A Dragon for Noah

A few weeks ago Carter was invited to a birthday party for Noah, one of his buddies from preschool. The party theme was dragons, so of course I had to dig out this Elzybells cutie to make the card! It's one of the UK images, so it's ginormous. And oh so much fun to color!! I followed my usual blueprint on this card:
a) Color image with Copics
b) Go nutty with polkadot paper & swiss dots
c) Apply some sort of bling (here, Stickles!)
d) Add stitching with my Janome Sew Mini
Surely you are all tired of my cards by now, they rarely stray from this standard set of guidelines! Well ok, I suppose this one doesn't have any scallops! Woohoo, I totally busted out of my box! hee hee

The party was so cute - Noah's mommy Jenn is one of those overachiever types that throws amazing parties with every detail just perfect! (I'm calling her names because I'm obviously just jealous!) (BTW she has a digital scrapbooking blog too, check it out!) When we arrived, Carter was given a t-shirt with a dragon on it (Jenn had ironed the image on...!) and a little cape-like set of wings (which Jenn had SEWN! FOR EACH KID!!) Here's Carter assembling the craft project, an ADORABLE dragon made out of a spoon.Could the cake be any cuter??As Carter would confirm, the cake was just as YUMMY as it was cute!Of course now I can't invite Noah to Carter's next birthday party, because it will be completely LAME in comparison, hee hee. :-)

Hooray for dragon parties!! Thanks for stopping by today.

Cinema Saturday - All About Eve

I am so thrilled to be a guest designer for the 51st weekly Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge! You've heard me say it many times before, this is my favorite challenge in all of Blogland!! It's so much fun! Every week Brooke & Sankari pick a movie - on Friday they show sneak peeks of the film and we all makes guesses about what it might be. And on Saturday they do the big reveal and share their BEAUTIFUL creations based on the featured film, and challenge us to do the same. This week the film is "All About Eve", an Oscar winner from 1950 about an aging Broadway star played by Bette Davis, and the aspiring actress eager to take her place, played by Anne Baxter. There's even a small part in the film by Marilyn Monroe. I'm not really into the classics too much, but I really love this film. The dialogue is truly fantastic - especially the classic line by Bette Davis "Fasten your seatbelts, it's going to be a bumpy night." It's just classic Hollywood, right down to the cheesey dramatic music in the background! LOL! The movie is a perfect match with the latest FireCracker Designs by Pamela sets "Theater Lights" and "Leading Ladies". So much so, Pamela is sponsoring this week's challenge! So make sure to play along this week! I used my "Theater Lights" set for my card - just drawing from the general theme of Broadway & leading ladies. The requirement this week is to add some Broadway BLING to the card, which I did with the wave of rhinestones near the bottom, as well as some Star Dust gel pen shimmer to the roses, shoe straps and faces on the masks (which you can't really see in the photo!). Have I mentioned before how much I adore this theater set? LOL! I also adore winning an Audrey Award on my favorite challenge blog for my "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" card a couple weeks ago - how exciting is that??! Ok, head on over to the challenge blog now and check it out - I hope you'll play along! And also pop on over to Pamela's blog and see what she created for this movie! Thanks for stopping by.

• Stamps: Theater Lights from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Purely Pomegranate, Basic Black, white, A Muse DP
• Ink: Black StazOn, Rose Red, Always Artichoke
• Accessories: Aquapainter, circle punch, masking tape (masked off the stem of the rose), SU Scalloped Edge punch, Swiss Dots Cuttlebug, black organdy ribbon

