Thank you card

I made this quick and simple thank you card for my friend Betty last week. She's filling in for me at the piano at church while I take a couple of weeks off this summer. I love playing piano and I love playing at church but sometimes, I just need a break. Playing at our church means Monday night rehearsal, Saturday morning rehearsal and warm-up Sunday morning followed by three services. When I told the worship pastor I wanted a few weeks off, I didn't know that Betty would end up playing either keys or piano almost every week this summer. She's a single woman who says she has the time and I know she loves to play but this goes above and beyond the call of duty. I owe her big-time.

It was my first time trying the ripped paper thing & I kind of like it but I'm not sure it's me.

Sharon

Welcome home

On July 5, Jeff (on the left, with his friend Sean to the right) left with 81 other teens and advisors from our church for Trujillo, Peru to work with missionaries there. Tomorrow he comes home! We got a quick note from him once and he sounded like he was enjoying the ministry there and really letting God use him to the fullest.

I made him a card to take with him but forgot to take a picture of it. Here's his welcome home card.

Praying him home,

Sharon

Cards for Mom & Dad

Just a quick post to show the cards I made for mother's day & father's day. Love you, Mom & Dad!

Sharon

Thank yous

This is a picture of my latest stamping project. Jeff is going on a missions trip with our church's youth group to Peru this summer and he needs to send thank you notes to all the absolutely wonderful people who donated money to help him get there. He gave me specific instructions: no flowers, no bows, just "normal" thank you notes. He has a couple more to write and then they're all going out in the mail today!

To read more about what they'll be doing visit here .

Sharon

kwerner color challenge #8

Well, it's her 8th color challenge but I think it's only the second time I've tried it. You can see the inspiration picture by going to her blog at kwernerdesign.com/blog. This is a birthday card for my nephew. I decided to use orange as the base of the card because how often am I going to get to use orange? I didn't have any patterned paper with these colors but I had that little ribbon that went perfectly. I had fun coloring the little cake on the stamped image.

I used to love to color as a kid. I used to sit and color for hours. I have vivid memories of being on a houseboat one summer vacation -- I can't remember how old I was, probably single digits -- and coloring in my malibu barbie coloring book. I loved the big box of crayons with the sharpener in the back. I used to color textures on the clothes and then rub them with my finger to blend them.

I'm off to work on mother's day cards. I don't think my mom is ready for the funky orange & blue mother's day card though.

Sharon

Stamped image by Stampin Up, "Event Full", ribbon by k i

Color challenge card

This card was inspired by the color challenge over at Kristina's blog.

Sharon

Anniversary card

I made this card for Scott for our anniversary yesterday. The hearts were my first attempt at using an acrylic stamp.

Sharon

Stampin up workshop

So, I found a Stampin Up demonstrator near me through the web-site and she e-mailed me her newsletter. She was having a card workshop on Friday so I decided I would be brave and go by myself. I needed to place an order anyway and I thought it would be fun. It was fun but would have been much more fun if I had someone to go with (hint, hint Suz, Lisa, Taylor, Jen). The demonstrator was a very nice woman. I liked being able to use different stamps and tools than I have at home. I wish I had more flexibility in how I used them. Everything was pre-cut and plotted out which meant that I couldn't really do much else with it.

We made four projects -- three cards and a little valentines basket.

My thoughts on these projects:

The basket is cute but I could do without the extra paper on the peppermint patties. How much wrapping do I really want to have to take off before I get to the chocolate?! For me, I would have stuck the heart (or even the heart on a scallop circle) on the side of the basket and called it done.

I like the "time spent" card and I like the wide grosgrain ribbon but it seems like the wide grosgrain knot would be very bumpy in an envelope. I like this stamp set but it's a level 2 or 3 hostess gift which means you can't buy it, unless you want to pay a ridiculous price for it on e-bay.

"Friendship" card: Okay, I like the stem stamp for the flower and I like the idea of the little felt flowers but they're too shiny. That pink paper is hideous. Combining it with that orange doesn't really help.

I'm not even going to show the other card we did. I didn't like the stamp set or the way it turned out. It had a "bling" brad on it. Not really a bling girl.




What do you think?

Sharon

A little reward

I haven't had time to blog in a few days. I spent a lot of time this weekend and yesterday getting caught up with the financial stuff for our homeschool group (I'm the treasurer). So, after I dropped Jeff off at work this morning, I went to the bank and then I decided I deserved a little reward for all that hard work, so I drove down to Hobby Lobby and bought a couple of new stamps and some paper. So fun. I had some time this afternoon and I got three cards done.

The first card was inspired by this card. I absolutely love her blog.

Flower card: Green card stock: Martha Stewart; red card stock: Cardstock Stack neutrals; Stamps: Stampin Up You Make Me Happy

Thanks card: Small Background Block stamp by Stampabilities; Little Pieces Stamps by Stampin Up; Straight Up Alphabet by Stampin Up

I hope you're feeling better card: Brown card stock: Cardstock Stack neutrals; orange card stock: Martha Stewart; You Make Me Happy flower Stampin Up; Sentiment by Stampabilities

Dots card

Here's a new card I finished today. I was trying to work on it all week and there was so much other stuff going on I just didn't have the time to finish it. It ended up differently than I had planned -- I had planned to have the card open the other way and have everything running horizontally -- but I like it this way.

As I'm playing around with all this stuff I keep on thinking of more and more things I need to do it right! I don't have any circle punches so I had to cut my circles by hand and they're far from perfect. That's okay though.

The rest of my life has quieted down now, thankfully, and life is returning to normal.

Sharon

Geo Dot Border stamp by Stampendous in versamark ink on green Martha Stewart paper, happy birthday stamp by Inkadinkadoo in Stampin Up Brocade blue on blue paper by the Paper Company (seaside colors value pack), blue ribbon by Bobbin Ribbon, green self-adhesive ribbon by k i memories.

2 Valentine's cards

These are a couple of cards I worked on this week. I wanted to get something done for Valentine's Day. I can't believe it will be February on Friday! I went yesterday and bought a few more stamping supplies at JoAnn's. I was going to do some embossing and asked Scott where the heat gun was and he said, "Oh, I broke that." Oh well. I picked up some paper and ribbon too.

I had a hard time with that little ribbon on the first card! The dots are only printed on one side so I was constantly trying to figure out how to keep those dots on top.

Well, I played piano at church this morning so it's been a long day...

Oh! The heart stamp is from the Stampin Up Delightful Doodles set, the paper is just plain old red cardstock, the letters are from the Stampin Up Straight Up Alphabet set, the ribbon is American Crafts.

Sharon

Snowman card

Today I tried the challenge over at splitcoaststampers.com. I don't have a background stamp yet, so I used a small snowflake stamp and stamped it in silver ink on light blue paper and navy paper.

The stamp set is a 1995 Stampin Up set.

Sharon

Card #1

One of my new hobbies is rubber stamping. It's so fun to do and I get to see the results relatively quickly. This is a card I made for my niece's birthday. I wanted to add another element to the front but the cake element was so big, I couldn't figure out how to do it. So, I just focused on making sure everything lined up as perfectly as possible. Hope she likes it!

Sharon