Vellum Butterfly

I have been goin nuts with this new Beautiful Butterflies die, I just can't seem to stop using it! I saw a card earlier today using Pink Pirouette and Going Gray that was gorgeous, so Pink was stuck in my head. But I wanted something softer, so I went with Sahara Sand. I love Sahara Sand and I have been neglecting you! But I guess I better buy some more before I gorge myself on it, lol! It's amazing how quickly I go through some colors. When I try to get out of my color comfort zone, I am usually not very happy with the result. Anyways! On to the card details!

• Stamps: Thoughts & Prayers, Tres Chic BG, Sanded BG, Baroque Motifs, Spring Song


• Paper: Pink Pirouette, Sahara Sand, Whisper White, Vellum cs


• Ink: Pink Pirouette, Sahara Sand, Versamark


• Other stuff: White EP, white ribbon, silver brad, paper piercer and mat pack, cutter kit, beautiful butterflies die, BS, SAMJ

I have done 2 other butterfly cards today. Like I said, I am going overboard with the butterflies! I'll post them later.

I just got back from conferences for one of my high school seniors and she got glowing reports. I'm a proud momma tonight! My daughter, Charlene, has more artistic talent in her pinky than I have in my whole body! And I'm not the only one that thinks so! Here is one of her paintings.

Isn't she amazing!

Butterflies....

Spring is in the air and I'm dreaming of butterflies! I see them dancing across scrapbook pages, perched on the edges of cards, fluttering over the refridgerator door. Of course, I am talking about paper butterflies, what else!

I just got the Beautiful Butterflies die from Stampin Up! a few days ago and came up with a great idea to add texture to them! Can you see what I did? We are going to use these little beauties at Stamp Club this month. Maybe I'll send some home with you all and see what you all can some up with :) But isn't this just adorable! I can't wait to play more with this absolutely darling die. There are 4 different sizes of butterflies on it and it cuts through so many different materials the possibilities are endless.

Ok, I have gone on long enough about the butterflies,lol! It's time to go see what else I can do!

Don't forget, the next Stamp Club meeting is next week, March 12th at 7pm at Leah's church. Remember to bring your cards for the swapping fun!

Top Note die notebooks

I made these little notebooks last month I believe, and just never got around to taking any pictures until tonight! I wanted to use some of that great paper from SU and thought the Top Note die really would make a cute notebook.

I used some Bella Rose paper for this one with Riding Hood Red and Pirouette Pink cs for these. The lines paper is from some old, not quite used up leftovers from the kids school notebooks from last year. You know how it is. There could be around 20 pages left in a notebook, nobody wants to use that notebook, but you can't see throwing it away! I just cut them up and ran them through the Top note die. I used our silver or gold elastic cord for the binding after using the Crop-A-Dile to make the holes and put eyelets in.

These are done with SKi Slope DSP from the Holiday Mini. I paired it with Bashful Blue cs. Added a little bling with a rhinestone brad. The covers are cardboard from food packaging with the printed sides glued together with glue stick, then covered with DSP and CS on both sides. Totally a recycling project! Tell me what you think!

ETA: pic of the binding- I have gotten alot of questions about how this was bound so here is a pic.

I basically took a length of elastic cord (about 3x the length of the notebook) threaded it through the first hole so that half of the length was hanging out each side. Put one side though the same hole, then criss-crosses each end into the next hole. then threaded the longer end through hole # 2 again. Repeat across to the end and tie in a knot. It was helpful to keep a paper piercer or a needle handy to keep the holes all aligned. And you need to be sure not to pull the cord too tight or the pages won't turn :) Hope these directions are helpful.

Card Purse or Treat/gift Bag

I found another adorable idea while cruising on SCS and thought I would share it with you all. This is a card purse and it will hold 8 cards with envelopes. It could also hold all kinds of treats! It's pretty simple to make, if you don't take forever deciding how you want to embellish it, like me!

