Treasure Chest - Animal Kingdom

It's time for another blog hop from the Gina K CSS alumni team. Carolina has come up with a new theme called Treasure Chest - this month's treasure chest is a tribute to the Animal Kingdom and we were each asked to create a card or project that features one of Gina K's animal sets.

You should have arrived at my blog from Meisje's blog. If so, you are on the right path. If not you can start at the Stamp TV main page and start from the top.

I chose the Whatever Floats Your Boat stamp set and made this little baby card.

I punched out my sets of squares from Gina K Spring Colors CS in the blue and pink. I adhered them to Pure Luxury Chocolate base weight CS - then I ran that whole layer through my Swiss Dots CB embossing folder.

The focal point of my card is the sweet giraffe image which is matted with several layers and then popped up on dimensionals.  I bent the "window" up for a 3D effect - and tucked the sentiment flag under the giraffe layer.   I added a few pearls for an accent. I'm sorry I don't remember where I saw this layout but I thought it was perfect for my card.

Make sure to leave a comment as you hop along because on Tuesday morning (March 1st), we will randomly choose one of the comments from all the blogs and that commenter will get a stamp set of their choice valued up to $24.95!

It's time to HOP along to Peggy Weiman's blog.

Thanks for stopping by - your comments are always encouraging and you make my day!!!
Hugs n Smiles,

Gina K CSS Blog Hop

It's time for a Stamp TV sketch blog hop brought to you by Gina K's Center Stage Alumni. You should have arrived here from Meisje's blog. (If not be sure to go back to Stamp TV and start at the begining and make all of the stops along the hop have a chance for a free Gina K stamp set!!)

If you are looking for my JUGS post please click here.

Here's the sketch we followed:

I wanted to make a card that is sort of a sympathy card but really it's a "Not Forgotten" card.  I've  used stamps from the set by that name from Gina K.

The papers I used are all from Gina K Designs. Black Pure Luxury Base weight CS for my card. Digital papers called Vintage Basics designed by Nina Bracket for GinaK. The words Dad, Husband and Son come from the Not Forgotten set. I used the polka dot frame stamp from Lovely Labels 2 . I finished it off with a bit of soft blue seam binding accented with a black button and a few black pearls. I used my Square Nesties to make the focal image (popped up on dimensionals).

Here's the inside of the card:

Another of the Vintage Basics paper, stamped with a sentiment from Not Forgotten stamp set. Flourish accent stamp is from Lovely Labels 2.

Ok - time to HOP on over to the next stop:

Peggy Wainman

Make sure to leave a comment as you hop along because on Tuesday morning (February 1st), we will randomly choose one of the comments from all the blogs who will get a Gina K Designs stamp set of their choice valued up to $24.95!

Thanks for stopping by - have a great weekend!

Hugs n Smiles

March of the Snowmen

Wow I can't believe it's been a year already and it's time for the 2nd (annual!) March of the Snowmen blog hop. There is blog candy involved so be sure you read all the way down and leave comments :-) I'm showcasing a couple of ideas for you - one is a new post and one is a project I did earlier but I think you'll enjoy the snowmen anyhow.

I wanted to make some glass ornaments with the acetate images inside but didn't get around to it in time for Christmas so I used this opportunity to make a cute little snowman ornament. I MAY use these for the girls in the office next Christmas but at least I got to try out the technique. I think it turned out really cute :-) and it was easy to do!

The image is from JustRite - it's part of the set called Old Fashioned Christmas 3-1/4. I colored the image with Sharpies on acetate - cut out the circle with a Nestie and then it gets popped into a glass ornament that I filled with some fake snow.

In the close up you might be able to see that some of the "snow" sticks to the glass making for a softer effect.

Next up---

Here's my snowman gift card set. I used non-traditional Christmas colors for these groovy little guys.

This little gift box is made from an empty Laughing Cow cheese box. I decorated the top to coordinate with the contents and added some PTI ribbon to the edge of the top and bottom.

The inside bottom of the box is decorated, too, for fun! Once you lift all the cards out there's a sweet sentiment in the bottom from JustRite's All Occasion Nested Sentiements set.

I also added a nestie circle to the bottom to cover up the nutritional label ;-).

Here are the cards I made using JustRite's Groovy Snowmen set. I LOVE this set and used it a lot this year.

That's all for now - thanks for for stopping by - hope you like my GROOVY snowmen! I love these images. I foresee lots of snowmen in my stamping future!! :-)

NOW "march" along to the next blog - don't forget there's some great candy up for grabs as well so be sure to leave comments as you march. Look for specifics on each site.

