Busy, busy!

Well, this week has been interesting.  Started off pretty good, got a little weird toward the middle, ended a little crummy on Friday, but then got a whole lot better with taco night and some fabulous friends ;-)

Somewhere in the middle of that, I did find time to put together my card for Thursday's challenge at 365 Cards, but I'm running a little late again with posting. Oops.

The challenge was to create a photo frame card.  It's not too complicated.  The trickiest part for me was figuring out what size to make the card.  Mine ended up being 6.5 x 5 in.  I made it so that the photo slides in on the side.

That cute frog image is from Robyn's Fetish Digital Stamps and More, our sponsor for this week.  Make sure to link up all your cards for this week!  The winner gets 5 digi stamps OR 4 digi stamps and a paper set.

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!

It's already Monday again?

I'm not entirely sure where these days go.  As I'm sitting here, scrolling through my blog list, I realized that I completely forgot to set up a post for today's Scrap It With a Song reveal!

This week our song is "Happy Together" by The Turtles.  For my card I just decided to go with the title as my inspiration.  Also, I was itching to use the Paper Dolls Dress-Up cartridge that I got for my birthday.  Here's what I came up with:

Gotta be honest with ya here, not my favorite card ever, but I really like the paper dolls.   I added some extra stuff on the bride with a little rhinestone for her necklace and some ribbon on her dress.  I left the groom pretty much alone, except for a really thin layer of diamond glaze on his shoes.  The other tricky thing about this card is that their legs extend over the edge of the heart-shaped base, so you have to make a second set of "bottoms" for the back.  Otherwise they look a little indecent :-) Hehe.

SOoooOO... Now that you've seen what I cam up with, why don't you hop on over to check out the rest of the DT's creations and maybe even take a stab at it yourself!

Also, the winner of this weeks challenge will receive three digi-stamps from PaperMom.com at Shop Handmade.  Click the banner below to check it out!

Hope to see you there!  Peace out :)

Well, Now that's just cool :-)

So guess what, friends! I'm done with my June craziness!!! That means I should be back into the swing of things pretty soon.  I have SO missed hanging out on the blogs with you all.

Today at 365 Cards, they're kicking off a celebration after reaching 1000+ followers.  It's also a reader appreciation week, of sorts, and the super cool thing is that they asked ME to be a part of it!!  So today, along with four other fabulously talented ladies, I got to create a card for this week's Super Sketchy Sunday:

Isn't it a fun sketch?  I'm thinking you should definitely head on over to 365 Cards and, at the very least, check out the rest of the cards from the guest designers!  And THEN, play along.  Because I said so ;-)

For those of you in these United States of America, celebrating Independence Day-- Have lovely, safe, fun and fabulous weekend!

OH yeah, and if you haven't already, make sure you go check out the "blog tour" over on the OWH Stars & Stamps blog.  I didn't ever get a chance to get a post set up for it as I'd hoped, but there's so many great cards to see!! Go check it out.  Click the button on the top right of my blog.

Super quick!!!

I'm gonna try to sneak this in really quick!  I always forget that the deadlines are for EST... so it's usually too late, but I've got four minutes as I start this post. Lol.

This card is for Saturday's "Life's a Party" challenge at 365 Cards.

Oh man! So close... it's 11:01. haha.

----EDIT----

Umm... so.... it's Saturday. Not Sunday. I have plenty of time. lol.  Hope everyone's having a fantastic weekend :-)

Three-In-One

Happy hump day! Today has been kind of nice... a little gloomy and thunder-stormy, but I like storms.  I got a haircut, finally.  You should've seen the pile of hair on the floor at the salon.  I would like to take this moment to thank the creator of thinning shears.  They're those scary looking scissors that look like this:

I have super thick hair so, just about every time I get it cut,  I have them chomp through the layers with these babies.  It feels so much lighter!!

Anyway, who cares about my hair... let's get on to my card for today...

