Girls' Night Out

WOW!!! What a way for me to start the weekend! I've had a somewhat rough week. My daughter is teething even though she is only 4 months old and has been teething for the last 5 weeks or so, my son joined Cub Scouts this week which required some running, I went to visit a friend who just had her super-cute baby and of course there was all the usual "stuff" that I am required to do as The Mommy.

Thanks to some lovely women at church, actually all of the women at our church are lovely but two in particular hooked up an awesome GNO for us this evening. Eight cards for us to stamp after a delicious potluck dinner because that is what lovely Methodist women do. Is there a better way to spend Friday night? I think not!

Now, if you haven't taken advantage of your demonstrator's clubs or camps, please do so. You will not regret it. If your demonstrator doesn't do these, let them know that you are interested. I say this out of experience because as a demonstrator I had no clue about such things. Obviously the best part of stamping is creating something unique that speaks to you and hopefully the person you've made it for but clubs and camps take it a step beyond that. This evening I chatted with women that I see all the time at church but maybe don't always get to talk with. I also had a chance to see products that I own being used in a different way which is a big plus because I'm sure it will save me from buying something that I don't need. I'm sure my husband is happy about that too. I guess for me, stamps and friends together are like my very own "chicken soup for the soul". It's a reboot for more than just my attitude, it's one for my creativity as well. Sometimes I just find myself in a rut and nothing gets the hamster moving on that wheel better than seeing things in a new light.

I recently added the scans of cards that I have done recently. Some are my own layouts and some are courtesy of camps and clubs. I want to support these women in what they do so I'll be creating a new section this week that will feature those cards and give credit to those who did the cutting work so I could do the gluing. These women are also more than thrilled to hold the aforementioned teething 4 month old. These women make me so happy!

Happy New Year...

I know, it's a little late in the year for that but I've been busy and I swear it was only yesterday that we were snowed in for 3 weeks. Of course I also feel like there's no way in the world that my daughter is going to hit 18 weeks this Friday.

I mentioned in my last post that I had been making cards to send overseas. I did make some cards but they never made it overseas. It's not surprising. Let me put it this way, it's a good thing a human pregnancy goes for 40 weeks. I'm not sure what else my daughter would have broken if she had remained in utero any longer.

Obviously after putting out lots of pregnant woman effort I didn't want the cards I made to go to waste. Through Facebook I found a wonderful group, Operation Write Home. Please, please, please take the time to visit them. www.operationwritehome.org

The cards that I will be sending are pretty basic. I did make some of the work hard on myself because I started from scratch with everything. I always do my best to make sure that I am extremely thrifty with my supplies and in this case because the idea was quantity as well as quality, I made the cards from basic white card stock that I'm pretty sure I bought from Walmart. On top of that, I layered patterned paper that was cut from 12x12 sheets that I found at Michael's in the $1 bins. The stamps I used were from Close to My Heart and I used Stampin' Up! ink. As you can see in the pictures, the layouts themselves are minimal but the end result is still pretty snazzy.

This is something that I fully intend on continuing to do in the future so I went ahead yesterday and made a small investment in two OWH stamps. I believe my total was about $10 and that was including shipping. The shippers for OWH do have a stamp of their own but when you watch the video on the website, it quickly becomes apparent that they are taking on a huge task as it is and I don't think the kitty is much help. ;)

(Pictures coming as soon as I find the scanner, lol)

Thankful...

Well, clearly I have explaining to do! My last post was in November, of last year. I've been busy? It wouldn't be a lie. It wouldn't be an exact truth either because I've spent much of the last year doing nothing in between great spurts of too much and for that, I'm extremely thankful. Why would I be thankful that I was run ragged and spent the last 12 months in a blur? Simple. The only cooking I had to do yesterday was making sure I ingested enough carbs to keep my 32 week unknown gender of a baby happy. Yup, on May 25th I found out that I was pregnant with my second child. It was my son's first Field Day and I, on a whim, decided to take that pregnancy test as early as possible. Just to know and to be brutally honest, so I wasn't ambushed at said Field Day. I have lots of those "women problems" as my brother puts it. I took that test, was giddy as could be, made my phone calls, text messages and told as many other friends as possible that day. In the real world I'm not so good at keeping certain things secret.

