Boo

My only Halloween card I sent to our daughter and son in law for our grand furbabies, I ended up adding their cat too but forgot to take the picture after I did, I tried coloring them to match their cat and dog and it must have been close because she did notice that :)

I used Tim Holtz dog die and stamp set, and made a little sign from a little frame stamp, but had to cut it in half just didn't have a small enough one :)  The embossing folder for the background also comes in this set, I bought it at Michaels.  I used a brayer with orange ink to go over the raised areas.

I found the little google eyes at a stamp store over in Missouri, thought they would go cute with this set :)

Tim Holtz - Dog talk, stamp die and embossing folder set, colored w/markers
Making Memories -- Mini Journaling stamped frame
Martha Stewart - sanserif font stamp set (boo)
Ms. Sparkle & co. - Marble paper pad
Wiggle eyes
Pumpkin die
Spellbinders - Ironworks Accents (corner die)
Poppystamps -- Country fence die

Here is a picture my daughter sent in a text of the two taking a nap on her lap, isn't that just too cute!

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

Connie

Happy Place

My hubby and I went away for the past few days to celebrate our Anniversary, that will have to be for another post, but today I will share the card I made him.

I used another calendar image from my daily coloring calendar.  Once again I colored it, glued it to cardstock to give it a little more thickness and cut it out, put it on top of a background I made sponging on my distress ink.

Daily coloring calendar image- colored w/markers and fussy cut
Background using Tumbled glass ink using homemade cloud stencil
My Favorite things -- More Essential sentiments stamp set

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

Connie

Liquid Pearl Techniques

Two more challenges in my stamp group, this time using Liquid Pearls through a stencil and Mother of Pearl technique.

I think my paper was a bit bowed after die cutting so when I laid the stencil on top and using a piece of card to swipe the pearls across the stencil a bit of it went under the stencil, After coloring and cutting out of my snowman I looked at it again and thought it looked ok to use as the backdrop of my snowman. One of the girls gifted me some "snow" so I cut some scortape into hills and added it to the base and applied the snow on top, I love the stuff she sent it is so much finer than the stuff I had bought.

Spellbinders -- Labels 8 die
Tim Holtz- Dot fade stencil
Liquid Pearls -- White opal
Snow from friend
Penny Black -- Jolly follies stamp, colored w/markers
Craft magazine -- sentiment stamp

So excited I have another Christmas card done :)

The next technique is adding the Liquid pearl with a scrunched up piece of Cling wrap to the cardstock and after it is dry, blending ink over it. I hope you can see it this was my 3rd attempt, didn't like the other ones, this was nice and soft and pretty.  I used my die to emboss, no cutting, so I could have a frame around the flowers but you could still see the background.

This stamp was given to me and has no name, if you know the maker, please let me know :)

Liquid pearls - White opal for background, inked over with Spun sugar Distress ink
Flower stamp - Unknown, colored w/markers and fussy cut
Memory Box -- Stitched Rectangle layers die -- embossed only to frame
Spellbinders -- Ribbon tags trio die set
Gina Marie stamps - Birthday words sentiment stamp set

Wishing you a great weekend!! Thanks for stopping by,

Connie

Get Well/ San Luis

My childhood friend who lived next door, recently went through surgery, and I had remembered these Acetate images that I found at the yard sale at the stamp store. You can find the booklet of these HERE. As you can see I did one that was on the cover but I changed it  up a bit.

If you are having problems with applying your acetate to things I really suggest you getting a Xyron machine, I have the 5", 3" and the little sticker machine, I used the 3" one with these and it worked perfectly, you can see any of the tape :)

I took the first picture of it laying down so you can see it closed.

Standing up

Inside

I really like window cards and these acetate elements with them are a neat touch. 

Hot off the press - Paper Flair Clearly collage
Xyron 3" Sticker maker to apply transparency

I didn't get many good pictures of this town but I thought I would share, San Luis Colorado, it is the oldest city.

I just loved the detail on this lamp post with the flag of the town.

Very cool dimensional Mural on the side of the building above and another painted one below.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today, love hearing from you!

Connie

Leaf Frame

I used a couple different stamp sets to stamp out this frame, and colored it with markers.

I have had the rain dots for many years but they were the perfect colors to dress up the center around the sentiment. I wonder if those born in Autumn are getting tired of receiving Autumn themed birthday cards :)

Leaves stamps -- Unknown, colored w/markers
Stampin up - Ferns, pine needles and acorns
Hero Arts -- It's your day sentiment stamp set
Cloud 9 Design - Rain dots

Thanks so much for stopping by today, hope your week is off to a good start!

Connie

Art Nouveau and Taos New Mexico

I decided to combine this card with Taos because they are both colorful :)

This is another set that goes with a cardmaking magazine but this one came in a package of goodies I bought at the garage sale at my local stamp store.  I had to google Art Nouveau in order to know what colors to use, this is way outside my usual that's for sure but it is good to challenge ourselves I think.

