My Paper Paradise ...

29 (again!)

2012-02-19T23:00:00.000-08:00

It's time for another challenge over on the Amuse Studio Challenge blog, and this weeks theme is to use new stuff from the wonderful new Amuse Studio catalog - if you haven't seen it yet there is a link over to the right, if you would prefer to have your own paper copy, drop me a line.

This week, I decided to kill two birds with one stone, and make a birthday card for my baby brother, who will be turning 29 (again!) in a few weeks. It started life as a standerd card, but somehow grew into a waterfall card as I tried to put my ideas onto paper - don't you just love it when that happens?

and as you pull the ribbon at the bottom ...

... and just a little bit more.

I think he'll like it - well, his wife will anyway!!

I usually make waterfall cards as a panel, but because I didn't start out to make a waterfall card I already had a folded card base, and I actually like how the card will stand up, and how I've got plenty of room to write a nice long letter inside.

For those of you that know how to put a waterfall card together, here are the measurements (for those that don't - no promises, but I'm really going to try and put together a video or photo tutorial on Tuesday, as they say - watch this space!)

Card Base (titian pattern) 8 1/2 x 5 1/2, scored at 4 1/4
Belly Band (titian) 5 1/2 x 1
Panel bases (titian) 3 3/4 x 2 1/4 (three of)
Panel (lido) 3 1/2 x 2
Assembly strip (lido) 3 x 6 1/2, scored at 4 and 4 3/4

I attached the belly band using 2 antique brass brads, and punched a hole through the bottom of the pull panel and threaded some titian ribbon, tied together with vanilla twine.

As the supplies for this card are from the new Amuse Studio catalog and are available here

stamps: big celebrations, hey, cupcake
paper: titian, plain and pattern, lido
ink: titian
misc: mini antique brass brads, titian satin ribbon, vanilla twine.

Black and White with a Splash of Pink

2012-02-16T12:51:00.000-08:00

It's time for another colour challenge over at The Play Date Cafe - Black, White, with a splash of Hot Pink. I had great fun with this one, and the perfect excuse to bring out a stamp I bought on impulse (because it would come in handy - who am I kidding!). Here is my card:

I stamped the dress in bubblegum, quickly sprinkled the stamped image with clear embossing powder and heat set. Then it was out with the detail scissors.

Onyx was the obvious choice (given the imposed colour palette), I found the perfect sentiment in the celebrate in style set and embossed it in white. Laying it out, it still needed something - a ribbon for the dress and a few paper flowers with pearl centers and the card is complete.

Have a wonderful weekend everyone - I'll be back on Sunday. I'm off to pick up my son from college tomorrow and then its a family weekend for me.

The supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio unless otherwise noted

stamps: celebrate in style, Party Dress (B Line Designs, LLC LF203F)
paper: sugar, onyx
ink: bubblegum, versamark
misc: clear EP, white EP, paper flowers, sugar pearl stickers, sugar polka dot organdy ribbon

The Cherry on Top

2012-02-15T11:47:00.000-08:00

My goodness, is it Wednesday already? This is going to have to be quick! This is my card for last weeks challenge over on the Clean and Simple Stamping blog - you've still got a day if you feel inspired to have a go.

Supplies (from Amuse Studio)

stamps: sweet love
paper: slate, currant, lichen
ink: slate
misc: large cherry pearl sticker

It's Mardi Gras time!

2012-02-14T12:32:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone, today's post is my (late) example for the challenge over on the Amuse Studio Challenge Blog site. This week Toby has set us the challenge of making a card using green, yellow, and purple - not a colour combination in my comfort zone, but flush with inspiration from an amazing class with Julie Ebersole at The Paper Garden last Friday, I took one of her designs for an off-set gate fold butterfly card and totally changed it up to fit the colour scheme and stamps I had in mind.

and as you open it

and a little more

I'm not just pleased with this one, I LOVE it, and yes, you could make it as a standard card but this is just SO awesome!

To get the off set gate, take a standard 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 and score at 1 1/4 and 5/ 1/2, fold very carefully to get and exact fit. Attach the side panel of rialto pattern card stock (5 1/2 x 1 1/4)

I first stamped the cupcakes onto two scraps of lido pattern and cut out (although I only wanted the case, because the cupcakes are 'free standing' I kept the top so that I would have a base to attach the icing), I stamped the icing twice using lido onto a scrap of sugar, cut out and attached to the cupcakes. Attach, one to each side of the card.

Stamp the sentiment onto a 3 x 1 1/4 scrap rialto using versamark, dust with white embossing powder and heat set. Attach to card

Stamp greeting inside using grape.

There you are, not difficult at all, and so impressive in person I don't think my photos on this murky day do it justice.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio and are available here.

stamps: hey, cupcake
paper: rialto plain and pattern, lido pattern, sugar, grape
ink: memento black tuxedo, lido, grape, versamark
misc: white embossing powder

Studio Stampers February Blog Hop

2012-02-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to My Paper Paradise and to the Studio Stampers February blog hop. I do hope you will join us on a hop full of Amuse Studio goodness.

I needed a quickie birthday card earlier in the week, and the new Amuse Studio colours and the hey, cupcake set just called my name.

And here's a close up of the frosting - what do you say? Good enough to eat?

To get the wonderful frosting, I first applied a layer of Le Pouf, and, although the instructions say leave to dry for 8 hours, I didn't have time so I heat set it immediately and them sprinkled it with diamond glitter while it was still warm. (NOTE: if you do it this way, the Le Pouf can still be wet inside even when it poufs up - just don't smush it and you'll be fine).

Can you see the 'halo' effect around the flame - that's really easy to achieve with the quickie glue pen, just draw a circle of dots where you want the glitter and add glitter. It's not your traditional glue pen, more like writing with a nice gel pen.

That's all from me, I do hope you enjoyed your visit, next stop on the hop is the very talented Kathy Hatze I can't wait to see what she has in store for us for us. Here is the complete in case you get lost on the way. Happy hopping!

Karen Crisp
Kathy Hatze
Kristen Watson
Lianna Vigil
Angela Schellenberg
Lisa Wakabayashi

All the supplies needed to make this card are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: hey, cupcake
paper: sugar, pistachio, grapefruit
ink: grapefruit, shell, papaya
misc: le pouf, diamond glitter, Copics - Y17, Y15, RV10, quickie glue

Quick Valentine's Treat

2012-02-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

Okay, so I suddenly realized yesterday that I simply had to get the treats off to my daughter in San Diego - I had 16 pillows, and 15 treat toppers ready but that still left me well short of the target total of 45, I had to come up with something and it had to be quick and only use supplies already in the house! This is what I came up with:

Not bad for 1/2 hours work I reckon. Each contains a Hershey's milk chocolate with almond bar, which I had over from a Christmas project.

The paper is from my pre-Amuse Studio days, probably Michaels, and I used a variety of shades of pink (out of necessity if I'm honest, but it worked).

The dimensions of the chocolate bars meant that it was possible to get 4 4/1/4" x 5 1/2" covers to a sheet. The red hearts are left over from the toppers (whilst it is totally possible to separate out the the hearts in the hearts trio die set, I'm so terrified that I would then lose the small one that I prefer to keep them together and always cut all three every time - over time it works out - and as an added benefit I usually have two sizes ready cut !) Most of the medium pink hearts were also already cut for me.

I first wrapped the cover round the chocolate bar, without sticking and pressed the edges, I then stamped the XOXO in titian using the on broadway alphabet set into the central portion, added a sprinkling of stamped hearts in cherry using the heart from the tweet heart set, and attached the two felt hearts. Apply your stickiest double sided tape to the underside of one long edge and wrap round the chocolate bar for the final time.

Supplies (Amuse Studio except for paper)

stamps: on broadway alphabet, tweetheart
paper: ?
ink: titian, cherry
misc: heart trio die, cherry felt, shell felt

Better late than never!

2012-02-08T13:25:00.000-08:00

My timing is all out of sorts at the moment - the new catalog, and new spotlight coincided with the issue of my newsletter (if you would like a copy, drop me an email) and I simply lost track of time. I made this card for one-layer Wednesday and didn't post it immediately - unfortunately it's last weeks challenge and I'm too late! I like the card though so I'll share it with you anyway:

The challenge was - a one layer birthday card with a bird on it - and I think I have that covered!

I started by sponging the sky in, well, what else sky, stamped the moon in papaya and then added the branch (fern) owls (french roast) and sentiment (french roast again). The owls were then shaded lightly with coloured pencils. The actual card was very quick, although the four or five versions it took me to get here made the process a little longer.

All the supplies are from Amuse Studio

stamps: owl's well
paper: sugar
ink: sky, papaya, fern, french roast
misc: coloured pencils

Why not try something new?

2012-02-05T23:01:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday evening and time for a new Amuse Studio Challenge Blog Challenge. This week's challenge is from Carla, and boy does she like embossing powder! This week it's ultra thick embossing. Here is my card:

Here's how I did it:

First I stamped a square using versamark, I sprinkled it in white embossing powder, heat set and then immediately sprinkled with more embossing powder. I repeated the last two steps 4 times until I had a smooth, tile-like, shiny surface. Immediately after the last heat setting, I stamped the shell in latte, pressing harder than I would normal to get an impression as well as the inked image. Here is a close up:

I then mounted it onto a shell base card (measuring 4 1/4" x 4 1/4") using super sticky tape, added a ribbon and there you are - not my normal style, but well worth the effort - even without stamping the image, I love the change in the texture of the embossed area as you add the extra layers. Definitely one for the tool chest. I heartly encourage you to have a go, and then why not post it on the challenge blog.

The supplies for this card are all from Amuse Studio

stamps: sea shells, tweetheart

paper: sugar, latte

ink: versamark, latte

misc: white embossing powder

Friends Fur-Ever

2012-02-03T10:40:00.000-08:00

Hello, am I the only one that is SO glad that today is Friday? Just a quick post today - I'm about to dash to the airport to pick up my husband. I made this card a while back and never got to share it with you

I was inspired by an image in the old catalog - don't throw them away, they are packed full with great ideas - however, if you'd like to supplement it with the wonderful new catalog, I would be happy to send you one for $5 plus $5 shipping (if necessary)!

The card measures 4 1/4" x 5 1/2", the blue squares are 2 1/8" x 2 1/8" and the white squares are 2" x 2".

I started by stamping the four critters onto scraps of sugar card, coloured them with Copics and cut them out. Using lichen ink, I stamped the four backgrounds onto the white squares. The animals are attached using puffy tape.

I wouldn't be entirely honest if I said this was a quick card, but it was fun to make.

Although I made this card using the old polka dot paper, it would work just as well on the new slightly small polka dots.

The supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio

stamps: friends fur-ever, swanky backgrounds
paper: ocean shimmer, sage polka dots and sugar
ink: lichen, memento black tuxedo
misc: Copics - W2, E53, E33, E59, YR07

Amuse Studio February Blog Hop - The New Catalog

2012-02-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

Welcome to My Paper Paradise... I'm so glad you could drop by. Today I delighted to be joining some of my hugely talented fellow Amuse Studio consultants in a blog hop featuring products from the wonderful new Amuse Studio Catalog, I'm your first stop, so pull up a chair, grab yourself some coffee and let's get hopping!

stamps: greetings earthling

paper: navy, sugar

ink: versamark, memento black tuxedo

misc: orange glitter, Copics - R27, YR07, Y15, B26, BG10

and here's a close-up of those flames - do you see that wonderful orange glitter?

The card measures 5" x 3 1/2". I took my navy card base, stamped the stars, saturn and the sentiment in versamark, applied white embossing powder and heat set. (Be sure to give it a good wipe with the anti-static pad first, the white powder will stick to finger-prints like anything!). I stamped the rocket and it's flames on a scrap of sugar, coloured with Copics and cut out carefully with my detail scissors. Mount on puffy tape and then add that orange glitter to the tail.

I do hope you enjoyed your visit and that you will come and see me again soon. Your next stop on the hop is Pamela, just in case you get lost or a link gets broken, here is the complete list:

Karen Crisp <===== YOU ARE HERE!
Pamela Fredrickson
Angi Kelley
Lianna Vigil
Carissa Fulkerson
Kristine Vincente
Jennifer Corson
Samantha Kania
Rita Holmes
Sarah Callahan
Tracey Jean H
Ruza Rebel

Don't forget to leave these wonderful ladies some love as you visit their blogs.

It's here! It's here! (and I did it!)

2012-02-01T13:42:00.000-08:00

Did you see the link to the new catalog on the right? At last you get the chance to see what I've been going on about for the last few weeks. If you would like your very own paper copy then drop me a line and I will send you one for $5 plus $5 shipping (if necessary).

Some of you will remember that when I took delivery of a rather large pre-order from the catalog (one of the many perks of being a consultant!) I made a commitment to myself that I would use all the stamps before I made another order - the target being that I would complete the exercise before the catalog went live and new items became available. Well I'm delighted to say I did it (I'm afraid my husband and bank manager may be less pleased!) - I have two cards to show you today from the last two stamp sets.

The first is a birthday card for my son - he often complains that the cards I make for him are either not manly enough or are too 'grandma-ish'. I'm hoping that this one will fit the bill perfectly:

I stamped the numbers from the big celebrations set in rialto, added the onyx twine and that was it - simple but classy (& even a 19 year old should be able to appreciate it!).

The second card features the on broadway alphabet - the card measures 8 1/2" x 3 3/4" and will fit in a standard #10 envelope. I stamped the letters in titian on a 1 1/2" strip of the new lido card, mounted it on a 1 3/4" strip of titian card and mounted the whole thing on a rialto pattern base - not complicated at all, but effective.

Here's a tip for lining up the letters if you don't have a stamp position-er - make sure the stamps are squeaky clean, put the top of a ruler along the line where you want the base of the letters to lie and push the letters up against it to line them up how you want them - the stamps will slightly overhang the ruler, but this means that the letters are aligned and not the mounts. Push an acrylic block up against the letters, remove the rule, ink and stamp - in this case I had to separate out 'thank' and 'you'.

What's on your wish list? Do remember that if your order exceeds $150 you should contact me directly so that we can make sure we get you all your free stuff!

Come back tomorrow for the Amuse Studio consultants blog hop - this month's theme is the new catalog and I can't wait to see what my fellow consultants have dreamed up.

All the supplies needed to make today's projects and are available (now!) here

stamps: big celebrations, on broadway alphabet
paper: sugar, lido, titian, rialto pattern
ink: rialto, titian
misc: onyx baker's twine

Happy Birthday!

2012-01-31T11:23:00.000-08:00

It's nice to always have a well-made but neutral birthday card in your stash for those occasions when you are caught out - either through bad planning or not knowing. This card fits the bill totally:

No-one would ever guess it wasn't made 'especially for them'!

To try something different I stuck the mount directly onto the card base and attached the panel using puffy tape. The coordinating Venetian papers make this effortless - and if you felt so inclined you could easily repeat the design on all five colourways.

The supplies for this card are all from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: birthday greetings, a very merry un-birthday
paper: sugar, burano plain and patterned
ink: burano
misc: copics - R27, Y21, two way glue pen, diamond glitter, puffy tape

Love Blooms

2012-01-30T11:15:00.000-08:00

Still frantically making Valentines treats here, don't get me wrong, I love it. The perfect excuse to spoil friends and family. Here's a set of m&m tube treats I made for my youngest and her friends:

and here's a close up of the topper

I love how versatile these cellophane bags are, just change the candy out for something seasonally appropriate and you get a whole new look. They come in bags of 50 and I highly recommend having them in your cupboard just in case - in the fall I made a beautiful bunch of flowers using the fall m&ms.

For these I took a 3.5" x 1.75" piece bubblegum polka dot, scored at 1.75" and attached it to the top of the filled 1" x 8" cellophane treat bag. I then took the love blooms stamp from the quick and cute valentines set and carefully inked up the sentiment in the new titian ink and the stems in grass and stamped it onto a 1.5" vanilla square, which I mounted onto the topper using puffy tape. A cherry felt heart (cut using the medium heart from the heart trio die set) and a cherry mini twinkle sticker complete the package.

All the supplies for this project are available from Amuse Studio here (with the exception of the m&ms!)

stamps: quick and cute valentines
paper: bubblegum polka dot, vanilla
ink: titian, grass
misc: cherry felt, heart trio dies, cherry twinkle stickers

Chocolate - The Ultimate Care Package!

