Happy Halloween

I usually only make one Halloween card a year and that is for my daughter and her husband, I was lucky enough to have received a wonderful package from Bibiana in the mail before I made their card and it was full of all kinds of goodies to make a card, so most of this is from her wonderful package, she sent one of her lovely tags I just loved along with a cool decorated bag with all the card making goodies inside.  You have to go check out her post that she did today of a Halloween scene and all of her creations Here on her blog .

I also did this card for another challenge with my group, you had to use 12 items on your card and only one of each kind of item, as if you use a stamp it can only be one stamp, if use a die only one die, ect.

Items from Bibiana -- Die cut spider web, clipart image, purple flower gem, bat sticker
Echo park -- the apothecary Emporium paper
Ribbon
Twine
sentiment
inking around sentiment
Prima flower
Glitter tulle
Leaf brad by sentiment

It is raining here today but hopefully it will quit for tonight so the kids can get out and show off their costumes.  It is always fun to see what they all dress up as.  I wonder what will be the most common, I am thinking characters from the Frozen movie.  That is the fun of this night getting to go out dressed up and see what everyone else is wearing too, I enjoyed it as a kid, fun with my daughter dressing her up and now watching the neighborhood kids come to our door.

Greg and I went to Springfield Illinois yesterday to celebrate our anniversary, we have lived in this state for 10 years now and first time we have made it there.  I will have to see how the pics turned out and maybe I will share those.

Here are the pics I forgot to share of the end to our day, we never knew that there was a platform on the Illinois side to check out the view of St. Louis until my hubby googled where to take the best pictures of St. Louis and there is a park where you can walk up this ramp and it has 3 levels to get different shots of it.

You can see to the left here is the ramp we walked up, poor peanut could only make it up one so I had to carry her the rest of the way, let's just say 20 pounds gets heavy very quickly!

It was pretty cool and once you got to the top they had a web cam that you could call someone and give them the address and they could see you live, so I just had to call my Sister and daughter Amanda and say Hi, since we live so far from each other, wish we could have seen them back.

We came back to town and it was supper time so we went and ate at one of my favorite places Qdoba and after leaving we were heading home and this is the sky that we had and we just had to pull over and get this shot of the sun setting, end to a wonderful day out!

Hope you all are enjoying a wonderful weekend,
Thanks so much for stopping by and saying Hi,

Connie

32nd Anniversary

Today Greg and I are celebrating our 32nd Anniversary, my how time just flies by doesn't it.  Feel so blessed to have been able to share my life with him, he brings so much laughter, fun and love to my life.  Which made me go toward this stamp for my Anniversary card for him, I just loved the sentiment that went with this image in the set.

This card measures 5x7 I used a corner of the paper that had embossing on it already.

Our Daily Bread design -- Thankful song, image and sentiment, colored w/markers
Spellbinders -- Circle Lg., Labels one and Fall foliage (acorns) dies
Anna Griffin -- background die (has been inked and then used marker on the raised areas
DCWV -- Tattered Time papers

Greg made me a card too. He bought some Chameleon pens awhile back, so he decided to use them on my card, he drew this first and then colored in with the pens, well let me just say he doesn't have a lot of patience so he didn't care for how many times he had to tip the pen to get the color he wanted but I would say it turned out lovely so I am glad he gave them a try and stuck with it throughout the card.  If you haven't heard of these pens you can Check it out here .

He did good right :)  First card he has made me in a while that he didn't use any punches or dies on it, and I love it.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and say Hi,

Connie

Smoosh Stamping

On this technique in my group we were to add ink (at least 3 colors)  to our mats or acetate sheets, spray with a mister about 8 inches above a couple of times to add some water to the mix and then take our stamp and stamp it into that mixture and then on to our cards.  For some reason I didn't get a good full coverage of the stamp, but I thought it still gave a pretty watercolor feel to it.  I stamped mine onto watercolor paper but the girls were getting good results stamping on smooth paper, I will be trying this technique again but with smooth paper next time.

This is for my great niece who is a teenager.

