More artwork

Here's a couple of projects I've been working on. It seems like summer is going so fast. I know that as soon as school starts that my time to stamp will be even more limited so I'm stamping when I can LOL. All products are Close to My Heart. Stamp sets are Delight in Everything with Let's Get Together paper and Little Builder with Route 66 paper.

Ok, time to let the teens have a chance at the computer.

You are Close to My Heart,
Yvonne

p.s. The hair cut I got (see previous post) is hidden. Oh, thank you Jesus!!







The flap is held closed with the pylons for this card.

I've been tagged

I've been tagged by Tracy, the Stamping Princess. Check out her blog here. So I need to tell you seven things about myself and then tag seven other bloggers. I'm not sure if I know seven others to tag, but I'll give it a shot. Ok, seven things about me.

1. I have an awesome husband that makes the best coffee (doctored) and brings it to me every morning.


2. I toured for three summers with a singing group (New Way Singers out of Nebraska Christian College) when I was in High School. Now you couldn't get me up on stage to sing for anything.


3. I am mom to 5 great kids. Three are biological ages 14, 16, and 18. We recently adopted two little ones ages 3 and 6 making our household consist of three teens and two preschoolers (ok well, kindergarten). This means I have to squeeze stamping time in whenever I can get it LOL.


4. Seven things? Wow, I don't know...ummmm....I love rainy days. I feel energized by the cool air and the awesome smell.


5. As I type this I'm getting a "hair do" by my three year old. He loves to stand behind me and spray my hair with water and then brush like crazy. All my kids have done this. UPDATE: Ok, maybe I'd better pay attention. He had more than a spray bottle. He just cut a piece of my hair! Luckily it'll be hidden (I hope).
   
6. My least favorite thing about raising kids is potty training.


7. My most favorite thing about raising kids is seeing them "fly". I love cheering on their achievements.
   

I'm tagging Amber, Patsy, April, Michon, Ann, Shannon, and Teri. Whew! It was tough to come up with seven that hadn't been tagged. Hopefully these girls haven't. Check out their blogs!

Ok, I'd better go check my hair. My husband tells me this could be a scrapable moment LOL.

You are Close to My Heart,

Yvonne

I'm Cleaning Today...

Today I am busy weeding out my closet/office to make room for new stuff coming out. I have a HUGE mess going, but I can see the end in sight.

I have found a huge pile of "stamples" from conventions gone by. I'd like to give them away. Yes, you heard right. All you have to do is to send me a self addressed, stamped (with two postage stamps) envelope. The envelope needs to be at least an 8 1/2 x 5 1/2 size, but an 8 1/2 X 11 will work too. I will put about 10-12 "stamples" in it and mail it back to you. I will post when I am out of mailable art so that everyone receives something.

Please note that you might receive discontinued images but they would still be great for an idea bank. This is open to anyone. Please help me clean out!

If you would like to have my address, please e-mail me and I will get that to you.

Since I can't create in my office right now I thought I'd pull a card from the recent past. I embossed the flower in white on vellum and then turned the vellum over to color it. The stamp sets used are Friendship Blessings and Card Commentary.


You are Close to My Heart,
Yvonne

A Card for Ann

Ann is a friend of mine who is a Pampered Chef consultant. She ordered some stamps from me and then gave me permission to play with them before giving them to her (how fun is that?). Ann is working on getting thank you notes made up for her hostesses and I'm giving her ideas. So for Ann, and all of you...here's the recipe (LOL get it? Ok cheesy attempt at humor!)

I inked the background with honey on buttercup paper. Then the next layer is desert sand on colonial white paper. For the main image I inked it in honey and then used sponge daubers over the leaves and border on the stamp itself. After stamping it I used a cotton ball to add color to the image with our chalks. Then it needed some gold so I tapped the edges in embossing ink and used gold powder. The rest is pretty self explanatory.

To visit Ann's website, go to www.pamperedchef.biz/annsgazelle! I love Pampered Chef!

You are Close To My Heart,

Yvonne

More Pink!

Here are the rest of the cards from tonight's party (yes I still call them a party because we have soooo much fun!) The little enclosure card was the hands on project. The card with the big flower actually has the background paper inside the card. Anyway, some pretty simple ones, but that's my style.

You are Close to My Heart,
Yvonne

Pretty in Pink

I finally got through all my paper and I feel so much more organized! I had to reward myself with a little play time so here's the result. I'm still stuck on the Delight in Everything and Playful Flourishes sets. (Don't you just love how my bedspread makes a perfect background LOL). The piece of pattern paper comes from the Best Friends Forever paper pack. The glitter was still out so I gave this card a good sprinkling...maybe too much, but it's pretty...and yes, I have glitter on my face after this :0)

I have a customer having a party tonight and I've made some more cards with this same color combo and stamp sets. I'll post those later so I don't spoil her surprise. For you workshop attendees, this will most likely be on the list of ones to make either this month or in the near future.

