Guest Designing with Melanie's Stamps!!

Hi everyone! I'm so excited to share some happy news today - the fabulous Melanie Muenchinger, illustrator for Gina K. Designs and all-around sweet and talented stamper, asked me to do a guest design spot for one of her latest sets, Make a State-ment!! It's such a FUN FUN FUN set for people like me who love to roadtrip across the country, I completely squealed when I saw it!
I have a bunch more ideas for this set, but Melanie is featuring a few of my designs starting today, so head on over to her blog, Hands, Head, Heart, and take a peek! Thanks so much for inviting me, Melanie!

Some Photos from Christmas

As the new year approaches, I've been thinking about what I want to do with my blog. And one thing I'd like to do, even though it's not what all you stampers care to see, is share a weekly update of what the kids have been up to, both as my own little digital scrapbook so *I* will remember, and also to share with family. So in that spirit, today I'm going to share a look back at Christmas...

I will begin with a confession. For us, the Christmas season begins on the day after Thanksgiving. And this year I was one of those crazy people in line at Target at midnight Thanksgiving night. I have sworn I will not do it again next year. Any bets on whether I'll remember that when November rolls around again? :-)


We also get our tree up Thanksgiving weekend, and this year was our first with an artificial tree. I don't love it nearly as much as a real tree, but I did very much enjoy not having to water and also having no needles to clean up! In this photo Carter is reading a Christmas story to Courtney by the tree. So proud of my boy and his reading!


Carter made a gingerbread house at school. I suggested it be a decoration, but Carter thought it was that night's dinner!


For our first holiday season in Atlanta, we decided to take in one of the local events - the lights at the botanical garden! It was beautiful.


Courtney was in a cute little Christmas program at her preschool. She did such a good job singing with her class!


I attempted to get a nice Christmas photo of the kids in front of the tree, but this is what I ended up with. My crazy kids!!


This one on the front porch is better - I love the way Courtney is looking at Carter!


Of course we also had to get a photo with Santa!


Once school was out, we headed up to Michigan to spend Christmas with family. The kids were so excited that we actually got some snow!!


Here they are on Christmas Eve in front of Grammy's tree - they each got to open one present that night.


Here's a couple from Christmas morning - you can tell we are a Disney-loving family! Carter loved his stuffed Simba...


And Courtney was ecstatic to get not only a Rapunzel dress, but also Rapunzel HAIR from Grammy!!


The next day we got to go to Aunt Lori's for another Christmas celebration. Carter had a ton of fun playing with cousins Gina & Jeff's new Kinect!


And finally, to round out the holidays, a trip to Crossroads Village. So many pretty lights!


A wonderful Christmas for us.

Thanks for stopping by!

Just Because

I found a card I made a few months ago and forgot to post. So I thought I'd post it now. Just because.


The stamps are from Stampotique. And the poodle is pink and glittery. As all poodles should be. I painted the chipboard heart with acrylic paints and then attempted to dry it with my heat gun, which accidentally caused the paint to bubble up a bit. But now I'm declaring it a cool, texture-adding technique rather than an accident. Because I'm awesome like that. ;-)

Until next time,

Fall color... in December...

So... I'm a wee teeny tiny bit late posting this card. We're a week from Christmas and I'm forcing you to step back in time to a nice fall day. Because that's when I meant to make and post this card! Just humor me...

You see, it was my first fall here in Georgia. I grew up in Michigan where there are seasons and the trees know how to be trees. In Austin, not so much. But I didn't realize just how much I missed fall color until I spent fall here, and saw the leaves. Oh the glorious leaves!! I was in a constant state of awe for weeks. It was so wonderful!! I got it in my head that I had to use some of those leaves on a card! And then I saw Amy share an idea on Twitter to use Mod Podge to preserve leaves (although I can't find the blog post, darn it!)! What fun!


The main problem is that I had this idea. Then days and days went by and finally I collected some leaves, no longer quite at their peek. Then for weeks (!) I left those leaves sitting on my desk, waiting for me to use them! Ack. Finally, Thanksgiving weekend, I attempted to Mod Podge the fairly brittle leaves into submission, as I called it. I stamped a background using Distress inks and some of my favorite Hero Arts stamps - La Lettre and Three Winter Trees. And I got out the Mod Podge. It worked! It looked fab!! Another week or two passed and FINALLY I got around to adding the panel onto a card. And when I rolled my mono adhesive along the back of the cardstock - HEARTBREAK - it created bubbles in my gorgeous leaves. Sigh. Ah well, I love the card regardless. :-)

And now I have to share just a few of the many many MANY photos I took this fall with my phone. I couldn't help it, I was mesmerized by those leaves, in my very own neighborhood, so I had to keep capturing them. Sigh. These photos don't even truly capture the color since they are just crappy phone photos.


And my babies enjoyed the fabulous fall leaves, too!


Happy Stamping,

• Stamps: K5344 La Lettre, K5255 Three Winter Trees, ST509 Hooray (message) from Hero Arts
• Paper: Orange, kraft, white cardstock
• Ink: Distress Inks (Rusty Hinge, Wild Honey, Gathered Twigs, Fired Brick, Vintage Photo)
• Other: Mod Podge, Leaves, Twine, Spellbinders die

Merry Texmas!