Now, here's the thing. When I was pregnant with my son, who is now 6, I had a pretty mild pregnancy. Nausea was a daily thing but random and by about 14 weeks, gone completely. Every now and then from there on out, I might be hit with something that would trigger an "ugh" feeling but it wasn't horrible. THIS, this that I have been experiencing for about a week before I took that pregnancy test? It has been horrible. I spent most of the first trimester on the couch, watching my son play Legos and watch tv. I had a Godsend in the form of Zofran and eventually, I was able to get back on my feet. I had a myriad of issues with this pregnancy and again, while I am extremely thankful, it has been rough. Everything non-essential fell to the wayside. Sometimes, showers were non-essential.

Here I am, with less than 10 weeks to go and because of my child being completely uncooperative at the 20 week ultrasound, I am totally unprepared. Since I haven't been able to work on the nursery, do the baby wash or even buy things, I've spent my time organizing myself and working on crafts and cards. I've hinted to Santa that perhaps a 10 inch Acer would be an appropriate gift for me. Obviously I can't lug around the 17 inch Dell with a baby and it would take up so much room in the diaper bag...

It's obvious that I've played this game with hubby before.

Anyways, like I said, I have been working on projects. I have a wonderful Stampin' Up! demonstrator who I will link to soon. She hosts workshops and those have been a blessing for me. I have some beautiful cards to share from those workshops plus many of my own creations. I've also begun making cards to include with a friend's shipments for Adopt-a-Platoon with our church and will show those as well.

In the meantime, I'm going to tackle the housekeeping basics while my son gets started on some Christmas crafts. I'll be sure to share those too, sooner than later!

Birthday Blues...and Browns!

I am a huge fan of Vera Bradley. I adore several of their patterns, the color combinations are so beautiful. There are some that I've hated in the catalog and then find myself drooling over in person. It's a bad addiction, what can I say?

I'm not alone in my addiction. I have several friends that are also guilty of stockpiling their favorite prints. This particular pattern debuted in January of 2006 and I have yet to find someone who doesn't love it.

This year marked the 30th birthday of myself and two of my best friends. One friend is such the fan that she wanted the invitations to her party to be Java Blue. To the best of my knowledge, Vera Bradley doesn't carry 30th Birthday invitations in their stationary line. So what's a gal to do? Easy...



So, while it's not the exact colors, I'd have to say pretty darn close. I started with a pack of white, pre-scored cards purchased from Walmart. These are great to have on hand since you can run them through a printer before starting, envelopes are included and in addition to being scored, they are a nice weight. Just heavy enough to use them as a base.

I started out with Stampin' Up!'s Paisley background stamp with Chocolate Chip ink. After that it was as easy as cutting and trimming here and there, using a variety of punches with a generic greenish-blue shade and inking on "Celebrate" in SU's Taken with Teal ink. When a 7 year old can point out that it looks like Java Blue, you know you've done it, lol!

Prior to this particular layout, I had worked on something else. It didn't come together as an invite but instead became a great greeting card.



I started with SU's Chocolate Chip, Tempting Turquoise and Whisper White cardstock. Using their Polka Dots and Petals stamp set seemed a no brainer when I pulled out my Paisley embossing folder for the Cuttlebug. A little white embossing powder for the greeting and flower gave it a little extra pop. My favorite add-ons seem to be the classic silver brad, mini-sized of course. After writing "Even hitting the big 30" it was a great card for my friend's suprise party.

It Runs in the Family!

I'll be catching up on Holiday content this week but I wanted to share this. My 5 year old son is just as addicted to stamping as I am. For Father's Day this year, I cut my apron strings and let him create his own card. You have no idea how hard this was for me! I have issues, control issues and while stamping is forgiving and lenient with the do-overs, I still freak.

I turned control over to him and I was NOT sad to do so at all! The colors are all his choosing as well as the stamp set and stamping. Behold...




