Round and round and round she goes...

When she'll stop, no one knows :-D I have some great family videos of myself dancing around in circles in our living room, making my self dizzy, with my parents chanting this rhyme in the background. Haha.

Today the challenge from 365 Cards was to create a card with all smooth edges-- no sharp corners. Lately I've been intrigued by round cards, so this seemed like a good opportunity to try another one.

I believe I can flyyyyyyy,,,,

Come on! Sing with me! "I believe I can touch the skyyyyy..."

Anyway... lol.

Guess what! I had time to go back and do the bonus sketch on the 2S4Y blog!

I love the blues on this card. It's a very calming, make-you-sleepy design :-)

Thanks for looking!

Going buggy

Check me out! Today I managed to combine 3 different card challenges in one project!! Haha. "Is that even legal?" my sister asks. I tell her "I don't know, but I did it anyway!" (FYI: This not necessarily my stance on everything. lol.)

Before today, I would've thought that a project using 3 combined challenges would turn out to be a hideous monster of a card, but surprisingly, it turned out to be a pretty simple design!

The first challenge (and probably the most obvious) is from 365 Cards: Make a ladybug-inspired card.

The second is from 2 Sketches 4 You which seemed to fit just perfectly with the other challenges!

Lastly, I joined the challenge from Use It! which was to use:

Scraps of any kind. Well, I've got scraps everywhere. The black and red paper and the thick black ribbon are little pieces that I had leftover from other projects.
Punches and/or die cuts. I love me some craft punches :-D The ladybug is all circle punches, and the flower is two layered flower punches.
Two or more different ribbons. In addition to the black grosgrain ribbon, I used the small black ribbon with the white stitches- one of my favorites :-)
One or more embellishments that you once loved and used a lot, but haven't used for a long time. For this one I used a silver brad. I used to use brads a lot. My sister likes to use them when she sits down to make something with me which is probably why I didn't realize how long it's really been since I used one.

And so, without further ado, here's my creation for today:

Just for fun, here's a card I made the other day for a friend's birthday. She loves shoes and purses, so I figure I can't go wrong with this...I'm especially proud of the purse, which I created from little circle punches and the bottom half of an apple punch :-)

Well, orange you just the cutest!

I feel good about this title. LoL.

Well, It's been over a week and a half since I've participated in any challenges, so I figured it was definitely time for another one (or two).

This is my first time playing along with 365 Cards. The challenge was to create a card using your least favorite color. It was easy picking the color! I almost never use orange. Dark yellow, "orangey" yellow-- yes. But not orange. In fact, I have a folder where I have all of my little scrap pieces of paper separated by color: there is NO orange in there. At all. I did, however, find five sheets of bright orange paper that had never been cut.

Just to help spark the creativity a little bit, I combined this with this week's Use It challenge. The challenge for this one was to use eyelets, something over 1 year old, and polka dots. I had eyelets-- orange ones at that! In case it's hard to see, they're in the button which doubles as my "1 year old" thing. I don't even remember where I got the round epoxy stickers, but I'm pretty sure they were on clearance a kagillion years ago. Anyway, I punched a couple of holes in it to look like a button, added the eyelets and threaded the ribbon through.

The polka dots are on the paper. It's hard to see in the picture, but the white background paper has the embossed polka dots, just like the ones on the green leaves.

New cards!

So... It's been a few days since I've posted anything, so yesterday I did some catch up work and made some new cards to list on Etsy. Here's what I did:

<-- These cards are very similar to one of the sympathy cards I made last week. I still love the little floaty petals :-)

The second design is also one that I've used before on a different project. I like to call this my "moon man" card. Hehe.


And that's all there is to say about that. If you LOVE these, they're both for sale in my Etsy shop. Check it out!

Buttons and Birthdays

I didn't post anything the last couple of days because I couldn't remember where I put my camera... It was under the front seat of my car. Usually, if I can't find something, it's either in my car (under the seat, thrown in the trunk) or by the back door, stacked on top of 2 or 3 pairs of shoes that I need to put away.

Anyway, here are a couple of projects that I made:



I have a set of note cards and envelopes that I got a Target on clearance a loooong time ago. I really just bought them for the envelopes... the note cards get used for scratch paper, or I cute 'em up and use them as parts of new card designs. That's what I did with these :-)

Shamrocks and "Rainbrellas"

Okay, last post for today! Hehe.

I hadn't tried a "Mojo Monday" sketch yet, so that's what I used for this St. Patrick's Day card...

This was one of those "use it up" cards... made mostly from scraps that I've had laying around for a while.

And just for fun, here's my "rainbrella" card...


I really like the quote on this card... "Anyone who says sunshine brings happiness has never danced in the rain." So true :-) Only a couple weeks away from those April showers!

Treasury searching!

I just found myself in a treasury on Etsy, made by YourFriendAmy. Click here to check it out :-)

With Sympathy...

This week I had a request for some sympathy cards. I don't exactly keep those "in stock" so I had to come up with some new ideas...

