KWerner Color Challenge #39

Amazingly my son Joe, let me take a silly picture of him. I came home from work and I was sitting at my computer when he walked in the door looking like this. He claimed that he and his friends were going to start a "Geek Squad!" I was thinking okay...uh...I guess if that's what you want to do...fine with me! I asked him if I could take a picture and of course he posed making these silly faces :) I was just happy to be taking pictures of him, if you have kids who are teens, the occasions when they want to pose for you become fewer and far between. At least it has been that way for me! Anyway, I thought this picture was perfect to use for Kristina's color challenge. The cherries on the background are from the Just Jawing (Stampin' Up) set and so is the You Rock stamp! I wanted a framed border. I love this color combination but I don't know if I succeeded in getting the layout the way I wanted it. I am one of those people that puts a page together and once it's done...it's done...I don't play with it anymore! I know the 11 x 8 1/2 layout is not very popular but I always wanted to try it out. So I am filling a scrapbook with this size and at the same time my stamp club is completing one too! Let me know what you think!

Hi All, Okay here is my stamp club layout for tomorrow. I have another as well but it is not exactly finished. I haven't been able to decide how I want the photo mats laid out...so stay tuned for that one. For this layout I used the Love You Much stamp set. I hope you can see that I used the Love You Much stamp and stamped it with white craft ink. I thought that this would be a good layout in preparation for Valentine's Day. I also thought about adding photo mats but decided that if I just laid photos on, it would look okay. All supplies are Stampin' Up except the ribbon. I had the ribbon left over from my Christmas stash and it matched the layout so why not use it? Hope you like it! Thanks for looking!

KWerner Color Challenge #38

Bear with me here. I added 3 photos to this entry for one color challenge! Yikes! Well, it was worth it! I love these color combinations and I had been wanting to make something that would hold 3x3 cards to give as a gift. If you saw one of my earlier entries, you know that I made tons of 3x3 notecards a few weeks ago to use up scraps. Well here is what I came up with. I used the Priceless set from Stampin Up and then added brads to the flowers. The sentiments are all from the same set (also from Stampin Up), but I can't remember the name of the set right now! I made 2 of each notecard and included envelopes

behind them. I added ribbon to tie the card keeper together and voila! I did do as Kristina suggested in her FAQ's and took 2 shots outside, of my project. It seems like my pictures were coming out to dark. Hopefully this is an improvement. Thanks for looking and let me know what you think by leaving a comment! I have another project to post but I need to get more pictures of my kids in order to complete it. Keep stalking my blog please! :)

Taylored Expressions Cupcake Challenge #50

Hi All, I'm trying to stretch my wings here and challenge myself to create outside my box. The sketch below was posted on the Taylored Expressions Blog (http://tayloredexpressions.blogspot.com/). I was thinking since the Super Bowl is right around the corner, that I wanted to do something a little masculine looking. Don't get me wrong...I love ribbon and flowers as much as the next person, but while I was surfing blog land I kept seeing so much flowers and ribbon that it put me in the mood to create something else altogether. This is what I came up with. If your into throwing Super Bowl parties, I think this would make a great invite! I chose the colors because my youngest son's team is playing today...Go Steelers! You can duplicate the card to your preferred team colors of course! The stamp sets are from Stampin Up; Just Football and Sporting. Thanks for taking a look!

Card of the Week Blog

I'm humbled that The Card of the Week blog posted a link to my mini coaster book! You should take a look at this site. It posts many links to other bloggers that feature cards and scrapbooking projects! Here is the site: http://www.cardoftheweek.com/ just click on the link and it should take you to the site. Take some time to navigate around because there is a lot to look at if you click on the links Susanna posts on her blog!

Birthday Card Organizer

I wish I could tell you this was all my own little idea...but it wasn't. I got this idea from Lauren Meader's blog (http://laurenm.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/). She did her card organizer differently than I did, but she had a template and I was just working off the photos she posted. I took photos of the front and a side view photo. If I had read through her blog a little more, the project may have been easier than I anticipated but I think I made it more difficult on myself. Lesson learned...read the whole blog post! I happen to love her blog and when I saw this, I knew I had to make one for myself! At first I thought I would give it as a gift to someone, but once it was done, I thought there is no way you will pry this from my cold dead hands! (smile) Thanks for taking a look and leave me a comment or two and let me know what you think!

