Perfect Purple With Perfect Pearls

Happy Wednesday to you!  I'm so happy it's Wednesday because that means it's my weekly excuse to play over at MFP Speedy TV, with my favorite color, PURPLE!  

I have a super-cool technique to share with you today...not my own but one I found on Nichole Heady's blog.  It's working with stamps, VersaMark ink and Perfect Pearls (or any other brand of pigment powder.)  She's made an awesome video that explains it so well!

I made a purple card using one of the gorgeous peacocks from Mark's Finest Papers' Be A Showoff stamp set.  For me, a peacock represents shine and shimmer, and using the shimmering pigment powders with this stamp was a perfect combination.

When the card unfolds, the inside shows a shimmery peacock feather and two of the sentiments that come with the stamp set.

Love love love the way this one came out.  I wish you could see it in person!  Better yet, watch the video, and try it for yourself.  I would love to see your results!!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Racing Scrapbook Layout

Happy Thursday!  And you know what that means...only one more day til the weekend!  Woot!  It's time for another Scrapbook Challenge over at Mark's Finest Paper's MFP Speedy TV.  This week is a color challenge - create a monochromatic layout using a color family of your choice plus black and white.

Remember this challenge is strictly scrapbook layouts, no cards please, and you have to use stamps on your layouts. They don't have to be Marks Finest Papers, a Heinrich Co. stamps, but if you do use them you will be entered twice for a chance to win. Below, is a photo of the adorable stamp you could win this week.

I love the old pickup truck.  We used to have one like it years ago that was bright yellow!

In honor of Father's Day coming up on Sunday, I decided to do a layout using photos from last Father's Day.  Our daughter and her boyfriend took sweet hubby out to a go cart racing track for his day!  He's a car guy and a huge racing fan, so needless to say, he had a blast!  

Since the layout was about racing, I decided to give the background a checkered flag feeling.  I found a file in the Silhouette Store called "checkerboard template/background," and I made it large enough to almost cover a 12 x 12 inch page.  I cut it out in black and placed it over a white piece of cardstock.  Then I cut out a car in red, matted everything else in red, and the page went together by itself!  

I used two sentiments from the MFP - I Need A Vacation stamp set that just came out this week.  This is the same set I previewed last week.  I really love it and see myself using it LOTS, so get ready!!  Ha ha!

Remember, you have until next Wednesday at 8 pm EST to link up your layout.  See you there!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Mark's Finest Paper - Purple Passion Column

Happy Wednesday to you!!  It's time for another dose of purple this week with my Mark's Finest Paper column, Purple Passion!  I love purple and  love working with it.  For a lot of people, it's just not a color within their comfort zone, so here's a chance to get some tips and tricks on how to work with it, and how to use your stamps with it!

This week I found an awesome card kit from the Silhouette Store, and used it to make an adorable get well soon card,  I love yellow and purple together, so I chose those as my main colors to work with.  And then some straightforward black and white finished it off!

I used Mark's Finest Paper's Birds and Trees stamp set that was released a few months ago.  One of the little birdies just fit perfectly within the circle on the front of the card.  That little cutie is sure to make anyone feel better!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope to see you again next week for more PURPLE!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Christmas Card Catch-Up

Woohoo!  It's Friday!  Have you got any big plans for the weekend?  I'm going to enjoy the sun if this Seattle weather cooperates!  We've had sunshine all week, and now that it's Friday evening right before everyone gets off of work, the sky just clouded over...what???  Hopefully, the nice weather will return soon!

So, I'm really digging the Christmas cards with non-traditional colors lately.  I made another one that is (of course!) made with a cut file from the Silhouette store.  They have some of the cutest card kits, and when you add in some creative colors, you can really turn out some fun cards!

I hope you have a SPECTACULAR weekend!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Mark's Finest Paper Scrapbook Challenge

Happy Thursday!  Friday is almost here!  Woot!  So, it's time for the weekly Scrapbook Challenge over at Mark's Finest Paper.

Remember you can use any stamp set that you would like, but if you use a Mark's Finest Papers, a Heinrich Co stamp set, your name will be entered twice for the prize drawing.