Stampin up -- of the earth stamp set
Distress inks -- Dried marigold, fired brick and peeled paint
WeRmemory keepers -- anthologie paper
Watercolor paper for stamping
Martha Stewart -- gems
Stamps of life -- minis 4 circles sentiment stamp

I keep forgetting to share some of the pics from our leaf viewing on Sunday.

Here is my little Peanut, she is 15 now and can't hang as well as she use to, I think her old bones are taking a toll, but she tried so hard to keep up with us.  When we would put her in the car she would be totally asleep and snoring until the car stopped again and she would be all for getting out again, when we got home she went to her bed and barely got up and when she did you could tell she was hurting, I want to take her with us because she acts like she enjoys it but I hate to see her hurting later for it.

I loved how blue the sky looked against the colorful leaves in this one.

When we were walking back to the car I couldn't get over how bright the tree was so I took another picture, I love it when you can still see green in there too.

If I remember next time I will share some pics from the rest of the day.
Hope you have had time to get out and enjoy the fall colors.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and letting me know,

Connie

Bisque Pottery Technique

The next challenge was to do this technique with an embossing folder, I have done this many times and it is probably my favorite technique with an embossing folder.  If you haven't tried it yet the lady that posted the challenge gave us this VIDEO as a link to watch so instead of me explaining it I am sharing the link also. She has a good tip about brayers also, I have heard it before so I always store my brayer off the roller.

Cuttlebug -- Textile embossing folder
Memento -- Desert Sand
Spellbinder -- Anemone Flower topper die, with gold inking
Candi Minis -- Icing sugar (flower center)
Ribbon
Martha Stewart  -- tag punch
ODBD -- Mini tag sentiment stamp set

After I finished the card I liked it but then the next morning I thought oh no I was going for elegant and now it looks like it could be a sympathy card, what do you think could it work for both?

We are getting our rain today, it looked like we were in a bit of a clearing so the hubby and I went for a walk but it ended up lightly raining, not to bad but enough to get a bit wet.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and saying Hi,

Connie

Rustic

This challenge was to post a stamp and embellishments that gave the look of a rustic card, perfect since I needed another masculine card for my nephews birthday.

Stampscapes -- Cabin, colored with pencils, roof colored with gray marker
Fun Stampers Journey  -- Board wall stamp w/ distress ink in walnut stain
Spellbinders -- Labels Trio and Lg. Deckled Rectangles dies
DCWV -- Foiled Cardstock for the sentiment
Prima -- Tiny Junkyard findings, vintage trinkets on sentiment tag
Die - Namics -- You're just my tape sentiment stamp

Gina is hosting a great Christmas give a way on her blog HERE lots of goodies to get started on some cute Christmas cards, stop by and check it out.

Hope you enjoyed a nice weekend and the start of this week will be a good one,
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and visit, love hearing from you,

Connie

Christmas card, business size

The next challenge was to do a Christmas card and have it be the size too fit in a business size envelope, she gave us two list and we had to have at least one thing from each list to have on the card too.  Mine were using decorative scissors, stickles on  snowflakes and snow which had sparkle in it.

Hubby said I needed to fill it in more it was too empty.  Don't think I will do anymore this size but it was to get us out of our rut of using the same size card all the time.

Decorative Scissors to make the snow pile, it has been inked with gray ink so it stood out from the background more.
Inkadinkado - Holiday Silhouette stamps
Distress ink -- tumbled glass background
Sparkle Flurry Flakes -- snow
Poppy stamps-- Valley snowflake dies
Stickles -- Frosted Lace

We had a long day today, church in the morning and then after lunch we went to see the fall colors, we took Peanut along this time and boy did we tire her out, but I think she even enjoyed the day.  I will go through them and maybe share with my next card if they turned out.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by and visit,

Connie

Show 'em some love

The next challenge was to use some of those new stamps that you haven't used yet, I have a few in that category and since I needed another masculine card for my Nephew, who I think turned 30 this year, I went with a stamp I bought this past summer at the stamp show.  Our Daily bread design is selling Artisitc Outpost stamps and this set just caught my eye.  I sponged distress inks on the background to give it a sunset look and then stamped the image and embossed w/black embossing powder.  When I was doing the background I accidently dropped my sponge applicator on my background up where I wanted to add the blue next, I was hoping my stamping would cover it up but no such luck so I ended up adding a bird flying upwards to cover the yellow, you can still see a little of it peeking out from the bird.

