For My Fellow Craft Supply Consumers

Here's a printable Michael's coupon for 50% good once per day per customer until June 14th!

http://michaels.com/coupons/060408/coupon.html

For All My Men

It seems that June is the month to honor all the men in my life. I've been blessed with the sweetest husband, a wonderful dad, and a great father-in-law (not to mention 3 terrific brothers-in-law). Anyhow, here are 3 cards made entirely of scraps cast off by my friend Cindee. The men won't mind at all, they are all the strong, handsome, frugal types.



Paper - CTMH Silhouette pack
Stamps - All CTMH

The $92 Card

One of the fun things about stamping with friends is borrowing their stuff. I used Robin's oval Nestabilities to make this card. And Cindee contributed the CTMH Hello stamp and black card stock with white core. I love how the white shows through a little bit when you run this card stock through the Cuttlebug. It's subtle on this card but you can sand it down for more emphasis.

Oh, and you stampers know how this works - now I have to buy all this stuff.

Paper - CTMH Black CS
Stamps - SU Oh, So Lovely, CTMH Gracious Greetings
Other - Cuttlebug, Nestabilities Oval, Colored Pencils/Gamsol

Where Have I Been?

Three of my stamping friends and I spent a wonderful week just stamping in Palm Springs. The other week, I've just been lazy and catching up on things that piled up while I was playing.

So while we were in Palm Springs, each of us had some stamping projects to share as well as our own personal stamping (like Christmas cards) to do. We completed 26 projects plus our own stuff. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't have to cook, clean, shop, etc.! One of Kay's projects for us was to cover a CD. She scrapbooks more than she stamps, so of course her CD's had cute designer paper and photos. But I thought it would be fun to have a little souvenir of the trip, so we scrounged around at the resort's concierge desk until we found an appropriate picture and "Palm Springs" font. So here is my CD souvenir refrigerator magnet.

To make your own CD magnet, just lay out your paper and trace the CD size onto it. Cut out your paper and adhere it to the CD with an adhesive runner. Add a magnetic strip to the back and it's done!

I'd Rather Stamp Than Cook

My sister-in-law Tracy shared this recipe with me. It takes almost no time to prepare, is delicious, and pretty healthy too. She did not have a name for it but I call it Southwest Crockpot Chicken. It will give you more time to do important things like stamping.

Southwest Crockpot Chicken

4 frozen boneless chicken breasts
1 can corn
1 can black beans - rinsed and drained
1 jar salsa (I sometimes use 2 if the jar is small)
1 block of cream cheese

Place 1st 4 ingredients in crockpot in the order given. Cook on high for about 6 hours. Remove the chicken breasts. Place the cream cheese into the crockpot to melt. While it's melting, cut or shread the chicken into bite size pieces. Give the crockpot a good stir until the cream cheese is mixed in. Return the chicken to the crockpot and enjoy over your favorite rice.

Asian Knot Card

Everyone that knows me, knows I love gadgets - kitchen gadgets, stamping gadgets, sewing gadgets. So here's a card I made with one of my more unusual sewing gadgets. Clover makes a series of little plastic templates for making Asian Knots. I suppose if you are cleaver and coordinated enough, you can just tie them on your own but these templates have groves, indentations, holes, etc. all numbered in the correct order to instruct you in wrapping your cord. They are (almost) fool proof.

Here's a link to the template I used on Clover's website Asian Button Knot. Click on Asian Knot templates to see the other 3 cool templates they have. I actually bought mine from someone on Ebay.

Stamps - Hero Arts
Asian Knot - Clover template

One More Mother's Day Card

This week's challenge was to make a card with no stamping, so here's my first card with stitching and my first card with Cricut letters. I've already sent out my Mother's Day cards, so I have a jump on next year!


Letters - Cricut
Paper - Making Memories
Embellishments - Cuttlebug

Tiger Lily Mother's Day Card

This card is shamelessly copied from Rose Ann at Paper Delitz. When I saw her Stargazer Lily card, I knew it had to be my mom's Mother's Day card. My mom is now legally blind so she can see things the best when there is the most contrast. So I try to do cards with black and white plus some textures that she can feel. Rose Ann's card was perfect except that I don't do the coluzzle very well so I used it as an element on a rectangular card.

