Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic

Sassy Jeni chose the theme of Back 2 School for the Sassy Cheryls Challenge Blog this week.  There are many children that will be starting school on Tuesday, but our kids here in the Mississippi have been back in school a good 3 weeks.

I've been working on another project(aren't I always working on a project), and hadn't got around to making my card, thank goodness. On Friday, My Scrapchicks had a free clipboard card. How perfect as a base for my challenge card.

I couldn't make up my mind between Off to School Girl or Girl Letterman from my Sassy Cheryls images.  I decided I'd just make two cards. Both images are colored with Copics. In the, interest of full disclosure, I should also tell you that Sassy Cheryl has added an adorable Sassy Sally Is Going Back to School image at the Sassy Cheryls Store along with some more precious images, so be sure to go check them out. There's even a Labor Day sale through Tuesday at 9 p.m.with 20% off, so don't miss out.

The background paper is from Little Cherry's Back To School Digital kit from Shery K Designs. Perfect paper for  the theme, don't you think?

Of course I used my Cameo with it's print and cut feature to make this card. It only took two white pieces of 8 1/2 x 11" card stock for each card, and I only printed or colored the shapes that needed to be cut. Can I tell you how much I love my Silhouette Cameo? It is one awesome piece of equipment.

Can you believe, I'm going to get my entry in before 3 p.m. on Monday? Yeah, I'm finding that pretty amazing myself. I even have my pictures for my SMT.

God Rocks

Once again I'm last minute posting my SMT post for a chance of winning a free image from the Sassy Cheryl Store courtesy of Miss Sassy Cheryl herself on her Sassy Cheryl's Blog. I've got a couple of things to share this week.

DH, myself, his sister and her DH were invited over to my BFF's house for dinner on Monday night to see their newly redone kitchen and bathrooms. I first met my BFF when I started going to Sunday School with my roommate in college who also happened to live in Columbus. My BFF taught the College Class. During my college years, I started helping her with the youth on Sunday night and babysitting for her. Over the years, her family just basically adopted me, and made me a part of their family to the extent that her grandchildren think DH and myself are their aunt and uncle. In fact, my BFF is who set me up with my DH, so I guess I'll be forever in her debt.

With the changes made in the kitchen(new counter tops and tile back splash), she was able to pull out her pottery and put it on display. Her Mother, she and her grandchildren all love rocks. Over the years, the grandchildren have gifted her with rocks, and with the kitchen redo, she put some of them in one of her pottery pieces.

These rocks weren't gathered at the same time, nor even by the same children. Recently her grand kids were here visiting and were playing with the rocks, when they made a discovery. Three of the Rocks actually spell God. So you see, God does really Rock.

Now I don't know about y'all, but I don't believe in coincidence, and I think that this was a reminder to me to remember that God is in every aspect of my life. I have another rock story that pertains to her that will touch your heart, but I forgot to take a picture so I'll save that for another week.

The other thing I've been working on is a set of Copic Color Combinations. I have the hardest time figuring out what colors blend besides the ones that are in the same 10's, like B10, B11, and B13. Thanks to Suzanne Dean, Flourishes and Papertrey Ink I've been able to find some non-standard groupings. Flourishes has a swatch chart you can purchase, but then it doesn't have combos from Suzanne Dean or Papertrey Ink. So on Sunday, I sat down with my Silhouette software and make a print and cut file for all the combos. I have skin, hair, plus the combos put together by those listed above. I've made sure that each swatch has the source of the combo. In designing them, I set up a sheet for each combo, so I get four swatches out of each print and cut. Here's the first set I've done.  I'm really happy with how they turned out. I've got them grouped by skin tones, hair and then by Copic letter.

Thanks for stopping by. See you next week.

Make A Wish

It's a Happy Birthday challenge on the Sassy Cheryls Challenge Blog this week. OWH ALWAYS needs birthday cards, so this was a challenge I didn't need to miss.

This image is called Avery Celebrates with Cake and is of course from the Sassy Cheryls Store. I've colored her with Copics.

This entire project was made using my Silhouette Cameo and the features of the Design Studio to create all the papers, the balloon border, embellishments and even to cut out the image. The story behind this is that I printed out four images and colored them before I cut them out with the Silhouette. I decided to make sure it was going to cut right before I put my colored images in the Cameo. What I learned was is that if you stop the Cameo and cancel the cut an DON'T switch it off and back on, the next thing you cut will not cut out in the right place. Yep, all four images were ruined. I ended up cutting and coloring them individually after that disaster. I guess I needed practice on my coloring.

Off to get this posted and entered in the challenge. I'm trying to get my entry in a bit earlier this week, and at least I have an entry, as I've missed the last two challenges.

Thanks for stopping by.

Bowl Games and Invitations

Well, again I'm about to run out of time for posting my Show Me Post for the Sassy Cheryl's Graphics Blog. If you haven't joined in, you really need to. It's so easy. Just post a picture of what you're working on or have going on in your life, and you're in the running for a free image from Sassy Cheryl's Store. Added to that, if you're smart enough to check out the other entrants, you'll get to see some amazing projects not to mention absolutely gorgeous scenery.

I've been very busy since I posted last week. My DH's senior year of High school, the football team played in the first Red Carpet Bowl in Vicksburg, Mississippi. The game used to be played at the end of football season before they had playoffs. Instead the stellar teams would play post season Bowl Games somewhat like College ones. Now the Red Carpet Bowl is played at the first of the season. This year was the 50th anniversary of the Red Carpet Bowl, so DH's High School team was invited to come for a banquet and for the game. Needless to say, we went, and we're so happy we did. DH got to connect with teammates that were sophomores and juniors, that he never sees at his class reunions. As for me, you all know, I never met a stranger so no problem there either. One funny thing is that one of DH's teammates has married someone that I knew from college, and that was married to one of my high school classmates. She's a wonderful person, so I was so happy to see her and to know that she's found a good man. This is a picture of the teammates that showed up for the banquet. There were 35 on the traveling roster, and of that 35 there are several that are deceased. Two of them are the coaches and the rest are teammates. My DH is the the second from the left on the back row.

