Just So Hippy..........

Finally, I got a chance to use Melanie Muenchingers stamp set Just so Hippy. Hippo's are a big deal in our family. My daughter Emilia has 6 stuffed ones and my niece has 13 but Lila, Lola and Maggie Lou are with Emilia at all times so when I saw this stamp set I had to have it. I think this hippo reminds me of Emilia's hippo Maggie Lou the most though since she is pink and the biggest of them all. Maggie Lou loves cake but unfortunately Melanie did not have a cake in this set so she has to be happy with the heart balloon for now. Maybe Melanie will have a set with a cake in it for her in the future. In the meantime I am looking forward to playing with the other stamps in Melanie's set too so be on the lookout for more cards with her stamps.
I also got to try Mary Jo's Technostampers Monday lunchtime sketch this week with this card too. I used three different TJ techniques. on it. Technicolor Dye inks is on the left panel. A modified Brayered Spots is on the right. Because I did not have any Stampin spots I used my Colorbox petal point pigment ink pads instead so it is a little different than it is suppose to be, I think it came out okay though. The bottom piece is technicolor dye inks again with a panel of cuttlebug smoosh. The heart balloon was stamped on the remnants of a brayered spots piece and cut out. I used a piece of scrappers floss that I dyed with pink pigment ink for the balloon string. I colored the hippo with my Copic sketch markers. Cardstock is Bazzill. Finished card is 41/4 x 51/2 That's it. Thanks for looking and have a great night.

Sarah The Stamper

I finally got a chance to try Debbie Olsons sketch that she posted on her blog Sunday. The sketch is for a non A2 sized card and is 41/4x 41/4. I have never done a card this size so it was fun to do something different. I am really liking this size too. I just have to figure out what kind of envelope to put it in though. If you have any suggestions please let me know. Anyways the stamps are from the Angel Company and I am hoping she might resemble Debbie when she is stamping. My desk is never that neat maybe hers is though. I really love Debbies blog and admire her work a lot so I hope she likes what I did with her sketch. I also hope she will share more sketches for us to try in the future too. The reason why I am calling her Sarah is because my daughter Emilia really loves names so when I got these stamps I told her that she could name them. She decided she liked Sarah for this one so that is what I am going to call her. There are quite a few more stamping gals in this set so I am pretty sure you will be seeing more of them. The striped paper is from the frutti fusion paper pack from The Angel company. The little tag is cut from chipboard and a cuttlebug die and then I went over it with blue colorbox petal point pigment ink. I used Papertrey Stampers Select Cardstock and cut it with my rectangle nestabilities dies and and embossed it. Then I stamped Sarah and colored her with my copic sketch markers. The ribbon is American Crafts Elements premium ribbon. That's it. I am off to finish cooking dinner now. I am trying a new Giada recipe tonight. I hope it tastes as good as it smells.

How Sweet

I finally got around to using some of my new MFT stamps that I have had for over a month now. These were the stamps I bought in place of the Bellas I was going to get. I got them from here I would highly recommend this place. Liz is a doll and was really nice to let me buy MFT stamps instead of the Bellas after I had already ordered them. By the way just to update you I never heard back from Emily (Stamping Bella) about it being okay to sell what I make with her stamps through my website and Etsy shop so unfortuantetly as of now I am not going to be using them. Now back to the details on how I made the card. I used this weeks MFT sketch challenge on SCS . I also used my small plain circle and large scalloped nestability dies. I colored the main image with my copic sketch markers. The pink paper is from the Uptown Girl paper pack from The Angel Company and I used my cuttlebug embossing folder bloom dots on it to try and match the flowers on the chair. The brown cardstock is Bazzill and I stamped the chocolate kisses on it with fawn and pine cone Bazzill ink. I used CTMH's Orchid Bouquet cardstock to make the photo corners which I learned how to make from this blog The finished card is 6x6.
I hope you have a great day.

Skater Girl Move it card

Lauren Meader has a great tutorial on her blog for how to make a move it card that I have wanted to try for awhile now and I finally got around to it. That is where the inspiration for this card came from. I had to make a few adjustments though because my little Elzybell skater girl was to small to use pennies with. I love those stamps but I really wish they would make them bigger. first I colored her with my copic sketch markers. I was originally going to use small buttons instead of pennies but my husband came up with a better idea to use tiny sequins loosely sewn together instead so she would move along the track better. I used the cuttlebug smoosh technique from the Oct/Nov 07 Technique junkies newsletter again. I just love that technique. I also used my Large Oval Nestability plain and scalloped dies for the ice rink and added clear stickles, blue jeans distress ink (Thanks for suggesting that Linda), and white liquid applique for snow. I finished it off by adding some clear glitter to the front layer of snow too. Cardstock is Bazzill. I hope you like it.
I am off to start another card now to help me keep up with my stamping goals. On another note American Idol starts again tonight. I hope this season will be better then the last one. Bye for now.

