Happy Friday!

Happy Friday! Love Friday's, end of the week, looking forward to Saturday, you know the feeling! So since I don't work outside of the home you wonder why I look forward to Fridays? It's simple, I have to get up at 6:15 every day to get the kids to school. HA! I am not an early morning person. Get me up at 7:00 and I am o.k. Oh well. So that leads to coffee which leads to my card of the day- my new Bella! This is me! The saying is 'Morning without coffee is like...sleep'. Yep that sums it up for me. So here's to all the coffee drinkers and Bella's alike - have a great weekend!

Sketch challenge

I was going to do the sketch challenge today and saw this card on SCS for it and stopped everything! Loved this card! So I cased it :) Now it is the sketch challenge but the gal that did this used the phoebe paper I used last week so 1. love the paper, 2. love the glitter, 3. love the colors, 4. love the doodle flower! How could I not do it? So I still want to do a card of my own for the sketch challenge but had to get this out of my way first. Oh no sentiment yet. Waiting for when I use the card. OH! Went to Michael's yesterday and one of the new Martha Stewart line things I bought was this ribbon, it is an exact match to Stampin Up! Cameo Coral. My favorite. That is a cameo coral mat on there but the stamped flower mat is regal rose. Can't really tell a huge difference. I need to play with my other new Bella stamp, it's a secret which one but look for it soon!

How about Two Totally Contrasting Cards in One Post!

What a beautiful weekend! No rain, no humidity, plenty of sunshine, heavenly! I spent a lot of time on my screened in porch. So glad we pushed to have one put on when we built the house! I also dug up the old landscape lighting that none of us could get to work and put in a whole new set of lights. They work and it is so lovely at night.

So anyway two challenges done here. One is "heavy metal" you are supposed to make a card with a bunch of metal embellishments. I have a whole box full of them so not a problem there! I also bought these Stampscape Stamps this week and wanted to use them. The image is actually 3 stamps. Clouds, trees and water. You can mix and match and make your own scenes. I chalked the image to give it color but I was taught to use a sponge dauber and ink to color them. Kind of felt like using chalk for once.

Now for the other one, it is a Featured Stamper (FS11) challenge, you case a card of your choice from their gallery and change 2 things about it. I changed 5 things but it still over all looks the same. So the white card is for that. Now off to enjoy the weather!

Survivor Cards

I am not doing too well in my Survivor card pool! Michelle was voted off last week and I had to make 3 cards for her. Once again I don't mind making cards, I just want to win a few! Or at least be right on who I picked. That ain't gonna happen LOL! I should have picked Yau-Man. I was going to, after all he had the profile for it but I was sure they would vote him off due to his age. He won the immunity challenge this week, he rocks! Watch out! Here are my cards for it, I cased the color arrangement from someone but my stamps are different and I did the ribbon and eyelets different. I like these colors! I used my Bug to emboss the blue paper, still loving it! I also used a tag die with it.

I have two challenges I want to work on so we will see if I get to them this weekend! I have low voltage lighting to install in my front yard and a Spring Fling for my son' school to go to so I might not have the time, or more likely the energy. Have a good weekend!!!

New Bella and Fixed Feedblitz

Wooo Hoo new Bella, new Bella, woo! I don't know why I like these so much. This is her in an awesome classic corvette convertible. I paper pieced the pink of the car on to give it a solid look (does that make sense?!) I used the tab punch to hold the ribbon although in this picture you can't see that. You punch the slot punch through the tab part and slide the ribbon through. I also used rhinestone jewels for the headlights, nice and shiny! The card over all is for the sketch challenge this week. Anyway it is a lot of fun to use and I will have to think of other card uses for this stamp! Looks like a travelin' theme to me! Although this one is going to be a thank you note :) On to more stamping things as I'm totally stressed out with my soon to be 15 year old son! Need some creative time to feel calm!

