You Make Me Smile Big!

Lookie lookie!! I stamped!! I made my last Tour de Craft card in July and then the kids started back to school (we start EARLY here in Georgia - August 4!) and life got busy and my stamp room was neglected once again. Until last week! My friend Leslie aka The Crooked Stamper came for a visit, and we barely left my stamp room! It was wonderful. And I even made some stuff!!

That's right, stamping, YOU make me smile big! ;-) That "you" die and the coordinating stamp was from some goodies Leslie brought along on her visit.

I had fun playing along with a couple challenges for this card. First, the colors. They are the latest Color Throwdown! I used to play this color challenge all the time (you know, back when I was an upstanding citizen of Blogland... way back then...) and just like back in the day, I once again enjoyed playing along immensely.

The sketch is from Retrosketches - but being the goof that I am, I totally didn't catch the deadline for posting this one. Ah well. It was a super fun sketch for using up some of my ridiculously massive stash of washi tape!

I even dipped into my old embellishment stash and used some Freckled Fawn resin stars I'd been hoarding for a while. Nice!

Thanks for stopping by today,

Organic is the New Sexy

Since I had a couple sexy cards for you yesterday, I thought I'd continue that trend...


Oh yea baby, organic! I love this new WTG Goes Green set from MFT, and I especially love this sentiment. hee hee! Since the beginning of this year we've been doing a CSA, or "community supported agriculture" for our produce. Every other week we get a big box of locally grown fresh organic produce, like this:


Yumminess! I'm thinking I'll leave this card to say thank you to the farm. Hopefully they'd like it? I made the card to play along with the MFT Wednesday Stamp Club sketch challenge over in the forum on Splitcoast.


The colors are from the Color Throwdown challenge - the girls over there are celebrating their 100th challenge with a ton of prizes - check it out!


I paper-pieced the shirt using some Dear Lizzy fabric paper. My opinion: that stuff is probably better for die cutting then paper piecing with scissors, it frayed too much for my liking. Or maybe my scissors were just too dull, who knows. :-)

Thanks for stopping by today! And don't forget to eat your veggies!

• Stamps: WTG Goes Green from My Favorite Things
• Paper: SU Certainly Celery, Real Red, white; American Crafts Dear Lizzy fabric paper
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
• Accessories: ribbon, scallop edge punch, brads, button, hemp twine

Thank you, teacher

It's Teacher Appreciation Week at Carter & Courtney's preschool. Carter made the cards for his teachers himself (and darn, why didn't I take any photos of them??) but I made the ones for Courtney's teachers. I had some cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuute stamped images of this little Pure Innocence girl (thanks Mary Dawn!) that was just perfect for teacher cards!

I played along with the latest 2S4Y sketch (which is pretty much like last week's Courtney's Closet card, have you played yet?) - I love all those scallops!


The colors are the latest Color Throwdown:


I stamped the dots on the yellow cardstock in white ink, and colored the main image with Copics. I just love these Pure Innocence images, they are the cutest things ever! I should have saved this card for next week's "MFT Monday", but since I actually played those challenges I just couldn't wait to post it, LOL!

Hey by the way, I did another happy dance today - my Serenity Now card was featured on the MFT blog today as one of their Favorite Finds. Woohoo!

Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Pure Innocence - Apple for You from My Favorite Things, CG139 Cling Dots from Hero Arts, message from Stampendous
• Paper: Hero Arts Kraft notecard, Stampin Up cardstock
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
• Accessories: PTI scallop edge die, corner chomper, grosgrain ribbon, button, hemp twine

Sparkly, yellow hedgehogs - why not?

Here I go again, getting all whacky with my animal colors. But hey, I figure why be boring? I like to make my animals interesting. And I sure do love me a little sparkly, yellow hedgehog! This cutie is from the FireCracker Designs by Pamela set called Happy the Hedgehog. Fitting name, isn't it? How could you not feel happy looking at this fuzzy little bundle of hedgehoggy cuteness? :-) Today's card plays along with the latest Color Throwdown - Lavender Lace, Garden Green & So Saffron. I have a couple other ideas running around in my brain for this stamp set, so stay tuned. And one of them will be shared this coming Saturday, when we have our monthly FCD blog hop! You won't want to miss that - it's going to be HOT! ;-) Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Happy the Hedgehog from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Garden Green, Lavender Lace, So Saffron, DP from Stampin' Up
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring/shading a bit, black & clear Glaze pens
• Accessories: Diamond Stickles, Spellbinders Labels 1 dies, Fiskars tag punch, Cuttlebug Tiny Bubbles folder, SU corduroy brads, silver eyelet, hemp twine, ribbon from Jody

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

Post-Memorial Day Food Coma!

