Graduation

When we went home to Michigan we had our family reunion and Open house for my nephew, he is graduating High school. My last nephew to graduate. From here on out they will be great nieces and nephews.

His school colors are red and white so that is why I went with these colors. I broke out my Silhouette Cameo to cut out this grad that I found in the Silhouette store, it came with a girl jumping in the air also :) Popped him up with foam tape for more dimension, Stenciled the background and the sentiments were all done with dies.

Silhouette Cameo - Jumping Grad
Memory Box - Alphabet tiles die
Taylored Expressions - Whimsy#s
Tim Holtz - Rays stencil

Thanks for stopping by, hope you enjoy a wonderful Sunday!

Connie

Puffies and Garden

I am back from a week in Michigan, we had beautiful weather while home visiting family and when it did rain while we were up North was when we were not out wanting to get pictures and needed some down time so it was a great week. I haven't had the chance to go through my pictures but if any turned out from the trip I will share later.

First off the puffies are these flowers and butterflies I had found at Tuesday morning a few years back and I still have them, they are sewn together and have stuffing inside to give them the dimension, I was hand delivering this card so no worries about how thick it was :)   trying to use some of my old along with some of my new :)

Sassafras - Mix and Mend paper
Ki - puffies (flowers and butterfly)
Cheery Lynn Designs - Fanciful flourish die
Sequins

I just love when the paper does most of the work for the background.

Sharing my potted garden that is on my deck, I have some bad but some good too.

First off my Spinach just was never growing, then when I looked closer it looked like something was eating it, I thought maybe bugs, although I couldn't see any, then one evening I heard some noise on the deck so I went out to investigate and a whole family of raccoons were on my back deck, although the babies were cute I yelled at them to leave and they waddled away crying like I had hit them. So I am thinking that is who has been messing with my spinach.

Now on the other hand my Romaine lettuce is doing very well, I have even picked some since and it is getting full again.

Whoever is eating my spinach does not care for Romaine lettuce, isn't that funny, they are right beside each other.

I have my peppers growing out in the garden in the yard and the plants seem to be growing well but not getting much peppers so I don't know how well they are going to do this year, although a friend said they love the heat and it is warming up here so they should be taking off soon.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and I am still trying to play catch up on visiting blogs,

Connie

Sangchris Lake State Park

Usually we head south or west to Missouri when we go to a park but since there has been a lot of flooding in those areas we decided to check out a park we hadn't been to before, Sangchris Lake State Park. There were many areas to stop and look at the lake with nice picnic areas. I forgot to take a picture of the area where we had our picnic but this was another stop we went to.

Then we stopped where there were all kinds of geese.

They were so cute walking around.

We were heading to a different area of the park and this deer ran across the road, by the time I grabbed my camera she was running to the woods.

Then she stopped when my hubby stopped the van and she turned to look at us.

Since we have been getting so much rain, everything is so lush and green, so thankful for those days we get a break from the rain to enjoy getting out.

Thanks so much for stopping by today,
Back with a card next time,

Connie

Birthday

I used a sketch from Pagemaps for my card today. The flowers are from a Jolee's pack you can get the craft stores in the sticker isle.

All the papers I used today were in my scrap bin.

Spellbinders - Eyelet Circles die
Jolee's Boutique- blue jeweled flowers sticker
Gina marie - Birthday words sentiment stamp
PPD - A2 Stitched Banner set

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

Connie

Thinking of you

Our Youth Pastors wife's Grandpa passed away. I decided to break out some of my Rub ons to see if they were still good and sure enough they worked great, although I wish I had planned it out better, I much rather have put the sentiment on top, but it worked better under the butterfly since I went too high with it.  The tag is one my sister gave to me awhile ago and thought it worked nice here.  The paper was perfect with it too, I tried going for a masculine feel to the card.

The framing was already on the tag so I just added the butterfly and sentiment. I had just the right amount of ribbon left as long as I was able to tie it with a piece of string I had.

BasicGrey - Periphery paper and Wholy Cow! Rub ons for butterfly and sentiment
Paula Deen tag pad
Ribbon
Thread

I thought I would also share some pics from an evening we went to a Peabody Natural area that isn't very far from us.

The thistles were very thick and all though they are very prickly I think they look so cool as they are opening up.

When we drove down to the water there was a Heron, I tried to get him from the road before he flew away and this is the best pic I got of him.

I was driving and as we were heading back out I saw something to the side of the road and stopped the van and this is what I saw, two little rabbits, you could tell they were nervous but one of them was very interested in eating something and so he didn't mind me taking his picture.

