Oh Bunny!

I have another quick and clean like yesterday's Paper Trey Ink post. But, this is more clean, quick and cute versus the quick, clean elegant look from yesterday.

This stamp is from Stampendous and I giggled when I saw this little bunny over at Eclectic Paperie isn't it SO cute?? Looks like it is a big hit with other shoppers too, because when I added it to my cart, it was out of stock. Luckily, Daisy and Joy were able to get it for me super quickly to get me jump started on some Easter Projects - I love those girls and they always come through on my "stamping emergencies!!"

This Easter Plaque was stamped twice, once on white and once on SU's Soft Sky. I colored in the image with my Copic Markers, added some sparkle to the flowers with my spica pen then paper pieced the white panels onto the soft sky base, added two pewter brads and a quick snippet of ribbon. I think that chubby baby bunny is just too sweet!

I don't usually post over the weekends, but I have a card to share again tomorrow, and a little news too. So, hope to see you then.

Till then, have a great day!

A few of you asked....

I received a few emails wondering how I got the ribbon onto my recent sympathy/Easter card that I made with Gina K's "He is Risen" stamp set. For those of you that already know the trick, you can just skip the rest of this.... but for anyone that wondered here goes.

I used my horizontal slot punch from SU to punch just the front panel of cardstock. And applied dimensionals to the back (do not actually adhere the main image to the card yet, leave the protective paper on the back of the little hexagons...)

I then threaded the ribbon through that slot, around the inside of the card, and back up through the slot.

And tightened up the ribbon, and tied a knot. Then clipped the ribbon neatly with my snips, then affixed the dimensionals.

Voila! Easy peasy! That horizontal slot punch is one of my handiest of punches (um, yes, I'm a queen of punches, I love my tools!)

Psst. This isn't how I left the card, I did in fact trim up that long ribbon, but I won't bore you with the card again as I've posted it before....

Keep it Clean.

I was so excited when Paper Trey Ink announced that they were going to be making their own printed paper. I just love all the projects that Nichole makes, and everything is perfectly coordinated, and she makes it all look so easy, but, it just doesn't come as naturally for me. So, it was a given that I'd buy that paper.

I picked up the Out on a Limb set when it launched, and I've had it tucked away for about a month as I've been so crazy busy lately. When my most recent PTI order arrived, I promised myself I'd dig in and get stamping. I'm so glad I did.

For this project, I used the Paper Trey Stampers Select white cardstock, as well as the Perfect Match Cardstock and Ink and Everyday Blessings Designer Paper and let me just say WOW! Everything inked up just SO nicely and I really enjoyed making these cards.

The only thing I used on these cards that isn't from Paper Trey is my my Pearlescent Chocolate ink from Brilliance.

I definitely fought the urge to pull out the sewing machine, or scallop punch anything. I wanted to add ribbon somewhere, but fought that urge off too. I hope that this reads as clean to you, not lazy or lame!



By keeping the design fairly straightforward, I was able to crank out several of these in a very short period of time.


Have a great day everyone!

How did I manage this?

Okay, last week, I was convinced I was one challenge behind, but apparently, I only needed to post ONE of those cards, not both. So here it is, Prettie Wednesday, and I've already shown my challenge card. Yikes. All the Prettie Girls will be showing their dry embossed challenge cards today, so be sure to look around and see the other girls embossing card. You can see mine here.

Since I goofed, I'm showing a card I made for our weekly challenge over on the Paper Pretties Forum. This week, its a color challenge, inspired by my ongoing kitchen and den redecoration! Here's my card submission and you can find more details on the challenge on this post.

I picked up this Ruber Romance stamp "Tiffany" the last time there was a sale over at Paper Pretties and I received it from Christie when we were in California. To be honest, I totally forgot I had it, but was thrilled when I ran across it last night when I was trying to decide what to do for the challenge. What a great surprise!

I know I mentioned it the other day, but Christie's running another sale and you can find all the reduced merchandise here.

Scoop it up!

With some of my "to dos" cleared off my plate, I just wanted to stamp for the fun of it. I rifled through my stamp cabinet and pulled out Gina K's "How Sweet It Is" stamp set.

