Made by *B*

 My downline alerted me to this idea and I of course CASEd it for my workshops this week! It uses:

tag punch for the hat

word window punch for the black band (trim the ends

oval punch for the  brim

1 3/8″ circle for his face

1/2″ circle for his nose

scallop punch for his beard

The “cheeks” are Blush Blossom ink on the end of an eraser. These can go around a Peppermint Patty, or I am going to attach them to dimensionals and pen caps for Camden’s teachers since I am volunteering on St. Patrick’s Day already!

Here is a cute little leprechaun to get your Irish eyes smiling-or any eyes at all! St. Patrick’s day is NOT a big deal in my house-none of us are even a teeny bit Irish, but I do love all holidays, so we will be having a “green” dinner and hunting for any tricks the leprechauns leave behind. When I taught the leprechauns always played tricks on my class!! They would knowck over chairs, leave green footprints on our chalkboard, and leave a little powdery gift in a bag. When you added milk the powder made green pistachio pudding-woohoo!

 Happy St. Patty’s Day to all my Irish (and not so Irish) friends!

Last Sunday I held a Stamp Camp here and had a great time using the Embrace Life set. Each participant made 3 cards, 1 frame, 1 photo wallet, and got the Embrace Life set to use as part of the camp. It turned out GREAT (if I say so myself)!

 Here are the 3 cards. Each one was CASEd and modified from cards I saw on SCS.

The 1st one was a modification from JanTink on SCS. I loved her idea of using the bg designer paper panel as a major element. My card is a 5×10″ square and after coloring in the blossoms we used Crystal Effects to highlight them.

The next was a steal from Kharmagirl on SCS. I loved her idea of the squares and circles. I changed mine to make it a tall card that would fit in a  business sized envelope, and had 4 squares rather than 3. We also added the blossoms on the right with the rhinestone brads.

The last card was a CASE from Nitetime Stamper. I added a silk flower from the Pretties kit, and a build a brad to the center.

How sweet are these images from the new Occasions Min iCatalog??!!?? I just love them. I made this card for Jami’s swap and was pleased with the results. On the inside I layered a piece of white cardstock and had “enjoy the little things” with the cherry stamped inside. I was happy with how cheery and bright the card ended up!

 This card has the new cosmo fine glitter on the stem of the strawberry-i colored the stamp with my real Red and Green Galore markers to get the 2 colors, and then used Crystal Effects and the green glitter to add the sparkle. The ribbon is Red Striped, Tangerine, and Celery altogether to pull in all the colors from the card. The DSP on the right is from Summer Picnic which coordinates with the Tart & Tangy set.

I have not been able to get my camera to download any pics. It takes the pics just fine, and I have about 6 projects to share, but I cannot get them on my PC. I will keep working on it, but that is why there are no updates-so sorry!

Phoebelicious is what we often call our little Phoebe-or Pheebs or if you are my mom Phoebelina (remember to say it witha thick accent when you try that one!).

She is getting SOOOOO big I can hardly believe it-she has been with us 6 1/2 months; less time than she spent with her foster family! We are thrilled to have her and she has fit into our family so perfectly. She is talking a bit more and can say Mama, Dada, An-ne (Camden), Dog, Baby, and can do a few signs as well. The funniest is when she wants UP she shakes her fist at us as if she is going to punch our lights out if we don’t pick her up. Lately she will say “uuuup” but not too often (why bother when she can just shake her little hand and we do her bidding!) Since I have not posted pics of her in a while I thought I would share some with you (and please pardon the shiny cheeks-she is lotioned up and ready for bed).

The other two pics are pretty typical Phoebe faces. But lately she has been practicing some odder faces and thinks it is very funny when we laugh at her. I think this one shows her true colors as the cute little dictator that likes to run the show!

Thanks for indulging me!

Today’s challenge was to use a song/music for inspiration. Phoebe has a lullaby CD that I always rock her to just before she sleeps. The minute I turn it on she flips her head onto my shoulder and gets ready for her nap. It has James Taylor and others singing-and the 2nd song is Dream a Little Dream-which is when I put her down.

