Feathered Friends

 Our cardmaking group has for the Birthday challenge this month to do some fussy cutting on your card. I had recently picked up this card making magazine from Barnes and Nobles that had these great Autumn stamps inside so I just had to stamp them out and fussy cut to go with my bird :)

• Tim Holtz - Feathered Friends die
• Creative Stamping magazine - Everyday Autumn art stamp set, colored w/markers and fussy cut
• Crafter's companion - Advent calendar paper
• Martha Stewart - Border punch

This second card is for Sketch challenge in the group.

• American crafts - Art Journaling Acetate Ephemera
• Ms. Sparkle & co. - Watercolor paper
• Inky Antics - Simple Sentiments

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

Connie

Holiday Wreath

 This is the Month of October Christmas cards. I decided to look through my coloring calendar images to see if I had any Winter Greenery ones that I could color up, that is the challenge for this month in my stamp group. I found 3 I liked, so I got down to coloring them up.

• Coloring for calm calendar - image colored w/markers
• Paper Studio - Have a cozy Christmas paper

• Coloring for calm calendar - image colored w/markers
• My Mind's eye - O Christmas tree paper
• Recollections - Christmas sticker sentiment

• Coloring for calm calendar - image colored w/markers
• Martha Stewart - Border punch
• Paper Studio - Have a cozy Christmas paper
• Recollections - Christmas stickers 

After coloring all of them and fussy cutting them out and making the cards it took longer than I thought it would so I went to my Graphic Fairy images I have downloaded from their site and found a few I thought would work nicely for the challenge.

• Graphic Fairy digital image
• Bo Bunny - Father Christmas paper
• Lawn Fawn - Fancy Scalloped Rectangle die
• Tim Holtz - Fancy Festive dies (Branch and pinecone)

• Graphic Fairy - Digital image
• Bo Bunny - Father Christmas paper
• Spellbinders - Curved Rectangle die
• 49 and Market - Christmas Spectacular Acetate Foliage

For my last card my cardmaking groups challenge was using a Santa on your card, I had recently downloaded this free digital from Paper wishes site, so I thought I should use it :)

• Paper wishes - Digital image
• Bo Bunny - Father Christmas paper
• Spellbinders - Captivating Square die
• Starform - Sentiment sticker
• Sequins

All caught up for another month :)

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

Connie

Collage cards

 This first one I used a dimensional sticker from $ store that I added to a tag, plus some scraps from a paper pack.

• Forever in Time - Glitter stickers
• Crate Paper - DIY shop papers
• Banner die
• Hero Arts - nesting tag dies

The next one I used papers and ephemera that is from my friend Esther, she gave me these goodies many years ago and I still haven't used everything she has sent me.  This has quite a bit of dimension so I used it for the birthday card I will be hand delivering.

Papers, and tag collage from Esther

Spellbinders - sentiments one die

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today, hope you enjoy a good weekend,

Connie

Flying High

 We went back to Michigan to visit family and my sister was throwing my brother in law a 60th birthday party.  I went through all my stamps and I don't have any real funny stamps for a 60th so I went with this couple. They wouldn't fit on an A2 size card very well so I went with a slim line card style.

• Art Impressions - His & Hers Flying High stamp set, colored w/markers
• My Favorite Things - Cloud stencil

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie

Ephemera card

 I got a new set of Tim's ephemera and I had to use it on my nephews card. Mushrooms are a stamp and I did a little inking around the edges of the card.

• Tim Holtz - Collector Layers ephemera (House and report card)
• Hampton Art - SC1019 stamp mushroom, colored w/markers
• We R memory keepers - For the record paper
• Tim Holtz - Small talk sentiment sticker

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

Connie

Autumn Bird

 I broke out my coloring calendar images again for my next birthday card.  Had to color the bird with Autumn colors for a Fall birthday card. I used the little leaf stamp in the sentiment stamp set to stamp around the image too.

• Color for Calm - 2108 calendar image, colored w/markers and fussy cut
• Hero Arts - All Occasion messages stamp set

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

Connie

 I found another tag that you can write in your thoughts and thought it would be neat for my great nephew who is turning 14. Instead of writing this time I stamped different birthday sentiments.

• Recollections - Awesome boy papers
• Many different sentiment stamps

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

Connie

Beautiful day

 I know we don't really associate roses with Fall but when you make them out of Fall colors well I guess it works :)

I have used this rose border I think once and it was high time I used it again and thought it paired nicely.

• Prima Papers
• Frantic Stamper - Rose Cutout border
• Elizabeth Craft Designs - Rose die
• Tim Holtz - Tiny Text Remnant Rubs

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

Connie

New Technique

 This was a new technique to me that our stamp group did over skype. 

