Cause of the Month giveaway!

I cant believe i forgot to post this! I guess thats what happens with the holiday rush - my brain goes to mush! (and apparently all the christmas carols make me speak in rhyme!)

Anyhoo - as you may remember, My cause of the month last month was to send cards to Let There Be Mom. Let me tell you, she was tickled pink to receive all these cards and thought it was such a wonderful thing.

Angela of Unity Stamp Company was gracious enough to donate my free shipping offer to Unity! (by the way, today is also hip hop hangover from Unity so read down to my post below this to find my unity creations from Hip Hop!)

I entered all the names into a drawing for random.jack He had so fun picking out a name and wanted to play the game all day!





CONGRATS TO KATHY BARNY! You have won free shipping from unity!!!!

Thank you so much to everyone who participated and used your talents for charity!

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Hip Hop Hangover

OK ok ok! I'm sorry i havent posted this week, ok?! And i'm even more sorry i missed Makeup Monday! I've been hazed by quite a few people! haha. I have been crafting some this week, not as much as i'd like. But after this past week and weekend i was just beat and spent many a night sitting on the couch with the fam instead of crafting. I needed the downtime for a coupla days. And some of the crafting i've done you just cant see yet. And some of it some certain readers of my blog cant see yet so it has to wait too. :) And even sadder, some things i just keep forgetting to post, but i also havent been online as much.

SO! I've got some stuff from Unity's HIP HOP yesterday. Yep, it's a hip hop hangover day!

And just to make up for my short comings this week, i'll post all my unity in 1 post for ya! :)

FIRST - the unity addicts challenge was to case a card from Jimmi, Jen or http://zanynotcrazy.blogspot.com/. WHY? Because they were all named coordinators of VSN (virtual stamp night) on Splitcoast! Way to go ladies!

here is my card...


I chose to case one of Jimmi's cards. As per splitcoast rules, to CASE a card is to Copy And Selectively Edit. You are to chalnge 2 things about a card when you case it. And they can be minor changes, or big changes, it's up to you. Mine were relatively minor. I did change the color scheme a bit adding in some red and a much deeper green. Making it more festive. My buttons are a different color as is my tree. I also changed the sentiment to Just Believe which is one of my favorite christmas time sentiments. As a whole, the word "believe" is my all time favorite word. So around christmas time i like to use it alot. :) I did alter the sketch the weensiest bit. But i dont think it was even enough to qualify as a change! haha.

Next we have the technique challenge over at Splitcoast. This week was to make a vellum wine glass shade. This thought had never even entered my mind! But it was so super easy! I'm going to make a set of them (one for fall, 1 for christmas and at least 1 more... havent decided yet) and they will be a christmas gift with the wine glass and some tea lights. So far i just have the one shade done. I'm debating on adding some beading. What do you think?

I used the snowflake from September's Kit of the Month but if you love... Unity just came out with a bigger size 1! Bonus it's on sale today for a buck until midnight if you place a $25 order!
The sentiment is a fav. It's singled out for the holidays, check it out! Inside each snowflake is a rhinestone for a little blingy bling. And everything is stamped with brilliance ink so it's shimmery!

ok, last but not least is one of jeanne's challenges. She always has these super simple challenges, but then her cards look anything but simple. She's so talented! anyhoo.. her challenge was to make a christmas card but it was only allowed to have 1 layer in addition to the card base. here's my card...

i told ya i have a thing for this sentiment! Love it! I kept my card über simple but i like it's simplicity. ok, used that word too many times in one sentence. anyhoo, i kept my base totally white and stamped the just believe at the bottom. My one layer is a scrap of bazzill bling cardstock (so it has some shimmer to it) and punched out snowflake shapes from a punch by creative memories (that i think i've owned for 2 years and just now got it out of the box! I have to admit, i really want to get a snowflake punch that actually punches snowflakes. i'd love the marvy one and to get the papertrey ink set that goes with it. But no such luck for me. I could get the martha stewart one and i've been debating but my xmas spending has hit it's curb. So i guess no snowflakes for me this year. *sigh* But this one still is very fun when you want to use it for negative space. :) The ribbon at the top balances everything out.

So thats what i created in my unity hip hop day! Now i have to go to bed. I have a wedding to do tomorrow (friday) that shouldnt take more than 3 hours but my kit is WRECKED from the weddings last weekend and i have to wash brushes all morning and reorganize the whole thing before i have to leave at 12:30!!!!

