What You Do.

 In case you haven't heard, the talented Cristina Kowalczyk was named the Gallery Idol today.  Her projects have been stunning for the entire contest, and she always stayed true to her CAS style, so the win is very well-deserved.  I'm still shocked and proud that I made it to the top five.  Plus, I don't need to go on a cruise to make new stamping friends--I've got all my stamping friends right here in the interwebs, right?  Y'all have made me so happy with all your encouragement during this contest, whether it was a blog visit, a comment, or a vote!  I'd especially like to thank those of you who posted a link or a voting suggestion on your blog for me by sharing some of prize loot, so please contact me and include a link to your post and your address.

I made this card for the new Embellish coloring color challenge and am also linking it up for Unity's Friends with Flair.  The butterfly is from Unity's Jillibean Blossom Soup set and the sentiment is from August 09 KOM.  I stamped the butterfly onto kraft and colored it with colored pencils.  A PTI Mat Stack cut from Echo Park paper, a green sentiment, and, tada!, a fun happy card.

Breaking up this happiness is the fact that school starts on Monday, which definitely cuts into my crafting/blogging time.  However, I found a new website that should keep you entertained: sporcle.  If you have anything to do in the next three hours, I suggest you don't go to their site! 

Market Street Stamps Design Team

(psst...you can see my Gallery Idol post here and vote here.)

Unnamed Koala Joey was right when he said I had some big news to share today...I am now officially a

I just found them a little while ago (I know, what rock have I been living under?) and I fell in love with all the cuteness of their stamps.  And then I saw their backgrounds--gorgeous AND big enough for a card front.  What more could a girl ask for?

Well, maybe to be on their design team.  So I asked and they said yes!  Then I saw the rest of the crew and HOLY MOLY are you going to be excited when you see all the fabulous gals that are on the team with me!  I feel stampier just by being on the same team as them!  The senior design team was announced last month, and today they are revealing one new member every hour on the hour starting with me (eek!) and ending at 5:00 Central with an awesome super-secret announcement.  Even awesomer, with every DT member reveal comes a chance for you to win that DT member's favorite stamp set!  To enter, just leave a comment on each post on the Market Street Stamps blog! (Just to be clear, comments on my blog will not enter you to win the stamp set, but they will win you my love and affection and really, what could be better than that?  Although I admit it's difficult to make cute cards with just my love and affection.  Maybe if you rub an eraser over my love and affection and then use pigment ink, that might help.  Long aside short, go to the MSS blog to enter!)

I'm sure by now you're wondering, "Meg, what is your favorite stamp set (so far)?"  Well, you may have noticed I'm a wee bit of a nerd.  Who is married to a geek.  And has a corgi who is a dorg^[1].  Have you guessed my stamp set yet?  Here's a hint:

Yes, it's Computer Cutie!  I made this card as a shout-out to all of my far-flung interweb friends, so for the background I tried to recreate those pin maps that show where your blog visitors are.  I traced a (simplified) world map in Silhouette Studio and then did some massive continental drift to get as much as possible onto a square card.  After adhering the continents, I colored some small white pearls with a red copic to act as the pins--again playing a bit fast and loose with my geography as well as followers (although if anyone is following me from Ghana, I'd love to know!).  For the computer, I stamped it both in grey and red, then cut out the red screen and added glossy effects. 

Quite the cutie, right?  Just like all of my computer friends (that means YOU!)

I'm looking forward to getting y'all hooked on Market Street, so I hope you're ready!  Don't forget to check the MSS blog for a DT member reveals and chances to win all day today!

^[1] dorg/dôrg/  noun.  Combination of "dork" and "dog" used to describe canines who exhibit such behaviors as: trying (and succeeding) of getting out of their travel crate while on vacation by unzipping the zipper from the inside; barking at the wind blowing the trees, but ignoring a cat sitting on the patio furniture; falling up the stairs.  Coined by Mr Corgi in 2008.

Happy Birthday To My Blog Peeps!

There I was: the beginning of summer, a wonderfully long vacation stretched out before me.  And what better way to spend the first days of vacation than stalking the Splitcoast CAS DT search thread, right?  Especially when Miss Boo forgot that she was supposed to post the results that night!  Anyway, there were quite a lot of laughs that night, and quite a few of my loyal followers are from that thread (and some have even made it to the DT team!).  But the two loyalest of followers and interweb friends are none other than Angela of Paper Cupboard and Emily of Art from the Heart.  You may also remember them from such posts as Birthday Goodies, I'm Awesome, and Paperworks Summer Challenge. Other than their opinions on cold tolerance and meat tolerance, both of them are totally in my head.  And they both make awesome cards that wow me all the time.  Annnnnnnnd, both share the same birthday, which is today! 

I'm hoping Angela might have a chance of getting her card today, but I'm pretty sure Emily won't, so enjoy a sneak preview, gals:

Happy Birthday, Angela!  I just loved this sentiment when I saw it online, and I love it even more spelled out in Echo Park letter stickers.  The green paper as well as Zero the dog are Echo Park papers, too.  Zero is from Eat Cake Graphics, and the party hat is from The Cat's Pajamas, colored with prismacolor pencils.  I used the sunshine impression plate on the red nestie label one because it looked like a party by itself.  This was a hard card to mail off!  Take good care of him, Ang!

Happy Birthday, Emily!  This was another sentiment I saw online that I thought was perfect.  The image is from Rubber Romance.  I've had it forever and this is the first time I inked it up.  I colored the image with my aquapainter and SU markers scribbled on a CD case.  I printed the sentiment in dark brown (no black on this card at all, even though I really wanted to add black hair to one of the girls) using Dream Lover font (which, btw, is a perfect match for PTI's Enjoy the Ride).  And for the rest of you, bless your hearts, we would never judge y'all. ;) 

Hope it's a great day, gals!