Stamps, Paper, Scissors

Ooooh....pretty colors!

Most of you probably know that I am a color junkie. I adore color in all it's manifestations, whether that be in paper, ink, fabric or yarn...I LOVE IT!

So the color challenge posted over at the Verve Blog was just my cup o' tea!

And of course, what would a card be without a SKETCH?!?!?! LOL! I printed off this week's Mojo Monday sketch over at Julee Tillman's blog, Poetic Artistry, and had a go using the stamps I WON in the last Mojo Contest! I figured this was the best way to express my gratitude and have a great chance at winning some stampin' moolah! Here 'tis:

Ingredients: Stamps - Verve Visual Thankful Blossoms; Paper - Soft Sky, Cameo Coral, So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White; Ink - Adirondack Espresso, Soft Sky, Pumpkin Pie; Other - Prismacolor pencils, Gamsol, Old Olive Poly-twill ribbon, Scallop Circle Punch, gold brads, dimensionals, Chocolate Chip Marker, sponge wedges

Isn't this just GOJUS?!?!?! (YILM!) I love the color combination and the sketch was good to work with too!

On the personal front, still waiting to hear anything at all about Thin, still being Mom's Softball Taxi service, and still trying to get rid of the last remnants of this influenza. I still am coughing and it's been weeks...sigh. Tomorrow night, though, I have the pleasure of watching our oldest daughter graduate from 8th grade, so that means, naturally, that I will have to spend some time cleaning so that my in-laws won't have to see our messy house! My parents are not making the drive over as they just don't feel up to it. Today is Laurel's last day of school and she is already planning on all the "girl time" we are going to have together next week while her siblings are still in school. I'm already feeling like a hunted creature! Hopefully she'll be satisfied with a bit of shopping. Tomorrow we'll go and get her hair cut and buy something for me to wear since I have nothing half-way decent that fits any more. But I will have another card to show  you tomorrow! See ya then!

I've been debating...

Because I really, really don't want to come off as having "the big head". I know, I know, I really REALLY do love myself. A lot. If you didn't know this, you may be new to my blog. Self-love is a many-splendored thing...at least, it is here. If I thought my work was not worthy of showing off, why would I have a blog to begin with, right?

Anyway, I've often read remarks critical of people who do what I'm about to do and nobody wants to be criticized.

But on the other hand, this is the first time (who knows, it may be the ONLY time!) I have ever done this and who could blame me for being excited and wanting to show off?

See my dilemma? What? You don't know what the heck I'm talking about? Oh well, here goes:

I am famous. Officially. Oh, sure, I have a lot of people who read my blog now and that gives me some measure of notoriety (and I appreciate you all, each and every one!) But now it's down ON PAPER, baby! Lookie:

In this very special issue of Stamp It! you will find TWO, count 'em, TWO of my cards!!!

I'm just a little bit excited (okay, I am a LOT excited!), because it is the very first time for me. To be published, that is. And it's a good feeling!

Dan was suitably impressed when I woke him on Saturday morning after the Fed Ex man had dropped off my complimentary copies. I thought about waiting until he got up, but who can sit on news like THIS! Right? And I carefully didn't mention that it has taken me 12 years of stamping to get this far. He was really impressed to find out that the magazine pays for submissions...and I was VERY careful not mentioned how much money has been spent in that 12 years to get this far. After all, I didn't want to take the thrill out of it for him...having a famous wife must be very exciting for him, right? I want him to enjoy it!

He took me out to lunch, he was so impressed with my fame. Of course, we were interrupted every 5 minutes by calls from home: "Mom, William is yelling and screaming because Laurel told him to clean his room and he won't do it!" "Mother (William calls me 'mother' now...I don't know why he suddenly switched from calling me 'Mommy' and why he doesn't just say 'Mom', but it sounds really cute when he says it) I just wanted to tell you that I gave Laurel the rest of my Gatorade." (??? Why this rates a phone call, I will never know!) And when I got home, I noticed something immediately: being famous doesn't mean that your children will automatically do what you tell them. Or that someone will show up and clean your house for you for free. Somehow, that was left out of the contract. Famous people, I feel, shouldn't have to clean toilets. But I still had to clean ours. Hmmm...

