Things are Looking Up!

Hello my Friends! I know, I know... where have I been? Well, life is just insane sometimes and things (like my blog) get neglected! I won't make excuses, but I'm hoping for the best and hoping that my mojo will return and I can start to blog more regularly again. I haven't made anything crafty in WEEKS but here is something I made a couple months ago (hopefully I haven't shown it to you already):I got this adorable image of a bunny looking up at the flower from a swap before last Easter. I never used it but I really love the idea of the bunny "looking up"! I colored it with my copics and used some of my favorite DP and came up with this card. I made the button flower myself with some ribbon from SU!, a button that has been in my stash forever, and some floss. Here is a close up of the image (I don't know where it is from, sorry!) and the ribbon flower:
Now, I really hope I haven't shown this card to you before, because I remember posting it somewhere but if I have, I hope you enjoy seeing it again! I'm going to try to make a card now, even though I don't feel any inspiration at all! I've cleaned off my desk and done a little organizing. I've also purged some stamp sets that I'll be selling on here soon... hopefully I can get back into the grove of things!

I hope you are all blessed today and I'll see you in the comments section!

ETA: Amy of A Thousand Sheets of Paper has an awesome blog candy going on right now! In celebration of her very first line of rubber stamps, she's giving away one of her stamps and some other yummy goodies! Click on the picture on my right sidebar and go check it out! I'm so excited for her!

Hello Kitty Angels

I haven't been very motivated to get into my craft room lately, but I find that using a fun sketch, and an adorable digital image can help my lack of motivation. I decided to make a few Thank You cards to donate to the Spouses club here in Aviano so I used a sketch from Sheetload of Cards from a couple months ago, along with an adorable Hello Kitty Angel image and made these: Here is a close up of the purple card:
All three cards use patterened paper from DCWV and the solid papers are a mixture of Stampin Up and some scraps that I had. Here is a close up of the Pink one:
I colored the HK Angels with my copic markers and then added glitter to the wings with my Sakura glitter pen. Here is the blue card:
I also used some self stick rhinestones to add a little sparkle around the card as well. These were super simple and quick to make. I still don't have much motivation, but when I see my un-inked stamps and un-cut papers, I feel a longing to get them onto a project! I hope the mojo returns soon, I miss my craft time!
I hope you are all having a fun weekend. We saw the movie Up today (cute!) and drove around town a little. Turns out that this weekend is some Italian holiday and all the shops are closed! Oh well, we had fun anyway.
Until next post, be blessed.

When You're Strange...

Faces Come Out In the rain, when you're strange. No one remembers your name... Ok, I'll stop. Those are the lyrics to one of my favorite songs by the Doors. So what does this have to do with my post? Club Anya is having another challenge. It's the Rockin' Rebel challenge! The challenge is to make your favorite Rockstar out of an Ian or Anya image. I LOVE the Doors, so I made Jim Morrison! Here he is: I really love the way this turned out. I added some hair to Dress Me Ian, cut off his arms and his body below the waist, drew two arms then cut them out and glued them onto "Jim", filled in his lips just enough to get Jim's look, and drew in the necklace. I colored his hair with my Kohinoor colored pencils and his body with my grey copic marker. Since the original picture of Jim was black and white, I decided this card needed to be in black and white (and grey). The "doors" word was done with some punches and fancy cutting on my part. ;) I had a ton of fun with this challenge, but I didn't want to stop with The Lizard King, so I also made a Cher card! Here it is:

I used Dress Up Anya, masked off her underwear and stamped her. Then drew in the outfit and added the blingy belt. The line across her legs is actually the cord from her mic that I drew in her hand. I actually really like the song "If I Could Turn Back Time" and her outfit from the video was quite the phenomenom at the time so that's the one I chose to dress her in. Also, my favorite line from that song is perfect for a card! The outside says "If I could reach the stars..." and the inside says:

"...I'd give them all to you!!!" I used the yummy DP from SEI's Chocolat paper pack and some other papers that were scraps. The bling is actually selfstick rhinestones for a cell phone and I used my Stampin' Up! punches for the stars. What do you all think? Do you think I have a chance of winning the "Rockin' Rebel" contest? I actually have a few more cards in mind and Andrew made a special request for one rockstar, so you may be seeing more to come! If you want to see all the fabulous entries for the contest click HERE and you'll go to the Gallery for all the entries. Some of the first entries are actually from the Design Team (thank goodness) and they are all awesome. I'm particularly fond of the David Bowie one that Traci (the Wicked Pixie) did! Ok, signing off for now. Next post should be tomorrow. I have a lot to tell you about from this past weekend!