Have fun blog hopping!

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Happy Bellaversary!

Holy Moly - Miss Bella is 2! Can you believe it?! And it's sort of my 1 year anniversary with the bellas because i discovered my love for her a year ago about this time (a little before this time of year, but close enough).

Bella's birthday was actually yesterday, and the party was actually friday but i just got a chance to do my challenge cards today! And just in the nick of time! You have until 8pm tonight to upload them! Each challenge will have a winner of a $50 gift card to www.stampingbella.com!!! Isnt that AMAZING! I hope i win! I want new bellas! :) (ok, so i just placed a teeeeeensy order, but dont let my dh know!)

Ok, so here are the challenges...

Signature Color Challenge!
If you've ever been to the Bella Website you would know this gal is all about pink! But she does have some green accents in there, so our challenge was to use Pink and Green... here's my card!



I used ICantSeeaThingabella and colored her with copic markers. I also used spica pens to make her shimmer but you cant really see it in the photo. Always a bummer! I used a martha stewart punch for my cupcake. The sketch is Lauren Meader's sketch from this past saturday. I just flipped it on it's side!

Next we have Shannan's sketch challenge!


I decided to use a Snowbunnybella image i colored a bit back. I think my coloring has gotten better since i colored this, but i have been wanting to use her, so now seemed like a good time! Her fur is flocked with Cotton white Fun Flock which is another hard thing to see in the photo but is so fun in real life! I stitched all my edges just for some extra "pizzazz" and then i used spiral coil clip thingys (yes thats a technical term) with some ribbon tied to them for the trio embellishment. I must say, i'm getting quite addicted to the spiral coil clip thingys!
The sentiment is actually a part of another sentiment i cut off! It's the "knew you could tackle it" sentiment. I cut the congrats off so i can use it separately, or i can use it with the sentiment when needed. :)

and last but not least... i think this challenge was my favorite. or maybe it's just because i thought the idea was so fun! It's a themed challenge of "two" Now i'm not the only gal to us 2 different bellas on her card. But i do think i'm the only one to use these 2 bellas! I had yet to ink up my artistabella (sad, i know). So i decided i'd use her and another bella that she could be painting. I went thru my massive collection of bellas and decided pregabella would be fun. Then a lightbulb went off and i remembered i had 1 stamped image of the mini pregabella from a swap i was in. (did you know that some of the bellas come in different sizes? they do!). So i decided to use her as artistabellas canvas. So i actually ended up with 3 bellas on the card i suppose, but i was thrilled with the outcome! Here's my card...



I wanted everything else to be in 2's... i thought do i have a 2 word sentiment? Well I'll be darned, but not only did i have a 2 word sentiment, i had the perfect 2 word sentiment!!!! (from studio g). I also used 2 ribbons, 2 brads, and have 2 main colors (red and yellow).

So there are my cards! Thanks for stopping by!

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Pink Cat Challenge

This was a fun card to make. After my cuh-razy week and weekend, i took today off. I did a "sorta clean" of my kitchen. but i folded no laundry. And let everything else just sit. It was nice. Tomorrow... not going to be fun. But today i did manage to get this card done. It is for the Pink Cat Studios challenge #2 off of the Paper Craft Planet. You can join the Pink Cat Lover's group here and read all about the challenge. It was a tough one, but fun. Challenges should be... well... challenging! :)

It was a 3 part challenge...
part 1 - make a 6x6 card, layout or project
part 2 - Use 3 of 3 different things
part 3 - use one of the color combos supplied

I chose to do a 6x6 card
I used 3 different patterned papers, 3 different stamps and 3 different blings
And i chose the purple and grey color combo....

and here's my card


I used the Lily & Tweet set for both the image and the sentiment. The snowflakes are just a stamp from one of the current Studio G holiday sets.

Enjoy! I'm going back to my craft room!!!

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i did it!

