Angel Bunny Cards and Paper Crafts

Here's to New

2011-12-31T18:23:00.002-06:00

Here we are at the end of 2011. I'm going to avoid getting too deep and sentimental here because 1) I don't have time, 2) I'll change my mind and erase it anyway, and 3) we've got other business to take care of-- like cards and stuff :-)

I hope this year has been good to you. I know that I have been blessed beyond what I will ever understand. Granted, this year has brought my family challenges I never could have dreamed of, but I think, in the end, we'll only be better people for it.

I don't generally make grand resolutions. Self-improvement is a on-going ~~battle~~ pursuit. I try new things all the time. They might be little, seemingly insignificant things, but it's fun! The only things I'd like to do this year are get texting (yeah, i know...) and try contacts. That's all. Everything else is on a come-as-it-may basis.

Besides the year, here are some more new(ish) things...

Thursday's card for 365 Cards' Day 304 "Flashback Thursday" Challenge:

LAST Thursday's card for 365 Cards' Day 297 "White Space" Challenge:

I hope the end of this year finds you surrounded by the people you love most and may this next year be full of blessings!!

Happy December!

2011-12-03T20:37:00.001-06:00

Happy December everyone :-) It's time again for my monthly update where I recap how long it's been since I last posted. Does life ever slow down? Probably not.

I've got some cards to show you from the last few Thursday challenges at 365 Cards. Let's start with the one for this week.

This is for Pam's "Recipe Challenge." There's still plenty of time to play along, so make a card using the following "recipe" and link up your cards by Monday night at 11:59pm!

5x5 card

3 patterned Papers

6 rhinestones or pearls

1 stamp

1 sentiment

Now, I stretched the rules just a little bit, as you can see. I only used 1 stamp, but I stamped it three times. *wink wink*

Here are the cards from the past few challenges that I didn't get to blog about:

Day 269: Scraplifting With Hannah

Day 262: Feeling Grunge-y


Day 255: The 3 B's

Checking In

2011-11-05T23:44:00.001-05:00

I'm still alive! (In case you were wondering.)

It's been another super busy month and unfortunately a whole lot of other things to do besides blogging. Sadness. But I finally have a few minutes and I'm just gonna show you everything I've been working on for the last few weeks.

Let's start with my card for Thursday's challenge at 365 Cards.

The challenge was to create a card with a detachable component. With this super cute image from Robyn's Fetish , it seemed only right to make a detachable bookmark!

If you'd like to play along with the challenge, you still have a couple more days. I'd love to see what you can come up with.

Here are the cards from the last couple 365 Cards Thursday challenges...

Day 241- Card Recipe

Day 234- Opposite Day

Day 227- Fun With Floss

"Rustic"

2011-10-06T15:41:00.000-05:00

Hey there, everybody! I don't know about where you are, but it has been a GORGEOUS week in the STL. If you're the nature-y type, it's the perfect time to be out in it. I just spent the weekend down in Ellington, MO. It was beautiful during the day, then cold and clear at night-- just right for a hayride and bonfire!

Speaking of nature and outdoorsy things, today's challenge at 365 Cards is to create a card with a rustic theme. As we all know, "rustic" comes from the Latin "rus," meaning "country, farm, or land" and "stic[k]" meaning... a piece of a tree. Lol. Just kidding...mostly.

But obviously, I had to go outside and get some sticks!

I found some really small, thin twigs and cut them into two-inch pieces. Then I hot glued those together and tied on a piece of cord. I cut the leaf with my Cricut, then sponged on a couple of colors. Assemble all the pieces and voila!

I thought this turned out really pretty. It's simple, but different and has a lot of great texture. In fact, I think I have a couple more variations I'd like to try.

The Family You Choose :-)

2011-09-20T16:22:00.000-05:00

I think it might be the understatement of the century to say that I like my friends. They're crazy, but that's okay cuz I am too :-) In fact, I saw a quote the other day that reminded me of our crew:

"We must hang together, or surely we will

hang separately." ~ Benjamin Franklin

Hehe. I thought it was funny.

Anyway, the card I made this week for 365 Cards' challenge #199 is inspired by some of my best friends. For the challenge you have to pick a "year to remember," one that holds many special memories. I didn't have to go back too far. Two-thousand ten was a good year, especially the summer months. There was one particular summer evening spent by the pool in the company of several lovely ladies... If they were reading this, they would know what I'm talking about. Haha.

If you would like to play along with the challenges for this week, there's still a little time! As long as your creations are posted by 11:59pm tonight, they still count! Thanks for stopping by :-)

Well, it's not like I wasn't thinkin' about it...

2011-09-12T16:46:00.000-05:00

*sigh* Epic blogging fail. I thought about it. I really did. But it's hard to say what would really be worse: Sleep-deprived posting or no posting at all. Haha.

The school year is actually off to a great start. I can't really complain at all. The kiddos are super cute, and relatively mellow compared to last year's group. But I think my whole body is still revolting against having to wake up early every day!

I realize this is a little after the fact, but I thought I would show you my card for Thursday's color scheme challenge over at 365 Cards.

If you still want to play along, it's not too late! You have until 11:59pm to link up your posts.

Here are the last few cards that I never got around to posting, for any of you who don't frequent the 365 Cards blog. (Although, you should. :-) I believe if you click on the photo, you'll be able to see it full-size.

Is it just me or is it gettin' hot in here?

2011-08-11T11:25:00.000-05:00

OH, I just crack myself up.

Thursday has come to us once again, which means it's my turn to take on of Pam's fabulous challenges and attempt to inspire you all to play along! Today the challenge at 365 Cards is to use our gardens as inspiration. "Do you have a garden? If so, what sorts of things do you have in your garden? If not, what would you want in your garden? That is what should inspire your card."

That's not too crazy, right? My family used to have a small garden in our backyard. I don't remember everything we had in there, but I know for sure that we had chili peppers. We can go through dried chiles like nobody's business. I remember one time my brother convinced my little sister to take a bite out of one... It's funny now. Hahaha. Here's my chili-inspired card:

So what's in your garden? I'm looking forward to seeing your creations!

I'm Baa-aack!

2011-08-04T17:28:00.000-05:00

Hey there peeps!! I'm finally back home and I'm ready to stay for a while :-) For the last two weeks I've been away at two different camps. The first one was a five-day girls camp, here in Missouri, where my sisters and I were leading worship. We had a great time and met a ton of super amazing people.

I was home for a Saturday, then crazy early on Sunday morning I left on a week-long mission trip to New Orleans, LA with a group of teenagers, most of whom are getting ready to go into their freshman year of highschool. I learned a lot and had plenty of experiences that pushed me waaaay out of my comfort zone. Haha. It was a long week and we definitely had our challenges, but I'm so glad I went!

This week I've been getting back into the regular swing of things, finishing up some projects and working on getting the classrooms ready for the kiddos at school. That also means it's time to get back into my cards!! The card I have to show you is for today's "Ad Inspired" challenge at 365 Cards. All you have to do to play along is use this image as your inspiration:

Here's what I came up with:

My favorite dress form was the black one with polka dots. I also used some of the colors from the ad, and used tulle to mimic the curtains.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you'll play along :-)

Summer... it's Hot.

2011-07-14T15:40:00.000-05:00

Haaaaappy Thursday! How's your summer going? Mine's flying right by and I'm trying to hang on :-) I did get to spend a couple hours in the pool on Tuesday. It was SO hot, it felt like bath water. But then it rained for a bit and cooled everything off and it turned out to be a gorgeous night, which we spent at the Muny. This is pretty much my only "free" week this month. For the next two weeks I'll be out of town for two different summer camps. One is a girls camp here in Missouri, the other is a mission trip with 8th graders in New Orleans. I'll have about half a day break in between the two, but I think it'll be fun. Then maybe I'll sleep for a week when I get back ;-)

I have a card to share with you today! This week at 365 Cards, we've been making collage cards. I've said before that I tend to stay away from putting lots of "stuff" on my cards. But then it's always fun to step outside the box and stretch a little bit. For today's challenge, your collage card should include sponging, scallops and stitching.

There's plenty of sponging around the torn edges of the paper. I didn't feel like lugging out my ridiculously heavy sewing machine, so I had to do the stitching by hand. It turned out pretty good, I think. For the scallops I used crepe paper ribbon. There are so many possibilities with a challenge like this, so I hope you'll stop by and play along too!!

Quickie post!

2011-07-07T07:39:00.000-05:00

Hey everyone! This is gonna be a super short post because I'm quite literally on my way out the door to help with the middle school summer camp at church. I'll be out until Sunday, so I wanted to make sure I was able to show you my cards for this week.

The challenge for today at 365 Cards is to use a sentiment that has somewhat of a crossword effect. Our sponsor this week is Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps and More. Here's the card I created using an image from her collection:

But THEN, I was thinking about it and I had another idea for a completely different card, so I made two:

Fun, huh? You should give it a try. The post for this challenge should be up on the 365 Cards blog pretty soon, then you'll be able to link up your creations :-) Can't wait to see them!

Just Peachy

2011-06-23T07:00:00.001-05:00

It just so happens that I was eating a peach when I got the details for today's challenge at 365 Cards. The actual challenge is to make peach the dominant color, but I figured that nothing goes better with peach than peaches!

I used chalks to color the fruit, then used an eraser to add highlights back in. The sentiment is computer generated. This one is a really simple layout, but I like the details of the peach.

I hope you all are having a fantastic summer! Thanks for stopping by :-)

Cars

2011-06-16T15:49:00.000-05:00

I found it a little ironic that today's challenge for 365 Cards had to do with cars. Just this week my car decided to crap out on me. I knew it was coming but, you see, my car and I had this love-hate relationship :-) I can't help but love a vehicle that got me wherever I needed to go, but there were a lot of things wrong with it that I wasn't about to fork out the money to fix. My car was nice enough to hang on to life over the past several months while I saved up enough cash to replace it. But just to get back at me, it waited until the most inconvenient moment possible (on the way to an 8 a.m. choir rehearsal) to die.

But anyway, back to the challenge...

Today is "Mega Movie Thursday." All week we've been using movie posters from this summer's movie releases as our inspiration. Today is no different! I really liked the original "Cars" movie and I'm looking forward to seeing the second one.

For my card I decided to attempt to duplicate the Cars logo. I think I got close. Haha. Since Father's Day is right around the corner, I thought this would be a fun theme to work with. I used watercolors to create a "road" for the background. Super-shiny silver cardstock worked great for the "chrome" but it was a little tricky cutting the words! Here's my final card:

You don't have to take this challenge quite as literally as I did! I'd love to see how this movie poster inspired you, so make sure to link up your cards on the 365 blog!

Words to Inspire

2011-06-09T22:15:00.000-05:00

Hello, friends! It's Thursday, so I've got a card to show you for today's challenge on the 365 Cards blog. Today we're supposed to incorporate an inspirational sentiment on our cards...

I'd love to see what inspiring words YOU would include on your card, so hop on over to 365 Cards and link up your cards!

As We Commence...

2011-06-04T16:49:00.000-05:00

'Tis the season to be graduating. My parents are going to an open house this afternoon, so this is a card I put together for the graduate...

I love these Basic Grey papers! Love, love, love :-)

Thanks for checking out my blog!

B is for...

2011-06-02T14:31:00.000-05:00

Apparently, I'm on some kind of baby card kick. Lol. I don't know why. I guess they're just kinda cute and fun to make.

This is my DT card for today's 365 Cards challenge, "Button Blitz." Use at least TWENTY buttons on your card and be sure to stack at least SIX of them.

I have to admit that when I saw "20 buttons" I was a little intimidated. As a rule I try to stay away from bulky cards, simply because they don't fit in envelopes. But once I started looking through my stash and playing around with the placement of the buttons, it actually wasn't too bad. This one would probably fit into a slightly oversized envelope quite nicely :-)

As always, thanks for stopping by! Be sure to stop by the 365 Cards blog-- we'd love to have you play along!

Fun With Old Cardboard

2011-05-31T16:01:00.000-05:00

Today I'm playing along with City Crafter Challenge Blog. I've been following for a while, but this is my first time joining in :-) The challenge is to use paint and recycled cardboard.

I have a stash of cardboard that I've saved from different packaging and boxes and whatnot, but today I had a cardboard mailing envelope sitting at the top of my wastebasket, so I decided to go with that! Haha. I cut the star and anchor with my Cricut, then used white acrylic paint to create the distressed look. My favorite part about this card is that rope-looking trim in the background. I cut super thin strips from the cardboard, then carefully twisted them as tight as I could without breaking it. Since one side of the envelope was coated white, it looked pretty cool. I did that with several trips, then glued them side by side. Kinda nifty, huh? I also used a piece on the rope for the anchor. I thought about putting a sentiment on there, but I just think it makes a great summery generic card for anytime.

