Final Challenge

The final challenge at CHF was to create a project with a one sheet wonder. I don't think I've ever done one before, so this was a challenge. Collage is not really my style, so I decided to use square cuts instead of getting tricky with cutting up the sheet. What I ended up with was 12 cards, 4 each of 3 different designs.

To create my sheet, I took an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of white cardstock and stamped the little robot from Little Guy repeatedly in Bashful Blue, Wild Wasabi, Brilliant Blue and Only Orange. I then cut out the 4 big panels and cut the remaining strips into 2 x 2 squares to center on 3 x 3 cards.

Stamps: Little Guy, Mocha Chica and Tag You're It!, from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Palette Noir, Bashful Blue, Brilliant Blue, Wild Wasabi, Only Orange
Card stock: Whisper White, Only Orange, Wild Wasabi, Brilliant Blue and retired patterned paper from Stampin' Up! Accessories: Bold Brights & Soft Subtles buttons, Dimensionals
Tools: Paper Snips

Ocean scene

This week's CHF challenge was to create a scene. I decided to try a technique I learned at Stamping Around Connecticut from Donna-Marie Cecere's layered card class. (You can see the card we made in her class at the bottom of this post.)

So, I started by placing all of my stamps on one big acrylic block. Then I stamped the whole scene on a piece of white cardstock and then stamped it again on a piece of acetate. I used the Clear Card Sheets from CHF.

I colored the seaweed, bubbles and shells on the back of the acetate with my copics and then put it aside to dry.

The background on the white cardstock was created by swiping it with a baby wipe that I dotted with Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue and Cool Carribean reinkers. Once it dried, I colored the seaweed, bubbles and shell in with a white gel pen. This way the coloring from the acetate would show up. Here's an angled shot to show you what I mean.

Lastly, I stamped all the little sea creatures on PTI white cardstock and colored in with my copics.

Then the layering began. I cut out all the creatures and glued them directly to the colored background. I also cut the waves at the top out and adhered the whole background to another white sheet of cardstock. Then I put 2 layers of foam mounting tape all along the outside of the scene. This is what I adhered the clear sheet of acetate to. It is really important that the images line up exactly or else you get a weird 3-d movie effect.

Finally, I glued the black frame on top to hide the mounting tape. The last step was to adhere the dolphin on top with dimensionals. I decided to cover him in crystal effects so he would look wet. I also put some stickles on the waves to give a foamy look.

I was super happy with the way this came out. I am also using this as my challenge card for the Anything Goes card challenge in the SSUS group. I hope my partner likes it too. :)

Stamps: Ocean Friends, from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Stazon Jet Black, Memento Tuxedo Black, Certainly Celery, Bashful Blue and Cool Carribean reinkers
Card stock: Whisper White, Cool Carribean, Basic Black, PTI White, CHF Clear Card Sheets
Accessories: Tan Flock, Foam Mounting Tape, Icicle Stickles, Crystal Effects
Tools: Paper Snips, Exacto Knife

That's better!

This week's CHF challenge was to create our design by paper piecing. I don't do this technique very often, so it was very fun to give it a try. I really didn't like the way the last card came out, so I decided to have a do-over. I swapped out the little squirrel for a bird, but otherwise, the layout is the same. I really am much happier with this card. It was fun to pull together.

Stamps: Spring Trees, Mocha Chica & Take Time to Enjoy Your Day, from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Palette Noir Black Ink
Card stock: Papertrey Ink White, Basic Black, Various Patterned Papers

Coloring, coloring

I really waited for the last minute on this one. This is my first entry into the Summer Stamp Star Design Challenge Contest at Cornish Heritage Farms. This week's challenge was called Color It! We were to use our favorite coloring medium to color a card with CHF stamps. In case you haven't noticed, my stamping muse has taken a vacation. I really tried, but this was the best I could do today. Next week's card will be better, I promise!

