Patriotic Theme!

For the Fun Filled Friday Challenge this week, Kimmy has announced that we make Patriotic cards in honor of Independence Day.


Are you planning on making any 4th of July themed cards this week? If so, please take a picture and post it on Friday with a link to it on my blog. I'd love to see your cards and get to know my readers as well.


Have a wonderful Holiday Week!

Smiles,
Jennifer

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For the Bow Tying Impaired...like me!

Just a quick post today, but I wanted to share a tutorial I found that has saved my inability to tie a decent looking bow! I'm sure I'm not the only one out there with this issue!

Check it out here!


So glad I found this little tutorial! I can't even begin to tell you how excited I am about this! How did she know I was bow-tying impaired? From now on all my cards will have the cutest little bows on them!


OK, enough already, Hurry...Go check it out!

Smiles,
Jennifer

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FFF-Diplomabella!

Well, It's June. For many people it signifies the end of school followed by commencements and the term "graduation." So, for my Fun Filled Challenge with Kimmy, I thought this would be a perfect week to create with Diplomabella for our Beautiful Bella challenge.


To make this card, I first stamped & colored Diplomabella using my Prisma color Pencils and blended the colors with Gamsol. I trimmed the white cardstock around her and matted her with dark blue cardstock. I tied blue satin ribbon in the upper left and bottom right corners of the image.





Next, I created the cardstock base from dark blue cardstock, which measures A2 size, 4.25" x 5.5". I used sparkly graduation cap patterned paper for the card front, which I matted with black cardstock. Then, I cut a piece of shiny silver sentiment paper to 5 1/8" x 1.5" , which reads "Congratulations on your Graduation" repeatedly in fancy writing on the 12" x 12" sheet. I tried to pick a portion of this paper so that you could read part of the sentiment on the front of my card. I layered this matted sentiment piece horizontally across the lower portion of my card front.

Next, I adhered Bella to the far left side of my card front, being careful not to cover up "graduation." I thought the sentiment bar looked a little plain, so I cut out one of the sparkly graduation caps from the other paper & used pop dots to position it just above the word "graduation."







Then, in the empty space between the sparkly graduation caps, I used my Stamp-a-ma-jig (love this little gadget!) to carefully place the sentiment "For your Graduation" between the caps.





A lot of my cards I create for publishing purposes, but this one was actually created to give to a family member for her graduation party in July. She is a beginner papercrafter and really likes to make her own cards as well, so I'm sure she will greatly appreciate this as part of her Graduation gift!






Well, don't forget to check out Kimmy's Beautiful Bella Challenge card. She's already warned me she has something unique in store for this card!





Kimmy and I are looking for other people to participate in our card challenges with us. If you have a Bella card that you've made recently or if you'd like to whip one up, post a link to your card here on this post. I'd love to see your Bella cards!



Make sure to check back on Sunday when I announce next weeks Fun Filled Friday Challenge.



Thanks for visiting today!

Have a great weekend!



Smiles,

Jennifer

• Stamps: Diplomabella- Stamping Bella, sentiment- Paper Impressions


• Paper: Smooth white cardstock from Office Depot, all colored cardstock-Bazzill, Patterned Paper-Reminscence


• Ink: Staz On Jet Black


• Accessories: Prismacolor Pencils, Gamsol, Ribbon-Offray, Pop-dots

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Wanna win Blog Candy?

During my morning coffee and blog hopping routine, I stumbled upon this blog candy give-away that I'm sure every stamper would want to get in on...well, at least I do anyways!

You'll find the candy give-away on the Starvingartist Stamps blog. Make sure to take a look. They are giving away a brand new sheet of DoodleFactory TROPICS stamps and 2 sets of the newest TROPIC SENTIMENTS stamps to match. Between all the sets, there are a ton of stamps!

So, as part of the blog candy requirements, I am doing my part to help spread the word about their give-away.

You can't tell me you wouldn't want to win it, cause if you're a stamper I know that you want to!

