Don't bug me....

I'm scrapping....Here is a card for 365 cards. The theme is to use a lady bug. Okay, there are some really, really cute ones. Anyway, just a quick post tonight. Stay tuned for some pictures of a memory box and album I put together for a friend. I will post it later this week. The picture of this card is a little off....I dunno...Anyway, it is garden green, tulip and chocolate. The brown at the bottom, it is chocolate but it looks a little funky....Everything on this card is Close to My Heart...except the buttons...I have a zillion buttons from Oriental Trading Co.

Hope you are having a great week!!

I stamp alot.

Hey everyone!!
Wow, I have some new 'followers.' Thank you to everyone who visits my blog. I appreciate all of the sweet comments. Your support keeps me motivated to make better artwork and post my creations.

It is Sunday night...
I just got all the laundry caught up and I am watching some t.v. I thought I would post a couple of cards that I have made over the last few weeks. I got a lot done this weekend at a crop. I don't have any pictures of that stuff yet though... The crop this weekend was a fund raiser. I put a bunch of my cards in a basket and sold them. I donated all of the money to the Chidlren's Haven. It felt really good that my work was for a good cause.

Some of these cards were sold, a couple of them I still have because they will be used as examples at some upcoming workshops. All of the papers and stamps are Close to My Heart. There are a few buttons that are just from my stash. If you want any details from any of the cards, just ask. I admitted recently that I am addicted to 365 cards, but it feels good to post some cards that I designed without any help from a challenge...lol. Enjoy!!

More 365 Cards

Okay, I am addicted to 365 cards....last night I spent hours thinking about each card on my list...yeah, thats right, I made a to-do list and 4 of this week's 365 cards were at the top.....The only one not on my list was the Sketchy Sunday...I am not really all that into sketch challenges. If you aren't feeling any mojo, go on over to 365 cards and check out all of the other great entries, I am sure something will spark your creative bug!! Here are a few that idid last night.

The first one is inspired by this add.

I chose to do some background stamping, I sort of wish I would've done some white embossing, but the clear embossing gives it a bit of a sheen. This is a non-traditional size for me so that is good. Also, I rarely make cards that would be appropriate for a sympathy card and I think this one will fit the bill perfectly.



This card came with a printable 'I Love You' crossword. I decided to make it for a boy, like a brother or male cousin. I subdued the 'I Love You' under vellum and part of a Hambly transparency. I added a chipboard shape covered in orange ink, liquid glass and rhinestone eyes. For the right edge, I lined up some stick-on brads and I stamped rockstar for the sentiment. This isn't one of my favorite cards, but it will be nice to have a BOY card on hand!!


This card was made for the Touchy Feely Friday. Different textures include the metal o n the brads, the ribbon and pearl combo, and the silver pearl embossing on the vellum and chipboard. The lace even adds a bit of its own texture. I really like this card!!

Anything but that.....

Over at 365 cards, the challenge is to use a color that we don't like using. I generally shy away from the gray/yellow/white combination. I made this card last night and it was torturous. The yellow is embossed on vellum with another version of the image under the raised up die cut so it looks a little like a hollogram. The word 'friend' is stamped in gray. Everything on this card is Close to My Heart. I actually really, really like how this card turned out.

Go Ahead, Make a scene....

Here is my card for this 365 Challenge: Setting the scene. I recently ordered some great Cosmo Cricket paper. I snipped parts of it up for this collage card. Most people were doing a woodsy nature scene, but I really wanted to use this octopus. He reminds me of that "you can call me Nannerpuss, Nannerpuss" commercial for IHOP during the SuperBowl. Hehe....so cute!! I used foam adhesive for the bigger stuff. The clouds and sea grass are shapes I randomly cut out. The little shells at the bottom are stamped from a CTMH stamp set and covered with liquid glass. I used liquid glass in the water for bubbles. The stamp: "Hey Buddy" is a CTMH letter set. This was such a fun card to make. I worked on it last night while my husband was hanging new colonial-style blinds in my front bedroom. It is finally becoming a real workspace. We got rid of the bed and curtains and we are looking at some organizational shelving.