This week, our challenge is to use ribbon on your layout.  I've had this awesome but crazy (and hard to work with) woven ribbon for about a year.  It's purple and it's beautiful, but it's very different.  I decided to cut two half circles out of two different shades of purple to use as a background for my photos.  I took the very cool ribbon and went right down the center of the circle between the two colors.  Then I matted my photos and stamped images in the opposite color of purple from where the item was placed.

Since this week is Sneak Peek Week at MFP, I decided to use the brand new stamp set, I Need A Vacation, that's due to come out in the next few weeks!  I think this set is just adorable!  The beautiful hibiscus  flower above is one of the images in the set.

Wish You Were Here is just one of the cute sentiments in the set.  There's also I/You/WE Need A Vacation, and lots of other cute ones too!

Above, is another awesome image from the set.  LOVE this coconut tree!  I colored it and the hibiscus flower with my Bic Mark-Its.

Please come link up with us this week!  You have until next Wednesday at 8 pm EST.  See you there!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Blogiversary Giveaway Winner!

graphic credit

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness!  I COMPLETELY forgot to choose a winner for my blogiversary giveaway.  I'm SO SORRY for making you all wait!  So...the winner of this

 and this...

and this...

Is Rebecca M!!!  I'll be contacting you soon to get your prize to you!  CONGRATULATIONS!!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Purple Passion/Christmas Card

Happy hump day!  I saw a commercial the other day about Wednesdays and it cracked me up so bad, I just HAVE to share it with you!!

I don't quite know why, but I giggle every time I see this!  So...happy hump day!  Now, on with the show!

It's time for my weekly column on my very favorite color, PURPLE, over at Mark's Finest Papers  and I decided to be just a tad lazy this week and incorporate one of my weekly Christmas cards in the mix.  I started a weekly series back in January called Christmas Card Catch-Up, to try to spread out my Christmas cards over the year, and not have to make them all at once.  You can learn more about it HERE if you're interested!

Here's what I came up with...

I used a purple and a purple/grey cardstock, along with a few other non-traditional Christmas colors, to come up with this sweet holiday card.  It started out as a cut file from the Silhouette store that was supposed to include a photo on the card, but I decided it was a perfect place for a stamp instead.  I used one of MFP's retired winter stamp sets.  I just love the wintery feel of the cute little church.  I used black Memento ink to stamp the image onto a very light purple/grey cardstock and then used a white Gelly Roll pen to highlight the snow in the trees and top of the building.

Yay...one more Christmas card down for the year...although I still have about 30 to go!!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Christmas Card #2

Hi again!  Here's the second Christmas card for this week.  Yet again, another cut from the Silhouette Store. I absolutely LOVE the way this one turned out.  I'm loving the colors too!

Have a great rest-of-the-weekend!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Christmas Cards Time!

It's Friday!  Woohoo!!!  Happy weekend to you!   Hopefully, you have some fun and wonderful plans.  Ours is pretty action-packed...well, for us at least!

As I mentioned last week, I'm catching up on my Christmas Card Catch up.  I have two cards to share today...one will be coming later along with the winner of my blogiversary giveaway!  And you thought I forgot!  I need to verify a few things and then I will make the announcement later!

I found this adorable Christmas card kit in the Silhouette store.  I wanted to do sightly nontraditional colors for something a little different so I used greys, whited and pink.  I love the way it turned out!

Okay...18 cards down!  Woot!  How are yours coming along?

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Mark's Finest Paper Scrapbook Challenge

Happy Thursday to you!  It's time for another Scrapbook Challenge over at Mark's Finest Paper!  This week, we're going to have fun with another Anything Goes Challenge...yay!  That means, you can make any kind of a page or layout that you choose.  It just needs to have a stamp somewhere on it.  If you use a Mark's Finest Paper stamp on your project, you'll get double entries towards the prize.  What are you playing for?

This gorgeous flower stamp is up for grabs again!  This is the last week for this beauty, so you should really enter if you're interested.  Entries have been low, so you have a great shot at winning!

So, there's a SUPER COOL place up in here Washington State that we've been to a few times.  It's called the Olympic Game Farm and it's one of those places that you can drive through, while wild animals roam free.  You can feed tons of different animals, and the majority of them come right up to your car!  Among other things, it's a place for retired movie animals.  They even have bears that will wave at you and smile...especially if you're throwing some bread their way!!

