Taking A Few Days Off

I'll be taking a few days off but will leave you with this. It is my interpretation of a card by the very talented Inge. Hope you like! Have a great week-end!

Blog Candy Alert & Whiff of Joy

These two awesome ladies are celebrating and offering up some blog candy. Make your self comfie because you'll want to stay awhile!

Jacqui is celebrating 10,000 hits!
Bev is celebrating 20,000 hits
Camilla alos has lovely candy to offer a lucky someone!
Congratulations girls

Also, Katharina's online store is now open! Check it out at Whiff of Joy. I've already placed my order! I can't wait to get these stamps.

Mane Squeeze - A Spoonful of Sugar Challenge

This week's challenge is to have animals on your card. This is a card I made for my husband for Father's Day and also to celebrate our 17th wedding anniversary. The kids had made him cards but this was just from me. He really loved it. I decided to use it for this challenge because it is really one of my favorites.

I found I had a beautiful paper that serves as the background scene behind the lions. I used Twinkling H2os to enhance the coloring. You can't really tell with the scanned picture but the lions' manes and noses have a subtle shimmer.

Recipe: Stamps: High Hopes (Lions & Sentiment)
Ink: Stazon, Close to Cocoa
Paper: Su Wild Wasabi, Card base is River Rock, Patterned is Aerial by Memory Box
Flowers: Bazzill
Coloring: Gamsol Technique using Prismacolors

Growing in Love ~ Cute Card Thursday Challenge 20

This week the challenge over at Cute Card Thursday was to make a card showing things that "Grow in love". I chose this sweet stamp from House Mouse. Don't they look content snuggled together in the sunflower? I have some water color pencils so I decided to have a go with them. Every coloring technique has a learning curve, doesn't it!!! Anyways, I kept it simple as I am a little busy.
Recipe:
Stamps: House Mouse
Paper:
SU! Wild Wasabi, Sweet Corn from Ellen Hutson
Embellies: Wild Wasabi Ribbon SU!
Tools: Swiss Dots embossing folder, Cuttlebug, SU! ticket corner

Fridays Sketcher's Challenge #12

I quickly made up this card for this week's Friday Sketcher's Challenge. I haven't had the chance to use this HIgh Hopes stamp although I have had it for a couple of months!! Had to rectify that! This image reminds me so much of my boys. They often lovingly offer up gifts that in their eyes are wonderful. Most of the time, I realize (after the initial shock) that indeed they are! So, I dedicate this one to my boys who have taught me to look at all these little creatures they bring home in a different light.

Recipe:
Stamps: High Hopes, SU! sentiment
Paper: SU! Wild Wasbi, Certainly Celery, Basic Grey Cupcake, DCVW Glitter Pack
Coloring: Gamsol & Prismacolors
Embellies: Wild Wasabi Ribbon
Tools: Cuttlebug Bubbles Embossing Folder, CM star punches, SU! slit punch

The Wylde Woman Award

I was given this award by Elizabeth Bell. To say I was astonished and incredibly delighted would be a huge understatement. I, along with so many others admire and are inspired by her beautiful illustrations.

Thank you Elizabeth, I am very grateful.

The purpose of this award is:

To send love and acknowledgment to women who brighten your day, teach you new things and live their lives fully with generosity and joy.

The rules of this award are:
1. You can give it to one or one hundred or any number in between - it's up to you. Make sure you link to their site in your post.

2. Link back to this blogsite http://www.tammyvitale.com/ so Tammy can go visit all these wonderful women.

I would like to pass thisin particular to:
Katharina
Inge
Nikki
Claudia

but also to all of your who stop by and leave such kind comments. Thank you!

Whiff of Joy Preorder & A Special Thank You

This morning on Katharina's blog, I saw her announcement the The Whiff of Joy website is almost finished. The site will be launched and will start taking pre orders for the Charlotte and Charlie winter collection, designed by Alison Acton, on Wednesday, 30th July 2008. As a special opening feature, there will be NO SHIPPING COSTS for all preorders. The expected shipping of the stamps will be the 11th of August. Note: Whiff of Joy ships internationally.

What great news! My fingers are twitching and itching to get a hold of these amazing stamps and start coloring! If you want a chance to win some, hop on over to Katharina's blog and find out more.

Also, I was thrilled and incredibly honored that Katharina picked my card as her YAOB this week. In fact, she chose two of my cards! I was over the moon when she emailed me.

Thank you so much Katharina. You are such a source of inspiration and your kind words about my work really mean a lot to me!

