You've seen her as a tomato. . .

You've seen her as a tomato, but have you seen her as Raggedy Andy!? I have!!!! 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to my sweet mommy (who has to celebrate her birthday with a million trick-or-treaters at her door!)! As a tomato, or as Raggedy Andy, you are creative, fun, and the best mommy I could have imagined!  

I love you love you love you!!!!!!

xoxoxo

sending love

Sending love? Do you have a stamp that says that? No? Neither do I.  But I DO have one that says Sending MY Love. . .in the set called Say It With Style.  (I've told you a time or two. . .or three million that you NEED this stamp set, so hopefully it's in your collection.)  I simply inked half of it at a time, leaving "my" unlinked, and put the two parts together.

I  created this card with lots of Roxie goodness, and just my one little stamped sentiment.  The flowers and flourish were trimmed from patterned paper, and I used a border punch (I think it's Martha Stewart) for the scalloped edge.

Have a great week! :)

Smarty Pants & Squishy Tomatoe

A GREAT BIG SQUISHY TOMATOE thanks to my

SMARTY PANTS buddy, VENIA,

for all her help during the weekend crop. 

If you were fortunate enough to take one of the classes from VENIA,

you already know what a joy she is!   AND talented! 

We had a blast with all of you at the Crop-tober Fest Weekend in Fort Myers.

Don't miss the next big weekend in late January, 2012.

Don't you just love Venia's glasses? 

Makes her look even smarter, don't you think?

Deb - we missed you!

Gayle, we love you!  Thanks for being our back up on Saturday.

Weekend Crop-toberfest!

We had a great weekend at the Holiday Inn Express this past weekend.  One of our challenges was to dress up on Saturday night and have a costume contest.  Here is my favorite picture from the event - can you tell which one is me???  (NO I am not the jail bird!)

Sorry my red shoes are already off!

If you missed out - watch for the next SW Florida weekend crop the end of January! 

I love you sew much!

In honor of my mom, who got out her sewing machine this week, I have a cutie patootie little card for you today.  I must admit, I totally and completely LOVE this card.  This is very much NOT my normal color scheme.  Me and purple. . .well, we don't get along nicely.  (In fact, I have a whole post dedicated to my ironic dislike for purple, and you can read it HERE.)  

BUT, this card turned out JUST as I pictured it in my head, and that doesn't always happen, right!?

Hopefully my mom will grace us with a picture of her tomato costume that she whipped up this week.  When I was a kid, she sewed ALL of my Halloween costumes.  And I. Looked. GOOD! She is a whiz.

Okay, here are the deets on this card. .. the paper is Sonoma (despite the purple, it is GORGEOUS paper!)
and the stamp set is called Tailor Made.   I added some kraft card stock, plus some twine from my stash! This card is a great way to use up scraps.  I trimmed my strips about 1 inch, which gave me room to overlap them just a bit.  You could recreate this card in a million different color schemes! SO MUCH FUN!

xoxo

Weekend Crop Classes

Upcoming Classes at the Croptoberfest Weekend Crop

October 22 & 23

Fort Myers, FL

These are just two of the Close To My Heart classes at the weekend crop October 22 & 23.  We are offering 8 CTMH classes which included a double page layout using lots of Flip Flaps, Journal, Greeting card Birthday book, Christmas cards, Christmas book, All occasion cards, and more!

For information about the crop, email me at:  JoeSusan@aol.com

October Stamp of the Month

Both the cards below were created using the

Close To My Heart October Stamp of the Month, "Holiday Magic"

Colonial White and Chocolate Cardstock.  Cranberry ink, ribbon, and brads.  New England Ivy ink.  Chocolate ink and ribbon.

This card was inspired by designer Karen Pederson.  The background frame was cut from the new Close To My Heart Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.  The green strip is stamped with Ponderosa Pine ink using the Universal Background stamp.  Cranberry ink was used to stamp the tree from the October SOM.  The finishing touches:  twill, cranberry brad and pin, and the star from Milepost shapes.

a little more October decor

Need to add to your October decor???? I failed to take a picture of the whole spread of pumpkins and miscellaneous fall STUFF in our foyer, but these are some QUICK (seriously QUICK) little goodies to add, if you are short of decor items.  Using the Mischief paper, with the very cool labels all over it, I just trimmed a couple, and stuck them to assorted bottles and canisters.  The "Black Raven Pepper" goes perfectly on our pepper grinder, and the olive oil became "Castor Oil".  And the marsala wine. . .well, it's "Vanishing Cream" now.  Hmmm. . .

 I also tied some black tulle around the olive oil bottle, to cover the colored rim, which didn't match my decor!  

And to help you along in the fall mood, here is a picture of my cute guy and his first pumpkin of the year (I say FIRST, because we always end up with a wide assortment of "baby punk-mans" each year!)

HAPPY OCTOBER!!!!!!