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.

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

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.

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.

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.

Jules birthday

In my last post I mentioned that we were celebrating a birthday.  Now that she has seen the card, I can post pictures of Jules' birthday card.  I have been wanting to make a rainbow card in DSP for a while after seeing similar designs on pinterest.  I combined Sage greens and Bliss Blues.  Since I didn't have to mail it, I added a flower made with the Stampin Up pansy punch (pinterest again) and spritzed with Tattered Angels. I had a new butterfly die from Memory box to add more dimension to the front.   The inside is a step card - and you guessed it - directions found on pinterest.  (Now you know the reason I don't post much!)



My step card says "Big Wish"; the letters were handcut - so many dies, but none the right font! I used a Rubber Stamps of America fairy stamp I bought ages ago.  I had to use the computer to make it smaller to fit  and also to flip one.  That's the SU pansy stamp in the background.  Note to self - don't use such heavy cardstock next time - the card is way too thick and heavy.  Stands up good though!

Happy Birthday, Susanne

Today is Susanne's birthday! The Cardologists celebrated the occasion on Thursday night.  We usually time it so that Susanne is making the dessert when it is someone's birthday but Betty Bob rose to the occasion this time with a delicious strawberry birthday cake. 

Here is the card that I made for her this year. On her blog Keep in Touch she has been showing what she learned in her watercolor class, so I watercolored the image using shimmer colors.

  

Blowing you wishes, Susanne.

 I don't remember the company that makes the shimmer colors because I bought them so long ago at Stamp Convention.  The image is from Purple Onion Designs.

Stamp camp 2013

The seven Cardologists travel to Stamp Camp every October.  This year we are at Smuggler's Notch in Vermont for a week of creative fun. The leaves are mostly off the trees and we had early snow flurries.  It is a very good day to be inside stamping.

This first card has a background using a technique I found on frenchiestamps.com using wax paper embossing resist. The polar bear is from Stampin Up Zoo Review.

The embossing folder, borrowed from a friend, is birch trees, I think, turned sideways.

This card features the Penny Black stamp Sealed with a Kiss.

Stampin up Dies and punches

Papers on both cards: Midnight Muse, Baha Breeze and scraps

Thank you for visiting.

Dora