See You When I Return...

Well, I sincerely hoped to get some posts pre-scheduled before leaving town. That's not going to happen, though, as packing is taking all my time. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, and I will be back next week with more creations!

In the meantime, I will be spending my vacation coloring some images I stamped off. And hopefully my SIL will have her SU! Catalog with her for a last perusal before all the retirements. Could be an expensive vacation :)

Thanks for looking!

Take a look at this gorgeous tag and card I received from Adrienne for the June Aloha RAK Club that Jen sponsors. I love this Shakespeare quote - "What's done is done. The Joy is in the doing." Perfect, isn't it? I try not to live with "should haves" and "could haves" and enjoy the process. It's not always easy, and I don't always succeed, but it makes life so much more fun when it can be done!

Her card is gorgeous, too. The colors are great, and I love the sponged edges and multi-layered flowers. I really need to try layering stamps the way she did on the sentiment panel. Call me lazy, I never think to do that...
I hope you're having a good week! We are off tomorrow, so I won't have access to email until Tuesday. Thanks for looking!

Sweet Boy

Today was my last appointment with my hairdresser before she goes on maternity leave. I have a backup hairdresser while she is away, but she will be missed! She knows she is having a little boy, and it's been fun to see her belly grow...

I made this simple frame for her, painting a plain wood frame with light blue acrylic paint and stamping the images with Saddle Brown and Azure Staz-On ink. Did you know that you can color with Prismacolor pencils on the acrylic paint and blend with OMS with no smudging??? Yeah, Ok, you probably did. But this was a fantastic discovery for me and I had fun coloring the images, from SU! Toybox. The letters are SU! Brushstroke Alphabet...

Thanks for looking!

Karin's Biggest Swap Ever

Karin hosted a huge international swap a couple of weeks ago, and here are the results:

I got this great card from Saskia:

This is from Dilly:

And this is from Simone, a return for one I sent her:

Aren't these gorgeous? I love the size of the European cards. And the images and embellishments are too cute. Here is the card I sent to my 2 swap-ees. Surprise, Surprise, I used the Verve Visual set, Floral Whimsey. I layered the image panels on blue and yellow, then mounted on a pink card front. Then the whole thing is on a white card base. I used rhinestones for flower centers and finished it off with pink grosgrain.

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend! I'll be busy getting ready for our weekend away this week, but hope to pre-schedule some posts. Thursday, we are leaving and will be without internet until Monday. I don't even know if we'll have cell phone coverage where we are headed. It's not that far out, but just remote enough. We will be camping with my brother and SIL and DS will get to play with his cousins all weekend! Should be fun, as long as the weather holds!

Thanks for looking!

CPS #69 - Very Pink!!

Here is my first "shabby" card. I picked up this lace at the craft store a couple weeks ago and just didn't know how to use it. Then I saw this CPS sketch and it fell into place. Although this card is not my usual style, I am really pleased with it and will be making more shabby cards in the future! Because of the size of the card, it was hard to get a good photo of it. I hope you can click on it to see the details.

I used my Nestabilities to make the center scalloped frame. Inside the frame is a large flower (Making Memories, I think) that I stamped with the French Script Background stamp in Pretty in Pink ink. To the main flower, I added a 5 petal punched flower and a small daisy punched flower with a pink rhinestone brad. DP is from the Basic Grey Perhaps 6x6 pad. I love these patterns, they are so soft and flowery and perfect here (in my opinion!).

I made the flag for the Congratulations sentiment, and the Cherished sentiment is a chipboard sticker from Making Memories. It is all mounted on a 4 x 9 inch Very Vanilla card base.

This card is currently on it's way to the recipient, and I truly hope she doesn't read this entry before it arrives!!

Thanks for looking!

Mojo Monday Week 42, On Friday...

Most weeks, I don't even get to all the challenges that are posted, so I am actually very happy to be posting this today. It means I made it in within the week! As you can tell, I am still in love with these Verve sets, this time Fluttering By. DP is from My Mind's Eye Bohemian line, Backyard My Journey Brocade/Brown and Stripe/Line. The velvet rick rack is from American Crafts, from the Target sale I mentioned a couple posts ago. The butterfly is stamped with the rock n roll method, using Green Galore and Close to Cocoa inks. I added some brown dew drops to the image panel after using the rounded corner punch on two of the corners. The butterfly is stamped twice, the top layer is paper pieced. I hope to have more time this weekend to play. DH is back in town, and after a couple of long walks Saturday and Sunday I hope to have SOME time to myself... I hope you all get some play time in, too! Thanks for looking!

