Here I Am! And a card for Play Date Cafe #113

Been so, so, busy lately, but in a good way. I've been trying to focus on family a little more in the new year. That means a little more snuggling, cuddling, reading, and playing with the girls, and more hanging out with Andrew. We have some new board games at the house. He's a HUGE trivia fan, and one of the games is called Logo, all sorts of random facts about companies (slogans, products, spokespeople, etc.), so we've been playing some of that, I've been trying to help with grading, etc., etc.

Not to say that I haven't been working on all sorts of crafty goodness, because I have, but I can't quite share all that just yet. I have a some goals for this year in the area of cardmaking (just like in scrapbooking). Much of it is similar - learn some new techniques, use things like my sewing machine more often, etc. The one big thing I'd love to be able to achieve this year is to get published. Yesterday night I fired off a couple submissions to Paper Crafts, and hopefully I'll hear some good news back. Either way, I promise to share what I created with you when I'm allowed.

I did, however, squeeze in some time the last couple days to play along with this week's Play Date Cafe challenge. Sweet Stamp Shop is the sponsor this week, and I had a set I hadn't inked up yet, AND it was the perfect opportunity to take the Vagabond for a test drive...

I used the Divine Swirls Cuttlebug folder with a piece of Juniper cardstock then sanded the embossed paper to get the white core to show through. Then I sanded another piece of Juniper cardstock and stamped the gumball machine on it. I used that image to piece onto the gumball machine that I stamped on white cardstock. The gumballs themselves are little circles I punched with a regular hole punch out of Juniper and Mint cardstock. I glued those on the machine and then went over them with Liquid Glass to get that shiny effect.

The twine is buttercream that I used in a semi random fashion, adding some swirls that followed the lines of the embossing. It was fun to be able to get out some of my new stamps/toys and just have some fun trying new things.

My blogging challenge for this year is to post at least 3 times a week. I so admire those folks who have days assigned to different kinds of posts (and who post every day, I'm not quite ready to be that regimented about things, but I'm hoping to be on track to meet this year's goal. Hope you all have a great day!

Supplies Used:
Cardstock: CTMH - White Daisy, Juniper; CM - Vanilla, Mint (not sure actual names)
Ink: CTMH 0 Black
Stamps: SSS - Sweet Tooth
Other: Cuttlebug Divine Swirls folder, Sizzix Vagabond, Hole Punch, Twinery Buttercream Twine