I've been tagged!

Wow, I can't believe I've been tagged. Thanks Kim! I met Kim a few weeks back at the stamping cape cod weekend. We had so much fun chatting and stamping. She turned me on to EZ Mount foam for my bes and made some super cute thank you cards for the 3-day walk she'll be participating in this fall. I'm so glad to be able to call her a friend!

So, now the hard part. I have to list my 5 favorite blogs. Whittling down my list was super hard! Between friends, stamping & knitting blogs, I have 153 subscriptions in google reader. So, I decided to list my five favorite recent finds instead.

Card Metaphor - Alli has an incredible blog. She's done amazing things with the Butterfly Kisses Paper Trey set and he most recent post on chipboard is too cool! You'll definitely want to check her out!

The Polka Dot Spot - Mandy is one of my favorite stampers from splitcoast, so when I discovered the she had a blog, I subscribed immediately! Her designs are so pure & clean -- I have definitely CASEd my fair share!

My Time - Lauren is such a prolific stamper! I am always amazed at how many quality cards she can turn out! I love reading about all of her design team work and her family.

Paper Pleasing Ideas - I just found Julie's blog today and I just love it. She has a great eye for layout design and choosing colors. I look forward to seeing what she comes up with next!

Stamp Owl - Frances' blog was also a new find for me today. I fell in love with her rubber romance cards in the gallery and then clicked on the link to her blog. Wowwee!! She has some awesome Mickey cards & Stampin' Up! cards as well.

I guess that makes 5! That was super hard! I thought I would also post a link to my favorite non-stamping blog. The Yarn Harlot is the funniest knit blogger out there. Even my husband reads her posts sometimes. Her recent While You Were Out style home renovation adventures were especially funny!

MS Walk revisited

The MS Walk was this Sunday and it was a wonderful day. The sun was shining, but it wasn't too hot and there was a nice breeze off the water in Providence. While the six and a half miles is a didn't seem too bad that day, my legs are still super sore! It's the good kind of sore though.

So far I have raised $695, which is totally awesome, and my team has raised $3,521! My goal is $750 and I still have a few weeks to collect donations. I found out at the walk that we can still collect donations until May 25. Here's the link to my page if you'd like to help me out!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I was planning to use Barbella from Stamping Bella for all my thank you notes. However, last night I decided that it was a little bit too much work what with all the masking for all 25 that I needed to make. So I decided to only send out the Barbella cards to my stamping friends. Coworkers are going to get these instead.


For these cards, I pulled out some retired embossed small note cards from Stampin' Up! I bought these a couple years ago right before they retired and had just the right amount to make 18 thank yous! The MS is stamped with the Headline Alphabet in Pallette Noir Black ink. Then walk was stamped with my Karen Foster snap stamps in Real Red Classic ink. This is the first time I've used the snap stamps and they are super cool! I got mine at Joann's, but Ellen sells them in her store as well. I finished the outside off with some red polka dot organdy ribbon from May Arts. I just bought a whole spool from Cindy. I think it's so cool to have it on the spool!

On this inside, I simply stamped Thank for your support from A Muse Art Stamps and left the rest of the inside blank so I can write my thank you note. Pretty simple and maybe a little more professional to give to my coworkers that supported me.

Stamps: Headline Alphabet, Karen Foster Snap Stamps (1/4" Casual alphabet)
Ink: Palette Hybrid Noir Black, Real Red Classic Ink
Card stock: Whisper White small embossed note cards
Accessories: Red polka dot organdy ribbon from May Arts

Vintage Baby Card

I signed up for a sketch challenge last week on the Sensational Swappers group. The challenge was simply to make a card using splitcoast sketch challenge 115. The funny part was that until I started browsing the gallery, I totally forgot that I already had made a card using sc115 (and for this swap group to boot!)

The interesting part of this sketch for me is the cut-out flower hanging over the edge of the center panel. Since I used the doodle flower last time, I wanted to do something more out of the box this time. I sat down with my Stampin' Up! Idea Book & Catalog to find a replacement. Originally I intended to use a butterfly, but when I saw the stork from Buggies & Booties I knew that I had found my set!

Since there would be a lot of intricate cutting on the stork & rattle, I decided to stamp them on watercolor paper. It is much thicker than regular card stock. Since I was using watercolor paper, I decided to color the stork & rattle with my watercolor wonder crayons.

I went a little background crazy on this card. The center panel was stamped with the Print Pattern background stamp on watercolor paper in pale plum ink and then over-stamped with the sentiment.

