Wildflower Week!

Hi y'all! Spring has sprung here in central Texas! I've been meaning to post this for a few weeks now but it just hasn't fit into the posting schedule - a few weeks ago my favorite spring event happened - I saw my first bluebonnet of the season!! The Texas Bluebonnet is our state flower, and it just *means* spring to me! Some years the sides of the roads are just covered with them, it's a beautiful sight! Unfortunately we've had too much drought in recent years to get that kind of display, but I'm happy just to see random clumps of them along the road! :-) And because these little blue beauties put such a smile on my face, I've decided to dedicate this week to bluebonnets, wildflowers and all things Texas! I hope you don't mind! Especially those of you in cold weather states - I hope this will just brighten your day and not make you hate me. :-) Today's card features a bluebonnet stamp and sentiment from Deadbeat Designs, which I picked up at my LSS. I colored directly on the stamp with my SU markers for this - stamping off the background bluebonnets, then stamping those in the foreground at "full strength". :-) I added the white part of the flowers with a gel pen. The sketch was one of Taylor's, a few weeks back. Thanks for looking today, and may YOUR days be filled with wildflowers too!

• Stamps: Deadbeat Designs
• Paper: Kraft, Night of Navy, Brocade Blue, To the Nines DP (SU)
• Ink: Night of Navy ink pad, Night of Navy & Always Artichoke markers
  
• Accessories: White gel pen, Scallop Edge punch, Michael's ribbon

FCD is having a SPRING FLING!!

Hi everyone - welcome to another FireCracker Designs by Pamela BLOG HOP! This time we're doing a little SPRING FLING, showing you the adorable sets Pamela has created for spring and Easter! Yay! If you just came directly to my blog and want to start at the very beginning (a very good place to start...! hee hee sorry, I love the Sound of Music :-)) you should go and visit Pamela and follow the links from there. And I have a hunch Pamela will have the opportunity to win some goodies on her blog for those who follow the complete hop around full circle!! You don't want to miss that! So for my card - I used a new set called Stinking of You. Isn't it stinking cute!?!? I love this little bunny - but check out the set, there's also a super cute SKUNK, which of course inspired the name of the set! For my card, I played along with Pamela's latest sketch challenge. I also played Sharon's Stamp Simply challenge - to use two different DP's on the card. Ursula gave us an extra challenge for the hop - to incorporate some pastel into the card - mine isn't as soft and pastel-ly (is that a word?) as I had intended when I started making it, but it's close. :-) One fun little thing to point out on this card, I added some Fun Fluff to the bunny's chest and tail. So sweet! Ok... just like this bunny, you need to get HOPPING! From here, head on over to Karyn's blog and see what she's been up to. I can't wait to find out myself! And thanks for hopping by today!

• Stamps: Stinking of You from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Pretty in Pink, Certainly Celery, Whisper White, The Paper Studio (polka dot) and Paper Pizazz (floral) DP
• Ink: Bashful Blue, Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: May Arts ribbon, Cuttlebug & Swiss Dots folder, SU scallop edge punch, Fun Fluff

