Wishing you a special day

I found this cut and embossing folder on sale and I just had to give it a try, I like the idea of embossing and cutting all at the same time.  After embossing I sanded the raised bits and then added a few stickles.  The sentiment was stamped onto some pattern paper.

Core'dinations- Distress collection cardstock
Sizzix - Impresslits - Wildflower frame folder
Stampendous - Birthday Assortment stamp sentiment
Stickles - Broken China

The water here is getting very high, we are just outside of St. Louis on the Illinois side and the Mississippi is to crest to 46 feet. The town Alton that I showed in an early post, where I was standing to take the pictures is all under water, praying for all the people in these communities that are struggling with the water and those that have been impacted by all the tornadoes we are having across the country.

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

Connie

Frames

I am using another coloring calendar image today, and I usually have the same type layout for my cards using these pages since they are all the same size, when I saw the challenge over at Double D Challenges using frames I just had to give it a try and see if I could frame the image and it worked. 
I put two of my layering dies together to get the frame and popped it up from the image to give a little dimension to it.

This is an Anniversary card for my daughter, I colored with pencils and added a little glaze to the hearts and dotted vase.

Cheerful Journey 2018 calendar image, colored with pencils
Core essentials card stock- brights collection
Lawn Fawn - Fancy Scalloped Rectangles dies
Die-Versions - I love you die set
Nuvo Crystal Glaze, dots and hearts

Thanks so much for taking the time to drop by today,
Connie

Decoupage

More goodies from craft magazines, I know you probably think I can't pass one up but there are many I don't buy, LOL! When I saw all the shimmer that was on these decoupage sheets I just had to get them, when I got home and opened it up I realized they had cards with scenes on them and then you punch out the decoupage pieces and layering them.  Since this had to go through the mail I only did 3 layers but there were 5 and I am thinking I could possibly use the other two in another card, I would just have to come up with my own background.

What did I tell you, the art work is amazing isn't it, and the pieces all have a bit of glitter already on them.  On the background where you see the shimmer spots I added some Diamond toppings, I thought that let those stand out more that way. I need to ask my sister in law if they made it through the mail still on the card, for future cards :)

Papercraft Inspiration magazine, Issue 189, April 2019- Luxury Glitter Decoupage Kit
2.5 mm Diamond Toppings - Icicle

The card measures 4 1/4 x 5 3/4, they came with envelopes too.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Wedding

A young lady at our church is getting married and I went to her wedding shower this past Sunday, I won't be attending her wedding so I made her shower card more on a wedding theme. This is using the recent Cardmaking and papercraft goodies. Swan, flower swag and sentiment stamps, dies, heart die and papers all came from the magazine.

Perfect timing because Sisterhood of crafters blog is having a wedding/Anniversary challenge right now, you have until June 2nd to play along.

Since I didn't have to mail it I decided to do a square card and then to make it extra special I cut it from my Grand dies, I believe I used the 4 3/4 inch size for the base.

Did a little sponging behind the swans, popped them up and cut 2 hearts to give it more depth.

Cardmaking and Papercraft Magazine, April 2019 - Swans, flower swag, sentiment stamps, swan and heart dies and Paper
Spellbinders - Grand Labels one die

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today,
Have a Lovely and Safe Holiday as we remember all those who gave their lives for our country.

Connie

Birthday Party and Mississippi Flooding

Starting off with this birthday celebration card using a set I picked up at JoAnn's that was on sale.  The stamp set does not have a name to it, couldn't find it anywhere.

I first stenciled on the clouds for the background, using a die I cut the grass, then stamped on it. Colored all the animals, hats, balloons and banner, hand cut them out and popped them up.

Fiskars - Stamp set, colored w/markers
Distress inks - Tumbled glass for sky with cloud stencil
Poppystamps - stitched landscape die
D.R.S. design - Easy grass stamp using mowed lawn on colored cardstock

On May 13 we headed up to Alton Illinois that is just north of us on the Mississippi River, we had seen some of the flooding on TV, but every time it has flooded we never went up there, we decided to go check it out.

Here is a sign that is in a little park on the corner.

You can see in the following picture where they have put up barriers and sandbags trying to keep the water out, but it just went around the building on the left and came up another street.

This is the Casino in town, as you can see they were closed.

We decided to drive around and see if we could get to the river road on the other side of town and we came across this park that we didn't even know was here, it is on top of a cliff, this is looking down and as you can see a portion of it was out of the water but the rest of the road is in the water. This is the Great River Road, beautiful drive anytime but we love it in the fall.

This next picture is still on top of the cliff looking the other way, all of this should not be water as you can see the road down there is still above water but barely.

