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!

A Bucket of Flowers for a Sympathy Card

Welcome....recently needed to send a sympathy card to a blog pal who lost her husband very unexpectedly. Thought this image would work well for this occasion. Didn't realize until I saw the photo, that the central image doesn't look as though it's on straight. Why is it that I check, recheck, things look ok, until I see the photo?! Honestly, I do double check the cards...I don't think my eyesight is _that_ bad!

Inky Antics image  colored with Copics and WoS, a Pentel silver pen for the rim around the oval. A S/Binder die scored the frame on the outer white oval.

Dry Embossed the background, then added a border. SU punch for the sentiment.

That's all folks! Come back when you can ...and I'm still having some comments stay "awaiting publication", some are coming into the Hotmail address and some are going into the spam folder. So I'm having to check several places for any comments, and my apologies if I miss you. Or if I miss returning a visit if you've left a comment.

Hugs & have a great day.

Birthday Flowers

Good morning. Back to share a card that has been received. Quiet day yesterday, but somehow I managed to stay busy (and I didn't sit down and read either!!!) That can usually be one of my excuses for not getting anything done. Didn't have to leave the house today either. Oh, one thing that took up my time: Cleaning an old turntable my Yankee friend found for me at an estate sale. I'd seen a youtube where this lady was doing dirty pours using a sink strainer, and she had it on what looked to be a surface that turned. Mr. said "I bet an old record player would do that", so I asked my friend to keep an eye out. Yesterday morning when I went out to water the porch plants, there's this big box sitting by the door. He sends us New England apples fresh from an orchard about this time, so I just thought "what a heavy box of apples". Mr. came in, said he'd had a phone call  -- that our friend had sent my record player. It was old, very grubby and had to be cleaned (and I'll need to clean it again) so that took some time. Then I had some phone calls to make, blah, blah.

EDIT: Forgot to give a welcome shout out to a lovely new follower: Doreen of Doreen's Dream. Thanks for becoming a follower Doreen, and I hope all my old friends will hop over to visit my new friend, and enjoy her beautiful work. She has some recent pan pastel cards that are stunning! 

Here's the card:

- Penny Black First Blush (colored with copics and some white gel pen)

- Altenew Pinstripe (clear)

Stamped the floral image on Xpress c/s, colored. Then used Avery Self-Adhesive Labels to restamp the image and use the just the flowers as a mask (saw this trick on a Jennifer McGuire video). Cut inside the inked lines of the flowers so that I didn't get a halo, but in some places I still did. After placing the mask, stamped in one direction with the pinstripe image...(since it's clear, it makes it easier to see placement). Re-inked the stamp and turned the opposite way to create a crosshatch pattern. Added some white highlights with a gel pin. Die cut with a stitched die. Used a linen look DP for another stitched mat, punched a label from that same paper to do the sentiment. Added some red pearls! That's it!

Today is exercise day for us, so we'll be out of the house today, and it's hot. Got some other errands to run as well. So ya'll stay cool, if it's still hot where you are, and have a super great day. Thanks for visiting, come back when you can! Hugs 

August Twofer Challenge - Geometrics

Good evening, and welcome. I'm skating into the August Twofer Challenge by the skin of my teeth!
This month I tried very hard to play as the theme is Geometrics. I have circles, ovals, squares, rectangles, you name it. So it ought to have been super easy, right? Here goes, and see what you think.

Here's the 2 cards done using a skinny Double Stitched Rectangle, Set B, Sue Wilson. (hope this link to Walmart works. Mine came from Oozak when there was a 50% off, and it's no longer showing at the site).

Also used the S/Binders Wonky Rectangle as a mat.

 

 

-SnS sunflower image was inked with DI markers onto 140# c/s. Then used a water brush to pull the color out.  The skinny stitched rectangle cut the focal image. Then used larger sized rectangles from that set to cut the frame. Adhered a previously made Brusho background onto cream cardstock. Adhered the frame rectangle piece, then inlaid the watercolored piece.  Added a stamped sentiment, 3 wooden look sequins, and decided to do a few score lines.

