A second Shadowbox card

This is the idea i was thinking about as i read the tutorial, that if you made your back piece of cardstock 1 inch longer then your front piece you could score it one more time {so its scored at 1 1/2", 1" and 1/2" from the end} then that extra fold would wrap around to the front of the card. I did this yesterday real quick but, it got too dark to photograph it so i finished it this afternoon while it was snowing. ( Snow bounces a lot of light through the windows in the afternoon) This card is larger then the tutorial card so the back piece was cut at 5X8" and the top piece was cut at 5X7" the window was cut with an Accucut Scalloped oval frame die on my sizzix machine, its a piece of foil transfer background i did with the fired brick on plain cream cardstock and then the dahlia stamp (hero arts) was a left over from teaching the class a while back with a button in the center. tfl.

Todays Cards

This card was done using this weeks Splitcoast technique email idea for making shadow box cards. this should take you to the tutorial page here: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/news/comments.php?id=554_0_1_0_C The gist of it is to score each side of the cardstock at 1 inch and 1/2 inch from each edge on both pieces (with both pieces being the same size) I'm thinking i will try this again. hopefully soon and make the bottom piece one inch wider then the top piece and score it three times so that some of the back wraps around the front. (this would be cool if you used like a double sided heavy printed paper for this I'm thinking) there is some printed paper from Rubber Soul on the inside under the giga scalloped punchie, I used the green part that was cut out of the front "window" for the mat on this. There are 1/16 holes punched in the scallops. This Card Won Project of the Day at Creative Express! The Cake and candles stamps are from Stampin'Up and the Happy Birthday is from MySentimentsExactly. the sentiment is stamped on a small scalloped punchie from Family treasures. The Paper flower on the punchie is from Impress. The scalloped ribbon on the edges is from Hero arts and has 1/16 holes punched where the white spots would have been. This card is only 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 inches when flat. This card is also A-2 in size and has a couple of new Amuse Art stamps on it. the ribbons are wrapped around the brown card stock then the scalloped punchies are up on pop dots. I colored the birds with markers then added white gel pen dots for the eyes.

Some snap shots from this week

haha on my my Christmas Bulbs are blooming for spring break. :) the other two bulbs { they are all in the same huge pot together since they are all Red} have buds on them to open shortly. funny thing last year only one bulb bloomed for Christmas and the other two did nothing. This is what i get for following the directions eh? I think i am going to not bother sticking them in a closet anymore. maybe they will all bloom when they are supposed to. This is a card that is a proto-type for Beth's sunflower swap in the stamp shack. I have exactly 3 sunflower stamps so I'm thinking i will play with this one a few more times and then use the one that is just a flower head on the envelopes. and see what happens. this one is 6 x 6 in real life. sunflower stamp is from Holly Berry House and the sentiment is from PSX. This was just for fun, the dragonfly background is a new one i just got from Peddlers pack and its stamped twice with Versafine Olympian green once on a foil transfer background in peeled paint and once with it on the broken china distress inks. the sentiment enjoy is stamped on a scrap of Basic grey and the stamps from stampendous. This card is also 6 x 6.

Did you know?

that if you click on someones photo they have inserted into their blog a new window opens up to show you the photo larger? Well I guess it is my new thing i noticed today. been catching up on the blogs i like to visit, noticed everyone seems to have one of those lists now... (of blogs they visit.) if you follow all of the links it could become a part time job. ;)

Happy Happy Happy Mail day to me...

Every thing in the mail box today was for me... *Ü* This was the best of the lot however, the card was done by Beth "Canadian,eh?" and she had stamped extra images on the inside for me to play with. (hopefully soon) on her card the image is heat embossed in black then painted with Pearl -ex this card GLOWS as you tilt it. I have a pile of mags to read too! Yum it seems like they all arrive on the same day of the month so, Hopefully i will get to glance at all the photos before L O S T comes on. Have a good evening, Me

I stamped :)

I had some free time yesterday afternoon to just be ALONE and actually play.

so, there was a sale at ATRS recently and i ordered this stamp and two others.

This is the one i have done first, the background was cream cardstock then had tea dye distress ink transferred to it and after it dried the image is stamped with Versafine vintage sepia, this one is 6X6 in real life.

Buds & Blooms & Dogs

Snow Crocus is blooming here now, This is one of 3 of our peach trees, all the fruit trees have buds now This is a Honeysuckle bush

Dogs at play in the sunshine...

these are the good shots from this am, not so fun is J has been sick all

week pretty much so i took him to the Dr. this am. got at least 5 more days

ahead of this. and he's supposed to be contagious too.

Lovely. the Dr. said most the parents who dragged kids in this

week with this have had it too. (cross your fingers and pass the Lysol please)

there is no school today teachers are making report cards here.

and Ive kept him home most the week (except yesterday)

His teacher says half the school was out this week for one sickness

or another. alot of flu and stomach viruses and Pink eye...

