365 Cards Blog Hop! LAST DAY!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Welcome to the seventh and final day of the 365 Cards Blog Hop! Pam and the DT are hosting a Hop all week long! For your fist stop, visit the 365 Cards Blog, read the directions on the Sketchy Sunday post, then start the Hop! For my Day 1 Post, click HERE. If you get lost during the Hop, the 365 Cards Blog has all the DT blog links in the sidebar. The official Hop is on Sunday (October 25th) but I will have goodies, challenges, and tidbits for you all week long, so make sure you keep checking back! To be entered to win the 365 Cards prizes, you must leave a comment on the 7 blogs in the Sunday Hop: Pam, Amy, Kristie, Sophie, Vicky, Tammy, and me.

The 365 Cards Challenge for Day 245 - It's a Matter of Inches. You guessed it! You are to use inchies on your card! Pam has a link on the 365 Cards Blog to help you see what inchies are. But HERE is another blog that has some great projects. This was another challenge that I just groaned when I read it. See, back in the day "deco squares" were all the rage in stamping circles. I still have tons of them. They do not make me all warm and fuzzy and I did not get inspired by them. So...I knew I wanted something else. This is what I cam up with.

This is totally not something I'd normally do - but I always say that and if you look at my body of work, it's all over the map! But I love how this turned out! And it's all new stuff - no old "hoard" used for this card.

The paper is all My Mind's Eye. They continue to be one of my all time favorite paper companies. I have a huge bin of their papers. The little cupcake is from Hampton Arts. I colored it with marker and colored pencil. The little greeting came from that set too. The velvet ribbon is new also, and so is my Nestie label die set.

One thing I did was to cut a piece of thick chipboard to 1x1 and then mount my stamped image onto it to give it some dimension.

Folks, that it. The last day of the very first 365 Cards Blog Hop. I hope you had a great week. Remember, you can win a MOSD RAK PACK by leaving a comment on Tuesday's post here, plus, there was a stamp set RAK on my blog Monday! I'll draw for winners on Sunday, Nov. 1st and post them on my 365 Cards Challenge post on Monday, Nov. 2nd. Make sure you check my projects for the whole Blog Hop week! Lots to see!

Come back tomorrow to see my Sunday Sketch!

Day 6 - 365 Cards Blog Hop

Welcome to the sixth day of the 365 Cards Blog Hop! Pam and the DT are hosting a Hop all week long! For your fist stop, visit the 365 Cards Blog, read the directions on the Sketchy Sunday post, then start the Hop! For my Day 1 Post, click HERE. If you get lost during the Hop, the 365 Cards Blog has all the DT blog links in the sidebar. The official Hop is on Sunday (October 25th) but I will have goodies, challenges, and tidbits for you all week long, so make sure you keep checking back! To be entered to win the 365 Cards prizes, you must leave a comment on the 7 blogs in the Sunday Hop: Pam, Amy, Kristie, Sophie, Vicky, Tammy, and me.

The 365 Cards Challenge for Day 244 is called You're So Transparent. What you are to do is use at least 3 transparent items on your card. I'll admit, this was sort of hard as I don't really care much for transparent things, but I do have a stash of items, so went through that to see what I could come up with.

My three transparent items: Frosted card blank from ShortCuts, frosted bird from Maya Road, and clear journaling block from Little Yellow Bicycle.

I attached a piece of Graphic 45 paper to the inside of the frosted card blank (the cherry paper) so that it would sort of show through the front.

I stamped my greeting onto the clear journaling block, then ran that through my Xyron to turn it into a sticker, which I placed on the front of the card. To make the bird stand out, I ran it through the Xyron too, then attached some flowered Graphic 45 paper to the back of it. That way the frosted part still showed, but you can see the paper through it.

I pulled it all together with some gingham ribbon and a little flower.

Remember, you can win a MOSD RAK PACK by leaving a comment on Tuesday's post here, plus, there was a stamp set RAK on my blog Monday! I'll draw for winners on Sunday, Nov. 1st and post them on my 365 Cards Challenge post on Monday, Nov. 2nd. Make sure you check my projects for the whole Blog Hop week! Lots to see!

