My first Fall Cards.....

....If you know me, you'll know that I am a Summer Girl and it's by far my favorite season.  I look forward to Spring and Summer every year and totally dread the cold winter months....!!   I also enjoy early Fall and do love the seeing the gorgeous foliage, as the leaves changes each year.   I also look forward to Sunday afternoon football games, fresh apples, freshly planted Mums and pumpkins.    But, ...once Fall starts to get cold and I have to shut the windows and turn on the heat...that's it -- I dread every minute of Winter and actually hate the bitter cold.   You'd think after living here in New England all my life, I would be used it winter, and while I am and I can drive and get around in the snow, and such --- I simply can not tolerate the cold.  It makes my Fibro flare more and no matter how warm I try and keep, I still feel chilled!  

  For now, I'm hanging on to each and every day of Summer and hope it continues to last even longer than normal, I also love Indian Summer and always hope we have one every year!    I don't mind the cooler nights for sleeping, but that's about it.  With the wedding coming up next weekend, I'm hoping that we still have some wonderful weekends, at least the next one and so far, the long range forecast is looking perfect.  

   I am very happy to have finished up the Wedding Guest Book and all of the favors I made for the wedding.  I'll be sure to share some more pictures soon, but today I'm sharing my first two Fall inspired cards.   Both were created today and inspired by today's Scramble over at the Hero Arts Flickr Group.  Our theme, as it turned out was Fall and even though I've been a bit reluctant to start too many Fall projects, I had fun today!

  This is the first card I created and it was fun and pretty easy to make!!   I started by taking the Lotus Background Stamp and randomly stamped it with an assortment of Fall colors, all in Distress Inks.  I then misted it heavily with water and some perfect pearls mist and stamped that directly to Watercolor paper.  (A fun technique I've learned from Jennifer McGuire and also done in classes at my LSS).  Because I was rushing I used a Heat Gun to dry mine, but you can create this type of background and simply leave them to dry on their own.   Next, I picked out some matching papers...included the "pre-embossed" olive green paper that I used down the center.  I cut two 1/4" strips in rust to frame that and then tied on a beige organize ribbon and added to to my card base.  I used one of my Hero Arts Sentiment Sets (Truly Appreciated) and stamped directly onto the rust paper with Versamark with I then embossed with Gold Embossing Power.  I cut that down, rounded off the corners and this is the finished card.

  I am also submitting my first FALL card to the new CAS Challenge being hosted over at The Outlawz.   

 Once that card was done I realized I had time to work on a second one and quickly started by creating this cute little OWL, with one of my new Memory Box Dies.   I then grabbed some Kraft Cardstock and used my newest Hero Background Stamp (Snowflakes & Edges) stamped in Cup O' Joe Ink to create my background.   This is another way you can often "Stretch Your Stamps", by using them in ways, not typically intended.  Even though this is really a Christmas/Winter Stamps, I love the design and have seen it used often for a variety of card.   I then simply picked out some scraps, embossed them in my Cuttlebug for some texture and put everything together to make this cute little card.

   It was soooo much fun to make some cards and it's been days since I have had time to create anything other than Wedding related goodies.  I loved every minute and now I'm looking forward to spending more time this week creating.   I have a couple of days, with not a lot of plan and that will work out perfectly, as I am enrolled in the brand new "KickStart Class", which starts tomorrow over at the Online Card Classroom. I am thrilled to have been a student in EVERY class and Jennifer and Kristina has offered and have been looking forward to this for days.  It's perfect timing for me and I think after being away for a bit, I'll need that little push or new inspiration.    

   I know many of my friend are also taking the class and know it'll be awesome.  I highly recommend you sign up and/or take any and ALL the classes that these awesome designers have put together, along with an amazing group of Guest Designers!   WOOHOO!     Back to school for me -- starts tomorrow and I could NOT be happier!!

Wedding Planning!!

