Purple Challenge and Day out

In my other cardmaking group this week one of the Ladies loves the color purple so she wanted to see more cards done with the color purple,  In that same group one of the ladies had their Mother and Father in law get into a car accident and the Mother passed away and the Father is in the hospital with very bad injuries, so I made this card for her.

Memory Box -- Long Stem Lavender die
Martha Stewart -- Border punch
Taylored Expressions -- care and comfort sentiment stamp

Yesterday was just beautiful and my hubby actual had the day off so we decided to head out on a drive, well my hubby had seen something about white squirrels in a town about 2 hour drive from here so he said do you want to check it out and I said sure, of course he saw many things along the way to take pictures of so it took us a bit longer to get there, we went to the park that they said had them and no such luck, we sat and had our lunch we packed thinking while we were sitting there eating we might spot one.  After we walked the whole park and nothing.  We stopped and asked people where we might see them and so they directed us to a park outside of town but no luck.

On our drive back home we thought we would stop at some of the places that we didn't stop on the way there.  My hubby loved all the vines and things growing up around this bridge, it is an old one not in use anymore, if you look to the left you can see the new bridge and road they built right beside it.

Here is a closeup of all the vines and such. I wonder how long it took for all of this to grow around the bridge.

I am assuming this is a replica of a tavern from the 1800's

Here is my hubby inside that opening in the middle, must have been the stable for their horses while they stayed there.

It was time to get going the sun was setting fast.

Hope you all have a blessed and Lovely Sunday.
Thanks so much for stopping by and all your sweet comments,

Connie

Material Challenge

In this challenge we were to use material on our cards, well I knew right away what I wanted to try, you see I bought a remnant of Linen material at JoAnns last year some time, just to try stamping on it and I never did end up trying it so this was just the push I needed.  I had already purchased some Memento Luxe ink that said good for stamping on fabric, all you have to do is heat set it, so I just zapped it with my heat tool, and then I had to decide what I was going to use for coloring, well I gave my spectrum noir alcohol pens a try and although they bled a little bit, I think they worked pretty good.  I also added some felt flowers.  I cut both the linen and the felt with dies and I was really surprised how well the linen cut for me.

I ran the fabric through my xyron to add adhesive and then added it to the cardstock layer tag.

Have you tried stamping on fabric and if you have what medium did you use to color in your image?

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and I hope you have a fantastic weekend!!

Connie

 stamped on Linen Fabric using Studio G stamp with Memento Luxe ink, heat set with my heat gun, colored with Spectrum noir markers
Poppystamps -- Pinpoint Main street tags die
Felt flowers cut from cutlebug die, hand sewn beads to them
Martha Stewart -- Leaves punch
K&co. -- Blue Awning paper
Ribbon and Twine

Recycle Trash Challenge

We were to use items on our card that we would normally throw away, that isn't a papercraft item.

Here is my list of trash that I used:

Bread clip (tag)
Packaging from a die (clear acetate that I added Alcohol inks to)
Color Catcher sheets for laundry (flowers)
mini beads from old necklace bought at flea market

The stamping of the stems was on the back of the acetate piece and I also colored them in with markers too. The bread clip was stamped with stazon ink so it would adhere to the slick surface of the bread clip

Stampin up -- Stems stamps
Spellbinders -- Curved Rectangles
Alcohol inks -- Sunshine yellow, carmel and Pearl mixative
Taylored Expressions -- many mini occasions stamped sentiment
Heartfelt creations -- Vintage Floret die
Cuttlebug -- D'vine Swirl embossing folder

Do you see items in your day to day life that you think could work with your hobby, I am looking at things in a whole new way all the time.  I have a few tissue boxes saved that I loved the pictures on them, I need to make some cards from them one of these days.  If you have any ideas of items that could be used on a card let me know, maybe that will be my next challenge :)

The weather is warming up here, by Saturday we are to reach 60!!!

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and glad you are enjoying some of the challenges our group is having.

