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Hello everyone! How's everyone doing today?  I'm gearing up for the kids to have a short week at school - tomorrow is Family Day here in Alberta and then Thursday and Friday are Teachers' Convention days so we're going to be heading to my parents' house.  We haven't been there since way before Christmas so Josh has been counting the days for the last month - he loves his gran and gramps.  :)

So...it's Sunday and you know what that means, right?  Time for another Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge - yippee!   Karen has created a sketch with a bazillion possibilities.  Really. Take a look:

So - make it CAS just like the sketch, turn it, flip it... you decide.  I decided to go somewhere in the middle with dry embossing and added some star die-cuts and a simple, little sentiment (all from The Cat's Pajamas):

I also used this week's Colour Q combo - love that little punch of green:

All of the fabulous Sweet Sunday Stampers have inspiration for you, so please stop by and say hello to:

Dana White 

Dawn Easton 

Jackie Pedro 

Karen Giron 

Karen Motz 

Lori Tecler 

Lynn Put 

Sarah-Jane Kalé 

Tracy Clemente 

Vicki Burdick 

... and this week we have TWO amazing Guest Sweet Stampers - Kim Lackenbach and Sandie Conner!  Make sure you stop by and leave them some {love}!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend & have a great week!

 

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It's SUPER(bowl) SUNDAY!!! I know many of you are football fans and will be watching the Superbowl this afternoon, but if football is NOT your thing, why not do some crafting instead???

We've got a fabulous sketch from Karen at the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge this week - I see two of my favorite things...a banner flag and a fairly CAS layout:

For my card, I dug through my stamp box and found one of my most recent Cat's Pajamas purchases that hadn't yet seen the light of an ink pad...sacrilege, I know.  ;)  This floppy-eared bunny is one of my favorites - and him in a rocket in "Soar"????  SUPER adorable!  The sentiment is from another TCP set, "What a Blast."  A little bit of paper-piecing and this little guy's off to the moon:

Isn't that bunny too cute?  I can't believe he's been sitting in my box uninked for so long... I even finished the inside and put a "Happy Birthday" sentiment in there.  (No picture...OOPS!)

All of the fabulous Sweet Sunday Stampers have inspiration for you, so please stop by and say hello to:

Dana White 

Dawn Easton 

Jackie Pedro 

Karen Giron 

Karen Motz 

Lori Tecler 

Lynn Put 

Sarah-Jane Kalé 

Tracy Clemente 

Vicki Burdick 

That's it for me - enjoy your day and we'll see you again later in the week for a brand new 4 Crafty Chicks' Challenge!

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Happy Sunday, everyone!  Are you all getting excited about Christmas?   Things here have been kind of nuts around here with work and Christmas shopping and trying to get as much done ahead of time as I can for the big day.  I *think* I'm doing pretty good but, golly, you should see my lists!

So, it's time for another fabulous Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge and this week's has a few more layers which was fun for me to do because I tend to gravitate to the CAS sketches.  I used to joke that if a card didn't fit in an envelope, it probably had enough layers and embellishments!  So, here you go:

I pulled out one of last year's TCP Christmas sets, "Best Fishes," and got to work:

I also used the Color Throwdown combo from a few weeks ago:

All of the fabulous Sweet Sunday Stampers have inspiration for you, so please stop by and say hello to:

Dana White

Dawn Easton (taking a break this week)

Jackie Pedro 

Karen Giron 

Karen Motz 

Lori Tecler 

Lynn Put 

Sarah-Jane Kalé 

Tracy Clemente 

Vicki Burdick 

... and our super-duper guest stamper, Danielle Lounds!

That's it for me today - we'll be back after Christmas with our final sketch for 2012...can you believe how quickly 2013 has come?  Enjoy the next couple of weeks and Happy Holidays to you and yours.  :)

 

4CCC-109 {Health & Wellness}

I know I say this every week but, golly...is it really Thursday already???  Time for another 4 Crafty Chicks' Challenge and this week my PIC, Lori, is our hostess-with-the-mostest.  She has given us a theme to create around - "Health and Wellness."  As usual, this theme leaves the door pretty wide open for interpretation so have fun with it and make sure you tell us how your creation is inspired by health and wellness.

I decided to make a card with one of my floppy-eared bunny stamps - the little dude figure skating is one of my faves and fits in perfectly with this week's theme.  Who doesn't love ice skating in the winter? It has been a L-O-N-G time since I played along with a TCP Tuesday challenge so this week I figured I should just go ahead and combine two of them together...how'd you like that?

It's really hard to see (even in this close-up), but I used my Spica glitter pens on his skates and furry parts of his hat:

I hope you will join us at the 4 Crafty Chicks - if you need more inspiration, please visit the other Chicks' blogs and leave 'em some love...I know they'd love to have you.  :)  Enjoy the rest of your week!

 

4CC102 {Up, Up and Away}

Welcome back! Can you believe summer is half over already???  July just flew by and now we're into the second week of August...crazy!!  Over at the 4 Crafty Chicks' Challenge this week, I am your hostess extraordinaire and I've got a theme for you to play with - "Up, Up and Away."  I want to see your cards with things that fly...birds, bugs, airplanes, kites, balloons...the possibilities are endless so have some fun with this one.

I immediately went to my stash of Cat's Pajamas stamps and found the PERFECT set...aptly titled, "Up, Up and Away."  I played around with a funky Colour Q combination and combined it with Jen's July Sketch For You to Try...

I love this little penguin-dude.  :)  Makes me smile every time.  I hope you will find some time to play along with us this week...should be fun going to all your blogs to see what you've created for us!  Enjoy your week!

