Balloon Riley

Hello! The challenge this week on the Riley and Company blog is a sketch challenge. I decided to use one of my newest Riley stamps for this one. Of course I love Riley, but I also love his little balloon bouquet that he is hanging on to. For some reason, I just love images that have balloons. I think they just remind me of happiness. I remember being a little girl and every once in a while we would go somewhere and come away with a helium filled balloon and those were always happy places so I just always associate balloons and happiness and they always make me smile!

My card uses the sketch provided on the challenge blog, I used Balloons Riley, colored with Copic markers, DCWV papers, a Fiskars border punch and some star trim from Making Memories. The sentiment was cut out using Nestibilities and the sentiment is from CTMH's Solos S set.

Snowman and Friend

I start out every year making individual Christmas cards and each one is different. Then one day I wake up and think "oh no, I need to get my cards in the mail today!" and then I try and come up with a card that is a little easier to reproduce so that I can get them out before the New Year! This is my easy to reproduce card this year. At the last craft night, I was able to get all the images that I needed colored and cut out so tonight I spent time putting my cards together. I really like that snowman and his little birdie friend. The image is from CTMH and was colored with Copics. The snow line was done with some Snow Writer stuff that I got on clearance last year at Michael's and I really like it. I like the sparkle in it and I like that I can get a very thin line or I can cover a larger area if I need to. The sentiment is from Studio G and the papers are DCWV. Thanks for stopping by!

Banjo Playing Riley

Good evening! I found a new sketch challenge site and decided to play along. It is called Delightful Sketches and can be found here. While I was gone last week, I spent some time coloring with my niece Zoie and this was one of the first images she wanted to stamp and color. We each did our own version of Riley but she took off with hers before I could take a picture. I used the sketch at Delightful Sketches to make this card. I started with this plaid paper from DCWV and pulled the rest of my colors from there. Riley was stamped with Memento ink and colored with Copic markers onto Gina K paper. The belt stamp is from CTMH and was stamped with CTMH Desert Sand ink and then distressed with some powder from Making Memories. The buttons are some assorted buttons that were sitting in a jar on my desk, most are from American Crafts, I think. I used twine on the large button and the other buttons have very thin pieces of paper threaded through them. Thanks for all the comments on my last post and for the good wishes regarding the DT call, it really means a lot to me!

I don't know about where you are, but it is COLD here today! Last week I could still wear short sleeves and today I wore a long sleeved thermal knit shirt and still froze to death! I hate wearing a coat, I will wear a couple of shirts just to keep from wearing a jacket. I guess it is time for cold weather since we are closing out November. We sat down and made out Christmas shopping list tonight. So far we have exactly one present bought and a lot more to go. Thanks for stopping by tonight!

Penguin with a Tree

Hello! I want to thank everyone for the concern and comments about my grandfather. He is doing much better now, still sore and limping a little but on the mend. And thanks for not telling me I was crazy for making him that kind of card! I have a fairly simple card tonight. I did get an early start on my Christmas cards this year, did a few then kind of stopped. Since it is now November, I have decided I need to get busy making my cards! i started with this cute penguin from The Angel Company, stamped him with Memento ink and then colored everything with Copic markers. I used some white Fun Flock on his hat. I cut the tree out with a craft knife and then used scalloped oval Nestabilities to cut out the image. I like the way that looks, with the tree outside of the main oval. The sentiment is from CTMH and was stamped with their White Daisy ink. Papers are DCWV and the ribbon is from my stash.

If you are in the area, don't forget about Craft Night tomorrow night. We will be collecting food items for the food pantry, so please help us fill the shelves! This food pantry services the entire community and due to the economy has had many more requests than normal. Due to the holidays approaching, the calls will probably continue to rise in the next couple of months. SO if you are able, please help us restock.

World Card Making Day

I tried to convince Kip that this was a holiday that he was supposed to buy me a gift for, but he didn't fall for it. I think this would be the perfect time to add to my Copic collection! I hope you had a good one, and kudos to you if you talked someone into buying you a gift.I spent more time sorting through craft supplies than actually creating with them. We had craft night at church last night so I had to put everything away that I took. Someone gave me several boxes of craft stuff a month or so ago and I was sorting through all of that too. My card tonight uses the CTMH set Little Spooks. I stamped with Memento ink and then colored with Copic and Prisma markers. I distressed the edges and rubbed some ink on the edges to make it look a little more aged. Those great papers came from the dollar spot at Target. I used one of the girls' little spiders on my folded up corner. 

We had a great craft night last night. We played with Copics and traded tips and techniques for working with them. It was great to have a couple of new faces there too! Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

Purple Mood

For some reason, I am in the mood to play with purple inks, ribbon, paper and other goodies. So here is my very purple card for the evening, I can't decide if I like it or not, but it does look better in person than it does in this picture. The stamp is from the CTMH set Butterfly Kisses. I have had this set for a while and used the butterfly from the set but have never used the dragonfly before. The inks are also CTMH. See, I am still working on my self challenge of using the stamps and things that I have on hand! The ribbon is also from the stash and the rhinestones were in a gift bag from Judy that she gave me for my birthday. To make the dragonfly shimmer, I used a Sakura glitter pen.

I have been working the past several days on our downstairs room, trying to get it ready to set up differently. Kip and I have been married for three and a half years and there are still boxes down there from when I moved into the house. When two people in their thirties with complete households get married, there is a lot of stuff! We literally had two of everything. It was harder than I thought to move into a house that was already set up. At first it was hard to get rid of a lot of my stuff, but now I am over it! I want the additional crafting space! Have a great night everyone!

Guess Who?

I wanted to include one more card for my Secret Sister, revealing my identity, so I put this in the top of the box that I mailed off at the beginning of the week. I have just been wanting to use that Groucho Marx mask for something fun. Isn't it funny? It's from River City Rubberworks, if you are looking for funny out of the ordinary stamps, definitely check them out. They are a great source for quotes and sentiments too. This card actually uses several stamp sets and from three different companies too. The notebook page is from a Clear Dollar Stamps set called Just a Note. The letters spelling out guess who are from the CTMH Solo G, U, E, S,W,H, and O sets. The letters were stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink and then randomly cut out and glued down, I wanted it to have that ransom letter look so the letters were cut out a little crookedly on purpose. I colored the nose with a Copic marker and used Glossy Accents on the glasses. Paper is DCWV and ribbon is American Crafts.

I will be leaving tomorrow, but I have a post or two scheduled to post over the weekend while I am gone. I have mentioned a couple of times that I have made several projects by challenging myself to use supplies that have been sitting around for a while or from papers from my scrap pile. I have decided that for the entire month of July that I am going to try and make as many of those type projects as I can. My plan is to finish up some half empty packages of embellishments, spools of ribbon and papers that have already been cut up. I have tons of stuff that I have been saving for no apparent reason, stuff that I like too. Remember the flower brads from my Far Out card below? I love those brads, but I was saving them because there were only two left. I'm not even talking about the things that I look at and wonder what I was thinking when I bought them (those get quietly moved to the girl's supplies), but useful things. If you want to play along, please leave a comment with a link to your creation. Susan did this the other day and it was fun to see what she created and how she changed it to suit her needs. So feel free to leave me links and let me know how your stash is shrinking. Also, I try and start Christmas cards in July so I may pick one day a week to show them. Have a great night!

Stars and Stripes Hanna

Hello! The week is half way over and I am starting to get excited about my trip this weekend! I can't wait to head out on Friday. I will be traveling back to Indiana and Papertrix to attend Beginning, Intermediate and Advanced classes in Coloring Pencil techniques. It is funny, when I travel, I end up throwing clothes in a duffle bag right before going out the door, but for this class and the Copic class I took last month, I had my craft bag packed a week a head of time! Karen Lockhart is teaching the classes and I have been checking out her website and am excited to learn some of her techniques. Hopefully, I will come back with tons of ideas to show you. 

I made this card for the challenge in the Hanna Stamps forum which was to use stars and stripes on your card. I started with this image from the Patriotic Mini set and the stars from a CTMH mini set. I stamped the stars using CTMH Indian Corn Blue, Cranberry and Moonstruck inks and then cut out each one. I added them to my card using foam dots of two different thicknesses, some are on very thin dots and are just slightly above the paper and some stand out a little more. I wanted the flag to stand out too so after coloring the image, I cut it out and glued Hanna flat to the white panel but used another thin foam dot under just the flag. Stamp is Hanna Stamps, paper is DCWV, image is colored with Copic markers, ribbon is Offray, image is colored with Copic and Prisma markers.

