Happy Day

I have two cards to show you  today - one for the {PIN}Spirational Challenge and the other for the Twisted Tuesday Challenge.

{PIN}Spirational Challenge

April 29 - May 5

Here is our {PIN}Spiration:

Our sponsors this week are:

Scribbles Designs

Fred, She Said Designs

and

Deedee's Digis

THANK YOU to all of our sponsors who generously offered images for the design team's use as well as a prize for a lucky participant!


I had the privilege of using Fred, She Said images for my card...

I pulled some of my favorite colors for the {PIN}Spirational photo to make my card and added a flower for an embellishment since there were so many beautiful flowers in the picture.

Here is the inside of my card:

Now, let's check out the Twisted Tuesday Challenge...

Twisted Tuesday

"Black and White and One More"

April 29 - May 12

Theme: Use black and white on your creations

Twist: use only one other color.

Here's my card:

Here's the inside of my card:

I hope you'll participate in the {PIN}Spirational Challenge and the Twisted Tuesday Challenge!


Thank you for stopping by my blog today!

Image & Sentiment Inside: Fred, She Said Emma the Skipper
Sentiment on Front: Fred, She Said Uplifting Sentiments
Ink: Copic Markers
Cardstock: Recollections Black, Stampin' UP! Rose Red, and Staples White
Designer Paper: Paper Studio Light Pink with White Polka Dots
Embellishments: Prima Flowers and Brad from an unknown vendor

Image/Sentiments: Sweet & Sassy Across the Miles
Ink: Versafine Onyx Black
Cardstock: Recollections Black and Blue from an unknown vendor
Designer Paper: Recollections Black and White Paper Stack

What Time Is It?

It's time for a new MelonHeadz Friends Challenge and a Calendar Girls project, too!

MelonHeadz Friends Challenge

April 28 - May 11

Theme: Lots of Circles

Here's my card (featuring the MelonHeadz Clock Bundle):

The hands on the clock are moveable. Isn't that fun?!?!?!

This is the inside of my card:

This card is also my featured card for the Calendar Girls Blog Group, since today is the 28th of April and we always have a project for the 28th of the month.

Carol is our hostess this month, and this is the theme she gave us:

For you challenge this month I thought quite a bit about the challenge. As you know, we will be posting after Easter so with that in mind I thought I'd do a Mothers Day challenge. When I was a child my mom would encourage my dad to get little carnation corsages in pink or red for each of us girls and mom to wear to church on Mothers Day. According to her (and the intranet), if a woman's mother was alive the females in the family would don a red or pink flower (mostly carnations, but not a rule) and if her mom had passed, the female would wear a white flower, and would visit the grave of her mom and place a white carnation on her grave. My mom's dad would do this when she was a child and mom loved the tradition. What I would like you to do this month is create a card or project using the color that would describe your mom. As an extra I would like for you to share a special memory of your mom from when you were little (if you are comfortable with that) so we can learn a bit about the wonderful ladies who raised such beautiful paper crafters...

THANK YOU for giving us a GREAT theme, Carol.

I chose red to represent my mother for a few reasons. I actually first considered the color orange, since that's her favorite color - but that seemed too easy. So I did a little word study of colors and discovered that red is associated with energy, power, strength, and yes, LOVE. All of these words describe my mother, who amazes me with continued strength and energy.

I have so many wonderful memories of my mom that it's difficult to choose just one. But since I've been thinking of her strength, I've decided to share a story from when she and my dad bought and moved to their hobby farm when I was in high school. My dad continued to work long/hard hours at the coal mine, so my mom "ran" the farm, which included tending to the cattle. She thoroughly enjoyed it. 
   

I'm so glad you stopped by my blog today! I hope you'll stop by the blogs of the other Calendar Girls, too, to see what they've made. You'll find links to their blogs in my left sidebar.

And please play along with the MelonHeadz Friends Lots of Circles Challenge.

Image/Sentiment: MelonHeadz Clock Bundle
Ink: Copic Markers
Cardstock: Recollections Black and Red
Designer Paper: from my scrap file
Embellishments: Hardware from an unknown vendor

A Squirrel Challenged Me

Today's One Stitch at a Time challenge is ANYTHING GOES! So get ready! I am sure you will want to play along.

One Stitch at a Time

Challenge #210

April 27 - May 3

Theme: Anything Goes

Sponsor: Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet

I had the opportunity to use the most wonderfully realistic looking image - Squirrel - and soon discovered that I don't know how to color a squirrel. Dear me! I really did NOT do this image justice.

Here's my card:

Here's the inside of my card:

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Image: Stitchy Bear Squirrel
Ink: Copic Markers
Cardstock: Recollections Kraft and Stampin' UP! Early Espresso
Embellishments: Eyelet Outlet Brad and Ribbon from an unknown vendor

A Peek At My Week

It’s Friday again…time for another Peek at My Week post.

A PEEK AT MY WEEK

1.      What was a highlight of my week?

My husband surprised me with a DQ treat one night – my favorite flavor of Blizzard. Want to guess what it is? (Choco Cherry Love) YUM!

