Creative Play Stamps!!

This is the very first time for me to use Creative Play Stamps, whose Design Team I am on!! This so, so pretty stamp is from Big Hello, a set I know I'll use a lot! I'm very impressed with the quality of the stamps. I've been a stamper for eight years and was a SU! demo for seven, so I know quality and these are quality! Thanks, Creative Play Stamps for giving me this chance to work with you!

This is a pretty straightforward card. I didn't want my usual complete lack of restraint to overpower this sweet image!
SU! Chocolate Chip, Whisper White cs & Spring Flowers DP, re-inkers
Brilliance Chocolate Ink, SU! IredescentIEP
SU! Corner Ticket Punch
M's $ rhinestones
Marcella by K adhesive ribbon
stapler

Stamping with distractions!

This is sketch challenge 161 on SCS. My house was a bit chaotic while I was making this, so I was frequently distracted. DH was at a meeting, (he calls them "beatings," as in, "Honey, I have to go to my beating now." I was left to fend for myself against
the teaming masses of boys. O.K. three boys. Sometimes it seems like more!

There's nothing unusual in the construction of this card. The sparkle is AI glitter in Azure. I generally reach for Azure when I'm using Almost Amethyst- they go well together. I always thought azure was blue, but this glitter is more lavender/amethyst. Well, whatever the color, it's beautiful! The sequin in the Prima I got at Duckwalls. They have a dollar section, and there was this huge bag of these. I thought they would be pretty in the Primas, and they are!

Let's talk sparkle!

My first glitter was Stampin' Up!'s Dazzling Diamonds. It was beautiful then, it is beautiful now! If I could only have one glitter, that would be it. However, as you know, we stampers usually don't just stick with one thing we like if there are more like it out there!! (Can you imagine one stamp pad, or one anything for that matter?)

I still remember the first time I saw Barbara Trombley's Art Institute Glitter. It was love at first sight! I was in a super cool store in Ft. Collins, CO, and the color was Azure. Of course I bought it, then I bought more and more and more! Art Institute Glitter is my favorite! I used Azure on this card, at the top of the bird's crown.

The other sparkle I use very regularly on my cards is SU! Iridescent Ice embossing powder. I used that on the butterfly wings here. I stamped them in Brilliance Chocolate (more sparkle), and embossed with the II.

Let's not forget Sakura's Stardust pen. This touches 90% of the cards I make. I plan never, ever to run out. They come in packages of two, and as soon as I get out the second one I reorder immediately! I think I get mine from StarLitStudio.

Generally the last thing I do is Stickles or Glimmer Mist or both. This card doesn't have Stickles, but it does have Chestnut GM, which I use A LOT. I'd like to have them all, but don't have the budget for it, so I've started making my own. I'll tell you how in another post.

Other stuff on this card:
Stamps: Crafty Secrets
Card Stock/paper: Almost Amethyst, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, Perfect Plum & CS Classic Pad
Embellies: M's rhinestones, SU! HPHardware, ribbon
Ink:CBFCI Chestnut Roan, Al. Am., Marvy Sepia

CPS#1 Pure Love

This card has many of my favorite things in it, and it took me forever to make, so I hope it turned out alright! This sketch from Card Positioning Systems was a hard one for me, and that's why I chose it. I think we, or at least I do, get into ruts. Pretty soon all our cards start looking the same. We just change the stamps and the designer paper! CPS kind of forces you to go around that, to think outside of the box, as it were!
Thanks so much for stopping by!

Let me tell you about the ingredients!

Stampin Up!
Chocolate Chip card stock, silver cord, pink organdy, black and silver detail embossing powder, ticket corner punch, watercolor pencils
Crafty Secrets
Classic Paper Pad, Bird Notes & Altered Art stamp sets
See D's
L'Amour stamp set
Basic Gray
Two Scoops brads
Fancy Pants
Simply Stated stamp set
Primas
Radiant Pearls
Colorbox Fluid Chalk Ink in Chestnut Roan
Versamark Pad
Glimmer Mist in Chestnut

CPS#48

This is the first card I made with my new stamps from Artistic Outpost, whom I love. If I were a real estate developer or a pro baseball player, I'd buy the whole line! But alas, I am naught but a simple English teacher. Buying entire lines is not in the budget! Anyhow, I love their grunge look, this set is called Singing Cowboy. I bought it because DH is ALWAYS wandering around the house with his guitar strumming and singing old timey gospel & bluegrass stuff. The Hank Williams song inside the flap is one he sings frequently.

O.K., so now I know that pics should be loaded backwards! I wanted the open one on the bottom, but I'm satisfied with this. I don't know how to fix it, so I guess I have to be, right?

Here are the ingredients:
SU!: Bravo Burgundy, Basic Black & Kraft CS, Hodgepodge Hardware and organdy ribbon
Artistic Outpost:Singing Cowboy & Tim Holtz Distress Ink in aged mahogany.

I'm somebody now!

So, here I am! For over a year now I've been wondering about the whole blog thing. Why, I wondered, would I, or anyone for that matter, want to go and read about a bunch of strangers? Recently I started to visit some of the SCSers blogs, and as it turns out, I would want to read about a bunch of strangers! Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go figure out how to post a card so I can tell you about its construction in excruciating detail!