Stamptacular Sunday Challenge

Challenge #17
Theme: Inside-Outside
Inside: first picture



Outside: second picture


This is my first attempt at joining the Stamptacular Sunday Challenge. I finished today! The theme is "Inside-Out" which means that I needed to create a project where I decorated both the inside and the outside. I chose to create a card, of course. I was excited to be able to go to Scrapbook Haus with my cousin, Jen, and they had the idea for this amazing bluebonnet card. I couldn't resist making it as well! So, the picture above shows what I did with it.

A list of my supplies include:

Cream/Sage green kraft cardstock - unknown source
Bluebonnet stamp - Deadbeat Designs
Friend and floral stamps - Stampin' Up
Ink used for bluebonnets - Stampin' Up brush markers
Ink used for two of the flowers and edging - ColorBox pigment royal blue and ColorBox cats eye chalks in blues and brown combination pack
Ink used for one of the flowers - Encore! Metallic light blue
Flocking on bluebonnets - Flower Flock/Crushed Velvet Flock (?) in Delphinium Blue
Adhesive used - Scotch photo and craft glue

This is my first time using a type of crushed velvet flock (I'll track down the brand and update this when I can find it) and I'm so happy with the result! It was so fun and I love how it came out although it really does look better in real life!

Crinkle by Julia R. Sevingny

How do you like the cover of my new book? I think I did a great job with the title and author placement, don't you? Helps that I got a perfect picture for it. It's pretty exciting and too good to be true. Yes, it's fake!
It was a fun diversion posted on Amanda's blog and I followed her instructions to a "T" and this is what came out of it. Pretty cool! I thought it was funny how my fake name turned out to be so similar to my real name.
Although, if it were real I had been thinking of how this cover could be a YA fiction book. I think Crinkle would have to be a mystery, perhaps even time travel linked in there some way, of course. So, here's how the back cover might read:

Obsession couldn't be a strong enough word for the way Robby felt right now. He loved old things, so what? His collection of 1930's hats, newspapers, old music made him happy and he often searched online for more information about what life was really like back then. Hadn't he been born in the wrong time period? And then enters Alice. He discovered the old news article online about her mysterious death all those years ago. He couldn't read enough about it. Couldn't he solve her mystery? Oh, how he wished he could. Then one dreary, rainy night he receives a strange phone call, about Alice, and finds himself transported to the night that Alice was killed. Does he know enough about what happened that night to save her now? Will saving Alice alter the course of time and change his life forever?

I realize I need some work on writing back cover's but it was fun anyway. :)

Music-Writing Challenge

I really want to take part of this music-writing challege that my friend, Amanda, started and my brain can't stand debating it anymore. I'm just going for it before I explode:) I'll do as many as I can before my computer may fail again. Here's to hoping it keeps working!

It's such a clever concept and I hope that it will inspire my writing. I had done Tristi Pinkston's writing challenge in April and I had done better than I expected I would but since then I've been slacking with my writing. So, with this challenge I hope share a bit of my writing here and become motivated again in the process. Whatever I write will be extremely unedited but I hope to share it anyway. I'm sure that's the point for the challenge anyway. Plus, it will get my blog moving along which I desperately need to do.

Ink Notes #1
Music: La Serenissima, as performed by Loreena McKennitt

Side by Side
for my children

Oh, how I'm enjoying my time
of living side by side with you
my child.
I marvel -
as I watch you growing every day.
~small to big
Each moment is new and you are becoming aware more and more
of the world all about you.
You are precious in the light.
You are so beautiful
as you sleep near darkness.
For you live in simple radiance.
I love to see you smile and try to catch the butterflies
You can't ever touch.
Oh, how I hope -
I wish I could capture time
to remember clearly
and later shed tiny moments
we spend side by side
again.
At times of my frustration, I sorrowfully forget
what miracles live beside me now.
I remember - again - I want to...
engrave my deepest, noblest affinity for you
to etch among Celestial stars.
Eternity will give us our caresses back
my memory will return
as love prevails
forever
and again
we'll be side by side.