- Northwoods Halloween image was colored with copics. Used the same skinny stitched rectangle to die cut the scene into thirds. Wasn't sure how this would look with the separation in the scene, but I think it turned out ok. A background of DOX was created using Dusty Concord, Mermaid blue and Carved Pumpkin. Sprayed this lightly with some Tattered Angels silver-y spray (which of course doesn't show. It made spatters I was proud of though!) Tried to use an unmounted plain rubber spiderweb stamp to black emboss - I've learned that unmounted stamps do NOT stamp well for me, so will be hunting up that mounting stuff I have somewhere. Decided to dry emboss a SU spiderweb, which worked ok, although not much of that shows either. Purple glitter paper was die cut with the Wonky rectangle (which needed a little artistic license. The large die in the set didn't quit fit for the trio of rectangles, so drew around the outer edge to lengthen it enough that the images would fit better. Then fussy cut ). Last bit was to use another snippet of the green brusho piece to heat emboss the Halloween sentiment, add some purple rhinestones. One Halloween card down!

I'm having blogger issues with comments again. I have deleted the email address, saved, waited a bit, then re-added the address, saved. But still not getting the comments. This started yesterday. So bear with me.

Off to link up with the August Twofer Challenge. Thanks for joining me this evening. Hugs.

Watercolored Sunflower (CAS August 2018 Challenge)

Good evening. Tomorrow is Friday..YAY. Even though I've been retired quite a few years, I still get happy when Friday is the next day. I guess it was ingrained in my consciousness for too many years :-)

I've been trying hard to get into this month's CAS Watercolor challenge, since it's sunflowers. Have a lot of those images (but when I went hunting in the flower stamp drawers, I wasn't finding as many as I thought I remembered having!!!)  I was looking for something that would be easy to watercolor, since that's a bit of a challenge to me. Finally settled on a clear stamp that probably was from the Michael's Dollar bin. I knew I was going to stamp on w/color paper, and  with that texture - it needs to be restamped multiple times, so I wanted a clear image I could keep reinking. Now please don't ya'll laugh at this card-----

used Distress markers in shades of yellow to ink up this stamp, and can't even remember how many times I kept reinking, restamping. The outline part shows up as though I'd outlined it, but that was the Rusty Hinge marker that showed up nicely here. I also had some of the Mustard Seed and Lemonade inked on the edges of this outline stamp. Then used a waterbrush to try to pull out the colors...that worked fairly well. Wanted a bit more shading, so scribbled the Mustard Seed on the kraft mat, and used the brush to add some more layers around on the petals. Center was done with adding a little Spiced Marmalade first, then using Tea Dye, Brushed Corduroy, and just going to darker browns until I got something that looked like the brown center of a sunflower to me.

Now here's where I said Don't Laugh! This was just a single flower...so I free handed the stem and leaves with the water brush. That little blossom just looked too lonely all by itself.

Mat was colored with brusho greens and yellows, also on watercolor weight paper. For some reason, it didn't want to spread well so that's why so many of the specks still show in the colors. The c/s was quite wet, but the crystals just didn't want to spread around even though I kept spritzing with water, finally with a gold spray. Decided I liked it anyway behind the sunflower and cut it with a S/B Wonky die.  The sunflower looks like it's on white paper, but it was cream colored..the card base is also cream color, and IRL these 'creams' look the same color.

OK, off to link up with the CAS August Watercolor (AW, heck, go ahead and laugh if you want! I'm still trying to get the hang of watercolor). Skating in by the skin of my teeth----

Ya'll have a nice evening. Thanks for joining me & maybe see ya again tomorrow if I can finish a card tonight. Trying to sneak in the 2fer also! Big hugs.

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.

 



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.

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.

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!

 



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.

Sympathy Flowers

Good morning, and welcome. Saturday we had to travel to our hometown to attend the funeral of a cousin. Since the 2 older brothers don't drive, and both felt like our Dad's family should be represented, we got up early and made the 3+ hour trip. This is the card I sent to the family, along with a nice arrangement from our families.

- Gina K Arranged with Love clear set (Melanie Muenchinger) stamped with Memento Desert Sand, colored with copics.  My first effort was a watercolor try, using embossing ink, Ranger Queen's gold, and Zig markers. At first I was very unhappy with the attempt, but I've tried to look at the piece later, and not criticize myself so much. I might share it as a card later. I thought the softer colors of this piece looked more appropriate. This is a lovely image to color with copics.