Challah

Emilia has been wanting to learn how to make Challah bread for awhile now and today was the day I taught her how to make it.
I started out baking as a hobby when I was a teenager and it grew into a business after I graduated High School. I started Baking By Terri in 1987 with my moms help even though she could not bake. It all started because my mom came home from her gym one day and said they were trying to to figure out what they could sell for a snack that was good for you but did not taste bad. At the time I was making an oatmeal raisin cookie that had one egg in it which I thought was pretty healthy so we got the managers to try it and after that they wanted to buy it and that was how it all got started. During that time I had created a whole line of no cholesterol, low fat, low sugar baked goods as well as a gourmet line and I also did speciality cake decorating too. I ran the business for 3 years with my moms help until we could not do it any longer because we were turned down by the zoning board to put a commercial kitchen in my parents garage and could not afford to lease space and hire more help either so we decided to call it quits. Anyways during that time I use to bake Challah bread for a lady every Thursday and have not really made it since then until now. It sure brought back a lot of memories. Emilia had a great time making it too so I thought I would share a picture of how it came out with you since I don't have a card to share with you. I was able to stamp a little today too but did not like what I came up with so I will have to try again tomorrow. I am happy to report that so far I have been able to meet my stamping goal of making time everyday to stamp some. Even if I don't always come up with a finished product at least I am sticking to my goal of getting some stamping time in so I would say that is progress. Hopefully I will have better luck tomorrow and be able to show you what I was working on soon. In the meantime have a good night.

A Warm Hello

I have been wanting to work on this sketch for a couple of weeks but have not had the time to do it until now. My recent stamping goals helped me to finally get it done though!
Here are the details:
I used a Saturday sketch from Lauren Meaders blog but changed it up a bit. It was the Dec 30th sketch so I am a bit behind but better late than never right? The snowman stamp and saying are from The Angel Company. I used my Faber-Castell watercolor pencils on Strathmore artist quality 140# watercolor paper to watercolor the snowman. The saying is embossed. I used digital paper from MFT for the left panel. I finally got some Papertrey Stamper’s Select White Cardstock to try since I had heard such great things about it. I used my cuttlebug snowflake embossing folder with it and am happy with the results. I can't say I notice a big difference from the other white cardstock I was using but it is a very nice heavy white cardstock and definitely worth the price. The rest of the paper is Bazzill cardstock. The snowflakes are from CTMH that I had gotten a few years ago and have just been sitting in my drawer. I attached the larger snowflake to the ribbon with sewing thread so it just hangs there. I am really happy I finally got a chance to use them. The ribbon is American Crafts Elements premium ribbon that I got from QVC a few years ago too. That is about it. I hope to be back with another card to show you soon.

Time.....

Where does the time go??? I can't believe that the first week of the new year is already gone.I hope the rest of the year does not fly by too.
We took about 10 days off from homeschooling at the end of the year because we made it to the half way point but are back into the routine now.
During our time off I had been spending a lot of time reading other stampers blogs which have been very inspiring to me but at the same time I did not get much stamping done. I was also enabled to buy more things too. Because of those things I have spent a lot of time this past week thinking about what I would like to accomplish with my stamping this year and this what I have come up with.
1.Make time to stamp for an hour each day and try to come up with more than 1 new card a week.
2. Put those cards up for sale on Etsy and my website.
3.Add what I make to my SCS gallery for more exposure.
4.Submit a few more things for publication and see what happens.
5.Try to put a limit on how much new stuff I buy each month.
6.Mainly have fun and not try to get caught up in what everyone else is doing.
The past few days I have been able to meet my hourly goal but unfortunately I worked on the same card each time because I could not get it perfect. That is something I need to work on too. Not everything has to be perfect! I have a lot of new stamps to play with from all the enabling that was done before I set my goals. I just have to start using what I bought now so stay tuned. Hopefully I will be able to meet all my goals and have a lot of new cards to show you soon. I also hope to be able to post more regularly here as well.
That's it for now but I would love to hear what your goals are for this year if you feel like sharing too.