Flowers, Flowers, Flowers

I just can't help myself! This is a CHF stamp and I just love it.



Busy, busy this week too and it doesn't look to get any better anytime soon. My backup person at work is leaving (her last day is Friday) and they have elected not to replace her citing severe budget issues. She is also our assistant law librarian and it is going to be really, really hard to make do without her. I am going to miss her and not just because of the work she does (which is exceptional), but also because she is just a wonderful person!

Our dt call over at Kaboodle Doodles is wrapping up soon - if you haven't posted your card yet get on over there and get 'er done! I'm participating in Round #4 of Kim's card tag and am waiting my turn, so stay tuned for that too! I've got to get my May Xmas card's done for Tracy's challenge too! Yikes! I hope to have some pix to share with you soon of my projects for the May/June Lime Light task too. I've got my new rubber from Unity too that is screaming for ink. Sleep, who needs sleep!

25k hits and 500 posts coming up soon too so watch for some celebratory blog candy for that too!

Thanks for visiting.

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Playing Catch-Up

Over the last couple of weeks, two of my favorite bloggy buddies gave me these awards.

The first is from Juanita (Rubber Side Down):

And this one from Nicky (Ohh...Nicky!)

Now I get to pass them on:
Diane (ddnjoys2stamp)
Allison (Stampin' When I Can)
Joanne (newly published check out her blog - Sleepy in Seattle)
Cathy (Cat's Creations)
Libby (Libby's Little Addiction)

These ladies all inspire me and cheer me up on a regular basis. I would encourage you to check out their blogs as I'm sure they will do the same for you.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Downline Luncheon Projects

Well I forgot to bring my camera to the luncheon this afternoon. I do have pix of the projects we made though! Our wonderful hostess and super-duper upline Pat fed us a wonderful salad served with bread homemade by Roberta (who also grinds the wheat she uses!). We all had a wonderful time tucked into her cabin nice and cozy out of all the rain. Here are the projects we made:


I have seen the polished stone technique demonstrated, but never tried it myself so it was a real treat. We also inked up a texture plate and put it through the big shot. Mine didn't come out right the first time, so I reinked and put it through again. It looked intriguing, so I inked it up and turned the card sideways and sent it through again. I was very happy with the results! Lisa brought the lovely and elegant cattail card for us to make and it is going to make an appearance at one of my workshops very soon! Easy and oh so elegant!

Well, the long weekend is coming to a close and it's back to the office for me tomorrow. It will be a short week though and Saturday is our regatta so we will be on Belmira all weekend. Hopefully the weather will cooperate and we won't be dealing with thunder, lightning, rain, fog and the threat of snow! I am not what you would even generously call a seasoned sailor so I bail when the weather gets bad! The knee is coming along nicely and I really don't want to do anything stupid that will send me back to square one (or worse) so I am really hoping for nice weather!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Party Favors

For my workshop today, I wanted to have something for each of the gals attending. I saw the idea for these little treat bags using the top note die a long time ago and then again recently and thought they would just fit the bill nicely.


I used Pink Flamigo dp from SU and stamped the thank you on Whisper White and popped that up on a scallop of pumpkin pie, pacific point or regal rose - depending on which ink I used. I think they will like them.

I am going awol for a few days. Spending some time with DH up on Belmira - gotta get her into cruising shape before the regatta next month. We are not usually racers, but it is the 50th anniversary of our Sail Club's annual regatta, so of course, we will be racing! I fear that we won't be going very fast compared to most of the other smaller racing boats, but I'm sure we'll have a grand time anyway!

Thanks for visiting! I'll be back on Monday night to share some photos of the fun over next few days. Monday will be a fun stamp camp with my downline buddies in the mountains!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Hectic few days!

Belmira has launched. Minor problems - like the engine wouldn't start once we got her off the trailer (where she had gotten stuck) and we had to get a tow over to our slip. She looks very beautiful with her new paint job and new letters on the back. I'll take some pix over the weekend if things calm down enough.

Our wonderful upline Pat is having all her gals over for lunch and some crafty time on Monday. I'd like to get some pix of that to share as well since we'll be up at her cabin in the mountains!

