Quick post

Hi all, well since both our daughter and son have started school I now have to fight them for this computer, thus the lack of a post last night. And right now I only have a few minutes before I get kicked off so the kids can get homework done...sigh.

I will try to get these posts done earlier, and also work on fine tuning our other computer so that I at least have ONE computer I can use in the evening.

Here are a few links that I found while surfing around:


* Tablecards: This is a GREAT resource! This link will give you a whole bunch of ways to do origami folds for table cards, and there is still room left to stamp on the cards. Just in time for the upcoming holidays : )

* Free Clip Art: What do you do when you don't have the right stamp for a project? Well I go to the computer and incorporate clip art into my project, making sure to of course still stamp what I can. This is a great resource, and thanks to PaperFriendly for posting the original link!

* PaperThreads Forum: Another online community for card makers and scrapers. These are usually great resources for techniques and product reviews, as well has having lots of gallery cards to case.

Ok, my children are staring at me, more tomorrow, hopefully in the a.m. so I can do a full post.

Have a grand night all!

What happened to August? And of course some links : )

Wow, is August already almost gone? September is just around the corner, seems like the summer just flew by, and now we are looking at the start of school and fall. My two favorite times of year are fall and spring, though I also love long summer days and cold rainy winter nights. Oh well.

I have a few links tonight, nothing that is really related to each other, a bit of this and that, things I find while surfing around. Speaking of surfing do you use Stumble? If you haven't tried it yet you are in for a treat. You put in the topics you are interested in, add the Stumble bar to your browser, and then you hit the "Stumble" button and pages that relate to your interests pop up. These pages usually have been recommended by someone else who likes the same topics you like. When you find really cool pages you can recommend by hitting a "I like it" button. Really fun, try it if you dare : )

The reason I mentioned Stumble has to do with how I do research to find sites for this blog. I do a whole lot of google searches, putting in key words for things related to rubber stamping and I also check out the many blogs that other blogs have listed (have you ever looked at the blog rolls on some blogs? It would take weeks to click through all of them!) I also just stumble sometimes to see what the luck of the draw throws my way.

Enough of my rambling, how about a few links?

* Scrapblog: This looks so cool, it is a site for you to create your scrapbooking online. If, like me, you don't scrap alot, this looks pretty cool, and you can share it with others too. I have to sign up for this, let me know if you sign up and what you think.

* Uni-ball Signo Broad White Gel Pen: This link has the best price online for this GREAT white gel pen. This is the ONLY white gel pen I have tried that always has great ink flow, a must have for any stamper/scraper. They also have a finer point pen (don't know if the inks flows as well), and a box of 10 for a really good price.

* Craft Organizers: Suite 101 has some really good storage containers at very good prices. I especially like this Craft Carousel Organizer, and the price was great!

* Double Emboss Resist Technique: Cornish Heritage Farms has some great tutorials, and this is one of them. I can't wait to try this technique, simple but the results are breathtaking!

* How to carve your own stamp: Neat link that shows you how to carve your own stamp. Explains how you can do a negative or positive image.

* Whispers Ink Pad Set: WOW! You are not going to believe this price, 30 raised stamp pads, a case to hold them and an alpha set of stamps. I am seriously considering ordering this because you can't beat this deal.

Hope you find something useful in these links, have a wonderful night and a fantastic start to the week tomorrow.

Enabler Alert: Do not read this post if you don't want to spend some money

We are almost into August! Where did the summer go? Except for a few really hot days our weather here has just been perfect, sunny, warm during the day, and then it cools off at night so you can fall asleep with the window open filling the room with fresh cool air. Oh the joy of summer!

How is your summer going so far? I had so many things to get done, and next month will tackle some pre-christmas chores, making some cards, getting some gifts ready, maybe posting some ornamanets up on ebay (left over from last year), and even organize the house (did I just write that?). Did you have a list and did you get through your list? Or now that I have reminded you that August is around the corner, are you in a panic?

Now, this is the enabler part, so if you don't want to spend any money stop reading right now. The rest of you, follow me below ; )

Ok, I apologize ahead of time, but really, these prices are so very good, and if you are looking to add some images to your stamp collection, you are sure to find a great bargain among these links. If you have a link to a great sale, please post in the comments and I will try to update this post with your information as well.

• Rubber Stamp Ave: For every $10 of stamps you order the owner will throw in 5 unmounted stamps, the sale ends tomorrow, so make sure to check out the link tonight for all the details and to order. Also, she has some GREAT sheets of rubber stamps for $17, and if you order five sheets of stamps, you get a sixth one for free.
  

• Rubber Nation: Not really a sale, but some great prices on sheets of stamps, how about $8? Make sure to go to both pages as there are a whole bunch of stamps on the second page, and I loved the Alpha sets they have for sale too!

• Cherry Pie: Again, not really a sale, but some very unique stamps at good prices, if you are looking for a great bargain check out their plates for $22, lots of great images, you really need to check out this link.

• Cape Argo Rubber Stamps: Their sheets are $15 for some AMAZING sets, huge number of images on these sets, you are going to love this link ; ) Make sure to email the company if you buy multiple sheets for the combined shipping price. These are really good bargains, how about 12 background stamps for $15?
  

