Blog Award!

This is so cool! My good stampin' buddy has graced me with this awesome blog award! Thanks Joycelyn!

Marker Tower Tutorial!

My oldest son loves to use my markers whenever I will give him the chance. However, as we all know how expensive copics are he very rarely gets to use them and constantly is bugging me for his own. Since he is on holidays with my parents right now I thought I would buy him a set of markers and then make a container for them and tell him that they are his own special markers so maybe he will leave my copics alone (yeah right!).

Anyways, here is the tutorial so that you can make your own marker tower. If you decide to make one of these please leave me a comment with a link to your marker tower or if you are uploading to splitcoast please use keyword "ab246" so that I can see your creations and leave you a comment.

Materials you will need:
· 6 sheets of black cardstock
· 2 – 12X12 sheets of matching designer paper
· 1 sheet of matching cardstock
· Paper trimmer
· Scor-pal or other scoring tool
· Bone folder
· Sticky strip or other strong adhesive

1. Cut your black cardstock into 5 ½ inch by 2 ½ inch strips. You will need to cut 28 for this project.

2. Place one of your black cardstock pieces into your Scor-Pal with the 2 ½ inch side at the top. Score at ½ inch, 1 inch, 1 ½ inch and 2 inches. Repeat this with the other 27 pieces of black cardstock.

3. Fold your black cardstock on all of the score lines using your bone folder.

4. Add sticky strip or other strong adhesive to one end.

5. Fold your cardstock into a square and adhere the two ends together.

6. Repeat step 5 with the other 27 pieces of black cardstock so that you end up with a pile of squares like the ones shown.

7. Add sticky strip or other strong adhesive to three sides of one of your squares.

8. Adhere a square to each side.

9. Add sticky strip to one of the ends and adhere another square. It will now be 4 squares wide. Add sticky strip to the bottom of all of the squares so that it resembles the picture shown.

10. Continue to adhere your squares together until they look like the picture above. I have made my marker holder 4squares wide by 7 squares long. It will be enough to hold 28 markers.

11. Cut a piece of black cardstock 3 ¾ inches by 11 inches.

12. Place your cardstock in your Scor-Pal with the 11 inch side at the top. Score at 4 7/16 inches flip and score again at 4 7/16.

13. Add sticky strip to the outer two squares of your cardstock.

14. Adhere your cardstock to the squares as shown in the picture above. This will keep your markers from falling through as well as strengthen the overall structure.

15. Cut a piece of designer paper at 5 5/8 inches by 12 inches. I used a designer paper that I bought at my local craft store.

16. Add sticky strip to the back of your designer paper and wrap it around your marker tower as shown in the picture above.

17. Cut a piece of co-ordinating cardstock 6 ¼ inches by 7 ¼ inches. For my project I used real red cardstock. This will be the lid for the marker tower.

18. Score all four sides of your cardstock at 2 inches.

19. Cut in on one side of all four of the corners until you reach the 2 inch score line. Cut your corners diagonally as pictured above. These will be the tabs that hold the lid together.

20. Add sticky strip to the corner tabs and adhere to the inside making your lid as pictured above.

21. Your lid will now fit on your marker tower like the picture above.

22. Embellish your project and Voila!

Finished product!

This way to the Pool!

Every month Hanna Stamps gives away some goodies for participating in their monthly challenges. This was their July challenge #2 and the prize is a Perfect Package Hanna! This is an awesome sketch to play with so give it a try!

I used pacific point, real red and ww cs. The image is from Hanna stamps and I colored it with copics, I then used my liquid glass to make the pool water shiny. I used nestabilities for the circle and scalloped circle, I embossed the background with my cuttlebug and the swimsuit brad I bought at the dollar store awhile ago. Thanks for stopping by!

Win $1000 at TheCuttlebugSpot.com!

I have just discovered that The Cuttlebug Spot is having a contest - "The Journey to 1,000"! They are trying to reach 1,000 followers by the end of July and need your help. To enter all you have to do is go to their site, sign up as follower and complete a few easy steps and you could win a $1,000 gift certificate to Custom Crops (www.CustomCrops.com)! GO NOW and check it out at www.TheCuttlebugSpot.com

WoooooooHooooooo! Both of my youngest boys went down for a nap at the same time today which meant craft time for mom! I was able to sit down and make my card for the Hanna Stamps July release challenge #1! Check it out and give it a try! They are giving away a free mermaid Hanna set how awesome is that!