S/B Decorative rectangle die (I don't remember the name!) to die cut with a pierced edging. It didn't get placed 'just so', and I trimmed off some of the edges, then versamarked, gold embossed and thought it looked ok. This set has some other sentiments with it, which makes it versatile. You can also ink up one of the roses and add it for dimension. Didn't think this was the occasion to do such, as I wanted to keep it simple, but hopefully pretty & tasteful.

Added an embossed piece of cardstock, which was adhered to a white card base.

Been trying to scope out why no email notification of comments is coming into the mail address I have in the blog settings. Happened to think that I set this blog up with a Hotmail account (and of course Hotmail has changed the way it looks and I don't use it often.) That Hotmail account was hacked a few years ago, which caused me to delete all the contacts and basically quit using it.  So figured out how to log in to the Hotmail account, and there were a BUNCH of comments - that have to be the notifications! Worked on trying to change the Hotmail setting originally used for blogger. The instructions I found said to send an invite to the preferred address, and you accept the invite and add that address as an author. Which you can then change that to Admin, and go delete the old Hotmail. Well, I've not got it to work yet, so of course I can't delete the Hotmail address! Arrrgggh!

Ya'll have a nice day. Big hugs to any needing one, and folks, it's starting to get right hot around our area!

Christmas Card Club - Christmas Flower

Welcome, and today is Challenge #6 for our Christmas Card Club. This is a group of ladies who make Christmas Cards and post every 2 weeks. Today's challenge theme was selected by Rachel who picked Christmas Flowers.

I decided to use a Stampendous cling poinsettia stamp, and work with watercolor again. Stamped and embossed with a new Brutus Monroe Ultra Gilded Gold. I'm very pleased that it seems to be very similar to my favorite Ranger Queen's Gold, which has been discontinued. Got out the Arteza water color pens to try. I had used Koh-I-noor mixed media paper which is supposed to be good for watercoloring. Well, folks, my water color skills are not great, and this paper pilled for me. Also I didn't find the Arteza pens to be quite as easy for me to blend as the Zigs. (not that I'm great with Zigs either!) Finally got out some distress inks and just touched the water pen to the surface and then tried to fix the hard edges on my work. Here's the result:

I didn't even bother to put this on a card. Was very tempted to just toss in the trash, but thought I'd share it here - yes, it's a wart. I keep trying with the water color & get so discouraged that it never looks very good.

Next effort - and once again tried the Arteza, thinking maybe my first image was too complex so I'd use a very simple shape. Used the same colors as above.

 

This image did color a bit better than the first attempt, but I still had to use the water pen direct to the Distress Ink pad to get good coverage. I had put layers of water color on the petals, but as it was starting to 'pill', decided I best go to the ink pad. This was done on 140# watercolor, and I didn't have a lot of water on the brush. Guess I was just going over the area too much perhaps. Die cut a red side fold card base to create an aperture. Die cut the image, then made a green frame. Once this part was adhered behind the aperture, cut another frame, used WOW embossing pad, then the Brutus Monroe Gilded Gold EP. This looked  pretty good, BUT as I was adhering the frame over the aperture shape with glue that is not supposed to leave anything showing if some of it seeps out....well, you could see a smudge on the paper. What to do? Had a purchasedt Christmas card (some of my relatives who don't save cards but give them to me)...so started to fussy cut some poinsettias to hide the boo-boo. One fussy cut led to another...and there it is. You ever start a card, that no matter what you do, it seems to get worse?!

 

Almost ready to pull out the copics, as time was getting short. Decided to give the water color one more try. Found another image, used water color paper, Distress Inks. WOW embossing ink, Brutus Monroe EP, then put a light blue wash over the embossing. My first wash effort made some of the gold embossing flake off, so got another piece of W/C card and did the above process again. This time I was very careful to keep the damp brush off the embossing as I was doing the wash. Then used the Distress Inks (2 greens for the leaves, even though you can't see the shading) -- Barn Door and Festive Berries for the flowers. Die cut, and the die made a frame as it cut. Used Brutus Monroe Gold to emboss the frame. Used a PTI cover plate to emboss the white background, but it doesn't show up in the photo.

