Sunday, January 31, 2010

Rally for Robin!

I've recently learned that a dear friend of mine and fellow demonstrator, Robin Castagnola, has been diagnosed with Stage 2 breast cancer. She's been my roommate at the last few Stampin'Up! conventions I've attended and she is a wonderful and kind hearted friend. I would do anything for her. As you can imagine, the news was a lot to bear in a short amount of time - for her, as well as her family and friends. But thankfully, with that news came a plan of action from her doctors that lays out the process by which she will conquer this beast. She begins her treatment this week, and I wanted to join the rally of support for her by posting the "Wear Pink and Support Robin Castagnola" event this Tuesday, February 2nd. Please include Robin in your thoughts and prayers and wear Pink on Tuesday! Feel free to post comments or words of encouragement on the link as well, as I know she visits that page and reads it daily.

Here's a picture of us from convention this past summer - we had a blast!
Don't forget - wear Pink on Tuesday :)


Tinkering with the blog

Hi all! Hope you're having a better weekend than I am. I'm a little under the weather, so I haven't been very productive. I'm finding that being sick, achey and coughing is no fun at all! So, I've basically been lackadaisical at best and confined to the house {mainly on the couch}. Although, if you've visited my blog at various points this weekend, you'll have noticed that I've had some spurts of energy and have been tinkering with the background and changing my blog header. I think I like the one I've just created now with the little Cheep Talk bird. I've been playing with MDS and my new Sweet Pea download, which has the cute paper and felt flower images. They're super cute! But, I was drawn back to the bird from the Cheep Talk stamp set, as I wanted to simplify my header and make it smaller. Here's the other header I had on my blog yesterday, in case you missed it: What do you think? There are a lot of fun elements, but I think it turned out bigger than what I had wanted. So, my latest blog header is a little less "chunky" so you can see more of the page when you come and visit :) For those of you that have blogs and are curious as to what size my header is, I export the MDS image to a JPG and resize it in my Adobe Photoshop. I have a fixed width of 880 pixels across (since I have a 3 column blog), and I just keep the the length and width ratio aspect, so the length ends up being whatever that ratio maintains it to be. Hope that makes sense. If you guys have questions, feel free to leave me a comment and I'll answer back in the comments as well.

I hope to have another post later today, but I still gotta finish up the project, so we'll see. Hopefully, I'll get another spurt of energy! Thanks for visiting :)


Friday, January 29, 2010

January Final Friday Winner Announcement!

Hi all! Happy Friday! Can you beleive we're already at the end of our first month in 2010? Time sure does feel like it's flying! Well, let's announce the winner of the first Final Friday giveaway, shall we?

I was very excited to see that there were 59 comments! Thanks so much for leaving me some love and sharing some kind words :) The lucky winner for the January Final Friday Giveaway is.. lucky number 16 who happens to be Wanda G! Congratulations Wanda!!! Here's what she had to say:
Thank you all for playing! Another thing I really appreciate is everyone complying with the rules about leaving an email or valid URL that I can reach you at. It makes contacting the winners much easier for me! Wanda - I'll be sending you an email soon!

Have a great day, all!


Saturday, January 23, 2010

{love you much} Valentine

2/11/10 - ETA: I thought this card fit the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger, so I thought I'd play along! Here's the inspiration photo..

Happy Saturday, blog peeps! Hope you're enjoying your weekend so far. It's a beautiful day today in Southern CA - the rains have gone and the sun is shining on this clean and crisp winter day. I've already had quite a productive morning, too! I went out for a run and also got a chance to make a card today.

I was determined to figure out how to use the new corner punches with the coordinating border punch. I mean, theoretically, I know how to use it, but what's prevented me from using it sooner was having to figure out the dimensions to make sure that the patterns match up. Know what I mean? Thankfully, I discovered some instructions on Gretchen Barron's blog! She's awesome - you should definitely check out her blog for the details {and for lots of other great projects, too}! I have her to thank for my first card using the scallop trim border with the scallop trim corner punch! Wanna see? Now that Gretchen's demystified the scallop corner and scallop trim border punches for me, I have fallen IN LOVE with them!! For this card, I started with a 2 7/8" square piece of Pretty In Pink cardstock. Next, I punched out the 4 corners with the corner punch, which made it easy to align the scallop trim border punch to finish off each of the sides. As you can, see, they align perfectly! Here's a close up - you can check out the Pinking Hearts Border, too: Can you tell I've also been quite enamored with buttons these days? They are such a fun embellishment to add on projects. They definitely give a card some character. Hope you like the card! Here's the recipe.
{love you much Valentine}
All supplies Stampin'Up! except the buttons
*Stamp Set: Well Scripted
*Cardstock: Pretty in Pink, Sweet Pea Designer Series Paper pad, Whisper White
*Inks: Melon Mambo Classic Pad
*Accessories: Scallop Trim Border and Scallop Corner punches, Pinking Hearts Border punch, Scallop Heart of Hearts Embosslit, buttons {PTI}, corner punch
Have a great day. Bye for now!