Angella Crockett
Barb Foster
Deb Felts
Holly Brown
Jen Carter
JenMarie Taylor
Joan Ervin
Julie Ranae
Kim Sears
Laurie Willison
Linda Lucas
Lynn Stevens
Pam Imholz <- You are here
Patti Gilliam
Sue Pelletier
Stacy Rogers
Melisa Waldorf

Have a great week girls.

Hugs n smiles,

Happy Birthday To...

Yeehaw - it's time for a rockin' stompin' birthday blog hop to honor TWO of the My Time Made Easy Girls.  First off - stepping up with the first birthday is the one and only Ms. Lauren Meader - the owner and founder of MTME. Lauren's birthday is tomorrow (Monday) so we want to wish her a HUGE and very HAPPY birthday. Please stop by Lauren's blog and leave her a little love...

I just had to use butterflies AND I had to make a purple card for Lauren. I used the fabulous new Puckered Up Patterns stamp set to make the background. It's hard to see but there is a white flower stamped as part of the background. I was pleased with the results. A gorgeous butterfly image for my focal point (from Petal Perfection) and a sentiment from the Just for You sentiment set.  Hope you enjoy it Lauren!

Next up - with a birthday only 2 days after Lauren is the charming and talented Stephanie Kraft! Stephanie is one of the relatively new MTME team members but you would not know that from the quality of her work.  HAPPY, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Stephanie! SO glad to have you on the team. Please stop by Stephanie's blog and leave her a few good wishes as well.

Once again I used the Puckered Up Patterns to create the background. The focal image is made up with pieces of the new Sensational Stems set. Sentiment is from So Sentimental. I don't know Stephanie's favorite colors so I need to ask her that one :-)  {{Steph - if you're reading this - what IS your fave color?}}

Ok girls - that's all for now - got to RUN! Hope both of your birthdays are the BEST EVER! Celebrate with abandon and enjoy your special days.

Now pop over to the rest of the blog hop participants and check out their birthday creations as well.

♥♥♥♥♥

Katie Shawger Cotton

Tracey Cuccia

Geny Cassady

Dawn Easton

Kristin Bueter

Silke Ledlow
Mona Pendleton 

Thanks for stopping by.
Hpugs n Smiles,

Irish Blessings - Waltzingmouse Blog Hop

Top o' the evenin' to ya! I am so excited to be able to participate in my first Waltzingmouse Blog Hop. I have been a fan of Claire's since I ran into her in another stamping forum. She really tickles my fancy :-)

In honor of St. Patrick's Day - here's my non-traditional Irish Blessings card.

Claire provided some absolutely wonderful FREE digi images for us to work with for tonight's hop if we wanted.  Well, I loved the clover image so I grabbed up my Copics and started coloring. When I was done I added some tiny green rain drops to the centers.  Here's a close up.

I could not find any green paper in my abundant CS supply that coordinated with the greens in my clover (*gasp I couldn't believe it!) so I decided to go with the yellow and rust colors instead. Non traditional Irish colors, I know.  I printed up and punched out the Irish Blessings stamp (It's part of another wonderful image) for my sentiment. A few more rain drops under the senti then a couple of bigger green sparkly embellies for a wee bit' o bling. (Stampin Bella I think).  I did some CB embossing, used my nesties and some ribbon from my stash. Thanks, Claire for the fabulous images - love them!!!

Here are the Copics I used:

Thanks for hoppin' by. Have a great St. Patty's Day!
Hugs n Smiles,

Hope for Haiti

Hope is Faith... A fundraising effort to help earthquake devastated Haiti.

Feelings of Hope 

Gina K has challenged the CenterStage Spotlight team to make a card with the new Hope is Faith stamp set using the photo above for inspiration.  Check out Gina's blog for all the details on this special stamp set.

Here's my card... and one more below as well.

I worked with a bit of the flower colors although mine are not quite as bright and I used a similar style flower on my card. The butterfly was stamped on velum and copic colored then cut out and popped up for dimension. I used the crackled background stamp from Gina K's Bold Flowers - I embossed it with a mustard colored EP but it really lightened up when it heat set. It's new so maybe it's supposed to do that? I also had a beautiful blended yellow ribbon in my stash which pulled the yellows into my color palette and it worked perfectly to stamp the sentiment right onto the ribbon. My 2nd layer is embossed with swiss dots CB folder. A few golden rhinestones for a touch of sparkle. On the inside I used the same yellow paper but stamped a portion of the B-fly in the corner.

Here's another card I made with this same set for the recent Gina K release party. If you were at the party you probably saw this one.

