bear hugs: noun

A rough, tight hug.

OK, so he doesn't look like he could be a rough hugger but he's cute! It's another card using the Our Daily Bread's 2012 formula, which uses numbers as a recipe about what we can add or not add to a card. I used 2 rhinestones, 0 sewing, 1 sentiment, 2 hearts. It's a simple card and I think it would be perfect for a child. I figured everyone needs a hug every now and then! Especially if it's a soft, tight, cuddly hug!

A close up shot just so you can see better the word hugs that was taken from the sentiment Hugs & Kisses. I want to be able to send this card to someone who might need a hug but not necessarily a kiss! lol Yes, it's another card for my Cricut Card fairies group and it will be sent to a stranger so the "kiss" part had to be removed. I embossed it too, for some reason I just prefer how a stamped image looks embossed instead of 'naked'.

Stamping in Time challenge 51

ODBD stamp- Mini Tags 1

rhinestones- Jolee's

Paper Dolls cartridge, p. 45

Winter Wonderland cartridge, p. 47

google eyes- Creatology

Glossy Accents

Ink- Brilliance

Really Reasonable Ribbon twine assortment

Give a hug, get a hug...what a deal!

challenge: noun, verb

a call or summons to engage in any contest, as of skill, strength, etc.

I have a blogger buddy who has just been chosen for the Die Cuttin' Divas Design Team ( Congrats Pat, from Pat Scraps ) and being the good friend that I am ( batting eye lashes ) I have followed her over there to give her my full support ( and it would be nice to win something too, eh? )...lol, oops... honesty just pops out sometimes, doesn't it?

 They have a birthday sketch challenge and I just had to tweak it a tad, like turned it upside down, flipped it and grouped the 3 circles together...well OK already, so I got carried away with my snowman, I mean he had to have snowflake balloons , right? And real twigs for arms ( and omg, I got caught by a neighbour trimming an azalea bush at 9:30 pm...and received a very strange look too! lol )

                                 Die Cuttin' Divas Birthday Challenge

Winter Wonderland cartridge,  (snowman )p. 46 and snowflakes pp. 32-34 

Really reasonable Ribbon - Winter Whites collection Club Assortment

stickles- Baby Blue, Star Dust and Yellow

Colorbok - Snowy Sky
red polka dot paper- misc, from stash

Glossy Accents

floss - DMC

sentiment-Sarah bond Epoxy stickers

twigs from apartment complex ( innocent look )

difficulty in a job or undertaking that is stimulating to one engaged in it

I love challenges and sometimes I really have to think about what they are asking me to do...but then that's what challenge means...to "stimulate" ones creativity, yes? So over at Our Daily Bread Designs, that is exactly what they had me doing! To me it was a little confusing to think in the terms of number of items used and not used for my creation, and please go over there to check out the rules, they aren't hard for normal people I am sure, lol. ( wait, did I just call myself abnormal ?....mmm...need to think about that! )...any way...I used 2 layer cuts from my Cricut, zero tags, 1 ribbon and 2 flowers stacked together. ( aka 2012 )

Stamping In Time Challenge 51

Our Daily Bread design stamp set -Mini Tags 1

DCWV Shimmer Stack

pattern paper- Autumn Leaves

flowers- Pebbles

pearl- Queen & Co.

Really Reasonable Ribbon - Silver and Gold Club Assortment

French Manor cartridge, p. 44 

I hope everyone has a wonderful and creative week end!

blessings: noun, plural

approval or good wishes

I love making special cards, for my Cricut Card Fairy group. We send out cards to anyone that might be in need of some support. So anytime I have a challenge to create a card I like to stock up my stash. I love my Our Daily Bread Designs stamps as they always seem to have some great generic sentiments.

This challenge is from Fantabulous Cricut, who asked us to use a cup or chocolate or even the color brown on your project. So as you can see for Challenge Me Monday #92 I used a cup.

A close up shows off my love for decorating pattern paper. I used Glossy Accents on the purple flowers and laid a Dust Ball in the center of the flowers, I used stickles to accent the stems of the flower and adhered tiny dimensional butterflies. I let everything dry and then brushed the tea cup with Mod Podge for 2 reasons: one, was to make sure everything stayed glued down and two,it makes the tea cup look more like china! After everything dried I then inked the edges of the cup and as you can tell I distressed the tea bad tag too, with both ink and chalk.

pattern paper- came from scrap stash

Don Juan cartridge, p. 75

Dust balls- Willow Bead

puffy butterflies- K&Co.