A Scrapling and Blog Awards

I know I am late posting all my Secret Sister challenges. We had a challenge a week and I did them as we went but they have all been in various stages of complete until last week. This was the one that I had the most trouble with. I haven't done a scrapling before and whole I was familiar with the term, I wasn't quite sure what constituted a scrapling. I looked at tons of examples on SCS and they all looked different. I came to the conclusion that a scrapling is a small something that uses scraps! I saw book marks and cards of differing sizes. This is my version! It is actually a long, skinny card that can also be used as a bookmark if desired. I used all scraps from my scrap boxes. The white squares are 1x1 and I used CTMH's Holiday Jubilee set and picked out the 4th of July related stamps. Inks are also CTMH.

My designing D.I.V.A.S. sis and friend Sue has awarded me with the honest scrap award. I met Sue through a blogging group and have enjoyed her friendship so much. 
There are a couple of requirements for accepting the Honest Scrap Award and they are as follows:

1. I must thank the person who gave me the award and list their blog and link and
2. I must list 10 honest things about myself .

Umm, I will try to come up with 10 things, but I  will probably have to come back later and add some more.

1. I am very much a homebody. I love going places and traveling but after about four days I am ready to be home.

2.  I am pretty much a loner. When I was a little kid and people would ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would often tell them I wanted to be a hermit.

3. After 5 back surgeries, including three failed fusions, I deal with a lot of chronic pain issues on a daily basis.

4. I will absolutely lie to anyone that asks me how I am feeling. I will almost always lie and say I 'm great or fine! Isn't that a great thing to admit on an honest award! It brings people down when they realize that the pain is there every day and that it affects everything you doit depresses them. My husband knows and a very few friends know sometimes but I have been dealing with this most of my life and hide it fairly well or become a hermit until I can.

5. I am afraid of ticks. Spiders and snakes and all those things are okay, I mean I don't want to see them unexpectedly, but the idea of ticks gives me the heebie jeebies.

6. I am a very clumsy person which earned me the nickname Grace when I was a child.

7. I have a very dry, sarcastic, slightly warped sense of humor.

8. When I get excited, I am like a little kid. Kip and I went to Disneyland a couple of years ago, and I was like a 6 year old.

9. I am very shy.

10. It bothers me that I am so shy. At times it does prevent me from doing things that I would enjoy. I am working on it. Going to  the classes I have been taking in Indiana alone has been a huge step.

Michelle from Inky Scraps passed along this to me. I have only recently discovered her blog and have enjoyed seeing her creations and getting to know her a little better.

The rules to this award are:

1.Accept the award, post it on your blog together with the name of the person who granted you the award, and include his or her blog link

2.Pass the award to 8 other blogs that you have newly discovered
Remember to contact the bloggers to let them know you have been chosen for this award

1. http://susanscreativespace.blogspot.com/
2. http://sandcastlestamper.blogspot.com/

I will come back and add my blogs a little later. Gotta run!

Purple and Yellow Challenge

This was a real challenge for me! I really had to think on this one for a while. Angie issued a challenge to the Designing D.I.V.A.S. to make a card using any yellow and purple plus a neutral color. In addition the card needed to use a flower somewhere on it and at least one other embellishment. I started with a background from Stampabilities and embossed it with clear embossing powder and then heat set it. Using the emboss resist technique, I sponged yellow and lavender inks over that panel and then wiped off the excess ink. The image is from the Close to My Heart set Flower Child and was colored with Prismacolor pencils. Stamps are from CTMH and Stampabilities, ink is Versamark chalk inks, paper is DCWV, button is from Making Memories and ribbon is from Hobby Lobby.

I appreciate everyone's advice on the airbrush system. I am still trying to decided so I would still love the hear about your preference or experiences. Thanks for visiting!

Star Box

My Designing D.I.V.A.S blog group thought it would be a good idea to start a Secret Sister challenge and exchange as a way to get to know each other a little better. Each of us filled out a little survey with our likes and dislikes and then each week we had a challenge to do with that secret sister in mind. At the end of the period we will be mailing all of our items to the person that we were matched to and reveal our identity. Our last challenge was this week and we will mail them off next week. I haven't posted many of my projects because they have all been sitting on my desk getting continually tweaked! I am always a little more antsy when it comes to sending things to other stampers. Don't know why, just one of the crazy things about me. It has nothing to do with who I am sending them to either. One of my best friends rarely gets anything from me because she is a stamper too. Angela and everyone in the blog groups are so kind, helpful and encouraging so I have no reason to doubt my ideas, but I still do at times. This swap has been very good for me for getting me to step outside my comfort zone. Hang on Angela, you might even get something one day soon!!

