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One Layer Butterflies

Happy Wednesday!  Have you had a good week so far?  It's been pretty a-okay here!  I even got some time last night to make a card that's been floating around in my head for at least a week now.  It's the first chance I've had to stamp without a sketch for a while and I'm so pleased that it actually turned out like I imagined!  First off, don't go clicking around thinking you're on the wrong blog!  {teehee}  It's still me, Julee,  {the not-so-clean-and-simple gal}, but I actually fooled my creative compass for a few minutes and accomplished an honest-to-goodness clean & simple one layer card!


The butterflies and sentiment are from the new Blue Skies set.  I stamped them with Black Soot Ranger Distress ink, embossed with clear detail embossing powder and then colored with Copics.  For the larger butterfly, I stamped an extra butterfly, colored, cut out and popped up, then added just a bit of Smooch Pearlized Top coat for some shimmer, and a couple black rhinestones for his body.  The base is A2 size, and I embossed a line 1/4" from the top and bottom, then finished off with some black grosgrain.  Easy, breezy, beautiful!  :)

Hope you have a fabulous day and get some time to create!  Thanks for stopping by!

What's In It?
Stamps: Blue Skies (Verve Stamps)
Paper: White CS
Ink: Black Soot (Ranger Distress), Copic markers
Accessories: black grosgrain (SU!), Pearlized Top Coat (Smooch), black rhinestones (KaiserCraft), clear detail embossing powder (JudiKins)

Every One of My Thoughts

It's Tuesday!  And today I have a fun little card for you using the newly released Always on My Mind set.  I just love this sentiment.  It's the perfect thing to send when you want someone know they're on your heart.  I went clean and simple (well, at least for me!  LOL), for this card.



I started by stamping the sentiment on a Labels 10 Nestabilities cut out, then using the next size up Labels 10 to sponge some Tumbled Glass ink onto the Kraft cardstock and as a stencil to make the little dotted frame.  I stamped the flower from this set sideways on the Kraft, then stamped again twice to color and pop up on dimensionals.  The white layer is embossed with the Notebook Texture Fades from Tim Hotlz and I added a little bit of American Crafts ribbon to ground my skewed panel.  To finish thing off, I added some Oregon Rain Drops to the Labels 10 and center of each flower.

That's my card in a nutshell.  :)  Thanks for stopping by!  Hope you have a fabulous Tuesday, filled with sunshine and creativity.  Oh, and be sure to hop over to the Verve Blog today to see who our lucky blog hopper was!


What's In It?
Stamps: Always On My Mind (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Kraft, White
Ink: Black Soot, Tumbled Glass, Vintage Photo (Ranger Distress Ink)
Accessories: ribbon (American Crafts), brads, Labels 10 Nestabilities (Spellbinders), Oregon Rain Drops (Pink Hedgehog), notebook paper Texture Fades (Tim Holtz)

You Make Me Smile

Welcome to another Monday!  This week's my favorite type of mojo - round or square!  So head on over to the Mojo Monday blog for the sketch and some fabulous inspiration from the mojo team.  I hope you can play along!


For my card, I pulled out the newly released Blue Skies set and some pretty papers from The Girls' Paperie.  I stamped the You Make Me Smile sentiment on the yellow gingham circle, then matted with chocolate chip and added some yellow liquid pearls for some pizazz.  Some days I just feel I need a little pizazz, you know what I mean?  Next I stamped the notebook paper from Blue skies in Brushed Corduroy then stamped the flourish in pink pirouette on the paper.  I trimmed this out and matted on chocolate as well.  I subsituted a butterfly for the star shape in the mojo sketch, and this is the larger one from Blue Skies, which I stamped directly onto patterned paper, cut out and added a few chocolate pearls for its body.  I also stamped the flourish with a little Shabby Shutters ink on the green polka dot paper to balance things out.

To finish things off, I added a little punched border, some May Arts pink ruffled ribbon, more liquid pearls and hand stitched a few coordinating buttons onto the card.  The finished card is 4.25" square so it'll fit inside a normal A2 envelope.  Okay, that's all for me.  I've got to get back to shipping orders.  :)  Hope you have a fantastic start to your week!


