I'm Back

Yep, I'm back in the saddle again!  Boy, I had a lousy cold and felt like doing nothing.  Crafting didn't even get me going.  I missed last week's Ways To Use It challenge as I could barely get myself off the couch.  I forced myself upstairs to make this card with attached bookmark for Collette's challenge.  And, of course, one little crafty project has got me totally in the mood.  Good thing tomorrow is World Card Making Day and hubby has agreed to take our five year and entertain her for the day.  Tomorrow is an exciting day for another reason too.  You will have to stop back by tomorrow to find that out though.  In the mean time, I will give you a couple of pictures of the rest of the card.  It's pretty simple, but did turn out nicely!  Thanks for stopping by!

Front

side view

Details: Stamps: Floral Symphony (Verve); Paper: Crumb Cake, Early Espresso, Old Olive, Sweet Pea dsp; Ink: Early Espresso, Versamark;  Accessories: Corner Chomper, papersnips, Sweet Pea felt flowers, scor-tape, neutrals eyelet, crop-a-dile, Early Espresso taffeta ribbon, perforating tool.



Smaller Than Your Average Bread Box

Scor-pal is hosting a September Designer Challenge to make a box, any kind of box.  I browsed some tutorials and came up with this bread box.  I made a mini loaf of Chocolate Chip Zucchini Bread to go inside it.  I followed the tutorial and it was fairly uncomplicated.  Next time, I would take my time a bit more with the edges of the flaps.  I'm not sure I like the pinked edges as well as I would something else, say scalloped edges.  We'll see next time!

To embellish my bread and box a bit more, I used the same patterned paper and colors to create a belly band and label for it. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Details - Stamps: Vintage Labels; Paper:  Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White, SU dsp; Ink Crumb Cake, Chocolate Chip; Accessories:  Decorative scissors, circle punches, scor-tape, stampin' dimensionals.

Going to Court

I think this might have to be my theme card for next week.  Last weekend, I received a subpoena to testify in court.  I'm supposed to appear next week.  I have spoken to one witness advocate (I think?) who said I should probably know more by Friday about when I would have to appear.  She's fairly certain that jury selection will eat up the first day.  She was also fairly certain that the prosecutor would want to prepare me.  Hmmm, I guess the prosecutor would have to contact me first, right?  I'm a little nervous.  This information is from 8 years ago and I barely remember the client.  My girlfriend, who is a police officer, was excited for me.  When I wasn't excited back, she told me it might even come to a plea agreement and then I wouldn't have to testify.  I felt a little better then.  In any case, I think I will stash this card in my purse.  I know it is only paper, but the idea is powerful!

The crafty connection here is the Verve Get Your Diva On challenge, Splitcoaststampers Inspiration Challenge and the My Favorite Things sketch!

Details:  Stamps: Sunny Days (Verve), Words of Wisdom (Verve), Making A Statement (Verve); Paper: Whisper White, Concord Crush, In Color Patterns Pack, Wisteria Wonder; Ink: Concord Crush, Versmark; Accessories: Loopy Blooms die (Verve), Leafy Sprigs die (Verve), corner chomper, stampin' dimensionals, M's rhinestones.  

Flashing Back Fall

It seems like an eternity since I participated in Flashback Friday. It's now up to Flashback Friday 15.0 and the theme for this month is Fall.  So here is the oldest Fall card I could locate in my files.  I recognize some of my style from even then.  I posted this a little more than three years ago on Splitcoaststampers.  It's pretty clean and simple with some scoring and masking!

I find it a bit coincidental that this is a Unity image and that this month's sponsor is Jenny Johns.  Jenny is offering up some Ippity stamps (a sister company of Unity) and I first encountered her via Unity and Hip Hop Thursdays.  I daresay that my photography has gotten a bit better, other than that, I like the card!

Happy Sunday!

Details - Stamps: Hugs & Wishes, Tiny Trinity by Unity Stamp Company; Paper: Whisper White; Ink: River Rock, Basic Brown, More Mustard, Pumpkin Pie; Accessories: Scoring blade, Chocolate grosgrain ribbon, mini glue dots, post-its, blender pen, stampin' sponges.

Missing People

Sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you.  There are any real people missing, just a large category of stamps that are missing from my collection.  I have a large gap in my stamps:  there are only a handful of people.  I have flowers galore, but no peeps.  Well, I did manage to rustle up there two lovely ladies, though.  I'm sure they were an impulse purchase one day at Michael's.........Whoa, the mail man sure can lay on his horn!  Oh well, he is forgiven, as he brought me some new crafty goodies!  Maybe I will play with then later.  (Again, no peeps!!!!)

