Cased but changed....

In this past month's Stampin'Success Magazine there was a beautiful banner created by Jodi-Danielle Kutz from Sarnia, Ontario. I really liked her creation and decided to case it, but change it a bit. I
created the focal images using Staz-On ink on watercolor paper and, using markers with an aqua painter, coloured in the images. I'm afraid of watercolor, but I found this quite easy to do and was able to play with the images until I got them looking the way I wanted.
Jodi-Danielle's creation was a banner to be hung up - I don't have places for that to occur, so I used the Top-Note die to create an accordion style project that stands up. I think it will work well standing across the top of our piano.

Once again, I have used the Northern Frost Decorative strip. I am so glad I invested in these snowflakes....I have used them a lot this season and dearly hope that they end up in the catalogue next year. The letters are retired sticky letters - it was good to put them to use!

I hope your Christmas preparations are beginning and coming along well. To be honest....this is as far as I've gotten so far.

Have a wonderful day - thanks for stopping by. Joan

Rudolph & Friends

Another Color Dare Wednesday!!!! This weeks colours are Pear Pizzaz, Night of Navy and Soft Suede.

When I get these fabulous combinations from Riley - our Color Dare Leader - I grab scraps of each colour and either go with the season/celebration that the colours make me feel....or I look through my own "catalogue" of the stamps sets I have and see which set jumps out at me to use the colours with....well , for this combo these little fellows yelled, "pick me, pick me"!!!

Be sure to head on over to the Color Dare blog to post your creation with these colours - and if you are posting on a public gallery be sure to label your work with CD84. Now, please take some time to venture over to the other Design Team members' blogs to see their wonderful creations - I'm always so impressed!

Glenda Wyatt
Heather Prince
Joan Jeffery - Me
Marisa Ritzen
Melissa Hubert
Nance Leedy
Riley Fitzgerald

Here's hoping you have a wonderful Wednesday! Thanks for stopping by! Joan

Snowy Penguin

I feel bad that I haven't gotten much blogging done this past month.....I've been getting some necessary Christmas stuff done in my stamping room and beyond that I can't sit in my chair for too long at a time....not only does my knee end up aching, but my ankle swells up too....so I have to keep my stamping time to a limit. Otherwise, the knee replacement recovery is coming along not too bad.

I did manage to print off some challenges at the beginning of this past week and this little guy covers the Mojo Monday Sketch and an old Play Date Cafe challenge....the Play Date colors from a week ago were black, white and burgundy.

I absolutely love this snowflake die for the Big Shot - the snowflakes are so delicate and you get so many at one shot.

The snow we did get in October has disappeared and we have been able to enjoy some incredible warm fall temperatures here. Hope you are enjoying fall in your part of the world too....if you're in the fall hemisphere!

Thanks for stopping by - have a fantastic Saturday. - Joan

A Perfect Blushing Garden...

It's another Color Dare Day and I found these colours so gentle together....Garden Green, Blushing Bride, Perfect Plum and Very Vanilla.

I tried a technique that I spotted in one of our recent "Stampin' Success" magazines for the blossom of this flower. I wet down a piece of watercolour paper and stamped the flower image in Blushing Bride - classic ink. Once that piece was dry - and the blushing bride colour had bled a bit into the paper, I topped it by restamping the image in Perfect Plum on the dried paper. The tiny bit of pink shows through the blossoms. I then cut out the whole blossom and raised it on the card.

I am loving the self adhesive pearls that we have right now...especially these teeny tiny ones I used in the centres of the tiny blossoms. The yummy Vanilla satin ribbon folds nicely along the bottom!

I hope you have fun with these colours, and once you have your creation, don't forget to post it at The Color Dare for everyone to see. Also, when you post on a public gallery, be sure to label it CD82. Finally, if you haven't seen what the other members of the Design Team have come up with this week, make sure you pop over to their blogs to check out their creations.

Glenda Wyatt
Heather Prince
Joan Jeffery - Me
Marisa Ritzen
Melissa Hubert
Nance Leedy
Riley Fitzgerald

Thanks for stopping by! Joan

Wow, the month is coming to a close quickly....unbelievable!
Our last Colour Dare for October is: Daffodil Delight, Night of Navy and Old Olive.

