You Lift Me Up!

Here is a card I made using Cuppie Love Scenes which was inspired by me & John last year!  I think these cuppies in the hot air balloon are so cute and I paper-pieced the hot air balloon with Cosmo Cricket Early Bird papers.  I used some moonlight smooch and starfire glitter on the clouds.  The image with colored with copics and the ribbon is green apple satin 5/8” {the color is out of stock but there are other colors available in the store, it is great ribbon!)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Over your head…

Well today is the big moving day for us!  As promised, I said I would schedule a few posts while we move so you don’t think I’m not around anymore *smile*  I’m so bummed I have to sit out another Gina K. Designs release previews which start on Sunday evening at 10 p.m. on Gina’s blog {there are snippets right now of the sets, go check them out!  I hope you don’t miss the previews, you will be wowed with the designer’s samples and the illustrator’s sets just like always!  I do have some of the sets but did not have a chance to stamp with anything since I was trying to get us all packed!  I hope to sneak it at the party that’s scheduled for Thurs, Sept 30 7:00 – 10:00 p.m. CDT! 

Here is a card I made using You Are Not Alone, the one you get FREE when you purchase 3 sets in the store!  It is a very inspirational set with encouraging sentiments like the one I used to stamp on my card.  I love what this says, “Whatever you feel is over your head is always under God’s feet” and that’s true!  Sometimes life or situations can be so overwhelming when you go through trials but if you believe in God, you can trust that He is still in control and He already knows you will get through whatever it is you’re going through! 

I absolutely adore the colors I chose for this card: Kraft, Bubblegum Pink and Turquoise Sea!  The new turquoise ribbon is just beautiful and look how great the romance collection and turquoise mix buttons match {I put some small pearls on the centers for a feminine touch).  I chose to stamp with white pigment  ink on kraft and color the image with prismacolor pencils (I think it’s one of my top favorite things to do with stamping!)  Don’t you just love the pretty Victoria cuttlebug folder?  It’s one of my favorite ones!

Thanks for stopping by!  I will be back soon (no internet until Monday at the new house, though – that will help us focus on getting settled in!)

C4C55: Make a Wish

I hope you had a great weekend; I did but it went by way too fast!!  Friday night was a blur, Sat we went to my company picnic and geocaching which were both fun; we both tried skeet shooting for the first time and my team one in he tug of war! Sun we out to the house to drop off a few things and check on the status of the landscaping, see the floors in person and check on the gates which were NOT up (so disappointing) and ran a few errands.  I can hardly believe we are moving in just 6 days – I feel like I’m not ready physically but definitely am mentally if that makes sense.  

I guess you may have come to my blog to see a new creation though, so here it is!  I got my new TE stamps which includes the new Giving Tree charity set called Make a Wish, in which $7 of the sale of the set will go to the Make a Wish Foundation through the month of November.  This foundation is great because it grants the wishes of children with life threatening illnesses.  I used this week's sketch challenge at the Crazy 4 Challenges blog {C4C55}, I thought it would be fun to showcase all the fun Imaginisce B’day bash papers in the Make a Wish Project Pantry kit by TE. 

I love all the ribbons, red glitter dots, chipboard and dimensional pearls in the kit which I used as the chocolate frosting on my cake {here is a close up of the dimension & richness of it – yum!}

I’ll schedule a few more posts from now until we move but once Sat. rolls around, it will be a few days until we have internet at the house, guess it will give me some time to ‘focus’ on getting unpacked!   Thanks for stopping by – hope you have a great week!

Wild earth colors & a few house pictures!

Don’t you just LOVE Melanie’s new Wild at Heart set for Gina K. Designs?  I do – another fabulous big background set with beautiful sentiments!  However, on my card I chose not to put a sentiment because I wanted the pumpkin colored blooms to take center stage!  I stamped the image with white pigment ink onto kraft cardstock and colored the blooms with a prismacolor pencil, then layered all the image on pumpkin spice and chocolate brown cardstock.  I then used some Jenni Bowlin pearl flowers for the centers of the blooms and finished off the card with some chocolate mix and orange mix buttons from my Gina K. button jars that I finally got – have you seen how CUTE these are and how many buttons you get for just $5.95??!!?  Like 70 to 100!  What a deal!  Can’t wait to move into my new space and show them off (of course I plan to get all the colors!)