Our Daily Bread Design stamps-Mini Tags 3

Glossy Accents

Mod Podge

stickles-  Patino

Ok, should I confess tell you a funny story about handling small tiny beads? If you have clumsy tendencies

( which I do ) then accidents are bound to happen no matter how hard you try to stop them. So vision this...I put my beads in a beading tray just so I can use the funnel feature to get the beads back into the tiny tube..right?...with me so far? Then out of the blue, I sneezed! and it was like an explosion of tiny multi colored beads bouncing all over my desk and me sitting there, in stunned admiration, cause like in slow motion they did look real pretty bouncing and rolling in all different directions! HA! And from previous bead explosions I know it's no use chasing them down until they settle! So I patiently picked the little beads up from all their now hidden nook and crannies, silently cursing my desire to use beads all the while.

 Later on, inspecting my card after it dried I found, blue, pink and gold beads on the flowers and I'm thinking...am I that blind? that I picked up the wrong color beads when I was applying them to the cup?? no...they were from the explosion and some had found their way to my card, lol...I was able to pick them off though...whew...no damage!

Now I love blog hopping, and I pick up ideas from everyone, which I love! So I was visiting someones site ( sorry I don't remember who ) but they were discussing "mail art"....you know decorating your envelope...and I thought, wow, I had stopped doing that and so I got out my box of OLD stickers, ones I cannot use for submissions or whatever...this is a perfect use for them! So the card I made yesterday

 ( see previous post ) went out in the mail today, all decorated up!

I also did the front but I've already addressed it so I didn't show it on here. Now let's talk stamps! I go ahead and put 64 cent stamps on all my cards, even semi flat cards deserve special postage ;0 ( at least according to the post office anyway ) I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten handmade cards and the senders don't put enough postage on them, not that the post office has asked me to fork over the money but they do put that notice on the envelope that points out that the sender is either cheap, broke or misinformed! LOL

And on Crookedbrains they are featuring unusual clocks, and a lot of them I thought were so confusing that by the time I figured out what time it was, I would be late for where ever I was going! lol But this one did make me stop and ohhh and ahhhh for a momment so I thought I'd share :)

Knit Clocks: Creation of designers Carlo and Benedetta Tamborini; its made of cotton and comes with incredible detail that is filled with soft, intricate lines, the kind usually found in your closet, not on your wall.

pretty, huh?

Simpatico: adjective

 being on the same wavelength, agreeable, likable

I have 2 challenges in one card today. One uses the Cricut with a New Years theme and the other using maps. Instantly I knew how I was going to put the 2 together...just like peanut butter and jelly...it was simpatico!

One challenge comes from CARDZ TV, to use your Cricut to design a  Happy New Years card. Now I only gave out 2 New Years cards this year ( I admit, I don't do many of them ) but I want to send a card to a friend of mine with directions to get to my place so I altered the "new" for "snow" as we both love the snow. Which also means I get to use my latest cartridge, paper Trimmings for the snowman! See how things are flowing along here? ...peanut butter

Now lets keep this theme going, shall we? Moxie Fab is having a challenge to use maps as part of your design. Since my friend will be traveling over from Tennessee, it was perfect to add a Tennessee map to the card and I happen to have one still in my car from when I lived over there.... who says it doesn't pay to not clean out your car? ...jelly

CARDZ TV challenge #99 Happy New Year Card
Moxie Fab's Map To Your Heart challenge

Paper Trimmings cartridge, p. 63

Reminisce, Snowman Collage

stickles, Diamond Dust and X-Mas red

Helmars Liquid Scrapdots and Gemstone Adhesive

Jolee's rhinestone

Dymo Label Maker

map from in between seats of car ;0

and just to put a smile on your face, watch this video....I really thought the security guard was going to smash the banana...too funny!

I apologize to everyone who now will be humming the peanut butter and jelly song all day ;)

snow flurry: noun

is a brief instance of light snow, with very little or no accumulation of snow on the ground.

and how many languages can you say snow in? here's a few...

сняг 雪 sníh sneeuw lumi la neige Schnee χιόνι hó snjór sneachta neve 雪 snø śnieg ninsoare снег nieve snö  
recognize any?

I sure would have enjoyed more snow but I take what I can get. On the plus side is that the back yard stays shady longer so the snow does last awhile back there! You can tell it was a little windy last night from the crooked bow...guess I need to take down my outside decorations, huh?

Since I'm not so inspired to take down my decorations I figured I would find some procrastination inspiration from the Moxie Fab blog!

:)

Moxie Fab's Tuesday Trigger:
By The Numbers

Really inspired me to get out my stamping set by Our Daily Bread Designs called Sewn With Love. You know sometimes you can't find enough reasons to use a favorite, so I took one look at the quilt and knew I was going to have a chance to use one of my favorite sentiment stamps! I was inspired by the stitching of the quilt itself, the tone on tone and the swirls.

