Best Wishes to and from PaperCraft Planet!

A bit of sad news: With mounting family and designing commitments, I have had to make the difficult decision to scale back on my other teams so I can focus solely on my designing and illustrating for Gina K Designs, which includes stepping down from the Paper Craft Planet Supernovas. :( (I never dreamed when I started illustrating in January of 2008 with my first set that a year and half later I would have 22 sets out!) BUT, I am so glad for the experience and friendships I've made through Paper Craft Planet, thank you Susanna and all the ladies of PCP for the opportunity and support! I know Paper Craft Planet will continue to thrive and grow and I will keep sending people your way!


Now some happy news: the PCP ladies are throwing a little going away "Best Wishes" bash for me in the form of a blog hop today featuring my two newest sets "A Year of Leaves" and School, Sports, Spirit!" Aren't they the best?? There's nothing like having people wish you well when you are making big choices for the future, I am SO grateful they are helping me do this with their blessing!! :) So blessed!! I'm playing along too since I wish only the best for PCP and all my peeps there!

I used "A Year of Leaves" to make a simple fall card with "Bless You", this covers so many occasions and best wishes, too! Leaves are watercolored with peerless watercolors, and I stamped the background mat with the different leaves in Vivid Coffee Bean ink. CS is Pure Luxury. I made 2 little pairs of matching earrings from Polyshrink (stamped in Stazon and colored on the backside with Copics) to go with it using one of the leaf images and the acorn, oh my goodness you should see the acorns in real life: they shrink up so tiny, look like little gem stones, so sweet! (I know what i;m makign for gifts this year!!) I pierced some holes through some matted matching CS to coordinate the presentation.

This next card uses "School, Sports, Spirit!", but in keeping with today's theme I didn't go "sports" or "school" with it, just sending lots of love and spirit with this girly, feel good card! "Go for the goal!" is stamped right side up and then turned over to make a complete circle four times on the mat, and then I layered on some Cuttlebugged heart and circle punches inside each. Really fun to frame up little images and punches with this sentiment! Go for it ladies, take the 'Planet to the top!!
To top it all off, Gina K is sponsoring a challenge this week on Paper Craft Planet with a chance to win one of Melanie’s newest sets! Upload a new project with a "Best Wishes" or good luck theme to the PCP gallery with the tag GKDBW by Monday, Sept 14th, 10 EST. A winner will be announced Tuesday, that person will win their choice of “A Year of Leaves” or “School, Sports, Spirit!” Hope you will play the challenge!

Now please see more beautiful samples the Supernovas created with my new sets here:
Adela Rossol
Lynn Mercurio
Kim Burmeister
Wendy Price
Jen Tapler
Tammy Hershberger
Erika Martin
Lori Tecler
Jessica Fick
Sankari Wegman
Susanna Boyd

Thank you again, SuperNovas!! :)

I Brake for Stamps

Here is a card I made with the "I Brake for Stamps" greeting and image: "Rear View Ruth". Choosing this one was easy because you know how I love all things hippy, she'll get some use with a bunch of my greetings fo' sho! We used Lynn Mercurio's sketch.

I colored Ruth with Copics, paper pieced her suit with Basic Grey Offbeat DP, and the finishing touch was to give Ruth a little tan line on her shoulder. To do this, I used the chisel tip of my Copic Colorless Blender to remove the skin tone in a nice neat line. You like?? (I almost did this under her fanny on one side, but in the end (hee!) just couldn't bring myself to have it ride up on her like that....)

Cardstock is Barely Banana, and Gina K Pure Luxury Rocket Red and Green Apple.

To go with this project, PaperCraft Planet has a sketch challenge, sponsored by I Brake For Stamps. To play along, create a card using the same sketch as I used in the card above.

Post your project in the Paper Craft Planet photo gallery, and use the tag "PCPIBFS" -- all caps, please. (Here is a tutorial on adding pictures to the gallery, if you need it.) I Brake For Stamps has generously offered a $30 gift certificate to the store to one of our lucky challenge players. If you place an order between now and Saturday, use the code "PCPlanet" and you'll save 15%!

The Supernovas and I all used the Humorous Seniors for our cards.

