the raised parts of my embossed cardstock. This flower is very white and I topped it off with some twine and a button. I love how it looks with my crochet ribbon too.

The flowers retail 3 for $1.99

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I wanted to also let you know that there is a give away goign on over at Craft Critique. 3 lucky people are goign to get a Bow Easy... go check out the article and leave a comment. Looks pretty darn nifty!


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And finally... I've got the cutest tutorial over at Clearly iStamp. This is the perfect accompaniment for any festivities that you might have for this holiday weekend and throughout the summer. Plus, change up the designer paper and use if for any event! Go check it out and let me know what you think.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great Wednesday!

Craft Critique

Hi all... I can't believe its Thursday already. I actually have some stuff to share with you, but haven't had the chance to post anything...BUT, I did want to let you know that if you head on over to Craft Critique and leave a comment you have a chance to win a sweet little bundle of Shimmerz products.

Shimmerz has been a Vendor Spotlight critique the last several days. Lots of great ideas and thoughts. Here are the cards in full that I made for my critique.

(Clear Dollar Stamp set)

(TaDa Creative Studios stamp and product - sentiment computer generated)

(Close to my Heart Stamp set)

Thanks for stopping by and remember to head on for a chance at FREE stuff... always a good thing.

A vent, A very Simple Thank You, and some sharing

Hi all! Hope yours is a good one. Well, let me get started with the vent. Went out this morning to find out that someone had broken into the card, rifled through stuff and taken off with a backpack which housed a favorite pair of shorts (not cheapo shorts), shoes, iPod, and a cell phone.

I know that people steal for a variety of reasons, but I get so sick of it. It is just plain wrong and I don't get it. What makes them do it... I don't care if they are young, old, or whatever. Grrr....

Its funny, its been years and years, but hubby had a really nice Cannondale Mountain Bike and it got stolen. Well... I swear, every day that we go anywhere or see bikes out he's got an eye out. He is absolutely positive that he saw some guy ride by on it, right in front of our house just a couple of weekends ago. His bike had very special and non stock components on it. Another Grrrr...

So... now for my very simple card. Ironically, this is the 2nd simple card that I made last night because my first simple card ended up not being so simple (lol). It would have been if I didn't want a certain embellishment that I needed to make firs before using... so now you have my 2nd very simple card which is truly simple.

White Papertrey ink cardstock, a piece of Papertrey's Bitty Basics, and a new stamp set from Close to my Heart that I just got yesterday. Its a set of just lots and lots of "thank you" type sentiments. I like this large version. Just like PTI's aqua mist ink, I have a love/hate relationship with the Sweet Blush. So, I ended up using my CTMH's Blush ink instead.

Finally, I accented with a crocheted flower and a PTI button and a bit of May Arts ribbon.

Simple but nice. I likey and I hope you do too.

So now, I want to direct you over to Lori's blog, Clearly iStamp, where I've got a fun tutorial to get you into the holiday spirit. The 4th is just around the corner so there is plenty of time to get ready. I've paired an old favorite and an easy way to spruce up your favorite nuggets (hint, hint). Head on over if you have time. Clear Dollar Stamps has lots of great holiday/Independence stamps to choose from.


I'm almost done (lol). I wanted to let you know that Craft Critique is having another Vendor review - on Sharpies. And there is a give away. Go check it out!!!

This is what I made with my Sharpie :)

Thanks for visiting and bearing with my long post today. Have a great Tuesday!

Craft Critique Giveaway

Hi Everyone! I just wanted to let you know that if you head on over to Craft Critique you'll get informed as well as get a chance to win some product. The gals over there are reviewing a company called C&T Publishing and this great company has 3 e-books up for grabs. Head on over and check out all the details!

3 Years ago today...

Today exactly 3 years ago my water broke with the twins. I was 33 weeks and up to the day they were born had no pregnancy issues. Kevin drove me to our local hospital and they then sent me down south to Seattle in an ambulance. The boys were born later that evening at Swedish Medical Center. Nate was first and nearly 3 hours later, Will was finally born.

