Paper Smooches SPARKS - cool shades challenge

Good Morning!!

I hope everyone is enjoying their long weekend.

It's time for week 3 of the Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge,

 and therefore the Cool Shades portion of the month!

Where we have a colour challenge to inspire us.

 This month's colours are bright and happy!!

Aren't they yummy!!

Reminds me of Spring. :)

My neighbours little boy turned 5 this month, 

so I decided to make a birthday card for him. 

I thought the little alien from Little Fella

would be a great place to start.

 I then decided to create my own patterned papers to go with him.

I used stars from the Circle of Honour, Smarty Pants, My Guy and Hang Ups sets. The bubbles are from the Sugar Rush, Swanky Snowdudes, and Surf & Turf sets.

Please head on over to the Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge blog

to check out all of the details and for more inspiration from Savannah and the rest of the DT.

Hop on over to 

Glenda

Lori

Heather

blogs to leave them some love!

 

You have until May 27th to play along!

Don't forget the winner gets a PS Pro button for their blog and a $30 store credit. How awesome is that!!

 

I can't wait to see what you come up with.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Have a great day!

RetroSketch #12

Yaaaaaay it's the weekend!

And a long one at that!!

Since it's Saturday, I have a wonderful new RetroSketch to share with you.

This one is based on an absolutely AMAZING card that Arielle created.

You can see it in all it's glory here.

Isn't it FABULOUS!! Love that jean paper, and the cut out! AWESOME!!

As soon as I laid eyes on her card I went over to DHD to purchase that fabulous patterned paper. :)

Here is this week's sketch.

 Yummy!!

My card was made using patterned paper by My Mind's Eye, called fly a kite. 

I love that paper pack, it is so bright and colourful.

The sentiment is a stamp from PTI's set called Movers and Shakers Sentiments. It is actually one stamp that I cut into the different sections so I could easily stamp each line.

I used to have such anxiety cutting up my clear stamps, but know that I have done it a million times it doesn't bother me anymore!!

The DT's cards this week are fantastic!! Please head on over to the RetroSketches blog to check out Arielle, Jackie and Laurie's wonderful cards.

Then get into your craft room or area or whatever and whip something up to play along. :)

I can't wait to see what beautiful things you create. 

Thanks so very much for stopping by.

I hope you have a wonderful long weekend!

ColourQ #137

Good Morning!!

I hope that everyone had a wonderful weekend.

The weather here was apparently unbelievable!! 

Unfortunately I spent in all indoors at work. 

I'm just waiting for the May long weekend to be over, because we ALWAYS get one more dump of snow that weekend. 

Then summer will start. :)

Well back to the task at hand, 

I have another ColourQ colour challenge to share with you.

Such gorgeous colours.

I know I say that all the time, but it's true!!

I finally received my PTI order in the mail, and was itching to use both the trendy trees and beautiful butterflies sets.

The only thing I am hesitant on is that butterfly.

 I feel like it's too big, or too busy or something.

Well, it is what it is. :)

I do hope that you will take the quick trip over to the ColourQ blog to check out the wonderful things the DT has to share with you. 

You have until Sunday May 20th to link up your wonderful creation.

I look forward to seeing them!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

my mother's garden

Hello!

Happy Mother's Day to all you mom's out there!

I am going to try my best not to be too sappy for this post, 

but I wanted to share a few things with you.

To give a little back story, I am probably one of the most shy people you will meet! And while trying to prepare for my Mom's funeral 

I was completely freaking out 

because I am a TERRIBLE public speaker, 

yet I felt compelled to say something. 

As you may or may not know, my Mom was a SERIOUS crafter 

(and possibly a bit of a hoarder!!) 

so I had tons of her things at her house to go through. 

The night before her funeral, I was playing with the dog and she knocked over a pile of books. One of them popped open, 

and I found the most perfect poem.

My Mother Kept A Garden
My Mother kept a garden,
a garden of the heart,
She planted all the good things
that gave my life it's start.
She turned me to the sunshine
and encouraged me to dream,
Fostering and nurturing
the seeds of self-esteem...
And when the winds and rain came,
she protected me enough-
But not too much because she knew
I'd need to stand up strong and tough.
Her constant good example
always taught me right from wrong-
Markers for my pathway
that will last a lifetime long.
I am my Mother's garden.
I am her legacy-
And I hope today she feels the love
reflected back from me
Author Unknown   

I managed to make my way through this poem, 

with my then boyfriend now husband standing behind me. 

I know she would be proud that I overcame my fear for one day, 

a day to honour her.

My Mom did love her flowers and so I went on to get a garden of her favourite flowers tattooed on my arm, with I am my mother's garden written in Latin amongst them.

To lighten things up a bit, I have the card I made for my MIL and some silly pics of my mom.

I used Paper Smooches "pretty momma" and "chit chat" sets.

I also used Robyn Meierotto's quilting bee digi papers that can be found at Design House Digital.

