Having a Great Day .............

What a day it's been! About 3:30 this morning our dog Murphy woke us up to say something was wrong............. and he was right. The power had gone off around 1:30am and had come back on again with the clock radio lights flashing and the house alarm beeping. What a dog! It's kind of reassuring to know you have a little angel looking over you. So we fixed the alarms and went back to sleep.

Around 8:00 while we were having coffee and watching the morning news, the power went out again. Since we couldn't do anything without the electricity in the house, we both headed outside and tackled some of our garden work that has been lagging behind. We finished that and the power was still out........... an hour has passed. So, nothing else to do we took Murphy for a nice long walk around the lake and neighborhood where we live. The power was out everywhere so it wasn't only us who were inconvenienced. If there was any silver lining to today's power outage, it was the fact that it's a grand day with the sun shining brightly and a light breeze blowing and no where to be in a hurry.

On our way home we picked up our mail and there was a package from Dawn Rapsas for me...............my prizes for having her blinkie on my blog and guessing one of the questions on the July 27th chat night. How exciting!!

Well that just made the day even brighter and so much more exciting......I wanted to rip the envie open right then and there but my DH suggested waiting until we got home. The with the suspense deepening we returned home. When we arrived the power had returned and all was back to normal. I opened the package as soon as I could and look what I got........... a full package of dimensionals, a beautiful package of Hidden Garden Rub-Ons and a Ribbon Measurer. Here's all my stuff. Thanks Dawn for making it such a great day after all!

City of David

Today while I was browsing through the fall 2007 Holiday Cards Volume 2 Paper Crafts Magazine, I was inspired to make a card using the retired City of David stamp set from Stampin' Up. Having recently acquired this stamp set, which I've always loved, I thought now's the time to get out the ink and get stamping.

The card and matching envelope above were designed by Dianna Halevy. I loved the card colours and how she used the 1 3/8" circle punch to create interest at the bottom of the card. The figures of Mary and David are stamped on the base card in Really Rust and then restamped on Very Vanilla cardstock and painted with More Mustard, Really Rust, and Sage Shadow inks. They were then mounted with dimensionals. This is my version of Diana's card. Hope you like it.

Fall Session - UStamp With Dawn & Friends

Only a few more sleeps............. I'm so excited! The fall session of the UStamp with Dawn & Friends session begins on September 4th and will run until October 1st a full 28 days! That's 4 more days of FUN!! It will be the same format of new projects/video every day!! Tons of Chats, Lots of Prizes, Gallery Sharing and Dawn says there will be a few more surprises too!! Using products from the 2009-2010 IB&C and the Holiday Mini Catalogue the focus will be on holiday gift giving ideas, fall birthdays and everyday tokens of appreciation and gratitude.

If you are looking for new ideas, you will not want to miss this event!! Cost is $25.00 US............ money well spent! To register check out Dawn's website for more information: http://ustampwithdawn.blogspot.com/

Water Colour Roses

Here's a sneak peek at some future cards I'll be making using the water colour roses technique made so popular this summer by Patti Bennett's Watercolor Roses - Technique and Video Tutorial. If you haven't seen her video I would strongly suggest you go to her blog and check it out. I can't thank Patti enough for the wonderful video and her excellent instructions.

So one of my wonderful customers and I got together last Thursday for some stamping and technique sharing. We both were interested in trying the Watercolor Rose technique. I got out my reinkers, spray bottle of water and some plastic lids and before you know it we had each painted one rose image. We had so much fun trying out this technique that we couldn't stop at just the roses. We had to include the lilies and other flower image in the Fifth Avenue Floral stamp set shown on page 98 of the SU Idea Book and Catalogue. What do you think? Aren't they gorgeous. I used Crushed Curry, Pirouette Pink, and Red Riding Hood reinkers for the roses and lillies and Brocade Blue and Red Riding Hood for the blue flowers.

Another UStamp with Dawn Project

I still have a few projects that I'm catching up on from the UStamp with Dawn Summer session. This is my version of Makeesha Byl the Australian Dream Team Member's Double Boxed Gift Basket. I filled mine with Stampin' Up goodies, but this would make a great gift basket for a baby or wedding shower.

The basket which is made from two 12 x 12 sheets of cardstock is comprised of two separate boxes that are joined in the middle by a divider that also acts as a support. The divider is made from two A4 pieces of cardstock covered with designer paper. To further stabilize the basket a 6 x 10 piece of cardboard is cut and adhered to the base of the basket. I was really amazed at how strong the finished baskets are.


















I made a small gift card to go along with the gift basket and gussied up the envelope with designer paper and a 5/8" piece of regal rose grosgrain ribbon.

My Swaps for My International Swap Sister

For those of you who read my August 7 post about Jenny Adams, my swap sister from Australia and were interested in what I had sent her, I am posting some photos of my swaps.

For the first project and card I used the "Tart and Tangy" stamp set. This has to be the best value stamp set in the catalogue (page 126) because there is just so much you can do with it. At $16.95 for four stamps how can you lose! I used Crystal Effects on the apples on the card, and strawberry on the bottle topper. I wish you could see how it brought out the image. They looked good enough to eat!

I also included a bottle topper with some crystal light and a magnetic Tic Tac Toe game. The Tic Tac Toe game is made in a 6 x 6 metal tin and each of the game pieces is mounted on a magnet so they don't get lost or roll around. This is a great game for the kids when you're travelling. I used Summer Picnic DSP another retired designer paper for the card and the apple images on the game pieces.

I absolutely loved making the second project using Ginger Blossom DSP from the 2008 Spring Summer Collection and In Colour card stock (Groovy Guava & River Rock). The 3 x 3 card holder was fashioned after a tutorial on Split Coast Stampers. It was a lot of fun to make and so easy. The flowers on the cards and box are made using the scallop punch, distressing the edges with Groovy Guava Ink and then cutting through each scallop so they appear more like petals. The flower centers are made from DSP punched with SU's 1 1/4 inch circle punch. The leaves were punched from River Rock card stock using the small oval punch. Once the leaves were distressed I ran them through my crimper to give them some depth. All flowers and leaves were mounted on dimensionals. Mellow Moss 1/4" grosgrain ribbon was used as an accent on the cards and pizza box.

"Have Fun Doing What You Love"

"Have Fun Doing What You Love"
Do you love creating beautiful cards or scrapbooking? If you do, then there's still time to join the Stampin' Up! family for as little as $105 with the Mini Starter Kit. This promotion is only available until August 31st. Sign up today and you can have fun helping friends and family create exciting projects, while earning free products and even a little extra cash"