Mojo Monday on a Sunday

Good morning and Happy Halloween! There are no parties in store for me today, which really is all right. I love being home to hand out candy to the trick or treaters. :) It's one of the little joys of being an adult on Halloween. One year ago today I was at Halloween and missed handing out candy (though, I think it was a pretty win-win situation overall).

I have a little thank you card to share with you today using last Monday's Mojo Monday sketch. I chose to work with the square sketch this time, as corners really are my comfort zone. I pulled out some of the purples and aqua colors and got down to business. I fixed my threading snafoo on my sewing machine so it worked flawlessly on this card. Ah, that little zigzag just makes me happy. The sentiment was feeling a little lonely, so I took a nod from Maureen and added a few little sparkles. :)

We had a lovely evening last night. My dad ended up coming over for dinner (he just can't say no to Swiss Steak, hehe). It's always good to visit and catch up. This morning, it's off to church, perhaps a stop at Grandma's to fix her Internet (when did I become the techie in the family?!), then home to more cards! Well, cards, studying my voter guide so I'm prepared for Tuesday, and working on school stuff for a while. But cards are definitely on the agenda.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies-
Stamps- Verve: Thankful Hearts
Paper- Kraft, Very Vanilla, Cosmo Cricket Mitten Weather dp
Ink- Perfect Plum
Accessories- ribbon, nestabilities, tea dye stain, dimensionals, jewels, medium scallop die (PTI), sewing machine

Viva la Verve!

Can you believe we're already into the first week of November for Viva la Verve?! This year has absolutely flown by. Tomorrow is Halloween, Veteran's Day is knocking on the door, Thanksgiving will be here before we know it, then we'll blink and it will be Christmas. Crazy!

Amber had a great sketch for us and some amazing inspiration. I immediately jumped all over the first inspiration picture. Something about all that red, cream, quilting, and apples just made me happy. I attempted to recreate my own quilted pattern on my card using various dps and background stamps. I'm relatively pleased with how it turned out.

And please try to ignore the wonky sewing around the edges. For some reason my sewing machine began to sew a bit strangely in the middle of my card. It took me just a minute too long to realize that it wasn't sewing the normal zigzag pattern before I fixed it. I'm pleased to report that it's all fixed and happy now that the card is done. Oh well!

It's a truly lazy Saturday here around the house. I most definitely fought to sleep in this morning (I hate that my body gets used to waking up at 6:30 and thinks it should do that on Saturdays as well). But I won the fight and woke up nice and refreshed. It rained pretty hard last night, but the sun was out and shining this morning! It's so crisp and clean outside. Love it! I've got some Swiss Steak cooking in the crock pot, potatoes sitting on the counter waiting for my roommate to come home and make mashed potatoes (She seriously make the best mashed potatoes). I have one card down and many more to go. I have the itch to create. Some new dp (Mitten Weather!) is also helping that crafty mojo along.

I'll leave you today with a few pictures from school yesterday. I wish I could post pictures of my kiddos! They were soooo cute! Just imagine 20 five and six year olds running around at school in full Halloween costume. Adorable!

The First Grade Teaching Team

Have a lovely Saturday!


Supplies-
Stamps- Verve: Thanks so Much, PTI: Background Basics Retro, Text Style
Paper- Pure Poppy, Vintage Cream, Bitty Dots dp, Distressed Dots dp, In Bloom dp
Ink- Pure Poppy, Vintage Cream, Tea Dye Stain
Accessories- ribbon, button, twine, nestablities, jewels, dimensionals, tea dye stains, sewing machine

Sweet Sunday Sketch #90

Good morning! The sun is out and shining for the first time in 8 days, and it looks to be building to a gorgeous day! Only the high 60s to low 70s today. It doesn't get more perfect than that!

I'm sitting at home this morning due to some crock pot food that didn't finish cooking overnight. One of my ministries at church is that I cook for families in need (sickness, emergencies, etc.). I new I needed to drop the food off after church while I was out their way this morning, so I put the meal in a crock pot to cook overnight. Not wanting to leave it on high for 12 hours, I set it on low and crossed my fingers. Well, apparently I should have crossed my arms, legs, and toes as well. Still not done. So, I've got it cranked up to high, sent my roomie off to church, and am hoping it finishes up sometime in the near future. Boo!

