Elements Challenge

My friend Chris at Get Inspired With Chatterscene has been having Just Elements Challenges. I love these challenges because it really is nice to create things without a machine! I almost feel like its more mine that way. :-) Here is my 2nd entry. I'm sharing 2 cards. One for my niece and one for my brother in law (her father!) but the one for my niece is my official entry. May is a busy months in my family. Mother's Day (times 5!) and my SIL's birthday always fall within a few days (or on the same day!) of each other and then at the end of the month, its my niece's birthday on the 22nd, my BIL's birthday on the 25th and then my husband's birthday (and our wedding anniversary!) on the 27th! We usually celebrate our anniversary on our "dating" anniversary but that also happens to fall in May! This year, we also had 4 birthday parties for friends from school or soccer. I'm so excited this month is almost over! LOL! I've been making a ton of cards because of this (which has been great!) but unfortunately, I've been so busy that I forgot to take pictures of most of them! :-( Here are the 2 that I did remember!

Both cards were made using the Recollections Bold Basics 8.5x11 paper stack and cardstock from my stash as well as Stampin Up stamp sets (Pennant Parade and Party This Way) and I also used my Stampin Up Pettite Pennants punch. Shanna, if you read this, you were SO right! I love that punch! Thank you for pushing me to get it! ;-) Here's a close up of my niece's card:

The purple paper matched the purple dots a lot better in real life! And here is my brother in law's card:

On this one, the browns were closer in color in real life. Tomorrow, I'm expecting a package from Close To My Heart. I'm finally getting the Art Philosophy cartridge and some stamp sets. I cannot wait for that package to arrive! I was hoping for today but it appears that Fed Ex wanted to keep my package one more day. :-)

Just Elements and Scrapbook Steals Mid-Week Mojo: Turquoise #2

Today is the last day to enter the Scrapbook Steals Mid-Week Mojo challenge! And I'm a last minute kind of girl so here is my entry!

Here is the sketch:

As usual, my journalling will be added after taking pictures so that my husband doesn't freak out about me sharing too much info online. Well that and I need to look up some info that I need. All my banners were cut by hand. I stamped the baseballs with a CTMH set called "Lets Play Ball". The title was done with a CTMH set called "Bubble Caps". The red circle strips were cut using my Fiskars Threading Water punch. I ran a 2inx12in paper through it once, cut most the excess off and ran it through again by lining up the holes and amazingly enough, IT WORKED!! I cut off the 2 end pieces that weren't complete circles and then cut my strip in half and rounded those edges a bit and now no machine was needed to complete this page! And because of that, I'm also entering this in Chris's Just Elements Challenge #4 on Get Inspired With Chatterscene!

A few happy cards

An old friend of my husband and I is going through a really tough time with his daughter right now. She's been having seizures since she was a few months old. For awhile they were managing them with meds but in the past year they've gotten so bad that not even maxing out her meds was helping. She started having 10+ every night and would stop breathing. Someone had to monitor this little girl around the clock because she would would stop breathing and a few times had to be resuscitated. On April 30th she had brain surgery to remove part of her brain and place electrodes. Today she had a second surgery to add more electrodes. She's doing amazingly well. This one was a bit harder on her than the one last week but Miss M is a fighter! However, she's still practically a baby. She only turned 5 a few weeks ago. My husband went to visit her in the hospital last week (she adores him) and he took her flowers. He said there was only one other bouquet in the room from her mom and dad. :-( We decided that we'd send her cards every few days until she is home. I've made 3 so far and the first went in the mail today. The first card for M was made using the Cricut cartridge Hello Kitty Font:

The next 2 cards were made using Create A Critter. For the frog, I also used Stampin Up stamps from the set called Turtle & Co. The Poodle was embossed with a Cuttlebug folder called Tiny Bubbles and the flowers were from a Stampin Up set called Itty Bitty Blooms. The sun was cut by hand and a circle punch. All glitter was added with Studio G glitter glue.

I hope these bring a smile to Miss M's face!

Scrapbook Steals Mid Week Mojo - Turquoise #1

Another last minute (and therefore, terrible cell phone picture) from me. Here is my entry for the Turquoise round on scrapbook steals:

This was the sketch:

I only have about 15 minutes to get this in so I'm posting and I'll do my best to take a new pic and give details tomorrow! Edit: Now, the new and better picture is up. I used cardstock from my stash. The pattern paper is Recollections from Michaels. I used the American Alpha cartridge on my Cricut E2 for the circle (cut in half) and my new Petite Pennant punch from Stampin Up. Everything else was cut by hand.

New Blog design!

Isn't it gorgeous?!?! Chris at Get Inspired with Chatterscene is AMAZING!!! I've known Chris 5-6 years now and when it was time to make my blog pretty, I just handed it over to her. She knows me so well and chose a perfect design for me! I love everything about it and can't thank her enough!