Happy Halloween

The Cardologists woke up early and used translucent embossing paste with a Stampin Up stencil to make stars on navy card stock.  While we waited for it to dry we cut out all the other parts and pieces.

We used a die to cut trees on a hill and an orange moon. The witch on the moon is a "retro" Inkadinkadoo stamp.  The houses and ghosts are from the Stampin Up Holiday Home set.  We took advantage of the photopolymer stamps to make the crooked houses, and then fussy cut them.

The word bubble and saying were free handed to fit.

Linking to Retro Rubber challenge 25 'Get your spook on' and Male Room challenge 21 'Halloween' Check out all the wonderful Halloween inspiration on the sites.

Now we are off to make a snowman card with more embossed stars. Thanks for visiting.

Greetings from Stamp Camp

Hello, a short post to show that we are still going strong at stamp camp although we are down to only four Cardologists.  Most of the leaves had blown off the trees in that snow squall but it was still a beautiful fall day. It was so warm we had to go for a short walk after lunch.

This is one of the cards we colored this afternoon.  We are using Technique Junkies Vintage Daisy Collage stamp and Peerless water colors. The sentiment by Inkadinkadoo is copper embossed on vellum.

Thanks for visiting.

Stamp Camp

The Cardologists have a tradition every fall called Stamp Camp.  We have been meeting for the last twelve years  at a resort for a week of stamping.  We pack our cars to the hilt with supplies and food and meet at checkin. After the the tenth trip from the cars to the unit, Melba suggested we take up knitting since yarn is lighter!

This year we were greeted by snowfall.  In the evening it briefly whited out the view of the mountain. We told Molly it was in her honor since she would not have a white Christmas in her new home down South.  Inside we had the warmth of laughter.

All of our cards are collaborations...this is a gatefold Halloween card that we made today with a belly band holding our black glittery Raven.

The Raven die is Tim Holtz / Sizzix.  The eek and skull are from the Frightful Collection clear stamps by Little Yellow Bicycle. The bat dies are by Impression Obsession.

Now we are working on a card that takes some coloring.  How are you doing on the thirty day color challenge? I hope you leave a comment so I can visit your site and see what you are doing.

Thank you for stopping by.

More Raccoons

Hello, so how are you doing with meeting the 30 day color challenge?  I have to admit I am not doing so great except for our Thursday stamping nights.  I wish I could say I have been spending my time on other interesting projects but no luck there either. 

My time has been spent reducing clutter and reorganizing the stamp room.  So why does the work in progress look worse? Sigh. 


At least I have some cards to show you.  These are the raccoon cards made by the other Cardologists as promised in the last post.




The first two were made by Melba and Bob using the same layout and great fall colors.  Melba went with the name of the raccoon "Ginger" and made brown stripes on her raccoon.  Bob's black backgroundand star embellishment make it look like night in the pumpkin patch.

Then we have Jules' card.  I love how she grounded the racoon with the fence and the leaves.





You will recognize Susanne from her blog, Keep in Touch. She has a country look to her card and a bold hello.
















The final card is by Lola.  Don't you just love the way she colored her raccoon so it looks like fur and the punched leaves she added to the pumpkin?











Thanks for stopping by today.  

 

Day 1

October signals another 30-Day Coloring Challenge at The Daily Marker.  Yes, for thirty days we are challenged to color something, even for 10 minutes, every day, for thirty days.  I haven't been doing a lot of stamping lately because I am reorganizing my stamps... maybe that is part of the reason the stress level seems to be rising. So I look at this coloring challenge as needed therapy.

The Cardologists got together Thursday to make a fall/Halloween card and we used one of my new stamps,  the Stacey Yacula Studio "Ginger" from Purple Onion.  For Day 1 of the coloring challenge, I used watercolors that I keep in my carry kit.  I colored two of the raccoons to fussy cut, so I could pop up the scarf and tail.  I ended up popping up the eyes to look like a mask and the pumpkin too.

The background paper is a gorgeous gold and black piece from Recollections Midnight Magic pad. I didn't think it needed an embellishment, but I may add a gold banner with a vertical sentiment before I send it.

