Halloween Wreath

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

Good evening, and welcome. I've only gotten one card made, and that is for Mr. He likes Halloween. Also snapped some photos of our pretty trees that we can see from our house.

First though, let me thank all of you who sent good wishes for the CT outcome. I'm very sad to say, we did not get good/happy news. I don't want to go into this subject a great deal, but we will be very busy with health issues in the upcoming weeks, possibly months. So I will be MIA a lot of time, or possibly on hiatus dealing with this matter. I didn't want to just disappear and not say why. I won't be entering challenges, nor probably have time for blogging. Or in the mood to make cards either I expect. Enough on that. Any prayers would be most gratefully welcomed and thanks!

Here's the card:

At the moment, don't remember the maker of this image, but it was pretty easy to color. Has some Sakura silver gel pen on the spider webs, WoS on the pumpkin faces and teeth, and used Nuvo drops for the red eyes on the spiders and bats. VOS from a Halloween 6x6 pack and a 8x10 glitter pack for the background. S/Binders circle and scallop circle for the dies.

Now here's a few pretty fall trees to share. The red maple is in our yard, the more 'umbrella shaped' one is in our neighbor's yard.

It's sort of like Fall arrived here in just a few days. These trees were all green just last week I think! Hope you enjoyed seeing our neighborhood. Take care, until we talk again!

Blessings & Hugs.

Christmas Card Club - Challenge 22

Good afternoon and welcome. I'm a bit late with my CCC post. Today Christine selected the theme as Winter Wonderland for our group of card makers who share Christmas cards every 2 weeks all throughout the year. One member decides what the theme will be for that week, but we have the option of "anything goes" if we don't have the necessary supplies, or want to take a different approach, as long as it's a Christmas theme.

My card was the usual last minute decision scramble as to what to make. After looking at Pinterest, Youtube and other time wasting places I enjoy...I searched through lots of stamp sets and decided on a 'look'. Combined 2 Penny Black clear sets to create today's card. I hope Christine will like it.

Penny Black Prancers Transparent set (trees)
Penny Black Nature's Silhouettes set(stag)
Sizzix Word Set

Created the sky using DI Shaded Lilac and Stormy Sky. At first created the snow drifts - which I thought looked pretty good (I rather struggle with creating snow drifts and it shouldn't be _that_ hard! Watched a couple of youtubes on that technique). Found I had trouble placing the trees well, even  using post-it mask. I did see one video that suggested starting from the top, and doing the sky first, and that was helpful. First effort not great with the tree placement & snow drifts, so flipped the Bristol Smooth Vellum c/s over, and started again. After creating the sky, this time I put the trees around first. Used different greens for depth, and Memento Gray Fog to create the background trees. Once I had the forest created, then used the torn hill/sky mask to brush some Shaded Lilac around to create the snowy drifts. Found that using a Inkylicious dual ended brush to swipe the 'snow' around, I was able to achieve a lighter touch than with using a dauber/blending tool.

Inked the stag with Black Versafine, stamped & used a black copic marker to touch up. A piece of double stick Sookwang was laid over the finished effort; added Cool Diamond Ritz Glitter & burnished well. Hope this finished look evokes a snowy forest wonderland. The sentiment was from a Sizzix words set, cut from some hologram glitter c/s.

Hope you have time to visit my fellow team members, whose blogs are listed on the left side bar.

The wedding came off nicely, although it was held outside (the actual ceremony part). While it was sunny, the skies had some dark clouds rolling up, and it was quite windy. The bride looked beautiful in a gorgeous dress. Lots of our extended family showed up, and the groom had an even bigger family. Food was delicious (southern bbq fare, with all the fixin's). Don't know any scan results yet; hopefully tomorrow will have a report from the GP. Appreciate all the good wishes on that.

Thanks for joining me today, and God Bless. Hugs too.

Santa Hedgies for Rudy Day

Good evening, and welcome. It's time for the October Rudolph Day Challenge, and next month will be the last one for 2018. In case you don't know about this challenge, it is a Christmas Anything Goes themed challenge, which opens on the 25th of each month, and closes on the last day of that month. Our hostess, Maureen always has some nice prizes, and it's just a fun and fairly easy rules challenge...just do something related to Christmas. 

Here's my entry for October....I've managed to join in each month of 2018 (I _think_!)

Penny Black image

CZ Design die sentiment

Hedgies colored with copics; Polar White Flowersoft for the fur and used a quickie glue pen over the string of stars. Then dumped some Brutus Monroe Gilded Gold over the wet glue. The glue pen allowed the EP to adhere fairly well, so IRL the stars have a nice glimmer. A silver slicci pentel pen helped the scissors to look metallic.

the snow was created by using a rather dried up snow writer (it wouldn't come out of the end so used an embossing paste spreader to put some on the card; then used my finger to spread it). Then dumped on some glitter while this was wet.

