New Home

When of the ladies in my card making group asked if we could make a card for her mother, she has moved to a 55+ community and needs some words of encouragement for this new path she is going into.  I had bought the new Mini wreath template from Gina K at the stamp show I went to at the beginning of the month so I tried it out, I started with a 2 3/8 inch square after using my stamps to make the wreath I hand cut around the outside and use my circle die to cut the inside. Now I had to figure out how I would use it on my card, I finally came up with the idea to make a door using my spellbinder dies to hang the wreath on.

I first embossed two kraft paper sheets with a woodgrain embossing folder, cut the door and the rectangles and squares from Spellbinder dies, inked around the edges and added an enamel dot for the door knob.  I planned on making steps up to the door but that didn't turn out so I put the sentiment down at the bottom. Topped off with some stickles for the flower centers. Added a few dots around the wreath with my fine tip sharpie marker.

GinaK - mini wreath builder template and wreath builder bundle for the leaf stamp
Stamps of life - Minis4circles for flowers on wreath
Crafters companion - wood grain embossing folder
Spellbinders - A2 matting basics A&B, square and circle dies
Ms.Sparkle & co. - Marble paper pad
Stamp on it - Sentiment sticker, colored w/brown marker
Paper studio - enamel dot
Stickles - Platinum on flower centers

I am so thankful that my parents and my inlaws were all able to stay at their original homes before they all past away, I can only imagine how hard it is to move if that is not your wish to do so.

Hope you all are enjoying the start of this new week, I am trying to stay positive although our whole week has rain forecasted for every day, hopefully there will be some sunshine in there somewhere.

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

Connie

Remembering

One of our praise team members at church, lost his father this past week and I like to do male themed sympathy cards for the guys who have lost someone and I had recently scene a card on Pinterest they had used I believe it was a tree stamp from Stamp in up, I decided to use a die cut. Now I know it looks black in the picture but this set of cardstock from Gina K is very dark brown, it always shows up black on my computer.

I used my Spectrum Aqua markers for the water color background. I took my larger Acrylic block for stamping and colored brown, green and blue directly onto the block, spritzed it with some water and then applied it to my water color paper, I do like how that turned out.

Impression Obsession - Bare Tree die
Our daily Bread designs- All occasion sentiments stamp set
Spectrum noir Aqua markers for background

I finally planted my spinach and romaine lettuce seeds yesterday, crossing fingers that all turns out good. I need to go buy my pepper plants soon, I like to buy them instead of starting from seed. We also have carrots and green beans to plant, but we have rain in the forecast today and if I don't get to it tomorrow we have 5 days in a row of rain.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today, Have a wonderful and creative weekend!

Connie

Fort Kaskaskia

Before I share about our day out last week I thought I would share a card that I made using the rest of the Acetate pieces I made Here last month. Some of the other girls in the group used glitter on their's and I really liked how that turned out so I added stickles to the back of mine but it still didn't show very well, I think I chose the wrong kind of stamps to use on these there should be more open space.

The flower didn't show up well against this paper and I had this flower that I had stamped a script onto laying on my desk when I held it up to it the acetate flower showed up better so I just decided to use that instead of a doily that I had planned on. The background was a stenciled background I had made a while back. I cut the whole side of the card, front and back with this die border.

Studio 490 - Vintage Quilt Stencil
Die'sire - Beautiful borders die
Tim Holtz - Tattered Floral die, stamped with script
Heartfelt creations - Flower and leaf and die set stamped onto Acetate w/stickles added

After we had finished with Pyramid state park we still had time left before the sun would set. So we headed to Fort Kaskaskia State Historic site. We haven't been there in the spring time so we thought we would see what it looks this time of year.

The first thing you come upon is the cemetery.

We couldn't get over all the color in the grass as we were driving in  so we went and parked the van and headed back to get pictures of all the flowers in the grass.

We headed back to the van to get our sandwiches we picked up on the way at Subway and had a little picnic before the sun started to set. And was it ever a beautiful sunset. I don't remember seeing so much yellow in a sunset as I did in this one.

There is just something special about a sunset with some clouds over water it just gets me every time and never gets old :)

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

Connie

Flowering Branches

I just love this digital stamp I have for Spring birthdays! I tried out my new Triblend markers from Spectrum noir. They are 3 different shades of a color that snap together in one marker, so it takes the guess work out of what color markers go together well. I bought a coral/pink, green and gray pens and used them all on this.

I also used a bit of green stickles for the flower centers. Using pattern paper for my matting instead of card stock.

