I have new stamping partners!

A very happy milestone has been reached in our house. My daughters are now full "members" in my craft room. They've both proven that they're able to take good care of all of the toys in there, so I've given them permission to make things pretty much whenever they like. It's interesting to see what they choose to use. Juliette, 11, is drawn toward coloring on stamps with markers to achieve multi-colored looks. Katrina, 9, has been practicing with Copic markers. Both of them love the Elzybells girls and the Chichiboulies from Stamping Bella.

Here is a poster that Katrina made. I love her Copic coloring. I haven't given her any instruction at all. She's learned by watching and by doing.

I bow to Bakerella!

So, if you're not a food blogger, do your baking adventures belong on your stamping blog or on your crochet blog? Hmm. I say they go here. I've been a regular reader of Bakerella's blog for some time now. I love to bake, but have never had the guts to try to make her super-adorable creations before. Today seemed like the day. So I rounded up my nine-year-old daughter, and we went to work. We were using the Cupcake Bites Made Easy recipe.

We certainly have a lot of practice to do before we can make things as gorgeous as Bakerella makes, but we had a great time!

Lots of fun supplies were gathered.

We got messy rolling up balls of cake.

We filled our candy mold with candy melts and sunk the cake balls into the candy.

We dunked the tops of the cake balls into a second color of candy melts and topped them with sprinkles.

This recipe makes a lot of cupcake bites!

This is the most beautiful of the cupcake bites that I could find to photograph.

Fun stamping day with nearly 50 of my online buddies!

Last Saturday was the annual North Texas Stamping Day. We have a big shoebox swap every spring. Each person creates a stamping project and brings all of the supplies prepared for each person to make their project. We spend the day moving from one project to the next, creating beautiful things without the pressure of having to design them all ourselves. It's a great way to get new ideas. And of course it's also just a ton of fun to meet so many people who share a common interest.

This is my project for the swap. I borrowed the design from Joan Bardee. Check out her beautiful card here.

Details: stamps - Friends Til the End (PTI), Friendly Words jumbo wheel (SU - my wheel is cut up into separate stamps); paper - Gina K pure luxury 120 lb. ivory, true black (PTI); ink - pure poppy, true black (PTI); accessories - scallop edge punch, black button (PTI), hemp twine

This was the door prize that I donated. It holds two stamp sets. I don't have a template for this - it was a last minute kind of thing. I based it on designs that I've seen that are meant to hold cards in the two side boxes/pouches. I measured my stamp set boxes and sized the pieces accordingly.





Details: stamps - Beautiful Blooms, Friends Til the End (PTI); paper - lemon tart, spring moss, stampers select white, green tea leaves (PTI); ink - pure poppy, spring moss, true black (PTI); accessories - oval and scallop oval mega punches, spring moss grosgrain ribbon, jumbo eyelets, scor-tape