Happy 4th of July Birthday! (CQC143)

Wow, what a weekend! Did you have a good one? We had a very productive (read: busy!) one. It was fun though, and I am THRILLED with all I got accomplished, though it meant I finished this card up less than 24 hours before posting (so TOTALLY not my style!) and was wading through all my ColourQ, and blog comments, plus around 500 emails at midnight Sunday night! LOL, I tell you, shift your focus for a couple days and watch the rest of your life fall into disarray! Well, I was painting my oldest son's room most of the weekend; he is almost 12, and he was really OVER his rocket ship mural and planet pillows! So, I had a few vetoes, but basically gave him what he wanted, a football field on one wall (way less yellow than it looks in the photo), and the rest a soft blue paint. It was actually kind of funny to me that he picked football... He's never played football, and we really don't even watch that much football as a family! But all the men in my family LOVE the Denver Broncos, and Ian does too. I ordered him a vinyl cutout of a Broncos helmet to go right in the middle of the "field." He'd picked out this duvet cover at IKEA a couple months ago, and we picked out some fabric for me to make new curtains, still in progress! I will show you photos when everything is done! :) But, I had a few tears here and there too. My baby is growing up :( Where has the time gone?

I do love home decorating, I used to work in that field, and I never tire of redoing this or that.... design on a dime kind of projects. My biggest issue tends to be that my "eyes are bigger than my stomach" when it comes to getting stuff done! In addition to Ian's curtains, I've got fabric stacked up for an office chair slipcover, a valance for Collin's room, and I'd like to buy some more fabric for some floor pillows for the reading nook I'm creating. Then there's the paint projects to do.... still have to paint my dresser to match the headboard I made last Fall, plus I've got my grandparents old bench that needs a fun color, and while getting Ian's paint we came across a quart of red paint in the "oops" paint at Lowe's for only 2.50! Why is red significant you might wonder? Well, Ev is a fan of the color red like I've never seen a kid be into a favorite color before! EVERYTHING is about being red! Don't dare try to give that kid a blue bowl if you have a red one available! LOL, he cracks me up that little one, he is my little ray of sunshine:) Or "red-shine!" ;) Anyway, he's got these old shelves on the walls of his room, they are white, a throwback from the baby furniture we used to have, and really don't look right with his new rustic looking bed and dresser. So, I thought a coat of red.... he will LOVE them red, they will match a lot better since he has a lot of red in his room anyway, and for 2.50 how can you go wrong? So, the jist of this looooooong story is that I have too many things I think I should do! Ha! ;) And now Collin wants a "new room" too! All in good time, I told him.

Sadly, I wish other folks in CO had better weekends. We are in the worst wildfire season ever around here, so sad, hundreds of homes have been lost, and now there's a fire burning right near the town I grew up in. One broke out near here over Spring Break, and it was really scary because we were out of town, and I was worried what might happen to my little dogs if they evacuated our neighborhood. Anyway, the weather has been unusually hot, record setting heat streak!

Well, I guess you'd like to see a card or somethin' ;) Look at this GORGEOUS palete for this week's ColourQ! You know how excited I get when I see Pacific Point! :) Honestly, I wouldn't mind having this shirt in the picture! How cute is that?

I decided to use these colors, plus the June Sketch For You To Try, I was bummed I missed playing over there in May, totally screwed up my intent to play every month this year. :(

But isn't this a cool sketch? I decided to keep the stars as stars, I was making a birthday card for my stepsister, her birthday is on the 4th (yes, we DO have a lot of holiday birthdays in my family, LOL). I used these cool Let Freedom Ring PTI stamps, that I bought off of my friend, Kelli Jo, she was selling off her PTI stuff and I couldn't resist! turned out to be the perfect fit for this card! Love the versatility of this set, too. :) I turned the firecrackers into candles, and the main part of the big circle is silver paper, I thought it was in the gray family, and I used the Basic Gray as the scalloped mat around the edges of the dry embossed silver circle. The big circle in the sketch became the place for my 3 little circles to land, do you like it? Cut a bunch of stars with my MFT stars die for accents. 

Well, I apologize for this MONSTER post! Gee with all the free time I have (NOT!) and all.... ;) I gotta get back to getting Ian's furniture back in the room, and I will show you pics when it's all done! :) Have a wonderful day, and STAY COOL out there! Since you can't do much outdoors with all this heat, maybe you should come play at the ColourQ this week. :)

hugs, Noelle

supply list: stamps: Papertrey Ink; dies: Spellbinders and My Favorite Things; decorative paper: K&Company and Stampin' Up!; silver paper: Martha Stewart Crafts; circle punches: EK Success; dye ink pads: SU!; solid card stock: SU!; red adhesive buttons: pebbles; embossing folder: Cuttlebug

DUST IT OFF!: Some used stamps a friend was selling sure are working well for me! Also, lots of old scraps of card stock and DP on this.