Anyway, enough of that and back to our regularly scheduled showing off and blathering...you want to see a card, I imagine, and I have one for you:

Ingredients: Stamps - Whipper Snapper Designs Party Cow, "An 'Udder' Year Older?"; Paper - Real Red Prints Pattern DP, Tempting Turquoise, Summer Sun, Basic Black, Pixie Pink; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black, More Mustard; Other - Scallop Circle Punch, Photo Corner Punch, Basic Black marker, white gel pen, piercing tool, black dotted organdy ribbon (Michael's), sponge wedge, dimensionals, silver brad, Prismacolor Pencils, gamsol.

Isn't this STINKIN' CUTE?!?!? (YILM!) I've had these Whipper Snapper stamps for a while now. My mom's birthday was yesterday and this card is for her. It's umm...going to be late, but better late than never, right? I think my mom will understand that famous people like me have a lot of demands on their time that might prevent them from getting a card in the mail in time. What's that? I have been late with cards even before I got famous? Well....yeeeesss, I have....um...guess I can't blame it on my fame, after all....

The Tale of a Card.....

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has done this. Tell me I'm not! But first, let me 'splain, Lucy!

Okay, so I'm in the FedEx/Kinko's near me a few weeks back photocopying the church bulletin, just like every Saturday. And, like every Saturday, I have to get a receipt. Since this is one of the "mini" Kinko's, they don't have a kiosk so that I can get my receipt myself, allowing myself to stay buried in my little 21st century cocoon, cut off from real human contact and only communicating with people online, but instead I actually have to ask a real human for the receipt. By the cash register is a card display and one catches my eye. It's a Mother's Day card and it is just PERFECT for my mother! It only costs a couple of bucks. But I just. can't. bring. myself. to. buy. it! I can MAKE a card like that, but BETTER! Yes, I can! I am STAMPER hear me ROAR!!!!

You can see where this is going can't you?

So I am mulling this card over in my mind, wondering if I have the stamps to make it. Of course I don't! Let me introduce you to rule number 1 of Jan Tink's Law of Trying to CASE Commercial Cards:

Rule #1: You will never have the kind of stamps you need to duplicate a commercial card.

Which means, of course, that you must buy them. And I knew just where to buy them. I had been eying them for some time, wanting to purchase them badly, but putting them off buying them because I didn't really NEED them, but now, of course, I did.

The sad thing was, of course, that I could not satisfy my design needs with just one set. I needed two different ones. You can see where this is going, can't you? So yes, after trying to find these things locally and from some of my favorite web-stores, I finally had to spring for them directly from the company. And bless them, they shipped them very fast and I got them in plenty of time. Of course, each set cost $25.95. So let me introduce you to the second rule of the Law of Trying to CASE Commercial Cards:

Rule #2: It will always, always cost you much, much more to make a CASE of a commercial card than it would cost you just to BUY the card when you see it.

This is a rule that new stampers learn very quickly. I started out stamping so that I could save money on Christmas cards. Yeah, you can stop laughing now. I have heard this sad tale from more than one stamper, always followed by a manic laugh and a rolling of the eyes. WE know, don't we? We know how quickly this becomes an OBSESSIONI!

Anyway, because I only really liked the card for it's cute sentiments/sayings and the rest of it was just sadly plain if not a bit ugly, I had to resort to rule number three:

Rule #3: You dang well better make your CASE so much much cuter/more beautiful/more clever than the commercial one. Or you will feel guilty. Very guilty.

I think I've managed it:

Ingredients: Stamps - Crafty Secrets Coffee & Tea, Kitchen Classics; Paper - SU! Real Red, Basic Black, Old Olive, Bashful Blue, Summer Picnic DP, PapertreyInk Stamper's Select White; Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, SU! Bashful Blue; Other - Fiskars Mini Scallop scissors, Prismacolor pencils, Gamsol, Red dotted ribbon (American Crafts), Sakura Stardust Glitter pen; Font - fontdiner.com Loungy

Isn't this STINKIN' CUTE?!?!? In case you're having a hard time reading that, it says, "A smart mother knows her way around the kitchen". I printed it off on my printer using a cool FREE retro font from fontdiner.com.