I don't know about you, but this is how I felt yesterday! We had a nice little cookout here with family - although ours involved smoked chicken, not hamburgers. But I didn't have a smoked chicken stamp. :-) I made this card to play along with two of the card challenges on the Stampin' Out Alzheimers site. Have you checked it out yet? I'm telling you - you should!! It only takes a small donation to an important cause to get into the site. They have done such a fabulous job!! Already lots of freebies, challenges and giveaways happening!! So exciting!! For this card I used my cute little Our Craft Lounge elephant. Sprawled out like that, he just looks to me like he's over-indulged in hamburgers! (not to mention a brewsky or two!) The beer mug is from Flourishes, and the fun hamburger stamp is from Hambo Stamps. I spelled out the sentiment with some Stampin' Up peg alphabet stamps (which one exactly I am forgetting at the moment...!). One of the challenges I played was to STITCH on a card. *snort* A no-brainer for me, I do it all the time. I feel like such a cheat when I claim to be playing a challenge like that. But hey, they are offering a prize! So sssh... don't tell that I do it all the time, ok?? I also played a Color Throwdown challenge from a few weeks back - Riding Hood Red, Baja Breeze & Certainly Celery. I hope you all had a wonderful weekend and are easing back into the daily grind ok. I have a ton of stamping to do this week, yikes! I'm going to a huge SCS shoebox swap in north Dallas on Saturday, and I haven't even designed my card yet, much less cut out the nearly 50 kits needed for the swap. Someday I will learn not to procrastinate...!! Thanks for stopping by today!!

If only...

Could you even imagine how yummy the world would be if every now and then it rained cupcakes? *sigh* If only...! :-) I just *love* this image, it really makes me smile. It's one of several ADORABLE new digital downloads from none other than Hambo's own illustrator-extraordinaire, Timbo Hunter! He has them available in his own Etsy store, where you can also check out some of his original artwork in the form of ACEOs! Just like I love Hambo Stamps, I love his digital downloads - he has some seriously cute and funny stuff. For this first card I played along with the lastest Color Throwdown - Real Red, Black & Barely Banana (although I used a PTI yellow DP instead.) These cupcakes are all topped with a little bit of Star Dust Stickles so they are both yummy and sparkley IRL!

So let me be honest with you for a moment about digital images, or digi-stamps as some like to call them. When I first started seeing them around, I didn't like them. I mean, it's not *stamping*, right? But... I have pretty much changed my attitude about them! My favorite thing to do during the cardmaking process is coloring - so if I can get cheap access to some cute new images to color, I say why not! And... something that didn't occur to me until I started playing with this image... since they are digital, you can alter them in Photoshop! You can resize them, or... lookie what I did!!! I don't know how these things pop into my brain, truly - but I was thinking about one of the recent Cinema Saturday Challenges (Chocolat) and looking at this cute image, and thought "how dreamy would it be if it were raining Johnny Depps?!?!" So... I got my brother (who is much more of a Photoshop whiz than I am!) to replace the cupcakes with Johnnys! hee hee!! I just crack myself up! Unfortunately I didn't manage to actually get this card MADE until after that challenge expired, but I have a hunch Sankari will still appreciate it - she is as much of a Johnny fanatic as I am - as well as Hambo's Monica!!! (I bet this is NOT how Timbo intended for his cute image to be used, oops!) :-) This card is Jen's latest SFYTT, although the dimensions on my card are much different than her sketch. But it was definitely the inspiration! I don't know why I decided to go so PINK on this card! But I did. :-) I had fun with it... it made me smile... gotta love it when you crack yourself up in your stamp room!! And while I will always be a STAMPER and would be mortified if actual stamps were ever replaced by digital images, I love having digital stamps available as an option as well! Thanks for stopping by today. :-)

Getting It Out of My System, Part One.

(Scroll down to my next post to read about my fun celebrity encounter this morning!) :-) It's really bugged me that I didn't find time to play the Color Throwdowns the past couple weeks - so last night I "got it out of my system" and stamped what I had intended to stamp the weeks the Throwdowns were issued! Both cards use super cute new Hambo Stamps from their latest release, I just love their people stamps, they make me smile. :-) The first one is the Fisherman - when I saw the Color Throwdown #31 colors were Bashful Blue, Kiwi Kiss and Night of Navy, I immediately thought this stamp would be a perfect fit! I paired him with the Happy Father's Day stamp and BAM! I have my dad's Father's Day card made, months in advance FOR ONCE! (Oh who am I kidding? I'll probably stick it in my Etsy shop! LOL!) The sketch was last week's Mojo Monday sketch - as usual I didn't quite make the deadline for that challenge either! Really love this sketch though, it's a keeper! The second card uses one of my FAVES from the latest Hambo release - Stamper's Back - you already know how much I adore the buttcrack stamps!! I'm just goofy like that I guess! So you saw me recently working in the garden, here I am stamping away in my Stamp Cave! And look at me in those hot pink pants, woohoo! Those don't look as HOT in person, they did not photograph well - but in general I don't think I chose the right color marker to match my Regal Rose paper! LOL! The colors for this card were Color Throwdown #32 - Pretty in Pink, Barely Banana and Regal Rose. Such a pretty combo - sorry ladies that I added HOT pink into the mix, LOL! This sketch is Taylor's latest sketch - another fun one!! I love this new Hambo sentiment "To stamp or not to stamp?" - the inside of the card reads "That's a dumb question!" How true is that?? :-) *sigh* Ok, I feel better now that I've gotten these Throwdowns out of my system! Hopefully going forward I'll make cards the weeks the challenges are issued! HA! Famous last words... ;-) Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Fisherman and Happy Father's Day from Hambo Stamps
• Paper: Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Kiwi Kiss, GP White, Rockabilly Specialty DP (SU)
• Ink: Night of Navy, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Spellbinders dies, Fiskars Boundary Waters punch

• Stamps: Stamper's Back and Dumb Question from Hambo Stamps
• Paper: Regal Rose, Pretty in Pink, Barely Banana, GP White, Sweet Always DP (SU)
• Ink: Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder, Spellbinders dies, CTMH rickrack ribbon