I am going to enter the following challenges as well:
The Card Concept #40 Forest Friends  inspired by clean and layered, and the raccoon
Virginia's View #19 Color It where the color challenge is on
The Male Room Challenge #20 Autumn where they are also celebrating my favorite season

Hoping to be back soon with a card made from the snippet I colored yesterday! And as soon as the other Cardologists have finished their cards and send me pictures I hope to share them with you too as we all went in completely different directions with the stamp.

Have a wonderful day.

September Snippets

I was cleaning (no that's not the right word) I was moving some stuff around on my desk to take a picture for the last post and uncovered this card that I started a few weeks ago.  I thought ' how hard would it be to finish and post it tonight'.  Ha Ha. Well finishing it was not as hard as taking a clear picture of it.  No matter how many times I tried, the camera wobbled, so apologies that it is blurry. 


A while ago I gave this background die by Die-namics to Jules for her birthday and she kindly cut out one for each of the Cardologists to make a card.  I am envious of the beautiful monochromatic card that Susanne made; you can see it on her blog here.

Mine was colored with a product similar to Twinkling H2Os that I purchased many years ago.  It languished because I didn't know what to do with all those colors!  Until I was trying to get all my cling and newly converted to cling stamps sorted by category and found this word stamp I had purchased this summer.  I love the saying by The Artful Stamper but am a little disappointed that I couldn't seem to get a good imprint.  Too much ink and pressure and I had grey marks all around it, yick. Too little and the words didn't all stamp.  I tried more cushion and less cushion; I changed ink pads and that helped.  By the eighth try I had trouble finding even one snippet of bright white paper left to use for the sentiment.  I finally had the saying with only one little wobble (don't look to closely) and had to make do with a Sharpie. Now she says to herself....that is what you bought the Misti for...duh.

Since this is a NBUS stamp, I am making this my second entry to Darnell's NBUS Challenge 5.  But since I also used snippets from the scrap box to punch the leaves and butterfly, I am also going over to Pixie's Crafty Workshop where Di is celebrating her birthday with Pixie's Snippets Playground - week 194. She would love it if you would play along with your snippets.

Happy Birthday Di!

September NBUS

When I look at the date on my last post, I have to wonder where the time has gone.  I just finished my first card  in three weeks! I have been busy cleaning out and managed to take a load to Good Will this last weekend.  Also I have begun changing some stamps from wood mount to cling to save room.  I am finding stamps that I didn't remember I had.  More about that later. 

But tonight, stamping with the Cardologists, I shared my Penny Black 'party time' stamps.  I love these hedgehogs.  Lola shared her happy birthday die which sparked the inspiration for this card and her embossing folder that made the dots.   

It looks a little funny in the picture, but that is a layer of sparkly paper which makes the card a little more festive. 

And since this is the first time I used this set, I can enter this card, just under the wire at the Darnell's NBUS Challenge #5.    This challenge to use 'never been used stuff' is great fun and hugely popular.  I hope you check it out if this is the first you are hearing of it.

Thanks for stopping by.

Mrs. B's Bday

Hello there, glad you stopped in.

Do you sometimes catch a glimpse of a color scheme or pattern and have to run home and try something similar for a card?  That happened to me Sunday when a woman walked by with a beautiful knit sweater. It was layers of pastel colors with a white knit pattern.  That day I went to the stamp room and layered distress inks on a glossy sheet of paper.  Then I embossed with a white background stamp that as far as I know was NBUS (never been used stuff). I think I bought it at a stamp show years ago from Stamp Camp.

The cupcake is a Martha Stewart punch, also NBUS.  I scored the colored paper after it was punched. Then used the same punch on a strip of white sparkle paper to make the icing.  All the confetti was punched from left over snippets.

The saying that I used just came in the mail and was laying on the table.  It was a free gift  that came with a Purple Onion order.

This card is going over to the As You See It Challenge where they are celebrating their 100th challenge.  The theme of course is CELEBRATE.  The challenge ends tomorrow so be quick to check them out. 

Tomorrow night the Cardologists will be celebrating with Mrs. B (you know who you are)! Cake, stamping and laughter.

Hope you have a good day.

Inkspirational Challenge

Exciting news....my friend, Susanne is the guest designer for the Inkspirational Challenge #89.  She so deserves it because she makes some awesome cards.  You can see them on her blog, Keep in Touch. And of course, she inspired me to post a card for the challenge which is the word prompt "Melt". 

I thought at first I would be melting because it has been so hot my stamp room has been a sauna.  But this weekend , thankfully, the heat wave left us and it has been gorgeous.  While I might have used ice cubes melting in my cold drink on a hot day, my thoughts instead turned to candles that melt.

The candle and sentiment stamps are from a retired Stampin' Up set called Poinsettia Greetings.  I stamped the candle in Crumb Cake ink and then used colored pencils. I got to use my new Stampin Up dies Lots of Labels. I found a patterned paper in the Trim the Tree DSP pack and went with the colors Garden Green and Cherry Cobbler.   There is a layer of White sparkle paper in there too.

I hope you visit the Inkspirational Challenge; you have five more days to post your own creation.

Thanks for visiting.  Hope you have a great week.

Molly

One of the Seven Cardologists has moved away. Today Molly is in her new home in North Carolina. <Sniff Sniff>  We were sad to see her go, especially since it seems it took less than a month to sell her house, pack up, and leave, giving us with little time to adjust to the thought that we won't see her again until October Stamp Camp.  We managed to get much celebration in that short time so I have two cards I made for our Molly.

We were able to visit one last time in her three season room three weeks ago.  Originally we were going to stamp, but with all the good food, laughter and reminiscing over old pictures of the Cardologists, we didn't quite get to unloading the stamping supplies.  Here is the card I made to say goodbye to my friend.

All the images are retired Stampin Up stamps watercolored with Peerless watercolors.  I matched the colors with scraps of paper from my snippet collection. The sea creatures were also  covered with Crystal Effects and popped up.  The sentiment is and old unmounted so I don't know the  company.  The sentiment continues on the inside "Moments spent with a friend are the kind we wish would never end".

I will link this card at the Crazy 4 Challenge C4c248.  Although the challenge is to use lighthouses, if you don't have a lighthouse you can use anything by the sea.




This next card was made for Molly's birthday which we celebrated this last Thursday.  I owe someone a big apology.  Usually when I find an inspiration for a card I will save the page so that I can give credit when I post.  This time I didn't and my search has been fruitless tonight.  I will keep looking and when I find it, I will come back to link it.

I started by masking a strip on the white panel stamping the leaves in gray and midnight muse (stamped off), then sponged the whole strip with sky blue.  The flowers from Stampin Up Just Believe set were stamped in blackberry bliss.  The panel was layered on a grey scrap and then mounted on a  blackberry bliss card with a short front.  

A sentiment by DRS is popped up and overlaps a short front to form a latch. Inside the card  is a panel the same size as the front with another sentiment, company unknown.  There are three score lines beside that inside panel that make it possible to bend the card so that the front can be tucked under or untucked easily from the latch on the back.   A couple butterflies from Papillon Potpourri and some pearls are the final embellishment. 

[And here I return as promised to say that Dina Kowal has a tutorial for the Latch card on Splitcoaststampers.]
Thanks for visiting.  I hope you also have a sweet and sunny day.

Welcome Gnome

I started this card several weeks ago when Lola kindly gave all the Cardologists the Gnomegrown and Garden Wheelies sets from Peachy Keen Stamps.  At the time I didn't really like the scribbled background I gave the card and I left it aside on my desk.  But this week I was inspired by the Just Add Ink challenge to Just Add Butterflies.

Lo and behold, on my desk was a lone Stampin' Up butterfly languishing from another card I did not use it on and a butterfly body left over from another project.  And they worked perfectly to put the little gnome and his wheelbarrow in perspective. 

Since I used snippets of white to stamp and cut out the flowers and the gnome head I am also linking this to the challenge at  Pixie's Crafty Workshop.  Di, the author of the Snippets Playground challenge is also the guest designer on the Less is More blog this week where the challenge is to use snippets.  Alas, I fear this card is not CAS enough for that one. Another reason not to like my scribbles filling in all the beautiful white space <sigh>.

This card will be used to "Welcome Gnome" a friend to her new home.
Thank you, friends, for stopping to visit.

Sisters Day

I have to start out by saying that I have downloaded a new web browser - that is, new to me - and it is working much better with blogging and email.  With Windows Explorer I kept getting worrisome messages when I tried to access my blog; and none of the links in my email were working.  So I am now using Firefox on my PC with none of those annoying problems.



