Stamp Simply Thank You

This week, Sharon's Johnson's Stamp Simply Challenge #145 is a color challenge. The challenge colors are YELLOW and GRAYwith EITHER White or Ivory as your neutral and adding Black for a little POP if you so desire. I had this short piece of wide yellow striped grosgrain ribbon from SU that I have been wanting to use up. I started with that for my yellow piece, and built the rest of the card around it. I used this fabulous new stamp set I purchased from Waltzing Mouse Stamps called Very Vintage Labels #5. The stamps are designed to be compatible with Nestabilities Labels Five. Claire Brennan is the designer, and her stamps are gorgeous. There are many other sets in Claire's collection that are designed to coordinate with Spellbinders label dies. This set will get lots and lots of use. The possibilities are endless!! The sentiment is from Verve. I received it as a thank you gift with an order. Very elegant. I really love the way this card came out. Thanks for the inspiration Sharon!!!

Fourth Grade Memory Book

Each year, for the last four years, a friend of mine and I have worked with the kids in our children's classes to make memory books for their teachers as an end of year gift. There are two classes and 2 teachers. I have twins, so our family always has both teachers. Emile distributes the card stock to the class through our kids, and she makes photo collages from the year's activities for the book. I make the cover. The kids write, decorate, draw, attach photos - whatever they wish to do to contribute a page to the memory book. We decided that this would be our final year doing this. We are so glad we gave it one more go. One of the teachers was a brand new teacher. She did such a wonderful job with fourth grade. The kids loved her and she did so many great projects. As I read through the kids' memory pages, it was so evident that she really made an impact. The other teacher is a seasoned teacher. This was, however, the first time she received a gift like this from the hearts of the kids, and she loved it.

I forgot to take a picture of it at home, so here is a quick shot of it that I took with a colleague's camera. I CASE'd THIS creation from Theresa Momber using Back to School from Gina K. Designs. I stamped the globe and microscope images and used the masking technique to place the globe behind the microscope. I stamped the books image, cut it out and popped it up with dimensionals. I used Copics for coloring. The sentiment is from Papertrey Ink's Techer's Apple. I really love the way this came out, and I am so glad Emile and I did this one more time. The teachers were both very touched by this gift of the heart. The children were very proud of their memory book. It was a great way to end a very happy fourth grade year!

I had a stroke of genious when I thought to use my Just Rite 2" round stamper and 15 point Times New Roman font stamp set to personalize this graduation card design. I have made many of these and the kids just love them!!! I CASE'd THIS card by Debbie Olson, personalized my cards with the school colors, the school initials and the graduation year. The stamp set is "For the Graduate" from Papertrey Ink. I love how these turned out and I have made many of them for this year's grads.

Your Couch or Mine?

I have been having a lot of difficulty making time to stamp. Life is a little crazy lately, but what else is new? Anyway, I just LOVE this stamp set, "On My Couch" from Papertrey Ink. I stamped the images on watercolor paper and water colored them with Twinkling H2O's. This was my first try with them, and I was really pleased with the result. When I saw Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday Sketch #71, I knew just what to do with my image.

I turned the sketch on it's side to accommodate my sideways oval focal piece. I used "A Little Argyle", also from Papertrey Ink, to stamp the background right on the Rich Razzleberry cardstock. I made the side piece with Rich Razzleberry 5/8" polka dot grosgrain ribbon, Tempting Turquois 1/4" grosgrain ribbon, and Certainly Celery 1/2" grosgrain ribbon along with a paper scrap. Thanks for stopping by today!

Success & Dreams

"Tis the season for all kinds of celebrations, and I am trying to be ahead of the game. This is a graduation card for a friend's daughter.. her school colors are green & white. I love this new set from Papertrey Ink called "For the Graduate", and when I saw Jen del Muro's Skipping Stones Designs guest designer sketch for this week, I knew they would go together nicely. I really love this sketch.

There is some detail that you can't really see in the photo, but they really enhanced this card. The cap & tassel are stamped twice in black and cut out. I colored the cut out with a black gel glaze pen to give it some shine & texture. Also, the black circle in the middle of the focal point is cut from black glitter paper that I got at Target a while ago. I also used that paper for the star that is popped up on the greeting band. I am happy with the way it all came together.

Ingredients:

Stamps ~ Papertrey Ink's "For the Graduate".

Paper ~ Papertrey Ink White cardstock. Basic Black, Certainly Celery, Yo Yo Yellow, black glitter (unknown source), BasicGrey Origins DP.

Ink ~ Versafine Onyx Black.

Accessories ~ Nestabilities, Papertrey Ink Matstack 1 Die, Dimensionals, Swiss Dots EF, Sakura black glaze gel pen, atyou spica glitter pen, SY star punch.

Thanks for looking...

Dip It In Chocolate

I used Mercy's Tuesday Sketch #70 for this card. I had fun with it! I just love MFT Who's That Girl, and I love to paper piece. I came up with this creation using that combination.

I am trying to use up some old DSP. I chose Berry Bliss because it feels chocolate-y to me. I used some gold metallic paper I had in my Creative Memories paper stash for the box. I was thinking Godiva... I colored the chocolates with Copics and then I put a dot of white Liquid Applique on top of each chocolate and puffed them up with my heat gun to make it look like icing or marshmallow. I then added a dot of red on each puff with a Copic marker to make it look like a cherry. Fun! Thanks for stopping by today. It is a beautiful day here in Central NJ...

Here are the ingredients:

Stamps ~ MFT Who's That Chocoholic and Clearly Sentimental About Chocolate (Link unavailable at time of this posting).

Paper ~ Papertrey Ink White Cardstock, Purely Pomegranate, Close to Cocoa, Berry Bliss DSP.

Ink ~ Memento Rick Cocoa, VersaFine Vintage Sepia, Close to Cocoa.

Accessories ~ Purely Pomegranate 3/8" double striped grosgrain ribbon, Dimensionals, copper brads, Sponge, Copics, Liquid Applique, heat gun.

Time For Cake!

This is my take on this week's MFT Wednesday Stamp Club sketch, MFTWSC040710. I really enjoyed this one. I need a birthday card for my niece, and this is perfect for her.

I paper pieced this wonderful WTG image from MFT's "Lovin From The Oven" set (link to image not available at the time of this posting) with Basic Grey's Nook & Pantry DP, then I colored the skin and the spoon with Copics. I colored the inside of the bowl with copics to give the illusion of "batter" and to give it a little dimension, then I stamped some chocolate chips inside the bowl. I also added some dots to the outside of the bowl with a Copic marker to give it some texture. I used MFT's "Make The Date" for the words "Time" & "For", and "Lovin from the Oven" for the word "Cake".

The full list of ingredients are:

Stamps ~ MFT Lovin From the Oven and Make the Date.

Ink ~ Soft Suede, Memento Tuxedo Black.

Paper ~ Basic Grey's Nook & Pantry, Dusty Durango, Soft Suede, Chocolate Chip, Wild Wasabi, Neenah Solar White.

Accessories ~ Dimensionals, Nestabilities, Dusty Durango 1/2" Polka Dot grosgrain ribbon, Copics, 1 1/2" Aluminum White Circle Metal Edge Tag, Linen Thread.

Thanks for stopping in...