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!

Summer... it's Hot.

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!

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!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

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 :-)

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!

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

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! :-)

F-F-F-Fun

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.

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!

I'm A Freakin' Clearance Ninja!

"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 :-)

HA!! I did it! (Part Two)

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 :-)