A Thankful Heart and a Card!

Now that I've got the mouse rant done, I can move onto a much more pleasant subject...sharing goodness! Although I have to say, I sort of regret cleaning the windows and screens...since this all started AFTER I cleaned them. Sheesh, I guess I should have left well enough alone.

I got a complete day brightener in the midst of my living room clean up the other day. Kathi sent me the loveliest of presents, a basket full of goodies! I feel so special! If you follow her blog, you've most likely seen this butterfly card she posted. Well that gorgeous card is MINE...all mine! Aren't you jealous? LOL I was doing the whole giddy girly dance as I checked out all the goodness she had stashed in the basket.

And I cannot take a picture to do this piece justice at all. It's a prism with butterflies and flowers on the inside. I have NO clue how something like this gets created, but it's just gorgeous.

The girls absolutely LOVE looking at this from all angles (as do I) because the colors change depending on how you look at it. I tried to capture it here, but not sure I succeeded. I had to clean off the little girl fingerprints before I could take a picture. LOL

Part of Kathi's lovely gift was a little packet of stamped images. Oh how I love the images she shared. So much I just HAD to head out to my craft room and color one up. I also used some of the designer paper (which I think is DCWV's new Indian Summer stack) she included. I don't remember this little girl's name, but isn't she adorable?? Even though she doesn't wear glasses, this one totally makes me think of Amy.

I used my pencils and oms to color in the image, Oval and Scallop oval Nestabilities as well as a Martha Stewart border punch. The Orange Organdy ribbon is from CTMH.

Thank you SO much for all the goodies, Kathi! You sure made me feel extra special and helped extend my birthday.

I've got to take pictures of the cards I've received, I'm so blessed with wonderful friends.

Steve and the girls went on a day hike today with Dave. Buster went too and is sure to mess up his newly aquired 'do. Oh well, Steve'll have to give him a bath. I have SO many projects I want to work on, I was almost frozen with not knowing what to do first. But the card won out. We'll see what else gets done.

And finally...I got a pedometer with some birthday money one of my brothers sent me. I got one that not only measures the number of steps you take, but the distance traveled and the calories burned. I walked Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, but didn't get the pedometer until Thursday morning, so I only know for sure that I walked 2.18 miles on Thursday (7700+ steps) and 2.14 miles on Friday (too bad I had to pee...I might have walked longer). I walked pretty much the same distance on Wednesday. I discovered a radio station I listen to now has a 2 hour commercial free block of music, so I am trying to time my walks during that time. That is, until I figure out how to record some of my CDs onto the mp3 player I'm using. I think that's not too bad for starters. I am usually walk for about an hour. Feels good no matter what!

That's it from me for now. Hope you have an awesome long weekend (if you are in the US-It's Labor Day on Monday for those not in the US). I may be back at some point!

Easing Back Into It...

Hello there!

Believe it or not, I wandered into my craft room today! I made three card fronts (fronts because I was too lazy to cut out the card bases and attach them~LOL). They are very simple, but I look at it as easing back into the creative swing of things. Yeah, that sounds good.

This first card I'm sharing uses the new Hero Arts Cling Stamps (Here's a link I found that shows them, I didn't see them on the Hero Arts website). I found this one at Archiver's and used a coupon to get it. It's a rubber stamp, but it clings to an acrylic block and has the image on the back side so you can see it when you are stamping. See that background on the image? I love it! And there is a rubber stamp that is just that background, but I'm too cheap to buy it. So, I'm getting a taste of it in this cling stamp. I colored in the flowers using pencils and oms (odorless mineral spirits) then added some yellow Stickles for the dots. The background paper is from Making Memories Wedding paper pack (found at Michaels earlier this summer).
This next card is so I can finally show this little crocheted butterfly I made earlier this summer. I found the pattern here after seeing some in an Etsy shop called Paper Blooms. The goodies in Paper Blooms are SO pretty, but if I can make it myself, I'm sure gonna try. Those who are not crocheters, I wanted to give you the link to the Etsy shop in case you were interested. The background paper is from Basic Grey's June Bug 6x6 paper pack and the ribbon is some I got at Archiver's last Christmas season. They were selling it for a phenomenal price of 29 cents a yard at the time! Hello is from PTI's Mixed Message set.
And here is my final card for today. I discovered Plum Purdy stamps from a blog in late spring and couldn't resist ordering this Garden Collection Set. (Goodness, she's added some adorable Halloween stamps!) I was itching to color up an image and got to do it today. I used pencils and oms. Nana's Nursery (the boy version) from DCWV provided colors that worked well with the image colored in. I was silly and colored first, then tried to coordinate the coloring with paper. I should do that the other way around. The buttons are from my stash, as is the DMC floss. Just Because is from Mixed Message again.

Would you believe that the industrious spider was busy last night and spun a new web?! Steve even noticed it this morning and asked me if I'd seen it. It was in the same general vicinity, but this one was hooked to the carport on two sides and our house on one side and that holly bush on another side. This time it truly looked like it was floating. I almost took a picture, but then remembered my promise and left it alone (cuz if I took the picture I'd feel compelled to share it). And a few hours later...the whole thing was gone again! I had no idea spiders completely got rid of webs or moved locations of them so darn frequently. Maybe it's just some that do as I've seen webs (not nearly as big and intricate as this particular spider makes) that have been in the same location until I wipe them down~which can be months....LOL.