From Courtney's Closet #36 - an inspiration challenge

Welcome to From Courtney's Closet, the somewhat weekly feature on my blog where I dress my sweetpea up in one of her cutie patootie outfits, and then make a card based on that outfit! Donna guessed that Courtney might be wearing a baby apron in today's picture - I WISH!! How cute would that be?? No, when my baby girl "helps" me unload the dishwasher, she's wearing a super cute Cool Caribbean and Chocolate Chip outfit with polka dots and flowers!! (Am I the only one who describes colors - ALL colors - as Stampin' Up colors???) :-) So after I finished the card tonight, I looked at it and thought "WOW - this looks like a Unity card!!" That was not intentional - I am not trying to promote that company. Not that I have anything against them, they seem like a fine company (although the owner looks more like a supermodel than a stamper?? Am I wrong???), I've just not found room in the budget to try any of their stamps. Yet. :-) But anyway - I digress. As usual. Today's card is fairly straightforward! I knew I wanted to use white flowers with brown centers - I turned to my box of Stampin' Up Pretties and found the flower, and then found my stash of goodies from Nancy's share to contain the perfect large brown brad (I am so grateful to Nancy for doing the AWESOME SU embellishment & paper shares, I am using what I got from her ALL THE TIME!). The sentiment is from an old Verve set - I think maybe Julee's first stamps? I bought them in red rubber when the set was called "Thoughtful Phrases" and the company was called Verve VISUAL, but now the same sentiments are part of the "Thoughtful Florals" clear photopolymer set. Well, between Verve and Unity, I sure did do a lot of jabbering about stamp companies considering the teeny tiny bit of actual stamping on this card!!!! Geesh. So, how about you? Want to make a card with lots of actual stamping on it, inspired by this outfit? Or one with even less than mine has?? If you do, link back here when you have it posted so I can come and take a peek!! Last week's outfit (and/or my CAS card!) inspired some wonderful creativity! First of all, the one and only super famous and all around amazing Donna, who I mentioned earlier (yes I am a TERRIBLE name dropper!) played again this week! YAY!!! Love her super cute card! (and check her blog for another cutie with this same tree!)And speaking of famous - holy smokes - the one and only ALLISON played too!!! Talk about EXCITING! :-) This scrapbook page of her sweet Charlotte just makes me want to pinch those cheeks...!!!Speaking of pinchable cheeks and general cuteness, Sue also made a scrapbook page, of her sweet grandbaby Cole and his loving Gwamma.And speaking of scrapbook pages (aren't I on a complete roll tonight with my segues??**), Warm & Wonderful (for lack of a better name! Sorry, I couldn't find your actual name on any of your blogs!!) sent me a photo from the ADORABLE scrapbook she had put together for her niece, who just had a baby. Do yourself a favor and check that link, her entire book is just fantastic!!Hmm... can't think of another perfect segue so I'll just move onto my HAPPIEST player this week, and that would be Ananya! Everything about her card made her happy, so she even used that as the sentiment! And, well, that makes me completely HAPPY too!! So cute, Ananya!!I was very HAPPY to see Chris send me her link earlier today - you weren't too late, girl, because I was way behind on posting this as usual!!! Love your card - that was such a fun sketch this week!Maria's card is sure to bring a smile to anyone's face - my favorite gingham girl used some plaid, too! Love it!And last but not least, my favorite this week - Jenn! While sweet Sue avoids orange like the plague, Jenn embraces it! Actually she may love it a little TOO much, if you know what I mean...! (actually, I don't even know what I mean - I'm typing this entirely WAY too late at night and I'm being completely goofy, LOL!) If you haven't visited Jenn's blog yet, please do - she's super funny, and she used to live in Austin so she is just cool by default. Oh and her cards are nice too! :-)Thanks everyone for playing this week, and thanks to the rest of you for stopping by. Make sure and come back on SATURDAY, I'll be joining in on another fun FireCracker blog hop! And you know that Pamela, she usually includes prezzies! Yay!! Have a great weekend! :-)

• Stamps: Thoughtful Phrases/Thoughtful Florals from Verve Stamps
• Paper: Cool Caribbean, Whisper White, PTI Dark Chocolate paper & DP
• Ink: Chocolate Chip
• Accessories: SU Pretties kit, SU brown brad, Bazzill brown mini brads, satin ribbon

** I learned tonight that this word is spelled segue NOT segway!! LOL!

Sneak Peek!

Hi friends! I'm not quite ready with my From Courtney's Closet card today, so I thought I'd just post a sneaky peeky instead! Hmm... what do you think Courtney wears when she's "helping" me load the dishwasher?? Note - I use the term "help" very loosely here!! :-) I wish I had my card done - but last night I did something completely crazy and chose *sleep* over stamping!! I KNOW! What was I thinking? LOL! And now, I just put Courtney down for her nap and am feeling extremely tempted to head into my stamp cave to work on it, but my house is a disaster and I should do the "right thing" and clean. Blech! So... I'll probably be posting the new card, as well as the AWESOME roundup from last week, late tonight - so be sure to check back tomorrow!! Have a nice day! :-)

Fairytale Dream Castle Cake!