They both were sent up to the NICU and within the week they were sent down to the Specialty Care Unit. The hardest part of their birth was going home without them. 3 weeks later, we brought Nate home and Will came home a couple days later.

Today, we will be having a quiet celebration just us and this is what the boys get to dig into. These are cupcakes that I made just for them... If you can't tell, they are supposed to look like SpongeBob SquarePants the other family member.



Edited to add: My Craft Critique article is running today and its directly related to these cupcakes. Here is an additional picture of the boys' cupcakes.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Craft Critique Article

Good morning! Here is the card that I made to accompany the article I wrote over at Craft Critique today. I did a review of the Stamp-a-ma-jig. Are you one of those who cannot believe that I had never used it before or are you one of those who has seen it and thought "what the heck?". Well, I won't spoil the review so you'll just have to go over to Craft Critique and check it out. While you are there check out all the other great reviews, plus....

You too could be a reporter for Craft Critique. Check out all the deets -->HERE<--

I have to give a shout out to a new cyberspace, turned real friend Kim. She was gracious enough to let me come visit and paw through all her fabulous stamps to get just the right one for my Craft Critique article. She has her own blog that you can visit -->HERE<--. Thanks Kim! And thanks to everyone else who comes and visits me here. Hope you all have a great Friday!

{Recipe}
Cardstock: GP White, PTI Dark Chocolate, Designer Paper: Basic Grey Sugared, Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, PTI Dark Chocolate, Stamps: SU! Loads of Love, Other: Copics, Stamp-a-ma-jig, White Gel Pen, SU! Photo Corner Punch, PTI Ribbon

Just Because

Good Morning! I've got an article running over at Craft Critique today and this card, t shirt, and little bag are some examples of what I made using Papertrey Ink's Palette Hybrid inks. I love the idea of stamping on fabric, unfortunately I don't have any little girls and I have some very pretty girl stamps and girl colors so I made the t shirt and little bag for my very best friend's little girl. She loved her little bag :) Brenda was telling me she was carrying her bag everywhere - so cute.

Anyway, I've got another post to do today, but for now here are the pictures and some more close-ups of my items.


Thanks for stopping by and enjoy the day!



Recipe - All Papertrey Ink products
Cardstock: Berry Sorbet, Summer Sunrise, White
Ink: Berry Sorbet, Summer Sunrise, Black, Moss Green
Stamps: Floral Frenzy, Polka Dot Basics
Other: Ribbon, t shirt and bags from Michaels

Craft Critique Cards

Good morning! Today is the REAL Friday and my article about Close to my Heart's paint is being posted today. Let me tell you that I am not a big paint person of any kind. I won't go into a lot of details because I wrote how I felt about the paint in my article which you can read -->HERE<--, but I did want to share the cards that I made for it. I had a blast using the paint and I think its because of the shimmer. CTMH's paint is a pearlescent paint and I felt different than the average paint that you might paint your altered wood or paper projects with. I think it worked really well with cardmaking and could be used in scrapbooking as well. Anyway, I guess I am digressing so without further ado here are the cards. I have to say that I LOVE how this card turned out. It is really so soft, yet shimmery at the same time without being glitzy. I can't wait for the right person to send it too. I did just find out that a friend of mine is pregnant so I'll hope for a boy. I colored my paint with a CTMH reinker called Crystal Blue and check this out. I used a yellow Copic Marker to color the paint yellow. All I did was scribble a base down on my plastic paint tray and quickly mix. I had enough to stamp with so all was good. The stamps I used are Danelle Johnson Art Warehouse and I also stamped my chipboard star after I painted it, but while it was still wet (cool effect). The ribbon is Papertrey ink Lemon Tart as well as the sentiment which works perfectly with this theme. Here's a card that I did while doing my other cards but didn't show with my article. For this card, I created my background using the same colored paint but used one of the texture tools from CTMH. Just dabbed it right on. Then I used the same Copic colored yellow paint and used an SU! stamp to stamp on PTI's Lemon Tart cardstock, then added some prisma glitter to it. You can't read all the fine writing under the big words but it still looks great. I used 2 different sized scallop punches for the stamp. Again, so shimmery.
And finally, my last card to share with you. Hope you haven't fallen asleep by now :) zzzzzz
This card has a lot of shimmer. I took a Swiss Dots Cuttlebug Embossing Folder and painted it with the paint that was colored with CTMH's Blush Reinker. Then I placed a piece of PTI's Sweet Blush cardstock in the folder and ran it through. The mat on the card is CTMH's textured Chocolate cardstock that I painted then stamped with PTI's Out on a Limb stamp. I then used Liquid Pearls for the buds. Then, the Prima flowers were also painted with the same paint. This was a fun card to make!

