Follow Your Bliss…

Hi there! Well, I am home safe and sound after the most fabulous trip! It was the perfect mix of work and fun with great friends. For me, the show is just the icing on the cake. Getting to be with my friends is always the best part.

As promised, here are some pics of the new stuff! Today I will focus on Basic Grey, who always knocks me out. This year, butterflies were *everywhere*, and Basic Grey was among the best of the best. (Click for full size pics!) Allow me to introduce:

Ambrosia (my number one fave)

Urban Prairie (my tied for first fave, LOL!)

Eva (drool…)

Granola

Offbeat

Here’s a shot of some of their projects

And here’s their new chipboard in white chocolate chip, milk chocolate chip, and dark chocolate chip (drool)

They are also releasing FABRIC!!! Yes, soon you will be able to purchase Basic Grey Sultry fabric! YUMMY!!!!! As usual, Basic Grey has another awesome release. How do they do it time after time?

I’ll be back with more eye candy!

Well hello there!

I’ve been having such an awesome time here this year! I’ll be sharing pictures of the show soon, but I wanted to share some photos from downtown with you.

I was fortunate enough to be invited to see the city with Lindsey, Michele and her family! This is such an amazing city!! I don’t have time for a lot of narration this morning, But just wanted to show you some photos from our tour of the city. We walked the Magnificent Mile, and went on a river and shore boat tour as well. FABULOUS! Hope you like the pics! Click on them to view full size.

I’ll be back soon with some yummy eye candy!

The winner of the Spellbinders Ric Rac Scalloped Pierceabilities dies from Sunday’s post is:

Mary Ann Tinney!!!

WOO HOO!! Congrats, Mary Ann! Kim from Spellbinders has emailed you, so be sure to answer her and claim your prize!

Don’t forget that the Grand Prize Winner of a new RASPBERRY WIZARD and a $500 retail value die package will be posted on Spellbinders’ Homepage www.spellbinders.us on July 18^th.

WOO HOO!! Imagine my delight when I received an email from the fabulously awesome Anna Wight, asking me be to be a Whipper Snapper featured designer for July and August! It took me about 4 seconds to respond with a resounding YES!! LOL! I am honored to be among a group of ultra talented designers and friends. Check out this lineup!

Pam Hooten
Blog: http://pamhooten.blogspot.com
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/iris

Jami Sibley
Blog: http://jami.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/jami

Carol Halvorson
Blog: http://happinessblooms.blogspot.com/
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/hb

Leslie Miller
Blog: http://leslierich.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/leslierich

and Anna of course!!
Blog: http://sweetmissdaisy.typepad.com
SCS Gallery: http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/go/sweetmissdaisy

Where Flowers Bloom…

The 2 sets we will be designing with are Blossoms & Butterflies and Blooming Expressions. As far as I am concerned, you just can’t go wrong with butterflies, flowers, and sentiments, right? RIGHT!

My design was inspired by this card of Debbie’s. I had received a set of Spellbinder’s new Butterfly dies, and just knew it would be perfect for this design. First, I knew I would need a mask, so I cut the butterfly in a piece of scrap paper cut to the same size as the cardfront, about 4 3/4″ and set it aside. Next, I embossed the die into a Fabriano Medioevalis notecard, added the outer mask, and replaced the die on the card. This left the inside of the butterfly open for stamping the images. I stamped the flowers and butterfly using Versafine Onyx black ink.

I removed the die and mask, and chose to watercolor this image for a change of pace. It has been a long time since I watercolored! When I think of watercoloring, I think of Anna…she is the master! I used Adirondack inks in wild plum, raspberry, eggplant, butterscotch, lettuce, stream, and espresso.

With my watercoloring complete, I once again added the outer mask and die, and used my Copic airbrush system with the Y21 marker to airbrush the inside of the butterfly. Once that was completed, I masked the entire butterfly (with the butterfly I cut from the scrap paper), and airbrushed some BG11 around the outside. I added some shading around the flowers and butterfly with my C2 Copic marker.

To finish off the card, I sponged some Ranger vintage photo ink around the edges for depth, added a row of bling to draw your eye to the sentiment, pierced the antennae, and knotted some black gingham ribbon through eyelets. The final touch was adding Stickles to the butterfly and flowers!

Be sure to check out all of the other guest designers! I can’t wait to see what they have done.

Thanks for visiting!

Can you believe it? Today is the last Spellbinders Birthday Celebration sneak peek! At the end of this post you will find a copy of the official rules for the Spellbinders Birthday Celebration Sneak Peek Party Drawing for the dies I’m sharing with you today, and for a chance at the grand prize of a new raspberry Wizard and $500 worth of Spellbinders dies.

I personally think they saved the best for last, but I am a wee bit biased of these AWESOME dies! Allow me to introduce Spellbinders Pierceabilities!

These cards use the RicRac Scalloped Pierceability die set (S4-166 with an MSRP of $19.99).

