More Moxie Fab

Pretty colors always inspires me. I love the soft look of the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger but decided to use colors that were a little stronger. Had this little bird leftover from previous challenge and thought it looked a little like the crocheted throw in the photo. I also used my new edge punch from EK Success for the bottom of my tag which also echoed the squares in the photo. I love playing the Tuesday Trigger. Why don't you give it a try?

The Ocean

Today I get to share a fun project with you. My friend, Jenn Shurkus, sent a message out to her friends that she wanted to do "a post a day" for July and wanted some of us to help. If you don't know Jenn, you need to discover her work. It is all so fabulous! She needs a little cheering up because life is happening right now for her, so I am happy to lend a hand. Jenn loves anything that has to do with the ocean and water and beaches and she asked that we make a project using that theme. I have been making "purses" out of the clear boxes for the last few weeks and thought I could make a fun ocean theme purse. So I went out on a hunt for a great paper I could use for the inside of my purse. Found this one called Surf's Up by Zoe Peam. Including shells is a must for any beach themed item and I got out my MS punch for the border on the bottom. Added some pearls and of course, there is no question that I needed some flip flops on my project. Jenn just LOVES flip flops. I think of her every time I see them. K&Company had a great sea shell dimensional sticker for the top. My purse is the perfect size to put homemade cards or anything else that is smaller than 5 3/4 x 4 1/4. I love giving them to my friends for their birthdays. Don't forget to head on over to Jenn's blog all month for some inspiring ideas created by her and her friends.

Jenn's friend Christy's mom was just diagnosed with stomach and lung cancer.. its in-operable... and not a good situation...

I have decided that I am going to offer up my creation to the *highest* "bidder" and will donate that money to Christy's mom. So if you would like to bid on my item go here and make an offer. I will ship out my purse to the winner as soon as the auction is closed.

Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger 8

There are lots of interesting shapes, edges and colors in this week's Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger. When I see these triggers, I usually am pretty literal in the translation into a card. So this week's trigger made me giddy. My daughter is picking out pillows for her new couch and the shapes and colors have made my mind dance. Guess that is why I had a good time making this card. Just took scraps of my recent projects, which closely matched the patterns of the different fabrics, found a sketch that would help my recent loss of mojo and my card came together. Why not head on over to the Moxie Fab blog and give this trigger a try?

Day late Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger

Kept thinking about last week's Tuesday Trigger but I didn't get a chance to put it on paper until today. I just love the colors of all those spools of thread. Guess those thoughts intermingled with the upcoming hot air balloon festival that will be here in town in a few weeks and this is what happened. I took my new hot air balloons stamp from Impression Obsession, Inc (thanks, Glenda) and made some fun balloons. Cut them out from different colored paper and then cut out just the balloon part and popped it up. Then I put Stickles on parts of each balloon. Turned out to be a fun, sparkly card. Hopefully I will get this week's trigger finished much quicker. Check out last week's cards if you get a chance. You won't be disappointed.

Moxie Fab Trigger 7

This week's Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger was a little outside my comfort zone. I love the white vase with pink flowers and the white headboard. Beautiful! The blue and white background, not so much. I tried to mimic that background with my Stampin' Up! Toile Blossoms set. White ribbon with a white paper background made a nifty headboard. Used my silver sticker paper for the center of my "starburst" and put my flowers in the center. Liked the card but it didn't look finished to me so I pulled out my sparkly zigzag sticker strip and just went with it. Seemed a little busy for my usual taste but I liked it. It is good to step out of the box sometimes. I'd love to see what you do with this week's trigger so stop by the Moxie Fab World blog and give it a try.

Moxie Fab Trigger 6

As soon as I saw the photo for this week's trigger, I thought of a Monarch butterfly. They are so beautiful and they have one of my favorite colors, orange. I wish I was a better photographer. The top of my butterfly is a lovely orange/red and the bottom is orange. Looks just like the butterflies flying outside my windows in the Summer. To achieve this look, I used my new Twinkling H2O's. (Thanks to my friend Jenn, for sending them to me.) Took me a while to get just the right colors but I got there. A question I always ask myself is, when is "one more thing", one thing too many? I decided to make this card CAS. Didn't color in the dogwood stamp from Stampin' Up on purpose. Just wanted the butterfly to speak for itself. I have been missing my daughter a lot lately so made this card for her and used the miss you stamp from A Muse Artstamps. I glittered up the sentiment a bit but it is hard to tell from my photo. The divine swirl embossing folder from Cuttlebug made the perfect swirly background fitting for a butterfly flitting from blossom to blossom.