What's In It?
Stamps: Blue Skies (Verve Stamps)
Paper: The Girls' Paperie, chocolate chip, white
Ink: Brushed Corduroy, Shabby Shutters (Ranger Distress Ink), Pink Pirouette (SU!)
Accessories: Round-it-all, loop edge punch (SU!), buttons, string, ruffle ribbon (May Arts), chocolate pearls (KaiserCraft), liquid pearls (Ranger)

I need a HERO - Hopping with the Divas

Verve just released 3 new sets last night and the Divas are celebrating with a new release hop today! I'm the first stop on the hop, so grab a cup of coffee, nestle in, and hop on down, hop on down, hop on down the road. :) We’ve hidden a little prize for one lucky commenter along the hop, so be sure to spread a little comment love around as you hop! Okay, well, maybe the prize isn't so little. {grin} You could win the ENTIRE release, so let’s get hoppin’!

Here's my girl-licious card using American Hero….

I just fell in love with this font when I saw it, and this Hero stamp was the very first stamp I designed with it.  I just love the look of it, especially with the trio of shooting stars perched below it.  I used the same trio stamp to create a little border at the bottom of the card, and colored them in with Copics.  The top stars are also from the set.  The stars up top are actually the same size, I just used the small SU! star punch for the black stars and hand cut around the pink star to make to make it larger.  The pink paper is totally glitter-tastic.  I found a pack of glitter paper on clearance at Jo-Ann's and have been excited to use it.  I embossed it with the star Cuttlebug folder for a little texture, then added some star rhinestones for accents all along my punched border and on my stamped stars.

Oh, the sketch is my take on this week's Sketch For You To Try by Jen del Muro.  There's a little Verve prize if you participate in this week's challenge, so be sure to check it out!  And since Jen's the next stop on the hop, I'm betting you just might!
Thanks so much for hopping by today! Just in case the oh-so-reliable Blogger malfunctions, I'll leave you with the complete hop link list.  Happy hopping!


A Better Place

Happy Friday!  And double the happy, because it's release day at Verve!  The Divas are previewing the last set, American Hero, over on the Verve Blog today, and we'll be chatting over in the Release Party thread starting at 9PM Eastern tonight.  Hope to "see" ya there!

I'm an American girl through and through, and thought it was about time we had some patriotic styled Verve to play with.  And although this set has a bit of 4th of July to it, it's so much more!  The heart behind this set is thanking the brave men and women who serve each day so that we can live free, safe and happy lives. I'm truly humbled by their sacrifice.


For my card I picked one of my favorite sentiments from the American Hero set... "Thanks for making the world a better place."   I love how this could be used for a policeman, a soldier, a pastor, a volunteer or even a friend who brightens your world.  I added a little patriotic flair, since I wanted to send some cards to the troops and have been looking forward to using this Old Glory paper by We R Memory Keepers.  I embossed it with the stars Cuttlebug folder, then sanded a bit to highlight the embossing and distressed the edges.  the stripey stars are punched from some more Old Glory paper and matted on buckaroo blue cardstock.

For the stamping, I stamped the four star frame in Fired Brick on a Square Nestabilities cut-out.  The sentiment is stamped in Faded Jeans and I cut it out with some tails to make a little banner, then inked the panels up with Antique Linen and Vintage Photo to go with the Americana look of the Old Glory paper.  The center of the largest star is one of the star images in the set, which I colored with copics, then matted on a large buckaroo blue star punch and a larger chipboard star covered with the red DP.

Okay, that's all for now.  Thanks for stopping by!  Be sure to checkout the sneak peeks over on the Verve Blog, and if you haven't had a chance yet, leave a comment on each New Release Spotlight post to be entered to win one of the new sets!

I'll be back tomorrow morning with a special New Release Blog Hop!


What's In It?
Stamps: American Hero (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Buckaroo Blue, Cream, Old Glory DP (We R Memory Keepers)
Ink: Fired Brick, Faded Jeans, Antique Linen, Vintage Photo (Ranger Distress Ink)
Accessories: Square Nestabilities (Spellbinders), Large & small star punch (SU!), chipboard star (Bazzil), stars embossing folder (Cuttlebug), Distrezz-it-all, sanding file

Wishing Star

Hey peeps! I can't believe it's Thursday already. I've been working every spare minute for the past couple weeks, but tonight Mark and I get to take a break and go hang out at the Shakespeare Festival, eat lemon cake {my favorite}, and enjoy a play. Can't wait! :)

So it's Day 2 of our New Release Spotlights, and the Divas are peeking a set called Always On My Mind  over on the Verve Blog.  This set has 7 encouraging/missing you sentiments and 3 little whimsical elements, all designed to coordinate well with the other sets in this release.

