The Cardologists  love to send cards to each other.  Over the years that resulted in my storing boxes of cards that had been sent to me.  In the last year, I started winnowing them out, after taking pictures of them, because one of our friends collects card fronts, has them made into new cards, and sold at their Church.  

Jules, who was able to take the last lot to our friend, mentioned that they never have enough 'thinking of you' cards. I accumulated dozens of cards the Cardologists had made at our Thursday night gatherings.  During Covid, I had used my stash to send cards to all the residents of the nursing home where my aunt resided.   Sadly my aunt passed away this year short of her 91st birthday. So I will box this lot up for our friend. 

Need I admit, I also have loads of unfinished cards or pieces of cards - the kind that I hoard  to make something "later" - so I am using the card project as new motivation to get busy in my stamp room.  Today I finished off four cards. 

Two are made from a pretty napkin that was taking up space on my desk.  The top layer of the napkin is adhered to white card stock with double sided adhesive sheets and then embossed. After layering it on a card, I added a sentiment and sequins.    

The other two cards feature a make-and-take that I did at the 2022 Stamp Convention using flower stencils from The Ton.  This was cut in half and layered on an embossed pink cardstock.  I added a strip of glittered cardstock, a stamped sentiment and sequins completed the cards.

I also have accumulated many cards the Cardologists made at our Thursday night gatherings.  During Covid, I used these cards to send greetings to all the residents of the nursing home where my aunt resided.   Sadly my aunt passed away this year short of her 91st birthday. So my current stash will also go in this box. 

New Start

 I just opened my blog for the first time in three years!  It's about time, you say, where have I been?

I was finding it too hard to maintain a blog as my job was taking a major amount of time and energy. Fortunately, except for the year of Covid from shut down until we all were vaccinated, the Cardologists have continued to stamp together.  That helped me keep my sanity.

At the beginning of this year, I finally found the idea of retirement less scary than continuing to work. So April 1 was my last day before starting this next chapter of life.   After two weeks of trying to adjust to the new lack of a schedule, my brothers and sister had a house fire that resulted in a total loss of their belongings.  Thankfully they are all safe and sound, and now, through the goodness of friends, they have found a house to rent until they can rebuild.

Tomorrow is my aunt's 90th birthday.  An occasion like that calls for a party and a special birthday card.  But I needed inspiration so I checked out some challenges I had bookmarked.  I found color inspiration at The Card Concept challenge 175.  A beautiful combination for roses, these looked like Flirty Flamingo, Daffodil Yellow, Mango Melody and Calypso Coral, and matched a picture my aunt recently finished in her coloring book. My style is clean and layered.

 The Retro Rubber Challenge 182 is Flower Power and I knew I had a very retro stamp featuring a vase of roses that my aunt had given me years ago.  Unfortunately that challenge ended this morning :-(

To celebrate that my aunt has made it to 90 years, I planned to add the number to the design and coincidentally, The Flower Challenge #68 just happens to be to use a number.

After blog surfing for the evening, I was ready to create.  I stamped the Stamp Rosa image by PSX on watercolor paper. 

  I scribbled the various marker colors on a block and used a waterbrush to color the image.  Unfortunately the coral looks brown in this picture. Now that I finished, the yellow didn't match the inspiration picture and should have all been mango.

I could have stopped with the 5 x 5 card, but bigger is better when you are celebrating.  I mounted the image to layers of Stamping Up paper, added a panel in Granny Apple Green (because green is her favorite color) that is embossed with vertical lines and features a gold '90'.  The final touches are miniature brass butterflies and a mango ribbon.

May 2019

This week I have a week off from work, whoo hoo, and today, I had one of those rare days that I haven't had in a long time - on vacation, home, with no where I have to be.

I dedicated part of my Memorial Day holiday to do something I had been putting off for ages and cleaned my stamp room table. Then today, with 
an uncluttered workspace, and a layout found here, I made, not one, but two cards!

The Twofer, a retirement card and a man's birthday card, both used the same circle dies from Sizzix. The goose is a Local King stamp. 

The striped paper on the first card was a scrap of unknown origin.  I used Stampin Up Pear Pizazz and Pool Party cardstock, The remainder of the paper and stamps are now sadly retired.

