From Courtney's Closet #58

Welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by one of my daughter's outfits. Well today Courtney is having a little pajama party here on my blog! I couldn't resist making a card inspired by these cute & funky little elephant PJs! I really loved the chocolate, hot pink and chartreuse color combo! And I've had this sweet little elephant stamp sitting on my shelf for a while now, waiting patiently to be inked up. Here's a funny but true story - I colored the image with my Prismacolor pencils, and as I was playing with them I updated my Facebook status to say that I "love the smell of my prismacolor pencils.". Well my not-so-stampy friend Joe replied with "no idea what those are , but might want to stop when the pink elephants start flying around." HA!!! Of course this isn't what he meant, but I nearly died when I read that - maybe it was the "fumes" of my pencils that drove me to make this little elephant pink? No, it was just the inspiration from Courtney's jammies, I swear! :-) Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Elephant w/Mouse from Stamps by Judith, Sentiment from Gina K
• Paper: Pink Passion, Chocolate Chip, Kiwi Kiss, white, The Paper Studio DP
• Ink: Black StazOn, Black Glaze Pen
• Accessories: Prismacolor Pencils & odorless mineral spirts, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, SU Scalloped Edge punch, Marvy punches, white brads, Hobby Lobby organdy ribbon, Diamond Stickles

Another one from Courtney's closet...

There's been many, many times over the past year and a half or so of doing the From Courtney's Closet cards that I've had a couple ideas from the same outfit. Often I think "I really should make a second card!" - well, for once, I actually did it! I mentioned in the original post that I thought about paper piecing a caterpillar. Last night I pulled out my scraps and punches and scissors and set to work. As if it was work! It was a lot of fun to piece together this cute little caterpillar, I must say!! He's mostly made of circle punches, but a few of the elements were cut out freehand - the flower, the hearts and all the various legs & antennae. I considered adding actual machine stitching around the circles to make it look more like the outfit - but then I returned to my senses and opted for faux. :-) I guess I did a good job copying the shirt - Carter just came over and was very excited to see that the card looked just like the shirt. Success! :-) Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: sentiment from Stampin' Up!
• Paper: Pretty in Pink, Barely Banana, Pink Passion, white, Wild Wasabi DP, Making Memories DP, Chocolate Chip
• Ink: Pink Passion, Chocolate Chip marker
• Accessories: circle punches, scissors, Spellbinders dies, Cuttlebug Swiss dots folder, Janome Sew Mini & brown thread, Prima flowers, Making Memories brads

From Courtney's Closet #57

Welcome to another week of From Courtney's Closet, where I draw inspiration from my daughter's clothes. Courtney got this cute little outfit for her 1st birthday way back in February, from my sweet friend Theresa. As soon as we opened it I got excited about the card possibilities!! The caterpillar on the shirt has a lot of texture to it, so I considered paper piecing him together, which would have been fun. But when the most recent Stampin' Up catalog came out and I saw the "Love Bugs" hostess set, I just KNEW I had to use it for this card!! So I did what any good stamper would do - I placed a $150 order just so I could earn that "free" set!! :-D But seriously, could it be any more perfect?? In addition to the caterpillar, I found the color scheme inspiring, and also added a flower inspired by the pants. I really love this pink & green color combo! So... I don't know if you noticed the title of this post, but I dropped the "inspiration challenge" part. I'm going to keep making the Courtney's Closet cards, but I don't think I'll call them an inspiration challenge anymore. Unlike back when I started this nearly a year & a half ago, I think there's just way too many challenges out there now - which is GREAT - but I don't think there's much interest in THIS one. Which I understand - the others are run by bloggers who actually are active in the blogging community. Unlike me. So - if you do feel like playing, that's still FANTASTIC, I'd love to see your creation. But I am not very optimistic that anyone will. :-D

Before I go, I have to subject you to a couple other photos. I had a bugger of a time getting a decent photo this week, properly showing off the caterpillar! All Courtney wanted to do was either hug her bunny, right in front of her shirt...Or lie down with her blankies!But considering how sweet she is, I couldn't get too mad at her about it. :-D

Thanks for stopping by today!

