Autumn Wreath

I was in the craft store and I had just about made it out the door without doing too much damage when I saw this Martha Stewart Autumn Wreath kit. Paper leaves, are you kidding me?! It was MINE.

As I was putting this together, it occurred to me that the leaves might look really cute with some darker inked edges. I tried one leaf and loved how it looked, so I did the whole wreath!


I used my sponge daubers and SU Close to Cocoa for the brown leaves, Real Red for the red leaves, Marigold morning for the yellow and sparkly cream leaves, and Pumpkin Pie for the orange leaves. I wanted it to be a subtle effect so I used colors that closely matched the leaves, though I think it would be cute if you wanted to really accent the leaves and do darker edges too. It really enhanced the wreath! The only leaves I didn't ink were the solid gold ones...though I think a little brown ink would have been nice...

Two more tips if you make the MSL Autumn Wreath. They give you a whole roll of the brown florists tape so don't be frugal...use that tape! Also, I inked up the cardboard ring that you attach the leaves to in brown. The leaves cover most of the ring but there are still little areas here and there that you can see, so it helped it to blend a little better after I inked it.

Howdy!

I told you I was in a Cowboy-kind-of-mood this week! This is a simple card featuring the howdy sentiment and some cute Western paper. There are so many ways to say "Hello." I love to mix it up a bit. (Like "Bonjour!" for example. A little hit of what's next to come on my blog...)

So, this is actually the *second* card like this I made. What happened to the first card you ask? Well, let me tell you. I was sewing on the paper--something I don't do very often by the way--and I was so excited because my sewing job turned out just perfect! It wasn't until I went to open my card to write in it that I realized that--guess what---I had *sewn my card together.* That's right. I didn't open the card up when I was sewing!!!! AAAAAHHHH!!

Please tell me I am not the only one that's ever done this! I'm so bummed too because the sewing really was perfect, and it's not so much on this card. I thought about photographing the other card and faking it. But you know what, I decided that since this was a Western-themed card that it was okay that it wasn't perfect. When I think of a Cowboy I don't think of perfectly sewn clothes, do you? I'm sure that real Cowboys are out there on the range doing their own sewing, and it looks very hand-done.

At least that sounds good, huh? :)

Stamp: Lizzie Anne Designs Howdy and Shapes and Stitches
Flower: Prima. I sponged the edges with a little ink.
Button: SEI
Patterned Paper: Stampin Up Outlaw
Ink: Stampin Up Chocolate Chip and Close to Cocoa
Sewing machine...thought I'd throw this in. It's the Janome Mini and I love it! I first heard about this through Cambria's blog and I had to buy it. I'm sure that with some practice my sewing will get much better. Until then I might stick to sewing on "weathered" looking cards though. Ha ha.

New Poll. And Lizzie Anne Stuff...

I'm curious, when do most of you start making your Holiday cards? I've made a little poll about this on the left-hand side of my blog and I'm going to let it live there until Dec. 25th! It will be interesting to see what months people are really thinking it's time to get going on the holiday cards won't it? Be honest! I'll be honest....I always get my cards out before Christmas. But sometimes that means December 24th. :)

One more thing to mention. Our October newsletter is going to be so chalk full of Lizzie Anne scoop...make sure you are on our mailing list! We have a contest to announce, some old photos of Meridith and I in college in our Halloween costumes (oh yes) and, a BIG annoucement about a special something we are planning with Splitcoast. I can't wait to spill the beans!

That's all for tonight...

Rootin Tootin Birthday

I warn you, I'm in a very cowboy kind of mood this week, as you will see! Here's a little birthday card I made for my son to take to a birthday party. Yes, I realize his 5-year-old friend will probably look at it for about 2 seconds before moving on to the present, but his mother will appreciate it. ;) I don't know where I came up with "Have a rootin tootin birthday...." I'm pretty sure I've never uttered those words in my life, but kinda cute, huh? Especially for a boys birthday card. My son liked it so I guess it's acceptable!

