I'll give you a little break.

From the Black and White cards that is.
When I first saw the Sympathy challenge over at LNS, I didn't immediately go to the black and white cards. I first thought about butterflies. Don't ask me why, that's just the way my mind works. Anyway, I wanted to make a card using Three Little Words, so I chose the "So Very Sorry" and made this card. Luckily I had several willing critiquers of my creation. When they looked at it, they all said it was too bright and cheerful to be a sympathy card. Personally I don't think so, besides most of them are men...what do they know? So, before I posted it on LNS for the challenge I thought I would ask you. Do you think this qualifies as a Sympathy card?

Are you sick of them yet?

I hope not, cause here is another one. This one uses a hat pin from the Pretties Kit. I admit it, I never know what to do with those pins.....Luckily Andrea Walford put one on a card she made, and I loved the way it looked. So....I completely stole the idea from her. Thanks Andrea for giving so freely of your time and talent so those of us "less creative types" can CASE you!

A Black and White Card for the LNS Challenge

Ok, I know, I'm still stuck on the black and white cards, but at least I had a good reason for posting this one. This week on Late Night Stampers our challenge is to create a sympathy card. Well, what better colors for sympathy than black and white? So, it fits right into my color scheme of the week! I did add a little bit of color by using the pefect plum on the flowers. I love the "lace" look on the bottom of the card, but I will admit, it's much harder to do than it looks!

More Black and White Cards

Ok, you have to admit they are kind of cool right? I think part of the reason I like them so well is because I have always thought black and white together are classy looking. They remind me of Tuxedos. Not only that, but the black cards mean that I get to write on them using my white gel pen.....one of my favorite things to do!

I can't get it out of my head!!!!!

Remember the Black and White Birthday card I showed you last week? Well, I can't get the color combination out of my head. I've been creating black and white cards like crazy. I think I am going to have to blame Andrea Walford for this! So, sorry, but you are stuck looking at my "generic" (my daughter's term....she says they remind her of bar codes) cards for the next few day. Sorry, I had to get it out of my system!

It's another Funky Friday in 3D

The Funky Friday challenge this week was to make something 3D. Sounds kinda like the LNS challenge doesn't it? I love it when things work out like that....one project, two challenges. Don't worry though, I made something new. Luckily this 3D project came just in time. My son wanted a bunny basket for his friends at school, so I needed to get them made before next Friday. The original project comes from Inky Chatter. Martha Beck made this basket way back in 2008. Jay and I were blog hopping together and he saw this basket. Needless to say, nothing else I showed him was good enough, so this basket is the one we made. I do have to say, after making 20 of these.....I'll be glad if I never have to make another punch bunny again! It did turn out cute though, even if I do say so myself!

This is my favorite color combination.

These are all four color combinations. Yes, I know I used retired DSP, but I promised myself I wouldn't buy any more until I used up some of what I had.

This is what all 20 baskets look like in a box. All I can say is WHEW!!!

It's Your Birthday....Nunununu

Ok, maybe it isn't your birthday....but it is my Mom's! My mom and I haven't always gotten along. We are too much alike! When I was younger, it always seemed to be World War III in our household. It's amazing how much smarter my Mom got after I had a child of my own :) (Ok maybe it was me who got a little smarter!). Now all those crazy rules, like no dating until your 16, doing homework as soon as you get home from school, No phone calls after 8pm, no singing at the dinner table, and no fighting with your brother in the car, make so much more sense to me! My Mom is an amazing mother, and thanks to her, I am who I am today. She taught me so many important things about being a good mom, a good wife, and a good person!


1. She was always willing to let us participate in as many after school activities as we wanted, even though it meant she had to play taxi for years. Her willingness to sacrifice her time to drive me to events taught me how important it is to be well rounded.

2. Her constant correction of my grammer and puctuation errors (she used to be an English teacher) made it possible for me to write and speak correctly. I wouldn't have the career I have if she hadn't taken the time to teach me.

3. Her love of church, and her belief in Christianity taught me right from wrong and that there is a reason for everything. These beliefs have gotten me through some really tough times.

4. Her volunteerism and support of the local community taught me that some of the most important jobs in life don't involve a paycheck.

5. Her willingness to help her friends, no matter what the circumstance, taught me the importance of having them, and have helped me deal with move after move in the military community.

6. Her strength, especially after dealing with cancer twice, has taught me how to cope with adversity.

7. Her marriage to my dad, for almost 50 years, has shown me that true love is worth fighting for, no matter what!

8. Her love of reading, and her willingness to share that love with me, has provided me with the opportunity to share that love with my kids, both of which are just as likely to be upstairs with their noses in a book as to be playing a video game or watching tv.

9. Her acceptance of me, no matter what stupid stunt I had pulled, showed me that parents have to have unconditional love for the kids. A lesson that I am still learning with my own.

10. Her involvment in my life, even now that we are an Ocean apart has shown me what the true meaning of family is. I can pick up the phone just about anytime and have a friendly (or sometimes stern if I need it) ear to listen to my problems and dispense advice.