Thanks for stopping by!! Have a great day :-)

Baby Boom

2011-05-30T23:18:00.000-05:00

I've got another baby card for today. This one is just for fun... I don't know very many people having babies any time soon :-)

This week's challenge for Our Creative Corner is to make a baby card, including kraft paper, trim and at least one button. I thought it worked rather nicely with the sketch for today's Mojo Monday. I know I've said it already, but I'm so excited to have more time to play along with all of my favorite challenges now that school's out!

Thanks for stopping by! I love reading your comments :-)

Sing it, Alice!

2011-05-28T17:57:00.002-05:00

SchooOoooOOool's out. For. Summer!

Haha. I don't think today really counts as the first day off since it's Saturday and we wouldn't have school anyway, but I've been doing the happy dance since we put the last preschooler into their car yesterday afternoon :-) It's gonna be a great summer, I can already tell. My brother got into St. Louis late last night (or this morning, rather) and he'll be here at least until Monday. Dad bought a new barbecue grill. It's red :-)

AND (drum roll please...) I actually got a card done! The Shabby Tea Room has a challenge this week to create a baby-themed card. This one is for a friend of mine who's having a little girl sometime around the end of June. I know that they're decorating the nursery with pink, brown and green, so I used that color scheme on the card.

I pieced the patterned paper together for the turtles shell from 1" scraps, then added some faux stitching. The letters are from the "Car Decal" Cricut cartridge. I like it. Whaddya think?

Thanks for stopping by!

In the Home Stretch

2011-05-26T06:00:00.002-05:00

I can't believe we're already down to the last two days of the school year! It's been an interesting nine months, that's for sure. Haha. My little kiddles are moving on up to kindergarten next year, so I'll definitely miss them... I think. Juuuust kidding ;-) But seriously...

With summer in sight, I'm looking forward to lots of fun stuff (y'know, like blogging regularly again). Some traveling, girls nights by the pool, that kind of thing. Which brings me to the card that I want to show you today. This is for today's challenge at 365 Cards, Day 87. The "prompt word" for today is COOL. And what better way to stay cool than in a pool??

I had a lot of fun coloring this image. I enjoy using watercolors because you don't really have to be quite as "perfect" with it. This might be one of my favorite cards that I've made in a while. I absolutely love this image from Sparkle Creations. If you'd like to play along, make sure you link up your cards to 365 Cards by Monday night!

Nature Stuff

2011-04-29T16:32:00.000-05:00

I keep sitting down to write this post and I just end up with an insane case of writer's block! This past week was a little crazy. We had tornadoes ripping through St. Louis like nobody's business. You see this kind of stuff on the news, but it's a really weird feeling when it's quite literally in your backyard. Our church (which is where we were when the storms came through) and our house missed the worst of the destruction by a matter of blocks in both cases. It's amazing that there were no fatalities. And the only minor injuries where at the airport. My brother was supposed to fly in that night from San Diego, but ended up having to turn around in Phoenix. I'm just thankful that his flight wasn't a few hours earlier! Maybe it sounds a little cliché, but it really does make you realize that your stuff isn't going with you and it's having your family and loved ones safe that truly matters the most.

And speaking of nature... Lol...

I have a card for you today. This one is for yesterday's challenge at 365 Cards, Day 59-Feeling "Kraft"y.

The challenge is to create a nature-themed card with kraft paper. The image I used for the branch and the background pattern is from our sponsor this week, Shannon's Sentiments. There are some really great images, so be sure to check it out.

If you wanna get in on the fun, come on over to the 365 Cards blog! You have until Monday night to get your project uploaded :-)

Ladybug, Ladybug

2011-04-02T14:42:00.000-05:00

Hi there, blogger friends! Happy Saturday to you all. I'm singing at a conference here at church today, and I'm trying to do something useful with my time until the next session. I haven't had a chance to blog anything these past couple of weeks, so I thought I'd do that :-)

Let's flashback to Thursday. It was Day 31 at 365 Cards. The challenge was to use a piece of poetry on your project. It was a little hard to start with the image and find a poem to match, rather than starting with the poem then finding an image to compliment. So with a quick search for poems about ladybugs, and then sifting through a bazillion preschool songs, I found this poem that I thought would be perfect for a card:

"I'm sending luck and wishes

All wrapped up in a hug

Good things should come your way

With this tiny ladybug."

~Author Unknown

The image I used is from our sponsor this week, Digi Doodle Shop. They have some super cute things, so make sure to check out their site! Also, it's not too late to play along with this challenge (or any of the challenges this week)-- You've got until Monday night to post the links to your cards :-)

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

2011-03-17T21:38:00.000-05:00

I've got just enough Irish in me to get some red highlights in my hair in the summertime and to justify making a semi-big deal out of wearing green today :-)
"Leprechauns" have been visiting our preschool class every day this week, leaving green footprints everywhere. We have a class of 18 little ones who specialize in theatrics. One day they'll be famous, but for now they just like to drive us nuts :-) They're totally into it. "Mattie," "Paddy," "Looie" and "Messy" leave us notes (and a mess) when they visit, and the kids can't wait to write one back with some advice on how to clean up their messes. Lol. The irony kills me.

Anyway, today at 365 Cards, there's and ad-inspired challenge. Here's the ad:

And here's my ad-inspired creation:

The color of my pictures has been coming out a little funky, but you can still see the elements from the ad that I used on my card. One of the things that really stuck out to me, for some reason, was the legs of the chair and ottoman in the photo. I tried to mimic that on my card using puffy fabric paint.

Here's the rest of the Irish Blessing on the inside of the card:

I'd love to see you join in the challenge! Click here to go right to it :-)

2011-03-12T22:49:00.001-06:00

Again with the late blogging. Gah! lol

Let's just cut to the chase here. What I have to show you today is actually Thursday's card for 365 Cards. The challenge is to pick something that is currently trending and use it on your card. Now, I don't necessarily focus on what's trendy (at least not on purpose), but if I spend a little time thinking about it I do notice certain things. It seems like I've been seeing a lot of lace everywhere lately, so that's what I decided to use on my project:

I kinda like how this turned out. There's a lot of "stuff" there on the card, but it's not overwhelming. Well, it's past my bedtime PLUS I'm losing an hour of sleep with Daylight Savings starting tomorrow. Uggggh. Lol. Well, good night all! And don't forget, you still have until Monday night to link up your cards for this challenge-- it's not too late!

2011-03-03T14:27:00.000-06:00

Oh, I'm such a terrible blogger!! You know those badges that everyone likes to tag other bloggers with? Someone should come up with a "Hey, where the heck did you go?" badge. Actually, that might not be a bad idea. It might be encouraging, for those people who wonder if anyone is really reading their blog, to get a comment saying "Your blog hasn't shown up in my feed for a while, and I've missed it!"

But I'm just rambling now.

The card I have to show you today is for Day 3 at 365 Cards. And yes! We just started a new year of cards, so now would be the perfect time to jump in and join us! Today's challenge is to use fabric as a tool to apply ink or paint to your card any way you'd like.

I found a piece of material that had a pretty nice texture and applied white paint directly to the fabric. Then I flipped it over and pressed it onto the paper. I did use a brayer to make sure it got pressed down all the way. It was also a little less messy that way ;-) It ended up with a pretty cool distressed look.

Now remember, you can use the fabric any way you want, so you could scrunch it, roll it, twist it-- whatever! You've got until Monday to link up :-)

Unconventional Valentine

2011-02-14T06:00:00.000-06:00

Happy Valentine's Day! Or Single's Awareness Day... whichever one you're celebrating today. Haha ;-)

I'm quite literally on my way out the door to work this morning, but I wanted to share this card with you first. I've been itching to make something with the "From My Kitchen" cartridge and this is what I came up with:

Kinda fun, no?

Happy Monday to ya! :-)

Fabulous

2011-02-10T19:54:00.001-06:00

Hey there, friends! It's been a while. I'm sorry. :-)

It's Day 347 at 365 Cards! The challenge for today is to "divide your card into three parts so that none of embellishments or the sentiment overlaps from one section to another."

Here's how I did it:

The sentiment is from this week's sponsor, Digis With Attitude. The silhouette is from the Forever Young Cricut cartridge. It's definitely one of my favorites. I haven't used eyelets in a while, but I finally have a Crop-a-dile tool. I should have gotten myself one of those a loooong time ago. Lol. It's SO much easier than that ridiculous hammer!

I'd love to see your take on the challenge, so link it up right HERE!

Peace

2011-01-20T11:18:00.000-06:00

Happy Thursday, everyone! I'll be celebrating with a snow day. It started falling last night, and this morning I woke up to this:

My sister, attempting to clean off the cars... I'm not sure why. I don't plan on going ANYWHERE today.


The patio furniture in the backyard is a pretty good indicator of how much snow actually fell...

I will be spending the rest of my day nice and warm inside the house. Lol.

But anyway, back to business...

The card I have to share with you today is for "Inspiration Week" at 365 Cards. The word I picked for today is "Peace." This word means a lot to me right now. It seems these last couple of months have been a little crazy. Lots of family stuff, ridiculous stuff at work, but I feel like I've been able to maintain at least some peace in the middle of it all. It'd like to think I'm not a person who's not easily stressed out, but I guess we all have our moments. :-) I came across this quote sort of by accident, while I was googling something else. But I think it's absolutely perfect for today's word.

This card is made from a hodgepodge of scraps: some lace, wallpaper, a wedding invitation and the last scrap of some shimmery cardstock I've been trying to use up. I think it's fun to make cards that way... except that it's very unlikely that it will ever be duplicated! I guess we'll have to go for variations on a theme ;-)

Now it's your turn! Head on over to the 365 Cards blog to check out the other words of inspiration from this week and maybe pick a few (or all of them!) to play along with.

Since I began this post, I've been informed by my sisters that I will NOT be allowed to stay inside today. I guess I should go find something warm to wear.... ughhhh... ;-)

Busy, busy!

2011-01-08T19:09:00.000-06:00

Well, this week has been interesting. Started off pretty good, got a little weird toward the middle, ended a little crummy on Friday, but then got a whole lot better with taco night and some fabulous friends ;-)

Somewhere in the middle of that, I did find time to put together my card for Thursday's challenge at 365 Cards, but I'm running a little late again with posting. Oops.

The challenge was to create a photo frame card. It's not too complicated. The trickiest part for me was figuring out what size to make the card. Mine ended up being 6.5 x 5 in. I made it so that the photo slides in on the side.

That cute frog image is from Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps and More, our sponsor for this week. Make sure to link up all your cards for this week! The winner gets 5 digi stamps OR 4 digi stamps and a paper set.

2011-01-01T01:44:00.001-06:00

Hi there, friends!

The year 2010 has come to a close and we're kickin' off the new year with hopes for another 12 months of endless possibilities. I can't wait to see what happens :-)

These last couple of weeks have flown by. We've enjoyed having my brother home for the holidays. He'll be leaving on Monday already, and I have to go back to work. I have to start getting up early again. Ugh.

I do have a card to share with you. This is a little late, but there's still time to play along! We're doing a "flashback week" at 365 Cards, so we're revisiting a challenge from June called "Stunning Silhouettes- With a Twist." Obviously, there should be a silhouette on your card, but the "twist" is that the whole card should have a black and white color scheme. I'm a big fan of black and white. Here's what I did:

The silhouette is from the "Sweethearts" Cricut cartridge. I created the "charm" by punching out a heart from the patterned paper and then covering it with diamond glaze.

Thanks to all of you who've dropped by over this past year! It's been fun :-)

AaaaAAaaaaAH!

2010-12-23T18:12:00.000-06:00

GUYS!! It's almost CHRISTMAS!!!

I'm so excited. All of my shopping is done, but I haven't wrapped a darn thing. As long as I can remember, my family has always exchanged gifts on Christmas Eve. That way we didn't have to rush through everything before heading of to grandparents' houses. So really, tonight is our "Christmas Eve." That means I've got to keep this post tight so I can get to wrapping!

