focus on the sun

I love how my friends throw out a challenge to play along in.   I'm always up for a great challenge!

I've had some Paper Smooches goodies that needed some love...Check out those Rain boots!  I paper pieced them with American Crafts Hip Hip Hooray.  They are nestled on the Paper Smooches Scallop Frame that I made into a tag.  The sentiment is from the Paper Smooches Spreading Sunshine stamp set.  Don't be shocked, I didn't use my Zig Clean Color Markers this time...I used my Kuretake Gansai Tambi!

The challenge?  Tag you're it!

So, I don't have an umbrella die (on my Wish List) so I used the Rain Boots!  I pulled the green, yellow and blue colors out to use on my card.

Make sure you check out Kimberly's awesome card HERE.

Paper Smooches Wise Dies, Rain Boot

Paper Smooches Clear Stamps, Spreading Sunshine

Memory Box Dies, Open Studio - Stitched Circle Layers

Bazzill Card Shoppe Cardstock, Marshmallow, 25 pk

Kuretake Gansai Tambi, 36 Color Set

bring on the merry!

...and I'm back with another holiday card.

cardstock:  pti white/black, bazzill neon  stamps:  reverse confetti/bring on the merry  ink:  zing white, wplus9 white  other:  paper smooches poinsettia die, mme washi, yns gold nugget gum drop 

So, I didn't craft at all yesterday {gasp!}.  I played with Katie, we went to a pretty fun crafty garage sale.  By the time I made it back home, I literally ate lunch and napped...whew, garage sales take a lot out of a gal {wink!}.  

So, today is dedicated to all things crafty and I'm bloggin' live.

I still adore the chalkboard technique!  That Paper Smooches Poinsettia die has been in my stash for a long time and this is the first time I used it.  Isn't it fun in the Bazzill neon pink?  The center of the poinsettia is a Your Next Stamp Gold Nugget Gum Drop that I colored with my black copic:)

I'm failing miserably in the postal friendly holiday cards...sigh.

I was inspired by

Freshly Made Sketches

Merry Monday

and yes,

Jingle Belles

remember that the JB gals are donating $4 to the Susan G Komen Foundation for each new Pink Christmas card that links up to their current challenge...come on designers, let's flood the Paper Crafting community with PINK!

be you{tiful}

Evidently I'm quite smitten with neon these days.

cardstock:  pti white/bazzill neon  stamps:  neat & tangled/on the edge, stampin' up flower patch  ink:  radiant neons other: stampin' up flower fair dies, reverse confetti tag me too confetti cut, freckled fawn enamel dots

I had so much combining Neat & Tangled On the Edge with Stampin' Up Flower Patch!

I gotta tell you, it's been awhile since I've fallen for Stampin' Up but I recently hostessed a Stampin' Up Stamp Camp and had so much fun.  The new catty is chock full of fun.

I was inspired by the teaming up of challenges:

Case this sketch

and..

Tag You're...It!

Thanks so much for stoppin' by!

Avocado Arts: Winter Fun

Hello!

Ready for some

Winter Fun

Now how CUTE is the newest Avocado Arts release?!

I'm up on the Avocado Arts blog but wanted to share one of my clean & crisp cards here:

I love that sweet tree...this is a totally quick card, just used white ink, no heat embossing!

I tend to gravitate towards winter cards than Christmas cards...and love the use of non-traditional colors!

Have a super day!

Paper Made Bakery: Sweet Life Release Day & Blog Hop!

Hello and Welcome to the Paper Made Bakery's Sweet Life October Release Day and Blog Hop!

You should have arrived here from the fabulous Jen Cuthbertson's blog

I'm Crafty

If you get lost along the way, just pop back to the Paper Made Bakery blog for the hop listing!

Check out how SWEET the October Fresh Baked Kit is!!

Huge announcement...do you see that sweet

Fresh Squeezed Stamps set?

It's a brand new company!

How fun are those images...teamed up with the Bazzill Avalon collection...it spells

Sweet & Fresh!

Tags...I love tags.

Add a ruffle...some zig zags and BAM!

