Hello, Good-Bye – Big news!!!

Any Beatles fans out there?  Today is a big day, full of mixed emotions for me.  Today, I have to say goodbye to two of my inaugural design team members, Kendra and Sarah.  When I started IHP back in October I contracted my DT for a 6 month term, ending today, but as it neared closer to today I realized I wasn’t quite ready to part with them.  But, sadly for me these two had other previous commitments which needed to be honored.  I understand of course, but I’m still sad.  *sniff*  So, please join in sending them off with all well wishes and successful and enjoyable stamping careers.  They are both incredibly talented and I am so thankful for the time and commitment they gave to me and fledgling company.  I know I am in part due to where I am today because of their support and amazing projects.  Thank you to both of you - you’ll always have a special place in my heart.

The only way to get over grief is to completely overwhelm yourself with joy…and to do that I am welcoming a new addition to the DT, the one and only, Lynn Mercurio aka LynnInStLouis on SCS.  Lynn and I had been hitting it off for months online and we finally got to meet at CHA in January.  She has an amazing talent and is so involved in so many stamping world things.  Honestly I don’t know how she keeps up.  Seriously, her sidebar on her blog of past and current DT work, challenges, etc. is quite a workout for your scrolling finger on your mouse!

So, without further ado, please join me in welcoming Lynn to the IHP Design Team.  To celebrate she’s got some blog candy over on her blog.  Do not post here – you have to go over to her and leave her a nice comment!  :) 

To celebrate here, I’ve got a coupon code for you – valid today through midnight EST on Saturday - 10% off your entire purchase, including sale items and new items with coupon code HGB10 (HGB is short for Hello Good-Bye - get it??!!).  And, as always, free US shipping of $40 or more.

I’ll be back tomorrow with Five Minute Friday.  Thanks for stopping by today!

Hershey Kisses Order

Yesterday I woke up and my right thumb was swollen for no apparent reason.  I don’t remember injuring it but I obviously did because I don’t have full mobility.  I’ve been taking Motrin and trying to ice it today but being my right thumb makes me pretty useless when I’m icing it.  Luckily it doesn’t really hurt, it just doesn’t bend as much as it should.

Anyway…I had to do these little Kiss Boxes last night for an order I received and need to deliver on Thursday.  They picked the pink and orange…pretty bright eh?

So, no IHP on these except for i {stick} papers holding them all together!

Thanks for stopping by – be sure to check in tomorrow and Friday!

MASIV project

I know lots of creative people and not just you stamper folks.  Besides stamper and scrapping friends, I have musician friends, actor friends, dancer friends, writer friends, fine art friends, sculptor friends,  quilter/sewer friends and people who do unclassifiable art or a combination of several of the things I listed above. 

One of the people I know does various magazines and other cool collaborative projects.  The most recent one is called MASIV and it is a “giant, collaborative, semi-annual zine.”  Basically you receive an envelope with a word inside and you need to come up with your interpretation of that word, create something and send it back.  The only requirement is that it fits in the envelope supplied to you. 

The word I received was “portrait.”  I have to admit I was completely stumped for what to do for the better part of a month.  I’m a papercrafter, not a painter or artist of the sort that could do a portrait as I defined it.  But, I guess that was part of the challenge – thinking of portrait outside of the frame, so to speak.

So as I was getting ready for a little weekend getaway, I was struck with the idea to create a self-portrait of my silhouettes, created from papers that symbolized pieces of my personality.

So I took my camera, shot some pictures of myself, threw them into Photoshop and created a silhouette template of me to use to cut out my designer papers.

Then I chose some papers that represented parts of me.  I selected Mommy Bird from Upsy Daisy, Floral Garden from GCD, Mousse from Basic Grey, Decor Words from Heidi Grace and Fairy Princess from Stemma.  I should note that these were selected purely for their images/colors/patterns and not for their titles.

I created a little marionette type thingy to dangle them from and used some silver string to attach them.

