Not So Clean and Simple After All

I started this card with the Clean and Simple Stamping FTL 147, but it ended up being a little fancier than I intended. The papers are from an old Making Memories pad and Cherry Cobbler. I punched the fleur-de-lis with an EK Success punch and layered them on a Nestie circle. I searched for the right color ribbon in my stash and thought I was out of luck until I found this bit in my scrap box. It was the perfect length for ruffling (even if it is a little crooked) :). The sentiment is from a clear set that I got a long time ago and no longer have the name of.

Hope you are having a safe and happy holiday weekend! Thanks for looking!

Thank You Cards from the Boys

These are the Thank You cards the boys will be sending out for all the goodies they got for Christmas. We also celebrated a birthday (Justin is 7?!?!?!), and had a visit from the tooth fairy this week. It's been busy! Tomorrow Justin returns to school and Carter and I will start frequenting the gym. I just hope he does well in the child care center there!
These are all made with Edwin Ski Clothes by Magnolia Stamps. He's so fun to paper piece. The first card uses some Pacific Point and Kraft, with a little white. I got the color combo from a Panera Bread bag after treating myself. The other two cards use some leftover Merry Days of Christmas paper from MME. I STILL haven't used it all up!
How many of you are back in the race today? DH had to return to work today after a full two weeks off! That means I'm solo with the kids after two weeks of having him home and I haven't even gotten around to making coffee yet.

Thanks for looking!

Thank Y'All!

Carter turned one (YIKES!) on August 21, and these are the Thank You cards I made to send from him. I used Cowboy Billy from Pink Cat Studio and some cute paper I picked up before I left NJ. Now that we are in TX, I'm sure I'll be using Cowboy Billy more often. I just love the Billy stamps!

The sentiment is from MFT and is attached with some pewter brads. I used a brad on his belt buckle, too. Thanks for looking!

Welcome Neighbor Bella

We are close to choosing a realtor and listing our house on the market. I'm getting anxious and hoping for the process to go quickly and smoothly. Thinking positive thoughts, I used the CPS sketch to make this Thank You card. I hope I didn't curse myself instead!

I found this image in my stash of those waiting to be colored and used up. The papers are from SU! Welcome Neighbor pad, and the base is Crushed Curry. The ribbon is Bermuda Bay. I'm still loving this paper pad and the In Colors! Since I have packed up about 60% of my craft room, I am trying to use whatever is out on the pretense that if I use it, I don't have to move it! Or rather, the movers don't have to move it...

It will be like Christmas all over when I get my stuff unpacked again! And hopefully I'll have a new craft room in time to get a nice order from the new SU! Catty :) Is it bad to buy yourself a housewarming present?

Thanks for looking!

Flower Thanks

When I had this paper out a while ago, I played around and made this card trying to use up the scraps. The tag is from Target several years ago. The leaves are from a Cuttlebug die, and the flowers are Nesties.

The rest of the card is pretty self-explanatory, and that's it. I hope you are all having a good day. Thanks for looking!

Everything Old is New Again Challenge 2

Please excuse the poor quality of this photo. We are having a horribly gray and rainy day here and there is not one spot of good daylight in my house! I wanted to get this posted early in the week, though, since I missed the deadline with the challenge last week :(

I love this new challenge set forth to use up the stash!! I am truly trying to do just that this year. So far, I haven't been in a craft store (or shopped online!) in about 3 weeks or so. Feels good to be putting that money in savings rather than crowding my already crowded stamp room. For the background, I pulled out a floral from CHF that I HAD to have and have never used. The flowers in the center are from my stash and the sentiment was in a bunch of stuff I won from Angel the year before last. The lace and button are from my grandmother who is slowly cleaning out her bits and bobs from years of sewing. She passed on some trim and buttons to me and I'm going to send this to her to thank her. I threaded thin black ribbon through the lace to make it stand out a bit more.

Today I'm going to get my craft on! DH stayed home this morning and we enjoyed a breakfast out at the local diner. It was very nice to spend some time with him and actually have a conversation! I hope you are having a brighter day than we are here, weather wise. Take care and thanks for looking!

More Thank Yous

I'm STILL behind on making Thank You cards. We are very lucky to have such loving and generous family and friends!! This one went out from Justin for a few more holiday/birthday gifts. I like this image (though don't know what company it's from) because it's not only for Christmas. Winter images are fun for more than Christmas!!

The layout is from the last issue of Sheetload of Cards. Papers are American Crafts and image is colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended. The snowflakes are from some snowflake confetti I bought a couple years ago - there are a TON of them in the package!

Things are going to get crazy around here over the next few weeks as DH starts to travel for work again. I think he's gone about 3 weeks over the next two months :(

I hope you are all doing well. Thanks for looking!