PowerPoppy - Flowering Branches digital stamp, color w/markers
Stickles - Shabby Shutters (flower centers)
Spellbinders - A2 matting basics A dies
Gina K - Sentiment stamp

Hope your week is off to a good start. 
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,
Connie

He is Risen!

He is Risen Indeed!! The most Joyous day of the year!! Our Lord is Risen!
He has over come the grave and we have the assurance as the Children of God that we too will be with Jesus in heaven one day, it is overwhelming just thinking about that, a life from worry, pain and a joy beyond anything we can ever comprehend in this lifetime. 

I have one last card to share using another sticker, I added some sponged in grass using ink to it.

NRN Designs - Timeless treasures sticker
BasicGrey - Picadilly and Periphery papers
PPD - Stitched Curvy Coved Rectangles
Stamps of Life - Postmarks2stamp sentiment
Sequins

Wishing you a blessed Easter,
Thanks for stopping by,
Connie

Good Friday

We must all be thankful for the day that Jesus of Nazareth, The king of the Jews, gave up his Life so that we may be saved. Such an amazing gift we have been given, saving grace that can only come from Jesus, there is nothing in this life that we could do that can save us but by the blood of Jesus that he shed out on that cross. 

I am sharing once again another 5x7 card that I water colored using the Spectrum noir Spring coloring cards. I used the spectrum noir Aqua markers and on the grass I scribbled a little bit of the ink onto my pellet and then took a little stipple brush to make the darker marks in my grassy area, I like the texture that gave to it.

Last Monday was a beautiful day here and hubby had a day off so we headed to Pyramid state park Illinois to see how green it is getting just south of us, we came across some blooming trees as soon as we entered the park.

Have you ever seen anything like these when the leaves are budding? This tree was in a swampy area of the park but we had just never seen anything like it.

There was a little bit of flooding over the road in this part of the park but not so deep our van did just fine. After this we left and drove to another area that I will share another time.

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

Connie

Peter Rabbit

I was going through more of my goodies and this time I was going through stickers and I came across some Peter Rabbit stickers and decided to use one of them for an Easter card.  I thought he needed some fancy framing so I went with one of my Spellbinder dies.

I used Pattern papers instead of card stock for the background, I am not sure where they came from, I went through a lot of my paper and cut them to the size that would work with an A2 size card and put them in a little bin, so now I have all the same size pieces and I can go through them easier.

Spellbinders - A2 Devine Eleoquence dies
Colorbok - Peter Rabbit Jumbo stickers
Stamps of life - Postmarks to stamp (sentiment)
Rubberstamp tapestry - Butterfly blooms (flowers in sentiment)

Hope you are having a good week so far.  I need to get out and do some weeding so I can plant some wildflowers before we get more rain.

Thanks so taking the time to stop by today,

Connie

Wreath

At the scrapbook convention the Melissa Frances booth had their dies 50% so  I decided to pick up this wreath die, the evening after I had made my card I saw This Card from Esther and I said oh I wish I would have seen this before I made my card because it looks to me like she cut at least two wreaths and put them together and I just love the way that looks, I had done that on my twig wreath dies but didn't think to do that on this one and I think it would have been nice to be even fuller, hopefully I will remember that the next time I go to use the die :)

I colored the leaves only in the die a darker green than the green cardstock I used to cut it out.  I had to break out my Tim Holtz dies once again to make some flowers to go on the wreath, trying to use colors in the paper.  My brown card stock I used for the top flower turned out looking really dark, but that is a brown with blue center flower :) I also did a little inking on the flowers.

Melissa Frances - Wreath die
Tim Holtz - Funky Floral #3
Sassafras- Mix and Mend paper
Hot off the press - Life Happens greetings stamp
Nuvo - Crystal drops - Pale gold

It certainly felt like winter yesterday but today should reach 65, welcome back spring :)

Hope you are having a good start to your week!

Connie

Comfort

When I was cleaning and organizing in my room I came upon some Calendar images I had cut from an old calendar that I thought would work for a card, I used it today on a card for a man at church who just lost his brother.

I cut the image with a deckled die cut, it seems to be my go to die for masculine cards.  The background paper is already watercolored and I thought that is a nice backdrop for the photo, the brads were in a bag of goodies I bought at the yard sale at my stamp store.

Calendar image
Spellbinders - Large Deckled Rectangles, A2 matting basics A and Grommet tags dies
Ms. Sparkle & co. - Water color pad
Taylored Expresesions - Care & comfort sentiment stamp
Copper brads

Thanks for taking the time to stop by today and I wish you a very fun and creative weekend!