Here's the inside:

I hasten to add that my mom is a great cook. I've learned a lot just tasting her food. The kitchen was too small for me to  help much when I was growing up (at least that's what I always used to say.) But these days, it's just much easier for her if she and Dad go out to eat. So that's what they do. Often. So you can see why this is just PERFECT for her...she'll get a big kick out of it!

In the meantime, I can enjoy my Crafty Secrets stamps...only, when I went to look at the website just now so I could see what the names of the sets are that I used because I was too lazy to go downstairs and look, I saw yet another set I must have...that Little Chef set must be mine! Mine!

So there you have it...my sad little tale of my lack of control when it comes to stamping...I'd try to grow up, but I'm having too much fun. See ya!

Chocolaaaaaateeee.....

I was so thrilled the other day to get a call from my fab friend, Pam Becker (aka PJBStamper) all the way from WA (I always think of it as WAH!, but that's just me.)

Pam had thrilling news for me and wanted to tell me ASAP. She said she had just heard on the radio that April is National Consume Chocolate Month or some such thing. I was totally GOBSMACKED! Here I had just been planning to celebrate just my private Restocking My Chocolate Reserves day, but a whole MONTH to celebrate the consumption of chocolate!

I decided I need more research about this important holiday, so I googled it. I couldn't find it anywhere online! I found American Chocolate week (3rd week in March), National Celebrate Chocolate Month (February), National Chocolate Day (this is disputed...October 28th, December 28th or 29th, you pick), even National Chocolate-Covered Raisin Day (March 24th). But only one chocolate related holiday in April, which is National Chocolate-Covered Cashews Day (April 21st) and I am not even very fond of those. My thought has always been that nuts are nuts and chocolate is chocolate...why mess up a good thing? Though I will make an exception for almonds. So how now to celebrate chocolate in April?

I decided I could at least celebrate American Chocolate Week, even if I missed it a few weeks ago. I figured a card would be in order:

Ingredients: Stamps - House Mouse Stamps Pure Bliss, Inky Antics "Eat More Chocolate"; Paper - PapertreyInk Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet, Stampers Select White, Spring Moss, Pink Patterns Collection, SU! Chocolate Chip; Ink - Versafine Onyx Black, PapertreyInk Sweet Blush, Berry Sorbet; Other - Berry Sorbet dotted satin ribbon (PapertreyInk), Ticket Corner Punch (SU!), 3/16" corner rounder (SU!), Prismacolor Pencils, Gamsol, Sakura Clear Glaze pen, dimensionals (SU!)

Is this not STINKIN' CUTE?!?!? (YILM!) I just love the sneaky look on the one mouse's face as he checks out his pal to see if he's still sleepin' so Mr. Sneaky Mouse can nom all the rest of the chocolate. Heheheh...

I thought the sentiment was perfect for the celebration of any chocolate holiday you'd care to name...the only problem is...I was so busy making it, I forgot to go buy more chocolate! Arrgghhhhhh!!!

Back to the swap mines...

Right after I show you this card:

Ingredients: Stamps - Gina K. - Just so Hippy!; Paper - Papertrey Ink Stamper's Select White, Kaiser Crafts PP, So Saffron, Night of Navy, Certainly Celery, Wild Wasabi, Garden Green; Ink - Palette Noir, Garden Green, Wild Wasabi, Night of Navy, Certainly Celery, Pumpkin Pie; Other - 3/8" corner rounding punch (SU! retired), silver brad, Pumpkin Pie & Night of Navy grosgrain ribbon, Martha Stewart Leaf punches, dimensionals, Copic & Tria markers, Basic Black marker.

