Kona

Hi!  I've been asked a few questions avout Oliver since I introduced him last week.  So, I thought I would try and answer them here for those of you who are wondering!

First, we got him from a breeder in Bluffton, Alberta (which is up by Ponoka...south of Edmonton).

Second, yes, he is a pure bred Chocolate American Cocker Spaniel.  Our other cocker is Buff (think dirty blonde).  I will try and get a picture of the two of them, but she doesn't really like to be close to Oliver becuase he wants to play and she does not!  If I can get the two of them together long enough, I will post the picture so you can see them!

Third, yes, Kona gave Oliver a present too!  Here's what she gave him.

A bag of little peanut butter flavour bones and an Oliver size tennis ball!  Amanda made a cute bone card for him (well, for me!).  Here's a closer look at it.

And, for all of you who asked, here's what Kona looks like.  She's a pure bred English Chocolate Lab.  I'm not sure where they got her, but she's a ball of energy (like every other lab I know!) and super cute!

That's all for today!  Have an inspired day!

Beautiful Butterflies

WAHOO!!!!  It's my 100th post!!!  Can you believe it?  When I started I thought I would post once a week or so and see how it goes.  Well, I've definitely been posting more than once a week and I'm loving it!  I've had people from all over the world check out my little blog, I've been featured on LNS Blog Finds of the Day a few times, I've learnt a lot about my computer and the blogging world.  I've received some much needed help from some great Stampin' Up! Demonstrator bloggers and I've received some fabulous comments from quite a few people including some of my stamping heros!!!

Ok, on to what you came here for...a super fabulous project!

It's a butterfly house!  Isn't is fabulous?!?  This was the Manager's project at the last meeting I went to for my upline's group.  I love, love, love this project and the best part is, it's super easy to do!

Here's a closer look at the house part.

That's right, it's the Mini Milk Carton...again!  I told you I would be showing you lots more ways to use it!!  This time it was cut from the Shades of Spring DSP (from the Occasions Mini).  Now, I have to say, that pack of DSP definitely is not my favorite, but the more and more I play with it the more I'm coming around with it!!!  For me, it works best in small doses...and there's still a few patterns on some of the sheets that make me shudder!

Anyway, the mini milk carton is the butterfly house.  It's made like the bird house I made here, only with a smaller hole for the door, and a skewer stick inside it!  To help the house from sliding around (and to make it pretty), there's a piece of Certainly Celery Satin Ribbon tied around the skewer.

Here's a closer look at the pot...filled with Werthers!

The pot is just a terracotta pot painted white.  There's a scallop circle cut from a chipboard coaster glued to the bottom.  Before I glued it to the bottom, I sponged around the scallops with Old Olive ink.  Then tie a piece of Certainly Celery Satin ribbon around the pot and decorate with butterflies.

So easy and so darling!

The butterflies are Old Olive and Certainly Celery and are all sponged with Old Olive ink to accentuate the embossing on them.  They are scattered all over the house and pot.  I love it!

So, in honour of my 100th post, I'm going to give away a Stampin' Up! Beautiful Wings embosslit die (when I get it...they're backordered right now!).  All you have to do to be entered to win is leave me a comment and tell me what your favorite part of my blog is.  I'll do the draw and announce the winner on April 5, so go ahead and leave me a comment and you might be the lucky one to win this fabulous die!

Have an inspired day!

Fall Photo Shoot

I know it's spring, but I did a fall layout for Scrapbook Saturday this week using the sktech from my scrapbook club this month.

My background is textured Old Olive cardstock.  I stamped the grass image from the "Inspired By Nature" set along the bottom of both pages.  I used DSP from the Soft Suede Patterns and also from "The Write Stuff" sets. 

