April 13, 2009

Cupcakes and Cake Pops...

Hey all~

Hope you had a wonderful holiday weekend! I enjoyed Easter with my family, it was a really great day. But man - am I worn out!! I didn't even cook either!

Anyway - I had a few photos on reserve to post, since I'm in the middle of putting together my friend's wedding invitations...you saw a peek here.

The card I'm sharing tonight was made for my niece's birthday, which is actually today, though her party was a few weeks ago.
mmmmm....don't those look yummy?!?! My favorite cupcakes are yellow cake with chocolate frosting. mmmmm. I used PTI's anniversary set, Everyday Classics for this. The 'frosting' is stamped in Brilliance Chocolate Ink, and the bottoms are in Lemon Tart, then the edges rolled in Summer Sunrise.

This takes me to the next part... see over there, in my sidebar?? The link to The Pioneer Woman??? Man, she is dangerous. Really. I love her website, between the photography, the FOOD, the humor...it's all awesome.

However, she posted these little things one day...cake pops. What? Yes, Cake pops. And they are just a little piece of heaven I think. PW found them at Bakerella...and MY WORD you should see the ones SHE makes!

But here's my first try...I made these for all of the nieces and nephews for Easter. Good stuff. And really not all that hard to make, so I think I'll be making them again. I used yellow cake and chocolate frosting...just like my favorite cupcakes. Delish.

What's YOUR favorite cake? Cheesecake, pound cake, german chocolate?? I wanna know :)

Thanks for stopping by!!

Supplies:
Stamps: Everyday Classics
Ink: Lemon Tart, Summer Sunrise, Pure Poppy (all PTI), Brilliance Chocolate
Paper: Select White, Pure Poppy (all PTI)

April 10, 2009

A Virtual Baby Shower...

So, I'm part of this group of friends on Splitcoaststampers...the PSFs. This stands for "Pretend Stamping Friends". This phrase was coined by Alexa, Lauren Meader's daughter a few years back...you can read that story here.

Anyway - we've been through a LOT together. Birthdays, weddings, pregnancies, funerals, surgeries, happy days, and sad days. This group of women is AMAZING, and I'm proud to be part of them. Whenever something is going on, we get together to help out, or to celebrate. I've been a recipient of their INCREDIBLE generosity in September 2007, just prior to the birth of my second daughter. They all made cards, and sent them off to one person. They made some for my older daughter too. Along with it were CRAZY generous gift cards, and the like. It was all bundled up and mailed to me...Brought me to tears.

WELL -- our very own Freshie pants Nicole is preggers now, and we wanted to shower her with cards and goodies as well. So here it is...her Virtual Baby shower...
I tried to take a photo with the pile of cards, but some were in envelopes, some were not, I just couldn't get it to work...

In that box that says 'For Baby K' is a onesie...here it is:

My friend Staci came up with the idea of the onesie...and I agreed to make it. I used the dark t-shirt iron on transfers...came out pretty good. The butterfly on the butt?? Well, that was from when a few of us met up for a stamping expo. Nicole had these cool jeans on with butterflies on the butt, and Lauren said the jeans (not her butt ;) ) inspired her to make a card...which you will see here. Then of course, the rest of the PSFs wanted to see the jeans, so Nicole had her hubby take a photo of them, and made it her avatar...well, we all made our avatar's Nicole's butterfly butt, but we each had our own color. This group certainly has a GREAT sense of humor. Nothing beats a good Happy Hour celebration, or sometimes even a middle of the day get out the sillies with them!

We also made sure we honored the big sisters, Kirsten and Kayla, they each got their own Purse-onality Clutch, and gift card too :)

Congratulations again Nicole!! Looking forward to meeting 'Baby K'!!! :)

April 7, 2009

Hello - a Double Challenge!

Good evening...well, if you're on the east coast, it's just become morning :) Hoping your Monday was great.




I got to play again today...there are so MANY great challenges out there, it's hard to keep up...so I doubled up!

This is a Kristina Werner Color Challenge (48), as well as a Lauren Meader (mytime) sketch(29).


