Catching Up From the Weekend

Hoping for a down day today. We were camping from Thursday to Sunday and I am pretty sure the kids need as little excitement as possible today...the crankiness and attitude levels seem to be at an all-time high and I am hoping it is just from exhaustion after a busy and exciting few days. Either that or we are entering a new phase that I do not like and will have to quickly remedy! Even Adi was throwing out some attitude last night and she is only 2! Wish me luck!

So while I was away, I missed a Makeup 4 The Weekend Challenge...I totally meant to participate in it ahead of time, but time escaped me once again...hate it when that sneaky "time" slips away! Anyway the challenge this week is to create a card with Lime Green, Turquoise, and Kraft. Oh and there is a nice prize up for grabs (like a single stamp of your choice!)...and I will let you in on a hint...there is only a few people thus far, so your chances are awesome to win!! To be entered into the running for the prize you need to complete the challenge with a PMS stamp and link it up to the Makeup 4 The Weekend Challenge #38. But don't delay as you only have until midnight (EST) on Wednesday!!!

So since I hadn't stamped in awhile, my mojo is a bit off...I think I sort of pulled this off, but not real sure I like it totally. Anyway, stamped my heart dandelion from the Dandy Wishes set by Paper Makeup Stamps in Green Galore and the sentiment over top of it in Taken with Teal (I know not turquoise...when I pulled out my "turquoise" pattern paper to use I realized it really was Taken with Teal...oh well). This was matted on Kraft cardstock with a scallop border. My pattern paper is from two Stampin' Up! collections: Rainbow Sherbert and Bali Breeze. A little hemp twine and a turquoise rhinestone brad finished it off.

That is all I have for today...make sure you check out that Makeup 4 the Weekend Challenge! Thanks for checking out my kind of engineering!

Stamps - Dandy Wishes (Paper Makeup Stamps); Paper - Kraft, Whisper White, Rainbow Sherbert pattern paper, Bali Breeze pattern paper (SU!); Ink - Green Galore, Taken with Teal; Accessories - Turquoise Rhinestone Brad (SU!), Hemp Twine, Scallop Border Punch (SU!), dimensionals

Beautiful Review

Well, well, how did you like the Paper Makeup Stamps August Release? Pretty great, huh?! If you somehow missed it, check out all of the great stamps released at Paper Makeup Stamps. The "Makeup Artists" are reviewing all of the stamps this week to show how awesome it was. Make sure to check out the Fairy Review from yesterday...always love me some fairies! Today though we are reviewing the funky Moodies and the beautiful wordart. Make sure to check out the Paper Makeup Stamps Blog to see what the other designers created as well!

For my card, I used the Corrosive Challenge #76 (which was a sketch, shown below) as my starting point. Did you hear that Paper Makeup Stamps is sponsoring the Challenges this month? Every time you enter into a challenge, you increase your chances of winning $20 Gift Certificate to PMS, a set of PMS Halloween stamps, some chipboard and flowers, and the coveted Guest Designer spot for October! Now that is a great prize package...you should definitely join in the fun! Anyway, I pulled out my new Fields paper from the Euphoria Collection of Basic Grey...isn't it pretty...and used it for my base panels. I stamped the The Most Beautiful Thing Wordart in Orchid Opulence, ticket corner punched the corners, and sponged on Certainly Celery ink. I finished it off with white satin ribbon, some felt flowers, and some homemade sparkle brads. The brads are button brads with a glob of Cotton Candy Stickles on top of it.