Connie

Using a mold on card and stamping background challenges

I managed to complete two challenges to share today, the first we were to make a mold by using hot glue and then stamping into it and using it on a card, well as you can see by my attempt I used way to thick of glue and pressed my stamp down to far and, so I ended up cutting it out of the mold and just coloring the hot glue with markers and white pit pen and then added the glitter glue to the wings.

Here is the bad mold I made.

Here is the card I made from the butterfly mold

I had to use a stamp set and do a little masking and just stamp the happy and day separately and then took a alphabet set and spelled out Bee to get this sentiment.

Cosmo cricket  Everyafter paper, embossed with Paper Studio, honeycomb embossing folder that had been inked.
Hero Arts -- It's your day sentiment stamp set for happy and day
Martha Stewart -- Sansserif font stamp set for Bee
American crafts -- twine
Spellbinders -- Hexagon dies
Button flower

Next up we were suppose to stamp our own background but the stamps could be no larger that 2 inches.

Inkadinkado -- Garden delight stamp set
Sizzix -- Tags, rounded die
Gina Marie stamps -- Birthday words stamp set
Forver Flowers
Bazzill brad
Gems

It has been fun doing a new challenge every day, if you try any of these yourself, let me know so I can come and see what your results were.

Thanks so much for stopping by,
Connie

Using Negative

I managed another challenge, this time we were to use the negative from cutting out a die on our card.  I cut out the Dogwood blossom and put a couple of scrap paper behind it.  I have seen these done a lot but don't think I have ever done it before and it is a great way to get two cards out of one cut, now I can use the actual cut out on another card.

I am sharing this card with Stephanie's Roses of Inspiration, stop by and see what others are up to today!

It is kind of hard to tell but the green paper I used behind the leaves has a bit of linen texture on it.

Memory Box -- Dogwood Blossom die
Paper Smooches -- Happy Birthday sentiment stamp
American Crafts -- Jute
Making Memories -- Button

Another great way to use up some of our left over scrap pieces.

If you are looking at this post today January 26th, HSN (home shopping network)  is having Craft supplies almost all day.  I DVR them all, they started at Midnight eastern time and run almost throughout the whole day.  I watched the first hour while having my breakfast this morning and they already have a new never before seen mini machine for small dies and embossing folders and some cool glitter pens, the pens are on the expensive side but everything you buy today is only $4.95 shipping for your total order, that is a great deal if you are picking up a few items.  I don't buy a lot through them but I love seeing the new products being shown and there are always great ideas for cards.

Hope you have a great day and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Group challenge

One of my cardmaking groups is having a whole week of challenges again and it started yesterday, today I am sharing the challenge I had for everyone to try.  I decided on this challenge without even trying it first and I don't think I will do that again.  I had a really rough time with it but I guess that is what makes it a challenge right :)  I must have done 7 of them before I finally came to these two that I liked for masculine cards I need for the beginning of February.

I had a rough time with this challenge as I tried this about 7 times before I came up with the two I finally made into cards.  I only ended up with two colors of ink and I found that after running the embossing folders through my cuttlebug they still didn't have the coverage I wanted so I spritzed them with water and the colors then bled together nicely.

Here is a link to the Photo tutorial if you would like to give it a try yourself.

Darcie-- Steampunk embossing folder w/ Rusty hinge and  vintage photo distress inks
Spellbinders -- Labels 8 die
Stampers Anonymous -- The Journey embossed w/gold embossing powder
DCWV -- metallic stack paper
EK success -- 1" punch
Our Daily Bread Design -- mini tag sentiment stamp set

On this one I tried stamping the train in silver first, it wasn't dark enough for me so using the Misti I tried again using London Fog ink and it still just didn't stand out enough against the kraft cardstock so I applied black ink to the stamp before cleaning it off and it just applied around the edges, I thought that effect looked neat but my husband didn't care for it.

Darcie-- Steampunk embossing folder w/ Rusty hinge and  vintage photo distress inks

Technique Tuesday -- All aboard stamps

Gina Marie stamps -- birthday words

Enamel accents -- black

Please let me know if you try this technique, I would love to come and check out your results.

Hope you a wonderful Sunday and if you are out East that you are able to dig out from all that snow.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today.

