Guava Cupcake

I bought this cupcake stamp at the stamp and scrap sale my group had last week. I don't know where it's from but I had to have it. I stamped the image with Jetblack Stazon on watercolor paper. I colored the paper liner of the cupcake with the Blush Blossom marker. You don't get marker lines on the watercolor paper. I used Groovy Guava ink refill and my aquapainter to color the cupcake frosting. The candle is Wild Wasabi and the flame is Summer Sun. I colored around the cupcake with Sahara Sand and then added dazzling diamonds glitter to the frosting and the flame with my 2-way glue pen. The tiny cupcake and the "wish big" comes from the Short and Sweet stamp set. It's one of my favorite stamp sets from this catalog. It comes with the 6 words in script and corresponding teeny images to go with it. Everything looks better in miniature.

The paper is the Groovy Guava monochromatic designer paper, Blush Blossom cardstock an Groovy Guava cardstock. It's topped off with Groovy Guava double stitched ribbon.

It's still chilly in Minnesota but the sun is shining and that's more than 1/2 the battle! We're supposed to get warmer temps later this week. Have a great day and thanks for stopping by!

Guest Designer

I am very honored to be the guest designer this week on Tamara's sketch blog. I would love it if you popped in and left a comment! Most of you probably know by now that I love making cards and pages from sketches and Tamara's blog has both! Between the sketch and a good color combination you are well on your way to a great card or page.

These were the two cards I made from Tamara's sketch #28. I will use this layout again and again.

For those of you who are interested, my stamp and scrap sale was a huge success despite having terrible weather. We plan to make this an annual event.

Thanks for stopping by.

Wedding Page

The hostess at my Stampin' Up! party tonight wants to do a wedding page and a wedding card. She and her friends are at that stage in their lives where their daughters are getting married. My first thought was the Tie the Knot Simply Scrappin' kit. That's what this page is made from. It went together so quickly and simply with this kit. It's elegant and the papers and colors are gorgeous in this kit! The colors are really off in this photo but it's beautiful IRL.

I have been busy all week prepping for a HUGE Stamp and Scrap sale I'm doing with my downline and customers. If you are within driving distance of St.Paul/Minneapolis area you wont want to miss this! I will post more about this in a few.

Cupcake pops

Aren't these the cutest things? They aren't really stamping related other than I made them for my downline meeting on Friday night. Here is a link to them. They look a lot better on bakerella's site. They were a lot of work, putzy, and I will never make them again but oh, they were fun to dabble in. They taste delicious too!

A Star!

I saw this sketch on Tamara's sketch challenge blog. I thought of my Western Sky designer paper, Wanted stamp set and star punch right away. This came together pretty easily. The star alone didn't have enough of an impact so I punched another in Blue Bayou to shadow it. It still wasn't enough so I punched another star out in Blue Bayou to shadow it on the other side. It still wasn't enough so I made a square base in Soft Sky backed by Blue Bayou to have the stars on. I spiral punched the edge of the Soft Sky and sponged it with Blue Bayou ink to distress it a bit.

Recipe:

Stamps: Wanted, Sincere Salutations
Ink: Blue Bayou
Paper: Western Sky dp, Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, River Rock
Other: Large and small star punch, vintage brads, photo corner punch, sponge, key tag punch, stampin' dimensionals.

Enjoy Every Moment

Words to live by. Sometimes we get so caught up in our busy lives that we are always looking ahead to the next thing. It's a good reminder to slow down, relax, and enjoy the moment you are in. I have to remind myself of this. With three kids all running in different directions, a busy stamping business, a husband, house, and a large family of siblings, nieces, nephews, etc. to keep up with life can get a little crazy. Lately, I've been trying to not let it all go by without enjoying it. My kids are growing up. They are now 14, 10 and 8. I'm trying to enjoy the age they are now.

Gosh, who knew a card could get me gushing all philosophical on ya, huh? Here are the details of this card.

Stamp set: Enjoy Every Moment, Daisy Dash Jumbo Wheel(Free with the free wheelin' stamp promotion!)
Ink: Rose Red, Taken with Teal, Pumpkin Pie
Paper: Whisper White, Taken with Teal, Rose Red
Other: Silver brads, 1/2" circle punch, key tag punch, circle scallop punch, 2-way glue pen, dazzling diamonds glitter, flower fusion

Niece's birthday

We are about to head out the door for my niece Leah's birthday party. She's turning 6 today. The reality is I could just grab a card from my collection of cards and leave it at that. I often do just that. But if there's time, it's fun to take the time to personalize the card for the specific person. Leah is a girly girl so the card needed to have glitz and glitter. I dabbed Summer Sun craft ink on the chipboard number. I then sprinkled it with Irridescent Ice Embossing powder and embossed it. It gives it all over sparkle! Gotta love that. I then took a couple of flowers from the Pretties kit and colored them with the Stampin' pastels. The middle of the flower is the crytal ice rhinestone brad. The cupcake frosting is stamped in Pixie Pink craft ink and embossed with irridescent ice embossing powder. The top of the cupcake is popped up on stampin' dimensionals and the candles are all stamped, cut out and attached with glue dots. It may look like a lot of putzing but the card took me about 45 minutes start to finish. It's worth it for that special person.

