FCD Goes Outdoors - a blog hop!!

Hi everyone, welcome to another FireCracker Designs by Pamela blog hop!! This time around, FCD is going outdoors - all the cards in the hop will have something to do with the great outdoors! You may have found your way here by way of Pamela's blog, which is great - but no worries if you started here, because this hop is circular - there is no beginning or end - you can just go around the circuit and end up right back here if you'd like! But do make sure and hop around and leave comments on every blog - Pamela will pick one of the blogs - I'm not even sure which one - and draw a winner from that blog's comments!! So make sure you're in the running by leaving comments!! The hop ends on Tuesday, June 30. At that time you can pop back by Pamela's blog to see if you've won, or she will be contacting you via email.

Ok now that I have all of THAT out of the way, let me tell you about my card!! If you've been following my blog this week, OF COURSE you knew I'd be using *MY BIRDS* for this outdoor-themed hop!! (read this post to know why I call them MY BIRDS!) The set is actually called A Little Bird Told Me, and I think it's just lovely!!! I recently saw a "diorama card" created by Diana Gibbs in a Stampin' Up publication, and fell in love with it - so I decided to try one myself for this hop! Turns out Diana had written a tutorial for Splitcoast a while back, so putting this card together was easy peasy following her wonderful instructions!! I think it turned out really pretty. And believe it or not, it can actually be flattened down to put in an envelope! I used the sentiment "Heard you were home!" which I just love with the purple martin image and house - I don't know if you know about purple martins, but if you have a martin house in your yard, the same martins come back to it year after year. Here in Texas, they visit in the very early spring and have their babies, and then migrate someplace else for the rest of the year. It makes me so very happy every spring when they come back home, to sing their song (they have the weirdest call, it sounds sorta like a robot!) and eat all of the mosquitos from my yard. :-D I'll be giving this card to a friend who will soon be moving back to Austin after living away for a bit. (YAY! Can't wait to have her back home too!) I'll put all the recipe details for this card down below - but let me know if you have any questions about it. It truly was very easy to put together, so I think you should give a diorama a try! :-) (disclaimer: the diorama is very cool but not easy to photograph! Sorry my photos aren't perfect!) And if you are as in love with this bird set as I am, and rush straight over to the FCD site to order it, you'll see that it's currently sold out!! **GASP** But never fear, Pamela has more on order and will get yours out to you just as soon as her shipment arrives!

Ok, now it's time to hop on over to the next blog - which is the lovely and talented Marie! :-D I can't wait to see what she's created! Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: A Little Bird Told Me from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Pale Plum, Whisper White, PTI bitty dots DP, Violet DP from the Basic Grey Wisteria line
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Slit & Scalloped Edge punches, Periwinkle Shimmerz, Mark Richards pearls, bird charm from Blue Moon Beads, ribbon from my stash

Bathing Beauties

Well oops! I thought I played along with this week's Techno stamper sketch challenge, but instead I guess I played along with a similar older one! I was one post off on the Technostamper website, LOL! (and, I didn't read very well!) I wonder if this will "count" as this week's sketch? I hope so, because she's giving away some yummy candy for playing along!! For this card I pulled out another image from *My Bird Set*, otherwise known as the FireCracker Designs by Pamela's A Little Bird Told Me set. The quote is one I especially love in this set, it's by Maya Angelou, who I adore! The colors for this card were last week's color challenge on Splitcoast (CC223), and they are sooo pretty! Baja Breeze, Ruby Red & Whisper White. Lovely! Thanks for stopping by today - and don't forget to tune in tomorrow for our FCD monthly bloghop!!

• Stamps: A Little Bird Told Me from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Baja Breeze, Ruby Red, Whisper White, GP white, Bo Bunny DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, SU slit punch, buttons, adhesive flatback pearls, white embroidery thread

And a reminder - today is the last day to use my code, LIBBY1, at the FCD website for 15% off your entire order!! If you order these birds you will get them just as soon as Pamela's next shipment arrives!

