End of Christmas in July

Wow can you believe we have made it to the end of July.  I bought these Penny Black stickers last year and never used them, so I had them in a spot that I would see them, which meant always moving them and putting them back, I decided that's it, July is almost over it is time to make more Christmas cards and use these stickers.

I am going to share them in order of which ones I liked the most.

Penny Black - Christmas song sticker

Graphic 45 - Christmas emporium paper

Cottage Cutz - Holly Branch w/bow die, colored w/markers

Martha Stewart - Snowflake border punch

Spellbinders - Holiday sentiment die

Penny Black - Christmas song sticker

Simon Says - Tiny words Christmas stamp

Kaisercraft - pearls

Brown card stock

Penny Black - Christmas song sticker

Bobunny - Father Christmas paper

DCWV - Metallic paper

Spellbinders - Holly & Poinsettia die

Cardmaking and Papercraft - sentiment

Gems

Penny Black - Christmas song sticker

My mind's eye - O Christmas tree paper

Memory Box - Stitched Rectangle layers die

Tim Holtz - Funky Florals #3

Simon Says - Tiny words Christmas sentiment stamp

Penny Black - Christmas song sticker, matted on brown card stock

Graphic 45 - Christmas Emporium paper

Spellbinders - Candlewick Rectangles die

sentiment die

Gems

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Connie

Framed

Memory Box's challenge this month is using a Frame, I have a few of their frame dies but this one I hadn't used in a little while so I just had to break it out.  I cut out two and layered them.  This is the first time I looked up the Jasmine flower and they are white with yellow centers so I decided to color them that way in this card.  I also took some flowers from another one of their sets that looked close to the picture I found and used them for the inside of the frame and also used one of their birds, flying up to land on the frame :)

Memory Box - Framed Challenge

Memory Box - Jasmine Frame, Seraphine Laurel (flowers) Contempo Birds dies
Spellbinders - A2 matting basics A die
DCWV - Timeless Texture paper
Whimsy stamps - Simple sentiment stamp
Stickles - Scattered Straw (flower centers)

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

Connie

Christmas Globe

I am pretty excited about the amount of Christmas cards I am getting done this month, that will help this fall when I have many birthday cards to make.

My local stamp store is closing in two weeks, so very sad, now I will have to travel over into Missouri to go to a stamp store and it is close to an hour away instead of just 10 minutes.  She is having some sales and I found this stamp set where the globe is separate and so I can put any image inside as long as it is small enough, so I thought it would be a good investment.  This house and the sentiments came with the set so that is what I used first.

I love that vine on the roof, colored it with markers and then fussy cut it out and added a little pine branch border for it to sit on.  I also remembered my white flocking I have so I used that for the snow on the door.

Penny Black - Cozy nights stamp set, colored w/markers

white flocking for snow

Paper studio - Cozy Christmas paper

Martha Stewart - Border punch

Nuvo Crystal glaze in windows

Next up I decided to try it with a horizontal card.

Changed up the colors I used to color it, different sentiment and the papers. But all from the same things in my first card.

Hubby mentioned I need to do some snow inside the globe like it was just shaken, thinking of adding some white paint splatters, what do you think, should I add them or leave it as is.

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

Connie

Goodbye

Today was our Pastor and his families last Sunday here, they got a call to a church in Naples Florida.  

Can you guess why I picked a beach scene as their going away card :)  The stamps I used is from one of my recent Card making magazines, well before the pandemic happened and I quit getting magazines. In order to fit everything on the card I decided to make a 6x6 inch card.

I googled those beach bungalows or cabins to see if they are usually all colored or are the doors separate colors, and most that I saw had white doors, so that is what I went with, hubby said wow their house is small when he saw this, and I said that is a beach hut not a house, LOL!  I went with paper piecing the umbrella before I cut the whole thing out.  The chair I did  a bit of knife work to get into those little pieces along with fussy cutting.  I had to add a seagull from the set too :)  I cut the sand piece and grass piece out with my dies, added a little grass stamp and some dots for the sand with my sharpie pen.  The sun was from a circle die and I just inked it up, the clouds are a punch.