Before I go for today, I have a bonus project for you. Friday is my DT day for CropStop, so I want to show you my embossing project for today. I used some old Daisy D's paper that I've been hoarding. Then I embossed some velvet paper (SEI) with the Cuttlebug Script EF.

I also used my Nesties to cut out the image and mat. Love that rooster image! It's from a Stampin' Up set. I did not add a greeting yet since this can be for anything, and can be for a man or woman. I like to keep some cards that are multi-purpose.

The velvet paper embossed very well. It's hard to see in the photos, but in person, it's pretty fabbie! I also used some twine to tie the button to my ribbon bow. I hope I don't run out of the black and white gingham ribbon. It's my fav!

See you tomorrow for my last card of the 365 Cards Blog Hop!

Day 5 - 365 Cards Blog Hop

Welcome to the fifth day of the 365 Cards Blog Hop! Pam and the DT are hosting a Hop all week long! For your fist stop, visit the 365 Cards Blog, read the directions on the Sketchy Sunday post, then start the Hop! For my Day 1 Post, click HERE. If you get lost during the Hop, the 365 Cards Blog has all the DT blog links in the sidebar. The official Hop is on Sunday (October 25th) but I will have goodies, challenges, and tidbits for you all week long, so make sure you keep checking back! To be entered to win the 365 Cards prizes, you must leave a comment on the 7 blogs in the Sunday Hop: Pam, Amy, Kristie, Sophie, Vicky, Tammy, and me.

The 365 Cards Challenge for Thursday is Beautiful Bouquet. You are to have a bouquet of flowers on your card. Here is mine.

This is a pretty simple design for me. I used a Close to My Heart stamp, colored with Stampin' Up markers. The pizazz comes from the layers of Bazzill cardstock - chocolate brown, peach, green, purple. (The purples on the card are not as "purple" as they appear here, and they match better IRL. Honest!)

I also went crazy with some SEI buttons and brown floss!

Now, since this is 365 Cards Blog Hop Week - I wanted to throw an extra challenge at you. I love photo challenges (in fact, you may be seeing something about that on this blog in the very near future!). So, as an extra bonus for you, I challenge you to find a photo of a bouquet and take your inspiration from it. It can be a photo of your garden, one you see online, anything. If you post your link on the 365 Cards Day 243, I'll be able to take a look at what inspired you. (This is NOT required as part of the 365 Challenge, this is something extra I'm throwing at you...let's BEND the RULES today!)

Here is the photo that inspired me. In this season of fall color, something about this funky color combo just floated my boat! This is from the Martha Stewart line on 1800Flowers.

Remember, you can win a MOSD RAK PACK by leaving a comment on Tuesday's post here, plus, there was a stamp set RAK on my blog Monday! I'll draw for winners on Sunday, Nov. 1st and post them on my 365 Cards Challenge post on Monday, Nov. 2nd

Leave me a comment today and tell me if you like photo challenges!

Day 4 - 365 Cards Blog Hop

Welcome to the fourth day of the 365 Cards Blog Hop! Pam and the DT are hosting a Hop all week long! For your fist stop, visit the 365 Cards Blog, read the directions on the Sketchy Sunday post, then start the Hop! For my Day 1 Post, click HERE. If you get lost during the Hop, the 365 Cards Blog has all the DT blog links in the sidebar. The official Hop is on Sunday (October 25th) but I will have goodies, challenges, and tidbits for you all week long, so make sure you keep checking back! To be entered to win the 365 Cards prizes, you must leave a comment on the 7 blogs in the Sunday Hop: Pam, Amy, Kristie, Sophie, Vicky, Tammy, and me.

The challenge today is Ribbon Frenzy! You must use at least 7 different ribbons on your card! Wow! That was tough! Here is my card.

Can you see all 7 of my ribbons?! I hope so! This is a 5x5 card and I used K&Company paper. I love the soft pinks and blues for a non-traditional Christmas look. Paired with chocolate brown, it's just yummy!

I used four different ribbons to tie a "fancy knot" and then glue dotted it to this very cool Papertrey Ink button. Those PTI vintage buttons are my new favorite item! I am saving my pennies to buy more. (What!? Who ever has enough buttons?!) You can also see that I added some pink rick-rack to my die cut bell.