I stamped the cowboy on the teal paper and then used both chalks and markers to color him in. I used my white gel pen on the hat/boots. And then I stamped another cowboy on the same craft-colored cardstock as my card and cut out the face and arms. A little distressing around the edges of my patterned paper pieces, and a little rounded-corner punch action, and it's ready to go!

Patterned paper: SU Outlaw
Stamp: Cowboy and Howdy and Shapes and Stitches
Inks: SU Chocolate Chip
Decorative Brad: Making Memories
Font for Rootin Tootin: Giddyup

Ride em' Cowboy!

Overheard at my house Friday night...

T: I'm going to be taking over the dining room table for some projects I'm working on. It's papercrafting time!
P: Ah. I guess that means we'll be eating on the couch all weekend then, huh?
T: Oh P, don't be silly...it won't be all weekend! It will be more like all week.

He he. I believe that honesty is the best policy, don't you? :)

I have been pumping out some projects, most notably *one* of the Halloween projects that we'll be revealing on our Project of the Month page on October 1st. (*We're pumping up our POTM's for the upcoming holidays. More about this in our next newsletter.) You'll have to wait to see that Halloween project...I'm excited about it!


Here's a scrapbook page of my mule ride down the Grand Canyon last month. I've been excited to do this cowboy-themed page from about the minute I saddled up. Look how cute our little cowboy and howdy stamps are with this page! I wanted a soft look so I colored in the cowboy with my SU chalks. And I also used a stitch from the Shapes and Stitches set. I sanded the edges of my photos for this layout...a technique I love to use on pages when I want a more weathered look. Sanding the edges makes a natural border around the photo without having to use a mat. Make sure to click on this photo to see the larger, more detailed version (can you tell I'm a little proud of this page? :)

Products Used:
Cowboy, Howdy, and Shapes & Stitches stamps
Patterned Paper: Bohemia- My Minds Eye, and SU Outlaw
Font for title: Giddyup
Horseshoe Die-cut: Found this at my LSS
Ink and Chalks: SU
Hardware: Making Memories

Cool Beans

I played with my new Coffee Beans stamp...I'm so excited! Didn't it turn out cute? It's just what the Latte Cup and Latte Saying needed....

The beans have been stamped with SU Groovy Guava ink on Groovy Guava cardstock on the bottom, and then I also Versamarked them behind the coffee cup. I stamped the coffee cup in Chocolate Chip ink, and then colored the cup white with my white gel pen. It really made it pop! These colors are very soothing to me. I love to pair browns and tans with lighter shades of salmon pinks and blues. Speaking of color combinations, we quizzed our Design Team on what their favorite color combinations are, and we're going to publish the results in our October newsletter! It's going to go in a new feature called the Design Team Dish. Every month we'll ask our team new questions. It's going to be fun!

Jeanne did an adorable card with all the Coffee/Latte stamps yesterday as well...go check out her blog if you haven't seen it already....

News. And Tagged.

The news first...
You will now see an Order Status button at the top of the Products (store) page on our website, and it's now working! :) We added order status because we know that a lot of you aren't getting the shipping notification emails. Email is just finicky this way, (and so is Pay Pal but I won't go there, I was on the phone with them for hours this weekend.) So, if any of you would like to know if your order has been shipped and you haven't received a shipping notification, just click on the Order Status button, enter your order number and email address, and you'll see your order and the shipping status. Pretty cool huh?!

Okay. I've been Tagged by Meridith! Here I go....

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) –Odie Mazda

2. YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) -Coconut Fudge Sugar

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) -Tulb (ew.)

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) –Lavender Giraffe

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born) -Elizabeth Lake. Salt Lake actually but dropping the Salt really helps.

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) -Ulbtr....these don't work so well for me.

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink put “The”) -The Green Mint Julep. Hey that really works!

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers) -Jay Byron

9. STRIPPER NAME: ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne, favorite candy)-Stilla Truffle. Not bad.

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) -Elizabeth Byron

I'm going to tag Zena and Katie E! They are both new to the Blogging world so this is a good initiation...

