Fall Festival Fun

This card is for a sweet lady who does so much to make fellowship at our church a wonderful time. She is working feverishly to put together our annual Fall Festival. The children have so much fun dressing up and our activities include a Cake Walk, Hayride, Jumping Cage, and usually a Dunking Tank, although it's supposed to be too cold to do that this year. ( Can you imagine that, in Florida!) We also have lots of other little games, face painting, etc. Young and old love to come to this. My friend also put together a church reception this past Sunday night and an all-church shower for one of our brides-to-be last night.
I made this card for her in the hopes that it will put a smile on her face and help her remember this year's Fall Festival....unless she would rather forget it. LOL The point is to let her know how much she is appreciated. The background paper and scalloped paper at the bottom are from Basic Grey's "Mellow" which I'm still using with gusto. The "sentiment" was done with my Just-Rite stamper. I love the way I can personalize with that. My wreath is from a post from Paperlicious, and my "punch-pumpkin" is from a post from Snapnextras. Both of the ideas really grabbed me, and it all added to the theme of Fall Festival for this card. Thank you, ladies, for sharing these techniques. Don't you love Muzzie (you can tell him by the notch on his ear) dressed up as Swiss cheese?! This image is just too cute. I'm going to post this to the HM Challenge for this week since they are calling for something "natural". My bow on my wreath will hopefully qualify this card for that theme. Check out their cute cards for this week's challenge if you get a chance. Thank you for stopping by. I hope to get more posts up, but this week is tied up with many things, so I'll do what I can.

Beate's WSC63

I had a little time today and decided to try to jump in on Beate's week-end sketch challenge. I used a new stamp that I love by Inkadinkadoo. I'm still loving the papers in Basic Grey's "Mellow", so I used that for the main background paper. The sentiment is from Sweet and Sassy. The main CS is Riding Hood Red and the green is Kiwi Kiss, both from SU's new In-Colors for 2008. I embossed the Kiwi Kiss with my Divine Swirl Embossing Folder for my CB. I stamped the birds in Riding Hood Red and I sponged the birds in Certain Celery while it was still nested in my Nestie. The Zig zag borders are punched with my Martha Steward border punch. From a distance, it looks kind of Christmas-y. Thanks for looking. I do enjoy sketch challenges so this was fun for me.

Fun Fall Riley

I had two cards to make/send to two special people. One is my niece Lynda who won, for the second year in a row, "Teacher of the Year" at her school in Florida. I am so happy for her and she is most deserving of the honor. The other is my grandson who has "stuck by the stuff" and mowed enough lawns this summer to open a savings account. I'm very proud of him and wanted to send him a little something to add to it. So, my Riley card is going to go to one of them for sure. I am still loving Basic Grey's "Mellow" that I picked up at Michael's. I even went back and bought a second one. Riley is so cute sitting with the pumpkins, and I slid him into my new Sizzix die-cut envelope from SU that works fine in my CB. I can see me using this a lot. The DP has a touch of blue in it, so I incorporated Bashful Blue with PTI's Dark Chocolate. My pumpkin is Tangerine Tango, and I sponged it a bit to cut down on the bright tangerine color. The leaves are my Martha Stewart punch. My ribbon is Pumpkin Pie from SU. Hope you like it. It was fun to make. Will be back with another project soon.

Surprise Award

This morning I learned that my sweet friend Carolyn from P.M.S. Etc.
left me an award.  I am so honored to be recognized by such an outstanding
and talented artist.  Her cards and projects have all been so awesome and it
just makes my day (week, month.....) that she has honored me.  She is such
an encourager and I feel as though she's one of my dearest friends, even
though we've never met.  As I'm getting acquainted with many of you, I feel
like I'm developing friendships and I look forward to seeing each of your
creations and letting you know how much I love what you've said and done.
I love Fall, so this is a gorgeous picture to attach to my blog.  Thank you
so much, Carolyn. 
Now I confess that it is difficult for me to pass this on to just 6 bloggers.  So,
I'm going to cheat a bit and single out one blog that has been my pleasure to
visit, not only for the talent she shares but for the whitty things she posts
that cater to my love of humor.  So Paperlicious, I'll  pass this on to you.

