Lim, Magnolia, Not FAIR!!!

Yall know Lim right? HERE is her blog. So I LOVED her elephant card. I really, really, really loved it. I told her so on her blog. So you know what she did? She sent it to me! TO ME!!! Oh and it's huge look:
The adorable cat card is from my friend Debbie and the green/orange card is by my friend Lori who has passed away. This board also features an ultrasound from Stephen and Ethan in a Santa hat. I rearrange the stuff all the time, putting different things on top.

Lim didn't stop there, she sent me a LOT of Magnolia stamp images. So I decided to turn a few into cards, inspired by Lim's awesomeness. (most noteworthy, her use of glitter)


First we have these two girls. I imagine they are sisters. The one in the green shirt is a bit of a tomboy and has things to do, but she's not really minding having to take her girly sister along with her. Even though she knows little sister will probably be no help, and pick flowers to make a diasy chain while she does the actual work of gardening.
This next image just felt a tiny bit sad to me. I'm not sure why, anyone with that kind of floating hair MUST be happy. It's hard to tell when you don't have a mouth of course. So I think she's not sad, just missing someone. This card I also used the lots of piercing that was on my elephant card, love it!
Finally we reach the "NOT FAIR" part! Sherri are you reading this? Ok, look at what Lim put the card in so it wouldn't get damaged! This is the packaging from the ADORABLE Panduro stamps that Lim is trying to enable us to buy in THIS post. So now I even know exactly how big the rubber sheet is and get to see more samples and such. My jealousy reaches new heights! See, Sherri and I are trying not to spend a bunch of money, so we have decided to put off purchasing these stamps for a while. And you should know ths is a huge sacrafice, it's BOTH our birthdays next month, and we really feel we DESERVE stamps of course. *based on our procurement of the past few months, maybe we don't really deserve any! haha* So I'm going to have to look for something to package in this thing and send it to Sherri, then I wonder if we can resist?
Oh this is most random, but look at the sample card on the Panduro packaging. See how that is cut out so some white on the edges show, but it stilll looks totally clean and adorable? I CANNOT get that look! EVER. I see it and every single time I think, "grumble grumble, jealous, jealous, how do they do that?" Mine never looks even and nice, it always looks like a botched cutting job. I can cut an image out entirely, see the card with the two sisters? Just not with that white border! :(

Owl always be here if you need me.

Who (whoooo, whooo) wouldn't love a card with two cute owls? I mean look at their toes, you love them, you know you do.

I stamped them and then colored with copics. I hadn't planned on coloring the sky blue but with my owl stamps also came a BOAT LOAD of stickles I had ordered. So I wanted to do a glitter moon. A glitter moon would look silly on a white background... *if you give a stamper a stickles, she will want to make a moon, if you let a stamper make a moon, she will want a night sky...* So I punched a circle from post it note paper and stuck it on for a moon, then colored the rest with copics. Removed the circle, colored the moon with a yellow copic, then over that with glitter. *I have like 5 clear/white/sparkle shades of stickles now...I THINK this is diamond, but there is no telling. I'll try to be better about this in the future.

The rest of the card is pretty easy, some HUGE yellow ribbon like fabric stuff, Cornish Heritage Farms backgrounder. (I LOVE CHF backgrounders.) I stamped the phrase (which comes with the owls in a set) with white ink. I never super love how white ink turns out. If someone has a GREAT white ink let a girl know! This is Moonlight Brilliance or something like that. It's just ok.
Supplies: Owl Always Love You stamp set by Gina K, Large Polka Dot Backgrounder by Cornish Heritage Farms, cardstocks is by Stampin' Up!, I don't know where that yellow ribbon stuff came from, and we already discussed I don't know which clear/white stickles I used. Ink, (does anyone care about the ink?) is versamark on the backgrounder, that white moonlight brilliance stuff for the sentiment and adirondack pitch black for the image. BTW I do like the adirondack best of all the inks I've used for coloring with copics.

Start To Finish with Cornish Heritage Farms Backgrounder

I made this card yesterday and loved it so much I wanted to do a Start To Finish with it. Turns out it's so easy, this Start To Finish is almost silly.

