My Mama's birthday was yesterday 5/26, this is the card I made for her. I just love those Prima flourishes in the flat backed pearls, so pretty. The flowers are cut from Prima paper also.

These are some "Twinchies" I did for an ArtChix swap. I love adding rub-ons to the smaller collages like inchies, twinchies, moo cards, etc. It seems to bring the whole thing together, at least I think it does.

This tag and tag holder is for the STAMPOTIQUE'S 7th blog challenge. The one requirement was to use a template of some kind. I'm not sure why I took so many pictures of this tag & tag holder, but I guess I just wanted you all to get a good look at all the different angles. Above this paragraph is the actual template I used. It is from Club Scrap from when I was a member. If you've never checked Club Scrap out, you should. They have amazing, and I do mean amazing kits that they send out. Not only do you get the custom made papers, custom made matching stamps that go with the monthly theme, but they also include templates like this one in some of the months and they have embellishment packs & greeting card packs if you want them.
I absolutely loved being a member. However, financially things got pretty tight for me and I had to cancel my membership. I'm hoping one day I can go back. They truly are an awesome company. The good thing about their stamps too is that you can't get them anywhere else, they are one of a kind to Club Scrap. I got so many great stamps when I was a member there.

At any rate, back to the template and photos. I used "Perl" & "Gibi" on the actual tag. Even though this is a slim tag, those Stampotique stamps are thin enough for them to fit. As you can see from the template, you have the option of being able to include little holes & squares on your tag holder. I did initially put them on the tag holder, but I decided I didn't like that so I covered one side up with another panel of paper & I covered up the other side with buttons. I sure hope everyone likes the tag and tag holder.

I just have really enjoyed doing these challenges with Stampotique and their Design Team. These stamps right now are hotter than heck. I think everyone I talk to is either ordering them, wants to order them or is waiting on an order. Then of course Jo Capper-Sandon has her new stamps out through Stampotique. Those are awesome as well. I hope to get my hands on her bumble bees & the mushrooms sometime in the near future. If you haven't seen her stamps yet, that is also worth your while to check out. As I said, those are at Stampotique as well. Jo certainly deserves all of her new success, she's an amazing artist and I'm so happy for her.

Okay, well I've blabbed on for long enough now. I hope everyone has a wonderful week.

This is the Mother's Day card I made for my Mama. For some reason I wasn't really thrilled with it, it seemed like something was off or it was missing something. I made it on bookboard and gave her an easel to put it on. I've gotten to where I like doing that instead of the traditional card sometimes. Because then it becomes a decorative piece as oppose to a card that gets put away after the celebrated day is over.

This is the card I made for the latest STAMPOTIQUE challenge. The theme was "Thinking Out of the Box". As soon as I heard what the theme was my first thought was of one of the images standing next to an actually box and thinking. Kind of the literal version of the theme.

I want to apologize once again to whoever is interested for not posting much at all thus far this year. I've just been in slow mode lately and for some reason I can't seem to kick it into gear. Bare with me though, I'm hoping that I will be creatively productive very soon and go back to posting at least once week. I actually had one viewer of my blog tell me that she loved my work but she really wished I posted more often. On one hand that made me feel so great that she was that interested in me and on the other hand I felt horrible that I wasn't posting enough for her. I guess what it boils down to is that this is my blog and I have to go at whatever pace I need to go at, and I can only hope that people want to continue to follow me at whatever pace I go at. Blah, blah, blah......... I'm shutting up for now.

Springtime in the DESERT

Recently I took some photos of the springtime blooms around my house and neighborhood,

I thought I'd share a few with you. Okay it's more than a few, but I got carried away by the beauty of it all. A lot of people think that in the desert there really isn't much of a springtime or many blooms at all. I wanted to show you all that aren't very familiar with the desert that there is quite a bit of blooming going on in the spring. What never ceases to amazes me is that some of the most magnificent and incredibly beautiful flowers bloom on cactus's. It's such a contrast because you see the thorns that are long, sharp and just waiting to poke you, and in between those thorns are the prettiest flowers. They are big and bright and oh so beautiful.

You'll find that most people either love the desert or hate it, me, I adore the desert. You can find such beauty here everywhere you look. You should see this mountain behind my house, it's truly breathtaking. It's called the Superstition Mountains and there is also all kinds of tales about the mountain from centuries ago. About the miners looking for gold and people finding treasure up at the top of the mountain. Supposedly a lot of people still think there is gold in the mountains. Maybe I'll try and take a picture of the mountain to show you all next. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy my pictures of the desert in bloom.

This is my entry for the "Girly Girl" Challenge over at the Stampotique site. I cut out a bunch of brand names from a magazine, copied them and then colored them in with different colors. If shopping isn't what being a "Girly Girl" is all about, then I don't know what is?

I can tell now that I have picked up different influences in my artwork from some of the blogs I frequent. TumbleFish being one and maybe even a small about of Zetti (Teesha Moore) in there too. The last thing I want to do is copy someone else's work, but if I can learn from them and make it my own, then that's completely different. I can only hope that the people I've learned from take it as a compliment.