Melanie Muenchinger (melmel on SCS) sent me the images from this set she designed that is produced by Gina K. more than a month ago and I had not gotten around to them yet. But when the Dirty Girl Shout Challenge for February was decided on, I knew exactly what to do! The challenge consists of three things:

a) Use a stamp or stamp set designed by a Dirty Girl OR use a Dirty Girl card for inspiration.
b) No die cuts or embossing by die cut systems (boo!)
c) A spring color combination.

If you want to go have a peek at the other cards in the challenge you can go here.

Of course, I knew exactly what to do....problem was DOING IT. I first had to find time (a short commodity lately with two swaps to complete (why do I DO this to myself!), a workshop tomorrow night (!!!) and other commitments, not to mention children, spouse, house, yada yada yada.) So I didn't actually GET to this particular thing until this morning.

The other thing to find was the images! Where, in my packed and mostly organized, but slightly DISorganized stamp room had I stashed the images?!?!? Luckily, they were exactly where I thought they were and I proceeded to crank out this card.

I wanted this to be a boy card, so flowers were out. I had bought this paper at Paper Tales and loved the leafy background and its reverse stripy side. But it needed an embellishment other than ribbon. I figured the monkey needed more jungle, so I decided to turn to my punches since using my 'Bug was out. These punches are old Martha Stewart punches...bought from her website, BEFORE she had an "official" scrapbooking/paper crafting line. She had shown these on one of the very rare shows I had actually seen  (I don't watch much television anymore...at least during the day) and I had fallen in love with both the fern leaf and the other leaf spray...and the only way to get them was to buy the other two stamps as well (aspen leaf and maple leaf).  So I bought them and while punching with them is one of those feats I expect to see show up on the Strong Man Challenge on ESPN any day now, I still can manage it...mostly by throwing myself on top of them. (Yep, that wasn't an earthquake you felt this morning, that was ME punching out tiny little fern leaves!) And yeah, I do actually have one of those punch arm thingies, but first I'd have to FIND it and even then I think these punches don't fit. But don't quote me.

Of course, my brain, fuzzy thing that it is (and that's with taking that memory herb...what's its name again?) mistakenly posted on SCS that the stamps were Carolyn King's NOT Melanie's, a fact for which I have had to abase myself to Mel and tell her that she could kick me, but she lives too far away. The fact is that I was sitting (with my swaps, mind, so I was being productive) up late last night watching the Godfather II and I just could NOT go to bed until Fredo and Hyam Roth got theirs...I've seen the middle of the movie 20 million times, but had never seen the end thanks to my dear husband, who watches two movies at a time most of the time, so I'm always losing bits when he gets involved with the other movie and forgets to switch back to the first one. Any wonder I spend so much time in my stamp room? Anyway, I was up late and so my brain is still not working, even with a little chocolate (of which I have run out of!!!) and lots of Diet Coke and miles to go before I sleep.

Anyway, the card turned out STINKIN' CUTE and I love it and hope you do too...the card that is. I love my husband, despite his itchy remote finger, too. But we're talking about my card.  You don't need to love my husband...I take care of that. Though you can like him a lot because he works so hard so that I don't have to go out and get a  9 to 5 job and can do this.

Okay, I have chattered (inspired by the monkey, maybe?) way too long, time to go back to the swap mines. TA!
 

Vintage Valentines, part two

A quick dash up here to do some blathering and showing off and it's back to work for me. Too many things to do and not enough time!!! A swap to mail out by FRIDAY!!! New sets arriving in the mail all the time from two different companies, plus my Stampin' Up! class on Monday that needs 4 projects!!! ACK! ACK!!!

Tonight I am teaching at Scrappy Chic, and at least THAT is all set and ready. But I wanted to get my next class set up for there, which will be a Vintage Valentines class featuring at least 3 of the cards I have made this week...maybe 4. Haven't decided yet! So I needed 1 or 2 more cards. To cut to the chase:

Ingredients: Stamps - Stampington Robin Heart Script, In Loving You; Paper - My Mind's Eye Adore Signature Collection, Very Vanilla, Bazill Cardstock; Ink - Versamark, Dark Brown Colorbox Fluid Chalk; Other - Stampin' Pastels, Prima Flowers, button (Memory Makers), Ribbon (American Crafts), photo turn (SU! Hodgepodge Hardware)

Isn't it GOJUS?! This is using Versamark with pastel (chalks).