Artistic Outpost -- The outpost stamp set, embossed w/black embossing powder
Distress inks -- Tumbled glass, scattered straw, wild honey, rusty hinge, tea dye and Hickory smoke around the edges of the card
DCWV - Travel papers
Bird die
Metal nailheads

We didn't get as much rain as I was hoping yesterday, but was able to get out and walk so that's a good thing, the temps were just perfect.  I have not checked yet about the hurricane coming up from Mexico they are saying this is the worse in our history, hope there were not any deaths.  If you are in the line of the storm I am praying for everyone's safety.  We are suppose to get a couple inches of rain from it on Tuesday so if we are getting that much I can only imagine what those that live closer are getting.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Marbles Roll

The next challenge was to do a marble roll over your paper using embossing re inker. You take a plastic box or tray with lid or if your careful you wouldn't need the lid, tape down your piece of paper to the bottom of the tray, add your embossing reinker to one end add at least 4 marbles (I had way too many like 7) then you roll the tray around so the marbles go through the reinker and randomly applies lines over your paper for a background effect, it looks like webbing, some of the girls did orange and green and purple backgrounds that looked cool for their Halloween themed cards.  So after your done rolling you add your embossing powder and emboss.

I did not have reinker myself so she suggested for those that didn't have it to use I believe mat gel, well I first tried Scotch glue, didn't work at all then I tried my glue n seal and that is what gave me the effect you see.

I first sponged around my kraft cardstock and embossed it with the gold embossing powder.  I thought leaves with copper embossing powder would be cool so I also did the technique on an orange piece of cardstock and cut out the leaves from that, gave them kind a neat look of veins on the leaves.  I am sending this to the gentleman from our church that is now in the nursing home, thought he could use  a touch of Autumn in his room.

Glue n seal - for embossing medium
Gold and Copper embossing powder
Spellbinder -- Decorative Labels 28 and Fall Foliage dies
ODBD -- Mini tags and mini tag sentiment stamp

I forgot to mention that I did not have any marbles either and was trying to figure out if I had any beads that might be heavy enough to work and my hubby said he had some steel balls so that is what I used, so if you don't have re inker or marbles try different items you have around your house that might work and give it a try, like I said I used to many the suggestion was 4 and I like how the other girls turned out with less.

It's Friday again and we are actually getting rain again, we have been quite dry for some time now after getting so much rain in June and August.  We had two past days in the 80's, summer like again but today we will be back in the 70's and by the weekend in the 60's, YAH for fall temps again!  Hope wherever you are you have a wonderful and fun weekend!

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and let me know if you have tried this technique or are thinking of giving it a try :)

Connie

One layer masking

One of my on line cardmaking groups is having another challenge filled week and I will start you off with what my challenge to do was in the group.  I am not one to make a one layer card, usually the more the merrier for me but I thought I would challenge myself and others to make a one layer card but try to make it look like more layers by masking an area, stamping in the middle and then do something else in the background to make it look like patterned paper .

I cut the oval from a scrap piece of paper then I  laid the background piece with removable tape with the oval out over my card base.  Stamped the branch and bird and did some shading around it. Then I put the oval piece back over my stamping with removable tape, and took off the background piece and then stamped my snowflakes and sentiment with versamark ink and embossed them.  Added my distress ink over that to give the background color. Hope you were able to understand, I am not the best in giving directions.  You could use any shape that you have too, I was going to try a scalloped square next but didn't have time before the challenges started, now I have been busy doing the other challenges.

I will have to say this isn't a quick card but when you are wanting a one layer card but made to look like more layers it turned out pretty neat.  And once you have the masking already cut out the next cards would go quicker. You also wouldn't need to do embossing on the background if you just wanted a solid colored background.

