Cardinal Banner

My grandmother loves all sorts of winter birds -- cardinals and chickadees in particular, I believe. So when I won a stamp with cardinals and chickadees on it from Great Impressions, I knew eventually I'd make something for her with it.

Well, Wednesday was her birthday, so a few days ago I finally got around to inking up that stamp, and made her a birthday card. I kept it pretty simple, just a banner with the birds and "Happy Birthday" stamped a couple of times in watermark/embossing ink. I did put some red embossing powder on the final Happy Birthday, but it turned out to be translucent, so it mostly looks brown.

Since the card is red and brown, brown seemed perfectly acceptable.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

• Use it Tuesday Challenge #44: Ink It Up... Finally (this is the first time I've inked up the winter birds stamp)
• Shopping Our Stash Challenge 79: Odds and Ends and/or Waiting to be Used (the winter birds stamp was waiting to be used, as was the watermark ink)
• The Stamp Man: Emboss It (the birds and the final Happy Birthday are heat embossed)
• Pile It On #48: Anything But a Christmas Card (birthday card!)
• Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes

Supplies:

Bookmarks LIII: Dryad Rudy

Originally, Christmas Pixie Rudy here had a bright red paper-pieced nose. Then I checked to see how securely it was glued down, and spang! Somewhere, there is a little red nose. But it is not on Rudy.

So now Rudy's doing a study abroad program with the forest dryads, a.k.a. is completely green. At least I've given him a Christmas-y background!

Rudy himself is a scrap -- an example stamped onto a scrap. The green strip is also a scrap, cut away from a larger piece of dry-embossed paper. The red background isn't, but I'm still pretty happy with the scrap-to-new-paper use on this -- two out of three isn't bad, hey?

I'm entering this bookmark into the following challenges:

• The Crafty Bloggers Network: Christmas Anything Goes (Christmas pixie, Christmas colors)
• S J Crafts Challenge 11: Christmas
• Whimsy Stamps Challenge 53: Use Traditional Christmas Colors
• WOW! Embossing Powder Challenge: Christmas (it isn't WOW! powder, but there's plenty of heat embossing here on both Rudy and the stars)
• The Stamp Man: Emboss It (both Rudy and the stars are heat embossed)
• Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes

Supplies: (I don't know what the plain green paper or the embossing plate I used on it are; I did it over at a friend's place.)

Bookmarks LII: Seven-Pointed Snowflakes

The inspiration for this bookmark was very simple. "Hey," I said to myself, "I should use this snowflake stamp." And the bookmark turned out to be a pretty simple thing too, which actually seems just right for snow.

I didn't do a terribly good job stamping evenly, but I like it anyway. I wish I'd bothered to count the spokes on the snowflakes before I bought the stamp, though... these are all wrong! Two of them have seven points and one has five, but real snowflakes have exactly six spokes.

Not that this makes these snowflakes any less pretty, so I don't think I ought to be disturbed about it. Real snowflakes aren't this big, either, and that doesn't bother me a bit.

I am entering this ice-blue bookmark in the following challenges:

• Bunny Zoe's Crafts: Winter
• Addicted to CAS Challenge #1: Snow
• Ladybug Crafts Ink: Snowflakes
• SweetStamps Challenge #93: Cold & Snowy (not a SweetStamps stamp, alas)
• Victorine Originals Challenge #48: Blue and White (a fairly turquoise-y blue, I admit)
• Ladybug Crafts Challenge 3: Monochrome/Tonal (heck, it's so monochrome it even matches my blog!)
• One Crazy Stamper: Anything Goes
• Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes

Supplies:

Bookmarks LI: Mod Cats

This project sat almost-completed on my desk for nearly a month, I think. I can't even remember why -- it was certainly very easy to assemble once I rescued it from the bottom of a scrap pile.

I'm not terribly happy with the tiny orange cat on the top square bit -- mostly because it's very hard to see that it's a tiny orange cat! I think the fault is in my color choice rather than the stamp, though, and I definitely like the bookmark as a whole.

I'm entering this cat-and-mouse bookmark into the following challenges:

• Southern Girls Challenge #58: Use Pink and Brown (sure, there's some orange too, but it's mostly pink and brown)
• Rogue Redhead Rebel Challenge 17: UnCard (it's a bookmark!)
• Joanna Sheen Challenge: Anything Goes Excluding Christmas
• One Crazy Stamper: Anything Goes
• Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes

Supplies:

Saturday State of the Stash #8: Paper Storage!

You might have noticed, but it's not Saturday anymore. Thursday is not very much like Saturday at all. Nevertheless, I present a couple of last week's acquisitions, all from one order at Scrapbooking Warehouse.

My little cat's eye inkpads are running down, especially the ones I use most commonly -- unsurprisingly, all from the Basics queue. So I got some reinkers. I skipped the white because it's still too juicy, and the "bronze" wasn't available.

