Oh Goodies!!

Hey - Martha Stewart just used the coolest pink Sharpie!! She was making rabbit finger puppets. Adorable! PS - her new cookie cookbook is amazing. I made the cookies on p. 173 - chocolate chocolate walnut. Hers call for white chocolate but I used dark chocolate because I gag just THINKING about white chocolate. ack!!!

Anyway, get that cookbook - it's amazing. I had a crazy weekend so I didn't get to try any more recipes, but I will share what I do try.

Anyway, here's my second Christmas card of the evening!! I know - it's weird. But so are the crazy worms that start to hang from our trees this time of year all Tim Burton style! So I'd rather think about snow!!

This is DoodleFactory Winter, colored with copics and SU! Markers. The rightmost green present is popped up - stamped on Green Galore CS with white craft ink, then embossed with Iridescent Ice Embossing Powder. The whole scene is glittered with a Spica Glitter Pen. The snowflakes are stamped with teh ultimate glue pad, and then sprinkled with Stampin' Up! glitter. This glue pad is amazing. It preserves all the detail of the image when glittered. I'm a super fan!

The snowman and greeting are stamped in Brilliance Graphite Black.

It's Christmas!!

Well, in my stamp room, anyway. I'm still having fun with the DoodleFactory images, and I love this little winter set. I especially adore the little fella with the Menorah! Since I am nearly CERTAIN that Hannukah colors are blue & silver, you KNOW I love it. So I colored him blue.

The photo here doesn't show you a few details.. There's lots of glitter on their eyeballs, the little wind-up handle and the menorah. Also, the "ornaments" have acetate behind the windows.

I also shaded around the greeting in Cool Grey #1 to give them a little dimension but it gets a little washed out in the photo.

I made the ornament hangers out of SU! wire works and just drew the little toppers.

Happy Holidays!! :)

It's Like You're Reading my Mind!

I haven't had time to create anything this week at all. I really would like to remedy that this weekend but unfortunately I have a million events crammed in. :( However, you guys have filled the blog gap for me by SENDING me some beautiful things and sweet gifts!!

First, to my friend Lynne in Canada. Lynne's husband is an honorary Texan and comes here for work quite a bit! So I'm hoping to see her use "y'all" on a regular basis very soon!

She offered to send me some seed beads for my fuzzy chicks, and I got them, along with a million cool gifts! First, little shamrocks and teeny little metal tag embellishments that I hope to reveal soon! Wow. THEN, this beautiful card with one of my all time favorite Stampin' Up! sets - Watercolor Garden. Now Lynne - how did you make the background for this? Is it the marble/reinker technique? Please leave a comment on the post so everyone will know. It's amazing! Then, along with the beads, she sent me a strip of this FREAKING ADORABLE wallpaper border with bunnies on it!! She knows I have a wabbit weakness!!! Thanks Lynne - you are a sweetheart!!

Then, sweet Andi from Crafts on a Whim, who featured me as a Featured Crafter, sent me this crazy beautiful blingy card - look at how the colored paper squared EXACTLY match that gorgeous flower.!!!!!!!!!!! And there are stickles in the centers of the flowers on the patterned paper, as well as on the greeting - it's stunning. Thanks Andi!!! She featured me and then sent ME a thank you note - what a great lady!!

I hope all you ladies are having a great Saturday! I'm headed off to a pseudo-stamping event tonight that should be super fun. My ex-barista, who then came to work with me is getting married, and I designed her Save the Dates that I shared with you. Her invites we set up on Stampin' Up! Cardstock, and tonight everyone that is attending her shower which is tomorrow is getting together tonight to assemble the invites. Wine, gossip - should be a blast! :)

I'm working on a little something I can hopefully share tomorrow!

Sorry - I got all excited!!

And I forgot to go snag the pic. Here's the chick posing with his immortality on Martha's site! Yay!!

My silk dyed eggs didn't make the cut, but that's totally okay because they don't have a face!!!

MY FUZZY CHICK IS FAMOUS!!!!!!!!!!!!

MARTHA POSTED MY CHICK ON HER SITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Easter Everybody!!!

