1,000 Hits!

I never in my life thought I would hit a milestone on this blog. I started blogging a few years ago and never kept a blog going long enough to hit any milestones. My husband put it perfectly last night. He said that I get into a project and keep going and going and then just fizzle out. I then start again and keep going and going and then fizzle out again. That isn't exactly what is happening here.

This blog was started as a way for me to keep a sort of log of my projects and to share with those of you who care to see. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep up with blogging on a daily basis but I try to post as often as possible. It seems as though my life just gets busier and busier and I don't have as much time as I would like to create the projects. Because of this I don't post as often as I would like because I don't have all that much to share right now. When I create something I do share here.

So, the point of this post is to just say thank you to those of you who have visited. I especially like to see those hits go up. I really love to see the new comments in my inbox. You all make me feel so special. Thank you! Thank you! THANK YOU!

Coaster projects

If you remember, a while back I won some blog candy from Kristine at Ink Something! It included 5 coasters. I had never made anything with a coaster but had seen lots of fun projects that I wanted to try. Well, today I decided to just give it a whirl on my own. I really didn't have any inspiration for these so I was pretty proud of what I came up with. I found these little hinges for hanging things on the wall and they worked out well for these.

The first one was a wall hanging for the holidays. I had this set of glittery Christmas 3-D stickers. I knew I wanted to do words and these stickers. This was the end result. I embossed the letters with gold embossing powder.

For the second project I wanted something where pictures could be added. I knew I wanted to use a wide ribbon to attach the coasters together. I only had a few different wide ribbons in purple tones. I dug through my stash to find any embellishments that were of the purple variety. I then added a place on each one where I stamped an image and saying so that the wall hanging could be used as is but I put the images in enough so that if someone wanted to add a picture you wouldn't see what was stamped.

I really love how both of these projects came out. I definitely want to try some other coaster projects because these were super simple and a lot of fun to make.

Happy Halloween

I know it's early but I wanted to share our Halloween digital scrapbook page we made last night.

Slacking on posts

I told you a while ago that I was in a bit of a stamping funk. I just haven't found much motivation and I haven't really stamped much of anything for a while. I keep thinking of it and then I get started but never finish any projects. I haven't even been reading too many blogs. I guess it was just time for a break.

It certainly doesn't help that I have been super busy. It seems like every weekend there is something else that I have to get done or places to go and that leaves very little time for stamping. Normal week nights aren't available because I work 10 hour days and when I get home it's dinner time and homework with my oldest. After getting them ready and into bed I only have an hour or so. It really makes it difficult to accomplish anything else during the week.

I haven't given up but I am waiting to naturally get inspired to get stamping again. If you haven't given up on me yet I will get more posted...hopefully soon.

Man Made Card

This video is hilarious. This is the extreme most men would go to if asked to make a card. My hubby just rolled his eyes. Go check it out at: Man Made Card

I've been tagged

I have seen this all over the place and now I have been tagged. I was tagged by Jennifer at Stampin' Crazy.

This one is quite amusing!
1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet, current car) Cat Chevette
2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (favorite ice cream, favorite cookie) Cake Resses Chip
3. YOUR FLY “GUY/GIRL” NAME: (first initial first name, first 3 letters last name) K-Bot
4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) Purple Kitten
5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) Marie Milwaukee
6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (first 3 letters last name, first 2 letters first name) Botka
7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink and add” the”) Red Mountain Dew
8. NASCAR NAME: (first names of your grandfathers) George James
9. STRIPPER NAME: (favorite perfume, favorite candy) Happy Chocolate
10. WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s and father’s middle names) Christian Lee

I'm supposed to tag 5 other people....
Laura - Whirlpool of Imagination
Sarah - Stash...Stash...And More Stash...
Marni - Stamp Monkeys
Lanel - Random Ramblings and Charming Tales
"Harmony" - Harmony in Motion

This was more difficult than I expected. I picked people that I didn't see have been tagged yet. I also use a few of the personal blogs that I read regularly. I hope they all enjoy a break from their busy lives with something fun.

A few more cards for today

I really was on a roll today. I Just kept stamping and stamping. It felt so good to have that feeling again and the desire to create. I probably over did it but I still had a lot of fun. Here are a few more cards that I did today.

More Desperate Stamper sketches

If you remember, I participated in a sketch challenge posted by Sara on her Deperate Stamper blog. She is posting 27 card sketches in 27 days. I loved the idea and made sure I started these challenges. I sort of fizzled out after the first one. I had every intention of participating as she posted each sketch. Needless to say, it didn't happen.

