Happy Birthday Tracey!!!

Found out this morning that today is Tracey McNeely's birthday. You all know her, you all love her, and who of us hasn't drooled in pure delight over her mad cardmaking skills?!! Well, we must have a little celebration in her honor, mustn't we?!! I'm thinking we should start out like this:

A few decorations for our party...

Stars for our "STAR"

Some party tables so we can gather and celebrate the birthday girl in style...

And you can't have a party without a few treats...

And a gift or two for the birthday girl...

A few bangles for her wrists

Some rings for her fingers

The perfect little clutch

And an infinity scarf to help keep her warm

A special birthday wish for a special friend!

Tracey, may your birthday be everything you want it to be, and may your life be filled with only the most wonderful, happy days. I wish you all the best on your birthday and always.

What would a birthday be without a card? And I think I must have had Tracey in mind (with a bit of a CASE of Kim) when I made this card on our BABES getaway:

I encourage you all to stop by Tracey's blog and wish her a happy birthday; I know she'd love that! 

(And while I'm at it, I thought I'd drop this into Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge, where it's anything goes.) Happy birthday and happy dances, Tracey!!!

A Quick Muse

Before I get ready for church I thought I'd post the cards I made for the current Muse Challenge. I LOVE MUSE. And since Miss Funherself, the ever sweet and talented Michele from icardeveryone is GD with a super challenge for us, I just knew I had to make a trio. Yep. Not one card, but a threesome. I'd expound more, but need to get ready for church...gotta get those little kids singing... So check out her cards:

Stunning, aren't they???!! Here's my definitely-not-neutrals take:

Michele wanted us to make a trio of cards using one piece of dp, and to use die cuts. Check and check. My dp is an old piece of vellum by Jenna DeAngeles. SSS, MFT, and MB dies. Michaels cardstock for the bases. Random red cardstock, a random sticker in the middle card, a SSS stamp with Versafine black ink, and a little bird sent to me from Maria (reislingmama). And that's it for now. I'd chat longer, but really do need to run. Blessed Sunday and happy dances everyone.

Busy Week and CASology

It's been a little crazy around here. I'm sure you all can relate.... Since I got back from the Adventure in Prior Lake, I've been trying to get back to the realities of everyday life. And I'm dragging myself kicking and screaming back to it...had waaaaay tooooo much fun to want to deal with "normal!!" But here I am. Still managed to find time to play in my craft room, however.

Our dear Miss Darnell sent a present home with each of us with the instructions not to open it till we were home. Oh. My. Gosh. In this package was a 6x6 pad of dp, a vial of various sequins, stickers, bling, twine, washi tape, AND an AE stamp set and matching dies. I'm probably forgetting something.... I was stunned. What a doll Miss D. is! So I decided to make at least a half dozen cards and that's what I've been working on for the last several days (plus a few challenge cards...) Wanna see what I've made? Ok...

I'll just show you one by one, cuz the "group" photo stunk

Got my froo-froo on for this one, and while it's not my usual style, I like the way it turned out.

This one is a see-through shaker card. First try for something like this. 

Miss D. had put a few things in a striped envelope, which I cut apart and used as a panel on this card.

This third card was fun to make. I did cheat a bit here and used my own stamp, blue cardstock, and flowers.

(Almost done...) We got really nice new neighbors and yesterday was closing day on their house. I made this card to go with a bottle of wine as a "Welcome to the 'hood" gift.

And this is the last card of the six I made with Darnell's kit. Something fairly simple in vibrant colors. 

 What??? Wait...Oh! No this isn't from Darnell's kit, it's for this week's CASology. The cue card is "ghost." My little ghostie isn't gray irl...the Wink of Stella is showing up like this in the photo; he's really white...Not a nice photo taking day. 

All the stamps are from My Cute Stamps company. They are going out of business, which makes me sad. Nice quality stamps. The dp is a scrap of Doodlebug, and I colored the moon with a KAISERfusion marker. The black ink is Versafine. I love the little "Oooga Boooga" sentiment! It cracks me up. Anyway, since I've kept you here long enough, I'll stop now. Enjoy your weekend! Happy dances everyone.

Prior Lake Adventure

It took over a year, we traveled 20,350 miles (32,558 km) to make it happen, and on October 18, 2014, six card blogging BABES met in real life! BABES stands for Benevolent Association of Beloved and Esteemed Stampers and here we are:

On the left side of the table, from front to back are Kim, Ardyth, and Geri. On the right side front to back are Darnell, Anita, and yours very truly. These women are amazing and it was a privilege to spend a whole week with them.

In searching locations, we'd seen a house on a lake south of the Twin Cities that looked like the perfect getaway for us. And ohhhhhh....it was! Here are a few shots of what we saw outside everyday from our crafty spot:

Seriously, how gorgeous is this view???!! And we got to see this from the dining room table, where we spent hours crafting, every day. I've taken to calling it the 'Lake House.' *Sigh*

Here's our first group photo! We had lunch at Buca di Beppo's with the intention that all the leftover food, and there was tons, would also feed us dinner once we got to the Lake House. No one wanted to go out on that first night - we needed to have that time to get to know one another. And wonderfully, oh so wonderfully, we clicked! It was one of those things; it was like we'd always known each other. *Sigh*

Now, the other ladies probably have more interior shots of the house, so be sure you stop over at their blogs and check that out. Nice house. Big enough and comfortable for our stay. Three bedrooms/two bathrooms on the main level, and two bedrooms, an office (which we converted into the sixth bedroom), a full bath and laundry room, PLUS a huge bar, family room with a walk-out, and pool table on the lower level. 

