From Our House

It's mid-December and it's time to sparkle. That's because "sparkle" is the theme for our 41st Copic Creations challenge. Our sponsor is Just-Rite Stamps and the DT has done some gorgeous cards for this challenge to illustrate their stamps. The prizes will be two snowman sets (Cling) with a storage box from Just-Rite, plus a set of Copic Spica pens. Our challenge is also going to run through mid-January as we will not be doing a challenge on January 1. My set is from Just-Rite's "From Our House". I am including a close-up to try to illustrate that I colored part of the image with the Copic Spica pens to add a sparkly look. I used two different Spellbinders die cuts and covered my paper first with a piece of my Be Creative sheets adhesive paper.
After they were cut I peeled off the top of the adhesive and sprinkled it with my Glitter Ritz glitter in Ice Blue and Gold. I also cut two strips of the adhesive for the top and bottom of the card and added the gold there. I'm pleased with how it turned out - in real life it's really sparkly. Thank you for all your wonderful comments this year....they all brightened my day. I hope you're having a wonderful month and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Christmas Cards x 10, Take 2

Today's post is the other batch of ten cards I made in mass for Christmas cards. Now I also used up every one of my "one-of-a-kind" cards and I'm still shy at least one, but that's okay cause I have so many images I still want to play with and it's still early in the month. Currently I am sending out 42 homemade cards. I love that I can do that because they're personal and that means I'm sending a part of me, even if they're one of the mass-produced cards - I still made them. The bird and branch punch are from SU! I'm off to wrap more presents. Thanks for stopping by - I love when you do.

Christmas Cards x 10

I want to share my Christmas cards with you that I mass-produced, before Christmas comes and goes. I did ten of these and had to keep it pretty simple to make several at once. My image is SU's "Sleigh Bells Ring", and the pine branch, the DP's and the punch for the top of the ornament are all from SU! I made these back in October and then got my cards addressed in early November. That has never happened before but now they're ready to go in the mail with the addition of the family Christmas letter that was added yesterday. I did ten of another design that I'll share with you in my next post. Thanks for stopping by. I so appreciated all the comments from all of you who liked the "Jesus is the Reason...." card. Have a wonderful week-end.

Copic Creations Challenge #40 plus a Blog Hop

I have two cards to share with you today. The first, as you may have guessed is for a Blog Hop to honor the "Reason" for the season. I am honored to have been asked to participate in a hop to remind us all to keep the real meaning of Christmas before us as we go through this very busy but festive month of December. I wanted to do an image that conveyed "From the Cradle to the Cross" since that is the reason that our Great Saviour left the glories of Heaven and took on the form of a human to come to this sin-cursed earth....to die on the cross for the sins of all who believe in Him. I hope I captured this great truth with the embossed "shadow" of the cross. I purchased the Spellbinder's Dies Crosses and found that one of the dies fit well over this star. My image is a digital download from "Karen's Doodles". For the sake of the message of this hop I Photo-Shopped the sentiment on top of the image.
The hop starts here with Heather. You should be arriving at my post from Kadie's blog here, and your next stop is Kelly's blog here.
There are 3 sponsors offering prizes:
• Fresh Brewed Designs: 4 Christmas/Faith digital images plus 2 of winner's choice
• Simply Betty Stamps: Jude & His Shenanigans Crew Christmas Collection (6 digital images)
• The Stamping Boutique: 2 Faith digital images plus 4 images of winner's choice
Three winners will be chosen (one for each store prize above) so be sure you make your way around each stop and leave a comment, and thank you for hopping with us.


It is also December 1 and time for our 40th Copic Creations Challenge. Where does the time go!? Our sponsor this time is Whimsy Stamps and the image I chose is called Holly Cheer Cocoa. The theme of the challenge is to color your image assuming a particular light-source. I hope you can tell where I decided my light is coming from. You'll find some tutorials listed on the challenge page so be sure to check them out. My DP's are Webster's Pages "Waiting for Santa & Sweet Season" Collection Combo Pack. Those are some gorgeous papers. My sentiment is from Waltzing Mouse's Very Vintage Christmas. I hope you get a chance to challenge yourself with this coloring theme. Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a wonderful week and don't forget the real Reason for the season.