From Courtney's Closet #56 - Roundup!

Last week we had Sue's adorable grandson Cole join us for a playdate!Katie joined us with this completely fun and sassy card! She was inspired by the "playdate" theme. Her card is just wonderful - love that image, her perfect coloring, the bling, all the little details. Fantastic!Thanks so much for playing along Katie! If you'd like to have my "featured" button send me an email and I'll get it to you. And thanks everyone else for stopping by today!

From Courtney's Closet #56 - Courtney's Playdate!

Hello and welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet! This week it's playdate time!! And guess what? Today a little *boy* has come over to play! And boy oh boy is he a CUTIE!! He is my friend Sue's sweet grandson Cole - if you follow Sue's blog (which I'm sure you do!), you know full well what a proud Gwamma she is! As soon as I started posting these playdates she emailed right away - "can grandbabies play too??". Well of course they can! :-) Cole and my Carter have a lot in common - they both love trucks! So Sue chose this adorable photo of Cole in his truck jammies to inspire us. I decided to dig out my Dress Up Billy from Pink Cat Studio and put him in his firefighter outfit. And I love the colors in Cole's jammies - light blue and red always look so great together, and I really love the added touch of gray. I have to say, even though it's simple this card took me much longer to create than expected - I get so rusty when I take time off from stamping! (and yes that is why I'm posting this on Friday instead of Thursday - thanks Sue for your patience with me!!)

I absolutely adore the card Sue created! Her coloring is perfect, and the card is put together so well, all of the touches are wonderful! And best of all - I love the added "gwamma" to her watermark! :-) Thanks so much for playing Sue, and for sharing this photo of your sweet grandson with us! If you'd like to play along too, please leave a comment back here we can see what you did. :-)

On a side note - not sure you care to read this part - it's completely a coincidence that we're posting these sweet fireman cards on September 11 - this post was supposed to happen yesterday. But as I was thinking about our cards it hit me how fitting this is. I'm sure like all of you, I will never forget that horrible morning eight years ago today. I've never documented my experience, so I thought I'd do it here. It was long before I had kids, and I was working as an engineer at Motorola. I was running late for work that morning and had Good Morning America on. I remember they came in with breaking news, that there had been some sort of "explosion" in one of the towers. They were showing a live picture of the World Trade Center when the second plane hit. I remember Diane Sawyer gasping. I didn't fully understand at that point what I was watching, but I knew it was something horrible and immediately started crying. I paged my boss and told him I'd be working from home that morning, I couldn't leave the TV. Then there was the Pentagon. Then the plane in Pennsylvania. It was like the entire world was turning upside down. I began to panic - my husband was actually in the air as all of this was happening. He was not anywhere near these places - but everything was just so bewildering at that point, I didn't know what was going to happen next. I had to join a conference call for work - my boss was trying to focus on work, but the engineers we were talking with in Israel kept asking me to keep them updated about what was on the TV - both towers fell while we were on that call - somehow the widgets we were working on just didn't matter at that moment. The experience made me so angry with my boss - I could not understand how he could be so heartless. Later I understood - not everyone deals with trauma, shock and grief the same way. When Joel finally landed in Nashville he of course had no idea what was going on. The landing had been delayed, the pilot gave some vague explanation about congestion in the airport. Joel thought it was odd that he couldn't get his phone to work, not realizing all lines were jammed at that point. He saw people huddled around TV monitors but continued to the rental car line, where he found probably a hundred people waiting. Finally he realized something was not right. He literally got the *last* available car in Nashville that morning, and when he got in contact with his boss, he told him to start driving home because the site he was to visit was in lockdown (they had nuclear facilities there) and he would not be getting a flight out anytime soon. I remember being completely numb for days and days. I'm a news junkie anyway, and I watched *way* too much news then. I don't think seeing it replayed over and over was good for anyone. It was interesting to me that at some point all of the news stations seemed to have decided that they wouldn't show the actual clip of the second plane hitting anymore. This morning I saw it again for the first time in years, they were replaying the live coverage from that horrible morning on MSNBC. It was shocking and emotional all over again. I don't think it's possible for me to ever forget the details of that morning and the days that followed, but I feel better having them documented here. Such a sad day.