Hope you all enjoy a wonderful weekend!
Thanks for stopping by,
Connie

Two with one

After I made my first card, I was getting ready to put away all my supplies and thought you know I could use the same stamp set and paper pack for another card, so I ended up using both stamps in this set but with a little different layout.

The papers and stamps are from a magazine, both stamps had the name of the flowers right onto them.  I kind of tried to match the coloring of the stamps to that of the paper. Below you can see the new little gems I found at the stamp convention, they are so sweet and sparkle, I had to pick them up.

Going Potty stamps and paper set from Magazine
Spellbinders - Scalloped borders two die
Queen & co. - Petite Posies , pink gem
Technique Tuesdays - Happy Birthday sentiment stamp

My next card went very quickly because I used an old sketch, but I did use a new technique one of the girls in my stamp group suggested.  Taking our nuvo drops or enamel dots and add them to our mat then stick our stylus into it and add the dots onto our projects that way.  I use to do tole painting years ago and I used that technique all the time with paint, so I thought I would try it here.

Here is a close up of how the dots turned out using this technique. I don't think they turn out as full as just applying them straight from the jar but they were nice and rounded.

Going Potty, stamps and papers from magazine, colored w/markers
PPD - Stitched Mini Scalloped borders
Stamped sentiment, unknown

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Connie

MFT Sketch 442

My favorite things blog has a sketch challenge that I thought I would play along, you can check it out HERE.

For the arch I used a left over piece I had sitting on my desk from a previous card, thought it kind of looked like sun rays. I used a sponge that already had a little bit of gold onto it, so when I added the oxide ink to it, I ended with a glittery piece, which worked perfectly.
 Mulberry Paper that I cut by wetting the sides and pulling on the paper made my sky. I colored the little girl with markers and used my blender pen to add some texture to her little dress. Since the sentiment that came with the stamp didn't fit the sketch very well I added another from MFT's sentiment stamp sets.

My Favorite things - Blooming good day, colored w/markers and More Essential Sentiments stamp set
Paper Studio - Mulberry Paper
Memory Box - Stitched Circle layers die
Left over top piece, colored w/ Distress Oxide - Scattered Straw

You have until the 25th at noon to play along with the sketch challenge.

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

Day outing

I was going through my pictures and found this folder that I had never shared of our day trip we took back in May. 

First up is a few pictures from Hickory Canyon Natural Area, Missouri. This area was right off the road and there was a trail on either side, hubby wanted to get some pictures of a waterfall that was supposed to be down there. Of course it wasn't too hard going down until we hit an area that was just too rugged for me, so hubby went on by himself to get some pictures of it, going back up was quite the chore.

I loved the texture on this tree, do you think they will ever make embossing folders for our card making with this much texture :)

We saw so many plants that we haven't seen before at both places we went.

Next up we went to Hawn State park, Missouri we picked a trail to walk down and after you walk back a ways you can hear the creek running through, so pretty with that and the songs of the birds, it was a really nice walk, you had to do a little walking off the path to get down to the water.

When we got to this area of the path it was looking a little to rocky for my taste, I am a little nervous about twisting my ankle or falling when it get's this rocky so we decided to turn around.

The picture above is how the trail was up until we hit all those rocks.

On our way out of the park we pulled over and took a picture of this field, so pretty with it's different types of wild flowers.

I will be back tomorrow with another card, I just had so many pictures to share I thought I would just share those today.

Thanks so much for stopping by today.

Connie

Sketch

In my cardmaking group we have a sketch challenge every now and then and the girl that supplies our sketches for us had her birthday coming up just after so I used the sketch for her birthday card.

I used a stained glass collection stamp from my cardmaking magazine, colored it with markers.

Cardmaking and papercraft magazine - Stained glass collection stamps, colored w/markers
Sassafras - Mix and Mend papers
PPD - A2 Stitched Banner set

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

Connie

Graduations

We had a couple graduations to kids that we have known since we moved here. So neat to see how the kids grow and what they plan on doing with their lives. They both were graduating from the same high school, but both feminine and masculine.

I did the cards in their school colors.

Spellbinders - Lattice Rectangle, sentiments one and back to basics tag dies
Prima flowers
Craftaroo - Clear rhinestones
Button brads
Brads colored w/yellow marker for flower centers

Spellbinders - Sentiments one and A2 Distressed Edges dies
Taylored Expressions - Whimsy #, Balloons and confetti dies
Pebbles - Candy dots

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie