Stamp Set

Just a quick one - the banner stamp is from My Little Shoebox "Audrey".

Get Well

Get well cards are really not easy for me to do. I do have this cute CC image (I abbreviated this when I first got them so I am not sure if that is the name or not). We have a nurse in the family so I thought I would get more use out of it than I have. I really like it though. I get mentally challenged when my space area is so small. I am hoping for normal postage on this one, but I won't know for sure until I go to the post office. On the inside I did a Kristina Werner technique with that banner. I just love that stamp. Will look up the maker if you ask me. Anyhow the white flowers are done with that pentel white pen. I love it much more than the unibal or inksential. It really flows!

 I think maybe I photographed this with a tad too much light. But that is a better alternative than too dark. The copics I used are: E00, E11, E31, E33, E35, E37, E29, YR23, B00, R14, R17, R20. Somehow I folded the card a bit off, so I used a decorative punch on the top edge. This card is an odd shade of red but the R14 is really similar to it. I have a real affinity to those edge punches! I love lace. I am seriously thinking of using some of my lace stash in my cards! That is one way to get rid of it. I am surely not going to be doing anymore fancy sewing! I sewed for my kids and my grandkids. I am done! Of course we still have little ones coming all the time, but the granddaughters I am talking about are over 20. I would so much rather use that lace than have it sit in the closet. I think the tombow mono multi glue will be the adhesive I choose, or else score tape. 

The inside of my card is a reflection of the outside ( Amy R technique). Actually if it weren't for her, the inside would

more often than not be just my handwriting! This banner stamp is stamped on the card and also stamped on paper that I colored.  The greeting is a clear stamp which I stamped part on the top of the banner and the rest on the bottom of it. Then I cut only the banner out  - This is such a great technique as you can be as sloppy as you like when you are coloring - you are cutting it out! The white pen does the flowers on the original. I believe I will leave the butterflies alone next time. I don't really care for the gold pen I used. Then you adhere the banner onto the paper - if you cut a little of the black off, its no big deal as its perfect on the paper! I did use my stamp-a-ma-jig to place it on my card otherwise it would have been a major guess and that's too much work for a guess! The colors in the banner match the blue dotted paper on the front.  Hope you like this one.
I have been working on scrapbooking photos from a trip to Hawaii a few years ago. The book I found here to use is 8 x 8. Boy does that limit what you can do! It took me hours to get the first page done and then it only has one photo on it. Not my idea of fun! Then all of a sudden I got inspired last night and zippo - I managed 5 pages! I think I have found the secret for me with these albums. If I have a lot of photos to get into the book and lots of things I want to say, then I should probably forget all the extra creative stuff  as there really isn't going to be enough room anyhow! I tend to pick the small albums for our trips. It seems to take less room to store them than the big ones. So I cut a single piece of cardstock 8 x 8, place my photos (group them by activity - if too many for one page, do a double page layout), make sure I have room for my journalling ( this time I am using little homemade tags with a little ribbon on one end - if my room is scant, I can move them as they pivot from a brad) and then see if I have room to "decorate" the page! Also before I started this time, I wrote out my journalling for each group of photos in a little dollar book I picked up. It goes together much easier when all the big thinking is done before you start!!! Hugs to you all, March is a real busy month, so there should be lots to see here! Look at the counter! Almost 20,000!!! Wow!! Thanks to you all for making this such an exciting venture! Hugs again, Barb F

Card Set - another

Thanks for the super response to my Valentine card! The gal I made this set for has a passion for cameras and I had remembered seeing a "camera" paper last time I went through the stash! I cut out 6 cameras - all different. She also likes the color blue. Cut out the spellbinders background - some are facing vertical, some horizontal - depends on the camera image. I have a cuttlebug embossing folder with dots. They are raised (just in case you are like I am and get confused which way is which as you know it depends on which side of the card you are talking about!!). I used Tim Holtz' broken china distress sponged lightly over the background, so now the dots show up. Made little banners for the message and the stamp set is Hero Arts All Occasion Messages. Tied a white ribbon around each one and do you see the little bird on the envelope? Well, he is stamped on the inside facing where you would write. The blue rectangle is the one piece box. Tied it all up with the same white ribbon and sent it off. When I make this for an older person, I will include a sympathy card but hopefully this gal won't need one for a long time.  This set was fun to make and didn't take very long. I am getting more streamlined!!
Had a little time to take care of a small box of stamps. I bought them from a friend last summer and have been shuffling them around out of my way every since. Not good! I figured that since they were wood mounted, I would make them into stuff I could use my acrylic blocks with. There is some stuff out there called amazing tape (they have their own web site). I managed to get a couple of stamps off the blocks - didn't want to put them in my microwave as I use it for food. I used a good liquid glue to hold the tape to the back of the stamp. They do work BUT I lost a few stamps completely as they tore - they are really old. Then decided that it just wasn't worth the trouble. I brought out a clear box to store them in, stamped them into my book, numbered them and put them away. They are off the floor!!!! So what is my storage? I did a post once before. The biggest part of organizing is realizing the categories that mean something to you, and limiting them to a manageable few.