It was home to finish up the invitations for Charles Prowell's baptism. This is DH's namesake, so it's very special to be able to make the invites. The cross is from Penny Duncan, and I cut it out with my Cameo. The white top of the card is embossed with Couture Creations Washed Away folder, and the cross is embossed with the Cuttlebug Swiss Dots folder.

Moving from baptisms to wedding anniversaries, I met with one of my nieces Sunday morning to work on a Wedding Anniversary invitation for her MIL and FIL. Her MIL is my DH's oldest sister, and she and her DH will be celebrating their 70th Wedding Anniversary in September. In today's throw away and quit when the going gets rough lifestyle, they are truly an inspiration. He met her the weekend he graduated from college and told her he was going to marry her. Six months later it was a done deal. He was 21, and she was 19. Here is the front of the invitation. This is their wedding picture.

And this is the inside of the invitation. You'll notice the wedding vows are the old, very traditional ones.

The anniversary invitations are in the mail, and when this is posted, I'm off to clean up TM, so that I can get creative again. Thanks for stopping by.

Show Me Thursday and Not a Minute Too Soon

Well, again I've waited to the last minute to post my Show Me Thursday for the Sassy Cheryl's Challenge Blog. I was waiting for pics from the highlight of my week before posting(that and I didn't want to give the world a chance to post their activities, since the prizes this week are TM fabulous)..

At any rate, I haven't made the first card since last week. Instead I've been spending time with family. Both of our kids with their kids live in the Phoenix area, so  we don't get to see them often. We have a niece and a nephew that have lived  here forever, but my youngest niece and her DH and son have just relocated here. I can't begin  to tell you how excited this makes me, as when she was little I kept her every weekend, so I count her as one of my children.

On Saturday, I went with her and her DH to a Flea Market. They were looking for a rug, and I was just looking. My purchases were this key chain called a Monkey Balz. The parachute cord is covering a steel ball. You hook your keys to the key ring and then when you're heading to your car, you hold the ball in your hand. If someone approaches you, you start swinging it in a circle and it lengthens so that you can hit them with your keys and you're still out of arm's reach from them. The reason you hit them with the keys end is in order to cut them and get DNA, although the ball end hurts when you get hit with it. The loop allows for you to wear it over your wrist which is nice. At any rate we had a fabulous day.





On Monday, I got to babysit for Coleman while my niece went for an obstetrician appointment. They're expecting Lucy Ann in December. Easiest babysitting job ever as he was in his bed for a nap when I arrived, and  he slept the whole time she was gone.

What I was really waiting for for my post was a picture if my great nephew Charles, my husband's namesake. He and his mom came out yesterday so that I could help her with addressing some invitations on the computer. Have you ever heard of pregnancy induced carpal tunnel? I hadn't either until she got pregnant this last time. At any rate, although she was told it would go away, Charles is 3 months old and she still can't hold a pen or pencil. I also had to go pick up Coleman at daycare yesterday and keep him until his mom got off work, but we were so busy, I forgot to take a picture. I'll do it next week for sure.

And finally for Cheryl, who sponsors this challenge and gives away great prizes(you really should check it out), this is a picture of the way  TM looks, and has looked since last Friday.

I've gotten my two walks in this morning and now I'm off to yoga, and then I'm meeting my niece to go to a consignment shop. Hope you all have some great plans for today.

Another OWH SMT

It's that time of the week again. You know the time I mean, where you either get your Show Me Thursday post up for the Sassy Cheryl Challenge  or shut up. Well my choices were not very exciting this week. One of my choices was to show you a pic of the box of Kleenex that has become an extension of my body since I caught a summer cold. That wasn't very exciting, so I passed on it.

My second choice was to show you what I've been working on for the past week, MORE CARDS for OWH. To make it more exciting for Cheryl at least, I thought I'd start out with a picture of my work table. My coloring area looks pretty good, but the far end has all the cards I've been working on trying to get them ready for mailing.

There are more Halloween cards, since there's a Aug. 31 deadline, thus the emphasis on Halloween. However I had some already colored Sassy Cheryl Images, that I quickly put into cards.

Better get this post finished and posted before I run out of time, then I'm out to TM to clean up and get ready for some more card making.

Let's See Some Pretty Papers

This week the Sassy Jackie picked the challenge theme on the Sassy Cheryl Challenge Blog and it's Pretty Papers. The DT created some majorly gorgeous creations.

You would think that with all the digital papers that I have on my computer, I'd be scratching my head with the dilemma of picking the ones I wanted to use. That, however, was not the case. I knew that I had to use these gorgeous papers from the Charming 10 kit by Shery K Designs. I love the elegance of the flowered background paper, in it's almost damask like look. As for the butterfly paper, what can I say, I love butterflies and these are some of my favorites.

I got the sketch from this week's Tuesday Morning Sketches, and just did a variation on it. Instead of pearls or beads, I used the punched out butterflies from my Memory Box die and raised them with foam dots.

I guess I must really love this image, as it's the same one that I used last week on my challenge card. It's Sassy Sally with Her Butterfly from the Sassy Cheryl's Store.  She's colored with Copics.

This time I colored 8 images and made 6 cards for my OWH box. I'll put the other two images on some card bases for a couple of more. Again I used my Silhouette Cameo to create my paper shapes, filled it with my patterned paper, printed it on my printer and then cut it with my Cameo. I had all the parts  done in less than an hour.

I really appreciate you stopping by for a look see.