My Time Made Easy Day 2 Sneak Peeks

It's the second day of sneak peeks for the new release of templates and stamps from My Time Made Easy! Did you check out the fantastic coffee-themed gift sets from Lauren, Lisa, Tangii, Tracey, Catherine and Debbie yesterday? OMGosh, they blew me away! Seeing their designs makes me want a Cricut so much but unfortunately there are too many other places to spend that much money! :)

My BFF Kristin Bueter had a cute card on her blog yesterday too, using some of the new release stamps. I saw her card and thought "hey, where'd she get those cute stacked cups?" I didn't remember seeing a stamp like that in my sets! Then I realized she cleverly masked and stacked those cups, so I couldn't resist CASE'ing her idea for my card today! For inspiration, I used Jen delMuro's Sketch for You to Try from this past Saturday and combined it with Pretty Printables papers from MTME designed by Kristin! I'm in love with the color combination she used on these! These are the Coffee Bean Cups, Dots and Poppy Stripes papers that will be available for purchase tomorrow!

My crocheted flower is from another BFF Barbara Anders! I told her once that I constantly resist the urge to use the crocheted flowers that I have because I don't want to use them up. So she sent me a little bagful with a note that said "stop hoarding!" LOL SO I finally used one today, and paired it with a die-cut Sentiment Flag from yet another BFF, Laura Pryor at Lil' Inker Designs!

More of the MTME team members have beautiful samples for you to see today so be sure to stop and see Katie, Stephanie, Pam, Debbie, Catherine, and of course, Lauren! And we have a special guest designer today too, Ashley! I know you'll be drooling over the goodies they have to share!

I am doing the "it's almost Friday!" happy dance today! How about you? Thanks for stopping by!

My Time Made Easy *NEW* Release

October is almost here, and that means it's time for another new release from My Time Made Easy! This is going to be the biggest month ever, so be sure to check out all the links here and the ones in the next few days so you don't miss any of the sneak peeks! Lauren has truly outdone herself (but we say that every month, don't we?) This time she really has because in addition to having fabulous projects for you to see, she's also been sick and her precious daughter Alexa was hospitalized with pneumonia! If you know and love Lauren, as so many people do, you know the struggles Alexa has had in her short life but she proved once again that God has more in store for her as she recovered much quicker than the doctors expected her to, and today she celebrates her 11th birthday! So HAPPY BIRTHDAY Alexa! We're so glad you're home again, and that you and Mommy are both feeling better!

For my card today, I am using a few of the new stamps sets that are coming out and have combined it with my card for today's Color Throwdown being hosted by Barbara! And to further confuse you ;) the Color Throwdown challenge is also being sponsored by Pixie Petals! Pixie Petals is an Etsy store with beautiful hand-made embellishments, and they have provided each of the CTD members with some fun things to play with on our creations today. On my card, I have used one of the gorgeous Faye Flowers in Autumn Harvest! If you play along with us at the Throwdown blog, you'll have the chance of being the random winner of a $10 voucher to the Pixie Petals store! So come play along with us!

This awesome, big coffee cup on my card is from the new Fancy a Cuppa? set, and the sentiment on the front and inside is from the Grab a Cup Sentiments. These are all clear, acrylic stamp sets, and one of the things I love most about clear stamps is that you can make them suit your needs better than wood-mounted rubber.... I actually cut the sentiment stamp in half so I could easily stamp the first part of it on the front of my card, and the second part on the inside! The little checkerboard pattern for my tablecloth is also from the Fancy a Cuppa? set, and the "steam" from my cup comes from the Fanciful Flourishes stamp set.
Inside I have included a gift card to one of my most favorite places :) so I can send this to a friend to meet me for coffee!
We have some changes this month too, on the MTME team! We have a new member with some new release goodness to share with you so please stop by Tangii Crain's blog, make her feel welcome and check out her designs for today! AND we have a Guest Designer for October, so stop on over and see what Debbie Marcinkiewicz has to share with you today! Then, on top of that you can pay a visit to team members Lisa Kind and Tracey Cuccia for more new release goodies! And of course, stop by Lauren's blog everyday to stay on top of all the sneak peeks!

AND, if you need Color Throwdown inspiration, stop and see what my Throwdown sisters have in store for you today with these beautiful Fall colors....

Barbara Anders

Danielle Kennedy

Kristin Bueter

Laura Pryor

LeAnne Pugliese

Broni Holcombe

Silke Ledlow, September Guestie

THANK YOU for stopping by!

