Make a Difference

As these last few weeks of summer vacation slither on by, I am lovin’ all the Christmas in July. This is my sweet, handsome Elvis - Blue Christmas from CHF, available now. Do you get the Cornish Heritage Farms newsletter? Liz announced last week that she and I will be at the Elvis Expo in Memphis in just 2 weeks, August 13 & 14! If you’re in the area, please stop by our booth and say hi! We’ll have plenty of beautiful Elvis red rubber, some samples for you to oogle up close and maybe even chocolate. I’d love to meet you if you are a Memphis local reader or in town for the big festivities.

Not going to be in Memphis? Well, NO PROBLEM! Visit vicariously! I’ll be hosting an online class at Cornish Heritage Farms on Tuesday, August 12th - LIVE from Memphis, TN. You can read about my free class and sign up HERE! I’m really excited to share this super quick and cute project idea with you. It is smack your forehead easy with a very short supply list, so I hope you’ll hang out with me and create a project. I’m hoping to share some Elvis and Memphis photos with you that night, as well!

Right now, I have one hour before my darling daughters come home from a playdate, and I’m gonna see what I can do with a few pieces of new, red rubber that are laying on my desk. Have a great afternoon!

I was really drawn to a new set from Unity Stamp Company with all the birds. There’s one for every season. I colored this one with Prismacolor pencils and gamsol - then accented with paper from the Pink Paislee - Office Lingo line and one of those new Primas that I got from Jacksonbelle.

I made it safely into Chicago. Yesterday I took the Copic Certificatin class, and it was a really good time. Lots of friends, great teaching from Marianne (ilikemarkers at SCS). Looking forward to making a few cards with the images that I colored.  The SCS Team is getting ready to head down to the convention floor for opening morning of CHA. Should be fast and frenzied - We have some appointments set up, but I’m hoping to blog tonight about some of our favorite stuff from the show. Have a great day!

And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. ~ Romans 5:5

It’s time for another CHF Challenge Chicks offering. I’m still working with the new Aimee Nugent images that will be released on Friday of this week. This is another silhouette, a manger scene. I used Beate’s Faux Shaving Cream technique, and I love the results on these large, solid images. The CHF Challenge today was to use Krylon Leafing Pens. I used the Pale Gold, and I see this morning that it must be out of stock, probably because they are all on special this week. You can achieve the same results with any of the colors, and there are lots of samples to look at, as much of the team is participating today.  You can see samples from Julia Stainton, Julie Campbell, Lisa Silver, Kim Hughes, Kristine Reynolds, Dawn Lusk, Michele Boyer and Sherrie Seimens by clicking their individual names.

Joy! Peace! Hope! A sentiment from the Christmas Expressions set available on Thursday! Let me speak to those few words for a minute. Two times in my life, I have had a preacher stand up and say, ‘the Holy Spirit has given me a different message today that I originally planned’. One of those times was yesterday, and both times the new message was tailored to meet me where I was at, at that season. God is good. Our pastor actually preached from Romans 8 yesterday, my very favorite chapter of the Bible. And, he actually preached on JOY - the joy of our salvation! The joy of having a short (very short) list of things that we need to be happy and how that sets us up to be joyful. The encouragement yesterday gave me HOPE.

I’ve had a lot on my mind the last few weeks, a few rough situations that are really hard to wrap your mind around and even more difficult to evoke change.  While I won’t stop praying about them, I’ll be moving those rough situations off of my list of things that steal my happiness and rob my JOY. That brings me PEACE. It gives me a new HOPE, and His Word tells me that HOPE does not disappoint us. 

Tomorrow is Divine Design, and seeing how God touches so many of you through His Word, well that is one of those things that brings me JOY. Have a wonderful, wonderful day!

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!