TS Monday Challenge...make a masculine card

I had a surprise grad announcement show up in the mail box for my first cousin's oldest son. I know that makes him a cousin, too, but I don't know all the correct descriptions for what kind of cousin he is. The challenge at Totally Stampalicious to make a masculine card was perfect timing for me. Teen boys are so hard to make cards for, but this frog is cool enough for just about any teen! He's one of the original images from TS and still one of my favorites! I found these papers a while back over at Hobby Lobby. I had never seen this company before and only at HL. It's called a Glitz Pack and the line is called Hey Dude. They are really cool papers for guys....lots of rock and grunge designs in these great neutral colors with just a splash of bright. I used SU!'s star punches to make layered starts for the bg. Stamped the sentiment on the largest of the stars. The frog was colored with Copic markers and then I went over the whole image with Versamark and clear embossing powder to give him some stiffness when I cut him out. He is popped up on dimensionals and has a great shine to him. I'm pretty pleased with how this came out. I added a couple of graduation sentiment stickers to the inside which is finished off with a layer of the light paper since I used a really dark brown card stock for the base.
I bet there's a Father's Day, graduation, or birthday card for a male you have on your list of things to do, so why not make it up and enter it in the TS challenge this week. This week they are giving away a set of stamps...the Hawt Dawg set that is so versatile and wonderful for masculine cards.

Magnolia on Bo Bunny

It's always dangerous for me when the LSS gets in new Bo Bunny papers and accessories because I just LOVE BO Bunny papers! Well, Tricia, the owner of our LSS, really did it to me this time!! She got in 4 new lines of Bo Bunny at one time!!! I had to have nearly every piece of three of them. I made this card with them Friday night. Kept it simple as it was my last card of the night and I'm not worth a whole lot after 8 pm.This was made at more like 9:30 and since I was "on the road," it was also made with limited supplies.
The image is a Magnolia I colored up with Copic markers. You can't see it, but she is all sparkly on her wings, crown, and flowers where I added glitter gel pen accents.
This was made for a friend who was also at the crop. Her birthday was yesterday and they had a small celebration for her at the store on Saturday, though I couldn't be there for that with all the grad stuff going on for my granddaughter. Dinner at the Olive Garden, was delish, by the way! My little granddaughter Kyli was with us and she ate so much we thought she was going to pop...salad, tomatoes, olives, bread sticks, calamari, Bo Bo's soup.....and that was before she got her dinner which she ate most of....mac and cheese! I've never seen her eat so much! Guess she really likes Olive Garden!

Graduation day

Today was graduation day for one of our granddaughters, Chelsea. Those of you who check in here regularly know that I have a granddaughter who is here most weekends and any other chance I get to steal her away...that's Kyli, my only biological grandchild so far. Through my husband's children, I have also been blessed with 6 other grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. One of the oldest graduated this morning from one of the local high schools. She had nearly 500 classmates, so the ceremony was very long and very crowded! Here are a couple of shots of her special day.

The two mugs behind Chelsea are me and my ever-tolerant hubby. He sure puts up with a lot from me! Here is the card I made for Chelsea. I've known this day was coming for over 18 years and I just made her card last night!

I used a digi image that I believe is from the Greeting Farm. The background is bugged with the a star embossing folder. I know this folder has been out for a while but it was new to me this week and this was the first time I had used it....I love it!!! The colors are handsome hunter and more mustard..school colors. Not a very elaborate card, but Chelsea is not all into fancy frills, so I left it that way. Have to run....Kyli has made the scene and we have a lot to do before we go to dinner tonight to celebrate with Chelsea.
Congratulations to all the graduates out there!!

TS Bue and Yellow Monday

I had a teacher when I was in junior high school who had a nickname for all the days of the work week. His name for Monday was Blue Monday. Well....that almost fits for the challenge this week over at Totally Stampalicious. The TS Monday challenge for this week is to make a card that is Blue or Yellow...any shade is fine. Here is what I came up with...

