Holey Hybrid, Batman!

First, for those that were asking, yup, yup, I did get wet at the party. I struck a deal with my son though.....he could squirt me as much as he wanted on my back if he would keep it out of my face. :> And yes, he and I both had a fantastic time at his friend's birthday party!! :>

Just a little something simple to offer up today. What is unusual, at least for me, is that this little simple something is hybrid! Actually, the fact that it is hybrid IS what makes it so simple. I was poking around my friend Dana's blog, Paper Daydream, at the end of last week and clicked on over to The DigiChick blog, where she is a member of their Hybrid Chick Creative Team, and found their Friday Freebie.....and you can't beat free, now can you? Well, actually, yes you can.....it is Cute AND free! So, I had to take advantage of it and give this hybrid thing a try.

Now, I do have some other digi stamps already from a couple of different places, but this week, I have been a little short on time and definitely short on creative energy. Hubby left really early Thursday morning for a Guys' weekend at his friend's cabin and six days later, he is returning later today! Yay!! You see, Hubby is a homebody and consequently, its quite unusual for him to be gone. May I take my hat off to those of you who have spouses who do a lot of traveling or have a spouse in the military who is deployed! One of my closest friend's husband is in the army and is quite often gone throughout the year and she amazes me! :>

Okay.....on to my super simple hybrid card! I opened the images in Microsoft Word to size them, printed them out on Georgia Pacific cardstock (per Dana's recommendation as my old printer was quite moody with the heavier stuff), detail cut a bunch of images out (I still have a few more cut out and waiting for a card, so don't be surprised if you see more from the freebie set!), and then they sat on my desk for a couple of days! I told you I was short on creative energy the last few days. ;-) When I picked them up late this morning, I found some old Stampin' Up! dp, adhered the images and the Purely Pomegranate ribbon to it and then mounted the whole thing on a 4 1/4" x 4" Purely Pomegranate card base......and the whole super simple hybrid card is complete...and in record time! I am a slow crafter, so I will definitely keep this in mind when I need a card fast!

School starts up again for my son on Thursday and we get to meet his teacher tomorrow. While I am So not looking forward to having to set an alarm at 5:40am again, I think we all are looking forward to the school routine and coming adventures. Not to mention, autumn is my favorite time of year! Crunchy leaves (albeit, they take longer to turn colors, fall, and get crunchified in California), a kidlet's birthday, Halloween, Early Thanksgiving at my Aunt's, actual Thanksgiving at home, Christmas tree selection and decoration, Christmas, and the cozy days afterwards. I love the Fall! What are you looking forward to in the coming months?

Supplies:
Cardstock: Purely Pomeganate - Stampin' Up!; white - Georgia Pacific
Patterned (DP) Paper: Stampin' Up!
Images: Danielle Engebretson for the Digi Chick
Ribbon: Purely Pomegranate - Stampin' Up!

Sarita Celebrates!

Sarita is celebrating her Blogoversary in just a few days and she is offering up some fantastic candy that really speaks to her style. And speaking of her style, it is elegant, creative, and absolutely fabulous! I do urge you to head on over and check out her blog, Little Princess Cards!

Who says a card has to Open?!

Not me!! I've been thinking about it and a Postcard is simply a card that is posted through the mail without an envelope and does not open. So, I do not think it is definitively necessary for a card that does travel by envelope to have to open. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

Quite some time ago, I colored in this Knitabella from Stamping Bella with Prismacolor markers and colored pencils. Do not ask me about the colors I chose because not only can I not remember, but I'm not even sure why I would have chosen these particular colors. I do, however, suspect that I colored her in for a color challenge for which the deadline passed and never finished her up. Well, I just could not have a colored in image haunting me anymore!

Initially, I thought I would detail cut her out, but then went this route. I used my handy dandy Coluzzle (I have the EK Success circle cutter and a Cricut, but I must say, I do love just how fast and easy it is to pull out my trusty Coluzzle.....why, oh why, did Provo Craft discontinue it?!) and cut her into a circle and then matted her with some Raspberry Fizz. Here is where I say, that if I had some of those beautiful Nesties, I would most definitely have used them. But, I don't, so I went with what I do have. And here is where I tell you that this card does Not open!! I matted the Fizz circle onto the next size up circle in Lemon Tart and cut one more Fizz circle in the same size as the first one and adhered that to the back of the Lemon Tart to write on. A flat, non-opening card!

Would you like to know my reasoning? Hmmmm? Ooo, well since we'd be diving further into this brain o' mine....maybe not. Oh what the hey, I promise we won't go deep at all! So, when I cut her into a circle, I realized she just didn't look right on a rectangular card, or a square one for that matter. I thought about putting her on a circle Open-able (okay, so its not a word, but it came out of my head and typed its way on my keyboard....so I'm stickin' to it!) card, but that just wasn't sitting right with me and that's when I started thinking about what it means to be a flat, non-opening Postcard. Both my Mom and my Hubby quite often let out rather large pointed sighs at my 'ability' (let's just call it that, shall we? thank you!) to argue semantics and after having this argument in my head....with myself, guess what?! I won!

