Birdie Hello

Happiness is knowing a stamp set is not retiring....I just got this Zoofari set recently because I wanted some funner (yeah I know it's not a word) images. I like these little birds.

This was suppose to use a sketch challenge from two weeks ago, but looking closer now, I'm not sure that it's that much on the mark....oh well. White, Wild Wasabi and Taken with Teal were the colour challenge this week and I love them together. I used the re-inkers and a blender pen to colour the birds in accordance with the Technique Challenge. I'm glad I did because it gives them some variance in colour.

Today's agenda....coffee & read, stamp, and I'm pretty sure that we're going to Edmonton to find sink, tub, toilet and vanity for the main bathroom. There always has to be some room that gets totally demolished in the summer. Yeehaw....here we come.

Stay cool, it's suppose to be hot here again today.
Happy Stampin - JOAN
I decided I'd add another post to this one....this is for today's Featured Stamper Challenge. Today's stamper is Michele from "Chelemom" on Splitcoast. I've linked to her gallery and the page that has the card I cased (she's labeled it SC169). Michele's was originally done in browns, which I love. My spotted piece is another scrap I found in my "scrap drawer". Maybe it won't be so stuffed if I keep using pieces each day!!

Happy Stampin' - JOAN

Summer....Yipeeeee!!!!

Well, I've made a copy of this previous weeks' challenges on one sheet so I can play a bit of catch-up. Slept in.....read my book on the deck with my coffee, and now I'm trying to stay cool in the basement with my stamps. What a wonderful start to my summer vacation!!!

The whole back piece of this card was made a couple of weeks ago for a sketch challenge....it didn't work for what I had planned that day, but it's been sitting on my table waiting to be used. The focus piece is suppose to be circular, but I missed that part when I put this together. I added the little bird sentiment which takes in the Technique Challenge of using re-inkers for watercolouring, and also the Ways to Use it challenge which asked for birds to be part of this weeks projects.

I know they start WAY too early in the mornings (4:00am here in central Alberta) but I love listening to the birds' songs! Hope you all have some pleasant music in your day, thanks for dropping by - Happy Stampin' - JOAN

June 25

Well, I wouldn't say that we're out of the fog yet, and I'm not guaranteeing daily postings yet, but it sure felt good to stamp tonight. And....TOMORROW IS THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL!!!!! (Okay, we still have to go back for staff stuff on Friday - but the end is near.) :)

I did the sketch challenge today. This card looks brighter in person. I decided not to clutter it with tags & stuff. I even tossed out the trial of a background print of some sort. This will probably be the last time I use these little seed packages for a while because I have now used up all that I stamped, so that's a good thing.

The central image is matted on bashful blue, but I've also coloured the background with marker and then dabbed it with the edge of the brush tip. I guess I was sort of going for a Monet look. I hope not to have offended the Master!

Thanks for dropping by, I will be posting more often now for sure!!! - JOAN

June 16

As soon as I saw these vases for the inspiration challenge from Acacia last week I knew I wanted to try something......it doesn't show up totally clear in the photo, but I inked up the Floral background stamp and then kissed the dotted background to it to make the background image. You get just tiny bits of the flowers within the different boldnesses (a word????) of the dotted stamp. This is also the sketch challenge for last week.

The weather just may be picking up here.....I just might - MIGHT look forward to recess supervision tomorrow.....LOL.

Thanks for dropping by - Happy Stampin' - Joan

Quick Post

Wow, it seems like forever since I've posted anything. And it's been forever since I've spent any time in my stamping room....I HAD to get this card created for my husband for Tuesday. He goes to a lot of meetings for the Alberta Teacher's Association, and so he can be away from school a fair amount....He is lucky enough to have a particular sub whom he can count on and so this is a card created to thank her for all her work in taking over his classes in Math (1,2,3), Band (Treble & Bass clefs) and Phys. Ed. The school colours are blue, grey and white....I would have loved to put a bull dog on, but I don't have one. I suppose one must exist somewhere.

I'm going to try to get into my stamping room more this week....I still have a bunch of marking and report cards to create.....but I think I'll have a bit of time for a bit of fun too. Thank you for your comments on the last post wishing us a speedy and good end of the year.