***

Ink Notes #2
Music: "I Remember" by Damien Rice

Summer Friends

As Vada was driving, she daydreamt in her mind about one of her first friendships. Her heart sweltered with the recall of emotions that twisted inside of a bond for another person. A bright bond that she never wanted to forget.
She met Polly that summer, quite by accident really, in a unique place under the freeway that she thought she only knew. She went there for solace from her noisy world. Polly showed up shortly, after she did, one day in that hot summer. At first, it was a bit awkward and she felt almost territorial but the girl hadn't done anything to cause alarm. So instead she decided that she would quietly watch this girl with the purple tote bag. Polly hadn't seemed to notice her yet and she continued as if she were alone to pull out a sketch pad and pencil. As she sketched, Vada couldn't help the curiousity that gnawed inside her. What is she drawing?, she thought.
All of a sudden, Polly looked up at her with a winning smile and Vada quietly chuckled as she recognized herself in the sketchbook. Polly had seen her all along. It was one of the most beautiful, simplistic sketches she had ever seen. Instantly, a friendship was born.
Vada would have followed her everywhere that summer and basically did. Even as the course of that school year started, the two friends were inseperable. Instead of riding the bus home, she would walk home with Polly. They would invent plays and scenes, like you'd see on T.V., up in thier minds and talk strangely like actresses do using trees and plants, sidewalks and roads as their stage. If it was a musical, they would basically sing at the top of their lungs and then giggle uncontrolably until their sides ached. It was so fun! It was so carefree!
No one bothered their little playtime, no cell phones or distractions just Vada and Polly. As long as they checked in with their parents by a certain point and did their homework, they had the afternoon free until dinner to invent life as they saw it. They walked and walked all over the little town and loved getting the specialty donuts at the hometown bakery with their little allowance money. They would sit and talk under the trees and swing at the park.
Yes, Polly was her friend and she loved her. She would always cherish those pleasing memories by remembering them often but now she woke up as it was time to park and go in to the grocery store - back to the daily grind.

Blog Award

In spite of my absence from the blog world, I was nominated for my first blog award from my friend, Amanda. I'm really excited about this and it is my sincere hope to better my blog as I much as I can with my faulty computer. I'd like to continue posting more pictures and ideas of homemade cards, paper crafts and scrapbook related items that I've been working on since this is what she has nominated me for. I'll keep taking those photos and eventually they'll be shared with you here. Thanks and this means so much!

Catching Up

Last month, June, turned out to be interesting for me this year. I'll see if I can recall everything that happened for me personally:

My computer went down again so that explains my long absence from blogs and my cyber life in general. I do have a lot of writing to do to catch up with all of that. I'm going to start on that a little each day or at least that's the way that I'd like to if my computer holds out for it. I won't be able to get a new computer any time soon. I'll just be grateful for any computer time I get at home or at the library. So, it will be sparse for a bit and there are so many challenges I'd love to do so that's hard for me. I'll just have to see how it goes with catching up my regular blogging before I commit to more.

Around the second week of June, I was driving four of my children to go swimming and then CRASH! I totalled our van. It's been difficult but I'm so grateful that we are okay plus the other driver, as far as I'm aware, was alright as well. Both of our cars were towed from the scene and it was scary but we survived. We've been looking for another van but that's not going to happen as fast as I'd like either. Patience....

Also, I did manage to fly to my brother's wedding with Noah at the end of June. Flying isn't easy for me but things went so much better than I anticipated that I'm happy about that. I felt my brother was happy I came. The wedding was very well done and quite beautiful overall!

I cut 10 inches of my hair and donated it to Locks of Love. I don't know if it is necessarily cooler since I can't pull it up as well but it has been fun to have a change with my hair. Judging from the comments I get from people, it looks nice.

Alas, I can't share photo's because I can't seem to upload them onto my computer right now. That isn't working on there or the CD part either. So, I'm enjoying my new camera but I won't be able to share photo's until later.

My Summer Reading is going really well since I've been reading a ton with no computer. I haven't really stuck to my list but I've read a few from my list and added more that I just couldn't put down. Here are some of the titles that I remember I've read so far - The Silenced, A Lion Called Christian, The Hunger Games, Lemon Tart, Still Alice, Pickup Games, Reasonable Doubt(reread), and currently reading Recovering Charles.
Now, I just need to type all of my book reviews in to 5-squared. Honestly, I'm so glad that I've had books to read in spite of everything. It has really helped.

I hope you are having a fun and successful summer!