Thursday, January 21, 2010

{masked} butterfly

Hi there blog friends! The weather outside has continued to be frightful here, but I've found some respite and quiet in making cards this evening. Lately I've been inspired to create cards that have clean and simple lines and today's card share is an example of that, I think. I also used the masking technique, so the card looks more complicated than it really is! I was in an experimental mode with the masking, but I'd have to say I was pretty happy with the final outcome. Here's a look at the full card. The crisp white background really appeals to me. I also have been really into smaller cards - the finished card is 3 1/2" x 5", and again, I used my new favorite SU Notecards that come in a pack of 20. Now do you want to see how I created this masked butterfly? Get ready to see my technologically engineered template....you'll be amazed at how advanced my skills are {heehee}: Now are you impressed? Is it was you were expecting? Well, let me break it down for you. For the butterfly, I used the negative image of the cool new Beautiful Wings Embosslit die {and, as you can see from my scrap piece, I had used this scrap piece for other punches as well!} Then, I used my fancy post-its to cover up the other negative images of the smaller butterflies.
Next, I stamped the script image from the Charming stamp set, and then followed that up by using the sponge dauber to fill in the outline of the butterfly.
After that, I added some color interest to my butterfly by stamping a flower branch on the wings and a heart in the center. Both of these stamps are from the Tiny Tags stamp set {from the Occasions Mini catalog}.
Then, finally, I stamped the *{love}* sentiment after I peeled off the mask. I strung some buttons on linen thread to "embellish" my ribbon, and viola - finished my single layer masked butterfly card. It's so simple to make, yet I think it's such a sweet card. So...what do you think? Would love to hear your feedback! Here's the recipe:
{masked butterfly}
All supplies Stampin'Up! except where noted
*Stamp Sets: Charming, Tiny Tags
*Cardstock: Whisper White 3 1/2" x 5" notecards
*Inks: Soft Suede, Old Olive, Real Red
*Accessories: Beautiful Wings Embosslit (used the scrap of the negative image), Linen thread, buttons {PTI}
Thanks for poppin' in today. Hope you enjoyed your little visit!


Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Waterfall on the 405




This was taken on my horrendous drive home on the 405 freeway today. That poor car on the other side of the fwy got stuck in the lake beneath that "waterfall" from all the runoff from the road above. It was quite a treacherous drive home, but I'm happy to say I made it home safely after an hour and forty minute drive in these torrential rains! Gonna sit back and unwind a little bit....catch you all later!



Monday, January 18, 2010

sweet little bird


It's quite the stormy week here in Southern CA. We've got "Rain Watch 2010" on all our news channels because rain happens so infrequently here. But I have to say, I enjoy the rain every now and then (not so much driving in it, but if I were home, I would love hearing it tapping on the roof and windows). You see, for those of you not in CA, this is the extent of our winter - can you believe it? The roads weren't bad at all today, though, since lots of people had the day off for Martin Luther King Day. Sadly, I was not one of them. Oh well!

Anyway, I do have a card share for you guys today. It's one of the thank you cards I made to send to our friends and family to thank them for all our fun Christmas gifts. Lucky for me, these were quick and easy to assemble thanks to the 2 Step Bird punch. Can you tell I've taken quite a liking to it? I love the bird and I love the branch. Such a cute punch! Here's a view of the full card: I'm getting a lot of use out of the Sweet Pea Designer Series Paper pad, too. The yellow design print is the reverse of the cute green-and-yellow polka dot print that I used for the birdie's wing. The finished card is 3 1/2" x 5", which SU sells in a pack of 20 which includes envelopes. So handy! Here's the full recipe for you.
{sweet little bird card}
*Stamp Set: Thank You Kindly
*Cardstock: Whisper White, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip, Sweet Pea Designer Series Paper
*Inks: Chocolate Chip
*Accessories: Pinking Hearts Border punch, Extra-Large Two-step Bird punch
Have a great day! Bye for now :)