Reach for the Stars

Good Morning! I hope everyone here in the US has a great Thanksgiving. We certainly did! In addition to Thanksgiving we also celebrated Kip's birthday. Some of his family from Texas flew in to Nashville in time for his birthday dinner and then stayed for the holiday. I have been off of work since Wednesday and man, was it hard to get up and get going this morning!

My card today is one that I have made for Card Cupids. I am getting a box ready to go out tomorrow and this is one of the "happy mail" cards I will be sending. They are also asking for "Winter Wishes" cards and I am trying to get several of those done as well. HERE is the list of current card requests.

Have a great day!!

Smile

Good Morning! I can't believe the middle of November is here already. This time of year just seems to fly by for me, so many birthdays, the holidays and our anniversary all happen in the later part of the year. The 15th also brings a new Card Cupids Challenge. Our sponsor for this challenge is Just Some Lines. This was a new company to me, and I enjoyed looking around at all of their images. My card uses an image called Birdday. I like that this image is versatile enough to use for lots of card occasions. I colored the image with Copics, used paper from DCWV and some ribbon from my stash.

Have a great day!

Hello Bumblebee

Good Morning! I have another card to show you for the current Card Cupids "TOO CUTE" challenge. Our sponsor is Di's Digis and I am using an image called Hello Bumblebee. I have always been fascinated with bees and as soon as I can move to a house where I have a little more room, I will have honey bees. My Dad is a bee keeper and I am so jealous! But I know I will have a great resource when I do get my own bees. So when I saw this image, I knew it was one that I wanted to work with. The image is colored with Copics and a little of a glitter pen on the bee's wings. 

We hope you will join our "Too Cute" challenge.

Current Card requests can be found HERE.

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Other than crafting and cooking, another thing I do a lot is read. I always have a book with me and I have a wide range of interests that I like to read about. One of my favorite authors is Patricia Cornwell. On Saturday she was here in Nashville talking about her new book and signing copies of her books. I talked my Dad into coming up for the weekend to go with me since he really enjoys her books too. We went on Saturday afternoon and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. She was such an engaging speaker. I have been to several events like this and book signings and she was by far my favorite. I am glad my Dad was able to make it too. He had never been to anything like that before so it was a new experience for him. I am glad it was such a positive one!

Have a great day!

Card Cupids Too Cute Challenge

Good Morning! I have a new Card Cupids Challenge to share with you this morning. The challenge is a simple on--the theme is "TOO CUTE". For this challenge we are sponsored by Di's Digis. I chose this image called "Hello Ladybird" because I love ladybugs and I thought this was "too cute" since the little girl is wearing a matching polka dot dress. The image was colored with Copic markers and the paper and brads are from my stash.

We hope you will join our challenge.

We have had several requests for cards lately and you can find the complete list HERE.

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The winner from the Card Cupids celebration posts is Tammy! Please contact me with your email info and I will get your prize to you.

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I wasn't around much last week because we went away with Kip's family for the week. We rented a cabin on a lake and spent the week relaxing. I didn't take my laptop or my iPad and tried not to get online too much with my phone! I took a ton of art supplies and paper, a couple of books and some card games. All together there are ten of us; me and Kip, his sister, her hubby and two kids, Kip's parents and his uncle.  We had a pretty good time. I opted out of the fishing and boating to spend more time with my sketch pad. It was a great break for all of us. Here is a picture of the view from the front porch of the house:

Fall is here and so is Fall Baking!

I love, love, love this time of year. I love everything about fall, the lower temps, colors, and all the reasons to BAKE! For some reason, this card reminded me of all the things I love to bake, not just pies. This image is from The Stamping Boutique and was colored with Copic Markers. This was a card I made for the current Card Cupids challenge, which was sponsored by The Stamping Boutique and is a color challenge. 

Have a great weekend!

October is here!!

Good morning! Today is October 1st so that means we have a brand new challenge on the Card Cupids blog. The Stamping Boutique is our sponsor this month and I chose to work with this witch image. I love Halloween and couldn't think of a better image to the start of my spooky month. Image is colored with Copics, paper is from DCWV(I think) and I added the purple star brad in the corner from my stash. We would love for you to join our challenge and send in some happy mail to brighten the day of a child. 

