Make a Difference

As a Kit Club subscriber, I was enamored by Jenni Bowlin’s booth. LOVE, love, *love* that Jenni is in tune with card makers and altered artist. Many pieces of her line come in a smaller scale for us card makers.  This is one of her 4″ chipboard books.

These are several styles of her 4″ chipboard books. They come with vintage inspired ledger paper inside each one.

Mini calendar cards - again on a 4″ scale. All of the calendars are perpetual and have beautiful line art on the header. You can see the full pack HERE.

Each and every one of her patterned paper lines comes in scaled down 4″ pieces - 4 sheets of each design in each package.

And what about her beautiful bingo styled inspiration cards - now in 4″ scale. So excited!

yep, just like the label reads…’so darn cute!’

I’ll try to post a few more favorites later today!

Made it back to Kansas City late this afternoon. Had a wonderful time catching up with friends in Chicago!

Tall girls ROCK! Taylor and Debbie are both warm and genuine. Of course, you know that they are incredible paper artists, but did you know that we’re all really TALL. It’s usually the first thing someone says when they meet us for the first time, “wow! I didn’t know you were so tall!” Taylor and I are both right at 6′ and Debbie is just a little bit shorter than us. Yet another reason that I love both these ladies, muchly!

Known by so many as HB - Carol is just a doll! We met for the first time in Anaheim, and it was instant friendship.

You know this sweet lady . . . Anna Wight is so much fun..always smiling and laughing. Here we are at cupcake reception that the SCS team hosted for our advertisers and design team. Anna is such an incredible artists on so many fronts, I just like to hug her and pretend some of it will rub off. Good times! Good times!

Here is the CHF Design Team (minus Michele Boyer who had left) at the cupcake event: Valerie Stangle, Mona Lisa Strahl, myself, Lisa Silver, Richard Pomeroy (CHF owner), Becky Olsen, Julie Campbell (another TALL girl I {heart}) and Dawn Lusk (who I harvested this image from! thank you, sweetie!). We have a pretty live chat-life over at CHF (well, with the exception of Richard - he just keeps us in line!) so after working with these folks for almost a year, it was wonderful to hug them all.

Sharon Harnist and I were walking the show floor this morning and we ran into Lindsey Botkin and Michele Boyer, one last time.

On Thursday, I spent the entire day getting Copic certified! I had spent the night with Julie and Lisa the night before, and even without a memo, we all managed to get the pink shirt dress code down pat. Kim Leech, a wonderful friend of Cornish Heritage Farms, stopped by right as our class was letting out. I’m so glad that she did. I never ran into her again during the 4 days in Chicago.

I got the dress code memo this day, too! <wink> Are these girls from Unity Stamps not just the cutest? I know that Angela (owner) works with them for their incredible talent, but I’m wondering if they sent head shots with their DT applications! Brooke Lien, AJ Otto and Jennifer Buck - great, great girls! Loved getting to meet Brooke and Jennifer on this trip and wonderful to see AJ again!

And, it seems I have come home from yet another work trip and have not gotten a single photo of the SCS Team. Daven, Jenn, Sara, Kurtis and I spent a lot of time and effort trying to catch up with all of the wonderful advertisers who, with their support, keep Splitcoaststampers the number one paper-crafting site on the web.

I’m going to call it a night for now, but I have many, many photos to be uploading in the next day or so - show favorites, new stuff and beautiful displays. CHA is information over-load! For as much fun as I had, nothing compared to seeing my two sweet baby girls jumping in the driveway with excitement as I pulled in tonight. It’s good to be home.

I was really drawn to a new set from Unity Stamp Company with all the birds. There’s one for every season. I colored this one with Prismacolor pencils and gamsol - then accented with paper from the Pink Paislee - Office Lingo line and one of those new Primas that I got from Jacksonbelle.

I made it safely into Chicago. Yesterday I took the Copic Certificatin class, and it was a really good time. Lots of friends, great teaching from Marianne (ilikemarkers at SCS). Looking forward to making a few cards with the images that I colored.  The SCS Team is getting ready to head down to the convention floor for opening morning of CHA. Should be fast and frenzied - We have some appointments set up, but I’m hoping to blog tonight about some of our favorite stuff from the show. Have a great day!

