Happy Halloween!

It's a busy, busy day here! But, lately everyday seems to be busy, busy. At least this one is a fun busy day! It's also Friday so that means it is a Stamp Something day-yeah! I have had this card done since Monday and boy did it feel good to plan ahead. I didn't get any stamping in yesterday (I was busy assembling two other projects for two other people!).

The theme this week is Halloween, in honor of today of course! So here' s your last chance this year to use those fabulous Halloween goodies you have. For my card today, I went back to my roots. Yes, I used ONLY Stampin'Up! products! The set is Autumn Harvest and is a great, Halloween and Fall set. I bought this set for that reason. The little Jack'o lantern faces are separate so you can use them with the pumpkins or leave them off. The colors on this card are Really Rust, Mustard, and black. This set is great for masking, if you want to group the pumpkins together. I kept it even simpler and stamped the two back pumpkins side-by-side and then stamped a third pumpkin on scrap cs, colored and then cut him out. I then popped him up on a dimensional! Don't forget to check out the Stamp Something site to see what the rest of the team came up with. Anyone is welcome to play along, just leave a link to your card so we can see what you did! Have a safe and happy Halloween! Hugs,

Christmas is in the Air

Yes, it is official, for me anyways. I am in full mode of making Christmas cards. Now I haven't started my own, yet, but I'm busy prepping for my Holiday card classes. I've gotten quite a few new Christmas stamps, so I'm getting them out and inking 'em up. Today's card is for the Limelight Challenge. Brandi gave us another wonderful sketch to work with. You know I love circles, so this was super fun for me! Here is what I came up with. I loved using my the new Basic Grey, Wassail dp. You can now get it over at Limelight, along with my favorite Unity stamps. This image is from Giggle Grove, it is my favorite and most used Unity stamp. You can now buy is as a single or in the full kit (stamp set, Unity calls them kits). Oh, and the buttons are a perfect match to the paper, since they are the coordinating buttons for the Wassail paper. I've done this tree many ways, but I have never used buttons on it before. I love how it turned out. I used three buttons and then added clear page pebbles to accent the other two. I'm usually not a vintage-style stamper, but with this paper and these buttons, this card sure has a nice vintage, shabby chic feel to it. What do you think? Okay, now it's your turn. Get your Christmas stamps out and come play along. Link your cards to Mandy's blog post, and don't forget to check out what the other DT members did with this sketch. There is a prize involved. make a card and one random participant will win the Little Yellow Bicycle Christmas Magic Sticker Tablet. (if you post to SCS, be sure to use the following code so we can find your card,keyword LLPC007). Happy Thursday! Hugs,

A new Pink and Orange combo

Yesterday was the color challenge on SCS. When I saw the colors I said to myself, No Way-kiwi kiss, tangerine tango, and pixi pink! Now I've done pink and orange before, but the brightness of the pixi pink sure had me scared. Heck, I don't even have very much pixi pink on hand.

Of course, once I sat down, it all just came together. I created this little beauty! I put my theory of color combos to work-use least liked color the least amount. Here I played up the kiwi kiss (since it is one of my faves!) I watercolored the angel and added iridescent ice embossing powder to her wings. She is very sparkly in real life. I thought the soft, pretty, satin ribbon would be a great finishing touch. Today's another quick one, I've got a sick boy here crying his eyes out because his ear is hurting. It is breaking my heart. So, I'm off to the doctor today. Hugs,

Make some cards, help someone out!

There seem to be sooooo many ways to help a good cause with our love of making cards. Lately, there have been lots of requests from people to send in cards to be sent out to one group or another. I think it is a fantastic idea and one way I know I can make a difference. Yesterday I spent some time putting together a few card packs to be included in an auction to help raise money for my dear stamping friend, Becky's family. Becky's husband has been suffering from some major health issues over the last year, he even just went through a long and scary surgery. Here is one of the packs I made. I got to use my new Papertrey Ink set, Merry and Bright. What a great set, for making quick and easy cards-this is a great one for mass production. I also used the Basic Grey, Wassail dp (picked that up last week at Limelight) along with the retried, Cranberry cs. These cards came together so fast and I can't wait to get them in the mail to Becky today. The other pack I made were similar to this card I did a while back. Here's a close up of one of the Merry & Bright cards. If you are interested in helping out in any of the Card Causes, here are a few I know about.
Mandy at Limelight has posted about this great cause, Babylegs, and if you scroll to the bottom you can see where to donate cards.
GinaK. is collecting cards (and it looks like some good Blog Candy is being offered up!)
Unity is collecting Cards for the troops (a prize is also involved).
Here's one more(than's for the reminder, Kristen), don't foget about the new monthly challenge, Cards for a Cause, on SCS. This month's cards are going to Chemo Angles. Read about it here.
I'm sure there are lots other's out there, but this is a start. If you want to help, you should probably act fast as, I think the ones I listed all come to an end by this weekend. Thanks for stopping by today. Have a great day! Hugs,

I need Snow!

