Bark Less, Wag More

I sent this cute little doggy card to a friend recently. I know you are questioning why a cat person would send a doggy card.

Why indeed, Mom?!

It is because doggy stamps are cute. They don't pant on you, they don't shed on you, they don't chew your shoes or ask you to take you on a walk. Doggy stamps are cool, especially silly ones like this.

The Fine Print: Card base and parts by Basic Gray and dog stamp by Tim Holtz. 

The New Calendar

Now that the year has changed it is time for a new calendar. I have a little one in my craft room that shows the dates and precious little else because of its teeny size.

I've often admired the calendar critters, calendar critter accessories and calendar blanks that Taylored Expressions sold. So this year during one of the black Friday, Plaid Saturday, Chartreuse Sunday, or Manic Monday sales I splurged and got them for myself.

This is my January calendar, featuring the bitterly cold weather that January brings with her. I bought a cheap plastic standing frame from the dollar store to house it in. The calendar itself is 3"x4" but since my frame is 5"x7" I had room to add a patterned paper background which is mounted on a piece of white cardstock.

The photo is taken in the dreary gray mush that passes for sunshine this time of the year, so you get what you get. The red dot is my big stamp club meeting date. Since I'm in charge of it I'd be lynched if I missed it.

This here is card showing Cindy ringing in the new year. She got a bit tipsy on milk as you can see. Hope your day is happy and that you aren't too hungover. Remember the dog that bit you and drink his hairs.... I never did understand that cure.

The Fine Print: Calendar and parts by Taylored Expressions--Calendar Critters, Calendar Build a Scene, and Ready Set Snow (the trees). Card stamps and dies by Tim Holtz--Crazy Cats and Crazy Accessories. The pressure is on.... I now have 31 days to make my February calendar.

Cat Lovers Hop Day 5

Here we are at Day 5 for the Cat Lovers Hop. I hope you've been enjoying all these cat themed projects. I know I have! Today I have a big cat to share with you. This is another image from a friend, but I do know he is by Eureka. I colored him in and used glossy accents on his nose and all those wee hearts in his mane. I laugh that there is a cat hair stuck to this card. Such is my life.

I also have a domestic cat to share with you, also an image from a friend (I swear to you, I do have my own cat stash!!!). He got the glossy accent treatment on the eyes and do you see that I used an eyelet? How old fashioned of me, huh?!

Those are my cat offerings today. I'm glad I finally got around to playing with one of the Crazy Cats. That seems like a must-do thing for this hop.

The Fine Print: Lion stamp by Eureka, Ginger cat and yarn ball stamps by Tim Holtz, Cat thing cat greeting by Lost Angeles Rubber Works.

Combat Action Stapler

I was crafting in my room the other evening when my husband came in and pulled one of my tools off my desk.  "Wow! Look at this stapler! It means business. It's like a combat action stapler! Oh, look at this--it's a Tim Holtz combat action stapler!"

But, of course.

The Fine Print: Tim Holtz Combat Action Stapler by Tim Holtz. Not intended for those under the age of 3 years. Please do not operate while drunk or under the influence. Please post to Facebook if you experience an erection lasting more than 4 hours. Combat Action Stapler not meant for actual combat action, police standoffs, bar mitzvahs, or toenail removal.  Please use responsibly. 

Crazy for Crazy Birds

Santa Claus (AKA Mr. Palmer) got me some really cool Christmas presents, so of course I had to take them out to play. I made some fun New Year's card with my new toys and some old funky designer paper.

The Fine Print: Bird Crazy stamps, accessories and dies by Tim Holtz, designer paper by Basic Gray, border punch by Stampin' Up.

Out to Lunch

The other day my Nephew and his Friend stopped by for lunch.  Nephew had been making noises about "taking me to lunch" for a couple of weeks now so it wasn't that big of a surprise. In case you don't know his idea of "taking me to lunch" involves me driving and paying for it and listening to his plea for money.  I've been putting him off because I find his company and predictably tedious. However, this lunch was rather eye-opening for me.