In honor of my 12th wedding anniversary yesterday, here’s a card for my dear, sweet husband. While he’s not a ‘cowboy’ in true definition, he say’s “y’all” a lot, works in the agriculture field, drives a pick-up and lucky, lucky for me….I get to wash my fair share of Wranglers. Our first date was the 1992 Dodge City Round Up, so he’ll always be my cowboy.

This falls into play with the CHF Challenge Chicks today to create a masculine card. I used ‘For the Men’ from the Rummage Bin line and beautiful new paper and accents from Prima (I got mine from sweet Jacksonbelle). While masculine cards can be hard to wrap your mind around, my stand-by is clean lines and simple stamping. I’ve used a paper punch and distress inks to give it a western feel.

There is *SO* much going on this week with CHA departure in just 2 days! Make sure you stop by Mona Lisa’s blog for incredible new licensing agreement information…can you believe Saturday Evening Post?? Check out the other chicks for more masculine inspiration (and other exciting CHA pre-sneaks for product and new art!): -Kristine Reynolds, Dawn Lusk, Julia Stainton, Michele Boyer, Val Stangle, Kim Hughes, Lisa Silver and Sherrie Siemens

I’ve been working with the new Aimee Nugent Christmas line for several weeks. Today is release day and all of the Aimee images and coordinating Christmas sentiments that I have been using are available for purchase.

This main image panel started out as Cryogen White (shimmery). I used the Emerging Color technique found here at Splitcoast, so the words O Holy Night were actually the first image applied to the cardstock. I love this technique - it’s fun, not too messy and generally good for a few oohs and ahhhs.. I love the colors of this Christmas paper from Webster’s Pages.

Editted: Most of the CHF team has peaks of another fabulous new product that will be unveiled at CHA on their blogs, so almost any link from the team sidebar will get you a free shot at some hot stuff. The eye candy I’m posting is from sweet, sweet Kim Hughes. Look at this gorgeous CocoMocha paper that is being shown at CHA! Good stuff!

• Stamps: O Holy Night - Christmas Expressions & Three Wise Men - Aimee Nugent - both from Cornish Heritage Farms
• Cardstock: Cryogen White, Spring Willow Medium, Blush Red Medium and Webster’s Pages patterned paper
• Ink: Cranberry Adirondack - Ranger, VersaMark - Tsukineko
• Accs: Ribbon, Brads & Scalloped Rectangle Nestabilities

I have been wanting to try soldering for a long time and got this kit a month or so ago. I love the collage type stained glass charms that the really artsy people make. So, I packed up all the stuff, headed off to Wes’ work bench in the basement, and this is the result of my first try…well actually, my third try. I discovered that to work down there in the man-cave, I need 3 more hands and an OTT light. I sure hope that lead solder will flake off of his big ole manly man work vise.

This image is, perhaps, my favorite Thomas Kinkaid stamp in the CHF collection, The Forest Chapel. Here I have stamped it in Brilliance Pearlescent Beige and then accented with swirls from the Beautiful stamp set in Pearlescent Chocolate. The ‘divine’ and ‘design’ are BOTH from the Sassy Petites stamp set (released today along with Christmas Expressions). Isn’t that cool? DIVINE DESIGN!! I’m going to try to make a few of these charms, and hopefully improve my solder skills along the way.

I’ll see you tomorrow! Have a great, fabulous day!

Ms. Mona Lisa Strahl released a brand new product line for Cornish Heritage Farms yesterday. I’ll let her tell you all about it, but suffice to say the CHF team is pretty excited about these gorgeous patterned papers featuring beautiful Thomas Kinkaid art. Here’s a little blip that she shared with me. You can see more and get more 411 by visiting her blog Mona Lisa Moments.

I’ll be later today with some stamping… Have a good one!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him…                                  Romans 15:13

Continuing with yesterday’s theme of joy, peace and hope, here is my submission for Divine Design for July. Thanks for all your sweet comments and emails yesterday. I’m just going to try and keep trusting that all things work together for His glory…even when you don’t know what that will end up looking like in the end.

This scripture is an older Bible verse in my collection from Biblical Impressions, now carried under the Eureka name. When I first found their site in 2002 or 2003, I was appalled that they would arrive unmounted. How would I store those? How would I ink those? How would I find what I wanted later on? Where is the index? I’m singing a different song, now. I love the ease of storage and being able to have many more stamps at my fingertips as I work. I use this system, and I’m still lovin’ it!

As for the hanging display that I use, it was a gift several years ago. It originally held verses and inspirational messages, but after a few years on my kitchen sink backsplash, it…well….had seen better days. I salvaged all of the hardware. I’m sorry I can’t point you to the right place to purchase. You could do something similar with this album holder from How Do You Glue. I know that Sharon Harnist has some gorgeous samples of how she uses this album holder HERE. You can click her calendar tab to see her pages year to date.

The cross image is actually the same Christmas star that I used HERE. It’s just trimmed out and popped up! It’s available on Friday from CHF as part of Aimee Nugent’s Christmas release. I think I’ll be using this often as a cross either by trimming or using a marker and omitting. The color combo was something I wanted to try after I saw this months Paper Crafts. Yellow, gray and black are somewhat HOT right now. The white printed paper was actually stamped using a new Scrapblock™ from CHF called Daisy Chain. It just arrived here yesterday, and I think you’ll be seeing lots of it in the near future. I love the small scale of the print. The Sunflower layer was embossed in my Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder and sponged on the texture.

You can see more Divine Design inspiration from Angel Wilde, Nancy Morgan, Taylor VanBruggen and Jami (who will be posting a little later).  You can read the master thread and play along at Splitcoaststampers HERE.  Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful day!

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. ~ Romans 5:5

It’s time for another CHF Challenge Chicks offering. I’m still working with the new Aimee Nugent images that will be released on Friday of this week. This is another silhouette, a manger scene. I used Beate’s Faux Shaving Cream technique, and I love the results on these large, solid images. The CHF Challenge today was to use Krylon Leafing Pens. I used the Pale Gold, and I see this morning that it must be out of stock, probably because they are all on special this week. You can achieve the same results with any of the colors, and there are lots of samples to look at, as much of the team is participating today.  You can see samples from Julia Stainton, Julie Campbell, Lisa Silver, Kim Hughes, Kristine Reynolds, Dawn Lusk, Michele Boyer and Sherrie Seimens by clicking their individual names.

Joy! Peace! Hope! A sentiment from the Christmas Expressions set available on Thursday! Let me speak to those few words for a minute. Two times in my life, I have had a preacher stand up and say, ‘the Holy Spirit has given me a different message today that I originally planned’. One of those times was yesterday, and both times the new message was tailored to meet me where I was at, at that season. God is good. Our pastor actually preached from Romans 8 yesterday, my very favorite chapter of the Bible. And, he actually preached on JOY - the joy of our salvation! The joy of having a short (very short) list of things that we need to be happy and how that sets us up to be joyful. The encouragement yesterday gave me HOPE.

I’ve had a lot on my mind the last few weeks, a few rough situations that are really hard to wrap your mind around and even more difficult to evoke change.  While I won’t stop praying about them, I’ll be moving those rough situations off of my list of things that steal my happiness and rob my JOY. That brings me PEACE. It gives me a new HOPE, and His Word tells me that HOPE does not disappoint us. 

Tomorrow is Divine Design, and seeing how God touches so many of you through His Word, well that is one of those things that brings me JOY. Have a wonderful, wonderful day!

I couldn’t help sliding this My! What a Beautiful Tree stamp onto my Unity order.  I love the whimsy and the bling-ability!  With the size, it worked great for another card for Taylor’s Cupcake Challenge.  The size is just one thing I like about the Unity web site. When you look at their sets, they tell you exactly what size block you need for each piece in the stamp set. That’s an extra nice touch.

We had a nice evening of fellowship with our church family tonight. Every year around the 4th we celebrate with our God and Country picnic: good food, good music, good times. Now, the girls are out of the bathtub and in the bed, and I’m going to STAMP. The CHF Chicks have a challenge to post in the morning, and Tuesday is the 8th - already time for Divine Design this month! It’s gonna be a wonderful week!

 Have a great evening!

• Stamps: My! What a Beautiful Tree! & Tiny Trinity - Unity Stamp Co.
• Cardstock: Papaya Puree Dark Prism, October Afternoon Detours collection
• Ink: Espresso Adirondack, Agean Ocean VersaMagic
• Accs: Copic Marker, Bling - Hero Arts, Souffle Pen, Buttons - foof-a-la,