From Courtney's Closet #58

Welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by one of my daughter's outfits. Well today Courtney is having a little pajama party here on my blog! I couldn't resist making a card inspired by these cute & funky little elephant PJs! I really loved the chocolate, hot pink and chartreuse color combo! And I've had this sweet little elephant stamp sitting on my shelf for a while now, waiting patiently to be inked up. Here's a funny but true story - I colored the image with my Prismacolor pencils, and as I was playing with them I updated my Facebook status to say that I "love the smell of my prismacolor pencils.". Well my not-so-stampy friend Joe replied with "no idea what those are , but might want to stop when the pink elephants start flying around." HA!!! Of course this isn't what he meant, but I nearly died when I read that - maybe it was the "fumes" of my pencils that drove me to make this little elephant pink? No, it was just the inspiration from Courtney's jammies, I swear! :-) Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Elephant w/Mouse from Stamps by Judith, Sentiment from Gina K
• Paper: Pink Passion, Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, white, The Paper Studio DP
• Ink: Black StazOn, Black Glaze Pen
• Accessories: Prismacolor Pencils & odorless mineral spirts, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, SU Scalloped Edge punch, Marvy punches, white brads, Hobby Lobby organdy ribbon, Diamond Stickles

Big Craft/Garage Sale!!

Attention Austin area crafters!! I'll be joining a big crafty garage sale TOMORROW!!

Saturday, September 26
8:00 AM to 11:00 AM
Behran’s Ranch Amenity Center
2503 Arbor Drive, Round Rock, Texas

Multiple Stampin’ Up! Demonstrators’
Paper Craft Garage Sale and
Homemade Crafts Fair

I’m so excited about this. Two of my favorite Austin-area crafters will be there - Linda McClain, who I can't wait to meet IRL, and my friend Jimmye Sue of Texana Designs! There will be eleven of us in all - so LOTS and LOTS of retired and gently used Stampin’ Up! and non-Stampin’ Up! crafter supplies. This is not your Mom’s garage sale – no hand-me-down house dresses or lamp shades. Nope, this is for scrapbookers, rubber stamp enthusiasts, and people who love making or giving home made cards and gifts -

• Over 100 retired Stampin’ Up! sets at 40% off original prices;
• Patterned paper, colored card stock and ink;
• Organization tools;
• Demonstrator business supplies;
• Card kits;
• Stampin’ Up! contraband (non-Stampin’ Up! craft supplies);
• Card swaps and workshop samples.

And, I’m even more excited about this, our fabulous paper craft artists are also bringing some of their creations for you to purchase while they last.

Come early and bring cash.

Another one from Courtney's closet...

There's been many, many times over the past year and a half or so of doing the From Courtney's Closet cards that I've had a couple ideas from the same outfit. Often I think "I really should make a second card!" - well, for once, I actually did it! I mentioned in the original post that I thought about paper piecing a caterpillar. Last night I pulled out my scraps and punches and scissors and set to work. As if it was work! It was a lot of fun to piece together this cute little caterpillar, I must say!! He's mostly made of circle punches, but a few of the elements were cut out freehand - the flower, the hearts and all the various legs & antennae. I considered adding actual machine stitching around the circles to make it look more like the outfit - but then I returned to my senses and opted for faux. :-) I guess I did a good job copying the shirt - Carter just came over and was very excited to see that the card looked just like the shirt. Success! :-) Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: sentiment from Stampin' Up!
• Paper: Pretty in Pink, Barely Banana, Pink Passion, white, Wild Wasabi DP, Making Memories DP, Chocolate Chip
• Ink: Pink Passion, Chocolate Chip marker
• Accessories: circle punches, scissors, Spellbinders dies, Cuttlebug Swiss dots folder, Janome Sew Mini & brown thread, Prima flowers, Making Memories brads

Hogs and Sketches!!

