Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Close To My Heart Challenge

Please click here for my Tuesday Morning Sketches posting and here for my Blog Candy.

Late one night I was blog hopping and came across a challenge blog for one of my favorite stamps company, Close to My Heart. The blog's name is {Heart} to {Heart} Challenges. I immediately grabbed their blinkie and I just have to participate in their challenges. I have a lot of CTMH stamps that hardly get used, not because I don't want to, simply because of time. I look forward to their challenges to really ink up my stamps.

Their challenge this week is a color challenge. Creme brulee is one of my favorite colors and desserts!! As I thought about what I wanted to put together I cleaned my craft room and organized all my stamps, that sadly were laying all over the floor. I pulled out Follow Your Heart which came in the Veranda Workshop on the Go Kit. I pulled out the kit to check out the colors - no such luck, mostly blues. Then I pulled all of my kits and papers and found 1 sheet of vineyard berry in a summer paper pack. I was set!!

In deciding on how to arrange I remember I saw this amazing card by Diane Gilbert. I just had to CASE her card. What's interesting is that I started with my image, then gleaned inspiration from the Veranda kit and Diane. It's really a combination of three ideas. I love how this card came out.

I used vineyard berry as the base of the card. Creme brulee is the designer paper along with the sponged edges and sentiment. Garden green for the stem. For the flower I used blush and then did the rock 'n roll technique with vineyard berry on the edges.

Thanks for stopping by and I look forward to hearing your opinion.

Have an awesome day!

Christmas in July and Tuesday Morning Sketches

Good Morning Bloggers,

Well it's going to be 95 degrees in Denver today and Tuesday Morning Sketches is celebrating Christmas with DRS Designs. This is our final week and once again you can select any of the wonderful sketches from this past year. For my design I chose sketch #12.

I used the DRS Design stamp set Ornaments Galore. I love love looking at Christmas balls. I have to say that when Michael's puts out all the ornaments I just love going over and gazing. My favorite are the red, clear, and iridescent ones. I just love how all of them just shimmer.

I hope you enjoy my card. I have to say it was incredibly difficult for me. I am not in the holiday spirit!! I am trying to gear myself up to going back to school - ugh! I'm sure all you mother's out there are so looking forward for the next few weeks to go by quickly. My last day of freedom is August 5th and the training and the meetings and the registration and the classroom set up begins. My students will arrive on August 19th with bright shinning faces wanting to know, "How many days 'till Christmas break?" It never fails, one student will always ask that question on the first day of school!

Thanks for joining us in our month long celebration I have absolutely loved looking at all of your designs. If your a TMS follower, I hope you'll become my follower and enter yourself for my blog candy which I'll be drawing for on August 1st.

Have a fabulous day!

Supplies:
Stamps: DRS Designs - Ornaments Galore; Close To My Heart - Card Commentary
Designer Paper - Stampin' Up (no longer available)
Card Stock - The Paper Comany (Scarlet Cover)
Brads - Recollections (Silver Circles)

Monday, July 26, 2010

Cherries Anyone!

Good Evening Fellow Crafters,

This is just a quick post tonight. I made this card a few weeks back and then went up to my friend Holly's home. She sat down with me and allowed me to play with her Copics. I have been wanting to learn how to use them for so very long now. She showed me how to color these delicious cherries. I think they're just great.

Of course now that I am home...have my own set of 8 Copics (just for this project), can I repeat what I did in her presence - NO!! I have made 18 of these cards and only 2 of them have the actual cherry image on them. My CTHM Consultant, Debi Squires is going to take them to her craft fair and see if she can sell them for me. I am going to bundle them in groups of 3. We'll see what happens.

Well I hope you enjoy as well!! I'll see you back here tomorrow for our final week of Tuesday Morning Sketches celebrations.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Digital Scrapbooking!!

