Retro Retired Christmas

Ever have one of "Those Weekends"???? I mean, you can have one of "Those Days" when nothing goes right, but how about a whole weekend?? Without getting into too much detail, we haven't had any home phone, or internet service since Friday and I'm suffering from Whiplash. (I know, I'm crazy to play Ice Hockey in my 40's, but I love the sport so much!!!) Top that off with crazy Halloween children and I can't wait for the weekend to be over. Needless to say, I now find myself in the local Starbucks, drinking a latte and using the free internet to get this post up.

So I've been extremely busy creating cards out my retired stock. Here is yet another card made from the trees from the very funky Holiday Lounge DSP. The stamp comes from the retired Country Living Christmas Kit from a few years back. I used Versa Mark and White Embossing powder with a heat gun to make this sentiment. I used White grosgrain and a tiny bit of silver thread to make the bow.

Retired Christmas - take 2

Oh how I miss Scandinavian Season. Being of Scandinavian heritage, I really love this set and this paper. Unfortunately it is all retired now. I made a set of cards (above)from my scraps. The tree was stamped in chocolate chip craft ink and embossed with a heat gun and clear embossing powder.

Retired Christmas

So last week I showed you a card made from retired paper and stamps as part of a swap put on by the fabulous Marie Kirkwood. Click here for her blog. Well, after I made my swap, I was completely inspired to start using up my retired DSP. So I decided to make 6 matching cards out of various DSP. This card was made using the Delightful Decorations stamp set - not retired - and the Paper is the retired Christmas Cocoa.

Stampin Royalty Challenge #43

This week at Stampin' Royalty we have a sketch challenge for you. For this sketch I pulled out my Nursery Suite Paper and Quick Accents. I made two baby cards: one for a boy and one for a girl. It was super simple using this product. Then I stamped the butterflies and punched them out with the coordinating punch.

The Fun Stuff:
1. Paper - Nursery Suite DSP, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Baja Breeze, Old Olive, Regal Rose
2. Ink – Regal Rose, Old Olive, Baja Breeze
3. Stamps - Butterfly Prints
4. Accessories – Butterfly punch, Large Modern Label punch, Square lattice textured impressions folder for the Big Shot, Glimmer Brads, Chunky Glitter, Nursery Suite Quick Accents

Party All The Time

I can't get enough of this stamp set. I pulled it out to make a card for my nephew's 4th birthday. I also got the retired numbers wheel from the clearance rack last week. So I used both to create this card. I pulled the colours from this week's Create with Connie and Mary, and the sketch from Mojo Monday.

The Fun Stuff
1. Paper – Whisper White, Bashful Blue, Marina Mist, Chocolate Chip cardstock
2. Stamps – Party This Way, Numbers Wheel
3. Ink - Chocolate Chip, Marina Mist, VersaMark
4. Punches – word window, modern Label
5. Accessories – satin ribbon in Chocolate Chip, Mini Brads(non –SU), Marina Mist Stampin’ Write Marker

Trick Or Treat

The first page from this set is a template that you can buy for My Digital Studio. It's from the set Nite Owl. My daughter and I went to Mike's the other day and started goofing around with the table dispays for sale. Teagan really liked this witch's hat because it matched her top.

This second page was made using From the Crypt DSP (digital of course) and I used one of the photo templates from My Digital Studio to create the layout. Super EASY! Both pages took about 15 minutes in total.

Colouring and Playing with Bling!!!!

I made this card for 2 challenges this week. When I saw the colours that Arielle had chosen over at Colour Q I knew I had to use the digi stamp she's promoting for Charlotte Jennie - scroll down on Colour Q to purchase this digi stamp. I added chunky glitter and regular glitter to jazz up the image and then the basic black glimmer brads to finish it off. I used the layout from Paper Players which suited this image perfectly.

Stampin Royalty Challenge #42

It's Wednesday and that means another challenge over at Stampin' Royalty. This week the challenge is a recipe challenge.

RIBBONS, RIBBONS, RIBBONS.

I am really into the Halloween spirit these days. My children are old enough to understand what Halloween means. But as we are in the last vestiges of our renovations, I haven't pulled out the Halloween decorations in our house. There's no point in decorating the construction mess. Anyway, in order to get my fix, I decided to make another Halloween card. Here's my creation.
I also entered this card into Glitterbabe's Challenge. Click Here for her challenge blog.

This card was inspired by a card made by the fabulous Patti Lee. Click here to see her original card. I really liked the circles on the paper used by Patti so I decided to use My Digital Studio, and create my own patterned paper.

How did I make this? Well first I pulled up a page from the Nite Owl DSP available for My Digital Studio. Next I used circle circus and stamped several images in old olive, perfect plum, so saffron and pumpkin pie. Then I used the bat punch and filled it with black and stamped it all over the page. Then I printed the paper out on my colour printer. Once I had the printed paper, I drew the shoe shape on top and cut it out. Patti refers to a shoe template, so if you are interested in one, follow the links to her blog. But I simply drew my own. In order to emphasize our Ribbons challenge, I used grosgrain ribbon to make the witch's sock. The spider is from the Dark and Dreary set. I stamped it on white, coloured it in with watercolor pencils, painted it with an aquapainter, and then carefully cut it out with craft scissors.