Until next post, be blessed.

Hatter and Rockstar

It's Friday! Woohoo! I am actually posting this early since the boys don't have school on Friday-Teacher work day. This way I can schedule this post to show up on Friday, but I can take the whole day to keep them occupied. I think we'll take David to work in the morning, come home and relax for a couple hours, meet David for lunch at Markos (DELISH gyros, OMG!) and then hang out at the skate/bike park until David gets off work. I think the kids will like that, and if the weather stays nice we'll all enjoy ourselves. Well, speaking of the boys, Ashton has been having a few typical "issues" with his responsibilities. He just refuses to do what needs to be done! Forget teeth brushing, hair combing, following directions and behaving! If it's something that a typical 5 year old needs to be responsible with, he will NOT do it. And I thought it was just at home... NOPE! Apparently he is having problems at school with getting his work done in a timely manner, getting up and sauntering over to his friends for a little chit chat, and just plain obeying the rules. I think it has a lot to do with adjsting to a new place and growing into his own independance. Well, I wanted to let him know that I was thinking of him and that I know he can do his best at home and at school, so I made him a little ticket: Ashton absolutely loves collecting things; especially little piecesof paper like tickets. I knew he would like this, so I stamped out my new Mad Hatter stamp from TGF and colored him with my watercolor pencils and OMS. I glued it onto some paper (Rockstar pack from DCWV) and cut the corner to look like a ticket. He liked it and will be keeping it in his backpack for a little reminder at school whenever he needs to start following the rules.

On another note, TGF is having another Case of the Curious Card Challenge! I participated in the first one (remember my Sumo card?) and had so much fun so I had to participate in this one too! The card we had to CASE is from GabbyYou can see her card HERE. I pretty much just made a female version of her card, afterall it is a CASE challenge! (Copy And Share with Everyone). And if that wasn't cool enough, Kristina Werner's Color challenge for this week is Black, Gray and White; so my card qualifies for that one too! Score!!! I've been wanting to participate in Kristina's color challenge for awhile now but I never seem to get it done on time. My handmade flower card (a couple days ago) qualified for her last challenge, but I didn't get it uploaded in time. Oh well. Here's another pic of the card. The first pic is better, but this second pic shows the glitter on her headband and dress.
I think it turned out pretty good, and hopefully Gabby thinks so too so I can win a stamp set! LOL! And double score if Kristina picks me as one of her top cards for her Color Roundup!!! I'll keep you all posted.
Well, my projects and pictures are winding down, so I think I'm going to take the weekend off from blogging. David is taking a friend of ours to the airport in Venice on Saturday, but since the five of us and our friend won't all fit in the truck, I'm going to miss out on a trip to Venice, POO! Maybe we'll still have an exciting weekend. Come back on Monday and I'll let you know what we did (hopefully there will be something worth blogging about, lol.).
Until next week, be blessed!

Rockstar Anya!

Hello! How are you all today? Here in Italy we've had some gray days, some sunny days, and some rainy days. Yesterday was nice, sunny, and not too chilly. Let's hope today is the same! Well, while blog surfing the other day, I came across THIS adorable card by Elena. She has some great cards, I love her coloring, and she is so talented! You should go check out her blog The Red Haired Girl; great stuff! Anyway, when I saw the adorable Deer card, I wanted to CASE it and use the layout for some Rockstar Anya cards. Here's my Red Rockstar: I also just got my Stampin' Up! order in last Friday and it had the Rock Star stamp in it. I got the stamp set just because I knew it would work with my Rockstar Anya's. Here's a green Rockstar:

I used the Rockstar Paper from DCWV on both of these cards. I thought this green card needed a little something else to it, so I poked holes through the guitar pickups and threaded some twine in them. I know that in real life guitar strings don't go through the pickups, and that any guitar with just three strings is missing a few, but for the purpose of the card it worked (I think I know a little too much about guitars, because of DH). Also, if you look closely, you'll notice that both my Rockstars are not playing guitars, they're playing basses! LOL! (It's a secret wish of mine to be able to play the bass to my husband's guitar melodies... ah, someday). Here's a closeup of Green Rockstar and the twine:

I had a total blast making these cards, and they really came together quite easily with the inspiration from Elena, the Rockstar paper, and Rockstar Anya of course. I think Rockstar Anya is my new favorite Anya! I have another card to show you using her tomorrow.

