Saturday, April 30, 2011

It's release day!

Join us tonight right here in the TSG Forum
for the May Release Party Chat!!
Have you signed up for the Mother Of All Blog Hops yet?! You still have a few days to join in on this amazing blog hop where there are over $400 worth of prizes available!!!
Check out this page for all of the info!

Friday, April 29, 2011

You still have time to win stamp sets!!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Blossom By Blossom sneak peeks!!

Welcome to our last day of sneak peeks! For the last few days, the Trendsetters have been showing off some fabulous new stamp sets that will be released Saturday evening (after the release party chat) and today is no different!! You are going to looooove this set illustrated by Torico <3

If you made your way here from Iwona's blog, you are on the right track! If not, you may want to head over to the TSG Blog for all of the details about this hop and to find out how you can win the set being shown off today!


Blossom By Blossom is a 4X8 stamp set that includes a total of 22 stamps and will sell for $18.
I had so much fun creating my 3D card for the Confidential blog hop that I wanted to do a similar card for today's sneak peeks. I love creating the background scenes with designer paper because it is so quick and easy (even thought the rest of the card isn't lol!) and it gives such a great look to the overall finished product.

I started by creating the background layer and adhering it to the white card base. The rest of the images were then stamped onto a separate piece of cardstock, colored with Prismacolor pencils, blended with OMS, cut out and layered together using dimensionals of different thickness. It's been awhile since I've used any glitter on my cards so I've decided to break it out and use it more often :)

Close up so you can see the dimension:
Now hop on over to Jessie's blog to see what fabulousness (yes it's a word lol!) she has to share with you!

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Lighten Up sneak peeks!

Get out those stunna' shades cause you're gonna need them today! We are showing off a new set illustrated by Torico and I'm telling you now, you are gonna love it!! If you made your way here from Iwona's blog you are on the right track. If not, you may want to head on back to the TSG Blog for all the info about this Blog Hop Challenge as well as to find out how you can win the set being shown off today!

Lighten Up is a 4X6 stamp set that includes a total of 20 stamps and will sell for $15.



My sneak peek card was totally inspired by this fabulous one made by Tobi. I just love how these colors really stand out against the black and kraft cardstock, so pretty!
Now hop on over to the fabulous Jessie's blog
to see what she has to share!

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Confidential / Garden Of Life sneak peeks!

Hello everyone, welcome to our first day of sneak peeks! If you made your way here from the talented Iwona's Blog, you are on the right track. If not, you may want to hop on over to the TSG Blog for all of the info about this hop and to find out how you can win the sets being shown off today simply by blog hopping!

Confidential is a 4X6 stamp set that includes a total of 12 stamps and will sell for $15.

 The first set we are showing you is called Confidential and it was illustrated by yours truly :) One of the things that I love about this set is that the size of it works perfectly to be used with other TSG stamp sets (like Domestic Goddess, A Drink A Day, Dadisms, Home Sweet Home, and many many more!!) for more versatility than you can shake a stick at ;)

For the card I made today, I combined the new set Confidentially with the stamp sets Daily Grind (the large tree plant thing and coffee cup on the desk) as well as Home Sweet Home (picture frame on wall). The images from the new set are the desk/girl, laptop, stack of papers, vase of flowers in the picture frame and sentiment) See? I told you the versatility is awesome!!
The images were stamped onto white cardstock and colored with Prismacolor pencils, blended and cut out before adhering the background layer. I created the office scene with two different designer papers separated by a thin strip of white cardstock that I drew a line across to make it look like baseboard trim. Easy peasy :)


Garden of Life is a 3X4 stamp set that includes a total of 7 stamps and will sell for $7.
For this next card I used the soon to be released mini set Garden Of Life illustrated by Chris. I stamped the main image in the center and then the larger single sunflowers on the outsides before finishing the edge of the scene with a Copic multiliner. The image was than colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with OMS.
The next stop on this hop is my girl Jessie and I'm sure she's got some yummy eye candy to share with you!

Monday, April 25, 2011

Getting sketchy with TSG

Are you guys ready for release week to begin??? Before we started with the sneak peeks on Tuesday, we've got this fun sketch for you to play along with while you so patiently wait ;) Check out the TSG Blog for all of the details about this challenge as well as to find out how you can win a TSG gift certificate by simply playing along!!
But just in case you may be a little impatient (like myself lol!) here is a little sneak peek of one of the four brand new stamp sets that will be released Saturday evening after the release party chat :D

This set is called Lighten Up and is illustrated by Torico. Make sure you stop by again on Wednesday because you aren't going to want to miss out on seeing more examples of this fabulous set!!
Stamps: Lighten Up
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black, Momento Toffee, SU Early Espresso
Paper: Very Vanilla, Early Espresso, DP by Carolyn Gavin
Accessories: Nestabilities, SU punches, SU border punch, corner rounder, ribbon, sewing machine, dimensionals, Prismacolor pencils, OMS

