Meet my neighbors!

This is the Adkins family (Daddy - Phil, Mommy - Christine, big sister - Olivia and little sister - Emily) and what a great family and neighbors they are!!! While posting some of my new cards, I looked out the window and saw my little neighbor girls (just home from church), outside in their matching dresses watering the flowers and just had to run over and get a few photos. These two little ones ALWAYS bring a smile to my face!

The girls like to stop over and say Hi to my husband Mark because they know he's sick and "needs cheered up" (as Emily would say). After they sing their little song, or do their little dance for Mark ... the next comment is "can we have licorice?" They know that anytime they stop in they get to take either a little bag of mini marshmellows or licorice back home with them. Of course, they have to check with Mommy before they eat any because they may not have had their dinner yet and have to wait until later. Anytime they are out and see me open my garage door ... they come right over to say hello and that ALWAYS makes my day!!! How wonderful it is to have such wonderful people right next door!

While walking back to my house, I spotted this monarch butterfly on the bush at the front of our house. I quickly reopened my camera and took a quick shot. The wind was blowing but I'm happy with how this photo turned out! There seems to have been more butterflies this year and I'm so glad to see that!! We always had a lot of butterflies in my father's flower garden when I was a young girl and it just brings back so many happy thoughts of those "days gone by" when I see them now in MY flower gardens. Dad has been gone nearly 20 years now ... but he passed on his love of gardening to me and for that I am so thankful ... maybe he sent this butterfly to me today just to remind me how beautiful God's creations are! Thanks Dad!!

Featured Stamper & Get Well Wishes

This is my card for today's Featured Stamper Challenge over on SCS. Today we have Nikie honored and her gallery is awesome. Of course she doesn't have 600+ cards in her gallery like some of us do (haha) but she'll get there .... we all do!!

I used Nikie's basic layout but changed up the color scheme and theme. I had in mind to send this card out to a friend's friend who just had breast cancer surgery and could use some cheering up. I hope to make more than just one card and get them sent out to her so she really knows how much she is in our thoughts and prayers for a speedy recovery. My friend is Marlene (cards4u) ... we chit chat and have fun over on the Crafty Secrets forum of SCS. If you're interested in sending a card out to Marlene's friend, KAY . . . let me know and I'll get her address to you.

On this card, I used the SU designer paper (sorry can't remember the name of it), the ribbon is also SU ... Close to Cocoa satin ... isn't it luscious!! And the image of course, is by Crafty Secrets (glamour girls), one of my many CS favorites!!! Thanks so much for stopping by my blog and feel free to come back ANYTIME!!!

OCC Birthday Challenge

I recently got "brave" and signed on to Ebay. I'm being very, very careful with my bidding!!! I've only bid on a few "small" things ... won some, lost some ... but at least it got me familiar with the way things are done! (A little nervous at first ... I've heard horror stories and didn't want to be the next story told!! )

Anyways, I've really gotten involved in the Vintage Style of cardmaking (always loved this style) and thought I would see what Ebay had to offer in the way of "vintage images" ... Well, let me tell you, the very first item I saw grabbed my attention. It was a CD of vintage children images by CD SHACK MEDIA ... bid was $6.95 ... no shipping ... only 26 minutes left on the bid. I wasn't too sure exactly what all would be on this CD of vintage children but I bid on it anyways just to see what happened. Long story short ... I won the bid and in a couple of days the CD came in the mail.

Would you believe there are over 1000 images on this cd ... some are duplicates but not too many! There are some awesome images and I decided to use one on this card for today's Our Creative Corner blog BIRTHDAY challenge. Isn't she just the sweetest thing!!! I'm sure you'll be seeing more of these images used on my cards ... great for ATCs too!!

The card is based using Pink Passion cardstock. I first stamped the bg using a Hero Arts flourishes stamp and versamark. I then cut out another portion of the Anna Griffin dp that was laying on my craft table from a previous project. The sentiments are from Art Impressions and AMuse ... the bird is Martha Stewart (from Walmart). I love how this turned out ... I hope the recipient of this card does too!!

