PP306 Beach Girls

Happy Sunday, peeps!  Sunday means Paper Players challenge time!  This week the uber-creative Laurie is our hostess with a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge:

I chose the left-hand vertical column for my card today, using another new-to-me stamp from Technique Junkie called "Besties"!!   Here we go:

I stamped the image of the little girls in the ocean in Marina Mist on a stitched panel of some random scrap DSP I had in my stash!!!  Since my sister has been going through a wee bit of a rough patch (all is well now, though!) I thought it would be fun to send this to her, since we spent a LOT of time in the ocean when we were kids and we spend a LOT of time on the phone yakking to each other now!  I crossed out "best friend" and wrote in "sister"  and added a couple of enamel hearts below it:

My texture is some white jute ribbon (retired SU) and I mounted it on some pretty plaid DSP, again from my plethora of mishmash DSP!!  I did add a few more white enamel dots and a little horizontal DSP banner, just for fun!  She has already received the card and told me how much she loved it!

I hope you'll play along with our fun tic-tac-toe challenge...there are SO many possibilities!  Check out what the Players did at the blog...you won't be disappointed!

Speaking of beach, here we are at the playground at Buttonwood Beach on the Elk River!  This was early in the morning; later in the day, the river was full of boats and floats and partying people!

And a few more lovely birthday cards!  This one is from my creative friend Linda Callahan:

And this bright, cheerful beauty is from my dear sister in Christ, Robyn!

Thanks for helping me celebrate my day, ladies!

PPA311 and CTS183

Happy Saturday, peeps!  I am back from my wee vacation and have a CAS creation for you today!  This uses the sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch and the colors from Pals Paper Arts:

It's a challenge to leave your craft room with new goodies sitting unused, so I put this Inky Antics stamp set to work as soon as I got home!  The background is from Gorgeous Grunge, and the rest is pretty simple: 

I did "cannibalize" my wee little birdie from the rest of the photopolymer stamp so that I could stamp him in a different color:

The set also comes with this lovely Bible verse:

Thanks for popping in today!

My MIL has decided to keep the park model RV she and my FIL had at a nice little community on the Elk River near the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland, so we took a couple days to rest and relax during my birthday week!  Here's a sunset view:

Since it was HOT HOT HOT, everybody jumped in the pool as soon as we got there!  Of course, I'll share more photos later!

And since I got so many lovely cards, I will be sharing them all with you over the next few days as well!  This cutie is from my friend Martha:

And this fun-fold one is from my friend in NJ, Doris:

It features a butterfly from a Godiva wrapper and a cute little bookmark inside!

Be sure to come back tomorrow for a new Paper Players challenge, too!  Enjoy your day!

SIP58 CAS Nautical Birthday

Just a quick CAS card today for my BIL using the Stamp Ink Paper sketch:

and some retired DSP in a nautical theme:

I stamped the sentiment (Paper Pumpkin a couple months ago) directly on the DSP, then added a simple tag with some My Favorite Things diecuts!  The inside features a sentiment and anchor from Guy Greetings:

A very hot, sweaty evening at the Cecil County Fair!

Enjoy your day....I will be taking a wee little bloggy vacation, but I will be back very soon!

AYSI139 Feather

Hi everyone!  I am squeaking this card in just under the wire for the pretty As You See It sketch:

This one uses a Papertrey set called What The Doodle Feather:

At the stamp show on Saturday, I had seen a similar feather colored in gorgeous peacock hues--blues and greens---so I couldn't wait to get home and do something along those lines.  I heat-embossed my image in black embossing powder, then painted in the areas with Mint Macaron, Garden Green, Pacific Point, Marina Mist and Soft Sky.  Then I stamped the smaller feather around the background with Versamark ink.  For the sentiment, I stamped the "Hello" (same set) in white ink on a vellum banner and embossed it with white embossing powder:

I added a little white cording, tied in a bow and some pretty sequins and mounted it on a Bermuda Bay card that was embossing with the Elegant Dots EF.  So elegant!

On Sunday I had a chance to see a couple of my cousins on my mom's side; I don't get to see many of them so it was nice to catch up!  My cousin Cindy, in the center, is one of the best cooks I know...she had a Candyland-themed birthday party for her granddaughter that was so cute!  And I am sure I gained a few pounds with the spread she had laid out! And Pat, on the right, is a marvel seamstress....she made me a little Jingle Jack clown doll from fabric yoyos when I was born and I still have it!  It's a little ragged, but it still jingles!  And she was just a little thing when she made it!  I think our Nan Barber passed down all her crafty genes to us!  Thanks Nan!

This is the Day!

Happy Monday, everyone!  I hope you all had a great weekend!  I know I did!  I had a chance to play with some new goodies...I have been doing some shopping lately!  I am really disciplined for a long time and then BAM!  I just have to treat myself to some new stuff!

This card is not for any particular challenge, but just for fun!  I used some papers from Fancy Pants called Park Bench...this little 6x6 pad just sort of jumped in my cart when I was visiting the new Hobby Lobby several weeks ago, LOL!  I paired it with a new stamp set and die from Papertrey called Inspired Lord:

Isn't that die beautiful?!  I mounted everything on a Crumb Cake card base, and added a few sequins; honestly, the paper and diecut are so pretty, I just didn't feel it needed anything else!