Hello Bloggers,

For the past two weeks I have been taking a digital scrapbooking class over at Jessica Sprague.com. When I signed up for the online class I thought I was going to be learning some of the ins and outs of Elements. I didn't know I was going to be producing scrapbook pages. It's actually really cool. It's probably not something I would do for a scrapbook for myself, but what a wonderful scrapbook item that I can put together for my students. Actually, I can get my students involved and use this as reward...them using the computer. They'd love it!!


Well this is the first class project. It took me forever to put this together because I don't have any real recent photos of myself that were taken in "portrait" format. I think that's one of the draw backs to having a pre-made scrapbook page, whether real or digital, the format of your photos. This is the "Then and Now" layout so I scanned in my graduation photo and one of the school photos I took (it's one of my favorites). I hope you like the layout.

Thanks for stopping by. Have an awesome evening.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Tuesday Morning Sketches Celebration

It's amazing how time flies. It is week three of our month long celebration at Tuesday Morning Sketches. This week our sponsor is Lindsay's Stamp Stuff and the theme is what reminds you of summer, you still can choose one of your favorite sketches over the year. The sketch I chose was #7 which was featured in week two.

The digi set that I selected is called Fancy Flowers. I just loved all the flowers in the set. So when we talk about what reminds me of summer of course it's - flowers. I am not a gardener, but I absolutley love to look at flowers.

I made this card pulling in what I also love about summer - the sunsets. I used dark blue and terra cotta. I think that some of the sunsets we have are just amazing. How could I leave out the sun - I just love this DP from DCWV called Cafe Mediterranean. Only when I cut the paper I thought I cut my image down enough to show the butterfly -- I didn't. I cut out one of the butterflies to add as an emblishement.

I hope you like this card. I love it!! I was totally amazed by my coloring abilities with this image. I used my stamp pads and a watercolor pen. I really took my time - the image I used was supposed to be my practice one, but I loved it and just went with it.

Well, thanks for stopping by and I can't wait to see your creations. I can't wait to hear your opinion.

Have an awesome day!!

Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Seaside Serenity

Hello Everyone,

I have another post, wow two in one week!! I may just have another tomorrow, but my trainer and I are arguing about the amount of "non-movement" time I am having in a day. What does he know??

I am so excited with my new card. I recently purchased a set from There She Goes called By The Sea. As with all of Jessica's stamps, I just love it! I was having a dream the other night about sitting on the beach and just watching the ocean. I tell you I think I was born in the wrong state, I just love the ocean and Colorado would be the perfect state if we had one. My dream inspired this card.


I hope you like my card as much as I do. Enjoy your day and thanks for stopping by.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

The Celebration Continues...

Hello All!

It's another Tuesday Morning Sketches day. This week's sponsor is former original design team member Joni from Inktegrity. You're still free to select any sketch you would like, but this time you'll need to use one of Joni's digi designs in your submission. I found this amazing little train set (I love trains) and I just adore how this card came out. I selected sketch #36 which was featured on April 27th (week 43).

I have been tutoring one of my students this summer. He's the sweetest little guy, but he's what the education world calls twice exceptional. He is brillant, but yet has a learning disability and to top it all off his mother speaks Bosnian and his father Arabic. So this little guy is learning 3 languages. We have been working hard on his reading and understanding the sounds letters make to form words. He is struggling, but making a lot of progress. I'm really proud of his effort. Well this little man loves trains and knows more about trains than most conductors know, so how could I not give him this card of encouragement.

Thanks for stopping by and I can't wait to hear your comments. Don't forget about my blog candy! (scroll down) - sometime today I'll take a new photo and post it on the side of my blog.

I have really enjoyed seeing all your creations! Can't wait to see what you make this week.

Monday, July 12, 2010

My First Blog Award

I woke up to a great surprise this morning. Lisa from Crop & Create sent me a wonderful blog award. I found Lisa's site by accident one day. She posted these absolutely wonderful "school" themed post cards. I fell in love with them and wanted to CASE them, but have I found the time yet - NO. I have made some time over my short break to make some to send to my new students. I better get busy, since school starts in 6 weeks.

