Swallowtail

One of the new stamps coming out in the Spring Catalog is the Swallowtail stamp and I am in love!  I did two different cards with the stamp and although I loved the initial blue butterfly, it made a HUGE mess!  So I will definitely re-think how I make it again in the future.

Blue Butterfly

For this one I embossed it with black embossing powder and then I colored part of the butterfly with the Pacific Point marker and then went back over the white areas with the Glimmer Effects and it looked very nice and I pulled the blue over into the white to give it a blue tint.  I let it dry for two days and it was still smearing EVERYWHERE!  I ended up ruining 3 of the cards and was not a happy camper.  So no more glimmery shimmery stuff for me.

Orange Butterfly

This one was really fun to make!  I did the black embossing again, but this time, I used sponge daubers and shaded in some of the butterfly with Pumpkin Pie and it looks great in person!  I think I could jazz this up with some rhinestones or something else fun. How cool would that be???

All in all, love, love, love this stamp!!!!

Happy Stamping!

Glittery Organizing Fun!

Who says functionality can't have a bit of glitter?  Can I just say I love Hobby Lobby and Michael's?  I went down to Gilbert to visit family over the weekend and I just had a ball!  Shopping, shopping and more shopping!  (Sorry, honey!)

I needed some fun things to put cotton balls, marbles, extra Dimensionals, Dazzling Details, Twine, Sanding Blocks, misc. stamps and other tools that I need to have handy.  So I picked up a few pails at Hobby Lobby and then my mom found this great turquoise glittery buckets that I HAD TO HAVE!  So now all of my goodies have happy homes!

The green box on the bottom has all of my wheels and the blue one has my misc stamps from Rubbernecker.

The little buckets and pails have all the cotton balls, marbles, Dimensionals, etc. and they are right here at my work station!  No more going over to the cabinet to find the cotton balls!

The skinny green and blue polka dot box has a nifty drawer organizer in it and has some creative embellishments in it so I can see them all at one time.  It is like my own little treasure chest of fun!

The sparkly boxes on top I picked up at Target and they are just there because they are too darn cute and fit perfectly with my shelves!  Absolutely no purpose other than making me happy!

=)

Card Class Survival Kit

My Bunky Bag

My mom makes these cute little Bunky Bags for all sorts of goodies; groceries, books, pets and card class!  These little guys are the perfect size for our Card Class Survival Kit!  Filled with all the things you need when going to Card Class!

The Inside

Here is the inside of my cute little Bunky!  I just LOVE the colors!!!!!  But I have all the goodies I need to go to class!

So what exactly is in the Survival Kit?  Well, whatever you feel YOU need to survive Suzy's Card Classes!  Scissors, chocolate, booze...kidding!  Maybe!!!  I could fit a little bottle of champagne in this baby!

The Survival Kit Contents

Alas, no bubbly in this Bunky, but there is CHOCOLATE!  THAT is a key item in the Card Class Survival Kit!  Along with a little trash can, extra sponge, chocolate, double sided sticky tape, wipes AND Kleenex to dry off, scissors, the Pick Me Up for those pesky pearls and rhinestones, Embossing Buddy, Dimensionals, distressing tool, marker to sign the back of my cards with and a Blender Pen!

What all do you put in your Card Class Survival Kit?  What can you NOT live without when making cards out and about with your closest friends???

Supplies and More Supplies

Who says trash needs to be ugly?  Or in this case, extra trash bags, packing tape, envelopes for bills (ugh), paper for the printer and extra cards!  This stacking rack just used to be piled with crap, lots of crap!  So during our wintery jaunt Wal-Mart, I picked up the green and turquoise cubes and voila! Instant prettiness!  The green one has the trash bags and packing tape.  The blue one has my big envelopes for work and the big envelopes for bills.  They all fit perfectly!

Since we get soooooo much dust here in Bloomfield, I put my extra paper in the clear tubs above the cubes. It keeps the paper safe and dust free!

I had picked up a bunch of photo boxes at Michael's in the springtime that matched my cottage colors and I keep the extra cards I have from classes along with the extra kits!  So much easier than hiding them under the tables and having to crawl under them to figure out what I have left!  Plus they were only $1!  Can't beat that for cute and resourceful!  I am sure my husband is wishing I was that cheap, because I got cute AND resourceful down pat!  ;o)

Wait til you see the really cute stuff tomorrow!!!!!  It glitters!!!!!

More Organizing Fun

OK so I couldn't drag a bunch of the stuff that needed to go up in the loft so it looks like I got to play in my cottage after all today!  Woo hoo!

Last week was just absolute insanity with making cards and during that time I realized that I needed to be a bit more productive and I needed a few more things in place to make sure I was utilizing supplies and my time more efficiently!  My hubby nicely took me out in a snow storm and I was able to pick up a few much needed supplies to make my life a whole lot easier!

One of my biggest issues/messes/great consternations are my scrap papers.  I love to keep my scrap paper and there is no reason to throw it away especially when I need it!  So I used to put them in big gallon baggies by color family and store them in some cute boxes.

Green, Blue and Purple Boxes full of scraps

And you know, there was nothing really wrong with that system, except let's face it, I am lazy.  I had to get the boxes down, find the right baggie, open it up and find the piece of paper I am looking for.  Plus the clean up was tedious!  I had to sort the scraps, pull down the boxes, find the right baggie, yadda yadda yadda.  Way too much work!  Especially when I am making 30 to 50 cards a day!

Soooooo, I switched up my method!

I picked up two 12x12 plastic 3-drawer systems at Wal-Mart for $12 and each drawer has a color family!  I just whip it open throw in scraps I am not using or pull out the little drawer and grab out the piece I need!  The green box you can kind of see at the top does hold all of my white and ivory paper because I use that the most and most of the time I need to size it so I can just take the whole box with me.

I can't tell you how wonderful this new system has been and how much time it has saved me!

Love, love, love, love!!

Re-Organization of the Cottage

Spending VERY LONG hours in the cottage making a slew of cards has really jump started the "re-organizing of the cottage" project.  It started out as just a couple of tweaks, but now that I have totally been engrossed in the functionality of my space I need to get some things changed pronto!

Last weekend, my hubby braved the snowy weather and took me to town to pick up a few emergency supplies and this weekend I have been having a blast at Michael's and Hobby Lobby with my family back in Gilbert!  Oh my gosh!  Wait til you see some of the fun things I picked up to help organize all of my goodies!

Although a few things are going to need to be re-organized, I am happy to report that my color organization and stamps are still AMAZING!  Talk about life savers when it came to making cards this past week now I just need to get the rest of the cottage running just as smooth!

I promised my honey that I would get our room and office organized on Tuesday, but Wednesday...oh, that is all my cottage!!!!!!!  Unless I sneak away and do a little bit of work on my "breaks" from the house!  he he he

I will post pictures of some of the changes when I finish them up along with pictures of the cards I have been working on as soon as I get back home.  I totally forgot my camera cord so pics will have to wait!

Until then, stay warm!!!

Suzanne