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In My Easter Bonnet, With All the Frills Upon It

Hey peeps! How's your Saturday treating you? I'm so glad the weekend is finally here. I say that every week, but it's so true. Even though I usually end up working every weekend, Saturday mornings always seem to have the magic of possibility surrounding them.


Plus, Saturday morning always means it's time for another Our Creative Corner challenge. This week is another fabulous sketch from Laurie. Now, I usually stick to a sketch pretty strictly, but when I glued one of my panels on upside down, I had to do some creative rearranging. So, don't go by my sample if you're doing the challenge, check out the REAL sketch along with samples from all the Creative Corner designers on the OCC Blog. If you play along this week, there's a chance to win one of the new sets from Jennifer Meyer's new company, Stamps & Smiles!

Yesterday, three new sets released from The Cat's Pajamas, and they are CUTE, cute, CUTE! When I saw the oval in this week's sketch, I immediately thought of these darling little chicks. And armed with my new-found water coloring knowledge from watching Debbie Olson's video tutorial on floating in a background, I was ready to color! I'm so proud of my coloring on this card, but unfortunately, my photography skills are seriously lacking, and the photo doesn't show my soft blue floated in background! :( Bummer! So just imagine it, okay? :)

The stamps for this card are from the Beans & Bunnies and Peeps, Oh My set and are stamped in Memento Rich Cocoa. I colored with Copics, and the circles and ovals are cut with Classic Nestabilities and I added some faux eyelets to the scallops with a paper piercer and a white gel pen. All cardstock is from Paper Accents, and the DP is from the DCWV Sweet Stack. The edge punch is the Martha Stewart Doily Lace punch and I finished off with some Martha Steward Branch punches and some American Crafts gingham ribbon. Doesn't it just say SPRING???

I hope y'all have a fabulous weekend. The Verve sneak peeks start on Monday, so be sure to come on back.

Viva la Buttons!

Happy Friday! It's time for another Viva la Verve! sketch with a {twist}! This week starts the March series of sketches and the twist is buttons. Use one or a hundred, just use 'em! :) Check out --> this thread <-- on the Verve forum for the sketch and challenge details.


In the past, buttons have been one of those embellishments I collect because they look pretty in a jar and on other people's cards, but I never know what to do with them. Just in the last few weeks I've been inspired to actually take them out of their pretty jars, dump them on my desk and actually use them on my projects! Amazing, huh? I'm doing the same thing with my primas, and it feels great to actually be using some of them up!

I just received the Porcelain BasicGrey pad from Jacksonbelle and took my color combination from the papers. I stamped the big blossom from Thankful Blossoms on white cardstock with Always Artichoke, then stamped the flower again with Rose Red. I colored each with primas, then cut out just the inner pieces and paper pieced them onto the Artichoke flower. For a little sparkle, I outlined the pink parts with a Stardust gel pen and then blended with my blender pen. Check out the close-up to really see the sparkle. Next I stamped the You're Amazing sentiment in Rose Red and then sponged both panels with first Mellow Moss, then Certainly Celery, then Always Artichoke ink.

My Janome is still dropping stitches, so I pulled out a sewing machine my mom gave me, but I just can't seem to figure it out. So, just don't look too closely at my stitches - it's SUPPOSED to be shabby, you know! LOL Anyhow, I threw on some Regal Rose grosgrain and button embellishments. The center button is from the Button Latte collection and I added a Kaiser Craft Pearl to the center. And for the finishing touch, I added some liquid pearls to the end of each swirl.

Okay, one last thing. Today's the release of three fabulous new sets at The Cat's Pajamas. I just received mine, and they are A-DORABLE! Alma's got them in a Kitty Kat pack for a special price, so go say hi to Alma and snag some of these cute, swanky stamps!

Flowers of Tomorrow Gift Set


Happy Thursday! Today, I have a special project to show you. I didn't realize until I was editing the photos that my project actually uses one of the new Plain Jane individual stamps that will be releasing on March 8. I hadn't meant to do a sneak peek today, but since I already uploaded it as one of my Digichick hybrid projects for the month, I thought I'd share it here.


