Yep, another sketch!

Hey there, y'all!

There's a new sketch challenge blog out there called Retro Sketches, brought to you by some of the same talented ladies from the ColourQ challenge blog. They're cardmakers, but I was inspired to use their first sketch in a slightly different way....

...It's probably no surprise that this magically turned into a layout :). I've really been on a scrapping kick lately! So, here you go:

Aside from the change in scale, the only real way I changed the sketch is by replacing the focal point with a series of three little photos (in this case, photos of Simon snacking on some cinnamon roll crumbs -- sneaky cat!). Technically, there's also one additional layer:

...tulle! It's a little easier to see here, but feel free to enlarge the photo. The tulle adds really subtle texture, and I have to remember to use it more often! This is another layout using my first Studio Calico kit, along with a few bits and bobs from the ol' stash.

You have until the end of the day to play along with this challenge -- it really does make for some cute cards, too, as you can see over on the Retro Sketches blog. Have fun!

Challenges all around

Howdy there -- hope you're having a lovely Sunday, wherever you may be.

February marks the start of a new year for the design team over at Scrappy Chic (you can see us all here...or in an upcoming blog post right here, if you're patient). One of the lines in my kit this month was Tiny Woods from KaiserCraft (yes, that's really the name. yes, I think it's funny. sometimes I have a seventh-grade sense of humor.)

This line has really lovely colors, but they're challenging -- fall-ish (makes more sense in their home country of Australia than here, I suppose), and it's borderline theme-y, design-wise. So, I challenged myself to make at least two layouts using it, and I turned to a couple of online challenges to get it all done. Whoa. Challenging, indeed.

Here's the first take:

Analog memories, indeed. Andrew has a lot of fond memories of this old tape recorder -- high technology back in the day! I thought the vaguely 70s colors of the paper were perfect for this particular topic.

I used Studio Calico's Sunday sketch from last week to help me out:

By making the shift from 12x12 to 8.5x11, I had to squish some elements, bumping the journalling below the title instead of next to it. Otherwise, I was (surprisingly) faithful to the original.

other supplies: ranger tag, pebbles alphas, cosmo cricket tiny type word, twine, bazzill cs, amy tangerine washi tape

The tag with my title on it is misted very lightly with Mister Huey's Clover, and I typed up my journalling on the B-side leftovers of my main paper. The buttons are chipboard from Bazzil, and I misted the heck out of those with the same Clover color. Did you know that Scrappy Chic will be carrying Mister Huey's any day now? That makes me very happy.

While I was at it, I tackled the challenge from The Creative Type to scrap your celebrity crush. How fun is that? The samples on their blog are great, too. I had no trouble at all choosing my crush -- the hardest part was choosing a photo from the interwebs. Here's what I came up with:

other supplies: authentique alphas, studio calico stickers, signo pen, kaisercraft really tiny alphas, doodlebug flock (under the stickles, dang it)

Oh, Paul Rudd, how is it that such a funny dude can smolder at the camera that way? Sigh. Anyway, you can see I used the same paper as above, plus a subtle woodgrain pattern. I'm less than pleased with my splatters -- the blue were supposed to be flocked, but the flock didn't stick well enough, so I had to do a second coat with Stickles. And then, when I was setting the thing up for photographing (almost 24 hours later, by the way), I smeared the white splatters (dang you, OA Sprinklers!). So, whatever. I still like the end result, warts and all. I'll just skip the close-up, ok?

In the end, my challenge-based layouts made the challenging paper line less of a challenge. Dig? Dig.

Feel free to go watch a Paul Rudd movie now. Enjoy!

CFC29 = Super-Quick Holiday Cards!

Well hello there! I took a little blogging break for Thanksgiving (and the shopping, leftover-eating, and gutter-cleaning that followed), but today I'm back with a quick batch of holiday cards that just happen to use this week's CAS-ual Fridays sketch:

Clean and Simple, indeed. I grabbed some of my recent holiday acquisitions, as well as some stamps from the stash, and whipped up four cards in about twenty minutes!

