Super Day and Grand Tetons Part 1

My great nephew turned 5 and this is the card I made for him.  The image was stamp I colored and cut out all the rest is from a daily scrapbook calendar I bought a few years ago, I have looked for them ever since and don't see them anymore.  My Oldest great nieces and nephews are now in Adulthood so I may soon be having Great Great neices and nephews, that just amazes me, our family will be growing more and more.

As you may have noticed in the post title I am splitting up the pictures of the Grand Tetons, when I was going through trying to figure out which ones to share I just couldn't decide so I thought well I guess I will have to have multiple post so I don't overwhelm you with pictures :)

The first is what we came along after shortly entering the park.  I will have to say if you like to hike and bike this is the park for you, they have great trails for both and clearly marked.

The following pictures are all from one turn off that had great hiking trails. The first is the stream that leads into the lake.

This bridge had a sign on it that read  yield to bikes, this is part of the bike path.

Here is the lake that the stream led into, the walk along the stream to the lake was so pretty and peaceful.

They had a boat trip that you could go on that was even boarding when we got there that goes around the lake and you can get shots of the mountains you can get by the trail but we decided against it since we only had the one day in the park and there was so much more to see, and I am glad we didn't do it for time sake but if you go to these parks to really enjoy them and see it all I can easily see taking two days.

I hope you all have a great weekend planned. Do you have any fall festivals in your area?  Since my hubby has to work this afternoon we are going to head out this morning and go to one that is a couple towns over that has a small downtown festival and they have crafts booths too :)

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

Connie

Forgotten Treasures and Yellowstone

I realized the other day that I hadn't used any of my older supplies (forgotten treasures) in awhile so I added some of these chipboard pieces to my card, they have been painted. Yellow flower center and the swirls (leaves).

I saw the glitter tulle at Walmart in the Halloween supplies and wondered if I could use it on my card in some way.  I tried using my Spellbinders dies to cut flowers but it couldn't quite do it, so I went with the Tim Holtz tattered florals steel dies and it worked I was able to cut them all in one pass. They didn't quite look like flowers when I layered them and I had one white flower left from another project so I used that and then I was looking around for a smaller center and that is when I came across the chipboard pieces I haven't used in some time, so I painted it yellow and added some pen work to it. The brad was also colored with markers.

 I need some more ideas of what I can do with this tulle because I don't know how I think of it in flowers, I may have to use it for home decor.  If you are thinking of purchasing some I will let you know that the glitter comes off very easily and was over everything on my desk and myself by the time I was finished.

Tim Holtz -- Tattered Florals die
K&co. -- Chipboard diecuts and shapes
Distress paint-- mustard seed
Adirondack -- Lettuce paint
DCWV -- Earthtones prints paper
Fiskars -- sentiment stamp
Stampendous -- class a peel stickers

On to our Yellowstone part of the trip:

We had a bit of a drive to Yellowstone so to break it up we decided to stop by Devil's Tower, my hubby said we had to because it was in Close Encounters, yep my hubby is a Sci Fi fan :)

First Stop in Yellowstone was the Sulphur springs, oh my the smell was just awful, this one was just bubbling all over

This was named Dragon's mouth spring, and as you were walking up the sound was just like on a dragon movie, it was the way the water was being pushed out of the hole here, very cool

Gorgeous waterfall you walked along it until you got to this point where you could see it head on, I can't tell you how many pictures I took here but I thought this one showed how huge and amazing it is.

Old Faithful just starting

Here it is a little higher, all the other shots I have are not centered and not good, I just snapped pictures as I watched it so I didn't get them lined up well.

That evening we stayed in Jackson Hole and all around town were these Antlers in shapes of things, this is the only picture I got because we were at a stop light.  I never did ask if they were real antlers, but I thought it was cool, something you don't see everyday :)

Next time will be the Grand Tetons.

Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving your comments to let me know you did,

Connie

Lighthouse and Custer State Park

My Sisters sons were all born in September and October plus I have a brother in law in there too, so more masculine cards to come.  My family are all in Michigan, and  I think of water and lighthouses so that is why I did this card.  The stamped image was colored with markers.

Taylored Expressions -- From my window stamp set colored with markers

Spellbinders -- Lg. deckled Rectangles

October Afternoon -- Campfire papers

Button from flea market 

Twine from gift packaging

I am sharing this post once again with Stephanie's Roses of Inspiration link up .  Last week there was a lot of Autumn Inspiration now that we are into our new season, wonder what this week will hold.  

Now to share the last half of our day, after we left Mt. Rushmore and had a bite to eat in town we went on to Custer State park.  

