Another Award!

Thank you so much to Gina from Gina's Makings and Musings for this unexpected but greatly appreciate award. Now picking 5 to pass it on to - that was/is the hard part as there are so many blogs I love - but 5 it is so here they are:

Sherrie from Card Creme
Sherry from Walkin on the Bad Side
Sharon from No Time to Stamp
Vicki from This Art That Makes Me Happy
Julia from Belle Papier

Again, it is not JUST their blogs - and they are wonderful - but it is the women themselves. Please visit their blogs and get to know them through those blogs and you'll know what I mean.

*You may put the logo on your blog
*Put a link to the person who sent you the award
*Nominate 5 blogs
*Put links to their blogs
*Leave a message for your nominees

That's all for today - my husband and I are headed out of town to pick up another classic car - our collection is getting a little out of hand - and to meet up with my step-daughter and her boyfriend to get her a laptop for college. Then we are going to have dinner at our most favorite Mexican restaurant ever Xochimilcho - I hope I spelled that right - can't wait - we really have not found what we consider to be a great Mexican restaurant in our area, so this is a treat anytime we're in that area.

Have a great weekend, and please take time out to do something you love.

Take Care

House Mouse Monday Blog Challenge

Happy Wednesday - WOW - the middle of the week already. Time just goes by way to fast doesn't it?? Anyway, this ia a 2 in 1 challenge post. For the House Mouse Monday Blog Challenge we were to make a Christmas card. My image is "In Perfect Harmony" given to me by a dear friend Jennifer at Just Coffee Please. If you'd like to play, follow the link and please check out Jennifer's blog as well. This is great stuff and a lot of fun.

This card is also for the Sketch Challenge on Splitcoast Stampers (see sidebar for link) If you can't tell, I'm absolutely stuck on this paper from Making Memories. It's called FaLaLa and I just can't get enough of it. It seems I'm also stuck on snowflakes this year - use them on EVERYTHING!! I'm not sure you can see it, but the berries are accented in Stickles and the snow was done with a glue pen and then sprinkled with DecoArt Glamour Dust.

Have a great day and please take a little time out to do something you love.

Take Care,

Vintage Christmas

Happy Tuesday!! Today I am posting another very simple Vintage Christmas card I put together for the shop in town. The image is from a CD I bought from Ebay, and just simply mounted it on a piece of dark sage CS - I've had it for a long time so I could not begin to tell you where I got it, then mounted it on tan CS. The background stamp is an older one from Hero Arts and I used Ranger Antique Linen ink. I then went over the lettering with a Stardust Gelly Roll pen for a slight bit of sparkle. That's it. Hope you enjoy it.

Another Post for Today

Hello again. I usually am not able to do a post every day of the week, and then - I am able to post twice in one day - go figure!! Anyway, I had to get this posted for the House Mouse Monday Blog Challenge . Today is the last day and I just finished. Not sure I really like it, but here it is anyway.

The challenge this week was to use "junk" in your project. You know what they say, "One man's junk is another man's(or woman's)treasure". That is so true in this case. This is one of my husband's cast offs - an empty cigar container destined to the garbage - but not anymore. I rescued it and made it into a gift container. Actually I started scavenging these a few years ago and I have a ton of them. I gave my daughter a whole bagful last year and I'm still overflowing - you just never know when you're going to need one - right?? Anyway - what to put into this tiny container - you could punch out all kinds of images - birds, bats, trees, reindeer, leaves, etc. etc. Another idea would be to make some of the paper clip bookmarks. Stick pin findings would be wonderful, and would allow your recipient to make their own decorative stick pins. You could punch out a ton of inchies for them to decorate or use as mats. Brads and eyelets would fit, and I'm sure you could come up with many more ideas as well.

Shortly I will have more House Mouse images and you will not be seeing the same image over and over and over again - lol!!

Take time today to tell someone how much you love them. Take care.

Kreativ Blog Award

I am in awe!! I can't believe it - I have received my first ever blog award. I honestly don't feel like I deserve it, but I am so grateful. It comes from Jennifer at Just Coffee Please. Thank you Jen. I hope I do it justice.

These are the blogs that I am passing on the award to:

Joanne of Ambrosia and Iron
Darlene of Dar's Crafty Creations
Sara of Luminous in My Chaotic Dreams
Leslie of Running With Scissors
Anna of Sweet Miss Daisy

This is what you need to do
1. Put the logo on your blog
2. Put a link to the person who sent you the award
3. Choose 5 blogs to send the award
4. Put links to their blogs
5. Leave a message for each one of them that they have been awarded

There are so many deserving this award, choosing only 5 was hard. I chose these 5 not only for their beautiful and inspirational blogs, but because these women themselves are an inspiration to me. Please visit their blogs, get to know them, take part in some if not all the challenges they are apart of - and you will see what I mean.

Thank you again Jen - so so much.

Take care, everyone have a wonderful rest of the weekend, and as always - try to spend at least some time today doing what you love.

I'm Published!

Happy Saturday everyone, and yes, that is correct - I finally did it! I've actually known for quite awhile now, I'm just a little uncomfortable tooting my own horn - but I am excited, and it is one step further into the world I'm working to be a part of. The magazine is CardMaker March/April 2009. I'm honored and in awe and hoping there will be more - I do not want to be "one hit wonder" - lol! Anyway, that's my news and I do have something else exciting to announce - see that Kreativ Blog Award button - that has been awarded to me and I'm such a dork, I haven't figured out how to get everything posted on here correctly and am awaiting - I hope some instructions so that I can finish it. Sorry - it might take me a day or two

That's it for today - take time to spend with someone or something you love.

