Expect Spring

Well, I don't know about you, but I am ready for spring (okay, to be fair, I was ready for spring before winter even really hit!). I made this card for CPS #208. The verse on the front is hard to read because the font is small. It says, "Expect to have hope rekindled. Expect your prayers to be answered in wondrous ways. The dry seasons do not last. the Spring rain will come again." - Sarah Ban Breathnach. I just love that quote. When I was making this card, I was looking at the peas on the paper and was thinking of going in the direction of the baby card. But then I got to thinking about all the seed packets that I have and can't wait to plant when spring gets here. So I thought that quote was fitting for the pea pods after all!

Supplies Used: Taylored Expressions Faith & Hope, Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety, Making Memories Boho Chic trims
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Christmas Hope

Happy Blizzard Weather! And I'm not talking about the delicious treat from Dairy Queen either. It's a blizzard here in Wisconsin, so I spent my day working on Christmas cards (and not getting very many done either...whoops). Here is a card I made for the caardvarks challenge to make a monochromatic card. This is the last caardvarks challenge. It was one of my favorite challenge blogs, so I am disappointed to see them go, but I'm sure it's a lot of work.

Supplies Used: Patterned Paper (Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather), Cardstock (SU Riding Hood Red), Ribbon (May Arts), Die Cut (Nestabilities Labels One), Rubber Stamps (Unity Snowflakes Fall from Heaven, Taylored Expressions Christmas Blessings)
So what is one of your favorite blogs to visit for challenges? This weekend is the last chance to enter a comment for my blog candy. Stay warm!
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'Tis the Season

For sporadic blogging and Christmas cards! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Mine was good. I was able to be in Michigan with some of the best nieces and nephews there are. I really love living closer to home! After a few days of Jon being their personal jungle gym, we were ready to come home and rest. :) So here is a Christmas card that I made. It's one of my favorites so far.

Supplies Used: Christmas Tree die (Quickutz), Patterned Paper (Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather), Border Punch (EK Success Snowflakes), Rubber Stamps (Taylored Expressions Christmas Blessings)
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My Blood is too Thin

I grew up in Michigan. Lived there my entire life. I attended college in Illinois. I know what cold is. I know about snow. About 5 years ago, my husband and I packed up and moved to Kansas City so he could go to school. I enjoyed the "not so bad" winters...Some ice and snow now and then. I hated driving there when there was snow or ice on the ground though because Kansas City drivers are well...interesting. One day on the way to work, I saw a man half hanging out of his window scraping his windshield WHILE DRIVING. Point proven.
However, something happened when I moved there. My Michigan blood apparently thinned out a bit. Because now we live in Wisconsin and I am COLD! And tonight, it snowed. I maybe, possibly, almost for sure, cried a little bit. Maybe not on the outside, but on the inside for sure. Last night I told Jon that the clouds looked like "snow clouds." Apparently, I haven't lost my knowledge of snow, just the thick blood that is needed to deal with it. HA! So, to "celebrate" the cold, I have two Christmas cards to share. I used the Hip Hop sketch from Unity Stamps -- even though only one card has a Unity stamp. I am actually lacking in Christmas stamps from Unity.

This card uses Cosmo Cricket's Mitten Weather paper, Taylored Expressions stamp, May Arts ribbon, and the snowflake/flower is actually made with a Quickutz Christmas Tree die.

This one also uses Mitten Weather and May Arts ribbon, Unity Stamps, Nestabilities Label One Die, and Sizzix Dots embossing folder.
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Why, Hello There!

(FWF post is the next post down)

I think that fall is here! Either that, or the weather is just toying with me. If it's here, wow it comes early in Wisconsin! It's 57 degrees here. Nice, huh?
I made this card for the CardPatterns sketch #79, and I'm actually getting it submitted on time for a change!

Supplies Used: Jillibean Soup, Unity Stamp Co., Taylored Expressions, SEI buttons, May Arts Ribbon, Fiskars Border Punch, Bazzil thread If you are having fall weather right now too, I hope you are enjoying it!
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Corner Table and Some Corner Bookmarks

Jon and I were given a gift card to a restaurant and last night we decided to go. First of all, this has nothing to do with the bookmarks, so you may skip reading this part if you like. Secondly, you should understand that we eat at places like Cracker Barrel and McDonalds. Places like Applebees and Red Lobster are our fancy birthday/anniversary places. So, off we went to this restaurant. Here is what we experienced:

• They put us in our own little "private" room, right next to the, uh, entertainment. (I use the term "entertainment" loosely.) The entertainment was a keyboard/piano/little magic black box with a guy singing (again, I will use the word "singing" loosely).
  
