Tuesday

Fairies and Roses for Tuesday Trigger!

Moxie Fab World posted a great Tuesday Trigger challenge today.  The challenge is all about pleasing the pallette.  My take on the challenge brought about thoughts of fairies and roses.  So I pulled out a stamp set I really have never used before and it's a couple of years old!  So here's the result and a photo of the Tuesday Trigger inspiration for my creation. 

PS- 9 days and counting until my 3 weeks off!  I can't wait!  My hubby already knows I'm going to be a card-making fool during that time :)

Thanks for looking!
Shelly

Sunday

Fourth of July and Some Challenges

After a fun-filled and busy weekend, I decided to try my hand at a few 4th of July cards.  I found a couple challenges to take part in, and thought I would post my creations for everyone to see.  The first is a shabby country card, the second is a simple card made with a new liberty bell stamp I bought with some other stamps, and the last one is more of a modern day card with a touch of felt and some buttons.  I will be sending emails of all three cards to the CARDS Blog.  I am submitting the first (flag) card for the Cupcake Inspirations Challenge.  The last card I made is for the Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge (I included a copy of the current sketch as well).  The photos are compliments of my hubby.  I put him to work while I grilled some wieners for dinner.  Our family room has a patriotic theme, so he hiked on downstairs and posed the cards with some of our stuff in the background.

Thanks for looking!

Shelly

Saturday

Happy Weekend...Hope it is CHAIRFUL!

I made this card for a StampTV challenge a few weeks back and thought I'd share it here.  We finally have nice weather in my neck of the woods and things have been quite CHAIRFUL around here.  I spent Friday with my hubby running errands and today we did a bit more of that then he washed the cars and I cleaned the house.  Tomorrow is car show day and I'll be taking some of my stamping magazines with me to scope out new ideas.  I got pretty badly sunburned at the last car show we went to a few weekends back, so I'm ahead of the game and already packed the sunscreen!  Today I actually got a bit pink on my neck and tops of legs as I waited in the car for my hubby to pick up some car parts at the auto parts store.  The top was down on the car (my convertible New Beetle) and I guess he got busy chatting (happens all the time...I should've known!) and it just happened. 

Anyway, I'm counting down the days until I'm on vacation, although it's gone from 4 weeks down to three as I've been asked to work another week...oh well, 3 is better than nothing!















Thanks for looking!
Shelly

Thursday

Two in One Day...WOW!

I've just been a busy body since I got home today!  I think I'm gearing up for my month-long vacation coming up in a couple weeks. Anyway, here's a card I made for the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger Challenge.  The challenge was to use the photo of the striped pillow as an inspiration for a card or paper project.  I put on my thinking cap and made this snazzy invitation I'm giving out for a summer party coming up at the end of the month.  The striped pillow reminds me of a beach blanket I used to use when I would take my children to the lake  (I think it was actually a horse blanket) or a cushion from outdoor furniture.  I think I did a pretty good job!  Leave a comment and tell me what you think.

Thanks for looking!
Shelly

A Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge

It's so much fun finding new challenges on the net, but my problem is that I'm getting so many cards, I don't know what to do with them!  I've decided I will try to sell some, I will donate others to a womens homeless shelter, and I usually keep one or two from each season/holiday and put them in a nice box for a holiday gift exchange at work.  We do a white elephant gift exchange/game and my box of cards typically gets rave reviews and passes through a few sets of hands before finding a final resting place.  I had the gal that got them last year come to me a week or so ago and tell me how much fun she'd been having giving them out to friends and coworkers.  Hmmm, I hope I never get one of my own back, I guess I never though of that :0)

Okay, now on to my Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge.  Here's a photo of both my card and the inspiration sketch.  I also used this card for a color challenge over at StampTV.

Thanks for looking!
Shelly

Sunday

Another BasicGrey Challenge

So, like I said earlier, I've been a busy little bee putting together some challenge cards today.  I just went on a quick cruise with the hubby in his Mustang and now it's dinner-making time, but I thought I'd get this one out there before I forget.  After dinner, it's homework (yep, taking some computer classes), then some TV and off to bed for an early day at work tomorrow.
Here's a card I did for the color challenge over at BasicGrey Challenge:

Thanks for looking!
Shelly

Is This Summer?

I question the weather because we've had so much rain and cool weather lately, so to have two 80 degree days in a row, I'm a bit surprised and suspicious of what tomorrow may bring.  I'm down to 3 weeks and counting until I get a whole month off!  In the meantime, tomorrow my staff and I will begin packing 2 classrooms to get ready for a big move over summer to another elementary school.  It will be nice to have a Head Start presence in another school like my other site...I can't wait!  I'm excited to start new collaborations with the school district and because I'm fairly new in my job (only 2 months into it!), next school year will be my chance to shine for my new staff. 