I stamped this image on the inside; it is from a new-to-me company called Right at Home, and the set is called Color In Sentiments:

I used a blender pen and Marina Mist ink to color it in in an ombre style!  And here is my sweet partner in (shopping) crime, Debbie!  We attended a stamp show in Wilmington, DE, met a few friends, saw lots of stamps and cards and even got to do a make-n-take!  Thank you to Lisa at Right at Home, who took this photo.....Debbie and I were too busy gawking at all the goodies to think about taking any pictures!

Have a blessed day!

Paper Players 305 Moroccan Hi

Happy Sunday, peeps!  It's time for another Paper Players challenge...this time I am the hostess and I have a sketch for you!

Lots of fun elements to play with in this sketch!  For my card, I chose to use some of the new Moroccan DSP, paired with a retired set called Epic Alphabet:

This is another one of the cards where I let the paper do most of the work, LOL!  My vertical piece and the lower banner are all from the same Moroccan DSP, and the upper banner is a piece of Delightful Dijon, stamped with the diagonal stamp from Gorgeous Grunge.  I stamped the sentiment in Bermuda Bay, then added a few lines of color, to brighten it up a bit, and the star (also Epic Alphabet) was stamped once, then reinked and turned a quarter and stamped again, right on top, so that I got a totally different look to it:

Since I already had my baker's twine stash out from yesterday's card, I added a little "banner" of raveled twine at the top for a little fun!  An enamel star (which I realize does NOT match my colors....oh dear), which I seem to be quite enamored with lately, finished it off!  

How will you interpret this fun sketch?  Wait til you see what the DT came up with...they are so creative, it never ceases to amaze me!  Check them out:

• Claire
• Jaydee
• Joanne
• Laurie - off this week
• Nance 
• Sandy - off this week
• Linda
• Hannelie
• Colleen

Grampy had a mouse problem in the garage, and regular traps weren't working, so he put some birdseed in a big bucket and sure enough, he caught a wee little mouse one night:

Of course, he showed it to Cassidy, who immediately wanted to keep it as a pet and kept checking on it all day long.  Grampy had to make it "run away"....but please don't tell her!

Have a blessed day!

MTS134 and CCMC416 Swirly Boat

Happy Saturday, peeps!  Do you have some cool activities planned today?  I will be INSIDE enjoying some a/c today, LOL!  I have a card today featuring Swirly Bird, and I have used the Match the Sketch sketch and the colors from Create with Connie and Mary:

And here we go:

I created my vertical panel with a piece of By the Shore DSP, a diecut from Swirly Scribbles and the diagonal image from Gorgeous Grunge.  I wish now I had added another little piece of diecut on the right side...oh well!  My little boat is from Swirly Bird, mounted on a piece of Very Vanilla and a scalloped square of Mint Macaron, diecut with Layering Squares....I just haven't had a chance to use those dies enough, so I hope it's okay I substituted a square for a circle!

I added a wee little flag (Swirly Bird) and star (Labeler Alphabet) to my boat, then stamped a sentiment from a past Paper Pumpkin set along with another smaller star (Itty Bitties).  The finishing touch was a length of  thick baker's twine, knotted and frayed!  These are great colors together!

Cassidy made a swimming pool for Michael from a big bowl....although I am not sure why she just didn't use the kiddie pool...all the other dolls end up there!  And the bandaid is from the first bike accident...just a little scrape but you might have thought her leg had been cut off.  All is well now, though!

Enjoy your day, and be sure to stop back tomorrow for a new Paper Player's challenge!

FMS246 Thinking of You

Happy Friday, peeps!  Yay, the weekend is here!  I am draggin' this week!  We hosted our small group picnic last night, and it was wonderful, but what with the garden and swimming and all the other summer activities, I think I need a vacation!  I did get a wee bit of stamping time in yesterday and played with the FMS sketch by Rita:

As I am posting this, I am seeing a glaring error that I made in my card, but I'll tell you about it later!  Here we go:

I have two nephews that are away this summer; my sister's son is at West Point, and John's sister's son is at Officer's Candidate School at Quantico, so you may see more masculine cards for a while, as they both enjoy getting mail!  This card uses some older Basic Grey paper called Wander, and I used a Poppystamps die called Greeting Tags to make the tag, also from the BG papers.  The tag was a little shorter than I liked, so I actually cut two of them and pieced them together to make a longer one.  I punched a circle and made a couple of banners, then stamped "thinking of" with the Labeler Alphabet with Delightful Dijon ink on the narrower one.  This set is just so versatile, and being photopolymer, is really easy to line up!  I added a Route 66 image from Artistic Outpost's set of the same name, a star, and a couple of the new enamel embellishments.  As an afterthought, since the "you" at the bottom of the tag is a little hard to notice, I added an acrylic arrow from a Project Life kit...it added a nice touch, I thought...of course, it's for a young guy, so who knows what he will think, LOL!

And what was my error?  I forgot to put anything at the top of the tag...I sent it out with a big gaping hole there.  Again, I am sure my nephew will totally not notice that at all!!!

We were blessed with a good zucchini crop this year, which is nice, because we lost all our plants last year, and I really love zucchini!  I decided to slice most of it up and bag it; if I want to saute it, it's ready to go; if I want to shred it for bread or zucchini crab cakes, I just need to throw it in the processor and chop it up!  Cassidy was very helpful, putting the slices carefully in the bags!  I added a couple of paper towels to absorb moisture, and they're in the fridge, waiting to be transformed!

Thanks for popping by today!  Stay cool!