Oh, Hello!

Hiya!!  Ever have a day where things seem to keep going wrong?!  One thing after another happens backwards, or the news you 'keep' receiving is less than stellar or your coffee gets cold while you manage to burn your eggs, or the peanut M & M bag really is empty?!!!    Today is feeling that way to me and it isn't even noon yet! LOL  What is a girl to do?  A good friend  (Hiya Carole!) reminded me of the value of loud music and shaking my groove thaaaang around the room and that seems to have helped tremendously! LOL  Bad mood...be gone....poooof! :)  I do have some eye candy to share with you today also a picture of one of my amazing kiddos!

I had a very difficult time getting a picture of this card because every single time I sat it up the wind blew and knocked it down! Notice the poor bent edge of the card!  Poor card!  

So, I laid it flat and took another picture! :)

I had such a good time making this card!  I used the large stamp from Creative Elements to make a background.  Then I softened all of the edges with a blender pen.  Sentiment is from Oh, Hello and the flowers are from the Flower Blossom punch.

 The flutterbyes are also from the Creative Elements  stamps set.  I faux stitched the panel in place and added sparkly bodies.

I frayed the edges of the flowers to make it look fuller.

What do you think?!

Details: 

Stamps: Creative Elements and Oh, Hello!

Paper: Summer Starfruit, Very Vanilla, Pretty in Pink

Ink: Pretty in Pink, Summer Starfruit, and Tempting Turqouise

Punches and Dies: Flower Blossom punch, Itty Bitty punch pack, 1 3/8" Circle punch

Extras: Essentials piercing pack, piercing tool and Rhinestones

Fun card!

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I also wanted to share a picture of one of my amazing kiddos with you!  My youngest is a gymnast and is quite talented!  Here is a picture of her doing her over splits.  Yes, her legs are made of rubber!  :)  

I am a proud mama! :)

Ok, my work here is done!  Off to crank out the rest of my day!  Have a great day! I will be back soonest with more to share!

Thinking of You!

Hey there! Middle of the week and I am thinking of you!!  I made you a card to let you know!!  I kept it sweet and simple, but it is still full of love and it is just for you!!  Here is your card:

I love the color combo!  I managed to sneak three pinks in there plus a brown!

The flowers are made using the Secret Garden stamp set and coordinating framelits.  I stamped them in Summer Starfruit ink. The sentiment is from the You are Loved stamp set.  

This card just kind of came together!  Those are may favorite ones! :)  So, now you know.....I am thinking about you!  Big hug!

I thought I would include a couple of photos that I took yesterday!  We had ice and sleet and yuck falling from the sky.  These trees are in our front yard.  Not sure if you can see from the pictures, but they are covered in ice!! 

We wound up having to go out in this mess last night, but I must say the trees were absolutely gorgeous!!  They were all ice covered and almost glowing!!  It was like Nature's version of Dazzling Details! LOL

Ok, I am off to be productive!  Hope that you have a wonderful day!  I will be back soonest with more to share!

  

Happy birthday Shiloh!

Hello!  Quick post today!  My to do list is longer than I am tall!  LOL  Are you an animal person?!  I am!!  I LOVE animals!  Especially dogs and cats and gorillas...oh and cows and monkeys and...guess you get the idea!  Today is my mom's dog's birthday!  I thought it would be cute if she got her own card and maybe a fancy little box of bones!  So, here is the card I whipped up for her:

Punch art paw made from an oval and little circles and a punch art bone made from the Modern Label punch and more circles!

It is a circle card because Shiloh is kind of a round puppy!  I folded my base in half and ran it through the Big Shot leaving the edge off so it would be connected.

Pink bow because Shiloh is a girl-y girl and of course pink sprinkles!

Here is a picture of my beautiful mom and the puppy in question:

Happy birthday Shiloh! :)

Off to tackle that To Do list!  Have a  wonderful day!

ABC Sketch Challenge!

Good Monday morning!  Hope you had a good weekend.  I had a great one!  As usual though, it went by way too fast.  So I say let's get the new week rolling and see what sort of mischief we can get into! :)  Today is a brand new ABC Challenge day!  Wooo Hoooo!!  The challenge over there is a sketch challenge and I just LOVE those!! Take a look at this great sketch:

So many possibilities with this one!!  Here is the card I made:

I stuck pretty closely to the basic sketch layout, but I did add a few elements!

Little bit of stamping, a little bit of sewing and a little bit of punching!  I thought it had kind of a steampunk /gears kind of feel to it when I finished!  

Lots of fun stuff going on here! I was a little concerned about trying to mesh all the different bold patterns, but decided they worked together nicely.  

Details:

Stamps: Lacy and Lovely and Tiny Tags

Paper: Marina Mist, Soft Suede, Whisper White and Cafe Comfort DSP

Ink: Marina Mist and Basic Black

Punches and Dies: 3/4" Circle punch, 1" Circle punch, 1 1/4" Circle punch, 2 1/2" Circle punch and Large Butterfly punch

Extras: Essentials piercing pack, Mini Silver Brads, White Gel pen and piercing pack

Fun, fun sketch challenge!!  Are you ready to play along?!  Head on over to ABC Challenges to get all of the details and then get to crafting!  Cannot wait to see what you come up with! Also, you can now follow ABC Challenges on Pinterest here and on Facebook here!!  

Have a wonderful day!  I will be back soonest with more to share!

Christmas card Sunday #8

Hello!  Time for another Christmas card Sunday!  Today's card took a little bit of effort, because it is a beautiful 60 degrees outside! I had to pretend that the snow was falling and that it was cooooold out! LOL  Here is what I came up with for this week:

I made a poinsettia card!  Can you guess what I used to make the poinsettias?  I used the Blossoms Petals Builder punch and circle punches for the centers!!

