Prairie Paper & Ink

Release Day!

YAY! Tonight at 10pm EST all the new stamp sets will be released at All That Scraps! That includes 2 of my sets - Underwater Sentiments and Butterfly!

I planned on posting samples yesterday and today - but yesterday we took the girls swimming at the local pool (twice!) and just spent the day with them - so I wasn't in the mood to post.

And then of course TODAY my 'net keeps going down on me and driving me insane! It's still acting up so trying to post anything is difficult but I will be trying to get a post up later this afternoon (b/c of course I have to work all afternoon).

I've taken some time to make a couple more videos this weekend so once I get those edited and uploaded I'll be posting them on here this week as well.

I'll be back later! :o)

What a way to start the week

Wow what a weekend. My stamping/scrapping garage sale with Julie went great - I sold a TON and sadly I still have a fair bit left!

I will prolly list a couple of things on here that won't cost much to ship - I have to go through everything tho before I even get to it.

I'm in a ROTTEN mood right now too - I got up this morning and when I went to put on my glasses they BROKE right on the nosepiece (same glasses I'm wearing in my profile pic there on the left in the sidebar). Thank goodness I still have my old pair (that I HATE as they look awful on me and give me a headache!!) so I can still see but I'm praying that when I call the place where I got them I'll be able to get a new frame or something and keep my lenses as my glasses are expensive and I wasn't planning on getting a new pair quite this early :o( That also means a couple of trips to the city (an hour and a half away) to get them fixed/replaced - blah. OK I'm done whining about that!

I have other things to post but I'm headed out the door to go help my mom out at the coffee shop for a few hours so later on this afternoon I'll post the rest - but for now here's a sneak peek of it:

 

Gotta run - I'll be back to post later (and hopefully be in a happier mood!)

Girl Friday, TGF, Friends and Craziness

This is going to be a CRAZY week for me!! Veronica graduates from Kindergarten on Wednesday (wah!!! Her first year of school went by SO fast!) and they have a cap and gown ceremony (LOL it will be so cute) that all the family is invited to.

This week is also the local high school grad so I've got extra appointments for gel nails and pedicures and whatnot.

And THEN I've got my big Stamping Garage sale with Julie on Saturday! ACK!!

So yeah I already can't wait for this week to be over!

ANYWHO tho I DO have a card to share and hopefully a bunch of posts to go up this week - figures when I'm running around like a crazy person trying to keep up with it all my mojo goes nuts and I get a ton of ideas!

 

I had this Reeta image (by The Greeting Farm) partially colored and sitting on my desk.

All I needed to do was pick out some patterned paper and match the colors to finish the image - so I pulled out what I have left of my Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday papers (which is hardly any! I'm going to have to get more of them - LOVE this line!) and used those to make this card.

I used my Copics to color in the image - making her a redhead this time and coloring her "meow" similar to Josie's as she was my inspiration after THIS POST.

I colored her outfit to match the Girl Friday papers and used my colorless blender for the polka dots and highlights.

I attached some buttons from my stash with pink string and stamped one of the sentiments from my Friends Sentiments set onto a scrap of the Monday paperthat I cut out with a circle nesties die.

I lined the inside of the card with more of the Girl Friday papers and that was it!

 

STAMPS: The Greeting Farm Reeta stamp, AmyR Stamps Friend Sentiments.

CS: CC Designs White, SU! Black and Pink Pirhouette, Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday Patterned Papers.

INK: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic Markers.

ACCESSORIES: Spellbinders Circle Nestabilities Dies, Coluzzle, May Arts Ribbon, Buttons, String.

Sketch Sample (June 19/09 Friday Sketch!)

 

Here's my card for the latest Friday Sketch!

I had to use the bear image that I had colored in this video as it was sitting on my desk and I wasn't going to toss it!

I also decided to stick with the October Afternoon Ducks in a Row patterned paper and ribbons I got from My Little Ribbon Shop as they were all still sitting out as well.

I also used my Thank You Sentiments as again it was sitting out (yeah call it like you see it - I was being lazy LOL!).

Still I'm pleased with how the card turned out.

I used buttons from my stash in the corner instead of flowers, and punched the white cardstock with my Martha Stewart Lace punch.

I finished up the inside with more patterned paper and a sentiment from the Thank You Sentiments set and that was it!