Holiday Thank You Cards, Part 1

These adorable snowman images were in my stash from a RAK last year, and as part of my "use the stash" goal, I colored them up for our holiday thank you cards. I colored them with Prismacolor pencils blended with OMS. The ice skating image has glaze on the ice. If you recognize these images, please let me know what company makes them!
The layout of the card is from the last issue (sob) of Sheetload of Cards. I will miss Sheetload, as it was a great way to make a bunch of cards at once. With this layout, I made 12 cards!
I have more to share, just need time. This has been a busy week for me, running errands and getting back into the routine of laundry and housekeeping and cooking real meals after being lax over the holidays. Poor Carter hasn't had a good nap in two days because we've been running around doing returns! I can't believe it's already Friday, but TGIF! DH had to get up at 3:30 this morning for a business call and Carter was up 3 times last night. Justin is exhausted from his first week back at school, so hopefully tomorrow will include family nap time :)
Happy Friday to you all. Thanks for looking!

Mom, Cindy, Brenda, Kristin, Michelle - DON'T LOOK!

These thank you cards are in the mail to all the kind folks who sent us baby presents. It took forever to get them made between naps and nursing, but I do like how they ended up. I used Flopsey and paper pieced her with Delicate Dots dp from SU! The flowers are also paper pieced and the centers are sparkled up with Stickles. It's the same paper pack I used for the baby announcements and I have almost finished the whole pack!! One pack of paper down, many many more to go...

The sketch is actually from CPS last Sunday. It's a miracle that I actually finished a project with a sketch the same week it was posted. It's the little things that are making me happy now. I seem to have this irrational need to *get things done* during the day, which just doesn't happen with a new baby. But I can't let it go and it's making me crazy! It shouldn't take three days of planning to actually get the bills paid and mailed! Oh, well, the little Chunk o' Love is growing and is up to 10lbs 5oz at his 6-week checkup yesterday. He was 6lbs 9oz at birth! And I got my first real smile yesterday :)

I hope you all have a wonderful World Card Making Day. If the stars are aligned, I will get to create a bit later. At least to make a birthday card for a party this afternoon! Thanks for looking!

Bedding Inspired Thank You

My in-laws sent me a gift card to a craft store for my birthday earlier this week, and I wanted to make a special Thank You card for them. In yesterday's mail, there was a Bed Bath and Beyond flyer that has this bedding on the cover:




I just think the colors are gorgeous and cheery, so I set out to use them this morning. But can you believe (gasp! Horror!) that I don't own a fleur de lis stamp? In all the stamps I have, that is one that I'm missing. I might have to hop over to PTI later and remedy that situation :)

Instead, I used Verve's Filigree Fantasy. The striped strips are from SU! Happiness and the sentiment is MFT. I used Gable Green ink and the Aqua petal from my Colorbox set that I have had forever. The papers are from the craft store and the flowers are Primas. For some reason, the colors are a bit washed out in the photo, but I'm too lazy to go somewhere else to take another pic. How bad is that?

Well, we have a lunch date at 12, and I have some other things to get done before we go. If you choose, please make a card using this bedding as inspiration and post it here in the comments! I'd love to see what you come up with :) Thanks for looking!

Early Morning Mojo

I was up and going early this morning, and the boys have gone off on a Porsche ride, so I jumped into my craft room. We have friends who are in Paris working for a few years and they recently sent me some great stamps that they picked up while in London for a weekend. They are taking advantage of where they are and are traveling all over. I'm jealous - we were in Ireland for a year, but Paris is so much more glamorous!

They were in Morocco not too long ago, so I made them a Thank You card with the BG Marrakech papers. The card base is Soft Sky and the yellow is some Bazzill textured cs. Hardware is from We R Memory Keepers, and ribbon from my stash. The layout is from the CPS site - sketch 122 posted today. I love their sketches and have been off the challenge wagon lately. Hopefully I'll find my groove when DS starts summer recreation next week. This week might be spotty since he will be home with me every day.

I'm going to jump back to my desk and see what else I can create this morning while it's still quiet. I hope you are all enjoying your Sunday! Thanks for looking!

Happy New Year, Everyone!

We are such bums, we'll never make it to midnight.  Happy New Year to all of you and congrats if you are awake to see the ball drop!

Here is a Thank You card I made for DS to send for his birthday gifts.  I kept them pretty simple - I had to make 15 of them.  This little sheep is too cute from Pun Fun, which was an impulse purchase for me but I love it.  Mats and dp are from DCWV Spring Stack.  The colors are great for year round, all-occasion projects. Good thing, because those stacks are HUGE!  I took the photo under my new OTT light with my new camera.  I am so

 pleased with the resolution on the camera, but anything is better than the 5mp that I had with my other point-and-shoot that we bought almost 5 years ago.

