Thursday, October 25, 2007

Posting a Card!!!

Yep. I'm actually posting a *card* today! Yippee! I needed to make some for upcoming birthdays. I'll post one today and others later.



I made this card for a church friend of mine. She's our church pianist (AWESOME pianist, too!!!!!) and a high school choral teacher. I try to involve music in the cards that I do for her. Her birthday is today. This is a Criss Cross card (tutorial on SCS!!!) and is tons of fun to make. This one is fairly simple. I used Sahara Sand as the base and for the tab. Basic Black is the back for the Whisper White inside card. The treble clef (from Musical Masterpiece, I think??) is stamped in Going Grey on the Whisper White. I rounded all the corners on the inside piece and used the round tab punch for the pull-tab. A little, red button accents the tab along with a piece of white, organdy ribbon. A really cute music note brad accents the front of the pocket. I sure hope she likes it!!

The first time that I cut the designer-type paper for this, I cut it wrong. It wouldn't work any way that I did it. I'm still not sure what in the world I did wrong. LOL! Oh well. I will pay more attention next time! LOL!

Happy Stamping, my friends!!!

Monday, October 22, 2007

October Family Fun Day


Woohoo!! What *great* weather we had for our day this month. Jonah chose to go to Rock Ranch about an hour and a half south of us. It's owned by Truett Cathy and is an awesome place to go have some fun - for very little money. The kids had a great time - well, 2 of them, anyway. Jared was bored, but ... he *is* 16. This picture was made just after we got there. You can't tell what the weather is, yet, but you'll see ....

Jonah decided that first up was a volleyball game. Now, I've not played volleyball in *years* ... and YEARS. The funny thing, though, was that I owned the guys in the game!! In the beginning, it was Jonah and Mark against .... me. They never got a point!!! Then, Jared got in and took on Mark and me ..... he never got a point, either. It was fun, but I got pretty tired out pretty quick. I am SO outta shape. :( But .... in the picture, you can see how GREAT the day was. Pretty, huh??



So .... the Princess had a blast. She loved seeing - and touching all of the animals. She's looking through the fence at the miniature horses.





And here, she stands with her new friend, Mufasa. What a GORGEOUS dog. He's only a year old and soooooo soft. He's a show dog and such a sweetie. We really enjoyed seeing him. Jaydin doesn't like touching the head, though. She prefers the end with no teeth.... :)


And then, she got on the horse. She loves riding horses. I really need to start teaching her "heels down," though!!!! I'm hoping that will continue and that she and I can enjoy that when she's older (and I'm old....er). Now, keep in mind that each activity was included in the price of admission at this wonderful place - and it only cost $34 for all 5 of us to get in. Oh ... this horse's name was "Tot." His brother's name was .... "Tater." :)






Ah ... do I need to say anything about this one?? I just love seeing the boys interact with her. They are SO good with her, and she loves them so much.




I know ... you are quite tired of the pictures. I have a ton of them, though. I had so much fun taking pics on this gorgeous day, and I have so many that I can share. She's just being silly here. I love it.










What a serious face ... would you believe it was a prelude to laughter??? It really was. It took a little bit to get a smile, but the smile was more akin to giggles. LOL!!






Ok ..... last one. Here' she is ... my little pumpkin princess!!! One of the pumpkins in this patch was missing, so I filled the spot with one much cuter than the others. And what a face she made. Goodness.





Ok ... that's all the pictures for now. I will try to have some cards next time. I made one today, but sealed it up before I remembered that I wanted to post it here. Sorry!!! I'm hoping I can create some tonight after dinner - going out for my mom's birthday. Happy Birthday, Mom!!!!!

Have a great, big, beautiful tomorrow.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

Challenged By Quacks

World Cardmaking Day!!! Woohoo!!! How fun can it get?

Several weeks ago, my Quacker friends on SCS came up with the idea to have several challenges for today's occasion. We came up with 7 challenges -

#1 Create a card using s
omething received in our last QSS (Quacker Secret Sister) swap or something you bought the last time you were at your local craft/scrapping/stamp store.

#2 Create a card using a die cut.

#3 Create a card using something that you've not used in a very long time.

#4 Create a card using the Reverse Masking technique.

#5 Create a card using just black, white, and *one* other color.

#6 Create a card depicting your favorite movie or TV show.

#7 Create a Criss Cross card.


These were *great* fun, and I am thrilled that I was able to be involved in the group and the challenges.

Ok ... so down to the actual creating!!

The first card that I made used die cuts. TI used Paper Dolls to cut the cute little crown and Mini Monograms to cut the "thanks". The faux ticket-punched corners were done using a small circle punch and only putting in part of the corner. Since I don't have the ticket corner punch, this works well for the effect. The adorable brad on the crown was gotten in a pack of 20 for $1 at the Target $ Spot. You can't tell it, but the eggplant background is stamped with Versamark using the Linen background stamp. I did 20 of these cards to use as thank you notes for Jaydin's birthday gifts.