Anyway, most of the images for this set are from Spring Trees, but the cupcake and sentiment are from Tag You're It. I think this squirrel looks really cute holding that cupcake. I colored everything with my copic markers. The cupcake is iced with Star Dust stickles and the butterfly has a little crystal effects on the wings.

That's pretty much it!

Stamps: Spring Trees, Tag You're It! & Weave Backgrounder, from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Lavendar Lace
Card stock: Papertrey Ink White, Basic Black
Accessories: Crystal Effects, Start Dust Stickles
Tools: Copic Markers

Babyhood's end

Last month (at 14 months old), my son decided to stop nursing. I wasn't quite prepared for that, but I am glad it was his decision to stop. We wouldn't have even gotten started if the wonderful Lactation consultant at the hospital hadn't worked with us so much. She has helped us through the rocky start, my return to work, and some other bumps along the way. Every third Tuesday of the month, she hosts a Nursing Moms group to lend support and let us ask questions. Tomorrow will be my last visit (at least until the next kid) and I wanted to give her something to show my appreciation.

That's where Lauren's My Timeless Template-For keep{sake} came in! I loved her idea to make it a tea dispenser. When she issued her First template challenge, it all fell into place! I used the Strawberry Lemonade bath wash as my inspiration. It's hard to see, but I stamped tea cups on the yellow oval.

Lily dressed up like a nurse (lactation consultant) perfectly and I thought this baby & "got milk" stamp fit my theme perfectly.

Stamps: Dress up Lily from Pink Cat Studio, Baby Love & Little Gal from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Palette Noir, Lemon Tart, Berry Sorbet
Paper: Papertrey White, Lemon Tart, Berry Sorbet, Sweet Blush
Accessories: American Crafts Ribbon, My Timeless Template For {keep}sake, Dimensionals
Tools: Cuttlebug, Square Scalloped Nestabilities, Oval Nestabilities, Long Rectangle Nestabilities, 1" circle punch, Paper Snips

Easter bunny

So last week, I challenged the SSUS girls to pull out their contraband stamp sets (non-Stampin' Up!). Most of the girls are Stampin' Up! demonstrators so they don't have as many occasions to use their non-Stampin' Up! sets. I figured we'd get a pretty good turn-out and we totally did.

The challenge was to use your most recently purchased (non-Stampin' Up!) stamp set to make a card for your partner. I had just received an order from Cornish Heritage Farms for Kim Hughes' super cute new Easter set, so that was my choice.

The layout of my card is from this month's Verve Release Sketch. I love all of Julee's sketches.

The eggs were glittered which seems to be all the rage this Easter. Pottery Barn is selling sugared eggs and I think I saw them at Joanns as well. For the bunny, I added some gray highlights with my Koh-i-noor pencils and then flocked him with white flock. In real life, he's super fuzzy. His tail is from a piece of pom-pom ribbon I picked up last weekend at Ryco on the way home from Stamp New England when I was visiting my parents.

Stamps: Sweet Spring from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Palette Noir, Berry Sorbet, Lemon Tart
Paper: Whisper White, PaperTrey White, Berry Sorbet, Lemon Tart, Patterned paper from Cosmo Cricket
Accessories: Green striped ribbon from May Arts, White pom-pom ribbon, White Flock, Icicle Stickles, Dimensionals
Tools: 1" square punch, Fiskars Threading Water punch

Gotta collect them all...

So today I became a Copic certified designer. Before the class, I had never touched a Copic marker and now? Now, I want the all! This is a problem, but I'm sure with enough time I can collect enough for my needs.

Tomorrow, I'm going to Stamp New England and I'm super excited about that! We were challenged to make a name tag for ourselves that matched our stamping style. I took the opportunity to use this little Kim Hughes bird that I colored today at the marker certification. Love it! I also threaded some taffeta ribbon through the cute flower button from the new Latte buttons from Stampin' Up!

See you on the other side!