HM "Not a Card" Challenge

This week's HM challenge was "anything but a card". I actually thought of several projects I could do, but I got one done for now so I'll post it. Susan Roberts from Rainy Day Creations recently did a beautiful door hanger using one of Flourishes new stamp sets. So I decided to do a door hanger and use my gruffie who fell asleep reading. I didn't have any chip board so I had to create my own, using some thin cardboard for a backing. I used my Western Sky DP from SU! and my "Bedtime Story" gruffie from HM. I also used some River Rock and Blue Bayou (both retired In-Color papers from SU) and colored once again with my Prismacolor pencils. I stamped some "z's" with VersaMark and added my Cosmo glitter to them. I like how it turned out and decided it would be a cute gift for the older grandkids to hang on their doors when they want to be left alone from pestering siblings. :) Thanks for looking - it was a fun challenge and I'll try to pursue one of my other ideas if there's time. Be sure to check out the other great entries. Hugs.

SSnotime 57 Challenge

Today's card is a challenge card inspired by a card entered for another challenge. I saw an awesome card this morning....well, I saw lots of awesome cards actually.....but this one caught my eye and I loved the colors. It was done by Laura Fredrickson for Flourishes. I realized that I had purchased Flourishes shimmery "Carmel" CS and never used it - yet. I also had the Divine Swirl embossing folder for my CB that I had never used. I also recently purchased Brilliance "Cosmic Copper" and hadn't used that yet either. The "No Time to Stamp" challenge this week was to do a card with no pictures. You could use DP and sentiments, but no stamped images. Since I wanted to do this challenge, Laura's card inspired me to use these elements to make my card. Since I also hate to make cards that will serve a purpose rather than just allow me to enter a challenge (I'm sure no one does that), I used my new "Christ is Born" sentiment from SU! to add another Christmas card to my "stash." I also found a Basic Grey paper this week called "Mellow" and I fell in love with it. I must buy one or two more because I can see really using this up. I incorporated all of these elements into my card, and while the colors don't say Christmas, the sentiment certainly does. I believe we were allowed to attach flowers as long as we didn't stamp them, so I attached my Prima Poinsettias. Be sure to check out Laura's card if you get a chance, and I will post this as well to the ssnotime57 challenge at SCS. I'm trying to get SCS to respond to an e-mail and explain why my gallery link won't take me to my gallery. If any of you have had a problem with that and no of a fix, please let me know. I've not heard anything back from them at SCS and it's been a week now. Thanks for looking and have a wonderful rest of the week-end.

Sweet Little One

This week's HM Challenge was a sketch. I really liked this one, and I found that with the layout of the card given to me, I can work pretty fast. I put it all together and colored the image last. My niece is expecting her first baby in a few weeks, so I made this for her precious new son. My yellows (including ribbon) are PTI's Lemon Tart and my blue's are SU's Brilliant Blue. I sponged my scalloped Nestie with blue and then used my circle punch to place blue circles along the left edge before adding my silver half-balls. The sentiment is from SU's "By Ones and By Twos". I attached my Prima flowers with my new flower brads from SU! Be sure to check out the other cute cards at the HM Challenge this week. Thanks for stopping by.
(Note: I realized my picture is making the colors look washed out. The lemon colors are bright and warm, but not overpowering. I've got my new light box, but I think I still need additional light to get the true colors to show. If anyone wants to tutor me, feel free. :) )

Christmas Workshop

This is my latest card for the workshop I have been asked to do for our ladies at my church. It's fairly simple but will teach them to use markers on the stamps and to use a reverse-mask technique as I did for the snowglobe and a mask technique for the presents. I'll post the others over the next few days. Thanks so much for stopping by. Hope you're having a good week.