This is Gina K's most recent set for Stamps for a Cause. This set benefits The American Diabetes Association and the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation. $7.00 of every set sold is divided evenly between these two organizations. And the images are so completely cute to boot!

I think you know by now that, I love sketch challenges. When I saw Jen Del Muro's Sketch for You to Try this past Saturday, I added it directly to my "must do" projects for the week. As usual, her sample was stinkin' adorable!

My Basic Grey Two Scoops paper was sitting on my desk from a project I had just completed, and I thought it would be the perfect companion for the cute slice of cake in the "Sweet" set!

The circles are cut with my nestabilities and I added a quick border of scallops under one panel with my slot punch. To create the little tab on the bottom right hand side, I punched a scrap with my Word Window punch from SU taped that to a piece of saffron scrap and hand cut a mat.

The cake is dusted with dazzling diamonds (don't be a dummy like I was last night and get Dazzling Diamonds in your EYE by accident, ouch!!) and the card is finished off with a little piece of Very Vanilla wide width grosgrain ribbon. Since SU doesn't offer the wide width ribbon in So Saffron, I usually use the vanilla in place, its a nice complement.

If you read Jen's blog, you may have seen this super cute card she created the other day. Well, guess what a lucky girl I am? Today when I trudged down to the mailbox, I was thrilled to see an envelope with Jen's name on the return address! Her coloring is absolutley fantastic (I know, I always laugh when I compliment grownups on their coloring, when I do the same thing around here all day with the daycare kids! It was so nice to get to meet Jen in person in California for CHA after having read her blog for soooo long!

Okay, is this the longest blog post ever? Have a great day everyone!

Pretties for Sale!

Christie is moving a bunch of stuff over to the Sale Category over on the Boutique. There's a lot in there including ribbon, holiday paper, and lots of stamps!

And while this beautiful box of ribbon to the right is not on sale, if you love American Crafts Ribbon, be sure to pop on over to pick up some of the latest seasonal collection here. Aren't the colors just so pretty?

I wish it were spring, I wish it were spring......

February Club Project

Every month at our project club I do a quick drawing and one of the girls gets to take home a door prize. Usually it is somthing I made that shows them a new technique or a project we could do at a future meeting. Last month, I let them take turns fishing through my retired bin and everyone got to pick one set.


This month, I found a plain white frame at target for five dollars and I applied the Sale A Bration rub ons to the bottom right and top left corner. This literally took me two minutes to complete, and just look at how cute it is!


Our project was a little tin and we created 3x3 notecards to go inside. This idea is totally cased from Elaine's Creation's (she always has super project ideas!)


The tins are from Dunwoody Booth Packaging and the shipping was so super fast! The flower used is the Stitched Exotics stamp set stamped in Purely Pomegranate, Pumpkin Pie and Old Olive, and finished off with a Fresh Favorites button in Rose Red. We also used the Bali Breeze designer paper on both the tin cover and the matching gift cards.


Inside, we created four little notecards - two each of two designs. One design used the new felt flower product for a quick and easy card, and the other card had the stitched exotics flower to match with the tin cover design.


Admittedly, I went a little crazy with the scallop punching (sorry girls) so the project took a little longer than I had anticipated. Or, maybe it was the giggling and wine tasting the slowed us down? LOL!


Hope you enjoyed this project! I'll be back tomorrow with a card design in a standard card size that I used for my monthy card club buyers!

Same card, new paper.....

Just a real quick post today as I'm supposed to be hanging out with the boys instead of blogging....

You've seen a similar version of this card before, but I switched up the papers for a card order. I ran out of So Saffron designer prints (gasp!) but I really loved how these alternate versions came out.

This stamp set, He is Risen by Gina K Designs is really just so elegant, I love the font that is used on this verse and I think a really clean card works so nicely here.

Of the three, which one do you like the best? The original saffron one shown on this post, or the new blue or river rock version?

Spring in my step......

When I saw Kristina Werner's Make a Card Monday this past week, I slapped myself in the head. I loved her technique of applying your watercolor crayon to the SU case and then using it to watercolor with your aquapainter. I'm sure many of you already knew this trick, but I didn't. She's genius. I love watching her videos weekly, I learn a ton!!

I jumped at the chance to try it out! Pardon the pun... I couldn't help myself...

