Deck the Halls Birdbrain

I am cutting it close to get my card posted for the From the Heart Stamp of the Month challenge. I made this last week but just haven't had a good chance to get a picture and edit it.  So... here it is!  Isn't that bird hilarious?!  He is loving those ornaments.   :)   I am enjoying this progressive challenge, so I can't wait to see next month's stamp!

Laila didn't quite get the 6-7 foot rule when picking a tree for the house.  lol  This one was her first choice!   She had a blast at the Christmas tree farm and loves our decorated tree.

Bloom Wildly

I am so behind on stamping and posting.   I have been so exhausted lately.  I think it's to the point that I need to go have some blood work done to make sure nothing is off.  I did manage to use this gorgeous watering can from the last Two Paper Divas release.  It is called Bloom Wildly and I think that's just a perfect name and a great motto for life. The sentiment is from Everyday Sentiments 3 and there are so many great ones in that set!

Laila got to ride in the car cart at the grocery store when we went to get all our Thanksgiving fixings earlier this week.  Can you tell how much she LOVED it?  lol  So silly.

Off to get a coffee so I can stay up until a reasonable hour.  I don't think 4pm is a time for bed even though I could easily go to sleep!

Freshly Made Polar Bear

Hello!  Sorry it's been a week between postings.  This time of year is my rough time with missing my Eli and hating the holidays.   I am just not a fan at all of October-January.  I did get Laila to play with a train set I put in my stamp room long enough for me to make this card today.   Sorry for the bad picture; I finished in the evening and the sun was mostly gone.   This is for our new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches.   Jen T is our sketch maker this week and if the design team examples are any indication of the cards made from it, the gallery is going to rock this week!  (Doesn't it always though?)  

I used a set that had been neglected in my stash, Cool Day from My Favorite Things.  It's the most adorable polar bears and I just love it.  They are fun to color too even if it looks like a lot of it isn't colored.  ;) 

We had Santa pictures yesterday and Laila did so much better than last year.   This was a sneak peek that Debi posted and I knew I would love this shot when she snapped it.  Laila had to show Santa her Hello Kitty tattoo and I love their expressions!   He's such a great Santa.  I can't wait to see all our proofs and pick our Christmas card picture! 

Moon Cat for FMS

Happy Wednesday!   It's Freshly Made Sketches day and I'm sharing my card with the fabulous Amy's new sketch.   It's a great one again and I think you'll enjoy creating with it.   I know I did.  I had this adorable Penny Black stamp for a while now and decided to ink it up and color it for the challenge.  I love cat stamps almost as much as coffee stamps, so this one makes me happy!

There are many ways to interpret this one and the design team has some great ideas for you!  Be sure to check those out!   Happy Stamping!   

Blue Truck for TPD

Happy Sunday!  I hope you're having a good weekend.  We are a bit low-key here and that's good for me.  I colored a bit last night and made this card for Two Paper Divas.  The newest release had some great sentiments like this one from Everyday Sentiments 3 and this awesome old Truck.  It's a fun image to color with Copics or to paper piece if that's more your thing.  :)

We found this cute hat at Target this week.  She says she looks like Sadie.  lol   :)

Freshly Made Poinsettia

I'm still here.   lol  Finishing up Hope You Can Cling To must have broken my brain because I've had a headache most of the week and haven't been able to stamp.   It finally eased up a bit yesterday and I was able to go make my Freshly Made Sketches card...a bit late of course.   I really loved Narelle's sketch so I was happy I felt like playing.  Hopefully she's not disappointed in my lack of layers.  :o)   I did layer my poinsettia bit just for her.

Big thanks to my friend Mindy who sent me this set for my birthday last year.  It finally saw ink!  Yay!

Isn't that a great sketch?   The team did a great job showing how versatile it can be so be sure you go check out the rest of the cards.  I hope to see you in the gallery.  

Sadie thinks she and Laila are sisters.  lol She always like to bring a toy (or in this case, a leaf) and lay beside Laila and play.  It's very cute.  

...and DONE! Yay!!!

So happy!   I stayed up last night and managed to finish my last three cards!   I almost gave up around 9, but one last episode of Private Practice helped me stay and finish.  :)   I had to do fussy cutting, a new technique, and even managed to use an image I colored ages ago but hadn't used.   Whew!  Another year in the books!!

Yvette's challenge was to use construction related materials or stamps for a card.  I looked but we must not be very handy because I couldn't find anything.  I did have this awesome set from Two Paper Divas called You Are a Handy Guy that was perfect! I enjoy coloring these images a lot and cutting them out doesn't bother me at all because I love the look of them.  

