Stacked Stones Studio!

These cards were just FUN to make!  When I was a little girl, my Mom taught Sunday School at our church.  Her class became known among us kids as the "messy fun" department! Even though we were dressed in our Sunday Best, Mom always had plenty of Dad's old dress shirts that we could each put one on backwards (buttoned at the neck) as an Artist SMOCK and then we were free to use paint or glue or whatever was needed for our project. Every fall one of her projects called for us to take a walk outside to gather  up some of the beautifully colored fall leaves. We would use wax paper to capture them for a "placemat" to use at home.  I think that is when my love of fall first began! I just LOVE the colors and the smells and sounds of fall. The "sounds of fall" you might be asking.  Yes - there are some distinctive sounds that signal fall for me. Crunching leaves, a whistle in the wind and one that you might not expect...the sound of a high school marching b...

Hello friends! I know that fall doesn't officially start until sometime AFTER Labor Day here in the United States, but in the "Land of Jann," I am SO ready for it to be fall that I am getting a bit of a jump on the season by starting a new series on the blog! (Hey don't judge me...I was in JoAnn's over the weekend and they had CHRISTMAS stuff up!) I love decorating my house for fall...and have a few projects in mind for that - just a couple of quick things that will freshen up my other decorations...so I will post a tutorial or two as I get those projects done. For the most part though, the projects that I have planned center around cards, gratitude journals (for myself and perhaps a friend or two...you never know - you might be that friend!) and a few other little things that I want to have ready for some family time at Thanksgiving.  I usually try and send Christmas cards to friends and family - but am going to try and actually send Fall/Thanksgiving/Thank...

Actually... o. my. stinkin' . stars! So...many hours ago I had an idea.  It was a simple idea. A good idea. An idea that it would be fun to do a "start to finish" video tutorial on making a simple birthday card. Did I mention that I had this idea HOURS ago? It is Royce's birthday tomorrow...and I had been thinking about the card I wanted to make for him for several days. It was all worked out in my head. So I got out all of these lovely supplies....and started the video camera. My had two parts to my beginning idea. The first was to use some star shaped wafer dies to IMPRESS the star image into the cover of my card. And for the second, Royce is always teasing me about saying "Oh my stars!"...and when I came across a stamp ( Papertrey Ink: Glory Be ) that had the Oh My Stars stamp in it, I KNEW I wanted to use that as the front sentiment for his Birthday Card. I don't know if you have ever tried to do this, but it is a pretty cool way to get ...

I found myself needing a card to send to a sweet friend this past weekend - and after digging through my stash of cards, I couldn't find ONE that was appropriate...and I was short on time to make one...but of course, I did.  I also made a mental note to sit down this week and get several cards made so I wouldn't be in that position again. Here are the basic cards I came up with....and I actually made about 10 of them in under 30 minutes. On some of them, I left the sentiment off so that I could add whatever I needed it to say, when I get to the point of sending them.  I used two stamp sets from Papertrey Ink: Simple Sunflowers and Stitches and Swirls to create the single layer backgrounds.  I thought you might want to see the process so I did a video showing how I made each of the basic cards. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are having a good week and if you find yourself without some cards (ready to go), that you will find a bit of inspiration with th...

Are you having fun watching the Olympics? I wish I were able to just sit and watch every moment...there is something about seeing athletes show up at their peak, give it their all and triumph. And my favorite part?  When they are standing on the podium...and they hear their national anthem play. You know they have dreamed of that moment...and I always wonder how much they are able to soak it in, or if it is all a blur.  I know I would just be bawling my eyes out...I can barely make it through our national anthem just sitting on the couch! I have so many projects going on right now with some pretty serious deadlines, so I have had to settle for having the Olympics on in the background...but I do run into the room when I hear tons of cheering. So I thought I would share my fun nails in honor of the Olympics and Team USA... Sorry the lighting is bad...but you can get the idea. I have had fun learning stamp on my nails. You can read THIS POST to learn how it is done. ...