Out came my new Just so Hoppy Set from Gina K (illustrated my Melanie) and my confetti white paper and got coloring. This technique was so fun for me!

I used my Certainly Celery, Close to Cocoa, Regal Rose and Mellow Moss SU crayons and my aquapainter. I stamped the flowers on the main image then again on a piece of scrap. The scrap pieces were colored in, cut out and then applied with dots for some dimension.

I still haven't picked up green embroidery thread, so I was determined to make do with something in my ridiculous stash. Thin pieces of olive carstock did the trick, especially since tulip stems are sort of leggy anyways. I applied the a glue dot to hold them in place, then pierced through either side of the stems and tied a piece of gingham ribbon around the bunch to hold them in place.

The main panel was stitched with my Janome Sew Mini - love that thing, and now that I've cleared off my craft table a little, its easier to put it to use! Have you noticed I'm sewing everything again lately? My cards feel a little naked without it lately....

If you own the Just so Hoppy set, you've got to be sure to head on over to Melanie's blog. Not only does she have a million genious ways to use it, she's also doing a contest right now you can win free stamps! Get going! If you don't already own it, its so super cute and loaded with fun, 24 images in all!

Prettie Friday

It is just so snowy here today, so how about something that makes me think of much warmer weather instead? Wade E Bug!



I received a few new copics from Christie when I was in California, and I thought I'd put the black and red to use with Wade!

Wade E Bug is one of the recent releases from Paper Pretties and I think he's so sweet with his top hat and cane!

I'm down to the last few scraps of Cerise paper from Stampin Up. I really loved that collection. But, I'm trying hard to use the stash up.

Since I think that white frame is looking a little empty, I might be brave and doodle around the images, but I'm afraid I'll ruin it, I'm not a good doodler. (Honestly, what self respecting grownup says thing like "i'm not a good doodler." Ugh.)

I'm off to check the Paper Pretties Forum for the RAK list and get this little cutie pie off to one of them in the mail. Speaking of the forum, I posted a challenge over there this week to not use Designer Paper. Me? Not use designer paper? Am I crazy? Ugh. What was I thinking?

Have a wonderful weekend everyone. If you've got the same snowstorm we have today, be careful on the roads!!

Dishes!!

Seriously, I feel like I spend my LIFE emptying the dishwasher...... I'd love to be carding right now, but the dishes have taken control of my morning. That's what I get for having fun with my friends stamping last night.

I've got a Wade E Bug card to show later today, but I've got to return my purty new kitchen back to a clean state first.

How am I so lucky?

How is it that I am so blessed to have such a fun, wonderful group of women that come to visit me each month to craft (a little??), but mostly to laugh, chat and just enjoy each other's company. You'd think we were going out for a night on the town as we all put our children to bed early and giggled about how excited we were to be together, when really we're hunkering down in my basement to eat snacks, share a bottle of wine (or um two) and just laugh and have a blast. Every month, it is more and more fun. I can't believe next month will mark our 12th month together. Can you believe it??

I love stamping and all, but I love the friendships I've made, and deepened through this craft.

Many secrets tonight girls, many laughs. As always, I'm already looking forward to next month.

Big hugs to you all.

I'll clean up this mess tomorrow....

A Guava Soul

When I first recieved the "Basket Full of Happiness" set from Gina K, I stamped off several images of this basket onto different papers. First some shimmery white, then some onto watercolor paper. While watching TV the other night, I pulled out an image, and an inkpad and started playing.




These flowers are just as much fun to watercolor as they are to color with my copics. I used Groovy Guava, Close to Cocoa and Mellow moss for the leaves. I also colored all the inbetween spaces with a light coat of river rock, giving a nice little glow to the bouquet.

The designer paper is from the Ginger Blossom series of Stampin Up. I know there are lots of you that don't love the guava, but I actually really like it.

Have you been watching Gina K's blog? She's doing a tutorial for those of you that may have the Janome Sew Mini, but aren't yet sure what to do with it. Trust me, if I can sew with this machine, anyone can. I think it makes such a cute and quick finishing touch to your work. I love any excuse to pull mine out.



