The Paper Garden: February 2015

Wednesday, February 25, 2015

What If Wednesday~ Sketch Challenge

It's sketch challenge week on Repeat Impressions today. Here is the card I designed using Dandelion Breeze again.

And here is the sketch. This time I followed it pretty close. Ü

Be sure to stop by The House That Stamps Built blog (Repeat Impression's blog) for more details on how you can play along, Each submission enters you in the drawing for a $25 Repeat Impressions Gift Certificate. You don’t always have to use their stamps in your creations, but you will receive an extra entry if you do. Also be sure to stop by each of the Rock Star's blogs and see what they did with this week's Challenge.

Melissa

Would you like to receive a discount on Repeat Impression stamps? Wendy is graciously offering my readers 10% off their order by using this code rr10df. (thank you Wendy!!) Just click on the box on the right and it will take you right to the store. Have fun shopping!

Monday, February 23, 2015

RI Project of the Week

The Repeat Impressions design team take turns creating a project of the week and today is my day. I am showcasing stamping on book paper as well as a few other tips along the way using RI's 9012-M, Dandelion Breeze. Now to show you how I created this card:

To begin, I wasn't wanting the whole image, so I masked off part of the dandelion blowing away with a piece of sticky note paper. Just place the paper on the stamp that you don't want to show and ink your stamp, then remove the paper and stamp. In this case I stamped on a page from an old book.

As you can see in the photo below, I stamped the image twice.

Here is what the stamp looks like so you can see what I masked off. Masking is a great way to get even more out of your stamps.

To make the image "pop", I colored with long strokes using a light blue marker around the image.

Then started coloring in the leaves and flowers...

To finish it off, I added some glitter to the center of the flowers and the pieces blowing away, and some vintage soft lacey ribbon to emulate the softness of a dandelion.

Saturday, February 21, 2015

Frugal Friday 2-20-15

A day late, because for some reason, all the posts I've preposted aren't posting, so having to go in and redo them.

For $7.56 I got:
3 LARGE boxes of Malt O Meal cereal
2 bags of frosted shredded wheat cereal
2 bags of blue whale candy (for a shower, more on that in a later post)
3 bags of
1 gallon milk
4 bags of shredded cheese
2 large cartons cottage cheese
box of store brand "ritz" crackers
Palo popcorn
4 9-volt batteries
2 big bags of gummy worms (for a shower)
2 bags of Turtles candy
4 bags potato chips
2 bags split peas
10 pkgs Ramen noodles
2 boxes hot tamales
2 4-lb bags sugar

all of the above was possible because of rebates, store coupons, coupons on products for even more off, price match, etc. It was so much fun to come home and have it all sit on the table and know I only spent a little bit for it.

I also bought these items I needed for some recipes:

2.5 lb bag chicken $4.99
raspberries $2
Zesta cracker $.99
sausage 1.25/roll

other:
Went to Goodwill to pick up some 50¢ baskets for my sunshine baskets. Will be making up more of them. I already made up one basket and forgot to take a picture. That one went to someone who recently lost her mother and they also recently found out her husband is seriously ill.

used 40% off coupon in Hobby Lobby for item for a shower I am giving and bought some fun things marked down 90% for gifts and showers

took advantage of 50% off paper sale at Hobby Lobby, for shower invites

was given 2 heads of lettuce and a large bag of diced cucumbers, tomatoes and green onions. We've been eating that on cottage cheese. Very good

made hummus...oh my! so good! Will definitely be making this more often
made homemade pitas & flat bread

bought a large atlas book and map for $1...using this for a shower as well

more free movies in Comstock. I've been going almost every Friday and Saturday now. Nice to just get out.

rec'd a coupon for a free sandwich at a restaurant when they brought cold onion rings, also got some fresh onion rings. Gave the coupon to mom as I rarely eat there and she eats there more often, so I knew she would appreciate it.

