Volleyball tournament

Hey y'all.... we are in Louisville, KY at a 500 team volleyball tournment, Junior Volleyball Directors Association, national championship games. Sissy's team is not doing very well! :( I'll be back soon!

Stickles ICE cream scoop

Here's a cute image (case-D) but drawn my moi! of an ice cream sundae... cute! I'm almost liking it better than a cup cake! Can you believe that! You can add dimension to the soda glass.... I did use stickles to make some of the icecream shine. Thought it was a nice layout with the pinks, the polka dot ribbon, and the placement of the punched sentiment.

What I learned from Zindorf

Okay, one of the things I want to learn this summer break, is how to figure out linking and set up the blog a bit better, for my own sake. I know I have a lot of lurkers out there (Hi Dad) and others who check out what I'm doing, but don't comment. It's easy, I think, just hit the comment line and follow the directions. Any whoo... A few months ago, I saw Michelle Zindorf's work, and fell in love with her card making techniques. Then found out on her blog, she actually has tutorials where you can make her cards. So, on this entry, you will find three attempts.
What Ms. Zindorf does, is lots of ink layering, the use of embossing powders, and masking of images. For instance, with the trees... they were inked first, then embossing powder was heated over them.... then I smooshed and rubbed and circled ink into a mask that was shaped as rolling hills. Then I made a little sun, from a circle punched into a 'post it' note.... smooshed the yellow tones around. Added a few embossed dots... then used the corner of my sponge and created unique background of triangular color rainbows. I'm just in awe. I've done a few other tutorials from her... the vases with a single flower, and the beach scene with flip flops. This is so cool, what you can do with layers of ink and a few masks!!!

EDIT: Sorry for so many typos before, yikes, I'm so excited to write and type that I'm not proof reading!!!

Left over Margarita

So, what's a frugal cardmaker to do with the left over paint swatch from the really awesome new color for the kids bathroom? Use the swatch and make it into a Margarita card!!! $1 stamp from M's. The other neato paper is from a thank you card I received, I cut off a piece and cuttlebugged that and wal-LA... a totally cool card! Here's to you!!

Outside the box

Okay, here's a different type of card for me. But I really like it. Got a bit of the swirl action going... some mutted colors with the flowers, a few layers, then a matching flower petal. Haven't figured out a sentiment yet, but it would be the perfect card, for anything.

Baroque

Checking out the blogs and the galleries and I see a lot with the baroque motif. Is that with swirls and flowers, a bit old fashioned looking? This is a nice and simple card, not much whimsy, but strong and bold.

Family Pics

We recently had some pictures taken. Here's one with our new digital camera, we all look so well rested!

Purse-onally your the best!

I believe I cased this off of Twisted Chick Creations, where she said this is a new design from Gina K. Every lady could always go for a new purse!!! I love how the nestabilities add such a great accent to the background. (the scalloped circle) I'm not sure my white gel pen is leaving enough ink behind, but I'm going to keep using it until it's dead. I love the colors of lime green and teal together. Did you notice a theme with these colors and the colors of the kid's bathroom! And of course a margarita!!!

Wake up people!

I've accomplished a few things already on my Summer to-do list! Last week bubba helped me clean the front porch siding of the house. It's amazing how much dirt gets blown in with the rain. This week, I (along with Sissy's help) painted the kids bathroom a cool lime green.... named Margarita!!! I-yi-yi!!!! It's really awesome though. We needed to add a little color to our lives!! You can see our ducky pictures have the same bright colors, so we are looking for a little more teal to help create the accent color. This room had more stuff to paint around, than wall space! This will wake them up in the morning!!

Cute baby elephant

Although my baby cards aren't flying off the shelf... I had to make this quaint 'little' elephant card. I think it's alot of work paper piecing and matching the strip size. I'm not one for patience when it comes to intricate detail. What's hard is that my large Making Memories paper cutter has difficulting cutting strips less than one inch in width... so to make them straight, yikes!! Hopefully, someday... I'll have someone to send this card to... or some perfect known stranger will fall in love and want to buy the card for some great mom to be!

I'm having a great week, what about you? I painted a bathroom (pics) to come. One of the 3 bathrooms I have to paint over the summer break. The weather has been PERFECT, warm in the 70's but not humid! Just enough activities around the house that we aren't going nuts! Hope you are having a
Happy Day!

Critter Fun

Here are a few recent cards... working on that animial theme. I haven't made a 'sorry late' birthday card... so here is my first one in a while, at leaset. I used the nesties for the scallop surrounding the cute little turtle. Hard to tell, but it's a mix of paper designs, just leftovers. I also used my paisley cuttlebug folder on a lightly stripped paper... thought it turned out cute. Hi friend! This card is a complete case.... I thought the circle bear was so cute! And finally the adorable hedge hog. This was a third attempt at drawing him, my images tend to get big, so I had now I cut the paper and try to draw smaller to fit. The flowers have seed beeds in the center. I'm making a lot of cards with no sentiments inside, I don't know what to say!!