Will Knit for Friends

It has taken me all week to complete this project to post to the House Mouse challenge before it closes. That's the pace my life is going lately, but alas I got it done. The theme of the challenge is "friends" and I thought this image conveyed perfectly something a friend does for friends. In fact, the name of the image is "Will Knit for Friends." I used my Kaiser "Utopia Collection" DP and configured my sentiment from PTI's "Mailbox Greetings". I colored my image with Copics. I have much to do so I must move on to the next project. Thanks for stopping by.

Copic Creations Challenge #39

My goodness the time is going by quickly and it's time for another Copic Creations challenge. Our sponsor this time is Tickled Pink Stamps and the image I worked with is called "20's Evie" from the Fashionette Li'l Lolita category. The theme this time is shading paper-pieced images. The main part of her dress and hat are paper-pieced and then shaded. I shaded her dress with YG21 and YG25. The brown part of the hat is shaded with E27 and E29 and the band of the hat is colored with E43, E44 and E47, although that part is not paper-pieced. I used Cosmo Cricket's "Material Girl" DP's and used a sentiment from "She's a Lady" from There She Goes stamps. I hope you like my stylin' young miss and I hope you get a chance to check out all the DTs' entries. I wish you all a wonderful week. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Bring Back Beautiful Challenge

I have another card to add to my Christmas stash and also to enter into Flourishes' "Bring Back Beautiful" challenge. The challenge is to show how you wrap up your cards with ribbon. My card features an image from the Christmas Classics set from Flourishes and papers from Basic Grey's "Jovial." My image is colored with Copics and hung with Red and White Twine, also from Flourishes. The large scallop was cut with PTI's Large Scallop Border die. I added some "holly" from a MS punch. I'm pleased with how it turned out. I'm loving this image and colored up another one to feature with a Spellbinder's die of another shape. This has been a busy week for me so I haven't done any blogging or posting......so sorry about that. Hopefully I can catch up with your blogs soon. Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a wonderful week-end.

Copic Creations Challenge #38

Good Monday morning and happy November to you! Once again it's time for another Copic Creations Challenge. Our challenge this time is sponsored by Make it Crafty and they provided our DT with some adorable images. The image I colored is called Whimsical Log. I used DP's from Kaiser's "Utopia" 6 x 6 paper pack and Webster's combo pack of "Lullabye Lane and Life's Portrait". The image down in the corner is called Maya Making Wishes from Whimsy Stamps. I resized her and reversed her horizontally. I had planned to place her on the log but I decided to put her in the corner instead. My sentiment is from Flourishes' "Kids at Play." As I began to color the mushrooms a big drop of color from my marker dripped next to it. After getting all that I could out with my Colorless Blender I covered up the remaining bit of color with the butterflies. Good thing, as I surely didn't want to start over. I hope you have a wonderful week and thanks so much for stopping by. Be sure you check out the prize being offered for this challenge, as well as the wonderful projects the DT came up with.

Halloween Goodies and a Peak at My Desk

I've been busy working on something for my grandkids for Halloween and thought I'd share it with you. I found the idea for these cute little cards at Mega Stampin' Studio and decided they were just the thing to do for the kids, only I enlarged my cards to 4 x 4. I used all House-Mouse images to show up behind the bubble once the candy is gone (that won't take long I'm sure). My DP's are from Basic Grey's "Eerie". So far I've made 9 of these - I have 10 grandchildren but the youngest is only a month old so I decided he probably couldn't eat the m&m's yet - and I think I'll try to do a few more for the neighbors' kids. I'm entering this into the House-Mouse challenge since it's all about Halloween, and What's on Your Workdesk? Wednesday so you can catch a glimpse of my "happy place." Thanks for stopping by and have a lovely day. The weather here has been warm and mega-humid, but we're supposed to get rain followed by cooler temps - woohoo!