If you don't already own a sew mini, just trust me when I tell you you'll FLIP when you see what she's up to over there. Don't walk. RUN!! Here's the link: Gina K Blog Candy

I love it when this happens......

I don't know why it happens, but some days I just wake up with a card design just perfectly crystalized in my head and man does it make the creation process speedy!

The flowers here are created with Gina K's new Bling and Dazzle - Flower Outlines! These little babies can be colored with your copic marker, used as they come in white, or colored with inks. In this case, I dipped my flowers in Rose Red craft ink and then coated with clear embossing powder and hit them with my heat gun. (warning, if you heat emboss these babies, they get super HOT! Be sure to let them cool down before you try to pick them up!) I then marked a place for each flower on my cardstock and placed a faint pencil line for stems.

I then went over the pencil line with my janome sew mini to create a sewn stem. (and then erased the pencil marks ever so gently....)

I **should** have made a trip to the craft store to pick up some green thread, but that meant packing up the boys, winding a new bobbin and rethreading the machine. And a trip to the craft store for thread as you know, never just ends up with the 50 cent spool of thread -- it always goes downhill from there, so I skipped that step and just used the natural thread I already had. Probably saving myself at least fifty bucks in "gotta have that" moments (nevermind a battle with my boys!)

Back to the card. Yikes. I created green "grass" with a scrap of old olive paper and then I hand cut little grass pieces and finished off that layer with a length of old olive wide width grosgrain ribbon from Stampin Up.

The card base is Rose Red cardstock covered in a piece of Rose Red designer prints paper. The little sentiment "friend" is stamped in Graphite Black Brilliance ink and punched out with my SU oval punch. The stamp is from Gina K's "Free with Three" set this month titled "Tag You're It"

Better late than never

Oh man, I was so behind in my Prettie Girl weekly challenges. I didn't get around to completing my own challenge (um, three weeks ago eesh) or Charmaine's dry embossing challenge. So I sat down Sunday night to complete them both.

The first one I had to take care of was a layout challenge. I had my mind on the Ginger Blossom paper from SU and with a layout challenge, at least you have a jump start on the design. So this came together quickly!

A great excuse to ink up my Luke and Lexi Sealed with a Kiss set from Paper Pretties. I did leave this sentiment free so that it can be added on for the appropriate occasion, either Happy Anniversary or just a general love note!

The second card, was dry embossing, and I wanted to create a card using my new Daisyboardabella from Stamping Bella.

I was inspired to crank this card out after a daytrip skiing with my husband. I ski, not snowboard, and don't look anywhere near this cute on the slopes, but we did have a wonderful trip!

I was just glad that I didn't have a yardsale on the slopes, which after 10 years off the slopes I was pretty excited about. (If you're not familiar with the term, a "yard sale" is when you fall and scatter skis and poles all over the slopes!!)

Be sure to check out the other Prettie Girl blogs (You can find links on the right...) on this Prettie Wednesday to see what the other girls have come up with!

Okay, who's getting hitched? Honestly....

Sometimes I don't have a specific occasion when I sit down to make a card, just an itch to see what I can create with a certain set. This was one of those occasions. So, now will someone go and get engaged so I can give this card out? LOL!



This image is from Gina K's Heartfelt Hits stamp set and I stamped it with Brilliance Graphite Black. I just love the elegance of this couple.



I used Copic BG10 Cool Shadow to color in the dress, and added a soft shadow all around the edge of the couple with my Warm Grey copic marker. The dress was given some glimmer with a light coat of dazzling diamonds.



I picked this design from the Soft Sky designer prints paper collection as the pattern reminded me of twinkly stars. The matting is in Basic Grey cardstock and I used my white taffeta ribbon from Stampin Up.


I'll just tuck this away into my stash, because soon enough the occasion will present itself and I'll be so happy I have this pretty card ready and waiting!

Prettie Time!

Tonight, Look Who's Perky will be released over at Paper Pretties. I showed you a sample from that set on Friday and here's a hint. The copic marker I used is from Paper Pretties and it coordinates beautifully with Soft Sky from SU (which as you know, I use all the time!!)

If you love that color as much as I do, you should head on over to Paper Pretties tonight and pick up BG10 Cool Shadow along with your new Look Who's Perky which will be in with the Paper Pretties Clear Art Stamps.