You all know I love fantasy stuff after seeing my She Dreams cards! :-) And you also know I love sugar art - well Holy Toledo would you look at this GORGEOUS creation from the Pink Cake Box blog!!?!?! Looooooove it!

Cinema Saturday plus some others!!

First of all, very sorry for the crappy, blurry photo. *sigh* But anyway... I have one whopper of a challenge card for you today!!! First and foremost, it's my card for the latest Cinema Saturday challenge - Charlie and the Chocolate Factory!! Of course I *loved* the original Willie Wonka movie and saw it about a gazillion times growing up. And I was soooo excited when I heard they were remaking it, and that none other than my one true love Johnny Depp would be in it!! (Oops, sorry Joel, I mean my second true love? Hmm. Probably still bad. Let's just say he's my favorite actor and leave it at that!) And while I did like the remake, I have to say the original is still my favorite. So this is my card inspired by the movie(s). I just went with the general chocolate theme, not focusing on any particular aspect of the movie. The images are from Stampin' Up's long-retired Oh So Sweet set (which I still LOVE!) and that awesome sentiment is from AMuse. This week's challenge had the added rule that we were to use BRIGHT COLORS. I think I achieved that. Yes? The colors are actually Dawn McVey's brand new color challenge. How fun to play along with a challenge right from the get-go, starting in Week 1! I wonder if I'll be able to be a regular? We shall see! But as for the Cinema Saturday rule - I thought using a plethora of different polka dots also added to the general "brightness" (or shall I say craziness?) of the card! You all know I love polka dots. I think this may be a new record for the amount of different ones on one card!!?? LOL! I played another challenge too - the sketch is this week's Sketch Challenge over on Splitcoast! It's a fun one! The chocolates have clear Glaze pen on them for shine, and Star Dust Stickles on the papers. My stitching is crooked, but so be it. ;-) And finally, I also made this for Jennifer Tapler's blog candy challenge. It's Jen's 1-year blogoversary, and she is doing something really special - gathering cards to use in an auction to benefit the Alzheimer's Association. Sadly, Jennifer's father has been afflicted with this horrible, scary disease. The blog candy she's gathered is YUMMY to say the least, so go and check it out!! And thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Oh So Sweet from Stampin' Up, All I need is love from AMuse
• Paper: Chocolate Chip, Pink Passion, Whisper White, DP from The Paper Studio (yellow), AMuse (orange), Making Memories (pink)
• Ink: Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Pink Passion, Chocolate Chip marker
• Accessories: Cuttlebug & Swiss Dots folder, Janome Sew Mini, Bazzill mini brads, scallop ribbon (American Crafts? May Arts? I forget.), clear Glaze pen, Star Dust Stickles

i love mew

So yesterday I was doing my usual scan of status updates on Facebook (have I mentioned, among many other addictions, I'm also hopelessly addicted to Facebook!?) when I saw Kim say "I need a major color challenge, I'm in a stamping color rut!". Being the smart aleck that I am, I jumped in and said "Elegant Eggplant, Real Red, Chocolate Chip - go stamp!". I completely pulled these colors out of thin air, not even considering how easy or difficult they would be to use together. I was sort of joking, but Kim took me up on the challenge and set off to work! Check out her blog to see what she came up with!! So then I thought, well, to be fair, I should attempt this crazy color combo myself! I thought about the Chocolate Chip, and decided a brown animal might work. So naturally I thought of my sweet Kiki Kitties from Pink Cat Studio!! Although I have to say, coloring him brown like this, I think he sorta looks like chocolate!! But maybe I just have chocolate bunnies on the brain this time of year. :-) For a layout I decided to scan my favorite blog Pickled Paper Designs, because it's always soooooo inspiring - I thought this card had a general layout that could work with this image, and changed it up just a little. Amy also gave me the inspiration to pull out that lacy ribbon - I thought the hearts went well with the balloon hearts. Oh, and the little heart in "i *heart* mew". Isn't that the cutest little sentiment??? I just realized, I have hearts in three places. Yay! I think that's supposed to be a good design rule or something, to do things in threes. LOL. I also decided to throw in Sharon's latest Stamp Simply challenge while I was at it - to use ribbon tabs. So double yay! I successfully completed my own crazy color challenge, and another one to boot! If you're looking for a challenge yourself, feel free to try these colors as well, and let me and Kim know that you did so we can check it out! Thanks for stopping by today!!