From Courtney's Closet #46 - an inspiration challenge

Hi y'all, welcome to this week's edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card based on one of my sweet baby girl's outfits and challenge you to do the same! Well I don't know what it's like where you are, but I am DYING from the heat here in Austin, Texas!! Yesterday's high was 105!! C'MON MOTHER NATURE, IT'S ONLY JUNE! Usually late July or August is when it's really scorching here - so I'm totally not ready for what this summer has in store for us. I live near Lake Travis, our big lake outside of Austin - everyday I drive by it and see more and more "beach" and "island" popping up - the water level is lower than I've ever seen it!! I'm going to do a rain dance!! I am really tempted to make some Christmas cards today - maybe stamping snowflakes would make me feel cooler??? Anyway... today's card... I just bought this top for Courtney, because it's so nice and cool! (although, it does expose an awful lot of her fair skin to that brutal sun - but that's what SPF50 is for!!) This isn't the card I thought I was going to make when I sat down to stamp - since there's yellow in this shirt, I thought I was going to make a chickadee card using "my birds" :-) see here for the story! but instead felt like stamping some flowers and pulled out my uninked FireCracker Designs by Pamela set Forgive Me?. And it's funny - I spent some time creating masks for the flowers and originally had the center flower "behind" the other two, but in the end stamped it again and cut it out and popped it up! I always have to make things as hard as possible for myself, it seems! The colors on this are some new In Colors from Stampin' Up - the yellow is called Crushed Curry, and the orange is Dusty Durango! I colored the flowers yellow with the new IN COLOR MARKER!!!! Hello! About time SU did that!! The flower centers have rust-colored rhinestones surrounded by a little bit of Stickles. I automatically reached from my beloved StarDust Stickles when I was making this, then realized the glitter flecks really didn't go with this card - the Diamond Stickles were much better (for once!). :-)

So what do you think, do you want to play along?? I surely hope you will!!!! If you do, leave a comment back here so I can come and find you! Thanks for stopping by today - STAY COOL!! :-D

• Stamps: Forgive Me? from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Brocade Blue, Crushed Curry, Dusty Durango, Confetti Cream
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic & Stampin' Up markers for coloring, Chocolate Chip ink for sponging
• Accessories: Spellbinders Labels 1 die, Cuttle Swiss Dots, Martha Stewart Doily Lace punch, Diamond Stickles, K&Co rhinestones

Reminder - now through end of day tomorrow, get 15% off your entire order at FireCracker Designs by Pamela when you use code LIBBY1!!! And come back on Saturday, we're doing our monthly FCD blog hop!!! Yay!

A Welcoming Wreath...

Here's another card I made with *my* bird stamps!! (See the previous post to read why they are MINE!) :-D But wait, you say, there's no BIRDS on this card!?! Nope, this time I used the little ivy leaves that Pamela included in the set, to create a wreath! I was more or less CASEing myself for this one - I made a similar wreath a few months ago with a holly leaf in another one of Pamela's sets, found here. I'm proud to say that the suggestion to add the little leaves & flowers to the set was mine - when Pamela shared an early version of the set with me and asked if I had any ideas to help fill in the empty space on the sheet. That's one FUN part of being on a design team, seeing the preliminary sketches and getting to submit feedback!! Some details about the card - to create the wreath I began by penciling in a circle on the paper - tracing one of my circle Nesties. Then I stamped the leaves around the circle, erased the pencil mark and colored the leaves in three different shades of green. I also did a few on scrap paper to cut out and pop up, to add a little more dimension to the wreath. When I was done I wasn't happy with how stark white the background looked next to the wreath, so I went a little mad with my sponge daubers and a couple shades of brown ink! This was another fun card to make! If you have any sets with small leaves, remember they can make fun wreathes!! Reminder - now through Friday enter code LIBBY1 at Pamela's store and get 15% off your entire order!! "My" birds (aka A Little Bird Told Me!) are currently sold out!! But you can still include them in your order, and you will be among the first to get them when Pamela's next batch arrives! Yay! Thanks for stopping by today. :-D

• Stamps: A Little Bird Told Me from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: SU Garden Green, Brushed Copper, GP white, SU Kraft DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, SU Chocolate Chip & Creamy Caramel, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: SU Slit, Oval, and Modern Label (brand new!) punches, Hobby Lobby ribbon

Playing Tag...

My sweet friend Nic, the one and only Gorillamama, is so thoughtful - she gave me this Kreativ Blogger award! Thank you so much Nic!

And now to play along... here are the rules...

Thank the person who nominated you for the award.

Copy the logo and place it on your blog.

Link to the person who gave you the award.

List 7 things about yourself that people may find interesting.

Nominate 7 new Kreativ Bloggers.

Post links to the new nominated blogs.