Recipe:
* Create card base from Very Vanilla card stock, round bottom corners
* Create Early Espresso layer, round corners, adhere to card base.
* Cut DP sections, stamp sentiment on larger section, round bottom right corner and adhere to card base.
* Sew ribbon onto smaller DP section, round bottom left corner, adhere scallop border to back and adhere to card base.
* Cut circle with Nestabilities, stamp lamp image, mask, add nestie frame back onto circle to use as a mask and sponge lightly around in Toffee ink. Mask bottom and sponge with Early Espresso ink.
* Color image with pencils, blend and adhere image to card base using dimensionals.
* Stamp sentiment onto Vanilla card stock, punch with SU punch and mat with another SU punch layer in Early Espresso. Adhere to card base with dimensionals.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Happy Easter!

I hope that you are all enjoying a wonderful Easter weekend! The weather has been absolutely gorgeous for us :) I wanted to share this card that I made last week using the Buckets Of Love stamp set.

Supplies-
Stamps: Buckets Of Love
Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black
Paper: White, Black
Accessories: Prismacolor Pencils, OMS, dimensionals, scallop corner punch,

Recipe:
* Create card base from black cardstock, punch corners.
* Create white layer, punch corners and stamp sentiment in upper right corner
* Create two masks of the eggs bunch image
* Starting on the lower left corner of the white cardstock, stamp eggs, mask, stamp on either side. Continue moving the masks and stamping until you have a desired amount. Color and blend. Adhere to card base.
* Stamp bucket with eggs onto separate piece of cardstock, color, cut out (I used an x-acto knife) and adhere to card base using dimensionals.

Friday, April 22, 2011

Come chat with us tonight!

Join us tonight right here in the TSG Forum
for our weekly Friday Night Chat!

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Love Birds

Happy Hump Day everyone! We've been having some beautiful weather here in the Pacific Northwest (by beautiful I mean that there were only sporatic showers instead of constant rain lol!) so we've been spending lots of time out side when we can.

I made this card for this week's TSG Challenge which is all about monocromatic. I cheated a tiny bit since I used two neutrals instead of just one (black and white). But the pink and red totally count ;)

Stamps: Love Birds
Ink: Momento Tuxedo BLack, Blushing Bride (I think? lol!)
Paper: Poppy Parade, white, black
Accessories: Corner rounder, Prismacolor pencils, OMS, SU scallop border punch, flower ribbon, pearls, dimensionals

Recipe:
* Create card base, round corners
* Make white layer, round corners, stamp sentiment repeatedly in pink, stamp stand, bird and sentiment in black.
* Cut strip of black cardstock, round corners and use scallop border punch along bottom. Adhere ribbon and finish by adhering to white panel. Adhere panel to card base.
* Stamp image onto separate piece of cardstock, color, blend, cut out and adhere to card using dimensionsals.

Friday, April 15, 2011

Side By Side

Join us tonight right here in the TSG forum for our Friday night chat!

Here is a card I made awhile ago using an older TSG set called Side By Side. It was so easy to make and I love how it turned out!

Stamps: Side By Side
Ink: Early Espresso, Momento Toffee
Paper: DP by K&Co., Early Espresso, White
Accessories: Sponge, scallop Nestability, ribbon, sewing machine, dimensionals, corner rounder
Have a great weekend everyone!

Thursday, April 14, 2011

My friend... Pickle.

Sorry for the absence on the blog but between this weekend's festivities, Kylie's birthday and the girls going back to school, I just have not had the time or mojo to stamp! I finally forced myself to spend some time in my craft room though so I could get this week's TSG Challenge (to use vellum) created.

Ok, so I have this friend. Let's call her..... Pickle (names have been changed to protect the quirky). I was lucky enough to hang out with Pickle (and a few other Trendsetters) in the beginning of February and let me tell you, those girls are crazy! Sooooooo not mild mannered like myself ;) Well during one of our meal times, our gracious host Corinna had made delicious chili for us as well as put out a bunch of sides to accompany it. You should have seen the look on Kayla's (my 5 year old) face when Pickle asked Corinna if she had any pickles for her to add to her chili!! I have to tell you, I don't think we'll ever let Danielle, ahem, Pickle live that down lol!

So when Chloe and I were at Michael's a couple of weeks ago, we came across some scratch n sniff stickers and would you believe it? They had pickle smelling stickers! I kid you not!! So of course I had to buy them so that I can send them to my dear friend that I consider one of my mojo makers :)

And here is the card that I created for this week's TSG Challenge that I will send to accompany the pickle stamps:
 Stamp set used: Flowers Of Happiness


Saturday, April 9, 2011

Happy Birthday Kylie! & an update

Eight years ago today, a beautiful (and oppinionated lol!) baby graced our lives and made Matt and I parents. This has been a tough year for Kylie but she has taken everything with an amazing strength and determination that I am so very proud of!

