Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year's to everyone. However, you may celebrate I wish you a safe and festive celebration. My DH and I do not do much of anything (which I prefer), We are just having a few close friends over for dinner and conversation.

I hope 2009 will be a good year for us all!
Chat with you all next year!

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Circle Galore Card

Good Evening! Just thought I would post a card I made this past weekend. I spent Sunday in my stamp room while my CRAZY DH went to the mountains to play on his ATV. I personally think the ATV season is over by the time there is snow on the ground because SNOW = COLD! But what do I know...

Anyway, on to the card. The base is SU Old Olive with So Saffron and Pretty in Pink as accents. I also used DSP called Petals and Paisley ( I think). The stamps are all SU, disco'd, but I still love them. A little bling w/some baubles, paper flower, and ribbon...and that's all folks!!

Well have a wonderful evening! I have been playing with the Backgrounds on my blog, so have fun watching all my crazy changes (but this one might stick around a while). I will post another card soon :)

Sunday, December 28, 2008

~My Stampin' Studio~


Yes, you read correctly, here are the pictures of my Stamp Room. First things first, that adorable 'Stampin' Studio' saying over my window is Uppercase Living, contact Dani to get your own! I currently share the room with my DH, but I have been slowly taking over the entire room. He has a desk in the room and a bookcase. I am trying to come up with a good reason to move his desk out of the room, and well the bookcase, I could actually utilize for my stuff too, LOL!!I am very pleased with the color on the walls and my curtains and flower pictures. Yes, I made the flower pictures, they were quite easy and fun! I am a firm believer that I need bright and cheery colors in my room to inspire me and keep me upbeat. I put on my I-pod and jam to the tunes while I create my little heart out.

Here is just a picture of my desk/work area. The countertop is 7 feet long and the drawer bases (from Home Depot) are 24 inches wide, which is nice and roomy, but I am already filling those up! As you can see, I love the color!!!

The first drawer on my left side is for embellishments. I keep all kinds of goodies in there. From glitter, rhinestones, Bella baubles, wire, stickles, micro beads, mist sprays, and many other things.


The next drawer is for my tools, and larger embellishments. I keep my tagger, my SU wheels, and brayer and paper crimper in here. I also store my brads and eyelets and such in here as well. I keep all those little guys in 'tic tac' containers in larger clear boxes, I have four of them. I love this idea because I can see everything I have and colors too. I have 1 box for color eyelets, 1 for metallic and neutral eyelets, 1 for snaps, brads and other tiny items. The last one has a few items in it, but it is for growth! I also have 2 little boxes with dividers for larger embellishments that are too big for the tic tac containers.



The third drawer down is for miscellaneous ribbon (that doesn't go on the ribbon holder) and silk and paper flowers. I always seem to keep buying flowers but I never seem to use them that often. I love flowers though!


The last drawer on my left side is a large, deep drawer. Here I keep all my embossing stuff and flocking stuff. I also keep all my Twinkling H2O's here as well. They are in three plastic boxes arranged by color (see photo, this is the red/pink/purple box).





The right drawer base has four drawers also. I did not take pictures of this side as they are not that interesting to see. The first one is my "everyday use" drawer. I keep my paper cutter, stampin scrubber, signature stamp, address book, note paper, mostly used scissors, and my SU paper color sample ring here too. I pretty much keep anything you can imagine in this drawer.

The next two drawers are for writing/coloring tools, misc. tools, adhesives, and cutting tools.

The bottom drawer on this side have my SU markers in and I keep all my card samples in photo albums. I am currently setting up a new card sample system, so once that is done I should have more room in this drawer. BTW, my Crop Big Bite is here too.

Okay, now at the top of my desk is my ink pad holers, and my ribbon holders. On top of my one ribbon holder are little jars with buttons and brads and page tabbers. I also have jars for ribbons, paper flowers, etc. Above that little shelf is a magnetic strip for pictures, notes etc.


