Another round of challenge cards plus some...

Splitcoast is hosting a Virtual Stamp Night mini challenge this weekend, and it's all about love. I have been having lots of fun working on those challenges. Watch for a slideshow to come of those cards as well. So, it's official, I'm hooked on Splitcoast, but it's been forcing my creativity to expand and improve in a lot of ways and that's the great thing about it.

Mean while, here's a card I whipped up late, late last night for a family member's birthday. It's made with morning soft stamp set and watercolored with markers. The paper is soft sky overstamped with the floral background stamp in night of navy ink. I think it turned out really pretty. What do you think?

Well, I finally finished all the cards...

At least the ones I will be able to finish from the challenge over at Splitcoast Stampers. There were a few that I just simply had nothing to use on those cards. Shocking, but true.

It may be a while before I post much more. So please, bear with me. It's been a very difficult month for me personally. At times, I'm doing well to keep my head above water and keep from sinking. So bear with me as I go through this season of my life and re-establish where I'm going.

Hopefully I'll be able to get a few cards posted, though. I received a wish RAK today that had one of my favorite scriptures in it. "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on thy own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him and He will direct thy path." I have to believe in that scripture right now through all the hurt I'm feeling that He has a plan for me and my life will be better for it.

Sorry to be depressing, but this is also therapeutic for me as well. I hope that all is well with each of you and that you will all have a blessed and happy day!

Cards for Soldiers Wish RAK New Year's Challenge

Over the New Year holiday Splitcoast stampers hosted a challenge to make lots of cards to be sent to soldiers overseas. Since I think this is an awesome and very worthy cause, I decided to participate. We owe our soldiers so much, and this is one small way I felt I could give something back to them since they give so much everyday for each of us Americans. The above slideshow is a collection of the cards I made to fit the various challenges. Hopefully, I will find the time to post each card individually along with what the challenge was. But for now, here's at least a view. I still have quite a few more challenges to do so I will try to remember to add them to this slideshow as I finish them. Enjoy!

Merry Christmas!

Hopefully everyone out there had a wonderful Christmas! I missed seeing my family again this year, and it was a difficult Christmas to say the least. But, thanks be to God and his wonderful grace, I made it through. We were so busy with my in-laws, who by the way, are the best in-laws a girl could ask for, that I didn't even have much time to dwell on missing my own side of the family. The real blessing of the season, though, is one that should not be overlooked--the blessing of the gift of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ for without him there would be no hope at all or reason to celebrate. So even in the difficult times and the lonely hours we should all remember the blessing of the season. Here's wishing you all a very merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year with many blessings yet to come.

Now for the big one!

Okay, Here's the big project I've been working on that has kept me away so long. This is a project that my husband's aunt came up with about Thanksgiving time, and it turned out beautiful. In this book are copies of all the letters written between my husband's grandparents both before they were married and after they were married and he was working in California while she lived here with two small children and one on the way. It took a lot of time, but was well worth the effort to see how much these books meant to each of the four kids. Eventually, there will be nine total books completed, but I could only accomplish four during the christmas rush for presents. By the way, sorry about the jumble of pics above. I just can't seem to get the graphic part of this down yet! arrrgghh. Someone please show me a better way. LOL

so now, for a little creative activities I have accomplished...Ready? I've been really busy, and I don't mean that as an understatement either! The following projects were really just diversionary tactics to take a break from another project I can't share just yet, but it's a big one. Trust me! The first one is for a gift exchange. If you are going to be at that gift exchange, act surprised. LOL I was too excited over how it turned out to wait on the post! This is a tic tac toe game that I created with the beautiful (well, some aren't really convinced, but I am :D) Scandinavian stamp set out of the mini catalog and paper punches. The pieces are stored in an acetate pocket on the inside flap of the game board. The pieces attach with velcro. The first picture is of the outside with the board folded up. The remainin pictures are of the inside with and without the pieces attached.

The second one...an idea I got from Splitcoast Stampers gallery. It's a big project, and the original idea is actually a card, but I converted it to a bound chipboard project to use as home decor that would be sturdy and last a while. What do you think? Sorry about the jumble of photos. I was having a war with my computer and the computer won!

Miracles do happen!

