Hi!

Here’s my take on Beate’s weekend sketch challenge #45. I used Kraft, again, as my background paper and the Cuttlebug. This was a really quick card to make. I think it’s another five minute card.

I used the Spring Solitude set and I used the Stamp-a-majig to stamp over the bigger flower. I love that tool! The DP is from SU’s Cutie Pie and the “hi” is American Craft’s alphabet chipboard. Colors: Pomegranate and Marigold Morning from 2007 the in colors. The ribbon is Regal Rose.

Our outing was nice. Short but nice. Went to Michael’s and grabbed a few K&Company’s new items, some Amy Butler series. LOVE the new stuff. Not only are they cute, cute, cute, the packaging is recycled and also reusable. You should check them out!

I cut into my paper already and putting a page together. Another M page. Can’t wait to get it done! Loving the feel of the whole set.

The sushi restaurant was delicious as always. For the first time, Emma skipped the steamed dumplings and opted for the california AND tuna rolls. She LOVED the spicy crab salad and onion soup. She was a little piggy!!! She even dipped the rolls into some soy sauce and was brave enough to try the wasabi although that ended up in her spitting the content of her mouth onto my hands. I told her it was spicy but she wanted to try.

I love that girl, she’s such a great eater. I wonder if she’ll continue to eat if I tell her that the fish is raw… naaaaah, I’ll wait until she finds out on her own, why ruin it {::SMILES}.

Beate’s Sketch

Did this Friday for Beate’s sketch and also mother’s day. Ever since I did the color challenge on SCS, temping turquoise, green galore, and kraft, I couldn’t get enough of this color. Obviously I haven’t overdone it but I would if I could {::SMILES}. I couldn’t resist this color when I saw the content of Dana Frantz new kit, Hippie Couture. Check out the pattern paper, isn’t that just perfect? Coincidently too, last Friday I picked up a few ribbons at Wally World and look, the colors match to perfectly!!!

Is this too bright of a mother’s day card? Who knows, but I love it {::SMILES}.

To get this color, I adjusted it a bit. I went into photoshop and get into the Curves and moved it slightly down. I wanted it to print a bit darker. The pattern is a 12×12 design but I just printed it out on an 8.5×11 white card stock.

I had a fun time at the crop yesterday. I did a few challenged that the ladies can choose from and out of the 17 there, 8 participated. Not a lot but not bad since it’s the first time we did challenges. I’m not sure if they liked it but those who did participate seemed to have had a fun time doing it. I’ll show you what I did throughout the week. Have a great rest of your Sunday!

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!

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.

Always…

I want to share a card that I did based on Beate’s #40 sketch. It’s more colorful than I’m use to but this was what I got out of the sketch. I used the Always stamp set, Polka Dots and Paisley DP, Wasabi, Chocolate Chip, Barely Banana, Regal Rose, and White card stock, and Regal Rose ribbon. Then I pierced around my center design. It’s such a sturdy card… with all the card stock layers {::SMILES}. After some getting use to, I like the colors.

I hope you had a great Easter weekend. We missed all the egg hunting but did make it to church. We went to a different church and their hunt was before mass and not after. It was nice though and the important part was that hubby liked this church a lot better.

M did love her Easter basket from the bunny. She woke up at 6:30-ish and my baby is not an early bird on weekends, this chick can sleep until 10:30 a.m.! But not Sunday morning. She came in the bedroom and said, “Mommy, I think the Easter bunny came already.” So I got up, went down with her and asked how she knew. She said she came down already to take a peak - HA! So we looked at the basket and she noticed eggs all over the downstairs so we did some hunting. That was fun. Then I told her mom’s going back to bed, ha ha!! She went to her room and when I finally got up, I found her under her covers, awake, just cuddling her new bunny. Sunday afternoon after church I got some good pics too. I’m working on a LO.. I’ll share when it’s done.

