15 Minute Crop Challenge!

Happy Sunday! Hope you're having a great day! I'm still recovering from my 14 hour crop yesterday, but I have managed to unpack and put everything away now, that's a big relief! I was with three great girls...one totally new and this was her first experience paper crafting, one recently new to papercrafting, and one occasional/recreational papercrafter...but boy, did we have some laughs! That's the important thing, right?! 

If you follow me on Facebook, you saw this pic I posted of our table. Wowza, creativity is messy:

Before we packed up, I thought it only fair to spring one of my 15 minute challenges on them! hehe! My other cropping friends will tell you how much they love these! (NOT!) We each started with these materials below, only difference being the little Simple Stories Awesome image we picked, then I set the timer and we had 15 minutes to make our card! Fun, right?! 

I think they turned out pretty awesome!!

Dinora (1st day ever making cards!):

 Haley (started papercrafting this school year):

Jenni (on again/off again, recreational papercrafter, hehe):

And me (somewhat bossy, but thankfully they still put up with me, papercrafting tutor):

Did I mention we had fun?! *smile*

I'll be back tomorrow at 11 pm CST with my card for this week's CAS-ual Fridays challenge, Put a Bling On It! You still have lots of time to play and win a $25 gift certificate from Simon Says Stamp AND a guest design team spot for the July Guest Challenge!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Hugs and happy stamping! 

Contraband Challenge Cards

Happy Monday! I know I've been MIA, sick again, another round of antibiotics, ugh! Can I just say that I'll be ready for this school year to be over?! lol!



I got by with some *help from my friends* and we made challenge cards! We started with this piece of pink Alissa paper by Bo Bunny. I added some yummy new American Crafts paper (I went a little crazy over this line, yikes!), but I did get a little bit of pink in there! Very simple, old, fail-safe layout, can't go wrong with tried and true, right?!

Here is Beverly's card, love how she added the darker pink and the black and the fabulous SU rub-ons!


Here is Margaret's card, hope you can see how pretty it is with the white background...the stick pin with circle flower coming off the edge is fabulous!


Here is Valerie's, truly inspired! The crown with the bling and the glittery wings, be still my heart!

Hope you enjoyed these! As always, thanks so much for stopping by! Hugs and happy stamping!

Crop Challenges!

Happy Sunday! I went cropping with the girls last night, and here's what we made! I'm afraid after I had two margaritas, I was so tired I didn't feel like doing anything! lol! But that's okay, I mostly went for the social time 'cuz I was missing my peeps. Some other friends just came for the social part (talking too, not just drinking, hee! hee!) and didn't stay for the cropping, but it was good to catch up, Lor and Bird! Around 10:30 we decided to do some "challenges" so at least I got 2 cards made! lol!

The first challenge was the Splitcoast Sketch Challenge #209:


Here's mine using Pearty Hearty:


Here's Margaret's, love the flowers and the glitter:


Here's Beverly's, what a great "guy" card:


Next challenge was the Splitcoast Ways to Use It #199, Ring in the New Year, where you had to use something silver...ink, cardstock, hardware, etc.

Here's mine, very lazy and simple made in 5 minutes because it was time to go! I used that new Hand Drawn DSP again, it's so fab!


Here's Margaret's, love the ribbon and little silver clock she used:


Here's Beverly's, very cool silver frame she used and perfect with that vintage camera in it:

Lastly, this is what Valerie was doing and why she didn't participate in any challenges...isn't it cute? She made a bunch of these in different colors she's going to string together for a Valentine garland for her Etsy shop, can't wait to see it when she's done!


Okay, guess I better get busy...can't believe it's the last day of vacation and back to work tomorrow! I did miss the kiddos and can't wait to hear all their stories tomorrow. Hope you're having a good weekend! Thanks so much for stopping by! Hugs and happy stamping!

Crop Challenge Cards

This picture above started it all...isn't it beautiful? It's from the Holiday Home magazine by CK Media that I picked up at Michael's yesterday morning. We all decided to buy buttons to make this, how fun! Plus, the buttons were on sale for 32% off during the crop, so how could you resist buying a few scoops?!

Anyway, when it was getting close to midnight, it was time for another 15 minute card challenge! I found some small square pieces of Old Olive DSP, so we had to use that plus a button on our card. So here's what we came up with:

My simple dimple card with the new Winter Post set (available October 1 in the Holiday Mini!):


Lori's fabulous pocket card, what a great fall feeling:


Valerie's sweet little button flower card:


Beverly's great flower card, it's a precious little mini-size card (and she cut that great flower out of cute paper someone tossed into the donation bin!):


Gotta dash, still lots to do (and unpack, ugh!) before stamp club this afternoon. We had a blast at the 14 hour crop, but it does make for a long day! I love the new "happy hour" addition to our cropping, but I'm not sure three margaritas are conducive to getting a lot of scrapping done! lol!

