Quick Life Update and a Snowmanpalooza!

Hello there!

It's been a minute, hasn't it? Life sure has a way of getting in the way of doing some of the things we enjoy in favor of other priorities. I've missed you all though, and sharing. I'll give you a quick update and then get to the cards I want to share. 

It's been a busy fall season with school being back in session. The girls had their marching season, which is always very hectic. This is Amy's Senior year and I am trying to savor all the "lasts."

This is from Senior Night where the seniors who are in the band, on the football team or are cheerleaders and poms honor their parents. It's a nice tradition. 

Here's her Senior poster. I thought I had designs of a trumpet and treble clef to cut with my Cricut or Cameo, but couldn't find any. So, I used some Casual Fridays stamps instead. Amy loved it and we got lots of compliments on it. Yay for stamping!

And if you will forgive a very proud mama moment, Amy is still in Girl Scouts and is working on earning her Gold Award (the highest award in Girl Scouts). She had to come up with a community service type of project as one of the requirements. She planned a CPR training and first aid class/workshop to be held at her high school. It was open to teachers and students. She held the workshop last week. A local news station interviewed her and filmed the workshop. They aired the piece that night and to our surprise, they started the newscast with her story!

Here is a link, if you are interested in watching.

News Story

I'm very proud of her. 

As for me, work has been a challenge so far this year. Our school was one of several schools selected for an upcoming audit by the state department of education. Many people from the head office are coming in almost daily and many procedural changes are being made to make sure we are in compliance for the audit. I've never been through one before and it's quite interesting and a bit(okay, a lot) nerve wracking. A couple of more weeks til the audit and hopefully we do well and things will settle down. 

I have been doing some creating here and there, but not consistently and I miss it. 

The cards I have to share today were inspired by this card by Christy Gets Crafty.

I just loved how she colored the adorable little snowmen in the Mama Elephant Little Snowman Agenda set. The top card is a copy of her version, but I Copic colored all the images(and fussy cut them out) and used the rest for the second version. The little iridescent snowflakes are from a little bottle  that I found in the Target Dollar Spot a couple of weeks ago. The die with the square openings is from MFT and the sentiment is from Lawn Fawn. 

Thank you so much for stopping by.

I hope you have a lovely holiday season. 

I also hope to be back before the start of the new year. 

Crafty hugs!

Penguin in a Floatie

 Hello!

Before we left for vacation, I had been working on a case of a Kay Miller card using some images gifted to me from a new Instagram friend(Thanks so much, Esther, if you ever read my blog). I had most of it ready to go. Yesterday I finished it.  For my background I used a alcohol inked background that I had created a few months ago. I love how it looks like water. I colored my images using Copic markers and added some Spectrum Noir sparkle. Unfortunately, the camera didn't capture that. I had fun creating this one.

I recently got a new light box in the hopes I can get some better pictures of my cards. I liked this style, which was recommended by a blogger, Debbie Olson, because of the LED light strips which help to brighten the box. I'm still learning with how best to take pictures using it. Haven't had much time to do much since I received it.

One of the highlights when we go to Sioux Falls is taking the Sculpture Walk in the downtown area. I love the small town feel of the walk and how pretty the main street is. They change the sculptures each year. This one is my favorite from this year. I adore Laura Ingalls Wilder and really enjoyed this one of her and Jack.

This Sea Horse was pretty cool, too. 

Another look at my card. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Hope you have a terrific day.

Hugs!

Butterflies and a Dragon

Hi There,

Last week we drove to Sioux Falls, SD to visit my husband's family. It's our annual vacation. While there, we visited the Sertoma Butterfly House and much to my surprise, I was "kissed" by butterflies several times. Usually they like my husband, but I'm thinking they were drawn to my white hair and possibly the bright blue top I was wearing. 😉It was fun. 

We left on Saturday and I was unable to do any coloring on the last day of the challenge. I was a little bummed about that as I managed to post something that I had worked on for all but the last day of the challenge. A definite record for me! Ah well, it was fun doing all sorts of coloring. Scroll down to see the completed dragon that I colored from Ivy and the Inky Butterfly.

