Wow Challenges

I’m quite challenged this week. First off, it’s probably not a good idea for me to create two cards and one scrapbook page in one night. But here they are, the cards at least. The Scrapbook page I’m still debating. I created for the Scrapperie contest but hmm…. It just doesn’t seem right. So, if I can’t come up with anything better before the deadline then I’ll submit, if not, then I hope the next one will be better {::SMILES}.

Here’s my first card, which I did for the color challenge at SCS. I used the Garden Silhouettes stamp for this card and my rub-ons for the sentiment. The colors are celery, pretty in pink, and lovely lilac. I’m not a big fan of purple and it’s obvious. My hubby bought me two sets of SU stamps three Christmas ago and I’ve just opened my lovely lilac stamp pad. Wow, huh?

For the ribbons, I used a lovely in pink shade of gingham ribbon and rose regal grossgrain. Do I like? Not sure. But I did the challenge.

My second card is for the sketch challenge. Uhm… can I say interesting? I used my brand new, imported from Canada, Pink Cat Studio Stamps. The set is 13 Sweet Treats and it is super cute. I’ve been wanting some cutesy and large stamps and I found a set. The sentiment is PaperTrey and the circles I cut using my Nestabilities. 

This is my first order from Pink Cat and I must say, I received it in a week. Odd since it was sent via regular mail. My Bellas took two weeks. I’ve only cut two of the stamps, they come uncut, and I need to glue/tape them to my mounting block in order to use. In essence this stamp set combines Stampin’ Up! and Bellas.

Definitely not my style but I couldn’t sleep. Ahh….

Is Wednesday already? Wow, this week is going by fast! Laters!!

Card Swap

I made this for a swap (the swap’s tonight) but ended up not liking it as much as another design (I’ll show you after the swap) so here it is. I used last week’s Splist Coast sketch challenge and this week color combo: soft sky, purely pomegranate, and black.

I dunno, now that I look at it, it’s not that bad but, since it’s my upline’s workshop and swap, I figured an SU stamped image would be more appropriate, thus the other design/card.

Material:

Everything from Stampin’ Up! except for the center stamp, which is a Bella stamp. Pattern paper is Cutie Pie. The shoes and pants were colored using my Copic sketch markers. Embossing was done by my Cuttlebug template.

I am so excited for tonight. It’s been a loooooooong time since I went to a workshop. There was one last month but it was when I was out of town for my conference. It’s always fun to meet up with other ladies who love to stamp too and just chit chat about anything.

Oh, I have an M story… since M was born we’ve always done all sorts of educational activities with her. That was why we took TV service out so that TV will not be the center of her entertainment. Since she was 3-months-old we’ve signed with her and she signed back at 6-months-old and she’s always been a little sponge. M knew how to count to 50 when she was just over 2-years-old and we’ve been playing math games since she turned three. I’d show her my fingers and asked her, “If I have four fingers and two went to sleep, how many do I have left?” She’d count my finger and tell me, “two.” Last night I told her that it’ll be a long night, I still have cards to make for the swap. She asked me how many I needed to make and I told her five. She asked me how many I’ve done and I said two. Then she said, “ooooh, you have three more to make.” Wow! I do fractions with her too… we’ll see if that sticks {::SMILES}.

Gift Card

I did this for SCS’s Try a New Technique challenge. This week is a gift card holder. I LOVE it! Because I loved it so much, I made two!

The first one, the red dots background (I did myself by the way {::SMILE}) is actually M’s. Well, she claimed it. I felt bad, I always make cards for others but hardly for her and so I said sure as long as she takes good care of it. She said she will. So she has it now. The stamp is one of the new Bella stamps that I got earlier this month. I just haven’t had the occasion to use it. The dots and the sentiment is from PaperTrey and the rest is Stampin’ Up! I think I kind of combined a few challenges from last week on this. I used black to highlight my red cardstock and made my own BG paper.

If you haven’t done any challenges, you should. It always gets me motivated and help think outside the box and try something new.