From Courtney's Closet #55 - Roundup!

Hi everyone - first of all, I want to say a sincere THANK YOU for all the sweet comments on my last post about stepping back a bit - you all completely warmed my heart and made me feel really good. I'm so glad you're sticking with me! :-)

And here's prime example of you all putting up with my erratic blog posting - I'm doing my From Courtney's Closet posts, which are a "Thursday" challenge! HA! Geesh. At any rate... last week I posted this photo of Courtney that I just loved, with her in pigtails for the first time:And my sweet friend Sue made THE CUTEST EVER card - the pigtails inspired her to use PIGGIES!!! I sooooooo love that. And I love her card. Absolute piggie perfection.Thanks so much for playing along, sweet Sue! :-)

From Courtney's Closet #55 - an inspiration challenge

Hello and welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by one of my baby girl's outfits. (Ok, ok, she's not a baby anymore! Waaaah! Can you believe she was this little when I started this??) So this is the inspiration photo I had INTENDED to post last week, but as you can see that never happened!! Last Thursday was Courtney's Daddy's birthday. So the idea was that I'd post a photo of Courtney wearing her new Detroit Tigers outfit that her Grandma gave her while we were in Michigan - since Joel is the big Tigers fan of the house. But, alas, I was too busy last Thursday trying to surprise him with a clean house and a birthday cake and decorations before he got home from work, so the post never happened. By the way, before Joel left for work Carter said to him "Daddy, today we're gonna go get a present for you and make a cake, and it's a SURPRISE!". Gotta love three year olds and their ability to keep secrets! :-) So, here's Courtney in her Tigers outfit for Daddy, a week later! I mostly just used the color combo for my inspiration. I considered using a tiger image on this week's card, but was shocked to discover I don't own any! (if you knew how many animal stamps I own you'd understand why this is so shocking!) Instead I pulled out a kitty stamp - I *love* this one, it's made by Hot Potatoes and I found it at my LSS Stamp Salado. I've had it for ages and this is the first time it's been inked!! One of these days I will probably be arrested for these crimes against stamping-humanity! Oh and I almost forgot to mention - Courtney is in pigtails!!! We just tried that for the first time - cuteness! And she didn't even pull them out. Happy days. Ok, so what do you think? Wanna play along? If you do, link back here so I know where to find you! Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Bandit from Hot Potatoes
• Paper: Regal Rose, Tempting Turquoise, white
• Ink: Regal Rose
• Accessories: Martha glitter, SU 2-way glue pen, SU scallop edge punch, Martha heart punch, Cuttlebug Swiss Dots, Janome Sew Mini & white thread, Hobby Lobby ribbon

From Courtney's Closet #53 & #54 - Long Overdue Roundups!

Well I've gone and gotten myself behind on this little challenge again, oops! Sorry it's taken me an extra week to come back into the swing of things post-vacation (and actually, I'm still not!), I so appreciate you playing along!!

FCCC#53 was a playdate with Stacey's adorable daughter Hannah:Hannah inspired two wonderful cards, first by sweet Jenn - her card CRACKS ME UP! Especially when she said it's for Courtney & Hannah when they are older, hee heeAnd Cat played too with this super duper cute House Mouse creation - what a sweet card for a baby boy!! And what Cat doesn't like Mice? HA!I love your cards equally, they are both totally fabby. If you'd both like my "featured" button yu are more than welcome to have it, just email me!

