Taking a few days off...

Hi everyone, I have some stuff going on at home right now that I need to sort out, so I won't be blogging for a few days. I hope to be back at the beginning or middle of next week with more cards for you :) Thanks, as always, for stopping by.

Happy TCP Tuesday :)

Hi all! It's TCP Tuesday again, and this week Carole is hosting a sketch challenge :) Jump over to Carole's blog for all the details on how to play along with us this week. For my card

I used TCP's clear stamps called "You Sick Thing" and Basic Grey's "Marrakesh" paper collection - I love that turquoise, orange and gray together :) Have a great day!

Better Get Better

I hope you had a great weekend :) On Saturday we had our neighbors round for a get-together; we lit a fire in the back yard - we've been here for nearly 3 years and hadn't tried out the large fire pit that was here when we moved in, so it got started for the first time last night. Iain was very proud of himself! Everyone had fun, the kids all got along well (playing hide and seek in the dark!), and the weather was great (we stayed outside for the whole evening!). There were about 25 of us all together. Today Iain and Helen played a last game of golf before Helen heads back to Scotland tomorrow evening, and I took Nattie to get a second set of ear piercings - she was very excited about that!

Today's card is one that I made for the sketch challenge at Card Positioning Systems. The patterned paper (Bo Bunny) reminds me of Halloween, but I think it works well for a "get well" wish too :)

Featured Blogger Friday - Week 2

Welcome to Week 2 of Featured Blogger Friday! This week the featured blog belongs to the super-talented Jenny Gropp. Jenny's blog is called "One Krafty Kat" :) I came across Jenny's blog in the past year; she and I are slowly but surely getting to know each other. What I know so far is that she is friendly, supportive, enthusiastic, and amazingly creative - I hope you enjoy reading more about Jenny and that you'll pop over to her blog to say hello and to see more of her beautiful work. She has generously created this card for me to show you - isn't it beautiful? The cake stamp is one I recognize from TCP - it's called "Cake No Plate" and you can see it here. Here's some more information all about Jenny...

• Tell us a little about you? I am 36, married to a wonderful guy, no kids, one very cool cat, I work and I stamp! I don't like answering questions like this because I always feel like I sound really corny. Seriously, I love crafting. I have a local stamp group of 6 ladies that meet once a month; we have a BLAST together. I have met so many blogging friends, wonderful ladies! I just love sharing the craft, seeing the ideas that people come up with...the creativity is endless and totally inspiring.



• How long have you been blogging? OK - I just looked - my first blog post was February 14, 2008. And BOY my picture skills have come a long way since then!! When I first started blogging, I was scanning my cards. Now I have a semi-fancy little camera and a light tent...the light tent makes such a difference in my pics, allowing the true colors to come thru. My scanner always did really funky things with pastel colors. Some scanned cards I could not even post or people would have thought I was color blind!!



• Why do you blog? I like being able to create something and immediately share it with all my crafting friends. I also like the immediate feedback and seeing what people like and dislike. I have been stamping for about seven years...through the years I have been involved with several different craft/stamp groups, people all over the world - which is so cool, various stamp companies...blogging allows us to stay in touch and keep tabs on everyone and their art, even though we have moved on from specific stamping groups.



• What's your favorite topic to blog about? Well, all I really blog about is cards that I make and stamping. I try not to blabber on too much about me and my issues. For the most part I TRY to keep it to the details of the project. I probably talk about my cat too much. But he is the best cat in the entire world, so how could I not??? Sometimes my posts can go on and on - I have found that I blog just like I talk. I like pictures. Good pictures are important to me - for my blog and others that I read. That is the draw for me when looking at a blog - I want to see the project/art - then after the picture catches my interest, I'll read.



• Have you learned anything special from blogging? It has been a process...at first, blogging was ALL fun - it was new and exciting. I really enjoyed it...last December I hit a little slump where it began to feel like work. It took me a few months - but I finally said to myself - this should be enjoyable and FUN. I released myself from feeling like I had to post constantly. If I post every day of the week, wonderful! If I only post a few days of the week - that's fine too. I'm enjoying the blogging experience and plan to continue. I do think you have to keep current with products and techniques and blog pretty regularly to maintain regular readers. I do try to post a minimum of three times a week. Feedback from my friends/readers, whenever they send an email or leave a comment is HUGE in keeping me motivated. Playing in challenges regularly is a good thing to help me stay current and keep up with what's going on in Blogville.



