HM Monday Tag Challenge

This week's HM challenge was "Tags". The DT made the cutest cards. They're all fabulous. This is my contribution. I really like how it turned out. It just kind of evolved, although I new that I wanted to use this image and this sentiment. I made my own tag using SU's Summer Picnic DP. I cut out my stamped image and mounted the tag and the image to an oval Nestie mounted to a rectangular Nestie. I'm loving my new MS leaf punch. (Can't find the fern punch to save my life.) The rest of the papers are all from PTI and I used my Prima flowers from Michael's. I got my lightbox, finally, and I'm hoping this will enhance the pictures that I post. HM cards are always fun to make. Be sure to check out the DT entries, as well as those who posted to this challenge. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Tuesday.

Blessings in a Bowl

This is one of my favorite cards. I got the idea to do a bowl like this since I love yellow and blue and I have a miniature set in these colors. The image is "Mixed Greetings" from Flourishes. It is one of their new sets, and there are several possibilities with this set, just as there were with Forest of Trees. I stamped the bowl in More Mustard and drew the blue line with my Prismacolor Pencil. I cut it out and mounted it to give it some dimension. I also colored the fruit with my Prismacolor Pencils, used my scalloped Nesties for the ovals (PTI White and SU More Mustard)and my Label Tags trio Nestie (Brilliant Blue). My background papers are So Saffron and Blue DP from SU!, and Bravo Burgundy as my card base. I used my double-sided ribbon that I got from Flourishes, and attached the blue brads in the corners. Fairly simple, but it's one of my favorites and I will use it for the Holidays, so.....another one done. Yay!

Flourished Holiday Card

This is a card that I did with my new set from Flourishes called "Forest of Trees". I kept it simple, but I like how it turned out. This set has a lot of possibilities, and I'm sure you've seen several cards lately using one of the images from this set. I've got some ideas for more as soon as I get a chance to do them. I stamped the tree with Dark Hunter ink on White CS. I used Ruby Red for the background paper, stamped in red with a flourished design from Flourishes "Rejoice" set. The green paper is also Dark Hunter and I attached black brads down either side of it. The lace punch is Martha Stewart's Lace Punch. The "Joy" sentiment is also from the Rejoice set stamped in gold. The ribbon is May Arts Dark Red Sheer ribbon, also from Flourishes. The main CS is River Rock.
Tomorrow I hope to post one from another new set. Thanks for stopping by.

Holiday Series, Part III

Well, here is the last in my series. I really do like this set, and will probably do a version of these for my Thanksgiving cards, so hurray - I've already started. My next two posts are more Holiday featuring my new stamps from Flourishes. I'm really trying to use them as I get them and not let them sit idle.
I also got "tagged" yesterday, but I'm awaiting some final information before posting that. But, I wanted to finish the series and keep up with my posting. Happy Friday and thanks for looking and for the encouraging comments. They always brighten my day.

I've Been Tagged!

I've been Tagged.....
My friend Carolyn, tagged me. Thank you, Carolyn,....I'm very honored! Carolyn does the neatest cards....I do hope you'll check out her blog. Her HM cards got my attention instantly. She's also a delightful person who is truly an encourager.

So, here I go with 7 things about me:
1. I am a wife of 40 years, a mother of 38 years, a grandmother of 14 years, and Molly's mom for almost 2 years. I've loved being a homemaker and mother and am so privileged to be a grandmother to 8 fabulous kids.
2. My husband claims I accepted his marriage proposal in college so that I could drop the accounting class I was in the process of failing. Thirty-some years later, I went back to school and took accounting classes and got all A's. Before finishing the course towards a degree, I went to work for our church as the Financial Secretary and have been handling all financial matters for 6 years now.
3. I'm scared of balloons. Well, not so much the balloons, but the popping of them. Any time I'm around a child with a balloon, I want to run. I don't like sudden loud noises!!!
4. Over the years I've invested in supplies for and indulged myself in painting, sewing, (lots of sewing), smocking, crocheting, cross-stitching, quilting, scrapbooking, and now of course, stamping. I love stamping! I love looking at card creations....both my own and everyone else's. My other crafts, for the most part, are sitting dormant, but stamping is alive and well.
5. I love coffee. My grandkids know me for that. Is that wrong? :)
6. I'm faithful to exercising and try to eat healthy. That doesn't mean I don't like tasty stuff, cause I really do, but I do try to be sensible with eating and take care of myself.
7. I love the color red. I drive a red van and have a red leather chaise lounge in my craft studio.