• Frantic Stamper: Some great sale items, especially the scrapbook kits and other tools, papers and embellishments.

Ready? Set? Shop!

Wooo hooo! I have the day off tomorrow, so will try to do a conparison to post, something I was wondering about and want to see if these as yet unnamed product are really all that different....stay tuned.

Behind the scene at AfterHoursStamper

Well, I know you are ALL dying to know what goes on behind the scenes here at AfterHoursStamper, so tonight I thought we would take a look ; )

How do I find all these links? Well, sometimes (actually a lot of the time) my good friend Patricia sends me some cool links that I just have to write a post about (and I have a few saved for a rainy day). Sometimes I just surf, clicking on blogs, doing google searches to see what pops up, and of course everything is saved in bookmarks, all sorted out to use when I need to find a certain blog or website.

For instance,while I was surfing today I found this HUGE list of rubber stamping links. When I find something like this I bookmark it and then get around to clicking through all those links, yes, all of them. Then I sort out what has good information for us rubber stampers. Many of the links in these huge lists are "dead," which means that the site or blog is no longer "up." And there are a large number of links that are just not that, well, noteworthy. But there are a HUGE number of links that are great, but it does take some time to find them all.

Tonight I am starting to link from that huge list, in alphabetical order. I tried to choose things that you might find interesting and informative, get ready, get set, and CLICK : )

• Vippies: The CUTEST stick figure rubber stamps I have ever seen! You are going to love this site, I had no idea they were out there. Look at this, and this and this.

• About Art: Great prices on their full plate of stamps, click here for a list of their other stamps. And make sure to click here to see all sorts of projects created with their stamps.

• Color Mixing Exercise (Via Above the Mark): Really neat exercise on how color works, the link has a number of exercises that you can use to learn more about how color works. There is even a printable template you can use to do your own color mixing. Also a few other How To's at this site, click here to view them.

• Cropper Hopper: Some more tips on organizing, and even though their products are used in this post it still contains some great information.

• Aftermidnight Tutorial Index: Some really neat, offbeat tutorials here, let your imagination soar!

• AlexStamping Techniques: Some really cute techniques here, all "animated." Not a huge list, but the ones that are listed are pretty cool : ) And check out her stamps as well.

• Alpha Stamps Blog: Amazing amount of information here, lots and lots of cool products and neat artwork using their products.

• Amazing Crafting Products: Mold putty, this stuff looks pretty cool. You use the putty to make a mold of something, like a button, then you use their liquid resin to make your own button with the mold, neat and imagine the possibilities for stamping embellishments : )

• Another Stamp Company: This is a link to their "What's new page." Lots of great storage ideas, inks and other stuff stampers *must* have ; )

As you can see, I haven't even gotten through all the A's in the above list, there were some "duds" in the list, broken links or just not too interesting sites, however there was also a lot of great stuff, which I listed for you.

I will continue to go through the entire list posting the links that I think you might like, and will try to go through the list in alphabetical order (which should keep me busy for the next year or so).

Have a great night! And woooooooooooooooo hoooooooooooooooooooo Happy Almost Friday!

A little bit of everything tonight

Yesterday was not a great day around here, my husbands father (who is 90) ended up in the hospital, then at midnight we got a call that he had left the hospital on his own, my husband went to the hospital (by this time he had been "found" and was back in his room), and then my husband took his father back home.

We are not sure at this point what his medical condition is, and he is also a bit confused, so needless to say, given that I didn't get to bed until 3 am, then had to get up at 6:30 a.m., well, forgive any typos and the fact that this post has a bit of everything instead of a usual theme.

So, here is your grab bag of posts, from sales to videos and CHA information, get ready, get set, and click away : )

• The Cats Pajama's: wooooohooooo, they are having a sale, 25 percent off of everything they have in stock, the sale starts July 25th and runs until the 27th. They have great stamps here and this is your chance to pick some up at a very good price.

• The Stamp Shack: Another great stamping community to try out. They have a message board, gallery and for $10 a year you can access all of their templates to use. Pretty neat community.

• Verve Visual: This is the blog for the stamp company, right now they have an ATC challenge (which runs until July 31), really neat cards here and an all around great blog.

• Stampers Anonymous: Some great stamps here, Tim Holtz, and a whole other bunch of interesting and artsy type stamps.
  

• Jennifer McGuire, ink: Very nice blog with some fantastic videos! She also has a wonderful post up about the new products from CHA, her blog is a must save to check often.

• Moonlight Inker: Wow, check out this great idea for a book to make color charts for all of your pens and paints, really cool, then make sure to click here for her most recent post and leave a comment on her blog and you might win some Magnolia stamps! Amazing cards on this blog, you will really enjoy her marker tutorials, a and b.

And I want to thank you all for the nice emails you have been sending me! Am also working on the ATC swap/challenge, so stayed tuned for that as well.

Ok, here is to a good nights sleep, and a most wakeful and exciting Wednesday.

