Hi all!

Thanks for waiting a bit longer than usual for the round-up. Sometimes the time just gets away from me, ya know? Before I knew it, I was editing this week's video and was all, "Oh, crap! I need to post the Color Challenge!"

Believe it or not, I made this card before I started on MACM, but just got wrapped up in video editing before I could post it! So thanks for being patient. Hopefully it's worth it! :)

I came across what many of you mentioned when you submitted your cards. Pumpkin Pie was particularly hard to tone down with this color combination. It's such a strong color that it often overpowers the colors around it.

The way I worked with it was to make the Pumpkin Pie a smaller section of the card, or a part that could be broken apart (to give the illusion of less "weight" to it). Thin letters always do that because it breaks up the big block of color. So I used Pumpkin Pie for the letters. What do you think? Doesn't it balance out the strength of the Pumpkin Pie?

And on to the 20!

TOP TEN
TEN RANDOMLY SELECTED

Love You - Alphabet stamps (Educational Insights); Big Bold Birthday stamp set, Soft Sky, Certainly Celery, and Very Vanilla card stock, Pumpkin Pie ink, crimper, paper piercer and template, District Ribbon Originals (Stampin' Up!).

Hi all!
Just a quick card tonight. :)
Watching Batman Begins in preparation for tomorrow's 12 noon IMAX screening.
Just a refresher course so I remember all the important details.
Haven't seen it since theaters two summers ago.
Man, this movie is intense.
Should be interesting to see the new movie.
Might be a little eerie seeing Mr. Ledger as the Joker.
But I'm still looking forward to it. Heard it's great. :)

So Grateful For You - Amy Butler for K & Company patterned paper (K & Company); Simple Serif Mini Alphabet, Sage Shadow ink, Basic Black marker, Naturals White card stock, Pretties Kit (Stampin' Up!); ribbon (craft supply).

Hi all!

For this week's Make a Card Monday, I wanted to break out some paper I haven't use for a LONG time. The blue patterned paper is actually fabric paper from the KI Memories line Love Elsie. It has an adhesive on the back, but I wanted to pop it up from the card base, so I left the backing paper on.

I also covered a chipboard star with card stock. For more instruction on covering chipboard, please watch this video.

Anyway, I hope you all had a great weekend. I mostly lounged about the house and read. We're reading A Thousand Splendid Suns for our book club at work, and so far I really like it. I'm not too far in yet, but what I've read is really outstanding. I love this writing style. :) Have any of you read it? Without giving anything away, what did you think?

Anyhow, here's the video. :)

Once again, you can watch the video in high quality here.

Hi all!

Here's my card for the challenge this week. In order to get the punched circles just right, I used the same technique that I used in this video. Super easy and simple. :)

I'll have you all notice the bow, please. I think I finally figured out how tie a good bow! Watch for a video soon. :)

Okay, now HEADS UP! I'd like to give you all some tips on posting your Color Inspiration Challenge submissions. These are tips that will help me and you, so please use them:

1. If you're posting a link to your blog, PLEASE please link to the exact entry that has the card/creation on it. Often, when I go to your main blog page, you've added more entries so I have to scroll down a ways before I see your submission. This is just so I can get through the entries quicker. Often, you can get to the specific entry by clicking on the title of the entry, on "Permalink", or on the time it was posted.

2. It's come to my attention that if you try to include more than 1 link in the comment, it will sometimes flag the comment as spam and not post it. Please include only one link.

3. Please include the ENTIRE link/URL. For example, you need to have http:// in front of your link. This tells my blogging software to make it a link. Just select the entire web address in the address bar of your web browser and copy that into your comment.

4. RELOAD the entry page your commenting on after submitting comment. After you've posted your comment and it says that it's gone through, return to the entry page and hit refresh on your browser. There have been a lot of double posts, and I think it's because some of your browsers aren't recognizing the change in the page. A simple refresh/reload with show your comment. If it's still not there, go ahead and try commenting again.

5. You don't have to have a blog to submit a creation. There are plenty of free image galleries out there. If you want to keep your creation in a craft-friendly place, I suggest signing up with Splitcoaststampers.com. You can upload your images into your own gallery, receive comments from other papercrafters, and also submit a link to your creation to my Color Inspiration Challenges. You can view a tutorial on posting images to Splitcoast in this video.