Check out what the other Super Novas came up with:

Adela Rossol

Lynn Mercurio

Kim Burmeister

Wendy Price

Jen Tapler

Tammy Hershberger

Erika Martin

Lori Tecler

Sankari Wegman

Susanna Boyd

Stampin' Out Alzheimer's!

I want to share some information about a very special project with you today that involves some of my Paper Craft Planet friends. Jen Tapler, from Jen Tapler Designs, and Susanna Boyd of Card of the Week are hosting a 7 day stamping and scrapbooking event to help raise money and awareness for Alzheimer's Disease. Alzheimer's Disease is currently the 7th leading cause of death in the United States. It is a fatal, progressive disease that slowly robs a person of their precious memories.


We are involved in the memory preservation hobbies - so what better cause for the papercrafting community to join together to support? The site, Stampin Out Alzheimers.ning.com, will feature a variety of challenges, contests, classes and more in different paper crafting categories (stamping, cardmaking, paperscrapbooking, digi scrapping, hybrid, etc) - with prizes donated by over 30 generous sponsors. It's set up as a "Pay to Play" community.



For a small donation (any amount will do), you'll get permission to join the online community which will be up from May 25 to June 1st. 100% of these funds will be donated to the Alzheimer's Association to help with their efforts to provide and enhance care and support for all those affected by this heartbreaking disease.The site isn't "live" yet - it will open soon and the events will begin on Monday. For a quick link to join and make a donation, check out the widget in my sidebar. Check out the video on Paper Craft Planet's home page for a special mesage from Susanna and more about the event by clicking here.



I'd LOVE it if you'd share the badge (see it on the sidebar on the right? just click where it says "add to site" and it will give you the html to copy and paste) on your blog and help us spread the word! We'd like this to be the largest community fund raising effort in the stamping and scrapbooking space. Please help. You'll help us raise awareness and money for Alzheimer's.

PCP Sketch Challenge

I am hosting this week's sketch challenge this week at PaperCraftPlanet, I hope you like it! :) (The stars don't have to be stars, that's just any old embellishment!)

This week, we are thrilled to have MyGrafico sponsor our weekly Paper Craft Planet sketch challenge. While you don't have to use any particular stamp sets or products to win the sketch challenge, MyGrafico wanted you to be able to play along. To celebrate National Scrapbook Day, they are offering 40% off all digital downloads until May 3rd! They also have two really great sets that you can download for FREE! (Here are the freebies: Baby Silhouettes and Vases and Flowers.) Plus, if you play along during this week's sketch challenge, you can win the Butterfly Garden set!

I made today's sample using a free digital image download from Baby Silhouettes, pairing their sweet little sail boat with a greeting from my "Wee Tees" set from Gina K : "My daddy rocks!" ('cause the boat rocks, ya know??)

I made a cut out window with a classic circle Nestie to mimic a porthole and popped up the sailboat. The waves were created with a scalloped edge scissor. I added some SU! Rich Regal buttons to the corners with Glue Dots and created a pierced border in the Gina K Pure Luxury base with my Scor-Bug. I just love nautical cards because a clean simple layut and red ,white blue are so easy to put together for fresh looking results!

To play along in the challenge, please upload your creations with this sketch to PaperCraft Planet with the tag SK050209. To get you excited, the rest of our DT is showcasing the sketch challenge prize set Butterfly Garden. Check out their blogs sometime today to see what they made :)

Adela Rossol
Lynn Mercurio
Kim Burmeister
Wendy Price
Jen Tapler
Tammy Hershberger
Diana Gibbs
Erika Martin
Lori Tecler
Jessica Fick
Sankari Wegman
Susanna Boyd

Check out our sketch challenge entries for this week
Join the Sketch Challenge Group.

Have a terrific weekend! :)

"You Must have been a Beautiful Ba-BY..."

