Happy Birthday, Lauren & Sheryl!

Two of my favorite people are celebrating their birthday today: Lauren Bergold and Sheryl Perkins. I have already sent them cards through snail mail, but I made this card this morning as a virtual birthday card. I used K&Co. Birthday scrap kit 3D sticker and decorative paper; the base card and mini brads are DCWV; the sentiment is a QuicKutz icing; the oval punches, scallop border punch, the card stock, and dimensionals are SU!

Happy Birthday! May you get every stamp, paper and embellishment you wan...and then some :)

You're My Cup of Tea, Flopsey

I have long admired the stamps by My Favorite Things. I can be slow at catching on to trends. I freely admit that at first I didn't "get" the headless women. Then I realized the artist is brilliant. No shading of the cheeks, doing eyes and lips, etc...genius! Then I started seeing Flopsey. I thought he was cute, but what would I ever do with him? Hah! This is my third Flopsey stamp set by MFT.

I colored Flopsey, his tea cup, and the tree with my Bic markers. The leaves are stamped from various Kaleidacolor stamp pads. All the decorative paper is BasicGrey Ambrosia. The brads are Making Memories. The white card stock is SU! whisper white and the black card stock is Bazzill. I used SU! dimensionals under the Flopsey panel and under the sentiment; all are cut from my Nesties.

The fabulous sketch is Julee's Mojo Monday sketch for today :)

Happy Monday!

Cuttlebug Challenge blog - Fall Design Team

I've been keeping this secret for what seems like forever, but I can finally tell you that I was invited to join the Cuttlebug Challenge blog design team for the next 6 months! I am so honored to be invited to be a part of such a talented group of designers. Seriously, I have to keep pinching myself to see if I am dreaming.

I could hardly contain myself when I read Maggie's email invitation. I was yelling, "Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness!" over and over and dh said, "what are you so excited about ?" Then he gave me a big hug :) Maggie has created an amazing challenge blog, so for her to take notice of me was just so encouraging. I am SO flattered.

If you have not been to the Cuttlebug Challenge blog, I hope you will peruse it now; prepare to be inspired with ideas, techniques, fabulous tutorials, and lots of prizes. Click here to see a complete list of the fall design team and check out their blogs.

I will post my very first card as a CBC DT member later this week :)

Acetate Technique & OCC sketch

***Click on the picture. The grapes are not this dark and it is much more glittery IRL ***


I used this sketch from today's OCC Challenge. I stamped the image with Stazon, then painted the opposite side with Lumiere paints. I matched the painted image to some DCWV Once Upon A Time glitter stack (the two smaller rectangles). I found a scrap of eggplant card stock in my scrap bag for the base layer, then mounted on an ivory ValuePack card from Michael's. I added the ribbon using the technique I learned from Leslie here.

Don't forget the party over at Cuttlebug Challenges starting tomorrow! Read more about it here.

So Sweet of You

Here is Flopsey of My Favorite Things, with a yummy cupcake. I colored Flopsey with Bic markers and I used all BasicGrey Lime Rickey papers. The card base is DCWV. The glitter on the icing is canary yellow. The circular "thank you" sentiment on the inside is by SU! I used both a Creative Memories circle punch and a SU! circle & slot punch. The ovals are done by hand and by Nestibilities. The ribbon is from my stash, and the dimensionals are by SU!

Anna Griffin stamps, papers, and embellishments!

Would you like to win these fabulous stamps, papers, embellishments, and acrylic album from Anna Griffin? Cuttlebug Challenge Blog is having a PARTY that you don't want to miss.

Here are the details:

The Cuttlebug Challenge Blog is having a Countdown to the Summer CHA '09 CELEBRATION!!!! Beginning June 29th - July 31st, they will be having a FULL month of new folder previews as well as really fun ideas from the design team!! Plus, there will be challenges and prizes where you could win some of the NEW folders not yet released to the public!! How COOL is that???
How can you win????

1. Be sure that you’re registered as a Follower on the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog.
   
2. Give a shout out in a forum and create a post on your blog about the Countdown to CHA event.
   
3. Leave a comment on this post on the Cuttlebug Challenge Blog with the link to your blog and forum post(s) you have created with the shout out(s).

Winners will be notified on June 29^th, 2009.

