Eat Cake, it's yummy and good for you.

Well maybe not good for you, but if you use Eat Cake Graphics stamps it can't hurt a bit!

I pulled out my ECG stamps to make a few ATC's and a card this week.

First is this cupcake ATC. There is glitter on both the cakes and the phrase. I LOVE this phrase by the way. If it's too small to read it says, "Cupcakes oh what yum!". How cute is that? The cake is a brand new stamp for Eat Cake Graphics. I decided to have the cake piece spin up to reveal the saying because, honestly, I wanted it on a circle and I wanted the phrase AND ribbon, so I didn't have room on the ATC. So I decided this card had to have a hidden message. I made a stack of them because it's for a swap.
Next is one of my very favorite stamps in my whole collection. This kid is just maxed out! Even the kitty thinks so. Poor guy. I watercolored him with WC pencils, I did the candy wrappers with glittery pens. Then ribbon and decorative brad and it's done.
I have this thing with my stamps. Whenever there is a window I want to do a card where I'm showing something THROUGH the window. This stamp actually has the girl looking at a beautiful sunset. I love that, but wanted to do something different. So I carefully cut out the sunset and then stamped the large flower/fairy scene and put it inside the card. So now the girl is daydreaming this scene instead. I drew the baseboard and floor in for her to stand on something.
Inside view here. LOTS Of glitter added, because it's a magical daydream afterall.
close up of the fairy here.

Been a long time

Ugh yall. So on Saturday morning my old computer died. I say old but I only purchased it in Feb of '07 so it was NOT old. It sure was dead though. It had been trying to die for a few months. Unfortunately the first thing to die was the disk burner thingie so I couldn't back up my photos. You may remember this crap happened to me back in Feb of 07 without a backup. I should not have gotten caught. I stink. Luckily we have a friend at church who used to be on the Geek Squad and is generally a computer geek and will recover whatever I want from BOTH hard drives for me. *saved the older one just in case I got friendly with a computer geek* So all will be well.

In the mean time I've been offline and so no blogging. :( It was terrible. Turns out I have a full on internet addiction. I had withdrawl and everything. Brian found us a new computer Monday morning, but he found it online and it had to be shipped! HORROR. It took until yesterday morning to get here. Then there were issues with setting it up. Seems our power cord/surge protector is what killed our computer. It killed our wireless broadband too. So I had to go all over town for a new one of those and also a new boadband thingie. Anyhow I'm back online now and with new stuff that shouldn't die in a year.

What did I do while I was gone you ask? Well I'll tell you. I read the entire book "Clean and Simple Scrapbooking, the Sequel" and I got off my butt and made myself an ENTIRE scrapbook album! It's called "Private Collection, my favorite people, photos and stories" and it's just for me. I let some family see it, but I'm not blogging it. It's not super fancy, you are not missing much. The journaling is nice though.

I did also make this envelope for a letter to my friend Kim. *all stamps Eat Cake Graphics, colored with marker ink and water brush.

I wanted to make one for Kim because she sent me this inspiring piece!

Front View Inside/back view, pleas note the edging on the flap.
And if that wasn't enough the card!
I also made a scrapbook page. It's based on a sketch challange from the Cornish Heritage farms forums. I am way past the date you were suposed to post these but my computer was dead ya know. Anyhow I hate taking photos of 12x12 scrapbook pages. I actually thought this was pretty good, but it's not that great. You are going to have to just believe me that it's pretty in person and be proud that I actually scrapbooked something. :)

And finally, I turned 30. Today. It was the best birthday ever. I went out last night with girls from church for ice cream and we talked all night. Then today my boys slept in until 8:30. I got to go to Costco. I had a HUGE justjohanna order and also a stamp I won on Mona Lisa's blog. The stamp turned out to be a backgrounder from CHF that I was really wanting! I also got blog candy from Mandy's blog in the mail today! And about a million birthday cards *I hope to blog those in the next few days* My mother-in-law watched the kids and Brian and I went to dinner. Also she gave me a super cupcake themed pile of presents, cookbooks, stickers, punches, all sorts of stuff. My own mom gave me SEVEN vintage aprons! I'm going to blog them on our thrift blog tomorrow or Sunday and I'll be sure to leave yall a link. So all that is super exciting. :) Oh my baby Ethan who is almost 2 kept giving me random things he'd find and saying, "your birthday" and handing them to me! AWWW.

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.

Abundance

I went on Colleen's blog today and saw the most lovely card with one of my favorite Eat Cake Grpahic stamps. Look at it! Then I remembered that I did a card with this stamp in January. I did it in hopes of a publication but wasn't selected. It's been a while past the notification date so I'm going to go ahead and show it to ya!