 

STAMPS: CC Designs Bear Hugs, AmyR Stamps Thank You Sentiments.

CS: CC Designs White, SU! Black, PT Aqua Mist, October Afternoon Ducks in a Row Patterned Paper.

INK: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic Markers.

ACCESSORIES: Spellbinders Nestabilities Circle, Scalloped Circle and Label Trio Dies, Ribbon, Dimensionals, Buttons, Embroidery Floss, Martha Stewart Scalloped Lace Punch.

Lastly here's a pic of my nails. After my last couple of videos I've been getting a lot of comments and questions about them.

They're gel nails (NOT acrylic) and I do them myself - my other job is as a nail tech and I do gel nails, manicures, pedicures and even gel toe nails.

This picture isn't the greatest (if you click on it you can get a pop-up with a bigger image) but these are multicolor glitter tips with silver rhinestones embedded in the gel.

And just a quick FYI bit I DO get a lot of comments and e-mails from people wanting more info on gel nails and what to look for/what to avoid when it comes to checking out a salon and while I don't mind answering them to the best of my knowledge I am really busy so it may be some time before I can answer you! For YOU your best option is to check out your local salon and ask their nail techs the questions as they should be able to answer them and address any concerns you might have.

STAMPERS GARAGE SALE

 

If you live in Saskatoon or the surrounding area (or heck you live anywhere in SK, AB or MB and are up for a road trip!) you definitely want to come to Julie and my Stampers/Scrapbookers HUGE Garage Sale on Saturday June 27 9:00am - 5:00pm!!

Julie and I have been cleaning out our studios (and in my case my studio, my closet, furnace room and garage) and will have a TON of stamp stuff for sale!

I've been stamping for YEARS and have amassed a lot of stuff. I have a TON of things to get rid of and you can get TONS of things for a fraction of retail price!:

Stamp Sets (Stampin' Up!, Papertrey, and several other brands)

Punches (MOST of my big Marvy punches I am selling and all are in pristine condition)

Patterned Papers/Cardstock

Accessories

Honestly I don't even know what all there will be. I will be doing another purge of my studio over the next few days and boxing everything up. The pic above is just a fraction of what I have stored in my furnace room (6 or 7 bankers boxes FULL) and there's still a ton more.

Julie has an Interac machine so we will be accepting VISA, MASTERCARD, INTERAC and CASH - this is going to be one awesome sale that you don't want to miss! Leave me a comment if you want directions!!

You can check out Julie's post about the sale HERE.

**I will not be listing anything online before the garage sale. There's too much and I don't have the space to go through it all or the time to list it! If there's still a lot left after the sale I will consider listing it on here but FYI shipping in/from Canada isn't cheap and we don't have flat rate**

I can't wait 'till the 27th. It's been bugging me having all these stamps and everything sitting here when they could go to a good home and be loved and USED. Plus I'm lookin' forward to hanging out with Julie all day!! *grin*

I hope to see you there!

Remember, June 27, 9:00 am - 5:00 pm.

Issues

I hope y'all had a great weekend :) I wasn't planning on taking a "blog break" but it's sort of turned into one.

I cleaned house all morning on Saturday, then had company and was EXHAUSTED by the evening. I went to bed early and since Sunday was Mother's Day Tim let me sleep in - I ended up sleeping for over 12 hours!! I can't even remember the last time I did that (it would have to be YEARS ago - definitely before kids!!) and man it felt good. Normally I just CAN'T sleep in b/c I have so many things to do and my brain just won't let me relax (not to mention 2 little girls that are up at the crack of dawn).

Anywho I haven't stamped a thing in several days. I've been wanting to do a few more videos and prolly will this week. The only cruddy thing about that is they're time consuming and no matter what I do it always ends up taking nearly a full day for me to upload just ONE.

I've been having 'Net issues too - another reason I haven't posted. I have someone coming out tomorrow (hopefully!) to fix the phone line and hopefully fix the problem. I am getting really tired of losing posts and having to re-upload videos and whatnot every time my modem goes out.

So I'm praying tha my whole 'Net issue will be fixed tomorrow and we'll see if that makes it easier for me to upload videos!

Anywho that's all the excitement around here right now. I'll be back ASAP once I've got somethin' crafty to share!

AURGH!!!!!

Yeah so the card I was working on for how many days now has just got even MORE frustrating.