After my trip to Archivers this past weekend, I was in quite the stamping mood so I surfed on over to Splitcoaststampers, where a VSN (Virtual Stamp Night) was underway! During VSN, oodles of fabby stampers host different challenges. A new challenge goes live every hour, and you have to complete your project from start to finish in 45 minutes. Yep, that's right - 45 MINUTES!! It's pure madness, and so much fun! When I saw DebDeb's challenge at 4pm on Saturday - to use an "alternative" image that works for a Christmas card in the south - I thought right away of one of my favorite stamps from Texana Designs - this fun Merry Texmas cactus Snowglobe!!


I want to get back in the habit of posting Texas Tuesday cards, so this is perfect timing! The card is pretty straight forward - just added a bit of Picket Fence Distress Stickles for a touch of snow in my snowglobe. I'm just happy it came together in 45 mintues. I decided to add the stitching with about three minutes to go, LOL!!

Thank for stopping by, and Merry Christmas, y'all! ;-)

• Stamps: Snowglobe from Texana Designs
• Paper: Hero Arts Kraft & Pine, GP white, DCWV Christmas matstack (plaid)
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
• Other: Crimping tool, May Arts ribbon, American Crafts twine, Ranger Distress Stickles, stitching

New Hero Arts Goodies!!

Happy Monday! Did everyone have a wonderful, HeroArts-alicious weekend? New goodies hit the stores, you know. Like this fabbbbulous Newspaper Eiffel Tower background stamp THAT I ADORE!


I decided to dig out my Ranger alcohol inks and some glossy paper for this one - a technique that I don't play with nearly as often as I should, because the results are always stunning! The background stamp is embossed in black. I embossed the tower itself a second time, cut it out and popped it up.


I definitely see this background being combined with bike stamps in my future. I know this will be a big shock to some of you, but I happen to kinda enjoy bike races and le Tour de France. No, really!! ;-)

So being the good Hero Arts fanatic that I am, I headed over to Archivers on Saturday, so I could look at all the new goodies in person. I had already poured over the catalog oodles of times, but something about seeing them in person - perhaps fondling them just a little - is so much more fun.

The display of Clings nearly made me faint, I loved it so much...


And the woodblocks, oh the glorious woodblocks!!


I really love this one, hee hee. It's a real, functioning QR code!


As I was at the counter paying, I saw another woman come in, dragging her hubby with her. She had such a grin on her face as the clerk handed her a new catalog and she excitedly started thumbing through it. Her hubby didn't look nearly as excited, haha! But she saw me and we gave each other knowing smiles. WE knew what an exciting day it was!!

I tried to get a self-portrait of me with the stamps, but they all turned out horrid (think: way too many chins!). I guess I should have just asked someone to take one for me, but I felt silly. Not sure why, it's perfectly NORMAL to take your photo with stamps!!! At least in my world it is, hee hee! So instead I'll share this one of a happy girl in her car right after, still feeling the glow of all the fabulous new rubber. Sigh.


In case you missed it this weekend, Hero Arts shared a fantastic blog hop on Friday - so much inspiration, with lots of the new stamps in action, you don't want to miss it. AND - if you make it out to visit the new stamps, take your own photos. You could WIN LOTS OF STUFF!!

Thanks for stopping by,

• Stamps: CG417 Newspaper Eiffel Tower from Hero Arts
• Paper: Glossy cardstock, Hero Arts Aubergine
• Ink: Versamark, Memento Sweet Plum, Ranger Adirondack alcohol inks (Eggplant, Stream, Meadow)
• Other: Blending tool, Maya Road trim, Hero Arts pearls, black embossing powder, black Glaze pen (on Amour), Fiskars tag punch, May Arts satin ribbon

Sweet Little Fox

Well hello there! Long time, no blog! You've heard that a lot from me, haven't you? WELL! I've been on a bit of a cardmaking roll this weekend, so I'll be here blogging at least a few times this week!! Which means I'll probably lose some more followers. Whenever I actually blog after a long break, a bunch of people unsubscribe. It's like "oh yeah, I forgot about her, I should delete her!" Nice. HAHAHA! Oh well. But please do consider keeping me around, because I actually have a few fun stampy things coming soon - a guest design spot - a return to a design team I love - yup, that's right, I hope to rejoin the stamping world in 2012! WOOT!

But enough blah blah blah, let's get to today's card, shall we?


I tried out such a FUN technique for this card!! My genius friend Lydia shared it a little while back. I stamped the sweet little Hero Arts Sleepy Fox in black ink, then set it on a light box with another paper on top of it. I used the lines as a guide as I colored with Copics. The result - my sweet little fox is pure Copic, it doesn't have a black line!!! It looks almost like a painting! So much fun!!


I also turned to one of my all-time favorite blog challenges for this card - Mojo Monday!! It's been way too long since their awesome sketches got my mojo flowing!


Thanks for stopping by, I so appreciate all of you who have stuck with me through the thick & thin!!

• Stamps: E5466 Sleepy Fox, CL272 All Occasion Messages from Hero Arts
  
• Paper: White & pink cardstock, Echo Park Dots & Stripes DP
• Ink: Copic markers, Memento tuxedo black
• Other: Tiny Attacher (staples), pink ribbon (May Arts from Hambo Stamps), green scallop ribbon from stash, Spellbinders die, white heart button