Reinking the little cat's eye pads is fun! I'm not sure that it should be, or that it would be on a larger surface, but it is. I determined to figure out which other inkpads I needed ink for, so that I could do more reinking. But I got distracted while taking all the queues apart, and instead of testing them I reassembled them into a giant rainbow:

Who am I kidding? I might as well just buy whatever inkers I can find at good prices, since at this point it seems fairly clear I'll need them eventually. And since this weekend was Black Friday / Cyber Monday / Big Sales Time, here's a spoiler for (hopefully) the next State of the Stash: oh boy did I buy reinkers.

The other thing I got from Scrapbooking Warehouse was some of the new "Page Arrangers" by Cropper Hopper. They come in packs of two, and each one has a big 12"x12" pocket and three smaller pockets. All the pockets, not just the 12"x12", are accordian-folded for expansion.

I didn't get them to arrange pages. I got them to store paper -- all those pocket sizes seemed great for storing all sizes of scraps!

I'm not sure it's a perfect solution. But it's better than one overstuffed box or piles on my worksurface, that's for sure! And it keeps all sizes of the same color together, which I wanted.

Scrapbooking Warehouse Haul:

Bookmarks L: Retro Blooms

Fifty bookmarks, that's what the "L" in the title means. Well, a few more, because some are pairs or triples. That's a lot of bookmarks. It's still way fewer bookmarks than I've got books, though.

There's nothing particularly 50-ish about this bookmark, except perhaps the colors. I don't really have a good grasp on popular color combos from sixty years ago, but certainly the turquoise seems about right...

But that wasn't the inspiration for this bookmark. It was very simple: I had some new paper. I had a highly unseasonal stamp set. And after some mix-and-matching of the papers to get two that worked together, I had this bookmark. I like how the froggie is slotted on top of the sign -- it seems much more dynamic than simply putting the two pieces of paper next to each other.

I suppose it's somewhere around late spring in the Southern Hemisphere right now, so hey! It's not unseasonal for everyone.

I'm entering this seasonal-depending-on-your-hemisphere bookmark into the following challenges:

• Deep Ocean Challenge #39: Pastel Colors (okay, not the brown, but most of 'em)
• Natalie and Amy's Challenge: Color Me Happy (use your favorite color combo) (at the moment I seem to be pretty into pairing brown with various bluish colors... here it's turquoise!)
• Timeless Tuesday #196: A Project That Makes You Feel Happy (look at that frog, I think he would make anyone feel happy!)
• Divas by Design Challenge 62: Use 2 or More Patterned Papers (Two papers: the flowery background and the brown spotted circle.)
• One Crazy Stamper: Anything Goes

Supplies: (the tape is some of Target's printed paper tape)

Bookmarks XLIX: Jill Sparrow

At first I was going to paper-piece my little pirate girl, but then I got intimidated by all the cutting. Instead, I decided to try my hand at something else: coloring with Copics.

Now, I have no illusions about my skill at shading and blending at all: my coloring abilities are at "Level One: Can Stay Inside The Lines," and I'm actually pretty okay with that.

Also, I own a total of four Copics. You see, I bought them to edge paper terrain, so I have a grey one for stone, a brown one for dirt and wood, a green one for foliage, and a light blue one for water. It's a very sophisticated collection.

I love the little eyepatch I made, too! It was Krisha's idea several weeks ago when I asked for idea help on a WOYWW post, and I loved it immediately. I thought the bookmark needed just a little something more than Captain Jackie Sparrow there.

(Well really, look at that hairstyle and bandana and hat; it's a miracle she's not wearing heavy eyeliner as well, I think.)

I wanted to find my copy of Swiss Family Robinson to photograph the bookmark on, but I couldn't. So I've used Pippi in the South Seas (a Pippi Longstocking book), which fits rather well. (Unfortunately while reading through it I've realized that the story of Pippi's big fat white man father ruling a South Seas tribe of stereotypes is just a tiny bit racist. Bother.)

I'm entering this pirate-y bookmark in the following challenges:

• Cute Card Thursday: Girls Only (I'm so pleased to enter something so very not-pink-and-frilly into a girly challenge, I think the entries get a bit stereotypic a lot of the time...)
• Rogue Redhead Rebel Challenge 17: UnCard (it's a bookmark!)
• Dream Valley Challenge 45: Anything Goes
• The Artistic Stamper Creative Team: Anything Goes
• One Crazy Stamper: Anything Goes

Supplies:

WOYWW #181: Absolutely Nothing

Zip. Zilch. Nada. There is absolutely nothing on my worktable.

Okay, probably some stray grains of embossing powder.

Now, I know you regular WOYWWers. You think you've got me. You think I've piled everything on the floor!