Thanks for dropping by - Happy Stampin' - Joan

June 10

I apologize that things may be a bit slow around here this week. It's concert week for my family and there are a few other events that need attending to. Both Amy and I are marking too, in preparation for the last report card of the year. The time will pass too quickly before June 26 arrives. And then we'll be jumping for joy and falling down with exhaustion!!! LOL

I still want to stamp so I'll post when I do......Keep stampin' for us!!!!!

JOAN

Colourful Seeds

Wow, it took forever for this card to come together. This is created for this weeks Sketch Challenge. It seems I'm not the only one into circles right now...LOL. Since flowers grow outside and you have to deal with insects and such....I'm also posting this to Stamp Something's challenge this week which is to create a wild card of some sort.

For this card I used my Blooms and Bulbs wheel. I like these little seed packages. I layered Bashful Blue grosgrain and White Taffeta ribbon. There's no hardware, no bows....I think after 2 hours I just wanted it stuck together!!!! However, I now have bits and pieces to use to create more cards. Does anyone else have a draw full of prestamped, precoloured pieces just looking for a card base?

I was going to go to school today to clean some things up, but I don't feel like it anymore. We're going to see kd lang tonight, so I think I'll just relax and enjoy my afternoon.

Thanks for dropping by.....Happy Stampin' - JOAN

Year End Celebration Invitation

Stepping away from Stampin'Up! for the morning....here is the awesome invitation that Amy made for our staff wind up at the end of the year. Emerald, the tiger, is our school mascot, and Amy had a stamp made of his head and paws so that we could make more personalized cards for different events. A lot more fun than letterhead....even though Emerald appears on that too. He's just so cute.

Hope you have a great day, thanks for stopping by. Happy Stampin' -JOAN

Challenging Colour Challenge

Okay....so I get a new stamp set in the mail this afternoon, and am excited about using it...especially since it's die-cut!!!! And what colours do I have for the challenge today???? Blue Bayou, Soft Sky and Real Red.
Honestly, I have seen some fantastic cards with these colours, but I didn't know how I was going to work it....I'm actually sort of pleased with what I ended up with 'cause there isn't too much red.
You can't really tell that the central piece is soft sky. I coloured in the large flowers using the versamark pen.
This is the set featured in the Make the Fresh Cut promotion that Stampin' Up! has on right now. You can click on the link on the sidebar to find out more.

Shades of Eliza

It took me a while to decide on a movie dress for this past Saturday's Inspiration Challenge. It's amazing how many dresses I thought of which came from black and white musicals from MGM. I still have thoughts for a vibrant one...if I can make it work; but here is my rendition of Eliza Dolittle's outfit in My Fair Lady. (Which oddly enough is black and white, so I guess it was just meant to be.) I've used the layout from this weekends challenge on Stamp Something.

I filled in the lines of sticky strip with the black chuncky glitter and then tried to fill in the empty spaces with Dazzling Diamonds. I am wondering what I ever did without the coluzzle cutting system. I love making circles!!!!!

Well, off for now. Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend. We're in our Canada Day Week at school now. Amy has tons of great prizes for the kids to win for her contests. I'm tense about the assembly on Thursday, but I'm trying to keep it low key......(ha ha ha she laughs madly!!!)
Thanks for stopping by - Happy Stampin' - Joan

No Transportation

Okay....this is a stretch for the Ways to Use it Challenge this week. We were to "pack our bags" and the cards could be anything about traveling. Well, I don't have any modes of transportation to use...although I remembered later that I do have that little rocket from Pun Fun. But I don't think you'd actually pack a suitcase for a rocket.

Anyway....I decided that we were travelling to a sister's house to visit the family. It took me quite a while to get the tag from AtoZ Accents stretched out to fit everyone's label, but I used my stamp-a-ma-jig. I'm regretting adding ink around the edges of the tags, they may have been better clean, oh well, they'd get mussed up travelling anyway.

I've also centered the card around this weeks colour challenge.

I've been absent from blogging because I've been puttering in the garden after school. By the end of all that I'm exhausted. Greg and I are off today to a choir practice to sing at a friend's ordination into the ministry tomorrow. So, tata for now.

Thanks for dropping by - Happy Stampin' - Joan

A Card and a Recommendation

Well....today I got the card created after school...got some cards put into envelopes for people....and now I'm posting...not as late as the other night.

