Creating with the New and Old

Although I haven’t been doing much blogging lately, I’ve still been playing with some new and old stamps and making cards.

This first card was made with a House Mouse stamp that I just got from Addicted to Rubber Stamps. I love the house mouse images. They are so nice to color. I used my Prismacolor Pencils and Gamsol to color all these images.

I also pulled out an older Stampin Up stamp set that I got last year and decided to make a couple of Easter Cards. I've had this paper for about 1 1/2 years and it's from a K&Company paper pack. The stamp set is called “A Good Egg” and it is in the current catalogue.


This next card uses the Stampin Up set Summer by the Sea. I love this set. It was recently retired and I decided to grab one before it was too late.

This last card uses an image that I bought 1 1/2 yrs ago. It's a Whipper Snapper stamp that I picked up when my BF & I were in the United States. (we both got one)I've never used mine until now. I also used a cuttlebug embossing folder that I've had for a year without using. I colored the image with my Prismacolor Pencils and Gamsol. Another perfect card for Kelly Jo's challenge!


Kelly Jo has posted the 4th Challenge on the Fiskateer Blog. This challenge to create a new scrapbook page or 2 cards or other papercraft project that uses something old from your stash. Any of these last 3 cards will do for the challenge but since I still have a few days, I'll see what else I can come up with before I submit my cards.

Have a great day & thanks for looking!

New Happy Hopper Stamps

My BF Bonnie & I recently took a trip to Scrappin’ Great Deals in Kilworth (5 minutes west of London). Sheila has a great online store and recently opened a store in Kilworth. Her store is just amazing. There are so many awesome goodies in it and it’s well worth the trip. You can check out her online store here http://www.scrappingreatdeals.com/home.php

While we were there I just had to pick up this cute little Happy Hopper stamp. I have 3 nieces who are all expecting babies in May of this year. Natasha is due the first week of May (it’s another boy and it’ll be her 4th child), Chantale is due around the 26th of May (it’s a boy this time and will be her 3rd child) and Shaundra is due around the 23rd of May (it’s her 2nd child and this time it’s a girl). So with all these new babies and the children that they already have….this cute little bunny reminds me of them. Lol

I used my Prismacolor Pencils and Gamsol to color the images. I also did a couple of cards in blue but haven't yet scanned them.



Thanks for looking!

Pulling Out the Punches!

Yesterday I pulled out all the punches and decided to work on making some more punch creations. As I’ve said before, these are not my original ideas and credit must go to the many talented bloggers that create punch art critters, etc that I’ve stumbled across (Julia, Mercedes, Samantha & others on SCS). There are definitely some talented Punch Art ladies out there.

Recently I came across a couple of cute cards that featured punch art critters and I thought that I’d try to recreate these cute little critters. The punch bunny, panda and chick were inspired by these cards. I love how they turned out. Too cute!


The Graduate Girl was inspired by Samantha although I did make a few changes from her original. I changed the eyes, the cap and the scroll. This little creation is definitely time consuming but I am thrilled with how it turned out. Wouldn’t this be cute on a card for a little one graduating from Junior Kindergarten or Senior Kindergarten?

Thanks for looking & have a great day!

The Luck Of the Irish

This morning I decided that I'd pull out the punches and play. After blog surfing and finding some cute St. Patrick's Day punches, I had to try to make some of my own. Here's my St. Patrick's Day Leprechaun & of course his Pot Of Gold.

Thanks for looking!

Bad Blogger

I must admit that lately I've been a bad blogger. I've been working on a secret project that I can't post yet. I am so excited with this project and can't wait to share it. Unfortunately it will be another couple of weeks before I'm able to post it but for now it's almost finished.

I've also been working on some new cards & punchies that I'll be posting soon.

Hopping into Easter with the Happy Hoppers

I bought this stamp last fall and I’ve finally gotten around to inking it. I’ve always loved the House Mouse stamps and the Happy Hoppers stamps. This is actually my first Happy Hopper stamp and it really caught my eye when I saw it. I don’t have many Easter stamps and I thought that this would make a cute Easter card.


I colored the images with my Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. I also used the Martha Stewart Doiley Lace border punch. The background papers are from one of the Stampin Up 6x6 paper packs. I made 2 cards that are slightly different due to the background papers that I used.

Thanks for looking.

More Fun Punch Creations

I love my punches and have several different ones. I love to try and find new “Out of the Box” ideas and uses for them. Although creating punch critters, etc is time consuming, I really enjoy it.

I’m not claiming that any of these are my original ideas. Often I just browse the net in search of new ideas and come across a punch idea that I like and try to duplicate it. Recently I saw a punch cow & punch flamingo that caught my eye and I thought that it would be fun to try and create them to add to my “Punch” book.

