I don't understand...we're not in Kansas! (long post, no card)

Thursday, May 22nd, will go down in my history book as one of the scariest days of my life. A supercell F3 tornado ripped through my little town. I was at work a half hour away from my home and found out that the tornado had hit Windsor (not an area usually in the path b/c we're only about 30 miles from the foothills of the Rocky Mountains), so I tried to call my mother who watches my 8 month old son. I couldn't get ahold of her!! *Panic time* She lives a mile away from me. I start getting on the internet to see news coverage of where the tornado hit the hardest...the neighborhood behind my house is dessimated! I can't tell/don't know if I still have a home to go back to! Call my husband, he doesn't want to drive there because the clouds still look really bad and he doesn't/I don't want him driving into anything and possibly lose him too! Finally, I hear from my mother. She lost power a half hour before a tremendous hail storm hit - hail the size of baseballs were pounding the ground. Seriously, it looks like our lawns were aerated by them! She has absolutely no idea that a tornado just maybe took out my house. She and my son were just waiting out the storm; he slept through it! Too bad he doesn't sleep that good at night! (you have to keep your humor or you'll go insane!)

Finally, I decide it's probably safe to try to drive home. Shocker! The police aren't letting anyone through - not even residents, yet the news crews can be in my front yard...go figure! I sweet talk a cop into letting me just walk down the highway to see if my neighborhood was hit. He wasn't watching me so I hightailed it into the bad part and got out of his sight. I just had to see if my two puppies were okay or running loose. Another cop stopped me about two blocks in and tried to make me leave. I stood my ground and told him, "No, you have to let me see if I have a home to go home to!" He took my address and went to go look, then came back and gave me a ride to my house. This is what we pulled up to:

My house/neighborhood no longer has trees, but if you look on the right of the picture and see the little house in the back, that is the neighborhood that was so badly hit. That is the neighborhood of the pictures at the beginning of this post. I feel so incredibly fortunate! The insurance adjusters came yesterday and already gave us a check for all the repairs, and we are already set up to get a new roof on Monday. It makes you almost feel guilty to have an intact home when those 25 yards away from you have lost so much - some everything, some just windows and such. Please keep these people in your thoughts and hearts along with all the others out there that are affected by these horrible catastrophies. We see it on the news everyday, but until it's in your backyard (literally!), it never really hits *home*.

Happy Birthday Mom!

Sorry for the bad picture! This is a quick card I did for my mother's birthday back in March :) I didn't have anything new to post, so I thought I'd throw this one up here. I embossed the Modesty stamp by Penny Black on watercolor paper and took a 2.5 square from where I thought it was most interesting. It is colored with my aquapainter and ink refills in Purely Pomegranate and Pretty in Pink (I think). I used my Old Olive marker for the leaves and stems and my blender pen with Always Artichoke. Matted on black and popped up on dimensionals to get over that wide black satin ribbon (WalMart special). The Happy Birthday is from SU! and I stamped it twice to make it fit where I needed it, then embossed with black EP. The pomegranate panel is embossed with the Floral Fantasy Cuttlebug folder and matted on black. I really like how black makes things stand out so well. Gives it just the right punch! I tried sponging the main card, but I either need different sponges or some practice on my technique. I don't really like that part so much. And I would not put the black eyelets on the panel again, but hey, this is all a creative process, right?! Thanks for looking! Hope you all have a great day! :) lyss

Happy Mother's Day (a week late)!

A lot of my family got together at my parent's house last weekend kind of for mother's day but more for my grandmother's birthday. She turned 91 on May 8th. Amazing to think of all the things she has seen in her lifetime! I would venture to guess that this century has seen the most changes, at least technologically, and since she has been around since 1917, she has seen close to all of them! My SIL asked me how I did a couple of things on my cards, so my mom brought out all the cards I've given her over the past couple of years. My SIL wants me to make her a bunch of cards to send out to people! That makes me so happy! I'm always so proud of my creations, but to have another look at your work and offer to pay you to create something for them is just an amazing feeling. :) I can only imagine what it must be like to have something published!


Speaking of creations I am proud of, I made this card for my mom: It was inspired by this card by Nichole Heady, owner of Papertrey Ink and uses the PTI set Out On a Limb. I wanted to give the 'window' feel with the vellum, but I could see all my writing on the inside of the card. I added a backing of the blush blossom. The backing helped to cover all the ugliness of the inside of the card too :) The sentiment is just perfect for a parent - I plan on using it for a picture frame of the sweetest picture of my son with my husband for father's day. It says: To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world. It is stamped on vellum with Palette Burnt Sienna ink and backed with Apricot Appeal. The flowers are from Michael's Bridal confetti. I used my ink spots in Blush, Apricot and Regal Rose to color the flowers and my blender pen to graduate it all together. Lemon yellow and white opal liquid pearls grace the centers. I just love how they turned out! On the falling flowers of the stamped image, I tried to do the rock and roll technique with apricot and rose along the edges but the stamp is too small for the full effect. Lastly, I used some Fruit punch Stickles for the centers of the largest flowers on the limb. This card is my absolute favorite that I've made, and I'm so glad that it went to my wonderful mother :)



I have to admit that I have never liked blush blossom before. Then I bought the Bellas and needed a flesh tone, blush blossom to the rescue! I used it with Groovy Guava and River Rock for my MIL's card - just beautiful, but silly me forgot to get a pic before I sent it off in the mail! Thanks for looking!

