Sympathy Thinking of You

Welcome, and sorry to have been away for a bit. Been busy; also took a little road trip...more on that later. First the card:

Some friends up north lost their 28 yr old daughter very unexpectedly due to a brain aneurisym. She had gone to the beach with some of her cousins, and just suddenly died. A beautiful lady, who had survived many surgeries during her young life, so bravely, without complaint. She was born with one leg bone too short. As she reached certain periods of growth, the doctors would operate, do some complex reconstructive surgery to lengthen that bone. Sounded horrendous when it was described to us. When she got to be about 16, she decided "no more" and had an amputation. Went ahead with her life, to an Ivy League school, where she excelled with her grades, and at sports. So what a tragic loss. Anyway, I wanted to send a card letting them know we care.

Now, for the road trip: Bonnie K and I had talked for a while about our making a drive up to take a class with her. She lives about 4-5 hours north of our area. Things finally gelled so that she was having a class, and it worked out that we'd be able to get away. I held my breath that something would come up, and made our hotel reservations at the very last minute.

What a splendid time we had. Wonderful folks in Bonnie's class, who all made me feel welcome. Bonnie & her husband were so gracious and welcomed us to their lovely home. I had hoped to get some much-needed water color training (we ran out of time!) but we did manage to do some faux enamel and encrusted technique. W/Color was next, but since we had some traffic slowdown on the way north, Mr. wanted to leave earlier than what I'd planned as a departure time. So hopefully, sometime in the future, we can do this again. Her DH is just the nicest guy, and took my DH to a flea market on Sat, so he was not just sitting 'waiting' for me to get finished :-). And Bonnie has The Most Organized Studio!

The class! I didn't ask permission to post this, so hope I'm not offending anyone. The lady in the checked shirt is another blog friend, Candee, and we didn't know until just beforehand - that either of us would be in this class. I'll share the cards we made - Bonnie had kits made up, and it was such fun! 

Some of our North Carolina cousins are planning to come to South Carolina for a day visit tomorrow. Looking forward to that, as last visit was for a funeral. Much better to have the visit at a happy time. 

Thanks for joining me, and big hugs to any who may need a hug today. God Bless. 

Christmas Trees

Good morning, and welcome - I nearly missed Rudolph Day for August, and then there is a CAS Christmas Challenge going on...with trees as the theme. Now I have a lot of tree stamps and dies, so thought "Surely this time I can join in with the CAS Challenge". But as frequently happens to me, time just got away. So I hope this CAS card will do double duty here!!!

 

 

Way back in June I shared some Brusho Play on this post (scroll down past the card to see the backgrounds created by using brusho-s with an embossing folder). Decided to cut the MBox tree die from one of those backgrounds. The marbled colors show up in the photo, but the embossing texture doesn't show all that well. It does IRL however, and I was pleased. Also had some thin metal where DH & I had used Loll's Heated Copper technique (who knows when we did that!) - after placing the trees on the embossed card front, thought it needed a 'little something' - yet still keep it CAS. Took a cheapie tiny star die (probably a $1 find at Michaels) and to my surprise - the tiny die* cut that metal. I wasn't certain it would. It bent the star shape just a bit, and I had planned to straighten the 'legs' once I had the star down. Decided I liked it with the little curls. The center star looked lonely, and since the first cut had gone well, I added 2 companions! Die cut the tree shape from white, embossed that piece. Used 2 colored tree die cuts, with the white cut from the embossed piece to inlay into the front, and it has nice dimension.

 *meant to write punch!

Since today is the ending of Rudy Day I'm also going to jump over the pond to join in that challenge.

 

Linking to: August CAS Christmas Card, and July 2018 Rudolph Day Challenges. Looking forward to seeing your cards there too!

 

Thanks for joining me this morning, and ya'll have a nice day (that's what we say here in the South!)

Hugs.

