Hi blog friends! It's been H-O-T here this weekend…and I'm surprised I didn't melt! Dang it was toasty…and it's supposed to be 100 all next week too. Summertime. Time for some fun in the a/c in the crafty cave I'd say. Today I was on a complete creative roll! I feel like I could stamp until midnight without stopping. It's been a good day. I love it when that happens!! Got a lot done…now I'm posting this post, going to make dinner and do my nails…and it's time for bed. I don't know where the time goes. Hope you had a fab weekend.

One of my VERY FAVORITE things from CHA this winter was the Cakewalk collection from October Afternoon. I've been practically beside myself waiting for it to come out!! It was finally released, and I snapped up a whole bunch of the collection two weekends ago at Scrapbook Territory in Berkeley. And, it's been sitting on my work desk just waiting for me! Today – that's what I used. I love the color palette, the happy patterns, the embellishments that came with it…even washi tape! Hope you like what I've done….

I was putting everything away and cleaning up my work desk and I had all these pretty scraps…so I made a matching mini card! Just perfect to tuck in with a present don't ya think?

Here is just part of the yumminess…

I sewed my three patterned papers together to add some interest and flair…

You know by now that making my own paper flowers is one of my go-to tricks! I made one today using two patterned papers. Then I made some fun pink leaves! 🙂

Last weekend when Audrey and I were shopping in the city we saw neon clothes, lace leggings, and leg warmers…and we thought 'here come the 80's again!' Then, yesterday at Paper Garden I found these new ink pads! I guess it really is the 80's again! LOL. I'll be sure to let you know what I make with these. Gotta think of something fun.

Best wishes for a happy week everyone! XOXO

Helllloooooooooo! Happy Friday! This week was BIZZY! Yowza! Glad it's in the books and looking forward to relaxing and stamping all weekend. How about you? I've been on the go the past three weekends in a row, and just really feel like I need a weekend at home. So happy to say it's Friday! Best wishes to all of you for a great weekend!

Today's post is a little bit of catch – up here, posting some Poppystamps creations! I post them over on the Poppystamps blog all the time, but here and there I like to post them on my blog too. There are new dies right now that are super fun. Hope you'll check 'em out. I'm sharing three cards today!

First up is a cute little birthday owl! HOOOT!! This is one of my favorite dies from Dave…maybe ever! It's so fun and versatile. All the little pieces of the owl are on one die and you can make him look any way you want by changing the colors, etc.

Next up is a set of little 3×3 note cards made with the vegetable border die! You're rad-ish…get it! LOL. I crack myself up! These were fun to create!

Last, but not least, a card using Memory Box stamps and Poppystamps dies with a beautiful bird and soft colors. This card has such a nice, natural feel to it. Just a tiny pop of lavender too….

Thanks for stopping by my bloggy spot today!

Happy weekend!!!  

Hi friends! Happy 4th of July! Whatcha got planned for this fine summer holiday? Parades? BBQ? Fireworks? I hope you have a fabbie day! I will be at work all day today, but super grateful for the overtime hours, so it's all good. After work I'll spend time with family and relax a little bit too. Best wishes for a Happy Independence Day!

I have a milestone to celebrate also…sometime yesterday…I got my 300,000th blog hit! WOWZA! That is the coolest thing ever. SOOOOO happy to share with all of you bloggy friends. Thanks for the love and support over the past two years. I so love being a bloggy girl. I never imagined how much fun this all is!

I have another 4th of July card to share today. Just got some awesome star dies in the mail from PTI and had to use them for the holiday. This card started out sort of clean and simple…but then ended up with some more pizazz, because I couldn't stop with the stars!

So fresh and graphic! I love these stars. Nothing says America like red white and blue stars. These dies are so crisp. The sentiment stamp is from Stampin' Up. The paper is Bazzill.  

At first I was going to use this stamp. Look at that pretty pile of stars…

Here is that Nautical Blue ink again. I cannot get enough of it. Blings from Stampin' Up also.

Here's a side view so you can see the layers. All mounted onto a kraft card base. I originally had a white card base, but changed my mind. The color really pops off the kraft more.

Now for a silly picture! Here is a photo from when Mr. Buddy was a wee boo boo! Can you see his patriotic collar? He was born in the USA! LOL. I thought I would throw in this pic for a laugh and a smile. Hard to believe that the giant cat we all know and love was once this tiny!

HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

GOD BLESS AMERICA!

Greetings friends! Happy Monday…and I hope you had a wonderful weekend! I had the best time yesterday…I got to meet one of my mostest favoritest bloggy friends in person! Yup, got to meet the super sweet and super talented Audrey! Yay! She is here in CA visiting family and we met up in San Francisco yesterday for some snacks and chatting! It was so great to meet her. We've been bloggy/email friends for about two years now, and have come to find that we have so much in common besides our love of paper crafting. She lives clear across the United States and so we've never met in person before. She is just as charming and fun as I imagined she would be. It did my heart good to spend some time with her! How fun is that?? 🙂

Today I'm sharing a 4th of July card I made on Saturday. I'll be back with another patriotic project on Wednesday too. That one is more of a CAS design. Today's card is definitely of the 'more is more' variety! I kept adding stuff and then inking some more and here's what happened!  