Boy, I love Easter. When I was little it always meant a new, super fluffy adorable dress. For me, always purple, usually checked, always with a hat, gloves and white patent leather shoes - Mary Janes. *sigh*... I moved to Texas from Buffalo, NY at age 3 and for the first few years the heat would just make me pass right out when it got hot. So my parents put a hat and gloves on me all the time. Hilarious pictures from that era I must say.

But aside from the obvious, wonderful reason we celebrate Easter, I'm going to list a few more things I love.

1) The world's cutest fuzzy animals everywhere - bunnies and chicks. OMG. I wish this lasted all year.

2) The candy - I love a robin's egg or any M&M type thing with a pastel shell and some freshly made milk chocolate in it. And who doesn't love those little sugary eyeballs off the chocolate bunnies??

3) The weather - wow is it beautiful. Sunny, I've walked every day, gotten some sun, seen bumblebees, Monarch butterflies, redbuds blooming, mountain laurels, bradford pears - it's all stunning.

4) Open windows. This speaks for itself.

5) Longer days. I'm one of those people that really needs a lot of sunshine. Thank God for the longer days.

6) The end of close toed shoes!! Chriss is laughing right now because she knows that even in the dead of winter I am wearing open toed shoes, but I am opposed to close toed shoes in general even if I'm not wearing them!!

7) Summer's comin, bay-beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

:)

Here's my entry for Beate's Sketch challenge. Her layout is really cool, because it allows you to feature something small, which is all the "inchie" rage right now. And personally, I love tiny creatures, and this is a fabby way to show them off. So I made a round inchie bunny with my 1" round punch and two clear stamps I got in the $1 bin at Michaels. I'm kind of surprised at what good quality they are. The "Happy Easter" is from SU! A Good Egg set. I mounted all this on a chocolate chip pocket note. I love those darn things. Then I made my dots, a la Markie's Mom around the whole thing with my white gel pen. I colored my itty bitty bunny with copics - B01 & Y11.

Happy Easter. Thanks for stopping by.

Tag - You're It!

I'm being wicked with tonight's SCS challenge!! It's the WT158 challenge - we're supposed to use "tags" we have laying around.

Tee hee...

Doodle Factory Urban for the stamps!

I did the "tag" with white sharpie paint pen and then used my SU! air tool to splatter from the same pen. I outlined the white letters with black ink.

Mo' Bettah Blue

I made this for the SCS sketch challenge today into a love note sized card and took some liberties by substituting a paint chip for the scaled shapes on the sketch. Since I just painted my stamp room blue, I had tons of paint chips and I loved this one called Mo' Better Blue. Each panel on the chip is a different size just like the sketch.

The cupcake is from Holiday Blitz set and I colored it with Copics. I've never made a black love note before!

Alien Invasion!!

This took shape slowly with lots of mistakes, for example, stamping the city first when I knew I wanted to mask the alien invaders. Dur. I'm sleepy. Since the city is stamped twice and lined up at sidewalk level, that was a bummer.

I think I recovered swimmingly though - with no gaps around my little creatures from my mask, and yes, a BLUE cityscape - aaaahhhh..

Colored with copics on Whisper White, my scene is... You can't really see the little touch of green in the alien creatures. Doesn't it look like that one on the right is saying "Come on, this doesn't seem right - they're all so nice and happy here..." and the other one is all - "YOU STUFF ONE OF THOSE LITTLE HUMANOIDS IN YOUR BELLY RIGHT NOW BEFORE I STUFF IT IN THERE FOR YOU, BURZTROID!!!"


That's what it looks like to me anyway! :)

I'm sooo.... sleepy. Thank goodness American Idol is ending. ZZZZZ

Need a Lift?

Tomorrow is Monday, so you must. I'm still being inspired by the Dylan's Candy Lunchbox - I love those brightly colored circles!!





This is Doodle Factory City - my little best friend Yapples from Creatures and the plane is from the new completely crazy hilariously cute Urban Images. Can't wait to play with the spray paint!!

I colored him with Copics and hand wrote "Need a Lift. Cardstock is Tempting Turquoise and Green Galore. Punches are 3/4" and 1" circle punches from SU!