Hope you are enjoying the long weekend. Stop by the Moxie Fab World blog and give this week's trigger a try.

Go, Jill. Go!

How many times does a card actually turn out the way you have it in your head? For me, it isn't often. There always seems to be one element that doesn't cooperate. Usually it ends up being a good thing but this card I made for Jill turned out exactly the way I wanted it to. I remember reading the book Go, Dog. Go! to my daughter, Kelly, when she was a toddler. Thought the cover would be a perfect card for my friend, Jill. She is busy these days being brilliant and I wanted her to know that I am rooting for her.

Making the card turned out to be a little more of a challenge than I thought it would be. First I had to find the retired Crusin' stamp from A Muse. To my rescue came my friend Pamela. I put a shout out over facebook and she offered to send me her stamp. Thank you Pamela! When I received the stamp, I realized the car was heading the wrong direction. I stamped it on acetate so I could flip it over after I cut it out. Couldn't get the black outline just right on the acetate so I stamped the car on vellum and cut that out. Much better on the black outline and now how am I going to get that yummy yellow color? Stamped another car on white paper and colored the back, layered them all together and finally got the car I wanted. Used die cuts for all the letters and some of the new A Muse Studio daisy ribbon for the smoke coming out the back of the car. The ribbon I had was blue so I used my Copic markers to color it brown.

Keep up the good work, Jill. You are almost at the end of your journey.

Moxie Fab Trigger 5

You probably noticed what interested me in this week's Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger, the colors. It is really nice to use colors that I normally don't use together. Gives me a kick in the pants to do something different. The first thing I grabbed from my stash was the time flies chipboard sticker from Little Yellow Bicycle. Just bought that set and am looking to use them whenever I can. The stamp is from A Muse. I picked the Marigold stamp because I thought I could use my Copic markers to make a pretty blue flower. The polka dots I used are really washi tape from A Muse Studio. You really must check out their new line. It is to die for. After I got my card put together I thought it needed a little more so I set up the I'm sorry I missed your birthday on my computer and printed it right on the card. Normally I would put Stickles or something sparkly on my flower but the time flies sticker has a little sparkle and I thought that was enough.

Why not hop on over to Moxie Fab and play this week? It's fun! Stay tuned to my blog. I have another card that turned out just as I imagined it would, and we all know how rare that is.

Pity Party

There are so many reasons this card is perfect for my friend, Jill. You see, she is working hard on her thesis and taking a statistics class all at the same time. Instead of creating beautiful cards in her spare time, she doesn't have any spare time. That's where I come in. She sent a shout out to some of her stamping friends to help her with her blog while she finishes her school projects. Of course, I said yes. Her challenge to us was to make a Graduation, Encouragement or Pity Party card. Graduation, Encouragement cards, got that. But a Pity Party card? What in the world is that? So, that is the card I chose.

Actually once I got started, it seemed quite easy. Think about Jill, what is she feeling sorry for herself about? That darn statistics class. All those numbers swirling around in her head. Must be making her crazy! So out came my brand new dominoes Cuttlebug folder. Plenty of numbers on that. Will make a good background. What else should I do? How about using the Submarine stamp? She loves submarines. The reason I bought it was because of her. I know! I can make the background a swirl of numbers and she can be floating around in them. Just used the direct to paper shading method and the background was finished. Used Doodlebug sugared paper for the waves. Good. Now what to use for the sentiment? "Woe is me" was running around in my head the whole time I was thinking of what to do but there isn't a stamp that I know of that says "Woe is me". So, I made my own. Soon she will make it to the surface in her submarine and be able to claim success over her new degree. Hang in there, Jill. To the victor goes the spoils.

Trigger 4

The stripes and shape of this week's Moxie Fab Tuesday trigger is what inspired me to make this card. I thought the shape reminded me of a tulip. How in the world am I going to make a striped tulip? Haven't paper pieced in a while so that is what I chose to do. It was quite a challenge to find a piece of paper that I liked. The stamp I used came from The Stamp Shoppe in Wausau, WI. Heidi, the owner, helped me and found the perfect tulip stamp. In fact, she is the one who created the image. She makes a lot of cute images. Check it out here. I'm not very confident when mixing patterns but I gave it a try on this card. Enjoy!

