halloween candy!

Are you ready for some Halloween blog candy? I'm going to give away THREE of our Spooked! sets today! Just leave a comment and tell me what your favorite Halloween costume has been (mine was a Rubik's Cube costume I made out of a box! Yes this was the 80's) or what your favorite Halloween candy is! I'm taking comments for one day only so get yours in by midnight PST...or it will turn into a pumpkin! Meridith is also giving away Halloween blog candy so go trick-or-treating there too!

More goodies...we are offering our Halloween-themed stamps today 40% off! (Spooked!, Witch, Witch Saying, Happy Haunting, and Happy Halloween.) This is an automatic price deduction in our shopping cart, no code required. This is also for ONE DAY ONLY!

Today my kids aren't my kids. They are a red Power Ranger and a Dalmatian puppy! Aren't they cute? I can't wait to take them trick-or-treating, it takes me back to my own trick-or-treating days as a kid. So fun! I only hope that someone in our neighborhood has stocked-up on Almond Joy candy bars (I purposely did not buy a bag of those because I knew they would be gone by today for sure.)



Had to share this funny cartoon my sister sent....



Happy Halloween!

Our November newsletter is going out tomorrow and we have some fun things planned for the upcoming Holiday season...so stay tuned!

man stamps

Today is my darling husband's birthday...and so I prepared myself to do the dreaded "masculine" card. Phillip has said he likes our "A Man's Sole" stamp set, and I did design those shoes based on actual shoes he owns, so that's what I reached for. The sentiment is from Sketched Sentiments. Happy Birthday honey! Only one more year until you're...errr...I won't say. :)

Thoughts on the masculine card.

I know we stampers are screaming for more masculine stamps, but let me tell you why stamp designers have panic attacks at the thought of designing a masculine stamp set. The problem with designing stamps that appeal to men is that they need to appeal to women too.

So, this makes it hard...because the types of things I see my husband interested in, for example, are car parts for his Audi (like the exhaust and tires), the latest Blackberry (too much work), assorted computer parts like motherboards and who-knows-what (I'd rather not know what goes in my computer, I just need it to work), video games (almost no interest for me there,) motorcycles (BIG no), WELDING (come on!), football and baseball (sure, but mostly for the cute men in uniform), salmon fishing (i.e. fish guts), etc. Do I really want to put these types of things on a card? It's not my deepest desire...but maybe, if it's cool or artsy or designy or (dare I say it) cute. The problem is though, the more we start making things like cars and fish artsy and cute, the less "masculine" they are. See the dilemma here??

This reminds me of the WORST assignment I ever had when I used to design for ESPN.com. We would design web ads to present to clients in the hopes that they'd hand over gobs of money to advertise, and my boss (a man) asked me to design a MASCULINE ad for an online floral company who was considering advertising on Valentine's day. Flowers = Valentines Day = masculine =ESPN?? Are you kidding me? I tried my best...I went with red and black (no pink) and chose red roses (the most masculine flower I could think of) and guess what? It didn't fly...my boss kept asking for something more masculine to show them. I was pulling my hair out! Eventually I had to give up, and my boss took a stab at it and admitted that it could not be done. There was to be no Valentine's floral ad on ESPN.com I'm afraid. ;) Later as a joke I sent him an ad with big lips and pink hearts and the most girly flowers and Valentine's day stuff I could find and asked him if that would work. We both laughed (ha ha!)

I asked my husband what types of images he'd like to see on a birthday card just today. He drew a blank and mentioned he liked our "shoe" set. You know what this tells me of course is that he doesn't really care, but appreciates the effort I'm making to at least try and appeal to his masculine side. I think that's all we can really do. After all, when he married me he knew what he was getting...a girly-girl who likes to do crafts and stamp and wants her china doll prominently displayed on the bookcase in our bedroom (it's true.) He doesn't seem to mind. I think these men expect that the cards we women give them be a little girly...they are from girls!