Kelleigh R. has a new Gable Box Template Set that just released, so I just had to download it and test it out. {And if you're into digi or hybrid, there's
all sorts of fun new stuff that released today at The Digichick, so be sure to check it out!} I printed out the template using some digi papers from the Strawberry Au Lait Collection by Sugarplum Paperie, making sure to print a few extras of coordinating colors, so I could make a matching gift card. I knew right away that I wanted to do a little window in the front of the gable box, so after cutting out the box and scoring my lines, I very carefully folded it so that I could cut a window with my Nestabilities Labels without cutting through the rest of the box. After I finished that, I cut a smaller label from a piece of chocolate chip and layered it behind the window, for an inner border. Next I stamped the sentiment in Timber Brown Stazon on acetate and adhered behind the chocolate chip border.


For a little stamping decoration, I added one of the silhouettes from Abundant Blessings all around the bottom in Soft Sky ink, then lightly sponged the edges with Old Paper distress ink. For embellishment I added some chocolate poly twill ribbon around the box and then layered several different prima flowers and velvet leaves {Hey Lynda, can you believe how many primas I used today???}, topping off the center with a Button Latte chocolate button. For the final touch to the box, I applied some chocolate pearls {thanks Jackie!} to the top of the box.

Once I finished, I did the fun part, separating all the blue peanut M & M's and Reese's Pieces eggs from the other colors. More than a few made it into my mouth, so they wouldn't melt in my hand! LOL Next I started in on the card. I wanted to use the same elements, so I stamped the flowers of tomorrow sentiment on the Strawberry Au Lait paper in Chocolate Chip Craft ink and embossed with clear EP. Next I stamped the silhouettes on either side of the label. I made a smaller label mask with eclipse tape by running it through with the Labels die and then masked off the sentiment and stamped over the top with the retired SU! French Script background in Soft Sky. I finished the panel with some spongin in Old Paper Distress ink, then matted with chocolate chip. Next I took the tan damask paper from the Strawberry Au Lait collection and ran it through the cuttlebug with the folder with the grass and bird (I can never remember it's name!) I didn't really want the bird, I just wanted texture, so I covered the bird up with the panel, distressed the outer edges with a paper distresser and some ink, then finished off with some more primas and a chocolate button.

Thoughts and Prayers

Hi everyone! The minute I saw this tree from Thoughts & Prayers in the new SU! catty I knew I had to get the set. I just love it - so much that I got the coordinating wall decor to spruce up my wall in my spare time (yeah, right - like that will happen anytime soon!) So the images are beautiful, and I've seen GORGEOUS cards made with this set. The only thing I don't love about this set is that it's double mounted. ICK!!! Was that really necessary? What a terrible thing to do to such a beautiful set! Double-mounted is okay for alphas and borders, but for large images? Just say no! LOL Apparently I need to find myself some wood blocks, and then blow up the teeny tiny index labels about 500% because the two stamps from this set that I double mounted totally drove me batty, just in the time it took to make this card!

But, I digress. Regardless of the double-mounting, the tree just makes me sigh and I LOVE it. It's so graceful! Oh, the things we endure in the name of art! LOL! :) Anyway, when I was tooling around on the computer this weekend, I ran across this week's CPS sketch {CPS104} and it reminded me of this image, so I decided to take my new set for a test drive. I started by stamping the tree in Versafine Onyx Black and then using my Mat Pack and paper piercer to do a little faux stitching around the edges of the panel. Next I pulled out some Eclipse Tape and did some masking to first ink up the outer edges with Sahara Sand then Chocolate Chip. Next I masked off the outer edges and a strip at the bottom and sponged around the edges with Soft Sky, leaving the center white, giving it a cloud effect. Next I moved up the lower mask and inked on the Mellow Moss for the ground. I love the finished effect.

The background panel is stamped with Sahara Sand using the leafy image from the set on Kraft paper and matted with black. The tag is from the Nestabilities set, and I inked the edges with Sahara Sand and Chocolate Chip, then matted on black and added a Kraft Taffeta ribbon. I finished off with a couple off white Kaiser Craft flowers that I inked with Chocolate Chip ink and then sewed a Button Latte button to the center with some linen thread. A few little dots with a black pen around the edges and I was done.