Aloha ~ PaperTake Weekly Challenge

I was finally able to get a card ready for this week's challenge. The sketch is by the fabulous and very busy Katharina. She creates the best sketches. As you can see, I use them all the time. This little Tilda in the grass skirt is so cute. I knew I wanted to use her! She is colored with Copic Markers with some Twinkling H20s added to her lai, grass skirt and flower in her hair. It gives them a very soft shimmer. I cut her out and mounted her on the light aqua background. Now, this was an experiment. I used watercolor paper and loaded a paint-brush with more Twinkling H20s and just brushed it onto the paper until it was all covered. I was really pleased with the results. It is evenly but lightly covered and also has that beautiful soft shimmer! Couldn't resist adding cardstock from my new Glimmer pack. I used it for the green background and the flower with the sentiment. I added some prima flowers and put Dew Drops as their centers. Then, just for fun, I just sprinkled some more Dew Drops at her feet and glued them to where they fell. The leaf paper is from K&Co and the cardstock is SU! Wild Wasbi as is the ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by and I hope your day is as sunny and bright as this card! Aloha!

Image Books

A few weeks ago, I came up with the idea for these books. It took me until after my vacation to complete them and this long until I had the time to tell you all about it! When Kimmie made her challenge at first I thought I could use these since they were almost done but she had her own sketch to follow. It was a great one and now I have my date book. It is in an earlier posting this week.
Any how, everytime I see blog candy that contains stamped images all ready to color I think to myself that would be so much easier. My time is limited and I thought it would be a good idea to just spend a block of time dedicated to stamping up a slew of images and then storing them - ready and waiting for me. So I decided to make two books. One for images to color with my Copic markers and another for images colored with Gamsol & Prismacolors. I had a 6x6 pad of DP from SU! and I knew I'd be able to have enough to make all my pages and have them all match.
The books are 5x5. I cut out the covers and backs from a cereal box and then covered them inside and out. I made 10 inside pages for each book. Each page has a pocket and a tab.


I used my Bind-it-All machine to punch the holes and set the binding. I used two of my favorite Magnolia stamps to adorn the covers and VOILA! The one for my Copic images has the Copic colored Tilda and a Gamsol colored one for the Gamsol images! My husband did not clearly see my logic but I know you will all understand!
I really love them and they are filled up and just waiting for me! Here's a close-up so you can see how glittery her wings are! Love them!

Let me know what you think! Thanks for stopping by! Have a great week-end!

Spoonful of Sugar Challenge #9 & Blog Candy

This week the challenge over at A Spoonful of Sugar is to use a sketch provided by my favorite: Katharina. This girl sure is busy. I am also going to submit it to her YAOB challenge. I hope that is okay. I had such a fun time with this sketch. I am sure I will use it many times again. I inked up my favorite new stamp by Elizabeth Bell. This time, I decided to use my copics to color her in. I was inspired to color her by the colors used by Marlene of L'il Bit of Me. The horizontal panel is a piece of Wild Wasabi card stock that I ran through the cuttlebug using a folder that I can't remember the name of (sorry!). I made the flower by using some SU! punches and stickes. I love the way this card turned out!
Recipe:
Stamps:Sugar Nellies: Pen Pal
Ink: Brillance Graphite Black
Paper: SU! Wild Wasabi, Dp Afternoon Tea
Coloring: Copics
Embellies: Ribbon SU! Wild Wasabi, Stickles

Tools: Nesties, Cuttlebug

Ila is offering some gorgeous Magnolia stamps as her blog candy. You must visit her blog. She is amazingly talented. Her coloring is unbelievable.

KKMC1 -Kraftin' Kimmie's Magnolia Challenge #1

Another post today. I have a few projects that are done, but getting time to actually post them here, UNINTERRUPTED, is a challenge! Kimmie has a great blog candy that she is giving away. To get a chance for it, you just have to create something using her sketch. She made a great date book. I thought that it was a great idea, so I made one as well. I actually used the same stamp as her because I just love it but I used a different color palette! Sorry, I don't know the name of the Dp. I took it out of the packaging! I have two other projects that I used my bind-it-all to make, but I'll save them for another day. I've been sitting here too long and it is too quiet upstairs. You Mums will know what I mean!

Recipe:

Stamps: Magnolia

Paper: Paper Trey

Coloring: Copic Markers

Embellies: May Arts Ribbon, Hero Art flower, Stickles, Hodge Podge from SU! K&Co pearl

Tools: Nestabilities, Bind It all.

