Recycling for February Rudolph Day

Good afternoon. Welcome to February's Rudolph Day Challenge, which opens on the 25th of each month and ends on the last day of that month.

My card today is one that has been made up for a couple of weeks. Sorting through the cards received this past Christmas were some that I thought had 'recycle' possibilities. A Memory Box Oval Master frame that had come in an order, made me think one card would work fine with that die.

 

 

- Covered a white card base with Paper Studio plaid pattern.

 

- Die cut the original Christmas card with the MB Oval Master Frame die. This die also cuts a thin oval frame, which was used on this card. If you look closely at the oval in this card, you'll see part of the picture image from the ornament.

 

- Another scallop, stitched oval die had been used to cut a frame using the back of this same original Christmas card, and thought it looked pretty good with the ornament motif. However, that red frame had something showing that I didn't want on the card, so -- Martha Stewart poinsettia punch to the rescue. Used some cream c/stock to punch out several layers, shaped and formed some poinsettias to tuck around, hide part of an image that I didn't want visible. Added some gold seed beads to create the stamens of the poinsettias. Some of the flowers were colored and cut apart to form leaves. Thought these rather complimented those flowers in the printed image.

 

- DieVersions die cut sentiment from a snippet of gold mirror paper. Aside from the plaid background, pretty much this entire card is snippets I guess! We received another card with what I thought was this same ornament, and had thought to fussy cut and add over the top with some tape to create dimension. However, once I had the idea, found the other card, nah, it has a pretty poinsettia image, rather than an ornament. The rest of the card is identical though - to the one I recycled here. Same design except for the switch of the ornament to a poinsettia!

 

Do pop over to Scraps of Life to join in with February's Rudolph Day Challenge. Maureen always has some lovely prizes! Thanks for joining me this afternoon. Big Hugs

 

 

Christmas Tree Recycle

Good evening - thanks for dropping by to visit. After a very gray & dreary Saturday we had some lovely sun and about 60F temps today. Very pleasant, except for occasional wind. We just finished up the front Christmas lights - for the afternoon anyway. Mr. had gotten our Santa sleigh & reindeers operational. Only part of the sleigh was lighted & then with the rain Saturday, we both just lazed around inside, staying dry. It wasn't the kind of day one wanted to be working outside. We got the icicle lights strung along the gutters hanging over the front porch. That went better than I expected (You'll remember that blurb that went around on email about when you're choosing the guy you want to marry...you want to see how he handles Christmas lights! Mr. is NOT that guy who has the real good humor with untangling/testing/putting up Christmas lights. Nah...he'd have lost out on that one!! - well, I would have too, as it's not my happiest thing to do). I untangled some strings of lights we didn't use on the front porch, so we may put some along the back deck rails. We both commented this might be our last year of doing outside decorations. Most of the folks in our neighborhood decorate, so we feel a little like Mr. Scrooge when we do nothing..which we have some years due to circumstances. Still need to get down some inside things, but that chore doesn't depend on the weather.

Ok...today's card has been made, just haven't done the photo. For long years I've saved cards that were sent to us, with the thought that 'someday' I would do 'something' with them..as they were just too pretty to throw away. During our declutter project earlier this year, I did go through & toss some humorous cards. Today's card was very simply done with the tree on gold & white. When I spotted it, I knew immediately how it would recycle.

- the tree is atop a black ribbon texture background, with a wider original gold mat on white. Trimmed to keep a scant gold mat, then added another white & gold matting frame with layers raised on dimensional foam squares.

- World Win white c/s was embossed with the Sizzix Knit Texture fade (looks like a Nordic patterned sweater, in case you can't see the pattern in the photo).

- Impression Obsession sentiment was cut from a remaining snippet of the original gold mat trim. Gold star was punched from the same snippet.  The star is a bit out of proportion, but it was the smallest punch I have.

Thanks for all the kind comments about the tribute to Bernie. I just felt some words were due for a very Special Lady who gave so many of us, so much encouragement. I forgot to mention that Bernie also introduced me to Our Darnell, with a link to a post about Onion Layers. It was very inspirational & I just tried to find that particular post but couldn't. Need to clean out my bookmarks as I have way too many to try to find something!

So have a grand evening, God Bless & big hugs. Hope to see ya later, if I can get some good photos of our Christmas decorations lighted up after it gets dark enough tonight.