First step is to ink your backgrounder with versamark ink (or other embossing ink) and stamp it on glossy cardstock. *I did take a photo of that, but it didn't really show up*

Then emoboss that with black powder.

Get out some dye ink and a brayer. You can use any color. I'm partial to pink, (did you know that about me?) so I chose Vivid! Pink. Which really IS vivid, love it.
Use your brayer to roll the ink onto the emobssed glossy cardstock.
Then trim it out. Now look here, see the white you get around the embossed lines? That's good, it adds a touch of shabbiness that really works with this project. If you absolutely hate that then brayer from a few different directions or even sponge you ink on.
Next I'm going to stamp a phrase on a folded card. This photo shows how with my grid paper I can check my stamp to make sure it's mounted really straight. If it wasn't I'd use my stamp positioner, sense it's straight I will stamp directly on the cardstock.
Now add the trimmed pink piece to the bottom. This card is a top folded card, and the pink piece is 4.25x3.5 inches.

The final step is to tie some ribbon around the card where the embossed part meets the white cardstock.

And that's all. But I think it's really nice and looks like some patern paper that would be expensive and fancy to buy.

Supplies: Backgrounder stamp is Sophisticated Swirls by Cornish Heritage Farms, "friendship" is by Hero Arts, glossy cardstock from The Angel Company, White cardstock is Papertrey Ink, embossing powder is ranger, inks are Vivid! pink and versamagic, ribbon is from Ribbons and Bows Oh My

Stamp Store's make and takes

Last night was the "Demo Night" at my local stamp store. This is one night a month that they have demonstrations of new products and sometimes make and takes. There is also food and it's all free! Well last night it was all make and takes! Four of them. Wahoo! (Not that checking out new product isn't fun, but USING stuff is even more fun!)


All designs are by Jodie, who is one of the owners of my LSS.

Tiny clipboard covered in paper and and holding a birthday greeting.

Birthday card with cool folds.
View 2 of fun fold birthday card
Little gift card holder. *this was a particularly cute deisgn*
Inside view of gift card holder. Can you see that slit? A gift card can fit in there.
Stinking cute bee card! *and my first time making a clear card* Close up of bee, note vellum wings and general adorableness.

So that's what I did last night! How fun. And I didn't spend any money! I'm sure Jodie is thrilled about that. *sarcasm*

I also made a wicked cute card with my new Cornish Heritage Farms backgrounders. I like it so much in fact that I think I'm going to make it again and do a "Start to Finish" with it. I plan to do that today, but we shall see.

Double Time Cherry

Today's challange on the Cornish Heritage Farms Backgrounder Bitz challange thingie is to use two different backgrounders on the same card. And this is what I did:
You might not can tell but the stripe part is the notebook paper backgrounder. I colored the stripes light blue and red. I went over the red with a sharpie paint pen to add the dots. Then, of course there is the polkadot backgrounder as well. The phrase is a rub on.

If you are wondering I'm doing all these CHF challanges to force myself to use more background stamps. I really like them and think they are versatile, but I don't often remember to reach for them. Also, you might want to look at the challange galleries HERE if you are interested in more awesome cards that feature background stamps. I am finding lots of inspiration there.

supplies: all paper, cherry stamp and rub on are Stampin' Up!, both background stamps are by Cornish Heritage Farms. Black ink is Adarondiak by Ranger Red ink is Versafine. I used tombow markers to "ink" up the cherry.

Start To Finish Watercolor with Gina K

Once in a while I'm going to do a project "Start to Finish" My video camera isn't very clear, I'll just do photos.

And here is one today.

