Sweet 'n Sassy Release Day - Take Two!

No, it's not a second Sweet 'n Sassy release...it's a card from yesterday's release that I totally forgot to share! I was such a stamping fool when I first received my stamps from Korin that I made more cards than I could keep track of! I saw this amazing frame idea in the most recent Dirty Dozen gallery on SCS, created by Julie Warner. (You can only view Julie's card if you're a member of the DD gallery). Julie's card is stunning and her idea wonderful! Two frames were created using Nestibilities dies; the smaller was then layered inside the larger. The outside of the card was embossed with a SU! embossing folder. My image, from the Melody of Love set, was colored with Copics and attached inside the card with foam tape. I cut out one of the birds from another stamped image and gave him a little Stickles sparkle on his wings. A sentiment was attached to the left side and a ribbon for the top! This was a really fun layout and I'll have to give it a try again! Enjoy and don't forget to hop over to the Sweet 'n Sassy blog to check out all of the new releases!! Korin is offering an amazing January bundle of ALL of the new releases for only $40!! You can see the images below:

SALT Challenge - Faith, Hope, Love

This week's challenge was brought to us by Stacy and based on, what is commonly referred to as, the love chapter from 1 Corinthians 13. "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing." I didn't have any stamps based on this verse but I loved this one from 2 Samuel that assures us that God's ways are perfect because His way is tested and tried. Every day we're faced with choices. We can choose to give in to our sinful, imperfect desires and emotions or we can choose to follow God's perfect ways. I tell my kids every day that you can never go wrong following God. Every command He has is for our own benefit, not His. He loves His children, He wants what is best for them and so when we read His word and strive to model our lives after Christ, we can't lose! It will go well for us...So each day we have a choose to make, we can choose to exhibit love towards our family, friends, and neighbors or we can choose to be driven by impatience, selfishness, frustration, anger, or indifference. Which option do you think will produce the best results? I once heard someone say that if you want to 'feel' love for a person that you need to 'act' in a loving way, whether your emotions are fully engaged at the time or not. When we act in loving ways, it stands to reason that our emotions will catch up. What's the cure for fighting those unloving emotions? For the Christian, it's through earnest prayer and reading of God's word. For the unbeliever, the answer is wrapped up in Christ who offers forgiveness, redemption, and never ending, perfect love. Seek Him while He may be found and may today be the day of your salvation! My card is a simple layout (based on this week's Mojo Monday sketch), highlighted with a verse from Sweet 'n Sassy. By the way, today is the Sweet 'n Sassy release day! Be sure to head over to the web site to view all of their new, amazing sets! The paper is from from a Cosmo Cricket paper pack from Taylored Expressions. Wishing you all a blessed day - thank you for stopping by and please hop over to the SALT blog to see the rest of the team's beautiful artwork!

Sweet 'n Sassy Release Day Tomorrow!

The countdown is on!! One more day until Sweet 'n Sassy releases a boatload of new sets! Be sure to stop by the web site tomorrow to check out the goodies!

Today's card is showcasing the exact stamp that I used on Sunday's Keep it Simple card. Can you believe it's the same stamp? The looks are so different...I love the versitility of these beautiful floral stamps! This is the iris stamp, which is one of three flower of the month stamps being released tomorrow. I paired this image with a sentiment from another set being released tomorrow, Melody of Love. (And I just released I haven't shared my Melody of Love card yet! On my list of things to do this week!) :-) The image was colored with Copics and mounted onto my all time favorite, a scalloped circle. Enjoy and be sure to check in to the Sweet 'n Sassy site tomorrow!!

MMSC34 - Midnight Madness Sketch

It's another sketch challenge! This one comes from the Midnight Madess Sketch blog. I heard about this site from one of my cards posted on SCS. One of the team invited me to check out the site so I did and found this week's sketch to be a fabulous challenge! It's funky, no? This adorable tree stamp, and sentiment, is from the latest Unity KOTM set and I stamped it on cream cardstock and then painstakingly cut out each leave from color cardstock before attaching to the original stamped image. The sketch called for a flower on the left side of the card but I went with the ruffled ribbon design that Lisa Johnson made famous. I've been itching to do this technique with my ribbon and this was the perfect chance!

The lovely patterned paper is from a Cosmo Cricket paper pack, purchased from Taylored Expressions. I just love these 6x6 paper packs and am toying with replacing all of my 12x12 with these easy to store packs! :-) If you're interested in these weekly sketch challenges, that include prizes, check out Priscilla's blog for all of the details. Now I'm off to get my sketch posted since today is the deadline! :-) Working on a fun project that I'm looking forward to sharing in the next few weeks...I'll post some sneak peeks soon!