Thank you for stopping by my blog. I hope you found some inspiration.

Harvest Twofer

Greetings from Stamp Camp 2018.  All the Cardologists were here this weekend - lots of laughter, eating, and best of all, crafting.  More about that later.

Last night one of my dear friends asked if I was going to enter the Twofer Harvest challenge this month.  And when I gave the excuse that I didn’t bring any harvest stamps, all the Cardologists started digging.  Of all the stuff we brought, and I am talking about carloads, we had only one set with a basket of apples.  My friend had been joking, but I took it as a challenge.  Long after everyone else went to bed, I was stamping and coloring....even when I went to bed, I was dreaming about these cards.  I hope you enjoy the effects.

This first card was inspired by text messages one of the Cardologists was receiving from her husband.  He was signing off all his text messages with food endearments....my little artichoke, my asparagus sauce, my seven layer chocolate cake...it was so cute.

No beautiful sunsets this weekend; in fact, it has been cold with snow flurries. Although most of the leaves are down, there is still a grouping of beautiful trees with reddish orange leaves outside our window.  This second card is only partially inspired by our fall weather. At least we have three kinds of farm grown apples on our shelf (not that we eat a lot of healthy snacks here).

I used: Inky Antics Apple Pie (basket of apples, slice of pie, sentiments), Loralie Art Stamps Jake the Baker (Jake).

North Carolina 2018

We were getting really sick of winter and cold when my sister and I took a two week road trip to visit one of the Cardologists who had moved away to North Carolina.

The azaleas and mini rhododendron were blooming even in the mountains and they were already cutting grass in her development. Was it mean of us sending pictures of our picnic back to folks dealing with a late spring snow shower?

On the way home we spent most of one day traveling a leg of the Blue Ridge Highway.  

Yes, even with all there was to do in sunny Asheville, we two squeezed in some time to stamp together.

Just before I went on vacation, I learned how to make a butterfly push-through card at a Stampin' Up party.  I don't know if that is the official name of the card where the butterfly is mounted on the inside of a card and put up through a hole in the top.  We tried coming up with our own design.

Of course we didn't have a die to make the rectangular cut through the three layers of card and our Stampin' Up punch didn't reach.  So we punched one layer and used an X-acto knife for the other layers.  (Please don't look too closely at the rough edges of the opening.)

I hope you enjoy this interpretation. The flower frame is a Purple Daisy Design die, the butterfly is a set of two by Impression Obsession.  The sentiment and papers are from Stampin' Up.

Now as I post this, we are back home enjoying our own sunny day.  A bunny is standing motionless in my driveway, probably because he sees my cat.  Lucky for him the cat already has a mouse to play with.  Now I have a funny story about another mouse - but that is for the next post.

Have an enjoyable weekend.  But please keep in mind our servicemen this Memorial Day.
Thank you for visiting.

CC's 86th birthday

My auntie's favorite pastime is coloring in her coloring books so often when we visit her in the nursing home we are urged to take up the pencils and a book too.  All the staff have nicknamed her "CiCi" after her initials CCC.
 

Tomorrow is her 86th birthday so we took her out to dinner today and she had her favorite fried shrimp and a Switchback beer.   She gets a lot of good-natured teasing about the beer.

She loves pigs, so of course I had to make her birthday card with This Little Piggy from Stampin' Up. 


The windows were cut with a Paper Cut die set that cuts all three holes together.  One of the other Cardologists contributed the "happy birthday" diecut so I apologize for not knowing the company that makes the die.  

Silly me, I signed the inside before I remembered to take a picture.  I guess I should have said "hogs and kisses!"

Happy Birthday CC.

Scribble Hearts

We have been riding the weather roller coaster that is the bridge between winter and spring.  Last Friday it was almost 60 and then we had five inches of snow Saturday night.  Today I woke up to bright sunshine before my alarm went off and tonight the wind is blowing in the rain.  Whew.

Since this is the third week of February, the second Twofer Challenge is drawing to a close.  I love the idea of using the same stamp or die on two cards for different occasions.  Since the challenge prompt  is “hearts” this month, my
cards both feature the Scribbles heart die from Stampin' Up.

