and even more photos.....

Doesn't the ribbon look good enough to eat???????

A few more photos from CHA

Here are a few more things I saw and fell in love with at CHA....enjoy!

A few pics from CHA

Christmas in July

I'm still trying to catch up after my trip and sidewalk sales so I apologize for not posting any photos from Chicago yet. I thought I'd better get this week's class cards up first. This month has flown by...it seems like we just did Christmas cards and here we go again! Oh well....some fairly simple designs this week, but we are going to do a little spirelli (Merry Christmas card) and use some of my lovely new stamps. The warm wishes card is a similar design to one of the cards I made in a Hero Arts class at CHA. We used the shadow technique to stamp the snowflakes, and it's one of those techniques I've been meaning to use in class but haven't so far. Thanks to Jennifer McGuire for the inspiration and to Hero Arts for all the free goodies:) I opened a Winter Wonderland collection pack of Cuttlebug embossing folders to use for other two cards. The photos don't do them justice (as usual) but I'm in love with these folders. They are in a pack of 6 for just $28 and there are 3 standard size and 3 - 5 x 7 size. The sentiment is from a new Hero Arts set and I know we'll be using this one a lot for our Christams cards. I'll try to post some photos of the show before the weekend. Stay cool:)

I'm back from CHA!!!!

This will be a very short post as I have a million things to do today, but I had to let you know that I'm back from CHA and YES.....I got my photo with Tim! Don't we make a cute couple??? LOL! All the classes were fantastic, but Tim's was my favourite of course. I have a million photos to share with you but they will have to wait a bit so I can catch up here and get ready for Sidewalk sales tomorrow...PHEW! Hope you're staying cool. Chat soon:)

One of those days....

It doesn't happen very often, but sometimes, no matter how I try, I just can't come up with a card design that I'm happy with. That's not really a problem unless you have a class the next day, but........... hopefully tomorrow my mojo will return and I'll come up with something amazing! In the meantime, although I struggled a bit to come up with these two, I think they turned out quite pretty! I had fun with the dandelion frame. I just kept inking portions of the stamp with different colours, starting with the lightest, and I love the element of surprise when I lift up the stamp, because you really can't tell how it's going to look ahead of time. I love surprises...LOL! I've been relying heavily on border punches lately. They add some much elegance to a design with very little effort. I used the Diamond lace punch again on the purple and yellow card, and the paper is from Kaisercraft. The little branch punch from Martha Stewart is becoming a favourite when I need a little extra embellishment on a card. Well...two down one to go!

A sparkly birthday!

Here is a card I made for my youngest niece Sammy's birthday. I can never forget her birthday because it's the same day as mine..LOL! I cut the cup cake out of a sheet of Kaisercraft's Candy Lane glitter paper and layered it on a lacy nestability die cut. I ran the squares of paper through the cuttlebug in the D'vine swirls embossing folder, then I traced the swirl pattern with diamond stickles. Easy peasy and much more sparkly than it looks in the photo. Happy Birthday Sammy!

Save those scraps!

If you're like me, you just can't bear to throw out those little scraps of beautiful patterned paper, that are often left over from card making or scrap-booking. Here's a card layout that's perfect for using some of them up. The strip on the front of the card is only 1.5 " wide and the one on the inside is 1 inch wide. I have a couple of other examples of this layout in the store, one uses a scrap of beautiful Japanese paper and each is layered on a strip of metallic cardstock. Splitting up the panel allows you to either stamp a sentiment, or use a peel off sticker as I did on this card. I also used the diamond lace edger punch to show off the paper inside. Another quick and easy card...perfect to mass produce with a variety of sentiments so you'll always have a card ready for any occasion. Or you could make a boxed set of cards to give as a gift. Speaking of boxed cards, my friend Jennifer (Madison Avenue Designs)has sets of cards for sale here in the store. They are just $12 for four cards and right now there are birthday, thank you and baby cards available. Be sure to take peek next time you stop in!

Pretty in pink

I know it doesn't look very pink, but the first card for this week's class is a lovely soft vintage pink with a subtle pattern in the paper. I stamped the Magenta image with black Memento ink directly onto the patterned paper and distressed the edges just a bit with the Tonic Paper distressing tool. The background is the same patterned paper which was run through the Cuttlebug using the "Textile" embossing folder. I embossed only the upper portion so that I could stamp the ribbon image on the lower portion. Such a quick and simple card, but the detail in this stamp makes for a very elegant looking card. The second card uses one of my favourite stamps. It's from Unity stamps and we've already used it to make at least 3 class cards. It lends itself to several different inking techniques and here I've coloured directly on the stamp with Memento markers. The image was cut out using one of the labels 10 Nestabilities dies (another class favourite.) I sponged tattered rose distress ink around the edges while the image was still in the die. This leaves a beautiful border when the image is removed from the die. The border was punched using the "scrolls and dots" slim edger punch. That gorgeous patterned paper is from Basic Grey's Indian summer collection. I had a couple of sheets of this pattern left, and the colours and pattern were the inspiration for this card! Two down....one to go:)