make my day!

... at least, this sentiment MAKES me think of Clint Eastwood and probably will each time I use it!

The card was inspired by Beate's grid technique tutorial posted at splitcoaststampers.com, and I'm using it to thank someone for a Mother's Day gift. I used the scoring blade and Fiskar's cutter to make the grid, and the Cuttlebug and Swiss Dots embossing folder to make the background, matting everything on either either SU's Whisper White or Pomegranate card stock. The sentiment's from Inkadinkadoo's Round Frames stamp set. The bling's provided from Amuse Artstamps' mini dot creative candy twinkle stickers at each of the grid's intersections ... alternating two colors - outer rim in light pink, next rim in dark pink, etc. And it's hard to tell from the pic but the white circle with sentiment is embossed using Cuttlebug's Decorative Circles embossing plates. Well, KAZ will be able to see 'em!

Simple yet elegant!

if it's Wednesday ...

... I SHOULD be golfing, but I'll admit I'm a "fair weather" golfer. Instead, I told my partner (and DH) he could go ahead if he liked but I'd stay here, thank you very much, and play on PC and make cards instead. I've been fighting a cold for the past two weeks and didn't want to play when it'd been raining most of the day ... up 'til about 15 minutes ago.

I've been catching up on a little light reading ... blogs, that is ... and came across a new Web site of interest (at least to me - see link at right) called VerveEarth that displays bloggers by location. I peeked at the code (aka "widget") that they install on your blog and it's simply a picture that links to your registered blog at their site. Isn't modern technology wonderful?!

2nd Tues make-'n-take

If it's the 2nd Tuesday, it must be make-'n-take day ... my fav LSS, Capture-A-Memory, holds make-'n-takes every 2nd Tuesday and 3rd Wednesday from 1-3 and 5-7. Stop in if you're in the Flint area! They've a t'riffic supply of DP and it's not often that I don't walk out without a few sheets when I stop in.

I stopped by after work today and here's the card we made - slightly altered, as Pat L knows I can't NOT slightly alter stuff - and Pat L led the group in making today's card! The "For You" sentiment's one of my own Gina K Designs and stamped with StazOn Jet Black ... other than that I've no recollection of what type paper nor whose flower stamp we used and it was all supplied by the shop. The circles were stamped using a pencil eraser with a Chalk ink ... what color I dunno tho'! Cute, eh?!

This one's for my Mom, who brought me a pair of my fav shoes this Mother's Day weekend. We had a nice leisurely time visiting this weekend. She stayed over a couple nights and we headed to my card club meeting on Saturday, then to a local nursery where we both picked up stuff for our yards, had donuts and coffee on Sunday, visited w extended family, and my DH drove Mom back home yesterday. Nice weekend! Hope ya'll had a t'riffic Mother's Day weekend!

got Cuttlebug?

Have you picked up a die cut machine yet? If not, run, don't walk, to visit the kind folkes at Creative Xpress. They're offering the Cuttlebug for only $35! Now, some naysayers may say it's only a sales ploy to get you into their Web so you look around and purchase other items. Well, that works for me! I've told a couple of my friends of the deal and they've made the leap ... and thot I'd share w others ... such a deal!

1st explosion box

This was the first explosion box I attempted making, for my sister as last year's Christmas present.

I used Cosmo Cricket's Be Good cardstock collection and clear stickers from Cloud 9 Design. My fav LSS, Capture-A-Memory, provided the dies to make the graduated sizes of the box's bottom, box top, and some tags I used to decorate the box. Super simple - just super time-consuming! I picked up enough cardstock to repeat the pattern ... do you want to guess whether I've got that one made yet?! NOT!

just back from club mtg

... and here are the cards the lovely and talented Crystal (see link at right) led us in making today! I've already mailed my Mother's Day cards so I'm not sure who'll be the lucky recipient of today's one. We used an awesome stencil that the kind folkes at Stampin' Up! had in their latest catty. I'd ordered it from our last club meeting as I thought I'd cheap out and not bother to purchase the Nesties if I had this for a while ...

Anywho, for the light blue/brown card we used the Punches Plus brass template to both emboss and punch around the square where we'd stamped the little flower from the equally awesome Blooming With Love stamp set (I keep telling myself, I already picked up some flowers in vases sets, and have topiary $1 stamp from Mikes'; do I REALLY need this set?! BUT it keeps calling to me!). I like the effect.

