MY CREATIVE TIME Design Team Submission

Well hello there! I hope you are having a wonderful weekend! I have had the perfect Saturday - sleep in, eat, snuggle my doggies, then craft all day & night! Anyway, this pic is my submission for Emma Aguilar's MY CREATIVE TIME design team. Check out her website HERE. Her designs are amazing & she has her own line of stamps & dies!

Here are the deets for this card: size is 6.5 x 5", all patterned paper, including the card itself, came from the K & Company stack called "Small Wonders Boy" except the blue paper inside the fish bowl is from the Cricut Imagine machine cartridge "Enjoy the Seasons". The fish embellishment is from my stash but I don't remember where it originated. The fish bowl was printed & cut at 3" with my Imagine machine. The "Just Keep Swimming" sentiment is from the Cricut "Four Legged Friends" cartridge & was cut out on my Cricut Expression machine Pink Journey Edition, using 3 different colors of gingham paper. I don't know where the ribbon came from but I think it's one my mom bought me at the Flower Market in SF a while back. I used some Smooch Pearlized Topcoat to add some sparklies to the lettering & parts of the fish. I inked the edges of the base layer with some Martha Stewart ink. 

I realize I probably won't get chosen for this design team because I just started my blog less than 2 months ago but I really enjoy trying anyway. After all, it's all about fun & supporting this great community of paper crafters we have! Thank you Emma, for the opportunity. I had lots of fun!

Llama Drama

Happy Wednesday everyone! I just wanted to post this pic & tell a real quick story about it.....  So we had 2 llamas & 1 just died last week (she was really old). This is Lily Girl & she has been really sad cuz she misses her friend. We are working on getting her a new llama friend ASAP cuz llamas can die from depression if they don't have a buddy to hang with. Right now she has some cow buddies but it's not the same. This is one of my Pit Bulls, Haylee checkin out Lily. Haylee will normally chase the llamas but she must know Lily is sad cuz she has just been really sweet to her lately. Animals never cease to amaze me with how intuitive & emotionally connected they are.... (sorry for the crappy tiny picture but Vinny took this with his phone so it's really blurry if I enlarge it).....

Happy Birthday Mom!

I just wanted to do a quick shout-out to my sweet Mommy cuz it's her birthday today!! HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! WE LOVE YOU!!



Call of the Wild

Hello again! I haven't posted in several days cuz I've been working on a big project & haven't done much individual card making. However, I was inspired to make this one (see bottom of this post) because of an incident a few nights ago. As most of you know we live in the boonies on top of a mountain on 300+ acres. Anyway, we were awakened at 4am by our dogs jumping off the bed, barking & going nuts. Then it was so weird - Hugo (our Jack Russell) started howling, which I've never heard him do before. Once we got the dogs quieted down (except Hugo who wouldn't stop howling) we heard what was going on outside. There was a lone coyote howling & squawking like crazy & he was almost in our back yard area! Hugo was answering the call of the wild!

We have cattle running in a pasture which is very close to our house. They chill in the area by our house at night. This coyote was obviously calling for his buddies - because 1 coyote can't take down a cow by itself but with some friends they could easily get one of the calves. Anyway, Vinny got his gun & went out to take a look around. 5 minutes later I heard a gunshot & the howling stopped immediately. Don't worry he didn't shoot it, he just fired off a round into the ground to scare it, which worked nicely! He checked the cows & everyone was fine. Phew! We managed to get a couple more hours of sleep luckily!

So that's the story behind this card. For the images I used the Cricut "Live Simply" cartridge for the skunk & the owl/tree (the tree is embossed with the Cuttlebug "D'Vine Swirls" folder) & I used the "Paper Pups" cartridge for the howling dog. I used "Plantin Schoolbook" cartridge for the grass & the paper, moon & stars are from my stash. This is a standard A2 size card which is 4-1/4 x 5-1/2". Well, hope you enjoyed hearing about my drama up here in the woods! Thanks for visiting....



Paws-itively Grateful

Happy Wednesday everyone! I thought this thank you card was appropriate for how I am feeling lately. There are some nice & unexpected developments happening for Vinny & I, which I can't mention here but it's all good! In my dog news today I have great news! Lexi got her cast/splint off - finally! She has a little bit of a limp but it seems to be improving. She is so happy now she can lay out in the sun on the deck without being on a leash. I'm so glad she's pretty much back to normal..... 

Now.... onto the card o' the day! This entire card was done with my Cricut Imagine machine, except for the paw print & bone brads & the ribbon. The phrases are a mixture of 2 different images, both from the Imagine More cartridge. Actually, all the cardstock is from Imagine More too. This is a standard A2 size card. The ribbon is from Shibata Floral & the brads are from Recollections (love these brads!). It's alot cuter & brighter in person - as usual my Blackberry camera sucks! I'm resisting the iphone craze but it might be time to give in (sigh.....). Anyway, I hope you all have a wonderful 2nd half of the week!
                                                                   

My Pink Stamper Christmas Challenge

 Hello! This card is for the My Pink Stamper Christmas challenge. You can check out the MPS website HERE. Yes, I said Christmas! Geez..... where does the time go?!? This challenge has prompted me to get an early start on my Christmas cards which is fabulous! Anyway, I used the Joys of the Season cartridge for the house image & the wording is from the Winter Frolic cartridge. Both were done on my Cricut Imagine machine. The paper is from Cloud 9 Design. I used my Ice White Pearl Pen to fill in the windows & accented parts of the house & the wording with Smooch. The house was cut at 3" and the wording was cut at 1.5". I hope you enjoyed this little glimpse of Christmas & have a great weekend!!  

Spooky Calendar

Hello! Today's pic is of a wall/fridge calendar I made for the spooky month of October. I love fall & Halloween so I'm very excited it's almost upon us! I'm a big fan of the rain & cold weather so we're coming into my favorite time of year. Whoo hoo!

Anyway, for this calendar project I used paper/cardstock that I bought last year & I can't remember who's it is but I think it might be Heidi Grace. I love using purple & green along with the traditional black & orange Halloween colors. The pumpkin image was cut & printed on my NEW Cricut Imagine machine (so loving this!) & this image is one of the stock images pre-loaded on the machine. The "October" wording was also cut & printed on my Imagine & comes from the Designer's Calendar cartridge. The spider also came from the Designer's Calendar cartridge. The little bat I actually cut out by hand from a sheet of cardstock by Me & My Big Ideas. All the sparkly accents were done with Stickles and/or Smooch.

Well, there we go! I'll see ya'll later with some more projects! Have a fabulous weekend!

Mini-me!

Hello everyone! I hope you had a great weekend. I had an awesome one myself! Instead of cards today I'm gonna get a little more personal & share about my day with my daughter, Lila. As most of you already know I am not raising Lila because I placed her in an open adoption situation when she was born. And most of you know why so I won't go into it here, but let's just say that her father & I had a lifestyle that was not safe or appropriate for raising a child.

Anyway, Lila is 10 years old now & we went to Livermore yesterday to watch her play soccer. It was so great to see her & she looks more & more like me all the time! She got a phone for her 10th birthday in June & we have been texting each other, which is so fun! We're planning on spending alot more extended time together in the near future which I hope will be a good bonding opportunity for the 2 of us.....

I'm very excited for this next chapter of our relationship! I've been looking forward to this time for many years now & I'm thrilled that it's finally here!

Anyway, happy Monday & I'll be posting some more cards this week so stay tuned!

Oh yeah & HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY GRANDMA TODAY!!!