Young adult and Mississippi

Not only are masculine cards a bit challenging but for teens and young adults, they are really hard for me.  They aren't quite considered kids anymore but you really don't think of them as adult either.
That's when I started looking through my stash trying to find something that I could come up with, and I settled on using some bits and pieces from Instant card art book I have.

The square piece on the faux ribbon piece is a brad and I added the brads around the sentiment square also and I die cut sentiment topped it off.

Cardmakers - Instant Card art, pretty colors (faux ribbon, brackets and sentiment tag)
Die- Versions - Celebrate die
Brads - Bazzill Basics
Making Memories - Textured Brads
Echo Park - Fine and Dandy paper

I finally looked at my pictures from our Mississippi trip.  I only managed to get through the first morning so I will probably post more at another time.

The first morning was very foggy, but there were plenty of birds out.

Do you see those little ones at the waters edge, after seeing the big birds these were just too cute.

This guy was just taking off, I got about 5 shots of him going but thought this was the neatest of them all.

Then we headed inland to a swamp area that had trails and we first came upon this baby alligator. You can barely see him in the water, we later saw a big one but I didn't get any pictures of that one.

Then came the turtle

It was an interesting walk through woods and swamp land.

We hadn't been to this part of the states before so it was neat seeing a new place, somethings are the same and others are so different.

Thanks for hanging in there with me and for taking the time to stop by and say Hi,

Connie

Patterns

Last month the flower Challenge blog had a challenge to use patterned paper for your flowers, well right when I was going to link to it I realized I was already too late, I thought it was from the end of the month and I believe it was the 25th, I was a day late  anyway.

I used a Spellbinder flower die and after embossing them I really couldn't see the embossing well through all that pattern so I added a bit of Metallic Rubons, like this set, but mine had brass in it.

I was worried using all patterned paper that I went a little too far and it is too busy but hubby reassured me that it was ok. 

Spellbinders - Flower Bouquet die w/ Craf-T Metallic rubon, brass
Spellbinders - Foliage Flourish die
Crate paper - DIY shop
My Sentiments Exactly - thinking of you stamp
Sequins - Iced Silver

Thanks so much for stopping by today,

Connie

Wish or two

A friend sent me some cut die cuts from Anna Griffin and I had to give them a try for another masculine card I needed.

The branch was one I had cut from my cricut sometime ago and never used. The sentiment was a little too bright against this dark background so while the card stock was still in the die I sponged the center with some ink to darken it up a bit.

DCWV - Natural paper and mat stack
Anna Griffin - Avian Collection die cut (Owl)
Cricut - Branch
My Favorite things - Essential sentiments
Spellbinders - Labels trio die

Hope you all are enjoying your weekend, we have some cold temps coming this week.
Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Flower wreath

GinaK showed on her latest release a Wreath builder kit, it comes with two sizes of templates that you can use to make a wreath, I thought it was so cool and I was thinking I may be able to make a template myself.  Later that day one of the girls in my cardmaking group mentioned that years ago a UK magazine mentioned how to make them or shared some in all sizes. Then another girl showed how she used grid paper in the MISTI to draw the template out and she used that to make hers. Others were making them on their cricut in design space.  I decided to give it a go and see if I could make one myself.  I will have to confess I must not have cut it out perfectly because my cardstock that I cut to put in it didn't quite fit right so I had to do a bit more cutting so it would fit inside, but this is the results of my go at it.

The link I gave above is to the kit if you would like to pre order it, and HERE is the link to see it in action, isn't that just too cool and such a fast and easy way to have everything line up.  Instead of making it a 4 1/4 square card I applied it to a 4 1/4 by 5 1/2 (A2) sized card and used my die to cut a fancy border, let me just say that the border took more time to cut out than stamping the whole wreath, I had to run it back and forth through my machine to cut through the paper and the card base.

4" template
Ms. Sparkle & co. - Give thanks stamps for flowers
Stampendous - Mini bee stamp set (bee, leaves and sentiment)
Spectrum clear sparkle pen on wings
Echo park - Fine and Dandy papers
Spellbinders - Scalloped Borders two die
Nuvo drops for flower centers

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by today and I wish you a lovely weekend full of creativity and fun!

Connie

Feathers

Time for another masculine card for my nephew, he is only about 10 years younger than me, I use to babysit him, now he has grown kids of his own, how time flies :)

I was happy with this until I added the last feather and I could see the adhesive through it, I thought I had use a strip of my vellum tape but not sure about that since I made this a little while ago, but since it needed to go in the mail and I was worried about what would happen if I tried to take it off it went out this way.

Spellbinders - Feathers and A2 matting basics A dies
Taylored Expressions - Fine Feathers die
Poppystamps - feather die
DCWV - Natural stack paper
My Favorite things - Label maker sentiments
Jute
Corrugated packaging

We are back to cloudy and a touch of rain, but after hearing the snow the north is getting I am not going to complain.  I so miss living in Michigan until the winter hits then it gets a little easier on me to live down here in Southern Illinois.

We have made it over the hump of the week, hope the remaining days go well for you,
Thanks for taking the time to stop in and say Hi,

Connie