Whew! I guess that's it from me today! Hope your weekend is a good one. I had thought about taking the girls swimming today, but the weather didn't cooperate. Now that the pool is closing it's beautiful out but earlier today it was windy and a bit rainy. Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes.

Hey There, Card Fans!

Guess who got to play today?! I was going to spread the goodness out over a few posts, then thought...what the heck, get it all done in one doozy of a post. LOL

Steve took the girls for a hike in the canyon this afternoon. Both girls got new hiking boots this weekend (and nope, no boots for me. I must be chopped liver or sumthin'). They were hankering to break them in and I decided some time on my own would suit me just fine, so I sent them off with a kiss and a have fun, then gleefully played in my corner. LOL

This first card grew around the tree image, which is a new Basic Grey itsy bitsy stamp I found at Archiver's Hot Spot recently. I must have learned from passing up that leaf set, because I didn't hesitate to nab this set and (cough, cough) a few others.

I first stamped the image with Chocolate ink, then I went back over it with a Kohinoor pencil. I colored in the leaves with another pencil and added Xmas Red Stickles for the cherries. I colored and blended in the "grass" below the tree. The paper is from DCWV Sweet Stack that I've had for a while. I thought matting with a scallop rectangle Nestie in Holiday Red and pop dotting the image would help the image stand out. I decided I wanted to crochet an edge for the card and pulled out a book called 101 Easy Edgings, picked a design I liked, and had fun crocheting that. I adhered it with glue dots after a quick ironing to shape it better. A final touch to help balance the card was the addition of those red "jewels," which were found at Hobby Lobby in the jewelry/beads area. I really like how this one turned out.

Next up is another tree image...this one from Gel-a-tins' Sheltering Tree stamp set (found at A's). I remember having a few issues the first time I used this set, but keep seeing really neat tree images on cards and wanted to make one for myself. This time though, I found my Clover Meadow Embossing powder and wondered how the tree would look with the upper portion embossed. I like it. I toyed with the idea of adding some red Stickles in the centers of the circles, but wasn't brave enough to attempt it (this is the 4th card I made today and my mojo was slowing way down by this point).
As you can see, I kept it pretty simple using the image cut out and the leaf portion pop-dotted. The paper is from DCWV's Spring Matstack and I like how it mimicked grass and the sky. A couple of brads and a bit of White Organdy ribbon to offset the sentiment (inked in Clover Meadow) finished off this card. I got to use my new EK Success edge/emboss punch to give the feel of hills. Not sure if my punch is bad or it doesn't like thin paper, but I had a couple of issues getting the punch to work well, I thought.

*****

Here's another "simple" card that I really like. I was inspired by this card created by Dawn Easton of Treasure Oiler Designz. Isn't hers pretty? I thought I had a monarch butterfly type stamp set, but a pretty thorough search of my craft corner yielded no such image. So I "settled" for this one from Inkadinkado's Pattern Bugs butterfly image heat embossed in gold. I really, really like how it turned out. I tried a different butterfly image with copper embossing powder first. While it looks gorgeous, I ultimately decided the image was too large for what I wanted to do, so I set it aside and went on the hunt for my gold embossing powder (during that search, I re-discovered my CTMH embossing powders which were tucked away in the garage. That discovery led to the above tree card being made~funny what inspires you, isn't it?).
The ribbon is American Crafts found at Michaels. You can see I used my Cuttlebug D'Vine embossing folder and my oval and scallop oval Nesties. I wanted to add the black brads and used my SU piercing template only the second hole I made was in the wrong spot. Argh!! But inspiration struck(because I didn't feel like pulling down the Cuttlebug yet again) and I played up the gold by using the itty bitty gold rhinestones to cover up that little boo-boo. Yay, Me!

My final card is one I originally wanted to create and share yesterday, all dolled up for the holiday. Since I never did get to it, I decided to color in the All That Scraps digital Kiki image using colors not so patriotic to see how the image would work. I'm tickled with the result. I pulled the colors I used from the new Basic Grey Lemonade paper pack.
I had some fun 'sperimenting with a few different things on this card (can you tell it was the first one I worked on today...my energy level was high, LOL) First off, I used my quickie glue pen to lay down adhesive for the Prisma glitter on the halo. That seemed to work well, so I used my Versamark pen to lay down some Zing embossing powder (it's supposed to look like metallic pink) for the bracelets and the scallop on the bottom of the pant leg. That didn't work quite like I expected, but I wasn't about to start coloring all over again, so I thought...hey, they can be bangles, right? I picked up some new Shimmerz Bling paints the other day and wanted to try some out, so the wings are painted over with the white glittery paint. It's pretty "glitterified" in real life. I Shimmerzed the pink shirt and the yellows in the image as well. Finally, I decided to add some flowers. I've been so impressed with how others use the Primas, that I am pushing myself just a tad to try new things. Here I've layered a few Prima flowers (that gift from A's sure has a great variety of colors and sizes) with some jewelry/bead spacers I found at Joann's. The package is Darice brand and it was a value pack. I added a gold brad on top to adhere all the layers together. Then I decided to add the gold brads on the upper corner for a little more balance. The image is matted with Vineyard Berry cardstock cut with the oval scallop Nestie. I probably will eventually add some sort of sentiment along the lines of make a wish or happy birthday...