On this one I used Theresa's awesome digi paper called Wings of Hope. It's beautiful. Isn't it great how completely different the two cards are - all depending on colors, accents, bling etc. I love the versatility of these beautiful stamps and papers. *sigh*

Those of you who have come to know my story might remember that I was on the Stampin' Cruise with GinaK in October 2008. Haiti was our first port of call and it was an amazing experience. I hold a special memories of this beautiful island and want to help the people who have suffered such loss.

Feelings of Hope Blog Hop

Please stop by these designers who are also participating in the hop tonight:

Jessica Fick

Diana S. Queen

Tina Gilliland

Pam Imholz (<--You are here!)

Carla Suto

Cheri Weston

Jennie Harper

Joy Hadden

Shannon Bracken

Karen Knegten

JenMarie Taylor

Brenda Turner

Giovanna Smith

Sue Morris

Melissa Shultz

Peggy Wainman

Sharri Seffens

Carolina Buchting

Geri Utterback

Melissa Cash

Betty Neville

Janice Melton

Jen Charboneau

DeeMarie Kelemen

Linda Payne

Lori McAree

Kay Simmons

Shelly Wilson

Selma Stevenson

Sue Walsh

Thanks for stopping by.

Hugs n Smiles,

Gina K Sweet Treat Blog Hop

Do you love sweet treats for the holidays? OK - dumb question - Then be sure to follow along on this Christmas Treat Recipe Blog Hop presented to you by Gina K's CenterStage Alumni from StampTV - those of us participating have "cooked up" some recipes and coordinating cards for your eating and viewing pleasure...



First up - here's a photo of the Candy Cane Oreo treats I made (be sure to check out the recipe document on Stamp TV under the "Freebies" tab!!!) My "peppermint" flameless candle was a perfect accessory to this plate of cookies.

Next - I made a coordinating card to go with my goodies.

Red and white was an obvious choice to go with my treats - Rocket Red and Pure Luxury White CS (GKD). I then used several stamps from the Vintage Borders set - I was DEEELIGHTED with how sharp the images are when embossed - the writing is quite fine and using detail embossing powder still provided a very sharp, crisp image! A fun piece of red and white striped ribbon was perfect to keep with the "candy cane" idea. The scallop at the top is an embossed image from the stamp set (I LOVE THIS SET!!!)

Here's a close up of the detail embossing.

Next, the entire ensemble... cookies and card - ready for gift giving OR just sharing at a holiday party.

AND finally, here is the inside of the card...  more Vintage Borders PLUS sentiment from the Festive Frame stamp set.

Thanks for hopping by - I hope I whet your appetite for a sweet treat AND some great eye candy, too!

Several members of the Center Stage Spotlight Team have whipped up some treats in their kitchens and their stamp rooms over the past few weeks so we could compile our very first Recipe Book for StampTV! Check out these designer's blogs for the sweet projects they've designed around their treats:

Carolina Buchting
Carla Suto
Deb Felts
Donna Baker
Giovana Smith
Jennie Harper
Jessica Fick
Joy Hadden
Karen Knegten
Kay Simmons
Lee Murphy
Linda Payne
Lori McAree
Melissa Cash
Pam Imholz
Selma Stevenson
Sue Morris
Sue VanDeVusse
Sue Walsh
Vicki Dutcher

Then, stop by GinaK's blog for a super sweet give-away she has tonight in honor of the hop!

The Recipe Book will be available as a free download PDF on StampTV tonight as well. Look for it on the Freebie Tab link.

***Check out the cover of the holiday treat booklet!!! :-)  :-)  :-) 

March of the Snowmen!

Who loves snowmen??? I know I DO! It's finally time for Melisa Waldorf's (first annual?!) "March of the Snowmen" blog hop. I was super excited to be invited to participate in this. I have four total snowmen projects to share so scroll all the way down.

For my snowman card I used a simple layout and an "oldie" stamp that I just love but I don't know where I got it... (I'm sorry) It's called Wintertime.

I kept the layout simple so the focus could be on the main image which was colored with pencils and OMS. I added lots of glitter accents. For other accessories I used my Cuttlebug snowflake embosser, some SU! ribbon, square nesties, Martha Stewart snowflake punch, rhinestone bling... I hope she "melts your heart" - I use her quite a bit during our Chicago winters to send cards to my California friends :-)

Here's a close up of the snowman... oh no...  wait that's a SnowWoman! :-)

Next up - I'm making some tile coasters as Christmas gifts and one of the sets features one of my all time favorite snowmen from Stampin Up! called Flaky Friends. Here's one of the tiles - stamped with black Staz-on ink then colored with Sharpies. Sentiment is from PTI's Snowfall. I stood the tile up on end to photograph it - there is a cork backing on it to protect the table.