Not REAL snow, but I needed a little something extra for this page. So guess what I did? Yep placed an order with SU! I am finally going to have those cute little felt snowflakes in my possession on Thursday! Oh, and because I was getting both sizes, we will also be using them for my Holiday SAS. If you haven't registered for this class, you still have time. Call or email me for details (the deets are also on my business website, see side bar for link). This is the boys playing in the snow last winter. They loved the snow last year and spent many hours playing outside. The got adventurous and decided to turn their sleds into snow boards. Tim captured these fun pics one afternoon. The paper is the adorable designer paper in the Holiday mini, Frosty days! I just love the colors, it is just what my snow pictures needed-bright, warm, stylish colors! The title was done using my new Thickers I purchased the other week, but you could create this same look with SU chipboard. You could leave it naked or color it white with the Craft Ink. I'm working on quite a few projects this week, so not sure my posts will be regular. I'll try my best! You know I always have lots to share with you! Hugs,

PTI Monthly Blog Hop

I am so excited about this month's Blog Hop. When I read that the Blog Hop Challenge was to create anything to do with Polka Dots I was elated! I just adore polka dots and sometimes can't get enough of them. Plus, PTI has the best Polka Dot set, Polka Dot Basics, so creating dots has endless possibilities! A few months back I was lucky enough to be one of the random winners from the blog hop and got to pick a set for FREE. I picked the Wise Owl set as my freebie!( Thanks, Nichole!) I knew I wanted to use that set today and I also knew I wanted to use my Polka Dot Basic set. I paired those with some of the wonderful satin polka dot ribbon (berry sorbet) PTI carries and this is the card I made. I paper pieced the cute little owl and added some bling with some Fruit Punch Stickles! Thanks for stopping by. I can't wait to check out the other bloggers. Happy Hoppin'! Hugs,

T.G.I.F

It hasn't been a long week or a bad one, but Friday's are always good. Actually, I am most grateful for the fact that Tim's board re-certification test is over! He has been studying like mad, so I have been flying solo for pretty much the past couple weeks. I'm sure he passed, but we still have to wait for the results. Friday is also a good day because that means it is a Stamp Something Challenge day. This week's challenge is for the birds! Literally, go and stamp something using any bird image. I took this opportunity to ink up the PTI set, Wise Owl. I colored him in with some SU markers and used some more of that bargain American Craft paper you've been seeing. I've used a little bit of all the designs I bought, so I'll probably take a break from it for a while, but I'm not promising anything. heheheh!. Stop on by and and check out what the other DT members did. Cute, cute stuff! Oh, and don't forget to play along. Go and Stamp Something!
ETA: this challenge is hosted by Jessica from There She Goes stamp company. She is offering up a FREE set to one lucky winner. You have to link a sample to be eligible to win. Be sure to post it to the Stamp Something site.
Hugs,

It's Hip Hop Day!

In honor of Hip Hop Thursday I'm sharing my Unity creations from yesterday. I used my pretty new American Craft dp as my inspiration for these two cards. I'm keeping it super short today since there is a lot of blog hoppin' to do. This first card is my fave of the day. I used pink pirouette, kiwi kiss and baja breeze for my color combo and the SCS Wednesday sketch challenge to pull it all together. I watercolored the circles on the tree and added little brads to accent and embellish. This is just a fun card created with the Giggle Grove set. The second card here uses paper from the same line by American Craft so I used the same color scheme. The layout for this one comes from the oh-so-talented Amber. This quote is one of my all time favorites and I just love when I get to use it on a card. The cool thing about both of these sets is that you can get them from Mandy over at Limelight. Check it out, they have an awesome assortment of Unity stamps as well as a ton of other great products and stamps. Right now Halloween stuff is on sale and she is adding to her Christmas stock daily! Hugs,

Friendship Circles

Since I post my entries early in the morning and I am sooo thankful for the scheduled post button here on blogger, I rarely get to post a challenge card on the day of the challenge. Yesterday was color challenge day on SCS and I knew right away I wanted to play. I was quite productive during Nicholas's nap time, since Ryan went to a friend's house to play (love Play dates!). The colors this week were Pink Pirouette, Kiwi Kiss, and Chocolate Chip! Yum-O! This card just evolved and I love the end result! I used my new scalloped circle nestabilities with a variety of circle punches. I added some stamped images with the Eastern Blooms stamp set. The only thing I knew I wanted to use in the beginning of this card making session was the new-to-me sentiment set, Best Yet! I think this is going to be one of my go-to sets here for a while. I just love the mixed fonts. I finished the card off with some felt flowers and a kiwi kiss button! Today is the Wednesday, Unity Challenge. I'm hoping to play (haven't missed one in four weeks), so if I'm lucky I'll get two posts in today! If not stop by tomorrow for some scrapbook layouts I finished up on Monday. Happy Hump Day! Hugs,

A Friendly Little Challegne

I let you know yesterday that Crystal and I challenged each other to create something with the fun little robot set, Far Out Christmas ,we got at our LSS. We had a chance to shop together last week and it was so fun to share this with someone who loves stamping as much as I do. We took our time walking through the store, touching, and handling all the stamps we could. It was heaven, pure heaven, LOL! She found this set and I just had to get it too! It is by Hero Arts and at about $6 it was just the right price and it even came with little rhinestones! I had some scraps of this designer paper in my stash, sorry don't recall who makes it but I got it at Hobby Lobby last year. I just love the fun, retro feel it has. I colored the robot to match with my SU markers. The card base is Old Olive, so I tied it all together with some wide Olive grosgrain ribbon! I added two of the red rhinestone brads to to top of the robots antennae for a little bling! He's pretty stinkin' cute if I do say so myself!. I can't wait to see what Crystal comes up with. We didn't give any other guidelines for our little challenge, just that we had to use this stamp set. Don't forget to stop by her blog and leave some love! Hugs,

I've been tagged...

twice now, and as much as I love to read about other people (I love to people watch, too), I am just really bad at passing these things on. I appreciate the tag and love that you have thought to include me, but I am bad about passing it on. So if you are reading this and want to play along, consider yourself tagged!

Here are the rules:

1. Link your tagger and list the rules on your blog.

2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog-some random, some weird.

3. Tag 7 people at the end of the post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs

.4. Let them know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

I was tagged by the fabulously talented, Erin (fishlips) (I just love the name!) a few weeks ago and then today by one of the talented Unity forum peeps, Jacqueline (momofour26 on SCS). So here are some facts about me, although I don't know how weird or random they may seem. Anywhoo, here you go:

1) I am a twin (have a twin brother) and then my third son was born on my 32nd birthday, so now we all three share the same Birthday!

2) I live in Ohio, but am a University of Michigan fan (I went to UofM-Go Blue!)

3) My MIL got me into both stamping and scrapbooking when she had never done either (she is a stamper, finally. It took me 3 yrs. into my demoship for her to catch on).

5) My favorite color is purple, but I rarely use it when paper crafting.

6) I don't really like to swim in the ocean, but I love scuba diving

7) I bite my fingernails-gross, I know. I secretly wish for long beautiful nails.

Tag You're it! Hugs,

A Monday Quickie

Here's a little Unity eye candy! I made these last Thursday for two of the Hip Hop challenges. They are both 4 1/4 square cards! The first one was a challenge to use flowers on your card. I nailed this one, don't ya think? It is almost flower over kill. That's okay for me, I have to get my girly fix somehow, lol! This second card was for the challenge to make a card you would give to a kid. I used some of my new American Craft-got-it -for-a- steal paper and created this fun cupcake card with the set, Cupcake ala Yummy! I just love paper piecing those little cupcakes! I actually used this card yesterday, Ryan went to a party and this was the card he took.

I got some scrapbooking done this weekend, so I have some pages to share with you throughout the week. It was nice to get together with some neighbors and chit chat while we worked on our albums. Check back tomorrow for a fun little challenge, Crystal and I created for ourselves. We shared a little shopping therapy last week and bought the same set. So stop by and see what we did. Okay and one more thing before I go, I do have one more piece of exciting news to share. I am happy to announce that I am now part of the Limelight DT! You can see the official announcement here! Thanks to all of you for your wonderful comments and support! Hugs,