I started by moutning my images on clear blocks and stamping them on image sheets for my stamp-a-ma-jig. (it's a stamp positioner) Get you a stamp-a-ma-jig, I totally thought they were silly until I got one. I use it every single day. REALLY every day. Then I stamped the rectangle frame, and using my positioning sheets I stamped the flowers and the phrase in there. I knew they would both fit because I had them stamped on the image sheet thingie that came with my SAMJ. Note here, this watercolor paper has a rough side and a smooth side. I stamp on the smooth side in most cases. Use a waterproof ink. I used stazon on this one, but there are a bunch of waterproof inks out there.
Next scirbble some water based markers on something slick. This white thing I bought is actually for this, but you can use a plate, the box your stamps come in, some extra plastic packaging... anything. I then use my water brush to pick up the paints and paint them across my stamped image. I let the color blend between colors. I have orange, pink and red here.
Select some papers that match your colored image. Really you should do this first before you color I can't tell you how many times I've looked for paper second and not found any. And I have a LOT of paper. I never remember to pull paper first. Sense I just wanted solids though I lucked out. Also after cutting the image out run a black marker around the edge of the image. This way you won't see any of the white paper when you put your card together. I do this on almost everything I cut out. It also covers any error you make in trimming the image. If you are just off a smidge the black will make it look like the image is supposed to be like that. Mat the image and assemble the card. Easy as that! Now do we think these flowers are begging for bling? I think maybe they are... If I decide to add some I'll be sure to update this with a photo of them with thier bling. I'm not sure I have crystals that tiny, I might have to do stickles. We all know I don't mind using stickles though! haha

Supplies: All stamps by Gina K Deisgns. The flowers and box are from Framed Flowers Set and the phrase is from the Kindred Spirits Greetings for Her Set. The white paper is strathmore watercolor paper, the pink is bazzill and the black is unknown. Ribbon is SU and that ribbon slider thingie is SU too.

Kissing Technique!

This is my first time ever doing the Kissing Techinique. It was for a challange at the Cornish Heritage Farms Background Blitz challange week.

I inked the tree with peach then the polkadot backgrounder with pink. Then "kissed" the tree stamp to the backgrounder and then stamped it on the white. I'm not sure I'm in LOVE with it, but there it is. I cut some more tree bits out and layered them on foam tape for dimension. I also added stickles for glitter. (glitter being a standard cardmaking element of course.) I drew in the hill and colored it with a copic marker.

stamps are TAC for everything except the polkadot backrounder which is Cornish Heritage Farms.

Ribbon Weaving

I've been seeing it everywhere, Ribbon Weaving. Now I have a history with weaving papercraft supplies. I once saw Anna Griffin weave paper and was entranced. This was back when I just first started scrapbooking. I raced to the craft store to get some pretty papers. Raced home and cut it all into 1 inch strips and got weaving. It totally came out wonky and generally not anything like Anna's sample. And of course I did what any reasonable person would, I swore off weaving forever.

Then in the past few weeks I started seeing ribbon weaving all over the net! "NO WAY" I said, "I've sworn off weaving" I refused to do it.

Friday night I went up to the stamp store. It was innocent enough, I went to get one of my copics refilled. But the crop room was packed with my stamping friends, so how could I not pull up a chair? Next thing I know Roniece is pointing out some ribbon weaving card samples she's printed off the internet. Before you can say, "No Erin, you've made a commitment to forswear weaving" I had a pile of strips of ribbon in my hands!


I will admit there was drama. I started by taping my ribbons to the edge of the measured cardstock, *I'm using a technique I saw on Kristen Werner's blog HERE* I wanted a checker board type patern. So I tape the green, then black, then green on one side, and black, green, black on the other. NOPE. I got stripes. So I change it up. MORE stripes. I give it dirty looks and think "I told you so!" to myself. But then, with the help of Penny, who is a quilter *quilters know everything* I figure out that I need to do all black on one side, all green on the other!

And here are the cards. I actually made 3 so far. I left one with Roniece at the crop, I made these two yesterday at home.

The "thank you" stamp is by justjohanna, the patern paper is making memories, the ribbon and flowers are stolen out of Ronice's stash, because remember I went to the store with my one copic.

Oh and this is scary. I've been really busy all weekend. I've made time to stamp, but not time to clean up! I usually clean my stamp area after each session. I'll get to this later today, I refuse to do another project before I clean it!



ETA I KNEW I was spelling Roniece's name wrong! Sheesh! Spelling is corrected. Sorry!

Fun with Cornish Heritage Farms

All week at Cornish Heritage Farms they are having backgrounder challanges. I loves me some background stamps! There are different theme challanges each day.