Today I knew I was going to have lots of time to stamp and I started with Sara's sketches. I printed them all out as a sort of map for my card making today. I picked out the papers I was going to use and then started putting things together. I had sooo much fun. I felt so creative today. I used her sketches as a starting point and everything else just came together. I didn't make a card for all of her sketches today but I did manage a few. Without further ado, here they are.

Sketch 6:

Sketch 7:

Sketch 10:

Sketch 18:

More manila file folder albums

I was going to save them for later in the week if my creativity was still at a stand still but here's a couple of more of the albums I made yesterday.

I can't tell you how much fun I had designing these. They were a little time consuming but really easy to make. I already have plans to make more but decided to put them on hold while I get more supplies.

A fun little project

I know I have been slacking on the blog lately. Actually I have been missing a little of my creativity in the last few weeks. I have that happen from time to time. I get so busy with other things that when I do get time to stamp or create I just don't feel like it. If I force myself to sit down and make something it really feels forced and I don't like anything I come up with.

I did get all my blog feeds switched over to Bloglines and I really like it. While I don't have time to keep up with all 400+ feeds on a daily basis, I do try to read as many as possible. After a week I was able to catch up on them all. I think this will work out quite well. The best part is the feature where you can "clip" a blog posting to save it in a special folder for reading later. I have a few different folders set up. I created one for blog candy, sketch challenges and another for card projects and ideas I want to try later. It's kind of my inspiration area.

This afternoon I went through my project folder and found something that looked like it would be fun to try. It is a manila folder Album. This was posted by Taylor at Taylored Expressions. I just so happen to have a ton of manila folders laying around so I just had to give it a try. Here is my first creation.

I can see so many uses for this. It could be a great album to carry around to show off your latest pictures of your kids. It could be fantastic for a new Grandma to show off her beautiful new grandchild. It could be a place to keep notes and shopping lists. I also think it would make a great Christmas/Holiday organizer. You could keep a to do list, notes, shopping list and then store all of your receipts. This is definitely one of my favorite projects so far. I had so much fun making this that I made a few more styles too. I will save those for posting later in the week.

Thanks Taylor for sharing this great tutorial.

I finally made something I like

I promised myself at the beginning of this weekend that I would sit down and stamp for as much time as possible. I tried to do it last night and I really don't care for anything I came up with. I tried following a few sketch challenges for inspiration but I think that hindered my progress even further. Then tonight I spent a while browsing the gallery at SCS. I always find inspiration over there. I settled on the Baroque Motif set and said I was going to make some Christmas cards with this set. I knew I had seen some beautiful works with this set. Sure enough I found lots of cards that I wanted to try. I ended up only have a short time left to stamp this evening and here is what I came up with.



I am quite pleased with how these came out. Like I said, I found my inspiration at SCS. I made a few changes to the designs I found and did cards in opposite colors to see which I might like better. I can't choose a favorite out of any of these designs.

I also found a new favorite product. The Stardust Glitter Pen that I received with my blog candy from Kristine at Ink Something! Those things are like magic. If you have never tried these pens before you HAVE to. They really are amazing.

Busy, busy, busy...

I have had no choice but to take a little break from stamping and scrapping. It feels like it has been way too long since I was able to take some time to create something. Work has been crazy. My time in the evenings has become very limited. I just have not been able to do much.

I am also in the process of changing over the blog feeds that I read from Newsgator to Bloglines. I discovered that Bloglines has more of the features I am looking for and it's speedier to read all the blogs I try to catch. I actually have about 400 feeds that I try to read. Lately I haven't been able to keep up but I would like to and also be able to add more. There are so many neat new blogs popping up that I would love to follow. I can't imagine how some people keep up. Just think of Allison over at Stampin When I Can. She must have a few thousand blogs that she tries to keep up with. She provides such a great service to us stampers and scrappers. She deserves some kind of award for all she does. I am in awe.

So anyways. I hope to be able to get some good stamping time this weekend. Until then go explore Allison's blog and see what inspiration you can find.

Just playing today and sharing fun

While I haven't had a chance to stamp a single thing this weekend, I did have some time for serious fun. I don't even know which to share with you first.

I was going to try to keep this blog for strictly my stamping and crafty stuff but I just have to share a little bit about my family again.

