Card and sunset

Hello, I am a little late in posting, this was a busy weekend.  We got our daughter and son in law all packed into their Uhaul and said goodbye to them on Saturday, they are heading to Connecticut, she will be attending Yale to get her Doctorate in Theology.  It was so hard to see her go knowing she will be so far away and we probably will only be seeing her once a year for a few years, but thankfully we can call and text at anytime and I am thankful for that.  She is pretty close they will be arriving today and hopefully can move straight into their apartment.

Just after we got back from our trip to Michigan is when my stamp group had our week of challenges and one of them was to make a card that reminds you of the park.... Well since I had just went to 3 different parks in Michigan it wasn't too hard to decide on what theme I was going with :)

I put a touch of clear glitter pen on the water and light in the lighthouse

Art Impressions-- Windows to the world M-3175 stamp colored w/pencils
Spellbinders -- Labels One die
Poppystamps -- Tailored stitches border die
BasicGrey -- Picadilly paper and scraps
Paper Studio -- enamel dots
Wink of Stella -- Clear glitter on the water and light

Because we spent so much time at the fort and eating lunch after before getting on the road we only managed to make it down to the bottom of Michigan to a beautiful town called Saugatuck.  It has a little harbor that we ate a dinner at and then headed over to Oval Beach which is on Lake Michigan.
They had stairs to get down to the beach, you park on a cliff and we stayed on the beach until the sun started setting and I needed to get back up to the car to get my camera and I started off by taking some shots of the flowers that were growing along the top.

Now to the sunset. I hope I didn't over due but it just amazes me how much the sky changes during a sunset and there was just enough clouds to make it really cool!

I love this one of my hubby with the glow of the sunset on him :)

The boat in the above picture was also in the harbor when we were eating, they came almost as far as we were and turned around and headed back.

My hubby said we could head back to the hotel and I told him we could stay a little while longer and we were glad we did cause all of a sudden all kinds of reds started popping up in the sky.

The top one I zoomed in on it and this bottom one is zoomed back out.

As I am writing this my daughter has texted to let me know that they are in their apartment now and the movers they hired actually came on time and have it all done for them, they rented this house without even looking at it just what they could see on line and she is happy to report that it is just what they wanted :)

Hope your week is off to a good start too!!

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by, I know how busy the summer time can be.
I am still playing catch up on visiting blogs :)

Connie

Colonial Michilimackinac

After our night of fireworks we were going to head back home but first I told hubby we need to go to the fort, I hadn't been there since I was a kid and we have been up to Mackinaw city many times and never stopped and he had never been at all so we decided to spend the morning at the Fort before making our trip home.

I loved the texture in the roof and the different ways they did the chimneys on these houses.

They have people in almost every building telling you a bit of history about each one.

As you can see by the flag at the fort, it was under British rule at the time, and there wasn't any breeze :(

Had to get another view of the bridge

Standing in one battlement to get pictures of the other ones, I took the following pictures from the walk that went around the fort.

Don't they have a nice raise garden going here.

I just love the roof and the arches you can see in the middle building there

Yep another view of the bridge through the buildings :)

You may have noticed in some of the other shots the excavating going on down there between the buildings, they said they always have some people in there working to find items that they soldiers and families left behind when leaving the fort.  There was a whole museum under one of the buildings with many of the items they had found, so interesting, and it  came at just the right time too, it was nice and cool down there and after being in the hot sun for over an hour it felt really nice.

I didn't get many pictures when we went back down into the fort I was so busy reading and listening to to the people, but I did manage a couple.. As you know from some of my past picture posts, I do love my doors and handles and I just thought this was a neat lock.

She was getting the water nice and hot so she could do the laundry, so glad we don't have to deal with all of this today, makes me really appreciate my washer :)  One of the soldiers in the buildings said that the wives of the married soldiers would do the men's laundry for a fee and sometimes they would make more money than the soldiers brought in.