Leave a comment on their blogs, letting them know they have been nominated.

Hmm... 7 things about me... I ramble so much on here, I'm not sure there are 7 you don't already know. Let's see...
1. I love watching The Next Food Network Star and I can't imagine anyone but Jeffrey winning it this time around!!
2. I love to cook.
3. I hate that it's 104 degrees today in Austin, TX. I wish I could "summer" someplace with an appropriate temperature for human beings.
4. I would really love to go back to school to become a pediatric nurse.
5. Or I would really love to study graphic design. :-D
6. I am addicted to Facebook.
7. I'm reading the Twilight series now - I'm halfway through Eclipse - while I sorta get why people love it (and I'm a total vampire fan!) I really cannot stand Bella - what a whiner! (but BTW I do dream of living in the Pacific Northwest, so I love reading about it. See #3 above. :-) )

And now I get to nominate my 7 chickadees to pass this along to... I know some of these people probably don't play along with these, and that is absolutely ok - I have no expectations about whether or not you post this yourself, ladies! :-D (I am certain some of you have received this one before!)

First my favorite stamp company owners and/or stamp designers:
1. Monica of Hambo Stamps, at Talk to the Ham
2. Pamela of FireCrackers Designs by Pamela, at Pamela's Gallery
3. Jimmye Sue of Texana Designs, at Day Scriber
4. Melanie, designer extraordinaire for Gina K, at Hands, Head, Heart
And now a few of my favorite stamper chicks:
5. Vicki at Stamped Smiles
6. Sue at Sue's Stamping Stuff
7. Katie at KB Stamps

My Birds!

Hi all! As I mentioned in my previous post, I *finally* was able to locate my missing mojo (apparently it was not a fan of this scorching Texas heat and was hiding! LOL!) and I finally got some stamping done. And now without further ado, I am soooooo excited to introduce one of the latest FireCracker Designs by Pamela sets to you - because it's one I begged and pleaded Pamela to make!!!!! She called the set A Little Bird Told Me, but I am going to just call these *My Birds* from here on out. :-D No, of course I didn't DRAW them, I'm not that talented for crying out loud! I leave that to the professionals like Pamela. But I did mention to her that I adore purple martins, and I've personally never seen any purple martin stamps. And then I became a little obsessive compulsive and sent her a whole bunch of links to photos of the birds and their houses. And I compiled a list of possible quotes and sentiments to include. And finally she gave in and said ALRIGHT ALREADY, ENOUGH WITH THE BIRDS, I'LL DO IT!! Just kidding. She was awesome as always and liked the idea right away. Yay! It was soooo exciting to see what she did with my little suggestion! She added a chickadee to my martin stamps, but I *suppose* that is ok...! hee hee Truly, I just LOVE THESE STAMPS!! They are so pretty. They make me smile. Now I have to show you MY martins!! I have this house in the back corner of my yard. It's so fun when they return every spring to have their babies. It's supposed to be the same family year after year, if I understand correctly. So they truly are MY martins!!
The first card I created up above uses Jen's latest SFYTT! I loved the big circle on the sketch and thought a lace doily would be fun to put there. I had a wee mishap with the puffy paint, which of course I added at the very end so I was super duper bummed! But oh well, what can ya do? I added a little Shimmerz to the bird's neck and underside, because the martins have a bit of a shine to them. The males really look more black, with a deep purple to their heads when they are in the right light, but that was just too hard to capture with Copics. :-) (for me anyway - maybe Leslie or Debbie will buy this set and we can all see how the expert colorers do it... LOL!)This second card was fun to create because I pulled out a technique I haven't done in AGES - I stamped the birdhouse image in Versamark, then extended the pole with a embossing pen, and embossed the whole thing in black EP. Then I used BLEACH to color in the image. It was fun because I couldn't remember what color you get when you bleach the Stampin' Up black cardstock - turns out it's yellow! Neat, huh? I'm going to have to try this on some other colors too and see what I get! I also found a set of bird charms in my stash that made a fun addition to this card.And now the REALLY fun part - Pamela has offered up a 15% discount code - on your ENTIRE order - now through Friday. Just enter code LIBBY1 when you checkout. YAY! I really hope you like my birds, and if you get them please by all means let me know, I'd *LOVE* to see what you do with them!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by today! And tune in all week, I have more sweet bird creations to share! Take care!!

