Enclosure Cards

Welcome! So sorry it's been a while since I've been able to post anything here. We had a great weekend, and I even had some time play in my stamping area today, so life is good! :)

We had hoped to go camping Saturday night, but the nearby state park campground that we like is already closed for the season!! Just before loading up all of the camping gear after lunch on Saturday, I called the campground to make sure they still had spots available and got a recording announcing that they had closed on Labor Day. Oops!! I suppose we could have headed out to a different state park, but this one is close enough that we could camp overnight Saturday and still get back Sunday morning with enough time to clean up and make it to church and Sunday School. So we did a little geocaching Saturday afternoon instead, and after supper we played one of our favorite board games (a family favorite from my childhood, Bonkers!) a few times. After the kids were in bed, DH and I caught an on-demand movie along with some popcorn. A fun day!!

So here's what I was up to in my stamping area this afternoon. I'm still working on 3 x 3 enclosure cards (see this post for background).
This one is for:

• The Play Date Cafe: use the colors in this photo
• Delightful Challenges: make it sparkle.
  

This is the first time I've used ultra-fine glitter, and now I can completely relate when other crafters say what a mess they've made!! It really does get everywhere. It would have been wise to use my Embossing Buddy first--next time for sure!!


This second little CAS enclosure card is for:

• Off the Wall Craftiness: be inspired by these colors
• Caardvarks: clean and simple stamped card
• Tuesday Taggers: it takes all sorts
  

And finally, I'd like to share this little owl card. I had fun using my newest paper punch for the first time--it's a Martha Stewart branch punch that I found on clearance at Wal-Mart last week. Fun, fun!! I'm entering this card in:

• ABC Inspiration Challenge: be inspired by this photo
• Paper Sundaes: things with wings
  
• Papertake Weekly Challenge: animal magic
  

Thanks so much for dropping by and checking out my little slice of bliss today!!!

Sparkly For You Card Recipe:
Stamps: SU Vintage Labels
Paper: studio g mini cards & envelopes
Ink: Palette starry night
Accessories: Scor-Tape, ultra-fine glitter, gems, studio g sparkle writer (silver)

Congrats Card Recipe:
Stamps: MFP Autumn Fun, MFP Tweet Blessings (sentiment)
Paper: studio g mini cards & envelopes
Ink: Marvy LePlume II black and blue markers
Accessories: pink felt flower (Making Memories), yellow brad

Card Recipe:
Stamps: MFP Owl Be Here
Paper: studio g mini cards & envelopes, Paper Company scraps (white, pink, blue)
Ink: Marvy LePlume II black marker, Palette belle rose
Accessories: MS branch punch, glue pen, Prismacolor pencils, OMS, paper blending stump, dimensionals
Techniques: Gamsol Magic

Stampin' B's Piercing Challenge

Hi, all!! It's Thursday, and that means another challenge from the Stampin' B's DT. This week Vicki Dutcher is challenging us to use piercing on our cards. How fun!! I think that piercing is such an easy way to add subtle design and texture to paper projects.

I am hosting the September Gallery Comment Contest over on Splitcoast Stampers this month. At the end of the month, I'll be awarding prizes and mailing them out to randomly drawn contestants. And, of course, I'll need enclosure cards to send along with the prizes!! So, I'm getting a start on my stash of tiny cards. I bought a couple of packs of studio g mini cards and envelopes at A.C. Moore recently during a Midnight Madness sale. They were already die cut; all I had to do was decorate them! I loved the scalloped edge on these green mini cards and thought the scallops would be perfect for piercing. I think I was right!!

I had such fun finding just the right images to feature in the circle windows of these cards. My Button Bits sets from PapertreyInk were perfect! The flower was inked in Versamark and daubed with Cameo Coral chalk. The strip of striped DP is paper pleated. Both sentiments come from Mark's Finest Papers stamp sets.
Challenges for this project:

• Stampin' B's DT Challenge 76, piercing,
• Tuesday Taggers, It takes all sorts,
• Flourishes Timeless Tuesday FTTC85, celebration cards (if a congrats card for winning a prize isn't a celebration card, I don't know what is!!),
• Tuesday Throwdown Challenge #18, paper pleating,
• A Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge 122, anything goes.
  

I hope you've been inspired to play along with the Stampin' B's!! If you do make a card, post it on your blog or SCS gallery, and link it up to the Inlinkz tool on the Stampin' B's blog. We'd love to see what you create!! Thanks for dropping by to check out my little slice of bliss today!!

