When you wish upon a star... MojoMonday challenge

This card went through sooo many versions before I got it how I finally liked it. It started out as a 5x7 with the red pattern as the base, a Mary Engelbreit stamp, and buttons... As you can see, it is completely different! Now a square, I decided to use a cute new stamp from Sugar Nellie, a design by Leanne Ellis. I ended up cutting out the image, and that made me think of an old fashioned play, with moons and stars hanging from the rafters... and so here is my interpretation of the MojoMonday challenge! If you look closely, you'll see the little strings that the stars are dangling from, as is the girl on the moon...

Ingredients

Papers: MyMindsEye, Scenic Route

Image: Moon Beams (Sugar Nellie)

Embellishments: Chipboard, brads

Ranger ink, colored pencil

Tiny Miracle...

Oooooh, I am having way too much fun with my new stamps. I loved coloring this beautiful stamp from the Whiff of Joy stamps... doesn't this just melt your heart? It makes me want to go snuggle the boys.



I made this card with the sketch from SimonSaysChallenge, and using the color challenge set forth by Stampin' for the Weekend. Using orange, teal, and pink, I found the pefect papers from my MyMindsEye stash I have :) I love their papers... anyway, back to the challenge! I have also had these little bitty flowers from Prima which I was excited to finally try.

Ingredients

Paper: MyMindsEye, PaperLoft

Stamp: Willow with toddler (Whiff of Joy), Studio G (sentiment)

Embellishments: Trim,Prima flowers, pop dots

Ranger ink, colored pencils

Color My World...

I mentioned the other day that I received some new stamps.. woo hoo! I ordered stamps from FunkyKits and from SimonSaysStamp. I am one happy crafter :) I have already decided that these new pretties are all my new favorite stamps. I used this lovely stamp with the sketch provided by Truly Scrumptious. Their theme is "Indian Summer", and the idea of getting just one last cartwheel in before fall comes makes me smile. When I was little, I would spend the summer trying to perfect the perfect cartwheel...The sketch for the challenge is awesome, and I am sure I will use it again. They are also looking for a guest Designer, so keep your fingers crossed for me please :)




This card features a stamp created by the fabulously talented Diane Duda. She sells her art, both original and print, and you can find her on Etsy. She recently teamed up with Sugar Nellie, and as a result, someone like me gets to color her images! yay!

This particular image is one of my favorites. To me, it is the epitome of pure joy, freedom and the ability to make yourself happy no matter what. Even if it means turning yourself upside for a bit :) I kept a monochromatic palette, choosing papers in blacks and off-whites, so that when I colored the little girl's dress a deep red, it would really stand out. The butterflies and bees are even dull and grey... but this little girl sure brightens up the day! I was inspired by my boys. Somedays they turn everything topsey-turvey, but you know what? They color my world.




Ingredients
Papers: Crate Paper, DCwV, Bazzill
Stamp: Upside down (Sugar Nellie)
Embellishments: buttons
inks and colored pencils

Grrr....

This little monster was created for the Sunday Sketch and Stamp challenge. I have been experimenting with stamping on different kinds of papers... this stamp worked pretty well on the textured side of Bazzill. A little bumpy, but a pretty cool texture for a monster :)

Ingredients

Paper: DCwV, MyMindsEye, Cloud9Design

Stamp: Recollections

colored pencils, colobox chalk ink

Flight of Fancy... in the home stretch... and Peas with a side of guilt, please...

I have to tell you how excited I am! How excited you ask?

So ridiculously excited!!!

I played along with Simon Says Stamp last week, and won! Wooo hooo! It is the first time I have won any challenge/draw/contest like this! It made my day :) AND I also got my order from Sugar Nellie yesterday, and have some lovely new stamps to play with. I already made one card using a Diane Duda stamp, and let me tell you - it is one of my all-time favorite cards! If I get a chance later today, I will get some pictures and share it :)

But until then, here is my sepia colored dream... I showed a card I made using my little "playing cards" the other day. Today's card was made for several challenges. The fab sketch is from CardPatterns, and what a great resource and inspiration this site is! If you haven't been, you need to go see :) I also love this image (I made the playing card embellie with this great picture from Luna Girl) because it also fits the theme challenge from SecretCrafter challenge, which was "Flights of Fancy" or wings... EverybodyArt challenged artists to use blue and brown (one of my all time favorite combinations!) and at Spoon full of Sugar, distressing was the technique to use.

