Curtain Call Act 1

Usually Stacey has a jewelry color challenge. Well, she's changing things up a bit, and it sounds fun to me. She is hosting her first ever Curtain Call Color Challenge , so go check it out. I really like the bedding in this photo. It would sure look nice in my bedroom....hmmm. Anyway, onto the card. This was not what I had originally envisioned...do you ever do that?
I'm not too thrilled with this particular card. I just might have to make a second attempt. Heck, who am I kidding, I'm lucky to get one done. I have so many challenges just sitting on my desk to be attacked. Guess I will just have to deal with it.
Have a great day.
Thanks for peeking in.

Color Throwdown Challenge #52

The Color Throwdown Challenge this week was to use the colors Perfect Plum, Certainly Celery and Chocolate Chip. I thought it would be fun to play along this week, since I had the time to play, and this is what emerged. 2 of the stamp sets I used, Print Pattern, and Heartfelt Thanks are retired, but I love them and will continue to grace paper with them. I almost left off a sentiment to add to the card later when I needed it, but thought I could always use a sympathy card on hand. So, I used my new Teeny Tiny Wishes stamp set for the sentiment. All my supplies are from Stampin Up.

Hope everyone is having a great day.

Thanks for peeking in.

SSSC27...

Does anyone out there have a favorite sketch/color challenge that they like to participate in? I have really enjoyed Karen Giron's sketches lately....there are a lot of sketches I love doing to be honest with you....I just love challenges is all. Anyway, blah, blah, blah....this is the sketch Karen gave us this week. I just recently got this new designer series paper from Stampin Up and have been itching to use it. I thought this would be a fun sketch to use it with. I realize it is a little early for Thanksgiving cards, but maybe I was just wishing for the cooler weather Thanksgiving time has....it is HOT today...
I decided it would be fun to do something interesting to the inside of the card as well.

I hope everyone is staying nice and cool. Have a great day.

Thanks for peeking in.

Mojo Monday #96

I really had to sit and think on this one. I am loving the color Night of Navy from Stampin Up for some reason lately, and decided to have some fun with it....so I did.
I was pleased with the results of my long moments of pondering....what do you think? I made a 51/2"x 51/2" base and just covered it with all kinds of Night of Navy. I had to use my coluzzle to cut the circle. I then found some white flowers in my stash. I cut out some leaves from my die cut from Stampin Up. Stamped a center for the flower with my retired In The Spotlight stamp set, popped it up with some dimensionals, added my Night of Navy bow and there you have it.

I wanted to do something fun to the inside of the card too, so this is what evolved.

I cut the inside flowers with my cricut, cut out some more leaves and added some random buttons for the centers. I hope everyone is having a wonderful Monday.

Thanks for peeking in.

I {heart} 2 stamp challenge

It's been awhile since I've done Jen's SFYTT. She always has some fun and interesting sketches to play with. This week was no exception. I wanted to make something fun and happy with this sketch. I am happy with the final result. I think it turned out fun and happy.
Hope you are having a fun and happy day. It would be so much better if it would cool off a little here in sunny So. Cal.....Why can't it just be 75 degrees everyday of the year????
Thanks for peeking in.

Stamping 411 meets OCC....

I really like the stamping 411 website. They focus on stampin up supplies, which is what I have the most supplies of. The challenge this week was another easy sketch. I'm finding it's harder when the sketches are easy, because I have too many ideas floating in my head, and I can't seem to settle on just one. Weird I know. Anyway, this is the sketch below. I also had been on the Our Creative Corner website and saw their new challenge for the week. It was to use 3 types of embellishments. At first I made a card that joined the two challenges. I used the 3 butterflies for the three little hearts in the above sketch, but then to use my 3 types of embellishments I added a bow, button, and pearls on my butterflies. Well, afterwards I thought that maybe we weren't really supposed to add so much "extra" to the stamping 411 challenge...
...So, I made another card for the stamping 411 challenge without all the "extras".

Everything on this card is retired from Stampin Up, and I don't think I had ever used the apple paper or apple stamp yet. I'm not that thrilled with it, but it will have to do for now. I was going to print off the computer the saying, "you are the apple of my eye" for the sentiment, but got to lazy. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for peeking in.

Favorite.....