When I'm pressed for time (or mojo), I don't fuss with the sketch -- I run with it! Here, the upper two cards use paper from the Simple Stories Christmas line (the 6x6 pad), while the bottom two use the same North Country collection from this post (but the 6x6 pad instead). All the papers came from Scrappy Chic (where else?).

Besides the top-right card, which uses a quick bit of stamping (an older SU set) and paper-piecing, I let the papers stand on their own and just stamped the sentiments (all from Papertrey Ink). It's a little hard to see, but I also pierced lines around the sentiments too.

Quick, easy -- and I can cross four more cards off the list. Hooray!

I'll see you again soon -- have a lovely day!

Christmas progress -- slowly but surely

Hi all -

Quick post today. First, a card using this week's CPS sketch:

When I'm stuck, design-wise, I love finding a sketch and just going with it. That's the case right now with me and Christmas cards -- I have plenty to make, but not a ton of inspiration (yet). So, here's what I did with the sketch:

Simple and faithful to the original. I used some Simple Stories 6x6 paper (from their 25 Days of Christmas collection) -- it's a prettier, warmer olive irl, but it's awfully grey around here, so the colors aren't the best.  The sentiment is from SU, and the two narrow panels behind it are embossed with some cheery snowflakes. Some white ink around the edges, and I can cross one card off my to-make list.

Before I go, I've added some pages to my Big Fun Christmas Project journal:

I took some of my favorite pages from the Little Golden Book I used as the cover and stitched them onto some kraft cs pages (first I folded up the bottoms and stitched them into pockets). I love how colorful the vintage images are!

That's about it for now -- back to your regularly scheduled Saturday. :)

Paper Smooches SPARKS - November edition

Hey folks -- happy Monday!

I have so many things to show you -- somehow, when I should be doing fun things like grading and cleaning, I end up making stuff instead! Such a sacrifice, I know.

Anyway, today I thought I'd kick things off with a layout that's all about the stamping -- a rarity for me, actually, even though I'm as much a stamper as a scrapper. It seems like I have a hard time putting the two together, but when I saw the current Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge image, I had a flash of...something...maybe not exactly brilliance, but a flash nonetheless.

Here's the challenge image:

Yum - Orla Kiely. Love this design! Plus, since I won some Paper Smooches stamps from Emily's blog a couple weeks ago, I was all set to get 'em inky! I was inspired by the colors and the multi-directional repetition of the image, as well as the little signature in the selvedge. Here's my layout:

Holy stamping, Batman! I repeated the camera from Perpetual Bliss over and over (and over) again, adding the lens cap (at least that's what I think it is) in lighter and darker orange, plus some hearts in navy. Some Echo Park paper scraps form the crazy mat for my photo (Dots and Stripes Metropolitan and Candy Shoppe), and I added the sentiment several times in white(ish) on the navy bits to echo the signature on the fabric.

I turned one of the cameras into a little medallion accent to highlight the theme of the page: we often forget to get photos of ourselves, but I almost always love the ones we remember to take! This particular photo was from Jazz Fest back in September.

Well, I can't say I'll always stamp THIS much on my layouts, but I'm sure encouraged to break out the rubber and ink more often when I'm scrapping.

Coming up this week: I'll be sharing my October projects for Scrappy Chic, and if I'm really ambitious, I'll have a pile o'layouts inspired by Shimelle Laine's Pretty Paper Party class. Can't wait!

Now, back to the real world. Grading, here I come! Have a lovely day.

Friends with (winning) flair!

Hi all, and happy Friday!

Be sure to head over and see what great deal Unity has for their Friday Feature -- it's always a good one. In the meantime, it's also Friends with Flair Friday, so how about a card?  Ok, then:

Aw, ain't it kinda sweet? Friends of ours just let us know that their first bundle of joy is on the way -- but it's kinda early, so they're keeping it on the DL for awhile. Still, I couldn't let the card-making opportunity slide by! This card also happens to fit right in with the Unity Kit of the Month sketch challenge for November (bonus!) -- I used stamps from April's KoM (the cutie-pie onesie, which I trimmed out and "hung" on some Twinery twine), and from February's KoM (the sentiment). Papers are from Echo Park's For the Record collection, which I still love to bits. So yummy. I die-cut and embossed my own tag, which gave me a chance to break out my ancient eyelets (bonus again!).

