Johnny says "Happy Birthday Sankari!"

Yesterday one of my favorite people in all of Stampland, Sankari, celebrated a birthday! As many of you know, she's the cohostess of my favorite challenge blog, Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge! Yesterday her best blogging buddy, Brooke, had the fabby idea of posting cards for Sankari. Well I'm a day late, but I hope this will still make Sankari smile! Of course I had to make her a Johnny Depp card, since I understand all too well Sankari's love of this brilliant actor!


For those of you who don't know Sankari - I photoshopped her face in there. hee hee!!! Hopefully she'll think that's funny and not creepy. :-) I grabbed a photo from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow to use, because that also happens to be this week's Cinema Saturday challenge!


Of course Sankari would pick a Johnny Depp movie on her birthday weekend! YAY! This is actually one of my fave JD movies, he's so cute & funny in it. The rule for this week was to add a Halloween tree, so I just cut one out of cardstock. I also decided to add little paint dots all over the card, since that's one of Sankari's favorite things to do. Yikes! Turns out I should leave that to the professional! Now I am even more in awe of how perfect Sankari's always look - and that she doesn't smudge them!! I guess I'm way too impatient to wait for paint to dry...! I used my good old snap stamps to spell out Johnny's birthday wish to his 2nd favorite fan (me being his favorite, of course!). ;-)

So... A VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU SANKARI!! I hope you like your card. :-)

• Stamps: Karen Foster snap stamps
• Paper: GP white, Stampin' Up teal, black
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
• Accessories: black mesh trim from Taylored Expressions, red ruffled ribbon, pearl pin, heart punch, Adirondack dimensional pearls (butterscotch)

Little girls...

Some day I'll land in the nut house

With all the nuts and the squirrels
There I'll stay
Locked away
'til the prohibition of
Little girls.

Nice, aye? Would you believe that lovely verse inspired this card...


LOL! I'm a couple hours late, but tonight I played along with the latest Cinema Saturday Challenge, which was the musical Annie!


I was inspired by Carol Burnett's lament about how much she despises everything about little girls. But of course I don't despise little girls. Actually, I'm quite found of them, especially a certain two year old little girl. :-) So I decided to make mine a happy card about enjoying the "little things" in life and pulled out my super cute Hero Arts Girl Holding Flowers. And I have to admit, the idea to make a card about enjoying the little things was my sister's! Thanks Laura!

Are you wondering why I went a little nuts with the buttons on this? I also played along with a fun little challenge from over on Twitter - Teri suggested we make a card with 23 items on it. Yes, 23!! The item I chose was buttons. I thought for a minute about tying thread in each button to finish them off. But then I decided I'd rather stick a fork in my eye and didn't do it. HA! I like them all just hanging out there on the bottom of the card anyway.

Before I go, if you're curious, here's Carol Burnett's performance from the movie, circa 1982!

Happy Stamping!

• Stamps: H5330 Girl Holding Flowers from Hero Arts
• Paper: Kraft (Hero Arts), White (Georgia Pacific), Black (Stampin' Up)
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers, black Glaze pen, white gel pen
• Accessories: Buttons, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, scallop edge punch, ribbon, staples

Happy Birthday Cupcake!

Hello! Is everyone having a nice summer? So far it's been both fun and a little hectic around here! My husband just got back from three weeks in Korea. My in-laws were visiting while he was gone. I had a big stampy garage sale. Courtney started ballet classes (so cute!!). We got a new cat. And now the kids are off for summer break from preschool. Whew! I'd like to say I'll have lots of time to stamp now - but - it's not likely. But as always, I'll do the best I can to get into the stamp room, and hope you'll be patient with me. :-)

On to today's card...


You all know how I love to play challenges!! Well today was my first time playing along with The Play Date Cafe color challenge!


The sketch is from Taylor...


Instead of scallops, I substituted in some pennants. This is because I wanted to play along with this week's Cinema Saturday challenge - State Fair!


In the spirit of full disclosure, I will admit that I haven't seen this movie. But I wanted to play along anyway because, well, I love this challenge, and also because I love pennants - the most fabbiest fad at the moment - and they were the requirement this week. I used my sweet little pennant stamps from my Hero Arts Kiss from the Sun set. When I think of State Fairs, I think of an endless array of food booths. Since I didn't have any funnel cake or food-on-a-stick stamps, and because I was making this card for a sweet 4 year old's birthday, I went with a cupcake from Taylored Expressions. But that was my thought process behind it. The cupcake and pennant images are all paper-pieced.

