Toy’s Haven

Hi Friends..

I just wanted to pop on and let you all know that I am temporarily out of commission as far as stamping goes.   I had an emergency surgical procedure done on Monday (minor) and it has left me without the use or my left arm.   Well, I can type ok, but not much more than that.   I go back to the doctor tomorrow to find out more, and will let you know.

In the meantime, I am going to share with you a card I made for this week’s Artful Inkables tutorial (faux stone).   You can find the tutorial HERE.

While I am unable to stamp, I am very excited about some new stamps I have just received and am dreaming up ideas on how to use them!   I will be back soon!!

Thanks for stopping by!   Hope you have a blessed day!

~~ Holly~~

Happy Sunday, friends

I am so confused.   Last week, we winterized the lawn and turned on the heat.   Today’s forecast is for the mid 80’s.   No wonder everyone around here is getting sick!    I think mother nature is a tad looped.

I really got excited when I saw that today’s Featured Stamper on SCS is DancerRiley.   She is one of my favorite peeps!   Congrats, Riley!!   I chose THIS card of Riley’s to case this morning.    I love the multiple layers :).

For my card, I changed the colors, the papers, the image and shape of image panel.   I moved the sentiment, moved the ribbon and added to bling.

Here are my deets:

Stamps:  Our Craft Lounge’s Reindeer Kisses

Colors: Basic Black, Riding Hood Red, Cream, Paper Studio dps

Ink: Copics, white gel pen, black sharpie, Tim Holtz’ teabag distressing ink

Accessories: ribbon, 1/2 pearls, candy dots, circle punch, scalloped circle punch, oval punches, MS snowflake punch, stickles, dimensionals.

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Thanks for stopping by!   I hope you have an abundantly blessed day!

~~ Holly ~~

Happy Saturday, friends…

I was really hoping for a lazy Saturday here in Colorado.   The sun is shining and the temps are decent.   I want to get out and do something.   Loveland is famous for it’s sculptures and there are a couple of sculpture parks here.   Today would be a great day to tour those.

But, as I began talking with my DH this morning, his list of things he needs to do grew as did mine.   It’s so funny, because usually we ask each other what we want for dinner and then the hilarity ensues as we argue back and forth.  Well this morning, when the question was posed, we both said FISH at the same time.   That NEVER happens!  I guess we’ll be grilling some fish tonight!

I started my morning with a cup of coffee (I only drink it on the weekends now) and some stamping.   Today’s Inspiration Challenge comes from the Xenia Taler website.   I chose THIS piece as my inspiration.

The image is a montage of different things.   First I used the branch from the Flowers of Happiness set from There She Goes’, then I used the small flower from the same set, stamped and cut out.   Then I used a smaller hole punch (the pieces that come out) and adhered them.   Then I went even smaller with a fine tip sharpie and a white gel pen.   Finally, I covered the whole thing with UTEE in two layers and embossed.

Here are my deets:

Stamps:  There She Goes’ Flowers of Happiness, There She Goes’ Branching Out (sentiment)

Colors: Basic Black, GP White, Riding Hood Red, Bashful Blue

Ink: Versafine Black Onyx, Versamark, white gel pen, black sharpie

Accessories: ribbon, 1/2 pearls, Victoria embossing folder, scallop punches, oval punches, dimensionals, Utee

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This is for you, Sharon.  Bless your soul.   Keep up the good fight, my friend.    Blessings to all.

~~ Holly ~~

Good morning, friends

Yesterday, my son Noah came to me with a request.   A challenge, actually.   His best friend, Chad, is turning 19 tomorrow and a card was ordered.   Do you know how hard it is to make a card for a 19 yr old boy???   I gathered some info on Chad.   He is going into the Marines in January and he likes cars, and girls, of course.   He drives a pretty sweet Mustang.

So, I had to get pretty resourseful.   I have images for older men.   I have images for little boys.   I even have a few sporty images, but none of those quite fit Chad.   I did some searching on the net and found a few free clip art sites.   Score!    This is what I came up with.