Before I go, I thought it was high time I posted the winner from my little giveaway -- out of a whopping four qualified and desirous entrants, here's the winner:

That'd be Lindsey! Congrats, Linds -- I'll be emailing you shortly.

Have a lovely weekend!

A Week of Challenges, day five

Howdy, folks!
I made it! I've posted for a whole five days straight. Welcome to my last day of challenge cards.

Today's challenge is a Unity three-fer! It's Friends with Flair Friday (if you head over there, you can find out what the special is today). Also, the monthly Unity challenge is to use falling leaves, while the Unity Kit of the Month sketch challenge looks like this:

I combined them and tweaked the sketch a little to come up with this:

All three stamps here come from different Kits of the Month: The leaves from September, the apples from July 2010, and the chair from March. I'm not sure that chair would fit in as well if the color scheme weren't so fall-ish, but I decided to just go forth and stamp with confidence...and I think I like it! This card is for my (other) aunt, who sent me a birthday gift card to one of my favorite (non-stamping) stores -- Trader Joe's! I mean, where else can I get wine, chocolate, cheese, AND friendly, Hawaiian-shirt-clad employees? Yum.

Well, thanks for stopping by -- and thanks to my "regulars" for putting up with me for a full five days. Who knows? You may be rewarded sometime soon...but that's for another day. ;)

I'll have a batch of layouts for you next, so hang onto your hats, and have a lovely day (and weekend)!

A Week of Challenges, day four

Welcome back!

Time for the fourth challenge of the week -- this time, one that's brand-new to me. You see, my pal Emily has recently fallen in love with Paper Smooches stamps from Kim Hughes. It came as no surprise that she was asked to be their guest designer this month, nor that she also won a spot on the Paper Smooches Sparks design team. How could I not play along? Plus, check out the inspiration challenge image:

I almost want to run over to make them myself. Yum! I just love the warm colors. My only problem? I have no Paper Smooches stamps. Dang! I do happen to have two of Kim Hughes's sets from (the late, missed) Cornish Heritage Farms, though -- so I'm in luck, because those count too! I took all the mushroom stamps (six total) from Forest Friendzy and Spring Trees and created myself a sweet little scene:

The grass was stamped twice along the bottom, then masked and topped with all those cute 'shrooms. I pulled my colors from the inspiration image, and added a masked-stamp-and-sticker sentiment (the original sentiment reads "welcome spring"), plus some puffy pink(!) clouds. A tiny bit of gingham fabric tape echoes the gingham tomatoes (my favorites).

If you're interested in the stamps I've used, try looking for them on ebay. What I'm interested in is winning some Paper Smooches goodies so I can keep playing along! If you are too, the challenge is in effect until October 19th.

Four down, one to go! Tomorrow's card is a three-challenge-er, so stay tuned! Have a lovely day.

A Week of Challenges, day three

Me again! Today's challenge card is a real challenge for me -- not so much because of the colors, which I think are lovely, but because I only have two stamps from Market Street Stamps (thanks again for those, Meg!), and they're both backgrounds! Here's the challenge image:

And here's what I came up with:

I had fun coloring in the little squares of the Pretty Perfect Grid background, and I used the Cane background as an accent. The sentiment is one of my earliest stamp acquisitions -- it's from Stampin' Up, and the date on it is 2002. I think it was from a set of mixed sentiments or something. Oy, I've been doing this for awhile! Anyway, I used a nestie for the sentiment, and the canvas impression plate from PTI for the background. I kind of like the contrast of squares and rounded edges...not that I planned it that way! Just a happy accident.

If you'd like to play along, the challenge runs through Monday the 17th, so there's plenty of time to get all colorful :). If you head over to the challenge page, be sure to check out Meg's trippy contribution -- I love it!

Well, look at me -- three down, only two to go! Yee-haw!