The "celebrate" card used some cute stamps too ... and we watercolored the elephant, then used markers for the flowers. MY elephant has white toenail polish, in case you didn't notice! LOL! We used the Crop-A-Dile to emboss a few circles below that stamp. Both cute ... and quick ... and simple cards! Thanx again, Crystal - both for the cards and letting my Mom, who's up visiting for the weekend, participate today!

Happy Mother's Day, KAZ!

This card was inspired by one published in the Spring 2008 edition of paper creations designed by Lindsey Botkin. I used SU Purely Pomegranate and a dollar stamp I'd picked up from Mike's recently, and printed the sentiment from my PC on white cardstock I had on hand.

Kept it simple, as it's also inspired by Sharon Johnson's ssnotime33 challenge. We were to keep it simple and use pink, green, and a flower. Hope my sister likes it as it's off in the mail tomorrow to make it to her by Mother's Day!

stamps: Kolette Hall designed for studio g; paper: SU Purely Pomegranate, unknown white cardstock; ink: SU Purely Pomegranate, StazOn Jet Black, Tri-C watercolor marker

what's Texas got? ...

Well, it's got Doug & Keith, two friends of the family who recently moved to be closer to THEIR immediate family. I made this card to accompany a cricket I picked up for the guys. It's supposedly a good luck charm to have a cricket on your hearth ... did you know that? I've procrastinated in sending this, but picked up the Jolee Texas 3D stickers on my most recent trip to my fav LSS. When I saw the "Texas" oval, I knew it would be perfect for this week's SC173 sketch challenge at Splitcoaststampers.

stamps: Artistic Outpost's Home; paper: SU Kraft cardstock; ink: StazOn Jet Black, PC for sentiment; accessories: Jolee's boutique dimensional stickers - Texas, natch'!, twine Ellen Hutson's included free w my last order

scheduled posts

I've signed on to the draft version Blogger to use this function and am glad to see it's available in production now. It's nice to have the ability to schedule a post for a day when you know you won't be available ... or to use it to make a post "sticky" - that is, to make it stay on the top of your posts.

Way to go, kind folkes at Google - it's much appreciated! Rather than repeat everything here, read more about it here.

whooo loves ya?

My Mom loves soft blues and I thought of her when I spotted this paper last weekend. The inside sentiment reads "Whooo Loves You?" and is a slightly altered Kim Hughes' stamp. I wanted more heart-shaped letter Os in the word "who" so I reinked just that portion. I inked the edges and the embossed blue portion a bit. This is based on Amy's AMYRS21 sketch challenge - thanx for the inspiration, Amy!

stamps: Inkadinkadoo's Birds Galore; paper: Basic Grey's Perhaps, Prism's blue and green cardstock to match, misc white I had on hand; ink: Color Box Creamy Brown chalk ink, Tri-C watercolor markers; tools: Cuttlebug w Stylized Flowers embossing folder and QuicKutz vines, Nestabilities' Classic Rectangles Sm

nat'l scrapbooking day

Here's wishing everyone a happy National Scrapbooking Day! There's activities everywhere - both at scrapping stores and online. I'm cooling it today but hopefully will get some card making in. If you'd like to see what events are happening around you, there's a repository of events at http://www.nationalscrapbookingday.com/. Enjoy!

belated b'day greetings

My DH's brothers celebrated their birthdays last month and I was BAAAADD! This is my belated greeting to Dale, a gift card holder to celebrate with some night life in the big city!

It cracks me up, tho' - we're both playing catch up this year. He did a "drive by" this past weekend and dropped a card off for my son and his brother in our newspaper delivery box, so we're gonna have to do the same, natch'! Happy belated b'day Dale!

The gift card just looked too small, so I ended up mounting it on a 5-1/4x5-1/4" double matted cardstock that matched the DP, and double-matted some matching ribbon between those 2 layers using some unknown ribbon I had on hand. It's Beate's weekend WSC45 sketch layout now!

stamps: none; paper: Fancy Pants' Sweet Spring, Prism solid cardstocks, vellum (for inside sentiment); ink: printed sentiment from PC; accessories: QuicKutz cityscape die set, Making Memories' charmed words, unknown ribbon