Surprises....

I love surprises. I love when I receive them but I really like to be the one who surprises someone. I have been known to do some grand surprises like purchasing a truck for my hubby for his birthday without him ever guessing or something as small as waking up Alex a few minutes before his alarm goes off to let him know he can stay at home and play hookey from school. Shhh...don't tell. lol

But today, I am really proud of myself because I have been trying to come up with something to reward Alex with for his AMAZING grades this past year. He always does well in school but this year, every quarter, he received all A's and one B. He received first honors all four quarters and that is not too shabby for a sixteen year old going to a demanding private school.

So Ted and I made up this story saying Ted needed to get some barn wood from Tennessee (a 4 1/2 hour trip away) and Alex had to go with hm b/c he needed help loading it. Alex totally believed it b/c it is something Ted would do. lol Anyway, little did he know he was really going to Nashville for a GREEN DAY concert! I let them drive a few hours, just called him and told him I needed an number on a piece of paper in the glove compartment and I needed him to read it to me. I wrote on the paper....YOU ARE GOING TO A GREEN DAY CONCERT TONIGHT. He opened the paper and I could hear his smile on the phone! He is so excited and I am so happy that my boys are going to have a nice bonding trip.

My point for sharing this to all of you, is no matter how big or small, go surprise someone today! It will not only make their day but yours too! :)

I can't leave without sharing something creative....

A card I made just for fun. Not for any challenge, if you can believe it. lol See those white dots on the patterned paper on top. I used some liquid pearls to create drops...they look like tiny pearls. So fun!

Thanks for stopping by! Be back soon.....

Monochromatic Card Set

Where have I been you ask? Well, I have been having so much fun playing in my studio. Let me show you one of the projects I've created....

This week's Hero Arts Blog Challenge was to create a monochromatic card. (A monochromatic color palette includes different shades, tones or tints of of a single color.) I decided to create a set of cards. Here they are:These were so much fun to create! Let's start with the YELLOW (one of my favorite colors these days):and the RED one: and the PINK one:(I created the background of the card using the scalloped flower stamp from THIS set.)

Now, the BLUE one: On to the GREEN one:and the BROWN one:and PURPLE: and last but not least, the ORANGE one:

(All stamps used on these cards are from Hero Arts)

and speaking of cards....Kristina chose THIS card for her roundup! Yeah! :)

I'll be back soon with more creative shares. Thanks for stopping by!

Two Different Challenges

Hi! Just got back from seeing the new Harry Potter movie with Alex. I've never read the books but I have seen all the movies and this one was pretty good! It was so fun spending some quality time with Alex.

Well, I've got TWO different challenges today. First, Dawn's color challenge. Here are the colors....

and my card....

For the inside of the butterfly, I filled it in with pink sticklez. I love how it looks like puffy paint. Here is a close up shot...and I also created a page for the American Crafts Blog Challenge. The challenge was to create a layout that is music inspired. Well, when I read that I knew I had to make a page about Alex and his passion for music..... The journaling reads:
"You are happiest when you are making music.
Music has captured your heart and if you listen to your heart, you will always be happy. So, keep rockin’ out and live your passion."

I used some black thickers for the title but since my background cardstock was black, I needed something underneath to make it stand out so I used my Versa Mark clear ink pad to create a rectangle box and then sprinkled some American Crafts ZING green embossing powder on it and heat set it. I just love the AC embossing powders. I must get more colors! Here is a detail shot of the title using that technique.....All supplies are from American Crafts except for the cardstock (DCWV). That's all I got for now. Thanks for stopping by!

Color Inspiration #56

Back today with a card I made for Kristina's Color Challenge. I was running low on birthday cards and thought these colors would be perfect...and my card...I really like how bright and colorful it turned out. To make these circle embellishments...I started with some circle grungeboard by Tim Holtz. LOVE that stuff. I painted all of them white and then stamped each one with the coordinating color ink using THIS favorite stamp. Then I dabbed them all with VersaMark and then heat embossed each one with Ultra Thick Clear Embossing Powder to achieve the faux epoxy look.

Thanks for stopping by!

Summertime

I love summertime. I love that it stays light outside longer. I love frozen lemonades from Panera Bread. I love evening walks with my husband and dogs. I love campfires with my family. I love having Alex home all day. I also love summertime television! Last night I watched the Bachelorette. Anyone watch it too? If so, what did you think? I really like Ed. I think they make a good match. Anyway, getting to my point....my all time favorite show right now is So You Think You can Dance. I LOOOOVE IT! My favorites couple is Kayla and Kupono. Did anyone see their dance last week with the story line of addiction? It was amazing. I taped it and I am so glad I did so I could watch it over and over.

I know, I know...that was very random but thought I'd share what's on my mind and since I don't want to sign off without something crafty....here is a card I made for my nephew who turns four tomorrow. It's simple but I love personalizing cards with photos.
Night. I'll be back soon...

Twitter!

Check it out! Hero Arts just twittered about my card set from my last post. Very cool....

http://twitter.com/myheroarts

Made my day! Now I am thinking about twittering! I would love to hear if you twitter and what you think about it!

Thank You Set

In my attempts to be a better blogger, I thought I'd share an example of one of the thank you cards from a set I made for the family. I wanted to thank them for coming to our fourth of July party so I whipped up these cards QUICKLY with a Hero Arts star background stamp....I printed some smaller size pics to include in every one's card. So simple. All three sets took me less than 15 minutes!

Have a great weekend! Be back soon!

This Week's AC Challenge...

When I saw that this week's American Crafts Challenge was to create a LO with a red, white, and blue color scheme, I grabbed my fourth of July pics and started scrapping. It was a great motivation to get the pics from my last post scrapped! Here is my take on the challenge...I used some corrugated cardboard to frame out my pics after painting it white and then did a collage underneath of AC pattern papers. I just love AC polka dot papers! I also used some of my AC rub-ons stash with the title and stars in the clear metal tag. I added some shine to the stars to make them stand out....
The journaling reads, "The Fourth of July…a day spent with family. Lots of smiles, picnic foods, swimming, and a game of tag in the backyard with the kids. A perfect day. "

Oh, and something completely random that I forgot to share with my last post about our fourth of July picnic.....This may look like just an old washing machine but it's not! ....We use this as a cooler for beverages for all of our outdoor get togethers. This was my grandma and grandpa's old wash tub that was sitting in their basement forever. I really wanted it because I love vintage/antique stuff but I didn't want to take it until I thought of a way to recycle it and make it useful. I came up with this idea and thanks to my hubby for cleaning it up and putting in an acrylic piece at the bottom that will let the water drain after all the ice melts..he is super handy like that! Anyway, I think it's fun and wanted to share.

Have a good night!

4th of July Pictures

Hi! Hope everyone celebrating 4th of July had a wonderful weekend. It rained all day here (Cincinnati) yesterday so we had a BBQ at our house today. Thought I would share some pics from the day. Here is my hubby and son....

Me and Alex....

My dad and my niece, Lydia...My niece, Taylor (Lydia's big sister)...My nephew, Brennan (Lydia and Taylor's Brother)...My nephew (and Godson) J.T. ....I think the kids had so much fun. This is one of my favorite shots. All the kids decided to play tag in the backyard after swimming....Be back soon with some creative shares. Thanks for stopping by!

Rasberry Suite Color Challenge #11

Back today with my card for Dawn's color challenge. Here are the colors....

and my card...Love that photo of my niece Lydia. I immediately thought of using the sending smiles sentiment when I saw this photo.

I'll be back soon with LOTS to share. Just taking a small break to do some much needed R&R!