Saturday, February 29, 2020

Mice

I managed to get some more Christmas cards done, YAH!!! if I can keep this up I may just be ready at Christmas time.

These stamps come from another Card making magazine, aren't they too cute, I couldn't pass them up :) I colored up two of these while I was at it.  That is what I am going to try to do from here on out is at least make two of each thing I do.



Make cards magazine, November 2018, Mice stamp, colored w/markers
Lilybee design- Jingle paper
Spellbinders - Classic Ovals Lg
Starform - border stickers
Stickles - x-mas red
Cardmaking and papercraft magazine - sentiment


On the next one I just changed it to a landscape card and cut them out with a rectangle die instead of oval. I had a little strip of the paper left and instead of throwing it away I added it to the bottom of the die cut.


Make cards magazine, November 2018, Mice stamp, colored w/markers
Lilybee design- Jingle paper
My Favorite things - Cross-stitch Rectangle die
Starform - border stickers
Stickles - x-mas red
Cardmaking and papercraft magazine - sentiment

Thanks so much for stopping by today, hope you have a fun and creative weekend!

Connie

Friday, February 28, 2020

For the girls

This time it is cards for the girls in the military members life to send out.

My first card used some premade flowers I have had for quite some time, before I started buying dies to make my own.


Colorbok - Layered flowers
Spellbinders - Romantic Rectangles two die
Crate paper - Party day paper
Martha Stewart - leaf punch
Cardmaking and papercraft - sweet sentiments

The next two are using some flowers from my coloring calendar, I tried to match the colors with the sentiment stickers I had.


Coloring for calm 2017 calendar - colored w/markers
Sticker sentiment
Spellbinders - Lg, deckled rectangle die
Partial cut from a embossing folder, rubbed w/ old paper distress ink


Coloring for calm 2017 calendar - colored w/markers
Sticker sentiment
Papers from my stash

We are supposed to have sunshine and in the 50's tomorrow, YAH!!  I hope you enjoy your weekend, thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today!

Connie

Thursday, February 27, 2020

For the guys

In my cardmaking group one of the girls is getting ready to send another box of cards to a military group deployed overseas, so they can send cards home.  As we know there are a lot of women that deploy too and so I made some masculine cards so that they can send some to their family members.

This first one I could even see going to a girl, but it was meant as a guy card.



Silhouette Cameo - Bird on branch die cut
Tim Holtz - wood grain embossing folder, inked with Walnut stain distress ink
Gina K - Tag line sentiment stamp
PPD - A2 Stitched Banner set die


Recollections -- wooden leaves
DCWV - Travel scrapbook papers
Ki - metal accents
Deckle scissor


Recollections - Embossing folder
EK Success - Dragonfly punch
My favorite things - Happy Greetings die set
Foiled paper

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

Connie

Wednesday, February 26, 2020

Nuts

Thanks so much to everyone for your advice on my flower on the last post, it is fun trying new techniques but not always knowing how to go with it can be challenging, I guess that is what is nice about art and the creative process is that it is up to the one creating, I have to try and remember to keep that in mind :)

I was in need of another masculine card and when I was going through my coloring calendar images a little while ago I had set aside these two images to use on a guy card, now I am not sure if the piece in the back was meant to look like a slice of tree or not but that is what I used it for.  I didn't like the way the nuts were on the original piece so I cut them out separately and scattered them around myself.  I colored this with pencils once again.


Coloring for Calm calendar 2017 - colored w/pencils
Hero Arts - Birthday messages stamp

It is really pretty outside this morning it is snowing and we have an inch so far, they say that it should end sometime around noon, this Sunday it is to make it back in the high 50's again, such a roller coaster of temperatures.

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

Connie


Monday, February 24, 2020

Add Leaves

I have been working on some water coloring with some Daniel Smith watercolors I bought and I painted this rose, I first stamped it using some embossing powder I had recently purchased from Altenew, I have been liking the flowers done using this color, so I had to give it a try.

The Flower challenge blog has a challenge for adding leaves, so I thought I would use one of the flowers I have been painting.  I decided to cut it out so I could add some die cut leaves to it, using some Tim Holtz dies.


First I water colored my background by adding some scattered straw distress ink to my glass mat then spritzing with water and laying my paper in it and smooshing it around.  I let the first layer dry and did a little more. I used some gold watercolor to add some extra spots to the background before adding my arrangement. 

All my leaves were cut from card stock except for the ones with the little berries on them, those I colored using my inks and a dauber to apply the ink.  The flower was popped up and the rest were glued directly to the background. Topped it all off with a few gems.

Hot off the press- Watercolor Roses stamp, embossed with Altenew Golden Peach embossing powder and watercolored with Daniel Smith watercolor paints
Scattered Straw distress ink for background, gold watercolor splattering
Tim Holtz- Funky Floral #3 dies
Heidi Swapp - Clear gems
Whimsy Stamps- simple  sentiments stamp


I have a question for you, my eye sight isn't the best and when I cut along something I usually leave a little white space because of that, well with the embossing I decided to cut right up to it and as you can see in the above picture there are some white where I didn't get it good enough, what would you do in that case, it isn't like when you use black ink and you can take a black pen to cover that up.  Honestly I couldn't even tell I had messed up until I was seeing this picture on my big computer screen, but was just curious.

The challenge ends tomorrow just in case you want to play along.



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

Connie

Saturday, February 22, 2020

Happy Birthday Cupcake!

My Favorite things has a sketch challenge that I thought would work perfect for my great nieces card.  I paper pieced her dress and hat but colored the rest with markers.


My Favorite things - Cupcake day stamp, paper piecing and coloring w/markers
Carta Bella - Alphabet Junction paper
Lawn Fawn - Fancy Scalloped Rectangle dies


Hope you are enjoying a fun and creative weekend!

Connie

Friday, February 21, 2020

Animals

There were a couple challenges out there to use animals on your card.  I thought that would be a good theme for my nephews card.  I used my homemade cloud stencil to ink up the sky.  I was hoping these sprigs would look like bushes but now looking at it they could be young trees.  I had some left over cardstock that I had embossed with a wood folder, thought that would make a good texture for the bears, I popped the larger one up on foam tape.


Poppystamps- Mama & baby bear, Stitched Landscape and leafy sprig dies
Memory Box - Flying birds die
Homemade cloud stencil for sky




I am linking my card today in the following challenges:
Poppystamps - Animal Menagerie
DiesRUs Challenge - Wild Things

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

Connie


Thursday, February 20, 2020

Hello

I wanted to make a card for a gentleman at church that is going through Chemo and isn't feeling very well.  When I saw the challenge at the Double D Challenge blog, I decided instead of having the outside say get well I would say that inside but have Hello as my greeting on the front.


I once again used my coloring calendar for the leaves and added a button that I stitched onto the card.

Donna shared in her post HERE how she embossed a brad to make it a different color, and I have a few dragonfly eyelets that are pastel colors and since I don't use those colors often they have been just sitting in my bin, so when I saw that she embossed hers I just had to give it a try and turn my light blue dragonfly into silver :)

Coloring for Calm 2017 calendar image, colored with pencils
Eyelet outlet - Dragonfly was blue embossed with silver embossing powder
Button stitched onto background
Hello die cut



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

Connie

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

13th

I bet you can't figure out how old my great nephew has turned :)  I have used this skateboard guy on a few of my teen cards.  I colored him up with markers going off the paper I used for the background.  The numbers and sentiment are from a sticker sentiment book.


Stampendous - Skateboard kiddo, colored w/markers
Crate paper - Party day
Spellbinders - A2 distressed edges and lg. deckled rectangles dies
K&co. - Vellum stickers and sentiment

A few of you have been asking about my eye, I have to take the eye ointment he prescribed for a week, then go off it and see how my eye feels, they said those abrasions can take a while to heal, so after the week if my eye is feeling ok I should be good and I can quit the ointment but if not I may have to use until that feeling goes away.  But I am no longer in pain, just irritating and I can live with that :)

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

Connie

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Deer in a Row

This stamp reminded me of a Scandinavian print, and I noticed that they do a lot of repeat patterns so that is how I came up with this design of my card. I added a few dots with my white pen for a snowy background and added some border stickers in white to frame the red piece.


Stamp from Make cards Nov. 2018 magazine, embossed with white detail embossing powder
My Minds eye - O Christmas tree paper
Hot off the press - White Jewel border stickers
White gel pen

I had planned on making two of these cards, I thought I had cut the red piece the same, but after I finished stamping and embossing the second set I realized that my paper was a 1/2 an inch bigger than the first so it would not fit onto my card base, and instead of making a larger card, I went with cutting them out individually and making 3 more cards.