Really neat DYI recipes for Pastels, and some cards

Happy Monday! Hope you had a great weekend, the weather here is so wonderful, warm, not hot, and it cools down in the evening. San Jose really is one of the greatest places to live, lots to do around here, wonderful parks, close to the ocean, it is just one fantastic place to live.

So, here are some really neat sites and some card sharing. I found one link a while ago, and then found some more links tonight. And no, haven't tried the recipe yet, but want to, badly. I might try to order the binders and some pigments tomorrow, and also try to use my pearl ex as a pigment powder.

From what I can gather this could be a rather fun experiment with the kids, and it will end up saving you some money as well (and maybe you could make some of these for your stamping friends for Christmas, a custom made set of pastels, how cool is that ; )

Here is the first one I found, and then the others followed:

• Daniel Smith: Wow! This is the BEST if you want to make pastels (I am going to use some containers I had for eyelets to store the soft pastels), lots of information, and keep reading the link to about the middle for a secret recipe.

• How to make Pastels: Not sure that I would try the oatmeal recipe, but the other one is a must try.
  

• The Colorist: This is a two part post, the first one is the one I just linked to, the second part is here.
  

• Real Color Wheel: This one has good information, but the process seems a bit more complicated then I would like to try, but thought I should throw it in for you to see.

Here are some more links for the materials you need to make the pastels:

• Pigments: Dick Blicks has some great pigments, and then you can also try throwing in some mica powders as well. I am going to try the Createx Pure Pigments (which are recommended on one of the above posts). Also, here are some Mica powders, and some other pure powder pigments (make sure to check all of the various colors here, look on the link to the left), and more pigments (reasonably priced)

• Talc: This was also in one of the above links, but in case you missed the link, here it is : )

• Calcium Carbonate: Again, in the link above and here for you to find if you missed it.

Let me know if you try this and what your results are. Ok, now on to some cards.

Yes, I actually make cards, and this first one is one for this weeks SBS18 challenge! The theme is how does your garden grow:



And here is one I did for a SCS challenge that I have to post (it was a sketch challenge a few weeks ago).



And here are a few I did last week.





This is a card I made from a tutorial that Michael Strong did (I posted it a bit ago, can repost if you can't find it):

The envelope, really, really cool and easy:



And the card I put inside:



And just some other cards, the kimono is chalked the background is inked.



And yes, I did finally make a card out of the double chalk method sample:



Whewwwwwwwwwww...that was a LONG post, hope you enjoyed!

Have a relaxing rest of the evening and an amazing Tuesday.

How about some Challenge Blogs?

Yet again there are hundreds of challenge blogs to find online, challenges that will....um.....challenge you ; ) Tonight I thought it would be fun to look at a few of these great blogs, and if you are so inclined, enter a few of these neat challenges!

Why do challenges? One reason is because they help you think outside of the box, force you to do something different and maybe discover a new way of doing things. I tend to do the same thing over and over, so to break out of that I try to do challenges as much as possible.

Oh, but first, I found this cool video, and as we are in the middle of summer, and those of you with kids who keep telling you they have nothing to do, show them this video, have the paper, scissors and tape ready, and they will be busy for a bit, and you will be sane for a bit:



Ok, now here are some challenge blogs for you to visit:

• You Know You Rock: Neat, new challenge blog, and the challenge is to create a card based on a cd album cover. If you are looking for something different and challenging, well, this is sure to meet the bill. And thank you to Patricia for telling me about this cool blog.

• ABC Challenge Blog: I love this, each week a new letter of the alphabet to challenge you with, this week it is "c" and c is for "charms."
  

• KWerner Design Blog: Great challenges, wonderful videos, and just an all around good blog to put on your "keeper" list, especially for the challenges.

• Just Me and My Rubber Stamps: Very different types of challenges here, cards, ATC's and more. Take a peek and challenge yourself to do something new.

• SBS 18 Challenge Blog: A new challenge each week, all from my blogging sisters (and yes, I am going to do a card to enter in the challenge again soon, just have been very busy). Really interesting challenges each week. Take a peek and enter.

• Arty Girlz Challenge Blog: You will love all the challenges here, fun, interesting and all around great challenges (and great blog.)

Enjoy the links! Challenge yourself, and watch for an ATC Swap/Challenge here next week, am still deciding how to put it together, but should be fun.

Have a great night, and a most exciting Monday.

Friday Freebies, and some other stuff : )

Happy FINALLY Friday! I had the day off and got a few things done today, including getting the basket of clothes folded and put away. Also fooled around and made a card, played with some water color paper and unmounted a few more stamp sets.

In playing with the water color paper I can state without any bias that the better the water color paper, the better your results. Look for a comparison here soon, but the bottom line is that blending your colors on 140 lb paper gives you very good results, and 90 lb gives you ok results. Anyhow, that will be another day.

On with the Friday Freebies! I have one "freebie" for you that isn't a link, but it is something you can do when you are out running errands. If you happen by a hardware or home improvement store, stop in and grab some of their paint chips to use on your cards. Paint chips now come in very large sized squares, and the colors are amazing! You can stamp on the paint chip, but you have to either heat dry or emboss, depending on what ink you use.

