Baby Shower

I have no excuse why it has been nearly a year since I have posted to this blog. So I will just jump right in and pretend I never took a break.

I am hosting a very casual baby shower and cookout this afternoon for a great friend who is having triplets - yikes! Despite the rain we are having today, the celebration shall go on.

I used 2 different stamps for this card. The sentiment is from Stampin' Up Teeny Tiny Wishes and the image is from A Muse Artstamps - Maternity Dress.

I love this set from Stampin' Up because they are so small and I can punch them out then pop them up on my cards. I could probably get rid of a lot of my other sets and just use this one. I can not remember the last time I made a card and didn't use this set of sentiments. They also work very well on their own without an image to go with them.

March Madness

March Madness is here folks. Since I am now a resident of Tennessee, I have to say...Go Vols! These birthday cards will be great for your sport fans this season.

One for the Fishermen

With Father's Day around the corner, I need to be thinking about guys cards. This was a birthday card but could easily be made as a father's day card. This image is from Stampin' Up! Backwoods.

With Sympathy and Frugal Stamping Tips

You can never have too many sympathy cards on hand. One of my new sets is called Teeny Tiny Wishes and it works great with the new punch I got, both are from Stampin' Up!.



The card below has the same sentiment but without the punch. I needed to use my stamp-a-ma-jig with this one to make sure when I stamped the sentiment, it wasn't crooked. I also got to use a new toy...I mean tool...that was in my new batch of goodies from last week, a paper piercer. You can see the holes if you look to the bottom right of the sentiment. Nothing fancy, just a pointed tipped poker with a handle so you can poke holes in paper. I also bought a guide so that my holes would be straight. I found that some of my cards just needed a tiny bit of something and the little paper piercer does the trick. It is also handy to use when you need a hole to put in a small brad. You can even take a fine tip pen and draw lines between the holes to look like stitching. All things I will try when I have time.



Frugal Stamping Tip: It is much easier to stamp a sentiment on paper and then punch it out. That way you don't have to worry about stamping straight and you can use lots of small scraps. Just turn the punch over and punch upside down, this way you can see through the opening in the punch and see exactly what you are punching out.

Bonus Frugal Stamping Tip: If you don't have a paper piercer, a thumb tack works just as well!

Out of the Box Thank You

Out of the Box is one of my new sets from Stampin' Up! that I got last week. I am so excited to use all my new goodies, I am like a kid at Christmas :-) The box, spring and flower are all separate stamps so you can do lots of neat things. I can not wait to see what all I can make pop out of this box. I also need to get more 3D tape so that my image popping out of the box also stands out from the page. I would like to have done that with this one but I am out of 3D tape.

The sentiment for this card is also from Stampin' Up's Pocket Silhouettes.

Hoosier Time

My sister and husband are HUGE Indiana Hoosier fans. They along with their kids had the opportunity to go to Bloomington with their daughter's basketball team to watch the ladies play and to get a backstage tour of the place. It sounds like they had a great time and so my sister wanted a couple thank you cards to send to those people who organized the trip.

Of course, she needed the card...as soon as possible...and I didn't have many supplies. Even if I had time, I am not sure I would have found many IU items in my scrapbook store down here in Knoxville, TN. So I used my Cricut to cut out the word Indiana and found some basketball paper in my stash. I had to use a larger card than I usually do to fit the word Indiana across the front. I still had to get creative and put it on a diagonal to get it all on there.

The sentiment is from Stampin' Up! and I used a new Stampin' Up! punch to punch it out.

My New Goodies

Look at all my new goodies! I have not ordered from Stampin' Up! for a while but when Sale-a-Bration is going on, I can not resist. 7 of these stamp sets were free as well as one of the punches. You can't beat that. I have used some of it already but I can not wait to get it all inked up.

If you are interested in getting in on all these free goodies, you have until the end of March. Check out my friend Kristen's Page at Stampin' Up!

Big Belly

One of my very best friends is having a baby and so she asked me to make a few thank you cards for her. I found a neat paper stack that was kind of retro and funky so I decided to use my new paper for these cards. The image of the dress is new as well, it is from A Muse Stamps. The sentiments are from Stampin' Up! I used the same basic layout for all the cards but changed the paper and colors so she would have a little variety.

Birthday Sketch Challenge from CPS

I am still working on building up my birthday card stash and I used the Sketch Challenge this week at CPS for inspiration.

Masculine birthday cards are a bit of a challenge for me and this sketch helped me with that. This may be one I use a lot.

This image is from Stampin Up!

With Heartfelt Sympathy

I made this card at the same time I made the Birthday Card in the post below. This is such a versatile layout that it could be used for just about any type of card. I think I may make a few more and leave off the sentiment. That way, if I need a card quick, I can just add a quick sentiment and be finished.

All supplies for this card were from Stampin' Up!

A Few Happy Birthday's

My stash of birthday cards was running low so I thought today would be a good day to work on a few. There were some ideas on Splitcoast that I have been wanting to try so this snowy wet day seemed to be a good time to work on them.

This card is nearly a copy of another card I saw...here...but I loved it and wanted to try it.


This is another copy...here...but why reinvent the wheel when there have been such good ones already made??


I didn't copy the last two but the layout below I have made before. This layout is so simple and can be used for about anything.

Bye Bye Teacher - CPS 151

My son's teacher is taking a new job and today is her last day with his class. My daughter also had this teacher when she was 1 year old and they both loved her. Using the sketch this week from CPS, I made this card for her.


