Be Silly...

Hello! I hope you all have had a great weekend!  I sure did!  Mike and I celebrated Valentine's Day on Friday after he came home from work... lucky for me he usually gets home around 3:30. :)  The trade off is that he leaves the house at about 4:45 each morning, but it's worth it-- he misses all of the crazy Atlanta rush hour traffic. Anywho, we went out to dinner-- we love Japanese Hibachi-- then to Verizon to upgrade our phones (our friends will be thrilled we have now entered the current century!) and then shopping.  All in all, it was a great evening!  We were able to spend some time with my mom on Saturday and Mike's folks on Sunday, and the weather-- believe it or not-- got up to the 60's.  It felt like a beautiful Spring day today, a nice change from the snow of last week. :)

So, here's a little card I put together for the Freshly Made Sketches Challenge.  CAS (Clean and Simple) cards are really a challenge for me. Sometimes the simplest things take the most work!  I kept dropping the dots or gluing them to my fingers. And the sentiment took about four tries to get it clean. I had to re-cut the card as many times!  Oh well...  I think it turned out cute. :)

 

I used CTMH "Dotty for You" paper for the dots, layered with black cardstock. They are popped up on foam tape to add some dimension. The sentiment is from the "You are My Happy" stamp set.

Well, that's about it for now.  Time for some Olympics viewing and Downton Abbey.

xoxo,
Kristine

I Adore You

Well, the snow and ice passing through Atlanta certainly has its advantages!  More crafty time!  Woohoo!  So here's a Valentine for the hubs that I created this morning based on the latest Mojo Monday, as well as H2H's "Heart's Galore" theme and the Pink Elephant's Valentine's Day challenge.

All materials are from Close to My Heart except the red patterned papers and the black ribbon.

 



 

Materials:

Cardstock:  Kraft, Black, White Daisy (CTMH)

Ink: Black (CTMH)

Stamps: Hello Wonderful (CTMH)

Patterned Paper: Say Cheese (Simple Stories)

Embellishments: Corduroy button and clothespin, Ruby Collection (CTMH), paper buttons, cut from Artiste (CTMH), paper lace (CTMH), black ribbon (Michaels)

Smile

Here's a little card I put together for a color challenge. The challenge was to use these colors:

I love the combination!  The colors are Kraft, Lagoon, Sweet Leaf and White Daisy... very pretty together. Close to My Heart has a new paper packet with patterns using those very colors called Skylark, so that is what I used!

Here's my card:

 

 

I cut a window card using the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge from Kraft paper and then cut it again the same size in the green patterned paper and then 3/4 of an inch smaller in white. I cut the white card in half and adhered the window portion to the inside of the card to create a frame, and trimmed the green window down to cover the bottom half of the front of the card. I added shimmer trim to the sides and lined the inside of the card with Lagoon patterned paper. The flowers and banner were stamped on White Daisy using a new hostess set in the Spring/Summer Idea Book.

 

 

The flowers were stamped using the masking technique and were "colored" by reversing the lined images so that the part of the stamp that is normally affixed to the stamping block was inked (in 2nd generation) and stamped directly over the lined images... a fun and quick way to color images like this!  The flowers are floating across the open window, adheared only at the edges of the leaves. I like the effect! :)

 

Well, it looks like we are going to get some "epic" and "catastrophic" (according to the weathermen) ice and snow in the Atlanta area over the next few days. They are predicting downed trees and power lines and hundreds of thousands of  homes without power for many days. I pray that it is not as bad as they predict. It was just 2 weeks ago that Atlanta made national news for our last snow and ice storm.  Folks were stranded all over the city-- some for up to 19 hours in icy gridlock on the highways. I personally spent 5 hours (usually a 25 minute drive) stuck on the roads on the way home from work (never made it home--eventually stayed with a friend for 2 days) and my husband's usual 1 hour drive turned into a 10 hour trek from work.  I know, not long ago I was dreaming of snow. I guess it's true, be careful what you ask for!  Atlantans are not built for this!!

 

Well, at least I can play with Spring-y paper. I know... winter can't last forever...  :)

 

Spring/Summer New Product Blog Hop!

Welcome to the Rose Blossom CTMH New Product Blog Hop!  We are all so excited about the new Spring/Summer Idea Book and the gorgeous new products! If you haven't had a chance to see the new book, you really need to take a look!

Here are a few things I created with the Lollydoodle paper pack and coordinating Complements. I used the Artiste Cricut cartridge to create the mailbox, and the new Base and Bling items to create the necklace! I attached the necklace to the card by cutting 2 diagonal slits at the top of the card and then attached a tiny zip lock bag on the back of the card for the chain. The recipient can easily remove the necklace from the card! The window card was cut with the Art Philosophy cartridge.

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Hope you enjoyed my projects!  Keep hopping for some great inspiration from the Rose Blossom Team! Now hop on over to Marg's blog to see her fantastic project!

In case you get lost, here's the list of blogs. You won't want to miss a single one! :) We are linked in a circle, so you can start anywhere!

Brenda

Sara

Lynn

Tammie

Kim R.. 

Kristine (you are here!)

Marg

Kim H..

Thanks for stopping by!  Your comments are welcome and so appreciated!

xoxo,

Kristine

Oh Happy Day!

Here's a little somethin' I whipped up this morning based on the latest sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. The paper is "For Always"-- I will be so sad to see it retire from the CTMH line on February 1. I am hoarding a little bit of it... I really love black and white with a pop of color.  I thought it would be just perfect as a background for this stamp.  The stamp is one I had from years ago, and happily, it is making an appearance in the new CTMH idea book!  I am so excited to see these quick-card stamps make a come back as a part of Jeannette's Archives! Another quick-card favorite will be featured in the new Idea Book as well, you'll have to check them out!

I colored the flowers with Copics and the leaves with ink pad and blender pen. The cardstock colors are White Daisy, Hollyhock and black. 

Here's the inspiration sketch:

Hope you have a "happy day!"

Kristine

Retro Sketches 99

I love a good sketch challenge!  Here's a card for Retro Sketches #99 Challenge. I used some cute Doodlebug Designs paper that I got at Archiver's last weekend. Sadly, they are closing (so everything is 40% off), I hate to see that happen. I love to go and look at all of the pretty paper! I don't go often, but when I do, I always find something I can't live without.

The stamp is from CTMH's "Whoo's Your Valentine" promotion from last year.

For the heart in the middle, I used the reverse of the floral paper-- it has little hearts all over it. To make it dimensional, I cut four of them, folded them in half and glued the backs together.

Here's the sketch (I took a few liberties with it!):

Hope your Sunday is a fun-day! :)

Kristine

Determined

Determined, that's what I am.  I am determined to finish my Christmas thank you notes before the end of January. It is shameful, I know, getting them out this late. Oh well. ;) I honestly have to scale back on the embellishments (even though I'm really not excessive in that area)... it's just that it's hard to mail the bulky cards, you know.

I made three of these cards today. I kept the design simple because the paper just steals the show anyway! This paper is from MME and I LOVE it!  It came in a package I purchased off of some Facebook deal last year, 100 sheets of random MME paper for $17.95, or something like that. There are a couple of duds in the bunch, but there are also a few great surprises, like this one. I think the paper is gorgeous-- love the colors, the prints and the hexagons. I love the bird, and one hexagon you can't see has a pretty butterfly on it.

The stamp is from a CTMH set called Casual Expressions. It's a great little set with sentiments for all occasions. It is Cricut compatible, so will continue to be available for a loooong time, :)


Happy weekending!
xoxo,
Kristine