Fall Colors

This is a card I made over the weekend that is little bit different style for me. It's using our Au Naturale set. I wanted to do a fall leaves card and the big maple leaf in this set was perfect. The sentiments are from our new Just Words set. I embossed the leaves all over the back of a cream card with clear embossing powder and then rubbed different colors of pastel chalks over the top to create the background. I also colored in the orange leaf on the top of the card with pastels. The ink I used for the top leaf and sentiments is SU Purely Pomegranite.

You may have noticed that this set is a bit different than a lot of our other sets too. A different style. Well, let me tell you why that is! :)

Meridith and I design about 90% of our stamps. But we have a lot of really talented artist friends who like to try and design stamps for us too. It's fun! Plus we like to have a little diversity in our sets. This set was actually designed by a good friend of mine, Katie Singleton. Katie was in the Art Department with Meridith and I at the University of Utah, but she ended up going the Drawing and Painting route while Meridith and I went the Graphic Design route. Katie was one of those people who always knocked the socks off our professors in our Drawing and Painting classes---the professor would spend like half an hour gushing over her drawings while the rest of us sat in the back of the classroom and cringed. She was just too good sometimes. ha ha! Luckily Katie is one of my dearest friends and not only did she do this set for us, she's working on another one for us right now that we will be releasing this winter. It's going to be awesome...just you wait and see!

BY THE WAY...you may notice the Order Status button on our website in the Products area. This is something we just added today but it will take a day or two to get it updated. So don't try to use it yet, ha ha! I'll post to my blog when it's working...when it's ready this feature will help you all check to see if your orders have gone out!

Proud Papa

I had a lovely time scrapooking and cardmaking with my girlfriends this weekend, and let me tell ya, after my day last Friday I needed it. (more on that to follow ;) This is a photo I've had on my list to scrapbook for some time because I love it so much. It's of my husband holding Samantha in the hospital room about an hour after she was born. You can't see it but he has tears in his eyes...you can see it if you look at the photo up-close. My husband has alawys been the crier. He cried at our wedding as I was just gushing at how much fun I was having parading around in my dress. Ha ha ha! :) It's one of the things I love about Phillip.


When I stamp on scrapbook pages, rarely do I use stamps to create the whole design of the page. I usually use my stamps to make little accents...stamps are perfect for that. The little flowers underneath the photo are from our new Floral Frenzy set and then I also have some areas of flowers Versamarked on the blue cardstock. I thought those little flowers looked similar to some of the flowers in the patterned paper I chose and I wanted to highlight that. I used a white gel pen and my markers to color in the flowers.

Back to my day on Friday. (And thank you for letting me vent here a little bit, ha ha.) I had one of those days with my kids. You know, one of THOSE DAYS. :) Samantha has a bit of a reflex problem--one I just got some medication for thank heaven so hopefully that starts working soon--and I had been spit up on and changed my clothes so many times that day. I love little babies but sometimes the baby stuff--like the spit up--gets really old. I'm tired of smelling like baby vomit. HA HA. Well anyways, as I'm dealing with this (and there was more spit-up this day than usual) I walk into our living room to find my son Ethan making a huge POOL OF DROOL on top of our leather footstool! AAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGGGHHHH! Where in the world he got that idea I have no idea. He was literally bent over the footstool just spitting and spitting until it formed this gigantic pool of drool that was dripping over the stool. Doesn't that sound like a fun clean-up job?

You're probably laughing right now, I am too. Really. I wasn't on Friday though.

Here's the thing. I am finding it difficult adjusting to being a two-kid mom instead of just the one. I know and I've heard this is normal, but what I didn't expect is the way my feelings towards my son would change. I still love him to death, he's my first baby! But now I get so much more annoyed by these things he does! Before Samantha I'm sure I would have laughed at the Pool of Drool the minute I saw it. But on Friday, I was already so tired of cleaning up spit-up that the last thing in the world I wanted to do was clean up drool too. Does that make sense? And I lost it with him.

