Sites of the week

The Verve Visual Honored Guest Contest
Want to be a designer for Verve Visual? Well, now’s your chance! We’re having a card contest that gives everybody the opportunity to strut their stuff. All you have to do is make a card using the following sketch and submit a link to an online photo of your card by Friday, February 15. Please submit links as a comment on the January 30 Verve Visual Blog post. Since we want everyone to have a shot, you don’t even have to use Verve Visual stamps (although we LOVE it when you do)! Just create a stamped masterpiece that makes us ooh and ahh using the provided sketch.

A winner will be announced on Monday, February 18 and will be our Honored Guest for the month of March. Our Honored Guest will receive the same kit our Design Team receives, including pre-releases of the new Verve sets releasing in March. The winner will be required to submit 6 projects using the pre-release stamps. We will also be doing some random prize drawings throughout the contest, so be sure to get your cards submitted! There is no limit to the number of cards you can submit, and the contest is open to everyone, including previous Verve Guest Designers.

So, if this sounds up your alley, get your mojo in motion and start stamping!

Here’s the sketch…

Don’tcha wish it was spring already!?!? Yesterday we had cool wind gust up to 60+ mph. Not exactly what I would call a nice spring day, but it’s January, so I guess I can’t be too surprised. I made this card following the MFT sketch for this week. Each week Cindy Haffner posts a new great sketch. I can say that I am a little behind on doing all of these, but am glad that I got to do this one. I found this sketch to be a little challenging, but that’s a good thing sometimes. I got a chance to break out of my normal cardmaking routine and try something a little different. I *think* I like how it came out.
The flowers are from Prima and the clear baubles are from Bella {don’t forget about the PJ party tonight}. The cute lil’ image and sentiment are from last year’s Hoppy Easter set from MFT. I’m still waiting {ever so patiently for the mailman to deliver this year’s set}. If you like this one, you will LOVE what’s in store for you next week with MFT.

Dimensions: Standard
Stamps: MFT
Ink: Brilliance Graphite Black; Copic Markers
Paper: Pretty In Pink, So Saffron, Bashful Blue, Whisper White
Other: May Arts Ribbon, Cuttlebug, Bellas Baubles, Primas, Making Memories Brads, Ticket Corner Punch

No stamped stuff here today. I’m feeling a bit under the weather and what I wanted to get done last night just didn’t happen {despite much effort}. So, I am just writing today.

Have you taken the survey on Splitcoast yet? The SCS team wants to make their site even better…with your help. If you haven’t taken the survey yet, please CLICK HERE. Thanks!!

Also, if you are a Bella fan…
There is a PJ party for da Bellas HERE on Wednesday night.

I want to thank Becky and Becky for nominating me for the You Make My Day Award. How SWEET!! I have seen this quite a bit on the blogs I visit, so it was a real treat when they nom’d me. Thanks!

Heather tagged me with “5 things.” Here it goes…

Five things I was doing 10 years ago
1. Going to college
2. Smoking….ewww!!!!!!!
3. Going to the gym a lot
4. Shopping
5. Working at a car dealership {Jaguar, Porsche, Audi}

Five things on my to do list today
1. Make something cute
2. Take a nap {I don’t feel good!}
3. Get Ellie from Mom’s Day Out
4. Make DH lunch
5. Go to bank and Wal-Mart

Five things I will do when I’m a millionaire
1. Go on a long European vacation
2. Pay off all loans
3. Be very generous to causes I support
4. Get custom furniture for my stamp room
5. Send DH on a whirlwind golfing adventure

Five things I’ll never wear again
1. A wedding dress
2. A bridesmaid dress {hopefully!!}
3. Acid wash anything
4. A perm
5. French rolled jeans

Five of my favorite toys
1. Stamps
2. Computer
3. Wii
4. Soccer ball
5. Does paper count??? lol

Five banes of my existence
Can’t really think of any. {sorry!}

Five people to tag
*If you want to do this, please do!! I don’t mind playing, but I don’t tag others that might not want to play.

Isn’t this just a pretty sentiment? A little gushy, yes, but nice all the same! I paired this sentiment with the leaves from the Spiral Bouquet set from PaperTrey. Instead of using the flowers from the set, I used punched hearts that I sponged with Blush Blossom ink.
The layout is from Julee Tilman’s Mojo Monday sketch from last week. I have good intentions of doing her sketch every week {and a bunch of other sketches}, but sometimes there just aren’t enough hours in the day. Fortunately, I have them all printed out and when the chance arises I pull one out and work on it. Yay for me, on Saturday I got to work on one!
The background on this stamp is from Cornish Heritage Farms. I really like their backgrounders!! You can get them unmounted {just 10 bucks and already backed with Smart Cushion} and they will cling to the sticker on the wood of your SU! background stamps, so there is no need to purchase a jumbo acrylic block.
The strip of white at the edge of the card was a real afterthought. I slipped the sketch into the card and part of it was hanging out of the bottom. I thought that the white edge looked good, so I took off about 1/8″ of the Chocolate Chip cardstock and put a strip of white.

Dimensions: Standard
Stamps: PaperTrey, Cornish Heritage Farms
Paper: Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, Blush Blossom, Whisper White
Ink: Chocolate Chip, Certainly Celery, Blush Blossom, VersaMark
Other: Heart Punch, Bling {thanks Julee!!}, Dimensionals, Sponge, Paper Piercer

On Friday morning is was COLD! Remember, if it is below 70 I am freezing {I know all you in the Northeast are chuckling at my cold wimpiness!}. Anyways…I took this picture of the little icicles that were hanging on the holly bushes in our front yard. I thought it looked kinda purty, so I thought I would share!

Seen It?…

You may have seen this project already. In December, I was honored to be Gina K’s Guest Designer. This is one of the projects that I made. It is a gift card holder; one like I have never seen before. I got the directions/tutorial HERE.
Here is a shot of it opened up. On the back side of the center portion, I did not put anything so that I could write a message to the recipient.

It’s Saturday…YAY!! You know what that means!!…another SKETCH FOR YOU TO TRY. Be sample uses the owl {Hero Arts} that I got at the stamp fair last weekend and I paired it with a sentiment {Stampendous} that I picked up from eclectic Paperie. The DP is from Basic Grey. I picked it up in October or November and it has been sitting in the stash…and sitting and sitting. Finally it got some love!! The Really Rust panel behind the owl is stamped in Really Rust {I LOVE color on color stamping!!} with a negative image stamp of leaves falling from a tree {Sugar Loaf}. That stamp is actually one of the very first stamps that I purchased when I discovered my love for stamping. We all know that it’s been downhill from there!!
I’ll quit my blabbering and tell ya that Carole, Shannan and Susan also have some great samples for your viewing pleasure. Just click on their names to go to their blogs.
I’m looking forward to seeing what you come up with!! When uploading to SCS, please use the keyword SFYTT. Next Saturday, I will introduce the new Guest Designer. Just in case you missed when I first posted about it, the Guest Designer will now be doing samples for the SFYTT each Saturday for a month instead of having a personal page. This will cut down on a lot of time that I have been spending on my site, yet still show off an AWESOME stamper.