Getting back in the swing of things

I am such a fair weather blogger.  I apologize to anyone who follows my blog - I must be really boring.

My goal for 2012 is to post more than once every 2-3 months.  I'm actually hoping to get back to post every week.  

Here's to hoping.

Anyway, I've also been sucked in Pinterest.  If you don't know what that is, it's a website where you can create virtual pin boards of your interests (get it: pins + interests = Pinterest?)  I've been a pinning crazy person over there - it's so easy to get stuck on that site for 2+ hours.

Well, the first project I want to show was inspired by something I pinned - a lollipop card.  Here's the link to the blog it was originally found on: http://daydesigns.blogspot.com/2011/07/cas-ual-fridays-challenge-11-sweets.html  I thought it was absolutely adorable and I needed to do something like it because I had some baker's twine on hand.  I was originally thinking of doing hearts because of Valentine's Day - which I might still do because it's a cute idea. I had these star shapes in red line tape that I'd bought from Texas Jody Lynn (her blog's in my blog list) and since I've had them for 3 years and not really used them, I figured that was a better choice than running a sheet of tape through my Cricut. 

So after I got the baker's twine taped down and ran my backgrounds through my Cuttlebug, I realized that they weren't very Valentine-y.  More birthday-y, especially with the birthday sentiment I had.  So they became birthday cards.  

OH, running the orange background through the Cuttlebug was an adventure.  It's Impressability plate - which needs the tan embossing mats to actually make an impression into the cardstock.  Well, they went missing and I had to tear the Dungeon apart to find them.  Or rather, clean up.  My work table is cleaner than I think I've ever had my work table since rearranging.  I found them on the corner of a table - the other table, not the one I cleaned off. *shakes head*

Supplies: Stamps: PTI - Everyday Classics. Paper - Georgia-Pacific White, PTI Pure Poppy, New Leaf, Orange Zest, Harvest Gold.  Ink: Palette Noir. Embellishments: Cuttlebug embossing folders, Impressability plate, red line stars, baker's twine, lollipop sticks, Diamond Glaze, PTI ribbon.

While on Pinterest, I came across a pin that linked back to Nicole Heady's blog (she's one of the owners of PTI.)  It showed a technique where you stamp an image in white ink on colored cardstock, then outline the image with Copics. Which looks really elegant.  So I decided to try it last night with the leftover cardstock from the lollipop cards.  The issue I discovered is that you need to do this on darker cardstocks - Harvest Gold is too light of a color for the white to show.  I liked how this looked so much that I made 15 more cards today in most of the other PTI cardstock colors I own.  

Stamps: PTI - Year of Flowers Morning Glory and Lily of the Valley.  Paper: GP White, PTI Pure Poppy, New Leaf and Orange Zest.  Ink: SU White White craft.  Embellishments: EK Success punch, Copics.

So that's it for right now.  

I'll be back hopefully later this week with a tutorial on how to make a snowflake wreath (another Pinterest find that I tweaked.)