For FCCC#54 I dug out an older photo of Courtney from back in the spring, looking so happy in her cherry dress! It was appropriate since I posted it while we were visiting the cherry capital of Michigan (aka Traverse City!). :-) And it seems that I lot of you like cherries, we got some CUTE cards to look at...Well first is Tammy - she linked a card she happened to have posted earlier in the day and asked if it counted. Well, no, it doesn't "count" (especially since FCCC isn't even mentioned on her blog post, LOL) but her card is just too cute not to share! :-)And from Tammy we go to Tamarra, who I'm thrilled joined us this week! What a cute card!Of course I knew my cherry-processing friend Sue wouldn't be able to pass up this week's outfit. And I was right, she made not one but TWO wonderful cards! Check out the background quilt she created on the second one!!Chris is no dummy - when she sees a red & green outfit she thinks Christmas!I'm always thrilled when Kim plays, and this time she made the cutest button cherries!Sharon's card is so sweet! I love the gingham and the heart behind the image panel.And finally - my favorite out of all the cards - Katie!! Would you look at this PIE she created!?!! OMG. It's awesome!! I'm also using the sideways photo Katie had on her blog - I'm too tired at the moment to attempt to fix it - but I wanted to make sure you see she even crimped the pie pan!! LOVE IT! Katie let me know if you want that "featured" button.Thanks for playing everyone! And tanks for stopping by today!

From Courtney's Closet #54 - an inspiration challenge

Welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by one of my baby girl's outfits. This week I'm going back in time a few months and using an older photo of Courtney. I just love this little green cherry dress but never got around to featuring it on here! But then just recently I saw this new Cherry stamp from Hero Arts and I just knew I had to use it with this outfit!! The big cherry is layered & popped up, and covered with Diamond Glaze. So do you feel like making a cherry card?? Or a bright green & red card?? Leave a link back here if you do so I'll know where to find you. Thanks for stopping by today!!

From Courtney's Closet #53 - Courtney's Playdate!

Welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by one of my daughter's cute little outfits. Except today it's the second Thursday of the month, which means it's time for playdate! Yay!! Today's inspiration came from sweet little Hannah, daughter of the mega-talented Stacey Schafer of Stacey's Stamping Stage. She looks just as cute as can be posing in her sweet little blue outfit!! I love a girl in blue. And when I was thinking about girls in blue, I decided I wanted to break out my new "Wonderland" set from The Greeting Farm. Isn't it the cutest?? I bought it when I saw it at half price recently - with the Alice in Wonderland movie coming next spring, I decided I just *had to* have a Johnny Depp stamp! HA! But today I played with Alice, not Johnny... errr.... The Mad Hatter. :-) But unfortunately for all of you who now *need* this stamp set too, it seems to be out of stock at the moment. Bummer! Details you can't see in the photo - the blue spots on the mushroom and Alice's dress & shoes are coated with clear Glaze pen, and her eyes have a little shine from black Glaze. The heart on her dress is covered with Sakura Stardust pen. The nifty little button/ribbon embellie is something I learned from Susan. And the grid paper behind Alice was a Target dollar bin find. :-) And now check out Stacey's card, it's just gorgeous, as always!! Stacey is an absolute expert at using big flowery-type embellishments on her cards - I just love the accordian flower she made this week! And the flower center goes so well with Hannah's ADORABLE blingie flip-flops!! Make sure you head on over to Stacey's blog and tell her how much you love her card and what a precious daughter she has, ok? :-)So what do you think? Wanna play along with us this week?? Make a card and leave a comment back here so we know where to find you! And an fyi - I'll be away from my computer next week, so you have TWO weeks to play along - I won't be doing the round-up until the following week! (But I do have an FCCC card scheduled for next week...!) So no excuses, you have *two* weeks to play along with this one!! :-) I sure hope you will!

