Stick framed

Oh boy I am really having a hard time coming up with good post titles :)

I have used these frames once before and they were a bit hard to manage with how delicate they are, but this time I layered two die cuts and that they gave it more stability and I like how it turned out.  This dark brown cardstock I use comes out looking more black but it is indeed brown :)

The flowers were cut from a large sheet I made of colorburst, shaped them and layered and top it off with a gem. I really like the layers of colors it gives to the flower.  I think I need to make up more of these big sheets with different color combo's that I can just grab and use.

I stamped the sentiment on a small piece that I inlaid into the smaller frame of the set.  Little shading around the edges with my ink and sponge dauber.

Graphic 45 - Once upon a spring time paper
Poppystamps -- Grand Stick Frame and Stitched blooms dies
Our Daily Bread Designs -- Mini tag sentiment stamp set
Me & my big Ideas -- Gems

I will be sharing more pictures today of our trip to Kentucky, after we hiked back down the mountain, hubby found us a lovely location to have our picnic that I packed before leaving that morning, it was beside a pretty creek, surrounded by a mountain and tall trees, I am so bummed I didn't get pictures, but it was nice and relaxing after the hike, we decided after lunch to just take a drive that we saw on the map that goes through the Daniel Boone National forest and doing so we came across some more trails and pull offs, this trail was mostly flat and only 1/2 mile down so we figures we had another mile in us to walk :)

This is the view at the end of the trail, since it was mid day sun the other pictures I took were into the sun and they were washed out.

As you can see we had a bit of color along the trail and pretty blue skies, can't ask for anything more. I hope you all are not sick of the fall pictures, I just hate to see fall end.

I did manage to get my Christmas tree in the living room and the small one I have in my kitchen up, today I will be working on the rest.

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

Connie

Trail/Sympathy

Back today with another Colorist card, this time from Hot off the press, I think I mentioned this before but their cards are a little bigger than A2 size, so I cut them down to fit my cards, this one hung over a little bit, but I wanted to give you a heads up if you want to try these on your cards.

 I sponged the background of the cards with yellow ink. The sentiment sticker comes in silver but I wanted it blue, they color nicely with markers.

Hot off the press - Floral Garden for Colorist, colored w/markers and Tiny words & phrases dazzles
Distress ink - Fossilized Amber, background
Gem

The following pictures are from the same trail as I shared last time, now we are walking back down, the trees were quite thick and very tall.

It was another beautiful day here yesterday, last few days it has been in the low 70's, starting today they are going back down gradually, so we decided yesterday was time to put up the outdoor Christmas lights, one of the sets we bought on clearance last year was a bit of a dud, one side of the net lights are bright and the other half are dim, really weird.  Today I am going to start on the inside, have you started on your decorating?

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

Connie

Natural Bridge/ For me

Today I thought I would share some pictures from our trip to Kentucky we took back in late October.  We stayed at the Natural Bridge State Resort Park in the Daniel Boone National Forest. We booked a cabin on the side of a hill, yes we had many stairs to climb to get to our cabin but it was nice!

Today I will share the trail going up to the Natural bridge arch.  Now they say this trail we picked was the easiest of the trails, they didn't say it was easy, just the easiest one of the trails, let's just say it was quite a challenge to me but was so worth it when we go to the top of the mountain, when you get back down to the bottom and look up and think wow I climbed that, it feels pretty good.  The only way you can view the arch is going up the trail.

The first two pictures were the start of the trail, and the rest is the area at the arch, it was hard deciding which pictures to post so that is why there are so many.

First view of the Arch below, I got a bit of my hubby in the picture

Above, looking straight up at the arch from under it.

My hubby walked up this narrow path to see the view from the top, I was just too tired to climb anymore and wasn't thrilled about the tight squeeze either.

Next we headed back down, I will see if there is any worth sharing and will post them later if there is :)

The For me, in my post title,  is I never posted the card my hubby made for our Anniversary the end of October either, so I thought I would share that today since this is the trip we took to celebrate our anniversary.

The paper he chose had this big glitter sun on it, so he cut it down and added the bird from Tim Holtz release, he loves all of Tim's birds and always buys his dies, and since I am the only one who get's cards from him, guess what goes on my cards :)

Hope you enjoyed a nice weekend, we couldn't ask for nicer weather for this time of year :)

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

Connie

Decorative Diecuts

I saw this sketch that showed 4 squares and my first thought went to all those little dies that are in the center of the spellbinder die sets that I never seem to use, and that was the starting point to this card. I wanted a little something extra though so I chose this paper that had printed leaves at the bottom, I don't know why blank space is so hard for me.... I liked the look but it need something, so I added the flower in the center, the outline is a sticker and I placed it on a sheet that I made from colorburst and cut around the flower, added some dots with my sparkle pen and popped it up in the center, still needed something so I added the pearls, there we go now that looks good :)

It's really surprising I get a card made isn't it, LOL!

The diecuts came out looking a little peachy but they are more of an orange color in real life.

Spellbinders - Captivating Squares and Classic square lg. dies
Sticklers -- Flower sticker
Colorburst background for the flower
Spectrum noir sparkle pen - Smoked quartz (flower center)
Queen & co. - Pearls - chocolate delight
My Favorite things -- Label Maker Sentiments

I hope for those in the states that you enjoyed a nice Thanksgiving and have a wonderful weekend, we have sunshine and warm temps for today and Saturday, so hopefully I will be outside most of the time, you never know how long this will last :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Connie

Happy Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for... Loving Husband, lovely daughter and son in law and a big extended family that just keeps growing :)  My home, good health and beautiful country to explore with my best friend... But most of all a loving God, who is always by my side through it all, who forgives me when I go off the right path and brings peace when I need it.