This first card is for a challange "Anything BUT paper" where we are to stamp a backgrounder stamp on anything but paper. *see how clever that title is* I stamped on some chipboard. Before stamping the chipboard letters I inked them with chalk ink, then let them dry.
Another challange was a sketch challange. It was a cool sketch that allowed us to really focus on the background image. I made this baked treat card. I bake a lot of treats, I need a stack of these. Also, the words, heart and treat here are by Kim Hughes, who you may know I'm obsessed with.
Next we have one that is to make anything other than a card. I don't always mount my stamps. I like the storage of having them in the CD cases. So when I get a new set from Stampin' UP! sometimes I don't mount them, leaving me totally clean wood blocks. I then stamp on them and chuck them in my kid's toy box. They play with them for a while, then leave them out on the floor. At this point I step on them and mumble somethings I shouldn't. After that I usually throw them away in discust. But for NOW I've made a cute block with the dot backgrounder and this adorable turtle. *three guesses as to who drew the turtle, first two don't count* Please note the toenail polish on the turtle.
I hope to do a few more challanges this week, but we all know how lazy I am. Oh and I do have other CHF backgrounders, but it looks like I only have one... I might have to buy more so it looks like I have more?

I am getting my hair cut today. I am tempted to do a total chop off, but I know Brian wouldn't love that. I'm thinking of layers, but the longest being JUST above my sholders, the shortest acting like wispy bangs. I'll have to let Jennifer advise me though. Jennifer is my hair girl. She did my last cut and won me as a client for life. Well for until she gets noticed by a great expensive salon and they steal her from the place in the mall and her rates go up 1000% and I can't afford her. At least until then!

Winner of my Reuse It! justjohanna challange

Thank you to all the girls who played along with my challange! It was so fun to see your creations.

The winner is Noel. (Noel, from the justjohanna forum, please contact me with your mailing info.)

If you didn't win, have no fear, I've entered you all in the grand prize drawing for the fantastic prizes!

Winner of the Gina K Comfort and Peace set.

I drew a winner and it is:

Mandy said...
Erin, I had to head over here after seeing you on GinaK's blog! Congrats, girlie! What a wonderful idea you had! ;)
Friday, 18 April, 2008

Mandy, I will try to follow your link and see if I can find a blog or something to contact you, but if you see this first please email me your address and such to

serinone@yahoo.com

Thank EVERYONE for all your comments. I was moved to tears several times reading them, and I felt special and loved all this time. I wish I had 160 of them so I could give everyone one.

Reuse it!

My challange for the justjohanna Earth Day Extravaganza is Reuse It!


In our efforts to be kinder to our planet one thing that we can do, and really I think the first thing we should do, is try to get more than one use out of our stuff! My everyday example of this is shopping bags. We are commited to either remembering to bring our canvas sacks for shopping, or reusing the bags we get stuff in. We use them for all sorts of stuff around here.


So my challange is this. Look at your stamps. Can you get a different use out of them? I mean use the immage in a different way. (not use them as something other than stamps, that idea scares me! What if we hurt our stamps. The horror!) I mean can that lime slice be a flower? Can your submarine be a blimp, or even a rocket? *yes, yes your submarine can be a blimp or a rocket, and almost everything can be a flower*



To do this challange you may want to do some masking, adding different images together, or the trick where you tape off part of your stamp when you ink it, then remove the tape and stamp just part of the image. Just have fun!



Here are some ideas to get you started. *sorry if you've seen these, I've had sick kiddos all week. Sick kids require a ton of mommy time*

This is a ladie's skirt and a ladie's fan from the Limited Edition Ladies Dancing kit.This is the submarine.
Lime slice flowers.

After you make your card load it to either your blog or to the justjohanna gallery. Then come back here and leave me a link. I might not find you if you don't leave a link. You have until midnight Pacific time tomorrow. Then I will draw a winner of the awesome stamp seen here:

And don't forget, everyone who plays in any of the challanges will be entered to win grand prizes!

• one winner will receive $250 in justjohanna stamps
• one winner will receive $50 in justjohanna stamps
• five winners will receive a 25% discount coupon when they place a justjohanna order

Also please go to THIS LINK, which is the justjohanna forum, it should take you directly to the Earth Day stuff. All the challanges will be posted there! New ones will be added all day.

I think that's all. I'm sure I'm forgetting something important, so I'll probably come back and type that at the end in green! HAHA.

