Sylvia's Stamping Corner

LAST DAY OF FEBRUARY, A TIME TO CELEBRATE!

Not everyone celebrates the ending of February, however next comes March. But for me, celebrating the last day, means I can celebrate another year of life. Yes, today is my birthday. I have been looking at all the challenge cards tonight, haven't gotten through half of them yet and so many of them are birthday cards. I comment on others blogs as it is nice to receive comments and I wanted to say, Thanks its my birthday, but I didn't.

Tonight, as I sit and type, I want to say Thank you to Natalie. She came by today with a gift and a card, a card she took time out of her busy life to make. I am posting it as well as her swap card tonight. Her birthday card, could have been in the challenge. It has about the same colors and is really lovely. Thanks again and for the well wishes you left me on the post.

Natalie's swap card is the third card in our February swap. Again we say good by to valentines cards. She used punches and rhinestones, little birdies, designer paper, and all the colors that say Happy Valentines Day!. Great design Natalie. You did a great job.

KRISTINA WERNER'S COLOR INSPIRATION #43

I am early tonight, as I have two posts to do. The first one is for the color Challenge. Last night I said I had ruined my card. I had all sorts of pieces done, but the card would not go together. Well I went to bed around 2 AM, got up this morning to clean. This afternoon I turned one card into two cards! The colors for the challenge were Chocolate Chip, Ruby Red, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, and Ballet Blue.

The first card, is the one I started out to do last night. I used Old Olive as my card base. The stamp set I chose was Stampin'Up, one of our new Birdie stamp sets. The blue designer paper is close to the ballet blue. It really isn't any SU color, but goes so well with this bird. The Pumpkin Pie corduroy buttons are just to die for. I love, love using them!

The second card is an underwater scene, although I   am not sure you can see the detail. I used the Brassy dots embossing plate to hand emboss all the ocean bubbles. This card does not show the delicate ocean plants from our new Ocean set, nor can you see the detail of the orange micro beads that shine like the glitter used. None the less this card is striking in person. Hope you enjoy both cards. Once I started doing all the pieces, I had to use them. Enjoy your weekend. It is cold here again!

A GARLAND, MORE STAMPING, AND A SWAP CARD

I spent the morning at the computer, working on pictures for cards to put on Etsy. That went on until after lunchtime. I had to go to the post office to mail my last eBay box then ate lunch when I got back around 3pm. I started working on a card after that. I stopped long enough to go downstairs to check e-mail. I started working on deleting pictures as my hard drive is getting to full again. By the time I finished January's pictures, it was 7pm.

Back upstairs, I ate supper then back to the work table again. I promised a picture of the garland. This picture does not do the garland justice as it was dark when I took it and the colors are all funny due to the shadows. After that I started working on a challenge card. However, I am afraid I just messed it up by staying up too late. I will start over tomorrow.

Here is the second swap card from our February swap. This is Christina's card. Again the colors used were Pretty in Pink, Very Vanilla and Riding Hood Red. Christina used her new Oval Scallop Die to do the frame. She also used the striped grosgrain ribbon that we all love. This is a beautiful card. Good job, Christina

SAYING GOODBYE TO FEBRUARY, IS IT MARCH ALREADY?

Tonight, I am doing something different. I am posting one of our swap cards from this month. There are four nights left to post in February and we have a group of four who do a monthly swap. Brenda's card is our first featured card. It is a beautiful card. She used a Valentine theme and used Kristina Werner's paper clip idea. The Riding Hood Red card stock is beautifully embossed and has a delicate punched edge. Good job Brenda.

I had a lot to do today and got a bunch done. I posted cards on Etsy including a card kit so if you are interested visit my Etsy site. I also spent a lot of time taking pictures so I could post more cards. I had tags to get done. Amy, my daughter, asked me to maketags for the giveaways she is doing on her blog. If you have not signed up for some of her free stuff, you still have time, go to Anlina Designs. Her site can be found in My favorites. Sign up on her posts listed in the give aways. Just make sure you go back to check to see if you won. If you don't, and she draws your name and you haven't given your e-mail, she will draw again.

Tonight I worked on stringing my garland together, that will wrap around my new banner. I guess I am doing it backwards this time, but I know what I want both to look like, but I have not figured out how many pennants I need, so I am making my garland first. I will post pictures of the garland tomorrow night along with Christina's card.

A SUPER BEAUTIFUL DAY IN SOUTHERN COLORADO

Our beautiful weather in late February, can only mean it is going to be a hot dry summer. This morning I took pictures of my roses blooming on my rose tree inside my atrium. My southern exposure, upstairs and down is all glass windows. I am lucky to have plenty of space to bring a lot of my plants inside for the winter. I had one rose last week and have five more, from bud stage to full bloom, on one tree and three buds on the other.

My eBay items were closing, one by one, and as I waited, I took pictures. How nice it is to be able to enjoy my roses on a winter day, which reached 70. When you sell on EBay, you might as well be prepared to spend a lot of time at the computer. There are always questions, and countless things to get ready for the sales. So much of my day was spent doing these things. With the last auction over, I ran to the post office with one box ready to mail and one to weigh. It was a box going to Finland and I could not get the postage figured to send an invoice.