To be honest I struggled a bit with the combo because the Daffodil Delight is so bright. It sort of reminded me of someone's school colours. But I solved my dilemma by adding just a wee scallop of Daffodil along the edge. I love how this card turned out and it's much richer looking in person.

I can't remember what the technique is called...but to get the ink inside the circular section I added ink directly to the embossing folder and then put it through the Big Shot.

Here are the links to the other members of the Design Team....be sure you check out what they came up with this week. And when posting on Splitcoast and such, remember to label your creation CD82.....and link it back to the Colour Dare from your blog too!!! We'd love to see what you've created.

Glenda Wyatt
Heather Prince
Joan Jeffery - Me
Marisa Ritzen
Melissa Hubert
Nance Leedy
Riley Fitzgerald

Thanks for stopping by - Joan

Howdy!!!
Today's colors for the Color Dare Challenge are:
Peach Parfait, Rich Razzleberry, and Sahara Sand.
I'm liking "pizzazzing - up" the base of a card by putting the front half through the Big Shot with an embossing folder - I don't generally like plain-jane backgrounds, but this spruces it up a bit.
I finally got around to using one of my tiny punches too. They get lost in my box and I tend to forget about them. I am also loving these tiny little pearls which Stampin'Up! has now and the satin ribbon is wonderful too.

Please remember to check out the blogs of the other design team members to see what fantastic projects they've created with these colours. When you create your own project with these Daring Colours...don't forget to link your creation to the Color Dare Blog!!! and label it CD81 if posting on Splitcoast and such.
Here are the links to the other design team members' blogs.....

Glenda Wyatt
Heather Prince
Joan Jeffery - Me
Marisa Ritzen
Melissa Hubert
Nance Leedy
Riley Fitzgerald

Thanks for stopping by! Joan

Color Dares and Anniversaries....

Good Day to you all.
I'm not actually sure where I am as this is getting posted. I'm pretty sure I'll be out of the hospital from my knee replacement....but probably not near my computer yet. Thank heavens for technology!!!!!

Our Color Dare today is: Poppy Parade, Pear Pizzazz, Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla. I stamped these images onto watercolour paper and then added a bit of extra ink with the aqua painter to make them a bit more vibrant. I don't do well with the water colour end of things, but I'm happy with how this turned out.

In addition to that, I'll have given it to my husband on the 11th for our 24th anniversary.....Canadian Thanksgiving. Let me tell you, I know I have soooooo many things to be thankful for.

Blessings to you all - and don't forget to check out the other members of the design team to see their marvelous creations.

Glenda Wyatt
Heather Prince
Joan Jeffery - Me
Marisa Ritzen
Melissa Hubert
Nance Leedy
Riley Fitzgerald

If you take up this challenge be sure to link your creation back to the Color Dare Challenge Blog and label it CD80 on other websites.

Thanks for stopping by - Joan

Color Dare 79

Welcome to another Color Dare Challenge. Today's colours are Early Espresso, Wild Wasabi and Marina Mist.
I've used a piece of the Specialty paper for the background layer and I've also used the Smooch Spritz for the first time....on the base of the card.
I do like these colours together because they're so rich looking.... please take the time to check out what the other members of the design team have come up with.

Glenda Wyatt
Heather Prince
Joan Jeffery - Me
Marisa Ritzen
Melissa Hubert
Nance Leedy
Riley Fitzgerald

Remember to head over to The Colour Dare Challenge blog to post your creation and use the label CD79.
Thank you for stopping by - Have a wonderful day - Joan

Three Cups of Hello

This was a fun card to create with Friday's Free 4 All Challenge on Splitcoast. It was to create a card with holes in it. The Olive layer has the circles punched out and is raised above the Vanilla section with the cups. I also incorporated the Color Throw Down for this past week - Riding Hood Red, Old Olive and Pumpkin Pie.

Just to let you know, I will be posting my usual Color Dare cards through the next while, but my posts may be sporatic after my knee replacement this Friday. It will all depend on my getting down into the basement. I'll be able to blog hop from my bed with the laptop so at least I'll be able to visit you.