That is all for me. Make sure to keep checking out the PMS Blog for the next Review days! Thanks for checking out my kind of engineering!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - The Most Beautiful Thing Wordart (Paper Makeup Stamps); Paper - Certainly Celery, Rose Red, Whisper White (SU!), Fields paper from Euphoria Collection (Basic Grey); Ink - Orchid Opulence, Certainly Celery (SU!); Accessories - White satin ribbon (Offray), Rose Red Felt Flowers (SU!), Button Brads (Making Memories), Cotton Candy Stickles, Ticket Corner Punch (SU!), dimensionals, sponge

A Hopping Kind of Day

Well happy Saturday all!! I have had one busy week with Vacation Bible School all week. I was the Song Leader and the Snack Lady extraordanaire. Not sure why it was so exhausting except for the fact that I had to get up at a certain time every morning. Guess I have gotten out of that habit over the summer! Anyway, you aren't here to hear about my week today, you are in the middle of a fantastic Paper Makeup Stamps Blog Hop...yes, yes you are! So you should be arriving from Miss Christi T's Blog (wasn't her Couple of Moodies so fabulous?!)...if not go get started from the beginning at the Paper Makeup Stamps Blog! And don't forget to collect your letters through the hop to get the code for 15% off anything in the August Release!

So I get the pleasure to show you a card with a new fairy, Carter. Carter is a dress-up kind of kid with a BIG imagination...my kids are not so much the dress-up types...we actually had to bribe my son to get into his Halloween costume one year! Anyway, Carter, I think...I am finding it fun making up stories for these stamps...is one that would want to go out in public in the costume and he is pretty much always in a land of dinosaurs no matter where he actually is! So I started off with the Mojo Monday Sketch Challenge #150 for my card and picked up on the fact that Carter is wearing Camo pants. I found the Camo ribbon at Wal-Mart and had to try and incorporate it! My colors are not as close of a match to the ribbon as I would like, but I think it will pass by most people's standards. Carter was watercolored with an aqua brush and ink pads and then I cut around the dinosaur head and tail. The colors of the cardstock matched the ribbon colors best, but the same colors watercolored changed a little bit...found that a little interesting. Anyway, the large panel was embossed with the Distressed Striped embossing folder and sponged with Basic Black ink. Finished off the card with the button brads and some Stardust stickles on the fairy and the dinosaurs toes (hehe!).

So now you are to keep on hopping over to Stephanie's Blog...she is having fun with the Moody for Kitties! Oh wait, you need a letter from me...so here you go:

Thanks for hopping in and checking out my kind of engineering! Don't forget to join us on the FORUM tonight at 8 pm EST for some fun, chatting, games, and of course some prizes!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Carter Fairy, Have Fun Sentiment (Paper Makeup Stamps); Paper - Baja Breeze, Soft Suede, Garden Green, Old Olive (SU!), watercolor paper; Ink - Old Olive, Garden Green, Soft Suede, Baja Breeze (SU!), Black Staz-On; Accessories - Olive Camouflage Ribbon (Offray), White Button Brads (Making Memories), Cuttlebug Distressed Stripes embossing folder (Provo Craft), Corner Rounder Punch (SU!), Oval Nestabilities (Spellbinders), Aqua Brush, 1/16" Hold Punch (Friskars), Stardust Stickles

Moody Sneak Peak

It is my favorite time of the month (and the worst) by the name of PMS! Ok, sorry that was FAR too much information to share with all but usually if I think it, I type it! So there you have it! On the good side, yesterday started the Sneak Peeks for the August Release of Paper Makeup Stamps...so if you missed it, make sure you pop over there to see the awesome new fairies this month. But today we get to show you the new Moodies and Wordart for this release...so fun!!

I have the pleasure of showing you Moody for Kitties! This would be my niece, except for a slightly younger version of this Moody...but she is a total kitty fanatic! Anyway, I stamped the image in Black Staz-on onto watercolor paper and watercolored the girl (woohoo this fits the There She Goes Challenge #66 to Watercolor your image!). I paper pieced the 3 kitties using a polka-dot for one and a floral pattern for the other two.

