God Bless the USA!

Hello! May you enjoy your 4th of July weekend being thankful to God for all the freedoms we still have and are blessed with in our great United States of America! I painted this "patriotic drum" years ago...when I used to do tole painting. The "stars paint can" on the right I did a few minutes before guests arrived (hehe!) for our memorial day cookout. Thanks Cathy D. for the star stamp you gave me. Love it! Again, Happy 4th of July to all!

Win this! Lilly Anna Package Giveaway!

How would you like to win the Lilly Anna paper collection, hardware, cardstock, ribbon, stamp set AND our NEW TAC Inspiration Book & Catalogue? Silly question, right? Click HERE for an opportunity to win the Lilly Anna Package! You have until July 31st to fill out form. Nothing to purchase...it's free to sign up...whatya waiting for? Go fill out the form!!

Combining Vintage Trimmings & Stamping

I have been trying to get to my vintage "stash" and use these vintage goodies...lace & crocheted trimmings that I got from my wonderful friend, Sandy. I did finally get around to it. And how delightfully well these vintage items go with rubber stamping, or at least I think so.. hehe! I used the "No Place Like Home" and "Swirlies" stamp sets. Tell me what you think....nothing fancy here but I certainly had lotsa fun playing with these: Thank you for visiting my blog...appreciate it!

New TAC Catalogue & July Specials!

There is always excitement with the release of our new The Angel Company (TAC) Inspiration Book & Catalogue! ..........Ta-daaah, here it is! Visit my TAC online store to order your copy, still only $4.95. Which is waaaaaaaay inexpensive....less than a craft magazine by far, right? Or contact me and I will mail you one! ENJOY! I will preview some of my "favorite" stamp sets, paper, embellishments etc., later on. Stamp of the Month - Elegant Arrows I was blessed to design 6-8 samples of this stamp set! As soon as it's on our corporate TAC website, I will give you the link for the samples:
www.myleeson.ismyangel.net Fun Frogs Vintage Set:
www.myleeson.ismyangel.net Christmas in July:
www.myleeson.ismyangel.net

Dots, dots, dots!

"Dots" is the theme for this card...can you tell? lol! The dotted flower pot was my inspiration for this theme. So first I went and dry-embossed the brown cardstock using the cuttlebug swiss dot folder. Then I freehanded some pink dots on the white background cs with my pink marker. Here's a close up of the pink dots: I used the "Garden Joy" stamp set. Stamped them, colored them in and then cut them out. I used a teenie pop dot on the top of the flower and on the birdie for 3-d effect. TIP: Use different "portions" of a rubber stamp for greater stamp usage. Notice how I stamped the flower portion of the potted plant on the bottom and top of the white cs to tie it all together. I used a scripture verse from "Inspirational Sayings" for the focal point of my card. Thanks again for visiting my blog. May God bless you with sweet sleep tonite!

Funshops 101

Hello! This post goes to all TAC demonstrators. When you have a minute, if you go to Funshops 101 in our Angels Only section, I have three projects featured that you can share with your customers. Thanks for looking!

This is what summer is about

....appreciating the beauty that surrounds me...all this beauty compliments of my Heavenly Father! The details in each individual plant is incredible, right? I am totally in awe of such floral beauty that was placed before MY eyes!! Especially the second to the last picture...you have to take a closer look at this one. (Click on the picture for larger view.) The picture is of a white lily but as you take a close look at the inside of the flower it looks as if it is lined in swiss dots...you know like on ribbon or fabric! How awesome is that? I love it!! Reminds me of the verse in 1 Chronicles 16:9 "Sing to Him, sing praises to Him; meditate on and talk of all His wondrous works and devoutly praise them!" And also Proverbs 90:17 "And let the beauty of the LORD our God be upon us" comes to mind. Thanks for sharing your time with me... believing you have an incredibly blessed day!

Tutorial: Re-using Plastic Clam Shell Boxes

Hello! Glad you're back. Check out my tutorial on re-using those plastic clam shell boxes, you know the ones TAC uses to package our rubber stamp sets. We all have them....don't throw them away....so many uses available. Here are a few:

Matching Ribbon

Click on the picture to get a bettter view of the matching ribbon I got at...I believe at Michael's...it matches our April SOTM set so perfectly...don't cha think? Isn't that the neatest dragonfly stamp?

Paper Dolls - Free Downloads!

Hello! As I mentioned on my post below, I wanted to try out the PAPER DOLLS...remember you can go here and print some out for yourself...these downloads are FREE!

