Doggone It's Your Birthday!

I made this card today for a friend who is having a birthday soon -- she has just moved and I thought she needed a fun, simple card! I cased this card from this one by Jenn Balcer's daughter. Jenn was the Featured Stamped on SCS today. I love this dog image from Penny Black. He just looks so huggable.
Stamps: The Fine Print (sentiment), Penny Black
Paper: Real Red, Tempting Turquoise, Basic Black, Whisper White, unknown DP
Ink: Basic Black, Real Red, various dye inks for watercoloring
Accessories: Frame Frills by Queen & Co., Stickles, Offray ribbon, dimensionals, glue dots

Candy is Dandy~ and so are my kids!

I made this card for today's Limited Supplies Challenge: using Halloween images for non-Halloween cards -- and for yesterday's Ways to Use It Challenge: Food.

Stamps: All About U, Cheesecloth, Alphabits, candy corn by Hero Arts
Paper: Yoyo Yellow, Only Orange, Slab DP, Whisper White
Ink: Only Orange, Basic Black, Yoyo Yellow
Accessories: paper clip, dotted grosgrain ribbon, jumbo white eyelets, wave template, 1/4 " circle punch

My friend Stacy inspired me today to use up some of my scraps and to send a card for Bre'Anna, a little 9 year old girl who is recovering from brain cancer surgery. She sounds so sweet and resilient!

You can read about her story HERE.

My kids were born adventurers. They get that from their father, who is an adventure seeker. Here are some recent pictures of my family on their adventures (I stayed home to stamp, of course!):
This is my son hanging on a cliff at where else? Hanging Rock, North Carolina. He spent Labor Day there with some friends and just had to send me a picture that he knew I would squeal about. His Dad squealed too, but only because he was jealous!

This is my darling daughter (above), getting ready for her rapelling trip down a 30 ft. cliff in Vedauwoo, Wyoming. She gets this desire from this guy (my adventurous husband):

Who knows what they will do next?

Never Enough Thyme

This is my card for today's Color Challenge:
More Mustard
Old Olive
Bashful Blue

What a fitting sentiment for my days lately. I seem to run out of hours in the day to do what I need to do. Sounds familiar to all of us, I am sure. In fact, I am running out of a lot of stuff. Groceries, dog treats (ever so important), time, patience.....PAPER! I had no blues in this house except for ONE sheet of Blue Bayou -- and several jazz recordings of Blues music. So I popped in a Miles Davis CD and began to make my card - knowing that I would be substituting a darker shade of blue. But it fits.....no paper.....no thyme!

The stamp set I chose is called Sweet Herbs. It's a retired Stampin' Up! set, but one of my favorites! The background is stamped in Blue Bayou. Each layer is distressed with the Cutter Tool and the edges are then ink distressed using the direct to paper technique with Creamy Caramel. I watercolored the main image and the sentiment using a variety of Stampin' Up! dye ink pads and an aqua brush. The Dotlets are by Doodlebug and the ribbon is attached with Antique Copper Hodgepodge Hardware.

I hope you find thyme today to stamp something!

A Frame Inspired by a Frame

I love the SCS Challenges, and I try to do as many each week as time allows. My favorite one is the Inspiration Challenge. It evokes so many different ideas from one picture and I love seeing what everyone comes up with. This week our inspiration was a frame from Neiman Marcus, which you can see HERE.

I decided to make a picture frame too. The Almost Amethyst background oval is actually a pocket to hold a photograph -- I will probably put one of my daughter in here after I get her Fall Ball pictures (event was last night) printed.

The frame base is Elegant Eggplant, then a layer of Sage Shadow, the Amethyst pocket and the Whisper White front.

The flowers and butterfly have Stickles on them for a sparkly effect, some of which doesn't show in the photo. The edges are distressed, including the inside of the oval. This frame is 6x6 inches.

Want a New Identity?

I was tagged by several of my blogger friends with this game. It's a funny one! Just answer the questions and see what your "alternate" names would be!

1. YOUR ROCK STAR NAME: (first pet & current car) - Clyde Caravan

2.YOUR GANGSTA NAME: (fav. ice cream flavor, favorite cookie) Vanilla Chip

3. YOUR “FLY Guy/Girl” NAME: (first initial of first name, first three letters of your last name) JROZ

4. YOUR DETECTIVE NAME: (favorite color, favorite animal) - Pink Giraffe

5. YOUR SOAP OPERA NAME: (middle name, city where you were born)- Ann Portales

6. YOUR STAR WARS NAME: (the first 3 letters of your last name, first 2 letters of your first) - Rozju

7. SUPERHERO NAME: (2nd favorite color, favorite drink put “The”) Blue the DC

8. NASCAR NAME: (the first names of your grandfathers)- Harry Frank

9. STRIPPER NAME : ( the name of your favorite perfume/cologne, favorite candy) Black Raspberry Kisses

10.WITNESS PROTECTION NAME: (mother’s & father’s middle names ) Ann Arnold

What a bunch of silly stuff, huh? Well, I am tagging these six:
Stampin With Inky Fingers
Toy's Haven
Stampin Project Junkie
Debi's Crazy Life
The Life of a Small pigpig
Angel's World

Congrats to Sharon!