Inkadinkado -- Silhouettes stamp set
Memento inks for bird and used green marker for the pine needles
Ranger - Rainbow sparkle embossing powder
Distress ink - broken china for background

I think 8 or 9 people hosted this weeks challenge so I will have more to share soon.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and visit, love to hear from you,

Connie

Card for Friend

Cheryl posted on her blog about sending a hand written note to a friend, which she was inspired by Kelly-Anne and she shares a link on her blog HERE . Of course the first person that came to mind was Cheryl, and I can't send a hand written note without sending a card right :)

I get so many positive and wonderful encouragement comments on my blog, but Cheryl comes to mind because you can just feel the Love of God pouring out from her whenever she comments on anyone's blog (you know what I mean if you are blessed to have her drop by your blog) or in her posts.  Not only does she share such lovely creations, but she has a wonderful way with words and shares her love for Christ in a beautiful way also, the Holy Spirit is shining through this woman and I just needed to send her a note expressing that to her.  If you want to see some lovely cards and be lifted up and go away with a smile visit her blog.

I had to make a bigger card this time to accommodate the size of this die and when I was putting it all together I realized it wasn't quite big enough to fit after all, but it gave me some room to add the ribbon which I dyed with distress inks.  The flowers have a shimmer to them and that is because I colored them with Inka Gold, here is a You tube video showing you what it is just in case you haven't heard about it.  I bought it on our way home from our trip we stopped into a scrapbook store that was along the highway and she had a big assortment of them, I only bought one color just to try them and it works very nicely.  She mentioned in her video that you can use your fingers but I have heard other places that the oils on your fingers will contaminate the paints and make them go bad so please use an applicator they are too expensive to have go bad on you.

Heartfelt creations -- Delicate Asters, centers were colored w/markers with added Diamond Stickles to them, leaves colored w/markers
Spellbinders -- Flower Pots, Labels Twenty and Fancy Lattice dies
Viva, Inka Gold -- Apricot
Ribbon- Dyed with Distress ink
I just realized I forgot to write down the paper I used.

Now it is your turn, I know if you are like me you are so busy making cards for Birthdays and other occasions that come up that you don't have time to just send a card to brighten someone's day or to let them know how much they mean to you, but I encourage you to do so, Thanksgiving is coming and that would be the perfect time to send a card or hand written letter to let someone know that you are thankful they are in your life.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and the encouragement and just sharing of life you do with me,

Connie

After the storm

Today I am sharing another stamp that I bought at the yard sale last spring at my LSS.  Yesterday I went to another one they had and found a few more, I still haven't used all the ones from last time, I love getting stamps that I have never used or seen before at good prices.

This one went out to my Nephew who turned 35, he was my sisters first baby and such a cutie and still is today :)

I will have to say I wasn't as thrilled with my coloring on this one and think I may have gone a bit over the top on the stickles on the sun rays, still learning, I did though like my idea to add the pine cone with the sentiment tag.

Northwoods -- After the storm stamp, colored w/markers
Spellbinders -- Wavy rectangles and A2 Distressed Edges dies
Recollections -- Awesome boy papers
American crafts -- Jute
ODBD -- Mini tags dies and mini tags sentiments stamp
Stampin up -- pine cone 1997 set
Stickles -- Diamond on sunrays
Wink of Stella -- Clear glitter pen on water

Hope your weekend has been good so far and you enjoy a wonderful Sunday.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hi,

Connie

Birthday Flowers

For my niece in law..... is that a word?  My Nephews wife, I don't know what the proper term is, maybe just niece, do any of you know?  I used a couple different flower stamps from the set to stamp and color, couldn't decide :)

Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady -- Flower and sentiment stamps from Cardmaking and papercraft magazine, colored w/ markers
Spellbinders -- Noble rectangles (top portion has been cut off) and A2 Scalloped borders two dies
My Mind's eye -- sweetest thing papers
Corner stickers
Wink of Stella -- clear glitter pen on flowers

Wishing you a most enjoyable weekend, enjoying the fall weather.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hi, so good to hear from you,

Connie

Forgotten Treasures

I needed a card for my Great nephew who is turning 15, and once again I couldn't think of any stamps that would work so I started going through some of my older supplies and came across this tag book I bought many years ago, and thought these lizzards would be cool, then I remembered an old sticker book I had with sentiments and numbers and thought they would work on the tag and I think they do.