I know some of yall know your SU colors I THINK this is blush, guava and rust. The ribbon is from my stash. I stamped in Versafine Vintage Sepia ink and colored with copics. I colored the butterflies white with colored pencil. I love that you can do that.

Jump!

I love the summertime stamps by Eat Cake Graphics. I think the boys look a little like my boys. (you can see my boys on my Family Blog.) Stephen thinks they look like them too, but also that they like Calliou. Calliou is a very annoying children's show. It's actually a little cute, but Calliou says EVERYTHING in a whine. I cannot stand whines.

Anyhow, sorry, back to the card here it is:
close up:

I colored with copic markers. I used my stamp-a-ma-jig for placement, as it's all seperate stamps. I used a fine point pen to draw in the water l ine under the jumping boy.

It was all warm yesterday when I made this, but it's cold again today.

Oh and I'm all uncomfortable, I have a mamogram today and I can't wear moisturizer or deordorant. It's not that I stink, I'm just sitting here, I just FEEL funny you know? And I'm a moisturizer freak so that's odd too. I feel dry and icky. It's best to be totally demoralized BEFORE they slam your boobie between those vice thingies. I don't know if it's like a vice really, this is my first. Wish me luck! *Oh and I'm only 29, don't start thinking I'm all OLD like, in my 40's or something ok? I'm starting early because of family history and a lump I have, which they think is fine, but i'm NOT old! teeheehee*

ETA: the boobie smashing went fine. I wrote all about it on the Family blog HERE.

Happy Birthday

Who wouldn't want a cute little puppy like this for their birthday? Look at the tounge out action!



This color scheme came from this old Idea Sheet thingie my Stampin' Up! demo gave me. You know what I'm talking about? Those sheets that show a bunche of cards with a stamp set. This was an alternate color combo: chocolate chip, barely banana, mint melody and cameo coral.



The polkadot is a backgrounder stamp by Cornish Heritage farms. (and my new favoritest stamp) the girl with the doggie and the "Happy Birthday: by Eat Cake Graphics. I colored with my copics. The brown ribbon is from Ribbons and Bows Oh My.



I want a puppy.

Show me yours, I'll GIVE you mine!

I think it's time for blog candy!

What will you win?
This card:
And these stamps which you can use to make the card:
These are unmounted red rubber stamps by Eat Cake Graphics. I just use some double stick tape on my acrylic block with them, or you can use EZ Mount, or put them on wood blocks if that's the way you like it. :)


Now what do you have to do to win the stamps? You have to go to www.eatcakegraphics.com and pick your favorite stamp. Then tell me here on my blog what your favorite is. *This girl might be my favorite, although it's hard I love them all* That's all. And if you have not been to Eat Cake Graphics you should for sure check it out. All the stamps have a fun illustration quality to them. They are darling. Oh and you don't have to give the item number or anything, you can totally say, "The one with the girl and the dog and the ice cream cone." I don't mind!

I will draw for this prize Monday morning. I don't know what time... I tend to sleep till like 9am, then I get on the internet, check all the blogs in my feed and chat up my Bow Chicka Bow Wow girls, so sometime during all that.

Have fun!

More Eat cake! Fly a hairplane

Stephen calls airplanes, "Hairplanes" and helicopters are "hippycopters". This kid is so obviously Stephen that I think of this thing as a hairplane. Now to make it even more funny, this kid has a monkey. Does Stephen have a toy monkey? No! He has his brother who we call "our monkey" so you see this IS Stephen and Ethan.

The patern paper is American Crafts. The stamp is Eat Cake Graphics and I colored it with watercolor pencils and a blender pen. Oh the little "you make me happy" is from So Many Sayings, a now retired SU hostess set.
I made some other cards this week that were painfully bad. I just keept going too, I should have thrown them out. I'm considering putting them on here anyhow. I feel bad though I used really cute stamps, I'd hate you to go sour on the stamps because of my poo cards.

Share your icecream.

I made this quick card last night. I was going to use it for a "summertime" publication call but I decided not to. So here it is. The stamp is by Eat Cake Graphics. I colored with watercolor pencils and a blender pen. The scallop thing on the top is cut off a sheet of Bazzill scallop card paper. I thought it gave the look of that awning stuff on ice cream shop storefronts. Anyhow it's cool I think.

This is a perfect example of why I love Eat Cake Graphics, I mean look how adorable! Just LOOK! awwww.

Another "adore"able card

I had to try again with this awesome Eat Cake Graphics stamp. I wasn't happy with how I got blue on the face of baby Jesus. This time I stamped the scene on blue paper and embossed with gold. Then stamped again on watercolor paper and colored with watercolor pencil and blender pen. Then cut out the colored and layered it back on the blue. I really ike how it turned out. The whole main image and the brown layer I embossed all around with gold, then again on the bottom of the card.
a close up:

Crop cards. :)

The crop was good. Only 4 of us but I got some good stuff done.

