Sweet Birthday Wishes, TECC31

Good morning! I woke up this morning to the noise of rain just pounding down outside. I LOVE it when it rains. I had no clue it was to rain on Labor Day here in Germany. Oh well, it will be a perfect day to do odd and end things around the house. I especially love the mornings when the kids sleep in and I can check email and get on online in peace and quiet. That's why I'm trying to get my card posted for Taylored Expressions cupcake challenge #31. I finished my card yesterday but ran out of time to post it. Yesterday while checking my myspace account I thought hmmm....why not use the color scheme from my myspace page to use for her challenge. My page is set to private but you can find the myspace page from Pyzam here. The colors in the page are Tempting Turquoise, Pink Passion, Basic Black, Apricot Appeal and Whisper White. I used just a bit of the Apricot Appeal to throw some of that color in there somewhere. I inked up my Birthday Cupcake stamp set by Inkadinkadoo. I purchased it at Joanns.com during 4th of July when it was on sale and shipping was free! What a deal right? I stamped the heart from the set as a background on the Pink Passion and then I went over the hearts with my new Black Diamond stickles I bought at the Spangdahlem AB crafts store. My sweet husband drove me an hour and 15 minutes away just so I could go to the craft store. They have a large selection of stuff on hand. He made my day Saturday! Instead of using a sentiment in the oval circle I used my large sentiment from the Birthday Cupcake set on the main image panel. My mom lives in Kansas and she goes to Topeka pretty often. She was there recently and happened upon a new scrapbook store. She does not stamp or not scrapbook at all but she's always thinking of me so she went in to see what she could find. Well she found this ADORABLE cupcake punch by EK Success. Actually the owner had made several cards using the punch and my mom could not find the punch so she ordered one. When it came in my mom went to get it and sent it to me! She knows I love cupcakes. I paper pieced the cupacke. I used some black eyelet designer paper for the liner, and I cut out the pink passion cupcake top. I also punched and pieced a piece of apricot appeal for the candle portion. I added some rhinestones because all cards need bling somewhere! Finished it off with some black and white polka dot organdy ribbon! Uh-oh I hear people moving about upstairs. In a few minutes I'll have to start breakfast so I'm off to start my day!

Supplies: Birthday Cupcake set by Inkadinkadoo, Black Diamond stickles, Black & White polka dot organdy ribbon, Scallop oval punches, Cupcake punch by EK Success, Basic Black ink, Tempting Turquoise, Pink Passion, Basic Black, Apricot Appeal, and Whisper White cardstock, Rhinestones, Pink Passion Stampin' Up! stampin write marker

Rock Star Onsie

This morning we had our monthly Stampin' Up! meeting and our wonderful Ally demonstrated how to do this very cute and simple onsie card. She found the tutorial here. This card is super cute you can dress it up as much as you like. And the best part it's so EASY and quick. I have this great designer paper by American Crafts called Fortune Teller with all the stars. I thought this would be cute to dress up the onsie. I used large brads by American crafts in pink. I didn't mean to put them so close together but it's still cute so I left it be.

Edited: I updated this post with the link to the tutorial

Supplies: Elegant Eggplant cardstock, American Crafts Fortune Teller designer paper, American Crafts large pink brads, Scallop punch, Stampin' Up! 1 3/8 inch

Boo Time, SC191

Today I managed to clean house for good part of the day so that when my husband went to work (he works night shift) that I would be able to sit down and stamp the night away. I think I got 2 cards done and it's almost 10pm here. So much for stamping the night away ha? I always sit down and start blog hoping and next thing I know I've spent hours looking at and commenting on blogs. About my card I want to say I didn't color in my witch image from Booglie Eyes because I just don't have the coloring skills like so many talented ladies out there. I tried 3 times to color her cape but it just wasn't happening. I used the sketch challenge over at SCS. A few months ago I bought the twill bundle from Taylored Expressions and realized the Key Lime twill ribbon matched to the t with the color in the designer paper. I stamped the sentiment in the old Stampin' Up! Parfait spectrum pad. My mom is constantly searching at local garage sales where she lives for SU items and she found and bought this spectrum pad. She is so sweet but she really doesn't know what to look for. If she had known this pad is half way dried up she wouldn't of bought it. But I appreciate her thinking of me often so I used it on my sentiment for this card.

Supplies: Only Orange, Whisper White, Basic Black, Lovely Lilac cardstock, Stampin' Up! halloween designer series paper (Sorry do not remember the name of the paper), Square punches, Stampin' Up! Booglie Eyes set, Taylored Expressions Key Lime twill ribbon, Lovely Lilac eyelets.

Booglie Boo

Yesterday I had the urge to make some Halloween cards because Halloween is near. I'm not sure what we will do for Halloween this year. I know there is trick or treating on base however I can only imagine how extremely crowded it will be. We will probably end up going anyways because well we're over here and have to let the kids enjoy their American traditions. I recently purchased the Vampire Riley stamp and wanted to use that as the main image but my coloring was so not working. It was all wrong. I really wish I had some copic markers to color. I tried coloring him three different ways and it just was not to my liking. So I took out my handy Booglie Eyes, it's one of my favorite Halloween sets. I also used some old Stampin' Up! ds Halloween paper I think it's from 2 years ago. I bought several packs of that paper because it was too cute for Halloween. Thanks for stopping by!

