Little girls' birthdays...

...are just the best! I love it when my daughter or any of her friends has a birthday, because it means that I get to make a super cute, sparkly birthday card. This week is especially wonderful because my niece is having her 4th birthday on Saturday (Hey sweetie! Aunt Kimmy loves you!), and one of Little Miss A's friends is having an "almost sleepover" birthday party on the same day. BTW--this is the best birthday party idea ever. The group arrives at the birthday girl's house in their pj's, get their toenails painted, eat cake, and then come home before the real bedtimes arrive. Jen, you get my smartest mom in the world award!





So, to celebrate both of these special days I wanted to make cards that would be cute, a little wild, and just perfect for both of these little ladies. Are you ready to see them? OK, here are the pics:

I love the Crazy for Cupcakes set. I just love the idea of someone bringing me a pink platter with cupcakes stacked from bottom to top, each one more covered in sprinkles than the one before it. The zebra paper was the idea of my little one, who saw it in a store the other day and told me that she loved it and wanted to make some cards from it.

What you can't see in these shots is that all of the white images are actually stamped on Shimmery White Cardstock, so they have a bit of extra shimmer all over them. I added Stickles as my icing on the cupcakes and then put Crystal Effects on the cherries to make them look juicy.

There they are! I hope that you enjoyed these cute little 15 minute cards today. And on your next birthday why don't you go ahead and request a platter of cupcakes with sprinkles on them? I guarantee you will have a happy birthday if you do. Until next time, Happy Stamping!

Kim

Some more animals...

...from "Animal Crackers" have been demanding their fair share of the spotlight today. It seems that the giraffe from the set found out how to grab Wi-Fi from his spot on my display board, and when he saw that the bunny was on the Inter-web-google-twit, he threatened me with legal action if I didn't give everyone else in the set equal time.

I told them that I wanted to put them up on my demonstrator website, for the entire world to enjoy, but I believe that my initial order from Stampin' Up might have caused their servers to crash. (Hey, don't judge me. I only do it for you.) You'll be thanking me when you see my class line up this fall. So, in order to placate the cards while Stampin' Up tries to install hardware that will support my personal addiction, here they are!

Yesterday you got to see the cute, super-girly bunny from the set, and for today I wanted to show you the rest. This is my second class for this month, five cards, each one featuring a different little character from this stamp set. I had to load up on the In Colors, too. I heard through the paper grapevine that they already have a lawyer on retainer if they didn't get top billing from me. I don't need any of that kind of drama around here.

The giraffe and squirrel called out for more of the earthy tones, so I went with Soft Suede, Dusty Durango and some Crushed Curry. I was looking at the little squirrel (which in real life I'm kind of terrified of...just FYI) and thought it would be really cute if he was declaring his love to the tree that gave him that acorn.

The little penguin, having to live in the frigid cold waters down near the South Pole asked if he could have some Bermuda Bay to warm himself up with. (I apologize for the darkness of that photo...I have been doing some lighting experiments and that one just turned out...well...wrong.)

Finally, the wee little duck that quacks me up, on a 3" x 3" note card. I love how that Crushed Curry can look all earthy one minute, then you pair it up with Melon Mambo and it totally goes into a springy look. I just love colors! I hope that you do, too. And if you have this stamp set, I hope that these cards inspire you to create something adorable with them tonight! Now, back to my stamping table to work on a birthday card for Little Miss to give to a friend this weekend, then to the den to watch "Valkyrie" tonight.

I hope everyone has had a great Monday, and until next time, Happy Stamping!

Kim

Happy 4th of July...

...so let's think about Christmas cards, shall we? I know what you are thinking, "Kim has lost her mind! It is 106 degrees outside and no way in the world am I going to even think about Christmas right now."

But wait! You haven't even seen them yet! So, take a peek at the Christmas cards we will be making at my Christmas in July class this month:

See! Don't they just say, "Cool weather is right around the corner?" I thought so!

Here is a close up of the window that the little snowman is looking out of. It is all frosty and chilly. Brrrr!!! I think I need a sweater.

So, if you feel the need to come inside, cool off, maybe indulge in a great cup of coffee or some of my southern sweet tea, just give me a shout and come on over to make a stack of these cooler weather cards!

I now return you to more meteorological correct card making, with this:

This is the cute little bunny from Animal Crackers. He managed to hop out of his box the other day to remind me that he has not seen ink. Ever. So, I did what I needed to do and got him and all his cute, bubble-headed breathren out and stamped them all day today. This bunny did me the courtesy of requesting some of the new In Colors for his own, so I had to oblige. He is colored in with Melon Mambo and then matted on Crushed Curry and Pumpkin Pie that have been swiped over with the Melon Mambo ink. I had to add a bunch of silver "whiskers" for him since it is the 4th of July.

I hope everyone is having a safe and fun weekend. Please stay hydrated in this heat...water is your friend. And, to my new Mr. Brown...just remember...you get my order to me early, and there is a big bottle of Gatorade in it for you!

Have a happy holiday everyone, and until next time, Happy Stamping!

Kim

I'm just saying...