Before I list the ones I'm tagging, here are the rules:
1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.

4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

The following seven have been tagged:

1. Joan Bardee @Paperlicious - A Delightfully funny and talented blogger and stamper
2. Sharon @No Time To Stamp - A Very talented stamper and encouraging blogger
3. Susan @Rainy Day Creations - A Very creative lady and fabulous stamper
4. Stacy @Twinshappy - A creator of great cards and a Colts fan
5. Cindy @ Stampin Therapy - A great blogger with delightful cards
6. Julie @ Out to Impress -A fabulous stamper and DT member for Flourishes
7. Jan Marie@ The Caruso Manner - A Very creative and talented lady and #1 Flourish

Ladies, I'm tagging you because I love following your work. I hope you don't mind playing along.
There are so many fabulous stampers and bloggers, so this was a tough decision and I hate leaving others out. If you find it too time-consuming to play along that's certainly understandable. I did want to pass on my "Tag, You're it" but the tagging of 7 other bloggers takes a bit of time and thought. I also added the comments next to your links - that's not part of the rules....just my encouragement to others to check out your links.

Holiday Series, Part II

This is the second card I did from the "First Fruits" set from Papertrey Ink. I did the background the same as the first card I posted. I kept it very simple so it's pretty self-explanatory. I used PTI papers. The flourished leaves in the corners were stamped with Versa Magic Chalk Ink in Wheat. Then I stamped over them in Palette's Dark Chocolate so they would show up in a subtle way. I mounted half-pearls on top of circles cut with my punch. Tomorrow I'll be back with the third card. I really do love this set. Thanks for stopping by. Hugs, KrB

Holiday Series

I finally had a chance to make some cards - more than one, in fact. So, tonight I'm going to post the first in a "series" from the set called "First Fruits" from PTI. I really like this set and challenged myself to use all the elements in the set. Apart from a few sentiments and two images, I managed to use the rest of the 12 images and 5 of the sentiments between the 3 cards. I used PTI's Summer Sunrise and stamped off one of the images to create a background. I did the same thing on the green background paper. I took Vintage Cream, mounted on Mellow Moss, and sponged Always Artichoke and then stamped the pine boughs, then went over all of it lightly with River Rock. I used my Nestabilities, both Classic and Scalloped, and I used my double-sided ribbon from Flourishes, as well as my half-pearls in Chocolate from Flourishes. My daughter likes this one the best of the three, but I'll see what you all think. I'll definitely use it for a Thanksgiving card. Thanks for stopping by and I should have Card #2 for you tomorrow.

Fancy Floral

Well, I finally got to do a non-HM card tonight. Just needed a change of pace, and this was one of those stamps I hadn't yet had a chance to open. What I ended up with was not what I had in mind when I started, but this is how things developed. I was planning to use my new Parisian Summer DP from SU!, which I did use, but the colors in the pack, while gorgeous, are very soft so the pink that I planned to use looked too washed out. I had to go with Perfect Plum for the main CS paper. All the other papers are from the Parisian Summer, except for the ivory which is from PTI. The image is the snowflake flower from Flourishes Summer Botanicals. The ribbon is Lemon Tart from PTI's Perfect Match series. The half-pearls are Kaiser pearls in the Chocolate. The buckle is from SU's Antique Brass Hodgepodge. I've got new stamps coming, but I also have company coming, so hopefully it won't be too long and I can play with my new stamps. Hope you have a wonderful Friday. Thanks so much for stopping by, and thanks to all those who left birthday wishes for DH. He enjoyed that. Will be by to see what you all have done as soon as I get a chance. Hugs, KrB
A quick edit to this post....One person who left a comment on my card at SCS does cards for the military and anyone can get involved. Check out this blog: http://cardsforheroes.org/ Wonderful idea. I'll be looking into it further.

