Cardalicious #20

Hi everyone!  I just have a few things to share this evening.  Mom is still here visiting, so I haven’t had as much time to devote to my blog.  Once things get back to normal around here, I’m hoping  to get back on schedule.

But for now, I do have some news to remind you of regarding two different live chats going on tomorrow, April 28th, at the inspireME ning site.  First chat begins at 9 am, and second chat will be at 9 pm, both EST.  Check google for the correct times in your zone.  We will be releasing a new, mid-season line that is absolutely adorable called Sweet As Cherry Pie.  This peek will only be available during the chats until the formal release of the line on May 1st. We will also be announcing the winner of our quarterly banner winner, and sharing a way that your page could be featured in our summer catalog!

You do need to be pre-registered at inspireME to participate in our live chats tomorrow, so be sure to pop on over and take care of that if you haven’t already.  There is always tons of inspiration there with our beautiful member gallery and monthly contests and challenges.  Be sure to check out our current Show Us Your Backsides contest while you’re over there.

I also have my card for the current challenge over at the Cardalicious blog to share. This week’s challenge is to create a birthday card using the colors blue and green and circles.  I know everyone can always use birthday cards, so I hope you all will play along with us.  Here is what I did.

Used lots of My Mind’s Eye goodies on here, including the patterned paper, the button, and several of their die-cuts I’ve had in my stash for some time.  I hand-cut the bracket using a dingbat I downloaded from the internet as my template, and spelled out my birthday greeting using my favorite new Storyteller alpha stickers from Webster’s Pages.  The turquoise trim is also from Webster’s new trim collection.  If you haven’t seen the Storyteller alphas yet, you really NEED to.  Each sheet contains not only four different colors, but two different sizes as well, with four different colorways to choose from.  I would recommend getting all four! 😉  We are going to be featuring these alphas and this trim in our May Paper-Playground kit, along with papers and cardstock stickers from A Sweet Life and Magical Wishes.  Great way to get these items if you haven’t been able to find them locally!

Thanks so much for stopping by!  Hope to see you all at inspireME tomorrow!

Show Us Your Backsides

Hello everyone!  There’s a fun new contest going on over at the Webster’s Pages community blog site, inspireME, that I wanted to share with you all.  It’s called Show Us Your Backsides.

Many people are familiar with the beautiful vintage images that Webster’s are well known for, but maybe not as many know about the fun and bold “backsides” of these papers that are more graphic in nature.  We wanted to take some time to showcase the versatility of the Webster’s lines in a fun way, and what better way than a contest with some awesome prizes, huh?

Here is the page I created for the contest.

This page uses the backsides of A Sweet Life’s Home Sweet Home, Miracles Occur, and Tweet Tweet papers, along with one of their fun calendar pages.  Be sure to check the contest details on the blog to see which papers qualify!

So here are some of the details.  Just create a page using at least two of the featured papers and upload your project to the inspireME gallery by 12 pm EST on May 31st.  First place winner will get a guest design spot for the month of September, and additional prizes are available as well.  Be sure to check out the inspireME forum here for full contest details.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Random Chaos #52

Morning everyone!  I’m trying to get an early start on the ol’ blog today, so that I actually get it done. 😉  I have a challenge to share with you from the Random Chaos blog.  Use six or more photos on your layout.  I don’t often use that many on a single page, so this was a fun one!  Here is what I did.

More goofy pictures of Pete!  The boy makes me laugh.  I took these in an attempt to get a 365 photo, and as you all know….it’s not easy to get a decent photo of the boy.  But that’s ok.  This is classic Pete, and that is worth remembering for all time.

Most of the products on here are from Basic Grey’s Granola line.  The die-cut paper is Making Memories and the journaling cards are MME.  I also used some chipboard alphas from Basic Grey, and tiny ledger alphabet stickers from MM.  Basic Grey currently has this page up in their gallery, which is always lots of fun.  Great place to get layout ideas!

I hope you all have a wonderful day!  I’d love to hear if you all play along with this challenge.  Hook me up in the comments if you do!

A Little Webster’s Pages

Hi everyone!  I am really in almost a state of shock that it’s Thursday already.  Still feels like the week is just getting started, and here it is almost the weekend already.  Not that I’m complaining about that, mind you.  Just where on earth does the time go?

My mom has been here visiting with us the last couple of weeks, and that has kept us on a busy schedule.  Took her to the nursery last weekend where we picked out some perennials for my back yard.  They are only one gallon plants, so I figured it wouldn’t be that difficult a task to get them planted.  We picked out 10 before we decided that was enough for now.  Thank goodness we stopped, because it feels like we’ll never get these plants in the ground.  Each hole is it’s own little battle fought against the compacted clay “soil” of North Carolina.  We now have 8 of the plants in, after working two very full days on them.  I do believe that all my once-held desire to garden has completely and permanently disappeared! 😉

But on to better news, I do have some Webster’s Pages things to share today.  The first is the scoop on some live chats that Webster’s will be holding on their community blog site, inspireME, on April 28th.  I’m excited to say that this time, we will be holding two separate chats during the day in hopes that more of our international friends can join us.  One at 9 am and one at 9 pm, both Eastern Standard time.  You can google the time zones for your area to see exactly when they would match up for you.  We will be previewing the new mid-season release titled Sweet as Cherry Pie, announcing the winner of our quarterly banner drawing, giving away some free prizes, debuting the new Webster’s Facebook group, and just hanging out.  I hope you all can join us for the fun!