Colored the image with markers, cut it out and then found a die I thought would be nice with it for framing, and matted that on a background to match the colors I used in the image. After I was all done and putting my dies away I found another set that would have been perfect for this so maybe next time :)

Art Nouveau stamp set from cardmaking and papercraft magazine, colored with markers
Shaded with distress ink - Antique linen
Spellbinders- Labels 8 and Exquisite Labels 11
Gems have been colored with marker

After leaving Colorado we drove down to New Mexico and spent the night in Taos New Mexico, we just drove around the city that night and had a Mexican supper since we got in a bit late, but the next morning we headed into town.  All the buildings, even the restaurants and people's homes were all in adobe style, it was really neat.  The following pictures are of Taos Plaza.

I don't know if you can tell but those are all peppers hanging from up there.

I just had to take a picture of the above sign, I love how they are asked not to throw snowballs, after coming home I had to google thinking they are in the desert how much snow do they get and on average they have 32 inches in a year.

This rose had such a waxy shiny look it almost didn't look real, so pretty.

Thanks so much for stopping by today and I wish you a lovely weekend.

Connie

Sketch challenge

With this challenge we were to use (4) 1 inch strips and (4) 1 inch circles from the same papers to make this card.  And we were to use our scraps.  Well since I make mostly A2 cards 41/4 x 5 1/2, I had many strips from the same paper pack that I used on these two cards.  You over lap the circles over the strips and to hide that you place a one inch strip across the bottom, well I thought that looked a little plain so I got out my ribbon dies set and cut some borders with the left overs I had from cutting the 1 inch strips.

BasicGrey-- Picadilly papers
Hero Arts -- Zinnia flower stamp, colored w/markers
Spellbinders - Leaf die
Cheery Lynn Designs -- Alison's ribbon die

On this card I just used some butterfly stickers for my image, the largest one I placed on patterned paper from the same set and cut around it.

BasicGrey-- Picadilly papers
Hot off the press -- Butterfly Dazzles over pattern paper
Cheery Lynn Designs -- Alison's ribbon die

Hope this gave you a good idea for using up your scraps, I loved the challenge, it helped me catch up on my birthday cards that needed to go out and a plus when we can use up those piles of scrap papers we have :)

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

Connie

Tarnished Foil Technique

I have been seeing on Pinterest a whole bunch of these Tarnished Foil cards and our stamping group is having a challenge week so this is what I picked for a challenge.

You can see the tutorial for the technique HERE.

I first took the foil carstock and swiped it with my Stazon ink, then repeatedly stamped the sunflower all over the backgound with my versamark ink and added enchanted gold embossing powder, well I think that was my first mistake because it is too light for this challenge I believe, you just can't see it very well.  Then I embossed with my embossing folder. Used gold and copper embossing to add to the embossing.  I think it turned out ok but I guess not what I was hoping for, and as a whole card it just seemed to busy to me, so I cut it in half and I will use the other half on another card.   Now I am thinking of adding a corner treatment of some sort to the right corner, I feel it needs some balance.  I stamped the sunflower again onto brown cardstock and embossed in gold.



p, embossed w/ Enchanted gold embos

DCWV - Foil cardstock (silver)
Hero Arts - Sunflower stamp (embossed with enchanted gold on background and gold on brown cardstock for focal image)
Cuttlebug -Textile embossing folder
Gold and copper embossing on the after dry embossing
Our Daily Bread Designs - mini tag die and mini tag sentiment stamp

Let me know if you decide to give it a try would love to see what you come up with.
Thanks so much for stopping by and hope you have a great week!

Connie

No line coloring

Well I tried my hand at no line coloring again, although I can see a bit of lines still but there is a funny story behind this one.

I stamped the image with distress ink planning on watercoloring the image, Well I had bought some Spectrum Aqua markers and also some Illustrator markers which are alcohol based not water based, well yep you guessed it I grabbed the Illustrator markers by mistake when I was going to color this, I just couldn't figure out why the ink wasn't blending well and I even added some directly too the flowers and finally gave up and added some distress inks to them and after I was all done and had come back to it after some housework and was putting away the markers I realized I was using the wrong ones, I am surprised it came out as well as it did.

Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine-- tag and stamp, colored w/markers and distress inks
Spellbinders -- Majestic Labels one and lavels one dies
Teresa Collins -- He said she said papers
Wink of stells - clear glitter pen
Brad
Lace

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

Connie

Sunflowers / Colorado

When we were on Vacation out in Colorado I picked up a Papercraft Essentials magazine that had a few sunflower stamps in it along with some papers, and I used those for my card today. 

In this stamp set the pumpkin seeds, the seed packet, sentiment and center flower are all separate stamps, so you can decorate the packet anyway you would like, I colored it with markers and added some more burlap decorations to frame it, along with some pearls and Washi tape.

Papercraft Essentials magazine -- Sunflower dreams stamp set and paper, colored w/markers
Burlap stickers
Queen & co. - Yellow sunshine pearls
Washi tape

Sharing a few more pictures the first too taken around Red Mountain area in Colorado, just couldn't get over the color of the water due to all the minerals in the area.