These little gift cards were created for the new Touch Twin Challenge to color some people.  I just did the best I could with these little gals.  I have a new coloring goal I am working on and we'll see just how it works out.

Thanks for stopping by, Happy Saturday!

Details - Stamps: Studio G; Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black; Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black; Accessories: Square Lattice ef, scalloped oval punch, large oval punch, WCC, blender pen, M's pearls, M's rhinestones, AC ribbon, pink Sharpie, stamping dimensionals.

Using the Chalkboard

This week's Ways To Use It challenge follows this month's theme:  Back To School.  Teresa is our hostess this month and her challenge is about the chalkboard technique.  I had planned on making a card, but just wasn't feeling it.  I wanted to make something for my sweet little girl after her tough day at Kindergarten.  You see, she is exhausted from the start of school and hasn't been getting enough sleep as she is super excited.  It all culminated in a major crying meltdown in the hallway after school.  She just sobbed and clung to me as I tried to escort her to her after school program.  She is attending school where I work.  I still had half of a school day to go.  We eventually got her tears dried and got her to her after school program. 

So I decided that I would make her a little something.  This is her backpack tag before I laminated it.  I was afraid the chalk wouldn't show as well after I laminated it.  I stamped her initials on the back and used some sparkling Spica pens on the hearts on the back. 

Details - Stamps: Punch Potpourri; Paper: Green Galore, Basic Black; Ink:  White Craft ink: Accessories: Stampin' pastels, white gel pen, jumbo eyelets, red grosgrain ribbon.

CPS and AJ

That's right, this is from the current CPS sketch challenge.  I wasn't sure how it would work out for me with those half circles.  Now I quite like it.  I also wanted to play my friend Lee's color challenge at Stamp TV because it was in honor of AJ Otto.  AJ is currently battling breast cancer.  While I don't know her personally, I have long admired and been inspired by her work.

I wanted something cheerful, so I opted for the Live Life Loud set to hopefully raise AJ's spirits when she is feeling low!

Speaking of feeling low, I have got a headache that just won't quit.  I'm going to keep this brief and let my card do all the talking!

Details - Stamps:  Live Life Loud (GKD), Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, Razzleberry Lemonade, Night and Day specialty dsp; Ink: Melon Mambo, Momento Tuxedo Black; Accessories: Elegant Bouquet ef, sanding block, M's rhinestones, Black sharpie, stampin' dimensionals.

Is It Real Or....

paper?  Discriminating crafters will know, but it passed for real tonight when a girlfriend came over tonight.  She has been out of the crafty loop for a while now and saw a picture of this "clutch" in my SplitCoast gallery.  I just happened to have it in my craft room and so I brought it down for her to get a good view.  I used a couple of magnets to secure my button and it turned out great! 

I made this during the last VSN for Jean's challenge called Rodeo Champs!  She challenged crafter's to make a designer card or project.  I went to the Scor-pal project listings and came up with this clutch :) It's a cross between this purse and the purse featured on top here.

I hope you had a fabulous Tuesday and I will see you all later!

Details - Paper: Neutrals Patterns Stack dsp; Ink: Basic Black; Accessories: scor-pal, scor-tape, black velvet ribbon, holographic Christmas trim, eyelets and silver cording (attaching the clutch strap), random button, stampin' dimensionals. 

A First Today

Today is my daughter's first day of school with her classmates and her teacher.  It's also parent orientation, so they won't keep the normal schedule, but it is her first day!  She's excited to pick out her clothes for today and I am sure she will want her hair fixed extra fancy.  She's already received well wishing e-mail from her grandparents and when she wakes, I'm sure will "hit the deck running"!  So, in order to feed the crafty little bug she got from her Mommy and to keep up with the before school excitement we made a vase and some paper flowers to give to her teacher.  I didn't come up with this idea originally, I saw Sarah Martina Parker do it here.  Instead of using a hot glue gun, I used my beloved scor-tape.  I love that stuff and my daughter's teacher could use the pencils when she is all done with the vase!  The tag hanging from ribbon is one of the tiny sweet scallop tags that I stamped with the outline stamp from Tag Time, also by Verve.  I used an apple from an older SU set and called it good.  The flowers were easy with pipe cleaner, a rectangle piece of yellow for the flower center and 12 hand cut circles in colors picked out by my daughter.  Then there was some poking and scrunching and it was all good!

Thanks for stopping by!

Details: Stamps: Tag Time (Verve), Holiday Blitz; Paper: Whisper White; Ink: Real Red, Early Espresso, Old Olive; Accessories: Tiny Sweet Scallop Dies (Verve), Early Espresso Baker's Twine, Real Red Grosgrain Ribbon, glue dots, scor-tape, pencils, M's bud base, tissue paper, pipe cleaners.

