I decided to use one of the newer stamp sets for my card today. Since the nautical theme is huge right now, I used the new Dreaming of the Sea set. It’s a really great, versatile set. Lots of fun images and sentiments to choose from.

I knew when I saw this set that I HAD to use the mermaid stamp. She just called to my soul. (Isn’t that what mermaids do?) And since I love using my Gelatos®, well, this was a combination made in heaven…or the sea. Whatever. I just smooshed the Gelato® colors I chose into my work surface, spritzed with water, and then used a small paintbrush to paint with them. The blend of colors you get with these is just gorgeous! I love my Gelatos® so very much. ♥ When the mermaid was all painted I added some Star Dust Stickles to her body and tail to make her scales more shimmery and also to her hair to make it more siren-y.

a close-up of the shimmer, baby! It’s a strange angle, but I really wanted to show off that SHINE!

She takes my breath away. I love her.

I hope you’ll take some time to pop on over to the Market Street Stamps blog to see my card over there and then visit the store to see all the gorgeous, yummy stamps they have. If you’ve never visited? You’re really missing out. Plus, Angelica and Jorge (store owners) are just the biggest sweetie-heads EVER!! ♥ ♥ ♥

Thanks for visiting with me today!! Hope all of you Mom’s, Fur-moms, Moms-to-be had the very best Mother’s Day ever.

Love,

Supplies:

Market Street Stamps – Dreaming of The Sea	Gelatos Gift Set, 34 pieces	Gelatos Designer Set, Tropical	*Faber-Castell DELUXE WATER BRUSH Leak Proof Easy Fill	Natural Hemp Cord On Spool, 20lb
*Colorbox FROST WHITE INK PAD Pigment Stamp 150801	Shadow Ink: Mid-Tone, Tide Pool	Tim Holtz, Memo Pins	Distress Ink Pad, Brushed Corduroy	*Brilliance Ink Pad Pigment GRAPHITE BLACK
*Glitz 6 x 6 UNCHARTED WATERS Paper Pack 0571 Anchor 2013	A3 Cardstock, Neenah Environment Desert Storm, 25 pk	Ranger Embossing Powder, Clear	Stickles, Star Dust	Fiskars SureCut Deluxe Craft Paper Trimmer (12″”)
Martha Stewart Scoring Board, Mini	Non-stick Micro Serrated Scissors

If you don’t know much about this wonderful company, then I urge you to  check them out. The products are NOT just for mixed media artists, but for everyone.  A company that’s been around since the 1700′s has a pretty wonderful reputation in the art world, wouldn’t you agree?

Here’s a little sneaky-peek of my project over there, just to whet your appetite.

So be sure to go over there and leave me a comment! But I’d love to hear your thoughts at BOTH places. Here and there! Do I sound comment starved or what?

Thanks so much for all your love & support! You guys are the best.

Love,

I’ve decided to make some really hard changes in my life. I had to take a long, hard look at myself and what I was putting into my body. And my relationship with food. While I’ve been on diets on the past, I’ve always backed out of them or made excuses, or some silly thing. But, I can’t do that anymore. The older I get I know that I can’t keep fooling myself. No one can make the changes for me. Only I have control. And only I am IN control of me.

I started a little 3-day cleanse on Tuesday and tonight will complete it. What I’ve come to realize in this 3 days is that I CAN do this. And that…WOW…my friends ROCK!! You all have been so supportive, so uplifting, and just been major boosts for my sagging spirits.  And I know that while I make these major changes, I may stumble, heck, I may fall, but with you all by by side? I will never, EVER be alone. I love you all so very much. Today’s card is for you. ♥

Please know how very much you all mean to me. And I thank you all from the bottom of my heart.

Love,

 

 

I’ve made some things here and there, but I made a card today that I just L♥VE, L♥VE, L♥♥♥♥♥VE!! When I made it, I actually felt like I was an artist. I felt really good about the creative process and what I was doing. All the different things I was doing to create it, too. It just makes me so happy! The colors, the sentiment…everything.

