SCRSC #31 - Boys Rule & CPS #206

Hey all! It's my last week as the Guest Designer for Sparkle Creations and I wanted to say THANK YOU to the whole team, such a fun group of girls:)

Today's challenge is BOYS RULE so just pull out a boy stamp! Here's my card using Birthday Josh--

Sparkle Creations is also sponsoring this weeks CPS sketch, so this card uses that sketch as well:)

I used papers from the Joy Ride collection by Cosmo Cricket and colored Josh to match:) The sentiment stamp and number die are from PTI!

Well I gotta make this short because I'm in the states and it's 11:00 pm and I'm MAJORLY jet lagging, lol! NEED SLEEP!;) If I'm quiet for the next couple weeks, that's why, not because I'm ignoring you!;)

Take care!

Viva la MOJO!

Hello, Friends! I'm here today with a couple VERVE cards I've made this week! The first one is for this week's Viva la Verve, February Week 3 sketch by Teresa *who's also one of the newest DIRTY GIRLS!*

Here's Teresa's fun sketch:

Here's my card, using stamps from Blue Skies!!

The paper is used is my new favorite, Madeline by Prima! LOOOVE these colors together:) On the corners, I stamped the flourish from Blue Skies, I love how it looks IRL but it didn't really come out in this picture:(

To play along with us, visit the Forums! The VLV Week 4 sketch will be up on Friday morning!

_________________________

Since I had my Verve and Madeline papers out, I went to work on this week's Mojo Monday 178 sketch!

Here's my card using the sentiment from Kind Words

Sorry about the HORRIBLE picture, it's rainy today and no amount of photoshopping could bring this picture to life, lol! To kind of "mute" the colors of the dp, I layered a piece of vellum top and sewed it down so I wouldn't have to worry about how to hide adhesive! 

Well that's it from me today! I'm off to the states for two weeks on Saturday, so I'll be back tomorrow with my Project Life album updates! Thanks for stopping by, see you tomorrow:)

SCRSC #30 -- Paper Piecing

Hello! I'm a little late with my post again today, BAD AMBER, lol! Today is Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamp challenge day! It's the 30th challenge already! This week, the challenge is PAPER PIECING! I think we can all appreciate paper piecing on those days we just don't feel like coloring:) 

I decided to give my cutie pie Chef Oliver a fashionable jacket!

I used the Marjoline papers by Basic Gray for this card. I love the patterns and thought any chef would be proud to sport a cooking jacket like this:) I stamped Oliver on Xpress-it Cardstock (OMG, first time using it and I *HEART* it! Coloring is so easy on this paper!) with Tuxedo black ink and then paper pieced his clothes. Bakers twine is from The Twinery and I also used a Simply Chartruese button from PTI. 

Go on over to the Sparkle Creations blog for details on how to play and what you could win!! 

Thanks for stopping by today:)

Mystery Monday featuring Pifa!

Good morning! It's MONDAY and that means it's time for Mystery Monday! Peggy, our wonderful guest designer this month, has chosen THIS fabulous card by Pifa!

I just LOVE the shape of this card, but couldn't find a template or tutorial on how to create it, dang! Here's my card using the Cupcake Anya digi stamp!

The card base is Vintage Cream and the cardstock colors are Sweet Blush and Scarlet Jewel (all by PTI). I colored Anya to match the patterned paper by Kaiser Craft called Hippy Chick! Fun polka dots, I love them!

The sentiment is from Swirling Hearts by Verve!

Check out the rest of my team mates blogs, I'm sure there are going to be some FAB projects!

Club Anya Blog

• Peggy McCurry -- February Guest Designer
• Jessica Diedrich
• Anna Maria Nilsson 
• Amber Hight 
• Jen Shults 
• Kristy Young

______________________________

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Sparkle Creations New Release Sneak Peek and Release Day-Sweet Treats Emily

Hello there! Sorry I'm a bit late getting this up (for those of you who hop along right away!), had a bit of a computer problem but all is well now!