• Stamps: Wonderland from The Greeting Farm
• Paper: Ballet Blue, Bo Bunny DP, grid paper from Target dollar bin
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers, clear & black Glaze pens, Sakura Stardust pen
• Accessories: Spellbinders Labels One die, Janome Sew Mini & white thread, grosgrain ribbons, button, Linen thread

I also wanted to dedicate this card to a friend who is celebrating the launch of his new publishing company, Awkward Press, and the release of their first collection of short stories, Awkward One. Jeffrey and his cohorts are seriously FUNNY - check it out, but a warning it may be a little much for a few of you super conservative stampers out there...! :-) Plus he's one of my brother's oldest friends, and in case you are perplexed as to why this card is dedicated to him - he's also the biggest Alice in Wonderland fan I know. Congratulations & good luck, Jeff!!

From Courtney's Closet #52 - Roundup!

Last week's From Courtney's Closet post was mostly just me showing off my kids - HA!When I say only one person played along, I really mean *only* one person - because I didn't even get around to making a card myself!! So I'll be adding it to my list of cards I want to make eventually...! But would you just look at the card that WAS made?? Caryl created this beauty, inspired by both of the kids' bathingsuits. Love it!!!Thanks so much for playing along Caryl - you're better than me! :-)

From Courtney's Closet #52 - an inspiration challenge

If you're looking for the Our Craft Lounge blog hop, please scroll down or click here.

Ok everyone, because I've been staying up WAY too late making cards lately, I decided to take the night off from stamping and just go to bed early. Um. What happened? It's 12:45am and I'm still awake!?! But, I didn't stamp. That was silly!! Since I won't have a From Courtney's Closet card to show you until who-knows-when (but hopefully soon!) I thought I'd go ahead and post the inspiration picts anyway! In case you want to get started on your own cards... :-D Several of you liked having my boy featured last week, so I thought I'd go ahead and give you an OPTION this week! This photo is of Carter and Courtney in their swimsuits, on a morning playing in the sprinkler park down by our public library! Carter was being sweet, and Courtney was unsure of his motives. LOL! So you can make a girlie, flowery card based on Courtney's suit, or a blue/green/tropical fish/surfboard inspired card from Carter's suit. :-) Or just a watery card. Whatever, the sky's the limit! :-) I'll be back later to edit this post with my card, so please stay tuned!! Happy stamping!! Ok I can't resist, here are a couple others! :-)

From Courtney's Closet #51 - Roundup!

If you're looking for the Our Craft Lounge bloghop, please scroll down or click here.

Last week I changed things up just a little and shared a photo of Courtney's big brother, Carter, instead! It was a rare photo where he was actually looking at the camera, and smiling! *gasp*I love the cards it inspired, here they are...
First there was Kate, who gave me the idea to share a photo of Carter this week! I just love her cute card! She was worried that she didn't have a dino stamp, and instead used a dragon. Well first, it doesn't matter. But second - she did a superb job getting rid of his fire & wings, I think! :-)Kathryn made this polka-dotted cutie, which of course I love!Sue's card just makes me smile, what a CUTE blue dragon carrying pressies!It was very fitting that the Spicey Cat Chick made an adorable cat card! LOVE the gems in the button holes!I hope Jenn doesn't mind that I'm using this sweet photo of her cutie holding up her card! And how FUN that she made her card shaped like a shirt!! I've been meaning for ages to make an FCCC card in the shape of clothing - now you've inspired me again Jenn, I may have to do that soon...!And finally my favorite - Sharon! Her card is really clean & simple, which is nice, and I think the image she used is completely CUTE! Sharon, send me an email if you'd like my "featured" button for your blog.Thanks everyone for playing along this week!! And thanks for stopping by!
ETA: My geeky brother, who loves all things dragon AND dinosaur, gave the definite "seal of approval" on using dragon stamps in place of dino stamps. He pointed out that dragon legends probably began when people found dino bones. So there ya have it! ;-) (He couldn't, however, approve of using dogs or cats in place of dinos, lol! But no worries, he's not a stamper so he doesn't understand... hee hee)
ETA#2: My brother was highly offended when I claimed he was not a stamper, so I have to show you that he actually played along with the Cinema Saturday Challenge a while back, look here. Pretty cool & geeky, aye? :-)

From Courtney's Closet #51 - Carter's turn!!