Crazy4Challenges #56

Hey gang! I kinda' slacked off last week with the Crazy4Challenges girls, so I had to be sure and get my card done for the challenge this week! It was so crazy last weekend with my daughter's birthday party, which was wonderful! (I'll try to make time this weekend to post some pictures and tell you about it!)

Today is Jocelyn's last challenge for September and she wants to see your BLING-o-rama, baby! Make your card sparkle, shimmer and shine! I decided to use the new "Witching You a Happy Halloween" set that I just got from Flourishes, along with this "Toil & Trouble" paper from Making Memories. It's hard to tell from the photo but those spider webs are glittery. I added some tiny orange gemstones inside the stars in the garland (a Die-Namics die from My Favorite Things), some orange dew drops to the lower left of my image, and colors parts of the broom with a clear Spica glitter pen. I also spritzed the sentiment oval with Perfect Pearls mist for more shimmer. I used Mercy's Tuesday Sketch challenge #92 for the layout.

Stop over at the C4C blog for all the challenge details, and then see what the other crazies created for today to inspire you...

Silke Kittman

Lynda Benden

Cindy Haffner

Joanne Grezlak

Frances Byrne

Jocelyn Pelkey

Maria Bell

Jessie Rone

Angela Wood

Barbara Anders

Silke Ledlow

Have a fantastic weekend, and thanks for stopping by!

Color Throwdown #111 (otherwise known as "What was Broni thinking?")

Today's Color Throwdown challenge is just that.... a CHALLENGE! I've been ribbing Broni for a week, trying to figure out WHAT she was thinking when she chose these colors! Whoo boy, I dreaded this color combo! Just ask LeAnne.... she knows I do not do blue! I even teased that I was going to make a Melon Mambo/River Rock card, and use an image of a little girl with Pacific Point blue eyes! So basically you've caught on, right.... I didn't like this challenge!

But ya' know what, that's why we do challenges! To get outside the comfort zone and try new things and in the long run, I think it's pretty awesome! I hope you'll be brave and get outside your little stamping comfort box and give it a try!

I decided to use a Whipper Snapper image I've had for awhile that hadn't seen ink, so Tic, Tac & Toe here are the stars of my card! And see that awesome birthday Sentiment Flag? That's the new stamp set and matching die from my sweet friend Laura and her store, Lil' Inker Designs! You'll LOVE this cute little stamp set, and matching steel die! Get your hands on it soon! I love that I'll never have to pull out my square punch and try to evenly snip off the end of a sentiment flag ever again!

The layout for my card was inspired by Karen Giron's Sweet Sunday Sketch #86, but I ended up straying a little bit from the smaller details of the sketch.
Stop by the Throwdown blog for all the challenge details, then stop by my Throwdown sisters blogs for more inspiration!

Broni Holcombe

Barbara Anders

Danielle Kennedy

Kristin Bueter

Laura Pryor

LeAnne Pugliese

Silke Ledlow, September Guestie

Thanks for stopping by! I appreciate it!

Color Throwdown #110

Hello stampers! It's Color Throwdown time again, and this week LeAnne has picked what I thought was a really elegant color combination! However, when you check out what the other girls have created this week, you'll see it can also lean towards the cute side, and it's great for some Christmas greetings, too!

For my card, I decided to use the Sweet Spring Jolinne stamp set from My Favorite Things, along with Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge #91 for this week. The colors seemed to suit this image of Jolinne as a ballerina quite well, and it also gave me a chance to use this pink netting as an embellishment. Our pastor's wife recently started a new Sunday School class for the teenage girls at our church, and this netting was tied around the books the girls got at their first class. Kaylie sweetly saved it for me, thinking maybe I'd like to use it on a card, and she was right! The whole card is spritzed with a combination of water and Perfect Pearls for some added shimmer. I think since Kaylie saved that netting for me, this just might end up being her birthday card. Yes *sniff, sniff* my baby is turning 18 next Tuesday! I still can't wrap my head around that fact, but like it or not I have to deal with it! I'm having a wonderful party for her this weekend, and hopefully I'll be able to make some time to tell you about it, too!
Stop by the Throwdown blog for all the challenge details, and then check out what my Throwdown sisters have created using these colors...

LeAnne Pugliese

Broni Holcombe

Barbara Anders

Danielle Kennedy

Kristin Bueter

Laura Pryor

Silke Ledlow, September Guestie

THANK YOU for stopping by, and for your comments! I really appreciate the visits!

