Monsters in March!

I have to admit I'm having fun making these journal pages for the dylusion facebook challenges.  This is my third being it's the third month of the year, I hoping to keep it up through the rest of the year.  The challenge this time was to use the colors orange, brown and pink with the theme of Halloween....yes!  Halloween in March!  I used a large stencil from dylusion and the TH gothic stencil.  with the gothic stencil I sprayed dylusion white spray...look towards the bottom right behind the jar of eyes....you can make it out if you look close...remember to click on pic to see a bigger view.  Stamped some fun sayings I have in my rubber stamp drawers and I colored in the leaves with a distress marker.  All the other stamp images are dylusion monster mash stamp set.  I stamped the mad scientist twice so I could cut out his head and mount it with foam mounting tape. enjoy!

Alien dreams

I'm calling my tag Alien dreams.  I went into my stash and found that dream plate plus those square corners.  I've been stamping for over twenty years (phew! can you believe it?) and I learned something new.....yes, you can teach an old dog a new trick!  did you know you can emboss with archival inks?  I didn't till I read it on Studio 490
and Blog | Tim Holtz when I was reading about his March tag challenge.  This is my take on Tim Holtz's March tag.  He used a bunch of his paint dabbers but I only have a few so I used two of the colors I thought would go together.  He stamped a beautiful butterfly but I went in the other direction.....silly using an alien from dylusion monster mash stamp set.
entering in the following challenge:
1.  Tim Holtz blog - March tag
2.  Simon Says Wednesday challenge - anything goes
3.  Simon Monday challenge - a hint of clover (color green)
4.  That craft place challenge - anything goes

Be free!

Be free from all this SNOW!!!  yes, we got another 7" or 8"!  I am so tired of this white stuff and the bitter cold.  Be glad when can go outside without layers and layers of clothes.  Being cooped up because of all this snow it gives me lots of time to stamp so here is a card I made thinking of warmer weather.  I did a variation on the bokeh technique.....instead of circles I made a stencil with squares and used colors that made me think of a beautiful sunset.
stamp credits:  MFP Stamp Shop Be wild and Free stamp set

February local card swap

 We had another fun card swap get together over at Maggie's Place.  we are a fun and talented bunch of ladies....look at all our cards!  a mixture of die cuts, creative pocket, square quilting and even a waterfall card!  you can see my card here .  I posted it earlier because I had so much fun making a shaker element card.  Our next monthly card swap is coming up soon so I better get my act together and make my cards.  Have them started .... at least have the backgrounds all done just have to stamp them.  did a fun background technique but I'll keep it a secret until I finish them and we get together.  Now I wanted to show you a card from January's card swap that was delivered after the meeting
because Kirsten couldn't attend.  It's a fun musical theme birthday card.  see you here in March to show you our spring/Easter cards.

Bendi fold valentines

I finally got around to making the bendi fold card.  there are instructions on splitcoaststampers to follow to make this card which I did for the most part except I'm not good with measurements so ........ after I had all the card pieces cut and tape together I cut my slits by eye instead of measuring in 4" or so like the instructions mentioned.  every time I tried it that way they just didn't turn out for me so I did it my way but all in all I like the card structure and would most likely do it again.  In fact I used this card for my Valentine card swap last week at my friend's Valentine luncheon get together and they were very well liked by all.

collage tag

I had fun making several collage tags that will possibly go out in the mail today.....all depends on whether our mail carrier can get down our street.  It's snowing again!  Oh well, that's mother nature for you.  Created these tags with the general instructions from this post on TH blog.  naturally I didn't have all the same supplies but still think they came out all right.  no felt or sewing machine so I made a 3D punched out heart then cut up some of TH paper stash paper for the words and pattern paper.  check out the dictionary paper that is from an old dictionary a friend gave me when she was cleaning out her stash.  I use it when ever I need a paper definition just have to be careful because it's so old it rips very easily.
entering in following challenge:
1.  Tim Holtz's Feb. tag - collage tag
2.  Addicted to stamps - anything goes
3.  Designs by Lisa - to sir with love
4.  Chocolate, coffee & ... - love is in the air

Happy Valentine's day

Here is a fun and easy card I saw on Jennifer McGuire's blog.  I only made four and they went out in the mail yesterday....I know I'm late but you know what they say better late than never.
Happy Valentine's Day!  enjoy yourself whatever you do today and if you are on the east coast keep warm!  watch out for the snow that is coming today.

Purple, blue, hearts and skeletons!

