Guest Designing with All Things Unity!!

I'm so excited and honored to be spending June as a guest of the All Things Unity blog! Yay!! I whipped up this sweet little card for Dad for my first project...


The theme for ATU#33 is to Get Manly! Break out your Unity stamps and create a card for one of the guys in your life!


I don't own a ton of manly Unity stamps, but I thought this sweet dad & son image would make a great Father's Day card from Carter. I used a Unity woodgrain background as well - first I painted some green paint from Plaid on the cardstock, then covered the stamp itself with blue paint and stamped. Why paint, you ask? Because Plaid is sponsoring the challenge this week! These AWESOME goodies will go to the winner!!


So head on over to the All Things Unity blog and play along with us!! I cannot wait to see what you create! And a HUGE thanks to Sara for inviting me to join them this month!

Speedy Cards!!

This weekend there's a mini VSN on Splitcoaststampers - Virtual Stamp Night. For ages now I've been wanting to play along with one of these, and FINALLY I DID IT!! Woohoo!! What happens is they post several challenges - a different one each hour - and you are supposed to complete your challenge card within 45 minutes. You can play along as they go live, or you can do it when you can throughout the weekend. So first of all - 45 minutes??? I *never* make cards that fast. I am a major slowpoke stamper. So that in itself is a HUGE challenge for me!! To help speed things along, I set a few ground rules for myself. First, try to use similar supplies on all the cards. Second, use all Unity stamps (mostly because I have a ton and I don't use them nearly enough and they make me INSANELY HAPPY so I wanted to give them some VSN love!). In the end I made all the cards in LESS than 45 minutes - I made 5 cards on Friday night in 2.5 hours. WOW. And then I finished the 6th project - a luminary - in about 40 minutes this morning. I had a blast. And I stepped WAY outside of my comfort zone. If you've never tried one of these, I really highly recommend it. AND - this particular VSN is open until 8pm EST on Monday, so there's still tons of time to play along!

So here's my card for the first challenge - "Punch Your Heart Out" - it was a color challenge, a sketch challenge, and we were to make a flower out of punches or dies. I used my fabby MFT rolled flower die. Actually, I used some felt rolled flowers that I had already made a while back and happened to be sitting on my desk! Time was of the essence, you know! :-)


Next - "What SHAPE is your heart?" - yup, you guessed it, a heart shaped card was required! I had these heart-shaped doilies, so I used one to trace around and create the card. And I loooove this Unity stamp!


The 3rd challenge was "Light Up Your Life" and that was the luminary I made this morning. I followed this great tutorial from Beate, which made it a piece of cake. I guess I went with the songbird theme since she had quoted an entire song in her challenge post, hee hee.


Next was "Paper-Piece Your Heart Out" (hosted by my sweet friend Donna Baker!). I did some pink & blue paper-piecing on the soda bottle. And btw, being a Diet Coke fanatic (although, recovering - I'm trying hard to give it up!!) - I love love love this Fizzy Feelings set!!


The 5th challenge was "Two Hearts Beat As One" and we were supposed to have "entwined" images on the card. I went with entwined clouds raining down hearts. I hope that's entwined enough, LOL! I was inspired to pull out some rain clouds after catching a peek at my friend Lisa's AWESOME sketch book project!!


And finally, "Slimming Down" - the challenge was to make a "slimmed down card of encouragement". It was a limited supply challenge with only 2 layers of cardstock allowed, and she wanted it to include Kraft, which obviously was not a problem for me, LOL!! She also said to include something about motivation - well, she told a story about slimming down herself, which I found very motivating, which inspired me, hence the message I chose to use. :-)


Whew, that was a ton of stamping for one weekend! My desk is a WRECK, but it was so much fun.

Thanks for stopping by!