Okay....So. you know your mother loves you when you beg her to take some of the "many" cards you have laying around your house so they can be used. I am horrible at putting things in the mail....horrible!!! I love to make cards, but than fail to do anything with them. So, I give them to my mother who sends cards all the time. Anyway....to thank me for all the cards, what does she do? She lovingly buys me a huge box of patterened paper.....And...not just any patterened paper....Kand Company patterened paper. I was in heaven. Mom, you're awesome. I love you. Well, I was excited to play with my new paper, and saw Taylor's sketch challenge for this week, and Dawn McVey's color challenge, and got to work.
Above is Taylor's sketch. Dawn's color challenge was to use Moss/Celery, Cream, Dark Red, and Bright Pink. {As I look at my card, I realize that the only Bright Pink in my card is in the stripes, so you have to look for it, but it's there.... : )} I couldn't wait to go through my new box of patterened paper and see what would work.....BINGO....I found these darling papers and had to use them. I thought they were perfect for Dawn's color challenge too.

I have been seeing lots of these cute crumpled up flowers, especially on Dawn's blog, and LOVE them, but hadn't tried them yet. Well, it was about time. I thought the little cirlce part of the sketch would be perfect for one of these cute little flowers.

I wish you could see this card IRL because it is sooooo much cuter than the picture even comes close to. I have a wonderful friend who has been sharing her "delicious" treats from her garden with me and I will get this in the mail to her. I know I'm bad at mail, but if I go do it right now, I just might actually do it....LOL.

Have a happy day with lots of laughs and smiles. Did you know that laughing lowers your high blood pressure? Just thought I would share that. We all need to laugh a lot more.

Thanks for peeking in.

Stamping 411 Challenge

I really am loving this Melon Mambo. It's such a happy, fun color. This was a pretty simple sketch....very simple, sometimes simple is nice. I wanted to try something a little bit different for the corner oval, so I added one of the stampin up tag sizzix die cuts behind the scalloped oval.
This is just a pretty straight forward copy of the sketch.

Hope everyone is having a wonderful day.

Thanks for peeking in.

Karen Giron's SSSC26

It is so nice to get back into the challenge swing of things again.

I was excited to work with Karen's sketch this week, I thought it was a great sketch. A fun sketch...an easy sketch actually.....love it.

This is my take on her sketch. I am loving the new color Melon Mambo from Stampin Up.

There is so many thoughts and ideas that went through my head...this was only one of them. I know I will be using this sketch again, and again, and again.

Have a great day everyone.
Thanks for peeking in.

Finally.....

I finally played with paper again. WooHoo!!!!!

Kristina Werner has a color challenge to use the colors of blue, pumpkin, saffron, celery, rich red, and white. I had seen a card similar to this one, and loved the idea of this card....So, I gave it a try. I thought it would perfect to use with all the colors needed for Kristina's challenge. We just got a new computer, and I'm still trying to figure out some things. For some reason I can't get my pictures to rotate clockwise....{I did the whole right click and rotating it that way....doesn't work...still playing....I will figure it out....I will....I will....I will!!!}

So, here is a sideways view of the whole front of the card....sorry.
Here is a shot of the card open from the front.

And a shot of the card open from the back.

It was nice to get back into the mojo of making cards again. I got a nice big box of Stampin' Up stuff today.....oh boy am I going to have fun for the next few days....

Thanks for peeking in.

P.S. Sorry I didn't list how the card was made. If anyone has any questions, just leave a comment and ask, I'll be happy to explain.

Tons of thank yous

I can hardly believe that summer is officially here for me. Today is my first official day of no work for 2 1/2 months. For those who don't know, I work at the local high school, and yesterday was the last day of school. I cannot tell you how nice/wierd it has been being home all day knowing that it will be like this for over 2 months. At first I didn't know what to do with myself and then I just started doing all those "fun" things I don't do while working....at least not very often. I cleaned out the refrigerator....took over an hour and a half....ugh. I washed dog nose marks off the windows. I cleaned off the ceiling fan blades and all their million layers of gross dust....that at any minute was going to go flying through the house when the fan was turned on anyway....maybe I should have just waited to see how far it would have flown....hmmm.

But I wanted to post some cards that I made for one of the dear teachers that I worked with very closely. She retired after working as a teacher for over 14 years....her second profession. She is one of the nicest ladies I have ever met....funny thing...her last name is Nice...fits her perfectly. She loves getting cards from me that I have made, she also is one who it is very important that she give thank you cards in a timely manner. Knowing that she was going to be given many gifts for her retirement, I thought it would be the perfect gift to make her "LOTS" of thank you cards that she can personally send out to all those who will/and have showered her with gifts of love.

I made her 6 cards each, of 8 different designs. So in total, she was given 48 thank you cards. I was very busy for a while....but I LOVED it.

These are only 6 of the 8 designs....I guess I was so tired after making the last 2 different designs I didn't think to take pictures of them....oh well.

Some of these cards I cased off of some very talented card makers out there. I love making cards, and it was even more fun when I was making them for someone else as a gift. She loved them, so it was worth all the time and effort.

