Words to Inspire

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!

Ladybug, Ladybug

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!

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 :-)

Peace

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... ;-)

You Got Me Flying

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

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

*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 :-)

OH geez.

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!

Should I Cry Or Dance For Joy?

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!

Where Do I Even Start?

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 :-)

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!