Makings and Musings

Composition book

2012-01-26T08:21:00.000-06:00

I have always had a love of paper and pens and pencils, it didn't just start with stamping and my love of patterned paper and Copics. When I was a little girl, my Grandmother and I shared a love of written words. Not only books, but things that we would write down from our own imaginations or sentences or quotes that we would hear and write down so as to better remember them. She was known for the off the wall gifts that she would give us each year for Christmas and birthdays. She was a little forgetful so my sister received about five nail dryers on consecutive birthdays and Christmases. I have always been a coupon clipper, and one year she presented me with a box of coupons that she had carefully clipped through the year. I don't think she realized that they expired! She was forever clipping things for magazines and the paper for me to read; things that struck her fancy that she thought I would appreciate. I have a box full of comics and other things that she clipped for me that I can't let go of. Some of these she had given to me and some my Mom found after my grandmother passed away. Most of them have the date of the paper they came from written by her on them. But no matter what gift she gave me, I always got something to write on--a pack of stationary, a journal, a notebook or just some pretty paper she found. It is very rare that you will ever see me without a notepad of some sort near by, there is always one in my purse or my car. I made this book for myself. I kept the embellishments to a minimum because I know it will get shoved into my iPad case, my computer bag, or a purse so I didn't want anything to rip off. The image is from Hampton Arts and was colored with Copics, the papers are from My Minds Eye and the Paper Studio, ric-rak is from Hobby Lobby and the "dream" and "hope" tickets are Tim Holtz.

I love gadgets too and do a lot of stuff on my iPad. Kip and I use an online calendar to keep up with shopping lists and our schedules, most of of recipes are now found online and I am always reading some blog or another! But I still always have paper and pen nearby too. When I catch myself reaching for my paper to write down a thought or quote I think of my grandmother. And it makes my heart smile.

Sweet Little Girl

2012-01-23T07:32:00.000-06:00

Happy Monday!! As soon as I saw this stamp at my LSS, I had to have it. I collect and love tea pots and this little girls just has the sweetest expression on her face. The image is from Penny Black and was colored with Copic Markers. I know I posted last week that I had way too much ribbon and didn't need to buy any more for a very long time. I am happy embarrassed to report that my resolve lasted until my very next trip to Hobby Lobby. I found that ruffly, black gingham ribbon and knew it would be perfect on this card. I paired it with some red gingham paper from The Paper Studio and added some black buttons from my stash.

I had fun this weekend; a Copic class on Saturday and a day of cooking yesterday. My SIL came over a week or so ago to learn how to make chicken and dumplings and she mentioned that she would love to learn how to make bread too. Specifically she wanted to make sourdough bread. I haven't been able to think of anything else since then. I am a bread fiend anyway, but bread fresh out of my oven is amazing. I had to do a practice run before I made bread with her. You know just to make sure it was okay! Actually it was the first time that I have tried to make my own starter, so I really did want to make sure it was good.

Have a great day!!

Winter Fun

2012-01-16T06:00:00.000-06:00

Living in Tennessee, we don't see a lot of snow and when it does snow, even a tiny bit schools are likely to be canceled. That was the case here on Friday, it snowed a little on Thursday night so there was no school on Friday. Since I was off work on that day anyway, I told Judy she could drop Samantha off and let her spend the day hanging out with me. We had a ball too, with most of the day spent in the craft room. We went through a bunch of her old craft stuff so that we could better organize what we do use. There was a lot of stuff that is in perfectly good condition but she has simply out grown them.

Samantha also enjoys playing along with challenge and seeing things she makes posted on my blog. We decided to play along with the challenge on the Riley and Company blog this week which is to make a Winter Fun card. We used the same image, I picked out some papers to use and Samantha picked out the embellishments. My card is at the top of the post and hers is below:

I have a couple of other projects that we made to show you later in the week, thanks for visiting today!

Almost the Weekend!

2012-01-12T06:30:00.000-06:00

Well it is for me! I am off on Friday so today is my last day of work of the week. I am ready for it too, I could use some extended time in my craft room. I have a huge stack of images that have been colored and I hope to get a large number of them made into cards this weekend. The card I have to show you today uses a Sweet Pea image from Rachel Anderson called Sunrise. She is quickly becoming one of my favorite artists from Sweet Pea too. Everything is colored with Copics, paper is from Hobby Lobby. The ribbon I got at Target a while back. For a while, Target was carrying this ribbon in their stationary section with some wedding stuff. I like this ribbon too, it is very silky and came in about four or five colors. I went in one day and they had marked it on clearance really cheap so I was able to grab a several rolls. I love this gray one most of all I think. Ribbon is one of those things that I buy all the time and just seem to collect more than I use them! My goal this year is to use up quite a bit of my ribbon before purchasing any more. A couple of weeks ago Jenna and Samantha were here and Jenna wanted to look through my ribbon for some hair ribbons for herself and I let her. Even after we cut off enough for several hair ribbons, it still didn't make a dent in my ribbon stash. "Must not buy new ribbon" is my catch phrase I am repeating when I am in a craft store right now!

Have a great day!

A Couple of Necklaces

2012-01-10T06:30:00.000-06:00

I have never been much of a jewelry type girl. That's why for Christmas my husband buys me things like an air compressor, food processors and a Dremel (this year's awesome gift!). All of those things made me so much happier on Christmas morning than a box of jewelry would have. I had no idea that I was getting the Dremel for Christmas this year so I kind of squealed when I saw it. Samantha ran over to look at what was making me so happy and saw what it was and just said "ookkkaayyy". Then I told her we could use it in the craft room and she was as happy as I was.

Anyway, so I am not much of a jewelry girl, but I do enjoy wearing something different and unique when I have to opportunity to dress up. A couple of years ago my friend Julie called and asked if I wanted to take a beginning jewelry making class with her and a couple of her friends. I had never really had the desire to make jewelry, but I knew I would have fun with them so I said yes. I ended up having a blast and have made several pieces since then, both for me and as gifts.

I am in a purple mood right now and have a couple of new shirts/outfits that have purple in them. I had found this cameo pendant a while ago and really loved it. Cameos remind me of my Grandmother. She had a couple that I remember when I was little. When I see them it always brings a happy smile of remembrance for me. I made this necklace to go with a new purple shirt that I had just bought. I was pretty happy with the way it turned out.

Samantha has also decided to try and make some jewelry. She used to enjoy stringing the big plastic pony beads on elastic to make bracelets and necklaces but now she wants to make "real" jewelry. We went to Hobby Lobby the other day and they had their charms on sale so I told her she could pick out a couple. The first set she picked up was this "best friends" set. She also picked out a pack of glass beads that had colors that they both liked. And here is her final result:

Thanks for visiting me today!

Grandparents Anniversary Card

2012-01-09T06:30:00.000-06:00

Last week, my grandparents celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. I think that is pretty amazing. don't you? As soon as I thought about making a card to commemorate their special day, I thought of this image, Young Love from Mo Manning and I knew this image would be perfect for them. I love the look of contentment on their faces, they seem to be content with life and with each other. I colored the image with Copics and used some paper that has been in my stash for quite a while. I kept the layout and the embellishments pretty simple, because I know that is what my grandmother especially enjoys, it seems to bother her is I put to much stuff on cards that I send to her. I wish I had been there to give this to them in person, but it just didn't work out. I hope they both liked their card!

I am also entering this in the Mo's Challenge Blog's Anything Goes with a Mo Image challenge.

Recipe Binder

2012-01-04T07:00:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I told you about my some of my Christmas traditions. Another one is that I always take the girls shopping when it is time for them to give a gift to their mom. She has done an excellent job raising them to understand the joy of giving to others. She has always included them in the giving and having them select well thought out gifts. Both girls do get a lot of joy giving gifts to their friends and loved ones. Since she can't take them shopping and still be surprised, I take them shopping for Mother's Day, her birthday and Christmas gifts. I have so much fun doing this too. They usually have something in mind before we go out and this year was no exception. Samantha wanted to get her mom a cookbook because she is eating healthier and a more vegetarian diet so she was set on getting her a vegetarian cookbook. Jenna wanted to get her a charm for her bracelet, but she also pointed out that Judy could use a binder to organize all of the recipes that she has been given or printed off the internet. She knew she wanted a binder with dividers and sleeves to protect the recipes. This is the binder that I ended up making to hold all the loose recipes. I used paper from Jillybean Soup, some buttons from my stash, a Sizzix alphabet and some Nestabilities. I wish I had thought to take the cover out of the binder before taking a photo, but I was in a hurry! I decided that the letters didn't stand out enough, so I took a white gel pen and traced around the letters. It made a huge difference, but I forgot to take another picture.

I also will take the girls for most of the day a week or so before Christmas so Judy can finish wrapping and do some last minute stuff. Sometimes that is the day that we do our shopping but we had already done that so we made and decorated cookies. We made sugar cookies, shortbread cookies and gingerbread men.

They take cookie decorating very seriously!

Almost every container of sprinkles that I have made it out for decorating.

Here are some of our final designs. The girls did almost all of the decorating, I did the "gingerdead man" ones for my zombie loving hubby.

Frying Pan Cover

2012-01-03T07:00:00.000-06:00

This was a very different project for me! First a quick backstory on our Christmas traditions: I met Jenna, Samantha and their mom, Judy when Jenna was three and Samantha was about eighteen months old. Judy's job situation changed and the new job required some travel so I became the girls' nanny. The first Christmas, she asked if I wanted to spend Christmas with them and I took her up on it. It was probably the best Christmas ever, other than the ones when I was a little kid. So spending the night with them became my new tradition. Kip and I got married the week before Christmas and it was late Christmas Eve when we returned from our honeymoon so we stayed in our home our first Christmas but after that, spending Christmas with the girls became our tradition. After being married a while, I gave up being the nanny, and so the new nanny is Ms. Faye. The newest tradition is that we all now spend Christmas with Judy and the girls! Ms. Faye wanted to give Judy a new frying pan (which is something she wanted) but because of the shape of them they aren't the easiest things to wrap. Even in a large gift bag, its awkward. She was watching something on TV one day and seen someone dress up the packaging on the pan to look like a Santa face. Ms. Faye is a quilter and does beautiful things but she doesn't work with paper, so she asked if I could pull something together for her.

Since I didn't see the program she had seen, I just went on her description and this is what I came up with. The packaging had a large circle on the back with all the information about the pan. I traced that circle onto white paper to get my face. After that, I punched out a pink circle and two black ones. The Santa hat is covering the handle and after I glued down the eyes and mouth, I put down some tacky glue and then crumpled up some tissue paper for the beard and hair. I added some pink chalk around the cheek area too. I think it turned out pretty cute and Ms. Faye was happy with the wrapping.

It's been interesting making these new traditions. I will be forever grateful for Judy for sharing her Christmas mornings with me, and now my husband. As a single adult with no children, Christmas had lost a lot of it's magic. They gave me that back, and even as the girls are getting older, the magic is still there. The girls are old enough now that they can plan Christmas morning surprises and that brings another level of joy for all of us. I have learned that family can be the people that you choose to love, not just the people you are biologically linked to.

Samantha's Christmas Card

2012-01-02T07:00:00.000-06:00

This is the Christmas card that I made for Samantha. She loves the color yellow and Riley. Of course I had no problem finding a cute Riley image for her card, but finding yellow in Christmas paper was a little harder. I found the yellow bell paper in the same pack of paper from Cosmo Cricket that my pink card came from. Samantha keeps up with the Riley releases, so I knew she would recognize this Elf Riley as one of the new ones from the last release. She hasn't even had a chance to play with these yet either. She was very happy with her card and loved seeing yellow on her Christmas card.

I hope everyone had a safe and Happy New Year. We normally stay in, in part because I have a hard time staying awake past 10:30! This year another couple had invited us over for dinner and a game night. It was still pretty low key, but we had a good time. And I managed to stay awake to ring in the New Year!! I am off work today so I am doing my yearly tradition of cleaning out closets and drawers and trying to get rid of stuff and organizing what I am keeping. I am making pretty good progress and have gotten rid of stuff that I didn't use at all last year. Next area? The craft desk, and that will take a while!

