Make a Difference

I almost called this post ‘missing mojo’, but that’s not really accurate. It’s just been so busy around here. Between swim meets, work and prepping for CHA, it’s been pretty busy. And of course, this is the first week the girls are home from summer school. A whole new daily dynamic.

When we moved to Marshall a few years ago, the Fourth of July became my favorite week of the summer. We have created some fun traditions for our family, and we really look forward to them. Our favorite is the neighborhood parade on the morning of the Fourth. I’ll have to post pictures for you this year. Wes and the girls started pulling our ‘float’ together tonight.

Here’s a little ’simple stamping’ Happy Fourth, Kim Hughes for you. I love this Proud Eagle image. He’s so handsome, standing tall! Tomorrow brings another new release for Kim and it’s Christmas in July at CHF. You are going to FLIP when you see her adorable Christmas images. One set is called Heart Warmers, the other is Christmas Critters. The thing I really like about Christmas Critters is that many of the images have year around appeal. See you soon - I’m gonna try to stamp another before bed tonight.

• Stamps: Proud Eagle & America the Beautiful - Kim Hughes for Cornish Heritage Farms
• Cardstock: Suede Light Brown, Cryogen White, Mystic Dark, Blush Red Dark
• Ink: Espresso, Cranberry & Denim Adirondack & Wheat VersaMagic
• Accs: Copic Markers, Ribbon & Nestabilities

About this time each spring, we start getting a lot of rich color on our water garden. This weekend, I spied the first waterlily of the summer.  Since I’m not going to skim the pond this morning to take a picture, you can look at last year’s bloom here.

 Back in March, I was getting ready for a ladies event at my church, and I spied this gorgeous waterlily image from OnyxXpressions. They come on unmounted black rubber, and I was really pleased with the impression. Yesterday, I gave this some ink and markers…just to celebrate my first blooms of the summer. I cut the waterlily image with a fingertip craft knife that I got from Jami for my birthday. I know that she got it from Taylor’s store. It made that detailed cutting a breeze…I LOVE IT!

• Stamps: Waterlily - OnyxXpressions
• Cardstock: Blush Red Light, Suede Dark Brown, Infuse Basic Grey
• Ink: Espresso Adirondack
• Accs: Ribbon - Offray, WeRMemory Keepers Silver Hardware (colored with E79 Copic), fingertip craft knife, dew drop and Copic Markers

My little baby girl turns 6 today, and I’m hosting 4 little girls for an afternoon tea party on our front porch. It should be lots of fun, but I’ve got lots to do. See you tomorrow!

The Kim Hughes Blitz continues at CHF this weekend with lots of fun cards and prizes. Today’s challenge is about using any Kim stamps with wings. I thought this would be fun to send to some folks who are expecting for the first time. I love my Kaiser jewels these came from a sweet friend for my birthday, but their available from eP…they come in a whole rainbow of colors, and who doesn’t think of their pending arrival as precious jewels?

The colors a little washed, that happens at 6:40 in the morning, but here’s a closer look at the detail on the main panel. Love how I could make this coordinate with my new K&Company Berry Sweet paper. I’m hoping to look at more new stuff from CHA releases when I hit Archiver’s tomorrow afternoon.

Busy, busy day around here. The library is having a ‘pounding’ - not this kind of pounding, but the kind where they bring in a whole load of wood and nails and let the kids have at it with hammers…The hammers are on the kitchen table, and the girls have their clothes picked out already. After that, we have the wedding that I made the card for yesterday and then a baptism for my niece tomorrow. It’s gonna be a special 48 hours. Hope your weekend will contain some memory making material, as well.

 Blessings ~

I owe a sweet family a thank you for something very nice that they have done for me lately. This little giraffe and butterfly are from Kim’s new Baby Love set. CHF is hosting a Kim Hughes Blitz thru Sunday, and this card fits the Limited Supplies challenge (cardstock, stamps, ribbon & buttons only).

Yesterday, I received my complimentary copies of Paper Crafting with Kids from Paper Crafts. I had 2 projects published in this issue. The idea was to find projects appropriate for children to make or give as gifts. Lots of fun ideas to share paper crafting with your kids!

This little set of colored pencils was one of my projects. I made a simple box with Cryogen White cardstock and the Geometric Flowers II Backgrounder from CHF. Wouldn’t it be sweet with some simple line art stamped notecards? What’s your favorite thing to give a child for a simple birthday or thinking of you gift? Leave me a comment with your answer, and on Sunday, I’ll pick a winner and mail out one of my extra copies.  Have a great day!

