First Mother's Day EVER

I'm not sure how many of you remember the little elephant envelope I made for my friend Tiffani months ago, to hold her card and a gift that a bunch of us gave to her and her husband, Dave. They are adopting their son from Ethiopia. They received his information over a year and a half ago and have been waiting anxiously and knocking down the walls thrown up by some unscrupulous, greedy people. Well, their day is finally here. They are currently on a flight back home, with their son Eli in tow. I am so excited for them, I can hardly stand it. I decided that she deserves a special Mother's Day card for her first Mom's Day ever.

Eli's room is done in blue and brown, with elephants. I had to use a more teal-y blue to match the paper, rather than the actual color in his room. Tiffani also loves owls, so I tossed a little owl on here, too. This is the card I made for her:

This is a round card; the pink is actually my cutting mat. I colored this cute little Stampendous elephant with my copics. The greys didn't blend as well as I'd like (I went too dark) but I think he's still cute. Papers are Bazzill and Echo Park. I cut the squares, clouds, and banner with my dies, and paper pieced the balloons. I popped them up a bit with pop dots. I used punches to cut out the sentiment, which is from an old Stampin' Up set that I've had for years. The fence is Jolee's, I believe (it's been in my stash for a while). I used stamps from Stamp Hideaway to create the grass and flowers under the elephant's feet. The little bow is from AC Moore's wedding section. I embossed some of the papers with the Swiss Dots folder. I think that's everything! I had a ton of fun making this card. I cannot wait to see Eli, Tiffani and Dave tomorrow! It's also what would have been mine and Rick's 15 year anniversary, so I'll head to the cemetary after the airport, to give him some flowers and reflect. Now if this rain would just stop, it'd make my travels a lot easier!!!

Have a wonderful Mother's Day. I hope you have someone in your life who will pamper you this weekend.

Yay, yay, yay!!! Did I say, "Yay!!!"

Finally!!! I can do the happy dance (feel lucky that you can't see it. I have no rhythm at all). I will be the guest DT member for Whimsy's rubber stamp release in June! I am beyond excited. I can't wait to get started, play with new goodies, and showcase my work alongside such a talented DT. What an honor. Yeah, my cats are looking at me funny, as I do the excited butt wiggle and try to type at the same time. Not an image you want in your head, I'm sure, so let's move on to other things.

What are you doing for your mom (or the mother figure in your life) for Mother's Day? And if you're a mom, what are your family's plans to spoil you? We took my mom to dinner last night, as she will be out of town as of tomorrow morning. I had fun coloring an image for her Mom's Day card while I was visiting my friend Sara over the last few days. I kept the card clean and simple this time. Gimme some kudos, please, because you know that is hard for me. And to keep a card CAS and actually like how it turned out? Well, that's pretty much a miracle!

Ok, ok. I'll shut up and show you the card.

The adorably sweet image is a Wee Stamp by Sylvia Zet from Whimsy. Isn't she precious? I added flowersoft after coloring her up with my copics. Sara and I critique each other's work as we color, which is awesome. I love that, and I love that we can bounce ideas off of each other and learn from each other. Well, she advised me to blend her hair a bit more and I said no. Man, I'm an idiot sometimes. Yes, Sara, I am saying that you were right. Oh, well. My mom liked her, and that's all that matters. And I actually like the overall design of the card, which is shocking. I really do have such a hard time with CAS cards and admire the people who do them so well.

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope your Mother's Day is fantabulous!!!

Third time's the charm!

Or wait, is it the fourth time for me? Hmmm....I can't remember. Anyway, I'm trying out once again to be a GDT on the Whimsy Team. There's a multitude of reasons to give this spot another shot, but I'll just give you a few: 1) they're talented, which means it'd be an honor to have my work showcased with theirs; 2) it's a chance to express my creativity on a wider scale; 3) I love Whimsy's products. They have wonderful artists designing for them, with things like adorable stamps, pretty papers, and fun dies. It'd be fun to play along with all of the cool new products!