Today at 365 Cards it's kind of a pick-your-own-challenge deal.  Per the guidelines, my card is based on three different challenges.  One from the month of March (Day 8, Imagine This: Outer Space); one from April (Day 53, Front, Back and Everything in Between); and one from May (Day 62, Look Who's Talking).

I kept the inside and back really simple, since the whole point of these cards is for the men and women to be able to write their own messages ;-)  

Well, I'm off!  Thanks for stopping by :-)

What a great weekend :-)

This weekend is definitely on the top 10 list of fabulous weekends.  Except for an unexpected misadventure on the way, the wedding I photographed on Saturday went pretty well.  It was simple, fast, and I had my sis with me as a my back-up, so I feel like we did a pretty good job.  Sunday was a full day as always, but not stressful.  Family from Georgia was in town for the wedding I mentioned, so we spent part of the evening visiting with them.  My 14-year-old cousin and I started talking about dancing at weddings and parties, and we decided that we should have our own dance party at my Grandma's house on Memorial Day.

So we did.

OH. My. Goodness.  We had so much fun.  Now, most of you won't realize why this was so ridiculous.  My family are not dancers.  Not really, anyway.  We apparently can, but we don't. I've always watched and figured I could do it, but until recently, never bothered to try.  So, my cousin, sister and I spent a while making sure we knew all the steps for the Electric Slide, Cha Cha Slide and the Cupid Shuffle. Once we had them down, we talked the aunts and even my grandma into doing it with us. Lol.  It was so funny.

Another great thing is that I've had some time to spend making some cards last night and this morning.  I've really missed playing along with one of my favorite challenges, but school is finally out and some of my other projects are out of the way.  Here are my cards for this week's challenges at 365 Cards:

Day 91, Super Sketchy Sunday

This weekend also kicks off my summer project, which is to get some cards sent to OWH. Just a really simple note card, for starters. ;-)

Day 92, Tissue Paper

This one makes me laugh at myself. :-P  I was having a really hard time figuring out how to incorporate tissue paper into my card design.  I thought about flowers and I found some tutorials with some really pretty ideas, but I'm trying to keep them somewhat flat for OWH shipping purposes.  I thought about using some kind of decoupage-type technique, but it just wasn't working like I wanted it to. It wasn't until I had just about had it, and I went to wad up a piece of tissue paper to throw it away that I kind of simultaneously crinkled it and twisted it and it look kinda cool!

There are some small rhinestones around the waist of the dress for some extra sparkle.  The camera didn't quite catch them.

Day 93, Clowning Around

Okay, this one made me laugh too.  I've mentioned before that my mother is a clown. She's been doing it for a while now and just "graduated" in May as a full-fledged "Joey."  Yeah, it's waaaaay more complicated than you'd think. Lol. 

It just so happens that she and some of her "clown friends" are hosting an appreciation dinner for the "mentor clowns," and they asked me to make some invitations.  So that's what I worked on for today's challenge...

The clown's nose is a dot from some red, felt alpha-stickers that I had purchased for another project that ended up being too big.

Thanks for stopping by today and reading what has turned out to be a rather wordy post!  I love reading your comments!!

All Sorts of Bloggy Goodness

Hey there everyone!  Just wanted to make a quick post and encourage you all to check out the Memorial Day blog hop going on at Operation Write Home "Stars & Stamps".  There are something like 150 participants with awesome cards, tips, ideas and BLOG CANDY! :-)  I'm not in the hop, but I think these gals have a great thing going here and I'm planning on making it a summer project to get some cards sent in.  So go check it out,

STARTING HERE.

And just for the heck of it, here's a card that I made a while ago and never posted:

Check back on Monday for a new challenge from Scrap It With a Song and some good sappy stuff in honor of Memorial Day :-)

Love Story

It's Monday! And that means there's a new challenge for y'all at Scrap It With a Song :-) This week's inspiration comes from Taylor Swift's "Love Story."  Our sponsor is Cassandra at the ShopHandmade.com store, Paper Mom-- The winner of this week's challenge gets 3 digital images, and each of the other Top 5 winners get 1 image.  Super fun!  Hope you guys will check it out and play along!