This card is a combination of this weeks Colour Challenge (Very Vanilla, Sage Shadow and Chocolate Chip) and the Sketch Challenge. I used craft ink and embossed it with clear embossing powder with the Tres Chic background stamp. I used Carte Postale again; you can't really see the image on the band that goes across because it's covered up by the chocolate chip taffeta ribbon. I also finally got around to using the idea I've seen of putting small dots underneath the brads....when they're that small it sure is hard to "centre" the brad!!!! I would have liked to have highlighted the word "imagine" somehow...but I guess being central on the card is good enough.

I have to mention Diane's Designs - a blog that I would recommend visiting. I stopped by there yesterday for the first time on Lee's recommendation, and I really like the projects that Diane has shown. She is offering blog candy right now...but if you scroll down there are wonderful cards.

I hope you are having wonderful evening/morning/day....Thanks for stopping by - Joan

Note of Thanks

Okay, so I shouldn't be deciding at 10:00 at night..."Oh, maybe I should quickly do a challenge before I go to bed"...when I should already be in bed reading. But, I did this in half an hour....fairly happy with it....and here it is.

Today's challenge was to combine a Technique Challenge, Colour Challenge and Sketch Challenge....but they had to be from the first 10 published from each set. So, I incuded Technique #1 which was kissing. I Kissed the emblem from Carte Postal onto the small writing piece from Elegant Notes...does it count even if you can't actually read the writing?
The colours are from Challenge #5 - Black and White and this is a bit of a stretch on the #9 Sketch Challenge.

I've also included the Faux Linen for the "Stamp Something" challenge this week. I love that technique.

I'm pretty happy considering it was a rush job. I'll concentrate more tomorrow....
Thanks for dropping by....Happy Stampin- Joan

Inspired Blue Floral

Yesterday's inspiration challenge came from F.Schumacher. I've posted a
thumbnail of the chair and upholstery fabric that I selected for the inspiration. I love blue. (and greens and browns lol). As I was working on this card I decided to use the cracked glass technique since I hadn't for quite a while. The coluzzle was used to make the circles, but I had to cut the Night of Navy circle by hand because I wanted narrower matting.

This sketch is from Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge.

Can't decide if I want to watch movies, nap, or stamp this afternoon. I broke my glasses this morning though, so don't know how enjoyable tv viewing will be for too long. It's gloomy and rainy....napping sounds good.....but I want to stamp. Decisions, decisions. LOL

Thanks for stopping by....Hope you're having a wonderful weekend wherever you are! - Joan

Challenge Catchup Begins...

Thought I'd try to put some things together before heading back over to Amy's for today's card camp. We had a lot of fun last night with the ladies who came by to stamp. 18 cards in 4 hours....Woo Hoo!!!!

My card this morning covers four challenges....First, the "Sketch Challenge". Second, the "Colour Challenge" this week was Blue Bayou, Soft Sky and Certainly Celery. I guess I like my combination, but I've seen some breathtaking cards done with these colours this week so be sure to check out the gallery!

It's suppose to be a more masculine card for the "Ways to Use It" Challenge. I suppose mine is, although I could easily use it for Allison because she's a volleyball nut - however, it isn't her school colours!!! The Limited Supply Challenge this week was to use NO hardware of any type....no brads, eyelets, dodads, etc.; but to use stamped images instead...thus the stars across the top. I perked them up a bit with dimensionals though....they're soft!!

I also got some Happy Mail this week from Nardi in Australia. I always liked this butterfly and I love blue and brown together! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Thanks for dropping by. I will be back with something else soon....I am excited about doing the Faux Something Challenge over at the STAMP SOMETHING blog!

Happy Stampin - Joan

Quick Post

Here is the card I created for this past Sunday's Featured Stamper Challenge.....The Stamper was Dawnsing and I have the thumbnail of her card that I chose to case. My flowers were a bit bigger than hers so I could only fit three nicely across the middle. I like how hers dance across the middle!!!!

Well, I must hit the sack....Greg and I just got home from seeing the Jully Black concert tonight. It was fantastic!!!!!

Thanks for dropping by and have a great day. - Happy Stampin - Joan

A Bag full of Thanks

Well, between laundry, saying goodbye to the kitten, cutting paper for the card camp and putting together dinosaurs, I managed to get these projects finished today. (I got up early)

The bag was for today's New Technique Challenge: it's a double pocket bag and it is super easy...the tutorial for it is here. I also created the bag and contents for the "Stamp Something Challenge". There's a new one every Friday and I just thought it would be fun to add another challenge to the list....at least for the long weekend. And Hey, summer is around the corner! LOL) Anyway, the challenge was to create a Thank You of some sort: card, package, anything. I filled the bag with 3 Thank You cards that incorporated different sketch challenges from the past couple of weeks.