Today's challenge at 365 Cards is to create a card using exactly three of three different items on your card.... make sense? Here's mine:

This is "Snow Fight Kody" from Some Odd Girl, our sponsor this week. The three items I used on my card are 3 ribbons, 3 brads and 3 pompom balls. I like :-)

I know the rest of this week is gonna be crazy for a lot of you, but be sure to hop on over and link up your cards!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Deck the Card

2010-12-16T06:36:00.000-06:00

Hey friends! It's SUPER icy on the roads this morning, so school is canceled... can I get a "Woot, woot!?"

It's Thursday, which means I've got a card for today's challenge at 365 Cards. All you have to do is create a detachable ornament for your card. It doesn't necessarily have to be a Christmas ornament. This was such a great idea and a lot of fun to make! Here's what I did...

The ornament was pretty easy to make. I Googled images of "paper ornaments" and got a lot of great ideas. I found this blog with some absolutely GORGEOUS examples. My ornament came together mostly by trial and error, since I didn't follow instructions. Hehe. But I like how it turned out. I used super fine gold glitter on the edges for a little sparkle. It looks so pretty, but unfortunately I will also be sparkling for weeks to come. My sister stopped to talk to me for, like, two seconds and even she had glitter on her. Lol. And so continues my love-hate relationship with glitter.

I used my "Accent Essentials" CC for the frame, and the "Home Decor" cartridge for the center of the ornament. Sparkly ribbon, silver button, sticky pearl and "Voila!"

The trickiest part of this card was deciding how to attach the ornament so that it could be removed later. I ended up just using some gold thread and tacking the bow to the top of the card. Seems to work just fine. To gift this, I'd probably have to figure out a way to stick the actual ornament down. I thought some kind of re-positionable glue dot would work... I just don't have any.

I really hope you give this a try!! Since I've got plenty of unscheduled time today, I'm thinking I might have to make some more of these ;-) Thanks for stopping by!

Let's Catch Up... or Ketchup... However You Wanna Do This

2010-12-11T21:41:00.000-06:00

Hey there, everyone. I can't believe I've let over two weeks go by without posting. *facepalm*

I've got a card to show you, but first I just wanted to say "way to go!" to everyone who participated in the 365 Cards Vintage Love Blog Hop. You all came up with some flippin' AMAZING cards. But also, I wanted to say thanks to all of you who commented on my blog with the things that you are thankful for. Some of the stories you shared were so touching. I see so many of your names all across Blog-land, but it's kinda cool to learn one more little thing about the person behind the link :-)

Okay, so here's my card for the Day 284 challenge from Thursday. The challenge was to create a card with two pockets. You can interpret that just about any way you want, but here's what I came up with:

Kinda cute, huh? lol. The stickers are from E.A.D. Designs. I actually managed to create a SVG file to cut this with my Cricut. It needs to be tweaked a bit, but if I ever get around to it, I'll share the file with y'all.

Again, I know this is late, but you still have a little time to play along. You have until Sunday at midnight to get your cards linked up!

We've got a bunch of fun stuff to talk about today, but first of all,

2010-11-25T00:00:00.019-06:00

Happy Thanksgiving!

It's Thanksgiving Day in the U.S. Which means some of us will be doing our card-making while we watch the parade (or maybe the football game) on TV :-) I know I have so much to be thankful for, but one HUGE thing this year is that my brother arrived safely back to the states from Afghanistan last week-- He's still in California for a couple more weeks, but we're looking forward to having him here at home for Christmas! Yayyy!!

And now, on to the main event...

365 Cards Vintage Week Blog Hop

If you're just now joining us, go ahead and click on the link above to go back to the beginning. It will take you to the 365 Cards blog where you can get the details on how to navigate through this week-long blog hop and find out all the ways you can be entered to win some fabulous Graphic 45 prizes (brought to you by our very own DT member, Gloria!).

If you've already been hopping along with us, your last stop should have been Kim's blog.

Now finally, here's my card for today:

The challenge for today, and your ninth "ingredient" for the recipe challenge on Saturday, is: A dimensional sticker. On my card, I used the clock sticker by Jolee's. I've had it forever. It was nice to finally have a reason to use it :-) I really love the look of vintage-style cards, but it's always so hard for me to do!! I tend to take a "less is more" approach to my cards. Vintage is kinda like... "more is better." Ha ha. It's been so much fun looking at what you guys have come up with so far this week. Can't wait to see what you do for today's challenge!

One more way to earn another chance for one of the awesome prizes is by commenting on this post. But since it's Thanksgiving and all, I'm going to make it a little more specific... Leave a comment below answering this question:

What are you thankful for?

It doesn't have to be a sappy answer :-) I'll take cute, funny and clever, too! Haha. Tomorrow, whenever you come out of your food coma, come back and check out your next stop on the hop:

Sophie's Blog

Just Relax

2010-11-18T05:00:00.032-06:00

So today's post revolves around something that is near and dear to my heart: Nap time. And I don't even mean MY nap time. I work in a preschool, so that hour and a half (ish) is precious... assuming they actually get quiet. Lol.

For today's challenge at 365 Cards, I've created a card based on the theme "nap time."

Personally, I don't take naps. I can't fall asleep during the day. BUT I definitely like to get some "relaxing" time in. For me that usually means some time at my craft table or browsing my YouTube subscriptions :-) How do you relax?

In other fabulous news, next week at 365 Cards we're having a blog hop! There will be some awesome prizes and all kinds of fun, so keep checking back for those details :-)

BOiNG!

2010-11-04T05:00:00.068-05:00

Good morning, Blogger peeps :-)
I'm super excited about the cards that I get to share with you today because I think they turned out so flippin' cute! The challenge for Day 249 at 365 Cards is to create a coil pop-up card. For those of you who have seen this before, it's waaaay easier than it looks. If you don't know what I'm talking about, take a look...

This is actually the second card I made, but you can see the coils easier, so I'll show you that one first:

To make the coil, all you do is start with a circle and cut it into a spiral from the outside, almost all the way to the center. For me, the trickiest part was figuring out how big of a circle to start with and then how wide to cut the coil. On both cards I used a 2-inch circle for the main coil. The smaller coil on the butterfly card was made from a 1.5-inch circle. I found that somewhere between 1/8th and 1/4th of an inch works for the width. Too much bigger and it's not as "springy". Too much smaller and it doesn't hold anything.

For the next card I used acetate for the coil. I think it looks kind of cool with the leaves. Also, I really hate when I use acetate and I can see the glue, so I usually try to cover it up. In this case, I cut mirrored versions of the die cuts and sandwiched the coil between them.

I'll also mention this: In order for the card to lay flat, the coil has to line up. To make sure mine was lined up, I glued one end on the bottom of the card, then let the coil lay flat. Then I put glue on the end that would be attached to the top and closed the card. When I opened it, the top end was positioned right where it needed to be. (Hope that makes sense... :-P)

Okay, well, I think that's enough blah-blah-blah from me! I'm telling you-- this was SO much fun. Go give it a try and then link it up RIGHT HERE!

Wonderful Watercolors

2010-10-28T16:22:00.000-05:00

The the challenge at 365 Cards for Day 242 is to color an image (or two) using only watercolors! Now, I don't know about you, but the only watercolors I have around are the ones with 8 colors in that little yellow tray. I had and idea of what I wanted it to look like, so I had to mix some of the colors to get the shade I was looking for, but this is what I ended up with:

My card base is Bazzill Swiss Dots. I burned the edges of the brown paper for just a little extra "something." The digi image is from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps, our sponsor for this week.

This has to be a quickie post as I'm on my way back out to work again, but I hope you go play along with us HERE. I'd love to stop by your blog :-)

Thanks for looking!!

Makeover!

2010-10-21T05:00:00.003-05:00

Hey there, friends. I tried to spruce this blog up for fall with a new background and some fall-ish colors. Whaddya think?

I've got a new card for you today for 365 Cards' challenge. Day 235 is a Pick 3: Three patterns, three colors and three embellishments. Our sponsor for this week is Catherine Pooler. <-- Click to check out her website full of fun ideas and awesome Stampin' Up products :-) Here's what I came up with for the challenge:

Your turn! Go take a peek at the other fabulous creations from this week and then jump in a try a challenge or two... or seven :-)

2010-10-13T22:48:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone! I've got some serious writer's block. So while I would normally attempt at least one funny thought, I find myself at a loss for anything clever to say. And we all know that "if you don't have anything clever to say, don't say anything at all." Or at least, I think that's how it goes... uhh... Let's move on.

Today's challenge at 365 Cards is to create a card using two techniques: Sponging and sanding.

For the background, I crinkled up the kraft paper, flattened it back out, then lightly "sanded" it with an emery board. It gives it a cool suede-like texture. I did the sponging around the edges with a wedge cut out of a kitchen sponge. Sometimes you just gotta work with what you have, y'know?

Alright, now it's your turn! Prickley Pear is sponsoring this week of challenges, so play along and rock those challenges ;-)

\m/_ (-_-) _\m/

Yay for Fall!

2010-10-07T23:08:00.000-05:00

Omygosh, you guys! I love fall!! It has been absolutely gorgeous this week. I love jacket and sweater weather :-) Plus, the colors of the season are awesome...

The challenge for today at 365 Cards is a DIY challenge to create your own patterned paper. This a challenge that's been done before, but this time it's got a twist-- it has to be harvest-themed.

Here's my card:

Since I was using a digi-stamp, it was pretty easy to create the background paper. And since I wasn't about to hand-color a bazillion little pumpkins, I went ahead and colored the image in Photoshop before duplicating it. I rotated the image several times and then just sort of placed them where they fit. I didn't want the pumpkins in the background to "pop" quite as much as the front image, so I adjusted the transparency just a smidge. To finish it off, lots of distressing ink!

It's been a very, very long day, so I'm off to bed! If you haven't already, go check out the challenges for this week, sponsored by The Character Cafe :-)

F-F-F-Fun

2010-09-30T23:58:00.001-05:00

Hey there peeps! It's Thursday! (Well, it is as I begin to type this entry, but we'll see if I actually finish it before midnight. Probably not. I've already restarted this twice. But anyway....) Thursday means it's my turn again to show y'all what's up over at 365 Cards.

Today our challenge is to use these three "F's": Fabric, Fringe and Floss. This one was super challenging for me! First of all, those are three things that I don't use very often. And then even what I did have didn't necessarily go together. But you know how that goes... you just keep experimenting and hope you come up with something spiffy.

Here's what I finally came up with:

I've got the red embroidery floss, some red fabric that I cut into a strip and then twisted. For the "fringe" I just used my CutterBee scissors and veeeeery carefully cut the black paper. I think it worked out pretty well. I absolutely love the "Lantern Rin" stamp from Sparkle Creations-- in fact, they're all really cute, so I hope you'll go check out the other designers' cards from this week! OH, and as a bonus, the little tag is from the Pagoda Cricut cartridge-- it means "friend." Extra "F" points!! :-)

Check me out... it's 11:58. Hehe.

Taking Care of Business

2010-09-24T22:48:00.000-05:00

Hello, dear Blogger-friends! I hope that this has been a pleasant, peaceful week for you. I, for one, am glad that the weekend is here. It's been yet another busy week at school, followed up by a few hours of watching the kiddos at church tonight.

Yesterday, Pam's challenge for us was to create a business card! The idea is to create a card with your information that you can pass along, but rather than your typical card, this can be a little more personalized by actually creating a small sample of the work that you do. To give you all an idea of what we're talking about, this is what I came up with:

I kept the info to a minimum on this one. Right now, my blog is the main place where I send people who want to see what I do. I'd love to see what you would do with this challenge-- make sure to hop on over to the 365 Cards blog and play along!!

Have a fantastic weekend!

2010-09-18T12:36:00.001-05:00

Well, all of my plans for this weekend have completely changed. Sometimes that's not such a bad thing. I was supposed to be going on another retreat with my church's student ministry, but I've had this scratchy throat thing creeping up on me all week. Then yesterday, when I woke up, I had almost no voice at all. Then, by the time I was greeting the kids at school, I was starting to sound a bit like Macy Gray. By the afternoon, my Macy impression was dead-on. Lol. It was a rough day at school, so I was just completely worn out and feeling not-so-wonderful. I decided that if I went on the retreat, I was just going to be miserable and not much fun anyway. And having no voice when you're in charge of a bunch of 8th grade girls is no bueno!

So instead, I got to see the family for a few minutes before going to work for a couple of hours. I made it home early enough for a game of Apples to Apples with my cousin, aunt and momma. It was quite fun :-) Then I went to bed and totally crashed. I woke up with Macy syndrome again :-( But at least I can just chill.