Until then, be blessed!

A couple flower cards

Happy Tuesday! Today's post is going to be short since the boys will be home from school any minute. Today I have two flower cards to show you, tomorrow I have some random pics of the kiddos, and Thursday I have some RockStar's waiting to make their appearance! Here's the first flower card: I made this flower a little bit ago and wanted to use it on a card. Well, it's a bit too big to use as an embellishment, so I made it the center of attention instead. Next up, I participated in Club Anya's 2nd sketch challenge:

I thought Princess Anya would look gorgeous as a Flower Queen, so that's what I did with her. I used the roses from GKD's A Year of Flowers stamp set, colored them with my copics, and postioned them so that Flower Queen Anya was standing among them. The flower bling on her wand and crown are buttons from Wal-mart. I better get out the door to meet the boys' bus. Come back tomorrow for some silly pics of the kids!

Until next post, be blessed!

My Big Project!

Hey there! How are you all on this fine Monday? Have you adjusted to the Daylight Savings Time change yet? I was wondering how all that worked here in Italy and I found out that we don't change our clocks until the last Sunday of March. I guess that makes sense since we are on a different part of the planet... Anyway, remember the big project I was working on but I had to wait on a couple orders to come in to finish it? Well, BOTH orders came in on Friday, and I finished my project! First off, let me show you the card that inspired my card: My Mom sent this Valentine's Day card to Angel and I thought, "Hey, I can make something like that!" Here is the front on my card:

I used Imaginesce papers and cut out the tree, carriage, castle, and "Royalty" word then stuck them back over the images with pop dots to make them dimensional. At first I was going to put another panel over the patterened paper with a stamped image on it, but I loved the paper just as it was and didn't want to hide any of it. I stamped "once upon a time..." from my new Stampin' Up! stamp set along the bottom of the card front in Ballet Blue ink so it wouldn't stand out too much. The outside of the card came out very pretty, but I didn't want it to be too impressive because the inside is supposed to be the main focus of the card! Here it is:

What do you think? I love how it turned out, and I have plans for a lot more pop-out scene cards! TGF is coming out with some designer papers that coordinate with their stamps, and they are perfect for pop-out scenes like this! I used a lot more Imaginesce papers inside the card, along with some blue patterned paper I had in my scrap bin for the sky. I think it's Daisy Dee's paper but I'm not sure. The Castle, Carriage, Tree and Frog are all Imaginesce stamps that I stamped on white cardstock, colored and cut out to put into the scene. Oh, wait, the frog was actually stamped onto some green polka dot paper (K&Co paper) and colored with a green copic marker, then layered onto white cardstock for weight. Here's a closer pic of the inside, left:

The Unicorn is a digital image from TGF that I printed out and colored then cut it out and stuck it on the card with dimensionals. I wanted the Unicorn to look like it was closer than the castle. Here is a close pic of the inside, right:

It's hard to see in the pics, but I also stamped "Fairy Tales do come true" from the Stampin' Up! stamp set in the center of the inside of the card, in green ink. I wanted it to be a subtle sentiment, since this card is really just for decoration for my Angel Baby's room. Princess Anya is the other stamp I was waiting on to finish this card. Here is a close-up of her (since she is the star of the card!):

I paper pieced her dress with the Imaginesce papers, but the rest is colored with my copics. I stamped her twice and colored the crown and star on the wand and glued just those two items to the main image so they would have more depth to them. I really love this image and I already have another one waiting to be added to a card. I forsee using Princess Anya A LOT in the future! And just for the fun of it, here's a picture of my little princess after a yummy dinner:

See the noodle on her forehead? The silly girl!
Well, I hope you enjoyed my post today. Until next post, be blessed!