Abundant Mojo

Happy Monday, everyone! It's already time for another mojo sketch! I'm going to confess right now that I went a little layer crazy on this sketch. I based it off a scrapbook page I made a while ago, but didn't realize until I sat down to make my sample card that all those layers are a lot harder to fit on a card than a scrapbook page! LOL Anyhow, I flipped the sketch for my card, and despite all the layer craziness I really love the way it turned out. Be sure to check out the Mojo Monday blog for this week's sketch and to see the fabulous creations from the Mojo Makers!

The set I used is one of my personal favorites, Abundant Blessings - and it's on sale, along with 42 other sets, through the end of February. I pulled out an old Stella Ruby BasicGrey pad for the patterned paper and took my color combo from that. I stamped the two flowers in A Muse Black and then colored with copics and painted with some Hottie Pink Shimmerz. The square is cut with Classic Square Nestabilities, and I used the die as a mask to sponge on first barely banana and then so saffron ink, to try to pick up the same feel as the patterned paper. The Cameo Coral pieces are all stamped with the smallest flower in the set using Regal Rose ink. (And I used regal rose simply because I accidentally swapped regal rose and cameo coral in my caddy last time I had them out). I used my new love - the Eyelet Border punch from SU! - and added the sentiment in black and some Pebbles Inc. black candy dots on each side. The ribbon was a last minute addition, which I really like, and I finished off with some Fruit Punch Stickles accents.

Pretty Little Cupcakes All in a Row

Happy Saturday! I'm so happy the weekend is here! Saturdays are always my favorite day of the week. Today I am extra happy because I got to combine two challenges for this card. Woohoo- love it when that happens! It's been forever since I've had a chance to play along with a TCP Tuesday challenge, and this week when I saw that Karrie's challenge was to use a cupcake image, I KNEW I just had to pull out my TCP stamps and play!

This week's Our Creative Corner challenge is to use a tag on your card. Easy peasey! I didn't have a plan when I started this card, but I really love how it turned out. I'm loving the orange and pink combinations I've been seeing around, so I thought I'd give it a shot and see if I could make something sweet, too. We'd love for you to play along, so wander on over to the OCC Blog to see all the fantastic cards by the OCC designers, then upload your own little tag creation for us to see.

I started this card by stamping the row of cupcakes from the Smells Like Cake set across a piece of pearlized cardstock. I then colored with Copic markers and painted on a mixture of glitter and diamond glaze for some glossy frosting. I used my new Eyelet Border punch from SU!, then inked the edges lightly with some Creamy Caramel ink. The next layer is Pumpkin Pie cardstock punched with the same eyelet border punch. The pink panel is a scrap from yesterday's card from the Patterns Pack II by SU!. I added some May Arts polka dot ribbon, then cut a little tag with my Nestabilities Tags and stamped just one cupcake and the Been Good? sentiment on it.

Viva la GROOVY!

Wahooo! It's Friday, and it's time for another awesome Viva la Verve! sketch with a twist hosted by Amber. And this is the final sketch of the month, so that means you only have a week left to get in your February entries. One lucky stamper will receive the entire March Verve release - (and it's a BIG one - eight sets and 5 plain janes valued at $138 retail!). To enter just upload a card for each of the VLVFEB challenges and post your links on the February Sketch Champions thread. Here are the links to each challenge thread...

VLVFEB01
VLVFEB02
VLVFEB03
VLVFEB04

This week's twist is to use acetate with the sketch. You can make it a small tag or embellishmetn or go big with a shaker card or acetate card base. Since I've been wanting to make an acetate card for a long time, but just never have gotten around to trying it, this was just the push I needed.

Petals & Stems was calling out to me from my from my pile of stamps this morning, so I stamped the larger flower and the flower center in Regal Rose, the smaller flower in Apricot Appeal and the stem and sentiment (from Feeling Groovy) in Old Olive. I used an Old Olive Watercolor crayon and a waterbrush to fill in the stem. All papers are from a couple different 6x6 SU! Prints Packs and are matted with Old Olive paper. Since acetate is a little harder to get things to stick to, I used Zip Dry for the adhesive. I finished off with some dew drop accents, some gold edged olive ribbon and a hint of crystal effects on the flower center.

How Do I Love Thee

Hey Everyone! Happy Thursday! Today I'm sharing with you my very first digi layout. I was feeling creative, but not wanting to go to the trouble of cleaning up the disaster area in my stamp room, so I pulled up the sketch template for this week's Sketch Challenge over at the DigiChick and put my "I know I can conquer this fear of Photoshop" hat on. All digi papers and the flower, border and LOVE elements are from the Strawberry au Lait kit by Sugarplum Paperie. I love the soft colors in this collection! Although I made this page completely digital, I think it would be super easy to make traditionally, as well.