And that's it! :) Thanks for all your cooperation on this.

On to the top ten submissions and randomly chosen ten!

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TEN RANDOMLY SELECTED

Flower Windows - Chocolate Chip, Close to Cocoa, and Really Rust card stock; Certainly Celery wide grosgrain ribbon; VersaMark ink; Winter White detail embossing powder; Simply Said stamp set (Stampin' Up!).

Card - Patterned paper (Scenic Route); Kraft and Chocolate Chip card stock, 3/4" circle and 1-3/8" sqaure punches, Chocolate chip wide grosgrain, paper piercer and template (Stampin' Up!).

Box - Click here for tutorial. Linen Prients DSP, Chocolate Chip wide grosgrain, ticket corner punch, Close to Cocoa card stock, linen thread (Stampin' Up!); felt flower, brad, and eyelet (American Crafts).

Hi all! Thought I would post a quick card I made last night. Still not quite sure if I like this card.

Craft room is almost cleaned up. One more serious organize, I'll be set.

New Color Inspiration Challenge will post tonight. Watch for it. :)

Not a whole lot to say at the moment... Must go get ready for work.

Anyone watching So You Think You Can Dance?

Or Wipeout?

I {heart} summer tv. ;)

thnx - Basic Black card stock, white embossing powder, Take Note rubons (Stampin' Up!); Aqua Mist card stock (Papertrey Ink); white ribbon (American Crafts); patterned paper (Scenic Route); stamps (Educational Insights).

Good morning, all! (Unless, of course you're in a far away country where it's evening). :)

This week's Make a Card Monday came about because I had two packs of American Crafts rubons that I had rarely used. Both had the same designs but one was in brown and the other in white... Hmm... What to make?

I thought to make a card that uses only those two colors. But I substituted Very Vanilla for the white just so that it would soften the contrast just a bit. Even though the rubons were white, it doesn't really bother me too much.

It looks like a wedding card, huh? That wasn't what I was aiming for, but it certainly looks like one now. No complaints here, though. A card is a card. :)

Anyway, the card came together SUPER quickly! I wouldn't mind making a few more of these. :)

Hi all!

Sorry about dropping off the planet for a bit. :) I've been wanting to spruce up the blog here for a while so all my free time went to that. But, I got it where I want it so it should be free sailing for a hopefully a long time. Anyone who has a blog knows exactly what I mean--you're only content with how your blog looks for a short while and then BAM! You've got to change it up a bit.

During the revamp of the blog (which really didn't change all that much), I added a couple new things. First, I think I eliminated a lot of the things that caused the pages to load slowly. I took out a lot of images and used text instead. Did you guys notice a difference in how fast the page loaded?

I also added numbers next to all the comments. That mostly for me. In the past when I drew random comment numbers for give aways, I had to print out all the comments, and then pencil in the numbers. Now, the numbers are already there! :) Plus, if you guys want to reference each other's comments, just mention which number it was.

And, this last thing will take a while to get up and running completely, but I'm adding technique tags to all the entries that have cards or scrapbook pages in them. For instance, on this entry I tagged the term "faux stitching." At the end of this entry, if you click on the faux stitching link, you'll see a list of all the entries that have faux stitching in them. Pretty sweet, eh?

Like I sad, that one will take a while because I have to go through all 418 entries and manual type in all the tags. Just be patient. I'm working from the oldest entries and slowly making my way to current ones.

Anyway, this is the card I made for Color Inspiration Challenge #13. I actually had this all sketched out on Thursday night, made it Friday night, and am now just getting around to posting it. It's been a crazy weekend! :)

So enjoy the card, and be sure to take a look through all picks this week. Every week it's getting harder and harder to narrow the top ten down! You guys are truly amazing. :)

TOP TEN
TEN RANDOMLY SELECTED

Bloom Where You're Planted - All supplies from Stampin' Up! unless otherwise noted. Cutie Pie Designer Series Paper; River Rock,Wild Wasabi, and Whisper White card stock; Regal Rose, Wild Wasabi, and River Rock ink; corner rounder punches; paper piercing template; white gel pen; River Rock double stitched grosgain ribbon; Garden of Life stamp set (Papertrey Ink); white plastic flower (American Crafts).

Hi all! Thanks for being patient for today's video. :)

For those with high-speed internet, check out the video in higher quality over at YouTube. Just click here and then below the video click on "Watch in high quality."

