Some new cards finally

All my creativity has been sucked dry lately. I haven't played my violin, and although I stare at my craft supplies everyday as I sit here at the computer or watching TV, nothing is happening. Well it didn't help I travelled for work the past 2 out of 3 weeks either.

It was actually a local radio station that got me going today... they do continuous Christmas music starting around now, and they started yesterday. I put it on, and was able to churn out two cards!

Started with the cute house mouse image and then played around with my cricut. The tree is cut with the Christmas cartridge. Then I put tape on the back of it so the sticky side showed thru and trimmed all the edges. Then dumped green glitter all over and pressed it into the sticky. The white snow was cut, then I put thru my xyron to make them sticky and them dipped in diamond dust. The flower is made from two flowers punched from the 5 petal stampin' up! punch. The leaves are from the poinsettia from JOTs, I think. The star on top of the tree is a sticker.

Another House Mouse card

Wow this was a tough one to color. Used both pencils and markers on it. I'm not thrilled with the outcome, but the card all put together is nice. The poinsettia is made with Joy of the season, the other flowers are punched flowers.

House Mouse Challenge #54 - Movies

I knew exactly which stamp I was going to use for this one - a new one that's all about Chocolate. Right away the move Chocolat comes to mind for me. I had gotten the sentiment stamp a while ago and could not wait to use it. Don't these two stamps go together perfectly? The flowers are homemade using a Stampin' Up! 5 petal flower.

Another button card

Button came from Christmas Cheer cartridge.

House Mouse & Friends Challenge #52

This week's challenge was to pick a previous challenge as HM&F is celebrating it's year anniversary. With Halloween coming, I did Challenge #8 (Halloween) and I used one of my favorite stamps. I also did something fun - I made a home made button. Can't say it's my idea, but if was from the Splitcoast stamping Monday challenge. Its very easy:

Cut 4 pieces of same design from any cheap card stock. I cut these ovally pieces with my cricut using the George cartridge.

Cut one piece of same design from pattern or stamped card stock (or even plain).

Using a liquid glue, glue all together with your "nice" one on the top.

Let dry.

Sand the edges - this is what makes it look like one piece when you are done.

At this point punch holes with a cropodile or other hole punching device.

Use Glossy accents or other clear laquer to finish - the toughest part is keeping your holes clear. When it's almost try I start clearing out the holes with the end of an opened paper clip. Haven't experimented yet with repunching the holes or waiting until the glossy accents are dry.

This is really cool because you can make coordinating buttons for all your projects and can do them in any shape!

First card in over a week

How do you get your crafting energy back when you lose it? I have no excuses, I had a very light work week. I thought I was going to be very productive in terms of making cards but no such luck. Even tonight, all I did was take some elements that were already done: the angel was already colored and cut, and the background was already cuttlebugged. The only energy I had to expend was to change the color thread in my sewing machine and sew the card. You'd think I could do more like this, but it's still not working. Still a few months til Christmas, thank goodness.

Some of last year's Christmas cards

These are from before I had a blog, so wanted to publish. :)

House Mouse & Friends #47 - White on White

Easiest card ever, but who would think this would be a challenge? Well it was to me because I have no white embellishments! No flowers, no ribbon, no nothing! So nothing fancy, but it's still cute because it's House Mouse!

Winter Wonderland #8 - Santa

I'm trying to pay attention to the Christmas blogs to get me started on my cards. This week's was to include a santa stamp. The ornament is done with Cricut Christmas solutions and the season's greetings is an inkadinkado clear stamp. The paper is from last year's DCWV Christmas stack.

Sketch Saturday #60 and MCPT July Challenge

Love being able to do two challenges at one time.

And here's the quote of the day from my almost 16 year old son after looking at all my scrapping stuff: "Mom, why does it take so much crap to scrap?". He was the only one who thought that was a funny comment.

House Mouse Challenge

It's still Sunday in Phoenix so hopefully I've got this done in time!

House Mouse and Friends Challenge # 42 - Neopolitan

Chocolate, vanilla and strawberry - that's the challenge this week! I found this darling saying in the clearance bin at Michael's today and knew right away what I wanted to do with it. I work in IT (information technology), a field that's filled with men. I'm a Project Manager and one of the few gals who are working on a heavy duty project. I decided to make myself and 3 other gals this cute little cubicle picture to remind them they are as good as the guys and most likely even better. I didn't have the exact colors, but I think they are close enough to be considered neopolitan (I hope). This is also my most favorite stamp, I've used it many times. Do you like how I made them all the same except for the color of their purses?