I also have a card to show using both of the new Webster’s CHA lines, Magical Wishes and A Sweet Life.  It’s always a sad occasion when you need a sympathy card, but the beautiful and classical lines were perfect for what I was hoping to create.

The paper is a mixture of both lines.  I really like the blend of the bold and soft colors and patterns.  The garden gate, raspberry branch and yellow flower were cut directly from the papers, and the gorgeous butterfly is from the new vellum journaling cards.  Both the trims are from Webster’s new collection, as well.  I used one of my older Stampin’Up stamps for the sentiment.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope Spring is shining down on all of you!

Happy Easter

Hi everyone!  I hope you all had a wonderful Easter holiday yesterday!  We had a great one here.  Although my kiddos are starting to get older, they still wanted to participate in all our traditional festivities, and I really enjoyed having perhaps this last chance at doing “the works”.  Nik and I dyed eggs, and I made up baskets for both kids, and of course, we still had the old egg hunt.  Peter was pretty bored for that, though, and wanted to get back to his computer game.  But he also didn’t want Nik to get all the candy, so he forced himself to play along.

Here are a few photos from our day.

My two cuties with their Easter baskets.

On the hunt!

And you know it wouldn’t be a holiday around here without a few Easter decorations, right? Right!

So, thanks so much for stopping by everyone!  Happy Easter from my house to yours!

Easter Weekend

Hi everybody!  Happy Easter weekend to you all!  Except for the pollen being out in full force, it is a beautiful day today.  Had lots of thunderstorms last night, but the rest of this weekend is going to be warm and spring-like….perfect for a Easter holiday.  Nik and I broke out the egg dye yesterday and had a little fun being creative.

You’ll notice, of course, that Peter is nowhere to be found.  There’s no way that boy would dye an Easter egg at this point in time.  He did inform me, however, that he expects the Easter Bunny to leave some hidden eggs.  Any excuse to get some candy, right?

Today, my mom and I are hoping to go to our fabulous local nursery to get some perennials for my yard.  Seems like the perfect thing to do this weekend.  What all have you guys got going on?

I have one small scrappy share for today.  Something I volunteered to work on a couple of weeks ago for a member of Webster’s ning site, inspireME.  She was asking for people to help create an ABC book for a friend’s child who had recently had a near drowning incident.  The doctor’s had determined that Josh could see, so Sherry was wanting to make this ABC book to help him with his letters.  She requested that the pages stay flat, and be very graphic using only the colors red, white and black.  I was very honored to be able to create this “d” page for Josh’s book.

The finished size is 6×6.  I used blocks of  layered red and black paper, and downloaded some simple animal images from Google images.  I wish Josh and his family the best of luck!  And I hope you all have a wonderful holiday weekend!

Thanks for stopping by!

Birthday wishes

So, today is a VERY important day at our house.  Today, my sweet little Nik turns 11 years old.  She has been SO excited all day.  Said it’s her “first palindrome” birthday, and for some reason, she’s very happy about that.  I’m coming up on a palindrome birthday myself this year, and somehow…….I’m not quite as happy about it as she is! 😉

Here is my sweet girl this morning before leaving for school.

She couldn’t contain herself, and burst into a little happy dance.

Sure wish I could get as excited about my birthday!

Right after school, Nik headed straight to her presents.

And one of my favorites of the day…..

Me and my sweet peanut!  I LOVE you, Nik!

And let’s not forget Pete!  He got a little something, too.  It’s sort of a tradition I started years ago to get a small present for the non-birthday child.  You can see that I hit a bullseye.

Carpet sliders………he’s thrilled.

Now, we’ve baked some brownies together, and soon will be heading out to dinner to continue the celebration.  Think it’s going to be greasy burgers and fries……or maybe even onion rings!  Yum-O!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

April Paper-Playground Kit

Morning everyone!  Here we are, speeding around to the end of another week.  The days just fly by so quickly, don’t they?  I have spent the last few days getting ready for a couple of big events here at my house.  First, my mother flew in for a visit on Thursday night, and I’ve been busy trying to clean and prepare for her.  And second, my sweet peanut, Nik, turns 11 tomorrow.  So of course that means I’ve been out shopping!  As you can imagine, we’ve been pretty excited with all our goings-on!

But before I let the day slip away again, I want to show you all our new kit that is now available on the Paper-Playground website.  I always love the kits, and this one is no exception.  This month has one of my all-time favorite color combinations, blue and orange.  And I’ve seen so many gorgeous projects made with this paper line that I’ve been really anxious to get it myself. Take a look.

Yeah!  Isn’t it pretty?  Papers are from Pink Paislee’s Captivating and Fetching collections, some of my favorite releases from CHA.  Here are a few detail shots.

And here is a page I made from the kit.

I had fun playing with the rub-ons for this project.  Loved combining them with the chipboard die-cuts and buttons to make my little garden of flowers.  I made the stem for one flower by combining two of the rubs, and added a flower rub-on directly to a large button for another flower.

Kits are available now and will begin shipping on April 15th.  For a full list of kit contents, to check out our gallery, or to peek at our previous kits, hop on over to the Playground.

I hope you all enjoy the rest of your weekends.  We’re planning to go to the nursery today to pick out some perennials for my yard.  Have to wait and see what the weather is going to do, though.  We are heading towards another dose of winter with temperatures dropping drastically again, and  we’ve even heard the snow word for late tonight into tomorrow morning.  Not too excited about that!

Thanks for stopping by!