I made this card to give to the Cardologists, Thursday.  Usually I want to wait to post a card after they get it, but I am trying to make the deadline for Muse Challenge 125 where I took inspiration from this week's muse, Anita Bowden.   Here is her lovely friendship card.



My card is turned but with the fold still at the top. I also created a strip for the sentiment by scoring above and below it.  I brought in the pastel colors (the camera really accentuates the pink I used, I think it is neon!) and also used dotted paper below the sentiment.  Believe me, now that I see the squares I added for embellishment are sliding out of kilter, I have to go straighten them out.

I am using the Vippie stamp Ladies en Vogue to represent my friends, my sisters of the heart. With all the friendship stamps available, I cheated and used the computer for the exact saying I wanted.


Now I leave you with this saying I adapt for my own: Sisters aren't always blood. Its the women in your life who want you in theirs. The ones who accept you for who you are. The ones who would do anything to see you smile, and who love you no matter what.

Happy Sister's Day!

July birthday

Hello,
I hope you are having a good weekend and are finding time to relax.  

This week the Cardologists celebrated a birthday.  You might have seen Susanne's card for our friend on her website here.

For the focal point on my card I chose two flowers from an Inkadinkado clear stamp set called Artistic Flower Creation. They were embossed with clear embossing powder and then colored with peerless watercolors. When they were dry I added a little Wink of Stella.

I really like how the flowers came out, but then I had an almost square piece and was stuck on what to do with it.  Since I waited until the night before the party to finish the card, I was a little panicky.  

Of course I needed layers because Jules likes layers almost as much as she likes purple.  I pulled out a Darice leave die and cut three pieces to glue together to offset the square.  The Stampin' Up butterfly, embellished with pearls, had the wings popped up for dimension.  The dewdrops are a joke with the Cardologists - three down and thirty thousand to go.

The final touch was the sentiment from Stampin' Up, perfectly positioned thanks to my Misti.  No challenges to enter with this one.  It was inspired totally by our friendship.  Hope you like it.

Thank you for stopping by.

Christmas in July

The Happy Little Stampers challenge this month is Christmas and Tree.  Luckily I made good on my promise to start my Christmas cards in July this year so I have a card to use for their challenge.  Okay, this is where I confess I started this card last year at a Stampin Up workshop.  Somehow it didn't look finished to me so I set it aside and just found it as I was cleaning. 

At the workshop we started with a stamp from the enduring Stampin Up Lovely As a Tree set.  We used the dryer sheet technique to make it a glittery snowy day (can you see it in the picture?) and a silver ribbon for embellishment.  To "finish" the card, I cut it down and layered the panel on green because I thought it needed to be grounded.  My friend Lola loaned me a vertical Happy Holidays; if it had been my own stamp, I would have unmounted it and used the Misti.  As it was, I used a positioner but still it was crooked.  I had to cut it off and went with this sentiment from Inkadinkado which is much easier to layer on.

Now can I start some other Christmas cards this month??
Thank you for stopping in.

Inependence Day

My belated greetings to my U.S. readers for Independence Day.  I signed in to post on my blog last week and picked up a virus. Yuck! I clicked 'yes' on a pop-up without thinking, and instantly knew that was not a good thing.  I have a good anti-virus program that stopped it from doing great damage and was able to retreat to an earlier point on my computer.  Whew. I was so discombobulated that I couldn't finish my post that night.  If that wasn't bad enough, another nasty old virus made its way into my throat so I spent most of the weekend in bed. But I am back in business now.

I made three versions of this card since I had only two 6x6 inch squares of the patterned paper.  One version that I gave to the Cardologists used a triangular piece of the patterned paper at the top with a diagonal strip of blue embossed paper.  In these two versions, I used up the scraps of the patterned paper.

The embossing folder used on the blue paper is by Darice; the sentiment is by Serendipity stamps purchased a while ago from a local store that has gone out of business:-(  Inside the card is a larger white star stamped with "Have a Star Spangled day!"  The stamp is by CC Stamps and purchased years ago at a stamp convention.

Because the nasty viruses threw me out of schedule, I missed entering these cards in the Retro Rubber challenge for the 4th of July.  Please check out the winners of that challenge now. I can enter these cards in the Pixie's Snippets Playground 184 challenge though since I used up my snippets of patterned paper on these designs.