A Very Pink Christmas

2011-12-30T12:49:00.001-06:00

I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Ours was pretty awesome. Hectic, but lots of fun too. We managed to see most all of our family and still had lots of time for friends too. After I get my photos downloaded from the camera, I will post a few of them.

I usually make Jenna and Samantha cards to go along with their Christmas gifts and Jenna had a special request for hers this year. She wanted a pink card with some sparkle. Really though, that is her preference for just about everything!! I told her that I think that this is the pinkest card that I have ever made. Even the writing on the inside is pink. I started with Cocoa Riley and colored it with Copics and then added some Stickles to the hat for some sparkle. The ribbon I used is actually some ribbon for gift wrapping, but in person, it has a lovely sparkle that most of my other ribbon didn't have. I added the rhinestone for some extra bling and ended up with a card that made a twelve year old very happy!

Thanks for dropping by today!

Happy Anniversary Kip

2011-12-19T06:16:00.003-06:00

Kip and I celebrated our sixth anniversary on Saturday and this is the card I made for him. We have a tradition of doing something new and hopefully different every year and we alternate years planning. With an anniversary the week before Christmas we put more thought into our activity than our gifts. As far as the gifts so, we give each other something that somehow relates to the "traditional" gift for that year.

This was my year to plan our anniversary activity. I started thinking a while back and came up with dance lessons. I do not dance at all. Ever. I have two left feet and am not the most graceful person in the world. But Kip enjoys dancing. We have never danced together because I do not dance. I arranged to have us go in to a local dance studio for a private dance lesson together and unknown to Kip I have also taken a few lessons by myself so that I can feel more comfortable. He was very shocked that I had planned this because of my precious reluctance to dance at all. We haven't had our lesson yet, but I can't wait to show him what I learned.

Since our activity revolved around dancing, I wanted an image of a couple dancing. It took me forever to find one that I really liked. I found this one called As You Wish from Tiddly Inks that I thought was perfect. It is colored with Copic markers, papers are from my stash and the flowers and pearls came from Michael's.

The traditional gift for the sixth anniversary is iron or candy. Kip gave me a cast iron tea set with a tea pot and two tea cups. It is gorgeous. I look at these all the time but never with the intention of buying one. I love it though, it is the most beautiful shade of blue. I gave him a cast iron Korean BBQ plate and a copy of Iron Man 2 for his movie collection. His BBQ plate can either be used on the stove top or on the grill. We just bought a grill this summer and he has had a lot of fun learning how to cook on that.

Thanks for reading all about my anniversary!

Snowman Card

2011-12-14T06:14:00.003-06:00

This time of year is just so busy!! I think the time from Halloween to Christmas keeps getting shorter and shorter too. Or maybe that is just an effect of me getting older. I have a quick little snowman card to show you today. I have had this image for a while and it sees a lot of use at this time every year. Several years back I went to a stamping convention thing in Chattanooga and won a prize, which was the set that this came from. The little sign he is holding is actually blank and there are a couple of other sayings that you can stamp in there. I love the size of this image too, it is the perfect size to make tags. The image is from Darcies and was colored with Copic markers, paper is DCWV, the snowflake is a Martha Stewart punch.

I think most of the shopping is done now and I have most everything wrapped. Other than a couple of days of cooking most of my holiday prep is complete. I try and get it all done as soon as possible so that as time gets closer I can just sit back and enjoy Christmas. Kip and went shopping last night. I have to give him some love here. He isn't much of a shopper, normally he is good for a couple of stores and that's about it. I wanted to go shopping at a different shopping center that I had never been to before and he was game with that. I navigated while he drove. I did get him to a shopping center, it just happened to be the wrong one for the store we were looking for! He was a good sport about it though and was able to get us to where we were trying to go.

Have a great day!

Coffee or Tea?

2011-12-05T06:00:00.002-06:00

Good Morning! One of the main reasons I started my blog was to challenge myself to learn more and do more with a hobby that I loved. I saw all these challenges online that I wanted to participate in and thought that blogging would be a good way to do that. I know I have tried tons more techniques that I wouldn't have, just because they were a challenge requirement. And many of those things (like the center step card below) are things that I really enjoy and help me keep enjoying this hobby that I have invested so much into. I was not at all expecting the friendships that would develop from blogging. I would have never thought that people that I only knew online could end up being such good friends. I have met people that have encouraged me, wished me well, made me smile and opened their lives to me enough to allow me to encourage them, pray for them during hard times, send cards to their loved ones when needed and hopefully I have passed on a least as many smiles as I have been given.

A couple of online friends and I have exchanged little goodie boxes on occasion and this card is going into one such box. Most people I know are either coffee people or tea people. I love both equally. My friend that is getting this card is the same way, I think she loves both with the same amount of gusto as I do! So I have put together a little goodie box of some interesting teas and coffees I have found that I want to share. Since the box is full of coffees and teas, I wanted to use an image that went along with that and found this one that my real life friend Angela gave to me a long time ago for my birthday. It is a set from My Favorite Things called Tea for Two. The image was colored with Copic markers, the paper is DCWV I think, and I added some chipboard letters, and photo turns from my stash.

And I want to say a huge THANKK YOU to all of my online friends. In my last post I mentioned that I had hurt my back and I got so many sweet comments and emails wishing me quick healing and I wanted to let you know that they all mean a lot to me. I am recovering now and am almost back to normal.

Center Step Card

2011-12-01T07:13:00.005-06:00

Good Morning! I almost never do alternate fold cards for some reason, but I am really glad that I decided to play along with the Riley and Company challenge this week. The challenge was to make a Center Step card and a link to this tutorial was provided. It wasn't that difficult and I love the way that it looks. I used Riley and the Christmas Tree image for my card, Basic Gray paper, buttons from American Crafts and the sentiment is from a dollar set I have had for a while.

Before I got my laptop, it was much more difficult to make anything that I had to follow multiple step directions. The computer is upstairs and the craft room is downstairs so I would try and balance my Scor-Pal on my lap at the computer desk which didn't really work all that well. Having the laptop, I can put it on my craft desk and it makes everything so much easier.

Samantha hung out with me on Saturday morning while her sister was at swim practice and she helped me get my tree up. She has helped me with this for the past couple of years now, but this year I had found a bin of ornaments that she had never seen before so she had fun ooohing and aahhing over all the things that were new to her. My tree is done in Elvis ornaments and angel ornaments. Several of the Elvis ones play music, but every time she walks by the tree she presses the button on the one that plays "Viva Las Vegas".

I haven't been around visiting blogs or blogging very much. I hurt my back last week and last night was the first time in about a week that I could sit at the table long enough to even color an image. I have spent as much time as possible horizontal on the couch, with pain meds and day time TV. I'm feeling better now, and am even attempting to go to work today.

Happy Monday!

2011-11-21T07:15:00.003-06:00

Good Morning! We had a very busy weekend, busy, but a lot of fun. We had Kip's birthday dinner/party at the bowling alley on Friday night, Saturday was doing all those fun cleaning things that have to be done and then yesterday we went to see Samantha play the piano, got groceries then home for dinner and then to watch The Walking Dead. The grocery store was insane, I didn't think about it being the weekend before Thanksgiving before we went.

My card today uses an image from Sweet Pea Stamps, was colored with Copic Markers and paper, lace and embellishments are from Hobby Lobby. I used Twinkling H2O paints for the background.

Have a great day!

No Coloring Challenge

2011-11-16T06:31:00.004-06:00

A no coloring challenge? No Copics or Prismas? Well that is the challenge on the Riley and Company challenge blog this week. I think it actually took me longer to make a no coloring card than it takes me to make one where I have colored the image. Since all white was too much of a challenge for me, I decided to stamp Riley onto kraft card stock and then I stamped it again onto a blue piece of paper and then again onto a brown piece. That gave me a little color to work with. I paper pieced Riley's cookie and the mug he is holding. I used Cookie Riley. papers from making Memories, a Fiskars border punch and a flower and brad from my stash.

I am still hard at work on hubby's birthday gift! Our anniversary is next month, the week before Christmas so I am actually trying to work on things for that too. I can't wait to tell you what I am doing for the anniversary! I am having too much fun, but can't show it yet because I am afraid he might look around my blog looking for hints.

Have a great day!

Riley--Oldies but Goodies Challenge

2011-11-14T17:11:00.003-06:00

I almost forgot to post this challenge card! It has been a little hectic here, nothing major going on just lots of fun things to do so I didn't make it to my blog to post last week. It seems like the time between Halloween and the end of the year just zooms by. On the Riley and Company blog this week the challenge was use an oldie but goodie image, using an image that was released at least a year ago. I am getting another box ready to send to my friend's son that is in Afghanistan so I thought this would be the perfect image to use for this challenge and for the card that I will tuck in his box. I used GI Riley, DCWV papers, some leather photo corners and brads from Making Memories.

I have also been busy working on something for Kip. His birthday is Friday and I have a big surprise for him. I can't post it early though, because sometimes he checks out my blog!

Have a great day.

Fall Flowers

2011-11-03T08:03:00.002-05:00

Good Morning! It is a cold and rainy day for us this morning. I think fall has really settled in for us. The colors here have been absolutely beautiful but a lot of the leaves have already fallen so I am seeing more and more bare trees on my way to and from work. This is a fall inspired color challenge for me. The stamp is from Impression Obsession, papers and ribbons from Hobby Lobby.

Thanks for stopping by today!

House Mouse Halloween

2011-11-01T07:26:00.003-05:00

Good Morning! I have one last Halloween project to share with you. I am a little sad that Halloween is over. In part just because I love Halloween so much and because after Halloween the rest of the year just seems to zoom by in one giant big flurry of activity. Between Halloween and the end of the year we have Kip's birthday, Thanksgiving and travel involved with that, my grandmother's birthday, our anniversary, and the Christmas. Mixed in with all that is the shopping, massive baking and cooking sessions and different holiday parties.

Now on to my card, this is a House Mouse image and was colored with Copics. The little sentiment panel is a piece of thin wood, painted black and then I wrote Boo with a white gel pen. Pretty simple. I just love this image though! It's so funny though, for the longest time, I would only color House Mouse images with pencils and because I was never really happy with the result when I used Copics on them. I am pretty please with this one and now when I sit down to color them it just depends on whether I am in a pencil mood or a marker mood.

Have a great day!!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

2011-10-31T06:34:00.002-05:00

It's here, it's here, it's finally here! Halloween has finally arrived. If you are celebrating, have fun and be safe! My card today is for the Riley and Company Orange and Black challenge. I left Riley a little pale with very little shading since he has gone all goth with this image. I gave him some little diamond stud earrings and then added that skull and crossbones from Recollections. I don't remember where the paper came from, it was actually from a Halloween or two ago and I have been holding on to it.

I can't wait to see all the little trick or treaters in their costumes tonight. This is the first place that I have really ever lived that has lots of trick or treaters too and I love it. I remember my first apartment after I moved to Nashville, there were several kids around so I got my outside all decorated, bought tons of candy, got ready to pass it out and I had exactly one trick or treater. After we got married I asked Kip if there were a lot that came by here and he didn't know since he was normally gone to a party. I was thrilled to have so many.

Have a great halloween!!

Twelfth Day of Halloween!

2011-10-30T18:25:00.003-05:00

Here is my final post for the Twelve Days of Halloween challenges with Simply Betty Stamps. And just like last year, I had a great time playing along with these fun, daily challenges. Anytime I can pull out the Halloween papers and embellies I have fun. Image is from Simply Betty, colored with Copics and the papers and bats are from K & Co and the ribbon from my stash.

On the twelfth day of Halloween

My true love gave to me,

Twelve bats a flying,

Eleven casks a-leaning,

Ten ghouls a groaning,

Nine ghosts a booing,

Eight monsters shrieking,

Seven pumpkins glowing,

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters,

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I had so much fun today. I went with a friend and her daughter to a cooking class at the Viking Cooking store where we learned to make pasta doughs and sauces. Yummy! I took a couple of pictures that I will try and post tomorrow.

Enjoy your Halloween tomorrow!!

