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7/22/2018

July CAS Mix up Challenge

Good evening. We had a nice little rainstorm this afternoon. Has cooled down the temps beautifully. After spending the afternoon as we usually do on Sunday - with my 2 brothers, then  we ate out as a family. Came home, got showered & into my summer jammies;  sat out on the porch swing, reading and watching the heat lightning for a little while. Very pleasant, almost too cool for bare arms, so as twilight fell, I came inside.

I've been working on this card off and on for a while, hoping to get it finished before the July CAS Mix Up Challenge ends. I hope it fits the requirements.

http://casmixup.blogspot.com/



Played with Distress and Oxide inks, smooshing onto a craft mat, spritzing, sometimes with water, sometimes with a pearlized spray. Smooshed pieces of 140# watercolor pieces into the inks. Think it was Twisted Citrus, Bundled Sage, Mustard Seed and Peacock blue. Don't remember which was DI and which was DOX. Let layers dry, then added more of the same colors, but at each layer, used a different combination of the same inks. Sometimes after finishing the smooshing, sprayed a gold spray lightly over the piece to dry. When doing the next layer, I'd try to let some of the gold show through. IRL you can see the gold glimmer, not so much in the photo.

Die cut with a Penny Black fern shape, which dictated the smooshing colors I selected. The negative piece will be used for something else later.

A white snippet from which an oval die shape had been cut, was used for the topper. Placed the die behind the oval, tucking some of the fronds to the outside. Thought that looked cool, but the plain white looked 'plain'! Used the 3D Sizzix branches EF to emboss the front. Had thought to ink up the folder, but remembered for the CAS the background needed to be white. (Not real certain if the embossing will disqualify this as CAS!) Needed to have a background behind the die cut, so used another white snippet.  Memento New Sprout inked the EF before running this through the Big Shot. Added a couple sequins & used a tear drop pad of New Sprout to emphasize the oval edge. (Adhered the pieces, but later wished I'd used some fun foam behind the topper to create more dimension). The sentiment was inked with some green pigment ink, but then while it was still wet, decided to heat emboss with Ranger Queen's Gold. I was glad I had, as I think this showed up better than the green ink would have.

Hope all of you had a pleasant and relaxing weekend. Blessings and Hugs, and come back when you have time! Thanks for visiting this evening.


Christmas Card Club - Challenge 15 Carolers

Good Morning, and welcome to another Christmas Card Club post. This week our theme was chosen by Margaret  and the theme is Carolers.  I chose a Penny Black image, colored with copics.



After coloring the image with copics, some Nuvo Crystal Glaze was used on the Mouse glasses, a white gel pen to add a pattern to the turquoise scarf and Sakura Silver glitter pen on the book pages.

A S/Binder die shape to cut out & emboss the image, edged with DI tumbled glass while still in the die. A green, red and white stripe glitter paper was cut from a larger size of the same die used for the image; then inlaid the image into the stripe frame. The center portion of the stripe shape will be used on the inside of the card.

Red cardbase was debossed with a holly EF that had been inked with Delicata gold.

- used red and green cardstock to stamp Heartfelt Poinsettia set with a red and green ink. Heat embossed the wet ink with Ranger Queen's Gold, then die cut and formed the poinsettias using the Heartfelt Poinsettia mold. Added gold rhinestones for the centers.

A simple sentiment stamped in Gina K red velvet, heat embossed with clear EP to make it shiny, and it's done! I hope you'll visit my team members to see their inspiration on this theme. Their blog links are listed in the right side bar.

Also there's a new card on the Cards by Friends page that I think you'll feel is as beautiful as we did!
So thanks for joining me today, hope your weekend has been good. We had a fairly relaxed weekend, but were a bit busy over the past week. Trimmed some tree limbs and then had to clean up the mess. Took 2 days to recover from our labors.

Hugs & Blessings. Come again when you can.


7/13/2018

Birthday Leaves

Welcome....and Happy Friday the 13th! Hope you've had a good week. Thanks for all the Anniversary wishes yesterday. We didn't make it out to dinner as planned. Our grass needed to be cut, and we were waiting until it cooled off a mite, around 7:30pm, to get outside. When Mr. suggested that it would be thunderstorms today, and thought he'd mow the grass later, I said "Fine, we can eat out later". Come 7:20pm, I looked out and it was raining! Not complaining, we needed the rain, and we'll go out tonight instead. He got out about 1pm this afternoon, as it was clouded over. Still pretty hot, and of course the sun came out. I have been trying to do the 'close trimming' with the walk behind mower, so I did my bit. Now we're all done and the yard looks nice for the weekend, and we still have a nice dinner to look forward to! Yay!

Here's a card that was made from waste paper on the table where spraying is done. Many times when boxes are shipped - there is a waste paper scrunched up to act as filler. It's not tissue paper exactly, but more like a thin newsprint type weight. It's perfect to line the table where I spray and do other messy techniques, and sometimes before I pitch it, I look and see some pretty color. This card is a good example. I hope you (and the recipient of this card) will agree with me. The color was created primarily from spraying brusho-s and probably some Lindy's sprays.