For my card I chose the "wishing you were here" sentiment and the hanging star, stamped on an EK Success punch. I filled the center of the star with liquid glue, then added some turquoise Martha Stewart micro beads and some glitter.  I had so much fun with the micro beads, that I decided to add a strip down the side of my card as well. The papers are all from BoBunny and I used the blossoms Nestabilities, with a little Texture Fades embossing. I accented the Fountain Fun corner punch and the black mat with a white gel pen, then added a few little black pearls and some ribbon.

Okay, that's all for now. Be sure to check out the Verve Blog for some fabulous eye candy and a chance to win today's set.

What's in it?
Stamps: Always on My Mind (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Bo Bunny, Black, Bermuda Bay
Ink: Bermuda Bay
Accessories: Blossoms Nestabilities (Spellbinders), Bracket label punch, fountain fun corner punch (EK Success), 2 way glue pen, glitter, micro beads (Martha Stewart), black pearls (Kaisercraft), white gel pen, Textured Fades embossing folder (Tim Holtz)

Clear Blue Skies

Hi peeps! Today I've got a sneaky peek of a new set called Blue Skies that will be releasing this Friday night from Verve. For quite some time, Laurie's been dropping some not so subtle hints my direction that she wanted a notebook paper stamp, so that's where the concept for this set started.  Add a large and small whimsical butterfly, a few flourishes and some fun quotes and sentiments with a hand-lettered look and you've got Blue Skies coming your way.


I decided I wanted to make a clear card, and although you can't really tell from the photo, the base is a square acetate card.  This card is for the second Verve Release Week challenge to use a Viva la Verve! sketch from February 2010.  I chose another square card... the February Week 3 sketch.  Now that I look at the sketch again, it looks like I forgot a panel on the square and flipped the ribbon to the side, but the original inspiration is still there!  We're flexible here at Verve, so I'm going to say it totally fits the challenge! LOL  :) 

Okay, here's what I did... I stamped the stack of notepapers twice in basic gray ink, then cut out and layered on top of each other.  Next I pulled out the sun from Let it Shine and the clouds from Up, Up & Away, cut out, colored with copics and layered on dimensionals.  Next I added a bit of Sparkly Fluff from Our Craft Lounge to my clouds and some Lemon Peel Stickles to the sun.

To add a bit of blue to go with my Blue Skies are coming your way sentiment, I just highighted a bit of the notebook page with a Sky Copic marker, then stamped the sentiment in black.  Next I stamped the smaller butterfly from the set, colored in coordinating colors and popped up on the side.  The blue background paper is Going Coastal by SEI and I matted it with a black cardstock circle and added some ruffled May Arts ribbon and a few rhinestones to finish it off.

Okay, that's all for me today!  Be sure to head on over to the Verve Blog to see what the Divas have created with Blue Skies and to enter for a chance to win this set!  Have a great day!


What's in it?
Stamps: Blue Skies, Let it Shine, Up Up & Away (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Going Coastal (SEI), white, black, acetate cardstock
Ink: Going Gray (SEI), Onyx Black (Versafine), Copic markers
Accessories: Zip glue, ruffled ribbon (May Arts), lemon peel (Stickles), Sparkly Fluff (Our Craft Lounge), rhinestones, Circle Nestabilites (Spellbinders), 2 way glue, dimensionals

Amazing Grace

Happy Tuesday, peeps! This afternoon I took a small{ish} break from my amorphous blob of a to-do list and got a little inky.

It's release week at Verve, so we've got some Release Week Challenges going on, with chances to win Verve gift certificates, or even our entire new release!!!  Check out this thread on our SCS forum for all the details.

For my card, I decided to peek the new Amazing Grace Plain Jane and made a card for the Release Challenge #1, which is to use any Viva la Verve! sketch from January 2010.  I'm so in love with Amber's fun layouts and am excited at a chance to work with some of the ones I missed!  And since square cards are my weakness, I had to choose this sketch from January Week 1 to start.