Recycled Birds

Howdy, and welcome. Remember I mentioned Rose Night and a tv show in a previous blog? Well here's some of the paper roses I'm trying to learn to make..on this recycled card. Which, by the way, was a computer generated card from a card program. Found this one when going through bunches of old cards as we've been decluttering. Liked the bluebirds and hmmmm....

- S/B Classic Square die for a portion of this card, which was made by a SIL for my birthday, many years ago. On the right corner dogwood motif, another section was fussy cut, so that a 2nd layer could be shaped and adhered over the base flowers.

- top fold base card was embossed with Couture Creations Fresh & Fun Collection, Petal Pleasures, then scored at the bottom edge.

- Impression Obsession sentiment stamp inked with Memento Wedding Dress Deluxe (white pigment) and heat embossed with Ranger Fine Detail Clear EP, diecut with a S/B label die. This is another card to have available for whatever occasion is warranted. The inside sentiment will determine what it's used for.

- roses from d/p 5 petal punch - 5 layers of punches. Stamens and leaves were from a snippet of previously sprayed paper using shades of Dylusions greens & yellow. The stamen punch was McGill spiky starburst type of punch. I get discouraged when trying to make these flowers - as I see so many lovely ones on blogs that I vist. Mine never turn out so pretty, but I keep trying to get them to look better. Maybe one of these days!

Thanks for joining me this afternoon. Big Hugs & hope you're having a lovely afternoon where you are.

Edit: Since this is a scheduled post and I'm trying to catch up on some other things, I'll just say that the Fish Camp was a fun experience. Seven couples from our subdivision drove down. My #2 Bro & SIL who live down the street from us - in the same community and know all the other couples much better than we do - rode along with us. It was a pleasant drive down the interstate and then on a little state country road. The restaurant was a huge tin-like building, quite rustic, picnic type table setting. Very clean & considering it was a Saturday evening, not crowded. But lots of patrons. Everything I tried from the buffet table was most delicious. And some excellent ice tea. I think all but DH - who is trying to lose some weight per his cardiologist - waddled out. He ate heartily, but not heavily - as did the rest of us. Yep, it was fried food! But not greasy or heavy tasting, and the batters were very light on the several varieties of fish, shrimp, oysters (which I don't eat) and oh yes, fried okra. Now anyone who doesn't know what okra is, ask & I'll try to explain another Southern staple. Best fried!

Rudolph Day

Hello again. Here's another card that's been hanging around for a while to get finished. Thought I'd pop over to see what's going on at Stamping for Pleasure Rudolph Challenge. (I'm having the darndest time spelling Rudolph correctly...either leaving out the 'l' or putting in the wrong spot! <g>).

I stayed up way too late last night, then when I finally went to bed, just couldn't get my mind to settle down to sleep. It felt like one of the little hamsters in a cage...if you know what I mean!

This is another recycled Christmas 2012 card. All who know me, know that I'm nuts about cardinals. I diecut this image, but it was quite large. To get it to look 'right' I had to set it 'on point' (you quilters will know the term). I had diecut it, and used 2 different mats. Then I had the brilliant idea to use some gold duct tape (or is it ?duck tape?) over cardstock, emboss that. Well, it looked just fine. However it was Waaayyy too large to set on point. I trimmed off most of the gold tape edging, contemplated adding some red corners all round...just didn't look right to me. I whacked off the top corner, diecut a card shape, added a sentiment, and said "That's it". After I photo'd the card & saw it enlarged, of course I noticed the white part of the basecard on the  edge. Grrrrr. This one may just go into a pile that I'll call 'lessons learned the hardway'. I still like the image, yay, even if I'm unhappy with the final result.

Let's all jump over to Stamping for Pleasure and see all the entries for this month. I hear there are prizes too!  Cheers, and catch you later!

Crafty Hazelnuts Christmas Challenge

Happy Saturday, and I have a card which I hope will fit the Crafty Hazelnut's Christmas Challenge
where today's challenge is to show some white. I see white, so I hope Hazel will too! And today is her wedding anniversary, so why not pop by to check out the beautiful cards and wish Hazel & her DH a Happy Anniversary.

