JUGS 46 Wild Wild West

Today’s JUGS 46 challenge is to make a project using the Wild Wild West as our theme!!  The purpose of this is to raise money for Ethan’s Rodeo; you can read all about it here.  The digi image and sentiment I am using for my card today are from last year’s fund-raiser, and I am thrilled to be able to use “Lily” and her little pony again!

My Copic-using skills are not quite what some of my stamping cohorts’ are, but I gave it my best shot with the limited supplies I had.  The card base is Pear Pizzazz; I used a mix of papers from Material Girl by CC and On the Boardwalk by Graphics 45; the ribbons also qualify this for Sharon Johnson’s Stamp Simply challenge 152, to use ribbon scraps!  These little pieces were in my ribbon bag…I only wish I could learn to sew straight.  (Actually, I think there is something off in my machine!! LOL!)  Anyway, this card is perfect for an encouragement card I need for a friend who recently took on a major ministry position in our church, and has been really discouraged.  She has horses, so although I am not sure she’s into rodeo, I think she’ll like this nonetheless!

I hope you’ll participate too and help out this great cause! 

• Stamps:  digital images 
• Paper:  Pear Pizzazz, Cajun Craze, Very Vanilla, Material Girl, Cosmo Cricket; On the Boardwalk, Graphics 45
• Ink:  none
• Acc:  computer, Copics, Circle Punches, sewing machine, Nesties, Twill, retired SU ribbon, Regals button, dimensionals

Four Easy Pieces

Remember that movie, Five Easy Pieces?  I do not remember a thing about it except that it was the movie I went to see on my very first date!!  I was so nervous that a boy (an older boy, even) actually asked me out, I couldn’t tell you what the movie was about….except maybe some scene about a sandwich???  ANYWAY….I digress.  My easy pieces today are four easy Christmas cards I did yesterday at a little stamp camp I held for some sweet stamping friends at a nearby church.  LOVE these ladies!!!  So here we go:

We used a lot of retired SU sets, and they loved them all!  Thanks for visiting today!  Email me if you have any questions.

SSC163

Oh my, this is probably one of the silliest cards I ever made….I wanted to use my new Night Owl DP and the Stamping 411 sketch 163:

but somehow the interpretation just didn’t pan out the way I had planned:

Maybe it’s that Concord Crush cardstock….just can’t quite get on board with that shade of purple.  I didn’t want to cover up any of the design, so I used vellum as my horizontal piece….maybe I should have sponged that as well as the DP.  Oh well……I am thrilled with the new little sparkly brads that are in the Holiday Mini catalog, though:

Well, this is short and sweet….still waiting for DD to have her baby.  Waiting is the hardest thing!!!  But signs are there that it may be soon!  Thanks for visiting today!  If you don’t hear from me for a couple days, you’ll know where I am!

• Stamps:  All Holidays
• Paper:  Vellum CS, Concord Crush, Tangering Tango, Perfect Plum, Basic Black, Night Owl DP
• Ink:  Stazon, Pumpkin Pie, Tangerine Tango (for sponging)
• Acc:  Dauber, Circle Punches, Large Oval Punch, Narrow Black Ribbon, Sparkly Brad, SAMJ, dimensionals

CTD105

Are you singing that John Denver song?!!  LOL!!  Barbara’s color choices for today’s Color Throwdown were definitely masculine colors in my book, so I pulled out an Artistic Outpost set I haven’t used for a while called Home.  First, here are her colors:

A bit challenging, aren’t they?  But I persevered, and here’s what I came up with:

I always need masculine birthday cards, so I was glad to stretch myself with these colors!  I did some stamping directly on the DP, and I stamped the Cheesecloth backgrounder across the panel so that the cool edges were visible at the top and bottom of the card.  The layout is from Pam’s TSG67 sketch:

And since the Elegant Eggplant cardstock is too dark on which to write, I added a Confetti Cream panel to the inside:

You might notice that I actually used Old Olive in my card, and not Always Artichoke…..just goes to show that sometimes the designers goof up too!  No problem!  We always say “Use something close!”  So that’s what I did!  We’d love to have you play along with the CTD designers too!  Like I said, if you don’t have these exact colors, that’s okay---we just ask that you use something fairly close.  You can find all the details as well as the Inlinkz feature right on the CTD blog, so hurry on over!  While you’re there, you can check out what the other designers have created, or just check them out here:

• Broni - Splashes of Watercolor
• Tammy - Stamp Happy
• Barbara - Paper Pursuits
• Danielle – Wild Dragonfly Designs
• Laura --Lil’Inker
• and our Guest Designer for this month, Chupa Palamountain – Random Acts of Creativity

Thanks so much for visiting me today!!!