2012-01-30T10:41:00.000-08:00

My daughter has had a rough week at college, so I sent her some of her favorite, English, chocolate. This is the card that accompanies it.

Don't you just love the sentiment?

All supplies from Amuse Studio

stamps: hearts a plenty, sweet love, love conquers all
paper: sugar, vanilla
ink: cherry, french roast

Pillow Talk!

2012-01-29T17:04:00.000-08:00

Hi,it's challenge time over on the Amuse Studio Challenge blog, and this week I'm the hostess - the theme this week is to make treats for friends, co-workers, class-mates etc, I do hope you will pop over and join us - I'm giving away a free copy of the new Amuse Studio catalog and a selection of the new Venetian papers to one lucky winner.

Some of you may remember how I made Halloween pillow treats using a circle punch, well for some time I've been thinking about applying the principle to a bigger box, and Valentines day and a cute picture on this months spotlight proved the right incentive.

The new A Muse Studio catalog has some wonderful dies for making treat boxes and I can't wait to get my hands on them, but in the mean time this was actually quite easy to make - you just need scissors, a plate, an embossing tool and a printer - for full instructions and a template see below. Actually, I have to make 45 of this for my daughters teammates - so far I have 8!

Now I've worked out how, they are really easy to make. I've included a template at the end of this post - computer generated especially for you (I'm so proud of myself!), but as it is easier and neater to score round a plate, I'm going to explain how to generate your own - you can change up the sizes too then if you wish, mine fits two to a sheet of letter paper.

1) With the paper landscape, and using the template for reference, draw a vertical line at 3/4" and 4 3/4", draw horizontal lines at 4" and 8".

2) Using a 8 1/2" plate, draw 8 arcs as shown below.

3) Draw a small line to cut of the corners at the bottom flap.

And that's your template. If you are only making the one you could do this straight on the back of your card - I'm making lots so I made my template onto an ordinary sheet of paper and used my printer to copy it onto the back of the patterned card stock, I then re-fed the card into the printer so that the image printed at the other end.

I used the ready printed sweetheart and heartbreaker papers, they are landscape which is perfect for this project as you can get two to a sheet.

Once you have two images to a sheet, cut along the solid lines, score the straight dotted lines and then line up the plate with the curved dotted line and score, - I did try to score freehand along the line, but using the plate resulted in a cleaner crisper box.

Fold along the straight score lines and apply strong double side tape along the 1/2" tab, attach to top edge. Gently press in curved sections - no need to stick they will hold together.

For the labels, I first stamped (or heat embossed) the outline of the label from the vintage labels set, cut it out using the coordinating die and then added the central image from the quick and cute valentines and love conquers all sets, two holes for the thread and a double thickness of cherry bakers twine and I was done - if I can get a morning to myself next week I should get the rest done, no problem!

The two valentine themed sets are featured in the current spotlight which finishes Tuesday, so if you know you want them and you want to pay the reduced price you have to act fast - I would be happy to help you with your order.

I hope you are inspired to have a go and that you will join us in the challenge over at the challenge blog

All the supplies for this project are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: love conquers all, quick and cute valentines, vintage labels
paper: heartbreaker
ink: grapefruit, versamark
misc: cherry bakers twine, white embossing powder, label dies

A Happy Accident!

2012-01-29T09:57:00.000-08:00

I'll be straight up with you, I didn't design this card, it just happened. I made it last Sunday when I was making my card for the Amuse Studio Challenge Blog challenge - stamp on anything but paper. This was going to be my base layer, then I was going to add a layer of silky, transparent voile ribbon with stamped flowers from the charming gardeners set - it was a total failure - way too busy and you couldn't really see the flowers as the green leaves were too dark (click here to see what I actually came up with - the concept was good, it was just my first application that was flawed - you need paler leaves and solid flowers)

Anyway, it was late, I desperately needed to finish the card and get it posted, so I laid it all out in a bid to convince myself it would do - to my great surprise I found I HAD made a card that I really liked if I just left off the ribbon layer and here it is

Inside I stamped Thank You.

I stamped the leaves in grass, using first and second generation images to get the layered effect. The quote is attributed to Marcel Proust in the stamp set, and were I to make this card again I would leave him on, but in the cards original incarnation it was not going to work. I stamped it in titian ink, in the few weeks I've had this ink it had become a firm favorite - softer and warmer than straight black, I love how it looks for sentiments.

I'll be back tonight - it's my turn to host over on the Amuse Challenge Blog - so I will see you then.

All supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio, those marked with a * will not be available until February 1st - can you stand the suspense?

stamps: charming gardeners*
paper: fern, grape*, sugar
ink: grass, titian*

Hey, Cupcake

2012-01-28T09:54:00.000-08:00

Hello, today I'm continuing in my mission to use all the stamps I was lucky enough to pre-order from Amuse Studio prior to buying anymore goodies from the new catalog when it goes live on February 1st - I'm not there yet, but I'm definitely getting there! Today I have a card using the new hey, cupcake set, doesn't it go perfectly with the new venetian papers?

I started by stamping the cupcake in its case and the cherry onto two scraps of white card, and the case onto a scrap of burano pattern, I coloured the cherry - then it was out with the detail scissors!

I stuck the case on the cupcake, stucjthecherry on top and mounted the whole thing on a 2 1/2" square panel. I added the cherry stalk using a Copic multi-liner. I mounted the panel onto the card base, added the sentiment and put crystal clear glaze over the cherry - here's a close up:

Be sure to keep the card flat until the glaze is dry, otherwise it can 'droop' - I know this to my cost!

The supplies for this card are from the new Amuse Studio catalog and will be available on-line from February 1st. If you would like your own paper copy of the catalog drop me an email.

stamps: hey cupcake
paper: burano plain and patterned, sugar
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: crystal clear glaze, Copic - R29

Summer will Come Again

2012-01-27T09:40:00.000-08:00

It is somehow appropriate that in a new catalog that features the Venetian collection, that the new colours remind me of a Neopolitan ice cream - pistachio,grapefruit, grape even the seattle wouldn't seem out of place in an ice cream cone. These thought were in my mind as I put together this card for the new layout challenge over on the Clean and Simple blog.

Looking at this, I really can believe that summer will come again!

Here are the dimensions:

sugar card base - 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"
pistachio panel - 3 1/4" x 4 1/2"
grapefruit mount - 3 3/8" x 4 5/8"

To add a little extra interest the central panel is mounted on puffy tape. All the supplies are from Amuse Studio.

stamps: life's a breeze, sea shells
paper: sugar, grapefruit, pistachio
ink: seattle

A Touch of Elegance

2012-01-26T09:52:00.000-08:00

As is my habit, last night I checked out the new challenge over at The Play Date Cafe - this weeks colour challenge is to use Plum...Pear...Moldy Cheese, their choice of names, not mine - can you imagine going into a paint shop and asking for Moldy cheese paint?

Anyway, it's a really rich palette, so I decided to leave my comfort zone and come up with an elegant card with buttons and ribbons - yes I know, on the same card!!

Okay, I know it's not that far outside my comfort zone, but I did try.

I didn't use any clever tricks, except for the bow which is assembled in four parts rather than tied - I think I'm missing the gene that allows you to tie perfect bows - or even slightly imperfect ones - mine always come out looking as if the dog chewed it.

Thanks for looking, have a wonderful day.

Amuse Studio Supplies
stamps: celebrate in style
paper: grape, vanilla, navy, bellini patterned,
ink; grape
misc: bellini satin ribbon, blackberry buttons, clear twinkle stickers

Just a Tini Note of Thanks

2012-01-25T09:51:00.000-08:00

Happy Wednesday, one of the best days of the week for me - the workday week is halfway through AND it's time for a new One Layer Wednesday challenge. I saw this challenge when it went up last night, so I had time to mull it over while I slept. The challenge is to use white, grey with a pop of colour and this time I followed the rules to the letter.

Whilst I woke up with the concept, it took several tries to get this one right - I find a sheet of scratch paper folded into four is perfect for getting the layout and colour balance of a card like this right - one layer cards do not come easy to me.

I started by stamping the martini glass in slate, first on the card and then on the sticky part of a post-it. I cut out the mask - just the triangle at the top, placed it over the glass and then stamped the background over - to get the depth of colour just right I inked it up with slate, stamped on scratch paper and then over the glass - paler than the glass, but dark enough to create an impact.

Next, and it's not really visible in the photo - to be honest it is incredibly subtle in reality - I used pebble for the liquid in the glass - the set comes with a small triangle that just fills the glass.

And now for the pop of colour - I (carefully) inked the cherry in cherry (what else!) and its stem in slate. A sentiment and the card is complete. The perfect card for a friend of mine - just have to wait until she invites me to another of her fantastic parties!

That's it for today - as I said yesterday, my copy of the new Amuse Studio catalog is scheduled to arrive today, so I've got to clean, wash, and cook like crazy this morning so that I can sit down and drool when it arrives - I've seen excerpts but I've only heard about the whole thing. Do contact me if you would like your very own copy and I will send you one for $5 plus $5 shipping.

All the supplies needed to make this card are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: tini time, swanky backgrounds
paper: sugar
ink: slate, cherry, pebble

Sneak Peak - Number Five

2012-01-24T08:36:00.000-08:00

Time for another sneak peak I think

I was going to colour it, , but as I laid it out to check the layout I decided to stop while I was ahead. I'm still having light problems here, but can you see those stars around the planet? I stamped those in the new pistachio ink - I like the way they balance the pistachio panel on the left. The stamps are from the new greetings earthling set. If you have a little boy (or a big one that never grew up!) you're going to love this set - laser guns, spaceships, UFOs what's not to love?

My shipment of the new catalogs is due to arrive tomorrow, if you would like a copy I would be happy to send one to you for $10 ($5 plus $5 shipping - US only) - if you live in the Roseville, CA area I would be happy to drop one off. Just send me an email at karen.crisp@comcast.net.

If you do live within a roughly half hour driving distance of Roseville, how about scheduling a workshop? I still have a few spaces in February. Invite some friends round for an evening of stamping from the new catalog, and if the orders from the event total more than $150, Amuse Studio will give you as the hostess extra stuff free - and unlike some direct sale other companies - you choose what you get! There is so much good stuff in the new catalog you are going to have no problem meeting that minimum for hostess bonuses.

Amuse Studio* Supplies:
stamps: greetings earthling
paper: eucalyptus, navy, pistachio, bermuda
ink: pistachio, memento black tuxedo

* stamp set and pitachio ink and paper will not be available until February 1st

Anything but paper

2012-01-22T23:00:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday night, so it must be time for the new challenge over on the Amuse Studio Challenge Blog - this weeks challenge was set by Carissa and is to stamp on anything but paper, I choose to stamp on ribbon, and here is my card

The weather here in sunny California is not so sunny - it's been raining all day and the light is dreadful for taking pictures, add to that the reflection from the shimmery ribbon and I was fighting a losing battle - of about a dozen pictures this was the best - if it clears up tomorrow I'll have another go. In person the card is light and airy and not at all out of focus looking!

The ribbon is 5" wide, so I cut the sugar panel 5" x 3 3/4", stamped the leaves in the new pistachio ink, and the sentiment in grapefruit onto a pistachio oval, which I attached to the panel. I then set it to one side.

Cut a piece of ribbon approximately 5" long and use masking tape to attach cut edges to a piece of scratch paper. At this point I find it helpful to slide a piece of scrap the same size as the panel under the ribbon to help with the positioning of the blooms. Stamp the flowers using grapefruit ink and leave to dry - it's important to be patient at this point. When you are absolutely certain it is dry you can move onto the next step.

Keeping the masking tape attached to the ribbon, wrap it round the panel and adjust, using the masking tape to hold it in place, then release one end and apply double side sticky tape to the back of one long edge of the panel, stretch the ribbon tight over the tape, then repeat on the other long edge. Remove the masking tape. There is no need to stick the short sides, indeed the movement is what creates the effect - and makes it so hard to photograph!

Using double sided tape - the kind with backing tape, attach the panel to its mount, and then to the card base.

If you didn't come from the challenge blog, why not pop over now and see what the other hostess have been up to?

The supplies needed to make this card are from Amuse Studio with the exception of the ribbon, the new pistachio and grapefruit inks and papers are from the new catalog and will not be available until February 1st

stamps: wild rose
paper: sugar, grapefruit, pistachio
ink: grapefruit, pistachio
misc: 5" voile ribbon (Mary Ann?)

Sweets for my sweet

2012-01-22T14:28:00.000-08:00

So I realized yesterday that I only have a week to make treats for my eldest daughter's teammates - and I haven't even settled on the design, let alone made them! This is the first prototype - I like it, but I'll see what else I come up with over the next couple of days.

I just wish I could think of a way to make the shoes more 'shoe-y' - any ideas would be gratefully received.

The heart is a die cut (using Memory Box's cupid heart) from Amuse Studio bubblegum polka dot paper - this is being discontinued in the new catalog, but my sources tell me it is being replaced with a similar, smaller, more uniform dotted paper. I then stamped the mustache and eyebrows (actually , another mustache, but upside down) from the foiled again set, this has also been retired, although it was still available this morning when I checked (the same source tells me that this is being replaced with another set featuring bigger mustaches).

The hat is made from onyx paper using one of the label dies, folded in half, the bottom strip is 1/2" wide and the curved ends cut by eye. Googly eyes and a smile complete the face.

The legs are made from a single 1" x 8" cellophane treat bag filled with m&ms and folded at an angle in the middle - I added some extra sticky tape to the seal just to be extra safe. The feet are made from 1" circles folded in half.

That's it for now, I'll be back with more sneak peaks and more valentines treats soon, in the meantime, don't forget to leave a comment to be entered for my 10,000 hits celebratory give-away (more details here)

Supplies:

stamps: amuse studio foiled again
paper: Amuse studio onyx, bubblegum polkadot
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: copic multi-liner, googly eyes, 1" x 8" cellophane treat bag, m&ms

Sneak Peak - Number Four

2012-01-21T18:57:00.000-08:00

Earlier today I promised you some more from the keep calm set, I ended up making two more, both very quick and simple - I may even consider making sets of these too - I know just the person to give them to.

This first card measures 3 1/2" x 5", the white circle is 1" and the burano circle is 1 1/4". Here is a close up of the crown - definitely 'fit for a queen'.

And here is the second card,standard size (4 1/4" x 5 1/2") using the bigger crown in the set

again, I couldn't resist the urge to bling it up a bit! The inside of the card reads ... if the crown fits.

That's it for today - I've another day full of crafting tomorrow, although I'll have to take a break from sneak peaks while I focus on designing Valentine's Day treats for the UCSD cross country team!

Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered for my 10,000 hits celebratory give-away (more details here)

Supplies (all Amuse Studio):
stamps: keep calm
paper: sugar, burano
ink: burano
misc: twinkle stickers

Sneak Peak - Number Three

2012-01-21T14:51:00.000-08:00

There is a new challenge layout over on the Clean and Simple blog, and as challenges go I think I failed this one. Don't get me wrong, I love the card the layout inspired me to make - it just doesn't quite follow the layout, I did try to add the circle embellishment, but sometimes less is more!.

Here's my card:

Here are the dimensions:

card 4 1/4" x 5 1/2"
word panel 2 1/2" x 4 1/8"
word mat 2 5/8" x 4 1/4"
patterned strip 4 1/4" x 2 1/4"

I liked it so much, I made a set

The stamp is from the new keep calm set - and I have a couple more cards planned in my head to show you. The inks and the paper are all part of the new Venetian collection, in each case I stamped the image, sprinkled it with clear embossing powder and heat set to really make the image pop. And no I didn't spend hours lining up the crown - it's all the same stamp!

Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered for my 10,000 hits celebratory give-away (more details here)

Okay, it's back to stamping for me, do come back soon for some more sneak peeks from the wonderful new Amuse Studio catalog, from what I've seen so far they have really outdone themselves - my bank manager is NOT going to be pleased! Remember, the new catalog comes out on February 1st, if you would like a paper copy, please let me know.

All the materials for this card are from Amuse Studio and will be available for order from February 1st

stamps: keep calm
paper: sugar, lido, bellini, burano, rialto, titian plain and patterned
ink: lido, bellini, burano, rialto, titian
misc: clear embossing powder

Sneak Peak - Number Two

2012-01-19T12:09:00.000-08:00

Continuing in my mission to use all my new toys before buying more! This time I have a card inspired by the new colour challenge in The Play Date Cafe - I missed last weeks, time just got away from me, so I was determined to play along this time. I love these muted earth tones, and provided me with the perfect excuse to get out some new papers and stamps.