Whew! Are you still with me? Did you read all that or did you skip all the words and just look at the pictures? Either way, I'm very glad you stopped by!

Hope your Sunday has treated you well and that your week is a great one!

Hello Card

It's taken me a while, but I finally found the stamp set to create my version of this gorgeous card by Laurie Schmidlin of Just Give Me Stamps. Yes, that post is dated May! Just goes to show how much I love it. I was completely enamored with the green flower and the soothing colors.

I had been to Archiver's a few days before I saw the card, and saw the Basic Grey stamp (the only link I could find) in the Hot Spot there. I remember picking it up and thinking it was neat, but "how would I use it?" So I put it back down and moved along my merry way. Well, then Laurie posts her card and I skedaddle back to A's to get that stamp and wouldn't you know, they didn't have it anymore? They were sold out of all the Basic Grey sets in the Hot Spot. I asked if they'd move the stamps and the gal told me she had just put out a bucket of them, but they were ALL gone. Sigh. Ever since then, I've kept my eyes peeled at A's and other stores...just in case I would be lucky enough to find it. Yes, I could have used another set, but this one was SO appealing I didn't have the heart NOT to use it. LOL I'm a dork sometimes, that's for sure.

Well, as I mentioned, Steve took the day off yesterday (and has today off) and I've been hankering to drive up to Fort Collins to visit The Treasure Box (a true blue fantastic scrapbooking store), so I took a little field trip after he got home from getting his crown put on (finally). As I was soaking in all the goodness there, I came across the stamp set I'd been searching high and low for! I can't believe how excited I got over a under $2 stamp set. LOL

I almost bought just that set, but no...I found some other goodies as well. Hafta make the trip worthwhile, right? But I set to work on creating the card soon after I got home. And after all that blather, here's the result....

Maybe it wasn't worth all that build up, huh? LOL I like it though, and I had fun putting my spin on the card. As you can see I used a Cuttlebug folder (dang, I really need to label them, I can't remember the name of this one) on Sweet Leaf cardstock. Then I rubbed Black ink on it to tone down the green and give the same type of strip look as Laurie's card. I colored in the image with Kohinoor pencils and blended with oms (odorless mineral spirits). I added a bit of Liquid Glass and Icicle Stickles for bling. I crocheted the green flower and hunted down a black button from my stash.

Over all, the card is pretty straight forward. I used another image from the set to stamp that hard to see black stripe down the side of the pattern paper (which is a Sandylion design, btw, found on this little field trip, too). You can't see that I popped up the main image on some pop dots. Any questions on supplies? Feel free to ask...my fingers are pooped after all the typing I've done on this and my previous post. LOL

Have a Fantastic Friday, wherever you are. Who knows...maybe I'll be back again sometime today.

A Couple of Cards...

Happy Monday to you! I hope you enjoyed a lovely summer's day. It was close to 90 here and not a storm in sight for the past few days. Yippeee! I guess we were on track for having the wettest June on record, but with no severe weather slated for the next few days, we might not break the record afterall.

Thanks so much for your lovely comments about the birthday goodies. I'm glad you liked what I shared. You can see the evidence of why I love blogs so much in the discovery of the brownie hamburgers and fries. LOL

Here's the card I just finished making today that we will use for Amy's thank yous.

The flip flops are an EK Success punch and it actually punches out one sandal part and one thong part. Then I glued the pieces together using a quickie glue pen. I had thoughts of putting some glitter or something on the thong part, but it's pretty small and my fingers are pretty fat, so I figured I'd mess it up for sure if I did that. The rest of it is pretty straightforward. The only thing you might not be able to tell is that I used pop dots on the circle piece and the crocheted flower. The cardstock is CTMH's Orange and Watermelon. The pattern paper is from K&Co's Berry Sweet pack. The "thanks" is from PTI's Mixed Messages set. I inked the edges with Watermelon and stamped the thanks with Topiary ink (CTMH). I used Swiss Dots and D'Vine embossing folders in my Cuttlebug.
Here's a sweet shot of Amy working on a beading project (after slip 'n sliding with Jessica just before she sat down. One of her gifts was a set of 10,000 beads. Yes, 10,000 and most of them are small. Yes, she's spilled some of them already and enlisted my help in picking them up...those babies can roll! LOL She made some bracelets and anklets (extra large bracelets that we discovered fit the ankle area perfectly) and thoroughly enjoyed herself. If you look in the lower right corner of the shot, you'll see part of another birthday gift. It was a Barbie Top Chef set. It comes with a sink area that has studio lights, a fridge (with food for the fridge) a camera and a Barbie. Both girls have been having a ton of imaginitive fun with this set, too.

Finally, here's another card I worked on yesterday, but didn't finish until today.
The image is a digi stamp from Squigglefly called Floral Frenzy. I was inspired by this first card on Holly's Hog Wild About Stamping blog. Actually, I really like the second card, too. *Ü* Anyway, I colored it yesterday and then ran out of time to finish it. I am not 100% convinced the paper I used (from DCWV's Citrus stack) is the right choice, but it sure beats the first paper I selected. LOL. The ribbon is CTMH's Orange organdy. Simple, but sweet, no?

