Flower Fusion - Inspired by Kathy

Hello there. I hope you all are having a better day than I am. Yesterday was definitely a *Monday*, but then today felt even more like one!! Ughhh. Rude people annoy me. I take a lot of complaint calls as part of my job, and I realize that most of the people that call do have legitimate complaints (even though there is usually an explanation that they don't want to hear), and the majority of people are courteous and polite but then there are those that are not, and today was a day full of those. It's just so draining. And that was on top of other problems at work and the other source of stress in my life right now....the "brother issues"....so it was not a good day at all. There's no time to stamp tonight and I'm not really in the mood, but if I could it would probably cheer me up some. But instead I will probably watch American Idol and then go to bed. Tomorrow has got to be better. I hope!

Anyway, I have a card to share that I made over the weekend. I've had the Flower Fusion felt flowers from Stampin' Up for several weeks now and have been wanting to use them, but just didn't know for what. I love the colors that they come in (Rose Red, Pumpkin Pie and Old Olive), but they aren't colors that I use a lot. They are just so gorgeous that I'm almost afraid to use them up too quick, but there are quite a few of each shape and size, so I went ahead and used a bunch on this card.

I ended up copying a layout of a card my sister made and sent to my mom last summer. I've had it sitting on my shelf and have been wanting to use the layout and it worked great for this card. I had to take a pic of her card so you can see how I used the layout but yet changed it up a bit. And once again, I used no stamps on this card. The sentiment "just because" is from the SAB rub-ons. I used Rose Red, Old Olive and Basic Black card stock and a piece of the Summer Picnic designer paper from the Occassions mini. (that my sister generously shared with me) For the flower centers, I used a pink and orange rhinestone brad from the SU Fire Circle collection and the clear one I had on hand from Making Memories I think. The rose and pumpkin flowers are just attached to the card with the brads and the olive flower is popped up on a foam square. I do have one complaint about the felt flowers - they were really hard to adhere. I tried just glueing them to the card stock (I was planning to put self-stick rhinestones in the centers) but I could not get any glue or tape to hold them to the paper, so I guess they really are meant to be attached with a brad or eyelet. The foam tape square is holding the olive one pretty well though. The ribbon was given to me by my sister, and is the same kind that she used on the card that inspired this one. (Thanks, Kathy!) I do like these colors together, I will have to try to use them with some stamps and use some more of the flowers on another card soon. I hope I get to stamp again soon, but the weeknights are always so hard. Sigh.

Well, take care everyone and have a great night/day. It's time for AI, and admit to being a fan, a latecomer fan though as I've only really gotten into it in the last couple of years. It's just fun to watch and I love music. I even enjoy going to some local karaoke contests sometimes. (Only as a spectator of course!!) Yeah, that probably makes me a geek but I'm ok with that. LOL This week is Dolly Parton week and I'm having a hard time imagining some of them singing her songs, so it should be interesting! If you watch, let me know who your favorites are. Mine keep changing!

Talk to you again soon.

My first attempt....

.... at the "Scratch-n-Sniff" technique. It kinda worked I guess. But I definitely need to play around with it some more and test a few things out. I have been meaning to try it and wanted to use the new SU set Tart and Tangy, but then last night I needed to do a quick birthday card for a 20-year-old. I wanted to use the set Big Bold Birthday, and then thought about doing the scratch-n-sniff technique on the frosting for the cupcake.



I used Cherry Kool-Aid and follwed the directions out of a SU's Stampin' Success magazine. Like I said it "kinda" worked, but I think I need to try some other variations. I've read numerous comments on splitcoaststampers about the technique so I will try to come up with some improvements on my first attempt. And then I just *had* to put some "sprinkles" on the cupcake and didn't like anything till I put the little rhinestones on it. Unfortunately, they aren't sticking very well. Grrr. And when you go to "scratch" on it, the rhinestones tend to come off. I tried glueing a couple of them on but the glue reacted with the stuff used for the scratch-n-sniff technique and discolored the "frosting", so I had to just leave well enough alone. Last night it did smell pretty good when I rubbed on it gently, but now today the smell already seems to have lessened.

I plan on doing this technique at my next stampers club workshop so I need to do some experimenting. I am going to try using the Ultra Thick embossing powder as suggested on Splitcoaststampers. I'll let you know what results I get from that.

The layout of this card was copied from a workshop card we did a few months ago. The patterned paper is a scrap from some I've had for a long long time and used on quite a few things. I started off with Purely Pomegranate card stock because I thought it fit the scent of "black cherry" the best. And then I found the scrap of patterned paper that I thought was cool and really matched the pomegranate. This card did not photograph well at all, not sure if you can see it or not but I also put a tiny self adhesive rhinestone to dot the "i" on the "make a wish" sentiment. I think it turned out pretty well and the recipient will hopefully enjoy it.

I also made another quick card last night (and finished my birthday project and card that I had started on Friday night) that I can share with you soon, but for now I will share the card I ended up making to send out for Easter with the Papertrey, Ink set called Everyday Blessings.