End of another Season

Yesterday marked the end of the boy's fall soccer season. Regular season, anyway. It looks like Joshua's team finished second place and will play in a tournament the first weekend of November. I'm praying for nice weather. I always like to make a little thank-you card for the coaches-gee, who would have guessed, right. LOL! Anyway I whipped these four cards up in a jiffy the other night, thanks to Brandi and her awesome sketches for the Limelight Challenges. This week she gave us this sketch to work into a manly card ( there seem to be alot of masculine card challenges lately). Joshua's team is green and Ryan's team is orange, so I made two of the cards in each color. I used Kraft as my base and Mellow Moss for Joshua's coaches and Tangerine Tango for Ryan's coaches. I added brads and twill for accents. I think they are both great additions for a masculine card. I can't get enough of twill ribbon. I've been buying a bit of it as of late. The white and moss I used here came from Limelight. Check out the store if you havne't, it is packed with lots of cool embellishments, stamps, and paper. Here's a close up of one of the cards. I'm sure glad I got this soccer set when Stampin' Up! was retiring it. I have used it a ton! Now I want the T-shirt set that Gina K sells. I tried to go for that look here, but the jersey stamp was a bit small. It looks okay, but if I had that other set, I think it would look so much better! I know, I know, I always want more...have a wonderful Sunday! Hugs,

A Thank-You Trio

I had to spend some time yesterday coming up with a few card designs for a friend. She sells Taste of Home Entertainment (very cool stuff for the home!) and she just did a show for a neighbor of mine. To make a long story short, we are trading product for product. I am making my friend a set of Thank-you notes she can send to her hostesses and I will be getting a set of cute little juice glasses that match a pitcher and goblets I already own! I came up with three designs and she will pick from these which ones she wants. She pretty much gave me free reign to do what I wanted, but she did request I use brown, red, and cream and maybe some black if I could.

It was fun to just play! I pulled out some sets that I hadn't used in a while. I forgot how much I love this Papertrey Ink set, Out on a Limb (card #3). It really makes a beautiful card! The rest of the supplies and stamps used were all Stampin' Up! I'm keeping this short and sweet today. Thanks for all your wonderful comments yesterday! It sure kept me smiling! Hugs,

I'm on the Team!

So did anyone have any guesses? Sorry to be a tease yesterday, but I had to have a little fun with this announcement. LOL! Yes, it is official, Denise and Erin asked me to join the Stamp Something Design Team! I am soooo excited and very proud to join the ranks of the other fabulous stampers on the team. I love what the site stands for and am looking forward to sharing my creations each week. I jumped right in with this week's challenge which was a sketch by Katharina of Whiff of Joy Stamps. I loved this sketch for it's nice clean lines and then the little oval off to the side. I really

wanted to play with this technique and knew my Growing in Unity tree would be the perfect setting for this fun Halloween card. I first sponged Summer Sun onto the top part of the glossy white cs (this created the yellow moon). Then I masked the moon with a punched circle and the bottom "grass" with a torn piece of computer paper. I sponged tangerine tango all over the top and kiwi along the bottom after I was done with the Tangerine (and removed the mask). I stamped the tree image with black stazon and created this spooky setting for my card. You can't see it in this picture, but the black background is embossed with the swirls embossing folder, it looks great with the swirls from the tree. I layered the sentiment with the designer label punch, 1 inch circle punch, and the large oval punch. I also roughed up the edges with my cutter kit (love the distressing tool that comes with the kit). The black ribbon is two-toned satin ribbon I won over at Limelight! Here is another card I did the other day for the Unity Wednesday Challenge on SCS-create a masculine card. I wanted to wait until I got to show you the Stamp Something Challenge card, before I posted this other one here. Check back every day, but especially Friday because now Friday's are officially Stamp Something Day! I'll have my challenge card posted here and the link to the blog site, or you can click the button in my sidebar. Thanks for sharing in my good news! Hugs,

A Little stitching....

....no, A LOT of stitching. My good friend, Tanya won these awesome stitching templates last Spring at a crop we were at. I was thinking about them the other day and asked her if she had ever used them. "Nope, not yet," she says, "Why? Do you want to try them." I jumped at the suggestion since I already had an idea for them in mind. I should have paid attention to who they were made by because they really are cool. Sorry, so I can't tell you were to find them. Anywhoo, I got way in over my head with this project. This first card is what I started out with. Easy, peasy, short and sweet. I love how the card turned out and I especially love the little cross-hatches on the two corners. This turned out just like I wanted it to-Love that! I got the idea for the bird on a branch from this card by the uber-talented, Becky. So, after this quick and simple card, I went on to the original idea I had for these templates-a stitched border on a scrapbook page. I love my sewing machine, well, on most days I do, but I wanted a bigger stitched look around my double page spread. There was this cool, loopey stitch that I thought would work well on my spread. It did and I love how it turned out, but OH MY WORD did it take me FOREVER to so all the stitching. Now let me remind you that I am NOT a seamstress so maybe that had something to do with it, but I am not kidding you I think it took me almost two hours to complete both pages of stitching. The things we do for the love of this craft! So here is a close up of the detail on the stitching. Now that I look at it up close, it isn't so impressive, but I love home-made feel it gives my pages. I have to give credit to the Sketch 102 class for the layout. This is one of the last ones I had left to use. Check out those letters, too. I found some Thickers and now am wondering why I waited so long to get some. They are too cool. I even got them on sale, so bonus for me! I think I carried on enough about these two projects. Thanks for listening to me ramble. Check back tomorrow for my BIG announcement. It's big to me, anyway. Have a fabulous Thursday! Hugs,