Thanks for stopping by!

Here's some silly pics of my Mom. :)

(she would kill me for sharing these!!)

These are both from my last Christmas with her.

Love you Mom!!

RetroSketches #11

Good Morning!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful week.

Mine was a tad crazy, but it's over now. 

Whoopie!!

Let's get on to why you are here!!

It's time for another RetroSketches sketch.

This week our sketch is brought to you by our fabulous guest designer

Tracey!

Her gorgeous original card can be found here.

So adorable right??

Well here is my take on it!

Isn't she cute?? I know, I know, the mean things I do to my dog!!

This is my beautiful Stella modeling my new glasses. 

I think she looks much better in them than I do. :)

She is definitely not impressed.

At Jackie's suggestion I am going to add this to the Moxie Fab World's Spectacular Spectacle challenge.

Please head on over to the RetroSketches blog to check out what the Arielle, Jackie and Laurie have created to share with you.

I do hope you will play along.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

thoughts of you

Hello!

It's mid-week. Yaaay!!

I have a easy little card that I made to let a friend of mine know I am thinking about her. 

I used Paper Smooches set "word up" for the sentiment, PTI's new "background basics: postmarks" set, and the MFT "flat bottomed cloud die", that I ran through a Cuttlebug embossing folder to add a bit of texture.

Simple, but gets the point across I think! :)

Thanks so much for stopping by!

 

Happy Tuesday!

This weeks' ColourQ colours are so summery.

Such a pretty scarf hey?

To make the "hi", I die cut some scrap paper with the PTI block alphabet dies, temporarily adhered them to cardstock. I then stamped over them with the largest circle from Beautiful Blooms 2.

I think I may use a heavier paper next time because the ink bled a little.

I think a more crisp line would look better!!

Head on over to the ColourQ blog to check out all of the AMAZING creations from the DT. Then I hope you will be inspired to play along!

Thanks so much for stopping by.

 

Whoo! Hoo! A Paper Smooches Sparks Challenge

Good Morning!!

And what a fabulous morning it is! 
(it is for me, I hope it is for you too!)

Today I am celebrating my first Paper Smooches Sparks challenge!!

They have changed everything up over at the Sparks challenge blog. 

First off, there are challenges now EVERY WEEK! How awesome is that?

And every week there is a new themed challenge.

Week 1 - trend watch

Week 2 -  designer drafts

Week 3 - cool shades

Week 4 - picture perfect

The DT was split into 2 groups, each group taking alternating challenge weeks.

I am in Group 1, therefore I will be sharing creations with you

 for the trend watch and cool shades challenges. 

Along with Heather, Glenda & Lori.

Jackie, Kimberly, Angeline & Erica will be showcasing creations for the other two challenges.

So fun!

We start things off with a Trend Watch challenge!

This week's trend is "the sky is the limit"

  

Now I chose to take this fairly literally!! 

Feel free to be inspired by this week's trend in ANY way!!

I used Paper Smooches "sunny side up" set for the kite, clouds and sentiment. (Which I cut up to place the words where I wanted!)

I used Kim's cloud card template for the card itself, and one of the free digital stamps that Kim offers up on the Paper Smooches blog, for the sun.

Please head on over to the Paper Smooches blog for more info and then to the rest of the ladies' blogs to see their AMAZING samples.

Glenda

Lori

Heather

You have until May 13th to play along. :)
I can't wait to see what you guys come up with!

spectacular spectacles #2

Hello!

I hope that you are having a wonderful weekend!

I have another entry for the Moxie Fab Spectacular Spectacles challenge to share with you.

This time, I was inspired by one of the photos Cathy had in her post for the challenge.

(I'm sure you will know which one when you see it!)

I used Paper Smooches "alphadot" to create the sentiment, some old silhouette cut out hearts I had lying around and some glasses I printed and cut out from Jen Allyson's "silly disguise stickers" digital set.

I just realized as I'm typing this that I forgot to put in the apostrophe after the I in I've. Whoops!! You'll just have to pretend it's there!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I hope you have a wonderful Sunday. :)

RetroSketch #10

Good Morning to you!!

Thank goodness it's Saturday.

I have a fabulous RetroSketches sketch for you to feast your eyes upon.

Now isn't it fabulous? 

This one is courtesy of our own Laurie Willison, and if you want to see fabulous, check out her original card here.

I decided to sort of flip the sketch around both in layout 

and where I placed my patterned paper.

I also only placed the ribbon around the front panel instead of the whole front of the card. Honestly, it was mostly because I didn't have any large beautiful yellow ribbon!!

The honeycomb embossing was done using the same Spellbinders folder I used here. The tag is from PTI's tiny tags, and the patterned paper is CTMH.

Please head over to the RetroSketches blog to check out Arielle, Jackie and Laurie's gorgeous sample for you this week.

Then come play along. You have until midnight Thursday May 10th.

Can't wait to see what you create!

Thanks so much for stopping by. :)