In just a few hours

I will be hosting my challange for the Earth Day Event with justjohanna at 9am Eastern time. You will have all day to complete it. There will be a bunch of challanges throught the day from the design team. I hope you stop by here or the justjohanna forum to see what is going on.

It will be fun!

It's time for the big news!

Do you ever need a card that isn't really sympathy, but it's not get well either? I often, more often that I like, need cards for the caregivers of seriously ill people. I know a mom who has a terrible cancer, not likely to get better. We have the RAK cards we do, where we just want the recipient, who we may not even know, to know that they are loved. I have friends who extend themselves so much I fear they will wear out totally. I have a hard time knowing just what to say. I usually have made them a nice blank card, with a flower or something like that, then written my own message. But I felt like there should be stamps that fit these topics better.



I talked to my mom, who purchases a lot of store bought cards. She said it's really hard to find these cards in stores too. Then I searched the internet for stamps that said what I wanted. No luck.



It's no secret that I love Gina K Designs. Gina has this extra special way of making everyone feel like they are special. I'm SURE that I'm her favorite customer. Totally sure of it. I'm sure you are her favorite customer too, she's like that. So I felt totally comfortable taking this idea to her. Making a stamp set that is for offering peace, comfort and support. Gina got back to me within an hour and we were on the phone dreaming up what such a set would include. She asked me to write a bunch of sentiments that I thought should go in the set.



I wrote a pile of them. My favorite idea was a broken sentiment that started with "In this difficult time..." then you could choose any of a handful of completing phrases. Gina used my ideas. Then she added beautiful flowers and worked out the font and editing. The end result is the set Comfort and Peace. I'm thrilled. Really honored, and excited to see this on the market. I think it's unique and needed.



Here are some cards I made using the set.

I also really wanted to let you all know that I was very serious working on these phrases. I thought a lot about how people would feel when they needed these cards. It was hard for my heart. I realize though that if we didn't extend ourselves in love we would never need these cards. And that's the magic of this whole thing. We do have pain and heartache, but the love we have is always worth that pain. I hope this is true for all of you, and I hope that love brings YOU peace and comfort when you find you have to pull this set out and make these cards.

Working on this project with Gina was fun. Really fun. I got to talk to the famous Gina K on the phone several times, which is always a pleasure. I got to see my ideas turn into stamps. I did have a big secret for a few months, which was so fun it was almost painful.

If I could, *and I guess I can, it's my blog* I'd dedicate my efforts on this set to Jill, whose trials right now break my heart.

ETA: The set will be included in the release that will be on the 20th. Thank you so much Donna for reminding me of this very important detail! Hugs,e

ETA AGAIN!: I TOTALLY forgot this. You can WIN this set. I have one with your name on it. Just post here and I'll pick a winner. No hard game or anything, just post and I'll draw a name. :)

ETA yet again: I will draw a winner sometime on Sunday. After church for me, which ends at 2, then I come home and get my tots down for a nap and all... So sometime on Sunday afternoon. I will try to contact the winner through their blog or email, but if there is no email I'll only be able to post it here. :) Oh and if you win it, but then also get it as your 1 free with 3, just pass it along to a stamping friend. Or have two, if that suits your fancy.

Eat Cupcakes.

Do you really need someone to tell you to eat cupcakes? I didn't think so.

This is another card I made for the April justjohanna sketch. I LOVE this sketch. It's my favorite sketch ever. This time I made another cupake and paper pieced it with the sprinkles paper from the Basic Grey Cupcake line. *I think it's called cupcake... I'm 90% sure* The phrase is made from the stamp that says "Life's short eat cupcakes" I just masked some off while inking it and then arranged it to just say "eat cupcakes" because I think that sends a strong pro-cupcake message. *which cupcakes need, I read on Cupcakes Take The Cake HERE that cupcakes have jumped the shark! Never let it be so!* Here is the sketch again, in case you don't get the justjohanna newsletter, or you forgot it, or you want it for any other reason.

ps, what program is used to make these 3D-ish looking sketches? I want to make some!

Don't forget, tomorrow night = BIG announcement from me. An announcement so big I felt I had to include candy with it! Candy you want to win. And there will be cards too, I know I've been heavy on the non-card posts lately. I've had lots of info to share... I'll try to do better about always including a card though.

