Casing myself with spare parts

I haven't been much in the mood for stamping this past week cause it's been really a rough week.

The other day I posted that one of my aunts had passed away and that another one wasn't doing very well.

She has since passed on also and I've been pretty sad. Out of fifteen children in my mom's family, there are only four living now. I loved both of these ladies very much and have many cherished memories of time spent with them. I will miss them dearly!

I wanted to make some sympathy cards for some of my family members today but I really wasn't in the mood to be creative, so I took the easy way out and cased myself.

Last summer I participated in a swap and had some extra card parts already cut out and ready to go so that made the process much easier. Here is the card I made last summer for the swap:

Here is the card again, but in softer colors:
I think I like the softer tones better don't you?

I used my Cricut and Storybook and George cart for the cutout marquee and ovals (respectively).

The flower image is part of the Floral Whimsy set from Verve.

The papers I used were confetti white, blue, apricot and designer paper from Me & My Big Idea.

The images were colored using Copics.

The finishing touches are ribbon, butterflies, and embossing.

That's all I have for now. Maybe tomorrow I'll feel a little more creative. Fingers crossed!

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by to see me! TTFN

Hugs, Becky

Getting this in under the wire.

Jen (Iheart2stamp) has this awesome giveaway on her blog but the deadline is 6:00 PM today. While I had this card ready to post this morning, I had to take my daughter to get a state id so she could cash her paycheck now that she's a working girl. Wow! We just spent the last 3 1/2 hours standing, sitting and then standing again! I told her this was proof that I loved her very much and we both agreed that we never want to have that experience again.

Now, back to the card.

I painted pearl ex powder on chocolate cs and let it dry! I then stamped one of the floral images from my Floral Whimsy set (Verve). I also painted the flowers with pearl ex and then glossed them.

I also dotted pearl ex dots around the scallops and glossed them too!

All the edges were sponged with chocolate ink to give it a vintage look! I'm really happy with the way this turned out.

I'm gonna go ahead and get this posted so I can get it linked by the deadline. I mean, there's Verve money involved!

Y'all have a great day and I'll chat with you later! TTFN

Hugs, Becky

Purple pleasure

Hello my fellow stampers. It's late and I have to get up early so I'm gonna keep this short and simple. I love Jen's sketches and have missed doing them so I made it a point to set aside time to do this weeks sketch. I kept it clean and simple using white and eggplant and texture (lots of texture)! I used three different embossing folders. Stylized flowers, Allegro and one of my border folders. All I had to do was add a stamped oval sentiment(Verves Floral Whimsy), flowers and ribbon and I was finished! I like it and I hope you do too!

There it is! Short and simple as promised! I'm off to bed now but I hope to be back later on in the week! Y'all have a great day! TTFN

Hugs, Becky

Flights of Purple and Red

Happy Sunday! Hope you all had a great weekend! It was so pretty here yesterday and my family and I enjoyed it. I hope the weather where you are has been nice and sunny!

Yesterday evening I felt like my mojo for stamping had returned, so I played around in my stamping room (the most neglected room of my house at the moment) a little bit and came up with this card.

I've been thinking of my mom a lot lately. I was going through her videos earlier in the week! They had been boxed up and put in the garage and I'm trying to do some spring cleaning and most of them were T. V. programs she had recorded but I did come accross a few home movies with her in them acting like the beautiful big kid that she was! This card is in honor of her! I love you mom!

The butterfly was cut and embossed with my Cuttlebug. I then sponged on white pigment ink and covered it with glossy accents! It's stunning and I love the results!

The sentiment is Verve's Floral Whimsy and was stamped in Red Pigment on an oval panel cut using my Cricut and heat embossed.

These aren't colors ( eggplant, red and celery) I would typically put together, but I like they way they look together. Isn't it fun and springy?

