Monthly Link Party Friday 1/21

Hi there all you Chocoholics. Just a reminder that Friday January 21 will be the first Monthly Open House link party  of 2011 here at The Answer Is Chocolate! I hope that you'll all come and link up the fun things you've been working on so far this year. I know I've seen TONS of amazing Valentine's ideas out there as well gorgeous home decorating, organizing, and just awesome projects. So I hope you'll come. No need to RSVP, just show up!

Monster Love

The first batch of Valentines I made for the St. Jude Card Drive was very girly and I wanted to make sure I had some “guy” cards. I figured boys love monsters ( mine did when he was younger) so why not show them some Monster Love?

I didn’t have any monster stamps so I found a graphic in my PrintShop program. He was cute but I wanted to “Valentine him up” so the poor guy got enhanced with some lovely red lips ( the better to smooch you with my dear) and even though we know his heart is in there, I added one that everyone could see.

I wanted some more dimension so I went over the heart with red Stickles, and over the eyes with black.
Also created the sentiment in PrintShop.

For more information on how you can submit cards for this click here:

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This Week’s BFF: Suzy’s Artsy Craftsy Sitcom

Welcome to this week’s Blog Feature Friday at The Answer Is Chocolate! This week I’d like to introduce you to Suzy from Suzy’s Artsy Craftsy Sitcom.

If you haven’t visited Suzy, let me warn you. Do not drink water or other liquids while doing so unless you like a messy keyboard, especially if you go on a Wednesday when she does her weekly “Guest Star” feature with her ever present green room guest and assistant Tom Selleck. Yes, that Tom Selleck. The mustache himself. You are just going to have to go over there in order to understand.

In addition to being a super hilarious writer ( I was one of her victims I mean Guest Stars) she is also a talented crafter. One of my fav projects of hers is this quilled monogram ( I so don’t have the patience for quilling and I am envious of anyone who does!):

Or Faux Metal Wall Art:

Or these gorgeous Ukrainian eggs ( not just for Easter…they can be up all year round)

If like me, you think "whoa these are beautiful....COULD NEVER DO" they're avail in her Etsy shop :)


But wait…there’s more! In addition to great projects and tutorials, and her weekly Wednesday Guest Star feature, Suzy also has a weekly link party every Thus where you can promote your blog! It’s a fun way to meet new bloggers and get your own blog out there. She put Tom to work and he came up with this graphic that helps Suzy ( and us) keep it all straight:.

So…what are you waiting for?

Cards for St. Jude’s

See that heart on my sidebar? No? OK this one:

If you click the link on my sidebar, you’ll go to a blog that’s new to me this week called Winter Wonderland, run by a lovely blogger named Winter. I found Winter while visiting Jocelyn over at Inside BruCrew Life who for once was not tempting me with decadent chocolate goodies but instead a super cute card which I found out was for this great purpose. And that brings us back to Winter
She’s collecting Valentine’s cards for children at St. Jude’s Hospital and Medical Center in Memphis. I can’t think of a better reason to make cards can you? Especially with a new toy to play with? Hello! Go visit Winter for all the details and specifics if you would like to participate as well.
I started with these four and will make some more but wanted to get the word out about this to all you cardmakers.

Cards are 4.5x5.5, white cardstock with heart patterned and green polka dot papers, misc. embellishments from stash and I got to use another one of the mini-folders that came with my Cuttlebug!

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The Bug and I: Another Card

I needed a birthday card and my Cuttlebug included a perfect birthday folder. This is another guy card which have always been a challenge for me because I like to add all kinds of stuff. But I kept it pretty simple.

I used DCWV paper ( a brown herringbone pattern) layered with embossed metal and the focal point of the card is an embossed present. That’s one of four mini folders that came with the Cuttlebug. The metal was already embossed ( bought it at a craft fair) but I’m pretty sure it was also done using “the bug” so going forward, I can make more. Mwaaaahhhhhhh
Here’s the center of the card close up:

Layered on another piece of the metal, on top of a scrap of the brown herringbone.
The whole thing is on a plain white card. Other embellishments:

K&CO self adhesive scrapbook borders and strips of self adhesive pearlized diamond thingies from one of my dumpster dives in the clearance bins at Michaels. $.99 for the whole package!

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I’m “Loving” Printables

The Mumster ( aka my mom) loves the saying “Live Love Laugh” and has a bunch of stuff with variations of it. So I was playing around with it and here’s one of the variations I've seen. It can be used for Valentine’s or like my mom, all the time!

Mumster, if you read this, just let me know what size frame you want yours to fit. Everyone else, they’re sized to fit an 8x10 frame but you can play around with it to re-size accordingly. Click on a color to bring it to full size before you download. My only pretty please is that if you download, you follow. 

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Welcome Back Mojo

Featured At: 

At least for now. I’ve missed you, and still think you were locked in the garage with the empty Christmas bins, now filled and returned to their home for the next 11 months. I was in  a Valentine’s mood but this is something I can keep up all the time:

Guess how it started out? No?

Pizza. Box. Lid. Yup.
Drew and cut a heart shape out freehand and covered with scrapbook paper.


Then I made layered paper flowers from some more of the scrapbook paper ( Paper Pizazz…Tan Swirly Flowers…that’s the real name) and hot glued those around the heart:

I had a coffee filter medallion left over from some book page wreaths I’d made and decided to plop that down in the middle. Plop is a technical term.

Then I added various brown buttons to the center of each flower, added a gold rhinestone on top of those and finished the whole thing off with a brown ribbon bow. I’d been debating doing neutrals for my Valentine’s décor…think I’m liking that idea.

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