Did you know that Hambo Stamps has a new sketch challenge?! Well it's true!! It's hosted by their design team member (and resident coloring goddess!) Melissa, you can find it HERE. And guess what - it's MONTHLY! That means I have an entire MONTH to procrastinate on making my card, instead of just a measly short week! HA! I had hoped to play along sooner, but you know me (and Monica knows my ways too!). But never fear, I didn't wait until the absolute last minute so if you're just now hearing about it, there's still time to play! Cards need to be on their Mr. Linky site by midnight EST on September 29. They are drawing a winner from the participants for FREE STAMPS! (I like that they are doing a drawing rather than a beauty contest - everyone has an equal shot! Don't be shy about playing, ok??) You do need to use at least one Hambo image to play though - don't have any? Grab one of their free digis here. :-) I happen to have a few Hambos, so I used the super duper cute Rabbit's Foot stamp for my card. I have a friend who looks like this bunny right now! So this card will be going to her. If you think it's clever of me to add those "ouches" using my Karen Foster snap stamps, don't. That addition came about after an off-center mishap as I sent my already-colored image through my Cuttlebug in my Nestie die. Oops! Ok, off to add my card to Mr. Linky! Keep your fingers crossed for me, I really want to win - I don't have nearly enough Hambo Stamps! hee hee (You can never have too many!!) Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Rabbit's Foot and sentiment from Hambo Stamps, Karen Foster snap stamps ("ouch")
• Paper: SU Always Artichoke, GP white, Making Memories Poolside & Greenhouse DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
• Accessories: Spellbinders dies, SU oval & slit punches, CTMH mini brads, grosgrain ribbon

Greetings and Salutations - an FCD blog hop!

IF YOU'RE LOOKING FOR THE OCTOBER FCD BLOG HOP, PLEASE CLICK HERE! My sweet Karyn made a little boo boo with her linkiepoo and is on vacation. But that's ok - she just wanted you to take another peek at my card from last month's hop before continuing on - LOL!! :-)
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It's time for another FireCracker Designs by Pamela monthly blog hop!! This month the theme is "Greetings and Salutations!" - fitting since this is the first hop featuring the new design team! I decided to welcome them on board by making a card with Pamela's Theater Lights set, since they are the current feature now playing on Pamela's stage. LOL! I had fun masking off the admission tickets on this as I stamped it over and over. And wouldn't it be even *more* fun to go to the theater if the tickets were actually this glittery? I think so!!

So you probably know the drill by now - this is a circular blog hop, which means there is no beginning and no end - just follow the links around the circle and you'll end up right back where you started. Leave comments on every blog, because Pamela will select a comment from one of the blogs to win a fun prize. Wanna know what it is? Why it's her super duper fun Tumbling Scarecrow set, and the other goodies pictured below, including Pamela's very own card from this hop! How cool!Pamela will draw the winner once this hop ends, on Monday, September 21 at 8pm EST. You can check if you've won on her blog, or she'll email you - so be sure to leave your email address with your comment.

Now continue on down the hop to our boss Pamela's blog!!

Thanks for stopping by today. :-)

• Stamps: Theater Lights from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Basic Black, So Saffron, white, The Paper Studio DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
• Accessories: Janome Sew Mini & black thread, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, Diamond Stickles, Michael's ribbon

From Courtney's Closet #57

Welcome to another week of From Courtney's Closet, where I draw inspiration from my daughter's clothes. Courtney got this cute little outfit for her 1st birthday way back in February, from my sweet friend Theresa. As soon as we opened it I got excited about the card possibilities!! The caterpillar on the shirt has a lot of texture to it, so I considered paper piecing him together, which would have been fun. But when the most recent Stampin' Up catalog came out and I saw the "Love Bugs" hostess set, I just KNEW I had to use it for this card!! So I did what any good stamper would do - I placed a $150 order just so I could earn that "free" set!! :-D But seriously, could it be any more perfect?? In addition to the caterpillar, I found the color scheme inspiring, and also added a flower inspired by the pants. I really love this pink & green color combo! So... I don't know if you noticed the title of this post, but I dropped the "inspiration challenge" part. I'm going to keep making the Courtney's Closet cards, but I don't think I'll call them an inspiration challenge anymore. Unlike back when I started this nearly a year & a half ago, I think there's just way too many challenges out there now - which is GREAT - but I don't think there's much interest in THIS one. Which I understand - the others are run by bloggers who actually are active in the blogging community. Unlike me. So - if you do feel like playing, that's still FANTASTIC, I'd love to see your creation. But I am not very optimistic that anyone will. :-D

Before I go, I have to subject you to a couple other photos. I had a bugger of a time getting a decent photo this week, properly showing off the caterpillar! All Courtney wanted to do was either hug her bunny, right in front of her shirt...Or lie down with her blankies!But considering how sweet she is, I couldn't get too mad at her about it. :-D

Thanks for stopping by today!

