fresh & fun

Mary Jo Albright is the hostess for this weekend’s sketch challenge.

Make sure you visit her blog and post your entries there.

And visit

Charmaine Ikach

Jenn Balcer

Laurie Schmidlin

Lori Craig

Mary Jo Albright and

Sharon Harnist’s  blogs for more samples.

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles

P.S.: Sorry about the mess up with this post. I don’t know where it came from but it should have been posted April 03rd, not on the 25th. Weird. Sorry!!!

Tuesday we went to see Trier.

It is one of the oldest cities in Germany (some claim the oldest), and at one point was one of the capitals of the Roman Empire.

There was  a lot to see. I took over 200 pictures. LOL Let’s just say with Rick, Rebecca and me having cameras, we looked very much like tourists.

I have 60 pictures uploaded on facebook for those of you interested to see more. And notice the blue sky? We had wonderful weather there! Yesterday we went to see to the Sea of Rock. I will show you some pictures on Saturday. Today we are heading out to either Oppenheim (ferry ride over the Rhine, old church with basement full of skulls!) or to Mainz (another Dome and old Roman town).

Have a great day! Hugs and smiles

Here is a card I made for the Color Challenge two weeks ago. The colors were Summer Sun, Kraft, Riding Hood Red and Black.

The card base is a 4 1/2″ x 9 piece of Riding Hood Red cardstock folded in half. The edges were sponged

Next is a 4 1/8″ Basic Black square. The corners were punched with the ticket corner punch. It was layered with a 4″  square of Parisian Breeze Designer paper that was sanded. The edges were punched with the same punch as well. The paper was sanded and the edges were paper pierced.

The horizontal strip measures 1 7/8″ x 4″  and is sponged Riding Hood Red cardstock. The bottom edge was punched with the Eyelet Border Punch and three clear Rhinestone brads were added to the left hand side.

The the full berry image was first inked up with Summer Sun. Riding Hood Red ink was added with Fantastix over the berries, Sahara Sand over the stem. Then the image was stamped on to Whisper White cardstock. Next I masked the image and stamped En Francais over it with Sahara Sand. I cut the image out with Label Nestablities and sponged the edges first with Summer Sun, then with Sahara San. It was layered on a black Nestabilities cut out and white gel pen dots were added all around. A small hole was punched on the top right and White Taffeta Ribbon was tied down with a Hardware piece from the Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware.

I punched out a designer label out of Summer Sun and sponged it with Sahara Sand. Next the sentiment was stamped in Black Stazon on Whisper White and punched out with the large oval punch. It was taped to the Designer label punchout, paper pierced and taped to the image. Another Styled Silver Hodgepodge Hardware piece was added over it.

We will be in Trier today all day. I can’t wait to show the kids the Roman ruins there. It’s the oldest German city and goes back to 58 B.C.

Yesterday we drove past Stuttgart into the beginning of the Schwaebische Alb.

We stopped at the Burg Hohenzollern. It’s Rick’s favorite castle. There was snow on the ground and Lucas and Rebecca went a little crazy. Rebecca couldn’t even remember snow and Lucas hadn’t seen it since he was 6.

After that we drove on to Schwenningen, a little town where we lived from 1997-2000. We spend the afternoon with our former neighbors. Good times, good times. Again….you can find more pictures on my facebook wall.

I will definitely have to go on a diet and do double workouts when I come back home. Too much good food here!

Today was a day of rest (thank goodness!). Tomorrow we will head out to Trier.

Yesterday we drove to Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

It was rainy and cold, but we braved it to show our kids this cool city.

The town center still has it’s medival town wall standing around it. You can walk on that wall.

We had a great time. You can see lots more picture on my facebook.

Yesterday we drove to the Marksburg. It was cold and cloudy, but it just drizzled every now and then. No down pour like we were afraid off.

We had a wonderful time and took a tour of the castle. If you want to see more images, check my facebook profile. I shared more there.

