Christmas In August??!!

Okay, I'm sitting infront of my air conditioner while I make a Christmas Card - something's not right there! There are several Christmas Challenges going on right now and I never seem to have enough Christmas Cards ready when the time comes. So, these challenges will help me.

This card is for several different challenges:

1.) Phindy's Place - Christmas In August - Okay, this is NOT a Christmas Image from Phindy but she's adorable and she looks like she's ready to celebrate, why not have her celebrate Christmas?

2.) Card Patterns - Sketch

3.) Christmas Card Challenge - Sparkle and Shine - The glass beads that I used as the center of my flowers added some sparkle and shine to my card.

4.) Paper Sundaes - Christmas In August - fell in love with these papers from Summer Driggs Designs and decided to use them instead of traditional Christmas colored papers.

5.) Cupcake Craft - Lets go digital - not only is the image a digi, the papers are too

6.) Creative Inspirations - Christmas In August - I TOLD you that there were a lot of Christmas Challenges going on right now!

It's Almost September!

Can you believe the summer is almost over and it's time to go back to school? Part of me is thrilled about this because I LOVE Fall! Part of me is sad because I do NOT LOVE Winter!

For this card, I used a cute little freebie image from MelJens Designs and paper pieced the whole thing. I think it looks pretty cute!

This "back to school card" is for several challenges:

1.) The Beary Sweet Challenge - In Stitches

2.) Pixie Dust - Stitch it Up!

3.) Fussy & Fancy Friday - Back to School

4.) Stamp Something - Back to School

5.) Inspirational Card Sketches - Sketch

6.) Sentimental Sundays - Clean and Simple

I wish I could be this relaxed!

Hello Again!

I'm back with another card with a Phindy Image - I just love her images!! This time I have "Sudsy Susie" - I wish I could be her!!!

This card is for several different challenges (big surprise there!):

1.) The Corrosive Challenge - "drinks are on us"

2.) Tuesday Morning Sketches - sketch

3.) Dare U 2 Digi Stamp - shaped card

4.) Creative Card Crew Challenge - Sparkle and Shine

Hope you enjoyed this one!

Oh, and, don't forget, Phindy has a chance to win one of her Halloween Cuties over at her Blog. All you have to do is vote on the poll and you can enter to win! How easy is that?? Go vote now!

It's wayyyyyy too late for me to be up!

Hello all! It's way too late for me to be up and I'm hoping to finish this post before a certain little babe wakes up and wants to be fed!

I used another one of Phindy's Summer Cuties on this one. "Birdie" seems to be a bit sophisticated for her age, doesn't she? She reminds me of my 8 year old step-daughter who is still a little girl in so many ways but thinks she is "hot stuff" with her texting and facebook!

Speaking of Phindy, she as a "just for fun" poll going over at her blog. If you vote, you can enter to win her newest Halloween Cutie (she's pretty adorable) before you can even buy it at her store! That's simple, you should go check it out!

This card is for 3 different challenges:

1.) Cute Card Thursday: No Diecut machines (I don't have any so that part was easy) and no punchs (okay, that was a bit harder)

2.) Card Patterns: Sketch

3.) Delightful Challenges: Cute and Girly using pearls and lace - I found that this black lace is a bit of a bear to work with but I loved the end result! I snuck the pearl into the middle of the flower (which I cut out of the paper and used as an embellie)

Black & White Only! Seriously?

Yup, that's right, the Wild Flower Wednesday Challenge this week is to make black and white card. I really didn't think that I was going to make this one. It just wasn't coming together in my mind.

Then I started playing....

I used an image from The Wild Flower Patch - it was a freebie a while ago. I made it completely black (though I REALLY wanted to go brown).

The papers are digital papers that a friend of mine had directed me toward.

The sketch is from this week's Paper Sundaes' Challenge.

Sentimental Sunday's challenge is to use inspirational words. I searched and searched and came up with this quote that I think works!

Okay, I like the card, I really do, but I SO BADLY want to put a bright red apple in that tree!

A whole bunch of challenges!