This sucker was a *ah-hem* pain in the behind to photograph.  First it kept spinning and lighting was disastrous.  It definitely goes in my series of “things that are impossible to photograph” from back around the holidays.

So there you have it.  Another non-traditional project for you!

Thanks for stopping by today.  Don’t forget…there will be news later in the week so check back again then!  Have a great day!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Big week

Just a little post tonight.  I’ve just entered some new cutie paper and stamps and accessories from Sassafras Lass’ new line, Jungle Bungle.  Seriously folks – it doesn’t get much cuter.

This is a big week for us over here so be sure to check in later this week.  I promise it’ll be worth it.  :)

On Friday I put up some of the new Basic Grey Beta stamps.  There are 12 new mini sets that are about 3”x3” and at $2 each you can’t go wrong!

I’m working on finishing up another non-card, non-traditional project – kind of in the same spirit as my Robot Pirate ship project and will probably have it ready to show you tomorrow.

Have a great night!  Thanks for stopping by!

Five Minute Friday: Rainbow

Hello!  Happy Five Minute Friday!!  For today’s post it is totally clean and simple.  It didn’t even take five minutes!

First I stamped the rainbow from Sky’s The Limit and cut it out.  I colored it with my Prismacolor pencils and then went over the clouds with my Clear Spica pen.  I can’t wait for all the new colors to come.  They’re supposed to be coming in May.  I ordered them at CHA and am getting very antsy!!

The greeting is from (of course!) All Occasions Messages.  Do you realize how much I love this set?  I swear I use it more than any other greeting set I’ve ever owned.  Crazy!!

I finished it off with a simple 3/8” double faced satin ribbon at the bottom.  Totally simple!  

I hope you have a great weekend.  Thanks for taking time to stop in today!  I really appreciate your comments!

New goodies!!!

The two new Basic Grey lines are HERE!!  Wisteria and Lime Rickey are the two newest lines from BG and they are awesome!!!  There are also some coordinating stamp sets! 

Also, the remainder of the new Just Rite items showed up.  All partial orders have been shipped as of this morning.

Be sure to check the site under NEW to see all the goodies!

Have a great day!

Going Askew: DT Challenge

For this month’s DT Challenge, it is appropriate that Cathleen aka Crooked Card Creations is the host.  The theme of this month’s challenge was “Going Askew” and we were to make a project with our main image not centered.

I had a much harder time with this one than I expected but this is what I came up with. 

One thing I love about clear stamps is the ability to manipulate them and that is what I did with the greeting from my trusty All Occasions Messages.  I curved the verse on my block and stamped it with Palette Chartreuse ink so that it would go around the balloon from the new (pre-order) set Happy Birthday To You.  This set is HUGE!  It is 4”x12” and is great for large, bold images for cards and scrapbooks.  I stamped and cut out my balloons, colored them with my Prismacolor pencils, massaged my paper a little to curl them and then popped them up on dots.  I went over the curly lines with some Stardust Stickles.

The little owl who is having a hard time holding onto these big balloons is cut out from the Owls and Doodles paper.  He is already embossed and glittered so it was perfect.  And I liked the juxtaposition of the little owl being carried away by the big balloons. 

The strings on the balloons are strands from the White Metallic String.  I just pulled it apart and tied it around the bottoms.  It’s all very sparkly in person.

So there you have it!  Be sure to check out everyone else’s creations:

Amber Kroening	Loretta Lock
Carolyn Mustopa	Lori Tecler
Cathleen Torina	Meredith Socha
Deb Felts	Sarah Anderson
Dee Jackson	Tracy Schultz
Kendra Wietstock

Thanks for stopping by!  See you on Friday for Five Minute Friday!!

Five Minute Friday – Black Eyed Susans

Hello and Happy Friday!  Are you flowers starting to bloom?  My peonies are just started to poke their stalks through, the garlic is starting to pop up and there are daffodils everywhere!  Spring is in the air!

Unfortunately even with all the new growth and birth of Spring, I needed a sympathy card (my least favorite kind of card to make – understandably!!)  I used the same little technique as last week of make flower centers on my fabric flowers.  But instead of Flower Soft like last week, I used Our Craft Lounge’s new Sparkly Fluff! 

