A Vintage Christmas Card

I know I've mentioned my love of Graphic 45 paper, but this card was a natural fit with the tri-fold design. I made another tri-fold card with Basic Grey paper; it's pretty fun too, but my creative mojo worked better with this paper. The card was made with a piece of "Deck the Halls" and a piece of "Jolly Old St. Nicholas." My original challenge was to use a stamp set from Inkadinkadoo for a class at Krop Paper Scissors. I used 4 of the stamps in the set, 2 are embossed with gold glitter embossing powder and the words are embossed with Fired Brick Distress Embossing Powder from Ranger.

The card I posted yesterday used the 5th stamp in the set.

I hope you're having a great, blessed weekend. It's another perfect day at our house, football, food and playing with paper.

More Memories Preserved

The pictures on this page are from a Giants game we went to with family and friends. We love baseball and we love the Giants. AT&T Park is a beautiful place to see a game with the San Francisco Bay in the background. This game was between the Dodgers and the Giants. The game was tied until the bottom of the 10th inning when the Giants scored and won the game. Yeh!! It still gives me joy to remember this day.

Scrapbooking is therapy for me

I love putting my pictures in my scrapbooks and preserving them so we can enjoy them later.

This page contains the memories from our 4th of July celebration in 2008. Stan did some work for a family who had land on the river and they let us enjoy the beautiful spot for our barbecue. We had lots of boys join us and the Krauss family. We played in the river with our Tahiti, competed at rings and enjoyed good food and company. Now we can enjoy the memories again and again for years to come.

Here's to our memories and to making new memories that are worth preserving. Have a great day.

Charlie's Visit

My husband's best friend is Charlie. He comes to visit us every year from Santa Cruz. He's the smartest guy we know and a lot of fun. This page is our visit last year when we went on the Jet Boats to the OK Corral for dinner. I've used the new BoBunny paper and cut my own embellishments, which seems to be my latest trend. I wish you could know Charlie, he's a great friend.

Ranger is my first love...

...and the Distress Inks are so awesome! I can't get off it. This card is made using Distress Inks in Scattered Straw, Spiced Marmelade, Fired Brick, Peeled Paint and Walnut (Oh my gosh that's a lot of ink, you say). I applied them with Cut-n-Dry onto glossy cardstock. The stamp is from Stampin' Up. I think it's a great tree, the ravens or crows (how do you tell the difference) are in the same set. The technique is a poor imitation of Michelle Zindorf who is the Brayer Queen. Her work is fabulous and you can check it out at zindorf.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com. She is going to be in Salem, Oregon next May, I would love to go to her class. Any takers?

I hope you have a wonderful, blessed day.

Lorelei

More Dreamstreet happiness

What fun I had with the Dreamstreet cards that we found on their website. The Happy Birthday card is a very simple card with four panels of paper on cardstock. I added the ribbon and the Maya Road pearl pin, which I colored with Rangers Terra Cotta alcohol ink, and then added the felt leaf and Happy Birthday tag.

The What's Up card I totally lifted from the website. I think it's pretty adorable and I am going to include it in this month's Simply Cards class at Krop Paper Scissors, along with a gift bag to match.

Tomorrow I have a super fun technique to share with you using Distress Inks. Blessings on your day.

Dreamy over Dreamstreet paper

Oh did I have fun making this card and another one that is not quite finished. The paper is in such pretty tones for an autumn girl like me. The stamp I used is from American Crafts.

I think its going to be beautiful day, even though the heat is back. We're going to see the Hidden Valley vs Del Norte football game tonight. They've beaten us the last 5 times, but maybe this time will be different because we have Nathan on our defense ;-). He's an animal. Last week he had 15 tackles, a fumble recovery and a blocked point after!! (Does this sound like a proud mama or what?)

I hope you have a great day, living the life inspired by the many blessings from our Heavenly Father.

I hope you have JOY today

This cute little card was made with alcohol inks and Sheer Heaven. It is a mono print and uses some new Stampington Stamps we just got at Krop Paper Scissors. The card is so easy and so much fun to make. I will be teaching this technique at the Ranger III class on Wednesday, September 9th at 1 pm.
I hope you find JOY in your day today. Making a few cards is always a great idea and is what brings me JOY.

Lemonade anyone?

This is just a simple little birthday card for my friend Stacy made with Basic Grey Lemonade paper. The edge on the front of the card is made using the Threading Water punch from Fiskars. The stamped ladybug on the inside of the card is Hero Arts dressed up with Stickles

Today we are leaving for the Dunes for some much needed down time. I hope you have a great weekend and remember to stay loose so the creative side can have some room. Another piece of wisdom from my friend Mel, "Simple is ok." Freedom to be ourselves is a wonderful thing.

A Happy Accident

I have been in a slump creatively lately and I shared this with my friend Melissa. Somehow in her browsings she found the perfect thing to add the bit of inspiration that I needed to make the card above work, when it was really not working for me. It started out as a wedding congrats card, made to have the bling be on the top left side. Sitting next to the card was my baby picture that I'd just brought home from the store I work at. Somehow that picture and the card got together and the baby announcement was born! I left out the year I was born in the announcement, and voila, I have been reborn. Oh, I made up my middle name too (hee hee)! My creativity now knows no bounds.