Thanks so much for stopping by and have a great day!

Blessed Twice, Craft Critique Article, and Misc.

As many of you know, I am a mother of a set of twin boys and as such, I belong to my local multiples group. One of the things I signed up for was to be a mentor mom and the mom that I got assigned to just had her babies a week ago. We haven't had a chance to meet yet because of schedules and the such, but I have been in contact with her over the past few months. I'm hoping that I will be able to meet her and her family this weekend. Because of that, I wanted to put together just a small little greeting gift for her and I wanted it to be twin themed. So, all you designers out there, twins are becoming more prevalent and I think some stamp sets would be awesome with a twin theme!!!

There are a lot of stamps that I could have doubled up, but I really adore the little skunk from Clear Dollar Stamps called Cute Critters plus the the sentiment that comes with the set. So what I did was stamped the skunk then masked and stamped another one. My mother had boy/girl twins so instead of coloring my skunks, I colored my flowers - one boy colored and one girl colored. The sentiment just said "Congratulations on your little stinker" and I needed it to say "stinkers" so I just inked up a larger "s" from another sentiment and just added that onto the end - perfect!

For the nugget box, I also used a CDS stamp set called Too Sweet and made girl and boy nuggets. I used my Scor-pal to make my nugget box and I tell you its the only way to go. Click -->HERE<-- for all the details. Cardstock: Kraft, Sweet Blush, Aqua Mist, Lemon Tart (PTI), GP White, Ink: Palette Noir Black, Sweet Blush, Aqua Mist (PTI), Stamps: Too Sweet, Cute Critters (Clear Dollar Stamps), Other: PTI Ribbon, Copics, Nestabilities, Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Scor-pal
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On another note, I get to go to the Copics Certification class in Seattle tomorrow - woo hoo. I'm very excited to do that. I also have an article running over at Craft Critique today as well about CTMH's Ribbon Rounds as an embellishment. Here is the card that I made for the article.
Everything is CTMH unless noted.
Cardstock: Bamboo, Olive, Cocoa, PP is Rustic Trail Level 2, Ink: Olive, Stamps: Fun Times, Other: Ribbon (retired), SU! Label Punch, EK Success Corner rounder (for scallops), Hole Punch

And finally, today we are off to swim again and hopefully Will will stay in the water today, although its pretty chilly out. Keep those fingers crossed. Thanks for stopping by and have a great day everyone!

Article for Craft Critique

My tool review is up on Craft Critique today. Go check it and make sure you take a few minutes and visit the site. Lots of cool and interesting articles.

What can I say except that I had so much fun creating these cards. The premise was that I wanted to make cards using the Making Memories Slot Punch Tool Set. I honestly use this tool set often. I also have the little punch that SU! sells and I like the ease of a hand punch, but its generally smaller than the size ribbon that I tend to use.