   I have been super busy this past week as we wind down on the final few weeks before my son's Wedding.  I am so excited and happy and can hardly wait for the day to be here!  If you know me well, you know that Brian and Meg have changed their plans a few times and the last plan was to elope, which I admit was very bittersweet for me.   Happily, just this past week, they decided to go back to the very first plans and dates we all talked about for months, only on a much smaller and more intimate way!!  I think it will be a perfect day and I could not be happier!   I love them both so much and look forward to having a daughter in law, as sweet and wonderful as Meghan is.  They are very compatible and truly make each other very happy.

    I know that this day will be very special for them and I'm pouring my heart into everything and anything I can do to make it a memorable day, they both will cherish forever.   The immediate families, dear family friends, as well as all of their best friends will be there to share this special day.  They chose a wonderful romantic beach setting for the ceremony, which I love.  It's a hometown beach that has always been my favorite and one where Brian has spent many summers.

   Their reception will be held outside at Meg's parent's home, which is also the perfect setting for this intimate, casual yet elegant, event.  The wedding colors are Cream, Teal and Coral, which I love and also go so well with a beach wedding.    I am totally thrilled and so happy with these plans and how well everything is now falling into place.  Maybe it will turn out that short planning makes it far less stressful for all.   Instead of a formal rehearsal dinner, we and all the wedding guests will taking a wonderful sunset cruise and I hope it's a lovely night.

    It's been so much fun looking for inspiration and ideas and I find a lot of wonderful color inspiration on Pinterest!  I am hoping I can create their Guest Book and a Card box in these colors and that's what I am working on now!  -- Wish me Luck!

 
    I am totally having fun with the last minute details and working on a few things that I am putting together for their reception.  After all these months of looking for wedding ideas and inspiration, it's such a joy to see it all falling so nicely into place!

    I hope to be back to my card-making and challenges soon, but for now I am one very happy Mom and my main focus now is on making everything special for The Wedding!!   

Never Forget!!

...I know I'll NEVER ever forget....

Think Happy!!!

...sometimes life is hard and there are those days that are not easy....but today, I am trying very much to think and focus on HAPPY things and happy thoughts.   I am also sending lots of extra prayers and hugs to my friend Colleen, who recently learned she has two brain tumors!**    I'm still shocked and stunned at how suddenly this has all come about....it's another of those things that really hits hard and makes you try so hard to find some happiness in every day and to try very hard to smile and Think Happy!!

   Colleen -- I know that you are scared and don't know what challenge lies ahead, but I know you will fight it, you are one of the strongest women I know.  My heart goes out to you, Bill and your family and I pray and hope with all my heart that you will be okay!   Here is a little card I created today with you in mind, it's a little note card with some sweet little flowers!!   I added it on top of an embossed background and on a pretty lavender card base, so you would know it comes from my heart!   My hope is is that may help to brighten your day!

   ** Update:  I have some fabulous new to share and could NOT be happier for Colleen.  After lots of further testing two more MRI's and a consult with a Neurosurgeon, Colleen has now been told that tumors are both benign, small and do not need any surgery!  She will be monitored and have a new MRI every six months.  The vertigo (dizziness) that sent her to the hospital is not related and she will be seeing an ENT soon to determine what is causing that.  Thank God and thanks to everyone who was saying and sending prayers her way!    WOOHOO!!   Life is good!!

    I am happy today because I am back to crafting and as much as I have loved working on things for the Wedding, I really wanted and needed some time for me to create some cards.   It's my way of dealing with pain and upset and is very much therapeutic for me.  I'm also thankful for each and every day when I can create and happy that today is one of those days.

    Sunday is always one of my favorite challenge days because I love the Sunday Sketch Challenge that is hosted every Sunday over at the Stars and Stamps blog and this week we are working on this sketch, which I have copied over to share.

Sketch # 137

My Card

  My next card was created and inspired by this week's new Challenge over at The Cameo Spotlight and  this week we have a color theme, as our challenge.  I have copied over the cute color swatch from the site and hope I can encourage everyone who has a Silhouette, to be come and play along.

