Blossom Challenge

 Power Poppy has a challenge right now where you use a glass vase or something under glass.  I had bought this digi to help the Ukraine efforts that Marcella drew and have never used it.  Instead of coloring the vase as clear glass I decided to try my hand at the look of mirrored Black glass, not sure if you can tell that but that is what I was going for.

I chose the no line coloring digital stamp, every time I give it a try I think I am getting a little better at it, but still needs work, but it is fun trying :)

• Power poppy - Peace offering Digital stamp, no line, colored w/markers and Countryside Bouquet Deluxe stamp set for the sentiment
• Teresa Collins - Tell your story paper
• Spellbinders - Candlewick Rectangles and Lacey Ovals dies
• Martha Stewart - Tag punch
• Brad

We are getting a new roof put on our house tomorrow, so I think it will be a play day around here, only have a few more days to get cards made for my daughter to look through and see what she wants to take home with her :)

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

Connie

More Play

 More playing with my extras I had in my bowl of goodies I haven't used on other projects.

This next one the fence and flowers are ones I cut on my Silhouette machine.

If I remember correctly I tried to do a smoosh technique with my embossing folder and didn't like how it turned out, I just added a little more color to it with a brush and inks and thought it had an ok watercolor feel to it.

Hope you enjoy your week ahead and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today and let me know you did.

Connie

Potted Poinsettia

 More Christmas cards... I usually try to get at least 5 done a month and since I had done 4 of the other one all I needed was 1 more but I decided to do 2 more since I had two pieces cut already to go.

• Taylored Expressions - Poinsettia stamp, colored with markers
• Spellbinders - Labels 22 and back to basic tags dies
• Martha Stewart - Pine needles border punch
• My Mind's eye - O Christmas tree papers
• Basic Grey brads

• Taylored Expressions - Poinsettia stamp, colored w/markers
• Spellbinders - Circles, Eyelet circles and back to basics tag dies
• My Mind's eye - O Christmas tree paper
• BasicGrey - Brad

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

Hope you have a wonderful weekend!

Connie

Just playing

 Normally when you see a card from me I have someone in mind for it, but my daughter is coming to visit in July so I decided I could make up some extra cards and let her pick from them which ones she would like. Now the question where to start? What do I use?  Then I decided to pull out all my scraps and extras that I have in a bowl that never ended up making it on cards that I have worked on in the past and use them.  It was fun playing and trying to match everything up. 

I do not have any supply listings for any of these, but I may mention what I added to them.

This next one I added a strip of washi tape and Brad.

This last one I had stamped the image on one card but when I went to clean off the stamp noticed that there was  quite a bit of ink left on the stamp so I misted it and stamped again on a piece of light cardstock I had near by, well it warped a bit so I just put it into my pile of scraps, but thought it was nice for a simple Thank you card, so I added the sticker sentiment to it.

It feels good to get some use out of the pile of extras I have laying around, I will be doing more I am sure.

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

Connie

Christmas Wreaths

 Finally getting around to getting my Christmas cards for this month done.  I thought it would be a good idea to just stamp out 4 after cutting my cardstock into 4 pieces, wow is this wreath a lot of coloring, but I guess that is why I do them early now so I am not under a time crunch :)

I did get a little bored with the red so I changed up the coloring of the ribbon on the last two.

After coloring them I decided to add the sentiment to the centers, and it was just a little too plain to me so I used some of my sparkle pens to add the splatters onto the background, still needed something so I went around the edges with my ink pad.

• Stampcraft - Ribbon Wreath stamp, colored w/markers
• Our Daily Bread designs - Mini tag sentiment stamp
• Spectrum Sparkle pen for splattering - Red berry
• Distress ink - Fired Brick for sponging
• Nuvo - Crystal Glaze on berries

Stampcraft - Ribbon Wreath stamp, colored w/markers

• Our Daily Bread designs - Mini tag sentiment stamp
• Spectrum Sparkle pen for splattering - Moonlight
• Distress ink - Fossilized Amber
• Nuvo Crystal Glaze on berries

You can see the crystal glaze better that I used on the berries in this close up.

Hope you enjoyed your weekend, we had some less humid days so it was nice getting outdoors and actually being able to breathe but it is back today.

Hope you have a good week ahead!

Thanks for stopping by,

Connie

Father's Day

 When I saw Leslie's card for her hubby I thought my hubby could use one too, I have only done this once before for the dog we use to have because my hubby was never really into cats but these two we have now get spoiled rotten from their Dad, he loves cats now :)

• Taylored Expressions - Max & Muffin stamp and die set, color w/markers
• Tim Holtz - Sentiment words, Thin dies
• Memory Box - Stitched Circle Layers

Here are the boys laying in the sun enjoying the fresh morning breeze.

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Connie

Summer Bouquet

 I know on the calendar it isn't summer yet but with our feels like temperatures in the 100's for this past week I would say we can call it summer now.

I recently purchased this set of flower dies and really didn't have anyone in mind for it so I didn't put a sentiment on it yet but thought I would share, the packaging had a similar layout for the flowers, so I went with that on this first card, and I really love these dies.

I added a few gems and spatters to the card before layout out my design.  I laid out all the flowers how I wanted them on the card, then I took Press n seal that we use in our kitchen (tip from Jennifer McGuire) and laid it over the design I had, picked up all the pieces, turned it over and then put glue on all the pieces and flipped it back onto my card base and glued it on, I only had a couple of pieces that I had to move around that kind of moved.

