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.

I made it to round 5 in the Scrapperie contest. Whoo hoo!! The theme for round four was to pick an art piece and use it for inspiration. So for my piece, I chose Alberto Cont’s Pensado a Te. Isn’t the piece funky and fun? I am thinking about getting a print for our living room. I think it’ll fit in with my very yellow walls.

I love colors but in my craft I tend to settle for more subtle colors. That’s one reason I chose this piece, hoping that it’ll help me get out of my subtle zone and go a bit more fun. I really like how it turned out and I really had a great time cutting out the I [heart} Candy Town paper by Adrienne Looman which I think can only be purchased at SIStv. You can see it too well on the picture but some of the circles are raised by dimensionals. I think the real deal looks better than the photo.

Check out the awesome gallery at the Scrapperie. The ladies did an awesome job with their inspiration pieces! I feel lucky to make it through.

The next round is a two weeks project. It’s a mini album and I have never done one before. I’ve always wanted to do one but I’ve always just been so into the 12×12 an a few altered items that I just never got to a mini. Actually I did start one for my mom and it’s 3/4 way done. I started a year and a half ago. I should finish, huh?

So that’s the next round. A mini. Right now I’m trying to figure out what I’ll do it on. We’ll see…

Did I tell you I started a garden? Yes, yes, yes! I did this back in April. I started them indoors and then moved them out after the last frost. I have some corn, green beans, shallots, onions, okra, green and red peppers, eggplants, a variety of lettuce, tomatoes, arugula, basil, rosemary, tarragon, chives, and sage. I think I got them all. What’s amazing… they’re ALL growing!!! I am no miss green thumb! I am so excited… so excited that I “talk” to them every day. Yesterday, before I watered them, I was on my hands and knees, crawling through my garden, making sure not to step on any, and pulled weeds and talked. I did look like a crazy lady but oh well. It was nice. But this is partly why I haven’t been making as many crafty stuff, especially on weekends. I’ve been outdoors more often.

Last week I started on the veggie share from a local farmer. I signed up until September. Basically every week I pick up a bag full of veggies, eggs, and flowers from a farmer 5 miles from here. In a few months I might have more veggies than I know what to do with them! I hope!!! I’ll probably bring some to work or something. If things go well, I want to do more next year. I want to do fruits and more types of veggies. I also want to be more organized… I’ll show you later what I mean by this.

I’ll post more later… when I’m not gardening {::SMILES}.

To download the video –>>House Video

Music: Podsafe music by Colie Brice titled Flamingo Lounge

Another card and another tutorial. This time it’s not a Photoshop tutorial but a card tutorial! Did I use my camcorder? Oh no!!! I just took some pictures and used the free Microsoft Photo Story 3 application.

So for those creative ladies who loves to create tuts and have been doing photo tuts, this is a great, free, way to add more to your fancy tuts. Add voice narration AND background music to your tuts. You can watch a how-to on YouTube (I think he’s using Photo Story for that video).

Many asked me how I create my videos. Well, on the Windows machine, I use Camtasia and on the Mac, I use Snapz, then edit in iMovie AND if I need anything else with the audio I use Garageband. Long winded, huh? You get use to it. I love using Camtasia, especially version 5, because of its ability to zoom in and out and also I can easily save for many devices quite easily. It’s a pity Camtasia only works on the Windows systems.

Photo Story I don’t use personally. This is the first I’ve actually used it. But I teach it to my students who will be future teacher or instructional technologist of America {::SMILES}. K-12 students LOVE using this to create digital stories. If you’re a teacher, pass this info along, try it out, it’s super fun and the kids pick up on it quickly. If you’re a mom, use this for your kids and send grandma a fancy photo story with voice. Let your kids pick the music, etc. Use it to learn history, science, literature, etc.

Ok, back to the card… I used Kristina’s color inspiration for this card. The colors are Almost Navy, Old Olive, So Saffron, Bashful Blue and White.

I created this card for Emma. She so wanted a house card and also a picture of her and me inside. So that’s what started this. She loves it and she did promise to take very good care of it.

