Verve SOA Sketch Challenge - in a Flash!

Happy Friday everyone! I'm doing a quick post to show you the card I needed to pull together for a wedding I'm going to next weekend.



I used Pink Passion, green from Joann's paper pack, Going Grey and Paper Express Store (Local) Cream cardstock. I also used rhinestones and cream grosgrain ribbon from the $1 bin. Martha Stewart Scallop punch and Sissix Texture Plates Flowers #3 and #4. Verve stamps are: sentiment from Wishful Elegance "Wedding Wishes" and inside is Jeremiah 29:11 verse. The wedding wishes is die cut from a Nesties label 1 die and then rotated. I printed out the free Forget-Me-Not digi stamp given through the SOA site (Stampin Out Alzheimers) here. You need to sign up on this site and donate to the SOA Paypal, but there are a lot of fun Freebies and challenges and that makes it worth it. I used my aqua pen and colored the flowers with Pink Passion, Green Galore and then I cut it out and popped it with dimensionals. I went over the Forget-Me-Not flowers with a very cool pen my mother-in-law gave me from Sakura called Gelly Roll Clear Star. Love using that pen.

Well, I've got to run off to bed. Here's my card.



I also made this cute card for Viva La Verve's last challenge of the month.

It was too much fun. Used Close To My Heart stamps for the buckle and belt from the "Lovely Buckles" set and the sentiment is a Plain Jane from Verve. Not sure where I got all the paper.

Have a great weekend!

Verve Special Guest Challenge

Today's post is my entry for Verve's challenge to show off your diva-self and have a chance to guest design for a month. It would be an honor to be chosen, but there are so many other fantastic challenge participants that my chances are tough. Go see the other entries here. Leave them some love by commenting on their own blog. The guest diva will be revealed on Friday, May 29th.

Last Friday was Verve's May Release party, which the new sets are awesome! Every stamp is on sale right now until May 31st. Go get some Verve!

My card's inspiration is the patterned paper I came across at Fred Meyer while getting flowers for my garden. It's from a stack pad by K&C Company from Amy Butler called Faded China Paper Pad. It looked a bit flat to me so I dry embossed with Stampin' Up Distress Texturz Plate, but even after that I thought it needed more pop. I brushed CTMH's Create a Paint onto the cream portions of the flowers. Here's a close-up.

I cut out a Nestabilities Large Frame from SU! Neutrals for the back panel and then I traced and hand-cut the sentiment shape, fixing a mistake, to match. To frame the sentiment, from Verve's Because of You set, I cut out some of the leaves from the patterned paper. I had a hard time photographing this card to show the glitter on the sentiment piece more accurately but that made the rest of the card appear darker. The flowers on the sentiment were stamped with SU! Going Grey and then clear embossed. I painted Brocade Blue and Old Olive on them and then added Waterfall and Lime Stickles with a bit of the CTMH paint.


The ribbon ensemble was made with the same SU! Neutrals gray and cream cardstock punched with Martha Stewart Doily Lace punch and some green grosgrain ribbon from Michael's. The bling is handmade because I needed something bigger than what I had in my rhinestone stash. A mixture of Crystal Effects, re-inker and Yasumoto shimmer paint (like Pearl Ex powder, but in a cake) did this job well enough.

Wow, it's been a long time since I've detailed out a card. Thanks for stopping by today. Have a blessed day!

Stampin Out Alzheimer's Event Next Week...

Jen Tapler is have her annual Stampin Out Alzheimer's Event next week.

It sounds like quite a big shindig. You must go to Jen's blog and read up on the various posts about her father and the beginnings of this years event.

I'm adding a donation through Pay Pal option for those who would like to participate. The minimum recommended donation is $5.

School's Out and teacher's gifts are made

My daughter went through her first year of preschool! My hubby and I are so amazed at how much she has changed in just one short year. It's exciting to see her grow into a sweet little woman.

Her teacher is a family friend and we know her kitchen decor so we knew we had to make something with cherries. My mother-in-law and I found a cherry border in a crochet book so we got busy making cherries. We attached them to the bottom of two tea towels by sewing with green thread and white bobbin thread to hide our easy construction. I think they look pretty good. Don't you?


The other teacher is going to get a desk gift that will go along with her scrapbooking business. If not, it will work as a phone center desk set in a pinch. One side holds scratch paper I stamped and then the other side is a business card holder which I will be sliding in a gift card to finish off the gift.

I used the stamp set from CTMH's Tickled Pink Kit and I thought it worked out nicely making my own designer paper. The stamp set has the sentiment "I am..." which works nicely when you want to have business card in the holder. "I am...", then your name shows right below it to complete the sentence. Oh well, it's late and I thought it was clever.




For directions on how to make this desk gift go to Connie Steven's template at Splitcoaststampers website.

Now with how late I put these gifts together I just couldn't find the time to make a matching card for them. I've got too many other deadlines hanging over my head. I don't even know why I'm up posting on my blog. I should be in bed! That's me though.

