BFB Finding Our Way Home

This is the first time reading this author (Charlene Ann Baumbich) and I loved her style of writing and look forward to finding more books by her.

Finding Our Way Home is about principal ballerina Sasha Davis and what happens when her career ends after an injury at just 38 yrs old. She hires 19 yr old Evelyn Burt. Evelyn is as large-boned as Sasha is tiny and they are as opposite in every way possible. Slowly as the two get to know each other, they find out that they have more in common than they think.

This story is  about overcoming obstacles that we think we never can through the power of friendship and love.

**I received a copy of this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review

CSAYL Feeling Sketchy

This week on CSAYL we are to make a card following a sketch...any sketch. I chose this one I found on The Sweetest Thing's blog.



The card I created uses another digi colored image. I'm not sure where I got these, just have them saved on my computer.

It's another flat card. I'm trying to make as many flat cards as I can to save on postage. Inside says: Merry Christmas from "owl" of us. Ü

Been Busy

I have been so busy working on orders lately. I just finished 40 bridal shower invites, scrapbook for a teacher (there was a deadline so no pics) and 80 of these for a student.

Creating all of this while battling bronchitis has been tough, but so glad they are now all done. I'm also doing a craft show Saturday (must be nuts Ü) at the Hobby Shack in Broken Bow for those of you who are local. I just finished 50 mini notepads, a bunch of cards, Easter bags and other goodies. It's 10-4 if you can make it.

Monday nite was honor banquet. Here is Aaron receiving a certificate and gold star for all A's.

Scrappy Notepads

It's the last week of the month, so that means Anything But a Card challenge week on Tombow.

I had some My Mind's Eye scraps I thought I would see if I could use up and the sizes were perfect to make these mini notepads. (inside is a jr. legal pad cut in half)

I was able to get 3 notepads. Perfect for having on hand when you need a little special gift.

I used Mono Adhesive permanent to adhere all the pieces together.

MFT Thank You

I love this sweet image from My Favorite Things. This is another card that I designed for CHA. We colored the image with Tombow's Dual Brush pens and blender pen. I also used Tombow's Foam Tabs to raise the little girl image.

CSAYL Wk 3

Anything Goes for this week's CSAYL challenge. I chose this fun turtle image from Inky Antics. I chose to make a flat card (no bumpy embellies) so that it doesn't cost extra to mail. I colored the image and then looked through my scrap bin to find paper to match. Gotta use up those scraps! Ü

How about a chance to win a spot as a guest designer with us?!  Here are a few details, and you can get the rest, plus see what inspired the rest of the DT this week on the CSAYL blog.

Prize: the winner will be our first Guest Designer

Challenge: Anything goes - use any stamp, any paper, any any anything you'll like.

Inky's Easter Blog Hop

Welcome to Inky’s Easter Blog Hop! You’ve come from the Inky Antic's blog you are right on track. If not, you might want to hop over there and then continue down the bunny trail Ü.

I used 11088MC Chocolate Rabbit HoneyPOP Clear Set drawn by artist Tammy DeYoung to create this project along with Inky's brown Honeycomb paper, which you can find on this page: http://www.inkyantics.com/march2012hop.htm.

I have a fun little Easter bag to share with you today. I have some mini paper bags (about 3.5" wide) that I made this little treat holder with. (You can see a tutorial for this type of bag here.)

This project also shows you how you can use the HoneyPOP paper on the front of a project rather than inside.

The panel the bunny is on is a flap that is held down with Tombow's super thin fastener tabs. It is soooo green here, I just had to take a picture of the bag in my lilies. We don't normally have so much green showing this time of year. Lots of times it is still the white stuff. Ü

The blog hop starts today and ends on Sunday, March 25^th at midnight Central time. Please visit each DT members’ blog to view their projects and leave a comment for each designer. The more you comment, the better your chances are to win. (Limit one comment per blog, please). Two people’s names will be drawn at random to receive a surprise Inky prize pack. The winners’ names will be announced on the Inky Antics  blog next Monday, so remember to stop back and see if you’ve won.

Thank you for hopping by. Your next stop will be Trudy’s blog.

My Mind's Eye + Tombow = LOVE!

WOW! Two of my favorite companies team up this week on Tombow!! If you follow my blog, you know how much I love My Mind's Eye. I love that their double sided papers allows you to mix and match to your heart's content. Ü MME really spoiled the DT with all the goodies they sent us.