I cut the letters out of my PTI alphabet dies. The stars are PTI dies also. The rosettes started out as 3/4 inch by six inch strips of patterned paper. You know the drill…score the paper every 1/4 inch and fold them up. Pop on some glue dots and a button…voila!

The shape that my letters is on is an EK Success punch. I added some stars with a little tiny Stampin' Up stamp I had in my stash. Don't you love red and kraft??

My sentiments exactly….

I added just a pop of scallops at the bottom – I felt like it needed some more blue on the card. The papers are from Bo Bunny.

Here is the hurricane left behind after making ONE card! Sheesh.

You can see a tiny bit of denim ribbon coming out from under the rosette…and some more of those tiny stars…

Have a super fantastic day! I'll see you Wednesday for the 4th!

TE Release Party Continues, and it's our Final Day! I certainly hope you've been enjoying the party for our July release! Thank you so much for coming by each day to see what I've been working on. I Hope you've been hopping around all week looking at the inspiration presented by the Baker's Dozen featuring everything that is Fresh Out of the Oven from Taylored Expressions! Everything is now available for purchase!

Today, for my last card of Release Week, I'm featuring a cute new stamp set called Life Saver – from the imagination of Nancy McKinney, for her Whimsical Wishes line of stamps. This set coordinates with Under the Sea and comes with it's own dies – an anchor and a life preserver.  It will also work well with several other sets this month. I combined it with the new Waves/Bubbles Impression Plate and our Wave Border Die, and some crisp red, white and blue!

I always love an easel card…and so today I am showing you a scallop circle easel card! I just thought that circles were the perfect thing for this life preserver image!

Here's the side view so you can see the construction. The whole thing folds flat for mailing (see last photo).

Cute saying right? I added just a touch of bright yellow to pop off that blue… 

To make your card, you need to cut one big scallop circle, and then cut a second one that is still folded at the top and attached together. Then you just make the card the same way you would any other easel card!

How adorable is that dolphin!? I think this could also be cute for kids cards! I cut him out of a different image and then put his tail below to look like he's hanging on! See the yummy swirls behind him from the impression plate?

Here's the final card, folded and ready to mail.

The last link list of release week!

Charmaine Ikach

Courtney Kelley – Guest Designer

Jami Sibley – DT Coordinator

Jen Shults

Jodi Collins

Karen Giron

Melody Rupple

Regina Mangum

Sankari Wegman

Shannon White

Shelly Mercado

Stephanie Kraft

Taylor VanBruggen

Wanda Guess

It's TE Release Week for July! We are doing the release a little early this month since next week is the 4th of July holiday and everyone will be out celebrating! Today we are going to show you ALL the new stamp sets, dies and impression plates, so make sure to hop around to all the Baker's Dozen blogs! Also, did you hear the news? We have two new members of our design team! YAY!

Today I'm taking you away to Coconut Cove… Coconut Cove stamp set is from the Apple Doodle Ink line by Doug Applegate! Doug's Adorable Abodes #7  was concepted by Jami Sibley! Who wouldn't want to hang out on the beach in this hut and drink out of a coconut? I love this set because it's perfect for summer scrapbook pages and can also be made into masculine or feminine cards. It has great sayings and accent pieces!

I'm also going to be showing you a new Impression Plate – The Waves/Bubbles Impression Plate – this double-sided plate will work so well with all of the sets in this release!  Have fun with it. I'm using it in two projects this week! Here's my card for today…shabby beach…

Here's a peek at all my layers and distressing! This was fun! All the papers are from the Paradise Beach Collection from Echo Park…and they're yummy! I love the blue together with that rusty orange.

Remember that all TE stamps are high quality red rubber – not clear – for a great impression every time. The sets all come on a full color storage panel and are packed with images and sentiments. Here's my process for distressing this cute image. I started with brown ink on cream cardstock.  

Next I frayed the edges, spritzed the whole thing with water, and crumpled it into a ball!

After unfolding it carefully, I let it dry and then added distress ink around the edges and on the wrinkled parts. I kinda think it looks like part of a treasure map now! 🙂 I mounted the main image onto the brown paper – with foam tape.

This is one of the BRAND NEW ink colors from Memento! There are 12 new colors…and I just got them all from the TE store! Check 'em out. This orange is the perfect color for this project.