Connie

Card gift set

Our Secret Sister reveal is this morning at church so I thought I would share the set of cards I made for her, I really don't know how much she sends out cards so I tried to keep them simple and very easy for her to mail if she wants to do that.  These were using all the same paper pack so that they would go together, usually I make them from totally different papers.  I used DCWV Garden party paper on all of them so under each card I will only list the items that were used to embellish.  I tried to use pieces of the paper pack that have a lot of detail already so I didn't have to do much to them.

Martha Stewart -- Border punch
Joanns essentials -- thank you layered sentiment sticker

Hero Arts -- sentiment and flower stamp set
I did a little piercing under the sentiment

Doodlebug design-- sentiment stamp
McGill -- flower punch, shaped with my stylus
Stickles -- Cinnamon (flower center)

Martha Stewart -- border punch
Pennyblack -- sprinkles and smiles sentiment stamp set
Me & my big ideas-- gems

I love it when the paper can do most of the work for you when you need a card quickly.  Can you believe it is Friday already, this month is going to be over before you know it.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and sure hope you have a wonderful and creative weekend!!

Connie

Birthday Bunny

This card measures 5 x 6 1/2 inches, this is a large stamp that needed a large die to frame it.

Quite the story behind this card, I wanted to give a go at no line look for this image, you can see what I mean by that in in this post by Leslie .  I was blessed with this card at Christmas and look at it every day, I thought I would try it again, I have tried it before but just can't achieve that look.  Well I colored the whole image and I hated it so that went into the trash and I started again with black ink this time, really liked the way it turned out but at the last minute when I sat back and looked at it, I  decided to add a butterfly from the set and when I went to open my Spectrum noir marker, I pulled the top right off and out rolled the ink holder from inside the marker all over my image, well across the face and up to the right and corner of the image, I think I gasped so hard that I about took my breath away.  All that after coloring this image through twice.  What was on the face was fairly light so I went to thinking how can I fix what is above her head and went about stamping, coloring and cutting out a lot of flowers to cover up the ink spill, as I was doing that I thought of my clear blending pen and how I have seen people use it to lift color before, so I took my blender pen and went gently over the marks on her face, would let it dry while I was doing the other flowers and would come back and remove a little more, I did this 4 times and as you can see it worked fairly well you can hardly see any marker on the bunnies face, wow what a relief.  I wondered if I could do that to the bigger marks above but decided since I had already did all those flowers I might as well use them.

I added a few more flowers around the image to balance that right top corner off a bit, and yes the tag is strategically added there to cover ink marks.

This stamp set came from Quick cards magazine, also purchased at Barnes and Nobles.  Leslie mentioned in a comment that she has seen these magazines at JoAnns also so if you don't have a Barnes and Nobles in your area but you do have a JoAnns you can check that out.  The paper also came in a pack from a magazine but I forgot to write down which one.

Bunny stamp by Michael Abram's, Quick cards magazine, colored w/markers
Spellbinders -- Majestic Labels 25 die
Martha Stewart -- leaf punch, scored and tag punch
Stamps of Life -- Postmarks 2 stamp sentiment stamp
Stickles -- yellow for flower centers
Stampendous -- iridescent sticker on tag

Looks like we got a good two inches maybe a little more of snow last night.  Really weird to see when I got up this morning that there was fog hovering about 10 feet in the air over the snow, I tried to get a picture when the sun came up a little more on my husbands camera, so I don't know if you will be able to see it or not, I don't really know how to use his fancy camera, I still use my point and shoot :)

Hope your staying warm and are having a good week so far,
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and leaving a comment,

Connie

Masculine Birthday

This is going out to my first nephew, we are only 8 years apart in age.  He was the first kid I babysat.  He will always have a special place in my heart.

I used Sponge Daubers to color this stamp in with distress inks, so the coloring went very quickly. I embossed the image first with Black embossing powder.

The strip of burlap was a left over seam piece that I had used on another project and I saw it laying on my desk and thought it would be a nice rustic touch to the card.  The paper is a piece that my friend gave me when she got rid of some papers she didn't want anymore, so I don't know who the maker of that paper is.

