Oh NOES!

My laptop DIED!!! :-( *tear*

It has all my pictures of my cards that I worked on today as well as all my photo editing software and all my school stuff....boo

Today's challenge....

I've set the goal that I want to complete all the card challenges for SOA today (well they have to be finished today anyways..lol) but also all the challenge blogs I participate in (or at least try too). So, today's going to be a CARD MAKING FRENZY!!! Woohoo!!! Since I'm up so early on Sunday I can get stuff done way before EARLY church (wow I never am able to do that!) and then will have the rest of the day to work. Stay tuned for updates throughout the day. :-)

More SOA fun :-)

The challenge I participated in this time was the Flip Flop Spin challenge. We were to pick a LO to case from the Flip Flop Gallery. I chose to do my LO spin on Kirstie's Mermaid LO which was just beautiful. I used a new digi kit that I picked up for FREE at Summertime Designs; it's called Easy Breezy.

Kirstie's Mermaid

My Spin: Friends

More SOA Action...

SOA has made their goal of $5000 and then some and we're only at day 2!!! So super AWESOME! I'm glad there are so many who are donating to this worthy cause and participating in the challenges and conversations. :-)

So I've finally finished one card for one of the several card challenges I wanted to participate in. Originally it was suppose to be for the Sweet 'n Sassy Challenge but apparently I overlooked the sketch requirement so I added some more texture to my flowers and *wallah* the card is now ready for the Flower Soft/texture Challenge :-P

Thinking of You

Ingredients:

• pp - DCWV Summer Fun, s.e.i Poppy
• cs - DCWV Latte
• color - Copics, Kimberly watercolor pencils
• texture - flower wire (Michaels), black glitter by Doodlebug Designs, Robin's Nest Dew Drops
  
• hot glue gun/sticks
• border punch - EK Success
• flower digital stamp & saying - Sweet 'n Sassy 'Forget Me Not'
  

Stamping Out Alzheimer's Week

So yesterday was the start of SOA week and boy have I been busy creating stuff for the great challenges that have been posted. For as little as $5 you can participate in this awesome event and help to raise money for finding a cure for Alzheimer's. See my sidebar for a direct donation (you can also find this on the mainpage of SOA).

I haven't had a chance to finish any of my cards for the card challenges b/c I became addicted to using my pse7 to make digi scrap pages :-) Here's what I've come up with so far....

Splash - For the 'Show Me Whatcha Got' Challenge

All ingredients are from free digi kit for SOA = Flip Flop Tan Mini by Libby Weifenbach


Let's Dance - Template Challenge #2

Ingredients:

• flowers - SF
  
• papers/kit - Remember When by Bren Broone Designs
  
• template by Tracey Howard
• pse7
  

Danny - Remembering Someone You Love Challenge

Ingredients:

• stars - EM
  
• spiral - SF
  
• photo frame - Vintage Garden by Nicole Seitler
  
• papers - Linen Paper Pack by Marie Stones & Remember When by Bren Broone Designs
• making memories - SF
• pse7
  

Sweet - Use an Old Photo Challenge

All ingredients came from the free digi kit = Sweet Sugar by Marie Stones or pse7

Sweet Tooth Add-on

Queen Kat is giving away some deliciously sweet blog candy. Stop by her blog before May 30th to enter and while you're there check out the awesomely cute stamps in her store! I just got mine today and fell in love with them all over again :-) I actually used one of the new stamps to make the card in the previous post (Butterfly Bday)...super cute stamp yes?! I KNOW! :-D

Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge #18

So when I first saw this sketch I immediately thought 'picture frame' and then that was about it. It took me 2 more days to actually figure out what the rest of it was going to be. Today I received my shipment of stamps from Queen Kat designs and completely forgot what I bought so when I was pulling them out I spotted a beautiful butterfly stamp that I knew I wanted to use on my next card. My next step was to plan my color scheme to go along with the butterfly and my idea of a picture frame. I went looking through my pp to see if I had anything remotely that looked like wood and sure enough in my DCWV Green/Recycled Stack I found one! In another DCWV stack (whimsy I think it was) I found a pp with pink & brown butterflies and that sparked the rest of my design even though I didn't actually use that pp.

