William Blake's Auguries of Innocence

One of my very favorite poems is William Blake's Auguries of Innocence. This is one of those poems that's words causes one to pause and think and imagine and appreciate and become very introspective. Yes! I love this poem.

About 5 years ago I was in a stamp shop and on a shelf filled with lovely sentiments I saw the opening lines of Auguries of Innocence. I grabbed this stamp off the shelf so fast I must have looked like I'd discovered a treasure. Hee hee hee. I think I did. The stamp is made by Wordsworth stamps.

This week's Mojo Monday layout provided me another opportunity to use this favored stamp of mine on a card. Julee's layout challenge for this week is shown below:


Card Recipe:
Stamp: Wordsworth 2007-N
Designer Paper: K&Company
Ink: Versamark Vintage Sepia
Accessories: Nursery Tales collection of Prima Flowers, Martha Stewart lace border punch, Nestibilities scallop and inverted scallop dies, miscellaneous satin ribbon and pearls.

Hope you are having a happy and creative day. Until next time.....

Cheers!

Follow your Dreams

This Penny Black stamp is just so sweet! The stamp is titled, Fly Away. When I bought this stamp, as well as the little Frog Farmer I used yesterday, I didn't have a specific purpose in mind for him, but I just couldn't resist a little boy with his dog deep in thought, dreaming his dreams.

If you are a fan of Penny Black stamps you will want to check out the Penny Black Saturday challenges held each week. This week's challenge is the sketch layout, below:



Card Recipe:
Stamp: Penny Black Fly Away
Designer paper: K&Company
Coloring Medium: Tombow markers and water brush
Accessories: Follow your Dreams Twill Tape, star eyelets, stickles, popdots

We had an unusually cold weekend and I'm still trying to warm up. A week ago I planted a big vegetable garden and I still have bedding plants to put in, but when it is cold, windy and we have hail the job still didn't get finished yet. I'm praying for sunshine, blue skies and warmth! I sure hope your weather is much more seasonable.
Cheers!

You make life fun!

This Penny Black stamp is actually titled "Farm Farming" but this little boy with the buckets of frogs just makes me smile and I just had to use the sentiment, "You make life fun!" as this sweet little guy brings a smile.

This week's Our Creative Corner Challenge site presented the layout challenge, below,and I thought it would be a lot of fun to use this stamp with this layout, using the raffia to replace ribbon or panels behind the image.

Card recipe:
Stamps: Penny Black and Papertrey Ink
Designer Paper: Martha Stewart
Accessories: Stickles,Rafia and pop dots
Coloring: Tombow markers

Until next time,

Cheers!

With Sympathy for loss of a pet

Sadly, within the past couple of weeks three friends have lost beloved family pets. I know from my own experience that words of sympathy expressed are greatly appreciated. For many of us, our pets are more than just animals. They are our companions, confidants and beloved faithful friends.

Usinging this week's Mojo Monday layout challenge, which is shown below, I created two dog and one cat sympathy cards.

The maker of the dog stamp is blurred on the wood and I can't make out the manufacturer for that stamp. The cat stamp is made by Stampabilities. I colored both the dog and cat with Tombow markers. For the inside sentiment I used Papertrey Ink Pet sympathy sentiment and pawprint stamps set. This set contains three lovely and heartfelt sentiments for the loss of pets.

Hug your animals. For all they give us, they deserve a lot of affection in return.

Cheers!

Catching up with you

This stamp by PURRS AND PANTS reminds me so much of a scene in my own backyard with my dogs and cats.

For this card I stamped the image on 140 lb. watercolor paper (my favorite watercolor paper weight!) and used Tombow markers and a brush to color. The card recipe is as follows:

Card Recipe Ingredients:

Stamps: Purrs and Pants©: DC19-4 (Dogs at fence with Cat), D10-11 (Catching up with you)
Ink: Versafine Black and embossed with clear embossing powder, Versafine Crimson red
Patterned Paper: K&Company
Cardstock: Papertrey Ink white for card base and Strathmore Cold press watercolor paper (140lb) to watercolor the image.
Image watercolored using Tombow markers and water brush
Assessories: Prima Flowers, stickles, Liquid Pearls (Raspberry)

Now that the sun is up by 5 a.m., that means our day has begun by then as well and today it looks like it is going to be clear skys and sunshine. I bet the animals will be catching up at the fence soon too.