Another reason I have been happy that I chose to participate has been the selection of challenges that we were given. I have tried several new things, and more importantly, found that I have enjoyed them. This challenge was to make a box or a bag that we could put in a small treat. The challenge went even further by asking us to make a box or bag that we had never made before. So I went to the main place I always go when I need a project like the, the Scor-Pal website. I swear that is one of the best craft purchases I have ever made. No way I would have gotten this right without my Scor-Pal. There are tons of idea on the site and the directions are very clear and concise and easy to follow. Every project that I have attempted has been a wow project! My star box here uses paper from one of the DCWV Luxury packs, but I am not sure which one. The tag was punched out with the Sizzix Traditional Tag Combo die. The word "inspire" was stamped with CTMH's Solo I set and the flower came from the Solo N set. Both were stamped with CTMH inks and the flower was then painted with Twinkling H20.

I have the whole day today to play around in the craft room, I am so excited. Thanks for stopping by and spending a few minutes of your Saturday with me.

Friends

Good evening! How was going back to work today? I had such a hard time to getting out of bed this morning. At least there are only four days in this work week so I guess I will make it. I made this card for a Friendship Challenge with my blogger group. I used paper from the Pink Armadillo pack from The Paper Studio. Like my faux stitching? Of course it is a stamp since I don't really have the patience to sew on paper. One day, I will get a little mini machine and then maybe you will see some real stitching on my cards. Until then, I will continue using my CTMH Sew Happy stamp set. The stitching was stamped with CTMH Chocolate ink. The Friend sentiment is from Studio G, also stamped with the Chocolate ink but then colored in with a glitter pen. Flowers are Prima and the brad is from the Paper Studio. Thanks for dropping in tonight, have a great night.

25th Anniversary

This afternoon, Kip and I are going to an anniversary for a couple celebrating their 25th year of marriage. I wanted to make something a little more formal than I normally make. I stared with this paper from the Paper Company, it is black on one side and on the reverse it is this pretty silver/gray color. The white panel is embossed with a Cuttlebug folder, the scallops were punched with Marvy punches. The sentiment is from the CTMH set, For every Occasion. I love that set and use the sentiments in it all the time. I embossed the sentiment with silver Ranger embossing powder. The ribbon is from my stash and the flowers are Petaloo. I buy flowers all the time, but rarely use them. I think I just have a hang up about their placement, I make it much harder than I am sure it really is. There are very few craft related things that I don't dabble in or do to some extent, with the exception of floral arranging. I've tried but they just never look good. So I think putting flowers on cards makes me think of that. 

I am having a great visit with my parents this weekend. My mom and I went to a few yard sales yesterday and we also paid a visit to Hobby Lobby. Her favorite craft right now is making ornaments. She makes a couple of different kinds, some with these tiny little beads and others with sequins and stuff. I think she has a few with her, I will have to take a some pictures and show you later. Well we are off to church now, have a great afternoon.

Sketch Challenge

This is the card I made using the sketch from SCS today. This was a very fun sketch to play with. I used CTMH's set Rustic flowers. The flower is colored with Copic markers. Paper is DCWV and ribbon is from Jo-Ann's and the decorative accent in the middle of the flower is from Michael's. Quick post tonight!

Added later: I only had about an hour or so this afternoon to craft and that included helping the girls with their project. I stamped and colored a little and went to church with stained hands. I was playing with my friend's daughter and she kept telling me I had beautiful fingers. She also pointed them out to several other people! Little ones are so funny!

Jenna and Samantha (my friend's daughters) are hanging out with me today because Jenna needed to make a birthday card for her friend that is having a sleepover this weekend. Some days we stay at their house after school and some days they want to come here and raid the craft room. It really depends on how much homework there is and what time their mom gets off work. Jenna made this card all by herself, the layout was her idea and everything.

