Ladystamper

When I went to visit my Family in Arizona a few weeks ago, I went on a mini veggie diet. Both my sisters are vegetarians and they swear it is why their tummies are flat. I think they sold their souls to the devil, but ....who am I to say. Anyway, I didn't mind the 'no meat' at all. On Sunday, I did have some chicken cordon bleu tho and I ended up being sick all night and into the next day. I think my body really liked the 'no meat' and was telling me in a 'not so gentle' way that it preferred the veggies. I haven't had meat since then. I am not Vegan, I don't think I could live without cheese, but I don't do meat. For now. That all being said, I have been having fun experimenting with some Vegetarian recipes for the last two weeks. My Sister and Mother shared their recipe for Eggplant parmesan and it turned out pretty good. I still don't like eggplant tho. Tonight, my son Jared and I attempted another veggie recipe that I wanted to share wit...

Okay, so I thought about this one for a while...template? What does that mean exactly? Stencils came to mind...patterns, etc. But then I thought that maybe templates are what we used to make cool 3D items before we got the awesome Big Shot! Yes, I admit...I was really trying to spin this so I could use my new Matchbox die that came this week. Holy cow does this cut down on your time! Amazing! This die is one of the "So Shelli" line. What can I say? I love you Shelli! Check out these two adorable little boxes I made in, like, NO time! The first one is made with the Urban Garden DSP. It is the same paper, just different sides showing for the sleeve and the drawer. I tied a bit of Navy narrow organdy around it and layered two of the labels that are included in the matchbox die. The "celebrate" is from the new Good Friend set and it fits beautifully! This second box has a little more to it. I cut the sleeve from Perfect Plum cardstock and the drawer from pale plum cards...

I get updates from several stellar blogs and love to see the challenges that go on sometimes. I have been dying to scrapbook lately so I took the challenge on Molly Peckham and ran with it. I liked her simple, clean sketch and thought it would be just the thing to jump start my scrappin mojo. Of course, as is often the case, when I looked through my scrap pages, this layout isn't very different from a lot of my layouts. I guess I know what I like! LOL These pictures are from about five years ago...not sure why I haven't scrapped them til now, but here they are! I used Basic Grey for the page base to pick up on the color of the rocks. I love these pictures of Ben pouring pebbles on his own head. And the picture of Ethan looking through the slide is one of my favorites of him! So darn cute! They have both grown so much....sigh...

Wouldn't that be great? Having a Friday on Wednesday? Some weeks I am totally ready for Friday in the middle of the week. I missed last Friday's blogger challenge, not because I didn't have my card done, I did. I just had too much drama at my house to be able to focus enough to post. I had been out of town the weekend before at my parent's house. It was a wonderful weekend, catching up with family and taking a break from my home responsibilities. Unfortunately, home drama caught up with me before I could make it home and stayed til Thursday afternoon. I won't go into great detail...let me just say that having teenagers is going to drive me to an early grave. All is 'well' for the moment, so I am going to sneak a post in. Our challeng on Friday was "happy spring" or something close to it. This little birdie was calling out to me, so he got to be on my card. The background flowers are stamped with Orchid (a color I almost never use, except in spring)...

Well, there are days when I am not lazy.Really. Last week our blogger challenge was to use sage and brown. I needed to make a birthday gift for my dad, so I thought I would combine the two ideas. Good idea, right? welllllll......three days later (past the challenge date) I finished. Almost. I went a bit crazy with the challenge! This little scrapbook is made with the naked chipboard pieces from Stampin'Up! I covered them with EnFranceis (SP?) paper and rubbed it all down with brown ink. Surprise! LOL I am just going to show a few pages here. It is quite large... I used stamps from Stampin ' Up! as well as stamps from a Becky Higgins kit of the month se t . The book has pictures of my kids as well as my siblings and their kids. Most everyone is represented...I hope! I have to say that one of my favorite features is the back. Check out these cool rubons from Stampin' Up! I love it!! Makes me feel pretty official!

I saw a stellar card on another blog the other day....Beate or Claire Daly... Can't remember, Anyway! They did a card like this one that had all the flowers cut out and layered and wow! THIS is my style. Same layout, but doable before you run out the door to visit that friend, go to the party, etc. The background is stamped with versamark, the flowers and words are stamped with black Stazon. I watercolored with my chalks and blender pens and did it quick! I can see that some layers and some glitter and such would really make it look great but...do you have time today? Not me! I'm SO glad we have those awesome artists that spend all that time doing the awesome art projects to inspire us. I love it! I'm just lazy! At least, today I am!