I know I talk about my mom quite a bit here on my blog and I hope you never tire of me talking about her. She was and amazing lady and my inspiration! She used to get very excited when she saw me in my stamp room and would sit and watch me create my cards. When she left this world, she left a hole in my heart as big as Texas! It's getting smaller as time goes by, but it's still there! Thanks for hanging in there with me! TTFN

Big Hugs, Becky

Jumping back in the challenges on SCS

We have internet back in our house! Can you hear me cheering?!!! No more trips to the library and one hour limits. It also means I can get back to blurfing. Color me happy!!!!!

First thing this morning, I headed over to Split Coast Stampers to check out the Featured Stamper Challenge. That's always a good source for inspiration and boy howdy, did I need it. The featured stamper this week is none other than the amazing Bar. Have you seen her stuff? It's amazing!!!! I spent quite a while hanging out in her gallery, drooling over her designs and finally decided that I'd like to try this one.

Now the rules of this challenge are that you have to change up the design a little, so I used a different sentiment stamp, pulling out my Verve Floral Whimsy for this task. I also left the buttons off and took the ribbon-border treatment all the way across. I didn't want to mess with the layout cause that's what attracted me to it in the first place. I love the way it turned out but it still pales in comparison to Bar's card.

Stamp time is almost over for the day! Gonna shut her down when the Super Bowl starts! Since our Cowboys didn't make it, we're rooting for our neighbors, The Saints! Sorry Colts fans.

Y'all have a great day! TTFN

Hugs, Becky

Sketches 96

Good morning, good morning, good morning to you! I'm sorry, I'm still in a singing mood after last nights announcement that Kris Allen (insert loud applause) is the new American Idol. Sorry, my voice isn't nearly as nice as his:)

Enough of that babble. I'm sure you didn't come here for that. What you really came here for is this week's Sketches challenge, right? Well let's get right down to it now. Here for your viewing pleasure is the sketch layout, designed for you by none other than the fabulous Tamara.


Pretty cool layout don't ya think? Look what I did with it.

I'm still showing my new Verve stamps the love that they deserve. I love all the sentiments in this set! I stamped the sentiment in brown on a panel that I cut using my Cricut and Storybook Cart. That beautiful decorative corner was cut from the same cart. I ink embossed the kraft background with my Cuttlebug and Argyle Folder. I love these colors together don't you.

Be sure to stop by the Sketches site to see what the other ladies on the team did with it. They're fabulous. We'd love for you to play along with us and do the sketch too.

I gotta run now. I have so much to do and too little time to do it in. It's that time of year when the kiddos are almost out of school and the teachers and kids try to pack as much last minute stuff in as they can. It'll end soon enough though so I'm not complaning! Have a wonderful day and thanks for stopping by! TTFN

Hugs, Becky

My first Verve card

I have a swap to go to the end of the month and wanted some new stamps for it. I had this picture in my head of what I wanted, I just had to search for the perfect stamp. I found it while browsing around the Verve site. It's a set called Floral Whimsey and I love it. So today I am sharing with you the design of the card I'm taking to the swap. It'll be a little different because I am still waiting for my paper from Stampin Up, (I'll be using Kiwi Kiss instead of the green used here and the ribbon is going to be different) but I just wanted to get the design on paper to see if it would be something I would be proud to take.

The oval shape and marquee shape were cut using my Cricut and George and Graphically Speaking cart(respective order). The green panel was stamp embossed using my Cuttlebug and Argyle folder. The flowers were colored using a Copic marker and the border was made using my Threading Water Punch. I added the punched butterflies with Glossy Accents on them as an afterthought, but really love the dimension they give.

I hope the ladies at the swap like it. I always enjoy this swap and come home with some fantastic swap cards. It's been over a year since I went to the last one and I'm really looking forward to it! I gotta get a move on though. Now that I have the design, I need to get them all cut and bagged to go. I have two weeks so as long as nothing comes up, I should be fine.

Switching gears here, did any of you Grey's fans watch the seasone finale. Wow! I was surprised. I'm not gonna give anything away here just in case you haven't seen it yet, but wow!

I'm gonna head off now. I have a couple of design cards I need to get cracking on. Have a wonderful day and thanks so much for stopping by. TTFN

Hugs, Becky