I decided to cut the main image with one of my rectangle nestabilities dies - that was all fine.

Then I decided I wanted to sponge on some pale blue/green palette ink around the edges of the image - leaving the die in place. Usually a snap to do and a nice touch.......

Well it didn't turn out that way:

 

When it started to look all dirty and PINK I was a little shocked.

Didn't take me long to figure out I must have used this die when AIRBRUSHING with my Copics - so there was pink copic ink all over it - and I couldn't see it b/c of the color of the die.

But sponging on the Palette ink picked up the copic ink all over the die and smudged it onto the image.

That Q-tip is what I used to clean off the die - just soak it in rubbing alcohol and run it over the die - something I SHOULD have done before I started sponging.

Obviously if you use your nesties often as "masks" when sponging then it's best to clean them off first (if you use them JUST for airbrushing then it's moot - but using sponges will pick up all that ink).

And trust me it looks worse in real life. I haven't tossed the image but it will NOT work on the card I was fiddling with.

So yeah hopefully this tid-bit helps someone else out before they wreck whatever they're working on.

I'm gonna cut this image out and see what I can do with it - I HATE tossing something I've spent time on coloring!!

Anyone seen my mojo?

Apparently with everything I've had going on lately I've lost my mojo. I've been working on the SAME card for I don't know how many days now and nothing is working. So instead of continuing to attampt to MAKE it work (sometimes that works for me - but right now it's not!) I'm gonna go do other things and pray I get some creative inspiration SOON!

On another note - I've been reading all the comments and e-mails regarding my videos - I am really glad that you guys are liking them! They're simple I know - and not the greatest quality (I just use my little Casio digi camera as I don't have an actual video camera), but I like doing them to be able to share and show things that are more difficult to show and explain with a post and pictures! So yes I definitely plan on continuing to post videos as I have time :o)

Lemme know if there's anything you'd like for me to do a video on, or something you'd like to see "in real life" - I have all kinds of punches, papers, stamps, ribbons etc etc etc and was planning on doing videos every once in a while that show JUST different products and whatnot as I know for me when I see something I like online and order it it can be totally different than what I thought when it arrives on the doorstep!

K I'll be back hopefully really soon with somethin' creative to share!

Tweet-ie Flowers

What a weekend. I can barely remember what I did on Saturday but I spent all day yesterday doing laundry and cleaning the house - I had the house all to myself and it was SO nice *grin*.

Tim's parents take the girls on Sundays for church and to play at their house and whatnot and yesterday Tim had a bowling tournament in the city so he was gone all day. I was able to do all the laundry (even got it all folded and put away which I really detest doing), and some cleaning and actually ENJOY a clean house for an hour or two before the girls got home and started tossing toys everywhere.

The weather is finally really nice here (tho I've heard rumors that it might get yucky by the weekend - I'm choosing to ignore that tho) so I spent another couple of hours raking leaves in the front yard. I FINALLY finished the front yard after a WEEK of raking (there are a ton of leaves!) and get to start on the back this week - yay me. I do love the fact that we have a lot of trees on our property - so nice and great for privacy - not great for all the raking.

Friday was the review-preview day of the Tweet-ies set on the ATS blog. I actually made this card on Friday but didn't get around to posting it 'till now:

 

I love the Tweet-ies set. Their goofy eyes and ridiculously long eyelashes are just adorable in my opinion!

I stamped the Tweet-ie in the wagon image onto CCD White cardstock then colored it in with my Copics.

I used the Colorless Blender to dot the flower pot and push away the ink to make the polka dots.

TIP - the Colorless Blender does NOT "take away" ink. Rather it acts more like a repellant and pushes the ink away/and or deeper into the cardstock. When you use it in a light circular motion over a colored image it will "blend" them together more as it's spreading the ink and pushing them together deeper into the cardstock. (I'm still not Copic Certified but this is something I've learned over time with use).

I used a square nesties die to cut the image out then left it in place and sponged some pale palette ink around the image. When I removed the die it left the nice crisp white border.

A white gel pen was used to add some highlights then a added a mini prima flower with a mini brad to the stamped image.

The patterned paper is fromOctober Afternoon's Weathervane line. I ordered it a month or two ago along with a TON (literally - I went a little nuts on patterned paper and when the box arrived it weighed SO much - the patterned papers alone were over an inch thick!!) of other new papers and didn't really take a good look at it till I made this card. Now that I've used it tho do I ever *heart* it. Especially the cloud pattern - it's adorable!