As with all of the Spellbinder’s dies, you can cut, emboss, and stencil with these. In addition to that, they are piercing templates! Genius I tell ya! PURE GENIUS! They are also perfect for using with the Copic Airbrush system as seen here:

Are these dies not the most gorgeous things you have ever seen? Take a peek at these pocket cards I have created with these beauties:

As you can see, your possibilities are endless with these amazing Spellbinders Pierceability dies. How about making some gorgeous belly bands to wrap around a set of cards? Create a band to wrap around a candle for the perfect gift! The results are so professional, no one would believe you when you said that you handmade it!

If you already have another die-cutting machine and need to know how to use Spellbinders dies with it, check out these YouTube videos.

The deadline for this last drawing is 12:00 midnight Central Standard Time on July 14^th.

Be sure to follow these instructions!
The name of the Grand Prize winner will be posted on Spellbinders’ Homepage www.spellbinders.us on July 18^th.

Click here to enter the drawing. If this pop-up link does not work or you use an email client that does not work with this pop-up box, you may copy and paste this address to send your entry via email to - newdierelease@spellbinders.us.

Spellbinders Birthday Celebration

Sneak Peek Party Drawing Information

Spellbinders will randomly pick one entry from each of the 14 Spellbinders Sneak Peek Blog reveals as stated in the “Rules”. This name will be drawn to receive the die being revealed on said blog. These entries must follow all rules stated below to be valid for the drawing.

Entrants visiting all 14 Spellbinders Birthday Celebration Sneak Peeks Blog reveals and correctly entering their information into the 14 separate drawings, as described below, will automatically be entered into a GRAND PRIZE give away of a new RASPBERRY WIZARD and a $500 retail value die package!

Rules

Any participant wishing to be included in the daily drawing for the Spellbinders Birthday Celebration Sneak Peek die give away must adhere to all of the following rules:

1)Participant must click on the provided drawing link on blog to enter each individual drawing on sneak peeks between June 30 and July 13.

2)Participant must type in the subject line the name of the die being revealed.

3)Participant must send their entry for this blog before 12:00 midnight Central Standard Time on July 14^th.

4)Participant is only allowed to enter each of the 14 Spellbinders sneak peek blog give away drawings one time per sneak peek. Participant must use the same email address daily to be considered for grand prize entry.

5) Spellbinders Design Team members and employees are not eligible for drawing.

Any participant wishing to be automatically entered into the drawing for the Spellbinders Birthday Celebration Sneak Peek Grand Prize drawing, must enter the drawing from all of the 14 blog reveals and follow all the above rules.

Please note:

*Spellbinders will only use email information to contact the winner.

*Spellbinders will not share this email address with any other parties.

*Spellbinders will not use this email information for advertisements or communications

other than to contact the winner.

*If you wish to be included in further communications from Spellbinders, please go to their homepage and sign up: www.spellbinders.us

If you have questions regarding the contest or entries, you should e-mail Spellbinders to ask them since this is an official Spellbinders Contest.

One more day till my big Spellbinders sneak peek! WOO HOO! I can’t wait to show you tomorrow! Make sure you come back!

This card features Spellbinders Labels 2 Dies, and 2 coordinating stamps from Karen Lockhart: sniffs and ickie sickie. Karen is such a genius when it comes to clever sentiments! This one will get a lot of use on my get well cards, LOL!

I chose patterns from the Basic Grey Sugared collection for this card. These patterns are similar to the patterns in the Blush collection, and I really like them! The sniffs box was paper pieced, outlined with a Copic marker (YG93) and a real piece of tissue was pulled through a cut in the box, just like I did several months ago.

I sponged all of the edges with Ranger vintage photo ink, and added some aged copper brads to the largest label die. While I had the sponge out, I wanted to make the white embossed sentiment “pop” more. I sponged some more vintage photo ink around it, then buffed it with a tissue.

A bit of zig zag stitching, and some Martha Stewart seam binding ribbon finish off the design. It was mounted to a Prism rose light cardbase.

Thanks for visiting! I hope you are enjoying your weekend! I’m off to have some sushi for dinner…YUM!

Ahhhh, it’s Friday once again. My favorite day of the week, as the weekend is just a few torturous hours away, LOL! After I finished work last night, I stayed upstairs and completed two cards. I’ll be sharing the other one tomorrow.

I couldn’t resist using my new Spellbinders dies again. Are they not FABULOUS??? They are so fresh and right on trend. I LOVE them!! This card features the Mega Curved Rectangles, as well as the Labels 1 “bracketed” style die.

The largest die of the Mega Curved Rectangles is 4×6, which makes it perfect for a card! I used another gorgeous sheet of cardstock from the Prima Urban Cosmos double-sided paper pack. I thought the pattern and colors worked well with my Lockhart bowl of strawberries. Don’t you wish you could just sit down with this bowl right now? YUMMY.