I spotted these Pronghorns first. It was a bit better picture than I got at the Badlands.

Then we stopped at the visitors station inside the park and the gentlemen told us what part of the park the buffalo were last sighted so we headed that way and wow did we find them. You can see the shadow of our car in this picture to let you know how close they were. 

This one I took through the windshield of the car as they were crossing the road in front of us, needless to say I drove through this area never using the gas, very slowly so if they decided to dart across the road I would have no problem stopping, it was so neat to watch them move around and interact with each other.

A neat wooden bridge we drove over, we decided to get out and take some pictures of the stream running under it, yep that's my hubby down there in the center.

This was the view once I made it to the center of the bridge.

There is nothing better that God has blessed us with then a combination of water trees and mountains, in my opinion, there is just something about it that brings me peace and I feel so close to him, we spent a bit of time here as there was no one else on the road at the time.

Then we headed up a drive that we were told about back where we ate lunch, I could have shared so many pictures of what lead up to this point but at the top this is the rock formation that is up there and it is called the Needle eye.  The sun was setting at this point.

There were many tunnels on this drive through the rock but since they had an area to get out and park at here at the needle I was able to get a shot of the tunnel you drive through just before the needle area.

And my last is the same area just looking down, I thought this was neat how the trees are growing in all that rock.

We left here and made our way down the mountain, we were glad we left when we did since it is very dark and a lot of turns and twist getting back down, when we reached the bottom there was a turn off and we parked there and just checked out the beautiful night sky without all the lights of town, an amazing sight we don't see out here in the city.  If you get the chance I would encourage you to take the trip out there, just amazing land God has blessed us with to enjoy!

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by, thanks so much for your sweet comments on my cards and the pictures of my trip so far.

Connie

Rays and Mount Rushmore

Remember awhile back when I made I think it was 4 of these base cards, well I finally used the last one.  To recap I took 4 papers layered them on top of one another and then took my Rotary cutter, like this one , and I cut the different rays with all the layers together using a metal ruler to keep the cuts straight. I had already cut cardstock the size of my card base, after inking the pieces I added them in the order I liked with glue stick onto the cardstock base, this gives you a little time before it sticks to make sure they are lined up.  Hope that all makes sense.

Kaisercraft -- cardboard die cuts (flower and big tag)
Martha Stewart -- Tag punch
Our Daily Bread -- mini tags sentiment stamp
American Crafts -- twine
Queen & co. --Yellow sunshine pearls

I took many pictures at Mount Rushmore and it was hard trying to figure out which ones to share so there is a lot here.

Getting a close up of them

Now we didn't know before coming that you can take a walk around to the base of the statues and the following pictures are from right under them.

This next one is showing the trail that they had for you to follow around.

Can you imagine carving on this steep mountain

I think I have pictures of every angle of these guys through trees around every bend, LOL!
Coming back there were quite a few stairs to climb and thankfully every so often there was a part where I could rest up before tackling the next set of stairs, if you ever get a chance it is a pretty walk around and very interesting reading on how this all came together.  I believe it took us a little over 3 hours in this park and it could have been longer but like I said we were cramming a lot into this vacation and we were off to our next thing we wanted to see, which I will share next time.

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderful weekend,

Connie

Pirates and Badlands

First we will start off with the card I made for my Great nephew's birthday. I believe he turned 10, and he just started playing football for this season and has already had his first injury.

This is another stamp set that I bought at the garage sale our Local stamp store has every now and then, the next one is in October, you know I will be there :)  I had to color in some land for him to stand on the rest is all stamps from the set.

Stampendous -- Changito Pirates, colored with markers
Distress ink --Tumbled Glass for background sky
My Mind's eye -- sweetest thing paper
Spellbinders -- Matting basics A&B dies
Wink of stella on treasure chest

Sorry I haven't shared any pics from the trip until now, I will just share a couple a day of each place we went. First off the Badlands, wow this is just an amazing drive, more to see around every corner.

Yes it made me very nervous that he was going out to the edges of rocks, and yes I stayed back, I don't care for heights, this was close enough for me.

Here is some wildlife we saw on our drive through the badlands, we kind of made them nervous when we stopped so I didn't get the best picture.

I love the different layers of color in the rock, I read the sign of why the different colors but I already forgot, everything started blurring together by the end we did so much in the days we were gone.  These were all taken with just a point and shoot camera, but hopefully it gives you some idea of what it is like, if you have never been there I suggest you go, it is just an amazing drive.

Next time I will be sharing Mt. Rushmore.

Thanks so much for taking the time to stop by,

Connie