Spring Cleaning.....

Kinda. I have a bunch of spring cleaning projects started, but just can't seem to buckle down and TOTALLY finish one. I REALLY hate cleaning. Seriously. I would rather do yard work. At least I could be outside. And, ok. I will admit. Opened another book. BAD. Once I start a book, I can't put it down (and I wonder where my oldest got that annoying trait from?!). Well, the book is finished so maybe now I can get something DONE. (snort)

I do have a little project that my youngest and I did together the other night. I just need to take another photo of him with it. The couple that I took earlier didn't turn out. Soooo, if you are still hanging with me by tomorrow, I will have SOMETHING to share! hehe

Sympathy

I find sympathy cards TERRIBLY hard to make. I don't want to over do them (doesn't seem to be appropriate) yet, I want them to be meaningful. I don't own any sympathy sets. I think in my own mind I've convinced myself that if I don't own any sympathy sets, I won't have to use them (wacked, I know....it's a denial thing!!).

But reality is, that in this world, sympathy cards are needed. Last weekend a friend lost 9 immediate members of her family along with 5 close friends in a private plane crash. They were all meeting in Montana for a ski trip for the kiddos. Seven of those lost were children under the age of 10. My heart just hurts thinking of this. I struggled with this card all day Friday and finally came up with this

This card is a 5x5 square card. I did the faux "bleach" technique (because I'm the only person on this planet who cannot get paper to bleach (but will ruin another shirt in trying!!). I stamped the grass then the flowers in versamark on Gina K's 120# luxury paper. Then I used clear embossing powder to emboss the images. *helpful hint: make sure your powder pal tray is REALLY clean before dumping in a new ep/glitter, etc. My clear ep now has little flecks of whoknowswhat in it and it kinda ruins the CLEAN look that this technique is suppose to have! I then used LARGE stipple brush to put on my colors, starting with the lightest at the bottom and working my way to the darker colors (that way, I use just one brush!! Lazy stamper!!). I then covered my image with a scrap piece of paper, put it on my craft sheet and then ironed it on high until the ep melted onto the paper.

Now of course I had other problems with this image. This is actually the SECOND one. The first is layered underneath. The first one had no black layer. Felt it was missing something and I tried messing with some ribbon (of course, the image was already taped down, so I was going to have to come up with a different ribbon treatment). Welllll, the sentiment SMEARED over the embossed area when I was messing around. I don't know if it just hadn't dried over the now slightly glossy area or what! So when I stamped this sentiment, I HEAT set it (and of course, got it too far to the right, but I was NOT going to do this a third time!). Matted with the black, added the ribbon and matted that to Gina's 120# luxury paper.

Please keep my friend and her family in your thoughts (and if you pray, in your prayers). This was a very close knit family and they will need all the comfort from here and above that they can get to deal with this.

Supplies: Stamps: SU's Inspired by Nature, Warmest Regards. Paper: Gina K's 120# Pure luxury, Basic Black. Inks: SU's Apricot Appeal, Tangerine Tango, Really Rust, Ruby Red. Accessories: Clear EP, heat gun, iron, ribbon, stampamajig.

Out to Lunch

I wish!!
Sorry folks. The creativity just may not happen until this weekend. I am working all week covering for my boss who went skiing for spring break (is it Thursday yet?!! Geesh, my body feels like it should be!!). This full time working has me EXHAUSTED come evening and I just don't feel like doing much more than picking up a book once I get home.
I probably should stamp some images to color. Previously mentioned boss is having a b-day next week, along with my father. And I just found out I need a sympathy card too. Sigh. Too bad stamping is NOT an option at work!!

Can you hear the music?

I have been wanting to do the Wacky Wednesday challenge on the Rubbernecker Blog since they started TWO weeks ago. The third week was a sketch challenge. Here is what I came up with:

Now, some of you who like to be be the challenge police will say that my card does not follow the sketch, But! It does: Here's how: 1) The creator of the sketch took the liberty to change her squares on the side to ribbon. And she moved her circle embellishments. Therefore giving all the rest of us liberty to make a few minor changes as well. 2) My squares just decided to join together and become a rectangle. 3) My three little circle embellishments got shoved to a different location by the larger image panel. While they got shoved over, they each split in two.....resulting in another 3 circles in the bottom corner. 3) My image required the card to be changed to a square (this is a 5x5 card size) and that also resulted in the required alterations to the layout (and trust me, I tried THREE times to make my second bg panel shorter on the one side....the larger image just did NOT work with that so....it got s....t.....r.....e.....t....c....h....e....d to fill in that space!)