Paper Pieced Birthday

Tonight I have a "twofer" (to quote Bert Stratton.) I needed to make a card for my husband's birthday, which is tomorrow. He seems to like my little HM's, and I got this one because I thought it would be great for putting about any message on it that you want. It's called "Chalky Consequences" and it features Maxwell. I also wanted to participate in the HM challenge for the week, which is paper piecing. So, this card will satisfy both the birthday card and the challenge. I cut out the stamped image of the mouse on the chalk rail and used dimensionals to place it on top of the same stamped image on the card. The chalkboard still looked a bit bare, so I made up a "writing chart" from what I remember them looking like back in good ol' school days. That helped and I also put it on with dimensionals. The balloon paper is from Basic Grey's "Cup Cake." The Happy Birthday was done by masking the mouse and then stamping the HB in VersaMark and embossing with white embossing powder. Be sure to check out the cards that the DT did at the HM site. They're all just too cute. Have a great Tuesday and I'll hopefully be back with more before too long.

If the Shoe Fits, Stamp It

I'm almost done with a week-long project of making gift tags to accompany the give-away at our church's ladies luncheon this coming week-end. The speaker that is coming is going to speak on "shoes", and I was asked to come up with a tag that would coordinate with her theme AND include a Bible verse. I ordered "Retro Boutique" from Gina K and used the shoe on the table. I ended up doing lots of colors and attaching half-rhinestones to each shoe. I colored with either PrismaColor pencils or Copics. (I'm still building my Copic inventory). I used my scallop punch, plus a 2" and a 2-1/2" punch. My son-inlaw and I created a circle in Photo Shop that was 2-1/2" that included the prescribed Bible verse and a greeting from the Ladies Ministry. In order to save on using up the black ink from my printer, I printed out one page and then had copies made. I did 108 tags in all (9 pages with 12 on a page.) I used spray adhesive to adhere the copied circles onto black CS and then punched them out together. I finished them off with ribbon and after I tie a few more tags with ribbon I should be done. I hope the ladies like them. I won't be able to attend because it's my daughter's birthday that day and we're expecting out-of-town company. Now I have birthday cards and a few miscellaneous cards to do and get out. Hopefully I can also participate in the HM Monday Challenge. Hope you all have a wonderful week. My heart goes out to those that have experienced the flooding and destruction from Ike. I wish I could make a card that would make it all better, but things just don't work that way. Still, we need to uphold them in prayer. Thanks for stopping by.

What's your Passion?

I just wanted to share some incredible, uplifting reading. In honor of Sharon Johnson's "Blogiversary", her design team gals have been offering blog candy all week long. One of these is Rebecca Oehlers from hemidemisemiquaver, and the criteria for being a recipient to the blog candy she is offering is to leave a "comment" on what you're passionate about. I started reading through those and it made me so glad to be passionate about a craft that connects me to a community of artists who share such incredible passions. Whether or not you care to win a free stamp set from PaperTrey, I would love to challenge you to go read through those. I promise it will lift your spirits and perhaps insight some passions of your own.
I'm praying for those in Ike's path. As far away from them as we are, we've still got gusty winds here. I'll be back with something to look at soon. Happy Friday!

