I have been toodling around today with the theme of celebrating Life and lovely notes to send to friends. Its always delightful to receive mail no matter how much email one resorts to! So here they are......

...my inspiration is the first card shown: a 'folded' card I saw on SplitCoastStampers (SCS) by talented card artist named Beate Johns. The card was just wonderful - and I wanted to try my hand at.....hers is much fancier but mine is not too bad I think...to me it has a bohemian quality - all I did was find colours and patterns I could swizzle together - I may even add some pearls later! Aaaah, my photos are not the best - sorry but I think my camera is "slowing" down! {it's not me!}.

Our heart stamps are different, but that doesn't matter - one does with what one has :) I stamped my heart in Versamark and then coated it with glitter. Oh, and I inked the paper with some soft pink before stamping the heart image in a darker ink. One could just go on and on with this card!

Wouldn't this card be a fun one to receive - can't you just see making an unusual custom envelope - thin and long? When they open it - out it folds!

Cheers!

Here's the lil' guy waving his Canada flag - and he's all decked out for a picnic!

I simply made good use of my white gel pen - the Signo Uni-ball - and my white craft ink to stamp on red - easy smeesy!

Well....off to enjoy the rest of the day! Same to you all!

Thought I'd show you where I went to 'work' today! Deciding to take my paperwork with me and work in a pleasant atmosphere at the same time, I took off to a large office complex near me and this is where I always end up, sitting by the fountain.

So since I was trying to get a nice photo of my card - I took it here - lol! Looks funny I know! And I am sure anyone watching me thought I was one coffee bean short of a cappuccino, ha ha!

But today is our last day of the catalog - and I wanted to get my paperwork done too. Didn't happen though - got distracted having coffee and working on some creative ideas....ah well. That is something though - so by tomorrow I will have my new schedule done. Save the rest for Thursday.

And before I wake up tomorrow - a early "HAPPY CANADA DAY" !!!!

That happy day will be here once again! Yaaaay!

Heard - for anyone in my town - that Mandarin Resturant is giving away a free meal for Canadians on Canada Day .......hmmm, sort of have to decide if its worth the long line probably have to weather.....decisions!

Feel bad for the strike affecting some places that will have to cancel their local celebrations - bad timing, I'm afraid. But hopefully everyone will come up with a way to celebrate - even at a minimum around here we have strawberries and whipped topping in some form or another - so have some beautiful strawberries in the fridge right now - really good-looking ones happy to say! We try to come up with different ways to have our strawberry dessert - I think this year we're making the cake we saw on the front of Canadian Living - yummm!

Well - enough chit chat - have a great evening - and a great day tomorrow!!

Look - two particularly pretty sets of cards from Sat.'s "Shaving Foam Cards" Class! I meant to get a group shot of everyone's - but as my usual dizzy self, I was too busy yakking and forgot, geez!

Everyones were just lovely, lovely and we all had a good deal of fun. Here's a photo of Alex's (to the left)and Candace's card/tag sets.....

This class was also about using up supplies, and esp. about the retiring stamps - and Illuminations is one of those that are a great stamp set and which I am glad I have since its going, ahh well.

Well - must do this again soon! :)

[Illuminations stamp set, expression and flower from God's Beauty stamp set, ink: Red Riding Hood, refill ink: Pomegranate Red, Old Olive, Groovy Guana - cardstock: Pink Pirouette, Whisper White, Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip, Tangerine Tango, ribbon: Pink Pirouette]

I really am having a great deal of fun with shaving foam - almost cracked a rib laughing when I told a friend I bumped into that I was giving a class on shaving foam and she sort of paused and said "what kinda of class ARE you giving that involves shaving foam!?" ....and that's when I realized for the first time how it sounds when you say it that way - - and I was "NO! not like what you're thinking! Or whatever you're thinking!! ha ha!" {she's a nurse - so } - -well, anyways we both had a good laugh.

But here is some of my first results with it - I've made some lovely tags! See the background is the paper that has been marble-ized with the shaving foam and inks? Then I used some Stampin' Up Big Shot Dies {one has a flower which was cut in paper and tissue}, and some cut out pieces from various stamps to make 'chic' tags!

It's pleasant to sit and craft with bits and bobs - like decorating a safety pin with beads {pull it apart, bead it, re-shape it } and I carefully sewed on the buttons and wound the thread nicely - nothing too difficult.

So la te dah! You may come and try your hand at this fun technique - last class this month is June 27th.

Hi sister crafters!

... I am now armed with my cup of coffee in hand...feeling all is good in the world - uhmmmm coffee!!

WELCOME to my 'creative space'!

...and this morning I am just going to poke around...let's see....What comes to mind?  I scan the table - what to do, what to do - something!

Hmmmm...there's a lot of left-over scraps of paper...so OK! I have always wanted to decorate 'the envelope! So lets!

I mean we always decorate cards - BUT the envelopes can be a whole lotta FUN too. And some easy-smeasy way - nothing fancy!

OK - 45 mins later.........ta da!

I made the card by using strips from scraps of Designer Series Papers that I have owned, and featuring the Oval Punch & Scalloped Oval Punch - my two latest.

The envelope was more a labour or love....I cut away with my cutter to make strips, glued and re-formed the size of the envelope just a tad.

Tearing open the envelope is a bit tricky....but its not a problem...most of the areas were getting covered by the strips - you can do what-ever you wish.

So .....there they are! And I think the whole thing is darling!

I should send this to a family member who is probably over-due for a card anyway, lol!

Well, I am off to re-fill my coffee...See you next time!

Hello!

I started to fool around with my new JUMBLE ALPHABET - and also wanted to do a Father's Day Card. This card literally "fell together" because I just experimented as I went along.

I know that paper quilting is a favourite trick for card-making so I thought I'd give it a go using up scraps of Delicate Dots paper from who else, but Stampin' Up!, lol! AND....I used an extra TOP NOTE die-cut I had lying about and snipping away I soon had it covered with the scrap papers. I layered it on to another paper, Kiwi Kiss (soon to retire) - and - then just cropped around the die-cut shape to get the extra border. I didn't even glue just used a brad.

I cut out my alphabet letters using my Circle Scissors Plus - which worked beautifully - (just remember to secure the paper down with some Dotto Dots so it won't slip on you :)). Made some larger circles in Sahara Sand which I covered in ink using a cloth. Then created that important word...DAD! Just to make sure he knows he is extra special, I turned a coffee mug with a heart stamp into a beer stein (draw & cut out the beer foam) and penned #1 on the heart. Cute! On to the next step!

Here's where I must admit I went out of my norm! I thought it would be boring to just slap it on the front of a card since I do that so often....no, I wanted to try to come up with something different. Picking up a couple of strips of Bashful Blue paper, I was holding them with both hands and they sort of created a V shape - and then I thought of a ladder! Thinking that was 'fatherly-like' - cuz, we don't want all frills, right! But then - whoop - a giant "A" - you know, Dad is an 'ace' or gets a "A" for being the 'best dad'! So I happily went in that direction!

The Top Note shape has a point and would be troublesome to stand on its own, and soon I realized I would make the 'A' into an 'easel' - it could be both. Plus it could stand on its own like a card. So I created a shelf on the A, and a supporting leg behind it. {I made everything double-thickness plus glued a thin wood stir stick for added support} You could add a string running between the front to the back leg for limit its ability to 'open' if you run into problems.

Anyways - I put my DAD assemblage on the 'A-turned-Easel ' and used a clip to secure it in place AND FINALLY I got to use my tin star! I have had this baby for a couple of years and didn't know when I'd use it.

Hope you like it! B :)