Friends are the Nicest Thing

I love this stamp set from SU called The Nicest Things, so-named because the sentiment with it says "A friend is one of the nicest things you can have and one of the best things you can be." When I saw that, coupled with such a cute image, I knew I wanted this set. I paired it with Cosmo Cricket's Nutmeg DP's and the tag is from a SU set called Tiny Tags. I used my Labels Seventeen Spellbinder's die with it and that pretty much sums it up. We had a lovely week-end and I was refreshed by the message at church yesterday reminding us from Psalm 90:12, "So teach us to number our days that we may present to You a heart of wisdom." God wants us to make wise use of our time.....something we tend to forget oftentimes as we pursue more frivolous things. The message points were to be Fearless and to be Faithful. It definitely gave me something to work on as I am reminded of this truth. I hope you have a lovely week as we close out the month of October and rapidly approach the holiday season. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Halloween Tilda

I've been waiting a long time to ink up this combo and I love it. These are both Magnolia images and when I saw the quilt (Picnic Quilt, from '08) I decided that this Witch Tilda with Hat ('09)would look so cute sitting on it. I used Cosmo Cricket's Pixie-licious papers, but I didn't choose them until after Tilda was all colored. I must have subconsciously memorized that color scheme in my head because it was a perfect match to the papers. I chose some leaves and acorns from Flourishes' Falling Leaves set to surround her with instead of flowers. Once again I used my PTI wool felt and their Beautiful Blooms II dies for a flower for the corner. The tiny leaves stamped on the sentiment and the sentiment are from PTI's Mailbox Greetings set. I've taken pictures several cards I've done recently so hopefully I can post more cards for you than I've done in awhile. Thanks for stopping by. I hope this month of October has been an enjoyable one for you. It's such a beautiful time of year.

Copic Creations Challenge #37

It's time for another Copic Creations Challenge. This one is being sponsored by Pink Cat Studio and the theme is use of the Colorless Blender. My image is called Friendly Snowman. I think he looks both friendly and distinguished. I used BG10, BG72, and Y000 with my Colorless Blender for my snowman, and W6 and W7 with the CB for his hat. I adhered him on my incredibly yummy wool felt from PTI, cut out with my Mega Curved Rectangle Nestability die. The papers are Basic Grey's "Jovial". The letters are punched with MS punches and the buttons are from PTI. I hope you get to check out the rest of the wonderful cards that the design team has done. Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful week-end.

Flourishes Sketch Challenge and Chance to Win

Flourishes has a great sketch challenge going and if you enter you're in the running to win all three of October's new releases. I recently got some new stamps, and while the images on my card and the sentiment are from two different sets I knew they would be perfect together and couldn't wait to use them together. This sketch was a great way to do it. My DP's are Basic Grey's "Eerie". The shoe and broom are from Flourishes "Witching You a Happy Halloween" and the sentiment is from Kraftin' Kimmie's "Cinderella". I've been working on mass-produced Christmas cards in groups of 10 and I'm almost done with my second group of 10. My goal is to get them all done and addressed by the end of October because that is always such a big project during the holidays so I'll be thrilled to have it done. Thank you for your kind comments and wishes for our new little grandson and thanks for stopping by. It's almost time for another Copic Challenge so stay tuned.

Sympathy Card and Baby Pic

Today's card is a Sympathy Card I did using stamps from PTI's Beautiful Blooms II and their Autumn Abundance papers. I background-stamped the basic CS with SU's Autumn Leaf Prints. The sentiment is also from SU's Teeny Tiny Wishes. I also have to share a picture of Grandma and new baby Austin, born last Tuesday at 1:14 AM to my daughter and SIL. Big Brother Ethan is doing well with him although he came down with a Croopy cough this past week-end and can hardly talk, so that has made things a bit rough. Grandma's been on deck to help so I haven't done much stamping in the last week. I'm off to try to leave some long overdue comments. Thank you for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful week.

