Sunday, March 31, 2019

Cup of Cocoa

Since I don't drink coffee and plus only hot cocoa should have a peppermint stick with it, I am going to say this is a cup of hot cocoa, and that is for the "C" challenge with my stamp group, nothing like getting them done on the last day of the month.

I colored each one with a different medium.  My hubby and I have our favorites and they are totally different.


I didn't use any Christmas papers or ribbon on this, and used my Spectrum Aqua markers to color it.

Taylored Expressions - Jolly Holidays Watercolor panels, colored w/Spectrum noir Aqua markers
Ribbon
Stickles - Diamond on steam
Nuvo Crystal glaze on berries
Wink of stella clear sparkle marker on snowflakes



Taylored Expressions - Jolly Holidays Watercolor panels, colored w/Daniel Smith Watercolor Holiday Palette
Ribbon
Stickles - Diamond on steam
Nuvo Crystal glaze on berries
Wink of stella clear sparkle marker on snowflakes


Taylored Expressions - Jolly Holidays Watercolor panels, colored w/ Spectrum Alcohol markers
Martha Stewart - Border punch
Stickles - Diamond on steam
Nuvo Crystal glaze on berries
Wink of stella clear sparkle marker on snowflakes



I think I told myself at the beginning of the year I should do at least 5 a month and here I am with only 3, but I guess that is better than none.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and hope you are enjoying a nice weekend.  Even though it is on the chilly side the sun is shinning bright and that makes this girl happy :)

Connie

Friday, March 29, 2019

Inspiration

Just before I was getting ready to make these thank you cards, Heidi posted This card HERE and I thought that was so pretty and that the new dies I had bought would go great with this design. So here are the cards I came up with using her design.


I did a little bit of inking trying to match the shades of the cardstock I used for the wildflowers but going a little darker. On the embossing folder I inked the background of the embossing folder with a shade a little darker also than the cream cardstock I used.


Tim Holtz - Woodgrain embossing folder and Wildflowers #2 dies
Stamp on it - Sticker sentiment


This set I picked up while we were in Arkansas, the Hobby Lobby was just down the street from our hotel, so after having dinner, hubby asked if I would like to go check it out and see if they had anything new, well I wasn't going to ask but since he brought it up I thought why not :)


There are so many dies in this set, it is fun putting together the dies.
I sponged a little of blue ink behind the die cuts but it doesn't show up all that well.

Tim Holtz - Funky Foliage die set
Taylored Expressions - Burlap embossing folder
Memory box - Stitched Rectangle layers die
Papercraft inspiration magazine- stamp sentiment

We are going to get down to 47 for our high on Sunday, I am hoping that is the last time it dips down into the 40's this season.
Hope you all enjoy a great weekend.

Thanks for taking out the time to stop by,

Connie

Wednesday, March 27, 2019

Stamped Acetate

One of the girls in my stamp group asked if anyone wanted to make some Happy Mail, using embellishments we make with stamped Acetate and then mail it to one of the other participants, you know I had to give it a try, I had bought some acetate that could be embossed a little while back and hadn't tried it out yet.


I embossed the flower using gold embossing powder and the butterfly using silver embossing powder, we were to shape our embellishments and when I did so on the butterfly I did have some of it come off a little bit since I was pressing using my stylus and foam mat, but the flower did fine. I used alcohol markers to color the backside of both. Used a gold pen to draw the stem and gold paper to cut a leaf which I also added some veins using my stylus. Thought the flower center needed a little something so I added a gem to the center.

Here are all the other ones I made at the same time, still haven't used the others in a card yet, but will do that soon :) I took this with my phone so it didn't turn out all that nice but you get an idea. I was able to cut out the flowers, leaves and butterfly using my dies and the metal adapter plate in my gemini, the very inner parts of the flowers in a couple spots didn't cut all the way through and I had to snip a couple little spots so that isn't too bad.  The dragonfly was a punch and I did have to punch a couple times but that too finally worked.




side view to show some of the dimension

Heartfelt creations - Open Floral Vintage Floret stamp and die,  embossed in gold powder, colored with markers
Verve stamps - Butterfly grace stamp and die, embossed in silver powder, colored w/markers
BasicGrey - Periphery paper
Queen & co. - pave stones (flower center)
Martha Stewart - leaf punch
My favorite things - More Essential sentiments stamp

Thought I would share a couple more pictures from the Gardens we went to.




