The Mad Hatter: WARNING!*

*WARNING: Gina K's How Sweet It Is" cake will never look the same to you again after this!


I got inspired by Monika's terrific entry for this month's contest, but I didn't have any hat stamps. Oh wait, yes, I do!! Look at THIS, the perfect party hat!! Is that crazy or what?? Stamp your cake at an angle, mask it, and stamp the monkey with his eyes peeping out. I blinged up the cake with some Stardust Stickles and added a few balloons, also from Just So Hippy. HATTY BIRTHDAY!!

Sometimes I have my focal point piece precut, and when I stamp my image, it isn't straight (in this case the monkey looked like he was sitting on a hill instead of a flat surface. So here's a TIP: Grab a nestabilities die and frame it up the way you want it, then run it through your Cuttlebug (or other die cutting tool) Voila, it's straight! (see below) (Before I would have tried (in vain) to recut all the sides to "square it up" again, instead of just restamping it (silly stamper) I COULD have also just flipped the CS over it so as not to waste it(cheapstamper) but then I would have to mask it again (lazymasker))
So I wanna send this out to someone who had a leap year birthday, cuz that's a big deal! I've heard about a few "2nd degree" birthdays so far, but want to give some of my feedblitz people a chance to respond! With all my readers, chances are that at LEAST one has a Feruary 29th birthday! :)

PS Gina K is giving away a Scor-Pal and tote!! I'm sure you've already been there, but just in case, I couldn't NOT tell you!!

Hoppy LEAP YEAR!

Another card blending my "Just So Hoppy" and Gina K's "How Sweet it is" ($7 of every set sold goes towards diabetes research!) Hurrying, I picked up the the wrong aqua marker for my shadow, realizing only after I put it to paper and was so surprised to see the dark color come out(ack!) I went really far out from my image(OOPS!) but I'd already colored most of it AND had trimmed it up, so there was no way I was starting over, just had to make the whole line thick. Oh well. I "sugared" the rim with Stardust stickles. The DPs are both SU!. I don't think I have ANY cards on my entire blog with this many layers, but I actually had someone in mind when I made it (so I was willing to spring for the extra paper and adhesive): my friend Vanessa celebrated her 30th birthday the other day, I'm taking her out on the town as a gift! (You can read all about and see pics of Vanessa's surprise birthday bash over at her blog*, which her DH forgot to invite me to!!! SAM? Helloooooo!!!) ;)

And here was some inspiration for this card below! Have you tried these? YUM! I've always thought Diet Dr.Pepper definitely has a very "diet" taste, but I REALLY like the chocolate and cherry together in this one. And love the can, of course! (although I never need an excuse to design with chocolate and red or pink!) Coke Zero still remains my fave, however. Why do they even still MAKE Diet Coke?

Thank you everyone who left post-blog candy comments, way more than I usually get!! And all I had to do was say "the magic word"**??

*Feel free to leave TONS of comments there (after my snarky one) about you really wish you could have seen ME misbehavin' in the pictures!! (They won't forget me NEXT year! lol!)

**please

The Stork Was Busy, So...

... the frog is filling in! Yes, it's about time I started letting all my Gina K stuff mix and mingle!! Look how perfectly the little sling fits in his hand! Now I realize this makes the baby* he's carrying incredibly tiny, or the frog terrifically huge, but I'm fine with that! Frogs don't have eyelashes either, but they do in my world!


I covered the baby blanket with Stardust Stickles (to match my glitter striped DP) rather than choosing a color, this way I can send it out for a boy or girl when the occasion arises. I used a Sakura glaze pen on his eyes. (I just realized I forgot to give the image a shadow, doh!(oh well, I will later, but not taking another pic!) I chose to put the stripes going horizontal since he's hopping along, and stamped my greeting on the two colored lines, look how nicely that fits!


Oh, did you want to know about the blog candy winner? I almost forgot! ;) Comment #64, Lee Murphy come on down! She writes: "Okay.......my second comment for my Google Reader-ing your blog.....Okay......I'm guessing there will be 4 new animals in the new set***!! I'll be at the release party!!!! :)" (Lee got to leave three comments BTW) Congrats, I hope you enjoy the candy! (I'll send you an email later today)

*I thought about coloring the little baby face green to match the frog, but a new mom might not really appreciate that...



** for the time being, I'm sticking with random.org. While I get what people are saying about how it "always picks in the middle", at the same time "the math person" in me says that it "always" picks in the middle because there are more numbers in the middle, while there's only one first and last number. So on some of these candy giveaways with let's say a 1000 plus comments, maybe 1 or 1000 has never been chosen, but probably also never 5 or 99 or 832 or whatever unless you've done 1000 giveaways to see...KWIM? I could be completely wrong here, though, it's been known to happen! Dad,(math major/genius/regular "Hands, Head and Heart" reader) can you help on this?? Either way, I STILL think you have a better chance with random.org than random.DH (who will guess the same number every time because he really couldn't care less about my blog candy results) or random.Jonathan who only counts up to 100 so far, and while he says numbers like "10,000 million!", I'm not quite sure he's completely aware of all the numbers in between, ya know? oh, and printing out and cutting up 200 strips of paper for a drawing? um, let me think about that...no. not for me. Sorry!

*** Lee's a winner, but she's wrong!

PS It always feels so quiet and lonely AFTER a blog candy winner is announced, so maybe you can leave a comment congratulating Lee, or about the card, or even vent about how you never seem to win anything before you go? pretty please?