House Mouse and Friends Monday challenge

When I don't have mojo, I always reach for my house mouse stamps and I can at least seem to churn something out. The challenge this week is red, white and blue. Ice pops just seem to remind me of summer growing up and I have 2 siblings so this stamp seems to fit the bill. The words are from a 4th of July set from the $1 bin at Michaels. Don't you love those $1 stamps? I'm always checking those bins. The paper is from last summer's DCWV summer stack. The shinying stuff on the popsicle is some glossy accents. I tried to give it the illusion of melting.

since they are leaving a little puddle as they munch.

Bella

What a nice three day weekend. I cleaned house a little, exercised, sat at the pool and actually crafted a little. This is a simple card for a friend. It's double embossed - first with the cuttlebug and then with irradescent embossing powder. It looks pretty neat in real life.

Cupcake Card

Playing with Hello Kitty cartridge and a Tilda stamp. This is what I came up with. I sure wouldn't mind a giant chocolate cupcake just about now.

It's a beautiful day in Phoenix after all the rain this week. Only (lol) in the high 90's. Well it could easily be over 100. Already spend some time by the pool this morning.

Some HM and friends Cards

Work is definitely getting in the way of crafting. I'm so busy that when I get home all I do is veg out. Haven't practiced my violin either!

So today was a beautiful day - forced myself out of bed, went to lo-impact aerobics at 8am and then had the rest of the day to do some things I enjoy including sitting out in the pool, baking cookies and actually getting a couple of cards done.

The lilacs with the bear are enhanced with flowersoft. It looks great in real life - gives some good dimension.

House Mouse & Friends Challenge #35 and Sketch Saturday #49

Being able to do one card for two challenges was great again this week! Although it was quite by accident. The HM&F challenge was a Feel better soon challenge and after I put the card together, I thought this stamp definitely fit the challenge. On the inside it says "A mother is "sew" wonderful".

My husband still has pneumonia and I worked a ton of extra hours last week. I'm still exhausted! He had been getting better and then had a relapse that was worse than the first time around. He has to go to Doc tomorrow, so we'll see what he says.

Another "old" HM card

Oops, missed this one when I posted the rest! Same story, different stamp. I did a reverse image of the second mousy from the first one, scanned it in and took out the heart so it looks like he is receiving the heart from the first one.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This has been an interesting week to say the least. My DH is a teacher and this is the first time in his 7 years of teaching that he made it through the school year without getting sick, or so we thought! He woke up with a fever on Monday and very nauseous. Actually was going to go to school and I said in my best old NY accent - fuggetaboutit! So he stayed home. Woke up on Tuesday, still the same, altho not horribly ill, but I told him to go to Doctor - unusual for him to have a fever and it just so happened he passed a kidney stone (luckily no pain!) on Monday AM so we figured it was either a UTI, prostate or kidney infection since he's had them before with kidney stones. I call him up a lunch time and he's feeling terrible. Asks me to come home to take him to Doctor because he feels horrible and he's vomiting, and can't even get up to go. I get home and he's got over 103 fever! Yikes. Give him ibuprofen and ice him down so I can get him to the doctor. Well, turns out he has bacterial pneumonia!! How he got that, who knows, but good thing he went to doctor when he did because he progressively got worse during the rest of the day. He's on antibiotics now, and barely feeling better. Hopefully tomorrow's a better day. But, geez, next year, maybe he should get sick a little during the school year! Here's hoping me and DS don't get it, we have another 3-4 days before the incubation period is done!

House Mouse & Friends #34 AND Mojo Monday # 83

Two challenges conquered at once! Now that makes my life easier.

The HM&F challenge said to think spring! And the bunny and mouse eating a nice fresh carrot in the lavender (which is flowersoft) just made me thing of spring.

Cuttlebugged the background (don't you just love how cuttlebugged has become a verb?). Nestie for the sentiment, which is computer generated and the Fiskars treading water punch for the edging border. The lady bug is from a set of foam stickers in one of the Michael's dollar bins.

Sketch Saturday #47

Happy Sunday everyone. This was a perfect challenge to go along with April's MCPT challenge on the Cricut Cards messageboard. Changito stamp, MCPT, nestie for circle, rain dots for bubbles and some flowersoft.