PTI Swap

Here's the card I made for the PTI Round 8 Swap on SCS. I used the Butterfly Kisses stamp set and added some Dark Chocolate ribbon and some tiny Hero Arts pearls to add a little something.

All paper, ribbon, and stamps is from PTI.

Well, this will have to be quick ... we are headed to have some dinner and a game of Scrabble at a friend's house. Hope you are all enjoying the long weekend!

Hey Clickabella!

Happy Saturday! :-)

I got these great Clickabella images from SCS Wish RAK so I decided to color one up yesterday when I got home from school. The layout is really simple - I didn't know what sentiment I might want, so I just left it off. Isn't she cute? Its the perfect image for me - my husband says I am addicted to the internet! haha

Hope you all have a wonderful day!

Just a little Note!

Happy Friday folks! TGIF! Can I say that again?! TGIF!! haha

It has been a lonnnnnnnnnnnng first week of school, but its been good. And I love that we get to end it with a 3-day weekend! I have big plans for the weekend - including some sewing (fun!), cleaning (no fun!), a "card class" with my mom and her friend, and getting to hang out and catch up with some people.

College football has officially begun. I don't know if you know that, but I certainly do - its a big deal at my house. I can now pretty much craft w/out guilt since my hubby will be in a trance for the next couple of months game days! Let's just say that he has a count down (to the second) on his computer for when his beloved Seminoles will kick off!

Hope you had a great week and you get to enjoy the long weekend! :-)

You're Just Fabulous!

"You're just fabulous!" I think that is what I would write on the inside of this card! (I mailed this off for a swap, so I left it blank inside.) Check out how blinged out this lady is ... glittery gloves, shoes and jewelry! Makes me think of the movie "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" where they have that ad campaign for women to "frost themselves" with diamonds! haha I love that movie. :-)

Hope you are having a fabulous day!

Blogger RAK from Lynn

I got my first Blogger RAK card in the mail over the weekend! It is from Lynn in St. Louis - Lynn makes some really awesome cards and I read her blog pretty regularly! :-) I really like the color scheme of this card - its simple yet has some elegance to it.

One of the things I like about Lynn is that she shares tutorials on her blog so you can learn new techniques! You should go and visit her!

School is going good - we had a tornado warning today, so we did spend 45 minutes in the hallway on our knees until we got the all clear, but so far the first week hasn't been too bad! I have some great kids and I think we will be able to have a fun year. :-)

I have a bunch of cards made w/ the Penny Black girls stamps - so you'll be seeing a bunch of those over the next few days - I made them for a swap I hosted and I really hated to send them on! But I hope my fellow swappers enjoy them!

Happy Wednesday!

Quick Update!

Hey all - the first day of school went really well. Yay! I am totally exhausted, but did get to stamp a few cards this afternoon ... now that the camera is back I can take some pictures tomorrow and get back to posting! Hope you all had a great Monday! :-)

Back to Reality

Back to reality ... the end of summer is really here now. School starts tomorrow! OMG! I am so scared I won't wake up on time and I will be late. haha I have been going in for teacher workdays, of course, but now I have to get up at 5:15 and not 6:30 - what a total bummer. But anyway. Hopefully, it will all go well. I know a lot of my students already, so that kind of takes the edge off, but I know I will be exhausted from running around and talking all day long (the first day is always like being a broken record anyway). Wish me luck!

Here's a cute little monogram card that I made for one of my SCS swappin' friends. She was really nice and kept our swap up-to-date while I was on vacation, so I made her a little set of monogram cards. What do ya think?

I have a bunch of pictures of cards I recently made, but they are all still on the camera - which my husband hijacked, so hopefully I will get those posted early this week. :-)

I did get a BUNCH of birthday cards from the SCS RAK group - I will have to take a picture of all of them. It was crazy how many they sent me! Its always great to get fun mail. Well, back to my list of things to do. I don't want to be laying awake all night thinking about whats still left on my list!

Altered Tin

Here's another little altered item I made for a swap. I filled it with some yummy chocolate! I cut up a scallop circle punch to make it like it had petals. I think it turned out pretty cute for my first altered tin. Now to think of some holiday tin ideas for coworkers, etc.

Speaking of coworkers - so far work is going pretty well. Lots of teacher meetings, so we'll see what happens Monday when the kids roll in for the year!

Off to get my presentation ready for tomorrow!

A Little Monkey Business ...

If you have been watching the Olympics tonight, I bet you also nearly had a heart attack watching that Phelps race. What a close one that was! Yay! I am a definitely a Phelps Phan! haha

I made this little card for a Changito monkey swap on SCS. I really like how it has turned out. It was pretty quick, too. I actually made six to send in for the swap and I am really lovin' the background paper.