On our way out we caught them getting the cannon ready to shoot off, I stopped taking pictures here  and took video of it on my phone.

Here is a photo my hubby took of the cannon firing.

Sorry about the long post, I sure have a hard time deciding on what to post, it is so much easier when I don't have many photo's to choose from, LOL!

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

Connie

Coloring

It has been so busy I haven't had time to get the post of the rest of our trip done yet, I hope to share it next time.  Good news hubby was able to get the oven fixed yesterday and it went so smoothly that we were also able to get the lawn mowed so we were on a roll.

When it was time to make my next card I needed I was totally out of ideas, but kind of felt I needed some time to just sit and color, that can be relaxing for me if it isn't a scene I am trying to color so I reached for my colorist book and picked this one to color, it already had that black polka dot background with it so I just mounted it onto a black cardstock, hopefully it isn't too dark for a summer birthday.

That little flag also comes within the book so all I had to do was cut it out and stamp my sentiment and I was done. HERE is a link, if you are interested in them.

Hot off the press -- Awesome Blossoms for Colorist, colored w/spectrum noir markers
Stamps of life -- Minis 4 circles sentiment stamp

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

Connie

Michigan 4th of July trip

I figured since July is quickly coming to a close I need to post some pictures from our trip, I will do it in parts since once again I have quite a few I wanted to share.

The first evening getting into Michigan we stopped at Grand Haven State park which is right on Lake Michigan, we wanted to see the sunset over the water.

I liked this shot of the waves coming on shore and the spray they left.

Sunset with the lighthouse

Next morning on the 4th we headed to Mackinaw City, we went to a different area we hadn't gone to before to get a different view of the Mackinac bridge. This bridge is what links the upper and lower parts of Michigan together.

It was a beautiful day to hang out by the water.
In the evening we didn't have to walk far at all to see the fireworks, the hotel we were staying at is right on the beach and the fireworks were fired off right on the peer next to the hotel, it is the quickest we ever got back from seeing fireworks :)

The following pictures of the fireworks were taken by my hubby, I didn't want to take pictures I just wanted to sit back and enjoy the show :)

I am a little late posting today it was another one of those long days that there was always something happening.  Last big thing was our air conditioner and thankfully that has been working ok.  Now the oven has stopped heating up.  Today we went out and found a new ignition, hoping that will be what is wrong with it, hubby is going to install it tomorrow hopefully.  Let's hope that is all that decides not to work around here, we don't need anything else.

Hope your week is off to a good start,
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Christmas in July

YAH!!! I have two cards ready for Christmas, that is pretty good for me, I am usually coming up to the end of November thinking I really need to start my Christmas cards.

One of the ladies in my stamping group had the challenge to make snow on your kraft base using splatters of either ink of paint.  I went with using paint and a toothbrush because my stamping was all done with my white ink and I had to stamp mulitple times just to get this amount of stamping to show up.

Now I will have to say that it would be smart to wear old clothes and maybe use a box or something to put it into because you should have seen my clothes and my desk when I was done, everything was covered with a fine mist of white paint...uggghh.  These are perfect for mailing, one layer cards.

The stamps on the 4 corners was from one of the ladies in my group as well as the background stamp in the next card, she was moving and getting rid of some of her stamps. I do think those stamps may be studio G stamps.  The sentiment is from Inkadinkado, Silhouettes stamp set and stamped with Memento Luxe Wedding dress ink

The stamps on this one are from Inkadinkado -- Seasons Greetings stamp set, I perched the bird on the sentiment since he was a little too big for the tree :)

I do love the look of white on kraft, I think next time I might try to emboss everything with white embossing poweder so that the stamping shows up a bit more.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop in today and I hope you enjoy a lovely weekend!!

Connie

Anniversary Celebration

Not mine but Stephanie's over at The Enchanting Rose blog.  Stephanie asked me a little while ago if I would like to make some cards that she wanted to be part of  her blog giveaway.  She would like them to have roses on them.  At first I was so excited that she would think of me and want my cards part of her giveaway, and then I kind of got sick to my stomach, I had never made a certain card for anyone before it has always been just what I came up with for that certain person.