For Vicky's son, Ken

This card was made for an SCS friend's son whose name is Ken and lives in Butler, PA. My friend, Vicky Gould, has asked us to send cards to her son who just had a TERRIBLE bike accident and has had 4 or 5 surgeries since August 15th. He's pretty depressed about having to stay in the hospital longer than anticipated and needs some cheering up! Here is my card for Ken.

I decided to use a Thomas Kinkade image and colored it by using various Stampin' Up inks and inking nibs. The oval was cut using my Oval Scalloped Nestabilities. The background paper is DCWV and the ribbon is Offray gingham and rafia.

The inside sentiment says: "Worry not. The world can wait. Take your time. Recuperate!"

I'm hoping Ken will get swamped with well wishes!! If you would like to send him a card, let me know and I'll get you the address.

DRS Challenge #2 - Paper Piercing

Through another weekly blog challenge, I have discovered Cathy Indelicato, which in turn led me to the DRS designs challenge as well as the All That Scraps challenge (you'll see my entry for that challenge further down my blog). What a fantastic talent this lady is and I'm thrilled to play along with the challenges. This is only their 2nd challenge, and it was to use "Paper Piercing" ... the 1st was "Inchies" . . . which I haven't done yet.

This image was done a while back to use on another project but I changed my mind and used a different floral design for that one and this poor thing has been laying on my worktable for weeks! Well, this poor little image called out to me today ... "Pick me, Pick me" ... so I did and that was the beginning of my challenge card.

Card Details:

Stamps: Stampin' Up Fabulous Flowers, Great Impressions, Rosebud Rubber Stamps

Paper: Tan cs, SU very vanilla, Paper Pizazz leather design paper

Ink: SU - creamy carmel and close to cocoa

Accessories: Paper piercer & template, Hygloss vintage buttons, Michaels single stitch grosgrain ribbon, gold stickles, pencil eraser

Stamp Simply #50

I made this card for Sharon Johnson's Stamp Simply #50 challenge over on her BLOG. Today was honoring Julie Koerber and to do that, we were to make a card using Julie's favorite color RED and use her STYLE for inspiration.

I didn't realize I don't have much RED designer paper (must do something about that!). I did, however, have this scrap piece of DCWV red polka dot dp in my stash and used my imagination to make it work. It already had the square punched out at the bottom so I new immediately that would be where the sentiment would be placed. From there I scanned through my "flourishes" stamps and found this set of Floral Flourishes by Inkadinkado would work perfectly! My main image and sentiment are by Crafty Secrets, called Bird Notes. I colored in the birds using my Prisma pencils ... punched the corners using Creative Memories corner punch, matted the image on glossy black paper and TaDah ... What do you think??

All That Scraps Challenge #14

I just discovered the challenges going on over on the All That Scraps blog message board. As you can see this is No. 14 ... looks like I have some catching up to do!! This was a great sketch ... one different from any other sketches I've done (and I love sketch challenges) ... which was very refreshing!


This image is actually only a 'portion' of a full card size stamp. Isn't it great when you can use an image in more than one way!! I'm very happy with the outcome of this card. What are your thoughts??? Thanks for stopping by!


Card Recipe
Stamps: Paper Inspirations
Paper: Ivory cs, various Paper Pizazz dp
Ink: Versafine (sepia), Ranger (vintage photo)
Accessories: Me & My Big Ideas scrappy chic cording, Inkadinkado gold thread, Darice antique brass key charm, sponge applicator, Tim Holtz distresser, gold Pilot marker, antique brass brads

Black & White Elegance

This is a card design that popped into my head the other evening while sitting with DH watching a little TV and I instantly ran downstairs to the craftroom and starting putting it together (before I forgot what I was thinking)! You know how that is, right!!! Well, it was nearly 10 pm when I did this (we go to bed at 10 pm), so I got all the pieces together and finished it the next morning. Actually it was a good thing to "sleep on it" because that's when I got the idea to put the pop of color by using the rose stem.

