Cheers to Words of Wisdom Wednesday

I made this card for an upcoming birthday, hopefully, that person isn't reading this blog right now.
If you are a person with a January birthday, then stop reading and come back after your birthday!

I used up some of my stash for Our Creative Corner "No more Sins"  challenge.   I love microbeads and a few YEARS ago the local craft store was eliminating their stock.  I have way to many to claim here on this blog or in other words...my husband reads this blog and would know way too much about what I have stashed away.

I also used up paper I've been hanging onto for ages, the black and white stripe-it was so difficult cutting into it. Life is tough when you have a paper addiction.  Ryan Gosling understands...

Something new for this card the Cricut cartridge, Suburbia.  I used the image  "Joan" with her sassy martini glass.   I bought the cartridge with a gift card from my inlaws, they know I have an addiction and want to enable me as much as possible.    There are some very hip images on this cartridge and I'm so glad I found it on sale for $19.99.  The layers underneath the silhouette use another Cricut cartride,  Accent Essentials.                          .

Up close image of martini glass with microbeads.

Words of Wisdom for today?

I find this very encouraging!  What do you imagine to be your full potential?  Me, I'm just scratching the surface.

Merry Christmas Darlin' duex

Yesterday on this posting, I told you about miniature xmas trees I created for our staff meeting.  Here's tree number 2.

I call it my "Naughty or Nice" tree.  I found all of the decorations at the Dollar General store.  This cute little ornament was $1 and it MADE the tree!

This tree was a remake from a silent auction tree that needed a little bit of pizzazz!

Tulle is a great, inexpensive way to fill in those gaps.  

This little Naughty and Nice tags were from toothpick toppers, I yanked the toothpicks out and glued the tags to chocolate kisses.  

The second best find was a kitchen towel in the same them.  NIiiiccceee!

Which have you been this year?
Come back tomorrow for a view of this tree:

Guitar Hero, Red Carpet Studio Challenge!

Our challenge this week is a layout sketch challenge - 

This week is Star inspired Layout from Red Carpet Studio Challenge Blog,
Here's the sketch we were inspired by

Stars are all over Hollywood... whether they are celebrities, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, or in the sky! We thought it would be fun to provide you with a fun, movie-themed sketch (notice the Title and Sub-Title features along with the arrows representing 'play' buttons) for this week's challenge!

Special thanks to Heather from Cricut Inspired Layouts for letting us use her sketch!

Up close images

black circle covered in glossy accents to look like a record

real guitar pics from my hubby's stash

rock star inspired paper

Enter into our challenge this week!

Our fabulous sponsor this week is Scraptastical Kreations! They are giving away a $15 gift certificate to the randomly chosen winner of this week's challenge.

Along with the randomly chosen winner of this week's challenge, the card design team will also be taking a look at ALL of the submissions and voting on their top three "spotlight"submissions. The spotlight submissions, along with the random winner, will be announced on Tuesday September 18th and will receive a special badge for their blogs. Challenges run from Sunday - Saturday evening, and winners are always announced the Tuesday after the challenge ends in order for the design team to have enough time to vote.

Monday is a lame way to spend 1/7 of your life!

Happy Monday Ya'll!
I participate in The Altered Paper Tag Swap--go visit, you can still be a part of these monthly swaps. Plus, Tee has swaps going on all the time!
I made two tags:
!.  More vintage, with Lady Liberty and darker reds and blues with added vintage lace and a button and oh! red gingham ribbon!

 The flip side I used a rub on to create the maps and swirly stuff.  I just discovered rubons--I had no idea what they were and exactly how to use them.  I found a video on youtube....geez, you can find anything on you tube.

 The second tag I made was more bright with red, white and blue!  Lots of sparkly and a really cute shaker! I love to buy these kinds of things when the season is over and things go on clearance.  Heck, the 4th of July comes around every year.  The "shooting stars" are from a dollar store necklace--cool effect huh?!

check out the little charm--I bought these wine glass charms at a yard for probably 25 cents.

Remember I have a little giveaway in honor of my grandmother at this posting. Stop by and leave a comment.

Roses are Red....

Oh, I am so excited to make this posting.  Kristen at Twinkle twinkle like a star  is hosting the Summer of Color party and this week the color is RED.  LOVE. LOVE. LOVE.

I just returned from visiting my little brown eyed girl, ya'll remember her, right?

She lives in Ohio and while I was there we went to this location:

If you are ever in Columbus, you NEED to go to this park. Oh my, this garden is a beautiful place to visit!  Just a little story, my little German mother has always had a green thumb and loves flowers.  She passed on her love  to her children.  I don't have a green thumb, but really enjoy a beautiful garden.

mom's birthday 2011

Isn't she lovely?  That's my pop next to her, they've been married for over 50 years. 

When we were little children my mother had gardens all over our yard, including this beautiful climbing rose bush. Below you can share in the joy of  my two older sisters posing next to a beautiful bush.  Don't you dig their vintage clothing?(not vintage at the time...) I'm sooo in love with the hounds tooth, my big sister, Margie is wearing.  So fashion conscious! 

Anyway, my twinnie and I visited the beautiful rose garden in Columbus.  Here's my twinnie peeking out from one of the bushes!

Jaymie stopping to smell the roses!

In honor of the summer of color, red week, here are some of the beauties that we found....

tip toe through the tulips..eer, I mean roses



I believe this one was named "George Burns"

1967 5 little girls, one in the tummy.

When we were little girls, our mother would take us to the local rose garden after Sunday church. I loved this field trip, the gardens were lovely!  The rule was we could pick up all the petals we found on the ground, but could not touch the flowers.  I can remember running through the garden and looking for all the petals on the ground.  I treasured them and can remember all the different colors in my little chubby hands:  yellow, white, pink and red.

Aww, the heady smell of the roses!

As we walked through this garden, my twin and I relived those wonderful memories with our mom.  Including the petals on the ground.

a little gazebo

A little Asian inspired soap opera

This summer I've had such a fun time experimenting and learning new techniques, not to mention visiting other blog sites and seeing all the talented people in the world.  Kristen at Twinkle, Twinkle like a star is hosting a summer of color challenge....omg, such fun. 

I was excited for red this week, because I've had this idea percolating in my head, just waiting for a chance to try it.  I ran across these at the local Goodwill store (thrift) and had to have them.  Does anyone have any idea what they are? 

No matter, I'm going to have fun with them.  These are the kinds of images that I'm squirreling away for just the right moment. 

Ya'll know what I mean, you have those items in your stash too!  I almost sent a few of these images to my Mystery envelope swap hosted by the Altered Paper blog, but I just couldn't let go of these delights just yet.

Anyone know what this is?  I don't?!





They look like cards, but they are really small. 



The pictures seem so melodramatic, as if they are depicting soap opera themes.   Soooo, that's what I created.  Don't laugh, ya'll.  I just wanted to break outta the mold and have some fun.

This is my first time making an ATC, and how fun they were!  I don't feel that these are complete just yet.  I'd love to add some more details.  Have you ever visited this blog,  Artfully Musing by Laura Carson ?  Laura is so inspiring with her masterful ways at layering, working in mixed medias and her tutorials are fabulous. 

These are the individual ATCs.  I thought it would be funny to put "western" names on the Asian faces and then add soap opera themed comments. 

I'm chuckling as I post these.  They were fun and out of my box.
We can't end a post without a peek at Sookie Horn, which, by the way, if you're a True Blood follower, on HBO, then you'll know that the character Sookie was just revealed to be a fairy!  Now, we have a fairy cat...yay!