Cardmaking and Papercraft - Day at the seaside stamp set, colored w/markers and paper piecing on umbrella

Teresa Collins - Tell your story paper

Poppystamps - Stitched Landscape dies

DRS designs - Easy grass background stamp

Spellbinders - Inverted Scalloped circles die

Fiskars - Cloud punch

Inkadinkado - All Occasions sentiment stamp

I would like to add this to the following challenges:

Sisterhood of Crafters :Anything Ocean or beachy

Double D Challenge: Let's got to the beach 

Hope you have enjoyed a nice relaxing weekend,

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

Connie

Lovely Day

This card came together quite quickly, using Paper, image panel and sentiment tag all from the same card magazine goodies!!  We miss going to the book store and looking at our favorite magazines.  Not long after they opened the store we went in to see what they had and the magazine shelves were pretty empty, so weird to see that, I wonder how long it will take for us to get the UK magazines back in stock.

I went through my ribbon drawer and round this piece of sheer ribbon to add to it and then I saw this lace that I have and it looks like a butterfly pattern in it so I had to add that too :)

Cardmaking and Papercraft magazine - Fairy tales, paper, image and sentiment panels

Butterfly lace

Sheer ribbon

Wishing you a lovely weekend!!

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

Connie

Batik Stamping

It is my turn this week to have a challenge in my stamp group and I had just recently seen a card on Pinterest that I thought was so pretty, that I would like for us to give it a try.  Layers of heat embossing with either stamps and stencils or as I did used all stamps. Layering different colors of ink as you go.

You can find the tutorial for this technique HERE .

I was pretty happy with the results on both my cards except I think I would cut out the crumpling of my paper, since I used heavier papers all it did was put big creases in it and not sure if I care about that or not.

First I did a Birthday card, using a new dragonfly stamp as my main focus with flowers and leaves stamped for my background. The dragonfly was very easy to line up to stamp the different layers.

Heidi Grace - Winnefred St. Stamp set (flower)

Papertrey Ink - Mighty Oak stamp set (leaves)

Distress inks - Bundled Sage and Peeled Paint

Distress Oxide - Crushed Olive

Tim Holtz - Mixed Media card stock (for background) and Wildflowers Stems #2 die

Hero Arts - Color Layering dragonfly (3 layers of ink) and All occasion messages for little leaf

Gemini - Happy Birthday die

Wink of stella - clear sparkle pen

I put a little sparkle on his wings but I don't know if you can see it even on the side view.

Next I wanted to try a Christmas card since I am on a roll with getting a lot of them done this month.

Inkadinkado - 95901.L (snowflake stamp)

Hampton Arts - Snowflake cluster stamp

Hero Arts - Birthday messages stamp for the little dark snowflakes

Distress inks - Speckled Egg, tumbled glass and faded jeans

Memory Box - Winsome snowflake die

Cuttlebug - Snowflakes dies

Simon Says stamp - Tiny words Christmas stamp

It's a fun technique if you just want to get inky and use your stamps!

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

Connie

Summer Birthday

One of the girls in my card making group that I have known since starting card making asked if we could make a card for her Grandpa turning 97, since he can't have a party she wants him to be flooded with cards.  I went to my coloring calendar images and found this truck hauling watermelon and I thought now that would make a good summer time birthday card :)

I first colored it with markers, adding a little brown to look like those trucks with the wood details and then took my Rusty Hinge ink to add a few rust spots to the truck, it has to be an old farm truck taking the watermelon to the farmers market.

The road and sky were done with distress inks, using my homemade sky stencil and adding some white lines in the road with my gel pen.

Color for Calm 2017 coloring calendar image, colored w/markers and Distress ink, rusty hinge

Distress inks - Tumbled glass and Black Soot for background

Nuvo Crystal Glaze on window

White and Silver gel pens

Fiskars - Essential Sayings stamp sentiment

I think you can tell a little better here that I used Nuvo crystal glaze on the windows and some silver gel pen and silver marker on rims and truck details.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today and saying Hi, can you believe we are half way through another week.

Connie

Slant angle Z-fold card

Our stamp group had another Zoom meeting this past week and I don't think she ever mentioned what the name of this style card is but I did a little googling and found some call it Slanted Z fold, others call it Zig Zag fold, so if you want to learn more about it you can search those names.

We were to have our papers picked out ahead of time and told to find at least 3 stamps to put on our card about 2 x 2 inched each, I decided to go with a bird theme on my card.  I stamped, colored and die cut the front bird but the birds I used on the inside of the card I went with stamping them directly onto pattern paper before fussy cutting them out.

