Jess & Neal asked me to take some possible engagement photos.  We're going to take lots over several different weekends in different locations.  Here's one of my favorites from yesterday.  They climbed into the magnolia tree in our front yard.  I like the soft coloring and the gnarled branches with the pink blossoms in the background.

Art Impressions Mother's Day Card

Third post today, and it's not even 10 a.m.!  The bathing beauty on this card is a stamp from Art Impressions, which I colored with my copic sketch markers.  The water is made from a CTMH stampset, Adorning Corners.

Piece of Cake Birthday Card

The main colors are CTMH's blush, juniper, and sky.  The cake is from CTMH's Piece of Cake stamp set, and the sentiment is from Fringed Phrases.  The background blush cs is stamped tone-on-tone with a stamp from CTMH's Friendship set.

Sensational Season Mother's Day Card

The Beatrix-Potter-like bunnies on this card are from CTMH's March stamp of the month, Sensational Seasons, which is actually an Easter set, but I thought the mother and baby bunny looked like mother's day too.  The B&T paper is from CTMH's Sophia paper pack.

Mother's Day Card / Mojo Monday 187

I mde this Mother's Day card for the Mojo Monday challenge #187.  I used CTMH fanfare B&T paper and cs.  The butterfly is from CTMH's stamp set Find Your Style, and the sentiment is from Little Bit of Everything.

Just Because I Like It:

John Mellencamp's version of the Drifters' "Under the Boardwalk"--maybe my favorite song of all time.

"She packed up her potential . . ." Graduation Card

I made this card for a friend who needed a graduation card for a woman who is graduating from med school and then heading to Africa.  I thought it worked for someone who is traveling and also wants to change the world.

The sentiment reads:  "She packed up her potential and all that she had learned, grabbed a cute pair of shoes, and headed out to change a few things."

The luggage is from SU, the graduation cap (Class of stamp set), bottom right flourish (Live Inspired stamp set), and shoe (Find Your Style stamp set) are from CTMH.  The upper right flowers are from Tim Holtz.  I found the sentiment on line and printed on cs.  Colors are CTMH's pansy purple and outdoor denim.










The inside is made with the Express Postage stamp set from CTMH.

Explosion Boxes

Last weekend three friends from high school and I roadtripped to a girls' getaway weekend in Galena, Illinois.  I love this "Girlfriends" stamp and used it to to top off explosion boxes I made for each of us.

The weekend before we went, I made the four explosion boxes, which were the same except the color combos.  I added cute stamps and sayings representing a girls' getaway and left spaces blank for pictures.

I took my camera and my mini printer with us to Galena, and in the morning before we drove home I added pictures from the trip and gave one to everyone:

Shrine Circus

Our neighbors gave us some free tickets to the Shrine Circus, so Tom and I spent a nice afternoon with Nick, Jess, & Neal at the circus.

We wanted a picture with a clown, but they were too creepy to talk to--even though we knew they were Altoona area Shriners.  We're just not clown fans.

Jess with some circus snacks:

Nick enjoying the show at his ringside seat.

Hula-hooping unicyclists.  I don't believe these were the infamous Ridge Riders though.

Neal & Jess

The trapeze artist lost some of his star quality when immediately after his peformance he donned his Coke bottle glasses and helped tear down the netting.  As soon as this job was done, he changed into the same black outfits as the other "roadies" and performed odd jobs around the ring.

Happy Birthday, Tom!

The elephants were our favorite act.

Jess thought she was at an international soccer event.

Happy Mardi Gras!

Jess & I at a Mardi Gras parade in 1998, during the time we lived in the New Orleans area.

Pool Scene H2H challenge

This week's H2H challenge was to create a scene using at least three different stamps.

I made this pool scene with Paper Lantern (lanterns); Play Day (boy and sentiment); Adorning Corners (waves); and Surf's Up (surf board).  The background is the B-side to one of the Fanfare papers, and the water is Pacifica CS.  The yellow CS is Sunny Yellow.  The surfboard has clear sparkles along its length, and the flowers and lanterns all have pearl embellishments.  I used dimensional adhesive on the little boy.  If this looks a little familiar, I made a similar card in July 09, but I think the lanterns, which weren't available then, work great.

Vacation Postcard Layout

I made this layout for the beginning of my gulf coast vacation scrapbook.  The B&T papers are from CTMH's Passages and Vintage Travel paper packs.  I included small photos from highlights of our trip and described the photos by location in a postcard.  I like the vintage look.

I folded the map papers into thirds to look more like a real map and distressed the folds with ink.  I added photo corners to each picture to give it an older look.  Both the map papers and cocoa mat on each page were edge distressed with water.

 Lots of CTMH stamp sets (current and retired) were used.  Here's the list:

Posterboard Alphabet (title--stamped on postage stamped paper from Vintage Travel)

Vintage Postcard (all postcards, vacation definition, Express Post. postmark, East River postmark)

Neighborhood (car)

Postmarked (large postmark under calendar)

Live Inspired ("Explore," "Journey," and "Dream")

Take a Picture (camera & "A Picture if Worth a Thousand Words"

Relax ("Relax" and "Life's a journey, not a destination")

Hang Ten ("Beach")

Legendary Moments ("Carpe Diem" and fleur de lis)

Moments in Time (calendar)

Pensacola Beach Layout (H2H Scrapbook Challenge)

I tried the H2H scrapbooking challenge for the first time.  The layout was simple, but it turned out perfect for the few pictures I had.  I used the reverse side of the CTMH Wings paperpack--a totally different look than the front side, for a very "beachy" color palette.

Here's page one (in a horrible photo--sorry for the lighting).  The shells, palm tree, and sandcastle are cut from my cricut.  I think it's the second time I've used that thing, and the other time was for the shells too.  The top paragraph of the journaling tells what we did on our day trip to Pensacola.  The second paragraph are Jimmy Buffett lyrics to Frank and Lola.  (The song is about Pensacola and we ate at Frank & Lola's restaurant in Buffett's hotel (left pic).)

Here's page 2 up close.  I used my favorite alphabet, CTMH's Delightful Alphabet for "Pensacola Beach."

Here is the challenge's sketch of the layout:

Happy Mardi Gras card / H2H challenge

This week's H2H challenge was to use gypsy, creme brulee & black.

They reminded me of New Orleans and Mardi Gras (which is this coming Tuesday), so I added a little green and came up with this Mardi Gras Card:

I'm not sure exactly what happened with the upload of this picture, but the card is actually square.  Also, the gypsy cs looks blue in the photo, but it really is gypsy.  The background creme brulee cs is tone-on-tone stamped with small fleur-de-lis images CTMH's Legendary Moments stamp set.  The large fleur-de-lis on the bottom left is also from this set.  The fence and moon & star (representing the crescent city) are all from CTMH's Fright Night stamp set.  (I'm always proud of myself when I find an alternative use for a holiday set--this one was a Halloween stamp set.)  The umbrella is from the Springtime stamp set, and I paperpieced the top and added bling, some old sassy strands, and one of the punched out fleur-de-lis from the background edge punches (by EK Success).  The small green B&T paper strip at the bottom is from the Lucky paper pack.  Here's a look at the inside of the card:  I used CTMH's small Friendship alphabet and Be Yourself stamp sets.

  TFL! and Laissez les bon temp rouler!

Attention: Email Scammers

Attention email scammers:  Don't waste your time!  I've received lots and lots of emails trying to scam me via my CTMH business lately, and I'm not falling for it!