Blog Hoppin' With The Alley Way Stamps!

Hellooooo!  I hope you are here for The Alley Way Stamps Blog Hop- you should be hopping from Kasia's blog.  If you just "happened" upon my blog, I would highly recommend going back to the beginning - the order is at the bottom of this post.  :)

So, for my card, I decided to use the brand new set Calypso and combine it with this week's Colour Q combo and Tuesday Morning Sketches (rotated, of course...) for a fun, bright, CAS "hello" card:

 Are you ready for your chance to win ALL 3 NEW SETS?!? 

YEP!! So if you want to be that person.. all you have to do is comment on the hop! 
Here are ways you can win - you can pick and choose which ones you want to do, but the more you comment, the more chances you have to win!

1-Comment on The Alley Way Stamps Blog

2-Comment on the DT girls blogs (below)

3-Post about it on Facebook or your blog

4-Like us on Facebook

(leave a separate comment at the TAWS blog for each that you do)

You have until Tonight at 9:00PM TAWS time to leave the comments.

This fun mini set, Pointers, is FREE when you spend $40.00 or more during the month of September!!  Nothing to do but shop.. this little guy will be added to your package...

Here's the blog hop order - off you go to N@ Ali's blog!!!

 

{Give Thanks} Sneak Peek & 4CCC-157 {Squares} & DS115

Hello again! Thank you so much for stopping by today - it's release week over at The Alley Way Stamps and today is day three (and my FAVORITE set), Give Thanks.  Alison has really outdone herself with this set - the loopy font just makes me smile.  And the little owl and turkey???  Well, you've gotta have it! 

It's also time for a brand new 4 Crafty Chicks' Challenge and this week the theme is SQUARES.  Lots of squares or just a few squares - you decide.  :)  I decided to keep it pretty simple with my squares and just make a square card with a square layer - and one of my patterned papers has squares on it.

The sketch is last week's Deconstructed Sketch, rotated to fit my sentiment:

So cute, right?  Trust me - if you love that loopy font you are going to LOVE this entire set.  A must-have for sure.  :)  If you'd like to WIN this set (and who doesn't love free???), all you have to do is pop over to the Alley Way Stamps blog and comment on the Day Three sneak peek post.  And if you want yet another chance to win, share it on Facebook...SUPER easy-peasy!

OK - don't forget that squares is the theme over at the 4 Crafty Chicks' and I'll be back on Saturday for The Alley Way Stamps Blog Hop.  You could win all three new sets!   See you then!

4CCC-156 {Inspiration Photo}

Hello again, everyone! I'm so glad you decided to stop in today - I've got a brand new 4 Crafty Chicks Challenge to share with you all.  This week, Lori is our hostess-with-the-mostest and she has given us this funky inspiration photo to get the mojo going:

So, as usual, I decided to go with the bright colors and the chevron pattern of the afghan for my card.  I used a MFT die and some scraps of paper and created a CAS invitation using a sentiment from the new Alley Way Stamps set, Crazy Circuits:

I even used the zig-zag stitch on my sewing machine to mimic the chevrons...a couple of pearls added a bit of *zing*. 

I hope you can play along with us - we'd love to see how the photo inspires you!  Have a fabulous weekend!

 

SSSC191 & CQC202

Happy Sunday, crafty peeps around the world!  I hope you are enjoying the weekend wherever you are.  The weather here in Central Alberta has been GORGEOUS - we have to enjoy it now because before we know it, snow will be flying.  (If I say it really quietly, Mother Nature can't hear me...)

You're here for a sketch, though, aren't you?  As usual, this week's Sweet Sunday Sketch is a stunner that can be totally CAS or made as complicated as you want...Karen's a genius, I tell ya.  :)

I decided to stay fairly true to the sketch and kept it mostly CAS...the fussiest part was trying to stamp those damn hexagons in a relatively straight fashion.  I love this set from Stampin' Up! (Six-Sided Sampler) but HATE that it's rubber and you can't see exact placement.  *sigh*  This week's Colour Q was a great inspiration for my card:

Need to see more?  All of the fabulous Sweet Sunday Stampers have inspiration for you, so please stop by and say hello to:

Dana White 

Dawn Easton 

Jackie Pedro
Jodi Collins 

Karen Giron
  Karen Motz 

Lisa Henke

Lori Tecler 

Lynn Put 

Sarah-Jane Kalé 

Tracy Clemente 

Vicki Burdick 

Thanks for popping in today - enjoy the rest of your weekend!