Every month, the Paper Craft Planet Super Nova Design Team pull together a huge album full of inspiration based on a theme. Last month, the album was "Spring into Spring". This month, to get ready for Mother's Day, our theme is "Mother & Child". What better way to kick off a new month than with a contest? No foolin', we're having a Guess the Baby contest! Are you ready? Match the baby with the Super Nova! Not just that... but you'll also have to guess who is missing! Yikes. Hard, I know. If you get them all right, you're entered to win stamps AND a $100 Amazon gift certificate to buy whatever other goodies you want! Check out the pics in the PCP forum today and list of desingers to choose from to start guessing and read more details on the contest!

More later! I have family in town this week, miss you!!

Paper Temptress Group at PCP!

Her is a sneaky peek of one of the newest paper offerings from Paper Temptress! I made a "to die for" card with it but am not yet allowed to share, can't even link it because it's not in the store yet, but...coming soon!!!

Up for a prize today? If you would like to know about paper challenges, see the featured "Paper of the Day", find out about paper specials before anyone else, ask questions about all things paper, and have a chance at weekly prizes, please go join Patricia's new Paper Temptress's Paper Lovers group on PaperCraft Planet! It's free to join and just takes a second (just click on join group under admin options in this link, Patricia will be drawing one lucky person from all group members who are signed up by Friday to win a large and fabulous assortment of her finest papers, including some not yet released, so don't delay! Winner announced this Friday!

BTW, A couple of my favorite stampers are on the Paper Temptress Design Team with me, among some other very talented ladies you may or or may not know yet, but you'll see when you get there! :) Don't wait!

PCP Sketch

Diana Gibbs is hosting the Papercraft Planet Sketch this week, she is using a sketch today she found originally from April 2005 Card Sketches copyright 2005 Becky Fleck. I can't wait to see what she makes, Diana puts a LOT of work into her beautiful cards! This is a fun one, how would YOU attach that band there? Three ribbons? Safety Pins? Fill in the blank? I'm thinking...will be back with a sample (okay, I actually just thought of something off the wall, I don't know if it will work or not, we'll see!!) Please upload you creation to Papercraft Planet with the tag SK010909 so we can all check it out!



This reminds me: would you be interested in playing along in an inspiration challenge with me each week? I see things daily that I think would inspire great cards, and one of my resolutions is to make sure to keep my camera with me because I've missed way too many "potentially great card moments" when I'm out and about! I'd share a pic here, my "paper interpretation" of it, and then sit back and wait to see what you all come up with LOL! Just a thought.... Maybe we need to do a trial run:)

Sneak Peek: Home Tweet Home & Tropical Flowers

Here is my favorite image in Rupa's new "Home Tweet Home" set, when I saw it I knew it would be fabulous with my favorite Cuttlebug Folder!

I've shown here before how I made a rose bush by trimming out my embossed Leafy Branch, today I used Basic Gray CS to make a tree branch instead! Our challenge today at Papercraft Planet for 12 days of Christmas (with me hosting this 12th day!) is to use 12 embellishments on a card! There are so many embellishments to choose from in Gina's store, this was actually a lot easier than it sounded! I attached 6 sateen flowers with glue dots that I'd colored with Copics, swiping outPale Pink and Peach from the middle of each petal, and then stuck a self adhesive rhinestone in the center of each I'd colored with my Yellow Green Copic. 6 flowers +6 rhinestones = 12! Sponging Regal Rose ink around the mat makes the little bird(also colored with Copics) just glow! They are so tiny, but I filled in the centers of the flowers in the image with my Green Copic atyou Spica to add sparkle and match the larger sateen flowers. Base and Mat are Basic Black and Blush Blossom.


Perhaps not so coincidentally, Gina K is also the sponsor for today's challenge and is giving away a Gina K designs stamp set to one lucky person who enters a project with 12 embellishments at Papercraft Planet today, winner will be randomly drawn! Be sure to have your card uploaded to Papercraft Planet by midnight CST tonight 12/10 to be eligible and use the tag 12day12 when you upload, good luck!

Now if you want a sneak peek I made with Gina K's "Tropical Flowers", see here, I'm A Guest "Sketchy Sistah" this month! (Isn't that a cool sketch??? Ally did it, I just made the card LOL!)

More peeks from today with these two sets from:

Asela Hopkins, Carolyn King, Cindy Lawrence, Donna Baker, Emily Giovanni ,Erika Martin, Jessica Fick, Joanne Basile, Kurtis Amundson, Theresa Momber ,
of course Gina K , AND our "In the Spotlight Designer", Carolina Buchting!

