A fun day at the St Louis Zoo!

We went to visit Ging Ging and PaPa this weekend and went to the St Louis Zoo. If you have not been, you have to go if you get a chance. It's a fabulous place and it's FREE! There are things that cost inside, but for the most part you can spend the day with the animals without spending anything. OK - enough free advertising - here are a few of my favorite shots from the day.

Enjoy!

Where are the pictures of the animals, you ask? I just thought that these two were so much cuter!

We have a winner!

Sorry I was late drawing a winner. Things have been hectic around here as we are expecting some company for the evening. Here's the results:

Congrats nawlin's lady! Please send me an email (nottus_2@yahoo.com) with your snail mail address and I will send your gift out to you!

CHEWING GUM!

Brad brought home this wonderful ice cream birthday cake from Marble Slab Creamery - for those of you who are familiar with this store, you know that they have the most AMAZING ice cream and it can become quite addicting!  Anyway, the cake was birthday cake flavor with sprinkles (my favorite) with little bubble gum balls around the outside edge.  Alexa, who has been bugging me to try bubble gum and was told not until she turned 5, knew that this was her opportunity to sweet talk me - and her dad - into getting her first try at it.  So, here is proof that she got her way.  This is a picture of her chomping away - if only this picture had sound - she sounded like a cow - so cute!

Be sure to check out my post for BLOG CANDY - just below this one!

It's my BIRTHDAY and you could get a present!

I'm celebrating my birthday today and I want to share a present with someone.  So can you say "BLOG CANDY"!  Just leave me a comment at this post on what you like best on my blog or leave me a note to let me know what you would like to see and you could have a chance to win this:

A Stampin' Up! SAB set "Birthday Whimsy" (since it is my birthday), two spools of ribbon, a black Stampin' Spot and Rhinestone brads and heart clips by Spare Parts.  WOW!

I will pick a winner from the comments at noon CST on June 30th.  So, be sure to spread the word!  Thanks and good luck!

Not one, but two challenges accomplished!

Ok, so today is supposed to eScape day - as declared by Stampin' Up!  I have tried to stay away from all the electronics, but I have done so much in my craft room I just had to share it all with everyone. I posted most of the things I made over at SplitCoastStampers (see post below) and I wanted to share a few on here as well. So here we go!

I was able to accomplish two challenges today.  Boy - it was lots of work, but the end results, I think, turned out really good.  As always, I like to do Kristina Werner's Color Inspiration, this is #13 to be exact.  Although I have not participated in all of them I find them quite fun to do.

Colors for this time around are:

Purely Pomegrante, Regal Rose, River Rock, Wild Wasabi and Whisper White

What a great color combo!

What's the second you ask?  Julie over at Paper Pleasing Ideas has this new thing she is doing with card sketches.  She is flipping them (go to this link to check out the details) and when I saw the first post she did, I thought that one day I would try it - the day has come and here is my stab at it.

Paper: Purely Pomegranate, Wild Wasabi, River Rock, 

Regal Rose and Whisper White

Ink: Wild Wasabi

Accessories: Small Oval Punch, 3/4 inch Circle Punch, Corner Rounder Punch, 3-D Glue Dots, Snaps, a little BLING, Crop-A-Dile, Dimensionals and adhesive

Had lots of fun today with the Challenges.  Thanks ladies!  What a great way to spend my birthday - by the way - did I mention it is my BIRTHDAY TODAY!!

Yea me!

I hope you enjoy the cards!

New Cards. . .

So, I finally uploaded some new cards today.  If you would like to see them head over to my SplitCoastStampers Gallery - found HERE.  I will try to post a card on here later on today and maybe a surprise as well. Stay tuned!

Found - Blog Candy Offered!!

I was tooling around just looking for some inspiration today and came across "My Life's Inky Escape and More".  She has hit 2000 hits on her blog and is offering some blog candy to celebrate.  CONGRATS on all the hits!  Check out her stuff - she has some cute examples posted and her craft room is amazing.

TLC174 - Hittin' the Bottle

OK - when I first saw the name of the Try a New Technique (TLC174)  I thought what a strange name for a challenge. As I investigated further, I found that the challenge was one that I absolutely love doing! I haven't had time to stamp today, but I did have this card on file to post at some time and this is the time.  

This card was made for the Grandparents from Alexa & Ben.  I thought that the set was perfect, because the girl and boy in it resembled them.  The inside says: FOR YOU!  Enjoy!!

Stamps: Fall for All, Alphabits and Throughly Thankful

Paper: Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Brilliant Blue, Old Olive and Whisper White

Inks: Close to Cocoa, Old Olive, Ruby Red, Brocade Blue, Only Orange and So Saffron

Accessories: 1/4 inch Square Punch, Blender Pens and adhesive

Kristina Werner's Color Inspiration #12

I will not be in town this weekend so I talked my wonderful hubby into letting me stay up and do a card for this inspiration. I was excited about the colors and the pattern made me want to do a bunch of circles.  I'm betting that there will be lots of those this time around.  