Is it Spring YET?

I'm sure by now, you've seen the new Bling and Dazzle from Gina K Designs. What a fun accent to add to your papercrafting!


This product is a sliding tag that you can stamp directly on, cover with paper, or dye with Copic Markers! Rather than dye this one though, I decided to stamp directly onto the tag with my Brilliance Ink. (Psst. You'll need to quickly heat set it for it to dry.)


The image was stamped on Shimmery White and then colored with my copic markers. I'm loving getting to practice with these markers and this set Baskets of Happiness is the perfect opportunity to play. Although its rainy, cold and blah here in Boston, I can wish for spring can't I?

So much to see....

I thought I had prepared myself for just how big CHA would be. After all, I've worked tradeshows before, and I had some perspective on just how enormous these convention centers are. As much as I loathe "practical shoes" I tucked a pair in there and prepared myself for a lot of walking. (Thank goodness because I needed them!!)

But there was just SO much eye candy. And every time we thought we'd reached the end of the exhibits, there was yet another room chock full of vendors. Here's just a few of the things I took pictures of, but honestly, most times, I just walked through and gawked at all the amazing new things that will soon be making their way into all your favorite stores.

Julie Masse mentioned on her blog yesterday how much we all loved October Afternoon - you can see pictures of us working on the project on Jules' blog. The ladies in the booth were SO nice, the product was gorgeous and we had fun making this cute little make and take. It is a mini album made out of circle punches. So cute. I tucked mine onto my lanyard and wore it all week.

My very favorite Make and Take that we made was from Stampendous. We waited forever to make this little mini clipboard. (the stampers ahead of us were v-e-r-y slow workers) my feet were so tired at this point, that I actually sat down on the floor to wait amidst all teh walking traffic. But these boards were SO cute that it was worth the wait. This is the largest of the three clipboards they were showing. I'm going to add a magnet to this and hang it on my fridge. Too cute!

On our last day, we finally found the Spellbinders booth - it was way on the opposite side from where we had started. While in the booth, I was drooling over this gorgeous project featuring new tags - I just love these slides.

We were lucky enough to run into Debbie Olson at lunch and were chatting about all the beautiful things we'd seen. Turns out she designed the tags for Spellbinders and it was her project! I should have known because it is totally stunning! Here are two upclose pictures of the tags. I'm telling you, these will be mine, I adore them.

We saw vendor after vendor after vendor of beautiful new papers. I can't believe I didn't take a single picture at Scenic Route, but I think it is because I was just gawking and was so in love with their booth it didn't occur to me. However, I loved all the new stuff coming out. You'll have to trust me on this one.

However, I do have a picture of this fun new paper from Cosmo Cricket "Cogsmo" that I know my boys will get a kick out of. (Basic Grey also has a fun dinosaur line of paper that will be fun for all my projects for my two little guys...)

And Crate Paper's Blue Hill line that is just so elegant and so girly. I'll love using that.

Can't wait till all this stuff is in stores, because it was torture to see it all and not be able to bring any of it home.....

Have a great day everyone!

Hey Sugar!

Remember when I said I wasn't sure if I'd have time to stamp this weekend. Well, the baby took a cooperative nap, which meant that I had time to crank out some Prettie Love for you all!

This is a sneak peek of the upcoming release "Look Who's Perky" from Paper Pretties. While the set has lots of fun sentiments included (you'll have to wait till Monday, or see what info you can gather from the other girls posts....) I really wanted to write "Sweet On You" with this little sugar jar.

Lucky for me, I have the now retired Karen Foster Snap Stamps. Those things are SO handy, I can not believe they retired them!!

Phew, thank goodness for quick cards so now I can clean up around here!

Prettie Friday - Pretty Crazy for me.....

I'm actually out of the house today and all day Saturday as we're having two rooms in our house painted and I've got to keep the little ones out of the way.

Paper Pretties will be launching a new set on Monday, and I'm hoping to have a new card featuring the set on Monday -- we'll have to see how this painting thing goes.... all the furniture toys and appliances are stacked in my dining room and will need to be relocated... so I'm not sure I'll get any stamping in this weekend.