• Stamps: Kiki Kitty from Pink Cat Studio
• Paper: Chocolate Chip, Neenah Solar White, SU DP, PTI DP, PTI white card base
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: lace ribbon from Hancock Fabrics, black Glaze pen, diamond glaze (on balloons), red grosgrain ribbon, brown Bazzill mini brads

She Dreams in Sketches!

This weekend I spent some time playing with one of my all-time favorite stamp sets - She Dreams from FireCracker Designs by Pamela! I am sooooooooooooo in love with these stamps!! You already saw one card I made with them on my Courtney's Closet post a couple weeks ago. Now I have three more to show you! All of the cards I made this weekend were to play along with various sketch challenges - hence the title of this post. :-) I should probably space out the postings instead of showing you them all at once, so I actually have something to post later this week - but oh well, I'm too impatient for that! :-) First up is my knight in shining armour! The sketch for this one was Taylor's Cupcake Challenge #60. To color in my knight, I did something I haven't done in ages - broke out my chalks! But I couldn't leave him be - something about this set just calls out "GLITTER!" to me (which may be one of the reasons I love it so!) so I added lots of various Stickles to my image - Star Dust on the horse, purple on the knight, red on his plume and silver on his sword. The purple background is stamped repeatedly with the 'My knight in shining armour' sentiment in Encore gold, then TP'ed with eggplant ink. The edges are also sponged with Chocolate Chip.Next I had to start getting the awesome dragon images inky. I just *love* the combo on this card - how the image is just the tail of the dragon, and the sentiment is so perfect - "Imagine the impossible". I think I've mentioned before, that Pamela is one clever gal! :-) The sketch this time is Jen del Muro's SFYTT. This card has lots of pretty shimmer IRL - the green of the dragon was colored with Copics then painted with Celery Shimmerz, and his underside is coated with Star Dust Stickles. The flowers and pearls are all from the SU Pretties kit - I colored the flowers with my Copic and then painted them with Shimmerz as well. The sentiment was stamped and then traced over with a Spica pen, and I also added Shimmerz to the edges of the sentiment & image panels. Soooo much sparkle IRL - the photo truly does not do this card justice!!The third card is such a cool dragon image!! This time the sketch is last week's challenge on SCS. The blue background DP is from SU's "Good Morning Sunshine", and I took my color queues from that paper pack - Pacific Point, Kiwi Kiss & Chocolate Chip. I thought that paper looked somewhat like the dragon's eye, and then I embossed the Kiwi panels to look sort of like dragon scales. Again a lot of sparkle & shine - this time it's Gold Glimmer Shimmerz on the underside of the dragon, and a mix of Orange Peel and Gold Stickles on the dragon's flame. I also coated his eye in clear Glaze pen to give it a little shine. Oh, and I nearly forgot - speaking of that clever Pamela - I stamped just "Dragon?" on the outside - well the inside reads "Feel Better Soon!". Hee hee!Just an fyi since I did so much with Shimmerz today - Pamela has some NEW colors in stock, yay!! Check them out! Alright - wow - posting three cards at once really makes for a long post! Did anyone even read the entire thing? :-) Thanks for stopping by today - I hope you have a great week!