Well, I didn't have time (did I tell you I've been helping out with a sweet friend's bridal shower/wedding? I'll post some pics of my papercrafting items later.) to work with all the parts of the paper dolls, but I wanted to show you what I did with "Bonita's" face ( that's what I named her...I know I can be silly, right?...bonita means pretty in Spanish). I made a birthday card using TAC's "My Cupcake" stamp set and the "Mimi" patterned paper . Doesn't she have such a sweet face? Maybe I should have named her....okay, okay, you get the picture. I really like this face...so cute. The artist is Melanie Montes de Oca. Thanks, Melanie for sharing your work with us. Que hermosa la nina, right?

To make the scalloped circle show up better, since it was the same color pink as the card front, I added a white piece of cardstock behind it. See picture above. I stamped a speckled background to give it depth and more interest than just having a plain white background. I use the Speckle stamp A LOT in my projects!

If you'll notice, I paper pieced her shirt using "Mimi" patterned paper...pinks and green... love that paper. Then I added some pearls for her buttons.

Tell me what you think of the free downloads. They are there for YOU! Grab 'em!

You can visit my TAC store anytime to see the products I just shared on this birthday card. Thank you. Enjoy the beautiful summmmer weather we're having!!!!!!!!!! Yes!

Angelee & Natalee Tags - Free Download!

As you know, The Angel Company has free paper downloads for your papercrafting projects...they are located on our website's homepage. Did I tell you they were free? Free! That a good word, right? This freebie, Angelee & Natalee Tags, has such a soft look to it and I immediately thought it would look great with the color brown. Here's what I did with it:

First I downloaded the tags. TIP: Since the colors of the tags are on the soft side, I printed them on glossy cardstock instead of a matte cardstock. The ink stays on top of the glossy paper and will be more vibrant looking than if I printed it on matte cardstock (it would absorb the ink lots more!). I cut out the tags.

For this 8x8 sb layout, I added some brown cs with scalloped edges to the left of my background paper.

Tip: To make a "linen" look background (see picture below), I took my Brilliance pearlescent pink inkpad and swiped it on the white cardstock horizontally and then vertically. Sorry the picture is not the best to see the details. Click on picture for close-up view though. You can see the shimmer of the ink a bit better on the corners of the paper. (It looks much better IRL.) I then stamped the rubber stamp image from the "Swirlies" stamp set to complete my background paper.

I proceeded to stamp on the tags. Stamped & colored the "True Beauty" butterflies, added ribbons and a charm . I was then ready to assemble my, very simple, brown and pink butterfly sb layout for the final product: It's your turn, now. Go get your free TAC paper tags download! I'd love to see what you did with yours. Notice the new download next to it....paper dolls! Gotta try that one too soon.

Thanks for dropping by....may you have a joyous day!

June TAC Specials

Well, time to get ready for TAC's June Specials...after you see them you're bound to say "how generous can they be?"... right?!

Free Giveaway! Click here:

http://theangelcompany.net/Promos_MoxRoxRobotsGiveaway.html

Robots Released! (Sneak Peek): www.myleeson.ismyangel.net

Promise Bear - Vintage Set:

www.myleeson.ismyangel.net

Spring Into June Rewards:

www.myleeson.ismyangel.net

Sea Critters - June SOTM:

http://theangelcompany.net/Promos_SOTM_June09.html

My computer

had major problems...what an ordeal I went thru...phew!...everything is okay now. I lost some of my favorite pictures, etc. etc....don't want to bore you. Needless to say, I was not a "happy camper". So to help me thru that ordeal, I first had to grab my mind and got thankful for what I DID have. I thanked God for taking care of me and my situation. I believed it and was able to move on with life. Here's something that really bless me....flowers! Flowers make me happy! I love flowers. Here's a picture of my friend Shari's garden at the beginning of spring. Her garden just totally blessed me! Isn't it beautiful....and it isn't full grown yet. Thanks Shari for your wonderful fellowship! It inspired me to get going on planting some flowers, so I bought these to start my gardening:

Again, sorry for my absence...I will be back to show you what I've been working on. Thanks for visiting me and stay thankful for God's blessings!

Look what I did!

I just added the Link Within widget, thanks to a very helpful Canadian friend. I think I'm gonna like this!. It adds three of my Paper Blessings archived posts at the end of the current post for visitors to view. It's great...I had forgotten some of my posts so it was fun to see what would pop up! Again, thanks go to Allison...my computer/blog guru!! Make sure you visit her...she's amazing!

I'm experimenting here. I'm gonna type "boxes" to see if gift box posts show up below. Boxes. Thanks for coming over today. God's BEST to you!!

25% Off TAC Discontinued Stamps

Hello! Glad to have you visiting me! I wanted to show you one of my favorite rubber stamp sets ("Twins" t2631) that, sad to say, will be discontinued....boohoo! I use this one alot when I make my baby books... it is so cute...here are some samples of my baby books. If it's your favorite stamp set too don't forget to go here to order at a 25% discount!

To see TAC's discontinued list please go here: http://www.theangelcompany.net/angelsonly/images/Promos/May09/DiscontinuedList09.pdf