Butterflies and Cupcakes

Don't these cupcakes look delicious and colorful.  I decided today to play along (my first time) with the Cupcake challenge on Hope Stamps Eternal

This is challenge #13 and it's taken me this long to finally play along but I'm glad I did.

  For my card I chose to highlight the bright colors of the butterflies and frosting. I started by chosing a sketch and went with the Mojo Monday78 sketch.  I know it's a sketch from clear back in March but I save the sketches to a file and try them out as I find time.  I liked the long panel on this sketch and felt it would work well for my rainbow colored flight of butterflies.
  I used a butterfly image from a CTMH stamp set that I've had for years.  I stamped and masked the butterflies in Tempting Turquoise, Only Orange, Green Galore and Pixie Pink.  I matted this to Basic Black cs and added some Dazzling Diamonds Glitter to the butterflies.  I was starting to panic when I couldn't seem to locate any Designer Paper that I liked and then I happened upon this colorful pattern that had all the colors I wanted and I got super excited.  I added a panel of Only Orange that I ran through the Cuttlebug with a Circle Embossing folder and added a pierced scalloped piece of Green Galore card stock tied with Turquoise Grosgrain ribbon.  I added a sentimet with a tiny turquoise flower and orange brad and below that 3 punched turquoise circles highlighted with Hot Pink brads to complete the card.
I love how bright and cheerful this turned out and hope you do as well.

BC105 Alter It

Happy Friday - I hope you have all had a great week. It's time for another Blogger Challenge and this weeks theme was (Alter) it. Now for those of you who don't know me very well I really struggle with these types of challenges. They are just NOT my cup of tea at all. I always think that I'll just skip the weeks we have a challenge to alter something as I just don't do well with that sort of thing and really don't have a lot of fun trying to come up with something to show.

I thought and thought about this challenge and decided I would alter a Mahjong Tile and make a pin with one. I purchase a number of these tiles several years ago and have only used them once so I dug them out and got to work on creating my pin. First I stamped the berries from Sun Ripened - SU 2005 now retired with Basic Black ink. My first attempts to color them were disasters. I tried using Copic Markers and was surprised to find that the black ink disappeared when colored with the marker. So then I decided to color them with SU Markers which worked quite well. Next up I sealed them by pressing the tile onto a Versamark pad and embossed it with clear EP. Then I used some Foil Adhesive on the sides of the tile and applied some rose colored foils. I added a pin back an my pin was complete. I had hoped to attatch it to a card but it turned out to be to bulky so instead I just made a matching card to go along with the pin.

Card Stock: Old Olive, Rose Red, Pretty in Pin, and Raspberry Tart DP

Ink: Basic Black, Pretty in Pink and Stampin Pastels

Other: Lace Border Punch(Martha Stewart), Pink Grosgrain Ribbon, Swiss Dot Embossing Folder and Foam Mounting Tape.

So there you have it. I have survived another "Alter It" challenge. - Be sure to check out the other great projects by clicking on the Blogger Challenge Icon on my sidebar.

3CT - Where Do You Live

This week the 3 Clover Thursday Design team was given a most unique (and FUN) challenge thought up by fellow DT member Elena - Our challenge to create card about where we are from, City, State or Country. I absolutely LOVE where I live and would never think of living anywhere else so this was a really fun challenge for me. I chose to highlight something about the City where I live. Yes we grow "Onions" here but not just any onion. We are famous for the Walla Walla Sweet Onion. You can read more about them here

Let me tell you there is nothing more delicious then a slice of our Sweet Onions on a grilled hamburger. It makes my mouth water just thinking about it.

I wanted to use an onion for my card but there was one slight problem, I don't own any onion stamps. Then I remembered that SU had a set with an onion in and thankfully I was able to locate a customer who had purchased the set I wanted and she let me borrow it.

For my card I chose to use this adorable onion stamp from a long retired SU set called, Stewpot Pals (2005 Summer Mini Catalog). Next up I picked out my paper and chose to use this colorful stripped pattern from Cosmo cricket's, Mr. Campy line. I stamped the onion image with Basic Gray ink on watercolor paper and colored it with ink pads and an aqua painter. I cut it out using Labels 2 Nestabilitie Dies.

My card base is Dusty Durango layered with Crushed Curry (2 of the new upcoming "In-Colors"). I added some Swiss Dot embossing, piercing, brads (Pink Hedgehog Paper Crafts) and some antique knit lace that I found in my scrap ribbon box. The cocktail glass is covered with Crystal Effects and I added some clear Spica Glitter to my onion (which is really hard to see in the scan).

