La-La Land Crafts

There's a new stamp company coming to town. It's called La-La Land Crafts. The grand opening is August 12 and the website will be open for business at 11pm. The blog has been showing sneak peeks of the new stamps. I am really looking forward to seeing them. They look like they're going to be darling!

To help celebrate, Irina is offering blog candy here.

There's a DT call, too. You can check it out here.

I'd like to wish Irina the best of luck in her new venture!

Etsy Inspired #45 - The Daily Pincushion

The spousal unit left for Combat Skills Training this week. Let's just say it's been a very, very interesting week.

This week's shop is called The Daily Pincushion and I want just about everything in it! They're all so cute that it was hard to decide which one to use as inspiration, but I finally chose this one:

Click on the picture to be taken to the store.

I used Unity's Folk Inspired to create a card, along with both the colours (sort of) and pattern from the Folk Art Mini pincushion pictured above, and the sketch from DTGD09One_Happy_Stamper Sketch Challenge on SCS (gallery here).
Tomorrow (Saturday morning) starts a new week with a new store for EtsyInspired, so don't forget to check out Ashley's blog for all the deets.

Hip Hop ATC Hangover

Morning everyone! Before I post my stuff today, if you haven't been over to Unity, Angela's released a cute new Halloween set this week, by my friend Lisa Hetrick, called Hauntingly Sweet. It is TOO cute! This weekend, all past Kits of the Month are $35 (regularly $45 unless you are a subscriber - and what a deal that is...$24 plus shipping! For a FULL sheet of deeply etched rubber. You certainly can't beat that with a stick!) - and everything in the store is 10% off!

Okay, back to my stuff. I've been working on getting out some Swap-bot stuff and some school assignments, which are still kicking my butt. And taking up all of my good crafting time. So EtsyInspired will be later today...but this week I've been working on ATCs. Bird ATCs to be specific. You saw one last week. I liked it so much, I was going to do them all the same. What I didn't like was cutting out all those little curly-cues. Yeah...not so much fun considering I still don't have a good pair of paper snips.

The first change I made was to use the same kit, Birds of a Feather, but to emboss the bird directly onto the background. I coloured it in with Copics, then used Spica markers on the leaves and the 3 dots by the curl. The backgrounds are all the same as last week. I like the way you can see the background through the bird. Thanks to Tanis for giving me the courage to do this!

For the next one, I used the owl from June's Kit of the Month, Perfect in Every Way. For this one, I once again stamped onto regular paper, this time with Versamagic chalk ink, coloured it in with copics, cut it out and attached it to the card. I added tiny alphabet stickers from Making Memories. They're from the Chloe's Closet line.

So that's it for now. I have 2 more to make and I'm not sure if I'll duplicate any that I've done so far or if I'll try something different. Right now, it's time to be a mom, but I'll be back later with an EtsyInspired post.

Catch you on the flip side!

Walter Cronkite

Walter Cronkite has passed away at the age of 92.

And that's the way it is.

Hello! How is everyone this morning? It's another Hip Hop Hangover. You know, I've never had a real hangover. I think I like it that way. I'm not fond of losing control - so I don't want to get drunk. Ever. Just one of those things, you know?

Unity is having a garage sale this weekend. Check it out, get some good deals... Don't forget to take a gander at the new Hodge Podge of Happiness. That's the set where all of the images were chosen by customers! Yup, we all got a vote. It's a fabulous set and I can hardly wait to get mine.

I finally got a challenge card done...and it looked like dog doodie. But fear not! I have a few other things I need to take care of, so I made an ATC. This one is for a swap on Swap-bot and I need to repeat it, as I have more than one partner, but I'm pretty pleased. I'm debating adding a word cut from a magazine or something, but I kind of like it just as it is. The theme is birds and I used an image from Birds of a Feather that Ashley of Heart Hugs Designs sent to me a long time ago - before I got the set myself. Thanks Ashley!!
Another quick thank you to my friend, Jimmy. The background is Mocha Rose Twinkling H2O's, which was part of my birthday present. See? I am using them and they're awesome!!

I have to run. There probably will not be an EtsyInspired post from me this week. I was inspired to make ice cream, since all those neat creams reminded me of a giant bowl of it. Maybe I was just hungry when I looked at the shop (Verbeena Custom Blends.) The names alone are enough to make a person drool. Anyway, take a guess at how long ice cream lasts in my house. I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count. Hint: long enough to take a picture is not the answer.

Have a good one!!

Two Blog Awards

Wow. Two sweet and wonderful ladies have bestowed blog awards upon me. Honestly, this surprises me. When I get a nice comment, I often feel like Sally Field accepting her Oscar - you guys really like me!! I'm not a complete and total loser! Self-esteem issues? Me? Nah...what makes you think that??

Anyway.

