Daisy Jar Duo

Here are two relatively simple cards that I made a few days ago with the daily jar. Now if I can only get my act together to get a few cards mailed...

Finished Card Size: 4 1/4 x 5 1/2
Stamps: Daisy Jar (Cornish Heritage). Vintage Photo Corner (Stampabilities), so grateful(Stampin Up)
Cardstock: Mustard (SU)
Other: Prismacolor Pencils, Notched Corner(SU)



Finished Card Size: 4 1/4 x 5 1/2
Stamps: Daisy Jar (Cornish Heritage).
DesignBlockBirthday and best day ever (Hero Arts)
Cardstock: Mustard (SU)
Other: Prismacolor Pencils, Notched Corner and Spiral Punches(SU),


Update on Computers...
I found out last night from my friend who is a computer expert that my computer is probably dead, for good. I feel like I need to have a moment of silence or something...

The kid's computer is well on it's way to recovery. It had viruses and stuff. I was able to remove everything but one and I now have new virus software. Whew!

Can you believe that Christmas is almost here? I feel like I should finish my teacher gifts this week. At least I have one done. Remember this? Card Pocket and set of cards.

We are deep in basketball season. Both boys had games today. It won't always be this busy on Saturdays. The Boy's games are usually on week night/afternoons. I remember Saturdays in the past where we had 3 basketball games and a cheerleading competition, so I'm not complaining... really.

I hope your weekend is productive and blessed with time to do whatever it is that you need to do. Cardmaking or shopping or cleaning.... Choose Joy! Jacki

Happy Monday!

You must have been praying for me! I feel back to my normal self today. I'm excited because I was prepared to be sick for few days or weeks. I did manage to take it easy the rest of last week. Friday I was able to resist the urge to go back to bed. I worked a little around the house over the weekend and got caught up on my Hero assignments too. And now suddenly I'm tired after reading all that I've done! LOL! Seriously, I'm thankful to God for answered prayer! And thankful to you for praying for me.

To celebrate I made a purple card this morning! As much as I love tulips, daisies always make me smile. This is still one of my favorite images. I colored several daisies over the weekend, so don't be surprised if you see more in the next few days.
This is a pretty simple design but I just may get fancy the next time around. :)

Finished Card Size: 5 1/2 x 4 1/4
Stamps: Daisy Jar and background (Cornish Heritage)
Cardstock: Purple and Mustard (SU)
Other: Prismacolor Pencils, Notched Corner(SU), Ribbon(American Crafts)

I'm going to be celebrating my 3 year anniversary of blogging in 3 days. Last year I had a give away. I'm not sure what I'm going to do this year.... Any suggestions?

Evidently, all my purpleness inspired Marcia. She posted a purple card on her blog today and mentioned me. Isn't purple just the happiest color? I'm always glad to share it!

Hop A Thon

This is my final entry for the Hop A Thon Contest which ends tonight. I've had this card half done for a few weeks now. I thought I would put it together before the contest ended.

The Stamp is Daisy Jar and Large Daisy Detail from Cat Dancing Designs/ Cornish Heritage Farms.

The saying is PSX. I bought this at ScrapFest at the Mall of America in 2004. I don't remember using it before.

This week has gone by fast! I only have a couple more days to enjoy with my girls. I'm headed to Michaels this afternoon to take a polymer clay class with my oldest daughter.

My friends go home today. We had a blast! I'm blessed.

My contest ends tomorrow evening at 8:00. I didn't specify the time, but realized that I cannot end it at midnight because my random number generator goes to bed at 8:30. So 8:00 it is. Get your comment in before then. Have a blessed day.

More Daisy Jars

What timing! I just happened to have been coloring the Daisy Jars for the last week or so and then this contest was posted. So here are my entries for the Hop-a-thon . If you haven't figured it out already, this is my favorite stamp from Cat Dancing Designs at Cornish Heritage Farms.