I grabbed a whole lot of them from two stores yesterday (my daughter shook her head), because I wanted to experiment with them and report the results to you later. So far they are very easy to work with, but do have their limitations, however they are a GREAT freebie right under your nose.

Ok, now, on to the links:

• Printable Minis: This is actually a site for dollhouses, however, many of the downloads can easily be used with your cardmaking, such as the pirates map. Lots and lots of really cut minis here for you to download and use as embellishments.

• Package Tech: Great templates for boxes, including directions! There is also a whole bunch of seals for you to print on sticker paper.

• Digital Women: A whole bunch of planning pages to print out, lists and more. Print them out, cut them up and use the various parts on your cards.

• Textile Designs: Print these out to use on your cards, check out Mel Stampz for the directions on how to create some lovely cards ( and thanks to Mel because that is where I found the link to the designs).

• Joseph Wu's Origami Website: Wow! Bookmark this site for sure, it has EVERYTHING, including a directory for all the symbols used in origami directions, a link to Origami basics, just a wonderful website to learn the art of Origami, which, as we all know, can be incorporated nicely in our rubber stamped cards.

Hope the list keeps you busy for a while tonight. Enjoy the rest of the evening and do something fun tomorrow!

Quick post tonight

Am running to a meeting, and as always, a bit late, so tonight I am going to just have a quick post with a few bargain links.

Speaking of bargains, was running errands today and picked up a number of paint chips to use for some cards, GREAT colors, and the shapes are large enough to use to layer. Hopefully I will have a chance to post some pictures tomorrow (if I can find time to make a few cards as well).

Ok, here are just a couple of stores having sales, have more for you tomorrow as well:

• RubberD Stamp Sales Page: I love sales, and this one is really, really good! Check out the Christmas stamps for some good buys.

• Nona Designs: Chalk kits, great price, I love the Shimmer Pearls sets, have two sets and will save to get the Earthtone set. These are great chalks and the price here is very good.

• The Stampin Place: 25 percent off of their rubber stamps! RUN to this sale, stock up on the stamps you have been waiting to buy, very good deals here. Check out this Daisy background, $5.63 unmounted, GREAT stamp!

See you tomorrow, sorry about the short post tonight.

Ohhhhhhhh....CHA Sneak Peek!

The Craft and Hobby Association (CHA) is holding their annual Summer Convention and Trade show from July 18th to the 20th. There are all sorts of new products, tools, papers, just about anything you can imagine that the well stocked crafter could want. Tonight I thought you might like a sneak preview of some of the items that will be unveiled at the CHA convention, and things you are certainly going to drool over.

CHA Convention Previews

• Fiskars: Wow! Talk about some really neat new products. Click the "Crafts Summer 2008" for a preview of what you will be able to purchase very soon, especially intriguing is the new self inking stamp tool that allows you to use your clear stamps, pretty neat.

• Rusty Pickle: Some just amazing papers, embellishements and dodads here, and there is a giveaway on the blog as well.
  

• Technique Tuesday: Some brand new stamps to check out, and click around their site for some other really cool new items. Check out their under $5 stamp sets.

• BoBunny: New papers, rub ons, embellishments, chipboard, the list goes on and on. The new paper will catch your eye too.

• Sandylion: Great papers, stickers and stamps. You are going to want all of these.

• Declassified: Some really neat art stamps here, the link is to their new summer releases, click on their list of stamps to see more images. All the stamps come mounted on ezmount so you have little trimming to do!

Stay tuned because there are so many more new tools, stamps, papers, embellishments that are going to be unveiled at the CHA Convention, as I get more information I will post here.

A huge thank you to my friend Patricia who sent me the email with all the cool links, you rock Patricia.

Technique Tuesday

One of the things I love about rubber stamping is all the ways you can rubber stamp. There are so many techniques, some hard, some easy, some really complicated (I personally tend to stay away from complicated techniques).

Tonight I am going to post interesting techniques you can use with your rubber stamping. I hope that you will enjoy these interesting methods, and if you are stuck in a rut with your stamping, make sure to try one of these techniques to help get your creative juices flowing.

Technique Tuesday

• Spotlight Stamping: I really like this site, Learn2Stamp, and often refer to their tutorials and techniques listings. Spotlight stamping is a neat way to highlight your image, stamp two images, cut one of the images into a shape, color it in, overlay it onto the stamped uncolored image and you have a "spotlight." You can also do this in the revers, color the whole image, and spotlight with a shape that is not colored in. This link has some nice examples, and make sure to click on "more samples" to see additional cards.

• Paper Piecing: This link has some very simple Christmas patterns for you to piece together. Experiment with these ideas, see what you have on hand that might lend itself to being pieced together. And if you play with these designs you can get a start on your Christmas cards ; ) Not ready for winter? Then try these Summer piecing templates.

• Paper Tole: Here is an example of "true tole," basically a way to cut out your image and make it 3D. A fun technique that we forget to use sometimes. Not a technique to use for mass producing cards, but works for those very special cards we make.

• Shadow and Screen Stamping: This requires a special "screen" stamp, and the results are very nice! Here is the link to the screen stamps. Imagine what you can do with this technique, and the unmounted screen stamps are not all that expensive either.