• Spellbinders - Be Bold Blooms dies
• Spectrum Noir Sparkle pen - Sage (splattered onto background)
• Me & my big ideas - Gems

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

Connie

Baby James

 We have our first Great nephew on my hubby's side of the family, we were starting to wonder if anyone of them were going to have kids.  My side of the family more than makes up for it though, 27 in all,  LOL! The coloring of the onesie and the sentiment were done with a yellow marker but coloring on blue paper gave them a look of green :(

• Spellbinders - Font One die cut twice and layered for name
• Studio G - stamps
• PPD - Mini Stitched Square die
• Confetti (innies from other die cuts)

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

Connie

Peace happiness and Love

 The background of my card today was done on my Gelli plate, if you haven't heard of them you can google it.  I used Distress Oxide inks on this one. To me it looked like a leafy background, so I went with using a die cut bird with it.  I had this piece I used in the background left over from cutting out shiplap dies and thought it looked like a trellis, had some Ivy already cut so I added that to the trellis, I used a copic marker to add some lines to the ivy and decided a few flowers would look nice on it too. Popped up the bird with foam tape. Finished it off by inking around the edges.

• Background done on a Gelli plate with Oxide inks
• Silhouette - Ivy die cuts, added lines with marker
• Anna Griffin - Avian collection cardstock sticker (Bird)
• EK Success - Flower punch
• Nuvo - Pale Gold drops (flower centers)
• Tim Holtz - Clippings sticker sentiment

The heat is coming this week to our area, starting today the feels like temperature will be in the 100's, high humidity, sounds like a day to spend inside creating doesn't it :) 

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

2022 Grad

 Well I had planned to share 2 cards with you today but I totally forgot to take a picture of my great nephews card before sending it out just before I went on vacation, so it will just be a card for our friends daughter.  Her school colors are black and orange, sitting there trying to think what I will do I was looking around and I saw this die panel I had recently bought from HSN's Craft day and thought how could I use that, and this is what I came up with.

I started out with white cardstock to cut the die cut and then colored the die cut with my markers. I added some foam tape to the back to give it some dimension. I cut the numbers out a couple of times also to give them some dimension.  I went around the edges of my cardstock to rough it up a bit.

• Gemini - Create a card Gerbera die
• Taylored Expressions - Whimsy #s dies

 I hope she liked it as much as I do :)

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today and letting me know you did, have a wonderful weekend!

Connie

Paper clip embellishments

 I wasn't really sure what to call these but I have seen some cute paper clip embellishments on Pinterest, a few of them say they are for junk journals, but I thought these might be cute to add to a card and then the person can pull them off and use them for a book mark or anything else they would like.  I am just sharing them today, I don't have any plans on how I will use them.

• BasicGrey - Periphery paper
• Tim Holtz - Snippets Ephemera pack
• Hot off the press - 130 tiny words & phrases stickers
• 2" Paper clip

BasicGrey - Periphery paper

Tim Holtz - Snippets Ephemera pack

EK Success - Flower punch

PPD - Stitched Banner die

Stickles - Yellow

Hot off the press - 63 thin line borders stickers

These measure 3 1/2 inches x 1 3/4 inches, Using 2 inch paper clip. After cutting out the banner die I wrapped it around the paper clips so that it could still open up and glued it behind. Fun to make something new. 

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and letting me know you did,

Connie

Spring Birthday

 The papers and stamps used in this card are from the Advent calendar I bought off of HSN from Crafters companion, it is fun to be surprised what will be in each new door you open.

• Gemini - Papers and flower stamp, colored with markers, from 2021 Advent calendar
• PPD - Stitched Mini Scallop border die
• Paper Studio - Rhinestones

The paper is so lovely you hate to cover it up.

Hope your week is off to a great start.  I am still trying to catch up with things around here and with visiting all your blogs.

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

Connie

Teen Sports

 My Great nephew turns 13 this month, trying to figure out what to do for him I was going through my stuff and found this die cut with the different areas and thought I could use some of the small sport stamps to put in the different blocks and this is what I came up with. Do you remember the stamps Michaels had in the dollar section of the store years ago, these all came from many of those sets.

• Frantic Stamper - Color Block Card panel die, cut 3 times
• 49 and Market - Vintage Artistry colors Natural 6x6
• Studio G - Stamps, some colored w/markers

I have been away for a few days, we had a family reunion over the Memorial Weekend in Michigan and then we traveled down to Ohio to see some lighthouses along Lake Erie. We had some HOT weather but it was nice to get away and hubby found the perfect hotel that was right in the middle of all we wanted to do.  At our first stop at a drive thru national wildlife refuge the battery in my camera died so I went to change it out and that battery was dead too, I thought for sure it was ok, I was so bummed and I can not see outside with my point and shot but I used that and my phone for the rest of the trip. Haven't had a chance to look at it and see if any of them turned out on my computer.

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

Connie

Wreath

 I believe this wreath with bow came in my advent calendar from Crafters Companion this past year, I decided to color them with markers. The top sequin did not come out the correct color but it does show up correct in the side view I have, not sure if it reflected off my red camera again or what.

• Crafters Companion - Die cut wreath and bow, colored w/markers
• Gina K - Sentiment stamp
• Paper studio - Distressed Floral paper
• Sequins

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

Connie