Onward on upward:

Ingredients: Stamps - Stampington Clearly Impressed Romance Elements; Paper - Daisy D's Maybe Baby PP, Bazill Bling cardstock, Bazill cardstock; Ink - Colorbox Fluid Chalk Rose Corral, Lipstick Red, Pale Pink; Other - Heart brad unknown, 3/4" circle punch, silver eyelet, ribbon (American Craft), dimensionals.

Another v. pretty card, no? Okay...GOJUS! (YILM!)

Well, off I go. I need to clean up one mess and start making another. TAH!

Vintage Valentines

The cardstock and ribbon scraps have been flying around here as I attempt to feed the JanTink design team obligation juggernaut!

This time I'm using some Crafty Secrets stamps that Scrappy Chic is now carrying to make some Valentine's Day cards for the Scrappy Chic design team:

Ingredients: Crafty Secret's Cherubs; Paper - My Mind's Eye Adore Signature PP, Bazill cardstock, Very Vanilla; Ink - Fired Brick Distress, Tattered Rose Distress, Adirondack Pitch Black; Other - Ribbon (American Crafts), glitter brad hearts (Making Memories), Spellbinder's Nestabilities Classic & Scalloped Rectangles, sponge wedges, dimensionals.

Yeah, I know, it's GOJUS!!! (YILM!) I loved the black and red combo so much I continued onward:

Ingredients: Stamps - Crafty Secrets cherubs; Paper - Making Memories Love Story Collection PP, Bazill cardstock, Very Vanilla; Ink - Fired Brick Distress, Adirondack Pitch Black; Other - Photo Corner punch, tag corner punch, Dotted black grosgrain (American Crafts), sponge wedges, Tag (Making Memories), brads (Making Memories).

I finally got a chance to use the tag curler I got from Scrappy Chic's trip to CHA! I think the card turned out GOJUS, again! This color combo is hard to go wrong with. I wanted to use the dotted paper with the scalloped circle shape on a card, but the size dictated that I use a larger card size than I usually do. This one is 4" x 8 1/2", so it will fit into a #10 envelope.

This set is a lot of fun to play with, lending itself to just simple stamping in these two cards and probably more involved techniques. I'll probably be crankin' out some more cards soon...stay tuned!

I could use some warm cookies just about now...

Today is the 20th of January, which means it's time for a new Dirty Dozen/Dirty Dozen Alumni Challenge!

This month's challenge was called "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun". The parameters for the challenge were:

1. Use an image of a girl.
2. Use a non-A2 card size.
3. Use the theme "sweet" no matter how you define it.

You can view the other cards submitted for the challenge here.

Recently I had participated in an image swap (BTW, I don't routinely do image swaps, so please don't bombard me with requests!) with Claudia Rosa, one of my readers. She sent me some Magnolia images in exchange for some Sugar Nellie images. Magnolia stamps are really hot in the UK and Europe; they have some really cute images. One of them was perfect for the challenge:

Ingredients: Stamps - Magnolia Tilda with Cookie Sheet; Paper - Whisper White, Real Red, Daisy D's Maybe Baby Collection, Papertrey Stamper's Select White, Pale Plum; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black; Other - Ribbon (American Crafts), mini scallop scissors, white gel pen, 1 1/4", 1 3/8" & Scallop Circle Punches, dimensionals, silver brads, Sakura Stardust glitter pen, Sakura glaze pen, Real Red marker, Prismacolor pencils, Gamsol.

Isn't it STINKIN' CUTE?!?!?! (YILM!) The sentiment, "Nothing says 'I love you' like a warm cookie", was hand drawn...I thunk it up all by myself! To create the greeting, I punched a hole in a post it note with my 1 1/4" circle punch, placed it over a piece of Whisper White cardstock and used a Micron pen to hand print the sentiment around the circle. Then I drew the cookie (yes, I can draw, I just choose not to, LOL!), colored it in and added some glaze with a pen on the frosting.

