Stempel Spass

Again I can greet 3 new members to my blog - you make me happy!  Andrea Sylvie Kimberly  Thanks for joining and I hope you visit often and like what you see.  And here is the picture I choose for you: It is a two-ton, 13 by 11-foot marble mosaic by Hildreth Meiere, depicting Hercules sailing past the Rock of Gibraltar. It is now in the Newark Museum. The mural was composed in 1959 and was first installed in the lobby of Prudential Financial’s corporate headquarters in downtown Newark, where it remained until 1999. (The Rock of Gibraltar is Prudential’s corporate symbol.) And just for the fun of it - when you visit my new members you  can  find out why I picked this piece of art for my greeting. --X-- Dabbling in a different style..... Not sure why..... Wanted to make something different, I guess. And that's what came out of it. A fish card. I actually like fish. I enjoy watching them in an aquarium or out in nature - very...

With this card I am combining the Make it Monday Challenge from Papertrey - Glitter Trim with the Dynamic Duos challenge and last but not least I am linking this card up with the Simon Says Anything goes challenge Dawn McVey  made this great video about how to make your own glitter trim with a Xyron machine. Now I don't have one, but I have Score tape and that works beautifully. Stuck it onto old cardstock, die cut it with the Papertrey Zig zag dies, peeled off the cover tape and glitttered it with the dynamic duos colors. The daisy die is from Memory Box  - Fresh Daisys die,  the sentiment is Papertrey - Iconic Images and I added 3 little dots with Stickles. Simple, fast and easy. Hope you like it! Have a fantastic day!

No sure, what's wrong with me lately..... thought I'll combine the Make it Monday Marvelous Monogram challenge from Papertrey with the   Challenge, but no, it was not the regular Make it Monday, it was a blog hop ending yesterday. Alt least I did not screw up with the silver challenge . It took me a while to come up with something - actually Papertrey spurned my imagination  - as you can see. I made this card for my nieces birthday - those are her initials. I just hope she has more important things to do than checking my blog, I would like this to be a surprise..... It was kind of tricky gluing on the letters After some trial and error I managed to adhere them with glossy accents. The bigger silver circle is glued to chipboard, to give the card some dimension. And here is another challenge this card will be part of :   CASology CIRCLE   - as my new member Kimberly just told me - I wanted to make something else for this one,...

First of all - thanks you everybody for the overwhelming response I got on my blog entry from 2/23 - the paper pieced card. I got sooooo many lovely comments. Thanks for visiting my blog and taking the time to leave a comment. It means so much for me and is so encouraging. And here comes my favorite challenge again - The Runway Insipred Challenge  #30. Don't you just love these dresses and the gorgeous way they are photographed? I used yellow background paper and a Martha Stewart border punch. I immediately thought about this punch when I saw the picture. The small butterflies I made with a Memory Box die, coloring a strip of watercolor paper (see below). The bigger butterflies are Martha Stewart as well. The sentiment is Hero Arts Fancy Script Messages.  I think I captured the dresses, but I am not totally happy with the way the card looks. Perhaps I should have tried more to incorporate the shabby wall...

I just got my latest order of Papertrey stamps and dies. This set is from their new release and I had to have it. Dawn McVey made this beautiful card with that set - she was the main reason I bought it. I tried her technique (CASEd it....) and I actually like the result of it. My card is kind of similar to hers.....Originally I wanted to make the blossoms blue, but since the challenge is about feminine cards I opted for red. Not sure why - Heather Telford made a blue card....Perhaps later I ll make a blue version. I am submitting this to the OLW challenge . Materials: Papertrey - Cutting Garden,  Hero Arts Heart Felt Messages (Cl150), Hero Arts April (Cl051), Distress Inks

The Twinery has now a challenge and the theme is polka dots. I don't have a lot of differently colored twine, so I left it with a little bit of the standard Baker's twine. I used my Kaleidocolor inkpad to ink up the polka dot background stamp from Inkadinkadoo. The sentiment is Hero Arts Essential Messages. I mounted it on a red cardbase. Then I cut a piece of chipboard and glued white cardstock on top to make it more substantial. 3 small gems are finshing the card. 

