Duck to water

The other day my hubby got this small catalog from United States Mint, I think they got his address from subscribing to Smithsonian magazine, anyway I just went through it and I came across this image, I believe it is on a quarter, maybe even a Michigan one, but I thought it was pretty and would look nice on a masculine card, but I would want it to have some color.  I thought of how people add a touch of color to old black and white photo's and thought I would give it a try on this one, I just didn't know what medium to use to color with, I first tried using distress inks with a finger dauber and it worked somewhat but I just wasn't sure of it so I went over that with my colored pencils and I liked the look it achieved.  I wanted to add a little something to it so I went for my photo corners and then while going through my sentiments I found this sticker that would allow the background to show through.

United states mint catalog image, colored w/distress inks and colored pencils
Photo corners
SRM - Happy Birthday sticker

Sharing more of my fog pictures, it seemed to hang around the water but as you got away from the water it was better. These first two pictures are from Lumberman's Monument, near Oscoda Michigan, we were stationed there at Wurtsmith AFB for a few years.  We just love this overlook they have there.

The rest of the pictures are from the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, the next day, yes still foggy :) I forgot what city this was but they had a harbor that we walked down to and there were many small islands in the area and it was so cool with the fog hanging over them.

When leaving the parking lot of the harbor we saw these Turkey's across the street, so hubby parked the van we got out to get pictures of them and they just started walking right up to us, usually turkeys we see in the wild don't let us get very close, so this was really neat, we were wondering if he was going to run us off the way he was coming right at us but it let us get some great detail photo's, I didn't have to zoom in on these that is how close they were.

Back to the water

When we arrived at De Tour Village which is the tip of the east side of the U.P. the fog had lifted from the water and the sun was coming out :)

It always amazes me how plants can grow among the rocks.

Next time we will head inland and get some colorful tree pictures!
Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Connie

Vintage Smooshing

After watching Tim Holtz's last reveal of his Distress Oxide release I decided to do a little background for my stamping of these butterflies.  With the colors I have I tried to come close to the colors of the papers I chose, my sister in law loves all vintage so I was going for that kind of look with this card.

I know this may be hard to believe but I could not find a die that I liked that would fit this stamp image and have it still fit on the card, so I broke out some of my decorative scissors and found this one to use to cut out the stamp image and the layering piece.

Hot off the press - Mystic Garden stamp set and papers
Distress Oxide inks - Antique Linen, Tattered Rose, Bundled Sage, Fossilized Amber, Abandoned Coral, Faded Jeans
Paper Studio - Washi tape
Flowers
Sequin

I hope your week is off to a great start,
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hi,

Connie

Vintage Music

My stamp group Christmas challenge for this month is Carols/Music.  I went with Music since I had some sheet music in this paper pack, after making these cards I only have a few scraps left to this paper pad.

I cut the die 3 times and layered them since this die is so thin, I went with a vintage feel to these, not quite the traditional Christmas colors.

I used the snowflake border punch on only one of them and used the little snowflakes that fell out to use on the other two cards.  Instead of normal red berries on the holly top I used a darker color to keep it looking more vintage.

These were a bit time consuming, cutting the dies 3 times and trying to line them up was fun since they are so thin, I won't be making more of these this year.

My Mind's eye - Lost and Found Christmas paper
Memory Box - Clairmont Ornaments die cut 3 times
Martha Stewart - snowflake border punch
Nuvo glitter drops - Golden sunset

Thanks so much for stopping by, hope you have a great weekend,

Connie

Autumn in Michigan

After seeing family we headed up to M 23 along Lake Huron. This stop was a boat launch area, the Au Gres river flows into Lake Huron here so we got some interesting pictures of the flow with the waves coming in.

It was a very foggy day along Lake Huron so we couldn't see very far but the waves were quite impressive.

This next picture here is were the river flows into the lake, I wish I would have taken video so you can hear the sound of the water flowing into the lake and then the waves coming in and hitting it.

We decided to take a walk along the river until we got to this over pass and couldn't walk any farther, I loved the fog with the reflection of the trees in the river.

Next we stopped at a inland lake that isn't to far from the Air Force base we were stationed at when our daughter was born, it brought back memories of taking her there as a baby.

I wish the sun was shining the leaves would have really shined bright, but they were still quite colorful.

