WOYWW, Some Exciting News, AND a new card!

Whoa! It's a pretty fun day around here today! Just a quick reminder to please check out my Gallery Idol Round 3 cards! I would so appreciate your vote! This is all so exciting!



Let's start with that exciting news I have to share! I am one of the new members of The Alley Way Design Team!!! I am SO super excited about this! The stamps are SO FUN and I love them and I can't WAIT to share fun creations with all of you! They have a GIVEAWAY on their blog today, so check it out!



And...as for my workspace, well, for those of you who like tidy spaces...brace yourself...it's gonna be a rough ride today! Just say'n.



My desk has not yet recovered from the aftermath of last weekend's Gallery Idol madness! Then there are rubber stamps everywhere that need inking... jelly beans...because Tami said I needed them. HA! :-) And, right there in front you can see a beautiful card created by the amazing Joscie! Even my husband said it was a cute card! :-) That Xyron was my life saver when I was paper piecing the cowboy and cowgirl cards for Gallery Idol, let me tell you! I love that thing! (I have four of them...that's the only zebra one...it's WAY FUN!) You can see the other WOYWW participants at Julia's Blog!

And finally, I have a card for you! I made this one with the CAS challenge over at Splitcoast Stampers and the CAS-ual Fridays Sweet Spot Challenge!



I used Tami Mayberry's You Go Girl! set by Gina K. designs, papers from Amy Tangerine Sketchbook line by American Crafts, and glorious silk ribbon from May Arts!



Whew! SO MUCH FUN STUFF!!! Thanks for stopping by and thank you all SO MUCH for your votes for Gallery Idol!!!

Jingle Out!

Breathtaking Butterflies New Release Blog Hop!

Gallery Idol Note of the Day: If you haven't checked out my super fun Gallery Idol Round 3 Cards I NEED your vote! You can use the widget below to vote and you can see my cards in detail in THIS POST! Thank you SO MUCH for your votes!!!



And now onto today's blog hop! If you came from Katie's blog you are almost done! Skipping Stones Design has a BRAND NEW release and it is a GORGEOUS ONE! We are celebrating with a blog hop!!! We also have a brand new sketch challenge out and one random person who plays along with the sketch and links up to the Skipping Stones Design post will win a set of FREE STAMPS! YAY!

Here is the card I created with the BRAND NEW BEAUTIFUL stamps - Breathtaking Butterflies AND the sketch for this week!



I used twine from The Twinery to create the bottom portion of the card. I just love how pretty it looks woven like that! A few pearls mark the path of one of the butterflies, adding just that little something to complete the card.



Here is the full hop list! I'm the last stop, so if you just found the hop through me, hop on back to Skipping Stones Design to start at the beginning!

Wendy Price
Stephanie Mino
Megan Aaron
Wendy Jordan
Pamela Young
Cyndi Bundy
JoAnn Valderama
Connie Mercer
Karen Baker
Katie Gehring
Jennifer Ingle

Jingle Out! Don't forget to vote! THANK YOU!!!!

Gallery Idol Round 3 - It's ROUND-UP time! Yee-HAW!

Hello, my dear friends! I am so crazy excited and honored to be participating in ROUND 3 of the Paper Crafts Gallery Idol Competition! Thank you ALL so much for your votes! We totally did this together and I can't thank you enough! It's time to begin Round THREE! The challenge for this round was to create two cards, one masculine and one feminine, using one identical product in both cards. This was challenging, but OH.SO.FUN. For reals, you guys! Here are my cards together...




Yee-Haw!!! Yup! I went a bit western for this one! I started with a fabulous stamp from Pink By Design from the Best in the West stamp set. The cowboy stamp was PERFECT for this challenge! I used 'him' on both cards and simply added a pony tail and made a few little changes here and there to create one cowboy and one cowgirl using the exact same stamp! YAY!

I also used several papers from the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook collection on both cards. I used the 6x6 version of each of the following papers on BOTH cards:

Paige's Portraits (b side)
Sienna Spirit
Cobalt Compostition
Adi's Adoration

Cyndi's Sketch
My Mind's Eye Fine and Dandy True Blue Pleasant paper

I also used Flax Twine from The Twinery and cork sheets on both cards! YAY!

