Please meet Carla

First, happy Memorial day! Don't forget the Operation Write Home hop still going on. I will pick the winners of my giveaways tomorrow morning, so you have till tonight to enter!

Carla Suto is one of my StampTV friends and she's gracious enough to be one of my Designing Friends this month featuring my latest stamp sets by GinaK Designs, Fine Furnishings and Fine Furnishings Addition.

Look at her beautiful cards below. I love how she mixes patterns so well. She excels in making elegant and classy cards.
Let's get to know her some more:

1. How long have you been paper crafting and how did you get started?

I was always an avid crafter but I only got into paper crafting about three years ago when my good friend brought me with her to a Stampin' Up party. The rest is history! I've been addicted to stamping and card-making ever since!

2. What are your current favorite:

• Techniques: Coloring with Copics, Embossing

• Tools: Cuttlebug, Spellbinders Dies, Punches

• Embellishments: Ribbon, Flowers and Pearls

3. What makes a "WOW" card, in your opinion?

A WOW card to me is something that really stands out with a unique layout, color combination or arrangement of embellishments. I'm always impressed by the amazing creativity of paper crafters. I love seeing designs I would never have thought of.

4. What inspires you to create? Define your crafting style.

I am inspired by lots of things. I love challenges and I find lots of inspiration on my favorite blogs and stamping sites. I'm not sure I have just one style. I love to use patterned papers in my creations. If one style appeals to me most, it is probably shabby chic. I love vintage-inspired images and embellishments.

5. Tell us something about your family. Where are you from? Other interests besides paper crafting. Or any random fact about you.

My immediate family consists of my wonderful DH of 22 years and our two sweet cat children. They are 12 years old. A year ago, I moved my 85-year-old Mom here to NC to be closer to us. I was born and raised in Massachusetts. I stayed in New England for college and graduate school, then began moving around the country for my post-doctoral work and for our jobs in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry. I lived in Houston, TX, Ann Arbor, MI, and San Diego, CA before settling here in North Carolina. We've been here for 6 years now. Before I got into paper crafting, I was really into jewelry-making, especially beaded jewelry. I also enjoy playing golf with DH and my friends when I have time.

6. Do you have a favorite quote/verse that you live by?

One of my favorite quotes is: "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."

OWH Memorial Day Blog Hop

EDIT: The drawing has concluded for this giveaway. The winners are announced HERE. Thank you for your participation.

Welcome to the Operation Write Home's Memorial Day Blog Hop. I'm so glad you could hop along with us. I am thrilled to have this opportunity to honor both God and our troops. I want to honor Christ for His goodness in allowing us to enjoy our freedom, which we sometimes take for granted and that many people in this world can only dream about. May we not forget how blessed we are!

And of course, I want to thank all the men and women and their families who faithfully and sacrificially serve our country for the sake of our freedom. You will always have my never ending gratitude and prayers. Thank you and may the Lord bless you and keep you.

Here is a precious photo of my Grandparents. My grandpa served in the US Army during the Second World War and is one of the very few living survivors of the Bataan Death March. My dear Grandma passed away 2 years ago, but he's still as sharp as a tack living in the Philippines. You could write a book about his life experiences. I thank God for him and am honored to have him as my Grandpa.

I have lots of cards, freebies and blog candy to give away, so make sure you scroll all the way down ;-). I suggest you start the hop at Operation Write Home so you don't miss all the beautiful cards everyone is showing. I have 5 cards to show you today. They highlight two companies that are offering some generous discounts or prizes here on my blog in honor of this hop and Memorial Day.

The first card uses the GinaK Designs' Fine Furnishings Additions stamp set. It's one of the newly released stamp sets (along with new cardstock colors and beautiful patterned papers). All the cardstocks, buttons and most ribbons and patterned papers I used below were purchased from GinaK Designs.

This one uses the Lovely Labels and Elegant Post stamp sets by GinaK Designs.

This card uses a sentiment from GinaK Designs' Spring Mix set. The embossed background is a sneak peek of an art stencil by Layers of Color. The art stenciels are beautiful and have ornate designs that I love. They will be released in mid-June. I dry embossed the stencil here using my Cuttlebug, then sponged some ink.

Next up is a card using Layers of Colors' Touch of Elegance set (background) and the same sentiment and Lovely Labels from GinaK Designs.

And another card using the Touch of Elegance again. It also includes a digital patriotic verse that you can download for FREE at the Layers of Color website. You will find other free digis there.

Now for the Goodies...Layers of Color is not only giving away free digis, but they are also offering 10% OFF ALL ART STAMPS on Memorial Day weekend, May 29 - 31 only! They will also DONATE 10% of ALL SALES during this 3-day weekend to Operation Write Home, where you can send those cards to be distributed to American men and women serving our nation. Check out the Layers of Color blog for more info.

My Blog Giveaways:

A Layers of Color stamp set of the winner's choice.

