Sites of the week

Wow, it’s been a busy week! I have really enjoyed having Tony’s grandparents in town, but I am so behind! YIKES!! It’s ok though, I will get caught up over the next couple of days. Over the past couple of months, I have been posting all of the new releases from either MFT or Verve on one post. I like having several cards/projects for y’all to look at all at once. Well, being that I am a little behind, I don’t have a whole lot to show right now. So, I have opted to share just this one card with you today. This is from the upcoming MFT release, Happy Mother’s Day.
My Favorite Things is having a New Release Cocktail Party on Wednesday, April 2 from 9-11 p.m. {Eastern time}. YOU can be the next MFT Guest Designer, so be sure to pop on in to find out how. The party will be in the MFT Forum on SCS. Hope to see you there on Wednesday evening!

I think that I may be addicted to using my new Cuttlebug embossing folders. If you know of a support group, please let me know! They are such a good fall back element for me, because I don’t always like to use DP in my projects. In fact, I would much rather create a coordinating scene with background stamps or use the embossing folders. Is anyone else like this? It’s not that I don’t like DP. I don’t feel intimidated to use it. It’s just that most of the time I would rather find other options, like those listed above. Anywhooooo… The main image stamp is stamped 3 times. Once on Ballet Blue, which served as my base for my focal panel. Then again on PaperTrey white twice. I colored, with Copics, and cut out and mounted the inner square to the Ballet Blue piece. I then colored and cut out the flowers and pots and mounted that on the other colored panel. I tried to get a close up shot of the layers, but it just didn’t work out. I think that you can see them from this picture, though. I wrapped some May Arts white on white polka dot ribbon around the Old Olive panel. This is probably one of my favorite ribbons of all time, and I do have quite the collection. I find that a bit funny, because I poke fun at Tony for vanilla being his favorite ice cream flavor. I think this is the vanilla of ribbons. I mean, you can’t get too much more basic than white polka dots on white organdy. But, I love it!

As I mentioned, we have been busy little bees. Here are a few pictures from the Butterfly, a.k.a Flufferfly, Exhibit at the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens. Ellie has been asking to go back ever since we left. From what I understand, this is a traveling exhibit {crazy, huh!?!?}. If it comes your way, I highly recommend it.

This one is actually a moth that has “snake heads” on his wings to ward off predators. It was at least as big as my hand fully extended.

Ellie in the gardens…

She was pointing and waving “hi” to this one. She was sure to keep her distance, even though she was totally enamored by all of the flufferflies.

I will “warn” you that there are a lot of pics from this weekend to share with our family, friends and you. I will be posting a few each day. I realize that some people come to look at the projects only, so I will be leaving the cutie pics at the bottom of my posts. Hope you will find them as amusing as I do!

Saturday, already? WOW! This week flew by. Yesterday Grandmama, Ellie and I went to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens to see the Butterfly Exhibit. It was so cool! Ellie had a great time and I got a lot of great pictures, which I will share with you next week. I feel like I have bombarded you with Ellie pics this week. I wouldn’t want you to overdose on the cuteness.
Of course I have a sketch for you to try! I have my sample card done, but do not have ample lighting, so I will be uploading it later. In the meantime, check out the blogs of Amy, Carole, Shannan and Susan for some great samples. Of course, I have my Guest Designer, Joanne Basile’s, sample just below the sketch.
Have fun with this one! When uploading to SCS, please use the keyword SFYTT. Be sure to post a link here, too! BTW-last week was probably one of my favorite sketches so far. I am absolutely in awe with what everyone is coming up with!! You all are a true inspiration!! Hugs-Jd

My sample **COMING SOON!!**

ETA…Here It Is…

Joanne’s awesome sample. She was so sweet and sent this one to me. Thanks Joanne!!

Exciting News! I have been asked to be on the GLUE design team. I have admired their stuff for awhile now!! HERE is one project, a 3×3 album, that I have done in the past. I also have a 3-tiered cupcake stand that I have started to work on, but just can’t commit to using adhesive yet. My first official assignment was to alter a dress form to match my personality. Yikes! Which one would I choose? LOL! Just kidding!! I wanted something to reflect my taste…pretty, but casual. I love all the pretty trendy things {and all the bling that goes with them} that are out there, but I am a jeans and t-shirt gal through and through. So, I took a pair of old {a.k.a. my butt can’t fit in those anymore} jeans and traced and cut out the outline of the dress form. To adhere it, I used a thin layer of Mod Podge, as I did not want any to come through the fabric. From there, I create a skirt made of ribbon. I began with a satin piece and adhered organdy ribbon to the back with red line tape. The edges of the ribbon are cut into a “V” and a small acrylic flower that I topped with a Swarovski was attached with hot glue. For the base of the form, I gather Primas and adhered them with hot glue. The edge of the base is wrapped in May Arts ribbon and finished off with more bling bling {Swarovski crystals}. For the top, I added a drawer pull and added a necklace of glass beads. This was so much fun to make!! I’d love to make some more for some friends. I think I covered most of the details that may have been less than obvious. Let me know if you have any other questions about the project, and I will ETA them here.
Full view…