   This one was a bit hard for me, as I simply did not have any designs or styles in mind.  I tried a few different cuts and in the end, I combined three different Silhouette cut files to make this card, all in the colors of the challenge.   The stamping with done in Bundled Sage Distress Ink, using one of my Hero Arts Background Stamps.

     And next I have a sweet little card that I colored up with my Copics after being inspired by the new Copic Coloring Challenge over at "Crafting By Designs".  I also just found out that I was one of the lucky winners for the month of August and will be winning a gift certificate for some new digis from The Stamping Boutique!  Thanks everyone, it was a great surprise.

    Oh and if that was not enough of a surprise, I also found out this week that I won a challenge over at Through the Craftroom Door, which happens to be a gift certificate to Bugaboo Stamps, which is exactly where I bought that cute Pumpkin Boy stamp above!

 I am also submitting my fun new Pumpkin card to current TTCRD Challenge which you can find HERE!     The current them is a choice of two -- "Diva or Anything Goes" and this challenge is open to all, you do not have to be a magazine subscriber to play, but I do recommend you consider it!    For more details about the magazine - please head on over to the main website here!!

    I have two more cards to share and like many of today's card, this one was pretty much created for fun.   I have been behind on many of my favorite challenges, while working on the Wedding planning, but I really enjoyed taking today to make some every day cards.  This one is a card that I paper-pieced which is one of my favorite techniques.  I have bought several digital papers for Shery K Designs and totally love the wonderful selection she has in the store.  For those of you who are Cameo users and have the designer edition, you can import all of your purchased digi papers into your Silhouette Library and then use them for any of your Print and Cut designs -- another fabulous way to make sure of all these gorgeous papers.

  This has probably turned out to be my favorite card today and the sentiment is also what helped me decide that name of today's post!   This gorgeous flower is another digi image and this one is from Wax Fruit Company and always makes a stunning card!

Wedding projects and a couple of cards too...

....With the wedding plans all falling very nicely into place, I decided to take a little break every so often and make some cards.  I found that I was really missing my cardmaking, much more than I had imagined!!

     I also have  few pics to share of the projects I am working on for the the Wedding and I'll start with that. First, this is the beginning of the "Wedding/Guest Book" that I am creating and although nothing has been adhered, I pretty much have decided I will finish it off by adding on the teal Ribbon, with the little wooden heard in the center.

   And since the wedding is a very intimate affair, I really want to have this be more like a little message/wish book where everyone can take a full page to leave a note or wish for the new couple.   A special remembrance, some fun ideas for a happy marriage or even a little note.  I thought it would be more personal that way and hope it works out.

   So that everyone has an idea of what to do, I'm adding this page to the inside of the book.  I hope it works out and is fun for all.

   Another thing I am working on is creating little favor bags for everyone and I started by using my Cameo to create the little tags that I will tie on to each of the bags.   You can see them in the next photo along with the Hershey Kisses that I customized with the names and the wedding date.   I also started one of the little bags and my ideas so far are add some sea shell, a little sand dollar and some beach glass.  Then I'm also going to add in a second little bag that will contain candy.   I am wrapping Hershey Nuggets in the wedding theme colors and will also be adding Salt Water taffy for our local candy Store.  I ordered that today and the colors will also be perfect for the wedding.  The flavors are Key Lime, which is a teal color, Strawberry Daiquiri which is a coral color and then a simple cream color, that I think is vanilla.  

     I think once I have everything and put it all together, they'll be cute and also fit in with the beach theme too.  I sure hope it all turns out as I plan.  I'm not sure about creating a card box now, as I'm just now finding that I am not loving the boxes I have found around town.  I may use a simple basket and decorate it in the theme colors and place it in between to pillar candles, near the Wedding book.  

