Happy 33rd Birthday Jimmy!

Today is my brother's birthday and this is the card I made him.

There is a little story behind this card. For the past year, I have stopped making cards for my family & friends. This is due to my health. I have made the odd one her and there, but for the most part I have bought my cards this year.

I have at least 2 birthdays every month and some months are as high as 9 to 12 birthdays in one month. Then you add holidays, anniversaries, graduations, weddings, babies and so forth and so forth and a lot of my time is spent making cards.

This is why I gave myself permission to take time off from making my cards this year. I am working on balancing family, friends, work, scrapbooking, photography & me time and I hope to have a rough plan in place for the New Year. I am realistic and I know my life balancing plan will take some time to work out all the kinks, but I won't stop trying to come up with the "perfect" balance.

Well, I just couldn't buy my brother a card this year. Last year I went to make him a card with this fisherman image from the Greeting Farm. I was so excited because it kind of looks like him. To my dismay, I realized that I didn't own it. This was one of those stamp sets that I had talked myself out of.

Well, I was quite disappointed. So, the next time I had put a Greeting Farm order in, I made sure that I bought this stamp set. I am so glad that I did because I love this card. Yes, I was up very late making it and of course at the very last possible moment, but the process was so therapeutic. I lost track of time in my scrap room and it felt good.

I used Basic Grey's Pyrus 6 x 6 paper pack, Core'dinations Cardstock and some miscellaneous brads from my stash. I played with one of my new Nestabilities - Wonky Square, my sewing machine and I had fun free-hand cutting up my scrap pieces of paper for my tree. As I have already mentioned, the fisherman is from The Greeting Farm and all the sentiment stamps are from CC Designs.

I used the following Copic Markers to colour in my image: Hair - E44, E47 & E25; Skin - E00 & E000; Shirt - T3 & BG72; Hat & Pants - E57; Hankerchief - W3, YG95 & BG99 and the Fish - W1, E43, E40 & E34.

Holiday Cheer - Take Two

Here is my "Bulk" Christmas Card for this year again, but with different papers. I have prepped to make 40 of this colour combination. I am trying to use up old paper lines from the store.

I used Smooth Bazzill & Worldwin Cardstock. I don't remember the company that the patterned paper came from and all the pieces are glued down, so I can't even check. The patterned paper is actually a very deep chocolate brown, but it kept turning out more like black in all my photos.

For the front of the card, I used CTMH's Captured Moments stamp set and I used a sentiment stamp from the Hero Arts Holiday Sayings stamp set for the inside of the card.

I used two different EK Success' border punches for the die-cut pieces.

Happy 7th Birthday Sparkle!

Happy 7th Birthday Gorgeous!

I have mentioned in past postings how I have a difficult time taking my photos because of Sparkle getting in the way. Well, Shanna told me that I should blog photos of her getting in my way. The only difficult part is that I automatically shoe her out of my way before thinking of taking a picture of her.

Well, I finally didn't this time. I shot some photos of her before shoeing her out of the way. This is what I always go through when shooting my photos in the backyard and I thought her birthday would be the perfect day to post them.

She can be any where in the house, but she is normally at my feet or at least in the same room with me at all times. One of her nicknames that I have for her is "Gorgeous", but we do refer to her a lot as "Mommy's Shadow".

I will pick up my card or calendar page and my camera and head out to the yard. Within seconds she is right beside me. I normally photograph my cards on my 8 foot long patio stairs. The first & second photo show you what she does to me. I will be lining up the card in my view finder and then all of a sudden there is a pug nose at the top of my photo.

The reason why I pointed out the size of my stairs is because she could be any where on the stairs, but she insists on being on the one step right above where I am shooting my cards.

For my calendar pages, I normally lay them out on the lawn. She thinks that means it is time to play and she always runs across my page in hopes that I will chase her.

The 3rd photo of her is when I am taking a bunch of photos. She finally gets bored waiting for me to finish and lies down right above my card or project and rests until I am done. This photo was taken when I was shooting all the pages of Stephanie's Bridal Shower Album that we made for her.

I looked up from the pages that I was shooting and there was Sparkle right in my face, she made me laugh because I had forgotten that she was even there and she looked so damn cute!

So, all in all, at times it may be annoying to have my "Shadow" by my side every minute of the day, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Holiday Cheer

Here is my "Bulk" Christmas Card for this year. I have prepped to make 30 of this colour combination. I am trying to use up old paper lines from the store.

I used Core'dinations & Worldwin Cardstock. I don't remember the company that the patterned paper came from and all the pieces are glued down, so I can't even check.

For the front of the card, I used CTMH's Captured Moments stamp set and I used a sentiment stamp from the Hero Arts Holiday Sayings stamp set for the inside of the card.

