Need help catching a little love? ~

Hello there, my crafty friends!  How’s your mojo flowin’?  Mine is spent!  I’ve had a goal to have more than one card in a publication for 2012 – well, I just have to get the happy email in 2012.  I have been submitting like crazy – even making stuff I don’t really like that much – just to get a ton in, in the hopes that I’ll get one of those emails that says, we want x, y and z!!  Well, the past few calls, I haven’t even gotten a happy email.  Ugh.  My first love is coloring, as I’m sure you all know if you follow this blog; however, I don’t ever see very many things that are colored on the pages of the magazine that I tend to submit to.  So I submit things that just aren’t my style a lot of the time.  Oh well!  I’m sure I’ll get back in the groove one of these days…
So after that uber uplifting paragraph, how about a fun little card??  LOL  When I first was accepted for the Lil’ Inker Designs Color Team, I chose to color up this darling little Hamster Cupid from the 2 Cute Ink line.  If you need any help catching a little love, I’m sure he’s the fella to get the job done!

He’s in some warm greys with little dots of blue and blue violet around him to give the image a little more depth.  The back mat has a few rows of a heart border die in the whole white on white effect.  Plus I added the sweet stitched hearts to give the little guy something to aim at!  I don't know if this really works as CAS but I'll add it to the CAS-ual Fridays challenge #74 - Put your heart into it!  I'm also entering this in the Simon Says Stamp challenge to use dies or punches.
Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend!  I’m pooped!  Went to the little man’s last soccer game – in the freezing rain – complete with pizza and award party after, then to his girlfriend’s birthday party at a gymnastics academy, and I’m sick to boot.  Tired!  This little mama needs to put up her feet and *rest my eyes*  Thanks so much for stopping by!!  :o) lyss

World Card Making Day Hop ~

Welcome!  Tomorrow, October 6th, is the best holiday of all!  World Card Making Day is a fantastic holiday that celebrates what we all love to do best – play with stamps, ink, glue and paper!   Today, many of the winners of World Card Making Day 2011 are presenting you with cards from the categories that we won in.  Hopefully, you’ve arrived here from the wonderfully talented Kelly Rasmussen’s blog.  You’ll also want to make sure to continue through the end – Holly Anderson will be giving away 3 separate prizes on the Paper Crafts Connection blog.

I happened to win in the Thank You category.  I chose to play with my Copics, which is one of those things I love to do best!  I used the Waterlilies and Humming Along sets from Flourishes.

To make it just a little more interesting, I popped the center of the flower up on dimensional foam tape.  The sentiment just says ‘thank you’ to me, as in ‘thank you for your kindness.’ 

THANK YOU so much for stopping by!  Your next stop on the hop is the fabulous Stephanie Washburn.  Have a super time along the hop!  :o) lyss

Happy Birthday, Zaniac the Maniac ~

Hi there!  Sorry I was MIA for so very long from the old bloggo!  Thanks for all the emails inquiring if all was a-ok, as well.  We’ve had a lot going on around these parts – trying to re-finance the house has been more than a PITA, got to go on a fabulous two week road trip to Disneyland, Sea World and back through Vegas {pics to come soon!}, and release week for Lil’ Inker Designs once we got back.  My mojo was back in California I think!  It took me forever to make something.  So frustrating!  Oh well, I ended up getting it all done.  Now, my little guy has turned 5 – aack!  I turned 35 five days before his birthday.  My birthday was spent at the soccer field because he had a double header.  I can now officially say that I’m a soccer mom – what?!?!? Anyhow, Z totally loves anything and everything Army, so we had to have an army themed birthday party.  It was a blast!  But I am so glad that it’s over.  We can finally just settle back into life without so many big things going on!

I decided to make him a little 8x8 scrapbook layout for his birthday.  I pinned a couple question sets to ask your kiddos on their birthdays every year a while back and wanted to make sure I actually did it instead of talking about it/thinking about it and never getting it done. lol  I’m the worst about that!  So I printed out The General from Saturated Canary at about 5.5 inches tall.

This image is so totally Z!  I colored him for DH birthday card back in August also.  Z likes to dress up and play all the time in his Army BDUs, so I colored this kiddo up like that.  Hubby says I still need to work on leaving areas light to almost white, but it’s so hard!!  This page just says Happy Birthday with the questionnaire on the next page.

I used Papertrey Ink dies for all the lettering and numbers.  For ease and, hopefully, longevity of the piece, I ran the paper through a Xyron machine first and made them all stickers.  I added a couple of staples to be able to enter this in The Saturated Canary challenge #27 to use office supplies.

Here’s the second page.  I downloaded a free font called Top Secret to make his invitations and make the page with all his answers. 

I made a little set of dog tags for him as well.  I didn’t include a social security number or religious views, but they’re fun!  I hope I keep up with this each year.  It’ll be fun to see his answers!  Here’s the two of them side by side.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope to get back to creating more now that the weather is cooling down.  Have a super week!  ;o) lyss

CHALLENGES:

1. Cute Card Thursday #236: Letters & Numbers

2. JUGS #156: Numbers

3. Oozak #7: Die cuts

4. Papertake Weekly: Anything Goes (It’s their 5th Bday too!  Happy Birthday!)

5. Simon Says Stamp: Anything Goes {my favorite type of challenge!!}