Birthday Words

Happy Monday, everyone! Ready for another week?

Here's a quick card I made on Sunday night to display at the store. It uses a new line of stamps from Art Impressions we recently got called AI Words. This is the "Birthday" set, of course. The papers are from My Mind's Eye, and the ric-rac die is a Die-Namics from My Favorite Things.

Have a great week! Thanks for stopping by!

C4C54 - Color Challenge

Hey everyone, it's Saturday and that brings around another challenge with the Crazy Girls! Jocelyn is our hostess for September, and this week she's given us a color challenge, as shown above. So see what you can do with these colors, and head over to the C4C blog to link up your creation using Mr. Linky!

For my card, I pulled out this new Gary Robertson image from Impression Obsession. I stamped the image using Barn Door distress ink, then heat set it with clear embossing powder. I cut out the image, then stamped it again on the kraft cardstock using black ink and mounted it with foam tape squares for dimension. I computer-generated the sentiment on the tag using a new font I just got! Kimberly Geswein (who remembers MamaKimberly from SCS?) designed this font, called Give You Glory, using my daughter Kaylie's printing! Isn't it cute?
See what the other Crazy Girls have created using these colors for today's challenge, and be inspired!

Jocelyn Pelkey

Frances Byrne

Cindy Haffner

Barbara Anders

Maria Bell

Jessie Rone

Joanne Grzelak

Silke Ledlow

Angela Wood

Silke Kittman

Lynda Benden

I hope you'll make some time this weekend to join in! Happy stamping!

My Time Made Easy - Home Improvement

Have you stayed caught up this past week with all the fabulous new release projects with the Shoppe Around template and other fabulous stamps from My Time Made Easy? The girls have all done an amazing job with their little shops and houses.... it makes me want a Cricut SO bad! :) Be sure to check out Lauren's daily links on her blog to see who's got something to show you each day!

Today the whole group is posting to show you more possibilities with the stamps, templates and papers that were released this month, and specifically the Homemade Card & Envelope template! This is so easy to use to create a real one-of-a-kind card and envelope, and the possibilities are endless for different themes.

I spotted some paper in the MTME shop that gave me a great idea for a card using this template, so I just ran with my idea. This is the Wrenchy Rain paper from the Shopping Shirley's Ganache Sprinkles paper. My niece and her boyfriend just bought a house together, so I thought this would be totally cute to use to give them a housewarming gift card!

I printed the paper for the roof from the Construction Materials paper pack, then printed the roof from the Homemade Card & Envelope template on the back and cut it out (and did likewise with the template on the Wrenchy Rain paper.)
I used stamps from the Home Improvement set to decorate the front of my house, and stamps from the Sign It set for the sentiment piece on the roof. And one reason why I just LOVE clear stamps is because I like to cut apart sentiment to suit my needs, as I did here with the "For your House" on the inside card. The first part of the sentiment comes from "For your travels" and the second part comes from the "Coffee House" sentiment in the Sign It set!

Check out the blogs of the MTME team members for more Homemade Card & Envelope inspiration today...

Lauren Meader

Kristin Bueter

Katie Cotton

Catherine Doucette

Lesa Rapp

Lisa Kind

Pam Imholz

Stephanie Kraft

Tracey Cuccia

Enjoy! Happy stamping, and thank you for stopping by!

Color Throwdown #109 for Abby

Hello everyone, and welcome to Wednesday and another Color Throwdown! We're up to challenge #109 already... I can't believe it's been 9 weeks already since we celebrated #100! Time just flies by these days! I hope you'll decide to play along this week with this bright color combo I chose! Consider it one last tribute to Summer before we start getting chillier weather, and pull out the warm Fall colors!

My card was created for a sweet little girl, named Abby (in case you didn't figure that out!) Abby and her family go to my church... she is 2 years old. Last week, her Mommy posted something on Facebook about how Abby was watching for the mailman to come and was very disappointed when he came, and drove right by their house, apparently having no mail for their household that day. Someone commented and said "were you expecting something?" and Abby's Mom said "No, Abby just likes to get the mail!" So I thought I'd surprise Abby with some mail all her own! (And when I get some time, I'll have to create another card so big sister Emily doesn't feel left out!) It was a great opportunity to use the sweet Banner Day Die-Namics from My Favorite Things to spell out Abby's name on the card, along with this cute Pure Innocence image, too!
Stop by the Color Throwdown blog for all the challenge details, and check out what my Throwdown sisters have created by visiting their blogs, too...