I used one of EK Success' border punches and medium photo corner punches for the die-cut pieces.

CC Design Witch Card

I am making four of these cards for my great aunts. I have some family photos to send them and I don't want to put it off until my Christmas cards go out. So, I thought I would send them each a Happy Halloween Card.

I used Echo Parks Happy Halloween two-sided patterned papers, Core'dinations & Worldwin Cardstock, Karen Foster Black Organza Ribbon, Doodlebug Black Brad and Spellbinders Crown Ovals Nestabilities.

The witch stamp is Halloween Birgitta from CC Designs, the pumpkin stamps are from CC Designs, the "Happy Halloween" sentiment is from Kraftin' Kimmie and the cobwebs & spider stamps are from CTMH's Creepy Cobwebs stamp set.

The Copic Markers I used are: Hair - W5, W7 & W9; Outfit & Hat - W4, V15 & RV95; Skin - E00 & E000 and Wings - W0 & V0000

You Make My Heart Smile

I made this card for my friend Ellena.

The stamps used on the front of the card are from Elzybells "Stamp & Scrap" and "Stamp & Scrap Sentiments" stamp sets. The inside sentiment is from Inkadinkado.

I used BoBunny Double Dot Cardstock & papers from Basic Grey's Pyrus 6 x 6 pad. The buttons & embroidery floss are from my stash. The border punch is from EK Success and the small corner punch outs were made by using a 1/2 inch square punch & a Fiskars small square hand held punch.

The sentiment on the front of this card is so very true for Ellena & I because we met each other due to our passion for scrapbooking & card making.

She is a Stampin' Up Demonstrator and I opened the first scrapbooking store in Thunder Bay. Prior to DAT'S Scrapbooking, my store was called Sandy's Place. It was a coney dog & fry shop.

I had turned the corner store part of my store into a scrapbooking supply area and I called that part of my store, Scrapbooking with Donna. Ellena & her daughter came by to check out what I was all about and she gave me her business card. I had never heard of Stampin' Up before that day.

It came in handy because 1/2 hour later, I had a customer come into my store who had just moved to Thunder Bay looking for a Stampin' Up Demonstrator. Ellena was coming back the next day to drop off a catalogue for me, so I gave this new customer the card that Ellena had just given me.

Our friendship has been growing ever since that day.

Congratulations Mr & Mrs. Hyde!

On Saturday, October 2, 2010, my friends, Stephanie & Chris were married on a beautiful Autumn Day here in Thunder Bay. It was a bit chilly, but there was no rain or snow like the weather person had forecasted.

This was the wedding card that I made them. I used Core'dination cardstock, the textured brown paper is from my stash that I have had for over 7 years and the orange speckled paper is a scrap piece of Worldwin Medium Terra Cotta cardstock misted with Tattered Angels Harvest Orange Glimmer Mist.

For the embellishments, I used a piece of fabric from my stash, Kaiser Craft pearls, satin ribbon from Fabricland and gold heart brads from Making Memories. For the pocket trim on the inside of the card, I used Gold Waffle Paper from Stampin' Up's Holiday Mini Catalogue.

The sentiments used are from Stampin' Up's Hostess Level Three "Occasional Quotes" Stamp Set. I heat embossed the sentiments using my Versamark ink pad and gold embossing powder.

The wedding ceremony was beautiful, but not as beautiful as the bride. The reception was cozy & fun with a fabulous meal. The day was filled with memories that will live on forever in my heart.

Happy 1st Birthday Kraftin' Kimmie!

Kraftin' Kimmie & Me

George with his morning coffee, the Christmas Cards that I am making & the Exclusive Kraftin' Kimmie Stamp that we got in our Kraftin' Kimmie Goodie Bags.

Melanie & Me

Myself & Andrea

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY KRAFTIN' KIMMIE!!!

As most of you know, I attended the First Annual Kraftin' Kimmie Day in London, Ontario on Saturday, September 25, 2010 with my Best Buds, Shanna & Brandi.

We had a FABULOUS weekend! Words cannot describe how much fun we had and I can't wait until our next scrapbooking day, weekend or trip together.

My Ms. September Card was a take off from my Ms. December Card. It was the perfect design for the Kraftin' Kimmie Card Challenge. If you wanted to participate in the challenge at the crop, you had to make a card using a Kraftin' Kimmie Stamp and the colour purple.

I used Core'dinations Cardstock, Daisy D's Gypsy Harvest Patterned Papers, a brown safety pin from my stash and some green heart beads also from my stash. I also used Stampin' Up 1/8" Early Espresso Tafetta Ribbon and CTMH extra small white brad inked with copic markers.