Till then, be sure to check over at Paper Pretties where Christie has already posted a sneek peak! The Prettie Girls will be posting cards throughout the weekend. (see links to the right.....)

So my Prettie Post today is featuring another card from Paper Pretties Stampin In Your Jammies this past Monday night. Usually I'm stamping along at home, this time, I was posting from the airport while I waited for my flight home from LAX.


This card uses the Lilly Kate paper from Basic Grey and MFT's Say Charge set (both are available at the Paper Pretties Boutique)

Don't forget, if you've already purchased Paper Pretties Clear Art Stamps you have until the 17th to submit your entry for the Cutie Pie Contest.

For the guys....

Mom, Mary Jane, Mrs Noonan and any aunts that may be reading this blog. Avert your eyes. You have been given fair warning. I mean it. Stop reading the post now!!! (wink)

Okay, have you heeded the warning?

-------------------------------------

My husband is not generally a fan of my stamping. I don't mean he doesn't like the work that I do, he just doesn't exactly care for the admittedly excessive amount of time that I spend staming. However, that being said, I think he'll get a laugh and a half out of this card.

This is the "Dr Feelgood" stamp set that was illustrated by Carolyn King for Gina K Designs. The heart image was stamped with white craft ink then embossed with white embossing powder for a fun background. I stitched that piece together to a black piece of cardstock with my Janome Sew mini. Love that thing!!

The word window punch from SU was used for the sentiment and then I hand cut a mat to match out of black cardstock.

Dr Feelgood was colored with my Copic markers you'll see that I added a slight border to him with my light grey marker to help him pop up off the page.

Happy Valentines Day everyone!!

Sweets!

This is the other Valentines Project I mentioned last week with the MFT Be Mine Set that I received from Paper Pretties.

This uses the Designer Paper and brads which were included in our card kit as well as the stamps from the kit. I added some American Crafts ribbon, some nesties and colored with my Prismacolor pencils.

I couldn't share it with you before now as it was a project that I had put together for the Pretties to make in person while we were in California.

The heart is stamped with Poppy Brilliance ink and then placed on my SU scalloped circle with some circle mats.

You know I love those target mailboxes. If you hoard them like me, you can quickly put together a little treat for your sweetie in time for tomorrow! Get stampin!

Easter and Beyond

When I recieved my new stamps from Gina K for the recent spring launch, I got goosebumps when I saw this beautiful verse. Honestly, I did.

I love the font used here, I love the size of this image and I knew immediatley I wanted it to be the focus of my first card using He is Risen.

I really wanted the sentiment to speak for itself, so I picked the muted swirl design from Stampin Up's So Saffron Designer Prints paper and stamped the sentiment on Watercolor Paper. Not to actually watercolor, I just wanted the warm texture of that paper.

A quick whirl on my Janome Sew Mini and then distressed the saffron mat. Nothing more was needed than a length of Very Vanilla wide width grosgrain ribbon.

In addition to being useful for Easter cards, I'm going to spend a night making a stash of these to have at the ready for a heartfelt sympathy card.

Goin Home!!!!

I loved meeting the Pretties in person for the first time, and of course, seeing all the new goodies that will be coming to a store near you soon, as well as meeting so many people from the stamping/blogging community in person.....

However, what I really was wanting to see was my three boys (my husband and two sons!!!) So, I'm hopping an early flight and spending tomorrow playing with my guys rather than spending it on a flight.

While I waited, I jumped in on the Paper Pretties Stampin In Your Jammies party over on the Paper Pretties Forum.

Tonight's color challenge tonight was light pink, chocolate and ivory. I had my cards done in advance this time as well, I'm in California!!

Okay just a quick post as I'm off to pre-write some posts for the next few days as I'm going to be making up for lost time with the boys. No emailing, stamping or bloggging for me for the next few days. I'll see what I can "scrounge up" from projects I haven't shared yet, but all I plan to do for the next several days is play, snuggle, sleep and play! My dogs are barkin! You can't even BELIEVE how much floor we covered the last few days!!!

Binding it All!!

Now that I've finally delivered these to Christie, Julie and Jillian I can finally share them with all of you! Christie had the Bind It Alls in stock before Christmas and I just couldn't resist. I wanted one so badly. So, I volunteered to make journals for us for our trip.

