My final "Hope you can cling to" card

The challenge today was to do a style that I was not known to do so often. I seldom make these fancy fold cards, because they take too much time for me. It took me 4 pieces of paper just to get the base of this card done correctly (and maybe I shouldn't use that word "correctly" either because that is probably questionable too).LOL  I found these cool brads at Michael's one day on sale and couldn't resist of course. They worked perfectly to camoflauge where my ink didn't stamp dark enough. You can almost always count on if my card has an embellishment it is covering some flaw in my stamping. My motto is "If you make a mistake, embellish, embellish, embellish!!" Now I will get my last batch of cards off to mail this week to MD Anderson here in Houston. It's been so fun taking part in these challenges, and my sister, Lynn has already won a prize for one of her cards. Congratulations, Lynn!

This was stamped with Kitchen Sink Stamps. It's a great set with some great sentiments to create with the card  you use the ribbon on.

Belli Challenge 1234 #129

The Belli Challenge today was to use a 1-2-3-4 recipe. So I used one stamp, 2 MS border punches, 3 colors, and 4 rhinestones. It was pretty quick and easy. The cardbase is kraft paper, the others are red cardstock and some Basic Grey dp.

12 Days of Christmas

12 Days Of Christmas Blog Hop

Speedy the Cat at Mark's Finest Papers likes to get a head start on special Christmas gifts and memories for friends and family. He gathered the design team at Mark's Finest Papers to bring you 12 days of exciting paper crafting gift ideas to get that holiday mojo flowing. The hop runs for 12 consecutive days, starting October 17th! Begin your holiday hop at Speedy's home base, the Mark's Finest Papers blog and relax with a cup of eggnog (or sprig of catnip, your choice) as Speedy leads you though a short, daily hop. You'll find your holiday paper crafting ideas and supplies at Mark's Finest Papers.

Welcome to the 12 Days of Christmas Blog Hop! We have four samples each day for our hop! Please visit each of the following blogs for holiday inspiration! Start off tomorrow on the MFP Blog for more inspiration!

Day 6 Altered Frame Oct 22:

Harriet
Vicky
Debbie
Liz (that's me!)

My frame is one of those $1 wooden frames from Michael's that I spray painted with gold metallic paint. I stamped the French horns onto cardstock, colored them, and cut them out. I glued them to the side of the frame. I added a bow and some sparkling holly Jollee's stickers to add to the holly on the French horn. I created this little poem and stamped some additional holly to it to put inside the frame.
This is a quick and easy project that you could even do with kids. Makes a great gift idea for them to give grandparents, adding their favorite photo of themselves. What grandparent does not cherish those?? Hope you will merrily hop through the other remaining 6 days for other holiday and  gift ideas.

My good stampin' buddy, DebDeb is hosting the challenge today for the Hope You Can Cling to Challenge. I have been taking part in this challenge for the entire month and have already sent two envelopes full of cards to MD Anderson Cancer Center here in Houston. Having always lived in the Houston area, within an 80 mile radius anyway, this is near and dear to my heart. I used my new Paper Trey Ink set and diecut for this card as well as one of my Spellbinder labels. I embossed it with a Paper Studio embossing folder, and used some new Basic Grey design paper on it too. I colored the white taffeta ribbon with my copic markers to match my colors. I love those markers because they work all kinds of magic like this.

I hope you have been wearing the pink and taking part in some form of support for the Breast Cancer awareness campaign. It really does change people's lives and gives them HOPE! Blessings to you and yours.

Double the challenge Double the fun

I did this for this week's Speedy the Cat's Friends' challenge to stamp a double image. I also am using it for the challenge on Stampin' Sisters in Christ challenge to use 2 stamps, 2 design papers, and 2 of what ever other embellishments you use. I used a set from Mark's Finest Papers called Bold and Free. The design papers are from Basic Grey's Pyrus pad. Kraft paper is used for the card base and I used two large eyelets from Stampin' Up.

New Stamps from MFP

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 I sponged over the punched piece for the background panel of the card. Then I flipped over the punched piece and used it as the white trim on the left side of the card. The image panel and the frame are Spellbinder pieces. I used some red ribbon to weave through the frame. I added some punched pine needles to the frame. The image is colored with copic markers. This set is the newly released set called Cardinals in Winter from Mark's Finest Papers.

Final Day of Mark's Finest Papers' October Blog Hop

Hello! Welcome to the October 2011 MFP New Releases Blog Hop!

This month's new releases are: Holly Greetings, Christmas in the Country, Snowball?, Country Thanksgiving, Cardinals in Winter, and Ginger Cookies.For your convenience, all these sets are available TODAY at Mark's Finest Papers.

