Flowers

I started coloring this image a couple of months ago, but just didn't like how it was going so I set it aside...yes, a couple of months. I finally decided to pick it up, finish coloring and make it into a very simple card. I like the end result - do you?

The DP is by Stampin'Up; the white card stock is 120 lb. Pure Luxury by Gina K Designs. Nothing fancy, just lots of coloring and shading with my Copics - I so *heart* my Copics!

This stamp is by Elisabeth Bell (no, I didn't misspell her first name!!); I LOVE her images. There are several others I'd like to get - they range from a very young girl, like a toddler, to a teenage girl, very thoughtful and insightful. I just love the array of images!

I'm glad you popped in; hope you have a GREAT week! Hugs, ~M.

Piece of Cake

Last week or so, I posted a couple Clean & Simple cards (CAS); here's the other 2 I made the same evening. Sorry for the delay in posting these; if you stick around till the very end, I'll share some of the fun I've experienced lately! :D

I *heart* this stamp set by Papertreyink, Piece of Cake; you can do so many fun things with it! The base card is Gina K's 120 lb. Pure Luxury card stock, beautiful, sturdy paper!

I stamped the top and layers of the cake in chocolate (YUM!) and then stamped the layers in pink - doesn't it look scrumptious? I embossed each card with an oval nestability; on one the embossing is raised, on the other it's indented - two very different looks. Very simple way to add some pizazz to your cards.

A couple of the greetings in the Piece of Cake set can be stamped in two different colors of ink; such a nice twist to the sentiments! As you can see I stamped the "how it is" in pink and stamped the "sweet" in chocolate.

These cards were super simple and quick to make; I love how they turned out. I hope you've had a great weekend; I'm glad you popped in!

Now for those of you that stuck around for the really unbelievable personal stuff, I think I have some entertainment for you! :D

I departed Wednesday afternoon for a business trip to Atlanta, GA...I might mention I don't like to fly; but I'm doing better and better. Anyway, we arrived Wednesday, checked into our hotel, went to dinner and then I came back and worked until 12:30 a.m. to finish putting our presentation together.

The next morning I got up, had breakfast and then met briefly with my boss. I then got a key to our meeting room so I could 'check it out'; I had told the hotel we would have 15 people arriving for the meeting. They said they could easily put some additional chairs around the table and we'd be good to go. Oh my, was THAT an understatement!!! The room was HALF the size of a typical hotel room - HALF THE SIZE with a small oval table in it. No way would it hold all of us. I went to the front desk to speak with them, we talked about what we might do. Well, my boss took one look and said absolutely not. Then he turned to me and said walk to the ____ hotel and the ____ hotel and see if they have a room. In my mind, I'm thinking, NO WAY - it's pouring rain outside. So instead I went to my room, made some phone calls and found a room. When I called my boss back to let him know, he replied "did you see it"; I said no, he said walk over and look at it. OH MY GOSH.

I have no umbrella but some nice gentleman sitting down to eat breakfast loaned me his. Um, let's see...I walked about 300 yards or so in the pouring rain, across the highway (with semi-high heel sandals) to view the room - all is fine, I book the room.

I mention I'm having lunch brought in that day and the lady says "we don't allow outside caterers"....seriously; is my whole trip going to be like this? So I walk BACK to the first hotel, get to my room, dry my feet, TRY to dry my sandals, call to cancel the food order and on we go.

We had 5 people whose flights were delayed due to the weather (this really should have been an indication of things to come). The rain stopped, everyone arrived and on we went.

Fast forward to Friday; it's pouring rain and they are predicting a BLIZZARD in our home state, Kansas. It continues to rain all day; I book flights for Saturday morning as it appears we won't make it home Friday night. Sure enough, it's sleeting and snowing in our home town, they close our office in Kansas early, everyone goes home but it doesn't appear we'll be going home. BUT the weather for Saturday is supposed to be much worse. Is that possible?

Well....our flights are still on as of 5 p.m. Friday night so we wrap things up and head to the airport - still pouring rain. We check in for our flight; 2 of us check our bags and off to find some dinner we go. We eat, we're chatting, someone gets up to check the board for our flight and it has been canceled. N-I-C-E...anyone notice a really bad theme here?