Before I get to today's card I want to say HELLO and WELCOME to my two new members IZOLDA and  BRANDI Both have fantastic blogs that I have linked, feel free to check them out! All my new members get a welcome picture - usually some piece of art I really like and hope you enjoy it, too. This picture I took in the NY City subway. The 14th Street/8th Ave station is full of delightful little sculptures by Tom Otterness . Here two workers are cleaning old subway tokens from the walkway. You really have to pay attention to see them - they are quite small. I also want to thank everybody who continues to visit my little blog and leaves me comments. It is so uplifting to read them and they motivate me making cards. You make my day! --X-- Yesterday it was gorgeous - sunny and pleasant. I had the day off work and took the change to go skiing - probably the last time this very short season. Today its dreadful outside - wet, co...

I thought long and hard about the "Up in the Air" challenge at Less is more  and really did not have any ideas. I did not want to repeat airplanes, birds or butterflies or anything else that is quite obvious. And finally I thought I would use this fun tightrope walker stamp. It is really not my original idea, I just played with it, using a card my sister made a little while ago, that I have posted on my blog here .  The tightrope walker is from Stampsmith, the skyline I have no idea. The sentiment is computer created and the sky is patterned paper. I used hemp cord for the tightrope. --X-- Not much time left, to play in this weeks Paper Players challenge - I thought I'll miss it, but I lucked out this time. I made the card a couple of days ago and then things got really busy and I never got around photographing it. I was not even sure if I should show it in public. Not one of my better cards. Neither bows nor butto...

I am always a sucker for anything   ORANGE .  A while ago I won an Annabelle challenge and I got myself  this  beautiful stamp set. Time to put it to good use.... For some reason my camera fails at displaying the orange correctly - it comes out much more yellow than it is. Too bad...I added some Stickles to the flowers and some orangy pearls.  http://www.annabellestamps.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/ac156.html All stamps are from Annabelle.

Welcome  Jutta I am very happy you joined my little blog. And as is customary on my blog I greet  my new members usually with a special picture of artwork that I have discovered on one of my museums trips. This time I choose glass artist Toots Zynsky . One of his pieces is in the Newark Art Museum. I found it stunning and very different from other glass artists. He fuses colored glass threads to create his pieces. Very unique. I hope you like it. I linked his name to his website, where you can see many more pieces better photographed than mine..... --X-- Now here is a real challenge - to pull out those winter stamps when we almost have spring temperatures outside. I seriously thought about skipping this challenge, but then I got over it and made this card. And to keep in line with the KIS challenge - its snowing on my blog.  I actually had so much fun, I made two cards. This is the first one. The sec...

I gave the White on White challenge at Simons Says  a try. It is not easy. I wanted to keep the design clean and simple. I used the Simon Says Fresh Daisies die cut, scored the card and added the sentiment (Hero Arts Sending Smiles Messages - Cl 490) with Platinum ink. I thought black ink would be too harsh. --X-- Here is my second card that I made for the KIS challenge Schneemaenner/Snowmen . I actually thought I'll post this later, but then changed my mind an I am posting this one first, why not...... I used the snowman die from the Papertrey made of snow die collection, dressed him up with a hat and mittens with some glossy enamel. The sunglasses are Inkadinkadoo and the sentiment is a snag'em stamps. The background snow is Stampin' up.

I signed up for the  SOS February 2013 Card Chain Challenge , since its always so much fun, to get a self made card form somebody else. I treasure those cards and they usually stand on my mantle forever! I made this card for the "FRIEND" theme. I could not use the colors - too challenging for me - ha ha - just opted for the easy way out. Although this card is not my usual "style", so that was a little challenging. I used the Hero Arts Friends background, did a generous mask around the cute little Penny Black mice and slightly sponged over the background. Some of the friend words I outlined with pencil to add a little more color. The sentiment is also from Hero Arts (Spring Borders Cl 128) This card I sent to Sanna in Austria - I hope she likes it! She has an awesome blog - go check it out!