Wait till you see the new Country images that are coming... ;) If you can stare at Sfen the wabbit for 5 seconds without smiling, I owe you a Cherry Coke!!

Have a good week!

PS - check out the Transportation Challenge at Caardvarks!! This little baby is headed over there!

A few Challenges

Okay - this first one was done for the Inspiration Challenge on SCS today which is ADORABLE. I love the website!!! I took the lunchbox image as my inspiration.


I loved the stripes, and those layered dots above the line art images. I knew I must have some cool Basic Grey striped paper!!!



And I did. I also knew I had some cute line art. The teeny version of the Doodle Factory Creatures - they come in two sizes and the teeny ones are quite fetching. I took the Min Positive Words and tried to find some things to give the "Don't Judge a Book by its Cover" flavor - what do you think?





Next, I did the Dirty Dozen gallery Central Theme play along. The gallery is amazing this month. Man do I love Michelle Zindorf!!

Hard to choose this month though - I love the coffee/gift theme and these girls did some amazing things with that simple idea.

So I used tea instead of coffee for my project. The cups are stamped with the retired What's Brewin' set in Rose Red and cut out. The letters and numbers are cuttlebugged out of the Hostess prints pack on Rose Red Designer paper. Then that's layered on Barely Banana, Basic Grey and then a River Rock base.

I really like these colors! Do you?

Ouch. My back hurts from stamping. Better go.

Jane Schenck- don't peek!!

Okay Jane - you've been warned. Later in this post there's going to be a card that you will be getting, so close this browser window & come back later!!

First of all, check out these tulip images from Creativeplaystamps.com - there's a negative and a positive image - very photographic and cool. I accented these with a Krylon Gold Leaf pen and some images from Stampin Up!'s Travel Post set. After I stamped the travel images in Ballet Blue, I colored around them with an SU! pure color pencil (black) to make them look a little dimensional. I use my Ballet Blue pad a lot so it's a little pale..

Now the downside of a gold leafing pen is that it rubs off very easily. I'm sure there's some sealer or something you can use, but I'm not thrilled. It's a bummer because it's such a beautiful bright gold. Most gold paint pens are much duller than this.

Then, I'm still being prevented from posting my fuzzy chicks on Martha Stewart.com and I'm extremely snarky.

Speaking of Martha, two things. One, I have found proof that we were separated at birth. She admitted on her show that she too eats sweetened condensed milk out of the can with a spoon!!! mmmmm!!!!!!!!!!!!

Two, she had this egg dying technique on that I HAD to try. I went to TJ Maxx and bought some cheap 100% silk ties and scarves. Ties were what she used on the show. I cut the fabric into squares and wrapped it around eggs. Then I wrapped a square of cotton white thin dishtowel around that, tightly, and tied the whole thing tightly with a twisty.




Then, I put them in a pot with water and 1/4 cup white vinegar, brought it to a boil and then simmered it for 20 minutes. I pulled them out, let them cool, unwrapped them, and behold!!

Now the two paler ones were made with ties. Apparently that silk was either fake or had some other material in it because the transfer was not very good. The one on the right with the little diamonds was a Geoffrey Beene tie. The pink one and the one in front were beautiful scarves, and the transfer is so detailed that on the pink one you can very clearly see a word that was printed on the scarf!! It's really amazing and fun! The lady on the show said you can use the silk several times. I have no idea if these would be edible, so you probably shouldn't eat them. I'm sure that's not food grade dye and all of it came from China, so just enjoy the way they look, and as your mom would say - DON'T PUT THAT IN YOUR MOUTH!! To make them shiny, you just rub a little vegetable oil on them!

So I recommend scarves - works great! Very fun.
I would post them on Martha's site if they would lift the ban!!!


Until then, lets talk about Jane's card! My friend Jane has been a tad under the weather, so I made her this card. I really thought about making it with the Dilly Dally set that she hates so much (tee hee) but I love her too much, and I just love this crazy little Doodle Factory sheep!!
I wish Kristina Werner would let us send her our cards to put her perfect handwriting on, but I don't think that's in the works, so I had to use my own handwriting here. Blah.
Anyway, he's cute as bug in a rug, isn't he?? I colored him with Copics, used the SU! punch, ribbon, felt flowers, rhinestone brad and textured cardstock. My sis found these teeny shape punches somewhere and I used those for the little starbursts. They show the inside of the card, which is also orange textured cardstock.