A couple pics and a trip to the ER

Hello again! I've got quite the chatter bug lately with all these posts, don't I? Some of you know that I applied to be on the design team for The Greeting Farm. I didn't make it, this time, but I'm going to try again in a couple months. I love that company and their images, and I have so much fun using their products. You may have already seen some of these, but here are the projects I submitted in my application for the Design Team.
Heaven Sent Unicorn frame: Birthday Wishes Dorothy Anya:

For You Anya and Ian:

Brotherly Love:

Note: the rest of this post is not stamping related, so if you don't want to read it, just skip down and leave me a comment, k? ;)

Well, living in a different country has its ups and downs. I love experiencing the different culture and seeing all the historical aspects to the country, but there are some things about living here that I just wish were more "American". Sunday night, the whole family decided we needed to go shopping on base at the Base Exchange. Our shopping trip was cut short because we had to take our Angel baby to the ER. While we were shopping at the BX, Angel was standing in the basket of the cart and flipped right out of it! She reached for something on a shelf, and did a complete flip out of the cart, onto the floor, and landed flat on her back. (let me get sidetracked here and say that I was RIGHT there. I was standing with my hands on the cart handle and Angel is just barely tall enough to have the top of her belly touch the top of the cart basket. Needless to say, she will never stand in the cart again. OK, back to the story.) She didn't land on her head, but her head did bump a little when she landed. Because the fall was more than Angel's height, the nurse advice line advised us to take her to the ER for a checkup just in case. She acted a little out of it for about 10 minutes, but she was crying and in shock. Then, 15 minutes afterward, she was fine, playing and laughing with the boys. She didn't pass out, or throw up, or get dizzy or have problems focusing her eyes, so I knew she didn't have a concussion. But we took her anyway. It was a scary place! The hospital in Pordenone that we use for emergencies and anything our base clinic can not do is so freaking old! I went into the ER area (straight out of a horror movie! There were disoriented people milling about, burnt out light bulbs, tons of people in huge wheelchairs just sitting around, and no one spoke English!) and they sent me to the pediatrics floor because that is where they see kids for emergencies (unless the kid is bleeding to death or has a gash across their face or has a limb hanging off, then they see them right away at the ER). So, I found my way to the correct building (after almost walking into an Intensive Care Unit-oops!), went in, took a tiny, rickety, old elevator to the 5th floor (the floor shook indepentantly from the walls, I was afraid we weren't going to make it all the way up!), and found the Pediatric area. There was no sign in desk, so I wandered up and down the hall about three times trying to figure out where to check in. I finally had to snag a nurse running through the hall and tell her what happened. She didn't speak very good English and told me to wait right where I was. She said "Wait." I said in the waiting room? She said "QUA!" as she pointed to the spot on the floor where I was standing. I figured that meant to wait right where I was. So, I waited in the middle of the dimly lit, old, funky colored hallway until they led me into a room to fill out paperwork. I did that, they tried to put it into the computer (about SIX times) then gave up and wrote out a manual admittance paper. During that time an interpretor was sent to help me out. That was a bit of a relief, but she was in a bit of a "mood" and really just stood around the whole time. THEN, we finally went into a exam room (pepto pink painted walls, with chipping chunks of paint). Of course, then it was time for a shift change for the ONE doctor that was working there. Well I finally saw a doctor (who happened to be fluent in English, even though they had sent me an interpretor to help out-figures) and after a quick 5 minute look-over, they told me Angel was fine (DUH!). Just told me to watch her for the next 24 hours to make sure she doesn't show any signs of a concussion. Well, that was quite the experience. At least we've been through it and know what to expect for next time because with my 3kids, I know there will be a next time.

Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog post for today. I hope to hear from you all, and any scary/wierd ER experiences you've all had.

Until next post, be blessed!

House of Mental Love Bears

What the heck does that title mean? LOL! Well, House of Mental is a company that makes some awesome digital images (among other things) and The Greeting Farm sells these exclusive digital images. One of the images is of a Love Bear. I love this Love Bear! I call him "Dr. Love Bear" because of his hat and needle. I decided to make a couple little projects with him. First, I had this Planner that I won from a blog candy: It's cute but not "me" so I decided to do what I love to do and alter it with some ink and paper. This is what came about:

I have to say, I love it! I think this is one of my favorite projects. I used papers from Basic Grey's Archaic collection because I thought it looked kinda like squirmy germs under a microscope. I backed the DP with chocolate chip card stock from Stampin' Up! The title of the appointment book and the year are handwritten by me on more mustard paper and backed with more CC card stock. The main image was colored with, yes, my copics and backed with some basic grey paper. I didn't have the correct punch for the binding holes, so I just used the old cover to mark the spots on the CC card stock and used a little hole punch to make the holes. They aren't perfect, but they work perfectly! Here's a close up of my Dr. Love Bear:

Isn't he cute? Well, I couldn't resist him, so I made a card out of him as well. This time I decided that I would use "traditional" bear colors on him. I used the basic grey papers again, and kept everything pretty simple and "straight". I say "straight" because DH and I had an intensive conversation about how he thinks some cards look unproffesional because they aren't lined up correctly. I think they look "handmade" he thinks they look "kindergartener-ish". So, on this card, I made sure the mats on the card are all exactly lined up, with 1/8" or 1/16" around each side of the panels. The ribbon is pretty darn perfectly lined up too, but since it is felt, it was difficult to keep it lined up. The brads were carefully measured and the holes for them were pre-poked using a piercing template.

All in all, I took extra time and made sure things were lined up just right. Yes, the card met with my DH's approval! LOL! If you're a "Lilavois" or if you know the "Lilavois", then you know how they can be with their criticisms! LOL! It was all in good fun. Here's a closeup of my coloring on Dr. Love Bear:

NO, I did NOT use my copics! LOL! I used my Koh-n-oor pencils and OMS (odorless mineral spirits) with my blending stumps. I felt like playing with my unloved pencils and I had a lot of fun with them. I am quite inexperienced with them. They are just like watercolor pencils, only different, and woodless. It's hard to explain, but they are great. I watched a tutorial on using OMS with blending stumps, so I'm going to give it another go. What do you all think of the different coloring medium?

Until next post, be blessed!

Another Anya and my Pixie

Hey there! I have another Anya to show you today. Are you all sick of them yet? I'm not, that's why I keep using them! I don't think I'll ever get tired of Anya, or the other stamps from The Greeting Farm, but I'll give you a break from the Anya's on my next post. So here she is, Alice Anya: I made this cute little card for Jen DelMuro's Sketch for You To Try. I haven't participated in this sketch in a long long time so it was fun. I colored Anya with my copics (of course) but this time I used 3 idfferent colors of brown in her hair just to try something different. I'm still not sure about the flower in her hair... what do you all think? All the papers are Stampin' Up!
Now, remember I mentioned sewing on my cards and wanting a little machine I saw at Wal-Mart before we moved? Well, I got it and here it is!

This is my little Pixie Sewing machine by Singer. My mom picked it up for me and mailed it to me, isn't she the best? She's been sending us all kinds of stuff; toys I couldn't pack, clothes I left, my workout mat, and more... but I digress. I've played with my Pixie a little bit, practiced threading it and tested out all the different stitches. I still have a lot of practice to do, but it's going to be fun! And just so you know how little this really is, here's a size comparison:

My pixie is next to a little 7.25 inches tall pad of paper (ignore the list on the paper, it's just a list of bands I want on my MP3 player). So this little machine really is tiny, but it's perfect for my little stamping room and my cards. Mom also bought me a sewing basket and loaded it with essential sewing goodies, so I'm good to go! There's some really neat two-toned threads that will look so great on some cards. As soon as I get confident enough, I'll be sewing on my cards and sharing them here with you. How many of you have sewing experience? Any tips? Do you sew on your cards as well as fabric? I'm nervous about ending the stitch on a card. How will I close the stitch? Will I always have threads coming off the ends of the card stock?

In addition to sewing on my cards, I want to make a little purse for Angel, and maybe a couple little blankets too. I saw some Basic Grey and Cosmo Cricket fabrics that are beautiful! Now I just need to find an online store that sells them. They look just like the designer papers; talk about combining my paper hobby with my new sewing adventure!

Well, that's my post for today. I promise the next post won't have an Anya on it (but I'm not promising that it won't be an image from the same company;).

Until next post, be blessed!

OH! P.S. If you've noticed a lot of little spelling or punctuation errors on my last few posts, I can't get the spell check to work. Sorry! I try to reread my posts and edit, but I probably still miss some things.