I started by embossing the Amazing Grace sentiment with chocolate chip craft ink and detail clear embossing powder directly on the BoBunny Back to Basics graph paper.  The corners are punched with a new Fiskars corner punch I picked up at JoAnn's recently, and then I matted it on chocolate chip and mellow moss.  All of the brown layers are the reverse side of the graph paper and are matted with mellow moss.  The flower is from Feel the Sun, and I embossed it two times, colored with Copics, then layered on dimensionals and painted with a glitter glaze mixture for ultimate sparkle.  I finished off with a little textured fades embossing on the card base and a big pearl in the center of my flower.  The finished card size is 4.5" square.

Okay, now back to that to-do list.  I hope you find some time to play along in our challenges this week!  And tune in tomorrow (6/23) on the Verve blog for the first New Release Spotlights.

What's In It?
Stamps: Amazing Grace Plain Jane, Feel the Sun (Verve Stamps)
Paper: Back to Basics (BoBunny), Chocolate chip, Mellow Moss (SU!)
Ink: Chocolate Chip Craft (SU!)
Accessories: bracket corner punch (Fiskars), glitter, diamond glaze, clear detail embossing powder (Judikins), pearl (Melissa Frances), Textured Fades embossing folder (Tim Holtz), dimensional tape

A Good Book

Hey friends! It's time for another Mojo Monday challenge and this one has a couple of my favorite things... tilted panels and a cute little side tab. Fun stuff! Check out the Mojo Monday Blog for this week's sketch and some inspiration from the design team!

My card uses the Books a Flutter stamp set from Ippity. I just loved this image as soon as I saw it, and didn't wait long to ink it up (although it's been sitting around for a few weeks waiting for this sketch to get posted!). I imagined this image colored in pastels in my mind, and went from there, choosing some fun Lost and Found Tim Holtz papers, hand stitching an edge and distressing to my little heart's content!  I added a few Spica glitter pen accents for a hint of sparkle and a trio of metal brads to balance things out.

Okay, that's it from me today.  I've got soooo much work to do before our release this Friday, so it's going to be a multi-cup of joe day!  :)  Hope you have a fantastic start to your week.  Thanks for stopping by!

HELLO Friday

Hey there! Wow, I can't believe it's Friday and I haven't posted here on the ole blog since Monday. I've been crazy busy this week and there's lots of news, but I'll get to the eye candy first. :)

This is another little card I made when I was at Laurie's.  It's a good thing I made so many cards there because the weeks since I've been back have had little to no stamping time.  I love how this shabby chic card turned out.  I started with a chipboard frame from Laurie's stash and sponged it a little with vintage photo distress ink.  Then I covered the center cutout with some Tim Holtz Lost & Found paper, then a layer of vellum with the sentiment from Feel the Sun embossed in Vintage Photo.  I added a little Fruit Punch stickles around the frame, then added some pink Bella Baubles and the sweet little blossoms with a little Stardust Stickles.  The leaves are a diecut from Laurie's stash and I used the Tim Holtz organic flourishes to add some texture to my layers.  I finished off with some ribbon, a fun little border punch and lots of distressed edges.

Okay, on with the news...

10% off SALE!
Verve, My Favorite Things, and The Cats Pajamas have joined forces to help our awesome design team member, Susan Liles, and her husband, Eric, who is battling an aggressive form of lymphoma.  You get 10% off on some of the best stamps around (if I do say so myself) and our three companies will be sending a portion of our proceeds this weekend to the Liles family.  You can read this post on the Verve Blog for all the mushy stuff about how cool I think Susan is.

Ready, Set, Stamp Seeing Stars Challenge
I announced the new challenge yesterday - and this month I'm Seeing Stars!  Show me your creations with this fun little set and you just might win some Verve dollars!  Catch all the details and see my sample card over on the official challenge post.

Verve Release Party - June 25 @ 9PM Eastern
That's right, new Verve is only a week away!  We'll be counting down our release next Friday starting at 9PM Eastern in our SCS Forum.  The Divas will be sneaking three new sets starting next Wednesday, June 23 over on the Verve blog, so stay tuned!

