Calendar Girls - January

I've been so blessed by being asked to join the Calendar Girls this year.  It's full of all my SCS friends and such a great inspiration to follow their blogs and keep adding to mine.  Our first challenge for the year, find a photo for inspiration and make a card for it.  So I went through my cell phone photos (where all my photos seem to live now) and found quite a few that I could work with, but this one stood out.

This is the Furby sitting in Walmart on the shelf.  My three daughters all ended up with a Furby for Christmas this year, but it was my 9 year old that had one on her Christmas list since September, or whatever day they were announced on tv that they were arriving.  The funny thing is, first she wanted an all Teal one, so that's what I bought.  Then they started selling them in the grocery store around Thanksgiving, she found a black and white one with different colored speckles in his fur.  Then about 10 days before Christmas we were in our local Walmart and she found this guy with the spikey hair.  In an effort to appease her, I took a picture of him so I would "remember" what he looked like when I could get back to purchase him.  What She didn't know was that I was quickly texting the picture to my husband who was also in the store so that he could purchase the little bugger before someone else got to him because he was the Only one.  So the original Furby that I bought in September could not be returned, but I wanted my 13 year old to have one anyway, so we gave him to her.  The second one from the grocery store, was returned to the store.  Christmas day the two girls open their Furby and by the end of the day, my 18 year old is planning a 7am shopping trip the next morning to purchase her own (she got quite a bit of Christmas cash and offered to buy her own).  So we now have a family full of Furbys, though my oldest has taken hers to the college dorm for the semester.

So here is my card.  I was really surprised when I did a search on Splitcoaststampers for "Furby" that nothing came up, but I decided to work with my photo and my punches until I came up with this little guy.  Having a large selection of punches to choose from, it didn't take long to get this little guy together.  I went with a Valentine theme because, it might be the first year I'm actually ready before Valentine's Eve so I jumped on the chance to "be prepared".

Here is the inside.  I kept it simple, she's only 9 and will barely open the inside anyway.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the other girls have used for inspiration this month.

Warm Winter Wishes

It's been cold here and my daughter is back in Boston at school.  I have a package of chocolate mint penguins to send to her.  I was going to save it for Valentine's Day, but we haven't seen her for a couple

weeks and I thought I might surprise her with a little bit of mail.  This is one of my favorite winter sets and she just loves penguins.  So I got out my "masking technique" thoughts and made a group of pengiuns.  My 9 year old was in awe that she could make a bunch of pengiuns with just one stamp so she copied my card and used her own colors.  The penguins all have google eyes, which I use whenever I can.  Finally used my SU coordinations paper with the sanding block for the background.  It's a 5 1/2 square card.

Here's the inside.  I'm going to write her a nice note about how proud we are of her doing so well in school.  She has really found her "happy place" there at school and is doing such a good job. 

Here's a little card candy for the Music in the Forest swap.  I wasn't sure what I was going to do for a music theme, so I started rummaging through my stamp sets to find some music themed stamps.  To my surprise, I had a few to work with.  The background paper is SU confetti cream with a music themed embossing folder, clear sheet over that and I attached everything with a glue dot to make it stick.  The big music note is a Cuttlebug die, all the stamps are Stampin Up.  I stuck to the 5 1/2 x 4 1/4 so I could secure them safely in a plastic envelope.

Finally, I got this to post on my blog.  It's a horrible picture, but I tried to make it like a pizza shop and I put clear over the pizza guy so every time I try to take a picture, I get the shadow images of me and the camera or the lighting.  Anyway, this is my card for Jeanette's hosting of the mystery image.  I found the image a little challenging at first, then I thought of this. 

Music in the Forest

Here is my card for the Music in the Forest swap.  The Forest Ranger, aka Jeanette, always makes her swaps so fun.  I've had this stamp FOREVER, or at least 8 or 9 years.  I started stamping about 10 years ago and I remember buying it on a clearance rack a long time ago.  Anyway, I think it's perfect for this swap.  Of course the animals in the forest dress up, get in line and start marching through the woods singing a beautiful song.

Swallowtail Sympathy

Hello everyone and Happy New Year. I have finally found my way back onto my blog.  Thank you Jeanette for some new inspiration to get me back online.  I thought I had it all figured out when I learned last week that I can make blog posts from my new phone, but alas, I can't get any pictures to connect.  But that's for another day.

We started out the new year with some sad news of my best friend's father in law passing.  Such a wonderful man.  My friend and I have known each other for over 35 years.  I've been to all the family events in the past years including many with her inlaws.  He was such a wonderful, fun and loving man and will be greatly missed by so many.

With that said, this is the card I made for my friend's family, her mother in law and her sister in law.  I knew I just had to have this giant butterfly when I saw it in the new SU Spring Catalog.  I stamped it in black memento ink on a confetti cream background. 

Thanks for stopping by.
Linda