When you need a card in less than 5 minutes....

Take some oval shapes, cut them into pieces and swap them around. Smack on some grass and stamp it! Just had to share my last minute Easter cards I made yesterday. I had 30 minutes til it was time to be at Easter lunch and I realized I hadn't made any cards yet. OOPS.

So while my pup was running around the house in bunny ears and my hubby was hollering how he's STARVING, I whipped these up in a flash and I have to say...I love them!

I used the large Petite Oval Nesties and ran them through my Big Shot. I chose some fun patterned papers (3 diff patterns) and ran them through all at once. I chopped off the bottom edges (not that you can see them) so that they looked more like eggs rather than ovals. I kept them tightly layered and sliced them into threes. Then I simply swapped the patterns around and glued them all down to the card. I stamped Happy Easter in the top corner and then added a few embossed lines with my Scor-pal so it didn't look so plain. Lastly I sliced up some celery cardstock to look like grass and placed that along the bottom edge. DONE! I think I cranked out 10 of these in literally 30 minutes!

I hope everyone enjoyed their Egg Hunt day yesterday, I myself enjoyed the food, food and more food. :) I think I'm still enjoying the food as a matter of fact. I mean, you can't just leave an uneaten cupcake home alone right?? ;)

Happy belated Egg day!!!

So if the Easter Bunny ate all your eggs, now you know why!

Flowering Crabapple Tree...

Yes, I know it's been ages since I've posted and heck even had a chance to stamp! So I'm posting my favorite creation from my class this weekend. Since this is our first spring at our home we were unsure what the flowers & trees had in store for us. Well much to my surprise I have a beautiful Crabapple Tree in my front yard and it's covered with gorgeous pink buds & a few light pink blossoms. So I used my tree as inspiration for this card.

First I made the window layers of my card front using my Nesties (which I just ordered all the NEW ones from Polka Dot Plaza and I can't wait to put them to use!). Next I ran the Kiwi Kiss layer through the Big Shot using the large polka dot texture plate from SU. I stamped the tree from Branch Out in chocolate chip ink and then added some blossoms in Kiwi Kiss, Regal Rose and Pink Pirouette. Since those colors matched the Flower Soft I'd been hoarding, I decided to add random specs of glue to the tree blossoms and throw on some Flower Soft.....I love it!

I also love the SU Tags which I used for the sentiment. I first saw them on my pal Joanne's blog and I just HAD to have them!!! Here's a little peek of the inside since you can't really see it all when it's closed. I just tore a piece of scrap paper and stippled a bit of Kiwi Kiss along the bottom to give it the look of grass. Stamps - Branch Out, Best Yet (retired SU)
Cardstock - Kiwi Kiss, Whisper White, Chocolate Chip
Ink - Kiwi Kiss, Chocolate Chip, Regal Rose, Pink Pirouette
Accessories -SU Texture Plates 1, Lot of Tags die, Flower Soft

Keepin' it real...

Actually, just keeping extremely busy is more like it but hey....it was catchy. I just wanted to let the two folks still checking my blog know that I am indeed alive. ;) I went off to Iowa for a short training and am now back in the classroom here in town for another 3 weeks. It's been EXHAUSTING but at the same time extremely educational. I am in a whole new ball game now, my job makes a difference and I am taking time to embrace that. Sadly, stamping has taken a back seat, well...actually it's taken a whole other bus and is on vacation. But hopefully it won't be gone long, just have to stay focused on my work until it becomes routine then I can do crafty things more often. :) I did spend Friday night with some new friends and a bit of stamp therapy so if I can just get my camera to work I'll post it. So check back this week....I'll have something for you to look at. ;) xoxoxo

Sneak peek revealved!

Isn't she beautiful?!?! I just adore this new Ballerina Sophia, which is next month's SOTM over at Paper Pretties. I finally broke out the Basic Gray Perhaps paper that I've been hoarding *shock* and I just love it. I used the Large Labels Nesties and then lightly buffed the edges to give it a distressed look. Sophia is surrounded by a light airbrush (RV00), I just left the Nestie on and used it as a mask. The white scallop circle is on textured paper (my fav) and then lightly sponged with Pink Pirouette. Lastly I used the Ribbon Nesties for the sentiment with a bit of sheer ribbon.

FYI there's a lovely sale going on over at Polka Dot Plaza, 20% off your entire order with a $40 minimum purchase (code "JAN09"). I loaded up on Just Rite stamps, the Large Labels nesties and some more Basic Gray paper I can hoard! LOL Sale is going on until the end of Jan so be sure to go check it out!

I leave this weekend for Des Moines and I have NO WARM CLOTHES....what on earth do people wear when it's 9 degrees outside?!!??!

Hopin' Day Two!

Today is day two of our 3 day mystery blog hop celebrating Paper Pretties' 2nd anniversary. Now if you're just joining in the fun, be sure you start at Christie's blog from yesterday to gather all the clues! Today we started at Jessie's blog so if you're off track, get back over there and start following the clue trail!!!