I kept the layout pretty simple.   Added the stoplight image (also clipart) ~ with brads to represent the colors.   Of course, Noah insisted that I use NO RIBBON, so I snuck some twine on instead.

What do you think?

Here are my deets:

Stamps: NONE ~ clip art only

Colors: Night of Navy, Soft Suede, GP White, Basic Grey Granola dp

Ink: Copics, silver painty pen (for the grill and bumper)

Accessories: Twine, brads, ek success border punch, circle punches, glossy glaze, dimensionals

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Thanks for stopping by!   I hope you have an awesome weekend!    Blessings

~~ Holly ~~

Good morning, friends!

Yup, it’s that time again!   The INKgirls are hoppin’ to show you the new releases from Artful Inkables.   If you’ve arrived here from Julie’s blog, then you are in the right spot!  If not, you may wish to start back at the beginning (Kristin’s blog ~ AI) to get the full show.

You are going to see two new sets today.   I chose to show off the new Down on the Farm set.   Ok, I will admit, I am a tractor kinda girl.  I just adore the images in this set and wanted to use them ALL, but that wasn’t going to work :).   I’ve also been challenging myself to try more CAS cards.   I think this will qualify as CAS.

I did alot of masking on this image, something I am challenged to do.   I figure if you’re going to cut out a mask, why not just cut the image out and pop it?  Well, I got over that with this card.   I masked the images to create the scene, then ‘’spotlighted” the chicken.   I actually put a piece of acetate under the spotlight to make it look like a looking glass, but that was hard to capture in the picture.

Here are my deets:

Stamps: Artful Inkables‘ Down on the Farm

Colors: Riding Hood Red, Chocolate Chip, GP White

Ink: Versafine Black Onyx, copics

Accessories: ribbon, oval nesties, acetate, sticky tape, dimensionals, circle punches

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Now it’s time for you to pop on over to Emily’s blog to see what goodies she has in store!   Thanks for stopping by!   I hope you have a blessed day!

~~ Holly ~~

Happy Wednesday, friends

What a rough night!  My DH called me from Snowmass last evening to let me know he wasn’t feeling well.   He sounded awful.   Then I was watching a news report on the H1N1 virus.   So, as per usual, I spent the night worrying about him and the kids getting the flu.   They have no health insurance.   Just one trip to the hospital could wipe us out.   I hate when my head goes there, but it’s a real threat these days, kwim?

Needless to say, I couldn’t sleep much.   I was up at 4:45am.   What does a crafter do at that hour?  STAMP!   I hopped on SCS and found the sketch challenge.

I like sketches like these.   The little panels give you the opportunity to use those little stamps.

Here are my deets:

Stamps:  There She Goes‘ HSH Halloween Additions

Colors: Basic Black, Green Galore, GP White, paper studio dp

Ink: Versfine Black Onyx, copics, Tim Holtz’ teabag distressing ink

Accessories: ribbon, drippy goo punch, crystal effects, word window punch, scissors, dimensionals

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Thanks for stopping by.   I think I am going to try to go back to sleep for awhile.   I hope you have a blessed day!

~~ Holly ~~

Good afternoon!

Today is THINK INK TUESDAY at Artful Inkables.   This week we are working with a sketch brought to us by Jen Pahoulis.   Now, my turn to do a tutorial is coming up next week, so I am giving you a little sneak peek this week.   I call it ‘faux stone’.   It is super easy to do and you can give your stone different looks, depending on the inks you use.

I think the Sarah Steampunk set is one of my favorites from Artful Inkables.   She has so much character.