Inspirational Blog

So tell me you all already know the Inspirational Blog right? What? Some of you don't? SHEESH! Ok, go look, then come back.

Cool isn't it? So the team rounds up awesome cards and other crafts from all over during their blog hopping and all. Then they get permission and post their favorites on the Inspirational Blog. And now I'm part of that awesome team.

Now I know, you already read 200 blogs, why do you need this one too? Well let me tell you, because I read 200 blogs and I find new stuff on this one every day. I know it feels like you are reading every blog on earth but you are not. So by reading this one in addition to your favorites you will be getting a huge variety of new inspiration. *hmmm, I bet that's why they call it that?*

So if you get an email from me, or a comment in your blog asking if I can feature you on the Inspirational Blog, please let me!

hugs,
e

Helpful Chipmonks

When I saw the preview of the Friendly Kritters line at Cornish Heritage Farms I knew I'd be buying this stamp. See Marcia, my awesome Mother-In-Law loves chipmonks. Look how cute they are.

So I colored them with my trusty copics, but I then showed Marcia my new fun flock. She wanted her chipmonks flocked! I went ahead and did it of course. Well the stamps might be too detailed for flocking. I had to draw in some lines of the dark brown, but you are still not seeing the full cuteness of these guys. They are still pretty cute though. The little "Embrace Happiness" stamp is by PapertreyInk. I don't think you can tell, but I put some gold stickles on the flower centers.
Thanks for visiting me.
e

Earth Day Celebration

You do not want to miss out on the justjohanna Earth Day celebration. It's all day Saturday. There will be challanges throughout the day hosted by the Design Team members. I will be having one, of course. I will be posting my challange here on my blog, and in the justjohanna forum at 9am EST. Which is 6am for you peeps on the west coast.



I'll let you know my challange shouldn't be terribly difficult, so please do play.

And you do not have to use justjohanna images to play. So if you got them, use them! If you don't, use what you got! I will be drawing one of the people who play my challange to win this stamp:Tell me you don't love him. I mean, it's an owl, in outter space, with the Earth in the background.

And if that wasn't enough listen to this part! Everyone who does any of the challanges will be entered in a drawing to win:

• One (1) grand prize of a $ 250 justjohanna shopping spree
• One (1) second prize of a $ 50 justjohanna gift certificate
• Five (5) third prizes of 25% off coupons for the justjohanna online store

note: to play you will need to either have a blog or a membership to the justjohanna forum. You can get a free membership to the justjohanna forum by clicking here. Forum access will give you all the info in one spot, a nice gallery to see the other entries in and the ability to chat about the challanges with other players and the jj Design Team. You can definately play along from your own blog though.

Shout out to another blogger!

I'm gonna start doing occasional shout outs to other bloggers. Just randomly, as I see fit. *because I'd never keep up with some sort of regular thing where I did it every Tuesday or something.*

Today is the first one and the blog I'm shouting out to is Lim's Blog. Lim is super talented at my very number ONE favorite thing to do with stamps, making scenes. OH MY HECK, she makes some hecken good scenes. *hecken is new, I'm starting it here and now, it's similar to hella, but more Mormon*

Lim is also having her first blog candy right now. She has three prizes you can win images, punchies and ribbon. And let me tell you one thing, you want Lim's immages. I rekon she's been spending her life savings on the most adorable stamps because I've never coveted a collection quite like I do hers. HERE is a link to her post about the blog candy.

ETA: Horrible news everyone! "Hecka" is already a word. It means just what I said "hecken" means. Then later I used "hecka" thinking I was using MY new word... I guess what I'm getting at is that there is nothing original about "hecken" it's just a wrong form of "hecka". Here is a link to the Urban Dictionary defination for "hecka". they gots nothing for "hecken" though, so maybe I can make THAT a new word. Sigh, I never get to make up new words.

La La La La!