Stamps: Mocha Chica from Cornish Heritage Farms, Small Polka Dot alphabet from A Muse Art stamps
Ink: Palette Burnt Umber, Chocolate Chip, Memento Black, Copic markers
Paper: PTI White, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Retired Stampin' Up! designer paper
Accessories: Dimensionals, Pink taffeta ribbon, Latte Buttons, Retired velvet ribbon from Stampin' Up!
Tools: Paper Snips, Threading Water Fiskars punch

Mystery Image Swap

This month's mystery image swap was a doozy! Not only did Sue send us this cute little Boxer Penguin from memory box, but she also sent us a piece of patterned paper. We had to use a piece of this paper on our card as an extra challenge. I was a little nervous at this prospect until my envelope came in the mail. When I saw the red lined paper though, I knew I had gotten off easy!

I decided t make a Valentine's Day card since the penguin's boxers have little hearts on them So I pulled out Hugs & Kisses from the Kim Hughes collection at Cornish Heritage Farms. I embossed the Xs and hearts with clear embossing powder onto the red panel. For more shine, I used a Sakura clear gelly pen on each of the hearts on his boxers and I filled in the i love you heart with crystal effects.

The layout is from Lauren Meader's Saturday sketch #19. I just love Lauren's sketches!

I hope my partner likes it! I was pretty pleased at the end.

Stamps: Boxer penguin from Memory Box, Hugs & Kisses from Cornish Heritage farms
Ink: VersaMark, Palette Noir; Going Gray, Real Red and Basic Gray markers
Paper: Basic gray, Basic Black, Real Red, Mystery white and Mystery patterned paper
Accessories: Crystal effects, clear embossing powder, Sakura clear gelly pen, Dimensionals
Tools: Hearts cuttlebug folder, Circle nestabilities

1st Birthday

Can you believe my little guy is a year old already? In some ways it feels like just yesterday that we brought him home, but at the same time I can hardly remember what life was like without him. His first birthday is coming up, so I need to send out some invites for his party.

I found this cute paper from piggy tales at a local scrapbook store over the summer and was so excited that the dump truck from the Dress Up Billy set was a perfect match! I had trouble deciding on a color scheme for the rest of the card though. In the end, we went with the orange card because it pops a little more.

Does the sentiment's font look familiar? I really loved the open numbers from the new Number Fun set from the Kim Hughes Collection at Cornish Heritage Farms, but I am on a voluntary post-Christmas spending moratorium. So I opted to buy a couple of Kim Hughes' CK fonts for less than half the price of the stamp set. The number one is from CK Ed and the rest of the lettering is from CK Brandy B. I love Kim's handwriting and am tickled that I have a couple of her fonts now to really customize my cards. The inside of the invitation is also in the CK Brandy B font so it matches perfectly!

The sketch was posted by Lauren Meader a while back for a Pink Cat Studios challenge. I guess it is fitting that I used a Pink Cat Studio stamp on my card. ;)


Stamps: Dress Up Billy from Pink Cat Studios
Ink: Palette Noir
Paper: Whisper White, Night of Navy, Pumpkin Pie, Wild Wasabi from Stampin' Up!, Tortoise & Hare collection from piggy tales
Accessories: Striped Wasabi Grosgrain Ribbon from Stampin' Up!, Dimensionals
Tools: 1 1/4" and 1 3/8" circle punches, Koh-i-noor pencils, Gamsol

Recipes

As part of his Christmas gift this year, I made my husband a recipe box. I had intended to copy all of our favorite recipes down as well, but I ran out of time. I know you are probably scratching your head right now trying to understand how this could be a gift for my husband. Well, he works from home and makes dinner every night so I don't have to start cooking when I get home from work. He's been complaining that our favorite recipes are scattered through several cookbooks and printouts from the internet and that it would be much easier to have them all in one place. So, the recipe box was born!

I was so excited when Papertrey Ink came out with the Recipe Box stamp set and recipe cards. I love their long skinny dimensions and the fact that they fit perfectly in the egg box.

