A GOOD DAY

Can you feel the earth move under your feet? That's me jumping up and down because I was selected as a design team member at Queen Kat Designs. That means you'll be seeing cards posted here that I'll be making using QKD stamps. I'll also be involved in a blog hop the first Wednesday of every month. This is my first DT so I'm elated. If you've read an earlier post of mine where I displayed my "queen of scrapping" name tag bird for my Prairie Stampers Club, then you know this is a great match. I've posted my blinkie on the bar to the right. Can't wait for my first assignment in June to be seen in July. In the meantime, you can scroll down and check out a couple cards I made with QKD stamps and posted here . Woo hoo!

Doors of Dublin

I've been making some layouts for my daughter's album of her
recent trip. I'm posting them at Coordinates Collections for the
May challenges. Tonight I finished a layout of the Doors of Dublin.
Here is the CC sketch that I used to create the layout. I left the
journaling card blank so that she could use her handwriting. The Doors of Dublin are a famous tourist attraction. It seems that there are strict architectural guidelines for the townhouses so the owners show their individuality through their doors. The doors have windowed arches on the top, so I made curved mats and decorated the arches.

Card Featured in May SNR e-zine

Today's the premiere day for the May issue of Scrapbook News and Review. And I have a card in it!!! When you go the the SNR website, click on magazine, then the Cards & Stamping tab, then the category 05/09 In The Cards: Woodland Features. I submitted the card I made in several stages. First, I made a tag with watercolor crayons at my Prairie Stampers Club retreat. Then back home I cut the tag as the top layer of a card and added my Hero Arts stamps and some Maya Road and Tim Holtz embellies. Since the May SNR issue is out, I can bring back home my three layouts that were in the April issue for the Spotlight Scrapper article.

More Blog Candy

Vicki over at Queen Kat Designs is giving away $48 worth of blog candy on her site. http://qksc.blogspot.com/ I'm posting the link under my blog candy bar on the right. You have til May 30 to sign up for a chance to win.

Wedding Card

Here is another project I made with the QKD birthday stamp set. To me it spoke wedding cake so I used the mini heart stamp as a cake topper. I made a 7 inch black mat for the base. The patterned paper squares were made with a two inch square punch. Just a lot of cutting and pasting to make the grid. I had some cute pp leftover from the mini album I made last year. I thought the funky flowers were a perfect fit for the cake design. I thought this would make a great cover for an 8" photo album and I could use the top cake square for a "pocket" to hold a gift card. (QKD sketch)

Vintage Moms

I created this vintage layout for two challenges: the Coordinates Collections May Challenge to create a vintage layout about mom containing 5 journaling lines and the Graphic 45 May Challenge to Strip It Down (use strips of paper in the project). I used Graphic 45 papers from the Communique and Fashionista collections: (from Communique) Communique word strip, tag, and woman typing; Party Line phone strip and strip of misc. phone graphics; (from Fashionista) Buttons A La Mode red background; Tre Chic cutouts of fashion gals; and border used for horizontal strip. Prima: flowers and Say it in Crystals "Happiness"; red flowers from Hobby Lobby; Heidi Swapp ghost clocks; Hero Arts cream Art flowers; Tim Holtz antique linen Distress Ink by Ranger; black card stock; misc. ribbons saved from floral bouquets. I typed the journaling, cut it into strips and distressed the strips with scissors and distress ink. Now for the cool vintage stuff: an old photo of my aunt and mom that I copied onto Canson rough surface heavyweight watercolor paper for a textured look (never use the original photo); an inherited old cardboard photo frame; two of my aunt's hat pins; phone company service pins (the ones framing the top of the photo are my mom's; the two on the bottom of the layout are my aunt's); and a copy of a page from a 50's phone book, part of my husband's historical collection. The top of the page instructs phone users to be sure to dial the two "letters" of the phone number--in this case KE for KEllogg. Note to family members: if you look at the numbers listed, you will discover your 1950's phone number from the old homestead. I absolutely loved putting this layout together!