• Stamps: A Little Bird Told Me from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Stampin' Up Soft Suede, Eggplant Envy, GP white
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, SU Chocolate Chip, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Spellbinders dies, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, Fiskars tag punch, Shimmerz, doily, satin ribbon, sewing machine, puffy paint, sponge

• Stamps: A Little Bird Told Me from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Stampin' Up Basic Black, Kraft, Papertrey Ink purple CS and DP
• Ink: Versamark, Elegant Eggplant, Chocolate Chip
• Accessories: Bleach, Black EP, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, Spellbinders die, SU slit & corner punches, sewing machine, silver brads, bird charm, May Arts ribbon, sponge

From Courtney's Closet #45 - Roundup!

Wow, where have I been? I can't believe over a week has slipped by without so much as a peep from me!! I've just been busy busy busy with my mom visiting and my hubby out of town and my mojo apparently on summer vacation to someplace far, far away!! But... last night I was finally able to do some creating, and I'll be back in a minute to show you some new stamps that I *LOVE*, but first I wanted to do a roundup of the From Courtney's Closet challenge from week before last!!! If you remember, super duper cutie patootie Sophie came over for a playdate!Four wonderful, awesome, talented ladies took me and Sophie's talented mama Katie up on the challenge and created these beauties! First up, my good friend Sue. She stamped her gorgeous background paper herself. I just looooove her Penny Black hedgehog out collecting butterflies, so cute! Those orange butterflies completely pop off the card - and we all know what a struggle it is for Sue to embrace orange!! It turns out she also has an aversion to bug stamps, even butterflies! Craziness. ;-) But she pulled off a great card anyway, well done girlie!Spicey Cat Chick (*smiling at that name again!*) played this week too, YAY! And her Fluffles is absolutely ADORABLE with all the yummy sparkles!! Love it!As always, Chris created a beauty for this week's challenge! That flower stamp she chose is really perfect to mimic the pattern in Sophie's cute little pants.And my favorite this week - this BEAUTY from Stacey!! Wowza! I just love how she created that torn flower, what a cool look - I'm going to have to give it a try sometime.Thanks ladies for playing along! And thanks to the rest of you for putting up with me. I have some new stamped goodies to post this week - and *DO* plan to be back with a From Courtney's Closet challenge this Thursday! Tune in for that (and play along!!). :-)

Choo Choo!

I made this card for our friend Derek's second birthday party yesterday - Happy Birthday, Derek! He's a train lover - or at least his mommy is, she decorated his bedroom soooo cute with trains galore! For his birthday card I pulled out an old, long-retired Stampin' Up set called Choo Choo. It's something rare on my blog - a solid stamp! I usually prefer line drawings that I can color. But this train is just too cute!! It had little circles all over it - I decided to put a silver brad over each of the circles. Thanks for chuggin' by today!

• Stamps: Choo Choo (retired) and All Holidays from Stampin' Up
• Paper: Ballet Blue, GP white, PTI DP
• Ink: Ballet Blue, Real Red, Moment Tuxedo Black
• Accessories: SU silver brads
• Tools: Janome Sew Mini, scissors, paper piercer

Makes My Heart Smile award

I recently received this sweet award from Ursula - she's part of the FireCracker Designs by Pamela team (in fact she's Pamela's sister!) and is one extremely kind, creative and supportive stamper. Thank you Ursula, I appreciate it so much!! I am supposed to pick my own top ten blogs that make my heart smile, but I just can't do it - I love too many blogs to possibly pick a top ten!!

A stack of turtles!

Hi all! This is going to be short and sweet because I'm busy watching my Red Wings lose the Stanley Cup (Waaaah! I'm so distraught!!)... I needed a birthday card for a friend tonight so I played with one of my *adorable* Timbo digital images! I have a thing for stacked animal stamps, I just think they are the CUTEST!! And this of course is no exception. I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT!!! :-D Hey in case you haven't heard, Timbo is now selling his digistamps on a separate page over on the Hambo site, rather than in his Etsy store - so check it out!! Lots of cute stuff, and he keeps adding to it (tonight there's a new racecar, yay!!!) One fun thing about digistamps is that you can size them however big or small you'd like - it was fun having this image take up most of my A2 card! I paired it with a old Stampin' Up sentiment - thought it was fitting since there are many turtles! Ok I better get back to my sulking. Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Turtles digital image by Timbo (Hambo Stamps), Cute Converse from Stampin' Up! (long retired)
• Paper: Certainly Celery, Georgia-Pacific White, Bo Bunny DP
• Ink: Momento Tuxedo Black (sentiment), Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Stardust Stickles, circle punch, sewing machine, SU Linen Thread, white gel pen (on toenails), black Glaze pen (on eyes)

From Courtney's Closet #45 - Courtney's Playdate!