For the BEST part of my stamping room is my stamp storage!! I am soooo excited to tell you about it. I found these file cabinets at Hobby Lobby for $50.00 each a few summers ago. They were the cabinets for McCalls patterns and such. I spray painted the outside a more pleasing color. Each cabinet has 7 drawers and they are absolutely the BEST storage system I have seen to date for SU stamps beacuse I do not have to stack my sets. I LOVE THEM!!!! The baskets on top of one of the cabinets is for new catalogs I haven't read and one is for new stamp sets I haven't put on blocks yet.



Here is a picture of inside a drawer of stamps. This particular drawer is all my wordy stamps. I have each drawer separated by the sections in my SU catalog. This way I find it very easy to find a set I am looking for or I can open a drawer by category and pick a set I want to use such as flowers. As you can tell each drawer holds quite a lot of sets. The other picture is how I label my drawers. I used business card magnets and made my one labels for them. Cute idea huh?



Here is another drawer which I currently store my Cricut and Cuttlebug in.

I also have two over the door shoe hangers, one I hold all my punches in and the other is for fibers. The punch one is behind the door to the room and the other is hanging inside the closet door.

Inside the little walk-in closet I have a lateral file cabinet that I keep all my SU cardstock in. I also have all my magazines on top of the file cabinet. Also from HL, I have 2 of the 12x12 paper holders. As you can see, I also have a new "Clip it" organizer which I have yet to utilize. Hanging on the wall is another stamp pad holder since I ran out of room at my desk (all those darn SU In colors, ha ha). Underneath that I have some pegboard hung up with miscellaneous embellishments on it. I tend to 'stock-up' on things like crazy when there is a good sale or clearance...



Lastly , here are just a couple more photos of my room. Here is my spice rack from Ikea that I keep more flowers in and coordinating buttons. The other one is just a picture is of a couple of cool pictures on my wall. I found these in Indiana. One says 'Inspire" and the other 'Imagine'. In the photo you can alse see my other filing cabinet for stamps too!



I hope you enjoyed checking out my Stampin Studio! I really enjoy spending time in there being creative... Have a wonderful evening!

Daisy and Rosco

Just thought I would post a quick picture of my pups. Daisy is on the left and Rosco is on the right. They are such a hoot. I love them both dearly...even if they drive me crazy sometimes, lol.

Well, I am off to my stamp room for a little bit...hope to post more later :)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Stamping Bella Flower Card

I absolutely LOVE this stamp from Stamping Bella. After the cruise, I had to come home and place an order! I am so twitterpaited that I got this stamp, I am sure I will use it a lot!

Anyway, I made this card this past weekend for a couple of peeps b-days. Did I say how much I LOVE this stamp? I really liked how it turned out. I used SU Tempting Turquoise, So Saffron and white. I used the color pencils we got on the cruise with the mineral spirit technique we learned. I added some stickles on the flower petals and added some of Bella's baubles as well. The flower is a Bazzill and matched the SU So Saffron paper perfectly. I layered using my nestabilities and used my swiss dot folder to emboss ( a great idea I saw Maria from LSC use on one of her cards, thanks!). I also added a little ric rak ribbon too by Bazzill. The picture doesn't even do this card justice, as it is adorable.

Thanks for looking! Merry Chirstmas!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Handmade Gifts

Here is a glass jar I altered and filled with chocolates for my parents and sister's family for Christmas. I purchased the jars from HL and had fun decorating them. I used PTI stamps that we got on the cruise for the label. The paper is SU, Real Red, Wild Wasabi, and White. I also added some ric rak ribbon and some of Bella's clear baubles.

Handmade gifts are always the best!!

Also note, I am trying really hard to post my stamp room pics, but it is taking forever. I have been working on it all weekend. I am not sure what the problem is, but it took me 2 hours to download one picture. I am not sure if the individual post is overloaded or what. But my goal is to get them on here asap.

Have a great evening!

Sunday, December 14, 2008

Brrr! It's cold outside!!

OMG! It is right now about negative 1 degree outside our house! This was a great day to stay inside and lounge around. I watched a movie with my DH, a Lifetime movie ( I am such a Lifetime junkie, but most days my DH doesn't mind), and did a little cleaning...and I mean little! I have so much more to clean, but oh well!!! I made a roast for dinner in the crock-pot, boy it smells yummy, I can't wait to eat!!