I won’t keep you waiting:

What do you think? Aren’t the colors yummy? All of them are from the Faber-Castell Design Memory Craft Gelatos® Designer Set in Tropical.

Here’s how I used them:

1.The Watermelon Gelato® I smeared on my work surface (VERY heavily) and mixed with the Faber-Castell Gel Medium with a palette knife and then smooshed it over my stencil. Just over part of it. Not the whole thing.

2 Then I rubbed the Margarita Mix and Snow Cone Gelatos® directly onto the open parts of the stencil where I wanted color and used a water brush or my finger to blend.

3. I THEN made a mist by cutting off some of the Raspberry Gelato® and adding to a small mister and shaking it up and misting it over the stencil. (Are you still with me? LOL)

4. Once I removed the stencil and dried it a bit with a heat tool I again used the Raspberry Gelato® and this time I stamped with it. I misted my stamp lightly with water, rubbed the Gelato® over the top, and just stamped where I wanted color. SO EASY!!

I also used the Stamper’s Big Brush Pen in White to color my wood veneer pieces. It takes no time to do this and since the ink is India Ink it’s waterproof, archival, and bleedproof. These pens ROCK!

If you give any of these techniques a try I’d sure love to see what you do! Hope you’re all doing wonderful. And I sincerely appreciate you still reading my blog. xoxox

Love,

 

 

 

I’m also going to show you kind of a mini-tutorial using Faber Castell Gelatos. Let me just say these things are amazing. Super highly pigmented, creamy and a little goes a long, long way. The colors are gorgeous, too. I stuck to a palette of blues for my card (one  is a shimmery metallic). They’re all crazy blendable and fun.

Onto my mini-tutorial!

*Step One (well kinda more than one, but work with me) :
Spread Blueberry Gelato around edges of white cardstock (they look kind of like ChapStick®). Blend with your finger. You can blend as much or as little as you’d like, to achieve a look that’s pleasing to YOUR eyes. After I spread the Blueberry Gelato, I then stamped my image with Champagne Dazzle Versamark .

* Step Two (easy one):
Cover your stamped image with white embossing powder, tap off the excess, then heat emboss.

*Step Three (even easier):
Admire your beautiful embossed image. Oooooh! Ahhhh!

* Step Four (best part!):
Add more beautiful colors OVER the embossed white. The white embossed image now creates a resist. I used my  Blue, Teal and Cotton Candy Gelatos and I blended the colors with my fingers, using a different finger for each color so I wouldn’t muddy up the colors. If one color isn’t deep enough, you can always add more. I rubbed over my finished card front with a slightly damp paper towel.

* Step Five:
Finish your card!

Personally, I like being able to see the stroke “marks” and that it’s not over blended. It gives it a more organic feel, but this is just me. It looks almost water-color-y, doesn’t it? The centers of the flowers didn’t photograph very well, but I added some glittery goodness using Distress Rock Candy Dry Glitter and added it using the Faber Castell Gel Medium. With this a little goes a long way, especially for something so small.

I hope you liked my mini-tutorial. I have to say, I MUCH prefer doing videos. (Is that weird? )

Anyway, if you *are* the praying type, please keep my friends in your thoughts & prayers. I’d be forever grateful. xoxo

Love,

*Supplies: Not linked – Patterned Paper (My Mind’s Eye – Moments Collection), Vellum (Stampin’ Up).

I just returned home from a really wonderful trip to Las Vegas to spend a few days with my family celebrating my parents’ 50th wedding anniversary. It was so wonderful being back home. The weather was amazing and my sister came, too, all the way from Germany. I love that girl so much. ♥

ANYWAY…just click on the little RSS chicklet below and you can subscribe to my new RSS feed. Once you click, the options to subscribe will (or should) be in the upper right-hand corner.

Alternately, if you prefer, the direct link to copy & paste to whatever reader you use it is as follows:

http://feeds.feedblitz.com/papergracedesigns

I promise to get crafty soon! I have some fun things I just got in the mail, PLUS a brand new Online Card Class starts tomorrow. YAY!!

Hope you all have a beautiful week.