I finally got to use this flower stamp that I got for Christmas! (Actually, it was a late birthday present, but whatever. Haha.) I don't have any sympathy sentiment stamps, so I did these on the computer.

Here's the second card...

I really like the little floating petals. They're actually the negatives from a lacey corner punch :-)

2S4Y Challenge

Another challenge to try! This time I did a sketch challenge from 2 Sketches 4 You. I actually finished it last night, but never got a chance to add it to the blog. I was sitting down at dinner after a crazy day, when I remembered that I still hadn't even taken a picture!

So here it is... This one follows the sketch pretty literally, but I like the simple lines. I think it turned out pretty :-)

Use It Challenge

So, the other day I was clickin' around and came across this new blog where the challenge is to use supplies that you already have to create a card. I like that!

So here's the checklist:
Dig through your stash and use one of your FAVORITE papers.
No problem. I didn't have to dig down too far. The paper I used is from a set by Amy Butler that I got on clearance (yay!) at Michaels while we were visiting my aunt in South Carolina (what's girl gotta do to get a deal, right?).

Use something (anything) that you have NEVER used before.
For Christmas I received a set of Hannah Montana clear stamps from my mom. Hehe. The main reason she bought them is because they had my name all over it, but actually, there are some pretty little things in there. The "I miss you" stamp is from the set.

Use some ribbon.
No problem. I've got a whole box of that laying around ;-)

Use a button.
I don't use buttons very often. I like the look of them, but they're a little bit of a hassle when you're mailing cards... But then again, they look so pretty, it's probably worth a padded envelope and the extra postage :-) I had these baby blue buttons left over from a baby shower project a couple years ago.

Now here's the finished product. Thanks for looking!

Black & White Butterflies

Hmmm... what to say? It's been a long, but peaceful day. The rain has been coming down off and on-- thankfully it let up any time we needed to be outdoors ;-) We keep getting little teasers of spring, but it doesn't stick around very long (the high for today was 79 degrees and it's on it's way down to 25 degrees!).

Christina and I spent a little time outside taking down Christmas lights (probably a little overdue) and cleaning out the gutters... well, she cleaned out the gutters. Haha.

I did get a chance to make a new set of cards today! I'm usually more into paper piecing than stamping, but I wanted to try out some new butterfly stamps that mom picked up. Perfect for spring!!

I also wanted to try yet another card challenge. This time it's OCC's "Add a Doodle" challenge. My "doodle" is from a set of clear stamps by Rhonna Farrer-- it's one of my favorite sets. The butterfly stamp and the greeting are both from Inkadinkadoo. Hope you like it!

Oh, Baby!

I needed another baby card today! I needed it fast, too, so I used my puppy design again. These puppy dogs are so cute and fun to make :-)


This pup's quite a bit smaller than the last one. I think this card looks a little more "babyish" with the rattle.

Also, FYI, there are a few new items in my Etsy shop that I've been adding over the last week. Check it out :-)

Come on Spring, you can do it!

It's so close I can taste it!! I can't wait for spring! The weather has been absolutely GORGEOUS this weekend. As Pooh might say, "It's a rather blustery day today." Leaving church this morning, we were practically blown to the car.

Anyway, the other day I found another card challenge blog. Card Patterns had a sketch challenge that I wanted to try. I pretty much knew right off the bat that I wanted to do something with trees, and the rest just kind of worked itself out! Hope you like what I came up with...

Materials: paper (bazzill basics); rubber stamp (inkadinkadoo)

Tools: sm. circle punch; sm. star punch; circle punch (creative memories); lg. oval punch (paper shapers); sm. heart punch; decorative trimmer (creative memories)

A Critter Card...

Today I decided to participate in another one of Caardvaarks' challenges. This time the challenge was to create a "Critter Caard." No problem!! I love making critters!

At first I wasn't sure whether a puppy dog really counted as a "critter." I guess when I hear that word, I think more of little woodland creatures. But I looked it up in the dictionary (dork am I) and it basically means "any living creature." So we're all set.

I created this as a new baby "congrats" card:


Materials: card stock (bazzil); black ink (close to my heart); rubber stamp (unknown)

Tools: circle/oval cutting system (creative memories); lg. oval punch (paper shapers); lg. and sm. star punch; lg. heart punch; paper crimper (fiskars); 1/8 in. hole punch

Butterfly, butterfly...

I decided to try another project for Caardvaarks' kraft paper challenge, so here's what I made today. This card is a modified version of a design I created for a small box which is for sale in my Etsy shop.

This is a 4.5" square card. The base is kraft. I love the variety of textures and patters with the ivory lace and tan rick-rack over the corrugated cardstock. Even the wings of the butterfly and the roll of paper in the middle are two slightly different textures and shades of white. You can just barely see the silver wire antennae in the picture.

What a weekend!

I'm back from Walking Wisely with six78... what a weekend! We had a quite a few adventures along the way, but when all was said and done, the girls learned a lot, we got to know the girls a little better and everyone had a good time.

It's been a couple days since I've posted and I don't want to lose momentum! Here's what I made today...


I used a little green in honor of the sixth grade girls... GO GREEN TEAM! Ha ha.