• Split Negative: I love this technique, it isn't all that hard and the results are so nice! Try this with white and any bold color, or a pastel and a bold color, there are all sorts of possibilities to try with this technique.

Hope you like these techniques! I am thinking of trying to post something each week on preparing for the holidays, yes, I know it is July, but before you know it November is here and we all run around like crazy people.

And...since many of us have kids home from school, how about projects they can help with now for the holiday? Stay tuned : )

Have a wonderful evening and wooo hooo, tomorrow is Wednesday, halfway to Friday ; )

How about some more stamping resources?

I love rubber stamps, and I love to surf and find companies that have unique and fun designs. Using something out of the ordinary can help you to create a "wow" card, and make it more fun to design your work as well.

There are so many stamp companies out there! I have about 50 companies saved, some of the best ones are listed on the "best" list, and everyday there seems to be more and more resources for rubber stamps.

Tonight I want to list a few companies that have some very interesting stamps for you, and even better, most of their prices are pretty good as well. But, before we get to that, two things.

1.) If you would like to participate in the ATC swap, please email me AND leave your name in the comments for the post last night (that way I can double check and make sure I have everyone).

2.) I want to figure out a way to do a "poll" on how often you would like to get notices from Freedburner that the blog has been updated. For now, if you want to see fewer updates via Feedburner, let me know in the comments. If I get a number of comments I will do the poll, otherwise the emails will continue to go out when I post (which is everyday).

Ok, onto the links!

Some really cool and interesting rubber stamp resources

• Frog Whiskers Ink: Canadian company that has some really neat victorian images, lots of nature images, I liked the leaf swirl stamp.

• MadRat Rubber Stamp Company: Really unique images here, especially the architectual ones, if you need something different, this is the place to go.

• YanKiwi: Great rubber stamps by two ladies, one from the US and one from New Zealand. Stamps come in sheets of unmounted rubber, and they are very reasonably priced. You will love the "objects" and the BBF sets (Backgrounds, Borders and Frames).

• Stamp Desires: Huge number of stamp companies here, a few you might not have seen before, and free shipping! Their regular prices are very good, and make sure to check out the selection of their clear stamps.

• Inky Pinky Press: Cute collection of smaller stamps, bugs, flowers, trees, just a whole lot of adorable stamps to choose from.

• Fresh Designs: Autum Leaves: Lots and lots of stamp sets here, some really great for journaling in scrapbooks, and lots and lots of flourish type stamps for your cards.

• Expressions in Ink: The link is to their Block stamps, use them for some very unique images, they have a how to on the link as well. If you need the tape for their block stamps, you can also buy it on their site.
  

Hope you find a few new and interesting stamps in the above group.

Have a great evening, and enjoy your Tuesday.

Artist Trading Cards: ATC's

I am an ATC "virgin," however I think that is about to change, mainly because I really love the art of the ATC, the ability to go a step further then when doing a card, and also because they are a whole lot smaller then cards.

And I LOVE the artist quality to ATC's, especially like the one on the left. Embossed, stamped image, creative background, this ATC is really a work of art.

Have you ever created ATC's? No? Ok, then how about a video that explains them a bit, click here to view the video, and then let us go exploring for some links on ATC's.

First of all ATC's are wonderful cards that you trade or swap, they are never sold, and they are always the same size, 2.5"x3.5". You can do anything you want to an ATC, paint it, stamp it (of course : ), emboss it, layer it, embellish it, and swap it.

ATC's are also a nice way to experiment with color, techniques, stamps you don't always use, layers and just so many different things! I have a few retro stamps that should make for some nice ATC's, dig out stamps you haven't used in a while and just play around!

ATC's are a great way to use your talents and share them with the world. If you are interested in doing an ATC swap, leave a comment and if enough people sign up we will have our own, very first AfterHoursStamper ATC swap. More then likely we will trade/swap with just one person, and for this first time (if we get enough folks, let us say ten or more) we will just do what ever we want. If enough people have an interest, this could be something that I would be willing to host and organzie each month.

Here are some links about ATC's, and remember, if you are interested in doing a trade /swap via snail mail, leave your name in the comments and email me at AfterHoursStamper at gmail dot com. I will collect the names and addresses and match everyone up.

Here we go:

• ATC Swap: The FAQ section has all the information you need to understand what ATC's are and also some neat history. Start here to get a good understanding of what ATC's are and how they are used.

• ATC Bot: Wow, talk about swaps! Here is a whole "sheetload" of swaps for you to get started with, I may join a few myself : )

• ATC Gallery at SCS: There are just thousands of cards here for you to view, to get ideas and to drool over : )

• Above the Mark: Some really neat images here for you to browse through. ATC's can be anything you like, and maybe you might want to branch out and try one of these neat images for an ATC : ). I LOVED this image:
  

Can you imagine what you could create with the image above? All sorts of things.

ATC's are yet another way to enjoy and share your love of rubber stamping, and it is a bit easier to tackle a small trading card rather then a larger greeting card.