There were so many different things that came to mind about the City, State that I live in that I may do a feature on my blog in the future with more Where I Live theme related cards.

Don't forget to check out the other DT members blogs and see how they captured the essence of where they are from and then give it a try yourself and stop back by Kerry's blog to leave a link to your card about where you are from.

My Life - Pictures of the week

Time Flies! - Here we are again at the start of another week and I'm a day late for sharing,   My Life - Pictures of the Week.  It was just a BUSY week and with yesterday being Father's Day I waited until this morning to get my pictures ready to share.  Here they are without further ado.  No that is not my hair (I wish I had such curly hair)...Last Sunday evening Greta and Coleen were over and she was playing with Coleen's hair when she happened to notice something seemed odd about her hair.  That's when she discovered that Coleen had cut her hair.  It seems that while mommy was busy she found some scissors and went into the bathroom and cut her hair.  We ask her why she cut her hair and her reply was,  "Because it was just too, too, too Long!"  -  Then I ask her what she did with the hair  she cut off and she said, "Threw it in the garbage."  I'm not sure her mom wanted to cry or laugh about it.  The hair here is what we took off the back because that was the only part Coleen couldn't reach.  She actually got her hair pretty even on the sides as you can see in my next photo.  Not bad for only being 4 years old.  We've told her though that from now on if she thinks her hair is getting to long she is to tell mommy and mommy will take her to the Beauty Shop for a haircut!

This next picture is another photo of our cat, Harley.  He loves to lay in the bathroom sink.  He's so huge he barely fits but doesn't he look regal here.  Coleen was playing with him so that is why all his "toys" are laying up on the sink.  We have 4 other cats so eventually I'll be posting pictures of them too as I snap interesting shots of them.  

This past week was fun because we had a chance to meet a new family member.  My nephew, Michael who is in the Army and stationed in NC right now got married last year and we were not able to attend the wedding so we had never had the chance to meet his new wife.  They had some leave time and traveled up this way to visit family.  They were able to stop in for just about an hour (not near enough time) for a quick visit.  I took this picture of the two of them in my mom's front yard.  Michael hates to have his picture taken and usually makes a silly face but he cooperated for me and this is the result.  His wife, Kacie is really sweet and very easy to talk with.  I hope they will be able to come back again and stay a little longer as I really enjoyed visiting with them.

Have you ever seen such a messy face!  Right after Michael and Kacie left we drove out to Klicker's Produce store and picked up yet another 1/2 flat of strawberries and some fresh cherries.  Coleen loves both fruits and as you can see she had a grand time eating them.  Reminds me of clown make-up for some reason!

Wednesday when I went in to get my Allergy shot as I was getting ready to leave my niece, Krissy walked in so I spent a little time chatting with her and I was joking with her about her ever getting a "ring" from her boyfriend, Eric when she just popped out with the news that she was getting one on Friday.  I was so excited but she made me promise not to tell her Grandma so I had to keep it a secret until Saturday.  Believe me that was not easy as I have never been one to be able to keep exciting news from my mom but I did it!  They were able to come over and show off her ring on Saturday so I took this picture of them.  I took one of the ring as well but alas I am so not a great photographer and it was to blurry to really see how lovely her ring is.  No date yet for the wedding but we are still happy and excited for them.  Finally I leave you with a picture of the finished flower bed at our new church.  My mom and I planted the flowers on Saturday and our first service there will be this coming Sunday (June 28th).  You can see the weedy looking bed in this post:  http://faithartistry.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-life-pictures-of-week_14.html - I think you'll agree this looks so much better.  That's it for this week.  I hope you have enjoyed my little photo journey of my life in pictures.  Have a great day.

BC104 Enjoy Life

Welcome Friends!  It's Friday and by now you all know what that means...Yes it time for the Blogger's Challenge and this week was,  (Manly) cards.  Not necessarily Father's Day cards but a guy type card.   For my card I started with one of my favorite old stamp images this wonderful sailboat by PSX (Personal Stamp Exchange) which is no longer in existance.  I stamped the image with Baja Breeze ink on Whisper White cs twice and embossed one image with a Nestabilities Die and then cut out the Sailboat and layered it over the original image with foam mounting tape.  Then I added 3 brads (Queen and Co.) and layered that to Chocolate Chip cs. 

I used the Cupcake Challenge Sketch from a few weeks ago found here:

The sentiment is from a stamp set by Clear Dollar Stamps called Cute Critters.  I really like this sentiment and felt it was appropriate for a manly card (as well as a general card).  If your husband is anything like mine an extremely hard worker he so rarely takes time for himself so a card like this might remind him to do that even though he doesn't sail.  (He rides a Harley for relaxation, but I'd already used a motorcycle on his Father's Day card that was posted last week).

