sparkly halloween

so i said i was glittering things.

so here are a few examples. I used some Martha glitter and a glue pad (which definitely seems to work better than the stampinup heat and stick powder... just my opinion of course)

the last picture gives you a close up of the glitter on ribbon. I stamped on the ribbon using Purple Onion Designs Halloween Border Tapes

I think they came out pretty cute. No great art just cute cards :-) Now I just gotta get them in the mail....

have a good one!

quick check in

nothing to post yet and i'm on my way out to work.
but... i was wondering... is there something in glitter that's... addictive?
i've been a glittering fool lately.
hoping to post something later.
have a great day!

beautiful fall

The title of this post could mean I fell down (in a very gracious way -oh but of course....) and went boom... but no. I am truly referring to the beauty that is taking place outdoors.

Fall is my favorite season. Hands down. When I was out running some errands today - I was thinking how lucky I was to have off on this spectacular day. The temperature was in the low 70's (particularly welcome after a run of rainy days last week that felt like winter -temps in the 40's!) and the sun was shining. But what struck me were the fall colors. The trees are just gorgeous. The most amazing reds, golds, oranges.

Oddly enough my good friend June had a post on her blog this morning called Create something beautiful for fall (it's a challenge on another blog). And as I was driving along past some beautiful trees, I thought about the card she created and the sentiment on the card. When I got home I decided I wanted to try and use that sentiment and also try a technique recently shown on Splitcoaststampers called acrylic smash. I don't know about smash but i definitely used a transparency and painted on some acrylics! I found a leaf stamp in an old Stampin Up! set called Botanicals. I stamped that leaf in two rows of three (knowing I'd probably like to make 2 cards while I was at it) in StazOn Black. I painted the acrylic paint on the back of the transparency then glued it onto some kraft cardstock. I printed out that beautiful sentiment onto some cardstock and then aged it with some Tim Holtz antique linen. I added the cardstock button (cut from a sizzix die from StampinUp!) and tied it with some twine. Then I pulled out my sewing machine (which hasn't seen any action in forever - which is obvious - I could not get the tension right to save my life but I'm over that!) I decided to fool around with a little Bronze pearl ex here there and everywhere on the 2nd version you see here. It looks much better in real life, trust me.

Anyway I enjoyed making something a little different. Hope you all have a wonderful Friday - go out and enjoy the beautiful Fall!

a little thank you a little halloween a little birthday = Big Post :-)

i'm sorta jumpin around these days with the card making. It's not like I don't have a bunch of cards in my stash - but dontcha know it - for the particular people I'm sending these cards to I wanted to make a card just for them.

Okay. who am I kidding. This is my whole problem. I can't just make a bunch of cards and then send them to people on my list randomly. I have to make a card for that particular person for that particular occasion. And seriously... I'm not that particular LOL It's sorta like my shopping habits for birthdays and Christmas - gotta buy just the right gift for that particular person (and if I don't do that then I have to get a gift card for them from the store they would most likely wanna shop at.... are you following my crazy?... sigh)

I needed a birthday card for my sister - she likes purple and green. So I used the Wisteria Basic Grey papers. Stamped my favorite little cupcake stamp on some of that wonderful white cardstock by Papertrey Ink - it takes ink so nicely - and it's wonderful to use with Copics (which is how i colored it in) and it really works well with Nestabilities (i used labels 2). You'll notice i threw some glitter on those cupcake flowers... made them look like those edible candy flowers. I used a rubon from Quickutz for the sentiment ( i wanted something tiny so it didn't detract from the pretty cuppy-cake) and I used a Martha punch for the border at the top. Finally i found a ribbon that would go nicely. All in all I am quite happy with this card and I think she will love it too.

Next up...

I needed a thank you card - it's not a flowery time of year (we're not including mums ok?) but I was feeling flowery - truth be told i spied scraps of this paper and that i had some flowers that would match nicely - done. I think the stamp is Hero Arts and that's a Nestability (labels 8) and a scrap of rick-rack and a white gel pen.

Then I got an itch to make a Halloween card - having seen so many already in my blog travelling. The witch stamp is Purple Onion Designs as are the bats (clear embossed), the buttons and spider web paper are Making Memories and there's some satin black ribbon on there as well as black embroidery floss. I cut the circle with Nestabilities and sponged around the edge with a combo of Tim Holtz tea stain and antique linen as well as an Opalite Golden Mist stamp pad (it looks better IRL). For this particular card - I'll admit I wanted to make a Halloween card more than I had a particular recipient in mind (but I've got a few people who would like it :-))

Ok... that's all for now. I really need to get moving. A day off, my college girl home (she's still sleeping... ah youth) and a ton of errands to run... ttyl

Cake Time

ok.. so not the best picture but what can i say.. i'd rather make stuff than take pictures of the same.

It's a card for my friend Annie who may remember this picture of the girl eating cake :-)

We had a lot of fun making cards using this picture. For example the card below :

She is a cute little girl and who can't relate to that cake?