Okay, that's all from me for today! I hope y'all have a fabulous Father's Day weekend! Give the men in your life a little squeeze! :)

Surfer Chic

Hi everyone!  Welcome to another week - I hope your weekend was fantastic!  On Saturday Mark and I got to enjoy a bit of sunshine and walked around downtown Boise for a while, which is always fun and inspiring.   Then I spent most of yesterday on the couch with back pain.  Boo hiss to the pain, but I rather enjoyed spending some time reading and watching Leap Year, a great little chick flick!  Okay, well enough chitchat, on with today's card.  It's Monday again, and that means it's time for another mojo sketch over on the Mojo Monday blog.


I really enjoyed making this card - it's another one I made at Laurie's, and as Mark commented when I got home, everything I made there was really different than my norm, but really cool!  He especially liked this one.  Isn't he sweet?  I've really been into grey/black lately with a pop of color, and the stamps in the Relax set were calling out my name for a little surfer chic kind of card.  I stamped the background on basic gray cardstock, then sponged around the edges with Black Soot distress ink.  The three surfboards were embossed in black on cream cardstock, then colored with Copics.  I painted 1/2 of each surfboard with a glitter glaze mixture for extra sparkle.  The sentiment is stamped on cream cardstock and cut out with Circle Nestabilities, then I added some coordinating rhinestones to balance things out.  A little soft twill serves as a little divider and Laurie did a little scoring with her Cutterbee piercing tool for me, since I was chicken!  LOL  Then I added a little distressing to the edges and finished with a black card base.

Dance, Sing, Live

Happy Friday!  I logged on this morning to type up a quick post and immediately got distracted by Blogger's new Template Editor and totally forgot about the post!  I did a little bit of re-arranging, although everything still looks pretty much like the same little home on the web.  Mainly I changed where the comment link is, so now y'all can find the comment box in the same place as everybody else's. :)



Anyhow, here's my card for the day... the last card I made while I was at Laurie's.  I just fell in love with the stripes on this 7 Gypsies paper and had to use as much of it as I could.  I covered one section of a 2 part Maya Road chipboard butterfly with it, and then inked up the other with black ink and painted with Black Diamond Stickles.  I ADORE this butterfly!  I knew I wanted to use this sentiment from Blessings, but I didn't want to mute the stripes by adding vellum, so I painted a swatch of ivory paint directly on the paper in about roughly the same size as the sentiment, let it dry, then embossed the sentiment in black and added a little black soot sponging around the edges of the painted area to blend it together.

To tie everything together I added a bit of black lace up top and a fun border punch at the bottom, then added a trio of black pearls down the side to finish it off.  Okay, that's all for me.  I've got lots of work to do, so I better quit lollygagging.  Hope you have a super fantastic weekend!

Joyful Little Things

How's your week going?  Mine has been filled with lots of "little things".  Seems like every time I think I'm going to get a chance to just kick back and enjoy the sun, I find some other little thing that's long overdue to fill up my day. So often it seems like I just keep pushing through all the little things while I'm waiting for the big things in life to happen.  Then I look up and realize that life's happening all around me, and I should pay attention!  :)  That's why I love the sentiment on today's card.  I'm always needing a reminder to stop and enjoy the little things.


So last night I stopped everything I was doing, and enjoyed one of my favorite little things... stamping!  I've been showing cards I made at Laurie's the last couple weeks and I still have a few more to show, but I realized last night that today will have been 2 weeks since I last stamped!  Eeek!  I almost didn't even know where to begin!  Since I always think it's best to ease in after a stamping break, I pulled out this week's Viva la Verve! sketch and inspiration photo and got to work.  The bedding in the photo reminded me of Petals & Stems, so I dusted it off and got to work with some fun new Sweet Summertime paper by Echo Park.

I stamped one of the flowers and flower centers from Petals & Stems in Perfect Plum, Regal Rose and Cool Caribbean, then cut them out and embellished with some Oregon Rain Drops and Stardust Stickles.  Then I just cut the papers for the sketch layers, added a little scallop rectangle mat, then stamped my sentiment and punched out with the SU! Modern Label Punch.  To jazz things up a bit, I added a bit of ribbon up top and a fun little butterfly brad, then finished off with some Liquid Pearls on the scallops and a couple opposing rounded corners.  Light, springy, and oh-so-much-fun!  It felt so good to stamp again!  :)

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Your comments always bring a smile in between all the little things that make up my day!  Speaking of making me smile, Lisa sent me a photo yesterday that made me grin from ear to ear.  I thought I'd share....


isn't that AWESOME???  Made my little Hello Kitty want monster roar!  LOL  Okay, that's all folks.  Hope your day is fantastic!

