Inspired by Friends & Family

Yesterday I shared a few cards that I made using a

bunch of the new, fun things that I purchased on my

recent shopping day up in Madison.

Today, I am sharing a couple more.....

I will admit, I built this card around the chipboard sentiment.

I also had one person on my mind as I created this card.....

my dear friend Sarah.

This girl has an infectious laugh and the most

encouraging smile...so this card is for her.

My friend Nancy James creates these beautiful

tags and packages her hand-dyed seam-binding

to create eye-candy that I can't resist.

I have 100 yards of plain, white seam binding just

waiting for my own hand-dying to take place, but

whenever I order from Nancy, I always get the

bonus of her paper crafting to keep!

Now....for something completely different....

I find KandCompany's spring lines always difficult to resist,

but mainly because I know that my mom loves this style.

I make a lot of cards for her.

She has no idea that I am making a batch of things in

this style, which she will love.

The glittering bell jar is so beautiful, but it's hard to capture

with my little camera.

I hope you are having a lovely weekend.

It's a sunny but cold day here in Northern Illinois.

I am tucking in for a day of paper crafting.

I hope you enjoy your Sunday....

Thanks for swinging by!

Smile Card Recipe:

Cardstock: American Crafts

Designer Paper:  My Minds Eye 'Quite Contrary',
Colorbok 'Flea Market', Stampin Up (retired)
Die Cut Sentiment: KandCompany 'Margo'
Tools:  Fiskars Corner Rounder punch
Embellishments:  Sugarlump Studios,

Recollections, Paper Studio

Thank You Card Recipe:

Cardstock: American Crafts
Designer Paper: KandCompany 'Madeline'

Stamps: Hero Arts
Ink: Memories 
Tools:  Fiskars Corner Rounder & border punch
Embellishments:  seam binding from Sugarlump Studios

Rhinestone Flourish by Prima, flower by Recollections

Acetate bell jar sticker by KandCompany 'Flora & Fauna'

A Walk Down Memory Lane

To join me for 'Growing in Unity'

scroll down or click here

It is my turn to host the challenge over at 

The Play Date Cafe.

I think it's really 'brave' to decorate in this bold design.  

Granted, back in the 90's, I happily painted 3 walls of my 

dining room hunter green and one wall merlot..  I even did my

living room with the bold shade of 'goldfish'

by Martha Stewart.  One wall only!

So I get it.

The question is....

are you willing to go outside the box?

I used great papers from Graphic45 (the dark blue),

Stampin' Up (the polka dot green) and American Crafts (silver).

I put my Distrezz-it-all from Zutter (my fave tool at the moment)

to good use on the edges of each layer.

How fun are these stamp images!?!

This week's sponsor is

 and I had a blast playing with them.

You could win over $60 

in rubber stamps!

Pop on over to The Play Date Cafe

and see what 'the world's best design team'

has done to inspire you to play.

Color Dare Challenge

I gave you a sneak peek of this project a couple of days ago and loved the comments I received.
The photo of the entire card is not the greatest, but that's another story. For now, I am just happy it's here for you to see!

This week's Color Dare Challenge #34 was to use a combination of Blush Blossom, Certainly Celery and Chocolate Chip (all from SU color chart). They were nice colors to play with.

The rest of the design team have come up with some fabulous projects to inspire you, so I hope you will get yourself on over to The Color Dare Challenge blog, have a look around and then go create! Make sure you enter it via Mr. Linky so we know when to come have a look!

A New Design Team & Another Challenge!

I am very excited to tell you that I have been asked to be a part of another Design Team. This one is 'The Color Dare' Challenge and I am looking forward to it. Riley Fitzgerald is your host of this fabulous fun. So let's get to the particulars, shall we?!As with many color challenge sites, SU colors are being used for the color choices, but you can use whatever you might have on hand. The 'descriptive' names for these are:
Old Olive
Pale Plum
Very Vanilla
Rich Razzleberry

I had a lot of fun with this card. There are a lot of 'collage' effects going on, but it really does come down to simple layering until you know it's enough. Do you remember the Basic Grey paper series I shared last Friday, well, this is more paper from the 'Periphery' set, along with SEI 'Chocolat' and handmade paper from Thailand for the flowers. The die cuts are also from the BG set and the journal tag is Anna Griffin. The greeting is from Cuttlebug and for a special touch, I added crystal Stickles to the flower and the vintage button rim.

