Creative Grace

It's grad time

I had the pleasure of attending the graduation ceremonies at CSULB again yesterday along with the fabulous faculty and grad students in my department.  

It's always an exciting day for all - a celebration of all that hard work.  I find it especially fun to see all of the *uber* excited undergraduates earning their bachelors (and their enthusiastic families, off in the bleachers, with big signs and horns).  

It did remind me that I had a fun graduation card (yet to be given to the recipient) that I could share with you all today.  

I made this card a few weeks ago, and I know I copied the lay-out from someone else (and I'm afraid I can't remember who - so sorry!) - I was drawn to the simplicity and the opportunity to play with fun patterned papers.  

I almost passed out when I saw that Hero Arts put one of my favorite sentiments on a stamp - I thought that it would be the perfect sentiment to put on a graduation card as sort of a, "Wow!  You actually did it!" kind of moment! haha! I realize school may come easy for some, but I always had to work really hard at it and understand the blood sweat and tears aspect.  

I'd like to say congratulations to all of you out there that have reached such a milestone this year, a huge shout out to you!  

A nod to Mother's everywhere

It's amazing how life ebbs and flows - SO many people in my life are having babies right now.  It's quite shocking, actually.  My husband and I *may* have utterd the word "epidemic" :)  Although we've never felt that calling in life, we both love kids (I would hope so, considering I work with kids every day) and are perfectly content to be in that aunt & uncle / helpful neighbor role.  

Watching some good friends go through this phase is both beautiful and difficult to watch.  It's clearly exhaustive and so much hard work - and such a life altering experience for independent friends who have full lives and careers - but it is beautiful to see how much love fills their hearts.  No question, this is the toughest and most important job on the planet.  

So to all you Mom's out there - thank you for the tireless giving of yourself every second of every day to nurture your little soul(s).  No question you are at the top of my hero list!

Power of One

It just takes 1 person to do at least 1 thing to make a difference.

Happy Earth Day!

 

Products used: a•muse|studio, Lotta Jansdotter, and My Cute Stamps. 

Catrina love

I have a rather special card to share with you today.  I was actually pretty excited about it when I made it (and spent a loooong time on it - LOL).  As a life-long So-Cal girl, I feel lucky to live at an intersection of so many cultures, particularly Latino.  My own city pays special homage to this and has a marvelous Museum of Latin America Art, murals painted in numerous places around the city (especially around schools), and wonderful restaurants that do amazing authentic cooking - it's just a beautiful thing to be immersed in.  Perhaps because of this and my own love for biology (and specifically, images that remind me of biology) I've had a long-time love affair with Catrinas.  I've just always found them to be intriguing, whimisical, and beautiful.

My good friend Glenda had a chance to visit New Mexico a while back.  I had heard there were wonderful stores that have stamps with artwork of Catrinas.  I BEGGED her to hook me up and hook me up she did! :)  One of the stamps she sent me was an interpretation of perhaps the most famous Catrina, La Calavera Catrina ("The Elegant Skull") made by Mexican printmaker José Guadalupe Posada in 1910.  (His original work lacked the chili pepper "outfit" though - perhaps that was the "New Mexico" touch? LOL).  I had SO MUCH FUN playing with the stamp!

Now, reds aren't at the top of my personal preferred color palate, but I know how much Glenda loves red and I know that red would be an appropriate color to partner the image with.  Thinking about the beautiful dresses in folkloric dancing, I decied to pick a paper and add some fussy elements to give the card a more ornate feel.  

And then I decided to add some flags :)  I had a chance to visit Manzanillo, Mexico a few years ago (and perhaps important to note I was in the part of Manzanillo where the "locals" live, not the touristy areas).  My favorite thing about the city was taking a long walk up through the windy neighborhoods (on a quest to get to a black sand beach) where I found them decked out for the holidays.  There were flags everywhere - it was so charming (hence, my adding some "flags" to the card)! 