The Sweet Shop Challenge

I just love skech challenges! And The Sweet Shop (hosted by Sweet 'n Sassy stamps) is a new site that I just recently found out about (yes, I've been living in a closet!) Each week The Sweet Shop posts a new sketch challenge and since my buddy Julie is one of the newest members of the design team (congrats Julie!!), I had to play along!

For this week's sketch I decided to pull out a Sweet 'n Sassy stamp set that I purchased at the Stamping Around PA event titled, Light of the World. I love the ocean and lighthouses so when I saw this set I knew it would have a good home with the rest of my stamp collection. This is a beautiful stamp, my card is showing just a portion of the large lighthouse stamp included in the set. The set also comes with six sentiments and/or verses, one of which is used on my card....a beautiful verse from the Psalms. The image was colored with Copics and the remainder of the supplies used on the card are from Papertreyink. Hey, that nautical paper I picked up at Summer CHA has finally come in handy! Enjoy this Monday morning! We're finally back to our regular routine and I've managed to actually put on real clothes (vs. my 'lounging pants' that I've been living in) and added make up to the 'ol face! My husband almost fainted this morning! LOL! Now to pry myself away from Google reader and get the schoolwork started!

Keep it Simple Sunday

Today's Tip: Stamp the same image in four different ink colors to create a modern themed card!

Today's card was created using another soon-to-be-released Sweet 'n Sassy image. This month, SNSS is releasing three mini stamp sets, all designed by Leah Cornelius, titled Birth Month Flowers. A few days ago I shared January's flower, the carnation, and today's card showcases February's flower, the iris. Each flower image also comes with it's respective month stamp; what a perfect combination for creating a yearly calendar. The images can be purchased individually or as a set of three. I adore floral images and have been just thrilled with these stamps...I can't put them down and have a stash of cards left to share! My card was super easy so not a ton to explain...I simply stamped the image four times, on white cardstock, in four different colors and then cut out a portion of the image with a Cuttlebug and Nestibilities dies. The squares were mounted on a piece of black cardstock and the card base has been embossed for some added texture. A black ribbon was the finishing touch! Enjoy!!

A Year in Review

I've seen this on a few blogs today and thought it was kind of cool...And since I don't have much to post today (I'm still recovering from going to bed at 2am!), I'm following suit and posting a few of my favorite projects from 2009.

I loved creating all of Tim's tags during his 12 Tags of Christmas celebration. I had a few tags that were my favorites but I think that creating these paper flowers takes the cake for the best new technique learned during the 12 days. This card is from a very recent post but is one of my favorite keep it simple cards created this year. Stamps from Papertreyink. A layout that has turned into one of my favorites. I love the simple four squares matted in the center of the card. So many ways to tweek this design! Papertreyink images used.A quick and easy way to display photos. This was one of those projects that I worked and worked on for days, never being happy with the end result, and then suddenly had that 'lightbulb' moment and finished the piece in about ten minutes! Another Papertreyink project... One of my first dabbles into Michelle Zindorf's tutorials. I so love her style and artwork! She's amazing! One of my favorite Papertreyink sets! This card was made after receiving four new sets...I used three of them on this card! LOL! My first card created using a Unity set. This is from the first KOTM set that I received from them. I still love this butterfly image and use it frequently. A scrapbook page created for the only Kristine Werner color challenges that I participated in...(she's not doing them anymore). I loved the way this turned out. (The date says 2007, the year our little one turned one, but this was created earlier this year....At least I think it was! LOL!) My very favorite Copic coloring project! That's one out of a bizillion...I think I'm on to something...LOL! A project I created using chipboard, which is from a tutorial I hosted for A Faith Perspective, shortly before joining the SNR staff. This is one of my favorite photos of our oldest. Gee, I can't believe how little he looks here and how grown up he seems now. The time goes by far too quickly... This was a really fun project created for my friend Julie, after she had baby number five. She's much braver than I am... :-) I don't typically work that well with small images so the, what I hope is successful, completion of this card was a relief! This image is also from a Unity KOTM set; so adorable! This card was also created shortly after we moved into our new house and I was feeling a bit sad about leaving our close friends behind. Yes, we only moved seven miles away but we used to live next door and it was very nice! :-)

That's the journey for today! I hope you enjoyed and I'm wishing everyone a very happy new year!! Thank you so much for your visits and comments, each is truly appreciated!!