On a side note I tried to subscribe myself to feedblitz service for this blog and it didn't work. I worked on it and it is fixed. If you tried it before, try again, should be working now. If not let me know! Thanks :)

Getting caught up

Ahhhh I feel better! I had time to do a card today. This is the color challenge one, eggplant, saffron and rose red. I had a hard time with this card. I remade this card (without adhering thankfully) and cut and cut again and trashed part of it LOL! I had a yellow cut out flower layer too but it just didn't look good. I ended up covering almost all of the embossing which bummed me out as it looked cool, then I couldn't figure out what to do with the ribbon so I pulled out the ribbon buckle and did what I did with it, is that how it is supposed to be used? you can't just run the ribbon through, there is no center piece to hold it. Anyway I wanted to use dazzling diamonds with my new glue 'pen' and it worked great. So this is the end result and I somehow wanted more for it. I am getting good reviews for it so I must not have done too bad! It is so hard to judge your own work. Thanks for looking!

Birthday Busy

Whew! I have had a marathon last few days! Saturday was my 'baby's' 5th birthday party. Five, wow! Done with baby stuff now. One of those things where you are sad and happy at the same time. Sad because baby's are new and precious and happy because less tantrums, crying, potty training, etc.! His party was wonderful. We had it at a local gymnastics club and the kids were great. They had a blast and they were so good! My little one was too, which was a big relief. So Friday and Saturday I was busy with party stuff and then Saturday night I went scrapbooking at my friends and then Sunday I went to a wonderful scrapbook class at Archiver's for a dog album. I finished it in the 4 hours, only one other person has been able to. Let me just say I boogied! No chit chat LOL! All my spare time to blog was taken up and I feel terribly behind. I wrote the thank you notes today and above is what I made. I wanted something quick to do and something for a child, his colors were red black and blue for the party so the card is similar. His theme was Cars - the movie. He loves Lightening McQueen! Such a boy thing :)

I am way behind on the challenges, I only did two last week. Not sure if I am going to just drop them and try to do this week's or what but I shall get back to it. Plus I need to finish the scrapbook pages I started this weekend and take pictures and upload the ones I've done for the dog album. Lots to do!

Rainy Day

Not liking the rainy day but I must concede the trees, plants and grass are very happy! Always makes me want to stay in and sulk. So here are some cards I made! Love the color challenge of red, black and sage shadow. The card came out nice with the two different Cuttlebug embossing folders. The other card is a Bella card as you can see and I did the paper piecing thing with patterned paper as her dress. Used that sketch again even though there is a new one I just love that one. I will work on the new sketch later today probably. I love the comment my Mom made about Bella, "the girl with the funny hair" she calls her! Actually, I have her hair! I have very curly hair and when it is longer it looks just like that. Flying out all over the place! I wonder if that occurred to her? I will have to ask.

My Very Old Chihuahua Stamp

I bought a Chihuahua stamp in the early 90's, not because I was a stamper or scrapbooker, but because I liked it. I didn't know what to do with it but I stamped it on a couple of note pads and that was that. It sat idly in my drawer for oh 10 years or more. Now I am a stamper and scrapbooker and came across it the other day and wondered if it was a foreshadow of what was to come! I had to use it and here is the card. The technique is reverse masking, I clear embossed the Chihuahua, masked and sponged craft vanilla, masked again then stamped 'On the Spot'. Funny the Chihuahua stamp actually looks like Sampson. If he went on a diet...

Easter

I hope you had a wonderful Easter and reflected on our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and his glorious Resurrection!

Here is a card that is using a technique from Technique Junkies. I love the ideas in these newsletters! This was an incredibly fast and easy technique that I think is really impressive. I like easy techniques and that is what this month is all about. One day when my kids are off to school all day or all grown up, I will have time to dabble in the more complicated stuff :) It is hard to tell because my photo didn't come out right but the paper color is certainly celery mounted on black, mounted on pink passion, mounted on kraft. I wanted to use the tab punch and couldn't fit it on the side of the main card image so I used the small slot punch to make a slot (punched twice side by side) and slid the tab down in and used the punch again to make a slot for the ribbon. Kind of a neat and different effect! I think it is interesting anyway. Stamped the birthday sentiment on it and done. Thanks for looking!