• Stamps:  Home, Artistic Outpost; Cheesecloth BG, Birthday Centers, CHF;
• Paper:  Elegant Eggplant, Confetti Cream, Soft Suede, Old Olive, retired SU DP
• Ink:  Old Olive, Soft Suede, Elegant Eggplant
• Acc:  Nesties, Hemp Twine, Chocolate Chip Marker, Vintage Trinkets, 1/16” hole punch, dimensionals

CQC45

Isn’t this a serene scene?  So pretty!!!  Arielle’s ColourQ Challenge today is a sweet fluttering of butterflies against a white background.  The design is CAS, so I did a fairly clean card as well:

using the Things I Love set in the inspiration colors.  I added a little pearly embellishment on the chocolate, a bit of texture on the Wild Wasabi panel and some Wild Wasabi DP peeking out from behind.  The heart theme is carried into the inside:

Hmmm, maybe I should have put some glitter on that piece of chocolate…anyway, check out what the other designers on the Colour Court have come up with and show us your take on these pretty colors!  You can check out the ColourQ blog or just click on the sidebar for all the details! 

Before I go, I thought I’d share a couple of photos I took yesterday evening in my little flower garden:

A male American goldfinch:

A male ruby-throated hummingbird:

Same hummer, from the rear!!!

A grumpy female domestic shorthair cat, who thinks she is a much better “crop” than whatever I can put in this basket from my garden:

Thanks for visiting today!

CAS79 x Two

Today’s CAS79 challenge is gardens; I seem to use this CHF garden sentiment a lot, and pulled it out again for today.  I have to admit, these are two REALLY CAS cards….if you’re looking for fancy schmancy, it’s not here.  The first one has very little stamping, just the sentiment and Linen stamped over a digital image that was printed on some BG Porcelain paper:

The card base is Blushing Bride and the mat is BG Lily Kate.  The digital image is from Karen’s Whimsy—a fun site!  This will be a get-well card for my SIL.    My next card is the total opposite of the above card and has no stamping at all, except the sentiment inside.  My sister and I went yard saling on Saturday and she found me a musty-smelling 1961 reader full of Dick and Jane images….perfect for fun cardmaking!  (Elise, are you reading this?)  I looked through for a garden image and came up with this:

If you’re of a certain age, you’ll remember these images---and of course, haven’t we all run through a corn field in our Mary Janes and little red dress?  OF COURSE!!  Anyway, I mounted the illustration on some BG Recess paper,  did a computer-generated sentiment and added a vintage button:

Poor Jane!  Just look at the expression of terror on her face, being lost in the corn field:

Well, enough of teasing Jane….I haven’t quite decided to whom this card will go….I have a lot of friends and relatives who are “of that certain age” and I am sure one of them will appreciate my humor!  Thanks for visiting today!!!

A Country Wedding

This is a non-stamping post, so feel free to bypass it if you aren’t interested in personal stuff!  I apologize for the lack of commenting and posting the last few days!!  My nephew got married Friday night and I’ve had a houseful of family!!!  They’ve all gone home now and we are just waiting for my DD’s baby to arrive so between the excitement of these two events, I thought I’d post some photos of the wedding!  It was held at Landis Valley Farm Museum, which is like a mini-Williamsburg, in the beautiful farm country of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Both my nephew and his bride love all things country and they wanted to have their reception in a barn, so that’s what they did!  So here are a few highlights:

The flowers in Mason jars hanging on shepherd’s hooks as we walked in:

 

The flowers on the “altar”:

My sister Joyce and her hubby Jim, parents of the groom:

The bridesmaids lined up by the barn; notice the footwear:

The bride and her dad approach:

The ceremony begins.  Our minister has known these two kids since they were little; they grew up at church together!

The beautiful bride:

A birds-eye view of the ceremony:

My two beautiful nieces, sisters of the groom:

 

My niece Kelly giving her maid-of-honor speech at the entrance of the barn:

And the party went long into the evening!  Everyone had a blast, even though it was a dry wedding because of the location.  My feet were SO tired from dancing!!!

The cake was actually three different CHEESE CAKES---soooo yummy!!! 

And of course, cheese cake is SO smashable!

The table decorations were tree-themed; we all got a jar of homemade apple butter to take home, and these were little “prizes” we could win on the tables as well:

This is the ONLY picture I got with me and my sister Gail and Tim; the cameras were flashing like crazy but I never got one of Tim, Allyson and me together!!   Or any other family members, for that matter!

 

And one last parting shot:

Thanks for indulging me!  And thanks to Alex Lee, who took most of these photos and is an incredible photographer (plus she has a really nice camera) and a close friend of the couple, as well as a few others who took some photos as well!