After I drop the food off, I'm off to an Open House to visit and welcome home (temporarily) a childhood friend of mine that now lives/serves in Kenya as a missionary. It's been about two years since I've seen her, therefore I am so looking forward to seeing her face. :)



Then tonight, it's pumpkin carving time!! A few girlfriends are coming over to our place for some carving fun. I have the pumpkin treats all baked and ready to go! The pumpkin pie was seriously calling my name all night long.... I need to eat it! Soon! lol

Enough rambling... On to the card! I used Karen's fantastic new sketch for this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge. I love the big panel/sweet simplicity of the sketch. I knew immediately that I wanted to use my Blooming Button Bits. I was originally going to do a purple/green color theme, but for some reason the New Leaf cardstock jumped out at me when I went to grab the colors. So green and yellow it was. Very "spring-y" don't you think? Eh, spring, fall... Same thing, hehe.

Well, keep your fingers crossed for me! This food HAS to finish within the next hour so I can get where I'm going on time! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Sunday!

Supplies-
Stamps- PTI: Blooming Button Bits
Paper- New Leaf, Whisper White, Bitty Box dp
Ink- Wild Wasabi, Barely Banana
Accessories- ribbon, buttons, ric rac die, sewing machine

Viva la Verve!

I'm a week behind on my Viva la Verve sketches and this is the last week to submit our cards! Needless to say, prepare yourselves for an onslaught of VLV cards. :)

This particular card was created for the third week's challenge: to case Verve's own Jackie Pedro who's found herself getting a little Dirty! Congrats to you, Jackie! It is soooo well deserved! I selected an older card from about one year ago to CASE (copy and share everything). I changed the colors, the stamp, and eliminated one of the rectangular panels. I tried to stay true to the layout for the most part.



I stamped the flowers in Chocolate Chip and colored with my copics. I added a little white gel pen at the last minute to give the flowers a gleaming feeling. Love how that turned out! The flowers are popped up as well.

It's baking day here in the house. We're having some friends over to carve pumpkins tomorrow and promised them "pumpkin treats." Since I finally was able to secure some canned pumpkin (and even a few sugar pumpkins!), I'm going to town with the baking. So far: 2 loaves of pumpking bread, one pumpkin pie, and a bunch of experimental pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. They sure look and smell yummy! I just might "have" to taste test a few of them to make sure that they are absolutely, positively safe to eat. It's only kind of me. Self-sacrificing, really. ;)

Oh, and here's a picture of Jackie Pedro's gorgeous card that was my inspiration launching point. ----->

Thanks so much for stopping by!

Supplies-
Stamps- Verve: Miracle Blossoms
Paper- Dark Chocolate, Very Vanilla, October Afternoon Thrift Shop dp
Ink- Chocolate Chip
Accessories- ribbon, copics, dimensionals, white gel pen, nestabilities, sewing machine

Mercy's Tuesday Sketch #96

Good evening! I had a few free minutes this evening (with energy to spare) to make a little card. I decided to play along with Mercy's Tuesday sketch. Something about all those corners was making the muse in my happy. :)

Is it just me or is the blogging world inundated with Christmas cards lately? I can't even get through Halloween before Christmas starts staring me in the face (literally!). I even saw my first Christmas-themed commercial on TV on October 19th. That's right, people. A whole 2 months+ before Christmas. Really, what has this world come to?!


So, after all of this ranting, I figured I had better follow trend, lol! Well, that, and my Holiday Button Bits have been calling my name lately. Poor things just sit there all year long waiting for the holidays to come back around.

I just love the look of Simply Chartreuse and Scarlet Jewel together. So rich. So regal. So wonderful. And then you add buttons and twine and they're even more divine! I stamped the holly leaves twice, cut out and popped up the second set. Some wrapped twine and a little snuck on sentiment finished off the card. Easy peasy.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Supplies-
Stamps- PTI: Holiday Button Bits
Paper- Kraft, Simply Chartreuse, Whisper White, Bitty Dot dp, In Bloom dp
Ink- Kiwi Kiss, Cranberry Crisp
Accessories- twine, buttons, dimensionals, tea dye stains

A Little Autumn Getaway

The reason for the slightly longer silence on the blog was a quick trip up the mountains. :)

I had a random 3-day weekend thanks to a furlough day at work, decided to call my parents to check on the fall-color status back a home, discovered that it was peak colors, and hit the road! A good friend decided to travel with me (another camera geek.... who taught me a lot this last weekend) and snap some pictures.