Totally random post... but i did it! The crazy wedding i was doing hair and makeup for today is over! It's done! And i got everyone ready on time! (for those that dont know about this crazy wedding i had today... there were 12 bridesmaids.... yes, not 1, not 2.... 12! That is not a typo you see!) So everyone got done... the bride looked fantastic! Everyone was super pleased. The baby was good all day (he went to a wonderful lady's house that goes to my church). And i treated myself to a double quarter pounder from McD's! Now my feet are thhhhhhhhrrroooooooobbing! But all it well and i'm done! No more work until next friday. Oh, and i have to clean out kit because it's now a disaster! We opted not to go to the christmas parade tonight so i think i'm going to try to get a coupla card challenges done for Paper Craft Planet! :) Go ME!

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Etsy Challenge #14

Well, here it is! My first creation for the Etsy Challenge Design Team as a guest designer! This week our etsy shop to get some inspiration from is Dragonfly Fine Designs. She makes über cute baby items - fantastic for shower gifts etc. I adored her washcloth turned Lollipops!

And i thought, how cute to make a card with a lollipop on it! So i looked and looked... would you know that i do NOT have a lollipop stamp? But now the lollipop idea was stuck in my head. So do you know what i did? I drew myself a lollipop! I think it's cute, but of course over all i'm just waaaaaay sketical! Maybe it's my handwritten sentiment that is bugging me most. Anyhoo - here it is...

I wanted lots of glitsy shimmer so i coated my lollipop with stickles! And i also used Bazzill Bling paper for that added shimmer to the card. I colored the lollipop with copic markers before adding the stickles glitter. here's a closer view...


Now dont forget to check out the rest of design team for their oh so fabulous creations!
Ashley Newell
Joy Stagg
Lee Murphy
Lindsay Spencer
Ryann Salamon
Tanis Giesbrecht
Tiffany Johnson

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Some birthday gifts

Sorry i didnt post yesterday. I went and say Rachel's sweet baby girl instead of doing anything i intended on doing! What fun! And can i just say that my sweet precious baby is about 3 times her baby's size! No wonder my stomach got so large while she stayed über cute the whole way through! Haha!

But i did get to fianlly give Rach her b-day present and card! Her baby was born 1 day before her birthday. I was going to go to the hospital to give it to her (i even made a cake to go with me) but her fam got in town, and she was new mommy tired so i just decided better to wait. And we ate all the cake. hehe.

Anyhoo - i used Lynn's bella challenge to paper piece for my card inspiration. You gotta love a bella, right? here's my card...

I honestly cant even remember the paper line (which is unfortuante because it's so cute! but i used all scraps from a swap i did eons ago so i just dont remember). Bellas dress is paper pieced and i colored the rest of her with copic markers. :)

But i also want to post the little gifty i made for her. I got the inspiration for this template from Lauren Meader. She has created these fabulous templates called My Timeless Templates for Papertrey Ink. They are only $5 and then you can print them directly on your cardstock, trim out, score and glue together. Seriously easy! I've made a few, but havent posted them yet. 1 i have ready to post, just need to get the bugger up here. The other i forgot to take a picture of before i gave it away. Oops! Anyhoo - one of the FREE templates is this recipe holder. I made one for my hubby for our anniversary and he loved it! So i applied the same concept to the gift i made for rachel but the dimensions are all different. I had to *gasp* do the math myself! But it folds in similar to the Recipe Holder without quite as many fold ins.

Here's the front...

I used some flourishes from heidi grace's cherrywood lane. The sentiment is from Verses Rubber Stamps. By the way, a little review for the verses stamps... i LOVE them! I want so many! And they are currently having a sale! 20% off everything. It's a little holiday special, just enter HOL20 as your coupon code.
Ok, moving along.... here it is opened up!

Now you can see what this gift is all about. Since Rach just had a baby, her time is going to be a little preoccupied. But she is also an avid cardmaker and is also in a penpal group thru splitcoast so i know she'll have some cards to make. So this is a card maker folder! Each pocket holds what she needs to make a card quickly. There are some stamped images should she be in the mood to color. There are some non needing to be colored stamped images. There are lots of sentiments. And then there are mats for each. Then there is a pocket with paper cut and scored to be her cardbase. The next section holds envelopes and some patterned paper cut and ready to go on the card. And then the last section is all about embellishing the card. This is actually my favorite part. I cut up some transparency paper to fit inside each pocket and then made all of the embellishments stick to the transparency so they just need to be pulled off and stuck onto the card! There is some bling, some ribbons that have adhesive all the way across so they just need pulled off and stuck on too, and then some flowers with acrylic dots already stuck to the center with some extra acrylic dots and then some self adhesive photo corners (which you cant see because they are down inside the pocket).