Since it is February, of course the first card is a Valentine Card. I really like using alcohol inks on yupo paper because there are no mistakes; you just keep going until you get a look you like.  This card called for heart-throbbing vibrant colors with gold highlights.  I used a stitched rectangle die from Our Daily Bread for a red layer backed with more gold.  The two dies by Stampin' Up are both the image and the sentiment, which means I didn’t use any stamping on the front of the card. (Is that even legal?)

 I struggled with the second card which I had in mind to be a sympathy card.  I tried so many combinations but it just wasn’t coming together until I saw last week’s Inspired by the Little Things. From that I picked out my colors, added the butterfly wings and lacy ribbon.  I did go a little off course using a Sizzix brick embossing folder instead of wood grain. The flowers were clear embossed and water colored before fussy cutting. Punches, dies and stamps are from Stampin' Up.

And now, I am off to spend a couple hours putting the stamping room to rights.  <Sigh>  Making the mess is more fun than cleaning up but of course you know that or you wouldn't be here.

Thank you for stopping by.

Dora

Cling Art

I was inspired by the CAS Mix It Up January Challenge and my friend Susanne's blog post to play with cling wrap and inks this weekend.  My card is so not-CAS that it doesn't matter that I was too late use it in the challenge.

There are so many ways to use cling wrap to get a design on paper.  I applied dots of ink from Stampin Up reinkers and gold Liquid Pearls onto a piece of  the cling wrap then smooshed glossy paper down on top of the ink.  I flipped it over and wrinkled the cling wrap.  After it dried and I had carefully pulled off the cling wrap, I had some interesting designs.


The insides of the flower and the bottom layer of the butterfly were die cut from the magenta and orchid dyed paper. Unfortunately, it doesn't show the gold highlights as well as some of the later experiments did.   If I had a do-over on this card, I would have glued all the parts to a light blue cardstock instead of a white layer that I ended up watercoloring because it was too stark.

The flowers are by DieNamites and the butterfly is a set from Impression Obsession. The sentiment is vintage Stampin Up from 1994.

Now I am off to play with my kitty who is very disgusted I have been at my computer so long.  I am getting some long looks and loud sighs from that guy.

As always, thank you for stopping by.

Another twofer

With only three days until the end of the first Twofer Challenge, I am posting a second entry. I know, I am just as surprised that I had two posts in one week.  Both cards are made with the Carmen’s Veranda crane.

The first card was made using a Misti to stamp the different colors; the verse is a Penny Black stamp I have had for years.

The second card has a background made with alcohol inks in Yupo paper.  The crane and harmony symbol were stamped in Stazon ink.  Luckily I used a Misti since it took a couple tries to get it dark enough.

The first card I envisioned as an encouragement card and so the inside is has a computer printed saying I took to heart this last year that I have been in Weight Watchers. 

The second card is stamped with a Technique Junkie verse making this a best wishes card.

Twofer challenge

I took a long break from blogging.  I was not intending to be away so long, but rearranging my stamp room led to finding a roof leak which led to roof and siding repairs. Now that some order is returning to my stamp room my mojo is back.

It just is providential that my friend Susanne had wonderful news to share with the Cardologists this month.  She was asked to be a guest designer for a new card challenge and so of course I had to check it out the Twofer Card Challenge and enter this month.

Twofer was a phrase coined by Darnell which means two cards posted on the same day.  Now she has turned it into a challenge which runs from the 1st of the month until the 24th. I hope that you will check out the challenge as well as both Darnell's and Susanne's blogs.

My first card is the sympathy card on the right. It was inspired by a memorial that was posted in our local paper: A feather, a robin, a butterfly too, are all signs your ANGELS are standing with you - Mary Jac.  The second card, uses the same feather stamps with coordinating dies from Stampin Up as well as the same color scheme in a birthday card.


I hope to be back soon.  Til then, I hope you are safe and warm.

Dora

Furry Friends

Surprise, I'm back.   I had cataract surgery last month and silly me, I asked for far vision.  That's great for walking around and driving without glasses, however, it is not great for stamping.  The good news is that with new glasses I will be able to get my mojo back.  In the meantime I am making due with a pair of reading glasses/computer glasses I got from the drugstore.

And I am just in time to enter a challenge at Impression Obsession entitled 'furry friends'.  Now they have some great kitties and bunnies that are very friendly, furry animals, however, they are not what I was looking for to make a Father's Day card.


So, although you do not normally think 'deer' when you hear furry, they do have fur.  With that, I am using the Impression Obsession Whitetail Deer.I mounted it on the inside showing through a diecut oval on the outside.

Thursdays card

The Cardologists played with waterbrushes this week.  For this technique we used an open flower stamp from Stampin Up's Butterfly Basics.  We stamped the image with Marvy markers onto watercolor paper.  The waterbrushes then pulled the color into the image. 


This technique is so cool because no two ever come out the same.   All depending on the amount of water used, a little color can be pulled in or lines can almost disappear.

I couldn't decide which die I wanted to use - Lola's Memory Box circle dies or Jules' Spellbinder's ovals - so I did a card with both.

This first card went to a new worker in our office who has a birthday Monday.  Notice the stitching that the inside circle die has.   A Cuttlebug lattice folder and a Stampin Up butter fly and sentiment finished the card.

 




This second card had less of a watercolor look since I left more lines and white areas.   The background is a Darice basketweave folder   I used a (new to me) Ranger black archival ink to stamp on vellum and was pleased that it dried quickly.

 Hope my friends on the East coast, buried in snow, are safe and warm.  So happy we did not get any this time! 

Thanks for visiting.  Love to hear from you. 

  

December

Two posts in one weekend - are you amazed?  I have to catch up.

December was a blur as I had to get the Christmas cards in the mail.  Luckily I had a few done at Stamp Camp and on our Thurday nights but I still had many to finish.

I found my inspiration for my last minute cards on Heather Telford's blog.

This is my Christmas version of her card.

I used a double-stick paper diecut in the shape of a Memory Box star as a mask and watercolored the sky with my Peerless water colors.  I planned to made it a darker sky but I used all my Cobalt blue just to do the first layer on the twenty cards I made. Note to self, order more.

I then used the evergreen tree from Stampin Up's Lovely as a Tree set. I stamped several trees in Forest Foliage and then a few more in the foreground in black.  I used a wet paintbrush  to spread the ink out making them look less defined.

When the paper dried I removed the cover from the double stick paper and added ultra fine glitter to the star. Unfortunately you can't see the glitter in the photo. I layered the image on a Bashful Blue and Forest Foliage paper, both retired colors.  The sentiment 'Joy' is a Stampin Up die.

Belatedly, I wish all my readers a Joy-filled New Year.

November

Probably you are wondering if I dropped out of blog land I was gone so long.  After my last post in October, my aunt decided she was moving into a nursing home full time.  It was left to my sister and I to clean out her apartment.  It is hard to sort through all of someone's belongings, wondering if each item is, if not necessary or valuable, something that been saved because it has meaning.  My aunt was more okay leaving everything behind than we were.  I am happy to report she is thriving in the nursing home.

In the midst of that chaos I managed to make my Thanksgiving cards and a birthday card for a dear friend.  My Thanksgiving card had to be simple because of time constraints, as in 'last minute'.  I have seen this technique using glossy paper in several places, but always with clear or white embossing as a resist.  To emphasize the fall colors I used a Claret embossing powder from Rub a Dub Dub and am very happy with the way it came out.

The stamps are 'real leaves' set of four from Hero Arts that I have had for ages. The colors used for the leaves and sponging are More Mustard, Fired Brick and Rusty Hinge distress inks.  There might be some Orange Marmalade in there too but it really wasn't showing well with the darker colors.  I added a sentiment from Inkadinkadoo, a gingham ribbon, and a leaf embellishment from my stash. The layer was added to a Bravo Burgundy card.

My friend with the November birthday is a wine lover so I knew I had to use this 'wine shop' stamp set from Purple Onion.  I colored the wine barrel with Peerless water colors and made a tag with one of the sayings from the set. The Old Olive paper from Stampin' Up along with the black paper from my scrap bin made the card and layers.  I embossed a copper shimmer paper with musical notes because I thought it went well with the rustic image.  I only wish, looking at it now, I had distressed the paper a little.

Thanks for stopping by.

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!