Today was my littlest girls birthday. She turned 3 today. For the last few months her biggest interest has been peoples birthdays and I think she was super excited that she finally got to celebrate hers. Her cake was fun. I make lots and lots of cakes but for some reason I always go store bought for birthday in this household. I made a bit of a compromise for this one.

A few months ago she told me she wanted a Jo Jo the clown cake. I was all prepared to make it. Then a few weeks ago she changed her mind and said she wanted Curious George. Well, it finally hit her a few days ago that I could probably let her have ANY kind of cake she asked for and she changed her mind again. This time she asked if she could have her most favorite cartoon character. You see, she loves Angelina Ballerina. It's a little mouse that is a Ballerina. She loves to dance around. I told her I would try to make it but I couldn't promise it. I knew there wouldn't be a lot of people celebrating with us so I didn't want to spend my normally hours and hours preparing a cake and decided I was going to get a store bought one that was pretty blank and decorate it myself. I drove to 5 different stores today to find one I could use. I got clear gel icing and traced a picture with it on wax paper and put it on the cake. I think it turned out pretty cute and both of the girls knew who it was as soon as they saw it.

I also got some super cute blog candy on Friday. I won my very first blog candy from Mahlin at Mahlin - Less Ordinary. I won these super adorable little owl stickers. She included an adorable artist trading card that she personalized for me. She even decorated the envelope in a super cute way. I will treasure this forever. My hubby was even happy to receive the postage stamp and post mark from Sweden to add to his postage stamp collection. This was so fun to win! Make sure you stop over to Mahlin's blog and say Hi.

Besides this blog candy win I also won some fabulous candy from Kristine at Ink Something! She said she was sending me this altered tin with a surprise inside. I would say I was surprised. There was so much stuff filling this beautiful tin. There was paper, glitter pens, beach themed stickers, fun binder clips, blank chipboard coasters, some beautiful cards and a pumpkin bar recipe. I can't wait to start playing with these. I also have to say that I was a little leery of trying the altered tins but looking at this, I have been inspired. It is amazingly beautiful in person. I will be taking this to work to use at my desk and to show off to all my co-workers. Make sure you also stop over and say hi to Kristine and look at her other beautiful creations.

UHU Glue Stick

Do you remember the UHU glue stick sample I talked about earlier? I got the sample from http://www.mariafilosa.com/. Well, I used only that to adhere all my layers on the last card I posted about. I think I am glue stick impaired. I like a lot of things about it but I seem to make a big mess anytime I use any kind of glue stick. This go around wasn't too bad but I still made a bit of a mess. When applying it to the paper I end up getting it on my other paper and then everything else seems to stick to it. I do like how the glue is purplish in color so you can mostly see where you are applying the glue. It also makes the papers a little stiffer so it makes that card seem a higher quality than it already is. I use paper that I get at my local craft store so it's not quite as thick as something like Stampin' Up!'s paper so the glue stick helps with that feel a little. All in all, while I like the glue stick, I don't think it will be my permanent choice when making cards. I am much more coordinated with my tape runner. If you are a neater crafter than me you will probably be very happy with the glue stick. Make sure you try one for yourself.

Back to your regularly scheduled programming

I think I may have found a bit of my mojo. I made a card tonight! I saw a sketch posted by Sara at Desperate Stamper and I wanted to give it a try. Actually Sara is going to post 27 sketches in 27 days. You will probably be seeing me trying a lot more of her sketches. What I have seen so far has been fabulous. I think I can credit Sara with helping me find my mojo. Check them out for yourself and show me what you come up with.

This is what I came up with:

I used the Baroque Motifs set from Stampin' Up. I have had this set for about a month and have been waiting for just the right idea to play with it. I love the colors I have together on this card. It sort of suits my personality. The layer between the white and black is more like an orchid purplish color. It didn't photograph well. I also used the rock n' roll technique on the circular cutout piece with pink passion and orchid opulence. Seriously, it is really cool looking in real life. I added this piece with pop dots and topped it off with a little rhinestone in the center. These rhinestones have to be my newest favorite embellishment. That add that little bit of pizazz to almost any card design. Diane at My Little Stampin' Spot wants to know your favorite embellishment too. Go share so we can all see what cool things are out there.

Another scrapbook page

Since I haven't had much time during the weeknights to create any new cards and I knew I could squeeze in a few minutes to do a scrapbook page I thought that could be something I will regularly add to my blog. When I don't have time to do cards I will at least try to do a page or two for you. I have 2 years of pictures that need to be scrapped anyhow. I think I will start working backwards. Tonight I did a page of our fishing trip in July.