Day 11 of Simply Betty's 12 Days of Halloween

2011-10-30T18:05:00.003-05:00

I have another Simply Betty project to share with you today. I can't believe tomorrow is Halloween. We had a fun time last night with some friends and family at our Halloween Bash. I tried something new, I made some black bean burgers. I have one vegetarian friend and instead of buying some frozen ones I wanted to try and make them. I didn't think that many people would eat them so I planned on freezing some to have some quick lunches on hand. But they all got eaten! We made three kinds of burgers and they were the first plate to disappear. I will be making those again.

On to today's project! Our inspiration from the Simply Betty Blog:

On the eleventh day of Halloween

My true love gave to me,

Eleven casks a-leaning,

Ten ghouls a groaning,

Nine ghosts a booing,

Eight monsters shrieking,

Seven pumpkins glowing,

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters,

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I used this Edward Scissorhands image from the Burton Chibi line. When I saw casks, it made me think of a science lab and that make me think of this image. I love the Edward Scissorhands movie, but it makes me really sad. the image is Simply Betty, papers are from Martha Stewart and the border is from K & Co.

One more challenge post to go and then my Twelve Days of Halloween will be complete!

Tenth Day of Halloween

2011-10-30T17:49:00.003-05:00

On the Simply Betty Blog:

On the tenth day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Ten ghouls a groaning,

Nine ghosts a booing,

Eight monsters shrieking,

Seven pumpkins glowing,

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters,

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I thought this mummy image would be perfect for my groaning ghoul. If you look close, that background paper is full of the eyes of lots more ghouls!

Nine Ghosts A-Booing

2011-10-29T09:26:00.002-05:00

Just a quick Saturday post from me today. We have until the 30th to load all of our 12 Days of Halloween projects on the Simply Betty Blog so I will be back today and then in the morning with the last of my entries. This have been another fun round of Halloween challenges! On to today's poetic inspiration:

On the ninth day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Nine ghosts a-booing,

Eight monsters shrieking,

Six pumpkins a glowing,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I know that cat looks like he has been spooked by something. Probably all those ghosts in the background! Image from SImply Betty Stamps, colored with Copics, ghost from K&Co. and I am drawing a blank on the papers right now.

Gotta run, I am teaching a Copic class today then back home to get ready for our Halloween Bash tonight!!

Eight Monsters Shrieking!

2011-10-28T21:19:00.001-05:00

That's right it is day 8 of the Simply Betty 12 Days of Halloween challenge. Only 4 more challenges to go! And what fun these challenges have been too.

One the eighth day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Eight monsters shrieking,

Seven pumpkins glowing,

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

If you look there are other little monsters in the background paper behind my main image!!

Simply Betty Day 6

2011-10-28T19:08:00.000-05:00

I am back with my day 6 project for the Simply Betty 12 Days of Halloween challenge. I still don't know what got on the first one I made, but it was pretty much all across that purple panel. Fortunately I didn't have to start over again, I was just able to redo that one panel. Here is the poem for our challenge:

One the sixth day of Halloween,

My true love gave to me

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

My image is from Simply Betty Stamps and was colored with Copic markers, the papers, little goblins and the sentiment are all from K& Co. and the brads are from Jo-Ann's.

Halloween--Day 7

2011-10-27T18:11:00.004-05:00

Here I am with a second post today! And yes you are reading it right, I skipped from Day 5 to Day 7 of the 12 Days of Halloween! I didn't notice until I was loading the photo of my day 6 project, but it has a big smudge of some sort on it so I am going to redo that portion of my card. I will be back with day 6 tomorrow.

According to the Simply Betty blog:

On the seventh day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Seven pumpkins glowing,

Six goblins gobbling,

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I used Pumpkin London for my card and colored her with Copics. Paper is from Martha Stewart, ribbon from Michael's and the jack-o-lanterns are from Reminisce.

Last Saturday I met some girlfriends for lunch and some shopping and those little pumpkins were one of the things I bought at a scrapbook store. I had to be good in there because I had already spent too much money at World Market. I love that store! I am of the opinion that you can never have too many dishes or stamps!

Have a great evening, My friend's daughter is here cooking with me. We are making chicken noodle soup for dinner and homemade twinkle-like cakes for dessert. Shhh, don't tell, but we already ate one of the cakes and dinner isn't ready yet.

Five Scary Spooks

2011-10-27T07:23:00.003-05:00

And on the fifth day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Five scary spooks,

Four skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

This is my card for Simply Betty's 12 Days of Halloween challenge. My scary spook is standing in a hallway showing off the photos of the rest of her spooky family. I am a couple of days behind on posting my cards so I will be back with another card this afternoon after I get off work.

Kip and I use a shared calendar app on our phones and he was looking over the activities for the next few days. He noticed that I listed our Halloween Dinner as "Our Halloween Bash" and asked if it was really going to be a "bash" or if we were just having people over for dinner. I told we were just having a few people over but it just sounded more fun and festive to call it a bash!

Have a great day!

4th Day of Halloween with Simply Betty

2011-10-26T12:23:00.003-05:00

On the Fourth Day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Four Skeletons,

Three black cats,

Two trick or treaters

And an owl in a rotten oak tree.

I am back with my entry for the fourth day of Halloween with Simply Betty Stamps. It's not too late to play along if you want to join in on the fun. The image is from Simply Betty Stamps

and was colored with Copics, papers are from The Paper Studio and Target, skeleton hand is from K&Co. and the ribbon and buttons are from my stash. Aren't those dancing skeletons just too funny?

I am getting excited as Halloween gets closer and closer. I have been making candy and things for our yearly Halloween dinner with family and friends, the house is decorated and I have my treats ready to pass out. Add to that the fun of getting to play with all of my Halloween images and supplies and I am one happy crafter.

And on the 3rd Day of Halloween...

2011-10-25T07:15:00.003-05:00

On the third day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Three black cats

Two trick or treaters and

An owl in an oak tree

I think I am as excited over Halloween every year as the children of some of my friends. I am getting the house all decorated, planning my Halloween dinner for friends and family and am having fun playing with all my Halloween supplies and participating in all the challenges, especially this one from Simply Betty. My card today uses Betty from the Emo Everyday line.

See you later!

On the Second Day of Halloween

2011-10-23T17:27:00.003-05:00

One the second day of Halloween

My true love gave to me

Two trick or treaters and

An owl in a rotten oak tree.

I am back with my second day's entry for the Simply Betty's 12 Days of Halloween. Aren't those little trick or treaters cute? I love seeing all the little ones come by my house every year, it's so much fun.

Gotta run, we are have a scary movie-a-thon at my house!

Simply Betty 12 Days of Halloween is Back!!!

2011-10-20T07:18:00.002-05:00

I had so much fun playing along in this challenge last year and was very happy to see it back again this year. Each day there is a new challenge to play along with. I love, love, love Halloween so these challenges are so much fun. It's not too late if you want to play along, info is here.

On the first day of Halloween......My true love gave to me an owl in a rotten oak tree. I decided to use Zombie Christian for this challenge. The tree is a die cut using one of my favorite Sizzix dies and the papers are from K&Co. and The Paper Studio. The grave border punch is from Martha Stewart. I have three organizers full of Halloween papers, embellishments and ribbons. And almost no owls! Honestly, I think I have more Halloween supplies than Christmas supplies. It took me a while to find an owl to use and finally found it in the last bin in a pack of K& Co. Halloween stickers.

So that's my first day of Halloween Challenge card! Thanks for stopping by today.

Leaf Challenge

2011-10-17T07:00:00.002-05:00

Good Morning! Well it is back to work for me today. Not only is it Monday, it is the Monday following an entire week off. I really do like my job, but being on vacation is better. It took me a while to get going this morning too. The current challenge on the Riley and Company challenge blog is to use a leaf or leaves on your card. I decided to use Scarecrow Riley from the Riley in Oz release.

Image is from Riley and Company, paper is K&Co. buttons and ribbon from my stash.

Have a great day!

Back from Vacation--Lots of Pics

2011-10-16T14:34:00.003-05:00

Kip and decided to head out on vacation last week. I didn't have time to schedule some posts to go live while I was gone because I was too busy getting everything packed. Since we were both going to be gone, I didn't announce it anywhere online that we wouldn't be at home this week. After talking about it a bit, we decided to head out to Savannah, GA for a week long vacation. It was heavenly. We were both in dire need of a vacation and this one was pretty great. We had a nice mix of seeing new things, visiting new places, eating incredible food and getting in some relaxing time as well. We started out last Saturday morning and since we were passing through Chattanooga we met my sister and her husband and son for lunch. After enjoying our lunch with them we drove the rest of the way to Savannah.

Here are some of the random photos I took. I will add a little explanation of what they are. They are a little jumbled up and not really in the order that our vacation went!

This is a photo looking at at the River Walk area in Savannah. I have a thing about taking photos of fences and trees! I loved that brick work against the cement of the sidewalk with the brick buildings in the background.

One of the things that we did was drive out to Tybee Island. On the way back we stopped at Uncle Bubba's for dessert. We were still full from lunch but wanted to eat there so we sampled the Strawberry Shortcake and the Key Lime Pie. Everything we ate on vacation was fantastic and this was no exception. This was a photo I took just behind and to the side of the restaurant.

This is a photo of my feet in the ocean at Tybee Island. The very, very cold ocean. I just had to get my feet in there though!

Another fence picture! This was also on Tybee Island. I just loved those little yellow flowers and the zig zag fence on the sand.

This was walking out onto the pier area on Tybee.

This is one of those photos that I just happened to have the camera ready as that little bird took a drink of water from that pipe. Normally when I try to capture something like that on film I wind up with a big blur. I am very happy with this photo.

One of the park areas in Savannah.

The Cotton Exchange building with the griffin fountain in front.

The famous Waving Girl statue in Savannah.

The port area.

We had a fabulous time. It rained and was overcast the first couple of days we were there but all in all it was a great trip. We took a trolley tour around Savannah on the first day and then later in the week we took The Movie Tour to see some of the sites where movies have been filmed in Savannah. In addition to touring Savannah and driving out to Tybee Island we also drove to Hilton Head. While in Savannah, I found a fabulous kitchen store called Kitchens on the Square that I ended up shopping in on two separate days. My love for kitchen gadgets even exceeds my love of stamps and markers, so I was really in heaven in that store. I also love hot teas, and we founds a couple of stores that had some amazing tea blends that I was able to purchase. We headed home yesterday morning and then as we passed through Chattanooga this time we met my parents for dinner. Today we are just vegging out and trying to catch up on the laundry!

House Mouse Flag Card

2011-10-05T06:00:00.002-05:00

Good Morning! I spent quite a bit of time this weekend coloring. Sometimes I will do that, I will just stamp or print a bunch of images and then just color. I have always loved coloring, with crayons, pencils or markers, it doesn't really matter, coloring is just relaxing for me. Most of the time now I use Copics when I color but sometimes I want to play with pencils. I am getting another box ready to send to a Marine friend in Afghanistan and thought this House Mouse image would be the perfect on to include on the accompanying card. When coloring House Mouse images I do tend to reach for my pencils more often than my Copics, I am not sure why either, but they are generally my first choice. Image is from House Mouse Stamps and was colored with Prismacolor pencils, paper is from The Paper Studio (I think) and the stars are from my stash.

Riley Goes to the Movie Blog Hop

2011-09-29T21:00:00.004-05:00

It is finally here! The Riley and Company release of Riley Goes to the Movies. Hopefully you arrived here from Joy's blog, if not, you can start at the beginning here. You don't want to miss a stop because a winner will be chosen from the comments left on each blog. My first card tonight features Riley Pottermoose. Can't you just see him flying around Hogwarts waving his wand?

One of my friend's daughters has been wanting to have a movie day and watch the Happy Potter movies for the first time. She is getting this card as an invitation to remember the day and I have already fixed us up a basket of movie snacks!

My second card features Sophie as Sandy and Riley as Danny from one of my favorite movies Grease. What a cute couple!

My final card tonight features Marilyn Mooseroe.

You know you need some of these great images right? They will be available after the blog hop here. As if the images weren't enough to tempt you, there is FREE domestic shipping tonight through Sunday, all ordered placed in the first 24 hours will receive a never released limited edition image and you can save 10% when you purchase the entire set!

