It's my best friend's wedding, and I've been helping him and his fiance with the paper/display part of their wedding. Their color scheme is Black, White, and Red, so the paper we chose is by EK and it's acutally a Christmas line?!?! Anyway.. This is the seating plan we just finished last night. I really like how it turned out.. You can't see it, but some of the squares are popped up on dimensionals.. It's awesome!! Mark (my best friend) has such a great designers eye, so it was easy-peasy putting this together! His groom was helpful too.


Supplies: Paper: EK Success, bazzil, prism; stamp: Autumn Leaves; Ink: versamagic; punch: EK.

Haha.. I'm so clever.. (NOT) I really did resist a nap though. I don't know what's wrong with me lately but every evening my energy level CRASHES and I need to sleep then I ultimately get nothing done. (hence no cards the past couple days)

Tonight I made a couple of cards using the same paper in effort to get rid of more of my scraps.. I'm trying not to cut into new paper until I simply CAN'T use any more scraps.. (Just FYI, that will never happen)

CPS75 sketch:
Supplies: Paper: american crafts, prism; Ink: Versamagic (charcoal); Accessories: maya road chipboard pieces, making memories chipboard (butterfly), american crafts rubons

Sketch Challenge 187:
Supplies: Stamps: cornish heritage farms; Paper: american crafts, prism; Ink: momento (london fog); Accessories: ribbon (WeR), Bling (MM), glitter, EP, simple stick; Techniques: embossing resist

*I used the embossing resist technique on the second card. I stamped, then coloured the image, then I went over just the image with a versamark pen, covered it in EP, then sponged a couple colours for the background..

*Has anyone tried refilling their versamark pen with versamark re-inker?? I did tonight, and I don't know if it's a bad thing or not.. Let me know.

I love Jennifer Pebbles' Blog, and she got me loving this new THING (what is it anyway??) do it once and you'll get addicted. It's called wordle, and all you do is go to the website, enter your blog address, and it will pull words from your blog and give them priority over others based on the usage on your blog. I LOVE that you can change the colors, orientation etc, but it's so cool to see the words that you blog about the most.. for ME, it's "challenge" "stamps" "ink" "paper" "supplies" and how ME is that?? Awesome...

I'm working on some blog banners/backgrounds, and hopefully I'll have some cards to post tomorrow.. for now, enjoy my wordle...

I hope you're all jealous that I'm going to the birthplace of Amuse and Starbucks. (My secret love....)

I hope to stop by the Amuse retail store, but I will be pretty busy (it's my best friends' stag).

And just to let you know, I didn't make it to the next round of gallery idol, which is okay.. It was a shambles of a contest, but i wish the rest of the ladies (the top 10) the best of luck!

Take care, and have a great weekend!

I admit it. I'm addicted to Kim Hughes' stamps from CHF! They are to die for!
This is for Kristina's Color Challenge. (I subbed the sage colour because I didn't have one!!! the horror...)


* Before cutting out the branch for paper piecing, I ran it through the cuttlebug with the swiss dots embossing folder!
*I did the "reverse masking" technique which allowed me to smudge the two pink colors inside the frame.

Stamps: cornish heritage farms, hero arts (frame)

Paper: basic grey, paper salon, bazzil, papertrey

Ink: ranger (lamp black), versamagic (sponging)

Accessories: ribbon (MM), Swiss Dots CB Folder

Techniques: reverse masking

The theme was Monochromatic and I went to my fall-back color combo because I love it so much!

Here is the Top 15 Gallery

*Edited: Voting is over, and my fingers are crossed I'll make it to the next round!

Supplies: Paper: Papertrey's Stampers Select White CS, Cool Caribbean (SU!), Black scalloped cardstock (I forget..) American Crafts patterned paper; Stamps: Cornish Heritage Farms; Ink: Brilliance Black; Snaps (WeR).

Who loves a challenge? I DO! I'm a sucker for a great challenge. There are so many out there, how do you choose? Well, for me I always check SCS because their challenges are easy to find, and are really great! (I find) Other times I stumble upon somebody's challenge on their blog, or it's a blog I frequent (Like CPS).. So today I'll show you 3 cards I made for challenges in the last couple days.

1) Sketch Challenge / Dare to get Dirty Challenge (Christine)

Supplies: Stamps: MFT, CHF; Paper: Scenic Route, Bazzil; Ranger ink; Prima, button, watercolor pencils.

2)CCEE Stampers Challenge (Jazzytobi)

Supplies: Stamps: Stamping Bella, CHF; Paper: Making Memories, Papertrey stampers select; Ink: ranger, palette; prima, button, copic markers.

3)Dare to Get Dirty Challenge (JulieHRR)

Supplies: Stamps: CHF; Paper: Melissa Frances, Papertrey ink stampers select; Ink: Ranger.