Putting together a card is always so much easier once you have a game plan so after I got all my supplies together I got down to it. I stamped the QKD butterfly on to white cs with brown pigment ink from Craft smart, added Zing Clear embossing powder and some heat and out came a glossy outlined image :-) I have to say that doing that first really helped control the bleeding of my copics as I usually leave off the embossing powder & just use dye ink which tends to run when I color the image with any medium be it copics, watercolor pencils or regular colored pencils (the problem usually arises after I add some sort of wet medium). Since my aunt's birthday is this week I decided to make this into a bday card for her and I used a stamping technique I had seen elsewhere -- where the stamped image is not fully on the paper. After I finished that I turned my plain wood cs card into a frame by using a copic marker to make corners & more wood grain marks and then distressed it all. I'm really pleased with how this card turned out; it's definitely one of my favorites ;-)

Butterfly Birthday

Ingredients:

• cs & pp - DCWV
  
• butterfly stamp - Queen Kat Designs (QKD)
• saying stamp - Stampabilities
• brown pigment ink - Craft Smart
• embossing powder - Zing Clear
• color - Copics
• wire - Hobby Lobby/Michaels? not sure
• heat gun

Sweet Sunday Sketch #18

Dutch Dare Card Challenge #48

This week the challenge was to make a card using the colors blue, white & your choice. For my 3rd color I chose silver. I ended up picking out some pp from my DCWV stack 'Blossoms & Butterflies' which was how I actually decided on my silver color :-) I wanted to try something I hadn't yet done on my cards so this card took me a bit longer to complete as I played around with several different layouts before deciding on the final one. I'm pleased how this card turned out and hopefully you'll like it too :-)

Blue Butterflies & Buddies

Ingredients:

• pp & cs - DCWV
• ribbon - Michaels
• silver dots - Michaels
• corner punch (inside) - EK Success
  

Inchies & Presents

Strawberry, Green & White Inchies

I made these inchies originally for the Inchy by Inch "F" theme challenge but after flower and fruit I discarded that idea and went with strawberry, green & white. Strawberries are one of my favorite things to eat and one of my favorite flavors that's added to things (ie popcicles, sherbert...). I used all DCWV pp & cs along with some Sizzix embossing folders & pop dots.

Graduation Gifts

So my friends graduated this past Saturday and are now officially doctors. For part of their gift I made these magnets out of clear mosaic marbles, DCWV pp & 3/4 magnet adhesive dots. Each friend will get a set of 10 in either a blue/green combo or red/black combo.

I can't believe it!

I won :-) I never win ;-P What did I win? A personalized blog banner :-) Sweet huh? Check out the Corrosive Challenge Blog for details :-) This is the best Monday EVER!

I also won a WIR card over at There She Goes Clear Stamps :-) WOW! I can't believe I won once let alone twice in one day :-D What card did I pick? I chose Joanne's card about shopping, money & shoes :-)

In other great news, I received an honorable mention for SL ShortCuts May Inspiration Challenge...so what only 5 people entered :-P They didn't have to give me an HM if they didn't want too :-D (I'm totally milking this...LOL)

More Sweet Tooth Add-ons

1. Laurel's giving away some great toothachingly sweet candy HERE
   
2. Maria's blog is turning 1! Check out the sweetness HERE
3. Nikki's also doing some celebrating with some sweet lip-licking candy HERE

Some of these are ending soon so stop by give some love & enter :-)

ICSketches Challenge #16

Boy Birthday

Ingredients:

• cs - DCWV
• pp - Jacqueline Addison's Celebration
• buttons - Basic Grey
• stickers - Marcella by K&Company
  
• stamp - TSG Holiday Galore
• border stamp - Autumn Leaves' Doodles

ICSketches #16

Paper Therapy COF Challenges

Gosh this first one is almost 2 weeks overdo :-P Oops! But hey at least I finally finished it.

Christmas Gift Card Holder

Ingredients:

• stickers - Jolee's Boutique
• button - Basic Grey
• braid cord - Elmer's
• emboss - Sizzix Holly
• pp & cs - DSWV
• idea: Reader Idea @ SheetLoad of Cards
  

Birthday Card

Ingredients:

• cs - DCWV
• pp - Jacqueline Addison's Celebration
• buttons - Basic Grey
• stickers - Me & My Big Ideas
  
• stamp - TSG Holiday Galore
• border stamp - Autumn Leaves' Doodles
  

Sweet Stop Challenge

Happily Ever After

Ingredients:

• cs - DCWV Metallics
• pp - S.E.I Poppy, Silver Dress by Stemma
• stamp - TGF Princess Anya
  
• silver ink - Craft Smart
• color - Copics
• silver dots - Michaels
• emboss - Zing Clear
  
• veil & inside sticker - Jolee's Boutique
• altered Anya idea - fellow TGF Stamper
  

Sweet Stop Sketch:

VSN with Club Anya

So tonight was Club Anya's 1st Virtual Stamping Night (VSN) on Paper Craft Planet and guess what came just in time?! My new TGF stamps!!!