 



I don't know if #3 was the charm, but I do know I was getting tired of trying to do watercolor, so that's it! It might be a while before I try to watercolor anything again. I get frustrated, and then after a while, I want to give it another go. I just don't like to admit something has defeated me, when I really want to be able to do it...and do it fairly well. I know it takes practice, practice, practice! Sorry for the long post. I'd be interested in your efforts if you struggle with this technique too.

Do check out the fellow team members whose blog links are on the right hand side bar. Have a wonderful afternoon, and my blog candy winner has contacted me. I've been finding some other goodies to tuck in, and hope to mail it early next week.

Hugs & Blessings.

Easter Egg

Good afternoon and welcome to a scheduled post. Hope you're having a great day.

- Cheery Lynn bunny (from the same die set as the egg shape) cut from a very old piece of card stock. The material has a mottled color, and think it came from a long ago class. It's a bit thick and I wasn't sure this wafer thin die would cut it well. It did though. The only thing I did to this shape was add a tiny Nuvo eye - thought the color of the c/s would be fine to show texture.

- Cheery Lynn egg shape cut a previously created Brusho background. Added some Judikins Diamond Glaze with a round blender tool and sponge, then buffed it.

- Ali Express floral die cut white snippet, which was colored to be an Easter Lily. This material was a 'stabilizing cardboard' from the bottom of a shopping bag. Decided to leave the centers of the blossom part of the die inserted, rather than removing as they are meant to be.

Memory Box sentiment die, and on this card, decided not to add back in the cutout bits of the letters, but let the blue gingham material show.

Blue gingham is from a Michaels 6x6 pack, on sale, and the paper is very thin. (This would make great Iris fold paper I think!)

Ya'll come back again when you have time. Hugs & Blessings.

Thank You Flower

Happy Friday & Welcome. We have glorious warm sunshine today, after a couple dreary rainy days. Sky is the beautiful blue our area calls Carolina Blue - and I'm not seeing any white clouds floating about. Always a good recipe for a happy weekend in my opinion.

We have a friend in Massachusetts who was born deaf, and didn't learn speech because of her deafness. Her Mom was a nurse & was exposed to measles in her 1st trimester of pregnancy. It was only when the baby was quite a few months old, that she suspected the baby didn't appear to hear. Many medical consultations, and years later, our young friend was enrolled in the American School for the Deaf. There was no school close in the area of Massachusetts where our friends lived, so every Sunday night, her Mama drove 90 miles down to Hartford Connecticut to take her child to school. Repeated the drive on Friday evening to bring her home for the weekend. This was the routine for 12 years of schooling. Over the years, other children were born, so Mom had an impossibly full schedule to care for ALL of her family. Mom learned sign language along with her daughter, but as she grew up, they developed their own shorthand signs to speak with each other. I never got the slightest intimation that Mom ever felt life was unfair, she just accepted what was, and got on with things. In my book, I think she's the closest person to a Saint I'll ever know. All of her kids and her siblings would heartily agree with me. I was blessed to have known her. I've also been in awe of Kathy, ever since I first got to know her...as she lets nothing stop her from doing anything she's ever wanted to do.

Now our handicapped friend has retired from work, she's started to develop a new career. She began going to the local Senior Center, and has learned to paint. No lessons, just pick up a brush and go. She's amazing. On our last visit to Massachusetts, she kindly gifted us with 2 of her paintings. She knows I love the white birches that grow so plentifully up in New England, but are not in our area of the country. So one scene was of white birches in the spring. Another was of beautiful yellow tulips against a deep purple-blue background. We went off and forgot to pack them, which made me feel badly (as well as major ungrateful!) When our BFF was here recently - it's his niece that is the artist - he brought them along. I wanted to send Kathy a thank you card for these paintings.

 

 

The image was inked with versamark, heat embossed with white EP, sponged with DOX in Lemonade right in the center. Then sponged over the entire area with Broken China. I was trying for a sort of 'glow' around the center. The outer corners had some extra Broken China sponged. Used Bristol Smooth Vellum cardstock, die cut with a stitched die.