A couple of detail shots…

Now onto Ellie with Elmo…

As you may know, Tony’s grandparents are here visiting. We are all getting spoiled, especially Ellie. Shocking, isn’t it? Great Grandparents fly in from out of state and the lil’ one gets spoiled rotten. It’s quite cute to watch her with all her new goodies. Grandmama {yes, that’s spelled correctly} and Papa Jack gave her Tickle Me Elmo today. Here is a brief photo diary on how that went. Let me tell ya, she was a little less than impressed with all the giggling and gyrating that Elmo was doing!!!!! Then she warmed up to him…finally!

Opening the box {which makes sounds}

What the heck is that thing doing???? Notice Cooper is there for protection. Abby is obviously bored {yawning dog in the background}.

Seriously Elmo, what the heck are you doing?

No Elmo! You stay over there!!

Whoa Elmo!!!

Ok, we can be friends, but be quiet already!

Last, but not least {for sure!}. This is the look that Papa Jack got when he asked if he could see her new Elmo. I think that may translate into “Papa, you be crazy!” PRICELESS!

A few weeks back, Lesa was in town {waves hi to Lesa}. Lesa, Shannan, Susan and I went to On The Border for some yummy “Mexican” {notice the quotation marks because being from California, I do not consider this Mexican} and some stamp shopping. Susan is actually the one that found this Hero Arts set, but I made her hand it over because she already got a cute owl stamp. Believe me, it’s not as mean as it sounds! I just love these owls! The word that I think best describes them is “squirrely.” Not because they look like squirrels, just because they are squirrely lil’ fellas. Don’tcha think? LOL! I love this layout, too!! I had it scribbled on a piece of paper and finally used it as my point of inspiration. I always thought to do a sentiment or embellishment in the smaller panel, but I love that I used an image. It’s like a light bulb went off and I got to smack my forehead and say, “Why didn’t I think to do that before?!?”
The base of the card is made from Chocolate Chip and is stamped in Chocolate Chip with the SU! Paisley background stamp. The Pumpkin Pie panel is embossed with the Perfect Paisley embossing folder. I have been on such a kick with those embossing folders lately, huh? I may start to become a habit, like paper piercing and scalloped edges for me! Can you tell I have a little bit of an obsessive personality? LOL! For the sentiment, I chose to do a repeating pattern in Chocolate Chip and Pumpkin Pie. You know what the beauty of clear stamps is? I didn’t use my Stamp-a-ma-jig to line it all up. It’s freehand…no problem freehand, actually!! I think that may have something to do with how large the font is, too. As a finishing touch, I added the stitched ribbon. I have no idea where I got this from or what brand it is, so if you own the same ribbon, could you fill me in on the deets? Thanks!!
Man, I can yipyap!! Shutting up and showing you the card now…

See you here tomorrow for a little ABC and a fun announcement! YAY!

PS-Thank you to everyone that is sending my mom a RAK. I am getting caught up with all the address requests. You are all such an amazing group and people and I really truly appreciate your support!! It means a lot!! My mom went through the surgery well on Tuesday. No complaints from her, other than having a senile elderly woman that yelled for a nurse every 20 minutes for a {temporary} roommate. She’ll be home and resting in her own bed by this afternoon.

Every Monday Julee has a fun, and often very innovative, Monday Mojo sketch. This is one of her more simple sketches, but just as wonderful nonetheless. I needed a kick in the pants to get me going, so I printed out this sketch and got out some stamps that are far too underloved. I knew I wanted to do something that was a little outside of my normal style, but still within range. I started by stamping the Chocolate Chip layer with the Cornish Heritage Farms Victorian Pattern Backgrounder. I then embossed my middle layer with the Textile Cuttlebug embossing folder. For the main panel, I stamped the ornate pattern from the SU! set, Frames With A Flourish, in Celery Craft and then put clear embossed powder on top. I am not really a fan of heat embossing, simply because of the mess, but I really think that it does a lot for this particular card. I topped off the main image panel with ribbon, Primas and a pearl. The sentiment is from the retired Noteworthy set from SU!. This is one of my “go to” sets, just for the sentiments in the font that I love. I like the think that this font is versatile enough for casual cards, and those that are more dressed up.

Well, I’m off to clean house. Tony’s grandparents will be here around 4 and I want it to look {and smell} good. Have a great day! I’ll be back tomorrow with another card and then on Friday I have a very fun project with a very fun announcement. See ya then!