Happy Birthday Sis!!!

My first try at a Tri-shutter card....  Thank goodness for Beate's video's on splitcoast or I don't know if I would have figured out the fold... LOL.

Here is a picture looking head on open naturally.  I used DCWV Linen Closet Stack paper. Cloud 9 design stamp, added gems to the flower centers.  Sabrina was sweet and sent me some of her pretty pins, so I thought it would look great on the front.  Martha Stewart butterflies, with gems.

The two crochet flowers on the top left and bottom right are from Melissa Frances.  The punched flowers on the bottom left and you can't see the one on the top right are Martha Stewart punch and I added flower gems to the centers.  The sentiment on the inside is from the Cardmakers Birthday Card Quotes from Hot off the press.  The paper ribbon on the back right piece is from K&Co. 

There was so much bulk that I couldn't take a picture of it closed up without holding it down with my finger.... it would have been nice if I had removed the little remaining nail polish.  I bet you can see my mistake.  At the last minute it was done but I told myself you need to put something on that bottom panel, so I decided to find a stamp that said Happy Birthday, this one fit so nicely I thought this is great, stamped it and then looked and thought OH NO!!!! You can see it when it is all closed up, I tried to remove the panel but my tape was so good I would have wrecked the card trying to remove it, so it stayed.  My sister called last night to say it made it through the mail OK and she liked it :-)
I hope she is enjoying a wonderful day today!!  Love you Carla.

Thanks for sticking through all the pictures and details,
Connie

Storms

I was going to post my husbands fathers day card today that I realized I never took a picture of but we are having alot of rain this morning and so I don't have any good natural light to take pictures by.  Then I thought well I do have a few pictures from the storm we had the other night, so I thought I would share them.

One evening last week I looked out the window and it was all pink, really eerie feeling and so I grabbed my camera, I didn't want to go all the way out because as you can see it was lightning, I tried to capture when the whole sky had streaks but I wasn't quick enough.  That is our shed out back and beyond that is a ditch, that is where we have been having the flooding lately, we are at the bottom of a hill and the rain just runs down, which the drain behind our house just can't take it all in with these storms that have dropped so much rain all at once. The other day they said we had 5 inches all at once.

This shot was taken on our front porch, I thought that was cool how the clouds above look like cotton balls and then the group of clouds underneath it, and you can see clear skies behind.

I will be back with a card tomorrow, someone very special has a birthday  :)

Hope those with enough water can see dry skies and those that are dry will see some relief.
Connie

Princess

My Great neice turned 2 yesterday.  The paper and the stamp are all from Imaginisce.  I colored the stamp with markers.  Framed using the Spellbinder Fleur De Lis Rectangle.  Gems are from Melissa Frances.  The #2 is from Provo craft and I added Worn Lipstick distressed stickles to it.   The paper had the word Princess on it so I highlighted it with some small gems.

The weather has been just Beautiful this past week as far as the temps staying in the lower 80's, but it is soon to come to an end in the 90's next week and they are saying with the heat index by thursday it will fell like 105, back to air conditioning.   Hope you all are enjoying the weekend.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,
Connie

Hem Stitching

Using paper scraps for this card, and I used the hem stitch from Sew Easy to hand stitch the scraps together. Sizzix Tim Holtz Tattered floral die for the flower and I used a little chalking for the edges and center. After I took the pictures I added a swirl of stickles to the center also, but didn't take out the time to retake photo's. Martha Stewart punches for the leaves and flower, sentiment stamped in the middle.

Yesterday I couldn't upload my card, so had my hubby figure it out for me, but today looks like everything is working again YEAH!!  The weather has been in the low 80's the last few days and has that been nice, love having the windows and doors open.  Was watching the news last night and the north is dealing with so much water and the south is so dry they are burning acres of land, hope everyone is staying safe through all this.

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking the time to comment it is much appreciated,
Connie

Daisy Birthday

I used the Lazy Daisy Sew Easy to make the flowers, the dew drops in the centers are home made using glue stick and Alcohol inks to color them. The stem is a stampin up stamp I found at a flea market. The butterfly is a Martha Stewart punch.
Martha Stewart fence punch and leaf punch. The flower sentiment circle is EK success punch and the scallop is Marvy punch. I used a sparkle pen on the scallops. Sentiment was computer generated. Making memories ribbon.

Nature Birthday

This will be going to my Mother in law for her Birthday.  The paper and tag came in the Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine which is from the UK.  It's called Country Diary.  I sponged around the tag and added some brads.  Used a Martha Stewart burtterfly punch and added Queen & co. pearls to it and some yellow stickles onto the green cardstock, my husband said it gives it a neat metal look that he likes :)

The lace is from the $ store and the ribbon is Making Memories, came together very quickly and it is quite her style.

I think it has dried out enough that we can mow our lawn today, I need to weed too, with all this rain they have really popped up.  One of my poor pepper plants is looking quite sad, I think it was pelted a bit too much with all the rain we are getting, sure hope it makes it, there are a few peppers on that plant.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and for commenting,
Connie

For my Dad

I used the Cricut cartridge "Give a Hoot" for this card, the trees and the deer.  The clouds were done using the Fiskar cloud punch.  Did a little chalking on the bottom of the clouds and on the hills.  I hand stitched the hills .