Today we are showcasing Sweet Treats Emily and all new stamps are now available in the store.  We are also having a Valentine's Day weekend SALE, so use the code LOVE15 to get 15% off your order!  The sale will run through Monday night at midnight EST.  Click here or above on the Buy Stamps to start shopping now!

Here's my card using Sweet Treats Emily

Isn't she "sweet"??? I think she is! And as are ALL of Sparkle's stamps, she's super fun to color! I colored her up with Copics matching this paper from Kaiser Craft called "Peachy Keen". The sentiment is from Verve's "Birthday Bash". I used Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch from last week for the layout!

Here are the Copic colors I used:

For skin I always use E00, E11, and E13

For Brunette hair I use E21, E25, E27, and E29

For Blonde hair I use E50, E53, and E55

I may play around with variations on these basics, but those are what I stick with most of the time!

Be sure to visit all rest of the SCRS designers for more peeks of Sweet Treats Emily. We will be giving away a Sweet Treats Emily to one lucky person! For a chance to win, you need to comment on all of the designer's blogs (list below). Then head on over to the SCRS blog and comment on the Emily post. You have until midnight EST each day to comment. The lucky winner will be announced the following day!

Amber Hight - February Guest Designer
Alice Wertz
Kim Yu
Peggy Toole - Sponsorship Coordinator
Shaela Odd
Simonne Clay
Sparkle Smith
Stephanie Kraft
Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps Blog

Sparkle Creations New Release Sneak Peeks-Chef Oliver

Hello out there! I'm here today with a sneak peek at a new stamp set by Sparkle Creations, called Chef Oliver!

Isn't he CUTE? You gotta love a man who's comfortable in the kitchen;) I stamped Oliver in Tuxedo Black ink on Neenah cardstock and colored him in with Copics to match these papers from Garden Variety by Cosmo Cricket! I also airbrushed some "sponging" around the oval image AFTER cutting with an Oval nestie but BEFORE taking the die cut out of the die. I used E42 for the airbrush color.

The sentiment comes with Oliver, love it! I stamped it on a banner flag from a PTI die.

Be sure to visit all rest of the SCRS designers for more peeks of Chef Oliver. Sparkle will be giving away a Chef Oliver to one lucky person! For a chance to win, you need to comment on all of the designer's blogs (list below). Then head on over to the SCRS blog and comment on the Oliver post. You have until midnight EST each day to comment. The lucky winner will be announced the following day!

Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps Store

Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps Blog

Amber Hight, February Guest Designer

Alice Wertz

Kim Yu

Shaela Odd

Simonne Clay

Sparkle Smith

Stephanie Kraft

Thanks for stopping by today! Come back tomorrow for another sneak peek!

Project Life Wednesday

Hey there everybody! I'm back today, but not with a card...I'm here with my first few Project Life pages!!! That's right, finally getting back to my scrappin' roots! You may notice that my blog title is "The Stamping Scrapbooker", well whodathunk...she DOES scrap! LOL! 

I got my Project Life kit in from Amazon last week and started working on it the past few days.Since I just started in Feb, I'll have NO January pages. I just didn't take many pics last month, which is one of the reasons I'm DOING this album...so I take pics! And get back to scrapping:)

I got the Turquoise kit before I ever even saw the Amber kit (shoulda got it just based on the name!) I really loved the graphic look of all the elements and the colors are some of my faves! Earth tones, Yeah BABY! I should admit that I felt a small pang of regret when I SAW the Amber Kit. It's all floral and bright and cheerful! I love it! That's okay though, I'm good with what I got:) 

Without further ado...

Cover Page...just like the sample in the PL kit. I liked the look of it and saw no need to come up with something of my own, lol!

An overview of the next few pages...

Tickets and Flyers...I put the flyers and tickets in a regular 8.5x11 page protector and then sewed it close to the flyers so it made a smaller pocket, I love this! One thing I'm loving about this album so far is all the different sized pages, it's so fun to flip through!

Shisa dogs layout...this isn't a part of the actual PL kit, but I'm throwing in alot of my own layouts in this album to document our last year in Okinawa. 

