TCP Tuesday 173 + Sweet Sunday Sketch 132

I've combined Karen Giron's Sunday sketch with Susan Liles' TCP Tuesday challenge to use any TCP set with 'wings' associated. As I started looking through my TCP sets, I came to realize there are a ton of them I could've used, along with the new CutUps butterfly dies, and landed upon this sweet, sweet set--Tweet Hearts. The name itself qualifies for the challenge, right?!  I also incorporated two CutUps dies--Rolled Nest & Grass, and if you're interested, the patterned paper is from Crate Paper's Neighborhood Collection.

As I think about this card and who I could send it to (that's just my 'functional' side--everything's gotta have a purpose, ya know!), I realize that those persons I consider and call 'my friends' are true, blue friends, to the gills in fact, and I'm so thankful for each and every one of them!

Ok, enough sentimental stuff...hop over to Susan's blog for the TCP Tuesday details and don't forget to stop by Alma's blog this week as well to link up your creation! I'm back to work today as summer vacation has officially ended for me, folks...don't cry for me, Argentina...I've had the last 8 weeks off (no, I didn't have a baby...it's that school based speech therapy gig)!
~Amy

Happy Haunting {SFYTT}

It's been too, too long since I've played along with Jen's Saturday Sketch For You To Try, and since Ed and George went fishing this morning I had a little free time on my hands (yah, the cleaning and laundry can wait a couple more hours, right), so I decided to pull out a cute Halloween image from Your Next Stamp and play along! The images I used are Cute Witch Ellie and Happy Haunting (haunted mansion), and the paper is from Pink Paislee...swoon! I hated to cover up the patterned paper too much, so I used vellum for the vertical layer on the left which is sorta ghost-ie, right?! Buttons are from PTI and the lilac seam binding is available from The Cat's Pajamas.

Here's a look at Jen's August SFYTT...

Have a great rest of the weekend! I'd better get 'something' done here before the fishermen are back!
~Amy

I Miss You!

Oh, how I've missed my favorite Cosmo Cricket paper--Circa 1934! I finally ordered another 6x6 pad last week, along with a few other 'pads'...so addicting...and found the perfect reason to crack it open this morning after reading a post by Debbie Olson. She just happens to mention a little contest going on over at the Cosmo Cricket blog using her very own sketch for a chance to be published in CARDS magazine! How's that for a reason to cut into that Circa 1934 paper, eh?!

I paper pieced the heck outta TCP's adorable Take Off bunny and airplane, tied a seam binding scarf around his neck, attached a Simply Said sentiment flag to his rear and sent him on his way, up and over a border of CutUps Clouds in black felt. The "Hey U" bingo card is none other than Jenny Bowlin {sigh}...love me a bingo card, I do.

Ok, I'm off to link up my Cosmo Cricket creation to their blog...thanks for flyin' by!
~Amy

TCP Tuesday 173: Stop By For A {color challenge} Spell!

This week's TCP Tuesday challenge is being hosted by our sweet Tori Wild, and she's got a somewhat 'fall-ish' color challenge for us: cornflower blue, orange and brown. As you can see, I've taken some liberties with the 'orange' portion of the combo, leaning toward the yellows and rust tones, but it was part of a Recollections paper pack that I thought worked beautifully with the color challenge and couldn't resist using it.

I've paired up the colors with my most favorite witch from Witchy,  CutUps Pinking  & Cloud border dies, and some fabulous Aqua seam binding The Cat Pajamas is now carrying! I should also mention that the sketch used is this week's Mojo Monday Sketch #205...a bit challenging with the different edges, but easy enough to mask where the edges meet with ribbon, or in this case, seam binding!  Check out Mojo Monday #205 for some really awesome samples from the team.

Thanks for stopping by for a spell!
~Amy

TCP Tuesday 172 + TCP Sale!

 The Cat's Pajamas is offering 25% off your entire order through Sunday, August 21st, so click over to TCP for great deals this weekend, especially if you have any of those cute flying/ballooning/biking bunnies or CutUps on your wish list!

