OK... I totally spaced doing my personal blog posting!  I thought about it around 4:30 today and then got side tracked cleaning up the paint cans everywhere and then made dinner.  Guess what?  Yeah, I just thought about it... so here it is short and sweet!

The challenge this week is "3 in a row" at the Paper Cupcake's Challenge Blog; There's Magic In The Air. This week Danie May wants us to pick 3 elements from the below grid that are in a row, can be horizontal, vertical, or diagonal and incorporate them into your card or project.

I decided to use one of the new images over at Paper Cupcakes "Girl with Umbrella".  I must say I really liked this image!  Even though you really can't tell I cut the umbrella out and placed it on pop up dots so it is more 3_D.  I used my color pencils to color the image and used some stickles on the green lines on the umbrella.  The stickles is much prettier in real life; wish you could see it.  I did a fairly large image, since this image seemed to be long and narrow I didn't really want it to be small... so I went big and I really liked how it turned out.  I did the grid across the top.  So I used punches; butterfly & border.  Ribbon and two pattern papers.  I also inked the edges of the image with a cat eye chalk.  It really is a pretty simple and clean card, but it works really nicely with this image which I wanted to stand out. 

Had a really busy weekend, but nice and certainly not enough time to be everywhere and do everything we wanted to do this holiday weekend.  Thanks for lurking by and I hope you always take a little creativity away from visiting.  Have a great week!!

Magical Monday - Sketch

The challenge this week is a sketch brought to you by "me" at the Paper Cupcake's Challenge Blog; There's Magic In The Air. I love sketches so that is what I brought to the challenge. You can flip, rotate or stretch it as along as you can still see the initial sketch in your project. I am also using the freebie image "Sending Cheer Your Way" by Paper Cupcakes; which I might add is only available for free for the next 48 hours.  I colored the image with Bic Mark-its. I made the rose with my mom one day way back with one of her punches and thought it would be perfect for this card that I knew would be hand delivered to a special friend on her birthday. There was no way that that flower was going to make it through the mail in a regular envelope! I did an easel, because I thought the sketch would be perfect for that that type of card.
If you have never made an easel card before you can find the instructions HERE.

Here is the sketch:

My Card:

Well, today is my sweetie's birthday and he took off work and we are going to run away for the day and do something just the two of us.  Not sure what that is yet, but right now I just don't care what we do as long as we just get out the two of us and have a little fun. 

I had a great weekend.  The weather was just perfect.  The birthday party I hosted for my friend was full of lots of fun, good friends, good food and a perfect night in my book.  Went to church, great message and always love to see my church family weekly.  Got to spend part of the day with my mom, dad and sister and Jim.   Eric visited his mom while I visited mine (we splited and divided to save same time in our day) and then we went to the nursing home together to see Eric's step-mom.  Then I came home and played a yard game with Avery, then fell in the hammock and took a little nap, which was very much needed after this busy week.  It was a great day in all and now I have tomorrow to look forward to as well.

Thanks for lurking by and may your week hold much JOY!

Magical Monday - Be Inspired

The challenge this week is "Be Inspired" at the Paper Cupcake's Challenge Blog; There's Magic In The Air. Sonia Rivera gave us this beautifully clean picture with lots of white space and splashes of wonderful color. I automatically wanted to do a clean and simple card. So part of my inspiration for my card was the feeling the photo gave me which was neat and clean, but with a splash of color. Also, I chose an image of bottles, because I was also inspired by the 3 little bottles sitting on the table. I am all about the small details and I think those three little bottles reflected just that, small details in the room. I colored the image "Tender Loving Care" by Paper Cupcakes with colored pencils and dry embossed the background piece that was inspired by the design in the rug.

Well, since we are talking about being inspired, below is a canvas I did one late night. I have been feeling under the weather, a little blue and down lately and one night instead of going to bed I stayed up and ran across this blog. I love to get lost in creativity especially when it is just create as you go. I don't tend to do it very often (not sure why), but when I seen this blog Christy really inspired me. So, I stayed up late and I already had a canvas on hand, of course I already have tons of paper and pretty much everything on hand to get creative with. So, I have this one friend that is always finding "JoY" well that is what she is known for "Joy sayings".... she even takes pictures of Joy dish soap and posts them on FB, she so cracks me up and I just love her attitude. So anyone that would know her and would read this would know who I am speaking of. So... I thought I would go with a sentiment about joy.. since I have been feeling so blue... Plus I think it lifted my spirits. I didn't draw anything out (although I should have). The one thing I love about seeing Christy's videos is she just cut (well she appeared to anyway), although I must say my face is lacking a nose (what is that about) and her chest is not quite how I would really want it (seriously). But I just left them (which was very hard). I didn't really notice either one so much out of whack until of course I had them glued down. I really try to leave all my littler imperfections just that, imperfections and just kept adding. I have many layers, paint, ribbon, punched paper, stickles, rub-ons, marker, different papers and the big flower is my own digi image that I printed on tissue paper and plastered on in the background. I really liked how it turned out and although it does feel a little girlish, I still had tons of fun creating it. Just wanted to share it with you and you should check out Christy's blog she also has some classes you can take as well.