So, I am planning on attempting another manly stamp set, and you may even see a fish in it. It may be a fish with a smiling face though. :) If you have any "man" stamps you've been dying to see...now is the time to let me know about it! And I'm talking man stamps here, not little boy (we're quite comfortable doing little boy.) I'm about to put my "thinking cap" on for our next release...let the panic attacks begin.


By the way, this is the card my son made for Phillip. He insisted on using the robot set (Gizmos and Gears), and also that it have 3 "wheels" (gears). AND that he get to use my Spellbinders Wizard...cranking the die machine was half the fun and what really held his attention. See, future MAN here.

measuring again??

I think Meridith is trying to kill me...she's posted another Sketch Challenge that requires measuring this week (the triangles.) My ruler hasn't seen this much action since I was in design school. I made it work though and it does have the required "glitter"...I used Brilliance Purple ink. It's very pretty! I have so many birthdays coming up...we have 6 people in my family with birthdays in the next month. So you'll be seeing a lot of birthday cards from me! This one is for my sister.

You know what else this card uses? Bazzill cardstock that coordinates with our Pretty Papers...in this case the French Floral paper! Our design team girls gave us the *brilliant* idea to put together packs of Bazzill cardstock to sell alongside the Pretty Paper packs so you don't have to go hunting for cardstock that will work with our patterned paper. We've done the work for you! The packs are now up on our website and you can see them here....one for French Floral and one for Winter Wonderland. Yippee!

Card recipe:
Stamps: Simply Sentiments and Just Words II
Paper: French Floral patterned paper, and Bazzill cardstock from the French Floral pack
Brilliance Purple ink

happy halloween centerpiece

This project was so much fun to make! It was so much fun that nothing tore me away as I was making it...not even my toddler who had discovered the Halloween candy drawer, managed to open up the Snickers bag, and sat there eating it on the floor with sticky chocolate and caramel dripping down her face. Nope, I just let her do it so I could STAMP!



I have this project well-documented and ready to show you how to make for your table. I found this tree at Safeway, but I've seen similar trees at craft stores. I tied bits of ribbon (a great way to use up those ribbon bits!) in fall colors all over the tree. Then I made my ornaments by punching out circles with my Marvy Super circle punch. I took out some of my favorite fall stamp sets and decorated each circle. Some got color, some were heat-embossed, and some got a little glitter!



After my circles were decorated, I punched out a bunch of scallop circles with my Marvy Mega scallop circle punch. I adhered a piece of ribbon on the back of the stamped circle before adhering and framing it with the larger scallop circle piece.



I turned it over, did the same thing on the other side, and made a two-sided ornament! This way everyone gets to look at something different as they are sitting around the table.




A few close-up shots...isn't it fun to look at?





Supplies:
Tree centerpiece, circle and scallop circle punches, markers, ribbon, stamps, ink, embossing powder, glitter pen
Stamps used: Witch, Witch Saying, Spooked!, Happy Harvest, Celebration Frames

sketch challenge

This is a card for the Lizzie Anne sketch challenge. Kendra hosted this week. I keep reaching for my Circle Sentiments set. And my Shimmerz paint! I can't help it, they are calling to me. I brushed a small amount of red Shimmerz on the sentiment...you can see it sparkle a little in the photo (you can really see it sparkle in the sun!)

Card recipe:
Paper: embossed polka-dot cardstock and Basic Grey Cupcake patterned paper
Stamps: Circle Sentiments
Ink: Colorbox Red and SU Close to Cocoa
Ribbon: Bazzill
Edge Punch: Martha Stewart

So I guess what else I keep reaching for? The hoards of Halloween candy my husband just bought! I sent him to the store this weekend and put Halloween candy on the shopping list, and he buys five bags. We get a lot of kids in my neighborhood, but I know we won't go through five bags of candy. Which means I also know that there's plenty of extra candy for me to snack on all week. And then once my kids go trick-or-treating I'll have even MORE candy I can't stop snacking on! Aaah! This time of the year is so tough for me, I have a sweet tooth and I can't keep away from the goodies.

