Hi peeps! Happy Friday! WOO HOO! This was a much better week than last and I'm feeling back in my crafty flow now. Tonight I am going to a double birthday celebration for two of my long time stamping gal pals. So, I needed to make some handmade cards for them. I just bought this new stamp from Penny Black called 'Sweet Thing'! It was soooo dang cute I couldn't resist! I had to ink it up and make a syrupy sweet, pink and brown confection out of it!

Okay, I think I used every shade of pink in my Copic aresenal! She is sooo adorable – I really love this stamp already and know I will use it again. I added some touches of glitter on her bow, the cherry and her little angel wings. I also used my white gel pen to add some accents.

I pulled out the gingham paper and used the brown/white version. I also used my new Nestabilities with the open lacy scallop edge.  The "hey cupcake" phrase is from Amuse and the "Happy Birthday" is from Endless Creations stamps. The brown ribbon is just a scrap I had in the ribbon bin. I put a piece of foam tape under the center of the happy birthday banner to pop it up. The ends are taped down flat.

 
 What are you doing this weekend?  

Autumn Greetings Friends! Today is the first official day of Fall!!! As you know, I have already been celebrating for weeks! Hahaha. LOVE it. The nights have been getting cooler and the days shorter…the leaves in the backyard are coming down softly. I can feel it!

Today I have a card to enter in the WPlus9 Design Blog – Color Cue Challenge #8! Click Here to see their great blog! I have entered this blog's challenge before and this time I love the colors just as much!

Here is the color challenge image:

Could you just die over this cute apple paper?? ACK!! It's from Imaginisce and is new for this Fall. The little apples are all the colors of the color challenge – Golden yellow, green and bright scarlet red.

Not too much stamping on this card. The Autumn Greetings sentiment is from a clear stamp set I have -but I don't know what company it is. The birdie and leaves are rub ons from the same Imaginisce collection. I used some pretty gingham ribbon, a gold buckle and gold brads to brighten it up.

Hi peeps!!! DId you miss me? I sure missed you! I have missed crafting and photographing and blogging and sharing with you! It has been a crazy week and an even crazier weekend. Things seem to be back to "normal" now and I spent some time in the craft room today. Yay! I laid out all my fall stuff on the extra table: stamps, paper, punches, doo dads, ribbon, etc. I made a few projects to share in the next few days. It seems my color pallette went towards brown, cranberry red, olivey yellow green and cream. I love it!

Today's cards are entries for Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge #128 – click here to see!  I made two cards using the same stamp set from PTI. It's such a great stamp set – brand new this year too! The sentiment stamp is from Amuse stamps. The red paper is the new Cherry Cobbler from Stampin' Up. I am seriously in love with this color!

Here is Taylor's sketch image – fab as usual!

My color pallette I was talking about earlier! The brown is Soft Suede from Stampin' Up.
 

 Card #1:

I made my own background paper using the itty bitty apple stamp in dark red ink on the dark red paper.

Card #2

I'm back in Fall mode! I haven't stamped in at least a week! So busy running all around like a chicken with my head cut off! Last night I sat down and made a Fall card and relaxed by coloring this pretty image from Hero Arts! This time of year I find that there are so many activities and fun things to do and it feels rushed…even though I want the season to last forever…

I used some patterned papers from my Basic Grey stash and did the main image on cream PTI cardstock. Layers of chocolate brown and mustard yellow frame the focal point. The leaves are punched out of Kiwi Kiss paper from Stampin' Up. Of course, you know that border punch is from Martha!!

Here is a close-up of my coloring. I used my Prismacolor pencils in orange, olive and mustard - my three favorite fall colors.

Have a great day everyone!

Hey! Hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend! I know I did! The hubs and I took a little getaway "bay-cation" to the South Bay. Had us some fun! We went to a concert and shopping and out to dinner with a friend and sleeping in…my idea of perfection! It was hard to come home and back to reality at 5:15am today when the alarm went off.

Found a great new Scrapbook store in San Jose that I had never been to before – Scrapbook Island. Awesomeness. And a return trip to Cranberry Hill Mercantile in Sunnyvale…more awesomeness. I got a new handbag and a necklace at the mall. I was on cloud nine.

The best part was going to the Green Day concert at Shoreline with hubs. We had a fabulous time, the show was great, the weather was perfect, and I even got to drink a margarita out of a guitar glass. Heehee. What more could a girl want?

Here's a Fall card I made last year and saved. I finally photographed it and would like to share it today. Also, you can meet Mr. Chipmunk! A recent acquisition…pretty funny!

The background was embossed with my Cuttlebug on orange paper with a white core. I then took a sanding block and barely sanded the pumpkin images. The stamp is all one large stamp from Printworks that I got a few years ago.

I colored this with my Copics…and I can see that I would color it differently now, one year later, after practicing more with my pens. I think it feels kind of rustic, though, and that's okay.  You can barely see it, but I added some brown speckles at the end with my blo-pen.

Mr. Chipmunk! He makes me smile! Does anyone else crack up at those Carmax commercials with the chipmunk and the funny music? Or is it just me? Don't answer that.

The band! I took 125 pictures, but I will spare you. Here's a good one of the three main dudes…

I'm nuts about you! Love this cute stamp and sentiment from Memory Box! Isn't that little squirrel funny? I love him! He's perfect for Fall! I don't know where I got this patterned paper from, but I think it is Debbie Mumm from way back.

I colored the image with my Prismacolor pencils and I didn't blend the colors completely so it would (maybe?) look like he was furry. I used about five shades of brown and gold and sienna to color it. Just left the rest of the card kind of simple.

 

 
 How is your weekend going? Thanks for stopping by!

I'm ready to go with my Fall projects! This card for today is one of my favorite cards! It incorporates a lot of techniques and I just really like the feel of it. I adore this patterned paper combination! We have a fun place to visit near our house called Apple Hill, and that's what this card reminds me of.

I started with a red card base and then smudged white craft/acrylic paint around the edges to make it kinda shabby chic. I sewed the patterned paper panels onto the main red card…and then tore some of the paper to make it look weathered and worn. I used ribbon without a bow, to make a border.

This is a pretty new candle I just got at Bath and Body Works…mmmmm…
 

This week I made red velvet cupcakes to bring to work for my friend Lisa's birthday. I had never made them before! They turned out pretty tasty. I also used cream cheese frosting…which is always yummy. I am trying to perfect my frosting technique. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't…

These cute little party birdies came in a package with some cupcake liners and I got them at my friend's store Paper Garden! They are made by Mara Mi. So funny!
 

 
It's Labor Day weekend! WooHooo! Three day weekend lays ahead for us all. We are going to the big Green Day concert tomorrow night in the bay area. CANNOT wait! This is our favorite band and this will be the third time we've seen them in a year. Always a fantastic show. Tomorrow also starts COLLEGE FOOTBALL season! YAY! GO BEARS!

I hope you all have a great weekend with your friends and families. Stamp On!