Sites of the week

When I started to make this card, I did not have a clue what it was going to look like in the end. I knew that I wanted to use one of the CHF backgrounders {Geometric Flowers II} and I also wanted to used Bayou Blue and Soft Sky. I got to playing around and kept adjusting this and changing that and this is what I came up with. The base of the card is Bayou Blue and is layered with Whisper White and Soft Sky. I have said before that I sometimes would much rather make DP with backgrounds than have to dig through a stack of real DP to find a perfect match. This time was no different. I made my own {very matchy-matchy} DP by layering the CHF background in Bayou Blue with the SU! Twill background in Soft Sky. The main image is from SU!’s Garden Silhouettes and is stamped several times to give a faded look. Finally, the sentiment is from PaperTrey. I’ve got lots to do today, including my TCP challenge card for tomorrow.

I am making this short and sweet as I have lots of fun stuff to do for the week. You especially won’t want to miss Friday’s ABC!! Hope you all have a wonderful week!!

I always cringe when I’m watching or listening to sports news, and some athlete is listed at 80%. What exactly does that mean? You can run at 80% your normal speed? You will get a hit 80% of the time that you normally would?

Well, never before have percentages meant so much to me, in both directions.

Our patio is probably 95% complete. Of course, the last 5% might take until 2012 for me to complete, and Jen will just have to deal with it. But for the most part, you can tell it’s a patio, and if you stand on it you will not die. These are the goals of a registered Structural Engineer? (Did I ever tell you guys I passed last October’s exam? I remember whining about studying but don’t know if I ever shared the good news. But I digress…)

Simply put: yes – those are my goals and I’m damn proud of them.

My ego doesn’t permit me to believe any of you show up on the first Sunday of the month to read my blogs, and don’t make any other appearances on Jen’s site. But just in case that’s the case, let me sum up the case for you.

Last Christmas, when I went to hang lights along the roof, the exterior brick veneer decided I was too husky for its liking, and shifted about 2 inches. 4700 threatening phone calls later (Jen can be MEAN!) we finally got the builder out here to repair the wall. As some sort of olive branch, he left us the excess bricks for our use.

I figured with $1500 worth of free bricks, I was probably $1000 away from a sweet patio in my backyard. Well, the quotes from the pros came back more to the tune of $3500, and to channel my inner Damon Wayans, homey don’t play dat.

After some sort of mind meld, hocus pocus or other some such, I was magically convinced that I could undertake this project myself (I told you Jen was mean). As one of my wife’s friends so cleverly put it, “it only takes them 30 minutes on HGTV. What’s the big deal?” (I’ll take care of her later.)

Well, needless to say I almost quit about 17 different times. My hands look like I ran them through a meat grinder and I’ve pretty much had a permanent charley horse for 3 weeks. But it’s all worth it to save a few bucks, right? Right!!?

I’ve still got work to do as I mentioned before. Unfortunately that “some” work can also be referred to as cleaning/spreading/removing 3 tons of dirt and rock. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go convince Jen that my back is at 40% right now… anything higher and I’ll be carting rocks till sundown.

Td

Hooray for Saturdays and sketches! I love the first Saturday of the month, because I get to introduce the new Guest Designer that is going to be playing with me and Amy, Carole, Shannan and Susan. This month we have a wonderful talent joining us!! Drumroll for…

SARAH GREEN!

Here’s a little about Sarah in her own words…

Hi everybody, and thank you Jen for this opportunity to hang out on your blog for the month!!!