Almost all of my photos from the digital age were lost in a hard drive crash, and Mark & I rarely remember to take photos anymore, so I'm limited to the handful I had uploaded to Shutterfly to have printed a few years ago! I wish I had a better photo of Mark, but I guess the beauty of the digi layout is that I can swap it out with a new picture once I convince him to let me do a photo shoot. :)

Well, anyhow, I love this sonnet by Elizabeth Barret Browning, and the softness of the papers and elements had me all lovey-dovey, so I typed up an excerpt from Sonnet 18 and added it to the layout. The heart swirlies are a free photoshop brush by Coby17.

A True Friend

Happy Wednesday! Today I have another quick card I whipped out in about 15 minutes this morning. I had some scraps of the Making Memories Flower Patch paper still sitting on my desk from the last project, so I pieced two scraps together for the base layer, and cut a petite oval out of one of the scraps. The sentiment is from Hundred Hearts, cut with the Nestabilities petite ovals and then matted on a Kraft petite scalloped oval. I added some dots with a white gel pen to the scallops to make it pop a bit more. The chocolate satin ribbon is old SU! and I wrapped it around the card base, with the seams under where my ovals were placed, then made two ribbon loops to layer under the oval as well.

My embellishments are some Kaiser Craft flowers sewn to a button with SU! linen thread. And of course I had to add a little Stardust Stickles for some sparkle. The photo corner is punched with the SU! punch and I used my Mat Pack piercing template to pierce four holes in each side, then added two cross stitches with linen thread and a needle and layered on the card with dimensionals.

Well, now that I'm typing it, this card sounds a little more complicated than it was. My hardest decision was what ribbon to use! I've been on a wide ribbon kick lately, when I used to really not like anything wider than a 1/2" on a card. So since I don't normally buy wide ribbon, my choices are limited... chocolate satin, chocolate grosgrain or chocolate stitched! Methinks I have a chocolate problem! LOL

Hope y'all have a fantastic day! I'm deep in preparations for our March release, which is going to be our biggest ever! We've got a little sale going on over at the Verve store to make room for all the new stuff, so be sure to check it out!

Tigress in the Flower Patch

Happy Monday, everyone! I hope y'all had a fabulous weekend. Mark and I had so much fun on our weekend getaway, and now I'm a little slow getting back into the groove of things this week. I just finished my mojo card after a very rushed mid-morning stamp session. Be sure to check out the Mojo Monday blog for this week's sketch and the awesome samples from the Mojo Makers.

When I was at the LSS the other day buying myself my Valentine's treat, I came across a few new Penny Black flower images. Now, I have absolutely no self-control when it comes to Penny Black flowers - if I see one I don't have, I MUST have it! So several jumped into my cart and I've been so excited to get to stamp with them. The first one is this Tigress image. I usually color with Copics because I'm lazy, but Penny Black always inspires me to pull out my first coloring love - Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol. I stamped in Ancient Page Coal Black, laid down my colors with the pencils and then blended with Gamsol and a stump. I still have never figured out exactly what watercolor artists do to make a colored glow come from the inside of the picture, so I went with my old standby of inking the edges with first Barely Banana and then So Saffron ink.

My colors were inspired by the paper from the Making Memories Flower Patch collection, and I used several designs in that collection for the panels on the sketch, matting everything with Wasabi green. I felt my image looked a little more interesting askew, so I made a last minute decision to stray slightly from the sketch. The sentiment is from the Wonderful Wishes set and the ribbon is American Crafts. I finished off with Stickles accents in yellow, eucalyptus and cotton candy.

OCC Sketch Time

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! As you read this, I'm off galavanting with hubby on a secret little getaway! I knew you'd want a change in scenery from my Wednesday card, so I made sure to load up my take on this week's Our Creative Corner challenge. This month Laurie is our hostess and she came up with this totally fabulous sketch! I just love this unique layout with the three layered circles. Be sure to check out the OCC Blog for the sketch and some fabulous inspiration from the OCC Gals, or visit their blogs for a little more fabulousness! ;)

Amy, Cindy, Dawn, Jackie, Jennifer, Kim, Laurie, Lori, Lynda, and Silke.