The measurements for the card is:

Card body: 4×25x4.25
Roof: 3×4.25
Piece between roof and card body: .5×5 (or the width of your ribbon if you use a wider ribbon).
Grass: 1×4.25
Door: 2.5×1.5
Door layer: 2.75×1.75

Updated Sunday June 1:

I did another card with the color combo since they’re such fun colors and I have all my stuff still out from the house card. This one is using the Spring Solitude stamp set and the Rough Edges Alphabet that I’m still cutting and mounting. For the U, I used Thickers from American Craft.

I hope this was a wonderful weekend for you. It was for us. Just nice and relaxing. M and I will be baking chocolate chip cookies after this post.

Thanks for looking and I really appreciate you all’s visits!!

My blog buddy, Ally, started a sketch blog site, So Sketchy, and this was her first sketch. I changed it up a bit since I didn’t have anything with three wallet size photos. Instead of a third photo, I layered a few embellishments and voila.

I love sketches. It helps me focus on the content and not the general big picture. If you’ve never done a sketch before, you should. It’s really fun and you don’t have to stick to everything on the sketch. For example you can flip this layout so that the pictures are on the left. Or like me, replace a picture with an embellishment.

This is Ally’s first sketch on So Sketch but she’s got a lot of other cute ones and I can’t keep up (girl, SLOW down!!).

What did I use for this LO? I use a lot of Amy Butler’s (K&Company) new stuff. The swirl paper lace is Prima and the overlay behind M’s first picture is Hambly. The paper I journaled on is Making Memories. For the embellishment, the replacement of the third photo, I just used my thicker pop-dots to layer them. I used pop-dots too for the butterfly, the red/pink flower, and the “special” sentiment. It didn’t take me long to make this page. Maybe 45 minutes. The sketch was awesome and all I had to do was put it together to my liking.

Thanks, Ally! Now I just have to decide on which five sketches that she’s got posted that I want to do next. Oh, not to mention the card sketches. {::SMILES}

Today was a great day. Not only did I have a productive day, I got to spend my productive day with one of my favorite person, my daughter {::SMILES}. To many, this might not be a big deal, but to me, who works outside the home, today was a special day.

I worked from home today. I told myself Tuesday that I was going to start at 6 a.m. so that I could get done early. Well, I was 15 minutes late, but hey, I did get up early and that’s a plus! M didn’t wake up until 8:30-ish. Lazy girl!! She ate breakfast and she did what I asked her to do… I’ve been prepping her since Monday about her playing alone and me working until it’s break time. She did her end and I got a lot done. I had two breaks and a lunch break. I did do a bit of work after 3 p.m. but it was because I wanted to finish a few things and M was napping (until almost 5!). We did talk a lot and I had activities for her so it was quite nice. The dogs were happy too. They just curled up next to me and every so often they’d ask for a belly rub.

Great day! This was the first time that M stayed home with me while I worked. I’ve worked from home before but I always drop M off at school and then daycare. We’ll be doing this again!

This card is a super quick card that I did today. The card stock are Stampin’ Up! (the yellow is Summer Sun) and the pattern paper is Making Memories 5th Avenue. Ribbon, Offrey from Wally World. The bird stamp is from the Natural Beauty set. I’ve had this set for a looooooong time and barely use it. This is the first time I’ve used this bird actually. The sentiment is PaperTrey’s Shapes by Design. The colors were actually inspired by Cindy Beach. You should check her out. She’s one awesome stamper! I think this is her first inspiration challenge… not sure but hey, it got me {::SMILES}.

I’m moving on to round three in the Scrapperie Gauntlet contest. Wuih! Lots of awesome entries! What was the challenge? To create a card that’s not a rectangle, square, or circle. So here’s my take on it.

Here are the details of the card:

Cut an 8.5×11 paper in half. You should then have two 5.5×8.5 pieces. Score on the 8.5 side to obtain a 4.25×5.5 size card. The roof, I eyeballed it. the width is 4.25 but not sure on the height. It was a rectangle and I found the center, marked it, and cut to form the rectangle. The piece between the rectangle and the triangle is a 4.75x.5 paper and I just tied this piece with a ribbon. I added some glue dots to hold the ribbon and paper together. I used this piece to join the bottom piece and the roof together. It works really well, the card is sturdy.

The door I eyeballed too. I cut the pattern paper first and then whatever the measurement was I added 1/8″ for the yellow paper behind it. The grass… I just got motivated with the scissors.