First day of school

I know this isn't my normal stamping post but I had to share. My oldest started 4 year old kindergarten today. I, of course, snapped some pictures. I had an hour to kill after dropping her off so I just had to do a scrapbook page right away. I do digital scrapbooking with Scrapbook Factory Deluxe. I love the fact that I can make cool pages really quickly without the mess. I even have a 12 x 12 printer so I can print those pages myself. This was a simple 8 1/2 x 11 layout that I did.

Captain Crafter Sketch Challenge

I have heard wonderful things about the sketch designs by Captain Crafter. I had to check it out for myself. The most recent sketch design Challenge #23 posted most recently looked like it was worth a try. It seems like over the last week I have lost some of my mojo and I tried this challenge to get back into the swing of things. I am satisfied with my design but not totally happy with it. I used a retired Christmas set from Stampin' Up! that I was considering using for our cards to send out this year. I definitely need to play with this set some more.

Here is the card I did for this challenge:

Here's a close up. You can kind of see that I used some glossy pearly kind of paint to add the icicles to the house.

I still don't feel like my mojo has returned. Hopefully I can find it sometime tomorrow afternoon.

Qu- of the day

You may have noticed this little addition at the top of my blog. I thought that a fun way to get to know each other a little better is if we answered some questions. I started a blog that will be in addition to this to ask these questions. To answer you can click the link with the question and leave a comment on the post with the question. Some questions are very thought provoking. I will try to start with some of the easier questions. If you want to add any questions feel free to send me an email and I will see if I can add it in.

Have fun!

Celebration time!

I haven't created anything new but wanted to make sure I didn't neglect my readers. I thought I would feature one of my favorite creations. This is a Celebrate card. I think it is fitting for my life right now. August and September are months full of birthdays in my family. There are 6 birthdays in the month of August in my immediate family (myself included). September is the month of 4 birthdays in my immediate family in the first half of the month. This weekend we are going on a mini vacation to spend some time with my family. We will be celebrating 3 birthdays on Sunday. This included my youngest ones 3rd birthday. She is going to be surprised because while she knows her birthday is coming, she has no idea we are celebrating it this weekend. So you won't see me post this weekend so I will leave you with this in honor of all the Celebrations. Have a great Labor Day Weekend and Celebrate!

Glue sticks

I have taken a few days away from making new cards. It's been a busy time as we get our oldest ready for school and taking last minute vacations. I figured I could use this time to talk about adhesives. How many of you use glue stick for your cards? I have made a ton of them in the past but haven't been totally satisfied with the quality of the glue sticks I have used. I don't remember what I used but I haven't tried a lot of them. I would like to try again. I saw this blog where you could sample adhesives from UHU and I saw they were sending sample of the UHU glue stick. I thought it was perfect timing to be able to give another glue stick a try. My sample is on it's way to me and I will post a review once I have a chance to give it a try. I am excited to see the results. For the time being if you want to try to get a sample of your own you can check our Maria Filosa's blog. She gives full instructions on how to order a sample of your own. She also has some great projects. Maybe we can all discover a great new product or fun ideas while I take a brief stamping break. :)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I am working on designing more Christmas cards. I came up with two designs this evening that I love. The first is done with faux stitching and gold embossing.

The second is more simple but elegant. I didn't stamp anything but I used gold foil stickers.

Here's the two together:

Winter in Summer?

I don't know what motivated me when it was 80 degrees with 96% humidity but I started on my holiday cards. I know I am going to need a lot of them so I figured I better start early. I thought I would try to create a holiday card while doing a sketch challenge but no matter how hard I tried I could not complete the challenge. I made about the biggest mess ever and spent about 3 hours just to make these 2 cards. It's not even like I was making 2 completely different cards. They are almost the same except I only had one snowflake button. WAIT! I just remembered that there was a challenge out there to use buttons. Now I will have to go see where it was. ...long pause.... I found it. It was over at Daring Cardmakers. So I guess I did fulfill a challenge.


So, like I said before. I only had one snowflake button but I wanted to make two cards. That's why you see the 2 different versions. The snowflake button is much nicer but the other one ain't half bad. And, as you can probably tell, these are non-Stampin' Up! images. It's actually from 2 different sets I have. I'm not sure of the makers. I purchased them as sets from Michael's last year.