 
 
 
 
After cutting the sprayed paper into a usable section, adhered to a lightweight piece of white card stock. Cut this piece into 3 sections and placed on a black base.
 
Memory box leaf die was cut 3 layers - 2 from black c/s, bottom layer from white snippet, colored with copic black. Covered the top layer with Clear WoS, then added some Nuvo Crystal Glaze after adhering the die to the card. Did the same treatment with the sentiment. A few pearls, and it's done.
 
Since this card is basically ALL snippets, I think I shall zip over the Pond to say Hello to Parsnip and all the elves at Pixie's Snippet Playground for Challenge 330. Maybe there is a cool breeze out on the swings. Don't ya'll want to come along and play?
 
Thanks for dropping by....Have a great day. Hugs
 
 
 

7/12/2018

Anniversary Roses

Good Morning, and welcome. Today is our 55th wedding anniversary, and gosh, it doesn't seem like it was _that_ long ago, when 2 kids who were much too young to be married, got hitched. Then again, sometimes it seems as though we've _always_ been together. He's my best friend and can also sometimes make me madder than anybody else in my world. I expect he might say the same thing about me - in so far as the making mad or annoying part! Still he's stuck with me all these years, so I guess that's saying something. It ain't always been easy, and we've had our share of life's problems... but I can't think of anyone else with whom I'd have wanted to share 55 years. I can honestly say that as I look back over the years. I hope he can too. Nothing special planned for the day - dinner out tonight. We'd discussed a little trip, but with the weather so hot, I suggested we take a little get-away when it's cooler...maybe early fall - September or so. The leaves will be turning in the mountains, and we've always talked about going there to see that. Also thought about North Carolina's Outer Banks, but it would be hot there as well.

Anyway, here's the card I made; Mr. likes roses and he likes blue.

 
A Sizzix die set cut the 5 layered frame using 2 sizes of the die set. Used the in-between sized die to cut the embossed background. This time just inked the embossed piece (Sizzix Botanical 3D EF) with the WOW embossing pad, heat embossed with a Ranger Blue Pearl. (Meant to only heat emboss the raised areas, but I got the piece in the folder wrong-way round and it debossed). The blue pearl shows nicely IRL with a blue-ish sheen, but the photo just shows it as shine.  
 
- Cardinal has 2 layers - white snippets - and was a gift from a friend (thanks Bonnie). Added a pearl for his eye.
 
- Blue roses made with the Heartfelt mold and classic rose stamp and die.(used some white snippets cardstock). I've been practicing...I think the roses are turning out better than the vellum poinsettias. I know: practice makes perfect. Also finding that the c/stock weight makes a difference in how well the finished product turns out. A heavier weight seems to work better for me.  The roses are good to work on while watching mindless tv. Stamp, die cut, color with daubers. Put in the mold, spritz and put on the top part of the mold. Let dry, then glue the layers together. Should be real easy...the video makes it look very easy :-).
 
Just added another pretty card to the Cards by Friends page, so I hope you'll check it out. And thanks for joining me today. There's a couple snippets on this card, so I think I'll jump the pond and visit the Snippets Playground for Challenge #330...why don't you come along?
 
Thanks for joining me today, and Ya'll have a great day. Hugs.
 
EDIT:  Just saw on A Mermaid's Crafts that DL.Art Thankful Thursday Challenge is Anniversary for today, so I hope this anniversary card might qualify! Thanks for the headsup Lisa!
 


7/11/2018

Inspiration Thank You

Good morning, and welcome to a sunny hot Wednesday in Upstate South Carolina. Recently our neighbor was kind enough to present such a beautiful card with a little birthday gift. I thought the card was so pretty that I wanted to try to use for the thank you card in return. I didn't succeed totally, and will try again, but having recently gotten one of the Gina K Wreath Builder sets, I decided to try my hand with the tiny flowers in that set.


Inspiration Card




My Card



The card base used was from a $1.00 pack of Dollar Store small cards, that was purchased enroute to one of the family kids' birthday picnic, as I didn't have time to make her a card. I thought a good way to use this pack up was to cover the front with whatever design I wanted. It's the perfect size for a thank you card.

Heat embossed the sentiment using Ranger Seafoam White. I didn't think to 'prepare' the flower stamps first (where you pre-stamp or sort of sand the polymer lightly) and some of them didn't stamp as well as I'd expected. Good thing for Misti. Used various cube inks for the colors, and this would bead up on the tiny stamps.  After stamping around the edges and creating a 'frame' for the sentiment, sponged a DI light pink shade and then tea dye, going darker in the corners. The Inspiration card has more yellow tones than my pink card, and I didn't do any 'stitching' lines, but I think my neighbor will like it.