Doesn't the cat on the left look like he's singing? And the cat on the right, she's maybe not impressed? HAHA. I used my stamp-a-ma-jig and first stamped this whole scene in my sketchbook. I didn't bother with making masks at that time. Then I looked at it and figured out what order the images should be stamped and masked. I came up with Cat's, Rocks, Pier, Grass. Although if that one grass had been in front of the pier it would have been nice too. Then I stamped the whole thing again, using the masks on Strathmore Smooth Bristol paper, which is my fav for copic coloring. I colored with copics. OH speaking of copics, I read somewhere that Ranger Adirondack dye ink was good for the copics. I got some and yes, I like it the best now. Ok, so after coloring I trimmed it down and assembled the card. All stamps are Eat Cake Graphics.
Next up is a card that has a robot family. I'm gonna tell you a family story that might let you know why this is such a funny card at my house. *might not be funny in the retelling though*

So we got to Epcot. It's awesome. They have this thing where you can build your own robot on a computer, then build one out of plastic parts. It's free and you can keep the robot. So we do it and the boys are in love with their robots. For some reason Stephen loves for me to say "I am a Robot." In a robot voice. Like all toddlers he loves the same joke over and over. Around the 500th time I say "I am a robot" Brian replies, "You are a huge nerd" in the voice of Triumph. *If you don't know who Triumph is, he's the puppet dog who insulted the rapper Emminem and, I kid you not, got in a feude with him for a while, yes, fancy pants rapper vs. puppet dog, we sided with the puppet dog, because dogs rock.* Hmmm. I knew that wasn't gonna be funny to anyone else.

Back to the card! This uses the adorable Cogsmo line from Cosmo Cricket. CUTE! I stamped the bots and colored with copic markers. This stamp is by Eat Cake Graphics too.

Look a new Blog Header

So I decided I wanted a new blog header. Time for a change. My friend Angie did my old one and she's all busy and stuff no so I didn't want to beg her for a new one, so I decided I could do one myself.

Um... wow. My brain literally exploded thinking about that. I know how to use digital elements. But I could not for the LIFE of me figure out if I was ALLOWED to use them for a blog thingie. Some sites were clear that the answer was no, some were totally vague about it causing me to get brain bleed. I am super psycho about copyright stuff so I didn't want to step on any toes, and I for dang sure didn't want to spend an hour making a cute banner that I'd get an email next week telling me I have to remove. *cuz I'm sure that my little site gets so much traffic that the designer of that kit would happen upon it?*

So I decided to make my own. Out of actual cardstock. And this is what I did. At first there was no yellow bird but EVERYONE who saw it said it needed a critter. So I added the bird. Tracey says the bird looks lonely, I say he looks like he's staying until I figure out something else! HA!

I did email two very cute designers of digi kits to ask if it was ok to use the kits on this type blog. I'll let you know if I hear back from them. I also hear that the pay kits at shabbyprincess are ok to use, but not the free ones. They are lovely. They are also shabby and I'm not a shabby girl, so I didn't select one. She has done ones too, they are like $2 and they are just ready to use blog thingies. You can add photos and your title. Very cool product. Lemme get you a link sense I'm talking so much about it. Ok HERE are the "blogware" downloads. They are really nice.

ANYHOW, what do you think of the banner I have now? Is it too narrow? Should it go all the way across? I dont want it to be so that anyone has to use a bottom side to side scroll thingie, I hate it when I have to use those on sites.

And I'll sneak this in here, in case you are actually still reading. Do NOT miss my post Friday (probably Thursday night actually) And Saturday. You will be sorry if you miss these posts. I have news and prizes related to the news. *WINK WINK*

Stephanie DosReis and justjohanna

First let me introduce you to the blog of an outstanding artist. Stephanie DosReis. The link is to her blog. She's awesome, mixed media type stuff, cutting cool bits of images to make other totally different things. YUM for that! She also designed a line called The Wonder Years for Daisy D's scrapbook/papercraft company. Johanna connected up with her and also liked Stepanie's artwork, so she procured stickers from the Wonder Years line for those of us on her Design Team.

And that is what I have to show you today, I used the stickers Stephanie designed, with the justjohanna stamps to make the following cards:


This one actually uses the April Sketch from the justjohanna newsletter *see sketch in previous post*

I had stickers to work with. They were really fun, they looked like they had real fabric on them and all this cool stitching and all. And the mixed up patterns were just really fun to work with. I looked on Stephanie's blog and it is an entire line, paper and all stuffs. I might have to procure some of that. Now really, go click the link I gave you to Stephanie's blog, it's fresh and fun and colorful and unique. Serious eye candy.