So i have gotten a great deal of "spring" cleaning done in the yard this week.

removed alot of the dead stuff from last fall and filled the compost bin.

cant even begin to mention how many loads of laundry have been done this

week, I bet my water meter is out there spinning like

one of those dials you'd see in a disaster movie that the something

is about to explode soon...

I'm thinking I need a new name

for this blog... lol i wanted a new name for me when i was growing up really bad. I need to think about this maybe i will run a offer a name and let people vote on them or something as I am totally blank as to what i would re-name it as...

Tomorrow Nights Class

These are almost totally random cards, not something you'd expect to see together on a shelf as part of the same class, but what i used to do was make like 7 or 8 cards and let her pick 3 for a class and the time i took these in to see what she she thought she said oh lets make them a class together. this top card has a template that Sherry Graves made (you can find this on the downloads board at the http://stamp-shack.com/ if you are a member) This card the butterfly is stamped as a melted pearls technique and the top butterfly is done with yellow pearl-ex and the one underneath of it is done in blue. they are cut out for the wings to be in the air. The hero arts sentiment was stamped with the Olympian green versafine which ended up being a little too dark for the pp. This one is almost a take off of the invitations i did for Tim's B-day party invites. I don't know who makes that Quail stamp, and the tab on the side is an Quickutz revolution sized die and the background under the Quail was done by patting tea dye distress ink onto aluminum foil and misting with water and then pressed cream cardstock into it and set aside to dry. the Quail's stamped in Versafine Vintage Sepia and the distress inking on the edges of it are distress Vintage photo. I am too sleep deprived to be nervous about anything the owner may say to me tomorrow about my not teaching anymore, but that could change in 24 hours too. J was sent home from school Monday am for being sick he caught some kind of a stomach virus thing, he's finally starting too look better. the puppies sleeping a little more and trying hard on the house breaking thing, so who knows maybe one day {Soon i hope} we will be sleeping all night again... :) have a good day!

Time for a Change

This is one of last weeks cards, the background was done by mixing butterscotch alcohol ink drops in water inside a small ranger misting bottle and adding a little bit of super bronze pearl-ex powder. {you shake it before you spray} and then let it dry, the AI seals the powder so it does not wipe off later, and it gives the background cardstock a sheen when you tilt it. this was later overstamped with versafine vintage sepia ink with a couple of Stampin'Up background stamps and the main image is from Hampton Arts ( I think) Its 5X7 in real life and the ribbons from May arts and the edges have Krylon gold leafing pen on them. So for the moment the dogs and kid are fed and sleeping. the housebreaking thing for the puppy is progressing. And it thought what the heck, maybe its time for a change with your blog... I like pink and brown as a color combo so this may be interesting for a while. But, I don't know how to tamper with the how to move things to the sides, I think it may require a different blog template. and or how to add the little things that make it personal like slide shows or calendars and what not. Maybe later, Dinner is almost done. :)

Introducing the newest Member

Of our family. he is 4 months old and we have narrowed down his name to about 4 or 5 of them now. :) This was shot in the truck on the way home from the breeders. ( some of the kindest nicest people we have ever met) http://grousecreeklabs.com/ This one was taken along the creek near the barn, The chickens are allowed to run in a space between this fence, and their coop built into the barn so, they take advantage of that when its warm. So far so good. ( However he is Not housebroken yet) His mama is Heidi if you peek at the breeders site and both his parents have tons of ribbons and awards and Wow did we learn a lot of interesting things while we were there. Lots to do. :) More later, Me

Good News and stupid stuff

Lets start with the good News... there is a puppy breeder (akc black labs) who actually has a puppy ready to go in N. Ca that the parents are champion etc etc... won awards and such. so we have a road trip planned for Sunday to go meet the puppy (and probably bring him home with us ) The Vets have given Slick less then a year. she had tumors removed from her jawbone twice in February. ( its already grown back and double the size its ever been) there are more on her jaw, this is an aggressive cancer that the vet we have is a little dumbfounded by it as it usually happens in Older Labs. { she's 2 years old} She is doing good for the most part. still eating still playing with her toys, just sleeping a lot too. On another note, the tty phone arrived today. Its not a phone. its a box with a keyboard. its so two deaf people can type at each other. lolololololol since no one in my family has one of these phones its a pretty pointless thing for me to have since most of them can only use their emails to forward jokes. and they dont have a screen to read what i am typing at them... I'm debating if i should just box it back up and mail it back where it came from. I was lead to believe i would receive an PHONE that i could pick up and talk into that would just play typed words on a screen that the other person said. that is not what i have. but, if i do hook up what i have i can then ignore it and activate something in the cell phone that will go through a sprint relay and read conversations on the cell phone. keep in mind that the screen is not really that big on phone... Not sure how that will go over either. whine whine whine... ( and no cheese on hand) J's having a sleep-over tonight and oh i wish they were asleep! ;) More later, Me

