They're Back!!!

AND someone else loves them as much as I do.

YUMMY!!!

Wild & Wacky Weekend?

So, how was your weekend? Mine was just like the title reads; but for some reason, the wackiness started Thursday evening and didn't let up! I don't even want to go back and visit Thursday evening, but I will mention I had to cancel our youngest daughter's b-day party - only 4 other girls - but still, who likes to cancel their kids b-day party? SHUT UP! As JulieHRR would say!

Hubby left Saturday morning and was gone until about 9 p.m. Sunday evening. On Saturday we had Benton Days - for our entire population of 700. LOL It's always a good time though!!

So Saturday started with 2 soccer games, we participated in the parade, had a baseball fundraiser, went to church at 5:33 p.m. dinner with a friend and DD got to pick the restaurant and when we got home, I really dug in to work on the 40 baby announcements I've been doing. I finally had all my supplies and started an assembly line and stayed up till 1 a.m. I'll post a picture of the announcements later as I finished them Sunday.

Then Sunday I worked on the laundry, took our son to baseball practice, ran to town for some errands, and baked 2 batches of brownies so DD could take them to school Monday morning. Of course lunch and dinner were thrown in and anything else that needed to be done. I have to go back to work so I can get some rest!!!

Have a great week; thanks for peeking in! ~M.

Manly Sympathy & Art on Display

Hi there,

How are you doing? WOW; it's Tuesday evening and I'm already worn out. :)

A co-worker recently lost his grandmother; due to the timing, we were unable to send flowers, but I whipped up this sympathy card one night. And I do mean whipped! I went downstairs (to the craft room) about 10:15 p.m. and was done in less than 20 minutes. For me - that's huge...I always seem to struggle with "manly" cards and seldom does it all come together for me. But I have to say, I really like this card.

(you can click on the image to get an up close version)

I "think" the paper is from Two Scoops - is that right girls? The base card is Creamy Caramel; I used the photo corner punch from Stampin' Up and got my brads aligned "just right" according to Beate's instructions.

I stamped the main image from Baroque motifs 2nd generation in Chocolate Chip; but the "With Sympathy" full strength. I just eyeballed the "With Sympathy"; don't even own a Stamp-a-ma-jig, but I think it turned out okay.

Our oldest recently had her art project displayed in the local museum; this is a picture of her beside her project. She loves art; did you see the great tin she altered? She loves to draw, watercolor, paint, color, you name it, she likes it! She found this painted bunny at the museum and took the photo herself. Cute bunny huh?

I hope you have a great week; thanks for peeking in!! ~M.

Chocolate Mother's Day Card

Yeah, you decided to peek in because you really thought I had some chocolate for you huh? Admit it!

Sorry, only chocolate in color; but this is the very first card I made upon receiving MFT's Happy Mother's Day mini set AND the delicious Blossoms & Butterflies paper by DCWV. I love the new paper pad!

The main image is stamped on SU's Whisper White, but then I cut out all around the "mother" and mounted the image with dimensionals.

The paper pad is 4.5" x 6.5" so I had to cut it down a bit for the card; but I love the way it looks. I colored the image with Copics and layered it up - I'm finding I really like a lot of layers.

I hope you've had a great weekend! Thanks for peeking in, ~M.

Girls Rule!

I made this card using some of my favorite DP paper, Basic Grey's Two Scoops and SU's Girlfriend stamp set.

I love this girl from the Girlfriend's set; she's just so cute and happy! The base card is Blush Blossom layered with 3 different sheets from Two Scoops. The Giga Scalloped Circle is punched from the same green Two Scoops paper; the white Mega Scalloped Circle is punched from SU's Whisper White; edge with pink. The girl was colored using Copic Markers.

As you may have guessed, the inside says "Girls Rule" in a cool oval solid stamp; love it!

And last is a little peek of our youngest daughter and her little one, Snowball; she so loves her guinea pig!

Even though we're having a crazy Saturday - with 4 ballgames - the weather is an incredible blessing. I hope your day is great!

Hugs, M.

Insanity rules?

WOW; this has been a rough week with lots of stress at work! I'm so looking forward to the weekend; I got to meet my BFF for dinner tonight - it was dee-lish...oh, very dee-lish! We have two soccer games tomorrow - 9:00 and 10:00 a.m. When I arrived home tonight about 10:20 p.m., I asked how our son's baseball practice went and then casually asked about the red t-shirt in the kitchen.

Oh...you didn't know? Our son has TWO baseball games tomorrow - let's count the games now...FOUR...FOUR GAMES TOMORROW; two soccer, two baseball - OH MY. WHEN will I get a nap? LOL

We'll be going all day long....ah, mommy needs a break! I hope YOU get a break this weekend; take it easy!

Thanks for stopping by; maybe if I can't sneak in a nap, I can sneak in some cards. :)

Take care, ~M.