Techno Stamper Lunchtime Challenge #22

Number 22, yikes! I have not participated in all 22, but I have printed them all off, or copied them into my sketch notebook for future reference. Mary Jo always has great sketches, and I love that they push me to create something I might not have otherwise created. Here's mine for this week, using Cakeabella. Her apron and the cake are paper pieced, the rest of her is colored with Prismacolors and oms. Hardware is from We R Memory Keepers and the ribbon is from my stash. Somehow, I think I missed a layer, but I still like this end result. Once again I pulled from the Making Memories pad of paper and used my color inspiration from that. The corners of the image panel are paper pierced, then outlined with my Gelly Roll Stardust pen.

Thanks for looking!

My Scrapbook Table Sketch Challenge

Sarah posted this challenge for blog candy on her blog, My Scrapbook Table. To enter, you must use this sketch as an inspiration, sign her guestbook and send her some inspiring ideas for those days her mojo is missing.

Here's my take on the sketch, using Verve Visual's Petals & Stems and Fluttering By. They are stamped on paper from the Making Memories Funky Vintage- Ruby Collection 6x6 paper pack. I found them at Target earlier this year and love the rich colors! The base card is SU! Purely Pomegranate. The rick rack used in the stems and under the sentiment panel is also from the dollar section of Target. The butterflies are embossed with holographic EP and folded so they look like they are in flight. Each layer of the flowers are popped up with foam adhesive.

In an effort to save paper and printer ink, I have started a notebook of sketches. Not surprisingly, I have discovered I can't even draw a straight line when copying a sketch! But at least I know they are squares or rectangles. With them listed in a notebook, I can jot down the date that I completed each one. If I'm organized enough, I'll also list the number of the photo in my computer file.

Since I took a sick day today, I plan on catching up on more sketches. I have had a bad sore throat for the past few days and also have been exhausted - fell dead asleep by 9:30 last night, and could use another nap now. I'm going to search for caffeine instead. Have a good day and thanks for looking!

Target Alert~

Today at work, I have to complete a *very* unpleasant task, and I am NOT looking forward to it. As a token to make myself feel better about it, I ran to Target before coming into the office. While I was there (for a legitimate reason, I might add), I decided to cruise through the craft clearance. Lo and behold, they had the 6-roll packs of American Crafts ribbon for only $2.48. HALF PRICE!! I snatched up about 6 various packs, and the girl at the register was clearly unable to share my joy in this find. Hopefully, some of you can, and will get a chance to check out your own local Target over the next day or so and find a stash of your own!

Have fun shopping! I'll be back tonight with a card, but for now it's back to work...

Thanks for looking!

Get Well Soon

There are certain occasions for which I don't plan, and therefore have no stash of cards available. Sympathy and Get Well cards fall into this category. DH had a team-member who went in for an emergency appendectomy last week, so I threw this card together before So You Think You Can Dance. The paper is CTMH, and the image is Nice and Easy Notes, an old SU! set that I still love. I have a couple of sheets with images from this set stamped, so when I need one I just have to trim and color. It makes for an easy card!

This week, I hope to get some challenges done, since DH is out of town again. That means that after DS goes to bed, the evening is mine :) Thanks for looking!

DS Collaborates...

I had this Little Paper Shop image on my desk, and DS claimed it as his own, sitting down to color it with his markers. I used it last night to make this card for DH for Father's Day. It was simple to put together. All I added was some ribbon, some brads, and some clear baubles that I colored with my orange Sharpie. Then I noticed that my Sharpie was leaking, so now there is no orange in my collection...Hope you all enjoyed your weekend! Thanks for looking!

Biggest Swap Ever - Card #1

I got this beautiful card in the mail from Dilly, in the Netherlands. Isn't it pretty? The colors, the ribbons, the bling-ed flowers, the pin in the bow. I love it all! See other swap cards HERE.