The dp is by The Paper Studio and the top panel was made by using a piece of ivory cs, running it through the Cuttlebug using the Textile embossing folder, then using the Martha Stewart floral border punch. The medallion was made using my Nestabilities oval & scalloped oval diecuts. The center panel is a scrap piece of the designer paper. The sentiment is by My Sentiment Exactly and the rose is by Stamp of Excellence. I colored the roses using my SU watercolor CRAYONS and a spritz of water then cut them out with my handy swivel craft knife. I'm very pleased with the outcome of this card. What are your thoughts???

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by my blog! I hope you enjoyed your visit!!

"Magical" Card

This is a card I made yesterday for the SCS Sketch Challenge and also for my dear sweet husband, Mark. Mark is on a regiment of Chemo Therapy for Lymphoma and this last go round has been a bad one for him. After a routine trip to the hospital for blood work yesterday morning, he was headed back to bed and told me I should go into my craftroom and make him a "magic" card to make this ugly stuff go away and make him feel better ... so, I did just that and this is my results.

Inside the card I promised him that when this journey was over we would go someplace that looked like this and just sit and listen to the sounds of nature and feel the sun on our faces. Mark is a very quiet person and didn't say much when he saw the card but I know he appreciated it and also looks forward to that nature filled, sun shining day! I posted this card on my gallery at SCS for the challenge and got wonderful comments of encouragement, thoughts and prayers back from all those lovely, crafty people! What a great circle of friends (most whom I've never met) I have developed over there! God Bless them all for their kindness!!

Card Details:

Stamps: Stampscapes, SU Wildlife Reserve

Paper: DCWV designer paper, Whisper White, Basic Black, Close to Cocoa

Ink: Garden Green, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip

Accessories: Ranger green ep, chalk, make-up applicator sponge, swivel craft knife

Crafty Secrets Challenge #31

I always look forward to Tuesdays!! That is when I get to do the Crafty Secrets challenge over on the forum at SCS. This month Joanne (angelnorth) has really made us think with her quarky clues ... "she's British ya know". SO MUCH FUN!!!

This weeks clue was "Could we be following Susan and Geena?"

From the movie Thelma & Louise, starring Susan Sarandon & Geena Davis ... challenge is "over the edge"! See, I told you it was quarky, LOL!!

I did my first card wrong so, I was sent back to the craftroom to correct my error!! The proper way to do an "over the edge" card is shown on my TEA TIME card! See ... it's actually over the edge!! Duh!!! I guess I was thinking "out of the box" a little more than "over the edge"!

STAMPFEST

WOW ... what a great time I had this past Saturday at what I call an all day "stampfest". Friends Lana Edwards and Kris Turner in Wadsworth, OH put this together and Lana was gracious enough to open her home to us for the day!! (Lana is the lovely lady in the blue shirt and this little "onzie set" was one of her projects!)

Everyone brought "goodies" to munch on (some REALLY good stuff) then we stopped for lunch and had Papa John's Pizza! I met several new friends that I hope to be able to stamp with again ... all are very talented and sweet ladies!!! I do regret not gathering all the ladies together for one really good photo ... there are a few ladies I didn't catch in action shots and for that I am sorry!!!

There were a couple of projects I didn't get time to do (getting slow in my old age I guess) but here is the bulk of what was done. So many great projects ... sorry I can't remember WHO did WHAT exactly so I can give proper credit ... but you know who you are and you did a GREAT job!!! Each person brought a card/project for everyone to do ... some ladies brought 2-3 projects ... WHAT FUN!!!

Any of you SCSers out there will recognize the card using the "Zindorf" style of brayering. Michelle Zindorf was actually supposed to join us for this fun day of stamping ... but due to a schedule blooper, she and her friend were not able to attend! Shucks!! Maybe next time!!! Either way, in her honor, we all gave her "unique technique" a try ... I'm very happy with how mine came out!! (For those of you not familiar with Michelle, it's the blue scenic card with the moon.)

Thanks so much ladies for all the fun, food & fellowship!! Let's do it again real soon ... and you are all invited to MY house this time!!!