My name is Sarah Green, and I live in Elizabeth City, NC. It’s an okay place until we can go back to Houston!!! I am married to Marty and we have been together for seven years. He’s in the USCG so we move a lot! We have four stunningly beautiful children. Jasmine is seven, Ava is three, Henry is 18 months, and Thatcher is three months. They keep me on my toes!!!!
Stamping started like this for me: with a phone call I make every morning, and it went something like this…Ring Ring…”Hi mom, what ya doin’?” “Not much, sittin at the table playing with my new stamps.” “Why are you playing with stamps, what ya making? Is it for me?!” “No silly, rubber stamps.” “Cool, are you correcting school papers?” “Nope I am making a card!!!” “Okay whatever mom, I am lost!!!!!”
Do you see what a stamp dummy I was?!?! Then one day, I got a card in the mail from mom, and it was on from there. I thought, well if mom can do this, so can I!!! So off to Mike’s I went. I got a few stamps, some ink, and started playing!!! Then ma started selling SU, and I was hooked (yeah I know, you have all heard that before). Every month, I would put my order in with her. But I was still not the crazy, ‘have to have it all’ girl that I am today. That started when my DH went on deployment for two months. Before he left, he said “why don’t you find your self a HOBBY?” Yah that’s right girls, he said it, and I often remind him that he did! I became a SU demo about a year ago, and it went from a box full of stuff to a room full! I don’t see any end in sight for this “hobby” of mine!!!!
This year has been a great one for my stamping life. I got to be the Featured Stamper on SCS, and I was asked to be on the design team for H&M stamps. Then I got the e-mail from Jen asking if I would want to be her monthly FS. All of this has just blown me away. I am so thankful that this is the hobby my mother chose for us. I have made some fabulous cyber friends that I now call my friends. Stampers are the best group of people!! Thank you again Jen, and everyone else who finds inspiration in my work!
—
Thanks for joining us this month, Sarah!

Onto this week’s sketch and some samples for you to check out…

Here’s my sample…

And, a couple stunning creations from Sarah…

As always, I look forward to seeing what you have in store for me with this sketch. If you would, please link your creation to this post and if you upload to SCS, use the keyword SFYTT.

Ever have a flash of inspiration when you see something completely un-craft related? I haven’t even had pizza delivered lately, but I was flipping through the ads that came on the mail the other day and saw a pizza box in a pizza ad and **LIGHTBULB ON.** I thought, “I should make a little one of those.” So I did.
I **almost** went out and got one of those little candy pizzas to put inside, but thought that would be a little over the top. However, I did have to make it totally girly and cute. This is what I came up with…

For the base of the box I used PaperTrey white cardstock. The DP is from K&Co, purchased at Target, long with the stickers. To create the tag, I punched out a tag from the white cardstock and then cut it in half with decorative scissors. I made both top and bottom portions have positive, rather than negative, scalloped edges. I then punched out another tag from DP and glued it behind the 2 pieces that were cut with the decorative scissors. Then I added the other layers, stickers, stamp and ribbon.

Here’s the box open…

I have not created a visual template or tutorial for this, but the measurements/ directions are as follows:

Begin with 6×11 piece of cardstock.
Using your Scor-Pal, place the long side of your cardstock along the top edge. Score at 1″, 5″, 6″ and 10″.
Flip your paper and score at 1″ and 5″.
Make cuts at the 1″, 5″, 6″ and 10″ to the inner 1″ score mark.
Fold box and adhere tabs.

–> Please note, that these are my instructions to go with my idea. Please feel free to go forth and make several of these for fun, but not for personal gain. Thank you.

I just have to give a *little* shout to Carole for sending me this ADORABLE altered tin. Thank you Carole, I love it. She filled it to the very very tippy top with Dew Drops/Bella Baubles. Just a little note to Cammie…see what happens when you are nice to her!??! LOL **wink**

Each month Julee, creative genius of Verve Visual, issues a Sketch Challenge for those interested in becoming the next Verve Visual Guest Designer. Julee always comes up with creative and fun sketches to work with and this one is certainly no exception. So, get your creative caps on, get the paper, stamps and ink out and get going on this!

More stuff you are gonna need to know:

The sketch is posted on the Verve blog HERE, along with some important details. Be sure to link your fantabulous creation to that post so that it will count as an entry in the contest.

Here is my sample:

I also want to send a huge CONGRATS out to the new Design Team members: Amy, Carole, Susan and Laura. PS-You may just want to visit their blogs to see their ROCKIN’ Verve coupon codes!