2RB: Patriotic Please

I hope your 4th of July was a fantastic day! We celebrated my brother's birthday with a cookout at my parent's house and then fireworks in the evening. This is one of my favorite holidays. I'm so thankful for the freedoms that I have, for the founding fathers who believed in it and fought for it and for those men and women who fight for it today - both for us and for others less fortunate around the world!

Since it's Sunday that means it's time for another Banana Split Sunday; this week's challenge is all things patriotic! Be sure to visit the 2RedBananas blog to see the other creations by the design team. We'd love to have you play along with us as well. Just link up your creation at the blog!

I knew that I wanted to make a patriotic bee as soon as I saw this weeks theme. He's colored with my prismacolors and baby oil. The sketch is from 2Sketches4You. The paper and star gems are from my stash!

Check out the rest of the bunch and leave them some love!

Jeanette Fincher ♥ Deb Felts
Jami Bova ♥ Teresa Grau ♥ Wendy Kastner

Triple Treat: Flutter, Twinkle, Sketch

Hello again! I have another card for today and it's a TRIPLE treat. I managed to combine 3 challenges into this card! This is my second post for today -- be sure to scroll down and see my Cuttlebug Challenge card!

Yesterday was Madelynn's Twinkling Tuesday -- no sketch but an amazing inspiration photo full of citrus fruits! I wasn't able to get it up yesterday since I was on vacation. I wanted to use the colors to create my Flutter By card for today. Before I went in to create I checked out this week's sketch challenge on SCS and saw that I could easily use butterflies. So there you go! A Triple Treat!


I used some scraps of glitter paper to punch out my butterflies and just adhered them to a 4.25 square base with pop dots.

I hope you'll visit the rest of the Twinklettes and Flutter By girls! You can find their links in my sidebar!! I can't wait to see what they've come up with this week!

Cuttlebug Be Inspired Challenge 37: Seeing Stars

ETA: The post is finally live -- if you've been waiting to see it head on over now! There are just amazing projects to see!

Good morning girls!! Oh, I've missed you! The last several days have been spent in the New Mexico Rockies, enjoying a wonderful family vacation that included my parents and siblings. Fishin' and drivin' and balloonin' and gamin' --- all add up to a WONDERFUL time!

It's good to be back home and it's GOOD to be back with a Cuttlebug Challenge card! We took a break last week and today are back with some exciting things! First, the NEW team has been announced and today is our first Wednesday Be Inspired project. I was so happy and honored to be asked to stay on for the Fall term and blown away to get a "promotion" to the Senior Design Team. Seriously! The ENTIRE Cuttlebug Challenge team is fabulously talented and to get to create with them each week is a true honor ~ pleasure ~ blessing ~ joy. Anyway, it's still hard to believe. The talent and creativity that is brought together in this team is truly awesome! I hope you are a follower or subscriber to the blog because there are terrific things happening over there!

Second, we are showcasing projects using the new embossing folders being released by Provo Craft at CHA later this month. The entire month is a celebration of the new folders and you'll be seeing some terrific creations all month long by the design team!

This week we were asked to use the new Stars folder and a color combination of red, white and blue along with buttons!! Meda works diligently and tirelessly each week uploading the team's cards onto the CBC blog for us. When we found out her birthday was on July 4th, it was suggested that we also create a Happy Birthday card so as she opened emails from us this week, it would be a virtual deluge of cards for her! Thank you Meda so much for your work each and every week! You make us look great over and over again!! Have a very Happy Birthday girl! I'll eat a s'more in your honor on Saturday!!

I wanted to use Baja Breeze and thought it would pair terrifically with white and a true red. The stars were embossed and then trimmed down to fit on my white card base. The message (Anna Griffin) was stamped on a journaling tag by Martha Stewart and some buttons - new and vintage - along with a big, red polka dotted bow were added to finish it off! I wish I could remember what sketch I used for this card but I did it quickly between a packing break before we left and just am drawing a blank now!


Thanks so much for stopping by today! I'm so glad you did!! Be sure to check out the Cuttlebug Challenge blog to see the rest of the design team's creations. And be sure to check out the bios for the design team --- lots of new artists are joining us!!

Have a beautiful day everyone!!

Breaking News! This just in!!

Head over to the Cuttlebug Challenge blog to get the scoop on the biggest news from Provo Craft regarding the Cuttlebug and embossing folders.

It's soooo exciting!!! What? You're still here?

GO HERE NOW!!!

You can always come back later and we can squeal together!! LOL!!!

ETA: Link Corrected. Thanks for the heads up!

Cuttlebug Challenge Countdown to CHA

Good morning girls!!

The Cuttlebug Challenge team is on a one week hiatus! We're are preparing for a MONTH long event over at the blog, counting down the days to CHA! Provo Craft is releasing a dozen new embossing folders for the Cuttlebug and we want to inspire you all month long with awesome new creations!

You can win some of the NEW FOLDERS before you can buy them! Just click the ad above to get all the details over at the Cuttlebug Challenge blog!

See you next week with our first Countdown projects!!