Ingredients
Paper: MyMindsEye, Webster's Pages
Image: from Luna Girl
Embellishment: queenofnostalgia playing card, chipboard
Inks: Ranger



As for being in the home stretch... only a few more days until the boys start their program at preschool. I know, worst mom ever right? To have an internal countdown until the big yellow bus comes to get her munchkins? I try to lessen the guilt thing by telling myself that they are going to the best school for their needs, with a cool gym and great teachers who totally "get" them. I also remind myself that in the last 4 years, the only "free" time I have had is when they both have napped at the same time, which has happened about, oh, three times. So I don't feel guilty. Really. Guilt is not a word in my vocabulary. Please, guilt? (For those of you who aren't movie nerds like me, that is a line from "Baby Boom', one of my all time favorite movies. If you have seen it, you need to because it is hilarious and heartwarming and funny and true and... you just have to see it.) One of the hardest things I have learned being a mom is that with motherhood comes a big fat deal of guilt. Did I spend enough time with my kids this morning? Do I make them eat enough veggies? Should I have enrolled them in swimming last spring? Will his teeth fall out because I didn't make hims brush his teeth? I let them watch too much Elmo yesterday, I just know it... Do I let them eat too much syrup on their pancakes? Did I eat too much salmon when I was pregnant?

Please, I have guilt in spades. I try to cope with it, and assure myself it must just come with the territory. And so I try to get a grip, count the days, and plan to make peas at dinner, turn off Elmo, and take them to the park...

childhood

I love vintage children's books, and have a motley collection. Some are in pristine condition, but the vast majority are tattered tomes, covers scratched and bindings baring their stitches. I like the tattered ones best. They often have such lovely fabric covers, and the pages are heavier, a little yellowed. But the illustrations are so vibrant and fabulous! It is still thrilling to pick up a dusty, faded book and open a page to find bright and whimsical pictures on aged paper.

I made sets of these little altered playing cards, and have used them in other altered art. Now that I am obsessed (in a good way, of course) with cardmaking, I realized that they would make great embellishments for cards!

This card I created using a lovely sketch from Sketch Saturday. I have to say, Saturday mornings, even before my coffee is ready, I sneak up to the computer to see if the sketch for that Saturday is ready so I can print it and dream of nap time and cardmaking... Anyway, back to the challenge :) Once again, my love of buttons is prominent here, and I found some fab trim in my stash that went perfectly with the papers I picked out.

Ingredients

Papers: MyMindsEye, K&Co

Embellishments: vintage trim, my altered playing card

Sketch: SketchSaturday

Ink: Ranger Distress Ink

The studio... in real life :)

I posted pictures of my studio a few days ago, and have had such lovely comments from you lovlies out there! My parents are coming for a visit tomorrow, so I will have to tell my dad how well his craft table was received :) I warned readers to look quick, as it will never be that clean again...

I just brewed a pot of coffee (it is after 10:30pm) and plan on heading downstairs soon to my new favorite place in the house. I thought I would share some more pictures, too. I don't think I mentioned before that my creative space is only half the basement (which believe me, to a girl who used to scrap on the kitchen island while trying to cook pancakes at the same time... very grateful!) ... the other half is a family area. Ok, fine, it is the twins' area to wreak havoc. The make forts out of the loveseat cushions, bring every toy they own to spread on the floor, try to convince me that picnics in the basement are a good idea, and pretty much thoroughly enjoy themselves.

And if you look closely at this picture, you will see that it isn't a child-free zone...

There is about 12 inches between my work table and the loveseat. So much fun to try to stand on mama's table and jump onto the loveseat.

I have decided to pick my battles.





Yes, you can come look at the pretty papers.
No, you can't jump off the table.
Yes, you can arrange all my wood mounted stamps in a row.
No, the Crop-o-dile is not a toy.
Yes, you can pick two buttons to glue to make your "own card."
No, you can't taste the glue...