Card Recipe:
Stamps: PTI Everyday Button Bits (apple), PTI Blooming Button Bits (flower), MFP Tweet Blessings (sentiment), MFP Regal & Proud (sentiment)
Paper: studio g mini cards & envelopes, SU DP scrap, SU rose red CS
Ink: Marvy LePlume II brown marker, SU certainly celery, Versamark
Accessories: SU word window punch, SU modern label punch, piercing tool, Stampin' Pastels, sponge dauber, buttons, scoring tool (for paper pleats), dimensionals, alphabet spiral clip
Techniques: piercing, Poppin' Pastels

Party Time Wreath and More Blog Awards

First, I wanted to share a card that I made for a Splitcoast CAS challenge last week and then never got around to posting here. The challenge was to be inspired by this photo of a balloon wreath found at How Does She? Isn't that fantastic? I thought my SU Circle Circus set would be just the thing to capture that balloon wreath!! This was a lot of fun. After making a bunch of intricate creations for the Mark's Finest Papers blog hop the previous week, it was a breath of fresh air to go CAS for this.

On my post yesterday, I promised to share more blog awards later in the week. Guess what? It's later!!! So without further ado, I'd first like to accept this lovely Beautiful Blogger award which was bestowed on me by Meg of Corgi Creations. Thanks so very much, Meg!! That was so sweet of you. :)

As a recipient of this award, I need to tell you seven facts about myself and then pass the award on to seven other bloggers. Here goes:

1. I was born and raised in Ohio, but have lived in Massachusetts since just after we were first married.
   
2. I've been to 48 of the 50 states. (I'm missing Hawaii and Nebraska--not what you were expecting, is it??)
3. I love cooking or baking anything that makes the house smell good. (Made our first batch of apple crisp of the season last night for dinner. Talk about a good-smelling house . . . )
4. I am a firm believer in walking to/from school and taking a packed lunch.
5. I hate packing lunches. (I know . . . you just read item #4. Just because I believe in it, doesn't mean I have to like doing it!! I pack lunches every school day for DS and DD. DH packs his own--I have to draw the line somewhere!)
6. My current guilty pleasure is a free subscription I got to People magazine. It helps make my daily six miles on a stationary cycle oh so much more bearable.
7. I try to say "thank you" as much as possible. It's just the right thing to do.

And now the seven bloggers who so richly deserve this Beautiful Blogger award:

1. Colleen of Dietrich Designs
2. Sally of Cards for All Reasons
3. Bonnie of Stamping with Klass
4. Mary of the charmed life
5. Joanne G. of The Inky Ocean Gazer
6. Joanne T. of Sleepy in Seattle
   
7. Susan of Imagine. Create. Express

Congratulations, ladies!! Have fun spreading around the love!! :)

One more blog award to go, but it will have to wait until tomorrow. It's late and I'm about to turn into a pumpkin. Thanks for tuning in--see you next time for another little slice of bliss!!

Card Recipe:
Stamps: SU Circle Circus, SU Party Punch
Paper: MFP CS, various CS scraps
Ink: Color Box Frost White pigment ink
Accessories: CM 1.25" circle punch, SU designer label punch, CM corner rounder punch, heat tool, black pen, circle template, dimensionals, white brad, white photo turn

Halloween Candy

Another quick card for today!!
I just loved this sketch for the Limelight Papercrafts Sketch 56. The challenge was to use this sketch and to incorporate a tag. I knew I just HAD to use my BOO border punch for the border element in the sketch! And I love this glitter candy DP from the pack I picked up at the Target Dollar Spot not long ago. The sentiment (which says "Halloween is my favorite holiday! What other holiday gives me an excuse to "test" ALL the Candy?") from the MFP set Broom Rides was a natural choice for my tag element.

This card is also perfect for the Paper Sundaes Challenge #36, to use fall or Halloween colors. I really needed another Halloween card, so this challenge was well-timed!! Finally, the colors for this card were inspired by these two great items from the Pegasus Maiden Etsy Shop as part of the EtsyInspired Challenge EIC#106.

Thanks for taking a peek!

Card Recipe:
Stamps: MFP Broom Rides
Paper: Paper Company CS, DP from Target Dollar Spot
Ink: black Marvy LePlume II marker
Accessories: EK Success BOO border punch, SU tag corner punch, satin ribbon, green eyelet, Crop-A-Dile, foam tape

Spooktacular Halloween

Happy TGIF, everybody!! I feel like I'm finally getting a handle on my kids' school schedule and the time I have in my day for doing my freelance work, so I took a little time this morning to treat myself to a little slice of bliss. Here's what I've been up to!!
I played along with today's Free for All Challenge, F4A30, over on Splitcoast. The challenge is to use a punny saying on your card. No problem!! As a DT member for Mark's Finest Papers, I'm amassing quite a collection of MFP sets, many of which include a variety of punny sayings. It seems to be one of MFP's hallmarks!! I wanted to add to my stash of Halloween cards to send to far-flung family next month, so I went with the MFP set Broom Rides which includes the punny saying "It's SPOOKtacular!"