The second card I did with a new Digi Chick kit: Total “Mom” - Sense Collaboration Kit. Awesome kit for digi AND hybrid. I’m not kidding you. Even if I’m not a CT for TDC, I’d be bragging about this kit. I’ve only used a tiny portion of this huge kit and I can do A LOT of cool pages and cards not mentioning digital project with this one kit. Mother’s day is coming around the corner!!

I wish my hubby makes cards. He’s only made me one card all the times we’ve been together. I’ll have to show you that sometimes. Kind of cute in a manly way, ha ha! It was sweet and I always look at it. It is after all, the ONLY card hand crafted by him.

Below is how the inside look. I didn’t do a lot of decorating but of course you can. Check out the SCS gallery for all the submissions to this challenge.

It was an odd day yesterday. I had a headache, which went away after a nap and some pills, but my throat just hurt. My sore throat happened Tuesday night. I feel fine now, just still hacking a bit. I wonder if it’s because people’s been (including the husband) burning around our house. We burnt off our field and the neighbors did the same. Not sure if it’s a country thing or it’s just something everybody wanted to do the last few days. I am sensitive to smoke. I can’t be in a smoking section at a restaurant, pass by people who are smoking, or enjoy a bar/club. I wasn’t always like this, more so after I had M. I’m glad they passed the no smoking in Kansas City. Maybe it’ll spread to our little college town. Hmmm…

At the Beach

Don’t forget, two blog candies this week — both will be closed Friday, April 25, at 4 p.m. You can participate in both if you like, just leave a comment.

Digi Blog: $10 gift certificate to The DigiChick
Stamp set: H&M new May release

Here’s a LO that I did using a hodge podge of paper. I used Sassafrass’s new paper for the clouds, SEI for one of the circles, K&Company, and misc. others. I also used H&M stamps (coming April 25th) for the turtle and the seashell behind it.

I did some doodling because I wanted to try Daring Cardmaker’s tutorial on this topic. I like it, kind of fun and I still have some white space too — or green space {::SMILES}. You can see a more detail picture in my Flickr gallery.

M was about 4-mo when we were at Ventura Beach. Hubby was on temporary duty at Edwards AFB for 3.5 months. We visited at least once a month. To me, it was kind of like vacation — with free accommodations, ha! We were glad when the duty was over though and M had to relearn to know her daddy again. Because of this assignment (and dad was on night shift before leaving for CA), M became distant with her daddy. She was about two when or maybe older when they got closer (dad was gone again when she was 14-mo for another four months). Before that, everything was mom. I’d be cooking and carrying her because she didn’t want anything to do with dad. Now she’s great with him although on many occasions she’d rather be with me than dad. Ah… the military life.

Stampin’ Blog Candy and News

Let me start with H&M Stamps’ coupon. They’re opening their store to you April 25th. That’s this coming Friday! To celebrate, Heather the owner, is offering the first 200 customers a $5 coupon on their purchase of $25 or more. Just plop in this coupon code at checkout: HMDT42508. Isn’t this nice?

Next, I have a blog candy courtesy of H&M stamps. Yeah!!! What will you get? Well, you get to pick one of the following three that will be released May 25th. If you are the winner, keep this date in mind too, your stamp set will not be sent until then. The stamps are called ADINO Day…Celebrate the Day…and It’s Picnic Time.

If you’re curious about the quality, picky me can tell you that these stamps do very well on Stampin’ Up! classic ink pads. The results are great clean and crisp images. They’re not like some of those store bought ones. There’s no grabbing your eraser and rubbing the stamps. H&M Stamps work right out of the box. This is high quality stuff.

So come on, post a comment by Friday, April 25th, 4 p.m. CST. What do you need to post… hmm…. well, since this is my first blog candy, I’d like to know why you visit my blog… is it for the cards, the scrapbooking, the tutorials, or just because {::SMILES} and what you’d like to see more of. Tomorrow, I’ll show you a (at least I think) special creation using one of the stamp set that will be release Friday. How will the winner be picked? By the M randomizer — ha ha… yeah, this was M’s job at the scrap event a few weekends ago. She loved it.

Tut: Kuler’s New Feature

Since Adobe sent me a T, I feel obligated to share with you the “what’s new” in Kuler. So here it is:

If you’re interested in the previous Kuler tutorial, check it out here. Hope you’ll find this info useful!

