An Egg-stra Special Card!

Last Thursday on the Hero Arts blog, the Hero Hostesses from our Flickr group did an egg-cellent job inspiring us with egg shaped cards! I just had to try one myself:


It was extremely difficult to photograph this card, so I scanned it. It still doesn't capture it very well, but it seems the best I can do for this one! I used the template found HERE to create my egg-shaped card. I began by stamping the Antique Flower Background stamp in Versamark, and then rubbed it with chalks in various pastel colors. Next I went around the edges with my new Broken China Distress Ink - but it was so pretty I ended up rubbing it farther into the center of the card than I originally intended! I want to thank Simon Says Stamp! for that Distress Ink - I won a giveaway they had on Facebook a few weeks back - YAY! What a generous company! The final inking of the edges is in Vintage Photo Distress Ink. I also spritzed the entire thing with Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist, this close-up kinda sorta shows you the shimmer it has IRL:


The egg card was super fun to make - big thanks to Jill, Arlene, Vera, Suzz, Sue & Linda for the wonderful inspiration! Thanks for stopping by today!

Happy Easter!

Since Easter is sneaking up on me WAY faster than I expected, I have a goal to make & post as many Easter-themed cards as possible this week, since I won't have another chance until 2011!! I am always so late on the holiday posts, it's ridiculous. So to that end... did you see that Hero Arts is hosting the Card Patterns sketch challenge this week??

You should play - it's a really fun & easy sketch, and there are fabby prizes involved!! Here's what I came up with:


I wanted to use this sweet Hero bunny image (before 2011!), and also my new SUPER DUPER COOL Martha Stewart grass-cutting scissors (one of *several* things I've felt the extreme desire to purchase since I've started following Jennifer McGuire on Twitter...!). I also played along with the latest Embellish Magazine challenge.


Thanks for stopping by today!

Hogs & Sketches #6 - sort of...

I've been meaning to sit down and play the latest Hogs & Sketches Challenge all month, and last night I finally did it! Or so I thought... I used purple & red - check! I used dew drops (which I even colored turquoise with a Copic) - check! I used paper piecing... um... oops, I knew I was forgetting something!!! Darn it. Ah well, I tried - hopefully I'll follow all the rules next month...


I decided to play with Hambo's Silly Birds with Hats digital image for this card - these little birds just crack me up!! And they're even sillier when they're purple. The white scallop at the bottom is actually the bottom edge of the front of the card. Since red was a required color - and I had a red card sitting on my desk that only had "Happy Valentine's Day" stamped at the bottom - I decided to repurpose that card - lopped off the old sentiment and replaced it with the scallop border. I had a little bit of a tough time with the colors - all I could think was "don't make a red hat card don't make a red hat card..." My silly birds do in fact have red hats - but I don't think it looks too red hatty otherwise. :-) Thanks for stopping by today!

A Lawn Fawn Easter card...

Hi everyone! Well I promised that I'd be back with a card, and here it is! Woohoo!! I love stamping. Did you know that? :-)


I played with some cutie patootie stamps from a brand new company called Lawn Fawn - started by my friend Kelly Marie, who is just as sweet as can be! I decided the little bunny in Critters in the 'Burbs would make a cute Easter card. But then I didn't feel like using "traditional" Easter colors - so - this is what happened. My mojo has been nonexistent lately, and what I do in those situations is turn to challenges for inspiration, so this card is chock-full of them! I used Jen's latest SFYTT for the layout of the card. I also played a couple new (or at least new-to-me) challenges too - Lisa Johnson's Poppy Seed Challenge #2 (to use polka dots, buttons and light moss) and also the Oh, Alice "Chapter 6" challenge, to use printed text. (This challenge may not actually be live until tomorrow - see it in Reader but not on the actual blog! Will update this tomorrow with the correct link.) I am in love with this Oh, Alice challenge blog by the way - a different Alice in Wonderland-inspired theme each week! Too fun!!

I was going to add more details & a card recipe, but Miss Courtney is pulling on my leg so I better post this and go! Thanks for stopping by today!

Some flowers...

Yes, I know, you come here for cards not random photographs. I pinky promise swear I'm going to start making and posting cards again regularly... really... I'm getting closer and closer!! In the mean time I thought I'd show you some flowers. Because flowers make me happy.


Springtime in central Texas is a very good thing. But next post WILL be a CARD!

This just makes me happy...

From Courtney's Closet #59!!

Hi there! Today I'm popping in to share a card that was inspired by a little something From Courtney's Closet! YAY! It's been too long since I've said that! I actually created this card for today's Hero Arts blog post - this week Tami has been sharing cards inspired by Easter dresses! If you've been hangin' out around here for a while, you know I have a thing for cards inspired by cute outfits! (And if you are new here, you can stroll through the entire history HERE.) This has gotten me so inspired! I plan to be back with another Courtney-inspired card on Wednesday, and a revival of my old inspiration challenge, YAY!!