Love,

This family time together means more to me than I can ever possibly express in words. As I also grow older, sharing times together, reminiscing, and laughing about all the things we did together as a family just makes celebrations like this so much more special.

So to my parents, I wish you a VERY Happy Anniversary. May you always remember the love you had for each other the day you got married that March day in 1963 and made that commitment to each other. You set an example to us and we love you forever for it.

I spent a LONG time making this card. I wanted it to be just right. I hope they love it! I’ll find out soon.

Blessings and love to all of YOU, too…

*** SUPPLIES *** Cording & pearls: Stampin’ Up, Ribbon: Stash, Cardstock: Gina K

So, sweetie-head Paulina of Pretty Pink Posh fame runs the uber fabby weekly challenge 10 Minute Craft Dash on her website. It’s pretty awesome, as is she. But, making a card in less than 10 minutes really requires you to let go of some inner anxiety. And I have LOADS of that. So this was a tough thing for me to do, but I did it. I love that she and the DT post their completed times, so I did the same thing. I’m not overly thrilled with my card, but it at least got me out of my comfort zone.

Here’s my card for the challenge. And, yes, there’s a few more colors than up above in the little banner.

and my time, you ask?

It’s not my fave card…by ANY means, but I did make a card in less than 10 minutes and it got me thinking a little bit more about what I’m usually drawn to creating. I hope you’ll all give this a try, too!

So glad you came on by today. You all bring me so much joy and I’m blessed to have such beautiful friends.

Love,

Supplies : Baker’s twine is from a Tim Holtz class, and cardstock was leftover but is Stampin’ Up.

Drumroll please……

And commenter #15 was Linda Barber!! Wooohoooooooooo!! Congrats, Linda! I’m sure you’ll find lots of ways to enjoy this little stamp set and we’ll be in touch super soon to get your deets on how to get it to ya!

Thanks so VERY much to all of you who stopped by and left me some comment love. I know most of you have never heard of me before, so it really meant the world to me that you still took the time to visit and comment. I hope you enjoyed the card and what I create. YOU all rock.

Love, ♥
Lisa

Okay – can I just say how totally freakin’ excited I am to be a part of this? Because I AM!! If you could see me you’d see that I’m happy dancin’ all over the place. SERIOUSLY!! Teri is one of my fave crafty people on Earth. She makes me laugh, smile and inspires me. I wish we lived closer. We’d be laughing ALL the time. And occasionally rockin’ out.

Teri has been busy creating stamps for Technique Tuesday and creating for just about EVERYONE, but she had a really big release of TWENTY of her stamps at the January CHA in California. Check out the whole January 2013 TT release HERE and prepare to get a shopping list ready. Seriously.

I was totally thrilled to have had some fun with two of her sets: Banner Up and Dude. I went on a slightly different color route with this card and chose a more monochromatic scheme. Grey, black, white, and metallic and just a POW! of color. I really had fun designing and creating this card. Hope you all dig it, too.

Next up, PLEASE visit * * *NINA* * * and see what fabbyness she’s created. I’m sure it’s going to rock your socks off.

If you DO happen to get a little lost along the way here is the hop order. I do HIGHLY recommend that you visit everyone & really…stop by & say a big ‘ol howdy to Teri, okay?

The hop order is:
Teri
Joy
Kalyn
Donna
Kim
Karolyn
LISA  <– You are here
Nina
Ashley
Britta

And hey!!! Dontcha just love the “Dude” stamp I used? Perfect for anyone, but also great for masculine cards, right? Well, Teri is being so super sweet and allowing me to give one away!!! I KNOW!! Make sure you leave a comment as I’ll be picking a winner for that fun stamp on March 1st. Woooohoooo!!!

Thanks for hopping, I mean stopping by *wink* !! Hope you all have a really awesome day!

Love,
Lisa ♥

Below are the supplies I used for my card. When you roll your mouse over the image, the items with an asteriks (*) can be found at Simon Says Stamp, and others can be found at Ellen Hutson, LLC. The Freckled Fawn, Stampin’ Up Rhinestones, Gina K, and Sharpie Metallic Markers are all linked separately. Thanks!