I paper pieced the two figures, which, yes, took a lot of time, a lot of cutting, and a lot of piecing! LOL! Here are the photos of all of the tiny pieces:





And that doesn't even include the cactus on the cowboy card and the bag and the flowers on the cowgirl card! I love paper piecing, though! I really do! It's so much fun!




For the Howdy! card I wrapped the bottom of the card with flax twine for my dessert sand! I stamped the cactus from the same stamp set on Amy Tangerine Viridian Vignette and created a lasso from twine, as well. I LOVE THAT PART!!!! No, for reals, though...I seriously love the lasso! It's just so much FUN!!! I {heart} fun things. Just say'n. His pants are Core'dinations cardstock and his boots are Padma's Pattern from the Sketchbook Collection and his hair is from Glitz Designs Happy Travels Planes paper. The background paper is from the Echo Park This and That collection. All others are from the list above.




Now...when it came to the Cowgirl card, well, she has RODEO on her mind, alright...RODEO DRIVE, that is! She's an urban cowgirl and ready to shop!!! I pieced her the same way I pieced the cowboy. She uses the Sydney's Snapshot paper for her boots, and the background is the B side of the Ivory Impressions paper. The cloud stickers are from the Amy Tangerine Sketchbook sticker booklet. The city stamp is from Jilliebean Soup's You Move Me set. The tiny flowers are from the Stampendous! Vintage Typewriter Perfectly Clear stamp set.




I created the flower cone from scratch by rolling a paper cone, stamping the flowers and fussy-cutting those, attaching them to wire, and adhering to the card. The bag made me SUPER HAPPY! I searched for a good font and then printed up the little 'Bloomies' bag and gave it a twine handle! *LOVE THAT!*

Okay...so now that this is the longest post in all of eternity! HAHAHA! You can find the widget at the top of this fun post and here at the bottom, as well as at the top right of my blog! If you voted in the last round you will NOT have to register again, you can simply login!



Thank you ALL for your amazing support! It means the world to me!!!!! Thank you!!!! And YEE-HAW!!!!! (Tee-hee...sorry...it had to be done. Just say'n.)

Jingle Out!

Yesterday is For Remembering...

Quick Note: Gallery Idol Round 3 Voting begins at 2pm Eastern Time today! Please come back then to see my cards for the Round 3 challenge and VOTE! YAY!!!! I'm so stinking excited! Just say'n.

Now...back to the feature presentation....

Breathtaking Butterflies. *sigh* Best name for a stamp set EVER! Maybe it's just because I really LOVE butterfly stamps. No...for reals. I have a few sets with them, but I still always want more when I see fabulous new ones! LOL! There is just something about a beautiful butterfly image that gets me every time. That's why I was SUPER EXCITED when I found out that the June release for Skipping Stones Design was to be the Breathtaking Butterflies set! This set is STUNNING and we are releasing it tomorrow with a blog hop STUFFED FULL of inspiration! Today, a few of us have a sneak peek for you!



*sigh* Isn't that butterfly just wonderful? And OH, that sentiment! I love it! To give the butterfly a natural, colorful, look, I stamped it in the yellow ink first, rocked it in the green ink, and then followed with a more subtle rock in the blue ink to darken the edges. I love all of the glorious color! YAY!



The patterned paper is Echo Park and the tape is from Love My Tapes. I do hope you visit the Skipping Stones Design blog to see the other sneaks! These girls ROCKED IT!

See you at 2 for the Gallery Idol Round 3 madness to begin!!! YAY!!!!

We did it!

OH, my goodness, than you all SO MUCH! Your votes got me into Round 3 of the Paper Crafts Gallery Idol competition! I am SO STINKING EXCITED!!! I can't even thank you all enough! Our next challenge is a fun one, too, so I'm really looking forward to working on that this weekend!