I made this card below with one of their newer stamps, illustrated by the immensely talented Elisabeth Bell. As you know, I've been a fan of hers for a really long time. My dear friend Sara blessed me with this stamp for my birthday. Isn't she too cute? And even though she has a little bunny and chick friends, I think she's great for occasions other than Easter. In this case, she's showcased on a Mother's Day card:

In real life, the colors are a little brighter, but it's too dark right now to get a picture in natural light and I won't have a chance to do so before the DT call is over. Darn work, expecting me to be there during the day! LOL. Anyway, this cutie is called Strawberry Swing, and you can find her HERE. I colored her with copics. Flowers are Prima and the Dollar Store. Papers are Fruit Stand from Doodlebug. The bow is seam binding. I used  die to cut the vines and I got the doily in a lot off of ebay. I think that about covers it!

This card is also for the following challenges:
Critter Sketch: use buttons
Cardabilities: sketch #73
7 Kids Challenge: April Showers bring May Flowers
Simon Says: Anything Goes
Totally Gorjuss: Ribbons and Pearls

As always, thanks for looking. I hope you had a fantastic weekend! (Oh, and wish me luck, please!)

Edited to add: Many thanks to those of you who clicked on the link to my card for the Cardabilities challenge. Thanks to you, I was a featured designer. You rock! THANKS!

Love is in the air!

...and all of that sappy stuff. My adopted baby brother is getting married in less than a week. I call him my "adopted" brother because he is really my brother-in-law and I have sort of taken to calling him my second younger brother. I love the guy and I am so happy for him. He gets upset with me if I don't make him a card; I never hear the end of it if he gets a store bought card from me. So, tonight I set about making him and his bride Kerry a card just for them.

This is what happened when I sat down in my craft room, music playing, a cat at my feet, and just let things come as they would:

Papers are My Mind's Eye Breeze. I chose them because the wedding colors are yellow and grey. I added the pop of red flowers with the flower soft, since he requested some red in their wedding. I'm not sure how Kerry has adopted this color into the scheme. I guess I'll find out on Saturday! Anyway, the cardstock is Bazzill. The image is Sarah Kay for Stampavie. I bought it simply because it reminded me of Kerry and Squid (that's my nickname for him). I purchased it and the grass and tiny flower stamps from my favorite stamping store in PA, Stamp Hideaway. Heidi's store is well worth a visit. She makes her own stamps there; the little grass and tiny red flowers are exclusive to her store.

I'm digressing again. That's nothing new, I know. The image was colored with copics. I mainly used Y13,11, and 00 as well as C5,3,1,and 00 for their outfits. I cut out a lot of shapes with my dies and punches, threw on some buttons, lace, and pearls, tied a bow with some seam binding, and ta-da!

Thanks for visiting. I hope you had a fabulous weekend. This card is for the following challenges:
Oozak - anything goes with pearls, lace and ribbon
Simon Says Stamp Challenge - April Showers OR spring flowers (I obviously used spring flowers)
Papertake Weekly - Bingo. I chose punches, free space, and ribbon

Seas the Day

I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. I normally spend Easter Sunday at my aunt's house, then rush over to my inlaws' for dinner. Unfortunately, my aunt was not able to host this year due to multiple circumstances beyond her control. I was pretty disappointed, but totally understood her dilemma. I decided to turn the day into something good, which means I slept in, lazed around a bit, and did some crafting.

I have awesome friends who remind me in many ways of how amazing and thoughtful they are. My friend Sara is one of those. For my birthday, she gifted me with two stamps that I really wanted from a recent release at Whimsy. Shelly is one of those. She just makes me smile, chillin' on the rock with her little turtle friend. I was able to visit Sara a few weeks ago, where I stamped off my new images and colored them up. However, I didn't get the time until yesterday to put her on a card. Check her out:

Isn't she precious? As usual, she's stamped with Memento Ink on XPress It paper, then colored with copics. Patterned papers are a mix of American Crafts and Simple Stories. The cardstock is Bazzill. Sentiments are from CC Designs and Whimsy. I also used multiple dies on this card, some magic mesh, ribbon from my stash, and cheesecloth.  