I did break away into my stamp room for a little bit to create a Hanukkah card for a doctor I use to work with. When I worked with him, my sister and mom worked with us too, so the card will be from all of us. I love making him a card for special occasions because he is awesome and he appreciates a nice handmade card (unlike other people who THROW CARDS AWAY, sons of B%&$*#+, LOL).


So here is my creation:

I used SU paper, Pacific Point & Baja Breeze and white. The snowflake pattern paper was just out of my collection. I spritz mist in a patina color on the Baja Breeze paper, but I am not sure you can see it. The big Star of David stamp I did with a glue pad and glitter...I loved how it turned out. I added a strip of ribbon for texture as well, and got to use my spellbinder die cuts as well.

Have a great evening, stay warm, and I will post more later!

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Viva Las Vegas!

Good Evening!


Well my DH and I are back from Las Vegas and we had a really good time! It seems that we were constantly "on the go" with no time to rest. The weather was good, a little chilly in the lower 60's which was okay. We unfortunately flew home in a winter storm...so the 60's were not so bad after all, lol.

Here we are in front of a fountain in the forum shops at the Palazzo hotel. It is really fun to go back to Vegas every few years to see all the new hotels and changes there. Every couple of hours they do a show at this waterfall, we got to catch one of the shows, it was cool. Here is a picture of that too.




My DH and I actually got married there in 2005. It was a quick little wedding in one of the little chapels. It was fun, but unfortunately, we did not have a chance to drive by the chapel this time...oh well, just another reason to go back in a couple of years!


One day, we spent a few hours at the Adventuredome in Circus Circus because we went with our close friends and their kids. Val had a good time there. He was like a big kid again. I did not go on any rides because Maree and I did some shopping. Here is a picture of Val with Maree's daughter Bella on the bumper cars. I think the car is a little small for him...







Lastly, here is just a cute picture of Bella wearing her older brother's, Michael's, cap. She is such a little "gangsta diva" Too cute!


Well, I hope you all had a good weekend, and hopefully soon I can get back in my craft room!

Monday, December 1, 2008

My Busy Card Day

Good evening!
As I stated in my previous entry, I was a busy little bee on Saturday in my craft room. While my DH was up in the hills on one of our ATV'S I decided to work at home in my craft room. Don't get me wrong, I love to ATV too, but it was about 30 degrees...so really my husband is crazy!

I was quite pleased in all I got done!

This card I made first. It is very simple and cute. The supplies are SU paper, Creamy Caramel, Pumpkin Pie, Old Olive, Ruby Red, & Naturals Ivory. The stamps set is Pocket Silhouettes. I just used my circle punches and oval punches and voila! Very simple. I made a total of four.



We have snow (finally), so that is the inspiration behind this card. Once again SU supplies. The paper is SU Baja Breeze, and Not Quite Navy. The stamp set is Season of Friendship. I absolutley love this set...It is one of my faves!! This card was quite simple as well. I just pop dotted a few circle punched snowflakes and added a little stickles ( I am not sure you can see it in the photo). I added a little ribbon..and BAM! another card done! I made 4 0f these too.





Lastly, I decided to make some satchels like we made on the cruise in Gina K.'s class. I made 2 of each style for Cristmas gifts. I am really happy on how they turned out. I just found some coordinating 12X12 paper and used my cuttlebug to emboss the cards. The border stamp from the circles is actually out of our DIY monogram kit we got on the cruise from Just Rite. I must say they did turn out just rite!!! The seniments on the card and satchel are SU Lot's of Thoughts. The paper is all SU, in the left photo I used, Baja Breeze, Pale Plum and Certainly Celery. The right photo is Mellow Moss, Pale Plum and Perfect Plum.
These were a blast to make! I pretty much followed Gina's layout and even added magnets! (Which I ordered from Gina K after the cruise, I need to order more now...I LOVE them!!)
Well, I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday! I hope you have enjoyed looking at my busy bee day...Maybe it inspired you to get in your craft room, as many of you have inspired me from your blogs!!