I stamped the flowers in the new titian ink, added the centres and coloured with Copics, mounted onto rialto card and then onto rialto patterned paper. Looking at the card it still seemed to need some extra dimension, some french roast glitter, another new item from the February 2012 catalog did the trick.

Okay, that's two cards in one day, I best go and do the Costco run now. I will be back soon with more sneak peaks from the new catalog. - don't forget to leave a comment to be entered for my 10,000 hits celebratory give-away (more details here)

Again, all the materials for this card will be available from AMuse Studio on February 1st

stamps: charming gardeners
paper: rialto, rialto pattern, pebble
ink: titian
misc: french roast glitter, Copics - W2, W4

Sneak Peak - Number One

2012-01-19T10:23:00.000-08:00

One of the perks of being a consultant, is that I had the opportunity to pre-order a small number of new items from the catalog, of course it was all so yummy I just had to get the whole lot! Seven new stamps sets, fourteen new papers, nine new inks, ribbons, glitters - I'm in heaven, BUT the new Amuse Studio catalog comes out on February 1st and this causes me a problem - I can't possibly justify getting any more toys until I've played with the ones I've got!

I've come up with a solution in the form of a challenge for myself - if I can use everything at least once, before the new catalog comes out then I will allow myself even more treats. Seems fair to me ...

Yesterday marked the start of a new One Layer Wednesday challenge - this week's challenge it to make a one layer birthday card for a man - you're killing me Susan, could you make it any harder? You've already seen this Eiffel Tower stamp from me before - but it seemed perfect for the job.

Sorry about the distracting background, the light here is terrible today and it's not forecast to get any better for some days, still if it brings much needed rain I'll not complain.

I've always liked this quote, and it's perfect for a birthday card. I stamped the Eiffel tower and the sentiment using the new Titian ink onto kraft card - I still can't get over the level of detail on this stamp and how cleanly it comes out.

Come back soon for another sneak peak, I'm going back to the craft room for another play, don't forget to leave a comment to be entered for my 10,000 hits celebratory give-away (more details here)

The supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio, although I'm afraid you'll have to wait until Feb 1st for the ink and stamps

stamps: come fly with me
paper: kraft
ink: titian

Sweet Valentine

2012-01-18T11:31:00.000-08:00

I promised you another valentine, so here it is:

More of an assembly job than a stamping exercise. I just love my Big Shot and the wonderful Amuse Studio dies.

I don't know about you, but I really prefer to put the fold on my cards along the long edge, I find they stand up better, particularly if they have a front with several layers. The only time I would do it the other way round was if I wanted to wrap ribbon round as in this card, but now I have the answer. It may not be big news to you, but you can keep the fold along the long edge AND wrap ribbon round - all you need to do is to use a craft knife to cut a small slit, (or in this case two) in the fold of the card to thread the ribbon through, I don't have a knot in this card so the joins are under the raised panel.

I am at last beginning to get settled back into my craft room, having been thrown out over the Christmas vacation by my daughter who wanted her room back - I know, outrageous! Anyway, I spent some of my Christmas money on storage for my AMuse Studio toys and at the moment I'm bribing myself to get it all finished - always seems like such a waste of stamping time! However, until it's done I am forcing myself to spend 30 minutes on sorting out BEFORE I start stamping - we'll see how that goes!

I'll give you the full tour when I'm done, but here's a sneak peak of my new ink storage

I know, it's not much to look at - it's an old plastic cassette storage rack, I bought 12 of them from ebay for $1.25 each, you can lock them together both vertically and horizontally. Unfortunately, the top slot is too narrow - the ink has a slight dome to it, but I bought them with room to grow and I still think they look pretty when filled.

If you want to use this idea, the lesson is to measure the ink pads very carefully against the slots. Still, what I've shown you only cost $5 and I'm happy with the result - I even get somewhere to put all my glitters and Copics.

I promise to show you more when I finally get it sorted. Don't forget to leave a comment to be entered for my 10,000 hits celebratory give-away (more details here)

All the supplies for today's card are from Amuse Studio

stamps: friends fur-ever
paper: sugar, blush, cherry
ink: slate
misc: shell felt, shell polka dot ribbon, heart trio dies, envelope die

hello

2012-01-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

I hope you all had a good weekend, my weekend was taken up getting my son back to college - how it took so much time I don't know - he is only a couple of hours away! Anyway, that's my rather weak excuse for being so late with my post for the Amuse Studio Challenge blog. This weeks challenge is valentines / love themed creations and here is mine:

Very quick, very simple - just what I needed today!

I stamped the tree in shell, the greeting in slate, mounted it all up, added the felt heart (cut using the medium heart from the heart trio die set) and I was done. The panel is mounted using puffy tape.

That's it for today - don't forget to leave a comment to be entered for my 10,000 hits celebratory give-away (more details here) and come back tomorrow when I will have another valentines card for you.

All supplies are from Amuse Studio

stamps: tweet heart
paper: sugar, slate, cherry heartbreaker
ink: shell, slate
misc: cherry felt, heart trio die set

Sneak Preview - and a Give-away

2012-01-13T10:14:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I was lucky enough to take delivery of some of the preview items from the new Amuse Studio catalog, with comes out on February 1st, lots of wonderful stuff, but dare I say it - almost too much! You know that feeling you get when you drive into an empty car park and you can't decide where to park? Well that's how I felt.

Last night I caught sight of the current layout challenge on the Cleaning and Simple Stamping site and as they say in France, Voila!

The inks and papers are from a special collection in five colours called the Venetian collection - think of a painting of Venice by one of the Italian masters and you've got the colour palette. The Eiffel tower is from the stamp set I took a sentiment from yesterday - come fly with me.

The card measures 4 1/4" x 5 1/2" and the two strips are 5 1/2" x 1" and 5 1/2" x 7/8"

I first stamped the tower in Rialto and then over stamped the sentiment in titian. A very quick, quite manly card, which would be perfect for my husband - if his birthday were not in December, he's sure to see it before then!

If you are as anxious as me to get the new catalog in your hands, here's you chance - to celebrate the fact that my blog received its 10,000th visitor over night I will be choosing one comment made between now and the end of the month to receive both the new catalog AND a selection of the papers from the Venetian collection - well, what are you waiting for? You may comment on as many posts as you wish, but only one comment per post please. (The small print: this offer is only available to residents of the US who are over 18 - sorry)

All of the supplies for the card are from Amuse Studio, with the exception of celebrate in style and the sugar card stock, these items are not available for purchase until February 1st.

Stamps: come fly with me, celebrate in style

paper: sugar, rialto patterned, titian

ink: rialto, titian

Come fly with me

2012-01-12T09:02:00.000-08:00

At last my family is returning to some approaching normal - I don't think my household ever actually gets there!

This means that I'm managing to catch up on all my challenges. It can be overwhelming when you want to make a card, but have no particular occasion in mind, I find a good challenge helps give me a direction (even if sometimes it also makes me a little uncomfortable). The challenge I picked for today's card is a layout from Cleaning and Simple Stamping - I didn't follow it exactly - I don't have scalloped rectangles or circles of the right size - but I think it's close enough.

For all the layers, it is still a clean and simple card.

The balloon is from love conquers all, one of the sets featured in this months spotlight, this was its first outing for me and I love it. My first step was to punch a 2" circle and stamp the red balloon, I also stamped the sticky part of a post-it which I used to make a mask so that the purple balloon would appear to be behind. Then it was just a question of mounting it all up, I used puffy tape for the circle, partly because the extra dimension adds something to the card, and to be honest, partly because it wouldn't lie flat over the twine!

The balloon comes with a sentiment attached (your love keeps lifting me!), but the layout wasn't right for this card. The sentiment I picked is from a set of the same name in the new catalog, which has a vintage travel theme - perfect for this card.

All the supplies needed to make this card are from Amuse Studio and can be purchased here - you will have to wait until February 1st when the new catalog comes out to purchase the come fly with me set

stamps: love conquers all, come fly with me
paper: sugar, eucalyptus, clouds
ink: cranberry*, blackberry, memento black tuxedo
misc: onyx bakers twine

* cranberry is on the retiring list and so is only available while stocks last - a good substitute would be cherry

Three's a crowd?

2012-01-11T14:03:00.000-08:00

Is it just me or has Wednesday come particularly fast this week? This Wednesday, however, is a good one, because there is a new One Layer Wednesday challenge over on Susan's blog. I really love this style of stamping, but it doesn't come easy to me.

This week's challenge is to use pink and red, and only pink and red, on a white background. This is what I came up with:

Definitely not as beautiful as Susan's example, but I had fun making it and learnt abit more (by trial and error) about what makes things 'work' or not.

The card is 4 1/4" square. I started by stamping the tree, added the two lower birds, a stamped heart and the sentiment - it looked okay, but something wasn't quite right. The balance was off. Adding a third bird corrected this - maybe not a valentine after all? As I went to move the card out of harms way, my eye was caught be a tiny felt heart left over from another project, I couldn't help myself, I just HAD to add it over the stamped heart.

Thanks for visiting, and if you have time this week why not challenge yourself to have a go too?

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio

stamps: tweetheart
paper: sugar
ink: cranberry*, shell, currant
misc: cherry felt, tiny heart die (part of heart trio)

* This colour is being discontinued, if you have to have it, or need a refill, now's the time to act - when it's gone it's gone

The Ninth Hole

2012-01-10T15:45:00.000-08:00

Another quick post today, just sneaking in before the deadline for this week's challenge over at The Playdate Cafe - if you came for the Studio Stampers Blog Hop, please scroll down to the next post.

It's my brother-in-law's birthday next week, he's a keen sportsman, so I hope he'll appreciate the golfing pun. The colours seemed perfect for this card.

As I said earlier this morning, February 1st marks the issue of the Second annual catalog from Amuse Studio, I've only seen a small preview - but it looks stuffed with new stamps, colours, papers and inks. Please let me know if you would like me to order one for you. It's hard to see on this card, but here is a sneak preview of two of the new inks, pistachio and titian. I used the pistachio for the grass, a beautiful almost minty green, and titian for the golfer and sentiment - a kind of greyish brown, somewhere between slate and french roast. Both of these colours look set to become new favorites.

I had the card stamped and layered, ready to glue, but it was lacking something - adding a tone on tone harlequin background did the trick.

I've had several inquiries about the envelope die I used in this morning's post - it's from page 11 of the holiday catalog, so if you want (need?) one of your own, then now's the time to order - there is no guarantee that items from the holiday catalog will be available after 30th.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio and are available from my online store here. Remember, if your order is over $150 contact me so that I can make sure you get your free stuff.

stamps: swingin day, harlequin background, ovalicious

paper: eucalyptus, bermuda, vanilla

ink: titian, pistachio, sky

misc: shell pearl sticker, copics - G21, G24, B21, BV23, E00

Studio Stampers January Blog Hop

2012-01-10T08:00:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to My Paper Paradise and to the Studio Stampers January blog hop. I do hope you will join us on a hop full of Amuse Studio goodness

It's only just over a month until Valentine's Day, so I took that as my inspiration (that and the fact that I took delivery of this super cute envelope die from Amuse Studio today and just HAD to use it!). The envelope die is on page 11 of the holiday catalog.

So I designed this card all backwards, starting with the pink envelope, adding the letter - I stamped it, but how cute would it be to write your own letter and insert it here? - and the pink felt heart. Mounting it on a sugar square with a sentiment seemed the obvious next step. I was going to mount it directly onto the polka dot paper, but it needed a backing - after much trial and error I had it.

The card measures 4 1/4" x 4 1/4" so it fits in a standard envelope, which would have meant no additional postage fees were it not for the ribbon!

Now I have some bad news for you (if I was at all technically minded you would be hearing sad, somber music at this point!) Amuse Studio have just announced that they are retiring ALL colours of Polka Dot paper in the new catalog (which comes out on February 1st). This means that if you want to stock up you need to buy it NOW - when it's gone, it's gone. Click here for a complete list of retiring stamps and here for the retiring products. The Holiday catalog was a special, so we won't know for a while what's carried into the main catalog, what comes back next year and what's gone - if you have your eye on something, now's the time.

I do however have a little good news for you, the sentiment comes from this months Spotlight - click the link on the right for more details. Lots of Valentine's goodies at discounted prices.

If you are interested in the polka dot paper, spotlight items or any other Amuse Studio product they can be obtained from my online store here. If you need help, or your order exceed $150 contact me direct.

That's all from me, I do hope you enjoyed your visit, next stop on the hop is the very talented Kristen Watson I can't wait to see what she has in store for us for us. Here is the complete in case you get lost on the way. Happy hopping!

Karen Crisp
Kristen Watson
Angela Schellenberg
Lianna Vigil
Kari Bell

All the supplies needed to make this card are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: script background, friends fur-ever
paper: sugar, shell, lichen, bubblegum polkadot
ink: slate
misc: shell felt, heart die,envelope die, vanilla twill ribbon

Another embossing challenge

2012-01-09T18:51:00.000-08:00

Hello there, I'm sorry this is a bit late ...but better late than never? This week's challenge over at the Amuse Studio Challenge Blog is adhesive heat embossing. Because I see the challenge in advance so that I can prepare the samples, I get no pictures to help, although this week there was a helpful hint -"just pour embossing powder on any of our adhesives and heat as usual".

As last week, I had plenty of time to plan, little time to enact, but some kind of graphic image kept coming into my head.

I applied strips of double sided sticky tape across the card, making sure I left room for the sentiment, which I stamped using versamark. A liberal dusting of gold embossing powder, a quick flick on the back and a zap with the heat tool, and it was done.

Some tips:

A) make should you wipe the surface with anti static, with this quantity of sticky stuff and embossing powder it's really easy to get fingerprint

B) plan on a piece of scratch paper first, once the tape touches the paper there is no turning back.

I really like the effect of the embossing powder on the tape, it's not as smooth as the effect you get using versamark or ink. I think when things settle down a bit here and a little tweaking I will make a couple of sets of these to sell at upcoming craft fairs.

Do visit the challenge blog to see what everyone else came up with.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: essential sentiments

paper: sugar

ink:: versamark

misc: double sided sticky tape, gold embossing powder

Valentine's Day is on its Way!

2012-01-03T14:33:00.000-08:00

Yes, I know, you've only just taken down your Christmas decorations (or, if you are like me, they are still up - I like to keep them up until Twelfth night - the house looks so bare without them), but if you are beginning to think about Valentine's Day, Amuse Studio has some amazing offers for you. Click on the link to the right for more information. For the next few days I am going to share a card or project using one of the stamp sets in this offer, today's stamp set is sweet love, which is on sale for $16.19 for this month (January 2012) only

I first stamped script background in shell onto a scrap of sugar card stock, added the sundae from sweet love and coloured the image using Copics. I then mounted it onto blush card and used puffy tape to mount the panel onto the sugar card base. A sentiment from the friend to friend set and a dab of crystal clear glaze for the cherry and the card was complete. I have to say I am quite pleased with my first card of the year.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio and are available here. If you need assistance or your order is over $150 dollars, be sure to contact me

stamps: sweet love, script background, friend to friend
paper: sugar, blush
ink: shell, memento black tuxedo
misc: crystal clear glaze, Copics - E00, R29

With Sympathy

2012-01-02T20:34:00.000-08:00

This is going to be a brief post - my whole family is downstairs watching the cardinals and although I don't really like football, I'm enjoying the family time.

I thought I was going to break my posting resolution on day two until I remembered I had this card to show you. I love the look of the pearls on the butterflies don't you?

Do come back tomorrow when I will have another card for you and also some news on this months spotlight items from Amuse Studio. I think I'm going to HAVE to get the whole lot!

All supplies are from Amuse Studio and can be purchased here. Please contact me direct if your order exceeds $150, so that I can make sure you get your free stuff.

stamps: beautiful botanicals 2, essential sentiments

paper: winker sky woodgrain, slate, sugar, pebble

ink: lichen, memento black tuxedo

misc: butterfly die, sugar pearl stickers

Happy New Year!

2012-01-01T23:01:00.000-08:00

Wow, 2012. I wish you all a wonderful, happy, healthy and prosperous New Year - with plenty of time and inspiration for stamping and other crafty projects!