I used my Flower Impressability again for the subtle background and then just a little piece of the Brown Leafy Vine ribbon.  My greeting is stamped in Palette Orangerie and is from my trusty All Occasions Messages set (I just omitted the “always” part of the saying).

You’ve got to check out the NEW section of the website.  Besides this yummy new Sparkly Fluff there are new Hero Arts sets, all the new Zva Bling that came in AND next week my CHA order from Basic Grey is coming.  In that order are two new AMAZING lines – Lime Rickey and Wisteria (GORGEOUS!!!!) and new BG STAMPS!  I’m so excited.  So, be sure to check out the site!

Have a great weekend!  It’s going to be in the 70s here!  WOW!

Merci Tulip

Hello!  This card almost could count for a Five Minute Friday card except the stinking little bow pushed me over 5 minutes.  I take my 5 minutes very seriously.  :)

So, here it is…it became a Tuesday card!  I used the other little tulip from the pack of Zva tulips I opened the other day.  They’re a little different.  This one is more subdued and was a great match for my Pixie Pink paper.  (Sorry for the icky lighting…I had to take this at night and I just couldn’t get a good shot!) 

I used my new favorite Flower Impressability to make the nice background and my other favorite (on sale!) Oval Nesties with some piercing around the edge.  The “merci” greeting is from Chelsea Sentiments.  I finished it off with a side ribbon and little fixed bow from the 3/8” double faced white satin ribbon.  I love that it is so silky and easy to work with.

Make sure you check the DT blogs this month.  Three of them will be having blog candy at various different times.  And, at the end of the month we will be saying good-bye to two of our DT members (sniff, sniff) and ushering in one new one (yay!).  More on all of that later.

Thanks for stopping by and making me part of your day.  I really appreciate it!  I’ll be back on Friday with a new card and some new goodies in the store too!

Easter cookies

Hello!  I hope you all enjoyed the weekend.  I was busy making preparations for Easter, which included baking and decorating 3 dozen cookies.  Now, I am no Bridget from Bake at 350 (seriously AMAZING cookie decorating skill over there) but I think my little duckies are pretty cute.  My piping skills leave a little (OK…a LOT) to be desired but hey – at least I’m a good papercrafter,  right? 

I used her sugar cookie recipe and it is pretty darn yummy.  It’s not too sweet, which is good if you’re completely covering the cookies with colored liquid sugar.

I’ll be back tomorrow with a card!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Five Minute Friday Jumbo Flower

Happy Friday! Just a quick reminder that the store is closed beginning today for a long Easter weekend. We will not return until Tuesday so orders placed this weekend will not be shipped out until Tuesday. Thanks for your understanding!

A few years ago I bought a HUGE assortment of fabric flowers from QVC. It was my first ever QVC purchase. They have pretty much gone untouched until now. We’re talking years people…years. (I see a few of you grinning in shared guilt of having committed the same offense huh?)

Well, I dug into my stash and pulled out this jumbo white one. It normally has a hole in the center where you’re supposed to put a brad. Bah…who needs brads when you have Flower Soft?!!

I’m in a springy mood and can’t wait until my flowers start popping up. So I grabbed my jar of Sunshine Yellow Flower Soft and out a big ‘ol dab of glue in the center and mooshed the Flower Soft into it. I did this a few times, adding a little more glue in between each layer until it was sufficiently puffy for me.

Then I made a quick background using my Flower Impressability (see this post for the Cuttlebug sandwich I used). Now, a few things about this product.

1. It is very sharp so please be VERY careful. It is very thin metal with lots of intricate details, which means sharp pointy parts and razorblade sharp edges. It is only a matter of time before I slice my finger. I’ll let you know when it happens.

2. After each use, it bows. I run it immediately back through my Bug without cardstock, in the opposite direction to make it flat again. But be careful…once it is curled up, some of the aforementioned pointy parts are reaching out to get you. Refer back to #1.