Since we knew we couldn't go any farther north we headed back down, but decided to stop at the Lock and Dam and I am glad we did because look who we caught flying over.

They went by pretty quickly but was glad to get at least a couple neat shots of them.

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

Connie

Embossing with dies

Memory Box challenge this month is to use embossing. I went with embossing one of my foliage dies from them and then also cutting out the die and laying it on top. I also used their owl dies to add to it,

I needed a card for my brother and since my kraft cardstock was on the thin side I decided to use a piece of chipboard I had and either I didn't use the correct sandwich in my Gemini machine or the cutting is just that good because it cut through in a couple of places and even gave me a deeper embossing than I had planned on, but it stands out nicely that way.

I used pattern paper for both the one I die cut out and for the owls, the wings and the eyes come out of the one owl die and then it also has a back die for each of them, I glued the wings back in but I let the brown paper that I backed it with be the eyes for the owls and I added some white gel pen to them.

Memory Box - Forest neighbors and Fresh Foliage dies
Fiskars - Essential Sayings sentiment stamp


I love when we can get more use out of our dies.  At the very end I decided to use some paint to make dots for the background and the paint was to thin and it just soaked into the chipboard.
You still have time if you want to play along in their challenge this month.

I thought I would share some pictures I took around my yard.

My hubby was gifted this lilac bush after his father passed away, we can't remember what kind it was but I think it was some type of miniature lilac.

Can you see the dew on the petals, I thought that was so pretty.

And last this robin was keeping an eye on things at the bird feeder.  I can't tell you how nice it was after we bought this feeder, we had so much problems with the squirrels coming and just dumping everything out of the old feeder and made a mess on the ground, now it is fun to watch them try to figure out how to get in the feeder.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Botanical

I just love these botanical layers from Tim Holtz, this is my second time using them, my husband says isn't that cheating but I say no, sometimes it is fun to add stickers and images to your card and all you have to do is add a little embellishment.

I also used his mixed media die and added another pattern paper behind.

Tim Holtz - Layers - Botanical and Mixed Media die
My Mind's eye - Quite contrary paper
Gina Marie stamps - Birthday words stamp
Sequins

Back on May 5th after church and some lunch, hubby and I decided to just go out for a drive and these are some pictures I took that day.

The fields were so colorful.

Every time I like to try and get close up pictures of the geese they always run away from me.

Hope you are enjoying a nice weekend,
Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Dazzles

Hot off the press has stickers they call Dazzles that are like the peel off stickers. Someone was selling a whole package, never used at the yard sale, these silver stickers came from the same sheet. I put the flower dazzle over my pattern paper and cut around the edges.

The ivy was cut on my Silhouette machine, I added a few veins using a foam mat and my stylus.

 Hot off the press - Dazzles - Floral stickers
Silhouette machine - Ivy
Raspberry Road designs paper
Sentiment stamp
Nuvo crystal drops

Hope you have a fantastic weekend,
Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Stitched blooms

I don't use my Washi tape enough and so when I saw the challenge over at PoppyStamps blog to use our Washi I thought here is my challenge, well I didn't end up using it in a very clever way but I did use some and this is a 5x7 card so I used a little more than I would have on an A2 size card :)

I used Poppystamps, stitched blooms trio, instead of layering them I used just one of each since I will be mailing this to Canada, I like to keep them as flat as possible and I wanted to add some enamel centers.

I had made some backgrounds awhile back and came across them and thought they would make pretty flowers. I added some sequin trim to the top of my Washi tape.

Poppystamps - Stitched Bloom Trio die set, watercolor background
Paper Studio - Washi tape
Simplicity - Sequin trim
Stampin up - Enamel Shapes
Inkadinkado - All Occasion sentiment stamp
Spellbinders - 5x7 Elegant Label 4 die

You have until May 29th if you would like to play along.

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

Connie

Potted flowers

Awhile ago I won some stamps off of Donna's blog HERE. I am using one of them today, a very clean and simple card. All of the stamps in the set are separate so every time you use them you can build the kind of bouquet you want, with or without the pot. 

 I stamped many of them on the background and then stamped others and cut them out so I could pop them up. I love the detail in the center of the flowers.

Sparkle n Sprinkle - Build a flower stamp set, colored w/markers
Graphic 45 - Botanical Tea
Clearly Whimsy stamps - Simple sentiments stamp
Wink of stella - clear glitter pen

I hope your week is off to a wonderful start,
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today,

Connie

Warm Hello

I am glad I was able to get a few cards done before my surgery to post while I am recovering. I did manage to see well enough to start working on a card last night, just slow going, eye sight is getting better every day, hoping by Sunday things will be pretty clear.