• The wall paper was green with huge pink flowers. The ceiling was draped in fabric to match. The lamp on the table was leopard print (are you picturing it?! Pretty, huh?).
  
• The food was good
• A little girl wanted to sing, so the guy attempted to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. However, it wasn't on his little magic black box, so... anyway, the girl was cute. Then the guy was inspired to sing a song to her. The Barney Song (I love you, you love me...). Here was where I made my mistake. I asked Jon if we could go any further downhill then this.
  
• Drunk hispanic guy decides he wants to sing with the keyboard guy too. The keyboard guy doesn't speak spanish and can't get the drunk guy to go away. Mostly all I understood was it was his birthday and he wanted to sing.
  
• The food was good -- *ETA: I had roasted chicken, mashed potatoes and carrots. Jon had a half rack of ribs, salad, and a baked potato. For dessert (the best part), was a white chocolate cheesecake. (we wanted to use up the gift card! hehe). Sorry for leaving the most important part out! :)
  

OKAY! So, onto the bookmarks. I made these cute corner bookmarks using the tutorial on Splitcoaststampers. I love how they turned out!

Supplies Used: Patterned Paper (Basic Grey Nook & Pantry), Cardstock, Border Punch (Fiskars Apron Lace), Nestabilites (Labels 4), Ribbon (May Arts), Rubber Stamps (Taylored Expressions Faith & Hope)

Supplies Used: Patterned Paper (Jillibean Soup Old World Cabbage Soup: Caraway Seeds/Diced Tomatoes), Felt Ribbon (May Arts), Cardstock (SU! Very Vanilla), Brad (Making Memories), Border Punch (Fiskars, Threading Water)

P.S. These bookmarks and more are for sale in my ArtFire store!

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Embellish Stitching Challenge

If you follow my blog even a little bit, you know the one I thing I am in love with is stitching! The challenge on the Embellish Magazine blog is to make a card using Light Aqua, Light Pink, and Kraft, and to add stitching. Since I love stitching, I decided to try it.

Supplies Used: Another Sweet Day (Unity Stamp Co.), Faith and Hope (Taylored Expressions), SEI Buttons, Top Note Die, Swiss Dots Embossing Folder, Clear Embossing Powder
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Basic Grey Fabric?!?

I walked into Archivers the other day, "just to look" of course. There sitting on the table with a bright angelic light shining and a chorus of angels singing was something I had never seen before. Something....heavenly. HA! Okay, so the real story is I walked around Archivers forever and when my husband was starting to get impatient, something caught my eye. Basic Grey fabric! How cool is that? It's called Basic Grey Blush by Moda. And I love it. It matches the Sugared collection (and maybe a few others but I didn't recognize them). I watched a tutorial at stampTV for Paper Quilted cards. I decided to try it with my new fabric instead of paper. I love how these turned out!

Supplies Used: Basic Grey Blush fabric, Basic Grey Sugared chipboard, SU Warm Words, SU Word Window Punch

Supplies Used: Basic Grey Blush fabric, Jillibean Soup journaling sprout, May Arts Felt ribbon, Taylored Expressions Faith & Hope, Making Memories and Spare Parts brads

Close-Up of Card

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More "Spring Cleaning" Cards

Okay, I hope you're not too tired of these scrap cards, because here are a few more! These are all really simple and it was nice to use up my scraps and things from my stash. And now I have a good amount of cards ready for mailing on a moment's notice!

 

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Scrappy Cards

Here are some more cards that I made using nothing but scraps! I am feeling inspired to clean out my stuff -- that means spring must be coming right?!

 

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The Last of 'Em!

Here's the last of my Christmas cards. I hope all my blog readers (and blog happen-uponers too!) have a VERY merry Christmas. My favorite Christmas set this year was Christmas Blessings by Taylored Expressions because it said exactly what I wanted it to... remember what Christmas is all about!

Supplies Used: Christmas Blessings (Taylored Expressions), Gina K Kraft CS, Top Note die, Regular and Scalloped Rectangle Nestabilities, Rhinestones, Swiss Dots Cuttlebug folder, American Crafts ribbon

Supplies Used: Holiday Spirit (SU), Christmas Blessings (TE), Mistletoe PP (Making Memories), Apron Lace Border Punch (Fiskars), Gina K kraft CS, American Crafts ribbon

Let me leave you with this -- you HAVE to go to this site. It is so funny. My friend (and paper crafter extraordinaire!) Krista showed it to me and I have been addicted ever since!

http://www.sundog.net/carolofthechins/flash/card.swf

Merry Christmas!
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Christmas Quilt

I loved how this card turned out. I used the Nestabilitie Labels 4 die and on the bottom layer I used the quilted technique. It's very cute in real life! There is also stitching on the bottom layer, that is kind of difficult to see in the picture.