Card #1

• Stamps: City of Love from Unity Stamp Co (message)
• Paper: Hero Arts Brown Bag Kraft, SU green, American Crafts DP
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic multiliner, Copic Pale Olive marker
• Accessories: MFT Die-namics Rolled Flower, pink felt, circle punch, SU Slit punch (to make scallops), American Crafts caramel twine

Card#2

• Stamps: ?? sentiment that I love from Unity Stamp Co
• Paper: American Crafts DP
• Ink: Vintage Photo Distress Ink
• Accessories: Heart doily, pearls

Luminary

• Stamps: Could I Be Any Cuter? (bird), Nothing But Blue Skies (message) from Unity Stamp Co
• Paper: Hero Arts Brown Bag Kraft, white, vellum
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers, black Stazon
• Accessories: Spellbinders die, SU scallop edge punch, Star Dust Stickles, hemp twine

Card #4

• Stamps: Fizzy Feelings from Unity Stamp Co
• Paper: Hero Arts Brown Bag Craft, SU Baja Breeze, BoBunny pink, white
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
• Accessories: SU Slit punch, machine stitching, hemp twine, heart sticker

Card #5

• Stamps: a pocket full of... (clouds), Could I Be Any Cuter? (message) from Unity Stamp Co
• Paper: Hero Arts Brown Bag Kraft, GP white
• Ink: Broken China, Tumbled Glass, Vintage Photo Distress Inks
• Accessories: American Crafts caramel twine, heart stickers

Card #6

• Stamps: a pocket full of... from Unity Stamp Co
• Paper: SU Brocade Blue, Hero Arts Brown Bag Kraft
• Ink: Barn Door, Vintage Photo Distress Inks
• Accessories: Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder, Spellbinders die, hemp twine

Texas Tuesday - this may look familiar...

Howdy y'all! It's been a trying week in these parts, so I'm going to be slightly lame for Texas Tuesday and post a card that's very similar to my last Texas Tuesday post! I hope you'll forgive me. But I couldn't help it - I loved that other card so much, I had to try it in purple!


Just like before, the boots are crazy-glittery.


Have I mentioned how much I love this Brave Girl Boots set from Unity? :-)

Now check out what my Texas Tuesday partners were up to this week - you can find their links on my sidebar. Thanks for moseyin' by!

• Stamps: Brave Girl Boots from Unity Stamp Co
• Paper: Stampin' Up Sahara Sand, GP white, Bazzill Berry Pretty
  
• Ink: Hero Arts Soft Purple Shadow Ink, Ranger Distress Vintage Photo, Dusty Concord
  
• Accessories: Hero Arts gems, Maya Road star trinket, Glossy Accents, glitter, Marvy punch, ribbon, machine stitching, staples

Texas Tuesday for Brave Girls

Hey y'all - it's Texas Tuesday! And today I made a card about being brave. I think my one little word for 2011 is going to be "brave" - I have a lot of stuff I need to be brave about this year - stuff like taking on new challenges, my son starting kindergarten (*sob*), me turning 40...!!! So yup, brave it is.


I played with one of my favorite Unity stamp sets ever for this card - Brave Girl Boots. They partnered with the fabulous brave girl herself, Melody Ross for this one. The color palette came from my favorite challenge, The Play Date Cafe!


Mine turned out rather pinkalicious. But I'm diggin' it. I wish you could see those boots in real life, I cut them out & popped them up, and then coated them with a thick layer of Glossy Accents. While it was wet I sprinkled a dab of glitter over it. So pretty!

Now make sure and check out what my Texas Tuesday friends are up to today, it sounds like EVERYONE played this week, yay!! (Jennifer's will be coming a little later in the day.) They are listed over there on my sidebar. And now I'm off to check out what they created myself!

Happy Stamping,

• Stamps: Brave Girl Boots from Unity Stamp Co
• Paper: Stampin' Up Sahara Sand, Cameo Coral, GP white, Bo Bunny DP
• Ink: Stampin' Up Pixie Pink, Ranger Distress Vintage Photo
• Accessories: Hero Arts gems, Maya Road star trinket, Glossy Accents, glitter, Marvy punch, ribbon, machine stitching, staples

Friends with Flair!

Hi friends - guess what!! My left hand is healing nicely - I can type with no problem and I can also stamp!!! AND... I have none of the numbness that I used to have! I am so thrilled!! I'm trying not to overdo it, I did just have surgery a couple days ago - but wow. I never expected I'd be able to use it this fast.

So to celebrate my new bionic wrist - HA - I decided to play along with today's Unity Friends with Flair blog hop!! Woohoo!!! I looooooooooove Unity stamps, but I haven't done a whole lot to be part of the whole Unity world. But... it's a world I wanna enter, LOL! So this is my first little knock on their door.... :-)


When I saw this Classic Beauty stamp at Archiver's it was love at first sight for me. Gorgeous! I decided to embellish it up with some decorative pearls and a little ribbon sash. I did a bit of stitching along the scallop border, and then I spelled out the sentiment with my good ol' snap stamps. I realized I don't own any Unity sentiments!!! I need to correct that dire situation asap!

