Questions and Answers

You've got questions, I've got answers.  
Q: Do you just wing it when you print the sentiment directly on the card, or does it come out exactly where you want it? -Maria


I wouldn't say it comes out exactly where I want it every time, but some tricks help me get it good enough ("Perfection is the enemy of the good").

1) Make a rectangle the size of your card in MS Word (I draw one, resize it on the drawing tools ribbon, then holding ctrl and shift, I drag it below.  The ctrl makes another copy and the shift makes it stay aligned.  
(You may be asking why I don't make my page landscape and print on half the paper.  The answer is my printer has really wide margins, so it's just easier for me to waste some paper rather than having the bottom half of the sentiment not print.)
2) Add a shape (oval, circle, rectangle) that best represents your stamped image and resize it to the dimensions of your stamp.  
3) Add textbox and move around until it looks good.
4) Delete the stamp shape, but keep your card lines (I print them in light gray) in case your printer doesn't print straight.
Of course, I usually try it on scrap paper first, too!


Q:  I wish I knew how to make photo collages like this-Crafty Math Chick


I'm probably shouldn't show you this, because when you find out how easy it is, it will be like I told you how they saw the lady in half.
Using Picasa (free!), select the photos you want in your collage and "pin" them using the green pushpin (top left button above the red circle).  Once you have all the photos you want, press the "collage" button (3rd from left)

Tada!  It will give you some options (I chose mosaic) as well as allowing you to shuffle the pictures (you can't drag and drop them exactly where you want them, though, like you can in picnik).  Then click "create collage" and voilà.


Q: Are you seriously holding a koala bear in that top picture? - Cute Animal Lovers
A: HELLS YEAH.  


Q: What is this word, voilà? - People Who Need Some Spelling Help
A: It is the word you are thinking of when you type "wal-lah" or "viola."  In other words of note, you go shopping down an aisle and you go vacationing on a isle.  A good way to remember this is that it is a pain in the a** to go shopping. 


Q: Have any more HYCCT favorites? - No One, Really, but a Good Segue
A: I do!  These were two faves that were way outside my normal card style:

This was for the collage challenge.  I actually made one collage and it turned out like crap, but fortunately I missed reading that it had to have pink, so I ended up making another one and this I actually like!  I stamped the leaves first and embossed them using Amuse Satin Pearl embossing powder, then used some text and medallion stamps to stamp over it. I used a 1-inch square punch because I seriously cannot cut 9 one-inch squares so that they are all exactly one-inch square.  That's why God created punches.  

This one just made me happy because it so unlike me!  I mean, look how girl and flowery and busy it is but I sort of love it.  The stamp is from Waltzingmouse, the paper from Webster's Pages.


Q: Have any good movie recommendations? - Me, because I feel it is my duty to spread the word about this movie
A: Yes!  Crazy Stupid Love.  Go ahead and buy the DVD because you will want to own it after you rent it, if only for the New Balance jokes.  


Q: Did you seriously not realize that segue is the word that everyone is saying when they say, "after talking about movie recommendations, she then "segwayed" into talking about the awesomeness of Friday Night Lights" until last year? - I Though You were Smart
A: Totally.  I knew what "segue" meant when I read it and I knew what "seg-way" meant when I heard it, but I never put the two together.  Thank you, "You Were Doing It Wrong" thread on Metafilter! (also Texas Forever!)


Q: What have you been up to crafty-wise, movie-wise, or grammar-wise?  -Meg
A: Leave it in the comments! 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone!  Are any of y'all planning on venturing out tonight?  Fill me in on your awesome plans!  I think DH is cooking me a nice steak, served with a amaretto sour, of course.  Speaking of DH, here is my {second} card for him:

This card is also for this week's Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge.  The poochie is from There She Goes Puppy Love set.  It was a gift from DH, so double awesome (the fact that it is a dog is first awesome)!  I colored her with copics, then stamped a Waltzingmouse Vintage Labels 4 border in Bashful Blue.  Each layer is attached with pop dots for some great dimension.

The sentiment is from The Cat's Pajamas, with a little Martha punch action at the end.  Of course I had to use some of my favorite paper, and I added a little stitching for fun.  The top corner seemed lonely, so I made some 3 faux brads using Real Red cardstock.

The second Valentine is for my friend to give to her husband.  I couldn't resist these little turtles from Amber Ink!