On our way back we stopped at the Limburger Dom. That big old cathedrale was on top of the 500 Mark bill, back when Germany still had it’s own currency.

We don’t have our day tomorrow quite planned out yet. But I will share more pictures if we go somewhere.

Sunday we will drive down to the Schwaebische Alb and visit our old neighbors there. We will also check out another castle that is on our way.

Have a wonderful Saturday! Hugs and smiles

Hi everyone,

 We got to Germany alright. I am tired as tired can be, but Rick is already standing by the car, wanting to drive to the first castle. So I can only upload the images, I will tell you more about them later.

Sorry about the blurry picture. I took it early in the morning before we left Florida.

The card base is a  3 1/4″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Basic Gray cardstock folded in half.

The 3″ x 4″ piece of Kiwi Kiss was ran through the Big Shot with the Texture Plates. The dots on it sanded.

The inside is super simple. I didn’t even get to straighten the ribbon before I took the picture.

Okay…the whole family is waiting now. I got to  run!

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles

Today’s challenge hostess is Charmaine Ikach. Make sure to go to Charmaine’s blog and post a link to her card there!

I loved Charmaine’s sketch and I hope you will to! Check out

Jenn Balcer

Laurie Schmidlin

Lori Craig

Mary Jo Albright and

Sharon Harnist’s  blogs for samples.

Have a great weekend. Hugs and smiles

Today we actually have three tutorials on Splitcoast. They all show you different ways to use Flower Soft. Rose Ann Reynolds wrote one on Flower Soft on stamped images, I wrote two:

Flower Soft Bouquet

Flower Soft on Chipboard

Check out our Product Focus page on Flower Soft in the Resource section as well. It is a cool, but slightly messy product.

My card base is a 5 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ piece of Basic Black cardstock folded in half,  topped first with a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Whisper White cardstock, then with a 1/4″ smaller piece of Walk in the Park Designer Paper.

The horizontal paper strip is from the same designer paper pack, which can be found in the Occasional Mini catalog from Stampin’ Up!, and measures 2 1/4″ x 3 1/4″. It has a strip of Whisper White cardstock underneath that had been punched with the Eyelet Border Punch. The top edge was paper pierced and all edges were distressed with a sanding block. The gorgeous red ribbon is from May Arts and was tied around the designer paper.

The sentiment and image stamps are from Our Craft Lounge’s Growing Gratitude set. It’s perfect for adding Flower Soft Bouquets in either the watering can image or even the flower pot.  I used Copic Markers to color the image. BV20 and BV23 for the watering can, YG03 and YG05 for the leaves and B00 to airbrush the background.

On the inside I added a 4″ x 5 1/4″ piece of Whisper White cardstock. It was layered with a 1 1/4″ x 5 1/4″ strip of Walk in the Park Designer paper that had been slightly sanded. Between both layers is a strip of Basic Black cardstock that had been punched with the Eyelet Border punch.

The image on the small oval is also from the Growing Gratitude set. It was stamped with Tuxedo Black Memento ink and colored with Copics (R10, R11, YG03, YG05). The edges of the oval were paper pierced and Stardust Stickles was added to the flower heads.

Have a wonderful day! When you read this, we are already on our way to Germany. We arrive their in the early morning (1:40 a.m. Florida time, 7:40 a.m. German time). Let’s just say the next two days will be long and blurred together! Wish us no rain!!! That’s what the forcast calls for there.

Hugs and smiles 

First of all…guess were we went yesterday?

The water doesn’t even seem real, does it?

I love this beach!!!! The water was still freezing, but that didn’t stop my kids.

We had a wonderful time!!!

Today we went shopping for winter jackets so we won’t freeze our behinds off when we get to Germany on Thursday. That’s why I am just now announcing the winner for the JustRite Monogram stamper.

Random.org picked #24.

That’s Jenn McMillan. Congratulations to Jenn.

Thank you all for your kind words! Big cyber hugs.