Hope all of you are keeping cool as I know so many of my European pals are dealing with brutal heat as well as we Yanks are. Thanks for dropping in....I hope I got my visiting caught up. We were busy earlier in the week, so I got behind - Uh-gin! Life and Lazy get in my way too much!

Big Hugs. Have a wonderful day and come back when you have time.

7/08/2018

Christmas Card Club - Challenge 14 - White on White

Hello and welcome to another Christmas Card Club post. These 2 weeks fly by so quickly it seems. Christine selected the theme for Challenge 14 to be White on White with just a smidgen of color. So let's get to it.


 
 
- Sizzix Tim Holtz 3D Botanical was used for the background behind the Memory Box Shining Candles die. Cut white cardstock with a S/Binders Scalloped Labels One die. Then used WOW embossing ink over the EF, embossed this, then heat embossed with WOW White Pearl. This made the background show as pearl paper, while the flourishes are just the white cardstock. Very pretty look I think.
 
- Used Sookwang tape over white c/s to die cut the candles. Not a great idea, as the outlines of the candles were extremely fussy to try to place properly. Kept the flame part of the tape in place, while Ritz Cool Diamond microfine glitter was applied to the outlines and holly base, then burnished to a shine. Removed the flame portions, sprinkled a gold glitter over that part. Glued this over the background...(and that was a bit touchy as well, as the skinny outlines did not want to stick to the raised surfaces.)Then inlaid the inner parts of the candles into the frames, added a Warm Diamond micro glitter to the 'candles' and IRL - the slight color difference in the glitter whites shows quite nicely.
 
Heartfelt Poinsettia & Holly Clusters Stamps and Dies were used with a pearlized vellum to stamp, heat emboss with Wow White Pearl, die cut. Then used the matching mold to shape the flowers. Sprayed the vellum very lightly before using the mold to shape the flowers, and again, probably would have been better to not spray. However, once the petals had dried, I was able to glue and arrange the poinsettias. I wanted the poinsettias to hide the places where the vellum sentiment was glued down. The sentiment hides a lot of the holly cluster at the bottom of the candle arrangement, and I rather wish I'd just skipped having a sentiment on the front.
 
Do please take time to visit my team members to see their inspirations on Christine's White on White theme. Their blog links are on the right sidebar.
 
Have a lovely day, come again when you have time. Hugs
 


7/04/2018

Happy July 4th!


Good Morning and to all my pals in the USA, HAPPY JULY 4th!  I only made one card, so here 'tis. I have added some lovely cards on the Cards by Friends page, so I hope you take time to look and  enjoy some inspiration by clicking on the links under each photo.

- Red paper is some old specialty paper from the stash. The swirl design of the paper shows on the right side by the white star. It's shiny & looks like it has waves in it if the light hits it in a certain way. Blue paper is textured Bazzill...also VOS.

- Paper Trey Ink die cut the swirl shapes.

- Gina Marie dies cut the stars, and a GM 4th of July stamp set was used for the sentiment.

- red, white & blue stars from stash as well.

Ya'll have a wonderful day, and if you celebrate, be careful if you're handling any fireworks. And Stay Cool. It was 96F here yesterday evening at 7:30pm.

Thanks for visiting, and come again when you have time. Blessings and Hugs.

7/01/2018

Birthday Leaves

Good evening, and sure hope you had a fabulous weekend. Ours was hot, quiet, but pleasant. Relaxed. Had a lovely birthday, spent with most of the folks I love best (DD is in Italy, so she was missing). Thanks to all who sent lovely birthday wishes. It made my day.  Stayed inside in the cool as much as I could, and just did some piddly house things and read a good book, by Anne Cleves (writes the Vera Stanhope and Shetland series - both of which are tv series).

Please help me welcome a recent new follower:
 
Very happy to make a new friend, and I hope my blog pals will hop over to see Lynn's work and say hello. It's been a while since I realized I had any new followers, so if I've neglected to give you a shout out, please call it to my attention. It's a lovely way to meet new bloggers and get to enjoy what they do, and get to know new folks. 

Here's a card that I hope has reached its destination:


Are you as intimidated as I am to send one of your cards to someone that you consider to be a truly fine card maker? This one was made from an old wooden set (NBUS I think...as the trio of stamps was still in the cellophane wrapping). Inkadinkadoo

- used a pierced rectangle set to cut each cream piece, then stamped each fern/leaf in a different shade of green. Matted with a kraft mat - and intended to add a black mat as well. The black made the trio too large for the 5.5x4.25 cream card base. Looked a bit bare, so added an olive green and kraft strip below and above the leaves. In the photo the green strip looks a sort of lime color, IRL it is more of an olive shade. As I look at this photo, guess I should have 'grounded' the leaves. I was so pleased with myself for finding the die that would fit the stamp, then die cutting before I stamped. Usually I've not planned that well :-).

Simple Happy Birthday for the sentiment, and it was stamped in the same green shade as the right hand leaf. Which did have a bit more of a lime tone.

That's it folks. Thanks for drifting by to visit, and have a wonderful week. Blessings and Hugs.