Here's my card:

For this one, I took the sentiment right from the lyrics of the song.  I wanted to make an "I Love You" card that wasn't all... you know... red. Haha. Just sweet and simple.

Thanks for stopping by!  I appreciate your comments ;-)

Ummm... So, about what I said before...

Haha... okay, so, in my last post I was all like "hey! more cards this week, yay!"  And then I didn't post any.  Well, that's because I've been working on projects that I can't post yet.  BUT, if you wanna head on over to Scrap It With a Song, every Monday for the next several weeks you'll be able to see what I've been up to :-)

I did, however, manage to finish one card that I can show you now.

I'm totally loving how this turned out.  My mom and I took a trip to Archivers the other night.  There were a few things that I actually needed, and then of course a ton of stuff that I did not.  I was browsing the totally fabulous wall of Jolee stickers when I saw this super cute "B is for boy" embellishment.  But I wasn't about to pay five dollars the whole pack when all I was gonna use was the one sticker.  So I came home and made my own version of it.  I wish I had a picture for comparison, but my phone was dead when I was at the store, and I cannot for the life of me find the same stickers online.  Although, this also means that I did this from memory, so for all I know, this doesn't look anything like it. Haha.

Thanks for checking out my blog :-)

Irony or Paradox?

Today's challenge for Day 22 at 365 Cards is to create a card inspired by the movie Alice in Wonderland. I was amused to find that many of you share the same sentiments toward that movie that I do. I haven't seen the new version yet (not really sure if I want to-- it looks kinda creepy) and it's been YEARS since I've seen the Disney version. I always thought it was a little weird and more than a bit confusing. But I do like some of Tim Burton's movies, so maybe I'd appreciate this new one a little more.

Anywho... I ended up using the Queen of Hearts (from the Disney movie) as the inspiration for my card. I really like the bold pattern and colors of her costume, so that's what I went for:

Now, the real challenge here ended up being the sentiment. I mean, "OFF WITH YOUR HEAD!!" seemed a little inappropriate. And while I can think of a couple people I could send it to, I wouldn't. Haha. So I decided to go with "I love you" and just revel in the irony... or is it paradox? Either way, I love that it doesn't make sense... cuz neither does that movie! :-)

La Di Da

I'm sitting here on the floor of my sister's bedroom while she and our younger sister try to weird me out by singing/saying random things. It's not working-- there's nothing they can do to get any weirder. They're currently in the middle of a splendid rendition of "Three Times A Lady." Lol :-)

I have two cards for y'all today. The first is a catch-up card from Thursday's "Plentiful Patterns" challenge at 365 Cards. I went paper shopping, but I didn't have time to go out to Archivers, so I had to settle for the selection at Michael's. Don't get me wrong, I love Michael's, but they don't have much in the way of patterned paper. I found the toille and houndstooth patterns, but I ended up having to make my own plaid.


My next card is for today's challenge- Day 20, Let's Make Some Noise. What do you call this anyway? A shaker card? Well, at any rate, I created the "shaker" by stacking several of the frames cut with my Cricut and a piece of acetate from some packaging. On the inside are some small punched hearts.


Thanks for looking!

Whoa! Catch-up Time!

Friday night I left for a weekend retreat with the student ministry at my church. We had an awesome time and even though it was super cloudy, we never had any rain that kept us from any of our activities. One of the events of the weekend was for each group to choreograph a song for a lip-sync competition. My group of 7th grade girls did a FANTASTIC job. The video of their routine is at the end of this post--it's pretty awesome :-)

Aaaannnd because I was gone all weekend, I got behind on the 365 Cards challenges. But, I'm all caught up!! Here are all my entries for Friday through today:

Friday, Day 12 "Circle Frenzy"
Include 20 or more circles from at least two sources.
Some of the circles are from the patterned paper, some are punch and some are hand drawn.




















Saturday, Day 13 "A Whole New Dimension"
Take an image and... raise some portion of it off the page to give it dimension.
The two flowers are raised off of the image.



















