New Car

My great nephew turned 18 recently and just before he did he went out and bought his own car!  Isn't that great, it seems more and more these days the kids just expect to get a car, but he earned it all on his own,  now the card doesn't look like this one, but this is the die I have :)

I cut the die 3 times, first out of silver for the body of the car, then the wheel portion out of black and the light portion out of yellow for the headlights and pieced them all in and taped them into place from behind. I sanded the embossing folder so the design would stand out.

Frantic Stamper -- Convertible Roadstar die
Darcie -- Diamond Plate embossing folder, sanded
Little yellow Bicycle -- Burlap sticker
Tim Holtz - Idea-ology tissue tape
Spellbinders -- ribbon die
Hero Arts -- Birthday message sentiment stamp

Hope you enjoy a wonderful weekend, I have the doors open and a nice breeze is going through, loving this!

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

Connie

Alcohol ink floating background

One of the girls in my stamping group shared THIS VIDEO on this technique, I had never heard of it before and it was fun to play with.  At first I did it on watercolor paper, like he says, but then I thought how would it work on glossy paper which is what I always use alcohol inks on, and this was my results.

Watercolor paper

Glossy paper

Sorry as I was doing this I never wrote down any of the inks I used, I just had them all lined up and would just put drops in of all different colors.

You can probably tell which background I used for the following cards, this was my first card. I did add a few touches of marker to the flowers and the stem.

Tim Holtz -- THMM107 stamp set, colored w/markers
My Favorite things -- Label Maker sentiments stamp and stitched Rectangle word window dies

Next card was for my nephew and I wanted to do like an Autumn scene, this was done on Glossy paper. The deer and front tree were all stamped on regular cardstock and then colored with pencils, the background trees were first stamped with a green memento ink, that didn't work at all, I let it dry for a little while and stamped again with brown stazon and that gave me the color that the trees ended up being.

Heartfelt Creations -- Woodsy Critters stamps and die set, Woodsy Treescape stamp set  and Woodsy
   Landscape die set, Colored w/pencils
Hero Arts - Birthday messages stamp set fussy cut

This last card was also done on Glossy paper, I added a touch of the metallic silver alcohol ink just to see what it does in the water and as you can tell it doesn't mix as well as the others. It is right under the envelope.  The border, envelope and tag are from Esther, I just added a little bit of chalk to the border and some stickles to the centers and added a sentiment to the tag.

 
Border, envelope and tag RAK
Paper smooches - Happy Birthday sentiment stamp
Stickles - Dusty concord
Chalk on border
Martha Stewart -- butterfly punch
Enamel Accents -- white

If you have the supplies why not give this a try, I love watching how it will come out, you just never know.  The glossy cardstock was very flimsy after getting wet but dried ok.

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

Connie

Watercolored Violets

When I saw this stamp and die set at my Local scrapbooking store I thought oh my I have to get that, it was so pretty in the packaging, but for someone that doesn't color well that can be scary because you know it isn't going to turn out looking as nice as their's, and even though it didn't turn out looking as nice I was happy with what I achieved.  I used my Spectrum Aqua markers by adding the color to my acrylic block and adding a bit of water, in some places I added the color directly to the image and blended with water.

I didn't use the die that comes with it on this card, I just stamped it directly to the cardstock.

Cottage Cutz -- Violets flower February stamp and die set, colored w/Spectrum Aqua Markers
Spellbinders - Labels 8 and A2 Devine Eloquence dies
Papers from Cardmaking & papercraft magazine
Queen & co. - Light pink gems

I am getting excited we are going to break this heat wave and get back down to our normal temps by the end of the week, then it will feel more like Fall.

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

Connie

Masculine

My hubby had a card with all the years calendars on them from a magazine subscription he has and he was going to put it in the recycle bin and I told him wait a minute I may use them on a card, now that is probably said more times and I never use the item but this one I put into use for my Nephews card :)

I took some corrugated packaging and tore the edges,   added a bit of green paint to it, laid that on top of some Fall paper, the leaf and the corner leaves are stickers and the sentiment die came with my order from My favorite things, cut out the calendar sponged on the ink, highlighted his birthday and tied it all up with twine.