Here's a close up of these fun snowmen...

Finally - here are two other snowmen projects I just posted recently - this one is using Gina K's Funky Christmas snowman and some FUN colors (click this link to see the full post about it).

Finally, click this link for my recent post on this adorable little snowdude....

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed this hop along your "march"! If you have snowmen projects be sure to leave me a comment with a link to YOUR blog and I'll stop by and take a peek and leave you a comment, too!

OK - now MARCH ALONG to the rest of the Marchers to see what wonderfulness they have each created for you! I'll be anxious to see your comments and to know if you liked this.

Melisa Waldorf <- Our Hostess for the March!

Angella Crockett

Barb Foster

Deb Felts

Jen Carter

JenMarie Taylor

Jodi Houser
Kelly Landers

Latisha Yoast

Laurie Unger

Laurie Willison
Linda Duke

Michelle Bartnett
Mona Pendleton
Pam Imholz (that's ME!) <- You are here!
Stacy Rogers

CSS Challenge Blog Hop

It's time for another Gina K Designs Center Stage Spotlight DT Challenge Blog hop!

Hostess: Jessica Fick (our lovely DT coordinator)
Challenge for this hop: Stamp and color your image on Patterned Paper

     (ok to cut out and pop up the image as long as it was stamped and colored on PP first)

Requirement: Use any Gina K Designs stamp set and use **Glitter**

Bonus Challenge: Decorate the inside of your card to coordinate

So... with all of that in mind, here's the card I came up with - this was really hard for me to figure out - which image would show up and not fight with the patterned paper, and which patterned paper to use...

I needed a birthday card for a friend who loves butterflies, so I started playing with the butterfly from Gina K's Take Flight. I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch and stamped the butterfly on some SU! designer paper (with butterflies) then colored the stamped butterfly with my copics. This was the hard part - the colors changed since my base paper color was not white - but in all, it kind of deepened the color palette I was working with so it still coordinated.  I added my glitter on the butterfly wings with Sakura clear stardust pens then cut it out.  I actually stamped a 2nd butterfly on white CS and cut it out just a tiny bit bigger so that my colored butterfly would "pop" more. I added a sentiment from the Tag Lines set (also stamped directly on the patterned paper) and some pearls as embellies.

Finally, here's what I did on the inside: the sentiment is one I've had for ages and I use it a lot.

Participating Designer's: Be sure to visit these talented Center Stage Spotlight members's blogs:

Brenda Turner
Carla Suto
Carolina Buchting
Cheri Weston
Deb Felts
Geri Utterback
Giovana Smith
Gina Krupsky
Janice Melton
JenMarie Taylor 
Jessica Fick 
Jennie Harper
Joy Hadden
Karen Knegten
Kay Simmons
  Linda Payne
  Lori McAree
Melisa Waldorf
Melissa Cash
Melissa Shultz
Nina Brackett
Peggy Wainman
Selma Stevenson
Shannon Bracken
Sharri Seffens
Sue Morris
Sue VanDeVusse
Sue Walsh
Tina Gilliland

Thanks for stopping by. Hope you are inspired from the many beautiful creations you see tonight. Have a lovely weekend.

PTI Blog Hop

Time for yet another PTI Blog Hop - what was I thinking??? The day before Thanksgiving!!?? Ok - this month's assignment was quick and easy wrap or tag. Well, when I think quick and easy along with WRAP I immediately turn to My Timeless Templates.

This month I used the petite version of the Take Along Tote. I whipped up three of them in no time using the Rustic Snowflake paper. Each one can nicely hold a gift card or some sweet treats, a small lotion, etc. I've packaged up one of them with two packages of hot chocolate mix, some chocolate covered peppermint sticks and a tube of Burt's Bees lip gloss. Since I'll be popping these gift boxes onto my co-workers desks I didn't even need to make tags - can't be any easier than that! I will totally miss Lauren as part of the PTI team and wish her ALL the best in her new venture. I look forward to what else is in store :-)

The button detail on these totes makes them fun and cheery.

And the backs are just as cute as the fronts. I've made my co-workers several gifts using the templates over the past year and most of them still have the adorable boxes on their desks - when I say - "Why don't you take it home?" they reply - "Cause they are too cute!"

Happy Thanksgiving all. I won't get all the hoppin' done tonight but I will get around.