Ladystamper

I did not fall off the planet. I'm still here! I have been super busy trying to finish my swaps for convention. For some reason, I have had the hardest time this year! I have a fairly large pile of cards on my desk that I have made and not been happy with. In the midst of my struggles I finally decided I must be too competitive. It was a surprise to me. I never thought of myself as competitive. But, I think I am trying too hard to make a totally awesome card or 3D swap and I'm missing out on the joy of creating. Isn't that sad? Once I realized that, I stopped trying and put away all my stamps. (I had a stack of about 10 sets on my little desk.) I cleaned off my desk and walked away from it. I spent a day just looking at the catalog and browsing through some new blogs and some old favorites. It was kind of like a relaxing therapy for me. There are so many stampers and crafters out there with so many different styles and we all love what we do. I just love it! After my li

This week our challenge was a color combo challenge. I admit I struggled a bit with this one. These are not colors I normally put together. But hey, it IS supposed to be a challenge, right? So, I rolled up my sleeves and jumped in. The colors in our challenge were: Sahara Sand, Blue Bayou, Rose romance, Mellow Moss, and Really rust. See what I mean? I started with a card base of Sahara sand and layered a strip of Mellow Moss cardstock on it. I used my paper trimmer to cut a small slit in the crease of the card and fed the Blue Bayou ribbon through it and around the card. For the focal point, I used really rust chalk to create the soft background color. I inked up my flower with Rose romance and mellow moss markers and stamped it right over the chalk. The 'thank you' is also inked with the mellow moss marker. I have to say that the hardest part of this challenge was getting the Really Rust in there. I like how it looks as a background color tho. Be sure to check out the other b

I missed a few days posting here due to family crazies and a subtle stomach flu that has me feeling less than great. I was feeling better this morning, til I saw the mess that had accumulated for me. sigh,... I have also been figuring out what to make for my Stampin' Up! convention swaps. Here are a few of the rough drafts I came up with. I'll probably make 10 or so and pick my favorites for my swaps. Let me know what you think! This first one uses chocolate chip and close to cocoa cardstock for the card base. I stamped the print patterns (retiring so, obviously won't be using that on the swaps) with Versamark on the cocoa and then layered a piece of celery designer paper on that. The scallop is made with the new Stampin' Up! scallop border punch. This thing is SO awesome!! Totally easy to use! I stamped the bird from Always with celery and colored it in with markers. The words are rubons added to a chipboard swirl. I added a celery ribbon and a pink rhinestone to the

I am guilty of hoarding many craft supplies. Rub ons are one, chipboard letters are another. I am always hesitant to use a letter because...what if I need that letter later for something else? I know, it is crazy. I actually have several sets of letters, just in case, and I still have a hard time using them! I guess that is why stamping is so perfect for me. With my alphabet stamps, I never run out of letters! I can always just stamp another one. So, today, my challenge is to use chipboard letters. I made this cute scrap page for a contest over at PageMaps. This is the layout they gave and we had to make it our own. All the supplies are from Stampin' Up!. The rub ons are from Saleabration this year. I love that we got them in Chocolate! They look white in the lower right hand side, but they are really chocolate. Another thing I love about rubons is how easy it is to modify them and change them. I added a swirl at the top that used to be somewhere else. They are fun. My chipboard

It is Friday, so time for anther Blogger's challenge! This week our theme was Bugs and Insects. Because I am also doing a chipboard challenge this week, I decided to combine them! Instead of a card or scrapbook page, I wanted to make my own chipboard tag. I was walking through WalMart yesterday and ended up in the scrapbook isle. I don't know how that always happens...maybe one of those..."all roads lead to scrap supplies" rules? Anyway, There were some really pretty pre-made tags by K&Co. that really caught my eye. But, there wasn't any paper by that company in sight. Here is a little waring for you. When you buy something pre-made like a tag or patterned paper, make sure you buy a coordinating paper or other supplies to actually make your project. There are about 5 million different shades of only red, so matching colors can be a real challenge. Since I didn't see any paper to go with the cute tags, I got to thinking that maybe I could just make my own

I had another project all done and even blogged when I realized I had also done it for a contest and I wasn't supposed to have it posted anywhere before the contest was over. So...I took it off. I'll show it on Saturday when the contest is over. In the meantime, I wanted to show you this cute idea for making jewelry out of chipboard. I took lots of pictures along the way so you can see how I did it. I started with a naked chipboard flower I purchased at the Scrap Expo. It was from a left over kit, so there isn't a manufacture name on it. If you recognize it, let me know! To prepare the chipboard, I sanded off all the little bumps from the framing and then painted it white with a quick drying memory paint from making memories. When the paint was dry, I pressed the painted flower onto my Versamark pad to get it sticky. Using a soft paint brush, I gently brushed purple Peal Ex onto the Versamark ink. The versamark is great for holding on to this fine pigment powder. Pearl Ex

