Mountains and Flowers

Today is the last day of September, which means it's time for the Crafters of Faith blog group members to show our monthly project. I decided to wait until this afternoon to show you what I made, since I had design team responsibilities this morning.

Our theme this month was Anything Goes - Kelly told us to choose our own scripture, stamps, etc. and to showcase them on our card/project. So, I went to my favorite religious image/scriptures stamps and looked around. I ♥ Our Daily Bread stamps!

But before I show you my card, I want to tell you how much the ladies in this blog group mean to me. They have supported me, loved me, cried with me, and shared their own stories with me. When my dear sweet father-in-law passed away a few weeks ago, they listened as I poured out my heart to them. They prayed for me and for my family, too. They sent cards. They offered encouragement.

THANK YOU so much, Ladies! Words are so inadequate to tell you how much I appreciate each of you!

Oh, and since you walked through my "valley" with me, I thought you might like to see a picture of the gorgeous plant that one of my husband's dear friends from High School gave us in memory of my husband's dad...

Because I've been in the valley and the Lord has helped me to reach for the mountaintop again, along with a lot of help from the Crafters of Faith, I chose to use the Keep Climbing image and a verse from the Mountain stamp set, all from Our Daily Bread.

Here's the inside of my card:

Thanks for stopping by my blog again today!

Image: Our Daily Bread Keep Climbing
Scripture: Our Daily Bread Mountain
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Cardstock: Recollections Black and Staples Ivory
Designer Paper: from my scrap file
Embellishments: Basic Grey Pearls

Eye See You!

Today's post includes two cards - one for the ABC Challenges DP Challenge and one for the MelonHeadz Friends Animal Challenge. 

The thing that my two cards have in common is the fact that both of them have a pair of eyes on them. LOL!

ABC Challenges

September 30 - October 6

Theme: Use 3 or more Designer Papers on Your Card

I had so much fun with this card, mostly because I love the funny image/sentiment that I used. It's a Doodle Pantry digital set called Funny Disguises.

Of course I simply HAD to add some large Googlie Eyes!

Here's the inside of my card:

* * * * *

I also have a MelonHeadz Friends Challenge card to show you...

MelonHeadz Friends

September 30 - October 13

Theme: Animals

I used a couple of images from the Melonheadz Illustrating Cassie's Pond Bundle to create my card.

Here's the inside of my card:

Thank you for stopping by my blog today! I hope you'll participate in both the ABC Challenges DP Challenge and the MelonHeadz Friends Animal Challenge!

Image/Sentiment: Doodle Pantry Funny Disguises
Ink: Copic Markers
Cardstock: Recollections Black and Staples White
Designer Paper: Recollections Black and White Paper Pad
Embellishments: Offray Ribbon and Googlie Eyes from an unknown vendor

Images: MelonHeadz Illustrating Cassie's Pond Bundle
Ink: Copic Markers
Cardstock: Recollections Black and Staples White
Embellishments: Michael's Rhinestones and Oriental Trading Grosgrain Ribbon

A Peek at My Week

I want to thank those of you who stopped by my blog last Sunday and checked our my first of weekly posts entitled "A Peek at My Week". I also want to thank those of you who took the time to leave a comment here on my blog (or on Facebook, SCS, etc), letting me know what you thought of this new feature. I appreciate each of you so much.

If you missed my debut of this weekly blog post, you can find it by clicking here. That blog post includes basic information and where I got the idea to have A Peek at My Week on my blog, as well as a look at my week of September 15 - 21.

While I know these sorts of blog posts aren't for everyone's enjoyment, it did seem to help keep me on track this week, which I needed. It's been a week. While my husband was out of state I had one good night of sleep and 4 nights of not-so-great sleep patterns. I experienced some pretty major plumbing problems and after my attempts to fix them failed, a plumber had to be called. It would have been easy for me to lose focus, but fortunately I'd set a few goals for my week, so that helped.

