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Quick note…Yesterday, a couple of you asked if I let my brads show on the inside of the card. Yep, sure do. I know that some people cringe at the thought, but there is no way that I take that long on the outside and then want to move to the inside to do more tedious work. Remember, work smarter, not harder. AND…if the person that you are giving it to doesn’t like it that way, then they probably don’t deserve a handmade card. How’s that for a dose of the truth?

Tomorrow Verve Visual is releasing FOUR new sets and I am in love with all of them! Yes, seriously! I’ve been playing with them non-stop for the past week so that I would have a ton of samples to show you. I’m gonna have to apologize now for the quality of some of the pics. Our natural lighting situation has been a little stormy here, so I have had to seek alternative means of sunshine. Catch what I am sayin’? I’m saying all this as Tony is rearranging, or should I say re-rearranging our garage so he can put his car back in his spot in case of hail {or tornadoes…EEK!}. We had to do a little, um, ahem, how to you say…”shifting” to get to some stuff this past weekend.

If you are interested in winning any of the new sets, and seeing more samples, be sure to check out the Verve Blog <--click to go there.

Here are all my samples...

First, a coordinating gift set. The bottle is from the Target $1 Spot and I filled it with bath salts...

Detail of the tag…

Just the card…

The rest are “just” cards. I really wish that I had more time to come up with clever boxes and bags, but I just ran out of time. I’ll be thinking about something for next week’s ABC Friday, tho!…

The filigree on this one is embossed with clear EP. It looks so elegant in real life.

Playing around with the Filigree Fantasy set some more. I really like how these all can go together to make a tapestry type look.

Can you say teacher gifts!?! This is the set that I have featured on the Verve Blog today, along with stuff from Carole and Susan…

I love the elegance of this set. Even though it is not clearly represented here, there are SO MANY possibilities with this set. I love how quick this came together, yet still packs a punch. Don’t forget to check out the Verve Gallery tomorrow for more AWESOME stuff from the Verve-alicious DT….

See you tomorrow for ABC Friday. I have a new Glue project to share with you.

In case you haven’t realized, I am deeply and madly in love. While Tony and Ellie will always and forever take the top spots in my heart, I must admit that the fairies in the chichiboulie line at Stamping Bella {as well as all the Bellas, and Ella and Looloo, and the embellashments…} are driving me wild! YAY, I am thrilled that I got to play along with the sketch from SCS today. I think that’s 2 in 3 weeks. Now, I’m not the challenge junkie that I used to be, but I am still excited to seet he challenges each day. Amy R is the guest hostess and she always comes up with great layouts. While this one is not complicated in the least, it did leave a lot of room for embellishments, which I took full advantage of!

However, before I get down to those details, let me start from the bottom. The red card base and the green cardstock are from Prism. I **really** like their papers. The colors are GREAT and I like how one side is textured and the other side is smooth…perfect for stamping cardmakers! The DP is from Imaginisce and is truly one of my faves of all time. As I noted above, the main image is from Stamping Bella and is colored with Copic Markers. Her wings are covered in Sakura Stardust pen. To achieve a smooth glimmery look on her wings, I traced her wings liberally with the Stardust pen and then took my aquapainter and pulled the glitter into the center of the wings. The sentiment, which I think is a perfect match not only for the saying, but for the font, too, is from Penny Black. For my finishing touches, I wrapped the DP layer with black twill. In addition, I used felt flowers from Creative Cafe and a flower ghost shape from Heidi Swapp. The brad in the center of the flowers is by Making Memories and I think I may just need to get another package of these. Cute, huh? The last touch I put on this card are the six black brads. It just looked like it needed SOMETHING, but nothing big. These worked out great. Here’s a detail shot of the coloring and some of the flowers…

Some additional notes…
Don’t forget to check out the Verve Blog to see some sneak peeks and a chance to win some free stamps. I will have A BUNCH of Verve stuff for you to ogle at tomorrow. You are just going to squeal when you see what is coming to the stamp world this Friday. I say that because that is exactly what I did when I saw these!!…yes, seriously!!

I have to admit that I haven’t really gotten into the whole pirate craze, but there is no way I could resist this Sprinkle stamp and sentiment from The Cat’s Pajamas. It just so happens that I needed to ink this baby up and today is TCP Tuesday…YAY! So to play along with this week’s challenge {a sketch}, out came the pirate stamps and off I went to stamping this card.

Although the sketch that is given is not shown as a square, I took artistic liberties to make it one. Why, you ask? Well, it’s just easier that way! I am true believer in the phrase, “Work smarter, not harder.” It just makes sense! To get all the panels to easily line up I took two squares that measured 3.25″ and cut them diagonally in half. The long edge was used toward the outside and I lined up the other edges with each other. The red panel has white stripes adhered to it. I did not have any red and white stripe paper and I like how it gives it a little bit of texture. The black panels are clear embossed with the Skully stamp. The main image is colored in with Copic markers. The finishing touches that I put on this card are the Swarovskis in the corners of the large panel, as well as the flag. I also used my Stardust pen to highlight the water, although I don’t think that the camera picked that up.

