Chef Linzy = Gilli Chef

Good Morning! Today I am posting a special card, one that has been "imagined" for several months now. Ever since this adorable Gilli stamp came out I knew I would have to buy it! She looks just like my daughter, Linzy, who just happens to be a chef!

This week she went to Detroit for a few days of extensive training for new menu items her restaurant will be serving. She works for a well-known chain of exclusive restaurants and makes the most amazing Italian food you've ever tasted! They pair it with a wonderful Chianti and the whole dining experience is always total enjoyment. We go there only as a special treat...it IS a little beyond our price-range, but always worth the "splurge"!

So I finally made this little "Congratulations" card for Linz to let her know how proud we are of her and to acknowledge all her hard work.

Linz may not like it but I can't resist putting a picture of her on here so you can see what I mean about the Gilli image being so perfect for her. You can't see it in the picture but she does have long blonde hair!

So a quick list of "ingredients" for my card:

Stamped image- Gilli Chef (from anary.com)

Stamped sentiment- Congratulations (from StampingScrapping.com)

Cardstock- from my stash

Flowers & stamped image on the inside- I need to do a little research to remember" where I got them!

The chef's whole white outfit is covered with Stickles!

And I AM entering this card in Anary's challenge at http://houseofgilli.blogspot.com/. The challenge is #12- "Anything Goes".

A Clean & Simple Summer Flowers Card

This evening I made a card for 2 challenges: the "Clean & Simple" Challenge at http://stampingscrappingchallengecentral.blogspot.com/ and the "Summer Flowers" challenge at http://scrappyfrogschallenge.blogspot.com/. This card went together almost by itself! It was THAT easy! Of course, having those pretty flowers from StampingScrapping ready to just glue on DOES help to simplify the process! The flowers are from the "Flowers, etc.-Red & Yellow" set. The buttons are from my stash. The green cardstock is from Die Cuts With a View and the "grass" paper is from ProvoCraft. I used Memento Ink (Bamboo Leaves) and 3 Stampin' Up stamps (leaves, stem, & sentiment). The ribbon is from a remnant bin at my local fabric store. I used lots of Glue Dots to adhere the flowers and the bow. I LOVE Glue Dots!

New Camera Finally!!

Yes, after complaining endlessly about my "old" sad camera I finally purchased a new one last week. I got a Nikon Coolpix S6100 with touch screen, 7x zoom, and 16.0 Megapixels. I have been practicing taking pictures quite a bit but haven't worked my way through the "User's Guide" yet. So far I am very happy with it! The pictures of the "Joshy" b-day card were taken with that camera. The Macro Mode works great!
Here is a picture of a pretty "dish garden" my sister made for me for my birthday. I love how accurate the colors are, even using flash. And nice clear detail.

Wow! Blogger is CRAZY today!

It took forever to get on here and Blogger keeps giving me "Service Unavailable ERROR 503" messages. Sure hope they can fix it soon!

I'm trying to post the main picture of the card I made for the "Make a Splash" challenge. The items I used are: HouseMouse stamp "Feeling Rosey" (altered, added hand drawn inner tube in place of the tea cup!) colored w/ colored pencils, the solid textured cardstock is from Best Occasions, the puffy alphabet stickers are from EK Success, the water-splash stickers are from Mrs. Grossman's, there are lots of Icicle Stickles by Ranger on almost everything, and the "water" print paper and rhinestones are from my stash. Now I will try to upload the picture.     ....well, it worked! I was even able to add it to the original post.

Mouse Makes a Splash!

After almost a whole month I am finally posting a new card...this one is for the House-Mouse challenge #99 at http://housemouse-challenge.blogspot.com/ called "Make a Splash".  The card was for my grandson's birthday on June 28....he turned 4 years old!  We didn't get a chance to celebrate it until July 7 so I made the card the day before (of course!) 

Well, Blogger is not letting me upload my photos any more....Grrrrr...it looks like they have a new system for uploading now...I don't think I like it!! So all I have so far is a close-up of some of the details. I will try to add another picture tomorrow, along with the info on what I used on this card.

Ok, I was finally able to upload this picture. The info/list of ingredients is in the next post because I was not able to edit this post until now. Sorry for the inconvenience!

My grandson, Josh really liked the card. They have a pool and he is learning to like swimming more each time he goes in the water! Tomorrow is the first day of swimming lessons!

New Card for SSCC with LOTS of Bling!

Here is my latest creation, a birthday card for my 2nd daughter. Her B-day is not until the end of July so I just might use this for someone else and make her another. We'll see!

Like many of my cards I spent way too much time on this but did enjoy using a few techniques I learned recently. The pictures don't show how much Stickles I used but I put them on almost everything!
Janine, you'd be proud of me...I used my McGill tools to make the flower more of a "cup" so the petals would stand up a bit more. And then I creased the leaves with another of the tools! The purple lines on the flower (which is from a lavender set I got at StampingScrapping.com)I painted on with watercolors, just like you taught us! I like the effect. At the May Retreat Classes I got the Tim Holtz blending tool and I used that on the edges of the die cut and the leaves.
The embossed background is Cryogen White. I used the Sizzix folder called Snow Flowers. I was inspired by one of Anary's recent cards that had the 4 embossed panels behind the "image". Thanks, Anary!! Loved that card! The butterfly is a stamp from Inkadinkadoo. The little tag I made from a Verve square stamp, a generic sentiment stamp and Cindy's lacey circles set is where the tiny 1/2 flower is from. The ink is Studio G; the ribbon and rhinestones and DP are from my stash. I think that's everything!
I am entering this in the SSCC "Embossing Challenge" at:
http://stampingscrappingchallengecentral.blogspot.com/
Thanks again to all of you who leave sweet comments every so often! Sure enjoy hearing your thoughts!
Happy Monday!

On July 2 I was looking back at some old "posts" and realized I never checked to see who "won" this challenge. So I went to the SSCC site and was pleasantly surprised to see I was listed in the "Top Three"! Thank you, SSCC!!

House Mouse/Flower B-day Card

I am posting this birthday card again with some changes. I knew it needed something...so I simply added a flower. Now I am much more satisfied with it. And now I can finally enter it in the HM Challenge #96 For the Love of the Game (Green & Yellow/Football) at http://housemouse-challenge.blogspot.com/ . Ingredients: HM stamp- Feeling Rosey, Verve stamps- Leafy Swirls & Bible verse (inside), HB stamp is from All Night Media, birthday sentiment (inside) is from Hero Arts, DP- DCWV & others, the flower is from StampingScrapping.com as is the fabric covered brad; the charm & ribbon are from my stash. I used the Standard Circles dies and the Scalloped Circles Lg. dies. Colored pencils were used to color the stamped images. Because this has the pretty flower on it, and a few more stamped inside, I think I will also enter it in the "Flowers" challenge at http://houseofgilli.blogspot.com/
Thanks for stopping by! As always, I sure appreciate your kind comments!

Sorry for the confusion!

My last post was WAY too long and too complicated AND broke the rules for some of the challenges I entered the cards in...the rules about having a DIRECT link to your piece of work. My link was really to all five cards. Am I bad! SO sorry! From now on I will try to have just one card/project per post...and keep it simple! Ah, that wonderful phrase again: "Keep it simple"!!

One of my favorite cards yet...simple! Hmmmmmm...