We arrived home on Saturday afternoon to some rather dreary, impending doom looking skies. Rain was in the forecast for Sunday and Monday, but apparently the storm decided to move in early. Great. We pretty much ate lunch and then rushed out, trying to grab any fading light before the clouds covered it all. That ended up being the pattern for the weekend. Once it started raining, it really didn't stop. Just brief interludes where Rey and I would grab our raincoats and the camera, rushing out the door to see if we could grab some shots before the rain, inevitably, began to fall once more.

The colors were gorgeous. All golden, orange, and even a few reds mixed in. The lighting wasn't ideal, but I could have cared less. It was fall. Fall! Fall really isn't fall in So Cal. Our leaves down here don't even change and fall off until January. Lame. But going home, up to the mountains (7600ft elevation!) changed all of that. It was cool, rainy, and beautifully painted. In other words, it was perfect. God does good work. :)

Here are a few of my favorite pictures snapped by either myself of Rey. Enjoy!

Looking at Carson Peak on the left. I love how the leaves mimic the jaggedness of the peaks.

Staring upstream. The leaves were the richest along the water.

I couldn't resist a few macro shots. :)

Something about the trunks of all these aspen trees makes me happy.

And lastly, one shot by Rey. I love the moodiness (aka impending rain downpour) he captured in this image! We literally ran back to the car after this one!


That's all for the moment! I'm looking forward to the weekend and some stamping time! Thanks for stopping by and indulging in some autumn!

Viva la Verve!

I have a little game for you today. It's called "spot how many new things Kristina played with on this one solitary card." Sounds fun, right?! It was like Christmas here at the house for the last few days with all the new goodies I have ordered arriving at the same time! I just had to sit down to create a card. I suppose it was a personal challenge to see just how many new things I could cram onto this card.

I used last Friday's Viva la Verve challenge to help this card along. Instead of being challenged by a room, we had a *twist* again. It sure felt like the old days, dreading which twist was coming each week. hehe

Amber challenged us with a sketch, as usual, but gave us a color challenge in exchange for an inspiration challenge. The colors? Brown, orange, turquoise, and white. Strange at first glance, but absolutely lovely in reality.

Ok. On to the new toys!

1. Seam Binding Ribbon- LOVE! I've been wanting some of this forever and some of it is finally mine! I ordered a few colors to allow me to use them on different styles of cards. I can't wait to dive into them a bit more!
2. Pins- I picked up some pins while in Joann's grabbing some thread (more on that to come). These turquoise ones just happened to go perfectly with this challenge!
3. Stamps- Ah, new Verve. Nothing inspires, stamps, or smells quite as wonderfully. And with lightning fast shipping, these babies arrived in no time and have been calling my name from where they sat on my desk for the last two days.
4. Sewing Machine- Yup! I have joined the sewing world! Oh, how I've been coveting a sewing machine for the longest time. To be able to stitch all kinds of fun borders and patterns. To give my cards that little extra "oomph" in decoration. One quick run on some scratch cardstock and I took the plunge on my actual card. I'm so excited to play around with it more and more!
   

I think that covers it all. Other than all the new stuff, there is lots of old stuff, too. Buttons, tea dye stain, dimensionals, nesties... I popped up the whole center turquoise square above the ribbon. I also stamped the pumpkin once onto the white and a second time onto dp. It's popped up for some dimension. :)

I'm so happy with how this turned out! It's like new goodies bring the best mojo of all! Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies-
Stamps- Verve: Bountiful Harvest
Paper- Hawaiian Shores, Whisper White, Dark Chocolate, Autumn Abundance dp
Ink- Memento Rich Cocoa
Accessories- seam binding ribbon, pins, dimensionals, nestabilities, tea dye stain, copics, buttons, sewing machine

Babies!

I know. You've heard me mention that everyone I know is pregnant lately. Well, we are down to one less preggo! My cousin and his wife had their baby on Tuesday night, and I was blessed with the opportunity to be there! It just worked out that I was able to rush over to their hospital right after work and celebrate with them when he arrived. Little Micah is perfect in every way, and I am so completely in love with him! My cousin Tim and I grew up more as brother and sister rather than cousins, so to share a piece of that indescribable moment with him was truly something I will never forget.