Hi Everyone! Welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by one of my daughter's outfits. Remember way back in April, I claimed I'd start doing a monthly playdate, where one of Courtney's best blogging buddies would come and visit and we'd all ooh and aah over the friend's cuteness and make a card inspired by the friend's outfit?!? Wellllllll... we are finally doing another playdate!! This month we are playing host to Katie Brooks' *adorable* little munchkin, Sophie!! Could she be any cuter?? And YAY, Mama Katie put her in blue for this challenge, which I love!! The first card is what I was inspired to make from Sophie's cute photo. I played with my new Unity stamp set called Floral Friends - it was a doorprize at the recent SCS shoebox swap I attended in Dallas! (the bonus of having stamping superstars in attendance - they gathered up an AWESOME table filled with goodies from lots of wonderful stamp companies!!) It's hard to read in the photo, but this flower's stem says "friends are the flowers in the garden of life" - so nice! :-) I'll be giving this card to one of my sweetest friends who's birthday happens to be today (we'll see if she reads my blog, hee hee!). I stamped extra copies of the flowers on scrap paper so I could cut out and pop up the flower and then the flower center. The very center has a little AMuse rhinestone, and the tiny background flowers have dots of Stardust Stickles in their centers. And next is the super duper adorable card that Katie made! Make sure and head over to her blog and let her know how much you love it!! I think she's waiting on me to post, and as usual I'm being a mega-late-slowpoke, but I'll update with her direct link once it's up! (Here's the link to Katie's gorgeous card!!) Thanks SO MUCH for playing along Katie, and for letting us be inspired by your beautiful little girl! The flowers on your card are soooo cool, I just love them!! And the bottom half of the card is such a perfect match to Sophie's outfit!If you're as inspired by Sophie's outfit as I was, please make sure and let me know with a comment on this post and a link to you, so I can come and see!!

Last week's challenge only inspired a few of you to play along, but the ones who did made such CUTE things!! Sue made an adorable tag that matched the pattern on Courtney's outfit so well! And I was soooo excited to have Spicey Cat Chick play along for the first time with a sweet card with an image I *love* of the House Mouses sniffing lilacs!! (and isn't Spicey Cat Chick the coolest name ever??!) :-) But, my favorite this past week was Chris!! As she often does, she blew me away with both her creativity and her computer whiz skills!! She took the photo of Courtney and made patterned paper out of it, which she then used on her cards!! So of course she had an EXACT match of the outfit!! Sooooo cool! She made several cards, make sure to check them out here! I love them all, but I'll say this was my favorite:So Chris, I'll send you my little "featured" button that you can display if you'd like, and thanks to all of you for playing along! And thanks to everyone else for stopping by today!!!

And now, if anyone is curious about my tardiness, I have to tell you about my fun day! First I had a dentist appointment in the morning, which no, I don't completely consider *fun*, but I do like having nice, clean teeth! :-) Then I went to a morning scrapbooking outing with my friend Brenda and some other really nice scrapbooking chickies, and then later in the afternoon I went on a quick little shopping excursion at Archivers with non other than my sweet stamping friend (and hero) Shannan!! And then Melissa also showed up!! Yay! So, today was fun. :-)

• Stamps: Floral Friends from Unity Stamp Company
• Paper: Ballet Blue, Bashful Blue, Stampin' Up DP (from SAB)
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, SU Scallop Edge punch, AMuse rhinestones, Stardust Stickles, Chatterbox ribbon

Up to no good...!

This image completely cracks me up! It's one of the latest summer designs over at Hambo Stamps. It has the boy, who we'll call little Timmy, completely up to no good, sampling all of the popsicles that were supposed to be for sale. The girl, who we'll call little Monica, is clearly NOT amused! I just love the looks on both of their faces. :-D I played along with the latest Mojo Monday sketch challenge for this one - wowza, Julee is at #90 now!! The paper I used was from a pack I earned for "free" at Archiver's last summer - "free" because I had SPENT enough to earn it!! This is the first I've used it, though - it has a really nice summery feel to it. Well that's all I have for today - thanks for stopping by!