I was wandering around the Craft Warehouse the other night, buying myself a little Valentine's treat (anyone else do that?) and I saw this set of butterfly stamps from Making Memories to coordinate with their Flower Patch collection of paper. Of course, I picked up the paper, too, although it didn't go with the monochromatic scheme I chose for this card. I thought the different sizes of butterflies would go well with the layout, so I started stamping them in Baja Breeze and Pacific Point on white cardstock. I cut them out with Classic Circles Nestabilities, then using the die as a stencil sponged around the insides with Sof Sky. The square Baja Breeze layer is embossed with the script Cuttlebug folder and then sponged lightly with Baja Breeze and matted with white. The patterned paper is from the SU! Urban Garden DSP and I used up some of my baja breeze stitched ribbon.

The sentiment is from Serenity and is stamped in Pacific Point directly on the patterned paper. I stamped another butterfly and cut out the wings to pop up on top of the biggest butterfly for some dimension. Then I blinged it out with pearls and Stardust Stickles all over the place. I love the sparkle and the fabulous butterfly!

Okay, that's all folks. Remember to head on over to the OCC and play along with us this week. Hope you have a super Happy Valentine's Day!

Fabulous Saffron

Happy Thursday! Between not feeling well and trying to get some tax work done (ugh!), I haven't had much creative time this week. This morning I decided to take a pit stop by my studio on the way to my computer and see what I could come up with in 20 minutes or less. This card is the end result.

Pretty simple, really. The gorgeous paper is a scrap from one of my favorite BasicGrey collections - Scarlet Letter. It's matted in black with a Martha Stewart doily lace punch edge. I stamped the butterfly from Floral Whimsy 3 times in A Muse black, then colored with Copic markers, trimmed and matted with black. For the so saffron layer, I just glued down my patterned paper and then stamped the sentiment from Uplifting Phrases directly above the patterned paper piece. A little black taffeta bow and some crystal effects on the butterfly wings and I was done!

I'm kinda digging the layout that just fell together - maybe you'll see this one again sometime. ;)

Quick Little Valentine

Hi everyone! Well, I'm still not feeling so great, so today's project isn't rocket science! LOL This is actually one of the ideas I had for the Kid at Heart Project Parade, but it seemed so simple it felt like I needed to come up with something cooler, like a holder to go with it or something. However, that never happened! LOL Well, now Valentine's is almost here and I need a little gift for my nephew, and I'm pretty sure my sister would prefer the non-sugary kind! He's got enough energy as it is. So I'm giving him a little bubble wand.


I found these little bubble wands in the seasonal aisle at Wal-Mart. They come in a pack of 4 different colors for $2.00. They had little heart stickers on the top section, but they pulled off easy without leaving any residue! Woohoo! I then cut two small circles with my Classic Circles nestabilities, stamped the heart from Hearts on Fire and colored each with Copic markers. I ran both circles through my Xyron X create a sticker machine and stuck them to both sides of the wand topper. Next I used my crop-a-dile (coming in from the side) to punch a hole through the topper. I cut a Nestabilities tag die and stamped the be my Valentine phrase from Flirty Phrases and some hearts from Hearts on Fire, then tied it through the hole with some gingham ribbon. On the back of the tag (which I forgot to photo), I stamped his name with Karen Foster snap stamps and added a few more hearts.

So, there you have it. A simple little non-sugary Valentine. I can't wait to blow some bubbles with him!

Mojo Thank You

Happy Monday! There's a new mojo sketch on the Mojo Monday Blog this morning and some great inspiration from the Mojo Makers, so you'll want to check it out! I'm a bit under the weather, so this is going to be short and sweet. Hope you have a great day!

My card used all Stampin' Up! products until I went renegade and added the primas and stickles as a last minute embellishment decision. The Upsy Daisy stamp is stamped in Chocolate Chip Craft ink, embossed in clear and then I brayered the background with first Baja Breeze ink and then Kiwi Kiss ink. The DSP is from the Urban Garden pack and the ribbon is some of the 1" chocolate satin they offered in a mini a while back. I only inked part of the sentiment, then matted everything with Chocolate Chip. I finished off with some primas I'm intent on using up, with a little pearl brad center and some Stardust Stickles accents on the petals as well as some of the embossed flowers.