My Mom is an absolutely amazing woman. When I was a teenager, I swore I wouldn't be anything like her. Now, I will consider myself fortunate if I can be half the woman that my Mom is!

Happy Birthday Mom! I love you!!!

Oh yeah, one lesson that Mom tried to teach me and I still haven't quite gotten is to mail birthday cards and thank you notes. Sorry Mom, as usual I forgot. But, here is the card I meant to send you :)

I'm Royalty!

I'm on the Royal Blog Tour! It's launching April 30 through May 3. I'm so excited I've been chosen to be a Princess! I hope you'll become a Royal Tourist and ride along in a Royal Coach. Please come and visit my castle during the tour! For more information, please check out these links!



Website: RBT Website


Home Blog: RBT Home Blog

Boy do they grow up fast!

Katie has a boyfriend. Ok, it's a fifth grade romance, I'm not too worried, but still a boyfriend. One that told her he liked her. One that made her a necklace for Valentine's Day. I think he is a pretty decent kid, but it's kind of hard to tell at this age. I guess I shouldn't worry too much about it, next week it will be someone else. But, let me get to the point of this post.....Katie's boyfriend likes dragons. I guess he is as crazy about them as Katie is about wolves. So, since his birthday is coming up soon, Katie wanted to make him a dragon card. Now, it's possible at one point in time SU! had a dragon stamp, but if they did, I don't have it. So, I went to my old standby.....punch art. We found a couple great dragons online, but they were all cute. Katie wanted a real fire breathing dragon. Well, we took bits and pieces from the ones online, adjusted them to fit my punches and her thought process and this is what we came up with. I helped figure out the punches, but she made this card all by herself. I have to admit, I'm pretty proud! Now, lets hope the romance doesn't run it's course before his birthday. On second though.....maybe I should be hoping it does :)

LNS Anything but a Card

Today starts another Late Night Stamper's Design Team challenge. This one is to make anything but a card. Ok, I admit it, I haven't had time to make anything new, but I never showed you this project I made for one of my hostesses. Luckily it fits into the category of "Anything but a card" ! I don't know if you are like me or not, but I always keep the containers that stuff comes in. I have tons of empty Slim Jim containers (Ideas anyone? They are taking over my house!), funky shaped boxes, and of course tins. This project comes from a tin I kept at Christmas time. It had Lebkuchen in it. (If you don't know what that is, check out the link. It's soooooo Yummy!). Anyway, I was playing with the punch flowers that have been popping up all over the internet. When I finished putting this one together (which took close to 30 ornament punches) I needed something to put it on. Too bulky for a card, the Lebkuchen tin was exactly what I needed. Throw a little DSP and ribbon on it, fill it with ribbon and stamps and voila! You have the perfect hostess gift! Wouldn't you like to get one of these?

Today is the Last Day for the LNS Birthday Challenge

If you want to join us for the LNS Birthday challenge, today is your last chance. Get your card in by midnight to have the opportunity to be displayed on the LNS group homepage this week. Here is another birthday card I made. I was inspired by several great black and white cards I've been seeing floating around the internet. I think the original tutorial was created by Andrea Walford, but since I didn't have the DSP or stamp set she used, I created my own version of the Black and White Birthday card. What do you think?

Operation Write Home Blog Hop

Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to the Operation Write Home Blog Hop. Those of you who have followed my blog for a little while, know that I am a big supporter of Operation Write Home. OWH is a non profit organization that collects and sends blank handmade cards to military members down range so they can send them back to their family and friends in the states. As a military wife for what feels like forever, I know how amazing it can be to recieve an actual card from your deployed husband. In a time where email and social networking has become so routine, recieving even the simplest card can mean a great deal.

OWH is now collecting Mother's Day cards. Think of how many Mom's we can make happy if each of us sends only one card to OWH. Wouldn't it be amazing if every service member downrange could send a Mother's Day card Home? Unfortunately time is running out. So, if you would like to donate please send your cards to OWH so they arrive no later than April 1st. Not enough time for Mother's Day? OWH is also accepting cards for Graduation and Father's Day. Make a difference in a service member's Family's life. Donate a card today!

Now, on to the card. For this blog hop, I wanted to make a spring card. This one takes a bit more care to mail, but the visual presentation is absolutely stunning. My husband always said it was hard to send me flowers while he was deployed (not sure if that was true, or just his way of getting out of doing it :) ) but now, anyone can send flowers with these great paper flowers. These are made with a simple flower punch and a bit of cutting. I think any mom or wife would be happy to recieve these flowers in the mail....what do you think?

For more amazing Blogs on the OWH blog hop, check out Handmade by Julie. If you just happened here by chance and would like to start the hop from the beginning, just click here.

It's Funky Friday!!!