Oh, but Air Tran is flying from Atlanta to Wichita and their flight is still a GO...so we weigh the costs, cancel our hotel rooms and book tickets on the Air Tran flight. Well, they don't have an agreement with Delta, so they won't transfer our tickets or our baggage. OK, whatever, just get me home!!!

We fly home; I get to fly first class (first time ever) and I'm sitting beside a soldier returning from Iraq. He was coming 'home' to his wife and 3 children; he made the flight a lot of fun; I really enjoyed it.

So we get home, file a delayed luggage claim and they will deliver my luggage the next day. At 7 p.m. Sunday night, I still don't have my luggage and I've called 4 times to check on it and talked to someone each time. At 8 p.m. Sunday I call again and find my luggage is in Wichita, but they have no idea when it will be delivered. So off I went to the airport; I FINALLY got my luggage at 10 p.m.! It contained all my makeup, my hair dryer, my diffuser, clothes, toothbrush, contact solution, etc. Yes, all those things can be replaced, but has anyone calculated the cost to replace those things? SHEESH!!

Also Sunday morning, I received a call from my mother; my dad was taken by ambulance to the hospital. URGH...come on, I want out of this nightmare! Dad appears to be doing okay but has been admitted to the hospital for additional tests tomorrow (Monday). So that story is to be continued.

Now, I'm looking forward to Monday, a 4-day work week and on Friday I'm headed to Texas to the races - WOO HOO; I can't wait...even better? I'm NOT flying! :D

See...you never knew my life could be such fun huh? Glad you stuck around for the summary.

Hugs, ~M.

I'm outta here!

I am headed to Atlanta with 16 other people for a few days - work related. I have LOTS of projects to share, so I'll get to those upon my return. Yeah, if I were 'really' organized, I'd have a few posts set for 'in the future', but right now I'm just hangin' in there! LOL

Have a great week; see you soon!

Hugs, ~M.

Eggstra Special

Each Friday, Taylor offers a Cupcake Sketch Challenge - if you have cupcakes, why not use them...but it's not required. I've been itching to make some Easter cards and I loved the sketch this week so I gave it a whirl. I went for some really bright colors...I'm sooooo ready for Spring!

The main image is from MFT's Eggstra Special stamp set; I colored the egg to match the DP which is also by MFT, it's their Spring Collection Paper Pack. You can't tell from the pictures, but my little chicks are all sparkly. One of my favorite things about clear stamps is you can curve them on your acrylic block and see EXACTLY where it's going to line up with your image - just perfect!

I used an oval nestability for the main image and layered it onto a scalloped oval nestability - you can just see the edges of the scallops around the main image. What do you think of those white polka dots; aren't they great? I used PTI's Polka Dot Basics and Fresh Snow ink, my first time to use the Fresh Snow and I *heart* it...it was so easy to ink up just the dots I needed and line them up time after time. I like the way they turned out! The main image and the 2nd panel are both raised with dimensionals.

Hope you're getting geared up for Easter - whether that means attending a Sunrise Service, coloring Easter eggs, hunting Easter eggs or a family gathering - I hope it's fabulous!

Thanks for popping in!! Hugs, ~M.



Ingredients:
Cardstock: SU! Certainly Celery, SU! Pixie Pink, PTI Lemon Tart, Gina K 80 lb. Pure Luxury
Ink: PTI Fresh Snow, Memento Tuxedo Black, Copics, Spica AtYou Glitter Pen
Extras: Threading Water Punch, Dimensionals

With Sympathy...

One of my dear co-workers lost her grandmother this week; even though her grandmother was 94, loss is always hard. Of course I wanted to make a sympathy card for her and decided to use the color challenge at Stamp TV (barely banana, blush blossom and certainly celery). I also stepped out and tried paper pleating (How'd They Do That? by MFT).

I love the way the card turned out, not sure what I think about the paper pleating though; it adds a great element to the card, but I like the way Amy did it in her sample...across the bottom of the card.

I also used the 'thumping' technique on the flowers using SU! markers; I edged everything in SU! Close to Cocoa. The base card is SU! Certainly Celery layered with SU! Blush Blossom. Using card stock for the pleating was just too thick for me, so I used some DP in a soft yellow in place of the SU! Barely Banana.

I used the Swiss Dot Cuttlebug embossing folder on the pink and DP on the bottom portion of the card. I LOVE the DP, it's by DCWV and is self-sticking; just cut to the size you need, peel off the backing and stick! Love that!

