October Stamp Club #3 and GSG2 Swap Card

This was the third card we made this month at stamp club, and it was also the card I designed for a Great Swaps Girls 2 swap last month. This uses the Season of Friendship stamp set from the Holiday Mini. The leaf stamp consists of the set of three leaves, which were individually colored with Really Rust, Sage Shadow, and More Mustard markers. The yummy ribbon is the chocolate felt ribbon, also from the mini. {Season of Friendship recipe}
Stamps: Season of Friendship
Ink: Chocolate Chip
Paper: More Mustard, Sage Shadow, Whisper White
Accessories: chocolate felt ribbon, gold brads, markers in Sage Shadow, Really Rust, More Mustard

October Stamp Club #2

What's an October stamp club without a token Halloween card? I saw a card similar to this on Splitcoaststampers, and it looked cute and easy. I'm all about easy these days. Apparently, my photography skills are lacking because this photo and my last one are blurry. That means the next club card will probably be blurry too. Sorry about that. This card uses the Halloween Frights set from the mini-catalog and the new SU! Halloween DSP. {Halloween recipe}
Stamps: Halloween Frights
Ink: Basic Black, White Craft
Paper: Tangerine Tango, Kiwi Kiss, Basic Black, Whisper White, Ghostly Greetings DSP
Accessories: 1" circle punch, tangerine striped ribbon

Literally, as I'm typing this, I've just realized that it's Saturday Sketch time. Uh, oh! I completely forgot. I was busy this week preparing for my Holiday Card Class that met today, and the whole Saturday Sketch thing completely slipped my mind. Hmmm....guess you should go check out the design team member's submissions since I've got nothin' for ya! Bygones!
Lauren Meader
Tamara Harder
Maria Levine
Dawn Easton
Kirsten Dubosque
Kristy Vernon
MacKenzie Bruckler
Alicia Weiman

October Stamp Club #1

This is one of our stamp club cards for October, stolen directly from one of my favorite stampers, Angie Tieman. Thanks, Angie. I needed a little help this month. Or a lot of help is more like it. The card is cut with the Big Shot Top Note die. Snowman Santa is colored in with a blender pen and white craft ink, then punched out with the 1 3/4" circle punch. The edges are inked with white craft. {Merry & Bright recipe}
Stamps: Merry & Bright
Ink: White Craft, Basic Black, Riding Hood Red (for envelope)
Paper: Kraft, Riding Hood Red
Accessories: Riding Hood Red striped ribbon, 1 3/4" circle punch, Big Shot, Top Note die

I love this week's sketch! Lauren made a snowflake card with it last week sometime, and that's what inspired my version today. By the way, did you read Lauren's big news last week? If you missed it, you can read all about it right here. I'm so excited about this...another opportunity to get even more amazing ideas from the stamping queen herself.

For this week's sketch, I used my new SU! Little Flurries felt snowflakes. I like the simplicity of this one.
{Peace recipe}
Stamps: Glad Tidings, PTI's Square Borders & Corners
Ink: Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze, Basic Black
Paper: PTI White
Accessories: Little Flurries, rhinestone brads

You can see the rest of the team's creations here:
Lauren Meader
Tamara Harder
Maria Levine
Dawn Easton
Kirsten Dubosque
Kristy Vernon
MacKenzie Bruckler
Alicia Weiman

Happy weekend! Oh, and Happy Anniversary to me (and hubby...six years)!

October Inspiration #4,#5, and #6

I decided to just plop the rest of the Inspiration card photos up here all together since I can't seem to manage to create a post during the week these days. {Mr. & Mrs. recipe}
Stamps: Pick a Petal, All Holidays
Ink: Chocolate Chip
Paper: Pirouette Pink, vellum cardstock, Parisian Summer DSP
Accessories: chocolate grosgrain ribbon, word window punch, silver brad{For You recipe}
Stamps: Pick a Petal, All Holidays
Ink: Sage Shadow, More Mustard
Paper: Sage Shadow, More Mustard, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Autumn Vine DSP, vellum cardstock
Accessories: circle punches, chocolate chip marker
{Thank You Tulip recipe}
Stamps: Pick a Petal, Short & Sweet
Ink: Real Red, YoYo Yellow, Basic Black
Paper: Garden Green, Real Red, Basic Black, Whisper White
Accessories: Garden Green marker

Come back tomorrow for the Saturday Sketch. I've got it all ready to go in the morning!

October Inspiration #3

Lauren didn't do a Saturday Sketch this weekend, but she was working on something BIG to share with you. You can find out what she's been working on at her blog.

I almost forgot that I haven't shared the rest of my Pick a Petal Inspiration class cards with you. I saw something similar to this on Splitcoast, so I decided to see what I could do. I used my new Big Shot and Bigz scallop die to create the card base from Summer Sun. Then I stamped one of the Pick a Petal centers and added twelve petals around it, cut out the image in one piece, and adhered it to the card base. The top layer is twelve petals individually cut out and glued at the tips on top of the other petals. I used the round scallop punch and a hand held 1/8" punch to create the chocolate center of the sunflower, and punched out a 1 3/8" yellow circle to mount behind the chocolate center piece. The center is popped up on dimensionals. {Sunflower recipe}
Stamps: Pick a Petal
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Always Artichoke
Paper: Summer Sun, Chocolate Chip, Always Artichoke
Accessories: round scallop punch, 1/8" punch, and 1 3/8" circle punch

Saturday Sketch and The Truth

Welcome to another edition of Lauren's Saturday Sketch. Yes, I am on time this week! I know I've spent a lot of time neglecting my blog, and probably even more time complaining about being exhausted. It's true that every year, back to school time is so busy and so tiring. It really is the busiest time of the year for both of us (hubby is also a teacher). Moving just kinda makes it worse. This has without a doubt been the most challenging start of my career (and I thought last year was it). I come home and can't do ANYTHING, except eat dinner, veg out, and go to bed early. But, the truth...the WHOLE truth, and nothing but the truth, is this...We are finally (after many years and a miscarriage) on our way to (hopefully) having a baby. I've just made it through my first trimester. Turns out the whole pregnancy thing, while working full-time, is utterly exhausting! Nature's way of preparing you for motherhood, I suppose. Due date is early to mid April. Anyway, I've been very eager to let you all know WHY I've been such a slug with the whole stamping and blogging thing, but we really tried not to make a big deal of it until we got through the first trimester. I hear the second trimester is supposed to get better. I'm looking forward to THAT! And now, of course, we are happily anticipating being parents (so we can at least be exhausted together).

Lauren Meader

Tamara Harder

Maria Levine

Dawn Easton

Kirsten Dubosque

Kristy Vernon

MacKenzie Bruckler

Alicia Weiman

Visit the sketch girls, have a great weekend, and thanks for being loyal readers despite my absence from the blogging world.