Boy Valentine's / Just Because

My son loves anything military. So when I found this airplane stamp at River City Rubber Works I bought it, hoping he'd think it would make fun Valentine's cards. He was really happy with the idea. We kept them really simple since he was making them for his whole class, and since he's a boy. I don't think he really cared about a matching layer behind or any extra stuff, so this is what we did. We had a lot of fun making them together. He told me that "stamping's not so bad when it's cool stamps." And I'm really excited about this card. When I got all of my new PTI cardstock, I decided to make some kind of color swatch. So I just cut 2x2 pieces of cardstock and put an eyelet in the corner of each one. That way I can run a ribbon through to keep them together, and when I get new colors I can easily add to the collection. So I had this with me the other day when I went to the scrapbook store, and found this Basic Grey paper that I loved. And it matches lots of colors I have! I don't know why I never made a color swatch thingy before. I think it's going to be really useful, especially when shopping for paper. That way I won't end up with cute paper that looks terrible with all the cardstock I have. I cased this project from Split Coast Stampers. I finally bought a scallop circle punch, and I think I'll be using certain stamp sets more now. I like big pieces, and now that I can layer a scallop circle behind it so easily, I can see myself using it a lot more!

CAS Challenge #1

At Split Coast Stampers, I was browsing the forums and found a new challenge for "clean and simple" cards. The challenge was to find a fabric sample to be your inspiration and then make a clean and simple card. As I was looking for some fabric samples, I found this. The colors made me dream of a warmer place to be, and the pineapples just made me smile. How fun would it be to sit on the beach eating fresh pineapple right now!?! And these are the cards I came up with based on that inspiration. No pineapple involved, though. After making the first card, I decided it would be really easy to make another, and just changed the sentiment for fun.

Just Because

Okay, I had to post twice today. You might want to know why. Here's why: PTI is celebrating their 2nd anniversary this month. And they've got all kinds of goodies and giveaways going on. Today's contest enters participants in a chance to win a really cool Papertrey Tote and a gift card for $100. Oh, the supplies I could buy with that!!! For a chance to win all you have to do is "create, alter or decorate a bag of any kind." Then link back to Nichole's blog here. Now, the reason that I had to post this today, is because the contest is ending at 3am EST February 6. So grab some supplies and play along for a chance to win. And if you missed my earlier post from today, just scroll down a little.

PTI Sympathy

After reading about what great cardstock Papertry Ink has, I finally took the plunge and ordered some. I was just going to go with cardstock to try it out, but before my order was complete I found their new sympathy set in my shopping cart. I am really glad I decided to try their stuff. I will definitely buy from them again as well as recommend them to anyone looking for great stuff, with good deals (read: free) on shipping with a certain purchase amount. This was a simple and quick card I made using all of my new goodies.

Mojo Monday Madness

Finally! It took me longer than usual to finish my card using the Mojo Monday sketch for this week. I love these sketches, and a lot of them go together quickly for me but this time my brain was not cooperating. Then when I finally got going, I realized that if I used the full image of the little girl the way I had originally planned to, the card would have to be gigantic to fit it all on. So I just moved the scalloped circle up to cover the girl's feet, and I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. And I finally used some Verve stamps! This is a card for my husband. The tag on the side has the saying, "he loves me, he loves me not," which might look a little odd with "so wonderful." The way I have it in my head is that it is so wonderful to not have to question anymore whether "he" loves me or not. I know that my husband loves me and all the hundreds of little things he does for me as well as the really big things make me feel very loved!