Okinawa Orchid Festival layout...while we were at Expo park this weekend, there was a huge Orchid festival going on. We had to pay to get in but all the beautiful flowers were WORTH it! The title on the title page isn't complete yet because our printer went out. I went and bought a new one (right away!) but it took Billy awhile to get it working, our PC started acting up, ARGH! I'll have the titles finished tomorrow. This one is simple going to be "Okinawa Orchid Festival". Original, eh?;)

Close-ups...

The back side of the right page...more Orchid pics...

Flower sculptures layout...these ADORABLE flower sculptures are all throughout Expo Park. I took a picture of almost all of them, much to Billy's chagrin, lol! The back of this page isn't done yet, but it'll be a single page layout of the actual Churaumi Aquarium. Hoping to get that one done tomorrow!

My first official PL page! You'll notice the little calendar in the middle two pockets. Those cards are in the PL kit and my plan is to have that same layout on the first week of each month. I'm writing down big events/trips/tours on the calendar cards so I know what happened in one quick shot! Upper right corner is some paraphanalia from the Annual Awards dinner we went to on Saturday night. I didn't get any pics of Billy and I, totally forgot, doh! The other three pics are of us at the aquarium on Sunday.

Well that's all I've done so far! I actually worked on this almost all afternoon, it was bliss;) I do LOVE to scrap and am happy to be doing this project, it'll keep me scrapping!

So I mentioned our printer went out, OMG what a pain that thing is! Actually, TWO printers! I have a small cheapy one I bought for like 50 bucks for my scrapbook room, mostly to print digi paper and templates and such on cardstock. Well that one stopped working and would make me restart my computer EVERY time I wanted to print! Our main printer in the office jams all the time and wouldn't get ONE piece of paper through without jamming. So I almost pulled an "Office Space" on the printers, but went to the BX and bought a new one instead!

It's the Canon Pixma MX870! I absolutely LOVE this thing so far! I printed out a few pics for my PL layout for this week and it was FLAWLESS! The pics are professional quality, didn't need any drying time, and the colors are soooo brilliant! I love! I really haven't played with it much besides printing the couple pics, but the reviews on it look good and that's a relief cause I didn't shop around at all, lol! 

Thanks for stopping by today:) I'll be around tomorrow with a card!

SCRSC #29-It's a SKETCH!

Hey there everybody! I'm back today with this week's Sparkle Creations Rubber Stamps Challenge #29! This week, we have a fun sketch!

Here's a larger image of the sketch for you...

And here's my card using the super adorable Cupid Emily!

I'm really bad when coloring with light pinks, I can't seem to find the right combination *if anyone out there has a good one for me, PLEASE let me know, lol!* so I decided to color her more of a grayish purple instead! These are actually more brown I think, but they look purple to me, lol! The important thing is, they worked with my BG Bittersweet papers that I wanted to use again:)

The card base is Innocent Pink by GinaK. Emily was stamped with Tuxedo black ink (Memento) on Neenah cardstock.

Ready for more? Head on over to the SCRS blog and the rest of the DT to see what they did with this sketch:) Thanks for stopping by today!

Alice Wertz

Kim Yu

Shaela Odd

Simonne Clay

Amber Hight-Feb Guest Designer *me!*Stephanie Kraft (DT Coordinator)

and Sparkle Smith (Owner)

Paper Makeup VIP Blog Hop!

**This is my 2nd post today, please click HERE or scroll down for my Club Anya & Friends Mystery Monday post! Thanks so much!**

***********************************

Paper Makeup Stamps is turning 2 years old!  And to celebrate the occasion, they are having a super fun VIP blog hop with the theme "the things we love".  The entire design team invited special crafters to play along in this hop.  To see everyone involved, please go back to the Paper Makeup Stamps company blog for a master list as well as to enter your self to win a super fabulous prize!

If you're coming here from Christi's beautiful blog, you're on the right track! If not, you might enjoy backtracking to the PMS blog to start from the beginning, I'm sure there is all KINDS of gorgeousness out there in blog-land today!

My sweet friend Christi Snow invited me to be her friend on the hop, lol! I just couldn't say no because I love to feel wanted (bwahaaha!), and I love everything she does with her PMS stamps and really wanted to play along!