These two critters were created with various Stampin Up punches that I have in my collection. I also created the two flowers using Stampin Up punches. The one flower was created with the new 3 Hearts punch by Stampin Up and the other flower was created by using 3 of the scalloped circle punchies from the scalloped circle punch by Stampin Up. Both are very easy to make and would look great on a card or a scrapbook page.

Thanks for looking!

The Fess Up Challenge

Rebecca who is also one of our Lead Fiskateers on the Fiskateers Blog, recently put up a challenge on the Fiskateer Message Board asking us to “Fess Up”. That's right, we had to put our deep dark secret to paper and make a layout of our secret crush.

Too funny! Well, I really don’t have a secret crush on anyone now but growing up as a teenager in the 70’s I did. I had the biggest crush on David Cassidy!! I used to love watching The Partridge Family just to see him. I had his picture plaster all over my bedroom walls….bought his records…..Teen Beat & Tiger Beat magazines just to get more pictures to add to my wall….I think you’ve got the idea.

I thought that this would be a fun challenge. After searching the web for some 70’s pictures of David Cassidy, the words to one of my favorite Partridge Family songs “I Think I Love You”, here’s my take on the challenge.I titled this layout after the song.

Thanks for looking!

Another Fiskateer Challenge

Kelly Jo one of the Lead Fiskateers recently put up a new challenge on the Fiskateer blog. For the next 6 weeks she will be hosting weekly challenges. Her first challenge required us to complete a new (all projects for these challenges must be new) scrapbook page or 2 cards using mainly Spring colors.

The first card I used a stamp from the Holiday Chick set by Stampendous. This adorable set has one chick with assorted accessories for the various holidays that you can dress it in. I also have the Chick Family set by the same company. Both of these sets are clear acrylic stamps and I love them. For this card I covered the clover and the band on the hat with stickles to give it some added bling. The cardstock if from Stampin Up and the verse is from the Hero Arts “March” stamp set. (I bought the March stamp set as my DS has a birthday in March as does my BF, my niece, her husband, their daughter, my SIL and also my nephew. That’s 7 birthdays in March alone).

The second card using a stamp from the Stampin Up set “Serene Spring”. The verse is also from the Hero Arts sets.

Thanks for looking!

More Vampire Stories

You’d think that after spending a month in the “Twilight” zone hooked on the Twilight series books by Stephanie Meyer that I’d be tired of vampires. NOT!!

I found a new vampire series to read. lol This House of Night series is written by the mother/daughter team PC Cast & Kristin Cast. It’s a series of 5 books (the 5th book “Hunted” is to be released on March 10th). The first book in the series is called “Marked” and tells the story of Zoey who is “marked” to become a Vampyre (yes, that’s how they spell Vampire in the books) and goes off to the House of Night school to train to be a Vampyre. The second book in the series is “Betrayed” (I’m currently reading it), then the 3rd book in the series is “Chosen”, the fourth book is “Untamed” and then of course the 5th book “Hunted” has yet to be released.

This time around, I purchased the first 4 books all at the same time. There is nothing worse for me than reading a book in a series and not being able to find the next one in the series. I didn’t want to take the chance on that happening this time around.

So far I am really enjoyed this series. I don’t think it will take me as long to read these books as it did the Twilight books as these books average around 300 pages. (The last book New Dawn in the Twilight series was over 700 pages).

My niece also read the Twilight series and ended up getting hooked on it and reading again. (She hasn’t read much since getting out of school until she got into the Twilight series). I LOVE to read and don’t know what I’d do if I couldn’t read. I guess I take after my mother who is 84 and still an avid reader. I lent my niece my Sophie Kinsella “Shopaholic” books to read and then when I’m finished this series I’ll lend them to her to read. I think she’d enjoy them too!

What are you reading this week?

Punched Monkey - Another Punch Creation

I found another punch creation to add to my "Punch Book". Heather Summers had a tutorial on her blog on how to make these adorable punch monkeys and I had to try to make one for myself. I added "googly" eyes to mine instead of the punched eyes that Heather used. I also used a smaller circle punch for the ears. His tale is a piece of ribbon. (This was made with all Stampin Up punches). Too cute!

Valentine Treat Holder

I found a template showing how to make these cute Valentine Treat Holders online and thought that I'd give them a try. They are so easy to make and make a nice little gift idea. I do have to try and find some bags for the inside as the bags that I currently have are not the right sizes. One is too big, the other too small. Right now I used the little jewelery bags from the dollar store for the insides and filled them with Conversation Hearts. Definately a cute idea.

Happy Groundhog Day!!

Happy Groundhog Day! February 2nd is Groundhog Day in Canada and in the United States. It's an annnual holiday on which if the groundhog emerges from his burrow and fails to see its shadow because the weather is cloudy, winter will soon end. If it's sunny and the groundhog does see it's shadow, supposedly the groundhog goes back into its burrow and winter will continue for six more weeks.