Had so much fun creating this journal page for dyan reavley challenge page on facebook.  Great combination for February challenge....colors are purple and blue...then you need to use hearts and skeletons.  I did her (dyan's) technique where you color the page...do all the stencils.....do all the stamping then use a mask to cover a section on the page ..... sponge black paint all around the mask then move the mask to another spot and sponge more black paint.  it is scary at first then it's just fun to see what happens......the colors just pop with the black all around it.  Of course after all that you need to add some doodles with a white pen.  let me know what you think.

lunch with friends

Yesterday was our annual Valentine luncheon at Leslie's house who
is the hostess with the most-est as the saying goes.  Her table-scapes is always spot on and creative! If you look over to the left at the photo you can see the table in all it's glory along with one of our beauties...that's Muriel. We

had beef and barley soup that was absolutely delicious!  in the
middle of the table was a delectable array of cheeses, breads, fruit and veggies to munch on along with the soup.  Over on the kitchen island were all kinds of deserts for after we finished that delicious soup.  There were mini brownies, cookies --- my favorite the

oatmeal raisin cookies!!!!!!  yummy!  even homemade marshmallows covered in coconut or heath bar candies but the main
desert was a fabulous lemon mousse.....Oh my! was that good!  everyone in our little group knows I'm not a chocolate person so the lemon desert was perfect in my opinion!!!  I have such good friends!   And of course, we are stampers so we had a card swap along with some handmade favors filled with candies and more.  The card swaps with all our extra goodies were in these beautiful red bags so we could bring everything home in style.  Over to the left is Roberta showing off a little card that our friend Petti made that was attached to a bag of candies....unfortunately she couldn't attend our get together because of family sickness.  she was missed.  Now over to the right is Brenda showing her full sheet she created using Dina Wakely techniques.....she cut up one of her sheets to make her card swap so we all could have a piece of her art.  All in all a terrific get together with friends to enjoy each other's company and lots of good food.

what's alien-ing you?

It's been a crazy week with mother nature around here and it is going to continue tonight according to the forecasts.  Here is a fun shaker card I made for an upcoming card swap.  shakers are fun to make and fun to shake, shake, shake!  this is what I call an element shaker because only the circle part is the shaker not the whole card.  clear as mud, right?

card details:
stamps - MFP Space Fun stamp set
ranger glossy accents
cloud embossing folder
nestabilities circle dies

playing with dylusions

It's a cold day here in New England so I decided to finish up my
boxes that will be valentine favors for friends at a luncheon in a couple of weeks.  won't show the box until after I give them out to my friends but can show you the fun and bright pages I did in my Dyan Reaveley journal plus a single page I created.  The reason for the yellow color scheme .... yes, there is a rhyme to my reason or is it reason to my rhyme.....anyway......did yellows because over on the dylusion challenge page on facebook the challenge was to use yellow, wings and flowers.  I got this done just in time because the challenge is up tonight.  no prizes just to show off what we do with all the dylusion products.  It's supposed to snow tomorrow night and Monday so guess I will have more time to play and create!

MFP Favorite stamp set blog hop - Nutcrakers

Welcome to the Marks Finest Papers Stamp Shop

 January Blog Hop. 

 We're doing something different to start out the new year. We're looking back at all the wonderful sets released in 2014. For the next 4 days the Design Team will show you their "Favorite" sets of 2014. Please visit each blog and leave a comment. One person will be chosen to receive their choice of one of the "Favorite" Stamp Sets we have featured.

Please hop along with us! You have a chance to win a "Favorite" Set of your choice! Just comment on the following blogs (don't forget this one), each day for more chances to win! (You do NOT have to comment on all the blogs each day! The names are drawn randomly!) The winner will be announced on 

Jan. 31, 2015 on the MFP Stamp Shop blog. You can go back and comment if you missed a day. (HINT: The more you comment, the more chances you have to win and comments on the MFP blog count twice!) 

The deadline for 

commenting is 10 PM EST on Friday Jan. 30, 2014

Today Jan. 30th is the last day our of Favorite stamp set hop and again I'm not officially included for the drawing today ...... I still wanted to showcase a stamp set.....Nutcrakers!  just couldn't make enough of these guys.  I even used my heat gun and embossed him with silver embossing powder.  You can see more samples here that created with this stamp set. 

Let's get started!!

Here is the Design Team:

Lois

Karen 

Kathy 

Toni 

Janine

Shirley

Vickie

Sandy

MFPStampShop