The cat is by Eat Cake Graphics I colored him with copic markers. The rest is patern paper. I circled the ad with a copic. I colored him to match his ad. Isn't he cute? :)
This stamp is by Eat Cake too. I got a bit of blue on the baby Jesus' cheek and I will probably redo it because of that. I mean if he was just any baby maybe not.. but it's Jesus. Colored with copics again.
This is also Eat Cake, colored in copics. I know this paper is Bo Bunny. I usually never look then I can't figure it out, but this time I looked. I really like these stick robots.

Did I tell you about my new ATG I got? I love it. Love love love love it. I did already to through a roll of tape, but I had that class earlier this week and there was so much stuff in it all my students kept running out of tape so I let them all use this. I bet this next roll will last a bit longer. I do know I'll be buying it by the case next time. 5 rolls, what was I thinking?

More Eat Cake Graphics.

So the phrase is Green Grass. I think this phrase goes with EVERY cute card. I mean, you slap that phrase on a card and BAM! it can be used for your best friend, your best friend's kid, to cheer up, to congratulate, to encourage, anything! I think it might be my most used phrase. The kid is Eat Cake Graphics. He reminds me of my boys and pretty much EVERY young boy I know who loves to play in boxes.
I showed these robots earlier this week and commented that maybe they should have been gray like metal. I like them either way honestly they are so silly cute. But tonight I really noticed that they are on sticks. So robots on sticks? hmmm I'm not sure they are robots now? Maybe they are like puppet robots? If they are not functional robots they don't have to be gray right? Oh and either way I felt they needed googlie eyes. I LOVE it when googlie eyes land cool ways, like the dude on the left is looking at the kid and the dude on the right is looking at the dog. Too funny!



I have a stamping world concern to discuss! Why oh why is "gray" spelt either "gray" or "grey" and isn't one way the paper company Basic Gray/Grey and the OTHER way the "new" color from Stampin' Up Basic Gray/Grey? I can never keep them straight. Not to criticize Stampin' Up but it is confusing to me! Couldn't they call it Great Gray or something? I mean all the other colors have two part names that start with the same letter, surely they have some clever person working there who comes up with this? I only bring it up because I really like both! Basic Grey and Basic Gray, I love you both, but don't know which is which. I'd like to order some of the Basic greycoloredpaperandaccessories from my SU rep next order but will I look foolish if I spell it wrong. (Now is the time for those of you who are regularly horrified by my poor spelling to roll your eyes at me!)

Ok, I got that off my chest, I feel much better.

It's important, as I told Brian when I bought some dark gray pants the other day, "Gray is the new brown, which was the new black". You can pair gray with ANYTHING, because Stampin' Up said so.

bit of this, bit of that

I am having a hard time photographing single layer cards. I'm not sure why that is... Anyhow this one is all about playing with my new Papertrey stamps.
This card I really like. I used perfect pearls on the stars and one of those dome stickers Nichole sells on the ornament. Maybe it's too much shimmer? I don't know, but my story is, "You can use as much shimmer as you want at Christmas time" That's my story and I'm sticking to it. These stamps are all Papertrey too.
Well if Eat Cake doesn't want me to make a card of a dog peeing on stuff they wouldn't have made a stamp of a dog with his leg lifted would they have? And if this kid wasn't supposed to be peed on why does he have that look on his face? I mean it's not my fault I had to mask off the snowball that's hitting him and draw a stream of pee in is it? Then I just had to put some stickles glitter glue in the pee. Because realistic pee is creepy, but glitter pee is funny. That's a humor principle for everyone today, glitter makes icky stuff funny. I also drew in some extra snow lines, so the dog wasn't floating away in space.

Robot Family

This would be my little family. If we were robots. And had a dog.

The main image is Eat Cake Graphics. I just love this stamp. I rekon it's for a kid's card mostly. Or a really silly friend? Anyhow I love it. After I was done it occured to me I should have colored them gray like a normal robot then added color on the little accent pieces. I'll try that next time. I do like this super colorful one too though. I colored with prismacolor and copic markers. The patern paper is from the Nana's Kids paper stack and the little phrase is by Green Grass.

Random tip: I bet you ALL already know this but poor Erin just figured it out TODAY. Pick your patern paper out THEN color your image. I always get to excited to do the stamping and coloring that I do that then try to find paper that matches. I have a lot of paper, but still often would not have any that would "go" so I'd have to use solids. I do love cards with solids too but sometimes I wanted to use patern paper and couldn't. So that's the tip. And it's why these crazy robots match the paper.

