Yay for the red, white and blue!!

 

If you are living in the States, you will be celebrating our country's independence. My birthday is on the 2nd, so I plan a 3 day celebration that goes right into July 4th. When I was a kid I always told people I was born on the 4th. I wanted to be a little firecracker. Well all I can say I may not have been born on the 4th but I am still a firecracker!!

I took this weekend off from all things school and decided to do what ever I wanted which is stamping!! My hubby and bestie both got me lots of new stamping stuff including all of the Altenew inks, which are fabulous. For my card today I used Altenew's ruby red and sapphire inks.

It has been a month since I last blogged!!! Yikes, where does the time go?!!? I decided to check out some of my fav challenges to inspire me. Several were hosting red, white and blue challenges and since it is the 4th, I decide to join in with a patriotic card.

I am entering this card at CAS-ual Friday and Curtain Call for their red, white and blue challenges.

CASology's theme is the word "row". I went rather expected with my card. No surprises.

A new challenge for me is Cards in Envy. They want cards that can be sent through the mail!! Love that idea. Today's challenge is "stripes"

Sometimes the most simple card takes awhile, today's card was no exception. Getting the rows of stripes straight and not smudged and then adding the stars evenly. It took 4 tries.

So check back again this week, I hope to share other cards I have been working on over this holiday weekend.

Lucky to stamp!

Just because I could, I joined in at the fun at my alma mater Just Us Girls. They were having a photo inspiration week. Maybe you remember how anxious I would get when I was on the DT as JUGSand it was photo week. I would get sweaty, nauseous and my mojo would take to the hills. That was until I realized i should just focus on one section of the photo and let it move me. 

I think you can see where this is going. I took the photo rather literally. But isn't it fun with the "floating" lucky against the polka dot background. And just because I love the daisies, I added one to my card.

CASology is using the word "mini". Well once again I took this literally and made a mini-card. It is

 3 1/2 X 3 1/2. I know just the person I am going to send this too.

Well it time to put my toys away and get dinner for someone lucky! I hope I see you at either Just Us Girls or CASology or both!!

Float

I have been spending quality time in my studio this week and therefore have had the time to enter challenges. CAS-ology had a particularly creative word cue this week- FLOAT. Of course I immediately thought of a boat on water, but you have to check out what others did. Some very clever interpretations! The card I am highlighting is the one below after I mistakingly left it too close to a another card I was splattering. I was so mad at myself until I really took a look and decided- "ohhhh a happy accident!" I liked the splatters, they reminded me of the spray that comes up from the ocean.

I will let you decide which you like better. Thanks for stopping by!

STAMPS: Avery Elle, Knotty

DIES: Avery Elle, Custom Panels

True North

I just celebrated my 27th (Yikes!!!) anniversary! It really does seem just like yesterday that George and I were exchanging our vows on a very hot day in May. We had our wedding and reception out doors and it was about 98 degrees! The minister who married us was in his 90's and this was the last wedding he performed. His poor wife was holding him during the service and he called me sarah through out the wedding! At least the license had the right name!

George is very interested in maps and navigation. He always plans our trip routes. When I saw the the Avery Elle stamp set- Knotty, I knew I had to have it for my anniversary card.

 CAS-ology is having a challenge for anniversary cards and I am entering George's card. (I had to sneak it off his desk to photograph it)

 Today was a problematic day to photograph cards. It was cloudy and rainy. The primary card I photographed without any extra light. The card below I turned on a lamp in my studio. Not sure which I like better.

Thanks for stopping by!

PS- incase you weren't sure what "true north" is here is a quick definition from Wickepedia.

True north is the direction along the earth's surface towards the geographic North Pole. True geodetic north usually differs from magnetic north, and from grid north.

Picnic anyone?

I am really going clean and simple here! The cue over at CASology is picnic. I immediately pulled out my "bite me" stamp from River City Rubber Works. I am happy to see it is still available. I use this stamp for so many things and it never fails to bring a laugh to someone. (It's great at Halloween if you catch my drift..... :) )

I don't have a watermelon stamp so I had to improvise with a stamp from an old Hero Arts set, I don't know the name. Once I took a bite out of the stamp it just fell into place. 

I think this card will fit in well with the summer theme at Addicted to CAS also. What's more summery then watermelon!

Part of me still thinks this is very minimalistic, but I am sure that Susan at Simplicity would applaud me!

I even made sure I thought of my composition and created a triangle to create a more pleasing card.

My last nursing class is this Tuesday, I am done my paper, my poster and all I have left is my video which I am making this weekend. THEN I AM GONNA STAMP AND STAMP AND STAMP SOME MORE!!! YAY!!

Hope you enjoy my CAS picnic card, if not well..... just BITE ME!!!

Yay for the Red, White and Blue!!!

I just love the 4th of July, when  was a kid, I so wanted to have been born on the 4th of July (is you follow my blog you know that yesterday- the 2nd was my big day) that I told people that the 4th was y birthday! I wanted to be a fire cracker baby! Well, I may not have been born on the 4th, but ask most people and they would say I am a firecracker!

I used an oldie, but good stamp, It's a parade by Hero Arts and a brand new stamp- Lawn Fawn's Happy 4th. If you click on th picture, you will see all the fireworks are coated with glitter.

My patriotic card this year reminds me of when I was a kid and a whole group of us would to head to the hollow for the town fireworks. I am entering this in the CASology firework challenge.

Because so many challenges naturally are calling for a red, white and blue theme this week, I am also entering this at Craft your Passion, Paper Playtime ,Shopping our Stash and the Color Throw Down.

Wishing all of you a firecracker day!

Free to Play

Free, that is the inspiring word at CASology this week. I was sitting in my studio with my hand on my chin and I was thinking and thinking. Mr. George came in and said " you sure are thinking hard!" I told him about the challenge and that I couldn't come up with an idea. 

I went back and started pulling out boxes of old stamps, I was looking for a hand carved stamp of a horse that I made years ago, but it was no where to be found, instead I came across this funky little stamp. It just screamed FREE!! I used my favorite technique these days ombre stamping, but instead of stamping the funky fish girl from Picture Show- sorry they don't have a web site, I embraced my inner freedom and stamped them crooked. 

Finally do you remember when you were a child and everything you did was free and inspired- no constraints or worries you would do something wrong or someone might not like it- it was time to play and to enjoy the freedom of youth.

mellow yellow

How many of you remember Donovan singing- "they call me mellow yellow"? It was the first thing I thought of when I saw this weeks challenge at CASology- the theme is yellow. 

I grabbed a bunch of yellow ink pads and Avery Elle's All Squared Up stamp set following the Nichole Heady's tutorial, I created this mellow yellow ombre effect card. 

This was so much fun, I created one in blue also.

I like the yellow better, but for a guy this works and they won't notice the stamping imperfections.

So if you haven't participated in the challenge this week at CASology, click on the link to Donovan singing "MellowYellow" and be inspired!