On Tuesday Kylie had a follow up appointment for her eyes where we discovered that she now has cataracts forming because of the Prednisone she is one. As of right now they aren't interfering with her vision and since we are still working on tapering her off of the Prednisone, our hope is that they won't grow in size (if they did grow, we would have to start talking about surgery). We have another appointment in 3 months so that we can keep an eye on this issue. (Get it? Eye?? LOL! Hey, if you can't find the humor in these things, you will go crazy. Trust me ;)

Wednesday was her monthly check up at Seattle Children's Hospital and I am happy to say that everything is looking great and her blood tests came back awesome!! Kylie also had to get xrays of her ankles done because they have been a bit sore lately. Because of the Prednisone she is on, there is a possibility of her bones becoming more fragile so we have to be a lot more careful than we have been in the past. The results of the xray looked good too so for right now we just keep on, keepin' on :)

After we were done at Children's, my best friend took Kylie shopping for her birthday and bought her a new outfit. Here is Kylie rocking it for her 8 year old photoshoot we did in our back yard.


Happy birthday to one of the bravest and strongest girls I know, we love you so much!!!

Friday, April 8, 2011

My little friend is finally finished!

It took me over two days to finish this project but I must admit that I'm pretty happy with the way it came out :) I love all of the funny sentiments that are included in the My Little Friend gnome set and I knew that I had to find a way to be able to incorporate as many as possible into one project lol. My solution? The word wheel! Now eight different sentiments will rotate with a simple spin of the dial.
 Pretty cool huh? Yeah I thought so too ;)

Oh and did you notice that this also goes along with this week's TSG Challenge which is all about round this week?? I'm on a roll I tell ya! (No pun intended. Well, maybe a little bit lol)

And of course as if that wasn't enough, I just HAD to make all of my design elements 3D as well. It was VERY time consuming but very worth it! The depth of all of the images really gives this project a little extra special lovin' ;)

But that's not all! I also made a TSG Tips & Tricks page showing you step by step how to create this project along with the templates I designed so that all you have to do is print and play!! You can download all of the goodies right here on the My Little Friend Tips & Tricks page!

Side view of my images
 All images used on this project are from the My Little Friend stamp set and are stamped in Momento Tuxedo Black ink before being colored in with Prismacolor pencils and blended with OMS.

 
And don't forget to join us right HERE on the
TSG forum for our weekly Friday Night Chat!

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Dance

Hello everyone and happy Wednesday! I have had a surplus of mojo lately and you can bet that I've been working it to my advantage and stamping whenever I can before it disappears once again ;) Just the other night I was able to create 4 cards and now I'm working on a fun project that I can't wait to finish and share with all of you!

The card that I'm sharing with you today is one of the four that I made the other night. I used the beautiful mini set Dance. The flowers actually came out of my 'discard' box which is where I put images that I color/put together but don't use for one reason or another. The flowers were stamped onto watercolor paper and embossed in black before being watercolored with SU markers. The flowers were then cut out and layered using dimensionals before I added a pearl to the center. 
Stamps: Dance
Ink: Early Espresso
Paper: Early Espresso, Very Vanilla, K&Co.
Accessories: Corner rounder,

Recipe:
* Create card base, round bottom corners
* Cut Very Vanilla layer, stamp sentiment and leaves. Adhere to card base
* Cut DP, mat with Early Espresso and adhere to vanilla layer
* Adhere flower to card base with red line tape

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

In All The World

This week's challenge over on the TSG Blog is all about round! The goal of the challenge is to create a card that doesn't have any angles. We want circular, rounding goodness ;) Check out the TSG Blog for all the details about the challenge and how you can win a TSG gift certificate simply by playing along!

For my card, I used the mini set called In All The World and instead of using the cute dog image from the set, I chose to use the butterfly 'accessory' images instead.
Stamps: In All The World
Paper: White, Soft Sky, Early Espresso, DP by K&Co.
Ink: Early Espresso, Momento Toffee
Accessories: Nestabilities, sewing machine, rhinestones, dimensionals, Crumb Cake SU marker, sponge

Recipe:
* Create card base from Soft Sky cardstock using a large scallop Nestabilities die, sponge lightly around edges using Toffee ink
* Die cut white circle, stamp sentiment in right corner
* Die cut circle from K&Co cut off a little more than half, mat in Early Espresso, stitch and adhere to white circle.
* Stamp butterflies in white cardstock, cut out. Stamp butterflies onto DP, cut out wings and adhere to white butterflies. Adhere to card base using dimensionals.