And so it goes. I don't think I have mentioned it here or not, but my boys turned four just last July, and they both have been diagnosed with Autism. If you are familiar with autism, you know it is a wide spectrum. Johnny's autism is more mild, whereas Mikey struggles a bit more. Mikey loves my craft area. His favorite thing is to line up all my stamps, and to line the edges of my table with his dinosaurs. Johnny makes arrangements of pictures, toys, and cups around my sewing machine. Here is Mikey intent on improving my collection of vintage books (that dress form is now in three pieces, by the way. They said it was a trophy and the boys hosted a race to see who would win it... the trophy lost).


While it can be a bit messy, and I may spend a few extra minutes looking for my distress ink (by the dinosaurs, of course! Duh, mom) I love it. I love that I can make a card, tickle my kids, sort some paper, play pirate, work on a scrapbook page, go outside and push the boys on the swingset... Don't get me wrong. Some days are better than others, and some days I can't wait for bedtime. And then there are those moments, when the house is still and quiet, I go into my workspace, see a T-Rex on my chair, and laugh so hard I cry.

Meant to be...Midnight madness at its most sincere

Midnight Madness... This is my first MMSC and I think it pretty appropriate that I am posting it at, if not midnight, the middle of the night... I am having one of those I-can't-sleep-but-can't-decide-of-I-should-go-back-to-bed-and-try-to-sleep moments. These usually turn into me deciding to get on the computer "just for a minute" and then see that two hours have gone by, it is almost morning, and by the time I fall asleep, the kids are up. Oh well. I'll just drink an extra pot of coffee.

This card originally had a digistamp on it, then I did the unthinkable - I tore it off, because I had used a funky red and it threw the whole thing off! I usually am not a teal and pink kind of gal, but I had this roll of fabulous lace edged fabric trim ribbon and have been dying to use it... and that determined my colorscheme... So then I sat here, card without an image, done in teals and pinks. I dug through my stash of vintage pics, and there she was...

(cue the swelling orchestra!)

the exact size, already printed for crying out loud, and she was wearing a soft bluish teal dress and holding a bouquet of pink flowers. Seriously? It was meant to be.

When working on a project, I usually "print to order." That is, I print out a pic for a specific project. However, I have this well-meaning, if not productive, intention of being frugal and trying to be productive notion that if I print on photopaper/fabric/whatever, I may as well fill up the sheet as to not waste time/material. What usually happens is that I cut out the image I wanted, set aside the sheet, and either forget about it, spill my coffee on it, or accidentally roll my chair over it three months later when it falls off the pile of other preprinted sheets that met the same fate.

But this little vintage gal somehow survived and is now looking beautifully melancholy on my teal and pink card. Three cheers for not getting rolled over!

See what happens when I wake up at 2am and can't sleep?

Ingredients

Papers: Basic Grey

Image: rescued vintage image (Luna Girl)

Embellishments: buttons (of course), thread, vintage lace trim

Inks: Ranger distress ink

Thank you... and could I LOVE buttons any more than this?

I mentioned in my previous post my love for Mary. I did some digging, and I have quite a decent stash of ME stamps! Wooo Hooo! I made this little cutie card in response to the Friday Sketchers challenge (I sure love their sketches!) and it was fun to use bold, bright colors...

...and buttons! I think I have layered buttons on the last 4ish cards I have made. I even put a button on the inside. I hope I am not overdoing the button thing. They make me ever-so-happy...

Ingredients

Papers:MyMindsEye, BoBunny, Graphic45

Image: Mary Engelbreit

Embellishments: ribbon, BUTTONS :)

Ranger distress ink and colored pencils

Hey baby... loving Mary Engelbreit

I am a huge fan of Mary Engelbreit. Huge. My little workspace is plastered with prints from her calendars and posterbooks (I was looking through my stash of old calendars, and I have been saving them sine, oh, 199osomething), and I just love her sense of whimsy, her great use of color... When I started stamping years ago, some of my very first stamps I bought were ME stamps. Cute Card Thursday had a challenge of "new beginning", and the first image that came to my mind was one of my most favorite ME stamps. A prefect baby stamp, it works for Stampin' for the weekend's Baby challenge too! Using a fabulous sketch from EverybodyART, I created this card. I loved this sketch, and know I will be using it again :)


I really enjoyed building this card up. Lots of texture with buttons, quilted fabric, layers of paper and chipboard, paint, a little safety pin...