Hope your Monday has been marvelous - thanks for dropping by. Joan

Trio of Owls

Played around with this one a bit. Couldn't decide what to put in the central section of the "Lord Have Mercy" sketch challenge....decided on the owls.

The colors are from over at the Color Chef...(Kelly Jo's Stamp Pad). The colours are bright green, black and cream.

I just also happen to fall into the category set out by Crafty Creations this week to use Owls in your projects. Whooooo, Whooooo!!!!

Yesterday I commented at a couple of blogs on the way buttons were attached to bows....so I decided to give it a try.

Hope you are having a wonderful beginning to the tail end of the week. Thanks for stopping by.
Joan

Color Dare Wednesday

Color Dare #78 (CD78) this week is Daffodil Delight, Chocolate Chip and Very Vanilla.

When I see these three colours together I immediately think of peanut butter and banana sandwiches.....don't know why. Then, of course, when I think of bananas I automatically think of Sock Monkey. I was soooooo sure that he would have a wonderful time sitting in a wagonful of leaves. I'm just hoping he ate his sandwich before playing in the leaves.

I hope you have fun with this colour dare. Don't forget to post your creation over on the Color Dare Blog and if you post it to Splitcoast you can add CD78. Here is the list of the other Color Dare Design Team members for you to visit and see their creations...

Glenda Wyatt
Heather Prince
Joan Jeffery - Me
Marisa Ritzen
Melissa Hubert
Nance Leedy
Riley Fitzgerald

Have a wonderful Wednesday! Thanks for Stopping by - Joan

Give Thanks...

For the Clean and Simple Challenge on Monday we were to use a card from a fellow stamper for inspiration...Cookiebaker. Her card is shown below.
I used the Season of Friendship set and an old Hostess from last year. I kept most of the colours the same......I was itching to put something on the base of the card, but refrained myself. I do like how it turned out.

We were lucky enough to have a couple of entrepreneur boys rake our leaves and mow our lawn this past weekend......The leaves are still falling.....but it's not quite ankle deep anymore along the sidewalk.

Hope you have some leaves to shuffle through.....have a wonderful Tuesday and thanks for shuffling by! Joan

Grrrreat Stars....

The grizzly bear decided to come out for the Mojo Monday Challenge this week.....before he goes into hibernation! I did it in conjunction with the colour challenge over at Our Creative Corner from Friday - Marina Mist, Soft Suede, Crumb Cake and Early Espresso.
I always wonder what this little guy is thinking!
I hope you're having a wonderful beginning to your week. Our weather is back to the summer temperatures again - briefly. I do love all the colours!
Ta ta for now! Thanks for stopping by! Joan

Colour Dare...

Welcome to another Colour Dare Challenge....This week's colours are Not Quite Navy, Tempting Turquoise, Poppy Parade and Pumpkin Pie.

Once again I've made two cards for this challenge because I wasn't sure about the way the first one turned out.....(the leaf one)
I used a lot of the Extreme pieces for the guitar player's card; leaving a sentiment off until later. I know a number of kids I could give this to.

For the leaf card I used some of the wood sheets that we have available for the Big Shot. I stamped the leaf images onto a small piece and then I also cut some of them out to add some dimension.

We have leaves completely covering our front sidewalk, but it's been rainy so they'll just have to sit there for a little while longer. Besides...once they get crunchy they're so much fun to shuffle through!!!!!
Hope you have a pile of leaves to shuffle through - at least until you rake them up. Have a wonderful day!
Don't forget to stop by the other members of the design team to see what creations they've come up with using this week's colours.

Glenda Wyatt
Heather Prince
Joan Jeffery - Me
Marisa Ritzen
Melissa Hubert
Nance Leedy
Riley Fitzgerald

Autumn Bird

This weeks colours over at The Colour Chef are

autumn terracotta juniper petal

The Stampin'Up! colours I used are Cajun Craze, Marina Mist and Perfect Plum. I finally got a chance to use this little bird from the Punch Potpourri Hostess set....I LOVE how you can punch out the fancy section of her belly to become her wing. It fits perfectly.

I also have been wanting to try this Crimped Diamond technique. What a fantastic fancy way to use the crimper. I really do appreciate those people who play around with the tools we have and come up with unique ideas. Here is the tutorial for this technique.