Mother's Day

I made this card using the new "Happy Mother's Day" set by My Favorite Things (MFT). I'm still working to make a card I'm happy with. LOL

I've made one other card using the main image and I'll post that later this week. I had several 'pieces' of this particular card made but couldn't get anything to come together until I saw this post on Jen's blog.

Jen offers a sketch to try every Saturday; it finally helped me pull this card together. The base card is cotton candy by Memory Box; the floral paper is a new paper pad by DCWV called "Blossoms & Butterflies"; I love, love, love the paper pad, it's totally dee-lish! :) The dew drops are from Ellen Hutson's store; another thing I really love - dew drops!

The paper is all sparkly and 3D, so cool; love the colors in the flowers. I used those colors for the main image. Most of the image is colored with Copics, I did use watercolor crayons on the background (pink) and also a Spica glitter pen on the middle of the flowers. The words around the frame say "Thank you for... being a gift in my life, loving without condition, giving all of yourself." - says EXACTLY what a mom does huh?

Thanks for the inspiration Jen!

Next is a picture of what I did today while our oldest had soccer practice - well, this and talk to my mom for 30 minutes. :) My dad had some tests run today (always makes me nervous) so she was calling to give me an update...cuz you see...if she didn't call me, I'd call her and she'd be in trouble for not calling to update me. LOL It's just the way it goes!! She's laughing as she reads this.

OK, here's a peek of a little project I'm working on:

Don't those images look fun? And that pink and chocolate paisley/floral paper? YUM!!!

These will make some fun girly girl cards; can't wait to get a chance to finish them. Since we have SOME type of practice Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Sunday, I should be able to finish coloring, don't you think?

Hope you have a great week; thanks for stopping by! ~M.

Diva Altered Lunch Pail

This gorgeous altered lunch pail was made by one of my girls - can you guess which one? I think it turned out incredibly well - hmm...might I be biased? :)

I will admit her daddy helped glue the paper on so we could get the swirl on either "corner" of the box and I showed her how to paint the lid. I also did the rub-ons for her as she's never seen or used those before; but hey, let's give her 90% of the credit!

The top of the lunch pail says "Diva" with lots of swirls; the front of the pail says "Princess" with even more swirls! We added 3 flowers to the front, a pink, a green and then I altered one with my Copic markers to be burgundy. She also picked out all the ribbon; I did alter one piece of white ribbon to be burgundy - again with my Copic markers. Here's a view of the front of the pail:

Do you like it? I've had 2 of these lunch pails sitting around forever and I haven't done a thing with them; I was delighted when she wanted to give it a whirl.

She's also the owner of this handsome man named "Patches"; he's gotten SO BIG from our original post - check out the difference.

Sorry, I have no clue who made the paper we used on her pail; she picked it out the other night when I was getting items for some baby announcements and I never even looked at it.

I hope you've had a great weekend; I found a bit of time to stamp and after the really cruddy Friday I had, it felt good to find some 'me' time in this weekend!

We also started soccer games this weekend - at 8 a.m. no less. It was mid-30's at 8 a.m. with the most blustery wind you can imagine. We had 2 games AND pictures so we got there at 8 a.m. and left at noon. It was fun, but my allergies certainly didn't find the wind fun; I was really sick until mid-day today, Sunday. Just glad I'm finally feeling better.

If you're a personal friend of the young lady that made the altered lunch pail; leave her a note; she'd love to hear from you!

Thanks for checking in; have a great week! Hugs, ~M.

Tone-on-tone Mother's Day

This is a tone-on-tone, Purely Pomegranate, Mother's Day card I made. I used Gina K's stamp, "my mother, my friend" (by the way, check out Gina's new stamps "Kindred Spirit") and the large swirl from SU's Baroque Motifs. I then added the tiny pearls which I purchased from Ellen Hutson's store.

You will notice I scored the card on all 4 sides, 1/2" in using my Scor-Pal; gives it a neat look I think. It was really hard to get a good picture of the card.

Last night, I spent the evening helping our oldest with a diarama - OH HELP ME!!! :) We got it done and she did a fabulous job; but when I first arrived home there were little pieces of paper ALL OVER THE FLOOR; I tried not to freak, remain calm, finish the project, then we can clean up. HA HA

She presents it tomorrow; we'll see how it goes.

Today our youngest got a rare opportunity to ditch school and take a little trip with his dad. I never ditched school - EVER - but my hubby and his oldest brother did the same thing with their father when they were growing up. In fact, their father went and met with their principal to tell him why he was taking the boys out of school. The principal replied, "I wish more parents took the extra time with their children". So, I didn't put up a fuss as this isn't a regular occurrence; and after losing DH's father 16 months ago at the very young age of 66, I view a lot of things differently.