Remember, there is a prize for a random hopper...check out the Rafflecopter!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Now hippety hop over to the amazing Alicia Thelin's

scrappybetties

Love Birds..

Hey Peeps!

Welcome to Jacksonbelle's Tuesday Challenge!

This week we are having a color challenge:

White, Brown & Blue

SCS keyword: JBE095

I used FTL80

Here you go...

Whaddya think? I used Bazzill Swiss dot as my base and Hambly "The Birdcages" ...the ric rac is velvet...I'm patting myself on the back for actually slicing through the Hambly goodness...LOVE that stuff but trying to 'use what I have'...

I wanted to let you know that new Basic Grey is available as a pre-order over at Jacksonbelle...

Green at Heart

kioshi

Seriously, who doesn't love Basic Grey?

On sale at Jacksonbelle all Imaginisce, Pink Paislee, Stampavie (Not the new pre order) and Jenni Bowlin are 30% off. Code JBEEMAIL will get anyone 10% off their entire order!! Soooo...whaddya waitin' for....get shoppin'!!!

P.S. I just found out that the Moxie Fab'alicious Cath picked my lemonade card for last week's Tuesday Trigger!!! Woot Woot!!! Thanks Regina of The Cutting Cafe for the inspiration for my card!!

my jillibean friend...

Happy Monday...back to the saltmines for me today...I need a vacation from my vacation:) The weather in Washington has been absolutely fantabulous...such a nice transition from my Cali/Mexi weather of last week.

I haven't played with the CPS sketches in awhile so I decided to join in the fun this week!

CPS 155

I recently picked up some more sweet Jillibean papers and was going to use the fabbie Talk Soup, but decided to hoard that owlie goodness for a smidge longer...LOL. Here's some Minestrone for ya:)

Did you notice the pearls on the butterfly? The 'friend' is an SU rub on...

I've been a lucky duck and have received some super fabbie RAKs:

From the super nice Winter:

Check out this pretty one from Evelin:

Laurel rocks..


Yvonne sent me a load of goodies!

Ivy...owl, cupcake, tags and flair...woot woot.

I'm sooo thankful to my bloggie friends...I'll post a couple more RAKs tomorrow:)

Thanks for stoppin' by...was trying to catch up on my Google Reader...I definitely have a love/hate relationship with it...I literally spent HOURS trying to catch up and then figured out that Google reader wasn't marking all the posts that I HAD read as read...ugh. Anyways, I'm starting fresh and new and will be commenting away this week:)

hey cupcake!

Happy Sunday Peeps!

Today is 365 Cards Super Sketchy Sunday!

Check out today's sketch...it's calling my name:)

Okay, I seem to be a repeating myself again....another skinnified card....I wanted to use Courtney's Arygle stamp from her Key to My Heart set on my card today and based the size of card with that image:)

The card base is bazzill swiss dot...all the other paper is BG Nook & Pantry....love that stuff! Hmm...you can't see it very well, but I used the A Muse 'hey cupcake' sentiment on the red strip and topped it all off with white poms!

Hope you'll join in on the fun!

Cheep Tweet!

Hello and welcome to the 365 Cards Thursday Challenge!

Ready for it?!

Rhyme Time

Your sentiment must rhyme

Okay, I used my Schlosser Designs, Have a Tweet Day, stamp set:

I stamped the 2 part bird onto cardstock to make a template which I then traced onto Amy Butler paper. I was super proud of myself that I made the sentiment rhyme...now what? I had no idea how to incorporate cheep tweet into the overall design of my card...LOL. I should have just hand wrote 'sweet' in front of tweet but don't like my handwriting enough to do that...

So I decided to fuss with the interior of my card...get it, cheep tweet..the coffee/tea is on me...that makes it cheep...or cheap:) LOL...I decided to enter this into the MFW Start to Finish Challenge!

Can't wait to see what you all come up with!!!

P.S. Thank you for all your kind words about my sweetie pie boy:)

ribbon rocks...

Hello!!!

Welcome to Jacksonbelle's Tuesday Challenge!

Rollin' in Ribbon

Use ribbon in a fun way!!!

I love the look of a ribbon medallion...