I accented my pages with leaves that I cut from Old Olive, Crushed Curry, Dusty Durango and Soft Suede cardstock.  I stamped my cardstock scraps with the Sanded background stamp and Versamark ink, then cut the leaves with my Big Shot and the Leaves #2 die.  After I cut the leaves out, I  scrunched them up and then sponged them with Soft Suede ink to dirty them up and give them some texture.  I stuck them onto my pages with a little bit of Tombow Multi Purpose Glue (I *heart* this glue!!!) in the middles, so the leaves are still sticking up a bit and have some dimension.

My journalling block is a die cut from the "The Write Stuff" DSP pack.  It was perfect for journalling becuase it had a grid pattern on it so my writing is in straight lines!  I l;ike to hand write some of my journalling and use my computer for some.  I think it's important to have at least some stuff hand written in scrapbooks because your handwriting is you!

The only basic scrapbook page element (photos, accents, journalling, & title) I left off this page is a title.  I did this for two reasons...first, I'm not sure what to call this page, and second, I'm not sure it really needs a title!

That's all for today!  There won't be a simple card tomorrow for Simple Card Sunday.  But stop back on Monday for a super awesome project and some fun!  Have an inspired day!

That's the Milk Carton Die?

Good morning!  More Easter projects for you today!  I was surfing around the web a while back and came across these made by "angelstar".

Aren't they adorable!  I changed mine up a bit from hers and I love them!  They are totally the milk carton die on it's side with one side cut out to make a basket...isn't that awesome!  I love finding different, outside-the-box ideas for using our product! 

Here's a closer look at the chick...

Did you notice the little feet sitcking out of the front?  I think the feet are my favorite part!  They were made with the Boho Blossoms punch!  The ribbon is attached just behind the scallop oval wings with a brad on each side.  The beak is made from a 1 1/4 square punch folded in half to make a triangle.  I also trimmed off the side points.  The eyes are black brads and I finished it off with a Very Vanilla Taffeta Ribbon bow.

Here's some pictures of the bunny...

And she's finished off with a tail!

The bunny is lightly sponged with Pretty In Pink ink.  I used various punches to create the bunny face and tail.  The ribbon is attached with brads, just like the chick.  The bunny's eyes are black brads and I finished her off with a Pretty In Pink Taffeta Ribbon bow.

Both baskets are filled with home-made paper shreds.  I cut 1/8" strips of cardstock and ran them through my crimper.  Then when I had a little pile, I kind of scrunched them together so they looked like a nest and stuck them in the basket.  Both baskets then were filled with Mini Eggs...yum!

I have so many more ideas for this die.  Stay tuned becuase I will be sharing them in the next few weeks.

Have an inspired day!

Quick and Cute Bunny

Good morning!  Today I have a super quick and cute Easter project for you.

I got this from my upline at the meeting on the weekend as a thank you for helping out with some stuff.  I love it!

She took one of our cello bags and filled it with some jelly beans and then tied it shut with a piece of Natural Hemp.  The bunny head and feet are made from various punches, Whisper White and Pretty in Pink cardstock.  The whiskers are dental floss!  Ca-ute!!!!

I think the only thing it's missing is a tail!  But, what a cute and easy project for kids to give to their classmates or for teachers to give to their students.  Heck, I would even put some on co-workers desks...wouldn't it be fun to come to work in the morning and find one of these on your desk!  Love it!

Have an inspired day!

One of those days...

So, yesterday was one of those days.  It was not a good day, and I don't know how, but Sherri must have knowen I needed a pick-me-up!  She brought me this last night at Scrapbook Club.

Isn't it gorgeous?  And along with the fab card was a little package.  Look what was inside...

Cute!  Along with that there was a gift card for Chapters!  I totally know what I'm going to spend my gift card on too.  I'm so excited!  Thanks Sherri for making a crappy so much better!

Have an inspired day!

SAB Reminder

Good morning!  I wanted to quickly post and remind you that Sale-A-Bration is coming to an end next week!  I can't believe it's gone by so fast this year!

For every $65 you purchase you can choose a FREE Sale-A-Bration set and with 60 sets to choose from there's something for everyone!  Make sure you get all the free sets you want and place your orders with me before March 31.

