Share the Magic...

 Hello there and welcome to the Stamp of the Month Blog hop. This month is going to be Magical and you are going to find yourself wondering how did I get here...where has the year gone! Is this really a set of Christmas stamps? Ho ho ho...yes it sure is and don't worry Christmas is still a few months away but if you start thinking about it now and making your cards you will be all set to mail them out on December 1st!

If you came here from Dawn's Happy Stamper blog then you are on the right path. If you are just starting out well enjoy the ride and continue on through until you end up back where you started. Most of all enjoy all the projects!

I have been really in the mood to color lately. I love love love to color...always have. This set is just perfect for coloring. You can use your CTMH markers, a watercolor brush, colored pencils, chalks, whatever you fancy...me, why I fancy me some Copics so that is what I used for this project.

When I color I like to stamp a few images and then color them and then do a little cutting here and there to give the image some real depth. It is something easy that I can do that will make a cute card turn into a wow card.

Don't tell Santa cause I don't want him to put me on the naughty list but I cheat a little with the first layer and only color the edges of the image since I know that I will be popping up the other layers. Here you can also see that I added glitz to his fluffy parts. I also painted some Pearl Paint on his belt buckle.

Next I colored a Booksmart Dimensional Elements piece and used big black brads to attach it. Inside I wrote Dear Santa. I am not sure if you can tell or if you have guessed yet but this is going to be an easel card. I added some cranberry ribbon right at the fold.

I added another bookplate with some brads and wrote I can explain inside. I thought this would be fun to leave by the cookies or on the mantle somewhere...just a fun little card showpiece.

I hope you enjoyed your time here now hop on over to Fancy Melissa's blog where I am sure you will find something super cute.

Materials Used:

• 
  
  Booksmart Dimensional
• 
  
  Black Cardstock
• 
  
  White Daisy Cardstock
• 
  
  Cranberry Cardstock
• 
  
  Black Marker
• 
  
  Black brads
• 
  
  Copics - R29, R89, C1, E50, E53, E55, E57, B000, R00, R81

School is in session...

well not for a while for my toddler. However I found that I could not resist joining in the Got Sketch - Ultimate School Album class. I have been working on the older girls' books for ever and have kept up pretty good for the most part.

In the past I have created a page for the first day shot, a few pages for parties or school activities, as well as extracurricular stuff like girls scouts and sports. This can really add up with parades and stuff.

Danielle who is a sophomore in college has a book up though 8th grade - once she was out of middle school she just didn't do as much that I was able to take photo's of so it was hard to keep the same format.

Savannah who is a sophomore in high school has a book up through 5th grade - she does everything and it is hard to keep up with out making her a book a year.

I thought I would be ahead of the game for Maizie...who has not even started pre-school yet.

The first assignment was to make a title page and this page is so cute. I have something similar in the older girls books and really really tried to maybe redo one for them but...I didn't have all of their old school photo's as I have mailed them off or used them in different project so I decided I would just pick up where am at with them. Danielle will start this class once I get to 9th grade and Savannah once I get to 6th.

Now that you know entirely too much about my school albums you probably want me to share what I have done right?

Well hold on let me start with this cute apple...adorable don't cha think? It has many layers and I embroidered the stem. For the seeds I just cut some thickers ' and it made the perfect size seeds for my apple. The paper for this project is called All Fall. I thought about buying the paper that was on the supply list but since I have tons of cute paper already...I behaved.

Here is another view of the apple with a little more of the page. You can see the layers and stuff. Now I normally do not get so fancy but since it is the title page and it will have her age progression on it I thought it would get a lot of action and so I thought I may as well make a good first impression ;)

As you can see it has a torn out of a notebook look along the side...I just love that SU punch. I also love love love the paper that I had in my stash that is learning to write. I added some green thickers and wala...super cute fun fresh page.

Here is the completed page. I can't wait to start taking photo's of Maizie starting in Pre-school and going through senior year and even has a place for a graduation photo.

Anyway we are having tons of fun and are just a few weeks in there is still plenty of time to join us.

Happy Hauntings for the Halloween Hop

EDITED to ADD: The test tube holder pattern came from Lisa Somerville.

Well I have a little happy delight to share with all of you today. I was blog hopping ealier and saw Tresa Black is hosting a Halloween Hop and is looking for peeps to join her.

I have been wanting to make one of these super cool little test tubes that can be filled with some candy.

I just adore these little monsters from Party Animal (D1437) so I grabbed those along with my Copics and got busy.

First I colored...

and I discovered if I color two then I can always pop up the images here and there.

I attached a tag with some ribbon and put all the peices together

and wala...

I hope you enjoyed this little project that I came up with for all of you today. I thought this would be fun to give to my co-workers for Halloween.

This is what happens

when I have time to relax!