I also want to share a card that I did at the crop. Again I used Dana Frantz Hippie Couture digital paper that I printed on white card stock (actually this was the left over from the other card) and used another ribbon that I bought at Wally World. The stamp is H&M’s stamp set: Sea Life. Can’t you tell I LOVE this set? {::SMILES}

This is actually a perfect card for a lady at work who lent my committee seashells for our beach them staff luncheon a few weeks ago. The finances is a bit tight for social events so we had to find (free) ideas for decorations. I hope she likes the card - it is a bit in your face in terms of colors.

M was funny the other night. She told me the other night that she wanted to eat at a restaurant. I asked her what she wanted and she said sushi. She also suggested that we go to the Plaza. Ok, my 4-year-old is getting a bit hoity toity here although sushi is not a bad idea. M even eats the raw fish… she doesn’t know tho. Yeah, yeah… I’m feeding her raw fish. We use to go to the city more often but with global warming and energy consumption, we have lessen our trips. We’ll go once a month now instead of every other week. This is probably why I’m online more often. I figured that the delivery people has to drive around anyways, so a stop at my place isn’t going to add any more pollution than there already is plus I’m helping the American people stay employed. Is this good justification?

Ok, have a great night. More tomorrow…

Beautiful Day

Not! Where is spring? The weather’s been so yucky here although we did get a glimpse of 70 degree weather this evening. But of course, it was just a tease. Now the wind is blowing and I think it’s raining. Can’t tell… really light.

Because of our wonderful weather, i decided to make a card that hopefully can cheer somebody up. Who? Dunno… I really don’t have anybody to send cards out to right now… I suppose it’ll make a great bday card, mother’s day card, or just a picker upper card.

I used H&M new stamps again. This is from the Sea Life set. Love it! The turtle was awesome and now the seashells are just gorgeous. This set is great for scrapbooking. I should! The pattern paper is PaperTrey Ink’s. I’m not sure if I like them or not. They’re really pale. Great for soft cards but I like my pattern papers to be a bit more bold. It’s a preference thing. I still haven’t used the PTI stamps that I bought. I should. I also bought a new SU stamp set and my new Bellas are still untouched.

I have a 12 hr crop this weekend. Whoo hoo!!! I’m suppose to help organize but got so swamped this week that I never touched base with the coordinator. I should send her an email! Have a great Friday… more later!

Sea Life - Thinking of You

First I want to thank Allison, from Stampin’ When I Can for nominating me for this award. What is this? Well, based on the award’s description, Allison thinks that my blog deserves an award for creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community. Thanks Allison, I feel very honored! If you’ve never been to Allison’s blog, check her out. Not only does she do cute cards, she also gives out hints and tips on different things e.g. Blogger tips. If you’re a new blogger, you can email her and ask her to list your blog in her newly discovered post so that thousands of readers can know of your blog existence.

Now, here are the rules for the award:

1. You pick five blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also contribute to the blogging community, no matter what language.

2. List the names of the people you chose to receive the award on your blog and link to their blogs. Then go comment on one of their posts to notify them that you have given them this award and link to the post on your blog.

3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name of the person who gave them the award and link to their blog.

4. The Award-winner and the one who has given the award have to show the link to the Arte y Pico blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

So, who do I pick? Well, based on the criterias, I nominate:

• Amy Sheffer
• Gabi Butcher
• Emily Giovanni
• Melissa
• Maria

Check these ladies out. Not only do they have gorgeous work, they also have nice tuts or tips.

Card, I used H&M’s stamp again, the Sea Life set, for this card. Isn’t the turtle cute? Love the stamp and I really love how the card turned out too. I did the ribbon per SCS’s technique challenge (TLC163). Actually this challenge was easier than the previous, that’s why I’m playing, ha!

Credit:
Cardstock: River rock, vanilla, chocolate chip
Markers: SU markers
Ribbon: SU and Offray
Tool: Piercing tool
Ink: Black

I used Faith’s (Markie’s Mom) stamping technique… double (or in her case triple) stamping. I stamped the turtle twice with black ink. She’s got some awesome cards that looks so over my head. Gorgeous though! on SCS thousands would look at her work the day a card is posted. Amazing! Faith is also H&M’s permanent design team member. So, if nothing else, at least I got the double stamping down {::SMILES}.