We made a Belly band to hold the card together and that is what I attached my sentiment to.

We applied the paper to a card stock backing, and told to stamp a one inch stamp so that is what you see when the card is closed instead of just seeing plain card stock.  I went with a feather stamp that is in the same stamp set as the birds I used on the inside.

Since I was in a bit of a rush while stamping on zoom, (I feel like I am the slowest one in the group) I only did the part that you can see when the card is closed but I think it would look nice to stamp the whole background and may still do that before I send it.

When it is all open

Close up of just the birds on the inside, I had to add a branch for the middle bird to sit on.

Our Daily Bread designs - You will find refuge stamp, colored w/markeres and Chickadee die
Craft Smith - Sea glass paper
Memory Box - Stitched Circle layers die
Crafty Secrets - Bird Notes stamp set, stamped on pattern paper
Spellbinders - Cherry Blossom (Branch die)

Sorry I forgot to write down the companies that make all the sentiment stamps.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend and that you have a nice week ahead!
Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today and say Hi,

Connie

Reindeer fun

In my stamp group challenge this week we were given a slimline card challenge and she showed us an example and we were to use either color scheme, layout or any other inspiration from it, I went with the layout.  I had these cute little reindeer that would work great for the layout of the card.

I will have to say I am not happy with my choices of browns, why can't I find browns that seem to work well with each other, uggghhh.  I even tried some new pens to no such luck, even in my colored pencils I can't seem to find good browns.  If you have a favorite set of 3 colors of brown you like in the pens you own I would love to hear :)

I thought this tree pattern paper would be a nice backdrop for the reindeer. Cut holes with my die. There are little ornaments in the set and I stamped them onto the background.

Mama Elephant - Reindeer Fun stamp and die set, colored w/markers
Paper Studio - Cozy Christmas paper
Gemini - Torn edge circle die

I am adding my card to the Sisterhood of Crafters Ink it up challenge.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hi, and have a wonderful creative weekend!

Connie

Christmas Cardinals

Northwoods stamps are always so pretty and when I saw this stamp set on sale after Christmas I just had to pick it up.

I mixed up the coloring a little bit since I was doing multiples of this one.  I changed up the colors of the lantern, trying to make some look like wood and others to look like steel.  Also the colors of the candles and the different items I used for snow.  I tried faux snow first and it was a bit too chunky for such a small area of snow I thought.  Then I tried glitter and then stickles which is like glitter glue and that seemed to be what I liked the most in the end.

Sharing some close ups so you can see the differences in them.

Northwoods Rubberstamps - Cardinal Snowy fence & lantern stamp set, Colored w/markers

Diamond Stickles

Faux snow

Elizabeth Craft designs - Cool Diamond glitter

July is my lowest birthday month of them all so this is the month I really need to work on getting Christmas cards done and it just happens to be the hottest month of the year, just feels crazy!

Hope you all are having a good week so far, we had some big rains come through last night with Tornado warnings but we did ok here and it left us with some cooler weather, In the 80's today instead of 90's, need to enjoy it, this weekend the heat index is to reach into the 100's.

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

Connie

First Class

Since this stamp is quite small I thought I would use some of the scraps from this paper pack to bring more interest to the card.  I love seeing others cards with a lot of white space but for some reason I have to have color and patterns going on too.

I went with a feminine theme with the punched border and pearl trim.

I have fussy cut around the stamp and then popped it up with foam tape.  I stamped the sentiment right onto  the background paper.

Hot off the press - Postage stamp, colored w/pencils
Tim Holtz - Vintage shabby paper (top panel)
Teresa Collins - Tell your story papers
Recollections - Bling on a roll
Martha Stewart - Border punch

I have seen that most of the U.S. is under a heat wave this week, so I hope you all that are affected by it can stay cool.  I plan on doing a lot of indoor work this week, thankfully we had a nice weekend before hand to enjoy.

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

Connie

Birthday Challenge

You all know that the most cards I make are for people's birthday, so when My favorite things had a Birthday Challenge I decided to play along.

I shared a cross-stitch tag I did not to long ago HERE and I am using another one I stitched up, I wanted to put an image with it so I went with this girl with a cupcake celebrating!

