Card Swap

I did a card swap with my stamping group and we were to use water in our card with a spring theme, now I know these aren't spring flowers but it was between this and roses and I picked sunflowers :) I had just bought one set of Spectrum Aqua markers and this was my first time trying them out. For the ground and sky I used distress inks and my water brush. It was all done on watercolor paper. The flowers have been fussy cut and foam adhesive used to pop them up. I used my stylus to give dimension to the centers of the flowers and added some stickles to give them a touch of sparkle

Gina K -- Holiday Basket stamp set (flowers) Beyond Baskets stamp set (wheelbarrow) colored w/Spectrum Aqua markers and distress inks
Stampology -- Wellies n brellas sentiment stamp set
Spellbinders -- sentiment one die (happy)
Stickles -- cinnamon

I hope you all are enjoying your week and having a little time to create!
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Thanks

I bought a book of postcard size adult coloring images awhile ago and have never colored any of them, I was in need of some thank you's so I decided to color one of them up for a thank you card.  If I remember correctly I think I used 23 markers on this one. All I did was pick my sentiment, layered it on cardstock and added it to my colored postcard, and I was done.  I found this book at Barnes and Nobles. There was a black border around it but I cut that off so I could do a light green matting behind it and then added it to a black cardstock for my base.  I now wish I would have put some gems in the center of at least a couple of flowers.

Secret Garden -- 20 postcards, Colored w/markers
David Tuttera -- Celebrate sentiments

I am busy working on a project that I will be sharing in a few days, crossing my fingers it is going to turn out like I am envisioning.

Thanks so much for stopping by,
Connie

Thinking of you

A friend from church lost his Father last week, his Dad was 93 and having a lot of troubles so it was a blessing for him to be able to go but it still hurts to lose your father no matter how old you are or your parent is. I used another watercolor panel from Taylored Expressions but I used alcohol markers with them instead of watercoloring and they work great that way too.

Taylored Expressions -- Keep in touch watercolor panel
Darcie -- Crackle embossing folder, inked after embossing
Die-namics -- cross-stitch rectangle
eyelets
Jute

I thought I would share more pictures from the Botanical Garden this time they also have birds or fowl in them also :)  See the duck under the bridge

It always amazes me the balance these guys have to stand on one leg and for so long.

We had our Good Friday service last night at church, it is always a touching service for me, has been ever since I was a kid, it is so overwhelming to me the price Jesus paid for us.  Our Pastor mentioned a couple of times that we can not even understand the amount of Love Christ has for us, still gives me goosebumps, and I am in awe of it.  Wishing you all a blessed Easter as we celebrate our Risen Lord and Savior!!


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

Connie

Japanese Gardens

Most of these pictures were taken in the Japanese Gardens in the St. Louis Botanical Garden.  There are a lot of them I just couldn't decided what to post.

First I will share a card I made for one of the girls in my cardmaking group that I have known for quite a few years and she loves Asian inspired cards and I just happen to have some of that in my Tag Art book of images.  I told her I had no idea what it said I hope it is nice :)  She said she would have to ask her Mom, she hasn't told me yet what it says, there was a smaller one that I put inside the card also but forgot to take a picture.

I used a gold pen on the arch and some wink of luna gold marker inside the gold corner stickers and added a gold sparkle rhinestone to the top of the tag. I forgot to write down the embossing folder I used.

Hot of the press -- Tag art #2 (image)
Sizzix -- Tags, rounded die
Embossing folder
Gold Pilot pen
Gold Corner stickers
Wink of Luna -- gold
Recollections -- rhinestones

Ok on to the pictures, the first is near the beginning of the gardens

In this next one I wanted to show you that there was still quite a few bare trees out there

I liked the reflection here

I liked the pink with white flowers

Look how pretty blue the sky was that day

Huge Magnolia tree, now we are out of the Japanese Garden area of the Gardens

Here is a closeup of the tree, as you can see the flowers were at the end of their blooming so it is a good thing we went when we did

This next one was my favorite tree, I had my hubby write down what type of Magnolia it was, I want one in my yard :)

 Here is a closeup of the blossoms, aren't those colors beautiful!!

Now we are almost back to the beginning, I love this path that winds through the trees

Sorry for the overload of pictures.

This time of year is just Beautiful when all God's creation comes back to life!!

Thanks so much for stopping by and I wish you a blessed day,

Connie

Sweet Birthday

My nephews girlfriend (who may be a fiance soon) loves to cook, especially bake, we all enjoy her goodies when we get together for a family reunion, so I went with a baking themed card for her birthday.  Added a little stickles to the cherries because it was just calling out for some sparkle :) I actually colored this stamped image with colored pencils this time, just to get a change up from markers.