I have been using Tsukineko Memento ink for my Copic work for the past several weeks. It is my new favorite! I love the deep, rich black and brown, and it dries in seconds. I colored the image with my Copic markers in the following colors: RV34, R43, R46, R59, YG03, YG17, W3 . Then, I cut and embossed it with the Labels 1 die, and airbrushed with YG00.

The card came together easily, using the reverse solid green color for the matting behind the strawberries. I was looking for a sentiment, when I remembered this one from PaperTrey’s Green Thumb set. Perfect! I used the 2 SU! oval punches, and layered it on the bottom third of the card, along with a bit of yummy May Arts ribbon, that happened to be a perfect match. Don’t you love it when you have the *perfect* ribbon for your card? Just one of those little joys of life, I tell ya! LOL!

I finished off the image with some Stickles on the berries, and melon green Copic Spica glitter pen for the stems and dots on the bowl.

I hope you all have a fabulous day, and don’t forget to come by here on Sunday for my Spellbinders sneak peek!!

Have y’all been checking out the daily Spellbinders sneak peeks? If not, what have you been waiting for? You can win fabulous stuff!! Read about it HERE.

If you have been following us, you’ve seen Linda’s reveal on July 5th of this awesome die set called Mega Curved Rectangles.

I am so in love with all of the new dies, and this set is no exception! I chose to pair it with the new Lockhart Apron, “hot stuff” sentiment, and Prima’s NEW Urban Cosmos paper. OMG this paper is STUNNING!!!!!! And it comes with coordinating flowers as well as some cool trim! Lindsey only has 9 of them left, so I’d run over there and snatch yours up before she sells out!!

I love doing paper piecing when there’s an image with wide open spaces. This apron works perfectly for that, and you can customize it for anything! Aprons aren’t just for cooking…how about an artist apron for an adult or a child? Or for cleaning the house? Or what about for a baby? How about “his & hers” aprons for a wedding? The possibilities are endless for this darling stamp!

This is a pretty simple design, so it does not need much in the way of blah-blah. I did just want to mention that I stamped the image a total of 5 times. Once on the burgundy curved rectangle, once on white cardstock, for the loop around the neck, and ties that hang down, once for the main print of the apron, once on the striped print for the pockets, and once on the dotted print for the towel.

I used my Copic markers in verdigris (G83) and olive (G99), as well as W3 for some shading. A bit of sponging around the edges with Ranger vintage photo ink, some aged copper brads, and a white embossed sentiment finish the design.

I just noticed that this card has no bling or ribbon…GO FIGURE!! Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you have a great day!

WOO HOO!!!! We’ve got 2 winners!!

• manybooks

Happy Birthday, Trudee! I’m going to guess 36 in honor of the 6×6 pad of paper!

~Linda

• HB

Happy Birthday Trudee! I say age is just a number. You look pretty timeless to me!

Congrats Ladies!! I will be emailing you for your addresses!

Thanks to all of you that played, and guessed my age! I turned 38 this year. I can honestly tell you that the number means nothing to me. I know some of you were worried that you would offend me by guessing too old. No offense taken at all! I’m proud of what I have become in these 38 years. I’m healthy, I’m happy, and I am surrounded by fabulous people in my life. Who cares what the number is, and what significance does it have? All that matters is where I am in this journey…and where I am is a really good place.

I wanted to share a couple of pictures with you. This first one is the gift my sister sent to me for my birthday. I am a New England girl at heart, and was raised on seafood of all kinds. My favorite, of course, being lobster! This feast consisted of lobsters, steamer clams, and clam chowder. YUMMYYYYYY!

And this next picture is one of the beautiful fireworks I saw last evening at my friend’s house. I didn’t have my tripod with me, so it’s a bit blurred, but cool nonetheless, I think!

I hope you all are having a wonderful holiday weekend, and thanks again for celebrating with me!!

Speaking of the holiday weekend, be sure to check out Jacksonbelle Embellishments, for a huge sale! Now through Monday, 20% off the WHOLE store, including clearance!!!! Just use the code fourth (all lower case) at checkout!!

Happy Birthday tooooo meeeeeee…. LOL! I know y’all must think I am crazy, but I really do love my birthday. It’s the one day that is mine all mine! And who doesn’t like cards, presents, food and cake?? I’m a big believer in sharing the love, so like last year, YOU will have a couple chances to win some Trudee Treats!!

This first goodie pack is a 6×6 Basic Grey combo, featuring the NEW Euphoria line, some coordinating ribbon, (both from Jacksonbelle) and an alterable 6×6 album!

The second giveaway is what I am calling my “Lady Godiva” combo! From Hot Off the Press, 12×12 patterned paper, monograms & numbers, and flowers!

To enter the drawing, all you need to do is leave a comment, and guess my age!! I’ll give you a hint…I’m under 60! LOL!!

I’ll select 2 winners on the evening of Saturday July 5th. Please be fair~ only one entry per person! Duplicates will be deleted.

Thanks so much, and have a fabulous day!!