Speaking of earth colors, it’s my vision to decorate our new home in earth colors, part of the plan to bring the outdoors in since the ‘Earth’ is the ‘outdoors’.  We’ll have to see how that goes, promise to share some pictures with you along the way though!  Here is a picture of the front of the house where the hardscaping was done, in preparation for our planting mid-October. In about 4-5 areas around the house we are going to plant Creeping & Upright Rosemary, Pineapple Guava, Dwarf Buford Holly, Lantana, Lariope, Texas Sage (I think), Crossvine, and Jasmine.  I think I remembered it all.  I’m so excited about our plan to have something blooming all year there and I am finally going to get my hands dirty again (I totally could have at any of our 3 previous homes but they never seemed as permanent as this one so naturally I feel the desire here!)

Here are a few funny stories about me and dirt as a kid – I loved playing in the dirt especially before I was going to take a bath.  My mom said that once I took all my clothes off, I would sneak out the back of the house to play in the dirt real quick and sometimes the neighbors would see me.  I also used to LOVE making mud pies (and on occasion would eat them) and to this day, LOVE the smell of mud, not sure why but I do!  Oh and in high school, my friend and I got in a mud fight after school when it was raining, it was HILARIOUS and FUN oh my goodness!  We even captured the memory with a picture. 

Hope you have a great weekend!  Tomorrow we go to my company picnic at Reunion Ranch – fun!  On Sunday we are going to go out to the house and move a few things in (I’ll take more pictures).  Next Sat. is the REAL move in date!  Can’t wait!

With a Cherry on Top…

…isn’t everything so much better with a cherry on top?  Here is a card and little note/picture holder clay cupcake I made using  Sprinkled with Love by Taylored Expressions!
Have you signed up for this month’s Blast from the Past customer blog hop with Taylored Expressions?   You need to use a TE stamp set released June 2010 and prior for this one (click on the link and you can get a list of all stamp sets you can use) and this is one of them!  Taylor always draws a random winner from the participants (non-design team members of course) to get a FREE TE stamp set of their choice and always chooses one of her favorite cards to be featured in the next newsletter!  Today is the last day to sign up!!
Making a clean & simple card, I used some prism papers, a circle nestability die, crystal twinkles and some white opal liquid pearls for the cupcake frosting and red pepper dimensional pearls for the cherry on top!
Thanks for stopping by – hope you have a great day!!

Gina K. Lean On Me Hop

 

I got my new Gina K. stamps!!  I was so bummed I was not able to participate in last month’s release because of moving preparations and now discovered I won’t be able to this month again because we definitely have a move date of September 25th!  I promise to be ready to go for October’s release because I really miss being a part!  Since I got my new stamps, though I am able to participate in this blog hop! 

Lean On Me {which comes with a free card kit} is such a beautiful collection of solid flowers and encouraging sentiments that I was looking forward to using one of my favorite techniques; stamping with white pigment ink on kraft cardstock and coloring with colored pencils over it.  I used this week’s color combo in the challenges at StampTV because it is so striking: yellow, brown, kraft and red.  Isn’t it a gorgeous combination?  I have to admit I may not have chosen these colors together without Janice’s idea!!  Have you ever played in the challenges over there?  It’s free to become a member and you have one week to upload your project in order to be eligible to win some GKD stamps (if you use GKD stamps in your creation, you get 2 entries in the drawing!).  The cardstock colors I used are: Sweet Corn, Red Hot, Chocolate Brown and Kraft. I also used some ribbon from the Autumn assortment and copper nail heads for a simple embellishment.  I also sponged around my focal image with tea dye distress ink.

