January SOTC challenge

Hello my friends,

today I am showing you the card made for the SOTC January's challenge.

Judy (known in the stamping SCS' world as JAM123) was our hostess with the mostest

and encouraged us to create the following....

In her own words:
" ....It’s the ending of an old year and the beginning of a new year. It’s a time of reflection, a time of celebration and a time when many look forward to new beginnings. So in the spirit of the season, the theme for December/January cards is INSPIRATION!
Create a card that reflects YOU…your dreams, aspirations, and/or accomplishments. Include your favorite colors, embellishments, images and sentiments. Create something that will lift the spirit of your Sistahs! As an added challenge I would love to see you incorporate a picture of yourself......"

There are so many possibilities and interpretations for this latest challenge...and, as such, I found myself to be at a standstill as what to create.However, I remember thinking that, IF I had a hot air balloon stamp, I would have used it for sure...

you see one of my many dreams has always been to try and go up in the sky

in a hot air balloon....♥

On the inside, I kept it simple
by using a pretty glittered
designer paper panel and
punched out a string of heart with
my MS punch ,added another punched
out heart and a scalloped nestie heart
to use for a sentiment of choice...

                                                                    Stamp: 'Forget Me Not' M4723                                   

            by Stampington & Co.

Sentiment: 'Warm Words' by SU

Ink: Purely Pomegranate, Rose Romance,

         Onix Black

Card Stock: Bravo Burgundy

             &  wine red dotted c/s)

Designer Paper: 'Think Pink' by Making Memories,

            'Eskimo Kisses' by Basic Grey

Accessories: burgundy lace, 'Allegro' EF, brads,

dimentionals, Lily white glitter, Gelli roll Sakura pen,

blings, pearls by Kaiser Kraft

Tecnique: Paper Tearing, sponging, antiquing

This card is ment to be a reflections of some of the things that are important to me, in my life...Love for family, love for music, love for glitter and blings -some of my favorite embellishments- (btw oh yes I also like REAL glittery BLINGS too!), love for lacey things that remind me of a long ago era....You can say that I also love shabby schick...it's totally me...sometimes casual, sometimes elegant....but overall....under all those layers...there is 'just' ME!

                     ♥ Can you tell which is my MOST favorite color yet? ♥

    

Thank YOU Judy for a wonderful challenge...admittedly it was not an easy one...lol

Oh...and  no, there is no  mug shot included , didn't want to scare anyone! *wink* LOL

I sure hope that whomever receives these cards will feel uplifted with L♥VE!

                            Thanks for stopping by, please come again soon.

                                 ♥ ♥ ♥ BLESSINGS TO YOU ALL ♥ ♥ ♥

Something New Using Something Old!

It is the 28th!!!.........and if YOU follow my blog regularly then you must know what that means....YUP...It is Calendar Girls time!!...wowww....this month Jeanette had a pretty darn nice challenge for all of us and I am excited about it...

From Jeanette's own post:"....It’s time for our first challenge of 2012. Can you believe we’ve now been together as a blog group for an entire year? That is exciting! I want to celebrate who we are and the fun we’ve had together. Sooooooooo my challenge for January is this:
Something New Using Something Old!

What do I mean by that? This isn’t exactly what it seems. It’s not a vintage theme, though you can make your card/project vintage if you’d like. What I do want you to do is look back over your Calendar Girl posts/creations from the year 2011 and choose one of the images you used. Then I want you to create something entirely different with the same image. It cannot look at all like the previous Calendar Girl creation; nor can you use the same papers/embellishments/etc.

Inside of my card.....plenty of room for another sentiment or more....

Below you can see the shiny surface from the wet heat embossing tecnique used on the panel and the hummingbird.

Jeanette also said:"...When you post to your blog – on January 28 – I want you to also post a picture of your 2011 card/project that used the same image so we can see the two and how different they are. "

I am not able to pick just one picture, so I am adding the link to my 'old' pictures here for you to check and compare the  'Old and New':

http://www.paola-sama.blogspot.com/2011/05/calendar-girls-may-challenge.html

What do you think ? ♥
Leaving ya with something to ponder eh? :o)
Blessings and Sweet Dreams wishes to you all...
it's past 2:30 am here and I am in dire need of some sleep after the long
 ( yet fruitful and rewarding day) I finally had ...PTL ♥

Deets:
Stamp:SU- Elements of Style
Ink: Onix Black; Versamark
C/S: SU-Black
D/P: DCWV- Glittered Alphabet Premium Stack
Accessories:Fleur de Lis Stampbeatility, oval nestie, black organdy ribbon,
silver cord, self adhesive black pearls ,silver pearl, clear embossing powder,
dimentionals,diamond stickles,
Tecnique: wet embossing
Now go and check all the wonderful creation from the other Calendar Girls
feast your eyes on their links below and leave them some luv too!  ♥