• Stamps: She Dreams from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Elegant Eggplant, Brushed Gold, GP white, PTI black polka dot DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Encore Gold, Elegant Eggplant, Chocolate Chip
• Accessories: SU Pastels, Stickles, Spellbinders die, black organdy ribbon, safety pin, heart brads

• Stamps: She Dreams from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Chocolate Chip, Bordering Blue, Very Vanilla, Basic Grey Archaic DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Chocolate Chip, Bordering Blue, So Saffron, Copics for coloring
• Accessories: Stickles, Shimmerz, SU Pretties Kit, rhinestone buckle, Chocolate Chip wide grosgrain, Spica glitter pen

• Stamps: She Dreams from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Pacific Point, Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip, GP White, SU Good Morning Sunshine DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Stickles, clear Glaze pen, Shimmerz, Janome Sew Mini, mini library clip

Bakin' Cakes!

My sweet and hilarious friend Carole tagged me this morning - the one where you're supposed to share the sixth photo in the sixth folder on your computer. Well sure, I'll play along! The timing is perfect, actually - I didn't manage to stamp anything last night anyway, I was too busy getting all teary-eyed over an excellent episode of Grey's Anatomy! So the sixth photo folder on my computer is Cakes - right after AlamoBowl2003, Arizona2004, Babies, Boston and Bowling Party. :-) And the sixth photo in the Cakes folder? It has me making flowers to decorate my friend Diane's wedding cake, way back in 2001! The flowers were tulips (more or less!) and were made from purple gumpaste - I had to roll them out and shape them, and then form them onto a clothespin to dry and harden. (ETA: MY SISTER NEEDS YOU TO KNOW THAT SHE MOST DEFINITELY HELPED MAKE THESE FLOWERS, IN WHAT SHE CALLED MY SWEATSHOP!!) :-) (Sidenote: I had a TON of clothespins for this! I wish I still had them - I could use them for storing ribbon!! But I got rid of them in a garage sale, duh!) I have to share the finished cake and a close-up as well - I really loved how this cake turned out. I've made three wedding cakes in my lifetime - two for friends and then one for hire. I don't do it anymore - it stresses me out WAY too much!! So much pressure - it could easily ruin the reception for the bride if her cake is a disaster (Or falls over!!! Could you imagine??) (Oh and did I mention - for this wedding, I also made the groom's cake (chocolate raspberry, with a Michigan State Spartans logo on top and chocolate shavings!) and was a bridemaid. An action packed weekend for Libby!! But anything for you, my sweet Diane!!!) So anyway, I've retired. I would say I only make birthday cakes for my kids now - but I haven't even been good about that - the last two for Carter came from the grocery store. Ugh, I'm a rotten mother. Well we'll see - maybe birthday #4 will get him a homemade cake from mom... :-)

Ok now I'm supposed to tag some people. Here are the official rules, per Carole's post...

•Open your photo folder on your computer
•Open the 6th folder of photos
•Select the 6th picture
•Post the picture on your blog with a description
•Invite six friends to join the challenge
•Link your six friends to your blog post

And let's see, I think I will tag Sue, Kathryn, Maria, Chris, Monica and Pamela. Play if you feel like it, ladies! :-)

Thanks for stopping by today for this little non-stamping related walk down memory lane!