Vienna, Austria

When we were stationed in Texas and my husband was teaching classes at Lackland AFB he had a student in his class from Austria. His name is Sebastian. Sebastian and my husband became good friends. When Sebastian left he always extended the invitation to go visit him in his country. While family was in town we decided what a perfect time to go. Sebastian is in the Armed Forces of Austria. He was our tour guide for 2 days. He set us up in a nice hotel and showed us his home. We loved Austria!! We will go back probably next year for his wedding. The only downside was it was SUPER DUPER hot!!!!!! Did you know Austria has the world's oldest zoo? We did not go but we went to the front gate.

These two pictures are of the palace in Vienna. My 12 year old son Luis is standing in front of the Palace ruins, and the other picture is taken from the Palace looking into old Vienna. Sebastian showed us how easy it was to ride the subway and buses in the city. He took us to every tourist attraction. But for dinner on our first night he took us somewhere special on the outskirts of the city at the border of the mountains for dinner. The wine was fabulous as well as the food. We finished up our second day in Vienna visiting his workplace and had lunch before we took off for Garmisch, Germany.

Paris, France

Paris is AMAZING! We definitely (just hubby and I) have to go back before our 2 years is up here in Germany. You need more than 1 day to really enjoy Paris. If you have the time and money then a week is good. There was so much to see and do in Paris. I want to keep my posts short because there are several places I want to post pics about. The Eifel tower was the highlight, but so was seeing the Louis Vuitton building. If only I could afford to buy anything in there. :) I was so impressed with the details in the buildings. Just absolutely breathtaking!! I can't put into words how amazing it is.

Amsterdam

I've mentioned in a previous post that I would share pictures from our recent summer travels. My husbands parents and his Aunt and Uncle came to visit us for 3 weeks so we took a summer vacation. We went to all these places by car. The closest country we live near is France. We are about 20 minutes to the France border. As soon as I get my International Drivers license you better believe I will go to France on my own while the kids are at school on day trips. There is a store called Cora that isn't too far away from the France border it's like a super Wal-Mart. Ok onto my review of Amsterdam. Well in my honest opinion everyone has their places of enjoyment and this was not one of them. Perhaps we just did not know where to go in the downtown area but the area we were in was jam packed with marijuana everywhere. Of course that's one of the things Amsterdam is known for it's legalization of drugs. Maybe I didn't really get to enjoy it because we didn't arrive until 5pm and a lot of the tourist attractions closed early. Well here is a picture of my husband and I at one of the many canals. The kids really enjoyed the canals. There was a huge population of people from every country imaginable!

Cute As a Bug, Mojo Monday #49

Ok well here is my last minute attempt at this Mojo Monday challenge #49. I forgot all about it and I think I have 30 minutes left to enter the contest. I've had this cute 12X12 paper by Making Memories in my pile for a while now and wanted to use it. I only have 1 Verve Visual stamp set and hate to use the same one over and over again for her challenges. I also had to change the saying to stick outside the main image as if I had put it underneath it would've covered the sentiment.

Supplies: Brocade Blue, Wild Wasabi, Whisper White cardstock, Making Memories ds paper, Brocade Blue & Wild Wasabi ink, Tiny Bubbles Cuttlebug emobssing folder, Stampin' Up! vintage brads

Ruby Snowbunnybella

Edit: Sorry everyone the previous dark picture was really bugging me so I re-took the picture to show what it really looks like. Much better in my opinion!

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been almost a month since I've posted anything. As I mentioned in my previous post we did have family come for 3 weeks. They left last weekend and well life's been busy getting the boys ready for school to start. We had a fantastic time with our family. It gets so lonely living overseas with no family. Essentially our friends always become family it's a way of military life. Anyway we went to many places while they were here. Our main highlights were Paris, Amsterdam, Luxembourg, Vienna, Rome, and Milan!! I'll be posting a few pics of our adventure while they were here soon.

To jump start back into my mojo I went over to SCS as always for color inspiration Tuesday. Today's colors were different but very cute!! The colors we were challenged to use are Close to Cocoa, Ruby Red, & Blush Blossom. I participated in a Stamping Bella image swap on SCS and today they came in my mail so I decided why not pull out a fantastic bella to color and use as the main image for this card. I went with a winter theme because before you know it winter will be here.

I used stickles in the fur of her coat. On top I used my new Copper stickles, and on her boots I used Stardust stickles to give it a little girly girl glitter.

Supplies:
Close to Cocoa, Whisper White, Ruby Red, Blush Blossom cardstock, Snowbunnybella, Copper & Stardust stickles, brads, Cocoa grosgrain ribbon, Snowflakes Cuttlebug embossing folder