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!

I'm Baa-aack!

Hey there peeps!! I'm finally back home and I'm ready to stay for a while :-)  For the last two weeks I've been away at two different camps. The first one was a five-day girls camp, here in Missouri, where my sisters and I were leading worship.  We had a great time and met a ton of super amazing people.

I was home for a Saturday, then crazy early on Sunday morning I left on a week-long mission trip to New Orleans, LA with a group of teenagers, most of whom are getting ready to go into their freshman year of highschool.  I learned a lot and had plenty of experiences that pushed me waaaay out of my comfort zone. Haha.  It was a long week and we definitely had our challenges, but I'm so glad I went!

This week I've been getting back into the regular swing of things, finishing up some projects and working on getting the classrooms ready for the kiddos at school.  That also means it's time to get back into my cards!!  The card I have to show you is for today's "Ad Inspired" challenge at 365 Cards.  All you have to do to play along is use this image as your inspiration:

Here's what I came up with:

My favorite dress form was the black one with polka dots.  I also used some of the colors from the ad, and used tulle to mimic the curtains.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you'll play along :-)

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!

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 :-)

Cars

I found it a little ironic that today's challenge for 365 Cards had to do with cars.  Just this week my car decided to crap out on me.  I knew it was coming but, you see, my car and I had this love-hate relationship :-)  I can't help but love a vehicle that got me wherever I needed to go, but there were a lot of things wrong with it that I wasn't about to fork out the money to fix.  My car was nice enough to hang on to life over the past several months while I saved up enough cash to replace it.  But just to get back at me, it waited until the most inconvenient moment possible (on the way to an 8 a.m. choir rehearsal) to die.

But anyway, back to the challenge...

Today is "Mega Movie Thursday."  All week we've been using movie posters from this summer's movie releases as our inspiration.  Today is no different!  I really liked the original "Cars" movie and I'm looking forward to seeing the second one.

For my card I decided to attempt to duplicate the Cars logo.  I think I got close. Haha.  Since Father's Day is right around the corner, I thought this would be a fun theme to work with.  I used watercolors to create a "road" for the background.  Super-shiny silver cardstock worked great for the "chrome" but it was a little tricky cutting the words!  Here's my final card:

You don't have to take this challenge quite as literally as I did!  I'd love to see how this movie poster inspired you, so make sure to link up your cards on the 365 blog!

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!

As We Commence...

'Tis the season to be graduating.  My parents are going to an open house this afternoon, so this is a card I put together for the graduate...

I love these Basic Grey papers!  Love, love, love :-)

Thanks for checking out my blog!

B is for...

Apparently, I'm on some kind of baby card kick. Lol.  I don't know why.  I guess they're just kinda cute and fun to make.

This is my DT card for today's 365 Cards challenge, "Button Blitz."  Use at least TWENTY buttons on your card and be sure to stack at least SIX of them.

I have to admit that when I saw "20 buttons" I was a little intimidated.  As a rule I try to stay away from bulky cards, simply because they don't fit in envelopes.  But once I started looking through my stash and playing around with the placement of the buttons, it actually wasn't too bad.  This one would probably fit into a slightly oversized envelope quite nicely :-)

As always, thanks for stopping by!  Be sure to stop by the 365 Cards blog-- we'd love to have you play along!

Fun With Old Cardboard

Today I'm playing along with City Crafter Challenge Blog.  I've been following for a while, but this is my first time joining in :-)  The challenge is to use paint and recycled cardboard.

 

I have a stash of cardboard that I've saved from different packaging and boxes and whatnot, but today I had a cardboard mailing envelope sitting at the top of my wastebasket, so I decided to go with that! Haha.  I cut the star and anchor with my Cricut, then used white acrylic paint to create the distressed look.  My favorite part about this card is that rope-looking trim in the background.  I cut super thin strips from the cardboard, then carefully twisted them as tight as I could without breaking it.  Since one side of the envelope was coated white, it looked pretty cool.  I did that with several trips, then glued them side by side.  Kinda nifty, huh?  I also used a piece on the rope for the anchor.  I thought about putting a sentiment on there, but I just think it makes a great summery generic card for anytime.

Thanks for stopping by!!  Have a great day :-)