March Calendar Cat...

This is one of my favorite calendar pages. I used an Irish QuicKutz set along with some fun green paper to sport up my little cat! She is not always the easiest cat to photograph. Usually when you find her in a cute pose, by the time you run and get the camera, she moves or walks toward you. Here she is sitting like a little princess on a throw pillow. Put a pillow down somewhere, this little cat will find it and settle in!

Let's hope March is less snowy than February!

Jeannette

Memory Box February Project of the Month!

This is the February project of the month. It is a nice springy design with some yummy colors. I love the chocolate and pink combination! I know, it is the END of February, but we have gotten a little behind this month. The March color of the month and project of the month are being shipped early next week and should be in the shop the following week!

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Jeannette

Great snuggling weather...

Looks like Old Man Winter just does not want to loosen his grip on most of the United States! Good grief! And I had great hopes that the groundhog was going to be correct and we were going to have an early Spring!

So, in honor of cold, crappy weather, a snuggling card! This is a cute mouse image from Penny Black with 2 of the little ice snuggling under a daisy! The yellow piece underneath the mice image is created by embossing the yellow cardstock with a Cuttlebug embossing folder, then carefully applying Ranger Spiced Marmalade distress ink to the top with a brayer. You have to be gentle to keep the ink only on the raised portions. Because distress ink is designed to react with water, I spritzed the cardstock with water, which made the ink run a bit, blotted the excess off with a paper towel, then completely dried the piece with a heat gun. You can really accentuate the embossed design this way! After that, add some ribbon and layers and you have a cute card!

Thanks for coming by and the sun will come out - TOMORROW!

Jeannette

Memory Box February Color of the Month!

February's "Color of the Month" is Mint! This color matches Tsukineko's VersaMagic Aquatic Splash ink - as all the cards in the monthly do. These cards are limited edition - only available once and when they are gone, they're gone! The sample card along with the stamps and card packages for sale are available at the store. Get them while they are hot! This is a pretty spring color - and we all need a little spring in our lives after all the snow we have had!

Have a great day!
Jeannette

Glitter Puzzle...

If you're looking for an easy way to create interesting glitter backgrounds, this technique is for you! You need white sticker paper (also known to some as "crack and peel"), a glue stick and fine glitter. Sticker paper is basically a piece of white paper with an adhesive back (covered with a removable sheet to expose the adhesive). You start by drawing lines on the white paper with a pencil. The best are wavy lines - don't get too intricate, as you are going to have to cut along these lines. Next you cut the pieces apart and position them back into their original position (like a puzzle). I prefer to flip them so that the sticker backing side is now face up. Next, cut a piece of plain cardstock the same size as your original size of sticker paper. Apply glue from a glue stick to one side and attach the sticker pieces to the cardstock - so that the release paper side is face up (your lines will be glued down to the piece of cardstock). You'll need 4-6 colors of glitter - depending on how many sections you have and how many colors you wish to use. Start at one end and remove ONE section (and only one section). Sprinkle glitter over that section. I recommend rubbing the glitter with your finger to help push it into the adhesive. Shake off the excess and remove all excess with a soft, wide brush. Now, remove the next section and apply a second color of glitter. Keep doing this, one section at a time, until the entire piece is covered. A couple tips: 1) apply enough glue from the glue stick to get good adhesion of the sticker paper; 2) position the pieces carefully - you want them to abutt nicely together. Do not overlap or leave gaps; 3) after putting all pieces onto the cardstock, rub your fingers over the whole piece firmly to adhere the pieces and set the glue; 4) remove just the sticker backing from each section. This is probably the trickiest part - a finger nail works wonders!

You can mix and match a variety of colors to achieve some wonderful effects. On the card shown, I stamped a butterfly flourish from Kaisercraft on a piece of acetate with Stazon ink and then positioned it over my glitter puzzle and attached it to the card with gold brads. The designer paper is actually from a winter BoBunny collection!

Thanks for coming by today!
Jeannette

Showering with Flowers...

The little mice images from Penny Black have always been images that bring a smile to my face. Penny Black has taken a lot of the older images and them into clear stamps - in a somewhat smaller size. This image comes from a set called Hugs. The pink background layer is made by taking a piece of pink cardstock and putting it through a Cuttlebug embossing folder then brayering clear embossing ink over the embossed piece. Then I put clear embossing powder on it and heat embossed it. This gives an interesting shiny appearance to the piece. You can do this with opaque embossing powders - which gives a very different effect.

Thanks for stopping by!
Jeannette

Girlie Girl Birthdays...

Sorry I have been so out of touch! I just got back from a 5-night cruise - it was actually a stamping cruise with Impression Obsession, The Paper Cut and Sparkle 'n Sprinkle. Met a lot of great stampers and pretty much ate our way through the Gulf of Mexico! Gads, I cannot imagine how many calories were consumed in 5 days! But more on that later.