Have a lovely day!

A Week of Challenges, day two

Back again with another challenge card -- this time for the Play Date Cafe. Here's the inspiration image:

While this set of colors would indeed make for a cool Halloween card, I went birthday instead:

This tag is for my mom, who has a birthday coming up later this week. She always gets tags, because she like to hang them all up in one of their kitchen windows. Cute!  Another special fact about this card: it uses all stamps that she and my dad (who are we kidding -- she does the shopping in their house!) got me for my birthday a few weeks ago. She picked well!! The stamps are from a couple of the Studio Calico by Hero Arts sets that I've been drooling over at Scrappy Chic. My eyeballs see the challenge colors as lime (A.Muse studio ink), Purely Pomegranate (old SU), and Dusty Concord (Distress), paired with black and some Honeydew twine (the Twinery)

Ooh, how about a bonus tag! This one is also for my mom, who is a huge Detroit Red Wings fan (Huge, people. It's scary):

I stuck it in her mailbox as a surprise last week, when the official hockey season kicked off. The stickers are from my stash, the octopus is from Paperworks and gets pulled out once a year just for this purpose ;). The back of the tag reads "Go Wings!" Yep, she liked it.

I have a bit of bad news, too -- my dad, who might not do the shopping but instead is self-employed as an awesome all-around fixer/painter/renovator/Bill-of-all-trades, just got his work truck stolen. With all his tools and equipment inside. From the street in front of their house. And insurance won't cover the loss. Boo!! That really stinks. I'd like to help him out somehow, but I think he won't take assistance from his own child, y'know? Any tips for sneaking Home Depot gift cards into his pocket or paintbrushes into his mailbox are welcome!

Anywho, if you'd like to play along with these colors, the challenge closes at the end of the day today. Happy creating, and have a lovely day!

A Week of Challenges, day one

Hi all!

It's been awhile since I've played along with any of the fabulous challenges out there in blogland, so I decided to try to hit up a bunch of them, especially since I had a ton (a TON) of cards to make (mostly thank you cards) and very little mojo to make them with.

I think challenges are a great way to spark creativity...so away we go!

This first card is actually for a ColourQ challenge that expired, but I thought the colors were intriguing and way outside of my usual palette, so I gave it a whirl anyway:

Lavender-ish colors aren't usually my bag, but I thought this was actually really pretty! I find that when one part of a design (here, the colors) is tricky for me to work with, I compensate by relying on an oldie-but-goodie layout. Here's what I came up with:

Well, when a color is "pear pizazz," why not start with a pear? This one is from Unity's September Kit of the Month, All Seasons. I stamped it on watercolor paper and then used a water pen to blend the leaves a bit. Yes, I actually fussy-cut something! I replaced Wisteria Wonder with the now-retired Almost Amethyst and stamped my houndstooth bg, and added hits of chocolate and black in the sentiment, bling, ribbon, and mat. Layout-wise, I heavily leaned on the rule of thirds, a long-time go-to for me.

This particular card will go to my aunt, who sent me a birthday gift and has always loved purple. Score!

This is but one of a whole bunch of cards I have for you this week -- I may even {gasp!} blog daily! Wish me luck. ;)

Have a lovely day!

ETA: Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian friends! May you eat well!

got the no-bloggin' blues!

Well hey there, old pals!
I haven't blogged in, let's see here...two and a half weeks! That's just crazy.

I must say, while I have been making some things. I've also got the autumnal nesting bug -- cleaning the house, canning, baking, even (gasp!) weeding! Pair that with getting back into the swing of the school year (oh, and an adolescent kitten -- sheesh, Simon can be a pain in the cat-butt these days!), and the blog has been sadly neglected.

Anyone else with me? I've noticed some of my other regular reads have been a little quiet too....Of course, that hasn't kept me from getting behind on blog comments, too!

Anywho, how about a couple of quick cards to get back into the groove?