Our VSN started at 8pm CST and went until the 12am when the new releases were finally revealed and put up for sale. I didn't really get to participate much until after 10pm as I was watching Grey's. Is anyone else upset at the season finale?! I got so mad I sent a letter to ABC immediately after the show ended. Why do the writers have to go and kill off any of my favorite people?! Ugh. Anyways back to VSN. Our first challenge was to create a monochromatic card which sounds a lot easier then it is. I had a hard time trying to pick out papers that went together all in the same family of color but finally managed to and created this:

Friendship Garden

About this card: Grr...this is suppose to be variations of RED. I just couldn't get my camera to take a good photo and then couldn't adjust it with my photo software to my liking but hopefully you get the idea what it looks like. I used all DCWV pp & cs. For Dorothy Anya (digital stamp), I printed her off my computer then I colored her in both EK Success Writer markers and memory pencils. I gave her hair ties made out of Elmer's braid core and a bouquet of flowers made from Petaloo Flora Doodles and jewelry wire. The saying is from one of the TGF stamp sets inked in brick red by Craft Smart. You can't tell from the pic but the really dark paper is a metallic red embossed with Sizzix Tiny Flowers. The last embellishment on the front are red dew drops from Robin's Nest. The inside of the card has this saying:

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom. -Marcel Proust (Get it, Anya's suppose to be a gardener :-D )

Go here to see what others created.

The second challenge from VSN was to create a card based on this sketch:

In My Prayers

About this card: I altered Angel Anya to look like a regular girl praying and colored her with Kimberly watercolor pencils. The dark pp's I picked all have a star or cloud-like theme as these are 'night-time' prayers. I used my mesh white flowers (from MM) to make Anya look like she was on clouds (and also hide my poorly cut oval...gosh I really need to get a die cut for those..lol). I cut the stars out the star paper and wrote my own saying in my own handwriting with an EK Success Writer then edged the saying in ink. I used pop dots to make Anya above the flowers and for the big star to give the sky some depth. The pp & cs are from DCWV Fun in the Sun.

Go here to see what the others created.

So since I was watching Grey's (as I already mentioned) I totally didn't get either of the challenges finished by the time VSN ended but since I have until 8am CST to post my creations, I stayed up to finish them. So, um, yeah I think that's it. :-)


PS While I was scrapping, this is what my kitty was doing (he's laying on a USPS priority box):

Huge Scrappin' Give-a-way!

Over $100 worth is being given away over at Adams Acres Scrapin: http://adamsacres.com/2009/05/02/scrapbook-giveaway-starts-today-enter-to-win-bo-bunny-art-bin-tote-ally-and-more-for-nsd/

Just some of what's being offered:

1. ArtBin: Super Satchel Series
2. In Stitchz by Bazzill Floss in Pink and Yellow
3. Tim Holtz Ornate Plates
4. Making Memories Magnetic Stapler and Color staples
5. Stickles: Pink, Turquoise, Yellow, Cinnamon

Sketch Saturday Challenge #50

So a couple of teachers my mom knows are retiring and she asked me to make some retirement cards. I thought cards that thanked them for their service would fit the bill nicely. Since I still needed to complete the SS Challenge for this week I figured to combine my to-do list ;-)

SSC#50 Retirement Card

inside

Ingredients:

• cs & pp - We R Memory Keepers 'Madame Royale'
• border punch - Fiskars 'Treading Water'
• buttons - Paper Studio
• stamps - Kelly Panacci
• black ink - Marcella by K&Company
• frosted A2 card blank - SheetLoad ShortCuts

Sketch Saturday Challenge #50

For my 2nd retirement card I decided to try out my new corner rounder. It works pretty good except for thicker papers you really have to press down extremely hard :-(

Retirement #2

card closed - notice you can see the inside stripes

inside

Ingredients:

• cs & pp - s.e.i. 'Poppy'
• round corner punch - McGill
• flowers - Petaloo Flora Doodles
• stamp - Kelly Panacci
• brick red ink - Craft Smart
• frosted A2 card blank - SheetLoad ShortCuts
  

PS You might have noticed I changed my blog design once again...LOL. Yup I'm addicted. This design was made with the free digi collection add-on Sweet Sugar by Marie Stones. ***edited*** the design has changed again for more info see my 'about this blog'.

Stamptacular Sunday Challenge #6

I adapted this sketch since I was using a 4.25" x 4.25" card (it's a tiny square...lol). I made the image also the sentiment so I could just layer a few times instead of a million :-P I also took the 3 small strips (you'll know what I'm talking about when you scroll down to see the sketch) out and replaced it with a printed paper (pp) that had 3 different sections so it mimics the sketch but again less paper layering :-)

Graduate

Ingredients:

• cs - American Crafts, Best Occasions
• pp - DCWV All Dressed Up
• stamp - Studio G
• black ink - Marcella by K&Company

SSC6 Sketch

CPS Challenge #115

I went for simple for this card design using the CPS115 sketch. I'm actually very pleased how it turned out. The inside of the card (not shown) has a white insert with 2 more circles of travel icons cut out and backed on black cs....maybe I'll take a picture of it later. Speaking of pictures I tried to get the front of the card to come out but didn't really have any success. The one I finally managed to take is okay at best which is why I took 2 more pictures at different angles so you could get a better feel for the look.