I hope you're having a wonderful day - and thanks for stopping by.
Joan

Webby Wishes

I love this web embossing folder we have right now. It's just so cool......

This card's sketch comes from the The Sweetest Thing Sunday Sketch Challenge and the colours are from Monday's Colour Chef Challenge of Black, White, Orange and Purple.

Have a thoroughly wonderful Thursday - I'm heading to the mountains for the weekend with my husband.

Thanks for stopping by! Joan

Two Cards....one Colour Dare...

Are you ready for another Colour Dare??? I took two stabs at this challenge this week. First I had the Halloween creation in mind.....had all the pieces worked and then set them aside to dry (I used Crystal Effects on the spider "buttons" and I also added some to the web..as you can tell!)
While the pieces were drying I decided to try another angle because I wasn't sure that I'd end up liking the Halloween card - thus the Christmas card came into being.

By the time everything was done, I decided that I liked both of them!!! The Colour Dare Colours this week are:

Old Olive
Elegant Eggplant
Rose Red
Not Quite Navy

Give it a try and drop in on the other members of the Design Team to see the marvelous creations they came up with

Glenda Wyatt
Heather Prince
Joan Jeffery - Me
Marisa Ritzen
Melissa Hubert
Nance Leedy
Riley Fitzgerald

Be sure to post your creation on the Colour Dare Challenge Blog
Thanks for dropping by! Joan

Whoooooo enjoys fall??

Fall has got to be my most favorite season....I just love the crispness in the air in the morning and despite my age - I love shuffling my feet through the fallen leaves.

Last night I used my owl punch for the first time. Ya just gotta love eyes - you can create sooooo many different expressions just by moving the pupils. The sketch for this owl card is from Mojo Monday.

I hope not too many leaves have fallen from your trees yet - and I hope your Tuesday is terrific. Thanks for stopping by.
Joan

Good Monday morning -
I've been busy working in my stamp room - getting things thought out and ready for upcoming workshops - so I haven't done many challenges this weekend.

I'm sharing with you today one of the cards I'll be doing for my Christmas Card camp coming up - Standard never fail layout and I do like these little critters. I'm sure I'll be using that little singing kitty on a number of cards for music!

Well - off to sing and dance with the kids....Have a great day and thanks so much for stopping by.
Joan

Quick and Easy

Just a quick post for this morning since we had our "Meet the Teacher" Barbeque last night at school - so I didn't get any new stamping done....

Here is a card I'll be doing at my upcoming Technique Workshop this Tuesday - I LOVE this embossing folder! And I think it perks it up a wee bit when you add some white inside the embossing - just with gel pen.

Hope you have a terrific Thursday - thanks for stopping by for a quick peak! Joan

Exciting Day!

This is an exciting day for me - it's my first posting as a member of the Design Team for the Color Dare Challenge Blog. I'm looking forward to being a part of this team and delving into new colour combinations!

This week the combination Riley has challenged us with is Cherry Cobbler, Pretty in Pink, Garden Green and Very Vanilla....CD75

I've used the flowers from the Punch Portpourri set....using them to create two layers of patterned paper as well as the flowers.

The sketch for the card comes from Sweet Stop.

I hope you're Wednesday is Wonderful! Thanks for stopping by. Joan

Inspirational Socks

I spotted these socks on the Elizabeth's Embellishments website and wanted to use them for the Splitcoast's Saturday Inspiration challenge right away.




My second card is one that I made at our team meeting last week using the Ghosting technique....the leaves were stamped onto glossy paper with Versa Mark and dried with the heat gun. Then ink was sponged onto the glossy making the images appear. I just love these leaf images - and of course I don't own them. Hoping to exercise some control!

Here's hoping that you've been enjoying your long weekend...and thanks for stopping by.

Joan

Extravaganza Frame

I spent the whole day in appointments yesterday getting ready for surgery, and when I came home I tried my best to get some things put in order in the house. I will be so so soooooo glad when the ensuite is finished and I can move back into MY bathroom! We also have our son moving home for a month in between houses so I'm trying to make his room (which has been cluttered with bathroom stuff) a bit more welcoming for him.....

So.......