3. After about 3 uses the *very* little bits of metal that hold the center to the outside rectangle frame are already starting to break away. It’s ok. You don’t really need the rectangle part. It’s just there to give the rest of it something to hold onto. Don’t think yours is defective – the ones at CHA were all popped out of their rectangles. But please be careful because once the rectangle is gone, the edges are exposed and they’re sharp. Refer back to #1.

4. You’ll want to keep it in the packaging. It comes with a pretty sturdy cardboard insert folder thingy so hang onto it. It will keep it from getting damaged and it will keep you from accidentally reaching in to grab something else and slicing your hand open. Refer back to #1.

I finished it off by double stamping Happy Spring in Palette Paris Lights and Noir and then running a small piece of the black and yellow stitched ribbon around the bottom. Wouldn’t that ribbon be totally cute on a bee card? Or how about this black and yellow gingham?

I stuck it all together and tada! Five Minutes! I promise!

Thanks for stopping by! Have a wonderful weekend! See you next week!

Bling on Spring!

OK, totally cheesy.  I know.  But I couldn’t resist.  Yesterday when I got the box of Zva bling I just had to dig in.  I decided whatever I pulled out would be what I would use.  Boy am I glad I grabbed the tulips and not the snowflakes!

Except for all my allergies (and all the yard work) I generally like Spring.  I don’t like that it ushers in the terrible heat and humidity of Summer but I like seeing everything bloom and I love seeing my Koi pond get more active and unthaw from the winter freeze.  The fish come out of hibernation and start looking for food and the frogs return!  This week that happened.  The water hit 55 degrees and the fish were all moving around and at least one of the frogs returned!

So Spring is officially here, even though I know some of my friends got snow where they live yesterday. 

OK, back to the card.  I not only used new Zva bling but notice the background?  That’s the new Flower Impressability!!!  Isn’t it lovely?  I used the same Cuttlebug sandwich as I do for my Nestie embossing although I changed the order a bit so I could see where I was placing my paper.  Here’s the sandwich I used – feel free to experiment.

From the bottom up: A plate, B plate, 2 pieces 140# cardstock shim, rubber embossing mat, cardstock I was embossing, Impressability, B plate.

I also sponged a leftover strip of my favorite Shawl paper with some Palette Paris Lights, which is a perfect match for SU! Yoyo Yellow.  I thought it made a cute little garden fence, don’t you?

I used the same ink for the greeting (stamped on a tag from my small oval Nesties) as well as Chartreuse (matches the SU! Green Galore) for the squiggly line and Belle Rose for the butterflies.  That greeting was made from the cutey Happy Greetings set.  It’s perfect for this time of year!

I finished it off with a knotted piece of the yellow faux suede ribbon.  I haven’t used this ribbon in a long time so I figured I was due.  Did you miss it?!!

Just a quick store note.  We will be closed for Easter weekend beginning Friday.  We will not return until Tuesday.  So, orders placed during that time will not be shipped out until Tuesday.  Thanks for your understanding and thanks for stopping by.

See you Friday for Five Minute Friday! 

Bling Baby Bling!

Just a quick product update for you tonight…

Finally!  My Zva Creative bling order arrived.  This stuff is GORGEOUS!!!

I also spoke with JustRite today and found out that they are expecting the second part of their new CHA delivery tomorrow…so, I suspect I will have the rest of my pre-ordered items from them next week.  They typically have very fast turnaround for order fulfillment (unlike some companies that we know!) so if you’re waiting on pre-ordered items just know they’re coming soon.

Thanks for checking in.  Now go look at the gorgeous blingy stuff!!

Server moving

I just received notice from my web server that they have to do an emergency move of my site within the next 72 hours. When this happens my email, site and likely this blog will go down...hopefully not for very long! But, I just wanted to let you know so you're prepared!

Five Minute Friday Easter Basket

HAPPY FRIDAY! I’m thrilled it is Friday…and I’m pretty happy it is April too. I’m very glad to have March behind me. This past month has been one of the most difficult ones in many, many years.