So thats that! Now i need to work up some preposts. Dont forget to tune in tomorrow for my first etsy challenge card as a guest designer. I'm still a little iffy on my card... but you'll see why tomorrow. :) And then i have to get the house ready for my non existence in it! DH still gets a little panicky when watching both boys so i need to get everything cleaned up, and necessities within arms reach, diaper bag expertly packed incase he has to go out, yada yada. Wish me luck with all that!!!!!

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Seeing Double

Are you seeing double? I am! So much to do this week it's making me go cross eyed! Of course there are tons of contests and giveaways going on and i want to do them all! But here's the next 3 days for me...Thursday: school for jack, dr appt for me, practice song with choir director, pick jack up from school, bake muffins til there is no flour in my house, clean out makeup kit, run any errands that need run before sunday afternoon. Friday: Do makeup for engagement photo, go to wedding location and do hair and makeup there, come home and finish up any muffin making, go out to the Coffee House at my church, help set up (including the million muffins), sing a pretty song, come home, clean out makeup kit to start over. Saturday: drop kiddos off at sitter, go to do the wedding that is going to me MASSIVE, come home and fall over. I think thats is. I'm sure i missed something. Oh, there are things i need to post on my blog as well, but luckily those are all done so i can prepost. :)

Wow - i got off on a tangeant. The title of my blog is Seeing Double. That has a purpose. Haha. Everything i have to do with crafting i'm doubling up. Doubling on challenges... making 2 of every card... double double double.

Here my card for today...


I made him for my NEW Cause of the Month! I thought long and hard about what i wanted the Cause of the Month to be this month. It's such a BIG MONTH! All about giving. There are so many worthy organizations. So then i decided to look to my own life to see if anything sparked a must for this month. And when i thought about what's going on in my own life, i immediately thought of my 2 grandmothers. Now in my life i have had 6 grandparents (my mom's parents remarried long before i was even born, so it's always seemed to me like i had 6). A year ago this October my Grandpa passed away. It was incredibly hard. This was my mom's dad and i felt very close to him. This past september, his wife (so technically my step-grandma) passed away. And this past week both of my surviving grandmothers were in the hospital. Both are doing well now and were able to return to their homes. But still, the idea of them having to move to an assited living situation is a little heartbreaking. The idea of hospice care is unthinkable for me. But then i got to thinking... what about all of those who ARE in nursing homes, hospice care, etc. So i did a search on my computer to find where to send holiday cards to nursing homes and was coming up short until i found a wonderful website called Volunteer Match. I typed in my zip code and just started to look for any thing crafty in my area. Would you know what i found.... a place asking for crafty volunteers for a hospice care program right here in my city! So i emailed them and asked if greeting cards would be appreciated. They LOVED the idea. So this is something i'd like to be ongoing, but for December, i've decided every holiday card i make i will make DOUBLE and then mail one off to a hopsice patient in my area. I love the idea! I encourage others to look out and do the same.

So i knew this is what i wanted to do, but it still didnt give me a card for today other than a holiday card. So i went over to Paper Craft Planet to see what they had going on. If you dont know about their 12 days of giveaways you really need to check it out here. The challenge for today is to use birds. Any bird really. or even eggs! But i decided to go with the cutest little bird i know... QT Hooty from Pink Cat Studio. Isnt he Cah-UTE! Love him. I've been dying to inkie up the hooooliday guy for months but wasnt making holiday cards yet. Well, it's december and now i'm wishing i had been making holiday cards back in July when i wanted to use him. haha. isnt that the way it always goes! I used patterened paper from basic Grey and colored my little birdies with copic markers.

Now i'm going to triple whammy this card and submit it to Pink Cat Studio for their design team call! If you were thinking of entering yourself you should know that they needed to move up the deadline to December 10th. So what are you waiting for?!

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So much to do!

I have so so much to say and do these beginning days of the month! I have a feeling thats not going to stop anytime this month! ACK! But with all of the new things to say and do in december, it fell of course on monday (which i do makeup monday). I had every intention to post one of the other things i did over the weekend yesterday, but we'll just leave it at i didnt get around to it!

So - my announcements to start are...