I needed a card to send to a friend, so I just wanted to say 'hi'. I just LOVE this set from Heather Nichols' line at Papertrey Ink. This one is called Beyond Basic Borders. That little branch image is just TOO perfect. The font for the sentiments is great too, would work well for those tough to do (for me, anyway) masculine cards...
I added a little bling, and some buttons, and there you have it. I had this done in about 15 minutes or so. SUPER easy! I didn't have the exact colors...but did my best to play along!

Thanks for stopping by - hope you have a GREAT day!!

Supplies:
Stamps: Beyond Basic Borders (PTI)
Ink: Ripe Avocado (PTI)
Paper: Dark Chocolate, Select White, Ripe Avocado (PTI) - patterned paper, SEI (Black Orchid)
Accessories: Aurora borealis crystals, PTI Vintage Buttons, hemp twine, Dark Chocolate Twill, Dimensionals

April 5, 2009

Week #3...Raspberry Suite Color Challenge

So Dawn has done it again!! Gave this great challenge out to play along again this week.







Took me a little bit to figure out what I was going to do, but I knew I needed a birthday card for my friend Sally (though I'm a wee bit late!) so off I went.

I decided to use the photo as a sort of inspiration piece as well:












I liked the stripes, but made them less uniform. I basically found some scrap pieces of the colors and cut them into strips of varying widths. I cut a piece of vintage cream to 4 x 5.25, and used a sheet of terrifically tacky tape and covered the whole piece. Then I laid different strips of CS, leaving some space open. Once I got all of the cs strips on, I covered the whole thing with micro beads...gives a little texture and subtle sparkle.














with such a 'busy' background, I didn't want to overdo the whole card, so just simply added the sentiment from Damask Designs, and a flower, and we're done!

Hope you all had a great weekend...why is it they always go so fast????

Thanks for stopping by!!

Supplies:
Stamps: Damask Designs
Ink: Pure Poppy (PTI)
Paper: Pure Poppy, Berry Sorbet, Vintage Cream (all PTI) - Pretty in Pink, Kraft (from SU!)
Accessories: Pure Poppy Ribbon, Spellbinders ribbon slides dies, prima flowers, PTI Vintage Buttons

April 1, 2009

Hoppy Birthday Jason!!

A little more Pink Cat to share today. Have you SEEN Sweet Pea?? TOO cute. I don't have them yet, but at least I can share this one for now. Did you know you can pick up these great stamps at 7 kids college fund??? AND she's just recently been able to reduce the price on the Pink Cat stamps because of the Canadian exchange rate...woo hoo!!

My nephew (and Godson) Jason turned 5 on St. Patrick's Day. We just had his birthday party this past weekend, and it was a GREAT day...beautiful weather - and just nice to be together with family.

Onto his card...

I kept it fairly simple. The patterned paper is from Piggy Tales, I'm not sure which collection...I think it may be Little Boy Blue. The image is colored with my Copics. The buttons are from Foofala (not sure I spelled that right).

Hoping you are having a good week! Be sure to stop by the MFT forum on SCS tonight - they're releasing some GREAT new sets, including one to benefit EuroPeds... a GREAT organization...and cute stamps too - how can you beat it?? Go SHOP!

March 30, 2009

Wishing you Well...

So - I mentioned that I know way too many people who have had surgery this week...so I'm on to my next get well card.

This one is for Lauren. She had her gallbladder out Friday - and my goodness, I hope she's feeling a bit better. I know Lauren mentioned in her post the other day about her abdomen being so sore, that she may no longer consider ever getting a tummy tuck. Lauren - I can tell you - a friend of mine had both procedures (she had gastric bypass surgery and lost 1/2 of herself (and then some)...literally!) and said if she knew what it would have felt like, she wouldn't have done it...she said the gallbladder was NOTHING in comparison.

I remember visiting her in the hospital with another friend and we made the mistake of making her laugh...I felt so bad.