Anyway, I used some chalk ink on this card. I LOVE chalk inks! They just look... so soft, or something. Just a cool look. I wish I had even more chalk inks to work with.

I also used a Stamp-a-ma-jig like you wouldn't believe! When I started stamping all those dots, I was all, "Hmm... this might take a while," and then I kept going and wanted to kill myself! That's a lot of dots! And just think--what if I'd tried to stamp the ENTIRE front of the card? Crazy! It was almost as bad as working with all those punched circles in my last entry's card. ;)

I also did a bit of individual color on the Happy Birthday stamp. I wasn't sure if the chalk ink would work in this case, but I was happy to note that it did. :)

Before I forget, I created an iTunes iMix for all the songs I've used in videos (including the Holiday ones). If the songs were bought from iTunes or could be found on iTunes, they're on this list. Plus, you can buy all of them at once, or individually. See it here.

Anyhow, on to the video!

Okay, first it must be said that I did not look at anyone's submission for this challenge until after I'd completed my own. That being said, I couldn't help but see how many others received the same inspiration as I did from the MoMA placemats. :)

(Make sure you click on each one of those words--they each go to a different card!)

Seriously, I couldn't help but smile as I saw how similar some of your cards were to mine. We must have a cosmic connection!

Anyhow, here are the ten I selected and the ten that were randomly picked. Such great submissions this week. Every week, you guys really step it up. :)

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Hi all!

Super simple card tonight. :) And a winner for today's Amazon.com gift card!

According to random.org, the winner is Kelly Jo who commented at 4:30 this afternoon. Congrats, Kelly! I'll email your gift certificate right now. :)

Simple Flower Card - Kraft card stock, white taffeta ribbon and rubons: Stmapin' Up!; patterned paper: KI Memories; Aqua Mist card stock and Garden of Life stamp set: Papertrey Ink.

Good morning! It's so early, it's not even bright and sunny here yet. I'm writing this at 12:15 in the morning! :)

Before I head off to bed, here's this week's card. Sort of a different card for me. But the more I look at it, the more I like it.

Often I'm asked if I work from sketches when I make my Make a Card Monday videos. Sometimes I do. However, this card was created by just wingin' it. I had no plan whatsoever. Sometimes that works out for the good and other time it's atrocious. You just never know what you're going to get, ya know?

What about you guys? Do you plan ahead? Play it by ear? Or maybe something in between. If I don't have a sketch, usually I'll at least know a few things that I'd like to use, I put them out on my desk, and then I start creating. But like I mentioned above, this card was just random. Flyin'-by-the-seat-of-my-pants-random. :)

Enjoy!

Hi all!

This is going to be a super quick entry since I'm wrapping this up at nearly midnight. Man, I'm tired!

Tonight we met at my brothers house to celebrate Father's Day, and the inaugural Werner Family Father's Day Tetris Tournament! Complete with brackets and everything. :)

I lost my very first match (up against Ryan) but wasn't eliminated until two rounds later. It ended with a fight to the death (ha!) between my brother Ryan and my sister Anna. Ryan won, though. :)

However--and that's a big HOWEVER--we played a sudden death match between just four players and I WON! WAHOO!

Until next year, right? I'll be practicing!

Anyhow, here are the selections for the latest Color Inspiration Challenge:

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TEN RANDOMLY SELECTED

Hello - Riot of Petals background stamp; Old Olive, So Saffron, and Whisper White card stock; Rose Red ink; Three Flower punch; brad; paper piercer and template (Stampin' Up!); gray paper (American Crafts); alphabet stamps (Educational Insights).

Hi all!

This week's card is for one of the many people I know that announced just this week that they're expecting! Seriously, there is something in the water around here... everyone's pregnant! :)

Anyway, I'm still obsessing over these Educational Insights alpha stamps. Just can't get enough of them! We used them at card club on Thursday, and then I had to break them out for Make a Card Monday.

I also am stuck on an embossing kick. Any and all stamping has to include embossing!

I go through these phases every once in a while when nearly everything I create uses the same supplies or techniques. I bet many of you go through these phases too. Either colors, stamps, ribbons, tools.

What phase are you in right now?

Then again, maybe it's just that I use whatever is within reach on my craft desk (aka whatever is hanging out on the top surface of my mess). ;)

Hi all!

