May Technique

This month's technique is Scratch and Sniff. Yes, we're making smelly cards. Remember scratch and sniff stickers from when you were a kid? Well, here's the grown-up, crafty version. I'm very happy with how both of these turned out, and I hope everyone coming to the class will enjoy learning this fun, yummy technique.

Both of these cards are for sketch challenges. Here's what's great about this: it's my very FIRST time intentionally participating in a challenge. I'm actually going to upload these cards for the challenges. Yay, me!

This first card is for this week's sketch #49 by Lauren Meader. You can see her beautiful samples for this sketch here. I absolutely adore Lauren's style! In my opinion, she's one of the most talented, creative stampers out there.

Anyway, here's my take on her sketch. This is the first time I've used theTart & Tangy set. The citrus image is a scratch and sniff. It has an orange scent when scratched. Yum!

{Fruity Birthday ingredients}

Stamps: Tart & Tangy, Hugs & Wishes

Paper: PTI white, Summer Picnic DSP

Ink: Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Versamark

Accessories: clear embossing powder, sugar-free orange Kool-Aid, felt flowers, scallop punch, mini black brads, ribbon

For this next card, I wanted to do a chocolate scratch and sniff. I had to pull out a retired stamp set because it's the only one I had with chocolate. I think that needs to be remedied. Must have more chocolate! This feels like a wintery set, so I added the flower to make it feel more like spring. Another first, I used fun flock for the whipped cream. The mug is the chocolate scratch and sniff. Double yum! This card was designed for this week's SCS Sketch Challenge #175.

{Chocolate Friend ingredients}
Stamps: Like It A Latte
Paper: Close to Cocoa, Regal Rose, Whisper White, Pretty In Pink Prints DSP
Ink: Close to Cocoa, Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink, Versamark
Accessories: clear embossing powder, sugar-free hot cocoa, flower punch, mini white brad, white fun flock

May Inspiration Class

This month's Inspiration Class uses the Essence of Love set from the Occasions mini-catalog. We will be making seven cards this month. I found a lot of INSPIRATION from Splitcoaststampers and fellow bloggers.

Plus, in addition to the stamp set, you'll get some extra goodies. I found some matching ribbon and expoxy stickers that go great with this set, as well as some dew drops. You'll get everything you see in the picture below.
This card uses some of the fun matching ribbon and epoxy stickers I found at Michael's. It also uses one of my new Martha Stewart Butterfly punches. LOVE them!

{Pomegranate Thinking of You recipe}
Stamps: Essence of Love
Paper: Purely Pomegranate, Basic Black, Whisper White
Ink: Basic Black, Purely Pomegranate, Whisper White Craft
Accessories: Ribbon and epoxy stickers from Michael's, Martha Stewart butterfly punch


This card was inspired by all of the brayered sunset creations in the SCS gallery for this set. I didn't want to pull the brayer out for this particular class, so I took a shortcut and used cardstock to create the sunset look. This card is a 4x4 and the black ink is embossed.

{Sunset Thinking of You recipe}
Stamps: Essence of Love
Paper: Ruby Red, Old Olive, Summer Sun, Pumpkin Pie, Basic Black
Ink: Basic Black Craft
Accessories: Martha Stewart butterfly punch, clear embossing powder

This card is a direct CASE from Sharon Johnson's beautiful creation found here.

{CASEing Sharon recipe}
Stamps: Essence of Love
Paper: River Rock, Basic Black, Whisper White
Ink: Basic Black, Versamark
Accessories: 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches, iridescent Ice embossing powder, wide black organdy ribbon, half-back pearls


I was really happy with how this card turned out. Simple, yet bold. I think this is the first time I've ever used Yo Yo Yellow.

{Kindess recipe}
Stamps: Essence of Love
Paper: Tempting, Turquoise, Basic Black, PTI's Stamper's Select White
Ink: Basic Black, Yo Yo Yellow, Tempting Turquoise
Accessories: Ribbon and epoxy stickers from Michael's

I love the layout and colors in this card that I cased from Silke Ledlow.

{CASEing Silke recipe}
Stamps: Essence of Love
Paper: Basic Black, So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, Bashful Blue
Ink: Basic Black Accessories: black brads, epoxy sticker from Michael's

I CASED this card from TreasureOiler on Splitcoaststampers.

{CASEing TreasureOiler recipe} Stamps: Essence of Love Paper: Bashful Blue, Chocolate Chip Ink: Chocolate Chip Accessories: 5/8" chocolate grosgrain ribbon

I just love the crisp, clean style of Krystie Lee. I CASEd her card found here. I really liked the metal-edged tag, but all of mine were too big to fit nicely on the card.