Our hop this time requires a bit of work on your part. Paper Pretties is giving away a 6 month subscription to the Stamp of the Month Club. In order to win the prize, you'll need to collect all of the clues from the blog hop - 13 in all and email your answer to Christie at Christie@paperpretties.net. Answers must be in by 8am on the 25th to qualify. Sound like fun?As always we are releasing a new Sophia stamp for our March Stamp of the Month Club. Your job is to guess what this Sophia is doing. Today's final clue is......"SHEER". Good luck ladies and don't forget to join us in the Forum on the 25th to find out who won!!

Blog Hop starts TODAY!!!!

Are you all following the Paper Pretties' 2nd Anniversary Blog Hop?? We're celebrating in true Prettie style and you won't want to miss out! This will be a 3 day Blog Hop - starting today!! Remember that on the 25th at 8 pm EST we'll all meet in the 2nd Anniversary Party Forum at Paper Pretties to celebrate and find out who the grand prize winner of our Blog Hop contest is, as well as the winner of a few other goodies. Plus there will be prizes every 1/2 hour at the party and everyone who orders that night will receive a free roll of American Craft ribbon!

The hop requires a little bit of work on your part. As always we are releasing a new Sophia stamp for our March SOTM. Your job is to guess what this Sophia is doing!! The grand prize is a 6 month subscription to the Stamp of the Month Club. In order to win the prize, you'll need to collect all of the clues from the blog hop - 13 in all and submit your answer to Christie (christie@paperpretties.net). Answers must be in by 8am on the 25th to qualify.

So get over to Christie's blog and start the hop!!!!!

For the little one...

It's taken me a while to get these little guys posted because it's was a surprise for the lovely Jana and her new munchkin Jackson. Each Prettie created one or two 6x6 scrap pages so that she would have an entire album for him. As always I keep my creations simple, don't want to take away from the star of the page...Jackson! If you haven't had a chance to stop by her blog you should...he's just too precious for words!! Hopefully I'll be able to get my tooshie down to her neck of the woods soon so I can snuggle him up and also give her a big squeeze as well....she's only 3 hours away after all!

As for me I will be rather scarce the next few weeks as I started my new position and I'm stuck in a training classroom all day for 7 weeks and then loaded with reading material all night. :( I can't WAIT for Sunday though, it's the Paper Pretties anniversary partay and I really need some time with my girls so I can unwind from this new work stress.....I hate being at the bottom of the ladder again! ARGH! ;)

Oh and just so everyone has an updated pic of my little girl who's not so little anymore....

Prettie colorful Wednesday...

So my dear Jessica challenged the girls to get colorful! We were to use Avocado, Ocean Tides, Kraft & Chocolate Chip. Normally I hoard all my patterned paper but this color challenge just screamed for me to use the PTI Polka Dot paper!

I used my Sweets for the Sweet cookie image, stamped and cut out to make a batch! I wanted some scallops on the card but didn't want to over do it so I just added it along the left side as an accent strip, then used my Crop-A-Dile to punch some holes in it (since I needed to "put a hole it" from last week) ;) I added a few embossed lines with my Scor-Pal and then of course a ribbon knot on the top. Doesn't this just make you want a big plate of cookies?!?!? If only I could bake up a batch of 100 calorie bite size cookies....mmmmm.

Make sure you swing by all the other Prettie pages to see how they got colorful this week!!

Inspired by Nichole....

Just a quick post today as we celebrated hubby turning the big 30 this weekend and I haven't quite recovered from that yet! ;) I made this card for someone very special to let her know how much she means to me. Last week Nichole posted a quick review of some of her favorite projects and I just fell in love with the cards she made on the cruise. So using that as my inspiration I came up with this beauty. As usual, I used textured white cardstock for the base, yellow polka dot paper from DCWV stack and then kraft for my main image layer.

I hope everyone has a good week, my weight watchers eating plan started today and so far I'm doing great! If only I had to watch what I ate from 8am-10am it'd be a cinch!!!! *lol*

Brrrr, cocoa anyone?

It's freezing today! Ok so I know I'm in California so I can't say a word about freezing, seeing how many of my fellow Pretties have been barricaded in by snow. But when you're used to warm temps then it suddenly drops down to frozen windshields....to me, that's freezing! ;)

The good news.....it's FRIDAY!!! I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful New Years, I spent mine on the couch with apple pie & ice cream, the movie Elf and a sweet little pup named Chloe. We wanted to make sure there was enough noise in the house so she didn't get spooked when the fireworks and loud noises began...luckily between the heater and the movie she didn't hear a peep.

So with the new year upon us, my goal is to start checking in with friends and family that I don't get to see that often. This is the perfect set for making those "just because" cards. Look Who's Perky is one of the very first sets that I just fell head over heals in love with. Well, that and Sealed with a Kiss of course, but this one is just so versatile I love it! I used my nesties to create the embossed square and then paper pieced the mugs on top. I ran the turquoise paper through my Big Shot and then lightly buffed the dots with my scuffer (this only works on white core paper btw). Then lastly I added the ribbon slide along the bottom with some white grosgrain ribbon and of course a touch of brown Martha glittah on the polka dots.

Do you guys have any goals this year? I don't use the word "resolution" because then when I don't keep them I feel like a faliure. Goal sounds more flexible, eh?!? ;)