I hope you guys are having a good weekend. I just realized I've done NOTHING for St. Patty's day - what the heck???

L8R.

Color Challenge

This card is for Kristina Werner's color challenge. It's a beautiful combo, I think, and it really called out for a chocolate bunny, don't you?



The combo was Chocolate Chip, Purely Pomegranate, Pretty in Pink and Pumpkin Pie.

The big picture doesn't show the glitter pen on the egg halves, so I included a closeup.

Supplies: Chocolate Chip Textured Cardstock, Purely Pomegranate DSP from the hostess set of prints pack, Pumpkin Pie striped ribbon, Dottie Bunny Stamp from Ellen Hutson, Copics (RV11, E37 & the colorless blender), A Good Egg Stamp Set, White Craft Ink. (All supplies except the bunny from Stampin' Up!)




Hope you like it! :)



Now LOOK! I didn't know you could upload your photos to Martha Stewart and she WOULD SHOW YOUR FUZZY CHICKS ON TV! I'm so mad! There were the cutest chicks on there today. So I went over there to upload and the place to register is down! And now my chicks have eyes and everything and they really need to be on TV!! Grr!!!


PS - Blogger going out at 5 PM Pacific time! EEK.



If you have problems, just check back later.

Heyyyyyy Cupcake, Fuzzy Chicks - It's Insane over here...

So.... Shanna & Jenn have been dying for the Cupcake updates, so here you go ladies. *sigh*

Today was stunning. Warm, sunny, sky without a cloud. I went for an afternoon stomp (teeny sunburn working) with no Ipod, just the glorious Texas spring. While I was out I got an email on my crackberry from Shanna asking about the cupcakes. Since I had not eaten all day, I thought to myself - "Self, you should have a cupcake." And so I did. At about 2:30 I headed to Hey Cupcake in the celebrated SoCo (South Congress) area. I needed to get there before rush hour and/or dangerously low blood sugar. I found it and there was a LINE!!! This place is insane! If insane means - plopped down on earth by angels, and hence, understandably busy!!

Luckily, while in line, I got to hear people in front of and behind me oohing and aahing about what cupcake they were gonna get. See the sandwich board there? It offers a mere 7 cupcake types along with - wait for it - something called a Whippersnapper. This involves taking the cupcake of your choice and injecting fresh whipped cream into it until it comes out the top of the cupcake! A little girl in front of me got one, and I'm not gonna lie, I had all sorts of unclean thoughts about grabbing that 7 year old by the ponytail and taking her cupcake! Don't judge me - you weren't there! But I waited. When I got up there, there was a step stool for vertically challenged folks like myself to stand on so that they can actually see you through the window. I popped up there and chatted with the sweetest lady who was making panicked calls to her cupcake mafia begging for more cupcakes. They're never in danger of running out of Red Velvet cupcakes by 2:30, she relays to me. Surely they can get a police escort to rectify THAT situation. The horror!! So I get a box of six. Two "Double Dose" - chocolate with chocolate icing, Two "Vanilla Dream" and two Red Velvet. They came in this beautiful box, that, I'm not gonna lie, looks like a Nichole Heady creation. Gorgeous! Open the box, and you get this loveliness, which I actually had to snap a pic of while still in the car.

Then I really needed a car wash in the worst way.. And let me tell you - there are few things I enjoy more. :)

So there was a delay in what we will forever now refer to as Cupcake Bliss Bomb 2008.