I am using another of my coloring calendar images using pencil once again. On the Spellbinder die I cut away part of the die.

Coloring for calm daily coloring calendar image, colored w/pencils
BasicGrey - Picadilly papers
Spellbinders - Marvelous Squares die
Papercraft magazine, sentiment and die cut tag and flowers
Brad

Wishing you a very fun and creative weekend,
Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Loss of Cat

I am giving this a try even though I still have very hazy eyesight. I think my vision right now is worse than before my surgery, but I did have my follow up appointment today and they said there were a couple places of swelling in my eye so that must be why it is so blurry. I had a bad day after surgery and last night but today seems to be much better so I am very thankful for that, can't wait for the swelling to go down so I can get back to creating.

I do have a card to share I made for a friend who lost her cat and she looked a lot like my Anna I lost a few years ago, so I tried to color this like her cat.

I added a bit of sparkle to the bees wings

Newtons nook designs- Newton's day dream, color w/markers
My Favorite things - cross -stitch  rectangle die
Paper salon - simply sentimental stamp
memory box - stitched rectangle layers dies

Thanks for the prayers said on my behalf for my surgery, I am behind on blogs but I am hoping I will be able to see small print tomorrow and I can start catching up on visiting everyone.
Hope you are having a good week,
thanks for stopping by,
Connie

Hi

Here today to share another coloring calendar image, throughout the year in the calendar there are many of these medallion/flower type images, and since there was no theme for today's card, just wanted to let her know I was thinking of her it would be the best time to use one of these images. I colored it once again with pencils.

It looked a bit plain to me on my embossed background so I added a strip of card stock that I die cut the bottom to give it a bit of a decorative edge and hopefully draw her eye to the sentiment there since it is a small Hi :)  Added a few sequins.

Coloring for calm calendar image, colored w/pencils
Darice - Brick wall embossing folder
Die'sire- Beautiful borders die
Hot off the press - Dazzles - tiny works & phrases sentiment sticker

I have a cataract surgery tomorrow in one eye and he is also cleaning up some scar tissue from my previous cataract surgery in my other eye, so I would appreciate your prayers for that.  Looking forward to being able to see good again :)

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

Connie

Thought of you..

There is a man in our church in his 80's who recently got a shingles shot and had every side effect from it but death. He was in bad shape but I am pleased to say that he is recovering very well from it now. His arm isn't quite back to what he could do before but he is determined to do his exercises and get it back in shape.  This man just amazes me, he always has a great smile on his face ask how you are doing. Very helpful around the church and does whatever he can, and he still works, he said he has to keep going.  I sent him this card.

This fern stamp was in a package of stamps I bought at the yard sale and the butterfly is from Tim Holtz collection. I did a little inking and shading around the stamped panel.

Memory Box - Fine Fern print stamp
Graphic 45 - Botanical Tea paper
Tim Holtz - Layers- Botanical
Papercraft Inspiration magazine - greeting tags stamp

Wishing you all a very fun and creative weekend,
Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Spring Hello

It is such a gloomy day here so I thought it would be a good day to post a nice spring card to brighten things up a bit.  I went back to my coloring calendar pages for this card, I liked the boots with flowers in them, colored it with my pencils and even tried using my mineral spirits to blend the colors, I didn't know if it would work as these coloring pages are quite thin but it seemed to work pretty well.

The tag I used came in the same paper pack as the background paper. I cut the image out, added it to the tag, punched a border and added my sentiment and a brad to the tag.

Coloring for calm daily coloring calendar image, colored w/pencils
Provocraft - paper and tag
Martha Stewart - Border punch
Bobunny - Sentiment stamp

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

Connie

April Challenge

Yes I do realize it is May now but I just happened to finish my Christmas cards for April last night and decided to wait until this morning when I wasn't so tired to write up the post :)

My stamping group challenge was for something that started with the letter D or she had a link to a technique called Dazzling Diamond Dust you can find it HERE.  I decided to go with that, it just so happened that in one of the bags of goodies I got from the yard sale had the embossing powder in it and I also bought this stamp from the sale.

One I stamped with black ink and the other with brown ink.  My hubby liked the brown ink and I liked the black. Hoping you can see the sparkle it gives to the whole background in the picture below.

It makes for a pretty sparkle to it, but talk about little fine glitter everywhere.  Thank goodness for those swiffer sheets to pick up all that glitter.

Stampendous - Christmas cottage stamp colored w/markers
Stampin up - Iridescent ice embossing folder over whole piece
Spellbinders - Ribbon banners
Simon says stamps - Tiny words Christmas sentiment stamp

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

Connie