Ok, off to clean up my mess and go through stamp sets for that stamp stash sale!

You are Close to My Heart,

Yvonne

Girl Time

My friend Stacy came over the other night to make a card for her boss's birthday. For his birthday the staff purchased an hour aerial photography shoot so she needed a card with that theme. We had to dig deep into my stash to come up with the airplane stamp...a wooden one from years gone by. We were so worried about the airplane stamp not really matching the style of the card, but the staff loved it, especially the boss. He passed it around and made everyone look at it even though they had all seen it when they signed it.

This card actually opens first by the brown flap that's tucked under the airplane. It then opens on the left side with the postage stamps. It's a neat pattern. When I get some time I'll post some more like it and give directions.

Today though, I've been busy re-organizing and weeding my paper for my stamp stash sale. It's a grand mess right now and I can hardly walk through my bedroom, but I'm intent on my goal to downsize and organize. Next I'm going through my stamps. In case you live in the area the sale is July 28th at 2:00. Ok, I've got to at least clear a path before bedtime so I don't break my neck in the middle of the night :0)

You are Close to My Heart,

Yvonne

p.s. Thanks Stacy for the girl time! I loved it!

I Love Chocolate!

My honey has been gone all week to church camp. I miss him and usually don't go to bed at a decent hour when he's gone. I guess the up side to that is that I have lots of hours after kids go to bed that I can play. Here's last night's result. This is Delight in Everything and Playful Flourishes. The colors are Twilight and Chocolate (yum!) with ribbon from the Cocoa collection. Playful Flourishes has all these cute little words you can add. You can click on the picture to see it larger. This is a very fast and simple card that you could easily duplicate with any stamps you have. These just happen to be a couple of my favorites :0) Well, bed time last night was 1:30 so I either need a nap or a Three Musketeers LOL. I'm thinking the chocolate sounds good!

You are Close To My Heart,
Yvonne

Back in the Day...

I'm on a yahoo group that is made up of some consultants and some customers. It was recently discussed how long those of us that were consultants had been in the business. I felt old since I have been a consultant since January of ... um...hang on...gotta' get out the calculator.... January of 1995! That's 12+ years with Close To My Heart. Now, back in the day when I first started demonstrating, I primarily used glossy paper. Today we has soooo many papers to choose from that I have to remind myself to get the glossy paper out. Back then I also used Prisma Glitter on everything. You could usually tell I had been stamping because I had glitter on my face! It was sort of the look...glossy paper and Prisma Glitter. Well, in honor of those times past (and because my daughter has a birthday party coming up) I made a card. You may have to click on it to actually see the Prisma Glitter. The UPS man just brought the Birthday Bash set today so I had to play with it. I love how the glossy paper keeps the colors so vibrant on the paper. Too much fun! So there you are...a blast from the past.

You are Close To My Heart,

Yvonne

My "Office"

I thought I'd share a couple of pictures of my "office". It's actually in my closet. I did have an office, but we adopted two kiddos and they now have that room (they were worth it by the way!). For now I've moved to the closet and I have to say it works ok. Now, I would love to be one of those that has a whole studio dedicated to this craft, but that's just not possible. So in the meantime I have to keep my inventory to a minimum. I also have to pick up after every project which isn't such a bad thing either. So, here's a peek of what it looked like after creating the last couple of cards. Just for the record it's clean again and ready for the next creation.

Stay tuned....

You are Close To My Heart,

Yvonne

And the Winner is.....

Tressa! Please let me know your mailing information and I'll get your card to you as soon as possible.

Thank you to all of you for thinking of me when I was sick. Who gets sick in July for crying out loud! I'm doing better now.

So before I put the mess away from that last card I thought I'd make one more. Cindy B. was closest on the sets, but I never did have anyone guess both sets used to make the last card. It was the Create a File set, but I also used Woodland Sentiments. Here's another card with the same colors (Indian Corn Blue, Breeze and Key Lime). This time I added the Simple Stitches and used a Special Friendship for the inside message (I tried to post it here, but it's not cooperating). I will be using a variation of these two cards at my next card workshops on June 28th and 30th (class will repeat). The other two cards will just have to be a surprise :0) Oh, guess what? I was at the grocery store yesterday and I saw the lady wearing the shirt that inspired this color combination. Since I didn't know her I thought it might seem odd to her if I approached her to tell her about her color inspiration LOL. I'm a little on the quiet side when it comes to people I don't know.

You are Close To My Heart,

Yvonne