RED is the theme at CASology this week - goes alog with Valentine's day. But since that is  in the past already I decided to make a general card, that can be used for just about any occasion. I could at first not make up my mind how to use that beautiful stamp from Judy Kins, which I got last year from my niece. So I made two cards. I like the first one better, my son and husband like the second one better.  I colored both cards with Copics. The stamp itself on the second card I clear embossed and made some accents with Prismacolor pencils. Sentiment: Hero Arts Sending Smiles Messages (Cl490) Sentiment: Papertrey Mixed Messages

Today  - after cleaning my messy craft room I decided to play along with the Papertrey color inspiration #3 Those colors appealed to me as did this gorgeous inspiration picture. And here is the card that I came up with, using Papertrey 's Polka Dot Basics set and chalk inks. The sentiment is Hero Arts Fancy Script Messages (LL157). I put three little dots of Perfect Pearls next to the sentiment. And guess what - Linky has expired, oh well. I still had fun making the card. --X-- And to make this not so boring I am going to show you some pictures from a a walk I did near my house last Saturday after the big snowstorm. Of course most of this has melted away by now - how sad. I hope you enjoyed this little excursion through winter wonderland. thank you for all your beautiful comments you are leaving on my blog - they always put a smile on my face!

I have three new members, which I want to welcome to my blog today! Heute habe ich gleich drei neue Mitglieder ("Verfolger"), die ich recht herzlich auf meinem Blog begruessen moechte! Corinna Sigi Mel They are all from Germany - my home country and all of them have fantastic blogs, which I have linked. I want to welcome you with this piece of art, that I saw recently in the Newark Museum in New Jersey. It is from the African artist El Anatsui , which creates these stunning pieces out of scrap metal, such as liquor bottle caps. I linked a slide show of some of his works from the New York Times to his name and from there you can get the New York Times article, if you are interested to read about him. Alle meine neuen Mitglieder sind aus Deutschland - meiner Heimat und alle haben tolle blogs, die verlinkt sind. Wilkommen, neue Mitglieder, es freut mich, dass ihr zu mir gefunden habt. Das Photo von dem Kunstwerk ist von dem AfrikanischenKuenstler  El A...

The  Play Date Cafe challenge proved to be challenging for me. I rally am not a pink person and I am pretty much done with Valentine's Day. But I decided to play anyhow, after all that's what a challenge is about - to challenge yourself, I guess....  My first attempt is the one with the lips -  I did not like the result at all and the tucked in heart did not really improve it.  Here is my second attempt - much more "me". I used Hero Arts Pop Stems (K5162), adorned with Perfect Pearls and Stickles, although the Stickles don't really show in the picture. The sentiment is Inkadinkadoo (Chelsea sentiments) And again - thank you for leaving so many sweet comments on my blog - they are all cherished and greatly appreciated! Good night.

The weather forecast was right - we got a lot of snow overnight and I can feel  my muscles after all the shoveling I did - what a great workout! I actually like shoveling snow - I know its weird. and this is how it looked like this morning: A winter wonder land! Isn't it gorgeous? Except for the all of a sudden low dangling electrical wires.... And now a welcome for my new members: Kim Anja  (hauiline) Kelly  Mary J Go and checkout their blogs - they are fabulous!  As my welcome gift to you - I made a cake, which I would love to share with you, but since that is impossible I'll share the recipe. I made this cake quite often - everybody in my family loves it, even my husband who gets very picky, when it comes to sweet things. And the best thing about this cake is that it gets better as it gets older, usually its the other way around. So in case you'll give it a try, bake it at least one day beforehan...