Twinkling Tuesday: Bling-a-ling Bee

Tuesdays are Twinkling around here! In case you are just stopping by for the first time, Madelynn is a creative 9 year old and every Tuesday she gives us a challenge. Usually they are sketch challenges -- and oh, she's very, very good at coming up with them! What a fun challenge Madelynn had for us this week! No sketch this week - instead she wanted to see the BLING! Right up my alley!!

I used one of the bees from the Party Bees set available at 2RedBananas! She is colored with prismas/baby oil and her wings have been covered in sparkly glitter! I also added more bling with some gems in the corners and the crystal words. The sketch I used is actually a layout sketch that I found in the Paper Popsicles forum. I think it looks great on a card too!

My little man also wanted to color with me and here's his bee!

Thanks for coming by today! I love being able to share my creations with you and it means so much that you swing by for a visit!

Be sure to visit the rest of the Twinklettes and see how they used bling today!

Christi ♥ Darla ♥ Debbie ♥ Heather
Heather R. ♥ Jacquie ♥ Janna
Jessica ♥ Kim ♥ Kimmie
Lisa ♥ Rebecca ♥ Sandra

Butterfly Flight

Today 2RedBananas is sponsoring the House Mouse Challenge. It's a sketch challenge this week and it's a great one in my opinion!!

I don't own any House Mouse stamps. I like the images and certainly have loved every card I've ever seen made with them. But the coloring always intimidated me. I used to own a stamp for some wacky reason; I don't remember buying it but I bet I picked it up at a big discount when our local stamp store closed many years ago. Jeannette was kind enough to stamp me a few images and send them my way to use for the challenge. I have to say, it wasn't near as hard to color that mouse as I thought it would be! I colored and blended with my Prismacolor pencils on this one. I used a blender pencil as well along the edges.

Thanks for stopping by today! Be sure to visit the House Mouse Challenge blog to see the sketch and their design team creations. And I hope you'll take a moment to see what the rest of the Banana Bunch did for this challenge.

Jeanette Fincher ♥ Deb Felts ♥ Jami Bova
Teresa Grau ♥ Wendy Kastner ♥

Denise Marzec, Guest DT ♥ Silke Ledlow, Guest DT

You can find several House Mouse stamps and sentiments in the 2RedBananas store. Jeannette carries the Stamp of the Month and the cutie for July is calling my name! I swear that is me some days in the Texas Heat! Have a beautiful day girls!!

Introducing Kyah!

Kyah is the daughter of one of my good stamping friends Jacquie, you know, the JavaBluStamper!
Today Kyah launched her very own blog to share her creations. She loves to create with her mom and I know that it's a special time for them. I actually happen to own a Kyah Original. I know I shouldn't brag, but I couldn't resist!

I love it when kids like to be creative and use the creative, artistic part of their brain!

Head over to Kyah's blog and see her very first post --- she also has a giveaway to celebrate her launch!

Then visit her mom's blog as she has a giveaway too. Jacquie is one of the most sharing people I know!!

Fairy in Thought

Good morning girls! Or afternoon rather! Today I have a card that uses the newest sketch over at Inspirational Card Sketches.

The fairy is from 2RedBananas and was illustrated by Jami Bova. I've actually been very intimidated by this stamp. Not really sure why as she's very sweet and wasn't that hard to color after all.

I used some Opal Shimmerz on her wings and her dress is Roseate Shimmer It! Copics for the rest of the image. (Jeannette carries lots of colors of Shimmerz, by the way.)

Isn't that sparkle wonderful!?! I can just imagine her sitting on the edge of the pool, cooling her toes and daydreaming!

The challenge this week at 2RedBananas is to be inspired by summer. Be sure to check out the blog and see what the rest of the team came up with! They are wonderful!!!!

Jeanette Fincher ♥ Cassie Larson ♥ Deb Felts
Jami Bova ♥ Teresa Grau ♥ Wendy Kastner
Denise Marzec, Guest DT ♥ Silke Ledlow, Guest DT

Have a beautiful day!!

Friday Find!

Hi girls!! Hope your Friday is going terrific. Yesterday felt like Friday to me. As I was cleaning up and organizing some files on my computer, I found this card I made that I never shared with you. Ack! The Horror!! I didn't mean to hold out on you!!! Seriously!!

This uses one of the cute flamingo sets from 2RedBananas. It's a wedding theme and the sentiment cracked me up! I thought it would be fun to create a card that you could use to invite someone to be your bridesmaid.

Isn't that the BIG job that a bridesmaid has? Be sure to check out the ribbon. The green scallop satin I picked up in one of those ribbon buys that Jody Morrow does. It's wonderful!!! Ribbon, satin and scallops --- 3 wonderful things all in one product!! And the pink ---- makes me want to SQUEAL - seriously!!! WHY? Because it's VELVET!!!! I got it at 2RedBananas.

Now, Jeanette is absolutely one of the greatest persons in the world!! I mentioned once that I wish I could find velvet ribbon. And she got some in the store in like 2 weeks! Now THAT'S Service!! It also comes in a rich brown and a pretty gray. So, yeah, I'm a fan of Jeanette for our shared ribbon love but also because she is truly, TRULY, a wonderful, sweet caring lady. I knew it but I've seen it in action several times this week. So stop by her blog, by the 2RB blog and by The Store to see what I mean.