Weekend at the Dells

We went on a short adventure to Wisconsin Dells! It took us almost 1 hour longer to get there than normal. Well, there is no normal because we never went to the Dells before driving from Illinois! We went a few times while we lived in Wisconsin, and as a kid for me, it was almost a yearly destination! Don't know if you've heard, but Lake Delton, part of the Dells, broke through it's manmade walls and emptied itself into the Wisconsin River, and there was flooding and other issues in central Wisconsin. We had a beautiful few days helping my parents celebrate their 50th Wedding Anniversary. Here's a picture of 9 of the 10 of us (I'm number 10) riding the famous Wisconsin Dells Ducks!

Wedding Shower/Wedding Wishes

Here's a sample of 7 cards for a wedding/shower. You can see the pictures a bit more close up if you click on to the individual card as the slide show goes around. In a white font it says what is inside each card. The post is for someone ordering cards, but anyone else can feel free to roam around my blog! I'm back from a mini vacation...howdy!

Check out my Slide Show!

On vacation!

Be back soon!

What's mew?

Based off the Whipper Snapper kitty cats (which means, I totalled case-d someone elses card, but drew the cats free hand on my own) here is a cute card... seems all week is animal themed. I'm still trying to work on shading, realizing the light comes from above... so it would be lighter on top with more shadow below, under a chin, on the bottom side of a tail etc...mostly using my water color pencils. I've been too lazy to pull out my new blender pens, I'm sure they would help create a better mutted color. Used a new cuttlebug background folder, stripes. Fiber always adds a fun touch. And if you haven't... you can always click on the picture and get an up close view to see some of the coloring a bit better.

Summer Vacation

Yay! I didn't want to spoil it yesterday, but it was my first official day of summer vacation. School is out for the summer! And I'm ready! I've got things to do on my 'to do' list. I'm going to relax and forgot about the kids... well the ones at school, not my own... and then I'm going to freak out!! when I have to think about what I can, want to do next fall.... since I was bottom of the totum poll, they did not have a position to hire me back! But who wants sad news, this is all positive!! A little bella of sorts, my version with a gift of flowers with little seed bead centers. I had got this swirls background a while back from Target of all places, not a $1... but felt it would be a nice addition for those light and airy backgrounds.

If you shoul feel you ever want to be counted for.... I believe anyone can leave a comment and let me know you were here... if you click on the comment line it should take you to another link.... you may have to post your email for varification.... but you want to be heard!!! Don't you... or drop me a line at prdesigns1@sbcglobal.net!

Happy 2nd day of summer vacation for me!

Monkey See, Monkey Do

Cute little monkey! I can't recall at the moment whose he is. Monkeys and owls seem popular once again in the animal kingdom of cute card making!!
All cards have hand drawn reproductions of the cute monkey...The 'hey there' card has a swiss dot embossing background. The 'for you' card I tried to smoosh ink around him and the vine. The flowers he is holding has a little dab of shinny stickles in the center. And finally, inspired by Markie's Mom's blog which every single, and I mean every card she makes has little dots surrounding each layer... one card I counted at least 13 layers, yikes and each layer had dots! So I just added dots around my what? 3 layers on the happy birthday card. I have one more monkey card with the cutie pie behind a palm tree, but I haven't completed it yet. More to come!

Grad cards

You might have to turn your head, or your computer screen to see these cards the 'right' way. I really like this layout, you are able to incorporate the school colors and then add the personal touch of their name. I'm using $1 stamp with the motorboard.

Engagement!

Upon request, I made a nice engagement card. At first I was going to make a silly one, but then I was inpired when Papertry Ink sent me an email and I thought how lovely the light blue and brown combo of their logo is, and the cursive text with the regular block text....so the card changed and became a sincere one. (sorry, I thought the picture was better than it is) Also recently, I saw someone experiementing with their cuttlebug embossing folders too, and they got this nice effect of having a clean space in the middle, with two different folder images flanking the ends,(you might have to click on the picture to get a better view, because you can't really see the paisley embossing on top, and Swiss dots on the bottom) and the bow just adds a bit more elegance. Text is computer generated before I cuttlebugged it!

End of the year gifts

Just a few end of the year teacher appreciation gifts... I kept with the America theme Using return address labels, I stamped stars and stripes and put them on Hershey black chocolate nuggets. For DD's main two teachers, I found the buckets in the $1 spot at Target, added a few ribbons to the handle and included a card that DD wrote a thank you, decorated nuggets with the address label, Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos and a gift card to Starbucks.... for two teachers I work with, I recycled raspberry containers and made a small card with a sentiment tag covering the label I couldn't quite eliminate. Added fiber to dress up the gift a bit!

Snoopy is in da house

Any Snoopy and Woodstock fans out there? Charley's mom made a request for a teacher gift and wanted some special cards. The teacher is a big Snoopy fan, so I case'd Charles M. Shultz....yikes! I hope I don't get into trouble....I love the card where Snoopy is laughing and his ears are flailing out with his snout up in the air. I picked 10 colorful card stocks for the base of the cards. Each one is stamped with the same image, with matching ink to the card. Then, I drew Snoopy but just colored Woodstock yellow, which is the only 'color' in most cases. Each image is framed with black cardstock and strategically placed on the card front. This was a challenge because if the teacher is a Snoopy fan, I wanted my image to look as close as possible... but I don't want my name to go on some FBI list for copywriting. So please, just admire... but don't tell anybody you know me!!! And that I'm a copy-er! This was a fun job to do!

Check out my Slide Show!