2.      What lesson/s did I learn this week?

When a person stays on their knees for long periods of time, it can be very painful. That is a tough lesson to learn.

3.      What did I make this week?

I made a lot of progress on my Thailand preparations. My lessons are coming along nicely. And I’ve had fun with them.

4.      What have I enjoyed doing this week?

I discovered we have a nesting Robin on top of the light between our two garage doors. I’ve enjoyed watching her on her perch.

5.      If I could change one thing about this week, what would it be?

I would have slept more. It seems like every night has been short this week.

6.      What did I do for this week’s 30-Minute Challenge?

What is a 30-Minute Challenge? It will vary from week to week, but basically, I am going to choose something to do – perhaps it’s an organization task that is calling out to me, or a topic I want to research, or (*gasp!) an exercise I want to try, etc. – and I will set the timer and invest 30 minutes in that challenge.

I took the warm winter shirts out of my closet. No more turtlenecks until next winter. YAY!

7.      What are my plans for the upcoming weekend?

It will be a busy weekend. Our church is having revival services, which means church every day! And on Saturday I’ll be going to the city for a meeting.

SCORE TIME: Would I give this week a “thumbs up” or a “thumbs down”?

My goals for the coming week…

1.      Since I am going to a Women’s meeting next weekend, I need to get my Bible Study lesson plans finished before I leave on Thursday.

2.      I am hosting one of our speakers for dinner one night of the meeting, so I need to research what restaurants there are to choose from and make necessary plans.

3.      I will go shopping for some of the supplies I need for my Thailand lessons.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! I appreciate you so much!

MIA Requires Detective Work

I don't know if you've noticed, but once I reached the 100th day of 2014 - and met my goal of having a blog post every day - I've sort of been MIA here on my blog. I've posted on days that I had a design team responsibility and another time or two, but for the most part I haven't been around.

There's a very good reason for that.

I'm going to Thailand in just a little over 7 weeks. We will be teaching Vacation Bible School to American children for a week while we are there. I've been busy the past two weeks, working on the preparations.

The theme of this year's VBS is a spy/detective sort of thing. It's a really fun theme, with a lot of possibilities. I've done some online searching for ideas for decorations, craft projects and more. I ran across a WONDERFULLY fun punch art spy/detective on Pinterest, that directed me to Crystal's blog, where I found the details.  Don't you just love Pinterest???

Sooooooooooooo.... for one of the crafts we'll do with the children, we're going to adapt the cute little punch art spy/detective and use him on a VHS case for a decorative item, that can serve as a secret cubbyhole in which to hide special items.

I think I'm going to get a "Top Secret" stamp and let the children stamp that in the lower right corner where my watermark is. They will like that.

You can go to Crystal's blog to find out what punches I used. She also did some shading with ink on the different punched pieces, but I wanted to keep mine VERY simple since I'll be using this design with young children and limited supplies.

Now, you know me... I had to make a card, too, just because it was going to be fun to do so. And this is Thematically Thursday - the fourth Thursday of April - which means I'm supposed to CASE something.

Here's the inside of my card:

That's it... CASE CLOSED!


Thank you for stopping by my blog today!

Sentiment: Stampabilities Hi
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black
Cardstock: Recollections Black and Staples White
All Other Papers: from my scrap file

Owl Have Ice Cream

How about you?

It's OWL good!

The inside is way too plain!

Thanks for stopping  by my blog today!

Image: Stampendous BlockArt Owl Cone
Sentiment: Studio G
Ink: Memento Tuxedo Black and Copic Markers
Cardstock: Stampin' UP! Early Espresso and Melon Mambo
Embellishments: Michael's Ribbon and Stickles Glitter Glue

What is Your Favorite?

This week's challenge theme at One Stitch at a Time is Favorite Things, which gives us an opportunity to create with our favorite embellishments, papers, images, and such - or to show on our project something that we consider a favorite thing to do, etc. It's going to be a fun challenge.

Here's my card:

Can you tell what my favorite things are?

Designer Paper (I love designer papers!), Rhinestones (one of my two favorite embellishments - the other is ribbon), Copics (I colored the image with Copics), and layering with black cardstock to make everything have that finished look.

One Stitch at a Time

Challenge #209

April 20 - 26

Theme: Favorite Things

Sponsor: Stitchy Bear Digi Outlet

Prize: Aprils Prize Pack of 7 Images

I can't wait to see what YOUR favorite things are - so please join the challenge!

Oh, and here's another of my favorite things,

decorating the inside of my cards, too:

I'm entering this card in the following challenges:

Crafting by Design - Anything Goes
Crafty Hands - Anything Goes
Creative Moments - Anything Goes with Girly
Imagination Crafts - Anything Goes
Rhedd & Rosies - Anything Goes


Thanks for stopping by my blog today!

Image: Stitchy Bear Priyankas School Girl
Ink: Copic Markers
Cardstock: Recollections Black and Red
Designer Paper: from my scrap file
Embellishments: Michael's Rhinestones