Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon Annoucements

Hi all! Just popping in to announce the winner of the Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon: Cat Darling with this cute card! What a clever idea to have a mermaid dreaming of shoes... reminds me of The Little Mermaid, one of my favorite Disney flicks. And I love Cat's name, which reminds me of another favorite Disney move, Lady and The Tramp... or was it 101 Dalmations? Yikes, I'm have a senior moment. Anyway, in one of those movies, the couples' last name is Darling.

Edited to add: Cat reminded me that Darling is the last name of Wendy's family in Peter Pan! And Stephanie reminded me that Jim Dear and Darling are the humans' names in Lady & The Tramp (so I wasn't too far off!).

Anyhoo, congratulations Cat! Email me your address and I'll get your prize right off to you!

I also want to thank each one of you who played in my three challenges. I'm going to suspend the weekly challenge for now given my new DT post with La-La Land Crafts. We'll be hosting challenges there and, of course, there's always The Sweet Stop sketch challenge. I want to put my best effort towards those. I may bring an improved version of the challenge back in the future, you never know!

I'll be back later with a new card to share, so stay tuned!

Inky Impressions and Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon

Happy Sunday! My friend Kristine is a Design Team member for Inky Impressions, a fairly new stamp company that makes these adorable images called Lili and Angelica. They are so darn cute!!! I just LOVE all the great cards and projects I've seen Kristine make with these images, so I had to give them a try.

Lili and Angelica are colored with my Copics. I drew a "thinking bubble" around Lili's face with a Sharpie and cut it out. Angelica is thinking of her good friend Lili and missing her terribly!

The DP is from the Early Bird collection by Cosmo Cricket (love, love, love!). The cardstock is Summer Sunrise from Papertrey Ink, and Basic Black and Kiwi Kiss (retired) from Stampin Up. I used my Marvy flower punches and then crinkled the paper before fastening them together with a Stampin Up Build-a-Brad. I also used my black Sharpie to create the "border" for the Hodgepodge Hardware label holder.

I thought it was fun making a "thinking bubble" card, and I can think of lots of combinations of stamps you could use to create the same sort of card. So, for today's Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon, I'm challenging you to make a "thinking bubble" card. Use Mister Linky below to link your card to this post. The deadline is Saturday, August 8th at 10:00 pm PST (GMT -8).



The prize up for grabs for this week's winner is a Basic Grey June Bug 6 x 6 paper pad! Everyone is welcome to play!

And, finally, without further ado, the winner of last week's Challenge for a Sunday afternoon is Sarah! Be sure to scroll down in her blog to July 29th's post to see her cute card. Sarah, please email me your address and I'll post your prize directly! (My email is on the left sidebar of my blog.)

I sincerely thank each of you who played last week, and I hope to see more participate this week. I don't mind at all if you combine my challenge with another (or others), as I know there are so many to choose from.

Have a fun rest of the day, and I'll be back soon with another Inky Impressions project to share.

Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon #2

Happy Sunday! I want to thank those of you who played in my inaugural Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon. It means so much to me. And I hope it was fun for you!

According to Random.org, the winner of the LeLo Design stamp is Michelle! Woo hoo! I'll get your prize in the mail to you tomorrow. I hope you enjoy it!

Today's challenge is reflected in the card I'm sharing today... which also combines two other challenges: Mojo Monday Sketch #96 and The Pink Elephant Challenge #24. The Pink Elephant Challenge is a theme challenge: Animals. Perfect timing since I've been itching to ink up Elly & Friends by Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps.

I couldn't resist coloring Elly pink. I glammed her up with a rhinestone crown by Heidi Swapp, and created a jeweled necklace with Kaisercraft pink rhinestones. To get the right effect, I paper-toled Elly's head.

The DP is part of the Lemonade collection by Basic Grey. It's hard to see in the photo, but there's lots of stitching with my Janome Sew Mini. I struggled to find the right ribbon for the bow, and after three tries, settled on this one. I'm still not convinced, but I can't find anything better (oddly enough, since I have ribbon galore!). I still wasn't quite satisfied, so I added the rhinestone swirls.

Speaking of Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps, we are having another blog hop starting on Wednesday and running through Friday. The details are in my sidebar. Please be sure to join us. The theme is Take a Walk on the Wild Side and will feature... ta da...stamps of animals! There are more surprises to come, so stay tuned!

Okay, now on to Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon #2! I wonder what it could be given that I've mentioned just about everything about my card already. Thinking, thinking, thinking... give up? It's the green circle behind Elly! What's so special about that, you might ask? Well, it was something I came up with when my die cutting machine suddenly went on the fritz and I started to panic because the sketch called for circles. How would I manage until my new handle arrives?