Tonight is my monthly card club. (If you have questions on the details of my club, read my answers here). I designed the cards last night and my bag is all packed and ready to go over to Paula's for some card makin' and yummy food right after work.

Anyway, I usually make it a point to ask each month's hostess if she has any requests for the kinds of cards we'll make. Paula specifically asked for small 2x2 cards. Whoa. That's small!

But they're cute, eh? :)

I kept the little guys pretty plain so that they could be used for just about anything. I picture them being used on gifts since I don't have envelopes for them. Have any of you seen envelopes fit 2x2 square cards?

The other card uses some materials that I picked up at Kate's Paperie in New York. That gorgeous blue card stock! Yum! And the green envelope that you can see peeking out from underneath the card--that's from Kate's as well. :)

3 cards - Kraft card stock (Stampin' Up!); ribbon (Kate's Paperie); patterned paper (Sassafrass Lass, KI Memories).

Hi Card - Winter White embossing powder, Soft Sky ink, Naturals White and Basic Black card stock (Stampin Up!); blue card stock and black ribbon (Kate's Paperie); patterned paper (Sassafrass Lass); dot stamp (Art Warehouse); alpha stamps (Educational Insights); VersaMark ink.

The above card is for all you blog buddies! I've been such a slacker and I have left ya'll hangin' for SO long! You guys are too good to me--hangin' in there until I can squeak out some spare time in the middle of the night. :)

Anyhow, here's my real card for the Color Inspiration Challenge. I made the sorry card after I made this one. Seriously, thanks for being so patient. :)

I bought this little lamb-y stamp back in March when I was in New York. I bought it at Kate's Paperie--which, by the way! If you're ever in New York, you must go to Kate's! It's awesome! Anyhow, back on topic...

Can you believe it's taken me this long to get around to using this adorable little lamb? I don't recall who the stamp is by... It was a name I've never heard of. I'll update ya'll with it later. :)

My word, I need to clean out my stash more often! I've been unearthing all this incredible stuff that I forgot about! As soon as the room is all cleaned up, I'm sure I'll have plenty of inspiration. ;) And according to all your comments about my messy craft room, a lot of you have the same issue!

Obviously, I'm still stuck on the circles-turned-into-scallops! I just can't stop using this little detail! I LOVE it! What about you guys? Have you tried it out yet?

Okay, now on to the Color Inspiration Round-up!

TOP TEN
TEN RANDOMLY SELECTED

Sorry kids. No MACM this week. Why, you ask? This is why...



Yep. I have a messy craft area. It's actually one of the reasons I haven't been too motivated to create anything recently. BUT! That's about to change!

After procrastinating cleaning out my craft room, it's down to just a few days before I HAVE TO have it all done. New roommate Jen moves in this weekend so I need to have it all in order so that she can move her stuff in, too. We'll be sharing the office, and I was definitely taking up more than half my share. :) So, I moved the stamp set shelves into the closet --the walk-in-closet--and I lined the shelves up side by side so I could see the stamp sets easier). There's still a lot of random junk in the closet, but at least my stamps have a home. :)

I'm slowly going through ALL my stuff and giving a lot of it away. Stuff I'm just not too excited about or that I know I'll never get around to using. I'm taking in a big box of stuff to the office this morning to share with the work buddies. But I'm sure I'll have even more tonight when the cleaning commences once again. Speaking of, leave a comment here and I'll randomly pick a name tonight. That person will receive a little somethin' from my stash of giveaway goodies. :)

Anyhow, not too long ago I created some cards for the scrapsupply.com newsletter (see the May 2008 newsletter). As I was cleaning out my craft room I found this notepad (from M.O.):



Oh yeah! I forgot I sketched out ideas for this card:



In fact, you might recognize one of the sketches from another card. Which was is it, eh? ;) Anyway, have a happy Monday ya'll and I'll catch you tonight when I post my Color Challenge card and the selections for the last challenge.

Hi all! I'm actually prepping this entry on Friday night since I won't be home on Monday to upload a new MACM. Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this one.

I wanted to try using the same circle punches technique to create a scallop border on a circle. I've seen these a little bit and wanted to create a card using it.

This card is also my card for last week's Color Inspiration Challenge #9. Some of you mentioned that this was one of the harder challenges and I had to agree.