So here's the card I created:And it was inspired by this dress:You can read a little more about my thought process over at the Hero blog, as well as find a link to complete card details.

And by the way, speaking of reviving this little ol' blog - I'm in the process of a Extreme Makeover - Blog Edition!! I'll say it one more time - YAY!! The new look should be ready quite soon - so make sure and take a good look now - c'mon, click out of Reader, you can do it! Then you'll be able to compare what I have now to the new look, woohoo.

Thanks for stopping by today, and happy stamping!

One more card from class

Here is the third and final card we made at my Flower Embellishment class last weekend.This time we created flower embellishments by taking a strip of ribbon, sewing some quick stitches along one edge and then pulling the thread to gather the ribbon into a circular flower shape. Some more quick stitches held the flower together, and then we attached it to the card with a dot of Glossy Accents. I've seen this sort of flower made by many people - but was most inspired by this blog post from Kelly Rasmussen. I especially love how she stamped polka dots right on her ribbon - I'll have to try that, too! (btw, check out this more recent post from Kelly if you want to see some absolute sweetness!!)

And a little fyi, I'm offering the same class again next Thursday night, the 25th at 8pm. If you're local and would like to join us, send me an email! :-)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Another flower from class...

Here's another flower I shared at my card class this past weekend. This is one of those fabby flowers made with a scallop circle punch - I learned about them in Dawn McVey's video tutorial, HERE. Dawn used vintage book print, which I LOVE - but I didn't have a vintage book on hand, so I just used a definition stamp, and stamped it on copy paper. You really need a lightweight paper for these flowers - cardstock would be too stiff. I was inspired by this wonderful card by ctprezzia in the Hero Arts Flickr pool for the card design.And for those of you I've been friends with on Facebook & Twitter, just wanted to let you know I'm taking a bit of a social media break. I'll probably be back eventually - but just an fyi if you wondered where I went. :-)

Thanks for stopping by today!

Fabric Flowers!

Hi everyone! I thought I'd stop by and show you a card I shared with my friends at my card class this past weekend. I was inspired by Julie Campbell's fabulous fabric flower tutorial (HERE) to give it a try!I was also itching to use some fabric I had recently picked up at a super fun local shop called The Stitch Lab. My friend Lisa and I had gone on a little shopping trip a couple weeks ago, and the fabric was calling to me... "use me... use me...". So I did! Here's me with some of the yummy fabric!And here's Lisa, darn phone made her a little blurry - but you get the idea, she found just a few things she couldn't live without, too! :-)Thanks for stopping by today!

Newsflash: I STAMPED JUST FOR FUN!!

So I've been sorta bummed out lately. Why? Not sure exactly. But one theory is that I haven't stamped purely for fun in ages!! I looked back just now - it seems I snuck in one just-for-fun card back in December. DECEMBER!! Ack. Everything else has been for a purpose - birthday parties, classes, blog hops. Not that I mind doing any of these things, but still - every now and then you have to just stamp purely for fun, with no purpose or end goal! So that's what I did tonight. And boy do I feel better than I did this morning!

Even though this card was purely for fun, I did have some inspiration. I left a comment for Mark over on the Deadbeat Designs blog, telling him that I had no stamping mojo. He replied & suggested I stamp some bluebonnets. That Mark sure is a wise one. Nothing makes this Texan (wait - can I officially call myself a Texan?? I've lived here nearly 15 yrs now, does that qualify me??) - anyway - as I was saying, nothing makes this Texan happier than thoughts of spring and bluebonnets! So this is what I made:The bluebonnet stamp and the "Sending you a big ol' Texas hug" sentiment are both from Deadbeat Designs. That poor greeting got a little lost in all the distressing, but it's easier to see in person. Another thing you can't really see is the gorgeous shimmer this card has - I spritzed the entire thing with Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist. Yum. The straight pin & half pearls were white, I made them blue with a Copic. Love that!

Now my goal is to keep up with the stamping therapy, to keep my spirits high and my mojo intact! Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Deadbeat Designs
• Paper: Kraft from an old kraft envelope (!), Bazzill embossed blue, Stampin' Up Always Artichoke
• Ink: Stampin' Up markers, Ranger Distress inks (Walnut, Vintage Photo), Copic marker
• Accessories: Glimmer Mist, Spellbinders die, PTI scallop edge die, K&Co pearls & heart brad, Hobby Lobby gold satin ribbon, machine stitching, straight pin