This week our bloggers' challenge was "texture." I love texture! I am in love with the new texture plates from Stampin' Up! They are so easy to use and make ordinary cardstock magically turn into textured cardstock! It is way cool! I decided to use the colors from the challenge last week that I didn't quite get done....LONG story.... The bottom half of my card is Sage Shadow embossed with the large polka dot texture plates. I sponged a bit of chocolate chip on it to make the dots stand out a bit more. I added more texture to the edges of my cardstock layers by attacking them with my cutter kit. Love that little distressing wheel! My racoon is from the Under the Stars set. He just looked like he was wringing his little hands...doesn't he? Hence the words on here. He looks worried! What if it is true?! LOL Check out the other BC players...they are amazing!

I have a friend coming to my stamp a stack this month that likes realistic stuff. Not the cutesy stuff. I like having cards people will want to do so, here is my first version of a card for this month. The base is perfect plum with pale plum over it. I stamped the flower in perfect plum and colored it in using chalks dry and with blender pens. The background is the friends wheel and versamark.

This is a new set that Stampin' Up! will be releasing in the spring. I love it! I earned it after a Regional seminar by hitting a sales mark. I love getting free stuff!! My colors here are rose red and chocolate chip. I'm trying to branch out from the pink and brown....I know, I'm not too far from it, but I'm trying! This image is four stamps stacked. The pedestal, words, cake, and cherry. They line up perfectly! I added glitter to 'everything' but it is hard to see here. The border is done with the scallop border punch and the 1/8" hole punch. I tried to mimic the edge of the pedestal.

This is a card we did last month at our stamp a stack and scrap. I love how the colors pop on here! The background patter is made with the funky trees wheel and the kiwi kiss stamp pad. These trees line up perfectly with the stamp a ma jig. I really had a hard time without it. But...once you get that stamp a ma jig out on your desk, you find that you need it for everything! It really does make things look much better. everything lines up....what an idea!

This is a sweet little card I made with a stamp set I traded for with a friend. It is a cute little set. I used my markers to ink up the flower and then added glitter to bring it out a bit. The picture doesn't really make it show up very well. As I said the other day...I'm really having a sensitive time to sponging! All the edges on this card are sponged with close to cocoa ink. The ribbon is celery twill from a mini catalog last spring. I wish it would come back, I love it! I think the saying "It's time to bloom" can work for so many occasions!

I love the fact that this Polka Dot Sale-a-bration set has coordinating punches! How awesome is that? Stamp, punch, stick! done! Of course, I stamped, sponged, punched, popped, trimmed and glittered, but...still! A cheery card for a good friend in half the time it would have taken if I had to cut all those flowers and leaves out. The bottom flower is snailed right to the card, the one to the left has one dimensional under it and the one to the right has two. It really does pop! This may be one of the cards at my Stamp a stack and scrap this month. Do you like it??

I started this mini scrapbook a long time ago and just found it when I moved some things around in my office. I had all the pictures tucked into this little album and the cover stamped. That was it! It was a good start and I was in the mood so I decided to tackle it! I added a bit of rolling to the cover with the boho wheel and close to cocoa ink and sponged a bit to pull it together. I may have to add more dates besides the 2007...we didn't end up going to the beach as much as I thought we would. I added the tab on the top with the tab punch and a generic date stamp. The inside front cover is blank. This is my 'entry page.' I put a strip of DSP along the bottom, this one is from the Holiday treasure collection. I sponged the edges and rolled the boho wheel along it using the close to cocoa ink pad. The quote is on velum and from a book of quotes I picked up somewhere... probably at Joanns or somewhere. I stuck it on using mini glue dots. I planned to cover them with somet...

I have been trying to stamp every day for the last few days. I have missed my 'creative time' SO much! I still have my cold, but I'm feeling better and starting to get back into the swing of things. This fun card is made using the awesome Hawaii Papaya DSP from Stampin' Up! this paper is retired, but if you like it, the current catalog has some paper that looks very similar to it, Washington Apple, just in different colors. I made my card base with Kiwi Kiss cardstock and chocolate chip cardstock. I layered the three strips of DSP and then tied my chocolate grosgrain around it all. The kitty is from the Zoofari set, colored in with Markers. The words are from the Smarty Pants set...love this set! I added some sponging in tangerine tango to soften up the edges and give the kitty a bit of a shadow. I have been going crazy with sponging lately! check out my scrapbook tomorrow...I think I actually wore through my sponge!