In between all this I worked on cards, but tonight I worked on some St. Patrick's Day tags. I decided it was getting time to put a few things in my Etsy store for that day. I am part Irish. We always celebrated St. Patrick's Day at my house. My ancestors came from the Island of Skye in Scotland. They migrate to Ireland and left Ireland for the America's during the potato famine. I am sad to say, my children do not celebrate our Irish heritage, as we did. Anyway here are the first of my Irish tags. I hope to get better pictures tomorrow.

A LITTLE BIRDIE TOLD ME! DID A LITTLE BIRDIE TELL YOU?

I did not post last night. I went to bed instead. Sometimes I am just so tired that I can not hold my head up. I have been working. Yesterday, I did more butterflies and flowers using my die cutting machine I then got all the eyelets set and the garland ready to string. That of course was in between the housework and crafting I did.

I did two cards tonight for posting. I used The Little Birdie Told Me stamp set. Have you ever wondered what the birds are saying to each other? I know it is a strange question. But, if you let your imagination go, then the creativity starts flowing as well. How many ways can you make these little birds look different? Mine look the same most of the time, which is happy!

Brenda, one note for you, I tried the water color crayons on these birds before giving up on the idea. I wanted to see if they looked better than the inks. The birds indeed looked better, but I did not like the waxy look so I ended up stamping them on colored card stock. You can either color in with the crayon or use your brush and take color off the crayon and apply it to the card stock. I was not using water color card stock so maybe that is why I got so much wax. I wanted to finish my projects before it got too late, but I will try again tomorrow. Hope you enjoy my spring birds! You can imagine what they are going to tell!

DID I SAY HOORAY FOR THE WEEKEND?

I really thought when I awoke this morning that I was going to get a lot done today. But, I am sure everyone knows about the best of plans. I did get a better nights sleep. I did not however, get to start on my cards until after 7pm. I was gone almost all day.

I finished my cards from last night, then started on the one I am posting. A friend asked about water coloring. Using stamps with water colors is a delicate process. Although some water color paper is of the quality that you can actually erase a mistake with a wet brush, the cardstock we use does not really allow mistake to be taken off. You can cover certain mistakes, but for the most part you have to go slow so as not to make them.

In tonights card, I used a blender pen and stamp pad ink. I stamped my image on Whisper white card stock with a basic black ink pad. If you are careful and not using water color card stock, and a lot of water, you can get away with not using Stazon. Stazon is a heavier ink. When using smaller stamp images with a lot of detail, it looks much nicer to stamp with craft ink. I am still thinking spring. I used the tulips stamp from a hostess Level 1 stamp set and butterflies from another set. Enjoy!

IT'S THE WEEKEND! OH WHAT A DAY!

I have not finished Friday, but technically it is Saturday. I had one of those days, the phone kept ringing, so I did not get a lot of anything done. I went out to deliver an order, got back and had three phone calls, two from my eldest sister. She wanted me to call her back to give me my new address, since my cousin and Uncle had been to visit her and told her that I had moved back to Oklahoma. When I thought about it, it made no sense, as she was calling my Colorado number. I called her first and told her that I had not moved. Then I called my cousin and told her that I had not moved either! Talked to my 91 yr old uncle and assured him I had not moved. Needless to say, I can not imagine why they thought I would not notify them if this had actually happened. My husband was working in Oklahoma for about 9 months and we really did want to move, but it did not work out.

Hey, I have not moved in 7 years, I guess I am due. This is the longest that I have been in one place since I got married! Enough! I did work on the second card from last night. I finished the four like last nights card and got three of the green ones done.My picture is not so good. The light was all wrong and I guess I was too tired to figure out what I did last night. Anyway I think you will be able to see the card OK and I will take a better picture tomorrow and re-post it.

 Donna, thanks for the hugs. Donna went over to my daughter's blog and saw my daughter's comment about me having a rough week and left a message. I always try and keep my post positive, I am OK, feeling much better, I really just need some sleep. By the way, Anlina design blog is on the fritz, there are some problems. If you went over to find the drawings for the journals, the post was February 17th. However, there are several posts gone because of the problem. Hopefully, it will be back up some time tomorrow.

SPRING IS REALLY HERE! A BEAUTIFUL SUNNY DAY

It may get cold again, but I really believe that we have started our spring. In Colorado it is hard to tell because we go from cold to hot and sometimes the in between is hard to detect. I spent the day stamping. I enjoyed the sunshine from inside.

I worked on cards I had to finish before turning to a card for tonight. I am showing one of a set of four 3"x3" note cards I am doing for my Etsy shop. I decided I had to get to bed earlier tonight, so I finished one completely. The parts to the others are ready to put together in the morning. This is a cupcake set. It could be birthday or just party time gift cards. They are bright and cheery and not too difficult to do. I will post the second card tomorrow night. Has everyone gone over to Anlina Designs and signed up for the hand made journal? There is still time!

KRISTINA WERNER COLOR INSPIRATION #42

 I am really late or rather early this morning posting my challenge card. I started late this afternoon after a fruitless day. With the colors for the challenge being a little more difficult, it took me awhile to find a stamp set that I could use and make work! The colors for the challenge were More Mustard, Really Rust, Kiwi Kiss, and Whisper White.

I used the Stampin'UP! stamp set, God's Beauty, a Level 1 hostess set. I used More Mustard to stamp my flowers and micro beads for the centers. The butterflies are stamped twice each and glued together and trimmed so that they could be 3 dimensional. I colored them using my Really Rust pen, then added Crystal Effects. I watched butterflies like these al summer. They normally travel together, thus two on this card. I hope you enjoy the card. Have a great rest of your week.