The last two are from Pinkerton Hot springs that are on the San Juan Skyway

The colors in the rock where so cool in person, I couldn't quite capture it well in the pictures.

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

Connie

Woof Woof

I bought this set of stamps and dies combo at Michaels a little while back but it has taken me a while to finally use them, just wasn't sure what I was going to do with them but when a girl that my hubby works with that I have also become friends with Birthday came up and she loves her dogs, I had to break it out and give it a go.  I tried coloring it like her dog since the shape isn't quite like hers, but she still loved it :)

The bowl and sentiments are also part of the stamp set and have matching dies for the bowl also so the cutting of all this went quite quickly, I popped up the images with foam tape. 

Tim Holtz -- Dog talk stamp and die set colored w/markers
Lawn Fawn -- Fancy scalloped Rectangles stackables die
Lace
Provocraft -- cuttlebug corner die
wink of stella clear glitter pen
Papertrey ink paper

I have been away to Michigan this past weekend, visiting family and then we took a little day trip along Lake Huron, little behind on visiting your blogs but hope to catch up soon :)

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and letting me know you have, hope your week is off to a good start, we came home to much needed rain here.

Connie

Young boy and Colorado

I try to do a little more bright cards for young kids in my family but I think I may have gone a little too bright :)  I think kids like to see their names on things so that was my inspiration for this one.

After doing his name I should have stopped there but I wanted to add a sentiment and so I used these star coasters I have had for some time to stamp the sentiment, of course I had to apply it with some really good adhesive, so that is the way it went out.

memory box -- Contour typewriter keys die (name)
Carta bella -- Alphabet junction paper
Gin-X - Starstruck Rays of sunshine coaster (star)
Gina K design- tag lines sentiment stamp
Star sequins

These pictures are the Ouray Colorado area of our trip, sorry it is taking me so long to go through the pictures.

This first picture is of a washed out road we came across, I was too nervous to go over it after seeing this view of it and my hubby was nice enough not to do it.  After talking to the guy at the hotel he said they had an avalanche there a couple  weeks prior and he said the 10 years he has been there he didn't know there was cement under there, other jeeps did go through there.

Overlook of the town of Ouray

We came across these Falls, they had an over look you could go out onto and see them better but I just took this shot at the side and went back.

Hubby out on the platform. Yep that platform is just hanging out over, I wasn't going out there.

This was at the base of another trail going up into the mountains but there was no way our car was going to make it up there, I do suggest if you go to this area that having a jeep of some kind would be good.  We were told we could probably rent one for $200 a day but we decided to just see what we could with our car.

We took country Route 5 out of Ridgeway Co. to get the sunset pictures, we had a little picnic down there and just sat and watched the sun go down, another beautiful end of the day.

Thanks for stopping by again today, hope you are enjoying your weekend.

Connie

Card Inspiration

Debbie was sweet to send me THIS LINK if I ever needed a quick card, they are printable cards.  Well I thought that was such a pretty design, and since I had the time I just had to give it a go and see what I could come up with using the stamps I have.

I liked the idea of it being on kraft cardstock, although I think mine is a bit lighter.  I used a few different sets to achieve this, using distress inks and chalk inks and pigment inks, on the purple flowers I stamped with a light purple and then used a darker purple for the edges on the bottom two but when with a little darker on the top one.  She loves purple so I was going for more purple but just had to add a few other colors in there too :)

Liquid pearls, stickles, nuvo drops and pen work were used for the dots I added.

Inkadinkado -- Garden Delights stamp set (purple and yellow flowers)
Ms. Sparkle & co. - Give thanks stamps (leaves and orange flowers0
Gina Marie Stamps -- birthday words sentiment
DCWV -- Old world stack
Liquid pearls -- Chestnut
Stickles -- Dusty concord
Nuvo drops - pale gold
Sharpie marker (yellow flower centers

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

Connie

Football

I have a lot of guy cards that I make between September and October for family members. This one went out to my great nephew that is playing football.

The images are stickers and I made the frame by taping two dies together and cutting them at the same time.  The background was done using Distress Oxide inks, I added a bit of water to the background, that gave me those spots.

NRN Designs -- stickers
Distress Oxide inks -- Walnut stain, peeled paint, fossilized amber
Distress ink- Walnut stain for shading around the edge
Spellbinders A2 Distressed edges for frame

Prayers continue to go out to all those effected by the shootings in Las Vegas, it is so hard to understand these senseless attacks.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today and taking the time out to let me know you have,

Connie

Sympathy

My friend lost her husband a couple weeks ago, I took it hard, I don't know if they remind myself of my hubby and I and our relationship, or if it was also he was a little younger than we are, but I just came up blank on what to do for a sympathy card for her when I remembered a week or so before his passing Darlene posted this card and she shared a link of what gave her inspiration for her card.  I went with that and was so happy that we can be an inspiration to each other when we need a card and just come up blank.

Inking of acrylic block spritzing with water and stamping onto cardstock
Distress inks -- Spun Sugar, Shabby shutters and weathered wood
Inkadinkado -- Garden Delight stamp set
Stampendous -- Sincere Sentiment stamp

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Connie