College Graduation

This past Sunday my daughter Amanda graduated from college with a Bachelor degree in Philosophy which was her major with a minor in English.  She was Summa Cum Laude graduate, and we were very surprised when she also received the Presidents Citation award (top of her class)  I couldn't have been any prouder of her.

This is the card I made for her.

DCWV Rustic Stack paper
Best Ocassion mixed media pack for the tag, sentiment and numbers
Recollections lace on a roll
Heidi Swapp bling
Offray ribbon with twine from LSS

Here is my daughter with her big award, she worked very hard for this and I was so happy for her.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by,
Connie

Night stand redo

I have been so busy getting the deck painted that I have fallen behind on my cardmaking, in fact I need to make a graduation card for my daughter who is graduating from college tomorrow.  So I thought I could use this time to post a picture of the night stand I bought for $5 and spray painted it with Valspar satin Leafy rise.

It took the whole can to paint it, I also added a new drawer pull to it that I found at Lowes.  The screw holes on the old one was 3", and all I could seem to find was 2 1/2 inches and I didn't want to have to drill new holes and fill in the old, but I finally came across this one, wouldn't have been my first choice but seeing as they were limited on that size I went with it.

Sorry it isn't a very good picture, but we had a hard time fitting it between the bed and the wall, and I forgot to take the after photo until after we had it in place.  This is in my craft/guest room, so I had already put a tin underneath that holds all the attachements and extra's for my sewing machine.

My Dad is here visiting, came to see my daughter graduate and is going to stay for a week.

Hope you all are enjoying the start to your weekend and that it is a good one, and that you take some time out on Monday to remember our Men and Women who have sacrificed so much for us!

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

ODBDSLC109

Our Daily Bread had a great sketch this week and you can find it here, you have to scroll down on thier blog post to see the sketch.

I used the image from ODBD Happy Birthday stamp set and colored it with markers.

Spellbinder Classic Oval large and Labels Nine dies

K&co. Classic K papers

Offray ribbon which was white so I colored it with Broken China distress ink that was mixed with water and ran my ribbon thru to dye it blue, love the soft blue that it made.

Frosted lace and Yellow stickles were used for the flower centers.

Hope your enjoying a great week,
Thanks so much for stopping by,
Connie

Sketch Challenge

Susan has a sketch challenge and some blog candy over at her blog, so go check it out and play along :)

This ended up being a little thicker than I like for mailing, but I just put a little extra postage on it.

DCWV Rustic Stack paper
Spellbinder Romantic Rectangles and Carnation Creations dies
Hero Arts Fabulous birthday sentiment stamp set
Making memories buttons
Offray Ribbon

We had a cool morning so I have been out for the past 3 hours painting the deck, and I didn't get it all finished but I was getting too hot and my back was saying thats enough for awhile, hope to have it all done by tomorrow, they are calling for high 80's and some low 90's by the end of the week and I just can't function in that heat.

Hope your all enjoying a very nice day,
Thanks so much for stopping by,
Connie

Onesie

A friend in my Ladies bible class is having a baby very soon, don't know the sex of the baby so I tried to do a either or card but I think it still turned out girlish.  I used the template from Stampington for this card, you can check out the link and find other template ideas.

The paper came from Leisure Arts book, Savor this Moment, by, Karla Dornacher.  The book has papers, stickers diecuts.

Duck sticker came from my calendar scrapbook stickers.

Spellbinder Eyelet circle dies for around the neck and leg holes. 

Eyelets

Faux stitching at sleeves.

We have been very busy around here doing spring cleaning, and yesterday was spent washing the deck and getting it ready to paint today.

Hope you enjoy a wonderful weekend,
and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,
Connie

Dino Birthday

Card for my Great nephew turning 5 I think?  I had to take the pic outside on my deck, usually I use my dining room table but that has a light fixture on it, my hubby took it down for me last night so I can spray it today, I will share that later :)

All stamps and papers are from Nitwit collections that I got out of the Australian Simply Cards Magazine.  The stamps have been colored with Markers.

Provocraft decrative scissor for the hills and I added a bit of ink to them.

Spellbinders Large classic Inverted scalloped circles die (sun).

We have had Beautiful weather the last couple of days and no rain :)  Hope you are having nice weather too!

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

Oil Rubbed Bronze

I finished the lamp that I was working on, I was going to take pictures of where I have it sitting but it is in front of a window and the back lighting was awful and I coudn't get a good picture of it so I set up a tray table in our entrance way and we had the front door open so the light came through nicely.

Here is a before shot of the lamp, I had it set up in the garage and was allready to start spraying when I realized I didn't have a before shot of the lamp, so the shade isn't on it but you can get an idea.