Here's one:

This is a quick Halloween card I made, currently on display at Scrappy Chic. I'm always drawn to fun Halloween products, which is silly since I don't really have much Halloween stuff to make or scrap. However, I couldn't resist the stuff you see here: Authentique's Halloween line (the 6x6 pad and die-cuts, specifically), and an uber-cute Hero Arts stamp set. I love that cat! Solid stamps like these are great for lazy stampers like me -- and they're already distressed-looking, making them a fine match for the paper line. There's a bit of May Arts ribbon there as well -- at about 40 cents a yard, how could I resist that one?

So, in short, I'm a sucker. But it's a cute card, no?

How about one more?

This is a dual-purpose card: it's a housewarming card for a pal of mine who moved from my town to one about an hour north of here -- sad to see them leave the 'hood, but I'm happy for her -- she used to drive almost two hours each way for work, and now she's way, way closer. Plus, we share a love of the film Amelie, so the gnome is especially appropriate.

The second purpose: it fits right in with my good stampy friend Emily's Moving Challenge -- she also just experienced a big move! In fact, I made her a card using the same house stamp from Unity -- you can see it in her post here.  The adorrrrable little gnome and sentiment are also from Unity -- I got the set at Scrappy Chic, in case you're local and want to indulge ;)

Ok, enough from me for now! I'll try to blog a bit more regularly -- there's a lot of scrappy goodness coming up soon! Have a lovely day.

Whoa! Where have I been? Where am I going?

Well, as it turns out, I've been to Chicago, saw Weird Al in concert, had tea, Cotswold-style, at Greenfield Village, hit a Tigers game, and managed to hang out with the fam at home in between. Whew! So...not much blogging, but plenty of new photos to scrap soon!

I have done a bit of scrapping, though, especially with my Scrappy Chic kit for July. What with all the new-cat/injured-cat business in our house these days, could you blame me for jumping on We R Memory Keepers' latest line, Friends Furever? Tired pun notwithstanding, it's pretty cute collection for cat AND dog lovers, and there's lots of orange, which looks good with Simon. Who has a beard! Here:

click to enlarge

A little orange goatee, to be a bit more exact. I used papers from the new line, along with some alpha stickers I've had hanging around for awhile (the green Studio Calico ones are in one of my favorite-ever fonts. Thanks, what the font, for telling me! Thanks, Meg, for telling me about what the font!!) I also used these glass (plastic, maybe?) little drop thingies. Look closer:

When you're done looking at cutie Simon, see those dots on the arrow? I think they're called dew drops? Anyway, I kinda like 'em. I was surprised at that. Other stuff here: a semi-failed attempt at misting, some paint splatters, some flocked lace stuff from ages ago. Simple little layout. Cute little cat!

That photo above was taken right after Simon came home: he weighed about 2.5 lbs and was as fuzzy as all get out! Here he is now:

5 lbs (that's double, people. Whoa!), less fuzzy, cone-free!, but still cute. I checked: beard is still in place as well.

Now, as for where I'm going: CHA!!! I'll be right back in Chicago at the trade show next week (not the Consumer SuperShow, so don't ask me to buy anything for you, silly ;) ) Chris, owner of Scrappy Chic, is very generously taking me along to shop for the store!

I'll get a front-row seat for all the new releases for the next 6 months or so. Can't wait!! My goal is to blog some finds and fun and such in the evenings, assuming I can stay awake after shopping and walking, walking, walking the show floor. If you have anything you'd especially like to see in those posts (or in the store, local folks), leave your requests in a comment, K? If you just can't wait, you can find links to a lot of what's already been sneak-peeked here. 

And in other people-going-places news, my good pal Meg has already sped through the first round of Paper Crafts Magazine's Gallery Idol competition -- her card for round two, which I'm sure will be absolutely fabulous, will go live tomorrow afternoon. If you agree that she is absolutely fabulous (and why wouldn't you?), feel free to vote for her in Round Two! You can keep up with the competition here, and with Meg via her blog here. 

Blue skies...