Stampin' D'Amour Challenge #48

I've recently become familiar with a wonderful vintage based site called Stamin' D'Amour. The ladies there are so sweet and welcoming and this week I have been tagged by Robin to host the Weekly Message Board Challenge. I've decided to challenge the ladies to use Black & White with one bright accent color, I chose RED.

I recently made a purchase at a LSS and this set of red dress/hat & shoes was a "bonus" gift ... how cool was that! Worked out perfectly for today's challenge. The heart & musical tags were another recent purchase from Archiver's. They come in a little (25) pack from DMD with various sized/vintage printed tags and they were in the "Hot-Spots" $1.99 ... can't beat that!

Feel free to come play along!! The more the merrier!!

Fashionable Friends

I just had to share this one with you today! I made it for the Friday Sketcher's challenge and what a fun sketch it was!! I haven't had a lot of time to play with my new Crafty Secrets (glamour girls) set and this worked out perfectly for this sketch layout!!

What are your thoughts???

This is also my first time using one of those fancy stick pins that I see everywhere! Don't know why it's my first time, but I can guarantee it's not going to be my last!! The background designer paper is by Basic Grey (euphoria) and the border punch used is by Martha Stewart.

Copper Beauty

I have had this copper matte cs sitting around for months and finally decided to put it to use after seeing an idea in one of the magazines a friend gave me to look through.

How gorgeous does this paper come out once it's run through the Cuttlebug using the Textile embossing folder!! I used another piece for matting and added copper Stickles around the pearl on the Petaloo velvet flower to pull it all together. I'm really loving this look ... I'd better be on the lookout for more copper matte paper!! Wouldn't this make a gorgeous holiday card!!

Stampfest Saturday!

I'm so excited . . . I am getting together with a few stamping friends I know (and a few more I haven't met yet) in Wadsworth, Ohio tomorrow for an all day stampfest!! Everyone is bringing a project to share and snacks to eat! I'll be sure to take some pics to share with you next week.

I tossed several ideas back and forth, trying to come up with something that I thought maybe these ladies hadn't already done or tried (NOT an easy task!). So, after tossing around several ideas I came up with the bright idea to make "holiday postcards". There are always those folks that you'd like to drop a note to but never take the time to make that "special card" and get it mailed . . . and with postage going up, I thought a postcard was the answer.

Also I wanted to show the ladies how easy it is to emboss your image and sponge out around it using these really cool sponge pods I found at Pat Catans (look like marshmellows, huh!). I made up a pkg. for each lady with 3-lg. & 5-sm. pods. The large pod works great for the moon . . . perfect size!! I'm using my new Inkadinkado stamps purchased through my friend Tammy at Toyrifix. These are so awesome ... they can choose between Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas. If they would rather make a full size A2 card, they can just cut their image down a little and it will fit nicely on a card ... then add whatever embellishments they choose. This should be great fun and I'll be sure to share all my new ideas with you next week!

Blog Awards

I can't believe I have already received blog awards! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I have received the Twinks Bank BBF Gold Card seen here from not just one, but two stamping friends! Tammy and Cindy!! Thanks so much ladies ... I am honored ... now I just have to figure out what to do with them. I do know the rules (see below) but since I've only been blogging for a few weeks, I don't feel I know enough to send it along! However, I will keep it in safekeeping for future use! And, any of you who come to visit my blog ... consider yourself awarded!!

Rules for this award are:

1. ) Only 5 people allowed.

2. ) Four have to be dedicated followers of your blog.

3. ) One has to be someone new or recently new and live in another part of the world.

4. ) You must link back to whoever gave you the award, quite simple really it is a way of saying thank you to those who take time out for wonderful comments to boost your day.

I have also received the Brillante Weblog award from Cindy seen here. How great it is to have friends that appreciate you and make you feel as good as I feel today! Thanks so much to all of you who take the time to stop by and leave a comment ... you'll never know how much it means to me!!!

The rules for the "Brilliante Weblog" award are:
1.) The winner can put the logo on his/her blog.
2.) Link to the person you received your award from.
3.) Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4.) Put links to those blogs on yours.
5.) Leave a message on the blogs of the people you have nominated.

