Sites of the week

Happy Tuesday peeps! Did everyone enjoy their long weekend? While I had great intentions of stamping my lil’ heart out, I ended up working in the yard. I *finally* {ok, it really hasn’t been that long} got my dream of having landscaping in the back yard. After a long {and very informative} trip to Lowe’s, we walked away with 13 plants/shrubs/flowers to accompany the crepe myrtles and magnolia that are already planted back there. We still need to lay down the no-grass “paper” and put some mulch on it, but so far, so good! I am *very* happy and look forward to spending more time out there!

As for all that stamping, well…it didn’t get done. However, I did to make my TCP Tuesday card. In fact, I am this week’s Hipster Hostess with the Mostess and am offering up a great inspiration challenge for you to give a shot…

What do you think? There’s a lot to take in, but this is what came to mind for me…

FUN! Fresh, funky, patterns and summer.

How do all those thoughts translate into stamping? Just like this…

It’s a little more scrappy than stampy, with the use of both the Easy Rosettes and Flower Buttons CutUps dies. I used the fun and funky Nightie Alpha set to create the “Hello” sentiment and used the Flourish from the Simply Said set.

So are you gonna play along? Here’s some details for you to know…

1. Each Tuesday we will give you a challenge.
2. You will have until the end of the month to complete the challenge.
3. Add your entry to the guestbook {on Alma’s blog} or upload to the SCS Gallery, using the keyword TCPTUES161 for this week’s challenge.
4. TCP stamps are not required for this challenge, but highly recommended.
5. There will be one randomly chosen weekly winner, announced on Tuesdays who will win a Gift Voucher for use on The Cat’s Pajamas website.
6. There will be one winner, The Swanky Stamper, announced the 1st of each month. They will win several sets from an upcoming release and get to play along with us at our Pajama Party and Blog Hop.

I say “TGIF,” but I am thinking “It’s only Friday.” I woke up kinda groggy this morning and thought that it was Saturday for about 10 minutes, so you can imagine my disappointment when I did realize that it’s “just” Friday. The bright side…it’s the Friday before a 3 day weekend! YAY!! I think we will be doing a lot of swimming, lounging and I think I will have Tony at the grill quite a bit!

If you’ve been checking in for my TCP Tuesday card, I have it here today…

My card uses my favorite floppy eared bunny from the Forget About the Cake set from The Cat’s Pajamas and, of course, this week’s challenge sketch…

Wanna play along and have a chance at becoming a weekly winner and/or Swanky Stamper? Click HERE to go to Alma’s blog for all the deets and upload info. Happy Stamping and good luck!!

Hi All! It’s been a little longer than usual since my last post. I am sure that all of you are in the midst of end of the year stuff, too. This morning Nick {I think I am going with NicK instead of Nic, now} woke up at 6:00 and by 6:15 my patience limitations for the day had been exceeded. Nothing a Diet Coke and 20 minutes on the elliptical couldn’t fix and, fortunately, he took a nice long nap which allowed me to make this card. The photos aren’t the best…SORRY. I think that the settings on my camera got switch-a-roo’d.

Our next door neighbor is going to be turning 16 next week and I thought she might like this card with a little something inside…

Detail of the fun flowers cut from Lime Twist paper from My Mind’s Eye…

Do you recognize the stamps and dies? Verve-a-licious stuff!!

I used the Floral Circle die set {of 3!} to create the layered flowers {paper is crumpled} and the sentiment is from the set that coordinates with those very dies, Hope Blooms. Love how the sentiment fonts are paired!

I’d love to make this a little longer post, but I have a little man with chocolate goldfish {OMG…YUM-O!} running down his chin! Have a great day!!

It’s that time of year. School is winding down. The heat is turning up. As moms we search out the best ideas for what to give our kiddos’ teachers as end of the year thank yous. I’ve had a good time making up the gifties for this year. I can’t say that my ideas are absolutely original {thank you, Pinterest!!}, but they came out darn cute!

I broke out some Verve stamps to make a couple of the gifties to be given. This first project is a bouquet of tissue paper and tulle flowers {tutorial link} in a black and white bucket that I found at Target a long while back and have been hoarding for the perfect project. The pick is stamped with the “Bloom and Grow” sentiment from the new Verve set by the same name. I added my own hand written sentiment around the edges to compliment it…

I think it’s pretty tough to tell from the above pic, but the pink stamped words are also shadowed in a lighter pink {Copic}. Just trust me when I say that it looks pretty darn cute that way The bottom portion is stamped with the polka dots from Bountiful Backgrounds {one of the best sets to have in a stamp collection} on Kraft paper and as I finishing touch, I added a butterfly cut from the Flutterby Verve die.

The whole kit-n-kaboodle…

Detail of the flowers…

Other details include leaves cut from Nesties {from My Mind’s Eye Lime Twist paper} and a scallop border cut from felt around the top of the bucket. I filled the bucket with Kraft crinkle paper, which I think is a nice contrast to the bright and bold colors of the rest of the project. The flowers are stuck in there with lollipop sticks that I hot glued to the flowers.

This second project is comprised of a tag with a matching {non-stamped} gable box…

I’m just gonna come out and say it~ I {heart} this tag!! …

As you can see, I am having a wee bit of trouble putting the Flutterby die away! For my projects, it’s been the perfect adornment. In addition to the Flutterby die, I also used the Jotted Heart die and FOUR Verve sets. Who knew I would use so many different pieces of Verve on something that only measures 3″ x 3.5″. The heart is stamped with both the jotted heart from the Love Notes set and the background stamp from the Wishful Elegance set {also used on the Dad card a couple posts down}. The leaves are stamped with large leaves from the Bloom and Grow set and then die cut with the Elegant Leaves die. Finally, the sentiment comes from the Friendly Phrases set…another great essential for a stamp collection! Put that all together with 3 different types of polka dots, a plaid and brown and black combined and someway, somehow it looks good…and to think that most of my wardrobe contains black, gray and white! LOL!

I have another giftie to share, but I think I am going to save it for next week. It’s not quite all the way wrapped up and I think this post is lengthy enough! Hope everyone has a great day! I’m off to prepare for our neighborhood garage sale. Blech!!

Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday to You
Happy Birthday, sweet Lori
Happy Birthday to You

Not only is this Lori’s bday card, but it is also my card for this week’s challenge for The Cat’s Pajamas. This week, Susan is your Hipster Hostess with the Mostess for TCP Tuesday. She has issued the challenge to use any flower stamp{s} from TCP. I haven’t used the Blow set for a long time, so I decided to break it out and create a fun spring-y card with papers from My Mind’s Eye Lime Twist collection {again, swoooon!}. There are lots of fun lil’ details all over, too. I am not sure if it shows all that well in the pic, but I added some white flocking to the bunny’s tail…

The embellishment is handmade and created with a duo of CutUps dies {Easy Rosettes and Flower Buttons} from white felt and MME paper. You know that I couldn’t resist adding linen thread to the coordinating button! I’m almost out {eeek!!}…time to re-order!…

In addition to those details, the rectangular layers of the card are sky {with a banner of the same paper on top}, land/forest and grass {cut out with the TCP CutUps Grass die}. So, are you ready to play along with this week’s challenge? Be sure to check out all the deets on Alma’s blog. Happy stamping and good luck!!!