Broni Holcombe

Barbara Anders

Danielle Kennedy

Kristin Bueter

Laura Pryor

LeAnne Pugliese

Silke Ledlow, September Guestie

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Crazy4Challenges - C4C53

Happy Saturday everyone! I have some fun news to share with you today! The girls on the Crazy 4 Challenges team are unfortunately losing one of their founding members, Vicki Garrett. While I know they're sad to see her go, I'm happy because they've asked me to join the team! The girls on this team are some of the most admired stampers out there, and I'm just tickled pink to be rubbing elbows with them! I can't wait for you to see all the fun challenges that are coming up!

The challenges for September are being hosted by Jocelyn, and she has a fun, seasonal challenge for us today! Since school has resumed for most everyone (or will very soon!) our challenge today is to create something related to books... whether you make a bookmark, stamp something with books, or maybe create something based on your favorite book, just be creative and bookish!

Now, I guess I'm hoping I don't get thrown off the team right off the bat because I guess I was thinking about books when I made this card but there isn't really any books there. :( Honestly, I was thinking about sending this card to school on Tuesday with my daughter to give to her Senior Government teacher, because today that teacher showed me that at least someone in our high school has a little compassion and understanding and I wanted to thank her for it. So here's my teacher thank you card....
Since I'm a fan of Jen delMuro's Sketch for You to Try on Facebook, I got a little sneak peek of her sketch for this week and used it for my card. The designer papers I've used are from October Afternoon, and I have a mix of cardstocks in my design and some ribbon from Creative Impressions. This sweet little stamped image is a Pure Innocence stamp from My Favorite Things called Apple for You.

And hey, did you know that today is actually the first anniversary of the Crazy 4 Challenges blog? How cool is that? Stop by the C4C blog for all the challenge details and there you'll also find Mr. Linky for adding your own creation. Remember, if you upload to an online gallery, use the keyword C4C53. Then check out the creations from all the Crazy Girls!

Angela Wood

Barbara Anders

Cindy Haffner

Frances Byrne

Jessie Rone

Joanne Grzelak

Jocelyn Pelkey

Lynda Benden

Maria Bell

Silke Kittman

Silke Ledlow

A big, big thank you to the C4C girls for asking me to join their team.... I'm so excited! And thank you, dear readers for stopping by today and letting me share my good news! Have a GREAT weekend!

Fall Cards from Impression Obsession

Just wanted to share with you today the cards I've created for my September Product of the Month program at Toyrifix! In the past, I have purchased stamps from another company and have cards already made up, etc. through this program. However, I decided to try something new for September and am instead offering a Product of the Month instead of a Stamp of the Month! So all the stamps I've used on my cards are from Impression Obsession, and my product for this month is Versafine ink pads! We'll be selling a variety of colors at a reduced price, and I hope that everyone will love these cards when they see how awesome these inks are!

This one uses Olympia Green ink, and Onyx Black for the sentiment along with the Open Scallop Border die from My Favorite Things and some sweet black gingham ribbon (finished off with a button, of course!) For the layout on this one, I used Mercy's Tuesday Sketch Challenge #89.
This card uses the Habanero ink for the main image, and it is SO yummy stamped on this Kraft cardstock! The sentiment is in Onyx Black and embossed with clear embossing powder. I just loved pairing this "smile" sentiment with the jack-o-lantern in this image! The main image panel here is spritzed with a mixture of water and Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls for an awesome shimmer!
This image is one of my favorites! The kitty jack-o-lantern alone is cute, but get a glimpse of the cat peeking out from inside the birdhouse and you can't help but chuckle! This image is stamped in Imperial Purple, and the whole card is lightly spritzed with the Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls.
This card design was CASE'd from the Impression Obsession catalog. Their version was so fabulous, I didn't bother trying to improve upon it! Here the butterfly is stamped in Crimson Red Versafine, and the outer border with "dream" and the sunflower is stamped in Smokey Gray.
This beautiful apple image is stamped in the Crimson Red ink, and the edges of the image were sponged with Tea Dye distress ink.
And this last image of the pumpkins on the porch was stamped in Vintage Sepia ink, and generously sprized with the Heirloom Gold mist for shimmer. I made a frame for the image using the Labels 10 Nestabilities, and the Open Scallop Border is from My Favorite Things.

(Looking at all these cards now, maybe my Product of the Month ought to be buttons and ribbon, too! LOL I guess you could never argue what my favorite embellishments are!)

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed this peek of some of the stamping that I do at work!