April (SCS - Aprilo) April's Alley
Barb (SCS - barbaralynn) Barb's Inkin' into Retirement
Carol (SCS - momcgw) Lost in my craft room
Debbie (SCS - djones) The Ink Igloo
Jeanette (SCS - Forest Ranger) Cre8tive Play
Kelly (SCS - MiamiKel4) Sandcastle Stamper
Michelle (SCS - pattem) Ink'n General
Paola (SCS - Sama) That's Amore  *you are here*
Tami (SCS - BlueInks) BlueInks Design
Terry (SCS - terry0926) It's Totally Terry

♥ Snowman ♥

Hello peeps....

do you like snowmen?? I sure do!

My friend Vivian (SCS: blusky) hosted a snowman's swap

recently and that gave me the perfect opportunity to ink

one of my latest Whipper Snapper rubbah's friends...

Isn't he just adorable ? ♥

His name is ' Frappe the Snowman' (WS:CY766)

Even its name sounds cute eh! :o)

UH OH!...I just re-read the swap's page and realized that I was supposed to add a funny sentiment too....yikes! Oh well...these cards are already postal...I sure hope Viv and the other recipients likes them regardless...♥

Thanks for stopping by my friends

♥ Hugs & Blessings to you all ♥

Deets:

c/s Pear Pizzaz (SU)

ink: Night of Navy

d/p: Basic Grey

Accessories: glitzy large snowflake, bling, MS punch, stickles.

Colored with pastels and markers

Neglected Stamps...

Our wonderful SOTC leader Kadie, suggested -a while back- to have an exchange of

uninked stamps amongst us sistahs and show those long neglected stamps some luve...

The idea took off with a bang, we were then paired off and I received the above adorable stamps from Maryann (mastuff) while I sent off some of my too many

neglected stamps to April (Aprilo) for some inking fun of her own.

I got to tell ya...INCHIES are not my forteee!...LOL....In fact I had no creative idea how to incorporate them on a card...but I am stubborn enough to persevere once I'm on a

'mission'...lol...Decided to start off with a red on white combo,followed with a black background base...

There's glitter as well but the pict doesn't show it...darn! :/

I kept the inside of the card fairly simple, with plenty of room to add another sentiment

of choice....

Well....started to get on a roll, so I  decided to make a second card with so many choices of inchies left, and here belows is the result...

I was determined to do a better, more creative job of it. I also chose to 'panel'

the card (size 5x5.5") with six different lovely flowered images stamped on white c/s and mounted on red bazzil squares placed -with dimentionals- on a 'bed' of  double sided designer paper background, ending with red bazzil c/s as the base.

A large cuttle bugged and die cut butterfly was added on ,as well as organdy black ribbon , for some balance and dimensions...Glitter galore too, pearls, and just a touch

of red stickles was added to the inchies for that pop of color....

On the inside, the set's three sentiments were strategically stamped around the outside edges, leaving the centre of the card free to add more options...

All in all a total of FIFTEEN lil images and sentiments were used (out of twenty three!) to create both cards....I hope Maryann likes the final products she'll be receiving soon....

It sure was another FUN challenge and hopefully we'll get to do another inking exchange soon! :o)

Please let me know what your thoughts are in regards of these 'inchy cards' :o)

♥ Thank YOU friends... sending many Blessings  your way ♥

January Mystery Revealed

Hello Friends ♥
Today is the day when we can finally reveal the 'Mystery Image' for our swap on SCS
(Split Coast Stampers). This is so much fun to do with a great group of partecipants...
We take turns to host and to send  some 'mystery' images to all the gals in the group and every other month we showcase our work through our blogs. All of this was possible through  Jeanette's clever idea and for starting this group...♥

The fabulous hostess for this round was Darlene; she sent us absolutly GORGEOUS
images depicting some of the work from artist D.Morgan: http://www.dmorganart.com/
I must admit that I was hoping Darlene would send some iages from her extensive D/Morgan's stamps collection and was thrilled to receive them...but once I started to work on them I became a bit apprehensive and unsure on how to approach this new challenge without diminishing such great gifted image. Hopefully Darlene will like
my own interpretation of such wonderful artist's drawing....

The first challenge, for me, was to try color all the hills the same..then I gave up as I wanted to be more creative and 'free' to pursue different coloring angles, thus most of my images have a slightly different color approach from one another....quite frankly I was thinking of the beautiful Tuscan hills as I was coloring....

I decided to cut out the sentiments and repositioning them according to my creative 'vision' of the moment....I sponged them individually to give them some dimensions and add a touch of popping color as well.....the bottom end of the kitties was cut out too to make the whole scene a tad 3-D. (I also wanted to brush the kittens w/ Crystal Effect but unfortunatly I couldn't find it anywhere when I needed it!! arghhhh!!) :/

Since my goal was to make my card look like a picture,I used rectangular nesties to
aid me in that intent both on the front and on the inside as well...

