Garden Bears

Good Morning! I am finally back home and settled. Thank you all so much on the condolences on the loss of my uncle. It has been a crazy couple of weeks but things are settling down now. I did find some time to sit at my craft table and was able to get several cards made. My card today uses one of the Gruffies stamps. I think this is adorable. I colored it with Copics and used papers from Hobby Lobby. The image is rather large so I let the image be the only thing on the card.

I can't tell if the bear pushing the wheel barrel is happy about that arrangement or not. I will be sending this card to my sister at some point. We have a bunch of of home movies that my Dad took with his 8mm camera. Those films start when I was only a couple of months old up until I was about 8 or so when he got a VHS camera. It is so funny to go back and watch those movies. There is one that reminds me of this image. I am 2 1/2 years older than my sister and she is about 18 months or so--walking pretty good--but not great. I am sitting on my tricycle in my long maxi-dress and my legs propped up on the frame of the bike and she is pushing me all around our basement, while I sit there like the queen or something. 

Have a great day! 

Card Cupid Cupcakes

Hello! I have one more card to share with you that I made for the Card Cupids May challenge. The challenge was to use POLKA DOTS! If you know me, you know that using polka dots is no challenge at all, if I could make everything polka dots I would. For some reason they make me smile! We were sponsored this month by Fresh Brewed Designs and I made a birthday card using this stack of cupcakes. After coloring the image with Copic markers, I decided to go digging through my glitter stash to look for something that looked like sprinkles. I thought these little hearts looked great on a cupcake. Papers are from DCWV, ribbon, glitter and brads are from my stash.

If you are like me and have lots of extra cards laying around, would you think about donating some of them to Card Cupids? We would love to pass along some of your beautiful cards to someone that could really use a smile. Thanks for considering it! All the information can be found on the Card Cupids blog.

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On a personal note: I may not be around very much over the next few days. My uncle passed away earlier in the week and the next few days will be spent with family. He was almost 90 and in declining health so it was not totally unexpected. 

Riley as Rocky

Hello! The challenge on the Riley and Company challenge blog was a fun one this week. It was a recipe challenge to use three stars, two buttons and one ribbon. When I was looking through my stamps I thought this one would be perfect to use stars with and then decided to go with a patriotic theme too. I remember one of the Rocky movie posters featured a patriotic look so I went with that. I have a confession to make, one that my husband couldn't believe when I told him a couple of months ago. I have never seen one of the Rocky movies. Not at the movies or even part of one on cable. He did not believe me at first since I am kind of a movie buff, but its true. Now everyone knows my secret! Boxing Riley is of course from Riley and Company and was colored with Copic markers, the star sequins, buttons, ribbon and paper all came from my stash.

I wanted to mention that I was able to visit with my niece this weekend and gave her the shadowbox that I made for her. She LOVED it! Thank you for all the comments that you left for me, they really meant a lot to me. We were able to spend some quality time together talking about dreams and not listening to any one that tells you that your dreams are unattainable. She already identifies with me since we are the more creative family members so I think she is listening (and hearing me--after all she is 13!). I appreciate your comments so much. 

Thanks for stopping by and visiting me today!

Shadowbox for My Niece

Good Morning! I don't know about you, but I am very happy that the weekend is finally here. My birthday was Wednesday and Kip gave me tickets to see the musical Little Shop of Horrors, and the performance is tonight. I have seen it live before, but I adore musicals and can watch them over and over and over again. 

I have been working on this shadowbox for my niece for a couple of weeks now. I went back to my hometown while she was on spring break to spend some time with her, just the two of us. She is almost fourteen and still thinks hanging out with me is kind of cool. She definitely has a creative streak in her and that is something she identifies with me as something that we have in common. In the course of that visit she told me that her dream is to one day go to Paris. {A little background here, I grew up in a small town with very limited views of what could and could not be accomplished in one's life. I moved away and have been gone for many years. Everyone thought I was crazy for picking up and moving to a city where I knew no one and no one thought I would make it on my own. Add in the fact that I moved to a "big city" and that further cemented me as crazy}. Anyway, back to the shadowbox! Zoie also mentioned that she didn't think that was something that she could ever achieve and could never make happen. I asked why and she said that people laugh at her when she tells them that. I am a pretty laid back person and will almost never say anything negative about someone else, but that infuriated me! Basically I told her that they only reason that people laugh at other people's dreams is because their imagination is not big enough to dream and that if she can dream it, she can make it happen.

She is in the process of redoing her room so that day I took her shopping and we bought several Paris themed things. I had bought this shadowbox from Michael's a while back and decided it would be perfect as a type of dream board for her.

I started with painting the box in the colors of her room. I knew I wanted to include things about travel and Paris, but it took some thought to fill out all ten of those squares. 

The top one has a wooden Z that I painted black and a couple of fleur de lis, because she likes those and I thought it framed her initial nicely. and going left to right, there is a wooden word "believe" that I found at Jo-Ann's and painted black. That center square is the one that took me the longest to decide on what should go there. I wanted something that encouraged her to keep dreaming those dreams. I settled on this paper box that I painted black and added some pink and black paper to. The box had a frame so I popped it out, put in some pink paper and a sticker that says "dream". The box can pull out and open and is intended to be a space that she can write down her dreams and keep in one spot. The final square is a photo from a cafe in Paris that I bought at a craft fair a couple of weeks ago.

The three sections on the right side have a cross that is a charm from Blue Moon. I picked this because it was black and because Zoie likes ornate crosses. the section below that has a world map that I found on the Free Vintage Digi Stamps blog. The rectangle has a glass jar filled with pink, black and pearl beads.

These three sections contain a vintage postcard of the Eiffel Tower that I also found on the Free Vintage Digi Stamps site, there is also a mini canvas that I painted and a little flower picture that I just liked.

I took a close up of the canvas I painted and made. I knew I wanted to include some kind of encouraging quote. I decided to just go with what I told her in the beginning, "if you can imagine it, you can achieve it". I also knew I wanted something with texture and different colors. For some reason, I wanted to create something that vaguely reminded me of an old leather map case. To do that I knew that I needed different tones of color, but since I was making this for my girly niece, I decided to include a little pink and some glitter. It ended up looking like that picture I had in my head, and that doesn't always happen when I am painting! I had the map and passport from a Joilee's set and the Eiffel Tower brad from Hobby Lobby and added some silver rhinestones to set off the map.

If you are still reading this far, thank you!! It was important to me that make her something that would remind her to dream and that if she believes she can do it, she really can make it happen. I also wanted to share part of the story behind the making of this project as well so that you could understand why it was so important to me. 

Have a great weekend!!

Card Cupid Birthday Girl

Good Morning!! I have another Card Cupids post to show you. The challenge for the Month of May is to use Polka Dots. We would love to have you participate along with us! Fresh Brewed Designs sponsored our challenge this month and my card uses an image from them. 

Card Cupids  has several requests for cards right now. If you would like to take a few minutes to read about them and can help meet the need for cards, you can go here, here, here, or here. Please consider taking the time to send in some cards. Remember we only send happy mail, not get well cards.

Thanks!

Oldies But Goodies May Blog Hop

Welcome to our May Blog Hop! The Designing D.I.V.A.S. are a groups of crafters that started on Splitcoast Stampers and has moved to include people on Facebook as well. We have this blog hop every month to encourage us to pull out some of those supplies that we may have forgotten about. Hopefully you arrived from Mary's blog. If you would like to start at the beginning you can go to Maria's blog and hop all the way through with us. I promise you will find some great inspiration!

My card uses an image from a company no longer in business. I just love this image though. I have been spending so much time outside with my shovel working in the yard that it reminds me of me, Crocs and all! Well, I am no where near that skinny, but I do have a shovel and some Crocs that I garden in most of the time. I found that hay paper in my stash a while back and decided I needed to use it soon and thought this country girl would be the perfect image to pair with it and I thought the denim paper would be good here too. Image was colored with Copics and I used ribbon from my stash. 

Your next stop on the hop is Mary Witter.

Mother's Day Stuff

Happy Monday! I hope everyone had a great weekend and if you celebrated, a happy Mother's Day. We bought my MIL a bracelet and necklace set from the craft fair that we went to last weekend. The woman that makes these makes all of the glass beads by hand and it is gorgeous. I wish I had thought to take a picture of them! I decided to make another box with a drawer as my gift holder. I used this image from Deidre Mosher. I wanted to keep it kind of simple and elegant looking so I chose to go with just a sentiment instead of an image that needed to be colored. 

