Are You My Type?

If you're into Stampendous!® stamps, you're my type!  This is one of the new Elements stamps in the April catalog and I must say, I LOVE this line of stamps!  They're so cool and easy to create with!  I have a thing for old typewriters and I have one I was recently given that I'm going to clean up and display in my craft room.  When I first joined the Army and went to my school for my job specialty, Administrative Specialist, we had electric typewriters in our classroom.  As we progressed, we would go into what they called Central Testing where they would test our skills.  If you made a perfect score every test, at the end of the school your name would go on a plaque in their "Hall of Fame."  We tested on old, and I mean old, typewriters.  They were not electric and they looked a lot like the one I was given.  It may sound silly, but, to this day, I'm proud of my perfect testing and making it into their "Hall of Fame."  Here's my "new" typewriter:

Isn't it cool!  I love it!  I still need to clean it up and when I do, I'll post a pic of it in it's new home!  So here's my card for today:

I adore the vintage feel of the stamp, Typing Elements!  It takes me back to a fun and challenging time in my life and makes me happy.  I stamped my image on Neenah® Classic Crest Natural White cardstock with Memento™ Espresso Truffle.  Next I trimmed it down very closely, distressed the edges just a little and brushed the edges with Tim Holtz® Distress Inks in Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap.  I made my card base with Bazzill® and cut it to make a 5x5 card base.  I trimmed my patterned papers from My Mind's Eye™ Lost and Found Two Rosy 6x6 pad, distressed their edges a little with inks and adhered them to the base.  I adhered my main image as well with Beacon Adhesive Zip Dry.  I set this aside and stamped my words using the Stampendous!® Small Typewriter Alphabet Perfectly Clear™ Stamps set.  I cut the words out, layered and adhered them on patterned paper and added a little ink around their edges.  Using pop dots, I placed them on the card.  For a final touch, I mixed Bronze Crushed Glass Glitter with Sage Color Fragments and adhered it with Zip Dry.

That's it!  Pretty darn easy and very cool with a vintage twist!  Be sure to check out the Stampendous!® blog for more inspiration!  Don't forget about the free shipping through July 31 on orders over $50.00 if you're in the U.S.  Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you again soon!

Hugs,

Lea

Vase Bouquet in May!

One of my favorite things about May is all the flowers in bloom.  They're everywhere here in Winston-Salem and they are stunning!  May puts on a radiant show in my neck of the woods!  Well, Stampendous!® has put on quite a show with new floral stamps, too!  This is Vase Bouquet and is one of my new favorites!  I love, love, love this stamp!  The versatility is awesome as this stamp can be used for Mother's Day, which is right around the corner (hint, hint!), birthdays, get well, happy anniversary, thinking of you, congratulations, the list could just go on.  Most of the floral stamps from Stampendous!® could be used in the same manner, you really get a lot of bang for your buck!  Isn't this image just gorgeous!?

So here's what I did to create this card.  For starters, I stamped my image with Memento® Tuxedo Black on Neenah® Classic Crest and colored with Copic® markers.  I trimmed the image down and added Tim Holtz™ Distress Ink in Antique Linen all around the edges and close to the image.  One of the reasons I like to do this is because it really finishes the look and makes the image pop.  This is a good sized image so I wanted to make the card a 6x6.  I could have gone smaller but sometimes I prefer a bigger card!  Anyway, the card base is Bazzill® and my patterned papers are from Bo Bunny's® Little Miss Collection.  I just trimmed them to fit and adhered them with Beacon Adhesive's Zip Dry™.  My ribbon is from May Arts and my pearls are from Queen & Co.  I think the ribbon and pearls are just the right touch for this image!

Stampendous!® is showing off all the new flowers from the April catalog this week so be sure to go to the blog and check them out.  While you're there, you'll notice two awesome things, one is Stampendous!® is offering free shipping on all retail orders over $50 to U.S. addresses.  This awesome offer is going on through July 31st!  The second cool thing you'll notice is a link to our new digital downloads.  We have one called Flowery Phrases Digital Download that is just perfect for our new floral stamps!  There are several other awesome digital downloads available for a very reasonable price so be sure to check them all out, some even have art and not just sentiments; now that's a bargain! Today I'm posting with Cyndi and Jamie, here's their links:  

Cyndi

Jamie

 Here's a recap of my teammates that have posted lovely floral creations designed to inspire you earlier this week; I hope you'll check them out if you haven't already!