• What do you hope that people get out of reading your blog? Well, I know a lot of people don't read it, they are picture lookers. That's OK by me. The info is there for those who want it. I tend to be similar when browsing the blogs, so I don't take offense to that. With so many blogs to choose from, I hope folks that read my blog find inspiration and ideas that motivate them to go grab a stamp and create!



• Can you give links to some of your favorite blogs? Oh - geeez! Just three??? I can't do it!! I can't! There are too many. I have a list of blogs that I do regularly visit on my page - but I can't pick favorites - I love 'em all!!

So, there you have it - some of the scoop on Jenny!! I think you'll agree with me that her work is stunning. Her blog is definitely a regular stop for me!

If you would like to nominate a blog for Featured Blogger Friday, send me a quick email at toners@wispertel.net - I'd love to hear from you!

I love you to the moon and back...

I don't have too many stamps by A Muse, but I do really like this one. The rocket ship and the sentiment are perfect together! The layout is from Jen's "Sketch For You To Try" (she posts a new one each weekend), and the patterned paper is from a new pack by Die Cuts With a View - the "Retro Stack" :)

Tomorrow I'll be featuring another blogger - I hope you'll stop by to find out who it will be...

Whatever floats your boat...

I really love the way this card turned out. I made it to play along with the Card Patterns sketch last week :) The stamps are from TCP's "By the Sea" set, and the patterned paper is the "Girl Friday" collection by Cosmo Cricket.

Yesterday Iain and his sister headed out to San Francisco for 2 days. Helen is turning 60 later this month and will be retiring from her job as an elementary school assistant principal, so this is our birthday/retirement gift to her. They're planning to play several rounds of golf out there, so I'm sure they'll both have a great time. The kids and I stayed at home all day in our jammies, crafting and just hanging out. The three of us love our "jammie days". I got several cards made and Nattie made some progress on the 2,000-piece jigsaw puzzle she's been working on :) Today I think we're going to go to the movies, although we haven't decided what to see yet - the choice is "G-Force" or "Ice Age 3"...I'll let you know!

It's TCP Tuesday!

Here's my card for TCP Tuesday - Susan is hosting the stamp challenge! We can use any TCP stamp that includes CAKE :) For my card I used the "Birthday Cupcake" stamp. Inside I stamped "You Take The Cake". You'll see that TCP has many stamps that feature cake in different forms - have fun with this one!

I also used patterned paper by Bo Bunny, and a layout from a sketch challenge for this card. It's from the "Unscripted Sketches" blog - check it out here.

Art...

Hi! I hope you're having a terrific Tuesday :) I'll be back later today with my card for this week's TCP Tuesday challenge, but here's another card for now. I made it for last week's challenge over at The Sweet Shop. This sketch was a fun one to play around with. I decided to use one of my favorite quote stamps from Hampton Art, and I combined it with patterned paper from Cosmo Cricket (the "Ever After" collection). The circle dies are Nestabilities.

Our Creative Corner Challenge

Here's the card I made for last week's challenge on the "Our Creative Corner Challenge" blog. Jenny posted a sketch for us to work from.

For my card I pulled out my "Fluffles" stamp (by Stampendous!) - isn't he sweet sitting in the flower pot? I cut out the image with my Nestabilities dies and added a sentiment from an old "Stampin' Up!" set. The patterned paper is the "June Bug" collection by Basic Grey - one of my new favorites.

How was your weekend? It was gorgeous here in Conifer; we were in the high 70s all weekend long - and it didn't rain! That was a big change from last week :) Yesterday we took Iain's sister to the Flying J Ranch Park, which is just 15 minutes from our house. Today the two of them played golf at the Evergreen Golf Course. The kids and I ran some errands in the afternoon and met them at the Colorado Mills mall, and we had dinner at California Pizza Kitchen. When we got home we watched the second "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie: "Dead Man's Chest" - tons of fun! Have a great week :)

Better Get Better

Here's Poochie again - this time he's hobbling around on his crutches :) This is a card I made for the Card Positioning Systems sketch a couple of weeks ago. I really like this size of card (3.5" x 7"). The stamps I used are from the "You Sick Thing" set by TCP.

I'm not quite sure yet what our weekend plans are. Iain's sister, Helen, arrived this evening after her long flight from Scotland, so we'll see how she's doing in the morning - jetlag and getting used to the altitude here are sometimes not a great combo...

Thank you for the kind words about Featured Blogger Friday - there will be another one next Friday :)