Copic Creations Challenge #36

It's October 1 and time for another Copic Creations Challenge. This is Higgelty, and she's my kind of witch....a witch with attitude but NOT too scary. She is from Tiddly Inks who happens to be our sponsor for this challenge. The theme of the challenge is "Orange", so her lovely witchy-purple coat is patched with orange patches. She's standing on that magic broom of hers, ready to fly off with the wave of her wand. The DP's are Basic Grey's "Eerie." The sentiment is computer-generated and is flanked by sparkly bats. I sponged my backgrounds with Tim Holtz' Distress Inks in Antique Linen, Wild Honey and Rusty Hinge. I had to sponge the ribbon in Antique Linen as well to tone down the white. The DT has done some great cards so do try to check them out and then join us for our Orange challenge. Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by.

More Wishes

I wanted to squeeze in on a challenge at Flutterby Wednesdays so I rushed to get this done only to realize I missed the deadline. As Balki used to say on Perfect Strangers, "baba sticki!" I guess it had to be in by Noon today. (Must have poor reading skills, - maybe NO reading skills.) I'm going to post it anyway because I like how it turned out and since I don't have much time to crank out cards these days I'm going to post what I do make. The challenge called for a New Creation and Buttons, so this definitely fit the challenge. The image is called Lisa Fairy from Paper Makeup Stamps. My sentiment is computer generated and I used my Labels Seventeen Nesties once again. Love that set! My DP's are Basic Grey's "Cappella." My card size is 5 x 5, so that gives you an idea of the size of the image. That's something I often wonder when looking at someone's cards so I'm going to try to remember to start including that information. I hope you have a lovely day and thanks so much for stopping by.
EDIT to Post: This qualifies for this week's Flutterby Wednesday challenge, Anything with Wings so I'll go ahead and post to this one.

Trunk Full of Wishes

Good Monday morning to you. Today I have a card for my dear daughter because it's her 26th birthday. Happy Birthday, Sweetie! Since she is due to have her second son any time, she might as well share her birthday and get on with it, right?! Anyway, this is "Traveling Tilda" and "Suitcase with Sign" from the Bon Voyage collection. I just love this Tilda so I made her into the keeper of wishes inside this trunk. You'll note that I attached a key to "unlock" that trunk full of wishes. I copied Mary Giemza's post idea from Saturday and did an easel card, even borrowing the die-cut swirls. Her card is awesome and you can see it here. I love doing easel cards because the recipient can display their card if they want to rather than having to put it away. I used Wags and Whiskers DP's and I stamped the frame around Tilda with Flourishes' "Falling Leaves", then sponged Tilda and the frame in "Old Paper" Distress Ink from Tim Holtz. The sentiment is computer generated and the dies are from Spellbinders' Labels Seventeen. I love those because they accommodate a pretty big image. The flowers are Primas from 7 Kids College Fund. I hope you have a lovely week and I hope to be back with some challenge cards soon. Til then, thanks for stopping by. I love hearing from you.

Copic Creations Challenge #35

Happy Wednesday! It's time for another Copic Creations challenge. Our challenge this time is "shading" and you'll notice the DT has used images from Kraftin' Kimmie, who happens to be our sponsor for this challenge. The winner will get two Kraftin' Kimmie images. My image is called "Charlotte" and I used a lot of Copics to color her to match the Cosmo Cricket Pixie-Licious paper, so I'm not going to list all of them. I'll be happy to let you know what they are if you want to e-mail and ask me. I couldn't settle on a sentiment for this either, so I left it blank for now. My dies are the new Spellbinders Labels Seventeen. I sponged the main image along the outer edges with Old Paper and Crushed Olive Distress inks. I hope you get to see what the rest of the DT has contributed and then I hope you get to join us for this challenge. Have a wonderful rest of the week and week-end and thanks for stopping by.