I'm on the EtsyInspired Challenge Design Team for the month of December! I'm super excited about that! In fact... keep reading and you'll see my challenge card for this week. I dont think it's technically part of my "term" since the challenge was issued in the end of november but i wanted to post it anyhow!

New Cause of the month! I still have a few cards trickling in from those who wanted to help. So i want to give them a chance to get here. Then i'll do my drawing for the free shipping prie donated by the wonderful Angela from Unity Stamp Co. I'll also announce the new Cause of the Month then.\

And now for a card....
Our etsy Shop to give us inspiration this week is Morgan Street. One look at this shop and i fell in love! I adore homemade soaps and beauty products. I actually wanted to develop my own line of these products when i lived in LA. I bought all the supplies... spent bookoo money on it all, and then get pregnant. Woops. Haha. It fell by the wayside, but i still love to create homemade soaps, lotions, etc. However, i havent learned the cold process method yet for soap. I usually satisfy my craving for this with the melt and pour. haha. You just HAVE to check out this shop! Many of her soaps are made to look like dessert dishes. How fun is that!
I took these 2 photos from her site to use as inspiration...

to create this...


First - who does like to get a little pedi! And thinking of a pedi made me think of bubblebella with her foot up in the air! SO i chose bubblebella as my main image and then decided my colors of the card would match the photo - green and brown!
But i couldnt stop just there. I couldnt get the idea of all that chocolate out of my head! So i masked out bubblebella's scrub brush and stamped this yummy looking cupcake from chocoholic (sweet n sassy stamps). I decided to just swipe some white acrylic paint in the corner to stamp over. The ink didnt take to the paint the same way i'd like, but that's ok. It still looks kinda cool. The sentiment is also from the same chocoholic set by sweet n sassy stamps.
The other deets...

Patterned Paper: Close To My Heart
Cardstock: Papertrey Ink
Ink: Memento, copics
Ribbon: Papertrey Ink

Thanks for stopping by!

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Makeup Monday

Happy Monday everyone! I surprisingly got a lot of crafting done this weekend even with the wedding i had booked for saturday. So i made some loot AND got crafting done! Yippiee! However, 2 of the things i made are gifts and the recipients read my blog, sooooo, they wont be posted until after they are given. Dont worry, they are birthday gifts, not christmas so you dont have to wait until January! :)

But onto Makeup Monday! This was a bear to film today! I set up the camera - lighting from outside was coming in good thru the windows, baby gabe was sleeping and jack was watching a movie. And my hubby was out running errands. SO i filmed my piece, felt good about it, my makeup was now done for the day. As i went to upload it into a post... half of the video footage disappeared! *GASP!* So i had to wash my face and try again, but the baby woke up, and the video was over and the baby wanted to eat and it was starting to get cloudy. Grr. So i feed the baby, set a new movie on, wash my face, set up a light and finally video it all again. I go to upload... and only 10 seconds appeared on the footage. WHAT THE HECK! And now, jack was totally over tv, the baby no longer wanted to be in the swing, my lighting was all off and my hubby was due home any minute so we could go to target. double grr! SO, i try to entertain jack and the baby, i reset up the webcam with a backup camera, wash my face again. yada yada. Oh, and deleted some videos off my computer incase that was the problem. Well, the 3rd time is a charm, but i fear i rushed things on the video because i was in fear it would cut off again. haha. So here it is... the brief tutorial of the 3 minute makeup!



Ok, now that you've watched it... let me go over the basics again...

you need 3 products
you're fav foundation stick or concealer
a blush of some sort - i prefer a cream color stick for ease and quickness
mascara
top it off with some lip gloss as you walk out the door/car

Start with your foundation/concealer and cover undereye CIRCLES. Be sure to cover that inner corner of your eye and eyelid. Cover sparingly though, you dont want the concealer to settle in the creases. Then cover the area just under your nose. It'll make a world of difference.

Next use your multiple product (cream color stick or blush) and blush the "apples" of your cheeks. Use the same blush to dab some color on your eyes just on/under the brow bone. If it's a cream stick you can add some color to your lips while you're at it.

Next add your mascara (or skip it if you never wear it or hate it. But i think just a bit of it makes you look more polished).

And viola! If you have very oily skin, you can swipe some powder over your t-zone (nose and forehead).

Ok, i'll post some creations a little later today... for now i have a hungry family ready to head out the door!

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