This was an interesting Fungi growing on this tree stump, it looks like a flower.

As we were walking back to the car, my hubby spotted these beauties out for a swim.

Well I don't want to overwhelm you with pictures so I will stop there.  We did actually see some sun on our trip, I will share that at another time :)

Thanks for stopping by today,

Connie

Sending Birthday wishes

This was the first card I made once I got back from vacation, can you tell what was on my mind still :)  Yes we saw a few Seagulls on our trip as we were at the water as much as we could be :)

I am once again using an image from my Daily coloring calendar, colored with markers.  I was going to make my own beach background but since I was in need of getting this in the mail I went with using patterned paper for my background.

Can you see the little stamped sentiment I added near the cork of the bottle, my hubby saw it when I showed him so hopefully it didn't get lost in everything already going on in the paper.  After stamping it there I thought oh I could have actually stamped it on the paper in the bottle, oh well, that is what I get for being in a hurry .

Coloring for calm- calendar image, colored w/markers
Poppystamps - Stitched Landscape die
K&co. - Blue Awning paper
Our daily bread design - Mini tag sentiment stamp

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today,

Connie

Masculine Fall

I have had this stamp since last year, my local stamp store was having 40% sale so I picked it up.  I decided to make my own background to stamp the leaves on using Distress inks.  Then I stamped the leaves and hand cut them out, using a kraft knife for the inner parts.  Added a little twine and metal accents, my go to for male cards. Placing it all on a wood background.

Northwoods Rubber stamps- 2010 leaves
Distress inks - Carved pumpkin, peeled paint and abandoned coral
Colorbok - Homespun paper
Twine
Ki - Bronze Accents

Wishing you a wonderful week ahead,
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today,

Connie

Grateful for family

I have a couple cards today to share today, I used the same paper pack for these, I liked these panels they have inside, it makes these quicker to make and I am a bit behind, I was really hoping to get more Christmas cards done this month.

The stamp set I used for the sentiment only had the words Family and Grateful, so I stamped them out and then wrote in the for using a fine line sharpie, my hubby said he couldn't tell I wrote it in so I guess it worked :)

DCWV - Wild Splendor paper
Ms. Sparkle & co. - Give thanks stamp set for sentiment
Hand written "for"
Kaiser - Rhinestones

The next one I used a die that I won from Pizzazz Aplenty, that I colored with my markers

DCWV - Wild Splendor paper
Pizzazz Aplenty - Bird & branch die, colored w/markers
Hero Arts - Everyday sayings stamp
Ribbon

We have a frost warning out for tonight, we are suppose to get down to 30, oh my, I am not ready for this :)  We can't complain about being to hot anymore that's for sure.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,
Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Clean and Simple

I know that isn't my usual style but I just had to give it a go, I got this stamp set from another Magazine called Papercraft Inspiration.  I used Distress inks for my background, even with my misti I couldn't get a real smooth stamping with the dye inks I used.

The blades of grass and dandelion are all separate so it makes it easy to stamp them different colors.
The sentiment and the flower next to it was all one stamp, but with the small cube inks it was fairly easy to get them all stamped in the different colors :)

Angela Poole stamps from Papercraft Inspiration Magazine
Distress inks for Background -
  Crushed Olive
  Bundled Sage
  Antique Linen
  Tumbled Glass
Spectrum Noir Sparkle Clear pen on Dandelions

Wow this week just seems to be flying by and I still don't feel like I have caught up since being away on Vacation, I still haven't had time to download all the pictures I took yet to see if any of them are worth sharing yet, hopefully soon :)

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

Connie

Beautiful Fall

I just love this corner die and don't use it often enough, when I saw Poppystamps Falling leaves and scary things challenge I decided to break it out and use it, now that I just went back to the challenge I realized that it didn't say Falling leaves or scary things but AND, oh well I will share the link with you if you want to play along. 

No scary things in this card, just leaves :)

I kept the corner die in place and used Distress inks to stencil though the die to add color to the pretty flowers and leaves, I didn't have any poppystamps leaves but I did have some from Memory Box, these are plain leaves so I used my stylus and a mat to add my own veins in the leaves and used a bit of distress inks on them also.

