So Thankful For You card

  Hello! 

Whoosh! And it's November! This year is just racing by. Our last week of October was a cold and snowy one. We went something like 109 hours below freezing and broke records. School/work was kind of crazy, too, because of the cold and snow. Monday we had a late start. Tuesday was an early release and on Wednesday we had a snow day! On Halloween we were in the upper 30s, low 40s. We only had two small groups come to our house for trick-or-treating. Not sure if it was due to the weather or if trick or treating is no longer a thing in our neighborhood. 

I had some time on Saturday to work on cards and it ended up that I spent all my crafty time on one card. But, I don't mind. I really like how it came out. I was smitten with this card by Candice Fisher that I saw on the Butterfly Reflections Ink blog. She was promoting Hello Bluebird in her card. I don't own those stamps, but I couldn't get the lovely colors out of my mind. So, I set out to mimic the card using my Lawn Fawn stamps.  I didn't have dies to go with all the sets, so I fussy cut the images out. I also don't own the Distress Oxide Inks in the colors she used, so I used regular Distress Inks in Squeezed Lemonade, Carved Pumpkin and Ripe Persimmon. I added some Brushed Corduroy to the trees. All the images were colored with Copics. This is what is called a slim line card. 3 1/2 by 8 1/2. I do have envelopes to fit it. You can find them at Hobby Lobby. *Ü*

And just for fun, here is a picture I snapped last week when the girls were going to go with their dad to take the dog for a walk. He is part American Eskimo (really!) and LOVES the cold and snow. 

Thanks so much for stopping by. 

I hope you have a great start to the new week.

Crafty hugs,

Fall Shadow Box Card and Fun Schtuff

Hello there!

Yesterday we had a real taste of winter here in Colorado. A storm flew through and dropped the temps significantly and a little bit of snow. Guess it's getting real. Today is sunny and 50s. I like those kinds of storms. 

I've also had a few days off from work. Believe me, I have enjoyed them. Work is a bit of a challenge and I am working hard to keep a positive attitude about it. Some days I'm more successful than others. But I knew I was going to do something for me these past few days and that means I spent time in my crafty corner. *Ü*

Lawn Fawn continues to be a favorite company of mine. When I came across this shadow box card by Valerie Ward, I fell hard. It was so cute! I made a shadow box card for spring/summer and put it on my mantle. I wanted to put a new one up and this fit the bill perfectly. I made a few tweaks to make it my own, but you can definitely see Valerie's card in mine. 

Though a wagon would be a fun addition.

I dressed up the back side differently than hers. 

And a peek inside.  I thought it'd be neat to ink blend on the three sides, instead of just the back. I cut those two corner corn stalks and glued them on each side. 

All my images were colored using Copic markers and I found  a nice fall Copic color combo post recently and decided to use those blends on this project. 

Originally I stamped all my lined images in a brown ink, but discovered upon coloring them, that it wasn't Copic friendly. Drat. It took me another day to restamp the images and start over. But, I think it was worth the effort.

I'm very pleased with how this turned out. 

And now, I thought you might like to see a few pictures of my girls. A week or so ago was Homecoming/Powder Puff week. Amy got a jersey her junior year and stood on the sidelines rather than playing in the game. We've heard the girls are really rough in the game and she didn't want to risk getting hurt right before a marching band competition.  Jessica got a jersey this year, too. And she ended up having to work Bingo the night of the powder puff game. But both girls loved showing off how "tuff" they are.

The theme for Homecoming this year was Hollywood. Jessica wasn't able to find a dress that really fit the theme, but she did find this fun music note dress and that's just as good! She pained her nails with music notes, but I don't have a picture of them handy. Here she is with her boyfriend. They had a good time at the dance. And bonus, driving children can pick each other up! Amy picked Jessica up after her shift ended at work. Sweet!

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I hope you have a wonderful weekend and can find some crafty time.

Jessica and I are going to a marching band competition tomorrow. Then the Regional Competition is on Monday night. If they do really well there, they could head to the State Competition at the end of the month. If they don't make that, they've had a fun year. The show is fun and Jessica has enjoyed having a very full pit this year. 

Hope you don't mind my sharing some "life" stuff. I enjoy getting to know people I follow and think it makes blog reading even more fun. 

