Rain Puddles Design

Good morning! It's a week of quick cards on the Stampendous blog and for all we know a quick card could take under 15 minutes in an ideal world, but when your mind works like mine it completely acceptable if it takes under 60 minutes. My card today was a quick card for me. I like that the Cling Jumbo stamps and coordinating dies can create a very lovely card in just a few inks of a stamp. I think that this card could be under 15 minutes if I passed on the sewing and some of the sponging around the edges. There is one round of sponging that had to be done though, and it was the water stamping technique that I tried on the sentiment panel, it was just too much fun to try out. When I made this card for a product review I mentioned for this post , I also had the quick holiday card theme in mind to double up on this card, but when I was drawn in to playing with the review products there is a wee bit more embellishments than a typical quick card would be adorned. Pardon my ...

I have two VERY cute helpers during the holidays and they just might be a tad more cute than these two House-Mouse Designs® helpers. It's really close to tell though. I'm using Trim the Tree stamp by House-Mouse Designs® from Stampendous and my Copic Markers for a CAS card with lots of jazz for the holidays. What a thoughtful couple of mice! And this month the Stampendous Monthly Challenge is to create a CAS (Clean and Simple) Holiday card . The information is here for details and deadlines . Join in the fun and you might just win some fabulous new Stampendous! Details: Stamps:   Trim the Tree (Stampendous) Paper:  Natural and White (Neenah), red (Bazzill Basics) Ink:  Tuxedo Black (Memento, Tsukineko), Mustard Seed (Ranger), Copic Markers (sorry, I didn't make notes of the colors I used) Accessories:  Twine ribbon (May Arts), Sponge

Sometimes I love the simple impression a sentiment makes. That's so true with Verve's Every Heart Plain Jane . I've used it as a CAS card today to show how lovely the font is that this stamp has in all the right ways. I hope you enjoy it! There is a Diva Dare started and it's perfect for our busy holiday season. Check it out on the Verve Stamps blog  (I'm linking you up with Marisa on Day 1, so browse to Teresa and Stacey on day 2 and 3 for more inspiration)! Details: Stamps: Every Heart Plain Jane (Verve Stamps) Paper:   Mistletoe Collection (BoBunny), White (Neenah), Kraft (Wausau) Ink:  Tuxedo Black (Tsukineko) Accessories:   Caribbean Sea ribbon (Stormy Skies Ribbon Collection, Verve Stamps)

A new day and a new month! I'm amazed and a smidgen depressed that it is already the fourth month of the year and it just seems like I came off of Christmas break. I know though that I have to keep going because life doesn't stop or slow down for me. Did you all have a great spring break? That's the reason I didn't have anything new to post last week. I needed to have a vacation. I'm a little worn down with quite a few things on my plate these days and there's more to come. So it was a great time to just hang out with my family and take my kids to play dates and special treats. For all those who have some busy days ahead, I'm wishing and praying that it goes smoothly for you. This week my husband goes in for out-patient surgery and I'll be taking care of him and all the other normal things that go on. If I make a few mistakes in my posts or seem to be very short winded you'll know that I'm just trying to keep up and I'll be back to no...

I've been super busy with a little, okay a lot of Stampendous catalog designing, but I squeaked in a time to play with the Splitcoast Stampers Mix-Ability challenge. I've missed it this past week and must catch up, but today is a new challenge and Birgit has brought a super awesome challenge. Use print plus gesso! That's super easy and hey, if the print gets mostly lost from the fun of gesso and color, that's okay. We know it's down underneath all that goodness. My card was a CAS'MM. It's clean and simple meets mixed media. The sentiment panel was put together quickly by  taping around the edges of the pre-sized chipboard. I glued torn book page pieces onto the chipboard and tried to stay off of the tape with the glue. I painted and gesso'd then stamped the sentiment as it would be put on the lime card base. Heat set if you're in a hurry (it is a CAS card). I carefully pulled the tape directly away on the same plane from the chipboard so...

It's a sweet clean and simple day. I love Sunday's for the afternoon nap and the low to no schedule hustle and bustle. It's a good day when I can get up for church and then come home and hang out with my family. Dogs sitting in my lap and watching sports or a movie. Sometimes I grab my knitting bag and then on a few occasions I actually take the knitting out of the bag. :) I hope you are having a relaxed day and enjoying something simple in life. I managed to leave off my CAS card for the Viva La Verve Challenge during release week. I thought I'd get this up on the blog last week and then the whole week flew by. That is a constant during the school year, with loads of events and times to be here or there so I should have expected it. Anyway, I made this CAS card for the sketch I hosted a couple of Friday's ago. It uses the new Banner Bundle Die Set and Scalloped Trimmed Trio Die Set . Two die sets that will be used over and over and over! The sentiment ...