WHAT A GREAT DAY ... I'M ON TOP OF THE WORLD!!

Color Throwdown #7

Here is my card using the colors in today's Color Throwdown challenge. And, I'm using the sketch layout from today's Sketch Challenge over on SCS. The challenge colors for today are Ballet Blue, Apricot Appeal & Bashrul Blue. They lent themselves so well to this Anna Griffin designer paper that it didn't take me long to put this card together.

The sweet little girl is from the Crafty Secrets (sweet kids) set. I'm loving ALL my Crafty Secrets sets ... just need more time to play and be creative.

Isn't that little pearled flower the cutest thing!!! While shopping at my local Joanne's Grand Reopening sale I spotted these in the notions department and just HAD TO HAVE them. I also bought a pack in a vintage purple color.

Thanks so much for stopping by and please come back! Comments (good or bad) are always welcomed!!!

Feels Like Fall

These past few days have really given us NE Ohio folks a feel of what's just around the corner ... with very pleasant days in the mid to upper 70s and cool (great sleeping weather) nights in the 50s & low 60s, you can tell that Fall isn't that far away. THAT was the inspiration for my "give thanks" fall card seen here.

The tree is from the Stampin' Up "lovely as a tree" set. I stamped it using Versamark then using "pinches" of different colored embossing powder and heat setting to give me that Fall look I was after. The sky was done using the Ala Art sky image stamp and SU soft sky ink. The grass was sponged with SU old olive ink and I swirled on a little SU close to cocoa for around the trunk. I then double matted my image using Copper Metallic and Hunter Green cs. The fall leaf brads I've picked up somewhere in my travels and I'm sorry but I don't know who the mfg. is.

Thanks so much for taking the time and stopping by! Hope you have a wonderful day ... whatever you may be doing!!

Crafty Secrets Challenge #30

Over on the Crafty Secrets forum of Splitcoaststampers, we have a challenge every Tuesday (with clues on Monday). Well, this one really had me going because I just could NOT figure out what Joanne (angelnorth) was trying to relay in her clues. Something about Winston Churchill's darling (Clementine), a belly button and on and on ...

Joanne is such an awesome, crafty person, I just couldn't wrap my brain around the fact that it could be something as simple as the color ORANGE!! Yep, that's it ... use the color orange on your card, project, ATC, whatever ... due to the fact that she feels that this color is sometimes neglected ... how funny is that!!! What a great time we had tossing clues back and forth to each other until finally this a.m. we found out for sure what the challenge was!!

I wasn't sure how well my "scene" was going to turn out so I made it first then built the rest of the card around it!

Recipe for this card:

Stamps: Crafty Secrets (Halloween Fun), SU (Home is Where the Haunt Is), SU (crosshatch)

Paper: Pumpkin Pie, Whisper White

Ink: Versafine Black, Elegant Eggplant, YoYoYellow, Pumpkin Pie, Green Galore, Creamy Carmel, Blue Bayou, Soft Sky, Old Olive

Accessories: Clear embossing powder, Darice adhesive ribbon, Swivel craft knife, Creative Memories black marker for edging, Eclipse masking, pop-dots

Stampin' D'Amour Challenge #47

I couldn't wait to play along with this weeks challenge over at Stampin' D'Amour! (I am so glad a friend introduced me to this site ... it's vintage oriented and I LOVE IT!! ) The challenge was to make something (i.e. card, ATC, inchie, twinchie, altered item, etc) with Christmas as the theme.

W-E-L-L, I just received my Crafty Secrets Vintage Christmas set (which I've been druelling over for months) in the mail Saturday and couldn't wait to ink them up. Which is odd, because everytime I'd see a Christmas card on SCS or different blogs, I thought uugh ... I'm just not ready to do Christmas cards! W-E-L-L, looks like I am now!!!

I've also loaded this card on my gallery over on Splitcoaststampers ... you can see the details there! Thanks for stopping by today ... hope you can come back often!!

SCS Featured Stamper

This is my card for today's Featured Stamper #80 over at Splitcoaststampers. Today's honoree is Jessica (SCS name: Knightrone). What a talented lady Jessica is, you can check out her gallery here. And, she always leaves the sweetest comments on everyoneelse's cards.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek at my blog. I promise, as time goes by I will get better at this blogging thing.