I can't remember which one I started with now, but I made one card and just wasn't sure so I made another card and I wasn't sure of that one so I made another card, then I couldn't decided between them which I liked better, so I just sent them all to her  and she has included them all in her giveaway.

It is so hard to tell in this first one but that background piece is brown.
I tried to use sentiments that can be used for more than one occasion on them too.

Spellbinders -- A2 Devine Eleoquence die
Elizabeth Craft design -- Rose die
Leisure Arts -- Savor this moment paper behind die cut
Our Daily Bread Designs -- Mini tag die and Mini tag sentiments stamp set
American Crafts -- Jute

This one I tried water coloring with Colorbursts, after I was done coloring I applied Gold Mettalic rub on to all the raised areas of the embossing folder.

Darcie -- Mosaic Rose Embossing folder
Color bursts -- Peony, Wisteria and Sap green to color
Gold Mettalic Rubons for the outline
David Tutera -- Celebrate sentiment set

This last one was colored with markers.

JRL Desings -- Rose Romance stamp, colored w/markers
Spellbinders- Curved Rectangles die
DCWV - Crafty paper
Inkadinado -- Garden Greetings stamp sentiment

Be sure to stop by Stephanie's Blog and see all the other goodies she has in her giveaway and check out all the Beautiful creations she has in her Etsy store while you are at it.  Let me tell you she does beautiful work.  Thanks again Stephanie for inviting me to join in on your celebration!! Hope you are around for many years to come!!

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today, hope you are staying cool.  We had a bit of trouble with our air conditioner yesterday but I am thankful for a handy husband that was able to figure out what was going on and fix it so we are now once again cool, in 100 degree weather it doesn't take long for the house to get HOT!

Connie

All that glitters

Do you remember last month when I used a portion of a felt piece HERE... This is what I did with the left over piece.

I started off with a large piece of Scor pal tape that I added to a piece of cardstock,  I then added a piece of lace that my sister had given to me, so now I had holes that were all sticky, so I decided to add some glitter to the lace and rubbed it in really good. Next I added the felt to it, since it had it's own tape on it, I didn't need anymore adhesive, I just cut very close to the felt and that gave me the topper to my card.  I think this paper is pretty so I thought it didn't need to much busy stuff with it, just a simple card.

CraftSmith -- Chelsea Lane paper
Felt die cut left over
Lace w/ glitter added
Memory Box -- Happy Birthday Garland
Gem

Hope if you all are under a Heat advisory you are able to stay cool, we are going to be in the 100's again through Saturday.  I so feel for those that work outside in all of this, my hubby had to do that for many years working on the flight line in the Air Force, so glad now he works inside behind a desk :)

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

Connie

Partial stamping

The stamping group I am a part of is having a week of challenges, the challenge I had for everyone is Partial stamping as can be seen HERE in this video .

I went with a background stamp was one of the first I purchased when I started stamping, sorry I don't have the name because back then I didn't even know about blogs or groups it was just little old me stamping alone :)  I added a flower and the cute butterfly to it, using a piece of watercolor paper that I had used Color Burst to make the background.

If I hadn't popped up the flower this would have been a nice flat card.

Stampin up -- Ivy background stamp
Gina Marie stamps -- Birthday words stamp set
Memory Box -- Stitched Rectangle layers die
Spellbinders -- A2 Matting basics A die
Hot off the press -- Mystic Garden stamp set (butterfly)
Autumn leaves -- Flower stamp set
Color Bursts -- Naples Yellow and Marigold

I also want to share with you a little  remake I did of the last card I posted.  Leslie was sweet enough to give me some advice on how to do the flowers a little differently, I am thinking if the flowers were a little bigger it may have looked even better but my hubby and Leslie both thought my second attempt was better than the first so I restamped the flowers and colored and cut them out, can you believe I almost stamped them exactly how I did the first ones and that was without lining them up, so I just taped them to the ones I did previously, and here is the results.  I also posted a picture on the last post so you can see the difference a little better :)