Card #3-Patience

Here is my third card in the "Cuties" series. This one I called "Patience," but she is found in the Summer Cuties as "Speedster." The sentiment from Flourishes' new "Kids at Play" set seemed to be perfect. Again I used Cosmo Cricket's "Pixie-licious" DP's and I colored my flowers to pull out colors from the image and papers. I used my Spica glitter pens for parts of her tricycle. These three are all I've done so far, and I thought originally I would keep them simpler and make up a note card set by adding a few others to it, but I couldn't leave them without embellishing them and then wondered how practical it would be to make them for a set. I still love the images and enjoy looking at these little cuties. I hope you've enjoyed them. We're starting a new week and I hope you have a good one. Thanks for stopping by.

Card #2-"Sharing" by Phindy

Here is the second card I'll share with you. This one is titled "Sharing" and is also under the "Summer Cuties" category. This little guy is sharing his ice cream with a tiny little fella. I just loved this image and colored him with Copics. The DP's are from Cosmo Cricket's "Pixie-Licious" and "Mitten Weather." The sentiment if from SU. I know I should see if this fits any challenges, but I'm undergoing a big house project (for me, anyway) so I really can't take the time to look right now. I'll share the last one of these with you soon. Hope you're having a lovely week-end.

"Patience" by Phindy

I told you I've had fun coloring some adorable images, so here is the first of them that I'll share with you. I'll start with this one because I colored her first. This is "Patience" by Phindy O'Neill and I thought she was just too cute trying to help this poor little flower to grow. She's located under the "Summer Cuties" category, and Phindy is having a "Buy 3, Get one Free" sale. No, I don't have any affiliation with her but I do love her artwork and just got caught up coloring them. I have two more that I'll be sharing with you as well. The DP's are Cosmo Cricket's Pixie-Licious Mini Deck and the sentiment is from PTI's "Blooming Button Bits." I hope you like her. I also hope you're enjoying your first week of September. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Merry and Bright Wishes

Hi and Happy Post-Labor Day. I hope you had a good week-end. We had a very busy one and I finally got around to getting this card uploaded to post. I did this card for the 7 Kids College Fund Challenge #3, and to add to my Christmas card inventory. The challenge was to use two DP's, three flowers and some sparkle. My Swiss Pixie is a C.C. Design image and I colored her with Copics. My background paper was created with Glitter Ritz Microfine in "Cool Highlight" and Be Creative Sheets, and then punched with my Martha Stewart edge punch. The DP's are Memory Box and the flowers are All White Mini Delphiniums from Petaloo, purchased from 7 Kids CF and found here. I colored them with my Copics. I used half pearls for the centers. Thanks for stopping by. I have a series of cards to share with you of images that I just fell in love with, so be watching for them.

Copic Challenge #34

Goodness, it's been almost two weeks since my last post. I was doing so well with my posts and then my schedule (whatever that is anymore) got thrown off and here it is September 1. Today's Copic Creations Challenge is coloring pleats (or folds) and our sponsor is Stamping Scrapping and the prize, for TWO winners, will be their choice of either a Bon Voyage Tilda or BonVoyage Edwin and a surprise (?)." Sound like fun? This one should be fairly easy, especially after our last challenge, so grab your Copics and color up some pleats. I used Christmas Morning Tilda and I colored her with the suggested colors for the "Folds (Color Me Creative) Class" I that took with Suzanne Dean. My DP's are from Memory Box's "Mistletoe" and I used an embossing folder for the top portion of my white CS. I added the sparkly swirls and Prima flowers and my Martha Stewart Moire ribbon and voila, I have another Christmas card done. Thanks so much for stopping by. Your comments are so appreciated. I hope you'll take a look at what the rest of the DT has done and play along with us if you can. Have a wonderful rest of the week.

Tent Cards and a Challenge

I followed the SCS tutorial this week and made two tent cards. The first one I am entering into the 7 Kids College Fund Challenge which is "Strip it Down", meaning no more than 2 layers of DP. I used my Max and Whiskers papers from Basic Grey and this adorable High Hopes image called Groundhog Gordon which can be found here.