Artistic Outpost -- The Outpost stamp set, embossed with Black embossing powder, colored w/ distress inks
Spellbinders - Lg. Deckled Rectangles and Labels 29 for sentiment tag
Mark Richards -- nail heads
Our Daily Bread design -- Mini tag sentiment stamp

I am sharing my card today over at Stephanie's Roses of Inspiration link up . Stop by and check it out.

Thanks so much for taking the time today to stop by,  Have a wonderful day!!

Connie

Make a wish

Using all dies today and a tag from Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine.  This magazine is from the England and they always have free supplies with the magazine.  I buy mine at Barnes and Nobles if you are interested.  The border punch has been punched twice to give it that double punched border.

Spellbinders -- Anemone Flower topper and Decorative Labels one dies
Tag w/flowers from Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine
Martha Stewart -- tag punch and border punches
Our Daily Bread designs -- mini tag sentiments stamp set
Bazzill -- brad on tags
Stickles -- Dusty concord for flower center

Well I woke up this morning to 9 degrees out, Peanut didn't even want to go out and do her business, I feel so bad making her go out in that cold.  But the sun is shining bright and that always makes a day a good one :)  We also had a dusting of snow yesterday, not much but we finally had a little snow.  Hope all is well where you are and you are staying warm.

Have a most wonderful week and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and to those of you who comment also I so love hearing from you,

Connie

Flower Thanks

This was my last thank you for my friend that loves pink.... She is probably getting tired of pink cards from me :)  This was quick card, the background is printed this way so all I had to do is stamp out the petals and the flower center stamp the thanks sentiment on it and add a little wink of stella clear glitter pen and I was done.  The paper I used for the petals was in my scrap basket and I am not sure who makes it.

My mind's eye -- Lost and found paper 2 for background
Stampendous -- Petal plus stamp set for flower and sentiment
Wink of stella -- Clear glitter pen

It is so hard to believe that a couple of days ago we had a high of 66 degrees and Sunday night we are to have a low of 4 degrees.  Such a difference in weather.  Hope you all are doing well whatever weather you are having.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today and I hope you have a fun and creative weekend,

Connie

Stamped Background

When I get my inspiration from someone's blog I try to save the card on Pinterest so I can go back and share the link with you, well I can not find anywhere the card that gave me inspiration for this card, so I am thinking it may have came from one of my cardmaking magazines.  I have so much trouble with boy preteen cards, my great nephew turned 12 and I thought this might be neat to try.  The person stamped the background with little stamps but left the center blank and added the sentiment, I am thinking theirs was an oval I went with square.  I cut the Birthday sentiment out of sticky backed foam, with this die set , so I didn't have to worry about having adhesive on it and I like the dimension the foam gives, I also bent it a little bit before sticking down so it had a bit of an arch. Filled in some of the spaces with dots with my fine tip sharpie marker.

Carta bella-- Alphabet Junction paper for framing
Spellbinders -- Classic Square dies (to make frame) Sentiments one die
Hero Arts -- All Occasions messages for the little stamps for the background
Impression Obsesssion -- Sentiments 2 stamp set for "Happy"
Star dies from Hobby Lobby
Buttons
Jute
Iridescent sequins

Wishing you a fun and creative weekend,
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Thank you

After making a lot of cards I usually have many little pieces of paper that I save in a what I call my scraps, they are a bit small to put back in my big paper storage, when that starts getting to full I try to use them up on either punching and die cutting or making a card with them and I needed some thank you's after Christmas gifts I received so I decided to use up some of those strips on a couple cards.

This first one has a combo of Christmas glitter papers with regular papers.  I used some stickles (glitter glue) on the punched butterfly to go with the glitter on the Christmas papers.

Scrap papers
Fiskars -- Ribbon
Martha Stewart -- Butterfly punch
David Tutera -- Celebrate sentiments
Liquid Pearls -- Lemon yellow

The next card, I went with Christmas colors.