 

4CCC-101 {Distressing}

Hey there, everyone! It's Thursday and that means a brand new challenge over at the 4 Crafty Chicks' Challenge.  This week, Leanne is the hostess-with-the-mostest and she wants to see some projects that are in distress.  No, not a project that's sending out an SOS - we want to see some distressing on your project.  You could ink the edges, distress the paper, use distress ink... it's up to you.

For my card, I used a lovely color combination from the CR84FN Color Challenge as well as a fantastic Mojo Monday sketch I will be using again...perfect for those leftover bits of paper we all have in our craft rooms:

I never seem to have any birthday cards when I need them so I figured I'd use a lovely sentiment from Verve on this one.  Thanks for stopping by - make sure to stop and see the rest of the Chicks 'cause I know they'd love to see you. :)

 

BIG News!!! {SSSC163}

I am sooooooo excited this morning!!!  The last week has been EXCRUCIATING trying to keep the secret a secret...but now I get to explode!  :)  I, along with four other very talented ladies, have been chosen to join Karen and the AMAZING DT over at the Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge!!!  I KNOW!  I can hardly believe it myself.  :)  I always have such a fun time playing with Karen's sketches that I know this will be an easy-peasy gig.  :)

Without further ado, here's this week's fabulous sketch and my take on it:

I decided to use the sketch the way Karen gave it to us for my very first week - no rocking the boat or flipping it around this time.  (But have no fear...there *will* be one before this sketch has expired :)   I also used the awesome color combo from the TCP Tuesday Challenge #218.  I *think* this combo is courtesy of one of the OTHER new Sweet Sunday Stampers, Lori Tecler!!!  LOVE it!  I used one of my favorite Cat's Pajamas images and the cloud die works perfectly for the horizontal strip.  Some embossing, a button and some fabulous red twine (from the Ribbon Carousel via my friend, Jenny...she ordered it twice!  I've never done that before...have you? :), and it's all done!

All of the fabulous Sweet Sunday Stampers have inspiration for you, so please stop on by and say hello:

Dana White 

Dawn Easton 

Jackie Pedro 

Karen Giron 

Karen Motz 

Lori Tecler 

Lynn Put 

Sarah-Jane Kalé 

Tracy Clemente 

Vicki Burdick 

And our amazing guest stamper for this week is Jen Shults! 

Thanks for stopping by and letting me share my awesome news with you all!  Enjoy the rest of your weekend!




 

4CCC-95 {By the Sea}

Hello again! Is it really Thursday already? Where does the week go?  We've got another fun challenge for you over at the 4 Crafty Chicks - Tamie is our hostess-with-the-mostest and she has given us the theme "By the Sea."  There are many different ways to interpret this one so have fun with it.

A few weeks ago, I was lucky enough to get to play along with Karen's Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge and had so much fun that when I saw that she is looking for a few new designers to join her team, I figured I'd better throw my name into the hat.  :)  Her sketches are always so fun to work with - you can "fussy" them up or make them CAS and they always end up looking fabulous!

I decided to go with some seaside colors from a recent Colour Q as well as use one of my favorite TCP stamps, "Whale of a Time:" 

Oh yeah... I rotated the sketch too... ;)

Thanks for stopping by today ~ always love it when you do.  Two of the boys are now done school except for finals and I, for one, couldn't be happier!  It will be nice to not have to worry about homework and assignments and field trips...

See you again soon - enjoy your weekend!

 

4CCC-94 {Sketch}

Welcome back for another 4 Crafty Chicks' Challenge - this is my week to be the hostess so I came up with a fun sketch for you all to play along with:

As you can see, I rotated the original sketch "just 'cause."  I think it turned out pretty nicely...I also used a color combo from the Color Q from a couple of weeks ago...light and summery.  :)

Here's that bunny again...another one from TCP's most recent release.  It's kind of hard to see, but the strip of Pool Party paper stitched down is paper pleated which was the challenge for TCP Tuesday 212!!  Thanks for stopping by my corner of Blogland!  See you again soon!

 

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Happy Monday, everyone!! How was your weekend? Mine was crazy-busy!! On Friday, Josh and I took off for Lethbridge so I could run with my sister and brother's girlfriend in the Ladiesfest 8K run.  This was the very first run I did last year and finished it in 1:03:39 so my goal this year was to finish in under an hour.  Did I do it?  You bet your bananas, I did!!!  I was thrilled to finish in 58:51 - almost 5 minutes faster than last year's result!   We ran on Saturday morning and by late afternoon, Josh and I were on the road home.  Sunday was another busy day with a community fundraising event at the arena.  The dad of one of the trainers at the gym was recently diagnosed with cancer so a ball hockey tournament and head-shaving event was organized to raise money to support him during this difficult time.  The arena was full and around 35 people shaved/cut their hair.  The support in our little community truly inspired me - I had a permagrin on all day. 

You can imagine how VERY thankful I was to have today off and figured what better way to spend it than in my craft room creating for no real reason. :)  So after baking some cookies, I sat down to blog-surf and find some challenges.  I have been VERY slack with my TCP Tuesday challenges lately ~ I don't think I played along even once last month.  :(  Imagine my excitement when I found this week's was a COLOR CHALLENGE!!

Fun, summery colors screaming out for a fun sketch and that's what I found over at iSpy Sketches...love those color blocks at the bottom!

I got to use another one of my new TCP sets, "Aye, Aye Captain!"  That bunny is my favorite.  I can't get enough of the bunny.  The waves were made using Wave border die and the clouds use the Cloud Border die, both from TCP!  Thanks for stopping by today - I know I've been awfully quiet over the last couple of months so if you've stuck with me, thank you!!!  I can't promise more frequency but I hope you will continue to stop by...

Have a great week, everyone - see you on Thursday with a new 4 Crafty Chicks' challenge!