Here you can see the waves side of the new impression plate – perfect swirls for summer waves… 

TE July Release details:

• The Baker's Dozen has 4 days of inspiration, today through Saturday, featuring all the July Release products.
• All of the new products will be available for purchase on Thursday, June 28th at 8 am PST. You'll find it all in the Fresh out of the Oven Department at the Taylored Expressions Store.
• Join us as a fan on Facebook for a look at the stamp sets and a SPECIAL Facebook GIVEAWAY, tonight (Wednesday) at 6 pm PST.
• Blog Giveaway – TODAY ONLY – Two lucky commenters will be randomly chosen to win a $10 TE Gift Certificate. Hop around to see the sneak peeks and leave comments on each blog for more chances to win. Winners will be announced on Taylor's blog on Thursday morning.

Here's your link list for today!

Charmaine Ikach

Jami Sibley – DT Coordinator

Jen Shults

Jodi Collins

Karen Giron

Melody Rupple

Nancy McKinney – Illustrator

Regina Mangum

Sankari Wegman

Shannon White

Shelly Mercado

Stephanie Kraft

Taylor VanBruggen

Wanda Guess 

Hi blog friends! Happy Sunday afternoon…it's quiet around here and it's just what I needed. Busy day yesterday stamping and chatting with good friends and lots of driving. Today, it's a little time in the crafty cave and a silent house. The DH is off helping his brothers with some stuff. It's been a great day getting caught up on craft projects and laundry. Next I have to tackle my overflowing email inbox! I just can't seem to catch up on that!

I've been seeing lots of paper bows everywhere lately. The first one was on the cover of the current Stampin' Up catalog. Then on some other blogs…  I love the technique and wanted to try my own take on it. After some trial and error, I came up with some gingham paper bows that I really like! I hope you like them too. Thanks for coming by today!

Here are the final bows…and I'm going to go step by step for you so you can make some too!

I ended up making five in all…once I got the swing of it, they didn't take too long.

Start with strips of paper one inch by six inches….then fold then in half….

You're going to free hand cut them into bow tie looking shapes. I made a rough template out of a piece of green cardstock (sort of a leaf shape) and then layed it on top of my fold and cut them out. The fold is the thinnest part as you can see in the picture. Don't worry about being too perfect with this. It will work out.

I cut the tails out using my MFT Flag Stax dies….Two for each bow. You can adjust the length to your liking.  

Helping hands!

Before gluing down my bows, I gently curved the paper with my fingers. This way, you will get a round shape instead of a crease when you glue the ends down in the center. I hope this makes sense…

Here are the bows glued in the center with a glue dot.

Add your tails underneath using some more glue dots…

The fun part is picking what you want for the center! I tried buttons, brads, flowers, rosettes, everything you could think of. I ended up liking these resin flowers the best.

No, Buddy, it's okay, I don't need more than three inches of space on my giant work table! LOL! He always has to be part of the action.

Pretty bows, all in a row….

So, now the question is…what to do with these bows!? I could put them on a package, or on a card, or on an envelope. I think they might be cute on place cards for a shower. What do you think? What would you do with them? And…will you try and make some too!? Have a fantastic week ahead. Love ya my bloggy friends!  

Hi peeps! OMG where did this week go? I think I saw it whiz by me in a flash, and I still don't know what the heck happened! How are you? Happy Friday! It's actually late Thursday night, so we'll go ahead and call it Friday! You don't mind, right? Hope you had a wonderful week!

I had every intention of blogging all week and never got around to it. But, here I am! Just in time to share something for the weekend. I'm very happy because tomorrow I will be spending the entire day with one of my besties as well as my crazy gang of stampers that I've known for years and years….and I cannot wait! Yipppeeeee!

The card I have to share today was made with some brand new Memory Box goodness. YUM. It's a birthday card I made for a co-worker last week and she's already opened it, so it's safe to post now. I used one of my favorite techniques to create a sweet, natural looking card. Hope ya like it.

You can see the text stamped on the left side in very light ink. I used watercolor paper and lots of distress ink and some speckles from my blow pen. That adorable little tag is from a die set from Taylored Expressions, and the clip was in my stash!

Here's a close up…The flowers and the text are from Memory Box. I am sorry to say I don't know who makes the happy birthday stamp – I've had that one for years. I used my watercolor spritz technique to make the flowers blend into the paper.

My set of supplies…. 

I really just can't say enough how much I am enjoying these Tim Holtz Distress Markers…they are the perfect colors that I love and so nice to work with.  

I was able to stamp twice from each time I inked up the stamp. These new stamps are AWESOME! A bit of twine and a button just finished it all off…

I must say, that at the end of this crazy week, this is EXACTLY how I am feeling!! I just want to pass out and take a nap! LOL. Hmmm, I wonder why sometimes I don't really get that much stamping done?

Thank you so much for coming on by to see what I'm up to! I'm happy you're here. Have a blessed day and a fantastic weekend! XO.