Red, White, & Blue

It's two days past Flag Day, but I've had this design rolling around in me ever since I did a little word art with stamped letters. (check out this post from earlier this month) I used a similar technique with this. This time I used the U.S.A. as a shape. This stamp comes from the set called Adventure USA. You'll have to click and take a look. There are so many things to play with.

Here are a couple other things that brought this card together ... Color My Heart, Operation Write Home, having my son out of the country and Tony Orlando & Dawn.

Lemonade

They say ... "if life gives you lemons you should make lemonade".  I'm always a big fan of making the most of your situation. Recently I received some lemons when my computer disk drive crashed. The good news is that I have a computer that's like brand new now. The bad news is that the over 10,000 pictures that I did have backed up have to be loaded back in. I'm starting with the most current and going backwards. So far I have 2012 back. 

The lemonade is that my files are going to be organized beyond recognition. I'm not doing anything with the older photos until I'm up to date with January - April. The most delicious lemonade is that I have Studio J to help me. I just placed an order for 10 layouts ... yippee skippy !!!

Here are some of my favorite layouts from the order I placed today.

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY

SHHHHHHHHHHH ... Don't tell my husband. This is his Valentine card. I'm mostly a glittery, lacy, blingy Valentine card lover. Those aren't very manly options so here we go.

I want to wish everyone a Happy Valentine's Day filled with love (and treats). It's truly one of my favorite days of the year.  Hearts are all the rage today and I've already cut out a boatload. I'm going to have to take a serious break from making cards one of these days. But today I've been delivering love notes left and right. It's a joy to share my heart with all of the special people in my life.

Call 911 ...

... I think I'm having a heart attack!!! I set out to make a Valentine today and couldn't choose a heart stamp. So I used a bunch. Before you think about what it took to make that heart covered heart ... let me show you how crazy easy it is with Close To My Heart acrylic stamps.

It's easy to make your own custom stamps by mixing a variety onto one block.

And I had lots of other help too. The Close To My Heart Idea Book inspired me on page 65. Plus I'm still checking out sketch challenges. Here's todays sketch from Tsunami Rose.

So don't worry about me.  I'm not actually having a heart attack. This was all a lot easier than it might seem. When I go back to my workspace to clean up the explosion of paper, ribbon & brads I might get a little winded BUT otherwise I walk in perfect health.

Sunday Fun

I got a new book from Close To My Heart. 

I didn't need it but I'm like the Target lady on Saturday Night Live. When someone orders from me I impulsively up the order to two because I want what I see. It's NEVER disappointing. Now I own all of the CTMH books and I can't wait until a new one is introduced. 

I also have new CTMH paper because the 2012 Spring/Summer Idea Book goes "live" on February 1st. I pre-ordered every pack, because I just couldn't choose this time. So I snuck away with my new book, my new paper and a stack of old photos and got busy.  

Here's the design I used ... with a few moderations (I can never just follow the directions). I flipped one of the pages because my pictures said so. And I hid my journalling because I had too much to say. Imagine that. I also wanted to keep it simple so I didn't bring any stamps or embellishments with me. It's an ALL paper layout, which tends to be my "style" even though I love it when I take the time to add brads and buttons and ribbons and flowers and other miscellaneous doo dads.

Here's my version ... can you see the flip?

 Here are a few of the details close up ...

You'd have to read the hidden journalling to catch on that our new camera has "super powers". We were playing with the smile detector. It turns out that as long as you show teeth you're good.

AND ... when I looked at all of the scraps I couldn't help adding a card using the Operation Write Home Sketch Challenge (#105).  The zip strips off the end of the CTMH paper are perfect for this design. They were just sitting there after I removed them from my paper. Just like the page this cards is (almost) all paper.

Here's the original sketch ... remember how I don't do a good job of following directions?

DISCLAIMER ... 

as a scrapbooker this page layout is completely irritating to me. I'm not a computer genius so I have almost no control where the photos land on my blog. If anyone has any advice I'd love to hear it, but in the meantime you should know that I would make different choices with photos if I could.