Don't forget to post the ad when doing your Shout Out :)

Our 18th Wedding Anniversary

DH & I just returned from a little getaway to celebrate our anniversary. This is the card I made for him (from the BasicGrey Bittersweet card kit.) Eighteen years of wedded bliss :) It is hard to believe we have been together for more than half of our lives. Every year on our anniversary dh says, "our time together is going too fast!" We have had so much fun and it is going by in a blink. We met in college at the ripe old age of 19. A mutual friend, Blaire, introduced us in August 1986. There was an immediate "pull". I don't know how else to describe it. Blaire introduced us, and dh and I chatted for hours. We quickly became the best of friends. On March 3, 1987 we had our first date. It was magic! Doug planned the most romantic proposal and we wed on June 22, 1991. The priest who married us had us take a personality test (required by the Catholic Church). He said he had never seen a couple score so high for compatibility. We knew that already, but nice to have a little reassurance :)

We were on the five year plan to have children, but due to unexplained infertility, it ended up being the 11 year plan. We were told by our doctors that 80% of marriages fail from the stress of infertility issues. It was a six year emotional roller coaster, but we were always there for each other. We prayed for a healthy baby, and we have two beautiful little princesses. When the girls were diagnosed with autism in 2004, the specialist told us that 80% of marriages fail due to the stresses of having a special needs child. Dh and I looked at each other, and trying not to laugh we replied, "Yeah, we're good." 2004 was an eye opening year trying to figure out which therapies to try, but we learned together. We continue to research new therapies to help our girls reach their full potential. I think it has helped us appreciate each and every milestone even more. Our girls are so much fun, and they find joy in everything. Life is good.

Hanna: Have a sun-sational day :)

I have admired cards using lace paper/die cut paper that both blog friends Kristie and Kim have used on their cards. I have some lace paper since October and I have been too afraid to cut into it, until today :) My lace paper is by K&Co. Que Sera Sera.

Kristie's card is here and Kim's card is here.

I met dh for lunch last week in the same town as our one and only local stamp store. So I had to stop by, right? $59 dollars later (ugh...why do I need new stash???) I just had to buy this Hanna, which is my first Hanna stamp. I purchased the decorative papers last week with my 50% coupon at ACMoore. The papers are My Mind's Eye Bloom & Grow. Like I need more paper...but isn't it yummy??? I colored Hanna with Copics, Sharpies, And Bic markers. I paper pieced part of her umbrella, dress and raincoat.

I used my Nesties and SU! dimensionals for the ovals. The flowers are from various sources: orange flower, Bazzill; blue flower, Got Flowers?; white flower, SU! Pretties kit. The glazed brad is BasicGrey Lime Rickey.

With Sympathy: Clyde "Doc" Partin

Doc Partin is the father of dh's best friend, Keith Partin. Doc was an icon at Emory University, who retired many many times, but was still at Emory daily. I made this card for dh to send to Keith.

I wanted to try Leslie's perfect ribbon tying technique, and I tried it today. Love this technique! No loose hanging ribbon knots or re-tying for the perfect knot. Thank goodness other bloggers (or in this case, one of her customers) figure these things out and share with the rest of us to make creating easier.

The sentiment stamp and dimensionals are by Stampin' Up!, the decorative papers are all BasicGrey Granola, the black card stock is from ACMoore, the snap is by Making Memories, the card base is DCWV, and the ribbon is from Michael's. I think I should have distressed the three strips of patterned paper with black ink for more dimension. Maybe I'll try that out later...

Cuttlebug Challenges- Be Inspired # 36

Have you been to Cuttlebug Challenge? Their weekly challenges are called "Be Inspired", which is really appropriate, I think. This week's challenge is to create a masculine card. I decided to make a long card now that I know how to use my embossing folders on a long piece of cardstock without getting those nasty unwanted score lines. Want to know the secret? Cuttlebug Challenge has a "how to" right here. Want to see how I did? Look below:
Is that awesome, or what?

It has rained all day today, so my pictures are a little shoddy.

Happy Wednesday!

Coffee Card Tutorial

Last week I was inspired by Project Tuesday. They had a wonderful tutorial on how to make a gift card holder from a coffee sleeve! That day I was at the grocery store and bought a small coffee. I saved my sleeve to try their challenge. But I never got around to it :(

Then I had a request from the baristas at one of the coffee shops where I sell my greeting cards. Could I make a special card for them to send to a former customer who moved away? They wanted it to be in a coffee theme.

I decided to use my sleeve to make the card. Here is what I did:
1. Tear sleeve open and place a scrap sheet of paper inside. Gently fold right side of sleeve closed to create a fold in the scrap paper. Repeat for left side.
2. Trim top and bottom of scrap paper to fit in envelope.
3. Fold a sheet of 8.5"x11" card stock in half. Use scrap paper template and trace. Cut out.
4. Decorate.

Here is the finished card (sort of).
Tomorrow I will take the card to the baristas, but I will replace my grocery store sleeve with one from their shop ;)

Really simple. Inspiring? Let me know. Right now I could use some coffee...my girls woke up at 4am this morning. Julia's teacher said she fell asleep at school. It's a good thing she's so cute or else I'd be mad at her :)

For Me ? OCC border punch challenge

I made this fun card using papers from K&Co. Birthday Scrap Kit. The kit comes with 8.5"x8.5" papers and dimensional glittery stickers. JoAnn's had the kits on sale last week (30% off) and I had a JoAnn's coupon for 20% entire order including sale items. So I had to buy it, right? The white cs is DCWV, the border punch is Martha Stewart, and the top note die is by Sizzix/SU! I also doodled using a white gel pen.

Happy Sunday! We are off to an Orioles game. I will be wearing my Cal Ripken tee :)

2 Dad & Blog Support Award

Two quick and simple "Dad" cards for Father's Day.
Recipe:
Card base: DCWV
Decorative papers: BasicGrey Ambrosia
"Dad": Me & My Big Ideas stickers (top card); K&Co. chipboard alphas (bottom card)

The lovely blog support award is from blog friend, Chrissie. I love Chrissie's blog! She makes so many lovely cards every day...more than I make in a week, I think :) Please pop over and check out her beautiful cards.

I would like to nominate (in the order I "met" them) my long time blog friends who consistently leave lovely comments: Lauren, Leslie, Kristie, Deanna, and Silke K.

Just For You

100% SU! Baja Breeze and Chocolate Chip. I was not in a crafty mood today; just tired. I made this card, and called it a day. I love that polka dot paper! I love polka dots :)

I ran some errands, made dinner, and finished the Janet Evanovich book I was reading. I hope to go to bed early tonight. The girls have their first grade Patriotic performance tomorrow at school. I can't wait!

Thank You Card & Julia

Today I needed to make some quick thank you cards for the birthday presents my girls received from their bus driver and 3 of their great grandmothers. If you have followed me for a while, you may know that I create little piles in my craft room. This floral paper(DCWV) and the felt butterfly ribbon (Michael's dollar bin) have been in a pile with the pink cardstock (SU!). I just could never make anything happen with them. I was trying for another layer of orange paper, but I could not find a match in my stash. Today I wanted a set of cards in a hurry, so I perused some challenge blogs. I saw this sketch at The Sweetest Thing. In one hour, I had 4 cards made like this one :)
The next thing on my pile was this 8x8 scrapbook page of Kathryn. I prefer to do 2 page LOs, so I made a this companion page of Julia and her Granddaddy (dh's dad). Wahoo!

My twin princesses, Julia & Kathryn, on their 7th birthday, June 7, 2009. We had a great time at my mom's house. In addition to both sets of the girls' grandparents being present, my sweet sweet sister, Angela, was also there with my favorite b-i-l, James. The girls received lots of books, puzzle books, a few games, and lots of summer clothes :) The girls took turns riding their bicycle, their Princess Big Wheel, and jumping in the moon bounce. They also played on the play set my parents had built for them a few years ago.


Now, for my blog candy winner. First, I want to thank all of you who entered and chose to follow me. I am so glad to "meet" all of you. I have enjoyed perusing your blogs too. Lots of eye candy out there! I hope all of you will continue to follow me and leave comments when you can. Each of you have given me inspiration, and I hope maybe I inspired you too...and you weren't here just for a chance at winning my blog candy ;)

I numbered each person by comment, then used a random number generator to choose the winner.

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

12 

Timestamp: 2009-06-08 23:50:17 UTC

The twelfth comment was left by SMK. Please email me with your address and I will send your goodies out to you.

Happy Monday!

Cuttlebug Meets BasicGrey

I saw the title of this week's Cuttlebug Challenges blog, "BasicGrey Collection." Be still, my heart!!! My two favorite things together? Life is good...

I recently ordered this Cornish Heritage Farms owl stamp set. This is my first time owning or using a stamp set by CHF. I can tell you these stamps are the best! The images stamp so beautifully. I will be looking at purchasing more of their stamps in the future.

I colored my owl and party hat with Bic and Copic markers. I paper pieced the pom-pom and raised it with SU! dimensionals. The dps are all BasicGrey Granola. I think they make wonderful masculine cards, which are difficult for me. That being said, I like how this card turned out. I used my Spots & Dots Cuttlebug embossing folder on the brown panel. I added the sentiment with jumbo eyelets from Stampin' Up!

I used the same sketch I used here. It is one of my go-to sketches :)

***Don't forget to enter to win my 2 year blogoversary candy! See post here.***

Diamonds are forever...

When I saw today's challenge at 365 Cards...DIAMONDS, I knew I needed to use the rhombus die cut from QuicKutz. But what papers to use? I looked at some Second Avenue, then Wild Asparagus, and then I decided on BasicGrey. Both patterned papers are from my 6x6 Wisteria pad. The "Love" and the border at the bottom are BG Wisteria cardstock stickers. The large paper flower is from KAISERscrapbook, and the smaller flower on top is a Prima. I used my Creative Memories corner rounder on the top right corner.

***Don't forget to enter to win my 2 year blogoversary candy! See post here.***

End-of-Year Teacher Gifts

The last day of school is June 19th. Here are my assorted gifts ready to go. For once I am finished with end-of year gifts ahead of time! Let's look inside the box...
Acrylic picture frame with BasicGrey Oh, Baby Girl! paper, SU! Ovals, Nestie scalloped square, and Making Memories prima and eyelet. The "for you" is a QuicKutz Revolution die. I made 5 of these. I started these back in April.
I can not take credit for these cute assorted 4x4 cards. Sue had a class where we made 32 4x4 cards from a SU! Simply Scrappin' kit. As a bonus, we have lots of leftovers to make more too! I randomly chose 4 cards, then packaged with 4 envelopes and packeged them in these acrylic boxes. There are 8 sets of these. I made these in May.
My friend, Tamra, showed me a set of cards in a holder almost exactly like mine. Tamra's was 100% SU!. I had to improvise, using my Martha Stewart doily border punch and Cuttlebug embossing folders. My cards and envelopes, other punches, papers, ribbon, gem brads, dimensionals, and 6x6 scrapbook page protectors are all SU!.
Here is the set of four cards in each holder. I started these back in April as well. I made 6 of these.

I just couldn't bare the thought of mass producing 19 identical gifts, all though that would have been more efficient. I am going to let the teachers, assistants, bus driver, secretaries, and therapists choose what they want out of the box.

I am relieved these gifts are all finished. I can't think when there are too many unfinished projects in my craft room. So even though I am not prepared at all for my daughters' birthday this Sunday, I had to get these done and out of the way today.
Question for you: do you ever do things that are less of a priority sometimes when there is something else you should be doing?

365 Cards - Blue, Pink, and Orange

***Don't forget to enter to win my 2 year blogoversary candy! See post here.***

Today's challenge at 365 Cards is to use Blue, Pink, and Orange. I used almost all Stampin' Up! supplies. The Cuttlebug embossed Birds and Swirls textured cardstock is Apricot Appeal; the blue textured cardstock is Baja Breeze; and the small flower rub-ons and "love" rub-on is Cameo Coral. I also used the SU! border scallop punch, dimensionals and filagree brad. The swirly die cut on white textured cardstock (DCWV) is a Nestie. The two silver brads are by Making Memories.

365- Ad Inspired

***Don't forget to enter to win my 2 year blogoversary candy! See post here.***

Here is my take on today's challenge at 365 Cards. I used American Crafts papers, Bazzill cardstock (white and black), Bazzill bling prima, Bazzill brad, Stampin'Up! rub-on sentiment and photo corner punch, silver ribbon (stash), and velvet flower ribbon (cut apart...from clearance bin at Michael's.)

Mojo Monday Julee Tillman Sketch

*** Don't forget to enter for my blog candy! Click here***

It's Mojo Monday time again. If you know me, then you know I am a huge Julee fan. Here is this week's Mojo Monday Sketch # 89. All papers are Close To My Heart. This is my first time using Flopsy, by My Favorite Things. I paper pieced him and his daisies. It is difficult to see in the picture, but I used Diamond Glaze on his daisies...they look good IRL. The mini brads are American Crafts and the brown snap is Making Memories. I used my Nestie die to cut the circle; Cuttlebug Bloom Dots to emboss the blue cardstock; Stampin' Up! dimensionals , flower punch, and chocolate chip ink to distress the edges. The ribbon is from my stash.

Happy Blogoversary to me...

Today is my two year blogoversary! I can hardly believe it. This is my 434th post. Who knew I'd have so much to say? I started my blog to show my card making friends in NC what I was working on. Little did I know I would "meet" so many more people and make friends from all over the world. I think this blog thing is going to catch on ;)

This is the blog candy that is up for grabs. Yes, I will send it out of the U.S. Contest ends at midnight, June 7th, EST. How can you win? Here are the rules:

1. Become a follower of my blog (click "Follow" on the right hand column above my live traffic feed.) If you are already a follower, proceed to #2.

2. Leave a comment on this post...what you like about my blog, what you would like to see on my blog, or anything you just wanna say.

3. Mention my blog candy on your blog, linking to this post.