My second one is also a High Hopes image although I don't see that 7 Kids has it right now, but it also has only 2 layers of DP and I love that image, so I'm at least sharing it as an SCS entry. Here is another view so that you can glimpse the tent form. I used a Just-Rite 3-1/4" border on the second one. I loved doing these tent cards and love the fact that the cards can be displayed since they stand up on their own. I'm thinking of making the second one for a parting gift to my Sunday School kids to give them on Promotion Sunday. I am soooo wanting to use images I've never had a chance to use yet, and these are two of them so hey, I've at least started. I hope you've had a wonderful week. Thanks for stopping by.

Autumn and 2 Challenges

I am pleased that I was able to do another House-Mouse challenge this week. We were supposed to do a card based on how the provided photo inspired us. I decided to do this little image called "Monica's Gift" instead of a cupcake, because I still think it has to do with offering something to the recipient. I also posted this to the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge so I'm doing a rare thing and actually participating in two challenges at once. I like it!, and I like that I've had some time to do it. I used my Just-Rite Autumn Blessings oval border and placed my little mouse in the middle. The DP's are from a pack I purchased last Fall at Michael's, and the buttons are punched with my Martha Stewart Button Punch. I'm trying to do challenges with a recipient in mind so this one will join my batch of Thanksgiving cards no doubt. Thanks for stopping by. I hope you're having a wonderful week and happy stamping!

Copic Creations Challenge #33

Wow, this half of a month seems like it flew by. Time for another Copic Creations challenge, and this one was indeed a challenge. The theme - "reflections". Now I appreciate the fact that this challenge stretched me, but I'm not so sure I like how my "stretching" turned out. I don't think my reflections on the ice are quite subtle enough, but since I have a big week-end coming up I really didn't have time to keep tweaking it. I also have not seen any of the DT's cards so couldn't snatch any ideas from theirs. This stamp is from Alota Rubber Stamps and it isn't even the one I had planned on doing for this challenge, but the way things unfolded I did this one instead. I am anxious to see what the DT has done and hopefully what all of you do with challenge too. Our own Suzanne Dean is sponsoring this challenge and there will be tutorials, so why not grab your Copics and give it a try. Thanks for stopping by and hope to see you for our next challenge.

Wedding Wishes

I needed to make a wedding card for my niece's daughter who is getting married this week-end. I pulled out my Just-Rite Nested Frames stamps and created this card. I used my Spellbinder's dies and my Swiss Dot embossing folder and I'm very pleased with how this turned out. My brown CS and ink is Close to Cocoa, "Best Wishes" is stamped with Baja Breeze, and the ribbon behind it is Martha Stewarts Moire ribbon in "Cloud." My big project that I mentioned I was working on is finished and now I need to spend some time photographing it so I can share it with you. I hope you're enjoying your last official month of summer. Thanks for stopping by. Big week-end coming up for my family!

House-Mouse Vintage

This week I actually did a card for the House-Mouse challenge. The challenge was to do a vintage card. I had a need for a baby card and so I incorporated the need with the challenge. The image is a Hopper Itty Bit called "Blankey." I colored my little Hopper with Copics and then sponged the die-cut circle with two shades of Distress Inks. The outer edge is a 3-1/4 Just-Rite border that I cut out with scissors. The image and border were both stamped with Memento's Rich Cocoa. The papers are Basic Grey's Capella. The sentiment is from PTI's Inside & Out Baby, cut out with a Spellbinder's Fancy Tag. The ribbon is from Flourishes and the flower is from a pack of my favorites, but I threw away the packaging and now I don't remember the details. Sorry 'bout that. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week-end.

Copic Creations Challenge - Coloring and Reading at their Best

Today is August 1st and time for our next Copic Creations Challenge. The theme of our challenge this time is "Reading," and it is sponsored by Children’s Book Illustrator and Author, Elizabeth O. Dulemba. Elizabeth has a great blog featuring her books and FREE coloring downloads and you can find it here. I made a couple of bookmarks for this challenge using two of her adorable images, "Reading Monster" and "A Book is a Ship." Both were colored with Copics and cut out and mounted. Be sure to check out all of her fabulous coloring-image downloads and have a ball making bookmarks, cards, just plain coloring. And by all means let them inspire you to start your own journey in a good book. The Design Team has come up with some beautiful reading-related projects for this challenge and I know you'll want to check them out here. I hope you're having a wonderful and relaxing summer. Why not make yourself a bookmark and start a new book. Thanks so much for stopping by my little "korner."

Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #79

This is my first card for this challenge, and I loved the sketch for this week. I pondered what to do with it and I decided this would be a great time to get going on my Christmas cards. I have so many great stamp sets and stamps for Christmas use, so I pulled one out I hardly got to use last year. It's a Flourishes stamp set, "Christmas Tea," that I colored with Copics. I used my Spellbinders Deckled-Edge Ovals and sponged the Ivory oval with Tim Holtz Distress Ink "Old Paper." The Riding Hood Red paper I sponged with Rich Razzleberry. The DP's are K & Company's "Christmas Cheer", and the ribbon is from Stampin' Up. I wanted to keep it simple so that if I wanted to duplicate it, it wouldn't be too involved. I have been very involved with a secret project that I may share bits and pieces of with you when I'm done. I am loving doing it but it's quite involved, so it has consumed all of my time in the last week. I have a mid-August deadline to finish it, so I may not be around too very much between now and then. I will at least be back with our next Copic Creations challenge, and it is a fun challenge, so be sure to stay tuned. I'll try to take a break and post a few cards along the way, but if I don't you'll know that I'm working on my project. I can share that it does involve all of my fun stamping stuff, embellishments, etc., so I'm definitely in my craftroom - just not necessarily doing cards at the moment. I hope you are enjoying your summer. I can't believe it's almost August. Where does the time go?! Thanks so much for stopping by. I do love hearing from you.

Apron Glitz

It has been a difficult week for us with the death of a sister and dear friend, both within a week of each other. Obviously there has been no time for cards but I thought I would post this card that I did prior to these events. It started out to be a vintage card and ended up being a "glitz-y" vintage card. I am loving the Glitter Glitz that I learned about here and couldn't resist playing with it, so my apron ended up being a bit dressy. I still love how it turned out. I used October Afternoon's "Fly a Kite" designer papers, and a Lockhart apron Stamp. The glitter glitz and stamp can be found at Ellen Hutson's store here. Hopefully I'll be back soon with more posts and leaving comments. If you have any questions about this card feel free to e-mail me. Have a wonderful day.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July! - a day early. I hope you have a wonderful time celebrating and I wish you dry weather for viewing fireworks. I made a simple little card to break in my new PTI's Vintage Picnic set. I colored my image with Copics and mounted it on dimensionals and adhered it to my star-embossed background. The top DP piece is PTI's 2008 Bitty Star Basics DP and the ribbon is from Michael's. The main CS is PTI's Kraft paper. My star is punched with my SU star punches and decorated with a button from PTI's vintage buttons. The sentiment is from the Vintage Picnic set. That pretty much says it all for my card. We're cooking out today plus celebrating 2 birthdays, so we're really celebrating! Thanks for stopping by and have a super Holiday week-end!

Copic Creations Challenge #31

It's July 1st - can that be???!! - and it's time for another Copic Creations Challenge. The theme for this challenge is coloring birds, and it is sponsored by Tiffany Richards of Tiffany Doodles. I was privileged to color one of her images which is a Hummingbird on a Branch. I decided to pair it up with a sheet of DP from Webster's Pages, Petite Paper Pad, Lullaby Lane/Life's Portrait, (that is a mouthful for a title.) I used my exacto knife to cut out the middle of the paper and then carefully placed the image, on a Spellbinders Big Scalloped Circle die, on the page backed by Baja Breeze CS. I adhered a Prima flower and some Leaf Ribbon from PTI. I listed the Copic colors I used on the Copic Creations site, so you can see them there. The DT did a fabulous job of coloring their birds and I do encourage you to take a look and then find a bird to color and join our challenge. Thanks so much for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Sock Monkey Babies

I have some baby cards to share with you. These adorable images are Whimsie Doodles images and can be found here. I learned from Cindy about a site called Vintage Workshop and got these great downloadable designer papers from them. My basic CS was a Kraft paper from PTI and the sentiment is from PTI's Bitty Baby Blessings. They're colored with copics and my train border on the boy's card is a Martha Stewart punch. I hope you're having a great week. Thanks so much for stopping by.