I used PTI's Vintage Cream satin ribbon layered with a soft yellow across the top of the paper pleat. The sentiment at the bottom comes from Verve's Notes of Prayer set and is stamped on the yellow DP and cut out with SU!'s word window punch; then I punched 2 more word windows from SU! Certainly Celery; adhered on either end of the sentiment and added soft blush pearls.

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

A Sketch For You To Try

Each Saturday, Jen (i{heart}2stamp) provides a Sketch For You To Try; seldom do I seem to find the time to participate, but I did this week. I didn't follow the sketch exactly...but hopefully she'll grant me some grace. :D

I ended up really liking the simplicity of what I came up with without adding the other elements - sorry Jen!

This is another new stamp set from Verve Visual called Floral Symphony, the stamps and sentiments all combine so well with all their other releases this month; I just love everything about this set.

I stamped the stems with VersaMagic Spanish Olive and colored with Copics. The flowers were stamped in Papertreyink's Pure Poppy. I also colored the flowers with Copics, a lighter color all over and then a darker color around the center of the flowers. I then added some jewels from My Favorite Things; I love their sparkle!

The base card is SU! Real Red, layered with SU! Basic Black; the DP is also by SU!; I just love the 2-sided paper they offer! I used Papertreyink's Vintage Cream card stock to stamp the images and the sentiment. The sentiment is stamped in Pure Poppy and comes from Lisa Johnson's stamp set, Flower Garden Sentiments.

Thanks for visiting; if you have some time, join us this week for Jen's SFYTT! Hugs, ~M.

PS - stop by later this week, I'll show you my 'stepping out' and trying something new if you promise to be kind - YIKES! LOL

Jill's Jems

Check out Jill's blog; she is featuring one of my cards that went along with her Bible Scripture today - how cool is that?

She also stumbled across my CHORES card while visiting my blog...that card always makes me chuckle.

Hop on over to Jill's blog and check out her creations; her coloring is phenomenal!

Hugs, ~M.

New Stamps!

I have some new, gorgeous stamps from Verve Visual. I started both of these cards before I got sick this weekend, but took a few minutes last night to finish them up.

I stamped the cross on SU! Whisper White card stock and then stamped it again on Basic Grey's Perhaps DP. I outlined all the flourishes and swirls with a gold gel pen; it mixes with the black and looks so cool IRL! Hopefully the 2nd picture gives you a glimpse of all the sparkle!

The sentiment "Easter Blessings" is also from Verve's Everlasting Life stamp set. It's a beautiful stamp set with great images and sentiments; I'll be using this set for years to come!

The layout for both cards comes from Mojo Monday Week 77 challenge - I didn't follow the layout exactly, but pretty close.

The next card is much more whimsical with lots of flowers and butterflies. I used the same card stock colors and layout, but used Verve's Miracles Blossom stamp set.

The butterflies are from a Martha Stewart punch; it cuts one large butterfly & 2 small butterflies. I added liquid pearls to the center of each butterfly. All the flowers were paper pieced twice; the 2nd one mounted with dimensionals for lots of 3D effects.

Thanks for stopping by; it's great to see you! Hugs, ~M.

How cute is that?

Yesterday was such an awful day; I'm so congested, my head feels like it's going to explode, never knew you could produce that much mucous, etc., etc., etc. Anyway, it's Spring Break and the kids have been staying up late but momma was turning in early last night.

Jared crawled in bed with me last night to chat and said "I sure hope you feel nice in the morning". Hmmm....I said, "you hope I feel nice?", thinking, wow, I must have been pretty grumpy today. He said, "you know, I hope you're not all congested in the morning."

Ah.....isn't he a doll?

ATS Glam Girls

I love these Glam Girls; always have. they are so fun to color or paper piece. I love their huge glasses; always makes me laugh. I paper pieced this young lady and glitterfied her purse; not to mention those incredibly sparkly shades!!

Nothing fancy; just straight-forward stamping and paper piecing. I used the rectangle nestabilities for both the image and the sentiment.

