A featured publication... 42

Hi there dear blogging friends! I love to travel but it's always nice to return home and sleep in one's own bed. I can't wait to pick up my furry babies from the pet resort early Thursday morning! I hope they don't think I abandoned them, they are quite spoiled and my little Gretchen is rarely more than 4 feet from me. She is definitely my shadow where Griffin is a little more independent and spends many hours upside down, sleeping on the couch :)

I've always said, having the opportunity to be published is like winning the paper crafting lottery! I am quite honored to share with you a collection of cards that I had featured in the awesome Simply Cards & Papercraft Magazine Issue 101. If you are not familiar with Simply Cards & Papercraft Magazine, it is a magazine brought to us from Practical Publishing located in the UK and is full of fabulous inspiration from designers around the world. I recently discovered that my local Jo-Ann Fabric & Craft store carries not only Simply Cards & Papercraft Magazine but many other publications offered by Practical Publishing.

The focus of this feature was Chevrons. I combined a variety of MFT stamps, Die-namics and pretty patterned paper from the Pink Paislee London Market Collection to make this suite of 8 cards.

Thanks so much for visiting! I hope you have a great day/evening!
Be Sweet ;)

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July WMS Blog Waltz 78

***I have two posts today, if you are looking for my CR84FN post, please click HERE***

Welcome to the Waltzingmouse Stamps July Release waltz! Many thanks for the sweet comments over the past 3 days :) Today, all four of the following sets: Heroines - Fairy Princess, My Island, North Shore and Playful Pinwheels are now available for purchase in the Waltzingmouse Stamps on line store. You should have arrived from Belinda's blog, if not you can head on over to Claire's blog where the celebration began and for complete details.

Today, we are all focusing on the fun Playful Pinwheels stamp set, which includes LOTS of fun pinwheels and sentiments to play with!

To create the pinwheel, I did a wee bit of paper piecing which was super duper easy! I first stamped the larger pinwheel outline image twice then filled in the larger polka dot and solid pieces with the coordinating stamps. I cut the smaller inside pinwheel then popped it on with a glue dot. It's perched inside a teeny jar from a retired Spellbinders die set that I just can't part with! After die cutting the jar, I colored the lid with Copics and pieced on top of the jar that was stamped using the reverse polka dot stamp from Gingham & Co.

Thanks so much for visiting! To continue with the waltz, please be sure to visit Bonnie's blog. Be Sweet :)

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Believe, Wish, Dream...FTTC175 47

Hello! It's time for a brand spankin' new Flourishes Timeless Tuesday Challenge! In case you missed the post on the Flourishes blog, there are lots of changes going on! click HERE for complete details. Included with those changes are as follows: we are saying farewell to both Silke and Beate and we are welcoming both Denise Marzec and Allison Cope!

This week, Silke is our lovely hostess and she is challenging us to create using our *FAVORITES* ~ Use your favorite Spellbinder Die with your favorite Flourishes Stamp Set and add your favorite embellishments!!! I took it one step further and used some of my favorite Pink Paislee patterned paper from the London Market collection.

This challenge was REALLY tough for me because Flourishes has sooooo many awesome stamp sets, to narrow it down to one is nearly impossible! I wanted to create a mixed media canvas so I opted to use a few of my favorite sentiments from the Flourishes Pears stamp set (one of my faves).

I stamped the "Never Lose..." sentiment on a piece of Flourishes Classic Ivory card stock, cut using a die from Spellbinders Grommet Tags (one of my faves)

I enjoy creating my own flowers so I pulled out a Spellbinders Bitty Blossom die (another of my faves) and did just that!

I used a bird cage and bird die from the Spellbinders Bird Sanctuary set (another fave) to create a few embellishments. It is hanging from a branch that was cut using a die from Spellbinders Mix'd Media Elements (yep, another fave :)

I hope you ink up your stamps, especially ones from Flourishes and join in the fun! Please be sure to visit the Flourishes blog for complete details and for some fabulous inspiration visit our June Guest Designer: Alice Wertz and the entire DT: Heather, Silke, Makiko, Cindy, Beate, Amanda, Denise and Allison!

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True Colors... 52

Hi there! Hope you are all having a great day! I needed one more birthday card for a sweet GF of mine so I pulled out some of my favorite paper crafting products and this is what I came up with: 

It seems as though Hexagons are the latest craze in paper crafting so I jumped on the wagon and indulged in the new Die-namics Haxagon dies! So fun!!! I used the dies to cut various pretty patterned paper from the Pink Paislee London Market collection and finished off the card with an inspirational sentiment from the My Favorite Things Clearly Sentimental about Art set.

For sketch inspiration, I played along with the current My Favorite Things sketch challenge:

On another note, I FINALLY captured a photo of some sweet baby Quails scurrying across my backyard. If you really look, you will see the teensy weensy feathers on top of their head which is a unique characteristic to Quails :)

Thanks so much for visiting! Be Sweet :)

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Design Team Announcement! 50

Hi there! I'm here to share some really exciting news that I've had to keep a secret! A few months ago, Nadia Cannizzo, the talented Owner/Administrator of the Once Upon A...Sketch challenge site invited me to join her and her uber talented, 28 member International design team beginning July 1st for a one year term! YAHOOOO!!! If you are not familiar with Once Upon A Sketch, it is a monthly scrapbook layout challenge site providing a boat load of inspiration. Please feel free to check it out for yourself ~ click HERE. 

Of course, I can't share my exciting news all by itself so I played along with the June Once Upon A ... Sketch challenge which also includes a BIRTHDAY theme. 