The site Mel shared with me can be found at

http://www.donnadowney.com/index.php/campaign-for-creativity
I hope you check it out, it's great inspiration for those times in life when we aren't quite on our game. Thanks, Mel, you're pretty awesome.

We're home from our travels

We had such a great time visiting my husband's fam and the Bay Area. We hit all our favorite spots, Santa Cruz, San Francisco and the Giants game-which they won btw, and finally shopping and a barbecue at Uncle Gilly and Aunt Maggie's house.

When we came home, Nathan got his wisdom teeth pulled. It turns out that he had 5 of the them and the 2 on the lower right were in the bone. He is recovering nicely (the truth will be when he wakes up this morning) and will be back working out in no time.

Hey there..

This will be my last post until we get back from San Francisco on Monday night. We are all so excited. We'll be going to Santa Cruz on Friday, San Francisco and the Giants vs Phillies game on Saturday and shopping and a barbecue on Sunday! We get to see Linsecom pitch for the Giants!! For a sports fam it doesn't get any better than this.

Here's another card I made on Friday night when me and my peeps were playing (our pic is at the bottom of the page). It's another excerise in distress ink and stamping. The stamp is Inkadinkadoo and the inks are Broken China and Peeled Paint. I love the color combo.

Butterflies are free (when you're a stamper)

Good Morning,

Here's a little card that I just finished this morning. Can you tell that I'm a late bloomer on the butterfly craze? Maybe I've just come out of my cacoon (haha). I debated whether to put ribbon at the bottom but ultimately decided not to.

The butterfly is an Indadinkadoo stamp that I embossed in white and embellished with pearls. The background of the butterfly was stamped in Vintage Photo distress ink. I sprayed a little water on the stamp after inking to get the slight water color look. I ran the base of the card through the Cuttlebug using the Swiss dot envelop. Let me know what you think and have a cool day. Will this heat never end?

I'm lovin' Graphic 45 paper!!

Hope you're having a happy Saturday!

I made this card for the Graphic 45 card contest at my LSS, Krop Paper Scissors. Our store was chosen the featured store for Graphic 45 for the month of July! Karyn is having the contest to show that our store loves the paper. I had such a great time making the card, beginning with my own sketch and then just placing the paper in the right spots. The paper is so easy to work with! TFL.

Just finished

This is my latest layout. Ok it's from Labor Day last year! I'm not that far behind ;-) The paper I used is from Little Yellow Bicycle "Traveller," my fav right now (I guess we better plan some more trips).
Hope you're having a blessed day.

Here's my best girl Daisy

Hot, Hot, Yesiree it's HOT

Hope you're having a great start to your day. It's gonna be hot so get out and do something for you early. I walked a great little path this morning by the hospital in our town. The path rambled behind the medical buildings and along the irrigation canal. Daisy loved it (she's my best girl and loves walks as much as me).

Now I'm off to lunch with friends at Casa Amiga (yummm). I made this gift bag for my friend who recently had a baby boy. It matches the card which I'm giving her. I love craft bags because you can turn them into any theme.

Good Morning

Today is gonna be hot, hot, hot babee. We are going to the coast this weekend to camp and letterbox and whatever else we find to explore. Boy, do we need it. We have been very busy lately.

Today I teach a Ranger class at KPS. Have I mentioned how much I love Tim Holtz and all the Ranger products? I am a total follower of all things t!m.

I posted this card earlier, but removed it to place the 4th of July card at the bottom of this blog. This card was created using distress ink on the background, applied with Cut-n-Dry. The stamp is from Hero Arts and is called Time Flies.

I'm feeling flowery!!

Good Morning! What a beautiful time of the year this is. Yes it's getting hot here and there, but this is much better than the cold days of January and February, don't you think? I made this card this weekend using my Marvy Markers like Melissa McGee, my dear friend, showed me. The stamp is a favorite from Stampin' Up. The butterflies are punched using a micro-punch that I got from Creative Memories and then embossed with clear embossing powder. It was so easy to do, I think you should try one.

Waiting to get on the water

Day on the river

Grad Party is over, life resumes

Chris's party was a lot of fun, the whole family came even from as far away as Minnesota and Texas! They began arriving on Thursday and stayed until Monday, July 6th. My sister-in-laws and cousins Jean and Cindy were so much help. We wouldn't have had nearly as much fun without those cute Texas girls. We floated the river on Sunday and that was truly the hit of the weekend. We are so blessed to live in the midst of such beauty.

Now I need to get life back to normal and begin creating cards and pages and getting back into my groove (I hope I can find it again). I've added some pics for you to see what a great time we had.

Uncle Willard's Visit

Got Sketch

HI, I am lovin' the Got Sketch 104 classes that Val and Janna are giving over at Got Sketch.blogspot.com. I am so inspired by all the talent that is displayed by the ladies that are taking the class and I'm getting pages done as well. I'll share the one I made this morning. I think it came out pretty good and it's clean and simple, just the way I like it. I've also got some cards to share with you that we made at Midnight Madness Friday night over at Krop Paper Scissors, which by the way is my fav LSS. Ok so I work there, but I have to say there's lots to brag about. There are some great gals that some might call groupies but they are my favorite peeps.