We added some inks to our glass mats and then spritz with water and used a pallet knife to move the inks around to kind of blend them and then we added tissue paper over the inks and let it absorb, then carefully take off and let dry. Once dry we crinkled the tissue paper to give it some lines and then added glue to our cardstock base and laid the crinkled tissue over the glue, you can even add more crinkles as you bunch it up after layering it on top. Let that dry.  

Take your anti static pouch to run over the background, then take your embossing ink and lightly run over only the raised areas from your bunching up the tissue paper. Then add your embossing powder and heat, it gives such a neat look to your background.  I liked it so much I made a few and will be using more in other cards :)

Cardstock base was 4 1/4 x 11 inches, scored at 2 1/2, 3 3/4, 6 3/4, 8 1/4. We took a piece of cardstock and embossed it and added our sentiment for the inside at the bottom.

• Provocraft - Leafy Branch Embossing powder
• Cardmaking magic - Birthday Verses stamp set
• Elizabeth Craft designs - Happy Birthday die
• Crafter's square - Leaf Sticker ($ store)

This card does not stand up on it's own.

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

Connie

Purple birds

 Don't you just love how we as creative people can make our birds any color we would like :) I saw many of these type birds on Pinterest and thought they would be cute for my oldest sister who recently had a granddaughter.

You cut circles, I did two different sizes, don't quite fold in half leave a little room to be able to peek at the paper behind, double sided paper is the best for this.  I added a heart punch to their bottom feathers and leaf punches for their wings. Black pen for the legs and eyes. For the beaks I just hand cut a triangle.

• Spellbinders - Circle dies
• P13 - Secret Garden paper pack
• Little heart punch (tail feathers)
• Martha Stewart - Leaf punch
• Fiskars - Grass border punch
• Whimsy stamps - Simple sentiments stamp set

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

Connie

In the Garden

 49 and Market has some very delicate laser cut elements in their collections and this one is one of them, I was hand delivering this one to my girlfriend so it worked out ok to pop it up with foam dots and not worry about the mail crushing it.

• 49 and Market - Krafty Garden 6x8 paper pack, Krafty Garden Mini Laser Cut elements (flowers and butterfly)
• Stickles - Shabby Shutters on Flower centers

I think the close up shows more of how delicate the stems are.

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

Connie

Autumn

 I hadn't used this embossing folder in quite some time and I thought I would make it into an Autumn tree, coloring it with markers and adding a stamped Autumn display with it too.

• Darcie - Leafy tree embossing folder, colored w/markers
• Penny Black - Fall Fence stamp set, colored w/markers

I would like to share my card today with these Challenges:

Penny Black Saturday challenge

Can you handle the Pressure

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

Connie

Birdie Birthday

 Feels like it has been awhile since I used one of my bird dies and since I hadn't used any for my hubby's nieces birthday card yet I thought it was about time :)

I cut my bird from pieces I had done on my gelli plate, the branches I added a little extra ink and the sentiment sticker was silver so I added a little blue pen to go with the flowers.

• Simon Says stamps - Layered Chickadee die (papers from gelli plate print)
• Memory Box - Fresh Foliage die
• Craft Smith - Seaglass paper
• Ecstasy crafts - Happy Birthday silver sticker colored w/blue marker

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today, Have a great week!

Connie

Beautiful Day

 Last month I had gone to JoAnns store to see if they had anything new in stock and they were having a sale on card making things.  I saw this set of ephemera and thought it was so pretty so I picked it up, Wellll obviously I thought it was a nice pack before because when I came home and went to put it away I already had the set. So the next on my list to make a card for was my friend here in town so I decided I needed to make something with the set and this is the card I came up with.

• American Crafts - Art Journaling Ephemera (Vellum flower and Vellum script)
• P13 - Secret Garden Paper (behind flower)
• Ribbon from Advent Calendar
• Queen & Co. - Twinkle Goose bumps
• Tim Holtz - Metallic sentiment sticker

As you may have noticed one of the Gems in the corner that was supposed to hide the glue I used to hold on the vellum fell off, luckily I did notice while putting it into the envelope for her and so it was on when giving it to her, I just didn't take new pictures.

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

Connie

In the Meadow

I have been on vacation since September 23rd and we were quite busy driving and exploring, when we would make it back to the hotel I was so exhausted I couldn't see straight, I was able I think 2 times to get on and try and catch up on everyone's blogs, I am almost caught up, I think only a couple days behind now :)  If I get the time maybe I will share some pics of our time out in Montana and places between here and there :)

 Sharing another card with 49 and market goodies.

• 49 and Market - 6x8 Curators Meadow paper, Curator Meadow Laser cut elements and Curators meadow rub on transfers for Sentiment

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

Connie