I was so impressed! The first thing I realized is just how different the male eye is in regards to color. I never would have used charcoal and orange together and my instinct with a card is to make it pretty. My son had no problem telling me that a card for Daddy wasn't supposed to be pretty!

For me, this was a wonderful reminder of less is sometimes more!

Finding the time...

Obviously this is something that I am working on as a stamper! Right now I have a growing stack of sketches, project pictures and of course, a number of entries that are waiting to be edited and posted. My goal for this week is to have at least three postings up and to have the page setup finished.

Since I set up the page I did have a little bit of delay to contend with. Interestingly enough, I had been locked out while it was determined whether or not I was a spammer. After that was resolved, I was focused on my first favor project. Of course I have pictures to share so expect to see them soon!

Punch it up a bit...

Major apologies for being ridiculously neglectful on my postings! It's sad!

I wanted to use this post to focus on punches. When I started scrapbooking, I purchased a variety of scissors and had a small selection of cutting templates. In hindsight, when my husband was asking if I understood how time consuming that would all be, I really wish I had considered what he was saying. Anytime I've wanted to quickly produce a card it needed to be pretty basic. If I'm looking for a start to finish project that will take no more than 30 minutes, having to sit and snip for 20 of those minutes is unrealistic.

On occassion I will do a card workshop for my chapter of the MOMS Club. It can't be stressed enough that these cards need to be simple and inexpensive to make. The last workshop that was scheduled was for everday cards. These aren't my favorite cards to make. I always feel that I'm lacking a theme and they always seem so blah to me when finished. Thankfully the county called a snow day and our workshop was cancelled. I was absolutely relieved because what you are about to see, is pretty bad.

Wow! How flat and boring is that? I spent well over an hour on this particular card and obviously couldn't get it together. I loved the color palette I chose and I was even happy with the general layout. I started with a 5" x 6 1/2" card made from Stampin' Up's cardstock in Tempting Turquoise. I used their background stamp, "Polka Dot" with Tempting Turquoise ink. When I do a workshop for the MOMS Club, I try and use one set of stamps for 3 - 5 cards. The set of choice this go-round was the "Just Like You" set. An eye-balled square of Whisper White cardstock was used for the flowers. This was an aspect I struggled with. I was looking for something that would pop against the Tempting Turquoise but admittedly, I'm terrified of clashing. Using Stampin' Up's markers, I applied Rose Red, Certainly Celery and Summer Sun directly to the stamp and then employed the "huff and puff" method of remoistening the stamp. This is another of those techniques that I was completely unaware of. The name, as far as I know, is all my own. I then used the large 6-petal blossom stamp with Rose Red and cut out the shape. I used a silver brad in the center and with my fingernails, slightly curled the petals. When I first layed it all together, it was definitely not working for me. I then tried to drag the edges of the white across the Summer Sun pad. I've used this trick before but I think it's one that's better suited for a much darker color or at least something that can stand out against the background color.

Looking at the card, it's ok. Seeing that this was the mock-up, we can ignore the scribbles from the marker. It was late, I was experiencing burn-out and I made the decision to put the card away and come back to it with a fresh approach later.

Later came and with it, a Stampin' Up! order. Because of my frustrations with this particular card, I made it a point to purchase punches. I had a hunch that the card needed more layers and depth. I wasted so much time trying to cut out the blossom stamp because I had a vision in mind of a flower over the corner. I didn't want to mat the white but I felt like that particular piece needed something of an anchor. As soon as I opened the shipment, I tackled this card and what a difference the second time around.

As you can see, the card is still simple but has more depth. In less time than it took to stamp and trim the original blossom, I was able to punch and layer the new flower and photo corner. As with most of my experiences with trial and error, I think my first attempt was too complicated even though the results were so plain.

I suppose the most important lesson I took away from this card is to stop attempting to reinvent the wheel. If you have a budget, make sure to invest in a few basic "embellishment" punches. What you spend in cost will save you so much more in time!

Happy Stampin!
Nikki