I went a little out of my comfort zone and actually cut around some of the clouds before attaching them to the card. I had originally just cut it straight and really didn't like the look of it so I pulled out my scissors and started cutting. I added another layer behind the first and was so pleased with the results!

Anywho the sentiment is from my Friends Sentiments set. I stamped it onto a scrap of cardstock, cut it out with one of the double ended tag dies, then left the die in place and sponged ink onto it.

I think all my blabbing about the card took longer than the actual making of!!

 

STAMPS: CC Designs Tweet-ies, AmyR Stamps Friend Sentiments.

CS: CC Designs White, SU! Going Grey and Taken with Teal, October Afternoon Weathervane Patterned Paper.

INK: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic Markers, PT Aqua Mist and Summer Sunrise.

ACCESSORIES: Square and Double Ended Tag Nestabilities Dies, DoodleBug Mini Brads, Prima Flowers, Ribbon (Michaels), White Gel Pen.

 

Belated Happy Easter

Thank you everyone for your condolences on the passing of Tim's grandpa, and for your comments and suggestions on my decision to no longer do the sketch roundups (I'll still be doing the Friday Sketch!'s so no worries there).

I did look into a couple of options that were suggested to me for the roundups but so far nothing works any better/faster than what I was doing before. However if I find something that works easier for me I will definitely start posting the roundups again!

I haven't stamped since sometime last week (whenever I madethis card) as we've been running around all weekend and have had family here over the weekend as well. I'm hoping I can make something today to share later!

We had all of Tim's immediate family here at the house yesterday afternoon and took pictures (it was high time for us to update the family photo - the last one I have of all 4 of us was taken over 2 1/2 years ago!) - and here's the one of my family :o)

 

I took over 200 pics yesterday and well over a dozen of this one and this was the best out of all. Josie was tired and grouchy (you can't tell from this pic tho - we bribed her with candy to get her to smile LOL) and Veronica was keyed up and hyper so trying to get them both to smile at the same time was an effort!

This is a Happy belated Easter from my family to all of you! I appreciate all of you for coming here to check out my posts and all your sweet comments and encouragement. There have been more times than I can count of y'all brighteneing my day with your comments and support and for that I thank you!

(((HUGS)))

I'll be back in a bit with something stampy to share!

Friends

I quickly want to say thank you to all your sweet comments lately! I really appreciate them - they definitely brighten my day!

This has been a crazy week - with yesterday being just awful. I worked all day (at mom's coffee shop and doing nails at home), screwed up my client's schedule (thankfully I was able to fix it), and all kinds of other things.

We got a call from Tim's dad yesterday telling us that his grandpa (his dad's dad) passed away Tuesday evening. It was unexpected and surprising as it was rather sudden - so we have a funeral to go to on Saturday. It will be nice to see family that we haven't seen in a while - on Easter weekend no less. It's just sad that the funeral is the reason we're all getting together. Tim's grandpa was a wonderful man (seriously SUCH a cheerful man - always positive!) and will be greatly missed!

On other news my house is a disaster - for a week now I've been pulling out EVERYTHING trying to find our birth certificates so that Tim and I can get passports (we're planning on going on a trip in July) and I never did find them. I don't carry them in my wallet and always had them in a "safe" place. Well after moving more than once I lost track of them (considering we've only needed them to get our marriage license and then now for the passports!) - so I had to get all the paperwork to apply for new ones.

I still haven't cleaned up everything I went through, and the garage is a disaster as we went through everything in there with no luck. I know the originals will turn up like the week before we leave. Ugh.

Oh and I've been working out for an hour a day (just started off with walking/speed walking and plan on doing other things to mix it up) so I HURT. I have 3 1/2 months to lose weight before our trip!!

Anywho sorry for rambling - like I said it's been a crazy week!

I was able to finish this card this morning - I'll edit this post later today with the supply list - I don't have time right now for all my regular card deets as I have a nail client showing up right away:

 

I finally got a chance to use my Miss Anya set.

Sentiment is from my Friends Sentiments set.

Ribbon is May Arts from My Little Ribbon Shop.

Patterned paper is Bella BLVD Swing into Spring Line.

Spica pens used to glitter.