Vintage Chic

Welcome to the weekend! I just love Saturday mornings! Mark and I went to Williams-Sonoma last night and got some new baking sheets, cupcake pans and fun cooking stuff that we're eager to test out. I don't cook much, but you'd never know it by how much time I can spend wandering around that store!

Anyhow, I'd bet you're not here on Saturday morning wanting to read about my shopping spree last night, so I'll get to the card. Today starts a new month of challenges over on Our Creative Corner, and this month our hostess with the mostess is the fabulous Laurie Schmidlin. I had the honor of meeting Laurie this week when she passed through Boise. We got together for breakfast at a local coffeehouse and it was like meeting a kindred spirit. I am usually extremely nervous meeting new people, but with Laurie it was like I'd known her my whole life! She is one of the most amazing stampers I know, but she is also a woman of character, strength and integrity. Just the few short hours I spent with her totally re-emphasized how much respect and general star-struck awe I have for this gal. She's the bomb!

Okay, I'm a little chatty today, huh? I promise I'll get to the card. This week's OCC challenge is an inspiration challenge. Simply take your favorite embellishment and build your card or project around it. If you play along, just link up your card on the OCC Blog. Be sure and check out the fabulous cards from the rest of the OCC gals, too: Amy, Cindy, Dawn, Jackie, Jennifer, Kim, Laurie, Lori, Lynda, and Silke.

For my inspirational embellishment, I chose these Fancy Pants Lace Wraps I ordered from Jacksonbelle Embellishments a month or so ago and they've just been sitting here. The powder blue especially made me think vintage, so I pulled out an Inkadinkado stamp, inked in Chocolate Chip, lifted some of the ink off with a blender pen and then used a Bordering Blue marker to ink up a few of the flowers before stamping. I went over a few of the leaves with the blender pen for a softer look, and then inked around the edges with first Close to Cocoa and then Chocolate Chip ink. Next I ran the same size panel of Kraft cardstock through the Cuttlebug with the Script Texture embossing folder. I inked the edges with cocoa and chocolate and used the blender pen and some chocolate ink to highlight the embossed words.

The sentiment is from Artful Elegance and inked with cocoa and chocolate chip before framing with some vanilla hodgepodge and taffeta. The background is stamped in Chocolate on Kraft with my brand new Unity Tea Time Toile background. I covered most of it up, but I just love the vintage feel to this stamp. To add a little texture to the card, I used a paper distresser on all the edges, then finished off with some pearl drew drop accents and some Faded Jeans Distress Stickles. The card base is Bordering Blue.

Okay, if you're still reading, you can give yourself a gold star for endurance! LOL Hope you have a fabulous weekend!

Hybrid Cards

Hi everyone! I'm back with a couple hybrid cards I made with the new Mari Koegelenberg Month of Love digi grab bag. I just loved the colors and elements in this grab bag. There's no stamping on these cards, but boy were they fun to make.

I knew I wanted to make a couple cards, so I started with an 8 x 8" square in Photoshop and layered the pink and blue papers across, so that it was mostly blue, with about a 3" strip of pink. Next I added some of the digital elements like the swirl and the butterfly image to the pink section, sizing them down so they would look good on a card base. Next I arranged some of the letters from the cool digi alpha included in the grab bag, to spell out be mine. Once I had everything in its place I printed on white cardstock. Then all I had to do was cut the sheet at 5.25" and again at 4" for my two main card layers. This still gave me some scraps to play with to dress up the cards or insides if I chose.


For the be mine card, I used the scraps left over for the heart shape that is cut with a Nestabilities heart die and then run through the Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder. I sanded lightly to really make the dots show up, then added a bow and a black scalloped mat. I finished with a little Martha Stewart Doily Lace punch on top and some dew drop accents and tiny rhinestones on the bracket.

For the dream card, I added a Making Memories rub-on for the dream sentiment to the top section of the card and then added a little embossed stitching down the blue section with one of the borders from the Cuttlebug With Love set. I finished with some black grosgrain to section things off and added some large bling to the ribbon and tiny bling to the swirl image. I sanded the embossing and added a few sandings to the paper to give it a slightly worn look.

These cards were so simple, only taking about 5 minutes each to put together once I had printed the digi elements, and that was mainly just due to me trying to narrow down which embellishments to use!