Do any of you recognize the netting behind the tags?  My hubby takes those Babybel cheeses that come in the netting in his lunches to work and I am always throwing the netting away, one time I thought I wonder if I could use that in a card so I took it into my craft room, well I came across it when looking for what to use on his card and thought it might be neat with the lizard, so since the netting is white and I wanted a little darker I added stazon brown ink to the netting on both sides, worked like a charm.... do you have any recycling ideas that you use in your crafting?

I first was going to layer the tags but it would have covered up the big tags lizards face and I didn't want that so I attached them to the base separately.

I am sharing the rest of the Missouri Botanical Gardens.  First up their Harvest display in the center of the garden.

I can't remember the name of the next area we went in but there was a theme to every section and this was the children's section and you had to look closely but there was a little fairy garden  in there and these little fairies all made from wire, this was my favorite of all of them... had to have something crafty to share in these pictures :)

The next two pictures were in the Japanese gardens.

And last one is from the English Garden

We are now having quite crisp mornings, my gauge says 50 this morning... Peanut isn't staying out as long as she use to in the mornings.  Fall is in the air, we are seeing a bit more color too, on our walk yesterday we saw more trees starting to change.

Hope your week has been well so far and that it only gets better from here, thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hi,

Connie

Sunflowers

This one went out to my sister in law, I tried to figure out how to put a sentiment on it but just couldn't find a way that I liked so I left it off.

Northwoods -- Sunflower in Glass Vase stamp, colored w/markers
Spellbinders -- Noble rectangles die
Kaiser -- rhinestones
Wink of stella -- clear glitter pen

I have a few more pictures of the Climatron inside the gardens.

Loved the roots on trees too so there are a few pics of strange rooted trees. Sorry I didn't get any of the names.

I loved the different colors in this plant.

I hope you all enjoyed your weekend, we went to Hannibal Missouri, the boyhood home of Mark Twain, neat little town, was interesting to see the town that inspired his books.  I had a fall while leaving one of the stores, there was a step down after you come out of the store and I was walking backwards checking to see if my hubby was behind me and down I went, there was a couple of ladies who helped me up, my hubby had stopped inside the store to look for something and that is why he wasn't behind me.  I little sore and elbow and hand scrapped where I tried to catch myself.  I need to stop this falling business this is the second time this year, LOL...

Wishing you a wonderful week ahead and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hi :)


Connie

Teen card and Missouri Botanical Garden Part 1

This card was for my great nephew that is a teenager, I don't have a lot of items for teen boys, but I thought if I colored this guy a different color than normal it may look a little more like a teen card.

Inkadinkado -- Humorous Birthday stamp set, colored w/markers
WeRmemory keepers -- Anthologie papers
Spellbinders -- sentiments one die
American crafts -- jute
button -- flea market

I don't know how you girls that take pictures can only add a few, I took over a 100 pictures at the Botanical gardens and to get it down to just a few was too hard so I will be doing a few posts on it, like I did our trip.  They have a Climatron in the garden which is the first Geodesic dome to be used as a conservatory.  If you are interested you can read about it HERE .

As you can tell I was drawn to the water features inside.  Oh my it was like a Sauna in this building but it was beautiful, so worth it.

 You can see how wet the paths were here, a couple of times I had water dripping on me.

A picture to share with the girls who do the fences posts :)

And the last one for today... I loved how there were so many different plants growing out of this log.

Hope you have a fun weekend planned and can get out and enjoy the fall weather, it is going to be in the 70's here today but tomorrow back in the 80's so we are going to go out today and enjoy the more fall like temps.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hi, love to hear you stopped by,

Connie

Fall Leaves and More Mountains

I made this card for one of my hubby's coworkers that I have also became good friends with. She loves dogs and I usually do something with a dog theme or flowers but she was just talking about getting her fall decorations out and I thought I could make a fall theme card she could display with her decorations.

