B-Day Card for my Man!

When I saw the colours for Design Dollies this week (Black, White, Grey and a pop of Orange), I thought they would be great for a masculine card, and seeing Jason's birthday is on the 6th, now I have a bit of a headstart. I really like the clean lines of this card, don't you? I was going to put it in for the Design Dollies elements challenge, too (which is clean and simple with brads and beads) but I don't have many beads, and definitely none that would go with this card.

Supplies (all CTMH): White Daisy cardstock, Exclusive Inks stamp pad in Black, Noted Backgrounds and A Little Everything My Acrylix stamp sets, and Irresistables bracket

Other: Cosmo Cricket blackboard asterisk, unknown chipboard button and heart, Creative Memories grey and black cardstock

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Mistletoe Cards

Just a quick post this morning. Here are the 12 cards I made with the Mistletoe Workshop-on-the-Go kit available from Close to My Heart. The technique featured is rock 'n' roll stamping, which I have played around with before, but rediscovered while making these cards. I really like how everything is included in the kit and I still have tons leftover for layouts. I am totally in love with the stamp set as well - I think I will get a lot of use out of it! We have a local hockey tourney this weekend, which means lots of volunteer hours. It is also -20 with several inches of snow on the ground. Hope everyone has a great weekend!

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Book Review Time!

A few people have said that they like looking at my list of books over in my sidebar, which is so cool! I've always been an avid reader, and I like books from many genres, but my last really exciting reads were surprising for me, because I wasn't expecting to like them so much.

First up is one from my library book club. We meet once a month and take turns choosing books. Last month was this one:

This book was just tremendous! I loved it, and I never would have chosen it on my own: weird title, and it's basically a compilation of letters, which I thought would be annoying, but for some reason worked really well. This is a definite must-read!!!

Next up is a series I got into by accident: The Mortal Instruments Series by Cassandra Clare.

I don't mind admitting that I frequently choose books by their cover. When I picked up City of Bones last week, I didn't realize the target audience is teen girls, and I normally don't even go for urban fantasies, but for whatever reason, I bought it. After the first few pages, I realized it was probably going to be something like Twilight, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but again, not really what I was expecting. Well, I whipped through it in a couple of days, then bought City of Ashes and whipped through that one (it was even better!) and now I can't wait to get my hands on City of Glass. These books are not classic literature by any means, but are still a lot of fun, even if you're not into demons, vampires and werewolves.

Finally, I have one that I borrowed from the library and suggest you skip:

I don't really like the cover of this book, so I must've chosen it based on the title. I mean, this is so "me" right now: the main character is trying to fit in pre-pregnancy jeans, not sure if she wants to go back to work after mat leave, etc. But she's also really annoying. She whines about not having enought time to spend with her baby daughter, and yet she goes out binge-drinking with her girlfriends all the time. Ya can't have your cake and eat it too, Missy! Her misguided priorities and many, many typos made this one a pass for me.

It's my turn to choose the book at book club this month and I just started reading it. It's a debut novel from a Canadian author named Jessica Grant, and it's called "Come, Thou Tortoise". Now how's that for a title? I'll let you know how it was when I finish it!

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Layout #77 - Get Picky

This picture is from 2 and a half years ago when my mom treated me to a trip to Hawaii (yeah, she's pretty special!) That's her on the right, and my aunt came as well. We went to a luau, and this is the photo that they take of you as you get off the bus. It felt kind of cheesey, and then they sucker you into paying $20 or something to get the photo at the end of the night, but it is a good shot of the three of us! It was our first luau, and we laughed our butts off the whole time - it was a riot! I am entering this into the Get Picky inspiration challenge for November. The photo they have for inspiration is full of pastel colours, and banners, so I incorporated these into my page. I also added some glittery swirls inspired by their swirly lollipops. I used a sketch I saw on the Scrap-tures blog last week for Finally Friday sketches, and it is one from Got Sketch, although I couldn't find it on their blog. Have a great weekend, everyone!

Supplies: Bazzill and CTMH cardstock, CTMH Tickled Pink and unknown patterned paper, Little Yellow Bicycle letter stickers and epoxy button, CTMH hemp, Ranger Distress Stickles, Creative Memories and Sakura pens, unknown chipboard and fussy cut flower (courtesy of Mel!)

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Papercraft Star 19 and Make It Crafty

I made this card yesterday for the Papercraft Star challenge, which is to make something inspired by a Martha Stewart photo. The inspiration photo has lots of pale greens and light browns in it, which is what really drew my eye. I also used a sketch from Make It Crafty along with their theme, which is vintage. Every piece of paper used on this card was dyed using Tim Holtz Distress Inks, and I also used some Heirloom Gold Perfect Pearls on the bird and swirl to give it a nice patina. I had to take two photos, because the card looks really different depending on the angle you look at it. I showed it tomy daughter this morning and said, "Don't you just love the jeweled flowers?" and she said, "Oh yes! It gives it just the right touch!" She was dressed up as a princess for school, so she must've been practicing her princess talk!

Supplies: CTMH cardstock in Colonial White, Tim Holtz stamp set, Perfect Pearls, and Distress Inks in Shabby Shutters, Walnut Stain, and Tea Dye, Prima flower centers, unknown ribbon

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A Hallowe'en Kaylee card!

So I'm gonna let everyone in on a little secret here, so SHHHH! I am not a Hallowe'en lover! I know, bah humbug! It's not so much the dress-up part, that part is kind of fun (although I just finished reading a book where the main character dressed her baby up and went trick-or-treating with her so the parents could get free candy, which I think is totally ridiculous!) I think part of my attitude comes from my parents, who are Australian, and I don't think they ever heard of Hallowe'en until they moved to Canada. And then they were so religious, I had to listen to my dad go on about it being a Pagan tradition, devil worship, and so on, then my mom would have to talk him into letting us kids go out and have fun. So I guess my Hallowe'en experience was always tainted with parental arguments. However, I think my real issue with Hallowe'en is the amount of CARAP that gets handed out!!! I mean, seriously, have you ever read the list of ingredients on some of that candy? I try to feed my kids healthily and teach them good habits all year long, and then Hallowe'en comes along and it's like, "Hey, let's pump our kids up full of chemicals and dyes and see how crazy they go!" What we've done the last few years is keep the candy out of reach and give them a piece or two a day, but the problem with that is Jason and I eat it! (We're total hypocrites, I know, but I only eat the chocolate at least, Jason will eat any of it!) So that's my rant for the day. Hope ya liked it, tee hee! If anyone has any ideas of what to do with the mountains of candy that nobody (especially my hips) really needs, I'd LOVE to hear it!!!

Anyhoo, that said, here is a card I made, and I think I'll give it to Ailis because she just loves this Some Odd Girl image called 50's Kaylee. I coloured most of her with Copics, and then paper pieced her dress and shoes. I used some patterned paper I won as blog candy a while back and the September Stamp of the Month from Close to My Heart called Thriller for the sentiment and swirls. I used a sketch from Mercy Kerrin, which unfortunately I missed the deadline for, and I used the colours for the Some Odd Girl challenge and Dutch Dare challenge. Thanks for looking!

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Layout #69 and Creative Scrappers #125

My computer is infected with 24 viruses and I don't know how much longer I'll be here! I made this layout for Creative Scrappers sketch 125 (big celebration!), so hopefully I can get it linked up, but I don't know if it'll work, my computer is not letting me do ANYTHING!!! So if I don't get to visit your blogs, you know why. Amazing how much I've come to live in the virtual world. I feel like I'm going down on a sinking ship! Goodbye, all! It's been great...

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