We did a little shopping. Michaels, JoAnn's, and a sweet little craft store we found.

We also hit the Mall of America. 

Had a nice steak dinner out at a local place, and pizza at Punch. With all our good intentions, we never once fired up the stove or oven...imagine that! Be sure you ask Geri all about her wing dinner....lol! We snacked, we laughed, we solved world problems, we watched the World Series (the only time the TV was on other than the music channels) while we crafted, we made cards, we did projects, and we laughed. We really laughed. You know what I mean. Tears in the eyes, can't stop, but when you do, you start all over again...We got up early, we got up not so early. We were silly, we were serious. We enjoyed every single moment we spent together. The hours spent at that dining room table flew by.  

Notice that Geri is wearing not one, but two pairs of glasses! We all chuckled about that.

We crafted in our jammies.

And we made beautiful cards! Lovin' Miss D.'s little snowman card...don't you?!

Ask Darnell about her coin purse project...Great project and super fun and relaxing to make! Thanks Kim!

Sharing the love

And sharing the sillies! We're backwards here, aren't we?! How silly is that???!!!!

Sharing this week with these wonderful friends was one of the best times I've ever had. I have memories to treasure for the rest of my life. What an honor and privilege to be with these five beautiful women. I'll leave you with a photo of our week-long mascot, an albino squirrel we named Snowflake. Thanks Darnell for this shot of our little pal.

Now be sure to visit the other BABES for more fun and frolic!

Anita

Ardyth

Darnell

Geri

Kim

Thanks for stopping by and happy dances everyone

A card for CAS(E) this Sketch

I know, I know. First I don't post in what seemed to me to be a life time, then I'm going on a daily basis. This card was made on my crafty getaway with the BABES. Tomorrow we'll all be posting photos of our trip, and each of us has (at least I'm pretty sure we do) different photos, so be sure to stop in at Ardyth's, Anita's, Darnell's, Geri's and Kim's blogs and see what we were all up to.

So while we were having a blast, I happened upon the sketch at CTS. Love at first sight, and really, really wanted to play. I also wanted to use the stamps and dies that Geri had with her for this card. I like the simplicity of this card and am quite happy with the results.

Very cool.

I'm fairly certain that the roses stamps and coordinating dies are from Sizzix. I used a scrap of pink, and cut a flag with my MFT die to stamp the sentiment from Jillibean Soup. I think it works really well with the whimsical flowers. It's popped up a bit. And with that, it's onto more laundry and a multitude of other things today. You'll see me tomorrow for sure! Happy dances everyone.

A quick post as I get back to "normal"

DH missed me. After a vacation away from him, and a wonderful time spent with family and friends, I was glad to see his smiling face. And it is nice to be missed. He wants to go out and run some errands, and get our life back to normal, so I have to keep this short. Well, short for me anyway... I promise to get to commenting once I'm back home and have the first load of laundry in the washer!

While on vaca, I actually did make some cards. lol! In between the fun and laughter, that is.... Saw the sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches, and had to make a card. I'll squeak in just under the deadline, if I get this posted.

And my card looks like this:

It's slightly adapted, but I can still see the sketch. The sentiment stamps were from some of the other ladies at our getaway, and I forgot to write the names of the sets down. The "stars" are from  SC, and the pink mat is from my scrapbox. A myriad of inks and enamel dots finished the card. And I've got to run. Promise to get back to you all later....happy dances everyone.

Happy Birthday Shirley!

Just a quick post today with special birthday wishes to Shirley Bee!! The wonderful Maria F. of rieslingmama has thrown a party for Shirley's special day, and we're all invited to link up and join in! So Shirley, all the best for your birthday today and always. Hope you have the exact kind of celebration your heart desires, and may all your birthday wishes come true!!!

I had the opportunity to make this card with a special group of friends. And here's a photo of all of us and our cards:

Yep....Was richly blessed to share time with these lovely ladies, and will post more about our visit and time together later this week. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, and special birthday cheers to Shirley!!

An Announcement, A Card, and a Vacation

I know. It seems like for ever since I've had any time either in my craft room or on my blog. I'm nearly done with moving things up and down stairs for DH, and he is making strides in his recovery, but these things are still taking up most of my day. My blogging time will, unfortunately, continue to take a back seat to everything else until the end of the month. On to my little announcement...

A while back, I submitted a card to Paper Crafts & Scrapbooking Magazine. Just one little card. And it was accepted for publication. You can see it on page 85 of the November issue if you'd like. Yeah, I'm 'tooting my own horn' a little bit, but it is pretty cool. Digital subscribers can click here to go to the magazine. Here's what it looks like:

So that's that, and we move on...

It's been over a week since I made a card for any reason. I knew I had to make something after seeing Vicki Dutcher's card at Muse.

And since I'm nearly out of time here, we'll go straight to the card:

It photographed really poorly. It's a black base but it looks dusty and like it has a tan strip and the neutral cardstock was probably the wrong background choice. Don't have time for a retake today....EZPZ though. I found some glittery gold stickers by Jen Hadfield while shopping with my sister. The flag is a bit of TH gold vellum, and PTI sentiment stamped with SU black and heat embossed with clear powder. I cut the flag with an MFT fishtail die.

And...I'm taking some time off to head up to see my son and his family next week, along with some much needed "hanging with my girlfriends" time too. I'll be getting home toward the end of the month, so you probably won't see me too much until then. I've got family staying here with DH as a precaution, but he's doing well and probably won't "need" them. With that, I really do have to run. Take care, and I'm thinking of you all. Happy dances everyone!!!