A challenge - do you recognize it?

ETA: A couple of you have asked about why comments don't show up. All I can guess at this point, is that the 2nd step wasn't completed. It's a quick fix...after you enter your comment, another step is involved where you type in the letters shown on the screen...and hit enter. I'll be watching for a few more comments when those people who couldn't see their message, are able to finally comment :)


I am terrible with challenges because I'll see one that I want to do, and then after I've made it, I can't remember whose challenge it is!! :( This happens to be 'one of those'.... I loved playing with the Tim Holtz Crackle paint and alcohol inks that have been in my stash for years!!! Isn't that crackle effect cool?? I did get some close up pics - hopefully they show up well...click on them to see the crackly parts on the star. I love it!

The background paper is from K & Co's Wild Saffron line (part of the pad that was on clearance for only 4.97). I went back today and EVERY single pad was gone - I should have bought some of the other ones that I was thinking about getting...maybe for the best though...as you can see they last a long, long time because there's so much paper in them!

If you happen to know whose challenge this was from, please post and tell me- I'd like to let the person know that I played and I liked the layout!!

We had more fabulous weather today - can you see the beautiful blue sky in the background? It's perfect!! 73 degrees and a little breeze...it means you can work outside and not get hot! You can run/walk or exercise and it's comfortable! I on the other hand picked raspberries from our neighbor's house with my hubby. We were there a short 10 minutes and gathered almost 6 pounds - there were berries EVERYWHERE! Afterward, my left forearm came out looking like the untreated arm from the OFF commercial!! 8 bites on 10" of arm...less than 10 minutes...unreal. However the raspberry coffee cake this morning was soooo worth it!

I got the recipe from Cindy at Imagine Dream Create. Hers were made with strawberries, mine with raspberries. I added Madagascar infused whipped cream made fresh this morning, and topped it with julienned basil fresh from the herb garden. DEEEEELISH!!
In case Cindy's link doesn't work, here's the url: http://imagine-dream-create.blogspot.com/2009/06/strawberry-coffee-cake-minis.html
It was SUPER easy too!! Even the kids could make it (they will next time).

Have a great Sunday evening bloggie readers...and enjoy the week if I don't get to post again... I'm back to work for a week then off while we head to Santa Barbara over the 4th of July! :)

The Butterflies - I'm so proud of this one!!

I finally made something that I really like a LOT! It uses the patterned paper by K & Co. paper called Wild Saffron (which by the way was on sale for only $4.97 at Michaels - marked way down!) yay! The dark aqua is PaperTrey's Ocean Tides (ribbon and cardstock). I colored my own velvet ric-rack from May Arts using Glimmer Mist in a brown shade -it's sparkly! The little velvet flowers were also made from ric-rack and that's what I'm so happy about! They turned out just how I wanted!! That hardly ever happens! :) The centers are a glue dot with brown seed beads lined in silver - which makes them stand out and shimmer!

What fun it was workin on this one! Stamps are from Stampin Up - I broke out a 'new' set called Great Friend (bought months ago). I only wish I could find my linen thread to tie up those sad little naked buttons!

Oh wait...there's more~ I even dressed up the inside of the card! That's my other proud accomplishment. I hardly ever do the inside to match the front!

The hydrangea blossoms were spritzed with Glimmer Mist in Turquoise, Aspen Yellow and edged with the brown called Autumn Leaves.

I tried my best to show the sparkley shimmer from the Glimmer Mist, but that just didn't happen. Maybe clicking to make it bigger will help show off the lustre!?

Anyway, I had a lot of fun being inspired by so many creative people - from those on the Gingerwood Bulletin board to all the blogs that I scour from day to day - ones that show you how to use Glimmer Mist, Distress ink techniques, make their own flowers, add buttons (which I'm not so fond of but they're definitely growing on me), distressing paper, dressing the INSIDES of the card, and overall just providing me with lots of eye candy....Thanks so much for the inspiration!

p.s. that bright turquoise flower isn't quite that brilliant...it photographed in a different color for some reason!? It's not as dark as the other two, but this looks off....

Birds, Birds, Birds!

They're everywhere - so are butterflies!

This little glittery bird will be flying over to send some get well wishes to my friend Sue. (I used the new teeny tiny wishes set from Stampin up - isn't that font cute?) The owl is one of the K & Co. glitter embellishments. I went overboard and bought too many so now I'm trying to use them up before they're passe'

The photo makes it look like the colors don't match but they should they're all apricot appeal and pink passion...and then some new SU background paper - the Raspberry Lemonade! (Yum!) The ribbon is from Michael's $1 bin (last year).

I'm working on my butterfly card and will post it soon (hopefully tomorrow)...the last day of my furlough...it's been a wonderful week off. I went shopping almost every day....two new pairs of shoes today! :) Yippee!! And a single indulgent piece of caramel from Fran's...with smoked salt on top. I didn't even buy an extra to share with hubby. He doesn't know I went there....(heheheh)...

The lazy photographer shares a card or two

I love making cards...I hate photographing them. I hate my photography 'skills' (or lack of).

I like to share, and I like to make cards....why can't photography be easier??

Most of these use the NEW Stampin Up "In-Colors" for 2009-2010! Aren't they pretty? I know that one picture is really out of focus...it just didn't want to cooperate. Maybe I should start paying my son to take the pictures and be done with it!

The Owl on the "Hi" card is a little embelli from Michaels - .99 cents! Letters in gray are from Sassafrass Lass stamps :)

The big tweet is my new ON BOARD chipboard set from SU...I don't know why I waited so long to get it...I like it lots!! The papers are from the new Raspberry Lemonade Line that will be available July 1st - great colors and they are more like BasicGrey papers now! YAY!