Blessed by Kindness

Happy Tuesday! Today I'm sharing another card I made while test driving all of Laurie's stamping stuff in Montana. :)  This one uses quite a few Waltzingmouse Stamps that I was itching to try out.

Laurie kept trying to name throwdowns while I was there, but as you might have noticed from Laurie's missing card in the Great Purple Foil Paper Throwdown that usually her idea of a throwdown is her telling me what to make, then conveniently coming up with reasons why she doesn't have to! LOL Anyhow, on this particular day, Laurie named a throwdown of bright red, turquoise and green and she made this absolute beauty of a card.  Now, I probably shouldn't have shown you what she made, because now my card looks like a total wallflower, but in my defense I was CRAZY sick when I was there, so it's kind of a miracle that this card is even glued onto the base the right direction! LOL

I took the colors in the "throwdown" a bit of a muted direction, pulling out some lovely My Mind's Eye paper, and some Baja Breeze, Riding Hood Red and Old Olive.  The frame is from the Very Vintage Labels No. 10 set which coordinates with the Labels 10 Nestabilities, and I stamped a sentiment from Blessed By You inside the frame.  The flower and greenery is from the Big Blooms - Chrysanthemums set, and I cut each piece out leaving a thin cream mat, then layered on dimensionals and accented the center with a sparkly red rhinestone.  For the background of the card, I pulled out the border strip from Asian Gardens and stamped the Old Olive layer, then added a little EK Success border punch and a fun little cream ribbon treatment to jazz things up. 

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Hope you have a fantastic day!

Celebrate Good Times C'mon

Happy Monday!  It's the first Monday in June, so that means it's contest time over at the Mojo Monday blog.  Pllay along with this week's sketch for a chance to win some free Verve!  And today's the last day to get your entries in for Verve's Sizzlin' Summer Fun Project Parade, so don't delay.  I want to see those summery creations!  :)


My card for this week's sketch uses some moldy oldy paper from Cosmo Cricket.  I think it was part of the Little Girls scrapbook kit back in the day.  LOVE this paper - so frilly and fun!  I did a little distressing, inked the edges with a little Antique Linen and even pulled out the old trusty sewing machine for this one.  The flowers and sentiment are from the Believe set and I hand trimmed them, layered them and added a thick coat of glitter glaze mixture for the ultimate sparkle experience!  :-)  Everything's better when it sparkles, right?

The little "leaves" are cut with the Flourish QuicKutz die and I added a fun border punch to the Coredination's cardstock and blinged it up with some red rhinestone flowers.  For the sentiment, I just masked off the bottom line with scotch tape, then embossed just the Celebrate word onto vellum and stitched directly to the patterned paper.  A couple sweet little ribbon tabs and my card was done!

There you have it.  Hope you have a fantastic start to your week!  I've still been trying to get over the sickness I picked up in Montana.  I keep thinking I'm better... then relapse!  But starting today I'm putting mind over matter and just going to will myself to be okay!  :)

Classy Leftovers

Do you like leftovers?  I'm not a big fan when it comes to leftover food, and judging by the size of my scrap paper and "reject" piles, I'm not so good at using them when I'm crafting either!  LOL  But everything changes when the leftovers come from a fabulous stamper like Laurie!!!  Then it's not leftovers... it's a treat!  :)  During one of our fun stamping sessions while I was there, Laurie was making this gorgeous card.  Along the way, she tried several different things for the background of her card until she found the perfect look.

In the meantime, I was gathering up all her cast-offs and turning them into this card.  The pretty GCD paper, she had already cut and sponged, I just trimmed a little and punched a border.  Laurie scored the diamond print on the black layer and I just couldn't let that beauty go to waste, so I layered it under my DP.  The top little punched border, was a bit bigger for Laurie's try, but I trimmed it down to just a sweet little awning and added some tiny little blue bling to it.  I even stamped the Birthday Wishes plain jane on a scrap of cardstock left over from her card.  I colored the border and flower with Prismacolor pencils, then highlighted with some Baby Blue Stickles.  The die cut is Labels 8 Nestabilities and I added a touch more bling to the sides.  Then I just tied a ribbon and for the finishing touch, added a brad Laurie had decided against to the center of my ribbon.  :)  There you have it, leftovers for dinner!  LOL  :)

Hope you're having a fabulous week!  I'm finally pretty much caught up with work from when I was gone, so I think I just might get to have a little much-needed stamp designing time in the next day or so!  Hooray!

