The Shabby tea Room - challenge #232 - Summer Dreams

Hi everyone and welcome to another fun week over at The Shabby Tea Room! This week it was my turn to pick the theme. I came upon this beautiful picture and was just drawn to it. Ohh how I wish this was my home....

Doesn't it look like a place where you could curl up with a book and relax? I'd love to spend a couple of hours there ;)

This weeks rules: create a card or project inspired by the photo using a home and/or garden theme, flowers and colors from the photo!

This week our sponsor just happens to be Creations By AR. Did you know that I'm on their design team? Adela creates wonderful 3D patterns to play with. Everything from gift bags to home organization and LOTS of goodies in-between! All of the files come in a PDF for hand cutting as well as several options for machine cutting (I use the SVG one). What I like about cut files is that they're fairly cheap and once I have the file I can use it forever!

Creations by AR is all about paper crafting specializing in 3D templates, cutting files and digital images. Visit www.creationsbyar.com for inspiration!

I am pleased to offer The Shabby Tea Room participants a challenge discount of 10% off entire purchase during the week of my sponsorship.  The discount code is challenge10. 

Well, are you ready to see what I've made? I chose the darling watering can from Creations by AR. I wanted to keep it fairly simple so as not to take away from the watering can itself but couldn't resist adding a little bling, doily and tag! This file also comes with a little seed packet that you can make. What a darling gift set this would make!

ITEMS:

• Watering Can - Creations By AR
• Stitched Tag (stitched duo 1)- Pretty Pink Posh
• Solid Rose Accent stamp set - DeNami Design
• 4 mm Clear Sequins - Pretty Pink Posh
• Chevron Twill Ribbon - Pretty Pink Posh

Please link your creations at The Shabby Tea Room by Sunday, August 24th to play along. Winner and Tea Time Terrific Top Three will be announced Monday, August 25th. We will have an all-new challenge for you to play along with on the 25th as well, so please come back and visit with us again for another chance to win!

 

Let's use up those scraps.....

Ugggg, I'm late again!!! My goodness, where is my head these days???? Thank you all so much for the well wishes for Moe! He's doing good today. His little paw (do 100lb babies have little paws, hehehe) is really raw between his toes and he doesn't want to put any weight on it at all. He's cast-less so his toes can have air and dry out properly. Since it's about 2 weeks too early to have it off we have to be extremely careful when he gets up to go out for a potty break and he is now wearing a "cone of shame"...my poor little baby!! He's taking it all like a trooper though and will be better in no time! Here's a few pictures of my precious little boy...

 

Well, after all that cuteness it's hard to switch gears and make y'all look at a card that I made, lol! Moe is a lot more fun to look at ;)

I was playing around trying to come up with a way to purge my scrap paper drawer. I just can't bring myself to throw away pretty patterned paper, even the smallest scrap!! I simply made some "flags" and layered them across the front of an A2 card base. I then added a solid strip of cardstock that I punched and added a piece of Washi (to pull in the purple) and ribbon to. To anchor the whole card I added a couple of punched scalloped circles that I stamped with a sentiment from the Assorted Greetings stamp set and a little circle frame called Double Circle Frame - both by DeNami Design. 

Well that's it for me today! I'm off to go sit in the floor and cuddle with my baby boy. Hope y'all have a great weekend!!

Happy Birthday To My Favorite Fireman

Hi everyone!! So sorry for the late post, my life is such a wreak some days!!I was supposed to write this up yesterday but had a slight hic-cup with my doggy. He had surgery on his knee 2 weeks ago. He completely tore his ACL and had a partial tear in another ligament and had quite a bit of scar tissue built up so they did what's called a TPLO. It's a pretty evasive surgery where they go in and reconfigure the bone structure so after months of trying other things that didn't work this was out last resort.  Yesterday I noticed that something was "off". As a mom you just know these things, right ladies? Well I took him to the Vet and they took off his soft cast & splint. They found that his splint (which is basically a 1/2 cast) was broke and dug into his paw which caused moisture in between his toes which is causing issues that no one wants to hear about. Think of what happens when we are on massive antibiotics...yeah, poor little guy!! He had to spend the night there which breaks my heart and made me a nervous wreak all evening! Needless to say, this post was the last thing on my mind! I was imagining all kinds of crazy stuff like the infection spreading to the incision and since they took the stitches out on Monday and were leaving the wrappings off that his leg would fall off...y'all know how we worry over our babies and tend to think on the crazy side! I was there on the edge, lol! This morning my mind is at ease and I know he's doing great and will be picking him up this afternoon...what a relief!!

Anyway, let's get on with today's post. I'm sure you don't want to hear about Moe's knee and my insane-ness!! For my birthday i received a few stamps from Paper Sweeties...WOO-HOO! It just so happens that 2 of my brother-in-laws are firemen so the darling fireman themed stamp set I received is a perfect fit in my collection!! Also, one of them has a birthday just a couple of days from mine so it was doubly fun receiving this wonderful stamp set and inked it up a couple of weeks ago to make him a card! 

I always struggle with guy friendly cards but somehow this one came together sooooo easily!! 

I started off with a kraft A2 card base the layered on some fun orange because I knew that I was going to color Jake's outfit in that hue. I decided to make a little panel for him and added a pop of bright color by adding the blue punched strip. I added a sentiment from DeNami (happy birthday) and fussy cut the helmet and hose to draw in the overall theme, plus the hose anchors the sentiment. To finish it all off I added the buttons in the upper corner. It just seemed to empty up there and this gives me my rule of 3 - the buttons, the focal point & the sentiment. 