Anyway - onto the card...
I used Papertrey's With Sympathy set, and the new anniversary set, Everyday Classics. I used the rock and roll technique for the flowers, starting with Summer Sunrise, then Berry Sorbet, and rolling the edges in Raspberry Fizz. Kept it simple and neat.

Wishing you well Lauren!! Hope you feel more like yourself today! {{{HUGS}}}

Thanks for stopping by today!!

Supplies:
Stamps: Everyday Classics, With Sympathy (Papertrey Ink)
Ink: Summer Sunrise, Berry Sorbet, Raspberry Fizz, Ripe Avocado, Brilliance Graphite Black
Paper: Raspberry Fizz, Select White
Accessories: butterfly bling from M's, Amuse creative candy

March 29, 2009

My Mom, and a Color Challenge

Alright friends - Dawn has posted another color challenge on her blog. YUM-O look at those colors. They're just fab! I couldn't figure out what I was going to do...so I searched through all my stuff and found this great butterfly image... and I got to work.

















Everyone always thinks their Mom is the best. And everyone is right. No matter what age you are, alright, maybe teenage years excluded, but the relationship between Mother and child is like no other...only because I have now seen it myself.

Growing up, I was very attached to my Mom, incredibly shy, always hiding behind her when meeting someone new. She encouraged me to break free a bit, and be my own person. I was pretty lucky, I'm the baby of the family...but not only just the baby, there's a 5 year age difference between me and my brother, so when I was born, he was going off to Kindergarten, and I had Mom all to myself. Lots of good times there.

I'm a snuggler, always was, always will be...Mom never turned down a snuggle. She takes a good teasing too, as kids, we had an Atari 2600, and Mom would play Pitfall...and she really got into it...let's just say, she's great with the Wii ;). Growing older, I became a fresh mouthed teenager, and took Mom for granted...just as I think many teenagers do. Mom was no longer cool...I had a gaggle of friends I hung out with, and certainly wasn't hiding behind her leg anymore, but somehow I knew that no matter what, she'd be there for me.

I started dating my first real, official, boyfriend...she didn't make a big deal (she left that to my Dad) but I knew she was watching. She has a good eye for great guys...I would have known if she didn't like him, but she wouldn't push - she's too smart to do that. She didn't though - so I knew he was a keeper (he must be, I'll be married to him for 10 years in October!). Anyway...that freshness started to subside, and I started looking at my Mom in a completely different way. She was the one and only person in this world that would love me more that I could ever imagine...unconditionally. I feel that same way about her. There's NO ONE like Mom.

My Dad got real sick in 2001, and was hospitalized for months, has brain damage, and short term memory loss. Many people admit they would have ran for the hills, not Mom. She put up with the attitudes, the frustration, the anger, and worked with my Dad until he was able to come home. It's not been an easy road, and she is AMAZING to do what she has to do on a daily basis. There aren't many women like her, and I hope that I'm HALF of what she is. I thank her for always leading the way, without me even knowing, and for the love and understanding she shows to me. For still loving my father, even when he is downright nasty, because he is feeling sorry for himself. She shows me how to be a better person. So Mom - I love you - more than you'll ever know.

This will be her Mother's day card (so I'm hoping she doesn't read my blog!! :) )

The Butterfly image is from Outlines Rubber Stamps, I've had it for almost a year before it saw ink, crazy right? I also went back to watercoloring...gasp! I didn't even TOUCH my Copics :). Added lots of pearls and bling to this beauty, but to me it still classy, not overdone.

The 'Mother' is from Papertrey Ink's Mother set. It's got some GREAT sentiments, like the one stamped inside... "Someone who can take the place of all others, but no one can take their place" Perfect.

Thanks for stopping by today - hope you start off your week with a smile!

Supplies:
Stamps: Mother (Papertrey Ink), Butterfly (Outlines Rubber Stamps)
Ink: Memento Brown, PTI Dark Chocolate
Paper: Spring Moss, SEI Black Orchid designer paper
Accessories: Kaiser pearls, K&Co jewels, PTI Dark Chocolate Ribbon, PTI Vintage buttons