A friend of mine shared a link with me to Summer Driggs' Blog, she has the most amazing digi papers! They come in complete digi kits and are free! (She does have paypal set up so you can send her a donation if you wish.) Well, when I saw that Cupcake Craft's challenge this week was blue and green, I immediately thought of Summer's paper pack, Relax. They're perfect!

Of course, I then went off in search of challenges to combine it with...

Digital Tuesday's Challenge is called "Cool-It!". They want images with water/beach/or tropical themes to help us "cool down" after a hot summer. I thought of "Splashy Siena", one of Phindy's Summer Cuties. She's helping cool down that cute little duck! I think the cool colors of Summer's Paper complement the theme and image nicely!

I then needed a sketch. After looking through a few, I decided on Sketch Saturday's sketch this week. That one just caught my eye!

After picking the sketch, I went through some more challenges to see if anything fit....lo and behold, I found 2 more!

Spoonfull of Sugar has a choice of 2 challenges this week. You can either make a shaker card OR do a 3-2-1 with 3 flowers, 2 buttons, and 1 ribbon OR combine the two. Shaker cards never quite work out for me sooooo, I decided the 3-2-1 would work well with this sketch. I decided to use lace for my ribbon, actually, it's paper lace. I wish I knew where my mother found it (or that she could remember) because I love working with it and it's almost gone!

Sooooooooooooo, this led me to my final challenge to combine all of these with......Crafty Sentiments Challenge this week is "lace". Well, that was easy, I had already planned on using lace.

So, that's my card! Hope you like it!!!

So Sweet!

Hello all! I finished this sweet little card last night and wanted to post it for all of you to see today! I just love how it came out! It's so sweet, the colors just seemed to work so well.

This is my third entry for Phindy's Challenge Blog. This week, her challenge is to make a card for a small child or baby. I love this little summer cutie "Summer Blossom". She's such a sweet little girl!

Speaking of the "cuties", Phindy has started releasing some of her Halloween Cuties - I NEED them, there are also several Summer Cuties that I still need!! So, I NEED to win the random drawing for Phindy's Challenge.

Phindy is sponsoring this week's challenge at Cupcake Inspirations. (I NEED to win this challenge too) Their photo inspiration this week has 3 cupcakes with white frosting and lavendar flowers with chocolatey brown flourishey stems. I used the colors and tried to imitate one of the flowers in my flowers in the bottom left corner, I think I'm liking the way they came out! I "made" the flourishey "stem", by stamping with a clear acrylic stamp on my green paper and then cutting it out. It's times like these that I really wish I could afford a Cricut!

I used a sketch from Friday Sketchers' this for this card. I wasn't so sure that I liked the sketch when I first saw it but then I decided to give it a try. I just love the way it turned out!

Finally, Papertake Weekly has a 3-2-1 challenge this week. You can use anything you want as long as it's 3 of something, 3 of something and 1 of something. I have 3 DPs, 2 Flowers, and 1 image. When I first read this challenge, I thought it was going to be a bit tricky, it was very simple!

A Big Brother Card

My friend just had her second baby which made her 2 year old son a big brother. Big brothers (and big sisters) need special cards to celebrate the occasion - especially since Mommy, Daddy, and the new baby are getting so much attention! Soooo, I made this cute, quick little card for my friend Landyn because being a big brother is a big deal!

I used a Phindy Image (well, half of one actually - I used the other half of the image that I used for my last card) for this one and it fits in Phindy's Challenge this week because it is for a small child! WooHoo - something I needed and a challenge in one!

Playing Some More With Digital Papers!

I've been downloading some digital papers lately. Oh, they are so much fun and my paper piles have not grown an inch (as if they need to!). They've all been free too so it's quite nice on the pocketbook!!

As soon as I saw this cupcake paper from Summer Driggs, I KNEW it had to be used with Phindy's image, "It's All Yours". I ended up cropping the image so only one of the cutie patootie groundhogs are on the card. I also used the cupcake from the image (shrunken) as my embellies.

Anyway, I decided to use those papers and image for a card that I was making for my Step Daughter to take to a birthday party today. Well, the card got made and Trinity didn't like it so she ended up taking one from my stash anyway!

Oh well, such is life!