Sadly, I don't have anymore dates left for "Experience Stampin' Up!" workshops, but you can host a book party and get some great free Sale-A-Bration sets.  Contact me today to get some catalogues and order forms to collect orders from your friends and earn yourself some free stamps!

Have you ever thought about doing what I do?  Right now is a great time to join Stampin' Up!.  The Starter Kit is being offered at 15% off right now and you also get to choose an additional free stamp set with your kit!  What a great deal.  Please contact me for more information and we can get your business started today!  I would love to have you join my team.

All of these offers end on March 31, so you'll want to contact me today to take advantage of them before it's too late!

Have an inspired day!

Happy Birthday

So, last week it was my birthday, and my good friend Sherri came to Stamper 10 with this card for me.

Isn't it great!  I love it and all the great little details.  See that fabulous polka dot background?  It's done with the SU Perfect Polka Dots Embossing Folder.  I'm having a class featuring this product on Friday and would love to have you join me if you're in the Lethbridge area.  It's a free class if you have the Big Shot and if not, it's $5.  I have some really great ideas for this embossing folder to share that night!

That's all I have for today!  Thanks for the card Sherri and thanks to all my club girls who made my birthday so great.

Have an inspired day!

Introducing...

Introducing, Oliver!  You may have noticed that for the last little while I've had a "Countdown until Oliver comes" at the bottom of the right hand column.  The time has come to introduce him.

He's my new baby!  We just got him on Friday night.  He's a 9 week old Chocolate Cocker Spaniel and he's and super sweet!  The boys adore him and so far Bailey (our 12 year old Cocker) is tolerating him!  Here's what he looks like after playing...

I also have some stamping to share!   My brother and his wife recently got a puppy too.  They got a Chocolate Lab and named her Kona.  My mom decided that we needed to have a family "chocolate puppy party" to celebrate the arrival of our two new family members.  We, of course, had gifts for Kona!  Here's what we gave her. 

I literally made this about 20 minutes before we left on Friday, so it fits perfectly with the Simple Card Sunday thing.  Here's a closer look at the card...

Because I procrastinated and only had a small amount of time to get this made, I turned to my beloved Note Cards with Envelopes!  I stamped a puppy from a retired set (I really now need to invest in a current dog set!) with StazOn ink on Watercolor Paper.  I watercolored it with Chocolate Chip ink, made the little shadow with Creamy Caramel ink and colored the nose with my Basic Black marker.  I mounted the watercolored piece on some So Saffron cardstock and then onto some Chocolate Chip cardstock.  I finished it off with a piece of Apricot Appeal Grosgrain Ribbon (which, when paired with So Saffron, looks like So Saffron!).  This whole piece is attached to the card with Stampin' Dimensionals.  The "congrats" is from the Fundamental Phrases set, and was stamped with Chocolate Chip ink.

I can totally see this card done with so many different images, color and words for lots of different occasions!

The box is also super easy.  The lid is a 12x12 piece of Chocolate Chip cardstock, scored at 2 3/4" on all four sides.  Make some cuts, fold it up and glue it and you have a box lid.  The bottom is made the same way, but the cardstock is 11 7/8 x 11 7/8 and I made it with So Saffron cardstock.  I kept the box really simple so Amanda cound use it again for another gift and just put a piece of retired So Saffrom ribbon around it.

The bow was super simple.  It's a loop of ribbon with the ends glued down in the middle.  Then you wrap another small loop of ribbon around the middle, where the ends of your first loop meet.  It's attached with a Pop-Up Glue Dot.

So, do you want to know what was inside the box?  First a funny story!  I took the kids to the pet store last week to let them pick out some toys for Oliver.  Sawyer chose a pack of tennis balls.  When we got home, Taylor and Carter noticed that there was a pink and a purple ball in the pack when they were showing Kevin what we got.  Here's how that conversation went...

Taylor:  Our puppy CAN NOT play with a pink ball.  He'a a boy!

Kevin:  Bailey is a girl, she can play with it.