Color Inspiration Challenge #47

Hey!! Just a quick card for the KWerner Color Inspiration Challenge #47. I wanted to use some of my Hambly screenprinted transparency paper for this card. It is pretty basic. The owl sticker is from Hambly. The stamp 'Whooo Loves You" is from CTMH.

Gimme Some Sugar

Okay so I totally stayed up until like 11:15 last night getting these cards done. In teacher time, that is pretty late...I generally get up at 5:15, but today it was more like 6:15....it was worth it though!! I had the best idea for a card for this week's Cinema Saturday Creative Challenge Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The main goal is to use bright colors. I love using bright colors!! I also love glitter and sugar and sweets so this is an awesome challenge for me. I could've probably stayed home and made stuff all day today actually...Anyway, I saw this great card in Paper Craft Magazine. It had some paper with cupcakes printed on it. At Hobby Lobby yesterday, I didn't find anything like that so I decided to make my own using a CTMH stamp set. Also, I have been experimenting with embossing on vellum. I decided to go with "Hey Sugar" but the 'hey' stamped a little blurry so I covered it up with a popped, glitter cupcake. My dad calls me sugar or sug sometimes and I think it is the sweetest thing ever, it makes me feel like a little kid again....


After finishing that card, I had to keep going....I made several more using my cupcake punch. I got this really cute patterned paper at Hobby Lobby yesterday. I know I should go through my scrap box for little pieces to use in my punches, but this paper is sooo cute!!





I also have a funny story about cupcakes. We have been working on a unit at school centered around the artist Wayne Theibaud. He paints all sorts of sweets. We made the cutest cupcakes out of clay and this week we are painting them and adding glitter. Well, I was talking to one of my classes on Tuesday about being careful with their cupcake because if they drop it, it will break, and I was explaining how to paint it and how to add the glitter. The entire time I was talking, I had a cupcake in my hand and I was mindlessly waving it around.



Suddenly, just as I turned to put it down I dropped it in front of the entire class. I drop stuff all the time. This time, it shattered into about 4 pieces. "This has never happened before" I told the class. Everyone gasped when they realized that it belonged to someone in their class and they braced themselves to hear whose name I called. I picked up the shards and found the one with the name carved in the bottom...."Oh no....I don't want to say, this person is going to be so mad..." "WHO IS IT??" the class wanted to know..."Eric...but I think I can glue it back and it won't show the cracks..." Poor Eric's little face just fell...I felt so bad. Immediately I plugged in my glue gun so I could fix it for him. Here are a couple of examples of the cupcakes, this glitter is totally beautiful!!!




After painting their clay cupcakes we had one more thing to do in art. The students were finishing a tempera resist painting. The final step is to cover it in a layer of black India ink and after it dries, rinse it off in the sink so that the ink settles into the white of the paper. Right after school I went to work rinsing off the papers. It is a very delicate procedure because wet paper rips easily. I rinsed off about 40 papers with only a few moderate edge tears that can be easily taped and will go mostly unnoticed. Suddenly, I grab one of the last papers and start to rinse it off. Freakishly, it begins to disintegrate like an old crumpled map. Tiny pieces are floating around the the sink. I carefully gather all the pieces and put assemble them on a bigger sheet of watercolor paper. When I flip the paper over to discover whose it was, I am silently praying, "Don't let this be Eric's"....when I flip it over, "IT IS ERIC'S PAPER!!"" I was able to tape it up after it dried and I don't think it is completely ruined, but what are the odds???



Here are a couple of fun pictures from my art room! Enjoy!!

365 Card Challenge Day 19 and 20

I was sooo super sick yesterday. I am on spring break this week....no fun! :-(

Anyway, today I am still a little weak and icky but I have plenty of strength to work on some cards. I got a new stamp set in the mail today and I decided to think outside the box. For this 365 Cards challenge: Inside Out, I decided to use my new stamp set. If you have never done a card like this before, you should definitely try it. I stamped a simple "Reach for the Stars" on the front and used a circle punch on the edge. This card was sort of hard to photograph. Anyway on the inside, I used tons of white daisy stars, jell pen dots and glitter for the stars and space dust. The spaceships are cut from white cardstock. I stamped them in StazOn and then used my water brush pen to color them in. This would be the perfect card for a little boy!