I’m underneath a mountain of laundry and unopened mail as we’ve had a busy, busy week at the Craig house, so I’m keeping the blah, blah to a bare minimum. This is a super fast card for my sweet hubby who has really helped me this week! Hope you have a wonderful, restful weekend.

You can see lots of inspiration if you visit Beate Johns, Cambria Turnbow, Charmaine Ikach, Laurie Schmidlin, Mary Jo Albright and Sharon Harnist.

• Stamps: Everything - Stampin’ Up!

• Cardstock: Brown linen - Archivers, Spring Willow Light Prism, Poison Ivory

• Ink: VersaMagic Dew Drops: Jumbo Java & Gingerbread, Tsukineko Glue Pad

• Accs: Build a Brad, lace (Making Memories), Glitter

So according to this sweet little girl, Adrianna, I’m the ‘caller ID’ friend…today, I’m the Rhinestone Elvis friend.  I know she’s cooking something up with her Jump-suit Elvis today, and I told her I’d come up with something, too! 

I paired Jump-Suit Elvis with a new Elvis backgrounder called, “Elvis is…” (available this Friday) to create a pretty simple CELEBRATE card! What’s Elvis without a few rhinestones? LOL! These black ones are from Mark Richards, and I love the size. I get mine at Archivers.   To glitter Elvis up, I stamped him in black ink, then used a stamp-ma-jig to stamp over with Tsukineko Glue Pad - then covered with Black Martha Stewart Glitter.

 So make sure you check out Adri’s cards and give her some love!  Have a great long weekend!

The last time I was in my fabulous local stamp store, Stamper’s Ink, who carries a large selection of Thomas Kinkade, they had the most gorgeous display board of samples. Several of the cards used a shimmery, texured cardstock and acetate. The shimmer and texture combination gives the stamped image a lot of depth and dimension. I snatched up some of that cardstock, and the technique was perfect for the Challenge Chicks Acetate challenge this morning.

The image is stamped on top of the acetate with Timber Brown StazOn and then layered onto the shimmery cardstock. Here’s a close up:

The scalloped topper allows for plenty of adhesive to hold the acetate from the top. Brads hold acetate and cardstock images together from the bottom. Brads solve the pesky, hide the adhesive issue. Then to hide the brad prongs on the inside of the card, I put a layer of capaccino metallic cardstock as a mat for the shimmery white layer.

I can’t wait to see what the other CHF gals have done with acetate today. The full team is playing today, so you can check any of their links to the right: Cornish Heritage Farms Designers.

Have a great day!  

The good news is that it’s a new day! Filled with new opportunities! One of those opportunities is this adorable little eagle from CHF - the new Stamp of the Month - Eddie the Eagle! Here in Mayberry~Middle America, the Fourth of July is my favorite celebration of the year. Easter is my favorite holiday, but the Fourth is full of fun, laid back festivity, neighborhood parades, watermelon, good times and lots of red, white and blue! I’ve already been to the party store for this year’s banners, tablecloths and favors to hand out at the parade.

Between now and July 4th, I’ll be making several more of these little window hangings to give away. The chipboard star came from Bazzill. I brushed white glue on one side, covered with glitter and in-set some star eyelets. Eddie, colored with Copics, stands proud.

For many of you, your first stamping experience was just like mine. You were sitting at someone’s dining room table, trying not to drop salsa or veggie dip on your clean ’stamp mat’ (just keepin’ it real) and watching someone ‘do stamping’. She used VersaMark ink and these chalks in a palette and cotton puff to color the image you couldn’t see…you were hooked! The technique is called ‘poppin’ pastels’, and it’s so easy.

Well, the CHF Chicks are dishing it up today with a new twist on pastel chalks…can you say, SHIMMER? Unfortunately, my camera can’t this morning…LOL! but I’ll try to edit that out a little later in the day. These shimmery I-KAN-DEE chalks are on special at Cornish Heritage Farms this week, so check out the DT samples…you’ll love them, I’m sure: Lisa Silver, Kristine Reynolds, Lesley Langdon, Dawn Lusk, Val Stangle, Kim Hughes and Julia Stainton.

I’ll be back in just a bit with the winner of the Elvis blog candy. Results are currently being certified by my mom.