In other news I got a KitchenAid stand up mixer today! It's dark red. Not that bright red one you are thinking of a darker red. I got the 450 watt one with the lift bowl. I got a great price at the outlet mall. Love that outlet mall. Anyhow there is a whole story about it and a photo on my other blog.

Snowball Fight!

I love these stamps by Eat Cake Graphics. These are actually two seperate stamps, and there are a few others of kids playing in the snow that you can use to make different scenes. I stamped them on watercolor paper then colored them with watercolor pencils. I added a lot of stickles glitter glue on the snow. The little phrase is from a hostess set by SU. (the one where you can cut it apart and get tons of little phrases.)

Spooky Pumpkins

I got up early this morning, Stephen was up already, I snuck him out of the nursery, leaving his brother in sleeping. We snuck into the stamp room (which I'd like us all to call the Studio now so I feel more artistic, you do it to yours too!) and stamped. Stephen didn't want me to take a photo of his but he helped me take this photo of mine. It was good fun for us, we felt sneaky stealing time that usually we spend all together.

The pumpkins are Eat Cake Graphics, the "spooky" is one of those dollar stamps from Michaels or Joannes or whatever. I colored with prismacolor and copic markers. The patern paper is TAC.

Speaking of Copic markers. All That Scraps you may know is one of my favorite online stores. They have the coolest stuff and great shipping. I was checking out Copic markers on there for a friend the other day and saw this new assortment SU Marker Set. Two ladies, Jeanne Streiff and Amy Rysavy (Amy is the famed Amy R whose blog I read religiously, and this is Jeanne's blog which is also awesome,) Anyhow, they figured out the closest color matches to the SU colors. I know I am a fiend for SU cardstock so I was very excited about this. NOW, if you are local here in Jacksonville, I still think you should be getting these at Scrap n Stamp they are slightly cheaper IF you are a member of the club and get the 20% discount on them AND you are supporting your own local stamp store. If I were not here in Jacksonville, with the awesome store right near my house I'd definately get them from ATS. SO to make my point finally: If you can't get ALL of the markers (like most of us, if you can then that's awesome for you) then I'd think this set would be an excellent choice. Ok, point made.

SHEESH I'm long winded.

Halloween Cards... you know... again. :)

This card has no stamping. That's unusual for me. All the paper and the accents are from a paper pack by Making Memories that I got at Target. Making Memories patern paper is thick like how the Basic Grey (is it Grey or Gray I can never remember) is. I used my sewing machine to stitch the papers together.
These stamps are Eat Cake Graphics stamps. I used the MM paper pack again. I colored the image with my prismacolor and copic markers. Tied a bit of ribbon on and the card was done.

Do you live in the Jacksonville, FL area?

If you are liking the cards in the above photo and can make it to Jacksonville, FL September 22nd at 1pm you can make them! I will be doing these three cards in a class at the store here. The store is called Scrap N Stamp here is their website. In the class we will be using prismacolor pencils with and without gamsol, tombow markers used as watercolor, and a spinner card. There may be an extra special cake too!

These cards all use the awesome Eat Cake Graphics images, and a variety of fun papers and even one of the popular spinner cards.

It's going to be fun! You won't want to miss it.

see ya there!

More things to share.

Just a super quick post:

These stamps are Eat Cake Graphics. I have this new template for faux postage and it's shaped like this. I was just playing with hit, this isn't my very favorite card.
These stamps are by my friend Sherry Graves company Inkspirations. Arn't they cute! I just made two ATC's because I was short on time.
This one is for a "Virtual Swap" over at The Stamp Shack. Sherry Graves (yup, same one from the Inkspirations site) designed the image and we all printed it out and made cards.

Ok, family is looking at me like I'm supposed to go eat with them.

Happy... Halloween, you guessed it!

I'm going to do a Halloween Class featuring the Eat Cake Graphics stamps at the LSS. Here's what they will make in class.

This is one of the spinning cards, he's right side up on the other side so it looks like he's turning a cartwheel. He's colored with prismacolor pencils.
This witch is colored with prismacolor pencil then blended with gamsol. The "Happy Halloween" is by Hero Arts. I used the clear stardust glitter pen to add some glitter to her broom and outfit, just a touch though.
This guy is my favorite. Can you read it? If not it says, "Halloween Tip #63: Don't eat all the candy in your plastic pumpkin at once." THIS is exactly why I love Eat Cake Graphics, the stamps are just funny! I colored this one with the "watercolor with marker ink" technique. The black card base comes like this, it's by Bazzill and you just fold it in half and you get this cool scalloped card.

So those are the cards. I'm really hoping more people take this one, I've had stinky attendance and I really want to make a little bit of money, you know, break even at least. But whatever, it's fun anyhow! :) (local girls you all sign up or we can't be friends anymore! just kidding)