A few years ago I went to the Copic Certification class with a few friends. It was a fun day full of giggles and coloring. I also took home a few images that I colored that I figured I would turn into cards in a few days or weeks....err uhh...years!

I love this image as it reminds me of going to my granparents house in the summer. They had chairs like this and they were so comfy! I don't know how since they are metal but whoever designed these things really knew what they were doing.

I don't think you can see it but there is a technique here where is you spray hand sanatizer on your coloring you get this misty bubbly action going on. It is super cool...try it with your Copics.

So as I was saying I have had this colored for a long time and the other day I pulled out my images to color and stumbled upon this one and I started playing with it and came up with this card. I LOVE it. This card just popped right out of my head. All the paper and ribbon is from CTMH. If some one knows what stamp this is please let me know. 

I also colored a bunch more stuff and taught my teen to color with Copics so look for some more Copic action soon!

Crafty Girls

So a while back a few of my friends and I realized we never stamp together any more just for fun. I thought it would be great to just set up a shoebox swap to get together and stamp! So we set up a date and decided even though we would love to get together every week to stamp and have great times that we really probably could only do it once every few months. So yesterday my friends came over to my place and stamped.

For those that do not know what a shoebox swap is I will tell you. A shoebox swap is a swap where you make and design a project and then prepare it so that everyone else can make one too. It usually fits into a shoebox...hence the name.

Here is what we came up with for yesterdays Crafty Girls swap

Here is my card I decided to do a clear card that was cheery. I know I am going to be working with lots of autumn colors coming up. I also wanted to showcase how you can emboss the clear cards. I actually think I like the card without the embossing but it is so fun to do and looks cool.

Next my friend Linda made a beautiful card that is perfect to send off and let someone know that you care.

I love using the marker to stamp technique it is the one thing I miss about rubber stamps. I can never get it to work the same way with acrylic ones so I do masking instead.

We also added a touch of distressing...

Next up my friend Theresa's card, I finally got to see up close how to cut around the nestabilites to make your image pop.

Next up is my friend Patti's card  she showed us how to make a pocket without a die and she gave us all a template to boot!

I also got to see these cute little clips from SU so now I need some. haha. I actually thought they were a lot bigger.

So after they left I kept made a few more cards so I will have more to share later this week.

History, Mysteries and Gifts...

Well that is part of it anyway. I love the saying that is in the new stamp set The Present (D1436) I have heard it before but every time I hear it or see it, I just think it runs so true

"Yesterday is history
Tomorrow is a mystery
Today is a gift
that's why we call it
the Present"

This week over at Heart 2 Heart Challenges I found quite the challenge it was to use Autumn Terracotta, New England Evy, and Honey together on a project. I thought and though, I moved stuff around, I stamped this and that, tossed some bad ideas out and finally settled on this great card!

Now I took the photo's a little bit ago and the lighting is not the best but here they are I hope you enjoy...

I also used Colonial White and Desert Sand on the card. I distressed the edges to make them stand out against the tone on tone for the Autumn Terracotta.

Another fun thing that I did was use my Martha score board to make a diamond pattern and then I took mini brads and put them at all of the intersections. I normally do not put so much metal on a card but they were bitty brads ;)

Next I want to show you and tell you about the New England Ivy. I used a piece of patterned paper out of the Evergreen paper pack and cut it into a 1/2 strip then I folded every so often to mimic ribbon. I also took some embroidery thread and hand stitched through the middle. It turned out so cool! It also tied the Colonial White in a little better.

I hope you have enjoyed this card and I hope you can find your way over to Heart 2 Heart they have a prize available if 40 people play along....Happy Stamping!

Celebrating someone special

So yesterday my grandmother celebrated a birthday. She turned 91 and she is absolutely amazing. She still drives and lives by herself. She is funny, beautiful, and wise. She loves company and has an amazing green thumb.  She has always had the most amazing garden. In her later years she has cut way back but her garden is still large and beautiful I suppose when you got it you got it. ha ha. Alright well I can go on for days about my grandma and hopefully you have a sweet grandma in your life too. So onto this card. I used the adorable set Friendship Jar as well as Friendship Jar Fillers from Papertrey Ink

I colored the jar and the flowers with Copics and I added Liquid Glass and some Glitz to really make the flowers pop.

Here you can see the Martha Stewart punch that I adore but have not used in just forever. I also added a little ribbon to balance the white on the card.

Here is a close up of the flowers and the glitz. I apologize for the blurry photo.

On the inside I used Party Pennants

Colors used: Pear cardstock and ink, Sunset cardstock and ink, Honey cardstock

Copics: B000, B02, Y02, Y06, YR02, YR04, YR07, C1, YG21, YG23, YG25 

Other: Martha Punch, 3M pop tape, Liquid Glass, Glitz, White Ribbon, Bitty Brads 

I thought it was a big success as she thought it was from the store.