So I started digging around, pulling out bins of old punches because I began to have a dim memory of having bought some sort of decorative circle punches long ago. Sure enough, there they were... three decorative edge circle punches by Fiskars. I blew off the dust (ha!) and gave them a try. It required that I pull out another long neglected crafting tool, my Creative Memories circles cutting system, to make the basic circle to feed through the edge punch. It actually turned out kinda cute, I think.

So, this week's challenge is to find an old tool (or tools) that you used long ago when you first started crafting, but have put aside forever because of all the newer, hipper tools that are out today. It can even be an old punch or an old template or cutting system or a certain kind of tool that does some special thing, or whatever you come up with. Be sure to tell us in your post what that item was that you used to create your card (or other paper craft project).

Dig around, blow off the dust, and have fun! Everyone is welcome to participate. One entry per person, please. The deadline is 10 pm Pacific Standard Time (GMT -8) on August 1, 2009. Please link your project using Mr. Linky.



The randomly chosen winner will receive a tube of Liquid Glue by Stampin Up (retired) and Dazzling Diamonds glitter.

I'd love it if you'd share the opportunity with your friends by posting my badge on your blog with a link back to the post category of Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon. Leave me a comment when you do as I'm planning RAK's for randomly chosen bloggers who help me spread the word!

Thanks again my friends. I hope you have a wonderful day, full of blessings!

A New Badge and a Treasured Friendship

Check this out!!! My BBFF Kristine Breach created this super cool badge for my new Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon. Isn't it great? What's even greater is what a good friend Kristine is to me. The very best part of blogging is all the amazing people I've met all over the world... people who have become very special to me, who have truly become dear friends (hi there Kristine, Debbie, Michelle, Carolann, Patti J, and Sara!). I just can't believe how lucky I am.

Anyway, I hope you'll decide to play in my challenge. I sorta went out on a limb with this...there are so many challenges out there already. But I'm totally fine with mine being combined with others, and I'll always have a prize up for grabs every week. I'd be honored if you would display my badge on your blog with a link back to my blog. Leave me a comment if you do. There very well could be a prize in it for you!!!

There's still time for this week's challenge described in this post below. It closes midnight Pacific (GMT -8) on Saturday, July 25 (not July 18... thanks for the catch Debbie!) ... which means 5:00 pm Sunday evening for my Aussie friends!

Off I go to my craft room. So many fun things to do, so little time!

Matryoshka (say what?) and a Challenge!

Hello my friends! Have you missed me? I was down with a bit of a stomach bug for a few days, which wiped me out. I might have lost a few pounds, though, which is good. TMI, I'm sure!

Anyway, when I finally felt up to stamping, my mojo apparently had a bug as well... or should I say, had bugged out...and I was stumped, pure and simple. I even printed off several challenges, but nothing was coming to me. Then I came across this little stamp set I recently bought for about $2... it's by Basic Grey.

I've always been fascinated with nesting dolls. I was thinking they were called Babushkas for some reason. So I Googled and found out that, yes, some are called Babushka, but that describes a type of these dolls, which are really called "matryoshka." If you want to know more, I found this site with a History of Russion Nesting Dolls.

This card is very simple (which is just what I needed to get my mojo started). The images paired perfectly (I think) with this paper by October Afternoon. I was rooting around for a sentiment to stamp in the upper right, when I stumbled across this clear medallion which... although perhaps impossible to see in the photo... actually contains a floral image much like that in the paper. It was self-adhesive, so I punched out a bit of the patterned paper and mounted the medallion on top, then punched a red circle mat and made my embellishment. I wish the pattern lined up a bit better, but by the time I thought of that, the stick was already stuck. The finishing touch was a bit of this vintage lace from Taylored Expressions. Oh, and the ink is Pure Poppy by Papertrey Ink.

Very simple, but I love it!

Now for the challenge part. When I found the medallion I used in my card, it was in a cup of misc items that I had tossed aside to use one day on a card. It sat there for months... so long, I've forgotten where I got it in the first place. So, here's the deal. I'm going to call this "Challenge for a Sunday Afternoon." To play along, make a card and incorporate something laying around your work station or that you've been saving aside for a looooong time to use someday. Someday is now! All who enter the challenge will be eligible to win this cute stamp from LeLo Design by Stampavie. It is a brand new stamp in the original package, but I tried to take a picture close up and without too much glare.

Here's the deal, you can combine this with any other challenge you might be working on this week. I know there are so many challenges, and so little time, so this is meant to be fun and to stimulate your creativity. Be sure to mention in your blog post or online gallery the item(s) that you FINALLY used on your card. The deadline is Saturday, July 25th at 11:59 pm Pacific Standard Time. And, yes, my friends from Australia, Canada and the UK are all welcome to participate!

I'm trying Mr. Linky in hopes it will make it easier to post your card. Also, if you post at SCS, please use the key word CFASA1. If this works out, I'll keep hosting a challenge each Sunday. I've got lots of stash to give as prizes!



I hope you're having a wonderful weekend. I'll be back soon with more to share!