Thursday, August 30, 2007

Music of the Soul


These little creatures are singing their hearts out! They have such an experienced looking leader, don't you think? :)
I love these particular House Mouse stamps. My sister gave me the little maestro and the mouse tracks for my birthday this past summer, to go with the other two images I already had. All stamps are by Stampabilities and colored with pencil crayons. The cloud stencil is one I hand cut years ago, and would not be without! The designer paper is Skate Shoppe by Basic Grey. The dots in it match the Soft Sky paper by Stampin' Up! perfectly! I wonder what song they are singing with such fervor? "His Eye is On the Sparrow"? "Bird Has Flown" by Deep Purple? "Birdland"? Are there any songs with 'mouse' in the title? Well, whatever it is, they are certainly singing their little hearts and souls out. Oh, maybe they are singing "Heart and Soul"!!

My 18 year old son has music in his soul. And in his head. Constantly. He is composing all the time, and comes up with complete songs in a day - orchestrations, words, recordings. What a gift. I teach music, but he is now the teacher.

Tuesday, August 28, 2007

New Watermarks

I got two fabulous new watermarks from Dini! [Check out her website HERE]
They turned out great and she has lightning fast service and incredibly reasonable (cheap in price but not cheap in quality!!) prices! The one on this card is one of the new ones. Look for the other one later this week!

Today's Color Challenge is Purely Pomegranate, Old Olive and Pretty in Pink. What gorgeous colors to work with! There is a leaf stamped on the Purely Pomegranate in Pink ink -- hard to see in the photo. Both the Pretty in Pink and Olive pieces are stamped with Canvas in P in P. The lower right hand corner is a punch from EK Success. I used my heat gun to curl my pink organdy ribbon and keep it from fraying.

We had a little rain today and there is nice cloud cover today. I am so ready for fall!

Monday, August 27, 2007

She's a Colts fan (I know it's a Bronco.....)........

I love this paper from Cosmo Cricket. It's called WANTED and has some really fabulous color combinations in it. I made this card for the SCS Featured Stamper Challenge. I was amazed by all of the wonderful creations in Carolyn's gallery (cammie), but this is the one I chose to case.
She says in her description that her card was inspired by a card by Bad Sherry, so I guess this is a third generation!

I kept the same layout (I love it!) but changed colors and stamped images. Each of the medallions in the left DP panel are a combination of three colors, so I colored mine using markers to try to match that effect.

I made this for my friend, Stacy, who has been incredibly kind and fun! Hope she likes it!

Sunday, August 26, 2007

Proud and humbled Mom.....

For some thought-provoking reading, visit http://srozema.wordpress.com

This is my son's blog. I am learning a lot from him.

I don't like spiders; I don't like snakes.....


I usually don't make Halloween cards. Mostly because I am busy doing other stuff in October -- it's a big month in our family for Marching Band activities every weekend, and the high school musical (no, not THAT High School Musical - Fiddler on the Roof this year) is also in October and I usually help with that. But the SCS Ways To Use It Challenge this week was to make a Halloween card. I have had this little mummy and spider for a couple of years and have never inked them! So I decided it was time to dust them off! And you know what? I had fun making it! I might even make a GOB of Halloween cards this year.....seeing as it is still August, I might make the DEADline.......(haha....get it? ok -- bad PUN!)
My mummy is walking in monster slime~

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Groovy Thoughts


Today's Color Challenge was to use Soft Sky and Groovy Guava. Here is what I came up with, although I am not too thrilled with the results. Some stamping days are like that! The set I used is a hostess set from Stampin' Up! called In the Spotlight, although the sentiment is a $1 stamp from Michael's. Some color combinations are so easy for some stampers, and not for others! It's kind of funny -- I had a hard time with this one~ maybe I will try another a different day and see what happens!

Sunday, August 19, 2007

Peace

This long card uses one of my favorite unique images, Madonna and Child, by Ink Blocks. I colored it using Stampin' Up! markers, and then cut out the image to layer on Basic Grey Black Tie designer paper and then SU! Blsuh Blossom. The eyelets are a taupe color that match the little leaf background inked with Sahara Sand. The four corner squares are punched out of Blush Blossom with a 1/4" square punch. The Peace sentiment is from Ben Franklin -- I don't know the vendor, but I love the font! Growing up in Arizona, I am always looking for unique southwest stamps and this one certainly fit that category.

Saturday, August 18, 2007

A Little Inspiration


Well, I hope all of you that watched the video (see yesterday's post) were as inspired as I was. It's so important to show our soldiers that we are thinking of them and care that they are risking their lives for freedom!

I was also inspired to create this card for the SCS Inspiration Challenge. We were given a picture of a bedspread (click here) and this is what I came up with. I love all the patterns in these papers (unknown vendor)! And the chocolate eyelets look just like candy! Yummy! I think I will go make some fudge!

Check out Jen70's blog at Stamping Therapy for another challenge this card fits: 1)Using hearts and 2)Making a square card ~~

Friday, August 17, 2007

Please share in the happiness of our town.......

I am not posting my card today (check back tomorrow), but would like to post this link:
HEROES

If you want to share the site, the address is:
http://www.imagefactoryphotography.com/slideshows/Heros

It is pictures from my town in Nebraska a week ago, when our soldiers came home from Iraq after a year! Get out your Kleenex boxes -- and pray for those who are still there.