Sending Out Some Sunshine

I have a "niece" who could use a little sunshine right now.  She's dealing with a health issue and she is a super sweet girl.  She's beautiful and talented and I know she will overcome this.  So when I thought about Verve's August Diva Dare, Sending Some Sunshine, I knew I would make her a card too.  She has a sister that is very close in age too.  I made a card for her too.  I would never want her to feel left out!  I'll show that on another day.  

On this card I used the current Fall To Layout from the clean and simple stamping blog to get me going.  I love that blog and those wonderful sketches.  I wish I had enough time to play every week!

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful day!

Details - Stamps: Chicks Rule (Verve), To The Moon (Verve); Paper: Whisper White, Daffodil Delight, Calypso Coral; Ink: Early Espresso, Calypso Coral, So Saffron, Bordering Blue; Accessories: Seeing Spots ef, white gel pen, Sakura clear star gel pen, stampin' dimensionals .

A Birthday Box

I had some fun with this little box.  It's called an Origami Gift box and I got the directions from the Scor-pal website.  I was so surprised at how quick and easy it came together.  No doubt that was due to very explicit directions.  What you see in this picture is the top of the box.  The sides slide off to the right and left to reveal an inner box to stash whatever birthday goods you want to place inside.  Let's take a peek now!

Now how do you like that?  I was so impressed with this little box.  I just want to go and play with a bunch of other templates too!  Just for kicks, I'm going to enter this little box in the Scor-pal Designer Challenge.  The specific challenge is to make any kind of box!

Thanks for looking!

Details - Stamps: Vintage Labels; Paper: So Saffron, Soft Suede, Whisper White, CC Everafter; Ink: Soft Suede; Accessories: Soft Suede ribbon, M's rhinestones, Dandelion Sharpie, scor-tape, Curly label punch, paper snips.

Late Friday

It's late Friday and I am a sleepy girl!  However, I thought I would take the time to share a card that I made last night.  A co-worker called and asked me to bring some wedding cards in to work for her to choose from.  Long story, short:  I did not have very many wedding cards in my stash.  So what did I do?  I made one.  It was a good thing that I did because she picked this one.  And...another co-worker approached me at work, wondering if I had my cards with me as she needed a wedding card for this evening.  Weird, but it worked out for me.

I used a My Favorite Things sketch for this card and also included the Speedy the Cat's Friends challenge for this week too.  This week is all about bling.  Thanks for stopping by!  I'll see if I can come up with something fresh for tomorrow too!

Details - Stamps: Occasional Quotes; Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, MM Wedding dp; Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black; Accessories: Nestabilties, white organza ribbon, M's rhinestones, stampin' dimensionals, glue dot, scor-tape.



Back To School Week 2

It's our second week in this month's Back to School themed Ways To Use It challenge.  I am today's hostess and have challenged crafters to use staples on their projects.  Do you know how hard those little buggers are to line up straight.  Obviously I gave up, after I removed about six staples!!!  And did you also know that a little white acrylic paint on a toothpick fills in staples hole pretty well????  With the start of school and just coming back from a camping trip, I needed a sketch to get me going!  Okay, I always start with sketches ;)  Today, I leaned on Karen Giron for this fabulous sketch! I like the look of the banner at the bottom of the circle and felt like I could use some staples there!

Well, it's a school night so I had best be wrapping things up!  Thanks for stopping by!

Details - Stamps: Herb Expressions, Occasional Quotes; Paper: Whisper White, Basic Black, DCWV dp; Ink: Certainly Celery, Old Olive, Orchid Opulence, Basic Black; Accessories: Nestabilities, Argyle ef, celery twill tape, MM staples, stampin' dimensionals.

"Back to School" blog hop

The Ways To Use It team is hosting a Back To School themed blog hop today...with a little bit of a mystery to boot.  Hopefully, you came from Michelle's blog, if not you may want to go back and check it out!  All of the team members are posting a sneak peek of their sample card for their challenge card in September but will not be telling you what we are "using".  If you can guess, you can post a sample with us!!!  Take a good look at my card and leave me your guess about what my Ways To Use It challenge is all about in a comment.  In the event of  multiple correct answers, random.org will decide who will post a sample with me next week.  Your next stop on the hop is Teresa.  Happy Hopping!

Details - Stamps: Notebook Paper (Verve), Blue Skies (Verve), Holiday Blitz; Paper:Whisper White, Basic Black, PC dp; Ink:  Baja Breeze, Melon Mambo, Basic Black, Real Red, Old Olive, Chocolate Chip; Accessories:  Nestabilities, Rounded Rectangle die (Verve), red gingham ribbon, staple, stampin' dimensionals, PTI linen/canvas impression plate.

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