CARDS CARDS CARDS

I have had so much fun with my July CupCards {to go} kit. I ended up making 14 cards all together, eeking out every last scrap that I could because it was all so wonderful. Many I created on my own, and many I created through inspiration from the CCTG design team. I think this one is my favorite:

I can't even begin to describe how much fun this kit was. It came in this darling box and everything about it was "card sized". All I needed was to add the adhesive and creativity (ok....and some Stickles, but that's a given).

My last post shows the "before" picture, and here are some more "afters":

(((hugs))) to Sonda, Baylee and Duane.

CupCards {to go}

I can't think of a better way to dust off this blog (eh.....I'm a slow blogger, what can I say?), than to share my latest discovery: CupCards {to go} http://www.cupcardstogo.typepad.com/ .

Ok ok.....I discovered this several months ago, but I got a little busy with life. This site is owned by Cassonda Tadlock http://sondat.typepad.com/ , who is a wickedly talented scrapper, designer, artist, paper-crafter.....well, you get the idea (plus she's really friendly and sweet, too!). Sonda puts together monthly card kits with lots of scrappy goodness. I received the July 2009 kit, my first, in today's mail. It is so scrumptious!

Check out these goodies:

And check out the detail. I love the embossed cardstock, the lacy trim, and those pins and buttons.....so cute!

Now I must say that one item pictured here was not included in the kit. I won the darling Studio G stamp set by participating in the July sneak peek CupCards {to go} blog hop. I had a lot of fun hopping from one design team member's blog to the next.

Now comes the fun part.....deciding how to put my cards together. I can lift some ideas from the designers, or create my own. Hmmmm, probably a little from column A, and a little from column B.

Going Green

Being the slow scrapper that I am, I FINALLY scrapped my memorial page for Cali, our little kitty who passed a year ago.





I've had this layout planned in my head for a year. I went green with this one, and not just with the background cardstock. I am on a "keep it simple" and "keep it cheap" kick these days. I wanted to dry emboss the green cardstock on each side of the layout, but I didn't have any heart stencils or templates to emboss with. And, well, my heart was set on hearts. So.......I used my Fiskars USX with a rectangle template, and cut a piece of green cardstock right out of the middle of my background page.







This, of course, was later covered with blue cardstock. From my cut piece of green cardstock, I punched out hearts and placed them against the green cardstock. Instant faux embossing!

My Little Shoebox

I am such a lucky girl! Yesterday I attended a crop at Picture Me Perfect in Fremont, CA. The crop was a fundraiser for the American Heart Association in memory of Marshall Tornay (some of you may know scrapbooker Michelle Tornay). We shared laughs, tears, stories. It was a wonderful day, full of support for Michelle. So far, $2,000 has been raised with this event.
I was one of the lucky ones who won a raffle prize. Check out this wonderful assortment of My Little Shoebox goodies:


I won one each of the new lines: Flawless, Who's There, Wonderful, My Neighborhood, Turtles and Trees, and Enjoy Life. I just love MLS. Next to Basic Grey and Cosmo Cricket, it's my favorite line. You can check them out at http://www.mylittleshoebox.com/.

Caution: Funny Sign Ahead

Last November, the kids and I picked up Road Trip America's newest addition of, "Caution Funny Signs Ahead". A month later, we stumbled onto our own funny sign and couldn't resist sending it into RTA. The picture is up on RTA's blog this week:

http://www.roadtripamerica.com/signs/ill.htm

Sock It To Poverty

I have the pleasure of being on the Charity Fiskatmittee (another Fiska-word for the Fiska-dictionary) over at the Fiskateer website. This month, our focus is on Poverty Awareness Month, which is reconized in January. We are going to ‘Sock It To Poverty’ and do a Sock Drive for January.

Here are a few Sock facts:

Socks are vital to overall health of those living on the streets.

Socks are often not donated enough and are greatly appreciated by the recipient.

Most homeless and impovershed people do not own shoes that fit properly or
are not in good condition. This increases the importance of socks.

Many people suffer from diabetes and other ailments and they could benefit
from socks with extra support.

Not all shelters accept clean used socks so it’s important when collecting that we collect new socks.

Socks are relatively inexpensive to donate.

There are men, women and children that
live on the streests and all could benefit with a new pair of socks.

More people are becoming homeless due to the downward spiral of the economy
as well as natural disasters.

Here are some things you can do to sock it to
poverty:

Come join us at the Fiskatateer site and learn where you can send socks.

Deliver socks to a local shelter.

Craft a ’sock box’ to collect socks and create a sign to share where the donations are going and why.

Spread the word at your local scrapbook store and set a date to collect them at
a crop.

How about a “Sock Hop Crop”. Maybe your local scrapbook
store would go for a crop in honor of collecting socks for those in need.

How about spreading the word at ladies groups, church, your local rotary
club.

More Cards

Here are two more cards for the Card Sketch a Day blog. Same sketch, two versions. Once again, most of the supplies came from my stash. The paper on card #2 is from a new, fun and upcoming line, My Little Shoebox. I love their stuff!

I am Losing my Mind

So today I'm killing time, browsing through my favorite scrappy websites and blogs, and I pop over to Card-Sketch-a-Day. That's when I realize that one of my 2 January sketch-cards are up on the website. Now....here is the scary part....I was getting ready to make a card for one of my son's teachers. But.....duh.....I didn't need to, I already did (his birthday is Jan 13th). What a dope. But, there's more. While I'm browsing the pictures on my laptop to upload, I come across a baby card that I put together a few months ago, also for the CSAD site. Tomorrow I was going to make a tag or a card to go with a gift, forgetting that this card was intended to accompany said gift. Oh good grief. I am loosing my mind!

These cards are created from the same sketch, just two versions. In keeping suit with most of my other cards, I put these ones together using scraps from my stash. I primarily used prima flowers and Bazzill bling cardstock. I punched each of the little date squares, handwriting the date in each one with my Sakura gel pen (love those pens).

A Simple Christmas

This year we opted for a simple Christmas. After years of spending days putting up lights, decking the halls, and all other things holiday-related, we came up with a "keep it simple" plan. This tree is our newest addition. A small WalMart tree with packaged WalMart decorations. I love how it matches. Nothing in my house matches, so this was quite a treat for me. We still hauled in our 7-foot tree and decorated it with our usual eclectic assortment of decorations, and we hung 2 larger decorations on our wall. But that was it. I thought that we, or the kids, would be disappointed with the lack of elaborate decorations, but it was actually quite nice and freeing. The best part was that we were able to put it all way in about 30 minutes! Woo Hoo!