I have had so much fun participating as the guest designer for this release. Thanks for visiting me during the Sneak Peaks and the Blog Hop!

One More!

2011-09-29T07:30:00.003-05:00

That's right, one more sneak peek before the Riley Goes to the Movies Blog Hop tonight! I have had so much fun playing along with the Riley and Company design team as the guest designer for this release. Today I have Spider Moose to show you. Isn't that a great looking hero?

Don't forget to join us tonight for the Blog Hop! All the fun will start here at 10:00 p.m. EST. Be sure to visit all the blogs on the hop for your chance to win your own Riley image.

Riley Sneak Peek--Day 5

2011-09-28T07:00:00.001-05:00

It's Batmoose to the rescue!! I have another great Riley Goes to the Movies image to share with you today. After finding this great paper, I decided to go with the campier Batman series from the 60's. What a hero our little moose friend is! Remember this and all the other new images will be available after the Blog Hop on Thursday. The Blog Hop will begin here and will begin at 10:00 p.m. EST. Join us on the hop for a chance to win one of the newly released images.

(My comic book reading, Batman fan husband will argue that the series isn't really Batman, but it was my first exposure to the character so I still like it!)

Riley Sneak Peek--Day 4

2011-09-27T07:00:00.003-05:00

Are you loving these new Riley images as much as I am? I am having lots of fun with all these Riley Goes to the Movies images. Today my sneak peek uses Sophie as Bridezilla. I found that lightening bolt paper in one of my Halloween stacks and knew it would be perfect to use with this image. After coloring Sophie with Copic markers I added some light purple glitter on her dress. The ribbon and brad are all from my stash and the glittery border is K & Co.

All of the new images will be available for you to purchase after the Blog Hop on Thursday at 10:00 p.m. EST.

Thanks for dropping by today!

Riley Sneak Peek--Day 3

2011-09-26T07:00:00.002-05:00

Welcome to Day 3 of the Riley Goes to the Movies Release! Today I have a gift card holder to share with you using Popcorn Riley. Popcorn is serious business in my house so I really love this stamp. I probably eat popcorn for dinner at least once a week, sometimes twice if Kip is working late. Isn't Riley just too cute sitting there at the movies with hip popcorn? Remember this and all of the other new images will be available on the Riley and Company site after the blog hop on Thursday.

I cut out one of the film reels from the paper I used and then cut it in half to make a pull tab. If you pull on the tab you will find a gift card that will slide out from behind the card. We do give lots of movie gift cards as gifts, especially to Kip's Dad, so this is the perfect image to accompany a gift card from our local theater. The only gift card I had on hand was this one for Chili's so I used it for the picture.

Don't forget the Riley Goes to the Movies Blog Hop. It will start here on Thursday evening at 10:00 p.m. EST.

I will have more to show tomorrow!

Riley Sneak Peek--Day 2

2011-09-25T07:00:00.001-05:00

Welcome to Day 2 of the Riley Goes to the Movies Sneak Peek! I am here to introduce you to Mr. Moose Butler and Sophie O'Hara. Aren't they just an adorable couple?? Making this card reminded me that I haven't seen Gone with the Wind in a while, I think I will have to remedy that soon.

Remember this and all the other movie inspired images will be available on the Riley and Company website after the Blog Hop on Thursday night. The Blog Hop begins at 10:00 pm EST. There are lots of wonderful images so make sure to check out all the DT blogs to see more.

See you tomorrow for another Sneak Peek!

Riley Sneak Peek--Day 1

2011-09-24T07:00:00.001-05:00

Riley is going to the movies! Today is the first day of peeks from Riley and Company for this awesome release. I am so happy to be a part of this special release as Guest Designer. There are 18 new images being released and they all have a movie related theme. Don't forget to check out the Design Team blogs, you are going to love these images. Sneak Peeks will be going on this week and there is a Blog Hop on Thursday starting at 10 p.m. EST. After the blog hop all the images will be on the Riley and Company site for you to purchase.

I am using Director Riley and he is on set and in the middle of the action, calling all the shots. I love that paper because it reminds me of spotlights. After coloring Riley with Copics, I surrounded him with some metallic pearls.

Don't forget to check back tomorrow for another project using another Riley goes to the Movies image!

Riley Challenge-Layers, layers, layers

2011-09-20T06:00:00.004-05:00

Good Morning!! I am so happy to be playing along this month as the Guest Designer with Riley and Company. If you read my blog very often you know how much I love that little moose so this is so much fun for me. Heather is the hostess this week and the challenge is to make a distressed/shabby chic card using at least 7 layers. I have used Vampire Riley for my card today. Grab one of your favorite Riley images and join us here in this week's challenge.

Vampire Riley is from Riley and Company, the papers are DCWV and I used some Pebbles chalk and CTMH Amethyst ink around the image. Buttons and thread are from my stash.

Miranda

2011-09-19T07:25:00.004-05:00

Good Monday Morning! I am not sure how you come up with your card designs and color pallets, but I often will sit down and color several images at once and then will search through my vast paper collection for what I think are the perfect papers to go with my image. Sometimes I will color the same image in different color themes or I will color a bunch of different images using the same color families. This card though was the opposite for me. I saw this paper in Hobby Lobby the other day and this image came to mind immediately. I wanted the colors I chose to make her appear part of the paper but to still stand out some too. I was very happy that I was able to really achieve what I saw in my mind while I was standing there in the paper aisle at Hobby Lobby.

The image is an Elaine Cox image from Sweet Pea Stamps, was colored with Copic markers and all the papers came from Hobby Lobby.

Fall Riley

2011-09-15T06:00:00.002-05:00

Ahh, we are finally almost to the end of another week! Fall is definitely in the air here, I am really enjoying the cooler air, especially in the mornings. I have a fall inspired Riley card to show you today. I am using Farmers Riley and Sophie, and I colored them with Copics. This is one of my favorite stamps of Riley and Sophie together, they just look like the perfect little hosts welcoming guests onto their farm for a great big slice of that pie.

The wood grain panel was done with an embossing folder from The Paper Studio. I noticed a few weeks ago that Hobby Lobby has a bunch of these now, and in several patterns that I don't have from other manufacturers. They emboss very deeply and so far I am happy with them. The papers I used are also from The Paper Studio and Riley is from Riley and Company.

Notepad

2011-09-14T06:00:00.004-05:00

Good Morning! Our church is hosting a Ladies Inspiration Day at the end of the month and I am the committee chairperson in charge of coming up with the thank you gift that will be given to each of the ladies in attendance. This is what I came up with; it is a jr. legal pad that has been cut in half down the center. I really like this size and I think they make great little notepads to tuck into a purse, a briefcase or in the little pocket that is in most Bible covers. I got the original concept for cutting the legal pad from here. I have made lots of these in the past couple of years but I think this one is my favorite that I have done. The theme of the Ladies day is "Beautifully and Wonderfully Made" so I knew I wanted an elegant and timeless looking image but since I didn't feel up to the task of coloring a couple of hundred images, it needed to be one that could be a stand alone stamped image. Last month when we were in Indiana I found the perfect image at my favorite stamp store in the world, Papertrix. This image came from a set called Classic Ladies from Hot Off the Press and it's one of these sets that I loved every single image. Finding the sentiment was even harder because I wanted something that talked about inner beauty but would still fit on my 2 1/2" x 8" notepad. I found lots of sentiments about beauty in nature before finally finding this one which I thought fit the theme perfectly. The patterned paper, the card stock and the vellum that the image is stamped on is from Papertrey Ink. I thought the vellum added a more vintagy feel and Papertrey's vellum is amazing. The lace is from my ginaormous ribbon collection, the button from my equally large button stash and the image and sentiment were stamped with Memento Rich Cocoa ink.

I am very happy with the end result and hope everyone that receives one enjoys it too. If you are local and want to attend, email me and I will send you the details.

Have a great day!

Altered Dominos

2011-09-13T06:07:00.004-05:00

A couple of weeks ago I was grocery shopping and found a huge box of dominoes on clearance for about $2.00. I think there are 90+ dominoes in that box! Being the clearance rack shopper that I am and adding that I love to alter things, into my cart they went. I decided to make these little butterfly pins first. After sanding them a little, I added color by using my Copic refills B12, V12 and RV02. When the color was dry I used this small butterfly stamp from Studio G and stamped the image using Staz On ink. Pretty quick and easy and I am happy with them. I am sure you will be seeing more domino projects in the future!

Acorn Dress

2011-09-12T06:00:00.003-05:00

Good Morning! I had a great weekend, full of crafting time, time to lay around and read, some relaxing time and time to spend with some friends. I am working on a big project for out Ladies Day at church and I made some great headway on that plus I was able to get in some time with my Copics and coloring pencils too. Lots of times my weekends are so busy that I am worn out on Monday, but this one was pretty perfect. This card was basically built around that ribbon. I was looking for some fall decorating pieces at Hobby Lobby the other day and found this ribbon and knew it would be gorgeous on a fall card. I used this Acorn Dress image from Lockhart Stamps and colored it with Copics. I have quite a few Lockhart stamps but this is one of my favorites. It is quite simple but perfect to showcase fall colors.

Thanks for dropping by today!

Back to School

2011-09-08T07:00:00.001-05:00

Hello! it is definitely back to school time; there's a bit of fall in the air, football has started, the school bus just passed by and I have to leave a little early for work to drive through school zones. I made this card for my nephew, he is starting his junior year. The school colors at his school, and my alma mater, are Black and Gold. I love the Emo line of stamps from Simply Betty Stamps because they are perfect for teens, especially teen boys. Cole is a pretty great kid and would never say anything negative about a card I have made for him, but it usually is a struggle to find something that isn't to juvenile or too generic. This is also my entry for the Simply Betty Get to School Challenge. I used a Notebook paper embossing folder for The Paper Studio, a border punch from EK Success, some brads and stickers from my stash and I colored everything with Copics.

Last year for Christmas my niece wanted a stamping kit from me as a gift. (Here is what I gave her.) Throughout the year I have been picking up some little additions as I find them. I found some cute little dollar stamps at Michael's last week and have put together a little box of goodies to mail to her. She is getting some Halloween stamps, a could of new colors of ink, some adhesive refills and some fall/Halloween card fronts and papers. I felt bad because Cole doesn't have a interest like that where I can pick up things here and there for him so I decided to make him a card and tuck in an Itunes gift card for him. I will get Zoie's card posted later, it is a Halloween one, using one of her new stamps.

Have a great Day!

Name Blocks

2011-09-06T14:29:00.002-05:00

I have been wanting to make some things for around the house for a while and am finally getting around to it. Well actually I am getting around to finishing some of the projects that I have started! I am great at starting projects but they often get pushed to the side and forgotten. I have made it a goal for September to finish at least three of those. I wanted to do something with our last name and decided to do name blocks with individual blocks spelling out our last name. I stared out with some plain wooden blocks, they are around 21/2"-3" and I pained them with some gray paint. I used a DCWV stack of paper that had coordinating grays, blacks, greens and some yellow and I cut out small squares of the patterns I wanted to use and adhered them to the blocks. There are several patterns of paper on the blocks but I made sure that all the ones that would be facing out had the same pattern and that the pattern wasn't so busy or dark that the letters would get lost. I cut out the letters using a Sizzix alphabet set called Sunset. We have two matching audio piers on either side of out TV, on this side are the blocks with out name and on the opposite shelf is a cute photo of us. Actually it is the first photo of us together and we weren't even dating yet, but I like it! I am happy with the way this turned out and glad I finally finished them.

You can also see a few of my Pez collection too. Kip likes Rubic's cubes and I try to find him new ones for his birthday each year and I have collected Pez dispensers since I was a teenager. Here is another photo back a little further and you can see more of them. This is only a very small sample of my collection too. The audio piers are a temporary home for them, Kip is going to help me design and build custom shelves to house them.

I am working on finishing a couple of projects for the kitchen right now and hope to show them to you soon!