Steve picked up a used bike trailer (the things you hook on the back of your bike and pull little kids in) over the weekend. He found it on Craig's List, I guess. Anyway, Amy has been having a blast pulling Jessica around in it. Today they wanted to ride bikes to swim class and lunch, so we did. Jessica rode in the trailer and Amy pulled her on her bike. She did a GREAT job! I was impressed at her endurance. We took a different route home and while it was an easier, less hilly, ride, the sidewalks were pretty narrow and I was afraid the trailer would tip over. So I took over the pulling and we made it home in fine fashion. I'm not sure we'll do that again with Jess in the trailer. We'll see.

Not much else to report today, so I will close for now. Thanks so much for visiting! I hope you have a great start to your week.

Sorta Simple Sunday...

Hello There!

I hope you all have had a super Father's Day Sunday. Ours was low-key as that suits Steve's style. He took the girls to the "big park" and they were gone for a few hours. When they got back they told me that they went on the paddle boats (there's a lake at the park) and they played in the water feature that shoots streams of water up from the ground. Sounds like they had a good time. After they got back the girls asked me to set up their brand new slip 'n slide and they broke it in in fine fashion. As for me, I worked on laundry because I let it get away from me this past week and in between loads, I made some cards. Yep, a good time was had by all today! *Ü*

I was in the mood for coloring with my Koh-i-noor pencils and odorless mineral sprits. I picked up a few fun digital images recently and decided it was time to get some colored.

First up, in honor of the changing of the seasons, let's welcome summer!

I got this image from Squigglefly. It's an easy one to color as you can see. I added some white Shimmerz paint (the link is for you, Sarah~although I found mine at a local scrapbook store) on the butterfly's wings. I also added some Liquid Glass (CTMH) to the center of the flower. I was inspired by this card on Holly's Hog Wild About Stamping blog. As you can see, you are able to mask off the sentiment and put in your own if you want. I used a scrap of Watermelon cardstock that was on my desk (and the Fiskar's Apron Lace border punch) as well at Dutch Blue and Clover Meadow cardstock (all CTMH). The dp is from DCWV's Summer Stack.

This next card was inspired by samples shown on the All That Scraps blog. I was so excited to see that they were offering these adorable pixies in digital format. I've got to admit that this card is one that I really like. I love the summery colors and I am tickled at how the coloring came out. I pulled out my Berry Sweet paper pack from K & Company. I also added someOrange and Watermelon cardstock. I added the Martha Stewart border punch, which you can't see too well, since the image covers up a lot of it. Oh, and I thought an orange crocheted flower would look cute so I made one (hee, hee). I had my CTMH Just Blooms Summer Posies on my desk and thought the leaves from it would look nice, so I added those as well as a glittered pink brad. And for shimmer on the wings, I added some Crystal Stickles.

And finally, a birthday card...
This fun card was inspired by this card on Chavez Designs blog. I don't remember how I came across the blog, but after seeing this great card, I added it to my Reader. She's got some really neat creations there! You definitely want to take a peek. I haven't used this Happy Birthday Cuttlebug embossing folder much, but was happy I had it in my arsenal. LOL I used Ocean cardstock for the background. Because those embossing folders don't fill up the entire 4 1/4 x 5 1/2 inch card front, I decided to use two pieces of cardstock. One to cover the card front and the 4 x 5 1/4 piece to run through the Cuttlebug. Then, because I got more white cracking through than I wanted, I used a sponge and Ocean ink and I rubbed it all over the embossing. I like the depth it gave. Can you tell I'm happy summer is here? LOL I used Orange ink for the heart image from CTMH's Soulmates stamp set. I also used the happy birthday image from their Birthday stamp set. Some scraps from that Berry Sweet paper on my desk seemed to fit the mood and I used it for the scallop square. A flower from that Archiver's freebie with an orange glittered brad finished off the card.

I've been working on these cards most of the afternoon. I kept getting interrupted by laundry, the phone and the kids (after they got home from the park). Typing this up got interrupted by dinner (yummy steak, corn on the cob and baked potato) on the deck.

Thanks so much for stopping by! Remember that silly news story I told you about where there was talk that summer weather might pass us by? Um...not happening here. I heard we are to be in the 90s all week! Welcome Summer!

Inspired By Sarah!

Hello there!

Have you ever checked out Sarah's Paper Tray blog? If you haven't, definitely should. I think Sarah likes blogs and blogging *almost* as much as I do! (hee, hee) She's super sweet, super enthusiastic and super creative. When I saw this butterfly card she made, I fell in love with the idea and set out to make my own version of it. I added a couple of tweaks to make it my own, but the original idea is all Sarah's. Thanks for the inspiration, my friend!

I'm not sure if you can see it, but I added Shimmerz paints to the cut out butterflies. Golden Wheat color to the yellow ones and pinks on the, well, pink ones. LOL Then I added some pearl stickers to mimic the bodies.

The dp is from DCWV's Spring Matstack and I added some Watermelon (CTMH) for the Martha Stewart edger punched border. I added Just Because from Verve's Fluttering By stamp set in Watermelon ink.

