Shoe Collection? Obsession? Affinity?

I have a serious affinity for shoes*. Cute shoes, sexy shoes, comfy shoes. I joined a Shoe Fetish ATC swap over on SCS. When I signed up I wanted to use my marabou shoe stamp. I can't find it. So I had to re-think my plan. I recently got that polka dotted paper (I totally love polka dots!!) and it makes me think of all things vintage and retro. So I wanted to use it for this project! And red goes so beautifully with cream and black. And I have 2 pairs of red shoes that give me an extra spring in my step when I wear them. I feel incredibly trendy in one pair and totally sexy in the other. If I had red polka dot shoes I'd probably swoon!!

Of course I had to dry emboss the base layer. I used my Swiss Dots cbug folder and then ran my craft white ink pad over them to really make them pop! By this point, I decided to just get carried away with the polka dots. I used a stamp to give my flowers some polka dots and a little touch of ribbon. This is just one of the shoes that I cut out for my ATCs. There was a whole row of 5 all lined up! I just picked my favorite one!! A little torn edge, some inking and overstamping for a slight distressed look! And yes, if I saw a pair of shoes like this I would totally buy them!! ** I hope the rest of the girls in the swap enjoy this ATC as much as I enjoyed making it! I can't wait to see what I get back!!

**Assuming that it came in a size 11. Yes, that's my shoe size. Causes me much grief and angst often I can tell you. I can still clearly see a fabulous pair of shoes that I wanted to buy a few years ago in Chicago. They only went up to a size 10. And trust me, I've tried to wear a 10 - but it's not pretty - so I don't do that anymore! Why, oh why, don't the shoe manufacturers realize that girls with big feet like pretty shoes too? And that we don't all have wide feet? Or want 4" stiletto heels?

*I got a kick out of everyone's comments regarding the various "collections" in my stamp room. I also have a serious shoe collection going on. When I was teaching, it didn't seem to be a problem but now that I'm a work-at-home-mom who lives in bare feet (yes, I prefer to be barefooted in my home) and flip flops these days it seems a little ridiculous. I have gone through them and gotten rid of lots of pairs. But I still have tons. And can't quite bring myself to get rid of them yet. I'm looking for new storage solutions for my vast collection - I'd love to hear how you store your shoes!!

Do You Know Me?

It's a new year for my local stamp group. Every month we meet and swap ATC's. It's hard to believe that I've been back meeting with them for a year. A year ago was my first month back that we made ATC's. It was a "bag swap" - we each brought a bag of goodies and had 2 hours (really less) to make 12 ATC's to swap that night. What an introduction, huh? I remember that I totally hated what I created. It was such a struggle to go from making a card to an itty bitty ATC. Now, I love making them. I don't usually make them except for club, but that's okay. You may remember THIS CARD where I mentioned that I used scraps to create my background panel. This is the ATC that I designed resulting in all those scraps. I used Fresh Cuts again, a wonderful set in my opinion. I think the image is "technically" upside down on my ATC but you can't really tell and I think that's pretty cool! I also used Cameo Coral and Basic Gray as my color combo and fell in love with it!! My base is embossed with the cbug Divine Swirls folder**.

Since it was a new year, we needed new challenges for our ATC group. I suggested a "secret" kind of swap so we all hid our creations in an envelope. Our fearless leader pulled out one and numbered them all. Then we passed them around and tried to guess who's was who. I think everyone knew this was mine. That's because I played by the rules and made an ATC like I normally would. Some of the gals thought the idea was to "trick" us so they made cards that were not their usual style. It was a ton of fun!!! And one that I hope we repeat at some point in the future. **I think it was my embossed base that gave me away. Or it might have been the use of dimensionals. Or the ribbon.

Thanks for stopping by today!! I hope you have a beautiful one! Hubby is off today so we will be spending some quality family time together!!

Catch a Falling Star

Hi again! How is your day shaping up? I have had a great day! Spent some time at Hobby Lobby and Michael's this morning and scored some good deals. Bought more ribbon; really don't NEED any more ribbon, but this ribbon was just begging to be taken home with me, where it would be loved and cherished!

This week's Pink Papery Studios challenge was to use flowers. Even though it is the middle of winter, I think we (meaning those of you in the frigid, snowy parts of the country as it is gorgeous here where I'm at) are all anxious for spring to be here. I used the sketch from SCS for today, although I modified it quite a bit. Be sure to stop by the rest of the girls and see what they've created. I've also gotten some sneaks at their cards for today and they are BeautifuL!!

Crafting for Sanity
Diva For A Day
Glitter In My Hair
Jaspere's Little Corner
Pixie Dreams
Simply Sista's & Card Scents...
So Cal LinZ

Enjoy the rest of your day. I am finished with my "have-to" cards for the moment so I think I'll be spending the next few days trying to finish my stamp space. I do have some projects I haven't shared yet that are scheduled to post throughout the rest of this week. I'll also be visiting each of you, so take a moment to say "hi!".
Have a beautiful day girls!!

Make Music

Good morning girls!! It's time for another Pink Papery Studios challenge! This week marks our FIRST challenge of 2009 and Lindsay suggested that we use metallics as a great way to ring in the new year!

My metallic paper is the red paper. It's not a glossy finish, more matte and has a slight sparkle to it. I actually picked it up at Target in the Christmas stationary section. My chocolate chip base and the next layer as well are embossed with the music notes cuttlebug folder. Then I smeared some red glitter gloss over it. The image on the left is a new image we got from Amy. I'm not sure if it's a dress, or a slip or a cover-up. On this card, it's a little nightie. With Valentine's Day coming up I thought it would make a fun card for my hubby. {wink} The panel on the right is stamped with a music stamp in Memento Rich Cocoa? Some flowers and a handwritten tag finish it off.

Be sure to stop by all the rest of the design team's blogs too to see what they created! Several of us used the same image and OH MY!! Let me tell you, they are CUTE, CUTE, CUTE!!

Jami

Jessica

Ami

Valerie

Shelly

Jennifer

Taylor

Kimmie

Janna

Amy

If you decide to play along this week, we'd love to see your creation! Link it up here so I can come check it out!

Flowers?

This is a card I created several months ago for my secret sister and feel safe sharing it now. The challenge was to create flowers out of a non-flower image. This is what I came up with. I used 3 different Stampin Up! sets on this card - a first for me I think!! My favorite thing on this card is the dotted line stamp I used behind the flowers - look close and you should see it.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend! It's been raining off and on here pretty much for 2 days now. Heavy, steady rain too! Lots of flooding - not major flooding, just over the curbs and stuff. I spent a few hours yesterday working a Twinkling H2Os demo at the local scrapbook store here in town. It was fun, but not as busy as I had expected - I think due to the rain!!

Thanks for stopping by and I'll see you soon! Have a beautiful week!

Scraps

This card was the result of some odd pieces lying on my desk. I don't save scraps and I hate little bits of rub-ons that get detached from the main sheet. How do you store those? So I had to use this stem - otherwise it was going in the trash. So this is what I came up with. Very simple, but hopefully stunning. Actually, I really like it. My sis was over today and she really liked all the cards I showed her. So - I'm sticking with it - a Simply Stunning card!!

Thanks for all the wonderful comments this last week. I've had some new visitors to my blog and that is so nice. New Friends and Old Friends - I hope you enjoy and will keep coming back! (Now I have that old song from my girl scout days in my head: Make New Friends, But Keep The Old, One is Silver and the Other's Gold!)

Make it a beautiful day!