Okey dokey - that's all for today. Be sure to head on over to the Verve forum and check out Amber's Viva la Verve! sketch for this week. I haven't gotten to play with it yet, but it sure does look fun!

Just Twittering By

Hi Everyone! Wow, this week just seems to be flying by. I don't know how it got to be Thursday, but if anyone has a few extra hours they want to lend me, just send them my way! LOL

Okay, I'm going to fess up. I've been holding out on you a bit. Y'all remember this post a few weeks ago about wanting to make some creative changes? Well, to keep myself committed to trying new things I responded to a call for the Hybrid Creative Team at the DigiChick. I never thought they'd pick me, because Lord knows I have next to no experience in the whole digi world, so I was totally shocked when I got an email inviting me to join the team! So now I get to play with all the fun new digi goodies and it doesn't really add any extra work to my commitments since I can combine my stamping projects with my hybrid projects! Cool, huh?

So here's my first DigiChick project. It uses a brand new grab bag designed by Kelleigh Ratzlaff that has some fantastic layered templates in it. I fell in love the first time I printed one! Eeek! So much fun. Now since I'm new to all this digi stuff, I'd never worked with a layered template, so at first I thought the templates were just cool like any other template, but I didn't know HOW COOL they really were until I read the little Hybrid Tips document Kelleigh includes in the download. OMGosh! You can "clip' different digi papers onto different sections of the template, so if you want multiple colors or to design some stripes, it's super easy! I had so much fun.

The first thing from the grab bag I tried was the Triangle Tube template. I used digi papers from the Twitter Blossoms collection by Sugarplum Paperie. Well, y'all know my obsession with aqua and brown and this kit has those colors and POLKA DOTS! Love it! Anyway, I clipped the polka dot digi paper to the template, then added a stripe with another digi paper to make a digi belly band. Once you print it out, just cut and fold on the score lines. Easy peasey! I stuck it together with sticky strip on the long side and bottom, then used my crop-a-dile to add a jumbo eyelet to the top to hook on a pull tab of ribbon to open the tube. For a little decoration I added the With Love sentiment from Feeling Groovy and the butterfly from Fluttering By cut out on the same digi paper and accented with pearls. This is all matted with a chocolate chip Nestabilities Scallop Rectangle.

Next I decided I wanted a little gift card to go with it, so I made a card to fit inside one of several fun envelope templates also included in the grab bag. These envelope templates can be re-sized, so I can see me turning to this again and again! The card uses some coordinating papers from the Twitter Blossoms collection, the butterfly embossed in Chocolate Chip on vellum and the sentiment from Fluttering By embossed in white. I finished off with the envelope, which I clipped to the template with coordinating papers, adding a little band of cream to match the tube, then layered some little flowers included in the Twitter Blossoms collection, that I added a little drop shadow to. The Just for you sentiment is just a computer generated sentiment I added to the template before printing. Once I cut it out and put it together, all I had left was a little embossing of the butterfly and adding some pearl accents to tie the embellishment theme together for the set. Pretty neat, huh?

I just love how it all coordinates and it was so much fun trying something new! I learned a few new things about Photoshop and I think Photoshop and I are finally going to come to terms and coexist peacefully! :) Along with this grab bag there's a ton of new stuff available at the DigiChick today! I was like a kid in a candy store trying to decide when I saw all the peeks. Amazing stuff!

Oh, and today's the FINAL day of the Verve Project Parade. If you've been procrastinating, be sure to get your entries in by 8 PM Mountain tonight! And don't forget to hop on over to see the fabulous project Lynda made for the last day of our parade!

Hybrid Building Blocks

Hey everyone! The Verve Project Parade is almost over. Have you got your project in? Tomorrow's the final day to enter! All you have to do is make a project inspired by our A Kid at Heart theme and you could win a $25 Verve gift certificate. Check out the Day 1 post to enter.