Cheers!

Card Designs for Purrs and Pants

These past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind of fun for me. I took a trip to Indiana for a surprise 50th birthday party for my 'baby' brother and included a great visit with my mom as well as my four siblings. It doesn't matter how old we get: when we get together it is like going back 40 years in time as 5 siblings growing up with great parents and the usual squabbles that kids have.

But my big news pertaining to rubber stamping is that Tricia, who owns Purrs & Pants rubber stamps has asked me to be her card designer. Purrs & Pants is a whimsical cat and dog stamp company. Tricia stocks a wide array of cat and dog images and sentiments. If you haven't visited her website yet, be sure to check out PURRS AND PANTS.


I've decided that each time I post a card I've made for Purrs & Pants, I'll begin my blog post with her adorable logo. Now when you see the logo you'll know that this is a card using entirely Purrs & Pants rubber stamps.

There are many sentiments that could go with the Dog with Bandana stamp and I thought this pup would make a fun birthday card for a dog lover, young and old alike.

I stamped the hat twice and popped the second hat up on pop dots for some added dimension.

Card Recipe Ingredients:

Stamps: Purrs and Pants© D18-7 (Dog with Bandana), DC21-18 (Howly Birthday)
Ink: Archival Ink Jet Black, Whispers Archival Mossy Stone, Versafine Crimson Red,
Patterned Paper: K&Company
Cardstock: Papertrey Ink white
Spellbinders Nestabilities Die Templates (Labels Three and Ribbon Tag)
Cuttlebug Swiss Dots Embossing folder
Image colored with Primacolor Pencils
Assessories: Jute, Brown paw print ribbon, Stickles (Cinnamon)

Thanks for stopping by. I have a lot of cards and sewing projects too that I've been working on that I'll be posting soon.

Cheers!

Happy Birthday

If it's Monday then you know that also means Julee's MOJO MONDAY CHALLENGE BLOG will have a fresh, new layout to try. This week's layout #84 is shown below and if you got to the blog site HERE you can see the design team's fantastic examples using this sketch:

I bought this designer paper called "Pretty Poppies" (made by Autumn Leaves) mat stack at Michaels on sale. I've been wanting to use it and this just seemed like the right time.

Below is a closeup of the Happy Birthday circle that I wanted to show off. When I first saw the inverted scallop Spellbinder Nestibilities dies I didn't think I'd ever use them. BUT...oh boy was I wrong about my initial negative reaction. There are a lot of creative things you can do with the inverted scallops when paired with other Nestibilities dies. See?!? I used black cardstock on the inverted scallop circle and then a regular scallop circle in green to form the mat behind the Happy Birthday sentiment. Cool, eh?

This card 'recipe' is fairly simple and if you are interested, these are the materials used:

Stamps: Stampin' Up! Heartfelt Thanks for the flower and the Happy Birthday sentiment is by Inkadinkadoo

Designer paper: Autumn Leaves "Pretty Poppies"

Ink: Red and Green dye ink from Autumn Leaves

Ribbon and red crystals are just miscellaneous from my stash.

This was really fast to make. Well...fast in between filling the dog's wading pool and then mopping the kitchen floor when they came in.

Hope you are having a warm and sunshiney day!

Cheers!

Friend to Friend

This week's Friday Sketchers challenge was such a fun layout to use with this sweet Tilda stamp made by Magnolia. If you haven't checked out Friday Sketchers challenges before you are missing out on some very creative layout challenges as well as participating with card makers from all around the world. This week's sketch/layout challenge at FRIDAY SKETCHERS CHALLENGE BLOG is below:

I just love the designer paper I used, made by K & Company. It all coordinates beautifully. Besides the Magnolia Tilda stamp, I also used two different sentiment stamps from Stampin' Up! Friend to Friend (seen on the front of my card) is from the SU Pocket Silhouettes set. Then on the inside I wanted to 'fancy up' the inside a bit and I used the SU Blooming with Happiness sentiment from that set.

I don't always decorate the inside of my cards but because this card is made on dark brown cardstock and I needed to add a liner anyway I decided to incorporate the outside into the inside of the card. This is a closeup of the inside sentiment.

I love using my punches as much as possible on cards. For this card I used the Martha Stewart leaf punch. When I bought this punch I didn't use it for a long time because I wasn't really sure how to make it blend with the card. This card, though, is overflowing with leaves made with this punch. I crumpled the leaves a bit to give them more of a leaf-like texture too.

