I’m so excited!

I’ve been asked to be on the Studio Calico Card Kit Team!  I’m still pinching myself. It’s been so hard to keep this quiet, I wanted to shout it from the roof tops! I’ve been a subscriber to Studio Calico for a while now and I LOVE all of their cool, trendy kits. Jsut so fun. And I can’t believe the super amazing, mega talented people who are on the Card Team with me — and well ALL of the Creative Teams! Check it out:

As part of my Creative Team duties I receive the Card Kit each month, and I get to make sneak peeks to share with you! This month’s kit is just so awesome, I have more cards up my sleeve too — just need to have time to make them. So here goes, my first three sneak peeks woo!!!

Here’s the first one — some great hearts that are hard to *resist* (yep, that’s a hint!):

Here’s the second…

And last but not least, one that only uses the main card kit!

This kit makes me happy! Happy I tell ya!

Hope you enjoyed the peeks! To see more sneaks and meet the other new team members, pop on over to the Studio Calico blog right here!

Thanks so much for joining me,

My Best Friend.

On this day, 14 years ago, I married my best friend, J. (Seems like just yesterday!)

And, I don’t know how it’s possible but I love him more and more each day! :)

Happy Anniversary, J! Love ya. And thanks for the cupcake, you really do know my heart! Can’t wait to see what the next 14 years will bring! xo

Hugs,

Yum.

Hey you guys! Did you have a good weekend? I sure did! It all started on Friday with dinner at Kerbey Lane Cafe — sloppy joels — yep, joels, ha ha — sweet potato fries and crunchy dill pickles. Yum.

(Photos taken with the instagram iPhone app — love this app so much!)

Then Saturday I got a sketchbook at Michael’s — I’m planning to use it for ideas, would you like to see it as I go along? (My other one is full.) After M’s, J and I went to IKEA where I got some new crafty storage — it’s almost put together, yay! Can’t wait to show you.

I didn’t craft as much as I wanted to, but I did make something that I’m going to share tomorrow. Just have to finish writing it up. (Don’t want to spoil the surprise, but let’s just say it involves jewelry and upcycling.)

It was so great seeing your experiments with ISO, aperture, and shutter speed for the Card Photography Series. Got a bunch of questions from you too — keep them coming, I may not always be able to, but love trying to help! I’m almost caught up on answering them all — I tried to stay off the computer yesterday for Memorial Day. (Have the next tutorial planned out, hoping to do it tomorrow eve.)

And that’s not all! I’m almost ready for another Make-It and Mail-It challenge, too!

Did you have a fun weekend? I’d love to hear!

Hugs,

My little secret.

Yep, that’s a picture of veggies. (Were you expecting donuts? Or cupcakes?)

They’re from the Angel Valley Farm stand that’s just a few miles from our house. Aren’t they pretty? I took the photo to tease my Dad in Ohio (where it was still snowing just a few weeks ago — no fresh rainbow chard for him, ha!)

Plus, I didn’t want ya to think that all I ate were donuts and cupcakes.

So, now that you know my terrible secret, it’s time to announce the random winner of the second-ever Make-It + Mail-It Challenge: Hey Sweets!

It’s….

…

…are you ready?

#11, Isha! Yay! (I emailed you.)

Thanks so much to everyone who entered the challenge — it really made me smile BIG to know that mailboxes around the world would be filling up with those fun cards.

I’ll be announcing another challenge just as soon as I can — have a big work deadline looming right now. (eek!)

Hugs to all, and hope this post made ya laugh a little :)

I *donut* know…

Hey you guys! I did it! I made a donut card to mail for the Make-It + Mail-It Challenge #2, woo! My knee was hurting so I kept it simple, but I really love how it came out — really keeps the emphasis on the yummy donut! Sometimes, simple is best, you know?

The thing with simple cards is that you want to add that “little” something to make them special. In this case, I stamped the dots with VersaMark Dazzle ink in forst. This is a watermark ink, so it sinks in the paper and just makes the paper a few shades darker. This ink has a subtle shimmer that’s super hard to photograph, but oh so cool in real life. Here, I’ll try to show ya:

And my other trick with simple cards? Stamp the inside! Just adds another little touch.

Yay!

This is going in the mail today. Can’t wait until my friend gets it. :)

Resources: The notecards are from Paper Source in cement (gah! love this color!). When you do the VersaMark stamping trick, you want to use uncoated cardstock — this cardstock is not the white core (white inside) but the same paper through and through. The donut paper is by Snow & Graham — got it at Paper Source too! The “donut know” message is from the Hero Arts Have a Donut set — the message is actually all together, but I just cut it apart with scissors so that I could stamp part on the outside and part on the inside. VersaMark Dazzle frost ink by Tsukineko (love this ink so much!). I used tea dye distress ink to stamp the message. And the dots? They’re one of my long time favorite Savvy Stamps! Love how they give that letterpress feel. I think that’s everything. (Lotsa stuff for a simple card, eh?)

What are your favorite tricks for simple stamping? I’d love to hear!

And, in case you made a card to send to someone — the Make-It + Mail-It Challenge #2 is open until the end of today, yay! (This challenge is near and dear to my heart. I received a bunch of cards when I was going through a hard time recently, and I can’t tell you how much they meant to me. So the challenge is just my little way to encourage everyone to send cards — or anything else! It really makes you feel good, and makes the recipient feel good too. What better way to spend 44 cents, eh?)

Guess what, I figured out that I can put the inLinkz script in more than one post! woo! So, feel free to enter from here!