WSC59

I finally completed a challenge card! I've been feeling a little under the weather (too much travel time - not enough stamping time) and haven't completed a challenge card in quite a while. Beate's sketch challenge this weekend resulted in so many wonderful cards, I just had to try.

Recipe:
Stamps: Best Yet, Fall Whimsy
Paper: Choc. Chip, Really Rust, Naturals Ivory, Bo Bunny dp, scrap textured cs
Ink: Basic Brown, versamark
Accessories: Black ep, punches, watercolor pencils/blending pen, $1 bin ribbon from mike's

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

More Big Shot Cards

My quest with my Big Shot continues:

Recipe:
Stamps: So Many Scallops
Paper: Pacific Point, Real Red, Shimmery White, Whisper White
Ink: Pacific Point
Accessories: Big Shot dies - Top Note, Snowflake; punches, rhinestone brad

Thanks for visiting. There may be more samples as the day progresses.

~chris

Playing with my Big Shot

I'm going to be using my Big Shot at three different events this week and so I really need to practice and also come up with some cool things to show off. Here's a project using my new scallop circle die.

Recipe:
Paper: Handsome Hunter, River Rock, Very Vanilla, Bo Bunny dp
Stamps: Inkadinkado sentiment
Ink: versamark
Accessories: Big Shot, Scallop Circle die, gold cording, ribbon scraps, brass ep, punches

Haven't been feeling too well and so am a bit slow in the craft studio, but I'll get there. Thanks for visiting. I should have two sets of downline meeting swaps to show off this week. One set from the meeting I missed while in Alaska and one from this week. I am blessed to be part of several talented downline groups and I'm sure you'll enjoy seeing the swaps they have created.

~chris

Gifts from the Sea

My friend Sabrina came over on Monday night (it's getting to be a fun habit) and brought some wonderful paper she found for us to make cards with. Here's two of the several cards we made. The paper is double sided and each card features a side.



I used Naturals Ivory for my card base and Sabrina cut the sea shells out of another sheet of dp that she found. We added some jute for a fun touch.

No fox visitors yet this morning, but that's okay because I didn't get my windows washed!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

Breast Cancer Awareness

Some of the gals in the office are putting together a little reception the Friday before the big race (Oct. 3) and they came to me and asked if I could put together a card project that the attendees could make. Here's my ideas (so far). Feedback would be much appreciated.


Recipe:
Stamps: Say it with Scallops and Hero Arts
Paper: Pink Pirouette, Mellow Moss, Whisper White, PTI dp
Ink: Regal Rose
Accessories: pink ribbon from mike's $ bin, punches

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

My morning visitors!

Every morning for the last few days I have had a couple of visitors. This morning I finally remembered to bring my camera and in spite of the rising sun and my really, really, really dirty office windows, I captured a couple of pictures of them trying to scout up some breakfast - main course - chipmunks!

Tomorrow I'll try to get some pictures through cleaner glass! Thanks for visiting! I'll have a couple of cards later today.

~chris

Stampin' with the Girls!

My friend Sabrina and I, along with her friend Vickie, went down south this afternoon to stamp with a very talented group of ladies. Some of these gals come up to my house for our monthly stamp camp, but I got to meet a whole new group of stamping enthusiasts and boy did we have fun! Here's a little slideshow of the cards we made this afternoon.

I want to thank these gals for including me in their group today and I look forward to joining them again very soon for another delightful afternoon of stamping!

Thanks for visiting.

~chris

I've been tagged by Monica!

I've been tagged by Monica and here are the rules of play:

1. Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog. 
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blog.
4. Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1-I am the oldest of 6 children.

2-My youngest brother is 30 years younger than I am and is younger than my son.

3-I have 4 1/2 wonderful grandchildren (wanna see pictures?) - Kael (4) and Natalie (2) and the twins Isabella and Julian (almost three) and they are getting a new brother in November.

4-I am terrified of heights, doctors and dentists.

5-Even though it scares the you-know-what out of me sometimes, I love to sail on our beautiful sailboat Belmira.

6-I could eat clams every day of the year in any form whatsoever, raw, steamed, fried, you name it I love it!

7-I like to put on pajamas right out of the dryer, even in the summertime.