Well it has allready been a crazy morning, woke up and it didn't look too bad, was cloudy, but that's about it, let my dog out, went around and watered my hanging plants, and fed all the furbabies and then next thing I knew it was dark out and wind picked up and the sirens were going off.  I turned on the tv and we had Tornado warnings, went and woke up my hubby to see what he wanted to do, he looked out and said Wow that is really coming down isn't it and look at those trees blowing, I said Yea I didn't know if we should take cover or what and he said, well I am going back to bed, you can wake me up if it gets bad....... so I just kept going around and looking out all the windows to see if I saw anything coming.   Since we have had a lot of rain as of lately the ground is quite saturated and so our backyard is flooded halfway to our house, another half inch and our shed will be flooded, and it is still raining, I was going to take pictures but figured it wasn't worth getting hit by lightning to show you :)

VBS went very well this week, I am still exhausted and sore, but the kids seem to enjoy it so much.  We had just finished pieing the Pastors, something we told the kids we would do if we reached our missions goal, and were having a Pizza party when a storm came, everyone grabbed something and we all made it in to the church before it started to rain hard.


Thanks so much for taking out the time to stop by,
Connie

VBS week

It has been a crazy week at Vacation Bible School, but it has been fun too!  We have quite a few kids from outside the church and a couple of the kids told me they really like this church, so I pray they bring their parents back.

Art Impression was at CKC this year and I bought a couple of their stamps, I like how the sentiment is around the image.

The stamp has been colored with Distress inks, and cut out with a spellbinder die.  For the background I embossed a piece of Tim Holtz Shabby chic paper with Cuttlebugs Forest Branches Embossing Folder, used Tea Dye Distress inks over the raised bits to bring them out.
It still needed something more so I went digging through my stuff and found these corner stickers that I had purchased a couple years back.  Tied some string around it all.

Well I need to get ready for another day at VBS, hope you are all having a great week.
Thanks so much for stopping by,
Connie

Dragonfly for Dad

My Husband and I went to a park thursday over in the St. Louis area, and there were a couple of Dragonfly's chasing each other around and it reminded me that I had this cross-stitched allready, so I decided to use it for my FIL's Father's day card. 

The cross-stitching is from the book Two Hour Country Cross-Stitch, although they can work faster than I can because it took me over two hours to finish this.  The brads I believe are from Making Memories.  Paper is from DCWV Old World paper stack. 
I added a Vine along the bottom with the Sew easy, but I couldn't seem to capture it very well in any of the pics I took, should have went with a darker green floss I guess, or maybe more strands, I only used two strands on this one.
The sentiment is from Impression Obsession stamp set, cut it out with the spellbinder square die.

Well it has finally cooled down around here, we have been in the 90's for so long and this morning was a very nice 68 degrees, my garden has received a very nice watering last night which was greatly needed, it is so nice to be able to have the windows and doors open and listening to the birds outside. 

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope your enjoying a wonderful start to your weekend,
Connie

Inspired card

I needed to get this card made and in the mail, but since it had been so long since I have made a card it was hard to get back into the swing, I had the Papercrafts May/June issue on my desk so I opened it up and came upon a card by Ashley Harris on page 45, (for those of you with the issue :)  

I used DCWV Garden party stack for the background bottom piece.  Stamped Glitz designs stamp of distressed music for the top portion. Stampendous sentiment was stamped onto a spellbinder circle die and then I shadded with Old Paper distress ink.  Queen & co. Chocolate Delight Pearls added to top left.  The lace I found at a Flea market and I added Salmon Pearl Pen to the centers of the flowers.

  Here is another view of it, I took the pictures in different modes with my camera, in the second I feel it made the look of the designer paper more vibrant.  Still getting use to the new camera and how to download the pictures but I think it will be a good camera, I am one of those people that doesn't care for change, well on most things anyway, sometimes it is nice to change things up a bit.

Thanks so much for taking the time out of your busy day to stop by and for any comments you leave, they are much appreciated,
Connie

Back from the wedding

Well we really made it home Sunday night but have been to busy since to post. 

The wedding was just Beautiful, had a few worries there a couple of times but it turned out lovely.  It was a very HOT day in the Chicago area, and just after we made it back to the hotel that afternoon we had a Severe storm come through.   My camera just quit working the evening before I went to take pictures at the dinner that night and it just wouldn't take pictures anymore, by the time we made it back to the hotel stores were closed and the wedding was at 11:30 am so there wasn't any time that morning to run out.

The picture here is one that my brother in law took, it is a little blurry but you can get an idea.

My daughter didn't want to wear a veil, instead she had fresh white flowers throughout her curls.  The happy couple just made it to Vermont last night, yes they got lost once, at least that we know of, hope they enjoy there week and have good weather, they are hoping to get some hiking in.

Spent all day yesterday looking through ads and at stores for a new camera and I ended up with a Canon.  I use to have a Kodak and there are some new things to learn on this camera, so hopefully by the time I have to take pics of cards I will know what I am doing, it better be soon because I need a few birthday cards for next week.

Thanks so much for stopping by,
Connie

Pastor Thank you's

My daughter is having the Pastor of her Fiance's church and one of their Professors that is also a Pastor marry them so I made two Thank you cards for them.  My Daughter and her Fiance go to a Christian College and the both became very close to their Professor, this first card is for him.

I used the Spellbinder Cross Collection on Metallic Paper, and added some alcohol inks to it to tone down the metallic. Behind that is HOTP paper, cut out with spellbinder deckle die and for the sentiment I used Hero Arts stamp and cut out with Spellbinder Grommet tag, I believe the square brads are from Making Memories.  The corners are what I had laying on the table after cutting out the crosses and thought they would make good corner embellishments.

Here is another view trying to show some of the dimension.

In the second card I used the two smaller crosses from the collection on metallic paper.  It has been framed onto Labels eight die. Hero arts sentiment for this one also.  Added some twine and rhinestone sticker gems to it.  DCWV Paper.

It is getting down to the wire, so I probably won't be posting again until I am back from my daughters wedding.  Hopefully I will get some good pictures, I tend to forget pictures when I am excited.

Thanks so much for stopping by,
Connie