the BIG KICK is here!!!!

it was so worth the wait! my big kick arrived on tuesday and i've been playing so much i haven't had time to post anything. so here it is, the first card... ta da!!

i made it while i was unpacking all the cool little dies i got with it. i can't tell you how much paper i went through just trying them all out. i'm really loving the embossing plates. i need to go read some of the tutorials out there though... does the big kick take the cuttlebug embossing folders? i really like that you can ink right on those and emboss that way. i'll have to check that out. for now though, i just ran this sheet through with the embossing plate and lightly ran my ink pad over the top of the paper when it came out to make the flowers show up a bit more. all the little flowers are from a punch, and yes, I punched all of those out and glued them on one by one... and no, i won't do it again. the pea pod is inked with a color box fluid chalk ink pad in olive pastel. i love these chalk ink pads. they're perfect when you need just a shadow of color and they're in the cat eye shape so they're great for little spaces too. anyway, i love this little guy, makes me want to throw a baby shower. speaking of!! my cousin called today and guess who is expecting! yep, she's prego!! so that means she won't be going to afghanistan! and, this little guy might come in handy real soon :)

CHRISTmas in july!
i haven't had much scrappin mojo lately with this searching for a house thing, and scrappin out of my closet thing, so i was surfing around some of my favorite blogs last night and desided that maybe some of the challenges might help me get going. so i found a few i liked, and get this, i managed to combine three of them into one card! i love CHRISTmas time so this was a little pep me up project. the first challenge was from this weeks tcp's tuesday challenge hostess and it was to make a CHRISTmas card. the second challenge was the mojo monday week 48 sketch on julie's blog. the third challenge was from cathy stclair's paper garden. she posts a magazine clipping each week to use as inspiration for a card. this was this weeks clipping:

and here is my card!!