 

Black snippet was embossed with SNS Opaque Detail White, after die cutting the shape with a tag die. The focal image has fun foam behind it, and the outside edge of the tag sentiment is raised up with 2 layers of dimensional tape so as to make it level with the flower.

 

Dry embossed the stitched framing around the focal image. I hope Kathy and you like it! I was rather pleased with it, myself.

Here's a beautiful sunset we had last night after the rain subsided. It was just awesome.

Thanks for stopping by. Sending hugs and many wishes that you will have a super weekend, and if you're where that intense cold is about you, stay warm and safe.

Lavendar Thank You

Welcome! After a rainy & dreary weekend, we have lovely golden warm sunshine today. Great way to start a week. This weekend we took a 3 hour drive up to our hometown to visit a 91 yr old cousin. She's in a nursing home, and my oldest brother expressed a wish to see her. My sweet DH said "I'll take him". So that's what we did Saturday, and even though it was very sad to see the situation she's in, I'm thankful we were able to have them meet again. They were kids together, and were close as adults too. Additionally we met up with some other cousins at our favorite family BBQ place in the town. Had a safe drive back home, for which I always say a big "Thank you", as there are so many irresponsible and crazy drivers on the interstate we travel.

Today's card has been received, so I'm sharing it this afternoon. Just finished up a marathon commenting session for the sweet folks who came to see the Rudolph Day post. I was about 2 day s behind on my visiting.

This UFO image had been colored, who knows how long ago. My recipient likes purple, so I used DP that has a large floral pattern for a die mat. I just never know how to use these  pretty large patterns effectively. I admire seeing how other crafters can make such lovely cards with these papers.

 

The image was from a PBlack transparent set, very easy to color; S/B deckled oval die, and a Darice oval die for the mat.  The background was made using a stencil, gold mica spray. This particular piece was created by pressing the saturated stencil against Canson Mixed Media c/s. The stencil had been used to spray through for another project. I was not going to waste all that lovely gold spray!

 

Found a simple sentiment stamp, used a Memento purple pad, and a quick thank you was finished.

 

Need to get crackin' on making some Valentine cards. We are planning to be away that week, so I doubt I mail out very many. Hoping to get to Florida. The DD was here for a few days last week, and oh, did we enjoy that time. Hard to see her leave, but I did goodby better than I usually do (primarily 'cause we hope to see her again soon). 

 

Come again when you can. So much flu & stomach bugs around, so please try to stay well. Hugs & Blessings. Thanks for your visit.

 



Sending Hugs Flowers

Good afternoon and welcome. Surely hope that if it's brutally cold and unpleasant weather where you might be, that you can stay inside where it's cozy & warm. We have lovely sunshine, but it's a brisk 35F outside. It was 13F at 3:30am this morning. We're thankful we are not getting the same bitter cold & snow that our northern states are having, and I expect a lot of my European buddies are also having to contend with some very wintery weather. Brrrrr!

Remember this card  and my first attempt which was not good at all? I had tried for no-lines with a light brown to stamp the image; then colored with pastel shades, based on google-ing Christmas Rose, and it was really a washout. Meant to take photos to share, but that didn't happen. While looking around Youtube I found some other looks that I liked, so re-did the peach-y pastel tones I'd used, and today's card is the result. Changed to a darker blue background (alas the photo doesn't really show how really dark this background is. It shows off the dark peachy tones of this card's flowers).

 

Wplus9 Christmas Rose: original failed effort was used for the background layer. Sponged Oxide Blues, adding more darkness at each corner. Photo is not capturing this, but it looks quite nice. Colored over the smaller flowers with Yellow and YR copics, and darkened the leaves quite a lot as well. Stamped a 2nd image to get the largest flower to cut out, pop up. Fussy cut the large flower from the bottom layer as it's covered with the popup one, and used portions of it to place under the popped up flower (make sense?).  It did create quite a lot of depth, and I was finally pleased with how this looked. All the time I kept telling myself "It's just paper, you _can_ throw it away!" Don't you just hate to let something of this sort defeat you? I do! Finally used a copper Kaisercraft metallic marker to add the dots on the petals.

