Ladybug Rock by Diana

How cute is this little guy?! :) I've been meaning to post of pic of this for a few days and it keeps slipping my mind. This little ladybug was painted by my good friend, Diana Graff. She gave it to me as a thank you for some stuff that I gave her for her baby's room. I've had my eyes on these for a while, as have the kids when we go over for playdates. lol :) Diana has lots of different rocks painted among her gardens and inside her house. They're really cute! She's such an awesome artist. If you'd like one of these to brighten up your garden, she does sell them! Give me a shout and I can get you in touch with her. I think I may have to hire her to make me some more of the other styles that she has. They really do look cute in a flower garden. Hopefully the neighbourhood kids will leave them be! Thanks again so much, Diana! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Elegant Roses by Madge

I received this beautiful card in the mail today from Madge Haycock. It was a very welcome addition to my bills today. Getting a card in the mail along with bills, seems to let me forget about the bills for a bit and puts a smile to my face! lol It's one of the cards for the Canadian Card Exchange that I participate in. It's always fun to see what theme of card will come, this one by Madge is stunning. I love the colours she chose to use and the roses are just lovely! I hope you can see the shimmer and gloss that she added to the roses. I really like the spatter background and the oval window. Great colours on the leaves. Just beautiful, Madge, thanks so much! :)

A Different Tri-Fold Style Card

My friend, Catherine, sent me this link today for a card that she wanted to try, but was having trouble getting the cut and folds right. I told her that I'd play with it and see what I could come up with. This is my take on Lisa Hoekstra's tri-fold style card.

~First, I cut a piece of ruby red card stock that was 4.25" x 5.5."
~I took a piece of of my pretty new double-sided patterned paper and cut it to 12" x 5.25."
~I then measured 1.25" up from the bottom of the patterned paper when it was placed on the horizontal and added a tick mark. From there I had a guide as to where I would make my diagonal cut line from the very top of the patterned paper to the tick mark.
~Now that I have my paper cut, I proceeded to score it on the vertical at the 4" mark and the 8" mark.
~I glued the bottom piece of the patterned paper to the ruby red cardstock in the centre.
~Now, I added the extra flower (that I cut out of the scrap of patterned paper that I cut off) with a cute Dollar Store pewter brad and adhered it with a pop up square.
~I stamped 'friendship' with SU Whisper White craft ink, then I tied on a pretty piece of Michaels ribbon to finish it off.

This was kind of a fun card to make. Thanks for asking me, Catherine and thanks to Lisa for the inspiration! I love a challenge!

Thanks for stopping by!

Scallops Galore

I'm loving my D'vine Swirls embossing folder and I just love scallops, so when I saw these 2 cards on a couple of blogs that I frequent, I had to CASE them somewhat. The first one is my take on a card done by Lesa Rapp. The second is my take on a card done by Julie Masse. These girls are both very talented and do beautiful cards. I love seeing what their latest creations are.

Just a little something that a friend of mine brought to my attention...after I just ordered the SU ticket punch (That makes the above reverse rounded corners.) Well, this look was actually achieved with my slit punch. You have to watch that you're making them all the same size, but it gives you pretty much the same effect as the ticket punch. Those sneaky people at SU! lol :)

For the scallops tonight I used a SU Corner Rounder and took the guard off to make the scallops on the white circle and the white borders. Another ingenious hint from more blogs! Gotta love all the hints that you can learn by reading. See all this time that I spend online is actually helping me with my crafting! lol

Gonna call it a night. Thanks for stopping by! :)

Pop-Out Window card with Tutorial

Here's a card for ya to try. They're a lot of fun! It's a card a made a while ago, but a friend of mine was looking for a new style of card to try, so I suggested that she try this one. I've included the instructions, in case anyone else might be interested, too.

For the white oval mat layer for underneath, just cut out a square and then cut the smaller oval out of it. Make a score line down the centre of the oval background layer.

Cut two pieces of card stock, these are standard side, 8 1/2" x 5 1/2". Make another score line down the centre of your inside and outside layers of card stock (but don't adhere them together yet.) Now that you have a centre line for the inside layer, you can make your larger oval frame cut on this one. Adhere the white mat layer to the inside of the card.

Line up your two pieces of card stock together and stamp the inside centre of your ovals with your choice of stamp.

Now, you can adhere the two main pieces together. Just make sure you use the 'Terrifically Tacky Tape' or super tacky tape to adhere the two ends of the card stock pieces together. That way, you'll be sure it'll stay together.

The main frame of the card is now finished so you can continue to decorate it as you like. Have fun with this! :) Oh, I used my SU Print Pattern background stamp on the inside layer of cs before I glued the oval mat frame and the outside layer of cs to it.

House Mouse swap cards received

Charly brought my House Mouse swap cards over with her last night when she came to play. Oh, they're all so cute. What a great bunch of cards! I've already joined the Xmas House Mouse swap that's she's hosting. It's due in a month, this will be the first Xmas cards I've ever done in May! I might actually get inspired to do some more Xmas cards for this year like I planned to do this year. I swear I'll never leave it so late to get them done like I did last year. It really takes all the enjoyment out of making cards when you're pressured to make so many in such a short amount of time!

This is a beautifully done little Triangle Tri-Fold card by Diana Crick. She even made a piece of cheese to match the image for the inside with yellow cs and punched different sized holes in it. A neat idea! Love love love the dp that Diana used here. Gorgeous!
This one was made by Karlene Saville. This one is right after my heart! I love dragonflies and shades of purple! Too cute for anything! The shimmer is a beautiful touch! Love the little dragonfly embellie, too!
This sweet little sleepin' critter was done by Cathlyn Atkins. Very cute! Love the yellow, black and white. Very sharp! You know I all love the scalloped circle...oh the envy! lol

And, last but not least, these cute little knittin' critters done by our hostess, Charlene (Charly) Weaver. How cute are they? I've never seen a card done quite like this. I've done a bunch of elevator cards, but never using this sort of pull slide. The piece of cs that the image is on actually pull free from the card portion. Very nice! Thanks to Charly, as well, for the extra stamped House Mouse images that I'll get to play with! :)

Great job, everyone! Thanks for all the cute images and wonderful cards. These will be quickly be added to the cute files! :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Stampin' Night with the girls

I had a few stampin' friends over tonight and I had a wonderful time! So nice to have company while creating. We got to chat lots, and I still got 3 cards done! I ended up making 3 totally different cards, trying to think a bit out of the box...these are what I came up with.

This first I call 'Serene Flowers.' For some reason I find this one very calming...not sure why, I just do! I'm loving my D'vine Swirls embossing folder...got to I guess since it's the only one I own so far!!! lol :)
The second one I'm calling 'Funky Dragonfly.' We had a discussion tonight...I thought this was a dragonfly, others think it's a butterfly, I think it sort of looks like both, what do you think? I love this DP, and tried a new little ribbon technique tonight. I think this is a happy card and I love these colours, makes me get in the Spring mode, for sure! :)

For my third, I'm calling 'Simple Elegance.' I tried 4 different flowers before I got the look that I wanted...yup, I'm not altogether there upstairs! lol :) Ah, just indecisive, I guess! I think I'm happy with my final choice of this flower. I really like the sage green and burgundy and black together here. Kind of a smart card, if I do say so myself!
Well, it appears my chest cold is making an encore performance. :( Gotta go get some sleep, I probably should have been in bed hours ago...oh, but I had a great time tonight, I'll get lots of sleep tomorrow night! Thanks for stopping by! :)