About Michaels: I have two participants already signed up for my Cheaper by the Dozen class tomorrow! Yeah. I was told today that there is a store employee also interested in taking the class, so I'll prepare for three in case she does sign up.

To answer Staci's question from a couple of posts ago: Yes, they pay me to prepare for the classes, with the exception of the computer work I did at home. Maybe if I get a laptop for Christmas, I could take it to work and sit and design my class materials. Other than that, I go in clock in and make samples or play with new products and get paid. Cool isn't it.

Card Making Rut: I think I've come up with two secrets to getting me out of my card making rut-- a new template (I've been making a lot of gate fold cards) and new rubber. I've been on a new stamp 'fast' for the last couple of months and I recently purchased some stamps from smARTworks. I'm working on a couple of cards with my new stamps for later this week.

Red Poppies

I just laughed as I looked at this picture. I have a "floating" flower. I'm thinking about other card makers who have mentioned that they don't like to have floating flowers or people. Evidently it didn't bother me when I made this card, but now all of a sudden it does! Oh well, I'm not going back to fix it, but I'll bet that I think about it next time I use this stamp.

I hope your day is blessed!

Finished Card Size: 5.5 x 4.25
Stamps: Swirl (Inkadinkado), Poppies (Cornish Heritage Farms)
Card stock: Various ,White card(Georgia Pacific)
Ink:Brilliance Graphite Black( Tsukenko), Fresco Medici Marble (Stampa Rosa)
Coloring Medium: Prismacolor Pencils
Other: Notched Corner(SU)

Periwinkle Poppies

Finished Card Size: 5 1/2 x 4 1/4
Stamps: : I hope you're feeling better (Stampabilities),Poppies (Cornish Heritage),
Printed Paper: Vineyard Jersey Stripe and Vineyard Flowers (Heidi Grace) still my favorite!Ink: Brilliance Victorian Violet and Graphite Black (Tsukenko)
Coloring Medium:Prismacolor Pencils
Other: Ribbon, Tag Corner Punch
This card is for my sil. Her surgery is today.

Finally, there's light...
Resolved:
Today is the first day of school. All three were early this morning. Whew. Remember, the last time I blogged, I decided that Monday was going to be a better day? Well, it didn't start off that way. I found out that there would be yet another delay in both the Driver's license and phone company/electrician sagas. I was so frustrated, because I wanted the kids to get the school year off to a good start. Have you ever been so down that it is even hard to read your Bible or pray?? That's where I was Monday morning. I sat down at my computer playing a game to distract me and to help me think. I think this when I had my second breakdown (yes, I am human). As I sat at the computer, my daughter brought me the mail. There was a very encouraging card in the mail from a sister in Christ (Thanks, Trish). Somehow that reminder that there were others out there praying for me gave me just the amount of strength I needed. I decided to just go to the county school board and convince (beg) them to register them w/o the tag receipt. The lady at check in said nonchalantly,"Oh they give you 30 days to get that". (Argh) I didn't know whether to be happy, or go and hunt down the girl that caused all this stress by telling me I would not be able to register w/o the tag receipt. I decided to wait and save the hunt for another day. I waited over three hours for my turn, but all went well.
I ran into a friend because of all this. We used to be in the same Sunday school class years ago in another town in GA. She was one of the workers who was pulled out of her office to help with registration because of the volume of folks waiting to register their kids. I may not have run into her if I had been there on that day.

Well, my time is up for the day. There is so much to tell... Thanks for the comments and emails.