Stamp - Tiger Lily from Stampendous, Happy Mother's Day from Embossing Arts
Ink - StazOn White overwritten with Signo Gel Pen
Other - paper piercing tool, plain old scalloped scissors, circles by Cricut, ribbons and brads from stash, glitter, white metallic rubons

Asian Split Circle

Here's a card I made this morning for a sketch challenge at SplitcoastStampers, It's really prettier in real life since the photo doesn't capture the silver background very well.

Cardstock - Confetti Black, Confetti Plum, Silver
Stamps - Stampendous and Hero Arts
Other - 1/2 inch punch, Cricut Circle, Nestabilities Circle

Another Stampin Up Make and Take - Wonderful You

Here's another card we made at the Make and Take on Saturday with Stampin Up's Groovy Guava and Soft Sky. It's soft and pretty stamped with The Wonderful You flowers and a strip of stems done with the jumbo roller wheel. I needed a Mother's Day card for my MIL and she loves flowers, so this is perfect for her. I did not have a Happy Mother's Day stamp in the right size or configuration, so I printed this out on the computer. I don't know why I don't do this more often, most sentiments are in black anyway and you can get any font, size, or configuration on the computer. How much money (and space) would I save by not buying so many word stamps?

Stamps - SU Wonderful You, Stems and Silhouettes Roller Wheel
Paper - SU Soft Sky
Ink - SU Soft Sky, Groovy Guava
Ribbon - SU Double Stitched Soft Sky

Stampin Up Blossoms Abound Make and Take

I went to a Stampin Up make and take yesterday and we made this really sweet 3x6 card with the Blossoms Abound set. I'm not a Stampin Up purist and did not like the way their words fit into the small oval so I brought it home and finished it with the great words from PaperTreyInks Faux Ribbon. Luckily, I have the small oval punch and found an ink that matched Stampin Ups.

Stamps - SU Blossoms Abound, PaperTreyInk Faux Ribbon
Papers - all SU
Ribbon - Stampin Up Moss Gingham
Inks- Stampin Up Elegant Eggplant and Orchid Opulence, Adirondack Eggplant

April Joy of Card Making Swap Card

Doesn't she make you smile? Our swap this month was based on the Joy of Card Making recipe #38. It's a 3.5"x3" card. The hat girl was inspired by a Tonya Doughty's card in PaperCrafts "You Go, Girl!" (2007). Isn't she cute? I like to call the little punched flowers my "poor man brads". You can always have the color of brad you want from tiny scraps in your stash and embellish the centers with a gel pen or regular marker.

Texture - Cuttlebug Swirls
Stamps - Stampendous Fun Face Set
Mini Flowers - Michael's $1 punch
Flower Hat - flowers by Darice

Michael's 20% Off Coupon - 4/27-5/10

Here's a link to a coupon to Michael's for 20% off your entire regular priced order. I know the 40% coupons are better for big items but sometimes you just want to get a bunch of lower priced items and this fits the bill. The fine print says that it is for Teacher Appreciation Week but it doesn't say you have to be a teacher. I appreciate teachers (especially when they can get me a 20% discount).

Just one more money saving tip. I thought everyone knew this but some of my sewing friends did not realize it, Michael's will honor JoAnn's coupons (and probably any other crafty type store for those of you that have other stores in your area.) This comes in handy because JoAnn's seems to have more coupons than Michael's.

Scraps Anyone

Stop! Don't throw all those little strips of paper away. Make your own background paper and do your part for the green movement. To make the shredded grograin embellishment, start with a small strip of grograin ribbon, maybe 4". Trim one of the woven edges off, then peel off all the stringy fibers. This is a little messy. You really don't want the fan on. Then tie the fibers together with the woven strip you trimmed off.




I first saw the grograin technique on SplitcoastStampers a while ago and would love to give credit to the person that invented it but I searched and searched and cannot find the original instructions.


Stamp - Love You To Bits
Ink - Kaleidacolor
Ribbon - Shredded Grograin

Stamping Meets Sewing

The only thing that rivals my stamp/paper/ink collection is my fabric/pattern collection. Somehow, I've never really married the two hobbies together though. A couple of years ago, a dearly departed Sewing Sister, Julie, left me with some sewing themed scrapbook paper, dress form die cuts, and tape measure ribbon. (She hasn't departed the earth, just left Southern California for Chicago. Why would anyone do that? That's a whole other story.) So I pulled it all out and came up with this card.

