You Rock! (SPARKS challenge & RS #48)

Hi all, hanging at home these days quite a bit. I needed to make a birthday card for a friend of Collin's. His friend is really into rocks, and so I thought I would make a rock card :) I have this Cuteasaurus set from Paper Smooches and it has the rock stamp. The sentiment is from Sentiment Sampler.

This card is for two challenges, the current Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge, to use the following inspiration photo to kick off your design....

It's also for the current Retrosketches #48, here is the sketch...

Here's my card again, I used only scraps for the patterned paper. I am so loving on my scraps basket since I cleaned it out last weekend. :)

I had some new washi tape from PeachyCheap.com, boy that site is dangerous!

I used my TCP Grass and Cloud Border CutUps to create the little scene using more scraps. The rock was stamped and fussy cut, then popped up with a 3D dot. This is a small card, 4 1/4" square.

Well that is all for me today. I have a BIG announcement tomorrow, so check back in if you can! :)

hugs, Noelle

Penguin 29th birthday card (TCP Fan Challenge #4/ US #195)

Hi all, Hubby had his surgery today, and we are home. He's resting off the anesthesia, and I've been hanging out at the house. It went well but the next week is bound to be "fun" if you know what I mean. Poor guy, I feel bad for him! :(

Anyway, last night the call of my studio was too great to resist. I made this card for the TCP Fan Challenge #4, it was an idea from Kelli Jo to use one of the cute Penguin stamps that TCP offers. Check out the thread and play along if you can!

I also used this week's Unscripted Sketches #195. You could do a LOT with this sketch, so versatile, I love it!

I have so many TCP sets and I love them. I was surprised to find that I only have two penguin sets! This one is an oldie but goodie You Say It's Your Birthday. I love this set and it has become one of those "go to" birthday sets I reach for a WHOLE lot!

I used my fave ever birthday sentiment, cute little penguin with his balloon, and a mini stamp from the set I hadn't ever used before. it's like a thought bubble with a cake in it. I thought it lent itself well to this sketch.

Just a couple minutes to color with Copics and add a few touches of Diamond Stickles.

The patterned paper was from my scraps bin (My Mind's Eye), I matted it in some (retired) "Taken With Teal" SU! cardstock, and a Pumpkin Pie colored card.

The final touches were some gems, and a glittery photo corner. I thought the bling added to the fun feel of this card.

Well, I have to fly, my patient is calling! Hope you are having a lovely week. Be sure and check back on Thursday as I have a really exciting BIG announcement to make! :)

xo, Noelle

.....and then he chose a PINK cast! (CQC#174)

Hi all, hope you are well. Here is the very PINK palette for this week's ColourQ Challenge!

My hubby has surgery scheduled for tomorrow and I am trying hard not to dread the next few weeks :( I am sure it is going to be fine and that it won't be as bad as I'm concerned about, but still NO FUN! Blech. So, blog-wise, this could go one of two ways.... I might be home a LOT and bored because he's sleeping off his pain meds, OR I could be home a lot and he might need a lot of help and the blogging may be slow, so I guess we will wait and see! But medical problems are a part of life, just like the first time Ian broke his arm in 2011. He actually managed to break the SAME ARM twice in 2011, believe it or not! This first time was on Mother's Day (of course, kids!)

Ian thinks it is so funny (and unique) to have pink be his favorite color. My understanding is that one of the older "cool boys" on his tri team said that pink was HIS favorite color and then all the boys Ian's age were saying that pink is their favorite, too. Of course this was a year and a half ago, and he still says pink is his favorite, so maybe it is, who knows?

It's hard for me to scrap with pink sometimes. But I figured this would be a good opportunity to "sneak in" a pink page. ;) When Ian got his cast, the doctor told me that he had been trying to convince every boy he'd casted for 11 years to get a pink cast, and that Ian asked him for one, and he almost fell over! Haha!

I used this sketch (link goes to original source) that I first found on Pinterest (where else?), since I only had the one pic, it was a rare page where I was not trying to cram 17 photos on one page! Ha! You can see I flipped the sketch to accommodate my vertical photo.

For the journaling I printed it out from my computer using a comic book style font. I made the word pink actually pink, and underlined a few words with a pink pen. I die cut the strips with my banner die.

The title block began with an ivory cardstock circle that I dry embossed with a houndstooth folder. Then, I added some Creative Memories brown sticker letters and the only pink sticker letters I could find in my stash! haha, this was a really old pack of American Crafts letters. I die cut and stamped a pink skateboard with my PTI skateboard stamps/die, because that was how he broke his arm! 

