Happy Valentine's Day!!!!
Yes, you're seeing it right - it's a penguin for Valentine's Day! I teach skating on the weekends - I have 2 students right now and one of them is CRAZY about penguins. So, combine ice, penguins and Valentine's Day and this is what happens! I actually copied most of this card from a card by peggy-sue at SCS. It was so adorable, I couldn't resist! (Thanks peggy-sue!!!!). I made the greeting on my computer (something that is very easy to do and gives you a ton of flexibility to say what you want to say :)

May your day be sweet and filled with love!!!!

Today I found instructions for a "tent fold card." You can see the directions at http://paperpatty.blogspot.com/. I had no idea what I was going to do, but the minute I built the tent fold card and stood it up on my craft table I thought it would look very cute as a shark! So, here he is, not-so-scary teeth and all :) Hope he makes you smile :)

Today's Lesson from the Craft Room: Share your love

A friend's cat died suddenly today and I ran over to her house to provide her comfort. It's hard to know what to write today other than that I realize that in every card we make we are putting something of ourselves in it - we are sharing our love - and it really does make a difference...not only in our own life, but in the lives of others.

The fabric panel was sewn onto the teal card stock (I have no idea what kind of stitch that is...I'm quite new to this whole sewing thing and had thought I had set the machine to do a different stitch and SURPRISE, out came this one :) I stamped the flowers with bravo burgundy on taken with teal and summer sun card stock. Some of the flowers are popped up with dimensionals.

Hope you enjoy!

Today's Lesson from the Craft Room: Let it go...

It's been an interesting week at work for me and it's only Wednesday. I was letting the stress get to me today and walked into the craft room tonight to take a break and sure enough, I was able to let it go... When you're feeling stressed, take a break...and allow yourself to let it go...

This punch Japanese woman came from seeing a stamp that looks very similar - it inspired me! I punched her out a couple of nights ago and tonight she wanted to be a part of this Embrace Life card :) The black card stock went through a cb folder and the background paper and her kimono are both made from hand-painted paper I made quite awhile ago - it's finally getting put to good use.

Enjoy!!!!

Tonight's Lesson from the Craft Room: It's never too late!

I was going to go to bed without creating today. It was a long work day and I was tired. But somehow my day felt like it would be incomplete without letting my inner artist play a bit. So, I went into the craft room and brought a vision I had yesterday to life in today's card! It came together very quickly and now, once I finish this post, I can go to sleep peacefully - having allowed my inner artist to play :)

So before you decide to head off to bed remember, it's never too late! :)

Today's Lesson from the Craft Room: Spread the joy!
Today I received a request from a fellow stamper who is interested in making Punch the Magic Dragon in her upcoming punch class. She couldn't figure out from the photo how to make the eye lids for the dragon so she emailed me to ask for some help. This is the beauty of this virtual world - to be able to connect with people you might otherwise not have met. To help one another. To spread the joy! Here are the directions and photos for making Punch the Magic Dragon's eye lids...Enjoy!

Photo 1: Use large oval punch to punch a partial oval at the edge of a sheet of card stock.
Photo 2: This is what your card stock will look like once you punch the partial oval.
Photo 3: Use small oval punch on edge of paper where you just punched the partial oval.
Photo 4: Your card stock will now look like this and you will have one eye lid for Punch the Magic Dragon complete! Repeat process for second eye lid.

FISH BIG!!!! Today's Lesson from the Craft Room: A little humor can brighten your day!

Today's challenge on SCS was to cut out embossed images and incorporate them into a card. I looked through my cb folders and this one popped out since it looked like fish scales to me (OK, so maybe I don't spend a lot of time around fish, but really, it looked like scales to me!) :) I had looked at the gallery first thing this morning and saw Dawn Mercedes' card that used the swirl embossing folder as waves and I was inspired to combine the two! (Thanks Dawn!).

So, this is my rock fish in the waves. I made the hook out of a piece of wire. I had a hard time figuring out an appropriate greeting but my usual standby greeting set, short & sweet inspired me. "Wish big" became "Fish big!" (it's okay, you can smile and giggle :) Hope this silly little humor brightens your day :)