Stamp from Make cards Nov. 2018 magazine, embossed with white detail embossing powder
My Minds eye - O Christmas tree paper
Memory Box - Stitched Rectangle layer die
Stamp in up - Frosted snowflake Sequins
Simon Says - Tiny words Christmas sentiment stamp



Stamp from Make cards Nov. 2018 magazine, embossed with white detail embossing powder
My Minds eye - O Christmas tree paper
Spellbinders - Labels twenty - nine dies
Simon Says - Tiny words Christmas sentiment stamp



Stamp from Make cards Nov. 2018 magazine, embossed with white detail embossing powder
My Minds eye - O Christmas tree paper
Hero Arts - Wood frame die
Spellbinders - Deckled rectangle die
Simon Says - Tiny words Christmas sentiment stamp

I am linking this up with CAS Christmas card challenge blog and Merry Little Christmas challenge blog

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

Connie

Monday, February 17, 2020

Sweet Day

It has been awhile since of have colored up an image from my coloring calendar, I don't know about you but I am so ready for spring to come, so why not color up some bright flowers.



Coloring for calm calendar 2017, colored w/pencils
Paper Studio - Mulberry neutrals paper
My Favorite things -  Label Maker sentiment stamp
Nuvo crystal drops - Pale gold

I added a little water with a paint brush about the size my card base is and then tore along the water marks to get the frayed mulberry paper


Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today and I wish you a wonderful week ahead!!

Connie

Saturday, February 15, 2020

Layers

Do you have all those extra pieces of paper from cutting up your 6x6 inch paper packs?  At least that is where I think these came from I couldn't throw them away, but they are starting to take up too much room so it was either use them or throw them away, I only managed one card with them, but loved how it turned out.


My card making group had a discussion about storing scraps, I probably keep more than I should, but if I like them I have a hard time parting with them.

Pink Fresh Studio - Classic Edgers dies
Memory box - leavenworth butterfly trio die
Sizzix -  Tim Holtz - Wildflower Stem #2 die
Stamps of life - Stand up for sentiments stamp
Craftaroo - gems



My hubby said to say thanks for the nice comments you made about his card, he said he had forgotten when Valentine's was with all the doctors appointments we both have had in the last couple of weeks, and when he saw the girls working on those bags he realized he needed to get a card made so he felt bad it was just a quickie but I think it is terrific :)

Hope you all have a great rest of your weekend.

Connie

Friday, February 14, 2020

Valentine

Hubby and I exchanged our valentine cards this morning, I had to laugh because he laughed at the outside and then opened it up and had this funny look on his face and he turned it around and showed me a blank inside, now this is the second time this has happened to me, I said well the front says it all :)


One of the girls in my stamp group sent me these stickers last year and I don't care for coffee but my hubby does so I thought he would like it.  I placed the coffee cups and donut stickers onto white  card stock, colored them with markers and hand cut them out, adding some glossy accents to the icing of the after adding a but of sprinkles to the icing.

Krazy Kreations - Coffee and Donuts outline stickers, colored w/markers
DCWV - Timeless Texture paper
Glossy Accents on icing

Hubby made mine during a break at work, I guess the girls were making up little packets to give away and there were fake roses on top, they didn't need them all and hubby said can I have a few of those petals and leaves and they said sure, his glue was all dried up so he used a stapler to attach them to the card and then did some doodling to finish it off, isn't it cute how the petals look like a heart :)


Update on my eye, I just got home from the doctors today, he looked all over then took out my contact and the pain was still there, he looked again to check the scratches and they were still there, he put some numbing stuff in my eye to lesson the pain and did some more digging, still couldn't find anything, he had me sit out in the waiting room for 15 minutes so that the numbing stuff would wear off again, when he called me back in he thought maybe it was like a calcium dot under the lid so he did more scrapping of the under part of my I lid even with the antibiotic drops that was still red, he put some more drops in my eyes that highlights scratches and as he was scraping and had my looking at the ceiling all of a sudden he saw a little something and pulled it out with twizzers, I saw it too and he went to get a tissue to put it on so we could look at it and he dropped it, so we are not sure what it was but the sharp pain is gone, now all I have is the pain from the scratches and I can totally deal with that while they heal, I am so glad he didn't give up and he gave it another try .  Thank you all for your prayers and best wishes, I should be on my way to total healing now :)

Happy Valentines day!!

Connie

Thursday, February 13, 2020

Live in the moment

One of the girls in my card making group sent me some embossed backgrounds she had made and this one looks like she used some alcohol inks on the background.  I had this vellum sentiment and I thought it would work with the background with clocks on it.


I added a few gear dies that I cut from metallic papers and a brad to help hold the vellum onto the background, I have tiny glue dots under the gears also!