I also played along with one of the Hope You Can Cling To challenges over at Splitcoast - Julie's challenge to make your own embellishment. I decided to make a fabric flower, since I learned how to do these on one of Julie's fabby tutorials a while back! Fun stuff.


Now head on over to the Unity blog and visit the rest of the stampers doing today's hop! And thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Classic Beauty from Unity Stamp Co, Karen Foster snap stamps
• Paper: SU Old Olive, GP white
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers
• Accessories: Blue gingham fabric, olive grosgrain ribbon, green felt, decorative pearls, EK Success punch, Iridescent Gold Glimmer Mist (on fabric flower)

From Courtney's Closet #45 - Courtney's Playdate!

Hi Everyone! Welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by one of my daughter's outfits. Remember way back in April, I claimed I'd start doing a monthly playdate, where one of Courtney's best blogging buddies would come and visit and we'd all ooh and aah over the friend's cuteness and make a card inspired by the friend's outfit?!? Wellllllll... we are finally doing another playdate!! This month we are playing host to Katie Brooks' *adorable* little munchkin, Sophie!! Could she be any cuter?? And YAY, Mama Katie put her in blue for this challenge, which I love!! The first card is what I was inspired to make from Sophie's cute photo. I played with my new Unity stamp set called Floral Friends - it was a doorprize at the recent SCS shoebox swap I attended in Dallas! (the bonus of having stamping superstars in attendance - they gathered up an AWESOME table filled with goodies from lots of wonderful stamp companies!!) It's hard to read in the photo, but this flower's stem says "friends are the flowers in the garden of life" - so nice! :-) I'll be giving this card to one of my sweetest friends who's birthday happens to be today (we'll see if she reads my blog, hee hee!). I stamped extra copies of the flowers on scrap paper so I could cut out and pop up the flower and then the flower center. The very center has a little AMuse rhinestone, and the tiny background flowers have dots of Stardust Stickles in their centers. And next is the super duper adorable card that Katie made! Make sure and head over to her blog and let her know how much you love it!! I think she's waiting on me to post, and as usual I'm being a mega-late-slowpoke, but I'll update with her direct link once it's up! (Here's the link to Katie's gorgeous card!!) Thanks SO MUCH for playing along Katie, and for letting us be inspired by your beautiful little girl! The flowers on your card are soooo cool, I just love them!! And the bottom half of the card is such a perfect match to Sophie's outfit!If you're as inspired by Sophie's outfit as I was, please make sure and let me know with a comment on this post and a link to you, so I can come and see!!

Last week's challenge only inspired a few of you to play along, but the ones who did made such CUTE things!! Sue made an adorable tag that matched the pattern on Courtney's outfit so well! And I was soooo excited to have Spicey Cat Chick play along for the first time with a sweet card with an image I *love* of the House Mouses sniffing lilacs!! (and isn't Spicey Cat Chick the coolest name ever??!) :-) But, my favorite this past week was Chris!! As she often does, she blew me away with both her creativity and her computer whiz skills!! She took the photo of Courtney and made patterned paper out of it, which she then used on her cards!! So of course she had an EXACT match of the outfit!! Sooooo cool! She made several cards, make sure to check them out here! I love them all, but I'll say this was my favorite:So Chris, I'll send you my little "featured" button that you can display if you'd like, and thanks to all of you for playing along! And thanks to everyone else for stopping by today!!!

And now, if anyone is curious about my tardiness, I have to tell you about my fun day! First I had a dentist appointment in the morning, which no, I don't completely consider *fun*, but I do like having nice, clean teeth! :-) Then I went to a morning scrapbooking outing with my friend Brenda and some other really nice scrapbooking chickies, and then later in the afternoon I went on a quick little shopping excursion at Archivers with non other than my sweet stamping friend (and hero) Shannan!! And then Melissa also showed up!! Yay! So, today was fun. :-)

• Stamps: Floral Friends from Unity Stamp Company
• Paper: Ballet Blue, Bashful Blue, Stampin' Up DP (from SAB)
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring
• Accessories: Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder, SU Scallop Edge punch, AMuse rhinestones, Stardust Stickles, Chatterbox ribbon