I Wuf You

I'm skipping backwards a bit by posting this Valentine. It is actually the one I made for Steve last year. I must have tucked it away in my card box sometime. I still have the stamps and must say, the layout is a little boring. But it was a quick little Valentine that did the trick.

I made Abby a matching one from the same Inky Antics set. I blinged her's up a little bit more (not sure if it shows in the picture though.

I am kind of surprised I am even focusing on Valentine's Day...you would think my blog would be covered in black n gold until Super Bowl Sunday. Don't count it out, I just might slip in one more Steeler card. I have also been designing few more Twilight ones and started to color Easter ones. Maybe if I start crafting spring projects it will arrive sooner!

OH-IO

I know I posted a little Steeler guy a few days ago, but I pulled out the Greeting Farm stamp again to color up for other teams. What a versitile little stamp to have on hand when you need a quick birthday card for a sports fan. I just need to look for some different sayings for the inside...wonder if I could find a "You're FAN-tastic" or "Its your birthday....have a ball". You can even use it as a sympathy card if a rival team loses. Okay, that's kind of mean, but like I said...very versitile stamp. I'm going to make this short and sweet so I can pop on over to the Greeting Farm website and see if these little guys come in other sports...or if they have little girls.

Simply Beautiful...

This card looks like a million bucks in person but the picture doesn't do it justice. The Medallion has 4 layers! (6 cut layers and 4 are popped with foam dots). The best part is, it's made using 1 stamp! I discovered the Holly Berry House Medallion stamps at the Monroeville ExpoMart stamp expo last summer and fell in loooove. My head was swooning with color combination ideas. I've taught 2 sold out classes at Simply using these stamps. One was a mauve and green combination in the fall and the other was a combination of silver and blues for winter.

The outcome looks like you spent a lot of time making an elegant card but the secret is, the technique is so simple. Simply stamp/emboss the image multiple times and cut out different layers. Some stamps offer up to 17 layers....imagine the amount of medallions you could make with different combinations of those. Below are the 6 layers I cut for this card.


You can really jazz them up with bling like I did on this card. I could have added some ribbon but I think it's just as nice with the clean simple background. Cards are just one possibility. You can use them as a decorative bow on packages, add a pin back (and some crystal lacquer for strength), put two back to back as an ornament...

I've added a few of these to the "Lori card box" at Simply in case you'd like to try out the technique. Simply carries Holly Berry House and many of the Christmas designs are 40% off!

Til next time....
Happy Stamping!

Grate those Cheeseheads

Here We Go Steelers! Here We Go! Pittsburgh's going to the SuperBowl!

Hey Steeler Nation! I had a great idea today when one of my friends posted "The best cheese graters are made of STEEL" on her FB status. I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond as soon as I left work to buy mini cheese graters ($2.99)

I'm not the best at making bows, at least not the pretty big ones, so I picked up Abby and headed to the local florist. The nice clerk made a few for me that were perfect.

I couldnt wait to get home and make these. I used a floral wire to tie on the cheese graters and then covered it with a black ribbon. I then used a quickie glue pen to apply gold embossing powder to read "Grate the" on one ribbon and "Cheeseheads" on the other.

They turned out super cute! I plan on making mine into a pin but you could also use it as a favor on the table at your SuperBowl party.
Or you could get really creative and use a full size one as a cake topper for a black n gold dessert.

Here we go Steelers!!

Here we go Steelers!

Here We Go Steelers! Here We Go!

It's AFC Championship Sunday and my beloved Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the Jets. Game time isn't til 6:30 so that gave me plenty of time to be crafty today. I made a Black-n-Gold Birthday card to honor one of Pittsburgh's most beloved sportscaster, Myron Cope. Myron would have been 82 today. Not familiar with the raspy voiced Myron? He *invented* the Terrible Towel back in the 70s. His bosses asked him to come up with a gimmick for a Steeler game to rally the fans. He asked everyone to being a yellow tea towel to the game. Before the game began, not one towel could be seen in the stands..THEN, the Steeler came out of the tunnel and yellow towels blanketed the stands...and the Terrible Towel was born!

So Happy Birthday Myron....we miss you!


Now onto a little family rivalry...My dear Uncle Joey is a Jets fan so even though we live in godforsaken Bengals Country, we're having a playoff party at his house. So I, being in charge of the desserts, am taking him one lonely little cupcake. But as for the rest of us, I found a black n gold cookie cake and had them write "Happy Birthday Myron" on it.


In addition to my little pick, I made him an "Official Stick a Fork in em Fork". A few years back, the Jets were ahead near the end of a game and Joe declared " Stick a Fork in em! They're done!"...the other team came back and beat the Jets!! So I'm praying the Curse of the Fork lives on!I made this so I can jam it into his cupcake at the end of the game (not before the end in case the curse is transferable!)



Here We Go Steelers! Here We Go!

Edward Cullen's Valentine

Some *might* say I have an unhealthy obsession with all things related to Edward Cullen...nah, well...maybe!
I almost died when my love of Edward collided with my passion for stamping. Greeting Farm stamps came out with an entire Cullen look-a-like line last summer and I just couldn't resist. Other companies tried their hand with more realistic looking sets but I didn't like them as much.
Just like a "real" Cullen, I had to give my Edward sparkly skin. So I grabbed my clear Spica Pen and it worked perfect. Dumb scanner doesn't show it that well though. I used a combination of 4 markers to color his hair...not too shabby.
And what would Edward's Valentine message to Bella Swan be?...."Eternally Yours".

Look for these Cullen Cards at Simply Scrapbooks this week and more Cullen designs here soon.