fresh & fun

Thank you all for commiserating (is that the right word?) with me yesterday. I was totally worn out after the party and went to bed early. Today I am sore all over. But there is no rest for the weary.

My 5th grader Lucas has two of his class mates come over at 10:00 a.m. to finish the report they are working on. They will be using my Rubicoil and my cardstock. I am sure I get to help some typing out the report so that it will look more professional.

After they are done, we are heading for the beach! We went last weekend and the waves were awesome to buggy board! Hopefully they will be like that again today!

So I don’t think I will get any stamping done today either. I like weekdays. Besides house work, I can work on cards and other projects without interruptions. At least in the morning!

Angela Knopf, SCS: Inky Button (Knopf is the German word for button) send me this beautiful Birthday card. She said she thought she send it weeks ago and then found it still at home. Now that’s something that sounds totally like me. She also send me two stamped bellas which is cool, because I don’t own any. Thank you Angela!

Michele Pereira is a fellow demonstrator and blogger and send me this melted Pearls card. She is also a reader of my blog and just used sticky notes in the RAK, so I could send it to the troops. Thank you Michele!

First of all I am sorry I am so quiet today! I woke up and went last minute shopping for Rebecca’s birthday party. I came home to find Rick with a bee up his you know what. Our rental here in Florida is rather small after living in a wonderful house in Texas. Our living room is the first thing you see when stepping into the house. When the air conditioning is on, it’s so loud that you can’t hear the TV. Well…Rick had had enough and wanted to switch the living room with my stamp room. Mind you it was 11 a.m. and the party was scheduled for 3 p.m.

We took everything out of my cabinets (not a good thing to let your husband see how much stuff you really have). We moved the cabinets and put them back up. We moved my tables, chairs and bookshelf. Then we moved our super heavy couch (through a window, because our freaking house’s hallway is too narrow.) and an even heavier TV.

After that was done and before the cabinets were filled again, I had to bake cupcakes. Then back to putting my stuff back into the cabinets. Somehow they seemed to have shrunk. I had a hard time getting everything back in.

Then it was time to party. We only had 3 guests, but they seemed to have been the loudest kids we ever had over. Good thing half the party was outside. Once the kids left, I had to do work for SCS. Now I am super tired and worn out. No stamping for me today!!!!

I do have something really cool to share with you though.

Jana Weaver send me some SWEET birthday greetings. If you haven’t checked out Jana’s blog out, do so. She is an amazing stamper and a wonderful person.I was totally surprised to find a package in my mail yesterday. I knew I hadn’t ordered anything…or did I? LOL

When I opened it up, I found a sweet card and a gorgeous wrapped gift in there.

To see a front view of the package and what’s inside, click on more:

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Jen’s challenges are always quite that….a challenge. LOL

Today we have to make a masculine card with non-masculine stamps. I feel like I cheated a little. I did use a flower set, but I used the Fern on Petal Prints….that is easily turned into a masculine card….at least I think so.

I made the card with the Joy fold layout! I love that fold.

I started with watercolor paper. I stamped the saying and the outline fern in Brown Palette ink. Next I spritzed the paper with my water spray bottle and stamped the solid fern in mellow moss. I sponged the edges of my mellow moss piece, stamped fern on the inside in mellow moss and layered my watercolor image on top of it.

The card base is 4 1/4″ x 9″ chocolate chip piece of cardstock, scored at 5 1/2″. On the inside I layered a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of cranberry crisp cardstock. On the card front I added a 3 1/4″ x 4″ piece of patterned paper from the At Home Simply Scrappin’ Kit. I added three brads on the bottom of the main image. I took a square frame piece from the Antique Brass hodgepodge hardware and cut off the tabs with my metal scissor. Then I stamped the Thanks so much and more ferns on a small piece of watercolor paper and glued it with crystal effect into my metal frame. I mounted that on dimensionals and used it to keep the card closed. You will have to bend the bottom edge of the main image a bit to open the card fully.

If you don’t know this card fold yet, click on more to see the inside and understand the fold better.