So about all the shower business....more on that later....it's why it's been a little quiet here on the blog. Ü

Thursday, February 19, 2015

Dress It Up

The Cutting Café is Dressing it Up this week! Regina has some adorable files for us to work with. I created this card from her Dress Shaped Card 2 file. Remember playing with paper dolls when you were little? I think it might be even more fun as an adult. The hardest part of this challenge was deciding on her dress design.

Here is a list of the files that the DT were challenged to use:

DRESS SHAPED CARD 2....TEMPLATE - CUTTING FILE

DRESS SHAPED CARD TEMPLATE - CUTTING FILE AND INVITE SET FUN WITH DRESS FORMS...TEMPLATE-CUTTING FILE & PRINTABLE SET

Be sure to visit the Cutting Cafe Blog on the 7th and 21st of every month to see the design team's projects in which you can leave a comment to be entered into a drawing to win 3 FREE sets of your choice from the online store.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

RI What If Wednesday: Photo Inspiration

Today's WIW Challenge is a Photo Inspiration. I created this card using Repeat Impressions 103-k Bouquet Stencil stamped on an old book page and water colored with markers.

based off of this Photo Inspiration:

The heart in my card represents the heart of the tree. I used reds and pinks on my flowers to represent the red in pink in the tree and black at the bottom of the card for the black tree trunk. The turquoise in my card is just a frugal addition. I had planned to use dk red behind my stamped/colored/die cut heart and didn't have any red scraps the size I needed and there was this turquoise piece just sitting on my table the perfect size so used it. Then added some blue all around my stamped image which made the image pop more, so it was all good.

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

What If Wednesday~DCC Challenge

Today's Repeat Impressions challenge is hosted by design team member Joy. Joy's challenge was to create a thank you card.

My card below uses RI's 9719 E (thanks) and 9706 U (flowers). The "thanks" was part of a full sentiment and I masked off the other words to just get the "thanks" part.

Friday, February 6, 2015

All About Valentines

It's all about Valentine's this week for Cutting Café. The design team was able to choose any file they wanted in that category and I chose to create this fun new mailbox that Regina recently released in her Mailbox Template and Cutting File. She has 2 different style mailboxes and there are so many possibilities. I already have the other cut and ready to decorate. Ü

These are so easy to make and Regina has added several different images you can cut to decorate your boxes to make them all different.

I like to have candy dishes around the house, like my grandma did. I filled it with these yummy Hershey's Dark Chocolate Truffle Kisses.

Frugal Friday 2-6-15

I'm challenging myself to buy as VERY little in food as possible to see if I can spend less than last month. I would like to just be able to buy milk and eggs, but if there is a really good deal where it doesn't seem frugal to not stock up on that item, then I may go ahead and get it.

*finally earned enough points to get something worth getting from Kellogg's Family Rewards: a pair of earbuds. They are iLuv brand (which I know nothing about) but seem to be very nice. I can use them with my Kindle.

You can go HERE to join if you eat any Kellogg's products (we eat a lot of crackers), there is a code inside the box and you just go to the website and enter your code to earn points.

*earned $5 in Bing Rewards. You can only get $5 month if you do searches every day and it takes less than a minute to do. If you are interested click HERE.

*free movies in Comstock on Friday and Saturday's. I usually go if nothing else is going on. These are movies that have already come out on DVD

*1 1/2 pkgs of blueberries free
*milk $3.55, this isn't a GREAT deal, but better than over $4
*2 free bananas. I bought 2 bananas the past 2 weeks (1 a week) and they were 24¢ each and then got 25¢ back per banana through C51
*"bought" a punch and 2 designer paper pads with my swagbucks and paid nothing Ü
*used a 40% off coupon for a round plastic tablecloth for a bridal shower. I will keep using them for each one I need until I have enough. Shower is in March and this is a way I can cut the cost down.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

What If Wednesday~Color Challenge

Today's color challenge is Red, Pink, & White for the Repeat Impressions DT.

I was wanting to make some more little Pizza Boxes from Cutting Cafe's files for Valentine's, so used that as my base for my project. I punched several colors of dark reds to pale pink cardstock with a heart border punch to decorate the top of the box and stamps Hug & Kisses using 422-G, Hugs...stamp.