See?! I TOLD you that this fit the sketch!! (ROTFL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Ok!! I'm really reaching here, but hey!! I wanted to use this image with this sentiment and I got a card done!! PFFFFFLLLLTTTT!!!! hehe

Some other details: Now, I am NOT a pink type of girl. I like my browns, blues, neutrals. The reason I even have this pink paper was for a project for a little girl cousin (which never got done....go figure). I just thought that "Erma" needed to express her different music beat. And so enters the pink. And incredibly BRIGHT GREEN. Of course I did not have embellishments that matched these common colors (snort) so I got out my copics and colored some clear self adhesive gems. The image panel is up on dimensionals. PERFECT!! Supplies: Paper: Gina K's 120# luxury white, SU's green galore, Prima Marketing Baby Girl Collection~Lullaby. Inks: Archival Jet black, SU's pink passion. Stamps: both image and sentiment can be found at Rubbernecker. Accessories: Score Pal, clear gems, Copic Ciao (A) markers, dimensionals

My Hubby Gets Creative

Yesterday was my 15th wedding anniversary to the Toad (you know, as in the kissed Toad who turns into a Prince?! Ok....that is the nickname his riding buddies call him too). This is what I saw on the kitchen counter when I got home from work

Gorgeous, huh?!! (Yes, I took the photos in a different room, the kitchen counters are not presentable for others to see at this time!!)

But even better than the roses was this:

The man spent his afternoon in my craft area making me a card!! (If that doesn't prove a man's love, I don't know what would!!) He used a scrap piece of textured River Rock, stamped the sanded BG in (?) brilliant blue and then found a scrap piece of old olive that had been crimped. He stamped his image (he told me he used my "T" from my stampamajig and had to re-stamp the image~~"pushing the heck out of it" to get the image over the crimping). He then found the corner punch and WAH~LAH~~ the man creates me a card!! Pretty good, huh?!! I had to laugh though.....he said that I didn't have any good sayings for the inside of my card. Think that is permission to do some shopping?! LOL!!

Me and My Mojo

Me and my Mojo just can't seem to get it together lately. Take this card. I had this idea to make the main card shape to look like a basketball. So, I cut out my circle card, draw my basketball lines, and then start layering my other elements. I don't know if it was the "orangish" basketball color under the red/black jersey, the lines on the basketball or what~but I did not like the look of it. It was too busy/distracting/icky (mind you, I did NOT figure this out on the first try. Nooooo!!!! I had to try different colors of "orange", some with sponging, some with embossing texture, you name it, I probably tried it). Now, you say, why didn't I just change the colors of the jerseys? Two reasons: 1) The team is the Cardinals. Our colors are red/black. 2) I had already colored four jerseys for all the coaches/assistant coaches for the four cards that I need to make!! (yeah, no original cards for everyone....we are in a time crunch here!) hehe

Ok....so now my Mojo is in a funk because my "cute" idea in my head is not working. And I needed to finish these card like YESTERDAY (and since I had to work yesterday, I'm REALLY running out of time here!!). Stepped back, kinda regrouped with my mojo and came up with this:

(don't know why this picture looks out of focus here. It's fine in my photo preview!)

I stamped the jersey from Melanie Muenchinger's Just So Sporty on Gina K's 120# Luxury white paper (have I ever mentioned how much I LOOOVE this paper?!! It's just WONDERFUL for coloring with copics!). Colored with my copics, cut out the jersey's and adhered them with dimensionals, to give it that extra "pop". Stamped the basket from SU's Just basketball with Brilliance Graphite black on to acetate and CAREFULLY heat set (I would have used my stazon, but have loaned it to a friend!). Cut out the basket and made a slit along the rim in order to put the basketball into the basket. The acetate is attached with Fiskers thin glue dots just along the top behind the basketball so that the net hangs "free". The sentiment is also from the Just So Sporty set and I carefully colored in the "THANKS" with my 01 micron black pen (the "coach" was also filled in this way). Supplies: Paper: SU real red, basic black, pumpkin pie. Gina K's 120# luxury white, transparency. Stamps: Melanie Munenchinger's Just So Sporty (available at Gina K) and SU's Just Basketball. Inks: Brilliance graphite black, SU's pumpkin pie, close to cocoa marker. Accessories: Copic markers, glue dots, dimensionals.

Thanks for stopping by! I'm off to create some "basketball" cupcakes!!

Quickie

This is just a quickie birthday card that I literally made in about 10 min. I had already had the balloons stamped on glossy paper from a similar card that I have made in the past. I had originally planned on using some of that "Happy" paper that can be seen on the Wacky but Happy chicken card but didn't have enough scraps left over. Soooo, since this is for an 8 y/0 boy (do 8 y/0 boys even LOOK at the outside of their cards?!!) I figure that this will do.

The balloons are popped up on dimensionals. The ribbon is curling ribbon from my wrapping stash. Easy peasy.

Supplies: Paper: SU whisper white, glossy white. Stamps: SU Birthday Balloons. Inks: yo-yo yellow, only orange, real read, brilliant blue. Accessories: glue dots, curling ribbon, dimensionals.

Thanks for stopping by!! I'm going back to coloring more images for my coaches thank you cards....bbl!!