I paper pieced her dress and colored in her bow and body along with the balloon, the sentiment comes from the same set.

My Favorite Things - Cross-stitch tag and pattern, cupcake day stamp, colored w/markers and dress paper pieced
MY mind's eye - Quite Contrary paper
Bow & string
Wink of stella on balloon

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

Connie

Summer fun

I am running out of images for my great nephews who are in their teens and I came across this stamped image a friend gave me a few years back that I hadn't used yet, and he reminded me of my nephew and this was just before they headed to the lake for their vacation.

Stampingbella - stamp, colored w/markers

October Afternoon - Seaside papers

Spellbinders - A2 Distressed Edges die

SimonSays - Tiny words Birthday sentiment stamp

Wink of Stella - Clear on whistle and water

Gel pen for waves

I just added some water and sand with my makers and then added some white gel pen for the waves and some sparkle for the water and on his whistle.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and hope you have a fun and creative weekend!

Connie

Torn Paper Stenciling

The challenge this week in my stamp group is to do a faux torn paper look using a stencil. You can go HERE to Heidi's blog to see a written tutorial on how to do it.

I cut my paper to A2 size and then tore a strip of lightweight paper to cover the center portion of my card where I will later add my stamped image and sentiment. Lay your stencil on top of that and then using two brown inks I inked up my stencil, then after removing the stencil you ink around the edges of the torn paper and your card.  Such a quick technique but looks so neat and this is a one layer card, so no problem with mailing.

Hero Arts - Sea & Sky stencil, inked with Frayed Burlap and Gathered Twigs Distress inks
Inkadinkado - For the birds stamp set, colored w/markers and All Occasions sentiment stamp

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by, and if you are in one of the HOT spots around the U.S. I hope you are staying cool.

Connie

Ephemera

I have been on this kick of collecting Ephemera, there are all kinds of it out there, I started with Tim Holtz botanical layers and have picked up a few more.  I am not sure what you call this style of card but I have been seeing more of layered goodness out there and this is my first attempt of trying it myself.  

I am loving a lot of 49 Market stuff too and these papers were so pretty with their ghosted backgrounds I just had to give it a try.

Tim Holtz - Botanical layers #TH93554 (butterfly and flower tag)

49 Market - Vintage Artistry, colors neutral paper

Martha Stewart - border punch

Paper studio - Washi tape

Stampin up - Jewels large, colored w/markers

Flower 

Gina Marie - Birthday words sentiment

The sentiment was stamped on some scrap paper and cut out with decorative scissors, I colored a clear gem to use as the center of my flower. I used my bone folder to try and give a little dimension to the butterfly, his pieces are quite thick cardboard but I was able to do it without putting a crease in it.

I really loved how this turned out, no stamping other than the sentiment but I really enjoyed putting it together. Now I just hope my friend liked this style :)

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Out the window

I shared with you last month on backgrounds my stamp group made during a Zoom meeting we had, you can see that post HERE that describes what we did.  I really never thought I would actually use this one, wasn't a big fan of how it turned out but my hubby thought it was really good.  He said that it would be neat if that was like a wall of an old building and I had this window that over looked a county scene outside, well I took what he was thinking and I went for it.

watercolor background
Poppystamps - Grand Gothic Luminary, Colonnade Corner and Lovely Tendrils dies
Stampendous - Meadows Edge stamp set on watercolor paper

This was meant to be a masculine card for a friend at church that just went through eye surgery and it didn't work out well, we are still praying he gets his full sight back.

Thank you for taking the time to stop by today and say Hi,

Connie

Best day

Every year I try a special design for my sister and this year I decided to do a swivel card.  When you open the card it twist open to reveal this pop up piece.  I have done one of these before for my hubby but I had to do all the measurements and so when I saw that Spellbinders had this die and it was on sale at the time I thought oh wow that would be so much easier.  Welllll I imagine if I did enough of them, which I probably won't since it is so thick I had to take it to the post office to mail, I would get the hang of how to put it together, thankfully I was able to find a video of it being put together or I would have been totally loss.  Let's just say this girl is no engineer.  But it was nice not having to do all the measurements for it.

