AaaaAAaaaaAH!

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

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!

Wonderful Watercolors

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!!

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/

Let's Face It

Happy Thanksgiving! I'm laying on my bed with my little sister, editing pictures and writing blog posts... What better time to do that than 2 a.m.?

My big project tonight was making place cards for dinner at Grandma's house tomorrow. She asked me to make a couple extras of the ones I made last time, but I forgot what they look like and I forgot to look at them when I was over there this afternoon. SO... the only logical thing to do was to make all new ones :-D

Once I got all of those finished, I had enough energy and creative juice to put together a card for today's (well, technically yesterdays... but I haven't been to sleep yet, so it's still "today") challenge at 365 Cards. I've been waiting for a reason to use this sentiment stamp...

What a great encouragement as we set out to indulge in an abundance of tasty goodness! Just laugh it off, people! Laugh it off. And speaking of tasty treats...

I was making a cheese ball this afternoon (which turned out just lovely, by the way) and I was playing around and made this little dude:


For size reference, those are just sliced almonds. He's not very big, but I thought it was funny and I was proud of myself. Lol. And finally, I would like you to meet "Georgiano" and "Chuck." 18.95 lbs and 18.65 lbs, respectively.


It's probably a little morbid to name your Thanksgiving dinner, but we did it anyway. They're already in the oven! My favorite part of thanksgiving is waking up in the morning and smelling that AMAZING aroma of turkey and spices and herbs. YUMMMMMM!! It's gonna be so awesome.

Can't Wait!

YAY!! Thanksgiving is only days away! This year my brother will be home for the holiday weekend-- last year he was still away at Marine Corps boot camp. Then there's the craziness of Black Friday shopping! My sister and I are usually amongst the other nut-cases standing in line in front of Target at 5 in the morning :-) Not sure what the plan is for this year. Hehe.

Anyway, here's my card for today's challenge at 365 Cards. The challenge was to color a stamped image using anything but markers. I'm usually more of a colored pencil girl, but this time I used watercolor paints to color the leaf and acorn. It was a bit difficult because I stamped the image on some homemade paper which turns out to be VERY absorbent. After a few tries, I was happy with how it turned out:



Thanks for looking! I love reading your comments :-)

Simple?

Why is it that the simpler I try to make things, the harder it is? It just boggles the mind. After chopping up a few pieces of perfectly good patterned paper, I groaned and said to my little sister, "GINA!!! I can't DO this!" She pretty much ignored me and went back to playing her guitar. lol

After a few swings and misses, I finally came up with something for the "Simply Put" challenge over at 365 Cards. For a twist, I went with an oval shape. The hardest part of this card (I mean, after finally coming up with a design) was finding an ink color to stamp with. I have all the basic rainbow colors, but not much in the way of jewel tones. So I inked my stamp with black, stamped on a scrap of paper and then inked it again with red. There was enough black left on the stamp to make a dark reddish color... it actually matches pretty darn well ;-) I got to use my die cut machine again for my "embellishment."

As always, thanks so much for checking out my work ;-)

Keep It To Yourself

The challenge for today at 365 Cards was to design a "congratulatory card that uses decorations on the outside of the card to help convey the message on the inside of the card."

So here's mine:



I think it's pretty obvious that I'll be congratulating someone on their new tractor...

Ha. Just kidding. Sarcastic am I.

Also, just for grins, here's a Christmas card I made a couple days ago... Turns out pastels don't photograph very well ;-) But thanks for looking!

One Month and One Week

It's getting closer... I'm one of those people who are totally opposed to playing Christmas music until the Friday after Thanksgiving. But I have to say, making Christmas cards puts me a leeeeetle bit more in the Christmas spirit. ;-)

I've got another Christmas-ey card today. This is for 365 Cards' Ad Inspired challenge today:

<--- Here's the ad.













For the most part I pulled my inspiration from the colors-- shades of blue and a touch of brown. I really wanted to work in some stripes, but it just wasn't working for me. The white dots kind of mimic the pattern on the bed.

More Warm Wishes

Today's card doesn't necessarily look anything like yesterday's card, but I used a lot of the same ideas...


The challenge at 365 Cards was to use this color scheme:





It was kind of hard to tell if that fourth color was white or gray, but I didn't have any gray paper anyway, so I went with white. Lol.

My main tools for this card were my Creative Memories circle/oval cutting system and circle punches. Almost every piece besides the nose and the top of the hat were created with one of those tools.

Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate your comments!!

It's Monday.

Made another card today! Woot.

This card is for 365 Cards' recipe challenge, Day 261.


















- 4x4 card
- red background (check)
- snowflakes (check)
- one ribbon (check)
- stamped sentiment (check)

The papers are all Bazzill basics, and I got to use my new Cricut Expression machine to cut the snowflake. I'm super excited about that!

Thanks for looking :-)