I didn't get any stamping done last night, but I can share with you this FANTASTIC frame that we created at the Edmonton Extravaganza that Shelli Gardner came to. Tamye Dunbar's father and husband worked the camera and printer to ensure that people went home with a photo of Shelli to put in this frame. I was so nervous making it to begin with - but the decor elements were a lot easier to manipulate around the frame than I thought they would be. I am SOOOOOO going to offer this as a class for my stampers!

First Friday of the school year - and the first long weekend. I hope you all have a safe weekend! Thanks for visiting!
Joan

Two Takes on One Card

Here is another one of the cards I've been playing around with for Christmas. I started with this top one and then decided to spruce it up a bit (no pun intended!).

It's EXACTLY the same except I used a marker to colour in the flowers after embossing and used a slightly longer strip of Cherry Cobbler paper , wet it, scrunched it up in my hand and then wrinkled it onto the paper using sticky strip to keep it down. I did have to wait for it to dry first.

I MAY provided the option of doing either design at the card camp.....

Speaking of wrinkles......for those of you who don't know me on Facebook -
I knew yesterday that I was going to have a totally terrific day when I mistakenly began putting my face cream into my hair. Oh I laughed!!!!! And - it was a good day.

Hope you have a fantastic one today! Thanks for stopping by.
Joan

A wee bit of Christmas

I know the leaves haven't started changing colours, but I thought I'd better get working on what cards I'll be doing for my Christmas Card Camp this year.

We made one similar to this at our Extravaganza a couple of weeks ago; I changed it up just a bit. I really do love this new Marina Mist Blue!

The red one is almost exactly the same as one we did at the Extravaganza too. I used white and changed the sentiment to green. I know there are people who look for seasonal cards that are just "seasonal" without the "reason"......This would
work perfectly for that.

I completed a couple others this evening too, but I've already wrapped them up to take them to our Team Meeting tomorrow - I will share it with you later.

Hope all is well your way....we're filling our garage with the son's belongings again for a month.....can't move into their new place until the beginning of October. Ah, the joys of adult children. Gotta love them! Truely!

Thanks for stopping by - Joan

Antique Friends

I began working on the Inspiration Challenge from Splitcoast on the weekend using this cute little dress from ModCloth. I created the base piece and wasn't sure what to do with the rest since I was using the sketch from The Sweet Stop. I didn't know what to use for the featured image. Lucky me - a box arrived today from SU and I had this "Timeless Treasures" stamp set inside - Yeah. So I was able to finish the card tonight.

I had a wonderful first day of school. I have one grade 2 class of 31 kids for music which is a bit overwhelming - but it's all good.
I hope you had a great first day to your week. And, if you have kids - I hope they had/have a great first day. Everybody starts at such different times now adays.

Thanks for dropping by - Joan

Photo Card

Sometimes I just wish we could start the school year without having to sit around in meetings first!!! Just let the kids in the doors and let's get on with it. What a waste of a day!

....at least until I got home to stamp.....
Today's Ways to Use It Challenge at Splitcoast was to take a photo from a summer adventure and turn it into a card or scrapbook page or altered project, etc. I've been working on my Paris scrapbook and had some pictures that I've set aside....so this worked perfectly. The sketch is from Our Creative Corner this week.

I used Vanilla for the card base with a Concord Crush base. The DSP comes from the Lap of Luxury package.

One morning of meetings tomorrow and then time to get the classroom in order..... Hope you have more fun than that!!! Thanks for droppin' on by!
Joan

Final Wednesday of Summer.....

A couple of challenges here for my last Wednesday of the Summer. We (teachers) start back to school tomorrow and we get classes on Monday....a full week before Labour Day. I wonder how many will still be missing?

It took a little time for this first card to come together but I'm happy with the way it turned out.
Splitcoast - Sketch Challenge 295
Splitcoast - Clean and Simple - Colour challenge of Kraft (Crumb Cake), Turquoise and White.

I absolutely love this new embossing folder!!!!

I seemed to have misplaced the one little package of charms that I had so I don't fully meet the requirements for the challenge over at Crafty Creations today....

