Best Friends...

Hi everyone - 5 days straight...I wonder how long I can keep this up???

So how do you thank a friend for always being there for you? For over 11 years my best friend has been at my side and now that I am going through this divorce they are even more supportive for me. Now most people who will read this will and say that is what a best friend is for ~ the only difference for me is my best friend is a guy. I talk to him about everything and he always offers me a shoulder to cry on if needed and does his best to lift me up when I'm down. He was the main force behind my starting church almost a year ago and is working on helping me find my self confidence. I wanted to show him how important he was to me when he had his birthday so I picked two of my favorite quote from the bible and framed them for him...

The quote for this is Esslesiates 3:1-8

A Time for Everything
1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
2 a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
3 a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
4 a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
5 a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
6 a time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
7 a time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
8 a time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

The second one is 1 Corinthians 13: 4-7



4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

I will say that he did appreciate both of these. It does make me feel good when I am able to make a gift from scratch and have some one enjoy it.

I used Inspired by Nature for both of these and various sizes of scalloped circle and a sponge dauber to create the skies. The sayings are printed on vellum and mounted over the backgrounds.

Totally Tools Challenge

Hi everyone! Things have been going really well here. Work is great - we are getting a little busier so I am having a little less time to play in my room.

This is a card I CASE'd entirely from the Spring/Summer book on page 47. When I first saw this card in the catty I knew I wanted this set. I love this specialty designer paper called To the Nines. This paper is just too yummy!

Kat made a card using the same papers and stamps and this is what she came up with...she placed her DS paper lower and put her image on the opposite side.

I really do think that both of these cards turned out very nice. This set is just too fun and perfect for masculine cards. I really love how the image and saying are far enough apart to be able to use them together or apart.

I hope everyone has a great day!!

Flutter-by Butterflies

Hi everyone! I truly hope everyone has had a blessed day! We have spring moving through here and the temps and weather are quite nice (for now).

Kat and I did another card challenge the other day...this time we used up some supplies from a previous stamp camp.

My card is pretty balanced I think ~ I really try to follow some rules while card making. Sometimes I really think I need to become more loose like the kids are when they stamp with me, they really don't care if it comes out perfectly balanced or not as long as they are happy with the end results they are happy! That must be one of the reasons God created kids ~ to keep parents from becoming too serious ;)

Kat's card is typical Kat...she loves the grungy look of ink to paper and to tilt the panels on her cards every which direction. I really love how creative and free she is when gets to creating with me.

I hope everyone has a great evening!!

A Rose is A Rose...

Hi everyone!

I hope everyone has been having a great time...I know I have. My new job is really fun ~ there is a ton of stuff to memorize and learn, but the customers and my fellow employees have been really patient with me.

I have some more cards to share with you ~ I haven't gotten to stamp as much as I would like lately, but I'm sure as soon as I have my job down a little more I will be able to take time in the evening to play in my room some more.

The cards I am going to share today are from a challenge I did with Kat ~ she got to pick the stamp set and I picked the papers. She really likes to challenge me in a literal way when we do these challenge cards...

This is what I came up with. As usual I made a pretty symmetrical card with everything matted properly...I even got a little anal lining my scallop borders up so the same amount of pink was showing on each strip of the Bella Rose paper and the scallops were actually across from each other...the fact that I stay so symmetrical really makes Kat laugh.

As you can see Kat really likes to have her cards asymmetrical, which usually turn out beautifully as well. If fact I plan on CASE-ing this card in the near future. She used her pink scalloped pieces inside the card to accent the personal message she added and of course had to add a little bling to the front of the card to make it stand out a little more ;)

I hope everyone is taking a little time to play with the wonderful stamp sets you own and trying to challenge yourself to see how many different cards you can make from one set.

I finally have cards to share - again!!

Hello to everyone!! I know it has been quite awhile since I posted last - I have to say the past few months have been stressful and busy - the stressful part comes from work, a coveted full time spot became available and several people applied for it including me. It got down to me and another gal and earlier this week I found out that the other gal got the spot. I'm happy for her but a little frustrated at the same time. We were in limbo for about three months waiting to see who was going to get the spot and I thought I had a really good shot at it. I now believe God has other plans for me...I have started putting my resume out to several places and have had a promising interview - say a prayer if you would that I'm asked back next week for the second interview...I will keep everyone posted...

I have also (finally) gotten back into making cards!!! I decided I needed to be doing something for myself and I truly enjoy paper crafting. My kids have also been in the card making mood so we have been having lots of fun every evening. Our goal has been to create challenges for each other, one of them gets to pick the stamp set and the other the colors we use and we all create a card - some are goofy and some are more serious but all are original and bring us together doing some fun stuff and that is all that really counts I think. I will say some of the cards my DD has made really blow me away - she has done a couple that I plan on CASING!!!! I have also managed to complete some of my 5 way challenge cards!!

This is the card I made for this challenge with my kids - my DD picked the stamp set and my DS picked the colors. I used the stamp-a-ma-jig to line up my birds and a punched out scallop circle punch to create the clouds.

Here is the card my DD created - she loves to put her papers on an angle and to distress her layers by running them over the stamp pad. She opted to not color her image for this card.

Here is the card my DS created - he got quite creative with his card I think...the tiger face in the bottom is actually a butterfly punch that he colored...after I took the picture he decided to color in his rhino...

I hope everyone has enjoyed a glimpse of our card making challenges - some of the challenge cards have only been done with DD and me or DS and me - as anyone who has kids knows they don't always want to do the same things at the same time...

Gatefold Card Challenge

So I finally created an "Official" newsletter to send out to all my customers, and in it I offered a challenge...create a gatefold card and I want to challenge my few readers to the same thing...and on a side note, if you are interested in getting my "official" newsletter just send me an email and I will gladly send it to you.

I think the gatefold style card is one of my new favorite folding techniques.

Instead of folding your cardstock in half you score a line at 2 1/8” inches and 6 3/8”. Cut two pieces of Designer Series Paper at 5 3/8” x 2” and layer on each flap. Create your main image and mat as you would like. Just make sure when you attach this image to the card you only put adhesive on half of your image so your card will still open.

You can get very creative with the stamps you use with this folding technique. You don’t have to use one main image, you can use many smaller images and adhere them to the smaller flaps.
I have a challenge to issue to each of you...I want you to make a gatefold card and email me a picture of it. I will post all the pictures on my blog and everyone will be able to vote for the one that is the most creative. Please get your pictures to me by June 30, 2008. The voting will end on July 7th and I will notify the winner who will get a great surprise from me...I can’t wait to see what everyone comes up with!!

I've attached a few samples to help get you started...but please get creative and more importantly have fun!!