I've been having fun doing all kinds of different things to chipboard this week. I hope some of you are playing along with me! I did this layout for a challenge at Crop Addict and thought I would share it today. The challenge was to use "naked chipboard" on a layout. Sometimes doing nothing is the hardest thing of all! Because of the faded, natural look of the naked chipboard, I used an old picture from my husband's childhood. The colors are a bit muted so they go nicely with the chipboard. The background is cardstock from Stampin' Up! in artichoke, chocolate chip and summer sun. I stamped the 'family times' with artichoke craft ink. The rickrack is from a crazy collection I got from Rusty Pickle. Circus, I think. I stapled it on to add some metal to the page. The quotes are stickers (gasp!) from Me & My Big Idea that I stuck to craft cardstock and then rubbed some ink to the edges. Some are popped up and some aren't. I have to say it was hard n

Have you ever made a shaker card? I have made many in my day. Sometimes it can be a real challenge to get the dimension you need for things to shake around while getting a seal around the edges. In the past, I have used things like foam tape and loads of pop dots to make the shaker cards. Here is a much easier way to make a shaker card using chipboard! I am going to show you two different ways to do this. The first card is made using two different pieces of chipboard. To start, I made my card base using Certainly celery cardstock, white cardstock and celery designer paper. I then covered a large chipboard flower with Groovy Guava designer paper. Paper snips are awesome for getting into the little spots when you are cutting out, but my favorite tool for working with chipboard is the File Kit from Basic Grey. There are several different shapes of files that are sooo useful when you have curvy chipboard or little places you need to shape your designer paper to. I went ahead and glued thi

Have you taken the chipboard challenge yet? Today I am going to show you a cool 3-D item I made for my sweetie while he was gone to scout camp with our boys. It is true that absence makes the heart grow fonder. Even after almost 20 years of marriage, I miss him when he is gone. Then he comes home and my laundry doubles. hmmmmm Anyway! I made him this little item and hung it on the wall between our closets so he can see it every day and know that I love him. All of the supplies are from Stampin' Up! Because this full picture is so small, I am also including a close up of each panel. The rectangles are all chipboard pieces that I covered with designer paper from the Afternoon Tea collection. I have tried different ways of covering chipboard and I prefer the Liquid Tombow. I covered the chipboard with the tombow and then laid it glue side down, onto the designer paper. Then I cut around the chipboard using an exacto blade (AKA hobby blade). I sanded the edges with a sanding block to

First off, My boys are all home! I missed them while they were are Scout camp. I am SO glad they are all home safe. Jared did have a little bike accident on his 50 mile ride (!), but he is fine. Just a bit sore. We spent the day just relaxing and then had our official family 4th of July celebration tonight. We barbequed and then set of fireworks with the neighbors. I love the 4th of July! There are SO many ways to use chipboard! During this week I will show you several different ways I like to use it. These are in no special order of importance or level of difficulty. Although I love to stamp and make cards, I would have to say scrapbooking is my all time favorite craft right now. After years of making cards and asking my husband "what do you think?" He told me that when I started scrapbooking he finally saw the 'point' in all the crafting. He didn't mean that in a bad way, and I didn't take it in a bad way. It did make me realize that scrapbooking was more im

I don't have a project to share tonight, but I did want to do a quick post and let you all know that all next week, I will be hosting a Chipboard Challenge! Each day of the week, I will be posting a project that involves Chipboard. I was up waaaay too late after the fireworks working on chipboard projects to share with you. I'm so excited! I love working with chipboard and have heard (read) too many people say they never use it! Now is the time to get out that chipboard and start creating with it! My challenge will start on Sunday. Come see what I make and take the daily challenge to make your own chipboard creations. You will discover how totally fun and addictive this stuff really is! Have a great Saturday and, I'll see you Sunday! :o)

Happy 4th of July everyone!! What a wonderful day. How blessed we are to live in a free country! I think we all probably take for granted all the freedoms and liberties we have in this country. I know I do. Today, I hope we will all take some time to think about those that have sacrificed so much to make our freedom possible. The challenge today was a color block challenge. Of course, I had to use Red, White and Blue! This stamp is an old retired Stampin' Up! set that I have had for years. I LOVE it! If you look closely, you can see the stripes on the red (cuttlebug) and stars on the white and blue (SU punch) I need a better 'studio' to take my pictures! Have a happy 4th~!!

You may remember a few months back that I was looking for a good quote for a teacher's gift. I received TONS of ideas for this. Lots of great sayings about teachers, teaching, children, etc. I had fun reading through them all. I was planning to make a framed quote for a special teacher at the elementary school. As is sometimes (frequently) the case, I didn't allow enough time to actually finish the project in time. High hopes, little time. Sound familiar? So, the special teacher got something else instead. That is okay. The other day I found the partially finished project in my craft room and decided to play with it a bit more. I kind of like how it turned out. I started wiht a dark brown, almost black frame from the Family Dollar store. I brushed white craft ink over it, leaving bits of the ornate design showing through. I was going for a bit of French Shabby Chic. Inside the frame is a bit of patterned paper from a grab bag I got at the scrappin convention....I think it is