Tune in Tomorrow for Tip of the Week!

There are new flowers growing in my PaperJungle! 


Tune in tomorrow for my Tip of the Week to see what I used to make these lovely dogwood blossoms. 

Any guesses?? 

Blarney Candy Winner!

Congratulations to TRISHA ... you're the winner of my St. Patrick's Day blog candy! 

Trisha wrote:

Sweet card. Love using the CD envelope. Thanks for sharing and the chance to win your Blarney goodies. I am a follower. patnbobcuddy at gmail dot com

Trisha, please send me an e-mail to cardmonkey@comcast.net with your US mail address, and I'll get your candy in the mail promptly.  I hope you enjoy it.


Followers, please scroll down for today's TUTORIAL on making a Never-Ending Card.

I'm A Lucky Duck!

Well, I just learned this St. Paddy's Day Blog Hop is really only just one day ... and I'd prepared two postings. So this is my second posting of the day (Friday, Mar 18) ... scroll down to see the first card, if you'd like.  If you comment again on this post, it will double your chances for the GREEN BLOG CANDY!!

This holiday card features a Lucky Duck:

I used my favorite Cricut search engine, www.CricutSearch.com, to find this cute duck on a Cricut cartridge. I stole a hat from the Paper Doll Dress-Up cartridges, and used a flocked shamrock sticker for the duck's embellishment. 

Ahhhhh, now for your Blarney Blog Candy: I've got a unique collection of St. Pat's embellishments for you, wrapped up in a green glittered "Chinese food container". (What did you expect? A container to hold some corned beef and cabbage?) I've decorated the container as well, to make it a cute and fun gift. Inside, you'll be seeing green ... green glitter glue, green stamp pad, and more green too!!

 To win:
1. Be or become a follower of the CardMonkey blog.



2. Send me some ♣ Blarney Love ♣ via a comment left on the blog. Please include a way for me to be in touch with you when the Luck O' The Irish falls on your clover patch.



3. You may comment twice today, once for each card posted, maximum of two entries. Respondents will be combined, and only one prize will be sent to the winner, drawn at random by Random.Org.


4. USA shipping addresses only, please. The prizes won by those outside of the United States will be substituted with a gift card to an online shopping service of the winner's choice, value $10 USD.



♣ Be sure to visit the earlier Card O'Monkey's card if you haven't already! ♣  If you post a comment there too, you can have 2 chances to win, win, win!



For now, hop on over to the little lassie, ♣ Faith ♣, for your next stop on this hop. Thanks for joining us here for this blog hop!

STOP BACK TOMORROW when I'm posting the Tutorial on how to make a Never-Ending Card, like that shown last week during Jennifer Restivo's "It's My Birthday Blog Hop." 

Erin Go Bragh! It's the St. Paddy's Day Blog Hop!

Top of the morning to you, lassies!


On St. Paddy's Day, everybody is a little bit Irish. Some are even more so, if they've spent the night drinking some Guinness or Jameson! 


I'll celebrate my 25% Irishness by joining in Dee's St. Paddy's Day Blog Hop today and tomorrow.  So if you've come to hop along, you're in the right place. If not, pull up a bar stool in Card O'Monkey's green jungle, and enjoy the visit. And troll on down to the bottom of the post, where you'll find yourself eligible for some Blog Blarney.

Here is today's card:



I will be posting two cards ... one each on the two day hop.  The first of the two features a sweet leprechaun, a grunge-look clip art, and a unique envelope approach.


I cut the sweet little fellow out using Cricut's Paper Doll Dress Up cartridge. He's cut at 2.5" so the paper piecing is intricate at this size.

I added the shamrocks to his hat and lapel ... the little one on the lapel is cut at 1/4" from regular weight printer paper, to keep the detail. I dotted the buttons on his vest and jacket with Stickles, and also Stickled his hat and shoe buckles.

Patrick is also holding a grunge-style medallion I found on ClickArt Online. (I ♥ that website!!!)  I also added that medallion to the inside message, as shown here.

Paddy rests on a bed of shamrocks of a holiday paper stack.

I think the unique thing I did with this card is that I used a CD Tyvek envelope with a see-through window as the card envelope. On the back of the envelope, I added a strip of matching shamrock paper. I also put a strip of double-sided Sookwang tape on the envelope's flap, leaving one side of the paper intact so the user can peel/seal the card.


Ahhhhh, now for your Blarney:  I've got a unique collection of St. Pat's embellishments for you, wrapped up in a green glittered "Chinese food container". (What did you expect? A container to hold some corned beef and cabbage?)  I've decorated the container as well, to make it a cute and fun gift.  Inside, you'll be seeing green ... green glitter glue, green stamp pad, and more green too!! 