Have a good day.

Ray of Sunshine

I am working on a couple projects this weekend - cards for Independence Day and Luminaries (bags) for next week's Cancer Walk.  Since I am not ready to post those I will show you the card we made Thursday night.  Jules got her new dies from Taylored Expressions and we decided to use the Ray of Sunshine die.  Our inspiration was on the Taylored Espression's blog found here. 

This is our version:

We sponged glossy paper for the background; glued on the yellow diecut rays rather than using them as a mask.  We cut and sponged some green patterned paper for hills leaving them rolling in the horizon.  The tree and a Stampin' Up "hello" are diecut in dark brown because all we see is the shadow of them as we are looking into the sun.

As the sun sets on another glorious day here, I will say good-night to my readers. 

Happy Fathers Day tomorrow.

Convention

I didn't post last weekend because Molly and I went to the Stamp Convention in West Springfield and this past weekend I went to a Stampin Up workshop. I am very behind in reading posts and leaving comments.  This card was started on Thursday and I must confess you are seeing my second attempt at watercoloring this image.  I still am not happy with the coloring, but wanting to finish a card before midnight, I decided to cut around the petals and pop them up, somewhat disguising the fact that I need practice with watercolors.

We haven't been to the Stamp Convention in a couple years for various reasons.  I was a little disappointed to see that it is down to only twenty eight vendors making it very crowded on Saturday.  I think next time I may only go on Sunday, a much more relaxed day.  My favorite find was the Peerless Watercolors sold by Technique Junkie. I have been wanting them for a while and I used them on today's card.  Best new product (to me at least) were the new StazOn pads.   They are smaller and the lids click on.  I used Cloudy Sky to stamp the Artful Stamper (Stamp On It) image on watercolor paper.

I die cut the pink layer and the watercolored piece the same size, then cut down the one on the inside line by hand. A line of washi tape and some brown leaves on an embossed olive layer to keep it from being too centered; a butterfly and some gold dew drops to embellish; all mounted on a white card.

No time to find a challenge to enter....you were kind enough to visit anyway.... thank you for stopping by.

Merci

Exciting news today; I was promoted to supervisor in my unit at the Post Office.  I don't know whether to be happy or scared because this is a step in another direction.  I had been a Union officer for sixteen years, but now am crossing the line to the other side.

Talk about a step in another direction, this card is not my usual fare either. Compared to the card I made a few days ago found here, it is a bit grungy.  Lola die-cut this Eiffel tower in white for me that I didn't use on for my earlier card. 

Once I distress inked it - sort of old, rusty metal, I drew criss-cross lines by hand.  Then I found this gold patterned paper to use for the bottom half of the card.  The top part is a cream paper stamped with the SU French word background in Creamy Caramel.  The leaves overhanging are the stamp from  SU Thoughts & Prayers again stamped with Mellow Moss. 

The skunk, are you thinking Pepe le Pew, was probably the first stamp I purchased years ago from Dots (Close to My Heart).  The birds are a NBUS die by Memory Box that I received as a gift recently.  The sentiment is another gift and from the Hero Arts Paris set.  A few well-placed black gems finished the card.  All is mounted on a Mellow Moss card with black trim.

I am linking this at the Paper Players Tic-Tac-Toe challenge 247 since I have the bottom line: die-cut, pattern paper, and shade of yellow (gold).  There is a little blue and a tiny flower, too.

A warm welcome to my thirteenth follower, Therese.  Thank you for visiting... or "merci de m'avoir rendu visite". 

Happy Birthday Susanne!

My friend Susanne, the talented author of the blog Keep in Touch is having a birthday on Monday.  I can show you the card I made because the Cardologists had a party tonight complete with ice cream cake and presents for Susanne.

I started with an idea for a CAS card that involved embossing a strip from Stampin Up and adding lines on either side with the score board.  I even put the sentiment on before I decided on the stamp to use for the focal point. 

This is the Sweetbriar Rose from Stampin Up, that was one of two flower stamps sitting on my desk waiting for their first use, stamped on watercolor paper.  The flower petals were painted with distress ink, the leaves with an Elmers watercolor brush. The leaves were a little dark so I took some of the color off with a waterbrush.  I then had to fussy cut the flower because it needed to overlap the embossed strip, added the mulberry paper underneath, and touched it up with Wink of Stella and yellow pearls.  Finally I decided to make the white card front into a layer and mounted it on a blush card.