Scraps paper
Spellbinders -- A2 Scalloped borders two
Hero Arts -- All Occasion messages sentiment stamp
Martha Stewart -- flower punch
Queen & co. -- Iridescent rhinestones

We reached up into the 40's yesterday and today we are to hit 50, then we got back down in temps but I sure do like it when we get some mild temps every now and then.

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and sharing your sweet comments!!

Hugs,
Connie

Best Wishes for New Year

I was blessed with many homemade cards for Christmas this year, a few from those that are blog friends and the rest from my Cardmaking groups.  Every time I went to the mail box I was so excited when there would be a card waiting for me to open.  I have been getting less and less cards as the years go on, people just aren't sending them out like they use to, so sad.  But this year I ran out of places to display them all.  After our daughter left and things calmed down I would look at the cards and I just wanted to bring that same feeling I had when opening mine to those who sent me cards so I set out trying to figure out what design to do, well we were in Michaels to get some after Christmas deals and I found these embossing folders from Martha Stewart and decided to get them and use them for the cards, two came in a pack.

Let me tell you that I could not run the folder through my cuttlebug machine like I have done all other embossing folders, it was too thick, so I got out the packaging and realized she calls them embossing plates, not folders, so I looked to see if there were any tips on the back as to what order I should put the plates in and in her directions she says to use a metal sheet and roll the embossing roller lengthwise or rub either end in a circular motion over the plate, she sells these tools I guess, well I set out to figure out how I could use my cuttlebug to do it and this is the layers I ended up using, just in case you want to try her embossing plates :

A plate
B plate
embossing plate with your cardstock inside
Anna Griffin's green embossing mat (this is a little thicker than the tan mats)
Two thick cardboard pieces

That seemed to work for me, if you have a different machine you will have to figure out what layering you will need.  Just wanted to let you know in case you wanted to try the Martha Stewart embossing plates yourself.

I did many different variations of the cards some with dark blue, light blue and pink inking of the folders.

A tip of how I added the Best Wishes die cuts, I ran a piece of 4x5 silver card stock through my Xyron Machine to add sticky adhesive onto the back of the card stock and then cut my sentiment out of that, you can just peel and stick them onto your card without having to use glue on such small letters, worked great, especially since I had 20 of them to do :)

Martha Stewart -- Snowflakes embossing plates
Poppystamps -- Valley snowflakes dies
Foam glitter sheets for snowflakes
Spellbinders -- Sentiments one die set
My Favorite things Dienamics -- Cross -stitch Rectangle dies for frames

Hope you are having a good week so far, thanks so much for taking the time to stop by, and your sweet comments, I appreciate it!

Hugs,
Connie

Fun Fold

I liked these what I call swing cards, but I am not sure that is the correct name of this style, but I didn't want to buy anymore dies for shaped cards, and then I came upon this tutorial and I could use my existing dies and do it myself and so I thought I would give it a try.  Now I don't have Stampin up framelits dies but I do have Spellbinder dies so that is what I used on my card.  Since I didn't have a pattern to go by for my front and I wanted designer paper on the front as well on the inside of my card I just measured out the front and then cut an opening with my die the same shape as I cut out of the front, but if I do another one of these I will use the size bigger I believe.  Just a tip if you want to do that also.  HERE is the link if you want to give it a try .

This card went out to my longest friendship I have, 51 years, she was my next door neighbor for all my growing up, and even though I moved away when my hubby joined the Air Force, we have kept in touch all these years.

Sorry about the paper clip at the top but it wouldn't sit closed for a good picture so I had to help it stay closed.  See what I mean a bigger border for the front piece would have looked so much nicer and matched the inside layer, well we learn from what we do right.

Here is a shot of what it looks like when you don't have the paper clip holding it shut.

And here is what the inside looks like

Here is the supplies I used:
Art Impressions -- Birdhouse Neighborhood stamp colored w/markers
Spellbinders -- Labels One die
Stampendous -- Birthday assortment sentiment stamp
BasicGrey -- Lily Kate paper
Offray ribbon
American crafts -- Jute

So there you go if you have always wanted to give this type shaped card a try but don't want to buy the die to get that shape and use your existing dies give it a try, plus this way you can do one in any shape you have.