Yesterday was such a beautiful day. It was 40 degrees F here and today it's supposed to be sunny & temperature is supposed to be 21 degrees F. It looks like there is a good chance that the groundhog will see his shadow.

I don't know about you but we've had such cold weather and way too much snow this winter that I am so ready for spring. Are you??

Have a great day!

A Quick Valentine's Day Card

I'm really enjoying making Valentine's Day cards this year. For someone who doesn't usually do "love" cards, I've sure been having fun making them this year. I guess everyone on my list is going to get some "love" this Valentine's Day. I'm also going to give my mother some of these cards to send out too. She sends out a lot of cards during the year so I know that she'll enjoy having some Valentine's Cards to send out too.

I saw this card on SCS and thought that I'd case it. I did change the cardstock color from Real Red to Riding Hood Red. This card was pretty easy to do. I used my new Stampin Up set "Love You Much" that I bought as part of a bundle. You got the stamp set, the new 3 heart punch and a package of Candy Lane Designer Paper. I just love this new set and have been using it a lot in making my Valentine's cards. With 6 different stamps the possibilities are endless. (The bundle deal ended January 31st but the stamp set, punch and paper is in the new catalogue).

Anyways, along with the Love You Much stamp set which I stamped in black & Riding Hood Red, I also used my Cuttlebug Hearts Embossing Folder in Riding Hood Red, black ribbon and dew drops from the dollar store. Black, white and red have already been one of my favorite color combos. I love how it turned out.

Thanks for looking!

Paper Doll Canvas

Awhile back I created a Paper Doll Canvas of my Great Niece Chloe for a challenge during an online crop on the Fiskateer Message Board. We had to scraplift a layout, card or project that we found on the Fiskars Craft site http://www.fiskarscrafts.com/
This is the Paper Doll Canvas that I did of my great niece Chloe for the challenge.

I found an awesome project done by Janna Wilson called "Paper Doll Canvas". Her project can be found in the October downloadable links - project #2. The link is here: http://www.fiskarscrafts.com/projects/t_oct08download.aspx

I loved her project "Paper Doll Canvas" so much and thought it was so adorable. I thought that it'd be the perfect project to scraplift. It was definately outside of my comfort zone as I'd never tried anything like this before. I was actually surprised at how well mine turned out considering my only painting skills were when I used to do Tole Painting. Well, the first one turned out so cute that I decided to make 2 more for my other 2 great nieces Dakota (Chloe's little sister) and Jaden (Chloe's cousin) for Christmas gifts. I couldn't give to one without giving to the other two. (No favoritism here).
This second canvas is Dakota's. She'll be three years old in June 2009.

This canvas is for Jaden who just turned three in December.

I couldn't post them any sooner as we just got together for our family Christmas yesterday. We had planned to get together before Christmas but had to cancel due to bad weather. My sister & her family all went to Florida for Christmas so we had to reschedule for January. Well of course we had to cancel the second time as once again another another snow storm hit. So we rescheduled for the 3rd time and February 1st was the day for our Family "Christmas". Yesterday turned out to be a beautiful day. No snow, 40 degrees farenheit and a perfect day for driving as the roads were good.

Now that I've finally been able to give the girls their Paper Doll Canvas gifts, I can show them here. (I didn't want their mom's to see them before I gave them to the little one's lol)

I gave my two nieces a scrapbook album filled with 20 layouts each that I've done of their children in the past year. My oldest niece is a hairdresser and runs her own business out of her home, is married and has 3 children all under 5 plus she is expecting her 4th child in early May. Her husband is a full time student who is now enrolled in a hairdressing school so that he can help in the family business. My youngest niece runs a day care out of her home, is married and has 2 children. She's expecting her third at the end of May. Both of the girls lead busy lives and have no time to scrap their own memories and I love scrapping their children. So now they both have an album full of memories to cherish.

I hope that they'll continue to share their families with me so that I can continue to scrap the children. (hint hint girls you can always send me pictures lol)

Month End Update

It’s hard to believe that today is the 1st of February. I can’t believe how much I got accomplished along the lines of crafting in January. I’ve decided that I’d like to try and keep track of the projects I’ve completed on a monthly basis. I figured that my blog would be the perfect place to keep a record of what I’ve accomplished each month. So here’s a list of the projects that I’ve done this month.

Cards Created – 29
Layouts Completed – 10
Mini Albums Completed – 2
3D Projects Completed – 6
Punch Art – 14

When I started adding it up, I was rather surprised at how much crafting that I did this month. The 2 day Fiskateer crop and all of the challenges last week really helped to bring up the numbers. I plan on continuing this count every month to see just how much I’ve done at the year end.

Surprising enough I managed to complete 10 layouts, 8 cards and 3 altered projects/mini albums for the Fiskateer Winter CHA Online crop. I’m not surprised that I was starting to feel “creatively exhausted” as my BF Bonnie put it.