See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand!
O that I were a glove upon that hand,
That I might touch that cheek!
                                William Shakespeare

My Tom had has the most wonderful cheeks. Nice, pudgy, gotta-pinch-them, cheeks. He hates them. He says no matter how much weight he looses he still has this round face. I love his cheeks – they make the greatest smiles.

See what I mean – don't you just want to pinch!   

So, Nice Cheeks had a birthday last week. He was out of town, and I was up to my ears at work. Even as he walked in the door I was putting the finishing touches on his Double Nickle birthday card. He smiled (swoon, those cheeks again), and maybe even giggled.

Check out the inside (before I signed it and wrote something naughty you do NOT get to see).

Over at Mo's Digital Pencil Challenge Cathy's got a fun, fun challenge for you all this week she'll reveal tomorrow. Can you guess what it is by looking at my card? Ah, only time (just a few hours) will tell.

This week's Card Positioning System sketch (CPS158) jump started my design. Of course, I flipped it over a bit.

You know I LUV cupcakes. I mean, really obsessively love cupcakes. Especially cupcakes with lots of icing and sprinkles. So, I went to town with this icing. I used a 1/8" paint brush to paint on Stampin' Up! Crystal Effects and then sprinkled some Vintage Glass Glitter onto the Crystal Effects before it dried. It's really sparkly and yummy in person.

Oh, and I had fun with those Hamster cheeks. After I colored the hamster with different shades of brown Copic Markers, I added some Stampin' Up! Stampin' Pastels (chalks). Didn't they turn out cute? Here are the Copic Markers I used and the rest of the recipe.

• Embellishments – Stampin' Up! (SU) Button Bouquet
• Fibers – SU Grosgrain ribbon in Mustard, SU Gold Cord, SU Hemp Twine, SU Dotted Grosgrain
• Ink – Copic Markers (see above), Spica Lemon Pen
• Punches – Outside: SU Jewelry Tag, SU Slit, Creative Memories Corner Rounder. Inside: SU 1-1/2" Circle Punch, SU Circle Scallop, EK Success Border Punch, Word Window Punch 
• Paper – Neenah. SU Blush Blossom card stock, American Crafts Botanique and LetterBox
• Stamps – Mo's Digital Pencil Birthday Hamster
• Misc.  – SU Pretty in Pink and Blush Blossom Stampin' Pastels, SU Crystal Effects, Art Glitter Vintage Glass glitter

Tip – To make the round-tip green shaped tab in my card, I used the Stampin' Up! Slit punch. Cut a strip of paper 5/8" wide and a good 1" to 2" longer than you want your overall tab to be. Insert your strip into the top of the punch and pull it through the bottom so it looks like this. (Tweezers help.)

Be sure to check out all the other great inspiration for this week's challenge at Mo's and Card Positioning Systems. Leave me a message if you decide to play with us so I can see all your fun creations.

Gotta run. Gotta go pinch me some cheeks!

"Hey, Chickie Lady!" That's one of my pet greetings for some of my sweet girl-peeps. One of those weird McClain-isms I guess. (We may have to come up with a whole McClain/English dictionary. ) Check out the inside – Yes! I decorated the inside for once.

Even as I was making this very Spring-like card, it was snowing outside. In Austin/Round Rock, that's a big freakin' deal.

We got 2 to 3 inches, enough to actually stick on the ground. It was gorgeous and crazy fun. Check out this photostream from our local News station, KXAN - it's hilarious how nuts we Texans get about a little white stuff. One of my co-workers broke out a Christmas carol! There are a lot of sorry looking snowman out there today, though. Temperatures were back up to the 60s and snowmen were wilting faster than the Wicked Witch of the West. 

I had lots of fun making this card, so, get comfy – lots to tell you about it.

Isn't that crocheted flower luscious? I wish I could say I made it (and even more, I wish Grandma Black were around to show me how). The flower is from the Melody Ross artsy urban collection -

This weeks Card Positioning System sketch, #155, gave me a good starting point.

This darling image is a digital stamp from Heather Ellis's Pure Innocence Digi Stamp Characters.

I used the Copic air system to add the Baby Blue sky with the Nestabilities rectangle die still on to create a white frame. I used the glorious Buttermilk and Baby Blue Spica pens to color in the flowers in her hair. These pens are amazing. The glitter in the Spica pen is actual micro bits of glass – the effect is subtle but stunning. (Sharon Harnist has a great review of them, here.)

Alas, I didn't have a red Spica pen. So, necessity being the mother of all inventions . . . I colored two of the flowers with the red Copic Marker (R27), used my two-way glue pen to add Stampin' Up! Dazzling Diamonds glitter, and then recolored the flower again in red, effectively coloring the glitter, too. It's not quite as pretty as the Spica pen, but a darn close match.

For giggles and grins, I used the two-way glue pen to add some Doodlebug Design crushed velvet flock. And, of course, I paper pieced the dress from the Melody Ross Artsty Urban Collection paper (Petit Floral).

Here are the rest of the Copic markers.

And, here's the rest of the recipe:

• Embellishments – Melody Ross Crochet Flowers, Stampin Up buttons
• Fibers – Stampin' Up! Bashful Blue Striped Grosgrain. Stampin Up Jersey Ribbon Originals. Hemp Thread.
• Ink – Copic Markers (see above).
• Paper – Neenah Solar White Ultrasmooth Classic Crest 80 pound cardstock. Melody Ross Petit Floral from the Artsy Urban Collection, Bo Bunny's Sunflower Double Dot. Stampin' Up! Bashful Blue cardstock.
• Stamps – Heather Ellis Pure Innocence Digital Stamp 025
• Tools – Nestabilities Classic Scallop Rectangle Large and Class Rectangle Large.
• Miscellaneous: Stampin' Up! Dazzling Diamonds glitter. Doodlebug Deesign Crushed Velvet Flock.

Hugs to all of you Chickie Ladies out there!

Yes, Pantone Inc., the New Jersey-based authority on color for design professionals, named turquoise the color the year today. Pantone says: "Turquoise evokes thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a languorous, effective escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of wellbeing." Wow. well, we gotta celebrate that!

Okay, I have to tell you I'm not too sure about this card. My daughter says its "great." She's got a design degree so I take a lot of stock in that. My husband says, "It's not your best." So, I'll let you all be the judge.

I made this for this week's Our Creative Corner Color (OCCC) where Joycelyn challenged us to use Blue and Green hues. I also turned to this week's Card Positioning System sketch challenge (CPS150) for my layout. (Yes, it's a loose interpretation.) Using challenges like these really helps me stretch myself – you know, all part of my moto of "Vigor and Vim in 2010."

In addition to celebrating the color turquoise, this card also pays homage to the Russian Nesting Dolls (aka Matroyshka or Babushka doll). I love that Babushka is the Russian word for grandmother. What a great thing to celebrate. Grammies rock the world!

Here's the recipe for my OCCC/CPS150/Babushka/Turquoise card (yes, I really get a lot of bang out of my cards).

• Embellishments: Stampin' up! (SU) Sweet Pea Stitched Felt, SU Fleurettes II Accents & Elements

• Fibers: SU Pink Pirouette Striped Grosgrain (retired)

• Ink, Memento Tuxedo Black; Copic Markers E0000, E00, E02, R0000, R81, R85, G20, YG63, BG 49, BG45, and BG10.

• Paper: SU cardstock: Old Olive, Taken with Teal, Pink Pirouette (retired). SU Designer Series Paper Holiday Treasures. Neenah Classic Crest Solar White.

• Stamp:SU  My Matroyshka

• Tools: SU Scallop Trim Edge Punch, Nestabilities Label II Die.