• Stamps: Popsicle Stand and Sun-Sational Summer from Hambo Stamps
• Paper: Barely Banana, Basic Black, GP White, DP??
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics for coloring
• Accessories: Janome Sew Mini & blue thread, large brads (I believe Making Memories), Nesties dies

Miracle & Wonder

I was able to sneak away to the stamp room for a little quiet time this afternoon, and this is what happened. :-) I wanted to make a card for my little sister - she's having a baby, and found out this week that's it's going to be a girl! Yay!! Courtney can't wait to have her first cousin close in age that she can play with!! :-) Laura isn't too into pink, she's more of a purple girl, so I decided she needed a purple teddy bear on her card! I told you a few cards ago that I was bummed I hadn't been able to play the last few Color Throwdown challenges - well here I am catching up on another one! This is from the previous week, Color Throwdown #44, and the colors were Bordering Blue, Elegant Eggplant and Barely Banana. I pretty much NEVER reach into my Bordering Blue drawer, so it was fun to give that paper a little love! The yellow is actually PTI, not Barely Banana - but close! This Stampin' Up teddy bear from "Bundle of Joy" is one of my all-time favorite baby stamps! For this card I stamped him in Black StazOn on Confetti White paper, and used the lids of my ink pads to color him with Bordering Blue, Eggplant and a little Pretty In Pink on the cheeks. I cut him out when I was done - and would you just look at what he's mounted on!!?! I SEWED IN A CIRCLE!! I was so proud of myself!! It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn good! LOL! The sentiment is one of my all-time faves too, it's from the Close To My Heart set "Celebrate Life" and I adore it, for one thing, because it's a Paul Simon lyric and I looooove me some Rhymin' Simon! And, I just think it's so fitting for a baby card - especially a first baby card - those truly are days of miracle and wonder! I'll never forget our first night home from the hospital with Carter, it's was like we were in our own magical world, trying to figure out the new little person in our house. I can't wait for my sister to experience that! Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Bundle of Joy from SU, Celebrate Life from CTMH
• Paper: Kraft, Confetti White, Bordering Blue, PTI DP
• Ink: Black StazOn, Palette Noir, Elegant Eggplant, Bordering Blue, Pretty in Pink
• Accessories: Janome Sew Mini, Cuttlebug & Swiss Dots folder, Marvy punches, SU slit punch, Eggplant grosgrain ribbon, aquapainter

From Courtney's Closet #44 - an inspiration challenge

Hello and welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by my daughter's outfits. Make sure and scroll down to the next post for the winners of my anniversary challenge! For this week's card I was inspired by Gina K over at StampTV to pull out my chalks!! In my case they are the Stampin' Up Pastels, and although I love them they had not seen the light of day in quite a long time! Gina showed a different neat technique I'll have to try soon, but for my card I did the good ol' method of stamping the images with Versamark and then rubbing the chalk colors over it with a cottonball. The images are from the old, retired SU set called Grapes. After I did my stamping and chalking, I wet the back of the paper slightly and then wadded it all up for that crinkly look, and then flattened it back out and rubbed lightly over the creases with a dauber inked up with Vintage Photo distress ink. The card was inspired by Courtney's outfit, but the colors aren't really the same, and I don't think it's even grapes on there, it looks more like berries! But that's the great thing about inspiration, it doesn't have to be an exact duplicate! :-) I actually went with the color scheme from the Color Throwdown a couple weeks back - Lavender Lace, Old Olive & Elegant Eggplant. Just love this color combo!! And as you can see, the thing that was making Courtney smile so much in the photo was playing with her Papa, who's visiting from Michigan!! So, I'd love to see how you interpret this outfit into paper! Will you bring in more of the blues of the outfit?? If you give it a whirl, be sure and link back here in the comments so I can check it out! Thanks for stopping by today, and have a great weekend!!

• Stamps: Grapes and Warmest Regards from Stampin' Up!
• Paper: Elegant Eggplant, Old Olive, Confetti White
• Ink: Versamark, Ranger Vintage Photo distress ink, Chocolate Chip
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Pastels, Cuttlebug & Houndstooth folder, Janome Sew Mini & brown thread, CTMH embellies, old SU organza ribbon

From Courtney's Closet - a round-up!