Rag Doll Sally

2011-08-31T10:50:00.006-05:00

Good Morning! I am playing along with the challenge this week on the Simply Betty challenge blog and the challenge this week is a sketch challenge. There is a little bit of a twist though because you can use the sketch from any challenge. I used this week's sketch over at the Midnight Madness Sketch Challenge. There were two sketches to choose from over there. I used Rag Doll Sally from Simply Betty Stamps and colored everything with Copics.

Other supplies used: Cuttlebug Skeleton Embossing Folder, DCWV papers, square eyelets from my stash and a Nestability.

I will tell you a funny little story. I know some of you are crafters like me and pull out way to many supplies when you craft and don't always put them right away when you are finished. I haven't been able to find my tiny scissors in forever. So I haven't really been able to cut out a lot of images, especially if they are very detailed. I was cleaning off my table last night and finally putting away a growing stack of paper and I found my scissors! I also found ten dollars and a paper pad that I thought I bought, couldn't find and then bought again.

Thanks for visiting!

I Wanna Be a Cowboy

2011-08-29T06:24:00.005-05:00

Anyone remember that song? As I was typing the title that ran through my head and I am sure I will be hearing that in my head all day long now! Unfortunately "I wanna be a cowboy" are the only lyrics that I can remember from that song. It reminds me of one place I worked and the friends I worked with because it came on the radio all the time. So Summer Fun is the theme for the Riley and Company challenge this week. I made this for the daughter of a friend as a card but it will also fit in a slide in photo album as the title page. Every summer they spend a couple of weeks at a ranch. I have scrapbooked with her before and she told me she would like a scrapbook using her ranch photos. I think this will be perfect for that. I used Cowboy Riley and colored him with Copics. A few weeks ago I was in Hobby Lobby looking for some beads to make some jewelry for my mom and came across those little star charms. As soon as I saw them I knew I wanted to do a western themed card with them so I went looking for that bandana ribbon and found it at HL too. All the papers are from The Paper Studio.

I hope you had a great weekend. Ours was pretty good, very busy though. Friday night we went and saw Fright Night (Kip's turn to pick out the movie) and Saturday I spent the day with Jenna and let her shop her little twelve year old heart out for her birthday and then Kip and went and saw a play, The Signal Season of Dummy Hoy on Saturday night. Yesterday I took a class at my LSS and had a bunch of fun there. I will post my projects soon.

Have a great day!

Halloween Treat Container

2011-08-24T07:14:00.006-05:00

I am back with a little more Halloween Goodness! Honestly I think I could make Halloween things all year long and never get bored with them. The challenge over on the Simply Betty Challenge Blog was to make some type of treat container. This challenge was perfect timing for me since I needed to get some samples made up. Every year I make Jenna and Samantha a several different types of treat containers and let them pick which one they want to take to school and give their friends. I am so glad their Mom isn't crafty and she lets me do this! For this challenge I decided to make an acetate box filled with some mini candy bars. I used Skeleton Peter from Simply Betty Stamps and colored him with Copics. I had to take the photo from the side angle because of the glare off of the acetate. The ribbon is from my stash and the paper is DCWV I think.

Here is a close up of the image. I really love this little guy, I think he is adorable. I decided to give him some blue tips to his hair as a nod to my younger blue haired self!

Thanks for dropping by today!

ETA: Someone emailed me and asked me if this was a pre-made box or one that I made and if I made it the dimensions. I did make it using an acetate sheet and some card stock. the dimensions for the acetate sheet is 8 1/4" x 6". If you want, let me know in the comments and I will do a full tutorial.

And these were a big hit with Samantha but she raided the Almond Joys after dinner last night!

Little Red Dress

2011-08-23T07:05:00.004-05:00

I think this is one of the first stamps I bought when I decided I wanted stamps to color. I had some really bad markers and it only took me a minute to decided I didn't like stamps that had to be colored. And I didn't color on a stamp for a very long time either. Isn't that funny? When I started coloring images again I would only using coloring pencils because I could use them and get the effect that I wanted. Then I met Copics and now I color all the time and can't really remember the last time that I used a stamp, other than a sentiment that didn't have to be colored. Red, black and white are one of my favorite color combos, in fast, as I am redoing my dining room that will be the new color palette in there. I decided to make a little red dress because it reminds me of a beautiful dress my sister bought a while back to wear to a wedding. I added some pearls to dress it up a little. Stamp is from Stampendous, colored with Copics, papers are DCWV, pearls from the Paper Studio and I used a Fiskars border punch.

Have a great day!

Happy 9th Birthday

2011-08-22T07:17:00.002-05:00

Good Morning! I hope everyone had a great weekend. I did. It was crazy busy but I had a lot of fun. I participated in my first 5K, taught a Copic class at my LSS, and had my parents visiting here for the weekend. Mom and I did quite a bit of shopping and Dad and Kip hang out and watched a movie. On Thursday evening we helped my little crafting buddy Samantha celebrate her 9th birthday. This is her birthday card. The image is from Shirley's 2 Girls and was colored with Copics. I added some glitter and brads and around the 9 on the number paper I added a circle of rhinestones. All the 9s on the paper were colored with a glitter pen that doesn't show up very well in the picture.

So I had three goals for the 5K. I wanted to actually do it, do it in less than an hour and not be the last person. I accomplished all three. I'm pretty happy with myself for accomplishing that. I will start working today training again so that I can beat my time on the next one!

Have a great day!!

Stitches-Real or Faux

2011-08-19T14:37:00.003-05:00

The challenge on the Sassy Cheryl blog this week is to make stitches, real or faux ones. Mine are of the faux variety since I haven't figured out how to use my sewing machine yet! My parents are coming up for a visit this weekend and if we have time I will see if she can give me some pointers. I used the Sassy Cheryl image Button Flowers Bag and colored it with Copic Markers. She has a couple of more of these that are similar with buttons. I really love buttons. I keep buying them too, almost every time I go into a craft store I leave with some buttons. Anyway, I just think these images are too cute. Since I am sewing machine challenged, I had to draw in my little stitches around the border of my card. One day I will learn to sew!

I did buy a machine a couple of months ago and a great book on teaching yourself how to sew. Yeah, I still don't know how to sew. I can do basic things by hand; like sewing on buttons, fixing a loose hem, that type of thing. I was fortunate enough to have my Great Grandmother for the first sixteen years of my life and she taught me to quilt by hand. So I have pieced quilts and actually quilted with needle and thread but am lost when it comes to using the machine. It is going to be a crazy busy weekend. I have my 5K in the morning, am teaching a Copic class right after that and then have my parents here for the weekend and will be taking Mom out to celebrate her birthday. If we have a spare minute or two I am going to see if she can at least get me started!

Halloween Challenge

2011-08-18T06:46:00.003-05:00

I just love Halloween. Everything Halloween too, all the images, the paper, the embellishments, the bite size candy, playing dress up, it's all fun to me. The challenge this week on the Simply Betty Challenge blog is Anything Halloween. It was so much fun to pull out all of my Halloween stuff for this challenge. While I was on vacation last week I even picked out a few new things. I think I have as much, if not more Halloween images as I do Christmas images. For my challenge card today I used Witchy Wednesday and colored everything with Copics and a little bit of a glitter pen. The papers, borders and saying are all from a K & Company pack.

Thanks for dropping by today!

Back to School Riley

2011-08-17T07:10:00.003-05:00

School is back in full swing here. I try and go eat lunch with my nieces every couple of weeks or so, something that we all enjoy. I am planning to go this Friday and thought I would tuck this card in Samantha's bento bag. It's just a little card to wish her the best this school year. She absolutely loves Riley so when I make her any type of card I almost always use a Riley image. It's funny that those are the images we both learned to use Copics on! She has a small collection of Ciaos, and started that collection with the colors she uses to color Riley images. All the papers are DCWV.

Last year I was looking for different ideas of lunches to pack for myself since I am not a big fan of a daily sandwich and discovered bento boxes. I showed them to Samantha and since she is not a fan of sandwiches either she loved the concept. I bought her a proper bento box so when I eat with her at school I always bring her one. It is kind of fun to surprise her with them. Mine are not as elaborate as a lot that we see online but she is happy with them.

Have a great day!

Card for a Soldier

2011-08-15T10:51:00.003-05:00

Hello! Today I have a card to show you that I made for the son of a friend that is serving in Afghanistan. I am putting together a card package for him and wanted to be sure to include a card for him letting him know that he is being thought of and prayed for and to thank him for what he is doing. I pulled out this image from S2G and colored it with Copic markers. I love this image and think it is perfect for lots of occasions to mark something important for a military person. I have had the paper and those jumbo eyelets for a while and don't remember where I picked them up at.

I am back from my mini vacation, rested and ready to play in my craft room. We were in Indiana last week and of course you know I had to stop by my favorite store in the world, Papertrix. That is one store that when I go in I just want one of everything! If you are ever close to Nashville, Indiana you have to stop by there. Great selection and great people.

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Thanks for all the encouraging remarks about my weight loss and the changes I have been making to become a healthier person. I feel great!! I don't really make New Year's resolutions but I do try and set a couple of goals of things that I would like to accomplish before the end of the year. One of the things that I have on my list is to participate in a 5K this year. My first 5K of the year (well, to be honest, of my life) is coming up this Saturday! This one was listed as a walk/run so I thought it would be a great one to start with. I am not quite able to run the full distance but since it is also a walk I know I can complete it. I don't have a time goal or anything, this time I just want to complete it. I know some of you read my other blog about my journey to getting healthy so you know the struggle concerning my back issues so you know what a big deal this is for me. I will post race day pictures!!

One of those Days?

2011-07-28T06:27:00.003-05:00

I love this Riley for the last circus release. Not only is it a cute circus image, I think it is perfect for some one that has maybe been under some stress lately. Or a "been one of those days?" type things. Everything is colored with Copics, papers are DCWV and the little triangles were some scraps that I thought would look good to show some motion.

Have a great day!!

Mermaid Card

2011-07-19T07:00:00.002-05:00

Hello! I have a mermaid card to show you today. Isn't she so sweet looking? This is an Elaine Cox image from Sweet Pea Stamps. Everything was colored with Copics and a white gel pen, papers, ribbon and pearl accents are from Hobby Lobby. The pearls came out of the bridal section. I have been very good staying out of the craft stores for the past couple of months. I had Jenna and Samantha over here the other day. Jenna was working on a summer reading project so we stopped by Hobby Lobby to see if we could find anything for her project. For once I couldn't think of anything that I had that would really work. The project was to make a travel brochure for a fictional cruise line that featured locations mentioned in The Odyssey. Yeah, I was fresh out of the stuff! Well anyway, since we were in Hobby Lobby we had to look at the entire store and I was surprised to find lots of new goodies, especially the jewels in the bridal section. I have to get one of everything! And since paper was on sale I had to get some of that too.

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I know it has been a while since I have posted. I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. I spent a little over a week with my parents in my home town during the last part of June/first part of July. Since I was going to be gone for so long, I didn't really want to broadcast that on here. I scheduled some posts while I was gone and for some reason the pictures showed up but no text. I never did figure that one out. I went to help my Mom work on some things around the house and wasn't online very much at all during that time.

When I came back, my creative inspiration was evidently still on vacation. I sat and colored a few things that I wasn't happy with and couldn't get a project to pull together at all. So I decided to take a week long break of no crafting. For an entire week I did not sit at the craft table, look at my craft supplies or even touch my Copics. I felt refreshed after that week was over and ready to craft again.

After that we have been having intermittent internet issues. It would work, then I would sit down to do something online and it wouldn't be working. It got pretty frustrating. Kip finally narrowed down the problem to a faulty splitter and after he replaced that the internet has been working just fine.

Also during this time I joined my local YMCA. I had been working out at home with the few weights I have and then walking on the treadmill. I knew it was time to add something extra to push my weight loss to the next level and I decided that the Y would be the best fit for me. I didn't know what to really do either so I worked with a trainer to get a routine in place. It took me a couple of weeks to build my endurance, but then I decided that I could really do this! Exercising has been taking up a big chunk of time lately. (that feels weird to even type that!). I am happy with the results--as of Friday's weigh in, I have lost 40 pounds. But it has taken me a little while to work that into the rest of my day without giving up something.

I will probably be posting about every other day until school starts back, but after that I will go back to my regular posting. Thanks for your patience! I'm off to visit the blogs of all my friends that I have been missing!