Be Happy Floral is a mix of the "Enjoy" set (RETIRED NOW), and Circle Circus (another new item in July). The ribbon is from American Crafts though - isn't it a nice matchy match?

And finally the out of focus purply card paired with the Razzleberry Cardstock from Stampin Up. Fun color but excuse the photo please!

I was up early this morning so I'm staring to feel the need for a nap.... have a great day everyone! I'll be enjoying my mid-week furlough time...Who knows what tomorrow will hold!

xxoo
Elaine

Another Blog Candy opp?

I love finding blog candy stuff and want to share another really great one with you all...I just entered it and you should too!

http://carlzcardz.blogspot.com/2009/05/my-30000-hits-candy-please-scroll-down.html

Look what I found!!

These are from the A-Muse cupcake social back in 2008!!

I guess I saved these pictures to the wrong place and couldn't find them....

It's Amy Tsuruta (THE Best blogger around!), Julie HRR Ebersol (infamous designer of AMuse single layer cards), and Novell Eckstrom (scrap teacher extraordinaire!)

There is another great event coming up called AMuse-a-Palooza...I think that's what it's called....
and sign up's are going on now...did you sign up? I want to!! It's only $15 if you pre-register! Just do it....you'll be glad you did!

The Scrapmaster's Blog & her sweet candy!

Time to get busy entering for this yummy blog candy at Samantha's place, Scrapmaster's Paradise!! WOW! :)

http://thescrapmaster.blogspot.com/2009/06/june-blog-candy-giveaway.html

I'll hopefully get my new cards up tomorrow - I made them last week but haven't been motivated to photograph them. I'm horrible at photography! Thinking about taking a class...Have any of you taken a class or do you have a recommendation? I messed up the pictures from my son's commencement last weekend and since then I've been discouraged to take any photos! Good luck to everyone on the blog candy! :)

365 sketch

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I guess one would expect a card made from all the new Stampin Up supplies that were received earlier this week. However that's not the case...I'm sharing a card that's for the 365 cards blog for Sketchy Sunday! My darling buddy Amy (from Tsuruta Designs) had such a great card (I fell in love with her sweet pennant design) I had to do it!


Here's the post at 365 with details on the sketch:
http://365cards.blogspot.com/2009/06/day-99-super-sketchy-sunday.html



Notice the cute little dragonflies? That's part of the sketch challenge. Mine came from a blog candy win at www.katycards.co.uk - I was thrilled to have won some really fun embellishments that I'd never seen before. The shipping is free, so when I run out, I'll be ordering more - the prices are very reasonable and you all know how much I love little pearly things on my cards, right? ;-)

The background is an old Stampin up image - once I stamped it, I sanded the ink off slightly to make the linen texture peek through. Some of the centers of the background designs have a tiny dot of metallic (you can see them if you look closely - I photographed at night so the flash would reflect off the metallic dots...that's the only way I could think of to make them pop).

The triangle is some fabulous, heavy metallic cardstock that my dad got a while back. Can't believe I haven't used more of it! There's copper, and the scalloped circle is a navy metallic. Later on I'll use the hunter green, purple and dark anthracite colors...they're gorgeous!

Lots going on today so I better run. Have a wonderful day! We're still languishing in the sunshine in Seattle!! :) Oh, and Trophy Cupcake FINALLY opens today at University Village - FINALLY!! I've been waiting more than a month for them to open! :) Fat City, here I come!

Is it just me or does it feel like Easter?

...Especially when you see Easter Egg colors like these!.... It could even be Valentine's Day again with all these hearts! Oh, and check out the owl's eye....whoops! lol

The card that has "for you" as the sentiment on the front also has some tone-on-tone stamping on the pink panel - it doesn't show up well in the picture though.

The background papers are from a Stampin Up series called Tea Party.

Our weather is much cooler this weekend....I prefer the warmer temps that we had last weekend.

p.s. I just posted a side link to Whoopsie Daisy's Blog candy...check it out! The little animal stamps are pretty darn cute! Donkey smiles also has a sweet chance to win blog candy here: http://donkeysmiles.blogspot.com/2009/06/celebrating-75000-hits-with-some-big.html Good luck!

A little fun...

8 Things I Look Forward To
1. Hanging out with my friends and family
2. Laughing with friends and family - this is probably my favorite thing to do
3. Stamping time!
4. The WEEKENDS -especially if it's a 3-day, holiday weekend!
5. Summertime
6. A great Stamp or scrapping sale
7. Dinner out at a favorite restaurant
8. Warming up after being out in the snow; or cooling off after a long workout

8 Things I Did Yesterday
1. Made a presentation at work
2. Laughed with colleagues and my boss
3. Had barbequed chicken for dinner
4. Walked for an hour on the warmest record breaking day of the year (in Seattle)
5. Opened my new Stampin Up Shipment!!! :)
6. Drove down the freeway with the top down
7. Hugged and kissed my kids and my hubby
8. Watched housewives of New Jersey (it's a goofy show!)

8 Things I Wish I Could Do
1. Sing
2. Travel more
3. Be more organized
4. Wear cute strappy sandals
5. Find a cure for diabetes
6. Take better pictures
7. Teach my kids how to pick up after themselves
8. Convince my husband we should stay in the house we're at, in the city we're at!

8 Things or Shows I Have Watched Lately
1. The sunrise on a hot summer day
2. Housewives of New Jersey
3. A firetruck with it's siren on, trying to get through traffic in Seattle
4. Oprah (the episode with the father who authored the book, Beautiful Boy)
5. My daughter's science project growing on our deck
6. HGTV
7. the 11:00 news (channel 5/Kingtv)
8. A youtube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF6lF_jLBNg