So, let me know if you would like to parttake in a swap here on AfterHoursStamper, and also, if you already do ATC's, please post a link in the comments to your work, we would love to see what you have created.

Tomorrow is a busy day for me, hopefully I can take a few pictures of cards I made the other day that were simple and quick, we shall see though, more likely they will get posted on Wednesday or Friday.

Have a GREAT rest of the evening, and remember that tomorrow is a brand new day filled with nothing but opportunity.

Simplicity

Don't you just love cards like the one to the left? This card has everything! A great image, layers, textures, wonderful colors, it is just an amazing card. Once in a while I have enough time to do a card like this, but most of the time I don't.

Even though there isn't always enough time to sit down and create something that has all the things that this card has, I am learning that you can also be very simple with your card making and still get that wow factor we all love to achieve in our work.

Tonight we are going to look at some simple but absolutely gorgeous cards. These are they types of cards that you can put together quickly and elegantly, especially when you need to come up with a card on short notice.


Here is what I am talking about, a cute card, well put together, but, as you can see, without much work involved. What makes this card work?

• Great use of color: the cardmaker used three colors that go together very well: black, yellow and white. She also repeated these colors in her design.
  

• Images: She used simple images which she stamped to create a background, and then kept her design simple, but effective, with the main focal point (center image).

Here are a few more simple but amazing cards for you to view:

Card by Whimsy

Card by DebDeb

Card by Monanasmiles

All of the cards above use minimal layers, colors and embellishments, but they are great cards! Study cards you like, save copies of them so that you can case them and make your own simple but elegant cards.

How about some links to some blogs that have great cards that are simple and quick? Cards like this one:

Ready to go quick and easy? Here are your links for tonight:

• No Time To Stamp: The coffee mug card featured above came from this great site, make sure to bookmark her site for oodles of ideas on quick and elegant cards. The link I gave you is to all of her "Stamp Simply" posts, here is the link to her full blog.

• Sunny Stampin: She has a "Stamp Simply Saturday" on her blog, as well as a great overall blog that you can view by clicking here.

Do you have some quick and easy tips to share with us? Please post your ideas and tips in the comments.

Am off to watch a movie with my hubby, have a wonderful evening and continue to relax this weekend. : )

Some neat videos for you to view

Just got home from a meeting, and no, I did not get my stamping done today, had so many things pop up, including having to take our car to get a smog check, pay bills, take son to work which was unexpected which then meant I had to leave for my meeting two hours earlier then I planned.)

I did walk around a target near my meeting, and yes, I visited the dollar bin, and yes, I bought some dollar things, DP (three packs of 12 sheets each for a dollar), some embellishments and then a pack of 50 pieces of cut cardstock (I am becoming the dollar Queen : ) If you are on a budget like I am, make sure to always stop by the dollar bins where ever you go because there are some amazing deals in those bins sometimes.

Ok, now, off to some really cool videos. I love to watch technique videos, mainly because I am more of a visual learner then a verbal or written learner (I have such a hard time with tutorials that are written and do not have pictures for each step.) Tonight I thought you might like to watch some of these videos, and then also check around some of the sites that are hosting the videos. Ready? Here goes!

• Julia Andrus: I love her technique in the "Chalk Ink" video, never really thought to use the inks that way, but am sure going to try it tomorrow. Make sure to check out her stamp link to see some neat stamp sets (at very reasonable prices). My friend Patricia sent me this link, thank you, again, Patricia for finding these great videos!

• How to tie a knot: I am still trying to get this technique down, and this video is a GREAT way to learn to do that knot just right. Also click here to see a whole list of her videos.

• Paper Wishes: A really neat collection of videos on all sorts of techniques. I loved this video on using botanical and butterfly stamps. Check them all out, many are for scrapbooking, but you can use most of the techniques for your cards as well. You are not going to believe how many videos are here, scroll through the archive list for some great ides on quick Christmas cards.
  

• How to use a Stamp a ma jig: I really need to get one of these things, it makes stamp positioning so much easier!

Ok, that is it for tonight, should keep you busy for a few minutes at least : )

Enjoy what is left of Thursday and get ready for a GRAND Friday : )

Some great blogs for inspiration

There are literally tens of thousands of rubber stamping related blogs and websites. Anything and everything from stamping companies to designers, it is all online. Many times I surf and find a great blog, then check out the blogs "blog roll" which inevitably leads me to more great sites, and then I check that blogs blog roll....well you get the picture.

Needless to say, there are times when I can spend three, four hours admiring the work of some very talented and amazing stampers. From design to coloring, to fabulous techniques and tutorials, you could surf full time and still never find all the "goodies" out there.

Tomorrow I have the day off (well, sort of, still have all the house stuff to do, but I don't have to go into my paying job), so I will sit down and stamp, stamp, stamp! In preparing for my stamping gluttony tomorrow, I surfed the web tonight to seek some inspiration, and thus the creation of "inspirational links" for tonight's post. I hope you find some inspiration as you visit the blogs of these very talented ladies.

So follow me on an inspirational journey. Our starting point is:

• Cindy Haffner's Corner: WOW! If I had any type of block about what to create tomorrow, well, a long look at this ladies AMAZING blog sure gave me enough ideas to last years and years.