Happy Easter

I hope everyone has had a great day so far. Here is one more Easter card that I made. I used the CTMH set Little Treasures. It's so cute, there are several different items that you can stamp inside the jar. I even masked some of those jelly beans to make the jar appear to be fuller. After coloring the jelly beans with Copic/Prisma markers, I covered the entire jar with Glossy Accents. The lid was colored with a silver gel pen and I cut out several different layers of paper and glued them one on top of he other. Paper is DCWV and I'm not sure of the ribbon.

We are having dinner at Kip's sister's house this evening and here is my main contribution: 

I just had to take a picture of all these beautiful colors in my salad bowl. It is a bag of mixed salad greens with blueberries, strawberries, Mandarin oranges, pineapple tidbits and chopped pecans. It is dressed with a homemade lemon poppyseed dressing. Here's the recipe for the dressing: 

Lemon Poppyseed Dressing

1/2 cup of frozen lemonade concentrate, thawed

1/3 cup honey

2 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon poppy seeds

 1 teaspoon lemon juice (optional)

Combine all ingredients and mix well. With some salads I prefer the extra tang of the lemon juice, but not normally with this one.

Hello

Hello and good evening! I hope you are having a good week so far. I am in need of some general thinking of you or hello type cards. I tend to use a lot of these cards and I like them because they fit many different card sending opportunities. This card was super simple and easy. I stamped the letter for "hello" with CTMH Citrus Leaf ink using the CTMH stamp set, Typewriter Keys. I cut the letters out and popped them up with foam dots. In the corner is a Prima flower that has a decorative accent in the center. The flower was white, but I used the same Citrus Leaf ink to make it match. Paper is Making Memories. Thanks for stopping by!

Giraffe Savannah (Kid Art)

This is Samantha's art project that she made while Jenna was writing her Giraffe Story for school. The tall giraffe in the back is from CTMH's Into the Wild. This is her explanation of her project: 

I made this cute little giraffe savannah thing. I drawed the baby giraffe in the front and the palm trees. I colored the grass with marker. I figured out how to bend the bottoms and glued them to the grass to make them stand up. I named one giraffe Savannah and one Congo. And that's all. Let me know what you think. Samantha.

Thank You Card

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. Fortunately for me I am having a pretty low-key, doing very little kind of weekend. My favorite kind! My card today is a thank you card that I made using the CTMH Solo T stamp set and Making Memories paper. I used the Threading Water punch along edge of the paper. I am still playing with both the new camera and the different photo editing software and still having trouble getting all of my pictures to turn out exactly right. That large T was stamped with Chocolate ink and then I went over it with a Sakura clear glitter pen. In person it is a nice shimmery brown, but it looks a little wonky here. Have a great rest of the weekend.

Inside Birthday Calendar

Remember my birthday calendar from the other day? I decorated each of the pages, something different for every month. The coasters are 4x4 so I decided to use 2.5 x 3.5 ATC cards for the decorated areas. It was a great way to use a lot of the scraps in my stash, especially the smaller pieces. Here you can also see the actual calendar pages, the stamp is from Clear Dollar Stamps . The hearts at the bottom are from the CTMH set, All My Love and February is from a Studio G set. I love those little conversation hearts! My friend Allyson gave them to me for Christmas this past year. She knows I love them and she picked up this set of foam stamps for me. I have several candles, candy dishes and other things that have the conversation hearts on them. I will show you a couple more of the pages over the next couple of days, I was very happy with the way these turned out.

I hope everyone is having a great, relaxing weekend. Last week was crazy busy for me at work and next week is looking to be the same. So today, I have been doing almost nothing and it feels great! Enjoy your weekend and spend some time relaxing and recharging your batteries. 

Finally a card!

I did figure out how to post the photos from my phone onto my blog. The pictures aren't as great as with a camera but it will have to do for now. The angel seems a little strange too! It really is straight, I promise.  I started with the sketch challenge for today from Splitcoast. I left off one of the stars though. The image is from The Angel Company set, Playful Kitties. I color the cat with Prisma markers. I tried to make him look like one of our cats, Hobbes. I don't know if you can see it or not, but the pink circle has the word "cuddly" stamped all around. That sentiment is from the CTMH set, Solo C and the orange star is also from CTMH, from a booking set I believe. I sponged blue ink around tge image to look like the sky.  All three of our cats are indoor cats and they occasionally like to come to the door and check out "the big blue room".  All paper is DCWV and inks are CTMH. Thanks for dropping by! 

For some reason I have a post with the picture and one with the text. The card below goes with this entry.