Anyways, I made a shaker card using the "this way to the beach" Hanna set! I used my copics for coloring, pacific point cs, real red cs, yo yo yellow cs and whisper white cs. And yes, that is real sand stolen from my childrens sandbox while they slept (shhhh, don't tell them!). I embellished with a few brads and voila, here is my card! Thanks for stopping by!

IC188 Flower Child!

Here is the card I made for todays challenge over at Splitcoast Stampers! I got my inspiration for this card from the Pink Baby Blossom! I used pretty in pink, melon mambo and whisper white cardstock, ric rac ribbon, large oval nestabilities, border embossing folder and a few brads in the top corners! Thanks for taking the time to stop by! Hope to see you again soon!

Card for my Son!

My oldest son just went on holidays with my parents. It was really hard watching him go as they are travelling 12 hours away through the mountains and I worry the whole time. He asked me if I would make him a card and email it to him so this is what I made. I used my new stamp set from Artful Inkables. To make the image I stamped the boy on the vine and then masked him and stamped the treehouse. If you would like to learn how to mask you can view a tutorial HERE! I colored the image with copics and layered it on so saffron, pumpkin pie and old olive cs. The dp I got on sale at my local craft store and the ribbon is so saffron. The charm I got a long time ago at a ctmh party. Thanks for taking the time to stop by! Hope to see you again soon!

Flower Pot Babies!

I made this card using my Flower Child set from close to my heart! I used the itty bitty backgrounds set from SU! I cut the flowers out with my SU flower punch and used my 1 1/4 and 1 3/8 circle punches. The bottom border is punched with my eyelet border punch and then sanded as the paper is white core. The ribbon is from ctmh. I colored the little flower pot babies with my copics. This is such a fun and cute little stamp set to play with! The stems and the leaves were cut outs that I got from ctmh and then I colored them with my copics. Thanks for taking the time to look!

Thinkin' Big!

I made this card using my "Think Big" set from Artful Inkables. They have tons of awesome stamp sets and if you are interested they are doing a design team call right now. I colored the image with my copics and used my stampin up sizzlets for the leaves and the flower. I used raspberry tart dp and rose red ink for the edges. Thanks for stopping by!

Priceless!

Here is my card for todays inspiration challeng over on splitcoast stampers. I used the "Godfather" posters as my inspiration! This was an absolutely fun challenge and there are so many posters to choose from to draw you inspiration! You can view the challenge HERE! You can find the Godfather posters HERE!

Recipe:

• basic black, whisper white and real red cs
• making memories slice and the words and expressions cartridge
• SU priceless stampset for flourishes
• CTMH Be yourself stamp set
• staz-on black ink for stamping
• real red ink for sponging
  

Different Card Sizes!

I was surfing around Splitcoast Stampers and found a forum where they were asking about different card sizes so I thought I would make a few quick diagrams to show you some of the card sizes I use. If you would like to see the forum you can view it Here!

This is what we stampers call an A2 size card. It measures 4 1/4 inches by 5 1/4 inches. You can get three different looks from your card using this size. Here are a few finished examples.

This is a horizontal A2 card!

This is an A2 card when it has been cut at 4 1/4 X 11 inches.

Here is a vertical A2 card.

This is a 5 1/4 inch X 5 1/4 inch card. It is very handy when you are working with larger images or when you just need more room to embellish. Here is an example of one of these cards.

5 1/4 inches X 5 1/4 inches

Last but not least is my little 3inch X 3inch notecard. I like using these when I need a quick card or something to add to a gift. Here is an example where I used the 3X3 notecard.

I hope this little tutorial was helpful. Please let me know if you have any questions or need help with anything else! Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Voila Birthday!

Here is a card I made using the paper piecing technique. This chef from the stamp set "Voila" is perfect for this technigque as his large body parts make it easy to cut out the dp. This card measures 5 1/4 X 5 1/4.



Recipe:

• So saffron cs, certainly celery cs, basic black cs and whisper white cs


• DP from 2008 sale-a-bration


• brads for the buttons on the shirt


• copics for coloring


• So saffron ink for sponging


• memento black ink for stamping the main image
  

Bus Drivers Gift!

Here is another tin filled with chocolate sticks. I made this one for my sons bus driver as I knew she liked horses. The image has magnets on the back of it so it can easily be removed and displayed on her refrigerator.

Recipe:

• Tin
• Stampin' ups Bareback stamp set
• chocolate chip cs
• verry vanilla cs
• outlaw dp
• scallop punch
• oval and scallop oval punch
• classic large oval nestabilities