It may be New Years Day, but it's also Sunday - so that means it's time for another challenge over at the Amuse Studio Challenge Blog. This weeks theme is heat embossing, one of my favorite techniques - I don't think I will ever tire of watching it 'pop' as I apply the heat.

This weeks card was always going to have to be a quick one - with my two eldest back from college and my stamping supplies packed up in boxes and distributed around the house so that my daughter could have her bedroom back for the holidays - I had to plan the whole thing in my head - and then hope I would be able to find the supplies and tools necessary to put it together. Luckily, I was able to find everything and make the card in about 20 minutes (Note to self - a little bit of planning can go a long way!)

Anyway, the card:

A bit of a cheat really - all the hard work is done by the co-ordinating shimmer papers from Amuse Studio. I think this would make a great golden wedding card - when I have more time, and easier access to supplies, I will find the perfect sentiment for inside, and maybe see if some gold shimmer ribbon would add anything, but for now I'm happy.

One of my New Year's resolutions is to get back into posting most, if not every day. The wonderful chaos that is Christmas and a full house has meant that I have been somewhat remiss over recent weeks. It will change I promise - but maybe not completely until all children are back in school / back in college.

All of the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio, and can be purchased from my web-store here

stamps: celebrate in style
paper: gold shimmer, sugar shimmer, gold damask shimmer
ink: versamark
misc: gold embossing powder

Number

2011-12-25T21:00:00.000-08:00

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

Well, it's Sunday night so it must be time for another Amuse Studio challenge blog challenge. This week's theme is NUMBERS and with the New Year fast approaching, I choose to make a card for it.

This card was really quick to make - always a good thing at this time of year I feel. All the supplies needed for this card are from Amuse Studio and are available from my webstore here

stamps: owl's well, essential sentiments
paper: woodgrain, french roast, vanilla
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: french roast twill ribbon, copics

Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice

2011-12-18T22:33:00.000-08:00

Well it's Sunday night so it must be time for another challenge over at the Amuse Studio Challenge Blog - but this week, it's not just any challenge, I'm your hostess!, so if you didn't come from there why not pop over and see what wonderful Amuse goodness my fellow hostess have come up with?

The challenge this week is 'Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice', I love to use the holiday season as an excuse to give token gifts as a small thank you to teachers, neighbors and friends for kindness over the year. It just so happened that this week was the week I got serious in packing all my homemade goodies as gifts for Christmas - just look at this - would you believe it started life as a packet of Pringles?

and here is a close up of the top

The first step is to find a volunteer to eat the contents of the Pringles packet - not an issue in my house I can tell you! Then it's onto the project.

I started by taping super sticky double sided tape around all four sides of a piece of candy cane paper, then lining up an edge with the nutritional information (to get a vertical), I wrapped it around the cylinder. (Depending on the size of the tube you may need to trim it first.) Add a strip of grass polka dot to top and bottom, then cover the join with french roast twill ribbon. Four gingerbread men, cut using the die and dressed with copics and Baker's twine scarves complete the bottom.

For the lid, I cut a circle of 'twas the night paper the same size as the lid. A quick stamp with the gingerbread man and a sprig of holly, another dash of copics and it was ready to attach to the lid, a trim of cherry stitched grosgrain around the edge and the gift container is complete. All it needs now is some gingerbread cookies on the inside and you have the perfect token gift.

I do hope you like the project, and that you feel motivated to add some sugar and spice to a project of your own. If you do, please do go over to the Amuse Studio Challenge blog and add a link, I'd love to see it and there's some Amuse Goodies going for a random participant.

All of the materials to complete this project are available at my online store here

stamps: holiday tags, candy cane wishes
paper: grass polka dot, candy cane, 'twas the night, cocoa
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: gingerbread man die, french roast twill, cherry stitched grosgrain, copics, cherry and french roast baker's twine, super sticky double sided tape

Christmas Crackers

2011-12-16T08:10:00.000-08:00

Well, the holidays are another week closer, I only hope you are feeling more in control than I am. So much to do, so little time ... I did however find time to help out a neighbor who was looking for an idea for a token gift to give each of the children in her kindergarten class, as luck would have it I had recently taken delivery of the winter wishes stamp set and this was a good enough excuse to ink it up. A single photograph was not possible so I have three, one of each side.

Cute, quick and the perfect size for a few Hershey's kisses. I have put the template for the cracker at the bottom of this post. The only essential tool is the 1" circle punch (and if I'm honest, if you are making several, an old Christmas movie to watch while you punch out all those circles.

Dimensions:
grass polka dot - 6" x 5 1/2" scored and circles punch as below.
candy candy - 1 1/4" x 3 1/4"
vanilla - 1" x 3"

The trick is to score the base first, then it is easy to line up the holes - it really doesn't matter if they are a little off once you've tied the ribbon.

The images come with sentiments attached, whilst I'm sorely tempted to cut them off, for this purpose it was relatively easy to only ink up the image - if you want to be extra safe you could tape over text before stamping. Both the penguins and the mittens were stamped to fill the space.

That's all I have time for today - be sure to visit the Amuse Studio Challenge Blog on Sunday night/ Monday morning - it's my turn to host, so I've got that nervous, excited feeling in the pit of my stomach at the moment.

All the materials for today's post are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: winter wishes, snow crystals
paper: candy cane, vanilla, grass polka dot
ink: memento black tuxedo, sky
misc: cherry stitched grosgrain ribbon

Santa's Little Helpers

2011-12-13T08:32:00.000-08:00

Hello, are you looking for a quick treat that works for anyone? I think I have the answer, after all, who DOESN'T like chocolate?

I made these for the children that helped out Santa at a school event, green ones for the elves and a red one for the man himself. My daughter liked them so much that we made another 36 last night for her friends at school, and it really didn't take us much more than an hour (including my time to go and buy the chocolate!)

If you are anything like me, anything that involves too much brainpower at this time of year is just too much - so here is a very precise ingredients list.

Ingredients:

1 1.55 oz bar Hershey's milk chocolate
coat - 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" red (cranberry) or green (sage), scored at 1 1/2", 1 3/4", 4", 4 1/4"
buttons - 1/2" punch (onyx)
beard - 2" scalloped circle (sugar) - blue marvy
belt - 2 1/4" x 3/4" (onyx), 1" x 1" (gold shimmer), 3/4" x 3/4" (onyx)
label - 1 1/2" x 1 1/2" scalloped square (sugar) - blue marvy
stamp - candy cane wishes

Obviously, this is really easy to adapt to any size of chocolate bar - look for one with a square shape, it's the crisp, clean fold lines that really make it work (and I speak from experience here, I tried it with almond bars - a mess!)

Get everything ready, stamp the greeting and then you can start your assembly. Wrap the coat really tightly around the chocolate bar, add the collar, buttons and belt, then tuck the greeting under the belt at a jaunty angle. Who wouldn't smile on being given one of these?

All the materials - except the chocolate! - for this project are from Amuse Studio and can be purchased here.

Have a wonderful day, and do pop back and see me soon.

Pretty in Pink!

2011-12-11T23:00:00.000-08:00

It's Sunday evening, time for the Amuse Studio Challenge Blog Challenge - and this weeks theme is snowflakes. I was showing this card at a recent workshop, and someone said it would look cute with snowflakes - when I found out the prompt for this week, I just had to give it a go.

The card measures 5 1/2" x 4" when folded flat, so it fits in a standard sized envelope, - although I suspect that USPS will still charge extra for a 'non-machinable' envelope! Especially as I will add an extra sheet of stiff 5 1/2" x 4 1/4" card to provide some support for the snowflakes en route.

The only tricky part to making this card is folding the card base. I've included a diagram at the bottom of this post, which I hope is clear, if you have questions do let me know. Otherwise it's just a case of using the dies to cut the snowflakes and gingerbread man, stamping and embossing the sentiment, and giving the gingerbread man some clothes.

That's all I have for you today, thanks for visiting. Why not take a look at the other, wonderful projects that the design team have come up with, such talented ladies.

All supplies are from Amuse Studio and can be purchased here. Please contact me direct if your order exceeds $150.

stamps: chill of winter

paper: watermelon, squash, sugar shimmer

ink: versamark

misc: gingerbread man die, snowflake dies, sugar pearl stickers, cherry bakers twine

Stockings Hanging by an Open Fire

2011-12-09T11:47:00.000-08:00

At the risk of raising expectations to an unsustainable level - here is another quick post - this is what happens when I am forced to watch the X Factor results show (I end up surfing the web on my iPod). Anyway, when I looked at this sketch on the Clean and Simple Stamping website, I had loads of ideas of how to make it work - and you may well see some of them over the coming weeks. But for the challenge I decided to stick with a Christmas theme - especially as I am coming dangerously close to running out.

Here are the dimensions

Card Base (cherry woodgrain) - 4-1/4x5-1/2
Image Layer (vanilla) - 2-7/8x4-1/8
Mat (french roast) - 3x4-1/4
Strip (candy cane) - 5 1/2 x 1/2

I wish I could tell you where I got the stocking stamp, but it has no markings on it - all I can say is that I bought it when I was still living in England, which dates it as 2001 or earlier, and it came as part of a very cheap foam mounted set that I bought for my children to play with - who were then very small, so that they wouldn't ruin mine!

Anyway, I stamped the image onto cranberry card using versamark, sprinkled with gold embossing powder and heat set it. I cut them out and punch a small hole through the loop. I then attached them with black mini brads to the candy cane strip. You can't really see it in the picture but they are attached to the base using puffy tape. I felt that the sentiment needed to hold it's own on the card, so something from the holiday greetings inside and out set was an obvious choice, and french roast ink really makes the fancy type pop.

All of the materials (with the exception of the unknown stocking stamp) to make this card are available from Amuse Studio and can be purchased here

stamps: holiday greetings inside and out, stocking unknown
paper: cherry woodgrain, french roast, candy cane, vanilla, cranberry
ink: versamark, french roast
misc gold embossing powder, black mini brads

Special Delivery

2011-12-09T09:11:00.000-08:00

No, you are not imagining things, this is the third post in two days! I was browsing through my favorite challenge blogs over a well deserved cup of coffee and I came across this colour challenge from The Play Date Cafe and gave myself permission to spend a few minutes stamping to find out if the picture in my head would translate to paper. It didn't quite go according to plan, but with a few tweaks here and there, this is what I came up with:

I stamped the elf, presents and sentiment - don't you think it's perfect for this mode of transport? Coloured the image with copics and assembled the card and ... well to tell you the truth I was distinctly underwhelmed. Adding the snowflakes in ocean ink (very carefully, I put post its all the way round and used the second generation stamp to make it more subtle) improved things. Some stickles, and I was ready to share - I hope you like it.

Everything necessary to make this card is available from Amuse Studio unless otherwise stated.

stamps: old AMuse rocket elf, itty bitty birthday, holiday tags, snow crystals
paper: ocean, sugar, candy cane
ink: memento black tuxedo, ocean
misc: Copics - B02, YG23, E44, E59, R29, 110, E00, B26, stardust stickles (The Paper Garden)

There's always time for coffee

2011-12-08T12:52:00.000-08:00

I know, my posts are like buses - you wait for ages and suddenly there's two on the same day - but this challenge in the Cleaning and Simple Stamping website has been bugging me for some time - I really hate to be defeated by a sketch. Actually, I really hate to be defeated by anything - but that's a different story. Anyway, I was starting the long process of tidying my craft room ready for the return of my eldest daughter on Tuesday (- we have a time share arrangement on the room, I get it while she's away in college, it reverts to being her bedroom while she's home) and I came across this coffee cup image from Hero Arts, I have no idea why I didn't think of it before. Add some of the beautifully coordinating card stock from Amuse Studio and I was away.

Those of you that have this stamp will know that it doesn't actually come with the snowflake in the circle - that was my addition - the card needed something to balance out the colours. The snow flake from the snow crystals set add a festive touch, and the tiara and stardust stickles add some seasonal sparkle to the finished card.

That really is it for today! I hope you pop back soon

Supplies:
stamps: Hero arts - cup of coffee, Amuse Studio - snow crystals, Amuse - happy holidays
paper: Amuse Studio - vanilla, eucalyptus, bermuda, bermuda polka dot
ink: Amuse Studio - french roast
misc: stickles - stardust, tiara

Just for You

2011-12-08T09:57:00.000-08:00

Wow, have you noticed how fast time goes by at this time of year - I'm lucky if I get two minutes to myself at the moment! Here's a very quick card I made last week but didn't get a chance to post. When I saw these swallow dies in the Amuse Studio catalog I couldn't wait to make them mine - when they arrived I found I didn't know what to do with them. I have made a deal with myself that I won't purchase any more stamps or dies until I have used (and published here) everything I already own - yes, I know - let's see how long that one lasts, especially when the new catalog comes out. Still, I have a couple of months ....

Anyway, I digress, here is the card I eventually came up with:

This was the first time I have truly been happy with multi-generation stamping, I really like the way the leaves came out. The swallows are the same colour as the card base - but because the central panel is raised it works.

Well, that's all I have for you today - I will try my hardest to get back to you at least once before Sunday's (Monday for some for you) post for the challenge blog. See you soon, and happy stamping.

All supplies are from Amuse Studio and can be purchased here. Please contact me direct if your order exceeds $150 and I can make sure you get your free stuff.

stamps: essential sentiments, friend to friend

paper: slate, lichen, sugar, winter sky woodgrain

ink: lichen, slate

misc: swallow die

Gift tags

2011-12-04T23:00:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome - it's time for another card for the Amuse Studio Challenge Blog. This week's challenge is to make some gift tags - so if you are like me and hate to throw anything away, why not join us and use up some of those scraps - if you add a link to your project on the Challenge blog you could even win some Amuse Studio goodies.

Here is my offering:

Each tag measures 5 1/2" x 2 1/4" and consists of two layers, one sugar and one cranberry. I stamped the image and sentiment, coloured the image with Copics and then used the snowflake die to cut a snowflake 'window' in the front tag. I then punched a hole through both tags, tied it with cherry bakers twine, and since I really liked the slightly offset look, added a dab of tape to old them in place - the Copics bleed through the top layer so you can't just leave it to swing free.

I do hope you can play along with us this week.

All the supplies for this project are from Amuse Studio

stamps: holiday tags, chill of winter

paper: sugar, cranberry

ink: memento black tuxedo

misc: cherry bakers twine

The Hardest Card to Make

2011-12-03T09:26:00.000-08:00

I'm spending today at another craft fair, but since I've been slacking somewhat on my blog posts I thought I'd go ahead and schedule one for today. I don't know about you, but I really get no pleasure from making sympathy cards - I try to always have one or two in my box, so that I don't have to make one when I need it. At the last craft fair I sold all four sympathy cards (I'm really hoping they were all for the same person), so yesterday I sat down to make some more for today's sale - I really hope they don't sell!

Here is the first; simple, calm and peaceful:

The pearls were not in the original plan, but I think they may be my favorite part.

I hope you have a wonderful weekend, and that despite they time of year (or perhaps because of it) you manage to squeeze in some you time with your stamps.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: beautiful botanicals 2, loving memories

paper: sugar, onyx, wasabi

ink: memento black tuxedo, grass

Misc: sugar pearl stickers

Tempting Treats

2011-12-01T21:00:00.000-08:00

Well hello, it's time for me to join some of my friends at Amuse Studio for our final blog hop of 2011. This month's theme is all things holiday. If you are hopping along with us, you should have come here from Maria Stanley, if you didn't why not grab a cup of coffee and head back to the start with Samantha, then keep on going until you get back to me? There's tons of festive inspiration to be had.

About a month ago I did my first ever craft fair, I wasn't sure how things would turn out and I didn't want to make a whole load of stuff which would then go to waste, so I decided to make the treats for my daughter's cross country team early - if they sold great, if not, well at least I would be ahead of the game - Well, they sold like hot cakes.

First a photo of a small selection of the 50+ tag treats I have made this year.

A close up of the absolute best seller - my favorite too!

and a side profile - the perfect size for a couple of Hershey's nuggets. My daughter received the those for her cross country team in the mail today - so I can at last share them with you.

Now some of you will have seen the tags on the front here before - it's not that I didn't love the tags as they were, but just that it seemed like an awful lot of effort for the tag on a gift. This way they last a lot longer, whether as place settings at a holiday meal, co-worker gifts, or decorations on a tiny tree.