Welcome to another edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by one of my baby girl's sweet outfits. Except, this time I didn't do that! Remember wayyyy back when I started doing this, I said maybe occasionally I'd peek into Carter's closet instead? Well, apparently I lied. :-) But Kate left a comment this week saying she'd like to see some more Carter on here, so... her wish is my command! This photo of Carter was taken at our neighborhood park last week. The problem with using Carter's "outfits" in this challenge is that for the most part, his clothes really aren't that "cute" anymore. They aren't that terribly inspiring, I'm sorry to say. But in this photo, he does have a dinosaur on his t-shirt, so I went with that. I also love how he's sitting inside the blue tunnel, so that inspired me to pull out this paper with all the blue circles on it, and also add the brads to the dinosaur. And finally I took the rest of my color combo from Carter's outfit, adding the red block to my card. Both of the stamps I used on this card are retired from Stampin' Up. Oldies but goodies, IMHO! So what do you think? Feel like making a more boyish card this week?? I sure hope you do! Once your card is posted somewhere, come back here and share the link so I know where to find you! (and by the way, scroll down to the bottom of my last roundup post, I shared a link to a tutorial that may come in handy when you leave your comment!) Thanks so much for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Dino-Mite & It's Your Birthday from Stampin' Up (retired)
• Paper: PTI white cardbase, K&Co Citronella mat pad
• Ink: Tempting Turquoise, Memento Tuxedo Black
• Accessories: Janome Sew Mini & white thread, blue brads

From Courtney's Closet #50 - Roundup!

Last week Courtney inspired us with a cute little owl shirt, which she showed off by by standing on her head! :-)Now I knew owls were trendy, but can I just say WOWZA!?!? Apparently you liked this shirt, because so many awesome cards were made!!! Yay!! Gosh it was soooo hard to pick a favorite this week, but I did...! But I'll get to that in a minute, in the meantime let me start you off with this beauty from Karen:Katie said the sweetest thing about me and Courtney on her blog, she is clearly a fabulous friend!I was so happy to see Anita playing along this week! And look at the cute flower soft belly on her owl.And Sharon too, yay!! And she knew how to make a card that went straight to my heart - Swiss Dots!!My friend Nic made an amazing punched owl - I am completely in awe of it!! So cool!One name I just *love* to see in my comments is "Spicey Cat Chick" - isn't that fun?? She made this gorgeous flower soft-filled bowl of loveliness!So surely you can see how impossible it would be to pick a favorite this week, right? I almost didn't - almost just threw in the towel and said they are all fantastic, but... I decided to go with Diane. I just love how PERFECTLY her card matches Courtney's shirt. Plus she used that cute little new owl from Stampin' up that I love. And she's another stamping friend that I'm sooo happy to see back making an FCCC card! :-) Diane if you'd like my "featured" blinkie for your sidebar, just let me know.And by the way, Diane asked in the comments last time how to make a link to your card work in the comments. Since it's in my best interest to get everyone doing that (!!!), I thought I'd share a link to a tutorial by Godelieve that taught me how to do it ---> HERE. Hope it helps!!
Thanks for stopping by today!