Here's a close-up of the image, because she's just too cute:

I added bling to her hair and fins, glossy accents to the turtle shell, and liquid pearls to her hair and the rock. I also threw on a few adhesive pearls and used a sharpie pen on their cheeks.

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:
Pretty Little Ribbon - spring is in the air (to me, this image says warm weather and I hope the colors make you think of spring)
Cutie Pie Challenge Blog - Favorite Film (I love anything by Disney, so the Little Mermaid it is!)
Simon Says - Anything Goes
Sweet Stampin' - Go Girly


As always, thanks for stopping by! Happy spring!

Loss and other yucky things

Sorry I haven't posted in a bit. It's been a rough two weeks. My gram was ill and passed away last weekend. My aunt was hospitalized. Nine people in my family got the nasty GI bug. My trainer moved on to another gym (minor in light of my gram's passing, I know, especially since I can keep in touch with him). It was not a fun period, let's just say. I like to look at the positives in even the most negative situations, though. I got to be with my Gram when she took her last breath. I got to hold her hand as she moved on. I have been reminded once again of how many supportive, caring people exist in my life, as the messages of condolence continue to come in and people continue to offer their assistance. My friend gave me a sign for my desk that says, "God only gives us what we can handle. God must think I'm a bad ass." Yeah, that about covers it.

Anyway, before all of the illnesses happened, I sat down and made Matt (my trainer) a quick card to thank him for all he's done for me in the last six or so months. He's a great guy who is awesome at what he does. He's encouraging, compassionate, and yet a bit of a hard ass when he needs to be. He needed to be with me, because I'm stubborn and cranky about the whole working out thing. I think I cursed more than his macho male clients! In fact, I know I did, because he told me so. The poor guy put up with a lot of BS and excuses from me while managing to push me in the right direction. So, I yanked out some of my new Stampscapes stamps and made him the following card:

Masculine cards are so hard for me. That's one of the many reasons I love the Stampscapes line of stamps, because they are quick, easy, and make awesome cards for men. I also like that they still look striking even when they are not colored. In fact, I'm kind of intimidated about coloring them. I mainly use my copics on people and animal images, not so much on these detailed nature images that need a lot of shading and attention to light source. I guess that should be a new crafty resolution of mine: stamp off and then actually color a stampscapes scene. Heck, I'm a bad ass. I can handle it. I think.

Hugs for my friend

I'm scheduling this post to show up on Saturday evening, so let's hope it works! Blogger hasn't really been showing me much love lately, so I have my concerns.

Anyway, I'm off to go see my friend Sara this weekend. I was in the mood to play with an image I colored a while ago and when I found this sentiment in my stash, it just seemed perfect to go with her. What do you think?

This is one of those instances where I can't share the copic colors with you, because I colored this cutie from CC Designs over a year ago. Sorry about that! It's also one of those cases where I threw everything but the kitchen sink at the card and just decided to see what looked right enough to stick it down. Who am I kidding? That's my usual tendency! It's how my craft room ends up being such a hot mess after I make one lousy card!!!

Anyway, thanks for stopping by. I hope you have a fabulous weekend!!!

I love creative days

My original plans for yesterday were canceled, so I had some spare time to sit down at my craft desk and create. For once, Mr. Mojo was visiting during one of these times! Hallelujah. I might have chased him off again, though, since I didn't feed him any chocolate, chips, or other delicious snacks. This trying to eat healthier thing sucks sometimes.

Anyway, back to it.

I took a class at Stamp Hideaway with the awesome Sharon. She has boxes of Stampscapes stamps, and taught me how to use them. Thank you, Sharon! I am now addicted. Of course, I had to buy some of my own. The card fronts for the cards below were actually made using her stamps, though. I just had to take a few minutes to mount them on cards.

I love how you can leave them in black and white. I think they look striking that way. Each scene takes several stamps to create, but it's actually quick and easy once you learn how to do it. Makes for fast cards when you need one in a hurry.

