I heart hexagons.....

I do! I know that some people are sick of them but I can't get enough. They are just so darn cute and make such interesting patterns, if you want them to. Below are two layouts I did recently for challenges at ACOT.

I love this picture, it makes me giggle. We went to London to see the Queen (I kid, we did not go to see the Queen) and ran into Mickey and Minnie instead! What are the chances? I don't know who was running the Magic Kingdom at the time, but hey, everyone deserves a break! We were strolling down the Thames and there are all kinds of those "living statues" and people dressed up in costumes, and BAM! there was M and M! All these costumed people are there to entertain and make some money. If you give them some change they will do something with you for a picture to be taken, and this is what Mickey and Minnie did- it was so stinkin' cute! The hexagons were cut from a piece of Echo Park paper, and everything else except the doily is MME.

Now, this layout I just LOVE. Most of all I love it for the sweet picture :) It's my daughter and my nephew, when they were 2, and best buds. They spent a lot of time together when they were small as they had the same babysitter. They both have outfits on that I bought them in Disneyworld, where we had only just gotten back from a few days before this picture was taken. isn't the look on Kate's face precious? It's like they switched personalities that day. Kate was all grumpy and Sam all happy-go-lucky. We thought Sam would be difficult to get to sit and take pics but it was the other way around. Anyway it made for adorable pics and Kate warmed up after awhile and we got some adorable smiles from both of them.

All the papers and banner are MME- I cut the hexagons from some of the paper. I ADORE MME and I am going to make it my mission in life to get all there stuff LOL. Seriously though, I love it!! Like, a LOT!! The flowers are Prima, bingo number is Pink Paislee and flourish is Tim Holtz grungeboard heat embossed with Kaisercraft Sandstone ink and UTEE.

Ok it's 3 A.M. I seriously need to go to bed- nighty night!!

I'm on the sketch team!!!!!.........

I was thrilled to be asked to be part of the Nuts About Sketches sketch team!!!!!! It is the first design team that I will be part of and I could just die :) My term is for 6 months and it starts in September. There will be a new sketch posted every week and we are expected to do at least two layouts/month- NO problem!!! We get the sketches ahead of time so we have time to plan what we will do. I enjoy working with sketches and I am sure I will have lots of fun!! Again, I can't stress enough how happy I am about this!!!!!!!!! I hope you will check out my work when I post a layout, I will also post it here on my blog.

Yay!!

Polka Dot Tag Challenge.....

In case you haven't noticed, my favorite new blog is Catherine and Cathy Create and their August tag challenge is to use polka dots!!! Who doesn't love polka dots??? They are so cute and perfect and come in a variety of sizes- I love 'em!!! Having said that, when I went to look for some polka dotty paper, I hardly had any!! And when I decide I want to do something, I can't wait, I wanna do it NOW. So, I did have enough for a tag- phew!! Here it is...oh, and please excuse the Tim Horton's coffee cup, I am always attached to one, even when I scrap. I am sure that one of these days I will spill it all over my desk and stop bringing it in there, but for now, it's all good!!  I just figured I'd crop the cup out, forgetting about the flower being all pouffy and stuff, and well, I was way too lazy to do it over :)

The papers are MME Sky's the Limit collection. I can't tell you how much I adore those papers. I have to tell you how I got it. I am a member of A Cherry on Top message board, which is also an online (and real) store in Michigan. I have been a member there for 4 years and it's an awesome place and I consider it my scrappy "home". SO, every month, they have an "envie" it's called- I'm not really sure why they call it that, maybe it's obvious but it escapes me. If you join up, the person in charge matches you with another girl and you go to her wishlist and buy her stuff from it and send it to her. You have to spend a minimum of $10 + tax. I would say 99.9% of the members are from the US, so shipping to Canada is pricey, but they have such awesome stuff, and A LOT. Anyways, don't get me wrong, I have gotten beautiful stuff but not as much as if I would if I lived in the US, understandably so. And I am just grateful that they let us Canadian girls participate. They give the option to buy us a GC but the sweet ladies there think that's impersonal and send me things from my wishlist, which I much prefer. I am easy to please too, you could just go to the dollar store and buy me something and I would love and appreciate it, seriously. Ok, I am being long-winded, sorry!! The lady that got my name one month sent me- get this- the MME Sky's the Limit variety pack, the 6x6 paper pack, the 3-dimensional stickers, the decorative button pack, and the 12x12 chipboard stickers- holy hand of god, I almost fainted with shock and excitement. This woman must be rich or awfully nice or both, wow!! I could not thank her enough!!