Pen Pal

The wonderful Katharina is starting her own stamp company. She has some sneak previews of a few of the stamps already on her blog. They are fantastic. I can see that my budget is going to take another hit! She has an amazing Design Team set up. It is like the "dream team"! I know she is going to have a huge success on her hands. Congratulations to her!

She is going to have guest designers as well. This is my submission. The sketch was provided by Katharina. I just received my new stamps from Funky Kits yesterday and I couldn't wait to ink them up! I love theis image and I know I'm going to use her again and again! The image is quite large so I realized that I couldn't double mat it as I had planned. So I cut it out using my large scallop rectangle from my Nesties set. It looked a little stark so I dry-brushed a little River Rock ink along the sides to soften it up! I also added a little bit of stickles to the flowers in her hair and her heart necklace to give the girl a little bling!

Thanks for the opportunity to try out, Katharina!
Recipe:
Stamps: Pen Pal by Sugar Nellies, SU! sentiment
Paper: PaperTrey, K&Co
Ink: Brilliane, SU! Close to Cocoa, River Rock
Coloring: Gamsol & Prisma colors
Embellies: PaperTre Ribbon, K&Co pearls

Cute Card Thursday # 19

This week the challenge is to make a card with animals BUT no people! I thought I'd use the same card I enterd in the Ismaki challenge but OOPS...I had a little guy on the front! So I quickly made up a new one! I love the little tiger from High Hopes! I have used him quite a bit but I don't get tired of him. They have new releases with Circus and Sea themes. Very cute! I am trying to hold out at least until next month. I blew my budget on Magnolias!

Recipe:

Stamps: High Hopes, SU! sentiment

Paper: Certainly Celery and Misc scraps

Inks: Stazon, Certainly Celery

Coloring: Gamsol & prismacolors

Embellies: SU! brads, Dew Drops

Whew! That's it for now! Thanks for stopping by!

Seaside Tilda - Friday Sketchers Challenge #11

This week's sketch is by Claudia. She is such a source of inspiration for me. I visit her blog everyday! The sketch was easily completed, which is good because we have been busy having fun with the kids! I chose to use the sweet Seaside Tilda (again) and colored her with my copics. I tried to just lightly color her dress so that there is just a hint of blue around the edges. As you know, I am still learning how to use these babies! I added stickles to the water swirls. Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe:

Stamps: Magnolia Seaside Tilda

Paper: SU! Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Crate

Embellies: Ribbon SU!, Prima Flower, K&Co pearls, Stickles

Blog Candy Alerts:

Donalda is close to the 10,000 mark. Incredible!

Lorraine is giving away candy to mark her birthday

Sam is celebrating 100 comments. Way to go!

Check out their faboulous blogs. Make sure you have time...you'll want ot stay awile at each of them!

Ismaki Sketch Challenge # 28

This has been a busy week. The Quebec strawberries are ripe and plentiful and about as cheap as they are going to get. What does that mean? Why it is jam making time! I make two types. The cooked method which I then can. This I do on my own, at night. The second type I make is freezer jam which is totally safe for the kids to help out with. They love to mush the berries up and add the sugat and stir, stri, stir! So, as you can see, I have had much to do! I did however manage to make a few cards.

The Ismaki challenge this week was to create a card that opens in 3 different parts with the option to use embossing. They provided a sketch (luckily!) Since I realized this was going to be somewhat involved, I thought I'd make the card for my little guy who is soon turning the magical age of 3! At this moment, he is very interested in all animals and the sounds they make so of course I turned to my High Hopes Jungle stamps!
I did all my coloring with my Prismacolor pencils & Gamsol. I then cut each piece out before mounting them. The tree behind wally is embossed as are the two sentiments.

Recipe:
Stamps: High Hopes Jungle series, SU! sentiments
Paper: K&Co, SU! Blue Bayou, River Rock
Embellies: SU! Blue Bayou, SU! buttons

Blog Candy Alert

One of the blogs I visit often is called L'il Bit of Me. Marlene is incredibly talented and her cards are gorgeous. She is offering the most fantastic blog candy to celebrate the end of the school term. Go and visit her blog for a chance to win.

One For The Girls - A Spoonful of Sugar Challenge #8

Last week, the challenge at A Spoonful of Sugar was a card for a boy. This week it is one for the girls!!! Must play fair. Although I'd say the majority of my cards are girly! I wanted to use this gorgeous stamp from Sugar Nellies by Elizabeth Bell. I think it is one of my faves. There is a whole new batch being released and I ordered quite a few of them from Funky Kits yesterday! I couldn't resist - they are gorgeous!