{CASEing Krystie recipe}
Stamps: Essence of Love
Paper: PTI's Stamper's Select White, Mellow Moss, Basic Black
Ink: Basic Black, Versamark Accessories: silver diamond-shaped brads, clear embossing powder

May Stamp Club

This month's stamp club was all about justifying two particular purchases. I bought the Just Celebrate set for the little owl image and the For Father set for the puppy image. Using them for Stamp Club makes those purchases necessary! {Celebrate recipe}
Stamps: Just Celebrate, Celebrate Everything
Paper: Soft Sky, Whisper White, Buckaroo Blue, Spring Break DSP
Ink: Bordering Blue, Basic Black, Soft Sky
Accessories: metal-edge tags, french blue grosgrain ribbon, bordering blue, brocade blue, and pumpkin pie markers, blender pen, dimensionals

This puppy image is SO cute! I just couldn't resist. For the life of me, I couldn't figure out what the striped thing was. I looked at a lot of samples on line to try to figure out what it was and how to color the image. I came to the conclusion that it was maybe a blanket of some sort. WRONG! One of my club members pointed out that it's the sole of the other boot. Duh! It's SO obvious now! You can see the shoe strings sticking out from it. Why could I not see this before????

{Father's Day recipe}
Stamps: For Father, Thinking of Father
Paper: Sahara Sand, Whisper White, Brocade Blue, retired SU! DSP
Ink: Bordering Blue, Basic Black, Soft Sky
Accessories: brocade blue, bashful blue, more mustard, creamy caramel, chocolate chip, close to cocoa, barely banana, and basic black markers, gold brads, dimensionals

I made this card using Lauren Meader's Saturday Sketch from last weekend.

{Mother's Day recipe}
Stamps: Blooming With Love
Paper: Whisper White, Lovely Lilac, Tempting Turquoise, PTI's Stamper's Select White, Flowers for You DSP
Ink: Basic Black
Accessories: 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches, turquoise brad, markers in going grey, regal rose, tempting turquoise, lovely lilac, certainly celery, and creamy caramel

Meet Georgia

So, I went to the local animal shelter to deliver some posters my students created for the Be Kind to Animals Week poster contest and saw this sweet, rather obnoxious, ill-mannered five month-old lab. Meet Georgia. With a quick phone call, I convinced Keith (my hubby) to come down and see her. We've been wanting to add another dog to our family but always assumed it would be our next service dog-in-traning flunkee that joined us. We're not sure why, but we placed a 24-hour hold on the pup and went on our way. I had to stop at the pet store to pick up a few things. At the check-out stand was a magazine called Training Secrets for Labrador Retrievers. On the front cover it said, "You CAN TRAIN your SHELTER LAB!" Really?? I can???? My husband drove home in his car and saw a sign for a local fast food burger place advertising their weekly frozen custard flavor...Georgia Peach. That evening, while speaking to a friend of mine, who happens to be British (well, recently turned American now...) who shared that St. George is the patron saint of England. And those of you who know Keith, know he loves all things British. She calls it providence. We call it crazy. Either way, she's ours. We're keeping the name.

Arte y Pico Award

Exciting news! LeAnne over at Wee Inklings has nominated me for the Arte y Pico Award. What an honor! Apparently, this is an award for creativity and design, among other things. Here's the scoop:

1. You pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and the link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself.

4. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

There are so many people out there whose work I simply adore, but here are my five picks:

1. Michelle Wooderson at Mish Mash
2. Lauren Meader at My Time, My Creations, My Stampendence
3. Amy Sheffer at Pickled Paper Designs
4. Nancy Riley at iStamp
5. Becky Carafa at The Lakeshore Stamper

Altered Card Container

This project is for my upcoming Alter It class. This set is an altered lunch box containing six dividers for card categories, and six cards, one for each category. I hope the gals coming to my class like it. I think it would make a great gift for Mother's Day.

This lunch tin is from Provo Craft. I covered it with SU!'s Afternoon Tea DSP, using my Xyron machine to adhere it. Below you can see the container in it's open position. On the lid is a pocket I created with a trimmed 3x3 envelope to hold postage stamps. The six dividers each have a strip of DSP on the top and I used a round tab punch for the tabs. I created the category names on my computer and printed them out on return address labels, trimmed, and adhered them to the tabs.

Below you can see the entire set of cards. I used the Live Your Dream stamp set that matches the paper for the main images on all of the cards. I pulled sentiments from various other sets. The color palette comes directly from the Afternoon Tea DSP: Soft Sky, Groovy Guava, Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip, and Whisper White.

I borrowed the layout below from this card by Krystie Lee.

I cased myself for the sympathy card from here and just reversed the layout.

For this Mother's Day card, I modified this card by Laura Brown. This card can be filed behind the Holidays tab, or it can be used to give this gift to mom. The card below is a direct CASE of this card by pixegirl - Shelley Hopps.{Altered Tin & Cards Recipe}

All supplies are Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted.