Connie

New Fold

I picked up this die to cut this shape card at the Yard sale at my stamp store, I couldn't pass it up for only $4, it includes 3 different sentiment dies and the dies to cut the papers to go on the front.
I bought the Tim Holtz Botanical layers before hand and have been wanting to use them so I broke them out to use on this card, so although there was a bit of die cutting I had to do with the card, the only time it took for the images was to look through the large amount of beautiful flowers and butterflies that come in the package.

Folded up it doesn't look all that impressive but when you open it up...

That border piece is also a die in the package and I used that to hold the card up, I cut it twice out of black paper to match the sentiment.  The shadow dies come with the set also and I cut them from the same textured card stock I cut the card base from.  The die tag behind the images is also in this die set, now do you see why I had to pick it up :)

Sizzix - Card Royal Stand ups die set
Basic Grey - Picadilly paper
Tim Holtz - Layers - Botanical #TH93554

I hope no one is in the line of all that snow going through just north of us, we are getting the high winds from it but thankfully no snow.  Just when you think spring is here, wow!

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

Connie

Upside down

My cardmaking group had this sketch for this week and so I thought I would give it a try, well I decided to glue my paper directly to the card front and I used a glue stick, added the dazzle borders to it and then realized I had the card upside down....ugghhh! I was going to cut the card front off and just add it to the base of another card and then decided at the last minute to just go with it and have the sketch upside down.

The butterfly stickers are design to work with one another, they come in gold, green and pink, although on my computer screen the color of the inside looks more like blue, so you can mix what colors you would like on your butterfly. I applied all the stickers to a piece of card stock and then cut it out. The sentiment sticker came in silver but I wanted it to match with the butterfly and border stickers so I used a gold pen to color it.

Hot off the press -Dazzles - Thin line borders and Mix'ems Butterfly
Stamp on it - Sticker sentiment colored with gold pen

If you don't know how the sketch was supposed to be it doesn't look to bad upside down :)

Thanks for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful week!

Connie

Wish

This is for one of my great nieces who I believe is turning 17 this year. Time sure does fly and it seems to fly faster as the years go by.

Awhile back when I made those cards for the Collin's children's home. I had a few leftover pieces of preprinted images left over and these buttons were among those, they have been lying on my desk and when I went to make this card and trying to figure out what I wanted to do, I saw them and decided to figure out how to use them.

I cut the Sentiment out 3 times and layered them to give it more lift since that was my main thing on the card and the buttons just fit perfectly on the tag with them. Of course it looked to plain to me so I added the twine, my bow would not cooperate and lay right so I put a touch of glue on each tip of the bow to keep it flat to the card.  Added enamel shapes to the bottom and thought that rounded out the card nicely.

Spellbinders - Font One dies
Faux buttons
Stampin up - enamel shapes
Bakers twine

I went to the Creating Keepsake Convention Scrapbook show yesterday and found some fun goodies to play with, not that I need more, my sweet hubby went with me and when he would see something he thought I might like I said oh I have something close to that, after saying that about 5 times I told him really I have enough stuff I really didn't need to come but he said oh you never know when you will find that neat thing you don't have :)

I hope you enjoy a wonderful weekend,

Connie

Fairy Garden

This is my last post of the Garvan Gardens in Arkansas. Towards the end they had a fairy garden, really neat little homes and such that were so cute.  They used blue glass for the creeks and rivers, they had little stick fencing around the different areas, I can only imagine the fun they had putting this together.

I bet this area looks even neater when all the trees have leaves.

After leaving the fairy garden we headed toward the exit to the garden and there was such pretty flowers along the path.

Back behind these flowers there were tables and a food truck , we had our lunch there and it was a lovely spot to sit and eat, felt good to have a lunch outside again :) The building to the right is where you come in and exit through to get back out,

After we had gone back out and were walking to the parking lot we saw a male and female peacocks wandering around, we had seen signs to leave them alone if we saw them but hadn't seen them through the whole park, I was so into watching them that I never did get my camera out, maybe next time :)

I will leave you with the last of my thank you's I made.  I have shared from this set I bought many times and this is the last card I had, I really love the sparkle that is in the paper.

I hope you enjoyed the posts from this pretty garden I went to, there is so much beauty in this world and I am thankful for those that work so hard to keep it beautiful for all of us to enjoy!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and I hope you are enjoying a lovely day!

Connie