Tagged!

I am so out of the loop! The house is 75% packed up and I am so tired of boxes! I had a moment of silence when my stamps got packed up! We will load up the U-Hauls on Tuesday and close on our house on Thursday. We are hoping to schedule the closing on the new house for Friday but we are waiting for things to fall into place.
I finally got a bit of time to blog browse and I see that Jennifer over at http://stampincrazy.blogspot.com/ has tagged me to list 7 random things about myself. This is great since I have no new creations to share.

1) I am half German

2) I pitched varsity softball all 4 years of high school

3) our move next week will be our 8th in 13 years of marriage!

4) I hate moving :)

5) I love to bake and am known for my awesome banana bread but I can''t find the right chocolate chip cookie recipe despite trying dozens and dozens

6) I collect different varieties of hosta plants. I am not a gardener but hostas are one thing I can grow! When we knew we were moving my mom and I split all the different varieties and potted them to take to our new house.

7) I have a 10 1/2 size foot and they only make shoes in whole sizes past 10, very frustrating.

How cool is the

Club? I was nominated by Deb and Kristine, thanks girls! Since I am out of the loop to know who has been nominated already I will have you chose 5 of the blogs on my list on the right, there are lots of great ones to browse.

I am off to do more packing!

Tag Frame

I was looking through some photos today in search of something and ran across this photo. It was something I submitted for an SU contest last year that never won. Now I wish I had it back! I saw a similar frame in a kit at Joannes at the time and thought I could do it for less. I bought a very large piece of MDF board at Home Depot and had my FIL cut it into tag shapes. In all I think I got 13 sets of frames from the one piece of MDF so they were something like 50 cents a set. He even drilled holes in the tops for me but they would have been fine without those too. The hard part ended up being finding hinges that would fit and not cost too much. Actually it was finding hinges and screws small enough to be sturdy yet not go through the back. If anyone has any sources for hinges let me know, I have some unfinished pieces left.
I covered it with paper from last years hostess scrap kit, Friends and Flowers. The photo on the right was adhered to a flower chipboard from the Onboard kit, trimmed and sanded. The rest of the accents were also taken from the scrap kit. If you click on the photo it will come up larger to see more of the detail.
Here is a link to another one in my SCS gallery, calendar tag. This was a project I did at a stamp camp last fall.
Thanks for stopping by!

I've fallen...

Do you remember the commercial where the old lady says "Help, I've fallen and I can't get up."? Here's my new mantra.... help, I'm moving and I can't blog (or stamp)!!! Moving is the pits!! We are in a sea of boxes, packing, sorting, pitching, cleaning. We sent the boys off to camp this week and Greg and I prepped for a garage sale that started yesterday. I have new stamps waiting to be mounted and no energy left to even think about it.
Last night I forced myself to stamp one card and this simple one is about all I could muster. I mounted just the stamps I needed from Vases in Vogue. I used the larger flower in the set to create the background and used the white gel pen in the centers. I stamped the flower in the vase right onto a piece of Palette O Prints paper and used the gel pen on the petals. The vase was stamped on white, watercolored, cut out and mounted onto dimensionals.
Over the next 3-4 weeks blogging will be very spotty but I will be back. We close in 2 weeks on both houses and once things are settled I am hoping to get into a more regular routine with stamping.
Blessings!

Baby Buggy

Just a quick post today. We are headed up to the lake to spend a couple of days with friends so I am trying to get out the door.

Friends of ours recently adopted a baby boy and it has been on my mind to send a card. I have these lovely Arturo note cards from Ellen Hutsons store that were begging to be used. I love that they turn just a wee bit of stamping into such a lovely card. I used a light blue card with matching envelope. I just got this stamp set before it retired since the new catty didn't have anything similar. It is such a lovely set and ever since seeing fabulous samples from Debbie Olson it has lingered on my want list. I stamped with Palette black Noir ink and used watercolor crayons to color it in. I used the white crayon for the fabric liner and it sets it off just enough from the blue card base. I added some narrow organdy ribbon and curled the ends with my heat gun just for a second.

Thanks for stopping!

Retired Stamp Sale

I held a retirement sale and thanks to my wonderful customers and friends most of my things found nice, new homes. I thought I would offer up the remaining sets here if anyone is interested. Shipping is made simple with flat rate boxes so 1 or 2 sets ship for 4.60 and 3 or more ship for 8.95. You can use the email button on the side to get in touch with me and I will update the list as things are spoken for. Paypal is preferred method for easy and quick turn around.

Used but in good condition
Holiday Woodcuts--14.00
The Wheel Thing--10.00
Eclectic Backgrounds--10.00
In Any Event (hostess set)--15.00
Life Cycles--15.00
Simply the Best ('06 hostess appreciation)--15.00
Sketch It--24.00
Expressive Everyday Phrases--28.00
Big Blooms--22.00

New and Unmounted
Say it Simply--8.00
Too Terrific Tags--8.00
Warmest Regards--10.00
Noteworthy--8.00
Gently Falling--8.00
Measure of a Life (hostess)--16.00
Mazel Tov--8.00
Merry--16.00

I will include some goodies with each package!

It All Started...

with an envelope! I went to XPEDX to stock up on envelopes and as usual I had to check out their clearance section. They carry gorgeous pearlized paper and envelopes but they are insanely expensive. I mean really, who pays 29.99 for 50 envelopes?? Obviously not many people because several of them found their way to the clearance section and I got these pink ones for 3.00!! They are fabulous, thick, pearly envelopes and for that price I had to have them. I came home and set out to make a card to match. They are 6 1/2" square so to fill the entire envelope I needed a card that was 6 1/4" square. Hmmm, our paper only comes in 12" lengths. I cut a square of black at 6 1/4" and then matted a 6" very vanilla card onto that. The stamped layer is shimmer ivory paper to coordinate with the shimmer envelope. I inked the roses from Roses in Winter with barely banana and rolled them in pretty in pink before stamping and twisting them onto the card stock. The twisting gives it such a soft look I am not sure I will ever stamp those roses the old way again! The leaves are mellow moss and the small flowers were inked in regal rose and stamped 3 times to get the variation in color. I added white Liquid Pearls to the centers of the small flowers. I need a wedding card for Saturday so I added the sentiment and ribbon to finish it off.
I have never made a card so large before. What lengths all over an envelope, eh? I know my fellow stampers will completely understand!!
Blessings on your day!