I am also so thankful for all of you that come by and visit, that give encouragement, even on the days I don't quite get it right :)  and for all the great friendships I have made with people throughout the world that I never would have been able to make if it wasn't for this blog :)

When we took our trip to Branson Missouri I had to stop by the stamp store there and I found the thin line dazzles that I have been wanting, I was a little disappointed that they didn't have enough of each style to go all the way around an A2 sized card, so that is why you see two different styles of gold strip on this card.  To match them I embossed a piece of white cardstock with gold embossing powder, 3 or 4 times to get good coverage so that I could have a gold matting on my sentiment piece, then I layered the sentiment on top.

The image is another one from my daily coloring calendar, when I flipped over today's it is a turkey, so you know what you will be seeing next year :)

Image from coloring daily calendar, colored w/markers
Recollections - Garden Harvest
Stamps of Life -- Praise 4 Him sentiment stamp
Hot off the press - Thin line border Dazzle stickers
Gold embossing powder to frame sentiment

For all of you in America celebrating Thanksgiving today, I hope you are enjoying a nice day with family and or friends.

Connie

Blessed

I thought this verse would be nice for a Thanksgiving card, I am using coloring cards again today, adding a few nuvo drops once done coloring the image with my markers.

Creative Expressions -- To calm and inspire coloring cards, colored w/markers
Memory Box -- Stitched Rectangle layers die
Nuvo Crystal drops - Pale Gold

Thanks for stopping by today and I will share my last Thanksgiving card tomorrow. I only managed to get three done this year.  Just too many birthdays in my family this time of year, and my nephew just had another baby a couple weeks ago so I will be adding one more birthday to the list for next year :)

Connie

Tumbling leaves

Using my Distress Oxides for this background. I first did my embossing with gold embossing powder then went over the different areas with the oxide inks using a sponge blender tool, then when done I splattered with some water to give the tiny spots to the background.  Used a corrugated strip off from some packaging and tied on some jute and made a bow..

Sara Davies -- Tumbling leaves stamp set w/gold embossing powder
Distress Oxide inks for the background
Corrugated strip
Jute

Thanks so much for stopping by today. I am trying to finish up my Autumn card posts by Thanksgiving :)

Take care and hope you have a lovely week!

Connie

Grateful

Now I know this isn't probably your first idea for a Thanksgiving card, but I think these two will give my daughter and son in law a smile.  We will miss them this year as they won't be making the trip back home from Connecticut to Illinois, but wanted them to know how grateful we are for them in our lives :)

I used both distress inks and Oxide inks on some orange cardstock to give the leaves some extra color. Both of these stamps were in a bag of stamps I bought at the yard sale at my stamp store :)

Great impressions - Scarecrow and crow, colored w/markers
Spellbinders - Curved Rectangles, Lattice rectangle and A2 matting basics A dies
DCWV - Wild Splendor paper
Northwoods - Sentiment stamp
Taylored Expressions - Mini Leaves die
Brads

Wow did we have a big storm come through on Saturday that took a lot of leaves off the tree, it was raining leaves around here, so pretty but sad to see so many go.

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

Connie

Double stamping and covered bridge

A challenge in the stamp group was to use a stamp you haven't used in quite some time or not at all and this one was given to me and I wasn't quite sure how I would use it and while staring at it I thought, how about putting one on top of the other and this is what came of it :)

After stamping and coloring it just was too white so I added a bit of shading around the edges first with a yellow and then with a brown.

Image stamp from friend/ no name
Hampton art -- sentiment stamp
Distress inks -- fossilized Amber and tea dye
Liquid pearls

On our way home from Michigan my hubby found Cataract Falls covered bridge on the map in Indiana that wasn't too far off the highway so we decided to check it out.  It was a bit cloudy when we arrived but still got some pretty pics.

The water falls were down stream from the bridge.

This area was in the same park but quite a ways from the bridge farther down stream.

I hope you all have a wonderful weekend, we are getting a lot of wind in this area.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by, love hearing from you!

Connie

Masculine/ Michigan part 2

I am winding down on the Fall masculine birthday cards. This time I used an embossing folder for the tree and colored it with my markers.

Had to add some die cut deer and birds :) a bit of sponging with my distress inks for the sky and grass.

Darcie - Leafy tree trunk embossing folder colored w/ markers
Poppystamps -- Cheery cardinals die
Memory Box -- Valley Deer Trio die
Distress inks, background

The rest of these pictures are from different stops we made going up the eastern side of Michigan along Lake Huron.  Sorry about all the sunset pictures but I must have taken over 50 pictures it was just a beautiful end to the day.

I don't recall the name of this lighthouse, we walked out on this long pier and even with my lens fully zoomed in as much as it could the lighthouse was still a bit too far away to get a good picture.

Not too often do you see a farm right on the edge of the water

Pointe Aux Barques Lighthouse

When I turned around the glow on the trees from the sunset was just spectacular, it really doesn't even show up real well in the photo

Thanks again for taking the time to stop by, I know how busy this time of year can be!!

Connie