Color Inspiration Colors: Sahara Sand, So Saffron, Wild Wasabi and Whisper White

I did a standard size card this time with lots and lots of dots.  I used a Fiskers circle cutter for the larger circles and SU punches varying in size from 1-3/8 inch to 1/4 inch to make all the rest of those circles then I added the Whisper White Grosgrain Ribbon.  For the sentiment, I used a portion of a stamp from the "Lots of Thoughts" set and inked it up with a VersaMark Stamp Pad then I embossed it with Hematite Embossing Powder.  I think it is very "mod". 

I hope you like it. Enjoy!

Two, of the three, of my favorite people...

Here's two, of the three, of my favorite people. Ben and Alexa were playing dress-up today and Ben thought that the purse was a perfect hat. Way too cute!  Alexa designed her own dress, jump rope belt and all. Aren't they just adorable!!

 

JCC16 - Finally a card!

Now that the garage sale is over and things are pretty much back to normal - well for the most part anyways - I had a few minutes to take part in one of my favorite weekly challenges - Julie's Color Concoctions. Details can be found HERE! Thanks Julie!  

I will tell you that it has been a long time since I have had a few minutes to make a card, I really didn't know where to start. I made a card and as I was about to upload yesterday I found that I had used that wrong colors - UGH!! Between my computer and craft room Sahara Sand turned to River Rock - now to be honest, the colors are so similar, that I almost uploaded and went about my day, but I just couldn't do it. It would have drove me crazy knowing that it was all wrong - so back to my space to try again. This card has the same layout as the first only the river rock turned into SAHARA SAND and my sanity is still intact. So, without further ado...

Stamps: Short & Sweet

Paper: Apricot Appeal, Chocolate Chip & Sahara Sand

Accessories: Apricot Appeal Grosgrain Ribbon, Slit Punch, Work Window Punch, Eastern Elegance RubOns and Dimensionals

Let me know what you think and if something like this has happened to you.

Enjoy!

Retiring

Just a quick post to let you know that the time has come to say goodbye to some of our favorite Stampin' Up! stamp sets. Even though some of our favorites will be leaving, keep in mind that it means we will be saying HELLO to some new favorites. Makes it more bearable doesn't it?!

To see the Retired List, please click on one of the links below:

Retired List by Alphabet

Retired List by Page Number

Don't delay, email me with your order today! These sets will only be available through August 10th!

Far and few between

Sorry about few postings this last week! Things are crazy around here - as always. We are getting ready for a Block Sale - of course, I decided to organize it, so it's partially my own fault. So, with that and actually getting my own things marked and ready for the sale, I have had no time to get into my craft room - UGH! I am working on some boxes for a lady that I work with at the Recreation Center. We are just finalizing colors and such, then I will post a picture of them. If I get some time I will post a card or maybe two - who knows! Thanks for your patience!

Julie's Color Concoction #15

This is my entry this week to Julie's Color Concoction #15.  I thought to myself when I saw the colors she chose that "wow, that's going to be difficult!", but I manage to come up with something that I actually really liked.  Who knew!

I first use my corner rounder to make the scallop edge on the Kraft cardstock.  Then I added the strips of Night of Navy and placed the Kraft strip with the saying across the front on with dimensionals.  The bird has a dimensional on the back as well - I love those little things!  I had to color in the the beak and feet of the bird - so that added the color pumpkin pie to the mix. I thought that if I left it uncolored that would look kind of funny. Let me know what you think.

ENJOY!!

Stamps:  Curvy Verses and Fun & Fast Notes

Paper: Night of Navy, Kraft, Whisper White and Watercolor Paper

Inks: Night of Navy, Black StazOn and Pumpkin Pie

Accessories: Corner Rounder, Brads, Dimensionals and adhesive

Kristina Werner's Color Inspiration #10

Here is the Color Inspiration #10 that Kristina Werner posted on her blog. When I saw the colors I thought two things - (1.) these are all of my favorite colors! and (2.) that it would make the perfect Baby Boy card!  So I went to work and this is what I came up with.

Color Inspiration colors:  Old Olive, Bashful Blue, Whisper White, So Saffron and Not Quite Navy

I made yet another 4 x 4 card for this Color Inspiration - I don't know why, it just seems that I am really digging the square cards lately.  Any-who, I used the Bashful Blue as the card base and stamped little Safety Pins from the SU - Short & Sweet Set as the background. I just layered the So Saffron and Old Olive DP on top of that.  I distressed the edge of the So Saffron so it would look "soft".  Next I put dimensionals on the back of the Not Quite Navy and added the Old Olive Poly-Twill ribbon (I absolutely LOVE this ribbon - I may need to buy more and hoard it before the Occasions Mini is GONE!).  Then on the Whisper White, I stamped the image from the SU - Big on Spring set in Not Quite Navy.  I wanted the "CUTE" to stand out a bit so I use my Aqua Painter and Bashful Blue ink to color in the letters then I stamped the onesie on Bashful Blue DP.  I cut it out and then adhered it with the dimensionals too.  After all that - THIS is how it looks!  I am happy with it!

Thanks for looking and ENJOY!