Secret to a Long Life

My brother-in-law's birthday is coming up fast, and I realized today that I didn't really have anything in my birthday card stash that would be suitable for him. I figure that humorous cards are always in style for guys, so I decided to take that route with the BIL's card. Here's how that went:

The inside of the card holds the punch line:

I'm playing along with the Paper Smooches SPARKS Picture Perfect Challenge, which is to be inspired by this photo:

There was so much to be inspired by! The colors, the blocking, the textures, the vertical elements, even the "text block" on top of the cake!

Of course, I used stamps from Paper Smooches for my card! The owl comes from the My Peeps set, and the party hat elements come from the Party Posse set. I printed the speech bubble and sentiments using MS Word on my computer. The font is called CK Buddies. I had fun adding texture to my design with two different "masculine-ish" embossing folders from DeNami Design: Thin Lines and Checkered.


I'm also playing along with the new challenge over at Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge. This week the challenge is to "Emboss It." Done and done!

Thanks for the great challenges, SPARKS and Simon Says!!


And thanks for dropping by, my friends!
Emily

Warm & Fuzzy Wishes

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. Ours was pretty good, but went way too fast. My kids had an early release day on Friday, so at least we got to start the weekend early. They both brought friends home for lunch and to hang out for the afternoon. We squeezed in two family movie nights (so easy to do on these cold winter nights!)--Friday night we made more progress on our quest to see all of the Harry Potter movies in order, checking #3 (The Prisoner of Azkaban) off the list. Then on Saturday we rewarded ourselves with Journey 2: The Mysterious Island after a day of homework and chores.

It is a new week with a new to-do list. At the top of my list today is getting a birthday present and card ready to mail to my niece for her eighth birthday at the end of the week. This morning I worked on making her a birthday card. She is all about pink! I figured she would love this little furry creature.

And here is the message I stamped on the inside :-).

I used images and sentiments from the Party Posse stamp set by Paper Smooches and some pretty polka-dotted patterned papers from the Handmade collection from Lily Bee Design. Oh, and that polka dotty washi tape came from Target.

I am playing along with three challenges:

• The Drunken Stampers "Groundhog Day" challenge to feature furry creatures. My friend Jessi just joined the design team at Drunken Stampers. I've never played there before so I am doing so for the first time today in her honor! Congrats and thanks, Jessi!
• The Paper Smooches Stamps SPARKS Trend Watch Challenge: Polka Dots
  
• Lucy's Cards Sketch Challenge Day 1:
  

Well, it's time for me to grab some lunch, and then I must tackle some design team assignments. I hope you are having a terrific Monday! Thanks so much for dropping by for a visit today. I always love seeing you here :-).

Emily

Calls for a Toast

It's been waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too long since I've been able to play with my Paper Smooches stamps. I needed to make a congratulations card (for our pastor, who has just become a published author! The book he co-authored came out in May, so I'm a bit late. Oops!), and I knew I wanted to use the "this calls for a toast" sentiment from Wake Up. So I peeked at this week's Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge for some inspiration, and found it in spades.

I was inspired by that pretty piano to feature a turquoise toaster on my card. I went with lots of blank space in my design to honor the blank wall in the photo. I tied the color of my toast to the color of the floor in the photo, and the patterned paper strip under the toaster was selected because its polka dots reminded me of that wall of plates in the photo!

All of my patterned papers in this card are digital papers. The cork pattern for the toast comes from the Note to Self collection by Echo Park, the turquoise chevron print for the toaster comes from the Splash collection by Echo Park, and the dotted pattern comes from the Chit Chat collection by Betsy Tuma (a part of the free October 2010 Crop Collab available at Two Peas).

I hope you are having a good weekend! It's rainy here, so we're trying to get caught up on indoor stuff. 

Thanks for swinging by!

Emily

Stamps: Paper Smooches Wake Up

Cardstock: Rustic Cream by PTI

Patterned Paper: (all digital) Note to Self collection by Echo Park, Splash collection by Echo Park, Chit Chat collection by Betsy Tuma

Ink: Onyx Black Versafine

Accessories: Corner Chomper, sewing machine

Squeal!

A few weeks ago, I was very lucky to win the absolutely adorable Party Posse stamp set in a Paper Smooches challenge. {Squeal!} is exactly what I did when I first spotted that too-cute-for-words hamster in this set! It looks just like the little hamster Japanese erasers that my kids adore--my son has a golden one that he named Nibbles and is as cute as can be :).