As far as summer goes, I've never had that much time in the summer off, so I have big plans for the hubby and myself to get some much-needed chores done like hanging gutters and changing out 5 interior doors with new ones.  We've had the materials for these projects for a couple years now and I'm tired of looking at them in the garage.  I also plan on painting one of the bathroom's vanity from stained oak to cream with the installation of some beadboard inset on the cabinet doors...kinda shabby chic-ish.  I'll have to post some pics when it's all done.

Okay, now for some fun...I was looking through all the blogs I visit and found some new challenges, so it being my birthday today, I decided to do absolutely nothing but "play" in my craft room (luckily the hubby was in agreement, otherwise it wouldn't have been as fun!).  The  card I did was for a challenge over at  Cupcake Inspirations.  There is also another challenge that inspired this card.  It is the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge over at The Sweetest Thing.


Thanks for looking!
Shelly

Saturday

Wanna Go On a Play Date?

Just go to the Play Date Cafe and see the beautiful cards people have entered in the latest Play Date Cafe Challenge.  The latest challenge is to use the colors raspberry, aqua, craft and white.  For my card, I also incorporated a skecth challenge from over at Stamp TV.  This was a fun challenge because I just love raspberry and aqua together!  Here's a photo of my finished project along with a picture of the Play Date Cafe color swatch and the Stamp TV sketch.

Thanks for looking!
Shelly

Thursday

Bicycles and Fabric Tape...OH MY!

I'm not sure if I mentioned it on here yet, but a short time back, I won a random drawing at LoveMyTapes and received 2 rolls of fabric tape and 2 rolls of double-stick tape, which couldn't have come at a better time 'cause I was nearly out and this stuff works GREAT!  So, I thought I would make a couple projects using my new fabric tape AND incorporate them maybe in another challenge or two.

For my first project, I did the Moxie Fab World: I Want to Ride My Bicycle challenge. 
The colors got a bit washed out as sometimes they do with digital cameras.  Anyway, the blue felt flower actually matches the background blue card quite nicely to the naked eye.  I added some fun rick-rack to the edge of the fabric tape for added texture.

Watch for more projects coming soon and thanks for looking!
Shelly

Wednesday

Another Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger!

It's almost time for me to "chillax" as my classrooms at work will be done for summer after tomorrow (of course I still work through this month, then off for the month of July...I can't wait!).  Anyway, the Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger: Time to Chillax challenge is all about summer time and relaxing with some yummy popsicles, or really anything cool!  For the challenge, I figured I would use the cute little "gifts" I made for my staff that I will distribute tomorrow after our end-of-year picnic with families.  I made about 30 of these...all different, to give out to both my full-time and part-time staff! 

So, without further ado, here's my creation followed by the Tuesday Trigger photo inspiration:



Thanks for looking!
Shelly

Friday

Spring Flowers Challenge::: I HAVE A WINNER!

THERESA-
PLEASE SEND ME YOUR MAILING INFORMATION AT ALNSHEL@MSN.COM SO I CAN GET THIS PRIZE PACKAGE OUT TO YOU!


Okay, so I only have a few followers, but I have decided to host my very first card challenge and even give away a little prize package that contains two new single stamps from Creative Clear Stamps, two small rolls of ribbon, a mini scrapbook kit with paper, stickers, embellishments and ribbon, and a mix of felt flowers. 

Here's the challenge: I have included in this post a few photos of some beautiful Lupine flowers growing in my front yard.  Your job is to make a card using the colors from the photos as your inspiration.  You'll need to become a follower (if not one already) and post a comment to this post along with a link to your blog highlighting your project.  If you mention my blog name in your post on your blog, you'll get an extra entry.  Do all this before midnight PST on Friday June 11th.  I will choose a winner on Saturday.

I will post MY card a bit later this evening.  I'm hoping to start a weekly color challenge for fun and a monthly challenge with prizes.


Here's my card:

Thanks for looking and playing along!
Shelly

Wednesday

More Moxie!

My new-found friend is Moxie Fab World.  There's lots of great ideas AND lots of fun challenges to take part in.  Here's one that pushed my creativity a bit, it's the Fun with Fabric challenge.  I don't use a whole lot of fabric in my creations other than ribbon, so I really wanted to try something new and here's what I came up with.  I used a lavendar tulle circle and bunched it up a bit.  Then heated it with my heat gun and it began to melt before my eyes!  I liked the flowery look of it, so found some green sheer ribbon and proceeded with the same heating process to make some leaves. 
Here's the finished card:


Thanks for looking!
Shelly

Wedded Bliss!

Every day I feel I'm in wedded bliss because of my loving husband.  He treats me good and constantly shows his love and affection towards me.  For Moxie Fab World's Tuesday Trigger Challenge: Bring on the Brides!, I made this card inspired by the theme and colors of the photo.
Here's the photo:

...and here's my card:



Thanks for looking!
Shelly