HERE is a great thank you from a Mom after her daughter received a Card Cupids box. 

HERE is a list of the current card needs. 

Have a great day!

Yellow and Green

Good Morning! I have another card to show you that I made for the current Card Cupids Challenge. This challenge is a sketch challenge provided by Sketch Saturday and was sponsored by Sassy Cheryl. I think this image is just adorable. I remember working so hard to learn how to blow bubbles when I was a kid and this reminded me of showing off my new skill to everyone I could. 

We would love for you to join our challenge, you can find all the details here.

Current card requests can be found here.  

Have a great day, gotta run or I am going to be late for work!

Card Cupids Challenge--A Sketch

Good Morning! It is time for our mid-month challenge over at Card Cupids. Our sponsor for this challenge is Sassy Cheryl. In additon to this we are also participating with Sketch Saturday who shared their sketch with us. They also shared some of our Card Cupids DT cards to their blog as well. 

Here is the sketch we followed:

For my card, I used the image "Noah and Patches" from Sassy Cheryl and colored it with Copic markers. I was really happy to receive this image to work with becuase I have found that I am seriously lascking in images to make cards for little boys. I have to admit though, that the teddy bear totally intimidated me, I haven't ever really colored one that I was happy with. Even though I have seen lots of images with them I usually shy away from them. I am very happy with the way this one turned out!

We would love for you to join our challenge. Simply create a project with the avobe sketch and link it to our challenge post. 

Want to brighten the day of a child? Here is the Card Cupids list of current card requests. 

Card Cupids Halloween Challenge

It's not too late to join us at Card Cupids for our Halloween Challenge! Bugaboo Stamps is our sponsor for this challenge and I have used and image called Halloween Brat Pumpkin. Image is colored with Copic markers and I use candy embellishments and paper from my stash of Halloween stuff. We would love to see what your take on the challenge is, so create your Halloween project and link it to our challenge. Also HERE is a list of the current card requests. 

Have a great day!

Card Cupids Halloween Challenge

Oh my goodness, I can't believe that it is September 1st already. August is always one of those months that just drags by for me, but this one seems to have flown by. And since it is a new month, that means we have a new Card Cupids challenge! The challenge is a Halloween challenge and Bugaboo Stamps sponsored this challenge. For my card, I chose to use Hween Brat Witch, she is colored with Copic markers, I used paper from my Halloween stash and some buttons and baker's twine.

We would love to have you join our Halloween Challenge!!

(end of the challenge info, the rest of the post is just me musing about Halloween and memories)

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Do you make Halloween cards?

Do you send them out? I don't send out Halloween cards like I send out christmas cards, but I do use a lot of my cards. If you notice, most of my cards do not have sentiments on the front of the card. One of the reasons is that I use a lot of my cards as general note cards. I try and make sure to send thinking of you or encouraging cards and lots of thank yous. So most of my Halloween cards get used that way, if I need a card for any of those reasons, I will use a card without a sentiment and write my message on the inside. Pretty much any card that goes out for any reason other than birthday during the month of October will probably be a Halloween card (although I do keep in my friends that do not celebrate Halloween for whatever reason).

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I absolutely LOVE Halloween. I probably  have more Halloween stamps, images and papers than I even do of Christmas and the other holidays combined. I love the fun of dressing up and all the fun that goes with it. I was so excited when Kip and I got married and I moved into his house because we actually had trick or treaters! This is the first place I have lived that I have had more than just a couple, I have lots of very small kids too, so I don't do scary, just fun. Another reason I love Halloween is it reminds me of my Mamaw. She loved seeing all the kids that would come to her house each year and made each child feel like they were actually the ghost, super hero or whatever they were dressed as. Doing something that she loved doing reminds me of her and how much fun I had with her. 