Smiles,
Jennifer

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FFF Challenge Announcement for June 27th, 2008

For those of you who may be new to my blog, Kimmy, one of my best friends, and I host card making challenges on our blogs every week called Fun Filled Fridays (FFF). We take turns every other week giving a challenge. These challenges are announced every Sunday, and we display our finished cards for that challenge the following Friday. Kimmy and I keep the details to ourselves regarding these challenge cards, so until her challenge post Friday, I have no idea what she is planning on making until I see it, just like the rest of you, and vice versa. I think it is so much fun to see how different or similar our cards turn out. We have shared our stamps and images so one day we'll end up making a card using the same image--I just know it! How funny will that be?

Well, without further adieu, this week I have challenged Kimmy to use those Beautiful Bella stamps we own! They are just too cute & I love how there is a Bella for ever occasion! Have you ever checked them out? Her Fellas are adorable too!

This past Friday I posted that I was getting together with some of my friends from the Stamp Shack at a LSS. We had a blast! It was tons of fun and Kimmy and I were there from 3pm til 12 midnight. We were the last ones in the store! My goal was to get a lot accomplished & not be running my mouth the whole time. Well, I got more accomplished at this crop then I have at any of the others we attended! I made 3 cards, one of which you will see very soon, and I plan on submitting the others to card making magazines. Wish me luck, but if they don't get accepted, I'll post them here of course!

At the crop, I was also able to do a little scrapbooking. My Husband and I recently moved into our newly built home (Well, it's been 3 months now!) and since construction started in September of 2007, I've been scrapping the progress ever since. (You can see pics of the construction progress on my blog starting here and working through the archives backwards.) However, the scrapping is way behind schedule! Construction has been done now for several months and I'm only at them putting up all the lumber-the house frame-in my scrapbook. I was stuck in a rut and then the big move took up a lot of my time and I just needed to match up my pictures with some fun papers to get me inspired to work on it again. I'm happy I've got another page started & well on the way!

Well, please stay tuned for Friday when I post my Beautiful Bella Challenge card and I hope you check back often. Have you subscribed to my blog yet? Go up to the top left hand side of my blog where you see the orange feed icon and click on the word subscribe! I've just added it!

Hope you have a relaxing Sunday!

Smiles,

Jennifer

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Happy Sunday & FFF Challenge Announcement!

Happy Sunday, Happy Father's Day & Happy Birthday to my sister today! Boy, is today going to be a busy one!

However, I was able to pop in at my computer for a few to write up our new Fun Filled Friday Challenge Announcement. For this weeks challenge, Kimmy has challenged us to make a card with a unique fold. So, I guess this means that I can't make the usual A2 card with the side fold, or the top fold...this week, things need to be a little more interesting! Make sure to check back on Friday June 20th, so you can see what we each come up with.

So, what kind of plans do you have for Father's Day today?

With today also being my sister's 27th birthday the whole family is going out to dinner to celebrate both of them! We're going to Red Lobster--one of our favorite restaurants. For some reason my sister & I pick Red Lobster every year for our Birthday dinners, but we hardly ever eat there during other times of the year.

Unfortunately however, before I can enjoy dinner with my family I have to work in the wee morning hours then I'm meeting everyone at the restaurant at 2:30pm sharp! I know I'll be hungry!

Well, Happy Sunday to you all & Happy Father's Day to all you Dad's out there!
Have a great week!

Smiles,
Jennifer

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Fun Filled Friday Challenge Announcement!

Well, it's Sunday...time to announce this weeks Fun Filled Friday Challenge.

For this weeks challenge, I have Challenged Kimmy to create a card that is all

Black and White!

It can be any theme, use any sort of image, use any kind of embellishments, but the only colors anywhere on the card must only be black and white.

Kimmy and I are looking for our readers to join us for our Fun Filled Friday challenges. Let's see your Black and white cards! On Friday when I post my Black and white card you can post a link your challenge card on that post. Give it a try! I'd love to see your cards!

Well, it's Sunday and the weekend is just about over, so...

Have a wonderful week!

Smiles,
Jennifer

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Birthday Gift Card Holder!

Well, finally as promised, Here is the Birthday Gift card holder I recently made. My theory...You can never have to many cards on hand for Birthdays, and Gift cards come in handy too! I think they make a great gift. How cute is this quick and easy gift card holder??