So Step 1 - come up with your category list
Mine is: backgrounds and scene elements (1), fruit, veggies and flowers and trees (2), words (3), people(4), vehicles (5), xmas, holidays (6).
Step 2 - Numbering system - careful as you don't want to change this after you start.
I numbered my wood stamps (they are stored together) 1- up to but not including 500. The cling stamps and clear stamps were and are stored in notebooks. I started them at 500 . Then I had stamp sets that I put in plastic photo boxes in a closet and named the larger box and numbered the little plastic boxes it held. This one was confusing and I was always looking through the little boxes for what I wanted to use. The notebooks got jammed and I found I was stamping much less. I now have a storage in a plastic, rolling file case. It uses hanging folders to hold several page protectors each. Now here is the tricky part - explaining the page protectors. Anyhow getting back to numbering, I add a BA (for basket) to each page protector number. That lets me know when I am in the reference book, where to find the stamp. Ok so to clear this up a little, you want your numbering system to not only give a specific name to a stamp but to also clue you in to where you have it stored! Not everyone has enough room in one place to put all of their stamps.


Step 3 -How I do cling/clear stamps - you will need laminating sheets. They need to be large enough to  cover an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of cardstock. You do not need a laminator to use the sheets. You should use the cheaper cardstock for this. I am still using the staples ones that I bought forever ago - I use them for almost everything! Your big choice here is in how you adhere the laminated sheet to the cardstock. You can actually peel the back off and stick it to the cardstock and then trim the excess off or you can use your tape runner and stick the printed side to your cardstock and then trim. Now you have a plain cardstock face and a laminated one. Your stamps will stick to the laminated side, you will stamp the stamp on the plain side and in your book at the same time, You will number your laminated sheet - like 9BA. You also have the option of making (this one is a good choice) your sheet in one category. For example - all the stamps you have stamped and stored on this one laminated sheet are people. When you are done, slide the sheet into a page protector to help hold the stamps in place. Make a copy of this sheet on your printer and its ready to file in your main book under that category - be sure to label that protector before you make the copy. It saves you from stamping in your book.

stamps on laminated sheet                 back of laminated sheet                 stamped individually in book

The upper photo shows a copy in the book (see how much easier this is?) and the bottom photo shows the bin. Hopefully this all makes sense now? So when I want to make something and I have an idea what I want to stamp, I can leaf through my book and gather stamps up as I come across them. The wood stamps are numbered as is the big plastic boxes they are in. I like this one above as the best! I find more and more, I am going to the stamps stored here. I have 4 more little boxes to move out of my closet into this one. I may have to get a second bin. But when I don't have any idea at all, my notebook is my salvation!!  Just looking at all my stamps gets my creative stuff going!! Hugs to you all, Barb F

Early Valentine

This one is for my real Valentine! Now, as you all know, I am not a professional and I do NOT have any connections to anyone in the business of cardmaking or scrapbooking. Since I recently got a bunch of new followers, I thought I would restate that. With that said, I recently took a Clean and Simple class online. One of the contributors was Kristina Werner. About that time, she had put together a card kit for Simon Says Stamp. I just had to buy it! There is a kit every month by her or a subscription where the cost is a little less. One of the reasons, other than the fact that I knew I would love whatever she put together, was that a winter set of Tim Holtz' distress inks was included! I don't know about the March kit as I have so much stuff that I am trying not to buy more just now!! This card was made from that kit. I know she gathered lots of really neat stuff for this kit and I was dying to get into it. She also included an 8 1/2 x 11 photo sheet of cards made with this kit! So mostly the front of my card is her doing. A few of my own touches, but I just love the stuff this gal does!! The inside of the card is  an older Tilda that I just adore. It used to be much harder for me to color her hair, but I guess that old adage about practice is true! I punched out a few little hearts and glued them on. That part of the stamp never seems to stamp perfectly and I thought this was a better solution than masking out the ones that don't stamp as nicely as I want them to.
I did something very new to me, I cut out the spellbinder's die and THEN stamped and colored it! That tiny little stamp is from a set from Stampingscrapping.com. It is to go with a spellbinders label set. It is also one of the first stamp sets I ever bought!! Now you know I had only been scrapping for a year at the most before I started my blog. For those of you interested in my stamp storage - hang in there. I have to find time to try unmounting my stamps before I can pass it on. Need to find a little more time.
So here is the card!

This is the front. Behind that cute tag is a single sheet of cardstock! Told you it was a cool kit! The tag is made entirely from  pieces in the kit except for the eyelet and my punched, raised heart (which has stickles - just couldn't stand it, went through stickles withdrawl!!). This tag was shown on that example sheet and I just adore it! Thought the edge of the card needed a little something, so I punched the lacy edge.

I used the spellbinders dies to cut these. My Tilda is copic colored with:R20, R59, R27, E00, E11, E18, E37, E35, E33, E31, Y21, Y26, Y28, YR20, YR23. I used dimensionals to hold up Tilda and there are stickles on the punched hearts as well as a little bit in her basket. I also stickled her wings. I love how she came out. If you want to do a comparison, she is in my banner. I colored the stuff in the banner when I first started coloring!! Hope you enjoy this and a Happy Valentine's Day to all of you!! Hugs, Barb F