Water Color Background

For my technique club this month we did the watercolor background technique - look how pretty this is - and sooooo simple.

Here's the 6x6" technique card with instructions for their technique books.  You should be able to click on it to make it larger and easier to read.  It's such a fun technique in that each one turns out different - just like watercoloring should.

And here's the card we made with the background and SU's adorable tea cup set.  The middle cup is popped up on dimensionals with an added tiny flower and pearl. 

Here's another view of the card that shows the dimension better - see the shadow behind the middle cup.  The bakers twine is the finishing touch.  Love this card!

Hope you liked it too - stop back soon!! ~Maureen

Hostess Gift March

HI all - today I want to share the hostess gift for my March hostesses.  As you know, I've been doing these notebooks in our Stampin' Up! stamp cases as my hostess gifts - so for March this is my design.  I love it - fresh and springy!!

Inside - note pad, post-its and a little pocket for receipts, etc.  Hope they liked it.  Would you like one of your own - contact me now to set up a PARTY for April or May!!

See you soon!  ~Maureen

Last couple SSS gifts this month

Today I want to share the last two Secret Sister gifts - this first one was from Virginia's Secret Sister - an absolutely adorable magnetic message board.

Here's a close up of the flowers and the cute little button magnets.

Finally - here are the beautiful cards that Kathy B received from her not-so-secret sister, Theresa.  The two of them decided they could not commit to SSS for the year, but would exchange cards with each other as time permitted - so nice!!

Thanks for checking out these great gifts.  Stop back soon! ~Maureen

More Adorable SSS gifts

Here are some more of the great items from our talented group of stampers - first is Karen's gift from her Secret Sister - an assortment of cards and gift cards in an adorable box.

Next is Lois's gift - another adorable gift box!

filled with more cards -

 And finally Sandy with her beautiful cards from her Secret Sis -

 And here's a view of the finished insides.

More to come - so stop back soon.  Happy Stamping!!! ~Maureen

Secret Sister gifts -

Today I'm going to share a couple more of our March secret Sister gifts.  First is the one Heidi got - this adorable "You're So Sweet" box filled with her favorite - yummy caramels.  

Next I have a whole bunch of pictures of what Julie got from her secret sis.  It was Julie's birthday and her SU anniversary and here Secret Sis really honored her - here are her cards.

A beautiful journal (the pages look stamped) -

 A cute little box of 3x3" gift cards -

 And finally this glass candy dish filled with candy -

Secret Sis is so fun - I can't wait till our quarterly meetings - just to see what everyone gets.  My downline is sooooo talented.  Fun!!  Stop back soon.  ~Maureen

Memories....

So many of you who follow me know that I LOVE my Grandbabies - and recently I found out that number 7 is on the way - due October 25 - Yes, I'm doing the "Happy" Gramma dance :)  Once a month ( or close to it ) I have a Gramma day with one of my grand-kids.  (Sometimes hubby does Papa days too)  I love those days and I wanted to find a special way for them to remember our times together.  So I came across these great kid's journals at the Dollar store no less, and thought they were just the thing -

Here's what they look like just as they come from the store.  I purchased them a few months ago when I only had six grand-children - but something told me to get seven of them - and I did.

What I am going to do now is decorate them with my grandkids.  So Paisley and I decorated her's last week.  She wanted to do the Build A Bear die - so I let her pick the outfit; the paper, etc.  She also did all the running through the Big Shot and the taping.  I think she did a great job!!

Here is the first story that Kamili added to hers when we had our Gramma day - she drew the picture and dictated while I wrote.  We haven't decorated the cover yet - but she also wants Build a Bear.  I hope these all turn out to be wonderful memory books for them to have and keep.  I know I love them!!

Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!  ~Maureen

More "GREEN" -

Couple more "St Patty's" style - first I want to share the amazing gift I got from my Secret Stamping Sister on March 3 at our meeting - look at this beautiful coffee mug - I saw it sitting there and hoped it was mine - and it WAS!!  I've been drinking my coffee from it ever since.  Not only that but it was filled with wonderful little chocolate mint candy bars - LOVED THEM!!  Thank you SSS.

Also, for St. Patty's I put out this bowl of wonderful Salt Water Taffy - it was all in white and green tones and looked so good on my counter.  I just love "GREEN" it is so fresh and lively of a color. 

Stop by soon as I'll be posting more of our Secret Sister gifts.  ~Maureen

Happy St. Patty's Day!!

Happy St. Patty's to all my family and friends!!

No secret to a lot of you - but my maiden name is O'Reilly - so I take St. Patrick's day very seriously :)  By the time you see this post the Corned beef and cabbage will be cooking in the crock pot and the Bailey's will be chilled - my kind of celebration.  What you might not know is I have seven brothers and one sister - and with our last name I really have to remember them this time of year - so here are the cards I made this week just before I popped them in the mail.

Aren't they cute - I love the look of Black with Garden Green - hope they all like them!

Wishing you all a great day filled with rainbows and the luck of the Irish!! See you soon! ~Maureen

Cute Flower Idea

I shared this idea (that I found on Pinterest of course) with my downline last week.  I thought it was a really clever use of Stampin' Up! punches.  Here are the items you need - Modern Label Punch, Blossom Bouquet punch, Blossom Punch, Mixed Bunch stamp set.

By punching three of our Modern Label punches and criss-crossing and layering they fit perfecting inside the Blossom punch.  Unfortunately you'll still be able to see the criss-crossed pieces.