I was very tired when making this card. See I am working as Song Leader and Snack Lady this week for my church's Vacation Bible School. So I was definitely struggling while making this. I started off trying to follow a sketch challenge, but it wasn't working, so I reduced it to this. Not bad...on the simple side, but sometimes that is ok...right?! The other part you will have to disregard is the poor girl's hair. I had this brilliant (totally brilliant in my head at least) idea to color her hair with the three colors of the kitties to kind of tie it all together. Yeah...not so much! It is not horrible, but it definitely isn't too pretty either. So quickly look past the hair please!!

Now make sure that you check out what the other designers have created for today at the PMS Blog. They are fantastic! Take note of the way in which you could win the ENTIRE release. So have fun checking out the sneak peeks...there will be more every day until August 7 where we will top it all off with a Blog Hop and Release Party at 8 pm EST in the FORUM (come for fun, games, and PRIZES!)...and thanks for checking out my kind of engineering!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Moody for Kitties (Paper Makeup Stamps); Paper - Elegant Eggplant, Apricot Appeal pattern, Sahara Sand pattern, Really Rust pattern, watercolor paper; Ink - Black Staz-on, Elegant Eggplant, Pale Plum, Certainly Celery, Sahara Sand, Really Rust, Apricot Appeal (SU!); Accessoires - black satin ribbon (Offray), green rhinestone Brads (SU!), Aqua Brush, paper piercer, Mat Stack, dimensionals

Practically Perfect Verve Blog Hop

Welcome to the Anni-VERVE-sary Blog Hop! Yup, I get to pretend for a smidge of a moment (along with like 70 others...but whose counting?!) that I am part of the Verve Design Team (a dream spot if you ask me!)...Julee if you are happening to read this, it really is a dream of mine, hint, hint! Verve turns three today and we’re celebrating with a hop, hop, hop! If you've already been hopping along, you arrived here from Lynn's blog. If not, head on over to Julee's Blog (owner of Verve), for all the info on how to win prizes (after all, what's a party without presents?), and to start hopping from the beginning. If there's a hiccup along the hop, you can always head to the Master Hop List to get the full list of links.

I decided to go for the simple route this time. I haven't done a Featured Stamper Challenge yet and thought I would check it out. I was completely inspired by Toni's (known as Ravengirl on SCS) gallery (she is the Featured Stamper this week)...she is like the queen of wonderful clean and simple cards! So I found one in particular, shown HERE, that I decided to CASE. So I kept the layout of the card, but I changed the color scheme and went down the baby route with the adorable bunny from the Verve set, Practically Perfect. The bunny was stamped and embossed with white embossing powder on two different pattern papers and once on Crushed Curry cardstock. Then I paper pieced him together. The white cardstock was embossed with the Cuttlebug Argyle embossing folder. and I added a little white gel pen to be stitching on my strip under the bunny. This is about as clean and simple as I get!

Thanks for checking out my kind of engineering and hopping by! Now it's time to hop on over to Maureen’s blog, for a little more Verve-y goodness.

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Practically Perfect (Verve Stamps); Paper - Basic White (PTI), Crushed Curry, Night of Navy, Bashful Blue, Night of Navy Pattern, Bashful Blue Pattern (SU!); Ink - Whisper White Craft (SU!); Accessories - Cuttlebug Argyle Embossing Folder (Provo), white gel pen (Signo), white embossing powder (SU!), heat gun, scissors, dimensionals

Baby Shower Blog Hop for Lisa

The PMS Design team is celebrating a very fun event today! We get to celebrate the upcoming birth of one of our own's baby. Lisa McKinney is due any day now (she is hoping it will be sooner than later) and we wanted to surprise her with a Baby Shower Blog Hop! You should be getting to me via the lovely Anita. If you didn't, go get started at the beginning of the hop with the PMS Blog, so you don't miss a bit of the adorable baby creations!

I decided to give a new technique a try with my card. The Technique Lover's Challenge #283 this week on SCS was to make a T-Slide Card. Of course, true to my form, I didn't want to make my card the exact size that was in the tutorial. So it took me awhile to get everything cut correctly and get it to work...but now that I have done it once, it wouldn't be bad to do a second time....I understand how it works! See you pull the little tab and the main image flips open to reveal a greeting on the inside. My numerous pictures hopefully show what I mean.