So...this morning, I had the privilege of LITERALLY being on Cloud 9 after hearing the announcement! Yup...fog. Lots of it. LOL! My drive in was covered with a thick, dense fog that was actually absolutely beautiful! The sun was working SO hard to shine through it. It was really a very neat experience. And then...all of the sudden, I drove out of the cloud and the sky burst into blue radiance and the sun shone brightly and I felt like the sky was just greeting me with a great big, "Hello! Good Morning, Massachusetts!" It was brilliant! So beautiful! Just one of those times when you have to thank God for being pretty cool. Just say'n.



My card for today is a cloudy one, but still full of cheerful color! I had color on the brain last weekend after the GI challenge! LOL! For this one I stamped the clouds from the Bella Blvd. Sunny Happy Skies set by Unity in different colors and cut each one out to mount to the card. I chose a colored background *gasp!* for this card and I think it works pretty well. The Get Well sentiment is from the Samantha Walker Encompassed Grace set! I love it! Such a pretty font!



A sketchy outline around each cloud and the entire card grounds the elements and offers a playful twist! This one was pretty fun to do!

And...before I leave, thank you again, for your votes for Gallery Idol! I am so excited and so honored to be moving on to the next round. Now...Let's DO THIS!!!!

Jingle Out!

To The World's Greatest Hooker...

Now THAT, my friends, is what we call a 'hook' of a title! Yup! It's gonna reel folks right on in. Because, as you know, everyone is out their looking for the right fish in the sea! Oh, all right, already, I'll quit with the fishing puns and get to it. HA!



Yes...I was referring to fishing. Not to, well, hooking. Is that even the right word for that? I don't even know. But, alas, back to the fishing. I am featuring the fabulously fun Holy Carp set from Skipping Stones Design today! This is seriously a really fun stamp set and it is GREAT for Father's Day, birthdays, and more!

I colored the image with markers, cut it out, and mounted it on the stamped waves with foam tape. Those AMAZING buoy brads are from the Eyelet Outlet, as are the flying mallards overhead! FUN!



I told The Hubbums I was going to send this card to his mom since she loves to fish. HAHAHA! He said I should. Somehow I feel as though that wouldn't end well for me. Just say'n.

So...head on over to Skipping Stones Design and check out Holy Carp! It's pretty darned fun, if I do say so. And I do. 'Cause I just did. K. Thanks. Bye now.

Jingle Out.

Alice Summers in Paris

First of all, I want to say a HUGE thank you to each and every one of you who has taken the time to register and vote for me for the Paper Crafts Gallery Idol contest! You guys seriously rock!!! I will find out tomorrow if I've made it to the next round, as voting closes at 2pm Eastern time today! YIKES! Here's hoping! (If you haven't voted yet, and would like to, please click on the widget to the right! Thanks!)

And now...Alice Summers in Paris!



This was a SUPER FUN PROJECT, you guys! No...for reals, seriously, and totally and completely and stuff. This one was SO amazingly fun to create! I began with the absolutely WAY COOL Ornate Theatre Shrine Kit from Retro Cafe Art Gallery! As soon as I saw this fabulous theatre, Alice came to mind! I'm not sure why, actually, but I think she fits QUITE WELL!



I used the fantabulous Wonderland Perfectly Clear Stamp Set from Stampendous! to stamp Alice, the Cheshire Cat, the White Rabbit, and the playing cards. These are such great Alice stamps! I really like that they are a bit different from the 'standard' Alice set, you know? They have a unique spin and I love that!



I used the Steampunk Parts Collage sheet to piece the clocks into the background. And, being that the Queen is never far from Alice's heels, we see evidence of her in the flying red aces sneaking in over in that back corner!



I roughly covered the Eiffel Tower and the Arc de Triomphe with vintage encyclopedia pages, which I also used on the background of the theatre.



As you can see, the white rabbit, sneaky as ever, is once again worried about time as he carries his pocket watch, a brad from the Eyelet Outlet. The base of the theatre is covered in moss to maintain the outside adventure feel!



And of course, we simply cannot forget how this adventure began...A tiny bottle hangs over the theatre as a reminder that sometimes, doing something that seems completely and utterly illogical or even downright impossible can begin the greatest adventure in the wholest widest world! And we simply would NOT want to miss out on THAT, now would we?

I hope you have enjoyed the tour through my Alice Summers in Paris shrine! Have a happy Day!

Jingle Out!