The blue background had water droplets sprinkled over it- which I forget to do most of the time - and then once all was put together, used a spritz of gold mica spray very lightly. The only thing I thought about changing at the last, was to add some seed beads for the centers. I've not been very successful at getting good results with those...plus they scatter everywhere as I try. Additionally this has to go through the mail, so for once I left well enough alone!! A Martha Stewart tag (VOS) was stamped with the sentiment.

 

Back later this evening with the Christmas Card Club post. Trying to start the new year off right.

 

Stay warm, thanks for visiting, and God Bless. Hugs too.

 

 



 

Christmas Rose

Good Evening, and here it is: Christmas Eve. We have some eucalyptus and basalm candles burning, so it certainly smells like Christmas inside. Many long years ago (maybe 40+) DH had one of the then popular ceramic Christmas trees made for me, by a friend of his. This was before we got into ceramics. Surprisingly with all our moving around, the tree is still intact, all the little lights still work, so that's turned on tonight. And best of all, Mr has had 3 good days where he wasn't feeling punk. Yesterday we had a big family celebration at the daughter of Brother #2. Two of his sons were missing, but with the grands, great grands - there were enough people there, to make a lot of noise! Very festive and lots of delicious food too. Tomorrow I'll be doing some food here for DH & me, and think Bro #2 will join us. Brother #1 will be at one of his daughter's - so that's another milestone holiday for each of them to have gotten through alone - but thankfully, not truly alone!

So I've been working on a special card for the Mr. Had gotten aWplus9 Christmas Rose stamp and colored it up. Disaster. It's not an easy stamp to color, even though I thought it would be. First stamped in Memento Toffee Crunch, as I wanted a sort of 'no line' look with pastel colors. (I had looked up Christmas Rose on google to see the color ranges). Worked 2 nights, and it went from bad to worse. My coloring was ok...BUT...the pastel colors looked really washed out. Decided to check youtube to see if somebody had used this image (I knew Jennifer McGuire had, which is where I saw it..but of course I couldn't find that one!) Luckily I found Floral Highlighting with Kelly. Loved what she did so much, I cased it! Now mine doesn't look quite as good as Kelly's turned out, but I was rather pleased with it (so big thanks to Kelly! I'll edit this post later to share my first efforts...)

 

 

I didn't use exactly the same copic colors or Distress Ink colors as in the video, and also used a DOX one, but basically I CASED what Kelly did, with immense gratitude. I was getting a little panicky about having a nice card done. I think Mr. will enjoy having it. He always prefers the cards where I've done copic coloring rather than just the die cut ones. I thought about doing some gold spatters, but caution won the day.

 

So Merry Christmas to ALL of you, and big thanks to so many of you who thought of us with the lovely Christmas cards you've sent us. I hope I've shared all of them...and that you've had time to take a peak and enjoy them with us.

 

God Bless, and I hope each of you has those you love best with you tomorrow, and will be able to enjoy the day with splendid health. Family, Love and Health...and remembering the most precious Gift given us so long ago. Hugs

 



A Happy Birthday Poinsettia

Good evening, and thanks for stopping by for a little visit. We have a dear friend from our days in Florida, who is going to be 100 years old on Christmas Eve. This sweet lady has since been moved out to California by her son, so that he can better look after her, but aside from most things age-related, she is still sharp although due to some falls in the past, she moves about with a wheelchair. She loves to read, watch tv, goes to craft & social functions at the living facility where she resides. So what to make for this special lady? We even looked at Hallmark as I wanted something very elegant and beautiful for her. I was quite disappointed, as all of the cards we saw were humorous or just not suited for this milestone occasion. So, thinking...well, it's Christmas AND her birthday, she likes flowers...poinsettias, right? So here's what finally evolved, and I will say right up front, it looks much better IRL than it does in the photo.

- A Penny Black poinsettia background was stamped using versamark, heat embossed with Queen's Gold.

- White cardstock was die cut with a Tim Holtz Mixed Media die (which I thought I had in my stash; then when I went to pull it from storage, that was not one of the 2 mixed media sets I have! Murphy's Law!) After this corner was die cut, the piece was embossed with a Tim Holtz poinsettia EF.