Here is a side view:

I do not make cards for my MIL for Mother's Day. I do for other occasions, but Kip likes to pick out her card on Mother's Day and I think he should. I usually make something, like a gift tag or the box or bag that we will put her gift in, just not the card.

I do have to say I have an awesome MIL. I know friends and have heard of so many people that do not, which makes me appreciate mine all the more. We are very different in most ways; she is very elegant and classy and put together at all time and the best two words to describe me and my style are quirky and eclectic (aren't those nice words for...kind of weird??). I have a funny story from my wedding that some of you may know, but I never mentioned her reaction. I had decided to wear hot pink, high-top, Chuck Taylor tennis shoes under my wedding dress. When she realized that, I know she was probably mortified, but the only look was a little shock and I told her that I had always said, ever since I was a young teenager that those were my plans and to her enormous credit all she said was "Well, that is great then, I am glad you are getting to do it". I know she loves me and accepts me, quirks and all. She has a great sense of humor though and she is kind of crafty so we do have things in common.

Since I am the only one in the family that isn't a mom, I usually host the entire family for a Mother's Day lunch. I do all the cooking and will only let the guys help with clean up, my MIL and SIL get to do nothing, not because they don't offer, but because I won't let them. Here is a picture of my table setting for this year:

Text Me Challenge

Good Morning! The challenge on the Riley and Company blog this week is Text Me--which means to use text paper. That can be from a book, newspaper or DP with text on it. I decided to use an image from the Riley Goes on Vacation release. I have been fascinated with maps lately and decided that one would be perfect here. My image is from Riley and Company, colored with Copic markers and the brads are from Jo-Ann's. I have had that paper in my stash for a very long time! I know it was part of a pack that my SIL gave me for my birthday a few years ago but I do not know where it came from. 

About six weeks ago while my niece was on Spring Break, I took a couple of days off and drove to my hometown to spend some time with just her. The previous visit she mentioned that she never gets to spend time with me and that we mainly only come home for holidays which is crazy for everyone. I know she was right so I called her and asked if she would like it if I came in, just to see her. I told her that we could do anything she wanted. And hey, she's almost fourteen so I know I need to take the opportunity before she decides hanging out with her slightly kooky aunt isn't fun. She is in the process of collecting things for a bedroom makeover and mentioned that going to Paris is one of her goals some day. We were able to find lots of stuff for her room and I am making her a shadow box to go in there too. That's where part of my map fascination comes into play, I have been looking at maps of Paris and maps of France in general looking for the perfect things to complete  the  shadow box. I am almost done, pictures will be coming soon!

Samantha  has a new blog post using a Riley image too.

Card Cupid Boy Birthday

Good Morning! Our challenge on the Card Cupid's challenge blog this month is POLKA DOTS! You know how much I love those, but I don't use them too often on cards for boys/men. I decided to change that with this challenge. Just because of the make-up of my family, I don't make quite as many boy cards as I do girls cards. Fresh Brewed Designs is the sponsor this month for our challenge and I used this little boy image for my challenge card. I thought this would be a good image for a boy of a variety of ages and does anything say birthday more than a balloon? I used the image from Fresh Brewed Designs, dotted paper from DCWV, polka dot ribbon from my stash and a star sequin.

We would love to have you join our Polka Dot challenge. Winner will get 3 images from Fresh Brewed Designs and you will know that you are helping bring a smile to a child.

Have a great day!

Gardening Riley

Good morning! I can't believe it is already Monday, this weekend just flew by. I had a hard time getting up and going this morning. I did get some crafting time in and have a card to show. You know I love Riley images, but this has always been one of my favorites for some reason. I'm not sure if it is because it is gardening related or what, but I love it. Out of all my Rileys that have been stamped and colored, this one probably has seen ink more than any other. Anyway, Riley is from Riley and Company and was colored with Copics and I used papers from My Mind's Eye.