But in the meantime, if you want to see what my daughter & her family are doing, check out her new blog Cara's Country. They have a variety of fun things going on this summer!

Family Reunion Goodies

I just to share this with anyone who might stop by my blog today! I have our Family Reunion this weekend (it's actually ALL weekend long) and decided to make a jar of Pickled Beets & Eggs to take along. My dear husband was sweet enough to peel all the eggs for me and they were giving him a hard time ... you know those times when they just won't peel smoothly ... you have to pick off every little piece of shell. Good thing he was doing it, I'm afraid we would have ended up with a jar of Pickled Beet and Egg Salad if I had been doing it.

Anyways, while he was peeling away, I was down in the craftroom being creative and here's what I came up with. The border, chickens and egg are all from Crafty Secrets, the "kitchen classics" and "little chef" sets and I colored in the border using prisma pencils.

When my husband saw me come back into the kitchen with this jar band ... he said "really cute" and just shook his head. What do you think that meant??

There'll be Halloween Cards this year!!!

Speaking of Crafty Secrets new stamp sets, here is a card I made today using their Halloween Fun set. There are soooooo many pieces to this set that your card making/Halloween project ideas are ENDLESS!!

I am going to be an enabler once again and show you my card and the set! Can't help myself, I just love this Crafty Secrets stuff!!!

Just wait, I got notice today that my "Glamor Girl" and "Vintage Christmas" sets are on their way!!! Yippee!!! Thanks for coming and taking a peek at my blog! You have made my day!!!

New Crafty Secrets Release

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Here is a new stamp set just released by Crafty Secrets called Glamor Girls. Isn't this cool ??

Of course, I've already placed my order for this set and a few other goodies. You know how much I love "vintage" and I can't wait to get my hands on this one and start playing! What am I going to do with all these vintage cards I've been making lately ... I don't know! So, if you have any suggestions ... please let me know!! In the meantime, I'm going to enjoy myself and make some more!

Here is my first card made with this awesome set! I can't believe how MANY DIFFERENT stamps there are on this set ... is this fun or what!!!

An OLYMPIC sized challenge!

Sarah (stampntxn) over on the Stampin' D'Amour blog has challenged us to make a card or ATC with either of the following themes: China or Your favorite Olympic sport. Since I don't have much stash in the "sports" line, I chose to go with CHINA as my theme.

Being "obsessed" as I am, I was thinking about what to do for the challenge half the night! Since it was on my mind, and I had an idea forming, I just had to get up and put it together. The bg paper is from the DCWV (Far East) stack pack and worked perfectly. The twigs & bird image is by Stampendous and to me it has an Asian flare so thought it would work nicely with the dp. The glossy black frame is actually the negative which was cut using my rectangular Nestabilities. The positive portion of this was used on another project. (Can't waste those scraps.) The gems are Hero Arts, the ribbon is from Michaels and the sentiment is actually a Christmas sentiment by Stampendous.

The fan was an after-thought! As I was photographing, I thought it needed a little something "more" ... this scrap piece of red vellum which was already punched, using Martha Stewart's doily lace border punch, was laying on my work table and was just what I needed to create a fan.

Inspiration is Everywhere!!

Today my husband, (who in case you don't already know, is going through Chemo Therapy for Hodgkins Lymphoma) has to go through several tests/scans this week to see how things are progressing. So, as you can imagine, I spent some time sitting and walking around the hospital today. While traveling down one hallway there was some artwork that really caught my eye and I instantly wished I had my camera so I wouldn't forget the layout. Being inspired by this artwork ... and having no camera with me (No, no camera phone either)... I immediately upon arriving back home, sat down and tried my hand at duplicating the inspirational piece.

The main image panel is what I was going for and of course, it's not even close to what I picture in my mind but it's close and I'll try again later to try and get the technique they used more closely. It still made for a nice card and I'm happy with it!! It's amazing where you'll find inspiration and I seem to find it everywhere these days ... yes, I would say I'm on the verge of addiction ... okay, maybe I'm already there ... but whose counting!!!! Thanks for stopping by and taking a peek!!

