Sites of the week

Wow! Yesterday a few of you chimed in with how cold you are. Makes it seem like I should be out sunbathing…LOL! Well, I hope that all this cold weather is just a great excuse to snuggle up to your honey, or STAMP!!
Well, it’s Saturday and that means another Sketch For You To Try…YAY!! I still need to go in and comment on some of the ones last week. All of the ones I have seen are SPECTACULAR!! I love seeing what everyone does with the sketches. I have had a couple people contact me this week about publishing or selling their cards made with my sketches. I want you to know that this is just a little something I do for fun and in no way am I laying claim to how to arrange paper on a card. I think it is AWESOME if you sell or get a card published using a sketch I created. If you do get published, but sure to let me know so I can see it in print!! Speaking of that…I got happy email yesterday letting me know that a couple of my creations have been picked up. These are not ones that I have previously posted, as I have tried to avoid doing that. Plus, most of the time I am creating for a call near the deadline. Getting back to the matter at hand…
Lately I have been trying to think a little more outside {my} box. I feel like I have a formula for most of my everyday cards, so when it comes to creating a sketch I want to rock the boat a little. This is what I came up with for this week. Although I used buttons as the round panel, please feel free to use other shapes…flowers, hearts, etc…

You can see the samples that Carole, Shannan and Susan made on their blogs {click their name to be wisked away to their sites}.

When uploading to SCS, please use the keyword SFYTT. Also, be sure to link your creations here! Today Susan and I are going to a stamp fair{ETA: The stamp fair is the StampScrapArtTour in Mesquite, TX}. I hope to have some cool pics to share with you next week, along with all of my “anything but a card creations. Have a happy and warm weekend.

Here’s my sample. Can you tell I was inspired by the new catty’s color scheme??

I took this shot and just thought it looked kinda cool, so I thought I’d share.

Top 3 reasons I know that it’s flippin’ cold outside…

3. The GRASS has icicles on it. {Explanation: Near the front of our community in a common area there is some long whispy grass. Apparently the sprinklers ran the other night, so now there are icicles on these longs blades of grass}.

2. I wore shoes and socks yesterday and did not think anything of it. {”Socks are the devil Bobby Boucher.” Non-movie quote translation: I LOOOOATHE wearing socks!!}

and the numero uno reason I know it’s flippin’ cold outside…

1. It would be warmer to hang out in my freezer than on my doorstep!!!

So, that was my attempt at a little humor…LOL!! I reeeeeallllly do not like cold weather. Funny, because Tony is the exact opposite. He doesn’t understand how I can be cold “from the inside out.” That is my terminology of basically being cold right down to the bone and not being able to warm up. His logic {cough cough cough} about liking cooler weather is that you can keep adding layers if necessary in cold weather, but if you’re hot, you can only get so naked. I say “bring on the sun!!!!”

Anywhooooo…

Yesterday when I got to stampin’ I noticed something funky about my new Twill background stamp from SU!. Oh NO!!!! There were low spots in it and no matter what I did to try to compensate for these spots, I kept getting uninked paper. I’m interested to hear if this has happened to anyone else. Fortunately, when I called SU! they were happy to replace it. This one is going “Return To Sender.” HOWEVER…As much as I didn’t like my little blank spots, I still love the Twill stamp and I made 4 cards with it. As you can see, they are all the same design, just with a different sentiment. I’m also interested to hear who else got the Stemming From set. I know that it’s not going to make everyone’s short list, but I just think it’s so darn cute!! Here’s the four cards all together. If you want to see larger pics of the individual cards, just click on the thumbnail.

This blog to be exact. As if you didn’t get that already

In addition to the new banner and picture, I have decided I want to change up a few things here on my blog, and this post is just a little heads up for those who come here frequently {thank you!!}. I absolutely LOVE having a Guest Designer. The truth is tho, there is a lot of behind the scenes work that goes into making sure the pics and pages are perfect for when they are announced. While I think that the time spent on it is worth it, we all know that time is a commodity. With that in mind, I am going to go about it a little differently. Instead of them having their own page for a month, I am going to ask GDs to make samples for Saturday’s Sketch For You To Try for a month. These will be in addition to the AWESOME samples my friends Carole, Shannan and Susan make. I think it will be fun and that way the GD work is front and center 4 times a month. What do you think?

Next week I am going to be doing an “Anything But A Card” project each day. I have WAAAAAAAAAAY to many alterables on hand and I need to get going on all these ideas that are swarming in my head. I have already jumped right into a few projects and I am knee deep in a couple more. So next week, NO CARDS here! YAY!

Also, you may have noticed that I put a “For Sale” tab up at the top. That page has yet to be filled, but when it is I will have cards, projects and products {such as retired SU! sets} on there. For now, if you are interested in anything, just email me.

From random.org:

Random Integer Generator

Timestamp: 2008-01-16 15:01:23 UTC

102 Maren

Love the new banner and am very impressed that you did it!! I especially love that leopard print heart.

Congratulations MAREN!!!

Thank you to EVERYONE for giving me an HONEST opinion about my new banner. It’s gonna be up for a while. Well, at least until I get the patience to do another one…LOL!! Here is a card that I did using the BE MINE set from MFT. My initial inspiration for this card came from THIS CARD of Sharon Johnson’s. I know it did not end up looking very much like hers, but that was my jumping block. Thanks Sharon!!

***Blog Tarts offered in the post below this one. If you haven’t already, take a peek at the details and the offering ***

A girl has to have a place to jot down her ideas, insights and inspirations, right!?! My sweet friend, Carole, sent me this notebook a little while back. I kept staring at it and WANTING to alter it, but needed some divine inspiration. Well, something came over me the other day. I promise it wasn’t the fact that Tony has been off of school and home for FIVE weeks…LOL!! {love you honey!} Truth is, I just wanted something bright and cheery to make. I think this comes off bright and cheery enough, ya think??

The paper is from a package that I got at Target not too long ago. I paired it with a mixture of ribbons, lots of bling bling bling {Swarovski from Michael’s} and some of my favorite primas. I plan to bring this to CHA with me. I cannot tell you how excited I am to go to CHA! Tony is joining to choke me if I say it one more time…not really, well… {KIDDING!!}.

Here’s a close up of the lettering, which by the way, is a dollar alpha set that I also found at Target {YAY Target!}…

I’ll be announcing the winner of the blog tart tomorrow morning. See ya then!