Only one more week until Halloween...I better get in some more Halloween cards before I have to put those stamps away for the year (sniff sniff!)

french blue 2

I had a strip of blue doily-punch edge paper from my last French Blue card laying around, and normally these things just get thrown away. But I couldn't do it this time, it was too pretty! I love this little card! It's the perfect thank you card to go along with a gift. I decided to add a second color this time -- red. It's a cranberry shade of red and I think it goes beautifully with french blue. I used our new Circle Sentiments set and a cute little jewel I had for the dot on the "i".

Card recipe:
Le Jardin
Circle Sentiments
Tiny jewels from My Minds Eye
Cranberry colorbox inkpad
cranberry cardstock
red polka-dot ribbon

french blue

Today's inspiration comes from a spool of blue and white flowery ribbon I found in the dollar bin at Michaels. Oh and my new doily edge punch! I went to Michaels hoping to finally purchase a Martha Stewart Halloween border punch--I've checked several times--but alas they were still sold out and I've accepted that there will be no Martha Halloween punch for me this year. But they did have the doily punch that I've had my eye on, so it was mine!

I painted a thin layer of Angel Wings Shimmerz paint on the flower petals...I tried to take a photo that shows this. It's very subtle and beautiful! I love blue and white together...so crisp and clean. Like blue jeans and a white t-shirt...my favorite outfit.

Card recipe:
Le Jardin
Simply Sentiments
Nestabilities ribbon tag die
Shimmerz Angel Wings paint
white gel pen
ribbon

Noteworthy: I wanted to mention that we've upped the discount on our Product of the Week...it's now 20%! And this week we are featuring EZMount Thin...the same stuff we make our stamps with. It's the best!

measuring up

I have a confession. When I saw Meridiths sketch challenge this week, I wasn't sure I was going to try it because it looked like she used a technique I usually stay away from...that would be measuring!

Now don't get me wrong...I own a ruler and I use it often -- usually as a hard edge for my Xacto knife when I'm eyeballing. ;) That's right, I eyeball things. I guess I think that actually taking the time to measure is something that people "with time" do...and I don't put myself in the "woman with time" category (do any of us?) The thing is though, I know Meridith most likely does not put herself in that category either...yet she managed to do this card. Beautifully might I add. So I decided to give it a whirl.



Well guess what? It wasn't that hard after all! In fact, the measuring time was only about 5 minutes. I took a photo of how I did it...I cut out a piece of patterned paper that was 4.25x4 and then drew a horizontal and vertical line right down the middle. From there, I divided up the two sides in the middle again, and then drew my "diamonds." Now the only tricky part was cutting this straight...you can't be off the lines you drew or it won't fit right. I did it!

Maybe I'll start measuring things from now on...

nah.

By the way, I made my own little hanging tree charm by stamping the polka-dot tree, cutting it out, covering it with SU Crystal Effects, and then punching a hole in it and attaching it with a jump ring to the ribbon (once it was dry.) Fun!

Card recipe:
Winter Wonderland paper pack
Holiday Cheer stamp set
SU Crystal Effects (on the hanging tree)
jump ring

new look!

Ever stay up until 2:00am eating chocolate and redesigning your blog on a whim? Ha ha. Actually this is something I've been wanting to do for quite awhile...give my blog a more "Lizzie Anne" type feel. And a more "me" type of feel too. I hope you like it!

a good saturday

I had a good Saturday. Which is good, because I did not have a good Friday! It started with my daughter shoving all my credit-cards and quite a few of my stamps into the vent holes on the top of my husbands computer, which we had to take apart. (Where in the world did she get that idea?) Then I had a silly argument over a family-party with my sister (why, why do I still have silly arguments with my sister after 30+ years) and then my son came home from school without the new coat we just bought him and the bus driver was upset because he had been spitting on the bus.

ugh.