This is front view. The only thing not from SU is the patterned paper. I have had this paper for a couple ofr years. Before I became an SU demo, I bought almost every Die Cut With a View paper pack, so I have a TON of paper that I really love, and need to use! This DP is from the Pocket Full of Posies pack. Here are the rest of the supplies:

• Stamps: Yummy
• Paper: Blue Bayou, Barely Banana, Wild Wasabi
• Ink: Chocolate Chip, Blue Bayou, Pumpkin Pie, Barely Banana
• Accessories: Blue Bayou double stitched ribbon, CAD, eyelets, Big Shot with Simple Flower Embosslit and Little Leaves, nestabilities scallop oval dies, rhinestone brads, eyelet border punch, word window punch, dimensionals, sponge daubers

This is the inside view. This is a really fun project and turns out adorable! There is a tutorial and template for the pockets at Julie Buhler's blog here. Thank You Julie!

I hope you give it a try! I would love to see what you come up with. Please post a comment and link to your project.

Last Minute Valentines

The night before Valentine's Day, I took a few supplies, and some precut Top Note die cuts to work to make some Valentines for my coworkers during my break. While I was plugging away at them, Bekki, my partner in crime on night shifts, wanted to know if I could make her a card to give to her hubby. Well, I really didn't come prepared to make cards, just the little bag toppers seen here: I made one of these for each of the nurses in the Inpatient dept. In the little treat bags, I put Hersey's Treasures wrapped with an address label that I used the a Jumbo Wheel to decorate with hearts. I used Choc Chip and Real Red markers to ink the Yummy stamp. Everyone thought they were just adorable and kept asking where I got my ideas. I said, from my favorite website, http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/ of course!

ETA: I forgot to add that these treat bags were clearance from Target a couple years ago, and twice as long as I needed. So I cut them in half and stapled a folded 1/2" wide strip of paper to the bottoms of the 2 ends open top halves. Worked out great!

I had just enough paper to make a plain white card base that opened from the bottom. This is what we came up with:

Not bad for a limited supplies card, huh?! The bow is made out of a pink twist tie that came with the treat bags. I had to use a push pin and a Kleenex box to make the holes in the cardstock to attach the twist tie bow to the card. The hearts are a retired jumbo wheel called Lots of Hearts. The top image is from the Sale-A-Bration set Yummy from this year. The Happy Valentine's Day is from Holidays and Wishes. Talk about pulling it out of my !@##
Let me know what you think!

Lucky Me page and Beer Cheers card

Here are the projects we did for club this month. The theme is, guess what? St. Patrick's Day! The page and the card can be used for anything and the card is a great masculine all occasion card.

This page is a case of jazzescrapper from SCS here

This page will be about my oldest kids' friendship. They are 13 months apart and in the same grade since the 2nd grade. They have been asked if they are twins since David was 3 and Charlene was 2. They are as different as night and day in many ways, but they are both wonderful people. I love to see how well they get along and how they watch out for each other. They are close to each other in a way that I don't think me and my siblings ever were, and I find it so inspring. This picture was taken during our marathon session of picture taking this fall for family pictures, individual pictures and for Senior pics for David and Charlene. We decided to do them ourselves and they turned out pretty well! These 2 goofballs wanted to submit this as their senior photo for the yearbooks (they are in 2 different high schools-Charlene is in a charter school so she can focus on her artsy side). I of course vetoed that. But I still love this picture :)

• Stamps: Wanted, Typeset Alpha Lower (retired), and Sanded BG
• Paper: Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter, Kraft, Whisper White, retired DSP from Christmas 07
• Ink: Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter, Close to Cocoa
• Accessories: Heart to Heart punch, Corner Rounder punch, white gel pen

1. Cut SS cs to 7-3/4"x12", WW to 4-1/2"x12", Kraft to 8"x11" and 4-1/4"x6-1/4", DSP to 3"x12", HH to 4-1/2"x6-1/2". Cut some 1/2" and 1" wide strips from scraps of SS. Punch 4 of the largest heart on the punch in HH.
2. Use SS ink to stamp medallion from Wanted randomly over the large SS piece. Use corner rounder on 2 corners on a long side. Ink edges with SS ink pad.
3. Use Close to Cocoa ink to stamp the Sanded BG all over the large Kraft piece. Use corner rounder on 2 corners on long side. Ink edges with Close to Cocoa ink pad.
4. Ink edges of white piece with SS ink pad.
5. Use grid paper to help line up and glue together the large SS and WW pieces to make a 12"x12" page.
6. Adhere the large Kraft piece to the page as shown.
7. Ink edges of the DSP strip with Close to Cocoa. Adhere to page.
8. Stamp your title in HH on the 1" strips of SS and cut the words apart. Adhere to page as desired.
9. Cut the 1/2" strips of SS to 4" long, then adhere to page as shown. These are for journaling. Adhere only as many as you need. You can write journaling between the strips also if you have a lot to write :)
10. Adhere your matted photo to page. All done!

• Stamps: Itty Bitty Backgrounds, Cheers to You, Bella's Border wheel
• Paper: Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter, Kraft, Whisper White
• Ink: Sage Shadow, Handsome Hunter, Chocolate Chip. Apricot Appeal, Summer Sun, and Pumpkin Pie markers
• Accessories: Paper piercer with Mat Pack, 2 way glue pen, Dazzling Diamonds glitter, Crystal Effects, gold brads

1. With 3-1/2"x2" piece of WW cs, stamp Cheers to You and the mug in Choc Chip and ink edges with Choc Chip ink pad.
2. Color the mugs with the markers, starting in the center with the AA, then around the AA with SS, then around the SS with PP. You can also go over the letters of Cheers to You with the SS marker.
3. Use 2 way glue pen to the foam and the sprinkle with dazzling diamonds and tap off excess.
4. Use the Crystal Effects to apply an even layer over the mug and handle. Set aside to dry-it will take about 1 hour to dry.
5. Stamp the bubble like stamp from Itty Bitty BG in SS on card base.
6. Use Bella's Border wheel in HH ink on the 1-1/4"x4-1/4" strip of HH. Ink Edges with Choc Chip ink pad.
7. With the 4"x2-1/4" piece of Kraft, randomly stamp the mug in Choc Chip , then ink the edges with the Choc Chip ink pad.
8. Ink edge of the 1/2"x4-1/4" strip of WW cs with Choc Chip ink pad. Adhere to the right side of card base approx. 1/2" from edge.
9. Adhere the HH strip slightly overlapping edge of WW strip.
10. Use paper piercer and Mat pack to make line of 3/16" apart holes. Then put 3 gold brads in through the holes.
11. Adhere the Kraft piece as shown.
12. When the mugs are dry, adhere to card as shown. All Done!

And everyone has decided to not do Christmas cards to exchange. We are going to do any/all occasion cards instead as some of our group to photo Christmas cards each year. And no one else had any done, so next month we will get to see all of your creativity!

February Stamp Club Tonight!

Tonight is going to be another fun night for the girls. I can't wait to see what everyone has done for the new monthly Christmas card swap! Here is mine:

I just have a thing for Kraft paper right now. I've always loved it, but haven't used it much lately. And this stamp set seems to be a very well put together set. I find myself using the whole set almost every time I use ANY of it!

• Stamps: A Cardinal Christmas
• Paper:Kraft, Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze, Holiday Treasures DSP
• Ink: Close to Cocoa, Kiwi Kiss(inside)
• Accessories: Earth Elements Watercolor Wonder Crayons, blender pen, Kiwi Kiss ribbon, 2 way glue pen, Romantic Red glitter, Designer Label and Large Oval punches

I will take pictures of everyone else's tonight and post them for everyone to love :)

This is a sneak peek of the card we are doing tonight. Love how that mug looks like glass? I'll show you how to do that tonight.

This is a sneak peek of the scrapbook page we are doing. This is a 4 leaf clover out of heart punches. Way to multi-purpose it huh!

And don't forget that this is Sale-A-Bration season! Lots of lovely stuff to earn!