This card meets three of the challenges - challenge #1, 3 and 5. I used just black, white, and pink on this card and did it with the fight against breast cancer on my mind. I used Loving Hearts and Hope Is (haven't used that one is a loooooong time!!!) for my stamp sets on this one. The circle was cut at 3 1/2 inches on my Cricut using the George cartridge. I punched slots for the ribbon on the heart, and I stamped only the word 'hope' from the sentiment in the Hope Is set. The beautiful rhinestone brad was one of several sent to me in the last QSS swap. I rounded off the right corners just to give it a little more interest.




The Reverse Masking card was fun. I first cut a template using my Cricut ... yeah, he got used a fair amount today!!! .... and the Mini Monograms cartridge. I chose the scalloped square, just to be a little different. I put the template over my piece of whisper white and held it down with temporary adhesive. Then, I stamped the tree on the right side using Old Olive ink and the horse on the left side using basic brown. I sponged the blue and green on the top and bottom to make the mask show a little more. Using the SU distressing tool, I distressed the white and used Creamy Caramel directly on the edges. Antique-type brads were used on the corners to hold the white to the brown mat. All of that was placed on the Garden Green and embellished with black hemp twine and an acorn (cut using the Cricut and the Doodlecharms cartridge at 1 1/2 - I think).




Wow. I had so many ideas running around in my head about the challenge depicting my favorite movie or TV show. I ended up with this ... concoction. I wasn't sure if I liked the way it look, but I think that I do now. I used a layer of Sahara Sand stamped with several stamp sets - Artifacts, an SU incentive set, Print Patterns, and Doodle That. They were stamped using Sahara Sand ink and Versamark. Sometimes I stamped off the Sahara Sand to get a lighter effect. The clock from Artifacts was stamped on acetate (non-SU) in Versamark and heat embossed in SU gold. When the heat hit the acetate, the acetate turned brown. I thought it was ruined, but when I put it over the Sahara Sand, I really liked the effect. I added the brads and beat them with the hammer a little bit and added the little lock (stamped on gold using basic brown ink) with another brad (again, beat with a hammer - GREAT when you're a little frustrated ....). This card depicts the new show "Journeyman" that comes on Monday nights. The main character travels through time - thus the time theme.




The last card that I made today was the Criss Cross card. What fun!!! I used the tutorial on SCS (made by the fantastic Beate) and had a blast! I started out planning to do a Christmas card, but thought about some great paper that I picked up at Michael's a while back. The ladybug/dotted paper is Martha Stewart paper, and I love it!! It's so cute!!! I also used the Little Lady set by Papertrey Ink and some wonderful Prima flowers. The base of my card is Chocolate Chip, and the base of the insert is Creamy Caramel. I used the round tab punch, corner rounder, and the word window punch on the insert, too. This one might have just been my favorite ..... Too much fun!


I hope that all of you celebrated World Cardmaking Day by making lots of cards. If not, start tomorrow with the challenges the Quackers used! I'd love to see what you come up with!! If you take the challenge - Comment on this post with a link to your creations.



Happy WCMD!!!!

Thursday, October 04, 2007

Blog Candy for a Cause

Please check out this blog for information on a family in need of some special prayer and some special cards. There's some great blog candy, too .... but that's not why I'm posting this. I think that sending the cards is so important. I can't imagine what this family is going through.

I pray for those 2 precious little girls and their family.

Blog Candy For A Cause

I pray for those 2 precious little girls and their family.

FIGHT Breast Cancer

You may have noticed my little button over to the right - I hope you have! So very many of us have been affected by cancer, and particularly breast cancer. I would bet that anyone that reads this has had or knows someone that has had breast cancer. If you want to help, just click under the button where it says "Join the fight" and copy the code into the template or profile of your blog. We need everyone to fight. I joined because Kathy Ostvig had the button on her site.

My 'someone' is my mom. She's the greatest!! In 1995, she was diagnosed with breast cancer and had a radical mastectomy. It was SO hard on her, but she did it and got through it. I believe that she's a stronger person because of it, too. She doesn't like to talk about it (guess I can't blame her there), but I believe all of us should be aware of it and do whatever it takes to get rid of it for us and for our children. My mom has completely recovered from her experience with the cancer and certainly didn't let it beat her. She's a 12 year survivor - this month. Hooray for my mom!!!!! She's stronger than she ever knew and will ever admit.

I love you, Mom.

So .... for my mom and for the other incredible women out there, will you help FIGHT breast cancer?????








I think I will go make a pink card .......