Hi – I’ve been a bit scattered in posting lately so I’m trying to get my act together!  I’m experimenting with Live Writer to do my posts to see if I can move things around and edit a little more easily…so this is my trial run! Let’s hope it works – Today’s card features the owl from the Animal Stories stamp set. I have him sitting in the tree from the Season of Friendship stamp set above some grass I snipped out of Old Olive. Both the owl and the tree are cut out and popped up on the card. This was one of those cards where I got carried away adding details! :0)   The card colors are Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, So Saffron and Whisper White.  The DSP is Tall Tales.  I punched the bottom edge of the Chocolate Chip layer with the scallop edge punch and then scooted it over and punched again half way through each scallop.  It gives it a more ragged edge which I thought worked better with the grass piece.  I did the same thing to the scallop circle but it was a bit trickier to do.  TIP: punch the scallop circle  once and then lightly adhere it to a scrap piece of cardstock. This becomes your handle to hold the scallop circle in place.  Then put it back in the punch, turning it upside down so you can see what you’re punching. Then line it up again and rotate just a tad so that you can punch the center of each scallop off.  Now you can peel away the scrap piece and you have a sunburst type shape!  The Rose Red buttons are threaded with skinny pieces of Old Olive cardstock.  It’s easy to do this if you first break the fibers up a bit by rolling the strip gently over a table edge.  I curled the ends around my paper piercer.  That’s it! Hope you like it!  Thanks for stopping by today – I’m off to get my act together! :0)

kirstin

Hi – Here’s a darling little treat box made with the Fancy Favor Die for the Big Shot – it’s all dressed up for back to school goodies!  My stamping gal Julie and I made these on Wednesday and had so much fun adding the little pieces here and there.  She’s a clever little bunny and came up with the scissors and pencil using oval punches and the word window punch – pretty cute, eh?!  (Check hers out at thoughtsthatstick.blogspot.com) 

The box holds three 3×3 cards, three new pencils, a jumbo paperclip bookmark and a cello bag of trail mix.  The mini chalkboard on the trail mix says, “You’re the apple of my eye.”  I added a name plaque to the front of the mini composition notebook and a long piece of ribbon tied with a button to be a place holder.  It flips from the front of the book to hold your spot.  Hope you like it!  Thanks for stopping by -

kirstin

Hi – Last night I was cleaning up my scrap container and came across several little pieces of Parisian Breeze DSP that I had cut into strips or run through the Big Shot.  I get a little lazy with scraps and tend to toss them in a tub and then sort them out by color when the tub starts to overflow! :0)  But I got distracted – as I often do – by these pieces and started putting them together on a card!  Here’s what I came up with:

The colors are Baja Breeze, Kraft, Chocolate Chip and White.  The center heart is a chipboard piece that I embossed with white powder three times to give it a chunkier look.   The little “Thank You” stamp is from the Short & Sweet stamp set.  Hope you like it!  Thanks for stopping by -

kirstin

Hi – Had a quick chance to ink up my new Flower Fancy stamp set to make this card.  I used Pumpkin Pie and So Saffron as my colors for ink and cardstock to go with the DSP from Razzleberry Lemonade.  After stamping the flower’s outline and then the centers, I cut them out and curled the edges a bit with my bone folder to give them a little dimension.  The little flowers are popped up on dimensionals.  The layer under the “Get Well Soon” is two curly label punches put together to make it long enough.  Hope you like it!  Thanks for stopping by -

kirstin

Hi – I love, love the new Medallion stamp!  It’s a background stamp so it’s huge and that makes it easy to have a big impact on a card.  On these two cards I used it in the background in Bermuda Bay ink on the same colorcard stock.  The focal colors are then black and white. 

For the “thanks” card I wanted the Medallion image on the white center piece as well and I wanted it to line up so it looked like it was stamped all at once.  Here’s my tip of the day:  it’s easiest to have that white piece bigger than you need it to be, stamp the image and then trim it down to fit in like a puzzle piece. Yes, I tried lining it up and stamping it first….didn’t work as well! :0)  The sentiment is from the Thank You Kindly stamp set.  The second card uses the Level 1 hostess set called Holiday Best – free with a $150 order.  I punched out 5-¾”circles and lined them up along the bottom of the black piece for a larger scallop.  I like the way both these cards turned out – hope you like them too!  Thanks for stopping by -

kirstin

Hi – I love this card….love it!  The colors, the trees, the simple layout…But for the love of a sandwich, I could not get a good picture of it!  Somehow the colors were all goofy.  Too yellow, too orange, too dark.  Ack!  So I finally gave up at 1:30am and went to sleep.  (I know, slacker!)   Tried again this afternoon and same deal.  That’s when I decided to forget the light box for now and take the picture on the kitchen counter! 

At least the card is the right colors now!  So Saffron, Old Olive, Soft Suede and white.  The striped DSP piece is from the Tall Tales pack.  The ribbon is So Saffron as are the buttons with a little linen thread tied through the holes.  I stamped the trees from the Trendy Trees set in Old Olive and Soft Suede, using the Stamp-a-ma-jig to align the trunks.  They are all cut out and put on with dimensionals and glue dots.  The sentiment is in Soft Suede.  I used the distressing tool from the Cutter Kit to rough up the edges of the Old Olive piece until the edges started to split and then used my fingers to roll back the top layer of the cardstock.  The little scalloped edge was pierced and added underneath.  If you look closely you can see the fluffy leaves stamped in So Saffron just under the top left corner of the Old Olive piece – for a little something unexpected.  I really {heart} this card. :0) Hope you like it too!  Thanks for stopping by -

kirstin

Hi – Got busy last night prepping a room to paint so I didn’t get this posted but I thought I’d sneak it in before I head out for more paint!  These cards are both Old Olive, So Saffron, Whisper White and Basic Black.  

To be honest, neither one of these seems to be really ‘me’…I like the color combination, but the cards aren’t working for me!  :0)   And to top it off, my husband said he didn’t much care for the bird card.  So it’s official from this household – I need do-overs!  What do you think?!  Anything worth salvaging here?!  I guess today I won’t say, “Hope you like them!” :0)  Thanks for stopping by though -

kirstin

Hi – Busy weekend didn’t leave much time for stamping but I was able to get some ink on my hands tonight! This card uses the Animal Stories stamp set from the new Idea Book & Catalog and Short and the Sweet stamp set which has been around for a while.

The base is Chocolate Chip, the DSP is Sahara Sand and then More Mustard is the accent color.  I cut out the little hearts and popped them up on dimensionals.  This card would be really cute as a birthday card too if you changed the sentiment and used mini cupcakes in place of the hearts!  It’s a pretty quick and easy card to make – the one tip I would have is to rough up the edges of the black strip before you use the spiral punch on the sides…it’s a little tough to not get carried away and really crink them up too much!  Hope you like it!  Thanks for stopping by -

kirstin