But by using the solid image from the Blossom Bouquet punch and stamping on it, adding a brad and popping it up in the center - Voila!!  you have a beautiful layered flower.  Thank you Julie Davison for this GREAT idea!!

 

Stop back soon!! ~Maureen

Crazy Stamping Ladies Challenge

At our March Crazy Stamping Ladies' downline meeting our challenge was to make your best card with the sketch below from Pam Maas' blog - http://365cards.blogspot.com/  and the card had to have at least one punched or Bigshotted element.  Pam has great sketches on her blog so check it out.

Each month we have two winners - we pick one winner from everyone who enters and one winner is voted on by the group.  Here are our two winning entries from this month -

Annette

Heidi - http://stampinking.blogspot.com/

Adorable cards ladies - thanks for playing along!!

~Maureen

Talent Show

A few weeks ago my grand-daughter Paisley performed in her school's talent show - she danced first but I couldn't get up close enough for a picture - even though she did an amazing job!   But then she sang -

 Here she is with her best friend Mari as they did a duet.

 And here they are afterward -

I was so very proud of her.  She did an amazing job - and didn't seem a bit nervous.  Was so fun to watch her and see her growing up.  Love you Paisley!!

Stop back soon! ~Maureen

Tuesday - Cards, Cards, Cards Stamp Camp

Tuesday, March 13, 7:00 PM - 9:30 PM (Pacific)

Cards, Cards, Cards Stamp Camp

Cost: $15 or FREE with a $40 merchandise purchase at the event.*

Maureen’s Home in Simi Valley.

At Cards, Cards, Cards we make 6 cards (2 each of 3 different designs) using exclusive Stampin' Up sets and embellishments ONLY! This month we're doing two birthday cards and a sympathy design. Here's a sample of one of the cards we'll be making.  This is the last month to earn Sale-a-bration products - so purchase $50 in merchandise and you get the Stamp Camp and a Sale-a-bration product FREE!!

Join us for the FUN. Limit 12. Light refreshments served. No additional purchase required. Must RSVP to hold your spot. On-time drawing at 7:10 PM. Must RSVP to hold your spot.

Hybrid Card

Today I want to share the card I made for Makai's birthday.  This first picture is her gift and card - it was a "Rock Star" birthday!

I love the Extreme Elements set but don't own it - so I went to My Digital Studio and created the background for this card.  Then added layers of embossed and stamped imaged to give it the dimension I wanted.

Here's the card open so you can hopefully see the layers - the flagged strip with granddaughter was stamped, Baker's twine wound around the large layer and the blue circle embossed in my Big Shot - finally the "Rock Star" star was stamped, cut out and popped up on dimensionals.  I love the way it turned out and the way MDS works together with stamped images.

You can get a FREE 30 day trial of My Digital Studio - contact me to find out how!  ~Maureen

Makai is "4"

So this past weekend we had another fun birthday party - we celebrated Makai's Rock Star birthday!!  Here is the great cake Heidi made for her - the zebra print is actually frosting - and the cake was YUMMY!

Here is Makai and her sister Kamili just before the festivities began - what cuties!

Here's the "Candy" Heidi had set up for the party - again the kiddos got to fill up a bag to take home when the party was over.  Heidi's no dummy - she sent them home with all that sugar :)

 Here's the entire candy set up -

and a close up of part of it - she had cute tags on the candies with sayings like -  "groupie gummy bears" and "guitar strap licorice" to "rockin' nerds" and "concert cotton candy" - it was a very FUN day celebrating our birthday girl.

Thanks for stopping by ~ Maureen

St Patty's Banner

I LOVE St. Patrick's Day - it may be because I really like the color green - rainbows - clovers - gold :)  or it may be because my maiden name was O'Reilly!  Whatever it is - for me it is FUN!  So this week I made this cute little St. Patty's day banner to put up in my house.  It's ALL Stampin' Up! - the string is our Hemp twine - the shamrocks are made out of three heart punches, creased in half to give some dimension.  The stem is the branch from the bird punch and the buttons and ribbon are also Stampin' Ups!!!  So you can see why I LOVE their products.

The medallions are made with the Designer Rosette Bigz XL Die in the current Occasions Mini - when you use this die it cuts one edge with points and one edge with circles cut out; and the rosette ends up about 9-10" in diameter.  So I just cut the strips in half to make two smaller medallions.  I love the way it turned out.

 

The paper is Stampin' Ups "First Edition" specialty paper.  I love this stuff as books and newprint paper are all the rage - but who wants to cut up a book or get newprint all over your fingers.  This paper mimics that look, is printed on two sides, and is a bit lighter weight than our other papers - perfect for this look.  I hope you can see the detail on this close up.  I made another for a gift, and added the large pearls the centers of the buttons and it looked great.  I might go back and add them to mine!  Thanks for stopping by - see you soon!! ~Maureen

The Sweete Buffet

Just wanted to share some of the great pictures from Zamarah's party - Heidi's new business "The Sweete Buffet" is taking off and this is why - just look how cute!  The tables were set in "Hello Kitty" style.

Each child had their own drink bottle with their name on the little flag - and their Hello Kitty favor.  The take-out boxes were decorated......

and used to get some yummy treats from this "Sweete Buffet" - candy, treats and the candy drizzled popcorn was amazing.

more candy, pencils, and look at those adorable "Hello Kitty" suckers.

Here's the candy with the "Zamarah" Hello Kitty banner on the front and balloons behind - everyone loved it!

Besides all the sweets - we had wings, pizza, veggies and more - delish!!  One grandbaby party done - five more to go :)  Good thing we like to PARTY!!

See you soon!! ~Maureen