Where have I been?!! My word, what a month, and it's only half-way through. So much busyness with all the holiday activity and shopping, I can hardly think straight sometimes. This in addition to all the family drama happening in my life as well. For those who don't know, my Grandma was near death and was told by the hospice that she would really only have about 24-48 hours left. That was Thursday. Well, we went to go see about her on Saturday and found her alert and in her bed able to converse with those around her. Apparently, the Lord performed a miracle on her. She is still not able to really do much of anything for herself and is still on hospice care, but at least we will have her for a little while longer. Please continue to pray for my family through some very difficult times ahead. Thank you to those who have been praying. I have felt your prayers and have received very kind words of encouragement.

A challenge card for today...

This one was a challenge for me! I love color ALOT. So when I found this color challenge on SCS I decided to give it a try, and I combined it with a recent sketch challenge as well. The colors are sahara sand, very vanilla and basic black. That's it! So I got out my two favorite sets--Always, and baroque motifs. Using Sahara sand on the very vanilla I stamped the flourish and the word cherish. Then on another piece of very vanilla, I stamped this beautiful heart in black and then used a blender pen to add in some sahara sand to tie it all together. I added a piece of black ribbon and a brad to the edge for the finishing touch. I really like the elegance of this card. Hope you like it!

Another photo mailer type card...

This was our creative activities project for MOPS this month. We all made photo mailers that are a card and a scrapbooking project all in one. These were so much fun to do and so simple. These are samples of some of the moms projects. Aren't they great? There were many more just as cute, but I didn't get around to taking pics of all of them. LOL

Happy thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope we all had a good day and took the time to truly remember the blessing we have in our lives. I know if I were to count all my blessings we could be here for days. So I will spare you. Just remember each day of life we are blessed beyond measure if for no other reason than the gift of life. Days like today with family should truly be treasured. I have family all over the U.S. and never get to spend the day with any of them anymore, and I think I severely missed them today. However, I have a wonderful set of in-laws and that's where I spent most of my day today. Surrounded by some of my blessings, and missing the ones I can't spend the day with. So I hope you all have had a truly blessed day.

Anyone up for shopping tomorrow? No? Well, me either. LOL

A new take for me!

Well, those of you who know my card-making style know that I can make even a simple card turn into something very difficult and complex. LOL So, this time, I tried very hard to keep it simple, but add my own touches. The stamps I used on this card came from Wal-Mart and were only 99 cents! They are very cute, though, and couldn't pass them up for that cheap. First I stamped the penguin in black staz-on on whisper white cardstock. Then I took a blender pen and colored the hat in with riding hood red and the scarf with garden green. After that, I took some Martha Stewart glitters, which by the way are very fine and come in beautiful colors, and applying the glue that comes with the glitters (carefully avoiding stamping lines), I sprinkled the hat with garnet glitter and the scarf with peridot glitter. The nose was colored with a blender pen and tangerine tango. Then I mounted the penguin on black cardstock. Next, I took a snowflake out of another 99 cent Wal-Mart set and stamped it 12 times on a piece of real red card stock with white stazon. I had some difficulty with the snowflakes showing very well, but that worked out well since they needed to be suttle with all the contrast in this card. After stamping the snow flakes, I punched them all out with a 1 1/4 inch circle punch and put them on the black background starting with the corners to help get even placement. then I mounted the penguin on top of that. The letters are chipboard letters (I have no idea where they came from) that I inked with white craft ink and then embossed with this awesome embossing powder a friend loaned me (yes, friend, I think I may still have that so let me know when you want it back :D) I tied a narrow piece of black and white gingham around the "j" and then attached the chipboard letters with tombow. I think the overall card turned out very cute!

Silent Night

Lovely as a Tree

I love this stamp set and its versatility. And I love the snow! I used the wonderful top note die cut for the Sizzix. The sky is brayered in Brocade blue on whisper white. The little drifts are topped with iridescent ice embossing powder. The trees are stamped in basic gray ink. I used a white gel pen to put "snow" in the background and to write in the phrase on top. The top note is mounted on night of navy cardstock and then those are mounted on a piece of metallic silver cardstock I found in my miscellaneous paper bucket. Then I used some of my "random ribbon" (love you, Amanda :D) as my friend likes to call it for a finishind touch on the front of the card. I think the overall effect is very soft and pretty.

Scrappy Fun with turkeys!

It's Turkey Time!