Stephanie is back to doing her Roses of Inspiration link ups and I am sharing this on her blog, you can share yours post and see what all the others are up to this New Year HERE on her blog .  She also has been a very busy women and has added some more of her Gorgeous creations to her Etsy shop that you can find on her right side bar, so check it out if you would like to give a sweet handmade gift to a friend, or like me save it for yourself ;)

Thanks so much for stopping by today and hope your staying warm, we have hit the middle of winter here that's for sure, the wind is just crazy out there today, I won't be going for a walk today.

Take care,

Connie

Just for you

The images are vellum and cardstock printed diecuts.  This card went together fairly quickly, that is what I love about this pack of printed images on cardstock and vellum, when you are running behind on time for a card it really helps a card go together quickly.

The sentiment is a sticker, I can't remember where that came from

K&co. -- Flora & Fauna diecut cardstock and vellum pack
Our Daily Bread design -- Quaterefoil die
Spellbinders -- A2 matting basics A dies

Anyone else following the CHA (craft and hobby associations) releases?  I saw a video on some of the new stuff coming out from Tim Holtz that look neat, I don't know if I would get any use out of his crayon set but you can do some neat things with them.  Saw some new things from Spellbinders too, attachments to go on the Tool in One . I love that tool for getting all the little pieces out of my dies quicker.  I could have really used that tool when I was doing demo's for them a few years back.  I am not sure I need any of the new attachments they have for them though.  If there is something you have seen or heard of that you are excited about share it with me..... not that I need anything new but it is always fun to see what is out there :)

Hope you have a great week to come and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Inspiration card

Another card for a girlfriend at church and I got my inspiration for this card from Leslie and you can find it HERE on her blog .

Leslie did some beautiful stamping on her card and I decided to use die cuts, what I really loved is the way she used the border die, so I just had to give it a try.  For my flowers I took distress inks applied them to my Tim Holtz craft sheet sprayed them with some water and then put my watercolor paper on top and let it soak up the ink, let it dry until it was just slightly moist, cute them out with my dies and shaped them.

A few of you were asking how I shape my flowers, and I found a video that shows how I do it and it is around the 2:30 minute mark, I did not watch the whole video but I am sure she has more flower shaping ideas HERE is that link from Heartfelt creations .  She does the most beautiful job with flowers!!

Spellbinders -- Carnation creation, Long classic rectangle small and A2 curved borders one dies
BasicGrey -- Lilykate paper
Penny Black -- Sprinkles and smiles stamped sentiment
Cheery Lynn designs -- Fanciful Flourish die
Queen & co. Snowflake pearls

I only have a few scraps left of the Lilykate paper, I have so many paper packs that I want to use them all so I never really get through a whole pack, of course this is an old pack too, so I have had more time to use it.

Isn't the internet wonderful for finding inspiration and friendships, I want to thank all of you who give me inspiration every time I come and visit your blogs :)

Have a creative weekend, and thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Happy Happy Happy

I went with yellow flowers for my friends card, they are made from punches I shaped them using a stylus and a foam pad and added some veins to the punched leaves as well. With a sponge applicator I added some ink on the flowers. The tag came with my cardmaking and papercraft magazine.

Damask Rose -- paper
Tag -- Country Diary of Edwardian lady from Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine
Spellbinders -- Baby bunting die (banner)
Martha Stewart -- Flower, tag and leaf punches
Distress ink -- Wild honey on flowers
Pearl Pen -- Bronze for flower centers
Our Daily Bread design -- mini tags sentiment stamp
Fiskars -- corner rounder punch

It is suppose to be a cloudy rainy Friday and Saturday for us, then changing to snow Saturday night, sounds like a great weekend to stay inside and get some crafting done.  Hope you all have a great weekend.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and your sweet comments,

Connie

Woodland Birthday

I had a tree left over after making my hubby's birthday card and I had no idea what I was going to do for our Pastor's birthday card and I ended up going with another woodland based card.

