Mojo Monday on Throwback-No-School-Thursday

I love making up blog post titles most of the time...and I like to have a little fun with it too!  My kiddos are home (along with myself since I work in the same school district) from school for the second day due to the extremely cold temperatures (THUS the throwback, lol.)  I know some of you are shaking your heads, but our buses are not equipped to run in these conditions.  I sure don't want my sweeties out there broken down, so I am relieved...PLUS I get to play in my craft cave!!!  :)

What this actually means for you today is that I have a SECOND Mojo Monday 379 creation to share!!!  Woot!

This time I used my new Verve Shining Star Stamp Set (alliteration, anyone?) for the sentiment.

I used the Indian Corn Blue chevron pattern in the Enchantment Paper Fundamentals, the gold polka-dot vellum from the retired Free to Be Me Paper Packet, and the White Enamel Stars all from Close to My Heart.  Okay, yeah, that Indian Corn Blue ribbon is retired too...sorry!

I trimmed out the sentiment with Gold Shimmer Trim, which absolutely gave the Desert Sand embossed ink a golden hue.  LOVE!  That single gold foil star comes in the Year Noted Kit available this month...

I really love the effect of using the reverse side of the chevron paper here! 

Let's see what ELSE I can get finished during this cold snap!  See you soon!  :)

A Freshly Made Sketches Jubilee!

Hi there!  I am starting the week off with a sketch challenge.  How many of you like to use a sketch to jump start your creativity?  Me too! 

Here is the great sketch over at Freshly Made Sketches this week...

Alright, you have to know something about me.  I confess that I am crazy about matting on my scrapbook layouts.  It hasn't translated over to my cards very much, but I have been working it in there!  This one is sort of a REVERSE matting. 

I made the opening in my Outdoor Denim CS just a bit smaller than the striped pattern from my favorite Ariana Paper Packet.  I can't believe it retires after this month!  You can see all the retiring Close to My Heart products on my website HERE.

Don't worry, though, because there will be plenty of NEW products on August 1st!  I used one of them to color this great round image--the ShinHan Touch Twin Alcohol markers!  I love the effect they have on the image that I stamped on White Daisy CS with Versamark and then heat embossed with clear powder (we are getting some GREAT new embossing powder too!)

My circular flower image and leaves are found in the Jubilee Workshop on the Go Scrapbooking Kit My Acrylix stamp set.  (Yep.  Retiring!  UPDATE: actually, since I created this card, it is unfortunately no longer available.)  The sentiment stamped in Outdoor Denim from the Hello Blooms My Acrylix is not going anywhere.  ;)  Did you know that ALL of the Close to My Heart stamps that coordinate with a cut on one of our Cricut Cartridges will NEVER retire?  TRUE!  :)

I carried the leafy part of the theme over into the vast expanse of whiteness inside of the card...not so blank anymore!  ;)

If you have never tried using a sketch before, why not?  Time to try!  :)