I didn't have to walk down this path but this was more options they had for those that wanted to wander off the nice path.





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

Connie

Monday, March 25, 2019

Easter

My cardmaking group had a challenge to make some Easter cards, I managed to get two made this past weekend.  I had bought last year the Spectrum noir pre embossed watercolor booklet of spring images, along with their watercolor pencils.  I first started using them but didn't have all the colors I wanted so I went to the Spectrum noir Aqua markers too, they worked out great for the bunny but I didn't really like how the clear embossed leaves around him came out. I think the gold embossed bunny is so cool though. This pad is a 5x7, so it is a very big bunny.


Spectrum noir - Enjoy spring watercolor image panel, colored w/ Spectrum noir aqua pencils and markers
Our Daily bread designs - Mini tag sentiment
PPD - Mini Stitched Square dies

My second card I reached for my Easter themed Taylored Expression watercolor panels but I colored using my alcohol markers instead of watercoloring. I cut around the image and popped it up on the background.



Taylored Expressions- 3x4 watercolor panel Easter, colored w/markers
My mind's eye - Quite contrary paper
Martha Stewart - Swirling lace border punch

Have you made any Easter cards? I think this is the earliest that I have ever had my Easter cards done.

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

Connie

Saturday, March 23, 2019

Challenge and more photos

I know in my last post I promised to share more photo's from my trip but first I would like to share a card I made for a challenge over at Power Poppy Blog. Making a quick and simple card. I have a few of Marcella's digital stamps and so I went through the ones I had already had printed off and decided on this one from the set you can find HERE. That made it quick for me, no stamping :) When I printed it off I made the image quite big almost 3 3/4 square.  I colored it with my Spectrum noir markers.


This image colored up quite quickly, so it made for quick card, I just added a sentiment. I don't usually make square cards but doing so made it even faster, no need to figure out what papers to use or what to do for the background, just clean and simple.

PowerPoppy -  Cuppa Buttercups digi stamp, colored w/markers
BoBunny - Sentiment stamp


I would also like to add this to the Flower Challenge blog anything goes challenge
and Sisterhood of Crafters Ladies/girls challenge

Now for those of you that came for the pictures of Garvan Gardens in Arkansas

I was just talking to my sister about the trip last night on the phone and I mentioned to her that I had a bit of a problem while walking through, I started feeling quite sick, dizzy and nausea and thankful not to much farther was this pretty area where I could sit and take a break and recover, thankfully so that I could finish the gardens.













This last picture is of the half way point through the garden, such a beautiful spot to sit and enjoy.  I will share more of the gardens in later posts, I have a lot to do today so I will stop here.

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

Connie

Thursday, March 21, 2019

Birdhouse

I have a few thank you cards I need to make and just before I went on my vacation we were talking in my stamp group about adding tack it over glue  from Allene on the back of our stamps that don't have any type of sticky on the back to adhere to our blocks. I was given a few stamps from another friend in the group when she was cleaning out before her big move and I hadn't used them yet since they wouldn't stick to my blocks, so I decided to clean them up and add some tack it over to them and this birdhouse stamp was the first I tried out and so far it worked perfectly, I don't know how they will hold up over time but I will get a few uses out of them at least for now :)


I left it on my desk and when I got back and was starting my thank you cards I saw it sitting on my desk and decided to use it in one of my cards, I decided to go with making a scene for it, using my embossing folder which I colored with markers also, then added some  grass and sky.  Now what to hang it with? I went with drawing a chain and then popping it up, to give it a little dimension.


Birdhouse stamp unknown, colored w/markers
Darice - Leafy Tree Trunk embossing folder, colored w/markers
D.R.S. designs - easy grass background stamp w/mowed lawn distress ink
Tumbled glass distress ink with cloud template for sky

Next time I will share more of my trip.
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today, Hope you are enjoying a nice week, Spring is officially here!!! now I can't wait for the weather to reflect that :)

Connie

Tuesday, March 19, 2019

Weekend away

I have been gone since last Friday, my hubby took me to Arkansas for my birthday weekend, he had read about a pretty garden there called Garvan woodland gardens, and that there would be blooming Daffodils and Tulips, the temps were a little below what he thought they would be but it was just perfect in the 60's.