Hope you have a great Sunday! Thanks so much for stopping by! Have you stamped something today?

Crop Challenge Cards & Scrapbooker's Natural Habitat Video

You may remember when my friends and I crop, we like to have last minute, timed challenges before we leave. (I'm sure the store loves this, as we're always the last to clean up and leave! lol!) Anyway, we had one challenge at 11:30 and one at 11:45. This card I made was my favorite, based on a picture in Lori's Country Home magazine (I asked dh to buy it at the grocery store yesterday, but he said they didn't have it. Bummer!). Anyway, the walls had this green damask wallpaper, the furnishing were mostly white/cream, there was an antique wicker coffee table with a Cool Caribbean vase on it, and the walls were covered with old white/cream plates and platters. It was gorgeous!


I didn't have many stamps with me or any 8 1/2 x 11 cardstock, so I gave everyone a card cut from this fabulous green Amy Butler paper. It matched the room walls perfectly!

Here is Beverly's card, love her 3 circles (like the antique plates) and the yummy crushed velvet ribbon:


Here is Margaret's card, could her oval die-cut image be anymore perfect?!


Here is Lori's card, great idea to use the oval punch (like the antique platters) and bring in the touch of blue like the vase!


Now...on to the other challenge! This is my card:


In my attempt to "use up my stuff", I decided to give everyone a 5 1/4 x 4 piece of the BoBunny paper I had just used on my Element page (one post below) that I had used to cover the chipboard girl piece. (Lori was kind of enough to lend me some brown textured cardstock for the card base, thank you!) I ended up stamping the "fabulous" (Heidi Swapp) on the back of my paper and showing the front of the paper on the arrow.

Here is Lori's card, love the way she chopped of part of the flower on the side and that ribbon is to die for!

Here is Margaret's card, she had another perfect die-cut and the SU stretchy ribbon is so cute too!

Here is Beverly's card, love the way she punched out the flowers with the Boho Flower punch to match the paper!


Doesn't that look like fun?! Don't you wish you had been there?! lol! If you're still with me at this point, I want to share with you a video I found last week while blog surfing (I did a LOT of that last week!) that I was telling the girls about. It's from Emily Falconbridge's blog, she's a designer for Scrapbooks, Etc. It's done by her husband about a "scrapbooker's natural habitat." It is so funny, I love the "scrapbooker's droppings"! His accent makes it so awesome, it could totally be featured on PBS! Enjoy and thanks for stopping by!

Inspiration Challenge

Happy Saturday! Hope your weekend is off to a great start! I got up early and hit the house cleaning, but faded fast and went back to bed until 12:30! How decadent! lol! I guess it's because I didn't get to bed until 1:30 after the crop, but we had a great time, and it was so worth it!

Even though we were mostly doing our 8" x 8" scrapbook pages for Robyn's wedding album (which I will show tomorrow for Scrapbook Sunday), the girls wanted their 10 minute challenge before we left, so I was scrambling to come up with something. Luckily, I saw Robyn's fabulous purse (isn't this purse killer cute?!) so we used it as an inspiration challenge and below here are our results.


Here is my card using Kraft & Chocolate Chip cardstock, Spring Break DSP & small oval punch (for the leaves), Pure Color Pencils (to color the big white flower by Heidi Swapp), and the other flower and green paper are from a Jenni Bowlin kit.

This is by Beverly Mohler:

This is by Lori Franklin (sister of the bride):

This is by Michelva Evans:

This is by Valerie Guilbert:

They are all so springy and fun! Some girls left before the challenge, but we die-hard croppers are always the last ones to leave. I think I'm pretty much the last one to pay my tab and check out every time, I'm sure they love me! lol! And what was I paying for when I checked out? What did I buy?! Well, I bought my first set of Spellbinder's Nestabilities, thanks to Beate (enabler almighty!)! They only had a couple in stock, but I bought the scallop squares and Beverly bought the scallop ovals. I'm off to unpack my stuff and give them a try now, I'll let you know how it goes! Thanks for stopping by and have a super Saturday!

Scrapbook Sunday #12

Hi stampers, it's me, Angie! (Dh never should have started that, it stays in my head EVERY time I make a post!) So I went to my Friday night crop...what a weird night...the moon was not in alignment or something...I almost got up and left several times! Yes, I made one stinkin' page, not even a good one, I'll post the picture at the end here. I'm not even going to try and scrapbook at crops anymore, I'm sticking with cards and challenges.

And speaking of challenges, I did have one challenge for the girls at 11:30 p.m. I bought the cutest felt flowers at the Joann's $1 Spot after leaving the CPA's office on Friday morning (after driving 45 minutes to Frisco, you bet I was going to stop at the nearby Hobby Lobby, Joann's, and Michael's!), because I knew they would be perfect for a challenge. Then the scrapbook store had this cutest paper from Paper Salon, so I added some SU Pixie Pink to it and set the girls off on their challenge: to make Easter cards for me to send to my family! Here are our results:





Pretty cute, huh?! I hope you like this paper too, because I've made several more cards with it that will be showing up this week! lol! I bought the last three 12x12 sheets of the Peep paper they had, plus a 6x6 pad of the assorted sheets. You know, with the 10% crop discount, how could I resist, it was practically free! lol!

Lastly, here's the 12x12 page I made of my cousin Kelly and his beautiful wife Mardi. After living in Dallas for years, they moved to Los Angeles last year and I really miss them. He's a musician, you can check him out here. (I lifted a photo of him so you can see how cool he is, lol! He's actually the nicest, sweetest, kindest guy you'd ever meet. He is the drummer in the Rihanna Umbrella video that won the 2007 MTV Video of the Year.) Anyway, I love the face he made in this main picture and how Mardi is looking at him, cracks me up! There's no stamping, used supplies from various past Jenni Bowlin kits. (Someone please help me quit this club, I just can't stop!)

Photo by: Leanna Bates

Guess that's it for today...only a few precious hours left before returning to school tomorrow! {imagine loud sobbing noise here} Hope your weekend has been great!

Color Challenge 151...and we mean CHALLENGE!

Hi stampers! Here I am, finally posting after trying to get around to it all day! I went to my crop last night, totally prepared to double my output from the last crop...from 2 cards to 4 cards. Alas, it did not happen. I did make 3 cards, though, so it's an improvement, right?!

Back at the last crop, when I posted this card for a limited supply challenge, I failed to mention that it was at the last minute, like 10 minutes before midnight, and I made all of my friends cropping with me do it also. They groaned a little, but did a really good job! So last night we talked about doing another "10 minute challenge" before closing time and start making it a tradition. I really took 15 minutes, so maybe I cheated a little...I just had to get some ribbon, you understand, right?! It is SO much fun, I can't tell you. I'm throwing card stock at them, it's go time! They were not thrilled with this SCS CC151 combo (Yo Yo Yellow, Basic Gray, and Going Gray), but they all did a fabulous job!

Here's Beverly's card..love her "sun" theme with that perfect saying Valerie just happened to have with her!

Of course, Lori announced her card had a name, asking us if we remembered The Partridge Family show (ummmm, yeah, I'm old!), so I'm singing "Come on, get happy!" before she even shows it to us. How stinking cute and fun is this?!


I love this card by Michelva, who was the first one done, by the way. She always makes the most elegant cards. I should have photographed this Valentine card she made with a heart made by basket-weaving ribbon. It was amazing (Michelva, please send me a picture of it, please?! I'm assuming she's reading this, hmmmmm.)

Lastly, here's Valerie's fabulous sunny, beach card. Isn't it so clever? Love the sun she made with the stamp in the center and the silver eyelet. The torn paper and flip-flops invoke the perfect beachy feel, showing you don't even need Kraft and Creamy Caramel for your beach cards. Love it!

Anyway, we had a great time! And apparently I can really crank out a card when I'm under pressure like that, so from now on we're going to have a 10 minute card challenge before the hour, every hour! This way I'm guaranteed to get at least 6 cards made! Hooray!

On a side note, when I awoke last Friday at 5am, dh was watching some old-time movie with knights and warriors and such, and they were shouting "Hooray!" He decided this is the problem with modern-day America, people aren't shouting "Hooray!" anymore. We practiced all morning on the way to work. I tried to get the kids into it when I said "It's time for the Reading test, Hooray!" They did not think it was a Hooray-worthy event, but I'm not giving up, not yet! You try it Monday morning, okay?! Hooray!

Okay, gotta dash. While looking for the Partridge Family song I found I could buy the David Casady "I Think I Love You" ringtone, Hooray!