A simple card to share. I used this week’s color challenge for this card. I haven’t done a SCS challenge in a while. This is So Saffron, Regal Rose, and Real Red. The stamp is from A Muse. Such a simple and quick card, even with the paper piercing and scalloping.

Here’s the Jesus story I’m trying to figure out… Emma has Vacation Bible School this week. She LOVES it! Today, I asked her if there was any Jesus story and she said yes. Oh, I said, tell me about it. So she did and it went like this…

Jesus went camping with his friends up a mountain. Oh… ok… so I tried to get her to tell me more and she got distracted or maybe she was done with the story. I asked if he walked on water. She said no. I asked if he had fish to eat, she said no. Did he pray? She said no. So ok… what event could this have been? I still have no clue. Some of her stories have been easier to guess. You can probably guess these ones… A man came down the roof and Jesus fixed him. Or, it was about a man on top of a tree. Today’s story… anybody know?

Alright, I’m going to bed. If I remember, I’ll probably be asking what story her group listened to Tuesday. I’m so curious as to when Jesus went camping.

And groom {::SMILES}. But not my hubby and I. No, no. Actually we’d love to renew our vows at a church so hopefully that will happen this October. Long story short, we did a civil marriage because we were both divorced and if you’re Catholic, you know what that means. We never did get an annulment but we’ve been going to the Episcopal church and they will be able to annul and do a little ceremony for us. So this will happen IF my parents and brother + SIL do come and visit us from Indonesia.

So it was quite interesting when Clear and Simple Stamps sent me this set for my first projects (coming in July!). Even though we’re not going to have a big hoopla, my sister is and so I created this as a sample for my sister who’s for sure getting married in October. They did a civil service last year and will do the service with close families and friends this fall. That’s why my family’s visiting. This is also why we’re in a rush to finish the basement. It’s great motivation though. We need more space and we need to finish anyways. The unfortunate part is cleaning almost 3000 sq.ft. of space. Eek! But we’re guessing that we’d probably be in the basement more so than anywhere else during awake time. I mean my craft room will be down there after all {::SMILES}.

These are super simple and very inexpensive handmade cards to make. Perfect for mass producing. I did have a colored version of the bride and groom but decided that just the stamped image looks a lot better. I printed the program on the computer. I printed a few of them on regular paper, tested the stamp placement and all that too, before I ran it through the white card stock. The inside of the cards and programs are blank which is on purpose since the program and invite will be on printed white card stock which can be easily added on later. The inside of the invites can be quickly glued right before mailing and the programs can be done a few weeks or even the day before in case of last minute changes. Or, start and finish at the time of creation and be done with it. Super flexible.

I really like how they turned out. Not only were they super quick to put together, I think they look quite elegant, and extremely flexible in terms of changes to the main content of each item.

Material:

Amy Butler pattern paper
Stampin’ Up! card stock
Satin ribbon from a craft store
Corner rounder (for the scallops on the pattern paper), scallop circle, and circle punch
Black SU ink
Two sided glue and dimensionals

What’s the little jar?

It use to be honey. It was from my colleagues wedding and I now use it for brads. But, I thought I’d use it for this project and if my sister does like it, we can just recreate this to the size of her jars.

For this project, I just used my ATG glue gun and it stuck well - I just glued the top of the paper to the glass jar. I’m not sure of the red double sided tape will hold better but you can give it a try. I used the ATG when I did the Target mailbox project and the paper and ribbons are still stuck to it. For the top stamp, I stamped the bottom heart image first and then I used a circle punch to cut. Last I did the sentiment stamp and used dimensionals to adhere the sentiment to the scallop paper (used SU’s scallop punch). The jar lid is the type where the sides and the top are seperate. So I just used the circular top as a template for the brown paper and cut. It wasn’t perfect but the sides of the lid covered it up well. You can also add a little thank you tag with names/initials on them and let it hang on the ribbon. Just another idea for this easy project.

If you’re getting married or know of some one, pass this along. I hope it can help somebody out there {::SMILES}.

I’ll be at a stamping workshop by the time this post. This is the card that I’m taking for my swap. The theme is friend. I used my Bella stamp and the sentiment is My Favorite Thing’s. My only complaint on the sentiment is that it’s not the feminine form. SO, this card will be nice for a guy. I’m glad I didn’t go pink or pastel. What do you think? Is it manly enough? Great for a girl friend to give to a guy friend?

Ahhh….

Ok, I need to go shower. I usually come home super late on Wednesday night card night. Plus, I don’t want to stink up the ladies {::SMILES}.

Have a great evening and oh… the house isn’t so bad. We lost two small siding, we have plants in pots that were all over the place, and a tree was crooked. Oh, my veggie garden… well, some looked sad but I hope they’d perk up again in a few days. Laters!

I am pooped! What a busy weekend!!!

Saturday I spent most of the morning sleeping {::SMILES}. That was nice. Got caught up on some sleep. Then I did some cleaning and squeezed in some scrapbooking and also this present for M’s friend.

Let me tell you about this present… I used a grocery bag to wrap this gift. I did try to find the humor section of a paper but no luck so to spruce it up, I used my Pink Cat Studio stamp to brighten this package up a bit. It was a three-year-old party and I thought the three ice cream was perfect. For the whip cream, I used dimensional to give the card some texture. One suggestion, don’t do this 30 minutes before you need to go, you’re very likely to have wet dimensional still {::SMILES}.

Speaking of recycling, yesterday I just joined carbonrally.com. What is it?

Reduce global warming by taking quick & easy challenges.
Compete with others in your area and around the world.

I found them through the TIME magazine. The magazine featured students from a private school, Royal Acorn, who at the time of interview was the leading team (and I think they still are). Check this site out, the challenges, and the teams’ profiles. I think they’re great. I’m trying to start a team at work. We’ll see how that goes. I encourage you to sign up and take on a challenge OR, be a team leader and start a team of your own. Just remember, you can’t be in multiple teams.

So far, my first day, I’m doing pretty good, I’ve reduced 9.7 lbs of CO2. I’ve been bad at leaving my computer on and taking long showers so this is great motivation for me. I think it’ll help me stay off the computer too. Currently I’ve taken on eight challenges and I plan on sticking to them!

So one birthday party, a fund raising event right after, a spring fling fair at church this morning and a lot of gardening (landscaping and veggie garden) is making me super tired (I am not a labor type of gal). I am going to bed. I did some stamping and I almost have a scrap page done so it was a productive weekend.

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!!

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}.

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…

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.

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.

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…