Workshop tomorrow and I think I'm ready. I'm hoping this will finally be the workshop where I don't forget anything!

Nothing crafty to post - grandchildren all were visiting yesterday and boat launch today - maybe tomorrow? We'll see. I'm making some party favors for the workshop tomorrow and I'll try to get some pix of those.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Workshop Possibles

I have a workshop this weekend and I've been trying to work up three projects using suggestions from my hostess. She wanted to use Priceless for sure and wanted a wedding card for sure. Here's what I came up with for those suggestions. I need some help though to pick out which version of the Priceless card looks best.


I also wanted to just do something fun for a birthday card and I had not yet put ink to rubber on my Just Beachy set. Here's a couple using that set and again, I need some feedback.


Thanks for helping me out here! I'm also going to suggest that she take a look at the Wanda inspired card from the other day as a possibility for something fun to make.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Splitcoast Color Challenge

I don't get around to playing the color challenge on SCS near often enough. Last night it popped up just before I was quitting for the night and I decided to give it a go. Oh my - Only Orange, Purely Pomegranate and Brilliant Blue. Emily, can you say "way too bright"!!!!! I dug around in my mostly unidentified pile of 6x6 designer papers just hoping to find something, anything that would work. Surprise, surprise, I found something and it's pretty nice to boot!


Card base is Brilliant Blue and I really, really didn't want to cover up that dp (if anyone recognizes it - pretty please tell me what it is) so I just dug up some ribbon and stamped my little Hero Arts butterfly, colored it and popped it up on some scalloped circles. I love that Hero Arts set - 4 butterflies that love, love, love to be embossed and colored. Picked it up at Mike's with a 40% off coupon - such a deal! The orange ribbon was some from the $1 bin at Mike's too. I still have a stash of both paper and ribbon in Purely Pomegranate and it's nice to be reminded to use it.

Thanks for visiting! Three posts today - don't know what got into me! Sabrina and I will be cooking up some goodies tonight and I'll show you tomorrow!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Look what the mailman brought!

A little bit ago I stamped up some images for Monica because she really liked this flower and did not have the stamp set. Look what she sent me to say thank-you! Isn't it gorgeous? The first layer beneath the image is a wonderful sparkly pattern and I could not get it to photograph so it would do it justice. Take my work for it - it's just beautiful! Thank you Monica - you're a gem!


Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Playing Card Tag - Again!

Well it was round #3 of card tag this week. I got my inspiration card this morning and played with ideas all day and came home and made this little cutie. The image is a freebie digital image from Victoria Case Stamps called Willy! Isn't he adorable!

Recipe:
Stamps: Willy by Victoria Case Stamps, misc sentiment
Paper: Lemon Tart and Pure Poppy from PTI, Pink Passion, Pretty in Pink, Tempting Turquoise, Whisper White from SU
Ink: basic black, markers
Accessories: punches, brads, stickles

You can see the entire progression of this round of tag on Kim's blog here. As always, I think it's fascinating to see how a card moves through the game and changes with each individual's inspiration. Thanks Kim for hosting another really fun game of tag!

Thanks for visiting today! Hoping to get some good stamp time in tonight with my bff Sabrina! I'll put up what we get up to for you to see tomorrow.

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Exciting New Challenge Blog!

The Next Level is an exciting new challenge blog hosted by Dawn and Ann. It looks like we can expect some fresh new challenges and definitely some great prizes for playing along, if these are any indication:


They are also looking for design team members so head on over and check this new adventure out! The blog is set to launch it's first challenge on June 1, but they are offering some great prizes already to folks for climbing on board! Check it out!

Thanks for visiting.

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Happy Monday!

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend! Mine was more productive than I thought it might be originally, so I'm a happy camper. I have grandma duty tonight, so the gals won't be here to stamp, but hopefully they can come over another night this week and we'll see what we can get up to!