I used Tombow's Mono Adhesive Mega Roller to put these 3 cards together. With as much adhesive as I use, I think I will be using this product alot more. I also like how it feels in my hand and gives a smooth run of adhesive.

I also used Dual Brush Pen #N95 Cool Gray 1 to add shadows on each of the cards around the birds. The birds are precolored digis by Scrappin Doodles. I've been sick with bronchitis the past 10 days and this was a way I could make some quick and easy cards and still show off My Mind's Eye paper and Tombow products.

I love the little pop up embellishments that My Mind's Eye sent us. The box of goodies I received were all from the Miss Caroline line.

Be sure to stop by the Tombow and My Mind's Eye blog this week to see all the goodies both design teams created.

CSAYL & Limited Runs Digis

Welcome to week 2 for Christmas Stampin' All Year Long's Challenge. This week's challenge is hosted by Limited Runs Digis.

We got to pick an image from their wonderful digis and I chose this yummy looking Snowman on a Cupcake. They have so many wonderful images it was hard to pick just one. Ü

Come and play along with us on Christmas Stampin' All Year Long and be entered for a chance to win 3 Limited Run Digis of your choice.

Hippity Hoppity Bunny Bag

For today's project I created a cute Easter Bag using the bunny from Hippity Hoppity. I love the images in this stamp set!

More gorgeous May Arts ribbon was used for the handle. Here is a side view so you can see how the bag looks.

Tombow's thin Fastener Tabs help close the flap.

Now for some blog candy! May Arts sent us lots of YUMMY ribbon to share with all of you! You have lots of ways to enter EVERY SINGLE DAY this week + one BONUS entry!
Daily leave 1 comment on each…
1. the OCL Blog (please leave contact info),
2. each designer’s blog playing along that day, and
3. our Facebook page.
BONUS ENTRY: If you “LIKE” OCL on Facebook, you’ll get a bonus entry (as long as you tell us you did it) ~ if you've already "liked" us, let us know that too!
There will be 5 prize packages that will include an OCL Stamp set and a ribbon sampler package from May Arts. People can leave comments on your blog, the OCL Blog and Facebook each day until Friday, March16th at 9pm PT (midnight ET). Random winners will be selected from all the comments and will be posted on the OCL Blog.
SALE TIME AT OCL!!!!! That's right!!! You can save 20% off on anything in the store this week at OCL for orders over $20 (before shipping/tax). You must use the coupon code SPRING20 to get the discount.

Hoppy Easter

I love this bunny-wannabe frog from Our Craft Lounge's Hippity Hoppity stamp set. I stamped the image on watercolor paper and colored with Tombow's Dual Brush pens. The paper is from My Mind's Eye and that gorgeous ribbon is by May Arts. It matched the MME paper perfectly!

Now for some blog candy! May Arts sent us lots of YUMMY ribbon to share with all of you! You have lots of ways to enter EVERY SINGLE DAY this week + one BONUS entry!
Daily leave 1 comment on each…
1. the OCL Blog (please leave contact info),
2. each designer’s blog playing along that day, and
3. our Facebook page.
BONUS ENTRY: If you “LIKE” OCL on Facebook, you’ll get a bonus entry (as long as you tell us you did it) ~ if you've already "liked" us, let us know that too!
There will be 5 prize packages that will include an OCL Stamp set and a ribbon sampler package from May Arts. People can leave comments on your blog, the OCL Blog and Facebook each day until Friday, March16th at 9pm PT (midnight ET). Random winners will be selected from all the comments and will be posted on the OCL Blog.
SALE TIME AT OCL!!!!! That's right!!! You can save 20% off on anything in the store this week at OCL for orders over $20 (before shipping/tax). You must use the coupon code SPRING20 to get the discount.

OCL Teams up with May Arts

I LOVE May Arts ribbon and it was so fun to see it in real life at CHA! This week Our Craft Lounge is teaming up with May Arts and the Design Team has lots of lovelies to share with you today through Friday. May Arts spoiled us big time, so I have lots to share with you using their gorgeous ribbons and trims.

Today I am sharing a fun card from The Barnyard and sentiment: Barnyard Banter. I used May Arts yummy soft pink ribbon along with some tiny black velvet ribbon.