Next, I went looking for an awesome sketch to use for this card and found a great one in Repeat Impressions' What If? Wednesday Sketch challenge S810. Then I thought I'd see if I could play along with Jazzy Paper Designs Inspirational Challenge #13, which was to be inspired by an album cover on the Verve Music website. I found the perfect inspiration piece in John Fogerty's Revival album cover: Perfect idea for a Halloween card, doncha think? I set to work with my brayer and some pumpkin pie and so saffron ink to reproduce that awesome sky on the album cover. Didn't get it quite right, but I'm still quite happy with my results. Finished up my scene with some silhouette-y Halloween elements.

Finally, I made sure that my card included something that tweets or flutters for the Cute Card Thursday Challenge 130, to include a bird or butterfly somewhere on your card. I've got my spooktacular owl to cover that base. ;)

So that's the story of my card creation and bit of fun for today!! Next, it's time to get down to work on today's allotment of my freelance project. I'm looking forward to my "book group" tonight--our first meeting since the end of the last school year in June. Gotta use those quotes because we never do any reading or anything--our "book group" is just an excuse for a bunch of girlfriends to get together on a monthly basis and socialize. If we didn't make our appointments for "book group," we'd never find the time to get together!! Sometimes we just get together at someone's home to chat; other times we might craft, see a movie, go out for dinner, or whatever fun someone cooks up. And we always have a visit to a local day spa in March. Fun! It's going to be great catching up with everyone tonight. :)

Well, have a fabulous weekend. Thanks so much for checking in today!!

Recipe:
Stamps: MFP Broom Rides
Paper: SU basic black CS, SU pumpkin pie CS, HP glossy photo paper, Pink Paislee 365 Degrees DP
Ink: SU pumpkin pie, SU so saffron, Marvy Le Plume II black marker
Accessories: EK BOO border punch, MS postage stamp punch, black satin ribbon from Mark's Finest Papers, foam tape
Techniques: brayered sky

Pumpkin Treat Box

So, on Tuesday night DH and I had tickets to a concert, his birthday present from me last week. Being a school night, we needed someone to stay with the kids, so our lovely neighbor (who has three elementary-school-aged girls of her own) volunteered to come and sit with our kids at our house so they could get to sleep on time. (Her own DH was holding down the fort at their place.) We are ever so grateful!! I have a small thank-you gift I'd like to give her tomorrow and made it my goal today to make fitting gift packaging for it. This is what I came up with:
I've made many of these 2-5-7-10 treat boxes in the past two years and just love how easily they can be assembled. A tutorial for making one can be found on SCS here. One thing I love about them is that you can make one with a single sheet of card stock. Yay!!

Anyway, I was inspired by today's Ways to Use It challenge (WT288) on SCS today. It's called "Ransom Style," and the challenge was to construct a message in the style of a cut-and-paste ransom note. How fun is that?? Here's a closeup of the "ransom" message:
For my design, I used this week's Get Sketchy #55 sketch:
Our gift will be accompanied by a note of thanks, and I thought I'd use this one that I made just last week. So I tried to make my gift box coordinate and used many of the same papers and colors. I stamped the letters of my "thank you" on scraps of paper left from both projects using an old mismatched alphabet set from The Angel Company. My pumpkin is from the recently released Mark's Finest Papers set called Thankful Mums and Pumpkins. It was so easy to paper piece the pumpkin image from this set. I love how it turned out! Oh, before I forget--this treat box also qualifies for Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge #20 to use fall colors and Delightful Challenges' Pumpkins, Pumpkins Everywhere challenge.

Wondering what will go inside the gift box? Well, in the fall and winter I use an awesome handcrafted goat's milk lotion (from B & D Goats) in an Apples & Spice scent on my hands throughout the day. Every time I wear it, my neighbor comments on how incredibly good it smells. So I got her a tube of her very own to tuck inside the gift box. I think she'll be thrilled!