Is this pink grosgrain pretty?! I added the teal pom-pom trim to the top. I cannot remember where that pom-pom stuff came from...I only had a very small bit, just enough for this card!

I used a snowflake die cut from the K&Company paper pad too, but jazzed it up with a button and some pearls.

Since you can see I had quite enough ribbons for this project, you may be interested in a small tutorial on how I organize my ribbons. If you missed it last week, check out this post here to see my own personal RIBBON FRENZY. I will have another card for you tomorrow, plus a special challenge!

Remember, you can win a MOSD RAK PACK by leaving a comment on yesterday's post here, plus, there was a stamp set RAK on my blog Monday! I'll draw for winners on Sunday, Nov. 1st and post them on my 365 Cards Challenge post on Monday, Nov. 2nd.

Day 3 - 365 Cards Blog Hop

Welcome to the third day of the 365 Cards Blog Hop! Pam and the DT are hosting a Hop all week long! For your fist stop, visit the 365 Cards Blog, read the directions on the Sketchy Sunday post, then start the Hop! For my Day 1 Post, click HERE. If you get lost during the Hop, the 365 Cards Blog has all the DT blog links in the sidebar. The official Hop is on Sunday (October 25th) but I will have goodies, challenges, and tidbits for you all week long, so make sure you keep checking back! To be entered to win the 365 Cards prizes, you must leave a comment on the 7 blogs in the Sunday Hop: Pam, Amy, Kristie, Sophie, Vicky, Tammy, and me.

Before I get to the RAK you can win today, here is my card for the Tuesday Challenge - Day 241. For today you are to "put it on the list" meaning you are to use a list as your sentiment. Here is my card.


I used all Cosmo Cricket papers, in fact I think these are left from when Cosmo sponsored 365 Cards! Yep, I hoard!

The stamps are Autumn Leaves (list), Hampton Arts (greeting), and Papertrey Ink (dotted circle). Those yummy buttons are from PTI also! I love their vintage buttons.

The ribbon is a leftover bit from one of the MacMae Card Kits. I do indeed use every little bit of stuff I collect...it just takes me a while to cycle through everything! I did not stamp the inside of this card (big surprise!) since it could be a birthday card, thinking of you card, thank you card, etc.

On to better things! Remember how I told you that I would be having goodies and fun things to do or see all week in honor of the 365 Cards Blog Hop? Well, since I am also on a few other DTs I wanted to show them some love as well...so....how would you like to win this very cool RAK?

This is a stack of goodies from Midnight Oil Scrapbook Designs, worth about $30 Retail! The prize includes 1 Clearly Designed Long Haul Album, 1 Cover to Cover Clearly Cute Petite Album, 2 6x6 Stick-On Backgrounds, 2 Page Toppers, and 3 sets of binding rings!

I have been on the MOSD DT for almost 2 years and have to say they have fabbie goodies. To win this RAK, leave a comment telling me what you think of my project below and I will do a random draw for the RAK winner! You have until 11:59 EST on October 31st to leave a comment to be included in the drawing! (You may also want to check out the MOSD Blog to see what the DT has done with these fabbie products.)

MOSD Goes Grunge....

Grunge board and grunge paper that is! I love Tim Holtz inks and grunge board and other goodies. I just found out that there is now something called grunge paper, which is thinner than grunge board and I can cut it with punches and Spellbinders Nesties! So I went on a search to see how people were using it and got some wonderful ideas from the Studio 490 blog. I rolled all of this "research" into this one project!

I have been wanting to make this perpetual birthday list for a while now. I found the sheets for the inside online at some point in time - don't ask me where as I cannot remember! I had printed them and was just waiting for inspiration to strike! It finally did! Check it out!

I used the clear cover of a Long MOSD Haul album - which is 4x9 inches. Then I cut a chipboard sheet from a Big Boy album (6x12 size) down to 4x9 to be my back cover. I lined up the holes for everything and punched all the layers with my Crop-a-Dile.

I used some Bo Bunny papers for the covers. For the front cover, I cut the paper a bit smaller than the acrylic so you can see the acrylic edge. Then I distressed the edges of the paper for that "grunge" feel. The title is something I printed on the computer. Then I cut it out with Spellbinder circles and inked it with some distress ink.

