Have i mentioned how much I love Perfect Pearls....?????

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I just completed this wall hanging for Easter and I just love it! The shimmer is unbelievable! I did lots of new things here (new to me) and this is my first real foray into chipboard :) Not as scary as I thought! ha ha!! It was quite involved but i really enjoyed it - lots of opportunity for creativity AND used the Easter stamp set from CTMH that i just love so much! If you are interested you can view the tutorial here.

On a side note - a dear MB friend and customer, Jackie Russet, lost everything in the flooding in Australia recently. For those so inclined I have set up a gift certificate button on my website to help her replace her crarfting goodies. She will be able to use the gift certificate for items in my store as well as other items I will be going out to purchase for her that she has told me she needs. Any amount left over will be deposited into her Paypal account. If you would like to help Jackie click here.

oh how i love goodies!!!

my products from Ranger Ink have started to roll in and boy am I having fun creating examples for my website. i have been using a lot of the techniques shown in the 12 tags. I have two mardi gras ones -i entered Dream in the ranger group jan. challenge. I used distress crakle paint, stamped with vintage photo distress ink and used the foam blending tool to add in ink around the edges of the card. i cut the crown with my cricut, smooshed it down in versamark and then covered it in pale gold pearl embossing powder. i flicked the back pretty hard to knock some off then heat set it. once cooled i smooshed in vinatge photo distress ink into the bare spots with the foam blending tool. the Dream stamp is a studio g :) and the large stamp is a hampton arts that will be available on my website. paper is vanilla cream and wild wasabi from SU.

The second mardi gras card uses two stamps i found at http://www.scrappersaurus.com/index.html

i stamped the crawfish with versamark to make a watermark and stamped the large stamp with versamark and covered with various colors of distress embossing powder. inked the background with the foam blending tool and used the same technique as above for the crown and mask i cut with my cricut.

the last two cards are nearly the same just with different colors. i smeared the whole background with versamrk and covered it with bridal tinsel embossing powder. i flicked the back hard and then heat set. next i took distress ink and smooshed it into the bare spaces with the foam blending tool. I stamped the rose with distress inks - which can also function as an embossing ink - and covered them with bridal tinsel and heat set. then i used the foam blender tool to color around the stamp and edged using vintage photo distress ink. the photo corners are cut with the cricut and colored with vintage photo distress ink too. the picture doesn't do justice to the shimmery-ness of the bridal embossing tinsel - i LOVE it. i DO, however, need to work on stamping my words straight :P

i had LOADS of fun with my new stuff and hope others try it out if they haven't already played with any of it. i have a lot more in store too.

The Diaper-head Gang

This is my favorite game Daddy plays with Pez - too funny huh?? they've been doing it since she was little.

We got 5" of snow Thursday so I took Pez out to play in it for the first time - she was pretty amused. Most of it had melted. She liked the water from the melted snow the most though and at one point was UNDER the drips off my hubby's big rock crawling jeep - eeewwww.

Got two adorable Valentine's Cards done for the first meeting of this round of Tech Club - we are focusing on embossing and I think they turned out well. We are alternating between a Close to my Heart demo and me as Stampin Up demo - this month is CTMH items so that is what I have here.

Pancake Puff Pan

Yes, that's right, it says pancake puff pan - surely you've seen the commercial. Well every time it came on Hubby got so excited - so what do you get the guys who has everything for Christmas?? A pancake puff pan of course! Complete with the chef's upgrade kit. Unfortunately, like everything else, it did not make it here for Christmas but we got it this week and I promised to use it today for breakfast. So we just finished having pancake puffs filled with strawberry jam or whipped cream. Well it actually works quite well and everyone scarfed 'em down. :P

Finally got to play around some this morning and finished my first four card kit examples. They are Valentine's cards featuring embossing. I am hoping to make treat bags to go with these - we'll see. These both have stickles crystal accents on the printed paper too but it doesn't show up well in the pic. Turned out quite well I think:

I made a third one but....well, ever have what you think is going to be fabulous laid out in your head and when you're finished you say - WOW! Now that's an ugly card! I took the ribbon off at DH's suggestion and added a bit of stickles to some of the dots on the patterend paper and it's better but still a bit iffy (on the left) but I like the other one: