2RedBananas: Rub a Dub Dub

Good Sunday morning!! I hope this finds you happy and well! It's time for another Banana Split Sunday challenge and this week it's all about Rub-ons! Upload your creation using rub-ons for a chance to win a package of rub-ons from 2RB!!

I went for a super simple card this week --- but I hope it has lots of WOW factor to it!!
I used an image from Stampavie that I bought at 2RedBananas - Jeanette carries tons of products and several other stamps in addition to her exclusive 2RedBananas line**! See all the Stampavie images she has HERE!

This sweet girl was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black and I added color with my colored pencils and blended with baby oil.

Here is my finished card! I told you it was simple ---- it's just ONE LAYER! The "chillin" rubon was added at the bottom and is from Making Memories.

Thanks so much for stopping by! I love it when you do - each and every visit, every comment means the world!

I hope you have a beautiful day - full of sunshine, and laughter and love!!

**There are new stamps being released in September so keep an eye out for Sneak Peeks of those coming soon!

Wanted to Share

Hey everyone! I'm logging on super quick to let you know that if you visit HERE and leave a comment, you could win some of the new Cuttlebug folders! Ya'll know I love my Cuttlebug so I definitely wanted to share the info with you!!! Good luck!!

It's about the Choices

Today is Flutter By Wednesday and Kim issued our challenge this week - to use our favorite quote in our creation. I LOVE quotes, I have a quote journal that I started in college and continue to this day....so, my favorite quote changes often. I've been watching the Harry Potter series over the past week so that I can go see the new one in the theatre so....it made it pretty easy to pick out the Dumbledore quote from 2RedBananas.

It is not our abilities that tell us what we truly are, it is our choices. ~Albus Dumbledore

Today is the last day of our Card Kit Challenges at 2RedBananas. Today we are featuring items from Pink Paislee. Ya'll know me - clean and simple is pretty much my style. So this bold print in this paper really is out of the box for me. But I am really pretty happy with how this card turned out!!

I even decorated the *inside* of my card too!

You can find all the items in the Card Kit at 2RedBananas - Jeanette stocks a LOT of great products in addition to her exclusive stamp line! Here's what we used:

Pink Paislee: Fascinating Collection (Alluring, Eye Popping and Spectacular)

Pink Paislee: Fascinating Chipboard

May Arts: Black grosgrain ribbon

More Quotes stamp set

While you are there, be sure to check out the SALE page - some great savings on Nestabilities, Shimmerz and more! Free shipping on orders over $50 which is a nice thing I always think!!

Visit the rest of the Bananas too to see their creations using the same collection!
Jeanette Fincher ♥ Deb Felts
Teresa Grau ♥ Wendy Kastner
Dawn Burnworth - Guest Designer

And the Flutter By girls too!

Ann ♥ Ashley ♥ Chris ♥ Christine
Danni ♥ Harriet ♥ Heather ♥ Jodi
Kim ♥ Lelia ♥ Michelle ♥ Nancy
Nicola ♥ Stef

Cuttlebug Be Inspired Challenge 46: Back to School with Cosmo Cricket

Hey girls!! It's Wednesday again and I've got 2 posts for today --- so be sure to browse both of them!

This week the Cuttlebug Challenge blog is sponsored by Cosmo Cricket! They sent the design team an assortment of their lines; I received The Boyfriend crafting kit and ribbon pack. (*I know! I've seen tons of people raving that they love this particular line!*)

It's time for Back to School --- some have already started, some start this week and a lucky few still have a week or two of summer left. School started yesterday here --- I taught high school for 11 years before quitting to be a work at home mom. I have thought of my fellow teacher friends all week; the first week of school is the best of times and the worst of times!

So, the Cuttlebug Challenge team was asked to think outside the box and create *projects* revolving around the idea of going Back to School! (by the way, I can't type that phrase without singing this song in my head --- which I've been doing for DAYS now!!)

I have a trio of items that I created: a mini backpack, perfect for hiding some sweet treats in and giving to a special student; a pencil box, simply decorated and a locker magnet.

I paired the papers from The Boyfriend with Coredinations Black Magic paper. The Backpack template can be found HERE at SCS and the Scor-It was an essential tool to bring this together! Coredinations included a Dust Buddy in our package and I actually remembered to pull it out after I embossed and sanded my cardstock. It was so neat to just swipe that across my paper and desk and have all that fine dust GONE!

The locker magnet is an altered dry erase board I picked up in a dollar spot at some point. I covered it with the "test" paper and added several other elements to pull it all together. The favorite part for me is the quote - a strip that I trimmed from one of the papers and then cut apart each word. Since I taught 9th graders, it was not hard for me to picture this as a motto for a group of high school boys! LOL!!!

You really need to be sure to swing by the Cuttlebug Challenge blog today - I've seen lots of the projects so far for this week and they are OhMyGoodnessAwesome! Seriously! Be sure to upload your creation for the challenge over at Mr Linky so we can come see what you've created as well!

Stick around for my second post!!

WHAT??

Another Freebie Friday at Paper Popsicles??

Yes!!!!

Every Friday during August Paper Popsicles is giving away a FREE Cheeky Radish digital stamp - and this week's is so fun! Perfect for so many occasions!!

It's totally free - but you do have to hurry over and git (heehee! that's the Texas in me coming out, I was going to change it but it made me giggle so I'm leaving it!) it today!! You can find it in the store!!

Bella Bella

You may remember last week when I shared that the 2RedBananas team was going to be creating during the month of August with some card kits that Jeanette sent us. This is week two and our kit this week features the most beautiful and elegant paper: Bella Bella from My Mind's Eye. Oh how I have fallen for this line!! I will definitely be ordering some more!! We also had some Dew Drops, some ribbon, and a pretty ribbon slide. I had my More Quotes set in my hand at one point but set it down somewhere so I ended up in Oklahoma with no stamps. At least I had my kit though!!


I decided to make the bird in one of the papers my focal point for this card. I couldn't quite figure out how to get my ribbon slide on there though.

Be sure to visit the other designers to see what they did with this card kit. And then visit the 2RedBananas store to check out all her terrific products!! You'll find the links above to the elements that we used to make it easy!!

Jeanette Fincher ♥ Deb Felts

Teresa Grau ♥ Wendy Kastner

Dawn Burnworth - Guest Designer*

That's it for me for today!! Sorry these all went up fairly late today. We are so happy to be home though and I couldn't wait to just crawl into my bed last night!

I hope you each have a beautiful day!! ~Cassie

Cuttlebug Be Inspired Challenge 45: Shaped Cards

This week's challenge at the Cuttlebug Challenge was to get creative and create a SHAPED card! This could have been quite a difficult challenge if it were not for our sponsor this week: Paper Popsicles. Melissa has a TON of different shaped templates that you can use to create cards!

I needed a masculine card for my Dad's birthday so I chose to work with the truck shape. I have many fond memories of my Dad's truck from growing up. It was an old GMC that was once red but the whole time it was in our family it had faded to a pale orange color. Donuts in parking lots during snowstorms, shivering in the winter as he drove me to basketball practice at ohmygoshitissoearlyanddarkstill:thirty, taking the humps on a street not far from our house so that we really bounced in the seat. Ah - good times!

I hope he sees the similarities when he opens his card!

I used the Diamond Plate to emboss the body of the truck and the Spots and Dots for the wheels. I used some Black Magic Coredinations for the card - first cutting it out for the base with the black on the outside and the orange on the inside. Then I cut another truck with the orange on the outside and trimmed out the wheel wells. I could've sanded but decided to just rub an ink pad over my embossing to have it really stand out. I also didn't sand the wheels but the embossing is deep enough that it brought some color through the black anyway! A few buttons and some silver creamy stuff finished it off!

Please go by the Cuttlebug Challenge blog to see the rest of the teams creations. There are a variety of the templates for you to see. You can view the entire line of Paper Popsicles Shaped Templates in the store. For only 99 cents, they are totally worth the time it would save me to try to sketch my own out!

Be sure to load up your shaped card over at Cuttlebug Challenge for a chance to win this week's prize, courtesy of Paper Popsicles!! And I've got one final card for today!

Flutter By Wednesday: A CASE study

Wednesday again and I have 3 projects to share with you today! First up is my Flutter By card for today. I get to play hostess this week and it was so fun to think up the challenge for this week! I love being a part of this team - it's so fun to be surrounded by such talent!! So I challenged the gals to CASE a Flutter By project from another teammate.

Seemed easy - until it came time to decide just WHICH card to case!! LOL!! I am horrible at making decisions --- so I took the easy way out and have included more than one CASE in my card for this week!

First, I used a color combo by Kim (here's hers) of blue, brown and just a touch of green. Boy that touch of green really threw me but I managed to get it in! You might just see another bit of inspiration from her on how I used my butterfly!
Then I loved the button that Harriet used on the center of her butterflies on this card here so I knew I wanted to use that touch!
And then the big CASE was one of Ann's cards - I loved the layout! I used a die cut butterfly instead of a stamp and a patterned ribbon instead of a solid one. I also didn't have patterned paper so I created some with my embossing folders!

Be sure to visit the rest of the team and see how they took on this challenge!!

Ann ♥ Chris ♥ Christine ♥ Danni ♥ Harriet
Heather ♥ Jodi ♥ Kim ♥ Lelia
Michelle- Team Leader
Nancy ♥ Nicola ♥ Stef ♥ Taylor

And be sure to hang around and see my other posts for today!! ~Cassie

Freebie Friday @ Paper Popsicles

It's Friday and time for another FREE Cheeky Radish digital stamp image available exclusively at Paper Popsicles.

Hurry over there and get yours now! It's only FREE today!!! You'll need to grab it in the store!!

I am a Lazy Stamper

**3rd post of the day! Be sure to scroll down and see my FlutterBy and Cuttlebug Challenge projects too!

Most of the projects I've shown you so far for 2RedBananas have been to showcase their exclusive line of stamps. Jeanette has a variety of looks and styles in the line. But 2RedBananas also carries lots of other products as well! *some of them are even on sale right now*

During the month of August, the design team will be creating cards and projects using a variety of kits that Jeanette put together for us. It will be sooo fun to see how we each took the SAME products yet came up with UNIQUE projects!!

Here is this week's kit:

* Fantasy Fiber (I had Daffodil to work with; there are several other colors available too!)

And if you've wondered how much fiber comes in a package --- that is HALF a package

in the photo - so a LOT!

* Imaginisce Paper: A Shore Thing Collection

(Feel the Burn, Getting Hotter Need Water, Cool Pool Chatter)

* May Arts Ribbon: Lemon sheer/twinkle and Lt Blue sheer/twinkle

We could use any image from 2RedBananas and I chose to use the Hello Beautiful flamingo released in May. I like her long hair and her dress is so fun!

I colored her with my Prismas/Baby Oil and paper pieced her dress using one of the papers in the kit. I chose this pattern because I watched some highlights from one of my favorite movies over the weekend - The Magic of Ordinary Days. It's set during WWII and the main character wears a dress with vegetables as the pattern. It's quirky and fun at the same time and that's the look I wanted for this beauty!

I went to cut her out and DISASTER! That's why I hate cutting the {wrong} way

(cut side up, BTW); I guess the die slipped and I had to start all over. UGH!

Same method. Would you believe DISASTER struck again!!?!!??!

I couldn't fit all the paper through the cuttlebug and without thinking just ripped part of it off. Ripped too much of it off.

Being the lazy stamper that I am, there was NO WAY I was going to color a 3rd time.

So I just channeled Tim Gunn and set out to "make it work".

Her skirt and arm have been popped up on dimensionals. The Fantasy Fiber was used as the scallop mat under my image. The directions for this say to use a Teflon coated iron and protective paper and all. That sounded like a lot of work.
And I haven't used my iron in ages but I'm pretty certain it's not Teflon coated.

And we already talked about what a lazy stamper I am!

So I just laid some out on my desk on a sheet of copy paper and used my heat gun to fuse it all together. I did notice that it lost some of it's shine so I flipped it over and heated the other side through some paper. It worked great - fused it together but still kept all the sparkle. I did cut it out using my scallop nesties; I just ran it through multiple times. It cut completely through for the most part. I just used some scissors to snip in those areas that didn't.

Be sure to visit the rest of the Banana Bunch to see their creations. I've already had a peek, and let me tell ya - GORGEOUSNESS awaits you!!

Jeanette Fincher ♥ Deb Felts
Teresa Grau ♥ Wendy Kastner
Dawn Burnworth - Guest Designer

Thanks

ETA: I set the post time wrong for this one - I forgot to change it from PM to AM. Sorry!!

This card is for all of you --- thanks for stopping by, thanks for subscribing, thanks for the kind words you leave, thanks for it ALL!

It's a pretty simple card; I love all the white space on it!! Our challenge this week for FlutterBy Wednesday was an open challenge! But the most exciting part is that Sandra McLean is our Guest Designer!! She is one of my favorite stampers and is constantly amazing me with her gorgeous creations!!

Stop by the rest of the FlutterBy team and see what they have created today!

Ann ♥ Ashley ♥ Chris ♥ Christine
Danni ♥ Harriet ♥ Heather
Jodi ♥ Kim ♥ Lelia ♥ Michelle
Nancy ♥ Nicola ♥ Stef ♥ Taylor

Cuttlebug Be Inspired Challenge 44: Making a Scene with Sakura

Hello everyone!! I'm so happy you stopped by today. I have several posts today so make sure your have your beverage of choice and settle in for a good visit!

First, I was so blessed by this wonderful write-up by Danielle; blessed to have been chosen to be mentioned on the Inspirational blog -- as you know, there are so many talented cardmakers out there so I just feel honored, thrilled, humbled to be included! Thank you Danielle for such a lovely post! If you are fairly new to this blog, it's a great post that highlights some of my favorite projects from the last year.

First I want to share my Cuttlebug Challenge project with you! This week, in addition to an embossing folder of our choice, we are using the Whitewash papers from one of our official sponsors Coredinations along with our weekly sponsor Sakura. They sent us some of their outline Sticklers and souffle pens to showcase for you today. Our challenge was to use these products and create a "scene" on our card.

Here is my card. It may appear washed out in the photo, but it's actually pretty close to this. The Whitewash finish on the cardstock really tones down the colors. I used 3 shades of blue from the collection for the sky and water, a green for the seaweed and then a scrap of regular brown cardstock for the ocean floor.

The layers were embossed, then sanded. What is really neat about the Whitewash line is that the raised portion becomes darker when you sand it as opposed to it becoming lighter or white like traditionally happens with this technique!

I adhered my Sticklers to white cardstock and then colored them in using the Souffle pens. Each Sticklers package comes with 3 pens. The trick is to GO SLOW so you get nice, even coverage! As the ink dries, it will lighten up considerably. I even went back and used some to add dots to my fish!

We can wait to see what kind of "scene" you can create with your Cuttlebug and embossing folders! Be sure to link up your project over at the Cuttlebug Challenge blog! And if you haven't already been by there - go see what the rest of the team came up with!

I've got 2 more posts to share today so don't go far!!

Cheeky Radish Friday Freebie

It's finally Friday and time for Freebie Friday at Paper Popsicles. All through the month of August, Cheeky Radish and Paper Popsicles are giving away a FREE digital stamp! It's only available TODAY though, so be sure to pop over there and grab yours!!

To get your free image you need to go to the store and order the image . It's in the digital stamp category (she's on pg 6 with lots of other adorable Elizabeth images!). It will be emailed back to you in .pdf format all ready to be printed and played with. You should receive your image within 24 hours of it being ordered (most likely it will be more like 2 hours).

After I printed Elizabeth out I colored her with Copics and my Prismacolors and baby oil. The whole time I was singing the bikini song and this paper from Cosmo Cricket was a perfect match for this image! I kept it simple, just embossing the patterned paper with my Divine Swirls folder and a few stacked buttons from Daisy D's.

You can find the paper and buttons in the Paper Popsicles store as well! You really should check out the message board too - it's a fun and welcoming place of scrappers and cardmakers! There are a few new contests just getting started for August that you won't want to miss out on!!

That's it for me now! Go grab Miss Elizabeth here and then let me know when you've created something with her --- I'd L.O.V.E. to see it! Thanks for stopping by and have a beautiful Friday!!

Cuttlebug Be Inspired Challenge 43: On My Mind, In My Heart

This week at the Cuttlebug Challenge, blog owner Maggie provided the team with some digi stamps that she had created. A few weeks ago, Scor-It provided the team with a Scor-It to use and we were asked to showcase the possibilities of it as well.

I knew I wanted to use this image as soon as I saw it. I will be in Oklahoma in a few weeks on business and this card was made to send to my hubby while we are gone. Or maybe just leave on his pillow.

I started by embossing a piece of black Coredinations cardstock (from the Black Magic pack) with my hearts folder and then sanding to reveal the core. This is not my first time using this paper, but every time, the results still get a "wow" from me! I'm so grateful to Coredinations for providing us with tons of their paper to showcase each week in our challenges.

The sentiment was trimmed and mounted to a paper pleated rosette (is that what they are called?) The Scor-It made it easy to link up the spacing and get straight and crisp scores to fold on.

Even though this is for my hubby, I did add a bit of glitz to it. The glitter on the hearts was adhered by tracing the image with my Quickie Glue Pen.

Be sure to visit the Cuttlebug Challenge blog to see what the rest of the team came up with! You can see it all HERE!! And I'll have my FlutterBy post up later this afternoon!

Celebrating with Anita!

My friend Anita is celebrating 10K hits on her blog! I first met Anita during the PMS launch and was immediately drawn to her art. She's very, very talented and a swetheart to boot! I am so happy we were able to be on a DT together and looking forward to see what's next in her stamping journey!
She's got a FABULOUS blog candy she's giving away - go see it!!!!

HERE!!

A Tree Swing

Did you have a tree swing growing up? We actually didn't; our house didn't have trees really when we bought it. A cherry tree that was removed. My parents did plant 3 trees in the front yard when I was growing up. One for me, one for my sister and one for my brother. This was before the last brother came along. Today those 2 trees (one of them didn't make it ---I think my brother's tree which always seems to bring some laughs) are big and provide wonderful shade.

I have a few cards that I haven't shared here yet from the recent Dare to Get Dirty challenges. This one was for the "create a scene" challenge. I used one of the new images from 2RedBananas of Penny swinging on a summer day!

Aren't her pigtails cute? I also combined the "paper tole" challenge with this one.

Here's my finished scene. HA! I just looked at this again and realize that Penny is swinging from a floating branch. Perhaps she's part of a wizarding family who doesn't actually need an entire tree to have a tree swing - just the branch is enough!!! LOL!!!!

With the little touches this card also fit a few more of those challenges: use punch/die cut ( grass ), add texture ( clouds ), sew (really sewed on the buttons, which I never do and now know why! and faux sewed their stems)

Don't forget that 2RedBananas is having a sale right now on Shimmerz, Blingz, Spellbinders and any of the 2009 February stamp sets. If you've been wanting to pick up some of those items, now is a great time to do so!! SHOP HERE!

Banana Split Sunday: And I Quote

It's time for another Banana Split Sunday challenge and this one was super fun! This week we were challenged to use a quote as the focal point on our card! I hope that you'll join in on this one! One lucky participant will win the More Quotes stamp set from the latest release.

I need to send a card to a gal that I used to teach with. She suffered a brain aneurysm earlier this summer. The fact that she is alive and is doing as well as she is is nothing short of God's grace and healing. She still has a long road ahead of her. I hope when she sees this card, it will remind her of His love for her as well as her family and friends love for her.

This quote from the Wrapped in His Love set says exactly what I pray for her and her family.

I have also been trying to play along in the Dare to Get Dirty challenges this weekend at SCS. I managed to get several of the challenges in on this card:

One Happy Stamper's sketch

Cut it Out

Non-Traditional Sized Card (it's 4 1/4 square)

Color My World

Taken with Texture

Stop by and see the rest of The Bunch and see what they created for this challenge!

Jeanette Fincher ♥ Deb Felts
Teresa Grau ♥ Wendy Kastner
Dawn Burnworth - Guest Designer

Stop by the 2RedBananas store too! Starting August 3rd (that's tomorrow!) Jeanette is running a sale!! Here's what's included:

ALL Shimmerz and Blingz

ALL Spellbinders Dies

ALL of the February 2009 releases

While you are there, be sure to check out the other stamps Jeanette has for sale as well as the paper! She also carries stamps from House Mouse (including the Stamp of the Month), C.C. Designs, October Afternoon, Stampavie and Imaginesce.

Free shipping on orders over $50 and standard $5 for other orders. Don't forget to add my favorite flowers (pink, blue and yellow) to your cart too! And some ribbon!

So excited to announce....

I am so excited to announce that Melissa, the owner of Paper Popsicles, has asked me to join her impressive and oh, so talented design team as a Digital Stamp Designer. There are tons of designs in the store already with a variety of styles.

Beginning in September, Melissa is adding a Digital Stamp Kit to her line-up as well.

Every Friday in August is Freebie Friday! There will be a FREE digital stamp from Cheeky Radish on the blog --- and they are designed especially for Freebie Friday! (CLICK HERE for info on how you can win a BIG package of goodies from Paper Popsicles!)

Here's the BLOG.

Here's the STORE.

Here's the FORUM.

Melissa has really neat kits every month and the August ones just debuted! The forum is a neat place to meet and interact with other ladies - most of them are scrappers and oh, how I've been inspired by their work. It's warm and welcoming and I'm so happy to have found it! (Thanks Tricia for pointing me in the right direction!)

I hope you'll stop by and say hi! And be on the lookout as September draws closer for sneak peeks of the new Cheeky Radish digital stamp kits!! I can't wait for you to see them!