So, let's get started with THIS WEEK (September 22 - 28)

I organized... I spent many MANY hours in my Cubbyhole, working at getting it organized and in better working condition. As you recall, my goal was to spend at least 7 hours this week doing that. I can truthfully tell you I probably spent more like 12-15 hours in there and it's looking much better. Still have some work to do on it, but I'm pleased with the progress I've made.

I cooked... very little! LOL! After all, my husband was gone. I went out to eat with friends a couple of days and took Brock out to eat a couple of days. One day I cooked a favorite pasta dish. And, of course, I fixed Brock his request of Spaghettio's or tomato soup on the days he and I didn't go out to eat.

I bought... 21 BIG rolls of toilet paper. *gasp! Who does that??? Actually, when we get low on toilet paper, I watch for the coupon our local Dollar General offers most weeks, $5 off on a purchase of $30 or more and then I go stock up on toilet paper, paper towels, and Kleenex. This was the week.

I'm enjoying... the time I get to spend with women. It's not very often that I socialize with the women from our church, so going to lunch with some of them this week was a real treat. I'll have to try to do that more often in the future.

I made... twenty-two cards and two tags. It was fun!

I procrastinated... folding towels. I know, silly! But I just never seemed to get around to it. Finally, every towel in the master bath was either in the laundry cart or the dryer, waiting to be folded, so I had to do it. Brock helps! I fold the towels; he folds the washcloths. And he puts them all away. I love my helper!

I learned... how to fix the commode! Oh, you don't even want to know. But Brock commode had a mind of its own. It kept running and running and I had to lift the bobber thing (my non-technical term) inside every time he flushed it. Then it got even worse and I'd lift it; it would stop running, and then five minutes later, it would start running again. So, I looked at  it and thought it couldn't hurt to try, so I got a screwdriver and tightened the screw. Voila! It worked! I might add, this all happened the day after the plumber was here to fix another plumbing problem.

This weekend, I'm... tired! (I really haven't gotten enough sleep this week.)

I'm working on... still putting together the final plans for the conferences I'm leading.

I'm blessed... when my husband came home, he brought me a burrito bowl from one of my favorite eating establishments: Chipotle Mexican Grill. YUM!

My 30-minute challenge (I had 30 minutes to spend; how did I spend it?)... I organized/purged the shelf behind my desk that holds my often-used papers, books, etc.

Here are two BEFORE pictures:

What a mess!

Here are two AFTER pictures:

 Doesn't it look so much better???

The first AFTER picture shows the left side of the shelf. These are the items I'm using to prepare for the November conferences I'm leading. The second AFTER picture is the right side of the shelf. It has my weekly Bible Study tools (I teach the oldest Ladies Sunday School class in our church) as well as my address book and other items.

My goals for the upcoming week...

1. I need to re-pot the hen and chickens plant that is on our back patio, as the current pot has crumbled. I bought a pair of boots at the thrift store and plan to plant the hen and chickens in them. Wish me luck! I'll try to take a picture to show you next week.                                                              
2. I want to put the new-to-me comforter and bed skirt on our bed. My husband brought it home with him from his recent trip. It is a big job to change bed skirts on our bed, but it will look nice when I get it done.
3. Okay, I enjoyed watching the Elvis movie this past week (King Creole) so I'm going to watch another one of his movies this coming week.

It will be a short week, so my goals are pretty easy. I will be gone Friday and Saturday.


Thanks for stopping by my blog today! I hope you have a great day!

Happy Birthday Miss September

Today's the 28th which means it's time for the Calendar Girls (a blog group) to share their monthly project. Terry is Miss September. She gave us a wonderful theme!

Here it is, in Terry's words:

September is a month full of changes. From the leaves on the trees changing colors, to me changing how old I am.

My challenge to you is to use the [assigned] sketch to create a birthday card. Your card can be for a male or a female but  it needs to include one type of embossing... can be dry embossed cardstock or a wet embossed image, your choice!

Have fun with it and create something wonderful!