Anyway, here's the results of their little trip today:

Our son was sooooo very excited; he's also very tired tonight as they walked about 3 miles today - WOW!

I hope you're each having a fabulous week...and don't forget; life is much too short; be sure to stop and smell the flowers!

Hugs, ~M.

Girls Just Want To Have Fun!

Aren't these girls just the "cutest"? They're just looking to have some fun! A friend I work with wanted some cards for 5-7 year old girls; I didn't have anything ready to go, so I whipped up 2 one night - I'll show you the other one later this week.

I used the pocket stamp from SU's "Pocket Fun" and colored it with Copic markers (you can tell I have A LOT to learn about shading); but I thought the pink rhinestones were a cute addition to the pocket. I don't know who makes the girls stamp; but the stamp has a small line - like a ledge that the girls are peeking over. I just made sure that small line was in line with the top of the pocket - strictly eyeballed it. :)

The base card is Blush Blossom; the girls and pocket are stamped on Whisper White; all other DP is from Basic Grey's Two Scoops. Can you tell I'm loving the Two Scoops paper? The polka dots give this card such fun, light-hearted appeal.

I hope the young lady that receives this card enjoys it! Thanks for stopping by; I hope you have a great week! Hugs, ~M.

Monkeying Around!

Aren't these monkeys adorable? I received this stamped image from Daisy & Joy of eP (eclectic paperie) - love their store! One of my favorites things, is each time you place an order, you get some free stamped images as a thank you - so sweet of them!

This card was going to be another hippo card - but that just didn't work out; so I reached for some of my stamped images from eP (cause I might have placed a "few" orders with them). HA HA

I colored everything with my copic markers and used the colorless blender for the lighter area around their mouths. It was a quick, easy and really fun card to do!


Here's a close-up of my new little friends. Hope you're having a great weekend; thanks for visiting!!

Hugs, ~M.

I'm sorry mom!

Best thing to do when you know you're going to offend your mom? Apologize before you even begin!

:)

Dont forget, you can click on the images to see a larger, close-up version.

These are two more cards I made this week - my first time ever to use the SU Slit Punch to make scallops! YEAH FOR ME! I'm only 6 mos. behind everyone else, but hey, I finally caught up.

The base paper is SU Bashful Blue layered with Basic Grey's Two Scoops paper - I'm really loving this 6x6 paper pad.

On one card, the girls "shirt" is paper pieced with the same background paper and then I added glitter with a Spica glitter pen...on the other card? I paper pieced that WHOLE STINKIN' CHAIR!!! That means I cut around the girl, the phone and the heart pillow. Um...that took awhile but was really fun. The Basic Grey paper is thicker than regular paper - not quite card stock thick, but still pretty thick, it gives the card incredible dimension.

I ended up adding Crystal Clear to her hair and the pillow for more cool 3D effects...after I took the picture of course.

I had lunch with my BFF this week and she loved both of the cards. The ribbon looks white but is actually a light blue with white polka dots. The girl "on the phone" is by Inky Antics; the sentiments are from MFT's "Twisted Sentiments" set - still some fun ones I haven't used from this set yet.

The rest of the coloring was done with Copics.

Thanks for stopping by; I hope you have a FABULOUS weekend. Hugs, ~M.

Boho Blossoms go Blue!

Here are a couple cards I created last week and sold this week - WOO HOO!!

I really like the "love is timeless" card! Both cards are created with MFT's "Boho Blossoms" clear stamp set. I'm really liking clear stamps; I'm just beginning to work with them and love how you can line everything up! The patterned blue paper is from SU's 6x6 printed paper (I think??).

I had fun making these; just love that swirly heart from Boho Blossoms; can't wait to work some more with them!

Sorry for the short post; it's 9:50 p.m. and I have to report to work at 5 a.m. tomorrow - NO JOKE; is that not insane?

URGH....wish me some happy zzzz's....cuz 3:15 a.m. comes AWFULLY early!

Thanks for stopping by; have a great Friday! Hugs, ~M.

Another Hippy B-day

My former boss's wife just had a birthday last Friday...of course, I didn't know till Friday so I made her one of those fabulous "sorry I'm so behind" hippo cards. LOL Seems odd saying "former" as his last day was Friday. :( Hated to see him go; we've worked together for 3 years; I have so much respect for him as a businessman.

This time I not only paper pieced my little hippo; I also paper pieced all 3 balloons.

The 2 flowers in the lower left-hand corner were both a pale yellow color when I started - I once again used my Copics to make them "just" the color I needed. The hippo and balloons are from the "Just so Hippy" and "Just so Hoppy" stamp sets by Melanie Muenchinger.

I've had lots of time to create this week - YEAH FOR ME - so come back soon; I'll have a few more creations to show you.

Hope you're having a great week. Hugs, ~M.