All of the flowers are grunge paper cut with Nesties or Sizzix dies, then inked with distress ink and over stamped with background stamps and Staz-On ink. The flourish is grunge board, also inked and stamped.

I added some vintage and sparkly brads and jewels for some pizazz. Inside the book are 12 sheets, one for each month. Here is the June sheet. There is a space to write names for each day of the month - to record birthdays. This is handy to sit on your desk or on a shelf. No more missed birthdays!

Remember, leave a comment and you can win the MOSD RAK PACK! Come back tomorrow for Day 4 of the 365 Cards Blog Hop - I'll have another card and who knows what else?! Plus, there was a RAK on my blog yesterday too! All you have to do to be entered in that drawing is make a card for day 365 Cards Day 240 and post a link on the 365 Cards Blog!

Day 2 - 365 Cards Blog Hop

Welcome to the second day of the 365 Cards Blog Hop! Pam and the DT are hosting a Hop all week long! For your fist stop, visit the 365 Cards Blog, read the directions on the Sketchy Sunday post, then start the Hop! For my Day 1 Post, click HERE. If you get lost during the Hop, the 365 Cards Blog has all the DT blog links in the sidebar. The official Hop is on Sunday (October 25th) but I will have goodies, challenges, and tidbits for you all week long, so make sure you keep checking back! To be entered to win the 365 Cards prizes, you must leave a comment on the 7 blogs in the Sunday Hop: Pam, Amy, Kristie, Sophie, Vicky, Tammy, and me.

For today, I have my Monday Challenge card to show you. The challenge for today is to use a stick-pin or a safety pin with beads or charms attached. As you can see, I used a stick pin with beads. This lovely pin was made by my wonderful cyber pal (and 365 Cards regular) Rose Miller! Thanks Rosie Posie! Rose sent me a bunch of these hand-made pins for a RAK.

The paper for my card is all Basic Grey Mellow. Such wonderful fall colors! The stamp is a PSX that I've had for close to 10 years. It is a large stamp (this card is 5.5x6 inches) but has a $5 price tag! That was some deal! I will confess that this is the first time this stamp has ever seen ink! (GASP!) I stamped the image with Staz-On and then colored it with Stampin' Up markers. I think my coloring is improving...what do you think? Click on the photo to see a larger image so you can give me a good critique...or maybe not!

Check out my scallop edges! I used the Fiskars punche Threading Water punch for the small scallops and my NEW EK Success Embossed Curve punch for the large scallops. The large scallop one is brand new, purchased at CropStop. They have a huge line of punches now!

To win this RAK - a Close to My Heart stamp set called Ticket for All Seasons:

For everyone who makes a card for today's challenge AND posts a link on the 365 Cards Blog (using Mr. Linky) I will do a random draw for this stamp set! Make sure to post your card link on Day 240 to be counted in my special RAK! Let's see what you do with this challenge! You have until 11:59pm EST October 31st to post your card to the 365 Cards blog (do NOT post your link here - but feel free to leave a comment if you wish). I will announce the winner on Nov. 2nd along with my weekly Monday challenge!

365 Cards Blog Hop!

Welcome to the FIRST EVER 365 Cards Blog Hop! Pam and the DT are hosting a Hop all week long! For your fist stop, visit the 365 Cards Blog, read the directions, then start the Hop! You should be coming to me from Pam's Blog. If not, go back and try again! If you get lost during the Hop, the 365 Cards Blog has all the DT blog links in the sidebar.

Now that you are here - I'll tell you 7 Random Facts about me:

1. I am 5' 9" tall in my sock feet.

2. I am left handed and proud of it.

3. I have a B.S. in electrical engineering, a second degree in English, and minor courses of study in computer science and industrial engineering. (I know! How did I wind up here?!)

4. I cannot carry a tune but I love to sing.

5. My mom said I could read by age 2. I believe her.

6. My hair used to be so long I could sit on the ends.

7. My first ever paying job was as a "go-for" for my electrician father.

Now that you know a bit of trivia about me, here is the 365 Cards Sketch for today:

Here is my card. I used my brand new American Crafts paper for this one. It's not my normal style, but it was so cute and fresh I had to buy it. Do you love those rubber boots?! I followed the sketch exactly again this week. Don't faint now!