The first step, is to make the tags, and this is where I called in my secret weapon - my youngest daughter Sophie - I stamped and coloured the images, she sat for hours with the tiny scissors cutting them all out for me, you may need to find your own 14 year old if you plan to make a lot of these!

The tents are made from 7" x 2" strips of grass polka dot card stock, scored and folded at 3" and 4". Attach the tag, hold together while you punch a small hole in the top , then thread and tie with cherry bakers twine. Then insert the nuggets - to make sure they don't slip out, I like to apply a tiny strip of tape to the bottom of each one to hold them in place.

Well, that's all from me, I do hope you enjoyed your visit to My Paper Paradise and that you will come back and visit me again soon, until then, why not hop on over to Ginger and see what she has for you today.

All the supplies for today's project are from Amuse Studio and can be purchased from my web store here

Supplies:
Stamps: holiday tags
Paper: 'twas the night before Christmas, candy cane, vanilla, fern, grass polka dot
Ink: memento black tuxedo
Misc: tree die, tags dies, Copics

Champagne Kisses

2011-11-30T19:50:00.000-08:00

Hello, Happy Wednesday! At last I've managed to find some time in the craft room, and I'm desperately trying to get ready for my second craft fair this weekend at Mariposa Elementary School in Citrus Heights. I'll be sharing some of my new creations over the coming weeks. Today, however, it's time for the Clean and Simple Stamping challenge. It's been up for a week now, and I kept going back to it, but nothing came to me - I actually decided to sit this one out. Yesterday, however, I got a delivery from Amuse Studio and in it the celebrate in style set, and more bermuda cardstock, inspiration finally there, here is my card:

I stamped the sentiment in ocean on a 3" vanilla circle, adding the rings from happily ever after in slate. To get the curve on the polka dot paper, I traced around an upside down flowerpot! The only thing I could find with the right diameter! From then on, the assembly was easy enough - the two teardrop twinkle stickers provide the right amount of 'bling' to the ring.

I love the colour scheme, when I have more time I'd like to play about a bit with the layout, but for now, I'm happy.

Tomorrow (9 p.m. Pacific time) I'll be back with the December Amuse Studio blog hop - this months theme is the Holiday season - cards, tags, treats, decorations - you won't want to miss this one. I'll see you then.

All the supplies for today's card are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: celebrate in style, happily ever after
paper: bemuda, bermuda polka dot, eucalyptus
ink: ocean, slate
misc: sugar organdy polka dot ribbon, clear twinkle stickers

Jolly Gingerbread

2011-11-27T23:00:00.000-08:00

Hello, I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving break. Now it's back to reality and if it's Sunday,and 11.00 pm, that must mean it's time for another challenge from the Amuse Studio Challenge blog. This week's challenge is to produce a holiday card for whatever holiday you are celebrating this season. Since I got my big shot and holiday dies, I just can't stop playing with them

The card is slightly smaller than my normal card - it's actually 4-bar (3 1/2 x 5), which still fits a standard envelope, BUT also just happens to be exactly the right width for the gingerbread houses.

I started by heat embossing the houses with white embossing powder on squash card stock, I cut them out and them ran them face down through my Xyron sticker maker, I then peeled of the backing and dropped it into a plate of diamond glitter - instant sugar topping! The gingerbread men and snowflake were cut using the Amuse Studio dies and then decorated with pearl stickers, baker's twine and a red felt heart cut using the tiny heart die - if you haven't tried using the Amuse Studio dies on their felt you really should, it makes me smile every time I do it - it cuts the felt like butter.

All the supplies for this card are available from Amuse Studio

stamps: jolly gingerbread

paper: squash, twas the night before Christmas, sugar shimmer

ink: versamark

misc: dies - gingerbreadman, snowflake, heart, pearls - onyx, cranberry, sugar, cherry baker's twine, cherry felt, copic liner

You Rock My World

2011-11-23T08:04:00.000-08:00

Hello, here's hoping you are having a wonderful day. I got a bit carried away with the clever girls set last week, so here's one more card for you:

Still had to keep those blues and oranges, love how you can use the circles to create a funky background for the panel. I'll be honest here, my original intent was have pale blue circles and a blue guitar, but it was missing something - so on came the orange flourishes, from then on the card practically put itself together. A 'diamond' for the centres of the flowers seemed to be in order this time.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio

stamps: clever girls
paper: sugar, orange, papaya
ink: memento black tuxedo, sky, orange, ocean
misc: clear twinkle stickers

Take time to taste the snowflakes

2011-11-21T15:54:00.000-08:00

Some time ago I remember seeing a card on someones blog with a snowman looking up into the sky - if this was you - thank you, you were the inspiration for my card for this weeks Clean and Simple Stamping challenge, and what better sentiment for a snowman looking up into a snowy sky than 'take time to taste the snowflakes'?

I started by heat embossing the Hero Arts magical background stamp with white embossing powder - I'd forgotten how cool this stamp is. Two punched circles for the snowman body and head, onyx pearls for the eyes and mouth and a scrap of orange for his nose. Fittingly, I made the arms by cutting two of the limbs off a black snowflake and trimming away the excess prongs. Some buttercup gingham for the banner and a couple of punched snowflakes and sugar pearls finish the card. I like it, but my daughter says the snowman is creepy!

I hope you enjoyed your visit, do come again soon.

Supplies
stamps: hero arts - magical background, amuse studio - chill of winter
paper: amuse studio - sugar, sky, buttercup gingham, sugar shimmer, onyx
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: - onyx pearls, sugar pearls, white embossing powder

Winter warmer

2011-11-20T23:00:00.000-08:00

Well, it's Sunday at 11.00 p.m. which means it's time for a new challenge on the A Muse Studio Challenge Blog. This week's challenge is to make something, anything, that isn't a card. I haven't shared a gift card holder with you for a while, so this seems the perfect day to do so:

The pocket is held together by the ribbon and held shut by the Merry Christmas label which is only stuck at the bottom. Although it's still a little pretty, it's not overly feminine and I would be happy to give it to anyone, male or female. I'm going to make a couple more to have as 'just in case' gifts - I hate been caught out.

If you want to make one yourself, here are the ingredients / instructions:

Base (french roast polka dot) - 10" x 3 1/2", scored at 3" and 7"

Top panel base: (candy cane) - 1 3/4" x 3 1/2"

Top panel (vanilla) - 1 1/2" x 3 1/2"

Label (vanilla) - 3" x 2" approx.

Let's start with the top panel - stamp and colour the mug from the holiday tags collection. Mount onto the candy cane backing.

For the label, I first stamped the label outline (vintage labels) and then cut it out using the coordinating die - the die comes with a positioning plate to help line it up. Stamp the greeting and the poinsettia.

Fold the base along the score lines and using a 1 1/2" circle punch, cut quarter circles from each corner of the top and a semi circle from the centre of the pocket (if you look at the two pictures you will see what I mean). Tie the pocket together using ribbon, attach the top panel, and finally attach the label - remembering to only stick the bottom half. You want to position it so that a slight bend of the holder causes the flap to pop out.

If you didn't come from the challenge blog, why not go and visit now - I can promise you will find lots of inspiration there - and if you can find time to play along this week, do join us.

All the supplies for today's project are from Amuse Studio and are available for purchase here.

stamps: holiday tags, vintage labels, nordic noel, happy christmas

paper: french roast polka dot, candy cane, vanilla

ink: memento black tuxedo, cranberry, french roast

misc: cherry stitched grosgrain ribbon, copics - G28, R27

Sweet Christmas Wishes

2011-11-18T07:48:00.000-08:00

Can you believe it's Friday again? Already? Don't the weeks just fly by at this time of year? I popped by to The Playdate Cafe yesterday to see what everyone else had done with last weeks challenge and they already had a new one up, yay! The new colours 'spoke' to me, so I squeezed in some time in the craft room to create this:

I LOVE this colour combo, it conjures up log fires and mulled wine - neither of which are particularly common at any time of year in this part of California!

This was the inspiration photo - I think I captured both the colours and the mood, don't you?

The supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio - with the exception of the Martha Stewart candy punch.

stamps: candy cane wishes

paper: pumpkin, candy cane, vanilla, cherry, squash

ink: french roast

misc: french roast bakers twine, clear embossing powder, heart twinkle stickers, onyx pearls, gman die, candy punch

'Fin-Tastic' Friend

2011-11-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

Hello again, this may seem to be the most seasonally inappropriate card ever,but I needed a Thank You card for a truly fin-tastic friend so I felt compelled to dig out this summer stamp set.

I hope you noticed the glitter on the fish and the bubbles.

To get the two tone effect on the seaweed, I first inked it up in pebble, I then used a sponge dauber to add some fern to the edges - every leaf guaranteed to be different. The fish was stamped and coloured on a scrap of sugar card stock,before cutting out and mounting using puffy tape. The whole centre panel was also mounted with puffy tape.

Well there you are- a short break from the run up to the holidays - I do hope you enjoyed it.

The supplies necessary for this card can be obtained from Amuse Studio here

stamps: keep swimmin'
paper: sugar, sky, pebble, slate
ink: memento black tuxedo, pebble, fern, sky
misc: diamond glitter, Copics

Thinking of YOU

2011-11-16T08:41:00.000-08:00

Hello, thanks for visiting My Paper Paradise. Today's card was hard work - as some of you know, in recent weeks I've been joining in the Clean and Simple Stamping Challenge. Usually I find that this kind of challenge plays into the way my brain works and I come up with an idea really quickly which only needs a little tinkering with before I am happy with it. This week was different, nothing came to mind immediately, I mulled over it for several days - still nothing and eventually sat down yesterday to meet the challenge - that's what they are there for after all, to push us a little outside our comfort zone. Okay, I think I've lowered your expectations enough - this is what I came up with:

Since the juices really weren't flowing, I took the dimensions directly from the challenge, so we have

Standard Card: 4-1/4x5-1/2
Bottom Panel: 7/8x4-1/4
Mat Layer: 2-3/4x3-1/2
Tag: 2x2-3/4

I took one of the flowers from the friend to friend set and on of the coordinating sentiments, the image is coloured with copics - it's difficult to see in the photo but I used two toning colours to get a more realistic effect on the flowers. The tag is tied with onyx baker's twine.

Thanks for visiting, I hope to see you again soon.

All the supplies for this card are available from Amuse Studio and can be purchased here

stamps: friend to friend
paper: sugar, buttercup, lichen, buttercup gingham
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: onyx baker's twine, copics - Y17, Y38

A Splash of Colour

2011-11-15T11:25:00.000-08:00

Hi, I'm feeling particularly smug as I sit down and write today - my Christmas cake is in the oven, the Christmas pudding is steaming away, the mincemeat is soaking and the slow cooker is bubbling away with a stew. The whole house smells wonderful.

I sat down with a coffee at the computer half an hour ago, and saw this challenge at The Play Date Cafe and I just had to play along. The challenge is black and white with a splash of orange, and had I seen it a couple of weeks ago I would have immediately thought Halloween, today, my first thought was this beautiful stamp from Hero Arts. The card came together 'just like that' - today is a GOOD, GOOD day!

The gingham strip is 1 1/2" x 5" and I used the yellow marvy punch to get the scalloped circles. Now I am regularly laughed at because I hate to throw scraps of paper and ribbon away, but the ribbon was a 2" scrap that I found at the bottom of my ribbon box and it couldn't be more perfect - if only I knew where I got it from!

This was the inspiration photo:

I think I have it covered. It closes very soon, but if you still have time why don't you play along too.

That's it for today - now I better get on with what I sat down to do! Hope you enjoyed you visit and that you'll come back soon.

Supplies:
Stamps: hero arts, amuse
paper: Amuse studio - sugar, onyx, onyx gingham
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: scrap of ribbon, Copic - YR07

Exciting News

2011-11-13T21:00:00.000-08:00

I have some exciting news for you today - as of today I am one of the new contributors to the A Muse Challenge blog, I won't be hosting for a while, but in the meantime I get to play along with all the challenges

They haven't gone easy on us newbies this week though - the first challenge is metal embossing - which would be fine if I had any embossing plates or pads for my big shot. Still, I figure many of you will be in the same position so I had a go with what I do have, heavy duty aluminium foil (tin foil for those of you in England), stamps and fingers! Here's what I came up with:

You see the first thing that came to mind when I read the challenge, was how cool it would be to use the harlequin embossing plate to create a textured background, as I said I don't have that - BUT I do have the harlequin background stamp, so I tore of a piece of heavy duty foil,slightly bigger than the stamp, keeping it as flat as possible, laid it over the upturned stamp and gently rubbed it with my fingers - you won't believe how easy it was to get a decent image.

Because even the heavy duty foil is still quite thin, and also difficult to cut neatly, I wrapped it around a piece of 4" x 5 1/4" card before attaching it to the base. The green shimmer provided the perfect contrast to the silver foil and a die cut snowflake completes the card. The hardest part was taking the picture, I just couldn't get a picture that was colour true without too much reflection in the aluminium foil.

Well, now you've seen my attempt at metal embossing, why not have a go yourself, and do share it with us on the challenge blog - there is a prize to be won.

All supplies with the exception of the aluminium foil are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: harlequin background
paper: onyx, sugar, grass shimmer, heavy duty aluminium foil
misc: snowflake die

Clever Girls

2011-11-11T08:00:00.000-08:00

It's been a long week, but at last it's Friday. My son is coming home for the weekend, so this will be my last post until Sunday evening when I have some exciting news to share with you, be sure to drop by after 9.00 pm pacific time.

When I got the clever girls set out to use in the challenge earlier in the week, I was reminded how much I like this set - somehow it says flower power and girl power both at the same time - love it. Here is another card in the same colour palette.

Very pleased with this one. If you feel like having a go, remember to start with the palest inks and get darker if there is overlap. It's easy to smush the small birds and get a halo effect when stamping them so put a clean stamp on the acrylic block after inking them up to stabilise things a little.

That's it for today, I have to drive down to get my son now, Have a wonderful weekend.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio

stamps: clever girls
paper: sugar, ocean
ink: memento black tuxedo, sky, ocean, orange, papaya

With enough caffeine anything is possible!

2011-11-10T10:27:00.000-08:00

Whoever wrote that was clearly thinking of me - it could be my motto. I'm still trying to clear the backlog of things that I made for the craft fair and never got around to sharing with you. Today I have another year round gift card holder.

I always have one or two of these sitting in the cupboard to use as a last minute thank you, cheer up, or even birthday gift.

The base is a slightly odd size as it is made by cutting some pre-made kraft cards in half - I bought a vast number of them years ago for project that never happened, but it is roughly 4" x 3". Only the left hand half of the circle is stuck down, so it acts as the catch for the wallet.

I stamped the coffee cup and beans on a 1 3/4" circle of vanilla and mounted it onto a 2" scalloped circle of slate. The 'belt' for the card measures 1" x 7 1/2". the loose tab is 1" and the strip scored to fit around the card. The inside pocket is 1" deep. When you are putting it together, be sure to leave the tab and the right side of the circle unstuck.

To finish, chomp the right hand corners, add a sentiment, some more beans and a sentiment and put away safely for some greeting card emergency.

Thanks for looking in.

Supplies:
stamps: old amuse clear set
paper: old kraft card base (10 years old, from England!), sugar, slate
ink: memento black tuxedo, french roast

Dreams

2011-11-09T07:27:00.000-08:00

When I saw this week's challenge on the clean and simple stamping blog, I have to confess to being somewhat over-awed by the simple beauty of Natasha's card so it's taken some time to come up with my own interpretation.

I keep my Amuse Studio stamp sets in a drawer, with the spines showing. I don't worry too much about what order they are in, but I do put the them wrong way round i.e. with the writing upside down, this means that when I am stuck for ideas I can just leaf through them, looking at the images on the front. When I saw the flowers in this set, I immediately knew what I was doing - I just love the sentiment (it's the main reason I got the set in the first place)

I stamped the three flowers onto a scrap of sugar card and punched them out using 1 3/4", 1 1/4",and 7/8" punches.

The card is 5 1/2" x 4 1/4", the blue strip is 5 1/2" x 1 1/2" and the orange strip is 5 1/2" x 2". The circles are mounted with puffy tape. It really doesn't get much easier than this.

I hope you like this card - I think I'm going to leave the stamp set out for a while and see what else I can up with. See you soon.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: clever girls
paper: sugar, ocean, orange polka dot
ink: ocean, sky, orange

Holiday Bookmark

2011-11-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

Now I have to be honest here - I made this in response to this week's OLW challenge - make a tag. I took it to the craft fair and everyone assumed it was a book mark (and therefore wanted to pay $1 instead of 25 cents!) who was I to argue? I'm going to submit it to the challenge anyway.