Needless to say, I thought way to long and hard about this card, I'm kind of crazy like that, but I love how it turned out.  Almost kept it for myself (shhhh.... don't tell Glenda).   

Thanks for stopping by my blog!  I hope you find some fun inspiration today too :)

Sweet Surprise

Once again I'm barely meeting the deadline for this week's Moxie Fab World Tuesday Trigger (I can blame it on the wicked cold I've had, right?)  Regardless, I've had this idea swimming around in my head for a few days.  

The challenge was to make a card based on this inspiration photo:

I'll admit my first response was to run away (eek!) although the present is lovely, it's a little bit of a stretch for my card-making taste.  That is, until I got the notion that maybe, just maybe, I could pull off twine in place of the gingham... and wouldn't a twine handmade pom-pom bunny tail on a felt bunny be simply adorable?  With woodgrain emossing, that would work, right?

Hopefully this will be acceptalbe!  Hope you all had a lovely Easter!

Orla Trigger

Oh... happiness!!!!

I can't tell you how happy I am that I was actually able to participate in this week's Tuesday Trigger over at Moxie Fab World!

I had such a crazy week - rushing rushing to get ahead at work as I had to take Thursday and Friday as sub days from the school I teach at so I could chaprone a four-day trip with our music department.  Our amazing musicians headed to a big music competition this weekend (where they were gold winners, these kids ROCK!).  I incidentally checked out the Moxie Fab World web page from my iPad while on the 8-hour bus ride and my heart sank when I saw that this week's inspiration was Orla Kiely!  

I wish I could tell you the depth of my love for Orla Kiely (the love affair goes a ways back - see this post here).  I'm generally not a "name brand girl" (well, unless it's called washi), but there's something about her wonderful patterns, swanky feel, and bold layouts that speaks to my heart.  In fact, my graduation gift to myself was a fabulous Orla computer bag (can you just feel my heart racing????)

Honestly, my heart SANK - I knew we wouldn't get home until Sunday evening and I didn't think I would have time to participate in the challege - I was genuinely crushed!!! (Why couldn't this week be a 2-week Trigger???) Turns out, we had a great ride home (and a supa dupa bus driver), making it back to our hood in record time, and I actually had an hour to throw a quick card together.  Ideally, I'd have more time to get it exactly how I'd want it, but this will have to do as I must now sleep for 2 days straight.  

I played off of Orla's multi-stem signature pattern and fabulous retro colors.  Hopefully Orla will approve :)

edited 4/2 - I noticed the photo I took last night showed the organe as being way brighter than it truly was, so I re-shot this morning (hope that's ok!).  

Lucky friend

Just a little reminder that we are all lucky for those we call friends!  

And lucky for washi tape - no questions!  And lucky for realizing I could emboss on it - haha!

And lucky I still had a stash of these fun glittered clover embellishments!

I realize I'm sending you the luck early, but hope you all have lots of it this St. Patrick's Day!

True Blue

I found myself in the position this weekend of needing a card for a good friend.  The card just *had* to have a mermaid on it.  I was struggling with how to desing the card when I remembered the fun layout and colors on this week's Tuesday Trigger over at Moxie Fab World.  Ah!  The perfect inspiration!

 

I admit I struggled a bit to sneak in the "apricot", but hopefully apricot hair will do the trick :)

Hope you all have a great week!

Bouncy!

Just a little card for a friend who puts a lot of bounce into a lot of lives...

Why is it my favorite cards have a cocktail glass and washi tape??? :)  This card just *had* to have purple and really needed a bouncy cocktail.  Hopefully this was a sight for sore eyes for my friend who had to leave a happy warm place to return to her chilly home.  Love ya sista!

Got the blues?

When you got the blues, you just gotta keep on swimming!

I had fun making this card for the Moxie Fab World "Cure for the Winter Blues" challenge (which is on until March 12th).  There is something so gratifying about navy blue to me - I almost always think "nautical" and it's one of the few times I like a punch of red.  Fun challenge!

 

Made with a•muse|studio products.