HMFMC #270-ANYTHING GOES/OPTIONAL THEME 'HOT SUMMER DAYS"

I forgot when I posted earlier that since I won last months House Mouse challenge, they asked if I would like to do a post for their themes this month.  The one this time is Hot summer days.  Boy have we had those around here, when we go for our walks we try to find the most shaded areas and this little guy is doing the same, he is relaxing underneath a flower to keep that harsh sun off of him.

I colored the image with my Spectrum noir markers, adding a few stamped blades of grass for the pot to sit in and stenciled the sun and clouds.

If you would like to play along check out the House Mouse challenge HERE they have some great prizes that they give away, and some great inspiration from their design team.

Stampendous-House mouse- Potted Mouse, colored w/markers
RS Tapestry - Grass blades stamp
Joggles - Sunshine Stencil, using Distress inks - scattered straw and Spiced marmalade
Homemade cloud stencil - using Distress ink Tumbled glass
Memory Box - Stitched  Rectangle layers die
Wink of stella - clear glitter pen on sun

Thanks so much for stopping by,

Connie

Vintage flowers

I so love the look of Vintage and I would do it all the time except I try to make cards that go with the person I am making it for, so I am not able to do it very often.  Sorry I don't have the name of who makes the paper, it makes such a great finished background .  I had stamped a few of the flowers for other cards and never used them, so I only had to stamp one and the leaves to make my card. Fussy cut them and the sentiment stamp set comes with the outline box stamp to stamp your sentiment inside so I did the box with black ink and the words with green ink.

Altenew - Vintage flowers stamp set, fussy cut
Whimsy stamps - simple sentiments stamp
Cloud 9 - raindrops

Hope your week is off to a great start and thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hi :)

Connie

Chickadees

When I went to the stamp convention back in April I saw a card made with this chickadee stamp that was just gorgeous, I loved the layers, they had done theirs in tones of blue, I just had to get it and I had in mind I wanted to do it for my sisters birthday.  This card is a 5x7 size.

I started by looking at images of chickadees and when I saw pictures of ones with yellow bellies I just new that is the way I had to go since my sister likes yellow. I decided instead of doing all paper piecing like the one I saw I would color the belly area and just piece in the parts that were dark.  As I was stamping on the dark paper so that I could cut out those pieces I realized why they didn't use dark pieces on their example, it is really hard to see dark ink on dark paper.  I was going to pop up those areas but it just didn't look right so I just glued them directly on top.

I first started by stamping the whole stamp onto the patterned paper. Coloring in the branch.  Then I stamped again unto my white cardstock and colored with my Spectrum noir markers the birds, then I cut them out and then finished by doing the dark areas with paper piecing.  I added their eyes in with some black enamel dots so they would stand out.  Finished off with a sentiment and corner detail and a few clear dots to give the look of early morning dew.

Stamplistic - Chickadees colored w/markers and paper pieced dark areas and birds
DCWV - Timeless Texture Stack papers
Enamel Accents - black for eyes
Spellbinders - 5x7 matting basics die and Special birthday sentimentsstamp
Poppystamps - Colonade corner die
Our Daily bread designs - Mini tag dies
Faux pen stitching
Button
Floss

We actually have a cooler day today in the 80's and less humidity, we have some outdoor fun planned today :) Hope you have some good weekend plans

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

Connie

Coolest Cat

Aren't these two just cute, my great niece is celebrating her 9th birthday, thought she might like these two wishing her a Happy Birthday!!

The bowl and yarn are part of the stamp set also and they all come with dies so it was easy cutting all of these out, I popped up the cats with foam tape.  That cute sentiment is part of the set also :)

Taylored Expressions- Max & Muffin stamp set, colored w/pencils
Papertrey ink - Paper
Spellbinders - A2 matting basics A for base and sentiment tag and Circle Delight dies
Sequins

Hope you are all enjoying a wonderful day today Celebrating the 4th!! It is just way too HOT here!  We have decided to find activities to  do indoors. 
Thanks so much for taking the time out to stop by,

Connie

Never seen before

I always have a hard time naming the blog titles, I am not very creative that way, but all that kept coming to my mind is I have never seen anything like that before :)

Our last day in the Northern part of Michigan we took a little drive down M 119, which they call the tunnel of trees, as long as we lived in Michigan I don't think we have ever gone down this road, it was a beautiful drive and I was driving, it is just a two lane road with glimpses of Lake Michigan on one side and trees and forest. There are some very lucky people who live along this drive and their houses are just beautiful.  I didn't take any pictures until the very end when there was actually room for me to pull over and get out and the side of the road was nothing but these pretties.

Then we got back in the van and was driving out of the tunnel when we came upon a farm, now I wasn't really paying attention to the gate of their farm but hubby noticed it and he said Oh how cool, so of course I had to pull over and see what he was talking about and this is what he saw.

In case you can't make it out here is a more close up picture.

Yes you are seeing that correctly those are trees on either side with the roots still attached at the top, isn't that ever so clever and so cool, I have never seen anything like that before. I love when you are just driving along and see something really interesting like that :)

Well that is it of our trip to Michigan.

I made another card using goodies from Make Special cards magazine July 2018 issue, they have preprinted goodies to use and they also had sweet bird stamps so you can color your own. I used the preprinted images, sentiment and papers, I added my own die cuts to frame it even more and  added a border punch too.

Do you see that one of my stickles dots are a bit bigger than the other, oh my that just popped out of the bottle, thankfully I was able to somewhat get it all in a big circle, you really have to watch out for those air bubbles :)

Make Special Cards July 2018 issue, image, sentiment and button
Fiskars - Border punch
Spellbinders - Lacy squares die
Cotton thread to sew on button
Stickles - Broken china

Hope your week is off to a good start, thanks so much for taking the time to stop by and say Hi,

Connie