I paper pieced Away We Go with Pink Paislee's Hometown Summer (l.o.v.e. this paper) and then layered felt clouds using my CutUps Cloud Border die to qualify for this week's TCP Tuesday challenge: felt, hosted by Cat Packer Julie. Head on over to her blog to see the felt-alicious creation she's made for the challenge!

I've been a little scarce around the old blog lately, but I should have a little more stamping time this week...my last week of summer vacation before heading back to school/work on August 30th (boo hoo), so stop back this week!
~Amy

TCP Tuesday 171: Kick Some Grass

How can you not fall in love with this adorable, flower picking bunny?! I haven't inked this stamp up nearly enough and had so much fun coloring using the colors from this week's TCP Tuesday Inspiration Challenge brought to us by Cat Packer, Jen del Muro. I was also inspired by the polka dots and woodgrain of the Christmas tree (ok, so you can't see woodgrain in the photo, but I KNOW it's there!). Here's a list of all the fun love put into this card that makes.me.smile!

• Kick Some Grass
• CutUps Pinking Border
• Cherry Divine Twine
• Ivory Linen Thread
• SU! polka dots embossing plate
• PTI woodgrain impression plate
• red gingham fabric tape
• buttons

Be sure to stop at Jen's blog for all the TCP Tuesday details this week. I'll be MIA the rest of the week/weekend as our county fair is going on involving my boys showing dairy cattle among a million other things going on inconjunction with 'the fair'!

Have a great weekend~Amy

Celebrating with Your Next Stamp!

Welcome to YNS' 2nd Birthday Blog Hop! I'm playing along as a Guest Designer and having so much fun with some of the favorite (older) YNS images and a few new ones. If you have just stumbled across my blog and want to join in all the fun and games you can go to the start at Peggy's blog. If you have been hopping along and are arriving from Carole's blog then you are right on track!

I've got two fun little projects to share with you today, one using the soon to be released set, Seasonal Icons Set One, and another using the first YNS image I stamped and fell in love with--Happy Days Mermaid (she just makes me smile...and giggle).

Here's a detail shot of my most favorite mermaid (ever) in traditional aqua with a little shine and shimmer added with a Sakura Gelly Roll pen and Crystal Effects. I also added Crystal Effects to the punched holes in the glitter layer for extra fun and dimension.

I attempted to create a 'bottom of the sea' layer using a sheet of patterned paper from DCWV and a triple strand of button twine. I've had these glittery Thickers for years now and am finally using them! I hope I didn't overdose on the glitter, but once you start, it's hard to stop! The wave and cloud dies are part of TCP's CutUps line.

Next up is my 'Three Cups of Tea' card...haven't read the book (yet) but love the title and message is imparts from what I've heard. A simply sweet layout using patterned papers from Crate Paper frame the Copic colored image that I've falled in love with...

Back to business: what's a birthday party without games and some AMAZING prizes?! We have a fun little puzzle for you to solve along the hop and when you do you will be entered into the draw for one of TWO amazing YNS prizes! Not everyone has a puzzle piece so you need to pay attention, click on the puzzle pieces and follow the directions as you find them along the way. [3rd party cookies must be enabled to do the puzzle] When you are done put them all together at the end of the hop for your chance to win! You have until Monday, August 15th at Midnight EST.

YNS Birthday Puzzle Piece

In addition to the birthday prizes and giveaways, there are amazing deals right now in the YNS store to celebrate and you don't need any code! The next stop on the hop is Karen's blog...good luck and happy hopping!

~Amy

Dare To Get Dirty Week!

It's time once again for the annual Dare To Get Dirty week over at Splitcoast for Fan Club Members, and if you don't have a clue as to what I'm blabbing about, check it all out HERE! You really should check out the challenges, because they truly are meant to be fun and really get you motivated! Just reading through the challenges from the past few days got me itching to pull out this or that stamp, die or patterned paper, and this is what I came up with:

This CAS CutUps die-light is a sample I made for Leigh O'Brien's challenge. I've used four CutUps dies for this one: Grass, Wave, Cloud Border and Sunflower Rosette.