Okay, enough whining... The real reason that I'm posting is to show you my card for Thursday's challenge-- we're already past the 200th day at 365 Cards!! How crazy is that? The challenge is to use 4 different stamps on your card, making sure that at least 2 of them are images. Here's what I came up with:

Four stamps sounded like a lot to me at first, but once I started working on it, that really didn't seem like too big of a deal. The hardest part for me was to find stamps that actually looked good together. I ended up using the bird (which is from our sponsor this week, DRS Designs), the flower, the Italian background stamp, and the little, tiny "miss you." I have a lot of stamps, but I also have a feeling that my stash looks like a handful compared to the selection that I know some of you out there have. I mean, mine fit in one box. Haha. But thankfully these worked out pretty well :-)

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you'll hop on over and join us at 365 Cards!

Color and Dimension... and Mice in the Jam

2010-09-09T01:00:00.010-05:00

Hello Blogger-friends! Happy Thursday, once again. We've survived another week! For my friends here in the States, I hope you all had a lovely Labor Day weekend. We had some awesome weather here. My sisters and I lit up a bonfire in the backyard and had a couple of friends over. It was so much fun :-) And since no one had to be at school or work the next morning, we were outside until about 3 a.m. We even ran out of firewood! But that didn't stop us. Earlier that afternoon, we'd seen a stack of wood on the curb a few blocks away. So a quick trip around 1 a.m. solved that problem. Lol.

Today I've got a card to show you for the challenge over at 365 Cards. Click on the link to view the details!

I love coloring with markers. Especially new markers ;-) The ones I use on my cards, most of the time, are a set of Prismacolor permanent markers that my dad used a bajillion years ago. They sat up in a closet for the longest time and then, a couple of years ago, I adopted them.

Another thing I did on this card was use foam squares. I never used to do a lot of layered or dimensional stuff when I first started making cards. But recently I find myself using them on EVERYTHING. Haha. My only problem is that sometimes even the 1/8" squares are a little too thick for my taste. So in some cases (like today's card) I'll split each square into two layers. You get more "pop" for your money and the card still fits in the envelope! *clapping*

Okay peeps, I've gotta get to sleep now (cuz it's still Wednesday night as I'm typing this)!! See y'all soon... I'm shooting for at least one more post this week!

Ad Inspired

2010-09-02T21:20:00.000-05:00

Happy Thursday! Thursday used to be my least favorite day of the week... now I think it's turning into my favorite. It's the only day where I don't have anything major to do. I don't really have anything on Mondays either, but it's the beginning of the work week, so it's tainted.

ALSO, it being Thursday means that I need to tell y'all about the challenge for today at 365 Cards! I really enjoy ad-inspired challenges, and that's exactly what I've got for you today...

Here's our inspiration piece from Pier1:

And here's my take on it:

When I saw this ad I knew exactly what paper I was going to use. I've had this last little piece of embossed paper by K&Company forever. It's so pretty and now I finally knew what to do with it. The only problem was that it was an off-white color and I needed gold. Thankfully, I've got some metallic acrylic paints. I just used a little bit of paint on a dry brush to cover the paper. It took a few coats, but I didn't want to get it too soggy and mess up the embossing. If you're able to see the large version of the photo, you can kind of see the brush strokes which gives it a little bit of an antique-y look.

Can't wait to see what you all come up with!! Thanks for stopping by :-)

Lovely... Most of the time ;-)

2010-09-01T18:00:00.000-05:00

Hello my friends! How are you this fine (cloudy, gray, wet) Wednesday afternoon? Hehe.

On Monday, Scrap It With a Song kicked off yet another song-inspired challenge with "Isn't She Lovely" by Stevie Wonder. Can you believe we're on week #20 already?? It's gone by super fast and I've been so honored to be a part of the DT with a lovely group of talented ladies. But, as I've been trying to burn into the brains of my little 4-yr-old charges, we have to share and take turns and let another fabulous group of designers take over :-) That being said, this is my last project as a member of the DT, but I think I'll definitely be playing along in the future!

After spending so much time looking through hundreds of beautiful scrapbook layouts on the Scrap It With a Song challenges, I decided to try creating my own. I haven't made a scrapbook page in a LONG time, but this idea was in my head and I really wanted to make it! This project features my little sister, Gina Marie, as a precocious 4-year-old. She's 16 now. Back in the day we used to call her "Gina Marie Princess." Now we just lovingly refer to her as "turdy-head" because we're SO mature ;-) Lol.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by! Hope to see you playing along this week!!

Warm Wishes

2010-08-26T21:25:00.000-05:00

Hellooo again, friends. Two posts in one day!

This time I'd like to share with you my card for today's "White Space" challenge at 365 Cards. These kinds of challenges are always a little... ummm... challenging. LOL. But they're fun! ;-)

Here's the white space sketch...

And my card...

The "warmest wishes" sentiment is from this week's sponsor, KLM Designs. They have some super cute digi images, so make sure you check them out and then hop on over to 365 Cards and share your take on the challenge :-)

This whole 5 a.m. thing is gonna kill me...

2010-08-26T20:47:00.001-05:00

*Yawn*

Hey guys! Didja miss me? This week has been quite an adjustment. Monday was the first day of school, so that means it's back to work for me. Last year I was the aftercare person, so I only worked a few hours in the evening. THIS year I'm working full time and I'm opening in the morning, so I have to wake up at ungodly hours. But that's not really the tricky part. I'm usually a night owl, and that's when I did all of my card making. So I'm just working on rearranging my schedule ;-)

In all of the craziness leading up to the first day of school, I didn't get a chance to show you my card for the challenge at Scrap It With a Song this week. When I first watched the video for "Summertime", I definitely LOL'd. But you just gotta love The Fresh Prince ;-) My card is super simple, but I just really like the green striped paper:

Your turn! You still have until Sunday at noon to upload your creations-- can't wait to see them!

Take Two

2010-08-19T00:38:00.000-05:00

Hey everybody :-)

I am SO tired! I'm still trying to work on the aftercare room at school. We're so close to being done, but the open house is tonight! Yikes. I'm ready for school to start. I need to get back on a schedule.

Anywho, it's time to show you my card for today's challenge at 365 Cards! Here's the deal: Take a card that either you didn't finish or weren't totally happy with and redo it. Turn "blegh" into "beautiful!"

So about this time last year, I made this card:

I didn't really love it when I made it and it's been sitting in my "salvage" shoebox ever since. For the challenge I pulled off the sentiment, the flower and the whole dark pink layer. (I had to fight with it a little bit, but I was finally able to get it off :-) So that left me with just the pink base. Then I decided to recreate the glittery edges, but this time on a white layer. That worked a LOT better for me. With a new ribbon and this super cute bird stamp from Robyn's Fetish, it looks like a whole new project!

Okay, I gotta wrap this up before I fall asleep on my laptop... again. Lol. I can't wait to see what you all come up with for this challenge!

2010-08-16T13:09:00.000-05:00

Hello blogger friends! I'm kinda proud of this card I'm sharing with you today. I just really, really like how it turned out. Sometimes I have a great idea but, once I get started, I end up having to tweak change my design. But every once in a while you have that project that comes together just like it looked in your head. And that's awesome.

It's Monday, so it's time for yet another challenge from Scrap It With a Song. This week we're scrappin' to "Get Here" by Oleta Adams. It's a pretty song-- I'd never heard it before this challenge. My sentiment is straight from the lyrics of the song...

The lovely couple is cut from the "Sweethearts" Cricut cartridge (which my momma found on CLEARANCE! yay) and I absolutely love it.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you come on over and play along with us :-)

I tell ya, if my head wasn't attached...

2010-08-12T15:24:00.000-05:00

*sigh* It's been one of those weeks, ya know? I've got a few projects that I've been trying to finish up before I go back to work. It seems like all of a sudden, the days started picking up speed!! Plus-- and I know this never happens to anyone else-- it's one of those weeks where it seems like just when you thought you did the dumbest thing you could possibly do, you do something else that's just... dumber. Haha... oh geez. I read this quote online and it seems to be my life motto:

""He who laughs at himself never runs out of things to laugh at."

~ Epictetus

That old greek guy had some pretty good insights. I'm grateful that I have that sense of humor that allows me to laugh at myself. If not in the moment, then at least in retrospect :-)

All that to say, here is my DT project for 365 Cards:

Today we're making Artist Trading Cards! I've seen them, but I've never made one before. The beauty of ATC's is that they can be any style, use any medium, as long as it fits onto a 2.5" x 3.5" canvas! I can't wait to see what everyone else has up their sleeves. I hope you'll play along-- someone's gonna be getting some fabulous goodies from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps at the end of the week, so check it out! :-)

A Jeans and T-Shirt Kind of Girl

2010-08-10T10:29:00.000-05:00

Hi friends! It's Tuesday. That means I forgot to set up a post for yesterday's Scrap It With a Song reveal. *palm face* Better late than never. (<--- I hate that saying. Lol.)

Okay, so this week our song of inspiration is "With You" by Jessica Simpson. It's been a loooong time since I've listened to any of Jessica Simpson's stuff. You'll see that my card doesn't have a sentiment, but the idea behind it is from the line "The real me is a southern girl with her Levis on..." So the girl on this card is wearing actual Levis :-) I had a pair that was on it's way to the trash anyway, so I saved a small piece for the card:

I have to keep this short-- I've got to go up to school and work on finishing up one of the rooms before the open house next week. AAHHH!! It's gonna come up so fast! But I'm kind of excited :-)

Y'all have a fabulous day. Check back on Thursday for a new project, and don't forget to upload your awesome creations at Scrap It With a Song this week!

Yay, yay, yay!

2010-08-05T01:42:00.000-05:00

Okay guys, I've got a super fun announcement for you today! :-D

Today I get to reveal my card for my first week as member of the 365 Cards design team!! YAY! Lol... I'm kind of excited. Can you tell? I love playing along with these ladies and getting so many ideas and inspiration from everyone who joins in. I don't know how Pam manages to come up with a new challenge for every day of the year, but she does. And it's awesome. And I'm so honored to be a part of it :-)

SO, without anymore rambling from me...

This is "card recipe" week, so today's ingredients are:

5x5 Card

2 3x3 Patterned Papers

Sentiment

1 Image (stamped, fussy cut, digi, whatever)

2 Buttons

Since everyone's starting to get into that "back-to-school" mode, I chose this super cute digi stamp from Meljen's Designs. I colored the image in Photoshop before printing. Normally I enjoy coloring by hand but, on this occasion, my coloring was particularly atrocious. Haha.

Well, thanks for stopping by! Can't wait to see what you come up with :-)

You Got Me Flying

2010-08-02T11:50:00.000-05:00

Hi there, friends! I sure hope you all have had a wonderful week. This past week has been pretty rainy, but it took a break on Thursday night so I could go see The Sound of Music at the Muny with my sisters. Only two more shows left! This summer has gone by so fast.

It's Monday-- and you know what that means! (Right?) There's a new challenge over at Scrap It With a Song, and our song for this week is "This Kiss" by Faith Hill. There are some great lyrics to work with. Make sure you go check out the projects from the rest of the DT, too! Here's what I did:

Obviously, this is a love song, but I have so many love-themed cards already and I just don't use them. So this time I wanted to do something a little different. The kite and the front cloud are on foam squares to add a little dimension. I scored the lines on the kite, but they're a little hard to see in the photo. The kite string is a piece of hemp cord, with some white satin ribbon tied on the tail.

Whaddya think? If you've got an idea, come sing along with us at Scrap It With a Song! Our sponsor for this week is...

The winner of this week's challenge will get a $20 gift certificate to the store! Click on the logo above to do some pre-shopping :-)

Scrap It With a Song reveal

2010-07-27T14:31:00.000-05:00

So I'm a little late getting this up. Oops.

Yesterday, we kicked off yet another week of this sing-along challenge. This time, our song is "Somewhere Over the Rainbow." The version we're working with is by Katherine McPhee. I remember watching her sing this on the only season of American Idol that I ever watched from beginning to end. Haha.

The lyric I chose to use on my card is "... and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true."

I really love this song. My goal here was to do something OTHER than a rainbow. That was harder than I thought. Haha.

Thanks for stopping by! Now go on and check out the Scrap It With a Song blog and join us for this week's challenge :-)

Cookin' Up Some Punny Stuff

2010-07-21T16:02:00.000-05:00

*If you're looking for my card for 365 Cards, it's down toward the bottom!*

Hey there blogger-friends! It's been a while since I've done a regular ol' "hey, look at this!" post. This summer has been shaping up to be a pretty fun one so far. I had a couple of goals that I made for myself, and I'm well on my way to meeting those! The first one was to make cards to send in to Operation Write Home. I picked up a medium-sized box at the post office the other day to see how close I was to actually filling it-- and I'm about half way there!