The first time I colored this one, I used my copics. This time I went for my prisma coloring pencils with gamsol. I find the look is softer. I finally got a chance to use these cute adhesive pearls. They are from K&Co and you just have to peel them off the backing and stick them on. Pretty easy. Thanks for looking and I am always thrilled to hear your comments! Thanks for all your kind words!
Recipe:

Stamps: Sweet Ebony by Suagr Nellies, SU! sentiment

Paper: Paper Trey, K&Co

Ink: Brilliance, Papertrey

Coloring: Gamsol & Prismacolors

Embellies: ribbon Papertrey, Pearls K&Co

I have another blog candy alert. Check out Suzanne's fab blog. You will spend a lot of time there looking at her beautiful creations!

Distressed Tilda - Tilda & Co Challenge

Another post for today. I had free time this afternoon so I decided to try the Tilda & Co Challenge. This week they want you to go for a distressed look. This really will be a challenge for me because I usually use bright or light pastel colors and don't really do "distressed"! I picked a Shabby Chic Tilda to start with. I knew I wouldn't use copics to color because they are too intense so I used the gamsol technique. It ended up still too bright so I went over my image with a grey prisma to dull the colors a little more! There was an option to emboss which I did. It is a little subtle!!! You can see the sentiment in the top righthand side and a butterfly top left! The paper I used is from K & Co and I think it does "shabby" beautifully. I used a sketch from Katharina's blog. It was the one for Papertake challenge last week but I missed it since I was on vacation. The sketch was so nice I decided to use it anyhow! So let me know if this is a hit or a miss!

Cute Card Thursday Challenge # 18

I am getting this in just under the wire! The challenge this week was to make a card for a child. I have had the idea for this card for some time now, and this was perfect opportunity. My 7 year old son loves anything to do with knights and dragons. He is forever playing dress-up and he is always drawing pictures of dragons. I decided to make a cute little knight card for him and use one of his dragon drawings as well! I scanned his drawing, printed it out and photocopied it at 60% the original size on Wasau paper. I was able to use my copic markers on the image. (A little tip I picked up from Marianne) I found the tutorial to make this little trifold card on splitcoasters. You can find it here. I added sparkle to the images with Sakura pen. The cardstock and ribbon is Blue Bayou. The silver paper is just something I had in my stash. You should have seen his face today when he opened it up. He wondered how I got his dragon in there!

Summer Delight- Friday Sketchers Week 10

I did a very quick card for this week's challenge - hence the title! I ran some of my paper through my cuttlebug, using this cute "bubble" embossing folder. I struggled a little with what paper to put in my circle and in the end decided just to add the frame with nothing inside. I think it looks fun. I wasn't planning to do it but I think it works! The little star-fish was colored using twinkling H20s and Tilda with copics. All paper is Stampin'Up! as is the sentiment. Thanks for looking!

Back to Civilization

Well, we all went camping this last week. We stayed up in the north of Quebec near Quebec City. We camped near a huge waterpark - the largest in Canada! We had a good time despite the fact that it RAINED our first night there. So much for weather forecasts. We kept dry thanks to the fact that our new tent did not leak!!! Hurray! The kids loved the waterpark. There was so much to do and our time passed quickly. They are "happy campers" even the little guy. It was his first time and we weren't sure how he'd do. Nonetheless, I am happy to be back home. I can only do the outdoors thing for so long! So I'm hoping to be able to catch up and do a little stamping while I load and re-load the laundry machines!

Just to let you know of another blog candy. Check Fran's gorgeous blog to see what she is offering. Her work is really beautiful!

And here is another. Maya is offering lovely candy. Check out her great blog!

Sweet Summer Tilda - Friday Sketchers Week 9

I was in a bit of a rush to get this done. We are going to be busy with many fun activities for the children in the next few days and I have much to prepare! This is another stamp from the Magnolia Summer Club. I used my Papertrey paper again!! Can you tell how much I love it? I colored sweet Tilda with my copics and then used a white gel pen to make all the dots and add summer highlights to her hair. I think this is a great sketch and I am sure I'll be using it again. Thanks for stopping by!

Tilda in Swing - Cute Card Thursday Challenge

The theme this week over at Cute Card Thursdays is the Great Outdoors. I have wanted to use these stamps together for a while. I really love this Magnolia Tree Branch & Swing. I didn't really use too many embellishments for this card just 3 little dew drops. (I had to put something on!) Thanks for stopping by!