Supplies Used: Christmas Blessings (Taylored Expressions), Labels 4, Mistletoe PP (Making Memories), Winter Wonderland PP (LAD), Rhinestones (Kaisercraft)

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Christmas Quickies!

Okay, I have some quick Christmas cards to share with you. Rather then bore you with post after post of cards, I decided to put all the images here. I didn't use sketches or anything for these (amazing!). I just sat myself down and said "Katy, you're going to make Christmas cards. No playing on the computer!" So here you go, my Christmas quickies!

Supplies Used: Christmas Blessings (Taylored Expressions), Christmas Verses (Our Daily Bread Designs), Jesus Is the Reason (Unity Stamp Co), friendship, love, miracles (Unity Stamp Co.), Holiday Spirit (Stampin' Up!), Mistletoe (Making Memories), ribbon (American Crafts), flowers (Heidi Grace), rhinestones (Kaisercrafts), Apron Lace Border Punch (Fiskars), Swiss Dots (Cuttlebug), Top Note Die (Stampin Up!), Labels 2 (Nestabilites)...and maybe some other stuff that I missed :)

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Christmas Candles

I made some more candles for a few Christmas presents this year. These are just so cute and easy to make (although I made votive candles this time and had a hard time not burning my fingers!) I used the Vintage Borders set from Gina K. Designs, Christmas Verses from Our Daily Bread Designs, and Christmas Blessings from Taylored Expressions. 3 of my favorite Christmas sets this year!

I didn't want to make boxes for the candles, and I remembered that I had some bags left from the old Unity Stamps packaging. How cute are these??

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Liar, Liar!

Remember that I said you would get a short break from Christmas cards. Well, I lied. But not on purpose. I never did get those birthday cards done (thank goodness for a stash, right!). But I did get 2 more cards done for some challenges. The first one is the Etsy-Inspired challenge. I'm really bad at remembering to do this one, but every once in awhile, I'm on the ball! I was inspired by this piece here in the Barefoot Weaver store.
Supplies Used: Tiny Trinity (Unity), Christmas Blessings (TE), Winter Wonderland PP (LAD), Vintage Christmas Flowersoft, Kaisercraft Rhinestones, Threading Water Border Punch (Fiskars)

And this card is for the Card Patterns sketch. I'm not sure that I got it posted on time. I had it done last week and just now had a chance to post it.
Supplies Used: Christmas Verses (ODBD), Kraft CS (Gina K), Mistletoe PP (Making Memores), Threading Water Border Punch (Fiskars), American Crafts ribbon

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A Busy Bee!

IS ME!! I am going to get my Christmas cards done!! Are you tired of seeing Christmas cards EVERYWHERE??? Probably. Don't worry, I need to make some birthday cards today, so you'll get a quick break... This card I made for the Basic Grey Sketch #9 challenge. I had to take off some of the layers on the sketch because it made my card too heavy, but otherwise, I stuck pretty well to the sketch, I think. The Basic Grey is paper from the Archaic collection.

Supplies Used: Christmas Blessings (Taylored Expressions), Archaic PP (Basic Grey), SU DP (retired, name unknown), Close to Cocoa Classic Ink (SU), Ribbon (American Crafts), Rhinestones (Kaisercraft)

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Coloring - UGH!

I have been following the Caardvarks blog for about a year now, and finally decided to participate in a challenge. Why this challenge, I'm not sure. Because if you know me, you know that coloring is not my thing!! But what I liked about this challenge is that you could use "whatever" to color with -- markers, pencils, paper piecing, etc... So, I'm hoping that this qualifies for the challenge - I used Flower Soft (love this stuff) and markers to color my Christmas topiary! What do you think?

Supplies Used: Christmas Vintage Flower Soft, Winter Wonderland PP (LAD), Christmas Blessings (Taylored Expressions), Simple Life (Unity Stamp Co.)

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It's Simple...Just Like the Old Days

That's what my husband said about my card...and when I added buttons he said "Nooooooooooooo, take them off" so I did. I don't think he's felt so strongly about a card before. LOL
This card is for the Taylored Expressions sketch #92

Supplies Used: Christmas Blessings (Taylored Expressions), Autumn Splendor PP (Making Memories), Pixie Dust and Mello Yello Shimmerz, Jute twine
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