I sprayed a fixative over the flowersoft to keep it from falling off (hopefully) and the wet 'snow paste' held the glitter as it dried.

used red mats and a dot dp snippet piece to add some color on the background.

3 layers of snippets made up the sentiment. A red snippet in the middle, with 2 white snippet layers colored with copics. A business card was handy, so used the white back and sandwiched the red snippet between. The thickness of the business card gave a nice dimension. Nuvo Crystal glaze applied, once the layers were put together. Laid this on the kraft non-stick mat, as I applied the Glaze. This way when it blobbed over, as it does sometimes, it was not on the card, leaving a splodge that the camera picks up.

Please check out this month's Rudolph Day Challenge, and see lots of inspiration & then play along if you are able. Only a few more weeks to build your Christmas Card stash!

Hope to be back later with a card for our Christmas Card Club. Ya'll take care, and thanks for joining me. Hugs

Fall Penny Black Wreath

Good afternoon. It's been a rather overcast day, looked like it would rain, but so far, hasn't. We turned off the air conditioning one evening, and the next evening, the heat went on.

Today was haircut day, then home to do a few house chores. Have a few wreath images I've been working on of late; for some reason wreaths are appealing to me just now. This one is a wooden Penny Black, that is probably a NBUS. For some reason, it was a bit difficult to color. It was hard to pick earth tone colors for the pine cones, that would show up nicely. I was a bit disappointed in this one, but after going back to try to add contrast here and there on the pine cones, decided I best leave well enough alone.

Sentiment - Karen Burniston die set with some seasonal words. White snippets, colored with copics, 3 layers. Added WoS, then some Nuvo Crystal glaze. The fall looks like fau to me once it was laced down. The orange mat of the wreath is raised on white fun foam.

- MS border punch out of some VOS autumn themed 12x12 paper

- leaves are left-overs from a Prickley Pear Pumpkin set, that had a matching die. Didn't want the leaves with the pumpkins, so colored and added them on this card. Again, WoS, and no glaze.

A new card was added to the Cards by Friends page, so hope you can check it out! 

We're expecting some rain tomorrow. Mr has an early morning CT scan....tummy problems again. So not sure what our day will bring. A family wedding on Saturday, so that's pretty much our weekend started. For some reason today, I keep thinking it's Friday, and then catch myself...No, it's Thursday!

Hope you've had a good day. Thanks for joining me, and big hugs!

Birthday Water colored Tree

Happy Friday! Thanks for dropping by. I hope I've got my return visiting caught up, so I wanted to post another card. Remember this post where I said I'd done 2 water color Rubbernecker trees, misplaced them? Well here's one, that I finally got made into a card. (Still got one more to use up!) This will be for our neighbor's November birthday; she has a gorgeous maple tree in her front yard, that we probably get to enjoy more than she does, as it's very visible from our windows.

The Rubbernecker stamp was inked with Distress markers in fall shades, then spritzed. I think some Zig markers were also brushed around to add more color after stamping/spritzing - in places that looked like they needed it.

A stitched frame die was adhered over top of the stamped piece (because I had cut it too small...had to fiddle to get it to fit inside this frame). Then an old Tim Holtz 12x12 Fall pack was cut up to create the mat behind. Used VOS Paper Studio card pack of vintage sepia colors, to get the other design papers. Top right stitched rectangle cut from Sue Wilson Noble die, and an MFT angled die cut the spotted paper. The sentiment was embossed with Brutus Monroe Detail Copper. Tha's all folks!

Hoping that you have a wonderful weekend, with great weather. Our humidity has been less, and the morning & evening temps much cooler - but the day still warms up nicely. With less humidity, though, it's quite pleasant!

Big hugs - God Bless.

A Sunflower Wreath for a 90th Birthday

Hi there, and sorry to have been MIA with posting and visiting for the last week or so. Just been busy. I think I've said we go to exercise 3 days a week, plus we've had some doctors appointments to work in there as well. Right now, having family visiting for #1 brother's 90th birthday, (which is Monday). We all went out to eat as a family tonight, to a restaurant of his choice. Hard to believe the guy is 90 pretty soon, but then our Dad nearly made it to 90. And both parents had siblings that lived into the 90-s and 2 paternal aunts passed the 100 mark. So I guess good genes run in our family.

Had this card posted as a draft, as I was so far behind in comment visiting. I think I have caught up, but if I missed anybody, I do apologise!