Ahoy Little Sailor

This adorable little fella is Sailor Boy Randy and he is available at the Busy Beauties Boutique here. I colored him a little while back and just hadn't decided quite how to showcase him. The other day I noticed that my PTI Bitty Baby Blessings set had this sentiment in it and I immediately thought of using Sailor Randy. Then I thought of the Magnolia-Licious stamp "Pier and Fence" I used in the top portion of my card and it all pleasantly came together. The star panel is my Stars embossing folder and I used my Riding Hood Red and Brilliant Blue papers from SU! I love how this turned out- hope you do too. Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful week-end.

Note Card Project

I made these notecards as a gift for my daughter's friend and a friend of ours as well. I got the idea for the card design from my Card Creations magazine. She is a missionary and I thought she could use thank you notes and plain note cards. My DP's are from Basic Grey's Bittersweet Collection Pack which included the letters for the top of the box that I made to accompany these. The scallop border is from a Stampin' Up punch. I made two of each and included envelopes and she really liked them. My flowers are punched from my Nellie Snellen punches from 7 Kids College Fund. I need to get busy and make her another set while I'm on a roll. Thanks for stopping by.

More Anniversary Wishes

I told you I was working on another Anniversary card, and this one was for my husband for our anniversary. We celebrated 42 years last week. I had fun making this one. I started with a piece of CS from my DCWV's "Old World" stack. I then inked up my SU "Medallion" stamp with Tim Holtz' Distress Ink "Broken China" which I stamped off once and then stamped off the page a bit. I also sponged two different colors of Distress Inks on my Nestie background piece to match the colors in the CS and adhered this adorable picture from Crafty Secrets' "Childhood Images and Journal Notes," cut with a "Labels Three" Nestie as well. I once again sponged some creme-colored CS for the bottom with "Antique Linen" Distress Ink, and the sentiment is computer-generated with Santa's Sleigh font from "dafont.com". I adhered a piece of "Not Quite Navy" ribbon over the seam of the two pieces of CS and added some half-pearls. The inside uses the same font and another piece of CS from the "Old World" stack and looks like this.

Happy Father's Day

Just wanted to share a few cards I did for my guys for Father's Day. The first is for my eldest son and I had to get this one in the mail so went for something simple. Hope it got there on time, but if not, it's not likely he'll check my blog and see it here first. If he does, Happy Father's Day Matt! My idea was inspired by Stacy's card here, but I changed mine slightly. I used a different cup and "steam" than she did, and I made my sentiment on the front a bookmark. I used the cup from Flourishes "Coffee with Friends" and free-handed the rim around it and colored them with Copics. The steam is a partial image from Impression Obsession's "Smell the Coffee" set. The top sentiment on the bookmark is from "Smell the Coffee" and then "A Man's View" from Flourishes.
My next two are adorable Whimsie Doodles images that I had to customize since my one son has boys and girls. The DP for the whales is from SU and the background DP is from my DCWV "Old World" stack (I'm loving these papers.) I was so intrigued with Ellen Hutson's glitter classes that I employed this technique on these two cards. I used my score-tape that I got from 7 Kids CF, lined it up along the edge of my DP and punched out the scallop edge with my SU edge punch. I adhered the CS to the main card and then peeled off the top strip and sprinkled my SU Ultra-Fine glitter over the Score-Tape. The second thin line was the tiny strip that was left when I punched the scallop so I glued it on and repeated the technique. You should be able to click on each picture for a closer view. I haven't delivered my husband's card yet as he is not here to receive it at the moment, so I'll wait on sharing that one. I hope all you dad's out there have a great Father's Day. Thanks for stopping by.