I’m Back

We got home yesterday, right at 5 p.m. My last session, on Joomla CMS and WordPress/Mu, went really well and a lot of people seemed to have gotten a lot of info from myself and also others attending. That’s what I love about conferences, other people to physically share information with (instead of my Twitter and Ning virtual buddies). I also had Internet access — wish I had this the other day too. Oh well…

The first thing I wanted to do when I got home was go into my arts and crafts room. I’ve been itching to make something but of course I had to be responsible. Also, I got some new stamps. I have the stamps from H&M, the new stamp company that’s coming up in May that I’m the guest CT of, and also some goodies from PaperTrey Ink. Plus, I have new circle Nestabilities from Cutathome (40% off!). They’ve been on back order but I wasn’t in a hurry so I didn’t care when they’d show up. But I’m glad they did, it’s fun to play with them. So now I can stamp — well, I can do more after I grade {::SMILES}. Since it’s’ a weekend, and I did miss last week’s, I went to Beate’s site and did her sketch challenge for this week. This was a HARD sketch. I’m not use to having these types of intersections.

I used all sorts of brands for this card:

Stamps: H&M Dad’s Outdoors and PaperTrey Favor It Wedding Stamp Set

Cardstock: Stampin’ Up! carft, green galore, pink pixie, and black paper
Pattern Paper: KI Memories Chill Out Ticking and Flair Design Paradise Paisley
Ribbon: SU
Eyelets: Making Memories
Tools: Corner rounder, Crop-a-Dile, Nestabilities, ATG glue gun, SU Markers and paper piercing tool
Markers: SU

The top square cardstock is 3×3 and the pattern paper is 2.75×2.75
The bottom rectangle is 3×3.5 and the pattern paper is 2.75×3.25

Ok, so the boots are from a manly stamp set BUT, M has boots similar to this… I scrapbooked it even (I’ll show you later) and I thought hmmm… these boots can be used for so many things. I wish I had a stamp set that says “Perfect Pair” but this will do. I love the colors and the boots turned out so cute in green and pink (M’s colors). I’ll have more to show this month and next from H&M.

Have a great weekend!! I have a few video tuts in mind… and part II of the part I I did. Hopefully this weekend I’ll be able to whip one out.

A Week at the Gym

Another house — this time on a card {::SMILES}. I used the Love Elsie stamp set that I purchased from SIStv. Love Elsie has some new products and she named them Emma. They’re soooo cute and wouldn’t they look good on some Emma pages? Urgh… it’s crazy but I feel the need to buy and I haven’t even used what I just got except maybe one or two items. Again another different card, more doodles, and just free styling stuff, but every now and then I like to branch out and try something new.

To not bore you, I want to share the below. It’s HILARIOUS!!!! I am the hardest person to amuse, hubby hates it, and I was busting out laughing at this one.

A WOMAN’S WEEK AT THE GYM

This is dedicated to everyone who ever attempted to get into a regular workout routine.

Dear Diary,

For my birthday this year, my daughter (the dear) purchased a week of personal training at the local health club for me. Although I am still in great shape since being a high school football cheerleader 43 years ago, I decided it would be a good idea to go ahead and give it a try.

I called the club and made my reservations with a personal trainer named Belinda, who identified herself as a 26-year-old aerobics instructor and model for athletic clothing and swim wear.

My daughter seemed pleased with my enthusiasm to get started! The club encouraged me to keep a diary to chart my progress.
________________________________
MONDAY:
Started my day at 6:00 a.m. Tough to get out of bed, but found it was well worth it when I arrived at the health club to find Belinda waiting for me. She is something of a Greek goddess - with blond hair, dancing eyes and a dazzling white smile. Woo Hoo!!

Belinda gave me a tour and showed me the machines. I enjoyed watching the skillful way in which she conducted her aerobics class after my workout today. Very inspiring!

Belinda was encouraging as I did my sit-ups, although my gut was already aching from holding it in the whole time she was around. This is going to be a FANTASTIC week-!!
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