To win:
1.  Be or become a follower of the CardMonkey blog.
2.  Send me some ♣ Blarney Love ♣ via a comment left on the blog. Please include a way for me to be in touch with you when the Luck O' The Irish falls on your clover patch.
3.  You may comment today and tomorrow, once each day please, maximum of two entries. Respondents will be combined, and only one prize will be sent to the winner, drawn at random by Random.Org. 
4.  USA shipping addresses only, please.  The prizes won by those outside of the United States will be substituted with a gift card to an online shopping service of the winner's choice, value $10 USD. 


♣ Check back tomorrow for the next Card O'Monkey's card! ♣


For now, hop on over to the little lassie, ♣ Faith ♣, for your next stop on this hop.  Thanks for joining us here today! 


Please don't miss the rest of the wonderful bloggers who are in this 2-day St.Paddy's Day Blog Hop. A full list of blog stops is posted at the start of the hop: Dees Designs From My Heart.

Thank you, Dee, for hosting this hop -- may all the luck associated with this holiday be yours in the year ahead!

Capturing the Muse

When does creative inspiration strike you?


Long ago, Mozart revealed that he wrote his best compositions in his sleep, fully in his sleep. He called this skill "Capturing the Muse." 




I tell you this because I too developed this odd ability as a young child. Then worried about my weekly spelling tests, I'd place a pencil and pad next to my bed, go to sleep and when I woke in the morning, I'd have scrawled out on the pad all of the words that would be asked on the oral exam ... in order ... spelled correctly (if I could read my penmanship) ... and I had no recollection of having written these words out. I aced every spelling test.



Years later, I capitalized on this talent and even earned a living off of it. I wrote corporate literature (annual reports) fully in my sleep. In one two-year period, I wrote pages and pages of text while fully out cold -- waking the next morning to find my Muse had written out paragraphs of copy.  All I had to do was type it up to submit; it required very little editing.

I was lucky!  About 10 years ago, I lost the talent ... lost my Muse ... when I started taking the sleeping pill, Ambien. I took it every night, not because I was losing sleep writing in it, but because my DH John was a snorer. I couldn't get and stay asleep because of it -- and the Muse disappeared as a result. I stayed on Ambien even after John had a sleep study and started sleeping quietly and peacefully with the help of a CPAP machine.

In January 2010, I weaned myself from my daily dose of Ambien (they say it's non-addictive, but it is habit-forming). I started sleeping normally, but I no longer dreamt ...and I no longer wrote in my sleep. Alas. Then, I was working for a non-pressure job in sales/marketing for a manufacturing company, and didn't feel the pressure of a creative block.



This poster has hung on my office
wall since I can remember. It is
titled "Right Brain Creativity."

That has changed, now that I've been laid off of my corporate job. The Muse is back! And I can't sleep!! I am itching with creative impulses ... I sleep in 3 or 4 hour patches. I now dream in full color, in stories already written ... in projects ready to create. I sleepwalk to my computer, waking to read the magical blogs I follow. Stimulated by ideas there, I rush to my PaperJungle (upstairs, craft room) and cut, paste, create. Yes, think of weird ideas like using the pasta machine to cut paper!

My DH John thinks I've flipped my lid ... and perhaps he's right. I've flipped it wide open and it is spilling out all over the PaperJungle.

Inspired.Creative.Thought.

So enough about me ... how does your process work?
Scroll down here, where I'm going to post a project I found on an amaaaaazing blog. That is, if I have time enough to stay here to post before I dash upstairs ...........

(Credits: THANK YOU to Photobucket for every image in this post with the exception of the poster that hangs in my office.)

Video Tutorial by The Paper Boutique: Expandable Card Box

Not long ago, I posted a picture of a stationery box I made, having been inspired by a U-Stream event held by Alex and Ruthie*. 

Today, I am racing upstairs to try this one out ... an Expandable Card Box by the fabulous Linda at The Paper Boutique. Linda originally posted this video about a year ago on her blog (when I didn't know how to blog!), and she reposted it today in celebration of her favorite videos from last year. 

Now that I am a YouTube "Channel" too (EllenCardMonkey, in case you'd like to subscribe), I've found Linda's excellent original video on how to make this box. I'll post it here:

I'm off to the PaperJungle .... wish me luck!

* Alex and Ruthie are hosting their next very informative, fun U-Stream class on Friday, March 25 at 9 p.m. EDT. The three-hour session airs live, and all you have to do is link in over the web.  Look for it, and participate via Instant Message!  I highly recommend it for inspiration!!

Blog Hop Winner

Congratulations to BRENDA whose blogsite is http://www.createbyburffrau.blogspot.com/

...for being randomly selected via Random.Org from the 81 comments I received during Jennifer's "It's My Birthday Blog Hop." Brenda wins this pair of Cutter Bee crafting scissors!

Brenda, by private message, please send me your mailing address and I'll get these out to you right away.

Thank you again to all of the followers and those who commented on my creative use of a pasta machine!