...gasp... I've been stamping too!

After a bit of a creative hiatus, I finally completed some projects that I have been meaning to finish days ago.

First off is a card for a male friend who turned 30. I used my new Bombshell stamps on it. It's a complete departure from what I usually do, but I had a blast.
Front of card

Inside of card

Here is a thank you card I created for a family from my home church. They kind enough to send us some Korean items for our pending Korean adoption. This family adopted 3 children from South Korea several years ago.

From Semper Papercrafting

The cherry blossom stamp is a digital stamp from the Digi-Shack.

Finally, here is a wedding card I was working on today for my sister-in-law, who is getting married next weekend. They are having a beach wedding and I couldn't resist using my Stampin' Up Crab & Company set. On the inside I created a pocket for a gift card.

From Semper Papercrafting

I hope to work on the Sookie Stackhouse challenge from Twilight Tuesday soon. I found some GREAT paper for it. I've been missing out on the Twilight Tuesday challenge projects despite having a few great ideas. But I hope to share my BIG project soon -- it's not a paper craft, but will be well worth all the time spent on it since I will be using it regularly. :) It's been the reason for my departure from my stamping lately.

I've been scrapbooking!

Can you believe it... I have been actually scrapbooking and not the digital kind. Here's a couple pages -- 1 of the pages wasn't photographed since it isn't completely done.

This is page 2 of a two page layout of a trip I took with a friend to Kennedy Space Center. It's a smidge blurry but you get the idea:

From Semper Papercrafting

Here is a day trip my hubby and I took on our motorcycle (and yes, I'm saying OUR motorcycle since my name is on the title *wink*) this past fall:

From Semper Papercrafting

Amazing blog candy

Go visit Passion for Crafts!!! She has some absolutely wonderful blog candy along with some super cute projects!!!

Twilight Tuesday Inspiration Challenge #27

This week's Twilight Tuesday Inspiration Challenge is from Julie:

Happy Tuesday, Twilighters! It was my turn to choose this week’s theme for the Twilight Tuesday Inspiration Challenge - it’s time to show some love to Jasper Hale! Oh, I think we can handle that.

The creative part of this challenge is to make a piece that says “Jasper” to you. And the comment portion for this week is all about Jasper’s amazing calming abilities. What do you like to do to create that Jasper-style calm for yourself? Tell us about it!

Oh HALE yes!! I love this challenge, maybe because I'm a big Jasper fan... there I said it. Don't get me wrong Edward is wonderful, but there's something about Jasper that I just find fascinating. I found his backstory in Eclipse to be very intriguing. Plus, I love Alice and the combination of Alice and Jasper is just too cute. Jasper is also a polite, southern gentleman.... which *swoon* does it for me. ;) The actor who plays Jasper in Twilight is Jackson Rathbone. Jackson/Jasper, I must say, is one very hot vampire with some seriously awesome hair -- though I know there's some debate about his hair in Twilight. I personally liked it!

I created a digital layout -- though I didn't intend to. As much as I love doing digital, I will admit that manipulating paper and embellishments is where my true love of crafting lies. I ran across a great quote from Jasper talking to Bella and included it. I thought it really spoke volumes about his character (re: special gifts) and that he's learning to be not such a monster. He's definitely MORE of a vampire than Edward -- if that makes sense, which I'm sure it does to you Twilighters.

From Semper Papercrafting

Now to answer the comment portion... how do I relax?! Hmmm... if you know me, I'm constantly doing SOMETHING. I can't really sit still, I create too many projects for myself. Rarely do I sit infront of the tv and veg out -- well except for watching Dancing with the Stars or Grey's Anatomy... and of course, Twilight on DVD. Even then, I'm usually crocheting. But to truly "escape" I would say I read, which hadn't happened in a very long time until I picked up Twilight. Otherwise I would say I take a vacation to relax, but seriously, that doesn't happen too often either....

Pictures courtesy of: http://www.lionandlamblove.org/gallery/
Digital elements from: http://ellielash.com/blog/ and http://thescraploft.blogspot.com/2009/01/freebie-kit-cullen-kit-inspired-by.html
Digital scrapbooking program: http://www.scrapbookflair.com/

Another Rockin' Birthday

For one of the many April birthdays in our family, I created this card using Rockstar Anya by The Greeting Farm. The layout is based on the Mojo Monday sketch.

The sketch:

From Semper Papercrafting

My card:

From Semper Papercrafting

Easter 2009 -- a little late

Here's a belated Easter card that I sent to friends and family this year. Have I mentioned that I am turning into quite the fan of the Greeting Farm stamps??? I picked up this super cute digital stamp to use for my cards.

From Semper Papercrafting

I went with a basic card since I had to mass produce them. :)

My Cute Stamps

I discovered a stamp company called My Cute Stamps via another blog I read. They have some super cute stamp sets. I really like their Birthday Numbers set. I love all the interchangeable number candles.

For Easter, they are giving away their cute Jelly Beans set. So if you go head over to My Cute Stamps check out their sets, give them some love on your blog, and you could win some cute stamps!! :)

Cats - Digital layout

I am officially addicted to digital scrapbooking. As much as I don't care for the program I'm using, it truely amazes me how quickly you can finish a page. Some of the free embellishments and papers I've used are just so-so, but they help just to practice with.

Today's project involves my boys... Cajun and Winston.