 Off to try some challenges from the group, I have been so busy or too tired to have a chance to create so hoping to get some fun in this evening.  Hope you enjoyed a nice weekend and have a wonderful week to come!
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today,

Connie

Pastels

I am posting another challenge I did today, this time it was Pastels, now I will have to say that I am more of earth tones kind of gal I think, so trying to make sure it was all soft pastels was certainly a challenge.  You can find all about the challenge and see some wonderful inspiration HERE on the Double D Challenge Blog .

I was not going to even post this card but I thought maybe I would and get some feedback on how you feel I could have done things differently, and maybe even change something before I send it out in the mail.  All of these elements are different stamps, and after I had stamped the one flower and realized there are 3 stems, I masked the front flower and added the two others.  I stamped them with spun sugar distress inks, then water colored the flowers in with the same color and then went over the lines with a darker victorian velvet distress ink.  Trying to keep it pastel I was going very light but my hubby said I needed more definition to the flowers, so I let it dry and went over it again, but I don't know it just still doesn't look right to me.

I was going for the look that the flowers and sentiment frame were sitting on a table so I cut the oval die twice to give it more of a table feel.  Popped up the top of the frame and have the bottom part sitting on the table.  Added some wink of stella clear glitter to the water in the jar.  Instead of inking around the edges like I usually do I did some piercing all around the edges.

Stampendous -- Bouquet for you stamp set, watercolor with distress inks and cut out
Distress inks -- Tumbled glass, bundled sage, spun sugar and victorian velvet
My mind's eye -- Lost and found paper
Spellbinders -- Oval  and timeless rectangle dies
Sequins
Hand piercing around the edges

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today, I feel like I am still playing catch up trying to get to everyone's blogs myself.

Connie

Edited..... Here is a picture of a retry of the flowers after Leslie gave me some ideas!! Thanks Leslie!

Flower Challenge

First of all I have good news my sister did receive her card today, it took two weeks to go from Illinois to Michigan but it got there and she said it was in good shape!!

The Flower Challenge blog had an embossing challenge, you can read about it HERE.  





I decided to do heat embossing, stamped the flower stems and leaves with white embossing powder, then I took my inks and sponged them over the embossing.

There are some really good encourageing sentiments in this group of word bands.

Heidi Grace Designs -- Winnefred St. Stamp set, white embossing with ink sponging over it
Distress Inks -- Broken China and Peeled Paint
Lawn Fawn -- Fancy Scalloped Rectangle Stackables die
Tim Holtz -- Idea-ology Word Bands
Ric Rac
Dew Drops

It has hit the 100's two days in a row and they are saying again tomorrow.  Getting some things done inside that I haven't had a chance to do since I have been so busy outside.

Hope you all are keeping cool and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today,

Connie

Sports

A couple of my great nephews are into sports big time and this nephew just turned 11, so I went with a sports theme card.

All the stamps are from the same set, I stamped the shoe with a light blue and then added a bit of darker blue to some areas to make it look a little worn. I fussy cut the star, arrows and the star after stamping them.

The sentiment was part of the paper set I used.  Cut the border with a punch.

My Mind's eye -- boy crazy paper and stamp set
Memory box -- stitched circles die
Fiskars -- Border punch

Your comments on lost mail were very interesting and it makes me wonder how many people I think received a card from me really never did, this is two now that I know for sure never made it.

Wishing you a fantastic week ahead, I will be spending most of it indoors this week I am afraid, they are forecasting with the humidity feels like temps in the 100's.  Keep cool!

Thanks for stopping by today,

Connie

Lost Card

Do you ever wonder how many of your home made cards actually make it to the people you are sending it to.  I made this card for my sisters birthday in June and it still hasn't made it to her, since she visits my blog I didn't want to post this yet, hoping it would make it to her but you see we have been gone to Michigan once again for the past 4 days we went up to Mackinaw city to see the firewords shot off over the water and I like to post at least every other day.