From Courtney's Closet #56 - Roundup!

Last week we had Sue's adorable grandson Cole join us for a playdate!Katie joined us with this completely fun and sassy card! She was inspired by the "playdate" theme. Her card is just wonderful - love that image, her perfect coloring, the bling, all the little details. Fantastic!Thanks so much for playing along Katie! If you'd like to have my "featured" button send me an email and I'll get it to you. And thanks everyone else for stopping by today!

Cinema Saturday - Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

It has been far too long since I've played along with my favorite blog challenge - the Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge. Each week I *intend* to play, but somehow it doesn't quite happen. But this week I MADE SURE to get my card done! The movie is one of my favorite - the second of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, The Two Towers. My card is inspired by my favorite character in this movie, Treebeard, and the rest of the Ents. I used my FireCracker Designs by Pamela set called Little Things (which I thought was an aptly titled set to use for a movie primarily about Hobbits!). The rule this week was to include embossing - I used clear embossing powder in a resist technique, so I could use a brayer to create the background without inking up the trees. The "Have Courage" sentiment is also in this same set - again, appropriate, because those little Hobbits show such great courage in all of the Lord of the Rings movies! Thanks Brooke & Sankari for another fun inspiration!

• Stamps: Little Things from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Taken with Teal, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
• Ink: SU Always Artichoke, Taken with Teal, Chocolate Chip, Memento Tuxedo Black
• Accessories: Versamark pen, clear embossing powder, scissors, sponge

From Courtney's Closet #56 - Courtney's Playdate!

Hello and welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet! This week it's playdate time!! And guess what? Today a little *boy* has come over to play! And boy oh boy is he a CUTIE!! He is my friend Sue's sweet grandson Cole - if you follow Sue's blog (which I'm sure you do!), you know full well what a proud Gwamma she is! As soon as I started posting these playdates she emailed right away - "can grandbabies play too??". Well of course they can! :-) Cole and my Carter have a lot in common - they both love trucks! So Sue chose this adorable photo of Cole in his truck jammies to inspire us. I decided to dig out my Dress Up Billy from Pink Cat Studio and put him in his firefighter outfit. And I love the colors in Cole's jammies - light blue and red always look so great together, and I really love the added touch of gray. I have to say, even though it's simple this card took me much longer to create than expected - I get so rusty when I take time off from stamping! (and yes that is why I'm posting this on Friday instead of Thursday - thanks Sue for your patience with me!!)

I absolutely adore the card Sue created! Her coloring is perfect, and the card is put together so well, all of the touches are wonderful! And best of all - I love the added "gwamma" to her watermark! :-) Thanks so much for playing Sue, and for sharing this photo of your sweet grandson with us! If you'd like to play along too, please leave a comment back here we can see what you did. :-)