And on behalf of GinaK Designs, I have three stamp sets to give away to one winner:

Welcome Home

Gone Fishing
Quite A Catch

How do you win:

All you need to do is leave me a comment below. If you want two more chances to win, you may:

• visit the Layers of Color website and leave me a comment which stamp set is your favorite
  
• visit the GinaK Designs website and leave a comment here which stamp set catches your eye.

I will pick the two winners from all the comments below and announce them on my blog on Tuesday! If you've made it this far, thank you! Now, I will send you to the next stop of the hop:

TONI
http://kharliebug.typepad.com/the_digi_shack/2010/05/owh-blog-hop.html

HAPPY HOPPING!

Introducing Fine Furnishings and Fine Furnishings Addition

I finally get to share my latest stamp sets by GinaK Designs, Fine Furnishings and Fine Furnishings Addition. They were so much fun to illustrate and even more to stamp. They are perfect for paper piecing, 2-step stamping and creating scenes.

Most of these sentiments fit inside the frame stamp in the set above.

Here's a card that is inspired by the French country style. The papers are October Afternoon Thrift Shop, GinaK Bubblegum Pink and Ivory.

And one of my Designing Friends, the very talented Michelle Woerner, created this beauty with Fine Furnishings Addition. You can find more details on her blog post.

I also designed a new digital paper pack, Bright Botanicals, that match the new Card Kit, Botanicals.

I'll be back with a special blog hop tomorrow to honor our troops. I will have giveaways, freebies and lots of card samples to show you. Have a good Friday!

Fine Furnishings and another flower tutorial

I am so excited to share with you my latest sets, Fine Furnishings and Fine Furnishing Addition.

These sets include tons of sentiments and images that can be used to create a living room scene or stamped by themselves. The sets include both the solid images (for straight stamping) and line images (for coloring and paper piecing).

First up is an elegant wedding card that uses the chandelier image from the set. The sentiment is from Enjoy the Sunshine STV kit and was die cut using the Spellbinders Double End Tags. I used GKD Black Onyx and White cardstocks. The patterned paper is by K&Co. and ribbon by Michael's.

The rest of the cards below were created as a set. This one uses the GKD Ocean Mist CS, Fly a Kite by October Afternoon. If you look closely, I created a base board using a ScorPal. I also included a miniature version of the chandelier as you see on this card. The chairs were paper pieced.
Here is another scene with other images from this set. Many of the sentiments in the Fine Furnishings Additions can fit inside the frame. Here you see the solid image version of the couch.

The GKD team is also previewing the newest Free with Three set, Friends are Forever.

And remember these paper roses from last release? Here they are again.

I have another paper flower to show you (the tutorial is at the end of this post). I packaged the cards above in a clear box and added the paper dahlia to make a beautiful hostess gift. The sentiment is from Fine Furnishings Addition.

For more samples with the stamp sets being previewed tonight, check out these Designers' Links:

• Gina Krupsky *Friends are Forever designer
• Nina Brackett *Fine Furnishings and Fine Furnishings Additions designer - you're here!
  
• Jessica Fick
• Theresa Momber
• Melanie Muenchinger
• Cathy Tidwell
• Lee Murphy
• Donna Baker
• Lynn Mercurio
• Emily Giovanni
• Erika Martin
• Kurtis Amundson
• Sankari Wegman
• Kay Simmons *May's CenterStage Spotlight Team Member!*

Please make plans to attend our Release party tomorrow night, Thursday night, May 27th from 7-10 central time which will be held at StampTV. There will be contest questions, challenges, samples from several designers and lots of chatter all leading up to 10pm central, when all the new products and stamp sets previewed this week on our blogs become available online through GinaK Designs store!

---------------------------------

Paper Dahlia Tutorial: These flowers look bulky, but because they're made of thin paper sheets, you can flatten them for mailing. These would look great on a gift in lieu of a bow, as you can see from my sample above.

1. Cut 4 sheets of 3.5" x 5" tissue paper. You can also use handmade paper, thin patterned paper, wrapping paper, etc.). The width of the paper determines how wide you want your flower.

2. Accordion fold the stack of papers:
3. Mark the middle point cut a small slit on each side. Be careful that you don't cut all the way through. Round the ends.
4. Tie a string through the slits.
5. Your flower should like this.
6. Separate the sheets one by one.7. Continue to peel each layer until you produce this.
This is the top view. You can decorate the center with buttons, die cut flowers, etc.
I hope you like it.

GinaK Designs' May 2010 Previews, Day 3

Here we are for another day to preview some new GinaK Designs goodies. And we are featuring none other than the new Stamp TV Kit, Enjoy the Sunshine and Tami Mayberry's latest, Stars.

My cards use the Enjoy the Sunshine STV kit. The papers are Fly a Kite October Afternoon, GKD Lipstick Red and Ocean Mist. I also used two of the ribbons from the STV kit. The berries were colored with Copics and die cut with Spellbinders circle dies.

The bike and sentiment are from the STV Kit. The papers are Weathervane by October Afternoon and GKD Kraft.