Oddly enough though, she passed away on Halloween and I thought I would never, ever be able to observe Halloween without being reminded of my grief. It took a couple of years, but then I realized that it would be a way for me to kind of honor her by doing something that brought her so much joy. And now instead of Halloween being a reminder of loss, it feels like a connection with her. I don't know if loved ones look down on us, or observe our lives or not, but I like to think that when I am passing out candy and admiring costumes she is with me and she is once again smiling at all the kids in their costumes. 

I always have Smarties in my bucket of things to pass out too, because so did Mamaw. She was allergic to chocolate and would make sure that was passed out first so that if she had leftovers, she could actually eat them and Smarties were a favorite of hers.

Card Cupids Box in the Mail

I thought I would take a minute and show you the box that I am going to be mailing to Card Cupids today. I have included some crayons, some coloring books, craft activities, bookmarks, a couple of journals and some coloring kits. I also added cards for all the children from the Current Card Requests page. I pick up things here and there as I find them and when the box is full, I send it in. Right now is a great time to pick up notebooks for journals and crayons since most stores are still having their big school supply sales. I have been hitting the sales when I can because I can get more things for my money, and hopefully bring smiles to even more children. 

I have learned though, that I don't have nearly enough boy stamps! I have mostly little girls and older boys in my life and it definitely shows in my stamp collection. If I didn't have Rileys, I don't know that I would have anything to use for boy cards. You can see Batman Riley peeking through the vellum envelope. I tend to make a lot of 5 1/2" x 5 1/2" cards and sometimes can only find the vellum ones in that size, but I kind of like that you can see the card.

Here are some of the book marks I made to include in the box:

(using some of my older sets--a couple of Hanna Stamps sets, a Basic Gray dinosaur set and the ladybugs from The Angel Company)

I have shown these journals before but since they are in the box, decided to show them again. This one uses an image from Michelle Perkett:

And this one uses an image from Clear Dollar Stamps. 

Thanks for visiting with me today. If you would like to learn more about Card Cupids, click here.

To see the current Card Requests, click here.

To learn about items Card Cupids sends in their Happy Mail packages, click here.

(I felt like a phone recording for a minute there!)

Little Red Riding Hood

Good Morning! Here is another card I made for the Card Cupids "Anything Goes" Challenge. For this challenge Milk N Coffee is our sponsor. This image is called Tiffany as Red Riding Hood. I colored the image with Copics and a little Stickles on the bow on her basket. I used a Nestability to cut out the panel behind her. I decided that just the black panel was too much behind my image on that dark paper and cutting it out in red would wash out my image. I decided to glue the black piece onto red card stock and then hand trim, leaving a red border. I was pretty happy with the way that looked.

We would love to have you join us for our current Card Cupids challenge!

Here is a list of the current card requests.

Have a great day!

Waiting on a Letter

I have another card to show you using an image from Milk N Coffee, who so generously sponsored our  current Card Cupids challenge. The image is called Charlotte and Her Love Letter. I love the sweet little look on her face Milk N Coffee has several other images featuring this sweetie. 

We would love to have you join our "ANYTHING GOES" challenge! 

Have a great day!

Going Fishing

It is time for another Card Cupids Challenge! And this one is an easy one, it is "Anything Goes". We also have a new sponsor for this challenge, Milk N Coffee. I used the image Let's Go Fishing for my challenge card.  We were given several images to work with and they were all great, but this was one of my favorites. I love that sweet little face. I don't have a lot of images that are perfect for little boy cards, but this one is. The image is colored with Copics, papers are Cloud 9 Designs and the twine and buttons are from my stash. 

We would love for you to play along with the challenge and remember "ANYTHING GOES". A couple of people have asked about sending in cards for Card Cupids and here is the link to find out all the information on donating cards. And here is another link that lists the current card requests. I know these cards are very much appreciated by the recipients and thank you for taking the time to send in your cards.

Anyone have great weekend plans? I am excited because I am going to a class on making handmade books tomorrow. Making and altering books seems to be the theme of my summer. As soon as caning season winds up I will have something fun to look forward to.

Have a great weekend!

