Taylored Fairy!

Hey friends!! I loved Taylor's sketch this weekend and wanted to play along! I pulled out my Enchanted Lily stamps from Pink Cat that have been neglected! I changed the circle to my label shape on the sketch as it fit my image a bit better. The papers are from DCWV Nana's Nursery stack and I paired them with Apricot Appeal and Pretty in Pink. Lily's wings are coated with stickles and are so sparkly and pretty in real life! I also stitched around all the layers of pattered paper and distressed the edges.
Did you see that Pink Cat Studio now has digital images too? They are super cute and I can't wait to play with them!
Just a quick post as I'm off to get the kids to school! Have a good one!

Friendly Mercy!

Happy Monday y'all! I finally had a chance to stamp this weekend and made this for Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge. I took a little creative license and used the flower as my top panel. I got this set from Papertrey last month and hadn't used it yet. It was so much fun to colour - although I do need some more practice! The paper is some older Basic Grey and it's paired with Rose Red and Almost Amethyst (even if it looks more blue in the pic!). Not sure if you can see, but I stamped the smaller flower from the set in white ink on the amethyst panel and then cut the panel in three pieces.
Hope you have a great start to your week!! Later taters!

100 Sketches!

Wow - hard to believe that MFT has had 100 sketch challenges! I certainly haven't participated in nearly that many - but really wanted to play along for this milestone! I used my new Coffee, Tea? set that I just {heart}. I'm loving this bigger sized version of one of my original sets - Hot Stuff.
This one's pretty simple - just a little paper piecing and some fun patterned paper. I've had that coffee paper for a while now - I love it so keep using it sparingly! The ribbon was a gift from my friend Kathy and matched everything perfectly!
Well I'm off to face the weekend! Hope you have a great one!

Pamper Basket

Hello friends!! I have been battling a wicked headache for the last couple of days - I think it's the ragweed!! Anyway haven't done much stamping but wanted to share this ensemble that I made a while ago for an MFT challenge. I made the basket/box using one of Lauren's Timeless templates and it was super easy! I used Kraft cardstock and sponged all the edges with Distress Ink (Vintage Photo I think!). I adhered a punched strip to the top for some visual interest and to coordinate with my card.
The card uses the set Girls Night In and I paper piece the entire thing! Joanne has me hooked on paper piecing the "correct" way - so it took me a while! The papers are all from SU's Parisian Breeze set (retired I think).
Hope you have a great day! I'm hoping for a little stamping time! Later taters!

60th Birthday Wine

Hello!! Wow - what a busy week! And next week is shaping up to be just as busy - but even more so as my hubby will be out of town for half of it!
I made this card a while ago for my good friend, whose Dad was turning 60. They had a surprise wine and jazz party for him - cool eh? Anyway, I used some of the new Stampin Up In colours for the card - Rich Razzleberry and Soft Suede. I coloured the image with Prismacolor pencils blended with gamsol - it's been a long time since I used my pencils!!
Well I'm off to get some more done. I've been incredibly productive all week - making up for the summer I guess. And big news - I got a new camera!! I'm so excited to take good pictures again! Thanks to my wonderful mother in law who combined a couple of our upcoming gifts to contribute to the purchase!!
Have a great rest of the weekend!!

Birthdays, birthdays, birthdays!

Hello friends! I'm not quite sure where the time has gone over the last couple days. I'll be so happy next week when we can finally get into a routine. My daughter starts preschool this week, but it's a staggered start so she truly starts next week.

Fall is full of birthdays in our family. My son's birthday is quickly approaching and this year we've decided to make use of all our Lego and have a party here at home. These are his invitations. I took a picture of some of his Star Wars Lego and had them printed at Costco. I used paper from my stash for the card base.

I downloaded a free Star Wars font and printed the details on some white cardstock. Because I used stuff from my stash - these invitations cost me a total of $1.20 (the photo processing). Score!

Speaking of birthdays, my cutie patootie nephew turned 3 last week and I made this card for him. This is a Hero Arts set and I paired it with some DCWV paper and some rub on stitches.
The sentiments is popped up on dimensionals.

Happy hump day! Hope you're having wonderful week! I have lots of stuff to show you, so check back - k?

Winner, winner chicken dinner!!!

The winner of the 4 stamp sets plus some extra goodies that I will throw in is:

True Random Number Generator Min: Max: 13
Result: 11

Congrats StampinCathy!! I'll be emailing you for your mailing info!!

I have a quick project to share with you. I made this for my son's new grade 2 teacher. He took it in the first day of school. Pretty simple, just a box made from a template I got from Splitcoast. I stamped it with the Neighborhood wheel and coloured parts of it with an old olive marker and a white signo gel pen.

I covered some York peppermint patties with some scallop circles and stamped images from Tart & Tangy and All in the Family on them.


I was able to fit a dozen patties in the box.