Birthday Card Organizer (cont.)

The first of my cards I made for my card organizer. I tried to make everything match the organizer itself, I think I succeeded in getting close. I'm not much of a card maker sometimes so if these are just to plain for you, sorry about that :( Thanks for looking!

Birthday Card Organizer (cont.)

Here is another card, very simple but I used some patterned paper so that it wouldn't be so plain.

Can you see the recurring polka dot theme here? I think I'm in love with dots! Anyway, the organizer itself was a project so when I was finally finished I wanted to make the cards as easy as possible. Not a whole lot to them but if given as a gift, people won't believe how much you slaved away at making such a creation for them (smile)!

Birthday Card Organizer (cont.)

Here is one of the cards that I came up with to put into the organizer. Pretty quick and simple. In fact, it is so simple you can probably do a few when commercials are on between your favorite T.V. shows.

Birthday Card Organizer (cont.)

This is the divider I came up with. I had some help and inspiration from http://debbiedesigns.typepad.com. Her dividers are have more color to them, I just wanted something quick and easy so I made this on my computer and printed it out.

Kwerner Design Challenge #37

Okay, here is another color challenge by Kristina. I wanted the sentiment to go in the middle of the flower and couldn't find anything small enough so I took a cue from Kristina who uses her handwriting on cards and decided to use mine. Using my handwriting is really going outside my comfort zone! I happen to love this set too! Thanks for looking!

And The Winner Is...

Hi Everyone, I want to thank those that subscribed to my blog to enter the drawing for the Valentine gift bags. The winner is....Lee Conrey. Lee will be receiving these two bags in the mail shortly. Thanks again to everyone who participated!

Mini Coaster Book

What I was aiming for when I created this little mini book was something that I could place pictures in of my dear girlfriends. I really don't have anything like that so I tried to focus on creating something that was fast and easy. I mostly used the Flight of the Butterfly set with this project. But I did use others as well. Enjoy!

Here is page 1 & 2. I really aimed to keep this project as something that could be created quickly and easily which means minimal embellishments. Have you ever heard that phrase, "Less is more?" I do subscribe to that theory!

Mini Coaster Book (continued)

Here is page 3 & 4 of the mini book. The alphabet set I used is something I grabbed from the $1 bin at Michael's a while back. I don't know if you can read the title but is says "friends til the end." I used some brads to dress it up too.

Mini Coaster Book (continued)

Here is pages 5 & 6. I used some left over rub-ons from last year and a retired alphabet set. It doesn't take to much to dress up such small pages!

Mini Coaster Book (continued)

This is page 7 & 8 of my mini coaster book. I really like the Upsy Daisy set, I thought it turned out well with this little layout.

Mini Coaster Book (continued)

Hi Everyone, This is the last page I created for this mini coaster book.

3 x 3 Notecards From Scraps

I have been a busy little bee. In the interest of trying to clean my craft space, I cut a lot of my scraps down to make 3x3 notecards. I aimed for making 100 of them...believe me I had plenty of scraps...but I got as far as 40. I made thank you, birthday, Valentine's day, and thinking of you notecards. Unfortunately I had so many scraps that I could probably spend the next year creating 3x3 notecards and I would still have some left over. In my quest to organize I had to throw some out. There were just too many. I also had an old ribbon keeper that I don't use anymore. It has just been sitting around my space. I didn't know what else to do with it and I didn't want to throw it out. Well now that I have so many 3x3 notecards I was looking for a place to store them and voila! I laid my eyes on the ribbon keeper. Guess what...the notecards fit perfectly! In fact I have a little room for more so I'm going to get started on some more later on. Last night while I was at work I had the opportunity to make a mini book out of coasters. I will try to get it posted later on today! Thanks for taking a look.

Crocheted Scarf - Another New Year's Resolution

While we are on the subject of New Year's resolutions, I'm sharing another. That is to keep blogging more often. By the time the year is over you'll hopefully have been inspired by my creations or will have grown totally sick of me (smile). Anyway, I'm sharing this a photo of this scarf that I made for a friend who shall remain nameless until it is give to her. It was a really easy project to make and only took one skein of yarn. I even had some left over yarn and improvise by using it on some cards. These colors are bright but I do love them. I'm hoping my friend will love it!