Oh, and speaking of cards (ummm... duh, what else would we be speaking about on here?), I added a couple of links over there on the sidebar. Take a second and check out Susie's blog, where I was a featured stamper. She has some great stuff to share! ---->>

My other goal was to see every show at the Muny this season. Three down, four to go. I've seen Beauty and the Beast, Titanic: The Musical and Damn Yankees. I don't know if there's any other place like the Muny, but it's definitely one of my favorite attractions during the summer. Because it's an outdoor theater (and because St. Louis weather is kind of ridiculous) it's a bit of a hit-or-miss situation with the rain. This is the first year that I've gone and a show actually got rained out. My whole family went to see Titanic a couple of weeks ago. They were predicting storms for that particular night, but we decided to go anyway, in hopes that any rain would be over with before the show was supposed to start. Besides, we always do the free seats, so it's not like we were gonna lose money on tickets or anything. No such luck. It rained from the time we arrived until well into the evening when they finally canceled the show at 9:30. Oh well :-) We had fun anyway-- This was our view from the free seats:

I ended up going a few nights later with a friend.
She had tickets.
They were really close.
It was awesome.
"Cats" is showing this week... I've never seen the show before, so I'm looking forward to it.

SO... finally, I've got a card to share with you. This one is for today's challenge over at 365 Cards. The challenge is to create a card with something related to the cooking of food. Well, it just so happens that I recently picked up some super cute stickers at Archivers for exactly this purpose. I was fishing through the "hot spot" corner and I said to myself, "There's always some kind of food-related challenge and I never have anything for it... I'll buy these." And whaddya know! Hehe.

HAHA. I love puns. When I started making this, my original idea was that it could be used as a belated birthday card. But it kinda works as any kind of apology card.

Also, I made this card LAST week, but never got around to posting it to the challenge...

This one was for 365 Cards' "Imagine This: Chalkboard" challenge. It's almost back-to-school time! I'll be back at work in almost exactly one month. *sigh* It's gonna go so fast.

Hope y'all are having a fabulous week!! Thanks for stopping by :-)

L-O-V-E

2010-07-19T13:53:00.001-05:00

Ahh, love. Love, love, love.

I love love. Love is lovely.

All you need is love. Love. Love is all you need.

Oh wait, wrong song...

Ha.

Okay, seriously now. Today is Monday, which means I'm still single! No... wait... that's not right. It means it's time for a new song challenge at Scrap it With a Song!

(Good heavens, what did I drink this morning? I'm in a really weird mood.)

Our song of inspiration for this week is "L-O-V-E" as sung by Nat "King" Cole. I absolutely lo... uh... extremely like this song. Lol. Here's the card I created...

I found the "L-O-V-E" stamp in the dollar bin, and the paper on clearance at Michaels. I love when that happens!!

I sure hope you'll come join us for this week's challenge! Our sponsor is our very own Angela aka Toucan Scraps-- check out the link below to browse her store.

It's already Monday again?

2010-07-12T18:56:00.000-05:00

I'm not entirely sure where these days go. As I'm sitting here, scrolling through my blog list, I realized that I completely forgot to set up a post for today's Scrap It With a Song reveal!

This week our song is "Happy Together" by The Turtles. For my card I just decided to go with the title as my inspiration. Also, I was itching to use the Paper Dolls Dress-Up cartridge that I got for my birthday. Here's what I came up with:

Gotta be honest with ya here, not my favorite card ever, but I really like the paper dolls. I added some extra stuff on the bride with a little rhinestone for her necklace and some ribbon on her dress. I left the groom pretty much alone, except for a really thin layer of diamond glaze on his shoes. The other tricky thing about this card is that their legs extend over the edge of the heart-shaped base, so you have to make a second set of "bottoms" for the back. Otherwise they look a little indecent :-) Hehe.

SOoooOO... Now that you've seen what I cam up with, why don't you hop on over to check out the rest of the DT's creations and maybe even take a stab at it yourself!

Also, the winner of this weeks challenge will receive three digi-stamps from PaperMom.com at Shop Handmade. Click the banner below to check it out!

Hope to see you there! Peace out :)

America the Beautiful

2010-07-05T10:37:00.000-05:00

Happy Monday, my peeps! For those of you who have an extra day off work today, I hope you have a chance to use a part of it for some crafty time :-)

It's challenge time again at Scrap It With a Song! Our song this week is "America the Beautiful." Now, for those of you who are from all over the globe, never fear-- there are all kinds of things to pull from in this song!

My card is based off of the line about "purple mountains majesty." I used chalks to draw the mountains and the sun, then I went over a few parts with an eraser to add some more detail. I printed "Beautiful" on a sheet of acetate and mounted it over the drawing. The picture isn't great... the chalks are pretty light and hard for the camera to really pick up, but you get the idea ;-)

I hope you'll play along with us this week! CLICK HERE to go to the challenge :-)

Well, Now that's just cool :-)

2010-07-04T00:45:00.000-05:00

So guess what, friends! I'm done with my June craziness!!! That means I should be back into the swing of things pretty soon. I have SO missed hanging out on the blogs with you all.

Today at 365 Cards, they're kicking off a celebration after reaching 1000+ followers. It's also a reader appreciation week, of sorts, and the super cool thing is that they asked ME to be a part of it!! So today, along with four other fabulously talented ladies, I got to create a card for this week's Super Sketchy Sunday:

Isn't it a fun sketch? I'm thinking you should definitely head on over to 365 Cards and, at the very least, check out the rest of the cards from the guest designers! And THEN, play along. Because I said so ;-)

For those of you in these United States of America, celebrating Independence Day-- Have lovely, safe, fun and fabulous weekend!

OH yeah, and if you haven't already, make sure you go check out the "blog tour" over on the OWH Stars & Stamps blog. I didn't ever get a chance to get a post set up for it as I'd hoped, but there's so many great cards to see!! Go check it out. Click the button on the top right of my blog.

OH geez.

2010-06-28T23:50:00.000-05:00

Well friends, it's Monday again... Wait. Wasn't it Monday, like, yesterday? This past week has been WEIRD. It's been one of those that zooms past so slowly... if you know what I mean. I've been going non-stop since last time I posted!! I haven't even had a chance to go through the entries from last week, but it's time for another challenge from Scrap It With a Song!

This week, our song is "I Can See Clearly Now" as recorded by Jimmy Cliff. Here's the card I created:

For this card I stuck with simple shapes and lost of bright colors. If you look back at some of my first cards that I posted on this blog, this is the kind of thing you'll see. I love punching out different shapes and piecing them together to make images like these.

I hope you'll stop by and check out the other creations by the rest of the DT, and maybe play along with us!

I just have to make it through the rest of this week and then July is gonna be a blast! Can't wait :-)

Also, keep an eye out for my post this weekend for the OWH Independence Day Blog Tour!

I think that's all, folks. I've gotta get to bed before I crash here on the kitchen table!

"I'm feelin' like a star, you can't stop my shine..."

2010-06-21T12:00:00.009-05:00

Ahh, just what I needed: Another song stuck in my head ;-)

**I was gonna post this yesterday, but there were some technical difficulties over at Scrap It With a Song that kept the new challenge from being posted. I've got this set up to auto-post, so hopefully all of that has been taken care of by now and everything is there for you to see. If not, keep checking back!**

It's Week #10 at Scrap It With a Song and we have got a catchy tune for y'all to scrap to this week! But before I tell you about that, let me invite you check out our sponsor for this week-- Our very own DT member, Angela! Click on her logo below to check out her store:

The winner of this week's challenge will receive a pack of 6- 8x8 digital papers.

Okay, so our song for this week is "Ridin' Solo" by Jason Derulo. Here's what I came up with:

I thought something like this might be fun for a teen who just got their license. I drew the car myself in Illustrator since I didn't have any stamps I wanted to use. I used a piece of acetate for the windshield, then colored the car with Prismacolor art markers. Here's a close up, side-view to show how it's popped up from the card. I also used some dimensional glaze on the headlights for a little extra detail.

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you will consider hopping on over to Scrap It With a Song and playing along with us :-)

So... ummm.... Hey Guys!

2010-06-19T23:38:00.000-05:00

Or gals. Whichever you are. I'm guessing mostly gals.

Anywhoodles, I just felt like posting something, so here I am, rambling about nothing in particular. I feel like I should let you all know that in spite of the lack of posts over the last few days, I am making stuff. I just can't show you. Cuz it's, like, top secret and stuff ;-)

Tomorrow is Father's Day. Everyone's getting together at Grandma and Grandpa's house. When asked what he wanted for Father's Day, my grandpa replied that he just wanted "a little burrito." Hahahahaha. So we're having Mexican ;-) Then I think we're taking the Pops out to a movie later in the evening... Can't wait to see The Karate Kid. It looks like it'll be cool.

Ummm....

Oh yeah! For those of you who leave comments, I put the word verification thingy back on. I started getting some "comments" from some "companies" whose "products" I'm sure none of us are interested in... if ya know what I mean. So if you'll bear with me, I'll try taking it back off after a while.

Dum de dum de dumm....

How 'bout in lieu of a card, I'll just show you... umm... some pictures.

My and my cousin at her bro's baseball game.

Me... in my room... being dumb.

The "camel cricket" in our basement. I think it's still there. Ew.

And that is all. If I don't have anything new tomorrow, there will definitely be somethin' awesome to show you on Monday-- it will be Week #10 at Scrap It With a Song and it's gonna be fun! Hope you all have a chance to hop on over and join us :-)

I'm A Freakin' Clearance Ninja!

2010-06-16T00:32:00.002-05:00

"I'm a ninja!"
"No you're not."
"Did you see that?"
"See what?"
"Exactly."

I saw that on Facebook the other day and it made me actually LOL.

But ANYWAY, I was at Michael's today and they had some really cute paper on clearance. I got 12x12 patterned cardstock for 14 cents/sheet. It was awesome. Plus they had some great clear stamps in the dollar bins that I totally snatched up and I had a 50% off coupon which I used on a refill for my Xyron sticker maker. Needless to say, it was a great day. Haha.

I've got a card to share with you for Day 107 challenge at 365 Cards. The challenge was to use an argyle pattern, but the twist was that it had to represent "fabric" on the card. I used this rocking horse from the "Paper Doll Dress Up" cart. The idea was for it to look like one of those plushie-type rocking horses. I added the stitching to make it look a little more fabric-y.

I wasn't sure about the sentiment. My little sis said it looked like something for a baby card, but I liked the pun better ;-) But then I was thinking this could be used as a baby thank you card-- you know, like after a shower or something.

Lemme know what you think! Thanks so much for looking :-)

Fun Stuff!

2010-06-14T23:39:00.000-05:00

Two posts in one day... must've been a productive one, eh?

It's been a pretty great day in Bloggerland-- there's some fun stuff coming up in July and I won the drawing at 365 Cards for some goodies from The Cutting Cafe. Yay! Now I'm just chillaxin' and watching Kung Fu Panda with my sisters :-)

Today I got a couple cards completed for the last two challenges at 365 Cards. Day 105 is Super Sketchy Sunday. This was a really fun one to work with! Plus, I got to use up some patterned paper that I've been keeping for... who-knows-what. Lol.

For Day 106, the challenge is to stamp an image onto patterned fabric and incorporate it into the card. This one was tricky... I have quite a stash of fabric, but not much that would work for stamping on. Once I found some fabric, the next obstacle was finding a stamp that would go with it. This little baby onesie and the striped fabric were literally the only things that worked together. Haha. But the point is, it worked...

I actually kind of love this! Simple, but so cute.

Glad you took some time to stop by!

"I Could Not Ask For More"

2010-06-14T10:55:00.000-05:00

Monday's here! For those of us who are on a "summer break", this is okay. For those of you who still have to go to work... hang in there, friends. Friday's coming.

It's time for another challenge at Scrap It With a Song and our inspiration for this week is "I Could Not Ask For More" by Sara Evans. I really love this song :-) I also like the Aerosmith version, but it's not quite as... umm... "pretty". Lol. The sentiment on my card is based on the lyric, "everything you are is everything to me".

Sew Many Cards is our sponsor this time, and I had the pleasure of working with one of Angela's images for my card...

Isn't it cute? That bunny is super sweet. I used Prismacolor art markers to color the image.

Thanks for stopping by today! I hope you'll take some time to come play along with us this week :-)

Super quick!!!