Over a year ago I bought a packet of these tags from Joann's - they were on sale and I thought they would 'come in handy'. It took Jennifer's challenge to make that happen! They are a bit thin, so I stuck two together - still counts as one layer if you can't see the layer, right? This had the added advantage that I could colour this beautiful poinsettia from Memory Box the luscious shade of velvety red that it deserves. I didn't have a sentiment that was in the right style for the image AND fit in the space where I wanted to put it, so again I had to improvise - the Merry Christmas in the holy nights set was the right style but too long, a little bit of masking and I could stamp it in two lines in the space. Some crystal glaze for the centre of the flower (which I sprinkled with a little glitter - it is Christmas after all) and a ribbon and the tag (bookmark) was complete. I am giving several books this year - I think this will make the perfect tag for them.

A short post today - which makes up for all the long ones recently. Do pop by again soon.

All the supplies are from Amuse Studio except where otherwise noted.

stamps: memory box, amuse studio
paper: tags (roughly 6" x 2 1/4") from Joanns
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: crystal clear glaze, diamond glitter, cherry stitched grosgrain ribbon, Copics - R29, G28, Y15

Winter Warmer

2011-11-07T10:05:00.000-08:00

Hi there, I hope you had a wonderful weekend filled with plenty of opportunities for stamping. I spent the whole of Saturday at a craft fair at my daughter's High School, lots of people said lots of nice things about my work and I sold a fair amount too. This week I'm going to share some of the best sellers that I haven't posted so far.

I can take no credit whatsoever for today's offering - it is a barely changed copy of something I made a couple of years ago in a class at The Paper Garden in Sacramento. If you live in the area - or even if you have to travel some distance, you just have to visit Stephanie's wonderful store - I promise you will be like a kid in a candy store. Please tell Stephanie that I sent you, but if you could leave my name out of any subsequent conversation with your husband ....

Stephanie's classes are all so inspiring, but I make a special point of attending the holiday gifts and goodies class every year - she never fails to come up with brilliant ideas. For a full list of her classes click here - I am in no way attached to the store except as a (very) frequent customer (it's probably a good job I don't live any closer).

Credit duly apportioned, here is the gift - a perfect token gift for co-workers, students etc

The hat looks the same on both sides. Assembly is very straight forward - here are the ingredients

black double sided (michaels?) - 3.5" x 3", 4.75" x 0.75" (two)
cherry - 3.5" x 1.5" (two)
sugar shimmer - 2 small snowflakes (I used the lime marvy punch)
1 cellophane card bag
1 sachet cocoa
12 mini marshmallows

Chomp the corners on one long edge of the large black rectangle, attach a red rectangle to the bottom edge of both sides.

Chomp all four corners of the thin black strips and stamp sentiment on left end of both. Attach one strip to the bottom of the hat, turn over and attach the closed end of card bag to brim. (this allows the recipient to open the packet without destroying the hat!) Finally attach final strip of black, add a snowflake to each side and insert cocoa and marshmallows and seal.

Two years ago I send a big box of these down to my daughter at college, they were extremely well received by her team mates and suite mates.

As promised I have revisited Friday's post and added additional photo directions :)

That's it for today, tune in tomorrow for another best seller. Happy Stamping.

All the supplies for this project (with the exception of the black card, cocoa and marshmallows) are available from Amuse Studio

stamps: holiday tags
paper: double sided black (michaels?), cherry, sugar shimmer
ink: sugar
misc: cellophane card bag (4 3/4" x 6 3/4"), cocoa, marshmallows

So elegant ..

2011-11-04T09:03:00.000-07:00

All this week I have been looking at ways of presenting gift cards in a way that will please the recipient as much as the gift itself. Today's offering will have a year round appeal, Amuse Studio's coordinating card stock makes it so easy to get the colour match - I can't wait for my refill order of bermuda plain and polka dots to make another variation. (Monday: I have updated post with additional photo directions - hopefully all is clearer now!)

Isn't it beautiful? As usual I've put a sketch at the bottom, but I think this time the words are definitely going to be easier to follow

1. Using the base colour (ocean shimmer) cut a rectangle 5 1/2" x 4 1/2", score and fold pattern in at the 2 3/4" mark to get a rectangle 4 1/2" x 2 3/4".

2. At the open edge, measure in 1/2" at each end and mark with a small dot, then using a paper cutter slice off the small triangle when you join this point to the bottom corner - through both layers.

Put a small dot 1/2" from edge edge

Trim off small triangle (both sides)

3. Cut the small rectangle (4" x 2 1/2") in the contrast pattern (ocean damask shimmer), score and fold in half length-ways. Attach to back of purse.

4. Cut another rectangle 1" x 4 1/2" in the base colour to hold the gift card, attach inside and then trim off corners to fit.

a) Attach pocket to inside

b) Overhang trimmed off.

5. Punch two small holes in the top for the ribbon, thread ribbon through and secure with a small knot at each end.

6. Attach flower trim with a brad such that it holds the purse closed.

I hope you can follow this - with hindsight, I think a few more pictures would have been useful - I will come back on Monday and add some - you are now reading the updated post!!!!. All the supplies for this project are from Amuse Studio and are listed at the end of this post

Tomorrow (Saturday 5th) I have the first of two craft fairs I am participating in this year - wish me luck - and if you live in the Roseville, California area why not pop in and see me. The craft fair is at Oakmont High School from 8 a.m. until 3 p.m.and is raising much needed funds for the Girls soccer team, why not come and support a good cause and get some of your holiday shopping done at the same time.

Also, for those of you in the Roseville area, I have just posted my class schedule - just click the tab at the top of the page. If these dates don't fit into your calendar, why not have a workshop in your own home - invite a few friends and we'll make a few projects - the upside for you is that you get to take advantage of AMuse Studio's generous hostess benefits - it's easy, fun, and I do all the work!.

I'm guessing, (alright - kind of hoping!), that I'm going to be exhausted after the craft fair, so I'm going to spend Sunday with my family - I'll see you Monday.

Supplies:
paper: ocean shimmer - plain and damask
Misc: onyx mini brad, sugar polka-dot ribbon, paper flowers - petite daisies and cosmos (both are included in the meadow mix pack too)

Ho! Ho! Ho!

2011-11-02T13:09:00.000-07:00

Hi there, so glad you could drop by. If you are looking for the Amuse Studio November Blog Hop you should scroll down or click here. I promised you more gift card holders, so I have another for you today.

When you take the card out of the envelope this is what you see:

and when you open it:

It's mostly cutting and sticking, so I'll give you the measurements and any tricks I used along the way and assume you can work out where to stick the different bits!

Base:
sugar - 8 1/2" x 5 1/2", scored at 2 1/8" and 6 3/8" - take your time on this - it needs to be really accurate for the jacket to meet exactly. Corners chomped

Inside:
onyx - 5 1/4" x 4", 4" x 2 1/4", corners chomped all round larger piece, on base of smaller piece.
cherry - 5 1/4" x 3", 3" x 2 1/4"
gold shimmer - 1 1/2" scalloped circle (yellow marvy)

Front:
cherry - (2) 5 1/4" x 2", 2 corners chomped on one long side of each
sugar - (2) 5 1/4" x 1"
onyx - (2) 2" x 1 1/4", (2) 1" x 1/2"
gold shimmer - 1 1/2" scalloped square, cut in half (blue marvy)

Okay, so now you've got all your bits together, we're going to start with the inside:

Mount large black rectangle on base, then attach large red. Put tape on base and sides of smaller black rectangle and attach to form pocket for gift card. - attach smaller red rectangle, lining up carefully with base.

Heat emboss sentiment on the gold circle using onyx embossing powder, and attach to pocket.

Now the outside, attach a white strip to the inside of each of the red pieces, then apply a strip of double sided tape to the central edge of the white strip - I used the kind that has backing tape. I then attached the panels to the card base, lining up with the inside. Pull off the backing strip and glitter it up using a blunt paint brush to get rid of any excess.

I found the best way to do the belt was to attach a half gold square onto the end of each black strip then mount onto the card to get them to meet perfectly at the center of the jacket and then add the tiny black rectangles, again matching the join carefully.

That's it, you are done - all you have to do now is insert the gift card - or even cold, hard cash!

I hope you could follow this, do please ask if anything is unclear, I hope to be back tomorrow with one more gift card holder (the idea is there, just got to translate it into reality).

All the supplies needed for this project with the exception of the marvy punches (you could use nestabilities instead) are from Amuse Studio and are available here

stamps: holiday tags
paper: sugar, cherry, onyx, gold shimmer
ink: versamark
misc: onyx embossing powder, diamond glitter,

Amuse Studio November Blog Hop

2011-11-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hello, welcome to My Paper Paradise! Today I am joining some very talented ladies from Amuse Studio in our monthly blog hop - can you believe it's November already? - If you are joining us in the Hop, you should have come here from Angie, if not why not grab a coffee and start back at the beginning with Samantha's post and keep on hopping until you get back to me?

This months theme is the Holiday season, as I indicated yesterday, I have chosen some non-traditional colours that still say winter to me. Here we go:

Looks like a standard enough card from the front - pretty, but ordinary. Open it up though and ....

It's a gift card holder! I don't know about you - but I am old enough to not like giving gift cards or money as a gift - I was brought up to believe that this was the lazy option if I didn't want to spend time and energy selecting the perfect gift, now I'm older and I have children and nieces and nephews of my own, I recognize that sometimes it IS the most thoughtful gift to give, in these cases presenting it nicely like this makes me feel so much better.

Now I'm going to give you instructions on how to make one of these - BUT I should in all honesty also give you a warning first - if you are lucky enough to get a thank you letter back, the lucky recipient may forget to thank you for the gift card itself, while they are waxing lyrical about the holder - don't laugh, it's happened to me!!

I've put a sketch diagram for constructing the card base at the bottom of the post for those of you that need a visual, here are some words for the rest of you.

Using your base card (I used bermuda polka-dot) cut a piece 5" x 11". Score at 3.5", 4.5", 5.5", 6.5" and 7.5". Fold into a sort of W with an extra valley as shown.

Holding all the center folds (the peaks) together and using your gift-card as a guide, punch a hole at the top and bottom - you want the card to fit quite snugly. Thread with ribbon and knot..

Now all we have to do is decorate the front.

Because I wanted to enclose a coffee gift card, this snowman with his cup of coffee was an obvious choice for an image. I cut some random hills on two pieces of card to act as the snowy base and stamped the snowman and the sentiment - because black ink seemed to be too much of a contrast, I used slate which is a lot softer - and then coloured the image extremely carefully with Copics to prevent smudging of the pigment ink.

A die cut tree in bermuda and a medium snowflake complete the scene. I used the tiny strips of sugar pearls from the mixed pack to decorate the tree - in the past these are the ones I get left over - this year I'm going to have to get extra packs JUST for the tiny ones. Because it's Christmas, I also put glitter on the snowflake and on the top edge of the two layers of snow.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio and are available at my online web store here. If your order is above $150, be sure to contact me direct so that we can get you your free stuff!

I hope this has given you some inspiration, I'm going to be focusing of gift card holders all week - so if you want some other ideas be sure to pop back, but for now why not hop on over to Jennifer's and see the wonderful project that she has to share with you?

supplies:

stamps: chill of winter

paper: sugar, bermuda, bermuda polka-dot

ink: slate, sky

misc: sugar pearls, diamond glitter, tree die, snowflake die, sugar organdy polka-dot ribbon, Copics - Y38, BG10, BG49, 110

Winter Wonderland

2011-10-31T11:16:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween! Today I am posting my third response this week to a challenge at the Clean & Simple Stamping blog, I think we can safely say I'm hooked! This card was inspired in equal parts by the challenge and the scraps on my desk from a project I will be sharing tomorrow as part of the Amuse Studio bloghop, be sure to check in and see what I was up to!

I love this colour scheme for the holidays - non traditional but to me it still screams Christmas. The measurements are as follows:

Card Base (sugar) - 4 1/4 x 5 1/2
First Layer (bermuda) - 4 x 5 1/4
Second Layer (sugar) - 2 1/2 x 2 1/2
Third Layer (bermuda polka dot) - 2 3/8 x 2 3/8
Sentiment Strip (sugar) - 3/4 x 2 1/2

I stamped the stag on a scrap and cut him out leaving a border - I have to confess that this was pure laziness on my part - I thought I'd see what it looked like before I did the fussy cutting, and I was happy with the result so I stopped there!

Once I'd assembled the card, I decided it could use a little bling - I may have got a little carried away with the stickles - but hey, it's Christmas!

That's it for now, be sure to drop back tomorrow for the bloghop - I'll see you then!

All the supplies for this project with the exception of the stardust stickles are from Amuse Studio and are available here.

stamps: nordic noel, happy christmas
paper: sugar, bermuda, bermuda polka dot
ink: french roast, slate
misc: stardust stickles

Study in red!

2011-10-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

Woo Hoo!, this week's OLW challenge is up, and it's a goodie! Design a card using only white and red or cream and red. Here's what I came up with:

Who would of thought that it would work? Well, Susan obviously, and now I'm a convert.

The card was slightly fiddly to make, with all the masking necessary to keep the red areas cleanly defined. I stamped the dotted lines first, masked of the area outside the candy stripe and then randomly stamped the candy - a quick sentiment and I was done.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio

stamps: candy cane wishes, naughty or nice, tini time
paper: sugar
ink: cranberry

Thinking of You

2011-10-27T13:01:00.000-07:00

While I was browsing the clean and simple stamping site yesterday, I came across this second challenge, while I didn't had time to make it yesterday - I knew immediately which stamp I wanted to use, in a riff on the card on the front cover of the main A|S catalog.

I think I'm going to become a regular viewer of this blog - so much inspiration and all in one place!

Since it was a sketch challenge, I started with the main panel and stamped the foliage, then, very, very carefully I inked up just one of the poppies (it comes with a bud attached), and stamped it twice. I used my Copics to colour - my first attempt at shading using Copics - not too bad if I do say so myself (although if I'm totally honest, this is one of those rare occasions when it looks better in the photo!).

Since slate is my go to colour of the moment, it was an obvious choice for the mount, buttercup brought out the colour of the poppies. Vanilla card would have been too bright on the sentiment strip, so I found a more neutral latte.

That's it - I hope you liked it. Come back and see me soon.

All the supplies I used to create this card came from Amuse Studio and are available here.

stamps: friend to friend, essential sentiments
paper: buttercup, vanilla, slate, latte
ink: memento black tuxedo, lemon whip
misc: Copics - Y13, Y15, Y17

Woot woot!!

2011-10-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

I've got in a habit of setting aside some crafting time on a Wednesday to do the new OLW challenge, horror upon horror, it's going to be late this week, so I had to find something else to fill the time. As I've said before, I enjoy doing the challenge because it pushes me, just a little outside my comfort zone, a little searching round my favorite sites and I found a substitute challenge to keep me out of mischief! Clean and Simple Stamping sketch challenge 163. A scarey amount of white space - but here goes:

I loved these owls from the moment I first saw them, but they are very small and it's easy to loose them on a card.

I stamped them on a scrap of sugar card - the piece left over from yesterday's die cut was still lying on the desk! Coloured them with Copics and cut them out. They look in proportion sitting atop the branch and sentiment.

All the supplies to make this card are available from Amuse Studio

stamps: owl's well
paper: sugar, vanilla
ink: memento black tuxedo, french roast
misc: Copics - E33, E41, Y38

Nordic Noel

2011-10-26T07:32:00.000-07:00

Happy Wednesday - for some reason this week is going really slowly - and I'm still not getting things done. I did however manage to get the juices flowing long enough to make this card.

Very under-stated, it came about because I HAD to play with my new Amuse Studio labels dies and coordinating stamps. Each of the dies come with corresponding placement guides so it's really easy to get the stamped outline and cut edge to align - even for me. The label is 'hung' with cherry baker's twine from a cranberry pearl - I did have to use an extra glue dot to attach it.

See you soon and Happy Stamping!

