Hexagon Flower

I had these little hexagon die cuts left over from a card I made a while ago and had them stacked on my desk.  I was stumped on what to do for my friend when I looked over at the hexagons and thought I should make a flower out of them.

I didn't know what coloring the center would do since these were cut from a gray card stock, so I added a brad to the center.  The punched border piece is actually a deep gray color but didn't come out that way in the picture. I cut the leaves from gray and inked them as well as the tag. As you can probably tell I hand cut the stem :)

Hexagons die
Martha Stewart - border punch, leaf punch and tag punch
BasicGrey - brad
Stamps of Life - minis 4 circles sentiment stamp
Enamel accents white on tag

Thanks so much for stopping by today and saying Hi,

Connie

Shimmer Powder

I have many colors of color burst but when I saw these shimmer powders at my Local stamp store and the girl working mentioned how beautiful they are and the colors that others are really liking, I just had to buy them, and I am not disappointed at all, I just love these two colors and the shimmer makes it extra special.

I cut a piece of watercolor paper a little bigger than my die on all sides, then having the diecut next to me I figure out where the flowers would be and the leaves and tried to shake the powder onto the areas of my paper that there was a concentration of flowers and leaves and I didn't do too bad. The little scalloped die comes with the background panel die so you can add your sentiment to it.

Here is a close up picture so you can get an idea of the kind of shimmer these colors have in them.

Spellbinders - Floral panel card die and Special Birthday sentiments stamp
Watercolor paper
Nuvo Shimmer powders - Green Parade and Violet Brocode

It is softly snowing as I sit and right this post, so pretty, but oh so COLD the temperature is 23 F. Our normal for this time is 50. Guess it is a day to take down all my Autumn decorations and clean so I can get my Christmas decorations out.

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

Connie

Yippee

My great nephew has reached the teens, my they are all growing up so fast, I can remember when I was a teen babysitting their parents, that really makes you feel old :)

Colored this little guy up with markers and added a few sequins.

Stampendous - Skateboard kiddo
Sassafras - Apple Jack paper
Spellbinders - Lg. Deckled  Rectangles and A2 Distressed Edges dies
Hero Arts - It's your day sentiment stamp
Star Sequins

A big storm hit to the north and west of us yesterday, we had really bad winds from it but we were lucky and our power is still on, others were not so lucky. 

Hope your week is off to a good start, thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hi,

Connie

Layered stamping

In this stamp set there are 3 layers of stamping you do to make these flowers, I chose blue inks to make the flowers.

I loved the little buds that came with this set too. I am not sure if it was supposed to go with these set of flowers or the other ones in the set but I used them for this one :) They and the leaves were colored with markers.

Papercraft Inspirations - Peonies & Orchids stamps set
Altenew - Cool summer night inks for flowers
Spellbinders - Splendid Circles, Labels trio and A2 matting basics A dies
Tim Holtz - Vintage shabby paper
Craftaroo - Rhinestones

I was going for a more wintery feel to this card.

Hope you all enjoyed a lovely Thanksgiving, I didn't get out at all for any black Friday sales, not sure if we will get out today or not. My sister and brother in law have left for Michigan, it was a quick visit but always thankful for any time I can spend with her.

Have a great weekend!
Thanks for stopping by,

Connie

Happy Thanksgiving

I just wanted to start off this post by saying how thankful I am for this blog community, I have made some good on line friendships and I just love how we share our love for creativity and all the beauty that God has blessed us with to enjoy in our states and countries.  I just love how we can visit each others blogs and learn about different areas of this country and other countries and the beauty that each one of them holds.  I look forward to more years of sharing!

Today I am sharing the last of the Autumn cards, sad as that may be.  I used another of my coloring daily calendar, using pencils to color.

By the time I mounted the coloring onto a die cut you could barely see much background but the paper is gold embossed pumpkins.  I added some vines from a silhouette machine cut I had done awhile back.

Coloring for calm daily calendar image, colored w/pencils
Recollections - Pumpkin spice paper
Spellbinders - Lattice Rectangles die
Silhouette machine - vine die cut
Black enamel dots on eyes
Spectrum sparkle pen clear on sun and bird

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

Thinking of you

A lady at church had surgery and then had to go back into surgery a few days later because there were complications from the first surgery, can you imagine.

I used instant card art for this card, (the sentiment tag, flower and faux ribbon) adding my own paper and a piece of burlap.