Who doesn't love them? And spending time with your favorite person under those blue skies? Even better! This layout features one of my favorite photos of Andrew and I, at the Jazz Fest in Detroit last fall. It was actually a really chilly, windy day, but the sky was just so blue! I scrapped (and blogged) that experience here, but today, my focus is on that sweet boy of mine:

Ok, that and these fabulous goodies from Sassafras! This layout just so happens to fit their sketch challenge for June, which you can read about here. Here's the sketch:

I stayed pretty true to the layout, just swapping the title and journalling. I also used some of my favorite patterns from the new Sunshine Broadcast line -- LOVE this line. Simultaneously subtle and colorful, if that's even possible. I also used some older Sass goodies (I have a LOT of them) as accents and such, like the flowers, journal card, even some stamps I've had forever.

The "happy" is one of the few non-Sassafras bits here -- it's actually the first time I broke out these dies from Papertrey Ink. They're a perfect title size.

Also, since all three of the papers I used happen to be from the wee bundle (that's a 6x6 pad, y'all), this layout also qualifies for this month's challenge over at Scrapbooker's Anonymous -- to use three or more 6x6 sheets on a layout. What a smart challenge! I tend to forget that I can use my 6x6 stash on more than just cards. Thanks to my scrappy pal Sue from their design team for the inspiration! If you'd like to see this layout in person, be sure to head over to Scrappy Chic, where it'll be up on the wall someday soon. 

Have a delightful day!

...with sympathy...

My husband's uncle Zareer passed away last week. He was a very kind man, and lived a good, long life with his family in India.  He traveled to the States with his wife a few times, including a special trip for our wedding, which was great!  Our wedding pictures are from the pre-digital era, otherwise I'd show you a super-cute photo of Zareer holding our friends' 6-month-old son at our rehearsal dinner -- the youngest and oldest attendees in one shot. Perhaps some scanning is in order :)

The sympathy card we send to his wife needs to be relatively flat to survive the rigors of the Indian postal system, which is far from speedy. Here's what I came up with:

I used a soft gold metallic cardstock, some die-cut leaves for (flat) flair, and a simple stamped frame and image (all but the base -- Papertrey Ink). The focal point was originally stamped on white cardstock, but that proved to be far too bright, so I grabbed some distress stain in antique linen and blotted it on to tone it down a bit and give a softly mottled look. 

Since the base is a bit smaller than a standard A2 card, it'll still fit in a regular envelope even with the leaves. I sure hope it survives the long trip!  This is also the first week I've played along with Papertrey Ink's Make it Monday challenges -- this week's challenge is to make a sympathy card. 

In other news, Saturday's roller derby bout went really well -- pretty exciting stuff, excellent skating, no injuries...and it was a lot of fun. My NSO (non-skating official) team did a great job, too!  In other other news, d'you like my new blog header?

Have a delightful day. 

Supplies: Round and Round set, Mat Stack 1 die, Turning a New Leaf dies (Papertrey Ink); Night of Navy, Tangerine Tango, and Old Olive inks, Old Olive cardstock (Stampin' Up); Distress Stain (Ranger); Gold brushed-metallic cardstock.

Chevron Chic!

Happy Saturday, y'all! It's an absolutely gorgeous day here, so I'll type fast and then go play outside :)

I've got a card for you today -- one that I've had in my head for awhile, and it just happens to fit in with something happening over at Moxie Fab World right now -- Cath's Chevron Chic Challenge!

But first, the inspiration. When I was in Atlanta last month, I visited my pal Michelle and her sweet little family. Michelle happens to have a real knack for interior design, and the nursery is no exception. Check it out:

Teeny, tiny room, but with such style. Love the curtains, love homemade mobile and the wave of butterflies on the wall (which she hand-cut from magazine pages, btw), and love seeing proof that little girl rooms do NOT have to be pink and purple! (You can see the sweet resident of this room more clearly in this post).

So, without further ado, here's the card inspired by the challenge and the room:

I stamped a stylish background using Background Basics: Chevron Stripes from PTI, then punched a whole lotta butterflies from a Gardener's Supply Company Catalog -- no hand-cutting for me, thanks! A sticker sentiment was all it took to finish it up. I think I'll have to send it off to Michelle now, don't you?