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Pins and Needles


My daughter went to her first day of High School today with all the students there. Yesterday was just Freshmen. I think she was on pins and needles this morning. It's so fun to see students go back to school. They are excited to get there - and a little shy. I had Open House at my school last night and it was interesting to see which kids came right into my room, and which were shy to even look at me -- even though I have been their music teacher for years! They were on pins and needles, waiting to see where they would sit and what class they were in.

Today I used another pin in my card -- for today's SCS Ways To Use It Challenge. It was a double challenge -- with the second half asking us to use the Cutter Tool. It does a lot of different things -- score, perforate, distress, cut.... I use it most often for distressing, which I also did on this card.

I used one of my favorite "old" sets: Betsy the Beekeeper. I have a small collection of bee things and stamps, and I love the style of this set. My little heart pin is from Heidi Designs. I sponged the clouds from a hand cut stencil I made.

The NQN layer behind the hive has the little bees stamped on it, also in NQN. The main card is NQN, then layered with Close to Cocoa, then another NQN, then the main Vanilla piece. All layers are mounted on dimensionals.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Simple and Fast

Since school started back this week, I have had to re-think my summer stamping habits. I am used to having a LOT of time to think and plan and arrange and re-arrange my cards. But no longer! Here is what I came up with for today's SCS sketch challenge, which you can see here.

I double mounted the large "U" for depth, and made the little heart out of cereal box chipboard. I love the Basic Grey Black Tie paper too. And now it's off to work! Have a great day and make a card or two!

Sunday, August 12, 2007

New Toys are Always Fun!


Today I was inspired by the Featured Stamper Challenge to make this Christmas card. The FS this week was Jen J. (aka Jen70) - an SCS Challenge hostess herself! I used this card to inspire me to make mine. This is a brand new Stampin' Up! set which will be available to purchase beginning September 1. It is part of the new Holiday Mini catalog. The neat thing about all of the stamps in that catalog, and in subsequent mini catalogs, is that they are all die cut! That means no cutting of rubber -- just push it through the rubber sheet and apply to your wood block! It's great - and so fast! And trimmed closely and much better than I could do.

I love this new set -- it is a set of four -- the Nativity, the tag (which I have stamped on top in Taken With Teal), an angel and the three wise men. I watercolored my image and stamped Baroque Motifs in Encore Gold on the Chocolate Chip background. The sentiment is by an unknown vendor -- I bought it at a Ben Franklin store!

Saturday, August 11, 2007

Summer is Over!


Summer is over -- at least for me! I start back to school on Monday -- and since I would have the weekend off anyway, it's over. Sniff...sniff...
My son went back to college today too -- sniff...sniff...
My daughter starts high school on Wednesday -- sniff...sniff...
Time flies.

So here is my End of the Summer card! I used Sketch It by Stampin' Up! and sponged in the color using sponge daubers. Sunflowers remind me of summer and also the beginning of fall. I hope you had a good summer!

Friday, August 10, 2007

Wishes and Dreams


I wish I could "beam" myself places - like they did on Star Trek. My son leaves for North Carolina tomorrow to begin his second year of college at UNCG. It's a long way from home!

I wish I was independently wealthy so I could stamp all day and just make cards and journals to send to my friends.

I wish I had a new car. My husband spent most of the day yesterday trying to fix our 1996 van so it has air conditioning. If your area is like ours, we are having HOT and HUMID days -- yesterday the humidity here was 79%. Eek!

I wish I could be Mary Poppins one day a week and snap my fingers like in "Spoonful of Sugar." What fun cleaning would be if I could just sing and snap!

I wish I could see a Dallas Cowboys game in Texas Stadium. (Pre-season has started! Did you see the game against the Colts last night??)

I wish school didn't start on Monday.

I wish I were 40 pounds lighter - maybe I could move to the moon? :)

I wish dogs didn't shed (I love my dogs and want them to be inside dogs, so this I put up with!).

I wish people would spay and neuter their pets.

I wish people weren't lonely, hungry, alone, orphaned, homeless, afraid, poor, cruel, angry, fighting.

I wish we had peace on earth.

Wednesday, August 8, 2007

On the Blue Bayou......

I love this color! Blue has always been one of my favorites and Blue Bayou is definitely one of my favorite new In Colors from Stampin' Up! This 4.25 square card was made for a "corner challenge" -- doing something besides corner punches to dress up those forgotten corners! I used an old retired Stampin' Up! set, Beautiful Batik, and the new SU Designer Paper -- I think they were made for each other!

Speaking of blue -- we have blue skies this morning, but another (third day in a row) thunderstorm last night!! Tons of rain! We have only had to water our grass like three times all summer -- and that is good! My little beagle is not pleased about the thunder, however -- she gets scared! But all is well this morning~

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Two weeks....wow!


For you regular readers -- my parents are here and moved and we are in the process of unpacking! Our trip from Arizona to Nebraska went well and we enjoyed the rain and the scenery along the way!

I finally got back to stamping this morning -- at 3 in the morning! Not exactly what I had in mind, but we had a ginormous thunderstorm with lots of lightning and rain (again!) and once I am up -- I am up! So I made use of the time and stamped this card for the SCS Color Challenge. Today's colors are Soft Sky, Blue Bayou and Cameo Coral - a great combination!

I used one of the new Stampin' Up! hostess sets, Vases in Vogue. The coral paper is Bazzill textured and scalloped - I love the scalloped border on it. I stamped "a flower for you" in Cameo Coral on the coral paper - a little hard to see in the photo. It's great to be back!