I hope that you want to play along with us. After all, you could win some Cat Cash! Here’s all the info that you need to know about TCP Tuesday…

1. Each a week one of the The Cat’s Pajamas DT members will host a challenge.
2. The challenges will vary {stamp, color, theme, sketch, etc.}
3. You will have until {this} Saturday night to complete the challenge.
4. Link your project on this week’s hostess’ challenge announcement. This week you will link your project HERE.
5. TCP stamps are not required, but of course, highly encouraged. {Unless it is a challenge calling for a specific stamp}
6. There will be one winner each month. They will be deemed that month’s Swankiest Stamper and get $25 in Cat’s Cash {money to spend on the TCP site!}.
7. When uploading to SCS, please use the keyword TCPTUES07 for this challenge.
8. Alma will post the entries from the week the following Monday on her blog.
9. The newly crowned Swanky Stamper will be announced on the First of the Month and have his/her winning entry posted on The Cat’s Pajamas website where he/she will reign for the entire month.

Good Luck and Happy Stamping!!

It seems so foreign, and yet so familiar. There is no question that when I show up, I will recognize the surroundings, but they will be all new faces. Seats filled with people having more or less the same goals as me, willing to pay the price (supposedly) to see it happen. I have high expectations this time around (I wouldn’t have made the sacrifices if I didn’t) yet the looming threat of disappointment remains the elephant in the room. Have I made the right choices? I can’t second guess them: when made, each was made with the best intentions and the deepest of thought. So theoretically, I have put myself in the situation I need to be in for success.

A lot of people say success is what you make of it. Or put another way, you get back what you put into it. Same difference. But in reality a large portion of your success is 100% in the hands of others. The decisions they make and the paths they choose, help define the situation you are in.

But I can’t help myself. I am so excited for this next chapter I can barely contain myself. For a long time it seemed like I would never have the opportunity, and then when the chips fell just right, time slowed down to a snail’s pace as each interminable day flipped off my Dilbert Desktop Calendar.

Alas, the day is neigh. What seems like an eternity of waiting is almost over. Preparation meets dedication when on May 22, the new Indiana Jones movie hits a theater near you, and I will be at the one near me.

As far as I’m concerned, Harrison Ford is the coolest man alive and has been since before I was born (since Han Solo says me, others may argue for Bob Falfa). Nobody else matches his resume for coolness when you count Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Jack Ryan, Dr. Richard Kimble, etc. Well, at least nobody off the top of my head – and who would do research to prove themselves wrong?

In 2 Fridays, His Coolness (tipping the figurative scales at 2 months shy of 66 by my calculations) dons the whip and Herbert Johnson hat once more, almost 20 years since The Last Crusade. Some think the movie will act as a torch passing to newcomer Shia LaBeouf. (Rumor has it the torch was primed and ready to be handed to Ben Affleck some time ago, before the Bennifer & Gigli debacles and no one wanted to see Ben on the big screen again). Others are cringing at the though of another of their childhood favorites being ravaged by the Hollywood sequel machine.

Either way I don’t care. I just want to see Indy on the screen one more time, and enjoy the movie like I have the first three.

Wait, did I start writing this to talk about Indiana Jones or the fact that I’m going back to work on Monday for my summer internship? Who knows. Indy is definitely cooler though, so I’m glad it went that way…

*cue Indy theme music*
Da-da-da-daaaaa, da-da-daaaa

Td

Hooray it’s Saturday! I’m actually just glad that this week is over. I’m not waiting for anyone to play me the world’s smallest violin, but I will tell ya that it has been a heck of a week. Tony completed his finals…YIPPPEEEEE!! After pulling several nearly all nighters he is officially done with his first year as an MBA student. Three cheers for Tony!!! The bad part about all that is that he got sick half way through the week. Boo!! I had already taken Ellie to the doc on Monday with her first ear infection. Poor thing has the worst cold ever! It moved from just being a good ol’ snotty cold into her eyes and ears. Can I tell you how much “fun” it’s been administering antibiotics?…ahhh!! Not only are the 2 of them sick, but I am, too. Ugh!! That’s most of the reason that I new week starts tomorrow. That’s not even the “awful” part…Since Tony had been studying so much, and I had been prepping and going to the Arlington Shoebox Swap last weekend, we had a bunch of stuff DVR’d. All week we knew that Thursday night was going to be our night to chill out with some ice cream and our shows. We were watching the season finale of Dexter and it started skipping. Tony tried to fast forward and it froze. After waiting several minutes for the system to do it’s integrity check we called DISH. The kid on the other end of the line told us to unplug the box and it should reset itself and be fine. NOT TRUE!!!!! When we plugged it back in, we got and error message that said that our system had been wiped clean. So here I sit wondering what happened to Dexter’s sister, not to mention Grey’s and we also had 2 episodes of The Shield {the last 2 of the season- on reruns}. Life could be worse, I suppose. BTW-DO NOT SPOIL THESE FOR ME PLEEEEEASE! I will get around to seeing them sometime.

Now for the real reason of this post, today’s Sketch For You To Try…

Here’s my sample using Cecily Cinnamonsticks from the chichiboulie line at Stamping Bella…

Detail shot…

Guest Designer Toni Whitnell’s sample…

I hope that you will play along, too! Please link your creations to this post and if you upload to SCS, please use the keyword SFYTT. As always, you can see more great creations with the sketch from Amy, Carole, Shannan and Susan. Have a great weekend!! Tony will be here tomorrow…yay!! Stop by and give him a virtual high five for getting through the first year of the MBA program.