It just makes me so sad because I miss my little boy so much. I feel like so much of my time has to be devoted to Samantha, and Ethan used to be my best friend. I'm serious. That kid is the sweetest thing. He still is, but I don't seem to have the patience for the crazy kid stuff he does like I once did.

I'm really hoping this changes as Samantha gets older...do you think it will? I don't like being irritated with my baby boy, it makes me so sad. Thanks for listening, sometimes writing about these things makes you feel a lot better (I already do! :)

All About Cling Stamps

Wow it's been one busy and exciting week! We've been filling new orders, and if you've placed an order with us this week you'll be happy to know it's on it's way! We've done a good job keeping up with ya all! :)

We get a lot of questions about cling stamps, and I thought it would be a great idea to explain them to those of you who may be new to cling stamps. When Meridith and I were researching how to get our designs made into stamps, we had a lot of options to consider. We knew we wanted the ability to design whole sets of stamps without them costing the consumer an arm and a leg. We loved the idea of unmounted stamps for storage reasons, but we love red rubber, and wanted to do rubber rather than polymer stamps. We also loved the idea of the clear mounting block...it makes it so much easier to stamp your images when you can see through that block!

As we were researching stamp production options, we came across cling stamps. Cling stamps are a relatively new concept in the stamping world and we had actually never heard of them before!! Of course once we found them and tried them out we fell instantly in love. Cling stamps were the answer to all our requirements....the ability to do sets, the ability to use jewel cases for storage, the ability to use a clear mounting block, and our designs could be made into deeply-etched red rubber stamps for the best impressions possible. We were hooked and couldn't wait to share our discovery.

This is a picture of the back of a cling stamp. You can see that the cushion is black with a "shiny" material on top. This is the cling film. The best way to describe cling film is it works in the same way those cling decals that get stuck to your car window work. They cling to glass/smooth surfaces. They cling GREAT to clear acrylic blocks. And just like the window decals, they do not ever stop sticking. The only thing that needs to be done is to make sure that both the block and the cling stamp are clean. If your cling stamps are not sticking to the block as well as they once did, clean both your block and the backside of the stamp with a little water or even stamp cleaner and it will stick again like a charm!


This is a side view picture of our cling stamps. The rubber is glued to the black cushion and the black cushion is glued to the cling film. Also noteworthy is that the cling film and cushion are not overly thick so they fit inside those jewel cases well. There is another cling product on the market that is the gray cushion which we also like a lot, but we found the gray cushion was a little too thick for our cases. We also like the way the black cushion looks.

Cool things to mention about our cases; they are not typical cd cases. There is no hole in the side where the cd tray usually fits. They are a bit thinner and they flip back into an easel so you could actually prop up your stamps as you work! Another thing you will see in our Little Bits jewel-case packaging is that we have put our stamps on a plastic storage sheet so they face out and you can see them through the case (on the other side of the cover booklet.) You have the option of sticking your stamps to the storage sheet or just using the inside of the jewel case. (A lot of people have even told us they like using the storage sheet without the case!)

I hope this helps to explain cling stamps a bit better. We love this product and are thrilled that so many of you love it too!!! We've been getting a lot of emails from you all telling us that you love the quality of our product. We love hearing this, thank you for your comments. We are quite proud of our stamps!

We have a Common Questions and Answers section that explains cling stamps as well!

Today's the Day!

Today is the day our new stamps are on sale, yippee! And, just to make things more fun, we've uploaded a BUNCH of new samples from our Design Team to the Sketchbook, many of which feature samples made with our new stamps as well as samples for the upcoming holidays. Make sure to check them out!

Here are two samples using the High Hello's set. Tip: one of the cool things about cling stamps is you can actually bend the rubber and the image a bit so it makes a new shape. For example, I bent the stamp to make the flowers on the card below lean different ways. Cool huh? I've actually seen our Design Team doing this a lot lately and had to try it out myself! This card also uses the new Just Words set and Shapes and Stitches.


I used a stamp from the new In the Background set to make the circle pattern on the blue card (Versamark.) Can I just tell you I've already thought of SO many ways to use that Backgrounds set...I can tell it's going to be one of my most-used sets.


