Pineapple and Feathers

Welcome and thanks for stopping in. Today is a scheduled post, as I'm trying to get some things done ahead. This is a card created from a UFO image colored long ago. Did a faint script stamping over the previously colored pineapple when it was rediscovered, then some sponging for the background. A little vintage color was added to the edge of the rectangle.

 

Some feather dies cut with white snippets,  sponged using a finger dauber & pale green ink, then some very dried out Novu gold mousse rubbed over the raised areas. These feathers made me think of the pineapple's green leaves.  Lastly added some clear drops.  The background was done with gold mica spray over a stencil (used the wet color left on the stencil to create this background). Don't you love it when you can make 2 backgrounds with one effort? I sure do.  This is a very simple card, but I rather liked it!

 

 

 

Ya'll have a good afternoon, stay flu & bug free. Hugs & Blessings. Come again when you have time.

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.

 



Penny Black for Rudolph Day

Hi and welcome to the first Rudolph Day Challenge of 2018. I missed a lot of Rudy Days last year, so I'm going to make a concerted effort to join in if at all possible in 2018 (that wasn't a New Year's Resolution or anything, but hey, it would make a pretty good one, yes?) You DO know about Rudolph Day? It's a challenge hosted by Scrappymoi, opens on the 25th each month, closes at the last day. The only rule is 'anything Christmas'.

Was inspired by this card by my so talented friend, Bonnie K. Of course then I had to buy the Penny Black stamp. Decided I'd use it for Rudy Day, as I needed to make something that didn't take a long time to color. First thought about using gold to emboss it, but had gotten some NBUS Altenew Platinum that needed a try, -- was pleased with the effect. Did some DOX sponging..(trying for a glow right around the tree, not sure I've achieved that. Still pleased with the outcome. My first try at coloring the swirls inside the tree wasn't great, neither was my second. Tried with an alcohol marker - got it messy outside the embossed edges. Then tried another effort with gel pens, still not great. Went to Polychromos pencils, not dark enough in the tiny spaces to show well, so went over the pencils with the Kaiser glitter pens. Liked that better).

Embossed Penny Black Starry Tree withWOW watermark pad, then heat embossed with Altenew Platinum Crisp EP. Colored elements within the tree with pencils and Kaiser glitter pens. Using a snippet of my other failed efforts, sort of masked the edge of the tree while sponging DOX Twisted Citron, Bundled Sage & Iced Spruce at the bottom. Spritzed a pearlized mica spray, while shielding the tree image. That same snippet mask was used to ink WOW versamark over the edges, then heat embossed with Platinum. Two slivers of that same snippet were trimmed, inked with copic blue greens, then used WOS for a little glitter. Started coloring the strips with the Kaiser glitter pens, but the ink didn't flow well. I'm not particularly thrilled with these pens, as they don't seem to hold much ink. A couple of times use, then they appear to dry up, even though you can still see ink in the barrel. Pulled out the trusty copics, inked, WOS, done. The blue doesn't match the swirls color but I liked the contrast between the platinum and this color, so....

Penny Black Rejoice die, cut 4 layers from the last of the failure snippet, then embossed with the same platinum used elsewhere on the card. After seeing the picture, the sentiment didn't get centered as well as might be.

Is anyone else having a problem with Blogger slowness when leaving comments? At some blogs, I hit publish and then it 'goes'. Other times I publish, wait, hit the publish button again, and finally it appears to take the comment. I'm not always sure.

Please do check out this fun challenge, as Maureen (Scrappymoi) always has some lovely prizes. So see you at Rudolph Day January 2018. Be there, or be square!

Thanks for joining me today, come again when you can, and hugs & Blessings. Stay well, as there is so much sickness about.

Christmas Card Club - Christmas Baking

Hello and welcome to Christmas Card Club Challenge #2 for 2018. Our theme this week is selected by Maureen, whose choice was something with Christmas Baking. Would you believe I don't have _any_ stamps or dies that I could imagine would remotely fit this theme, so I started hunting for some digi images. Couldn't find anything that really floated my boat as the saying goes, but remembered a clipart I'd seen at Christmas time....so I hunted clipart. Found a gingerbread house....that should do it! (Mind you, I've never even thought about baking a gingerbread house! But I love gingerbread and sometimes I do bake it too!)

 

So here goes:

The main focal image was a clipart image that I sized and printed. Added a few more touches of color with copics and then added some die cut holly over a smaller holly that was pictured on the chimney. There's 2 layers of this image and on the top one, I used a stylus around the trees and heart, some of the candies, to add a little dimension to the picture. Also added some more white dots on the trees using a white gel pen.

Die cut a Sue Wilson die for the outer edges (the green dots dp).  The bronze frame around the gingerbread house was just a white card stock that was sponged with DOX colors of Gathered Twigs, Spiced Marmalade, Peacock Feathers and Fired Brick. Used a S/Binder square die to cut this out for the frame. The photo doesn't show it well, but the outer rim of the green dots paper was embossed to show the design of the die. There's 2 pieces of the SW die behind the house.

The card base was sponged with the same DOX colors as the frame, but looks a bit different since more of it shows.

Used a NBUS MB die set to create the peppermint candy corners. The gingerbread men were stamped, colored with copics and Kaiser glitter pens, fussy cut because I couldn't find the matching die.

Sentiment was 3 layers of die cuts done with white snippets, colored with copics and WOS.

Please take time to visit my team members (whose links are on the right sidebar) and see how they interpreted this Christmas Baking challenge! And thanks for joining me today, and come again when you can! Hugs & Blessings.