Alice Anya Cards

Hey there everyone. Sorry it's been a week since I last posted. Here I was giving you post after post, and then nothing for a week! Sorry about that. I've been hard at work on a big project/card and I'm almost done. I'm just waiting on a couple ordersto come in so I can put the right sentiment and "star of the show" onto the card, then I can share with you all. Hopefully the orders come in soon (one of them was ordered almost FOUR weeks ago!). Until then, here is the very first card I made with an Anya stamp (digi stamp actually): This is Alice Anya (as in Alice in Wonderland). I used Copic markers to color her and Imaginesce papers for the card. The flowers are from Gina K. Designs. Here's another Alice Anya card, only this Anya is brunnette:

I used paper from Nana's Nursery (DCWV I think), twine from Wal-mart, and buttons that I stole from my Mom's HUGE button collection (she said I could, so it wasn't really stealing;). The little tag is from Gina K. Designs and I used a permanent marker to write "hi" onto it. I colored Anya with my copics again and gave her a ground to stand on with a grey copic.

And here is a closeup of my coloring: I've had some people ask me about the digital images so I'll go ahead and talk about them today. Digital images aree really easy and fun to use. Several online stamp companies are selling them now. I purchased these images online from The Greeting Farm and as soon as I was done checking out, I received a link to download the images (instant gratification-YEA!). I saved the images into my pictures folder, and whenever I want to use one I just print it out! What's really cool is that you can change the size of the image, flip it to face the opposite direction, or print several at once if you want to. I usually print several of the same image onto plain white cardstock. Now, when you are printing out these images, you need to think about how you are going to color them. I use Copics the most (obviously) and the ink I have in my printer right now SMEARS with my copics (copics are alcohol-based inks, not water based). Since my printer only takes one kind of ink, I tried changing the paper. Instead of using my favorite card stock from Gina K. Designs, I recently used some Stampin' Up! card stock. I discovered that this card stock helps my image to not smear as much because the paper is not as smooth and when printing, the ink penetrates the paper more. When I lived with Mom in Hawaii, I was able to buy tons of Georgia Pacific white card stock at Wal-mart, and my images hardly smeared at all when I printed onto that card stock. But sadly, I am out of GP card stock, and there are no Wal-Marts around... Also, I've been told that if you have a laser printer the ink doesn't smear. I don't know for sure because I have an HP Officejet H470 which is an inkjet printer (I think). When I use my colored pencils instead of my copics, or my Stampin' Up! markers (which are water based) the images don't smear. Also, when I color, I NEVER go over the black lines. Some people will go over the lines when they are coloring; like coloring over the image's mouth, but I don't. That's just how I have always colored, and I think it makes a difference on the smearing matter. OK, well I think that's a lot more jibber jabber than some of you anticipated, so I'll sign off now. If you have any more questions that I didn't answer, just ask! I'll do the best I can to answer.

Until next post (which should be soon, not in a week!) be blessed!

Brotherly Love...

Hey there everyone! This is my THIRD post this week, can you believe it? I can't promise that I'll keep this up, but I'd like to try. That way I can keep you all updated on what's going on in our lives and with my stamping, but I can't make any promises. I know life is going to be getting busier as we get more established here. Yesterday I signed up to participate in the parent co-op program on base. It's a great program run by volunteers who spend about 3.5 hours a week providing child care, and in turn get 4 days of childcare for their own children. I'm looking forward to participating, having a place for Angel to meet and play with other kids, and meet other moms too. I'll have some free time to take care of errands, appointments, or just relax (by stamping of course!). Anywho, onto my card for today. It's another TGF image! When I saw these sumo wrestlers, I immediately thought of my boys! ROFL!!! They have been at eachother constantly lately. So I thought of them to whole time I made this card. I used some papers that I got at Office Max (or was it Office Depot?) in a pack of Christmas papers. I love repurposing papers for other things besides what they were intended. Also, the sentiment and "Pow!" and "Bam!!" were handwritten by me. I didn't have the appropriate stamp, so I wrote it myself. Here's a closeup of my coloring on the main image:

I used my copics to color the guys, and the stars are from Just Jawing by SU! are stamped in gray ink. Oh, BTW, this card was done for The Case of the Curious Card Challenge over on The Greeting Farm blog! I CASED the layout of the chosen card, and just turned it sideways. Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed my post.

Until next post, be blessed!

