It's a boy thing, sort of.

I'm a girlie-girl. I admit it. I hate getting dirty. I'm a nationally certified firefighter, but only did it because I thought I had to in order to keep my EMT certification. I was the first one to rush home and shower after the drills. You could sometimes catch me in the bathroom, trying to scrub the soot off before we even went back to the station. Yucky stuff, that soot. As a gag gift one year, the guys got me some washcloths. Yeah, I don't like dirt. I don't like to garden. Too much dirt. You get the picture. So, when the Elphine House blog posted their latest challenge and called it "It's a boy thing," well, I was not so sure about how I'd handle that. Then I saw that it's just a color challenge, to use the boyish combo of green and blue. Hey, I like color! I can do that! I even intended to use one of Elisabeth Bell's boy images. I really did. I promise, I have a few. However, I already had this little girl colored. She's one of my older Elisabeth Bell stamps, and I'm not even sure where she came from. Whiff of Joy, maybe? Something just made me want to get her down onto a card. She's just so precious. Check her out:

She's cute, huh? I colored her ages ago. I mean, AGES, probably 1-2 years ago! As for the rest of the card, the papers and flowers are K&Co, the sentiment is Stampin' Up, and the lace is from the Dollar Tree. The background paper looks yellowish in this pic, but it's actually lime green. I'm going to enter this card in the Elphine House challenge, then send it on to a dear friend who is going through some scary health issues right now. As always, thanks for stopping by!

Stay tuned for a RAK of HUGE proportions!

Hey, all of you bloggers out there! It's coming up on my 40th birthday (gasp!). For some reason, I didn't have any issues with 30, but 40 is freaking me the heck out. I am trying to focus on the positive though, like my recent lifestyle changes to get healthier, my financial independence, upcoming trips, and my awesome friends and family. In fact, the generosity for my birthday has already started. My birthday is not until March 14th, but my cousin is already planning on taking me snow tubing over the weekend of the 17th. Another friend and I are going to NYC in April to celebrate both of our birthdays, and she has done a large portion of the planning (that's a bigger gift to me than I can express, let me tell you). Another friend just bought me the 12 new copics! Still others are just entertaining me and trying to convince me that 40 is not the halfway mark of my life and I am not old.

Anyway, with all of that generosity flying towards me, I figure I'll pay some of it forward. So, I'm putting together a RAK for my birthday. I'm trying to include a bunch of my favorite crafty things, and maybe some not-so-crafty fun stuff, too. So far, the RAK includes:
lots of ribbon and twine
a spellbinders nestabilities die set (lacey squares, I think it's called)
a Ching Chou Kiuk stamp
a Tim Holtz movers and shapers die (birdcage and bird)

I plan to add lots of other stuff, too. In fact, I'm going to keep adding to it until March 1st, which is when I will post it here on my blog with a description and picture(s). I'll make it easy to win, too. All you'll have to do is post a comment to the RAK post and put a pic of it in your sidebar, linking back to my blog. You don't even have to become a follower, because I only want you to follow me if you like my work, not just to win goodies. So, stay tuned for my RAK post on March 1st!!! You'll have from March 1st til the 14th, to enter!

Sweet Sale at Sweet Pea Stamps!!!

I'm just popping in really quickly to tell you about the super sweet sale over at Sweet Pea Stamps. 40% off your entire purchase. That's an awesome deal!!! The link is in my sidebar on the right. Check it out! Better hurry, the sale is only for 18 hours!

And just to give you a taste of the awesome images Lynette carries in her store, here's a bunch of cards I've made with them in the past, using images from various artists.

Go ahead, it's okay! Clutch your pearls!!!

It's time for another challenge at Guylou's Inimitability. This time around, we WANT you to clutch your pearls. Yeah, I know, it's often a derogatory term to call someone a "pearl clutcher." In this case, though, we will applaud you for it. My dear friend Brenda is hosting our challenge and she wants us to make a project using lace, and...you guessed it...pearls! Now, we're calling this a "girly girl" kind of challenge, but only because it involves pearls and lace. You don't have to make a feminine card. In fact, I challenge you to think outside the box.

Here's my example:

As you can see, I used both lace and pearls, but my card is not about being girlie. It's a bit early, but Merry Christmas! LOL. I keep thinking to myself that if I can make a few Christmas cards per month, I might actually have enough made by December to actually send them this year. We'll see.

My card uses one of Guylou's wreaths that I cut with a spellbinders circle die, then added another spellbinders die behind it. I colored the image with watercolor pencils, so the leaves are a very light green. Then I used liquid pearls to make the berries. I used my copic opaque paint a bit liberally on this card, too. It has a bit of a vintage feel, I think.