MMMM....cookies....chocolate chip, of course, would be better than the sugar cookies in this card...chocolaaaaaattteeee....

Speaking of which, some hearty THANKS are in order to my Personal Chocolate Fairy, who came through with the goods once again:













Thank you, Personal Chocolate Fairy, for the GOJUS card (LOVE that Berry Bliss paper!!!) and the delish Dove Milk Chocolate bar...which is calling my name in a very loud voice! It was hard to wait until the picture was taken, but now that it has been, I have an appointment to keep with that Dove Chocolate that can no longer be postponed! Tah!

Blog Trends (or keeping up with the Janeses...)

I've noticed a couple of things that EVERYONE (well...SOME people, anyway) is doing on their blogs, and being the mindless lemming that I am, I decided I have to do those things too. After all, you wouldn't want me to be OUT OF IT, would ya? While I may not be as HOT as some design babes are or as creative as others, I have other qualities that make up for that, for instance helping people irrigate their noses with Diet Coke, coffee or whatever beverage they may be drinking when they read my blog. I live to serve! But I digress...

One of the most exciting things I have found while reading blogs is the idea to set up an "Inspiration Station". I found this on Heather Nichols' (pinefeather) blog and she pointed to Michelle Wooderson's blog as HER original inspiration for this idea (and I read them both, so would have gotten to Michelle's blog as well to read about her Inspiration Station!)

Basically you take all the stuff you've bought to make cards and projects for a specific season and/or purpose and put them all in one place so you can see them and be inspired. I figured this was a great was of creating an organized, sanctioned MESS without having to clean it up right away! That way if Dan ever complained about it, I could explain that that wasn't a MESS, it was my Inspiration Station, thank you very much, and it was SUPPOSED to look like that. Much better than his card table in his recording studio, covered with tools, nuts, bolts, bits of wire, soldering irons, etc. Now that is NOT inspiring. But this is:

This is all my stuff I have gotten for Valentine's projects. Some of it is my design team stuff from Scrappy Chic, other stuff I bought with my gift cards I got for Christmas. And some of it is stuff I've had a while.

Granted, mine isn't as pretty as Michelle's, but *I* find it inspiring and that's what counts, right?

There's not as nearly as much stuff in the Station as I could put in there...I have...cough...a lot of...um...STUFF. But it's what struck me as inspirational, so that's what counts. There's only one thing missing that would make it truly inspirational: CHOCOLATE. Yes, it definitely needs chocolate, don't you think?

Having all this stuff sitting out was very helpful last night when I was working on a card for the My Favorite Things guest designer challenge...there's some stiff competition, so I'm probably not going to win, but I loved the idea of the challenge which was to make a card that was any shape BUT a square or rectangle. And since I happened to go to Scrappy Chic yesterday and it just happened to be competitor coupon day and since I had used forethought and actually BROUGHT some coupons and since Chris just started carrying some of the Nestabilities and since I didn't have the heart-shaped ones and really thought they'd make great Valentine's Day cards, which after all, I am supposed to create a class for there...well, you can see where this is going, can't you?

Ingredients: Stamps - My Favorite Things Boho Blossoms; Paper - Cranberry Crisp, Pretty in Pink, Very Vanilla, Regal Rose, Cloud 9 Designs PP; Cranberry Crisp, Regal Rose; Maya Road chipboard key, Tim Holtz Gold paint dabber, Cuttlebug Olivia alphabet, Cranberry Crisp stitched grosgrain, Very Vanilla taffeta ribbon, dotted organdy ribbons (Michael's), Prima Flowers, Fire circle rhinestone brad, Spellbinder's Classic Heart & Scalloped Heart Nestabilities

To make this, I folded a standard card in half, then positioned the scalloped heart Nestability die so that the top few scallops were above the fold. It took a couple of turns through the Cuttlebug, since the very top of the card, where the "V" is in the heart, did not cut through on the first pass, so I just added a shim and that took care of it. I cut the other two layers with the Classic Heart dies and then just went to town adding stuff. I discovered I absolutely ADORE the paint dabbers from Ranger...those things have to be the BEST thing ever invented...acrylic paint with very little mess, perfect for painting chipboard. I had bought the chipboard keys a while back and was thrilled to find one was small enough to go on this card.

