Caramel Apple for the First Day

Today was the first day back to school for the kiddos where I teach and let me tell you that any teacher would love to have and apple like this on their desk. *wink wink*  When I was doing some cleaning last week I came across the goods to make this card.  I don't think I've shared it before, but I taught this card to coworkers a few years back and discovered I had leftovers begging to be assembled. :) 

This card is so cute, I can't believe I hadn't shared it- so here it is. LOL! It was fun to come across all the parts.  Even better, all I had to do was color and glue!!! 

I wish I had more of that background paper. :( It made for such a matchy-matchy card!  I'll admit I have a soft spot that look. The caramel on the apples has a shine to it on the paper and so I added shine to the stamped image too.

Well, now that Day 1 is done it is time to get ready for Day 2 (and then crash into bed!). See you all soon...

Strawberry Sunday

A while back I made a strawberry note card set and coordinating box.  This weekend I busted up the set.  Why?  I got on a cleaning kick and found some goodies I forgot I had!  They begged to be played with and the final products made me reshuffle.  Totally loving that it happened!!

So this is the original box.  The paper makes me thirsty for pink lemonade- really funny when you think about how far it is from pink lemonade season (temp-wise anyway).  :)

These are the cards that were in the box.  They make me think of a romantic picnic-y kinda afternoon.

The clean up revealed the buttons and ruffled ribbon.  Which led to the idea of strawberries.  Which led to tags.  Eeek!  These are sooo stinkin' cute!  I needed a container, so they landed in the box. :)

So now I had homeless cards!  Well more cleaning led to the discovery of the canvas flower, bling, and pink sticky note pad.  Then I remembered the other strawberry stamp with the basket.  Then I was inspired to make a sticky note pad that could go with the homeless cards.  Kinda keep them company for a bit.  I had a new pen left over from another project to join them in their house hunting.

 In the end everyone ended up in a clear acetate box.  Makes for a beautiful view don'cha think?  Well, if you like what you see, you can head to my shoppe to make the tags or the cards your own! :)

I've cleaned the strawberry juice from my chin long enough to head here:

Ruffles!

So where are the ruffles you ask?  Why even mention ruffles?  Well Linda over at Catered Crop is hosting an easy peasy ruffles challenge and asked Torico and me to join her Top Chefs for their Quickfire this Sunday.  We needed to showcase ruffles, but wait.  You say you don't see any ruffles?

How 'bout if I take off the lid?  There are 4 yummy cards and envies inside this box.  No you still don't see any ruffles?  Huh.  I know they are here somewhere...

Oh gosh, here they are!  I'm actually in the midst of a cottage swap with a friend, so I'll do the best I can from memory as far as the deets go.  Man, I think one of my resolutions should be to get better about getting these deets out to y'al.  The stamps are from Unity- Jillybean, the card base is Memory Box, the pink paper is Crate Paper, but the strawberry paper I'll have to get the name of when I get back home.

Have a great Friday and make sure to join the fun at

this week!  The R R R Ruffles Have Ridges Challenge goes through to the 22nd (I think).   If you need inspiration Linda has a great board on her challenge post, and I will be posting 2 more ruffly ideas tomorrow and Sunday.  So really what's stopping you from joining the fun?!?!  Seriously????  Get out those ruffles and create (you can even treat yourself to some when you are done). LOL!

box full of cherries

Oooo a cheery cherry gift set to show off to y'all today!  This was SO much fun to make.  I know I'll be making a few more soon. :)

The box itself (tut here) is made from Bazzill red cardstock and the dp paper is from the uber yummy Konnichiwa line from Basic Grey.  It was hard to think about cutting it up to use 'cause its just sooooo pretty!  Then I realized that having it sit in a box was a complete waste of its lusciousness, so I held my breath and started cutting.

There was still some paper left and the cards were yet to be created to go in the box...so I had to put on my big girl britches and use the rest on the cards.  This is a gift, so its worth it.  I mean when you can enough to send the very best... :)

This whole set is going to a teacher friend from another school who helped out with the set up of a new program.  Sparing y'all with all the boring deets, she saved use HOURS and HOURS of work.  This little set was the least I could do!

The cards that went in the box have to be fairly flat in order to fit them and the envies.  Do you have any idea how hard that is these days?!?!  No foam, no big bows, no nutin'.  Texture made up for some of the flatness and the cheery cherry factor helped me move past the flat flattiness. :)  Hope she likes this.  One of my teacher roommates is giving this box 'o cherries this weekend.  Can't wait to hear what she thinks!

I'm off to get a baked french toast casserole ready for dinner tonight.  We are hosting some of my DH's coworkers and our theme is "Breakfast for Dinner"- french toast, hash brown egg baskets, fruit cup with sherbet, and spiral ham.  They are engineers so this dinner concept may rock their world. LOL!