Unfortunately, the colors are a little washed out by my flash on the front. Imagine them alot more vivid than you see here. I heat embossed the sentiment (Impression Obsession) in dark blue embossing powder. Then I used my 1" circle punch to punch it out. I used my Inkadinado chalk to add some green around the edges. Next, I created the light blue mat using my Cricut, and the dark blue scalloped circle was made using my Marvy Uchida punch. (I know, I know, again I NEED those Nesties!) I pop dotted the matted sentiment on Doodlebug Designs patterned paper. The ribbon that ties the card together is adhered under the patterned paper.



In this picture you see the sentiment I put on the inside. I thought of this on my own using several packages of Studio G clear stamps. It fits though, doesn't it? I the birthday hat image is also a Studio G stamp that I colored with my Prismacolor pencils in coordinating colors. The hat is stamped on the back page--you can see a little bit of my handwritten message there.

This last picture shows the sparkle gift card in place.

I'm sure I'll be making more gift card holders like this very soon. I'd love to start making some up for Christmas. Any interest in a tutorial? The actual making of the card portion is really quick and easy to make. I made the one shown in this post from start to finish in less than an hour. Leave me a comment and let me know if your interested. I'd love to hear from you!

Stay tuned for our next Fun Filled Friday announcement tomorrow. I've challenged Kimmy with a color challenge for this week. You'll have to wait until tomorrow to find out what it is!

Hope your weekend is a blast!

Smiles,
Jennifer

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Wedding Gift!

Last weekend, my husband and I attended the wedding of very good friends of ours. I was in a bind a few days before the wedding and in my haste I decided to pick up a wedding card while I was out-and-about shopping. At this one particular store I picked up about 6 different wedding cards that were very simple in design, and what I thought would only cost a couple bucks. Boy, was I wrong!!! All 6 of these plain Jane wedding cards were no cheaper than $4.00! I could not believe it! It was right there and then that I decided I had to make time to create a wedding card for them. Besides, who doesn't like a homemade gift?

On my drive home from the store, the wheels in my head were turning as I tried to think of how to design a wedding card. I remembered Becky from the Stamp Shack teaching me how to make the cutest gift card holders when we went away for our Shackapoloosa weekend. Ding! Ding! Ding! The bells in my head went off & I decided that I was going to make them one, but call it a money holder!

The wedding invitation was beautiful--a shade of lime green with chocolate brown, which I knew were the wedding colors. So, I decided that those colors were going to be the basis for my design. I don't have very many wedding themed stamps, so I browsed through my rub-on collection and happened to find silver wedding themed rub-ons. How lucky was that? I forgot I even had them!






So, here are pictures of how it turned out!

This is the front view. I even found matching lime green polka-dot ribbon in my stash to match!











I used my Marvy Uchida scallop punches and pop-dotted them to add dimension to the front of the gift card holder.

Here is the inside flap. Again, I used my Marvy Scallop punches to create the opening where I would insert the folded bill. The rings you see on the other side of the scallop is on the last page, where I included our hand written message in a white gel pen.

I forgot to take a picture of the back, but it is green cardstock and on the back I used my custom stamp that says "Handmade especially for you by Jennifer" and heat embossed it in silver.

I've also made another one of these for a friends birthday, that I will show you in another post. It turned out even cuter than this!

Happy Monday everyone!

Have a great week!

Smiles,

Jennifer

Paper: Bazzill Cardstock

Accessories: Rub-ons-Royal Langnickel Brush Wedding Bells Silver, Ribbon-unknown

Gift: Green Money!

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New Challenge Announcement!

For this weeks Fun Filled Friday Challenge Kimmy has challenged me to make a Masculine card. Well, in looking through my stamps I don't have very many Masculine images at all. This might be a difficult challenge for me. But, then, isn't that what challenges are all about? It will be interesting to see what I come up for this one. I guess this will be good practice with Father's Day right around the corner.

Do you make masculine cards? Do you have any trouble making them? Let me see what masculine cards you've made, or why don't you partake in our Masculine challenge? Make a masculine card & on Friday when I post my Masculine Challenge card you can post a link of your card so we can all see it. I'd love for you to play along with us!

Well, I'm off to my Scrap Room to see what kind of Masculine card I can come up with. Wish me luck!

Hope you had a great weekend!

Smiles,
Jennifer

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