You're just a click away

On a good day, I can get in a couple of hours of somewhat interrupted coloring. On a good day, I can make and embellish a handful of cards. On a good day, I get to watch Rachel Ray instead of Phineas and Ferb or old war movies. On a good day, I don't run out adhesive.

By mid-morning on Monday, I considered the weekend rousing success. I got in many hours of somewhat interrupted coloring, as there's a 3 year old and a 1 year old doing the interrupting, somethings just can't be helped. I did 'sorta' make a nice collection of cards and that balances out the worst of the war movies. I only watched about 30 minutes of Midway, which I consider a win and I managed to sneak in an hour nap Sunday afternoon. It wasn't until early Monday that things went south. Around 11 am, while the 1 year old was napping and the 3 year old was 'helping' Mama make cards, the worst happened. I ran out of adhesive. Entirely. Which is why I only "sorta" made a nice collection of cards. Worse, the local stores were out of stock of even the worst of the barely acceptable adhesives. There must have been a rush.

After a fair bit of muttering on my part, I did what any resourceful person might do...I made cards without adhesives. Frankly, they're really just stacks of cardstock, patterned paper and images. They're a very neat and tidy stack, with everything trimmed out and layered in place. There is nothing worse to this crafter than being completely out of glue. I managed to get out and snag some adhesive on Tuesday and then spent a rather lovely lunch at a local coffee shop on Wednesday, drinking tea and assembling cards. I'm definitely going to do lunch like that again!

So, while it's release day over at Dustin's Place, my cards haven't been photographed yet. Instead, I'd like to share a card from my My Minds Eye Bloom & Grow Grow phase. One of the wonders of the internet is the blessing of very good friends that I will likely never meet face to face. With two very small kids, my adult conversation can be very limited. Add in Oklahoma's capricious humidity and I tend to prefer to stay close by a good air conditioner, so outings to a park are rare and when they happen, I discover that other mom's have similar outlooks. I know in a few years, when the kids are in school, my circle of face to face friends will expand once again. For now, I depend heavily on my online friends when I can't handle discussing the merits of the various episodes Secret Agent Oso with a 3 year old any longer. Miss Clickabella was one of the first Bella's I put in my cart when I discovered Stamping Bella. Between work, and online friendships, she epitomized my life at this point.

When I bought the My Minds Eye papers, I also bought the elements sheet. I know some people feel the driving need to use all the elements on a sheet, but my tidy gene and lack of storage space keeps me from being that sort of mental. Once I use all the elements I like on the sheet, the remainder goes straight into my recycling bin. I do not make any attempts to salvage the bits. If my daughter is nearby, she will latch onto the sheet and proceed to destroy all physical evidence until I take it away and toss any remaining bits into the recycle bin. Which is the same result in the long run, but at least she gets some enjoyment out of it.

This particular sheet came with a nice collection of flowers, tags and a great bracket looking journaling block. As I had not intention of scrapbooking with this paper or elements, the journaling block made the perfect background for my card. Just because an element is designed for one thing, doesn't mean it can't be used for something else. The printed "dots" on the sheet were also used. They fit perfectly into my Creative Cafe flower buttons as button centers. I really liked the finished look.

For those of you who want to know...I haven't done away with the rest of the sheet just yet. I still have enough patterned paper left for several cards or one layout, and there's still some pretty cute elements on the sheet to round it all out.

As always, the image was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black on Gina K's Pure Luxury Baseweight in white. The image was colored out with Prismacolor pencils and blended with Zest-It. I used Prism cardstock and My Minds Eye Bloom & Grow Grow papers & Elements. The buttons are Creative Cafe and the ribbon is American Crafts.