My Live Writer program is still closing on its own, so I'm probably just going to stick with Blogger for awhile. The guy I'm in contact with asked me to send them a log file to see if they could de-bug it, but at this point it's getting to be a real hassle to continually find bugs in the program. So I think I'm just going to forget about it for now. He also said that in a future version they will do something different for the whole font thing, but who knows when that will be coming down the pike. I still really like Live Writer and would recommend it, but it's a free program and you really can't complain too much about something that's free, right?

This is all I have to show for creative time today. I got a later start than I thought after doing some shopping. Actually, I probably could have made another card, but my mojo up and left about the same time as well. Hopefully it'll return soon.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you are having a Super Saturday! Til next time...

Sunglasses Emma on the Beach…

Oh my goodness…you have to look at this card by Carolyn Bounds of the P.M.S., etc. blog! I was completely taken with her card, I mean really…sandpaper??? Loved it! So, you know I had to try it for myself. LOL Here’s how my little version turned out.

Aside from not cutting my card base very well, I’m pretty tickled with my version. I had some sandpaper and first cut a couple  of the Labels 1 Nestabilities. Then I did some tearing. Finally I added some Golden Sand embossing powder on the edges and heat embossed it. The sky is chalked and little Miss Emma is colored with a Nectar Prisma pencil for the skin (which makes her look sort of like she has a tan, don’t you think?) and the rest of the colors are from Koh-i-noor pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits. The paper is from Basic Grey’s Lime Rickey 6x6 pad. I finally broke down and just bought the thing. I kept looking at it and putting it down whenever I was at Archiver’s. I really like how this paper sort of feels like water to me. More flowers from that gift from A’s and some glittered brads (I can’t remember where I got those, but the package was laying on my table and I figured I’d better use them rather than hoard them, LOL) Anyway, something I thought was fun was I added some Versamark ink via a pen to the sunglasses and bucket handle and heat embossed black embossing powder to help those stand out a little bit. She looks like she is ready to spend a day at the shore, doesn’t she? I’ve been itching to try my hand at this card ever since I saw it. Thanks for the inspiration Carolyn (yeah, like she reads my little blog…LOL)

So there you have my exercise in creativity (or rather copying) for the day. I want to thank you so much for stopping by and leaving your wonderful comments. They bring a smile to my heart. I hope you have a great start to your week.

Oh goodness, before I forget AGAIN, I just wanted to mention something that Amy talked about on one of our morning walks (we’ve started up again now that school is out). She and Jessica have been fascinated with some books on the human body they recently checked out from the library. Amy, especially, pores over them whenever she has a spare moment and reads them in bed at night. Okay, so we are taking our walk and chit chatting about this and that. Amy had the hiccups at the time and she said, did you know that hiccups are from your diffagram twitching? LOL Diffagram! That was how she thought diaphragm was pronounced.  And I guess I can totally see how she came up with that pronunciation. I just thought it was so cute…after my initial confusion as to what the heck she was even talking about! LOL

Now, I’m done! Have a good one!

Jeanne

Pleated Flower Cards

Here are two of the three cards I got done today…

As I was making these, we had a severe thunderstorm blow through. It was pretty dark and Amy came running to my craft corner hollering about a tornado right above the neighbor’s house! I knew it wasn’t so, but I went to check, “just in case.” Nope, just dark clouds indicative of an impending thunderstorm. As I looked, I could hear the next door neighbor’s 3 year old wailing about the “tornado” that was coming. So, I had to give the girls a bit of a talking to that they cannot scare the littler kids with all this tornado talk. (Actually it was the 3 year old’s brother who started the talk, but still, Amy definitely got caught up in it). I guess with all this wild weather and the news talking it up a storm, it’s no wonder the kids are a bit paranoid about tornadoes!

So, anyway,  I chose bright, summery colors to try this technique to offset the gloominess of the storm. Once the storm passed, it cleared up and it’s actually very pleasant out right now! Thankfully, it was pretty much over and done with when Steve was grilling our steaks for supper tonight.

Okay, enough blather…back to the cards. I was completely inspired by this tutorial on the newly discovered by me Cards blog. If you didn’t know, you can now order online copies of this neat magazine for a mere $5 an issue! Very cool!

The cards are very simple, but fun, I think. Let’s see if I can remember the supplies I used…LOL

On the first one, that’s Citrus Leaf cardstock, run through my Cuttlebug with a new polka dot embossing folder offered by QuicKutz. I rubbed a sponge with Citrus Leaf ink on it all over the embossing to give it a little extra oomph. The pattern paper is some old Doodlebug paper that I just love. It makes me happy looking at it. I sponged a bit of Bubblegum ink on the pattern paper. I added a Prima flower that came in a rather large container. The flowers were a free gift from Archiver’s on one of their make and take weekends. The button is one from the set I found at Walmart a year or so ago and I added some orange floss to finish it off. I wanted to add a little something else, and finally decided on the ric-rac. I tried making a stem and leaf, but it looked dorky to me, so I pulled it off.