I used the Billionaire & Storybook Cricut Cartridges to spell out "Ms. September", Stampin' Up's Spiral Border Punch and EK Success' Scalloped Border Punch.

For the front of the card I used Kraftin' Kimmie's Annette stamp and CTMH's Month by Month stamp set. If you look closely on the calendar on the front of the card, I stamped "kk day" on the 25th to represent Kraftin' Kimmie Day. I used the "birthday" & "pumpkin" words from CTMH's Seasonal Thoughts stamp set. I only inked the "k" in the word pumpkin and "day" on the word birthday. For the inside, I used Kraftin' Kimmie's sentiment stamp that comes with the Betty Stamp.

Copic Markers used: Skin - R000 & R0000; Eyes - E0000 & YG95; Nylons - V01 & V000; Dress - V15, V06 & RV99 and Hair - E77, E74 & E79.

I was thrilled to meet Kraftin' Kimmie for the first time face to face. She is a fabulous woman and not only is she very creative, but she has a good business sense and I can see her doing amazing things in this industry.

We participated in two make 'n' takes with Melanie and two make 'n' takes with Andrea who are both on Kraftin' Kimmie's Design Team. They are both fun, amazing women who just genuinely love what they do in this crazy crafty world of ours.

I was really hoping to meet Melanie on this trip because her copic colouring just blows my mind away. So to do two make 'n' takes with her, get a photo taken with her and to get her autograph on one of the make 'n' takes just made my day that much better.

Before I left on my trip, Trevor told me that he wanted a souvenier Kraftin' Kimmie t-shirt if they had them. When Kimmie found out that I was buying extra t-shirts for my family, she asked if I would send her a photo of us in them. Well, I mailed her a CD last Friday with all the photos that we took that day & this family photo.

She was surprised to find out that my husband would willingly wear her purple t-shirt. I think he looks good in purple.

Congratulations Kim & wishing you many more successful years to follow!

Ms. December Card

The Ms. December Card was another sample card that I made up for the Charity Stamping Party that we had. Our Charity Stamping Party was on the same day as Kraftin' Kimmie's New Release Day. Betty, the stamp that I used on this card, was part of Kraftin' Kimmie's New Release on September 12th.

For the Ms. December Card, I used Cor'dinations Cardstock, Basic Grey's Jovial 6 x 6 paper pack, Stampin' Up 1/8" Olive Tafetta Ribbon, CTMH extra small white brad inked with copic markers and a paper clip from my stash.

I used the Billionaire & Storybook Cricut Cartridges to spell out "Ms. December", Stampin' Up's Spiral Border Punch and EK Success' Scalloped Border Punch.

For the front of the card I used Kraftin' Kimmie's Betty stamp and CTMH's Month by Month stamp set. For the inside, I used Sugarloaf's Whisper lip stamp, Stampendous' Merry Kissmas stamp and a sentiment stamp from Stampin' Up's Cold & Cuddly stamp set.

The Copic Markers I used are: Hair - E18, E39, E19 & E15; Skin - E00 & E000; Eyes: YG95, YG97 & E40; Lips & Red Clothing - R27 & E07; Green Clothing - YG95; Stockings - E40.

As always the card looks better in person. The colours are much richer than what they look like in these pictures.

Naughty Nite with Stephanie

On, Saturday, August 21, 2010, Shanna & I attended our girlfriend's Bachelorette Party. We had a beautiful pasta dinner, shared stories, laughed until our stomach's hurt & wore matching pink & grey Cheetah print pajama bottoms.

The invitations were pink & orange Cheetah print, so when I was picking up a few things at WAL-MART one night and saw these pajama bottoms for $10.....well, I like to make any excuse to wear pajamas outside my house.

Shanna (my best-friend), Brandi (my other best-friend & cousin) and I went in on the Bachelorette gift. Brandi was out of town camping. So she missed out on putting the gift together & the party itself, but she was in on the idea.

We decided to make a pail filled with "naughty" items for the bride & groom to be. Chris is the groom to be, hence the title on the pail: "Naughty Nite with Chris". Well, he was the groom to be when we made the pail, but the wedding was Oct. 2nd, so now he is the husband.

The items inside were "tasteful" and with a purple theme because the bride's favourite colour is purple, but that is all the details that I will go into because my daughter reads my blog.

I used a white paint can from my store; which I can't honestly remember if it was from Creative Imaginations, EK Success or Provo Craft. The Cheetah print paper is from Creative Imaginations Chic Bebe Girl line & the cardstock is from Bazzill & my scrap bin.

The letters and shapes were cut out from my Cricut Machine and the mini brads for the dots above the "i" are from CTMH. The pom pom ribbon is from Bazzill.

For more information about how the card was made, please visit Shanna's blog. I made the pail & she made the card. We make a great team!