Without further ado...here they are:

My favorite stamp set

Carla at Scrappers anonymous wants to know everyone's favorite stamps. I thought I would share. I think I already told the reasons why I use Stampin' Up stamps but one of the main reasons is that I love their images. I also love that they are sold in coordinating sets. My favorite set would definitely be Heartfelt Thanks. I had to force myself to start using other sets so they wouldn't get jealous.

Here's a few of my favorite creations with this set:

No stamping

So, I found a few sketch challenges that I wanted to try. I immediately had an idea of how to use some new supplies I picked up yesterday. The only strange thing for me was that I didn't want to stamp on this card. The idea I had really left no room for stamping on the front. For this card I fit a sketch I found at Di Hickman's blog and a challenge I found at Daring Cardmakers.

For Di's sketch I did a little altering because I don't generally make square cards. I still think it came out cute. After I had already glued down the squares I realized that I had forgotten the horizontal stripes. The card was missing "something" and I found a way to add the stripes. I used thin gold stickers. They didn't show up too well in the picture but it definitely added the little extra the card was missing. I also added tiny gold circle stickers at the bottom right.

I knew I wanted to try the Dot Dot Dot Dash Dash Dash theme when I saw it just because I like the look of those patterns together.

That's enough talk. Here's the card I created:

Marie's Card Sketch Challenge

I participated in a sketch challenge from Marie at Marie Loves to Stamp. I thought it was going to be a pretty simple design but it really took me some time to bring it all together.

I realize now that I didn't exactly follow the directions. For the 3 middle blocks it was supposed to be patterned paper. Oh well. I like the design anyhow. I guess I have to create something different to participate in this challenge.

Here is the card I came up with:

More about me and this blog

Since I have had a few more recent visitors I thought I would share a bit more about my stamping and this blog.

Stamping
One thing that you will notice is that most of the stamps I use are from Stampin' Up!. I have recently ventured into trying other companies stamps but I usually go back to my old stand by. I love that Stampin' Up! sell their stamps in sets. I know that other companies do too but most of the sets I like from them are acrylic stamps. I have not tried acrylic yet but I think I will be in the near future. I am the kind of person that doesn't always take well to change so straying from my wood mounted stamps will be difficult for me. Who knows, once I try the acrylic I may never go back to wood mounted again.

Another thing is that I use a lot of retired stamps. That's because I have a very limited stamping budget. I mostly restock paper, adhesive and a few embellishments. I pretty much use whatever I have laying around and stay with very simple embellishments. I try to pick up deals on retired sets because I do like to have "new" sets but I can't afford to purchase a lot of brand new sets. I have about 35 sets and I think only 2 of them are current. I don't mind using retired sets because I still like the designs and really could care less if it is the latest and greatest.

This blog
I think I found a direction for this blog and a way to be motivated to post on an almost daily basis. If you have read any of my previous posts you will see that I recently started participating in sketch challenges. I am making it my goal to find a new sketch challenge to try at least a few times a week. When I create something from a sketch challenge I will post it here. This way I can accomplish two things: Creating more cards and posting to my blog. It's a win-win situation. So keep checking back to see what new things I will share each week.

Friday sketch challenge

So, I could really get into this sketch challenge thing. I found a Fun Friday Challenge over at Whirlpool of Imagination. This was a sketch that Laura's daughter Meg created. I knew I would have to create something with this.





Here's is what I came up with:

What do you think?

Altered Art Challenge

I also decided to try an Altered Art challenge that I found at Card Inspired by Maria.

There are so many things that we use everyday that can be turned into something beautiful and useful. Well, the drink of choice in our house in a generic Crystal Light lemonade drink. I can't tell you how many of these containers I have thrown away. Today was different. I saw that empty container and got a vision.

Here's the container before:

And here's the container after:

My First Sketch Challenge

I participated in my first ever sketch challenge. I found it at Mama Dini's blog. I have been tempted to give a sketch challenge a try but until I saw this one I never quite caught the bug to actually do it. I saw this sketch and knew immediately that I had to try it out. It was fun and only took me about 10 minutes to pull it all together.


Here's the card I created:

So what do you think?

There hereeeeeee!

I received the Make a Wish stamp set from Stamps for a Cause. I love every single one of the stamps. There's even a bonus stamp that I think is my favorite. If you check out GinaK's blog you will see what I mean about the bonus.

I am sure there will be lots more in the near future but here are the cards I made today: