Hugs for a Friend

I have a friend who has maybe all the bellas from stampingbella. I borrowed this one to make a card for a friend. It is called huggybella. Isn't it cute? You will notice that the girls's outfits match the paper. It is pretty easy when your only copic colors are greens and blues. Makes your creative choices easier.

Bellarina for a Friend

I have a friend who is around 50. She has always wanted to take ballet, so at 50 years old she started taking classes. How cool is that? My husband and I were so impressed with her going for a lifelong dream that we wanted to do something nice for her. I made her this card with the bellarina from StampingBella and it turned out very nice; even my husband liked it!

Now, I don't actually own this stamp. Katie from PaperMakeup does. Besides being very nice and sweet, she has all the cool toys and shares them. Plus, I think she has nearly all the bellas. So, thanks to Katie, I made a very nice "for-no-reason-card" for a dear friend.

Blog Candy Giveaway

Suzanne Dean of Scrap Bitz is giving away some very cute blog candy from Katharina Frei (owner of Whiff of Joy). You should really check it out. The stamp is very cute! Even if you don't win, you should check out Katarina's shop. She has some very cute and fun stamps there.

Here is the giveaway and the super cute card she made with it.

Paper Pieced Cosmobella

One of the blogs I subscribe to is Card of the Week. They have such great ideas and a wonderful list of sources for new yummy stamps and papers. While catching up--I really subscribe to too many blogs with verbose people--I found a tutorial I actually tried. It is paper piecing. Yeah, the phrase looks funny, but the idea is to build your card up in smaller pieces by concentrating on the image that is stamped. Who, you may ask, is this wonderful person with the tutorial? It is Di on Stampin' with Di. She gave one of the better tutorials I have seen in a while.

The funny thing about stampers and tutorials is I find that sometimes they are kinda wonky. You get the artistic type to write out a detailed description of a multi step process that they did and something goes haywire. I can't tell you how many times I've read a tutorial that I've ended up having to figure out myself because the instructions are either unclear and/or wrong. Not so with Di. Hers are spot on and easy to follow.

So, go check her out! She has a wonderful blog with some fantastic cards on it.

By the way, I think my card turned out pretty darn good. Even my husband was impressed. So, now--you guessed it-- I need to get more stamps that will allow me to paper pierce to my heart's content!

Starving Artistamps Giveaway

Many of you who love papercrafts know of this company. They have some truly unique stamps out there. Well, they are getting ready to launch their new line and are starting with Halloween! I love Halloween and the stamps they are giving away to celebrate this launch are just too cute! Here they are:





Here are the rules for entering the giveaway: go to StarvingArtistStamps and comment on the blog. They will ask how you are promoting the new line and for contact information. They will use a random generator to select 3 winners to get one of the 3 pressings of the stamps above. Simple, isn't it? So, check out the blog and get your name in the drawing.

"Spread the word, people!"

Halloween!

I love Halloween! I really do. I love dressing, going to parties, taking the kids trick-or-treating and decorating the house! I'm almost as excited about making Halloween cards as making Christmas cards. Ok, probably more excited since I can' t exactly put bats and witches on Christmas cards. My family knows I'm a little "off", but that might throw them over the edge!

So, I made about 3 cards last night and this is my favorite! I embossed the bats onto the paper and love how they are raised and shiny. As you can see in the bottom picture, I put a matching page inside for writing sentiments.

I'll be posting more cards soon!

Birthday Party

On Saturday, my oldest and I went to a birthday party for a little girl from our playgroup. We had a wonderful time. It was nice to get some of the kids together. Since school started last week, we haven't been able to make many playdates at all.

It was a beautiful day out. The kids go to run around and get crazy. They had hot dogs for lunch then cake and ice cream. One of the dads gave all the kids straws to suck up the ice cream as it was melting. They had a blast with that part!

The card above is the one I made for the birthday girl. I wanted something sweet and fun. The sentiment at the bottom is "bird-day". The card itself is blue base with the yellow over half. I stamped white flowers on it and covered the seam with blue and white ribbon. The inspiration for this card was found on another site a very long time ago--so long I can't find the original anymore. That's what happens when you make cards and they sit around before you post them.

The below picture is my oldest. There were fuzzy hats and purses being handed out. The boys, of course, were the ones interested. So, as we left, they all had matching fuzzy purses and hats. My son found a spyglass somewhere and was playing with it. At the time of this post he is watching Dirty Jobs --you guessed it--wearing his hat.