Halloween decorations and cards

I put up our fall and halloween decorations recently - don't they look pretty?  I just love those white pumpkins - got to get me some of the real ones too....See how close one of the white pumpkins is to the railing?  Our furbaby likes to go in that area - we call it the courtyard.  Of course she noticed that I had put up something

Thinking of you greeting 1999 Stampin' Up set - can you name this set (please help)?

Now here's a quick quiz for you - can you pick out the items on this card that are current Stampin' Up products, and which are retired?  That's a little pearl in the middle of the small flower....Since I have a friend  who broke their ankle and my aunt is having gall bladder surgery, I wanted to send them a card....but the Get Well greeting didn't seem quite right, so I went with Thinking of You....and put a personal note inside.  The  retired SU colors I used were cameo coral and groovy guava (remember them?!) and also the current Soft Suede, which is a beautiful color to use for a vintagey-type shade.  Current Stampin Up items on this card are Vintage wallpaper embossing folder, crochet lace, grosgrain ribbon, little leaves diecut, little flower from Priceless stamp set, crumbcake cardstock, sticky back pearl.

The greeting on this card is from a 1999 retired stamp set - woe is me, I didn't put the label on it because it was one of the very first stamp sets I ever bought from SU (I am keeping it, I like it so much) and no one taught me when I started that you were suppose to do that!  So if anyone out there can tell me what the name of the stamp set is, please help me out - you will save me a lot of searching!  I have other nameless stamp sets I will ask for help with if I can't figure out the stamp set names....I wondered what I was suppose to do with those labels - besides throw them out - I can just hear some of you out there saying, OH NO NO NO!  My bad....Thanks for any help anyone can give me with naming this set!

Owl calendar; vintage guess-what-this-is; Teacup dog agility competition

I think I have fallen in love....with this two-step owl punch by Stampin' Up!  Here he is on a magnetic calendar I made at the stamping event I went to in Gilbert, AZ this past weekend.  He is so cute I didn't want to wait until 2011 so put him up on my refrig already - he is the only item on my refrig - has it all to himself...I'll bet there are others out there who are in love with this little owl too! 

Here is something else I made this weekend; here is the front of it - can you tell what it is?

The 4 little black dots on the crown are tiny rhinestones....do you know what it is yet?  Here is another picture

Variations on shabby chic/vintage cards; a dog and her paper

 

Here are two more variations on my shabby chic/vintage cards using bashful blue and cherry cobbler.  Both have the same embossing folder, but on the blue cards, I used the debossed side.  I found that I needed to put a mini-glue dot behind the top leaf to adhere it to the grosgrain ribbon, so it wouldn't slide out.

I went a little heavier on the distressing on the bashful blue cards, since it shows up better than it would on the cherry cobbler...and also tried putting more blue on the edge of one of these cards (the bottom card).  I used the blueberry crisp designer paper for the little leaves - can you see the little pearl in the middle of the snowflake?  I only had one roll of the victorian crochet lace trim and used it up on the blue cards, so was glad that my order for more came in just in time to make up the cherry cobbler cards, as well as use the new stamp set Bells & Boughs.

I used the Lovelines designer paper for the little leaves in the cherry cobbler cards - thought it might be too busy with polka dots and stripes, but it looked better when I actually put the cards together.  The poinsettia is from the Season of Joy stamp set and I put a pearl in the middle of it.

Can you see what else I did a little differently in the cherry cobbler cards? -- I rounded the card corners on the right side.  So now I have 3 variations of this card design...in pink, blue, and red:

I can't decide which set I like the best....Does that happen to you?  You fall in love with your own cards?!  Which color/set do you like the best?

When I got my order, there was a big bunch of brown paper in the top; so I took it all out and tossed it on the floor so I could do something with it later....That night we heard a lot of rustling noise in my craft room where the paper was - and guess who comes down the hallway dragging all the paper behind her?  Lookie here....

That's right, our furbaby, Inu!  She loves paper, and managed to rip a piece off...

Now is that a playful, come and get it away from me challenge, or not?!  Of course we had to chase her - Inu runs into the kitchen and peeks out the other door...

That was fun for a couple chases around the house, and good exercise for everyone!

Inu thought that the little bits she ate tasted pretty good too....She loves checking out my craft room to see if there is anything new in there she can confiscate! 

Pink Priceless Teacup Cards - Shabby Chic or Vintage?