 

Supplies: CuttleBug Snowflakes EF, Memory Box Pine Trio Background, Hero Arts CL343 clear sentiment set

Christmas Card Club - Challenge 16

Hello and welcome to a new Christmas Card Club post. Challenge 16's theme was selected by our Scrappymoi (Maureen, she of the Rudolph Day fame). Maureen wanted to see  winter activity themes such as sledding, skiing, or sleighs. As always, we members have the choice of 'anything goes' if we don't have suitable images for that challenge's theme, which is helpful. Anyway, when I saw the challenge theme, I immediately remembered an old Penny Black Snowie, which I've always loved to color. In looking for him, discovered another old wooden stamp, no manufacturer name on it, so made 2 cards this time. I needed a bit of copic coloring therapy.

 

 

 

The 'icy snow' on the hillside looked a bit pink when I spread it out with my fingers for 'snow'. It's Stickles Stardust. All of my stickles are pretty old stash, so I don't know if this product discolors with age...It doesn't look pink in the bottle, and didn't at first when I was smooshing it around. As it dried, it has a pinkish look.

 

Some Impression Obsession and Sue Wilson die trees cut out of snippets, colored with various copic greens. The die is a Memory Box one, cuts 3 pieces. Adhered the larger rectangle to Snowie, then inlaid the outer rectangle, finished with the oval center. The DP is from an older 6x6 winter pack. Since I knew I'd be using the additional trees for dimension, thought it would work.

 



 

 

No idea who made this cute little sled of mice, but it was fun to color. Did some cloud practice on the sky and added white flocking for the snow. Again, some stardust stickles right around the sled, and this didn't look pink (same Stardust bottle though). MFT stitched frame with red & white dots. Hmmm...then tried to find something besides plain white to use as DP. Thought the blue snowflakes DP would work, then added the MB Christmas die in the leftover red from cutting the frame. After I looked at this one for a while, sort of wished I had stayed with just plain white, maybe embossed with a snowflake EF. Oh well....Sometimes what is in my creative thinking doesn't turn out as I hoped it would!!!

 

Hope you have time to check out the other team members interpretation of this challenge. Their links are in the right side bar. Wishing all of you a happy Sunday and our heat is back. I will be doing some blog visiting this afternoon to see what lots of you have been sharing. Thanks for joining me, and big hugs coming your way

 

 

 

 

Caring Thoughts

Good evening, and here we are in a new month, ready for a weekend. We've had some nice rain over the past few days, and cooler temps. Thankfully in the community where we live, there's been no flooding issues but there are in some areas. We're grateful to have the rain, as for the most part, it's been the kind that soaks into the ground.

One of our neighbors is having some serious health issues, and has been hospitalized at Emory Hospital in Atlanta. I have been working on a card for her, trying to watercolor again, after seeing a video at Jennifer McGuire's blog, with a guest Lisa Tilson. Inspired me to try my hand....Uh-GIN! I tried to use a simple stamp, and here's the result. After I finished it, I wasn't brave enough to try the spatters!

 

 

Heat embossed with a white EP (Sorry, don't remember the brand, but it was not a pearl powder. It sort of looks like it though). Then used the  zigs with a water brush as Lisa did in her video, to blend the zig ink. There's a couple layers in the green leaves.  Then decided to try to do the 'shadow' effect as she did, using a gray blue with a very pale pink. Decided I didn't like the pink, so went back over it, so that the entire area would be in the gray blue, and liked it better.

 

The water color cardstock was cut some time back, and since it was already squared, just used a stitched die to add a little detail. Then tried to use some mats that would complement the colors of the main image. It's amazing what the camera shows --these mats looked perfectly straight when I was putting each one down, and the card looked pretty good until I saw the photo!!! But I don't think my neighbor will nitpick it.

 

Hope you're ready for a pleasant weekend where you might be. We should be pretty relaxed; hope to have a new recliner delivered for my tv room tomorrow.  I probably should have just had the old chair reupholstered, but I didn't. You only go around once. There's a pretty new card on the Cards by Friends page, which I hope you'll take time to enjoy.

 

Thanks for visiting this evening. I have a few more cards I've been working on, just can't seem to get in a 'finishing' mode. Hugs & Blessings.