This card uses the beautiful Geraniums image colored with Copics. The embossed background is the Victoria Cuttlebug Folder.


For more samples with the stamp sets being previewed tonight, check out these Designer's Links:

• Gina Krupsky *Enjoy the Sunshine StampTV kit designer
• Tami Mayberry *Stars designer
• Jessica Fick
• Theresa Momber
• Melanie Muenchinger
• Nina Brackett - you're here!
  
• Carolyn King
• Cathy Tidwell
• Lee Murphy
• Donna Baker
• Lynn Mercurio
• Emily Giovanni
• Erika Martin
• Kurtis Amundson
• Colleen Schaan
• Kay Simmons *May's CenterStage Spotlight Team Member!*

Please make plans to attend our Release party this Thursday night, May 27th from 7-10 central time which will be held at StampTV. There will be contest questions, challenges, samples from several designers and lots of chatter all leading up to 10pm central, when all the new products and stamp sets previewed this week on our blogs become available online through GinaK Designs store!

Gina K Designs' May 2010 Release, Day 1

It's that time again when the GinaK Designs' crew previews the new amazing products, available at the GinaK Designs store on Thursday at 10PM CST. This is one exciting release with lots of new stamps, a StampTV kit, digital papers and cardstocks! Today, I am featuring the new Card Kit, Botanicals.

I think this is my favorite Card Kit stamp set so far. I liked it so much that I created a coordinating set of digital papers, Bright Botanicals, to go with it.

The background papers on the cards below are from this set of papers. The sentiment on this card is from the new StampTV kit, Enjoy the Sunshine, previewing on Wednesday! I am also showing here one of the new cardstock colors, Sweet Mango.

This is a bookmark insert. You can also adhere a gift card on the back of the bookmark for a perfect graduation gift.
Here's another card using the same digital papers, cardstocks and Botanicals set.

For more samples with the stamp sets being previewed tonight, check out these Designers' links:

• Gina Krupsky
• Jessica Fick
• Theresa Momber
• Melanie Muenchinger
• Nina Brackett <-- that's me!
  
• Cathy Tidwell
• Lee Murphy
• Donna Baker
• Lynn Mercurio
• Emily Giovanni
• Erika Martin
• Kurtis Amundson
• Bev Gerard
• Colleen Schaan
• Sankari Wegman
• Suzanne Dean
• Valerie Stangle
• Kay Simmons *May's CenterStage Spotlight Team Member!*
  

Please make plans to attend our Release party this Thursday night, May 27th from 7-10 central time which will be held at StampTV. There will be contest questions, challenges, samples from several designers and lots of chatter all leading up to 10pm central, when all the new products and stamp sets previewed this week on our blogs become available online through GinaK Designs store!

Card Patterns and More Cards

My card for today is for Card Pattern's sketch this week:

Our sponsor is Paperworks Co. They are offering this VERY generous prize to one random participant, 4 stamp sets from the Rachelle Anne Miller collection, valued at $27.75. I hope you can join us.

Here are a couple more cards from the One Hour Challenge I posted earlier. My friend, Amy, who issued this challenge, has a give away on her blog if you want to try this out. It's really fun.

I used GinaK Designs Wine with Everything cardstock, Bo Bunny Jazmyne Collection and SRM Sticker Sentiments.

Happy Day Bird

If you're here for the SRM Stickers One Hour Challenge post, please go HERE.

It's been a bit gloomy here with the rain and clouds the last few days, so I was just happy to make this bright and cheery card for today's Friends with Flair with Unity Stamps.

I used my brand new Dear Lizzy papers. The stamps are from the Aug 09 KOTM. It's hard to see, but the bird and banner have glitter on them.

Make sure you check out the Unity blog for a list of participants. Happy weekend, everyone!

The One Hour Challenge

My good friend, Amy, issued a challenge to create as many cards as we can in one hour using SRM Stickers. I thought it was fun and a good opportunity to use up some paper scraps. I was able to create 5 finished cards and 3 half-way done in one hour.

It took me another 20 minutes to finish these:

Here are two of them close up:

Some tips when mass producing cards without them looking mass produced:

• Use simple sketches and use them on several cards.
• Use coordinating patterned papers, like those come in a collection.
  
• Pre-cut the patterned papers you're going to use. I cut them to 4" x 5.25" size, enough to cover the front of the card with a bit of the card base showing.
• Use different types of trims, decorative papers, etc, to cover the seams. In addition to lace and ribbons, I used Bazzill Bassics pre-cut borders on some of the cards above. They look like punched borders, but are already done and come in many styles and colors.
  
• Have lots of glue dots and Scor tape around. Use them to adhere quickly your embellishments.
• Add variety by rounding corners of some cards.
• Finally, SRM Stickers make it easy to add sentiments. You don't need to worry about stamp inking and cleanup.
  

I used the SRM Sticker Sentiments and the Bo Bunny Press Jazmyne Collection on all my cards. Amy will be posting her cards tomorrow. She's amazing and made more than I did. I can't wait to see what she came up with in a short time.