TOMORROW the previews continue! : MY set, EEEK!! (You'll never guess!!!) :)

Papercraft Planet Sketch #5 (and Mini Tutorial!)

Okay, so it's my week for our Papercraft Planet sketch challenge, I think this is the first sketch I've ever officially "created" for anything ( although I'm always doing my own layouts, of course, I don't always have the whole thing planned in my mind when I start creating.) If you haven't tried other people's sketches before, I highly recommend it , when I challenge myself with other's layouts I am always so happy with the result because it just looks so fresh and different to me than what I normally make on my own, AND I learn something new. :)

This one is pretty basic! (If you don't have circle punches, please just improvise, they could be round scallop punches or similar, even rounded embellishments like flowers...) Not a lot of stamping here, as I've been meaning to make a card showing you this new little reindeer I designed (I like it even better than the big one I made!!) and thought this sketch would do quite nicely! (Easier than trying to fit "eight tiny..." on one card LOL!)

DPs are both Basic Grey Ambrosia, greeting is from Gina K's "Seasonal Sayings". I used the threading water punch on both layers and I love how the red and black peeping through the holes complements my reindeer noses!! The deer were ridiculously simple to make, using a punch you probably already have, but if not, run and order the EK Success Fancy Corner Punch NOW!! (or in 2 minutes after you're done reading my "how to")

Here you can see I punched out the "more delicate" fancy corner (this is punch is 2 for 1!!*) in Chocolate Chip for my antlers, and Close to Cocoa for the head, snipping off the scroll from either side (save these pieces, I'm sure you can find a place on another card that needs a little somethin'). Add two black dots for eyes (I added a litle dot of white to each with my Inkssentials pen later for "shine") and draw in a little "v" on each side to make the undersides of the ears. Now add the nose embellishment of your choice! Above I colored a self adhesive rhinestone with my Lipstick Red Copic and colored some adhesive metal dots I had with my Black Copic (I added two of these to the top corners of my card as well.) Layer the head on top of the Chocolate Chip punch out, and you're done! I popped them all up on dimensionals on my popped up circles.

What do you think??? I'm just thrilled with how it turned out! (and depending on how behind I get on all my holiday stuff and Christmas cards, I have a feeling I might be making a LOT of these little single deers to stick in the center of plain white square cards and just "calling it good" LOL!!! :)

Please try this sketch and upload your creation to the 'planet with the tag SK120608 , can't wait to see what you make!

*the other fancy corner in that punch??I have something so cute to show you with it, can't wait!!!!

Two Turtle Doves with a Twist

Here is the card I whipped up for Day 2 of Papercraft Planet's 12 days of Christmas Challenge! These doves are bringing these dazzling ornaments to decorate, I just love how it turned out! Images are stamped in Memento Black, colored with Copics from Box A, and 120lb white CS and ribbon are from the Gian K Pure Luxury Line. After stamping I wished I had put the greeting a little further to the left than I had, it was a little heavy on the right side, so I decided to add some ribbon for balance. TIP: I wanted to make a long curling garland with the ribbon so I used this yummy shiny piece (this ribbon never fails to make my heart skip beat, it is SO gorgeous!!) from the Holiday Collection, left the left side much longer after tying and then twisted it a couple times and adhered the end inside with a glue dot. (I cut the ribbon at a nice angle with my Fiskars scissors I use only for ribbon, so the little piece you see inside the card looks nice and "finished". I repeated that with the right side, too. Doing this you can keep your ribbon in place in an architectural way that suits you/your card. Isn't that fun? The curl pattern would obviously flatten in an envelope, so this is a card I would insert into a gift bag or present in person.



Please play this one day challenge, a winner will be chosen randomly tomorrow and will win a set of stamps!

Coffee Kisses in a Pizza Box with lots of Challenges!