The big banners behind the photo were a variety of DSP in the challenge colors. The light pink is MME, the rest are SU! I added his name with some wood-look "thickers" (also American Crafts) on top of the circle right by the photo at the top. Some pink gems were the final touch.

Well, I hope you like my PINK boy page! have a wonderful day & please come p[lay with us at the ColourQ this week!

hugs, Noelle  

You Put the Song in My Heart (TCP Fan Challenge)

Hi all, what a crazy weekend, and I am gearing up for hubby to have surgery this week. Ugh. I am not looking forward to it! I know he will be fine, I just am not looking forward to it.

Last night was nice though, a couple of my girlfriends that weren't able to make it to my birthday party last weekend, took me to a cool spa for a pedicure and then out to dinner. It was a really nice break, and I wanted to make cards for them. I still have one more to go, but this seemed like a fun card for the TCP Fan Challenge #3/banners. Keep in mind that I'm way behind and this challenge was posted over a week ago, I think there's even a new one up now.

I made an all neutral card using only scraps of DP. I cleaned out my scraps bin over the weekend, and holy moly, what a difference that made! I was easily able to find all these neutral scraps in just a few seconds. I'm thinking my organization process might make a great post for Craft Storage Ideas, so I am sitting on it for now.

I brought the banner element in by using the mini banner CutUp from TCP for the decorative strip there. I also used The Tweetest Things stamp set, as well as the coordinating CutUp for that set and the Heart Border CutUp. All the CutUps are right here. The bird was cut from a vintage pattern I picked up for 50 cents at an antiques store, then pinned to keep all his layers together! This is not a very mailman friendly card but it can be hand-delivered, and I love the way it turned out. You know how this girl LOVES color, but I really love an all-neutral card from time to time. There is a real elegance with sticking only to neutrals. The heart element was also repeated several times with the heart rhinestones and the heart pin used on the bird.

Well, that is all for me today! I have a post scheduled tomorrow for ColourQ, but the rest of this week is a question mark depending on how hubby's surgery goes. Big hugs!

xo, Noelle

Yoga One of A Kind

Hi all, just popping in today with some "just because" cards. I wanted to make some cards for my friends, and I had actually bought this stamp because it reminded me of my friend, Mary. Mary and I have been friends since our (now 6th graders) were in kindergarten together. She also teaches the yoga/Pilates class I attend, and she coaches my kids triathlon team. She is a dear friend and someone who has inspired me both in fitness and in life. :) Anyhow, this Kraftin' Kimmie stamp looks a lot like her, but her name is "Mandy," not Mary!  Looks as if they are now out of this stamp in their shop. Which is a bummer, because she is too cute. I actually ended up making two of the stamped images, the pink card I made for Mary, because she is very girly. I am giving the other card to my friend Taryn. I hit up my scraps bin which gave me a lot of little strips for these cards and some more I'm working on. Trying to make a habit of checking that bin before I cut new paper. It's getting out of control,  and I really should go through it.

So, stamped this cute image down (x2) die cut it with a Spellbinders die, colored with Copics and added a bit of diamond stickles to the belt. I die cut a banner (from a scrap, yea!) and used this MFT sentiment.

The rest was all embellishing. The main background papers are Jillibean Soup, and all the rest is scraps. Used up some old paper flowers, too. Gotta love that:)

Well, crafty peeps, I gotta fly, tons of housework to get done!

Big hugs, Noelle

Embossing Folder Storage (new CSI post)

Hey all, I wanted to link you up to Craft Storage Ideas, because I have a new post over there today, it's all about storing embossing folders and my new system. It's part of out "13 in 2013" series, so I hope you can check it out. Have a wonderful day! :)

xo, Noelle

My help comes from the Lord (CQC173)

Hi all! Hope you are having a great beginning to the week so far. I am doing great, I had a wonderful birthday party on Saturday night with many of my favorite girls. It was so nice of my friends to throw this Christmas Baby a birthday party. One of my friends even ordered the prettiest cake I have ever seen, I swear it was prettier (and tastier!) than my wedding cake even. Don't you think, at least about the pretty part? :)

We have an awesome palette going up at ColourQ today! I admit when I saw this, I had a momentary panic, but once I started creating, I was really pleased with how these came together.