Happy Stamping, I hope the New Year brings everyone lots of stamp time :)  Thanks for looking!

Poke...Poke...Poke...

I've been a paper piercing maniac today, trying to get these Thank You cards completed. I'm almost there. I am making close to 40 of these for all those generous souls who donated to my Avon Walk for Breast Cancer efforts.

I used my new Oval Nesties (my fave purchase to date - ovals were my nemesis before they arrived). I wanted to keep these cards simple, and decided to add piercing for detail. The sentiment is from Little Paper Shop.

Last weekend was the actual event, and I rose at 3:50 am Saturday to be in NYC by 5:30. DH was kind enough to drive me in. The walk began at 7 and we walked 26.2 miles on Saturday. What a fantastic walking tour of the city! We walked up along the Hudson, through Spanish Harlem, down to SOHO, over the Brooklyn Bridge, back over the Manhattan Bridge, over Chinatown, and up 2nd Avenue past the United Nations, to end at Randall's Island. There, we camped out in 2-person tents, showered in shower trucks, ate a huge pasta dinner, and enjoyed the evening entertainment (including a marriage proposal!). Sunday morning, we woke to rain and had a hot breakfast and hit the road again. Another 13.1 miles, through the center of Manhattan, down through the Village and ending back at Pier 84. It was a fabulous heartwarming and heartbreaking weekend, and I signed up to walk again next year. This year I far surpassed the minimum fundraising goal and hope to do even better in 2009.

It honestly took me all this week to fully recover, physically and emotionally. I went back to work Wednesday, DH left for a business trip that night and I finally feel rested after a great family weekend. Tomorrow, DS and I have the day off, so we are going to head down to the beach. It is supposed to top 79 degrees tomorrow, so we're going to enjoy the sunshine!

I hope this finds everyone well. Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian friends! Thanks for looking!

No Stamping? No Problem!

Another challenge completed for this week! I'm on a roll...

The Limited Supply Challenge at SCS was to make a card with no stamping involved. Since I still had some Berry Bliss paper out on my desk, that's what I grabbed. The center is punched with the Giga scalloped oval, then I cut a white oval with my Curvy Cutter and added a "Thanks" sticker. The flowers are primas, and the center is a pewter brad from Making Memories. The pink striped ribbon was also out on my desk. I have a ton of it and don't even remember where it came from. I ran it through a We R Memory Keepers buckle.

Well, I'm off to the craft store to make an exchange. I bought some Basic Grey Magnetic Snaps and one is missing from the package. The only silver lining about driving there is that I get to use another 50% off coupon...

Tonight, and tomorrow, I plan on making some cards in colors other than PINK! I'm tired of seeing pink. Time to clean off my desk and start from scratch. Wishing all of you Mothers out there a Happy Mother's Day! May you be spoiled and treated to stamp time :)

Thanks for looking!

Well, I Thought I Was Ahead of Myself...

I thought I would take advantage of being home with a sick DS today and get the SCS challenge completed on the day it was posted. Today is Thursday, which is a Ways to Use It challenge. I went onto the forum and the first one I saw as a monochromatic challenge. Only after finishing it and getting ready to post, I saw that this was NOT today's challenge! I didn't pay attention to the number sequence, and completed this challenge from December 2007. Oops :)So, there you have it, I'm not ahead of the game after all. Today's *actual* challenge is to use chipboard. I will tackle that later. Meanwhile, though, I DID use the Techno Stamper Lunchtime Sketch Challenge for this week, so all is not lost. I really like how this card came out. DP is Miss Elizabeth's, on a black base. The pinks for sentiment and image are scraps and ink colors are Basic Black and Rouge Colorbox Cat's Eye. I used my black and clear glaze pens to outline the flowers and color in the centers, just to give them a bit more dimension. I also used the black glaze pen to draw the line between the two pink panels. The image is from Best Blossoms and the sentiment is Quick & Cute, both SU! Rick Rack is from my stash.

Here's a close-up of the flowers.

Thanks for looking!

Thanks and Blog Candy Winners

Here's a Thank You card I made a few weekends ago. It started out with the sentiment - which is from the Michael's dollar spot. I stamped it in rose red on white, then mounted on red and yellow panels. The ribbon is wide ruffled ribbon from Target at Christmas. The corner adornments are the flower from Polka Dots and Paisley, watercolored and bling-ed up with a red rhinestone. That panel is mounted on green, then blue. The dp is from my stash. The corners of the card also have rhinestones on them.Now, onto the winners of the scrap albums! The baby boy album is going to Stephanie
Stephanie said...
wow, great candy... both the albums are great! April 28, 2008 5:33 PM

The brown album is going to Claudia
scfranson said...
Great blog and blog candy. April 28, 2008 5:05 PM

Please email me with your contact information so I can get them into the mail by this weekend. Thanks for playing along!