2011-06-30T11:45:00.000-05:00

2011-06-29T11:40:00.002-05:00

Doggie Hugs

2011-06-21T07:05:00.002-05:00

Hello! I have a cute little dog card to show you today. I think its funny that as an adult I have only had cats for pets but I have tons more dog images than cat ones! Maybe that is most of my friends are dog lovers or maybe I really want a dog! Right now, we have two cats and that is enough for our household. My card today uses an image from Shirley's 2 Girls and was colored with Copic makers. I used paper from DCWV's Pet Stack and ribbon from Hobby Lobby.

Las year after the water came into the house due to the flood a lot of my craft stuff got packed away in boxes. Well lots of stuff did, but I knew I had a big box of clear stamps that I couldn't find. Somehow that box got mixed in with some other storage items and I just recently found it. It is like Christmas! I have tons of older stamps that haven't seen ink in far too long. I am sure I will be posting lots of oldies!

Thanks for stopping by today!

Happy Father's Day

2011-06-19T08:44:00.003-05:00

I just wanted to take a minute or two to post a Happy Father's Day to my dad. I was fortunate enough to have a great dad growing up and am blessed that he is still in my life. I was such a Daddy's Girl growing up too. I love following him around everywhere he went. He was, and still is, there for me anytime I need him. I have lots of great memories of him and I together but there are a few special times that really stand out. On Saturdays I loved going to the dump with him. After dropping off the trash we would stop at a convenience store for a soda and candy bar. I remember following behind him planting seeds in the garden. He would dig a little hole and tell me how many seeds to drop in and I would carefully count out the seeds to make sure I had the right number . He coached my softball teams in elementary school and sold refreshments with the other band boosters when I was in high school. He has listened to me cry when I hurt and cheered me on when I doubted myself. He taught me to drive a car, how to shoot a gun and most of all he taught me right from wrong. He showed me what a great man is so I knew what to look for in a husband. I am a lucky girl, I have a great father.

I caught this picture of my dad and my niece a few months ago. I love this picture.

I have also been blessed with an amazing father-in-law. I was welcomed into my husband's family with open arms. He has made it very clear that I am his daughter and that I can count on him the same way I can count on my own dad.

Happy Father's Day!!!

More Camp Mail

2011-06-17T09:27:00.003-05:00

I have one more camp mail treat that I sent to my niece and nephew at camp this week. I had a lot of fun putting together these little treats for them and hope they have enjoyed them. Today's mail included a granola bar with a little Riley card. I used Campfire Riley, colored him with Copics and then added him to my little 3 x 4 card. Super cute and super easy!

Have a great weekend!

Camp Mail

2011-06-15T07:05:00.002-05:00

My niece and nephew are away at camp this week. We can send along notes and treats and the mail will be delivered to the kids and counselors each day. I remember when I would go away to camp, mail call was a very exciting time of day. So I wanted to put together a few little treats to send to them and a couple of the other kids that I know very well. The first one was these little Riley mini cards. I also included a great big bag of Life Savers for each child that could be shared with their cabin-mates.

I knew these notes and things would probably end up in the trash pretty quickly so I didn't want to spend a ton of time on them. For today's mail treat they are getting bottles of Gatorade and some chap stick that has sunblock in it. I just made a quick tag to hang over the bottle, stamped a quick little sun and then wrote them a note on the back of the tag.

Super easy, super quick and I hope the kid's enjoy my mail!

I know last week I said I would be back to posting regularly and then disappeared for a week! I went to do a post the next morning and there was no internet here. It was splotchy off and on all week and I couldn't get a post completed without losing my connection. I finally gave up in frustration. Kip finally figured out the problem was the splitter and got it replaced. That seemed to have fixed the problem so I am a happy blogger once again.

Have a great day!

"Wings" Challenge

2011-06-06T06:33:00.002-05:00

Happy Monday! Hopefully my crazy schedule is slowing down a little and I can post a little more regularly. I've missed playing along with some of my favorite challenges the past couple of weeks. The challenge on the In a Sweet Pea Dream this week is to feature something with wings. I used Meredith Dillman's "Broken Angel". I think she is just gorgeous, I love this image. Everything is colored with Copics and I added some sparkle to the wings with a Sakura glitter pen and used some liquid pearl paint to the image too. Thanks for dropping by today!

Another Sweet Pea Card

2011-05-25T07:09:00.003-05:00

Good morning! Ahh Wednesday, the week is almost over and we are heading into a three day weekend! It has just been so crazy all month that I hope to do nothing much this weekend other than finishing up a project. I have a ton of books, most all I have read once and will probably never read again so I am going through my bookshelves with the plan of reducing the number of piles of books beside the shelves. The goal is to get all the books actually on the shelves. What about you, anything exciting planned?

My card today used a Sweet Pea image by Ching-Chou Kuik. Image is colored with Copics, papers are from my paper stash and the ribbon is from Jo-Ann's.

Copics used: Skin-E00, E01, E11, Top- B21, B23, B24, B26, Tail-G20, G21, G85, Hair- E31, E33, E35, E37, E39

Boy with Frogs

2011-05-24T07:12:00.003-05:00

Good Morning! I am happy to be posting this morning because my internet is working. It has been only working intermittently over the past few days. This is a card I made last week. I have tons of girls stamps but not a lot of little boys so as soon as I saw this one from Penny Black I grabbed it. I think he is just too cute holding those buckets with the frogs peaking out. This is a fun image to color too! Everything is colored with Copics and the papers are DCWV. I love the definition of a boy that is on that paper. Boy: a noise with dirt on it. How true is that!

It's been very busy for us this week. After celebrating my birthday last week, we went to Chattanooga to celebrate the birthdays os two of my nephews. We have three nephews and all three have a birthday within two weeks of each other. Silas was having a big birthday party, his first with all his friends, to celebrate his 4th birthday and then the oldest, Cole, was celebrating his 16th birthday. My sister had to go to a wedding on Saturday night so Kip and I got to take Silas to the aquarium. It has been years since I have been there and Kip had never been. We had a lot of fun, even if we did run through it at a four year old's pace! His party with his friends was at a pizza place and all the kids got to make their own pizza. Great place and if you are ever in Chattanooga look for Pie Slingers, it was a fun place with amazingly good pizza.

Thanks for dropping by!

Black and Pink

2011-05-19T06:57:00.003-05:00

Hello! Today I have a card to show you using one of favorite stamp sets from The Angel Company. I probably use this set more than any other set I have and this is one of my favorite images from the set. It is a pretty simple card with minimal layers so it can go through the mail easily and only one postage stamp. I love gingham and polka dots together or separately. I combined those patterns in my new kitchen curtains too! Everything is colored with Copics, the scalloped ovals cut out using Nestabilities and I added some paper and ribbon that I picked up at Hobby Lobby. The little silver accents are from Michael's.

Have a great day!

Birthday Blog Candy Winner

2011-05-18T06:46:00.005-05:00

I am a little late on this! Thanks for all the birthday wishes everyone. I had a fabulous birthday. Here is the winner of my birthday blog candy:

Cindy said...

Gina, shouldn't you be getting gifts on your Birthday, instead of giving them??? haha This is a wonderful thing for you to do!!! I hope you have a great birthday!!!

So Cindy, please contact me and I will get you goodies out to you! I really hope you enjoy them, they are some of my favorite things. Also there are several unmounted rubber stamps in the mix, let me know if you want me to go ahead and put Aileen's Tack it Over and Over on them for you.

True Random Number GeneratorMin: Max: Result:8

Have a great day!

(If anyone knows how to copy that random.org box onto a post and make it look right, I would love to know the answer to that to file away for later! Also when I publish it, it reverts back to the 1-100 even though I put in the correct number to match the comments I had. Hmm, technology confuses me sometimes.)

Birthday Blog Candy

2011-05-16T17:00:00.003-05:00

THIS POST WILL REMAIN AT THE TOP UNTIL MAY 16. FOR MORE RECENT POSTS PLEASE SCROLL DOWN.

I have a birthday this month and I thought it would be fun to pull together some of my favorite things and do a Birthday Blog Candy including some of my favorite stamping/crafting things. Keep watching this picture because I will be adding to it. I will do a random drawing on my birthday May 16.

So far I have included 2 sets from The Angel Company, a couple of my favorite Riley images, 7 or 8 images from Sweet Pea Stamps representing several of the artists, a couple of Inkadinkado singles, some flowers, some polka dot ribbon, coordinating pink and red flowers and matching polka dot butterflies, some Joilee's birthday items, a "party like a rock star" cling stamp, butterfly clips and flower brads.

I know I have a few more things that I bought last week but that bag is buried on my craft table, you know how messy those can get. I will change the picture as the blog candy changes. I am going shopping today so there is no telling what I will buy! If I buy one for me, I am buying another for the blog candy and I am searching for a couple of things.

So what do you have to do for a chance to win? Just leave a comment on this post, followers will get two chances. If you are a follower of this blog please leave a second comment letting me know you are a follower for your second chance. That's it, easy peasy.

Dream

2011-05-11T06:40:00.003-05:00

Hello and Happy Wednesday. I think it is Wednesday, but I thought that it was yesterday too, all day I thought it was Wednesday. May is such a crazy busy month for me that I often can't remember if I am coming or going. Anyway, I do have a card to show you. I love this little Riley image, but to be honest, coloring it challenged me a little. Any time there are two objects that are the same color close together like the tree and Riley I have a hard time showing them as separate objects. It took me a while but I was finally happy with the results and think it looks like Riley is sitting under the tree and not like his is a growth coming out of the tree. I thought dream would be a perfect sentiment here and I found this metal tag that did the trick. Papers are DCWV and I used a Fiskars border punch.

Recess Riley

2011-05-07T08:19:00.003-05:00

Happy Weekend! It is absolutely gorgeous here in Tennessee today. I did all my "have to do" stuff yesterday so today is just going to be fun! I've already been in the craft room for a while this morning and later I am going to meet some friends for lunch and some shopping. On the Riley and Company challenge blog this week was to create something school related. I was having lunch with my nephew the other day at his school and he was ranking his favorite things about his school day. Recess made the top spot followed closely by lunch, so I used that for my inspiration. I chose to use Bouncy Ball Riley, coloring three images and cutting them out. Two of them are just adhered on top of each other and offset a little but the front one was added with some thick foam squares. The hopscotch paper is from DCWV and reminded me of the black top area of a playground. As I was sorting through a box last week and found those little bottle cap letters, they have been around a while so I don't remember where they came from.

Have a great weekend!

Sassy Cheryl's PINK Challenge

2011-05-04T07:07:00.004-05:00

Hello!! I am here today and playing along with the challenge on the Sassy Cheryl challenge blog. The challenge this week is PINK. I just love bunny images and use them all throughout the year, especially when I am making cards or anything else for my niece Zoie, she loves them as much as I do. Sassy Cheryl has some of my all time favorite bunnies too. I bought several new images a couple of weeks ago and have just now had time to sit down and color them. I love this one with the little ladybugs. After coloring everything with Copics, I went over the ladybugs with some Glossy Accents to make them really stand out and to give them a little dimension. Papers are DCWV, flowers and ribbon have been in the craft room for a while so I am not sure where they came from. Thanks for visiting me today!

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I posted that I was going to try and take a Jeep full of water back home to Bradley County this weekend to donate to the homeowners and volunteers doing clean up from last week's tornado. I sent out the call and man did everyone respond. It was a last minute call too, so I wasn't sure how many people would see the email before I needed to head out. I was hoping for a full Jeep and that is what I got. One more case and I wouldn't have been able to see out of my rear view mirror. It was just amazing. Since people were bringing 2-4 cases at a time and loading them directly into the Jeep I didn't even realize how many there were until we unloaded it. I was also collecting quarters to be able to give people to use at the laundromat. Friends brought all the water that you see below,plus another dozen gallons of water that didn't make it into the picture, $125 in quarters and another $65.00 to use at my discretion. When I went to church with my parents on Sunday they announced that they were putting together baskets of personal care items to hand out. So I took the rest of the money and spent it buying razors, shaving cream and band-aids. I was also able to help assemble the baskets. Here is the water:

I have seen the destruction from tornados in person many, many times. I had been seeing the destruction online but I wasn't quite prepared for what I saw. It was so much worse. Both of the hardest hit areas there were in the school zones where I attended school. I grew up running around that neighborhood, playing with friends. There just aren't enough words. Thank you again for all the prayers and concern. Please keep praying for all the people that lost so much, including nine families that lost a loved one there and all the others that impacted throughout Alabama, Georgia and Tennessee.