The sketch layout just "happened". I had the scraps and was just arranging them on my card and this is how it came to be. Ü

Now for some blog candy! May Arts sent us lots of YUMMY ribbon to share with all of you! You have lots of ways to enter EVERY SINGLE DAY this week + one BONUS entry!

Daily leave 1 comment on each…
1. the OCL Blog (please leave contact info),
2. each designer’s blog playing along that day, and
3. our Facebook page.

BONUS ENTRY: If you “LIKE” OCL on Facebook, you’ll get a bonus entry (as long as you tell us you did it) ~ if you've already "liked" us, let us know that too!

There will be 5 prize packages that will include an OCL Stamp set and a ribbon sampler package from May Arts. People can leave comments on your blog, the OCL Blog and Facebook each day until Friday, March16th at 9pm PT (midnight ET). Random winners will be selected from all the comments and will be posted on the OCL Blog.  

Irish Cheer

Happy St. Patrick's Week! This week the Tombow DT is sharing their Luck of the Irish themed projects. Do you celebrate St. Patrick's Day (this coming Saturday) in any way? I try to do something fun each year for the boys. One year when my youngest was 6 or 7 I was sick and wasn't able to do anything. He said "this is the worst St. Patrick's Day of my life!" I had to laugh and told himwe were probably the only ones that even celebrated it! LOL!!

So this year, we will again have green eggs and ham (and since it's on Saturday, I plan to make some green pancakes as well) and green milk. (minus the green for me cuz it just looks gross Ü). I will also be making some fun rainbow food and have some goodies bought that my youngest (17) will enjoy. I've already sent a pkg to my son and his girlfriend filled with fun green and white and rainbow treats.

Okay, so now on to my card. Green is my favorite color, so St. Pat's just has to be celebrated right? LOL! This card is created with a fun image from Designed2Delight. I love their digi images and this is one of my many favorites of Faith's that she has designed.

I colored the image with Dual Brush Pens 098, 076, 992, 977, N75, and blender pen. I used Tombow's Mono Adhesive Dots to adhere the layers of cardstock.

OCL108 Happy Birthday Debbie C!

Happy Birthday to Our Craft Lounge stamp illustrator Debbie Corbari. You can go here to see all of the images that Debbie has designed. I chose to use Out For A Spin. We have been having spring weather here and it just seemed like the perfect image for a cheery birthday card.

Play along with us this week and be entered to WIN! That’s right! More important than bragging rights, (although who doesn’t love bragging rights?!) you are entered to WIN a $20 gift certificate from Our Craft Lounge. You have until 11:59pm Thursday, March 15th to enter. Participate as many times as you like! A random winner will be selected and posted on the OCL blog at the beginning of next month.

CSAYL & Cutting Cafe

This is the first week for Christmas Stampin' All Year Long's challenge and it is sponsored by Cutting Cafe, one of my favorite cutting template blogs! I love all of Regina's images and this week the DT will be making a 8 x 5.5 Divider Box or shaped card using images from her Christmas Basic Shapes Files set. I chose to use the former along with her Circle Shaped Card file to make my first Christmas card for 2012.

I used some fun glitter paper for the trees, brown for the stem and tore paper for the snow. The sentiment is Stampin' Up.

Be sure to click on the CSAYL link above and come and play along with us for a chance to win 3 prizes!

One winner will be chosen this week to receive THREE FREE SET of Cutting files of their choice!

You have until 12:00AM (E.S.T) on Wednesday to upload your creation and the winner will be announced on Thursday on the CSAYL blog. So come on over and check out the DT's creations this week.

Consider Yourself Hugged

The theme this week for Tombow is Hugs. The fun thing about this challenge is that you can make a card/project for any occasion or the best occasion...."just because". Can't we all use a hug?

Cutting Cafe has a Hershey Kiss shaped box that I thought would be perfect for my project this week. I cut the box with watercolor paper and made raspberry stripes with Dual Brush Pen #837 Wine Red.

**Tip: to sponge edges to match ink color; color on plastic with Dual Brush Pen and pick up with a sponge, then sponge the edges. 

I used Mono Multi glue on the tabs to glue the box together. I stamped 0031D Consider Yourself from Inky Antic's and adhered it with Mono Adhesive Permanent to the box.

Then just filled cello bag with Hershey Raspberry Hugs and tied off with a bow. Wouldn't this just brighten your day...."just because"?