The wonderful Wanda is always a great source of inspiration and when I saw her card HERE, I knew I had to try this for myself. Here's my version:

Recipe:
Stamps: Great Friend
Paper: Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery, Whisper White
Ink: Pure Poppy (PTI) and Regal Rose
Accessories: Match Box die, Little Leaves Sizzlet, Flower embosslit, punches, big brad, $1 bin ribbon from Mikes

Well today my first sketch challenge went up on the Kaboodle Doodles blog. Please stop over and check it out. We are also looking for design team members, so get that mojo working and submit a sketch!

Thanks for visiting today. Hope you have a wonderful Monday!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Digi Stamps are Fun!

I saw some cards made with this image yesterday and immediately fell in love with this flower! It's a digital stamp from The Digi Shack called "Flower Bunch" (imagine that). I've been making up some small gift sets as my door prize basket is looking kind of lean and I thought these little note cards would be perfect.

Pretty in Pink (SU):

Summer Sunrise (PTI):

Ballet Blue (SU):

Lovely Lilac (SU):

Card inside:

All together now:

The little flower stamped on the inside is from DRS Designs and I can see myself using it alot to dress the insides of my cards. I used a Fiskars edge punch to make the little floral corners - edge punches are NOT just for edges! These are without sentiments so that the sender can use them for anything they would like.

Also, the marvelous Libby gave me this wonderful award this morning:
Here's the skinny on it (quoted - read swiped - directly from Libby):

The Renee Award was created by Bella and Ces in honor of their friend Renee. In Bella's own words: "this is a brand new award and I have the pleasure and honor of spreading the seed, watching it grow. I hope it finds it's way to those who are like Renee: the acorn, a small package becoming a tall and sturdy oak, giving more acorns, becoming tall and sturdy oaks, giving acorns..." There are no "rules" for claiming this award, but I would suggest the following: Thank the person who nominated you for the Renee Award. Click on the picture above to see it larger, then download it and post it on your blog. Mention the person who nominated you and link back to their blog. Nominate others to receive the award. Comment on their blogs to let them know you nominated them. Visit Bella, Ces and Renee and let them know you received the award and passed it on. Consider linking your blog post to them, too.

So in that spirit - Thank You Libby! You are a wonderfully talented individual and really nice to boot! Now the hard part, pick some folks to pass it on to ...

Cathy - Cat's Creations
Joanne - Sleepy in Seattle
Curt - Curt's World
LeAnne - Wee Inklings
Juanita - Rubber Side Down
Diane - ddnjoys2stamp

Be sure to visit these talented folks and leave them a little love!

Thanks so much for visiting today! I'm sad to see the weekend over, retirement is looking better and better. I have way too much to do to go to work!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Thank You gift

I've been quite enamored of these little boxes lately. On this one, I figured out how/where to print graphics on a sheet of white cardstock. I put it through my printer, cut it out and had myself a box! Here's some pix of the project, the template is on the right side of my blog in the Handy Tools section.

Card:

Inside:

Printed, cut and ready to decorate and assemble:

All boxed up:

Card base and trim is Lovely Lilac, mat is Garden Green. Box base and image panel are Whisper White. I used a Fiskars edge punch and the ginham ribbon is American Crafts. White satin ribbon is from SU. Stamp set is Soft Summer and image was colored using watercolor crayons direct to the stamp and then misted. Graphics on the box and the inside of the card are from pcCrafters, of course!

Thanks for visiting today! Be sure to mark you calendars to visit the Kaboodle Doodle blog on Monday to check out my first sketch challenge!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Downline Swaps Slideshow

As promised, here is a slideshow of the swaps from last night's downline meeting. As always, we had a wonderful time creating together and sharing ideas. I will say again what I have said before, this is one great group of creative ladies and I feel so privileged to part of it!

Thanks for visiting. I'm hoping to have a relatively quiet, crafty weekend! Boat goes in the water next weekend so this weekend I should be able to stay home and make stuff! YAY!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Downline Meeting Make & Take

Here's the card we're making for my m&t at tonight's downline meeting. As always, I will have a slideshow of our swaps here tomorrow. The Kiwi Kiss that's peeking out from behind the die cut sentiment is the tab punch.