Update

2011-04-29T16:06:00.004-05:00

Thank you so much for the prayers and concern. I am headed back to my hometown this weekend to help family/friends with the clean-up. I have asked all my friends here for donations of water to take with me. Since Kip is unable to go, I can load my Jeep completely and just leave enough room for me to sit. I will be posting cards again next week. After the flood last year we were offered and received so much help and I want to do my little part and pay that forward. One lesson I learned from that is that even though I can't wield a chainsaw and move trees, there are a thousand other ways I can help, even if it is making sandwiches and passing out cold water. Thanks again.

Prayers Please

2011-04-28T08:42:00.003-05:00

I had a card that I was going to post this morning but after seeing all the destruction for yesterday's storms and tornados, I didn't want to post a happy cheery card because my heart is too heavy. Please keep all those affected in your thoughts and prayers. Lots of families are grieving today because of lost loved ones. Many other families will be facing some major financial hardships in the days to come. The area my family lives in was hit pretty hard and there are at least eight deaths in their town, most of them seemingly one street over from where my grandparents live. I was panicking a little last night because I was unable to reach any of them. Finally my sister called and let me know that they were all without power but they were all safe and that houses were intact. Phone lines were down and cell batteries were getting low. This morning I was able to speak with my parents, grandparents and brother. Lots of broken and downed trees, Mom and Dad are missing shingles off their roof, my brother's house only had broken trees, a few missing shingles and a demolished storage building, my sister and her family are fine. One cousin has some pretty major damage to one side of their house, but they are also unharmed.

Also, if you could remember the Robertson and Bryant families. I grew up knowing theses families and both have suffered losses in the past couple of days.

Thank you.

Oldie But Goodie April Blog Hop

2011-04-20T09:00:00.001-05:00

Hello and welcome to the April Oldies But Goodies Blog Hop! Hopefully you arrived here from Barbara's blog. I happen to be a part of the Designing DIVAS group. We originally started on Splitcoast but we also have a group on Facebook. The goal for this Blog Hop is to get up to pull out images and supplies that we haven't used in at least six months. I have been having so much fun doing this each month! Not only does it inspire me to look through my stuff for some something to use, lots of times seeing what the other ladies has created reminds me of stamps that I know I have too. So for me I get double the inspiration! If you would like to start at the beginning and hop along with us, you can start at Vickie's blog.

I have had this darling little Flopsy stamp since it was first released by My Favorite Things. I have had it forever and I don't think I have ever even used it! I know i have used my other Flopsy several times, but I can't remember using this one and it looked super clean. Image is colored with Copics and the papers are from Cosmo Cricket. I have had that paper packet for a while too. I love Como Cricket paper, but I hoard it. Seems too pretty to cut into.

Thanks for visiting me today. The super talented Linda is your next stop on the hop!

You've Got a Friend

2011-04-18T07:41:00.002-05:00

Good Morning! Another Monday, so I thought I would post something bright and cheery this morning, especially since it is also tax day here! If you have read my blog before, you know I love the colors yellow and orange. They just make me happy. When I am making cards to cheer someone up I reach for those colors a lot. This image is from Shirley's 2 Girls and was colored with Copic markers with a little orange Stickles in the center of the flowers. I added a panel that had been embossed with a Cuttlebug embossing folder and used ribbon from Target's Dollar Spot and paper from DCWV. Off to work now, have a great day!!

Get Well Card

2011-04-15T07:27:00.002-05:00

Good Morning! I am so happy that is is Friday! I am normally off on Fridays and can spend the day in my craft room, but we've been kind of busy so I am working today. I needed to make a get well card for my Aunt. She was in the hospital a week or so ago. She is home now and feeling much better but I wanted to send her a card to let her know I was thinking about her. A while back when I was visiting home, I had brought my Copics and a bunch of images that I had stamped. She is into scrapbooking, but not cardmaking or stamping. She watched what I was doing for a few minutes and I asked if she wanted to join me. Well, you know how addicting Copics are so you can guess the rest of the story! We colored for most of the afternoon. After I left she went to Hobby Lobby and bought her first ones. Then the next week she bought a couple of more. Then she ordered a set or two. Then my Uncle called just to "thank me" for getting her hooked on stamping, markers and making cards. She still spends most of her time scrapping, but likes to color too. The Magnolia images are her favorite so I knew that is what I had to use to make her a card. It is rainy and gloomy here so getting a great picture was just not happening. Everything is colored with Copics, paper is DCWV, lace and pearls are from my stash. Thanks for visiting with me today!

Fluttering Butterflies

2011-04-13T07:06:00.003-05:00

Hello! Ahh, it is the middle of the week. Now that spring is getting closer and closer, I am loving my time on the weekends. It's been nice enough most days to enjoy my coffee or tea on the patio with a good book, I just love that. My card today used Fluttering Butterflies, which is a Ching Chou Kuik image for Sweet Pea Stamps. I decided to go with a more black and white look here, even deciding to leave my background white to make the image and the vibrancy of the orange stand out even more. Everything was colored with Copics and the papers are from DCWV. resturaunt

I have an odd question; does anyone make their own crackers? We used to go to a resturant that served freshly made crackers while you were waiting for your food. My Dad and I were telling Kip about it a while back and I have been craving them ever since. I found a great recipe for a whole wheat cracker, but am looking for a white cracker that has been tested by someone. In my quest to eliminate most all processed foods from our diet, I have been having fun experimenting with different foods like that, foods that I normally purchase without a second thought, just because I have always bought them.

Have a great day!

Happy Monday!

2011-04-11T06:45:00.002-05:00

I had another great weekend, lots of fun and relaxing time. It was another weekend full of movies for us. Over the course of the weekend we watched Hanna at the theater and on Netflix we watched An Education, an episode of the original Mission Impossible, and Food Inc. Kip bought the disc of Tron: Legacy, so we watched that too. Then last night I hung out with my MIL while Kip worked on my FIL's computer and we watched part of a TV movie. We don't normally see so many movies in a weekend, or at least I don't! I taught a Copic class at the LSS too. Great times!

I have another easy-to-mail card to show you. I used an image from Shirley's 2 Girls, I knew this would be a perfect image to use for any of my dog loving friends. I colored everything with Copics and used one of my favorite color combos; pink and gray. Have a great Monday!

New Baby Girl

2011-04-07T06:55:00.003-05:00

Hello! The challenge this week on the Riley and Company challenge blog is "For the Girls". Perfect timing for me since one of my friends just had a baby girl and I needed to make a Congratulations card to send them. I always forget how tiny new little babies are! She is just precious and every one is doing great, Mom and Dad both say she is just so easy going. I used my brand new image Bundle of Joy. I made sure I ordered this stamp on the night of the release to make sure it would be here and I would have plenty of time to make the card and then get it to them soon after the baby arrived. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to make them a card with this image.

Image is from Riley and Company, papers are DCWV, buttons are American Crafts, floss is DMC, and the chipboard heart is from my stash. Copics used: E31, E33, E35, antlers-E37, E29, blanket RV10, Rv11, RV14.

I am really making some progress using things I have on hand and not buying too much new stuff. The chipboard heart on this card has been in my stash forever! I mean, at least six or seven years. For some reason I buy lots of chipboard embellishments, but I seem to rarely use it. So look out, you might be seeing lots of it in the future!

Spring Sweet Pea Card

2011-04-06T06:23:00.003-05:00

Hello! I am so happy to be seeing signs of spring around me in Middle Tennessee. I love not having to wear a coat. I pulled out some of my warmer weather clothes this weekend and was inspired by all the brighter, prettier colors that I saw. The challenge on the In a Sweet Pea Dream blog is to make something that reminds you of spring. One of my favorite spring/summer color combos is pink and orange, add my favorite color yellow to that and you have this paper! I had some problems getting a good picture of this for some reason. Those pink accents and the piece of pink framing the card and image are the same color. I don't know why it looks like I used three different pinks. I tried to adjust the colors and edit the photo, but everything I did made it look worse. I tried retaking the photo too in different light, but they still look different, so pretend with me that it all matches! The image is a Ching Chou Kuik image from Sweet Pea Stamps called Black Haired Lady and was colored with Copic markers. Papers are DCWV (I think), ribbon is American Crafts and the little accent pieces were cut out using Nestabilities.

Have a great day!

Fan's Cricket

2011-03-31T07:00:00.002-05:00

Good Morning! It is almost Friday, yeah the weekend is almost here. Anyone have exciting plans? The Downtown Library is having a Scottish celebration on Saturday and I think we are going to try and go there for a couple of hours. According to the schedule it looks like there will several different events going on, so that should be fun and something a little different. Since we are trying to be healthier our eating out isn't happening very much so we have been looking for alternatives that allow us to go out and do something fun without blowing all our hard work during the week. Then on Sunday Kip is going to see Rush in concert and I may plan a girl's night with my SIL.

Now on to the card! The challenge this week on Mo's Challenge Blog is Buttons and Bows. I used the image Fan's Cricket for my card today and colored her with Copic markers. My bow looks a little dark here, I have a hard time photographing bows when I use black ribbon. The paper is from DCWV's Far East paper pack. I love that paper and think I bought at least two of all the sizes it came in, its definitely one of my all time favorite paper packs. The ribbon and the bows both came from Hobby Lobby, I think. I have had those buttons forever. I bought a huge bag of black buttons to make some projects with a long time before I started stamping. I found the bag when I was organizing my stuff last month. Oh the things we find when we clean!

Hopping Down the Bunny Trail

2011-03-30T06:46:00.003-05:00

I am so excited that I am finally starting to see some signs of spring around here. Even though it has rained for the past few days, it has still been much nicer now that the mercury is moving up on the thermometer. One of my favorite things to do it sit on the porch in the mornings or evening with a good book and a cup of tea of coffee. It is time that I can do that again, and for that I am grateful. I have been pulling out spring papers and embellishments too. I love this little House Mouse stamp and wanted to make sure it gets plenty of use this year for Easter. It was colored with Copics, I used DCWV papers, a Fiskars grass punch and some ribbon from Hobby Lobby.

My husband and I were talking last night about musicians that we really like. He is going to see Rush in concert this weekend and he was saying that he couldn't really pick a favorite song of their because he likes them all. So we were talking about musicians that we like that we just love every song. Like ABBA, love them, and sometimes I will hear a song by them and that that one is my favorite, then the next song and that one becomes my favorite. Harry Chapin, Tom Yarbrough, Johnny Cash, John Denver and Dolly Parton are some of my faves that just have so many songs I love. House Mouse stamps are like that for me too, I think I have a favorite, but every time I see one that one is my favorite.

Have a great day!

Clean and Simple Card

2011-03-29T06:57:00.003-05:00

Hello and welcome to my little corner of the blogging world. I have a Clean and Simple (CAS) card to show you today. In my quest to fill a box with cards that are easier to mail, I have been making more of these CAS cards. I have a friend with a birthday coming up pretty soon that loves quilts and quilting so this is the birthday card that I have made for her. I really like this set from Papertrey ink, it has lots of different types of quilt blocks in it. It is another one of those sets that I bought and had lots of ideas of how to use. Sadly, it hasn't seen ink in a while though. I have plans to make a couple of note cards sets with these stamps so hopefully you will be seeing them a little more often.

Stamped image and sentiment is from Papertrey ink, colored with Copics. The paper and ribbon come from my stash and I am not sure when or where I got them.

Have a great day!

Balloon Riley

2011-03-24T06:44:00.002-05:00

Hello! The challenge this week on the Riley and Company blog is a sketch challenge. I decided to use one of my newest Riley stamps for this one. Of course I love Riley, but I also love his little balloon bouquet that he is hanging on to. For some reason, I just love images that have balloons. I think they just remind me of happiness. I remember being a little girl and every once in a while we would go somewhere and come away with a helium filled balloon and those were always happy places so I just always associate balloons and happiness and they always make me smile!