Have a great day!

PS. Thanks CJ for all the help! I hope your hands stop cramping soon from all the tight needlework required for the tea towels.

Friend, Have I been busy!

I have been so busy with something lately. I don't have much to show for it as far as cards or experiments. Just doing my mommy job. Well, I've been deeply absorbed by my children lately. I absolutely love them in spring. I don't know if its me or the weather or the upcoming birthdays next month, but they are just something to absorb. I can't get enough of them!

I did manage to eek out some more on my sneak peek project. I have a deadline to complete it this month. I'll show you the project sometime in June after I give the gift away.

I also made some Ice Cream Cone Cupcakes to celebrate an early birthday for my daughter in her preschool class. They were quite fun. Here's a picture.



I had jelly beans and sprinkles for the classmates to put on top of the frosting and then they devoured what they could. Just 45 minutes prior they ate Krispy Kreme doughnuts with sprinkles on top for another summer birthday celebration. Those little tummy's just can't hold all that and an ice cream cone cupcake too! I designed the stand so that they wouldn't have to hold the cone while decorating it. I might put that template out on splitcoast stampers if I get a spare moment. I scrounged up some smiley face stickers to give them so they could decorate their stands before the cones where inserted. Wouldn't you know it. I made these special stand and my daughter wanted one just like the rest of the classmates.

As far as cards, I threw together one more Mother's Day card to send to my sister-in-law that went with the butterfly themed ones here.


I also made a quick moment to make a Mojo card for contest week. I used Verve's Wishful Elegance stamp set.


Oh how exciting! I just hopped over to shopverve dot com and great news! There is a release coming up THIS FRIDAY! I'll have to check my schedule and see how to fit it in!

New Blog Banner

I've actually spent some time in a pixel editing software to make a new banner. It's all preset images with the exception of the font which came from Amanda's Free scrapbook fonts over at her website.

It's been raining and cloudy here so I must have needed something a little bit more bright and cheery to look at when I blog.

Have a great day!

Last thing you see before going to...

design in your craft room. Apparently my inspiration ideas for the first Viva La Verve challenge of May only last until the last thing I see before going into my craft room.

I had a cute design idea from a baby blanket I was putting together. Diamonds. Colors were purples and pinks. Then when I was folding clothes I saw a great inspiration from my daughter shirt with felt letters and "dash-dot-dash" embroidery down the center of the letter. Well I thought of a great design with both of those and was ready to run with it the moment my children were tucked into bed. BUT the last thing I saw before going to my craft room were flowers very similar to the Because Of You and Plain Jane Flower printed on my daughter's pajama pants. Even the color of the flowers were a combo that I hadn't tried so it was set in stone. So that is the inspiration for this card I made to fit this weeks Viva La Verve Challenge "Find inspiration in your home".



I used Stampin Write Markers for the flowers in Chocolate Chip, Taken with Teal on the stamp. Green Galore was colored in the petals of the flowers. Chocolate Chip was used for the sentiment. Paper is all Local Scrapbook Supply Store stash. Some bling to finish off the card.

On another note, I decided to offer the template to the card stand I used on my Tulip Flower Pot card. Right now I can only offer it at Splitcoaststampers' forum at this thread. Here's my photo of it.

Hope you had a great start of your week.

Stamping around the clock

Hey all,

It's midnight, or thereafter, and the past 24 hours has included a stamp night over at my friend's house where I worked on my sneak peek project, getting our ceiling painted (more on that later), and then more stamping to make another Mother's Day card. This card will be for my mom. This is my second post showing my latest peer-pressure creation (See the Happy Easter! post for the first one) . I DID! I made the infamous Flower Pot card as so many have done over at SplitCoastStampers. I finally had to try when I saw this -->one<--. I didn't have any of the materials that she used, but I was able to make do with my vast amounts of Cuttlebug and Cuttlekids dies.

I used Verve stamps from Because of You and Cuttlekids Flower Die Set (4pk)

The cardstock is an array of Local Scrapbook and Supplies store so I don't have color names for all of them BUT I did use Stampin' Up Old Olive for the card insert base, stems and leaves. The sentiment was stamped in SU Brilliant Blue.

Instructions for this type of card can be found at Stephanie Luman's website here.
Here's the back of the card showing the little stand I made so it will stand up by itself.


For those who might have read in a previous post about our water leak damage...read on.

I finally was able to get quotes from two contractors and they were just under the insurance claim price. I hope the actual cost will be the same as well. For about 3 weeks we had a six foot square hole in our kitchen dining area (nook) because a faulty t-connector busted (okay, it just had a crack and was leaking for who knows how long.). So this week we had drywall put up and boy I wish I would have taken some pictures of all the plastic that had to go up just to protect everything that wasn't suppose to get fixed. 48 hours later new plastic was put up and we now have a new closed ceiling. All that's left to do is pay the bills.

Have a great Sunday!