I only made about six of them, I had wanted to send out a lot more than that, but didn't get to them in time. I threw the design together really quickly, but I actually love these colors together - Chocolate Chip, Lavender Lace and Certainly Celery. The cardstock is all Stampin' Up, as well as the Forever Flowers wheel that I used for the background on the Lavender panel. The dotted celery ribbon is from Michael's and the self-adhesive pearls I picked up at Archiver's in Appleton. I printed out "He is Risen" on my computer and punched it out with the SU large oval punch. I also printed out a verse for the inside. I had really wanted to come up with a better design, but with the time I had to work with I think they turned out well.

Unfortunately I don't think I'm going to get a chance to stamp today, but I'll have something else to post tonight or tomorrow. I'm off to spend some time with Skyler before we have to take him home.

Enjoy what's left of your weekend!

I am SO glad....

.....that this week is over!!!! Or should it be I am so glad that last week is over? Hmmmmm. Anyway, I'm glad it's the weekend and while I have a million things I could be doing and probably at least a half a million things I *SHOULD* be doing, I'm taking it easy!!!

It was just a rough week, and yet it seemed to fly right by, probably because I was so busy. I had two very late nights at work Monday and Tuesday and then Wednesday I had to go shopping since we were out of bread, milk, etc. etc. and also had to deal with "brother issues" - for those of you that know what we are going through with my brother, you will understand - for those of you that don't know, trust me when I say you don't *want* to know. ;-) And I also owed my stampin' sis a long overdue phone call so that was a busy, late night. Then on Thursday I wasn't feeling very good and remembered I needed to get a prescription refilled - sure wish I had remembered that on Wed when I was at WalMart, but that would have been too easy ya know! LOL

Oh, but on Thursday I did actually make a meal by myself, well no - actually Joe helped me a bit which was really nice (and really shocking!), but it was a recipe I found on allrecipes.com for Chicken Cordon Blue and it was very very YUMMY if I do say so myself. (Joe said so too!) It was a bit tricky trying to thin down the chicken breast and getting it all rolled up but other than that it was super easy and extremely delicious. After we were done eating I wished I had taken a picture of it, it looked so nice! (Ok, I think that's a sign that I've now become a true blogger, wanting to take pics of my food to share with you all!) ;-)

Friday night I actually got to stamp with some friends for a while, and that was a lot of fun. I started a project for a birthday present and it's already late so I really need to go finish it sometime today! But after my friends left I got caught up in the Dateline special last night on the two families that had daughters involved in a car accident, one daughter died and the other was in a coma for several days and it ended up that the girl in the coma was really the girl they thought had died. Wow, for some reason that story really got to me and made me cry for those people and all that they went with, but it was also very inspiring because they all had such powerful Faith and never got bitter or angry and just handled it all so well. The family who thought their daughter was in a coma and recovering were from the Grand Rapids, Michigan area so it was also kind of "close to home". They all wrote a book together and I hope to read it someday. Quite the story.

Ok, I know it's been *forever* since I posted anything stamping related, and I do have something *new* to show you, even though I made it a couple weeks ago. I think I made it the day after our trip to Green Bay & Appleton, but then never got around to posting it. I loved the card as I was making it and then didn't like it much after it was done, but looking at it again much later I really like it again! I just wish I had used a darker ink color for the bird, it kind of gets "washed out" in a way. Although it does look much better in person than in this picture.


This was my first time using the textured card stock from Stampin' Up. I love it! I just wish it was available in single color packages. It's very rich looking and I love the texture. I also used the SU set Always, and a flower rub-on from the Sale-A-Bration set. I applied that to a large celery green flower-shaped brad that I received from my sister (Thanks, Kathy!), loved the brad but it needed "something" and the chocolate brown rub on really made it stand out, don't you agree? I used the SU Photo Corners punch and pierced some holes in those, as well as did some paper piercing right on the card base in the two opposing corners. And then I used a self adhesive felt flower border that I purchased from Archivers in Appleton. I forgot to right down the company that makes it, but I will edit with that information later if I remember. It was so cute and not too terribly expensive. I was surprised though after I applied it, because it was a much deeper pink color before I took the thick white paper backing off, so once it was on the card it looked a lot lighter. But it still looks good, right?

The other thing I would have changed if I could was the placement of the bird...it looked centered fine until I put the photo corners on and now it looks like his head is too close to the top right corner. I think it's just the shape of the bird that makes it appear that way. It's not that bad, but in hindsight I would have put him a little more down to the bottom left. The card stock colors are Lavendar Lace (textured), Chocolate Chip and Certainly Celery.

I hope to have something NEW to post later tonight or tomorrow, but first I have to finish the birthday project and card and won't be able to post those until they are received as the birthday girl's mom might be checking out my blog. But I'm hoping to get time to make something else that I can post. Cross your fingers for me! ;-)

I hope you are all having a wonderful weekend. I love the sunshine but hope it warms up enough to melt some more of this nasty dirty snow. Ughhh! Take care everyone!