Hope you're having a great weekend! Later taters!!

Crazy for Challenges Sketch

I stumbled upon a new challenge blog the other day - Crazy for Challenges. Some of my favorite stampers are on their design team so I decided to play along. Since this week is sponsored by Stamping Bella, I decided to use one of my bella images - this little huggabug who hadn't yet seen ink!

I see now that I kind of screwed up the sketch!! My printer is running really low on ink, so when I printed the sketch I assumed that my printer had missed the border. Turns out there was no border and it was supposed to be a tent topper card. Oops - well I'm still linking it up - call it creative license I guess!!

I was so tickled that my scallop circle fit in the middle of the SU medallion stamp that I used - love that look and will be playing with that again for sure!!

You'll have to excuse the poor picture - I'm still without my camera. Mine is definitely toast - and rather than pay to have it repaired, I'm just going to buy another. I find it sad that repairing and replacing it are practically the same cost! I've loved the 2 canon cameras I've owned, but I've apparently had bad luck with them. Anyone have a camera they love? I'm thinking point and shoot as I'm not quite ready to invest in a SLR yet.

Oh and thanks for all your kind and insightful comments on my last post. There's still time to comment and be entered for my blog candy here.

Christmas, blabber, and blog candy!!!

I made this for the My Favorite Challenge this week. We were to create a Christmas decoration. I had this chalkboard in my alterables drawer and decided to make a countdown calendar. I love Advent calendars and countdown calendars. I must have 5 that I put up with our Christmas decorations. So I decided to make one for my son's room - he loves activities like this - and it's an opportunity to practice numbers in a fun way!
After much playing around, I decided to selectively ink the Peppermint Cats stamp and stamp the stars only repeatedly across the top. Then I inked the cats, omitting the frame, and stamped them. I used Palette New Canvas ink and heat set it - it worked beautifully! I pulled out my Bling bet again (I use that alphabet a ton!) and stamped it in Riding Hood red and used silver stickles to fill in the holes. I also used the stickles in the stars across the top. The paper is Basic Grey Figgy Pudding, left over from last year. I used my Karen Foster snap stamps to create the banner at the bottom, which reads "to chill till Christmas". As of Tuesday there were 115 days left until Christmas - crazy!!

I've been feeling a little down lately. In fact, today was a cr@ppy day! Can I pour my heart out here? There's lots going on, but the one thing I can talk about is stamping related.

I started stamping after my 2nd child was born and I was struggling to find my place. I had given up my position at work and felt like I had no identity other than being a mom. Stamping gave me back my sanity and forced me to take some time for myself. I find creating rewarding - I enjoy the feeling I get when I finish something that I love. But lately, I have this longing to be more or do more, or truthfully, maybe it's just to be recognized more. Does that sound lame?

I would love to be on a design team. At one time I thought I was good enough, now I'm not so sure. Part of my problem is that I love to play the comparison game. I'll look at so and so's work and think that my work looks to be the same quality - and she's on 2 design teams. But when I look at the design team calls, they just don't appeal to me. I'll look at the online stores for the design team calls, and I'll like some of the images... but I don't love them, and some of them I don't even like. I can't bring myself to apply for them. Blah - I don't even know what my point is! I just want to improve, be better, get better, enjoy the process and have fun. But I get caught up in the hype I guess. Do you ever feel that way?

Well if you've stuck with me this long - you deserve a big reward! I wish I could give you all something (all 3 of you that are reading this - tee hee!) - but I only have one package and I thought I'd offer up some blog candy. I have 4 sets of clear stamps from AdornIt.

Fun Flowers
Swirly Stitches
Sophisticated Tags
Stitch Alphabet
I'll throw some other fun stuff into the package as well!

So... leave me a comment and if you don't have a blog, make sure I have some way to contact you. Sorry - US and Canadian residents only. I would love it if you would consider becoming a follower - but I'm not going to make that a condition of entering. I'll use random.org to choose a winner on the evening of Sept. 12th.

Thanks for reading friends! Good luck!!

Yummy Ambassador Challenge

This month's ambassador challenge over in the MFT Forum on Splitcoast was to use a food or drink image.
I often print recipes off the web - from Allrecipes or Pioneer Woman and various other sources. If we like the recipe, I shove the paper into my pantry. I can't tell you how many times the whole pile has fallen out of the cupboard! I finally got my act together and gathered all the recipes into a 3 ring binder. So for the challenge - I decided to make a page to slip into the front of the binder. The finished size is 8 1/2 x 11". I used some Cosmo Cricket Girl Friday paper and a whole bunch of MFT sets. I also used the Bling bet - love that alphabet - I get a ton of use out of it! The whole thing is stitched and I used some Doodlebug rub ons for my name.
Hope you're having a good week! We're keeping busy here - making pear jam and getting ready for school next week!