another card challenge:

This one comes to us from 

A Blog Named Hero

I believe the blog was started by some fans of Hero Arts.  I do love my Hero Art Stamps. The fact that it is a local company (in Northern CA) to me makes me like them even more.

The challenge this time is to use paper piecing.

I really enjoy paper piecing, so I thought I would give it a go.

I created this card:

Of course, I used a Hero Art Stamp.

It's a little hard to tell but the Eiffel Tower is paper pieced.

This card was fun, especially the little flags:

Those are cut with MFT Die-namics.

Now, off to watch the 49's win the Superbowl!

Thanks for visiting.
See you soon,
Ang

MFT Weekly Challange

I have a couple of girlfriends that have birthdays coming up.  

I really enjoy participating in the MFT Challenges.   

This week is MFTWSC #109, here is the sketch:

  

I really liked the sketch but when I got to making the cards, I struggled a bit.  I wanted to add more to it. I really wanted to put a flower where the two dots are.  I decided to stick closer to the sketch, I need to mail both of these, so the simpler the better.

Here are my cards:

The first one is a bit of a joke.  My girlfriend's birthday is on Valentine's Day.  

I thought I would finish it off in side with

"Screw Valentine's Day; It's all about you!".

I think she'll get a kick out of it.

Thanks for visiting.
Happy Valentine's Day,
Ang

Are you like me...

and buy things like this,

when you see them on clearance?  I always buy stuff like this when I  see it really cheap at M's or J's.  I am sure I did not pay more than $1 for it.  Not always sure what I  will do with it at the time of purchase, but just know that someday....

My sister and her husband are coming to visit tonight.  They live a little over an hour away and come to visit about once a month.  They stay overnight and we always have a blast.

My sister plays Bunco.  I don't really know much about it but it sounds like fun.  So she called me last night;  she is hosting next week and needs a prize for the winner.  She asked if maybe I could make something for her.  

So this morning I got to work.  Found the wooden plaque in my stash and my creativity started flowing.

A little primer and paint:

glued a piece of paper to the center section, covered some chipboard letters with patterned paper and came up with this:

Its hard to see but the 'babe" is cut from very sparkly SU paper.  The flower was in my stash, made back when I discovered how to make them from fabric.

A couple of ribbons on the hanging wire and we are good to go.

I have a huge stash of supplies, probably more than my fair share.  When I can whip something up in a couple of hours using only stuff from my stash, it makes me very happy.

I can't wait till my sister gets here and sees it.

Thanks for visiting.
See you soon,
Ang

Second page with my Cocoa Daisy kit

Wow, I haven't completed two pages this quickly in a long time.

I did another page for my Italy album,  using mostly papers and pieces from this months kit.

I love this photo of my husband, taken at St Peter's.  Wish that woman wasn't standing there next to him.  Guess I didn't notice her when I took the photo.

This stamp was not part of the January kit, but is from Cocoa Daisy.

As is the little jewelry tag. 

I love this little camera die, it is part of a set from My Favorite Things. 

Not affiliated with them at all, just love their stuff.  I have a ton of their dies.

Thanks for visiting.
See you soon,
Ang

COCOA DAISY KIT CLUB

I have not belonged to a kit club in years.  After spending a couple of months thinking about it and looking at options, I decided to join Cocoa Daisy.  I was pretty much decided, and then when I saw a sneak of January and saw that its theme was based on Jane Austen's  Pride & Prejudice, that pretty much clinched it.  I am a huge JA, and especially P&P fan, I just couldn't resist.

I received my first kit last week.  I LOVE it.  The mix of patterned papers is brilliant.  

My first project is a scrapbook page based on the Cocoa Daisy Sketch Challenge.  I am working on a large album of a trip I took to Italy 20 years ago.  We took slides back then, do you know what those are?  I finally got around to converting them to photos last year so I could do my album.

Anyway, here is the sketch:

  And here is my page:

I used the Basic Grey Serenade Peacock, Basic Grey Serenade paper/canvas flowers 8/kit, October Afternoon Farm Girl label stickers and Basic Grey Serenade Alpha stickers.  All from the kit.

Some of the pieces got a little bit beaten up when I had to remove everything from the first page.  I am not much of a planner,  I put the page together originally and then decided I wanted to add a little bit of mist.  Rather than masking everything and misting, I tried using the technique I have seen where you just put small drops of ink onto the paper.  OMG, it was one of those things where I kept adding to it, trying to make things better and it just got worse and worse.  I make mistakes on almost every project I make.  In fact, I pride myself on being able to fix the mistakes and most times improve upon the project.

Not gonna happen this time.