Tonights Class {Dahlia Stamp}

Tonight's class ( which sold out in January and has been put off till tonight because of the snow ) is they people will make this card and the purple card and take home this hero arts stamp. I have also done a few extra cards for the ladies to see so they have more ideas of what they could do with their stamp after they get it home. This is the whole card from the image above. uses Fancy Pants newer pp and its stamped, colored and cut out 3 times and layered. This card has the background stamped with the flower on the castaway ink pads. This card the flower is stamped with the aged mahogany distress ink then heat set with clear embossing powder. the background was done with a foil transfer technique. This was an attempt at "ghosting" so the image is stamped with versa mark on white glossy cardstock and heat embossed with ranger white seafoam powder. then used red pepper alcohol ink over the top and wiped it off the white embossing parts of the flower. ( its actually kinda pink in real life not white anymore) This one the flowers are stamped with Stampin up white craft ink ( which i heat set to dry it) then colored the back sides with tombo marker and then cut out. this one is 5X7 in real life and yep found more of that May Arts ribbon on eBay recently in more colors. :) TFL.

Some of this weekends cards

This card i did for a card shower going on in the sunroom the stamps are from Stampin'Up and the ribbons are May arts. That mulberry paper is actually burgundy like the striped paper (that is up on popdots) but, the colors look a little wonky on the monitor. its done with distress inks. this has an oval scalloped accucut frame die cut is what the hearts and sentiment are layered on. the sentiment part is up on pop dots. stamp credits go to Hero Arts and Stampin up. This card is a-2 in size. These are some Newer Hero Arts stamps that i have not played with much as of yet. the sentiment is from SU. this ones 5x7 in size.

Snow we have Snow hee hee

Shot these the week the computer was at the fix it shop, we ended up with two "snow days" of closed schools... ( This has never happened here in J's life as of yet) so, now he gets up really early on school days and watches the news with us to see if there will be more of them. (snow days)This is the first time we have had a blower (its on the front of the lawnmower) and is such a neat blessing, our driveway is pretty big, plus the width of the property is fairly good sized when you are coming home from work to shovel. :) view looking north from the kitchen sink window. View looking North East (that is a lilac bush) our neighbors bushes were almost on the ground on our side of the fence. We've had snow almost every day for about two weeks now but, it has not piled up, it gets warm enough in the day to melt off the streets and such. not too long before these photos were taken Tim had trimmed all the fruit trees and i had seen daffodils, and crocus stems coming up out of the dirt already. maybe the snow crocus will make an appearance soon? More later, Me

some recent cards

These are just some simple ones... after throwing a fit and selling off so many of my SU stamps last summer ( IE hissy fits about non existent angel policy) I have Purchased a few more over the last couple of months and told myself i better use them. It was harder then i expected it to be. This one i am not happy with at all the "wings" part is a one direction stamp ( which i didn't notice that looking at the photo in their catalog) so to get it balanced you'd have to flip one side over and use the non stamped side to make it work. I am messing around with things i have and using Pink as a base thinking of embellishments i could make as a gift for Alice since she is working on her younger dd's wedding album... and so when i ordered these it was with the thought that they would be really elegant and fun to play with. This card was done with left over scraps from the card above. its A-2 sized. I do have photos of the last two classes i will teach cards ready to go and may post them later, but this is pretty much it for the moment. tfl.

Well {Sad News}

If you read this blog to peek at stamped things you may want to skip this post, Very sad here today. Our furbaby Slick ( a 2 year old black lab) has had ear infections pretty much all winter (she dives in a swims under water to fetch the ducks) so, shes been on antibiotics and making frequent vet visits for months now, last month when i finally got rid of the ear infections i found a lump on her jaw bone and it seemed to double in size in like 3 days, so they put her back on antibiotics and sent out a sample of it to a lab to be tested. results came back that it was a cancerous lump ( after they had tried to remove it ) so, they went in again and tried to remove more of it, and found more new lumps, sent those out to be tested. they are also cancerous. so the vet leaves that latest tidbit as a message in DH's phone and says please come by my office so we can talk about this, i guess there is a specialist Vet in Medford (about 80 miles away) that may be able to do something. but when we got to the vets office this afternoon all the Dr's there had already gone home for the day. ( they only go in for emergency's or scheduled surgeries on Thursday and Fridays...) so now you know what i know, that i am worried this dog is the most Loving dog we have ever had and she's only two. We've been hearing from people that these cancerous lumps will not spread through her body but, they are like an old doggy thing. something that commonly happens to Labs when they are much much older. so now we are waiting for a Dr. to go to work and call us back again. what a deal hmm? You'd think if they could leave a partial message they would also set aside time to say when they have free time to meet. I spent some time upstairs when i got home and used up some scraps from a card from a few days ago to make another one but i will start a new thread with card photos for those people who are just looking at the photos. More later, Me