2010-06-12T23:00:00.003-05:00

I'm gonna try to sneak this in really quick! I always forget that the deadlines are for EST... so it's usually too late, but I've got four minutes as I start this post. Lol.

This card is for Saturday's "Life's a Party" challenge at 365 Cards.

Oh man! So close... it's 11:01. haha.

----EDIT----

Umm... so.... it's Saturday. Not Sunday. I have plenty of time. lol. Hope everyone's having a fantastic weekend :-)

Hole-yness

2010-06-11T14:55:00.000-05:00

Hooray for Fridays and surprise days off! Except that I still have to work for a while tonight... ewwww. Since I didn't have to work this morning, I split the extra couple of hours between staying in bed and working at my craft table :-) I got a couple of cards finished, but I can only show you one for now...

This is for the "Peek a boo" challenge at 365 Cards. To play, you have to "cut out part of an image so that the color and/or pattern on the inside acts as part of the image." This teacup image is one that I created a while back when I did the acrostic challenge. This time I added the little tea taggie thing hanging out of the cup.

I kept the front pretty plain and simple...

... and I actually decorated the inside of the card, which is not something I usually do. The sentiment is a rub-on. You know, I find it amusing that for as much as I dislike the color orange, it's been popping up in my designs lately. Lol. And when I say "dislike," i just mean, "a lot less than all of the other colors." I've got nothin' against sunsets, oranges or goldfish. Hehe.

Well, I've got a couple more projects I wanna work on this afternoon, so I'm gonna keep this short. Thank you so much for stopping by!

Imma Bee, Imma Bee, Imma-Imma-Imma Bee...

2010-06-10T22:33:00.000-05:00

Just kidding. I'm a wasp. *UGH* I know. It's a terrible joke. But I crack up every time I hear it. Lol.

And now I've got The Black Eyed Peas stuck in my head. Good job, Hannah.

Anyways, the reason I'm singing this song is because that little bee stamp from yesterday's card is making an encore appearance in today's challenge for 365 Cards. For this challenge, "repetition is key." We have to "use a word and an image at least three times." I don't know why this one was so hard! It's not really a complicated challenge, but my brain was having a heck of a time turning the guidelines into ideas. This is what I ended up with:

It's SUPER simple, but I think I like it.

HA!! I did it! (Part One)

2010-06-10T01:25:00.001-05:00

At the risk of driving all of you completely bonkers, I've been playing catch up with the challenges at 365 Cards and not posting them as I go... So I have SIX cards sitting here, waiting to be revealed. Sheesh. I think I'm gonna split this up into two posts to make it easier. SO, here's the first few...

Day 96, Color Scheme

Green, Pink, Purple, Yellow and Orange

I had a really hard time getting started with this one. It's not my favorite, but the cupcake turned out kind of cute.

Day 97, Supersize It

Card dimensions = 8.5" x 5.5"

The reason I chose this sentiment is because I can't think of why you would need a gigantic card like this unless there were gonna be a whole bunch of people writing in it. Lol. But this is coming from a girl to like to keep things short and sweet. I know a couple people who could probably fill this whole thing up in no time ;-)

Day 98, Super Sketchy Sunday

Click the link to see the sketch!

This one is a little bit out of my usual style, I think. But I really like how it turned out. The green and gold color scheme is kind of neat. It looks more sparkly in person :-)

Thanks for taking a look! If you wanna go straight to part two, CLICK HERE.

HA!! I did it! (Part Two)

2010-06-10T01:24:00.001-05:00

Part Two of the super-long catch-up post! If you got here from a direct link, but you wanna see what else I've been working on this week, you could CLICK HERE if you want ;-)

Day 99, So Charm-ing
Create a charm out of paper.
I stamped the butterfly in this fabulously obnoxious orange ink, punched it out with a circle punch, then added diamond glaze for some dimension and shine. I love the colors on this one!!

Day 100, All Lined Up
Everything from embellishments to the sentiment lined up in rows. At least three items in each row.
I've got a row of three trees, then the dots and sentiment make a second line.

Day 101, Inchie x 10
Use at least ten "inchies" on your card.
This one was hard to do at first, but then once the idea finally clicked, it came together pretty quickly.

Thanks again for stopping by! Hope you have an excellent day :-)

Ho Hum.

2010-06-08T13:48:00.001-05:00

Today is just kind of blah. (Except for when I went shopping and got a couple of new shirts :-P) I need to stop anticipating the absolute SUCK of the rest of this day. It's gloomy and rainy outside, and while typically I would be spending this time at my craft table making all kinds of fun stuff, instead I'm stuck with the projects from you-know-where. Have you ever agreed to do a project and then as soon as you got started, realized that you really want nothing to do with it? That's where I'm at. *GROAN* I'm lacking some serious motivation this week.

Sorry to be such a downer today, but it's my party and I'll cry if I want to. Lol.

And anyway, on the flip side, I did remember that I had this card to post:

This one is for the current challenge at Everything But the Kitchen Sink. The challenge is to use nail polish on your project. A friend of mine gave me a whole bunch of goodies last week and there were these super cute butterfly-shaped buttons. But they were definitely the wrong colors for this card, so I painted one with some cool metallic blue nail polish.

Thanks for stopping by today and putting up with my "badditude" :-) Come back tomorrow-- I'll be in a better mood, I promise! Lol.

What Girls Want

2010-06-07T15:38:00.000-05:00

Fair people of Blogger-land, I trust this post finds you well :-) It's been another full weekend with wedding no. 4 and a trip to Springfield, MO. My sister and I made the 4-hour drive with a friend and we had a really good time.

And speaking of girls and good times, it's time for another challenge at Scrap It With a Song! This post is going up late since Blogger has been a butt for the last couple of days. *sigh* Oh well. Better late than never. The song for this week is "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" by Cyndi Lauper. Our sponsor is YourScrapbookStash.com, and the winner will receive a $25 gift certificate to their shop!!

For this card, I used my "Forever Young" Cricut cartridge. I just love those silhouettes. The "party" stamp is one that I've had in my stash for a long time and never had any reason to use. Hmmm.... I guess that means I need to start throwing more parties.Hehe. Girls nights are some of my favorite times EVER. Which reminds me, I gotta plan something for my birthday once my friends get all of this traveling out of their system ;-) I'm so bad at planning this stuff!! lol.

Thanks for stopping by today! Now that I can post, I'm hoping to get some new cards up tonight. Can't wait to see what you all make for the Scrap It challenge!

Learning Things About Myself

2010-06-03T17:48:00.003-05:00

There is quite an interesting challenge at 365 Cards today. To play along, you must create a card that reflects YOU. I knew this one wasn't gonna be easy. I don't even like when I have to write an "about me" paragraph for an online profile. Lol.

As I sat down to start making this card, I started thinking about what people who know me have said about me. One of the things my mom usually points out is that I'm a very "black and white" sort of thinker. (Ta-da! Color scheme!!) I tend to keep things short and sweet and pretty simple. I like things to have an order and a reason-- a pattern. (Bazinga!!) But at the same time, there's the creative side of me that loves spontaneity and doing silly things for no reason at all :-) To represent this part of me, I decided to interrupt the black and white with a shock of green. It's my favorite color. Except when it looks like pukey green, which it kind of does in the photo. In real life it's more of a lime green. Also, I decided to do a birthday card because guess what... my birthday is Monday!! Woo hoo! Party time.

While I was thinking about all this stuff, I started wondering whether I would consider myself a "right-brained" person or a "left-brained" person. People have told me that I'm very much like my mom (who, I would say, is definitely a left-brained thinker). But then just as many people have said that I'm like my dad, who is a graphic designer and artist and, I would say, tends to be more of a right-brained thinker. So out of morbid curiosity, I found and took this test. Turns out, I'm 49/51!!!! I laughed when I saw the results. It explains SO much. To borrow a line from the movie, Runaway Bride, "I am profoundly and irreversibly screwed up." LOL. Just kidding... sort of.

Haha. Thanks for stopping by today!

Three-In-One

2010-06-02T16:17:00.000-05:00

Happy hump day! Today has been kind of nice... a little gloomy and thunder-stormy, but I like storms. I got a haircut, finally. You should've seen the pile of hair on the floor at the salon. I would like to take this moment to thank the creator of thinning shears. They're those scary looking scissors that look like this:

I have super thick hair so, just about every time I get it cut, I have them chomp through the layers with these babies. It feels so much lighter!!

Anyway, who cares about my hair... let's get on to my card for today...

Today at 365 Cards it's kind of a pick-your-own-challenge deal. Per the guidelines, my card is based on three different challenges. One from the month of March (Day 8, Imagine This: Outer Space); one from April (Day 53, Front, Back and Everything in Between); and one from May (Day 62, Look Who's Talking).

I kept the inside and back really simple, since the whole point of these cards is for the men and women to be able to write their own messages ;-)

Well, I'm off! Thanks for stopping by :-)

What a great weekend :-)

2010-06-01T16:34:00.000-05:00

This weekend is definitely on the top 10 list of fabulous weekends. Except for an unexpected misadventure on the way, the wedding I photographed on Saturday went pretty well. It was simple, fast, and I had my sis with me as a my back-up, so I feel like we did a pretty good job. Sunday was a full day as always, but not stressful. Family from Georgia was in town for the wedding I mentioned, so we spent part of the evening visiting with them. My 14-year-old cousin and I started talking about dancing at weddings and parties, and we decided that we should have our own dance party at my Grandma's house on Memorial Day.

So we did.

OH. My. Goodness. We had so much fun. Now, most of you won't realize why this was so ridiculous. My family are not dancers. Not really, anyway. We apparently can, but we don't. I've always watched and figured I could do it, but until recently, never bothered to try. So, my cousin, sister and I spent a while making sure we knew all the steps for the Electric Slide, Cha Cha Slide and the Cupid Shuffle. Once we had them down, we talked the aunts and even my grandma into doing it with us. Lol. It was so funny.

Another great thing is that I've had some time to spend making some cards last night and this morning. I've really missed playing along with one of my favorite challenges, but school is finally out and some of my other projects are out of the way. Here are my cards for this week's challenges at 365 Cards:

Day 91, Super Sketchy Sunday

This weekend also kicks off my summer project, which is to get some cards sent to OWH. Just a really simple note card, for starters. ;-)

Day 92, Tissue Paper

This one makes me laugh at myself. :-P I was having a really hard time figuring out how to incorporate tissue paper into my card design. I thought about flowers and I found some tutorials with some really pretty ideas, but I'm trying to keep them somewhat flat for OWH shipping purposes. I thought about using some kind of decoupage-type technique, but it just wasn't working like I wanted it to. It wasn't until I had just about had it, and I went to wad up a piece of tissue paper to throw it away that I kind of simultaneously crinkled it and twisted it and it look kinda cool!

There are some small rhinestones around the waist of the dress for some extra sparkle. The camera didn't quite catch them.

Day 93, Clowning Around

Okay, this one made me laugh too. I've mentioned before that my mother is a clown. She's been doing it for a while now and just "graduated" in May as a full-fledged "Joey." Yeah, it's waaaaay more complicated than you'd think. Lol.

It just so happens that she and some of her "clown friends" are hosting an appreciation dinner for the "mentor clowns," and they asked me to make some invitations. So that's what I worked on for today's challenge...

The clown's nose is a dot from some red, felt alpha-stickers that I had purchased for another project that ended up being too big.

Thanks for stopping by today and reading what has turned out to be a rather wordy post! I love reading your comments!!

So Stinkin' Proud :-)

2010-05-31T01:00:00.003-05:00

Hello, dear people of Blogger-land! Monday has arrived once again. Which means... drum roll, please... Another new challenge at Scrap It With a Song!

This week, our inspiration song is "I Hope You Dance" as recorded by Lee Ann Womack. Here's my DT card:

The "dance" theme was pretty stuck in my head, but I didn't have any images to use. I found a couple digi stamps online that I liked, but didn't really want to spend the $$ on it right now. So I drew one myself. I'm please with the way it turned out. Not sure what I'm gonna do with these digis that I've been making, but as soon as I figure it out, I'll let you know ;-)

I hope you will hop on over and play along with us! Our sponsor for this week is:

The winner will receive a £10 gift certificate for their shop!

And now, since it's Memorial Day here in the the US, I get to brag for a minute :-)

Both of my grandpas (one of whom passed away a few years ago) and my "little" brother (who is currently serving in Afghanistan) are Marines. I also have an aunt and uncle who served in the Air Force. For those of you who are celebrating with your families this weekend, I would just encourage you to take a second (or two... or more...) to remember the men and women who not only served in our military, but who have made the ultimate sacrifice. Keep their families in your prayers this Memorial Day!