This one is also for the Embellish Color Trends Challenge. In Word, I drew a 4 x 5.25 rectangle, then inserted the row of turtles.  I resized them to be .8 inches tall, then copied and pasted the picture until I had 5 rows of turtles (I flipped some of them horizontally to break up the pattern a bit).  After printing and cutting, I colored the two that were gazing at each other with copics, then added some glossy accents to their shells.  The sentiment is from Unity, die cut with scallop circle nestability.  Then I matted the image with Kiwi Kiss and adhered to an Ocean Tides base.  Here's a close up of the turtles so you can check out the shiny shells:

I hope y'all have a wonderful Valentine's day!

Hellllooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

My apologies for such an extended blog break!  You know how the holidays are!  But I finally got some cards made this weekend, so I have lots to show you over the next few days.  First up:

Making a doggie christmas card with new stamps + watching Survivor finale = vacation happiness!

I started with Eat Cake Graphic's A Scarf for Ferguson.  I took some SU Pumpkin Pie paper and crumpled it until it was soft enough to pull apart into two layers.  I then rolled this felted paper through the cuttlebug with just an embossing mat and cardboard shims to flatten out some of the "extra-felted" portions.  I stamped Ferguson on two sheets, and cut out his ear so it would fold up on one.  I layered the second one underneath so you wouldn't see polka dotted paper, and used a small piece of dimensional tape to prop the ear a little.  The scarf I stamped and cut out from some Echo Park paper-I also stamped and cut it out twice so I could have the pattern going opposite ways for a more realistic look.  I fringed the ends and also popped them up on small dimensionals.

The window is from Waltzingmouse's Twas the Night Before Christmas, embossed and cut out from SU Chocolate Chip.  The shutters and sentiment are stamped onto Close to Cocoa and Santa is stamped onto Not Quite Navy, with some stars added with a stardust pen.

The background paper is also Echo Park.  It's a big card--8 1/2 by 5 1/2--but I think Fergie deserves a nice big card, don't you agree?

I hope all your holiday plans are going well...I just sent off gift packages and cards today so all I have left to do is wrap DH's gifts!  It's nice to have almost a whole week to enjoy the tree and lights without present-buying-and-wrapping stress, and hopefully that means some more stamping time, too!  Stay tuned!

Joy!

Arg!  I made this card for last week's Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge, but forgot to post it and link it up before I left for Thanksgiving!  Oh well, at least it's also for Wplus9's Color Cue 10 challenge (I used Hannah Craner's light blue, white, red, and kraft combo), which is still open!

The "Joy" stamp is from Taylored Expressions, colored with copics (B00, BG10, and BG23 for the blue, R22, R24, and R27 for the red). The dotted border is Waltzingmouse, then I cut and embossed using Nestie Labels 4.  The paper is..you guessed it, Echo Park!  Added some red baker's twine and embossed the card base using PTI's text impression plate, and ta-da!

My Christmas card box is getting more and more cards added to it...I hope there'll be enough when I start sending them out!

As I mentioned, I was out of town for Thanksgiving, so I did not get to wish everyone a happy day and let you know how thankful I am for all the inspiration from your blogs and all the warm fuzzies from your comments.  And how thankful I am to have found not only a hobby that I love, but that has some of the most awesomest ^[1] supportive people on the interwebs!

Thank you!!!

^[1] Yes, "most awesomest," because y'all are that awesome.

Quick Sunday Post

Because it's almost time for TAR ^[1] (and of course the required TARcream^[2])!

So these are my three current crafting loves:
1) Echo Park Paper
2) Waltzingmouse
3) Eat Cake Graphics

Put them all together and what do you get....

 Some serious cuteness!  I stamped ECG's "Sophie Willoughby and her letter" onto PTI Vintage Cream and colored with copics. I also stamped her again on a piece of white scrap to cut out and pop up for her letter. I framed her with Waltzingmouses's Vintage Labels 4 stamped with PTI Hibiscus, die cut, and sponged around the edges with Antique Linen Distress Ink.  The "note" was a journal card from Echo Park's Everybody Loves Christmas pack, and the stickers are from the same pack (I know!  Echo Park makes me like stickers! Who am I?).  The background is PTI Simply Chartruese, stamped with PTI Polka Dot Basics II in Ripe Avocado, then bordered with PTI Hibiscus and Scarlet Jewel because I couldn't decide between the two!

Also wanted to send a BIG THANK YOU to Emily Keaton of My Little Slice of Bliss. She gave away blog candy for reaching 5,000 hits and I won!  Just look at the stack of awesomeness that arrived yesterday:

Thanks again, Emily, and thanks for always leaving such lovely comments.  Definitely check out her blog if you haven't already--you're in for a treat!