This card will be for one of my former downline who after quite a while of trying is going to be a mommy to a new baby girl-I am so happy for her! Her shower is coming up so I used today to make a card in advance (shocking for me!). I used my SU! markers in Summer Sun, Pixie PInk, and Lovely Lavender to ink up the Sweet One stamp from So Many Scallops, and stamped it twice on white paper. I used a 1 3/8″ punch to cut out the center circle on one, and then cut out the whole image on the other. I used dimensionals to pop it up and added glitter dots around. The stars are from the All-Star sport set!

Each star is dotted lightly with Dazzling Diamonds glitter-in the pic everything looks dusty/mottled, bu I promise in real life the glitter does not look clumpy and the scallop looks crisp and neat! After I took the pic I had to flick off some more of the blue glitter (especially in the corner!) but it looks very sweet!

I just got my new Baroque background stamp and thought it would be perfect for today’s color challenge to use River Rock, Black, and White on a card. The background piece is a piece of Ginger Blossoms paper that is a tone on tone River Rock pattern with blossoms on it. I inked up my background stamp in Versamark and embossed in clear over it. Then I used my brayer inked up with black ink and went over the entire piece, and wiped it off the embossed area when I was done.  Although hard to see in the scan, IRL you can faintly see the River Rock pattern show through.

The sketch itself was from Beate’s weekend sketch challenge, so I needed to add a small square in the corner. I used the friend sentiment from Simply Said (a set I still use all the time!) and stamped a small blossom from Embrace Life over it. I stamped the same type of patterned paper that I used for the background with the blossom, and cut it out and adhered it to the white piece to add some more color to that square.

Corners were done by layering black and river rock pieces cut using my SU! photo corner punch and adding 3 black brads for some texture.

Today’s challenge was to use multiple pieces of designer paper on 1 project. I pulled out my 6×6 prints pack that was available for purchase last year. It includes Celery, Rose, Saffron, and Lavender 6×6 sheets. I pulled off a sheet of Celery, Saffron, and Lavender and cut them into 4 1 1/2″ strips to use as the background. I overstamped each with images from “A Good Egg” which I just mounted.

Look closely-the egg is SPARKLY! I used my Versamarker to color in the egg shell. My pen was a bit frayed and dired out so I took my Versamark re-inker and put a drop on the lid of my paf and picked it up with the Versamarker. After it was done I sprinkled Irridescent Ice ep and embossed-LOVE the little bit of shimmer!

The chickie image is layered onto Black and Guava, and the background strips are layered onto Soft Sky, Black, and then then Guava base. I added wiggly eyes for some whimsy and guava ribbon to “tie” it all together!

This is the card I swapped with my stamp clubs-after making them Monday I added a layer of Taken with teal for the Wed. night group since I kept looking at it and thinking it need just a *touch* more color (sorry Monday night ladies!)

I used the Eat Cake set in Only Orange and Pomegranate for the presents on the front. The designer paper is Bali Breeze layered over Old Olive. I added a double knot of Pomegranate stitched and Tangerine grosgrain to add some more color.  

The “eat cake” is stamped in Pomegranate and layered into a Build a Brad (which I am now addicted to!) on top of Flower Fusion Felt Flowers (say *that* 10 times fast!).

This month I hosted a swap with my Monday night and Wednesday night stamp clubs-and WOW did they do a terrific job. I thought I would share the gorgeous cards they made! (and as long as we have no power outage tomorrow I can share the Wed. night and my club cards for the week as well!)

These cards were made by Tracie and Laurie. Tracie used the Priceless brass template to dry emboss all the cards (I think she may have given herself Carpal-Tunnel!) and added a perfect little smidge of glitter on the cake. Laurie impressed us all with her Dahlia fold card using Bali Breeze paper-lots of OOOHHHHs when she pulled hers out!

The next group was made by Michelle, Chris, and Jessica. Michelle’s card uses All in the Family and is layered on Magic Mesh for cool texture. IRL you can see sparkle and shine on the little balloon-I think the bright colors and sweet little image worker perfectly together! Chris used True Friend and layered Rose Red designer paper onto Rose Red cardstock witha grosgrain stem(soc lever!)-if you look closely you can see a sprinkling of glitter as well (ahhh glitter-these ladies do me proud!). Jess’ card is a little pull out note card pouch and has a sentiment from “That’s Nice” on the front-great color for a masculine card-plus I love that she used a layout I demo’ed at a workshop she went to last year!

 This month’s theme was birthdays; next month it is embossing and emboss resist-can’t wait to see what they come up with!