I am going to link this to the Simon Says Wednesday Challenge where it is "Anything Goes" this week.

Happy Birthday, Susanne!

Bonjour

Just a quick post because I finished our Thursday card.  We all stamped the Penny Black 'bonjour!' stamp three times, colored, fussy cut and layered.   Lola brought her Sizzix Eiffel tower die and while some went with sparkly pink or distressed red, I chose glossy black.  That was as far as I got after two weeks.    

Today, after organizing some of my new stamps and putting them away, I found the motivation to finish the card.  First,  I found the "Paris" in a Hero Arts set to be stamped in the corner of a quarter sheet of white.  Then I added parts of the tree branch from the SU Thoughts & Prayers in Pear Pizzaz kissed with Forest Foliage.  Since the tower was so solid, I die embossed the layer with diagonal lines. 

The final embellishment was the flower for Mimi's beret.  Alas I had only pink gems; but no worries, I colored over with a red sharpie.  Everything assembled on a red card.

Mimi is now ready for her Paris adventure.   Au revoir.

Anniversary wish

What a beautiful day we had today.  I woke up to sprinkles, but they went away quickly, and it was quite a bit warmer than yesterday.  I finally went out and replaced my ailing mailbox - it had quite a swivel going since it was hit by the plow.  This time I made it higher too so I, and the mailman, can reach it better.   I also pruned my forsythia back - although I can never remember if it is better to do it in the spring or fall. 

After that, I was off to my craft room to play. My calendar shows many birthdays and anniversaries around the corner in June, so I have to get creative. 

Here was a card I finished today using a retired Stampin Up French flair background that I bought at a yard sale. Since it is 5 x 6 inches and I didn't want to cut it down it makes a big card.  I just happened to have some 5 x 7 inch white cards left over from a Christmas project to use as a base.

I embossed the image on watercolor paper intending to use my watercolors.  While the card was in process,  I decided my distress inks needed reorganizing.  (That means there were too many on the desk in my way!)  While I had them out, I decided to sponge distress inks over it instead. 

I diecut the word 'happy' from the Stampin Up Hello You thinlits using the same purple paper that is the layer.  That didn't look firm enough so I cut it again in white and glued the layers together.  I found this little anniversary tag in a Studio G set, stamped and layered it. It is tied to the happy with a white string and popped up.  The finishing touches are three epoxy hearts added to the ends of the swirls. 

This anniversary card is the closet I will get to a wedding card this month, so I am cheating a little and linking it to the Just Add Ink Wedding Challenge.  It is a better fit for the Inkspirational Challenge 83 where the color is purple and the theme is love/wedding.

Thank you for stopping by.  Your comments are always appreciated.

Delightful

Delightful does not describe the weather at the moment.  It is so dark that I had to use may scanner to take a picture of these cards. It is the name of the Penny Black stamp that my friend Susanne had. Because I loved it, she let me stamp some images to use on my cards. (In fact, I had to purchase it myself recently.)

I haven't finished a card in a few weeks - it has been way too nice to be indoors.  So I guess I am happy it is a gloomy day today.  There are pieces of half finished cards all over my desk.  Sometimes I get stumped with how to finish a card and I have to leave it for a while.  But I need to reclaim my desk.  Today was the day to finish these three. 

The Penny Black image makes a big card; I will have to use a letter envelope to mail this first one.  I colored all three images with Primsacolor pencils while I was watching television.  Then I had to match the colors to paper., always a tough job and usually where I get stumped.  I found scraps of pink and purple to match the flowers; added a snippet of green ribbon and used butterflies that were in my stash left over from some other projects.
The sentiment is from a very old The Angel Company stamp set



The other two are made from part of the image....accidents in stamping but couldn't bear to throw away.    This second card is a regular card size.  The layer is from a Ranger core'dination stack embossed with a Darise folder.  The stack, paper and sticky dot embellishments were all gifts from my friends.  The banner for the TAC sentiment was going in the upper corner.   I could tell you I didn't want to cover the embossed butterflies with it, but the truth is it is covering a blooper.  When will I learn not to put "finished' cards by an open stamp pad?