SSnotime56

The challenge issued was to do a card inspired by nature and add wide ribbon if you had it. It was also suggested that Sharon Johnson's favorite card size is 5.5 x 5.5, but I forgot that. Sorry 'bout that. I started out with the pine boughs from Peaceful Wishes and added the Poinsettia from Flourishes new stamp set. Once they were both on there, I didn't like it and decided I would have to cut out the poinsettia and use it elsewhere because they just didn't go together. Just for fun, I started coloring the flower. I used my blender pens and Rose Red ink for the darker color. Then I used my Twinkling H2O's for the rest of the flower. I sponged Pink Pirouette around the white areas on the card and wanted to put my wide pink satin ribbon but wasn't able to do that with the flower in the way. Then I realized that I could cut out part of the flower and overlap it onto the ribbon. I stamped the "Joy" sentiment, also from "Poinsettia and Boxwoods". I added some snowflakes in Pink Pirouette and dotted the centers with my Star Dust Stickles. I also added that to the center of the poinsettia and the pine cone, although I did manage to put my thumb down right on the still-wet stickles on the pine cone. I mounted it all on Sage Shadow and decided I like it pretty well afterall. I usually put Fray Check on the edges of my ribbon to keep them from raveling, but in this case I added a small line of the Stickles. I might just make more of these for Christmas cards. Up close, where you can see the "glow" of the Stickles, it looks pretty fancy. Thanks for the fun challenge and thanks for looking.

Will the Real Amanda HM Please Take a Bow

Well, my conscience did not allow me to post a moose to the HM challenge, and I did not have time to get to the real Amanda until today. So, without further ado, here she is. I must ask that you read the previous post to know the conflict surrounding this ballerina and her confused designer. I used my Pumpkins Embossing Folder for my CB, as well as the Swiss Dots for the Riding Hood Red paper. I colored the pumpkins, etc. with my Twinkling H2O's. I got the brilliant idea to use my labelmaker for the sentiment, adhered it to the black paper and cut it out with my word window punch. Amanda is trying out some new ballet slippers. Thanks for looking and have a great week-end.

A Mouse in Moose Costume

This week's HM challenge is a Halloween theme, represented either by the image itself or the color scheme. Since I've already posted my two Halloween HM images, I decided to go with the color idea. The only problem is that this is a moose, not a mouse. (Shhhhh......) I thought about trying to see if anyone would notice, but alas, I'm afraid you would. :) Then, I thought that this could be Amanda in her Tu-tu, disguised as a moose, but again, I'm sure you wouldn't buy that either. The funny thing is that this idea came to mind with the intent of using Amanda in her tu-tu. However, I just received my order of Rileys and I simply grabbed Sophie instead of Amanda. Since I worked hard on my ballerina, be it moose or mouse, I am posting it anyway, at least to my blog. I'll have to decide if the HM DT will ban me from future participation if I post this to the HM challenge. I would still like to use Amanda, but I have now used my ballet-slipper charm with Sophie. Oh the woes of having "stampers confusion." I need to write Dear Paperlicious for help. I want to give this to my granddaughter for Halloween. She's been asking grandma for ballet slippers, so this is a start. My DP is Basic Grey's Ambrosia. Yellow CS and ribbon are PTI. Thank you for looking and I'll really work on my "animal confusion."

Great "shows" from Card Night

Last night was my monthly card class, and we did some great cards. We employed a variety of techniques and tools to come up with these cards. I got to try SU's new die cut machine, and I had to get the adorable envelope die on the lower left card since it is supposed to work fine in my Cuttlebug. (I do love my CB and have no desire to replace it.) It makes the cutest little envelope and could be used for so many things. Anyway, just thought you'd enjoy seeing these fun cards. The scarecrow is in the new Holiday Mini Catalog. There are so many products out there to stamp with - it's amazing. There is also so much talent out there and it's so much fun for me to see what all you stampers come up with. These cards we did were cased, and I'm not sure from who, but whoever you are, your designs are inspiring and we thank you for sharing. Happy World Cardmaking Day! KrB

One more for the Tag challenge

I made this card a few weeks ago for my daughter's birthday because she LOVES the Fall. I decided to add it to this week's HM challenge since it has a tag of sorts. I'm busy working on another project for my church ladies. This time they've asked me to do a Christmas workshop, so I am busy coming up with cards so I can get my supplies ordered. I'm honored that they asked me and hope they enjoy it. I'll post the cards I come up with as I go along. I need to be playing some Mannheim Steamroller to set the mood, don't I. Thanks for stopping by.