We will miss her very much and I just hope my son can recover from this tragedy in his life. I guess as long as the new teacher knows how to get his lunch out for him, he will accept it.

Color Challenge and CPS 150

This card was for the Color Challenge at SplitCoast this week AND for the CPS Weekly Challenge.

The colors I used were Stampin' Up! Bashful Blue, Ruby Red and Close to Cocoa. The stamp set was also Stampin' Up! Say it with Scripture. I used my Cuttlebug with Nestibility Dies to cut out the shape with the sentiment.

Christmas Card Challenge 2010

I will be ready this year for Christmas! I get busy making other people's cards at Christmas that mine end up being rushed and not like I want them. So, I found a group last year that I knew I was going to join this year in January. It is on Splitcoaststampers.com and they challenge you to make 10 Christmas cards every month starting in January and ending in November. What a great idea!!


So, this is my January entry. I used Stampin' Up! A Wish for Peace and Night of Navy paper and ink. I inked my dove first with Versamark (sticky ink)and then with the night of navy. This gave it a navy color but the Versamark gave it some 'stick'. Before the Versamark dried, I sprinkled it with Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder and used a heat gun to set it. This made my dove very sparkly but it does not show in the photo too well.


It is so much easier to sit and make 10 cards then to sit down and know you have to make 100! This will allow me to use a few techniques that are more time consuming that I would if I were making them all at once. I can see this presenting one problem though, with 11 different designs that I know I will love, I am going to stress about who gets what card. Oh well, guess I will worry about that in November.

More Story Dice

These story dice are for my little niece who is 1. She may be a little young for them now but she will have them when she is ready. Here is how they work...

2 or more people can play. One rolls a dice (die?) and then what ever is rolled, that person has to start telling a story using that image. When time is up (however long you want) the next person rolls a dice and they continue the first person's story but now using the new image they rolled. This is great creative play and could even be a fun car game. Each dice also has a letter stamped on it so the roller can make up any word that starts with that letter.

I stamped the images from 2 Stampin' Up! sets: Year Round Fun II and ABC Images. I used Black Stazon Ink.

These make great gifts, especially for the hundreds of birthday parties your kids will be invited to over the years.

New Year's Eve Card Making

It will be no surprise to my friends that I am not out on New Year's Eve but they may be surprised that I am still awake at 11pm :-) I made this card tonight in hopes of keeping myself busy and not going to bed before midnight. I won this set of stamps from Clear Art Stamps a few weeks ago. I thought I would try it out with a few challenges from Split Coast this week. A color challenge, CC251, and a sketch challenge, SC261.

I colored the image with Stampin' Up! markers.

CPS Year in Review

CPS Challenge this week was to pick your favorite sketch from this past year. I looked through them decided to do CPS 110.

The sentiment is from CTMH My Farm and the wheat is a single stamp from Cornish Heritage Farms. I brayered Only Orange from SU! and stamped the background script in Only Orange. The wheat and sentiment is stamped in Chocolate Chip from SU.

Merry Christmas Everyone

My dear husband finally took the hint and opened the file that is saved on my desktop called "Gift Ideas For Paula". Granted, it has been there about 3 years but I knew eventually he would get it. In this file, I have websites with product numbers, the price and where to get coupons if available. I show how to order it and everything, it is pretty idiot proof. Not saying my husband is an idiot, but the easier we make it, the more likely we will get what we want for Christmas.

He came through this year and ordered me a few Stampin' Up! things I have been wanting (a stamp-a-ma-jig) along with a set of stamps from Flourishes. I wanted to make a card today using some of my new goodies. I pulled out my nearly new brayer and several Stampin' Up! inks and came up with this card. I love the silhouette image of the flower. What makes me the happiest about this card is the sentiment that is NOT crooked. I was never able to achieve this before but my new stamp-a-ma-jig made it a snap and now I never need to worry about a crooked sentiment again. Folks, they are worth every penny so please, get one. You can order them here from my dear friend Kristen.

I hope you all had a wonderful and blessed Christmas Holiday.

Zindorf Inspired

I created these 2 cards after looking through Michelle Zindorf's blog. She made 2 cards I thought I could copy so I wanted to see how I did.

This first one my 4 year old daughter actually picked out and wanted to make so she helped me. We followed Michelle's tutorial closely and made due when we did not have the exact supplies we needed. My daughter was happy with the results so I guess it was a success. Michelle's card did not have 'wind' but my daughter was adamant about it needing wind so we added the swirls.


On this card, Michelle had birds sitting on the ground but I didn't have birds so I got to use my little boy and girl stamp. It reminds me of my daughter and her favorite cousin who is 1 year older than her. She loves him like crazy and this stamp always reminds me of those kiddos.

Thank You Cards

This set was quick and easy. I have had my eye on a great stack of 12 x 12 paper from DCWV called La Creme but have never bought it. I am glad I didn't because I found it in a 4.5 x 6.5 inch matstack. The matstacks are just like the 12x12 but smaller (and cheaper) and are a great size for cards. They only have to be trimmed down a little and then you are left with a nice strip that can still be used on another card. This is a great way to save money and still get to use that wonderful designer paper. One neat thing about this paper, other than the great neutral colors, are about half of the pages are flocked. That means fuzzy for those of you like me and didn't know what that meant until I bought this paper :-). So, the black printed designs on the first 2 cards is flocked, pretty neat huh??

Frugal Stamping Tip: If you want to try some wonderful quality paper in those great designer stacks but don't want to spend $20, look for the same design in a matstack. It is only $9 AND if you use a store coupon, you can get it for even less. Happy saving everyone!