Take Care,

Another Triple Challenge in 1

Good Morning and Happy Friday!! To those of you who asked - thank you my cold is much better. I take so many vitamins and then Cold Ease as soon as symptoms appear I don't usually get really down, just kind of slow and edgy. Anyway, enough of that. Once again (due to time of course) I have attempted to do 3 challenges in one card. This card is for our SCS Blog Challenge #2 hosted by Tiffany. She asked us to use 4 different patterned papers - now this is a challenge for me - I always have such a hard time putting together patterns that I like. However this time, I used FA La La by Making Memories - they are double sided and of course coordinated, so it was a no-brainer. I almost feel like I'm cheating - LOL.

I used the layout from the Splitcoast Stampers Sketch Challenge 202 - It seemed perfect for using 4 patterns of paper.

For the Crafty Secrets Challenge from Forums on Splitcoast, Darlene said to use punches. I used Martha Stewart's doily punch and the snowflake punch from EK Success. The image is also Crafty Secrets from the Vintage Christmas set. This is a great group and if you haven't tried this challenge yet, please give it a try - it's a lot of fun

Put it all together and that's 3 challenges in one - I love it when it all works out like that.

Supplies:
CS - Cream for card base by American Paper Co.
DP - All (including the back green panel) are from FaLaLa by Making Memories
Ink - Coffee Bean Brilliance by Tsukineko, and Cocoa by Colorbox
Accents - Jewels by Me and My Big Ideas, Ribbon from Michael's,
Tools etc. - Snowflake punch from EK Success, Doily punch by Martha Stewart from Michael's, dimensionals

That's it for today - I'm trying to work on the House Mouse challenge and hope to get it posted later today or tomorrow.

Have a great day and try to spend at least some time doing what you love. Take Care.

A Christmas Card

Happy Thursday! My week has just been packed and now my husband and I are fighting a cold - so this is just a quick post as I am working on several things at the moment and hope to post those between now and the end of the weekend. Anyway, this is another card design - extremely easy and fast - for the shop here in town. She has a vintage look to her shop and since vintage is my #1 favorite - it works. Again, very simple (I like simple) and clean lines - no ribbon or real embellishments unless you count the Stardust Gelly Roll pen used to go over the lettering for just a slight bit of glimmer. I'm not sure if you can see it in the picture or not. These images are from a CD I bought off of e-bay, and the background is stamped from an older Hero Arts stamp I have called Pine Bough. Hope you enjoy it.

Have a great day and please try to spend some time today doing something you love.

Take Care

Another Fall Card

Good Morning! This is another card created for the shop in town. I absolutely love the Designer Paper from K & Co. on this one and so I wanted to see as much of it as possible. The image is again from Inka "Bats and Cats" and was colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with baby oil. Gold Stickles from Ranger was used to accent. The corners were punched with a Fiskars decorative corner punch and I love this sheer bronze ribbon from Michael's. It is then mounted on a standard A2 size top folded card base of deep rust cardstock by Bazzil. This is really a very simple and straightforward card. Hope you like it.

Take care and try to spend at least some time today doing what you love.

Happy Fall

Happy Friday - where did the week go?? This is one of the cards I have made for the shop in town that sells my cards, tags, etc. I love Fall and all the colors and crispness in the air, so this card I made to reflect those colors. It' a very easy process. The card base is actually a bright gold from one of Michael's paper packs, I then sponged Butterscotch and Rust Adirondack inks over the entire surface along with a little lt. brown. I then inked up a leaf stamp from Impression Obsession with the same three colors but a little heavier with the rust and stamped several images on the background - I also stamped a few on the inside of the card just to finish it off. The image is from Inkadinkado "Cats and Bats", which I colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with baby oil, and accented with Stardust Stickles from Ranger. The off-white space was sponged with the same three colors of ink. The leaf is a punch from EK Success which I outlined and accented veins with a Stardust Gelly Roll pen from Sakura. The one with more green on the pumpkins was done generally the same - the only difference is the coloring style of the pumpkins and I used only the Stardust Gelly Roll pen to do all the accenting.

I like a more simple look and so I really like these. I hope you do also. Thanks for visiting, please come again, and have a great weekend. Spend at least a little time doing what you love.

Take Care

Triple Challenge

Good Thursday Morning to all. This post is for 3 challenges all in one. My time is so limited I thought I would try this and I think it came out o.k. The first challenge is for our SCS Blogger Group Challenge #1 hosted by Sara. She wanted us to use polka dots and ribbon. I just bought this pretty polka dot DP and was happy to have an opportunity to use it right away. Check out the "My Talented SCS Blog Group" on the left in the sidebar to see what they have put together.

The 2nd challenge is for the House Mouse Blog Monday Challenge (link is in sidebar). We were suppose to follow a recipe of ribbon, 2 buttons, felt, and a scalloped edge -I have it all. To get the 2 buttons on I stacked them and tied them with the ribbon. My felt is the flower (it's not really felt, but it was all I had without driving 40 minutes, so it will have to do - I'm not going to bore you with how I tried to make the flower out of a piece of felt - lol).

The third challenge is for SplitCoast Stampers Sketch Challenge 201. Have you taken part in any of these? They're great fun. That link is also in the side bar. Please try it out.

Supplies:
CS - Pink and Cream from Michael's paper pack, Brown is from Bazzil
DP - Neopolitan Confetti by K & Co
Stamps - Birthday Cupcake by House Mouse
Ink - Grey by Marvy Matchables
Accents - Pink Stickles by Ranger,ribbon by Martha Stewart from Michael's, Flower is Bling Blossom by Imagenisce, buttons are from my stash, I chalked the flower with I Kan Dee by Pebbles, Inc., Prismacolor pencils, baby oil to blend, and a brown Sharpie for the icing.

Hope you like it, have a great day, and try to spend at least some time today doing what you love and that makes you happy.

Take Care