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I had promised Diana, the creator of Scor-Pal to write the Triangle trifold tutorial for her. I had planned to just remake a card I made, but with the bees just arriving yesterday, I had to use them.

The cardstock base is a 3 1/2″ x 10 1/2″ piece of Pumpkin Pie cardstock. I cut my new Scenic Route paper  first into a 3 1/4″ square and then in half diagonally.

The cute little bee  is stamped with black Palette ink on white Prima paper. I colored her with Ruby Red and Apricot Appeal. I added darker shading with Pumpkin pie and chocolate chip classic ink. I colored around the bee with bashful blue.

Once the paper was dry again, I added a doodle border. The image is layered on a Giga scallop punchout in ruby Red. I sponged the edges of it with chocolate chip.

The ribbon is gorgeous new ribbon I got from Cindy. I didn’t order a whole spool, because I didn’t know if I would like it. Oh boy….do I ever! It’s gorgeous! I will need to order more of it!

Ever since I saw the gorgeous cards Lisa Zappa made with those cute little Stampendous bees, I knew I had to have them. So in my last order from Eclectic Paperie I got them. I didn’t take a picture of the loot this time. I don’t want you guys to know the extend of my  addiction. LOL

Besides getting the regular bee stamps, I thought it would be cute to get the matching pail topper.

The card is pretty simple. I started with a regular size black cardbase. I added Daisy D patterned paper over the card base.

The bee topper is stamped on shimmery white cardstock and colored with Marigold Morning, Cranberry Crisp, Real Red and Cool Caribbean reinker and aqua painter. I cut the image out with the help of my coluzzle and cut out the black layer the same way.

Ribbon is….surprise, surprise May Arts ribbon from Starlitstudio!

Rick is temporary commander of the entire communications squadron at Eglin AFB right now. He will have this title (along with longer hours, more weekend work and no extra pay) until the middle of July, when the new commander arrives. Besides having to work even longer hours, he has a lot more people “under” him. One of them is getting married and he asked me to make a card.

  I started with a 5 1/4″ square card of shimmery white.  I cut a piece of 3″ x 5″ paper out of Paper Salon Swatches. I used the ticket corner punch on the bottom two corners. I added a 3/8″ x 5″ strip of brushed silver on the top of the Paper salon paper and adhered some of my new white ric rac ribbon (May Arts) over that.

The main image is stamped with Petal Prints, one of my all time favorite flower sets. I used Regal Rose and stamped the darker looking images one time off, the other two or three times. I used Certainly Celery for the fern stamp. I also stamped it off once before putting it on my shimmer white paper.  The saying is from the stamp set In my Thoughts. The main image is layered on Rose red cardstock.

I added a little bit of paper piercing and a metal rimmed tag with flower punchouts made with the Spring Flower Punch.  I like how it turned out. I hope Rick will like it too.

Julia made me shudder this morning. Today’s challenge is to use Orchid Opulence. I was like “Really?” (Think Grey’s Anatomy…can’t wait for tonight!) I thought that color is only there to collect dust in my stamp room. LOL

I knew the layout I wanted to use before I knew anything else. I had the Papercraft magazine from December folded open  for a while now with a great layout that I had been meaning to case.

I decided to jump right in and make Orchid (still shuddering) my card base. Next I pulled out a gazillion colors to see what could possible look good (or at least not make me gag) with this color! First I had to decide between black and chocolate. Most of my cards have one of these colors in it. They are great to accentuate and pull out colors. Since I didn’t really want to make it any brighter, I optioned for Chocolate Chip. I stamped my chocolate cardstock with the Paisley background in Chocolate chip, distressed the edges with the cutting tool from Stampin’ Up! and sponged them with chocolate chip.

Next I had to decide on what color my flower accents would be and what I would use. I used both the regular flower and the spring flower punch and after much punching, decided on Pumpkin flowers (sponged with red) and red centers (sponged with chocolate).