I recently started working on a new ministry in my church. I am the new "Caring Team Scribe." I make cards and send them to members who are grieving, hurting, homebound, and also to those who are celebrating a milestone anniversary, a new baby, or a wedding. I've only been at it a couple weeks, but I am really excited about this ministry! So, this week, I am sending cards to 3 homebound church members, and I decided these would be the colors I would use for that.

I had these new kraft envelopes sitting on my tiered organizer (envelopes from Recollections), along with these doilies (Target Dollar Spot). I decided that some layered stamping would be great for this. The flower stamps are Papertrey Ink, and the Bible verse stamp is from Verve, as a side note, I think Verve has the BEST faith based stamps out there, I am going to order a few more since I am doing this ministry now. The cross die and stamp are also Verve.

I cut the square shape out with a Spellbinders die, then stamped with the flower stamps in the Apricot, Kraft, and Blush inks. I stamped the verse in the Dusty Durango color on top of that. Then, I layered up the kraft envelopes, doiilies, and stamped panels. I stamped and die cut the crosses and added them to the top. Then, I dry embossed the large card front panel. I only had enough Blush Blossom card stock left to make 2, so I made one from kraft.

The crosses got embellished with mini paper flowers (old Prima) and some epoxy dots (My Mind's Eye). I am loving on those epoxy dots right now. They are like gems, but not as sparkly. I love that they are a bit flatter too, for mailing. In hindsight, I wish I had added the crosses after embellishing them, since the verse got covered up just a tiny but by the paper flower. Just food for thought if you are working on something similar.

Well, that is all for me today! Hope you can come play with us at the ColourQ this week! :)

xo, Noelle

Red, White, and Jul (JB 13:2, US#104, and RS#47)

Hi all! I am loving on my Studio right now, and it is a mess! But, in all honesty, I don't care. It has felt SO good to reclaim my mojo lately! :) These 2 cards are for the following 3 challenges.... They are BOTH for Jingle Belles Scandinavian Christmas, here's the inspiration photo:

 And the card on the left is for Unscripted Sketches 194, and the "piggyback" challenge for that is to use stickers, here's the sketch:

and the card on the right is for Retrosketches #47, here is the sketch for that one:

Here's my 2 cards again:

I will start with the Unscripted sketches one, and as a side note my Chemistry Valentine from last week made the Top 3 over there! Yea! :)

That really made my day:) Ok, onto this week's card, I find it tough sometimes to make horizontally shaped cards, for some reason I tend to stick with vertical A2 sized cards... so I was glad to see that this one wasn't vertical! I pulled out these cute October Afternoon banners thinking they were stickers for the piggyback challenge, but they actually were just cute die-cuts instead. But the colors were too perfect, so I used them, and stitched the top like the package suggested. I LOVE this collection, and may need to order some of these papers, they are GORGEOUS!

I found a scrap of DP that I used on the bottom for the long banner with the sentiment. That's where my stickers came in, I used these gold letters from Dear Lizzy. For the horizontal element along the bottom of the sketch, my first inclination was to use a border sticker and gems, but none of the gems or borders I had laid just right together, and in the end I decided to stitch another line there and add some pretty buttons to the bottom instead.

The final touch was this wood snowflake that had such a great vintage appeal, I couldn't resist it. In the end, it really made the card, I think. :)

For the second card, I ended up using 5 elements instead of three. With them being these long skinny trees instead of round like the flowers on the sketch, I just felt it needed a bit more to give it a good flow. Generally speaking it's best to add odd numbers of elements like this, which is why I didn't stop at 4.

I used these KI memories Puffies tree stickers for the trees on top of the vertical element on this. I did something a bit out of the ordinary for me on this card, and that is I mixed different reds as well as used both white and cream colors.

For this one, I used the Cricut cartridge " Winter Woodland" to cut out the trees in the background from some Christmas paper scraps in my scrap bin. I used J*lly H*liday for the sentiment. the "J*lly" was stamped in Poppy Parade ink, and the snowflake was stamped in Cherry Cobbler ink.

I thought this embossing folder was very Scandinavian looking, it was one of the free ones I got with my new Big Shot for Christmas. :)

Well, that is all for me today! Hope you are doing great and having an amazing weekend. I am really excited because tonight some of my friends are having a belated birthday party for me! :) I am thrilled, since having a Christmas birthday is awesome, but parties just don't happen that often. So, I was really touched when Mary contacted me and said she would like to set this up. I am a really lucky girl when it comes to friends I have to say.... Just really blessed. :)

Have a fabulous weekend!

Hugs, Noelle