Here's my take featuring Meredith looking oh so beautiful amongst pretty patterned paper from the Pink Paislee London Market collection and home made flowers made using Spellbinders Rose Creations and Spiral Blossom One dies.

See the big pink blossom? I have had that Spiral Blossom One die for quite awhile and I wasn't happy how my flowers looked so I put it away for another day. Well, I pulled that bad boy out and decided to give it a try again. I cut not 1 but 2 pieces of cardstock, doubling up and rolled them together. Now, I LOVE that die because you can make a really FULL bloom!

Here's the fab June Once Upon A ... Sketch that I used for inspiration:

Thanks so much for visiting :) Be Sweet!

Pink Paislee Products used:  Pink Paislee London Market collection, London Market Collage Sheets, London Market Ephemera, London Market Spool Buttons, London Market Jumbo Numbers

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happy Birthday...CR84FN55 Week 2 45

Hello there! It's quite hot here in the desert which makes for great crafting weather once I sneak my bike ride in during the wee early morning hours :) It's week #2 of the CR84FN55 Color Challenge ~ so many pretty projects already!

I made yet another Birthday card for a dear friend of mine using a combination of pretty patterned paper from the Pink Paislee London Market Collection, Spellbinders dies, PTI stamps as well as a few of their coordinating dies. 

 After die cutting and stamping the Peony and leaves, I added a layer of glitter ~ I think it sort of adds a dew kissed look.

 For sketch inspiration, I played along with the current retro sketches challenge:

Thanks so much for visiting! Please be sure to visit the CR84FN site for complete information and the entire CR84FN DT for some amazing inspiration: Sue Lelli, Shannon White, Deborah Frings, Suzanne Czosek, Lisa Somerville, Heather Jensen, Andrea Mathews and Pauline Pollington,

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WMS Previews Day 2 / CR84FN53 week 2 49

Hi there! Welcome to Day 2 of the Waltzingmouse Stamps May previews and to the second week of the CR84FN53 Color Challenge! Today we are previewing: Compact Family ~ one of three new fab stamp sets that Claire will be releasing on Tuesday, May 8th.


I made a couple of tags, featuring a combination of images from the new Compact Family and the previously released, Cameo To Go and Ovals, Classic Frames. 


I made the first tag for none other than my sweet sister Tina ;0 

The Compact Family stamp set is exacting that ~ it is a stamp set full of family member names along with many sentiments that will allow you to personalize your projects for your loved ones.

The sentiment tags on both contain sentiments from Cameo To Go:

The cameos and decorative oval frames are both from Ovals, Classic Frames. The beautiful lace trim is a gift from Claire :)w

The blossoms were made using Spellbinders Bitty Blossoms sugar coated with a little shimmer of glitter:

The cameos and oval frames were stamped on a pretty frame that was cut using a Spellbinders Floral Ovals die and all the pretty patterned paper used is from the Pink Paislee London Market collection.

For color inspiration, I used the the current CR84FN53 Color Challenge combination. 

Thanks so much for visiting! Please be sure to visit the CR84FN site for COMPLETE information and the entire CR84FN DT for some AMAZING inspiration: Suzanne Czosek, Lisa Somerville, Heather Jensen, Sue Lelli, Andrea Mathews, Pauline Pollington, and Shannon White as well as Claire Brennan - Owner of Waltzingmouse Stamps and the WMS DT: Anya Schrier, Beeca Feeken, Belinda Chang Langner, Clare Buswell, Julia Aston, Jennifer Holmes, Kelly Schirmer, Laurie Schmidlin, Lynn Mercurio, Mona Pendleton (that's me), Sandie Dunne, Tosha Leyendekker

Hope to see you tomorrow for Day 3 previews! Be Sweet :)

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Wonderful & Kind...CR84FN51 75

Hello there! It's time for an all new CR84FN Color Challenge BUT before I get to today's colors and project, we at CR84FN have some EXCITING news to share! We are proud to announce that both the super talented Pauline Pollington and Shannon White will be joining our DT! You may be familiar with both of these designers as they both have been CR84FN Guest Designers at some point and have played along with many, many challenges. Please be sure to visit the CR84FN site to see what all the ladies have created using the pretty pastel CR84FN51 color combo that were chosen by DT member Heather. 

For the next two weeks, we will be playing with the soft color palette shown below:

I created a layout featuring sweet Meredith surrounded by an abundance of pretty flowers:

I made this layout using LOTS of home made flowers along with several store bought ones. Last week, you may have seen the mini album that I shared for the Pink Paislee / Clear Scraps blog hop event featuring the Pink Paislee London Market collection well, all the home made flowers on this layout were leftover from that project! LOVE when that happens :) Shown in the photo below, the word print patterned and pink blossoms were made using prints from the Pink Paislee London Market collection and dies from Spellbinders Rose Creations and Grand Peony Creations:

Shown in the photo below is: a pretty doily made using pretty paper from the Pink Paislee Butterfly Garden collection using a Spellbinders Splendid Circles die, another pink Peony and a word print rose:

For sketch inspiration, I played along with the current My Creative Sketches challenge:

Thanks so much for visiting! Please be sure to visit the CR84FN site for COMPLETE information and the entire CR84FN DT for some AMAZING inspiration: Suzanne Czosek, Deborah Frings, Heather Jensen, Sue Lelli, Andrea Mathews, Pauline Pollington,  Lisa Somerville and Shannon White. 

Additional supplies used not previously listed:
Stamps: Pink Paislee Spring Jubilee
Dies: Spellbinders Parisian Accents, Parisian Motifs, PTI foliage

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