Happy Stamping! :)

Princes and Princesses

Here's a picture of me and Meridith and our kiddies in front of the castle at Disneyland! We had a great time and the weather ended up being perfect.

Today we are heading over to the Disney headquarters in Burbank for a bit to visit the Archives and the animation studios and the big Disney company store...mwaahaha. My husband works for Disney and is an official "cast member" so we get to go see where it all started. And get a discount on Disney merchandise at the store of course ;) he he. I am so excited to start buying all the Princess stuff for my daughter...big fluffy pink things. I've been wanting to do that forever! We're heading back to Seattle this afternoon. It will be good to get back into the swing of things at home...and only two more days until our new stamps are released, I can't wait!

California Dreamin...

We arrived in California today earlier than we thought we would, so we hit Disneyland for a few hours and it was so much fun! We were having so much fun, in fact, that we missed the last shuttle to our hotel because we were standing in the Finding Nemo line past the time the park closed. Woops. So we spent about 45 minutes walking back to our hotel. Ha ha. Note to self that no D-Land ride is worth missing the hotel shuttle.

While walking back to our hotel, we walked past the convention center where CHA Winter was last January (and where it will be next year and for a few years past that I believe...) It reminded me of our first experience exhibiting at CHA, and also of the many things we learned you should and should not do! Here are the top five...

1) Do not plan on using the Kinkos across the street from the convention center prior to the show. In fact, don't plan on finding an available copy machine in any building anywhere within a TEN MILE RADIUS of the convention center during CHA. ("Those b/w copies will be ready for you to pick up around, oh Tuesday night." Jaw dropping.)

2) Do not choose an outbound flight that coincides with rush-hour traffic, especially if you've rented a car and are unfamiliar with the LA freeway system. This is LOS ANGELES after all, for crying out loud. ("Oh look, there are lots of seats available on that 6:00pm flight...")

3) Do plan a lunch break? HA! Yeah right. Sneak in some granola bars and hide them under your table.

4) Somebody really needs to invent a sippy cup for adults. (Sorry. Meridith may be the only one laughing at this one.)

5) DO have fun! We got that one right ;) We're actually really excited to exhibit again. Especially now that we're so "knowledgeable.." ha ha.

Meridith has some ADORABLE card samples on her blog featuring some of our new sets...make sure to check them out! And our designers have really been going to town too so make sure to check out what they've been up to as well...

Mule Ride Anyone?

...so I just went on my first ever mule ride down the Grand Canyon! HA HA HA! Here's my mule, Junior. They named him Junior because he's actually the BIGGEST mule they had...it was scary at times up there! Taking a mule ride was actually my husbands idea, which absolutely shocked me because this is not something my techno-geek hubby would normally be interested in at all. He wanted to experience the Grand Canyon though (and felt the mules were a much better option than hiking) so we did it! It was hilarious, the minute we sat on the mules all of a sudden Phillip developed a western twang. I had him talk computer talk in his newly found accent and let me tell ya, you haven't lived until you've heard techno-speak with a western twang. Ha ha! I really wish we would have had cowboy hats...note for next time. We had so much fun and it was just beautiful.

Here's a Grand Canyon joke for you....(told by the cowboy leading our mule pack...)
Q: How can you tell the difference between the mule riders and the hikers in the dining room at the Grand Canyon Lodge at the end of the day?
A: The hikers are dying to sit down, and the mule-riders are dying to STAND UP!!

It's the truth, I couldn't walk there for about a day but hey, it was worth it! :)

It's HOT here!!!! We are now in St. George where we are visiting my parents and it's been about 105. We heard it's about that hot at Disneyland where we are leaving for tomorrow...I'm really hoping it cools down by the time we arrive...

I went to the LSS here and loaded up on some new cardmaking and scrapbooking papers, can't wait to use them. I already have my "cowboy theme" page featuring me on the mule all planned out in my head...

Here's a photo of our family with the canyon behind us. I'll be posting a bit later from Disneyland!