Saturday when I woke up, my husband could tell I was already spent. So he gave me the day off! Yes! (good man!) When I really want a break there are two places that call to me...Starbucks and a good craft store. So I started off with a decaf pumpkin-spice latte and read a magazine while I sipped my coffee for about an hour. Then I headed over to my LSS, Hip 2B Square, for some cardstock. I was having trouble finding the exact colors I needed so the sweet owner of the store brought out her Bazzill color swatches and let me sort through them for about an hour while we chatted, it was so fun! Then she invited me to attend their crop that night, which sounded like the PERFECT idea. I have mentioned in the past that I am behind on my scrapbooking because I use what free time I have making cards. I'm about a year behind, which I don't like because it's important to me to have a record of my kids childhood...I know they will appreciate it someday. So I went to crop night, signed up for the monthly scrapbooking kit, and did a layout! Yes! And a card. (of course!)

The card I made is at the top of the post...one of the fun things about making this at the store was I was able to try their Cuttlebug folders to make the embossed background. It features our new Party Animals set.



I thought I'd share my scrapbook page too...it's called Smarty Pants. It features papers and embellishments by Pink Paislee, who we met at Winter CHA this year. Very sweet people in that company! This page was about my son's first day at Kindergarten and shows him in front of his new school (along with a very smart owl!)

Yay for Saturday.

By the way, the owner of Hip 2B Square asked me about possibly doing some cardmaking classes at her store. I think this would be fun, and if you are in the Seattle area, it would be fun to meet you! I'll keep you updated!

stunning snoqualmie

Hi everyone! Well I have been busy, busy busy with the biz. So much in fact that I haven't had a minute to do anything creative since WCMD. But I'm hoping to get some good craft time in this weekend!

A few things I wanted to share with you...

1) If you ordered new-release stamps last weekend, as of today all orders have shipped and are on their way to you!

2) The Shimmerz paints we were sold out of (including the ever popular Angel Wings) are now back in stock, along with some new colors: Coal, Opal, Butter Cream, Rustic Red, and Sagebrush. Rustic Red and Sagebrush are limited edition colors and won't be around much longer! They will be replacing those colors with some new Holiday colors (which we will carry of course.)

3) I recently took my kids to Snoqualmie Falls which is about 10 minutes away from where I live. It's so beautiful, I thought I'd share some photos! If you are ever in the Seattle area, Snoqualmie Falls is a must-see.


Snoqualmie Falls. There is a train museum in Snoqualmie as well and you can take a 20 minute train ride that goes right past here so you can look down on the falls (my son loves to do this.)


Kiddos on the observation deck by the Falls.



This is Salish Lodge and they are known for their *wonderful* breakfasts. In fact, you can even find Snoqualmie Falls pancake and oatmeal mixes in the local grocery stores. The dining room at the Salish Lodge overlooks Snoqualmie Falls...quite breathtaking. My husband and I like to treat ourselves and go to here for special occasions.

Have a wonderful week!

did ya get to play yesterday?

I did! I did AJ's sketch challenge on SCS, it was so fun! Here is the card I made...



Stamps: Happy Halloween
Paper: Cosmo Cricket and Reminisce
Ink: Colorbox Black
Other: Orange button and polka-dot ribbon

It was also quite fun to watch you all checking out our Santa's Card Making Workshop page! Our Design Team gal's did a great job helping us with samples for that page. And I hope you enjoyed our Fall release! By the way, we sold out of some of our new Shimmerz Paints yesterday, but don't worry...I really needed some of the new release colors for my stash--errr--our website, so I've already put in another order. (ha ha.) That product is addictive!

Last but not least, it's time to announce my blog candy winner! I ran the numbers on Random.org and it came up with comment #3, Bunny B! Bunny B, click on the Say Hello link over there on the left and email me your address, and I'll send you the paper! Congrats!

And if you didn't win, you still have a chance to win some paper on Meridith's blog...she isn't choosing a winner until Wednesday because she's off on a romantic getaway with her hubby right now. So go leave a comment if you haven't already!

happy world card making day!

The big day is here. World Card Making Day...and our Fall products are officially released today too! I hope you are all able to find some stamping time today to enjoy and share your hobby. The card above features two new products, our French Floral paper pack and our Circle Sentiments stamp set, designed by the lovely Joslyn, who's style I've come to greatly admire. This card was tough for me because I was trying my best to keep it CAS (Clean and Simple) and it was SO hard not to keep adding things. My hands kept reaching for more ribbon and buttons and my mind kept saying no, NO! So I'm very proud of myself for doing a CAS card...I love this style and I'm going to "practice" doing it more often, ha ha!