Paper: Afternoon Tea DSP, Soft Sky, Groovy Guava, Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip, and Whisper White, and PTI's Stamper's Select White.

Ink: Soft Sky, Groovy Guava, Wild Wasabi and Chocolate Chip
Stamps: Live Your Dream, Letterpress Alphabet, All Holidays, Sincere Salutations, It's Your Birthday, Warmest Regards

Accessories: double-stitched ribbon in Groovy Guava, Soft Sky, and Wild Wasabi, Chocolate Chip taffeta ribbon, Chocolate Chip Twill, silver brads, slit punch, round tab punch, scallop punch, three for you flower punch, circle punches, Xyron machine, Spellbinders' nestabilities, and lunch tin by Provo Craft, computer and labels.

What's in the bag?

Yesterday was Administrative Assistants' Day (read: Secretaries' Day). The two secretaries at the school where I teach are just wonderful, and I wanted to do something special for them. So, I created two identical little gift sets. When I had my Technique Class the other night, someone asked "What's in the bag?" so I thought it would be fun to post the contents here. Plus, let's face it! It's really hard to give away those cute gifts I worked so hard on. At least I'll have the photos to remember that I actually created something original.

The color inspiration, by the way, came from two pieces of coordinating patterned paper by Pebbles, Inc. that I had in my unused stash. I love the color scheme: cool caribbean, tempting turquoise and close to cocoa. It also goes with Kristina's Color Inspiration #4 . Too bad I didn't make this sooner so I could have played along.

Anyway, here's what everyone at class saw. I used two white lunch bags I had on hand already. I decorated the front of the bag using. The horizontal strip of paper is clear embossed using the wheel from SU!'s Spring Solitude hostess set. The main piece is stamped with images from the same set. I used my nestabilities for the scallop and my coluzzle for the matting. The bags are secured with a piece of chocolate chip taffeta ribbon.

Inside the each bag is a gift set of 10 regular sized cards, a cello bag of m&m's topped with matching patterned paper, and a small 3x3 notecard with a message of thanks inside. I packaged each set of cards inside Papertrey Ink's clear plastic boxes. The sentiment on the notecard is from A Little Birthday Cheer (SU!).

Here's a close-up of the cards in the clear box. I made a belly band to wrap around the box and covered the gap with a scalloped monogram, using PTI's Circle Borders & Corners set and the Trajan Monogram Alphabet set.
Here's a close up of the little notecard. Simple, yet perfectly matched!
The entire ensemble is pictured below. Each gift set contained two of each card design.The first card here uses the little bird and small flower cluster from SU!'s Live Your Dream set. The Sentiment is PTI's Mixed Messages. I love the tiny little sentiments in that set!
I think both the bird and swirl branch/leaf images are Inkadinkadoo. The sentiment is from PTI's special one year anniversary set, Simple Little Things. Ribbon is from my LSS.
This main image is Hero Arts, I believe. Ribbon from my LSS. Sentiment from SU!'s Closer than a Memory. Two get the two toned effect on the tree, I inked up the whole stamp with cool caribbean, then used my close to cocoa marker to make the leaves and branches.
This card uses the images from Spring Solitude. Ribbon from one of SU!'s designer packages, from two winter mini's ago. It matches taken with teal.
Here's the bird from one of my current favorite SU! sets, Always. Just love this little one. Greeting from PTI's Simple Little Things.
Well, that's it! This is how I spent most of my weekend, and it's the reason why I'm behind on samples for the May classes. I guess I should go stamp now!!!

April Stamp Club Cards

These are the cards we made at April's stamp club. They are all pretty quick and easy. I think this first one would make a good card for Mother's Day.

{Bloom recipe}
Stamps: Bloomin' Beautiful
Ink: bayou blue, soft sky, wild wasabi, basic black, going gray, basic gray
Paper: confetti cream, wild wasabi, spring silhouettes DSP
Accessories: soft sky ribbon, liquid pearls

The main image is stamped in basic black and watercolored with ink and blender pens. The pot is watercolored with going gray, and the blossom definition is stamped in going gray also. Bloom is stamped with basic gray. Liquid pearls to the centers of the flowers add shimmer and dimension.

{Welcome, Little One recipe}
Stamps: Nursery Necessities
Ink: pretty in pink, bashful blue, certainly celery, sahara sand
Paper: kraft, pretty in pink, bashful blue, certainly celery, apricot appeal prints DSP
Accessories: white taffeta ribbon, big star punch

I think I'm going to give this card to a friend of mine at her baby shower next month. She and her husband chose to wait until the birth to find out if they're having a boy or a girl, so I think this card would be perfect.