I needed a big image for the center panel. A few of the answers for mylast blog candy question were Summer by the Sea. So I pulled out my neglected girl, stamped her on watercolor paper with brown stazon, spritzed the paper with water and started coloring with aqua painter and reinker (Chocolate Chip, Pumpkin Pie, Apricot Appeal, Cool Caribbean, Old Olive, Creamy Caramel, More Mustard, Real Red, Blush Blossom and Orchid Opulence.

I layered the image on Apricot Appeal cardstock that I had sponged with Pumpkin Pie. The patterned  paper from the Petals & Paisley designer paper pack was sponged with chocolate chip . I taped everything on my 5 1/4″ orchid card base and added faux stitching.

I stamped Happiness from the set Warm Words on watercolor paper and scribbled Orchid over it with my aqua painter. The hardware is from the Antique Copper Hardware kit. Ribbon is red grosgrain and white organdy ribbon from Stampin’ Up!.

I am glad I didn’t sit this challenge out. But it wasn’t easy not to!

Nothing better then waiting to the last second to make a birthday card. I used today’s sketch challenge for Rebecca’s birthday card.

I started by stamping the girl from Birthday Beauty on Whisper White cardstock. I stamped it again on the Polka dotted  paper from Petals & Paisleys Designer paper pack. I cut the dress out and glued it down on the girl stamped on white cardstock. I colored the rest of the image and doodled a border.

Then I used Stickles on the crown, sash, flower and the little doodled stars in the border.

The real red cardstock layer is dry embossed with a new embossing folder. The caribbean card base was wheeled with the Jumbo wheel Petals. I also added some faux stitching around the red layer.

I wanted my hardware to sparkle. I inked it up with black Versamagic Dew Drop ink and embossed it with Iridescent embossing powder.  I could have used the black craft ink from Stampin’ Up!, but I only have the big pad. The Dew drop ink pad is small and easier to use for this small piece.

The ribbon is May Arts ribbon.

I have been up since 5 a.m. baking cookies and cupcakes.

Rebecca’s birthday is today. My sweet baby is turning eight. I can’t believe it has been eight years since I had her on a Sunday morning in a little town in Germany. Her birthday is always bittersweet for me. Not just because my youngest turned another year older…

Picture of Rebecca on the day she was born.

Rebecca last month in Texas.

 We know and are very thankful that we are blessed with our three children. They are happy,healthy, smart, loving and kind.

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In this game, I tell you 7 things about myself that you might not know and then I tag 7 other bloggers who can play if they want to! 

I was tagged by my sweet friend Charmaine, Alex (aka. Sillybird), Kimmie,  Diane, Joanne , Susanna and Susan.

You wanna know how much of a nerd I am and always was? You might regret having tagged me. LOL….  Here I go:

1. I was a total tomboy. The little town I grew up in only had two sport clubs. Soccer and PingPong (Table tennis). I only hung out with boys and always played soccer (think short hair, always dressing and acting as a boy, definitely not owning ANY dolls).  But I was not allowed to play on the team. They didn’t have girl teams back then. That didn’t sit right with me at all. So….
2. I played table tennis from the time I was ten until I moved to theStates. I played in Leagues (highest was one under State level) and tournaments. I trained kids and was youth leader for my club. I practically lived in the gym. Besides family and friends, that is one thing I miss most about not living in Germany. It was such a big part of my life.
3. I like to do German crossword puzzles. Can’t manage with the American version, but LOVE working on German ones. I also like logic puzzles and sudeko.
4. I played the accordion. (And here you thought I couldn’t get any nerdier then crosswords and ping pong). My parents were into German country music. So while growing up I thought playing the accordion was actually cool. NOT!!!!!!!!!!!
5. I wore glasses. Big round glasses since I was eleven. I had lasic surgery when I moved to San Antonio and I LOVE it!
6. I was class president of my class from 5th until 10th grade.
7. I worked in the school library from 11th to 13th grade. And no…I am not a slow learner. High school in Germany goes until 13th grade.

I think most people have been tagged with this game already. I will pass on tagging others. I hope you got a chuckle out of my “nerdiness”!