Well, there is some stuff on the floor, but it's not mine. It's a project of my boyfriend's: there was an incident involving a curb and our wheelwell lining, and he's sewn the lining back together with strong fishing line and is busy covering the joins with Sugru.

I don't know if I've mentioned it, but my boyfriend is pretty awesome, yes?

It is actually due to the wheelwell project that the table is clear, though: the table was called into service as a photo surface for pictures. My boyfriend also has a project-y blog, you see. He's a bit too busy to be writing posts at the moment, but he does take pictures so that he can write up projects later.

But all my stuff is neatly -- well, okay, mostly neatly -- stashed on the shelves where it belongs.

The poor table looks so bare and lonely. Don't worry, I'll soon have it covered in bits and bobs again.

Turquoise Treetop

I am really terrible at writing and sending thank-you notes or cards. Witness: My birthday is in September. I have only just sent a thank-you card to my grandmother for her present! But I made the card, so maybe she will be charmed anyway?

I had the hardest time getting the image to really show up; the thin gold embossing just disappears at some angles. First I tried lightly rubbing some ink over the image -- you can see it if you look hard -- which helped a bit, but not enough. I brainstormed ideas with my boyfriend for a while, and finally decided to try coloring bits in. It's still not perfect but at least you can tell there's an image there!

I made a (slightly wonky) envelope too, but I was apparently not paying attention to focusing when I took pictures of it. Oh well, I'm sure you've all seen envelopes before!

I'm entering this belated card in the following challenges:

• Simon Says Stamp and Show: Thank You
• Sweet Stamps Challenge #92: Thank You
• Creative Inspirations Paints: Inspired by Thankful for You
• Wags 'n Whiskers Challenge 92: Be Thankful
• Simon Says Stamp: Thanksgiving/Thank You (definitely "Thank You" rather than Thanksgiving...)
• One Stop Craft Challenge 205: Monochrome Tones (turquoise)
• Totally Gorjuss Challenge 158: Plain and Simple
• Charisma Cardz Challenge #45: Keep Your Cool (turquoise is definitely a cool color)

Supplies: (the "merci" stamp is from Lawn Fawn)

The Ducky Tie Edition

So I sent my sister her birthday present. Hey, less than two months late! We're not very good at getting each other presents in a timely fashion...

Anyway, the present was Season 7 of How I Met Your Mother, a fairly funny TV show. No doubt I will help her watch it when I next see her; I like it too. The tagline on the DVD case was "The Ducky Tie Edition". Not yet having seen this season, I had to look up the reference -- shockingly, it refers to a tie. With duckies on it.

Well, "duckies on it" sounded like a fairly easy wrapping paper prompt. Does anyone know of any stamps in the classic rubber ducky shape? I keep running into the need for one but I can't find any. In this case, I improvised by masking the legs off a different duck. Most of the time, I even remembered to take the mask off the stamp before stamping... oops.

The ducky tie has a dark blue background, so I found the darkest blue I had and made a band out of it. I stamped my sister's name in white and embossed with yellow embossing powder; it definitely worked better than stamping in yellow would have, but I wish the color were a little softer. Oh well, it worked out acceptably.

The problem with wrapping a DVD case in a sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper is that it doesn't actually fully wrap. So neither the paper nor the band actually make it all the way around the DVD. I solved this problem in the classiest possible way: with tape.

Now that I've sent my package off, I'd like to enter the packaging in these challenges:

• SweetPea Stampers Challenge: Gifts (gift packaging)
• Rogue Redhead Rebel Challenge 17: UnCard (it's wrapping paper!)
• Dream Valley Challenge 45: Anything Goes

Supplies: (the tape is from Recollections / Michaels)

Saturday State of the Stash #6 & #7: Gifts from the Internet

Yes indeed, this Saturday's State of the Stash is actually last week's, too.

Last week, or two weeks ago, or whenever it was, I received two lovely presents from the Internet. Well, from real people, but via the Internet. You know how it is.

The first was an awesome card kit / stamp / card from the delightful and talented Amy of Sweet November stamps and A thousand sheets of paper. I won it as part of the latest Sweet November release -- and I won my favorite stamp of the release, so I was doubly happy!

Amy included some cards bases, and envelopes, and a lovely selection of patterned paper:

Plus all the bits and pieces one could wish for:

And of course, the star of the show, Pixie Rudy!

Pixie Rudy has briefly joined the Camouflage Corps. Unfortunately this paper was a big difficult to stamp on, especially as I haven't trimmed Rudy and don't have a stamp block big enough for him, so he's looking a bit fuzzy... but that's probably good in the Camouflage Corps!

To top it off, Amy included this marvelous card, the one she created for Rudy's release. It's really lovely, I don't know that I won't have to keep it...

