Olympic Biathlon

Still in single-parenthood. Really looking forward to it being over and the grandparents coming back! I have definitely had my good and bad days. Those bad days are really tough. But we will get through it...just need to keep praying for patience!

This card is going back a little bit. I made this card for the Mini Virtual Stamp Night (VSN) on SplitCoast Stampers. The challenge (FEBVSNMINI4) was to use the chalkboard technique...I won GOLD! The hostesses picked top three cards (medal winners) for each challenge and mine was picked for Gold. So exciting! Anyway, I stamped the flower from Heartfelt Thanks in Whisper White Craft ink and pounced Stampin' Pastels over top. Once I was done and it dried, I wiped it with a Swiffer cloth and the background was cleaned up beautifully! The ribbon is from Wal-Mart and the half pearls are some old ones that I had.

Check out the card my friend made for the same challenge below. Fantastic huh?! Make sure to come back on Saturday for the next Sweet Stop Challenge! Thanks for checking out my kind of engineering!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Heartfelt Thanks; Paper - Pumpkin Pie, Mellow Moss, Melon Mambo, Basic Black; Ink - Whisper White Craft; Accessories - Stampin' Pastels, Scallop Edge Punch, Corner Rounder Punch, Polka Dot Black Ribbon (Offray), Half Pearls (unknown), dimensionals

Red Mittens

Good Monday morning to you all! It is only lunch time and the day has been interesting already! The daughter woke-up happy but early...you know what that means. Yup, cranky city! So lots of crying and difficulty this morning. But then I come home from grocery shopping to find a very sweet surprise...this card was one of the winners of the Paper Crafts February Gallery Challenge! Holy cow! That brightened my day a little bit!

I made this card about a month ago during the Mini VSN (Virtual Stamp Night) on Splitcoast Stampers. My friend Stephanie (her card is below) joined me for a fun filled stamping evening. This was for the Red Mittens Challenge where we were to use a Red and White color combo and incorprate yarn in honor of the Red Mitten worn during the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Since this was before Valentine's Day, I decided to make mine a Valentine's Day card. This heart is from a long retired Stampin' Up! set called Love Always. But I so love the heart, so I cannot part with it! The heart stamp has the word LOVE already on it (you can see that in Stephanie's card below)...I just glued my yarn over top of the word. The yarn completely covered the word, so it almost looks like I am super crafty and made an embellishment on my own...oh well just crafty to think to put the yarn there I guess! The cut strip behind it is the Spellbinder's Lattice Borderabilities Petite. The rest of the card was kept simple mainly due to the 45 minute time constraint that you are to honor during the VSN....just goes to prove that "winning" cards don't have to take a ton of time...a lesson I really should remember more often!

Well that is really it for me...still can't believe it got picked! Anyway, check out Steph's card too for the same challenge and thanks for checking out my kind of engineering!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Love Always (retired SU!); Paper - Real Red, Whisper White; Ink - Real Red; Accessories - White yarn, Lattice Borderabilities Petite (Spellbinders), scissors, dimensionals

Chill Out

I am so excited...almost giddy! My favorite show is back on tonight...LOST! My schedule is clear (well except for putting kids to bed, but that is the best part about DVR's...won't miss a moment!) and I am very excited to see how they will finish off this series! Anyone else a LOST fanatic like myself?

The second challenge during the Virtual Stamp Night (VSN) on SplitCoast Stampers was to create a card with snow or ice on it (Chill Out). After learning how to make faux polar white Flower Soft (see tutorial HERE), I was all about the snow! The tutorial shows how easy it is to make your own flower soft and even color it if you so desire...fantastic!! Anyway, since there was going to be snow, it had to be a winter themed card, but I am really tired of winter already, so I had to add a glimpse of spring. That is how my color combination of Melon Mambo, Soft Suede, and Bashful Blue came about...really liking the combo! Anyway, the tree was stamped in Soft Suede and then the edges of the paper were sponged with Bashful Blue (really only leaving the center white...so more than just the edges). I added lines of glue to the branches and sprinkled on my faux Flower Soft. Very pretty (check out the detail shot below)! The bird was stamped in Melon Mambo and cut out and placed in my tree.

The sentiment, stamped in Melon Mambo, is from the Beautiful You set by Verve Stamps. I keep reading that sentiment and trying to take it literally...the winter will not last forever and it will be warm again before I know it...right?! I finished off the card with a white taffeta bow and three hot pink rhinestone brads (unknown brand).

Here is my friend Stephanie's card for the same challenge. I love the snow on the words brrr! So cute. She was pretty funny with the yarn. It was on the supplies list for the VSN so she was bound and determine to use it even though this wasn't the challenge that required it! Leave her some love and I will be sure to pass it onto her!

That is all for me. Thanks for checking out my kind of engineering!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Season of Friendship (SU!), Beautiful You (Verve Stamps); Paper - Bashful Blue PP, Melon Mambo textured, Soft Suede, Whisper White; Ink - Soft Suede, Bashful Blue, Melon Mambo; Accessories - faux Flower Soft, white taffeta ribbon (SU!), hot pink rhinestone brads (unknown), dimensionals

Opening Ceremonies

So my friend (hi Steph!) and I participated in our first Virtual Stamp Night (VSN) on SplitCoast Stampers. It was so much fun...although they do challenge you sometimes, so our brains felt a little exhausted at the end...or maybe that was just the frustration of the VSN forum acting up. The second challenge wasn't uploaded until 8:30 instead of 8 pm. But the moderators did a fantastic job of making up for the very slow uploading. My cards turned out fairly good...there is probably little things that I would change on some of the cards if I gave myself more time, but I found I could make a decent card in 45 minutes!

Anyway, the first challenge was titled Opening Ceremonies. We were to pick a flag of one of the countries that participate in the Winter Olympics and create a card based on those colors. I couldn't not pick team USA, so my colors were Red, white, and blue. Sticking with the winter theme (not that we had to, but for some reason I did) I chose to use an old SU! set, Bundled Up.

I actually pieced the sweater together before I realized that my friend actually had a red marker (if I would have known I would have just colored the stamp) and cut it out. The snowflake border was stamped along the top and bottom in Whisper White Craft ink. Final touch was white gel pen dots around the Night of Navy strip (trying to tie it to the dots on the sweater).

Now here is Steph's card...she knows I took pictures of her cards, so I hope that means she didn't care that I show them here. Any love you leave for her, I will happily pass along!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Bundled Up, All Year Cheer I; Paper - Night of Navy, Real Red, Whisper White; Ink - Night of Navy, Real Red, Whisper White Craft; Accessories - White Gel Pen, dimensionals