Blah

This is what we woke up to this morning:

 

Yesterday it was COLD and it snowed last night and this morning :o( It's so depressing!

I don't have anything crafty to share at the moment, my back is worse - to the point where it hurts to do anything. Even sitting here typing this hurts! If this doesn't get better soon (or gets worse) I'll have to see if I can get in to see my doctor.

HOWEVER - since I don't have anything crafty to share I'll link y'all to somewhere that does!

The ATS Wednesday challenge was posted today and the DT made some awesome samples - so check that out HERE <------click! It just hit me that the white on white challenge was more than appropriate for the weather we're having right now - wah!!!

I even got the cutest plastic (100% recyclable - bonus!) deck chairs the other day in bright colors hoping that it would warm up enough for us to USE them. No chance - they're out on the deck with a dusting of snow on them. When it warms up a bit I'll take a picture of them b/c they really ARE super cute.

K that's all I got for now - I need to find something I can do that won't aggravate the spots on my back that are killing me!

2 Quick Cards

Well I never did any stamping today like I hoped - instead I spent the day de-cluttering and putting things away.

I also played dentist and pulled Veronica's loose tooth! No joke. Her two front top teeth have been loose for some time now and the one was just barely hanging on and really bothering her and making it difficult for her to eat - so I asked her if she wanted me to pull it and she said yes (this isn't something new - I ended up pulling one of her loose bottom teeth for the same reason last year. With that one tho I didn't tell her before hand - I just used a cloth and a quick pull and it was out).

This one came out quick and she said it only hurt "a teeny bit" - she's all proud of herself now that she has another tooth to put under her pillow for the tooth fairy (which she knows is us and means money!). And I'm proud of her b/c she wanted me to pull it and just sat calmly and let me do it! So now she can get back to eating normally - at least till the other tooth decides it's time to come out.

Then we spent time playing outside - it got to about 7 above (Celsius) which is SO nice right now (and I don't even wanna hear how warm/hot it is for some of y'all - we've still got a ton of snow on the ground - so anything above zero is fabulous LOL!!).

ANYWHO - I have 2 super-quick and super-easy cards to share - I whipped them up yesterday to demo for a group of ladies and since that's all the stamping I've done lately they'll have to do!

 

Quick and simple using all Stampin' Up! supplies and their Flight of the Butterfly and Inspired by Nature sets.

 

Another quickie using the Fifth Avenue Floral and SAB Congrats set along with the Top Note die and SAB ribbon.

K I gotta run and finish supper and I'll be back later to post the winner of the Stamping Bella gift certificate along with the roundup and a new Friday Sketch!

Tired...

I've had a long couple of days and little-to-no stampin' time - so nothing new to share at the moment sorry! :(

I plan to stamp tomorrow tho - but before then I just wanted to pop on here and remind y'all that you only have 'till noon EST  tomorrow (Thursday March 19) to submit your card for my Friday Sketch! #53 and be entered in to win a $20 Stamping Bella Gift Certificate!

**also FYI I WILL delete any links that are not a direct link to your creation for the sketch - so far there have been a couple but I had a few extra minutes and just edited them to the correct link - I don't often have time for that tho so they will generally just have to be deleted. The info on how to get a direct link is always included in the sketch post!**

K I'll be back tomorrow with something stampy/crafty to share hopefully! Right now I'm drained and just want to curl up on the couch and watch a movie! 'night!

What time is it??

I was just sitting here thinking about how nice it would be to go to bed early tonight - or even better how nice it would be to curl up on the couch with the fireplace going and watch this week's LOST episode (haven't had a chance to watch it yet!!).

Then I remembered I hafta get last week's Sketch Challenge Roundup done and posted AND make a sketch and sample for tomorrow.

It will get done, just not tonight. I am beyond exhausted right now. I did a bunch of running around today and got a LOT done in my new "studio" - we just finished getting my desk up there (that thing is heavy!). I put up shelves and hung bars for my punches and put up my ribbon racks and all kinds of things - my arms ache from holding them above my head all afternoon while putting up shelving and whatnot LOL!

Needless to say my creative mojo isn't all that at the moment PLUS my stuff is now spread all over the house!

So the roundup and the Friday Sketch will be a later-in-the-day-or-mebbe-even-a-Saturday-sort-of-thing!!

Can't keep my eyes open much longer - going to bed. 'Night peeps!! :o)