I'm not very good at tagging folks, so if you feel like playing along - PLEASE DO.  Share with your fellow bloggers some things about yourself so that they can get to know you better.  If you read my blog and you have a blog - consider yourself tagged!  I look forward to hearing from you with a link to your blog so that I can get to know you better!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

p.s.  Cards tomorrow - I promise!

Look what I found when I got home!

I won some blog candy from Nancy and it was here waiting for me when I got home! WOW! What a generous person. You really need to go and check out her blog Nancy's Creative Mess and see all the wonderful things she has there. She has a really cute kitten video on there today. Stop in and say HI!


Thanks Nancy!

Hope to be back on track with some new stuff to show you all over the weekend. I also came home to find my first Just Rite Stamper kit and I can't wait to play with it. Thanks for visiting!

~chris

Some card jewelry from Alaska

I couldn't bring a whole lot of stuff with me this trip (much less than last trip), but I visited my favorite Anchorage stamp and jewelry stores and came up with this little item. The beautiful butterfly paper and the Bazill textured cardstock are from The Stamp Attic. This is the wonderful store I found on my July trip where I got that wonderful fireweed stamp. The butterfly paper is from Graphic 45 Botanicabella Collection. Unfortunately, there is not a store in Colorado that carries this company. Makes me think it might be time to get a tax license and set up shop! The gold butterfly is from Black Elk and I picked up some other butterflies and some dragon flies that you will undoubtedly see featured on some cards in the very near future.

I picked up a couple more stamps that I will showcase in some cards when I get back and can do them justice.

There has been no sun on this trip either, just lots of clouds and rain. At least this time I came prepared with warm clothes!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

Greetings from Alaska!

As many of you know, I am the tech support person for a small non-profit law firm. Our Anchorage office had some problems - big problems! Their server crashed and now I am up here to set up a brand new server for them. I have not had much chance to craft or blog this week being a bit busy putting all my ducks in a row to come up here. I'll be here until Wednesday, but hopefully I'll have a little time to make some cards and put them up here. Thanks for being patient with me.

Thanks for visiting!
~chris

Fall is in the Air

Fall has arrived in Colorado, at least for today. My friend Sabrina came over tonight and we played with some new BoBunny paper I picked up at Archivers. Here's the card we made.


Recipe:
Paper: Chocolate Chip, More Mustard, Very Vanilla, Bo Bunny Beautiful Life Leaf
Stamps: Say it With Scallops
Ink: Real Rust
Accessories: gold cord, punches

I'm getting ready for a downline meeting on Thursday and needed to come up with a swap. I really liked a card I made last week using the Upsy Daisy set, but I used non SU ribbon on it, so I needed to make a modification. Here's the card I came up with (on my swaps I will get the sentiment lined up straight though!

Recipe:
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Naturals Ivory, Pumpkin Pie
Stamps: Upsy Daisy
Ink: So Saffron, More Mustard, Tangerine Tango
Accessories: Big Shot, Top Note Bigz Die

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

DDL's Birthday!

My darling daughter-in-law, Lorena, had a birthday on Friday and here's what I made for her. She really loved a box of love notes that I got from Chat (Nitestamper on SCS) as a thank you for my love note box template (see sidebar). I didn't want to part with this wonderful gift, so I decided to make her one myself! I love making these things (in case you couldn't tell from some of my posts over the past few days). It's especially fun to make them for people you love!

I also made her a birthday card and it will go with a Close to My Heart card kit that I got recently from Anapurna and a ticket corner punch from SU. I also gave her Notas Rapidas y Divertidas so that she can make some cards of her own! She is a real sweetheart and it's a lot of fun stamping and making cards with her - she is so enthusiastic!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

Playing with my Big Shot!

Oh how I love, love, love that SU now has this great new tool for us to use! Here are a couple more cards I whipped up using the Top Note Bigz die.



I folded a 3 x 8.5 piece of paper in half lengthwise and positioned the fold just below the top cutting edge of the die. I was able to cut two of these at a time! I'm thinking the Christmas one might be good for a WCMD card. I probably won't decide on what I am actually going to make until the week before! I'm also waiting to see the sizes of the scalloped circles that are on the dies I ordered last week (Big Brown is scheduled to arrive on Tuesday!)