I really feel like my obsession with cardmaking is coming along quite nicely.

Speaking of Mary, did anyone read her article in the magazine "Where Women Create"? It is new on the shelves, and I sooo want to live in Mary's world...


Ingredients
Papers: MyMindsEye (I so love their papers...)
Stamp: Mary Engelbreit and GStudios (sentiment)
Embellishments: Fabric (moda), silver safety pin, buttons, thread, chipboard
Ink, paint, colored pencils

So many cards...and FREE SHIPPING offer :)

With all of the challenges I have been doing, in addition to just making cards for the fun of making cards... I have a ton of cards! Some of you know that I sell scrapbook pages and such on eBay and Etsy, so I decided to put some of my cards up in my shops :) Some are cards you may have seen here on my blog, and others are creations that no one has seen yet. I plan to stay up late tonight and stock up my shops! If you do buy from my eBay or Etsy store, just mention you found me through my blog and I will give you FREE SHIPPING! I have cards, altered tins, blog banners... Take a peek!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

I know it is probably too early to think about Christmas, but as someone who is always late sending out cards, I thought I may as well start getting in the holiday spirit. Now that I am back into cardmaking, I want to start a nice stash of Season's Greetings! This card was created using the delightful sketch on the challenge site PaperTake Weekly. Using cool greens,cream and gold and peppermint reds, this vintage styled card is entered in the Colour Create challenge. I printed the image, which is from an antique postcard I found in a dusty old store in Traverse City, MI, about three years ago, onto teastained muslin. The fabric is from my stash, and I distressed the golden paper that is matting the picture with my edger.

Ingredients

Papers:Webster's Pages, Flair Designs, Crate Paper

Embellishments: Vintage postcard image, fabric, muslin

Inks: Ranger Distress ink

Double Dutch Friendship card...

It's no secret I love vintage! When I found this set of K&Co. vintage embellies on sale at Michaels this summer, I knew it would be just a matter of time until I found just the right project :) The challenge at Double Dutch challenge was "Back in Time" where you could pick a previous challgenge, and I chose the sketch from DDC#06. It was the perfect layout for the card I had in mind: lots of layers. I love to layer papers, and this card uses six different companies' papers. It is a kind of a funky retro look, and I love pink and green together.

Ingredients

Papers: Crate Paper, Creative Imaginations, Jenni Bowlin, MyMindsEye, Basic Grey, and Prima

Embellishments: button, K&Co friendship card, stitching, trim

Ink: Ranger distress ink

How fancy do I feel?!? I just found out that my card was featured on the Pink Petticoat blog... In my quest for stamps, I found out about digi-stamps, and this cute little boutique has some great ones! I love technology... Anyway, thank you, Pink Petticoat, for making my day! And thanks to Emma, who was a sweetie and told me about it :)

Hey Cupcake...

The doorbell rang yesterday, and my two cutie little neighbor girls were at the door. They wanted to see if they could borrow some vanilla extract. They were making cookies with their cousin, and you could tell they were sooo excited to be baking from scratch (plus they like to ring my doorbell). I supplied the extract (I use it sometimes when I teastain fabric) and felt compelled to bake with my kids.

I used a mix, however. We made brownies, and the boys enjoyed the bowl-licking the best. After filling the baking pan, I let them have at the bowl with various spoons, mixing cups, and measuring utensils. I have never seen so much teamwork. These two were on a mission, and they were very dedicated to their mission:

Get as much chocolate on their faces as possible.

Of course my full attention was on my children, but I was also dreaming of the next card I could create. I wanted to combine some of the challenges... I am loving the challenges! So while I stirred and tried to keep the boys from putting their complete faces into the mixing bowl, I decided to do a cupcake card.

In my quest to see how many challenges I could do with one card, I was pleased to be able to use the sketch from Friday Sketchers, use circles as challenged by ABC, stitch around my papers for Creative Inspirations, and make this a little birthday card for Stamp Something .

Ingredients

Paper: MyMindsEye, Bazzill

Embellishments: handpieced cupcake by me, fabric, button, stitching