MERRY CHRISTMAS

I want to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas today!  I am leaving you with a few creations I did not have a chance to blog before today. 

I hope this holiday season brings joy and peace to all who are celebrating! 

For the Bride to be...

My husband's niece is getting married soon and on Sunday I attended her bridal shower. I adore Jodi and her fiance Chris and she is going to be a gorgeous bride! They are such a fun couple and I know their wedding is going to be a blast! She is a huge fan of leopard and polka dots and although it would have been obvious to go in that direction, I decided I just had to use the gorgeous new Paper Trey Ink set In Bloom. I had seen so many amazing cards made with it!

Oh, and I am soooo glad that I didn't go with leopard! She got more lingerie and towels and items with a leopard print-yikes!


So I stamped the flowers and leaves on Prism cardstock. The large flower was stamped three times and each section cut out and popped up on each other. I colored with Prisma pencils and oms where each layer meets, just making it a bit deeper. Then I used my Quickie glue pen to add ultra fine glitter all around it. The base paper is Vintage Cream also from PaperTrey and I stamped it with a linen bg stamp, with a Versa Magic Dew Drop in Wheat, that I bought unmounted at a stamp show a few years ago but I can't remember who makes it... I finished it off with a piece of PaperTrey ribbon and a button from my stash with their awesome twine threaded through it! This picture does not do it justice by any means...it's really stunning irl (if I do say so myself!).

The next pictures are the front, back, and a few inside pages of the recipe book that I made for her. Oh how I struggled with the binding! I wanted to use my Bind It All but I couldn't figure out how to get the holes evenly spaced at each end of the cover. I spent so much time on it! I just gave up and went for rings instead.

I had completed all of the inside pages first and went whimsical. But when it came to doing the cover I was just at a loss. I had lots of small images but nothing that I felt was appropriate for the front. I ended up making it coordinate with the card instead.

These are all recipes that are tried and true and many that I make often. I wish I could say that I created them, but they are just a compilation of some favorites that I have found over the years. I thought of a few more after I was done, but I thought that making more pages to add would be a good first anniversary gift! Jodi, bless her heart, thinks I am the worlds best cook! I really have just found some of the best cooks and copy their recipes!

All paper used inside the book, with exception to the white cardstock the recipe is printed on, is from Paper Trey.

The cover paper is Bo Bunny black swiss dots. And the interior is an Imaginesce ( red with large pink dots) and Doodlebugs (black on white dots).

The images are from all different sources. Many of them are from Whipper Snapper sets created by Anna Wight, such as Chicken's in the Kitchen and What's Cookin'.


Several of these recipes are from Cathy, affectionately known as the Noble Pig. If you like to cook, and have a good sense of humor, you must head over there now! She creates or adapts recipes, and if they pass her test she passes them on to us...step by step with great photos! Her blog is a wealth of culinary information and lots of other stuff too!

This clam is from Outlines. Isn't he cute? Too bad he's gonna be dinner! I got this recipe from my mom and she doesn't remember where it originated from. There are lots out there that are similar but not the same as this one...and it's always a big hit!


You don't know what you're missing until you make this recipe from Pioneer Woman!



I had to add the disclaimer...not that the recipient might notice any boo boo's but they're there!

I apologize for the less than quality photo's. I have light box in my basement in my craft area, but several overhead lights have burned out and my two little standing lights for the box were really not strong enough to light the whole book. And of course, I finished last minute and just photographed this book minutes before I had to jump into the shower and get ready to go to the shower!

If anyone wants further details on stamps used or even recipes, please email me! I am more than happy to get the info for you!

Some crazy cutting!

You know those stamps that you absolutely have to have but then you find that they are so much work your not sure you made a good decision? Okay, I love Outlines...I really love their stamps and designs but they are a lot of work! And as much as I put into this card I would have really liked to do more but since I waited until the last minute this is how it was finished.

This is actually two collage stamps from Outlines, here and here, that I put together to create this square 5 1/4 inch card.

I have so many scraps since I stamped both images 4 times that I am halfway to making another one. I also have a winter one which I should get started on right now so it's done in time to mail for Christmas! Below is a shot a little closer so you can see more detail. I do have some elements popped up twice like the sunflowers and centers, but I didn't really do a good job of showing that in the photo-sorry!

I used quite a bit of Sakura Star Dust glitter pen to make the images pop, beside all the dimensional foam, but it is hard to really see the detail in the photo. It looks kind of flat here, but it is really much prettier irl, lol! I think maybe my gems are a bit over the top too, but who says a Thanksgiving card can't be flashy? I also used some Liquid Pearls in pale yellow for the flowers and one of the frames. This is for my niece and nephew who live in Florida with their maternal grandmother and I think they will like the glitz on it.

I hope everyone has a wonderful Wednesday...hey, we're halfway there!!!

Stamps: Outlines

Paper: PTI and Bazzill solid cardstock

Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black

Accessories: Prisma/OMS, gems, Sakura Stardust pen, Gelly Roll pen/black, Prima flower, Copper Stickles, lots of foam dots!!

The Butterfly and the Overlay...not a love story

So I saw this gorgeous card over on Michelle Zindorf's blog here and needed to try one myself. This card is my third (or is it fourth?) attempt. This one came out pretty good but I ended up doing it differently than Michelle. I stamped the butterfly and border image in Stazon on the transparency and flipped it over and colored it with Copics instead of alcohol ink. I think the problem I had is that I used a butterfly with large open wings the first few times and the alcohol inks separate and bleed into the next color and I didn't like that look on the large open wings. Using a much more detailed image with a lot of black lines would help to ease the transition between colors. I mean that "issue" with alcohol inks is exactly what I like about them but just not in this case. The first time I tried I used background paper that was too dark...next one I just smudged everything....I don't even remember the third one...yikes. Anyway, here's what I did:

The transparency and background were cut to 5 1/2 inches each and the finished card is 6x6. The bg paper is from Basic Grey Infuse and I stamped swirls on it from Fancy Pants Pollen Dust in Colorbox pigment cats eye inks in greens and white. The white I embossed white as well. Since the cats eye pads are a ColorBox Queue I don't know the color names. After I stamped and colored the transparency I layed it over the stamped bg and attached with brads. Then I layered the whole panel onto another Basic Grey paper...don't remember the line though and finished it with a ribbon. The butterfly and border stamp images are from Stampendous.

Okay, here's my second one below. I used the original technique from Michelle's blog. I thought the image disappeared into the background so I Stickled it...a lot! It's kinda funky, not sure how I feel about it so I didn't really finish it off with a ribbon or anything. It will sit for a while and maybe I will get a feel for something to do with it. The butterfly is from Outlines and the swirls Autumn Leaves VI

And here's my very first attempt...which doesn't look half bad after I look at number 2! This one again I used the alcohol technique. The background paper is BG Infuse which I stamped with several images, some from Stampendous and others from Autumn Leaves. I used a little white Prisma colored pencil to add highlights to the leaves. The butterfly is from Technique Tuesday and the swirls again from Autumn Leaves..v1 or 2 not sure...

Okay, and if Lynne is reading this, one of these cards might be for your birthday, so don't look!