This one had a sentiment to add to the inside, usually I don't do anything special inside my cards  other than hand write my sentiment, but since this had an option for that I added some paper and the sentiment, of course I had to hand write inside too :)

Hot off the press - Instant card art
Papertrey ink - Hodge podge paper
DCWV - burlap paper


I had a text when I woke up this morning that my sister was already on the road heading here for Thanksgiving, she should make it by early afternoon, I am so excited.  I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving, there is so much to be thankful for!

Connie

Hello

Looking at pinterest the other day I was seeing a lot of pumpkins made by placing 3 oval dies together and I have seen this for years but hadn't given it a try, or if I have I don't remember, guess there is one good thing about getting older you feel your trying something new if it has been long enough time :)

I cut the ovals, embossed them in my crackle embossing folder and then shaded them with some orange ink, cut a little stem myself.

DCWV - Wild Splendor paper
Spellbinders - Classic ovals die
Darice - Crackle embossing folder
Our Daily Bread Design - Hello Die

Hope your week is off to a wonderful start!

Connie

Hello There

I have used two days of my coloring calendar for this card.  I had colored up the leaf background, a little while back but it didn't work for the card I was making at the time, but I decided to pair it with some flowers from the same calendar along with an embossed background for the bottom.

Coloring for calm daily calendar- leaf background and flowers, colored w/markers
Cuttlebug - Birds and swirls embossing folder
My Favorite things - More Essential sentiments stamp

Thanks for stopping by,

Connie

Let's Party

My little great niece has turned one, I have yet to meet her but feel I know her through Facebook posts :)

I colored the image with markers, added the one for her age, I know it is weird having the banner on the bottom but it just didn't look right across the top, added a few dots to background to look like confetti.

Penny Black - Let's Party stamp, colored w/markers
Memory box - Stitched Rectangle Layers and Happy Birthday Garland die
Taylored Expresssions - Whimsy #s die
Pawsitively Pawsome designs - Mini stitched squares
Echo Park - Fine and dandy paper

We went up to Pere Marquette State Park, north of us, it is on the Mississippi River, last year we barely had any snow and hubby was itching to get some snow pictures. There wasn't much but just enough, little did we know we would be getting 5 inches a couple days later.

We got to the top of the cliffs there (we could drive to it) and as we were walking to the overlook you could just hear the birds, and all of a sudden they took off.

It wasn't long and I heard more chirping, I looked up to see this Robin hanging out.

About now you are probably wondering was I always looking up, LOL!

Looking over the Mississippi River

Here is what I woke up to yesterday morning.

Quite a bit has melted already, we have full sunshine today. They say by Thanksgiving the temps will be in the 50's :)

Thanks for stopping by today and saying Hi, so nice to hear from you,

Connie

Sympathy

I shared earlier a sympathy card for my friend, well a week after she lost her mom my other friend lost her Mother, so much sadness in our little group.

I mixed Distress Oxide inks onto my palette and when dried stamped the flower pattern onto them and hand cut them out, the oxide inks gave it a softer look. Those colors were also used for the butterfly and the sentiment tag.

Hot off the press - Botanical Frames stamp set
Colorbok - Homespun paper
Spellbinders - Labels one, Majestic Labels one and Labels eight dies
Distress Oxides inks - Tattered Rose, Peeled Paint, Worn Lipstick
Ribbon
Wink of stella clear sparkle pen

A week after that a man in our church lost his father, so I did a more masculine card for him.

Used an embossing folder and sanded the raised areas, and added the sentiment.

Darice - Grass embossing folder, sanded
Taylored Expresssion -- Care & Comfort sentiment stamp set
Tim Holtz - Distress collection card stock

We have almost 5 inches of snow this morning and it is still snowing, thick wet snow.  I guess it hasn't snowed this much so early in the season since 1951, last year for the whole winter we only had a few times that it just barely covered the ground.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today and hope you are safe and warm where you are :)

Connie

Birthday Flower

I actually made a fall card without fall colors, I just love this time of year but I know not everyone probably wants fall themed cards for their birthday :)

I have been seeing so many blogs where they are not coloring flowers all the way but leaving some tips white and using strokes of the marker to color, so I tried my hand at it, not sure what I think of it yet, LOL!