Such strong colors! And five of them, as well! It was definitely a bit more difficult to work with these colors compared to some of the combinations of the past few weeks. :)

Anyhow, I hope you all enjoy this one!

Hi everyone! I hope your weekends were lovely and all you Mother's out there were loved with lots of chocolate and yummy goodies for Mother's Day. :)

This week's Make a Card Monday was prompted by the fact that there are a couple birthday's this week at my office. First, there's Andrea whose birthday is today (Holla!), and then on Thursday... well, just watch the video to find out. ;)

(Note: For all you gift-givers out there (you know who you are--hey, Mom!) I'd like to point you in the direction of my Amazon.com wish list ;) ... Click here)

Anyway, this Happy card can be used for many different occasions and I think that's why I like it. :)

Enjoy! And everyone have a wonderful Monday!

Hi all! I'm a proud owner of a new desk! Lauren and Ben were my lifesavers tonight and helped me haul a bit of furniture from my local Target to my house in their truck. So grateful to them! :)

Anyhow, I put together the desk and the side table (for my printer) in about an hour. I rock! Actually, Target rocks. ;) I'm going to put together the bookcase tomorrow. Thanks you, economic stimulus check!

So, I'm typing this entry while I sit at my new desk... It's so nice! I love it already!

Enough about furniture! You're here for the round-up!

Something to note about the bow on my card... I have no idea how I got it to tie so perfectly. The perfect bow technique still eludes me, so when I get a perfect bow, it's completely random and lucky.

And so here are some of the card submitted this week...

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TEN RANDOMLY SELECTED

Hello - Brilliant Blue card stock and Jersey Shore Designer Series Paper: Stampin' Up!; ribbon: Kate's Paperie; felt alpha stickers: American Crafts; journal tag: Heidi Swapp.

Hi all!

For this week's card, I wanted to create an easy Mother's Day card. Can you believe it's nearly Mother's Day? Whoa. This year is just flying by! I swear it was Christmas yesterday!

Anyway, I used many of the same supplies for this card that I used a couple weeks ago. I wanted to show that you can use the same products but get a different look. :)

Okay, so I'm super tired, but I should go get ready for work... I really need to get to bed at a decent time tonight, especially after staying up late last night to watch my TiVo'd episode of Brothers and Sisters. Anyone else watch it? Hello. I love this show. :)

For all you French manicure fans out there, I found the best colors for a natural manicure. I painted my nails a couple days before I filmed this video, so you can see it in this video. I used Essie Marshmallow and Mademoiselle. LOVE this combination. :)

Hi all!

My fingertips and hands hurt and I'm developing bruises on my feet. Why, you ask? Because I put together my bed all by myself tonight. I was growing impatient waiting for my super-busy brother to come help me, so I dug in and did it myself.

Sigh. My legs hurt.

Do any of you know how hard it is to put together a four-poster bed all by yourself? Well, I do. And let me tell ya, it takes 2 hours. Yes, TWO HOURS! But I'll be sleepin' pretty tonight. And if the bed falls apart--forget it! I'm sleeping on the floor.

Long story short, after two trips to Lowes (Worker: "You again? The screws didn't work?" Me: "Nope! I need the longer ones") and crawling around on my bedroom floor while I listen to audio from the ENTIRE Center Stage movie, I didn't have a chance to make a card for the CI Challenge this week.

But that's okay because there are SO many awesome ones this week to pick from, right?! Behold, my top ten picks and the randomly selected:

TOP TEN
TEN RANDOMLY SELECTED

Hi all!

Wow, Make a Card Monday nearly wasn't made this week! I had a super busy weekend. Well, except for the three hours I spent watching the BBC's Sense and Sensability. But that doesn't count because it was awesome. It's the version that's showing on Masterpiece Theatre in the US right now as part of the Complete Jane Austen series on PBS. However, I have the DVDs so I'm watching it all at once. :)

For those of you who like the Colin Firth version of Pride and Prejudice, you'll like this version of Sense and Sensability. Totally great. In fact, I bought this box set for my mom for Mother's Day. It has the new BBC version of Persuasion and a new movie called Miss Austen Regrets included as well. You should all go watch it. I'm telling you. Awesome. :)

Anyway, this week's card sort of resembles a book. In fact, I started out covering two squares of chipboard and was planning to make it like this, but then I switched to just card stock.