In these two photos  you can see the card front opening better....

The card front was embellished with a blue flower on which I used a Sakura Gelly Roll and added a bright green button w/orange thread. The beautiful nestied tag ,with the first part of the original sentiment completes the 'look'.

♥ That's it folks!! ♥  I hope you like the end result as much as I do...

 Darlene, hopefully you don't mind too much that my interpreation of your beautiful images included cutting up the sentiments three ways....

Thank you for such opportunity to color my first  ever D.Morgan's incredible images.

♥   Hugs and Blessings to All  ♥

One Hundred Year Birthday Celebration!

THIS IS MY SECOND POST OF THE DAY....
for the DUELING DARLING CHALLENGE PLEASE SCROLL DOWN...♥

          .....well...it's 100 yrs celebration for TWO people that is!.....ehehehe

Our wonderful neighbours ,Bill and Kathy, celebrate their Big FIVE-O
Birthday on the same day...yesterday to be exact....and had their house filled
to the rim with friends,children and balloons....plus food galore too!
Hubby and I joined them a bit later as we ended up with unexpected company
as I was putting the finishing touches on the birthay couple's card...
(mmmm nothing like the eleventh hour eh! yikes....)

Yup...lots and lots of black and white dots here with just a touch of color thrown in the mix...

sorry for the writing....

I forgot to take a picture of the inside of the card BEFORE  I added a few words to it :/

Yes, I am sure U noticed a missing 's' on the word 'birthday'....but be as it may and since I was in a rush, I was counting on the happily celebrating couple NOT to notice it too much....ehehe...
 They were way too busy having fun to pay attention to a lil silly extra 's'....Yeah!!! * wink*

Card Deets:

Stamps:SU 'Happy Everythig' ; SU 'Elements of Style'; SU 'Fresh Cuts';
SU 'Classic Alpha Numbers' and 'Whimsical Numbers'
Card Stock:  SU Black and SU Vanilla
Designer Paper: 'Black and Ivory Fusion' by K & Company ; 'Premium Alphabet Glittered Stack' by DCWV
Ink: Onix Black, Rocket Red and Versamark
Accessories: Embossing Powder: White, Drk Red, Clear ; Heart nesties -scalloped and plain- ;
Label Ten nesties ; scalloped punch ; 1 1/4 circle punch ; satiny ivory ribbon ;  Merlot and Regal Red fine glitter ; Lily White glitter .
Tecnique: wet embossing

Sure glad Bill and Kathy liked my labour of paper-love made just for them!
We are very fortunate to have them as our  neighbours!♥
Hope you liked my take on this card too :o)

♥ Sending a multitude of blessings your way ♥

THIS IS MY SECOND POST OF THE DAY....
for the DUELING DARLING CHALLENGE PLEASE SCROLL DOWN...♥

'Duelling' about the LITTLE THINGS....

            ♥ Hello my Darling Peeps and welcome to the first Duel of 2012!! ♥

This month  the wonderdul hostess for us Dazzlers was Melina while for the Divas miss Joan took the helm. Both hostesses decided to challenge us in a duel with  'Little Things' in mind.
Melina provided us Dazzlers with an awesomely sweet kit, as you can see in the following picture:

Well,  I don't usually feel too comfortable working with such small size images, so that fact alone challenged me even stronger to produce a decent card, and then....WHAM!! an idea popped in my mind and voila'....I acted on it using one of my Whipper Snapper's stamps as my creative  muse.....*wink*.....I think this idea worked out rather nicely....♥

Melina also wanted to know what our thoughts were once we opened our kits and discovered this month's theme. Well, for me after the first "wowww these are tinyyyyy....lol"  I also thought that
"good things come in little packages..." and that was it...I do think that the result turned out quite good actually....LOL....Did I tell ya how much I LOVEEEE  challenges??? ♥

Another good challenge was to use ALL the items included in the kit and, after a few hummms and ahhhhmmmssss, here how I used them on the card...can you see where I placed the three little circles ? The only thing I added on this card is the card stock (Marina Mist from SU!), Label ten nesties, the fun googley eyes for the lil crab,dimentionals, and the funny sentiment (from Bella) which I cut out with two punches and then 'balanced' it within the lil crab's claws. { A witty sentiment to be added on the card  was also a requirement from our hostess.}Check ,check...all done! :o)

                                            Here's a peek of the inside of the card too....
 (ooopsss! I just realized that I missed placing the yellow paper clip with the kit picture posted above)
                                        

Well, girls....this is it...I hope you enjoyed  browsing through...

Let me know your thoughts please...I always appreciate your feed back.