For the first card shown I used Beate's Weekend Sketch Challenge. I'm not sure about the white gel pen on the flower, but I thought I'd try. I really can't tell exactly what colour this designer paper is suppose to be....not guava, not rose, thought it was coral....but it doesn't look that way in the photo.













The second card uses that circular sketch again....I also cut out the flower and leaves from the designer paper. Not totally fussy about all the sheets in this designer series, so gotta use them up somehow.










For the third card, I've managed to cover a whole whack of challenges without really intending to. I didn't use any stamps at all, instead I used the rub-ons for the words. I also stacked the flowers using the paper-tole technique.


Grant came over this afternoon and Allison & I knew right away he had come to take his kitten to her new home. I was so annoyed when those kittens were brought here, and knew they'd cause issues with the older cats in the house, but we've all grown attached to the shinanigins that they got into. Grant's answer to our heart-break....come to his place to visit. Will Do!!!!

I'd better hit the sack, just 'cause I've got an appointment tomorrow doesn't mean I should stay up later!!!!!!

Thanks for visiting - Happy Stamin' - Joan

Birthday Card Camp Next Weekend

Here are the creations for next week's Birthday Card Camp....

• Friday, May 23: 6:00-10:00,
• Saturday May 24: 1:00-5:00 OR 6:00-10:00.

• Cost: $30.00 (All Club members - $25.00)
• 6 Designs with envelopes
• BRING YOUR OWN ADHESIVE!!!!
• Bring a friend who has not stamped with us before and get $5.00 off your registration fee and get your name put in a draw for a free stamp set.

CONTACT JOAN OR AMY TO BOOK YOUR SPOT.

May 16

Today's Inspiration Challenge comes from Papyrus Candles. I knew I wanted to use the yellow candle, and decided right away that the Blooming Beautiful Bouquet could work well. I've embossed everything in black...I'm not exactly sure why except that it makes it bolder. I wanted to keep the vase white because I usually use clear or white vases myself. I'm not sure about the stark white around the outside of it, but I didn't want to muck about with it and mess it up!!! I've also used Wednesday's Sketch Challenge again. I'm not really a yellow person, but I'm happy with the way this turned out.

I did succeed in finding Dinosaur Bones yesterday...and no I wasn't making soup with them. LOL. We have a Canada Day Week at our school...thanks to the Canamaniac Amy Barry!!!! We have contests and prizes all week. Our Canada Day Assembly has been gradually growing bigger until, for the second year, we're hosting a Pancake Breakfast and I have the students performing various Canadian folksongs and such. This year one small idea, which has EXPLODED into a major production, is the reciting of Robert Heidbreder's "Drumheller Dinosaur Dance". I'm doing it with black light....(I hope) it's going to be SO COOL!!!!......so, that's the reason I needed some dinosaur bones. LOL.

Well, I'm off to the garden before it gets too too hot. I hope you all have a wonderful day and thanks for dropping by. - Happy Stampin' -Joan

Dragonflies for You

I finally got around to last Saturday's Inspiration Challenge....We were to find something from the Dreaming in Colour website to inspire us. As soon as I saw this cup I was hooked...I love it.









I decided to do the Ways to Use it Challenge which was to use Inchies. If you didn't have any, which I don't, then you could make little 1" pieces yourself. I've also incorporated today's Limited Supplies Challenge which was to use an alphabet set for the sentiment.

Yeah, well.....silly me for thinking I could stamp black letters on glossy paper without smudging....grrrr. And then I noticed later that there's a tiny little thumb print, which doesn't show up too much on the photo. Oh well, it's just me putting myself into my cards...LOL.

I've added just a hint of Dazzling Diamonds to small parts of the wings. It looks like sunlight hitting them in real life.

It's a beautiful day in Fort Saskatchewan today....wind has even died down a bit. I'm heading into a day of errands in Edmonton....looking for dinosaur bones and other such interesting stuff.

Thanks for dropping by.....Happy Stampin' - Joan
I've given you links to the galleries for the challenges in case you'd like to see all the fantastic creations by other people.