So for her birthday card I decided to use that image again. I also used a new Quickutz embossing folder, a felt flower with a button and one of my favorite Purple Onion Designs Noteblock stamps (stamped in Versamark and clear embossed).

ok... i gotta get to work. Have a great day!

birthday cupcake

I mentioned previously I'd picked up a few things since my birthday

One was this cupcake stamp from Lockhart Stamps. Another thing was a Scor-Pal (hence the scoring in the background of this card). I'd gotten a Scor-it and initially I liked it alright. But the adjustable feature with the Scor-it - I think it just bugged me having to move it back and forth, and it didn't seem quite accurate. I don't know. (maybe operator error? quite possibly). I just never was quite in love with the thing - and it was heavy.

I kept seeing things made with the Scor-Pal and I resisted for almost 2 years - feeling it was almost like another die cut system. (I've got Quickutz, Zipemate and the Cuttlebug ok?) In otherwords, there is always something better, cooler, whatever on the horizon. Ugh. I thought I don't need another thing to score with do I? Obviously I decided I did. And honestly I really am loving this Scor-Pal. It's accurate, allows me to just score without thinking about the measurement and it's light (weighs very little). So all in all it was a good purchase.

This card - colored with Copics (I'm going slow with my collection of these. I like them but I still think I love my prismacolor pencils more.) I stamped the image i believe it was three times - colored and cut them out and layered them with foam dots. The tag and shape behind the cupcake are both nestabilities. I printed out the sentiment - I'm finding I never have quite the sentiment I want. (the words or how it fits in my scheme.) This has been an ongoing thing for me. I have looked over my collection of stamps and I have a ton of images and alphabets but my sentiments are woefully lacking. I've got some good ones but in general it seems I pick images over sentiments when I buy.

Does anyone have some good recommendations for sentiment sets? or should I continue to print out stuff from my computer?

(I'm posting this on Thursday while I'm at work. Hopefully I'll post something else before the weekend)

cool dog

well he is the coolest dog isn't he?

i was going to put a caption

"future so bright, i gotta wear shades"

but i thought better of it.

these are supposed to be fun for the daughter

not annoying yaknow?

anyway i found cool dog on some piece of junk mail and he practically barked out to me to cut him out.

Daughter loves dogs just like him and then of course there were the orange tinted glasses (orange being dd's favorite color). I took my StampinUp Pumpkin Pie inkpad and colored up the background then slapped down the dog. I finished off the whole thing with some glue (yes, the exploding variety - see previous post "time 4 cake" if you're looking at your computer screen and thinking "Tracy's finally lost her marbles") . I added a little superfine glitter to the glue and voila... Postcard from Home.

and now for a little music.... check it out

oh and one final thing

Happy Birthday June from the Birthday Queen

a quarter of a century

sounds like a long time doesn't it?

regardless, i wanted to make a card but wasn't coming up with anything. I saw a sketch online (for Verve stamps - as it happens I don't own any but no matter). Not sure I'm thrilled with what I came up with that's ok. He won't mind. And it helped me make something completely different - for me.

Have a wonderful day ~

time 4 cake

my dear and most talented friend Barbara celebrated a birthday last week. I wanted to make her something - perhaps a card - or something like a card. I wasn't quite sure. I do what I normally do - start pulling out supplies, stamps, embellishments - looking for a little inspiration. I think you know what I mean - something that sparks the idea. I wasn't finding anything to get me going. I decided to check my email (stall-a-rama). I'd signed up to get the newsletter from the Vintage Workshop a long time ago - I get them all the time but don't really shop there. However, this time I thought perhaps I'd find that inspiration I was looking for - as Barbara likes vintage (dontcha Barbara?) And indeed, I found this clock. And I was off and running.

The creative process is a funny thing. I had the clock and then I played with different items for 2 days off and on - adding things, taking them away, rearranging. Something was still missing and then it occurred to me I needed something to make that clock jump off the page (actually it wasn't a page it was a bingo card that I eventually completely covered over - but it was a real sturdy bingo card -perfect weight for holding all that I kept adding). I pulled out some glitter! I think that did the trick. The top photo allows you to see the dimension of it and the bottom photo here i think shows off the color better. It does look better in person - for sure.

The vintage wallpaper is from my friend Donna. Yes, that's grungeboard inthe background (that stuff is a lot of fun - try some if you haven't already - it takes acrylic paint so nicely and its so flexible - not like you'd expect just looking at it); the chipboard letters are Making Memories and the glitter is Martha Stewart.

Oh I forgot to mention - i had pulled out this white glue - Scotch Quick-Dry Adhesive - to put it together. It had been a while since I'd used it and the tip had gotten clogged. I declogged it - i thought. Still wasnt dispensing glue. I declogged again and replaced the top. And I squeezed just a little too hard - SQUUOOOOOOSH.... white glue EVERYWHERE.. I am happy to report it washes out of shirts, pants, carpets etc etc very nicely. Thought you'd like to know ;-)

That's all for today