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.