I started off the front with one of my Acetate art sheets I had bought at a stamp convention a few years back, I just loved how they put glitter behind them and you know I just had to do that myself, I applied the glitter to the back side and then ran the whole piece through my Xyron machine so the glue wouldn't show behind it.  I just felt it needed a little more so I added a die cut fence and a butterfly punch to it. I believe I added the sentiment stamp before the acetate.

 Here you can see the added glitter a little better.

The card open, this set had pretty dies with it to decorate the outside and inside. The end scroll work dies came with this set.

The flowers came from Memory box and I colored them by sponging with distress and oxide inks.  A little inking around the panels before gluing them down to the base.  As you can see there is plenty of room to still write in a sentiment.

Spellbinders - Elegant Swivel & Sashay card dies
Stamp on it - Vintage Hues Acetate w/ Art glitter crystals
Simon Says - Tiny words birthday stamp
Memory Box - Bella Boutique dies, colored w/ distress ink & Oxides, wrought iron fence die
Martha Stewart - Butterfly punch
Mark Richards - Gems

Both neighbors across the street shot off the big fireworks so we just stayed home and watched them, there were a few mishaps but no one was injured that we could tell.  Today has been quiet, just what I need :)

Have a great week ahead,
Connie

Happy 4th

I don't make 4th of July cards, so another birthday card it is :)

I decided I needed to go back to my oldie but goodies and give them some love, I hadn't used any in a long time and I was trying to do that every 3 cards I make but haven't been doing that.  I love the detail and embossing in these stickers, I have a couple left from this set, I had to draw on the details of the lady bug as they were on the sticker sheet but not part of the sticker :(  I wanted a pot for my flowers to go into so I used a die cut and tried to color it like a terracotta pot.

K&co. - Red Tulips stickers
Rubbernecker stamps - Wide Terracotta pot die w/ Distress ink Rusty hinge
Crate paper - Party day papers
Martha Stewart - Border punch
Fiskars - Essentials sayings stamp sentiment

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today,
I hope you all have safe and fun weekend as you celebrate!

Connie

Spotlight

The challenge in my stamp group this week is to stamp an image and then cut out the center and color that only and then mat it onto a piece of cardstock and then place it back in the center.  I went looking through my stamps for a big enough image, and I found this one that I thought would work for a couple in our church who are both going through health problems, not too feminine or masculine.

I stamped on watercolor paper using some new coffee archival ink.  All I had was black ink for watercolor images and I wanted a brown too. I used my Spectrum Aqua ink pens by rubbing the ink onto my surface and picking it up with a wet paintbrush.

Hot off the press - Postcards stamp set, watercolored w/Spectrum Aqua pens

A few mentioned our flooding problem, I went out yesterday and picked up enough debris that landed in our yard to fill two half filled lawn and leaf size bags, I only filled them half full because they were pretty heavy and didn't want to try and lift a whole bag into the garbage can.  It was mostly corn stalks and cobs from the field at the top of the hill.  That is one thing if we ever by a house again, we will not be living at the bottom of a hill.  Just one of those things you don't think of when buying a house.

Hope you all enjoy a good 4th weekend,
Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

in the woods

A few days before I went to make my brothers birthday card I turned over this image from my daily coloring calendar and thought this looks like it could be a picture looking out his back yard. Whenever we go to visit we look to see what wildlife is out there, he has all kinds of stuff that wander around.

I used colored pencils on this one, and made it into a square card this time.  I went a little heavy when pressing down the sentiment so it is a bit squashed, but that is the thing with these images you only get one chance to do it right.

Johanna Basford 2020 coloring calendar image, colored w/pencils
Fiskars - Essential sayings sentiment stamp

Thanks so much for stopping by and letting me know you have,

Connie

50th

A couple in our church celebrated their 50th Anniversary not to long ago and their daughter said because they couldn't give them the big party they wanted to she was hoping that people would send cards to her and then she would deliver them all to her parents on their day.

I don't know if I have used this set yet and I have had this one for quite sometime now too.  I have since started a box that I keep all my new goodies in to hopefully use them and not let them fall into my older goodies to be forgotten :(

The sentiment is a foil transfer, just by rubbing it on with gold foil and I went around the card with a gold ink pad.

Spellbinders - Victorian Tassels dies and Rose creations die
Crafter's Companion - Foil transfers w/ gold foil
Taylored Expressions - Whimsy #s w/ Tim Holtz gold cardstock
Paper Studio - Heart brad in flower center

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

Connie