I couldn't resist using this sweet hamster in a Valentine card for a dear friend. She is a huge animal lover, and her family is currently hosting a cat and several guinea pigs and hamsters. I'm pretty sure she will {squeal!} over this little cutie, too! (In case you can't tell from my photo, there is a heart-shaped window in the front of the card--the hamster is stamped on the card's inside and viewed through the window. The "squeal" sentiments are stamped along the edge of the card inside--the right edge of the card front was cut away so the sentiments show when the card is closed.) The little hearts come from the Paper Smooches Vegtastic set.


I was inspired by the inspiration photo from the current Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge. I tried to capture the colors with my choice of kraft cardstock and Palette Boudoir Blush ink, the fabric texture in the hamster's face paper-pieced from a "woven" print, and the stitches on the felt heart with my machine stitching around the perimeter of the card as well as around the heart-shaped window.


I'm also playing in the Love is in the Air Challenge at Simon Says Stamp Challenge and the Clean and Simple Paper Piecing Challenge at CAS-ual Fridays--my little hamster was paper-pieced from a stamped woven print and some older patterned paper from the BasicGrey Nook & Pantry collection.

I hope your weekend was a fantastic one! Ours was good, but super busy. Friday night was my son's Cub Scout Pinewood Derby. Not only did he build a car for the race, so did my husband and daughter. Plenty of exciting racing action for this family! They all had very respectable finishes, and my son brought home the second place trophy for his den of third-grade Bear Cub Scouts. The rest of the weekend was spent on a home plumbing project, getting my Valentines ready to go postal, errands, and DT assignments. I did get to catch a movie with a friend Saturday night, which was just what I needed! Luckily, the snow that had been predicted for us completely fizzled, but it sure was cold on Sunday!

I hope there's a little something in your day today that makes you {squeal!} with delight!

Thanks for stopping by!
Emily

Hi

Just a quick post to share a little something I made for the current Paper Smooches SPARKS Challenge:

which was inspired by this inspiration photo:

I used the cute little face components from my new Paper Smooches set Wake Up (which I won as a prize in the last SPARKS challenge) and the HI sentiment from PS My Peeps. The green damask patterned paper came from an old Pink Paislee pad (365 Degrees, I think).

The black trim around those pretty pillows in the photo really caught my eye. I knew I had to try to pick that up in my design and hunted in my sewing trims until I found this fun and funky beaded trim. Perfect!

And there you have it: a clean and simple, quick and easy all-purpose card. Done!

I'm off to start some beef stew in the crockpot and to make sure my nine-year-old sweetie is on track to get out the door to school on time.

Thanks for stopping by!
Emily

Some veggies and a jar of hearts . . .

Here's a peek at a couple of things I was working on today.

First, some adorable veggies:

I've had my eye on this Vegtastic stamp set from Paper Smooches from the day it first came out! Today was my day to get inky with it, and I certainly had a blast :D. I went clean and simple for the card design, and paper-pieced the veggies. (Sponging on some charcoal gray ink gave them some dimension.) I was inspired by this inspiration photo from the Paper Smooches SPARKS challenge :

I'll admit that I took some liberties with the coloring on that eggplant! I couldn't keep this silly rhyme from running through my head while working on my card:

(with apologies to Ogden Nash)
Have you ever seen a blue eggplant?
I think that I just made one.
But I will say--don't think I can't!
I'd rather see than eat one!

Goofy, I know; but it came unbidden!! Anyway, I'm also linking this up to the Clear It Out Challenge to make a thank you and Young Crafters Unite Challenge #5: Clean and Simple.

Now, on to card #2:

I love that jar of hearts! So perfect for a Valentine. It comes from {ippity}'s Quotes a'la Happy kit. My sketch is from Chick Challenges {with Ippity} #12:

and I took my colors from the {ippity} Challenge to use this card for color inspiration:

And it just so happens that these colors (brown, kraft, pink, and red) are my favorites right now--especially for Valentines! That, along with all that kraft cardstock I used, qualifies this for the new Make It Monday with Kraft Outlet challenge to use your favorite colors. :)

I hope you've been able to squeeze a little fun into your day, too! Thanks for stopping by to check out today's installment of My Little Slice of Bliss!!
Emily