And if you're wondering if I'd be able to make a card without blog challenges - I'm pretty sure the answer is no. :-)

Happy Stamping!

• Stamps: For the Love of Cupcakes from Taylored Expressions, Kiss from the Sun from Hero Arts
• Paper: Stampin' Up cardstock, K&Co DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
• Accessories: Star Dust Stickles, white gel pen, Spellbinders die, machine stitching

Life moves fast...

Thanks for all the sweet comments yesterday, they made my day! :-) And now I have to say... while yesterday's card made me grumpy, today's makes me very happy!!


Fun, yes? Can you see what the background is? It says repeatedly "Life moves pretty fast. You don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." Ring any bells? Why yes of course, that's Matthew Broderick's line in Ferris Bueller's Day Off! hee hee

I had this card in my head for a few weeks now - I wanted to make it to play along when Cinema Saturday featured Ferris Bueller!! But of course I didn't. Story of my life.


But I decided to seize the day, just as Ferris would, and make the card anyway! I thought that line was sorta fitting with a bicycle. Because they go fast too. But more on that in a sec, I also want to mention that this card played along with the latest Taylored Expressions sketch, turned on it's side.


AND... bicycles are the Moxie Fab World challenge right now! Yay!!! I love this theme so much, I hope to make at least one more bicycle card before the challenge ends - you should too!

I already had cycling on my brain because while I was on vacation a few weeks back, I got to watch a stage in the Tour of California bike race!!! Some of you have already read this, but I'm going to repost from my family blog here...

On Sunday we drove up to Thousand Oaks for the 8th and final stage of this year's Amgen Tour of California bike race! I've been a big cycling fan since 1999, when a guy from Austin started winning the Tour de France. It was so exciting to see a cycling event live and in person! I had no idea what to expect at the starting line - turns out fans could wander around the parking lot with the team buses and wait for a peek at favorite riders. How cool! We opted to hang out by the Team RadioShack bus. We were surprised how we were able to get in so close to see the cyclists - Joel pointed out it may not have been so easy if Lance hadn't crashed out of the race a few days earlier...!


We saw Popo...


And Jason McCartney (I took this one for Lisa!)...


Jani Brajkovic (who I've learned, thanks to Twitter, has THE CUTEST little boy!!)...


A roughed up Chechu - he had crashed a few days earlier with Lance, but stuck around to finish the race. I had read he "had no skin left" - ouch!


And Levi - yay! This photo cracks me up, it's like the kid is saying "Can I touch you?".


Carter & Courtney have a new favorite - Team Jelly Belly!! And yes, they were handing out free samples! We also got some free t-shirts from Team RadioShack, yay!


The ceremonial starting line...


After the starting line we had lunch then found a spot along the route to watch them fly by. As you can tell, Carter and Courtney were so excited... (ha ha)

Here come the leaders, George Hincapie is supposed to be one of these?


And the peloton. Recognize anyone? They went by so fast...


And the cars, rounding out the "cycling parade".


YAY! Fun day. Now let's hope I watch a live stage of the Tour de France someday... :-)

And my dear stamping friends, thanks for bearing with me as I just relived that day once again! :-)

• Stamps: Are we there yet? from GinaK, Karen Foster snap stamps
• Paper: misc from my scrap drawer
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, SU markers
• Accessories: Corner rounder, ribbon, staples, heart brad, machine stitching

Cinema Saturday - Much Ado About Nothing

It's time for my favorite blog challenge!! This week I'm thrilled to be a guest over on the Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge blog!! I won the coveted Audrey award for my tribute to Oklahoma, yeehaw! Thanks Brooke and Sankari, you ladies made my day with that!! So here's this week's challenge:


And here is my card:


Doesn't my card immediately make you think of the Shakespearean comedy Much Ado About Nothing?! No?? Well let me explain... one of my favorite scenes in the movie is when they are tricking Benedick into thinking Beatrice loves him. During this scene, Claudio whispers "Bait the hook well, this fish will bite!". Voila! My card inspiration! I used this cute little fish from the Hero Arts Oceans of Joy set. And yes ladies and gentlemen, that IS a real fish hook - purchased at Walmart specifically for this card! This has to be the most dangerous card I've ever made! hee hee As for the rule to include parchment, this probably isn't quite what Brooke and Sankari had in mind, but I took some parchment paper from my kitchen and cut out the white wave under the fish! The sketch for today's card comes from the Taylored Expressions Sketch Challenge #112:


And if you're curious, here's the scene from the movie that inspired this card:

Thanks for stopping by today, and BIG THANKS again to Sankari and Brooke!!