OK, that is it for me today.  I have tons to get completed and accomplished today.  So, if you are feeling a little down and need a little pick me up, remember we always have a choice on how we can direct our attitude... so I hope today you too will choose JOY!

Let's Get Aquainted....

The challenge this week is "Let's Get Acquainted" at the Paper Cupcake's Challenge Blog; There's Magic In The Air. Shirley wanted us to go to one of the Paper Cupcake's Designer's blog and case a card. I chose to go to Wilma Zengotita's blog and you can find the card I cased here. I think her card is a bit more in the square. I cut my card as a 5x7 and pouted a bit once I realized her card was more in square. So I just worked with the size I cut my card. I think overall it turned out OK. I colored my image with colored pencils. Chalked my sky with a blue and pink and then added stickles to the rain.






Yesterday was beautiful here, but a few days prior to that was rainy. Today has been a little bit of both. This was the perfect image for this week, I feel a little under the weather, but I am still trying to find the joy in the day. So, go find some joy within your day too! Thanks for lurking by!

Magical Monday - Circles, Glitter and Lace... oh my!

The challenge this week is "Circles, Glitter and Lace, Oh My!" at the Paper Cupcake's Challenge Blog; There's Magic In The Air. So, you had to use 2 circles, some glitter/stickles and lace. I used the image "Morgan Reading; with wings" by Paper Cupcakes. I decided to do a long card vs. the standard 5x7 card. I rarely make this type of card, but I love how this one turned out. My two circles are actually the yoyo flower I made. I used one larger circle and a circle that was a little smaller to make up the flower. I sprayed the circles with glimmer mist and then crunched them up until they dried and then added some stickles to the edges of the circles and wings on the image and in the grass as well. My lace is the bow. I colored my image with Bic Mark-its and the wings with colored pencils. I love the punch of the bright springy pink in the flowers and the butterflies I punched. I also chalked my sky with a blue and pink.









Well, that's it for me for today. My kids are on spring break this week and I always love that. Thanks for lurking by and have a lovely Easter Day this coming Sunday!

Magical Monday - Less is More

The challenge this week is "Less is More" at the Paper Cupcake's Challenge Blog; There's Magic In The Air. Paper Cupcakes is also giving away a freebie image "Egg Hunt" which I used in the top two cards. So, the whole idea of doing a Less is More card it to keep is simple, clean and make a card that someone else could reproduce in about 10 minutes. This is the design I came up with. Of course it totally takes me at least 10 minutes to just pick out my papers, so after you get that accomplished then it goes pretty quickly. I used Bic Mark-its to color the images on the top two cards. I added stickles to my tree leave and used a Martha Stewart border punch (loop I think). I think if you look at the card it is pretty self explanatory. I actually punched some tiny flowers out and placed them on my tree after taking the pics. I just couldn't help myself... it just felt like it needed that little extra on the trees. :o)

The below cards I did the same design layout. In fact I made these cards before I made the above cards. I actually made these thinking it would be for the challenge. Then I realized I was suppose to use the freebie and had a "duh" moment. Oh well, I have a set of what I think are really cute birthday card to have on hand now. And it made it easy for me to do the challenge because I had the design already completed and I do think it didn't take me very long at all to reproduce the design.

Image: Frilly Cupcake by Paper Cupcakes-Stamps

Image: Party Pig by Paper Cupcakes-Stamps (I didn't have my image in square that is why the lines are funny on that image, and after I printed it I didn't want to waste card stock so I just went with the minor flaw)




Image: Make a Wish by Paper Cupcakes-Stamps




Image: A Special Gift by Paper Cupcakes-Stamps




Well, that's it for me today. We have had a tough last two weeks and things are finally getting back into the swing of normal. Plus we are gearing up for Morgan to head to her State competition for her Speech this coming weekend. We are excited!!

Thanks for lurking by and have a lovely week!!

Magical Monday - Children's Birthday

The challenge this week is "Children's Birthday" at the Paper Cupcake's Challenge Blog; There's Magic In The Air. I thought this was a great for me on this particular day, although I am not a child, it is my birthday today! So, of course I picked the image from Paper Cupcakes called "It's My Party". I colored the image with my Souffle 3-D opaque Ink Pens. I love how different these look, although you can't really shade with them, I still love the look of them. I kept my card fairly simple. Criss-crossed my ribbon on each section piece and instead of adding bows I added fiber to give is some fun fuzzy texture and then added some lines of pearls & rhinestones. Added a touch of Stickles to the crown and wand for a little sparkle and called it complete.