Well as it turns out I'm not so cut off from the Internet world as I thought I was. My step-dad is letting me use his very old, and very antiquated laptop until I get my beautiful DELL system back. Yeah!! Beggars can't be choosers. Now I can post on my blog as well, however lately I've been really bad about posting artwork, I need to give myself a swift kick in the butt and start posting more artwork. I just feel like I went into slow motion this last winter and I have yet to speed it up a bit. I tell ya what, I wouldn't wish this type of arthritis on my worst enemy. But I don't talk about that, too depressing. Moving on...........

At any rate, I wanted to tell you all if you haven't checked out Maya Road on their Facebook page yet, do it when you get a chance. It's worth it and as we all know their products are amazing. They are also having a wee giveaway on their Facebook page so if you leave a comment, you never know, you might win. But you have to be fast, I think they pick the winner tomorrow.

I also wanted to thank my new follower for joining my humble blog. I haven't had a chance to figure out who exactly it is yet, but I am very grateful and I welcome you and hope you find something positive or inspirational here.

Oh..and since I can't post any artwork for a few days or however long it takes for my computer to be fixed, I found these older photos on my step-dad's laptop I thought I'd share a couple with you. Hopefully I've never shown them before? This is when my sister and brother in law and I went to Key West. It wasn't all that long ago, but probably about 2 years. This is me and Steph in the bar after several cocktails and then on the beach at sunset. And the other photo is us leaving Key West on this big boat at sunset (going back to Fort Meyers). Isn't that the most beautiful photo of a sunset with water and everything? And to make things even more perfect, that sailboat just happen to be cruising on by when I was taking the photo. It really was a breathtaking sunset.

Talk to you soon. Hugs all around.

Computer Crashed &/or Virus

Just to give my viewers a heads up, this morning when I logged on I found out that I have a virus/worm, or I have a crashed computer. Not sure which? Dropped it off at Staples for repairs, will probably be four to five days.

Is it just me or are a lot of people having crashes right now? I know Marsha at TumbleFish had problems and then someone else on their blog but I can't think of their name right now. At any rate, boy does it suck. You really realize how much you do use the computer when you don't have it anymore.

Talk to you soon and take care.

I can't even believe it's been since March 17th since I last posted. For anyone who likes to follow me and notices when I'm gone, I sincerely apologize for that. I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am so honored to have 54 followers and I just want to make those followers happy or inspired in some way. I just hope that when I do post you get some sort of inspiration or something positive from my postings?

I haven't been posting much for a couple reasons. The first being my physical issues. I'm just finding that as I get older, I work a lot slower than I already did and I just have to get used to this new pace of mine. The second reason being is that I was working on something for Helga at ArtChix. And third, I just haven't found the time lately. I hope my wonderful followers understand?

These tags I made are a little different I know, but they are just something I was playing with the last few nights. I first did a random, free-style background using paints, gesso, bubble wrap, a few different stencils, plastic lids, old cardstock that has had larger holes punched out of it and so on. Once dry I used a black felt tip pen to add more to the background such as tiny dots around the larger circles and various borders. I then stitched all of the edges of each tag. I now wish I had used black thread, but I used white. I wanted to incorporate some acetate pieces made by Hambly which were journaling spots. They have lines for writing on them obviously and then flourishes and swirls. I just thought instead of using them for journaling I wanted to use them as an additional texture piece. And I pretty much made all of the tags a "Bird" theme. The stamped birds are either from Invoke Arts or from Character Constructions. I colored in the stamped birds with Stampin Up colored pens &/or Twinkling H2O's. The acetate journaling spots were actually put over each stamped bird. I attached most of the acetate pieces by sewing them on and one of them I attached with brads. I finished the tags off with a small little sticker quote. Like I said, they are a little different, but sometimes different is good. I'm actually really pleased with how they look (except for one of them).

I'm in the process of making a few cards using Crafty Individuals new stamps. I will post those as soon as I'm done. They have the most amazing stamps and they just get better and better. If you haven't been over to their website, do yourself a favor and check out their wonderful products. If you've never been over to their website, the first thing I would recommend doing if you do go to check it out, is to look at the finished pieces in their Gallery. It just seems to me like no matter what someone makes using their papers, stamps &/or images, it comes out so beautifully because you basically can't go wrong. Can you tell I just love their products?

Question Please?

I have what is probably a stupid question, but I figure someone out there in blog land will be kind enough to explain it to me. Okay here it is............. what is all the "Blog Candy" that is on everyone sites?? Is it a collective giveaway or what? I'm just not familiar with what it is, but what I do see is a lot of really great giveaways on every one's blogs. Anyone care to explain it to me??

This is for the Stampotique's 3rd challenge, the topic is "Spring". I'm having so much fun with these. I get it now, I get why everyone loves doing these blog challenges on the all the various blogs. I'm going to have to find a few more I like I think. Of course this one is close to my heart because I do love these images, these quirky characters are so much fun. I've had them for awhile and haven't used them a lot and now I'm using them all the time thanks to these challenges.

Stampers Sampler had the cutest birdhouse template in their last issue, which I took and enlarged and reduced the size of it. These are just a few of the birdhouses that I made using that template. I covered and decorated both sides, I personally think they'd be cute hanging in a kitchen window or something along those lines.