Butterfly kisses at
Sertoma Butterfly House

Sertoma Butterfly House

Sertoma Butterfly House

Sertoma Butterfly House

Day 29 of the 30 Day Coloring Challenge
From Ivy and the Inky Butterfly

Thanks for stopping by. It's good to be home.  I hope to get to do some creating very soon!

Crafty hugs,

Coloring Gnomes for Coloring Challenge

Hello there!

It is with huge thanks to Darnell and her Mister that I am posting today. I expressed to her that I haven't been posting much on my blog recently because it's become very inconvenient and time consuming for me to do so with the purchase of a new camera several months ago and the fact that my phone only uploads a single picture at a time to my Photoshop Elements program. First world problems to be sure, but annoying and made me avoid uploading and editing photos for the blog. She responded with questions about why I didn't upload to the cloud. Um...because I never thought about it and more importantly didn't really understand how to do it. I knew vaguely that Google has a drive and photos and all that, but this old gal never really paid attention. My interest piqued, I started looking into it. So I'm trying upload pictures to Drive and Photos and I get a new email from Darnell and her hubby about being able to upload pictures  to my camera's cloud. So, now I'm looking into that as well. I think I'm going to have pictures in several clouds at this rate. I don't care as long as they are safe and secure and EASY for me to access for editing and posting to my blog. As I tell most people, I only know enough about technology to be dangerous. :)

All that to say...here's my first attempt at uploading from one of the clouds this morning. I was able to get it to my editing program and then uploaded to Blogger. Yay, me!

This stamp set is from My Favorite Things and is called You Gnome Me. I had been on the fence about getting this set for some time, but after seeing this pop up card from Rachel at The Unpampered Stamper that I jumped off the fence into ownership. Rachel was kind enough to share with me the Copics she used to color her gnomes so vibrantly. I copied as closely as I could and took a liberty or two to make it my own. I didn't buy the dies, so I will have to fussy cut the images here pretty soon so I can make something with them. 

This is one of my shares for The Daily Marker's 30 Day Coloring Challenge. Speaking of which, I haven't colored yet today. I've been a little preoccupied with my head in the clouds. 

Oh and I  have Darnell to thank again because she shared something about comments coming to our inboxes again without having to leave ourselves one first. Go here to read what she found out.  Let's hope it works with any comments left on this post. 

You may be seeing posts from me more consistently!

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

I hope you have an amazing day.

Coloring Challenge Efforts

Hello!

Kathy Racoosin is hostessing her 10th 30 Day Coloring Challenge all this month. And I've been able to participate every day, in one form or another. Thank you, summer break from work and school! I have been sharing my efforts on my Instagram account, but wanted to share with you a few of the coloring projects I've worked on. I'll do my best to share more during the second half of the challenge. It's a lot of fun and if you only have 5 minutes to color, go for it. It's just for fun and to give you some "me" time to relax. 

Anyway, in no particular order, here are a few projects. I've been practicing my Copic coloring by following videos of different artists and CASEing the cards they share. 

Here I cased Mayra's cards.  She is so talented! I know I've sung her praises here before. 

On this card, I cased Eloise Blue and used Sunny Studio Stamps. These kiddos make me smile. 

Here is was playing with some shimmery watercolors I bought at Hobby Lobby. The mermaid theme works so well for this time of the year. This is a panel from Carolee's Creations Art Play Paintables, that I found here at Scrapbook dot com. Too bad this shot doesn't fully show just how shimmery this Master's Touch Metallic Semi Color Cake Paint Set is. You can find this watercolor product in Hobby Lobby stores and it is very affordable. The purple pink color looks iridescent to me. So fun!

And finally, here are some adorable Viking Kids I found at CC Designs. They come in stamps or digital. I bought the digital format. I was inspired by a wonderful video by Laura Volpes. She colored her images with different markers, but I played and practiced with my Copics. I really enjoy watching Laura's videos. She does a great job showing what she is creating, but I also enjoy her accent. I don't own the powders she used to make the backgrounds, but they look pretty fun!

That's it for me today. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I really appreciate your stopping by.
Hugs,

Lemonade Box Car

 Hello!

