House of Cards Challenge

 Love is in the air at the House of Cards this month! After all it is February and what is right around the corner but the biggest day of love all year- Valentine's Day!! All month the challenge at HOC is love, love, love!!


This little critter from Penny Black's "loads of love" is on a critical phone call- he is sharing his heart.

I stamped and colored my card and then embossed it- a technique demonstrated at the Penny Black blog. instead of using a die I just used an embossing folder. It adds that extra special something to a CAS card.

There are so many challenges out there that feature love, hearts or Valentine's Day, so i decided to go for it and enter my adorable CAS card in them

AAA Cards has a wild heart challenge and a DT call. I think I will throw my hat in the ring.

The Paper Players is featuring love themed cards with critters- well geez this is a no-brainer huh?!!?

Lastly, Shopping our Stash is featuring love themed cards.
 

But please join us at House of Cards this month and show us your "love"ly creations!

Clean and Simple Card Class 4- homework

I haven't posted or created much for that matter in the last few weeks. My class this semester is rather trying and is zapping all the creative energy I have. 

But today, I had that extremely rare event in the life of a nurse, a SNOW DAY!!!! Because of the storm we were expected to get, our medical director decided to close our endoscopy unit! Therefore this nurse gets to have some fun and play!!

I just finished catching up on the start of the Clean and Simple Card Class 4. Kristina Werner did a very cool video on "interrupted die cutting". She used a scallop die. I went for a heart rhythm die, that I have never used. With all the stamps I have, do you think I could find a"you make my heart beat" noooooo So I had to make do with "you make my heart flutter". For you medical people perhaps you can see how I could use this in a pinch- aflutter. Get it?!!?

If you haven't taken any of the online card classes, they are awesome. I always learn something new.

Check them out.

Pia- thanks for the nice comment, because you suggested, I am entering my card at the ombre challenge at Inkspiration.

A little spring......

in the middle of winter. I bought this awesome stencil from My Favorite Things awhile ago. The poopr thing has never felt the wetness of ink through it. I usually use something new within a few weeks. This stencil must have got put away and forgotten. 

Lucky for me Just Us Girls is having a trend week and the trend is stencils. I pulled out my stencils and while I was searching through them this wildflower stencil popped out. I knew that I was going to use it.

I wanted to keep the card CAS so the flowers would stand out. I chose a saying from MFT (old and I don't have the name of the set) and stamped it and then stenciled the flowers over the saying. 

Because I couldn't leave well enough alone, I dry embossed with a polka dot stencil over the whole thing. Here is a video from Shari Carroll on how to dry emboss with your stencils.

Check out what the DT did over at JUGS and share your creation!

Suddenly........

I think I love creating Valentine's almost as much as Christmas cards. I have come up with quite a few and it is still early. 

Today's card was made in response to the challenge at Inkspirational. The word prompt is note. Yeah- I know I went the easy way out, but it served several purposes. I needed a Valentine card, I got to use a new Mama Elephant set- Love Quotes and use an old Penny Black set - Stuck on You. George, plays guitar so it seem so appropriate.

Hey- just a quick note- no pun intended, but how many of you know you can buy all kinds of stamping stuff at Amazon. I recently discovered this. If you look, you can get some good deals and often times stamps that have been retired or at a discount. Check it out.

Head over to Inkspirational to see how much more clever folks were than me. Happy Creating!

Winter romance

I am a creature of habit and ritual. I have this Penny Black stamp- Cuddle in Snow-circa 2005! Needless to say it has been retired, but not for me. This stamp gets pulled out and I make a Christmas card for my husband every year with it. It took him about 5 years to realize that I was using the same stamp ,just a new design. 

This year I paired the snow couple with a new landscape dies and a Tim Holtz snow fall embossing plate. To add shimmer I used glitter paper for one hillside and added glitter to the snowfall. I kept the card clean and simple and surprisingly sentiment-less.

Since one of my New Year plans was to enter more challenges, I am entering George's card in a few challenges. 

My girls at Just Us Girls have word theme this week- Winter. My card is all about winter!

The Friday Mashup has a winter theme with snowflakes.

Curtain Call has a photo inspiration with the theme of Winter Wonder. My colors might not be those rustic creams and browns but the card is all about the "wonder of a winter romance".

 Allsorts is looking for cold and frosty colors. I think my card looks and feel cold and frosty.

Lastly CAS on Sunday have a few weeks left for a Christmas challenge

It's fun to be stamping for no good reason and I hope to be able to show you all lots of cool things over the next year.  I am presently working on Valentine cards and will show off some in the next month.

Be sure to check out these challenge sites and show off what you are doing.

2014 wrap up

Happy New Year Everyone!  Another year gone! As I look back at my various blog postings I realize i was so busy. Between all the design teams I was on, finishing school and graduating, starting a new job, it is no wonder that by this past December I had to completely down sized my life.  That meant making hard choices about what I could and could not accomplish. I resigned from all but one design team. I miss all the challenges, but between work and graduate school I just couldn't get it all done. When something you love becomes a chore, it's time to reevaluate.

So as I leap into 2015, I will get back to the fun of stamping. There may not be as many blog posts because I want to spend time creating, but I will try to get at least a few in a month.

Here is a wrap up of  my favorite posts from 2014!

January

 February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

I hope you enjoyed the 2014 review. Wishing all of you a healthy, happy and creative 2015!!

House of Cards Challenge

Happy New Year everyone!! I hope that 2014 was a great year for all of you and that 2015 will be even better! 

It is a new semester at House of Cards and you will see some changes- all good of course. For January we are offering a glittery color challenge. How fun, I love glitter.

Look at all those blues, silver and gold. I forced myself to not make a holiday card. In fact all my Christmas stamps were stored away so I had to move on. 

My teen grand nephew has a birthday coming up and I thought I would go out on a limb and and send him a clean and simple glittery birthday card. It looks guy like even with the glitter- don't you think?

Please join us this month at House of Cards and get your glitter on!