On a side note - not sure you care to read this part - it's completely a coincidence that we're posting these sweet fireman cards on September 11 - this post was supposed to happen yesterday. But as I was thinking about our cards it hit me how fitting this is. I'm sure like all of you, I will never forget that horrible morning eight years ago today. I've never documented my experience, so I thought I'd do it here. It was long before I had kids, and I was working as an engineer at Motorola. I was running late for work that morning and had Good Morning America on. I remember they came in with breaking news, that there had been some sort of "explosion" in one of the towers. They were showing a live picture of the World Trade Center when the second plane hit. I remember Diane Sawyer gasping. I didn't fully understand at that point what I was watching, but I knew it was something horrible and immediately started crying. I paged my boss and told him I'd be working from home that morning, I couldn't leave the TV. Then there was the Pentagon. Then the plane in Pennsylvania. It was like the entire world was turning upside down. I began to panic - my husband was actually in the air as all of this was happening. He was not anywhere near these places - but everything was just so bewildering at that point, I didn't know what was going to happen next. I had to join a conference call for work - my boss was trying to focus on work, but the engineers we were talking with in Israel kept asking me to keep them updated about what was on the TV - both towers fell while we were on that call - somehow the widgets we were working on just didn't matter at that moment. The experience made me so angry with my boss - I could not understand how he could be so heartless. Later I understood - not everyone deals with trauma, shock and grief the same way. When Joel finally landed in Nashville he of course had no idea what was going on. The landing had been delayed, the pilot gave some vague explanation about congestion in the airport. Joel thought it was odd that he couldn't get his phone to work, not realizing all lines were jammed at that point. He saw people huddled around TV monitors but continued to the rental car line, where he found probably a hundred people waiting. Finally he realized something was not right. He literally got the *last* available car in Nashville that morning, and when he got in contact with his boss, he told him to start driving home because the site he was to visit was in lockdown (they had nuclear facilities there) and he would not be getting a flight out anytime soon. I remember being completely numb for days and days. I'm a news junkie anyway, and I watched *way* too much news then. I don't think seeing it replayed over and over was good for anyone. It was interesting to me that at some point all of the news stations seemed to have decided that they wouldn't show the actual clip of the second plane hitting anymore. This morning I saw it again for the first time in years, they were replaying the live coverage from that horrible morning on MSNBC. It was shocking and emotional all over again. I don't think it's possible for me to ever forget the details of that morning and the days that followed, but I feel better having them documented here. Such a sad day.

From Courtney's Closet #55 - Roundup!

Hi everyone - first of all, I want to say a sincere THANK YOU for all the sweet comments on my last post about stepping back a bit - you all completely warmed my heart and made me feel really good. I'm so glad you're sticking with me! :-)

And here's prime example of you all putting up with my erratic blog posting - I'm doing my From Courtney's Closet posts, which are a "Thursday" challenge! HA! Geesh. At any rate... last week I posted this photo of Courtney that I just loved, with her in pigtails for the first time:And my sweet friend Sue made THE CUTEST EVER card - the pigtails inspired her to use PIGGIES!!! I sooooooo love that. And I love her card. Absolute piggie perfection.Thanks so much for playing along, sweet Sue! :-)

Stepping back a bit...

Hi all, I'm just popping in with a bit of news - I'm going to be stepping back from this blog just a bit. Not that I'm very regular with my posts anyway (!!), but there will likely be even more time in between posts for a while. I've been in the (very bad) habit of staying up into the wee hours working on cards. I'm trying to adjust my schedule, both because it makes me a crabby mommy during the day, and because I'm trying to work on being a healthy mommy and being sleep-deprived isn't exactly helping! It's a bit frustrating, because the only "me time" I get is in the evening after the kids have gone to bed, and I hate to "waste" that time by sleeping through it!! But I can't realistically keep on doing what I've been doing. I've been trying to step back for a while now, but I keep doing it - but now, I'm officially done with design team commitments (well not 100%, still owe a few things but hope to wrap it all up this weekend!) and I just need to chill for a while. I hope you won't dump me from your Readers or Feedblitz lists, and keep me around for when I do find time to make a card - but I know in this blogging world it's publish or perish! :-) So whatever... I do this for fun, and if I'm just here talking to myself on this blog, so be it. I need to put myself and my family first. Wish me luck!!