Taylor:  Bailey doesn't play dad.

Kevin:  Throw it and see.

Taylor throws the ball across the room, Bailey runs after it, sniffs it and turns away.

Taylor:  See dad, Bailey doesn't play.  Hello (that hello was said with a lot of sarcasm!).

So, Taylor and Carter decided that we could give the pink and purple balls to Kona since she's a girl.  I suggested that we put them in a Ziploc with Kona's name on it.  Carter looked at me like I was from another planet and said that we had to have a nice box, with a card not a Ziploc bag.

So, here's what we ended up giving her.

And, of course no puppy gift is complete without a treat, so I put some milk bones in a medium cello bag and tied it shut with a piece of striped So Saffron ribbon.

That's what I've been up to for the last few days!  I'll be back tomorrow with a great card to share.

Have an inspired day!

Sucks to be Sick

Did you think I dropped off the face of the earth?  I seriously felt like I had the last few days!  For the last couple months, I've been fighting getting the cold that everyone around me has had and last Thursday when I woke up it was very clear that my body finally gave up the fight.  Friday was worse (lost my voice) and the weekend even worse (really, if I could have cut my head off I'm sure I would have felt much, much better...sorry for the visual but that's how much my ears and sinuses hurt!!!).  I feel better today, although I still feel exhausted and stuffed up...but much, much better than the weekend!

Anyway, I didn't get into my stamp room all weekend (I was busy sleeping!) so I didn't have anything to share :( .  But, I do have some pictures of the make & take from my downline meeting last week.

It was the first meeting I had my girls volunteer to help me out with some stuff during the meeting.  I had one do a demo (Sherri, you did a fabulous job with all those diffferent paper flowers!), Sunita brought some yummy snacks and Heather did a make & take for us.  Heather gave us three choices for our make & take (we kind of had a paper flower thing going on that night!).

Here's some pictures of the one I chose to make...

Yowza!  Look at that dimension!  Here's another closer look at the flower.  It's made from the scallop circle punch and the faux suede technique (where you peel the layers of the paper apart to get a nice fuzzy kind of look).

We sprayed the cards with Champagne Mist Shimmer Paint (mixed with rubbing alcohol) to give our cards some shimmer!  I love doing that!

We had a blast that night.  If you're interested in joining my group at our future meetings, let me know.  You have until March 31 to sign up and get a 15% discount on the Demonstrator Starter Kit as well as an extra FREE stamp set.  This special deal ends at the end of March when we say goodbye to Sale-A-Bration for another year.  Contact me today and we can talk about your fabulous future as a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator!

Anyway, that's all for today!  Have an inspired day!

Matthew's Birthday

Hello!  I can't believe the last time I posted was Monday!  Where has the week gone.  It's been a crazy one, I'll tell you that!

Today I have a birthday card to share with you.  It was totaly inspired by Jan Tink's blog post yesterday.  I used the same stamps, colors and some of the layout, but as started I kind of went off on my own little direction.  But, it is a very similar card to hers!

Supplies:  Extreme Elements, Extreme Skateboard, Sanded & A Little Birthday Cheer stamp sets; Not Quite Navy, Old Olive, Ruby Red & Sahara Sand Classic ink; Not Quite Navy Craft ink; Not Quite Navy, Ruby Red, Old Olive & Sahara Sand cardstock; Star Designer Brads; Stampin' Sponges; Stampin' Dimensionals

I made this card for one of my boy's friends who had a birthday party this afternoon.  My boys loved it and were so excited to give it to their friend.  Here's a closer look at the main image.

In this picture you can see some of the fun stuff I did with ink!  I sponged the edges of the main image with Not Quite Navy and the other layers all have Direct-to-Paper with my ink pad.  I just rubbed the edge of the ink pad against the cardstock.  There's something about the way that looks that makes my heart beat a little faster!