DCWV - Rustic Paper
Corugated cardboard
Adirondack -- Lettuce paint
Calendar from Magazine
Miss Elizabeth - Stickers (leaves)
My Favorite things - just for you die
Twine

Thanks so much for stopping by today, and taking the time to let me know you did :)

Connie

New Technique and Grand Mesa

Happy First Day of Autumn, I decided today would be the perfect day to post an Autumn card.  My stamping group challenge for the month of September was to use Pearl Ex, luckily my hubby had bought these quite awhile ago for his art but I just never gave them a try.  They are like a soft colored powder that you can apply to your projects using glues or in my examples using Versamark ink which is an embossing ink.

I started off stamping the background with the versamark ink, I just love the way these look against black card stock. Then I applied sunset gold with a paint brush to the stamped leaves, you don't need much of the powder.

I have a tip for you, I have seen in video's to use a fluffy paintbrush to remove the access powder but after not getting the clean results I wanted from that I got out a swiffer sheet and it removed it nice and clean.

Next I stamped the smaller leaves onto cream cardstock and used Brilliant gold, supper Russet and Super Copper on these.  I wanted more color so I tried spraying some Olive Vine glimmer mist on them and liked the results, although I don't feel you can see it well in the photographs.

I used my vine die for a base to put the leaves onto, and added some berries with liquid pearls in chestnut. Topped off with the banner.

Papertrey ink -- Meadow greens stamp set -- Background w/ Pearl Ex sunset gold and versmark ink
Stampin up 1997 Leaves on wreath stamped w/versamark and used Pearl Ex, Brilliant gold, super russet and super copper, sprayed with Glimmer mist and fussy cut
Memory Box - Grapevine wreath die, cut twice and layered
Spellbinders - Ribbon dies
Gina Marie -- Birthday words sentiment stamp set
Liquid Pearls -- Chestnut

Here is a closeup of the wreath

Now I would like to share some pics from our day at Grand Mesa Scenic Byway in Colorado.

The best picture to see some of the changing leaves of the Aspen up there had my hubby in the shot too :)

We had a picnic up at the top with this as our view, love the view of the water below, couldn't have been better :)

On our whole trip we saw more cow on the road signs than anything else and around one bend in the road this was what was right along the road, so we had to stop and get some pictures :)

Don't know if you can see it or not, by the time we got out of the car, grabbed our camera's the rainbow was almost gone but you can see a bit of it left.

I loved the way they used trees for the post of this fence, no matter how crocked they were, and loved the different colors in the grasses and trees.

These guys were eating when we drove up and when hubby stopped the car, the deer popped up his head and just starred at us so I grabbed my camera and took a picture from the car window, they were a far out in the field but I just loved how he was posing for the picture, as soon as I took it, he went back to eating :)

A dramatic sunset to end the day!

I still have about 400 pictures to look through, I took about 840 pictures, so I may have more to share.

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

Connie

Preteen and Vacation part 2

My great nephew has turned 12, it is so hard to figure out what to do for preteen boys, so I went with this cute dog, you will be seeing more from this set soon :)

I stamped the dog and bone directly onto the card base and then stamped the hat separately and cut it out to put on the dogs head, scored a line to separate the stamped paw border.

Newton's Nook design-- Fetching friendship, colored w/markers
memory box -- stitched rectangle layers die
Tim Holtz -- vintage shabby papers

The following pictures are from the same day as my post yesterday, just taken in the evening at Colorado National Monument.

I love the way the tree is growing here and you can see the roots

These  below were called Coke Ovens because how they are shaped

My husband started teasing me about how I could spot these little guys wherever we went, so I had to get a picture, when I first spotted him he was on a plant but you couldn't see him very well so I got another picture when he ran off.

My hubby likes to take pictures early morning and in the evening because of the lighting and it does make such a pretty glow on everything :)

We stayed at this point all evening, my hubby took some great pictures of the town below with all the lights, but I just sat back and enjoyed the cool evening after such a HOT day.

