A card can say a thousand words...

Long ago, when a group of women and I were either stalking/members of/just offhandedly viewing a wedding livejournal site in hopes of getting married one day a set of us bonded so well we created our own group. Amazingly enough, that group is still strong and active to this day.

We have cried each others tears, jumped for joy, banded together to hope for good news for another and supported each other throughout hard times. The most amazing part is that we come from literally every possible career out there and every corner of the world.

And now one of them is in desperate need of cheering up - she learned recently that she had cancer.

Today's inspiration is from Case Study : Case Study Challenge 101, in particular the interpretation by Debby Hughes.

The two flowers are cut with the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge (exclusively through CTMH) and I used a rock and roll technique so that the bird you see has darker edges and wingtips. First you stamp your image in a lighter color, then rock and roll the edges of your images in a darker color. 

I was waiting for just the right card to use something from the Bling assortment, and this one was totally perfect. 

I simply stamped the inside with the sentiment from the set Find Your Style (retired) and left it at that. Sometimes simpler is so much more elegant. 

Michaels, etc:

* White cardstock

CTMH:

* Find Your Style (Jan 2011 SOTM)

* Dreamin' Paper Pack Level 2

* Stella Paper Pack Level 2

* Baker's Twine, Paradise Assortment

* Bling Assortment

* Opaque Adhesive Pearls

Now, how to relax my grip long enough on this card to give it away? 

July Surprise!

It was my birthday last week and I celebrated in style with Aussie wine and pizza from Bear Street Tavern in Banff with my bff and our respective husbands. Their pizzas are fantastic if you ever are in Banff looking for a bite to eat.

In celebration of turning one year wiser and the kick off of the new Fall/Winter 2012 Idea book

I will be adding a set of the new markers from CTMH to any order placed in July with me! They are alcohol based, and each marker has a corresponding lighter or darker color so that you can amp up your projects even more. They're just like Copics, but much more affordable.

The new cartridge - Artiste - comes with three sheets of diecut shapes and three exclusive D-Size stamp sets. There's so many fun shapes in there that I could totally use for stuffing my coworkers with chocolate and other random Christmas/Halloween items. 

Let me know if you'd like a copy of the latest catty! 

Nothing like arrival...

... Of new products to get you revved up again and your creative juices flowing. The new catalog has been released to consultants and will be rolled out to everyone else Aug. 1. There are a lot of gorgeous new stamps, and my favorite two new things yet - a workshop to go geared towards making cards alongside the popular scrapbooking workshop to go, and a brand new Cricut cartridge! I can't wait! My mom's birthday is coming up next month and my sister in law is visiting, so posts next month may be sporadic but time will also be precious.

Want to see what's in Artiste - the new cartridge? Provocraft has just released the digital handbook for a peek!

The inspiration for this week's card is from Got Sketch : Sketch 145.

I just found out that I can't upload images from my iPad to the blog (or even to Facebook). Boo to the fact that Flash is not supported on Apple mobile devices.

I took this opportunity to check out some of the special effects that the iPad Adobe Photoshop app has. Kind of neat, but lacks the entire force of what you can do with the full package. I also wasn't able to watermark the images. I combined two paper packs here - Stella and Florentine and the border with the rhinestones is the back side of Florentine.

The ribbon is sourced from Crave Cupcakes :) I never throw away free ribbon! I have been slowly collecting Copic markers based on a starter list that I mentioned in a previous post. This time I have actually three shades of red that I used on the flower.

I used the same flower on the inside and decided to use Stella patterned paper on the inside as well. The little flourishes and sentiment are from Pair A Phrase, a retired set.

I am still battling technical issues so you may see more iPad based photos for now.

Michaels etc:
* Ribbon
* Solid color cardstock
* Copics R29, R24, R22

CTMH:
* Stella Level 2 Paper Pack
* Florentine Level 2 Paper Pack
* Friendship Bouquet - May 2012 SOTM
* Opaque Adhesive Pearls
* Bitty Sparkles
* Pair a Phrase - Retired
* Cocoa Ink
* Smoothie Ink

July SOTM: Live Out Loud and Perfect Pair!

There is nothing like coming home to technical difficulties. The desktop which I normally do all my work off of has decided it hates it's own hard drive, and refuses to boot or log into the internet. So I'm on the Macbook instead... which has none of the image editing options I'm used to.

This is one of the beaches I visited around Albuferia, Portugal. It is a sleepy little town but has seven million beaches which is up my alley. The weather was gorgeous and I had a great time - it was difficult to leave. 

July brings a neat promotion - Perfect Pair! Each week brings a new pair of paper and coordinating embellishment for free with a minimum 75$ purchase. This upcoming week is the Dreamin' paper packet and Harvest Charms for a retail value of $14.90 CAD, which is available from July 6 - 10. I absolutely love this paper packet! Karen Pedersen has all the photos of each product here: http://karenpedersen.blogspot.ca/2012/07/photos-of-free-perfect-pairs-and-some.html 

And the best for last - July's SOTM is Live Out Loud. 

This set would be perfect for embellishing any card or scrapbook layout! Often I know I'm used to just putting images and the odd item on the front of the card, but these options are just screaming for the front of any card to make it pop, or the perfect touch to a scrapbook layout. 

For all my Calgary readers, Happy Stampedin'; and for those not in Calgary, hope you are enjoying summer as it is finally here! 

Now if I could just get my computer back up and running...