Also used is the Martha Stewart floral border punch with matches so well with these tiny Prima flowers. Finally I used a Stampin' Up punch for the front sentiment oval.

The image is colored with Prismacolor Pencils. I do NOT use gamsol or any type of odorless mineral spirits (OMS) for those who ask if I use it to blend. I prefer to look of coloring with the pencils as they are layering color over color to achieve the blended shade I want.

I hope you are enjoying a nice weekend. Until next time...

Cheers!

Hi - ya !

Hi-ya! Are you having a good weekend thus far? It is gorgeous here in the Ottawa valley. Almost summer-like. So before I head outside and enjoy this gorgeous weather I want to post this week's MOJO Monday sketch challenge #83. If you enjoy sketch/layout challenges then I encourage you to try out Julee's MOJO MONDAY CHALLENGE BLOG. This week's sketch is below:

I haven't used my Fluffles stamps, manufactured by Stampendous, in quite a while. I always color my Fluffles the cat in an orange color. I have a big orange cat named 'Tango' and he always manages to do silly stuff just like 'Fluffles' does so anytime you see me used a Fluffles stamp I always color him yellow/orange.
For this card I added a little FlowerSoft product to the flowers. And because this layout suggested using a butterfly (or something/anything) in the corner of the image, I decide that this dragonfly brad would fit in really well on this card. The designer paper is from a Martha Stewart stack.

Time to get outside and enjoy the warmth and sunshine. My dogs are not happy about the heat so I'll fill their little swimming pool with water and let them play. If you are interested in seeing Gabe, Willow and Paige playing in their pool you can see them on their blog HERE.

Cheers!

With Appreciation

The sun is out. The birds are chirping. My daffodils and crocus are finally starting to bloom. This makes me eager for our garden nursery to open so I can purchase this year's front porch geraniums for the front porch pots and window boxes. I love geraniums. In my opinion, they have a sort of old time look to them.

This stamp is an old 1994 StampaRosa stamp and yet every year at about this same time I get it out to make summer themed notecards with it. The cards never are the same and I think that is the key to finding a versatile stamp. For this card I actually based the colors around the gingham ribbon. I used craft card stock to stamp on and then colored the image with prismacolor pencils. The I took the back craft cardstock mat and ran it through my cuttlebug argyle embossing folder. I realize it isn't gingham print but it is still sort of 'homey' looking, I think.

Simple card! I added the tag "with appreciation" (sentiment stamp from PaperTrey) and that was it.


We are supposed to have a very warm weekend. I hope I can get some of the garden area worked and ready to plant in a few weeks. Here in Ottawa we can't plant until mid to late May, but you can bet I'll take advantage of preparing and expanding the garden while the weather is cooperative.

Cheers!

How beautiful is the day

A simple card today but a stamp that I've had for a year and it had not seen ink yet. I think this is such a lovely sentiment and stamp and I cannot give a good reason why I haven't used it yet. I know now it won't sit idle again. The stamp is from The Stamp Barn in Ottawa , Ontario.


I used my Tombow markers to color, though there was only a little coloring that needed to be done. The die cut is one of my new Nestibilities Scalloped Octagons. These fit this stamped image perfectly.


I hope your day is beautiful!

Cheers!

You're too kind

It's been a while since I've inked up my stamps. I always miss stamping when I'm away from it even though I've been busy with a lot of other fun activities. Since it was a rather gloomy Saturday I thought I'd take advantage of using my new Nestabilities prize winnings and make a card. This layout that I used it this week's FRIDAY SKETCHERS CHALLENGE layout sketch as seen below:

One of the things I'm thoroughly enjoying about the Spellbinders Nestabilities dies is their versatility. For this card I used the largest Labels Four die but I wanted my image to be matted too. What to do? I cut a piece of light blue cardstock using the same die and then carefully split it down the center. Then, positioning the blue cardstock just slightly outside the image a simple mat is formed from the exact same size of die. I like the look:
I don't make tall and skinny cards very often but I think they're fun for a change and this Friday Sketchers layout gave me an opportunity to use the larger die and still have room for embellishments.

Well look there! The sun is peeking out through the clouds. Time to go outside and exercise the dogs for a while.

Cheers!