Monday, May 28, 2018

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!


Saturday, May 26, 2018

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!