This cute santa card uses Santa Paws from Paper Smooches and qualified for 5 different challenges at once! See that fun December calendar behind Santa? That's a digi file from Kerri Bradford's This & That: Christmas kit...so fun!

Here's the inside of the santa card above with a few hand stitches encircling the greeting from another Kim Hughes set, Christmas Critters.

Here's my final-final...another card for Leigh's challenge using CutUps dies (Big Scallop, Wave & Cloud Border) and By The Sea.

I hope you're motivated to head over to SCS and pick up a few of these challenges for yourself, or consider becoming a Fan Club Member if you haven't yet done so! Thanks for stopping by today~Amy

A JiFFy Hello!

It's time to get JiFFy again! This month I chose the paper--Krafty Dots by Recollections, and Christina chose the image--Sugarplums Pumpkin Emma by C.C. Designs...isn't she a doll?! If you remember, the JiFFy girls make it 'real fun' by keeping the paper and image choices anonymous, so sometimes it can be quite a challenge to make the two entities jive, but in this case I think Christina and I were on the same wave, so to speak. I colored Emma with Copics, trying my best to make her hair look just right, but I need a few lessons on hair, as you can see... The wagon got the 'woodgrain' treatment using my PTI woodgrain embossing plate, although it's hard to see in the picture. Buttons for wheels, CutUps grass, scallop trim, button twine and a chubby pennant sentiment label finish it off!

I cannot wait to see how the girls have fancied up Emma with the patterned paper, so I'll cut myself off so we can get the show on the road!

Carole

Michele
Lori

Jody

Christina

 If you promise to stop by tomorrow, I've got a few things to share with you that I posted at Splitcoast for this week's Dare To Get Dirty (DTGD) Challenges!

~Amy 

TCP Tuesday 170: Beach Bum

We've certainly been 'beach bums' in the sense that we've spent copious amounts of time in our backyard pool this summer due to the hot-hot-hot! How about your neck of the woods...sam tin? (translation: same thing?) Ok, so I'm a little goofy today and I'll shamelessly blame it on the weather, but enough about the weather...how about a fun summer-y card for this week's TCP Tuesday?! I've used Leigh's sketch, By the Sea, CutUps Postage Trio and the perfect summer-y paper from Jillibean Soup called Watermelon Gazpacho Soup (another little gift from my BSF Carole...the girl's got good taste is all I can say).

Here's Leigh's fun sketch which reminds me of one of those picture frame ledges that I love, but don't own. Instead of the button embellishment shown on the sketch, I trimmed out a pair of swim trunks from the patterned paper, added a bit of TCP button twine to them for dimension and popped it up a bit with foam tape.

You'll DEFINITELY want to pop over to Leigh's blog for this week's TCP Tuesday challenge details, but even more so to get an eye-load of her card key-ute-ness! Thanks for stopping by...I'll be back in a JiFFy tomorrow, so come back!
~Amy

TCP Tuesday 169: Planes, Trains and Rockets!

Am I too late for TCP Tuesday 169?! Everything was going just fine 'til my hot air balloon popped; hopped on my bike...flat tire; headed to the airport to find the red baron to find it completely torn apart, so I opted to fly me to the moon one last time 'cause I'm a rocket man bunny ya know?!

All fun and games aside, here's my entry for last week's TCP Tuesday challenge hosted by Susan, featuring modes of transportation. I pulled out an oldie-but-a-goodie set, It's a Mod Mod World, and pieced the bunny from Away We Go into the rocket. You'll notice my matchy-matchy paper...a gift from my BSF, Carole! Speaking of Carole, who just happens to be on the Mojo Monday crew, this card also features last week's Mojo Monday 201 sketch.

Stay tuned this week for more TCP Tuesday goodness along with Dare To Get Dirty Challenges being hosted over at SCS...
~Amy