Embossing folder for background
JoAnn essentials - Vellum Quotes and sentiments
Spellbinders - Lg. deckled Rectangle die
Mini gears dies
Brad

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

Connie

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Joe cool

I was going through all my goodies lately trying to use some of my oldies but goodies and came upon an image a friend had sent me years ago that I hadn't colored up, thought it would be perfect for my great nephew.

Using a new circle die I picked up at my stamp store recently, I seem to go toward jagged edges for my masculine cards.


Stampabilities - Joe cool, colored w/markers
Echo park - Fine and Dandy paper
Memory box - stitched circle layers die
Crafters companion - Torn edge circle die
Taylored Expressions - Many Mini occasions stamp sentiment
Die Versions- Stitched Nesting stars


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

Connie

Tuesday, February 11, 2020

Sunshine

For my last challenge, we were to make a card using at least 3 items from a list of things that are in the sky, I picked Sun, clouds and bird.  My wink of stella I put on the sun was working pretty good until the end and then it just came out in a gush again, uggghhh, so the center looks a bit dirty, we will say a cloud was going over it. Do you remember those stamps we use to buy for $1.50 I think it was at Michaels, well I think that is where the bird stamp came from, it is just a little mini set with the bird flowers and a sentiment, I didn't use the sentiment here, letting the bird be my sentiment.  The sun is a stencil and the clouds are punches, I stamped the bird directly on the background but stamped the flowers onto a pink paper and cut them out.


Joggles - Sunshine stencil
Inkadinkado - Bird & flowers stamp
Fiskars - cloud punches
Spellbinders - A2 matting basics A die
wink of stella on sun

I am sharing my card with the Mix it up challenge- Use a stencil

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

Connie



Sunday, February 9, 2020

Cardboard

I will have to say this was my favorite of the challenges just because I had never done anything like it and I love getting more ideas for masculine cards, since I have so many guys in my family I make cards for.


You need some cardboard that has the corrugated inside, tear off a portion of the cardboard, leaving some behind to paint over so you have an area you can stamp on. It is hard to see but I used grey ink to go around the torn edges and over the paint on the corrugated area. Stamped the mountains in light gray ink, the deer, sentiment and the birds in black. My deer was a little spotty so I went over that with black pen, used a little marker at the base of the mountains and the deer.

Cardboard partially torn
Folkart paint- Acrylic, Dove Gray
Gina K - Framescapes, Winter trees stamp set
Distress ink - Hickory smoke
memento - london fog ink - mountains
Versafine - Black, deer, birds and sentiment
Markers- base of mountain and deer

Thanks so much for stopping by today, have a wonderful Sunday!

Connie


Saturday, February 8, 2020

Glitzy challenge

The next challenge we had was to add some glitz to our cards with stencils and glitter, we could use any medium we wanted through a stencil to add our glitter too.  On this first one I used Goldens molding paste along with some yellow glitter, thought it would look pretty against this blue paper.


Going through my sentiments I found this one and thought it would be perfect, I mounted it onto some silver foil and since I had a lot of shimmer already I used a butterfly plain to go with it.

You can see a bit more of the shimmer in this close up.


Fun Stampers Journey - Starburst lines stencil, with Golden Molding paste and Bananan Art Glitter
Spellbinders - Noble Rectangle
Sentiment from cardmaking and papercrafts magazine
Sizzix - Adhesive foil sheets
Tim Holtz - Botanical layers (butterfly)

We were asked to do a couple and when looking at the blue cardstock I had out I thought that would make a pretty sky background but didn't have any good stencil so I made my own by cutting out a background die I had out of thick card stock.  One of the suggestions to use through the stencil was PVA glue, I started looking through my glues and found one had dried up, more room in my drawer now :)  but my Fast Grab Tacky glue was still good, so that is what I used here, adding some cool diamond glitter to it.


I ended up turning it from a night scene to a winter scene card.

Memory Box - Starry night Background die, with Aleene's Fast Grab tacky glue and Elizabeth craft designs, cool diamond glitter
Cardmaking & paper craft - Christmas capers stamp, colored wmarkers
Zig 2 way glue pen to add glitter to my stamped image


yes I have glitter everywhere but it is fun to get it out and use it every now and then.

Wishing you a wonderful weekend and thanks again for all your prayers and well wishes for my eye.

