Summer Smoochin' Cutie

Hi! I am so happy you are here!  I had some time this week to create and will be sharing them through the next few weeks.

I can not believe that our summer break is almost over!  How did that happen?  We are going back to school shopping this weekend and that just makes me a little sad...  On the upside, I did get quite a bit accomplished this summer and hopefully will finish the last of my 'to do' list before school starts.  I know once August starts things will get all mixed up with routines and requirements, so I'm glad there's scheduled posting for Blogger-keeps my blog from feeling too neglected!

Since I'm wanting summer to last a bit longer, I thought today's card was a good one to share.  I used a free digi from Cuddlebug Cuties.  The print quality was not the best on this one and I'm not sure if it was my printer running low on black ink or the actual digi stamp, but it was free so I can't complain too much!  I used a lot of bright happy colors on the image and when I was finished I knew I would use Summer Smooches dsp since it is also full of cheerful colors.

One of my accomplishments this summer was cleaning off my crafting table. It's not actually clean or empty, but it is a lot more organized than it was before.  I even found some ribbon from a swap that I forgot I had! It's like shopping without the travel or money!  Of course, we won't be sharing with my DH that I found supplies I forgot I had... 

I added some crystal effects to the balloons and glitzed up her top with some purple stickles.  Other than that, this was a pretty basic card.  My shading skills leave a lot to be desired.  The hair turned out ok, but I really botched the jeans...not at all what I was going for!  But it won't get better if I don't keep at it!

Thanks so much for visiting! I hope you have a fantastic day and if it's summer where you are, enjoy it while it lasts (unless it's really hot and humid then you can totally wish for fall!).

Card Recipe: Paper-whisper white, Summer Smooches dsp (ret), Stamps-digi image, Remembering Your  Birthday(sentiment), Ink-skin tone blendabilities, memento tuxedo black, copics, Accessories-scallop dot ribbon (ret), purple stickles, crystal effects, banner punch

Happy 4th!!

Hello! I want to wish my fellow Americans a very happy 4th of July (aka Independence Day)!  We will be spending the day with family and appreciating the freedoms we have in this wonderful country of ours.  She's far from perfect, but I couldn't imagine living anywhere else!

I'm sharing a card I made several years ago for my dad for Veteran's Day, but thought it worked equally well for today! The original post can be found here.

For the rest of my blogging friends throughout the world, I hope you have a marvelous weekend and I'll eat a s'more and 'oooh' at the fireworks in your honor!  Thanks so much for stopping by and I'll be back soon with some new stuff to share!

A Mooving Card! Flashback Friday

Hello! As this is posting, I am road tripping with my girls to visit my best friend who lives near Indy.  We have been friends since I was in 7th grade and she was in 6th.  She was frequently my partner in crime and was also in my wedding.  Shortly after that she moved and we lost touch for a few years, but things were quickly back to our version of normal after a weekend reunion.  She often comes 'home' since they still have family living in the area, but I have yet to get up to see her.  So after a rather crazy week last week, I decided I needed a change of scenery and she was more than willing to be my get-away location!  I couldn't however leave you without sharing my most recent Flashback Friday!

I've had the cow image for so long that I have no idea where it is from... I'm sure it was a freebie, but have no clue who made it.  This was another of the images that went camping with me, so it was all colored up and in my stack of things to do.  My blogging friend, Lynn is always making fun and fabulous cards for her blog.  This cute cow reminded me of something I might see on her blog.  I think she probably would have done a better job with it too! :)

 

Along with the old digi, I also used a very, very old piece of hay dp-no clue who made it as it was a leftover in my scrap container.  The denim ribbon is now retired and thankfully I was able to buy an extra roll before it left. Love this ribbon!! The red dsp is from Summer Smooches (ret). Oh, and I couldn't resist using wiggle eyes either! I stocked up on those too! That means the only current items on here are the whisper white cardstock and the markers.  On the inside, I used part of a Michael's $1 stamp.  It says 'You're getting too old!'  I'm not sure who will be receiving this, but it will probably be one of my older siblings!

Have a wonderful weekend and thanks so much for stopping by!

Does anybody really know what time it is?

Hi!  I want to apologize for the Chicago earworms that may have been turned loose upon reading my title!  I had just realized that my last post was a Christmas card and today I have a Halloween card to share.  This led to a momentary bunny trail wondering how many days/weeks it was until Halloween and wondering what in the world was inspiring my creative process for early holiday cards.  The words entered my brain "Does anybody really know when it's appropriate to post these.", quickly followed by Chicago singing "Does anybody really care? About time?".  I'm not sure if you know this or not, but when the lyrics spirits whisper to you, you have to listen!  This led to my post title and an increased probability that my visitors would have the song running through their heads for the rest of the day (aka earworms-Thanks Butterfly for teaching me this word!).  My post really doesn't have anything to do with time or the band Chicago-like I said bunny trails...

Enough rambling!  I do have two cards to share with you.  The images were colored in the great outdoors on our camping trip.  I decided to use bright, fun colors on an  All Dressed Up's freebie.  They were too cute to be made scary anyway!

I don't normally 'do' Halloween cards, but there has been a recent increase in little people in our family and I thought they would like to get a fun card in the mail.

I am so glad you stopped by today and I hope you take some time to be crafty this week! If you live in most of the US right now, it's a good excuse to stay inside with the A/C!  Have a wonderful day!

Card Recipe: Paper- Summer Smooches DSP (ret), Island Indigo, Tangerine Tango, Whisper White, Ink-daffodil delight, real red, lucky limeade, island indigo, tangerine tango, Image-All Dressed Up, Accesories-blender pen, daffodil delight ribbon

Christmas in June- Early or Late? You decide!

Well, hello! Today is officially the first day of summer...longest day of the year...a wonderfully warm 92* with a humidity level that slaps you in the face if you're crazy enough to venture outside.  So I did what any 'normal' person would do to celebrate the first day of summer-I made a Christmas card!

Yes, I know there are oodles of days before December 25th, and believe me I'm nowhere near ready to think about shopping!  I did however print out several digital images to take along on our recent camping weekend.  It is a lot of fun to sit at a picnic table near a campfire and color.  One of the images was a wintery theme and a freebie from Newton's Nook Designs.  So today, to take my mind off of the extremely humid day, I made a bright and cheerful Christmas card using my colored images.

I also used some retired products including almost the last of my pumpkin pie dots dsp from the brights stack-I should try to do this more often. I really don't think I would 'need' to buy paper for several years, but what fun would that be?!  The midnight muse ribbon is also retired (we won't discuss my ribbon stash...). I think the only current supplies are the real red and whisper white cardstock, and the markers used to color the mittens.

Speaking of retired, I was starting to freak out a bit when I looked through the new SU catalog (check it out on my sidebar) and didn't see any Christmas sets.  Then I remembered an update I had seen.

You can still order some of the recent Christmas/Holiday stamp sets that are not shown in the new catalog.  Click here to view the carry over stamp sets.  These will be available until August 27th, so if there is a set on your wish list, don't wait too long!  There will be some new Christmas and winter holiday stamp in the new Holiday catalog that will be released later this summer.

Well, the family is vegging out in front of the tv so I think I'm going to try to get a little creative time squeezed in before bedtime!  Have a wonderful weekend and thanks so much for stopping by!

Card Recipe: Paper-real red, whisper white, brights dsp stack, Image from Newton's Nook, Ink-real red, pumpkin pie, not quite navy, Accessories-snow burst embossing folder, midnight muse ribbon, staples

Anything But a Card Challenge 23: Steampunk- On the right track (I hope...)

Hello! I am so glad you stopped in today!  It is week two of challenge 23 at Anything But a Card.  Our theme is Steampunk and I am bravely sharing my journal page today!

I have absolutely no experience in this genre and hope I'm not too far off mark on this one!  I decided to make a page for my quotes journal and thought that a new art style was fitting of the accompanying sentiment.

I think there is more Victorian influence than industrial, but overall I like it.  I was a mess trying to figure out where I wanted to go with this... I kept moving everything around, trying to find the best placement.  I also had a hard time deciding what to add as far as inks.  I really didn't want to go a step too far and hate the result...

I found the train image at a wonderful free site called From Old Books (what an amazing place to completely lose track of time!), and due to my lack of Steampunk supplies, it was a great starting point!  I printed it on very vanilla cardstock and colored it with a combination of copics, watercolor pencils, and metallic markers.  The distressing and aging came from river rock, soft suede, and crumb cake inks.  I added just a touch of copper glitter glue to the wheels. Of course, I had to do a little shopping for coordinating goodies. Don't you just hate that?!  I found the Tim Holtz metal sentiment tag and the decorative ticket on sale so I had to snag them.  The metal/rhinestone flower was spotted at Big Lots of all places.  I added a bit of copper colored Sharpie to the rhinestone to lessen the bling factor.  You may have spotted another of my metal buttons from my stash, and I even managed to make some of my Stampin' UP goodies work for this project.  The crochet ribbon, vintage brad, metal brad, and doily background stamp all seemed to fit my image of Steampunk accessories.

While I was initially a bit worried about this project, it was fun to research and learn about a new to me style.  I really hope to see some of you join us with your versions of Steampunk!

I hope you have a wonderful week and happy crafting!!

Flashback Friday-See what a little cleaning can do?

Hi! Welcome to another Flashback Friday! I hope all of my fellow Americans survived their Independence Day's activities without any injuries!  Our holiday was pretty low key.  My nephew came home for a visit and we all had a wonderful time together.

I have been using my time off this summer to try to do some much needed cleaning and organizing.    No big surprise that one of the first areas I tackled was my crafting space!  Since then, I have moved on to other areas of the house (not nearly as much fun, but easier to purge clothing that is the wrong size, than old beloved stamps!), but I keep coming across things that pull me back to my crafting space!  For example, my dryer was becoming the catch all area for outgrown clothes, so I finally bagged them up so they would be ready for donating to our local charity thrift store.  During this cleaning, I found a few homeless buttons and figured that I would never find the matching clothes, or they were probably long gone.  So I gave them a new home in my buttons container where I found the bag of buttons I bought a long time ago at an antiques and collectables store.  This led to a complete side track from cleaning!

My first card actually features one of these buttons.  They are metal and a little shabby looking and I absolutely loved them.  I used a faux mosaic tile technique for the focal point and added the button as an accent.  Along with my old button, I also pulled out some retired Tea Party DSP for this card.

As I was working on the first card, I moved a ziplock bag of thin strips of paper that were scraps from Easter cards.  I decided I really needed to either use them or pitch them and then I remembered the cute Easter bear digi I colored a looooong time ago.  This image is so old that when I went back to the person's site to link up to it, her site was gone...  So Caroline, I tried to give you credit but I'm not sure where you are now!

I glued all of the skinny strips of paper onto a rectangle of copy paper and then trimmed the edges to make them even.  Then I glued that to the base and glued the teddy to the front.  I realize that little bag of scraps didn't make a big dent in my stash, but I am glad that I finally found a use for all of the colorful scraps!

Well, DD#1 and I have a date to watch the Warehouse 13 marathon, so until next time, happy crafting!!

Wanna play Doctor??

OK... Get your mind out of the gutter!  This is a PG blog! :)

I was going through my supply of cards and while I had plenty of 'get well' cards, I also like to have some that are a little humorous to send some laughter with the wishes.  Night Nurse Nina definitely fits in the fun category.  I found her at Dr. Digi's, yet another purchase I made thanks to the enabling of my dear friend, Lisa M...  If you enjoy funny and slightly warped images, you will love this place!

I used copics to color the lovely Nina, and created the background with pastels.  Notable Alphabet worked perfectly for adding the sentiment on the first one.

and I changed things up just a little on the second one with Teeny Tiny Wishes.

I'm hoping that when these are delivered, they will bring a smile to someone's face.  I also hope that they won't be facing a needle like the one Nurse Nina is clutching... Makes me shiver just thinking about it!

I hope you have a wonderful day and remember, paper crafting each day keeps Night Nurse Nina away! And for all of my American friends and visitors, Happy (early) Independence Day!!!

Card Recipes: Paper-basic gray, basic black, tempting turquoise, real red, whisper white, Ink-copics, black stazon, Stamp Sets- digi images from Dr Digi, Notable Alphabet, Teeny Tiny Wishes, Punches-modern label, word window, 3/4" circle, Accessories- whisper white grosgrain ribbon(ret),  pastels

Slow Down, you're not as young as you used to be...

Hello! I don't have a flashback for you today, but I do have a fun little card!  

We have been trying out our 'new to us' camper this week at one of the local campgrounds.  We took a little break to come home to do laundry and buy more food for the weekend.  The girls are having friends join us tonight, so I'm sure we'll need more snacks!! I decided to check in and realized I didn't have a post set for today (and that I forgot to do my ABAC week 1 post... sorry...), so I'm sharing a card that I made for my nephew, Eric.  He attended college with help of a track scholarship, and now has a coaching position at a college in Wisconsin.  Now that he's approaching his 30's (gasp!), we tease him a lot about the fact that he doesn't run quite as fast and jump as high as he used to, so when I saw this cute guy at Doctor Digi's (Thanks, Lisa M!!), I had to buy him!!

The sentiment is from a stamp I found in the bargain bin at Michael's.  It has a snail carrying a gift on it's shell, but I chose to only color the sentiment. Thought it went quite well with Mr. Dunderton jogging along!

Well, that's it for me today! I'm off to Wal-Mart to get more supplies and then back into the semi-wilderness of the campground!  Be sure to stop by Anything But a Card challenges and check out our challenge, Getting Messy! I'll be sharing my project on Sunday, if Blogger cooperates...

Have a wonderful weekend, and happy crafting!!

Card Recipe: Paper-real red, basic black, whisper white, Ink-copics, black Stazon, Stamp- digital image by Dr Digi, sentiment from bargain bin at Michael's, Accessories-pastels

Flashback Friday-A day in the life of a procrastinator

A day in the life of a procrastinator... or How I lost the title Mom of the Year... I was debating which would be a better post title and decided that the second was a little too dramatic, even for me!  Of course, there are those who would sit in judgement that a good mom would never do this, but I have come to realize over the years that being a good anything is overrated.  We learn so much more from our blunders than perfection could ever teach us, plus it teaches my kids that I'm human and mess up just as much as they do!

So by now you are wondering what in the world happened, or maybe what this has to do with Flashback Friday, or maybe you have already bypassed all of this, peeked at my cards and left.  Hopefully not the choice behind door number three...

I really enjoy making cards, but even more than making them, I love sending them.  When I was younger, I never appreciated the cards and letters I received in the mail.  I probably took them for granted, or even showed my behind by complaining that they didn't include money.  But now in the age of digital and virtual everything, there is something so real about receiving an actual, hold-it-in-your-hand card.  It carries with it the message that someone remembered you, was thinking about you, and cares for you.  So I LOVE sending and giving cards, especially for birthdays.  Now before you all think that I should be nominated for humanitarian of the year, let me add some reality... I am a procrastinator-sometimes by choice, sometimes by pure forgetfulness, but a procrastinator all the same.  So sometimes my birthday wishes come with an apology for the untimely arrival of the card.  I usually am forgiven quite quickly because people just don't receive much happy mail anymore, and a late birthday card is better than no birthday card.  This is generally a socially accepted faux pas, but not when it's your own children...

Yes, I do know when they were born. I happened to be there both times... and I don't actually forget their birthdays (they're really good at reminding me of these things), but sometimes their cards aren't actually finished by the special date.  They have come to expect this and usually as long as they get the gifts and cake on time, they give me some leeway on the card.  So I was extra proud of myself when I bought two digi images (did not record who, sorry... If you know please tell me) and printed them off months before the special dates.  I even had them colored almost a month before the first birthday!  But then I did what procrastinators do and put them aside to finish later and promptly forgot where they were and that I even had them.  

So DD #1 has her birthday and I'm frantically searching for the images so I can finish her card.  I could have printed another and started over, but that would make too much sense, and besides, I KNEW they were here somewhere!  I ended up finding them shortly after DD#2's birthday and finished both of them at the same time.  I should add that DD#1 informed me that to be fair, DD#2 should have to wait an extra month as well. Can you feel the sisterly love???  I took pictures of the cards before I gave them to the girls and once again, the procrastinating kicked in and I didn't get around to posting them until now, many months later!  So my Flashback project today doesn't really use anything too super old, but then again, the relevance of time is subject to the importance of the event.  So now my girls know that *gasp* their mother is not perfect, and really needs to be more organized, but they also know that the next time they goof up royally, they can always play the 'forgot to make my handmade birthday card and I had to wait two whole months to get it' card...  Isn't motherhood grand?!

So here are the fashionably late cards in all their glory...

for DD#1 who is quite the Harry Potter fan,

and DD#2 who is a cheerleader.

I used copics and pastels on the images and really went with a simple layout since the images were larger.  

I am happy to report that they loved their cards and have started talking to me again... well... sometimes I'm happy about the last part... Guess I'm still out of the running for Mom of the Year! 

I hope your weekend is absolutely wonderful and that you don't procrastinate on finding some crafty time!  Thanks so much for stopping by!

Card Recipe:  Paper-elegant eggplant, whisper white, perfect plum DSP (ret), real red, basic black, Ink-copics, elegant eggplant, black stazon, Stamp Set- digi images from unknown, Curly Cute, Accessories-pastels