I am excited because my new ATG tape dispenser from The Tape Depot should arrive today! Mine passed on to that great big craft room in the sky a couple of weeks ago and I have been using the smaller ones that I can just pick up at the store. Yikes, that was getting expensive! I am replacing it with the same thing that I had before, it was a great one and I had no complaints with it. It worked great until I dropped it outside on a sidewalk and after that still worked pretty good. However, after the second drop onto concrete it didn't work so good any more. I need to stop taking my tape dispenser outside I guess! It lasted for several years and I am happy replacing it with the same thing.

Have a great day!!

Sweet Pea Card

Good Morning! I have a card to show you today that I made using a Sweet Pea image. The image is from artist Elaine Cox and is called Mirima. Normally when I make a project, I will start with an image and decide what colors I want to use and then after it is fully colored, I will then look for matching papers and embellishments. But every once in a while I will fid an embellishment I want to use or papers that I really like and then look for an image that will give it the look I am going for. I found this paper at Jo-Ann's and really liked it for some reason. It has an ever so slight peachy tone to it so I grabbed some peach colored card stock since it isn't a color that I work with very often. Then as I was leaving, those seashells from K & Co caught by eye and I had my embellishment. I knew I wanted an image that looked like it came from the ocean and I knew that I had several Sweet Pea images that would fit the bill. So for this card, the image that is normally my starting point ended up being the very last element that I chose. Details: all the papers came from Jo-Anns, the ribbon I found at Big Lots a while back, shell is K & CO, I used some Stickles on the flower and a pearl pen on the bubbles, image is from Sweet Pea stamps and was colored with Copic Markers.

I hope you have a great weekend. There is a yearly fair held at a local park near us that features artists from many different places. There are lots of pottery exhibits, jewelry makers, stained glass works, paintings and photography. There are also times that you can go and see featured artists at work. Last year was the first year that we attended and we had a great time so we wanted to be sure and go back this year. Kip is working part of the weekend and then we are going there. I LOVE pottery for some reason, not making it, but I love looking at it and buying pieces here and there. I also really enjoy looking at the all of the stained glass pieces. I am sure we will go and see The Avengers at some point too, but that pretty much sums up my weekend plans.

Have a great weekend!

Fool's Game Challenge

Hello! I have discovered a new (to me) challenge blog and stamp company and I decided to play along with their current challenge. The challenge blog is called Poisoned Peas Please and the challenge this week is called "Fool's Game". Any way you interpret a "fool's game" goes for this challenge. If you play cards like I do, any card game is a fool's game! I never learned that many card games and never really mastered any of them. This image is from Smeared Ink and is called Fortune Teller Carnie. Oh my goodness, do they have tons of stamps that I want! I went shopping and got quite a few the other night, but there are still tons that I want to add to my collection. I will be back there, and very soon! The image was colored with Copic Markers and I used a mix of paints to color the crystal ball. I found some cool playing cards at Target the other day and I knew they would end up on a craft project somewhere! I love the design and colors on the backing. I used some Distressing Inks (Vintage Photo and Old Paper) to age the cards so they wouldn't be so bright white. I added some pearls and eyelets from my stash. Papers are from DCWV. 

Speaking of card games, Kip and his friends play a game called Magic the Gathering and I play along some times too. A couple of weeks ago he went to KY to visit some friends and in addition to playing Magic they played another game called "Once Upon a Time". He was telling me about the game because he thought I might enjoy it. When he got off work last night and got home for dinner I could tell he was hiding something behind his back. He had found the game at a shop nearby. We played several rounds last night and it was a lot of fun!

Have a great day!

Elephant Birthday Card for Card Cupids

Happy May Day! I have another birthday card to show you that I will be sending in to Card Cupids. Our sponsor this month is Fresh Brewed Designs. I used the image Daisy's Cupcake for my card and our challenge was to use polka dots. Well, if you have read my blog at all, you know I am crazy about polka dots so this was a very fun challenge for me! Daisy is colored with Copic markers and I used papers from my stash and a Cuttlebug embossing folder. I left the icing part of the cupcake white and then glued some multi colored micro glass beads on the top to look like sprinkles. 

We would love to have you join us on the Card Cupids blog this week for our polka dot challenge. Easy peasy and you could help brighten the day of a child. You can check out the blog too for other items that can be donated.

have a great day!