This and That

Just wanted to take a minute to show you a couple of little things I have been working on. I made some tags using the cute birdie stamp from the March Card Kit at Memories from the Attic. They can actually have a hole punched in them and a ribbon added and be used as gift tags, or they can be used as card or scrapbook embellishments. I just love this stamp! I inked it with acrylic ink, heat embossed it with the clear embossing powder that came in the kit, colored the image with Copics and highlighted it with silver Stickles. I actually made a set of 6 of them of various colors. Going to put them in my ETSY store, if anyone is interested!

Ialso played with my PK Glitz glitter and the special paper it comes with. I die cut a butterfly and dragonfly out of the paper with my Sizzix, covered my winged things with gorgeous Fuscia and Azure glitter, and added some jewels and Stickles (of course). If you have not used the PK Glitz, you have to try it. I acutally got mine at a convention last year. I think I am going to ask Jeri if she can get this at our store, because the glitter DOES NOT come off their sticky paper. I mean, it REALLY doesn't. Am thinking of making more of these for ETSY. Don't think the pics do them justice!

Btw.......Helen, if you are reading this, I didn't have time to find those beach pics and post them, but I am really, really going to try to post them tomorrow. Really! lol

Happy Birthday HELEN!!!

I want to say Happy Birthday to HELEN, my best friend since I was four years old! I also want to say that she is older than I am......well, ok, only by 2 months exactly, but considering the ages of all my friends and even my hubby, who is several years younger than his little wifey, I love it when people are older than I am! By the way, my other bff, Jill, is also older than I! Isn't life grand? lol

Anyway, Helen will be getting her birthday card late cause I just mailed it yesterday, which is her actual bday. So I told her she could look on my blog and see it on time, but now I have even posted it late. oh well......it's the thought and all that! The thought is really there! She has been like a sister all the time I was growing up as an only child. We had many crazy adventures. Spent lots of summers at Myrtle Beach as teenagers with our other friend Lecia, trying to look older than we were and picking up boys! Oh, I should have scanned a pic and posted it. I know just the one, as a matter of fact. Will try

to do that this afternoon.

Helen lives in VA, where we both grew up, and i'm here in old TN (partial words stolden from a Dan Folgerburg song). I haven't made it back home lately due to my fibrogarbage, so we haven't seen each other for a while. Time for a long phone conversation! Even better would be a visit! Come to see me, girlfriend!

Hope you like the card, Helen! For the cardmakers out there, the kitty stamp is Penny Black. I colored in the image with Copics and Zig markers (need more Copics!). I made the flowered patterned paper by stamping and using a resist technique. Then used Stickles for the glitter. The bday sentiment and balloons were clear stamps inked with a cear embossing pad, and then heat embossed with blue ep. I cut them out and adhered them with popdots for dimension. (Didn't mean to bore you, Helen!) Finally, I added lots of love! (Hope that wasn't too cheesey! lol)

Catching Up!

I thought I would stop in and keep my blog updated. I have been so proud of myself for keeping up with it! So I thought I would show you what I have been working on. Not too much to actually show. Been dealing with real life and getting ready for Easter. Planning on cooking Easter dinner for family and a few friends. I am going to do the "toned down" version that I have done the last few years due to my fibrogarbage. That means I just don't cook as many dishes that are a lot of trouble.







Besides that, I have written a few articles for the Memories from the Attic newsletter which Jaime is putting together. It is a job that she volunteers to do every month. I always feel guilty cause she works so hard, and i'm sure I don't make her job any easier by getting in my articles at the last minute! I always promise to do better!


Speaking of MFTA, I always did one more card from the March Card Kit. I used staples in this card, something I don't usually do. Everything else is from the kit except I used my own Copics and Prisma colored pencils with GooGone to color in the birdie, vellum, a flower and brad from my stash, and I used a sentiment stamp from Unity. I used a Paper Shaper punch from EK Success for the scallop shapes. I really love those punches. I also love this March Kit from the Attic! Of course, I am a heat embossing junkie, and my new fav item is the embossing pen in the kit!


I am also been working on my ETSY Store to post a few new items. I have made some new flowers that I sell unders supplies, but the main focus on our store right now is that we are adding digital collages or digital stamps (whichever you prefer to call them) that Sam has drawn. If you have visited my store, you know that Sam is my partner in crime, so to speak! He is the true artist. So it suddenly dawned on me that digital images are becoming especially popular right now (I'm sure the economy has a lot to do with that. After all, you can use the digital images over and over!), and that I should be using Sam's artistic talents for this. We are also going to add vintage photos and things of that nature. Here is an example of one of Sam's collage sheets. This one is household items.



These print on an 8.5 by 11 inch sheet. Done at 300 DPI so that you can print them crisp and clear even if you resize them. I love the cute little faces. We are doing custom pages or will even do one item of our choice. Sam can draw anything in no time!
Please have a look and let us know what you think! If the link doesn't work, the url is http://www.dreamersboutique.etsy.com/. Sam needs encouragement girls! I think I need to post a pic of Sam looking sad, waiting for a comment! rofl I really will do this soon! Thanks for looking! I appreciate comments here also!

A Thank You to Dorothy for my Blog Candy!

If you will remember, back in February, I posted a pic of the blog candy that was being given away by Dorothy from Never Enough Rubber Stamps. She is so generous, not just because she was giving away blog candy, but because she was (and still is) collecting cards to give to the homeless or elderly.

Anyway, after her big giveaway, she decided to give out more blog candy to some more lucky people who had sent her some cards. I, fortunately, was one of those people! So I got a wonderful package today filled with all sorts of goodies. As I told her, I wasn't feeling very well today, and getting that package just made my day! Some of the things were unknown to me - she expanded my horizons! I have to mention the sticker sheet from Crafty Secrets. Such beautiful vintage stickers and not your run of the mill images. Can't wait to create with them. I got some really pretty rubber stamps, some lovely pp and ribbon. One of my favorite things was Maya Road's Ribbon Lockets. If you haven't seen them, have a look. I had been drooling over them! I also have to mention the Style Stones. I love these. Hadn't seen them before either. These particular ones were little inkable frames with little designs on them. Totally cute! I really won't mention everything, but you can see how incredibly generous Dorothy is! Dorothy, thank you again! I promise to get more cards to you or make that a local project for myself here!

Sketch 9 at Card Patterns

I recently got a new rubber stamp from Magenta. I purchased it from Nahanibluette's Shop at Etsy
If you love rubber stamps, there are fabulous prices on stamps and more at this shop. You need to check it out! I also had some patterned paper by K & Co (I believe it is Que Sera Sera.) that I wanted to use. So when I saw the sketch challenge this week at Card Patterns (the link is under my Favorite Scrappy Places), I decided to use both of these favorites. So here is Sketch 9 from Card Patterns and my take on the sketch. Had a hard time with the light. Hope you can see the sheer ribbon and bow, in particular. Also, have a look too at what the CP DT did with the sketch. It was pretty interesting to see how differently everyone interpreted it, but that is what art and creativity are all about, aren't they?

Btw, the sentiment stamp is by Stampendous. It's just right for so many occasions!

My Winners from the Attic Blog Hop!

I wanted to announce the winners from my part of our Attic Blog Hop. I had the ATC Challenge and I did a combo March DT Challenge/Blog Hop Card Challenge. The winners were determined by random drawing.

So I have two winners to announce. The winner of my RAK package for the DT/Blog Hop Card Challenge is........Karee Sue!!! Congrats, Karee Sue! She turned in so many beautiful cards (as did all the entrants, of course!)

Everyone did some beautiful ATCs, as well. The winner of my RAK package for the ATC Challenge is Harley (Shelley)!! Congrats, Shelley! She did some beautiful ATCs and CLAIMS these are her first ones! lol It sure didn't look like a first try! Thanks to everyone who did the ATCs, and if you will look in the SWAP forum, I am going to do a post to see if ya'll want to swap them. Hope so!

Also, info will be posted about the April ATC swap. If you are not a member of MFTA and you like to swap ATCs, come and join us and join in our next swap!

BTW, if my winners could pm me your addys, i will get your RAKs out to you! I think I have both of them, actually, but just in case. Thanks!

More from the Attic March Card Kit!

Just wanted to take a minute to show you two more cards I made from the March Card Kit at the Attic. There is a pic of the kit in my last post, and a link to our site there and also under my Favorite Scrappy Places. Please come and visit us and see the other cool kits that Jeri has out! As I mentioned last time, the Card Kit is VERY affordable, as all the kits are! If you are interested in tutorials on how I made the cards from the kit, just purchase a kit and you will have access to the VIP card kit forum. Besides tutorials, there are special tips, challenges and RAKS!!!!

The two cards I am posting today are purposefully made almost totally with kit materials! I want everyone to learn that there is SO MUCH you can do with embossing powder and an embossing pen. These 2 items can be stretched to do so much if you are on a budget! For example, in the Happy Easter card, the letters are done with the embossing pen and some copper color embossing powder from my stash. I love the cute Rusty Pickle pp from their Chocolate Bunnies collection. I don't know if you can tell in the picture, but the flower is so shiny irl from the clear ep in the kit.


The "Hi" card is also made using the ep and the pen. It was very easy and inexpensive to make the flowers.......but you'll have to be an Attic "VIP" card member to know those secrets! lol

Thanks for looking at my cards. I did have one made for this Caardvarks Challenge, but hated the way it looked when it scanned. I had done a background made by combining white Lumieres, Perfect Pearls, and water and then stippled these on glossy cs. It really turned out beautifully, but NOT IN THE PIC! I didn't have time to take a pic of it and see if that turned out better than the scanner. That's what I get for waiting until the last minute, because Caardvarks had such a great prize this week! Oh well, maybe I will finally learn not to wait until the last minute! (That will be the day! lol)