Hi everyone! I know I'm frightfully late posting this - I hope you haven't been hanging on the edge of your seat!! It's been a hectic 24hrs and I didn't get a chance to sit down and gather up all the info and start summarizing until late tonight! But, it's been a good kind of hectic - Courtney's grandparents are visiting, which is nice! Today I even got to go see a movie with my mom & brother while my dad babysat! (I saw Star Trek - LOVED IT!!) This evening we had a little gathering to watch my Red Wings - even hunted down a Little Caesar's to order dinner from (they aren't as common down here!) but then those darn Wings didn't fulfill their end of the bargain and lost. Sigh. I'm hoping Game 5 in Detroit on Saturday goes better...

ANYWAY! I am sure the vast majority don't care about any of that, so let's get on with the matter at hand...

Two weeks ago I posted my From Courtney's Closet one year anniversary challenge! I had intended the challenge to be to pick any one of the twelve outfits I featured in my mini scrapbook, but some took it as picking any outfit from the past year - and that is just fine with me too! These amazing ladies made some AWESOME cards to help me celebrate:
Sue, Nic, Stacey, Maria, Anita, Katie Ann, Kelly, Melissa, Kim, Caryl, Rosie, Anita, Chris

And one week ago I posted a birthday card based on a fun blue striped fishy outfit Courtney was wearing! LOVE the cards it inspired:

Chris, Sue, Dawn, Katie

I put all of these names in a hat (a couple more than once because they made more than one card!) and pulled one out... and the winner is... SUE!!!!!! I have to admit, I'm so excited that Sue won, she was my FIRST regular player of this challenge, and has only missed a couple in all the weeks I've posted - I so appreciate Sue's support, friendship and amazing talent!! So YAY, it's so fitting that she won! Sue, send me an email and let me know if you want Wee Tees, or a different Gina K set, and I'll get it ordered for you asap!

The other part of my anniversary challenge was to guess how many of the outfits in my mini scrapbook had been featured during past challenges. The correct number was SEVEN (months 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 11), which several people guessed - and the name I pulled out was LAURA E!! Yay little sister!! I know your address. :-)

And finally, I picked my favorite cards from each week's submissions. For the anniversary challenge, I loved them all SO MUCH but my favorite of them all was Maria! Her card is so cheerful and pretty, and she did such a great job with all that whitespace, despite her fear of it! :-)

For last week's challenge, again the cards were just wonderful (of course, as always!!) but my favorite was Sue! Yes, Sue again! What can I say, she ROCKS! Her fishy card is so stinkin' adorable!!

Maria & Sue, if you want to have my "I was featured" blinkie for your sidebar, let me know.

I was going to post this week's challenge in the next post, but I'm having lots of trouble with Blogger right now, it's not letting me insert any photos! I had wanted to add Maria's and Sue's cards up above. Grrr. So... guess it will be tomorrow morning for the next challenge, so sorry about that!!! (ETA: Got them inserted in this post... now off to write the new post...!!)

Thanks for playing and happy stamping!

Sneaky sneaky peeky...

Hi all!! Just wanted to post a reminder that this is your very last chance to play along with FCCC42 (my From Courtney's Closet anniversary celebration!) or FCCC43, to be in the running for a free stamp set! I had originally said 9pm CST, but since I haven't been able to work on anything yet tonight myself (boy child is not cooperating with bedtime tonight...!) I'll just say it needs to be here by midnight CST instead. :-D

And here's a little sneak peek for tomorrow's outfit. Hmm... what is Courtney doing to put that smile on her face?? And more importantly, what is she wearing?? :-D

Happy stamping, I'll see you back here tomorrow!

Well, la de frickin' dah!

Boy do I have a super sassy card to share with you today! I recently discovered a new-to-me stamp company called Stampotique Originals! I first noticed them on my friend Tina's blog and immediately fell in love! I mentioned this in front of my friend Kim, and what did she do?? Stamped off a whole mess of images and sent them to me!!! I *HEART* KIM!!! Well, this was many, many weeks ago. Yesterday Kim was harassing me just a little about the fact that she hadn't seen any finished cards with them yet. Soooooo I thought I'd better do something about that! This girl and this HILARIOUS (imho) sentiment are my absolute faves. Isn't she adorable?? I also FINALLY played along with a Color Throwdown challenge this week - it's been killing me not to be playing along with their challenges, the last few color combos have been so awesome! But I thought this week's combo of Green Galore, Pink Passion & Chocolate Chip was too sassy to miss out on, just like my girl.