Material:
Ribbon: Offrey
Stamp: Stampin’ Up! Kind Thoughts
Cardstock: Stampin’ Up!
Alpha: American Craft Foam “Giggles” Thickers
Pattern paper: SEI (the door paper is a more recent purchase but the rest are super old paper)

So yesterday I gardened and boy was I sore after that. Blisters from raking, sore neck from looking down, etc. I’m just a wussy when it comes to labor work. Actually hubby did all the heavy jobs. All I did was remove the chunks of rocks and grass, rake, plant, and water!

So sleepy (M was super tired too, she spent a lot of time gardening too) — oh, I need a massage!!

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 made it to the top 10 for Kristina’s color challenge. Yeah!!! I looked and commented on a lot of the ones I liked (there were quite a bit of them!) and I didn’t think I’d make it but for the first time (this is my 3rd week of trying her challenges) my card was picked. Thanks Kristina and thanks to all who came to check it out.

Today I want to share a page that I did for a contest at Scrapperie. I told you a few weeks ago I think that I’m participating in a 7 weeks contest. This was round one’s submission and the challenge was to scrap about something that makes me feel sad or happy and it can’t be about being a wife or a mom. This was what I came up with. Traveling, eating, Starbucks, and recycling. Below are the details of the page…

Journaling: I love to travel. There’s just something about seeing new places and meeting different people plus tasting the local food that makes me happy inside. The idea of traveling also makes me sad because it’s not something I can do all the time right now. Recycling also makes me happy. I love this world and want to preserve it. Oh, I love Starbucks coffee too. One mocha, please.

Journaling around main journal: The world is beautiful. It’s only right if I help preserve it. So little time so many places, oh I wish, I wish, I wish. It’s not my time. One Day!

Journaling on the right: My thought, my feelings, May’08.

Credits:
Background paper: Creative Imagination.
Journaling card: Collage Press
Stamp: Prima
Butterflies and floral stickers: Me & My Big Ideas
Alpha: American Craft
Clear leaf image: My Mind’s Eyes
Train tickets: K&Company
Images: Cut out from Travel and Leisure
Starbucks: Recycled from coffee bean container.
Cardboard: Wow… who knows, it was in my garage

Well, that’s it for today. Thanks so much again for visiting and for leaving me wonderful comments. I appreciate each one of them and I think I am getting better at replying to each one of them. Have a great weekend!! M and I will have a very busy Saturday afternoon — birthday party and auction at her preschool. Oh the Places…. {::SMILES}.

Another butterfly card. I am just loving this set and butteflies in general.

I did this card for KWernerDesign’s color challenge. Pretty isn’t it? You can get more info from her blog. The colors are so saffron, real red, tempting turquoise, old olive, and pumpkin pie. Nice, huh?

Nothing interesting to share really. After this I’m going down to eat a tuna sandwich. The plumber is working on our water line in the basement. Moving a few things around before we work on our walls. Can’t wait until it’s done!!

Laters!

OMG! I about gave up with this card!!! The first card, I was already done with it and I accidentally put the card on top of the stamp that of course I haven’t cleaned. While trying to clean the back, the front sentiment got ruined. ARGH!!!!

Then I made a second one. Well, I just got to stamping the pattern stamp that’s on the bottom right  corner and my hand skipped and so I accidentally doubled up the stamp. Double ARGH!!!

So I took a deep breath, checked everything twice and here it is. I did it! I created the card based on KWernerDesign’s color challenge.  It’s Brilliant blue, Pumpkin Pie, Bashful Blue which I replaced with Bliss Blue since I don’t have Bashful, and White.

My Stampin’ Up! order came in today. Now I have four new sets to play with. I’ve been wanting this for a while but just never got to getting it. I should have gotten it earlier. The butterflies are so fun to use.

I received some interesting emails today and quite excited about them. They just came out of the blue. I’ll tell you more later after all is confirmed. All I can say is that one is from my very most favorite company. I’ll work there any day - well, as long as I can telecommute {::SMILES}.

I better get ready for a crop tomorrow. It’s at the LSS and I’m going to help host. We’re going to do some fun things. Nobody there reads my blog anyway so I’ll share {::SMILES}. I’ll be doing a few challenges, nothing hard really. The first is to use stamping for their layout and another is pop it with alphas. This is the first crop for the lss, so I’m trying to keep it simple. M is going with me — she’s been going to almost all my crops. She has her little bag ready.