Congrats to Sharon in NE who won the blog candy drawing for this month! Thank you for your comments and visits to my blog, Sharon!!

She will receive a surprise fall blog candy package for visiting and commenting!
I will email you later today so you can send my your address!

My roses are still blooming! We have had some really pretty ones this year:

Some stamping things I have been doing:

Here are some fun things I have been working on in the last week:
I made this card for the SCS Sketch Challenge, which you can see here. I think this is such a fun set. I think the cats think they are purrfect (you know how cats are!) -- but the mice in the background remind us that no one is perfect! They are gobbling up every bite they can find!
This is my card for this Color Challenge:
River Rock
Really Rust
Chocolate Chip

My chicken got out this morning and played in the mud after last night's rain, hence the "dirt" all around her and the chicken wire. Not sure if I should have chosen that particular chicken for today's card. Hindsight. There are some clean ones hanging out on my desk, although Muddy Hen reflects the state of my desk better than the Clean Chicks.

This pink and silver card was made using a non-traditional embellishment: foil! I wanted to capture the idea of a big candy Kiss wrapper -- Hershey's Kisses are one of my favorite candies!

Here is another sketch card. I made the background paper from one of my Bach piano books (copied a portion of the music - no copyright rules broken - only a tiny piece! :) ) but it didn't work for that, so I decided to make a round card! The ribbon is tied in the center fold. The inside of the card looks like a 45rpm. Anyone remember those? :)

Spiraling Out of Control!

I hope that title got your attention! :)
It sure got mine this morning for the SCS Ways to Use It Challenge. Our challenge was to use spirals in our creations today. I don't have a spiral punch, so I used my Rolodex punch instead. I think it turned out better than I thought; I guess I am used to the way the other punch looks. The journal also has spirals down the side where the ribbons are. I wanted this to have a feminine western look for a gift I needed. The black piece down the right side is elastic and holds the journal shut where the pen is inside. The edges are sanded and the sentiment piece is distressed and sponged with Chocolate Chip ink.

On another note, my week has spiralled out of control and I have not yet gotten my picture of the Blog Candy up! For sure by tomorrow morning! Thanks for your patience and all of the great comments!

Fifth and Final Card for Blog Candy -- Plus Inspiration!

Here is the fifth and final card for my Blog Candy drawing. Read about it in the first post for today!

Today's SCS Inspiration Challenge was this dress.

You might be thinking, "Wow, I don't see the resemblance at all!" But it started with the little blue flowers and went from there. I intended to use brown and pink as well, but the card had a mind of its own! The diamonds came from the diagonal line of ribbon on the bodice. And the top and bottom striped layers on the card from the flounces on the bottom of the dress. So I was inspired -- to make something you have to look hard at to find similarities! :)

The flowers were stamped and then color pulled from the ink with a watercolor brush.

Blessings and RAKs

This card was made for a Virtual Stamping Night Challenge where we were to RAK someone that we did not know. There is a forum on the SCS site where people can ask for cards to be sent for particular reasons. I am sending this to Lynn, who has been fighting ovarian cancer and is beginning a new round of chemotherapy.

The pumpkins are from a new Stampin' Up! set called Autumn Harvest. The double-sided designer paper is from Chatterbox. I love tent cards and the sentiment fit the occasion and the layout perfectly!

Spray and Smash and Smoosh Around!

Here is a great new technique to try: Spray and Smash! It makes great backgrounds for all sorts of things! This was part of the Virtual Stamping Night Challenges, and this one was hosted by Faith Hofrichter. You can see her tutorial for the technique here. I used Apricot Appeal, Ruby Red, Elegant Eggplant and Mellow Moss for my reinker colors.

Happy Anniversary

This is my card for the VSN Challenge: Falling in Love.

As many of my friends know, my DH and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary this past July -- except that we didn't celebrate, as I was in one state and he was in another. So I made this card for him, and I will give it to him when we do get to celebrate!

The black ribbon in the middle is supposed to be reminiscent of a garter like I wore on our wedding day. The wedding couple is a new Cuttlebug embossing folder.

I used Everyday Flexible Phrases -- one teeny stamp (but a BIG word with meaning for me!)! I love that set because you can make just about any sentiment you need or want!

Blog Candy for Me (ok -- and you!)

I have been slow this week in updating my blog! So here is the deal: by the end of the day, I will have uploaded five new cards. Leave a comment on two of them and be entered into my Blog Candy drawing -- lots of fun Fall things for you to make! Monday afternoon I will post a picture of the surprise Blog Candy package! Lots of fun stuff!

Here is the first one:
I made this for a SCS Challenge -- we were to make a sympathy card. I like those to be clean and simple, so the sentiment is the most important thing the card says.

In the Guava Groove

Wow! I really hated Guava last week. I disliked my card -- I blamed it all on Poor Guava. But with this week's color challenge, Guava is Groovy!! I love it paired with Always Artichoke and this is the card I came up with:

The designer paper is from the Old World Mat Stack by DCWV, and the rest is Stampin' Up! Always Artichoke, Groovy Guava, and River Rock. I made the scallops using my slit punch, and the main image is cut out from a Cuttlebug embossing folder. Hope you all are having a groovy day!