School Days Bookmarker

This is my first time participating in the challenges over on the Stampin' D'Amour blog. This is for Weekly Challenge #45, School Days (with a RAK). I love what these ladies do with vintage style and have been wanting to get involved and decided today was the day.

I hope I'm not too late ... today's the last day for entries into this challenge. We are to use the following: 1) school theme, 2) at least 1 stamp and 3) at least 1 embellishment. I chose to do a tag and used an image from the Crafty Secrets Childhood images & journal notes booklet. I then stamped the watch (Rubber Stampede) on the bottom along with some clear sticker letters. The ribbons are both from Stampin' Up and I inked around the edges with Ranger (vintage photo) distress ink to give it a more aged look to coordinate with the image.

The little girl next door (Olivia) is going to Kindergarden this year and I think she would like to have this as a book marker. She can either use it at school or at home. She has several books that she, her sister (Emily) and their Mom & Dad read every night at bed time.

Holiday Owl

Here is another stamp set I purchased at Toyrifix recently. It is also by Inkadinkado and it's their new Christmas images. I found this owl to be very intriguing so I used it to make a card for today's Limited Supplies challenge over on the Our Creative Corner blog. The challenge was to use NO designer paper and a maximum of FOUR layers.

After stamping and embossing the image, I used a small sponge pod and in a swirling motion, applied Soft Sky ink for the background. So as not to have too many layers, I used my CM black marker and edged the image to give it a "layer look" on the white matting. The background panels of Soft Sky were pierced and a line drawn through to give it a "stitched" affect. Added a few Prima flowers and there you have it! OOooopps ... wait a minute! Anyone who knows me, know I don't like "empty" space ... so added a little swirl using white craft ink in the corners and THEN it was complete!!

Times a Flyin'

While recently visiting one of my favorite little stamping spots (Toyrifix) in Smithville, Ohio, my friend Tammy was sending in an order for Inkadinkado and asked if there was anything I wanted. (Did she really think I would say NO???) So, of course after leafing through the catalog I found a few sets that I just "couldn't live without!" The one set I purchased is called HALLOWEEN TRAILS and is an awesome set. I so liked the sample card they showed in the catty that Tammy was kind enough to make me a copy and from that, I made this card! Looks like I'll be sending out Halloween cards this year!!!

Recipe for card:

Stamps: Inkadinkado (Halloween Trails) (bats), Vap! Scrap (sentiment)

Paper: Basic Black, Glossy Black, So Saffron, K&Co. Ancestry designer paper

Ink: Versafine Black, Really Rust

Accessories: Clear embossing powder, Creative Memories black marker, SU photo corner punch, Michael's black grosgrain ribbon, Creative Memories oval cutting system, Pop Dots, Colorbok metal dots

Guest Designer for Tamara

I am so excited!

Tamara over at the Sketches by {tamara} blog has asked me to be Guest Designer this week. I've been doing her sketches for several months now and each Saturday they honor one of the participants! I know it's not a call to be on a Design Team, (I'm currently working on that one too), but at least I know there are folks out there that appreciate my work and I am honored! Here is the card I made for the Guest Designer posting. This is a pretty basic sketch, but I sometimes need to come back to a more basic design and I really like how this came out.

Meet my Petunias!

Let me introduce you to my front porch petunias! There are only "3" plants planted in my big pots and will a lot of TLC, they have bloomed beautifully this year!!! The bigger the pot ... the bigger the flowers.

I have received many comments on how pretty they look ... and even more questions as to "how did you do that". The secret is really to be sure to keep them watered, feed them every couple of weeks (I use "Peter's" fertilizer that mixes with water) and to keep them "dead headed". The more you dead head, the more they bloom.

Most years I do ALL purple flowers around the house but this year, I was feeling very patriotic (with the war going on so long I guess and loosing so many of our boys/girls) that I decided to do the red/white/blue (or in a couple cases, pink/purple/white).