Other Details:  Card Stock:  Chocolate Chip, Kraft and Parisian Breeze DP.

Ink:  Baja Breeze and Chocolate Chip.

Nestabilities Dies, Brads, Distressing Tool, Foam Mounting Tape.

Don't forget to stop by the other members blogs by clicking on the Bloggers Challenge Icon on my sidebar for some really great "manly" card ideas.  -  Happy Father's Day to all you Dads out there.

3CT - One Layer (One Headache)

Have you ever tried to figure out how to get out of something that you don't want to do and yet you know you can't?  Well that is the way I originally felt about the 3CT Design Team challenge for this week.  I'm not sure who's idea it was but someone suggested ONE LAYER (oh the horror) cards.   I fretted about this from the very day we received our list of assignments as the team I'm on had this for one of their challenges.  We alternate weeks but can do all the challenges if we want.  I've always been a "fretter" and don't like change much at all.

My first idea was to do something called, "faux layering" where you use masks to create a layered look.  I started working on that idea but it just wasn't coming together at all for me (I need more practice) so then I started Googling 1 Layer cards and found this card http://cleanandsimplestamping.blogspot.com/2009/06/ftl46.html which I thought was really cool.  Here is my attempt at that type of a one layer card.  Okay it's not bad but it just seemed so, "Boring" and so not me that I couldn't let it rest.  Another idea came to me and I started working on it.  I wanted to create a frame around my focal image using a Nestabilities Die and I had heard you could use your Cuttlebug to do this so I started trying to figure out how to do that.  Let's just say it took more then one try before I got it right and I wasted several sheets of paper experimenting.  Finally I managed to figure it out and at long last my card was created. I have since discovered a very cool video tutorial over on Stamp TV on how this is done. Oh how I wish I had known that first as I could have saved myself a headache coming on and the countless pieces that went into the scrap pile because I'd either put the die upside down and cut through or my die slipped and was crooked etc...
So without further ado here is my card for this weeks ONE LAYER challenge.  Now this may look like it is more then one layer but I can assure you it is not.
The card base is Very Vanilla and I first stamped my background on the side using an old SU retired set called, Eclectic Backgrounds with the new Soft Suede ink (one of the upcoming "In-Colors" from SU).  Then I masked off a portion of the card and brayered Crushed Curry ink (another new "In-Color") over the top.  Doesn't it just remind you a a Giraffe?  Then I made my little frame and stamped the Giraffe image from (Animal Stories - a new set in the upcoming SU catalog) with Crushed Curry ink.  I wanted to add a little pizzaz to the image and I remembered that I had some retired beads from SU in various shades of brown and gold so I picked out the ones I wanted and glued them onto the circle pattern in the giraffe using crystal effects.  Then I stamped my sentiment (SU - Sweet Little Sentiments Hostess set) with Soft Suede ink.  I added some Chocolate Grosgrain ribbon to the side and pierced the corners to complete my card.
I must say that while I am happy with how this turned out I am so NOT going to make very many 1 layer cards as it is just not my style but I couldn't let Kerry down and besides that what Challenges are all about.

Be sure to stop by the other members blogs (click on the 3CT icon on my sidebar) and don't forget to tell them how much you enjoy their inspiration.

My Life - Pictures of the week

Hello Friends and Visitors - Welcome to yet another week of, My Life - Pictures of the Week.  I must warn you that this week some of the photo's are not the best of quality.  I have a really simple HP Camera and it doesn't take the best of pictures plus a few of those being shown I did not take so the person behind the camera is responsible for the quality of those photo's.

One of my favorite things about summer here where I live is fresh produce that is locally grown.  My favorte fruit of all time is grown here in our valley...Strawberries so rich and delicious.  I bought my first half flat of the summer (we're on the 2nd now) and made Strawberry shortcake right away. YUM!!!                                                                                                

My week was pretty quiet really but I did have a Stamp Club meeting that I had to prepare for and on top of that I was recovering from some kind of summer sinus/respirtory infection so I didn't feel real well most of the week.  I took a few flower photo's.  The red lily is in my mom's flower bed and the Clematis is on my side of the driveway.  That thing went CRAZY blooming this year.

Saturday my mom and I helped to weed out the flower beds in front of the new building our church will be moving into in a couple of weeks.  We worked for about 3 hours there yesterday (Boy was I sore later).  We then bought flowers and will be planting them this coming week.  I'll have a picture of the flowers next week hopefully.