Sweet November Candy:

The very next day there was another package in the mail! This one was from Great Impressions, with a couple of stamps I won on their blog hop together with Echo Park. They look quite useful, especially as my grandmother loves cardinals and I didn't have any cardinal stamps:

But my favorite thing about them? They're indexed. Indexed! And also trimmed! That moved Great Impressions right up my buy-from list, I can tell you.

Great Impressions Candy:

And now we move into this week. Now, technically I did not get any presents from the internet this week. But they were really quite fantastically priced (Scrapalicious USA is closing, and selling off their inventory), so they almost count.

I picked up some little Imaginisce stamps:

And I'm not sure I have a use for this one, but she just looked so darn happy about that star:

And books! Reading! It'll have to go on a horizontal bookmark, though:

Stampalicious Haul: Hah! It's still Saturday as I finish this up... I'll cheat and put in the product listing thingies later. Have any of you acquired anything interesting in the last few weeks?

WOYWW #179: The Growing Piles

There's not much to see today -- or rather, there's a lot of mess, but no projects-in-process. I think there might be one hiding just below the heat gun, but all I can see the is the background paper... which blends right into the slowly growing mound of scraps.

Oh, the piles... in the middle of the table is the result of "push back", and on the sides the result of "pile high". Really only the right side should be a problem, because all the plastic folders on the left side are part of my half-completed stamp storage. That is, I've had the stamps in the folders for weeks... I just need to get the folders into a box or something.

Likewise, the growing pile of scraps on the craft sheet ought to be organized as well. I have a plan for organizing my paper and scraps; I like my plan; I think my plan will work for me... and I keep not quite buying the organizers. I want to use Cropper Hopper's new Page Arranger thingies, because they have all sorts of pocket sizes and I can put all sorts of scrap sizes in them. But very few places are carrying them yet, and even though they look great I'd rather see one in person before I commit, you know?

Thank you all so much for your suggestions about how to add a bit to the pirate girl bookmark last week! The consensus seemed to be pretty focused on bling, but I think I'm going with the eyepatch idea -- it was brilliant! I do apologize for not reciprocating your visits -- and I'm afraid I will be absent the next few weeks as well. I very much appreciate your visits, and I'd love to go visit you in return, but I am very very busy right now with the real life side of things.

Saturday State of the Stash #5: Candy & Cardstock

I've got lots of stuff (yay!) and not much time today, so I'll try to keep this quick.

Earlier in the week, a little stamp order from rkfkitty on eBay arrived. More TPC Studio stamps -- I appear to be getting rid of temptation by simply buying everything that is tempting. I don't think that's how it's supposed to work... but these were great deals!

eBay rkfkitty mini-haul:

In the middle of October I was lucky enough to win a little blog candy from Heather at Goldiecar Designs. It appeared in my mailbox on Friday, and now I cannot get Christmas songs out of my head.

There were a bunch of Christmas stickers, dimensional and non-dimensional:

And some cute little spools of American Crafts ribbon -- I immediately tucked them away so my cat couldn't get at them. She's unhealthily obsessed with ribbon -- and not as a toy, as a meal...

Thanks again, goldiecar!

Candy from goldiecar: (what I could find links for, anyway)

And then, earlier today, I went to Hobby Lobby. We were in the area and I wanted to see if there were any good clearance deals.

Instead, I found ALL of their store-brand papercrafting stuff at 40% off. At least, I'm pretty sure that "the Paper Studio" and "Stampabilities" are Hobby Lobby brands -- no-where else sells them, anyway.

I got lots of border strip paper! See, it's perfect for bookmarks if you just chop it in half, so I love it. I got solid patterned cardstock -- it has lots of colors that the DCWV strips I have don't. I got pearlized cardstock -- I love the matstack of "glimmer" cardstock I have from DCWV, so this seemed like a good choice. And I got patterned adhesive paper, because hey, patterns. (It says paper, but either it's cardstock or the adhesive & backing are making it a perfectly useable weight to be a bookmark base.)

I also got a DCWV patterned strip stack, because it looked sad and lonely (seriously, it was falling apart). Also, as I may have mentioned, patterns.

I also got a couple of matstacks -- one store-brand with nice patterns and the DCWV Natural matstack with foil (for which I used my coupon). I'm kind of a sucker for copper, and that dang Natural matstack pushes all of those buttons. I go more often to Michaels and Joann, and was hoping to find it there, but Joann only had the matching plain matstack. Now it is mine, mwahahahaha!

I don't actually have any plans for it, evil or otherwise. It just seemed like the right place to write some scheming laughter.

Hobby Lobby haul:

I didn't do very well at keeping it quick. Oh well.

How 'bout you, did you make any exciting finds this week? I love to read haul posts and watch haul videos. And if you've been good and used up some scraps or something of that nature, thus shrinking your stash, that's awesome! Leave me some links?