I used the super fun Natalie for my card! She's available as a digi stamp and was SO much fun to color...

I wanted to use my Annalee papers (by Prima) with this sweet little fairy, so I colored her up to match it! The cake, it must be chocolate. It just MUST, lol!

The sentiment is from Verve's Circular Sayings set and then I added some beautiful twine from The Twinery and some pearls from Recollections!

I wanted to thank Christi for inviting me on this hop, I had so much fun! And thanks to Katie (the owner) and the rest of the DT as well! Happy Birthday, PMS!!

Here's the link list for the rest of the hop in case you get lost, but your next stop after me is Dawn!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Enjoy your day:)

Mystery Monday featuring Lina!

Happy Monday! How 'bout them Packers?? I really couldn't care LESS about football, but I was pulling for the Packers since most of my family is Packer fans! Too bad my brother-in-law and sister-in-law are die hard Steeler fans! I guess we won't be talking to them until the pain isn't so bad, haha!

Today at Club Anya & Friends, we're featuring the WILDLY creative talents of one Lina!! Check out this beauty of hers!

I love how she added those fun banners! I didn't use banners cause it wouldn't have worked with what I was going for...

I used the super sweet Cheeky Cherry Pie! I colored her with Copics to match this awesome paper, called Devonshire by Kaiser Craft!

The sentiment is from an older GinaK set called Sweetest Blessings. I thought it would be PERFECT for this card:)

Make sure you check out my wonderful teammates to see they're versions of Lina's beauty!! 

Club Anya Blog

• Peggy McCurry -- February Guest Designer
• Jessica Diedrich
• Anna Maria Nilsson 
• Amber Hight 
• Jen Shults 
• Kristy Young 

Thanks for stopping by today!!

SFYTT-Sponsored by Anita B Stampin!

Hello hello! Are you excited for a BRAND NEW SFYTT? I have a feeling you're going to LOVE this one!

Pretty sweet sketch, huh? I'm totally crazy about this one! 

This month, we're being sponsored by a fun stamp company called Anita B Stampin! They have a lot of fun stamps in the store and I think they just had a new release, too!

For my sample, I used the adorable "Bears and Bunches" set!

I'm sorry about the terrible lighting on this card, the colors just didn't want to photograph right for me and I couldn't fix them in PSE, doh! Anyhoo, I colored the sweet bear with Copics and then cut it out with my circle nesties. I did cut a lot of the flowers off by doing this, but the sketch called for a circle and there's no way I was going to have room for a circle AND those flowers, lol! Just pretend they're there;)

Doesn't he have the sweetest smile?:) I also sponged the circle with Old Paper Distress Ink.

The sentiment is from Simple Sentiments by PTI and the fabulous twine is from The Twinery!

1. The SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY will be posted on the first Saturday of each month on www.iheart2stamp.com at 8am EST and will stay open to participants until the last day of the month, unless otherwise noted.
2. This is for fun! Interpret the sketch as you wish and embellish as desired. There are no vendor restrictions, but we would love to see you use the sponsor’s stamps!
3. Each month we will have a Designer of the Month that will be chosen from past month’s participants.
4. Come and play with us on each and every sketch! On Christmas Day 2011 a prize package worth over $200 will be given away to one very lucky and loyal SFYTT stamper that participates in EVERY sketch for the year.
5. To be eligible for the prize package, you must complete ALL of the sketches by each of the deadlines AND link your creation to the link system on that month’s sketch post (the first Saturday of the month). Everyone except for SFYTT Sisters are eligible for the prize package, including Designer of the Month and international players.
6. When posting your sketch creation on your blog, please post the sketch and link back to the sketch post on www.iheart2stamp.com. When posting to online galleries, please use the keyword “SFYTT.”
7. Check out the SFYTT Sister’s links just below to see more creations using this month’s sketch.

February Guest Designer Becky Carafa

Amber Hight
Amy Rohl
Amy Sheffer
Carole Burrage

Jen Del Muro
Jodi Collins
Kelly Lunceford
Kerry Johnson
Leigh O’Brien
Megan Lock
Sony Christoph
Susan Liles

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you come play with us this month:)