Then I had colored some images ages ago and used those to get some more cards made. It's time to send in Mother's Day cards for Operation Write Home, so that they can get to the soldiers in time to write notes and send them back home. I made more cards than those pictured, but I don't want to overload you too much. Here's a sampling of the cards I made with some images I'd precolored:

As usual, I tried to keep them kind of flat for ease of mailing. All images were colored with copics.

Thanks for stopping by my blog. I hope you'll consider taking some time out to make a few cards for Operation Write Home. Enjoy what remains of your weekend!

Hippity Hopping, Easter's on its way!

My aunt hosts Easter at her house and she goes all out. A pinata, games and crafts for the kids, a huge spread of food; you know, all of the stuff I suck at doing because I hate entertaining. I have fun at her house, though. It's a blast and a highlight of the spring season. I try to make her a cute Easter card to thank her for all that she does. This year, I had a hard time. I picked my image and colored it to match the papers I'd also found for it. I was excited, because the DP was perfect. Then I cut it all up, put it on a card, and decided to finish it off with some flowers. Not a big deal, right? I use flowers a lot. Well, this time, they didn't look right and because I had put them down with KI Gloo, those suckers were not coming off without taking half of the card with them. Damn you, KI Gloo, for being so strong! So, I had to start over. Luckily, I had just enough scraps left to make another card. Here it is:

How cute is that paper? The image is pretty darned cute, too. Wanna see it? Here you go:

It's a digi from Whimsy. I love the mama with her babies. Or, in this case, the grandma with her grandbabies. My aunt has 5 grandchildren. Just perfect, right?

Image colored with copics, as usual. Papers are New Bug in a Rug's One Fine Day. Ribbon and flower clip from my stash. Little silver pearl studs from Recollections. I got the charms on ebay ages ago.

I'm entering this in the following challenges:
Whimsy Stamps: use metal
Oozak: Anything goes with spring

Whimsy DT application: Some call it "determined"...

...I call it like it really is: I'm stubborn. I rode a mule named Willow back in September, while visiting the Grand Canyon. They warned me that she was stubborn. I told them she'd met her match and away we went. Well, sometimes, like recognizes like. Willow and I got along fabulously.

I'm digressing again. This post is yet another attempt to make it as a guest DT member at Whimsy. One of these days, it will happen. Maybe not last month (okay, definitely not last month), maybe not this month, but at some point, maybe. Hopefully. I am stubborn, so they're not getting rid of me with one little no.

Not only is their customer service phenomenal, but I love the stamps and have quite a few already. They're so much fun to color and always inspire me to create. Who wouldn't want to design for a company that makes you feel that way? Plus, their DT does some pretty amazing work. So, even if I don't make the GDT spot, I'm still inspired. That's always a good thing.

On Sunday, I took a class on never-ending cards. Now I am hooked and have begun several that are only awaiting embellishments. That's the hard part for me, because the embellies need to stay kind of flat and I like those big, fat, dimensional kind. After staring at this card for a while, I finally remembered that I had a hole punch and a signo pen to make some tiny circles, plus some cool punches, tiny little Jolee's flowers, and even a flat sticker or two that came in the paper pack. Voila, here it is:

The front. Sentiment is from My Sentiments Exactly. That cute little kitten is from the Playful Kittens set at Whimsy.

Open it up to this view, where you can write a little note to the recipient.

Then this one, where you get another cute kitten.

And finally, this one. Yep, it's another cute kitty!

All kittens were colored with the C's, mainly C3, 1, and 0. Cheeks, paw prints, and ears are R20 and R000. Flowers, butterflies, and hearts are RVs. Papers are Echo Park "Happy Easter" collection.

 

This post is already picture heavy, so rather than adding more cards to show some variety, I'll just link back to my last DT application. Here you go!

 

Ok, now I'm anxiously awaiting an answer. Oh, I guess I didn't mention that I'm stubborn and impatient!!!

 

By the way, can I at least get some kudos because I finally managed to make a fancy fold card without messing it up?!? I am fancy fold challenged.