So, do you want to WIN today's Featured Stamp Set: Ginger Cookies? (If you don't want to wait to win, you can always purchase the sets right away! We'll substitute a set from NEXT month's release if today's winner has already purchased this set!)

For your chance to win: Comment on the following Design Team members' blogs TODAY before midnight EDT. There will be ONE random winner chosen from the comments on today's Blog Hop blogs. That winner will win Ginger Cookies. We will announce the winner's name on tomorrow's MFP blog post.

Emily
Nancyruth
Neva
Faith
Dawn
Marilynn
Patricia
Chrissy
Karen
Pam
Joanne
Markie
Carol
Mark’s Finest Papers

3rd Day of Mark's Finest Papers' October Blog Hop

Hello! Welcome to the October 2011 MFP New Releases Blog Hop!

This month's new releases are: Holly Greetings, Christmas in the Country, Snowball?, Country Thanksgiving, Cardinals in Winter, and Ginger Cookies.For your convenience, all these sets are available TODAY at Mark's Finest Papers.

So, do you want to WIN today's Featured Stamp Sets: Country Thanksgiving and Cardinals in Winter? (If you don't want to wait to win, you can always purchase the sets right away! We'll substitute a set from NEXT month's release if today's winner has already purchased this set!)

For your chance to win: Comment on the following Design Team members' blogs TODAY before midnight EDT. There will be ONE random winner chosen from the comments on today's Blog Hop blogs. That winner will win Country Thanksgiving and Cardinals in Winter. We will announce the winner's name on tomorrow's MFP blog post.

Emily
Nancyruth
Neva
Faith
Dawn
Marilynn
Patricia
Chrissy
Karen
Pam
Joanne
Markie
Carol
Mark’s Finest Papers

Mark's Finest Papers' October Blog Hop

Hello! Welcome to the October 2011 MFP New Releases Blog Hop!

This month's new releases are: Holly Greetings, Christmas in the Country, Snowball?, Country Thanksgiving, Cardinals in Winter, and Ginger Cookies.For your convenience, all these sets are available TODAY at Mark's Finest Papers.

So, do you want to WIN today's Featured Stamp Set: Holly Greetings? (If you don't want to wait to win, you can always purchase the sets right away! We'll substitute a set from NEXT month's release if today's winner has already purchased this set!)

For your chance to win: Comment on the following Design Team members' blogs TODAY before midnight EDT. There will be ONE random winner chosen from the comments on today's Blog Hop blogs. That winner will win Holly Greetings. We will announce the winner's name on tomorrow's MFP blog post.

Lois
Vicky
Dawn
Anne
Peggysue
Connie
Linda
Karen
Patty
Liz
Geri
Lynn
Claudine
Debbie
Mark’s Finest Papers                                                     

I mailed off about five of the cards I have made so far for MD Anderson Cancer Center yesterday. October is my favorite fall month, and the Hope You Can Cling To challenge is one of the reasons.

Everyday there is a new challenge for each day in October. The hostesses have come up with some super challenges. Today's was to Have Only Paper Embellishments. This cardinal is from a soon to be released Mark's Finest Papers' set called Cardinals in Winter. It is beautiful.

It's sneak peek time at MFP!

I've been busy using these 6 new sets coming out next week to give you some ideas of how fabulous these new sets are  before the release and Blog Hop at Mark's Finest Papers. There are great choices for fall, winter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. You will love the stamps and the sentiments. Here's a peek at one of them.

Week 75 Speedy the Cat's Friends' challenge

Saturday is not quite over yet, so thought I'd get busy on today's Speedy the Cat's Friends' challenge to use polka dots. I love this piece of Basic Grey design paper and that color of green is my favorite green. I decided to keep the circle thing going with my layout as well. I haven't used this stamp in a while and it fit the space I needed to fill. I just added a few punched leaves for my embellishment.
The stamps are of course, from Mark's Finest Papers. I used rich cocoa and tuxedo black Memento inks. The white dots were added with a white map color pencil.

Hope You can cling to challenges have begun!

October is here and so is SCS's fabulous Hope You Can Cling To challenges. There will be a new challenge each day, and today there are three! It is fun and I enjoyed taking part last year, winning a prize, and receiving a sweet note of appreciation from MD Anderson for contributing my cards for women who are fighting breast cancer to use for their personal use. Living just outside of Houston, I know how many women have successfully overcome their cancers, especially when detected early.

My card is using stamps from Mark's Finest Papers and is photographed on the new Global Promise Fund Calendar for 2012 from the Susan G. Komen for the Cure. It has beautiful pink skyscapes from around the world and other pink elements in other parts of the world. It is gorgeous. You might want to visit the komen.org website to see who you might receive one.

Hope you will join in the fun over at Splitcoaststampers.