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio

stamps: nordic noel, vintage labels
paper: wasabi, sugar, cherry woodgrain
ink: french roast, cranberry
misc: cherry baker's twine, cranberry pearl, label die

Nordic Tags

2011-10-25T11:41:00.000-07:00

Well, hello again, thanks for visiting. Today I have some super quick tags to show you, made with the nordic noel stamp set and my favorite card colour of the moment - slate. The original plan was to try out my various options for embossing the images, pick one and make a set - but I can't decide so I'm showing you them all, which one do you like best?

All the tags were cut in slate card stock using the Amuse Studio tags die set, the fact that they even cut the hole for the thread / ribbon suits my lazy personality perfectly! All the stamps are from the Amuse Studio nordic noel set.

Left to right I used

1. Versamark and Funstamps Red Razzle Dazzle embossing powder (this has been lurking in my cupboard since before the move to America some 9 years ago - all the other powders from this era have gone off, but this one lives on)

2. Versamark and Amuse Studio Diamond embossing powder - this was really difficult to photograph - in real life it's almost a clear shiny watermark but with a twinkle

3. Versamark and Amuse Studio white embossing powder

4. Versamark and Judikins red embossing powder

5. Brilliance moonlight white and Amuse Studio diamond embossing powder- less shiny and less twinkle, more white - this could be the age of the ink, didn't get as much powder to stick as I would have liked.

So there you have it - which is your favourite?

Bye for now, I do hope you will drop in again soon.

Noel

2011-10-24T13:36:00.000-07:00

Hello there, I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Today's post will be brief.

I realised I had not show you any creations using the nordic noel set from amuse studio - clearly this has to be rectified, its stylised images lend themselves to my style of stamping.

This was one of those cards that evolved rather than planned. With just the two stamps the card looked bare, a die cut felt heart improved things, a slate mount and the strip of cherry woodgrain card completed the card. The central panel was mounted using puffy tape.

I'll be back tomorrow with some tags I created from this set - I hope to see you then.

All the supplies for this card are available from Amuse Studio

stamps: nordic noel
paper: sugar, slate, cranberry, cherry woodgrain
ink: french roast, cranberry
misc: cherry felt, heart die

Mr and Mrs Snow

2011-10-22T08:00:00.000-07:00

Yay! It's the weekend, my husband is back from Europe and I'm managing to visit my son and daughter at the same time - she is running in Santa Rosa, which is close enough to go watch and collect my son on the way.

I love this cute snowman family - there is a baby too, and I think the pale blue colour scheme makes a welcome change from all those reds and greens

I stamped the two snowmen onto a 3" sugar circle, a tiny amount of colouring with copics, punched a hole into the top of it, a backing circle and the card and strung them together with onyx baker's twine - no tape - so they swing a little as you move the card. I'm afraid I couldn't capture the movement in the photo!

Thanks for visiting - see you soon!

All supplies from Amuse Studio

stamps: chill of winter, happy christmas
paper: sky, sky gingham
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: onyx baker's twine

Oh Christmas Tree

2011-10-21T08:41:00.000-07:00

Well, with all the Halloween treats for my children prepared I can't put off the Christmas preparations any longer, with two craft fairs and cards for family and friends to prepare it's time to get busy. I always start the season with good intentions of every card being different, it gets to the beginning of December and I pick one of my favorite, simple cards and make it in bulk for the remainder - we'll see how I get on this year.

The inspiration for this card came as I looked through some cards I had over from last year - my style has got cleaner and simpler since then, so here is the improved model.

I like the new mono chrome colour palette much better. I stamped the three trees on three different scraps of green paper - I love how all the different patterns in the Amuse Studio line go together, makes cards like this so easy! Cut them out - ignoring the stars this time, mounted them and add some tiny stars to the tops of the trees. The twine is tied behind the panel which is mounted on puffy tape. Really quick, really easy and still very elegant - this one is sure to be a contender in the December panic!

Thanks for visiting, please do come back soon.

All the supplies for making this card are available here

stamps: Happy Christmas
paper: vanilla, fern, fern, grass polka dot, grass gingham
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: clear twinkle stickers, french roast baker's twine

Double, double toil and trouble;

2011-10-20T10:05:00.000-07:00

Oh boy, it's Thursday already - where did the week go? As promised, today I have the last of my Halloween treats.

I did suggest to my daughter that it was too big and took too much candy corn - but apparently that's not possible!

I used a thin black double sided card, which is barely more than thick paper, initially I intended it to be the prototype, but it turned out so well, why change it to more expensive card.

For the cauldron you will need:
2 3" circles
8 8 1/2" x 1" strips scored at 1/2", 2 3/4" and 5 3/4"
1 9" x 1/2" strip
1 8 1/2" strip
2 brads

Gently fold the 8 strips at the score marks and apply tape between the two central folds.

Attach to one of the circles in a star pattern.

Turn over and stick the other circle on top - as well as making the whole thing tidier, it also increases the rigidity of the finished item

Apply tape to one side of the 9" x 1/2" and attach neatly to one of the spokes, work round the wheel, taking car to butt each one up against the previous one. When you run out of spokes you should have just enough card left to attach the first.

Attach the last strip as a handle using the two brads - I like to make sure that one end goes through the join for extra strength.

Now you should have a perfect cauldron that just needs a tag and filling with candy.

For the label, I punched a 1 3/4" circle in A|S orange card, added a spiders web in A|S pumpkin, and the witch and sentiment in black. A scrap of lime green ribbon completes the package.

Well that's the last of the Halloween treats for this year, I hope you enjoyed them. Tomorrow, we switch holidays to Christmas.

All supplies from Amuse Studio unless otherwise noted.

Supplies:
stamps: haunted, if you dare
paper: thin black double sided card (Michael's?), orange
ink: pumpkin, memento black tuxedo
misc: black brads, lime organdy ribbon

Warm Thoughts

2011-10-19T11:34:00.000-07:00

It's Wednesday which means it's time an extra post for the OLW challenge over at Styles Ink. This weeks theme is stripes and I have so many ideas, I may just have to have more than one go. I just had to put this one to paper though - mainly because the stamps set was, as yet un-inked, and we can't have that, can we?

I have to say, if you are having difficulty with a style that you like, find a challenge blog that fits that style and really force yourself to put something together each week, practice really does make perfect - or at least acceptable, and after five or so challenges I actually find myself making one layer cards without being prompted - I call that success.

I first stamped the zig-zag stripe twice to form the road, added the scooter and then made a mask of the front of the scooter so that the Eiffel tower would appear to be in the background. Obviously, the scooter HAD to be red - do they come in other colours? The sentiment balances the card.

So there you have it, a one layer card featuring stripes, I hope you like it. All the supplies necessary to make this card are available from Amuse Studio.

Supplies:
Stamps: ooh la la!, mad for plaids
Paper: sugar
Ink: memento black tuxedo
Misc: koh-i-noor colored pencils

Quick Halloween Treat

2011-10-19T08:48:00.000-07:00

Hi there, I was down at the local Dollar store and I saw these great pirate skull lollipops (Monster pops 6 for $1), I just HAD to package some up for the neighbourhood children - and one for my son.

If you have a couple of punches you can turn these out so quick. The black holder is cut 6 1/2" x 3" and scored at the 3" and 3 1/2" marks. Punch a hole in the front to fit your lollipop (I used 1 3/4"), two more circles for the label (1 3/4" and 1 1/2"), and two small holes for the ribbon. Stamp the top label (I used the witch from A|S haunted and a sentiment from Amuse). Thread it all up and done!

Told you it was quick! I am hoping to be back later today with this weeks OLW challenge (stripes), my problem this week is going to be focusing in on one idea - I am hoping that doing the vacuuming will sift out a winner! If not I will be back tomorrow with one last Halloween treat.

PS I am told that I have to be patient with the you may also like links below - apparently it takes time for the tool to start picking the posts I would pick for new posts - I'm going to give it another week and then reinstall, unless anyone has any better ideas.

Ghoulish Greetings

2011-10-18T08:59:00.000-07:00

Hi there, welcome to my second post, in a series of four, of Halloween treats - a wonderful Halloween basket, just asking to be filled with chocolate-y treats. My thanks again go to Stephanie at The Paper Garden for her inspiration, I totally took the witch from one project and the basket from another.

Such a cute witch! Not much stamping (just the sentiment - an old woodblock from Amuse), but lots for cutting, punching and sticking. Just to give you an idea, these are the sizes and materials I used - play with what you've got, every witch is different

basket: A|S grass polka dot card - box is 3 1/4" x 3 1/4" x 1"
handle: purple card stock from Michael's mixed pack, Martha Stewart Skull and cross bone trim punch, attached with A|S onyx mini brads
label: A|S vanilla, stamped and edged with A|S blackberry, stamp Amuse woodblock
face: A|S lime shimmer, 1 1/4" x 2" oval punch (EK)
nose: A|S lime shimmer, standard office hole punch
hair: A|S pebble, 2" fluted circle punch (blue marvy), sponged with A|S onyx and sponge dauber
hat: black cardstock from Michael's mixed pack, cut free hand - 1 3/8" x 3/8" rectangle and triangle 1 3/4" high, 1" base

All Amuse Studio products are available from my online store

That's it for today, come back tomorrow for another, really simple treat idea

Halloween Pillow Treats

2011-10-17T11:36:00.000-07:00

My eldest daughter is at U.C. San Diego, regular care packages are a must, and every so often I send treats for her and her friends - room mates, team mates etc. I am probably a little late with the Halloween parcel - so last week I got a phone call to ask if I was planning on sending Halloween treats this year - because the team were asking about them and she wanted to let them down gently if not! Motivation duly applied, I sat down this weekend to make nearly 100 treats, 75 are San Diego bound, a few for my son, also at college (really he just wants the candy, I just put in a couple of the cute packages as well because otherwise I feel bad about treating them differently!) and the rest for my youngest's school friends - she did help, after all.

I can't make that many of the same treat, so we made 4 different kinds - I will show one a day this week, starting with the only one I had enough supplies to completely finish (hurry up Mr Postman and bring me my Amuse Studio order so that I can finish the rest!). A huge thank you is due to Stephanie at The Paper Garden in Sacramento for the inspiration.

Isn't it sweet? It contains four See's foil wrapped pumpkins, which fit perfectly (so they won't get squished on the way to San Diego) And look how great they look en masse in my metal fruit bowl. If I have time I'm going to make some more in Christmas colours, extra treats for guests over the holidays.

The pillows are made from two 3 1/2" circles, scored (I have put the template at the bottom of this post) and glued. Now there is a story to the trim for the belly bands - I had seen this really sweet owl trim at The Paper Garden, which I knew would be perfect for this pillows, when I asked Steph where she kept it, she didn't know what I was talking about, I showed her the project where I had seen it and it turns out it is a Martha Stewart skull and cross bone trim punch - but if you look at it the wrong way up, it's owls- now that's what I call multi-function!!!

Anyway, to return to the pillows, the belly bands were punched in contrasting card, labels stamped and the whole thing assembled using doubled sided tape. A tiny piece of onyx baker's twine attaches the label to the pillow.

Phew, that turned out to be a very long post for such a simple project - I hope you are still with me! Come back tomorrow for some more spooky goodness

The supplies for the project are from Amuse Studio unless otherwise noted.

Supplies

Stamps: haunted, legacy woodblock stamp sentiment from Amuse

Paper: A|S orange, onyx, cobalt, vanilla polka dots in orange, onyx, grass, and sage,

Amuse polka dot purple

Ink: memento black tuxedo

Misc: double sided sticky tape, onyx baker's twine

Cut, punch or use a die to get two 3 1/2" circles in your heaviest card stock. Use on circle to mark out four equal segments, as show. Cut along arcs to get your scoring template.

A Bunch of Flowers

2011-10-16T17:18:00.000-07:00

What a wonderful crafty weekend! What with Halloween treats for my daughter and the UCSD cross country team and goods for the craft fair at the beginning of November, I only stopped for meals. Luckily, my youngest was ready, willing and able to help - with my eldest two flown the nest, I treasure all these together moments with her.

I only have time to show you the simplest project tonight, the toppers made with the scraps from other projects, which I'll share through the coming week.

Aren't they pretty? The flowers were cut from the scraps using the pink and yellow marvy punches, the green tube topper with a small fluted circle. The autumn m&m's were stuffed into 1"x8" cellophane bags. Everything is tied together with a little baker's twine. Here is a close up of one them.

Tomorrow I have some wonderful Halloween treats for you. See you then.

Unless otherwise noted, all supplies are Amuse Studio and are available here

Supplies
Stamps: make a scene, hello (old amuse woodblock stamp)
Paper: orange, buttercup, fern and grass polka dot papers
Ink: memento black tuxedo, orange
Misc: Cadmium yellow Copic, 1x8" cellophane bags, french roast bakers twine

Red Mittens

2011-10-14T14:08:00.000-07:00

Hi there, so glad you could drop by. I am in the process of revamping the blog a little - nothing major, just now that I've been going a while I have more ideas of what I want things to look like. I'm really excited about the 'you may also like' section at the bottom of each post, this SHOULD provide you with other cards I have made using the same stamp set, I don't know about you, but sometimes I like to see lots of ideas for a set before I take the plunge and buy it. (Saturday update - Note: It relies on the quality of my labeling, I am in the process of going back and updating all posts - It will get better!)

As I promised yesterday, this will be the last post - for a while- using the holiday tags set. This card reminds me of when I was a small girl and my mum used to sew ribbons onto my gloves and thread them through the arms of my coat, I HATED it. I don't whether people still do it - you will be glad to hear I did not inflict it on my children.

I stamped the mittens with versamark and then used white embossing powder to get that brilliant white finish, out came the detail scissors again, and the I mounted them with puffy tape. If I was to make this card again, I would also of mounted the whole central panel on puffy tape, oh well, can't get it right every time!

All supplies are again from Amuse Studio

stamps: holiday tags
paper: fern, wasabi, sugar, cranberry, onyx, sage gingham
ink: memento black tuxedo, versamark
misc: cherry bakers twine

Warm Wishes

2011-10-13T13:16:00.000-07:00

Hello, regular readers will know that once I get a stamp set out, I tend to use it on several projects until the inspiration runs dry and then it goes away for a while. Well, there is no sign me running out of ideas for the holiday tags set from Amuse Studio - but I promise to give it a break after tomorrow's post.

Today's card is a riff on yesterday's tags, I liked the combination of papers and colours so much, I've turned them into a card.

I usually mount cards by eye, this candy cane paper is a nightmare to get straight - I've measured it (after failing three times to get it right) and it still looks wonky to me, must be all those diagonal lines.

This time I used a sponge dauber to apply a little french roast ink to the edge of the 'twas the night before Christmas paper.

Come back tomorrow for my last project for the moment using this stamp set.

All supplies are available here

Stamps: holiday tags
Paper: sky, candy cane, 'twasthe night before Christmas, vanilla
Ink: memento black tuxedo, french roast
Misc: sponger dauber, copics - BG10, E33, YG67, R27

OLW - Get Triangular!

2011-10-12T17:30:00.000-07:00

This week's OLW challenge is to Get Triangular. Late night when I looked at the challenge I was completely stumped and thought I might even have to sit this one out - but I work up at 3 a.m, thought 'I know what to do' and went straight back to sleep. When I did the sketches the idea still looked promising, and there were only a few teething problems in getting the mask to work for the starlight.

So here it is, a card with a triangular design

I love using the grunged sunrays from Amuse Studio as star light, so appropriate for this image. I couldn't resist adding just a touch of stickles to make the star really twinkle.

All the supplies needed for this card are from Amuse Studio unless otherwise noted and are available from my online store.

Supplies
Stamps: holy night, grunged sunrays
Paper: vanilla
Ink: french roast, lemon whip, papaya
misc: stardust stickles

More Holiday Tags

2011-10-12T08:50:00.000-07:00

Hi there, Happy Wednesday! My youngest is taking her PSAT this morning, so I don't have long before I am summoned to collect her. It's funny how some things hit you - I wasn't the least bit phased by her second Home Coming dance and yet I suddenly felt very old as I drove her to school this morning.

Anyway, cards, that's why you came isn't it? Today's inspiration came from some Halloween gift tags I saw in the Amuse Studio Inspiration Catalog (p.4) - I don't really do Halloween, so I changed it up and made some Christmas tags - don't tell the Stamping Police at Amuse Studio, but I think I l;ike mine better!!

Aren't they the cutest things ever - and although the detail cutting was a little fiddly, they really didn't take that long. I'm going to stamp and colour a large batch today and then cut them out in front of the television tonight - you really don't have to pay THAT much attention to the X Factor.