Oh freaking my. I chose as my victim the vanilla dream. I love love love a vanilla cupcake. This one threw me off because the frosting was pink, but oh freaking my. I could tell life was getting good when I took off the wrapper. The cupcake was so soft it almost couldnt' support the frosting. It spilled out over the top like a muffin. (If you are picturing Elaine screaming "Top of the Morning TO YA" right now, we were separated at birth.) I took a bite. The frosting was so light and fluffy that if I didn't taste its slightly coconutty, sweet but not too sweet goodness, I wouldn't have believed it was there at all. OMG. The cupcake was PURRRRRRfect. Whispery soft, perfectly cooked... Divine. I'm pretty sure these will be served in Heaven. For every meal. And quite possibly snacks & pick me ups. I'm really going to try not to eat another one today, so wish me luck. Did you know that really really good cupcakes make an enchanting little singing sound that makes u wanna open their box? I'm just sayin...

Okay, I should probably talk about just a little bit of stamping, eh? I do want to let you know that I am under the influence of both a car wash and some high blood glucose levels though, so forgive me for any stamping faux pas! First, have I told you people how much I love Martha Stewart? Did you know that she climbed Mount Kilamanjaro by herself? Her guide got altitude sickness and had to descend at 19,000 feet and she made the decision to go on alone, dizzy and eating snow to hydrate. An amazing woman she is. How in the world does someone that tough come up WITH THE WORLDS CUTEST POM POM ANIMALS? One of the seven wonders of the world, the pom pom, I believe. I made these little chicks ( I can't find good beads for their eyes yet so for now, they are sleeping) after seeing some adorable creatures on her site. I am going to work on the bunnies tonight during American Idol. (Ouch, my sunburn is starting to hurt.)

These adorable little fellas are made with the craziest soft fuzzy yarn I found at JoAnn's - my new favorite place. I also bought a pom pom maker there, but I found that the ones that you make just wrapping the yarn around your fingers are faster and much easier to deal with during an intense episode of Lost or AI. OMG I AM WATCHING HER SHOW AND HER NEW BOOK MARTHA STEWART COOKIES COOKBOOK GOES ON SALE TODAY!!

Oops, I'm supposed to talk about stamping now I think....

Thanks for hanging with me this long! Remember, if there are retired sets you're pining for, please email me - I might have it. I'm about to Ebay but want to give you a chance first. Also, if you're not on my mailing list, email me your address and I'll mail you a card.

Okay, so today I saw the Carol Duval show (applause is completely appropriate) and there was a lady from Magenta Stamps (which I love) on there who was cutting up paper and making these wonderful mosaic frames. However, when she started, she made these little feathery shapes first before she filled in the rest of the frame and I thought they were beautiful. They made me think of my Red Castle Canaries, so I grabbed one and got to work. The patterned paper is Basic Grey. I colored the canary with Copics, and freehand drew two lines as a frame for the bird. One with a Stampin' Up! Bashful Blue marker and one with a Sakura Gelly Roll Glitter Pen. Thanks for reading all this, or for napping 20 minutes ago - either way! :) I'm happy you were here no matter how long!! :) Happy Stamping!

TTFN

Tag, I'm it!

Teresa, a Starving Artistamps sister designer, TAGGED me this morning. This sweet woman has done the most amazing things with the silhouette flowers - check here out here.

So now I must share 7 random things about myself.

1) I am terrified of elevated highway overpass ramps. You know, those hideous, curved, way too high to really work for any length of time, bridge-like things over I-35 and other poorly designed roads. My chest tightens, my knuckles get white, I sweat. It's awful. I'm not at all afraid of heights, oddly enough - I would live at the top of the Sears Tower in a glass box, but these things are SCARY.

2) I can write my name backwards with my right hand and frontwards with my left hand at the same time. I'm right handed.

3) I got licked by a white tail deer once and found out I'm deathly allergic to deer licking!!

4) Tranquilizers make me crazy hyper and stimulants make me sleepy.

5) When I was little, a lady walked past me and my friend David with a paper bag and was very disoriented and crazy looking. She asked us for directions and walked off without listening. She had just shot her husband at the mall.

6) I love every dairy product on the face of the earth!

7) I laugh uncontrollably until I'm in tears on rollercoasters - the scarier they are the harder I laugh!

Now it's my turn to tag a few..

Markie's Mom - This woman is amazing. You will fall in love with her cards, her wonderful style (those dots are incredible) but especially with her stories.