Adam Pescott -- You're so sweet stamp set, colored w/pencils
Colorbok -- Homespun papers
Spellbinders -- Curved rectangles and A2 matting basics A dies
Martha Stewart -- border punch
Stickles -- Fruit punch

I am sharing this post over at Stephanie's Roses of Inspiration Link up, this will be Stephanie's last time hosting this link up, she has been so sweet to host it every week for the past year, and I know the undertaking that is on top of a young child and working on all her lovely crafts for her Etsy page and taking care of her home and family.  I want to thank Stephanie for hosting this past year and all the new friendships I have made through it.

We went to the Botanical Garden in St. Louis yesterday, it was a very crisp start to the day in the morning but then it was nicer in the afternoon.  My hubby asked if I would hold his second camera for him while he was taking a macro shot with the other and I just started taking picutres of my own, As we went along he would give me tips on how to use it and I ended up using the camera the whole walk around the gardens and in the end he said I knew I could get you away from the point and shot camera.... so if any of them turned out I will maybe share with you my first attempts of using a more sophisticated camera, LOL!

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and leave a comment to let me know you did, I know with spring upon us now we will all be outside more enjoying the beautiful weather.

Hope your having a great week so far,

Connie

All stamping

I decided to do a card that was nothing but stamping for a friend at church.  I won this stamp set from Papertrey ink awhile back.  I stamped and cut out the flower centers and adding them with foam tape to give the card some dimension :) Stickles were added to the flower centers.

Papertrey ink -- Ruby Rose stamp set
Stickles -- Picket fence
Distress ink -- Vintage photo around edges

So nice to have my sister here this week, such a bummer she will be leaving tomorrow, but we need to be thankful for those times and moments we have with our family.

Wishing you all a fantastic weekend! Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Relax and pamper yourself

This one is going out to the gentleman that we met while stationed in England that was like a Grandparent to our daughter while living there. Using more of the card art book that I used in the earlier post.

Hot off the press -- Instant card art
October afternoon -- 5 & dime tan dotted paper
Papertrey ink -- Hodge Podge papers (multi dotted paper)

Enjoying my time with my sister, thanks again for all the birthday wishes that I am still receiving.  The girls at Ladies bible study had cupcakes and angel food cake with black berries last night to celebrate so that was a nice surprise!

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Easter Egg

First I want to thank you all for the birthday wishes, my hubby took me out to eat at a new to us Mexican Restaurant, and after we went to a park that we hadn't been to before that had a nice walking path, it was a little muddy from all the rain but there was a big pond and there were lot's of geese and ducks all around to keep us entertained as we walked along.  We had to get right back home so my hubby could go to work.  Today the sun is shining so nicely :)

The card today was a challenge in one of my groups to make a card with egg, but I think I was suppose to do some stamping on it so it may not qualify for the challenge but I am happy to have at least one Easter card made and this will be going to our daughter and son in law.

I hand cut the shape of the card, so it is a little wonky.

Cheery Lynn Designs -- Nesting eggs die (for the bunny)
Poppystamps -- Stitched Landscapes die
Spellbinders -- Whimsical Tree die
David Tutera -- Celebrate sentiment
Punch bunch -- egg punch (small eggs by sentiment)
Papertrey ink -- Hodge Podge papers

I am sharing this card with Stephanie's Roses of Inspiration link party.

My sister will be arriving today so I may get a little behind on visiting your blogs but I will eventually get to them :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Connie

Happy Birthday to me

My hubby stopped after work last night and bought me these flowers for my birthday, so that when I woke up this morning they were waiting for me on the dining room table.  He knows I love the roses that are yellow with a touch of orange or coral to them and this bunch had them :)

I bet you can't tell by the card he made me how old I am today :)  He had the sweetest note inside, he is totally a keeper that man of mine, I feel so blessed to have him.  I also got a wonderful call from my daughter this morning, I will be seeing her in 2 months when she graduates from Duke Divinity school, I can't wait :)  My sister is arriving tomorrow so so much to be thankful for!

Thankful to all you ladies that stop by with your encouragement and sharing of our lives together too!

Here is a close up of the card from my hubby.

Thanks for stopping by today, Have a wonderful week!