Recipe:
Stamps: Magnolia, SU! sentiment
Inks: Stazon, SU! Almost Amythest
Papers: SU! Host Gift paper pack, misc scraps
Coloring: Gamsol and Prismas
Embellies: Dew drops

Best Wishes

Goodmorning! I have not had much time to play with my stamps. The weather is gorgeous and hubby has some time off work so we are taking advantage! Yesterday when we arrived homeafter a fun sun-filled day, there was a surprise in my mail-box...my Magnolia Summer Stamp Club had arrived! This is the first time I have ordered the Stamp Club because you are ordering stamps that you haven't seen yet and you have no idea what they are! But I figured that I basically love everything they come up with so I tried it out. I do not regret it! There were 4 Tildas, 2 Edwins and a whole bunch of amazing accessory stamps. These I never end up buying because I just can't afford them but with the Stamp Club I got so much- it was a real bargain! I think I'm hooked! I was so anxious to try them out that I made this card last night. I used another of Katharina's sketches (#19) - they are just amazing - and I will enter it in her YAOB challenge. This little Tilda is so sweet with her basket and bottle - she's all ready to celebrate. I used my Sweet Blush papers form Papertrey - they are so gorgeous and I colored with my Copics which I still need practice with! Enjoy and celebrate your day!

Recipe:

Stamps: Magnolia Summe Club, SU! Short & Sweet

Paper: Paper Trey Sweet Blush

Ink: Brillance, PT Sweet Blush for sentiment

Coloring: Copic Markers

Embellies: PT ribbon, Dew Drops, Hero Arts Flower

Hanna Bookworm

I haven't had a chance yet to play with my new Hanna Stamps. They are so fresh and fun. She actually reminds me of Samantha from "Bewitched"! They are super fun to work with. I colored this one in with my new copics. I love my coffee and this card says it all for me!

Recipe:

Stamps: Hanna Bookworm

Ink: Adirondach Pitch Black

Paper: SU! DP, Bazzill Cardstock

Coloring: Copics

Embellies: Ribbon May Arts

A Spoonful of Sugar Challenge 6

The challenge this week is to use circles in your design. I ended up using DP from Papertrey that had little circles and I use a circle shape for my sentiment. Not a whole lot of circles but the card had a mind of its own and is not really how I had planned it!!! I just received this in the mail earlier this week - super fast shipping by Funky Kits. I colored it with my new copics and I was happy with how my shading worked out. It really is so different than using Gamsol but I think I will persevere. I am referring a lot to the I Like Markers blog by Marianne and that is helping a lot. See her link on my Blog List.
Recipe:
Stamps: Elizabeth Bell Sweet Ebony - Sugar Nellies
Paper: Papertrey Lavender Moon. Perfect Plum and DP
Ink: Adirondack Pitch Black
Coloring: Copic Markers
Circles cut out with CM punches
Enjoy! Thanks for looking.

Boy Friendly - Friday Sketchers Week 8

Here is my entry for this weeks Friday Sketchers Challenge. I was worried that my blog problem would not be resolved before Friday and that I wouldn't get a chance to submit. I chose an Edwin stamp (my boys have been complaining that I am only doing little girl cards) and colored him with my new copics. The fact that this was a sketch I was following and that I wanted to make it as "boy-friendly" as possible was a real challenge for me. No pinks or purples to be seen. There are flowers but I made them with my SU! punches with the very boy-friendly paper from Basic Grey. In the end, I am quite pleased with it and I was told "Now that is a great card..can I have it?"

Recipe:

Stamps: Magnolia Edwin from Sea & Summer

Inks: Brillance Graphite black

Paper: SU! River Rock (base) Basic Grey Archaic

Embellies: From my scrapbooking stash ...no idea of what brand, SU! brads

Thanks for looking!

Blog Candy

Well, yesterday something was wonky with my blog and I couldn't log on and nothing I tried worked. My husband who is calm as a cucumber said to just wait a day and try again and he was right! I tried resetting my password and this time it worked. Hurrah. I have lots of blog candy to let you know about!! Love that!

The wonderful Claudia is soon celebrating 17,000 hits. Wow! She is offering something amazing! Check it out here: Pretty Pressings

Niki is also offering candy to celebrate 10,000 hits. She is so talented. Go check her blog.

Jennifer at Phoenix crafts (I just discovered her great blog) is also offering some yummy candy.

Michelle at Stamps, Paper, Scissors and Donkey Smiles is offering fabuous blog candy to celebrate all her blog hits!!

Wow! Generous girls who have loads of talent!