From Courtney's Closet #55 - an inspiration challenge

Hello and welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by one of my baby girl's outfits. (Ok, ok, she's not a baby anymore! Waaaah! Can you believe she was this little when I started this??) So this is the inspiration photo I had INTENDED to post last week, but as you can see that never happened!! Last Thursday was Courtney's Daddy's birthday. So the idea was that I'd post a photo of Courtney wearing her new Detroit Tigers outfit that her Grandma gave her while we were in Michigan - since Joel is the big Tigers fan of the house. But, alas, I was too busy last Thursday trying to surprise him with a clean house and a birthday cake and decorations before he got home from work, so the post never happened. By the way, before Joel left for work Carter said to him "Daddy, today we're gonna go get a present for you and make a cake, and it's a SURPRISE!". Gotta love three year olds and their ability to keep secrets! :-) So, here's Courtney in her Tigers outfit for Daddy, a week later! I mostly just used the color combo for my inspiration. I considered using a tiger image on this week's card, but was shocked to discover I don't own any! (if you knew how many animal stamps I own you'd understand why this is so shocking!) Instead I pulled out a kitty stamp - I *love* this one, it's made by Hot Potatoes and I found it at my LSS Stamp Salado. I've had it for ages and this is the first time it's been inked!! One of these days I will probably be arrested for these crimes against stamping-humanity! Oh and I almost forgot to mention - Courtney is in pigtails!!! We just tried that for the first time - cuteness! And she didn't even pull them out. Happy days. Ok, so what do you think? Wanna play along? If you do, link back here so I know where to find you! Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Bandit from Hot Potatoes
• Paper: Regal Rose, Tempting Turquoise, white
• Ink: Regal Rose
• Accessories: Martha glitter, SU 2-way glue pen, SU scallop edge punch, Martha heart punch, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, Janome Sew Mini & white thread, Hobby Lobby ribbon

From Courtney's Closet #53 & #54 - Long Overdue Roundups!

Well I've gone and gotten myself behind on this little challenge again, oops! Sorry it's taken me an extra week to come back into the swing of things post-vacation (and actually, I'm still not!), I so appreciate you playing along!!

FCCC#53 was a playdate with Stacey's adorable daughter Hannah:Hannah inspired two wonderful cards, first by sweet Jenn - her card CRACKS ME UP! Especially when she said it's for Courtney & Hannah when they are older, hee heeAnd Cat played too with this super duper cute House Mouse creation - what a sweet card for a baby boy!! And what Cat doesn't like Mice? HA!I love your cards equally, they are both totally fabby. If you'd both like my "featured" button yu are more than welcome to have it, just email me!

For FCCC#54 I dug out an older photo of Courtney from back in the spring, looking so happy in her cherry dress! It was appropriate since I posted it while we were visiting the cherry capital of Michigan (aka Traverse City!). :-) And it seems that I lot of you like cherries, we got some CUTE cards to look at...Well first is Tammy - she linked a card she happened to have posted earlier in the day and asked if it counted. Well, no, it doesn't "count" (especially since FCCC isn't even mentioned on her blog post, LOL) but her card is just too cute not to share! :-)And from Tammy we go to Tamarra, who I'm thrilled joined us this week! What a cute card!Of course I knew my cherry-processing friend Sue wouldn't be able to pass up this week's outfit. And I was right, she made not one but TWO wonderful cards! Check out the background quilt she created on the second one!!Chris is no dummy - when she sees a red & green outfit she thinks Christmas!I'm always thrilled when Kim plays, and this time she made the cutest button cherries!Sharon's card is so sweet! I love the gingham and the heart behind the image panel.And finally - my favorite out of all the cards - Katie!! Would you look at this PIE she created!?!! OMG. It's awesome!! I'm also using the sideways photo Katie had on her blog - I'm too tired at the moment to attempt to fix it - but I wanted to make sure you see she even crimped the pie pan!! LOVE IT! Katie let me know if you want that "featured" button.Thanks for playing everyone! And tanks for stopping by today!

Release Day at FireCracker Designs!!

Just popping in to let you know the FireCracker Designs by Pamela set Theater Lights is now available!! HOORAY!!!And how about some Leading Ladies to go along with your Theater Lights??Pamela also announced today the new members of her design team:
Michelle Bartnett
Tesa Broman
Donna Moore
Shelly Schmidt
Melisa Waldorf
Welcome ladies! Can't wait to see what you do with FCD stamps over the next six months!! (I don't have their blog links yet, but will come back & add them once I do!)