Remember THIS article about my husband (scroll to the bottom of the post). Well, one of the owners of the company where I work asked for an autographed copy of the article. My DH and the owner have never met; so DH was like "what should I write"? We tossed around a few things and DH ended up writing "Waiting for your order" and signed his name - I love it! So I took it to work, gave him the magazine and THIS is what his assistant came up with:

I took my camera to work and took this pictures outside of our offices; the boss is going to hang it up at his ranch. Pretty cool eh? We sure thought so!!

Thanks for stopping by; hope you have a great Sunday!

Hugs, ~M.

Clean & Simple

Making "Clean & Simple" (CAS) cards has been all the rage lately; seems I find myself pretty involved in what DP to use; card stock colors, various inks, ribbon, brads, etc., so it was fun to try a CAS card.

I made a few a couple of weekends ago and wanted to share two of them today.

These are both made with Papertreyink's Little Lady stamp set. This set sooo reminds me of our youngest daughter. She has so many nicknames, but one of our favorites is Kaity Bug, Lady Bug; so when I saw this polka dot ribbon I just had to have it and pair it with this stamp set.

I used a couple of different red inks for the cards just for a variety with some different embellishments. I had someone request thank you cards, so I added the "with thanks" sentiment around the trail the lady bug has traveled.

Both images are stamped on Gina K Designs 120 lb. Luxury card stock; so sturdy, nice and white. I hope you've enjoyed these cards; I'll be back soon to share the other CAS cards I made.

Thanks for stopping by; I hope you have a great weekend!!

Hugs, ~M.

Jeremiah 29:11

Verve Visual is releasing 8 new sets (plus 5 Plain Janes) TONIGHT - talk about a huge release! Make sure you set aside some time to join the release party tonight!

They have a release sketch challenge, so I thought I would participate. I used more of the Sugar Drop paper by Memory Box; it's so pretty and soft in color - I love it!

I used Verve Visual's Jeremiah 29:11 Bible verse; I have several friends that this is their favorite verse...I know it ranks up there as one of my favorites too!

Thanks for stopping by; hope you've had a great weekend! Hugs, ~M.



Card Details:
Cardstock: PTI Sweet Blush, SU! Mellow Moss, DP by Memory Box
Accessories: Pearls from Ellen Hutson, ribbon-misc., Rectangle Nestabilities, Martha Stewart Doily Punch
Stamps: Verve Visual Jeremiah 29:11; PTI Simply Stationery

Hope

I have a dear friend whose mother's name is Hope. I love that name - I also love the name Faith. Had our 3rd been a girl; I was hoping to use the name Faith...nope; got us a red-headed little boy! :D

My friend's mom happens to work at a nursing home and is a liaison between the patients and their families; her work is so very important. This first picture is the outside of a 3D Jr. Legal Notepad I made - I so love making these. When you open the front flap; there is a small pocket on the inside. Hope leads a Bible study at the nursing home, so we thought this would be perfect for her to use for her Bible study and make notes as needed. I love how it turned out. The polka dot paper is from DCWV Nana's Kids; I used the polka dot paper throughout the two projects I did as she loves purple.

Here's the full notebook. The polka dot paper is layered on SU! Eggplant Envy and then cut apart just slightly so it looks like a thin ribbon. The main image is stamped on a rectangle nestability and then layered onto a scalloped nestability. I added pearls to 3 of the 4 corners and then accented with a prima flower layered with a pale purple flower, a darker purple flower and a large white brad.

We also made some note cards with just her name on them. We made these for her desk and I used the Desk Top Organizer Timeless Template from Papertreyink. I cannot WAIT to make another one of these; it was so much fun to make and decorate! What a great deal; buy it once and use it time and time again. I also used the Simple Stationery and Fresh Alphabet for the note cards.

This is the box all decorated and before I placed the note cards and envelopes inside. I used a small strip of SU! Eggplant Envelope layered with the Polka Dot paper for the band across the top portion of the box. I also stamped the circle of images and the H; you'll notice throughout the note cards I used two colors of purple. After decorating the entire box I covered it with Modge Podge to help it hold up well for quite some time.

The inks are VersaMagic Purple Hydrangea and Spring Pansy; I love the way these look together. And just think; once you run out of cards, you can just order more and fill your organizer time and time again - isn't that so cool?

Here are some of the individual note cards. I did 8 note cards with matching envelopes and then 4 individual note cards.

This last image shows the Desk Top Organizer filled with the note cards...and see those white little things sticking out from under the band? Those are matching seals I made using Papertreyink's White Mailing Labels. They have the letter "H" on them with the decorative symbol on either side.