My patterned paper and die cuts are from the MME Love Me Do kit...okay, so this might already be the 2nd time I've used that set this week...what can I say...I LOVE it! LOL

I just hand stitched one side of the ribbon...pulled the end and voila! Super easy smeasy and oh-so-fun!

I hope that you'll join us....you'll definitely want to check out everyone else on the Jacksonbelle team...you'll be chock full of inspiration!

Lynda Benden ~ Stamp Act

Lindsey Botkin ~ Embellished

Tobi Crawford ~ Tobi’s Place

Jill Dunn ~ Ink Genious

Heather Lee-Reppen ~ The Best in Life

Dawn Lusk ~ Dawn a New Day

Jimmi Mayo ~ Stamping & Shopping

Michelle Philippi ~ Inside My Own Private Idaho

Carly Robertson ~ Paper in Bloom

Stephanie Severin ~ Ingenious Inkling

Shemaine Smith ~ Scraptastic

Pam Varnell ~ The Stamping Addict

tea for two...

I haven't had the opportunity to play over at CPS for a couple weeks. I was actually pleased to see the clean & simple sketch that they have up for CPS141.

It seemed to work perfectly for my project..

I have a TON of nugget tins...a TON...

I'm trying to come up with some clever ways to alter them...

Oh man, I do have to thank Savitri again for her fabbie bow tut...Isn't the Winter Wishes image just beautiful...it was $1...can you believe it? It is the Studio G line..I found mine at Paper Zone. The white swiss dot paper is Bazzill, the kraft is Speckletone.

Aha....now do you understand my title for today? I filled the tin with Trader Joe's Pomegranate White Tea Bags...I put a divider card in there to keep the tea bags nice & tidy:) It is actually a lovely surprise to open up the tin, the tea is wonderfully fragrant...mmm....tea for two.

Thanks for stoppin' by...

Wanna meet the new Boyfriend?

Gotcha!

Nah, no new Boyfriend...just new Cosmo Cricket Boyfriend papers!

I'll never give up the fabulous ♥d♥...he seriously rocks my world

I picked up a bunch of new stuff {some new, some just new to me} from the fabbie Tami who was doing some downsizing. Check it out sista...I've already cut into the pad of Cosmo paper!!!!

I used FTL#59 as my sketch. My base is Bazzill swiss dot...love that stuff. All the patterned paper is from the new Boyfriend line {along with the rub on}. The twill is from SU.

Just a nice clean & crisp card...perfect for a dude dontcha think?

arigato

Good Thursday Morning!!!!

Today is my day over at 365 Cards and Pam's Challenge is:

DIY-Computer Generated

Make it the sentiment, the background, or a single image - as long as you make it computer generated.

One would think that with all the time {hours and hours} that I spend on the computer that I would be a smidge techie....nope. I leave all that to 'd'. Here's the thing, I work on one of those cute netbooks, actually just got it earlier this year. My free MS Word has expired so I was trying to figure out how I was going to tackle this challenge. I actually ended up just printing out the sentiment via the "notepad" feature...

Okay, you were waiting for it right? In my true form the top card with the pom poms was my tweaked version of this card:

What I typically do is finish a card...run downstairs to the old photo studio {bahaha..in my bedroom} and then upload the card onto my computer...then into my blog. I review it and then make changes if I want to. I'm all for clean and crisp but the sweet Hero Arts Japanese Doll seemed to be positioned too high on my square Fabriano. That's why I added the smidge of black pom pom's {I'm sure that you've noticed that I can't get enough of the stuff...}...it was a good way to anchor the paper pieced {with BG Urban Prairie} image. I added the kaiser flower shaped bling to her mini banner.

This card has already gone postal to my cousin. She is teaching my kidlets Japanese this summer. I know why my kids are so motivated to learn...they want to know what my Mom & I are talking about when we starting flinging out Japanese words...LOL. BTW, my cousin is crafty too!!!! Check out her fabbie etsy shop:

JapaneseHandmadeEtc

She still has some of her Basic Grey Urban Couture business card holders...they rock! They make a great gift for a crafty peep.

Okay, show me what you got...