Ok, TAR is calling my name, so I'm outta here!

^[1] The Amazing Race, aka The Best Reality Show Ever.
^[2] Ice cream consumed while watching TAR.

Waltzingmouse Tag Challenge

SQUEEEEE!!!!  Have you seen Waltzingmouse's upcoming release? Holy moly, I know I NEED at least two of the sets, if not three!  Plus I'll probably have to pick up her Labels 14 set, too....watch out, credit card!

Unless, of course, I win the random pick for the Tag-You're It! challenge -the prize is 100 pound shopping spree (plus an extra 25 for using Waltzingmouse stamps)-I'm pretty sure I could spend that in a heartbeat!  So without further ado, the lucky, lucky, lucky (I hope!) tag:

Claire wanted "beauty" and "elegance" and I think the sentiment, stamp, and paper certainly fall under the "elegance" part.  I stamped Waltzingmouses's Vintage Labels 4 using Colorbox Deep Green chalk ink, then applied a K&Co rub-on I picked up for pennies on clearance. Hint: run your rubon through your cuttlebug with some paper/cardboard shims for a perfect application.  The larger label die cut is from Echo Park's Merry Christmas paper pack-expect to be seeing a lot more of this paper in the next two months because it's just gorgeous.  I used PTI Dark Chocolate ribbon to wrap the larger label around the bottle of wine.  Then I punched a hole in each end of the smaller label and ran some red twine through (of course had to add some buttons), then attached the label using foam tape for a little dimension, and tied the twine in the back.

I went into our huge wine stash (of 3 dusty bottles) and was so excited to have one with the perfect winter scene:

How could this not bring comfort and joy?

Hope everyone is having a great weekend!

Swell News!

A friend requested a card for a relative's baby shower.  There didn't seem to be a "theme" on the invitation, so I went with this cute stamp from Amy R Stamps (from All That Scraps).  My friend told me she was giving a gift card, so when I saw this week's Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge, I knew it would be perfect!  The paper is the current SU baby paper.  The preggo shirt was cut out and pop dotted, then framed using Waltzingmouse's Vintage Labels 4, which was also popdotted.  I sewed the pocked onto the card, then made the tag pull by attaching one end cut from a Nestie Labels 4 to a rectangular piece of cardstock.  I put two removable adhesive dots on the tag (with the backing still on them) so my friend could attach the gift card. I tied up the baja breeze ribbon with some chocolate twine and added the "baby" tag from PTI Mini Mixed Messages. Here's a close-up:

In entertainment news, we finally jumped ship from Blockbuster.  We were using their mail-in service, which was pretty sweet because you could trade in the DVDs at the store, so we used to have 3 mailed DVDs and 3 store DVDs out at one time.  Then I guess they figured out they weren't making much money that way, and cut it back to 3 only.  Then they filed bankcrupcy AND they didn't have The Office Season 6 AND my brother-in-law has been bragging about instant downloads, so we joined NetFlix.  Why did we wait so long?!?!?  I'm loving the instant play feature in my stamping room!  We also hooked up our Wii to it as well.   If you're a DVD or TV watcher, I'd recommend trying it out.  You can do a google search and easily find a free 4-week trial.  What are some of your favorite "background noise" movies?

Embellish Magazine Challenge

I finally played in one of the Embellish Magazine challenges; this one was yellow, black, gray, and white plus background stamping.  The inspiration pictures made me want to go in a funky/modern direction, and this is what resulted:

...and I think I like it!  The background stamps are the gingham stripe from Waltzingmouse's Pic-nic Patterns, stamped in Memento Dandelion and Fresh Ink Slate Gray.  The flowers are WPlus9.  The PTI Butterfly is stamped on PTI's Harvest Gold, and I totally stole Emily's idea of making a wire body/attenae for it.  I even had some black rhinestones I've been meaning to use that were perfect.  I corner chomped two opposite corners to add a modern look.  Fun times!

In other news, remember how I was all enamored with Gap's jeans?  "Oh, they don't gape in the back and fit perfectly..."   I take that back.  They don't gape in the back for the first hour.  By lunch, I am constantly pulling them up because they stretch so much.  By the end of the day, it looks like they are at least two sizes too big.  It's worse with the lighter wash, and not too bad with the darker wash.  So I'm still on the hunt for the perfect jean, and found a new contender yesterday at Talbot's of all places.  I know what you're thinking, but really, they're not old lady jeans or even mom jeans.  They're even a funky distressed gray!   I know many of you were wondering how my jean situation has been, so I hope you can sleep a little easier tonight.