June 1st started Kathy Racoosin's 10th (!!) 30 Day Coloring Challenge and I am doing my very best to play along consistently. So far, I've been able to post something each day. I will say that I am posting to Instagram regularly, but I know I have blog readers who don't "do" Instagram. I will try to post here as well. Today I am sharing the card I completed today. For the coloring challenge, you don't have to create a complete card, but since I am on break from work, I'm doing my best to get  cards made. A kind of "reward" for the house chores I've been trying to catch up on. 😉

The girls are working the Stem Camp at school this week, so it's nice and quiet around here, too.

In early May, a gal I follow on Instagram, named Mona Toth, posted a Lawn Fawnatics Challenge card. You can see it here. It is an Instagram picture. Anyway, isn't that the neatest 3D card? I couldn't get it out of my head. Today, I decided to try to create a version of her card, but as a Box Card.  I used many Lawn Fawn products for this card. Make Lemonade, Enjoy your Day, Milk and Cookies, Simply Celebrate, Baked With Love just to name some. I could have used others, too. Anyway, I fiddled and futzed and played until I came up with this:

 I have the card sitting on its back to get this shot. The best straight on picture I could capture.

 I added the be and the butterfly with a strip of acetate so they look like they are flying.
I also added a little bit of Nuvo Crystal glaze on some pieces for extra oomph. There are items with Spectrum Noir glitter pen, too. I colored all the images with Copic Markers.

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

I hope you are having a wonderful day!

A Few Shadow Box Cards to Share

Happy Memorial Day to my US friends and Happy Monday to those from other countries. Thank you for stopping by.  I sure wish I could have gone "see" my dad today. He is in a military cemetery in California, and I'm sure there were flags put out as well as a ceremony of some kind. I gratefully thank our service members for their service and sacrifices for our freedom. 💗

I had hoped to work on more cards today, but instead the girls and I worked on making a strawberry rhubarb pie  to bring for dessert to the bbq we will be attending later this afternoon. It's our first, so we are hopeful it will be tasty. The rhubarb was picked from our little garden. :)

I thought you might like to see what I worked on yesterday and Friday. I was again inspired by the super creative Mayra of Mayra's Designs. She's been making all kinds of scenes and many of them are Disney themed using Lawn Fawn products. I sure had fun putting these together.

While I didn't have the same frame she used for her card, I used an MFT Collage Frame and I think it worked great. 

I used Fintastic Friends, Mermaid for You, Life is Good and You are Sublime stamp sets. The banner is from the Ocean Add On to the shadow box card dies. The sane is a hillside border die. You can't see them very well, but I did use an MFT cloud stencil to add some Tumbled Glass distress ink clouds. 

Here is my version of the shadow box card Mayra inspired. I cut out some LF watercolor paper for the background and for the sea weed. A few of the sea life creatures are attached to strips of acetate to make them look like they are floating. 

And finally, this is my take on the Happy Trails shadow box card she created here.

I had a lot of fun with this one, too. I added a shooting star, which I thought was neat. All the stars are die cut from DCWV glitter card stock. A couple of stars are attached to acetate to look like they are so close you can touch them. 

A friend of mine is moving to the mountains, and I thought this would be a unique way to wish her well on her new adventure. 

That's it from me for now. 

Thank you, Mayra, for sharing your fantastic creativity and inspiring me to create these cards. You  have a few more that I will probably case as well. 

Thank goodness for all you creative people! I sure appreciate you!

Happy, crafty hugs!

I'm Back with a Mermaid Pivot Die Card

Yikes! I can't believe I haven't posted here since February! Oh my goodness. Time sure has flown by. Well, I'm happy to share that school is out for the summer and I am relaxing pretty hard, as I told my brother on the phone just a little while ago. 😁

School has been busy for both my girls and me. Amy's Winterguard team went to the State Competition last month and took 6th place over all! Pretty nifty. The girls had their final band concert where Amy played French Horn instead of trumpet and Jessica played both the flute and marimba. The band and orchestra classes combined to play the theme to Jurassic Park. Earlier this month, we all went with the band/orchestra classes to go see the Colorado Symphony Orchestra presentation of Jurassic Park. This is where the movie is shown and the Symphony/Orchestra plays the score as the movie plays. What an amazing experience. It's been a very busy, but also successful school year. 

