Happy Wednesday, peeps!  I love going away for a few days, but it really messes up one’s routine….I still feel like I am behind!  But it was nice to see my dad for Father’s Day.

My project today is for City Crafter Challenge blog, which is “Clean and Neutral”, based on this photo:

as well as The Kraft Journal’s Make it Monday, which is to use felt, twine or burlap.  I just received my new SU goodies, and these Tag a Bag gift bags were in there!  I used my new Chalk Talk stamp set and framelit to make a gift bag and tag, and I added some “felt” leaves cut with the Autumn Accents Bigz die:

The felt is actually a remnant piece of that vintage-y “warm” quilt batting (can’t remember the actual name of it) that I have been pushing around my craft room for a while!  I’ve tied the leaves with linen thread.  Now, remember this is to be clean and simple, so there’s not a lot of fuss to this project, but I did do a wee bit of stamping….can you see the tree line from Lovely as a Tree stamped along the bottom of the bag?

I also love that there are little “hole” dies to use to cut out, well, holes, in the top of the Chalk Talk tag….and in this case, the bag too.  I did find that they sort of jump around on my new magnetic plate (which is pretty awesome).  Apparently the plate is not a solid magnet, but pieces of magnet.  So the little itty bitty hole piece “jumps” until it is on top of a magnet.  It’s a little challenging, but I finally got it to stay still long enough to run it through the Big Shot!!!  I used the Natural burlap trim to tie the bag together:

I can’t wait to play around with this Chalk Talk set some more!

Here’s a pic of my dad and me:

He really does smile sometimes!!!!  And a sweet little photo of Miss Cassidy as well:

    

Happy Tuesday, peeps! Hope you’re having a good week so far!  Arielle has a perfect cheery ColourQ palette for us today!  Check this out:

Yum!  Makes me want to go swimming and eat a big piece of watermelon in the pool!!  I had just seen some MME papers that reminded me of this background, so I went to work making this simple card:

This features the Cardabilities sketch #77:

I used several SU DPs for my banners, and the stamped one is from Modern Mosaic.  The little bird is from Everything Eleanor, the sentiment is from Papertrey, and the watermelon is from Unity. 

There are lots of fun possibilities with these bright summery colors!  Can’t wait to see what you do with these shades!  Share them with us at the ColourQ blog, and check out what the other designers came up with as well!

Wonder what she’s thinking?

    

Merry Monday, peeps!  Hope you had a fabulous weekend and got to spend some time with dads, hubs, grand-dads…whoever!  Lesley has a fun sketch for the Merry Monday challenge today:

I whipped this up in a jiffy:

Some pretty MME Lost & Found Christmas papers and my favorite Crafty Secrets Santa made an easy-peasy card! 

The sentiment was already printed on the paper, and I found a little piece of double-sided satin ribbon that matched perfectly!  Another card for my stash!  I hope you’ll play along too so you can add another card to your stash!  Check out what the other designers created with this sketch at Lesley’s blog, Always Playing with Paper!  You’ll be glad you did!

Cassidy walked in the yard after it was just cut, and wanted her feet washed off, so I had a watering can with some water in and I told her I would sprinkle her feet.  “I do it myself”, she said:

She finally got it!!!

And then, of course, she had to walk in the puddle!!!!  So much for clean feet!

    

Hey peeps! Another quick post as I wanted to get this card in for the beautiful Play Date Café challenge:

My sweet friend Athena is celebrating a birthday this week, so this is for her:

Check out the sparkle:

And truer words were never spoken about her!!!

Now off to see my dad for Father’s Day---any questions, pop me an email!

    

Hey, peeps!  It’s Sunday and Anne Marie has a lovely Paper Players CAS challenge for us today:

Woohoo!  Anyone who knows Anne Marie knows she likes BLING!  I have had these square-cut gems in my bling thing drawer forEVER!  I was so excited that I would have a chance to use them:

I first chose my colors of Pink Passion, Pink Pirouette, Pool Party and Soft Sky to match my gems.  I stamped a mosaic from Mosaic Madness in each color and then tried to figure out how to achieve a pleasing layout. Nothing was appealing to me,  so I decided to emboss what I call the “snowflake” border from the Delicate Designs set, and what do you know…the mosaics fit perfectly!  Usually I do white for CAS designs, but I thought the Soft Sky cardstock really looked pretty with these jewel tones!

I added a simple sentiment from Fabulous Phrases and my CAS creation was done!  I hope you’ll take a few minutes to play with the Paper Players this week and share your clean and simple blingy creation!  Can’t wait to see it!  And while you’re there, be sure to check out what gorgeous creations the other designers have made as well!

At different times both John & I noticed a young catbird that hopped around our yard and did not fly away when we got near.  We finally determined that it has a damaged wing!  Cassidy loves to try to “catch” birds, so this one was about her speed:

She actually managed to get pretty close to it, then it scooted under some bushes!

Try as we might, it was pretty well hidden and we couldn’t find it!