woof.

Well, it turns out that taking care of a dog is much more work than I thought it would be! Toby is constantly pulling, biting, chewing, peeing, and just generally tearing up the house, so he needs a lot of attention and love. It's a good thing he's such a cutie, eh?











Anyway, a few of my friends got us treats and things for the new puppy, so of course I had to figure out how to stamp dog-themed items. What a whole new world this is!

Here is my first attempt at quickie dog thank you notes:








They're nothing super-special, I drew out a template for my dog bones, and then stamped the "woof" on with Hero Arts Designer Alphabet.

I also needed to do some non dog-themed thank yous, so I did a few Asian cards. I adore the Japanese kokeshi dolls that Hero Arts came out with, but this was my first time inking one up.













The sentiment is one of the first stamps I ever purchased, and it's called Swirly Thank You by Judi-Kins. The background stamp is an old one by Stampin' Up.

TIP: Have you ever wondered how a certain color ink will look on colored paper? Use a small stamp and stamp on the card behind where one of your panels will be. I tested out three green inks on this card by stamping them right in the middle, then hid them by putting the sentiment over it.

I'm also trying to come up with a few more Valentine's day cards, so here's another quickie.













I used my favorite little Cupid stamp and a piece of patterned paper I picked up at Paper Garden to go along the base. The ribbon is from Michael's.

Well, I'd better go and see what Toby's gotten into now. Have a great weekend!

I See a Distraction in My Future. . .

For several weeks now, we've been looking for a dog for my mom. Last weekend, we finally found him, and I think I'm in love. Here he is:













Isn't he adorable? Toby is a three month old mutt, probably half daschund and half terrier. I've never owned a dog before, so everything is very new and exciting. I hope to stamp some more this weekend, but with this guy around, no guarantees!

Have a great weekend!

What Do You See?

It's definitely Valentine card-making season. I was walking through Michael's last week, and the employees were frantically yanking Christmas things off the shelves and replacing them with fun pink Valentine's Day stuff.

Did you know that Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays of the year? I just love that it's a holiday dedicated to love. Personally, I like to expand on Valentine's Day and recognize all of the people I work with and am friends with, because they mean a lot to me too! So, I'm starting early and making LOTS of cards.

Here's my first card:










And here's the reason for the title of this post: What do you see? I made this card one evening while I was watching a movie with my husband and his best friend. I turned to ask my husband a question about the layout, and his friend asked me, "What are those, Rorschach tests?" To me, they're quite obviously Cupids, but I was horrified. Can you tell what they are?

This card is actually for Taylor's weekly Cupcake Challenge. I haven't participated in one in FOREVER (see HERE), but it's a new year and I'm determined to play more!

Even though it looks simple, I think this card was a bit tricky to make. The biggest challenge was how to make the circles appear to "hang" using the ribbon.

I'm sure there's an easier way, but to make mine, I stamped and punched out the circles first. Then, I cut three 6 inch pieces of ribbon, and glued them between the punched layers. I then attached pop dots behind each circle and stuck them where I wanted them on the patterned paper (with the ribbons hanging off the top of course!). I then taped the ribbon ends behind the patterned paper, and adhered the whole thing to the notecard. As a finishing touch, I tied on the bows.

The stamps are all A Muse, and the papers are all Memory Box. Stay tuned for more Valentine's Day cards!

Basic Birthday Cards Part III

And we're back with one last quickie birthday card.













This one again uses Memory Box papers (the patterned paper is from the Romance collection and the notecard is Cotton Candy) I scalloped the bottom of the pink Bazzill cardstock with my new Stampin' Up Scallop Edge punch, added the main image and a bit of ribbon and voila! a card is born.

The pink notecard reminded me to start pulling out my Valentine's Day stuff and start gearing up for cards. I guess this means I have to take down my Christmas tree then. (sigh)

Basic Birthday Cards Part II

Hi there, and welcome back to basic birthday cards week! For my next card, I actually went back to my favorite new stamp, Milkshake by A Muse.










I left a sentiment off of this one because I figured in a pinch, it could also work as a just plain "thinking of you" card.

This time, I used a piece of Neenah white cardstock as the base and added a strip of Kitchen Blue paper with some A Muse Sheer White wrapped around it. The image was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black and colored with Copics, and the cherry was dotted with Christmas Red Stickles. Yum!

Stay tuned for one more quickie birthday card and my first Valentine's Day card of the season!

Basic Birthday Cards. . .

As I was putting up my 2009 calendar last week, it occurred to me that I want to get back in the habit of sending birthday cards. But in order to do that, first I need a collection of simple birthday cards to choose from, right? This week, I came up with three quickies that will be easy to replicate and add to my stash.

For my first card, I used one of my long-neglected stamps, Birthday Girl.













This card is actually for one of Tracy's sketch challenges, which you can find HERE. The notecard is one I found in a bin at Scrapbook Territory, but I'm pretty sure it's a Memory Box notecard. The patterned paper is actually also Memory Box, from the Romance collection, and funny enough, the pink Bazzill cardstock is called Romance as well. The ribbon is A Muse sheer white, which you'll be seeing more of this week. I'm loving the sheer right now!

I find that one of the hidden benefits of cleaning up my craft space is re-discovering older stamps that I had fallen in love with. Right now, I'm trying to decide how to store all of my wood-mounted stamps.

One idea I had was to use those 12x12 plastic storage containers that Michael's sells for scrapbooking paper. Those boxes allowed me to see a LOT of my stamps at once, but the boxes are deep and I couldn't decide how I would set up a second layer in them that would still allow me to see the images on the first layer.

Then this weekend, I came across a clear plastic photo organizer that might also work. So, I'm trying them both out for the time being to see which one I like more.

How do you store your stamps?

Well, Well, Well. . .

How did the new year come upon us so quickly? It feels like we were just starting fall, and then bam! a new year arrived. As a blog reader, you'll be happy to note that two of my New Year's resolutions relate to making more cards, so I'll hopefully be able to post more regularly.

Let's get started! Since my last post, there have been a couple of great releases from some of my favorite companies. Hero Arts released their 2009 catalog, which includes some new Asian stamps that I'm looking forward to using. A Muse also came out with new stamps in a Sweet Shop theme, and they're super-cute! Of course, I had to pick up a couple of stamps from both releases, but I'm just now settling into the new year enough to get them out and play with them.

Here's my very first card of 2009.











It uses "Milkshake" from the Sweet Shop release, which I just love. I found this stamp at Paper Garden Boutique in Sacramento. I drove up to Sacramento the day after Christmas to hit their sale table, and finding the new A Muse release there completely made the 2 hour drive worth it. Of course, now you can find them all on the A Muse website. During that same trip, I also picked up the sentiment for this card, Sweet Friend MA. It's not new, but I think it goes really well with some of my other stamps.

The kitchen green notecard, sheer Popsicle Pinkribbon and stamps are all A Muse, and the image was colored using Copics. I also fluffed up the image a bit by using Liquid Applique for the foam and a twinkle sticker for the cherry on top! Wanna see?








Sorry the pictures are so blurry, but you get the idea. It had been so long since I stamped, I couldn't even find my Ott light to take a clear picture. Eek! I'll try and update the photos tomorrow.

Hope your new year is going great!