So, I am embracing Spring (although not the allergies that go along with it!) and moving forward.

Here my quick card for today. When I saw this Shawl paper at CHA I fell in love. And I thought it would make a perfect little lattice basket. So I cut a piece of SU Almost Amethyst (4-1/4” x 2-1/4”) and then diagonally cut from the corners to 1” on the bottom to get the basket shape. Then I layered my Shawl on top and trimmed the edges. Cute right??

The handle is easy peasy too. All I did was take my two largest oval Nesties and run them through together (still nested) and you get this oval ring. Tada – instant handle.

The eggs are fabric covered eggs from The Card Company. I adore their embellishments and they make card making so quick and easy. I’m sure at least 50% of my Five Minute Friday posts probably use at least something from them!

I put a few self adhesive pearls in the circles on the Shawl paper just to bling it up a bit. I could have used Liquid Pearls but drying time would have definitely pushed this card over 5 minutes!

Lastly I made a little tag from Tags Trio and stamped in Palette Toile Pink the Easter from the Chick Ears set (that I overused last week)! I tied it off with some pink/light pink reversible ribbon and put a matching bow on top. I love this line of ribbon. It is so satiny and easy to work with and doesn’t fray when you trim it!

I also want to wish my #1 commenter on my blog, Ann, a very happy birthday. Seriously...she comments on nearly every post. She's amazing! Please stop by her blog and wish her a happy day!

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a great weekend!

SHIPPED!!!

ALL NESTABILITIES PRE-ORDERS HAVE SHIPPED!  YAHOO!!!

My order arrived a few hours ago and I furiously packed up everything.  Whoopie!!

I will be placing an order tomorrow to replenish some items that have already sold out so please use the restock notification on the site if you’re looking for something that appears to be sold out.

Get your Impressabilities and other new goodies while they last!

Flower Soft Vase

Good morning!  This card is highlighting two of my favorite new products in the store – Flower Soft and Pierceabilities. 

I used my Heather Flower Soft with the wires to make the flower bunches.  It’s really quite easy.  Take the wires and clip them to size, cover the one end with glue and then SPRINKLE (DO NOT DIP) the Flower Soft onto the wire.  If you DIP, you will contaminate your Flower Soft and have gobs of gluey Flower Soft.  Yuck.  Then, stick the wires in a Styrofoam cube or something.  I’m using a leftover ball from Christmas sitting on a glass rim to hold it but next time I head to a craft store I’m going to pick up a small florist cube.  After a little while they will be all dry and remarkably durable.  If it weren’t for the clay vase on this card, it could certainly be mailed.  Flower Soft isn’t really that delicate that it can’t be mailed.

While it was drying I pulled out my Victorian Pierceabilites and made the top and bottom edge.  I also used my small oval Nesties to make the base for the flower pot to sit on.  I love those clay vases but if you’re looking to mail this, you could also use the Flower Soft realistic vases and urns. 

I finished off my card by adding White Opal Liquid Pearls over the flower petal parts of the border and piercing coordinating holes around the edge of the scalloped Nestie piece.

One side note, you can also sprinkle glitter on your flowers AFTER you’ve applied all the Flower Soft.  It will very subtly stick to the glue on the wire as well.  I dabbed my flowers with some Frosted Lace Stickles after they were dry but you can barely see it.

Thanks for stopping by!  I’ll be back tomorrow with a Five Minute Friday card!

Spellbinders Update

I had a card for today but I wasn’t very happy with it so I decided to see if I could salvage it for a post tomorrow.  Sorry!

In the meantime, I spoke with Spellbinders today and was assured that my CHA order was shipping on 3-26, so it should be arriving Thursday or Friday and then all you folks waiting for any of the new goodies will finally get them.  It’s been a long wait for all of us and I thank you for your patience.  I will get those pre-orders out the same day I receive my box from UPS so you should have them in your hot little hands VERY SOON!

Thanks for popping in.  Check in tomorrow.  I’ll either salvage the card I was working on or come up with something else for you!