For even more inspiration with the Lean on Me stamp set, please visit these talented ladies' blogs below:

• Jessica Fick
• Colleen Schaan
• Suzanne Dean
• Lee Murphy
• Miesje  Flach
• Sharri Seffens
• Melissa Shultz
• Melissa Cash
• Karen Knegten

Thanks for stopping by!!

Mercy’s Tuesday sketch – Happy Day!

I whipped up this card last night after a long short week at work!  I knew it had to be a clean & simple card since I still have about 95% of my stamping supplies packed in boxes.  I quickly went to Mercy Kerin’s blog and grabbed her Tuesday sketch {MTSC90} which was perfect for using the sweet ladybug in the Garden Party Critters set by Taylored Expressions!    I love the look of double layered nestability shapes so I used multiple circles for the focal image.

The most fun I had making this card was creating the single zig zag stitch on the left and all the bling I put on the ladybug/trail using a LOT of crystal twinkles but using my awesome embellie jellie made it quick & easy!   I also colored the ladybug with some a red copic atyou spica pen (which I just saw are on sale for $2.49 each and one of my FAVORITE supplies!).  The embellishment I used are gingham blossoms (only brown/cream available) from the TE store!

I hope you have a fabulous weekend – we are going to see Resident Evil/Afterlife tonight with our movie buddies {aka John’s co-workers} I’m looking forward to it in 3D and of course their company!  

Thanks for stopping by!

Oh Boy! sketch by Lee!

Here is a fun boy card I made using a fun layout by the lovely Lee Murphy (click here to see her card – 2nd in her post), fellow geocacher and designer for Gina K. Designs!!  The stamp set I used is Oh Boy! by Tami Mayberry.  I simplified my card a little and flipped it and like it a lot!  I love the look of black layers on cards, it just makes everything POP!  I added some double stitch black ribbon as well.   I adore the color combo I used on this card: lipstick red, green apple, turquoise sea, and black onyx.  I just LOVE Gina K. pure luxury cardstock, the colors are so rich and the quality is unsurpassed in the industry!

The stamp used on the green apple panel is the polka dots from Vintage Backgrounds and the stars on the red panel is the open star in Oh Boy!  I colored the multi-colored truck with copic markers.

Thanks for stopping by today – hope you have a great one!!

Inch by Inch & Meeting someone famous

Here’s a card I whipped up this morning using Garden Party Critters by Taylored Expressions for today’s Featured Stamper Challenge at SCS {FS187}.  It was fun to make *I love the clean & simple designs!*  I chose this card of Emily’s to case, changing up the stamp,s ribbon and cardstock but stayed with part of her color scheme of red & white – I just wanted to use some of the pretty sunshine yellow silk ribbon in the TE store – if you haven’t tried that yet and LOVE ribbon, it’s a must have!!  After I colored my worm, I had to make him shine with some Glossy Accents!  I love that I was able to capture the shine in my photo so you can see!
Now for some personal stuff about meeting someone famous, if you read my blog yesterday I said we were heading out to San Antonio to geocache and check out a few consignment/antique stores on the hunt for an apothecary piece of furniture.  Well, one of the stops would also be at the famous Toilet Seat Museum by Barney Smith.  I wasn’t sure what to expect other than there was a geocache at the museum and the reason we needed to go was because it was not going to be around for much longer.  I found out Barney (a retired plumber of 35 years) is 89 years old and his lovely wife of 71 years is very ill (given 4 mos to live about 9 months ago). 
It was truly an amazing little adventure looking at all his elaborately decorated toilet seats which commemorated popular culture like Star Wars, Cinderella and McDonald’s to legendary stars like Marilyn Monroe, Elvis and Michael Jackson to Vietnam Veterans, Red Hatters and the President. Some of my favorites were the travel ones!  I forgot to mention he has been featured on television shows like the Early Show, The View and Montel Williams!  He had a whole section of magazines and books he has been featured in and even played the above segments on a little t.v. he had in the museum.  He had 4 Geocaching toilet seats!  #3 and #4 are what they are holding in the picture above. In this picture, John is signing #4 with both of our geocaching names (he is thenkengrene and I am serenity_girl) so there is a little piece of us in the famous museum now!!