Here is the Sketch for our PaperCraft Challenge this week, designed by Tammy Hershberger! I had an idea for a cute card, but then I realized the square shape gave me a great excuse to finally try making one of those cool pizza boxes Jen delMuro created! And, I had an idea of how I could incorporate some coffee and cookies, too hee hee! Can't wait to show what's inside! (I also managed to work in the SCS color challenge and Limited Supply Challenge this week!) I just got the Petite Ovals (Scalloped an Classic Sets) so I was excited to try them out with this sketch(although the Classic shorter ovals would have worked too) I love the look of them and how well they'll work for many longer greetings I have.

To make my sentiment, I used the "Tiny Treasures" stamp from "What's in Your Tin? 1", which I snipped in half, then put "coffee" from "My Cuppa' Joe" in between on the round grid line block. I just bought a whole set of the these and what a great purchase, they are AWESOME, I HIGHLY recommend these for your unmounted rubber! I just used plain rectangle acrylic blocks before and these are SO much easier to hold with the finger grips, the round shape accommodates more images, and best of all those lines are helping me line up my images and stamp straighter than ever, I love it! (I do have a long grid line block, but could only use it for longer images, having these smaller ones is making a huge difference in my stamping and finshes projects already, yippee!!) I stamped one of the coffee cups in Versamark over my greeting.

I stamped the inside and outside of my Kraft box before folding in Memento Tuxedo Black with some of the cups in the coffee set, but also used "SMILE" and "HOLIDAY" from my "Have a Cookie". Notice that foamy latte on the front side? I "sprinkled" it with one of the the "little bits" stamps in my cookie set, too, to dress it up (think shaved chocolate or even crushed candy cane!) This box measures 4 inches square. You need an 11x 6" piece of CS. Using your Scor-Pal, score shortways at 1", 5", 6", 10", and the longways at 1 and 5", then snip the tabs and adhere with permanent DotnRoller. See the tutorial for step by step mini pizza boxes here.

After removing the belly band, you open the box to find an assortment of 16 staggered kisses, ones I had never tried before this season! Mint Truffle (creamy center) and Candy Cane (red and white striped peppermint flavor with crushed candy cane throughout) both very festive and yummy, and I'm sure would be fabulous dunked in hot drinks!

I made up my own poem to explain the gift and printed it out, framing it up with my new Nesties to match my tag:

"When you need a
Christmas HUG,
Just drop a KISS into your MUG!
Your coffee or cocoa now will say,
“I wish you a
HAPPY Christmas DAY!” "

Isn't that fun to have these little chocolates melting away to give your cuppa' some extra zip?! The little chocolate "kiss" you see under the poem and on the box top DP I stamped in red and brown is my chip from "Have a Cookie", too(I covered them all with ym Sakura Glaze Pen for shine). :) You can modify this poem for year round meltaways, too, like this:

When your Cocoa (Coffee) needs a HUG,

Just drop a KISS into your MUG!

Your coffee or cocoa now will say,

“I hope you have a HAPPY DAY!”

or something better than that you think of yourself, LOL!

I hope you enjoyed this project, have a great day!!! (You don't have to make the box, but I hope you'll try the sketch challenge! Upload a project using the sketch to PCP with the keyword SK112208 by Friday and you could win a prize! Good luck!)

PCP Sketch Saturday!

Wendy is hosting our PaperCraft Planet sketch challenge this week, be sure to stop by the "planet" for more deets on entering and what the prizes are for this week's winner! Here is the sketch, I will be back later today with my sample I'm working on, I just wanted to post the sketch so everyone could get started. Lots of possibilities for this one, can't wait to see what everyone makes! :) Upload your card at PCP under "photos", be sure to use the keyword SK111508, and link it in the sketch thread so we can see. You'll have all week to get something in, browse everyone else's work and maybe win a prize! Good luck, have fun!

LUCKY #1000

I am donating one of my new sets to the 1000 member of Papercraft Planet!!! We'll be there any minute, go join if you haven't yet!! ;) EDITED TO ADD: CONGRATS LINDA PALMER, #1000!!!

If you already joined or missed #1000 and have yet to join, don't forget you can still win my blog candy, just be sure to leave a comment on the blog candy post after joining PaperCraft Planet!

Please scroll down to and make sure you see my tutorial, I'm so chatty today it looks like there's no new photo if you don't go down a bit LOL!