And I am not really happy with this card, but I am going to have to shower and run some errands that did not get done yesterday so I don't have time to re-do it. This card is for the Keep it To Yourself 365 Cards Challenge. Basically, we had to make a birthday card and leave the sentiment off the front. For my little cupcake I used liquid applique (for the first time). This has to be heat set.....If you look really close, you can see where the frosting got a little scorched from my heat gun....all well, I will probably re-do it before I give it to anyone. I added glitter before heating and then I added colored brads for sprinkles. The butterfly is a punch with a rhinestone in the middle. Enjoy!


All of the stamps and papers are Close to My Heart.

Color Inspiration Challenge #46

Yahoo!! I was so excited to see that this week's color inspiration challenge had a really light blue. I have been playing around with embossing on vellum. I got a new silver pearl embossing powder so I put Versamark on the stamp and then Crystal blue ink, then I sprinkle with the powder and it gives me this great pearly blue, perfect for butterfly wings. Anyway, this card is for Kristina Werner's Color Inspiration challenge #46.

Don't ya just love that foundry bookplate. I decided to leave off black and use this dark metal as a substitute. At the bottom, I did some paper piercing and faux stitching with a white jell pen. I also use a Martha Stewart lace punch for the patterned paper. The ribbon is some that I had in my stash and the pearl pin is a corsage pin, quickly becoming one of my favorite things to use on a card!! Enjoy!!

365 Card Challenge and Cinema Saturday #23

Okay so I have a long to-do list...I need to work on my Project 52 Album, I need to design cards for my 10 cards for $10 workshop and I also need to design a friendship card for a friend's home gathering oh, and I need to whip something up to send to Cathy and Sarah for making a comment on my blog. (PS, its not too late to get something made my me...don't feel pressured to re-post the prompt, I would love to send you something just for leaving a comment!)

In the mean time, I have been making cards like crazy as part of the 365 Cards challenge site. This is my first post with cards for this week's challenges so I am just going to put them all in one post for now, please bear with me. I am going in reverse order with the most recent challenge first. They use Mr. Linky so it is super easy to post your creation. Also, the challenge is only up to #18, we have a long way to go, so feel free to jump in any time. I plan to pick and choose the ones that are most inspirational to me. So far, so fun!

The first challenge is a 2-in-1. I haven't seen this week's Cinema Saturday Creative challenge movie, but I have had an idea in my head for a St. Patrick's day card all week, so I am going to enter it in both challenges. For day 18 over at 365 Cards, we have to make a card with green as the dominant theme and for CSCC #23 the movie is Waking Ned Devine. I have never heard of this movie, but the other half of the challenge was to use green. I go this idea from a bulletin board I can use as Close to My Heart Consultant. I used a big heart stamp as the petals for the clover leaf. I really like this card and since the caption is 'Lucky U" I could use it for anything, not just St. Patty's Day.

For Day 17 over at 365 cards, we have to create a card using 3 buttons and 3 bows. I hope it is okay that mine are knots instead of bows.....I used a corsage pin to hold the knots on and I used vintage paper for the 'button flowers.

For Day 16 over at 365 cards, the theme is to use SUNSHINE!! I love this idea so I made 2 cards with a sunny theme.




And now, some just-for-fun-cards. I love being at home for Spring Break...can ya tell?? I am a crafting fool! AND, the best part is, the UPS guy just made my day when he delivered a package this morning instead of the usual evening time...now I have some new stamp sets, cardstock and ink to play around with....oooh, and some vellum and silver pearl embossing powder (Inspired by fabulous Sarah)....but you will have to wait to see that. I haven't made anything yet. Without further ado, here are the fun cards:







All of the stamps and inks are Close to My Heart. The star background is a card kit from Michaels. The card bases are craft card kits, very fast and easy. I love making simple cards. While I like the look of random stamped background paper, I find that a simple plain card base is so fast and elegant that I often opt for that.