Before I go, wish me luck -- the first public scrimmage for my roller derby team is tonight! Don't get too excited -- I'm not a skater, I'm an NSO (non-skating official). But I'll be out there with my clipboard tonight, keeping score like a boss. Go Dimes! And thanks, Kasia, for your good wishes! It's nice to know another skater/stamper out there :) For the rest of you -- I'll do my darndest to get some scrap-worthy photos to share with y'all.

Now get out there and have a fabulous day!

other supplies: SU Basic Black ink; Studio Calico Label and letter stickers; Martha Stewart butterfly punches; nesties

a recipe page, plus!

Hi all!
Before I get on with today's project, I gotta say that Mega Meet was so fun! I worked in Scrappy Chic's booth pretty much all day Friday and Saturday, and had a lot of fun meeting people, running make and takes, and meeting up with my crafty pals, like Sue:

And, of course, it was super-fun working with Chris and the gang! Here I am with Chris, her fab mom Linda, and fellow dt member/scrappy pal Liz, having a yummy little snack:

Fun times were had by all :) I still have more (way more) booth projects to show you, but today I thought I'd make you hungry instead. Check it:

Unity posted a challenge for National Scrapbook Day: to make an 8x8 page using a recipe (and a kraft base.) Now, I'm pretty sure I've never scrapped an 8x8 page -- or any square page, for that matter! I'm an 8.5x11 kinda gal. However, I had a lot of fun with this one! I made a strawberry shortcake trifle for my Mom on Mother's Day, using her (family secret) recipe for the shortcake, and Martha's (probably copyrighted) recipe for pastry cream from her latest Pies and Tarts cookbook.

For the background, I stamped the sweet little strawberry from the Garden Variety co-brand set over and over and over again, and then colored each one in using watercolor pencils (I'd forgotten I had them until I heard that a pal of mine had picked some up -- thanks for the reminder, Em!) .

Let's look at some details:

You can see the background better here, along with some epoxy accents I made with my new Epiphany shape maker.

(sorry about the color in this one...) I also played with my new Sew Easy from We R (available at Scrappy Chic)...and I only missed once ;) (letters from Girls' Paperie.)

Here, I added a label from Kitchen Logic behind a three-strand twine bow -- did a little watercoloring around the edge just for fun. (Twine from the Twinery, papers from October Afternoon and PTI, pins from my stash).

Whew! Lots of pics for one post, eh? Anyway, I hope you check out the Unity challenge, and I hope you have a delightful day!

Oh my, how time flies...

Hi folks -

Sorry it's been so long! I had a blast in Atlanta, and I've already started scrapping my trip...but we'll get to that soon enough. Today is all about a card -- a Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger card, to be (very) specific! You can read all about the challenge here.

The inspiration image was, well, extra-inspiring! Take a look:

I was so inspired, in fact, that I made the card right away, but had to wait for a little sunny-ish daylight to get a photo. Here you go:

Supplies: Papertrey Ink Love Lives Here die, Birds of a Feather and Gingham stamps, Vintage Cream cs; A Muse studio Ovalicious stamp, gingham cs, and papaya ribbon; SU Real Red, Garden Green, and Tempting Turquoise inks; glitter.

I just love the colors in the original image. So happy. I got to break out some of my newest goodies here: the PTI die and gingham stamp,  plus some very fab, even newer goodies from a muse studio -- I used Ovalicious for the oval (surprise!), plus some gingham cardstock and pretty papaya ribbon (thanks for that, Meg!).

I even broke out the glitter -- the real, makes-a-mess-that-lasts-forever kind. See?:

Happy little heart. Oh, by the way, that house? I die-cut it from coaster. Not the pay-for-it kind, but one from my favorite local watering hole. Seems to work fine for me, and it was free!

Well, Cath, you picked a great one this week -- I might even have to make another -- maybe something ruffly or ric-rac-y or flowery...hmm...wheels are turning!

Anyway, welcome back to the old blog -- I have a few more things to show you soon since I feel compelled to make up for lost time -- and I hope you're having a lovely day!