However, I'll admit, I was afraid to use it. So, I'm here to show you just how easy it is! Nothing to be afraid of!!

For this project, I used the covers from Zuter, but I purchased ivory cardstock from Staples and trimmed it to size with my Carl Cutter. I had a lot of work to do, and I wanted a lot of pages in each journal,so I decided it was more cost effective to just cut the paper myself. Note: I wouldn't even consider this without my carl cutter!


Honestly, the hardest part of this proejct, was decorating the covers. Once that was done, assembly was a snap!





The directions said to mesure the halfway point of the paper to line it up with the center notch. Measure? Blah! What's easier, just fold one piece in half and use that as a guide.


I lined up the paper set by set and punched the holes for the binding. And voila perfectly placed holes. (just had to repeat a few times since I was making a BUNCH of books)




Then I did the same for the covers, again using that folded piece of paper for a guide and pulled down the lever.










Once all the pages and covers were cut, I began the binding process. You rotate the last page around to the front and insert the binding through the holes, and clip the extra with a pair of tweezers (I bought the tool kit..) You want to make sure that the hinged part is up against the back cover so that when it is assembled, the closure is on the inside back cover.



The binding is inserted into this channel on the front of the machine and with another pull of the lever, the binding is closed up.

As you can see, the closure is now in its proper place on the back inside cover.






If you've purchased one and haven't used it yet, then give it a go! If you've been thinking about buying one, I'll just say that it made this project so super easy! And, I already have a few ideas for more once I'm home from CHA!

Flower Filled!!

Tonight was the launch of Gina K's new spring sets. Sniff sniff, I missed the launch party - this time change thing has me all a mess! We also went to hear Suze Orman speak which was so great by the way.



In any case, I had my fingers crossed that they would arrive before I left for CHA and I seriously jumped for joy when I looked outside and saw that my box had arrived. I had already made a special trip to my LSS to pick up some paper in advance. It the new line of, you guessed it, Scenic Route paper called Lynden.

This set titled Baskets of Happiness is SO fun to color with my copics. The image is stamped on Shimmery White with Brilliance Chocolate Pearlescent ink.


I left lots of open room here to give some shadow on the flowers and then deepened one side of every petal for shadowing. One side of the flower pot was lightened up using my colorless blender pen. I'm totally a stalker over at the copic booth here at CHA!!!


I'll be back tomorrow with another card from the launch tomorrow, but be sure to swing by Gina K's store to see the new stamp sets, and the new embellies that she's just released!

We're Here!

We've been waiting for this trip forever! And I can't believe its finally here!

Charmaine and Jana, we're missing you and will have lots to share once we're home! Jillian is somewhere on the road between San Francisco and LA!

We've had some classes today, and an amazing demonstration by Copic this afternoon. We're headed out for a shopping trip with the girls from MFT and then dinner tonight.

Tomorrow we're walking the floor all day to soak it all in. I can't wait to see what is hiding behind those closed doors! We've been perusing the show guide and it is amazing and totally overwhelming at once. We'd better get some sleep and put on some good walking shoes.

Its been fun to meet so many people that I feel like I already "know" a litle through reading blogs.

Back later....

Enjoy the Moment

I'm still very very close to a group of girls I went to college with and we have children all about the same age. We're fortunate to all live very close and despite our crazy lives, we still get together pretty frequently. Okay, maybe not as often as we'd like...but when we're together, not a thing has changed.

Today, the first of us turns thirty five, sigh. I still remember very clearly when we were all turning 21!!

Happy Birthday Kristin!! Kristin happens to be the most fabulous baker ever, her treats are super yummy, so I borrowed this Cupcakeabella from my friend Kristyn and got stampin.

The sentiment reads "Enjoy the Moment." Rather than focusing on the number this year (which none of us are too excited about) we should all celebrate how wonderful life is for each of us, blessed with amazing husbands, bright, beautiful, healthy children and loving family and friends. Rather than dread the number, I want to enjoy the moment.

I love this sentiment from Paper Trey ink and I see myself using it a lot this year.

Now, off to Enjoy the Show! This morning I have a CHA class and a copic demonstration where I hope to hunker down and soak it all in!