When it came time to decorate my box, I pulled out some patterned paper from Scenic Route that looks like college ruled paper and stamped images from the retired Mix & Mingle set from Stampin' Up! and the Little Gal, Baked with Love and Hugs and Kisses sets from the Kim Hughes collection at Cornish Heritage Farms in the perfect match ink colors from Papertrey Ink. I wanted the box to have a doodled look to it so I didn't color in the images.

On the inside, I lined the box with patterned paper from October Afternoon and used the Recipe Box stamp set to make dividers for each section. I also used the Polka Dots backgrounder from Cornish Heritage Farms on the dividers.

To make Recipes plural on the lid, I used the s from the Quirky Alphabet set.

Now, I just have the long task of copying over all of our recipes!

Stamps: Recipe Box from Papertrey Ink; Baked with Love, Hugs and Kisses, Little Gal and Quirky Alphabet from Cornish Heritage Farms; Mix & Mingle from Stampin' Up!
Ink: Aqua Mist, Ocean Tides, Berry Sorbet, Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise, Plum Pudding & Spring Moss from Papertrey Ink, Palette Noir, Palette Burnt Umber and Palette Charcoal
Paper: Scenic Route and October Afternoon
Accessories: Matte finish Modge Podge
Tools: Foam brushes to apply the modge podge

More baby shoes

For some Christmas gifts and my church's holiday craft fair, I made some more baby shoes. For these two pairs, I used metallic and pearl fabric paint from Tulip so they were sparkly and festive. The ornament is from the Heart warmers set by
Kim Hughes at Cornish Heritage Farms.

I absolutely loved this rainbow pair too. Aren't they fun and girly without having to be pink? he rainbow is from the Little Gal set by
Kim Hughes at Cornish Heritage Farms.

The last two pairs weren't stamped at all. I just loved the print on this corduroy from Joann's, so I just had to use it.

That's all I had time to finish before Christmas. I did cut out, stamp and paint several more pairs, so you haven't seen the last of these yet.

For details on how I made these, see my previous post on the subject.

Photo Shoot

So this weekend, I decided to try and take some pictures of the kid in his new shoes. This proved to be more difficult than I expected. Now that he's "crawling" (more like army crawling), he hardly ever sits still.

The last picture is my favorite! I was kneeling on the floor to take his picture and he decided to crawl up my lap to see what I was doing. I just love him to pieces!

Baby Shoes!

Okay, I am really excited about this project! Soft-soled shoes are all the rage for babies these days. There's lots of brands on the market and they range from $20-$30 each. This pair cost me about $4. I used an old pair of jeans that no longer fit, a fat quarter of flannel for the lining and some Toughtek® for the soles. The pattern is free on Tacky Living.

The fun part about making your own baby shoes (besides the cost savings) is that you can decorate them however you chose! I just love this little snowman from Kim Hughes' Heartwarmers set on Cornish Heritage Farms. Before assembling the shoes, I stamped the snowman on the denim vamps in Palette Noir ink. Once it dried, I painted it in with Tulip soft fabric paints. It took two coats of paint for the white to be opaque. Then once it was dry, I backstitched the outline of the snowman with some embroidery floss.

I absolutely love these and can't wait to try them on my little guy on the morning! Now I can't wait to make another pair.

My advice

I went to a bridal shower today where we were supposed to bring marital advice for the bride. I never know what to say with these types of things. So, my "advice" was to make this pie often. It's my favorite. ;)

I typed the recipe and printed it out on Papertrey ink white cardstock. Then I stamped this cute pie from the Baked with Love stamp set. I love the Kim Hughes Collection at Cornish Heritage Farms. I colored the peanut butter top with Koh-i-noor pencils and the silver pie plate with a Zig Painty. The chocolate chip on top was stamped in VersaMark and embossed with Chocolate scented embossing powder from Gel-a-tins.

The recipe is from my favorite cookbook, Wanda's Pie in the Sky. Unfortunately, it is out of print. If you'd like to make this heavenly chocolate peanut butter pie, I've posted the recipe below.