All Sorts of Bloggy Goodness

2010-05-29T23:43:00.000-05:00

Hey there everyone! Just wanted to make a quick post and encourage you all to check out the Memorial Day blog hop going on at Operation Write Home "Stars & Stamps". There are something like 150 participants with awesome cards, tips, ideas and BLOG CANDY! :-) I'm not in the hop, but I think these gals have a great thing going here and I'm planning on making it a summer project to get some cards sent in. So go check it out,

STARTING HERE.

And just for the heck of it, here's a card that I made a while ago and never posted:

Check back on Monday for a new challenge from Scrap It With a Song and some good sappy stuff in honor of Memorial Day :-)

Should I Cry Or Dance For Joy?

2010-05-27T22:40:00.000-05:00

Well, today has been a little bittersweet for me. It was the last day of aftercare at the preschool where I work. I'm looking forward to an awesome summer break, but I sure am going to miss those little boogers :-)

Yesterday they called all of the kids together and they gave us a card (signed by all of the kids) and a gift. It was super sweet. Then one of the teachers (who happens to be my aunt) asked them, "Now, what is the most special gift you can give to Miss Hannah and Miss Julie?"

Halie: "A puppy!"

No.

Shaili: "A kitten?!"

Uh, no.

Kadyn: "A SNAKE!"

Definitely no. Correct answer: A hug. And say "thank you." But it sure was funny. Haha.

Here are a couple of cards that I made for a few of the teachers that we see everyday:

On the insides, I used these super-cute stamps by Inkadinkadoo:

I think these are funny anyway, but when you work with little kids you realize-- Yeah, they really do say stuff like that!

Taking Notes

2010-05-25T02:02:00.000-05:00

I've said before that I love weddings. And it's still true. I've been to three so far this year and I've got three more at least. My sister and I are always taking mental notes of the dos and don'ts and ideas. It's always fun to see how completely different and unique each event is. Today's card is for one of these occasions.

I used this week's sketch at 2 Sketches 4 You. I found the vine stamp in the Hot Spot corner at Archivers last week. I really wanted it to pop from the kraft paper, so I used acrylic paint to "color" the image. Super simple, but elegant.

Thanks for looking!

Sweet Child O'Mine

2010-05-24T01:20:00.000-05:00

Hey there, people of blogger-land! Hope today is off to a great start for all of you... it being Monday and all. mneh.

On the bright side, Monday's mean a new challenge is up at Scrap It With A Song! Our inspiration piece for this week is "Sweet Child O'Mine" by Guns N' Roses. This one was a little hard for me... there really aren't a lot of lyrics to this song, and while I think it's a very scrap-able song, it was challenging to find something that would make a fitting card. But I did it, and here's what I came up with:

In the song, there are several references to blue skies and weather, "...everything was as fresh as the bright blue sky." And the entire song is about thinking about someone special, so I thought the "thinking of you" sentiment worked well.

Now, I hope you all will think about playing along with us this week!! Our sponsor, CropStop.com is offering this week's winner a $10 gift certificate :-) Awesomeness! Come check it out.

Well, it's bedtime for me, so I'll see you all again soon! Thanks for stopping by :-)

Ready, Set, Post!

2010-05-22T18:07:00.000-05:00

Bear with me here, this is gonna be a super quick post! I almost completely forgot to post my card for the Digi Kitty challenge that ends tonight! That would've been a bummer.

I also used Sketch 65 from Card Patterns. (Well, sorta... I stretched it a bit :-)

I'm about to leave for a wedding reception, but I'll be catching up with you all tomorrow or definitely on Monday!!

Love Story

2010-05-17T08:00:00.016-05:00

It's Monday! And that means there's a new challenge for y'all at Scrap It With a Song :-) This week's inspiration comes from Taylor Swift's "Love Story." Our sponsor is Cassandra at the ShopHandmade.com store, Paper Mom-- The winner of this week's challenge gets 3 digital images, and each of the other Top 5 winners get 1 image. Super fun! Hope you guys will check it out and play along!

Here's my card:

For this one, I took the sentiment right from the lyrics of the song. I wanted to make an "I Love You" card that wasn't all... you know... red. Haha. Just sweet and simple.

Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate your comments ;-)

Ummm... So, about what I said before...

2010-05-15T21:11:00.000-05:00

Haha... okay, so, in my last post I was all like "hey! more cards this week, yay!" And then I didn't post any. Well, that's because I've been working on projects that I can't post yet. BUT, if you wanna head on over to Scrap It With a Song, every Monday for the next several weeks you'll be able to see what I've been up to :-)

I did, however, manage to finish one card that I can show you now.

I'm totally loving how this turned out. My mom and I took a trip to Archivers the other night. There were a few things that I actually needed, and then of course a ton of stuff that I did not. I was browsing the totally fabulous wall of Jolee stickers when I saw this super cute "B is for boy" embellishment. But I wasn't about to pay five dollars the whole pack when all I was gonna use was the one sticker. So I came home and made my own version of it. I wish I had a picture for comparison, but my phone was dead when I was at the store, and I cannot for the life of me find the same stickers online. Although, this also means that I did this from memory, so for all I know, this doesn't look anything like it. Haha.

Thanks for checking out my blog :-)

Where Do I Even Start?

2010-05-10T14:03:00.001-05:00

Happy Monday! (I guess... lol.) This week has been absolutely crazy! It's been kind of up and down emotionally and physically. I slept in BIG TIME today to catch up from this week, and I fully intend to hang out at my craft table this evening when I get home from work :-) Hopefully I'll have some fun stuff to show you over the next couple of days.

In the meantime, here's the card I created for this week's challenge at Scrap It With a Song. Our inspiration song this time is "True Colors" as recorded by Cyndi Lauper. I love 80's music. It's just fun. Haha. A little bizarre sometimes... but fun. :-)

The lyric I chose for my card is from the end of the second verse... "If this world makes you crazy and you've taken all you can bear, you call me up because you know I'll be there." I thought this might be kinda cool for an encouragement or "thinking of you" type of card. If you'd like to play along, make sure you hop on over to Scrap It With a Song. I can't wait to see what all of you come up with!

OOOH!! I almost forgot!!! We've got a great sponsor this week: Sew Many Cards. The winner of this week's challenge gets 5 digi stamps! So don't miss out on this one :-)

Biggest Fan

2010-05-05T00:47:00.000-05:00

Hello blogger-friends!! I almost forgot to post this... Monday we kicked off week 3 at Scrap It With A Song. The song for this week's challenge is "Paparazzi" by Lady Gaga. This song was SO stuck in my head the whole time I was working on this card! At one point my sister said "PLEASE make the card so you can move on to the next song!!" Haha. It's just so catchy :-)

Here's what I came up with for the challenge:

The camera was fun to make and I really like how it turned out! It's just a 2" x 3" rectangle with rounded corners; 1-1/2", 1-1/4", 1/2" and 1/8" circle punches; and lots (15 to be exact) of rhinestones for the "flash". I created the sentiment in Illustrator. The "pen" I cut by hand out of some leftover scraps.

I hope y'all will hop over to the Scrap It With a Song blog to play along! See you there :-) Thanks for stopping by.

SO Close!

2010-04-30T01:53:00.001-05:00

Finally started getting somewhere with the 365 Card challenges tonight! If I finish all of this week's cards by Sunday night, it might be a miracle. Tomorrow I'll be running around trying to make sure I'm ready for our "secret sister trip" on Saturday!! I don't know if I already wrote about this or not, but we're taking my youngest sister on a trip for her 16th birthday. She doesn't know where she's going, she just knows she has to be in the car at 6 a.m. on Saturday. Hahah. Actually, I'm pretty sure she knows where we're going now, but we won't tell her for sure and she won't tell us where she thinks we're taking her, so it's more like a "see if we knew who knew what we thought they knew" trip. LOL. It'll be fun. I'm totally looking forward to it :-)

ANYWAY... here are the cards I've been working on today:

Day 57-Ad Inspired
Turtles are awesome. I made this one to use as a gift card holder.

Day 58-Crazy 8's
The challenge here was to use 3 different items in quantities of 8. My three things are the "taggies", the rhinestones and the flowers. On a scale of 1 to gaudy, this is somewhere between "sheesh" and "whoa." Haha. I think I like it, it's just that it's a bit much for such a small card. This is another gift card holder.

Lastly, my personal favorite of the evening...

Day 59-Moving Parts
Okay, so, the very first thing I thought of when I saw this challenge was a clock. And since I'm a few days behind, I thought for sure someone would have a similar idea and get to it before I did... but whaddya know-- Not everyone thought of clocks! Or at least no one made one. lol. The hands on the clock move. I used an eyelet to attach them, but I didn't hammer it as flat as usual so the pieces could still turn.

Well friends, I'm off to bed. Thanks so much for stopping by!

"I Wanna Sing You A Song"

2010-04-29T10:00:00.000-05:00

I've mentioned a couple of times that I work at a school. One other gal and I keep about 20 three to five year olds for a few hours everyday for aftercare. I love it. They're some of the most clever, intelligent and hillarious little characters you'll ever meet. Yesterday, we were down to the last few kids (mostly girls) and 4-yr-old Tara says to me "I wanna sing you a song." So they started having a sing-off. I heard new renditions of songs by Lady Gaga, Hannah Montana and "Tayla Switch". I'm always amazed by how much of the lyrics they actually know, and amused by what they say when they can't quite remember. There was a memorable verse from a "Tayla Switch" (Taylor Swift) song about "Dooby the guy" and something about gnomes. Haha. I just sat there and smiled and tried not to laugh. :-)

On that note, here's another reminder to check out the Scrap It With A Song challenge blog. This week the song is "Once Upon a Dream." (And don't worry-- they post the lyrics so you don't have to ask your preschooler!) I'd love to see what you would do with it. Here's the card I made...

I'm still trying to catch up with all of you guys at 365 Cards-- The only problem is that every time I get one done, there's a new challenge up! lol. I gotta pick up the pace here...

Day 55-On Pins and Needles
Pins as an embellishment, needles used for stitching.

I used fabric for the bottom of the card and then tried to mimic the flowers with some punches. For the "pin" requirement, I used straight pins with some beads glued on the end. I didn't use a sentiment because I wasn't totally sure what I wanted to do with it. It might just make a cute, generic note card though.

Day 56-Super Sketchy Sunday (I flipped it) and Digi Kitty-"Whooooo's the Sweetest????"

I paper-pieced the image with Bazzill swiss dots paper. I like the soft, girlie colors-- and how cute is that owl? :-) I also just wanted to mention that of all things, that sentiment is the only thing that looks wrong in this picture. Why is that??!? In real life it's brown and it matches. Just so ya know. Haha.

So Many Ideas, So Little Time

2010-04-28T02:49:00.000-05:00

Once again I'm up into the wee hours of the morning trying to translate a bazillion ideas into actual paper cards. :-) I have so many things going on right now, it's just crazy! We've had weddings, first communions, birthdays, etc. every single weekend for the past month at least. Then I'm trying to finish a brochure for a homeschool conference going on this summer. It has to be done, like, yesterday. But it's almost like I can't call it a day unless I make something with paper and glue, so here I sit.

Here's one of my cards in an attempt to catch up on the challenges at 365 Cards. (I don't know that that's ever gonna happen at this point, but I'll go for it. Haha.) We're going back to the challenge I skipped over, Day 53-Front, Back and Everything In Between. The challenge was to decorate the front, back and inside of the card.

Front

Inside

Back

I wanted to make a clear card in a way that would still be a cute picture when it was closed. The hard part about clear cards is thinking about what it's gonna look like on the other side. I think this turned out pretty good. Thanks for looking!!

My Mojo Can't Stay Awake As Long As the Rest of Me

2010-04-25T14:52:00.001-05:00

Hey, hey my friends! Hope you all are enjoying what's left of this weekend. If you've got nice weather, I'm a little jealous. We had tornado warnings yesterday and crazy storms. Of course the story varies depending on which block you live on. Gotta love St. Louis weather.

If you haven't checked it out yet, make sure you stop by the Scrap It With A Song challenge blog. Each week there's a new song to inspire your layouts, cards and other projects. Challenge #2 should be up tomorrow!