It's been gloomy, cold, and cloudy here all week. The forecast has sun and warmer weather over the next couple of days. I can't wait! My youngest is making his first communion tomorrow. We're hoping for a bit of sun!

Lil Stinker

I was just playing some more with my Pun Fun stamp set. This is a lot of fun to watercolor! I used the black watercolor crayon from the neutrals watercolor crayon pack to color the skunk in. I used the coordinating wheel that I got for FREE as part of the Free Wheelin' promotion right now through the end of April as my background.

Recipe:
Stamps: Pun Fun, Sweet Stars Jumbo Wheel
Ink: Jet Black Stazon, Soft Sky, Always Artichoke, whisper white craft ink
Paper: Kraft, watercolor paper, Basic Black, Cutie Pie designer paper
Other: boho blossoms punch, stampin' dimensionals, aquapainter, watercolor crayons-neutral, bling

2 Flowers card

I made this card for the card sketch challenge at Tamara's blog. You can check out her challenge here.
This is my first time trying out one of her sketches. This looked like a fun one!

I made the stems of the flowers with some scrap chipboard and dabbed them with Old Olive craft ink. The leaves came from the Onboard Blossoms and Basics chipboard set from Stampin' Up! I dabbed them with Old Olive craft ink and drew some lines in with the Uniball white gel pen. The flowers are made using the Felt Fusion flowers. What's cool is that the flowers in set are the same colors as the Bali Breeze designer paper. So picking colors and coordinating was a no brainer! I used the Ice circle rhinestone brads for the middle of the flower.

Recipe:
Stamps: Daisy Dash Jumbo Wheel
Ink: Old Olive Craft ink, Tempting Turquoise ink cartridge
Paper: Bali Breeze, Old Olive, Tempting Turquoise
Other: Crystal Ice rhinestone brads, On Board Blossoms and Basics chipboard, Felt Fusion Flowers, Uniball white gel pen, mono multi glue

Corn Palace

My family took a trip to the Black Hills almost 3 years ago now. I scrapped about 1/2 of the vacation photos right away but then kind of ran out of steam. Does this ever happen to you? I finally got around to the photos again. This is my Corn Palace layout. I scrapped with a couple of ladies last Friday night and I was really inspired by my friend Karen. She's the most talented scrapper I know. She was doing background s with the Sanded background stamp. I really liked the look she was getting so I followed suit. I stamped the Sanded background stamp in close to cocoa craft ink and embossed with glassy glaze embossing powder. It gives a really cool effect. The designer paper used is from a paper pack by Deja-views. I'm pretty pleased with the way this turned out. Hopefully, I'll be motivated to finish off this scrapbook.

April Technique Class

These cards are for my technique class on Monday, April 28. We will be making a chalkboard card, a chocolate dipped strawberry card*, and a suspension card. If you are in the Twin Cities area and would like to attend contact me at krhopperstad@juno.com. The cost is just $10 to learn the 3 techniques and make the cards or FREE with a $25 purchase. If you are long distance the same deal applies: $10 for the 3 cards(and e-mailed instructions) or FREE with a $25 purchase.

* the chocolate dipped strawberry card is CASE'd from Rhondag on SCS.

Happy Spring!

This page spread is for my scrapbook club next week. They wanted to do an Easter/Spring page spread so I pulled out my new "A Good Egg" stamp set.

Stamps: A Good Egg, Taffy Alphabet, Enjoy Every Moment(journaling circle)
Ink: More Mustard craft ink, So Saffron re-inker, Jet Black Stazon, Lovely Lilac Craft Ink
Paper: Chocolate Chip, So Saffron, Cameo Coral, Almost Amethyst, Naturals Ivory
Other: Coluzzle, Pumpkin Pie Marker, Aquapainter, sticky cut letters, cosmo glitter

It's finally starting to feel like Spring here in Minnesota! It's supposed to get up to 55 degrees today! I'm heading out to a craft show with my friends. I'm hoping to find some more art for my walls in the basement. Have a great day everyone! Thanks for stopping by!

Nicola from Gorillamama Greats gave me this award. Thank you so much Nicola! You made my day by visiting my blog and giving me this award. I'm supposed to tag 3 people but it's so hard to choose. I'm going to cop out and just say that you all make my day just by visiting my blog. Especially those who leave comments and let me know you're there. It means a lot to me.

I stamped!

I got some new stamps. This one is called Pun Fun. It's part of a special going on with Stampin' Up!. You can read more about it here.

I stamped the rocket on naturals ivory cardstock and watercolored with my aquapainter and re-inkers. I used Blue Bayou, Really Rust, and So Saffron. I used the sketch I used for my chick card. I really like this sketch.

I'm still getting back into the swing of things. This is the kids first week back to school after spring break. The week has gone fast for me but slow for my kids. My kids were pulling all kinds of pranks on April Fool's day. My dd got me good. I was down in my craft room before bed. When I came upstairs I couldn't believe that it was 12:30 am. So I went to bed. She changed all of the clocks ahead an hour including the ones on the computer, DVD player, and microwave. I didn't know until the next morning when I woke her up and she told me it was really an hour earlier. It worked on my dh too. Little stinker.