The stamp is SU and I used my Nesties for the circles. The little flower is MOSD.

Now, on with the Hop! Make sure you visit 365 Cards to see what you can win and how to win it! Also, check back here tomorrow to see my Monday Challenge card! I will also have details tomorrow on how you can win a RAK from me! Plus, I may have some extra challenges for you this week...wait and see! I hope you have a fun week of Hopping!

Hop on over to Amy's Blog to see what she has in store for you! Make sure you leave a comment for everyone on the DT by 11:59pm EST on October 31st to be able to enter the random draw for the 365 Cards Prize!

I Love New Toys!

I just got some new embossing folders from CropStop so had to play. Here is my Friday Embossing project that I made for their message board.

I made a card from tan Bazzill, then embossed the chocolate Bazzill with the Cuttlebug Diamond Plate EF. This is a very cool folder! I love it! I also got out a new pad of Basic Grey Mellow paper that I bought at Michael's when I was in New York over the summer. This is a paper line I missed out on getting when it was first released. So I was super happy to find it at Mike's for 40% off.

I also got out my new Inkadinkado Harvest stamps. These are BEAUTIFUL stamps! I used a Kaleidacolor ink pad called autumn leaves. It's so pretty. This particular pad has 5 colors. I purchased 4-5 of these pads a number of years ago when they were "in" but have not used them much lately. I wonder why? They are soooo pretty!

I used my trusty Spellbinders Nesties to cut and emboss the circles. Such a nice touch! These are my go to tools! I found this white tulle when I did my ribbon clean up last weekend. Works great on this card. I stacked up a few buttons and a pearl to make an embellie.

I'll be back on Sunday with a 365 Cards Challenge. Check back then!

Who Wants More Reveals?

Are you shouting?! I can't hear you! Fine. I'll show you anyway! Here are the last three cards from the October MacMae Card Kit. The cute journaling tag on this first one makes me giggle...those witch feet are a hoot! I put one of the stickers from Scenic Route on top of where the journaling should go thus making it a greeting for my card.

Can you see I also used green rick-rack AND ribbon? I turned the black polka dot ribbon over to show only the black side. Cool, right? The next card is made with the Scenic Route papers. (This kit had Scenic Route, SEI, and Making Memories papers.) I love these SR papers. In fact I have the whole line in my stash! So I was happy to make use of the paper in this kit and did not feel the need to hoard it. hee hee

I used more of the rick -rack and also created one of my fun crumpled, circle "flowers." I love making those. My Spellbinders Nesties come in very handy! And last of all, another 3x3 gift card.

Now, here are the rest of the Apron Strings Designs October kit creations. This kit contained My Mind's Eye, Jilli Bean Soup, and Basic Grey papers. I think this is my first time working with the Jilli Bean Soup papers. They are really cute! Here is a card I made with some of the left-overs.

This is a 2-page layout. I don't make very many 2-page LOs any more, but part of my DT requirement is to make at least one with each kit. So, I used more of Jonah's preK photos. (He's in 4th grade now!) Click on the photo for a larger view. I used the ASD sketch for this layout. It was a hard one!

This next LO is my first time to play with the new Basic Grey Indian Summer paper. Oh, I really wanted to hoard this! This photo is of my two older kids with their "fake sisters" at Thanksgiving a few years ago. These girls are my BFF's girls and just like bonus kids to me! This is the only photo I took the whole day and it was a stinky one! But, scrap what ya got I guess!

Here is another LO with the BG paper. This is the pumpkin patch last year. It was HOT, as you can probably tell. I think it was near 90 degrees! I based this layout on a LO that I saw in the Oct. 2009 Scrapbooks Etc.

That's it for reveals! Since October was my last month to use a kit for BOTH Apron Strings Designs AND MacMae Card Kits...I may have to figure something else out! There is the off chance that both companies will ask me back, or that another company will just fall in love with my work...but let's not count our chickens, ok?! LOL

Check in tomorrow for my CropStop Embossing project!

How About Some Reveals?

I have some more reveals for you today. First I'll show you two page layouts made with the October Apron Strings Designs small kit. Click on the photos for a larger view. This first one is of my middle and youngest kids last year for Trick or Treat. The paper is My Mind's eye. Super cute! I added some Basic Grey Lime Rickey sticker letters, but check out the MME chipboard candy corn that dots the "i"! The next layout is from 2007, of my three kids plus 2 extras! The "big boys" did not Trick or Treat, but they dressed up to hand out candy at our door. I used more of the MME paper and Basic Grey letters. Those letters came in a MacMae kit a while back. I had loads left over!

Here is a card with same papers. I used up pretty much every scrap! Check out how I used the spotlight technique on the paper for a greeting.

I'll have more projects from the kit tomorrow! Now, here are two more cards from the October MacMae kit!

Gotta love the purple!

I Think I Need More Ribbon...

My ribbon has been a mess for a while now. I save every scrap. I have it stored in several containers, including a Pull-EZ purse, in boxes, on spools, and scraps in a big bag. I've been on a mission to organize my stuff to make it easier to see what I have, and easier to USE what I have. In these tough economic times I cannot afford to buy as much as I used to, and I also cannot afford to re-buy things just because I cannot find it in this mess! I got all my ribbon, fibers, and floss organized over the weekend and I thought you'd all like to see how I did it.

First, I sorted my ribbon scraps. Anything less than about a foot I tossed out. I then sorted in piles by color. Here are a few shots of that. This is everything that was in bags and the Ribbon Purse.

You can see I have large color families: purple, pink, red, green, blue, brown, white, cream, yellow, orange, and black.

Once I got the ribbon all sorted, I cut chipboard squares in 1.5x1.5 and 2.5x2.5 inch sizes for winding the ribbon. The squares take up less space than spools or piles of ribbon.

Then I wound all the ribbon onto the chipboard and secured it with masking tape. The tape is low tack, but still will hold the ribbon in place. I did not use pins as I did not want to get poked all the time! Here is a shot of the pink ribbon all wound. See how small the pile is now! If I had a few short lengths I put it in a small bag, but I vow to only save lengths long enough to actually USE!

Once I got all the colors wound, I placed each color family into a Zip Lock bag. Now, when I want red...I just pull out the red bag. When I have ribbon to put away, I just find the right bag and put it away. I will keep some of the chipboard squares and the tape in the drawer with the bags of ribbon. No excuse for being messy!

I now keep my neat ribbon bags in two drawers right under my workspace! Very handy! And ALL of my ribbon is in one place!

Next I tackled the fibers and floss. I have a ton of yarn and twine and other stuff that I don't use very often. So, first I sorted it and got rid of stuff I would never use.

Some, I just put back in the plastic bin and returned it to the shelf where it normally lives. But the small amounts of fibers and the stuff I use more often, I wound and placed in this floss box. This actually got filled up with more fibers after I took the photo.

I also have one bag of fibers tucked into the drawer with the ribbon. It's all of the same type and all wound! No more mess! The last thing to do was the floss/string. Most of my floss was already wound as it was leftover from my cross stitching days. But it was not organized, and some new stuff came into the house and was pretty messy! My goal was to limit the places where stuff was being stored! I wanted to have one or two areas to look for things...not 5 or 10!

I sorted it all by color family and wound the items that were still loose. I stored it all in these floss boxes.

Here is a shot of them stacked up.

I have one bag of twine that I put in the ribbon drawers. Now, all of my trims are ORGANIZED! It's not pretty, but it's functional, easy to access, and CHEAP. I spent ZERO dollars on this organizing. I already had the floss boxes and Zip Lock bags, and the chipboard was just scraps! I would love to have pretty jars of ribbon, but it takes up a lot of space and costs money to convert. So, for now, this works! Hope I've helped someone else to tame the ribbon monster! (My husband reminded me that it did not cost zero dollars to do this...I had told the family that I'd pay $10 an hour for help...so older ds and dh each spent about 1 hr. total cutting chipboard for me! So I owe them a 10 spot! LOL)

Before I sign off I want to share two more MacMae October Kit cards. Here is another little 3x3 gift card. I colored the pumpkin with pencils. Never tried that before. It worked...sorta.

I fell in love with the SEI paper! It's so pretty! I hated to cut it! this card is blank so I can stamp any greeting I want when I use it.

That's all for today! Tomorrow I'll have more MacMae Kit cards and start showing the October Apron Strings Designs samples!