Get well soon

5 days in bed, computer down for the count, nothing good on TV....  My sweet parents delivered this cute little mini notebook to my front door.  They couldn't come in because I was still contagious but, my DH set it up and I was good to go.  Sitting in bed wrapped up in blankets, liquids, aspirin, prescriptions and tissues on the side table.  How spoiled am I!!  I should be well in no time! Thanks guys!

I'll talk to you soon, when I have a voice again:)

Deb

Halloween treats

 I had seen these cute little peppermint patty spider treats on a site some time ago and thought they would be cute to make for the staff for the start of conferences.  Our fall conferences coincide with the Halloween holiday.  I'm in the process of constructing 97 of these little guys.  They'll have a little tag hanging from one leg that reads: "Hope your conferences are filled with lots of treats and no tricks." 

However, in the past, the thought of making these by punching out all the different pieces with several different size punches made my wrist and thumb start aching just thinking about it.  Enter the new little paper crafting hero from Close to my heart... The Art Philosophy cricut cartridge.  All the pieces for these critters can be cut using that cartridge! No punches necessary, except for a standard single hole punch, for the small black pupils.  Even the legs are from the cartridge and I loved being able to cut just the right size to layer everything, as well as cut different size circles based on the diameter of my candy pieces.  So versatile!

These little treats were also inspired by the Heart 2 Heart challenge blog.  This week's challenge: Halloween or Fall.  You should head over there and see all the wonderful inspiration.  The papers for this project are all from Close to my heart, Hydrangea, black, daisy white and one of my favorite greens of all times, citrus leaf.  The shapes are: Scalloped circle, photo corners base and layer, and a plain circle.  For my purposes it was easy to load my paper, choose my shape, set the size and then auto fill the page.  The cricut maximized my paper and did all the cutting for me.  Now if it could just use glue dots I'd be set (ha, ha).

Have a great week and I'll talk to you again soon.  (If my post looks a little off it's because my motherboard died on my computer and I'm using my DH machine, he doesn't any photo editing software on his, but I'm grateful I could still participate this week!)  Oh, the original site were I found these little guys is here.

A little french flair

I don't know why, but when I see stripes with a scalloped edge it always makes me imagine a little cafe on a sidewalk in Paris with a striped awning shading the little tables set in white linen with fresh loaves of bread in baskets on the tables.  I've never been there (to Paris that is) so I don't know why that is what  I think of,  but there you go, that is just how my little pea brain works. 

This card makes me think of the promise of spring.  I know, we just started fall, but I don't do cold very well so I am always looking toward the warmer months with anticipation. 

There you have it, my special gift card set that I'm sending off in a few days.  I hope my aunt enjoys them and can use them.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Holiday thanks

The third card in the set is a thank you card, it was inspired by the October 3rd Heart 2 Heart challenge card sketch.  The wonderful thing about the Heart 2 Heart challenges is that they are open for the whole month so when you finally have a chance to get into your stamping space you still have the opportunity to participate in their fun challenges.  The color combination for this card is holiday red, colonial white and chocolate.

The stamp sets used are the Close to My Heart "Remarkable Wreath" and "Universal Backgrounds"  I love the look of text on my backgrounds almost as much and I love polka dots, (well it's not really that close).  I guess I'll have to try combining them on a project soon.  The last card of the gift set is tomorrow.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Love is all you need

As promised, here is the second card in the Close to my heart "Remarkable Wreath" card set.  This card was done in several blue tones, with the addition of cream, bamboo and chocolate.  I also used the words background stamp from the "Universal backgrounds" set.  I stamped the words background right on my designer paper and then layered all the other elements on top of that.

I hope your day is filled with love.  I'll be back tomorrow with the next card.  Talk to you again soon.

Four the numbers!

Hi everyone.  Welcome to my little space.  Today I am posting the card I designed for the Guest Design Team spot for the Heart 2 Heart challenge blog.  The challenge this week is to create a card and include a number on the front.  I decided to use the Close to My Heart "Remarkable Wreath" stamp set.  I have been wanting to use it for a while now and this seemed like the perfect opportunity.  In fact, once I started using it I couldn't stop!  I created a whole set of cards to send to one of my aunts in Illinois, so Aunt Dukie, if you're peeking in, these cards will be on their way to you soon.  

The first card in the set has fall tones, I used autumn terracotta, sorbet, sunflower and chocolate inks and some of my favorite polka dot papers that I have been hoarding for a while, a snippet of vintage lace that I purchased at the antique mall this summer and some of my beloved polka dot ribbon. 

I  also added some bling in the form of gold glitter dots sprinkled around the wreath.  They are very sparkly, but it was hard to capture with the camera.

I'll post the next card in the set tomorrow so be sure to check back.  Thanks again for stopping by and I'll talk to you again soon.

Baby gifts

Four new little ones are due in the next few weeks so it was time to put together their gifts.  These new little ones are made honorary Ravens and they get the t-shirt to prove it.  This year I wanted to package them up a little different so I found some baby bottles and rolled the shirts up really tight and slipped them inside the bottles.  Then decorated the top of the bottles with a tulle bow, silk flowers and a coordinating binkey.  I added a tag with a quote by Robert Munsch from his picture book, I'll love you forever.  The mom's to be really seemed to liked them.

The stamp set, and inks are all by Close to My Heart.  I pieced the tag image with a few scraps and colored the rest of it in with colored pencils.  Then I masked the whole image and sponged around it with CTMH Sky blue ink.  Thanks for stopping in today.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Friday Floral

A crisp fall morning, a little misty and a little cool.  The flowers have faded but they left behind these. So delicate with their wispy tasseled tops.

A little bit later these lovely fall colors were all around the city.  Balloon fiesta here in New Mexico is a fall tradition and so much fun to participate in and photograph.

I hope you have a wonderful, restful weekend and I'll talk to you again soon.

Just Married

Finally, here is the card from our third September wedding.  The sweet bride is a purple lover like me so I pulled out some of my "jewels" and purple papers to share with her.  Papers, stamps and inks are all by Close to my heart.   Boy, I don't know about you, but it sure was a Monday all day today.  I hope yours was good.  I'll talk to you again soon.

Guest Design Team...

Surprise! I know I was, surprised that is.  I was invited to be the Guest Design team member for the month of October on the Heart 2 Heart Challenge blog.  You can go here to see my picture and a little blurb about me.    And... I get a cool new badge for my blog. Check out the side bar on the right! Be sure to check in at the challenge blog each week to see the inspiration posted by all the talented contributors!  Happy stamping!  I'll talk to you again soon.