I went over to T & E's place today to spend a little more quality time with my new tiny cousin (is it first cousin once removed or second cousin?). He was sleeping, of course, but he was so adorable all snuggled up in my arms, having some kind of fun dream. Lots of twitching and random sudden flailing followed by deep sleep. Love him!

Here are a few pictures from the hospital on Tuesday night. Meet Micah when he was only 1 1/2 hours old.

And secondly, I have another baby card to share with you. Another cousin of mine is expecting her first baby early in the new year. My aunt wrote a few weeks back asking if I would make the shower invites for her. Yay! The request was for a lighter, more lime colored green, brown, and some polka dots. Well, that I can do! Brown, green, polka dots?! I'm in heaven making these cards! I pretty much have all of the parts ready to go and tonight and tomorrow will be the putting it all together part. All 32 of them.

Now you know why the blog has been on the quieter side. :) Lots going on, just in the mass production department rather than the individual showpiece department.

Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies-

Stamps- PTI: Bitty Baby Blessings, Round & Round

Paper- Spring Moss, Dark Chocolate, Whisper White, Turning a New Leaf dp, Pretty Pastels dp

Ink- Memento Rich Cocoa

Accessories- twine, copics, dimensionals, nestabilities, apron lace punch, hole punch

Verve Release Challenge Card #5

Ah, at last we've reached the fifth and final day of the Verve World Cardmaking Celebration Release! Well, at least the last day here on my blog. Things are just kicking off over on the Verve blog with the first sneaky peaks of the new stamps! Yay! I've made a little room in my Verve binder to house my anticipated new goodies. :)

For some reason, this fifth sketch was an absolute stumper. And not because of the tilted panels, but because of the number of panels. That's a whole heck a lot of dp, or papers, or colors, etc. I was having a hard time visualizing this one (which is usually my first step in card-making. I see a sketch and the papers speak to me.). I finally settled on a tried and true paper combo (with some more of the yummo kraft polka dotted dp for good measure). October Afternoon dp never lets me down. hehe

I kept things a bit more on the simple side, with a big panel of plain cream cardstock. I tried stamping a patter onto it, but it just began to feel too busy in my mind. The cream let the other colors do all of the talking.

And thank goodness for kraft ribbon! I tied it in yet another double bow (really beginning to like these! Single bows are beginning to look... wimpy). I also finally made my way over to etsy and purchased some seam binding ribbon in a few colors to really master this double bow technique. Now I just need some pins to stick into them... Any advice on where to find those?

I had a blast playing along once again, Julee! Thanks for a week of fun (that isn't over yet! Yay!). And thanks to everyone for stopping by!

Supplies-
Stamps- Verve: Forever in Our Hearts
Paper- Very Vanilla, Kraft, October Afternoon Fly a Kite dp, Bitty Dots dp
Ink- More Mustard
Accessories-ribbon, jewels, dimensionals

Verve Release Challenge Card #4

Phew! Four down, one more to go! It's still challenge time over on the Verve blog to help celebrate World Card Making Day and Verve's new release. I'm so excited for the sneak peaks to start tomorrow! I always love me some new Verve. :)

This fourth card was a little difficult in its conception, but once I started working it went really quickly! I think I finished this in 20 minutes flat. That quite possibly could be a new record. The color combo was inspired by this card that Maureen posted a few days ago on her blog. Purple is one of my favorite colors, and then mixed with some More Mustard/Summer Sunrise it becomes all the more heavenly!

It's a fairly self-explanatory card. Lots of Pretty Pastels dp, some EK Success edge punching, a bow, and some sparklie jewels. Nothing fancy. Just nice, clean, crisp lines and beautiful colors. Oh, and I finally inked up another new Verve set: Framed Wishes. This was the free set at the last release, and if you didn't get it, shame on you! It's lovely! Though, I did switch out the sentiment that came with it for this little Plain Jane. Doesn't Julee (Verve owner/designer extraordinaire) create the most beautiful fonts?!