Paper, Die Cut - who knows where these are from. Julie just knows she picked them up in her travels but can't remember where.
Cuttlebug - die cut tag and birthday embossing folder
Stamp - unmarked cube but I think it was by Stamp of Excellence

A Little Froggy

Last year I decided to stamp a set of gift cards for each of the ladies in my sewing group. We call ourselves the Sewing Sisters. No, we are not nuns, just sewing sisters. Anyway, my sewing sister Cheryl loves frogs so of course her set had to have a frog in it. Me, I'm not especially a fan of anything that creeps, crawls, or slithers but I do have this one cute frog in my stamp collection. Luckily, there was also a little dragonfly stamp to give him something to snack on.

Stamps - All Night Media, Papertrey Ink
Texture - Cuttlebug Traffic Jam
Frame - Cuttlebug Funky Square Frame

Cheap Adhesive Tip

Just to let you know that I don't limit my shopping to the Michael's dollar bins, here is my cheap adhesive tip. I have never been a fan of the snail adhesives, we never bonded (sorry I couldn't resist). But I'm getting along quite well with the Ad Tech brand. And of all places, I found it at Harbor Freight, cheap - like $1.99. Just don't take your DH with you, he'll waste a bunch of money on something silly like tools or home repair supplies. And if that isn't exciting enough, Walmart has the refills in a 2-pack for only $2.27. The only problem is that Walmart is often out of stock, guess my secret got out somehow. So if you find them, pick up a few - just not from MY Walmart.

Sometimes You Get What You Pay For

I picked up this ribbon in the Michael's dollar bin one day expecting it to be cheap, cheesy ribbon. Imagine my surprise when I took it home and discovered that it was silky and lovely to work with. And serendipitously, I found a flower stamp at home that coordinated perfectly with the ribbon. It's an acrylic stamp also from Michael's $1 bin. Yes, I'm spending way too much time scrounging around in Michael's dollar bins. This truly is a 5 minute card.

Not from Michael's:
Inks - Vivid Olive, Adirondack Expresso, and Memories Soft Peach
Stamps - SU Sincere Salutations and one of the flourish sets from Autumn Leaves

A Girl Can't Have Just One Purse, Can She?

Well, I had so much fun making that purse that I had to make another. Ok, the truth is that I did not have enough paper in the paper stack to make 5 matching cards so I had to do 2 versions. If my stamping friends read this, it will be their first clue that the East coast cards are different than the West coast cards. And by the way, no animals were harmed in the making of this faux animal print/texture purse.

Paper - DCWV's All Dressed Up
Stamps - Borders and Corners and Ambassador Monogram Edition by Papertrey Ink
Punches - SU Scallop Punch and SU1.375" Circle Punch
Textured with Cuttlebug Tiny Bubbles

March Purse Swap

Four of my friends from the East and West coasts and I do a swap once a month based on a "randomly" selected recipe from The Joy of Card Making. The March swap was a cute little purse (#50). This was my card. The dimensions started with cardstock cut to 6"x10", folded to 6"x5". The recipe had you trim in 1/2" on each side of the top. I didn't think the result looked like the samples so I trimmed 1.5" off mine on each side.

Paper - DCWV's All Dressed Up
Stamps - Borders and Corners and Ambassador Monogram Edition by Papertrey Ink
Punches - SU Scallop Punch and SU1.375" Circle Punch
Textured with Cuttlebug Tiny Bubbles

Gifted Paper + $1 Stamp

My good friend Cindee gave me this gorgeous paper from CTMH awhile back. Around the same time I discovered the $1 bin of stamps at Michael's and purchased this circle stamp. So the paper and stamp moved into the stamp room around the same time and became the inspiration for this card. I love how the timing of acquisitions determines what gets combined together.

The scalloped circles are from the Cricut monogram cartridge and the center circle is colored with chalks.

Me Too

Well it seems like everyone has a blog, why not me? I'd like to say that stamping is my hobby. But the real hobby is buying stamp stuff. Maybe if I have a blog, I'll spend more time actually stamping and using this mountain of stuff I keep buying.