Canned Coneflowers

Stamps: Canned Coneflowers(Cornish Heritage)
Printed Paper: Pallet O Prints (SU)
Cardstock: More Mustard (SU), White card(Georgia Pacific)
Ink:Brilliance Graphite Black( Tsukenko)
Coloring Medium:Prismacolor watercolor Pencils
Other:Corner Punches Ticket and Notched Corner(SU)


Thanks for your encouragement and prayers. Hopefully, my husband will be able to leave work early enough today to take care of getting the car tags ( Trish, Believe me, I asked. The response was that if you don't have a car, you don't have to provide a receipt, but if you do own a car....) I don't think it is this way for the whole state, but it is in this county. Monday is open house for the schools in the county. I am hoping that if husband can leave work and we get everything else done today, I can sit over at the county school board's office on Monday and at least get them registered in time for open house. School starts Wednesday morning. The other complication about this county new student registration is at a central location, and not handled by the individual schools. So I have to go and wait with people registering kids for all the 20 or so schools in the county. I'll take something with me to color or read. Husband thinks they are so strict because of all the new people that arrived after the Katrina disaster. BUT, we are in the home stretch now.

I did call the phone company and ordered phone service and DSL. If all that goes as planned, we will have DSL sometime early next week, and a phone today. I'm not getting my hopes up just yet.

In other news(good news):

• I went to Michaels to get a job. I had a nice conversation with the Events Coordinator. I have to go back and meet the Manager and do the employee testing and then we can get started.
• We also have a nice church in this community to go to. We plan to go to Sunday School this week and hopefully start meeting the church people.

Prayer Request: During this transistion time for us, my SIL was diagoned with breast cancer. She will have surgery next week. Please pray for her??

Thanks for checking on me. This will be back to normal soon. I hope!

Best Buds

that makes us BEST BUDS!! The saying is a Hambo stamp. I inked up the top half of the saying for the outside and the bottom half(not shown) on the inside.

You can tell I really like this daisy jar stamp. I watercolored this one the same day as the others that I've shown a while back.

Finished Card Size: 5 1/2 x 4 1/4
Stamps: Daisy Jar (Cornish Heritage) , Best Buds(Hambo Stamps)
Printed Paper: Pallet O Prints (SU)
Cardstock: Black(Provo Craft), White card(Georgia Pacific)
Ink:Brilliance Graphite Black( Tsukenko)
Other: Prismacolor watercolor Pencils, Notched Corner(SU)

We've been busy visiting with friends this week in the midst of packing what's going with us and and finalizing everything else to be packed by the movers. They arrive Monday first thing in the morning. We haven't talked about what we are going to do with the computer, so I don't know how much I will be online after Monday. I'm getting my room ready today which means no more stamping, theoretically. I'm rubberbanding the ink pads and markers. All the stamps will be put away in the drawers (for a change). Back to work for me...

Poppies

Good Morning! I think I am going to take the morning off from everything. I wish it were raining, so that it would feel more like a morning to sleep in. Sleeping in for me doesn't really mean sleeping in, I still have to get up with the kids. We are definitely in the home stretch now. There are only three more days of school counting today. We have one more major thing to conquer before the big move. ...and then there are all the little things that pop up, and oh by the way the kids will be here all day too.... So I decided to give my self the morning off, while I still can. Oh shoot, I can't do that! I just remembered something ...

Let me tell you about this card before I go. I frequently make cards that can be used as is, or a sentiment can be added later if necessary. This is one of those.

Here is another card made with Asela's stamps from the Cat Dancing Design line of Cornish Heritage Farms Stamps.

Stamps: Poppies (Cornish Heritage) ,

Printed Paper: Pallet O Prints (SU)

Cardstock: Purple(Marco Paper),White card(Georgia Pacific)

Ink:Brilliance Graphite Black( Tsukenko)

Other: Prismacolor Pencils, Ribbon, Ticket Corner(SU)

More Daisy Jar cards

Good Sunday to you! The parties are over, the company is gone :(. Another busy week, but somewhat less busy than the last two.

Here are a couple cards made with a new favorite stamp.


Daisy Jar Happy Birthday

My Prismacolor pencils told me they needed a break, so I broke out the watercolor pencils for this one. The colors don't show up too good in this picture. I abandoned watercoloring a while ago, so I need lots of practice. I'll take my wc pencils with me on the move and I should have plenty of practice time before I totally unpack my new office. I will definitely paint the walls and the probably floor too before I unpack. The room was designed as a possible storage room so the floor is going to be concrete. I think I'm going to paint it and use throw rugs.