Ok, off to finish watching Hell's Kitchen. Have a good night, everyone. Thanks for looking!

TLC164 - Accomplished!

Don't you love when you can complete an SCS challenge on the day it is posted? Well, here's TLC164, 2 hours before the day is over. A quick post here and I'm heading to bed. Yes, I turn into a pumpkin very early (but I do read in bed for about an hour first)...

The technique challenge was to create a double pocket card. I have seen these, and they are always so beautiful, but remained a mystery to me. However, with the tutorial posted on the SCS forum, it was VERY easy to do! The longest part of the process was deciding how to decorate the tags.

I used Heidi Grace Designs double sided cardstock. The pattern is Wild Daisy Rd/Mix Floral and has wonderful colors in it. I like that they are subdued greens and yellows. On the front, I added some Dew Drops to the flowers to make them pop out a bit. The ribbon is from Target, layered on brown grosgrain from my stash. The tags are made from yellow cs, layered with green and again with a piece of vanilla. The top vanilla layer is stamped with a flourish from Rhonna Farrer and a sentiment from the Michael's dollar bin. Ink is So Saffron and Old Olive. I added the Primas with pewter brads and gave the tags an eyelet to hold the raffia ribbon.

I hope you all got to complete a project today! Thanks for looking!

Spring Fever Challenge Day 2

Today's challenge at the Spring Fever Challenge was to make a 4x4 card, NO patterned paper, and only black and white for colors. 4x4 is one of my favorite cards to make, so while I was at work, I sketched out this one. I finally got a chance to bring it to life after dinner, a massive temper trantrum from DS, and getting him to bed. UGH, tantrums are few and far between, but MAN does he have a temper!

Anyway, on to the card. The stamp is SU! Lexicon of Love. The polka dot ribbon is from Verve Visual (May Arts), and the flowers are a small punch I have had for a while. I think I got it in the dollar bin at Michael's. For the upper left corner, I punched the flowers in the black panel so the white base shows through. For the lower right corner, I used those punched flowers. I applied Hero Arts rhinestones to the centers. The only other thing I did was tear the black triangle to give a little texture. Easy Peasy! I think it took all of 10 minutes - a record for me.

Thanks for looking!

Spring Thank You Times Two

Well, I never did get to re-working the previous card (Sorry to keep you waiting, Anna!) Maybe this week I'll get to it. We spent Saturday visiting with friends we have not seen in over a year, then Sunday I decided to rearrange my craft room. My desk was right under the window, which was great in theory, but not when the sun was shining directly down, glaring off the papers into my eyes. It was rough to work there in the direct sun! So now I am on the other side of the room, and the sun does shine in the afternoon, but no longer directly on my desktop. There is a great amount of natural light, without the glare :)

Also, DH went out yesterday and got himself (ok, us) a Wii. How fun! We played bowling and tennis last night for a good while. It was his birthday Friday, so he deserved it (especially since I am so lame with gifts that I didn't have a chance to get him anything).

Yesterday I did get a little time to create, in between playing "Target" with DS. When it was his turn to "shop" I colored some images, then cut them in stages. Here are the cards I put together because I had the images already stamped and felt like coloring. Then I realized I had the striped paper that matched the colors I chose for the tulips. Don't you love when coordination just happens and you don't have to work so hard for it? The dp is from Target, the card base is Marigold Morning, and the green layer is Certainly Celery. The pink layer is scrap. Ribbon is from Target also. Stamps are SU! Nice & Easy Notes.

I'll have more time to play tomorrow, I hope. I took the day off work, and DS came home from preschool today with a fever. So we'll be home all day, except to run to the doctor. Hopefully he'll get a good night's sleep and fight it off. It's only been about 3 weeks since he was sick last time!

I hope you all are enjoying the extra hour of sunshine in our days! Thanks for looking!

Christmas Thank You Cards

Wow, these cards actually got finished before the end of the year! That's a record for me. Usually it's mid-January and they still aren't made. Granted, they are not written out yet, but that's a good project for tomorrow, which is supposed to be cold and rainy. But can you believe when I went to the post office the other day they had NO rolls of regular stamps? How can the post office be out of stamps?!?!?! So I'll have to make another trip there later this week. Does anyone else dread the post office like they dread the dentist?

These are rather simple, as DS was clamoring for a playmate as I was trying to make them. I was able to produce a quick dozen of them in about 1 1/2 hours. The dp is from the same Holiday Slab V that I've been using this whole holiday season. The Thank You is from a sentiment set that I don't have a label for. Ribbon is from the craft store. Brads are pewter from Making Memories.

Happy New Year and Thanks for looking!