From Courtney's Closet #50 - an inspiration challenge

Hello and welcome to this week's edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I make a card inspired by one of my daughter's outfits, and encourage you to do the same. This week I cheated a little - I felt like making an owl card, so I picked Courtney's shirt with owls on it for inspiration! I really love the color combo - it's a good match to the new Stampin' Up In Colors Rich Razzleberry & Soft Suede, paired with Bashful Blue. I wanted to make an owl card because this past week's Cinema Saturday challenge was Harry Potter, and I thought I'd make a Hedwig card. Yes, I do realize Hedwig is supposed to be white. The rule of the challenge was to add an "unexpected element" - nobody expected a brown Hedwig now did they? Ok, maybe that's not exactly what they meant with that rule, oh well. I'm too late anyway, the card was due hours ago. I usually try not to combine my From Courtney's Closet challenge with any other challenges, but I so miss playing along with Cinema Saturday, I had to give it a try. The owl I used for my card is from FireCracker Designs by Pamela's "Yoo HOOO!" set, and this sentiment from "She Dreams" seemed perfect for Harry Potter. The fabric of Courtney's shirt has a bit of a square texture to it, so I used a Cuttlebug folder to add texture to the background of the card. One difficult
thing to see in the photo is that both the owl and the sentiment are covered in a bunch of Stardust gel pen. I'm going to throw in a second photo of Courtney - she was doing "Upside Down Courtney" and it gives a perfect view of her shirt's design. Well, almost perfect - it's upside down! :-) So there you have it. Want to play along this week? C'mon, owl stamps are all the rage these days, I know you have some! If you do play, please be sure to stop back here and leave your link so I can come and find you. Thanks for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Yoo HOOO! and She Dreams from FireCracker Designs by Pamela
• Paper: Soft Suede, Bashful Blue, Rich Razzleberry and DP from SU, Georgia-Pacific white
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic & SU markers for coloring, Sakura Stardust gel pen, black Glaze pen on the eyes, Chocolate Chip for sponging
• Accessories: Cuttlebug & embossing folder, Basic Grey designer rhinestone flourish, Soft Suede polka dot ribbon, brads, sponge

From Courtney's Closet #49 - Roundup!

Last week Courtney was looking cute as can be in her Hello Kitty shirt:Two sweet friends took on the challenge and played along. Both cards are so sweet, so I'm not going to pick a favorite this week! So, first up, Katie - who happened to find a Hello Kitty die cut at her LSS. How perfect! And she used polka dots (YAY!) and I love the little "hello" sentiment in the background.And Sue - she made a Hello Snoopy card! :-) It's so adorable and yummy - and the clouds are a perfect touch to match Courtney's shirt.Thanks so much girls for playing!! I'll be back with this week's outfit soon - probably late tonight. Until then - take care, and happy stamping!!

From Courtney's Closet #49 - an inspiration challenge

Hello and welcome to this week's edition of From Courtney's Closet, where I create a card inspired by something from my daughter's closet, and inspire you to do the same! A few days ago I went on a little trip up to Target. It was innocent enough, I just intended to buy a few storage bins to work on organizing the kids' playroom. But next thing you know the darn shopping cart was dragging me over to the clothes section. To look at the clearance racks, of course. But... there on a regular price rack... practically calling out my name... was HELLO KITTY!!! How on earth can I be expected to resist HELLO KITTY!?!? Well, I didn't resist, and immediately put it on Courtney as soon as we got home so I could snap some photos for this week's post. :-D I have to say I'm lovin' how this card turned out!! The Hello Kitty I used was actually on the tag from the shirt - I just cut it out. For the larger clouds I used a stamp, but the smaller ones were just drawn freehand. I put Stickles on them, because the white clouds on Courtney's shirt are also sparkly. The patterned papers were all from scraps in my polka dot drawer. What, you're surprised I have a drawer dedicated to polka dot paper? Do you even know me AT ALL? ;-) The black ribbon is a super cute velvet scallop ribbon from American Crafts that I love - it's a shame it's nearly all covered up. So... what do you think? Feel like making a card? You know it doesn't have to have Hello Kitty on it, you can find whatever inspiration you'd like from this post. If you do play, be sure to link back here so I can find you. Thanks for stopping by today, happy stamping! (Oh and btw - I still need to share with you some AWESOME STUFF that's happened over the past week - hopefully I'll get to that tomorrow! It's funny, I've been sick with a cold all week and yet this has been one FANTASTIC week for many reasons!!) :-)

• Stamps: Fly Away and Wonderland from The Greeting Farm
• Paper: Green Galore, Tempting Turquoise, Basic Black, DP scraps from my stash
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
• Accessories: Swiss Dots & D'vine Swirls Cuttlebug folders, American Crafts ribbon, Star Dust Stickles, Hello Kitty cut from shopping tag on shirt

From Courtney's Closet #48 - Roundup!