This was a lot of fun to do and incorporated several challenges. First was on of the older weekend sketch challenges by Beate at SCS. Second was using only papers in the scrap bin. Third, was using the punches I had on hand to make this little guy work. The base is really rust. Very vanilla is the background for the turkey and I cut out the circle with a nestabilities. The instructions for the turkey can be found at http://www.stampinpretty.com/2008/11/turkey-with-a-punch.html. This is one of my favorite web sites. There are a lot of cool things on there.

Beautiful Snowflakes

I love the winter! I love the cold and the beauty of the snow. Well, what little we get here anyway. All the traditions of the cold are things I love--hot chocolate, popcorn, hot tea, warm blankets, sweaters. So this card reminds me of the beauty of winter. It's a night of navy cardstock background. For the snowflake, I die cut with the wonderful Sizzix snowflake #2 out of whisper white and the retired soft sky textured papers. Then I layered them on top of each other and made them intertwine by bringing some parts to the front and putting others in the back. All this is held together with a brad in the middle. Then mounted on night of navy cardstock. The sentiment at the bottom, I handwrote with a white gel pen. Very simple. Very pretty don't you think?

A couple of fun things...

One of the things I enjoy attending is monthly stamp camps where I can do whatever I want to do! So this month I actually made three items at stamp camp. One of those is a 3-D thanks to my friend who gave me instructions. The instructions for the 3-D candy holder can be found at http://crazystampinwomen.typepad.com/. So enjoy the pictures below from stamp camp.

A card making marathon....

Well, recently a friend and I teamed up to design some cards for Children's Medical Center here locally. We designed the cards, members of my MOPS group made them. It went really well. Here is a picture of each of the cards we made. Some were "borrowed", but most were original. The first four are her designs. The last four are my designs.

Hello, Rudolph!

Oh my gosh! This turned out so cute. I was inspired by one of my uplines to make this adorable card. I used half of a top not die cut, a nestabilities circle, two 3/4 inch circle and the Sizzix tulipe die to make this little guy. The background was a swiss dot cuttlebug embossing folder.

wow! what a month!

Well, if you've been wondering where I've been, the better question might be where haven't I been. The answer to that question is that I haven't been at home! LOL. My family has been missing me too so I've had to stop and smell the roses with them.

So, what have I been doing? Well. Let's see. Last weekend was Women of Faith conference. A friend and I went to that and were very much convicted and refreshed all at once. It's an experience I would highly recommend. Then this week has been spent wrapping up ( no pun intended, LOL) our MOPS (www.mops.org) group's Operation Christmas child shoebox drive. We were able to collect somewhere around 43 boxes. Not too shabby for a small group doing this for the first time ever. So I got those boxes dropped off at the drop-off place yesterday and they are now on their way! Also, this week we had our MOPS group meeting where we had our creative activity. Since I am the creative activities leader, I spent the last week or so with a friend designing our project. We made cards to donate to Children's hospital. So we ended up with 106 cards--most of which came from the moms who are members, but a few came from the moppets. My friend and I designed eight cards to cater to various age ranges and male and female of each age range. It was lots of fun to come up with something simple to do and still cater to all those groups. Pictures and info to come in a later post.

So now that I can breathe again, a huge sigh of relief and a very loud rendition of hallelujah chorus are in order!! LOL.

A little ingenuity goes a long way...

Inspired by a catalog

Well, this was a lot of fun and quite rewarding since I figured this one out all by myself. I was looking through a scrapbooking catalog and came across a project kit that looked something like this, and being one who is always up for a challenge decided to try to duplicate it on my own. It was incredibly easy. A touch tricky, but really easy to do.



Wanna see the inside? it's a photo holder with two pockets on the sides for whatever you want. Loved the idea of this and thought it would make a really cool grandparent gift. I even made the photo corner holders out of the same paper so it would all match.

Santa Baby...

Santa's Bag is here!

These bags were for a local event we had here called Diva Day. It's basically a full day of creating Christmas themed projects and gifts. Lots of fun! So my upline a couple of levels up asked me if I could help her out and get these bags done for her customers and another demonstrator's customers. These were really a lot of fun to do--if you only had about 15 or so. LOL. I ended up with 46!!! Of course, as determined as I am, I decided I could do them all by myself. After about the 300th or more punch and all the paper trimming, I finally called in the cavalry and a friend, whom I appreciate very much, came over and helped me get them all finished. I'd still be sitting here working on those if it weren't for her. Love you! Aren't they cute?