After viewing her stuff, I saw a post linking to this blog:

• Stamp Owl's Studio: I LOVED all of the cards here, but this one was especially outstanding, the artwork, the design, the colors, everything just perfect.
  

Then I clicked around on Stamp Owl's Studio blog and found this site:

• Confessions of a Naptime Stamper: Loved the first card with the bella image, she used plaid DP for the background AND the pants, really makes you think about all the things you can do by just repeating designs in your cards. Really liked this card as well.

And then I was off to check out this blog:

• Poetic Artistry: This one is going to knock your socks off, what gorgeous cards this lady does, and she also has a TON of sketches on her blog! Almost didn't leave this blog it is so good.

I did move on though (but am going back soon to Poetic Artistry) and found this cool site thanks to Poetic Artistry:

• My Time, My Creations, My Stampendence: Just an amazing amount of inspiration here, especially these easy, yet oh so elegant cards, make sure to go back and see all of her creations, they are well worth your time.

And on it goes. I love that there are so many neat things about each of these blogs, one of the ones listed has a whole group of links to sketch designs, another blog has links to contests, they all have great cards and wonderful information.

Yes, it is still hot here, but not as bad as yesterday, hopefully it will cool off a bit tomorrow as well. Have a relaxing evening, and remember that Thursday is one day away from Friday!

Little bits of everything

It is sooooooooooooo hot here right now, and expected to get hotter as the week goes on...sigh. I put the AC up to 78 (don't tell my hubby) to try to keep our utility bill from going through the roof, and I also have about seven fans running as well.

Now, on to stamping : ) Where to start? How about the GREAT deal I got at Costco the other day? Six packages of double sided adhesive....for 13.99! Each one costs about 2.33, and they have 3 m (meters?) more then the other adhesive I have been buying for 3.99 (12 vs 15 m)! Get over to Costco and pick up a few of these packages:



And a HUGE thank you to Megan Peacock who writes a blog called "Peacock Paperie." She saw the tutorial I posted the other day, bought some Bic markers and proceeded to color all weekend, doing amazing things like this (her examples are much better then mine):



If you had any doubt about using the Bic markers before, I hope you don't anymore : ) Thanks Megan for showing a much better example then I had : )

And yes, I do actually make cards, here are a couple I have done over the past week or so, one is for the SCS challenge today, and I have to upload it over there later (and one is from a challenge a week ago):



The one above is using the double chalk method. I applied chalk to the background, then stamped my image in Versamark, then chalked that in, and did the backgound all in chalk as well. Love using chalk, it is just so soft yet colorful.



This is for the SCS Try a new technique challenge, and the circle in the card spins : )



I just did this card as a sort of quick one, stamped the image, colored it with H20's, then highlighted some of the card with both glitter pen and white gel pen. I don't always have a whole lot of time to make cards, so I try to do simple but interesting cards if I can.

Ok, how about a few links tonight? I thought you might like to view some really cool tutorials I found, so get ready to click away!

• Tissue Dyed Background: This is so neat, and while it make take a little time, the results are worth the work.

• Envelopes: They have a how to and a recipe for making envelope glue, and then click here to see their measurements for all sorts of envelopes (make sure to print out this page and keep it for a reference.)

• Faux Cloinsonne Tutorial: Ink, embossing powder, and magazine pages! Really cool technique by Michael Strong, and this tutorial takes you step by step directions. There is a video of this too, have to find the link, will post it later when I find it.

• Doodle Stamps Technique: This tutorial will show you how to use a doodle stamp to make all sorts of interesting and unique images! One stamp, used over and over in different ways to make new images, really cool, and now I have to add these stamps to my "must have" list.

Oh, and I bought four packages of the cutest embellishments at the dollar store today, will take photos to show you tomorrow! Michaels didn't have much on sale, and as I am pretty much broke that was a good thing ; )

Have a wonderful night all, and remember that Tuesday is one day closer to Friday.

More Stamping Companies

One can never have enough stamps can they? And it is always fun to round out your collection with designs that are interesting and unique. If, like me, you tend to gravitate towards a certain type of stamp (I am always getting flowers, and now cats too), looking for other types of images can help you create some new and exciting cards or scrap book pages.

My one sort of "rule" right now is to not buy any wood mounted stamps, I don't want the wood, I am unmounting all of my mounted stamps, and well, if the image does not come unmounted it is not going to come in my door. One reason is the storage (I have a very small craft area), and another reason is that the images are just so much easier to find when they are unmounted and stored in CD cases (at least I have found that to be true). And, last, but not least, I always pull out a ton of stamps when I am creating a card, and it is not such a big problem to have three or four CD cases on my desk, but it does become a problem when I have three or four boxes of wood mounted stamps (no room left to stamp).

So, here are some stamp companies you might not have heard of, offering some really interesting and unique stamps, be brave and try something new : ) If you have a company that sells unique stamps, please let us know!

• Onyx Expressions: This link is to their full plate of images, and you can choose to have your stamps not only mounted on the Ez Mount, but also cut out for you (small charge). There are some very unique images here, and the prices are pretty good. Click around to the home page to find other great images they have.