I'm going to leave you with a picture of one of the cards we made at the stamp club meeting.  We used the Friends 24-7 stamp set.  The DP is Parisian Breeze.  
Maybe this week will be more exciting.  I hope you enjoy my photo's and don't find them to be to boring.

BC103 - Hive Sweet Hive

Hello Friends and Happy Friday.  Today's Blogger's Challenge was a "sketch" challenge and it was a "doosie" if I do say so myself.  Lots of different elements.  I hope I've captured them all with my card. There is a story behind this card and I'll include a few pictures at the end of the post.   Memorial Day weekend I happened to hear my mom's dog barking and barking so I went out to see why he was barking.  I happened to notice there were Thousands of Bees flying everywhere and buzzing around him which was making him bark even more.  Naturally I panicked a little due to the fact I didn't want him getting stung, nor myself or Coleen who happened to be outside getting her Tricycle out to ride at the time.  I ran into my mom's house and told her she needed to get Rusty inside as quickly as possible, hurried Coleen up front away from the bee's and then called my husband to come home and figure out what we were going to do about the bee situation.  Since it was a holiday weekend no one was available to come out.  Our neighbor across the street happened to know a man who was able to come and collect the bee's. They were in some trees bordering my mom's property and had formed a huge swarm inside the tree.  The man brought a hive and cut the branch out of the tree right on top of the hive and then waited for them to go inside the hive.  He ended up having to bring a second hive as there were so many bees they wouldn't all fit inside the first hive.  He estimated that there were probably 30,000 bees in the swarm.  It was quite interesting to watch him as he didn't even put on protective gear while he was out amongst the bees.  Thankfully no one was stung and by the next morning what few bees were left eventually flew away.  I think I may send this card to him for helping us out with our little Bee problem.

The top photo shows the branch on the hive and Mr. Bee Man shaking the bees off the branch.  The bottom photo are the bees on the hive and buzzing through the air.  If you click on the pictures (hopefully they aren't huge) you be able to see the bees much clearer.

Card Details: 

Stamp Set:  Just Buzzin' By,

Card Stock:  More Mustard, Old Olive, Elegant Eggplant, Not Quite Navy, Whisper White, Watercolor Paper.

Ink:  Palette Noir Black, More Mustard, Watercolor Crayons - I sprayed the bee hive image with a mixture of Hairspray and Gold PearlX Powder for some added shimmer.  The background was achieved by brayering More Mustard ink over some bubble wrap and laying the White card stock on top and brayering it again. Designer Paper by We R Memory Keepers Pewter Press - Dia collection.

Other: Paper Distressing Tool, Circle Punches, Embossing Folder, Night of Navy Grosgrain Ribbon, Stickles (on bee's wings) and Yellow Spica Glitter Pen.   Here is a close up of the Hive so you can see some of the shimmer. I am happy with how this turned out and hope you have enjoyed my bee story.  Now "Bee" sure to check out all the other Challenge members blogs to see how they interpreted this sketch.  You can do so by clicking on the Blogger Challenge Icon on my sidebar.  Don't forget to leave them some comment loving too!  Have a great weekend. 

3CT - Coffee and Friends

Hello Friends, So glad you could join me today for yet another great Challenge from Kerry for the 3CT Challenge.  This week was, Paper Piecing (not to be confused with paper piercing).      I was not sure if I would find time to participate as I had a Stamp Club meeting to prepare for and at first I could not find any stamps that I thought would work well for this theme.  Then I remembered that I had this super cool set (Coffee With Friends - Flourishes) so I decided to work with that.  I had previously used the Large Cup that comes in the set but decided today to see what I could do with the stacked cups.  I wanted to use up some of the retiring designer paper from SU that I have so I chose several patterns from the Raspberry Tart series and stamped the cups 4 times and then cut each cup out and layered it over the full stamped image.  

For the Sentiment I stamped it with Basic Black ink then wiped of the word Friend and used a Rose Red marker to color it in.  Next I punched it out with the scalloped oval punch and sponged the edges.  I layered that with a larger oval punch.  I added Old Olive Twill Ribbon, Filgree Brads with Circle Ice brad centers. I also used the Textile Embossing Folder and added another pattern of the Raspberry DP.

Colors Used: Old Olive, Pretty in Pink, Rose Red and Whisper White.  

I hope you enjoy this card as much as I did making it.  Please visit all the othr DT members blogs to see their cards and stop by Kerry's and have a try at creating your own paper pieced master piece. 