Here goes:

I have had this recycled card on my desk for a while. I just needed to make a shaped card base. I had diecut this image from a card received Christmas 2012, added some bling, sponged the edges. Finally diecut the cardbase, so now it just needs an insert to be ready for Christmas 2013!

Hope you like it....Have a wonderful day. Hugs

Recycled Cards

Good Afternoon and a Warm Welcome to my newest follower. I have been MIA for a couple of days, as DH has managed to contract this latest nasty virus that has been going around. We made an emergency visit to the doctor on Friday morning. Thankfully the office was able to work him in. When I came home Thursday after my stamp group, he was feeling badly, and it had come on suddenly after he'd lunched with a neighbor. At first he thought it was something he ate, but by the time I got home, he realized it was not 'something he had eaten'. Had a real bad night with vomiting, bathroom problems, etc. Friday he was just as bad, so called the doctors. This was our bad weather day, with ice expected, and I DON'T DO ICE! I knew he was not safe to try to drive, so off we go. I kept to main roads, and we don't live very far from the office, so all was well with the trip. He got a shot of 'something' & some very expensive pills plus Immodium. The shot evidently had something to put him to sleep, because he slept pretty much the remainder of that day, the night. He said he roused up a couple of times to heave & visit the bathroom, but nothing as bad as the night before. He's feeling much better this morning, but now has a real bad headache. All the above to convey that if you think you have this stuff, don't delay seeing your physician. The patient dehydrates quickly and your blood pressure can drop rapidly. So be extra vigilant about handwashing when you've been out & about (we are, he still got it, and I'm hoping I don't catch it). I've been trying to be very careful with wiping down anything he's touched, slept in a guest room, stayed away other than asking if I can do/get him anything.

OK, here's the specs on the card. This is part of a beautiful Christmas card we received, a part of which I already used here. I realized after I had diecut for the first card, that part of the scene would have been a perfect view out this Memory Box Grand Madison Window die. But it was already done, so I thought the beautiful silvery birches would make a nice scene outside the window. The little holly pieces were handcut from the card as well. The window frame was cut from Coordinations White Wash paper, sanded just a bit to reveal the brown core. and a W005 copic added some gray shading on the diecut. The blue cardbase was embossed with a Darice snowflake folder,  dry brushed with some Colorbox pigment white for highlights.

I've been going through my embossing folders, using white cardstock to make a folder size sample, first writing the company name, folder name, then embossing. I'm grouping the folders categories such as Holiday (which will be further separated as to Christmas - which I have the most - then Autumn, Halloween, etc). So far, after eliminating all the packing materials I had just left the folder in, I've been able to compress 3 boxes into 2 boxes. I still have a bunch in the blue zipper storage folders that Provo Craft first sold, which are now hard to find, and expensive if you do find them. These had plastic sleeves that fit specific size EF's. I want to go through those folders and continue to get 'theme specific' folders out, make a sample and keep like folders together. I spend way too much time hunting for a folder with the way I have them arranged.

So I hope your Sunday will be wonderful. If the weather is nasty where you are, be safe & stay warm & dry. As always, thanks for the visit, and I'll try to play catchup on my blog surfing! Hugs & Blessings.

Recycled Cards

Good Morning Lovely Reader, and here's to a wonderful day!! I'm seeing a lot of cards made recently using the lovely Christmas cards this past holiday and I have loved that idea. We received so many beautiful ones over the years and I've saved them all, with the idea of someday doing 'something' with them. They were just too pretty to toss. I've seen some great cards made here  and here (and these are just 2 blogs that I've seen this project...there are plenty more). So last evening I found a S/Binder die, selected a pretty card, and off I went. Cutting the scene was the easiest part... This was a rather large card and I've saved a part of it to try a window frame effect with the Memory Box window die. That's another project, so we'll see how it goes. In the meantime...here's the card specs on THIS one:

 

- Spellbinder Label 5

 

- Memory Box Frostyville Border

 

- Memory Box Snowflake Corner

 

- Paper Studio Snowflake embossing folder

 

- Smooth Bazzill navy blue paper

 

Hope you like this one, and check out some other recycling blogs. I started a new Label category for this one, called Recycled Cards. I plan to use some more of the nice cards we have received over the years. Thanks Di and Sharon, (above links) and so many others who gave me this neat idea. As always, thanks for visiting this morning, and have a Blessed day. Hugs