Have a wonderful Tuesday! See you back here tomorrow for the final card. Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies-
Stamps- Verve: Framed Wishes, Give Thanks PJ
Paper- Kraft, Plum Pudding, More Mustard, Whisper White, Pretty Pastels dp
Ink- Plum Pudding, More Mustard
Accessories- ribbon, jewels, dimensionals, EK Success edge punch

Verve Release Challenge Card #3

Good morning. And Happy Monday! (I'm trying to be excited about waking up early... Is it working?!) Presenting Verve's World Card Making Release Challenge #3. What's the fun in presenting cards to you in order? That's predictable. Boring. Been done before.

Now, presenting them out of order keeps you guessing as to what will come next. Ah, the mystery. The surprise. The anticipation of what the next reveal will be. That's way more fun!


So, here is my card for the third challenge. I pulled out some favorite dp, Turning a New Leaf, and some lovely greens and browns for the cardstock. I had this little Plain Jane from the last release that had yet to see any inkage, so it was high time to use it. This little sentiment square felt like the perfect opportunity. I stamped it in Old Olive and did some heavy tea dye staining around the edges. Some ribbon, button, twine action finished it up. Though, now that I look at it, I think I should have used a brown ribbon.... But I'm out! Ack! Don't panic. Don't worry, I've ordered more and it will be here this week. :)

I have an SST meeting after school today, so it's going to be a later night that usually as far as getting home from work goes. But it's all for a good reason. We're going to get this wonderful kiddo some help. :)

Well, enough out of me. Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies-
Stamps- Verve: Psalm 46:1 PJ
Paper- Spring Moss, Dark Chocolate, Whisper White, Turning a New Leaf dp
Ink- Old Olive
Accessories- ribbon, button, twine, dimensionals, tea dye stains

Verve Release Challenge Card #1

Good afternoon! I'm back with Day 2 of my cards for Verve's Release and World Card Making Day Celebration. Two of my favorite things!

I've tackled three of the five so far and have plans to work on at least one more of them this afternoon. The second challenge card I'm sharing with you is actually the third card I made. I finished it after church this morning. So, here's the story. At church, there was a gal sitting across the isle from me with the most adorable dark blue, bright green, and white floral print shirt. It was very flowy, with the background being white and the blue and green flowers almost blurred/flowing across the shirt. Adorable. And what does my brain think? CARD!

Night of Navy, Simply Chartreuse, Whisper White... Colors made in heaven. Have I mentioned before how much I love blues and greens together? I whipped out my Great Friends set and stamped some alternating green/blue flowers to create my own background dp. After a mis-stamp on the sentiment panel, I flipped it over, stamped again, and added a glittery frame around the white. One of my favorite things to do. :) I felt that it needed a little something more, so I took a nod from Maureen and added a few little jewels to the corner. The ribbon is some older ribbon I picked up at Michael's in the dollar bin. It has been tied in a double bow. :)

That's it for now! Thanks for stopping by!

Supplies-

Stamps- Verve: Great Friend, Anais Nin

Paper- Whisper White, Night of Navy, Simply Chartreuse, Bitty Dots dp

Ink- Night of Navy, Kiwi Kiss

Accessories- ribbon, jewels, glitter, nestablities, dimensionals

Verve Release Challenge Card #2

Good afternoon! It's that wonderful time of month when Verve is preparing to release some new stamps, as well as celebrating World Card Making Day (today!), and we all get 5 fun challenges to complete! Thank goodness this month's challenges include a weekend to work on them. I always get more card making done on the weekends, for obvious reasons.

I sat down with some cardstock and dp already on my desk and got right to work on the second challenge. Why can I never start with the first challenge? It's like I'm first challenge phobic, lol. I decided to try creating my own dp for the large square panel and pulled out Great Friend (so loving this set!!). I stamped the three branch images in Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, and Creamy Caramel. A simple bow, button, twine combo adorns the top of the oval. I actually stayed away from tea dye staining this one, as I really wanted the crisp white to stand out rather than fade away. And check out that Kraft polka dot dp! LOVE!

Well, that's it for today. Short and sweet. I'm off to bake some fall-themed sugar cookies with the roomie. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Stamp- Verve: Great Friend

Paper- Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Whisper White, Bitty Dots dp

Ink- Aqua Mist, Spring Moss, Creamy Caramel

Accessories- ribbon, button, twine, jewels, nestablities, dimensionals