View Full Album

Here is an album with over 20 pictures so you can see more of my favorite toilet seat art!
We ended up staying in there for at least an hour, Barney was very talkative but I enjoyed every minute of it, especially toward the end when we were talking about his ‘birthday’ toilet seats which span the years ‘70 - ‘89.  He asked us if he told us the story of a little boy when he was young who broke both his arms trying to impress a little girl (twice) and how the little boy ended up marrying her and how they even played together as babies!  Of course he was talking about himself and his wife!  The story brought tears to my eyes just thinking about how blessed they have been to spend all these years together as best friends!! 
***I will always remember this special little geogaching trip, John!  I know I complain a lot when we’re on them about how hot it is and how much longer we plan on doing it, but it’s times like these I am thankful for this crazy hobby you like so much!*** Thanks to Lee & her husband James for introducing it to us!!

A Reel Expert --

I just love the sentiment in Theresa’s set Gone Fishing, “A reel expert can tackle anything.'” What a great card to give to a man (or woman) who loves to fish!  It can also be a great card to encourage someone who is going through a rough time!  I kept my design clean & simple and googled fishing lures to see the colors of them and the Turquoise Sea, Creme de Menthe & Chocolate cardstock were a perfect combination for the lure and my card!  The last thing I did was place some brads in the corners of the layers and voila! my card came together in no time – I just love it when that happens!

Good News about the move!!  We were given the green light to move in whenever we want from our mortgage officer who is preparing the documents for our permanent loan once we gave him the figure for our construction loan.  We are SO excited but we have last minute stuff to do like the hardscaping (that’s doing all the preliminary work of landscaping WITHOUT planting anything – that will be mid-October), then we need the last minute punch items fixed, the road built up that we can drive on, the concrete floors cleaned & waxed and of course the inspection!  So it looks like the move will happen within the next few weeks as long as the contractors keep it moving!

We are going to enjoy our day getting a Geocache in San Antonio that will be going away soon and looking around some of the consignment stores down there (we’re looking for an apothecary piece). 

Hope you enjoy your holiday weekend!  Thanks for stopping by!!

Crafty worlds collide for a birthday!

I have a passion for all crafts, in case you didn’t know!  Ever since I was little, I dabbled in all sorts of craft stuff; I used to draw & color when very young, learned to crochet when I was 9 from my Aunt Ange, loved to make latch hook rugs, do paint by numbers, took a sewing class in my 20’s, taught myself how to make jewelry about 3 years ago, learned how knit this past winter and the list goes on!!  So naturally, I like to incorporate several crafts when I can (or am inspired to) so when Melanie’s birthday rolled around this year {April}, I visited a new local fabric store and bought some pretty knit fabric so I could stamp on it and make a scarf for her. 
I used her A Year of Flowers and Pressed Flowers stamp sets and stamped with red & olive pigment inks, heat set it and sewed a hem around it.  It came together pretty quickly and she really liked it!    I also made a matching simple card, using the large circle stamp from the Spring Mix stamptv kit.  I love the elegant touch of tiny pearls on the Blossom nestability die and center of the flower. I used Rocket Red & Green Apple and white pure luxury cardstock.  Here’s a picture I took of Melanie before we were about to devour our desserts!
Last night I discovered a great crafting blog Tea Rose Home which is causing me to itch to sew again (and will once we move because I want to make some throw pillows for the living room and bedroom and cushions for the window seats), but in the meantime, I can dream about what else I can sew!   Sachiko is so crafty, and was featured in a new crafty magazine called Rhythm of the Home with a cool tube sweater scarf tutorial!  I am going to link my creation on her blog because she’s having a link party!  I can’t wait to go check it out!




Thanks for stopping by today!!