Still hoping it makes it to her some day but for now she will see it here :(

I tried to do a form of this card HERE, hers is a bit more fancy looking.  What gave me the inspiration for this is the park we went to that had two arched gates on either side of the garden that I showed in an earlier post, this garden has two gates on either side :)

It was a bear to try and cut the fence so that the fence was still part of the fold of the card instead of totally cutting it out, it might be a bit easier doing one like she showed on a curve like that.

I added some flower soft to one of the trees to make it look like a flowering tree, the rest is all colored with markers. I did cut the fence twice and glued on top of the other to give it a little more stability.

Northwoods Rubber stamp, colored w/markers
Poppystamps -- Picket fence die
Flower soft -- Sweet Pea

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today and hope you have a great weekend!!

Connie

Sunflower

I decided to use this background I had made a while back when doing a challenge in my stamping group.  I had mixed Modeling paste and glitter and then applied it through a dotted stencil onto pattern paper.  I also found the sunflower stamped in there also, so all I had to do was color it, I decided to add the bee button, I cut off the shank so it would lay flat on the card.  At first I was going to add a lady bug but I just liked the color of the bee better with the other colors on the card.

I colored this one with pencils and did a bit of shading with inks around it.

Modeling paste mixed with glitter through a Tim Holtz Dot Fade stencil on pattern paper
Hero Arts -- Sunflower stamp colored w/ pencils
Spellbinder -- A2 matting basics A, Labels 18 and Circles large dies
Impression Obsession -- Sentiments II stamp set
Bee button
Spool O ribbon

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by, I apprecaite your leaving a comment to let me know you have,

Connie

Ozark National Scenic Riverways

I finally looked at the pictures I took on our last 2 day trip we took and found some to share. We stayed at a Motel that was located in Eminence Missouri, and just went out from there to the different parks in the area.

First up is the Alley Spring Mill.

I love the sound of rushing water so I enjoyed that part of the trip, but oh my was it a very HOT day, as we were headed out I think a bank said it was 93 degrees out and it was very humid!!

Here is a picture with more of the Mill.

There was a trail that went behind the spring.  The sign said that the spring produces 81 million gallons a day!

 
I will have to say the colors in these waters is just amazing in this whole area!!
I did manage to capture a good picture of one butterfly and one dragonfly, but there were many all along this trail.

I loved all the little waterfalls along the trail too!

This next picture hubby took of me when we were almost done with the trail back to the car.  It was quite hot :)

We cooled off in the air conditioning of the car and drank a lot of water and then we headed to Rocky Falls.  I didn't take many pictures there, the bugs were just terrible, I wondered why all the people were sitting in the water and then Greg told me that when he went crawling around on the rocks to get a close up picture of the falls there were no bugs there just down where I was, but I wasn't about to try and climb those rocks.  I bet you can tell which person is my hubby.

I took pictures of the sunset that night from the porch of our motel but I took them on my phone and haven't even downloaded those yet.  So the next day we were off to check out Blue Springs, I can see why they named it that, it is the 8th largest spring in Missouri and is the darkest blue of them all.  87 million gallons of water are from this spring a day.

You can see a little bit in the picture above that it was quite humid around the spring, it was a misty day so I don't know if it was clouds or humidity from the spring but remember the picture above from the day before, by the time we got back to the car from the hike down to the spring I felt about the same. This picture shows a little more of the Mist hovering over the water.

That's it, after we were done with this hike and we drove back  to the main road we started getting a bit more rain than just misting so we were lucky we made it back in time, so we just headed home.  Hubby wants to go back because he was able to get some nice night shots but I get motion sickness and all the windy and rolling hills kind of got me a bit sick, but it was a nice get away about a 3 1/2 hour drive from our house.

Thanks so much for stopping by and hope you enjoy a great 4th tomorrow!

Connie