Recipe:
Stamps: Great Friends
Paper: Pacific Point, Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Kiwi Kiss, Walk in the Park dp
Ink: Pacific Point
Accessories: Matchbox die, Flower, Daisies 2 die, Flower embosslit, punches, brad

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Memmber - Kaboodle Doodles

Just playing around

This is an old set, but it is new to me! Just got it today and I couldn't wait to ink it up. I had a bunch of bits and pieces of paper laying around so I just kind of threw it together. I used my Koh-i-Noor pencils and some oms to color the image. I don't think it turned out too bad. I do not know for certain what the purples are, but the card base is Certainly Celery. I stamped the image in Basic Brown.


Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Memmber - Kaboodle Doodles

Mother's Day Cards

Here are some Mother's Day cards that I gave to my daughter-in-laws who are the mothers of my grandchildren and also to the mothers of my 4 legged "grandchildren" and to the mother of my youngest step son.




Thanks for visiting. I'm in major recovery mode from a weekend of doing things that I probably shouldn't have been doing! Yikes. I will be glad to be back in the pool this week and hopefully speeding up this way too slow recovery progress. I know it's my own fault, but I feel like I'm taking two steps backward for every one forward. I'll do better this week!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Memmber - Kaboodle Doodles

April Aloha RAK from Jackielou and Spring Stamp Camp slideshow

Take a look at the wonderful surprise that arrived in the mail this weekend! Thank you so much Jackielou for all the great goodies. Check out Jackielou's blog and see some of her wonderful creations.


I survived yesterday's Spring Stamp Camp - it was wonderful and I think that everyone had a good time. Thanks so much to my fellow demonstrators and to all our fantastic volunteers for making it such a great success. All the cards were great and everyone I talked to said that they really enjoyed themselves. Here's a little slideshow but you'll have to excuse my sorry photographic skills as some are kind of blurry. I finally think I am getting passable at taking pix of my cards, but I still have a very, very long way to go taking pictures of everything else! Anyway, it was great fun and I'm so glad to have had a chance to participate.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member - Kaboodle Doodles

Busy Day!

I am late, late, late posting today. I spent the day getting prepped for tomorrow's big Spring Stamp Camp. It is going to be GREAT! We are expecting about 50 gals to show up for some great stamping. There are five demonstators and each attendee will make two projects with each demonstrator. Lots of prep but it will be so worth it. I plan to take some pictures and post them here tomorrow afternoon.

I made another scalloped edge box to give away as a door prize tomorrow.

Card

Box

Whole shebang!

Joanne (who was the inspiration for this box on her post here) has a great tutorial on her blog on this post. I made my box before I saw her tutorial, so I do mine a bit differently. I'll post a full tutorial this weekend, but in the meantime I have posted a template on the tools list on the right side of the blog for you to take a look at. Please let me know what you think of it.

Well, gotta try and get some sleep so I'm not a zombie tomorrow! Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team Member of Kaboodle Doodles

Auction Item

The organization I work for, the Native American Rights Fund, is holding a fundraiser this weekend. I made this to donate as an item to be auctioned off at the fundraiser.

Card

Box

Whole package

Recipe:
Stamps: Soft Summer
Paper: Baja Breeze, Whisper White, Walk in the Park DP
Ink: Basic Black, watercolor crayons ( Tempting Turquoise, Taken With Teal, Garden Green, Summer Sun)
Accessories: punches

I got the idea for this from Joanne (Sleepy in Seattle). See her wonderful post featuring her Picket Fence Card Holder. My box is a bit simpler than her gorgeous box, but I like it.

I'm busy getting ready for Saturday's big Spring Stamp Camp. I think it is going to be lots of fun for everyone. Five SU demos with great projects and lots of fun activities.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Guest Designer for Kaboodle Doodles

Another Owl Card

I love this little owl trio and I stamped up a couple to have in my image stash. Here's a card I made with one:

Card Front:

Card Inside:

Recipe:
Stamps: Unity Owls, Hero Arts sentiment, SU label frame
Paper: Kiwi Kiss, Choc Chip, Whisper White, Walk in the Park dp
Ink: Black, SU markers
Accessories: SU matchbox die, ribbon, inside branch graphic from pcCrafters

Thanks for visiting! My knee is healing and I'm back to work, but boy am I tired at the end of the day now! Yikes. Gotta get back in the groove here soon! Big 5 demo stamp camp this weekend that I need to finish prep for. My project is the card seen HERE and I think that it will be well recieved by our attendees.