This was my card for a try a tutorial from the SCS resource section.  I've been wanting to try the Iris Twist technique for ages, so I went with it!   It wasn't as difficult as I thought and I think the result is so neat!

And finally, Lydia asked us to cross the finish line.  We were to draw a line on our card and have something cross it.   I had colored this crazy bird back at the beginning of the challenges and hadn't had a chance to use her on anything.  I decided she was perfect for the finale.

Thanks for visiting and seeing all the cards from the past five weeks!  I hope they inspired you and I hope you will join in next year and make some of your own!

Four more...three to go!

I'm still working on my Hope You Can Cling To cards!  Down to the wire!  lol  I have until noon tomorrow to finish my last three, so I'm thinking that MAYBE I'll make it.   Here are my last four that I did.  I've been playing around with watercolors and watercolor paper and just having fun with it.  Have a great weekend!   

And oh, if you are interested in getting an occasional card in the mail, leave me your address here.  :) 

 Challenge:  Rainbow

 Challenge:  Orange

 Challenge:  Pink Thank You card

Challenge:  Roses

Sea of Blues

Whew.  I have six more HYCCT cards to go!  This is the last one I made and it uses salt and watercolors for the background.  You can't really see the shimmer and sparkle that is on the background, but it is a pretty neat effect.  I am starting to enjoy working with my watercolors more and wish I had a different set of them.   Maybe that can go on my Santa list?  ;)   The stamps are from a Simon Says Stamp set that came in one of their card kits this year.  

I'm crossing my fingers that I can get at least three of my remaining six cards done today, maybe even four!   I want to finish and it means a lot to me to get them all done.  

Have a great Thursday!

Super Girl in Pink

The fabulous Karren has an awesome sketch for everyone this week at Freshly Made Sketches.  I love sketches like hers, but I do admit to being a bit intimidated by them.  I had an idea to combine it with one of the HYCCT challenges to do something superhero inspired.  I had to use my Super Girl set of course!   I love coloring her and learn new tricks every time I do it.

I am looking forward to seeing the gallery for this one!  I hope you guys have fun with it.  :) 

Total Pandamonium

Sharing a little bit of Pandamonium with you this evening.  It feels like it describes my day.  lol   This challenge was to use masking to make a group as the focus of your card.   I love these cute pandas from Mama Elephant and I thought they'd be fun to use for this one.

Laila was very proud of the little treats we prepared for her classmates at MDO.  :)    She did such a great job helping me put them together.  It was such a nice little crafty time for us.  She went to MDO today but I got a call a few hours later that she was crying and wanting to come home.  She said she wasn't feeling well, but of course she's been fine since we got home.  Go figure! lol

Double the Hope

Sharing a couple more HYCCT cards.   This card is one of my favorites from the month so far.  One of the challenges was to use a fairy and I didn't have one.  :(   I looked online and found this adorable one at Tiddly Inks and decided to try it.  I am not very good at coloring people yet, but I tried.  I need to work a lot on hair!  lol

This second card is for the bunches challenge where we were to use a bunch of something.  I thought this cute Fluffles stamp would be a perfect one.   I love this sentiment from Kinda Eclectic and it fit just perfectly in the space below my image.  :)

Our Halloween morning was a rainy mess, so we stayed in and made cookies!  Laila had so much fun and they turned out pretty yummy!!!

Fab Sewing Machine

I loved the sketch at Fab Friday, so I decided to combine it with a Hope You Can Cling To challenge.  The challenge was supposed to be kids making a card that represented their mom, but Laila wouldn't cooperate so I made one that represented MY mom.  Sometimes you just gotta improvise.  ;)  I love this Paper Smooches set; the images are so perfect for my mom.

I'm off to take Miss Laila to the doctor to see about this lingering cough she can't seem to shake.  Have a great week and I'll be checking in frequently as I show you more of my HYCCT cards. 

Centered Hive for TPD

Man!  I have been out of commission for a few days thanks to my coffee spilling in the keyboard of my laptop.  :(   Jason fixed it as best he could, but it was typing all crazy and not making any sense.  Tonight he got me a USB keyboard to hook up and now I can finally use it again.  Yay!   I have quite a few HYCCT cards saved up to post after being away for a few days, so you'll see quite a few of them in the next few days.  I have about nine more to do before Saturday to finish them all.  Whew!   Today's card uses one of my favorite Two Paper Divas sets called Bee Happy.  The challenge was to do a centered card where you image and sentiment were in the center.  I thought the bee hive and fun hexagon stencil would be a cheerful card for a cancer patient.  

Laila had the absolute best time last night.  She was a little unsure about it all at first, but by the end she was so into it.   It was her first time going and she's already asking when she can do it again.  lol