Stamps: Daisy Jar (Cornish Heritage) , happy birthday(Stampola)
Printed Paper: Pallet O Prints (SU)
Cardstock: Cranberry (Provo Craft), White card(Georgia Pacific)
Ink:Brilliance Graphite Black( Tsukenko)
Other: Prismacolor Pencils, Ribbon, Word Window Punch(SU), Ticket Corner(SU), Notched Corner(SU), Mini Flower( All Night Media)



Any Occasion Daisy Jar
Stamps: Daisy Jar (Cornish Heritage), Swirls (Hero Arts)
Cardstock:Cool Caribbean (SU), Purple (I don't remember) Black(Memories Forever)White card(Georgia Pacific)
Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black( Tsukenko) Other: Prismacolor Pencils, Ribbon, Ticket corner Punch(SU)

Sweet Bouquet

I really like this saying and although I know I had this stamp for several years, I don't remember ever using it. I'm thinking about sending this as a graduation card for a college grad that I've known since she was born. A little unconventional, but how many graduation cap cards does one need??
This is another card from my coloring day last week. The image is stamped on brown and colored with the Prismacolor pencils. For the flowers, I put a "base coat" of white pencil and then added the color on top.

Stamps: Daisy Jar (Cornish Heritage)Simple Bouquet(Hero Arts)
Printed Paper: Pallet O Prints (SU)
Cardstock:Brown is Chocolate Chip (SU) White card(Georgia Pacific)
Ink: White Pigment (SU) Brilliance Graphite Black( Tsukenko)
Other: Prismacolor Pencils, Ribbon

Another Offspring?

The Recycled?

I don't know what to call this card. It is a good result of last weekend's fiasco with the "Ugly" card. The Good the Bad and the Ugly. It was really unfair of me to call that card ugly. It wasn't ugly, but it just wasn't working for me. I was frustrated because I spent a lot of time trying to make it work before I gave up on it and took it apart.

I used the main image with a different color scheme as a fix. I used that unwanted background to create this monochromatic birthday card.

Stamps: Happy Birthday (Serendipity Stamps)

Printed Paper: SU Pallet O Prints

Cardstock: Green Textured (Bazzill Monochromatic),White (Georgia Pacific)

Ink: SU Certainly Celery

Other: Corner Punches, Prima Flowers, Bazzill Buttons

The Original

The Fix

Add in a little Brown...

I've been on this Brown kick all year. I think I've used it with every color in the rainbow and I love it with all the combinations. My daughter wants to know what took me so long. Her favorite color has been brown for years... Who knew??

Stamps: Daisy Jar from Cornish Heritage, Happy Birthday to You
Printed Paper: SU Pallet O Prints,
Cardstock:Brown is Chocolate Chip from SU. White Georgia Pacific Cranberry is Provo Craft
Ink: Memories White dye and SU white craft, Brilliance Graphite Black
Other: Prismacolor Pencils, Spiral Punch from SU



Just a quick post today. I have too much going on to stop and talk about it. Only 6 days to Graduation.

Black Eyed Susan Duo

Here are two more cards made over the weekend. The main image is the Single Black Eyed Susan.

I colored it to look more like a daisy. Thsi first one was another failed attemp at that Challenge I mentioned yesterday. Actually, I think I made this one first. The Joy stamp here is a Eureka Stamp. The Green paper is from the Stampin Up's Pallet O' Prints sample pack. I colored the flower centers with Prismacolor pencils and water color pencils for the background.


This one was just colored with Prismacolors and matted on the Au Chocolate SU paper and Chocolate Chip cardstock. This Joy stamp is from The Stamping Studio.

The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly

I haven't been blogging much this holiday weekend, because I've been busy making cards ! On Saturday, I spent a good deal of time coloring the new images from Cornish Heritage Farms. Sunday evening was spent assembling cards. At one point I realized it was time to give up and go to bed when I made an inside out card and an ugly card. The main image in all these card is Single Cone Flower ( Cat Dancing Designs/Cornish Heritage Farms).