{Embrace Life recipe}
Stamps: Embrace Life
Inks: groovy guava, regal rose, real red, basic black
Paper: ginger blossom DSP
Accessories: groovy guava ribbon

I love the simplicity of this card. I cased this card by gbedwright from SCS. I changed the ribbon because the red seemed to overpower my card, probably because I didn't use they exact same patterns for my squares.

HOO loves you???

There are several things to celebrate here. For starters, this is my own design. When does that ever happen?! Also, I created my own embellishments with chipboard and SU!'s new colored glitter. If you look closely, you can see little pink bling on the patterned paper. Plus, I colored her with my Copic Markers. I haven't had much chance to play with those yet, so this was really fun. Last, I am in LOVE with this little owl. It's from the SU!'s Just Celebrate set in the Occasions Mini-Catalog. Did you notice that she is a girl? That's right, a girl! I added eyelashes to the images to create a girly owl.

{Who Loves You recipe}
Stamps: owl image from SU!'s Just Celebrate, sentiment from A Muse
Ink: Basic Black
Paper: PaperTrey's Stamper's Select white cardstock, rose red, pumpkin pie, Bali Breeze DSP
Accessories: old olive 5/8" grosgrain ribbon, Copic markers, silver brad, pink gemstones by Hero Arts

April Inspiration - Garden Whimsy

This card is my simplified version of this card by Mary Jo Albright.

{Best Friends recipe}
Stamps: Garden Whimsy Ink: groovy guava, rose red, bayou blue, basic black Paper: blue bayou, whisper white, basaic black, groovy guava prints DSP, rose red prints DSP Accessories: 1 1/4 square punch, 1 3/8 square punch

I actually designed this one on my own. I just LOVE this Summer Picnic paper from SU!

{Have a Great Day recipe}
Stamps: Garden Whimsy, Lots of Thoughts Ink: real red, wild wasabi, basic black Paper: bashful blue, real red, whisper white, Summer Picnic DSP Accessories: red striped grosgrain ribbon, word window punch, real red and basic black markers

This is my version of this card by Jace.

{Celebrate You recipe}
Stamps: Garden Whimsy, A Little Birthday Cheer Ink: old olive, taken with teal Paper: so saffron, whisper white, retired SU! DSP Accessories: old olive 5/8" grosgrain ribbon, pretties kit

I borrowed this card from justcrazy. I changed and relocated the sentiment and omitted the set of three brads.

{You're Fabulous recipe}
Stamps: Garden Whimsy, Amazing to Zany Ink: real red Paper: real red, real red prints DSP, basic black, whisper white Accessories: black grosgrain ribbon, black brad, spiral punch, small oval punch, 1 1/4 square punch, 1 3/8 square punch, paper piercer

I copied this card by LateBlossom. I loved the sentiment she used, but I don't have it. I also prefered the orange brads, but again, I went with what I had on hand.

{For You recipe}
Stamps: Garden Whimsy, All Holidays Ink: pumpkin pie, wild wasabi, basic black Paper: pumpkin pie, wild wasabi, basic black, whisper white Accessories: silver brads, paper piercer

I was trying to copy this card by Yvette. I really like her version better, but I was too lazy to add the wire and bling.

{Thanks recipe}
Stamps: Garden Whimsy, Cause for Celebration (hostess set) Ink: pretty in pink, certainly celery, versamark Paper: regal rose, certainly celery, whisper white, certainly celery prints DSP Accessories: mini library clip, winter white embossing powder, two way glue, dazzling diamonds, pretty in pink taffeta ribbon

April Technique Class

We will be making three cards using different glitter techniques.

{Thanks recipe}
Stamps: Garden Whimsy, Absolutely Fabulous Paper: tempting turquoise, basic black, whisper White, certainly celery, rose red prints DSP Ink: basic black Accessories: gingham ribbon, versamarker, heat and stick powder, dazzling diamonds, markers in tempting turquoise, rose red, certainly celery, and basic black

This design came from this card by Beate.

Here's a closer shot so you can see how sparkly it is.

{Hello recipe}

Stamps: Sweet Shapes, Three for You Paper: so saffron, Uptown DSP Ink: so saffron, lovely lilac Accessories: wild wasabi double-stitched ribbon, sticky cuts, ultra-fine glitter

{Amazing recipe}
Stamps: Pretty Amazing Paper: sahara sand, blue bayou Ink: blue bayou, perfect plum, purely pomegranate, basic black Accessories: purely pomegranate double-stitched ribbon, slit punch, iridescent ice embossing powder, sahara sand marker

April Classes To Be Posted...

I completed all of my samples for my April classes last weekend, but I've been so busy I haven't posted them. I finally took pictures before we left for our visit to DH's parents' house this weekend. I promise to post them as soon as we get home. Check back Wednesday to see this month's Technique Class and Inspiration Class. I will also post our Stamp Club projects.