But, this card qualifies for a few different challenges:

1.) Cute Card Thursday - Sketch

2.) Pixie Dust Studios - Polka Dots

3.) Wild Flower Wednesday - Polka Dots

4.) Paper Cutz - Anything

5.) Phindy's - Oh baby! - a card for a baby or small child - well, not really baby but it is for a small child!

6.) Stamp Something - digi day - well, digital paper AND a digital image, definately digi!

Just for Fun!

The ladies in the Phindy's Place Group on Paper Craft Planet were talking about digital/printable papers tonight. I had never used them but decided to check out a few links they were sharing. Well, checking them out led to playing with them, which led to making a card with them!

My friend Mary had shared a link for The Angel Company which has tons of free downloads. They have some really neat black and white papers. I decided to print some of them on yellow cardstock. I printed out three different patterns and then played with them. I used black cardstock to layer with. Those were the only papers I used!

The image is also digital. It's one of Phindy's Images. This one is called "Celebrate with Cake" and can be found at Phindy's Place along with a ton of other fabulous images (I can't wait for the fall/winter cuties to come out)!

Alright, enough rambling....I hope you like my card that I made just for fun!

I'm on a paper piecing kick!

Once again, I'm back with another late night card and it has paper piecing again! I had so much fun with it the last 2 times, I decided to try a 3rd! I think this little summer cute from Phindy's Place just needed some gingham - don't you agree?

Speaking of the summer cuties - Phindy is going to be coming out with fall/winter cuties soon - I just can't wait to see them....I really need to do some shopping!

Okay, this adorable little card is for 4 different challenges:

1.) Phindy's Place Challenge Blog - Pink - how easy is that?

2.) The Wild Flower Patch - sketch

3.) The Corrosive Challenge - Faux Techniques - I used faux stitching around the card and around my little "scallops"

4.) Pollycraft Monday - In Stitches - again, my faux stitching worked for this!

A little more Pink!

Hello again! I'm back tonight with another "pink" card! This one has a whole different feel, softer and sweeter I'd say.

Well, I had a picture in my head of this card, didn't quite turn out that way thought.....I was trying to follow a sketch but it just wasn't working for me so I abandoned ship and just flew by the seat of my pants! I like doing that every once in a while anyway.

So, this card is for Phindy's Pink Challenge. I just love "speedster", she's adorable and fun!

I also made this one for the Allsorts Challenge - paper piercing or paper piecing. I was a little upset that I had JUST done a paper piecing card before I checked the Allsorts Challenge but I decided that, since I loved the last one, I would just do another! I think sh turned out pretty cute...

Sentimental Sunday's Challenge this week is ribbons or lace. I added ribbon and my version of a bow - I can't tie a bow to save my life!

Late Night Cardmaking!

It seems the only time I have to make cards now is late at night, when everyone is sleeping - finally!! Tonight, I made this adorable Birthday Card using a Phindy image - isn't she cute in her spring dress? I paper pieced the dress, flowers, shoes and hair ribbon. Generally, I don't like how this comes out whenever I try it, tonight, it seemed to work well for me!

Phindy's Challenge this week is a color challenge - pink - this was a nice change for me who has been seeing WAY too much blue lately!

I used a sketch from this week's Spoon Full of Sugar Challenge - all of those flowers just seemed to call for pink!

Pixie Dust Studios also had a pink challenge this week, "pretty in pink".

I hope you enjoy this card as much as I do!

Done with thank yous - for now!

Okay, this is my last batch of thank you cards - for now at least! I made 4 of these.....

They are for 2 different challenges:

1.) Sketch Saturday - Sketch

2.) Cupcake Inspiration - Photo Inspiration

Not Blue And Not A Thank You!

Can you believe it? I made something other than a thank you card!!! I know, I'm pretty excited about this!! It was so much fun making this card. I got to use new papers that a dear friend sent to me. I got to use pinks and purples too! I think this cutie from Phindy's Place is just adorable and I don't think I've even used her yet - crazy!!

So, I made this card just for fun and for a few different challenges too!