I colored mini pearls yellow and added those to the center too!

Background is embossed using the Lacy Brocade EF.   That folder just feels like Christmas to me! Petals all decorated with Dazzling Details.

Details:

Stamps: Joyous Celebration (retired)

Paper: Cherry Cobbler, Whisper White, Garden Green and So Saffron

Ink: Cherry Cobbler and Garden Green

Punches and dies: Blossom Petals Builder punch, 1" Square punch, Postage Punch, Lacy Brocade

Extras: Pearls, Dazzling Details and Dimensionals

Have you been playing along with me? Not too late to start! Still lots of time to make a stack of beautiful Christmas cards! :)

I hope that you enjoy the rest of your weekend! :)

Sunflowers for you!

Hello!  I have a sunny, fun flower-y card to share with you today!  I used punches and embossing folders and Big Shot dies....oh my! LOL  Quick, simple card for a friend!  Take a look:

Three different punches make up the flowers.  I faux stitched around the Top Note Die and circle.

Popped everything up on dimensionals!

The flower stems are from the stamps set Madison Avenue and I got it free, free, free (!!!!)

for placing a $50.00 order during Sale-A-Bration (which is still going on!)!  If you want more info click here and let the shopping begin! :)

Close up of the flower!  It is made from scalloped circle punches!  I punched them, cut them and then layered them!

Details: 

Stamps: Madison Avenue and Elements of Style

Paper: So Saffron, Soft Suede and Very Vanilla

Ink: Gumball Green

Punches and Dies: Scallop Circle Punch, 1  1/4" Circle Punch and 7/8" Circle Punch, Top Note Die, Polka Dot EF and Honeycomb EF

Extras: Pearls, White Gel Pens and Dimensionals

Hope you are having a wonderful Saturday! Big inky hugs for you and you and you and  yo...

Butterflies and Roses Bag-a-lope!

   Hello and happy Friday to you! :)  I have one of my all time favorite projects to share with you today. This was one of the very first things I learned to make when I started stamping 6 years ago!!  Wow! I cannot believe that I have been stamping that long!  I still love, love, love it!  This is called a Bag-A-Lope and it is the neatest thing!!  Just take a look at this fun thing:

It is an envelope turned gift bag!!  The super cool thing about this project is that you can turn any envelope into a gift bag like this!

Side view.

I   2-step stamped these flowers and the leaves.  Then I added some Dazzling Details.  I wish that stuff came in bucket sized containers!  I really love it and would so buy it in bulk!!  It just adds that little something something to your projects!

I inked up the butterfly from the Creative Elements stamp set and then ran a Gumball Green marker around the edges of the stamp to add a second color to the butterfly. Pretty!

I  used an envelope that was 5 3/4"  X  8  3/4" for this bag.  First thing I did was to seal the envelope.  I scored it at 1  1/4"  from the right, left and bottom edges and then cut off the top using a scalloped punch. I stamped it while it was still flat and then added the flowers and butterfly.  Then I opened the end and stuck my hand inside to poof it out into a bag shape. I turned the ends into diagonal shaped  corners and adhered them to the bottom of the bag using glue dots.

Details:

Stamps: Creative Elements and Stippled Blossoms

Paper: Whisper White and Very Vanilla

Ink: Certainly Celery, Always Artichoke, Garden Green, Gumball Green and Primrose Petals

Punches and Dies: Large Butterfly punch and Scalloped Lace Border punch (retired)

Extras: Dazzling Details, Stitched Primrose Petals ribbon, Dimensionals and an Envelope

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We woke up to an inch of sleet and snow this morning!  I must admit that it is pretty!  Looks like the whole world has been whipped cream covered!  Yummm-o!!!

Hope that you have a great Friday!  I will be back soonest with more to share! Until then.......bring on the weekend! :)

Missing you...really, really, much...a lot!

Dear Mom,

   I am missing you!!!

Love Always,
AnnMarie

P.S. Watch your mailbox!  This is on its way to you!

Have a great day!

Flower wreath!

Hello there!!  My goodness this week is just flying by! I have a fun project  (Aren't they all!?  I feel like I say that a lot, but I truly love what I do!!)  to share with you today!  This was inspired by the very talented Patty Bennett.  I changed it up a little bit, but her idea is what got me all excited about this!! 

I must admit that this was a time consuming project!  Not something that I could just whip up in 20 minutes!  It was fun though!  Lots of flowers had to be punched out and then matched up and then I pulled apart the layers of all of them to make it look fuller.

I added a few leaves here and there and a few butterflies!  

Everything is hot glued in place.  Lots of happy Spring colors!

I used chip board for the base ring and ribbon for the hanger.  It was fun putting it together!

It is a great project for a lazy Sunday afternoon!

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Onto other things!!

I also wanted to share a couple photos of one of my kiddos!  I have four kids and my universe revolves around them! They are all such amazing people and I am so, so, so proud of them all!  Our youngest son is a volunteer firefighter, is getting ready to start college, is an avid star gazer (he was outside last night in the frigid temps with his telescope gazing at the moon!) and he loves soccer!  These photos are from his last soccer game.  This is an indoor sport and it is a super fast paced game!  

Here he is (in black) doing a rainbow kick (with style)!

Kicking the ball in.

Going for the ball.

He is #77 and this was right before he scored a goooooooal!!!!! :)

We are a big soccer family!  All of our kids have played, hubby and I have both coached and we all love to watch it! :)

I am off to tackle my to do list!

Have a wonderful day!  I will be back soonest with more to share!