Here is another card I made for the Winterfest 2010 Challenge at Two Peas in a Bucket. Gosh, it makes me wish I had more stamping stuff! Well, you can never have too many stamps, but what really would have made this card nice would be a darker purple ink. But, with the Primas on it I like it. I tried various ways of stamping these flowers before I decided to stamp the white and light yellow Primas.

I also am using up some really old pattern paper on this. That I have too much of, and many people would say throw it away! But, how can I when ever so often I come up with a good way to use even this stuff I've had since 2005?

My Winterfest creations

I ended up doing two projects for the Winterfest 2010 Challenge linked below. The first was the card I also mentioned below. I posted that card three times before I got it the way I wanted it! Here's my final attempt.

My other project was an updated layout of the "Wine" layout I posted a few posts below. I had already stamped more grapes on it with the lovely Shabby Shutters Tim Holtz Distress Ink. Now I've added some stamped flowers too. This qualified me for the "How Distressing" and "Scrap and Stamp" challenges at Winterfest.

Card directions:

1. Easy version, stamp a flower and glue it to a circular frame that's just large enough to not emcompass some of its petals. If you want to do it the hard way like me, take a small bird or heart stamp and make each one of those the petals. I used a bird, but the Masquerade Challenge at Winterfest has some cute examples with hearts too.

2. Glue that to white cardstock.

3. Stamp sentiment on white cardstock, then mount on yellow.

4. Spray Glimmer Mist on white cardstock (glossy would be fine if you want to stamp and resist something for a different background).

5. Cut your Glimmer Misted cardstock to a size slightly smaller than your card. My card is 4 x 6, so the Glimmer Mist background is now about 3 3/4 by 5 3/4.

6. Glue your flower and sentiment to the Glimmer Mist background, and the Glimmer Mist background to your card.

Layout directions:

1. Stamp grapes with Tim Holtz Distress Ink, Shappy Shutters all over similar green cardstock.

2. Mount photo on white and dark green cardstock. Ink edges

3. Stamp title in brown on light green cardstock, along with one clear impression of the grapes. Ink edges.

4. Glue title block and photo to stamped background.

5. Stamp white flowers with any small stamp and Shabby Shutters Distress Ink. Adhere to layout.

Winterfest 2010

I am a scrapbooker more than a stamper, but one thing I look forward to each year is Winterfest, a weeklong festival of challenges on the TwoPeasinaBucket.com stamping board. Here is a link. http://www.twopeasinabucket.com/mb.asp?cmd=list&forum_id=22&x=11&y=5 Winterfest 2010 began yesterday and continueus through Feb. 28.

Whether you are a beginner stamper or advanced, (or like me, somewhere in between), you should find something in the Winterfest 2010 that inspires your creativity. And I am sure they don't mind if you let several challenges inspire just one card. That's what I'm doing with a card in progress. Check out the Masquerade Challenge, the Stamp on a Doughnut Challenge (don't worry this does not involve fatty food unless you want to eat some instead of stamp on them!) and the Spray-It Challenge. When I finish my card, I'll come back and post it here. That will be this afternoon sometime, I think.

Seven years of Peaing

As of today, I have been posting things on the website TwoPeasinaBucket.com for seven years. I remember why I signed up. I wanted to post a layout. I probably posted 10 more layouts and cards over the next year, if that.

But in 2004, I began to Pea a lot. I had run out of unemployment and decided to take a break from looking further. Don had just begun the full-time job with the Air Guard that lasted until late 2009. I didn't have much money, but I had way too much time on my hands. So, I responded to various threads on Two Peas in a Bucket. We had dial-up internet and there probably were eight pages of new threads a day, back then. It could take me two hours. It could take me all day.

I know when I finally did find a new job, after we moved to Riverside, I didn't Pea that much. When I worked for Starcrest, they usually made us work 10 hours a day. That didn't leave much free time, especially when I sometimes had to ride the bus half-way across Moreno Valley and all they way across Riverside to get home. I seem to recall being more active on a smaller message board back then.

But, another bout with unemployment in 2006, and the death of the smaller message board brought me back to Two Peas, where I have been posting actively ever since. I now have almost 15,000 posts. I also have posted almost 600 layouts, cards, and maybe a few etcs. That title would be higher, but I didn't have a scanner for about 18 months from 2007 to 2009. I received both a new scanner and my first digital camera for my birthday last year (coming up again soon) and so I've had two ways to post things since then. I post on Two Peas and here. I wonder what this blog is going to look like in seven years?

I am loving my Tim Holtz distress ink!

I don't know about this LO, but I just had to do a distressed page with my photo of this truck. I love the distress ink so much, after I took the picture of the LO, I stamped a few more grapes on it.

I've got to get some more colors, all I have is this "peeled paint." Maybe more stamps too!

My sentiments exactly!

I like using my stamps to make cards. In fact, once upon a time, about six years ago, I "gave up"scrapbooking and took up cardmaking as a new hobby. That's when I really got into rubber stamps, and over the next five years or so, invested in quite a few. This "many thanks" stamp was one of them. I paid about $6 or $7 for it, as was true for most of my other stamps. There are a few I paid $1 for, and about three I paid $1 for the whole set.

What I like now about the acrylic stamps is you can buy a whole bunch of them, all in a related theme, usually for just under $10. To me, they stamp just as well (unless you are talking about a fine detail stamp).

Since my "giving up" scrapbooking lasted less than a year, I have amassed a lot of scrapbooking supplies over the years since. I have only purged items once, but I do love to use up scraps of paper by making cards. And I may or may not stamp on them.

I made this one with a heart punch. I only stamped the "many thanks" at the bottom. If I were buying stamps for the first time, I definitely would start with sentiment stamps. It is a quick, easy way to say "thanks," or "happy birthday" or whatever. You now can buy some collections of acrylic stamps that will give you many options, and for less than I paid for two "thank you stamps." I'll even have some of those to sell you soon, but for now check out your favorite crafts store.

Here's the directions for my card. Fold a 6 x 8 scrap of cardstock or thick pattern paper in half. Punch five hearts from a different pattern paper using the "double heart" punch from EK Success. Thread them onto a ribbon, making sure they are all the same side up, unless you used two-sided paper and want the opposite side to show as well. Glue the ends only of the ribbon to the cardstock, as this will allow the hearts to stand up somewhat, giving the card dimension. Write a personal note inside, sign and mail.