The girls have a little down time right now, but next week Jessica will take her driver's education classes and should get her learner's permit. Amy is still working on her driving hours and should have her driver's license in September. I may not have to drive myself much at all this summer. 😉 And marching band practice begins in a few weeks. No rest for the weary or wicked, right? 

And speaking of Amy. She was invited to 5 different graduation parties this season. She made a card for her friends and you can see it below the card that I am sharing. She did a great job!

I've been battling some carpal tunnel in my right hand for the past several months. I've not been in pain, but I've had a very strong tingling sensation in both my right thumb and pointer finger. Add to that has been a feeling of numbness at the same time. It is very strange. Thankfully, it hasn't been painful, but imagine the sensation of your foot falling asleep and is just starting to wake up (except no pain). That's the closest I can get to describing what is has felt like. It was strong enough that I was having trouble doing handwork type of things. My doctor said I was to wear a wrist brace at all times(except at work where it wasn't sanitary to do so), even to bed. So, for something like 5-6 weeks I did just that. It feels much improved now and in fact, just last night, I worked on my cross stitch for the first time in months.😃 I still have a slight tingly sensation, so I'm still wearing the brace at night. For the most part, I don't notice the sensation. A huge improvement!

And on top of all this, last Sunday was the one year anniversary of my dad's passing. Can you believe it's been a year? In some ways, it feels like forever ago and in others, it still feels so new. I miss him every day, but I really rely on the fact that he isn't suffering and is with my mom and brother and all his friends. That's such a comfort. I really distracted myself pretty well last weekend. And that brings me to the card I want to share. 

Mayra of Mayra's Designs has been on fire recently with some amazing and creative projects using Lawn Fawn goodies. I was so inspired by her projects that I am casing one of them today. You can see her awesome card here. I was completely smitten. This proved to be a wonderful distraction for me. I have 3 brothers' birthdays in 2 days (my oldest brother and twin brothers). One of the twins loves the ocean and I tweaked Mayra's design to show the boy merman. I also practiced some Copic coloring. Thank you so much for the inspiration, Mayra!!

 The Lawn Fawn sets used are Mermaid for You, Ahoy Matey and Fintastic Friends. I used some stitched hillside border dies, too.

Here's the card I helped Amy make for her friends using the Mosaic Turnabout stamp from Concord and 9th as well as a Congrats die from MFT. School colors with some clear and gold embossing for added interest. We also made the envelopes using my We R Memory Keepers envelope punch. 

Whew, what a marathon post. Thank you if you've stuck with me this far.

I will close for now and thank you so much for stopping by. 

I am hopeful that I will be able to make more time for crafting this summer.

In fact, I know I will be back before the weekend is done as I've got some other photos edited for another post.

Yippee!

Happy Crafty Hugs!

Alcohol Inks and Mandalas

I wanted to pop in today to share a few cards I created recently. I am sincerely trying to post more frequently despite the fact that I am having supreme difficulty getting decent photos of my projects.

I've been trying different things for picture taking. Trying my phone, which ends up slightly blurry. Trying my camera, which ends up blurry or dark or in some other way unappealing. Trying in my living room by the big picture window, which ends up with a blue cast. On my dining room table, which ends up blurry and a bit dark. I even tried my bright bedroom as seen in the first photo here and that looks odd to me. I've tried editing these and this is as good as I can get it. I really think my camera is too old, but I haven't pulled the trigger to buy a new one. I have to do something though, because it's getting pretty frustrating. So, feel free to enlarge if you like, but no promises on how decent it looks. Eventually I'll get it worked out.

Enough of that vent, here's what I've been working on.

The first card I am sharing is to give you an idea of what I used for the second card. I used alcohol inks on Yupo paper to get the look you see in this heart. I also added some gold mixative. I tried to capture how pretty and intense the color is.