• Pink Cat: This is a link to their farm animal stamps, and a build it yourself barn! Check out all of their stamps, really cute, especially their retro and the cat stamps, oh, and the women in art stamps are cool too.

• Used Rubber Stamps: Great prices on some used stamps, some hard to find stamps, and some that are very unique. I always click around by Stamp Company here to see what has been added.

• Blockheads Rubber Art: Really great site for unique stamps, this is a site that you will want to spend some time on. I loved this vintage travel set, isn't it cool? Again, trying to branch out and consider things that I don't usually buy : )

• Innovative Stamp Creations: Wow! I was on this site forever. There is a huge selection of all sorts of stamps, I really liked this art frame set, and their prices are pretty good too. Oh, and check out their blog to see how their images have been used on some amazing cards.

Ok, that should keep you busy for a while. I even did a few cards today! Simple ones, not too many layers, but they came out ok, will take pictures and post them tomorrow.

Hope you have had a great weekend, and here is to as happy a Monday as can be had : )

Bit of an emergency today

Woke up to find that our food was not cold in the refrigerator, so off the hubby and I went to search for a new refrigerator, and of course, we could not find anyone that would or could deliver today. And of course I found one that was WAY more expensive then we wanted to spend.

Needless to say we spent the entire day getting the refrigerator, and then finally at 6:30 this evening we had it delivered, and now it sits all shinny in the kitchen. I broke down and agreed to having the water and ice in the door (still have to get the plumber out here to hook it up), and we also got one of the newer ones with the freezer on the bottom (which is going to be interesting as far as storage goes). This one is actually the same outside size as our old one, but it has four cubic feet more storage inside!

Ok, enough of that, how about some stamping? My friend Patricia has been sending me all sorts of links to tutorials, sales and cool techniques, so tonight is "Patricia Recommends" links : ) Thanks Patricia for all the great links!

• Summer Game Box: What an amazing idea! Create some travel games for the kids, and keep your sanity when you are driving this summer. Even though my kids are older, I might just try this anyway.

• Have your image made into a stamp: Really neat link to a somewhat affordable place to get your own stamp made, for a five inch square image the price is $13.20.

• Move that Card: Three card tutorials, all of them have some type of motion!

• RubberNature: Great stamps and a tutorial on how to create dimensional wall art.

Am off to bed, have to make a list for the grocery store tomorrow (we lost half our refrigerated food), and maybe even find some stamping time tomorrow.

Have a fantastic Sunday everyone.

A few good links to check out

Hi all, hope you are having a great day. My hubby and I just got back from celebrating our 26th wedding anniversary! Went to this place called "The Melting Pot," a fondue place, it was delicious! It is a franchise, and you can check their website to see if you have one near you. Not a cheap dinner, but makes a very nice place for a special night out.

Of course I made him a card, will take a picture of it and post tomorrow. I cased a card from SCS, I love that card! Printed out the picture and have it in my work area just to admire. Mainly used some elements and added a saying, nothing as good as the original, but at least it inspired me to get my card done.

Loved the class last night, the project was GREAT, and though it took a while to do, after doing one I think that the ones I do in the future could be done much quicker, especially if done assembly line style. Poor Dannie has over 90 orders for the project, and she has been cutting for weeks! You can check her blog if you want to order this project, she will be emailing the directions to everyone who orders as well.

When I was in the class my 17 year old son called and said "Mom, can I bring home a kitten?" of course I yelled NO and all the ladies at the table jumped and then sort of looked at me like I was crazy. When I got home son was in the garage (his "hang out" fitted with a sofa, tv, video game and workout equipment) with said kitten. The kitten, white with blue eyes, wouldn't leave my sons side, not for a moment. Our two cats hissed and growled at the new comer, and I made it known that said kitten ("Brutus") was going to find a new home in the morning. Luckily, the original owner wanted him back, because both me and my husband were close to taking in a thrid cat.

Ok, enough of everything but stamping, tonight I am going to link to some fun sites/blogs for you, courtesy of my friend Patricia who just sent me these great links! Please feel free to email me links of sites you like, or better yet, post them in the comments.

And away we go!

• Croppinsville: Really neat site that is going to have tutorials every Thursday. What I like is that they are posting the tools and supplies you will need ahead of time, so you can prepare for the tutorial! Am looking forward to seeing their tutorials.

• Carolineas's Creative Pad: She has some fantastic cards, and I have linked to one of her cards, complete with a template and directions. It is a wonderful pop up card shaped like a flower pot, just adorable. After viewing the flower pot, click on her banner to be taken to her home page, she has some great cards on her blog, especially the black and white one she did for the SCS Sketch challenge this week (which I still have to do).

• StampMyCard: Some GREAT tutorials here, I have linked to the page for her 2007 Christmas projects, make sure to check out the tag punch ornament, really neat (and now I will need to get another tag punch, the larger one, to do this project...sigh) Click on the home tab to see what else she has on her site.

That's it for tonight, tomorrow I have to get my son to the DMV to take his driving test, and I need to get to bed.

Have a great night, see you tomorrow.