What do you think of the pattern paper behind, I was mixed, I kept going from pattern to plain card stock and just thought I would just go with the pattern.  Funny how in person it looked great to me but on the computer screen I am second guessing myself.

Poppystamps - Clara Corner die
Memory Box - Marvelous Maple leaves die
Distress inks - Dried Marigold and peeled paint
BasicGrey - Picadilly paper
Gina Marie stamps - Birthday words sentiment
Spectrum noir sparkle pen - Harvest moon

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

Connie

Victorian

Well at least I was going for a Victorian look to this card but not sure I achieved that, I needed to get this out in the mail before we left for vacation so there was no going back.

We arrived home last night after being gone 9 days, we had a wonderful visit with our families and then headed to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan to see the fall colors, it was just beautiful, even with the fog and rain we had.

I bought this die and stamp set at Hobby Lobby on sale, the wreath die is also from Spellbinders. Now that I am not in a hurry I see I should have done a cream background for my stamped flowers, the white just stands out too much, that is what I get for doing last minute cards.

Spellbinders - Moon Flower stamp and die set and wreath die
Technique Tuesday - Happy Birthday sentiment stamp
Paper Studio - Kirby Teesdale studio paper
Wink of stella  - clear sparkle pen
Sequins

Now back to getting caught up on wash and other duties, Hope you are having a wonderful Sunday!

Connie

Fall Bird

Another try at the layering bird stamp, I think I still need practice, but getting better each time I give it a try I think :)  Had to add some orange leaves in there too.

A touch of burlap  and some nuvo drops for accenting and shading around the die cut frame finished off the card.

Hero Arts - Color Layering Bird and Branch stamp set
Spellbinders - Curved Rectangles die
DCWV - Wild Splendor  paper
Fiskars - Essential Sayings stamp sentiment
Spectrum Sparkle pen for eye
Nuvo glitter drops - Golden sunset
Burlap ribbon

Thanks for stopping by once again!

Connie

Bee Happy

Sharing another stamp set that came with my Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine.

I wanted to make a little scene on the tag with the hive and bee but it looked a bit bare so I added a die cut for a branch and some grass. The big bee diecut came with it also and so I die cut that twice from gold papers. Sentiment is from the same stamp set.

You can't see very well but I put some sparkle pen on the stamped bee wings and added it all to an embossed background that I lightly inked so that it would show up better, topped it off with some gems.

Paper Sutdio - Honeycomb Embossing folder
Bee Happy stamp and die set from Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine
Poppystamps - Pinpoint Main street tags and Climbing vine dies
Fiskars - Grass border punch
Gems

Hope your week is going well so far, thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Fall trees

I bought the Autumn flower soft to make fall trees, so you know there has to be at least one done each year :)

Linking up with the Sisterhood of Crafters Fall is in the air challenge.

Masculine card once again.

The background was done with Distress inks, the little stamped leaf on the sentiment tag was from the same stamp set as the sentiment.

Stampin up - Trees from 2001
Spellbinders - A2 Distressed edges and A2 matting basics A dies
DCWV - Wild Spender paper
Flower Soft - Autumn
Distress inks for background - Tumbled glass, mowed lawn and Forest moss
Stamps of Life - Minis 4 circles

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

Autumn

First full day of Autumn we went to a park and then to a nature conservation area to see what was blooming at the time. We don't hit peak leaf color here in Southern Illinois until late October.

Now some of these you may have to click on them to see the bugs I was able to capture and look real good, LOL!  I seemed to scare them all away so I would stand back and zoom in to get them.
This next is a dragonfly on a leaf that was floating in the water, almost middle of the picture.

You will really have to click on the next to see all the bugs enjoying this plant, I even caught one in mid flight to the left upper corner of the picture.

The grass was very thick and I was wearing capri pants at the time so I didn't want to walk into the thick grass.

As I would walk bugs would just go flying everywhere, I don't know if it is because we have had a nice amount of rain this summer or what but there just seemed to be more than normal.

Debbie let me know that the following butterfly I posted in an earlier post at my home is called a Buckeye, so it was neat to see one out here too.

Can you spot the dragonfly in this picture?

As you can see we had not only a beautiful day with nice fluffy clouds but it was also nice temperatures that day.

Here is my last butterfly :)

Thanks for joining me today on my first day of Autumn outing.

Connie