1.) Phindy's Place Challenge - birthday

2.) Dare U 2 Digi Stamp - sketch

3.) Digital Tuesday - butterflies or lace or both

4.) Cupcake Craft - lace

5.) Creative Card Crew - cute and girlie

More Thank Yous!

Hello All! I'm back with another thank you card (actually I made 3 of these!)! I'm getting really good at coloring Phindy's "Hugs from Here" image quite quickly!!!!!

This card is for many challenges:

1.) MelJens - Clean and Simple (I used the easily reproduced definintion for this one too)

2.) Friday Sketchers - Sketch

3.) Allsorts - Primary Colors - Use Red, Yellow and Blue only

4.) Sentimental Sundays - Anything Goes - that was easy!

5.) Stamptacular Sunday - Snips, Snails, and Puppy Dog Tails - Okay, I don't know what a "snip" is but the challenge says it meas "all about boys" so, there you go!

8 different challenges in one card!

Hello All!

Well, I have managed to make one card that covers 9 differet challenges! I'm pretty impressed by this! Here are the challenges:

1.) Allsorts - "dressing up" - Hedgie is all dressed up for her birthday!

2.) Sketch Saturday - Sketch

3.) Stamptacular Sunday - "Out of this World" - I don't know about where you live, but hedgehogs don't wear dresses in Canajoharie!

4.) Cute Card Thursday - "Whateva" - this was just easy!

5.) Paper Cutz - "Skunk, monkey, squirrel, or hedgehog" - as soon as I read this, I thought of cute little Hedgie!

6.) Fussy and Fancy Friday - "Pink and Black" - not colors I normally use but it was fun to challenge myself there!

7.) Phindy's - "Happy Birthday" - well, it is a birthday card!

8.) Stamp Something - Photo Inspiration - the photo had a birthday theme so I went with a birthday card!

9.) Pile It On! - "butterflies/bugs/bees" - there is a little bee swarming around poor Hedgie's head! Really, it's there!

Operation Write Home and a few different challenges!

Incase you haven't seen it, there is a section in my side bar about Operation Write Home (OWH). This is a great organization that I support whenever I can. Crafters donate cards to be shipped to soldiers overseas so they can write home to their loved ones. Since my little obsession is making cards, I always seem to have an abundance of them (I'm great about MAKING them just not about SENDING them!) Right now, OWH has a challenge going on called the 1/2 and 1/2 challenge. They are asking people to send in a 1/2 box of fall/winter holiday themed cards and a 1/2 box of every season cards. This first set of cards works for the every season cards. I had been working on Halloween Cards so they will work for the fall/winter holiday theme. I have also made set of get well cards and then 8 random every season cards that I had made for different challenges!

This week, Phindy's Place Challenge Blog's challenge is "Clean and Simple". One of the definitions of "Clean and Simple" is "can be copied and mass produced fairly quickly". When I read that definition, I immediately thought of OWH. I like to make sets of 8 cards. On the website, they explain that they generally send out 8 batches of cards at a time. So, by making sets of 8 each batch gets one of each of my sets!

This set of cards also works for the Papertake Weekly Challege this week. Their challenge is called "White and Bright" - your card must have white and at least one bright color on it. I'm pretty sure these oranges, pinks, and blues cover bright and my image is on white paper, the card boarder is white, the string is white, and the sentiment is on white!


My second set of cards, get well cards, works for The Wild Flower Wednesday Challenge at The Wild Flower Patch. Their challenge this week is embossing. For this set of cards, I used a sentiment that I got from the Sentimental Sunday's Challenge Blog. I used a clear acrylic stamp for the flower, stamped it on white paper, heat embossed it using white powder, then "colored" it with a diaper wipe and an ink refiller! It's a simple way to make a card that I think looks pretty neat!

Here is a picture of all of the cards being shipped out for the OWH challenge:

Clean and Simple

I'm back with another entry for the Phindy's Place Challenge Blog! This week's challenge is "clean and simple". It is really helping me to get caught up on baby thank yous because they are so "simple" to make! Again tonight I made 2 identical cards, I think I'm down to only needing 1 more (so far)!!!

Here is my second entry....

I decided to leave out a sentiment just to make it even more "simple". I think they came out pretty cute!