In honor of WCMD and my CAS card, I'm giving away some blog candy today, our new French Floral and Winter Wonderland paper packs! Just leave a comment saying what your WCMD plans are today and you'll get entered into the contest. I'll announce winner on Sunday morning!


In other news...our Santa's Card Making Workshop page is now live, and do you know what that means? That means any stamps you see used on this page today are 20% off, one day only!!! World Card Making Day celebrates the official start of the Holiday card making season, and this is our way of helping to inspire your Holiday card making. This page will live on our website throughout the Holiday season so you can refer to it for ideas. Of course we'll still have more Projects of the Month and Sketchbook samples to boot...we do our best to give you as many ideas for using our stamps and products as we can!

Enjoy the day...and comment now for blog candy! Don't forget to leave your name!

xoxo, Lizzie

introducing build-a-bauble

It's sneak peek day #3, and I'm revealing our last Holiday set today. Introducing Build-a-Bauble...a set that lets you create your own tree bauble or snowglobe -- either with the images in the set, *or* with any of your existing Holiday and Christmas stamps!

Some ideas on how to use this set...

1. Cut-Paper Tree Ornament Card


For this card, I stamped the bauble that has six sections on the backs of three different patterned papers. The paper I chose was the stripe from our Winter Wonderland paper pack, the green distress paper from our French Floral paper pack, and a pattern from Basic Grey's Figgy Pudding line. Small patterns work great for this technique. I cut out and used two slices of each pattern and glued all the pieces together to make the bauble! To hang the bauble, I first stamped the pine bough from Heaven and Nature on a cream card base, and then I stamped one of the tree hangers on top of the bough before I glued the ornament pieces on the card. I stamped another tree hanger on a separate piece of paper, cut it out, and glued it on top of the bauble to give it a dimensional look. The sentiment in the upper right-hand corner is from Holiday Script. A very elegant card!

2. Santa's Toy Making Workshop Card



I used the Santa's Toy Shop bauble for this card, and decided to make it a snowglobe. Do you see the natural highlight on this card? I put a thick layer of Crystal Effects (Stampin' Up) on the snowglobe to make it look like glass! My kids couldn't stop touching this card, they loved it. I colored in the image with Copic markers and this is the first time I've put Crystal Effects on top of images with a lot of marker ink...I'm happy to say it didn't bleed at all! The Let it Snow sentiment is from Christmas in the City and the snowflake paper is from our Winter Wonderland paper pack.

3. Snowman Bauble Card



Speaking of our Christmas in the City set, I thought the snowman would be perfect inside a tree bauble or a snowglobe! I used the circle outline stamp in the Build-a-Bauble set to turn the snowman image into an ornament. I also stamped the highlight stamp in the set in the corner of the ornament to make it look a little glassy and dimensional. For the card base, I used the hats-and-mittens paper from our Winter Wonderland paper pack...one of my favorite papers! So cute.



Another thing I did to Mr. Snowman was give him some sparkly shimmer. I painted the image with Angel Wings Shimmerz paint! Isn't this a beautiful effect? It reminds me of what snow looks like when it's touched by sunlight (not that we want our snowman to melt! Ha ha ha!) We now sell Shimmerz in our online store. You can find them under the Accessories category.

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In other news...

Ever looked for a sentiment that fits perfectly inside a circle? Meridith will be showing our new Circle Sentiments set today. And visit our Design Team's blogs for more samples!

Tomorrow is World Card Making Day!!! If you read our newsletter, we announced a special page that will be launching on our website tomorrow, Santa's Card Making Workshop. On this page you will find Holiday and winter-inspired samples to kick-start the holiday card making season. This page will live on our website throughout the holidays.

MORE...any stamps you see on the Santa's Card Making Workshop page on WCMD, Saturday, October 4th, will be 20% off for one day only!