This last one is a small 4-1/4 inch square card.  Once again it has core'dination paper, embossed and distressed as a layer but this time it was diecut first.  I added a layer of blue vellum that has a faint pattern to break up the blue space of the card. The vase uses an ornament punch cut off at the bottom then embossed with a Cuttlebug folder..   And who doesn't have oodles of gems to use - someone who has more power to resist them in the store maybe.


Edit:  I am entering this third card at Virginia's View Challenge "layers" and Penny Black Saturday Challenge "nature".

A productive day, I think.  Its off to Sunday dinner at my sister's house.  Wishing all my friends a Happy Mother's Day.  Thank you for stopping by.

Butterflies and Music

I am in love with a background technique I found on Pinterest called "bokeh" that comes from a photography term. There are many sites that provide details on how to do it and even a few different ways to get the effect. Here is a picture of my first attempt....

Yeah, I missed a few spots...but I have to say this is an easy and fun technique, so I will be doing it again.  If you haven't tried it and can't find it let me know and I will send you a couple links.

This week Mrs. A's Butterfly Challenge 28 letter is "M" for music. I don't have any "Music" stamps but I am poised to purchase (have it in my cart already) the Hero Arts stamp the guest designer, Kath, used in her inspiration card. I inked part of a Christmas stamp to get the music for my background.  I used a new Darice die for the vine and a Stampin' Up embosslit for the butterflies.

I love butterflies and can't wait to see some flying around here.  We lost the last of our snow last week and the mud is drying up in the bright sun today.  Last night I heard "peepers" in the pond out back. This week we are supposed to get some rain which will bring some lovely green into our dreary scenery.  Spring arrived so late, that we can hope we won't have another frost that kills the apple and lilac blossums this year.

And because I made my own background, I am also linking this card to the Simon Says Wednesday challenge.  Their sponsor this week is My Favorite Things. 

Thank you for visiting. 

Its A Girl Thing

My title refers to a retired Stampin Up set from which I pulled this stamp with a collection of purses.  Since the stamp set is over ten years it qualifies as retro rubber.  I hope you check out the Retro Rubber challenge 12 on their website where the theme is "Hey Brad".  How long has it been since you have used your brad collection?

This card was inspired by the Card Concept Challenge # 33.  The pink and grey color combination and all the dots and chevrons jumped out at me.  I didn't realize that it was a baby's room right away (dah!), I just thought the owner would be a stylish lady with a shoe and purse collection.

My style is 'clean and layered'. I pulled the dots in on the purses and in the dotted background. The ribbon, a gift from a friend, added the chevrons, and a couple layers added some stripes .  I had to use a sharpie on my brads to make them hot pink. I toyed with using them to affix a sentiment, but I don't know how I am going to use the card yet.  There is a bit of Wink of Stella on the purses.  In fact, three of the purses are popped up because I spilled a bit of wink on one of them. Its what we call a 'happy accident' because they look better popped up.

Can anyone tell me why I can't get these two pictures to sit side by side unless I put words in between them? Aargh.  Check out the links above to find your own inspiration.

Thanks for stopping by.

Wind

I had this idea for a card for the Chocolate Baroque Color Challenge Nine all weekend, but procrastinated to the last minute.  I grabbed a piece of paper (wrong green I realize now) and sponged on some color (sloppy job emphasized by the scanner). 

No time to do it again because I have to go to work.  Oh well, as a coworker once said to me, guys don't care what it looks like, they just like to get the card. (I hope its true).

It will also work for the One Layer Simplicity challenge this week where the challenge is Wind.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Easter blessings

I just got home from a delicious Easter dinner at my sister's house complete with spiral ham and strawberry shortcake.  Yum. Just a quick post tonight to wish every reader a happy Easter.  I finished signing and addressing my Easter cards today and will mail them tomorrow. 

I have two cards to post today.  The first was made for a little girl in town.  One of my coworkers at the post office spied a letter this girl wrote to the Easter bunny and horrors it was postmarked last year!  He told me that poor child had been waiting to hear from the Easter bunny for a year so I had to make her a special card.

