Check it out:

These pre-printed sets include 12 colorful cards, envelopes and four wood mounted sentiment stamps. How easy can it get? Besides the butterflies above and the Paris set below, designs include flowers, stripes and more.

Hero Arts has some other great new products, including Frame Cuts — cutting dies made by Sizzix to coordinate with Hero Arts images. What I love about these sets is that the dies are labeled so you know exactly which stamps match the shapes.

There are also more Stamp & Emboss sets, more die/stamp combos and new Mid-Tone Shadow inks that are a touch brighter than the existing Shadow Inks. I’ll share more later, when I’ve had a chance to test out these products.

Thanks for stopping by!

Imagine my delight when I got this new paper pack — Kissing Booth — from BasicGrey:

Being the Queen of Impatient Stampers, I had to make something RIGHT THIS MINUTE.

So I made this very simple, very plain card from this adorable paper:

Just the paper, some distressing and I was done. Hmmm…. that really is way too simple…. I need to add something….

I got a little more creative by cutting out hearts from another paper and actually stamping:

(background: envelope lining by Hero Arts; love by Stampin’ Up) To create the varigated background I inked up my stamp (with a pigment pink), put the stamp on the table (rubber-side up) and pressed my card to the stamp. I used my thumbs to press a little more firmly in a few areas to get that random extra texture.

Okay… now I’m gettin’ into the swing of things:

(paper, BasicGrey; envelope lining background Hero Arts; words Stampin’ Up; heart trio Stampendous!  The brown ink is a yummy dye ink from the ColorBox Stephanie Barnard line) 

Thanks for stopping by … I’ll have more valentines coming up. I can’t stop using this paper!

My colleague  and fellow writer, Mollie Cox Bryan, has penned a delightful mystery, called Scrapbook of Secrets, about an investigative journalist who becomes a stay-at-home mom in picturesque Cumberland Creek, Virginia. She joins a scrapbooking group and the scrappy scrappers become involved in finding out why a young mother seemingly commited suicide. The friends discover that Maggie Rae was a closet scrapbooker who left behind more than a few secrets, and her suicide starts lookng like murder.

Who can resist such a crafty plot?

Mollie, a mother of two girls, is a food writer and cookbook author who loves food, murder mysteries and scrapbooking — not necessarily in that order. Scrapbook of Secrets is set to be published Feb. 6 by Kensington Books. You can find more information here.

She said the book idea came to her “when I was going to a lot of scrapbooking events and was blown away by the generosity and quick friendships of other scrapbookers. I wanted to write a story about the power of women’s friendships.”

Mollie is currently working on book three of her Cumberland Creek trilogy — so there will be more scrapy good reading to come. You can see more of Mollie’s work at her Website/blog, molliecoxbryan.com. (We’ll have to get Mollie to do some rubber stamping!)

Isn’t she adorable?

Thanks for stopping by … and stay tuned for some Valentines. Really.

A mysterious book lover and artist has left tiny sculpted gifts to museums in Scotland. Anyone who loves books and loves crafty things, must check this out: http://thisiscentralstation.com/featured/mysterious-paper-sculptures/

I wanted to make a card to illustrate this post… but have run out of time. So I’m dusting off a fast and easy set I made several years ago (so long ago I was scanning cards because I didn’t have a digital camera!) So in honor of trees, here they are …

See, I told you it was simple and easy! (The color is off, but oh well….)

(tree stamp from Gloria Page; words Stampin’ Up.)

Thanks for coming by … I hope to have some Valentine’s Day cards posted Friday, along with some new products from Hero Arts.)

Since I was, ahem, a little late with some of my holiday cards, I covered nicely by sending out a few New Year’s cards, which was actually kind of fun. Here is a random card I dressed up for New Year’s:

(Argh, what a blurry picture! I don’t drink, so I don’t know what my excuse is!! I did, however, shoot this photo on New Year’s Day.)

Bird stamp by Martha Stewart; background done with various shimmer mists; bird painted with Twinkling H2Os.

And my Fabulous Find for this Friday is this lip-smacking packet from BasicGrey called Kissing Booth:

Doesn’t it just scream Valentine’s Day? I’ve already cut up a few pieces and will have some cards next week.

Thanks for stopping by… and here’s to a happy, healthy new year!

And guess what? It’s one more box. I know, you’re probably thinking, “Sheesh, isn’t she done collecting trash?” But I couldn’t resist the packaging from my son’s new iPhone, which went from this:

…to this:

And I still have pieces left! Can’t you just imagine me picking the Christmas and Chanukah paper out of the trash?

Posting many wishes for a happy holiday and a healthy new year. Thanks for visiting my blog.

Here are a few more:

First, the original — a box that held a bar of soap. (Which I pulled out of the trash bin when the Hubster wasn’t looking.)

Luckily, Hubster is very clean and goes through a lot of soap, so I collected several. Here are some finished bag/boxes (covered with gift wrap paper and odds and ends):

Thanks for indulging me!

It all started when the wrapping fell off this box of matzoh (a dry cracker-like thing eaten during Passover. An acquired taste. And YES, this box is from Passover, which was in April. Yes, it has been sitting in my studio since then. Hidden from my husband. Don’t judge me, grin.)

Well, as you can see, underneath is a plain, perfectly shaped box, just BEGGING to be decorated:

Really, how could I just toss it away? And since we eat a lot of matzoh during Passover, I had a lot of boxes. Here are some of the results:

(Covered with an old Cavallini calendar from Paper Source). Here is the other side of the box:

I punched holes in two sides and threaded ribbon as a handles.

Still in bird mode, I also used an old calendar for this one:

The next box uses green gift wrap paper. I tore huge chuncks of the paper and glued it, collage style, all over the box.

The NOEL lettering is from a Brenda Walton Chipbox collection (by K&Company).

I have a few more to post later. (I told you I became obsessed with these!)

Thanks for coming by! What have you recylced lately?

She was a rescue dog (as are all our animals!) who brightened our lives for nearly 12 years. A shepherd mix, she was extremelly good natured and sweet; patient with children and other dogs. She loved riding in the car, feeling the wind in her fur.

Thanks for indulging me. We will miss her.