Add a little hand stitched "hi" and voila! A flat, non-opening, circle card to pop into the mail to......none other than my knitting Mom! Since Knitabella was already colored (again, why in those colors, I cannot say!) and there is not much to this (other than a linguistic argument with myself), she took no time at all!

My Monkeyman has a birthday party to go to late this afternoon with lots of kids and water balloons, one that he is so excited to attend that he woke me up an hour and a half early this morning. A wee bit excited?! Now, how much do you want to bet that all of us adults will end up wet too?? I hope you are having a wonderful Wednesday and that you find a little time to play. :>

Tap your toes.....its HAPPY DANCE time!!!

At the very end of July, I was alerted to a blogging friend's Bead Up jewelry being given away on Today's Give Away and of course, lickety split, clicked my way on over there to enter!! And what do you know? But, my very first time entering for one of this fun site's give aways, has me winning!! I chose the beautiful earrings and when they arrived today, I did a HAPPY DANCE!!!

I have had the opportunity to start to get to know this fantastic designer a bit through both of our blogging experiences as well as exchanging emails. On Christyn's blog, you will see her jewelry designs (including some gorgeous custom pieces for several brides and their wedding parties), what inspires her, weekly I love you, Wednesdays posts, and now her newest weekly addition of Fashionably Friday. If you are here as a paper crafter, artist, creator of any medium, or friend, I am sure you will be entertained and inspired when you visit Christyn! Tell her I say "Hi!"

But, wait! There's more!! I seemed to have been wearing my lucky hat because Christyn's earrings were not the only piece of super duper Happy Mail to arrive today!! Anne Gaal, of Gaal Creative, is a paper crafter and photographer, and occasionally has give aways of her lovely photographs. And let me tell you, I was so surprised when I learned that I had won! It is an award winning photograph of a shell with the edge of a wave breaking over it. I absolutely love it!! Please go say 'hello' to Anne too!!

And you can just guess how lively my HAPPY DANCE was when I tell you that I received both of these pieces of art on the SAME day!! Today!!! Happy, happy, happy, Happy, happy, happy....HAPPY!!!!

I hope your day has brought you something to do a Happy Dance for! On a normal day, I take pleasure in the small things and hope there are enough at the end of the day to tap my feet to. But, after my wee daughter decided to draw on the bathroom mirror with her toothbrush (ewwwww!) (and yes, she's getting a new one to brush with tonight!!!) and get into a few other "interesting" situations (aka test Mama's patience meter mode) today, I cannot tell you just how PERFECT the timing is for Christyn & Anne's generous give aways to arrive on my doorstep and giving me a terrific reason to Dance! (Just don't watch.......I'm not overly coordinated, you know!) Have a great one! :>:>:>

{Sweet} Thanks!

Very sweet thanks were in order for a sweet friend, for which this card was made (and I just found out that it has arrived in her mailbox....so its safe to post! :>). Now, if you haven't noticed I'm not a huge patterned paper gal. Don't get me wrong, I love it, I buy it, I hoard it, but I have trouble using it. And a card or scrapbook layout that is made entirely of patterned paper is pretty much unheard of for me! Until now!! :> I knew I wanted to use my cupcake stamp and an 8x8 patterned paper stack that I bought on sale awhile back and have never used...not one piece. Being that I was working out of my comfort zone, I needed some more Backup and this time I turned to CPS sketch 127 .

Stamping the cupcake on the front of the striped & glittered Die Cuts With A View paper and then stamping the cupcake again on the back of the polka paper, I began making my sweet cupcake. I cut both pieces out, painted the polka frosting with white pearlescent paint (watered down makes it more translucent to not obscure the paper below) for some great shimmer (unfortunately, the camera didn't pick it up...but, its there, I promise!). Actually, I painted two, as the first one I stamped with an inked up stamp and the dark ink began to show through from the paint and water. So, I stamped it a second time with just the residue left after stamping off several times.

Since I was following a sketch, you would think that it would take no time at all to cut some paper and adhere it, but I fussed with several different patterns and cardstock and to my great surprise, it was the cardstock that just was not working at all. Once I removed the cardstock (after trying half a dozen different colors!), it then came together for me.....with all patterned papers and a giant surprised grin. Some foam tape to pop the layers up, a little bit of ruffled ribbon, a {sweet} rub on and I had a thank you to send off to this sweet friend!

Supplies:
Stamps: Inkspirations (closed)
Cardstock: Stampers Select White (card base) - PTI
Patterned Paper: Nana's Nursery - Die Cuts With A View
Ribbon: Fairy Tale - Stampin' Up!
Rub Ons: K & Company, K-ology, Thinking of You
Paint: Pearlescent Paints - Yasutomo