SO... my plan was to stay up late the last couple of nights and finish up my cards for this past week at 365 Cards. No dice. My body stayed up late cutting pieces of paper into piles of unusable scraps (I'm probably exaggerating just a little), but my "mojo" went right to sleep. I did manage to finish a card I had started earlier in the day, so that's the one I'm sharing with you.

We're gonna skip over Day 53 for now (I KNOW, right? It's killing me too!! Lol. Ugh.) and go to Day 54-Fancy Folds. The challenge was to create a "joy fold" card. I'd never made one before, but I love how it looks! Will definitely be making more like this.

I absolutely LOVE this patterned paper. And actually because it's two-sided, I was able to make this whole card from one sheet. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but all the black on that butterfly is covered with that velvety flocking stuff. It's awesome.

Thank you all for stopping by!

The Internet is Back... and Other Fun News!

2010-04-21T14:04:00.000-05:00

I wish I could say I wasn't addicted to the internet, but it's been completely gone for a whole day and the wireless has been bonkers for a week and I wasn't sure I was gonna survive. LoL. I was about to leave for the local coffee house when the computer tech guy finally got it working.

Also, while we're on the subject of good news, I just found out last night that I get to be on the DT for Scrap It With A Song! This is the first design team I've been on and I'm really excited about it. Make sure to check it out-- I think it's gonna be fun :-) **Dances around**

Today I have three cards to show y'all...

This first one is for Day 51-Tuesday's Trio. The challenge was to use three things: A stamp, alpha stickers and the color red.

It's kinda funny because it didn't turn out even close to the picture that was in my head when I started making it. Haha. But it's pretty. The plan was to use it for a friend's graduation card, but really, it's elegant enough to use for a wedding card too. Hmm....

The challenge for today is Day 52-Save the Date. Typically these are used for weddings, but I'm not getting married anytime soon, so... yeah. :-) How about we have a girls night instead?

Now that I made this, I think I need to actually plan a girls night so I can use it!

Lastly, here's another baby card I made. I really like this one too... now I don't know which one is my favorite!

As always, thanks so much for stopping by!

Digi Kitty!

2010-04-20T02:18:00.000-05:00

Uh Oh. I found a new "thing". Hahaha.

This is my first time playing with The Digi Kitty blog. It sounds really cool and I hope I can stick with it... cuz let's be honest, who doesn't love free stuff? Today I purchased the "Splish Splash" digital stamp for the challenge. The awesome part is that if I continue to play along, I get the stamps for the next challenge free.

Here's the card I created with it:

There are a couple more in the set and they are super cute! I love frogs :-) I found the quote by E.E. Cummings online. It says "The world is... puddle-wonderful." I thought it was cute.

Also, I'm working on a few baby cards. For this one I used last week's sketch at 2S4Y. I LOVE how it turned out!! This might be one of my personal favorites in a while.

I think my favorite part is the little flowers on the wire. Sorry the colors are a little wonky... I SO wish I had Photoshop on this computer. Picasa just isn't cutting it!!! Sheesh. If anyone has any suggestions for some free photo-editing software, I'd love to hear them.

Thanks for taking a look!

Weddings!!

2010-04-19T12:53:00.000-05:00

I love weddings. I like going to them, I like being a part of them. I just think they're fun. Except photographing them. I don't like that so much. It's stressful. But anyways, I've got at least four more to go to before summer even officially gets here and I need to go shopping for something to wear. I'll also probably need some cards, so that's what I did today.

The challenge for Day 50-Digging Deep is to use three things on your card:

1) An item that is more than a year old. Technically, aside from the paper, it's all at least that old. But for this, we're gonna say that the brads are my old item. I think I bought them before I was even really making cards... and the only reason I got them was because they were in a bin of valentine's day clearance stuff at Jo-Ann Fabrics.

2) Something that you were given that you have never used. Again, we're gonna say that this is the leather corner accents, but it could also apply to the stamp. The corners came in a stack of stuff that my sister gave me a long time ago when she came to the realization that she was probably never really gonna scrapbook. They've remained safely in their packaging until this morning :-)

3) Something you forgot you had. I keep my stuff generally pretty organized and I've gotten better about going through it occasionally to get rid of things I'm not ever going to use, so I usually have a pretty good idea of what I still have in my stash. The only thing that I tend to ignore and never get rid of are stamps. This stamp is one that my aunt found for me at a garage sale last spring. I really liked it, but it's been buried in the box with the rest of my stuff until I rediscovered it today.

Hey, look at me! I'm posting a card on the actual day of the challenge! Haha. Thanks for stopping by <3

Weird Weekend

2010-04-18T21:22:00.001-05:00

This has been a really weird couple of days. Not a bad weird, just---- different. Haha. My sis and I sang at a funeral on Friday. What was supposed to be two or three songs turned into an hour and fifteen minutes of me literally making up accompaniments to songs I didn't know. That was interesting. Next time I agree to do that, I'll definitely be asking some more specific questions. The super long funeral made me almost completely miss work, but it wasn't a huge deal. And speaking of work, we got out early at the preschool which is really rare. I got called into work at church again, but then got sent home early because half the kids didn't show up. SO yeah. It was just weird.

Saturday was less weird. My cousin's first communion was in the morning, then my sister and I spent the rest of the day at our church singing. Afterward we checked out a new brewery with some friends. That was a good time. Sang again this morning and then came home to chill AND of course, make cards :-)

I've got three for you tonight...

Finally finished the rest of the "White Space" challenges @ 365 Cards! I think these two might've been the most challenging (or they just happened to come on the days I was most tired!). Here is Day 47. I don't know if I love this one. But the little sis liked it (and she's probably my harshest critic) so I'll post it ;-)

And here's Day 48. Took me a while to come up with this one. I'm probably stretching the boundaries of this one just a tad with the shape of the decorated space, but it seems like there's been this mini-competition all week long to see who can stretch the rules and/or freak Pam out the most ;-) You guys are funny... and you make mine look like it's not a big deal. Hee hee.

For today's Super Sketchy Sunday challenge, I kind of had to force myself out of "white-space" mode!! I know Pam mention something about olives, but I kept seeing half of a hard-boiled egg. Haha. But I thought that might be a dumb card, so I squinted my eyes and tilted my head and wondered what kind of animal you could make that has a big round body and a little round head...

SHEEP! Hahahaha... I hope you like it. (Haley, I thought of you when I made this! lol) Thanks for looking and I hope you've all had a pleasant, restful weekend :-)

More Cards, Less Blah-Blah-Blah

2010-04-15T14:22:00.001-05:00

Okay, friends. I've only got about 15 minutes to make this post, but if I don't do it now I'll ended up posting an entire week's worth of challenges on Saturday, and that would be ridiculous (not that it isn't already). I'm gonna have to skimp on the commentary for this one, but enjoy the pictures, okay?

Sunday, Day 42-Super Sketchy Sunday

The rest of this week's challenges are "White Space" challenges and they are whoopin' my butt! The challenge is to keep your all of your embellishments and whatnot inside the designated space and everything else is left "blank".

Monday, Day 43
I'm sad to say we've been needing a few of these lately. But I think it turned out pretty and hopefully it will be a blessing to someone going through a rough time. :-)

Tuesday, Day 44
This one is also for this week's Tuesday Trigger: Lovely as a Rose challenge @ Moxie Fab World. I got my inspiration from the colors in the photos, but also from Samantha's project with the paper flowers.

Wednesday, Day 45
When I saw this challenge, it just reminded me of butterfly wings. I did turn the sketch sideways for this one. And I probably cheated just a leeeetle bit with the stamp and the black matting. Hehe. Nobody's perfect :-)

Thursday, Day 46
I love this paper! I found it on clearance too, which makes it 10% prettier. Haha. I also used it on the Sunday sketch.

YAY! All done-- and a few minutes to spare! Lol. Thanks for coming by to look at my cards :-)

Life Happens :-)

2010-04-13T11:40:00.000-05:00

Dang it. I wasn't able to get these done before Sunday night, but I'm still going for completing the whole month again, so here they are-- my cards for the second half of last week's challenges at 365 Cards.

Thursday was the end of Easter break at the school where I work, Saturday I photographed a wedding (gaahhh! stress!!!), all on top of trying to spend as much time as possible with my brother before he flew back to San Diego. Although somehow in the middle of that, I did manage to squeak in a late trip to Target on the way home from work for a sheet of rub-ons for Day 39-Totally Transferred. There were literally only two sheets of rub-ons in that whole store, so I picked this one because of the colors and the variety of sentiments. I decided to keep the design really simple and just focus on the colors.

The challenge for Friday was, ironically, a little bit easier. For Day 40-Friday Five, we had to use five colors, five patterned papers, five blossoms, five buttons and five stamps. Find five stamps that worked together was the hardest part for me, so I ended up just stamping individual letters. On one of my recent trips to Archivers I picked up a package of these buttons which ended up working out great with the colors I picked for the paper.

The Day 41-DIY Glittered Blossoms challenge was yet another difficult challenge for me. I don't generally use that kind of stuff. I've said before that glitter isn't one of my favorite things, but it keeps showing up on my cards (AND in my hair, and the carpet, and my clothes.... and in my family's hair, clothes, etc. LOL). This is another super simple design, but the textures are flippin' awesome!

That shimmery background paper is from a stash that I've had forever. I don't even remember why I bought it, or what I thought I was gonna do with it. Haha. I made the flower from an old gift bow that was smooshed beyond being able to use it again, so I cut rough circles from it and then melted the edges over a candle to make them curl. I mixed some super-fine glitter into some Diamond glaze and then used a toothpick to put it on the edges of the flower. Silver leaves and a rhinestone in the center finished it off. (I make this sound easy, but I probably burned and over-melted about 12 circles before I got these to turn out the way I wanted.)

Speaking of glitter, this would probably be an excellent time to share with you this story from the other day... My mom and I were making place cards for her women's group at church. They were going to be very simple with just a single digi-image (this one) and a name. For just a bit of extra "something" we decided to add some glitter to the butterfly. Now, the glitter I have comes in one of those stacked containers, like this:

We were using the silver one-- at the very top. Now, it seems a little risky to leave them all stacked like that while in use, but we were being careful and we finished all of the cards without any problem. It wasn't until we started cleaning up that this happened:

OOOHHHHH, man. LOL. Thankfully, it's a pretty small container. However, the entire contents of that container was all over my craft table. Also, I'm not going to point any fingers, but I'll let you figure out "who done it" by the direction of the spillage. Haha. It's okay mom. I still love you.

I saw, somewhere, a t-shirt that said "Glitter is the herpes of craft supplies." 'Tis true. We got it all cleaned up for the most part, but we went to visit some family that night and my mom still had it on her face. And you can still rub your hand on my table and come up with sparkly fingers. Haha.

Thanks for stopping by, friends! Hopefully I'll be posting some more stuff tonight or tomorrow ;-)

Another Catch-up Wednesday!

2010-04-07T23:21:00.000-05:00

Once again I've failed miserably at posting my cards for the 365 Cards challenges. Lol. I really am doing them almost every day, but either I'm doing them at ridiculous hours of the morning and I opt for bed instead of blogging, or I have somewhere to rush off to. After this week, things should be slowing down a bit and maybe I can stay on top of things! :-) In the meantime, here's what I've been working on:

Day 35-Super Sketchy Sunday
Here's my take on the sketch...

Day 36-I Quilt!
This one was tricky-- even if it was only figuring out how big those triangles needed to be! I thought I was done with Pythagoras. *sigh* But I think it turned out cute. I've had those buttons forever and it was nice to finally put them on a project. The girl image is mine.

Day 37-Terrific Taggies
This was a fun challenge! These ribbons are some more things that I've had laying around forever. I found them in the dollar bins at Target a bazillion years ago.

Day 38-Acrostic Poem
I really had to think about this. I liked reading the ones all of the other gals came up with-- there were some really good ideas! Here's what I did...

As always, thanks for stopping by! I love reading your comments :-)

Happy Easter :-)

2010-04-04T00:21:00.001-05:00

Hey there, friends! Happy Easter to you :-) I'm so tired, I could probably fall asleep right here on top of my laptop, but I'll try not to. We got through two Easter services tonight at church and we'll do two more in the morning, so I'll have to be getting up yuck early, but I figured I could squeeze in a quick post.

First off is my card for Day 33-Whip Stitch It! @ 365 Cards. I also used the colors for this week's Color Throwdown challenge and ETBK's challenge to use string.

Next is my entry for the Day 34- Color Scheme challenge and for this week's JUGS Sketch challenge.

Cute sketch! Thanks for stopping by my blog. Hope you all have a fantastic weekend :-)