The trail through the park was almost 4 miles, now let me just say I haven't walked 4 miles all at once since last summer or fall and oh boy was I way out of shape, but I still enjoyed it so much it was the best part of the trip and it was the first thing we did the morning after we arrived.  I will post about our trip to the gardens in between posting cards.

This park had many beautiful waterfalls throughout so you were almost always coming up to another and I just love the sound of water flowing so I loved that part too.






There were many blooming bushes and trees too so that was such a nice surprise.


They had a really easy to walk through path and then more that was like this one that you could take if you wanted to explore more.










A lot of the trees had buds or leaves just forming, there just isn't anything like spring after a long winter.





This tree was leaning over the pond and it was so white that the area under it just glowed.



This was one of the biggest waterfalls, the others were smaller.






Are you seeing pops of spring where you live?  To those of you who visit from Australia, I appreciate that you share your summer photos when we are going through the depths of winter, reminds me that soon we too will be enjoying beautiful flowers and warmer temperatures once again :)

Thanks to those of you who gave suggestions on what to write on the inside of my cat card too, I will write them all down and use on future cards too :)

Thanks so much for stopping by today!

Connie 

Sunday, March 17, 2019

Meow Meow

Ok I haven't written on the inside of this card so I have decided to see if you all can come up with something cute to put inside for a young teenage girl.

I was thinking something like, that is Happy Birthday in cat talk. As you can tell I am not that clever :)



These papers were all in my scrap bin so I went with polka dots, a friend gifted me a few of these speech bubble stickers, so I white embossed the sentiment onto the sticker and the balloons are dies and everything from the cat set were stamped and die cut. I threaded the jute string through the cat before applying it to the background using foam tape.

Sizzix - Tim Holtz -  Cat Chat, stamp and die set, colored w/markers
Taylored Expressions - Balloon dies
Jute for balloon strings

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today and all that celebrate St. Patrick's day, have a safe and fun celebration!

Connie

Friday, March 15, 2019

Pink flower

My friend loves pink, so that is what she gets every year :)
Used another of my daily coloring calendar images.  Added a little gold accenting to the center of the flower.



Coloring for Calm daily calendar image, hand cut and colored w/markers
Wink of Luna - gold (flower center)
Quick cards magazine - Parisian dreams paper
Lace
Sequins

Hope you all enjoy a very nice weekend!
Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Wednesday, March 13, 2019

Lots of Love

Using images and papers from another card making magazine today. I realize I need to break out my stamps I have been using a lot of magazine stuff lately. Probably because I have been slowly trying to organize my craft room, hoping to better use what I have and I have been organizing and going through all my magazines and seeing what I want to keep and what I want to get rid of.

This one will be going to my younger great niece.


All I had to use out of my stash was the button, some floss and nuvo drops and a die to cut the paper for the background.

Make special cards magazine  (tag, sentiment, paper and die cut balloon border)
Lawn Fawn - Fancy Scalloped Rectangle die
Button and floss
Nuvo Drops - Carnation pink

I want to thank you all for your comments and prayers, on my last post, that means a lot to us.

Thank you so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Monday, March 11, 2019

Sympathy

Sending this to my hubby's sister. Her son was struck by a hit and run driver and was killed. All we know is that it was just after dark and it may either be a white or silver car that hit him. He was 38 years old.

I had recently bought this kit with a set of card bases that have preprinted images and die cut pieces that go with them and sentiments, since they didn't have any sympathy I stamped my own sentiment inside the wreath and then added the diecuts, they are so thick I didn't need to add any foam tape.


I also added some of those enamel shapes that Gina sent, they matched perfectly with the greenery in the background I thought.

Crafts Beautiful magazine - Floral Fancy foiled card kit
Stampendous - Sincere sentiment stamp set
Stampin up - enamel shapes

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

Connie