• Stamps: CL372 Oceans of Joy from Hero Arts
• Paper: Hero Arts Kraft notecard, Bazzill cardstock
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers, Sakura Glaze pen (black), white gel pen
• Accessories: Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, Fiskars wave punch, Spellbinders dies, Star Dust Stickles, antique brass brads, fish hook

Texas Tuesday meets Oklahoma!

I need to ask a favor. Will you please pretend that I posted this on Tuesday? Thank you. I have a new feature I've been trying to start for a while now called Texas Tuesday. Every Tuesday I will feature cards with a Texas theme, or created with stamps by Texas companies, or whatever I'm feelin' is good 'n' Texasy that day! What d'ya'll think, sound good? Disclaimer: when I say "every" Tuesday - that actually means every Tuesday that I've gotten around to stamping something Texasy to post............! But without further ado, here is my first Texas Tuesday (on Thursday) card:


It was created with stamps from my two favorite Texas-stamp-making-peeps: the image is from Deadbeat Designs, and the message is Texana Designs. The card is nice and Texasy, yes? Well no, it's supposed to be Oklahoma-y, so since we've already been pretending, let's pretend those gals are Sooners, not Texans, k? I made this card to play along with this week's Cinema Saturday Challenge, which you've probably guessed by now is Oklahoma!


I was so happy when I saw the selection this week - Oklahoma! has always been one of my favorite musicals. It's just so happy (well, except when Poor Jud is Dead, of course!). I remember as a kid, probably no more than five years old, riding my bike at my Grandpa's farm and going full speed down a hill singing out "OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNING, OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY!!". Good stuff.

The rule for the challenge this week was to use gingham (and might I add, paper-piecing those gingham shirts was a bit of a PITA!). I chose that red ruffly ribbon because another of my favorite Oklahoma! songs is "Surrey With The Fringe On Top" - I had no fringe but this was as close as I could get. The sketch is this week's Mojo Monday challenge:

Now before I go, I have to share something that I just discovered this week. I don't think it's possible for me to love Hugh Jackman any more than I do after watching this!! Total swoon.

Thanks for stopping by!

• Stamps: N-260 3 Cowgirls from Deadbeat Designs, message from Texana Designs
• Paper: Hero Arts Kraft notecard, SU red, GP white, Making Memories DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
• Accessories: Prismacolor pencils, slit punch, MM ribbon, machine stitching, buttons

Cinema Saturday - UP!

Hi stampy friends! I'm so excited to be making my first blog post on my pretty new blog! What do you think of my new digs?? I am soooo in love. I've been working with the fabulous Sara Williams to get my blog tweaked into a more clean & simple design. She has done such a fabby job!! Make sure to click through all the pages & see what's what. As I get back into the posting groove I'll need to attempt to get people to visit me again (Helllooooo? Is there anyone out there anymore???) so I'll be having an Extreme Blog Makeover + 3 Year Blogiversary celebration very soon!

But for now, let's just look at a card, shall we?


I had said in January that my "new year's resolution" was to play ALL the Cinema Saturday challenges this year. *AHEM* It's now mid-April and THIS IS MY FIRST ONE!! Ugh, that is such a crime against humanity, I tell ya!!! This is my favorite challenge in all of blogland, I have missed it so much! So this week's movie was Up!


The rule for this week was to use balloons on the card - this cutie little Greeting Farm pig was the most Up-like stamp I had, so I went with it. And the movie is about an adventure right? So I thought the "It's Your Turn" sentiment from the set sorta fit.

I also played along with this week's Mojo Monday challenge, another of my favorites!! YAY!


I cut the grass using my Martha Stewart fringe scissors. You know about these, right? They are the coolest things ever!