Three Elements

Glenda has an interesting challenge up this week. Her challenge is to use three elements on your card. At first I thought she was totally crazy. Well, maybe just a little crazy, but as I worked on my card I discovered you don't need a lot of "stuff" to make a nice card. I used some leftover flowers from a previous challenge, a rectangular frame I didn't use and a Little Yellow Bicycle chipboard sticker I bought recently. Add a few Stickles to the flowers for sparkle and this is what you get. I hope the Stickles didn't bump it up to 4 elements. Why don't you give it a try? You can find her blog here. Looks like it will be her last challenge for a while so this is your last chance to play till Fall.

Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger 3

What's this? Another post? I knew you were thinking that. I just can't get enough of the Moxie Fab Tuesday Triggers. I love polka dots! I tried several different cards for this challenge. You might see some of the cast offs in the future but this card seemed to fit the photograph just right. Love that flower power stamp from A Muse Artstamps. It made my polka dot flower fun. I love fun! So go on over to this weeks trigger, it is actually going on for 2 weeks so you will have extra time to give the challenge a try.

Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger 2

Crepe Bouquet. What beautiful photograph. I never make one layer cards and wanted to give it a try for this Tuesday Trigger. Just picked out some of my favorite floral stamps, the ink colors I thought closely matched the colors in the photo and stamped. Think I made 8 different combinations until I came up with this one. This photo doesn't give my card justice but it is the best I can do on a busy Easter morning. Thank you for looking.

Challenges

I have been wanting to play Glenda's challenge for months and just haven't been able to find the time. So this week, I got going on it early. Then I forgot to post it. Ha ha. Had a few minutes to spare today and I thought I would get going and get 'r done. (hi Lori). So, Glenda's challenge has to do with Earth Day. I made this earthy card using scraps of paper and a couple new stamps. Kept it simple. Our Earth likes it when you keep things simple. The tree stamp is from Memory Box, the sentiment is from A Muse Artstamps and the little kitty is from Poppy Stamps. I cut the tree/kitty out with the Dahlia Nestabilities. I always say, my favorite Nestabilites are the ones I am using today. Love them all! Hope everyone has a Happy Easter tomorrow. Stay tuned for another Moxie Fab Challenge post.

Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger

Can you tell it's my first time playing the Moxie Fab Tuesday Trigger? Have heard a lot about it and thought it might be time to give it a try. I am so glad I did because last weeks trigger had a lot of bright colors. Don't use them too much when making my cards but the best way to get out of a funk is to try something new. Had a real good time putting this card together. First thing that came to my mind was the Martha Stewart downloadable doilies. The framed mirror just reminded me of the red doily and I printed it out on some sticker paper I had leftover from another project. The real challenge for me was to find some brightly colored ink pads. The brand new ones I got from Impress seemed to fit the bill perfectly. Add to that a couple stamps from A Muse Artstamps and you have a color filled card good for any occasion.

It was great fun to play and if you want to play you still have time. Porch Play is found here.

Mr Harley Kitten Shurkus' Birthday

Happy 3rd Birthday, Mr. Harley! My friend, Jenn's kitty has a birthday today. Making him a birthday card was so much fun. You see, Mr Harley and his mommy live on an island. So my card today has him on an island surrounded by sunshine. He makes everyone that visits his mommy's blog feel happy and warm. His mommy is a very talented stamper and if she doesn't have a post about her kitty, you can see her works of art. She is genius I tell you. Such a beautiful woman inside and out. Hop on over to her blog and wish Mr. Harley a happy birthday and you will see what I mean.

Glenda's 100th challenge part 2

Have you played along with Glenda's 100th challenge yet? She is giving away blog candy! Get on over there and play! Here are the rules, Glenda's Random Amusing Challenge #100 is to use red on your card or project. Use as much or as little as you like. Incorporate it by using paper, ink, ribbon, embellishments, whatever you like! You must play along with the challenge to be eligible to win the blog candy. If you play along, please leave a comment on Glenda's blog (http://papersscissorsrocks.blogspot.com) and link back to her post from your post. If you upload to an online gallery, please use the keyword GRAC100. You have until midnight Pacific Time on January 23rd to play along and you can play along as many times as you like. The winner will be randomly chosen and announced on January 24th.