Due to some reorganization on the Kaboodle Doodles blog, I am now a permanent member of the team. We will be putting up a sketch challenge on May 18 that will also be a design team call to try to fill a couple of vacancies on the team. Mark your calendars and be sure to come by and check out the challenge. It will be the first sketch challenge that I have ever designed and I hope you will all come by and play along.

~chris

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Design Team member of Kaboodle Doodles

Card Tag - Round 2

I played along in another game of card tag hosted by the ever gracious Kim. Here's my card and you can see the full progression of cards in this game HERE or by clicking on my card.



Recipe:
Stamps: Soft Summer, Great Friend
Paper: PTI Plum Pudding, Mellow Moss, Whisper White
Ink: Black, watercolor crayons
Accessories: dragonfly brad, ribbon, deckle scissors, matchbox die

Once again, this was a really fun game and I look forward to playing again soon. Check Kim's blog frequently as she is getting ready to start another round of tag soon!

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Guest Designer for Kaboodle Doodles

Pet Sympathy

I've decided to add these to my card box as I need them much more often than I'd like.

Card front

Inside

Recipe:
Paper: Always Artichoke, Choc. Chip, Whisper White
Stamps: PTI pet sympathy, Thoughts and Prayers
Ink: Choc. Chip, Always Artichoke pads and markers
Accessories: hh ribbon slider, ribbon

The graphic on the inside is from pcCrafters.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Guest Designer for Kaboodle Doodles

Unity Owls

Unity is sponsoring a challenge this month using the Kit of the Month for April. I made this card thinking it was from the April kit and just realized that it isn't - yikes! Pulled out my big box and it's from the October, 2008 Kit of the Month. Oh well. I am going to get organized one of these days. I got some of the ScrapOnizer boxes and folders, but I don't have last years stamps in them. Need to get some more! I really like this storage system for cling mounted stamps. I had mounted mine on sheets of acetate inserted into page protectors. I was shopping on Ellen Hutson's site and saw a warning there that this is a BIG no-no as the chemical reaction between the cling foam and acetate creates a permanent bond. I managed to get most of my stamps off with only minimal damage but some of them will need to be completely remounted. The ScrapOnizer system takes care of that problem and they store very well on my shelf.

Any way, here's the card. Not the right kom, but I like it anyway.


This card uses most of the same papers as the other card I posted today with the exception of the Summer Sun and Tangerine Tango die cut daisies. The sentiment is from the Best Yet retired hostess set and it is mounted using a die cut from the matchbox die that is stamped with the frame from the Great Friend set in this years Occasions Mini catalog. I can see that I will be using this die and stamp combination alot as I really love it.

Thanks for visiting!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Guest Designer for Kaboodle Doodles

Stamp Simply #85 - Let the Sun Shine!

There's no sun shining in our neck of the woods today, so I thought I'd create some of my own! This is for Sharon's Stamp Simply challenge this week - use yellow.


Recipe:
Stamps: Bloomin Beautiful, Oval All
Paper: PTI Summer Sunrise, SU Apricot Appeal, Whisper White, Pink Flamingo dp
Ink: Black craft, basic black
Accessories: punches, brads, PTI Summer Sunrise ribbon, markers

Thanks for visiting today. I'm trying to mentally get myself back in the going to work mode. Back in the office on Monday after two weeks off for my knee surgery. I have a workshop tomorrow so that will be a perfect transition!

~chris

A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Guest Designer for Kaboodle Doodles

Some great blog candy

Cat (Cat's Creations) is giving away the new Out West set by Theresa Momber from Gina K Designs. Go on over and check out some of the great cards Cat has made from this set.

Thanks for visiting today.

~chris


A Proud member of The Lime Light
Come visit us and see what we've been up to.
Guest Designer for Kaboodle Doodles