Happy Father's Day

Good afternoon! I hope you are enjoying the day with you Fathers or the other important men in your life. We went out with Kip's dad last night and we won't see my dad until this weekend. This is the card that I made for him that I wanted to give him in person. I was very fortunate to grow up with a wonderful man as a dad and I have tons of great memories of doing things with him. It's funny what we remember about our childhoods. One of my favorite things that we did was our weekly trip to the dump! When I was little I would go with him a lot on Saturday mornings and after we were done, we would stop at a convenience store and get a snack. As with most of my memories with both parents, it wasn't memories with material things that stick out, it was the things that we did together. Giving time to someone is the most precious thing you can do. We all have different talents, different monetary abilities and different ways that we can touch someone else's life. But we all only get 24 hours in one day and to bestow that gift to someone is priceless. 

Anyway back to my card here! One day were we driving somewhere as a family and my dad says "Hey look!" and he pulls over, gets out a camera and everything and starts pointing out and taking pictures of this owl on a billboard. You guessed it, it wasn't real, only a decoy to scare away birds! To his credit, it was a very realistic one, not like the ones that are obviously plaster. Now owls show up periodically in gifts and things that I give him. I made this card using the owl from a mini Inkadinkado stamp set. The sentiment is from the same set and is broken into two pieces so you can use one part on the outside and the other for the inside. I can't remember what the other part says, I only wanted this part because I wanted to write my own thing on the inside. The outside says "A wise man once said.." and then on the inside I wrote "Hey look at that owl". He will get a kick out of it and that's why he is getting it late so I can give it to him in person. Stamp is Inkadinkado, paper from DCWV, image colored with Copics, and brads are from Making Memories.

If you have visited my blog before you know that my husband makes his own cards to give. Not only does he make the cards, he also has his own stash of supplies. This is the stamp that he made for his dad. I am not sure of all the supplies, but I think the mountains and maybe the tree came from one of my SU sets and the boat is from Stampscapes. He stamped those onto his paper and then drew in his lake line and then colored everything with his Prismacolor pencils. 

Car Trip Riley

Hello everyone! I hope everyone is having a great start to their weekend. It is raining and storming here, again. The sun came out for about 20 minutes today and it was so nice and warm, but the rain is back. I spent a large chunk of time today sitting at the DMV trying to renew my license. That is always so much fun and to make it even more fun, the camera was not working correctly which made everything that much slower. It also made for some interesting entertainment listening to people complain. I never go anywhere without a book, my phone, paper and pen, and usually my DS, I can entertain myself for hours if I have to.

The challenge today in the Hanna Stamps forum on SCS is to make a one layer card, using on the base layer. You could add any number of embellishments but you had to keep it to this one layer. I normally color Rileys with Copics and Prisma markers but since they bleed through, I used Prismacolor pencils and OMS. I have had that chipboard sentiment forever and no longer remember where it came from. I tried to create a road scene, drawing in the road, grass, patch of wildflowers and using the chipboard as a billboard.

As I was looking through my stamps for an image to use for the challenge, I decided to make this card and leave it for Kip as I leave to go on my trip in the morning. He is being such a good sport about me leaving him for the weekend and not celebrating my birthday with him. Here's a conversation we had earlier in the week:

 Kip: "You know you haven't dropped any hints about what you want for your birthday this year"

Me: " I really just want money for my trip so I can buy stamps when I get to Papertrix"

Kip: "So let me see if I understand; you want to go away from me to celebrate your birthday and as a gift you want money so that you can go away from me and celebrate your birthday. Does that about sum it up?"

Me: "Well, yeah, but that makes it sound not nice"

All in all, he does a pretty good of picking out gifts for me, he;s never bought me a chain saw or a mop or anything like that and he does put thought into his gifts. Last Christmas he bought me a food processor and got some teasing from his mom and sister. But it was something that I had been wanting for a long time and just wouldn't buy myself. He doesn't have an easy out either, I am not a jewelry person and it's hard for him to keep up with the craft stuff I have so he does have to pay attention. He started making my cards after we had been married for a few months. Here is the card he made me this year:

I am off early in the morning. I will try and post some pictures here. I am not sure if the will have descriptions, but I will try to remember how to do that from my phone. Have a great weekend!

Serious Bragging on my Hubby

Okay, so yesterday was our third anniversary. I got a phone call from Kip while I was at work asking where my Scor-Pal was. I thought he had probably ran out of blank cards so he was going to make his own and then I didn't think anything else about it. He has been making me cards for a while now and I love them. When we sat down to exchange gifts though, I was blown away. I couldn't believe what was in my bag. I think I explained before that we don't spend a lot of money on anniversary gifts. What we do, is go by the traditional gifts for that year. Year one was paper, I got a book I had wanted. Year two, cotton, and we both got each other shirts. I also took "cotton" and expanded on that, he got a fresh cotton air freshener and a bag of Cotton Candy. This year was leather and you saw the book that I made for him and here is my gift from him: He needed the Scor-Pal to make those little jewelry boxes. He made those completely on his own, he wasn't following a template or anything. The bracelet and necklace? He made those too! He took leather cord and initial charms and made them. You can't see the clasps, but they are in the shape of a heart. He said he got some help from other people at Jo-Anns that were shopping in the jewelry making aisle. I think he is pretty amazing and I am going to keep him! You can also see the card that he made me. I also got a Blu-Ray copy of Mama Mia that I can watch over and over and over again! What a guy I have, huh?

Fun with Friends

I got a call from my friend Linda the other night inviting Kip and I to eat dinner with her and her husband. She also asked me to bring some stamping stuff over. Linda recently had surgery and told me that secretly she decided that since she was having to have the surgery at least she could look forward to a homemade card from me and one from our friend Elaine. She got one from both of us and one from our church crafting group, so she was happy. She is doing great from the surgery wanted some crafting time! We all know that is the cure for all that ails you. She also said that her husband was interested in learning to make cards, especially after he found out that Kip has been known to make a few cards too. This was the card that I made using a Sizzix embossing stencil. Linda has several embossing stencils so we were looking at different ways to use them. I was showing her how to color them in using pastels. I just have a short stubby brush that I pick up the color with and then color in the area I want. The DP is DCWV from the Fall pack and card stock is from CTMH. The felt flower and button are from Making Memories.

This is the card that Kip made. The ice cream sundae is from a Fiskars set and the sentiment is from CTMH. He colored everything with Prismacolor pencils. I am not sure about the papers here, he was using paper from Linda's stash. After his image was colored, he went over the ice cream with the glitter Gelly Roll pen. I think he does a great job on his cards.

We had a great time with Linda and Charles, and made several cards that night. On Friday, Linda and Charles dropped off this card, because they had made several more that day!

Can you believe it is already November? I have got to get busy making Christmas gifts. At least I have a good start on our cards this year. Have a great rest of the weekend.