Both kids are tickling 30 now and have been buddies on and off since grade school. I totally enjoyed the Friend's company. It was good talking to him. He talked of getting a better job and getting his life on track. We related various stories of car repairs and making decisions like buy groceries or fix the car. We had a long conversation about how many hours one had to work to be able to buy an $800 cell phone and all the other, better things $800 could buy. Friend and I discussed the value of getting a college education and how he could get back into the school I work at. We talked about friends who passed away.  You know, we discussed life.

Meanwhile Nephew sat off to the side making random movie quotes, commenting about the life of a Jedi, and talking about the upcoming Star Wars movie. Nephew asked me multiple times for money to buy a Jedi robe from a Halloween store. Basically he was the like annoying little kid trying to get attention from the grown-ups.  He was so out of touch and didn't even try to fit in.

Of course, Nephew has no practical experience on what we discussed. He has never held a job, never paid bills, never had to be accountable for his actions, and wouldn't know a responsibility if it bit him in the arse. However, he tried a stint in college and has had friends and family member pass away but yet he couldn't get his mind off the fantasyland of movies and Jedis and hitting me up for money long enough to join in our conversation.

As I said, it was eye-opening for me. I've known the kid was out of touch with the real world for quite some time but I had no idea how far out there he was. Nephew can no longer even relate to his own friend anymore. He's truly out to lunch.

The Fine Print: Stamps by Tim Holtz, school themed papers by the Paper Cut, apple punch by Martha, and apple brad from my stash. That cut is called a tri-shutter! Yes, I had help remembering that name.

Extra Hardcore Spookiness!

Do you ever want to make an extra special card for someone because you are impressed with their stamping abilities so you want to make a card worthy of their talent level?  Yeah, I never do that either.  But if I did, I would have reserved this card for that:

The Fine Print: Wicked cool owl from a Tim Holtz set, designer paper by unknown, leaf dies by Spellbinders, web border die by Memory Box, and orange seam binding ribbon from my stash from when I was on that seam binding kick last year. *wink*wink*nudge*nudge* Yes, I did that.  The person I sent this too is very clever and combines all sorts of things into fabulous designs. I felt I had to raise the bar for her this time. i hope she doesn't hold me to that standard all the time. I'd crack under pressure.

Buggin' Me

Just to prove to y'all that I do still have other stamps besides my bathing beauties ones, here's a bug.

This is an old wood mount stamp I've had for a long time. I don't use it often because I'm rather at a loss of what to do with it except stamp it.  There ins't a lot of coloring on it, so as you can see I invented some parts to color to give it some more interest.  I colored it with Twinkling H2Os. I've had those for a long time too and hardly ever think to break them out.  They have a fun shimmer to them.

The Fine Print: Stamp by Stampers Anonymous, embossed in black ep, colored with twinking H2Os, ribbon by A Muse Studio (retired), and cardstock from my stash.  I made this card for a "Buggin' Me" swap and the day I made it I had killed two bees inside my house.  That meant I wasn't about to put a bee on my bug card! I'd been bugged by bees enough by then.  We once had a hive in our cinder block siding. I thought they were back.  Apparently those were just advance scout bees and since they didn't return the hive moved elsewhere.

Rudolph Day

It's time for this month's Rudolph Day challenge.  I had great intentions to do some wonderful things with the Christmas stamps in this set.   I've not used them before so this would give me a chance to try them out.

However when it came time for the reality the only stamp that I felt like playing with was the toy soldier and even then I had to try a dozen different things before I came up with something I liked.  Twice, since the challenge calls for two cards.

I kept them pretty basic since that's my style and anything else would have been madness. In the end I was quite pleased with both of them.  And who knows what next month will bring. Maybe I'll try out the other  holiday stamps in that set!