This was a FUN challenge Melina....I hope you like what I came up with...oh and by the way..

.I am  sooooooooooooooo happy that my dueling card can be posted right on time, along with all other dueling darlings sistahs.....it's a good feeling posting all together for sure!!

                                       Tecnique used: sponging , precise cutting , pleating.

THANK YOU FOR VISITING MY FRIENDS!!!....please take time to visit all the other Duelers too and see what they've been up to!!

♥ BLESSINGS TO ALL! ♥ 

Punched out Santa

Ohh Santa babyyyyyyyyyyy ♥
(how does the song go??) :o)
YES, I do know Christmas is OVER, but since I didn't have a chance to post some cards made last month
I decided that there is no better time than the present ...therefore this is one of them*wink*

This lil star shaped Santa card was made as a prototype to use as name-tags for my Christmas table...however I never finished my tags this year....I suppose I can look at it as being 'ahead' for next year already eh!? :o)

This cute idea was cased from uber talented Mothermark....I absolutly loved her original seen here:
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/2106796?&cat=500&ppuser=80269

Since I don't have the SU ornament punch to make Santa's face, I did what I could w/the punches I do have as well as nesties...I also decided to do his beard a bit different to which I addes some MS tinsel glitter...

Noticed the pom pom on top of Santa's card?? welllllll....let me tell yaaaa...
Some fun Christmas crackers may have them on the inside, perhaps attached to a wee gift??Then when U pull them everything comes out flying....including -in this case- some pom poms...
Yup...I do {{{HEART}}} recycling...and this is one perfect lil examples to which I added a dusting of glitter.....cute eh ? :o)

Now...look at these cuties....they were made with the intention to use them for gift tags OR even as tree ornaments...I know for a fact that my grandchildren realy like them, so I'm already thinking that, this summer, we will all have fun together making gift tags  and Christmas paper ornaments full og glitter!!
Of course I will make sure that this will be an OUTDOOR activity for sure!! LOL

The inside of the circled card shows a pretty (and glittery) sentiment from an

acrylic set I own, but have no clue as to who makes it :/

♥ I LOVE punch art....don't YOU?? ♥

Thanks for visitinggggggggggg....*mwahhh*

Sending ya all special blessingggsss, until next time.....

Vintage Valentine ATC

Hello friends,
my first project of 2012 it's an ATC (Artist Trading Card)
What are ATC one may ask? Here's the perfect visual explanation of such, compliments of SCS
aka  Split Coast Stampers :
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/resources/tutorials/artist_trading_cards_atc/

Here's a close up....

Specifically,  the theme for these cards was Vintage Valentines.....

Yikess!!...I sure got a bit intimidated by the whole thing as I don't do ATC well...

I believe this is only ,perhaps, my third ATC I ever made as I definetly much prefer

working on  regular size cards , if not larger ones  even....

Having said that, I hope that the wonderful and witty swap hostess whose swap I joined,

likes the end results , as well as the swappers who,ultimatly will end up receiving these.

 

Not sure why in the 'group photos' the lil heart brad appears black...they are certainly not black, although I did smear a bit of black Staz-On on them, to make the brads less shiny and appear more vintage, and it worked well. Unfortunatly though, my pictures turned out not as well as I hoped, this time around...arghhhhh me...  :o(
 Please let me know what YOU think...YOUR comments are ALWAYS apreciated! :o)

♥ G'NIGHT and Special Blessings to you!!! ♥

Deets:  Ink: Versafine Onix Black, Cranberry Crisp,Sahara Sands, Black Staz On  Stamp: Great Impressions #F424 C/S: from SU D/P : 'Lovely' from K&C (cut out sentiment), 'Red Valentine' from K&C Accessories: Adhesive gems or pearls, doily, sm paper flowers (smudged w/cranberry crisp and glittered),heart brads, Glamour Dust glitter,plain and scalloped nesties, dimentionals, ribbons                   Tecnique: sponging,antiquing

I'm late...I'm lateeeeeeeeeeee!...

....for a very important (to me) 'date'....
Ya see, I wanted to post what is to follow ,last Dec 30th actually...mmmm....that makes it LAST year now...LOL...but,alas, I didn't have a chance to do it...until now.
Anyways...I REALLY liked what I saw last year (and the previous one too) in some of the creative blogs I visited, where the hosts
posts what I like to call a  'Memory Lane Review' of her year' most favorite creations...

Without any further delays here are mine...selected by month :

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

 August

September

October

November

December

THERE!! I've done it...and....as 'they' say...

"better later than never!!" ♥

Hope you have enjoyed going down my lil 'Memory Lane'.

sooo...which one ,of the 12 cards above, you liked best? 

Looking forward to this brand new year just started, and the

possibility of many new  inspirations and paper inking...

♥ Thanks for stopping by ya all!! ♥