All the supplies necessary are to make these tags are available from Amuse Studio.

That's all for this post - I'm hoping to get a card done for this week's OLW challenge (triangles) later today, it works in the sketch, time will tell whether I'm happy with the finished article - come back tonight to see how I did. Tomorrow I have another project using the holiday tags set.

Supplies:
Stamps: holiday tags
Paper: 'twas the night before Christmas, candy cane, vanilla, fern
Ink: memento black tuxedo
Misc: tree die, tags dies, Copics

Holiday Tags

2011-10-11T09:13:00.000-07:00

Hi there, welcome to My Paper Paradise. This week I'm going to be featuring several projects using the holiday tags set from Amuse Studio, if you already have it, check back for lots of inspiration for this wonderful set. If you don't have it, these posts should probably come with a warning - read at your peril, you are definitely going to end up with this one on your wish list!

I'm going to whet your appetite with a card that features nine of the images from this set - unfortunately I just couldn't find a way to get the last image in. The set also has 11 sentiments - you'll see some of those as the week progresses.

The card measures 5 1/2" x 5 1/2", with smaller white circles are 1 1/2", the central white circle is 1 3/4". The red circles are 1 3/4" and 2".

I first punched out all the circles, then stamped the images - the cling stamps make it easy to line up the images. Lots of fun colouring, and then it was onto the fun part - laying them out on the base. I got the images where I wanted and went to straighten them up within the circles - turns out they look better a little haphazard!

Because the card is already a little busy (understatement of the year there!), I chose to mount them flat and resisted the urge to add glitter, crystal clear glaze, le pouf - but who knows, in a future reincarnation, it make get the full works.

Come back tomorrow to see the really cute gift tags I made with this set, and in the mean time, why not have a look back at this card that I posted earlier using this set,

All the supplies to make this card are available from my Amuse Studio store - be sure to contact me direct if your order exceeds $150, and I'll make sure you get you extra benefits.

Supplies:
stamps: holiday tags
paper: sugar, cranberry, candy cane
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: Copics - BG10, Y38, B02, R29,110, RV10, YG23, E33

Studio Stampers October Blog Hop

2011-10-10T08:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome to My Paper Paradise and the start of this month's Studio Stampers Blog Hop, why not grab yourself a coffee and hop along with us.

Just look at the head on that beer and the shiny ketchup!

Good enough to drink!

It looks simpler enough, but there are a couple of tricks-

Firstly, top get the hot dog sitting in front of the glass of beer, first stamp the hot dog on to the card, then stamp again onto the sticky part of a post-it note, cut out the hotdog on the post-it note and stick it over the one on the card, then stamp the beer.

To get the bubbles in the beer, first colour with the base colour in Copic - I used buttercup yellow (Y21), then dot the colourless blender (0) over, and you get perfect rising bubbles.

For the froth, I used Le Pouf, apply fairly generously, then heat set immediately. Be aware, that although it is dry on the outside, it will take a while to dry completely inside - wouldn't that make a wonderful beard for Santa?

And for the ketchup, a dash of crystal clear glaze.
That's all from me today, next on the hop is the wonderful Angela, in case you get lost, or there is a problem with a link, here is the complete list.

Karen Crisp <====== you are here
Angela Schellenberg
Kathy Hatzke
Lisa Chapman
Kristen Watson
Veronica Zalis

All the supplies needed to make this card are available here

supplies:
stamps: hey, man!
paper: sugar, french roast, cranberry, buttercup gingham
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: le pouf, crystal clear glaze, onyx pearls, Copics - 0, R27, E33, E59, W2, Y21

...all is glistening

2011-10-09T13:15:00.000-07:00

I love being an Amuse Studio consultant - now when I take a stamping class, I can call it training! On Friday I took a couple of classes with Cindi, one of the owners and creative designed at Savvy stamps, as always, I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could reinterpret the cards and skills using the stamps and supplies I had at home.

The card measures 5 1/2" x 3 1/2", which fits the small gingerbread house perfectly. I had to get creative with the sentiment, it is from the essential sentiments set - yes I know all the sentiments are straight in that set, but if you get a squeaky clean acrylic block, you can gently bend a long thin sentiment and it will hold (and yes, it bends back when you are done!). Try doing that with a wood mounted stamp!!

So, the first step was to stamp the houses and sentiment in slate, then the snowflakes in pebble and then you are ready for the messy part. My preferred option (and definitely the least messy) would have been to run it through the Xyron face down, take the backing off and sprinkle with glitter, it gives a wonderfully even coating of glitter - unfortunately, my Xyron is too small.

The option I took was to take it outside and spray it with some 3M glue that was lurking in the back of a cupboard from a project I did with my son's fifth grade class (he is now in college). This still gave an even coating.

Another. option is to spread it thinly and evenly with a coat of liquid cement, but I try to only use the method on smaller areas that are too big for my glue pen. Whatever method you use, be sure to check it won't make the ink run before you commit to the whole card.

I think that the finished product is beautiful - definitely worth the lingering glitter particles - just how did it get on my tummy?

I hope you are having a splendid weekend, be sure to come back tomorrow when I will be joining my talented Amuse Studio up-line in a blog hop, it goes live at 8 am PST

All the supplies with the exception of the adhesive for the glitter are available from my Amuse Studio store

Supplies:
Stamps: jolly gingerbread, happy christmas, essential sentiments
paper: sugar
ink: slate, pebble
misc: diamond glitter, 3M spray adhesive

What a wonderful day!

2011-10-08T16:50:00.000-07:00

Hi there, what a wonderful day, the sun is shining, the sky is blue and the air smells fresh after all the rain. It reminds me of sunny days in England as a child when my mother would hang out all the washing and it would come in smelling so fresh.

This isn't the card I planned on posting, but you have to go where the the Muse takes you!

I stamped the briefs on three scraps of card, cut the out and mounted them using puffy tape. Some props and a clothes line and I was done.

Would you believe I still have at least three images and six sentiments left in this set?

Just a short post today, see you soon.

All supplies are from Amuse Studio and can be purchased here

Supplies:

Stamps: Hey, man!

Paper: sugar, lichen, winter sky

Ink: cranberry, blackberry, orange

A Brief Note

2011-10-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

I know, I'm sorry, it's a terrible pun .... but admit it, it made you smile didn't it?

This must be the quickest card I've ever made, the hardest thing was decided what colour to make the briefs! In fact it was so quick, I made a set,

Look how pretty they look, all packaged up

I used a recycled clear plastic box and finished it of with some beautiful ribbon. Don't you just love how all the inks, papers and ribbons from Amuse Studio coordinate with each other. I'm going to make several sets of these for the craft fair - if they don't sell, they will make excellent teachers gifts, stocking fillers etc.

I do apologise for the quality of the photographs in today's post, the light is terrible. I have one more card to show you using this set tomorrow and then its onto something new. Thanks for visiting, see you soon.

All supplies from AMuse Studio with the exception of the box

Supplies:
Stamps: hey, man!
Paper: sugar
Ink: ocean, orange, grass, blackberry, cranberry, memento black tuxedo
misc: ocean stitched ribbon

Thinking of you

2011-10-06T20:06:00.000-07:00

It's One Layer Wednesday challenge time again. This week, the challenge is to make a one layer card for someone going through a battle with cancer.

I approach these challenges by reading the 'assignment', then I look through my stamps looking for inspiration. So while I'm looking through the stamps I'm thinking of the people in my life that have fought cancer, and in my head I'm looking for a card for one of them. I was actually looking to see if I had an appropriate sentiment for a flowery card when I saw this monkey stamp and the 'hang in there' sentiment. I immediately thought of the daughter of a dear friend of mine who was diagnosed with leukemia at the age of 6, she went through some really tough times and this card would have been perfect. She was one of the lucky ones and has been clear for 15 years now.

I coloured the monkey with water colour pencils, and then brushed over with a slightly wet brush to get a nice depth of colour. Guaranteed to get a giggle

Supplies:
Stamps: the mighty jungle
Paper: sugar
Ink: french roast, lichen
misc: watercolour pencils

Then I went back and read the instructions again, 'make a card for someone going through tough times AND sent it' and I always tell my children to read the question properly! So, here we have take two - for a good neighbour and friend who is determined not to go down without a fight.

This was one of those 'I NEED that' stamps, so pretty, like an exotic daffodil. This one definitely fits the challenge, and while it make not induce giggles, it is sure to bring a smile to her face.

Supplies:
Stamps: Jacobean (prickleypear.com)
Paper: sugar

Ink: cranberry, slate, shell

All the supplies for these cards, with the exception of the flower stamp, are from Amuse Studio and can be bought here

I hope you liked this extra post, I'll see you again tomorrow

Hot Dogs

2011-10-06T09:11:00.000-07:00

Hi there! So glad you could drop by. When I get a new stamp set, I like to make several different cards so that I can justify the purchase to myself. So for the next few days (and yesterday!) I will be sharing cards made with the Hey, Man! set from Amuse Studio. This set has so many images I promise you won't get bored.

I think I may have actually achieved the impossible with this one - a truly masculine card. The hardest thing was getting the colour of the buns right, a bit of this and a bit for that ... I'm not sure I could reproduce it, although I do know the colours I was layering. If you look closely at the close-up, you can see I put crystal clear glaze on the ketchup. I'm honestly not sure if anyone else would notice it unprompted - but it makes me happy!

I'm hoping to get back later today with a card for this week's OLW challenge, and I'll definitely be back today with another card using the Hey, Man! set. See you then.

All supplies needed to make this card are available here.

Supplies:
Stamps: hey, man!
Paper: sugar, french roast, french roast gingham
ink: memento black tuxedo
misc: crystal clear glaze, Copics - R27, E33, Y21, E59, E41

Muchas Grass-ias

2011-10-05T17:48:00.000-07:00

I know - it's a terrible pun - I think that's why I like it! I was of two minds whether to show you this card, I had thoughts of slipping it into the box for the craft fair and seeing what reaction it got there first (sometimes my least favorite cards are the biggest sellers), but my daughter walked in and LOVED it, so here goes:

I'm on an ongoing mission to increase my stocks of more masculine cards, so when I saw this set from
Amuse Studio, I thought I'd give it a go. Boy is it hard work, but I'm getting there.

I first stamped the lawn mower onto a scrap of sugar card, I coloured it with Copics and cut it out leaving a small border. I was checking the scrap pile for a piece of green card and found this gingham - perfect (and I didn't even have to cut into a new sheet!). Using the Martha Stewart grass edge punch I cut the grass and then trimmed the left portion for the 'mowed' part. The grass was mounted onto sugar card, the mower attached with puffy tape, the corny sentiment stamped - and it still needed something - a papaya sun and some crystal clear glaze on the wheels and I was happy.

Come back tomorrow for more gingham and another card using this set .

Supplies for this project are available here with the exception of the Martha Stewart grass edger, a similar effect could be achieved using the grass die from Amuse Studio.

Supplies
Stamps: hey man!, make a scene
Paper: lichen, french roast, sugar, grass gingham
Ink: memento black tuxedo, papaya
Misc: crystal clear glaze, Copics - 0, W2, 110, R29, YG23, W4

Happy Fall! - Again!

2011-10-04T17:06:00.000-07:00

Can you tell I love the fresh foliage set from Amuse Studio? I keep saying to myself that I'll get out one of my, as yet, uninked sets, but ideas for this set just keep on coming! Which is good, right? Anyway,I promise that this will be the last for a little while. I've still got lots of goodies to share that use other stamps, backed up from when I was computerless last month.

See what I mean, the set is so versatile. This time I used a Copic (pearl white) to outline the images to give them more depth. Pumpkin buttons provided the finishing touch.

That's all for today - I'll be back tomorrow, I hope to see you then.

All the supplies necessary to complete this card are available here

Supplies:
Stamps: fresh foliage
Paper: vanilla, french roast, lattewood grain
Ink: french roast, pumpkin, cranberry
Misc: pumpkin buttons, Copic - E41

OLW- What an inspiration!

2011-10-03T13:56:00.000-07:00

This week's OLW challenge is to make a card inspired by something on the blog of a very wonderful lady, Janelle. I have to thank Susan and the OLW challenges for introducing me to this wonderful source of inspiration.

Here is my card:

Looking through Janelle's blog looking for ONE card or photo for inspiration was like being a kid in a candy store, I know I will be going back time and time again over the coming weeks looking for ideas. My card was inspired by this butterfly card.

This must be the quickest card I have ever made AND it came out exactly as it was in my head - I know, amazing! My mind is working overtime on all of the variations I could make from the stamps in my hoard.

No directions are necessary, all supplies from Amuse Studio

Supplies:
Stamps: fresh foliage
Paper: sugar
Ink: pumpkin, french roast

Happy Fall!

2011-10-03T08:00:00.000-07:00

It has been a really busy weekend, two blog hops (check out the two posts below if you missed them), homecoming game and dance for my daughter and a visit to my son in college - which obviously necessitated a large batch of cookies! Today's post will therefore be a short on as I catch up on all my chores.

It is October, so it should be feeling Autumnal, and this card is helping me get into the mood even though the weather is not cooperating!

This card is one of several that I will be sharing with you from this set over the next few days - I love how each of the leaves comes with its own background stamp. This card was so quick to make I'm thinking of cranking out a few sets with a 'thank you' sentiment to sell at a craft fair in November.

That's it for today, short and sweet as I promised, why not come back tomorrow and see what else I created with this set?

Supplies:

Stamps: fresh foliage

Paper: lichen, slate, sugar

Ink: french roast, pumpkin, cranberry

Amuse Studio October Blog Hop

2011-10-01T21:00:00.000-07:00

Hello, so good to see you. Today I am delighted to be joining some fellow Amuse Studio consultants in a Blog Hop, if you are participating in the Blog Hop, you should have come from Lori's blog, if not, why not join us and start at the beginning at Tami's blog then hop along until you get back to my blog.

Today's theme today is Scrapbooking, - and after a moments hesitation - I don't scrapbook! I knew what I was going to do:

What do you think? I think it would make a wonderful page in a calender to give to someone special at Christmas - Grandma? I love how the white embossing powder really pops off the slate card stock.

All the supplies I used to make this page came from Amuse Studio

Stamps: chill of winter, happy christmas
Paper: slate, candy cane, cranberry
Ink: versamark
misc: white embossing powder

I hope you enjoyed your visit, please do come back and see me again soon, I have challenged myself to post a new project everyday for the month of October. Now you are on to your next stop, Chelsea Corner

Happy World Card Making Day

2011-09-30T21:00:00.000-07:00

Welcome to My Paper Paradise and Happy World Card Making Day! what better way to celebrate than to joining some of my Amuse Studio friends in a blog hop, how are you going to celebrate? When you have finished here do visit the other blogs in the hop - the hop is a circle, so just get on here and keep going until you get back to me! I can promise you you will get lots of inspiration from these talented ladies.

This is what it looks like open

and a close up of the inside

This card much simpler than it looks - and to prove it I've put a diagram for the base of the card at the bottom of this post. I actually used up some double sided thin cheap black card for the base to keep the thickness of the finished card down. Usually it's much too flimsy, but with all the extra layers it worked fine this time.

I was pleased with the outside, but I think I may actually like the inside even better! It's difficult to see in the photograph, but I gave the central panel on the front of the card a spritz with stardust finishing spray. This is the first time I've used it and I was very happy with the outcome, it gave the matt vanilla card a light sheen that perfectly complements the sheen of the shimmer card I used to back it.

Can you believe that sentiment is actually a stamp? The french roast ink looks so great against the vanilla card stock.

All the supplies for this card are from Amuse Studio and can be purchased here

Supplies:
Stamps: holy night
Paper: cherry shimmer solid and damask, vanilla, thin double sided black card from my stash
Ink: papaya, french roast, latte
Misc: stardust finishing spray,

That's all from me today, next on the hop is Jeanette Cloyd, you are going to love what she has in store for you. In case you get lost along the way, here is the complete list of hoppers.

Amber Smith
Veronica Zalis
Jennifer Corson
Karen Crisp <====== you are here!
Jeanette Cloyd
Sherri Thacker
Seleise Barrett
Pamela Fredrickson
Carissa Fulkerson
Melissa Roell
Angela Schellenberg
Lisa Chapman
Heather Scott
Suzanne Dahlberg
Dana Vincent
Julie Dylingowski

Cutting / scoring directions for card base