The second card is also inspired by a card sample in the tutorial. I liked the three layers on the flower. The Orange cs and pattern paper worked great, but when it came to the narrower Bubblegum cardstock, I started having problems. I am NOT a math whiz by any means-and definitely have issues with spatial relations. I tried doing it the way the other strips were done and I kept getting a square. I’m sure there is some logical and mathematical reason for it, but I don’t know what it is. So I cut I don’t know how many strips, trying to get it to work and finally sort of got this one to look better than my previous attempts. By this time I was tired of trying and called it good. LOL The center is a flattened bead cap with a glittered brad on top. The leaf is hand cut with a scrap of glittered cardstock (DCWV) that was just laying on my table. Because it took so long to get that last strip done, I wanted to just be done with the card, and I scored the lines for interest and plunked the flower on it. Who knows, maybe another day I’ll be inspired to do something a bit “more” with it.

I’ve got one more card to share, but it’s totally different from these, so I’ll put it in its own post.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jeanne

Urban Prairie Flower Card…

Hi there! Okay, pick yourself up off the floor, I managed to get into my crafty corner this afternoon and make a card! I know, I am just as shocked as you are. LOL

The girls and I have had a nicely busy first full week of summer break. We are going to a local school for lunch almost every day like we did last summer. It’s not being offered at our home school this summer (they switch schools each year), but it’s still close by and it’s still free. Another family we got to know last summer is going too, so it’s nice to catch up with them. We are also going to the library each week for their free programs and to check out books. They are having a summer long reading “contest,” where if the girls read each day during the week, they turn in their log for a prize. I am participating in the adult version since I read every night before going to sleep. The program this week was by Mr. Bones, a guy who studies dinosaur fossils and even goes out on expeditions to find them. He  found a dinosaur egg not far from where we live (within 20 miles). I’m bummed that I didn’t bring my camera to the program because he makes “puppets” of dinosaurs out of paper mache and foam. They were incredibly realistic. Next week, we’ll start swim lessons again as well.

So, in between our daily activities, I have continued to work on cleaning up around here, helped the girls with their needlepoint projects, worked on a few of my own projects-I got one microphone made, and started the second…should be able to share those soon. The girls still don’t know, so shhhhhhh…

Today I did a aluminum can recycling run and cleaned off our deck before finally heading into my crafty corner. The card I was inspired by was created by Carol of Happiness Blooms blog. It’s the middle one on this post.

Obviously, I don’t have the same stamp sets, but I thought Hero Arts’ Trees, Birds and Messages set had a lovely “vine” that worked nicely. I colored in the flowers and leaves with Prisma and Koh-i-noor pencils and blended the colors with odorless mineral spirits. Very simple.

Last week, Nichole Heady challenged her senior design team at Papertrey Ink to come up with cost effective embellishments and she participated as well. She shared a tutorial on how to make crocheted flowers using DMC floss instead of cotton thread. You know I was all over that! I have loads of floss and was eager to try her tutorial. You can see the result of my first attempt on this card. I just picked a color, any color, and it just so happens that it coordinated pretty well with the Cranberry color in the papers I used for this card. Serendipitous, yes?

I added the circle image from Verve’s Artful Elegance set to help offset the flower on the Nestie scallop circle. Other than that, this card is pretty straightforward.

Supplies:
Stamps: Trees, Birds & Messages (Hero Arts), Artful Elegance (Verve)
Paper:  Cranberry, Breeze (CTMH) Black, Urban Prairie (Basic Grey)
Ink: Breeze, Cranberry (CTMH), Tuxedo Black (Memento)
Accessories: Black Brad (dollar store find), Prisma, Koh-i-noor pencils, odorless mineral spirits, DMC floss, size 2 crochet hook, scallop circle Nestabilities, piercing template/mat (SU), piercing tool (Making Memories)

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The Windows Live Writer “format fonts” function is still not working correctly, despite my attempts to contact them again. Sigh. I’ve tried finding a way to uninstall and reinstall, but I can’t find it. I’ve also tried a repair on the program that didn’t help. Guess the WLW team must be stumped or feverishly working on finding a fix. (at least I hope they are). I can’t change the font in my post, nor can I resize the font. However, all the fonts show up in the watermark feature and I can resize those. Go figure. I suppose I could type up my posts in Blogger, but I do like the features in WLW, so I guess I’ll just deal with this minor inconvenience for now.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I’m hoping to have more to share with you over the weekend.

Hugs,
Jeanne

Butterfly, Flutter By…

I did it…I managed to sneak into my crafty corner and get a card made. Yay! And this is an embellishment I’ve been wanting to use all week! Ahhhhh…feels good. When I saw this card, I almost swooned.

Look at the butterfly (yes, that’s what it is, if you weren’t sure) that I crocheted myself! Isn’t it pretty? Well, I think it is and I can’t wait to make more of them, in different colors. And you know me, I always share where I get my info, so here’s the link for the pattern…

The pattern paper is from DCWV, Butterflies and Blossoms, Heavenly Blue cardstock is from CTMH. Lemon Tart is from Papertrey Ink. I also used some velvet ribbon from Michaels and Fiskars’ Apron Lace border punch. Thinking of you is from Verve’s Artful Elegance set.

I’m just tickled pink at how this one came out…

Thanks for stopping by!

Jeanne
(who really needs to find out how to get my fonts to work in this updated Live Writer…)

Surfer Emma...

Hi there! Hope you are having a lovely Saturday. I took the girls to their school's Family Fun Day and great fun was had by all. I was a little worried because "they" were saying it might rain, but the weather was great. Sunny and not too hot. Here are just a few pictures...

They had a magician perform and he called Jessica up to assist him during one of the tricks. The picture is of the last part of the trick. There was a mama rabbit and a papa rabbit and the papa always tried to get where the mama was (he didn't listen very well). Of course he kept moving into Jessica's hand. At the end it wasn't just the papa...it was a whole mess of little bunnies! I was lucky and caught the action just as she opened her hand. Amy got kicked in the mouth, unfortunately, in the top slide/obstacle course bouncer. She has a cut on her gum right where her gap is (and the new tooth will hopefully/eventually come out. She insists she's fine though. Both girls had a great time.

And once I dropped Amy off for her Brownie field trip, I wandered into my corner and made this card and another one, which I'll share in a separate post. This first one is Surfer Emma...

She's colored in with Koh-i-noor pencils/odorless mineral spirits. I added some Bubble Gum Shimmerz paint to the pink flowers, but it's hard to see in the photo. I also added a glittered brad to the flower on her bathing cap, but it's actually a little too big. Oh well. I used Citrus Leaf and Pink Carnation cardstock (CTMH) as well as Lemon Tart (PTI) run through a Cuttlebug embossing folder. Not much to say except I like how this came out.

I grew up in Southern California and went to the beach all the time. My mom took us to Santa Monica beach and we always sat by the Pier. My mom used to let us kids wander the pier by ourselves. Boy, was a different time that was...there's no way I would let my girls wander a place like that alone these days. Of course we always went in our blue Dodge van and my seat was on the engine compartment (no car seats or seatbelts for that matter back then) which was located between the driver and passenger seats-great spot except when the compartment got hot-LOL. She would drive through Topanga Canyon to get to the beach and it was semi mountainous and had winding roads. When I was in junior high, my friends and I would take the bus to the beach (sans adults). As much time as I spent at the beach though, I never learned how to surf. Guess I wasn't truly a beach babe, then, huh? LOL I have a lot of great memories of those beach adventures and that's what these Emmas make me think of when I see them.

Thanks for looking, I'll be back with the other card I made  in just a bit...

Jeanne

Simple But Cute Cards...

Happy Friday to you! Steve took the day off from work, the girls had the day off from school, and I reserved tickets at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science's new Expedition Health exhibit. On the page I linked, you can learn more about the exhibit. It was fascinating because it's interactive. You get a pass and there are several stations where you use the pass to record information about your heart, your walking stride, your height, etc. You can even see your blood pumping through your veins! There was a station that showed how sunscreen protects your skin. You could even do experiments. But we didn't do any of those. We were in that exhibit alone for over an hour and a half before Jessica had had enough. At the end, you sign out and get a printout about your health. Cool. I'm glad we went and look forward to going again. I'm glad it's a permanent exhibit. Unlike the Nature Unleashed, where they had information about earthquakes, volcanoes and hurricanes, and it ended on May 3rd, so Steve never did get to see that one.

I was hoping to create a little today and was successful! Yippee! This past week All That Scraps released some super cute new stamp sets and digital images. You really need to scroll through the past several days on their blog as the design team did a great job showcasing these new images. I fell in love with those Emmas and the Bugg-a-boos. Here's what I was able to create today...

This image is C.C. Designs Digi Emailed Sugarplums Polka Dot Emma. The paper I used is from DCWV's new Summer stack. The flowers are Primas that I received as a gift from Archiver's for NSD. The brads are from Hobby Lobby's Spare Parts line. Two are glittered and the large orange one is flocked. The metal pieces are beading spacers picked up in the jewelry/beading aisle. I adhered them with glue dots and stuck the brad through the centers.

This is the ladybug Bugg-a-Boo. I added lots of tiny black rhinestones and some tiny red ones. The flowers are a Punch a Bunch punch. The paper is also from DCWV's new Summer Stack. I used the Fiskars Apron Lace border punch.

Both images are colored using Prismacolor pencils, except for the gray (which is Koh-i-noor) and blended with odorless mineral spirits. I used my Nestabilities ovals as well.

Feels good to finally get something created. *Ü* Oh, and I wanted to thank you so much for all your lovely comments about my coloring recently. It means a lot! I have been firmly convinced that I cannot color. Not sure what the Koh-i-Noor pencils do that is so different, but I've had more success in coloring with those than anything else. That and reading up on coloring techniques on the internet may be sinking in. LOL

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you have an awesome weekend.

Jeanne

Red Butterfly and a Feel Better Card

Happy Sunday to you! The sun is shining again in my neck of the woods and I felt energized to color today. I got a couple of cards done and hope you like them.

This first one is my version of this card on Heather's Best in Life blog. Kathi's card also reminded me that I wanted to try my hand at it. Aren't those cards stunning? But, I don't own that embossing folder (yet)! I meant to get it this past week and forgot. I bipped on over to Joann's because I had seen it there. Dang, they were out. I even tried Michaels, but no luck. Sigh...I know Hobby Lobby carries the folder, but they are closed on Sundays. I figured I'd do my best (until tomorrow) using their cards as inspiration and this is what I came up with...

I used a Sizzix embossing folder and put Frosted Lace Stickles on the dots. It's kind of hard to see the sparkliness though. I added some red Stickles and Black Stickles as well after I colored in the image with my pencils/odorless mineral spirits. The stamp is from the set Gem Stone Insects by Inkadinkado. The black textured cardstock is from Hobby Lobby. The red cardstock is Holiday Red from CTMH and I used my circle and scallop circle Nestabilities. Almost forgot, I used a Signo White pen to add some extra oomph to the dots on the butterfly.