Well gang, it's that time again.....for the Funky Friday Challenge over at Cornwall Crafty Stampers. Our challenge this week was to make a card using Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, Pretty in Pink, Barely Banana, and Whisper White. I was sitting at my house racking my brain trying to figure out what I could make when my friend and sideline Emily gave me a great idea! She said"It reminds me of a Banana Split!" She then left to go eat ice cream, but she got me thinking. I couldn't come up with a way to make a Banana Split, but it was the perfect color combination for an ice cream cone. I wish I could take credit for this card (especially since I really really like it) but I have to admit the majority of the idea came from Sam over at Rymilan's Stamping and Scrapbooking. I did change out a few things and added a ribbon, but you can definitely see the resemblance. I am really liking this card. Maybe I should use it for one of my swaps at Convention this Summer. What do you think?

My LNS Challenge Card

Monday I showed you my friend's birthday card for the LNS challenge, today I would like to show you mine. I am absolutely in love with the cute little stamp set Fox and Friends. I thought the lion would go great with this paper from the Occasions Mini. I know the perfect little boy to give this card to. That's one thing, around here there is never a shortage of birthdays!

I must love my kids.....

Ok, I know I love them, but sometimes I amaze myself with the lengths I'm willing to go to for them. Last night, March 16th, at 9:00 PM we were just settling down for bed when my daughter decided she wanted me to make the little punch leprechauns we had made during my technique Tuesday class for her friends. "But Mom, don't you want us all to be Pinch Proof?" she whined. Of course I said yes. Then she informs me that you can only bring things to give out if you make enough for the entire class, that way no one feels left out. Ok, 21 Leprechauns coming up.....then from downstairs another voice is heard....."Mom, if you're going to make them for Katie's friends, can you make them for mine too?" I can't show favoritism, so needless to say, last night I made 39 leprechauns. Luckily my wonderful hubby was willing to help stamp, sponge and stick, so we go them done around midnight. It only took a few hours longer to put the pins on each one! :) Oh well, the hugs I got this morning when I handed them their bunch of leprechauns made it all worth while. Here is Jay, sporting his "Pinch Proof" leprechaun! It's a good thing I made them, because he insisted on wearing his Lego batman shirt!!!!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Last night we had our monthly Technique Tuesday. This month, I thought we would make a few cute little punch art pins. I wanted to make sure all my customers were pinch proof for St. Patty's Day. I got all three of these ideas from the amazing punch art swap I was in during convention last year. If you want to see even more of the punch art samples, click here, here, and here. Speaking of convention, I just found out that my wonderful, darling, loving, amazing, unbelievable hubby is going to allow me to attend this year, even though I have to pay for the ticket myself (last year I was able to fit convention into a conference I was already going to for my day job). I'm super excited and can't wait to see all of my friends, and the amazing samples and business growing ideas SU! has to offer. For those of you demos out there, if you haven't been to convention, you need to go. It's an opportunity you just can't afford to miss!!!

We had a K.O.W.

Yes, you read that right. We had a KOW, right in the middle of my living room! The St. Patricks Day Kids Only Workshop was a huge success. We had two participate in our younger group and four participate in the older group. The kids all made a crimped envelope card and a top note die leprechaun notebook. I think they did an amazing job! Next month we will be making a cute little bee treat holder. If you want to join us, just drop me a line. The cost is only $5 per child.

LNS Challenge of the Week

Yep, that's right, It's time for another challenge from Late Night Stampers. This week we are making birthday cards. Remember last week when I showed my sideline Christina's bling card? Well this week it is a friend of mine, Jennifer's card I want to show you. Jennifer is a relatively new stamper, we got her hooked during a couple of Stupid Hour stamping sessions. When she found out I needed to make birthday cards, she jumped right in. I love the 3D balloons and I think my absolutely favorite part is the cake inside. I love how it jumps off the page when you open it up. Make sure you leave a comment and let her know how much you liked it. She is so much better at this than I was when I first started!

Enough Wedding....how about a party?!

Let's jump from one celebration to another shall we? My upline's hubby James had a birthday a couple weeks ago. All he wanted was for the guys to come over and play rock band (what can I say, we all married gaming nerds). I had just recieved the Extreme Guitar Stamp for FREE with a $50 order (did you even know you could do that? Ask me how, but time is running out!!! So ask today!). I also had all the stuff out for my wax paper resist class so I thought the two would go hand in hand. Here is James's card. Inside it says You Rock (from the Just Jawing stamp set. ) I think he liked it. I know I did :)

I felt so bad......

After I had finally gotten the wedding invites corrected (for the third time!!!) I felt so badly about having her wait on me an extra week that I decided to make her some matching thank you cards to go with her invites. There was extra Elegant Eggplant scraps left over from the invites, so I figured they would go perfectly. I even used the same embossing plate (not SU!) to emboss the white. I think they turned out really pretty, and so did she. It figures, these came out perfect the first time!

CCS Freaky Friday Challenge

You can tell I didn't come up with this challenge, cause it was super fun!! :) We had a sketch challenge and I came up with my idea right away. I've been dying to try one of the Large flower punch roses. I have to admit I am super proud of myself. I think this card turned out spectacular. (Those of you who know me know that I don't say stuff like that often!). I've posted the sketch below. Why don't you hop on over to Cornwall Crafty Stampers and give it a whirl. I would love to see what you come up with!