    Once I had that accomplished, I knew I needed a bit of a break and that's when I also realized that I was really missing some of my favorite challenges and wanted to try and play in at least one or two?   I also wanted to continue to try and come up with ideas for their Wedding Card and thought I would do that while playing along.  My first idea for their card was inspired by this week's challenge (Getting Bossy), hosted over at   Blog Named Hero!     The challenge was to use embossing in some way on your project and I embossed both ways on mine.  I dry embossed the Pool Designer paper on the card front, and also heat embossed my "Made with Love" Sentiment, which is from one of my favorite Hero Sentiment sets.  The paper that I embossed is actually the 'script' paper from that layering set, but after embossing it I realized it makes it hard to see the script.   Even, so I love the colors and you can see it a bit more in person.

   I really LOVE the wonderful color in Hero's Pool line and as I mentioned, almost everything on this card is a Hero Product.  The ribbon is from my Stash and the Die Cut is from Memory Box, which I love.  It's called Seville Buckle.  I uploaded this card to my Flickr account and it have received many wonderful comments with my thanks to the Gals in the Hero Arts Flickr Group.   And because it does fit in very well with the Wedding theme, I may very well re-create it in a larger size as Brian and Meg's Wedding card?  What do you think?

   My second card is one I created for fun and this was totally inspired by the image, which is another of those wonderful Stickeroos by Penny Black.  I picked this set up at my LSS a few weeks ago and think the colors are gorgeous.  I also love how easy it is to take one of these gorgeous stickers (hard to believe they are stickers) and use it along with other elements to make a very pretty card.

       And my last card is one that was very quick and easy.  I created it this afternoon, after I finally finished up wrapping the last bag of Hershey Nuggets!   It was totally inspired by Kristina Werner's -  Friday Focus Video, which you'll find HERE or over at Kristina's blog HERE!  I was immediately drawn to her card, and LOVE that she also used the Pool cardstock from Hero.  I think her card is stunning and I know I'll be sure to use that color combo sometime in the future.

     The challenge was to create a card with things that are currently sitting on top of your desk.  Nothing from your drawers or other parts of your room, basically things that were sitting there.  I started by taking a picture of my desk, which as it turns out is NOT too messy today.

  I also keep a lot of of my basic tools on my desk as that makes it easy for me to grab what I need when I am working on a project.  I also had just finished opening a new order from Simon Say Stamp and had been trying out one of my new dies, Fresh Daisy, which is one of Simon's own dies.  I also had bought these awesome new Handwritten Sentiments, which were designed by Kristina, so I thought it would be perfect to use for her challenge.  I love her handwriting and have bought a few of the the dies that she also designed.  You can find them HERE, over at SSS!

   I started by creating the flowers, by cutting them in pink and teal and then cutting off the pink tops and adding them onto the stems.  I then cut a piece of the patterned paper down to fit a white card base and added that.  The reverse side of that paper is the paper I used for my Grass, which I embossed in my Cuttlebug (you can't see it in this pic), but I keep it on my desk, just to the right on my trimmer.   I then used some large deco scissors to create the scalloped edge and simply added it on, with some pop dots.    I used black ink to stamp my Sentiment and cut it down to size with my trimmer!   I put it all together and had this cute little card, which I have now linked up to Kristina's blog!   It was fun to try this and I hope you will too!!

  Oh, and for anyone who loves the classes that Kristina and Jennifer McGuire offer in their online card classroom, you'll want to head over now and sign up for the new class, which starts on September 17th!  I can't wait and I know it'll be another fun class.  It's called KickStart and the idea is to help you learn how to come up with fun and creative ideas for your cards.  You can find more details HERE, over that the classroom.  I signed up the very first day and I am looking forward to another awesome class!
   

Click Here for more details!!

   And that's it for me!!   Tomorrow, I hope to work on more cards and do a bit of relaxing.  I have been totally exhausted all week, but it's also been really fun to work on the wedding things.   I hope it turns out to be a very special day and with memories for us all to cherish forever!