I hope you will stop over at the Color Dare site and enter your color challenge piece. In the meantime, here are the newest DT members to be added...
Laura Lin from I Stamp, I Sew
Christi Bryant from Christi's Blog
Lori Padberg from Lori's Purple Giraffes
See the entire team on my sidebar and make sure when you stop by, you tell them who sent ya!

Now....I know there have been two, count 'em 2, back-to-back posts today, but Google Blogger was having photo loading issues this morning and there were many of us who had deadlines, so that is why you haven't had any breathing room between posts.

BUT....we still have Julie Ranae's Wednesday Night Favs to get to. So I will be back later on this evening with those. I have some lovely places to take you, so grab your favorite beverage and head back later on tonight. I look forward to seeing you!

Color Throwdown Challenge Offering

I am just squeaking this challenge in under the deadline,
but I am glad to do so.
I always enjoy playing The Color Throwdown.

I used a variety of patterned papers on this card including Anna Griffin, Making Memories (from that new Autumn Collection I showed you last weekend) and retired SU. The base cardstock is an artichoke green, but it's hard to tell in the photo.

I know this is a quick post, but my sweet Paul just came in from work and it's dinner time, so need to run. I am looking forward to sharing sneak peeks of the gift tag swap that is going out this later in the week. Make sure you stop by tomorrow.
Happy Labor Day Weekend!

Paper Distressing - I LOVE IT!

Just wanted to share this last project of the night. Had some time on my own while my husband is selling books (he is a manager at our Barnes & Noble) and worked on a bunch of distressed paper flowers. The 'Bella Rose' papers are from Stampin' Up and believe they are now retired, which makes this even more special.

Hope you enjoy it!

Sense of Time by Marilyn Heneghan

If you have been following my posts, you will know that over the weekend, I attended a Stampin' Up get-together at my friend Dr. Judy's house. One of the things I like about getting together for these types of mornings is that you can almost count on making new acquaintances...and of course, I did.

Marilyn was one of those people. Before she began her project with us, she passed around a few cards for us to look at and this one stopped us all in our tracks! So I asked her if she would mind if I shared it with all of you.

This project entitled 'Sense of Time' was of course created using a variety of stamps, papers and accents from SU. I absolutely love the color scheme and it is the perfect solution to some of those hard-to-think-of themes, such as graduation, retirement and masucline cards.

I've also mentioned to Marilyn that, from time to time, I would like to invite guests to host some tutorials for future projects, so look forward to more from her. She is also an altered book artist, so I look forward to her sharing with us soon. In the meantime, at the end of this post, you will see some of the products used for this card in the 'labels' list. If you would like more information, please let me know in the 'comments' section and I will be glad to put you in touch with her.

Go Out and Have Fun....Today!

I spent some time with a wonderful group of women today...saw some familiar faces and hopefully, made some new friends. That's what's great about the hobby of rubber stamping.

I made 2 cards at the 'Stampin' Up' get-together. The first card we made was quite fun to do. I love working with ribbon, so to add a quick little dimensional touch was nice.

The second card was an elegant tri-fold. Although it's not seen in it's entirety in this photo, it's very lovely.

Dr. Judy opened up her beautiful home for us today and with assistance of Marilyn, who by the way, I have asked to share some of her beautiful work on my blog, gave us some fun techniques to take home.

Dr. Judy and I go way back to the early days of my store and it's been so nice to reconnect with her. The sentiments on these cards say it all....Thanks Dr. Judy...I truly needed that!

What Makes You Smile?

I love a good thunderstorm, don't you? Last night, I fell asleep to one. This morning, I awoke to another one. I ran errands in a third one, and as I write this message, I cannot see the barn or the church from my window because a fourth storm is rolling through. This one is the worst of the day. I believe the winds are up near 60 mph at times. But even with all of the rain, it still makes me smile.

Tomorrow I am attending a 'Stampin' Up' get-together. I haven't done that in years, but I am looking forward to getting together with some former customers of my store who have since become friends. Of course, I will take a little money in my pocket...just in case. Rubber stamps still make me smile. It seems like the sky's the limit when it comes to what you can do with them. This card was made with 'Stampin' Up' stamps. My favorite thing to do is embellish my cards and projects with ribbon. Ribbon really makes me smile. Long before I had ever heard of the hobby of rubber stamping, I created handmade greetings made mostly of watercolor paper and ribbon...lots of ribbon. I am gravitating back to those days.....

What makes you smile? I would love to know.....