Another Card Cupids Card

I have another card to share for the current Card Cupids challenge. The Card Cupids are being sponsored by Fresh Brewed Designs and the challenge is to use any shade of blue or make a birthday card for a child. The image I used is called Grace Summertime. I remember my nieces wearing little outfits like that when they were little and this image reminded me of my niece Zoie. She has always loved being in the water. 

I hope you will join our challenge!



And a big "THANKS" to Lorraine and Becky for the suggestions to help with the problem commenting on blogs. I updated my browser and no more problems! It was weird since it was only certain blogs that I couldn't comment on, the others has no issues at all.

Card Cupids August Challenge

Wow, can you believer it is August already?? Since it has been so warm here, it seems like summer has been going on forever, but here, schools start today. I know some of my friends are pretty happy about this and others dread the coming school year. My youngest nephew will start kindergarden this year, I guess he really is a "big kid" now.

Since it is the first of the month, Card Cupids has a brand new challenge! This challenge is sponsored by Fresh Brewed Designs and I am working with the image called "Fairy Sweet".  The challenge is to use any shade of blue, or make a kid's birthday card. I think this image is just so cute and would be great for any girl birthday card. I coloed the image with Copics, the paper is from DCWV and I  added some little red sequins that I had in my stash.

I hope you will join us for our Card Cupids Challenge!

Card Cupids Challenge

Good morning! It is time for the Card Cupids mid month challenge. For this challenge, we have a brand new sponsor, Wings and Willows. Lots of cute images in her shop, you should check it out. The challenge is "WINGS" and I chose to use this image called Rainy Day. We would love for you to play along with our challenge and help brighten the day of a child by dropping your card in the mail. Remember the challenge is "Wings" and you can interpret that any way you like!  Image is colored with Copics, with some Glossy accents, papers are DCWV and brads from my stash.

I hope you are having a great weekend. Mine has been pretty awesome. I went to a crop on Friday night and had lots of time to color and visit with some friends and met some new one too. The rest of the weekend has been all about canning! I bought a case of cherries at Whole Foods the other day so I have been pitting cherries for seems like forever! I have also made Strawberry Jam, Strawberry Margarita Jam, Plum Jam, some Cherry Limeade Concentrate and then canned the rest of my cherries so that they can become pies, cobblers or whatever later.

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Card Cupid Blog Hop Winner

I have a winner from the Card Cupids "Meet the DT" blog hop. And the winner from my blog is Karin! Please send an email to info@cardcupids.org to claim your digis.

Thanks for all the great comments on my blog post.

Grow

I have another card to show you that goes along with the Card Cupids challenge "Summer Fun". Isn't this image from Pholkart Blessings just adorable? For me, part of summer fun is planting and growing flowers and veggies. I love being outside in the dirt. My husband chuckles and calls me a "dirt nerd" because I can spend a lot of time out there getting dirty and if you ask me about my compost bin, I will talk forever! I grew up following behind my dad in his garden and it has never left my system. It's funny, because normally neither my Dad or me enjoy talking on the phone that much. Until the garden is planted that is. From the time things are blooming we are on the phone almost every day. Since his garden got in the ground early, he is already enjoying his veggies and he calls me every night to tell me what and how much he picked that day. The phone conversation is usually followed up with an email with photos too!

Would you like to a chance to win some Pholkart Blessings images of your own? For a chance to win two images all you have to do is play along with the Card Cupids Summer Fun challenge. We also have a new request for cards that was posted yesterday.

Have a great Day!!

Card Cupid's Summer Fun Challenge

Welcome to another Card Cupids' Challenge! This challenge marks the first month that we are doing two challenges. For this challenge we are being sponsored by Pholkart Blessings and the challenge is SUMMER FUN. I know when I think "summer" I think of water so I chose to work with this adorable mermaid for my challenge card. We hope you will join our challenge for a chance to win some Pholkart Blessings images of your own. My card uses the image Mermaid Girl and it was colored with Copic markers and some pearl paint for her necklace. Papers are from DCWV, and I added some little clear baubles that I bought at Michael's a while back.

Thanks for stopping by today!!