My card uses the sketch provided on the challenge blog, I used Balloons Riley, colored with Copic markers, DCWV papers, a Fiskars border punch and some star trim from Making Memories. The sentiment was cut out using Nestibilities and the sentiment is from CTMH's Solos S set.

March Oldies But Goodies Blog Hop

2011-03-23T07:00:00.005-05:00

Welcome to our Designing DIVAS Blog Hop! Each month we have a blog hop using those supplies that haven't seen any love and attention in a while. You should have arrived here from Mary's blog, if you want to start at the beginning you can visit Melissa and then click through the hop. I love the idea of these blog hops. For me personally, this is a great challenge. It gives me a little more motivation to look for and use things that I haven't been using. This is one of those stamps. I love the House Mouse images and love ice cream so when I saw this one I needed it. I can't remember the last time I used it though. I think it was last summer when I was coloring with my niece Zoie, I'm pretty sure that was the last time it saw ink. I was visiting with my parents and had taken my Copics and a bunch of images that I thought Zoie would be interested in playing with and we spent the better part of an afternoon coloring. I don't know how happy my brother was after that because she wanted a set of Copics for her birthday!

Image is from House Mouse and colored with Copic markers, papers are DCWV, buttons are American Crafts, and I used some DMC floss in the buttons.

Thanks for visiting today. Your next stop is Angie!

Good Monday Morning!

2011-03-21T07:00:00.003-05:00

Good morning! Finished up a great weekend, beautiful weather, lots of relaxing time, got to see a couple of movies, did a little window shopping, hung out with the hubs and even snuck in some crafting time. About perfect I would say! I love taking a book and a cup of tea outside and getting lost in a book, now that the weather is starting to be a little nicer. I am definitely in the mood to work with some spring colors too. I put away all my winter papers the other day and pulled out a bunch of pastels and anything else that reminded me of spring and this is one of the cards I made. Everything is colored with Copics, the dotted paper is DCWV and the ribbon and floral paper came from my stash and I don't remember where they came from.

It was a movie filled weekend for us. We went to the theater and saw The Lincoln Lawyer and then watched The Big Lewbowski, See What I Hear, and From Paris with Love on Netflix. More movies than I normally watch in a weekend for sure.

Have a great Monday!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2011-03-17T06:00:00.002-05:00

Hello and Happy St. Patrick's Day! I hope you remembered to wear green today. I taught preschool for many, many years and would always remember to do that otherwise I would have gotten pinched a thousand times a day by a bunch of eager 4 year olds! Today I am even wearing my leprechaun socks. My card today features Good Luck Riley. The challenge on the Riley and Company blog is to make a card using St. Patrick's Day as your theme. Riley is colored with Copic markers, papers are from DCWV, flowers are from Michael's and the fiber is from The Paper Studio.

I have a funny story about St. Patrick's Day cards. Back several years ago, before I started making cards, I had befriended a couple of older people at my church. Sometimes I would pick them up for special events we would have, especially if they were at night and they wanted to attend. One gentleman in particular later developed some health problems and didn't get out as much. I have always enjoyed sending cards and as someone that spent extended periods of time recovering from multiple back surgeries, I knew how much a card can mean. I started sending him a card at least once a month. In March I sent him a St. Patrick's Day card and he thought that was the greatest thing ever. He loved all the cards I sent but he had never seen one for St. Patrick's Day before. As he got sicker and I would go visit him if other people were there he wold always mention that specific card. Making cards for St. Patrick's Day reminds me of him every year. It also reminds me to take the time to send cards because for someone that isn't able to get out very much, they really are something special. Mr. William passed away several years ago, but he taught me a lot and getting to know him really enriched my life. So today my challenge for you is to send a card to an older person or anyone else that you know could use a cheery hello.

Bunny card

2011-03-14T07:39:00.003-05:00

Hello! I hope you had a great weekend. Mine was pretty good, lots of relaxing time and time in my craft room too. Losing that hour of sleep on Saturday night was a little rough though. It always takes me a couple of weeks to adjust when we change the time in either direction. On Saturday I taught a Copic class at my LSS and then Kip and I went to see his niece and nephew in their elementary school play and then we had a nice dinner out. My card today uses an image from Inky Antics. This is one of my all time favorite images to use for Easter. I love bunny images anyway and this one hugging those little chicks is just too cute. Everything is colored with Copics and I used papers from DCWV.

Copic Colors Used:

Bunny - E31, E33, E3f, E37, R20

Chicks - Y00, Y06, YR04, YR07

Pink and Green Angel

2011-03-09T07:25:00.002-06:00

Hello! I am still working on building up my stash of standard A2 size card that can go through the mail a little easier without incurring additional postage charges. If I have to pay extra postage for each card then I end up sending out fewer cards. I still make lots of the others but most of those will either be mailed in a box with other goodies or hand delivered. This angel image is from Karen Lockhart stamps and is one that I actually colored a while back using Prismacolor pencils. I need to pull my pencils out more often, I enjoy coloring with them but more often than not I find myself reaching for my Copics when I sit down to color. Jenna and Samantha use the pencils far more often than I do now, especially Jenna. The papers are from Making Memories and then I used a Fiskars lace border punch.

I want to say a big thanks to everyone for the encouraging comments on my Fitness Journal. My SIL loved it. We have both started the 5K training program and that gives us both something to record our progress in. We have gotten most of the family on board with us too. I can't wait to see that changes in all of us. I do have another blog that you can get to from my sidebar that details my journey to a healthier life.

Journey to Fitness Journal

2011-03-07T06:43:00.003-06:00

I have mentioned on here a couple of times about starting to make changes to be a healthier person. So far, I am doing pretty good on starting healthier habits. My SIL has been doing some of the same things in her house. We were talking the other day about what has been working for me, traded some recipes and some tips. Her kids are doing a program that will log the miles that they run at school that allows them to participate in the Music City Marathon, and they will actually run the last mile of the children's marathon on race day. Well one thing led to another and I told her I had a goal of competing in my first 5K race some time this year. I found a program online From Couch to 5K and we challenged each other to start this training program. Yikes, other people know my goals and that makes me more accountable! Plus a little good natured competition is a great incentive for both of us. Since her kids are already training at school, we decided to challenge the rest of the family too. Hopfully before the end of the year we can all compete together as a team.

I made myself a journal a while back to track my progress, my Riley Get Fit Journal. I decided to make a journal for my SIL to record her progress too. I started with this image from Mo Manning. I thought this was a fun image to encourage our weight loss goals. As I was going through some papers, I found that black and white number paper and decided it would go great on this journal. I have had these punch out letters since I first started scrapping and the colors matched perfectly. For some reason in the photo they don't stand out as much, but IRL they are a little easier to read. Thanks for stopping by!

Brown + ? Challenge

2011-03-02T07:32:00.004-06:00

The current challenge on the Riley and Company blog is to use brown and another color. I love working with browns and I had bought some new paper at Michael's last week that I thought would work. Then while I was looking for paper for another project I found this brown and blue polka dot paper that I decided I would rather use. While I was going through my Riley stamps trying to decide which one to use I saw this and it made me think of spring. I love sitting outside with a cup of coffee and a good book. Outside a coffee shop is even better! This stamp always reminds me of doing that. In between thunderstorms over the past week or so we have had a couple of very nice almost spring like days, hopefully with more to come. Thanks for visiting me today!

A Couple of Weekend Projects

2011-02-27T22:37:00.004-06:00

Hello! I hope everyone has had a fantastic weekend. Mine has been wonderfully relaxing! We went and saw a performance of Chess in Concert, saw a couple of movies and just hung out. I also got to spend some quality time with my Copics in my crafting area. Michelle Perkett is having a design team call, info can be found here. I decided to use one of my all time favorite images of hers, Willow the Autumn Fairy. She is gorgeous colored in autumn colors, but I love coloring this image with a variety of colors. Right now I am in a blue/teal mood, so those were the colors I chose to work with for this card. I love pairing those blues with black too. I added some satin ribbon, some pearls and some Prima flowers to complete my card. Her wings were painted with Twinkling H20 paints.

(Copics used: Dress - BG000, BG01, BG02, BG05, BG07, BG09, Hair - YR23, YR24, E07, E19, E29, Flowers - RV21, RV25, RV29, Leaves - G20, G24, G29)

I also decided to make this journal using another one of Michelle's images. I made this for the preteen daughter of one of my friends. Pink and green are her favorite colors. After coloring the dragonfly with Copics, I traced over all the drawing lines with a glitter pen. I added ribbons that can be tied to keep the journal closed and some pink and green blingy flowers along the side. Thanks for visiting today!

Apron Card

2011-02-25T09:11:00.004-06:00

Happy Friday to you all! I am off today but have a ton of errands to run and will start the day at the Jeep dealership getting one of my windows repaired. My MIL is going to go with me and drop it off and then we are going to do a little shopping and have lunch. It is so convenient that the Jeep place is across the street from Michael's and within a mile or two of both JoAnn's and Hobby Lobby! Not to mention all the other stores that we both enjoy shopping in together. I have been so busy lately with my kitchen re-do that I haven't had a ton of time in the crafting room. I am hoping to get some needlework pieces done this weekend and then once I get them framed and on the wall, I think I can call the kitchen pretty much done. I am so happy with the way it is coming together and will post pictures as soon as I get it finished.

Since I am going with a kind of retro theme in the kitchen and using some aprons as part of the decor, I was inspired to pull out one of my apron stamps by Karen Lockhart. I know I have at least one more from her and a few in digi form too. I am thinking of making some wall hangings using some apron images and coordinating papers to match the fabric I picked out for the curtains. This image was colored with Copics and I used DCWV papers.

I love aprons and even have a couple of the short ones that were made by my great-grandmother and passed along to me by my grandmother. My mom bought me a new apron for Christmas this year and when I was at Michael's last week I found a cute little apron for Samantha to wear when she is here cooking with me. If you have a budding little chef at your house, they have a bunch a cute, useable, kid sized cooking tools.

Thanks for dropping by!

Two Cup Morning

2011-02-22T07:13:00.002-06:00

I loved this stamp the first time I saw it, but once I read the sentiment, I loved it even more. The monkey is too cute clutching his two cups of coffee, wearing his PJs and little bunny slippers. That is me in the morning just about any day though, it takes at least two cups of coffee to really get me going. I picked that DCWV paper because of all the circles reminded me of coffee rings. Thanks for dropping by to see me today!

Feb. Oldies But Goodies Blog Hop

2011-02-16T09:00:00.001-06:00

I can't beleive it is already time for our next Designing DIVA Oldies But Goodies Blog Hop. The idea of this hop is to pull out some of your older supplies that haven't see any love in a while. Since I have been sorting through all my craft stuff, I am finding all kinds of things like that! You should have arrived her from Cindy's blog and if you want to start from the beginning you find start at Brenda's blog. If you do, I can guarantee you won't disappointed, there is some serious talent in this group.

Now on to my card. I have had this stamp for a very long time, so long that the manufacture's name is kind of unreadable! I love this image but for some reason it had gotten lost in the back of a drawer. After stamping the image, I colored it with Copics and then added some yellow Stickles to the center of each bloom. To finish it I used some purple ribbon that was at the very bottom of my ribbon holder and some little pearls. The paper is from a DCWV stack that I have had for a very long time. Other than the pearls, everything on here is an "oldie but goodie". Your next stop on the blog hop is Heather.

I have decided to make more standard A2 size cards from now on. I will still make larger ones when I am making something specific that I know I will be seeing the recipient in person, but I realized as I was going through my card stash, I have lots of 5x5 or even 6x6 cards and since those cost more to mail, they end up not getting mailed at all. I do like to send out my cards but have a limited budget for stamps and postage and I have decided I would rather send more cards to hopefully brighten the day of more people and I can do that if I stick to that standard size. Or does anyone have any suggestions for cost saving ways to mail the larger cards?

Thanks for stopping in today. Remember Heather is your next stop on the Oldies But Goodies Blog Hop!!