Check this out!!! Tosh emailed me today and I had to read it a couple times to comprehend that they were featuring ME! MY NAME! Well... actually my alias that I've gone by since I started prowling the internet in 1996. These super-talented and famous ladies are in a group that does weekly challenges, and one of them is to pick a snazzy name at SCS and design a challenge around that name. I will definitely play this challenge this week since these ladies have been so kind to think of me! Play along too if you want. Here are the rules:

The instructions we were given for this challenge was that our card must have something musical on it, and the tea dying technique must be used.
Post a comment here (or here on my blog so i can see too!!) so we can see your card. If you are uploading to SCS don't forget to use the keyword CCEEC.

The cat's out of the bag! I am on the first Elzybells design team, and I am super excited to get started with Elizabeth's adorable images! This is the REAL elzybells, not the Amuse kind (that sports her same, but SMALLER images). They are going to be so great to colour.

Here are the members of the first elzybells design team (I'll add a Blogroll asap):

Alex Eaton, UK

Angel Rivera, USA

Beverly Rousch, USA

Charlene Austin, Canada

Dawn wheeler, UK

Deborah Southard, USA

Eva Costigan, USA

Frances Byrne, Australia

Inge Groot, The Netherlands

Jeanne Streiff, USA

Katie Stilwater, USA

Kim Fee, UK

Kitty Frampton, UK

Maria Adams, UK

Michelle Short, UK

Michelle Woerner, USA

Pam Fraser, UK

Paula Williamson, USA

Rachel Hope Baird, USA

Shannan Teubner, USA

Stephanie Mayne, UK

Tobi Crawford, Canada

P.S. Stayed tuned tomorrow for the next round of Gallery Idol. I made the Top 15!!!!

Different cards, but still the same people (top 20)..


Here is the Gallery

*edited: Voting is closed for this round, and I made it to the next one! stay tuned.

This time you can only vote once, and the # of votes are hidden..
Please choose wisely! mwah-ha-haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa...
You have till thursday, July 17th at noon to cast your vote!

thanx! Tobi

I don't know how many of you can create on command, but I, for one, CAN'T! As soon as I have to include an element, or NOT use something, I'm stumped. These cards were all attempts on the way to the final result of the next round (or re-do of the first) of Gallery Idol at the new CK site. I will make a new post with the info to vote for your favourite idol, and I'm hoping you can take a second to go over there and vote for me! There are some awesome prizes up for grabs, and it's just plain FUN to be in this competition. I'm also meeting some pretty cool ladies. My fellow competitors are women after my own heart. Anyway.. enough blab. Here are the rejects!! (can you guess the theme)

I love Kristina's color challenges but rarely have time to participate, but now that's it's summer I have all the time in the world ( I LOVE being a teacher....)

Here are the colors






And here's my card:
I just so happened to have a LOT of my felt shapes hanging around and the colors were a PERFECT match! I adhered them with glue dots.

I used an old SU! set because I really do love it, but haven't used it in a LONG time.. Poor stamps...










Supplies:

Paper: Bazzil, Papertrey white, Memory Box (card base. it is white on the other side!)

Stamps: Simply Said (SU!)

Ink: Ranger, Nic Bantock Lamp Black

Accessories: Copic Markers, Gelly Roll (White), Felt Shapes (Fancy Pants)

Well it's a few days late, and there's a few hiccups (like being able to see everyone's vote tally, and you can vote for multiple cards etc...) but follow the link below to vote for ME!!!!!! Just kidding.. Vote for your favourite card by clicking on the card and then clicking the "Love Me" button..

There are some killer cards, so I'm kinda sweating bullets, but I'm happy I got this far.. Hope you like my card! Help me make it to the next round!

PC Gallery Idol


My Card

I designed my first blog for someone! Her name is Jen Mencer and her blog is here. I had a lot of fun creating her custom layout, background and banner. I worked with her for a couple days trying to accommodate her every desire! lol... If you are in need of digital services (banners, watermarks, custom backgrounds) and like what you see (either there or on my own blog) let me know and I'll give you some prices!

I subscribe to the American Crafts Blog and nearly peed my pants when I saw they have a design team call. I probably won't get it, but AC is one of my all-time favourite lines... I have at least 250 pieces of 12x12 and LOTS of their ribbon and a pretty good assortment of accessories. I will be making a bunch of items over the next week and then pick the best.

A couple of these cards were in compliance with the featured stamper challenge at SCS too!

All I have to say is WHAT THE HECK?!?!?! I can't believe that out of 750 entries my card was chosen to be in the top 20 of Papercrafts Gallery Idol.. It works like AI in that each week there's a new challenge, and every week 5 people get voted off. I have a secret project to work on and next week readers will vote for their favourite card. So... I will try my darnedest to make the best card I can, so please keep me in mind when voting!!! *wink wink* but really... it's just an honour to get this far. I really am SO excited. (Can you tell)...

This is the card that won... YAY

I'll keep you posted!