HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!!

Here's wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving!!!! I hope you are able to spend it with family and friends.

Oh, and to those who will be venturing out for the Black Friday sales ----Good Luck to ya!!!!!

BECAUSE I CARE......

I love the Because I Care set so much. It is a set that I don't think I will ever let go. I would have never considered myself a "flower person", but if you look at my stamp sets, probably 75% of them are flowery in some way. There is something about a pretty little flower image that makes me just have to have it.

I unfortunately needed another sympathy card and chose to use this set again, but wanted a different layout from the ones I made a few posts ago here. So onto Splitcoast Stampers I went. My card is cased from this one here by Mimikitty. I used Marina Mist with the black trim and a vanilla base for the flowers. The black really makes this pop. I watercolored the flowers with the Marina Mist and the leaves with Always Arthichoke. After punching out the layers for the sentiment (from the Thoughts & Prayers set), I placed it on dimensionals on top of the strip that is accented with a length of Marina Mist ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by and have a Great Day!!!!

MY LITTLE GIRL...........

Well, not so little anymore. My DD turned 12 on November 12th. One more year and I will be the mother of a teenager. YIKES!!!! Although, I think she is practicing the teenage attitude part already. This is what 12 looks like:

BTW, she is trying to let her bangs grow out --- and I am trying to be patient while her bangs grow out. She is growing up soooo fast. I really miss my little girl, but I look forward to the young lady she will become (fingers crossed for good luck).

Happy Birthday, Sweetpea!!!! I love you!!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, CINDY!!!!!

A good friend of mine is celebrating her BIG 4-0!!!! And the cool thing is that her birthday, November 12th, is the same day as my daughter's. Pretty neat, huh? This is the card I did for her. I Case'd it from Mary Fish at Stampin' Pretty, but for the life of me I cannot find it on her blog to link it direct (but here is the link to her home page). The card itself didn't take very long to make after I finally figured out what images I wanted to use and where I wanted them placed. Each square is punched out with the 1-1/4" punch. How much easier can it get?

I used soooo many new and retired sets to come up with this. The stamp sets I used were Beary Best Friends (the gift bag - retired), Aviary (the birdy in the cage - current), Just Believe (the flower circle and the leaves - current), Priceless (the butterfly - current), Hip Hip Hooray (the balloons - retired), Every Little Bit (the gumball machine - current), Bitty Birthday (the birthday cake - retired), Word Play (the "Wish Big" sentiment - current) and Punch Potpourri (the flowers that were punched out and placed on Stampin' Dimensionals - a current Level 1 Hostess set). The "C" was stamped with a non-SU! stamp, but it worked "Just Rite" for this. The DSP used on a couple of the squares (the numbers and the stripes) is from the Celebration pack. That is where the colors I used are from - Real Red, Pacific Point, Pear Pizzazz and Bashful Blue. The base is Bashful Blue with a Pear Pizzazz layer that holds the squares. You can't really tell from the picture, but the "i" in "wish" is dotted with a sparkly rhinestone --- cause every girl should get some bling for her birthday.

With all of that on the outside, I wanted to jazz up the inside a little, too. It has a Real Red and a Pacific Point layer underneath the Whisper White layer that has a sentiment from the It's Your Birthday set (retired) with a few flowers punched and added to the bottom corner. The sentiment was placed using my handy-dandy Stamp-a-ma-jig. I tried to keep the card as flat as possible, since it needed to be mailed, but I added an extra postage stamp just in case it was a little heavy from all of the layers. I really needed to do a WOW project, because Cindy is one of the most talented stampers that I know. Check out her blog here.

Cindy, I hope you had a great day and will have a marvelous year!!!!

Here's to you!!!!!

KICK IT UP A NOTCH.....

Unfortunately, I needed sympathy cards for 2 family members at the same time recently. It just so happened that the theme for the months Litlle Debbie swap was "Sympathy Cards". So, I guess I got 3 birds with one design. This was my first attempt:

Now, while this was a perfectly good card --- clean and simple --- I could not help but think something else was needed. So, to add some texture, I tore the edges of the Chocolate Chip layer. I also stamped the small flower from the same stamp set using Versamark on the background (Crumble Cake/Kraft) layer. You can't really tell from my "amazing" pictures, but on the second one, while I still colored the bloom in Marina Mist, I thumped it with the Night of Navy marker to give it a little more depth. The stamp set is the Level 1 Hostess Set Because I Care. What a gorgeous image, don't you think? The coloring was done directly on the stamp with my SU! markers and stamped onto Whisper White cardstock. After wrapping that layer with a piece of Marina Mist ribbon, I layered it onto the Chocolate Chip and then onto the Crumb Cake base. Here is the second card, with all of those changes:

Those few small changes really made a difference, didn't they? But it still kept the card simple (something I think is important when it comes to sympathy cards --- that "calming" colors) and flat enough to mail without padding and extra postage.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!!!!!

YOU GOTTA SEE THE BABY.....

Does anyone remember that episode of Sienfeld? I only watched the show a couple of times and that was one of them. The mom kept saying they had to see the baby and then the baby turned out to be really ugly (or so they said, because they never showed us the baby). Anyway, I have never seen an ugly baby myself. But I digress......

I actually got to make a card for a baby shower. It is a nice break from the birthday and sympathy rut I seem to be in. This card was for a friend's daughter who is expecting a little boy. I have made the onsie cards before --- they are so cute, yet so easy. This one was stepped up a notch because of a card I saw here. But this project did not go off without a hitch. I had completed my first try and was stamping the sentiment inside, when I got black Stazon on the front of it. I was so..... mad (the dots were me counting to five so I wouldn't say a bad word). But all's well that ends well, I like the second try much better. And here it is.......

I used a retired SU! DSP called East Coast Prep. The froggie is from the retired set Very Punny. You can tell this outfit was made in China --- the neck cutout wasn't centered as well as I would have liked with the bib straps. But I think it turned out pretty good.

And the baby was born on Wednesday (I think) and everyone is doing well. So....

Congratulations to Jill and Gary

and

Welcome to the World, Michael Thomas

IT'S BEEN A LONG TIME.........

A long time since I have completed a scrapbook layout, that is. This one started with an e-mail from my friend and upline, Debbie Naylor, telling our SU! group about a new on-line community that focuses on scrapbooking. It is called Soul Scrappers and it is a group of very talented ladies. Well, at least I think it is all ladies. Anyway, one of the ladies issued a challenge that started with a quote - "If we are facing in the right direction, all we have to do is keep on walking.". She was taking 20 people to participate and, if you signed up, you would all be getting the same products to be used in your layout. Of course, you would not know what you had to work with until your envelope arrived. Free products to do something I love with --- what could be more fun. I signed up as quick as a wink!!! I was so excited when my envelope arrived. I got brads, dew drops, paper flowers, ribbon, stickers, a transparency, some stamped boot prints, a paper clip and a tag. Phew!!! I think that is everything. You could combine these with anything you wanted, but you had to use most, if not all, of the items sent. What was even better was that the ribbon was from SU!, so I was able to match products with what I have plenty of. Here is what I ended up with..........

I am partial to 2 page layouts. This is mostly because I take a bunch of pictures of my kids and love every one of them. These pictures are from a trip to Myrtle Beach in 2005. And, yes, I am way behind. Man, those were the days......

Here are closer views of each page and you can click on each one for an even larger view:

I really enjoyed doing this challenge and hope to do many more in the future. It is a good way to kick start your scrapping mojo.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great weekend!!!!!