From Courtney's Closet #35 - an inspiration challenge

Welcome to this week's edition of From Courtney's Closet - my weekly (more or less!) blog feature where I dress my almost-not-a-baby-anymore (*sigh*) little sweetie up in one of her outfits, make a card inspired by that outfit, and challenge YOU to do the same! If you're new here and you're curious, previous weeks can be found here. Well this week I decided to do something different for me. Would you look at this card?? Monica mentioned yesterday that she liked my pig card because of the "simple" design. I'm definitely not very good at clean and simple cards, they are quite a challenge for me. So, I decided to challenge myself to make one last night! And, I think I succeeded! Not a whole lot going on with this card, but I have to say I rather like it. There is a little dimension to it - the tree tops and trunks are all stamped and cut out. But, that's about it! As soon as I saw the outfit Courtney's wearing this week, that tree made me think of the new Trendy Trees set from Stampin' Up. I love how SU got right to the point and called them Trendy Trees, because trees sure are trendy these days, aren't they? I think it's so interesting to watch the stamping trends - something becomes popular, and next thing you know every company seems to scramble to make their own version of it. Cupcakes, birds, owls, trees... hmm I wonder what's next? :-) But I digress, as usual. LOL! So what do you think of this week's outfit? The colors are a little wild, aren't they? I hope you'll give it a whirl. Remember you can be inspired by ANYTHING in this post - the colors, the image, making a clean & simple card - shoot, even the little truck in the background is fair game! :-) If you do make a card, link back here and let me know where to find it - your blog, SCS, PCP, wherever! If you upload to SCS or another online gallery, please use keyword FCCC. Last week my little princess inspired several wonderful cards!! In the past I've been picking my favorite, but this week I just love them all and refuse to pick. :-) So, ladies - if you have never sent me your address, please do so and I'll put a little something in the mail to you. (Well, I mean the ladies who *played* - but if the rest of you want to get yourself on my "stamping friends RAK list" please feel free to email me your address as well! LOL!) So today I'm just going to list and link up all of the WONDERFUL creations, here goes...
Chris:Berenice:Angie:Kim:Kathryn:Anita #1:Anita #2:Katie #1:Katie #2:Tammy (ok I do have to add I am SO THRILLED Tammy played this week!!!!):Sue:Thanks so much ladies, you are all THE BEST! You completely make my week EVERY week with your wonderful creations!! And thanks everyone else for stopping by today!!!

• Stamps: Trendy Trees from Stampin' Up
• Paper: Kiwi Kiss, Georgia Pacific White
• Ink: Chocolate Chip, Taken with Teal, Pink Passion, Pumpkin Pie
• Accessories: ZIP!

Cinema Saturday - Waking Ned Devine

You've heard me mention before that one of my favorite challenge blogs is the Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge. It is just way too much fun! This week's movie is "Waking Ned Devine" - and this week I even played along with the challenge the way I'm supposed to - I actually rented the movie and watched it before stamping!! :-) It was a cute movie - and I was actually inspired to make four cards, but only managed to put two of the four ideas down on paper. Here's the first, which was inspired by a sweet character in the movie, Pig Finn. Poor Finn is a pig farmer, and the girl he loves loves him back, but not enough to get close to him due to the STINK. So, of course I thought immediately of this sweet little Hambo pig, holding a flower to try and smell better for his love. :-) This also incorporated the required theme this week, to include some green on my card. The colors are this week's Color Throwdown - Night of Navy, Kiwi Kiss and Blush Blossom - the Blush Blossom being the color I used on the pig!Card number two is an invitation to Chicken Dinner at Jackie O'Shea's place. If you know the movie, you know what this is about. :-) For me, it was an excuse to ink up my favorite Hambo chickens!! But if you look at those chickens on the Hambo site, you notice that something's a little kooky here - I wanted one chicken to be facing the opposite way from what Timbo (Hambo's awesomely talented illustrator!) had intended. So, I used my nifty mirror image stamp to reverse him. The image didn't stamp as cleanly as I would have liked, so I just traced over him with my Copic multiliner pen before coloring. The card's colors are this week's Color Challenge on Splitcoast - Riding Hood Red, Summer Sun, Kraft & Black. This really shows how addicted I am to Cinema Saturday - usually the silly cards I make are something I could potentially use, somehow - or at least stick on Etsy. This one, well - it's completely just for fun! I guess I do make invitations for hire, so I suppose it will go into my invitation sample portfolio. :-) Thanks for stopping by today! If you want to play this week's movie challenge, the deadline is noon PST tomorrow! But on Friday they will start the sneak peeks for another movie - yay - I can't wait!!! And I'll be back tomorrow with my own From Courtney's Closet challenge - don't forget to get your princess cards made pronto!!! ;-)