Hello friends, I didn't realize that I've been gone for a whole week of blogging! My goodness is that terrible! LOL So the truth of it is that I've had an ongoing nuisance with my lower back and hip, not to mention a small sprain in my thumb that prevents me from gripping things for long periods of time... like my markers!!!!!! I started going to the doctor two weeks ago (and still going) and I've been a bit mojo-less. I promise it has come back and I'll be providing some inspiration for you all. Stay tuned! Until then catch these tidbits. Click to take you to Monday's blog links. I have a couple of posts this week with Stampendous design team and May Arts Ribbon team. Oh my word, that company can put out some fantastic ribbons. You can start hopping with the teams today by going over to Stampendous blog. I'll be back on Tuesday with something to share and more links to hop along. There are prizes!!!!! It's a new month and Stampendous is...

It's such a pleasure and excitement to be a guest designer with THE CAS team on Splitcoast Stampers this week. It's a technique week with the challenge to Color Block. Seriously, I had to Google it! LOL I needed to make sure I was thinking right about the challenge and I was, but I liked the thought of using "blocking" inside of a die cut. So, let's hope I am still inside the technique! :) I took three scraps of cardstock and taped them together then stamped the Sweet Scallop Stamp in Tuxedo Black. I used the coordinating sweet scallop die to cut out the tag and tied a little black bow at the top popping it up with dimensional dots. I stamped the sentiment from the newly released Treasured Words set from Verve in Tuxedo Black as well as the cake stand image from the same set. It was popped with dimensional dots, too. My card base  is embossed with a Sissix Polka Dot embossing folder. So take the technique challenge on your next creation and link it up ...

It's the first day of school for my little girl and I'm hoping that she will Enjoy the day! I made this card with some new Verve from the Anni-Verve-sary release that hit the stores over the weekend. It only took two Verve products for this CAS card that I made to play along with the Splitcoaststampers 2012 Fall CAS DT Search  on the first challenge to Get Your Game On. The waves are a bit methodical, but I cut a 2-inch square of light blue cardstock and then made several passes of mono adhesive tape across the bottom half of the square. I chose four different blue (one teal) cardstock and cut out 2 pieces of the Flourished Trim die. I started from the middle of the cardstock and kept rotating and skewing each color until I made something like a surf worthy ocean. I stamped the smaller sun in Learning to Sail and colored with copic markers. The black frame is created by running adhesive across the back of the four pieces and overlapping them over the top of the bl...

Here's a little leaf or two! Verve has this wonderful set with all sorts of great leaves. I've used them many times as accents on my cards, but for this Viva La Verve sketch to end July I brought out the leaves before they start turning Autumn colors. This weeks sketch is from Andrea Ewen who has us doing a CAS classic. I, however, got entangled in the techniques of my card and went a wee bit past CAS. That's the neat thing about a basic sketch. It's so easy to build onto it. Details: Stamps:   Autumn Splendor (Verve Stamps) Paper:  Ginko (Wausau), Kraft (Mohawk), Black (Hobby Lobby), Cream (Wausau), green scraps Ink:   Tuxedo Black (Memento, Tsukineko) , Green Galore, Gable Green, Mellow Moss and Old Olive (Stampin' Up) Accessories:   Rounded Scallop Frame Die (A Cut Above Die, Verve Stamps), Forest Branches embossing folder (Cuttlebug), Corner Chomper, (WRMK)

It's officially the new challenge month for Stampendous and we are going to use Citrus Colors. How about joining along with us? We'd love for you to freshen those layouts, sketches, 3-D projects or any project with a Citrus twist and then link up with us on the challenge blog. You can go to the Stampendous Blog and get all the details today! My card today is a flub one... I mean fun one. Okay so I really did flub a bit on it. In real life it had some acrylic brushed on top of the green pattern paper and then I embossed    the sentiment  in Pirate's Gold . It looked awesome! When I photographed it to share with you today, the sentiment would NOT show up. No matter which way I positioned the card or my light source it just wasn't going to show up. So I stamped again and embossed with the Stampendous Jade PEARLustre embossing powder and trimmed it to nestle in and over my Pirate's Gold sentiment. I'll just call it my buried treasure! LOL Now for the ...

Welcome to the  July Diva Inspirations Blog Hop!   The Verve Divas are here to inspire you with a little  Verve ! You can start the Hop at the  Verve blog .  Continue through and comment on each fabulous blog and leave a little comment love and you just might win some Vervey goodness of your very own!  If you got here from Charmaine's blog   you are in the right place.  Be sure to check out the awesome line up of diva inspiration we have for you this month. 1.  Betty 8.  Amber 2.  Jen d. 9.  Andrea 3.  Jen T. 10.  Charmaine 4.  Julee 11.  Janelle 5.  Sankari 12.  Maureen 6.  Sony 13.  Teresa 7.  Susan  One more thing before I show you my project... It's Julee's (owner & illustrator of Verve) birth month, so we're having a SALE! Through July 31, ALL stamps are 20% off! My card today is sweet and simple. I grabbed the sketch from Mojo Mo...