Inky Antics - Furry Friendship, colored w/markers
Lilybee designs - Head over heels  paper
Lawn Fawn - Fancy Scalloped Rectangles die
Ribbon
Sequins

I am sharing the 2nd trail we took at the Garden of the gods in Shawnee National Forest.  As you can see by the first picture this one was nicely laid out, it was quite hilly and a bit uneven but other than that it was clearly marked out, I do like that :)

If you have been following my pictures lately you know how I love the roots and different style in the trees, it always amazes me how things can grow in the rocks.

Such cool textures in the rocks

I believe that they said there was 33,000 acres in this park, you can look forever up here.

I didn't get many good picture of the sunset but how the sunset looked on the surrounding area was just beautiful

I think I mentioned in my last post how tired I was after doing both these hikes, I am not use to constant walking for that long and up that many hills but oh the reward you get, especially at sunset!! So nice to be able to relive the day in the pictures I took when I am not so tired :)

We are supposed to get 3-5 inches of snow this evening, we normally don't get any this time of year so this is a big deal around here, all the talk :)

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

Connie

Anniversary

We celebrated our 35th Anniversary last month and I forgot to share the cards we made for each other.  We also went out hiking for the day so I will share a bit of that also :)

First the card I made for hubby.  When going through my stuff to figure out what to do for him, I came upon this set and I loved the sentiment, so I just went along with it.  It took a bit of time since I had to hand cut everything out.  I just wrote the 35th in instead of trying to find my small number dies, that saved a bit of time.

The stamp set is supposed to be a birthday set so I just stamped the sentiment inside the balloon stamp.  The leaves were perfect since we had already decided to go on a hike for our anniversary.

Doesn't the Rino look like it has been colored on vellum or something, that is just the color combo that came out when I combined the marker colors, I couldn't do that if I tried any other time, LOL! I told him I hoped he didn't feel like this was too childish looking.

Avery Elle - Wild Birthday, colored w/markers all hand cut
Ms. Sparkle & co. - Fall paper
Spellbinders - Curved rectangle die

The card my hubby made me was all done in pencil, I like how he has our initials on the tree trunk :)

Since we had recently went to Michigan we didn't want to go far so we headed down south to Garden of the Gods in the Shawnee National Forest. We had been here once before shortly after we moved to Illinois so it had been a few years and we had forgotten how beautiful this area is, of course the changing of the leaves makes it that much more beautiful!

I am going to share the first trail we went on, this was the more rugged trail but we knew we wanted to go on the easier one closer to sunset.  It was a beautiful day, we couldn't have asked for better, beautiful blue skies and the temps were perfect!

I took so many pictures of the trees with the blue sky, it had been awhile since we had such blue sky, and the leaf colors along with it was just so pretty!

You don't know how long it took for me to get this picture of the house way down there, such a beautiful place to live, my camera kept wanting to focus on the trees, I finally got it to focus on the house!

When we reached the top you wouldn't believe the amount of lady bugs or Asian beetles there were flying around, my hubby took pictures of the ones landing on me, we thought they were lady bugs when we were up there but after seeing the picture of the ones that landed on me hubby looked it up and he thinks they were asian beetles instead.

As you can see there were still spots that were quite green yet, we were not in total peek yet on this trip.

I haven't even looked at the pictures of the second trail we went on yet, but I will share some from that trail at a later date.

Hope you have a wonderful week, Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Autumn wishes

Back to Birthday cards with Autumn theme :)  As we got our first snowfall of the season last night I feel like Autumn has passed us by way too quickly, so we will just keep it going here on the blog :)

I have been seeing more torn cards here lately, thought I would use it on this card, adding a bit of ink to the torn edges.  I had some of these leaves left over from the Memory Box grove leaves die and they matched the ones in the stamp so I added a few falling onto the card.

Taylored Expression - From my window stamp set
DCWV - Amber Autumn and Old World Stack papers
Spellbinders - Decorative Labels Eight die
Gina Marie - Birthday Words sentiment
Memory Box - Grove leaves

Hope you are enjoying a fun and creative weekend,

Connie

Multiples

Today I am sharing the last of the challenges I did in my group. This one was to make 10 stamped projects all the same but it couldn't be a card.  Well the only thing I could think that I would want to make multiples of is Christmas tags.

Used more stamps from my cardmaking magazines. You can't see the sparkle but I used my sparkle pens to color the tree.

Poppystamps - Pinpoint Main Street tag die
Cardmaking magazine - Sentiment and tree stamp
Our Daily Bread design - Mini tag sentiments (to and from)
Spectrum noir sparkle pens

I don't often make my own tags, do you make your tags or buy them?

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,
Thanks for taking the time to stop by,

Connie