When Jen first emailed me with the idea for this month's theme, I was so excited! It's a nice change to focus on something fun, and I had all sorts of ideas filling my head. First up was a canister I got a while back, that suddenly seemed like THE perfect container for a game of pick up sticks. I thought I could alter the container and make a little pick-me-up card. Doesn't that sound cool! I thought so! But wait, you say - the picture isn't of a canister, it's building blocks. Well, you just TRY to find a game of pick up sticks! Do y'all even REMEMBER that game? I spent hours and hours on the living room floor trying to pick up all those brightly colored sticks without wiggling any of the others! Well, I searched... and searched... and searched in the stores around town and just couldn't find a single game of pick up sticks! Maybe it's a safety thing. After all, would you really want to set your child loose with a canister full of sharp sticks! LOL With the way my brother and I fought - it's a wonder we never poked each others eyes out with the things!

Anyhow, in my search for pick up sticks, I happened to end up next to my local craft store, and thought I'd just pop in. Now, I've tried to limit my "popping in" of craft stores, because it's the one area in my life where I struggle with impulse spending. I've always been the kind of gal who walks around with a cart, piling it up, then puts it all back and buys one or two items. Not so in the craft store, so I usually stay clear. Well, this LSS just happened to be having a HUGE clearance sale that weekend and I got some amazing deals! And while I was looking for some wooden sticks that maybe I could paint and make my own pick up sticks, I saw these little 2" wood blocks staring at me. Wouldn't it be cool to alter them? Nice straight lines - I could do that! Maybe they could be the Building Blocks of Love! And an idea was born.



So I ended up picking up a few blocks (they were $1.29 each) and making an entirely different project! I started by painting all the blocks with white acrylic paint and while that was drying, I cut 1 7/8" squares from papers I printed from the Waiting to Happen digi kit by Studio MGL. (It is a free download in the Jan/Feb edition of the Scrap 'n Art Ezine). Then I stamped sentiments from Heart to Heart on half of the squares in Memento Tuxedo Black. On the other squares I embossed the swirly heart from Hearts on Fire in white. I also stamped again on some scraps and cut out the center of the hearts and paper pieced onto each heart. The squares were run through my Xyron machine and then I slapped them on the blocks and sealed with a couple coats of Mod Podge. It was actually a really simple process - and I love the way they turned out.

Okay, that's it on the project front. I've been staying busy all week, so I just haven't had time to blog. I've got a few projects finished, though, so hopefully I'll be back on the blogging track for the rest of the week.

Time For a Little Mojo Madness

Hi everyone! Hope you had a fantastic weekend! The new computer I ordered finally arrived on Saturday and hubby spent most of the weekend installing all the software, running updates, setting up all my email accounts, etc. What a great thing it is to have a computer geek for a hubby! He isn't much help when the garbage disposal breaks or the car starts acting funny, but man, he's a whiz on a computer!

Anyhow, it's the first Monday of the month, so that means it's contest time over at Mojo Monday! Check out the blog for this week's sketch and your chance to win some free Verve stamps!

I made a fun, springy card with a few Verve sets. The butterfly is from Fluttering By and is stamped in chocolate chip craft ink and embossed in clear on Kraft, some pink Bittersweet BasicGrey paper, and vellum cardstock. I then cut the pink and vellum wings out and layered them with dimensionals to give it a little extra flutter. I was feeling pretty girly, so I decorated with all sorts of pink bling from Kaiser craft. The second Kraft layer is stamped and embossed with some of the greenery from Abundant Blessings, and I sponged with Close to Cocoa then Chocolate Chip ink. The sentiment is from the Feeling Groovy set and decked out on some SU! circle punches with some more bling. I used that addicting Martha Stewart Doily Lace punch again and finished off with some pink taffeta and some frosty pink primas with a rhinestone brad.

I was really in an embellishing mood, so I even added a little embellishment to the inside of the card. The sentiment is from the Fancy Florals set and I used leftover scraps, another prima and added a little button center. I finished off with some sparkly Stardust glitter.

Okay, that's the skinny on this mojo-riffic creation to jumpstart your week. I hope you'll find some creative time to play along this week. Be sure to check out the Mojo Monday blog for the sketch, and all the fabulous samples from the Mojo Makers!




What's in it:
Stamps: Fluttering By, Feeling Groovy, Abundant Blessings, Fancy Florals (Verve)
Paper: Kraft, Chocolate Chip, Vellum Cardstock (SU!) Bittersweet (BasicGrey)
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa (SU!)
Accessories: clear embossing powder, pink taffeta, circle punches (SU!), Doily Lace punch (Martha Stewart), primas, rhinestones (Kaisercraft), button, Stardust Stickles