This piece was layered on perfect plum card stock. The middle strip was stamped with the Linen background stamped and then I faux stitched with a perfect plum marker to tie the two shades of plum together.

This is all layered on a piece of sage shadow that was stamped with the Fine Lace background stamp.

I thought it still needed a little something, so I added some ivory organdy ribbon in the middle. I was quite pleased with the end result! I don't normally do vintage images, but this set really grabbed me!

Stamps: Buggies & Booties, Linen, Print Pattern, Fine Lace
Ink: Palette Hybrid Noir Black, Pale Plum, Sage Shadow, Perfect Plum Marker
Card stock: Watercolor Paper, Perfect Plum, Pale Plum, Sage Shadow, Very Vanilla
Tools: Crafter's Toolkit, Paper Snips, Aquapainter, Watercolor Wonder Crayons
Accessories: Ivory narrow organdy ribbon

Rain on your wedding day...

They say it's good luck to have rain on your wedding day. I think "they" are just trying to make you feel better. Today, we went to our friend Chris' wedding and let's just say that he and his bride, Meghan, were blessed with tons and tons of luck. Some guests missed the ceremony due to flooded roads. We almost had problems getting home. It's weird when roads you normally drive on suddenly turn into rivers.

All that is to say that today we went to a wedding. While I was in the shower this morning, I realized that I forgot to make a card. So, I pulled out an elegant Fabriano Medioevalis card and stamped this beautiful wedding dress stamp from PSX Stamps. This was one of the first stamps I ever purchased. Isn't it so elegant? I then watercolored with my watercolor wonder crayons and an aquapainter. It's hard to see in the picture, but I colored the dress white and the flowers on the dress vanilla. I also outlined the dress with bordering blue to make the white dress pop more. This is a trick I learned from Julie Ebersole. Finally, I added a little glitz with my Sakura Stardust pen. It still wasn't quite finished, so I added organdy ribbon and silver cord from Stampin' Up!

Stamps: Wedding Dress stamp from PSX
Ink: Palette Hybrid Noir Black
Card stock: Fabriano Medioevalis folded card
Tools: Stardust Clear Gelly Roll Pen, Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Aquapainter
Accessories: Blue narrow organdy ribbon & silver cord from Stampin' Up!

It Came!

As you may recall, I won Sarah's super awesome contest a couple weeks ago. Well tonight I came home to a super heavy box full of fun!

Some of the goodies include some $1 stamps from Michaels, tinkerbella & "make a wish" from stampingbella, some creative candy & edible candy from A Muse along with a 20% coupon that expires today (I totally took advantage of that one!), some sentiments from Cornish Heritage Farms, cute baby stamps from Missy B, chocolate, a hand stamped card from Nichole Heady from PaperTrey, some beautiful Stampin' Up! cards maybe from Sarah herself, a Technique Junkies newsletter, punches, some cool tins to store embellishments in, ribbon, mono refills, and a bunch of alterable items including baby blocks, picture frames, notebooks, a canvas tote, an altoid tin, a wooden clock and some cute mini RSVP style pens.

Wow! That was a mouth full!! I feel incredibly lucky to win such an awesome prize. Thank you so much Sarah! You are the best!!

MS Walk

Next weekend I will be participating in the Rhode Island chapter's MS Walk. My step-sister was diagnosed with MS in her late 20s. My whole family will be walking on her team to support her, raise awareness for MS and help raise money for a cure!

Here's where you come in. If you would like to help out, follow this link to donate online. Then, send me an email with your snail mail address so I can send you one of these hand stamped thank you cards.

For my card, I very carefully inked barbella from stamping bella with a palette noir black ink spot. I didn't want the barbells on my card, so for the parts that were too hard to ink with the spot, I used my black Stampin' Write Journaling marker from Stampin' Up! This marker is waterproof, so I didn't have to worry about it bleeding when I started to watercolor.

Barbella is water colored with an aquapainter and the Stampin' Up! watercolor wonder crayons. Then I went back with my Glaze Gelly Roll pens to add some shine and glitter. I am loving these! I finished the card with the perfect sentiment from A Muse and some red May Arts Cindy ribbon.

The card itself is a Fabriano Medioevalis folded card. I just bought a package of 100 from Dick Blick, so I am ready to make lots of thank you cards!

Stamps: Barbella by Stamping Bella, Sentiment by A Muse Rubber Art Stamps
Ink: Palette Hybrid Noir Black, Stampin' Write Black Journaling Marker
Card stock: Fabriano Medioevalis folded card
Tools: Stardust Clear Gelly Roll Pen, White Glaze Gelly Roll Pen, Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Aquapainter
Accessories: Red polka dot organdy ribbon from May Arts

P.S. If you would like more information about the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, how proceeds from the MS Walk are used, or the other ways you can get involved in the fight against MS, please visit nationalmssociety.org.