Bon Voyage

Ingredients:

• cs - Paper Reflections
• pp & cutouts - American Crafts Travel
• ribbon - K&Company
• word stickers -EK Success Label Lingo
• circle punch - EK Success

CPS115 Sketch

Our Creative Corner Challenge

So I adapted this sketch just a wee bit as I don't have a oval punch or die cut as of yet and I couldn't seem to cut one out neatly with my scissors :-P I did, however, have fun using my Big Shot again to do some embossing (it's on the pink paper - butterflies & dots)...gosh I love that thing!

Thanks Bunches

Ingredients:

• cs - DCWV Spring Cardstock Stack, Paper Reflections
• pp - DCWV Spring
• digital stamp - Sweet'n Sassy
• pink ink - Craft Smart
• markers - Marvy Le Plumme II
• emboss - Sizzix Texturz In Bloom Collection Kit#19
  
• flowers - Petaloo Flora Doodles
• inside stamp - See-D's

OCC Sketch

Sweet Sunday Challenge #17

I made this birthday card for the Sweet Sunday Challenge based on their sketch. I used a new technique that I haven't yet tried on anything else....WIRE WORDS. Goodness trying to get the words to stay in their shape and then to try and get them to stay on the card was like trying to pull teeth :-P

Spring Happy Birthday

Ingredients:

• cs - DCWV The Spring Cardstock Stack
• pp - DCWV The Spring Stack & The Stack 6
• jewelry wire
• EK Success Memory Pencils
  
• digital stamp - TGF Dorothy Anya
• emboss - Sizzix
• inside stamp - Stampabilities

Sweet Sunday Challenge Sketch #17

2 Challenges in 1 Card

I made this card for the Pink Birthday Challenge at Stamp Something using the sketch from the Corrosive Challenge #11. All the stamping detail is from Cupcake Mix & Match by There She Goes Clear Stamps.

Pink Cupcake Bday

Ingredients:

• cs - DCWV The Spring Cardstock Stack, Paper Company
  
• pp - DCWV The Sweet Stack
• EK Success Memory Pencils
  
• stamp - Cupcake Mix & Match TSG
• sketch - Corrosive Challenge #11
• embossing - Zing Clear, Sizzix

Corrosive Challenge #11 Sketch

Sweet Tooth Add-ons

1. Jacqui is celebrating 90K hits on her blog. Congrats!
2. Sassy is celebrating her birthday and getting over 60K hits on her blog. Fantastic!
3. Crystal is celebrating her new blog. Welcome to the bloggerhood!
4. Debbie is celebrating her birthday...Happy Birthday :-)
   

For details see my Sweet Tooth Sidebar :-)

Blog Changed Again...

So my first blog theme I used was black/red/white/gray, my second (made by me) was teal/pink/brown, and finally comes this newest blog of green/brown/peach/aqua. All of the elements I used to make this blog pretty came from Melany Violette's designs (Simply Clean Digi Scraps) from the pack Forever Memories.

Check out the new blog look!

So I utilized all the free digi downloads that I have linked on my sidebar and used a few to create my new background and title. I'm loving my PS elements! Now that I know what I'm doing my blog will probably change as often as I change shoes...LOL. B/c of this little project I was unable to work on any of my challenges but no worries there's always tomorrow! :-)

Dutch Dare Card Challenge #47

I had a lot of fun trying out new things for this card. This is my first card in which I've used 2 different embossing techniques...can you spot them? I also just bought the Alice Anya digital stamp today and thought she would look cute as a 'daughter' on this card....see she's carrying a present (embellishment made by me) for her mom for Mother's Day. Coloring these digital stamps has been an issue and I'm still trying to figure out the right combo for me. I've given up blending my watercolor pencils until I can get some no bleed marker paper and look forward to the arrival of my new Copic markers :-P

Greatest Mom

Ingredients:

• cs - Paper Company, American Traditional Designs
• pp - DCWV The Luxury Stack, DCWV Nana's Nursery Baby Girl
• digital stamp - TGF Alice Anya
• flowers - MM
• gems - Jewelry & Craft Essentials
• emboss - Zing Clear
• texture - Sizzix Embossing Texture Folder
  
• color - EK Success Memory Pencils
• inside embellishment - Me & My Big Ideas