Here are my deets:

Stamps:  Artful Inkables‘ Steampunk Sarah

Colors: Chocolate Chip, Really Rust, GP White, Graphic 45 dp

Ink: Versafine Black Onyx, copics, Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Really Rust, Versamark

Accessories: ribbon, oval punch, scissors, clear embossing powder, mosaic embossing folder, dauber, dimensionals

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Thanks for stopping by!   I hope you have a blessed day

~~ Holly ~~

Good evening

What’s a “Squeal” out?   Well, normally it would be a ‘’shout out”, but since we’re dealing with THE pig, then it’s a squeal :).   THE pig I am referring to is Hambo.   You see, last week I was surfing around and landed on the Talk to the Ham blog.   I literally did squeal when I saw this drawing of a toy soldier by Tim.   I adore toy soldiers.   Well, they were having a little contest/bidding war to see who would win the digi-image, and guess what?!   I won!   So, not only is this my first toy soldier, it’s my first digi-image, too!   Thank you, Monica and Tim!!

When I saw the Monday Mojo (MOJO108), I just knew it was a perfect fit for this awesome image.

Here are my deets:

Image:  Toy Soldier by Hambo; sentiment is computer generated

Colors: Basic Black, Basic Gray, Very Vanilla, Paper Studio dp

Ink: Versafine Black onyx, copics

Accessories: ribbon, candy dots, circle punches, dimensionals

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Now for those pictures I promised!   I am no Martha Stewart, but I love my space.   It has lots of room to move around and there’s potential for just about anything

This is the view from the door across the room towards the two corner windows:

My armoires that I found on Craigslist:

My desk (It came out dark because it’s nighttime and the flash wouldn’t go off with the florescent light on):

My new closet shelves:

My punch storage:

AND… can you believe I have made four cards since cleaning and it’s STILL clean?!   Red letter day!

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Thanks for stopping by!   I hope you have a great night!  Blessings!

~~ Holly ~~

Here are my deets:

Dear Santa,

      Please let me explain……….

I woke up this morning expecting to be running around to doctor’s appts and whatnot.    I checked my appointment card for the first appointment and instead of 9am as I had thought, my first appointment is not until 11am.    That gave me two extra hours I didn’t know I had :).. SCORE!

So, I jumped on today’s Technique Lover’s Challenge.   Today we are making Easel Cards.   These are really fun to make!   I am always looking for new folds and different ideas for cards.   I can’t believe I had not found this one before

Basically, all you do is make a card front.   Then you make a base which is twice the height of your card front.   Score that at the halfway point, then again at three quarters of the length.   Attach your card front to the top quarter and you’re done!

For my inside, I stamped the little christmas light in a row and then cut them our partially.    The ‘’stopper” is my sentiment on dimensionals.

Here are my deets:

Stamps:  Artful Inkables’ Holiday Treats and Tails

Colors: Riding Hood Red, Buckaroo Blue, GP White, Christmas Magic dp

Ink: Versafine Black Onyx, copics

Accessories: candy dots, ribbons, dimensionals, circle punches, icecicle punch, word window punch

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Thanks for stopping by!   I hope you have a blessed day

~~ Holly ~~

Suprise! LOL

I know, two posts in one day must mean I have nothing better to do than stamp.   Well, that’s nearly true.   Since my DH is cooking his famous chili for dinner, the only thing I have had to do today is a little laundry, bake some cornbread muffins, make honey butter and run Levi’s friend home.

I was telling my son that it feels different crafting in my newly arranged space.   I not only seem to be more efficient, I have cleaned up after myself!   I still need to attack that ribbon box, but that can wait until this week.   I was just happy to stamp with great lighting!

I made this for the Mojo Monday challenge (MOJO107)

The sketch was so intriguing that I wanted to keep the focal point simple.   I like this so much, I may simplify it a bit and use it for my Christmas cards :).

Here are my deets:

Stamps:  Artful Inkables‘ Holiday Treats and Tails

Colors: True Thyme, Riding Hood Red, GP White, MME dp and Christmas Magic dp

Ink: Versafine Black Onyx, copics

Accessories: ribbon, 1/2 pearls, eyelet border punch, circle punches, scalloped circle punches, dimensionals, snowflakes embossing folder

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Thanks for stopping by!   I hope you have a blessed day

~~ Holly ~~