• Stamps: Flower Pig from Hambo Stamps
• Paper: Night of Navy, Basic Black, Kiwi Kiss textured, GP White, SU Bella Rose DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Spellbinders dies, American Crafts Thickers stickers, Chatterbox ribbon, K&Co bling, black brad

• Stamps: Chickens from Hambo Stamps, mirror stamp from CHF
• Paper: Kraft, Basic Black, Riding Hood Red, Making Memories DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic black multiliner, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Computer & printer, Yellow brads

Cuddley Lions

I made today's card for a GinaK swap on SCS. I decided to use Melanie's Cuddles and Hugs set, which is one of my faves! I just love this sweet lion image - it reminds me of that YouTube video of Christian the lion, ever see it? I'll find it and embed it down below. :-) For my card, I thought More Mustard and Really Rust would be a nice lion-y color combo to use. :-) Then I was looking through my paper stash, and found this paper that was in the Stampin' Up mini catalog last fall. It's not paw prints, but I think it kinda looks like paw prints! So, I went with it! I also love this sentiment, so very sweet. And by the way, this card has had a much more favorable reaction from my 3 year old than most of my cards - he saw it sitting on the desk and was very excited that I had made a card of Simba and Nala! :-) Carter doesn't have preschool this week (spring break!) so my DH took the day off and we're going to go and do something "fun". But we haven't quite decided what that will be just yet. :-) But I better get moving so we're ready to go. Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Cuddles and Hugs from GinaK
• Paper: Really Rust, More Mustard, GP white, SU DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Chocolate Chip, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Cuttlebug & Swiss Dots folder, Spellbinders dies, SU ribbon

And here is the video I mentioned - it's a true story! Brings a smile to my face and a tear to my eye everytime I watch it!!

Getting It Out of My System, Part One.

(Scroll down to my next post to read about my fun celebrity encounter this morning!) :-) It's really bugged me that I didn't find time to play the Color Throwdowns the past couple weeks - so last night I "got it out of my system" and stamped what I had intended to stamp the weeks the Throwdowns were issued! Both cards use super cute new Hambo Stamps from their latest release, I just love their people stamps, they make me smile. :-) The first one is the Fisherman - when I saw the Color Throwdown #31 colors were Bashful Blue, Kiwi Kiss and Night of Navy, I immediately thought this stamp would be a perfect fit! I paired him with the Happy Father's Day stamp and BAM! I have my dad's Father's Day card made, months in advance FOR ONCE! (Oh who am I kidding? I'll probably stick it in my Etsy shop! LOL!) The sketch was last week's Mojo Monday sketch - as usual I didn't quite make the deadline for that challenge either! Really love this sketch though, it's a keeper! The second card uses one of my FAVES from the latest Hambo release - Stamper's Back - you already know how much I adore the buttcrack stamps!! I'm just goofy like that I guess! So you saw me recently working in the garden, here I am stamping away in my Stamp Cave! And look at me in those hot pink pants, woohoo! Those don't look as HOT in person, they did not photograph well - but in general I don't think I chose the right color marker to match my Regal Rose paper! LOL! The colors for this card were Color Throwdown #32 - Pretty in Pink, Barely Banana and Regal Rose. Such a pretty combo - sorry ladies that I added HOT pink into the mix, LOL! This sketch is Taylor's latest sketch - another fun one!! I love this new Hambo sentiment "To stamp or not to stamp?" - the inside of the card reads "That's a dumb question!" How true is that?? :-) *sigh* Ok, I feel better now that I've gotten these Throwdowns out of my system! Hopefully going forward I'll make cards the weeks the challenges are issued! HA! Famous last words... ;-) Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Fisherman and Happy Father's Day from Hambo Stamps
• Paper: Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Kiwi Kiss, GP White, Rockabilly Specialty DP (SU)
• Ink: Night of Navy, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Spellbinders dies, Fiskars Boundary Waters punch

• Stamps: Stamper's Back and Dumb Question from Hambo Stamps
• Paper: Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink, Barely Banana, GP White, Sweet Always DP (SU)
• Ink: Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder, Spellbinders dies, CTMH rickrack ribbon

Meeting Tyler Florence!