I had a great time making these; I hope "Hope" enjoys them immensely!

Thanks for popping in; hope you're having a great weekend! Hugs, ~M.

I wanna be an I-D-O-L contestant!!!

but PUH-LEASE do not make me sing. URGH; just take my word for it, that would hurt everyone's ears!!

Well, My Favorite Things (MFT), is having the coolest of contests! It's an Idol contest and I decided to go ahead and stick my neck out there and give it a run for 'er money! You can see all the deets right HERE - if you're a stamper, join the fun!

On one of the other threads about the contest, bribery was mentioned - so let me get that out of the way first. Carole (Mother's Little Helper) is an Okie. Me? I was born and raised an Okie. Y-E-S - 1 for me, right Carole? Then there's Cammie (My Blog), the stamp set I used is one of her favorites. Y-E-S - 2 for me, right Cammie? And last - Jody (Confessions of a Ribbon Addict), lives in Texas, one of our absolute favorite places to vacation. We love to see the Dallas Stars play hockey, or visit Sea World in San Antonio and don't forget the Riverwalk in San Antonio, our kids love it! Y-E-S - 3 for me, right Jody? OK, that's all the bribery I know - it was worth a try, don't you think?

OK, on to why you stopped by...the card. Here's the complete card with LOTS of pearls and something new for me! A head pin!!! Yep; what fun I had. Now, come over hear so I can whisper in your ear...closer please...I got rather excited when I went to find the head pins and jewels, there was lots of neat stuff there...but let's not mention it to DH okay? Thanks...you can back away now, no need to start rumors about why I'm whispering at my computer!

Oh...and that DP, it's new too; it's Sugardrop by Memory Box - isn't it beautiful? You know me - any color and chocolate (which some people choose to call brown) and I'm good!

The heart stamp is from the Boho Blossoms set, it's so dainty and elegant...just like Cammie, Carole and Jody (how am I doing so far?). I stamped the image in Brilliance Jumbo Java, lovely chocolate ink. I edged the heart image in Pink Petunia VersaMagic and more Jumbo Java. Used SU's ticket corner punch on the top corners and a beautiful heart punch on the bottom corners. Added lots of pearls cuz I really like pearls! The ribbon is from Michael's and has wire on the sides, so it stays in place really well.

Now on to that head pin...see, I always called them hat pins cuz I thought that's what they were/are, but the package says differently. And I learned everything I ever needed to know about hat pins, pretties and jewels from Sharon (No Time To Stamp?) My favorite two things about the ones I bought are the head is a swarovski crystal and the other end is blunt, so I won't hurt anyone. Which for me, I'd only hurt myself and bleed on the card - guaranteed! And see that pretty pink gem at the top? Oh yeah, the silver around it is HEARTS - just like my card. Y-E-S, score again!

For the bottom of the head pin, I added a small piece of a glue dot and added another smaller pink gem, the glue dot holds everything in place perfectly!

I should have never visited the jewelry aisle - there were some great jewels and fun stuff there, but that's okay, that secret is just between you and me, right?

And you know what? If I don't make it as an idol contestant, that's okay because Cammie taught me about rejection, so I know I can take it! I hope I do make it as it's going to be loads of fun...but we'll have to see what the judges think.

I wouldn't mail this type of card as it's rather bulky and I don't want any of the 'pretties' damaged, but I'd certainly give it to one of my very dear friends; they'd love it and treasure it I'm sure.

Thanks for stopping by, I hope you enjoyed my audition. Hope to see you again soon; hugs, ~M.

Purse Bling!

Our youngest daughter recently attended a sleepover birthday party; the birthday girl loves horses so we gathered plenty of horse gifts but I couldn't resist decorating this little jean purse for her also.

This is a close-up of the back pocket. It has a large pink floral jewel with a blue jewel center. I added the liquid pearls to outline the pocket. I had so much fun decorating this little thing!

Here's the full backside.

On the front, I alternated pink and clear gems along the pocket - my sweet little son helped me peel the backing off ALL those little gems...he was really glad when we were done! LOL But what a trooper to help me out!

We unzipped the purse and put two small play horses inside - what a great hiding spot.

Thanks for popping in; I've been really busy creating so stop back by soon! Hugs, ~M.