Now it's your turn. Go ahead, clutch your pearls! Upload your project to Guylou's Inimitability by March 1 at 10 pm EST. See the GI blog for details on prizes and rules.

It is official. I am nuts. Excited, stoked, exceedingly happy, and...nuts...

I found out today that I have been invited to be a guest DT for a challenge at Belles n' Whistles. Since I'm not shy about telling you (and doing so repeatedly), I know that you realize what a huge fan I am of Elisabeth Bell's work. I own more than half of the stamps in the Belles n' Whistles store. Love, love, love her stuff! So, here's where the crazy comes out. I read the blog post and let out a yelp. Then I got an overwhelming urge to pee (ok, TMI). After my trip to our scary, high school reminiscent bathroom, I came back into the offices and rushed to tell one of my buddies. She started yelling with me. So, I'm in this big office space, jumping up and down and screaming, "yay! yay! yay!" My supervisor comes out and asks, "what in the hell was that noise?" Well, she said something a bit more PC, but you get the idea. I tell her my news, she says how happy she is for me, but she still can't figure out what noise I was making. At this point, the noise is a cross between laughter and yelps of happiness. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I let the crazy out. And at work, no less. The people here have long suspected that I am neurotic. Well, okay, they know it, because I embrace my neuroses and parade them before the world. Now they also know that I am not only neurotic, but batshit crazy on some other scales, as well. Not to mention being almost 40 going on 4. Yeah, that inner child came out, too. If there was some ice cream in this joint, I'd be celebrating like it was a birthday.

I entered this card in their Frosty challenge:

It's a card I made for a friend's birthday. I posted it to my blog last month. This card was one of those ones where I just started with an adorable image and started slapping stuff down on the card until it "looked right." Do you ever have days like that? You know the ones, where you don't really have an idea in mind, so you just keep playing with the paper and embellishments until it clicks? Well, it worked out great for me, so if you've never tried it, give it a shot. It might work out great for you, too! In fact, give it a shot with this month's love and hearts challenge at Belles n' Whistles. Come on, I dare you!

How about some cheese with that whine?

I'm feeling a bit whiny today. My cats are acting like idiots, hissing and growling at each other. My abs hurt from my workout class last night. I'm hungry, but there's nothing I want to eat in my house. I rented movies from the RedBox last night but now I don't feel like watching them. You know, typical poor-pitiful-me, I'm just a whiner because there's nothing seriously wrong whining. (and yes, I realize that many, many people have it worse today. I just feel whiny!). I don't feel sad or depressed, just whiny. My intention for this weekend was to make a ton of Mother's Day cards for Operation Write Home. It seems way too early to make Mom's Day cards, but I understand why they need them now. They've got to get organized and shipped, and it takes a while for stuff to make it to our troops sometimes. I just can't get into the groove of making them this early, so that's yet another whine. Mr. Mojo took a flying leap off a building today, or maybe he took a vacation to Hawaii, I don't know. He's not here, though. Another whine. I decided to power through his absence and my mood to make a few cards, anyway. My cousin spoiled me for Christmas and got me the Grand Calibur and labels 1. I used a coupon and got Labels 4, too. Although I unwrapped this fabulous gift about two weeks ago, I finally got the chance to pull out the machine and play with it today. I wanted to make a shaped card. My friend Brenda is the queen of shaped cards. In fact, it's her fault that even had the Grand Calibur on my Amazon wishlist. She really inspired me with her cards. You can check out her work HERE.

I colored tons of images over the last year or so. Some of them have just been sitting there, waiting to get slapped onto a card. This was one of them. Even though she is one of my favorite Elisabeth Bell images, it took me a while to get her placed on a card this time around.

I wanted to add flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts, but refrained since this card is for OWH. When the cards are too thick, they can't fit as many in the box that goes to the base, so I try to refrain from using overly thick embellies. That is very hard for me, and it caused me to discover that I don't have many flatter embellies in my stash!

The image is kind of cold weather-ish, with her heavy sweater and long pants, but since Mom's Day is in the spring, that wouldn't work. So, I used floral paper and butterflies to invoke warmer weather thoughts.  I used a butterfly punch, a half of a doily, and some pearls to fill up some empty areas. The colors are actually a light peach and sage green, but for some reason, it looks more orange. This card opens twice. The shaped area opens to reveal a note for the soldier's mom, like this:

And then the rectangular background opens to form a blank area for him/her to write a letter to mom. I made another card shortly after this one. Maybe I'll get up the energy to show you that one later. For now, I think I'm going to go chill out for a bit and see if I can shake this mood. Maybe I'll have some cheese and crackers. It would suit my whine. As always, thanks for stopping by. Hopefully, I won't be acting like such a spoiled brat the next time you come for a visit.