My Stamping Room & a Finished Card

Well hello blog readers! I know some of you have been patiently waiting to see some pics of my home, well, here's a teaser for you... Pics of my stamping room! Disclaimer: it's NOT done! I have some wall decor to put up and more shelving to purchase. And the room is only about 6.5x7.5 feet big! But it's working for now so... Here is a picture from the hallway: That is the box for our TV (which we have to keep because DH said so, and it won't fit in the attic! One of these days it will be OUT of my room, heeheehee). In the meantime, the box is the temporary home to my Big Shot, my embellishments, and some designer papers. To the right you see my bookcase. Here's a shot of that:

The bookcase is a little crowded right now, but all the papers that are on the bottom will be moved whenever I get more shelves. There are also magazines and some scrapbooks down there. The second-to-bottom shelf holds all my stamps from companies other than Stampin' Up. I think they are too crowded also... Next up is the shelf with all my SU! stamps, then above that are all my inks, and a box full of dies for the Big Shot. The top shelf holds some cherished momentos... And the top of the bookcase holds a few more momentos and a plastic box full of finished cards (from swaps, friends, and some I made too). This next picture is the corner behind my stamping desk:

That neat little rack is a garbage find! It barely fit into our little rental car at the time, but I HAD to have it! I think it held snacks at a gas station, but now it's perfect for my 8.5x11 papers! Well, until I get more papers anyway. Here's the pic of my desk:

You can't tell, but the desk is AWESOME! We got it at IKEA (Yes, there's one just 1.5 hours from here, well worth the drive! It was the first IKEA I'd ever been in, and I loved it!) and the right side of it is 5 drawers. I love my desk! I picked the black top, with white drawers for the right side and 2 white legs for the left side. It works perfect in that spot of my little room. You can see on my desk that things are a little disorderly, well... I had to take a break from stamping but didn't feel like cleaning up. Things are much cleaner now that I'm done for the night. On the wall above my desk are a few things that help inspire me. The center picture is a shadowbox type of picture I found at the BX of a Lily (nuff said!) then there are two black floating shelves on either side. The cards on the shelves are ones that I made (and match my black/white room decor) and two pretty bottles of mini prima flowers. And see that card in the far corner of my desk? Well...

Here it is! I finally finished my rose card. I added a simple sentiment in Gray ink and a ribbon. I had to color the ribbon with my Rose Red SU! marker to get it the color I wanted it. I punched two holes on either side of the stems, then ran the ribbon through the card and tied a pretty bow. I also added some glaze to the flowers in areas that would have been wet with dew if I'd just picked these out of a garden. How do you like the end result? And my stamping room? Leave me a comment and let me know what you think! I still have a long way to go on the stamping room, so any and all advice will be taken and appreciated!

Until next post, be blessed.

Happy Anniversary to Us!

Hey there Blog Readers! Today's the day, our 8 year anniversary and the day you all find out who won my yummy blog candy. But first, here's the card I made for my hubby. I used the digital image from The Greeting Farm again, only this time it's a lot bigger! I colored me and my husband (well, at least they are us on this card ;) with my copics again, only this time I took more time on the details. Notice the curly hair and the makeup on "me"? And I outlined the lips with my zig pen to make lips more defined. Also, the sentiment is from Stampin' Up!. So, I know you all want to know who won my blog candy.
Well, I put all the names in a hat and randomly choose... Pamela! Congratulations Pamela! I'll be emailing you to get your mailing address. I hope you all have a great week, and until next post, be blessed!

Happy Valentines Day!

Hey there everyone! How are you all this sunny V-Day? I hope you are feeling the love, lol! I just wanted to post a quick post here to show you all what I made for the guys in my life. For my hubby, I made him a Valentines Day card a couple months ago. Remember THIS card? It was the first card I ever sewed on. I also made him this milk carton holder for some of his favorite candies: Here's a pic of the yummy Peanut M&M's on the inside. If you are curious as to how to make one of these milk cartons, you can go to Splitcoaststampers.com and search for the milk carton tutorial. That's what I did and the directions were easy peasy.
Next up are a couple cards I made for my two boys. I used the first Sketch Challenge from Club Anya and this adorable digi image:
Both cards are the same, simple design, just used different shapes in the background.
And on the inside:
The boys loved the chocolate best of all. I knew they wouldn't care for all the details and embellishments on the cards, as long as they got their chocolate! Well, I hope you all have a wonderful day with your loved ones, and don't forget to enter into my blog candy on the previous post!
Until next post, be blessed!