...that I found this pretty impressive for any group of people:




My hubby found this as he was looking at the new TV's on Samsung's webpage. We saw one at Fry's yesterday that literally left him speechless. It was high-def to the extreme. I'm thinking these guys in Scotland don't have high-def, but they do have an extreme amount of vision to pull this trick off. On a stamping note, my open house is planned for Wednesday night, and I will start posting new cards that I am making for it tomorrow. Some of them are featuring new sets, some new colors, and some are just new designs with a few of my favorite stand-by sets. I hope y'all will wander back here to see them. So stay cool, keep yourself hydrated, and until next time, Happy Stamping! Kim

Somedays I am...

... a birdbrain! Now, I hear you all protesting, "No Kim, you are by far the most pulled together chick I know! You could never forget anything!" Well, this morning in my excitement over all the new sneak peek stuff that Stampin' Up has coming out, I forgot to pre-order my hostess sets, which means that I have to put in yet another order.

The upside to this is that I will get to see my new Mr. Brown at least three days in a row next week. I really think my old Mr. Brown tipped this one off, because instead of bringing my packages to the front door he leaves them in the breezeway. I think I am going to have to leave a trail of packing slips to get him to come to the front door so I can break him in right!

Now, in honor of the fact that I am a birdbrain today, I thought I would post a birthday card I made for one of my little girl's best friends in the world:


This one uses Pun Fun, and as you can see, every extra piece of ribbon that I had available to me at the time. In my defense, the little girl I made it for is so cute and sweet and girly that I knew she would appreciate all of the ribbon, which she did. I am so glad that Pun Fun made the cut and will not be retiring this time. If you haven't seen the list of retiring stamp sets, just click here. These will be available until June 30th when we transition to the new catalog. To see the complete last chance list, along with the accessories, go here and click on the "shop now" button.

I can tell you one thing about what I saw as a preview today...the new In Colors are incredible! You will definitely want to see them come July 1st. So, don't be a birdbrain like me! Call me or email to tell me you are coming to open house, and I'll see you then! Until next time, Happy Stamping!

Kim

Butterflies and Barracudas

Sounds like a funny combo, doesn't it? Well, I can tell you that both butterflies and barracudas have one thing in common...Little Miss A. She has been learning everything under the sun about butterflies since her class studied them in preschool. She even got me to purchase a Butterfly Garden for her, and I finally decided it was time to send off for the caterpillars a couple of weeks ago.

It seems strange to actually pay for bugs to come to your home, but that is exactly what I did. And about 10 days after my check arrived in California, a box with real live caterpillars landed in Austin. We watched as they grew every day until they finally wrapped themselves in their coccoons (Little Miss made sure I knew that those are called their chrysalis) and then I moved them into the butterfly tent.

Now, in case you have never had cause to move a piece of paper as thin as a coffee filter with 5 cocooned caterpillars hanging on it, there is something you should know. They squirm. I don't mean just a little movement here and there, oh no, that would be far too easy to deal with. They were wiggling like a bunch of showgirls in Vegas while I tried not to scream in terror. At one point one wiggled so hard it touched my hand and I think I might have passed out for a second or two. The end result was ok. I managed to attach the coffee filter paper to the side of the tent just like in the picture and we waited for the magic to happen.

A week later, we were rewarded with 5 butterflies that were all hatched out and pretty. After three days I was finally able to convince the tender-hearted child that if we wanted the butterflies to have full, happy, productive little butterfly lives we needed to release them into our yard. I promised we would take pictures so she could always remember them, so here they are:

This is the kiddo with the tent in our backyard, and the shot below is one of our butterflies before it took to the wind.

The cool thing is all this butterfly time inspired me to make a few butterfly cards, so I hope you enjoy them. I have to say that I have been having some lighting issues lately and the color in the embossed card is Kiwi Kiss, not River Rock (which is what it looks like in this shot).

Finally, the barracuda portion of today's post. Little Miss had an away swim meet today. Last year she could not swim a lick, and we had her take a couple weeks of swim lessons. My entire goal was to have her be able to make it to the side of the pool if she ever fell in, and we more than succeeded at that. This year she begged me to let her join the swim team so she could swim "like the big girls". I relented because she is so doggone persuasive and she looks too adorable in her purple and black (Barracuda attack!) swim suit. Here she is just chilling out today at the meet:

Next we have lining up for the ready bench, getting her goggles in place, and finally in the pool doing her best half-doggie paddle half-freestyle stroke. The funniest part was we have been really encouraging her to not hold onto the lane line like it is the last life preserver on the Titanic. Today she was within 5 strokes of the finish when she had to grab the line for a second to catch her breath. As she looked to her left, she saw her little friend behind her, so she starts saying, "Come on, you can do it!" to cheer for her friend, forgetting that she is racing at the time. She finished just before her little friend did, and although her times are nowhere near the "competitive" level, we all had a great day! And how can you fault a kiddo who stops swimming to cheer for her teammate? I think my little butterfly is coming out of her chrysalis, and what a beauty she is!

I hope you all have a great weekend, and until next time, Happy Stamping!

Kim

I love...

....when comedians cover my favorite popular songs. Case in point, Tim Hawkins, who is an absolutely hilarious Christian comedian. If you like Plain White T's, then you will love this, I promise!

Also, check back in because I have been at the stamping table and am actually happy with what has been coming off of it...so some new projects will be following very soon.

Hope everyone has a great night, and a good laugh!

Kim