I found this idea through pinterest here is the link to the blog with all the instructions in case you want to give this a try.

Here it is after, I wanted you to see the whole thing with the lamp shade and all, here are a few close up shots of it too.

If you have a lamp or anything that you want a new look but don't want to go spend the money to buy new this is a great alternative.  After doing this my hubby asked if I was going to do the same thing for the lighting over our dining room table, and I said yea I would like to give it a try.

The can says it works on Wood, metal, plastic and masonry, so you are limited only by your imagination.  I think the girl mentioned that she bought hers at Lowe's but I found mine at Walmart for cheaper, and I am guessing this lamp took maybe half the can, but I put two coats on it, and waited 24 hours between coats.

I am putting the finishing touches on the night stand I painted and will be showing that soon.

Thanks for stopping by,
Connie

Mothers Day

Well I hope this card makes it to my mother in law, she says she never received the Easter card I sent so I sure hope she was able to get this.

I don't know if you can tell by the picture, I just downloaded it so I didn't know how these turned out but there is a few layers of dimension on the flowers.

HOTP Enchanted Garden 3-D Paper tole foil diecuts for the framing and the flowers.

Darcies JCS 149 sentiment embossed with gold embossing powder

My Mind's Eye Paris & co. paper pack

Lace

Faux stitching with signa white pen

This picture was a little closer shot of the dimension.

I have been very busy today doing some projects that I saw on Pinterest, I hope to have them done tomorrow and post on Monday, check back to see :)

Thanks so much for stopping by,
Connie

Wreath

I made this for my girlfriend, her favorite colors are pink and green, Like me :)  but I felt it need more colors so my hubby suggested the yellow :)

I forgot to measure the grapevine wreath before giving it to her but I think it was a 6 " wreath.

The roses (pink) are made from Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die, using K&co. Classic K papers.

The yellow flowers are from Spellbinders Carnation Creations as well as the dark green leaves. I used Cosmo Cricket papers for the carnations.

Spellbinders Foliage die for the rose leaves using DCWV Old world stack.

McGill Pine punch for the sprigs used scraps for those in different colors so they weren't all the same shade.

Spellbinders Romantic Rectangles and Lattice Rectangles dies for the verse.  I used Tim Holtz Memo pins on the top and bottom of the framing to help hold it on to the wreath as well as Hot Glue which I used to attach everything to the wreath.

Our Daily Bread designs Faith Stamp set for the verse.

Ribbon and button finish it off.

I just finished picking two of the large size cool whip dishes of strawberries from my garden, I hadn't been out there for a few days because of all the rain and some of the strawberries had to be thrown into the yard for the birds to eat, we will be having strawberry shortcake for our dessert tonight :)

Hope you all are enjoying your week,
Thanks so much for taking the time out to stop by and for your sweet comments,
Connie

May Challenge

In my cardmaking group it was my turn to come up with a challenge, and I challenged everyone to use their old tools.  There is always new gadgets that come out that makes things quicker and more accurate and we tend to let the old tools get pushed back and never used.

On my card I used Pioneer brand decorative scissor for the scallops around my banner.  Remember when we first started and we had to use them if we wanted any type of border around our images, now we slap in a die or cut something on our cricuts ect.

My mind's eye, A Beautiful life paper
Hero Arts, Friendly Flags stamps set
Inkadinkado Floral flourishes stamp set (main image)
Spellbinder Circle and Lacey circles dies
Martha Stewart butterflies punch w/gemstones
Hero Arts, Birthay messages stamp set (sentiment)
Yarn for the banner

The card idea came from Amy Sheffers Blog , sorry I don't have a link to the actual card.

Maybe you will drag out some of your tools that have been long forgotten and give them another try :)

Well it's raining once again, we need to get our shed and deck painted they both need it, we have all the supplies, now we are just hoping for some rain free days, so that we can get it done before it gets too hot.

Hope your week is starting off well,
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,
Connie

Jasmine frame

I took a trip to a scrap store over in Kimmswick, Mo. last week and picked up some more Memory Box dies and here is one of them, I hadn't seen it before and didn't exactly know how I was going to use it, which is very unlike me, if I don't have a person or thing in mind I usually don't buy it but I just loved the delicate look of this die.

Memory Box Jasmine frame die

Ek success flowers w/ sunshine yellow flower soft centers and Martha Stewart leaf punch that I cut apart and embossed veins in the leaves, rhinestones on the flowers on frame

Basic Grey Kiosh paper

Spellbinders Ribbon Tags Trio die w/ doodlebug designs sentiment

Dashes and Dots Ribbon

We are having more storms today, but so far no hail, thank goodness.
Hope you all enjoy a wonderful weekend!

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