Frantic Stamper -- Oregon Fir die
Taylored Expressions -- Evergreens die (smaller tree)
Impression Obsession -- small deer die
Tim Holtz -- Vintage Shabby papers (blue background)
Poppy Stamps -- Stitched landscapes die
Fiskars -- Cloud punches
Our Daily Bread designs -- mini tag sentiments stamp

We took down all the decorations at church last night and today we are getting new chairs delivered for the sanctuary, so next Sunday we will have an all new look to the church.

Hope you all are transitioning into the new year well.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and all your sweet and encouraging comments, I really do appreciate them,

Connie

Sympathy

One of the ladies in my cardmaking group that I have known for almost 10 years now has lost her sister in law that she has known for over 50 years.  This card went out to her.

This is my first time using this stamp and I really love it, I think it would work nicely for a birthday card also.  I stamped this three times with my Misti to get the deep black color you see.  Have you seen that they have a mini Misti now, not half the price but it is cheaper and smaller than the original, just in case you have been on the fence about getting one :)

I am linking this with Wen's Simply Neutral post .  Stop by and check out all the pretty neutral projects.

Crafters Companion -- Silhouette Grass stamp
My minds eye -- Lost and found 2 paper
Martha Stewart -- border punch
Hero Arts -- Everyday sayings
Ranger -- black enamel accents

I know a lot of you have already done it but today is the day I take down all my Christmas decorations and get out my collection of Snowmen, I have received so many wonderful snowmen over the years that I only put out a couple at Christmas time and save all the others to put out after Christmas, that way I can transition myself slowly out of having the whole house decorated for Christmas into winter wonderland :)

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope your week is going well,

Connie

Ahoy Matey

This was for my great nephew who turned 9.

The blue background was from the back of a calendar, it felt almost like linen, very thick paper so I cut it out with the die and then sanded the sides, thought that gave it a neat touch.

My Favorite things -- Pirate Boy, image and sentiments colored w/markers
Spellbinders -- Lg. Deckled Rectangle, A2 matting basics A and Labels trio dies
DCWV -- Brown paper

I thought I would share a picture we took while our daughter and son in law were home.  I liked all our smiles in this one but my hubby doesn't like his hair, this was before I cut it :)

Hope your year is off to a good start.  Things are looking up around here, more roads are opening up again and the water seems to be receding in a lot of places.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today.

Connie

Close to nature

My hubby's niece's birthday is a couple days from Christmas so I always try and do something far removed from Christmas so that her birthday feels extra special.  I stamped and colored the flower twice so that I could pop it up to give a little more dimension to the card.

I sanded the embossed area so that it would stand out a little more. I kept the cardstock in the folder while sanding it.  Tied the tag onto the ribbon with a bit of twine.

Here is a side view to show a bit of the dimension.

Stampin up -- Close to nature stamp set, colored w/markers
Quickutz -- Vines embossing folder
Spellbinders -- Captivating Squares dies
Stamps of life -- minis 4 circles sentiment stamp
Martha Stewart -- tag punch
Offray ribbon
American crafts twine

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking the time to comment, it means a lot!!  Hope your enjoying your weekend.

Connie

Happy New Year

Wow it was rough getting up this morning, I am an early to bed early to rise, mainly because Peanut is an early to rise dog, but last night we went to a party with our friends and I stayed out way past my normal bed time.  Hope you all had a good evening, and are looking forward to what the year ahead has in store for us :)

My first card of the year is one I made earlier last month for my hubby's birthday.  Just prior to making his card he had gone out on a hike and took his camera along, he was telling me when he got home how when it was getting dark and he was trying to capture some good night sky shots a bunch of deer came and where all around him, they didn't seem bothered by him being there.  So I made this card to remind him of that trip he took.  He loved it.

The sunset was done using distress inks and sponging them on the background.

Impression Obsession -- small deer dies, sponged with ink
Frantic Stamper -- Oregon fir and small Oregon fir dies
Taylored Expressions -- Evergreens die (smallest tree)
Spellbinders -- A2 matting basics A die
Memory Box - flying bird dies

May the Lord Bless you all in the year ahead!!

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop in and say Hi :)

Connie