A Little Box

This is going to be a quick post. I was going to wait until later to post but I know it will never happen if I don't do it now. I don't know where the week is going but I feel really busy with life. I just had to share this box with you. I first saw it on Jill's blog, so it is not my original idea but I really haven't seen it anywhere else. This was one of those projects that I saw and went straight down to my craft room to give it a try. It was SOOOOO easy. Can you guess what I used to create it?...yep, it was my mini scallop envelope die for the Big Shot! Man, I love this machine! You need four of these envelopes cut and then you just piece together the scored edges. The best thing about this box is that you can cut ALL 4 pieces of cs at the same time! The part that took the most time was the decorative top edge that I added. I felt the box was a little plain, so I ran some Hawaiian Papaya dsp through with the die and then cut off the top scallop and trimmed around the "stitch" marks. I attached that to all four tops of the box. Finished it off with some stitched chocolate grosgrain ribbon and it was done. I wanted to have it all fancied up with something fun inside, but I don't have a reason to give it to anyone yet, so I left it empty. Plus, I think it is too cute and love to just look at it. Have a great Wednesday! Hugs,

I guess it's safe to say...

...that this page didn't win. I entered it in the September contest and the edition of Stampin' Success with the winners announced comes out tomorrow. Last time I won, well, the only time I've won, I was notified by the first of the month. I haven't heard anything yet, so I'm only to guess that it didn't get chosen. I'm happy to share it here with all of you!

I love this page of Nicholas. I have gotten smart when sending in pages to SU for a contest. I now make a duplicate just for ME! Once you send in something to SU for a contest, it becomes property of SU and you may never see it again. The page I sent to SU is a little different, it has a better picture of Nicholas (one that really shows his dimple) and I also changed up the number of circles I used and their placement. This one was the "trial run" ofmy idea for the contest. Isn't' this a great color combo, too? I love the riding hood red with choc. chip and just the touches of baja and kiwi to compliment. This page is an 8x8 page and now all I have left to do is mount it onto a 12x12 page and possibly add a few more photos. I'll then just slide it into our family album and be done! Hugs,

I took a Break

Yep, sorry if you checked in this weekend to only find my Friday post, but I took a break from blogging. It was a busy weekend with soccer, Tim working, church, and a trip to Kings Island for a few last roller coaster rides before they officially close for the Winter. It is hard to think that winter is around the corner with it being sunny and almost 85 today. Although I didn't post anything this weekend, I did get in a little stamping. Actually I got to scrapbook and I am hoping to get a little more done this afternoon (I'm supposed to have a friend over to scrap with). Here are the two pages I did this weekend. I am proud to say that one of them is actually a page from 2008! It seems like a miracle that I actually made it into this year! I was so excited to have these pictures to scrap. The boys get so excited every year Tim brings out the electric train (around the Holiday time). They will sit for hours and watch the train. It is hard to remember the "no touch" rule and they bug Tim all the time to run it, but it is hard to tell them "No" because they just get so giddy about it. Besides, Tim loves it too. He is such a kid at heart! So I was glad to have these pictures to put on a page and tell the story. The layout comes from the Sketch 1o2 class. I did keep it super simple and really didn't add any embellishments. The other page here is also a layout from the sketch class and I already did a page using it, but this was also a CASE of my good friend and stamping buddy Crystal. She is the featured Nimbee member over on our group blog. I loved this page of her's and it inspired me to make this page come together. I really wanted to case her page exactly because I just love everything about it, but I couldn't find any pictures I had printed up that would work with it so this was my Plan B. I do love my page and again I was able to tell the story of this one toy that all the boys adore. It is a ball popper. It blows air up through the hole and these light, plastic balls pop on out. All three boys will just giggle and even belly laugh every time this toy is turned on. The other favorite part of this toy is the air. These pictures show Nicholas standing over the air while it blows into his face and hair. He just thinks it is the funniest thing. The simple things in life...don't you wish it was always this way?! Hope you are having a fabulous Monday! Hugs,