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DH and I just completed a week long motorcycle trip (4 states in 7 days) which is a little shorter than our trip last year (10 states in 10 days) but still just as much fun.  I am a little behind in posting but I will hopefully catch up a little this week.  In the meantime, here's a few pictures to show you some of our trip experiences of the last week.  I took over 1300 pictures and videos and those were just the "keepers", I deleted a lot for one reason or another. 

Sympathy Card

I think I have just about the best son-in-law in the world and his sweet Mom died very unexpectedly and very suddenly last week.  I did a card for him (forgot to take a picture of it) but totally struggled with what kind of card to do for his Dad, who lost his wife one month after their 50th anniversary.  I ended up doing this card and it just happened to be the colors for the weekly challenge at Rene's blog.
I have a tremendous problem with bows so a present from my sister of Becca's Bow Maker was appreciated and will be used a lot!!

Card Recipe:
Patterned Paper (from my sister's stash so I don't know the maker); Ribbon using Becca's Bow Maker ( http://www.amazingpapergrace.com/today-is-kind-of-special/ ); Pearls by Recollections; Bias Binding; SU paper used for the card base and mats; Sentiment by My Favorite Things; Nestabilities;
Momento Tuxedo Black

Weekly Color Challenge

This is my entry into Rockin' Rene's color challenge  at http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/2012/04/creative-color-challenge-04-09-12.html  using Basic Grey, Melon Mambo and Old Olive. The flowers are done using the Cricut Flower Shoppe, the swirl is a die from My Favorite Things as is the sentiment and the border punch is by Stampin' Up. After taking this picture I added two more flowers.

Revised Milk Cartons

I added belly bands and a little rabbit on the milk cartons I did for my sisters for Easter. The bellyband is trimmed with a Stampin Up border punch, the bunny rabbits were cut a few years ago from a package of cookies I was given and the sentiments are old stickers by Susan Branch. I love her designs and her blog and have requested that ProvoCraft look into doing a cartridge with her art. Don't know if they'll ever listen to me but I can hope!

Rockin Rene's color challenge

This is my color challenge entry for http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/2012/04/creative-color-challenge-04-02-12-and.html? and I think I kinda like it. All the elements on the front of the card are from the Life is a Beach cartridge. This week's colors are ruby red (bottoom of the boat), baja breeze (the waves) and so saffron (the sails). I inked the edges of all the cuts and used a signo gel pen on the saying.

These were done for my youngest grandson to give to his pre-k classmates and teachers. The gable box is done with TBBM2 and the sentiment is a dollar stamp I got a few years ago. The pillow boxes..well, I cheated on those. I have a pillowbox cut file and a pillowbox on at least one other cartridge but when I went to WM the other day, they had this purple pillowbox kit on markdown for $5.00 for 50 of them. And they were made out of a thick vellum so I knew they would be perfect for this project. The embellie in the middle of the pillow box was done using Enjoy the Seasons Imagine cartridge at 2" and then I ran them through the Xyron. So far they are holding well. I handwrote the "from Brayden". I probably should have let Brayden write his name on the teacher's gable boxes and may redo the stamp on those so that he can. I'm not sure he can write small enough but I probably should try it

These milk cartons were also done with TBBM2 and the felt flowers were from the bridal aisle at Michael's. They already had a foam pop dot on them so I just stuck those on some little, tiny clothes pins that I found at a local party store. I think they need something more...like a bellyband or something...so I may add those later today if I can decide what to do!

Weekly color challenge

The weekly color challenge at http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/2012/03/creative-color-challenge-03-26-12.html  was to use Blushing Bride, Perfect Plum and Sahara Sand. Here's my card and it was something I absolutely did not intend. I was going to do another flower card when I remembered this cut file that my sisters and I did cards with a few years ago. The cut file was by Susan Edwards (what a talent!) http://spartansusscraper...r-easter-of-course.html (I couldn't find the link for the cut file) but I added the twist of putting a brad on the top part of the egg to make it "open". My sister had this stamp set we used before that had a cute little bunny and the saying "you crack me up" that I don't have, so I had to make do with some dollar stamps I had. I ordinarily would not have used grey for the sentiment on the inside but it did make it stand out a little (and there wasn't any Sahara Sand in the pattern paper!).

 

Edit:  This card was one of the weekly challenge winners!!  http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/2012/04/creative-color-challenge-04-02-12-and.html?

Rockin' Rene's Color challenge

This week's challenge at http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/2012/03/creative-color-challenge-03-19-12.html is to use Stampin' Up colors Regal Rose, Early Expresso and Daffodil Delight.

I've been seeing some cards on splitcoaststampers.com that don't have ribbon or stitching or a lot of embellishments, just a few mats and some flowers. I thought I'd give it a try and this is what I came up with. The vase is from Walk in My Garden and I put versamark on an old Stampin Up stamp that looks like cheesecloth and stamped it on top to give it a textured look. The flowers are from Cake Basics and Storybook. The sentiment is also a SU stamp

 

Edit:  This card was one of the challenge winners!!!  http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/2012/03/creative-color-challenge-03-26-12.html

Rockin' Rene's Color Challenge Winner

Yeah! I was one of the two weekly winners of the color challenge sponsored at http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/2012/03/creative-color-challenge-03-19-12.html for my Pow-Wow cards, so I get to have a winning challenge button!! This makes me so happy!! Thanks, Rene and I look forward to entering further challenges on your blog!

Rockin' Rene's Color Challenge

Here is my entry into the color challenge posted at http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/2012/03/creative-color-challenge-03-12-12.html
I couldn't believe it when My Favorite Things Stamps (LOVE their stamps!!) came out with this little Indian girl set because my sisters and I will be going to our annual Pow Wow soon and I couldn't WAIT to get my hands on this stamp to do a card for them! We haven't been since our Mom passed away 4 years ago so we are looking forward to being able to go this year.
Here's my card (I did one for each sister). I used Real Red (my absolute favorite red cardtock!) for the card base, for the zigzag on the tipi and background for the "banner" on the taller card, and Real Red marker for the headbands and stripes on the dress. I didn't have crumb cake so I used a cardstock that was somewhat lighter than a Kraft color and shaded it with SU ink to give it a weathered look for the tipi and used it to paper piece the dress. I also didn't have bashful blue SU paper, so I used this wonderful cloud paper called Sky by Creative Imaginations (have been finding myself gravitating toward their papers lately) because it looked very close to the bashful blue. I colored the little girl with Prismacolor pencils on SU whisper white paper. The tipi and fire were both from Create a Critter, probably one of my favorite cartridges. The grass is from Plantin Schoolbook. Now to decide which card to send to which sister! (and I have GOT to work on a lightbox!!)

Edit:  This card was one of the weekly challenge winners!!  http://icameisawicreated.blogspot.com/2012/03/creative-color-challenge-03-19-12.html