The ice is gone!

Ainsleigh went back to school on Thursday, so it is almost normal around here now. I got some cute pics of her and the dog playing in the ice/snow in the back yard. They had a great time. Dingo is a snow dog at heart. She jumped up in the air and caught snow balls in her mouth! I managed to finish up a few crafts. I made this card for a general swap. I used my new copics to color and tried a new technique of paper piecing patterned paper into the stamped image. Pretty cool. Thanks, Sheri! The love birds card was for a Valentines/Love themed swap. I tried another new technique on this one. I embossed acetate on the cuttlebug, sanded it, then went over it with pink chalk. I really like the look and will probably try it more often. Ok, I'm off to bed!

Ice Ice Baby

Ok, I am iced in the house. I can't go anywhere. I can't even get my car up the driveway and into the garage. School was cancelled today and possibly tomorrow. I will try to get caught up on some things, but that never works out like it should. I was given a blog award by Sheri at http://twitterpatedwithpaper.blogspot.com and I am supposed to pass it on to 8 other great bloggers of my choice, so here it goes.

This blog invests and believes in the PROXIMITY - nearness in space, time and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.

http://thepinkstamper.blogspot.com
http://7milesup2nothing.blogspot.com
http://purplefaeriepc.blogspot.com
http://mystampinscrapin.blogspot.com
http://firenzecards.blogspot.com
http://imagdesigns.blogspot.com
http://sharonsfamilylife.blogspot.com
http://debiscardnmore.blogspot.com

Ok, I changed it up a bit.

Thank you so much for the suggestions. This is what I have so far and I'm not messing with it for a while.

I'm going to work some other things and then go back to it and see if I want to change it up a little more.
I have a decent camera, I don't know why the colors look so off. I went to Jo Ann yesterday and they had a lot of their trim on sale for 50% off, so I grabbed some pom poms, some ric rac, and some lace. I found the adhesive backed hearts at Hobby Lobby and used one for the cherry on the cupcake and put a couple of doilies behind it. The pink skittles on the cupcake were dyed with alcohol ink. I used some of my new shimmer it paint on the love to give it a shiny pink color.

Help me with this layout!

I am working on layouts for a design team casting. I would love to be on a design team. I have entered several contests on this site and I never win, so I am asking for some help. The theme for this round is Valentine's Day. The colors look a little off in the photo. The paper is all Core'dinations cardstock. I also used several cricut cartridges- doodlecharms, wild card, storybook, zooballoo, and cuttin up. I used snow tex that I found in the Christmas section to make the icing on the cupcake. I spread it on and then let it dry for about 2 hours and then painted it with Tim Holtz crackle paint in pink to make it look like icing. I think it actually worked out like I wanted it to. So, let me know what you think. The chocolate brown squares will have photos on them and the label shape next to the cupcake is for journaling. Here is a close up of the cupcake. What do you like? What do you not like? Does it need anything? Let me know.

More cards

I decided to get a head start on the some of the cards I need for my Cuttlebug card exchange group. Here are a few I came up with for some of our upcoming card exchanges. This is the same owl card I made down below, but I made it a little more girly. I used this one for our get in shape swap where we had to make a card in any shape other than a rectangle. The tree is the matching envelope that Wild Card cuts to go along with the owl card. I cheated a little on this one- not much cuttlebug, just the little border at the top to be the owl's tiara.

This next card is my favorite. I'm not sure which exchange I'm going to use if for or if I can even part with it. I just love it! The tree is from Wild Card and the little birds are from Home Decor. I have no idea what to use this card for, I just wanted to make it because I thought it would turn out cute.

This next card is one I am using for the fun with ink swap where we needed to use ink with our Cuttlebug folders. I inked the large houndstooth folder as well as the smaller folder with a brayer, put the paper in, and ran it through the Cuttlebug. I think it worked really well with the houndstooth folder and made the pattern stand out a little more. As you can see, I've made several cards with birds on them. There are so many cute bird items around right now, I decided to have a For the Birds swap to see what everyone could come up with. I thougth it would be fun to use the birds from Joys of the Season and make a few non Christmas cards with them. For this one, I used the 2 Turtle Doves to make a valentine's themed card. You would never know the birds came from a Chrismas cartridge, they work perfectly for Valentine's Day. I also used the partridge in a pear tree for another card. I cut the pear off the end, so I guess it's just a partridge in a tree. I used the coredinations chocolate box cardstock for the background of this card. The paper is chocolate brown, but when you sand the embossing, the light blue core shows through. Well, this is officially becoming my longest post ever, so I will finish up with one last card. This is the one I am using for the Valentine's Day swap. It features the chandelier from Home Decor. I think I will put something cheesy on the inside like You light up my life Valentine. I mounted the chandelier on a label nestabilitie die and sanded the embossing to make it stand out. The paper and ribbon are from Close to My Heart. I messed up when I cut the card base, so it opens from the side.

Just Rite Stamps

I finally got some just rite stamps and have had a lot of fun playing around with them. I got the Christmas set on Christmas eve, so I haven't made many Christmas things with it, but there was one stamp I thought I might be able to use for something else. So, I took the eat lots of chocolate stamp and used it for a Valentines card. All of the borders were too Christmasy, so I left it off and used the embossing from the nestabilitie as the border instead. When you sand the embossing, the white core really makes it more noticeable.

The next set I wanted to play with was the ovals. I got the birthday set and thought the stamp with the candles would be perfect on a card with lots of candles. Where would I find a card like that? I looked through the Wild Card manual and thought the Hanukkah card would probably work. Here is what I came up with. What do you think? Can it pass as a birthday card?The next card I made was just a fun card. I used a Stamping Bella image and colored her in with colored pencils and a little mineral spirits. I found some houndstooth ribbon that works perfectly with the houndstooth cuttlebug folder. I think I will add some of my coffee card scents to this one.