In other other news, we went to see The Social Network yesterday.  I would rate it a B+.  I guess I was expecting A Few Good Men since it was written by Aaron Sorkin, but it wasn't that awesome.

Hope everyone is having a great Sunday!  Cross your fingers--I may get another post up later today!

Happiness.

Echo Park papers just make me happy!  I bought the three original sets and am loving them--I even love the stickers (and I never love the stickers!).  I had some scraps out on my desk from a recent project and I noticed that they fit Dawn's Color Cue 8 perfectly.  I also wanted to play in the Waltzingmouse Sketch Challenge and shazam--everything came together like magic.

Wheeee!!!  The flowers are from Waltzingmouses's Pic-nic Patterns and the sentiment is from their Rescue Remedies Additions.  I used Colorbox chalk ink in Lime Pastel, Dark Brown, and Maroon (I'm having a Chalk Ink Renassaince after making my ink color chart: sure they stain your clear stamps, but they stamp so vividly!).  Each flower head is popdotted, and each strip is pop dotted.  The button on the Nestie Label 4 is also scarlet, with some fab yellow embroidery thread.

And wait, there's more happiness!  I was so happy when not one, but two! Emilies awarded me this:

Thanks, Emily of My Little Slice of Bliss and Emily of Art from the Heart!  Now to pass it along to seven other happy-making blogs:

Lisa of Lisa's Life Lines
Emily (what's with all the Emilies?) of Emmie Lou Who...Stamps and You!
Denise of Handmade by Me!
Lydia of Understand Blue
LeAnne of Wee Inklings
Jess of Playing with Paper
Brandi of The Squareheaded Stamper

Check 'em out if you need a dose of inspiration!

And my final happy for today...I got these delivered at work last week just because somebody loves me.

I hope y'all had some happy today, too!

Actual Cards!

Once I got my stamping room all organized, I quickly messed it all up again playing with some new items.

This card uses a huge jumble of new stuff!  The flower is the outline peony from Impress Rubber Stamps.  I stamped it onto Gina K Pure Luxury with Versamark and heat embossed it in white. Then I used watercolored it, using Memento Ladybug ink (I stamped the inkpad onto a cd case, then just picked up the ink from there using an aquapainter).  I know, I never would have thought "ladybug" would come out this gorgeous pink when it was watercolored!  I cut out two images to layer, but it still needed a little more here and there, so I cut out a third to add some extra petals. I added a ocean-breeze-but-really-looks-aqua-mist button tied with some linen thread.  For the card base, I stamped the small outline poppy on the top and used Waltzingmouse's Picnic Patterns for the bottom third, adding a Berry Sorbet ribbon in between.  The sentiment was cut from Nesties Label Four. The frame is from Waltizingmouse and the sentiment is from PTI Vintage Picnic (man, a lot of picnicing going on!), both stamped with Pink Lemonade Fresh Ink.  I colored two white brads with a copic to make an aqua mist design triangle (look at me talking all fancy!).

This was a quick card I did for this week's Splitcoast CAS color challenge of red, brown, vanilla, and kraft.  I cased it from this lovely creation by PaperInBloom.  The main panel is from Waltzingmouse--isn't it fabulous?  I covered everything on the stamp itself except the middle with a postit and inked up the red portion, then removed the postits and carefully inked the brown, then stamped it all at once.  The flowers are outline peony and solid peony from Impress.  And got to use some new brown & white twine.

In other news, here are some thing that are making me happy:
1) Students who "pinky-swear" they're going to work harder for the next test.
2) Getting an AWESOME Dr Horrible shirt out of the blue from my DH.  (Hey, have you watched it yet?  If NPH's shoulder shimmy at 5:08 doesn't make you giggle uncontrollably, then you must not be me.)
3) Finding loads of new settings on my camera and taking this adorable picture of Addison using "pet" mode:

 4) "Super Harvest Moon" tonight.  The sun will be setting directly opposite a full moon, so it's supposed to look pretty awesome. I'm going to head out to a high spot with my camera (in its new "sunset" mode) to check it out.
5) My blog peeps--whether you leave a comment every day, drop in a few times to say hello, or are just an anonymous follower, thanks for the interweb love!