My First Blogger RAK

As I was sifting through the mail that came last night (mostly bills!), I was happily surprised to find my first blogger's RAK. I joined the SCS Blogger's RAK club a couple of weeks ago, so I wasn't expecting to get anything so quickly!

I am loving the designer paper Jeanine used! It has so much texture. She also added some faux stitching around the flower panel.

I also loved the way Jeanine added crystal effect droplets on the petals of the daisy to make it look like dew first thing in the morning. Daisies are my favorite flower, so this card is very special to me!

Here is a link to Jeanine's blog: http://stampingwithjeanine.blogspot.com. Run on over to see what else she has up her creative sleeve!

Let them eat cake!

As I was browsing the Eclectic Paperie store the other day, I came across this too cute stamp from Stampendous called Tiers of Treats. I just had to have it! I was thinking of getting some EZ Mount for my bellas anyway, so it wasn't hard to push the submit order button. :)

Well, today my order came in so I had to break in my new stamp. I thought this A Muse sentiment was the perfect compliment to the main image.

The treats were stamped in Palette Noir Black ink on a pale pink Arturo note card. Think Fabriano Medioevalis but in color! From the little experimentation I've done, I think I prefer the Fabriano notecards over the Arturo. While that is a little like saying I prefer Renoir over Monet, I think the paper is a little thicker and can handle the water a bit better. I also ordered some white Arturo cards, so maybe I'll do a side by side comparison on the blog tomorrow.

I ordered the variety pack of Arturo cards from Ellen Hutson's store but they are also available from Dick Blick in bulk. Then I colored in the image with my watercolor wonder crayons and my trusty aquapainter. Once it was dry, I added some shine and glitter with my Glaze Gelly Roll pens. I've had these for a while, but rediscovered them on the cape cod retreat. I don't think I'll be forgetting about that again any time soon. :)

To add that finishing touch, I tied a knot with some black May Arts ribbon from Cindy Lyles' ebay store.

Stamps: Tiers of Treats by Stampendous, Sentiment by A Muse Rubber Art Stamps
Ink: Palette Hybrid Noir Black
Card stock: Pale Pink Arturo Cards Small Reply Folded Card
Tools: Stardust Clear Gelly Roll Pen, Black Glaze Gelly Roll Pen, Clear Gelly Roll Pen, Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Aquapainter
Accessories: Black polka dot organdy ribbon from May Arts

Earthy Flowers

At my cape cod stamping weekend, I stamped a bunch of bellas on some Fabriano Medioevalis reply note cards. I got inky fingerprints on some of them, so I cut them down to layer onto a regular card. I water colored flowahbella with my watercolor wonder crayons and an aqua painter. Then when she dried, I added some glitter highlights with Maria's Stardust Gelly Roll pen which you can get from Cindy Lyles' eBay store. I also colored in her mouth with my white glaze pen gelly roll pen.

I CASEd the layout of this card from Candy Williams. I've been saving this card of Candy's for a while just waiting for the perfect image to come along. I thought flowahbella fit the bill nicely.

This card also helps fulfill a challenge issued after our cape cod weekend because I used something that I purchased that weekend -- the EK Success photo corner punch. I know, I know. I could have just made the photo corner with my square punches or with my tag punch. But you know what? This was so much easier! And I actually have a photo corner on the card. Even though I've known how to make photo corners with my square punches since convention last July, I haven't actually done it yet. So if the corner punch makes it more convenient, then let me be. I'm thrilled with the result. ;)

Stamps: Flowahbella, Fancy Flexible Phrases
Ink: Palette Hybrid Noir Black
Card stock: Not Quite Navy, Old Olive, Fabriano Medioevalis scraps
Tools: Cuttlebug Bloom Dots Embossing Folder, Word Window Punch, Photo Corner Punch, White Glaze Gelly Roll Pen, Stardust Clear Gelly Roll Pen, Watercolor Wonder Crayons, Aqua painter

Blog Candy Winner

Using the random number generator at random.org, the lucky winner was commenter #24 -- Allison!

Here's Allison's comment:

What a super tutorial...I am going to start doing some altered projects soon and this would be cool!

Congratulations Allison!

Yay! I won!!

I can't even believe it, but I won Sarah's awesome contest! I can't wait to see what it is. I'll be sure to post pics as soon as it arrives.