Connie

Friday, February 7, 2020

Vintage

I made a card using the other background from yesterday's post. Since Tim's stencils don't cover the whole A2 card I had to figure out what to do with the other side, I went with adding a border die and some ribbon, it needed some extra color I thought and used a tea bag for the doily under my flower ephemera.   I wasn't sure about the background until I finally made it into a card and now I like it :)


Tim Holtz - Gothic Stencil and Botanical layers ephemera(Rose)
Spellbinders - Floral Doily Motifs die cut from used tea bag
Die'sire - Beautiful borders die
Our Daily Bread design - Mini tag sentiment
Martha Stewart - tag punch
Offray - ribbon

I went to see the eye doctor yesterday, he said the scratch on my cornea is healing well but the ones (yes I have multiple) in the white of my eye are not healing, so he took out the contact to see how it felt and I had the stabbing feeling once again, so he went and got another contact and put it in my eye and we are to wait another week and see if it heals, I was too afraid to ask what if it doesn't.  We are finally seeing the sun today after so many gloomy days but the sun or any bright light is still bothering to my eye, so that's a bummer.  I appreciate your prayers.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Thursday, February 6, 2020

Adding depth

I was actually doing better last night so I have started some of the challenges from my stamp group.  I wasn't very clear on my post, my sister called and let me know, I had scratched not only the cornea of my eye but also into the white area, forgot what he called it, so bad that he wasn't sure if the contact would cover it all, but it did enough to take the pain away, I am still very light sensitive but doing much better.  Thank  you all for your well wishes and prayers I am so thankful for them all, you are all so sweet.  My hubby has turned down the background of my computer so that I can work on it and so I am hoping that my pictures will look ok on your computer :)
You can find Beth's challenge HERE on her blog.  

Hubby said that these stencils I chose to use weren't the best for this technique but he looked through all I have and said yeah you don't have any that would really show this technique well, so I just went with what I had :)

The color marker I came up with to give depth to the rays was almost a match but the only other color I had was the orange and I didn't like that at all. You can see a touch of it at the bottom of the rays, I tried covering it up with the sentiment.


Here is a close up of the rays with the marker adding depth.




Tim Holtz - rays stencil, w/ Distress inks, Carved pumpkin and fossilized amber
Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine sentiment
Sparkle confetti

Here are the two together after adding using markers and on the brown one I used colored pencil on the light parts as I didn't have a marker that color and I want to make a vintage card out of that one.


Thanks for stopping by,

Connie

Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Celebrate

Wow I had quite the weekend, well it started last week like I felt I had something in my eye, which happens often so I didn't think much about it but while in the shower on Saturday I itched my eye and that was the wrong thing to do because the pain was unbearable, finally went to urgent care, they washed it out, numbed me up and sent me to get some antibiotic drops.  By Sunday it was all swollen on that side of my face and blood shot red.  I can't even go into what happened on Monday trying to get an appointment with my eye doctor but leave it to say yesterday afternoon he put a contact in with some medicine and said that should lesson the pain and it has done that it is bearable now but hard to look at screens for too long, even turning down the light and I also put a patch on my eye which puts strain on my other eye, just to say I feel like a big mess.  So I will be visiting your blogs a little at a time so it may take me some time to catch up with everyone.

Thought I would share a quick card.



Avery Elle - Critter Crew, colored w/markers
K&co. - Basics Radiant paper pad
Martha Stewart - Border punch
Hero Arts - It's your day sentiment
Spellbinders - Labels trio die
Confetti from other dies

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Connie

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Embossed Vellum

My stamp group is having a week of challenges and it starts today, I am sharing the challenge I had for everyone to try and that is a dry emboss technique on vellum by using stamps as your pattern.
I found the idea on this blog HERE.



You pick a stamp that doesn't have to much detail, I think that would be a bit hard to trace.  You stamp your stamp using versamark ink, then you go over those lines with your stylus using a mat or mouse pad, I used a piece of craft foam I had.  Going over it once again helps bring the lines out better.  I used the same stamp to stamp my flower onto pink cardstock.  I put some adhesive behind the flower and sentiment but also used brads in the corners to attach my vellum to my dark piece of pink card stock behind the vellum. Topped it off with pearls.

Inkadinkado - Nature stamp set
Vellum
Versamark ink to stamp onto vellum
Dark pink card stock under vellum
Flower stamped again onto pink card stock, using distress oxide candied apple 
Sentiment from cardmaking and papercraft magazine
Brads 
Forever in time - pearls


Let me know if you give it a try, would love to see what you come up with!

Have a wonderful and creative weekend!

Connie