Here is The Bad or "my bad" from the title of this post. I print my signature and contact info on the back of my cards. I guess I picked this one up when I was exhausted and turned it inside out.


The Good:

But before that happened I managed to crank out a couple that I did like. This one started out to satisfy this Thursday Throwdown Challenge I read about on Stamping When I Can.
I tried twice with this sketch and couldn't quite follow the directions. I couldn't bear to cover up all the coloring I did. I have one more background stamped to try the challenge. I think I'll temporarily place the piece that will go over the colored background and not color the areas that will be covered up. I'll let you know if that how that turns out...
Additional stamps: Birthdays Happen from Hambo Stamps
Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black
Prismacolor Pencils


Here is another with the same image. One of the many things I love about Prismacolor pencils is that the colors look so beautiful and vibrant on dark paper. Hope is from Hambo Stamps. I stamped this image in white pigment ink on dark brown (SU's Chocolate Chip) cardstock. The background was an open weave stamp from All Night Media stamped with Creamy Caramel ink.

And now for the Ugly:
I can't even bring myself to post a large picture... First of all, I'm not satisfied with the coloring on either of the dark ones. I have to reorient the highlights for dark paper and I didn't figure that out yet fot these two. I should have colored it on white first. Anyhow, I thought that using the green would look nice with the brown image. I didn't like it at first so I started adding stuff. I gave up on it and decided that if I didn't like it in the morning, it was going into the trash can. I wondered what other stampers did with cards that didn't work for them so I posted the question on Gingerwood and got some great ideas.

1) set it aside and reevaluate later
2) send it to a friend and let her figure it out
3) donate it to the kids

I put it in a spot so that I would see it first thing this morning. I immediately realized that the green had to go.

And here is the new version of the ugly card.
All paper and cardstock is SU. Word Window Punch and a regular Circle punch was used for the accents. Ink is Brilliance Graphite Black and the edges were inked with a light Fresco ink. The Joy is from The Stamping Studio

Faux Mosiac Technique

I made this 5 x 6 1/2" card this morning using my Faux Mosaic Technique. This is a technique I came up with last year (I think) as a way to color a open image without actually having to color. Some people are intimidated by coloring and others love it. Even if you are one of the latter folks like me,you know it is very time consuming.

This Single Cone Flower image is from Cornish Heritage Farms. Drawn by Asela Hopkins. I saw the stamp on her blog. Blog surfing is going to cost me a fortune!
The saying stamp was also purchased from Cornish Heritage Farms, and is Sonlight Stamps.
I love that saying and try to live it. We don't always have control over where we end up, but we can make the best of it while we are there.
I'm encouraged by the story of Joseph in the book of Genesis. With God's help, if he could be successful as a slave and in prison, surely I can bloom in whatever state I land.

How did I make this card?: I used a small square piece of rubber left over from trimming a stamp set. The main image was stamped with a permanent ink on white glossy paper. I inked it with Lavender Lace, Old Olive, and Creamy Carmel (all dye inks) to do the different parts of the design. The purple cardstock is Lavender Lace from SU and the green textured is Bazzill Ivy. I picked up on the mosaic theme in the background by embossing it using a Big Shot texture plate.


Here are two more examples and the inspiration for this technique:

This particular line of stamps, called Tender Thoughts ,is from Eureka Stamps. They are complete card designs. There is a main image that pretty much fills the front of an A2 card. There is also a verse for the inside and an accent stamp for the inside or the envelope or wherever you want to put it. I got these stamps because the pictures are beautiful and the verses are so appropriate. The only downside is it takes a while to color it normally. I was trying to come up with a way to complete a card fairly quickly with these large stamps.
The Get Well card was covered with versamark and embossed with clear embossing powder.
If you have any questions, feel free to ask.