Anyway, here's the card I made for our senior family member. I'm not sure he's that into flowers, but I had a pretty sunflower wreath stamp I wanted to use. So here it is:

Northwoods wood stamp - 

Memory Box sentiments and numbers

Crafters Companion Countess Crown die for edging

Copics, WoS, pentel gold slicci pen and Sakura white gel pen for highlights

Brutus Monroe Gilded Gold for embossing

Fussy cut the wreath and considered adding an orange mat. Decided to leave it simple since the edge is a bit ornate. I'm happy to say this was another Tuesday Morning bargain die. I used a new heavy metal shim from my friend Nancy, and with a couple of passes, this cut extremely well for such an intricate die.

On the inside I used a piece of fall colored DP to glue to the inside, then used a Penny Black birthday die.  This die was coated with versamark, then sprinkled with one coat of Brutus Monroe Gilded Gold and adhered to the pattern paper.

The happy sentiment is 3 layers, the 90 is 2 layers of the cream paper used for the top fold card. Used Versamark, heat embossed with Gilded Gold. There are 2 layers of the gold embossing on the 90, and 3 on the happy. These really do give the look of metallic embellishments!

Thanks for joining me today. Hope you had a fabulous weekend. Hope to catch up my visiting real soon! Hugs & Blessings.

Christmas Card Club Challenge #21

Good Morning. Here's hoping that you've had a good weekend so far;  for my American friends, I pray you were safe if you were in the path of our most recent storm, Michael. So many folks in that Florida Panhandle area had such devastation. It will take a long time for those communities to recover. So many prayers go out to them, and many thanks go upward that the rest of us were kept safe. In our area, we had been told to expect heavy rains and winds. We did get some good rains on one afternoon, then it stopped. Next morning, we had some good rain again, but in the afternoon, sun was back out. We did need the rain so it was good to get what we did. We've had 2 very pleasant days that have been more like what we normally experience at this time of the year.

Today is our Christmas Card Club Challenge, and our Kate chose today's theme of monochromatic. As always, we have the option of Anything goes. I was a little surprised to find myself struggling as to just how to do a monochromatic card...I hope Kate will approve what I did! (It was a good challenge to take me out of my comfort zone as I don't think I've ever done a monochrome card. I didn't use any copics!!!)

Stampendous wooden block - a very old NBUS stamp

Distress Inks Shaded Lilac and Chipped Sapphire

Paper Studio Blue Rose Cottage small paper pack

Used Shaded Lilac DI to sponge a white Bristol Vellum smooth cardstock. Dried the sponging with heat tool, then used the Bag Buddy so that I could do some embossing. After treating the sponged piece, stamped this fairly large block with Chipped Sapphire ink, as that stays wet enough to emboss with Ranger Clear Detail powder.

This was slow to emboss, and that's why there is a little yellow bit up in the branches. I decided I would leave this instead of trying to redo it. It sort of looks like the sun breaking through.

IRL the embossing has a nice shine, and added a narrow black mat to frame it... then placed on the blue dp that covered the side fold white cardbase.

My first effort, I used versamark to emboss a sponged piece that I'd made quite dark, using several blue shades of DI, along with a couple of the purple tones. I was pleased with that deep night sky look. But then I tried embossing with some dark blue cobalt glittered EP, and because the branches have so much tiny detail, that EP just stuck too much to even show the intricate tree branches. Other than the 'burn sun spot' I liked the final result on this effort, though.

Please take time to visit my fellow card club members. Their blog links are listed on the right side bar.

Thanks for visiting and apologies for being so behind once again in returning visits. I hope I can catch up this week. Have the birthday cards caught up until December!!! Have a great day, and God Bless.

A Cup of Birthday Flowers

Good afternoon on a gorgeous Tuesday afternoon. Sunny, but I think the air quality might not be quite so humid as usual. Been doing some bill paying, making phone calls about stuff. Two things I purely detest doing! But - needs must.

Here's a card that has been sent & received (and I hope liked!) so I'm sharing today.

Inky Antics Image

Gina Marie hexagon dies and background overlay

Crafters Companion sentiment die

Image colored with copics, WoS and some Pentel pens.

The sentiment is one that was purchased on a good sale at our local Tuesday Morning store. (This is a store that gets merchandise that probably didn't sell well at other stores . I'm not sure about this fact, but the prices are supposedly discounted. Got this one on the same visit as the sentiment on this card...   which did not cut easily. ) Pleased to say this one cut quite nicely, and the problem one did better on a later card, where the nice metal shim was used. This sentiment has 3 white snippet layers(colored with yellows) built up, and the idea was to have the sentiment color compliment the colors used for the sunflowers.

Ya'll have a wonderful afternoon. Thanks for looking in, and big hugs!