My first Bella

Lauren Meader (see blog roll to right) has been such an enabler for me without ever knowing it. I was home on maternity leave bored out of my mind! I decided to google SU! cards. Lauren's blog was one of the first hits I came across that really blew my mind. I had never heard of CC Designs, Stamping Bella, Verve Visual, Papertrey Ink, Splitcoast Stampers, etc. My eyes were opened to all of these incredible artists that share my passion of making cards. I didn't feel like such a nerd anymore for being so obsessed.
Back to Lauren, she happened to have just received her latest shipment of Bella stamps and had created some amazing cards. I fell in love with this style of stamps that I had never even looked twice at. Once I saw how cute the cards could be, I immediately had to order some! See? Enabler extraordinaire! With all that said, here is my first Bella card:

Cosmobella. I sent her to my old college roommate that was turning 30; hence, the 30 Birthday Wishes. I meant to give her 30 wishes on the inside but ran out of time. I figured I better get the card in the mail before I missed her day completely!
Her top is colored with Magenta Stickles which matches the ribbon (that I got on clearance somewhere) perfectly. Unfortunately, I over-exposed the photo, so you can't tell. I used a little green rhinestone for the olive in her drink and glossy accents on the martini to give it a little shine. The little baubles are the ones from Michael's (again enabled by Lauren!) and her shoes and belt buckle are colored with a silver Fiskars gel pen. Thanks for looking! :)

Ahoy Matey!

Ahoy Matey! is one of my favorite SU! sets. I have only used it for this card though! When it first came out in the catalog, my husband and I were trying to get pregnant. I was hoping I would get pregnant with a boy so I would have a reason to buy it! Ha! Lucky me...it happened! I have loved pirates ever since I was a wee one...probably why I married a biker, they're like the modern version of a pirate, dontcha think? :)

Anyway, I did this for another of Jen's SFYTT from a little while ago. I have been making cards, but not so big on posting on this blog. I'm trying! Once I realized you could upload a ton of pics and save them until you were ready to post, I got going! I really wanted to be able to do a little treasure chest and some gold *coins*, aka brads, spilling out on the bottom panel. I realized I didn't have the brads, so I chose the Matey's Map wheel and burned the edges instead. I really love how this turned out - let me know what you think.

I sent this along to Lauren Meader when I won her My Time mail! Such a great bunch of stuff she sent! I stamped "Thanks for the booty" on the inside. Ha, ha! I think I'm so clever!

Colors are too multiple to mention! Colored with aquapainter and blender pen, white craft ink, dimensionals and a lighter. Thanks for looking! :)

CASEing is the most sincere form of flattery ~

I saw this gorgeous card on the incredibly talented Julee's blog and couldn't help but to COPY it exactly (or as close as I could come to exactly!) :) I love this set, Thankful Blossoms, from Julee's company Verve Visual. I did have a little trouble getting good coverage of my ink on the acrylic stamps. I have read on other's blogs that SU! craft ink works better. That's why my sentiment looks shadowed - I stamped it first in Taken with Teal and some of the letters weren't whole. Drove me nuts! So I went back and tried to go over it completely with white craft ink and then embossed with white EP. I, of course, was unable, even with clear, acrylic stamps, to get it exactly right :) I like the shadow effect though - what do you all think?

Colors are Soft Sky, Taken with Teal, Always Artichoke; rhinestones, Fiskar's white gel pen, white embossing powder and dimensionals. Thanks for looking! :)

Bold Birthday

I made this card really quickly the other day for my stepdaughter who turned 13! Eek! She is now officially a teenager! She acts more like she is 18 though LOL :) I had something totally different worked out in my head with inspirations from some of my favorite artists. I really wanted to use the layout of this card and make my own background paper with Simply Circles and emboss resist. Nothing was really coming together the way that I wanted and then...this. I am so happy with it! The butterfly wings are stamped first on the white paper and cut out of the box to look like she is flying off the paper. I then stamped them again on vellum, cut them out and glued the body area together to give it motion. I've seen this many times but the one that sticks out in my memory recently is this one. I used my square Nesties, corner rounder punch with the guide removed for the scallop border, paper piercer and those fantastic flowers from Michael's (thanks for telling everyone about them Lauren!). All of these ladies have truly incredible, inspiring blogs, so be sure to check them out! And often :)

Colors are Cool Caribbean, Certainly Celery and Tempting Turquoise and ribbon is from Michael's. Thanks for looking!