The paper I used for these two card bases is Chocolate Chip and Pacific Point. Other paper used - Real Red, Tangerine Tango, Very Vanilla and Whisper White. I used punches - Marvy scalloped circle, circle and rectangle, SU label, tag and Boho Blossoms. SU button, gel pen and ribbon. Stamps used - Snow Swirled, Best Yet, Picket Silhouettes.

Thanks for visiting.

~chris

My card for our WCMD event (maybe)

At our meeting last night (which was so much fun we almost forgot to eat dinner), we decided that I would be the lucky one to demo the new Big Shot at our World Card Making Day event on October 4. I really love the new Snow Swirled set and so I thought I'd play around with it and the Top Note Bigz Die. Here's the result.



Recipe:
Stamps: Snow Swirled
Paper: Always Artichoke, Naturals Ivory
Ink: Always Artichoke, Gold metallic
Accessories: stickles, Big Shot and Top Not Bigz Die

What do you think? Everyone will be making 10 different cards and we didn't want them to be so complex that folks would get frustrated. I think this is very elegant and pretty simple to put together.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

Dusting off the edge punches

Diane (see her post here) inspired me to dust off my edge punches and give them a spin. This is the result. I've also been wanting to experiment with using background stamps to create my own color coordinated dp. For this card I used a Martha Stewart edge punch and the Victorian Lace background stamp to showcase my image from the Upsy Daisy set.


Thanks for visiting. I'm going to try to take some pictures of everyone's hostess gifts tomorrow and put up a slideshow here on Friday, so come back and check it out.

~chris

Hostess Gift and WCMD Possible

In preparation for a couple meetings tomorrow, I made these items. The gals who are hosting the WCMD event are getting together for dinner before our downline meeting and I really wanted to have a few samples to show them of ideas I had. At our downline meeting we are all bringing our favorite hostess gifts so that we can share ideas for ways to make our hostesses feel really special. This love note box and cards is one of my favorite things to make both for my hostesses and for all the special people in my life. The WCMD possible card features the new Upsy Daisy set and was inspired by all the wonderful cards using this that I have seen on Splitcoast over the last few days.



The box and cards feature the new Pocket Silhouettes set and all the wonderful new in-color inks.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

WCMD test drives

I will be participating in a World Card Making Day event in October and I am playing around with some of my new stuff trying to come up with some ideas. I also need a make and take for a demonstrator meeting next week. Here's some of my ideas:


All are using new stamp sets, in-colors and designer paper from Stampin Up.

Recipes:
Stamps: Pocket Silhouettes, Say it With Scallops, Eastern Blooms, Seeing Spots (this is an old set)
Paper: Pacific Point cardstock and dp, Kiwi Kiss, Bashful Blue, Really Rust, More Mustard, Old Olive, Whisper White, Very Vanilla, Haiku dp, Urban Garden dp
Ink: Pacific Point, Kiwi Kiss, Bashful Blue, Versamark
Accessories: label punch, small and large oval punches, circle punches, scallop square punch, scallop edge punch, brads, Pacific Point and Always Artichoke ribbon

Thanks for visiting. Come back later to see more samples using some of the new and some of the old (but not yet retired) toys in my chest.

~chris

Terrible Twos

Allison's blog is turning TWO! Go visit and check out the awesome blog candy she has up for grabs. While you're there check out all the other awesome things she features on her wonderful blog!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

Sesame Street Friends Nametags

I saw this idea on Splitcoast and it rolled around in my head all day. We had a Labor Day neighborhood block party yesterday and the light bulb went off. My neighbors have all seen my grandchildren around, but don't know them very well and don't know their names. I made these to hang around their necks with their names on them. I think this would be a great project for kids. Everything is done with SU punches! I tried to make a Grover using the new large oval punch, but I needed small ovals for his eyes and struggled with that - I'll figure it out eventually though (all suggestions are welcome)!


One tip - use Sharpies or some other waterproof marker if the kids are going to be around anything wet - like a slip and slide or a wading pool - as the SU markers will run - figured that one out a bit too late! Hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday! Thanks for visiting.

~chris