See you tomorrow!

heaven and nature

Hi everyone, and welcome to Fall Release Sneak Peek Day #2!

If you love nature stamps, our new Heaven and Nature set will not disappoint! The set I am introducing today is the newest addition to our nature-inspired stamp line illustrated by the same artist who also illustrated our Au Naturale and In the Meadow sets. You will find these sets under a new category on our website, the Katie Jane Collection. Katie's naturalistic illustration style has been very popular with a lot of you, so we have asked her to release a set for us every quarter! Katie (who is also a very dear friend) is thrilled about this opportunity and we can't wait to put her to work ;)

For this release, we asked for a nature/floral set with a Holiday theme. The images you will find are a Christmas amaryllis, a pine bough, a pine cone, holly leaf, mistletoe, poinsettia, and a "Heaven and Nature Sing" sentiment -- words taken from the loved Christmas carol Joy to the Word. These illustrations are just beautiful! To see the rest of the set, make sure to visit the sneak peek page.

I had a hard time choosing which images to play with for my sample today...I can't wait to use them all! But my eye kept traveling to the pine bough, pine cone, and sentiment. The card at the top of this post features those three images. I stamped the pine bough on green distressed paper from our new French Floral paper pack!


The first time I saw the pine cone image, I thought that it would make adorable naturalistic wrapping paper. This is a stamp set that I've wrapped up for my aunt as a gift...she's been eyeing our Silent Night set for her Christmas cards so I'm sending it to her as an early Christmas present (Merry Christmas Shauna!) I stamped the pine cone randomly on brown Kraft paper and then wrapped it up with some natural hemp twine and pretty green and brown-edged ribbon. I also made a little tag with the pine cone image. Isn't it pretty? Don't worry about making the pine cones on this wrapping paper line up perfectly...after all, this is the "natural" look! It's an easy and pretty way to wrap up a present, and even the back of the present is pretty!

Meridith is revealing our new Party Animals stamp set on her blog. It's an adorable way to say Happy Birthday....party animal style!

Make sure to visit our Design Team's blogs too for more sneak peeks!

introducing pretty papers

Welcome to day one of our Fall sneak peeks...I'm excited to introduce to you a brand new product, Pretty Papers! We know that patterned paper and stamps go hand-in-hand, and we have been anxious to design our own line of patterned paper to match our stamps for quite some time now. Our paper is the popular 8x8 size and comes in packs of 12...2 each of 6 designs on quality 65lb paper. The paper packs retail for the very affordable price of $3.99. Our first two paper packs are Winter Wonderland and French Floral. I am presenting Winter Wonderland today, and Meridith is presenting French Floral!

The Winter Wonderland pack of papers features winter and holiday patterns, perfect for the upcoming holiday season of cardmaking! We pulled images from our popular Christmas in the City stamp set as well as Holiday Cheer and our Snowmen stamp single. Though they were designed to coordinate with our stamps, these papers are also great on their own for all sorts of crafting projects!


My first sample features our Snowmen stamp and it's coordinating paper...aren't they adorable together? I colored the hats and scarves on the snowmen to match the colors of the paper. Another thing I did was add some buttons to this card that match the colors in the paper...seems appropriate for snowmen cards (Frosty's button nose!)


Of course the other great thing about 8x8 patterned paper is that it's also a great size for scrapbooking. Here are two 8x8 layouts that I plan on putting in my Christmas scrapbook featuring some shots of my kiddies from last year. The papers I used on this layout coordinate with our Holiday Cheer stamp set...you can see the adorable row of Christmas trees that match the Christmas trees stamp in that set, as well as stripes and polka dot designs from the trees.


Close up of the trees paper. I stamped a green polka-dot tree in the scallop circle and added the year with a black marker.


Close up of the corner of page 2...three trees and the Holiday Cheer sentiment (this sentiment is also on the trees paper.)

I hope you are as excited about our new paper as we are! I love paper as much as I love stamps, and the chance to design our own paper is a dream come true!

Make sure to visit our Design Team's blogs today for more sneak peeks of our new paper line!