Crafty Creations - Recipe - 3 patterned papers, 2 ribbons or trims, 1 charm
Color Throw Down - Pretty in Pink, Rose Red, So Saffron and Pear Pizzazz.
Midnight Madness - Sketch

It's a beautiful day outside here - sunny, sunny!!!!! So I'm going to sit on the deck with a friend I haven't seen all summer......hope you have some sunshine and fun in your day today too.

Thanks for stopping by - Joan

Tea-rific Tuesday

I got a bit of a late start posting today - I didn't get anything stamped yesterday, so I wanted to have something from today...... So I have 4 challenges for you.

This Tea-rific card uses the "Morning Cup" stamp set from the new SU Idea Book and Catalogue. The Challenges it covers are:


Mojo Monday - Sketch
Splitcoast - Tuesday Colour Challenge of Pacific Point, Rich Razzleberry, and Old Olive.

I'm using Pacific Point more now that it's a "regular" colour than I ever did when it was an "In Colour".

The next card uses the sketch from The Sweetest Thing and colours from Color Dare - Baja Breeze, Taken with Teal Kiwi Kiss and Always Artichoke.

I've used a technique which Trish Miles showed us at the Extravaganza we had on Saturday. I've just used the clear mounting blocks as "stamps" themselves. You'll never end up with the same arrangement of colour on the block and that's so cool! This turned into a very quick and easy, Clean and Simple card!

Well, I hope that your Tuesday is Terrific and Tea-rific! I'm now going to head into school and pull all my instruments off the cupboard shelves to set them up. Here we go for another round!
Thanks for stopping by!
Joan

More Brayered Skies

Wow, what a fantastic day yesterday was. My demo went just fine and we completed a bunch of wonderful projects...which I'll share tomorrow.

Here are a couple of other cards I did with the brayered sky technique. It doesn't always have to be a "sky" that you create.

It was fun making the Halloween cards too....although I know to be careful how far down I take the ink...

















Here are a couple of pictures - me and Shelli and then a photo of a small group of us who went
to dinner. It was fantabulous and I'm going to relax all day today!!!












Thanks for stopping by - Joan

Presentation with the CEO...

WOW - that's what I'm doing today - I'm demonstrating a "WOW" technique for a group of women from Stampin'Up! with Shelli Gardner in the audience. WOW - I'm so excited. My up-up line - Tamye Dunbar - won a Workshop of a Lifetime and so Shelli Gardner is doing a workshop at Tamye's house this morning and then this afternoon our team is having an Extravaganza with Shelli there with her guests. I've been practicing my demo all week.....not sure how I'll do with a camera focused on my hands!!!!!

Anyway - I'll share more of that with you tomorrow.

This is the Brayered Sky Technique and I've done it a number of ways - (I have other cards I'll show later). I was glad to have found out about it because I miss the spectrum pads that we used to have. HERE is the tutorial for this technique from Splitcoast. For my first number of cards I used blues.....the snowboarder is the one I'm focusing on
for my WOW. I then decided that I could turn the piece "upside down" and it could turn into an ocean for our ship image....and finally there's the traditional winter scene sky with snow.

I hope you're Saturday is Super!!!!!
Thanks for dropping by for a visit!
Joan

Happy Friday

I've been having fun playing with a bunch of my new Stampin'Up! stuff.

I love the new stamp sets that go specifically with the punches and I'm loving a lot of the new papers.

For the central part of this card, I put the Pretty in Pink piece through the Big Shot with one of the new dies and then gently rubbed the ink pad over top to colour the raised sections.

Also loving that SU has adhesive jewels now too!
Hope your gearing up for something good for your final weekend of August. I know tomorrow is going to be an absolute BLAST for me. Fill you in then....
Thanks for stopping by - Joan

Still here......

Hey bloggers -
I can't believe the summer is almost over. I had a fantastic time in Paris with my husband for 12 days. Got my pictures printed and started on a scrapbook right away before school starts again.

I did do one challenge for this card before we left home again to go to Banff.....but I don't remember what the challenges were back then. I chickened out colouring this flower - but since they begin green I figured that this was okay.

I hope everyone has had a wonderful summer. I'm still busy here - getting some card stamping in and setting up workshops for September - so I will have some more to share with you in the upcoming days.

Thanks for stopping by! Joan