Connie

ODBDSLC271 Anything goes

I made this card for Karen over at Beatrice Euphemie .  I just love the pictures she post of looking out her window and seeing the mountains in the background, it is such a wonderful view and I wanted to capture that in a card.  I used Our Daily Bread designs stamp for the mountain range, which I stamped in grey since the mountain is far in the distance, then used the same stamp but this time only the tree parts and stamped again on the side and the once again, I stamped just the trees a little further down but this time in green to show trees a little closer and then die cut the trees in the front to show those that are closer to her house, I used dimensional tape to give it a little lift from the stamping.

I am linking this with Our Daily Bread blog challenge anything goes, I used their card base, papers, Keep climbing stamp set and mini tag die and mini sentiment stamp set.  The challenge ends tonight at 8pm. I would like to thank Angela who is on the design team over at Our Daily Bread for the inspiration to do the multiple stamping of the trees, you can see her card by clicking on her name.

Karen has dogs, but I didn't have and dog dies, but she does have two cats, so I added them to the fence which is suppose to mimic her deck rails.  Don't you just love that paper from Our Daily Bread, it took the full sheet of 6x6 paper to cover this card.

Here is a closeup of just the stamping, I used Distress inks for the grass area.

Our Daily Bread design -- Keep Climbing stamp set, Blushing Rose Collection Papers, Double Display Card base, Mini tags dies and mini tag sentiments
Distress inks -- Tumbled glass, walnut stain and bundled sage
Taylored expressions-- Evergreens dies
Poppystamps -- Picket fence die
Impression Obsessions -- Cat sets w/ink & chalks

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today, wishing you a great week ahead,
Connie

Garden flowers

When visiting my sister a couple years ago she was cleaning out some of her craft supplies and this package of paper flowers was in the bag of things she gave me.  In this little bag was one big flower and two smaller one purple and one white and then two different sizes of leaves.  I decided to get them out and open the package the other day, and so glad I finally did, you see each of those flowers was a stack of flowers and they are really fine, like tissue paper.  I decided to use my stylus and a mat to shape them a little to give dimension.  My hubby says won't they get flattened in the envelope, I said I don't know but we will see.
I added a stem from the spellbinder die so that they weren't just floating there. This is going to a long time friend we met on our way over to England back in 1995 when both of our husbands were already over in England and it was time for the families to join them.

Amaco -- Counrty Garden paper shapes (flowers and leaves)
Spellbinders -- curved rectangles and ivy branch dies
Paper smooches-- Happy birthday sentiment stamp
Paper from Cardmaking and papercraft magazine

Some of our trees are starting to bud and the plants are peeking up through the ground, spring is on it's way, so love seeing the earth come to life.

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

Connie

Rose Birthday

I tried a new technique to me for my nephew's fiance's birthday.  I found a video HERE on you tube that explains what I did, except I probably should have watched it before I did it myself because I did a few things different, I applied my sticker directly to the sticky tape and didn't hold it with the release paper while adding the glitter.  The actual demonstrations doesn't start until the 11:00 minute mark.  Also I didn't have a big piece of sticky paper like that so I put two pieces of my 2" scorpal tape together, as you can see not a great idea you can see the seam going down it.

I noticed she colored just like you do with a normal stamp, but I saw on other video's that you are not to color like that because it could mess up your marker tip, so they say to use an up and down motion just taping on color and it worked fine for me to do it that way and I was still able to do shading that way too.  I did not use a blender pen though, maybe will try that next time.  I just colored the middle of the sentiment tag with one of the colors I used for the rose.

Starform -- Outline stickers
Elizabeth Craft Design -- silk microfine glitter -- cool diamond
Scor tape
Damask Rose paper
Spellbinder -- Splendid Circles die
Taylored Expressions -- Many Mini's Occasions sentiment stamp
Lace

I am sharing my post today once again over at Stephanie's Roses of Inspiration Link up stop by and check out the posts.  Stephanie is also doing another tea cup exchange that you can sign up for, she always has something going on over at her blog.

We had a beautiful day yesterday after the little bit of rain in the morning so I headed out to do some yard work, even though my back is letting me know about it this morning it sure was nice to get outside and work in the yard, YAH!!! Spring is on it's way!!

Thanks so much once again for taking the time to stop by today,

Connie

Celebrate

Another masculine card today, this time for our Youth Pastor at church, he is doing a great job with the kids. The sentiment tag and center sentiment is from the Instant card art you can find it HERE. I just added some papers and buttons.  It is another forgotten treasure and I will try and use it more this year.