Have a great weekend! Thanks for looking!

Verve Visual Project Parade Entry

Have you seen the inspiration photo for the June Project Parade at Verve Visual? It's gorgeous, and makes me want to redecorate my master bedroom. But since *that* is not going to happen, I created this card instead:

I used the Filigree Fantasy and Floral Whimsy sets from Verve. I am still in love with these sets, and highly recommend them if you have not succumbed to them yet. They are so fun and the font of the sentiments is fantastic!

The base is a 5" square. The layers are red, saffron and white. The flourishes are all bedecked with rhinestones. The inks are Cranberry Crisp and So Saffron. Ribbon is black silk from May Arts. The sentiment panel is punched with the Ticket Corner punch and a dot was added with the black glaze pen. I hope you like it!

Go take a look at the other entries - they are simply gorgeous :)

Thanks for looking!

Father's Day Techno-Stamper Style

I have too many Father's Day cards to make, since we both come from families of divorce. I fully intended to stamp this weekend, and time just got away from me. We had friends over Saturday for a cook-out and realized that our refrigerator was not working. The drinks were not chilling!! Therefore, Sunday found us running around trying to find a new fridge. Of course, I did my Consumer Reports research only to find that the models in the stores in NO WAY matched the models in the CR printout I had. How frustrating! We did find one, and hope to have it delivered tomorrow, even though they have not called this evening to confirm.

This week, I was determined to use the Monday Lunchtime Sketch posted over at Techno Stamper. It is a great sketch (as always) and lent itself perfectly to masculine Father's Day Cards. As did my new stamps from Little Paper Shop. The book stack stamp is Hambo.

I'm going to add details later - thunderstorms are starting and I want to shut down the computer.

ETA: paper is CTMH, square brads are Making Memories, baubles are from Michael's, colored with Sharpies. Love this cheap embellishment! Images are colored and blended with Prismacolor pencils and OMS.

National Gardening Day Inspiration - LSC171

Today's Limited Supplies Challenge over on SCS was to celebrate National Gardening Day, National Doughnut Day or National Yo-Yo Day. After picking a huge bowl of strawberries from my backyard garden, I was inspired to make this card. I am pleased with how it came out, although the details took forever. I used Stickles, Puffy Paint and Diamond Glaze on the three different images. The letters are chipboard letters I got for a RAK from Teri Suzuki, ribbon is from Ribbons and Bows Oh My! The stamps are Kim Hughes for Cornish Heritage Farms, stamped with Chocolate Chip and Pixie Pink ink. The background dp is Berry Bliss, and the base is textured Bitter Chocolate from Bazzill. The other pieces are scraps. For the image panels, I used 3 different Nestabilities squares. The sketch is from Di Hickman, on May 28th.

Here's the card:

Here's the inspiration (about to become Strawberry Shortcake tomorrow!):
Honestly, I don't know where this week went! I am so glad it's Friday, I ended up taking half the day off work just so I could get some things done. Hope you all have a nice weekend! It's going to be blisteringly hot here this weekend, so we'll be testing out our newly replaced A/C system. Thanks for looking!

200th Post!?!?!?

Wow, to think I have created at least 200 cards since August! Yikes - at least that might mean that I have been using what I have. May was a heavy shopping month for me though, and I'm afraid of what the credit card will bring. It all started with the May Flowers Pack from Verve Visual. Then I needed some adhesives. Then there was a great clearance at the craft store. Then I needed a sympthay set...

On to today's card. The sketch is from Di Hickman's May 28th challenge. I instantly wanted to make a card with this cute dollar set I picked up last week. I had the Sunshines paper from Cindy and I got to work. I used the Nestabilities scalloped and regular squares for the images, then laced them with hemp twine through eyelets. The center large sentiment is made from stickers. These K & Company Hopscotch alpha stickers have been in my drawer almost a year, and I haven't had the chance to use them. Di's sketch was perfect, although I could have lined up the word better so that the "s" wasn't hanging off the edge...

DS is on his way to bed, so I'm hoping to get more stamping done tonight. This is a full week of work, and I'm sure it will feel like a long one. Hope you all had a good weekend. Thanks for looking!