I used the Embossing with Stamps technique from an issue of Technique Junkies...basically, you use your stylus and a mouse pad or the pad from your Crafter's Tool kit; put the stamped cardstock on the pad and run your stylus around the areas that you want to emboss. Then flip the cardstock over and use your embossing stylus to push the areas you want raised out between the  lines that you made from the other side. You keep flipping the cardstock back and forth, pushing some areas in on one side, then refining the lines and creating more texture from the other side. Unfortunately, it's impossible to really see it in this photo, but it does add something to the card!

Oh...ALMOST FORGOT!!! It's GOJUS!!!! (YILM!!) I came up with the sentiment from using the words in the set, but there is no question mark, so I used my Olivia alphabet in my Cuttlebug to cut one out of cardstock. Of course, depending on who you are giving this to and how you may be feeling at the time, the inside could either read, "YES, oh YES, my DARLING!!!" or "NO WAY JOSE, you're just a blip on my radar of love, a ship passing in the night...." This card would have the best effect for the former sentiment, IMO, if it was accompanied by a similarly shaped box of tasty chocolates!

That brings me to the other trend I've seen all over the scrapping and stamping blogosphere..that's choosing a word for the whole year that inspires you to improve your lot in life, I guess.

I have given my word a lot of thought...a lot! And I've come up with the one word that I think sums up my aspirations, hopes, wishes and dreams and that word is:

CHOCOLATE!!!!

And now I'm supposed to make a word out of each letter that expresses what CHOCOLATE means to me for this year:

C - Consume! I'm gonna eat lots!
H - To HECK with dieting! Chocolate is good for you! Studies SHOW THIS!
O - Oxidants, AntiOxidants, that is...Chocolate is a CANCER fighting tool!
C - Chips, chocolate ones, that is, in cookies! The third best method of chocolate delivery, second best being brownies, and first, a chocolate bar or chocolate surrounding caramel, of course!
O - Opiates...chocolate triggers the brain to produce natural opiates, to give you that chocolate BUZZ!!!
L -  I Love to eat chocolate!
A - Antioxidants...oh, that's right, I already said that!
T - Tryptophan, that natural anxiety lessening substance that is in CHOCOLATE!
E - I'm gonna Enjoy some chocolate Every day!

There you have it, my word of the year. Funny thing...now that I'm done writing about it, I have this strange (or not so strange) desire to eat some chocolate. Toodle pip!

Mojo Monday - My take

I did this card earlier this past week and haven't had a chance to put it on the blog yet. But since tomorrow is Monday and Julie Tillman will be posting another sketch on her blog, I thought I'd better post the one I did from the past week's sketch.

Ingredients: Lockhart Stamp Co. Hydrangea, CHF Dotted Diamonds Backgrounder, SU! Warmest Regards (retired).Canvas; Paper - Almost Amethyst, Wild Wasabi, Groovy Guava, Papertrey Stampers Select White; Ink - Adirondack Pitch Black, SU! Almost Amethyst, Groovy Guava; Other - Spellbinders Nestabilities, Copic & Tria Markers, Prismacolor Colorless Blender, 1/2" circle Punch, silver brad, white taffeta ribbon, 1 1/8" & 1" circle punches, Prima flowers.

I colored the Hydrangeas on Christmas Day evening then finished the card off the next day...okay, are you ready?!?!?

IT'S GOJUS!!!!! (YILM!!!)

I really love the sketch and this color combo was inspired by the colors I used in the Hydrangea image. The background stamp was one that Lisa Strahl (aka Mona Lisa on SCS) gifted us Dirty gals for Christmas...I really, really love it! Thanks again, Lisa!

Got lots more to show you tomorrow, stay tuned!