I inked up the embossing folder and then ran it through my cuttlebug to get the colored background, everything else is dies that I inked through.

Spellbinders -- Fall Foliage, Romantic Rectangles and Cherry blossom (branch) dies
Stamp on it -- sentiment sticker
Wink of Luna -- Gold (on sentiment sticker)
Wink of Stella -- Clear glitter pen on leaves and pinecone

I was going through my pictures again and saw these last ones that were taken on the day of the Grand Tetons but I am not sure if they were in the park or on our drive out, but I just loved the look of the clouds on the mountains so I thought I would share them.

Lastly one of the pullovers that was looking over the river, there was a wall made out of stone that I sat on just to soak everything up while hubby was taking picture of his own and he came to sit beside me and we were so happy that I thought this was a great moment to capture on camera, so this selfie was taken with my phone.  It would have been neat if I captured a better reflection in our glasses, LOL! But I will remember this moment for always :)  Thanks for sharing my trip with me.

Wow another one of those weeks that has really flown by, I hope you all are enjoying our fall weather.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and your sweet comments I do appreciate that you let me know you stopped by,

Connie

Trucks and Grand Tetons Part 3

My Great nephew has turned 16 and this is the card I sent to him, decided to go sepia tones with this one. I think this is the second time I have used this truck for my great nephews that have turned 16.

Our Daily Bread design -- Special boy stamp set colored with markers
Spellbinders -- Long classic rectangles small, Lg. Deckled Rectangles and A2 matting basics A dies
BasicGrey -- Basics Kraft paper pad
Eyelets
Jute

I am sharing my post today with Stephanie's Roses of Inspiration Link up .  She mentioned this is the last one she will be doing for a couple of weeks, so head on over and see what everyone is up to.

Now on to our last bit of our trip to the Grand Tetons.
This first picture is to show you the view we had for our lunch that day, the day before in Yellowstone we had lunch at a River side picnic area, in the Grand Tetons the picnic area was on the lake.

My husband took video of this little guy and was able to freeze this frame so I could share this picture of him, he was just too cute sneaking all around and watching us.

The mountains are quite hazy here but I liked this shot of the river going through the trees and the mountains in the background.

Through Stephanie's link up party I have gone to a few blogs that do links to fences in their posts, and thought they might like to see this fence.

I have a few shots after we left the park and maybe I will share them next time.
Hope your week is off to a good start, yesterday my hubby and I spent the day in St. Louis at the Botanical garden, I haven't had a chance to see how the pictures turned out, if I was able to get some good ones I will share in a later post.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hello, so good to hear from you,

Connie

Pumpkin and Grand Tetons Part 2

Saturday was World Cardmaking day, and both of my groups had challenges but I only managed to get one card made since we went to that Fall Festival. One of the challenges was to use old products and we know I have plenty of those, so I remembered these stamps that I had bought in the Michaels or JoAnns dollar spot clear stamps of Fall items and when I was going to that folder to get them out I saw this template for a Popsicle card I had made years ago, it was upside down and it just looked like it could be a pumpkin too, all I would have to do is change the stick into a stem, and that's how this came about.

Stamped out the little pumpkin, indian corn and leaves, cut them out, shaped them a bit and added them to the card with foam adheasive.  I shaded the pumpkin and stem with distress inks. I stamped the Indian corn once in a light memento ink cut it out and then stamped again in a darker ink for the actual corn part and cut that out and layered on top, colored with distress markers.

Popsicle template for the pumkin
Inkadinkado -- $ stamps
Impression Obsession -- Sentiments II stamped sentiment
Twine

On to more Grand Tetons pictures, this was another pull off along the way with hiking trails along a river.  A lot of water pictures this time.  There is just nothing better than water, mountains and trees :)
This area was where they were launching canoes from.

This picture shows how clear the water is, I had to stick my hand in and it was a little nippy.

Look at the colors in the water here.

And the last one for today, I liked this shot of the mountain through the trees.

 I have more pictures to come, I actually think I enjoyed my time at this park more than Yellowstone.

Hope you enjoyed a great weekend and the week to come holds many great moments!

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hello :)

Connie