 

The Alley Way Stamps - BE Inspired #35 and DS114

Hello again! It's time for a new BE Inspired Challenge over at The Alley Way Stamps blog.  Alison has found a great photo this time around (well, she does every time...) - totally inspires some CAS designs, IMHO:

I still hadn't inked up this month's new Crazy Circuits set so I thought these colors were PERFECT for a masculine, robot birthday card.  I found this week's Deconstructed Sketch and got to work:

There ya go!  Another CAS design from yours truly.  Wanna play along??  All you have to do is make a project using TAWS stamps and the above inspiration photo.  What?  You don't HAVE any TAWS stamps?  Why the heck not???  :)  OK, OK...Alison has a bunch of freebie digi stamps here that you can use until you give in and order some real ones.  :)

Have fun and I'll be back on Sunday with a brand new Sweet Sunday Sketch Challenge - see you then!

 

4CCC-155 {Sympathy} & CTS40 & DD65

Hi everyone! Did you miss me? After a full week of posts, I took a week off but I'm back today with a brand new 4 Crafty Chicks' Challenge.  This week, Tamie's our hostess-with-the-mostest and she wants to see sympathy cards.  I know I don't make these very often so it will be good to have one more in my stash.

For my card, I combined this week's Dynamic Duos and CAS(E) this Sketch - three TAWS sets were used too: Stack 'em High, Awesome Blossom and Chatterbox:

Thanks, as always, for stopping by to say hello - I really do appreciate it.  Have a fabulous day and I'll be back tomorrow with a new BE Inspired Challenge over at The Alley Way Stamps.  See you then!

 

4CCC-154 {Black & White}

Hellooooooo! I'm so glad you stopped in today because I've got a project to share with you all that I am SOOOOO excited about.  This week over at the 4 Crafty Chicks Challenge, "yours truly" is your hostess-extraordinaire and I've got a challenge that might be hard for those of us who really LOVE our colors.  This week, I want to see projects that use ONLY black and white.  Yikes, right?  Trust me, you'll have fun.

I've been in a bit of a crafting funk lately and haven't really wanted to spend much time in my craft room so have been trying to figure out how to get my mojo back.  Well, folks, I might have done just that with this project I am working on.  I've been crafty most of my life and have recently rediscovered quilting...LOVE!  It's been years since I have quilted - life just got too busy - but I think the bug has bitten me again.  We've got an AMAZING little quilt shop in town and it's just a couple doors down from the gym so I popped in last Friday and decided I was GOING to do this.  I had done some research and watched a few videos on YouTube and was agog at this fast, easy, GORGEOUS quilt using a jelly roll.  No, not the kind you eat.  :) 

Basically, a jelly roll is a bunch of strips of coordinating fabrics, put together and tied up all pretty.  I picked up a jelly roll that only had black and white fabrics, some material for coordinating borders and got to work.

Some of the fabrics from the jelly roll...

The first step is sewing all the strips together end-to-end on an 45* angle...that's a LONG strip of fabric:

Then you put the short ends of the long strip together, sew down one LONG side, snip the bottom apart, and repeat the process four more times...watch the video because I cannot explain it as well as she does.  :)

Here's the completed jelly roll part of the quilt top:

And then I added two borders - one small and one wide.

First border - a black and white gingham:

 The wide border and completed quilt top - had to hang it over the railing because my DS wasn't tall enough to hold it up for me!

 Here are a couple close-ups of some of the materials:

I am so excited to get some batting and binding and finish this up!  I will definitely post pics when it's all done.  :)

Thanks for stopping in for my novel-length post...remember...Black and White...that's the challenge!  Have fun!

 

Hey Friend... Dynamic Duos#64

Well, are you sick of me yet??? An entire week of posts with only one day off?  Trust me, that will NOT happen again for a very long time.  Today's post will be short and sweet (just like me...)  :)

Today I've got a quick card that uses TAWS Love Knots for the background and Stack 'em High for the sentiment...the color combo is from Dynamic Duos:

That's it for me - see you on Thursday for a new 4 Crafty Chicks' Challenge - I've got an AWESOME project to share with you and it's NOT a card!!!  *gasp*  See you then!