This first one, which is really the second one, comes from Jen at Jen's Cup of Creations. The rules are that I need to choose 7 people whose blogs I adore (that's the easy part!) and then post 7 things people don't know about me. That might take a little consideration on my part. I'm generally a fairly open book.

This is going to be made slightly more difficult by the fact that at least one person to whom I would have given this has already received this award. With that said, here are my seven people.

• Tanis at Paper Princess at Play - She is Lady Talent. 'Nuff said.
• Shannon at Shannon's Sentiments - She leaves me in awe every single day. Seriously.
• Ashley at Heart Hugs Designs - This darling woman is the heart behind the EtsyInspired Challenge Team - and she does it with a 2yo and a newborn!
• Katie at Created by Katie Cotton - Just because I think she's sweet and I love the fairies.
• Lee at My Reality...It's All Good - The woman does it ALL. With smilies.
• Opal at the Akamai Knitter - You didn't think I was going to leave out my bud, did you? Check her out. She is a spinning, knitting, beading genius. And she loves cats.
• Donna at Sometimes - She is never, ever one to mince words and even when I disagree, I'm always left thinking. Plus...I swear we were sisters in another life.

Okay now, seven things about me...that's really hard!!

Award #1 came to me a few weeks ago from Lauren at LEM Photography.
The rules for this one are:
1. Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who has granted the award, and his or her blog link.
2. Pass the award on to 15 other blogs that you've newly discovered.

I guess I can't pass it back to Lauren, eh? That's okay. There are a ton of blogs I've found recently just by virtue of either following blog candy or just links from other people's blogs.

• Shannon at Stamp Till You Cramp
• Carrie at Artistic Avenger

I want to get this posted, so will finish it later....

Win $1,000 at TheCuttlebugSpot.com!

The Cuttlebug Spot is having a contest - "The Journey to 1,000"! They are trying to reach 1,000 followers by the end of July and are offering a prize as an incentive to get there. To enter all you have to do is go to their site (www.TheCuttlebugSpot.com) sign up as follower and follow the rest of the directions in this post. You could win a $1,000 gift certificate to Custom Crops (www.CustomCrops.com)! GO NOW and check it out!

Good luck!

Etsy Inspired #43 - whichgoose

I said I'd be back, and it's a quick one. Lost track of time there, chatting on SCS and reading all the Hip Hop Hangover blogs.

Whichgoose has the neatest haircombs and other adornments that she calls "natural crowns". I chose the forget-me-not pin for my inspiration.

I made these two pins early last week as an extra project in case I couldn't do what I really wanted to do for this shop. Both are made with shrink plastic and the peacock stamp from Unity's January KOTM. I coloured them in with Prismacolor pencils and attached pin backs with Golden gel medium.

This is how they look with the backs added.

Hope you like them! Don't forget to go to Ashley's blog and be Etsy Inspired!

I'm Back With a Hip Hop Hangover

I'm back!! Did you miss me?

The whole screw-up-my-back thing had me almost completely out of commission for a week, but it's getting better every day and I started stamping again on Wednesday, just in time (barely) to make a card for the Unity Guest DT Contest.

The winners were announced last night on Hip Hop. Nope, not me, but that's okay. I'm pleased with what I was able to make. There were over 100 entries!! Stephanie and Michelle were the lucky two. Great job, ladies!! I can't wait to see what they come up with.

So what did I make, you ask? I decided to play around with the spotlighting technique. Since I wanted to match my patterned paper (Urban Oasis, retired SU!), my drop flowers are kind of a greyish blue with just a hint of green. For the Copic users out there, that would be a combination of BG10, BG11, B52, B60, B91 and W2, depending on the petal. The leaves are YG23 and YG67.

That's all from me for now. If you haven't hit Unity yet this weekend, everything (and I do mean everything!) is 30% off. This would be a great time to pick up the handles, which are just beyond awesome. I use them for all of my unmounted stamps, no matter which company they come from.

Back later with a quick EtsyInspired post.

Blog Candy Everywhere!!

I'm stuck in a chair today with a heating pad on my back. So...since I don't get to stamp or do anything really useful like organizing my crafting area, I'm surfing blogs and chatting. Blog surfing is the important part here because I've come across a bunch of blog candy links.

Mel at Mad4Creations is giving away candy in celebration of achieving 4000 hits! Way to go, Mel! Leave a comment on this post by July 2.

Nutcrafters is giving away not one, but 3 prizes here. If they surpass 200 followers, they will add another candy to the jar for a total of 4. Only one part of the candy is pictured in the Candy Jar.

Abby at Abby's Garden is celebrating her first DT position with blog candy here. Congrats Abby!

Next is Dianne at Paper Hugs with Di. The deadline for this one is midnight, July 4.

Lastly (for now, anyway) is Jacilynn's here. She will be drawing a winner on July 6.

I'm off to watch Jeopardy and maybe do something different for my post on Saturday. If it turns out right, I'll post it. If not, I'll have an interesting story to tell.

Catch you guys on the flip side.