You're probably wondering about that brad.  You're probably thinking "they ARE NOT pictured like that in the catalogue", or "did I miss something...are they colored now", or maybe you're wondering how I did that to my brad.  Well, here's a closer look, and then I'll tell you what I did!

Are you ready?  It's very technical...all I did was smoosh it in my Not Quite Navy Craft ink pad.  Had to be craft ink or it won't work.  After I smooshed it, I gently rubed the excess ink off on a paper towel and the ink in the recessed parts of the brad stays.  I love how this one came out a little rustic or beat up a bit.  I wasn't going for that look, but I'm thrilled with the way it turned out!

Here's one more view of the dimension, and a little peek at the inside!

For the inside, I used a scrap of Sahara Sand and stamped the skateboarded in Not Quite Navy (stamped off twice) and the dot image from Extreme Elements with Sahara Sand ink.

All in all, I love the way this card turned out.  Thanks Jan for the inspiration!

Have an inspired day!

A Perfect Gift Box

Ack!  It's snowing...again!  I knew it was coming...it's been in the forecast for a while now, but I was secretly hoping this would be one of those times the weather man was wrong!  Oh, well!  It's warm enough that I don't think it will stay around.  After all, what's spring without a snowstorm?!?  Tonight I'm going to share some gift boxes with you.  I originally saw these at the Regional Seminar in Phoenix and fell in love with them!  I used the bigger one as the project I gave to my downline, along with a package of Epoxy Brads, who achieved $1000 in sales in January (the ones who earned it, loved it!).  And, the smaller one is the project my Stamp Clubs are making this month (full of cards, of course!).

The smaller of the two was made following the measurements from the Regional Seminar, and the larger was made following measurements from Kimberly Van Diepen (one of my stamping heros!).  both use the Sweet Pea DSP.  There are sooooo  many designs in that paper pack.  I just love how I can get two VERY different looks from the same paper pack!

Here's a closer look at the bigger one...

This one is made with Kraft cardstock.  The top is layered with Chocolate Chip and some Sweet Pea DSP.  I stuck a piece of Pretty In Pink Satin Ribbon across it and then attached a paper flower made with circles, a leaf from the Sweet Pea Stitched Felt (I *heart* those stitched felt pieces!) and one of the yummy Pretty In Pink epoxy brads.  It's finished off with a great sentiment from the "Full of Life" set.  This box fits 4x4 cards.  It would be a perfect little box to give a gift to a special friend for a special occasion like a birthday or something.  You could also put some chocolates, a gift card or another special little gift inside.  The box is held shut by sliding the top flap under the brad.

Here's a closer look at the smaller one...

This one is made from Soft Suede cardstock.  The top is So Saffron, Soft Suede and some scraps of Sweet Pea DSP.  The DSP is on a piece of Soft Suede which was punched with that fabulous new Scallop Edge punch (which you can earn FREE when you place a $65 order).  I finished if off with a piece of Old Olive Satin Ribbon and a little "for you" from the All Holidays set.  This box holds 2 3/4 x 2 3/4 cards.  It stays shut by sliding the flap in behind that flower (from the Boho Blossoms punch).  It's hard to see, but that brad in the middle of the flower was actually a Whisper White jumbo brad!  I smooshed it (very technical term here, people) in Old Olive Craft ink and then clear embossed it and voila...an Old Olive jumbo brad!  A word to the wise...use some tweezers or pliers to hold the brad while heating it...I speak from experience here people!  Learn from my not so smart moment!

Here's what they look like inside...

And the coolest part is that you can make a bunch and easily store them until you need a gift box because...are you ready for this...they lay flat when they're open!!!  I know this is as exciting for you as it is for me!!!  It's ok...you can admit it...I understand about these things...we're all friends here!

I LOVE these little boxes!!!  I made a baby one for one of my son's teachers who recently had a son.  I put a onsie and some teeny tiny socks in it...it was perfect.  I'll have to go visit her and get a picture to share with you (because I was too excited about seeing the baby that I totally forgot to take a picture of my creation!).

That's all for today!  Have an inspired day!