I thought this first card turned out great. I had also just received the new colors (Lavender Moon and Kraft) from Papertrey ink and was dying to use them. The Kraft is to die for. I was super uber close to ordering some Kraft paper from SU! because I had seen some very cute stuff made with theirs and was very excited that Papertrey was going to carry it. Of course I wanted to focus on the slot punch so I used that to make my slots to weave in my ribbon (Papertrey lavender moon). I really like how it turned out - not too foofy, but lots if ribbon presence :) So the Kraft paper is the card base, then a layer of Lemon Tart, then I used my long rectangle nestabilities to cut out the scallop (lavender moon) and the layer (Stampers Select White) on top. I used Papertrey ink to match my cardstock and used one of my newest favorite Close to my Heart stamp sets (Cottage Floral) for my random stamping. I then pop dotted the little white flowers, colored the centers with a Copic marker, then added some clear stickles to the centers. Then I added my sentiment from another of my newest favorite Close to my Heart stamp sets (May Stamp of the Month - Say it in Style). I embossed this in white embossing powder.

Cardstock: Stampers Select White, Lavender Moon, Lemon Tart, Kraft (PTI), Ink: Lavender Moon, Moss Green, Lemon Tart, Versamark, Stamps: Cottage Floral, Say it in Style, (CTMH), Other: Ribbon, Stickles, Copics, White Daisy ep (CTMH), Flowers from Michaels, Long Rectangle Nesties, MM Slot Punch, Heat Gun
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Here's my next card. Again, using the new release colors from Papertrey. My goal was to make an extra special card for my friend who's birthday is coming up in June. I wanted to put a coffee gift card on one side and a pretty insert on the other side. I decided that I didn't want to put any sentiments on the front, but rather just make it pretty.

Some friends and I got together for a Stamping Bella order and the ONE Bella that I really wanted I forgot to order - can you say DUH!!! Well, luckily a lovely lady named Paula (Scrapbratmother) pm'd me from Splitcoast and was interested in a stamp swap. I stamped some images of the one Hanna stamp that I have and she was able to send me some images of LatteBella. It worked out perfectly and now I know that I NEED that bella!

So back to the card :) Its a standard A2 size except that I made it longer on the bottom so I could fold it up for the two pockets. Again, the purpose was to also showcase how I used the MM punch and I used it all over this card. I really love how the card and my Bella turned out inside and out!

I used my Copics to color my Bella and the flowers and just a little bit of stickles in the center of those flowers. The inside tag I used a new stamp set that again I love called Smell the Coffee from Impression Obsession. I got that set from Carrie who has a great little online store called My Little Stamp Shack. I used versamark to stamp as well as for the edges of the insert and then used black embossing powder. The little tab is SU! label punch and the "enjoy" is Close to my Heart. The Happy Birthday is from the same set that the "enjoy" is from, but the outline stamp is Papertrey. I followed my polka dot theme with both the ribbon and the cardstock (Swiss Dots embossing folder). And of course the slits to hold my gift card is from the MM tool set.

























Cardstock: GP White, Lavender Moon, Kraft (PTI), Ink: Palette Noir, Lavender Moon (PTI), Versamark, Stamps: Lattebella (Stamping Bella), Smell of Coffee (Impression Obsession), Boxes, Bags, Tags (PTI), Say it in Style (CTMH), Other: Ribbon (PTI), Twine, Eylets, Black embossing powder, MM Slot Punch Tool Set, SU! Label Punch, Scallop Punches, Circle Punch, Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Cuttlebug

And here is my final one. This one is obviously a different style and fits in with the other graduation cards that I've been making for my friend. This card was an example of a really easy way to use the MM slot punch set. The hippo is a Melanie Muenchinger stamp set (Just so Hippy) from Gina K Designs. I used animals from this set and her "Just so Hoppy" set for the grad cards that I've been making. The Grad cap and "GRADUATE" are a stamp set from My Sentiments Exactly that I got a while back and it worked perfectly for this. I used pop dots to attach the cap. I used a Prisma Colored Pencil with Oderless Mineral Spirits (OMS) to color in my hippo.

Cardstock: GP White, Moonstruck, Ocean, Black (CTMH), Ink: Palette Noir, Stamps: Just so Hippy (Gina K), Graduate (MSE), Other: Ribbon (Michaels), Copics, Prisma Colored Pencil, OMS, Blending Stump, MM Slot Punch set

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a great day!