I'll be back a little later with some new cards, but I had to stop in and tell you about the fun morning I've had! I don't know how many of you watch The Food Network, but one of my favorite chefs on there has always been Tyler Florence. His shows are Food 911, How to Boil Water, Tyler's Ultimate... anyway, he's just launched a new line of baby food (Courtney says you're about six months too late, Tyler!) and he has a new cookbook, so he's doing the book signing tour, trying to promote the baby food. This morning he was at Central Market, my favorite grocery store in Austin. It's completely random that I even found out about it - I hadn't been to Central Market in about a zillion years, but last Thursday went there in search of some lamb and a special spice I needed for some kofta kebabs I planned to make. While I was there I saw the signs promoting the event. Typically I'd have Carter with me on a Monday, and don't know if I'd brave it with the two of them - but it so happened that Carter was spending this morning playing at Rachel's house! Yay! All I had to do was cross my fingers that Courtney would cooperate! Well, she did great - and as it turned out, most of the people there were moms and babies (duh, he is promoting BABY FOOD afterall!) so it was just perfectly fine to bring her. So we got to listen to Tyler talk for a bit, he answered questions, and he seemed just as nice as he does on TV! When it was our turn for the book signing, he shook my hand and I said hello and that was about it because I completely clam up when I'm around celebrities! (LOL - that made it sound like I'm around celebrities all the time!) Somebody snapped a photo for us - of course it turned out slightly blurry - but you can tell that it's me, Courtney and Tyler Florence, so that's cool. :-) His cookbook looks awesome, btw - can't wait to try some of the recipes!!

Take a Deep Breath

Holy chakras, Batman - you would not believe the effort it took to create this card!!! It should have been simple enough - I had the colors taken care of from this week's Color Throwdown - Tempting Turquoise, Elegant Eggplant & my choice of green - LOVE this combo!! The sketch came from the fabulous Jenn Balcer, this week's Weekend Sketch Challenge. All I had to do was grab some paper, embellishments, stamp an image, slap it together, DONE! Right? Ohhhh soooo wroooong! ;-) I started out with a completely different image in mind - I had picked up this neat little India-themed elephant last fall at a stamp expo, and had planned to use that. I tried. It just wasn't happening. I actually pulled out this MFT Serenity Now set because I thought I might find a suitable sentiment to go with the elephant in it - I was thinking I might use "namaste" - but when the elephant started giving me trouble I just threw him in the rubbish bin and decided to make this a yoga card! The entire process just took wayyy longer than it may sound from that description. Doesn't help that it was in the wee hours when non-crazy people are sleeping and perhaps my creative juices aren't flowing as well as they should. Plus I kept finding myself distracted by Facebook or blogs - example, I clicked on Reader to scroll down to Jenn's blog, to see what she had done with the sketch - next thing I know I'm looking at Ali Edwards' blog, which lately seems to make me quite teary (she just has *the sweetest* new baby girl and it's making me long for those days with Courtney - it feels like Courtney's first year went by in the blink of an eye and I somehow missed it - but anyway - see how easily I get sidetracked?!?!) and then I actually read some of her comments because I was curious, and next thing I know I'm reading some woman's creative writing blog and a story about her son and how it surprised her that others think of him as "disabled" - which of course also made me teary - so there you go. That pretty much sums up why it can take me HOURS to create a card!! Oh but fyi - in the end I do love this card. :-) Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Serenity Now from My Favorite Things
• Paper: Always Artichoke, Elegant Eggplant, BG Marrakech, DCWV Once Upon a Time, BG Archaic, GP white
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics for coloring, Always Artichoke for sponging
• Accessories: Spellbinders die, Cuttlebug textile folder, K&Co embellishments and bling, satin ribbon