The Fun Stuff
1. Stamps – Dark and Dreary, Tiny Tags
2. Ink – Basic Black, Versa Mark
3. Paper – Basic Black, Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White, Nite Owl DSP
4. Ribbon – Pumpkin Pie Taffeta, Elegant Eggplant, Basic Black and Old Olive Grosgrain
5. Accessories – Button Bouquet, Ting Tags Punch, Stampin’ Dimensionals,

Proud Mama

I made these two pages using a template included in the Celebrations kit for MDS. It's a new kit from Stampin' Up! Basically I added these photos and the word FUN. These photos are from last weekend when my kids were out playing on their bikes on our street. I took the photos with my Blackberry so they are a bit fuzzy, but I really like the fun faces my son was making. I really like the photo below where you can see my daughter wiping out in the background. She was having a ton of fun too - look for those photos on another post.

Retired Christmas

I made this card for a recent christmas swap for demonstrators. The swap was designed for us to recreate our favourite christmas cards from retired items. The stamp was stamped in Versamark ink and covered in White Embossing powder. Then I used my heat gun to set it. Then I used a two way glue pen to cover the tree with glitter. The Baja Breeze and Whisper White cardstock were cut out with the top note die. I cut the edge off of the baja breeze in order to matte it with the white. The DSP is from a retired hostess set from a few years ago. And the whole thing was mounted on some retired Blue Bayou cardstock. The ribbon is made from White Satin organza ribbon and retired Baja Breeze satin ribbon. I wrapped it with silver twine and tied the ribbon together as a bow.

Happy Halloween 31

When I saw this stamp I really wanted to make a 'sunset' background. I stamped the image in Basic Black and then used Watercolour pencils to shade in the background. Then I used an aquapainter to blend the colours together. I cut out the image and mounted it on 2 layers of Basic Grey cardstock and one layer of Basic Black which I ran through the big shot with the Scallop Square 2 die.

PLAY'ing on My Digital Studio

I made this page using My digital Studio. Most of the items used are from the Play Date Kit. I recently downloaded the pieces of this kit. I really love the colours. I feel that the colours in the paper reflect the photos really well. I'm practicing my pages for the contest on MyDigitalStudio.net Click Here to check it out!

Stampin Royalty Challenge #41

It's Wednesday, and that means another challenge over at Stampin' Royalty. This week is a theme challenge:

SPOOKY KOOKY: aka HALLOWEEN

So I whipped up this little set for the challenge. I used my heat gun and clear embossing powder for the flourish, I coloured the little girl with Watercolor Pencils and added the sentiment from the Tiny Tags set.

The Fun Stuff:
1. Stamps – Greeting Card Kids, Baroque Motifs, tiny tags, teeny tiny wishes,
2. Paper – Basic Black, Whisper White, Pumpkin Pie cardstock
3. Ink – Basic Black, Versa Mark
4. Colour – Watercolor Pencils,
5. Punches – Tiny Tag, Word Window, Modern Label, Circle Scissor Plus, Fancy Favour die for the Big Shot
6. Accessories – Clear and White Embossing powder, heat gun, Pumpkin Pie Taffeta Ribbon, Hemp Twine, Library Clip, Stampin’ Dimensionals,

Dragon Throwdown

We went shopping today and bought this fabulous costume for Teagan. She fell in love with it and insisted that she try it on when we got home. These are some shots of her playing around practicing her dragon roars in the backyard. I made this page using My Digital Studio. The colours are for this week's Colour Throwdown, and the layout for this page was inspired by a page done by the wonderfully talented Heather Summers. Click here for her blog.

Colour Q MDS

This page was made for this weeks colour Q. These colours seem so appropriate for a child so I decided to scap a page from my daughter's most recent birthday.

Thanksgiving Weekend

This weekend is Thanksgiving for us in Canada. I whipped up this little gift for Thanksgiving. I think I'll set one at every place at the table. Inside are turkey and pumpkin chocolates from Purdy's (a local chocolatier in Vancouver). Just a quick post for today.

Stampin Royalty Challenge #40

It's Wednesday, and that means another challenge at Stampin' Royalty. We are starting a new routine this month. The first challenge of the month, will always be a colour challenge from now on, and this month, the challenge was a lot of fun. I used My Digital Studio to create this page as my stamping room has been in a complete state of chaos lately. We just had new carpet installed in our entire basement, so everything needed to be moved, and now I'm slowly trying to put my room back together.

Birthday Blog Train

Here's my cutie Teagan on her 3rd birthday. This page was made using My Digital Studio and some free images I got from the August Blog Train. I love the colours in this set.

Untimely Valentine

This card was made using the stencil I created in my tutorial here. I attached it over a strip of Riding Hood Red cardstock. Check out my tutorial on the top menu.
The Fun Stuff
1. Stamps – I (heart) hearts
2. Ink – Riding Hood Red
3. Paper – Whisper White, Riding Hood Red, Pink Pirouette
4. Punches – small heart
5. Accessories – Stampin Dimensionals