Stamps:

DeNami - Happy Birthday script

Paper Sweeties: Jake & Jake Sweetcuts, Firefighters

Well that's it for me today. I'll see you on Friday!!

The Shabby Tea Room - challenge #231

Hi everyone and welcome to another fun week at The Shabby Tea Room! This week we have such a pretty and feminine inspiration picture!

This weeks rules: create a card or project inspired by the photo using pink, black, flowers and pearls!

How pretty is that little picture? I love the gold trim on the cup handle and saucer. I chose the colors and the tea cup for my inspiration and came up with this....

I used the darling little tea pot from Paper Sweeties' Tea For Two stamp set and paired it with some pretty patterned papers I had been hording saving for a special occasion. I think it all works perfectly with the solid cardstocks from The Paper Temptress.

Paper Temptress Items Used:

• Black Plike Text
• Pink Lemonade

This week's lucky winner will receive a $25 gift certificate from Paper Temptress!

Please link your creations at The Shabby Tea Room by Sunday, August 17th to play along. Winner and Tea Time Terrific Top Three will be announced Monday, August 18th. We will have an all-new challenge for you to play along with on the 18th as well, so please come back and visit with us again for another chance to win!

fun & bright everyday cards

Hi everyone and happy Friday!! Today I have two cards to share with you. I just love bright and fun colors and sometimes it really shows up in my work. I needed to make a few samples for the little store that I teach card making at and I just love this little ticket die & stamp set and couldn't wait to see what I could do with it. It's fun to see how both cards are totally different yet use the same stamps and die.

That's it for me today. I'll see ya right back here on Monday with a fun new challenge for The Shabby Tea Room! 

Seasons Change....

You gals always bring a smile to my face even on a gloomy day! Your support and comments really mean a lot to me, thank you from the bottom of my heart!

This past weekend I sat down with my calendar to set dates for the classes I'm teaching at a little local rubber stamp store here in St. Louis and was shocked to see that the class I'm getting ready for will be at the end of August which means my next class will be at the end of September!! This means breaking out all the beautiful deep rich fall papers and autumn themed stamps! Am I ready for summer to be over, am I ready to put away the brightly colored papers and embellishments? I have such mixed feelings on this!! 

Well, weather I like it or not, time will not stand still so I rolled with the flow and pulled out some yummy autumn stamps and created my first card for fall...

I showed a little sneak peak of this card on Facebook yesterday. You may recognize the leaves on my focal panel being from the DeNami stamp set, Solid Leaves. Last fall I was introduced to a really fun medium called Goosebumps. You can do several things with it and one thing I learned was that I can stamp with it! I started out with a piece of cream cardstock then randomly stamped my leaves using the Goosebumps medium. It doesn't really show up when you stamp it on white or cream, but trust me, it's doing it's intended thing. I then used 3 colors of distress ink and distressed the whole piece...that's when my little leaves really popped out. The Goosebumps kind of as a resist and a little like a watermark all in one and it has just a snitch of dimension. After I was happy with my color blending I randomly stamped a little curly cue from the Leaf Accents set in a tan color. I finished off my stamping with one of my favorite sentiments, Hello Friend. I added some fall colors using a pretty patterned paper and some fall sequins I got last year from Lawn Fawn.

That's it for me today, I hope you like my first fall card of the season...see y'all on Friday! :) 

The Shabby Tea Room - challenge #230

Hello and happy Monday everyone!! Did you have a chance to follow along the hop on last Friday for Paper Sweeties' Birthday Celebration? If not, be sure to do so, there is a TON of yummy inspiration to be had! I have the entire hop list listed below in that post. 

And speaking of Paper Sweeties, they are the host this week here at The Shabby Tea Room! I pulled out some brand new images that I just LOVE!

Here's this weeks inspiration picture:

What a fun party that would be!

This weeks rules:Just to create something inspired by the photo! Easy Peasy, right???

Here's my little card:

I just loved that bright rainbow and couldn't resist picking up on that! I die cut little stitched panels then put them together for my background before adding the die cut stamped shapes and finished it all up with some jun sequins from Pretty Pink Posh.

Paper Sweeties Stamps & Dies:

• Showering you with love

As I said before, Paper Sweeties is this weeks sponsor for this weeks challenge! Paper Sweeties is owned and illustrated by Debbie Marcinkiewicz, and offers  high-quality, on trend acrylic stamps, coordinating metal dies and pretty embellishments.  Our heartwarming images allow paper crafters to create adorable dolls with interchangeable outfits and accessories ... plus so much more! We also have a wide variety of wonderful all-occasion sentiments, labels, frames and accessory sets - perfect for every paper crafted project!  You'll enjoy using your Paper Sweeties stamps, dies and embellishments to create projects for card making, scrap booking, party invitations and favors, home decor, gifts and so much more!

Winner will receive a $20 gift certificate from the Paper Sweeties boutique!
 

Please link your creations at The Shabby Tea Room by Sunday, August 10th to play along. Winner and Tea Time Terrific Top Three will be announced Monday, August 11th. We will have an all-new challenge for you to play along with on the 11th as well, so please come back and visit with us again for another chance to win!