This month has just flown. Our dog Millie just over a month ago was diagnosed with a detached retina. We took her to an emergency clinic and seen an optamologist shortly after that. They put her on pain meds and we watched it for a few weeks. One night I literally thought she was dying, mainly because she seemed in so much pain and wasn't really responding to me much. I ended up getting some more meds and took her to the vet the next day. Her eye pressure was extremely high, which a normal dog's eye pressure is usually around 10-12 and hers was 57! I ended up taking her right into emergency eye surgery which was to remove the eye. So we did that and they also found a benign tumor behind her eye which they removed as well. She just got her stitches out last Thursday and she is doing great and is glad to have that cone off. This is her new look now and we are getting use to it. It certainly doesn't seem to slow her down at all. We can't thank the wonderful vets enough that seen us through it all, there were 4 different ones totaled and I loved them all, but I truly appreciate the South side Animal Hospital that took her into emergency surgery and was waiting on my call after we visited the optamologist. They were the best! Anyway, she is doing great and I am sure she knows and feels she is deeply loved.



This past Saturday Morgan my youngest daughter went to sectionals for speech. She does a duo with another girl which is funny in content. I really did not know what speech was prior to her doing it and it was nothing like what I imagined it to be. There are lots of categories and nothing like giving a speech. It is more like acting and doing improv, but not. That is the best I can describe it. Anyway... Her and Christa took second overall in their category and their school took first place overall the schools in their sectional. It is won by a point system. So each time a child wins in their category they get points for which place they took and their school walked away with the highest points which landed them in first place over all. They are crazy talented kids and a joy to watch on the stage and off. Well, anyway here is a picture of the group that went to sectionals. They are off to State now and that is in a couple of weeks. We are lucky that it will take place close to home, which is really nice!



Morgan is the cute one left of the trophy holding her red ribbon and the girl to the left of her is her partner in the duo. These kids work a lot of hours and it looks like it is paying off. I hope they rock State!

And here is a project I just did for a friend. She wanted to give her friend some personalized wine glasses and asked if I would paint them. She wanted butterflies on them and this is what I came up with:

I actually painted eight so she will get two in each color. I loved how they turned out. I would have only did one thing differently. I did the bases with the white and black dots, but I did both glasses in each the colors with the same colored dots. I wish I would have did white dots on one pink glass and black dots on the other pink glass and so on in all the colors. This way all the glasses would have been different, but alike and and the dots would have made that difference. Not sure if that makes sense to you, but I know what I mean and oh well, next time. I love these so much I think I will have to make myself a set!






For anyone who would like to attempt this I thought it was pretty easy and it would make a lovely gift. I used only six colors and the type of paint I used was FolkArt enamel for glass and ceramics (total: about 2.00 a bottle; can buy at Wal-mart or any craft store). You bake the glasses once they are complete (follow instructions on the bottle) and that sets the paint. It is suppose to be top shelf dishwasher safe, but if it were me and someone took the time to hand paint them, I wouldn't risk the dishwasher and would hand wash them. Maybe I will try a piece of glass and run it through the dishwasher to see how it holds up. I also made my own template for the butterflies and did not buy one. I just used my butterfly punch by EK and punched a border long enough to go around the glass. It lined up a little funny so I had to cut one butterfly off and add a smaller one to the fill in where it did not line up just right. I used re positional spray adhesive and then stuck it on the clean glass. I then added the paint and took the template off immediately after painting all the colors. This works the best while the paint is still wet. Otherwise it tends to tear off some of the paint that dries to the template. Then I cleaned the sticky off with a q-tip and some alcohol and then repainted the butterflies with another coat of paint to make them more crisp. Then I went and added all the details freehand. This was a lot of fun and the first time I have ever done anything like this. It certainly won't be the last. I am seeing some lovely Christmas gifts forthcoming! Wouldn't a truffle bowl be lovely? You could always print off a design and tape it on the inside and then just paint over the design too. This could be some endless creativity and fun.

Also, I want to lift up all the communities that have been dealing with the deadly and devastating tornado's that went through. We had some in Indiana, but they were much further South and missed us. I have a bad feeling this is just the beginning of a really scary spring storm season and living in tornado alley does not thrill me. My heart goes out to all of the communities and people and especially to the ones that lost love ones. Some truly sad stories there. So, holding all of that in prayer, because we certainly can't make sense of it all.

OK.. That's if for me and thanks for lurking by. I hope you enjoyed my post today. If you have any questions regarding my painted glasses feel free to e-mail me or leave your question in the comments and I will get back to you.

So, Happy Birthday to me and to anyone else that shares my day! Make sure you stop by the Paper Cupcakes challenge blog I have left a little freebie there in celebration of my birthday!



Have a joyful day full of everday ordinary kind of blessings!