From Semper Papercrafting

4th of July 2008 - Digital Layout

I really enjoyed creating my Twilight digital layout last night, so this morning I got the itch to try another layout but with my own pictures. Since I love the 4th of July and am a very patriotic person (um... look at my blog background *wink*), I decided to use the pictures we took for the holiday and put them in a layout.

From Semper Papercrafting

First off, I have decided I really need Photoshop Elements. I downloaded the program to try from Scrapbook Flair, while it's a good BASIC program, it doesn't do what I need it to do. I think PSE (Photoshop Elements) will give me the extra features I need. I also have an issue with saving on the Scrapbook Flair program -- I've troubleshooted it, referred to their forums and I'm still out of luck. It also has a tendency to change the layout just a smidge when you save it in a jpg format -- others may not notice, but I see the differences.

If you're someone who is thinking about trying digital scrapbook, I would recommend downloading and trying the Scrapbook Flair program to see if you like digital scrapbooking. It's a great program for basic stuff and comes with many embellishments and papers already loaded. It's similar to PSE in that it uses layers, but doesn't have as many bells and whistles as PSE -- which is what I need. Most of the papers and embellishments I've used so far have had to be download individually since I didn't care for the preloaded ones.

I'm having a blast with digital scrapbooking. This layout - and it's pretty basic - took me maybe 15-20 minutes to put together and the embellishments/paper cost me nothing. WHOOHOO! So in that respect, I see digital scrapbooking as a great time and cost effective way to scrap!

Twilight Tuesday Inspiration Challenge #25

Twilight Tuesday has a new challenge this week. Here is what Jen said:

For this weeks TTIC challenge I wanted to do something a little different. We’ve been picking very specific themes that showcase the design teams favorite things and having everyone create something based on that. Well this week I thought it might be fun to focus a little more on what our participants like and are drawn to about Twilight. So our focus this week is:

Celebrate YOUR Favorites!
Creativity Challenge:
This week for the creativity challenge you are to show us what you love about Twilight. Is it Edward? Or the baseball scene? Emmett’s one-liners? Alice’s quirky style? The meadow? Or maybe it’s a quote. You choose! As part of this challenge to vamp it up a bit I also want you to concentrate on showcasing your favorite medium. Use your favorite technique, supply, material, etc. to help show case your favorites about Twilight. (I know that might be a tall order so 1 out of 2 ain’t bad. ) Show us what you LOVE about Twilight.

Comment Challenge:
I would love to hear what Twilight has meant to all of you. It seems that Twilight has affected to many people on so many different levels. I know for me it’s given me this great group of women who I love creating with along with so many other wonderful gifts that I never thought would come from just a book. I’d love to hear more about what Twilight has brought into the lives of others.

WOW! What a challenge. There is so much I love about the Twilight series. At first I thought, who would read books about vampires.... well apparently that person is ME!! I can't get enough of the Cullens and their vampiric world. I've even moved on to read the Sookie Stackhouse series, but honestly I like Twilight so much more. I like books that tend to be on the "fluffy" side -- don't get me wrong Twilight isn't overly fluffy but I like how Stephenie Meyer portrays the vampires. They aren't as harsh as the typical vampire character who sleeps during the day, gets burned by the sun, repelled by garlic, blah, blah, blah.

I think one of the things that I like in the Twilight series, besides Edward and Bella's magnetism towards each other, is all the "heroes" in the plot line. Now I use the term heroes loosely since they are "technically" the token bad guy. The vampires (particularly the male characters) are very charming in their own way, but all have the characteristics of being chivalrous, loving to their female counter parts and also towards their family and all show respect and trust to all they encounter -- unless it's one of Victoria's band of new-born vampires and then they just take care of them. ;) The characteristics they possess is something I think is lost in today's society -- particularly chivalry. What woman doesn't want to be charmed by a man who is courteous, brave and attentive? I think Edward and his male family members embody this. And yes, I'm including Jacob in this catagory even though his personality is much less mature than the Cullens. But what can I say, I'm a sucker for a love story with a strong male hero....

Let me state though, I LOVE the ladies in Twilight as well. I can't get enough of Alice. Something about her personality in the book AND movie is just so bubbly and cute!

Now what has Twilight meant to me... it's been an escape, it's given me a chance to dream and it's presented me with an opportunity to be a better crafter. Twilight has really just dazzled me and I now that I've read the series I feel like I had missed something by NOT reading the books.

Anyway, enough rambling. I created my project on a medium I've never used... digital scrapbooking. I found a free program -- and I figured out WHY it was free this evening -- that allowed me to create a halfway decent digital page. It took me maybe an hour to put the page together and I'm quite happy with the way it turned out MINUS the typo. Don't ask me to fix it because I had one HELL of a time trying to save... and now I can't undo the typo. {insert picture here of me rolling my eyes} While brainstorming for my project, I found all kinds of digital scrapbook goodies for *FREE* to create my page. I've been a traditional scrapbooker for years, but this is my very ever first digital layout.... so please be kind!!

From Semper Papercrafting

Pictures courtesy of: http://www.lionandlamblove.org/gallery/
Digital elements from: http://ellielash.com/blog/ and
http://thescraploft.blogspot.com/2009/01/freebie-kit-cullen-kit-inspired-by.html
Digital scrapbooking program: http://www.scrapbookflair.com/