Good Times

Staying up until 12:30 is not what I consider a good time, but getting a card done is! I changed my mind and decided to make this card for my friend who shared her beach home. I'm torn about whether or not to enter this into the HM Challenge for this week, because I have to estimate the cost for my materials, excluding the stamps and markers. I used a half sheet of PaperTrey Perfect Match CS, each sheet coming to $.25, which would make it $.12. I also used a tiny bit for the tag for the sentiment, so we'll round it to a whole $.15. The background paper is from Basic Grey's Cup Cake (6 x 6) and those sheets amounted to $.15 and I used about 2/3 of a sheet. I used an even smaller piece of Whisper White for my image, each whole sheet of that coming to $.19, and I used less that 1/4 of a sheet. My antique brass swirl....???? I'll figure $.12. So that all comes to roughly $.42 I guess. Oh, I did use a tiny bit of Crystal Effects on the water drops, but I'm not going to venture a price on that. Say we round it up to $.45. Well, now that I've actually gone to the trouble of figuring it all up, I guess I should link it to the challenge, Huh? This was my first HM stamp ever, and I got it at a craft store on sale, long before I ever knew about House Mouse. When I did discover them, I realized I already had one. Mine dates back to 2000 and is not even colored like they all are now. This little one (looks like Monica) just makes me happy. Thanks for looking and have a wonderful day. Karen

Coloring and Creating

Well, I'm sad that my kids have returned home. What fun we had! Since I did no stamping while they were here except for last Monday's HM challenge, I couldn't decide what to make tonight. I wanted to make a Thank You card for a dear friend who was gracious and let our whole crew come out to her beautiful home on the beach so the kids could play. Over the past few weeks I received my orders for new stuff like stamps, paper, ribbon, flowers, Copic markers, and embossing folders....but I had to wait to play with all of it. So tonight I decided to try my new SU! set "A Flower for All Seasons". I colored it with my new markers plus some PrismaColor pencils. I used my Nestabilities to cut and emboss the image and the scallop behind the image on SU's new Kiwi Kiss paper. Behind that is So Saffron paper stamped with Fresh Cuts in So Saffron ink. I used the Thank You sentiment from that set as well. The ribbon is from Papertrey's Perfect Match in Spring Moss. The scallop at the bottom of the So Saffron is Martha's Stewart's Victorian Lace punch. I used Bravo Burgundy behind the So Saffron because the centers of the flowers have a hint of that color, although they're a tad more purple. I stamped a companion image from the set that I'll try to put together next. I did want to post something and get back to doing more regular posts. Happy Tuesday to all!

For You

Well, I did it. I took advantage of some down time to put my HM card together. Papa took the kids to the Naval Air Museum, the moms were visiting and feeding babies, and KrB stole away to her "happy place" and created her card. I got to use the new Tangerine Tango from the 2008 In-Color collection. I also used my new Basic Grey's "Ambrosia". I used a piece of Lemon Tart from PaperTrey Ink and colored Mudpie and Monica with Prisma Color pencils. I sponged the image lightly with Sahara Sand. I embellished it with brads and a flower. My sentiment comes from SU's Fresh Cuts and the image is HM's "Sweet Find". That was a therapeutic session for me - it usually is - and I've got something to post besides just an explanation. Now until Saturday, I'll probably be occupied with our 8 grandkids. On Thursday we're hoping to get some great pictures of the 3 babies and then all of the kids. I can't imagine getting a great picture of 3 babies aged 2, 4, and 6 months, but that's why I chose a very seasoned photographer for the job. I'm very hopeful we'll get a great Christmas card out of this session. Thanks for taking a look. Hugs, KrB

Not blown away

Just wanted to let you know that I did not blow away in Gustav......my craft room has been taken over by two monsters ages 9 and 12. While I could get in there to stamp amidst the clothes and suitcases and sometimes wet swimming towels, I have enjoyed spending time with my family while they're here and have not worked on cards. That's not to say I don't miss it, because that goes without saying any day of the week. And I am still checking my favorite blogs, sales, etc. I even get to leave a comment now and then. I'm trying to figure out in my head what to do for this week's HM Monday Challenge, and I haven't even got to play with my new stamps from Flourishes, Sweet and Sassy or SU!,. Oh, that's so pitiful! But my family lives in California and it's so rare that they get to come here that they're going to take priority and I'll have lots of time - well,......time - when they leave. Just wanted to tell you all hi and Happy Tuesday, and I will return soon. Hugs, KrB