La-La Land Crafts Grand Opening...and BLOG CANDY

There's a new store getting ready for their grand opening! The date is August 12, the place is Sunnyvale, CA. Don't worry - if you don't live in the great state of CA (I, myself, reside way over here in MA) their online store is opening the same night....at 11pm. If you're interested in joining the grand event, click here for more details.

And of course there's blog candy up for grabs! Irina is giving away 3 stamps from her new store! How cool is that?! Along with the stamps (your choice - you'll have to check out her store when it opens) you'll get all this too:

- Stampin' Up Really Rust cardstock
- Hero Arts Flower Outline background stamp
- Nestabilites Labels Two set
- QuicKutz Plants Embossing Folder (works with Cuttlebug)
- Bazzill Bitty Blossoms

and four stamps from the Lazy Days of Summer Magnolia collection

- Tilda (was only available with the Club purchase)
- Strawberry
- two Beach Flowers

And still....

... after I had my ink pads, I still went back and did some more rub-on cards. Old habits are hard to break?? I doubt it...but I think I just got motivated to do some more rub-on cards after the first set I did. Thank you Di for feeding my mojo and giving me another set! :-)

Rub-ons are from SU.

And then the ink came to camp...

So, after telling my hubby what a D.A. I was, he graciously brought back my ink pads when he'd gone home for work during our extended camping trip. I made some cards with a set from Papertrey Ink that my good friend Diane gave me for my birthday. It was, of course, one of the sets I hoped to use during my camping trip...until I realized I forgot my INK! Oops! Anyways... I had made a bunch of these cards with different sentiments in it.

And the D.A. award goes to.....

ME! That's right, I'm embarrassed to admit. Normally, when we go camping, if we're camping with our friends, I'll bring my stamping stuff to work on while the kids nap. If it's just me and the family I'll leave my stuff home since I'd be spending naptime with my hubby. Since my husband has a (relatively) new job, he doesn't get much vacation time yet, so for one weekend we wanted it to be a long one, so he decided to commute to work from camp. Since I would be at camp with the kids by myself until the weekend, I decided to pack my stamping stuff for my alone time. I figured I would challenge myself by bringing only my clear stamps and my rub-ons. I had decided that it would be a good time to focus on all my latest clear stamp sets, most of which I'd been wanting to play with. I got everything ready...or so I thought. Dummy me realized after I was already at camp, that I forgot .... are you ready? .... INK! How I did this, I don't know, but there you have it - the reason why I get the D.A. award. So, armed with just some rub-ons and two punches, I came up with these cards...well, until my hubby brought me my ink pads ;-) I must say, I do like how they came out...and it was a challenge for sure! Talk about limited supplies! LOL

I don't know why, but no matter what I did, I couldn't get the true color of the cards to come through. It is a light, almost baby blue color (officially, it's called "Robin's Egg" according to the package), and the rub-ons are brown. The rub-ons are from Stampin' Up. The cards were given to me, which was also part of my personal challenge. I've been hanging onto these cards for awhile, not knowing what to do with them, so I brought them to camp. They are Martha Stewart cards and come with the flourishes already cut into them (as well as matching envelopes). They are 5x7, which is a little bigger than I'm used to for making cards...yet another challenge for me. :-)

#1 Dad

Yes, I know, Father's Day was last month... so I'm a little late....oh well. In any event, I created this card all by my little lonesome. By that I mean that I created the 'DAD' by welding the letters together and cutting them out with my Silhouette. I also created the card part that basically matted around the 'DAD'. This part was tricking to do since I was creating it for the whole card and not just a mat. It took some work, but I finally did get it so that when I folded it along the top everything lined up and the 'DAD' fit in nicely. Once assembled, I embossed the #1 so that it really popped on the blue paper. My hubby liked the card, but I doubt he understands what it took to make it LOL OH well... it'll be my little secret ;-)

Tools used: Silhouette; embossing heat gun

Lent??

Maybe not....but it would be a funny card for it! LOL Sorry the pictures are a little blurry - don't know why they are either. OH well....you'll get the jist. I also pierced around the center image on the dark brown paper. The inside sentiment is below the card. Enjoy!

Tools used: Paper Piercing

Marty's Bookmark

While we were camping, I found out that my friend Marty wasn't using a bookmark while reading her book. Instead, she was folding over the corner of the pages! I just HAD to make her a bookmark so she could stop ruining the page corners. The problem was I was at CAMP. And although I love to stamp/craft with my friend Diane when we're camping together, I try to pack light (mostly to not upset the hubby tee hee), so with that being said, I had no ribbons or tassles. What's a girl to do? Get creative, that's what! So, I used fishing line for the tassle. My friend Jay was working on his fishing pole and had taken some line off, so I used it to make a tassle for Marty's bookmark. Now I just have to hope she's still using her bookmark instead of folding corners!