I used the tree stamps and dies from a Sizzix-Hampton Art set called Hello Spring.  I stamped and watercolored the background trees, then colored one tree so it looked like an Easter egg tree.  I covered the 'eggs' with crystal effects, added a sentiment and bunny from Stampin Up sets and mounted them on a bright card.   This is the only card I finished to arrive before Easter.




This next card is the one going in the mail tomorrow to the Cardologists.   There is a sad story to tell here.  I had already cut out the papers before I went looking for a spring flower stamp. All my daffodils were too large or too small.  The Easter lilies would have been murder to fussy cut. The flower that had a matching die was so busy it looked washed out on the card no matter how dark I inked the stamp. 

I searched through my binder where I categorize all my stamps and finally decided only the calla lily would work.  It was only after they were all colored and cut, when I went looking for a stamp for the inside, that I found my new tulip that I had put away without stamping it in my binder, gasp.  It would have been perfect if I had not forgotten I had it. So as my sister said, I just used the 'wrong' kind of lily.

Is there such a thing as too many stamps??




Well, I leave you with this Stampin Up sentiment that I used inside the card:  May the miracle of Easter bring renewed hope and peace to your life.

Thank you for visiting.

End of Winter

My blog title is my hope that this is the end of the snow and cold.  We have a bit of snow still on the ground which is going away slowly.  The forecast is for warmer temperatures and rain this week, that is the start of unofficial mud season.  I am reading all those blogs, where people are seeing their flowers bloom already, with wishful thinking.

I have two cards to post today.  One was the St Patrick's Day card I made for the Cardologists.  This card is made with a Celtic gyre as the focal point.  I covered it in Crystal Effects to make it look a little like a charm.   I used a Spellbinders lattice die and two sizes of Sizzix framelits to cut the backgrounds.  The shamrock was made with a heart punch.

Because you can see, with a little imagination, a green ombre look, I am submitting this card to the City Crafter Challenge Blog where Darnell is the special guest designer.  You still have a few hours to check out the Week 254 challenge.  Even though I have had the boxed set of Celtic stamps forever, this is a never been used stamp as are the Sizzix dies that I received as a gift.  So I am also linking the card to  Darnell's NBUS Challenge 4.

This next card was a quick, and I mean really quick card, made because I didn't want to miss the deadline at Time Out Challenges.  My cardologist friend, Susanne, is guest designer there for challenge 27 where the theme is "Clean and Simple with an optional twist of Black and White plus a Splash of One Colour."

My style might have too many layers to be CAS, but I hope it has enough white to qualify.  The stamp is from a retired Stampin'  Up set called Measure of a Life.  Just a tiny bit of blue colored pencil on the body rubbed out over the wings.


Thank you for visiting my site.  I hope you have a wonderful day.

Best things

My friend and her husband, are starting a new chapter in their lives, having both retired from their jobs recently.  I have been searching for exactly the right card to send them on their way.  I chose for them the saying "the best things in life are worth waiting for" to signify the best years are yet to come.

I love fancy folds for cards so I knew when I found a pop-out window card on Pinterest that I had a the framework.

LeeAnn Greff has a video on how to make her card found on her website here.   The center of the front of the card is hooked to a z-fold on the inside of the card.

I used brush markers to color the flower flourish and then stamped repeatedly.  The butterflies were diecut and embellished with gems. 

I am rethinking this oval shape.  The square in LeeAnn's card fits more snugly than this oval so I might have to add a butterfly or flower in the lower left to keep it from pulling through.






I am entering the card in the Sparkle and Shine Challenge inspired by this photo.  As I sit here I see nothing but white out my window. With so much snow it is highly unlikely we will see any green this year on St Patrick's Day.  I am so looking forward to warmth and flowers and butterflies, so what I see when I look at this photo is Spring.  We just have to "wait for it".




I am also going to enter my card  in the Retro Rubber challenge because  I embellished with a tag using the Luni Stamps "Dream".  I have had that stamp and the Hero Arts flower flourish for a years. I also used a retired Glorious Green paper from Stampin Up. The other colors are Soft Sky and Night of Navy. The sentiment inside is from The Simple Things by Unity Stamps.




I hope I wasn't too long-winded today.  Thank you for visiting.

Edited 3/9 - My friend, Susanne, reminded me that I could also submit this card on the Hero Arts blog where the challenge is Nature so I am going to run right over there.