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

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!

Just Peachy

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 :-)

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

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!

Color and Dimension... and Mice in the Jam

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!

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

*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!

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

*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! :-)

Yay, yay, yay!

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 :-)

Cookin' Up Some Punny Stuff

*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 :-)

Hole-yness

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!

Monster Post!

Hello Bloggerland!  Hope you all are enjoying this lovely Easter week :-)  I'm about to bombard you with all of the cards I've been making this week.  I've been playing along with 365 Cards everyday so far this week, but haven't had the time to sit down and actually post anything yet.  My brother is home on pre-deployment leave for two weeks, so between that and Easter preparations, it's been busy.  Anyways, all this to say, I sincerely hope you make it all the way to the end! Haha.

Day 28- Super Sketchy Sunday

This one took me SO long to do!! I don't know why.  But I like how it turned out.

Day 29- A Certain Sentiment

Use the sentiment, "Hang In There." I have to give credit to my little genius sister for the frame idea.  Thanks Gina Marie.

Day 30- In Pieces

Use an image on the outside of your card, then use it again on the inside but don't use it in the exact same way.  I created the bunny image for this project.  Gina Marie gets minus 2 "cool points" for calling it a "hippo bunny."

Day 31- All Mixed Up

Take and image and break it down into thirds - 1/3 no color, 1/3 patterned paper, and 1/3 hand-colored.  I realized when I read the challenge that I really don't have much of a selection when it comes to image stamps.  I have a lot of little sentiment stamps, but that's about it. So, I bought one. :-) This SUPER adorable image is from Meljen's Designs.   I stumbled across these stamps on Etsy, but she's got a new website where you can buy directly from her and get and instant download. Sweetness.  The mushroom cap and stem and the book are paper-pieced, the mouse is colored with pencils, and the rest is... well... white.  I wasn't gonna color the grass, but I started, so then I had to finish.  Oh well.  Haha.

Day 32- Recipe Card

Create a card that is suitable as a recipe card. I really loved how Vicky created the inside pocket on her card, so that's what I did too.  The chef image is a free clip art image I found online. Oh, and Gina Marie get's one of those "cool points" back for suggesting the cork "button."  We just sliced off the end of a wine bottle cork that happened to have a design on it.  Coolness.

It would be awesome if I could put my mom's spaghetti sauce recipe in here... But I can't, cuz it's a secret ;-)  How 'bout lasagna? Lasagna's good.  This card makes me wanna sing that song from Lady & The Tramp. Hehe.