Stamps: Baked with Love from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Palette Noir Black
Card stock: Papertrey Ink White, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Zig Painty, Chocolate Scented embossing Powder
Tools: Heat Tool, Koh-i-noor pencils, gamsol

Choclate Peanut Butter Cream Pie
from Wanda's Pie in the Sky cookbook

For the crust:
1/4 cup sugar
2 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1/3 cup roasted peanuts
1 1/4 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled

For the filling:
10 oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 1/4 cups smooth peanut butter
3 Tbsp butter, softened
1 1/3 cups powdered sugar

For the topping:
2/3 cup whipping cream
6 oz semisweet chocolate, finely chopped
1 Tbsp corn syrup

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. For the crust: combine sugar, chocolate and peanuts in a food processor until finely chopped. Thoroughly combine the graham cracker crumbs, and sugar mixture, and butter in a bowl. Press onto bottom and sides of a 10” pie plate. Bake for 15 minutes until golden and firm. Cool.

For the filling: in a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese, peanut butter, and butter until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar and beat until combined. Whip the cream and vanilla in a separate bowl until stiff peaks form. Fold the cream into the peanut butter mixture. Spread into the cooled crust. Refrigerate for 2-3 hours.

For the topping: Bright cream to a slow boil over low heat. Remove from heat, add the chocolate and stir until smooth. Mix in the syrup. Allow to cool until it is beginning to thicken slightly but is still smooth. Pour over the pie. Chill until serving time. Store in the refrigerator for up to 4 days.

Tiny Miracle

Eric's newborn cousin had surgery earlier this week to fix a violent vomiting issue. She is okay now, but her parents have been through a horrible week of uncertainty and then surgery. I can't even imagine!

I wanted to send a note to Eric's aunt to let her know that we were thinking of them. I am not great at making Thinking of You type cards and feel like I never have the right thing to say. It's even harder with a baby involved.

I decided simple is best so I chose Natasha's Fall to Layout #6. I chose a few different patterns from the Almost Amethyst prints patterned paper from Stampin' Up and added a little ice stickles to some of the blocks to keep it from being too drab. I couldn't leave well enough alone, so I added some very thin black ribbon to the bottom that I've had forever.

I'm pleased with the card. It was quick and hopefully sends the right message.

Stamps: Baby Love from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Palette Noir Black
Card stock: Papertrey Ink White, Almost Amethyst Prints Patterned Paper
Accessories: Ice Stickles
Tools: 1 1/4" Square punch

Baby Girl

My husband has a brand new cousin! She was born last week and we visited her over the weekend. I'll share more about the gift I made next week, but today I wanted to share the card.

I bought the Baby Love stamp set from the Kim Hughes Collection at Cornish Heritage Farms the day it was released. I've been admiring all of Kim's stamp sets for months now, but this one pushed me over the edge. I just had to place an order. :)

I couldn't decide which images to use, so I decided to make my own patterned paper and use as many as possible. I wanted a really bright and fun card, so I decided to use colored pencils.

This was my first attempt at the Gamsol Magic technique even though I've owned the Prismacolor pencils since Viking.com had that really great sale 4+ years ago (I think I got all 120 pencils for < $40). I know, it's shameful that they have sat unsharpened in their beautiful tin all these years. What's worse is that I didn't even use those pencils on this card. I used my new Koh-i-noor pencils that I got from Gina K. I saw these at Michaels this weekend too - a great choice for those 40% off coupons.

Anyway, I love the pencils and the gamsol technique. I will definitely be sharpening my Prismacolor pencils and playing around with this some more very soon!

The layout is an oldie but goodie -- Julee Tilman's Mojo Monday Sketch #32.

Stamps: Baby Love from Cornish Heritage Farms
Ink: Palette Noir Black
Card stock: Papertrey Ink White, Regal Rose, Basic Black, Barely Banana, Lavender Lace
Accessories: Pink brads from Queen & Co, White brad from Doodle Bug
Tools: Square Nestabilities, Wizard Flower Creation dies, Koh-i-noor pencils, Gamsol