Thank you for a great challenge.......... and a BELATED HAPPY BIRTHDAY to You, Terry!

Here's my card:

This is the sketch we were to use:

Here's the inside of my card:

Let's go to the other Calendar Girl blogs and see what they made...

April

Barb

Carol

Deb

Kelly

Linda

Paola

Tami

Terry

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Image: Stampin' UP! Hedgehog Happiness
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black and Copic Markers
Cardstock: Recollections Black and Stampin' UP! Green Galore
Embossing Folder: Cuttlebug Happy Birthday
Designer Paper: from my scrap file
Embellishments: Michael's Rhinestones

Let's Meet for Coffee

I have been loving my white cardstock lately, have you noticed? Seems several of my recent cards have shown a lot of white. I'm liking the look.

I made this one for Barb's (barbaralynn on SCS) Caffeine card swap.

My first idea was to color the image - of course (I love to color!) but the sample I did with the image colored was not nearly as attractive, in my opinion. The colored image seemed to overwhelm the CAS look of the card and the subtle details of the coffee ring/stain, etc. So minimalistic was the best option.

As you can see, I repeated the coffee ring/stain inside my card...

I sure hope Barb likes my card!

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Images/Sentiments: Technique Tuesday Coffee Talk and Queen Kat Coffee Stain
Ink: Memento Rich Cocoa
Cardstock: Stampin' UP! Early Espresso and Staples White
Embellishments: Brads from an unknown vendor

Java Time

I tried something new!

I don't remember where I read it, but quite some time ago I read that you could mix instant coffee with water and put it in a spray bottle to spritz it onto cards. I thought it sounded like a good idea. So I finally remembered to look at Walmart for some little spray bottles. They had them in the travel toiletries bins - they  only had two. I decided I might need two, so I bought them both. I mixed my coffee in one of the spray bottles only to discover that it had a leak! EEK!!! What a mess. So I tossed it away and started over.

Truthfully, I was NOT impressed with the outcome. I was hoping for spots of coffee on my paper, instead I got a fairly uniform spray of coffee. Not the look I had hoped for at all. And the paper curled, as I expected it would, which made gluing it to the card challenging. I ended up using Tombo liquid glue, which worked fine, but makes the card a little stiff.

I also had hoped the card would smell like coffee, but the smell of the glue and paper overwhelms the smell of the coffee, leaving it with a normal card smell.

So.... I tried something new! And was NOT impressed.

I do, however, like the card I made. Mostly because I really like the stamp/die set that I used - Stamps of Life Coffee 4 Two.

Here's the inside of my card:

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Images/Sentiment/Die: Stamps of Life Coffee 4 Two
Ink: Versa Fine Onyx Black
Cardstock: Recollections Black and Kraft, Stampin' UP! Gray, and Staples White
Designer Paper: Recollections
Embellishments: Michael's Rhinestones

Guest Designer CAS Style

Like many of you, I love Splitcoast Stampers! Isn't it just the greatest place? I go there for inspiration (have you checked out the gallery lately???), friendship (I love participating in swaps and hosting the Forest Swap, too), and to learn from other papercrafters. I also love the challenges that I find on SCS!

This week I have the honor of being a guest designer for one of Splitcoast's challenges - the CAS Challenge. I am so excited!

It's a Sketch Challenge this week. Those are always fun!

Here's the card I made:

This is the sketch:

I love the look of all the white space on CAS cards, but I think they are some of the most difficult designs for me to do. I do like the way this one turned out though. I purposely only colored part of the image. I thought it gave the card a cleaner look.

 

 

This is the inside of my card:

There's time for you to participate in the SCS CAS Challenge, too. I hope you will!


Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Image/Verse: Stampin' UP! Harvest Blessings
Ink: Stampin' UP! Soft Suede and Copic Markers
Cardstock: Stampin' UP! Dusty Durango and True Thyme and Staples White
Embellishments: Paper Studio Gemstones and Stampin' UP! Ribbon