Cee Cee - You are going to love this site if it's not already in your favorites. A funny & talented stamper, her bikini cards are going to make you laugh!!

Jody Morrow - this fellow Texan is already quite famous in the stamping world - rightfully so. Check out her tutorial on drunken watercolor. It's incredible. Totally trying that when I'm done with this post.

Kelly - if you don't absolutely freak out and squeal when you see the birthday card she posted today, you need to see a doctor!

Sharon - Her inchies are pretty much the cutest I've seen. I'm hooked!!! I love this woman's site!

Carole - There is nothing better than a funny blogger! This lady does beautiful work but also really makes me giggle!!

Michele - just when I think I know what her "Style" is, she surprises me, which I love. This woman does beautiful watercolor and be sure and check her Live, Love Bloom post. Incredible.

Enjoy the blog tour! Buses leaving every half hour! :)

Seeing Spots!

Here are the office treats I made.. I've had these little carrot boxes for years and unearthed them during my scorched earth stamp room remodel. I love them. You can't really see the top of the boxes but the top has like a little carrot top on it. Cute.

Then the bunny is the Ellen Hutson Dotty Bunny - awww - I LOVE this - colored with copics and cut out. I stamped "Happy Easter" from A Good Egg on the back.

The Jelly Bellies are Tangerine!

Picture fixed!

Oops - Thanks Britiney! The pic is fixed now! See previous post!

An Asp by any other name...

Judie asked a great question about the asp. I always forget that Texas is really its own country, and things are different here.. Everywhere else, an asp is a poisonous snake (Shakespeare, anyone?). But in the Great Republic of Texas, an asp is a poisonous fuzzy caterpillar, the larvae of something called the Flannel Moth, which I find quite hilarious, since flannel is fuzzy too.

It's also called a puss caterpillar. There's this adorable video on YouTube of one. Watch out - it's poisonous! Don't pick it up! But ADMIT - you want to!!!

Now, speaking of Judie, look at this card I received. It's beautiful, and hard to see in the photo. First of all, she made it - which is incredible. I thought she bought it until I turned it over. The sunset and trees you see are part of the vellum layer - this vellum is beautiful. The side has a strip of some stunning pearl carstock, which is embossed and decorated with half pearls and pearl ribbon. It is a show stopper.

But it's the inside that just kills me, in the best sense of the word. I can hardly type this:

Four Feet in Heaven, by Alice Chase.

• Your favorite chair is vacant now
• No eager purrs to greet me.
• No softly padded paws to run
• Ecstatically to meet me.
• No coaxing rubs, no plaintive cry
• Will say it's time for feeding.
• I've put away your bowl and all
• The things you won't be needing.
• But I will miss you, little friend.
• For I could never measure
• The happiness you brought me,
• The comfort and the pleasure.
• And since God put you here to share
• In earthly joy and sorrow.
• I'm sure there'll be a place for you
• In Heaven's bright tomorrow.

Thank you Judie. There's no way for me to say how touched I am. You have been so kind. Hawaii doesn't feel so far away today.

Bee Furry!

I am love with this furry bee. Well, all things furry, really. But don't you just love a furry bee? I shouldn't say this in black & white because I'll bring myself bad luck, but I've never been stung by a bee. An evil red wasp, but never a bee. And I remember these big clumsy furry bees on our honeysuckle where I grew up. You could totally touch their fur - they were too fat to get mad about anything. I love a furry bee. I went to the world's best preschool - Mrs. French ran it in Bryan, and we had geese and ducks and all sorts of creatures in the yard that we could play with. One that I particularly liked one day was a white, fuzzy ASP!! I didn't know any better. If you're me, and something is fuzzy, you pet it. Anything else is unthinkable. So I plopped my butt down in the yard, picked up this gorgeous white fuzzy asp, put him on the palm of my hand and patted him like there was no tomorrow. Some of his fur was short and some was long. I guess he liked me. So when recess was over Mrs. French came out to get me (I've never been good at coming in from recess) she saw me and froze in horror at the asp in my paw. She went and got the janitor, who, much to my dismay, put a baby food jar over the asp on my palm, and then whacked the other side of my hand until the asp fell into the jar. Only after that did they tell me that those things sting. Clearly a lie - it didn't sting me! I never really believed adults about anything after that. Still don't. ;) These two furry bees are stamped in Brilliance Graphite Black and colored with Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre and Black Copics. The bee is outlined in Cool Grey #1. Then a little Martha Stewart Gel Craft Glue and some Dazzling Diamonds glitter and my bees are perfect. They are stamped on 3x3 Whisper White Stampin' Up! notes, and I used my SU 1/4" punch to punch a circle. I tacked it to the INSIDE of my card, and then on the front of my card I went around it with my Impressor embossing tool. Easy. The words are from Min Positive Words by Starving Artistamps.