Oh, and our concert?? It was outstanding!! We had a great time. And we were so pleased to hear from our neighbor that our kids were "delightful" for her while we were out. Whew!! :)

Recipe:
Stamps: MFP Thankful Mums and Pumpkins, retired TAC set (mismatched alphabet)
Paper: DCWV Indian Summer DP, DCWV Indian Summer textured CS, SU pumpkin pie CS, various scraps
Ink: Palette noir black
Accessories: SU wide oval punch, SU scallop trim border punch, foam tape, scissors, scoring tool, bone folder, Scor-Tape, glue pen, satin ribbon
Techniques: paper piecing

Stampin' B's Picnic Time

Happy Thursday!! It's time for another challenge from the Stampin' B's DT. This week Vicky Gould is our hostess, and her challenge is "Picnic Time!" Vicky is challenging us to make a card relating to food of any kind. You get bonus points if it's a picnic food!!

I don't have tons of food-related stamps, and most of what I have falls into either the fruit category or cupcake/cake category. I figure both categories qualify as "picnic food," so I'm hoping that I earned bonus points for this cupcake birthday card!
My challenges for this made-me-happy-to-create card were:

• Stampin' B's Challenge 76, Picnic Time,
• Off the Wall Craftiness Challenge 24, OTWC24, to use these inspiration colors,
• Card Patterns Sketch Challenge 81,
• and Paper Sundaes Challenge 35, to use a minimum of three different types of embellishments. I used a shiny red brad, paper flowers, and pearls.

I hope you've been inspired to play along with the Stampin' B's!! If you do make a card, post it on your blog or SCS gallery, and link it up to the Inlinkz tool on the Stampin' B's blog. We'd love to see what you create!! Thanks for dropping by to check out my little slice of bliss today!!

Supplies:
Stamps: Basic Grey Cakes, Flourishes Let Them Eat Cake (sentiment)
Paper: SU whisper white CS, Paper Company blue CS, Crate Paper Blue Hill Collection DP
Ink: Palette boudoir blush, Palette starry night
Accessories: CM circle cutting system, SU scallop trim border punch, studio g sparkle writer, scissors, shiny red brad, Creating Memories paper flowers, pearls

Autumn Sympathy

A happy Wednesday to you! What a crazy week. At first I started typing "happy Monday" and then changed it to "happy Tuesday" before realizing that it is already Wednesday. Where has the week gone??? I can't believe I haven't posted anything since Saturday. I'm not sure how that happened. I trust that all of you had a super weekend. We certainly did. Our DD (11YO) had a fantastic Girl Scout encampment weekend. The weather was perfect! On Saturday, our DS (7YO) was thrilled when my DH took the training wheels off his bicycle. He was obviously far past ready to be released from training wheels land. He had everything mastered within minutes! He spent his weekend tearing up and down the driveway with no training wheels to slow him down. :)

Then on Sunday afternoon, after DD returned from her camping trip, all four of us went apple picking. It's our family tradition to go picking at a local orchard the very first weekend that MacIntosh apples come into season! It was fabulous. We picked 3/4 of a mixed bushel of Macs and Galas. That should last us for a couple of months of lunches (and maybe a few pans of apple crisp, too.) Yum!

I stole an hour (OK, probably a bit more than that) this morning to make a sympathy card I've needed for over a week now. It was lovely to be creating again. I do hope that this will help to comfort one of my fellow DT members who lost her mother last week.
I stamped the birch tree trunks (an MFP stamp from the set Stinky Situation) in Versamark ink and applied SU chocolate chip chalk with a sponge applicator. The oval of "DP" under the main image was recycled from a Panera gift card holder I received earlier in the year. To make the messy pleated ribbon, I ran a line of adhesive from my tape runner down the length of the ribbon (on the back) and stuck it down, to itself and to the card underneath.

Here are the challenges I incorporated while making this card:

• Splitcoast sketch challenge SC298,
• The Paper Players Challenge #15, to use Old Olive, More Mustard, Cajun Craze, and Early Espresso,
• City Crafter Challenge Week 22, Tree of Books, to create a card/project that include the image of a tree/trees or a book/books,
• Delightful Challenges, Ribbon Recipe,
• Speedy the Cat's Friends Challenge #20, to use fall colors,
• A Spoonfull of Sugar Challenge 121, autumn color challenge,
• Tuesday Taggers, Diamonds are Forever. I scored a piece of textured card stock with a diamond pattern,
• Tuesday Throwdown #17, distressing. I used an emery board to sand my scored diamond pattern and to distress the edges of most of my panels and mats.

Thanks for stopping by to visit today!