This is another fun card using another of the A La Mode images from My Favorite Things. In this card I cut a straight and scallop circle in half - this means you can make 2 cards with one circle! The cake is done with paper piercing and some Crystal Stickles for a little bling! It is a great card for older teens and young adults.

Thanks for stopping by and the regular blog posts should resume this week!

Jeannette

Beautiful violets...

This violet image is from Flourishes - and it is one that I simply love! The flowers from Flourishes in general are some of my favorite images. They have wonderful depth and realism. For this card, I used one of the Grand Caliber dies from Spellbinders as the card base. The actual card is made by folding a piece of 12x12" cardstock in half and cutting it with the die so that the folded area is below the upper cutting edge of the die. Then we cut a piece out of the green Bazzill cardstock with the same die and attach that over the folded piece - this way the front of the card has the complete shape and the card still opens. The image is stamped on a circle cut from a Spellbinders die and colored with Copic markers. I layered it to a purple Lacey Circles cut piece and attached it to the front of the card.. Lastly I added a ribbon bow and a couple pearls. I love using the large dies to make cards in fun shapes.

Thanks for checking out the blog today!
Jeannette

Bring it on!

When I saw this stamp from Whippersnapper, I laughed about all the snow we have been having in the northeast. My husband HATES snow, hates shoveling it and has been taunting the snow gods all winter by saying "Bring it on!" So, if you want to know who to blame for our snowy winter, I know where the blame squarely rests. The card is a simple one. I stamped the image with VersaFine ink and colored it with watercolor pencils and a blender pen. I embossed a piece of a blue Bazzill Swiss Dot cardstock with a Cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder. I used a green/blue ribbon from May Arts and added a few layers.

Have a great day!
Jeannette

Memory Box New Card and Stamp!

I finally unloaded the boxes with the 2011 Memory Box "What's in the Box" shipment - which includes all the new images, papers and cards from Memory Box. This is one of the cards that Dave made. It is one of those stamps that if you looked at it on the shelf, you might not think about a possibility like this! The image was stamped on yellow dot cardstock (NEW from Memory Box!) with clear embossing ink, then embossed with white embossing powder. The leaves of the tree are then colored with glitter pens. It is a very effective technique and certainly catches your eye!

The new collection is full of fun stamps, papers (including 2 NEW 6x6 print paper packs) and cards and envelopes. There is a collection of printed papers (4 prints per color) and some DELICIOUS colors! Just the thing we need to perk us up with the cruddy weather we have been experiencing here in the northeast!

Thanks for stopping by!

Jeannette

A Heart-Shaped Valentine...

I used the Spellbinders heart dies to make this heart-shaped valentine card. The actual card is made with the largest straight heart die. Fold a piece of cardstock and secure the die to the card so the the tops of heart die are slightly above the fold. Now, this gives you a heart with flat tops. I then took a large scalloped heart die and cut that out and attached it over the top of the card front - so that it is a complete heart and the card opens underneath it. The little girl image is from Stampendous and she is a real cutie! After that it is just simple layering and coloring. An easy way to make a heart-shaped valentine!

Have a great stamping day!

Jeannette

Let's hope the groundhog is correct...

Today is Groundhog Day! The day the little critter name Phil in Gobbler's Nob, PA gets dragged out of his home to see if he sees his shadow or not. The legend goes that if he sees his shadow, we have 6 more weeks of winter. If he does not see his shadow, we're in for an early Spring. Well, let's hope he is right, as he did NOT see his shadow - hopefully meaning an early Spring. I know we would all like that!

Hoping for an early Spring...

Jeannette

Flowers and Butterflies...

This is not a new image from Penny Black, but it is one that I love. The card also uses a trick that you can do with a piece of chipboard and a personal die cutter. To create the "pocket" that the image is in, I first stamp the image on the cardstock (in this case, a white linen). I wait to color it in case something goes wrong in the next step. Then a cut a square of chipboard the size I want. Using removable tape, I position the chipboard over the image where I want the indented area to be and then run it through a die cutting machine with the same sandwich stack I use for embossing folders. This presses the cardstock around the chipboard and creates the indented section. Next I color the image and complete the card. In this case, I used Staedtler watercolor pencils and a Dove blender pen. I also colored some butterflies (also from Penny Black), cut them out and attached them in the middle section. I added a little glitter around the edge of the white cardstock before layering it to the rest of the card. It looks complicated, but it actually quite simple.

Thanks for coming by!
Jeannette

From 70 degrees to this...

It's a good thing we left Los Angeles a day early! The flight we were originally scheduled on was cancelled, so we would have been stuck in LA and who knows when we would have been able to get home! Instead we flew home a day early and got in before the snow really hit. Quite a shocker going from highs in the upper 70's to this! And after this storm clears out, they are predicting more this weekend!

Be safe, stay warm!
Jeannette