Here's what I used...The teddy bears are from the TS set Willameana. I love this cute bear image...perfect for so many occasions. This one will be a baby card. The card stock used is Ballet Blue, Baja Breeze, and GP white. The striped paper is by Reminisce and the bears were stamped on a coordinating piece of the papers that had great big polka dots with summery words and images...you can't really see the designs in the photo, but I chose circles that had more general images and then punched them with a scallop circle punch. All three were mounted on a scrap of the thin backing that dsp sometimes comes on and the center one is popped up. The white was run through the Cuttlebug with the quilted embossing folder and then lightly sponged with Ballet Blue ink. The ribbon is some I picked up at the Dollar Tree on a girls' trip several years ago. The yellow flowers layers are from a plastic sheet by KI memories. I used a circle punch to get individual flowers from the sheet and placed them randomly on the card front. I used a clear gel adhesive and you can't see the glue at all. Can you believe it??? It's not even a masculine card and not a trace of bling or glitter anywhere!!
I hope your Monday isn't too blue! Today is the first of the last three early release days for students here. They will take two final exams each of the three days. Then one more work day!! Oh....I did sign up for a week-long training that will take up the entire following week, but it will be a regular schedule day, which is much shorter than I usually end up at work. Have a great week!!

An update on Kyli's surgery

Nothing crafty to show you today. Kenny and I had a most interesting day. It kinda started overnight with a nearly 6 hour power outage. Fortunately, we were asleep for most of it, but as there was no stormy weather last night, we wondered what could have caused such a lengthy outage. Well, as we were leaving to head to the surgical center for Kyli's surgery, we found out what had happened when we were greeted by this:

Obviously, Kenny had been working on this for some time before I thought to take a picture, but this old oak tree had basically split in half and landed across the only access to our property. The power company had come in and replaced the pole the tree took out and ran a new line and left the rest of the mess for us. I realize it isn't their job to clear our road, but gosh!!!! They cut through the neighbors fence and horse pasture to get to their power pole and left their blocked easement completely blocked! If they had cleaned that up, we could have gotten out even if it wasn't the most direct route!
Anyway.....after some really hard work and a second round of showers, we were finally off to be with Kyli! As the surgeries schedule was backed up, we still made it in plenty of time. Don't you just love how things always work out? This is our little sweetie just before they took her back to the OR....she's on a little happy juice to help sedate her.

After several long hours of waiting, she finally made it to recovery where these last two photos were taken. She doesn't look nearly as happy, but they were able to remove all of the birthmark which apparently means it was only fatty tissue left up there. They were afraid they may run into some blood vessels in the mass which is what caused it to be there in the first place. The hair will grow back and she won't have to worry about that "boo boo" any more.

Thanks for all the prayers and well wishes for Kyli during this simple but still scary surgery! Big glittery hugs to  all of you!!!

Paintchip Stlla

I have a couple more cards I have made using the new images from Totally Stampalicious and thought I should go on an get them posted. It won't be long and school will be out and I'll have lots more time to stamp! For this one I used Nurse Stella! This sentiment still cracks me up every time I read it! In honor of ICU, I used some retro hospital colors, Blush Blossom and Sage Shadow. Add in a little paint chip in shades of black (more retro stuff from my stash) and I think it works pretty well with this cute nurse with her retro nurse duds.
Just a quick post for tonight. Not sure what tomorrow will bring. My granddaughter (age 2) is going in for surgery tomorrow to have a large birthmark removed from her forehead. You can almost see it in the photo of her on my sidebar, but it is right at the hairline, about 1 1/2" in diameter and sticks up about an inch high. It's starting to become a problem for her and there is finally enough skin around the area that the doctors feel they can fix it with very little visible scarring. She will be under general anesthesia, so even though the procedure is rather simple, Gramma is really worried. After that is all done, I have to head off to my last night of a professional development class I have been taking for the last eight weeks. I'm gonna be one tired puppy tomorrow evening!
Thanks for stopping by!!

Going Round in Cirles

I used Mouse Balloon from Totally Stampalicious to make this round card for a friend of mine. Sizzix dies and scallop circle punches were used to get all the circle shapes. Image is colored with Copic markers and dimensional glaze was added to the balloon. The blingy circle is from Heidi Swap, bow is made with SU! white taffeta ribbon. The flower was made by punching scalloped circles from white card stock and then running through a paper crimper. Each circle was scrunched up and then reopened. The card stock was then separated into two layers, six layers were stacked and joined with a brad center. The layers were then scrunched around the brad one at a time and then reopened until the flower was the way I wanted it. Melon Mambo ink was sponged on the tips of the flower. All papers are SU!: Melon Mambo and Whisper White card stock. Melon Mambo dsp. Hope you like it!