Made My Day

While surfing the web, I discovered that one of the layouts I made this past weekend is the Fab Find of the Day on the Coordinates Collections site where I posted it for the May flowers challenge . Perhaps I should show you what it looks like..... (Thanks, dellanos1)

Queen Kat Designs

Yesterday I played with my new stamps from QKD. I was given one birthday set for entering the QKD challenge on SNR. The other stamps I bought last week when QKD was having a 40% off sale. Isn't Janice the bees knees? I was introduced to her on a card QKD featured with the sentiment Hang In There. When I made my card, I thought Drama Queen also was a good fit for her. I used some awesome double-sided paper, Blue Flannel Snuggle Up, from the paper line The Paper Element. The cardstock is a good heavy weight and worked well with the ink. The owner of the paper line gave me an awesome suggestion to use Ranger distress ink faded jeans to pick up the blue in the paper. I love the way this card turned out. The card is a beautiful orchid (Coordinations Core Color cardstock) that matches the bow perfectly. Somehow the lighting makes the card look pink, but it really isn't. (New camera next????) Back to the stamps, Drama is one of a long list of words on a rubber stamp sheet I bought at the Heirloom show in Indy. The crown is from a Maya Road Bingo acrylic stamp set that I got with my gift certificate. Bling from Hero Arts. (How do you like my green vinyl tablecloth for a background? I take my pics in the basement where we have good lighting for a photo shoot---or maybe not so good since the card turned out pink.) (QKD sketch)

They're Back!!!

My January and February layouts are back in their rightful spots on this blog. They were out for publication in the March 2009 e-zine issue of Scrapbook News and Review. Since they remain two of my most fav layouts, I'm glad they're back home. Three more currently are in the April SNR issue where under "Calls" I'm listed as the Spotlight Scrapper. One of my cards was chosen for the upcoming June SNR e-zine issue. I'll post it here in July.

QKD Sorority Invite for Stampers

QKD has a new thing going on--a Whimsical Ink Sorority. Hot off the press with promises of fun. I found QKD through Irene Tan's blog Scrapperlicious (posted on the right bar). She does fantastic work and designs stamps for QKD. QKD also was the first stamp company to sign on with SNR. At SNR, I entered a QKD challenge and received some stamps for my efforts. I fell in the love with the QKD vintage stamps, just got them in the mail, and can't wait to create some cards with them. For the Whimsical Ink Sorority, they've made a really cute stamp of a Mad Hatted Mermaid sitting with a winged cat.

Diecut Challenge

Here is the layout I worked on this past weekend. The challenge was to use only diecuts--no paper. I have since put the diecut circle on a square piece of background paper. All of the embellishments are some type of diecuts. Several are old game pieces that I've collected at flea markets.

Lovin' Coordinates Collections

This past weekend there were lots of activities on-line and in the stores to help celebrate our passion for crafting. The weekend turned out to be a good one, weather-wise, so I went on two outings to purchase flowers for the yard. I managed to get only one layout done for a challenge but then couldn't upload it due to a software glitch. So I was glad I enjoyed the outdoors rather than work on more challenges. The one I did finish will be posted later when I get things sorted out. In the meantime, on the Coordinates Collection website, my name was chosen in a random draw for submitting my Spring Flowers layout posted below (April 22 post) for Earth Day. Lisa took some adorable photos of her young son Jakob closing his eyes and choosing a slip of paper--with my name on it. Gotta love those random drawings! I can't wait to see what my prize is. The last time I won a prize on this site, I got a great set of double-sided paper. I used one of those patterned papers to create the Family Tree layout below (April 29 post). I folded the corner so that you could see both sides of the paper. (You'll also recognize the scraps from that same paper used on the wings of my bird name tag posted below. A day later used that bird in a layout posted for a Coordinates Collection contest.) Because of all the other activities going on this weekend and my unexpected computer glitch, I'm extra happy that Coordinates Collections waited to have their big Cybercrop this coming weekend, May 8-11. I'm gearing up to have a great time scrapping "Over the Rainbow". I have a link on the bar to the right under "My Favorite Kit Clubs", if you care to see what all they have going on over there.