Sunflowers

I love sunflowers! They seem to smile at the world and say "be happy". OK I am reading too much into them, huh? I tend to apply human thoughts to all living things :) Anyway here are a couple cards with sunflowers. I only have a couple of sunflower stamps being that since I do have some I tell myself I don't need any more (there is the scrooge in me!) so I tend to re-use them a lot. Isn't that good?! LOL! Doesn't feel like it when I see people's stash! The first one is alcohol ink. I used Pinata inks, a red and a yellow and sponged (that ranger white foam stuff) them onto a piece of glossy cardstock, then dripped some of that clear ummmm blending stuff (what is it called?!, too lazy to go get it out and look at the label!) and it makes such an awesome look. Stamped the sunflower bunch over it and also used it for the background. Mind you being scroogie (new word) I cut out the center of the background piece and mounted it to cardstock and then used the cut out piece to stamp the sunflower on, covered the background hole with the image so you can't see I cut it. So in total I used 4.25 x 5.5 piece of glossy cs. That stuff is expensive! The second one is just plain fun, using limited supplies (challenge) and sponging lots of sky on it. Don't they look like they are smiling?!

Making a Title Banner

I am working on making a title banner! This is a butterfly my son found in the backyard, I took a picture of it on his arm. I edited it and added my blog name over it and here it is! I haven't done any of this in years so it I am slow to remember! I have spent enough time on it today. Hopefully making my blog prettier :)

Sketch cards for this week

Here are two cards for the sketch of the week, I can dig these easy ones! Thank goodness, I am not real creative this week. Funny how it comes and goes. I am likin' the simple less embellished look lately. Well week is almost over and my boys haven't driven me insane (yet)! The little one is bored and I feel like I have kept him busy every day but apparently not enough! Going to the pool, the park, play place, running errands (which he still enjoys at this age) etc. and I am pooped! The older one had his wisdom teeth out Tuesday (mom why do you make me do this on my Spring break???!!) and is doing fine but I wouldn't know as he sleeps ALL DAY. Sheesh, hope he gets a job when he grows up that is night hours! I go and wake him up, much to his dismay. I have never had a more invisible child since he turned a teenager. He used to be just like the younger one! Hyper, busy, etc. Not sure if I should complain though :) Kids, can't live with them, can't live without them!

April is Autism Awareness Month

Autism affects 1 out of every 150 children. What a big statistic! For comparison, 1 out of every 800 to 1000 children are born with Downs Syndrome. I found this information on another stamper's blog (see link below) and to help out this cause I am linking to this web-site. This is a special stamp set made for this cause called 'Love you to pieces'. With each purchase of this stamp set she will donate $8.00 to Autism Speaks.

Why I am interested is my youngest son has SID or SPD (Sensory Integration Dysfunction or Sensory Processing Dysfunction, same thing, two names). Sensory Integration Dysfunction is the inability of the brain to correctly process information brought in by the senses. He was diagnosed at 2 1/2 and has been treated with O.T. and with a Specialized Therapist ever since. It is not Autism, but is closely related. It is a neurological disorder that affects social skills as well as their daily life! Sound, light, colors, smells all cause him to lose control of his behavior. Most children with Autism have SID but not all SID kids have Autism. I am grateful that he can speak, play and interact with us but he wants so bad to have friends and play with them and to function in school that it makes me so sad. That is why I am doing all I can to help him and help causes related. Thanks for reading and check out this great stamp set! Stamps For a Cause

Little bit of heaven

It is gorgeous today! I am sitting on my porch, it is 80 degrees, no humidity and the sun shining through the trees makes it perfect! Spring is my favorite time of year. It used to be Summer but living in the South has changed that! It is sooooo hot and sooooo humid here in the Summer it is intolerable. But Spring, ahhhhhh the leaves growing, the flowers blooming and the warm weather. I am not getting anything done around the house this afternoon but it can wait. The weather isn't like this that often.

Here are some cards I made recently, one is the faux shaving cream technique and the other is a case of the featured stamper Emily G. She is also the person who puts up the color challenges every week, love them! All of the info is in my gallery on SCS.