I did make it back to work today, although 6:30 am was rough! (And that's about an hour later than what I will have to do when school really starts.) It did kind of feel good to start getting back into the swing of things, so hopefully it will be a good year. Time will tell!
Well, off to bed ... too many late nights watching the games for this girl!

Card supplies: PTI White & Dark Chocolate CS, Stampendous Changito Solo stamp, Memento Tuxedo Black ink, Copic Markers (E53, E57), Nestibilities, Morex ribbon, DP from My Minds Eye Magnolia stack, and sentiment from Stampendous Jumbo Flower set.

Flower Magnet

So I joined this Secret Sister swap thing and for this month we have to alter something (Altered August Swap). Well, I haven't altered much of anything ... ever ... but it sounded fun. I altered a few things for my secret sister - the first one is this chipboard flower that I covered with paper and then added punches and a prima flower to the center. I got some adhesive magnet strips that I cut and put on the back. Its pretty dern cute if I do say so myself. I hope my secret sister thinks so too.

I went back to work today for a luncheon with my new department people. It was nice to see some folks and touch base with the newbies before things get really crazy. I actually felt better about being back than I thought I would so maybe it won't be so bad giving up the stay-at-home-wife gig! haha I do go back full-time tomorrow, but at least my hubbie is coming over to go to lunch with me and then help me set up some tables and stuff, so that will be nice.

Hope you are all having a great day!

Friendship Quilt

Here's another quilt card that I made. On Monday night, I "taught" a little card class to my mom and her two neighbors. We all made a card with this layout. This is my version. Next time I will definitely take my camera so that we can take a picture of everyone's different versions. The three L's (all of their first names start with L) loved their little class and have already picked a date for a second class! haha

Today is really my last day of freedom. I have to go to work for a mentor/mentee luncheon tomorrow and will probably work in my classroom for a little while since I will be there. And then Friday teacher workdays officially start. Ho hum.

I wish the Olympics had started a week earlier ... I have been staying up WAY too late to watch Michael Phelps and gymnastics. Can't do that once I have to get up at 5:30 AM. Last night I told my husband it would be great if we lived in CA since then the exciting stuff would be at like 8:30 and not 11:30!

Happy Wednesday folks!

Card Ingredients: PTI - stamps, ribbon, Berry Sorbet & Sweet Blush cardstock. SU! River Rock CS and slit punch. Copic markers to color!

Monogram Fun

This is a card I made a couple of months ago for a newly married friend. I actually made her a set of them with her new monogram.

The Just Rite stamper is so easy to use and customize. For $15 bucks you get so many different combinations. I have made a few more monogram sets recently, but I will have to wait until they get to their recipients before I post.

This is my last Monday of freedom. On Friday, teacher workdays start and I am not quite ready to go back! But go back I must ... only a few more days to craft with abandon!

Warm Hospitality

Here's another card I made using PTI's Quilters Sampler stamp set. I stamped all the blocks next to each other - I still need some practice lining them up straight - but hey I need more practice with that in my real life quilts! haha I colored them with Copic markers and went from there. I really love this set, but get stumped when trying to layout a card. I guess I will have to keep playing around with it. This would be a great way to "test" out a color scheme before cutting and stitching together fabrics!

Materials used: PTI Quilter's Sampler, PTI CS (Berry Sorbet, Aqua Mist), SU! River Rock CS, PTI Aqua Mist satin ribbon, Memento Tuxedo Black ink, & Copics - R11, R14, BG11, BG13, YG91.

Monthly Swap - My August Card

I joined a monthly card swap on SCS. Basically, there are 6 ladies to a group and each month a different swapper "hosts" by sending images and designer paper to each of the other 5 members. We all make 6 cards and then send one card to each member.

This month, our hostess chose this purple DP and a pretty ornate rose branch stamp. (The full stamp has 2 blooms and a bud on a stem w/ a lot of leaves and is about 3" square.) This stamp image was WAY out of my comfort zone! I ended up channeling a recent card from Dawn McVey. I colored the image w/ some Copic Markers and then cut it out. And then put it all together. I can't wait to see what my other group members come up with using the same image & DP.

Materials used: Floral stamp & DP from swap, SU! River Rock CS, Moss green ribbon from my stash, SU! Wonderful Words, & SU! Chocolate Chip Ink.

kwernerdersign color challenge

Every week, I look at the color challenge and think about trying it out. I finally did this week. Kristina posted this inspiration for the color challenge:

And, ta da! ... here's what I came up with ....

Whatcha think?

Materials used: SU! Green Galore, Basic Black CS; SU! Slit Punch, DP is from Making Memories and American Crafts; Chipboard letters are Heidi Swapp; Ribbon is from the craft store

AVS05 Challenge

A tall, skinny card! This is a new size for me and I actually really like it. I will probably make more in the future.