I was cracking up, by the time I was done my page looked like it was diseased.  

Wanna see?  OK, but you can't tell anyone;  I will deny all knowledge!

YUCK!

Luckily I had a piece of the same BG background paper in my stash. Misted it properly, before adding anything, tore everything off the original,  and put another complete page together.  I don't think I will ever learn.

Thanks for visiting.
See you soon,
Ang

Wednesday Stamp Club 105

I love My Favorite Things stamps and dies.  I have a lot of them.  They have a weekly stamp club in which they provide a sketch as inspiration.  This week is MFTWSC105. 

 

 I made this card to play along.

The telphone handset is part of a die set, aptly named, Ring Me.  It includes an entire old fashioned dial telephone die. It  may not be the most practical die, but being retired from AT&T, I just had to have it and the stamp set that goes along with it. The black band across the middle is actually the negative from the MFT notebook edge die.   And the speech bubble and sentiment are from the Say What stamp set and dies.  Other than that the cardstock is from PTI and the patterend paper from Jillibean Soup.

Here is my favorite part:

The coil is DMC Memory thread.  I bought it just to use with this die.  I just wrap it around a stick and it keeps the shape.  I love it!  Phones used to actually have cords like that.

 
Thanks for visiting.
See you soon,
Ang

last of the Christmas gifts

I finished the card set to go with the bag and memo book from yesterday. My inspiration for all of these came from pages I had torn out of various magazines.  As you will see, I don't usually do things too matchy-matchy.  All of the cards used some of the papers and/or embellishments from the Vintage vogue line shown yesterday.

this one is my favorite:

Lots going on here: dies/stamps from PTI and MFT.

On this one I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder and then swiped ink over it.  

The little dots are from the embellishment pack.

The inspiration card for this had ribbons along the right side.  I couldn't find enough ribbon scraps to match the papers so I just cut the papers in varying widths and used them in place of ribbon.

 I love making projects like this they are so much fun.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Thanks for visiting.
See you soon,
Ang

One last Christmas gift to finish

We have friends that we celebrate Christmas with on New Years Eve.   So that always gives us a little extra time to shop.  This year we decided, with some of our friends, to scale back on the gift giving a little.  I have given homemade gifts to just about everyone this year and I really enjoy it.  

So for my last homemade gift of the year I am making a little gift set.

Going thru my stash I found an old pack of 6X6 paper and chipboard sticker embellishments.

First I covered a little memo book with some of the papers and added a chipboard sticker from the line.  I love these gals.  I also used a little bit of one of my MFT dies.  I thought it had a little bit of a retro look.

 Then I made a little gift bag.  

I love making these with my PTI front & center die.

Another one of the lovely gals from the collection.  I added a flower also made from an MFT die.  

I really love all of their dies but this flower is one of my favorites.

 I will be finishing up the gift with a set of cards to go along with the bag and book. 

 I'll be back to show you the cards in a couple of days.

Thanks for visiting.
See you soon,
Ang

Sneaking in at the last minute...

...another entry to the 12 Tags of Christmas with a Feminine Twist challenge over at Ellen Hutson's classroom.   This time I was inspired by this beautiful tag by Kittie Caracciolo.  

This tag is actually a door knob/bottle hanger die from MFT.  My tag ended up being pretty simple.  I had bigger plans for it but once I added the SU Mica flakes, it didn't really need much else.

These pictures really don't do it justice.  The mica flakes are very sparlky and colorful in real life.

I did add one more little touch.  Can you see the little bird?  He is kind of like a little clear sticker.  I think these used to be called page pebbles back in the old days of scrapbooking.

Thanks for visiting.
See you soon,
Ang

PEACE

Hi,

Today I am participating in 12 Tags of Christmas with a Feminine Twist challenge at Ellen Hutson's classroom.  I was inspired by this beautiful tag by Carolyn Peeler.  

I wanted a rustic look to go along with the folk angel from PTI.  

I used Prima for the background paper.

I used a little burlap as a layer for the wings.  I really like using my dies on burlap.  I cover one side of a piece of burlap in a light coat of mod podge and let it dry.  Once this is done it die cuts beautifully with no fraying.

Part of a Spellbinder die cut from sticky back canvas and dyed with Distress Stain.  The crocheted flower was made for me by a friend.

This topper was made using PTI ribbon, SU scalloped tulle ribbon, and SU mini jingle bells.

I couldn't help thinking about the horrid events that took place in Connecticut yesterday while I was making this.  I wish love and peace to all of the families affected by this tragedy.  

May an Angel always watch over them.

Thanks for visiting.
Ang