This was last week's From Courtney's Closet inspiration - a SERIOUSLY CUTE photo of sweet little Mattea, daughter of stamping superstar Maria Gurnsey, visiting us for a playdate!Needless to say that photo inspired several stampers to get their creative juices flowing! First of all - I was THRILLED to get a comment from The One And Only Susan Roberts (aka Rainy) saying that she played along. EEEEEEEEEEEK! One of my favorite stampers in the entire universe. So exciting!! And just look what she created - wowsa!! Soooo pretty. But of course. Why wouldn't it be? :-)Caryl knew just what to do to make Maria love her card - look at that gorgeous gingham ribbon!! Love it!Stacey is an absolute expert at adding big, gorgeous flowers to her cards. This is such a beauty!And speaking of big, gorgeous flowers - I love the one Ella added to her card as well! Not to mention that sweet butterfly! So happy to have you back, Ella!Hip hip hooray!! Kim played!!! I've been waiting and waiting. ;-) I just love her card - those birds are too much fun!And holy toledo, Karen is on an absolute ROLL! She played AGAIN! Love the big flower stamps on her card, sooooo pretty & fun!Picking a favorite this week was extremely difficult, every single card is fantastic - but I have to say I did love Sue's the most. Those buttons are just way too pretty, and I love the fun flower background she chose. I'll email you Sue, I think I owe you a few things now... :-)Now go and show these ladies some love on their blogs! Thanks everyone for playing, and thanks again to Maria for sharing such a sweet photo with us!

From Courtney's Closet #48 - Courtney's Playdate!

Hi everyone! Courtney is soooo excited that it's time for another playdate already! This week her friend Mattea came over to model an adorable outfit for our cardmaking inspiration! And boy oh boy look at this photo of sweet Mattea - did her mama Maria have her totally POSE or what?? I just love it - what an adorable photo of a beautiful little girl! And look at that dress, so cute and colorful!! I'm sure you all know Maria of Scraps by M! She's one of the many stampers I'm so fortunate to have gotten to know thanks to this little challenge. I think of her as my Gingham Girl - gingham is to Maria as polka dots are to me! :-) So of course I couldn't resist adding some gingham ribbon to my card this week! The stamp I used is from Penny Black, and I won it as a door prize from Julie (aka Jag_Bug) at the Dallas shoebox swap. Love it! I added a little Spica glitter pen to the pink flowers and yellow center, but you can't see it in the photo (sad!). I've been in a major stamping slump lately, as I'm sure you can tell from my lack of posting! I went looking through some of my favorite blogs last night to try and find inspiration, and this beauty by Amy Sheffer inspired me to pull out a Top Note diecut for the image, still using my stash that sweet Anita sent to me a while back! Mattea's cute outfit inspired three things about this card - the color palette, the urge to use a flower stamp (although quite different from the outfit!) and the row of pink buttons. Mattea's mommy Maria made a fabulous card inspired by her daughter too! I just love the fun grouping of flowers, the big gorgeous button and of course the Maria-signature gingham going through it! Hop on over to Maria's blog and let her know how much you love her card too!Thanks so much for letting Mattea inspire us this week Maria!! If anyone out there is as inspired by this as I was, go for it! Make a card!! :-) And link back here so Maria and I know you did. Thanks so much for stopping by today!

• Stamps: Burst of Stars from Penny Black, Sentiment from Stampin' Up!
• Paper: Regal Rose, Wild Wasabi, K&CO Citronella mat pad, white SU Top Note diecut
• Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black, Copic markers for coloring, Copic Spica glitter pens
• Accessories: Janome Sew Mini & thread, SU Slit punch, pink buttons, white embroidery floss, gingham ribbon from JoAnn