I made up these card fronts this weekend for swaps at the Sept. to Remember event this coming weekend, and used the distressing technique, crochet trim lace, and pearls....but I can't decide if they are vintage, or shabby chic, or maybe shabby chic and vintage!?  Here are some closeups of the cards and how I put them together - maybe you can check them out and let me know what you think:

I stamped the large flourish from the Priceless stamp set in river rock on river rock cardstock, tore the right edge, used vintage wallpaper to emboss it, then edged the card with chocolate chip and swiped the embossing with pretty in pink. The bottom layer is pretty in pink cardstock edged with soft suede.

I put a piece of the chocolate chip striped grosgrain across the left side of the embossed cardstock, then adhered the embossed layer onto the pink layer.  I tied a small piece of the victoria crochet lace trim just below the halfway down part of the ribbon, so there would be room for the leaves later - you can see the flourish background stamp in these pictures if you look close:

 

I used the confetti cream cardstock to stamp the teacup picture on (from the Timeless Treasures set) and the word "Priceless" - used the soft suede ink to do these. Then rounded the corners and edged it with the pretty in pink ink...

 

The picture went in the lower right of the card, and a little pearl was added onto the P in Priceless:

Then I used the Little Leaves diecut and the blush designer paper in the Designer Series Paper Patterns Stack In Color - the polka dotted pattern - but both sides of the paper looked good when I tucked the leaves behind the lace knot (had to loosen the knot a little first to slide the stem in, then tightened it back up).  So I ended up making a couple with both sides of the paper.  I wasn't sure if the polka dots were too "busy" but actually, it wasn't...That blush paper sure is pretty...

I thought the leaves added a nice touch and made it "pop"....Then I reread the info on the Sept. to Remember notice about the swaps - suppose to be holiday/winter....hmmm, these could be used for feminine holiday, right?!  Well, I started making up blue card front swaps similar to these, but with Christmas wintery theme, and will post pictures of those.  Anywho, here is a scanned picture of my two pink shabby chic vintagey cards; the colors look different when scanned in my computer, don't they?

Are they shabby chic, vintagey, vintagey-shabby chic, or shabby chic-vintage?

I can't decide, so let me know what you think, OK?  Thanks!

Before, during, and after pics of watercolored projects (frame & truck)

When I was picking up in my craft room, I was looking at a couple of the watercoloring projects I did recently, which was the little framed picture and truck card.  Here is what the framed picture looked like when I started - I thought the dog was cute, and since I like dogs, I kept this picture....here is a pic of the start of the picture that will replace the dog - making clouds:

 

Then I added shadows to the picture with the watercoloring technique:

After watercoloring the pump and wheelbarrow in, I added some highlights and put it in the frame:

But while moving things around in my craft room, and thinking that there was too much white, I played with some marina mist tafetta ribbon, and then tied a little strip of it down the side of the frame:

I think I like this better now, and it will match my craft room, which is being done in white, light blues, lavender....What do you think?  Before or after?

Then I looked at the truck card I had watercolored, which my husband liked too:

I love all the colors, papers, embellishments, and techniques on this card, but when I did the faux stitching around the end, I kinda messed it up - you can see at the top I strayed off the line....so I was thinking, how can I "fix" that?  After playing with some more of the marina mist cardstock, I decided to put another mini layer on the card - thin strips like mini-borders over the stitching - If I had done a good job of the stitching, I would have left it, but since it was my first time doing this much of it, it wasn't that great.  So now here is a pic of the truck card with the thin marina mist borders:

It makes the card look like a totally different card, doesn't it?  And pretty much covers up my messy stitching!!  Which one of these truck cards do you like best?  I am starting to enjoy watercoloring much more now; reminds me of coloring in books, which I love (even now lol!)...These are all current Stamin' Up products (except for the frame).  Freel free to let me know if you would like to order any of the products used to make these projects (mklecuyer@hotmail.com).  Thanks for stopping by!

New holiday mini-catalog at www.stampinup.com

      

Isn't this wreath with the flowers absolutely gorgeous?!  I am so excited about Stampin' Up's new holiday mini-catalog - you can see it online at http://www.stampinup.com/.  There are also pictures of some of the items you can make using products from the holiday mini-catalog, and I just have to share some with you here....they are beautiful!  Not only can you now make things with paper, but with fabric, or a combination of the two!  Take a quick peek at a couple of the projects with paper and fabric that are posted on the Stampin' Up website:

Isn't the fabric and coordinating ribbon, cardstock, and lace elegant?  I had to squeal when I saw these little house templates you can get and decorate, since I love houses:

Here are two things made with the new "waffle paper" - it is the ruffly edging around the items:

If you want a better look, you can go to the Stampin' Up website - And please let me know if you would like to order anything from me....I would be glad to help you out with making any of the projects with anything you order too.....Thanks for looking!!