The Fine Print: Stamps by Tim Holtz, because you couldn't figure that out from the photo, oval dies by Spellbinders, holly leaf dies by A Muse Studio, ribbons and bling from my stash. And yes, you've seen many of the other stamps in action on my blog; it is just the holiday ones I haven't used before.

All Hail the Mighty Tim!

I got a new Tim Holtz stamp set this past Friday from our Top Secret Scrapbook store in town.  So I went and promptly made these cards....

...with an entirely different stamp set than the one I bought.

I got motivated to make some fall themed cards after making cards for tomorrow's post.  Yes, sometimes I work my posts backward.  Because that's just how I am.

The Fine Print: Stamps by Tim Holtz the mini blueprint collection, background papers by DCWV, embellishments from my stash.  I have no idea why I have a hunk of that brown ruffled ribbon as it is more floofy than I usually use but I feel it worked here.

Bird Brain

Apparently when it comes to crafting I have birds on the brian.  I mean, just look at the past bunch of cards I've posted.

Then there is this one above, made with the bits and pieces of the never ending Music to My Ears kit (I've been calling it Serenade).  Plus, I made two sample cards for my upcoming A Muse workshop and they both had birds on them. I haven't photographed them yet, so you'll just have to be patient.

And here is another one from the Club Scrap stuff.  By the way, I've stuck a fork in that kit and called it done.  A friend asked me what I consider "done" and what that means.  I keep kit stuff all together in its box, bag or envelope until it is done and once that happens any left over bits get incorporated into my regular stash.  I keep the stuff together until then because it works together.  For Club Scrap stuff I get the greetings to go order and that comes with 15 card blanks and die cuts and embellishments. I consider a kit done once I've used up the blanks and the majority of the die cuts.  The kits also come with coordinating cardstock so often I leave the kit together until I use up some of that too (and the remainder of the die cuts).  Sometimes I'm not happy with the colors or something so I only make a few cards and then unkit everything.  The Simon Says Stamps kits are pretty much the same thing.  I consider them done once I've used up the majority of the papers and embellishments.   I often reuse their boxes to put new coordinating stuff in, so yeah, I rarely seem to downsize boxes.

The Fine Print: Top card--letter stickers and "Serenade" papers by Basic Grey, bird cage and bird die by Tim Holtz (Sizzix), scallop border and heart by A Muse Studio.  Bottom Card--card base, green fiber and bird stamp by Club Scrap "Birds of a Feather," oval dies by Spellbinders, textured paper from stash.

Birds of a Feather

I continued my trek of playing with a little of this and a little of that. This time I pulled out the equally old Birds of a Feather set.  I remembered not being happy with the colors and wondered at the pieces I'd left behind from when I'd played with it before. Then I realized that the kit would have arrived in late September so probably I thought the colors were to springlike for the time of the year.

Back then I pulled out the stamps and some of the darker pieces and did a lot of stamping in browns and other fall colors.  I definitely left the pink and green bits behind. So what is the first thing I did this time?  I pulled some brown out of my stash and made this card above!

Then I made this card, which while I didn't add brown paper to it, I didn't use the green that came with it either.  I think another reason I abandoned these cards is because they were tri-folds. I'm usually at a loss at what to do with tri-fold cards.  The top one I cut off the third section.  However, I kept the birthday card one intact and stamped some stuff on the inside.

Then finally I actually used the green that came with the pink, but not quite on both panels.  I didn't take a photo of the inside panel because it is just more of what you can see here--green stamped with green foliage.  I have some more of the pink cards bases (and green panels!) and random papers from this kit so we'll see what I make with them or if I move on to something else.

The Fine Print: Get Well Card-base and printed die but by Club Scrap, embossing folder by Sizzix, ribbon from Michaels, and flowers from Prima. Birthday Card-base and printed die cut by Club Scrap, heart paper by A Muse Studio, feather from stash, inside stamps by Tim Holtz. Thank You Card-base, all papers, printed die cut, and stamps by Club Scrap, flower brad from stash, ink by Memento.