This is for day 5 of Verve's anni-verve-sary! Overall, I think it came out pretty good, but I wish I had had some teal ribbon. The double stitched black & white gets a little lost.

All the paper is from SEI's Black Orchid stack. Ink is SU! Basic Black & PTI Aqua Mist. Ribbon is from Michaels.

Hope you are all having a great week!

AVS01

Here's my version of Julee's Anni-Verve-Sary challenge #1. (Yeah, I am posting a little out of order!) These 1/2 square triangles on the side are really getting me! I had a time with this. There is another sketch with these too that I have not attempted yet! haha

Stamp is from Verve (Psalm 37:4 Plain Jane). I also used a clear flourish stamp from Archivers to make the pattern. Paper is PTI Spring Moss and SU! Chocolate Chip. Ribbon is some chocolate satin I had in my stash!

Hope you like it!

AVS03 Challenge

Here's my edition of Julee's Anni-verve-sary sketch #03 at SCS. Once I got the layout measurements figured out, I was good to go. I am surprised how good this came out ... I wasn't sure I could make this sketch turn out cute!

Patterned paper is from My Mind's Eye (big Magnolia stack). I also used SU! Chocolate Chip and PTI Vintage Cream cardstock. The stamp is from SU! Friendly Flowers w/ a few dots to fill some space from the PTI Polka Dot Basics set. A couple of primas and brads and a little SU! Chocolate Chip grosgrain and it was finished! What do you think?

Verve Anniversary - AVS02

It's Verve's anniversary and they have 12 days of challenges. This is the first one I have attempted so far - I did it this past weekend. I think my triangles are a little out of proportion, but its too late now. Taylor's tape is super permanent! haha

All paper & ribbon & ink is from Papertrey; stamps are from Verve; pearls are from Martha Stewart crafts.

Happy 1 Year Anniversary!

Today is our 1 year anniversary! This year has really flown by and we have enjoyed being married. :-)

Our baker makes a anniversary cake top for free for 1st anniversaries! YUM-O! Marble cake w/ Bailey's mousse people ... we are so not sharing! haha They even decorated it like our original cake - well, we had fresh flowers on top, but we had those swirlies!

Happy Monday people!

Cupcake Challenge #27

Here's my interpretation of this week's Cupcake Challenge from Taylor. After I finished it, I realized that I didn't follow the sketch exactly w/ the placement of the circle. I did flip flop the ribbon knot & sentiment circle because the image I used is heavier on the left. I think it turned out pretty cute anyway.

Image is Stampendous Changito Bouquet; Paper is from Martha Stewart Craft (Wal-Mart); Ribbon is from stash; Sentiment is from a clear $1 set from Michaels; Copics were used to color the monkey and the edge of the border circle around the sentiment.

Butterfly Note Cards

Here's a set of Butterfly correspondence cards I made for my MIL's birthday. They were pretty quick and simple to make. The basic idea for them are based on Mish's cards - she shows lots of sets of flat cards on her blog. All the paper, ink, and ribbon is from Papertrey. I stamped the background butterfly onto vintage cream with the lavender moon ink and then layered the flowered butterfly in plum pudding. Cut them out and stuck 'em down. Easy peasy.

Hope you are all having a great weekend!

Birthdays are like Quilts...

Here's the birthday card I made for my MIL. She doesn't sew or quilt, but I do, so I love this stamp set. All paper, ink, stamps, and ribbon (except copic markers to color the blocks) are from Papertrey Ink.

I started w/ a strip of vintage cream CS and stamped the sentiment in Dark Chocolate. Then I masked it with a piece of scrap paper and stamped each block on point (on the diagonal). It's a little wonky, but they are mostly straight seams! haha Then I colored all the blocks w/ Copics V12 & V15, which seem to match the lavender moon & plum pudding pretty well. Then I trimmed it, added a border of lavender moon, wrapped a piece of plum pudding satin around it, and stuck it on the plum pudding card base. I think it turned out pretty good and close to what I had in my head! :-)

Does anyone know of/or has any created a chart that kind of matches Copic colors to SU! and PTI paper? If so, I'd love to know!

Mojo48

Here's my version of Julee's Mojo Monday sketch Challenge. This was a pretty easy layout to put together. I used a combination of SU! and Papertrey ink, paper, stamps and ribbon. I am still deciding how I like the color combinations - especially the purple/gold/brown.

I have been trying to get back into the routine since we got home from the beach where all we did was lay by the pool. And work is fast approaching. Kind of excited to go back, but mostly not! haha We'll see how it goes.

Well, we are off to take my MIL out to dinner for her birthday. I will post the card I made for her tomorrow. Happy Friday!