Craft Space

Okay, so those of you who know me, know that my craft space is usually a disaster area. I have been working diligently to get it organized. Here are some before and after pictures. The one up top is after and the one below is before. I have to say that one of my New Year's resolutions is to really keep this space neat and tidy. Wait...I can already hear the sarcastic voices saying...good luck with that! Well I'll have you know that I did work on some cards and surprisingly my space is still looking good. Thank God! I mean it is not a big space but what I have is enough to work with. I'm going to be sharing some things that I have been up to while taking some time off work during this holiday season. Stay Tuned!

Kristina's Color Challenge...Finally!!

Well I have been wanting to participate in Kristina's color challenge since she started them. If you haven't been to her blog, she posts a color challenge every week. You can check out her blog here http://kwernerdesign.com/blog/. Finally, I had some time to produce something that appealed to me and was really quick and easy! I didn't want to create a card. It had to be either a scrapbook page or some 3-D type item. This is what I came up with. The patterned paper incorporates almost all the colors in the challenge except for old olive. I had to add some old olive ribbon but it just looked to out there by itself so I added the pretty in pink ribbon with it. For those who relish the time they have to stamp, there is no stamping involved in this project but I'm sure if you use this as inspiration you can incorporate some stamping somewhere (smile). Feel free to leave a comment and thanks for looking!

Valentine's Day Bags and a Giveaway

Hi Everyone,

I made so many gifts for Christmas that I can't seem to stop! Since Christmas is over, I thought I would get a head start on Valentine's day! Yes I know we have over a month until the big day but I'm on a roll right now and I don't want to lose momentum! So here is what I'm proposing, I know that I'm going to go overboard with gift making (seeing as I'm in the mood to create!). If you subscribe to my blog, you will be entered into a drawing for these gift bags. I know gasp...how do you subscribe you ask? Well type your e-mail in the box to the right that says subscribe. Those who have already subscribed, well your in the drawing already! I may throw in a little extra treat so no time to waste, get those fingers typing! :)

One More

Hi Everyone,

Here is one more project I wanted to post. I've also had some white paper bags floating around my craft table and didn't know what to do with them. I know Christmas is coming and I thought it would be really cute to make some type of decorated bag that I could put some treats in. The holly is made with the oval punch (I got this I idea from attending my friend, Tiffany's, stamp a stack). She used the oval punch to make flower petals for a card (I think she may have gotten the idea from Alicia). Anyway, I just expanded on the idea and used the small circle punch for the berries. I used the scalloped edge punch for the top of the bag. Let me know what you think. :)

Santa Bag

I don't know where I saw it, I think it was on someone's blog. She used a red bag and added a black strip for the belt and another color for the buckle. I thought I could improve on the same look and I had a bunch of white bags that have just been sitting in one of my craft drawers! So here is my take on the bag. For those of you who really love this, I will be offering a class, another $5 one, to make this bag with a card. Details to follow soon!

One More Card

This card I absolutely love for two reason. I love the look of the poinsetta and I love the font used for Christ is Born. I knew I had to order the set! I think it is really a beautiful stamp set. So here you go. I welcome any comments! By the way I don't know if I spelled poinsetta correctly but I tried.

Chirstmas Card

No, I'm still not done. Here is a card I made that was inspired by http://dawnsstampingthoughts.typepad.com/. I actually made the same type of card using the filagree brads but later made a mistake in thinking I had enough of them. Not!! I had to change the card at the last minute and used pearls instead and changed the colors a bit. I still love the card though!

Another Card

Okay,

here is another card that I came up with for my stamp a stack of Christmas cards. The snowman is also from the same set; Shellabrate the Season. As soon as I saw the snowman, I knew what I was going to do with the card. Let me know what you think :)

Lots of Posts

Hi All,

I have been going through computer withdrawals, printer withdrawals and everything else you could imagine that involves any electronic device. My computer just got fixed and my printer decided it liked the idea of a fixed computer so here I am blogging today and posting a lot of projects that I've made. The first photos will be of cards that I made my stamp a stack of Christmas Cards class, which was just a couple of weeks ago. This card was made with the Shellabrate the Season set. I love the tree made out of shells, especially because I live in California. I don't know if you can tell, but I have snowflakes embossed on the background. I used markers to color in the image. Enjoy!!