Hot off the press -- Instant card art
DCWV -- Earthprints papers
Recollections -- Brad
Buttons
Twine

Hope you are all enjoyed your weekend, and have a creative and fun week ahead of you,
Thanks again so much for stopping by and letting me know you did, so good hearing from you,

Connie

Fishing

I am using another stamp I found at the yard sale at my local stamp store.  My hubby asked if I would make a card for his boss who likes to fish and I thought of this stamp I hadn't tried yet.

Paper Inspirations -- Fishing collage stamp colored with markers
October Afternoon -- Campfire paper
Spellbinders -- Classic square die
Hero arts -- it's your day sentiment stamp colored with markers
Button and twine
Faux stitching with pen

I also want to share a card that sweet DEBBIE sent me last week.  This is one of her beautiful pictures she takes and it is on a card base that has an embossed frame, isn't that so cool.  and I love the little flower she added in the corner too, I didn't take a picture of the inside but there is more flowers on the inside too, great way to dress up the inside of the card.  She also sent another picture of a sunflower up close with a butterfly, sorry I didn't take a picture of that.  Thanks so much Debbie for sharing those with me!

I hope your weekend is off to a great start, we have sunshine this morning so that makes me happy :)

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

Connie

Requested Cards

In my cardmaking group there were a few requests for cards.

The first is a little boy in one of the girls hometown has Neuroblastoma Cancer and is in the hospital, he loves getting mail from all over the country and she asked if we would all like to send him cards.  I found this image from a Mary Engelbreit calendar and I feel anybody fighting cancer is a superhero so I chose it for his card.

DCWV -- Earth prints paper
Mary Engelbriet -- daily calendar image
Coaster board star cut outs
wink of stella --clear glitter pen on the stars

The second card is for the father in law of one of the girls in the group who had the accident a little while back that I shared with you, his wife died in the accident and he is now out of the hospital but is in a nursing home.  She said that she thinks he could use cards of encouragement more than sympathy cards and I found this old stamp set that had the perfect sentiment.

I now wish I would have went with brighter color paper, but I am usually drawn to darker colors when doing masculine cards.

My sentiments exactly -- Little birdie stamp set
DCWV -- Tattered time paper

We had to wait over an hour at the DMV for my drivers license renewal and eye test.  My hubby stood in the other line to get the stickers for the plates and that didn't take near as long.  He ended up taking 3 pictures of me, the first he said there was too much glare with my glasses, then I noticed I was blinking just before he took the picture so I tried to hold my eyes open so I wouldn't blink and he said, oh we are going to have to take that over you have a tensed look on your face and sure enough it looked awful, so I blinked a lot before he went to take the picture and the 3rd try came out good.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop in today,

Connie

So sweet

I am sharing another card I made for one of my dear blogger friends that I met through Stephanie's link up party. Daniela is always so sweet in her comments on my cards and just brings a smile to my face whenever she comes and visits. I really enjoy visiting her blog also and reading all the interesting posts she has on History, I will have to admit when I was young and in school, I did bad in History maybe it was because I have a bad memory and having to try to remember all the facts and dates really frustrated me, but as I got older I am actually very interested in History, can I tell you dates, well probably not, but I find it all interesting and don't worry that I can't remember all details and dates :)  She was sweet enough to write it all in English at the end of her posts, do go by her blog HERE and see for yourself :)

I had an idea already in mind for Dany to make a card but then I posted a card in blue and she said how much she loved the color and papers I had used so I ended up going in a totally different way with this card.

I stamped the image twice and colored then cut out a few of the flowers to give them a bit of dimension, I hope you can see that in the picture below.  Die cut a couple of tags and stamped a heart on the blue one and did the sentiment on the white one and layered them together, I punched holes on either side of the stem and brought the string through to tie the tags onto the card.  Of course you have to add lace and pearls :) I added some clear glitter to the flower centers but you can't really see that in the pictures.   I forgot to measure the card but I believe it was 5x6 1/2 inches.

Rubber stampede -- Hydrangea stamp, colored with markers
Spellbinders -- Majestic Labels 25
Lace
Wink of stella -- clear glitter pen
Queen & co. -- Pearls

I am sharing my post today over at Stephanie's Roses of Inspiration Link up , I hope you have time to stop by and check out the other posts and Stephanie is also running a 20% off her etsy store, you can find the link over on her blog, she has some really cute Easter goodies right now and to get them 20% off until tomorrow is a great deal so hop over and check out what she has!


We have to go to the DMV this morning, I have to get an eye test before they will give me another drivers license and we have to get stickers for both our vehicles, crossing my fingers it isn't one of those days where we sit for hours in there.  It is raining today so I can't do anything outside anyway.

Hope your week is off to a good start, thanks so much for stopping by today,

Connie