It felt good to be back in the stamp room last night! I truly hope to make regular appearances there from here on out...! Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Fly Away from The Greeting Farm
  
• Paper: Ballet Blue, Kraft from Stampin' Up, white paper, Reminisce DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
• Accessories: Corner Chomper, SU scallop border punch, embroidery floss, Diamond Stickles, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, brads, Glossy Accents

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

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

Ode to Captain Jack Sparrow

Ahoy maties! I be takin' this wee break from me week of Our Craft Lounge postin' t' show ye the card I be makin' for this week's Cinema Saturday Challenge! Arrr! So can you guess what the movie is this week?? LOL! That's right, Pirates of the Caribbean!! And I simply could not let another Johnny Depp movie pass me by without making a card!! Here's what I came up with... it wasn't intentional when I sat down to make it, but in the end I didn't include a bit of stamping!! I've had a package of grungeboard for probably a year now, sitting unopened in a drawer. Mark over at Deadbeat Designs went on a little rant recently about how useless it is, so I got it out, determined to make a card pairing it with his stamps to make him love it. But it turns out - I couldn't, I don't really get it either. But since it was already out, and I remembered the package I own has some skulls in it, I had to use it for my Pirates of the Caribbean card! I colored it white by rubbing my Craft ink pad over it. The heart is grungeboard too, covered in paper. There was a requirement this week to include beads, so that's where the random string of beads came from, LOL! I put the skull on a heart because as I've mentioned before, I do *heart* Johnny Depp - or in this case, Captain Jack Sparrow! I hurt my brain trying to come up with a sentiment for this card, and finally visited the Talk Like a Pirate site, where I found a section on pirate pickup lines!! LOL! In the section for lady pirates, I found "C'mon, lad, shiver me timbers!". HA! Now doesn't that just give this common pirate phrase all new meaning?? LOL! So, I thought it worked for my Captain Jack Sparrow card! :-) Ok now ye scurvy dogs, I be postin' this and movin' on - hearty thanks for stoppin' by me blog today!

• Stamps: none!
• Paper: Basic Black, white, The Paper Studio DP, red DP unknown
• Ink: SU white Craft ink, black Glaze pen, Ranger Distress Ink in Vintage Photo
• Accessories: Janome Sew Mini & black thread, Tim Holtz Grungeboard, linen thread, red beads

My Sparkly Vampire Card

Here's my latest Cinema Saturday card. Can you tell what movie they picked this week?? That's right - TWILIGHT!! Sure, Edward doesn't wear a cape, and his hair is WAY more stylish than this - but I just couldn't resist pulling out my favorite little vampire stamp!!! It's from a Westrim Crafts set called Spooky that I found on the clearance rack at Archiver's just after Halloween last year, so I'm thrilled to be getting him inky for the first time. You see, I *love* vampires!! It's a little known fact about me. (although, if you read this blog regularly, this is not the first time I've admitted it!!!) However - Twilight - well, I resisted reading it for the longest time. No offense to some of you, but I just thought it was a little creepy that all these middle-aged women were in love with a teenage vampire!! But then I thought more about it - wait! He's a vampire! He's probably been seventeen for a very long time, so really, he's MUCH older. Oh. But that means he's like a hundred year old vampire hot for a seventeen year old girl. Still creepy. But then I decided - who cares - he's a vampire and I love vampires!!! hee hee So I actually just finished the first book the other day, and watched the movie when I knew this would be the challenge this week. I really do like it - but I'm not going to claim to be one of the FANATICS out there. I just love all things vampire!! (ok fine I'll admit it - Edward is totally dreamy!!) Well anyway, I had a super fun time making this card!! One thing in Twilight that's different than the other vampire books I've read is how she dealt with them going out in sunlight - she has them SPARKLE in the sun!! So my little vampire has a super sparkly face, thanks to my Stardust Gelly Roll pen. There's also sparkle on the chipboard heart (Christmas Red Stickles) and the hearts on the DP are sparkly too. I also colored over the vampire's hair, cape and shoes with my black Glaze pen, so he's sparkly AND shiny! I used this week's Mojo Monday sketch for the card, which was awesome as always, and as luck would have it a Verve sentiment fit with my theme quite nicely! So there you have it, my sparkly vampire card and my confession about my love for vampires, which began long before they were sparkly teenagers. Yes, I am a weirdo. :-) FYI you have until Thursday 9pm PST to play along with Twilight! You know you want to!! ;-) Thanks for stopping by today!!

• Stamps: Spooky from Westrim Crafts, Wild Thing from Verve Stamps
• Paper: Read Red, Silver from SU, Black & black polka dot from MM, Purple from Marcella, Expensive but Cute heart DP
• Ink: Palette Noir, Encore Silver, Copics
• Accessories: Cuttlebug & folders, chipboard heart from stash, Christmas Red Stickles, Stardust Gelly Roll pen, Black Glaze pen, Marvy punches, SU scallop border punch, metallic red brads from my stash