A Whirlwind Weekend!

What a fabulous, fun weekend it was! (Why is it that the fun ones fly by and the others seem to last forever?!)

Saturday, Asela and I traveled to Ocala to meet with some friends and fellow members of the StampTV Florida group.  We met at a great store, Priceless Scrapbooks, and spent the day stamping and chatting and sharing tips and tools.  It was so much fun!

While we were there I worked on two projects.  The first is this card using an adorable stamp from Lizzie Anne Designs' monthly mix, Lucky You.  These little chickies all in a row are SO cute, and I just LOVE this Cosmo Cricket Garden Variety paper!  I colored my chicks with some pale yellow-red Copic markers.  Current Dirty Dozen designer Kelly Landers let me borrow her punch to create the border of grass in two colors of green that grounds (sorry, couldn't resist the pun!) the image.  Here you can see it a little closer...

My other project that I made while we were there is for tomorrow's i {heart} papers design team challenge...it came out so cute, so you need to be sure to come back to see it!  ;)

Sunday afternoon I made cards with the confirmation kids and their mentors.  For their service project, they decided (with zero influence from me, I promise!) to create hand-made cards for the nursing home residents who are not frequently visited, so we spent an hour before our usual Sunday evening class putting these together.  The kids did a great job, and after making their cards, they wrote scriptures and greetings inside.  Next Sunday we will be delivering them and visiting for a while with about 20 of the residents at the nursing home close to our church.

To close the weekend, we went with Clayton (our drummer), Jeremy (our youth pastor) and Cory (our pastor) to Hurricane Grill for the I Survived Category 5 hot wings challenge, and survive they did!  I'm not sure it was worth all that pain and agony just for a tee shirt!   

I am wondering how they're feeling this morning! It is probably a good thing that they have Mondays off!  ;)

Hope to see you back tomorrow!  Have a great week!

Faith is...

I really LOVE the book of Hebrews! I took a Precept Bible study on Hebrews years ago, and it became one of my very favorite books of the Bible. I was so excited to see that Ashley from Treehouse Stamps had decided to include the first verse from Hebrews 11 in this beautiful set, Count Your Blessings. This is the introduction to what is often called the parade of faith.

I love the symbolism and colors of the liturgical calendar, so I was happy that today's color challenge would allow me to use this beautiful Basic Grey Eva designer paper which features the deep purple typically associated with Easter. Purple is the color of royalty...that was because the dye came from murax, tiny creatures of the sea that were difficult to harvest, so only the very wealthiest were able to afford it. If you've read anything at all about the stench of the city of Tyre, that reference was regarding murax and the process of producing the dye for such beautiful purple fabric.

I stamped the cross on white cardstock, then sponged in Pink Pirouette, and Lovely Lilac before lining the edges with a gold gel pen. A few punched ferns (MS punch), sheer ribbon and a lovely lily-shaped prima were the finishing touches.

These stamps will be released this weekend! Stay tuned for more sneak peeks, and be sure to visit my Treehouse DT-mates' blogs too!