Ok, so the papers are MME, the stamp is Stampin'Up , as is the honeycomb embossing folder, the ink is ColorBox, pearls and the flower center are Kaisercraft and the tulle ribbon is Bo Bunny and I fashioned it into the flower (obviously!!) The embossing folder was a bit of a waste as you hardly see it, but its ok. 

It's getting late, its after midnight as usual. I have to go to bed as I have to get up early for a checkup in Gander tomorrow morning. For those of you that don't know, I had a double knee replacement 2 years ago. Fun stuff it was ;)

A Card Challenge.....

on Catherine and Cathy Create- it's the August Cool Card Challenge "In the Garden". There are some really purdy cards on there!! Such talented ladies. The design team uses all products from Stampin'Up, and I have Stampin'Up envy but have only just begun my Stampin'Up hoarding, so I only have a few things. Soooo, on my card (submissions don't require Stampin'Up supplies), the patterned paper, label punch, and ink are from, you guessed it, Stampin'Up!! I just so happened to have these lovely flowers and leaves by Prima, scalloped ribbon by Websters Pages, the cardstock is unknown! and the little pink things came from dollar store flowers that I picked apart. You never know what you can find to scrap with at the dollar stores!

And I gotta say, that I love this card. I'm not bragging, cause there is nothing terribly creative about it, I just love the flowers and the paper together. I don't want to give it away to anyone :) I think my husband may give it to me for my birthday next year LOL

I seem to do most of my work after midnight. I always was a night owl. And, well, working permanent night shifts doesn't help!!

Nighty nite!!

Here comes the bride.....

Before I go to bed, which is where I should have went ages ago, I just had to get this posted tonight. Once I have it done I just can't wait til the next day, I'm weird like that. I made this card for the challenge at Catherine and Cathy Create for their monthly challenge of something wedding related. I had to make a wedding card for a customer and killed two birds with one stone, I hope she likes it. The bridesmaids dresses are burnt orange and the ribbon was the closest I had to it. So here it is...

The Simple Stories Documented collection is perfect for weddings and anniversaries. And perfect for a fall wedding :)

Christmas cards AND I won a blog prize.....

First of all, I won an awesome prize on Catherine and Cathy Create, which I am just thrilled about!! I received three awesome products- a wood mounted stamp, a label punch and a rotary stamper- how cool is all that?? These ladies are awesomely talented and, well, just awesome:)

So, I got in the Christmas mood today and broke out the Nutcracker Sweet collection by Graphic 45. I just love the patterns and bright colors of this collection. I only have a 6x6 pad of the paper, none of the embellishments, but that's all you need to create a few cards. I have enough embellishments in my stash to add to them. I am happy how they turned out.

Little girl canvas.....

I just adore the doll stamps by Julia Nutting that Prima put out and decided that it needed a canvas. Plus I had these awesome grungeboard wings by Tim Holtz that I have been hanging onto for something special, so I thought it was time.

First I dry brushed the yellow paint onto the canvas, again, don't be too particular, and leaving some little white spots adds to the look. I dried it with my heat tool because I am too impatient to wait :) Then I dabbed a bit of the other color paint onto a few spots and spread it around- this is just a matter of taste and you can do what you like. On the left hand side I used the edge of a stamp and stamped down the side to add some interest. In the lower right corner, I used a piece of thin metal with little holes in it that I had lying around, and just laid it down and painted over it, sort of like a stencil.

Now the wings- I inked them completely with Kaisercraft ink in Sandstone and then covered with UTEE and heated it. Then I added some ink in the pink color, just to add some subtle dimension, and again covered it in UTEE.

As for the little girl stamp, I stamped her onto a piece of light paper that had an extremely subtle design on it. The dress I stamped onto two different pieces of paper and cut them out and glued it over her dress.I colored her hair, headband and shoes with Copic markers. I added the tiny flowers, by Prima, to her hair. The other embellishments are self-explanatory. The papers for the banner and the strip of flowers are by Echo Park.

The clouds were a complete experiment. They are used dryer sheets that I dipped in acrylic medium and shaped them into clouds onto the canvas. I dried them with the heat tool, then covered them with the Versamark pad as best I could and again used UTEE. So they are pretty hard when they are finished, but I do  like how they turned out.

Lastly, the words on the right hand side are a Tim Holtz stamp. So, there it is!! I am very happy how it turned out. I have 4 other doll stamps that will probably make an appearance on a canvas sometime soon.