Asia

Cyndi

Jamie

Jennifer

Jennifer

Kristine

Kristine

Steph

Steph

Suzz

Tobi

That's it for today, I'll have another new creation for you soon so be sure to check back!  Have a great day!

Hugs,

Lea

Steampunk Oz!

The Wizard of Oz has always been a favorite movie of mine.  Stampendous has created several new stamps featuring the crew from Oz that are sure to be favorites for any lover of all things Oz combined with some Steampunk style!  This is my favorite image from the new Oz release, called Overlooking Oz.  I just love her little dog!  

 I stamped the image with Memento Tuxedo Black on Neenah Classic Crest and colored the image with Copics.  My card base is Bazzill, the gingham paper is My Mind's Eye Lost and Found Two Rosy, the hot air balloon paper is Basic Grey's What's Up.  I added a little Nicole's red satin ribbon to finish it off!  Easy peasy but oh so cute!  

I hope you've been checking out the Stampendous blog this week.  We've been sharing all the cute new Oz images.  There's lots of Design Team eye candy just waiting for you!  Next week we'll be previewing all the new floral images so be sure to check back.  Thanks for stopping by!

Hugs,
Lea

Spring Tree

Hi there!  It's spring and I'm ready for some happy!  Some Dreamweaver Stencils happy!  That means I have a sweet little project for you today that made me happy while I was creating it and I hope you like it too.  This is the first in a series of four small canvases I'm creating with one of my favorite stencils, LX 7020 Leafless Tree.  I absolutely love this stencil!  I have a thing for trees, I always have, I always will!  I don't know what it is about them but they just speak to my soul.

You might wonder how this little canvas fits into the current monthly challenge at Dreamweaver Stencils, it's easy!  I used Memories Mists for almost all of my color!  I used Stormy Water, Amaretto, Plum Sake and  Iridescent Memories Mists.  I did use another brand of ink for my green as I don't have any from Dreamweaver in my personal stash, I know I will have to fix that!  May I just say, I love how easy it is to mix the Memories Mists with the paste to create a variety of paste colors!

So here's how I created this little canvas!  First of all, I gave it a wash of gesso just to give it a little tooth.  When that dried I took the Stormy Water and Iridescent sprays, mixed a little of each together, watered it down just a little and and brushed it on leaving room at the bottom for my "grass."  Next I took some green spray and watered it down just a little and brushed it on.  There was just a slight overlap of the blue and green which gave me that nice dark green line.  Once my background dried, I mixed my paste for my tree with some white embossing paste, matte black embossing paste and some Amaretto (brown) spray.  After I anchored my stencil down, I spread my paste, removed the stencil and set it aside to dry some more.  Once it was dry, I mixed my "blossom" paste using white embossing paste and Plum Sake spray.  Using a brush I just dabbed it on all around the tree making sure I had plenty of yummy texture!  Using my finger, I went back and dabbed some more of my "tree" paste on the trunk of the tree to give it more texture as well..  I set it aside one final time and waited for it to dry before taking my pictures.  Fun, easy and kinda happy!  Here's a close-up of the tree:

Every spring here in North Carolina, we have these beautiful trees with pink blossoms that look pretty much just like this!  Here's a partial picture of my inspiration:

So that's it for me today, I'll post the next one in the series soon!  More members of the Dream Team have created special projects for your viewing pleasure and inspiration and can be found here:

Dream It Up!
Lea Kimmel (That's me!)

Alison Heikkila
Louise Healy
Stacey Rumsby
Terrece Siddoway
Caroline Duncan
Pam Hornschu
Cherylynn Moser 

Feel free to leave some love for us and don't forget to play along.  Mr. Linky on the Dream It Up! blog is just waiting for you!  Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you soon!

Hugs,

Lea

More Project Life!

Yay!  It's Blog Hop day!  Here's another Becky Higgins Project Life layout of my daughter's wedding.  How fun and easy these pages are!  They're so simple to create and you can add as many photos or accent pieces as pockets allow!  Here's my page and a close-up of the inserts I created:

I used a variety of stamp sets for this page, two of them are new and will soon be available in a store near you or online!  The new sets I used are:  Big Top Type Perfectly Clear ™ Stamps and Hand of Friendship Perfectly Clear ™ Stamps.  The stamps I used are Dream Text Background Stamp, Bride and Groom, Happy Couple, Heart Stack and Mr. & Mrs.  Obviously these are all stamps from Stampendous®!  I've also used Memento Ink, Tim Holtz® Distress Inks in Spun Sugar and Picked Raspberry, as well as Copic® Markers.  The paper is Neenah® Classic Crest.  

I hope you enjoy my page and that it gives you a little inspiration.  I have several team mates that have also created some inspiration for you so I hope you will take a look and leave them a little love along the way!  

Krissy

Janelle

Kristine

Cyndi

Jamie

Tobi

Have a great day!  I'll see you again soon!

Hugs,

Lea

My Life IS a Project!

Honest!  It really is!  I know I'm here by God's grace and I know He isn't finished with me yet, therefore, I'm His project!  Some days I feel like His "pet project" and some days I feel like I've been put on the shelf!  That's just how life goes and that's okay because I'm still here!  He hasn't finished with me yet; I hope He doesn't any time soon!

I have a smattering of projects in my craft dungeon, some are high priority and some are definitely riding on the back burner.  I bet you can relate!  My crafty time is really limited right now with ball season in full swing. Well, let me tell you, Becky Higgins Project Life makes it so easy to create wonderful memory pages without a whole lot of time involvement.  My kind of scrapping!  Project Life offers a variety of page protectors and they do have some really cute card inserts, however, it's a lot more fun and economical to stamp and create your own!  I think it gives your pages a more personal touch.

I'm way behind on photos and scrap booking (I know I'm not the only one, don't laugh at me!) and these are some pictures of my daughters wedding six and a half years ago.  Yeah, yeah, I'm WAY behind!  That cute little blond bomb in the tux is my son, Daniel, he's now 10 and still just as cute!  Oh, and here's a fun fact for you!  Daniel and my daughter that's getting married in these photos, Rachel, were born on the same day 18 years apart!

For this layout, I used Happy Messages Perfectly Clear Stamps™ by Stampendous® and Hand of Friendship Perfectly Clear Stamps™ by Stampendous®.  I stamped the images on Neenah Classic Crest using Memento Tuxedo Black.  Next I colored the floral images with Copics and edged each piece with Tim Holtz Distress Ink in Mowed Lawn.  This was incredibly fast, easy and fun!

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you again soon!  Hope you have a wonderful day!

Hugs,
Lea

Wait for the Sunshine

Do you ever have days or even weeks when it seems like there's someone always raining on your parade?  I've had a lot of those days in recent weeks but I refuse to let the "rain" get me down.  I was blessed with one of those unsinkable spirits that might take a dive now and then but quickly rises back to the top.  I love the sunshine too much to let the rain bother me!  So, I patiently wait for the sunshine.  I know it's right around the corner!  Or, right here on this card!

This is my first official post as part of the Dreamweaver Stencils Dream Team!  I can't even begin to tell you how happy I am to be a part of this talented group of ladies.  It is truly a blessing.  I've had several people tell me they wouldn't know what to do with a stencil if they had one.  Seriously!?  This surprised me!  I guess I have been paper crafting so long now that I'm always surprised when someone tells me they're afraid of a technique I see as simple.  I forget that not everyone has the same level of experience I have.  So, today's card is very simple but pretty darn cute if I may say so myself!

For this card, I let the paper take the lead!  This patterned paper was already adorable, all I did was airbrush some raindrops on with my Copic marker and airbrush system, how simple is that!  The stencil used was LJ 905 Rain and may be purchased here.  I can't believe how easy this was!  Then, all I had to do was layer my airbrushed patterned paper on a Bazzill card base, stamp my sentiment from My Favorite Things, layer it on more patterned paper and Bazzill and DONE!  Very easy, very quick and very cute!  So simple a caveman could do it!  (Snicker!)

More members of the Dream Team have created special projects for your viewing pleasure and inspiration and can be found here:

Dream It Up!
Lea Kimmel (That's me!)

Alison Heikkila
Louise Healy
Stacey Rumsby
Terrece Siddoway
Caroline Duncan
Pam Hornschu
Cherylynn Moser 

Feel free to leave some love for us and don't forget to play along.  Mr. Linky on the Dream It Up! blog is just waiting for your card, he has attachment issues!  Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you soon!

Hugs,

Lea