Sunday, Day 14 "Super Sketchy Sunday"
Click on link to see sketch.




















Monday, Day 15 "Ad-Inspired"
Click on link to see ad.
















Tuesday, Day 16 "Opposites Attract"
Feature a pair of opposite images on your card - sun/moon, sun/rain, boy/girl, etc.



















If you made it all the way to the end of this post, bless your heart. Lol. Thanks so much for checking out my blog :-) And now, if you have yet a few more minutes to spare, check out the lip-sync my girls did this weekend... If you go to the actual YouTube page, you can see it a lot better!

Sometimes I Space Out

I do. When I'm concentrating on something, I tend to block out pretty much everything else-- especially my sisters. I even wrote a song about it. Lol. In fact, just moments ago, my sister was singing while I was editing photos and then asked me a question about the song. I didn't even know what she was talking about. I honestly had no recollection of anyone singing anything.

Hahahaha... anyway... okay...

Here's the card I made for the "Imagine This" challenge for Day 8 at 365 Cards. The theme was "outer space." I don't know how many of you will get the Beyonce reference, but here goes:

Wait for it...

Waaaaait for it...

LOL. I saw one of those ridiculous "fan pages" on Facebook with this joke. I thought it was pretty freakin' hilarious. I will be putting this one in the mail pronto to a friend of mine.

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!

Stars and Flowers

It's been another late night (or is it early morning??), but I whipped up a couple of cards that I think look pretty good ;-)

My first card is for 2 Sketches 4 You. I LOVE how the flowers turned out. I ran across this tutorial and loosely followed it to make these blooms from paper punches.


The flowers are attached with foam squares to lift them off the card for just a little extra "pop."

My second card is for the daily challenge at 365 Cards as well as this week's Color Throwdown challenge.


These colors were fun to work with! The challenge at 365 Cards was to make stars the dominant shape on the card... I used 8. I think that should work. Lol.

Yay!

So, I'm super excited about this... I got to be the guest designer for today on 365 Cards challenge blog!! It's reader appreciation week-- you should check it out. There's been some fabulous stuff this week.

Here's the card I submitted:


All of the patterned paper is Amy Butler. Oh, how I love that paper :-) I created the tag using a circle cutter on an old-ish Creative Memories journaling box. Then I created the scalloped circle with some decorative scissors. I attached the two together with an eyelet, then tied them with a piece of hemp cord. Ta-da.

In other news... hmm... well there really isn't much "other news." I'm just excited to be a part of this! Thanks for checking it out :-)

Rockin' Out

AAHHH!!! I'm so excited! This card turned out pretty much just like I wanted it too (which is SO rare. lol).

This project is for Caardvark's shaped card challenge. The first thing I did was find a picture of a guitar (thank you, Google), then I used Illustrator to create a line drawing of it. Next, I used carbon paper to trace the shapes onto the cardstock, then I stuck it all together. Ta-da! It was actually a lot easier than I thought it was gonna be.


Okay, so the white part on the body of the guitar (it probably has a name, but I don't know what it is) is cut from a piece of glossy photo paper. I wanted it to have a little bit of a shine so that it would look different from the white pick-ups and knobs. The little... uh... thingamabobidders at the bottom and the pegs are cut from a little piece of super shiny silver cardstock that I had in my scraps.
































I didn't want to add any crazy stuff to the front of the card because I thought it looked cool as-is, so I added a pop-up sentiment to the inside. The epoxy stickers were a dollar store find. I stuck those to the acetate oval. The tricky part was mounting the acetate with the foam tape. Luckily, the "r" and "k" stickers were square-ish and you couldn't see through them. For some extra color, I put the blue star behind it.

Anywho, thanks so much for looking!

Just for You

Today's card combines two challenges. The first is a sketch challenge from 2 Sketches 4 You. Secondly, I used the color combo from Color Throwdown's color challenge. (I used the word "color" three times in that sentence... I'm not going to correct it. Hehe.) This is the first time I've joined one of their challenges.

Here's what I came up with... Enjoy!