Check out my last post for a list of bloggers playing along. You won't be sorry!

Glenda's 100th challenge

Today's the day! Glenda is posting her 100th challenge. Seems like just yesterday when she started doing challenges over on her blog. You are going to want to participate in this weeks challenge because it includes blog candy. Glenda's Random Amusing Challenge #100 is to use red on your card or project. Use as much or as little as you like. Incorporate it by using paper, ink, ribbon, embellishments, whatever you like! You must play along with the challenge to be eligible to win the blog candy. If you play along, please leave a comment on Glenda's blog (http://papersscissorsrocks.blogspot.com) and link back to her post from your post. If you upload to an online gallery, please use the keyword GRAC100. You have until midnight Pacific Time on January 23rd to play along and you can play along as many times as you like. The winner will be randomly chosen and announced on January 24th.

There are lots of her friends that are playing along and offering you inspiration. Check out these blogs and see what I mean. Have fun!

Allison Fillo http://stampinwhenican.blogspot.com/
Allison Miles http://allistamps.blogspot.com/
Beate Johns http://beate.blogs.splitcoaststampers.com/
Belinda Chang Langner http://cadnileb.blogspot.com
Carly Robertson http://carlyrobertson.typepad.com/
Cheiron Brandon http://www.cheironbrandon.typepad.com/
Chris Sather http://cattsscratchingpost.blogspot.com/
Donna Hitz http://www.frozenstamper.blogspot.com/
Elena Shacochis http://thestampingshac.blogspot.com/
Geeta Suggs http://www.craftyengineer.typepad.com/
Jenn Shurkus http://jennshurkus.typepad.com/creative_chick/
Jennie Moczan http://www.simplycaffeinated.typepad.com/
Jill Grace (& family) http://creativegrace.typepad.com/
Joan Jeffery http://www.j-jcreations.blogspot.com/
June Gibbons http://perfectlikeacurl.blogspot.com/
Kamila Younkman http://littlescrapsofheaven.typepad.com/
Krystie Lee Hersch http://www.cupcakemartini.com/
Meghan Fahey http://driventoink.com/
Michelle Clark http://www.sparkledesigns.typepad.com/
Michelle Mathey http://msmathey.blogspot.com/
Michelle Woerner http://stopandstamptheroses.blogspot.com
Nance Lempinen-Leedy http://nanceleedy.blogspot.com/
Sherry Czarnecki http://littlestampsbiglife.blogspot.com/
Silke Ledlow http://silkeledlow.blogspot.com/
Teresa Kline http://www.enjoythevasunshine.blogspot.com

Tags!

I know the holidays are over but I am finally getting around to posting photos of the tags I made with my friend Renate. The tag with the 3 trees is one I made when I got together with my Twin Cities friends. So many tags, so little time. Always love making them and using them on my gifts.

I have a very special post coming up on Monday. Make sure to check back then. You won't be disappointed.

New Year, New Direction

Happy New Year, everyone! Hope you all had a nice holiday season. The new year will bring a new direction for me. As some of you have heard, A Muse Artstamps has shut down their wholesale division and canceled contracts for their creative team instructors. Yes, that means I will no longer be teaching classes at the Stamp Shoppe here in Wausau and at Creations Galore in Green Bay. It sure has been fun to meet all of the ladies that attended my classes. I will miss you all! Some of you have been with me from class number one back in 2008. I want to thank all my students, old and new, for coming and making my days as a teacher fun. For now, I plan on continuing to create cards and tags and whatever strikes my fancy and post them here on my blog. I had good intentions of posting my holiday tags this year but didn't get it done. Maybe I will put a photo up in the next week or so and let you see what I made.

Just wanted to mention a little about the card I posted today. I was wondering if I should buy the snowladen stamp from A Muse. Talked with my friend, Heather, and she said I NEEDED it! She mentioned that she stamped the image in black and then outlined just the top of the branches with green and added stickles for a little sparkle. So, I ordered the stamp and when it arrived I stamped her tree idea and let it sit on my table for weeks. Yesterday, I had a little time, so I took that image and made this card. It is hard to photograph sparklyness but I did my best. I added the tiny cranberry pearls to the tree and some colorful layers and put it on slate A Muse cardstock. Seemed to need something else so I stamped stars and swirls from Great Impressions with versamark and embossed with Ranger red embossing tinsel. Guess this will make a great holiday card for next year. You can never start making those too early!