Yesterday, when I got this in the mail, it stopped my heart. My brother in law & sister in law had a tree planted in Spot's honor in Yellowstone. The company that does this is called 4 Paws Forever and there's a link now in my new "Blue List" of things I love to the right. I cannot believe this beautiful drawing on the front of the card - it just squeezes my heart every time I look at it. I'm going to get it framed today. The picture doesn't do the delicate little drawing justice. What an incredible gift. Last year they named a star for Spotty!! They love animals and are incredibly sweet people. They adopted the most adorable dog - Lefty - that you've ever seen. Wow.

Check out the new Starving Artistamps Gallery Blog. There are some beautiful things here. These women are extraordinarily talented. I think you'll especially like Teresa's silhouette card that was posted yesterday using DSP from Stampin Up! Beautiful.

Hoo Loves Owls?

First of all - a note to Jayne - I would so love that (Grayspot) - will you send me pictures? Email me.

Okay - on to a little Sassafrass Lass cuteness. I love both the Olivia and Oliver sets soooo much. There's definitely a shortage of owls in the world.

I have two in my backyard. They're like little furry baseballs and they're so cute.

On this one I did paper piecing to give my owl a cute pink plaid jacket.

The Exciting News & 2 Challenges

Well besides being the featured crafter, I will post my other exciting news. I have sort of a joint venture working with Marmalade Skies in Austin - an extremely cool arts & crafts studio, run by some of the nicest people I've ever met. I met the husband of the owner at a superbowl party and was dying to meet the woman who really has my dream job, and I finally did! This fun studio offers classes, birthday parties, boys and girls clubs and ladies' nights for crafters of all ages. We are going to sell my bunny baskets for starters this month, and here's the email we sent out. Then in April, which is their anniversary month, I believe I will be able to teach a class or two there. This is such a great business, and I'm really looking forward to working with these crazy talented and sweet women.

Next, a combo challenge. This is for the Gina K. release party challenge, and also for Beate's weekend sketch challenge. Using my fave sweet little elephant and that fabulous new colored twill tape - the texture of this ribbon is fantastic - you'll love it. I used my purple glitter pen that my friend Lu got me to bling up her ear, but you can't really see it in this pic.

Then, the Limited Supply Challenge - which I really had fun making. I adore this little bunny, and have to confess, I bought the whole Holiday Blitz set just because of him. I know, I'm crazy. But look how cute he is. The challenge was a small, limited supply card. I was very frugal with the scrap of designer paper (Rebecca, from Stampin' Up!) and I cut it into quarters and used it on the inside, which I think is super cute. I made a matching swirly line around my bunny with a glitter pen and the dots on the front with my white gel pen. I colored him with Positively Pink and Rose Romance markers. Please tell me you love him.

Now, speaking of bunnies, last night I had the craziest dream that I had to hold this huge, angry bunny that was biting me while I waited for this incompetent magician to cue me to do something with the rabbit. But he wandered around and delayed starting the show and this bunny is getting hotter and madder and heavier. I kept telling the magician that it wasn't very nice to hold the bunny for an hour and I thought we should put him down but he wouldn't let me. I was literally exhausted when I woke up from hauling around my hot dream bunny! So today I found the bunny on the internet that was in my dream. There are these huge rabbits called Flemish Giant Rabbits and they can be 22 pounds!! THAT IS MY DREAM BUNNY! Check out the furry feet on this bad boy. I kind of want one. See ya.