This is what I came up with:

I tried a new technique for me which was shading the floss with my ink. I wanted to give the design a little depth so I took a paint brush and lightly rubbed it on the ink pad and then brushed it onto the floss. ( Make sure you stroke the brush in one direction so as not to ruin your bristles. ) I do like flat cards because they aren't as expensive to mail but I still want it to have some dimension and texture which is why I love to sew on my cards. It may take a little longer, but I like to think that it's better, it's like sewing some love into your card.

Shabby Chic: adjective

definition:
Popular decor items are pillows made of vintage barkcloth fabric, vintage linens, chenille bedspreads, vintage chandeliers, and anything with roses on it. It is a soft, relaxed feminine romantic way of decorating that looks comfortable and inviting.

OK, I'm hooked on The Shabby Tea Room challenges now! ;) I mean they have the most beautiful inspirations to work from. Look at these yummy colors, makes me feel so feminine!! Their new challenge is #95 'Time Flies'

make a card or project inspired by the below photo and USE SOMETHING WITH WINGS!

This is what I came up with. I was inspired by the soft colors and the bed skirt.

OK, confession funny crafting story:
The acrylic wings were a problem from the get go. First they were attached to each other which made for a compact angel wing set, but they snapped apart easily...so that was good. Then they were clear so that meant they didn't show up too well so I inked them and then applied embossing powder, BUT when I used the heat gun is when I discovered they had a thin plastic layer on top, duh me! soooooooooo ink and embossing powder wasted, peeled off both sides of plastic and then reapplied ink and embossing powder! But I loved the effect once it was finally achieved!

A close up shot so you can see some of the details. I am sooooooooo loving my metallic floss and that other ribbon is a velvet twine....yummy! And evidently there is a learning curve with the liquid pearls, this was my first time using them and they left a little "peak", so I will have to work better at rounding them out now that I know they don't level out on their own. ;)

Sizzix snowflake embossing plate

Cricut Paper trimmings cartridge, p.24

Robin's Creative Cottage Snowman Prayer stamp set

ink- Brilliance

metallic floss- Kreinik

velvet twine- Rainbow Gallery

Helmars Liquid Scrapdots

Rangers Rock Candy crackle paint, Holographic Embossing Powder, Liquid Pearls

angel wings, lace - misc.

and a Crookedbrains post which touches one of my fetishes...lol...umbrellas! I love umbrellas, love buying unique ones and love using them. I actually match my umbrellas to my outfit!

 I know....lol....but I have been wanting an all black umbrella but they are pretty boring until I saw this......

Corset Umbrella: Creation of Guy de Jean.

my eyes are glazing over....are yours? I think I'm drooling....

Sparkle: verb

definition:
to shine or glisten with little gleams of light, as a brilliant gem; glitter; coruscate.

My first challenge of the new Year is brought to you by

Really Reasonable Ribbon's Challenge #39 'Sparkle and Ribbon" theme

Create a card, layout, multi media piece, tag, ATC, hair bow, you name it. Just be sure to follow the theme above and use ribbon/lace or trim somewhere on your project.

Really Reasonable Ribbon- Winter Whites Assortment

paper- Reminisce ,Snowman Collage

stamped sentiment- Robin's Creative Cottage, Snowman's Prayer

Estaz Glitter Gloss

Winter Wonderland cartridge, p.66 layers ( holly leaves)

Paper Trimmings cartridge, p.24 ( snowflake)

gem- Hero Arts

silk floss- Splendor

Rangers Glossy Accents

inks, embossing powder,stickles, pearls 

Helmars 450, Gemstone Glue and Liquid Scrapdots

I really enjoyed making my own hatpins for this. The snowflake hatpin is made from a safety pin and the "Let it Snow" hat pin is made from 2 map pins! The latter is also held up with help from Liquid Scrapdots, so far one of my most favorite adhesives! And the gem in the middle of my snowflake is held there with Helmars Gemstone glue, the bow is securely placed with 450.

One of my favorite cards to make is by taking an image from the paper and simply adding to it. Add your own special touches to really create a one of a kind image. I stickled the outline and his nose, added Glossy Accents to the hat band, cut an image from my Cricut to add as an embellishment and hand sewed the branch arms, and my last but not least touch is adding the glitter gloss around his neck as a scarf.

So do you think it has sparkle? Does it shine and glisten?

I think so, how about you?

and saving the best for last; Really Reasonable Ribbon is having a 2 Year Blogoversay GIVEAWAY! Go over there and enter...what are you waiting for? Go!