Meadow Lark Birthday

Happy Wednesday, friends!  Today I'm feeling all that because I can finally chew with both sides of my mouth again!  My dentist was surprised that my cavity was much smaller than he thought (buried under the huge layer of silver filling they removed from my childhood) and that the tooth hadn't cracked any further, so I came home with a nice shiny new tooth colored filling and a much more reasonable dentist bill!  Yay! Mark and I pushed through well into the wee hours last night to finish up shipping the rest of the Memorial Day sale orders, so today I can focus on something other than shipping!  You don't even know how excited that makes me!  Hooray!!!!!

My card for today is a little something I cooked up at Laurie's.  It's a good thing I got some serious stamping in there, because there has been absolutely no stamping going on since I've been back!  I used the last May Viva la Verve! sketch with the option to be inspired by something in your craft room.  I was in Laurie's craft room at the time, but she had these same Meadow Lark My Mind's Eye papers that I'd purchased at home and hadn't had time to play with it.  So I decided to go with one of my favorite color schemes... black, grey, white and a pop of soft color.

The sketch called for some little flourishy things below the oval, so I started by stamping the big swirly stamp from Happy Days directly on the patterned paper in black, then painting over it with a mixture of diamond glaze and glitter for some extra "oomph"!  The sentiment (also from Happy Days) is stamped in Black Soot on a Petite Oval Nestabilities die cut and matted.  Since the paper wasn't a "true black", I opted for Basic Gray mats and sponged them lightly with Black Soot distress ink to make them blend better with the papers.

Next I stamped the hibiscus flowers from Happy Days off the oval shape, then again on white cardstock, then colored with Copics, cut out and popped up, painting with a hint of that glitter glaze mixture.  For the horizontal panel, I slit a line in my designer paper wide enough for the ribbon, then tucked it through and tied a big bow.  I finished by adding a loop edge border punch tucked in between my layers so it would hang just past the card's edge, then decorated with some tiny little pearls and finished off with a few curled corners on my paper.

Smile Maker

Happy Tuesday and Happy JUNE!  I had a fabulous vacation, despite the horrible sickness that still seems to be clinging to me.  But it's a new month and I'm excited to get back to work and conquer the piles and piles of orders, emails and other stuff that's been waiting for me.  Okay, well, I guess I'm not THAT excited, but as soon as I get done with all of that, I just might get to spend some time designing stamps, so I'm excited about that!  :)  Unfortunately, today I get to ease into work with a 1/2 day and an afternoon dentist appointment.  I'll either be getting a filling replaced or getting a crown.  My dentist says we're letting my tooth decide, so I've been hinting at it all weekend that it really wants it to be just a filling!!!

Okay, I'm a bit chatty today, but I feel like I haven't really chatted with y'all for a while.  I'll move on to the crafty portion of my post now, though!  :)  This is a card I made at Laurie's with all sorts of fun stuff in Laurie's stash, so forgive me if I don't have all the details on products.  The stamped flowers are from the June Featured Stamp Set, Budding Blossoms.  This is another one of my faves that I never really got a chance to play with as much as I would have liked.  This set is 40% off through the end of June!

The papers are from a K & Company paper pad, and I added some melon mambo mats and a cool border punch.  Laurie kind of gave me an, "I think you're crazy!" look when she saw the bright papers I started with, but by the end of the card, I got the nod of approval!  LOL  The ovals are cut with Classic Ovals Nesties, and I popped up the flowers, painted them with some diamond glaze and glitter mixture, then added a hot pink rhinestone in the center of each.  I got another crazy look from Laurie, when I pulled out this plaid ribbon from her stash, but I persevered and finished off with a sentiment from Thankful Hearts (sorry, it sold out during our weekend sale, but should be back in stock in a few weeks), a button and some more rhinestone accents.  And I loved Laurie's uber large corner rounder so much, you'll be seeing lots of rounded corners from me!  :)

Okay, that's it for today!  Hope you have a wonderful start to your month!