My Life - Pictures of the week

This past week was certainly interesting.  It started off on Monday with our dog, Angel going out to get a hair cut because we just haven't had the time to keep her properly brushed/combed.  Her fur was matted so the groomer ended up having to shave her.  Her she is with her new look.  She looks pretty silly.  Coleen expected her fur to grow back right away and was really surprised when she came the following morning to discover that Angel still looked, "funny".   Next up are a couple of more shots of some of our flowers - I say "our" flowers because my mom lives next door to Mike and I and we have a flower bed in the back where we park that is between both houses.  These are a couple of shots from that bed.  My mom takes care of this bed.  These shots were taken before the horrible Thunderstorms arrived later in the week and pretty much beat most of the plants to death.   The next two pictures are my husband, (Mike) and our Pastor (Dan) hard at work painting in the Sanctuary of what will soon be our new church.  We've been meeting in our local city Park in a small building there for about a year now and have pretty much outgrown it so now we've found and rented a much larger building but it needs a lot of work done to make it presentable.  Plans are to move in on June 28th so they have their work cut out for them the next couple of weeks.

Finally a couple of pictures of my niece, Krissy who just graduated from Nursing school today.  We are very proud of her as she has worked really hard to finish school while also holding down a part time job.  Now she faces the challenge of taking the State Boards but I know she'll do well and will make a wonderful nurse.  So that's it for what's been happening here this past week.  I'll be back next week with another installment of my life in pictures.

BC102 Fun in the Summer Sun

Friday has arrived and so has the Blogger's Challenge.  This week our theme was anything (Summer) and what says summer more then a trip to the beach and a great pair of flip-flops! (Although in my day we called them, thongs). Now days though that word means entirely something different and quite frankly I don't even want to go there.  I've had these cool 3-D Flip Flop stickers (JoAnn Fabrics)  that my mom bought me for some time now and finally decided to pair them up with this equally cool flip-flop designer paper (Toes in the Sand by Reminisce).  Then I did something that I've never done before....can you figure out what it is?  Well I went "Digital" ( I know pretty shocking huh?) for my image. I bought both the Sunglasses Emma and Sandbucket Trevor images from the Beach Babies Digi at All That Scraps.  They were so cute and even though they don't have noses or mouths (which I find odd) they are still cute as can be.  I learned a couple of things though from this experience.  Number 1 - You can't use Prismacolor Pencils and Gamsol as it bleeds.  Number 2 -  I stink at using Copic Markers.  Okay I need lots of practice but this will have to do.  First off I used SU Whisper White card stock and I think the Copic markers tend to streak more on SU card stock.  I also can't for the life of me figure out how to shade and blend using the Colorless Blender.  Plus I only have 1 set of markers with not near the color choices that others have so I had to make do with what markers I had.  I hope you'll be kind in regards to my coloring.  I also added some pretty flowers from the Hero Arts summer flowers collection, some Hot Pink Brads and used a Cuttlebug Embossing Folder to add some texture to my design as well.  

Be sure to check out the other Blogger's Challenge members blogs and see their summer creations.

3CT - Born To Ride

Gosh it's been a "fast" week.  Seems like a lot of people are saying that on their blogs these days.  I think once the warmer weather hits people have so many things to do outside that time just flies by.  I know it has for me.  I worked out in my yard on Monday weeding one of my many flower beds and there is still more yard work left to do.

Anyway time for a little FUN...It's 3CT and time for another challenge.  This week it was,

Father's Day/Cards for Men but with a bit of a "twist" as we had to use Metal on our cards (ie: Hardware of some type like brads etc...)  

Earlier in the week I was browsing through my drawers and happened upon a piece of Virtual Metal  Magic Scraps that someone sent me. I decided that would look really cool on a card so away I went.

First I embossed my little piece of metal paper with my Cuttlebug.  Then I decided on the stamp set I wanted to use and chose an old retired SU Set, (Born To Ride).  Since this card is going to my hubby for Father's Day and he owns a Harley it was the perfect set to use.  I paired it with some paper that had in my scrap drawer but I don't know who the manufactuer was as it's been awhile since I purchased the paper.  I paired that up with Basic Black, Tangerine Tango and a piece of textured Rust card stock that was in the scrap pile.  The image was stamped with Paletter Noir Black and colored with Prisma Colored Pencils.  The sentiment was stamped with Versamark and embossed with Silver EP after I masked the portion I didn't want to use as I only wanted the (Born To Ride) portion of the stamp. I used the Oval punches to create both the sentiment piece and the black pieces underneath.  I added 2 Black Brads and 3 Silver Brads (pounded with a hammer to rough them up) to complete the card.

Be sure to check out all the Challege Team members blogs to see their creations and leave them some comment lovin!