Next time I will share the Grand Mesa, we actually saw some trees turning high up there :)

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

Connie

Summer card and Vacation

My hubby's niece's birthday is in August and so I had to go with a summer theme for her card. This was another border die that I had bought awhile back and am using for the first time :)

Poppystamps -- Freida Curve die
Teresa Collins - He said she said paper
Wooden butterfly
Spellbinders -- Labels trio die
Gina Marie -- Birthday words sentiment stamp set
Liquid Pearls -- Lemon Yellow

Ok I am going to apologize in advance for the amount of pictures from our trip but I had a hard time deciding :)

Our first stop was in Goodland Kansas, very close to the border of Colorado, after having some supper that evening we came across this sunflower field and decided to take a few pictures before heading back to our hotel. This one was my favorite.

The next day we drove to the other side of Colorado to Grand Junction, got our hotel and rested up so we could get out to Colorado Monument park early in the morning to catch sunrise.  As you can tell I love getting trees in with the mountains :)

The following pictures are of the sun shinning on the mountains, I thought that looked neater than getting the actual sun.

It was a hazy day so the backgrounds weren't as clear as we had hoped but it was still beautiful!  That was just the morning, we went back to the hotel to rest up for the evening pictures we wanted to take. I will have them later.

Thanks so much for stopping by today. Hope you are having a good week.

Connie

Pinterest inspired

My cardmaking group had a challenge to make a card from something you saw on Pinterest, well I have seen these folded cards on a few blogs but This card , is the one that I went with.  I was doing the challenge before leaving for vacation and I didn't have a lot of time to color, so I reached for my stickers so it made getting this card out  in the mail on time just perfect!

I first added the sticker to card stock so that it would be a bit firmer so I could pop it up with some foam tape.

I colored the gems with a yellow marker so that they would match more to the flower.

K&co. -- classic K paper
Hampton Art - sentiment stamp
Miss Elizabeth's- Sun flower sticker
Gems - colored w/markers

Thanks so much for taking the time to drop by, Have a blessed Sunday!

Connie

Gift Bags

I am a guest designer today over on The Crop stop blog today, with some cute gift bags!  Be sure to drop by and see all the past wonderful projects from the blog too, great inspiration over there!

I am showing it in two different sizes to give you an idea of the different sizes you can achieve with this but there are many different sizes you can make depending on the size you cut your paper.

I wanted to show you that they have great picture instructions as long as a description on how to score and punch your paper to make these bags, and they even come with their own score tool that stores right in the base so you won't lose it.  

The tall bag started as a 12x12 inch piece of paper and the smaller one started as a 11x6  inch piece of paper.  I am showing in this picture the different ways you can add holes to the bags. The tall bag I used the punch board that has a whole punch on it and created hole punches all around, that way I can add my ribbon all the way through to keep the bag tied shut tight.  The little bag I used my Crop a dile to add my own holes to add the ribbon.

Here they are both finished with their tags, I love the different sizes you can make depending on the size gift.  I used more heavy duty paper for the taller bag and a thinner paper on the smaller bag.

Here is a close up of the tag on the taller bag.  I cut the sentiment die twice, using my cuttlebug and plates,  glued them together for more bulk and added glossy accents to make it stand out a bit and used Dusty concord Stickles to dot the i.  I love my craft mat for blending inks as I did on the tags also, while my paper is still inside the die.

Here is a close up of the small bag, I just added the tag directly to the bag on this bag, but you could add it to the ribbon before adding to bag.

Here I wanted to show that I made the holes too big for the size ribbon I used so I applied the ribbon to the inside of the bag with my scor tape and then with scor tape again I added strips of paper to the inside to cover my ribbon ends, but if you do the holes smaller you can just tie the ribbon ends on the inside of the bag.

I hope you have fun making up your own bags and you can even match your cards with your bags for a nice set to give to someone.

Here are all the links to the products I used from Cropstop

We R Memory Keepers gift bag punch board

Scor-tape

Spellbinders Inverted Scalloped dies

Glossy Accents

Distress inks

Stickles

Cuttlebug plates

Craft Sheet nonstick

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

Connie