Sweet!!!

We have a brand new grandson!! It's been a busy couple of weeks ~ we were helping out with the older kids (11, 9 & 6) so we had our hands full. They are so excited about their new little brother! They want to hold him constantly...especially the youngest. She is so gentle and loving with him - just like a little mother. It's very SWEET!!  Which brings me to my card....(nice entrance, don't you think?)....

I have had this Mo's Digital image - Bronte and Louis - for awhile and couldn't figure out what sentiment to use with him. I wanted to do a card for my oldest son and thought maybe Louis would work!  I found the sentiments in two different stamp sets and they seemed to work well together. And don't you just love Basic Grey's new Pyrus paper?!! I paired it with Kraft & some old SU! Cranberry Crisp cardstock.

 "Hope your day is....SWEET as can be!!"

I also wanted to do a card to enter in Jeanie's "That's Krafty Thursday" challenge and this one will fit the bill! Sometimes I forget to use my kraft cardstock and also forget how versatile it is!  If you've never visited Jeanie's site (The Spotted Chick), you have a treat in store - her cards are GORGEOUS!! Every time I visit, I get another boost of inspiration!!

Bronte and Louis were colored with Copics. I think I'm finally getting the hang of them! Still a work in progress, but the more I use them, the more I'm loving them!! I did some shading with my Prismacolor pencils/gamsol, stitched around the edges and sponged with Chalk ink. I wanted to add the first part of the sentiment in a half-circle, but it looked a little 'blah' all by itself....so I used one of my smallest Nestabilities to cut out a scalloped circle in cork. I punched holes in each of the scallops to give it more definitioin. I like the way it turned out! A little colored cord and a button and this card is complete! (and no bling or sparkle this time...can you believe it?!!!)

Hope you all have a great weekend!!

Still trying to find my mojo.....

It's been close to a month since I posted anything....'life' seems to be getting in the way of my card making.  And the less I do, the more my mojo seems to be fading. Right now my stamping space is such a total mess - it's no wonder I don't spend more time there!  I was going to take a picture, but I'd be way too embarrassed!

Here's my attempt at Mo's Digital image "Celebrate".  I love this image! I colored it up mostly with Copics - shading with Prismas/Gamsol.  The paper is from Basic Grey's Sugar Rush collection.  The image is digital, printed on Bella's Bestest paper, other cardstock is from Stampin' Up! - Night of Navy and Almost Amethest.  The punch is Martha Stewart's Double Loops punch.  Sentiment is from an old set that was one of my first stamp sets; I think it's a Hero Art's set....not sure of the name.

This past weekend we had our annual family "Pumpkin Carving" day. Started out in the morning in 3 cars headed for the pumpkin patch!  We found one that we really like about half an hour from where we live. It's pretty basic: hayride out to the pumpkin patch, everyone jumps out and searches for that perfect pumpkin (and we all wind up with pretty much the same thing!), the hayride goes back to where our cars are parked so everyone can deposit their pumpkins then back to where we started. There's a large tent that houses the small concession stand - nothing fancy here. Just about everyone had at least a donut, some had cider, some hot chocolate. I think there's a haunted house there too, but we've never been to that.

But here's the part we like the best: the pumpkin blasters!! They have these huge "guns" that you load either with gourds or apples and shoot them at targets - it's a riot!!   





We all came back to our house for a late lunch/early dinner then we set up for our traditional pumpkin carving.  All of these events usually take place later in the day, so there's normally a few pictures when we're all finished, in the dark, of all of our pumpkins - lit up. But this year, we needed to wrap up earlier, so no final picture (boo hoo!).  Here's the one from last year....isn't this cool?!!  As you can see, we have a very imaginative group!

Here are a couple of photos from our pumpkin carving this year! :)  



Cinema Saturday Challenge #86!

As guest designer for this week's Cinema Saturday Challenge, I am privileged to announce this weeks movie: "Bend it Like Beckham"!!  "Bend it Like Beckham" is a heartwarming movie about a teenage girl who is struggling with her Indian traditions and her dream of becoming a world-class soccer player. In the movie, Jess, the main character (played by Parminder K. Nagra), is befriended by another girl, Jules (played by Keira Knightly), who recruits her to play on a real soccer team, gives her support and encouragement, and shares her love of the game. The relationship of these two girls is where I got the inspiration for my card. Even though Jess has a real sister in the movie, the ‘sisterhood’ bond that stood out and inspired me was the one between Jess and Jules. I don’t think you have to be blood sisters to feel the bond of sisterhood!

The challenge requirement this week, along with inspiration from the movie, is to create a card in any shape other than A2!! These days I pretty much always do square cards so this was right up my alley!! :) I used another image from Mo's Digital Pencil: 'Sisters'.  As soon as I saw this image, I knew it was the perfect one for this challenge! I usually like to start with my background paper and color to coordinate with that, but this time I just started coloring and then had to hunt to find some paper. :)  I'm not very adept at Copics yet, but decided to give them a try for this challenge. It worked pretty well, but the color I used for the older girl's top just wasn't working...so I fixed it by paper piecing with a coordinating paper - ooaallaa!!  A little shading with my Prismacolor pencils and blending with OMS completed the coloring portion. The background paper was so 'busy' that I didn't want to add too much in the way of embellishment, so I just used some paper lace in one strip then scrunched some of that same paper lace to form a backing for my hand written sentiment: "My sister, my friend".  I found a few sentiments that I liked.....

"Sisters are blossoms in the garden of life"

"A true sister is a friend who listens with her heart"

"A sister is one who reaches for your hand and touches your heart"

"A sister is a forever friend"

but ended up with the short and sweet, 'My sister, my friend'. I added a couple of Dew Drops to the bottom and some Star Dust Stickles (the best Stickles color in my opinion because it just adds sparkle, not color!) to the blue shoes, barrette & to the lace around the sentiment....there's just something I can't resist about adding some "sparkle"!!

I hope you like my card and that you'll be inspired to play along this week in the Cinema Saturday Challenge!!  It's a lot of fun....and YOU could be the next winner of the "Audrey Award"!!

Have a great 4th of July weekend!!  Great big{{hugs}} to all my sisters/friends!!

Welcome, Neighbor!

Last week, I went to lunch with several of my neighbors - on a week day. Doesn't sound like a big deal, does it?  But it was for me! I retired recently and never was able to do this kind of thing before so this was a big occassion for me!  We had a great time - good company, good food and good conversation.  One of the things we talked about was that a new neighbor that had moved in. I told them how much it meant to me (13 years ago!) that one of the neighbors had a 'welcome to the neighborhood' party for us where we had a chance to meet everyone. We talked about how people used to take a fresh baked cake or pie to a new neighbor to welcome them.....in the old days....and that conversation led to the idea of putting together a welcome basket for these new neighbors! One of the ladies volunteered to bake a pie too....yummmm. We're still putting it together, but so far we have a basket lined with a new kitchen dishtowel, a copy of our association directory, a boat keyring (we live on a lake), a boxed sweet pepper grow-kit, a box of sidewalk chalk for the kids, a cute little potted plant (coleus) and this card.........

I used Mo's Digital stamp "Home Tweet Home" and colored it with my Prismacolor pencils, blended with gamsol.  I used my new big scallop nestie and I even crocheted the little flower myself!!  For the inside, I printed the "welcome to the neighborhood" on my computer then stamped a little flower stamp in the corner:

I thought it turned out pretty good....hope the new neighbors like it too!

Here's the finished basket.....

Have a great day!