- A stampendous poinsettia image was stamped with versamark, heat embossed with Queen's Gold, and colored with copics (carefully, as the nibs don't like the embossed edges). I did 2 sets of this poinsettia, adhered one layer. Then on the 2nd layer, used a stylus to raise up the petals on some leaves. Looking pretty good, until I tried to 'deboss' the center, and stylus poked through! Grrr! So first thought of Nuvo drops, but then decided to drop some glossy accents into the center, then add some of the tiny, tiny gold beads (forget what these are called..it's not prills). Of course these little things just go all over, but I managed to mound them up and it dried overnight.

- Sentiment was heat embossed with the same gold on heavy weight vellum. I was going to add 100th between the words, but did not have any number stamps that looked appropriate with the size of the sentiment letters. Inside it references the milestone, and I hope she will enjoy knowing this card was made just especially for her. We've always thought a great deal of this elegant & refined lady and don't get to see her since she moved to California.

Some lovely cards were added to the Cards by Friends page tonight. Are you as intimidated to send your cards to fellow card bloggers as I am? But we sure do get a bright lift to our day to receive them from these sweet people. I have a few more, but haven't photo'd those as yet.

Have a wonderful week, and hope you can find some relaxing time. We aren't real sure we'll make our trip to Florida for Christmas. DH had a procedure to shatter the kidney stone on Thursday, and we're not 100% sure that it's successful. He's done pretty well, but still seems to have some pain at night when he lies down. Still watching to see if anything passes...just didn't feel it was the thing we should do to take a 12+ hr drive, perhaps encounter a problem while away from his doctor and his records. So we're just a little 'down'...but all things happen for a reason.

God Bless. Hugs too.

Blue Vase of Sunflowers

Happy Monday evening. I hope none of my UK pals are going to have any problems with the storms that I've read are going to affect your shores. We had a textbook beautiful fall day to start the week. Overcast this morning, cool, but then the sun came out. Our temp hovered around 70F for most of the day. Had Bro #2 down the street for some leftover rotessarie chicken. After finishing the last baseboard cleaning yesterday, got presentable to visit the store. Too tired to cook so a lovely cooked chicken from our local Sam's Wholesale fit the bill for us. This is a good value for the money, as we usually get a couple meals from the chicken, and it's under $5.00 for one. Our local groceries have one about 3/4 the size Sam's or Costco sells, and for nearly $7.00. Got a couple of frozen side dishes to heat, and that was dinner. One of his grandkids had come by, so they handled the meal for him last evening. Kitchen now cleaned, comments caught up, so here goes a post.

A friend is having a bit of "Life" strike just at the moment, so thought this card I had done while MIA might cheer up a bit.

The image is an oldie, wooden block, but it's always fun to color. The vase has some glossy accents on it, and of course, the usual WoS for some sparkle. Couple layers on the die cut sentiment. Butterfly was handy to add a little trim. This looked cheerful to me...

When moving 'stuff' in the pc room so that I could even get to the baseboards, I found a box of very old cards done when I first started trying to learn how to watercolor. I have to say, don't think I've had much improvement in the intervening years. But hey, I'll share anyway! These are not cards that will ever get mailed (unless I get desperate!)-- I've got a pretty good stash of most occasion cards, except for sympathy ones. Should do some of that type when not needed specifically, as it's pretty hard to do when you actually need one to send.

Now for the oldie water colors. I think just the old pancake type of color was used for these cards. These were done when we still had a local stamp store, and I think are circa 2005 perhaps.

2nd one has extra petals added over layer 1 for a bit of dimension. I think this was a Penny Black shop stamp -

Used some versa mark stamping, gold embossing on this one, then water coloring.

Probably versa mark again, with a black embossing, then water coloring. The edging around the image was done with a ruler and water coloring as I recall. Anyway, you can laugh if you want. I did when I opened the box and found these. Didn't know I still had them.

Today was a real good rest day. Read a book, had a nap...and leftovers to heat up for supper, so an easy day. Before I get back into my lazy bad habits, I've made a list of some other chores that I've needed to tackle for a while...like cleaning out bookcases, and tossing away a lot of junk...dust collectors. It's a good feeling when you get finished, even if you are tired!!

Ya'll have a good evening, and come back when you can. Big hugs, and thanks for looking in! I missed you guys while I was gone! God Bless.