Sing it, Alice!

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!

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!

Fabulous

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!

Lovely... Most of the time ;-)

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!!

What Girls Want

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!

So Stinkin' Proud :-)

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!

SO Close!

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"

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.

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

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!

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!

Spring Birthday

I've been pretty good about replenishing my birthday card stash over the last week or two, and it continues today with a card for Day 23 at 365 Cards (use a stencil) and Laura's Sketch 48 at 2S4Y.


I did some sponge painting to stencil the flowers for the patterned paper.

This is gonna have to be another one of those I'm-about-to-walk-out-the-door posts, but thanks for stopping by and taking a look!

Yup. There Are Leg Warmers On My Card.

Hey friends! Hope you've had an excellent weekend! Mine was not too shabby. The highlight of my weekend was spending a couple of hours with my 11 yr old cousin, Grace, making egg-shaped candles in real eggshells. We had a lot of fun. I didn't take any pictures though. Boo.

I have a couple of cards for ya tonight (err.... today?). The first is for the Super Sketchy Sunday challenge on the 365 Cards blog. I think it turned out pretty cute... except maybe the "Easter Blessings" part. I don't have any Easter stamps so I hand-wrote it. Eh. Probably should've printed it on the computer, but this one was kind of a think-as-you-go project :-)

My second card is for this week's Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge. I really enjoy checking out all the challenges there, but this is the first time I've been able to actually play along.

The movie for this week is 13 Going On 30. It's a really cute movie, but I haven't seen it in a long time. For my take on it, I decided to go for an 80's theme. Yup. There are leg warmers on my card. I love them. Hahaha. I most definitely don't wear them, but I think they're kinda fun... on other people... from the 80's. :-P

For the background colors, I tried to copy the colors from Jennifer Garner's dress in this scene:

Thanks for looking! And if you haven't yet, check out my 100th-post giveaway HERE.

Because You're Really Cool and Awesome and I Like You!!

I wasn't paying attention last week when I made my 100th post,

so guess what!

We're celebrating now,

on this, my 103rd post. Lol.

A few nights ago I was sort of playing around and ended up drawing a totally cute little image that I've turned into a digital stamp to share with you!

Here's what I did with it:


If you would like to have this image, just CLICK HERE. Feel free to use it on your projects. All I ask is that you let people know where you got it from and link back to my blog or even this post! You know, share the love. I'd SUPER LOVE it if you'd leave a link to your projects so I could see what you've created with it :-)

Thanks to all of you who follow my blog and those of you who leave me such sweet comments. You make me want to keep posting! Also, to those who either just occasionally stop by to peek or even the people who just accidentally click on my page-- I still just get a kick out of seeing that I have another page view. Haha.

The Touch, The Feeeeel of Cotton...

... The fabric of our lives!

When I saw the challenge for today at 365 Cards, I immediately started humming that song from the cotton commercials. Haha.

The challenge is "Imagine This: Cotton." Not a lot of specifics-- just think of cotton and ready, set, go! The first thing that came to mind wasn't necessarily just the white fluffy stuff (or pink and blue, wrapped around a paper cone). I wanted to go for that raw, natural look with the browns and soft whites.


BOY! I really had to fight with this picture to get the color right... it's still not quite there. I hope it's showing up on your screen like it's supposed to! I wish I could show you-- the colors are much softer looking in person! Oh well :-)

Also, I wanted to show you what I did with the stamp I won the other day from Stretch 'n Bubbles.



Okay. I'm gonna be late for work if I don't leave, so thanks for stopping by!!

Chic, Glam, Gorgeous

Greetings, fellow paper lovers! I have a second card to share with you today. Thanks to Jean at Just Scraps for inviting me to play along with her "Black, White and Red All Over" challenge. I always love this color combo... it works for just about anything-- funky, elegant, whatever. Also, I was excited to use my new "Forever Young" cartridge for my Cricut. It's pretty fun!

Thanks for stopping by!