In the page above, you can see a buffalo sticking his head into our car window and taking a hot dog bun from my daughter's hand!  If you look closely at the bottom picture on that page, you can see his super slimy long tongue wrapping all the way around the bun!!

The page below shows an antelope eating a piece of bread from my son's mouth!  And in the bottom photo, you can see one sticking his head in my window and "giving me kisses."  We always have SO MUCH FUN when we go there!!

So, for these fun pages, I used a variety of goodies.  I've had some Bo Bunny animal prints papers I've been sitting on for years.  This seemed like the perfect use for them.  I designed my own title (Olympic Game Farm) with my Silhouette Cameo.  I also used three different MFP stamp sets; the new Marsh Birds set for the pink flamingo and the blue heron, the Be A Showoff set for the two peacocks, and the Zoo friends set for the adorable little elephant, zebra. giraffe and monkey, plus the two sentiments.  I colored all the animals with Bic Mark-Its

Don't forget, you have until next Wednesday at 8 pm EST to link up.  See you there!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Purple and Red Circus Tent Card

Happy Tuesday!  It's time for another edition of Purple Passion on MFP Speedy TV!  This week, I made a sweet little "Good luck on your new job" card featuring a Circus Tent cut from the Silhouette Store.  Instead of making the tent red and blue, I HAD to make it red and purple!!

The circus tent opens up to reveal the adorable animals on the inside!  I used two of the animals and some sentiments from the awesome MFP Zoo Friends stamp set.  This was a new release last month, and I'm excited to finally get to use it!

I used the Hello sentiment for the flag on top of the tent, and inside, the sentiments, Good luck on your new job, and We work for peanuts!  That was just perfect for the cute little elephant!  I tied the whole thing together with some blue twine.  Love it!  Hope you do too!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Christmas Card Catch-Up

TGIF!!  Yay!  Are you ready for a nice long Memorial Day weekend?  Have you got any fun plans?  I was hoping to get outside a little but it's only 50 degrees and on the verge of raining.  Hopefully, the sun will peek out at some point!

So, as I mentioned earlier in the week, I need to catch up on my Christmas Card Catch-up!  I'm behind a few weeks, so it's time to catch-up on my catch-up...Phew...that's A LOT of catching up!  I decided to chose another card from the Silhouette store.   (I know, surprise surprise!)

The name of the file is just called Christmas Card, by Lori Whiltlock.  I love the simplicity...just a few cuts, and a little ornament, but it's very obvious that it's a Christmas Card.  I may just make a few more of these!

Have a GREAT holiday weekend!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E

Mark's Finest Paper Weekly Scrapbook Challenge

Today's the last day to enter my blogiversary giveaway!  Please go HERE to enter.

Time for another MFP Scrapbook Challenge!  Woot!  In honor of Memorial Day, this week the challenge is to use red, white, and blue or something patriotic on your layout.  I'm super excited this week, because I've had some 4th of July pics to scrapbook for a while!

The prize this week is this gorgeous flower stamp from MFP...

Every year on the 4th, our whole neighborhood gets together and has a HUGE picnic.  It's our one time during the year to really connect with each other and catch up on life with our neighbors.  I really cherish the day, and we always have such a blast.  And speaking of blast, when it gets dark, we all pool our fireworks together (we live in an area where it's legal) and put on a great show!

The photos I used in my layout are all from 2008.  Told ya I've been meaning to scrap them for a while!  Ha ha!  I used the new release stamp set MFP Marsh Silhouettes for one of the sentiments and MFP All Postal for the other.  I also used VersaMark ink and the little cattails in the Marsh Silhouettes set to watermark my dark blue background page. Here's a closer view...

Although the cattails don't really have anything to do with the 4th of July, I stamped them randomly in a sort-of blooming fireworks pattern, and they look awesome!  I love it when I can make something work for a totally unintended purpose!

I hope you'll join us this week for the the challenge!  You  have until next Wednesday at 8pm (EST) to link up.  See you there!

Happy Scrapping! ~Amy E