Thank you Lisa. Be sure to head over and check her site out - she does videos and step-by-step directions that are just awesome!!


Have an awesome day.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

One Year Blogiversary & Blog Candy

Hello Bloggers! Well it's been a year since I started this blog. I know I'm not always great at posting cards and projects on a daily basis, but I hope to get better at that. I began my blog to show off my cards for Tuesday Morning Sketches...I was going back through and realized I didn't post all my cards for the entire year - what's up with that?

Well I am felling slightly generous...I want to offer some of my favorites. I had to think about that. I have two favorite stamp companies: There She Goes and Close to My Heart. So I have put together hopefully some good blog candy. I did have trouble photographing this, so forgive the photos.

In the Close to My Heart category I have 4 stamp sets, 3-12x12 scrapbook kits, 2-9x9 kids scrapbook kits, and 1-6x6 scrapbook kits, some stickers, rub ons, and labels (These are all photographed - I didn't have a clue how to put these together as one photo??).


In the There She Goes category: I will be offering two of my favorite stamp sets (and let me tell you this was impossible to determine). I have two stamp sets: 1 mini-Treemendous and the other What's Up Buttercup.

I will randomly pull a winner on August 1st. With all contest come rules. I am doing this to celebrate along with Melissa at Tuesday Morning Sketches and the celebration goes on all month, so too will my blog candy. In order to qualify, you need to be a public follower of my blog and Tuesday Morning Sketches, in addition post a comment on my blog under this posting. There's no need to post this on your blog, but feel free. That's all!!

Well, thanks for stopping by and I hope to have a card to share with you tomorrow.

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Tuesday Morning Celebrations

It's amazing how time flies!! It's been a year since my little sister, Melissa, began Tuesday Morning Sketches. What's even more amazing is that I haven't missed a single week. Trust me that's a miracle. I am so happy for her and for all her followers. She will be having a month full of festivities and great sponsors. I hope that you will all join us.

As part of the festivities, she will not be posting new sketches...instead you'll get to pick your favorite sketch over the month of July. I selected my top 4, but I may change my mind because I love her sketches. Here is my choice for today.

This is sketch #6 which was featured on August 11, 2009. I used a new set from Close To My Heart called Felicity. I just love this stamp set and the paper that comes with it is just amazing. So amazing that I didn't use a single sheet for this project...but I will use it eventually, once I get over oogling it!

Here is my card...

I just love birds and this one is just lovely. The set also comes with a really cool alphabet and some florals. I even took the time to decorate the inside of this card too.







Since this is Melissa's one year anniversary...it's also my one year blogiversary. I set up my blog when Melissa opened Tuesday Morning Sketches. That means I'm joining her celebration with some blog candy of my own.

With TMS doing "your favorites" I am giving away some of my favorites. You'll have to come back tomorrow to see photos and a chance to win.

I look forward to seeing your creations this whole month.

Thanks for stopping by. Have an awesome day!

Saturday, July 3, 2010

It's a Birthday Card

One evening I was blog surfing and my first stop is usually There She Goes and then onto owner Jessica's blog. Well this night I pulled up her blog and saw this absolutely amazing card. I wanted this card, but it was a card for her father-in-law. I knew someday I wanted to CASE the card (check it out here) and that day finally came!! Now of course my card is nowhere near as impressive as hers, but I followed her pattern and layout. I wish that I could get the rich, deep colors that she captured. I have been practicing, but I'm still not there. I did not layer the card to the extent that she did, I didn't have time. I didn't emboss, because I am not sure exactly what was embossed. Plus I did not do the sewing - I just purchased a sewing machine, but won't be taking a class until mid July.

This card was made for a one year old. I hadn't seen this little guy since he was born. So basically the card was more for his mother than him - he could care less! I do know that she is a beginner scrapbooker and the card will have a place in his baby book and it won't go to the trash. I think my card came out darling. I like it!

Well I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend. Thanks for stopping by.