I also made some really fun and cute party favors for her retirement dinner last night. I wish I would have taken a picture of them. They were jars full of m&m's with a bow and some fun embellies I made with all my punches from stampin up. Those were a hit too. It was a great time....I'm so glad it's all over and I can just play with paper now. I have some scrapbooks I need to finish up.....ahhhh the sound of paper is calling my name.

Thanks for peeking in. Have a great day everyone.

A couple of blog awards.....

I am embarrased to admit this, but I got these awards over 2 weeks ago and am now just getting to them. I am so sorry Jenna. Life at my house was crazy busy for a little while. My husband and I celebrated our 30th anniversary, and my daughter had a birthday... not to mention that school is winding down and co-workers are retiring and I had to make them gifts....so....with that said....THANK YOU SO MUCH JENNA!!!

This little bear with his bouquet of flowers is so cute. He is the Gift of Love Award. There are no requirements to receive it or give it away, so I was deeply honored to get this from Jenna when there are so many others out there. This next award was also given to me by Jenna. Again, no requirements I just have to list 10 honest things about myself. So here goes nothing.

1. I have been married for 30 years.
2. I have 5 children, 2 daughter in laws, and 4 grandchildren.
3. I love all things chocolate.
4. I hate shoes.
5. I can't wait for summer.
6. I have been scrapbooking for over 20 years and still love it.
7. My husband is making me grow my hair out and I HATE IT!!!
8. I need to lose 50 pounds or more, but #3 keeps me from doing that. ha ha ha
9. Did I mention I love all things chocolate???
10. My family is my pride and joy!!!

So those are my 10 things. Now, I get to pass these awards on to some other wonderful deserving blogger.

And the lucky winner is Tanya.
Tanya especially deserves the Gift of Love Award, because she is always leaving me "love/comments" on my blog.

Thanks for peeking in. Have a great day.

Our Creative Corner Challenge

I keep trying different things on my cards lately. On this card, I decided to ink my colors directly on my stamp instead of stampin it in black and then coloring it in. I decided it worked well for this card because it looks distressed. You might not be able to see the background paper, but it is distressed, so it went well together. This was a fun sketch that you could definelty use again and again and again.
Thanks for peeking in. Have a great day.

2 challenges in 1

I tried two new challenges this week. Sometimes it's really nice to have a sketch challenge, and a color challenge, and just combine them into one card. It almost takes all the decision making and stress away.....almost....but it's good stress...fun stress.This was the sketch from stamping411 and then I combined it with Stacey's Jewelery Challenge. Stacey's colors were Garden Green, Certainly Celery, Pretty in Pink, and Whisper White. I took the butterfly wings and curled them around a pencil to give them a little lift. It is almost a Stampin Up only card except for the pearls down the butterfly, but I thought it really gave it the pop it needed.
I know putting challenges together must be a lot of work, so thank you ladies for your time and efforts so we can play.

Thanks for peeking in. Have a great day.

Mojo Monday Fun

On Saturday I went to a Stampin Up Upline meeting, and we learned how to make these ubber cute pop up flowers. They were so cute and so much fun to make that when I saw the circle on the Mojo Monday Sketch, I knew exactly what was going to go there.....I love them. The above photo is so you can see how they pop up.
I love these challenges, because I never in a million years would have put this card together like this....but I love it.
I think the card is simple but fun. I really am happy with how the whole card turned out.

Thanks for peeking in. Have a wonderful day.

Hope your day is blooming with love

I'm so excited that I finally got to play with paper again. I haven't been in my stampin station in forever it seems like. I took with me about 6 different challenges and just started playing. The first one I played with was Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday Sketch. I wanted to do something different. So, my sentiment was stamped and punched out with Stampin Up's Curly Punch. Then, I punched out 2 more in Riding Hood Red and cut them in half. Then, I just attached each half on each of the four sides. I think it turned out cute. I was even more excited because I had never seen that done anywhere else, it very well could be done by someone out there....I just hadn't seen it....so I was excited to think outside of the box on my own....I don't do that very often....ha ha ha
So, here is what the whole card looks like finished. This is a great sketch for using up scraps. I will be using this sketch again and again.

Thanks for peeking in. Have a great day.

Heaven Sent/Mojo Monday

I haven't made a baby card in forever. I thought it would be fun to add a few to my collection.

This card was made from the Mojo Monday Sketch. I thought it would make a perfect baby card.

I busted out my Technique Tuesday stamps and stamped this sweet little image for the card.

This card is so much cuter in real life....I just don't take good photos of my cards....someday...maybe...

Anyway, it has been a busy crazy week and I am so tired. I was just glad to get one challenge done so far this week. I have many more sitting on my desk in my craft space, but just no get up and go right now. I also have been given two awards and need to get those posted and passed on....soon Jenna I promise.

Thanks for peeking in. Have a great day.