The Lawn Fawn hugs sentiment is cut from some gold cardstock I bought at Hobby Lobby over the holidays. It's got some dimension from a couple of cuts from black cardstock and layered. 

I had some of the alcohol inked paper left over and recently received the My Favorite Things new Magical Mandala die which I thought would look neat die cut from the alcohol inked background. I tried it on a background I didn't like as much and it failed to cut cleanly despite running the die through a couple of times. I thought the Yupo paper couldn't be cut cleanly until I saw a blogger who shared a card with this same die cut from Yupo paper. I asked her if she did anything special. Nope, just ran it through a few times. So I tried again, this time running it through like 5-6 times. It cut better, but I still struggled to get some of the pieces out.  (My Cuttlebug is the original one from like 2005 or so, it probably is showing its age, too). 

Here's what I came up with. 

 Despite all the struggles getting a clean cut, I am thrilled with the end result!

The happy birthday is heat embossed in gold using the sentiment from Paper Smooches recently released In Stitches stamp set. The rounded corner stitched mat is from MFT Blueprints 31.

This final card is not alcohol inked at all. I just thought I'd share it because I was using the Magical Mandala die. It cut regular cardstock beautifully. I cased a card made by Torico  as shown in this blog post . She colored vellum with Copic markers to get the stained glass effect. I remember learning that technique way back in my early years of paper crafting. I love how these techniques come around again and are so fresh and fun. 

I didn't have a frame for the stained glass window effect that Torico used, so I adhered the vellum to the cardstock mandala using Stick It. I then fussy cut around the edge  of the mandala to cut away the excess vellum. I colored the back side of the vellum using Copic markers.  I used what turned out to be the last of the adhesive in my Xyron 5 inch machine to cover the back of the vellum so I could attach it to the mat. I heat embossed the sentiment in silver. I added the white dots with my white Uniball gel. pen. I'm so happy with the final result. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

I hope you have a happy day!

Hugs,

Distress Oxides + Distress Glaze = Cool!

Hello!

Thanks so much for the wonderful comments about my new blog look. I am so very happy with it. 

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope your day has been filled with fun and love in whatever form makes you happiest. I got to spend a little time playing today (which made me very happy), and I wanted to share what I created.

Last week, I came across this blog post by Laurel Beard. In the post she talked about a technique she had seen in a video using Distress Oxide inks and Distress Glaze on glossy cardstock. She shared what she did in a video on her blog. I was so intrigued. It almost looked like alcohol inks. I didn't make a video, but I tried the technique myself and took some photos. 

First up, I smeared some Distress Oxide inks onto freezer paper and spritzed with water. The colors I chose were Salty Ocean, Picked Raspberry and Twisted Citron. Later I added Peacock Feathers and Wilted Violet. 

Then I smooshed a piece of glossy cardstock into the inks and dried it with my heat gun. Drying the inks is very important. I added another layer and dried it. I added more ink onto my freezer paper and smooshed again. I think I smooshed 3 or 4 times. Drying the paper between smooshings. I ended up with this. Which looks pretty cool all on its own. Kind of chalky, but neat.

But look what happens when you start to add Distress Glaze (I bought mine at Michaels with a coupon). I only added it to half the page so you could see the difference. Wow, huh? Isn't that fascinating?

And here is the piece all done. I buffed off the glaze with a paper towel after I was all done. The glaze makes it shiny and waterproof. I really like all the layers of color you can see. 

When I was done, I looked at my freezer paper and saw this

I thought the colors looked so cool, so I took a small piece of glossy cardstock and smooshed  and dried a bunch of times getting this result.

When I started adding the glaze, it looked like this

And finally, I got this result. Gosh, those colors are so pretty!

I will eventually make these into cards, but for now, it was so much fun playing! Thanks, Laurel for sharing what you found and making the video. If you want to see it in action, check out her blog post, linked at the top of this post. 

Finally, I got this shot of our dog, Ollie, recently and thought I'd share. He's a silly, goofy dog, but seems to finally be settling down a bit. His nickname is Goober, because he is such a goober! I liked how this picture came out with his head tilting. I was saying his nickname. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope to share again soon!