Halloween Shaker Tags

 Oh my goodness! I had not realized my last post was at the end of January! Way to drop off the face of Blogland. Well, if you are reading this, you know that I am still here. I am still creating from time to time, although I do post more frequently on my Instagram account (@crafterjeanne if you are on that platform). I know many of you choose not to add another element of social media and I respect that. I've gotten a few questions recently asking if I was still posting. It's always my intention to post, but I have let life get in the way. I do have a couple of projects to share, but I thought I'd give a brief life update. If you'd rather scroll past to the pictures, feel free.

My older daughter graduated high school in May and turned 18 in June! Crazy how fast that time flew. It's like the line in the song by Luke Bryan called Most People are Good,... the days go slow, but the years go fast. She got her first job (working as a cashier, or rather, Guest Advocate) at Target. She started college at a local community college where she wants to get into their Nursing program. This college has an excellent nursing school that is very well respected. They are starting a baccalaureate program. So far she is enjoying her prerequisite classes.

My younger daughter is a junior in high school this year and is continuing in the marching band and all of the clubs she enjoys. I am still volunteering quite a bit. She is a section leader for the Pit members (the instruments like marimba, xylophone, etc). She is also enjoying her classes so far.

As for me, I am still working in the elementary school kitchen, where they keep me hopping! It's been a roller coaster of a beginning to the school year due to some personnel issues, but I am hoping things will settle down. I've been hoping for things to settle down in the kitchen for a long time now. It's a big part of the reason I've neglected this blog. I come home pretty tired.

I have made some personal goals to try to pick up on things I've been neglecting and posting here is one of the goals. I am really going to strive to post more regularly.

So, onto what I chose to share today. First up is a counted cross stitch project I made for Amy. She is my giraffe lover. In fact, just last night we were at the Denver Zoo for my husband's company employee appreciation day. Amy couldn't wait to stop by the giraffe enclosure. She was so happy to see Dobby and the three other giraffes they have in house. Anyway, I found this pattern on Etsy from Awesome Pattern Studio.

I'm currently working on a stitching project that I started way back when, even before the girls were born or not long after Amy was born! I think I put it away worrying that Amy would find the needle and poke herself. But over the summer I decided to update my wall decor in my kitchen area and this project felt like it would fit well with the new decor, so I'm trying to finish it. It's kind of slow going, but I'll get there. 

And now to a more seasonal project. I recently made these shaker tags after seeing them online on D Kirby Stamps blog here. Lawn Fawn just released these absolutely adorable mini village houses in a Halloween theme and I could not resist even though my girls are past the trick or treating age. 

I followed the inspiration project for the most part, but I did a little something different for the background, although you can't really tell here. I used some Nuvo Shimmer Powders to get the night sky. I think I covered up too much of it. I also used some wonderful iridescent embossing powder from Love From Lizi (a UK company) on the tags, but again, the area is a tad too small to get the full effect. Oh well.  I also used iridescent stars from Martha Stewart (they've been in my stash for years). The images are colored with Copic markers. 

That's it from me for now. Thanks so much for stopping by. I get so much inspiration from all of you crafters out there. Thank you so much for all the sharing. I hope you don't mind my CASE of your ideas. 

Til next time, crafty hugs!

Foiled Cards

Hello Friends!

During the Christmas season, I treated myself to a laminator and some Gina K Designs foiling products. The foils I chose where silvery iridescent and looked SO cool when I tried foiling for the first time. I also got a few Minc gold and iridescent foiling papers from the family on Christmas morning. Of course I had to have more colors. Gina K Designs was having a sale at the time on some toner products and I treated myself again to several colors of her foils. I now understand fully when cardmakers say that the foiling looks so much better in person. It's very hard to capture on camera.

So, I foiled this panel  after I cut the piece down. I used a Freshly Made Sketch #361 that Kristie Marcotte used in a recent 6x6 paper pad tutorial. She figures out the measurements (with permission) and shares them in her tutorials. Anyway if you scroll through the cards, there is a pink one where she created diagonal stripes with some Peel Offs. I thought the foiled panels would look great using that sketch.

What I didn't count on was it taking forever to find a paper to coordinate well with the foiled panels. Oh my, did I struggle. I think I went through ALL my paper pads that had red or pink pattern papers. I even tried solid cardstocks. But either the colors were off or the white in the panel stood out way too much. Finally I found two, with Jessica helping me decide. And I finished the cards. You guys, this is why I don't venture out on my own too much. It takes me WAY too long to figure out what to use! LOL I mean, it took an hour or more to find these papers. And I was ready to ditch the project, I was getting so frustrated. Just being honest! I'm okay with how they turned out in the end.