Thanks so much Kim, I just LOVE these images!! I'll be placing a LARGE Stampotique order soon, they ROCK! :-) Thanks for stopping by today.

• Stamps: Stampotique Originals
• Paper: Pink Passion, Chocolate Chip, Green Galore, MM DP
• Ink: Copics for coloring
• Accessories: Cuttlebug & Swiss Dots, Janome Sew Mini & brown thread, EK Success punch, felt flower, bling

Another In Case You Missed It Wee Tees!

Happy Tuesday everyone! I was looking through my files, and I don't think I ever shared this card here on the ol' blog! It's another one I made for Melanie to feature on her awesome blog when I was her Wee Tees guest designer last month. I paired Wee Tees with another one of my favorite Melanie sets for Gina K, Cuddles and Hugs. I just love that kitty image - it's one of the reasons I simply could not resist this set when it came out! (that, and the flamingos, and the lions, and...) :-) I thought this particular sentiment in Wee Tees was just too cute - so my idea was that the kitties are supposed to be like big brother and little sister.

Alrighty, I need to do a little more cleaning around the house and then head to the airport - my parents are coming in today for a visit! My dad (aka Papa!) will be here for a week, but my mom (aka Grammy!) is staying until July 7th! Woohoo! They live in Michigan and don't get to see their grandkids as much as any of us would like, so Carter and Courtney are so looking forward to this - Courtney doesn't say many words yet, but "Papa" is all she's been saying this week!

Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Wee Tees, Cuddles and Hugs from Gina K Designs
• Paper: Basic Gray, Regal Rose, GP White, AMuse DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Regal Rose, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Cuttlebug, embossing folder, Nesties, Janome Sew Mini & white thread, lace, grosgrain ribbon, heart brads

A Big Ol' Texas Hug!

This is the card I made for this past weekend's shoebox swap up in Dallas. I figured a Texas-y event needed a Texas-y card! In case you haven't heard me ramble on about them before, the flower on the card is called a bluebonnet, and it's our state flower. We adore them. They bloom in the spring and are wildflowers, lining our roads and filling our fields. Ok, maybe the showing hasn't been *that* great lately thanks to our ongoing drought, but I did enjoy the ones we did have this past spring. Actually, did I ever show you our photos we did in the bluebonnets this year? Hmm... perhaps I'll have to post them down below for anyone who's interested (I can already hear the massive yawn coming from my readers! (All three of them!)). :-) Anyway, back to the card. Of course I completely stressed about this card. I have such a hard time figuring out cards for swaps!! The card is supposed to be made in no more than ten minutes. TEN MINUTES. The card I brought to the Austin swap last fall ended up being a little bit of a bottleneck. So this time I was determined to keep it simple. And I think I made it a bit TOO simple!! Especially when I got to the swap and realized people still did super duper complicated cards, but the kicker was that they PRESTAMPED or PRESTITCHED or PRE did whatever was needed. The amount of pre-work some of the ladies must have done, WOW. I am still in awe. So next time I'll know. And maybe I'll even start planning my card more than a couple nights before the event so I have time for all that prep work...!! But I hope the ladies at the swap liked my super simple Texas hug. If you want to check out some of the other cards I was lucky enough to make, there's a gallery for them on Splitcoast here. (not everyone has uploaded as I type this, though) Thanks for stopping by today and happy stamping!!

• Stamps: Deadbeat Designs
• Paper: Brocade Blue, Always Artichoke, Kraft, DP from My Mind's Eye
• Ink: Brocade Blue, Always Artichoke, Chocolate Chip
• Accessories: Ribbon from Hobby Lobby

And now, as promised (or threatened!), here are my favorites from the bluebonnet photos we did in April. It was a really windy day, and getting the kids to actually pose was pretty close to impossible. But some of the more candid shots are my favorites anyway!I just love this last one of Courtney because her dress was so fluffy and cute in the wind! And wow, it was only about two months ago, but she looks so little here! *sigh* My babies are growing up too fast!! Anyway - the bluebonnets are long gone now, but I know they'll be back next spring and I'll be happy to see them pop up once again when they are ready! But I don't want to think about how old Carter and Courtney will look then...! :-)