Lisa is expecting a boy...and hopefully the ultrasound is right, otherwise I will need to make a new card! So I pulled out the very old Western Sky pattern paper from SU! and colored the adorable Jamie Fairy with ink pads and aquabrush. I actually didn't have the River Rock color that was used in the pattern paper, so I fudged it by combining Creamy Caramel and a little Old Olive...pretty darn close huh?! Finished off the card with some simple white gel pen stitching.

So now you need to hop...oh wait...I am the end! We hope you had fun celebrating with us. Please leave some love for Lisa on her Blog...and some fast delivery wishes! Thanks for checking out my kind of engineering!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Jamie Fairy (Paper Makeup Stamps), Practically Perfect (Verve Stamps); Paper - River Rock, Blue Bayou, Ruby Red, Western Sky Pattern Paper (SU!), watercolor paper; Ink - Black Stazon, Blue Bayou, Ruby Red, Creamy Caramel, Old Olive; Accessories - Aqua Brush, White gel pen, Round Tab Punch (SU!), Tag Corner Punch (SU!), dimensionals

Engineer with me!

It has been a bit of a whirlwind in my household this week! Sicknesses, lost pet mouse (whole other story I will get into on a later date...she is still lost!), more sickness, and trying to get ready for camping this weekend! All of that would be manageable though if I wasn't one of those that was sick...a sick Mom makes everything difficult!

So today I get to be the Hostess for the Makeup 4 the Weekend Challenge #36! How fun! Now I am a total sketch challenge type of gal, but actually coming up with those sketches is not my strong suit, so I decided to issue a different type of challenge. For those that don't know, I am a Mechanical Engineer (well that is what my degree is in...not that I use that too much as a Stay-at-Home Mom) and I remember back when I was in college insisting on using graph paper for my homework...there was a particular green graph paper that was the best, but I don't have any left. See, us engineering folks tend to be a little detailed and I loved having the graph lines to line things up and for drawing the ever important diagrams for homework. I wish I would have saved some of my homework...they were literally a piece of artwork...I even colored some diagrams on occasion (that was just for fun). So my challenge to you is to use graph paper (or notebook paper) on your card! Then link it up to the PMS Blog to show it off to the rest of us!

So for my card, I used the Sweet Stop Sketch Challenge #65. I inked up the "Wish" dandelion image from the Dandy Wishes set with Creamy Caramel ink and then thumped my Chocolate Chip marker over top of it to get the variegated look to it. I then stamped it on my graph paper (actually one of the papers from the High School Mat Stack by DCWV). I stamped it again in Bordering Blue ink on Very Vanilla ink and punched out the center "Wish" and edged it in Chocolate Chip ink. I pulled out a couple of papers from the Granola Paper Pad by Basic Grey and created the edge on the circle paper by using the edge of the Kaleidescope Borderabilities. I added a strip of Naturals Ivory cardstock from SU! and some brown cording. The swirly clips are from the old Hodgepodge Hardware set in Pewter. It was then finished off with my little "For You" tag on graph paper.

So now you should head over to the PMS Blog and see what some of the other designers did with the challenge. Better yet, get to creating something with graph paper (or notebook paper) and link it up to the PMS Blog so we can all see! I hope you enjoy my challenge and thanks for checking out my kind of engineering!

The Engineering Details

Stamps - Dandy Wishes (PMS), Happy Everything (SU!); Paper - Bordering Blue, Naturals Ivory, Very Vanilla (SU!), Granola Paper Pad (Basic Grey), High School Mat Stack (DCWV); Ink - Creamy Caramel, Chocolate Chip, Bordering Blue, Chocolate Chip marker; Accessories - Kaleidescope Borderabilities (Spellbinders), Hodgepodge Hardware - Pewter (SU!), 1/2" Circle Punch (SU!), Brown cording, dimensionals