I found the paper in Doodlebug's Sweet Things 6x6 pad. The solid paper in the red card  is actually a shimmer paper from DCWV Holiday Jewels Shimmer pad. I found it at Joann last year (2017) at Christmas time. 

We (Jessica and I) liked the stripes in this pattern paper. The cardstock is from a Recollections package of pink cardstocks. I used the smallest stitched circle in a Lawn Fawn die set and the sentiment is also from Lawn Fawn, Simply Sentiments. Jessica is holding the card to help me try to capture the foiled look. 

Thanks for stopping by. 

I hope you have a great day!

Crafty hugs,

First Card of 2019!

Hello again! 

Are you shocked? Another post from me? LOL Gotta love when I am on break from work and can work on cards. Don't get too used to seeing me so often.  I should be cleaning house, but where is the fun in that? There are cards to be made.

But first, had to share this picture. 

My daughter, Jessica, blows me away with her nail art. She has so many nail polishes I've lost track. She says probably over 100 bottles! She watches You Tube videos and then recreates the look for herself. These adorable reindeer are what she did for Christmas. We were at an appointment regarding her wisdom teeth the other day and the doctor stopped, almost mid sentence, to admire her nails. LOL It was too funny, because he said he never notices people's nails. 

And now, onto my card. Today is my husband's birthday so I had to make him a card. He and Jessica both are quite fascinated with space. And wayyyyy back in October or November I bought a bottle of black Brushos pigment powder thanks to the enabler extraordinaire, Kristie Marcotte. She made a card in October that just mesmerized me(It's card 13, the cauldron). Then she made this card for Christmas that I thought looked so cool(she actually sent that card to me. I'm a lucky duck). I decided to break out the Brushos today to make a fun background. I was inspired by Kristie's card, but put my own spin on it. 

I used Lawn Fawn's Winter Skies set, but made our whole family colored with Copics. :) The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn's Beam Me Up stamp set. For the background, I used the Black Brushos and then added some Perfect Pearls. I also tried to add some watered down white acrylic paint. Um... I really need more practice with that technique. I quit before I ruined the background. Anyway, the camera didn't pick up on the shimmer in the background or the moon. I also used glittered cardstock for some snow. It looks pretty neat in real life. And I've got some black fingertips to show for my efforts. ;) Hope he likes it. 

And that's it from me today. 

Thank you so much for stopping by! 

I hope you have a terrific day.

Crafty hugs!

Happy New Year! I've Got Projects to Share...

Hello!!

Happy New Year! 

I hope 2019 will be filled with lots of crafty things for you. 

I also hope I am able to finagle a way to create and share more this year. 

I'm going to start out with a bang, I think.

I've got a few things to show you. 

I was talking with a friend yesterday about knitting and crafts. I realized I go through phases in my crafty life. There are years when I crochet a lot, or knit a lot. Lately, I've been doing lots of counted cross stitch. I learned how to do it with my mom when we were on vacation at friend's house here in Colorado back in the late 80s? I don't quite remember.  I've enjoyed it ever since, though. :)

I have a friend who loves foxes and I found a really unique fox pattern that I stitched as a gift for her. 

I found the pattern on Etsy. It was fun to stitch. 

My friend's daughter is a huge fan of wolves. I've looked for years for a good wolf project to make for her. Finally, I found one that I thought she would like. 

My friend and her daughter seemed to be very happy with their gifts. 

I know I really enjoyed creating them. 

I do handwork in the evenings when it is too dark to make cards. 

Unfortunately, I had need of a sympathy card this past week. 

I had a sketch setting out and I used it along with paper from an older DCWV paper pad called Linen Closet. Remember when those were available at Joann's? Love this paper. Thought it was pretty for this card and I do hope it offers some comfort. 

And to end on a bit more of happy note, here's a card I created recently using MFT's Cool Christmas stamp set. Oh gosh, I bought so many stamp sets for Christmas cards this year and I didn't get to use them! But I used this one for a non Christmas card. 

I had fun coloring it with Copic markers and sort of futzing with the design. My friend Kay makes really fun scene cards in this vein and that's what inspired me. I used MFT's Petite Plaid pattern paper for the background. I also used Lawn Fawn's Mountain borders for the mountains. Those snowmen just make me smile. 

Here's a bit of a close up.

 These pictures were taken with my phone, so if they are slightly blurry, that is why. 

Thank you so much for stopping by. 

I appreciate the visit. 

Hope you have an awesome start to your new year. 

Crafty 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,