Birthday Party and a Card

Well, I think the party was a success. We had four little friends over and they all, or so I think, had a fun time. I had a little agenda, as posted in the previous post, but it was pretty flexible so the girls had a lot of time to play and not be in a “strict” party agenda. They all (even the super shy one) enjoyed the various activities so that was nice. The pizza was a hit but the veggies and fruits… uhm, the girls just glanced… I did stick a carrot at least on their plate but only a couple actually ate it.

They all did love their little mailboxes, even their mommies (I even got compliments on the invites {::SMILES}), and I hope they like what’s in it since it’s not so common. In the mailbox I put a little hair piece that M chose, a play ring, and snacks. The snacks are the odd ones, I put organic animal crackers, natural (or organic… I forgot which brand I bought) fruit roll-ups, and organic/natural chocolates — they look like M&Ms. They were all purchased from Nature’s Pantry, my favorite place to go grocery shopping. M calls it “mommy’s hippie store.” Hmmm… whatever little girl. But, I think they will like the snacks. They do taste great minus all the extra none natural stuff. They did have cookies for snack time, organic type Oreo-ish cookies, and all that were left of the cookies were the crumbs on their faces.

For the occassion, I didn’t over decorate. I figured they’re still little, they just want to have fun, so I had a little bit of streamers and the Happy 4th BDay banner — which I altered. Initially I was going to make one but never got to it. I couldn’t find a banner that I like but in the Valentine’s stuff there’s this pink sparkly Happy Heart Day banner. I have some letters and numbers and so on the heart I put 4th and on the “D” I plopped a “B”. So now instead of Happy Heart Day it’s Happy 4th BDay {::SMILES}. M loved it.

So that’s it. Was there a big hit? Not really, I think Emma’s room. They all kept wanting to go back up there. There’s nothing special really but there are more toys up there. What I like was the cupcake decorating before eating it. We made the cupcakes because we didn’t want to get one from the store which has all sorts of preservatives and A LOT of frosting. Despite the fact that some got a good lick of frosting from the cup, they didn’t over do it on their cupcakes. Just a thin spread and sprinkles. It was great. The only thing I used for the cupcake that I wasn’t too crazy about was the food coloring. Emma wanted pink and I forgot to get one at Nature’s Pantry. So I got regular food coloring, used a drip of it, and now I have this bottle that I have no idea what to do with. After the party, I was poop’d! We all took a nap though and that was nice.

Now it’s back to normal again and I want to share this card that I made last night. February is a busy month. LOTS of birthdays for me. Here’s one that I did for my friend. I used Beate’s sketch for this card. This was initially created for a 5-yr-old but after all is done, it looks to boring. So she’s getting something else, still thinking about it. I used wild wasabi, soft sky, tan, black, apple cider, and fall flowers paper. The ink’s pumpkin pie and black, and the ribbon is the wild wasabi stripe one. I did paper piercing all around the card, I like. The stamp set: A Little Birdie Told Me. I love this set!

Have a great rest of the weekend. Tomorrow we have a car show to go to and a feed the hunger kind of event in the evening. We’re suppose to bring milk. I’ll also be sorting through the trash. Separating all the recycle item from the actual trash. We were hurrying today to clear the tables for the next thing that everything got put into the trash bag. I got to clean my office/craft room to. Ahhh….

Beate’s Challenge

Did another sketch challenge from Beate. I love her work because she’s consistent and also she creates something that’s manageable for most people to case (copy). I’ve seen a lot of gorgeous work by many talented people but they seem to be so complicated for the common people (like me) so I like sticking to and following people who are like Beate.

This card was a challenge for me. I had a hard time with the flower in the middle. I just wasn’t getting the color combo right so that no matter what I did, my flowered didn’t quite pop or stand out. I’m quite happy with this because I think it followed the sketch but at the same time it’s a bit different. Also, with this sketch, I got to use this set, Spring Solitude (this is a Spring-Summer hostess set), for the first time and also my almost one year old Polka Dots and Paisley paper. Under the “thank you” is the old olive ribbon. Only the flower is not Stampin’ Up! I like the result. It’s not overly crazy but at the same time it gives it a nice unique feel. Hope you had a great weekend!