Any yummy plans in your weekend?


I've got my bowl, -er box, of cherries and wandered over here:
The Spotted Chick- That's Crafty Thursday Challenge
Sarah Hammer Designs- Link Up Tuesday
Joyful Stamper- Inspire Me Fridays
Sweet Stampin' Challenge- Spring or Easter (cherries blossom in spring)
Creative Belli- 3 Shapes (card, kraft tag, white scallop)

Sweetness!

Pin It

So I finally got some free time this week to play in my studio!  Yippee!  I've had this stamp for a couple of weeks and it's been killing me that I've had other things I needed to finish before this little darling could get inked. :P

This card went in a COMPLETELY different direction than my original concept, and frankly I'm thrilled. :)  I had thought of going all red, green, yellow, farmy, picnicy (ala this) but the pink really ended up speaking to me so much more.

The envie wanted some ink too, so of course I obliged. LOL!  Naked envies are good sometimes, but you have to admit a decorated envelope does bring many smile. Ahhhh...

This Unity stamp set comes with this fun sentiment too and how cool is that?!?!  The papers are a mix of Basic Grey, Echo Park, and Crate Paper.  I just adore this combination!!!!  Strawberries for dessert sounds good right now. ;)

I've cut up a bowl of strawberries, pulled up a chair and posted my sweets here:


Stamp and Create- Summer
Paper Pretties- Summer
A Spoon Full of Sugar- Summer Colors
Moxie Fab World- Tuesday Trigger (the colors and the sweet factor were inspiration)

Blueberries for Me

We're having fun again this week at Stamp, Scrap, & Doodle Saturday with a great challenge!  Create a get well or congratulations card.  Easy-peasy-lemon-squeezy!  Our Sponsor is Digi Doodles and they were kind enough to give all of us on the SSDS design team some of their images to use in this weeks challenge.

I was chatting with a friend last week about using my Copics and how I wished I could take the certification.  The timing for the classes is always bad for me, nevermind the cost of staying at the hotel.  She's had the chance for training, but thinks the best way to learn is to keep playing with them.  So I decided to really take a chance with this card.  I'm not always good at figuring out shading.  I get the "light source" concept, but I can't seem to picture it.  This time around I thought I'd use an already colored image to help guide my coloring.  I did a Google image search for blueberries and found this image:

I can't read the artist's name, but I found it here.  I'm pleased with how close I got with my image to this one and will probably try it again to see if I can get even closer.  I'm not usually one for copying exactly, but in this case I figure it will help me learn the technique.  Kinda like the art students who go to museums.  Wouldn't it be fun to go to art school?!?  I digress.  Please join us this week at SSDS and you'll have a chance to win a $10 GC from Digi Doodles.

I've joined in the fun here:
Craftalicious Challenges
Stampin' for the Weekend
The ABC Challenge

Yummy Part 2- The Fruit Gets Sliced!

Yesterday I posted a yummy fruit sauce that The Jammin Crew made at my church.  Today I'm posting a fun fruity gift.

The candy came from a delicious candy shop in Ogunquit, Maine.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it!  The card was made using the Cricut Wild Card cartridge.  I used a Bazzill shimmer paper for the card base and envie.  The stamp is from Papertrey's Fruitful set.  I used chalk inks and am so happy about how freakishly adorable this all looks together.

I'm starting to get nervous.  I've been too happy about the stuff I've created lately.  I'm supposed to be making this cool altered can project on Tuesday.  What if I've used up all my mojo for May already and the can project ends up needing to go in "the can"!!!!  I'll keep you posted either way about "the can project".  I may include pictures, but then again... I may need to spare your eyes. :)

More "inspired by" cards

Edit- I am so excited, happy, and touched!  This card was selected as a Top Five on Hope Stamps Eternal.:)


I love when I have extra paper and supplies sitting out and inspiration hits! I made some cards yesterday and I almost never have a clean work area. Bits and pieces ended up sitting next to each other and they looked so pretty I came up with a "cherry" of an idea (I know, I know. I pushed it too much with the cherry thing huh. ;).

These are the cards I made with leftovers after making yesterday's cards. Hope Stamps Eternal had the cutest cupcakes for their cupcake challenge. The button candy on top of the cupcakes is so cute! Your Next Stamp has a spring themed challenge so I'm claiming spring colors since cherries are really a summer fruit. ;)
The paper is Bo Bunny Ella and some Bo Bunny Poppy Dot. The buttons and cherry stamp are from Papertrey. I stamped the cherry stems with Distress Ink peeled paint The tag is a 2" office label tag and the ribbon is leftover from some cookies I got in a beautiful bag (love that "free" ribbon!).

Where do you get your inspiration? Magazines, blogs, sketches, catalogs? I'd love to hear when, where, how inspiration struck and what you were able to create!