Card recipe:
Stamps: MFP Stinky Situation, My Sentiments Exactly (MSE) Sympathy Sentiments
Paper: SU chocolate chip CS, Cosmo Cricket Pixie Dust CS, various scraps of CS, recycled Panera gift card holder
Ink: Versamark, Palette burnt umber
Accessories: CM oval cutting system, SU modern label punch, scoring tool, emery board (for distressing), Stampin' Pastels, sponge applicator, hairspray, dimensionals, wrinkled ribbon
Techniques: Poppin' Pastels, distressing

Edited 10/12/2010 to add:

Just discovered that I was named a City Crafter Challenge Blog Spotlight Artist for Week 22 for this sympathy card.

Flourished Birthday Cake

Wow! What a whirlwind week it's been here at the Keaton household: my husband celebrated a birthday (his 25th~*wink*); our kids headed back to school (with our DD starting middle school--eek!); both kids started up a new season of gymnastics; DH was on work-related travel for a couple of days; I've been busy getting projects ready and posted for the Mark's Finest Papers September release blog hop which ran from Tuesday through Friday; and DD left after school yesterday for an all-weekend Girl Scout camping trip. Busy, busy, busy, but it's all good. :)

With the blog hop going on this week, I didn't get a chance to post my Stampin' B's DT challenge card from this week!! So here it is now:

This week for the Stampin' B's DT challenge, Lois challenged us to use GREEN, BLUE, and PINK on our cards.

I thought those colors would be perfect for a birthday card! I used Flourishes' Let Them Eat Cake set to build up my birthday layer cake on a filigree stand. I found the perfect DP to fit the challenge colors in a pad of designer paper from The Angel Company (Whimsy Blossoms) that I've had for years. I just love the bright colors in this collection. I added a little zigzag stitching, Martha Stewart deco fan corner punches, rhinestones, buttons, and ribbon for a bit of pizzazz and called it a day. This is a rather large card, 5" x 7". Along with the sentiment, "Birthdays are nature's way of telling us to eat more cake," there's plenty of room inside for LOTS of birthday wishes!!

This card was also for Flourishes' Look Who's 3 Challenge FLLCSEP10, which was to make a birthday card honoring Flourishes' THIRD birthday. I got a bonus entry in the prize drawing for using Flourishes stamps.

I also played along with the EtsyInspired Challenge #104 this week, which was to be inspired by something from the Glamasaurus Etsy Shop. I was inspired by this cute Heart-Shaped Pink Cuppycake Ring:
Thanks for taking a peek at my green, blue, and pink birthday card today!! We're going to try to go apple-picking tomorrow. Mmmm . . . freshly picked apples. Now there's a little slice of bliss for you!! See you again soon!

Supplies:
Stamps: Flourishes Let Them Eat Cake
Paper: TAC Whimsy Blossoms DP, SU whisper white CS, DCWV blue textured CS
Ink: SU bashful blue, Palette chartreuse, Rubber Stampede fuchsia, Palette noir black
Accessories: MS deco fan corner punch, CM corner rounder punch, sewing machine, fuchsia satin ribbon, vintage buttons, foam tape, rhinestones
Techniques: machine stitching

Retro Seahorse

First, I have some news to share: I'm pleased to announce that as of today, I am a member of the Stampin' B's Design Team!! Each Thursday, one member of the Stampin' B's team issues a card-making challenge, and we invite you to be inspired and play along--just for the fun of it! :)

Today's challenge was issued by my SCS friend Brenda, known to many as Benzi. Her challenge was to use a charm on our cards. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!!! I was excited to dig into my collection of fun charms from Mark's Finest Papers for this adorable brass seahorse. For some crazy reason, seahorses make me think of retro 50s & 60s bathrooms, (I know, weird, huh??). I was picturing pearly seahorse plaques in a mint green and pink bathroom, so I Googled "mint pink bathroom" for inspiration for this card--and found it in spades!!





Fun stuff, right? Does it remind you of your grandmother's house??

I used images from the Mark's Finest Papers Flourished Sea Creatures stamp set and some lovely pearlescent Sparkle Finish card stock (also from MFP) for my 50s flashback card. I love how it turned out!! Here are a few close-up photos.

Thanks for checking out my little slice of bliss today!!

Supplies:
Stamps: MFP Flourished Sea Creatures
Paper: MFP Frosty Mint Sparkle Finish Card Stock, MFP Pink Freeze Sparkle Finish Premium Card Stock, MFP China Blue Eyes Linen Finish Card Stock
Ink: Palette noir black, Palette waterlily green, Palette toile pink
Accessories: scoring tool, dimensionals, sheer ribbon from MFP, brad, seahorse charm from MFP LARGE Seashore Brass Charms pack