While I was waiting for the pieces to dry before putting the card together, I decided to color in a digital image I picked up at Dustin Pike's Etsy shop. (although he just moved his images to his own website here). He also has a blog. I've seen his work on other blogs (look at Jenn's monkey here, then check out the other super cute cards she's made) I just fell in love with this hapless dragon...

I used my Koh-i-noor pencils/odorless mineral spirits to color him. The pink cast is for the pink cast I chose when I broke my ankle. LOL  Anyway, it was super fun to color this in. Jessica saw me working on it and said, "That dragon sure has a lot of boo-boos, Mom." LOL-yep, he sure enough does. I'd hate to see the "other" dragon!

I used the same black textured cardstock on the first card, as well at CTMH's Citrus Leaf and Hydrangea. The black brads are from Hobby Lobby (Spare Parts).

Well there you have it, my creative efforts for the day. Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you have a great start to your week!

Jeanne

A Couple of Haircuts and Cards...

Hi there!

Yesterday Amy announced to me that she wanted to get her hair cut at the shop where I get mine cut (Cost Cutters...nothing fancy). Jessica piped up that she did, too. Now prior to this announcement, whenever you asked either of the girls if they wanted to go to a shop to get their hair cut they would loudly say NO...Mommy cuts our hair. I only want Mommy to cut my hair. And so I have (and probably not very well...). Then Amy kept saying she wanted it really short and would put her hand right below her ear. That'd be oh about 5-6 inches! Steve was nervous because his girls are the only chance he has to have a female in his life with longer hair (because if I grew my hair longer...it'd grow out like a bush, not down and pretty. Believe me, I've tried it a time or two in my life. So, not wanting to give them too much time to change their minds, I took them this morning...wielding a camera, since I've waited years for this happen. LOL
 

Amy immediately put on a headband, so you can't really tell how much healthier her hair looks. Jessica got the same bob type cut, so imagine that on Amy. Neither one had experienced a blow dryer on their hair before and thought it was tickly and neat.

And now for the cards...

This first project was inspired by this project on Jen Tapler's blog, (which I just recently discovered and added to my Reader) called Jen Tapler's Designs. Ohweee, she makes some cute stuff! Anyway, when I saw those strawberries I about drooled all over my keyboard and to boot, Kelleigh Ratzlaff is a buddy of mine from Jessica Sprague classes!! I'm SO thrilled to see her success-she's SO talented. Anyway...the strawberries are a template she designed and you can find them here (as well as other fun goodies) at the Digi Chick. I used a Martha Stewart red cardstock and the green is from EK Success Inspirables line (remember that octagon basket I made a while back...same line as that). I added some CTMH hemp and carried it over to the card, which is pretty self explanatory, I think. This was a fun one for sure! Thanks Jen and Kelleigh for the inspiration!

When I saw this card on Heather's blog, called The Best in Life, I wanted to make my own version. So, I pulled out my 6x6 Basic Grey Ambrosia paper pack and found a piece with the butterflies that would fit. I also used a new Basic Grey stamp set, which goes with the Wisteria line (Archiver's was out of the 6x6 paper, though) with my Koh-i-noor pencils and odorless mineral spirits. I liked how it came out, except I thought the corners looked bare, so at the last minute I added a small image from the set in the corners...only I didn't season the stamp well enough. I think I'd have been better off leaving those corners plain. I ran out of crafting time though,  because I had to get Amy from the field trip to the Northglenn youth theater. She saw a performance of Beauty and the Beast (which she loved) this afternoon with her Brownie troop. I'm also not sure that the colors I chose for the image work as well as I thought they would. I added some Golden Wheat Shimmerz to some parts of the wings to dress it up a little, but it doesn't show up very well. Oh well, can't win 'em all. LOL The Sunflower cardstock is CTMH and the black is textured and from Hobby Lobby. The black brads are from a set of 6 neutral colors that I picked up at Hobby Lobby as well, from their Spare Parts line.

I think that is it for now. Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you had a great weekend and are ready to start another wonderful week. Tomorrow the girls only go to school for Assessments (meaning...for about 1/2 an hour-which counts as a day because the teachers have student contact) and then we might try to go to the Museum that we had to miss a couple of weeks ago due to Amy getting strep. Oh and they are off on Friday as well(teacher compensation day). It feels mighty rare that they go to school for a full 5 day week any more! LOL

Jeanne

Flower Soft Tree...

Hi again!

If you click to see this tree card on Cindy Lawrence's Creative Closet blog, I think you will understand my desire to make one for myself. Isn't it gorgeous? Because I'm not a "tree" person, I didn't have any stamps that had tree images, so I used the next best thing...a digital image! I found a nice looking tree on my Darcie CD called Fall Flurries and Winter Winks and printed it onto cardstock. I colored it fairly quickly using my Koh-I-Noor pencils and odorless mineral spirits. I used my circle and scallop circle Nestabilities and some pattern paper from Basic Grey's Urban Prairie 6x6 paper set along with a bit of CTMH's Topiary cardstock. I bit of Dollar Tree white ribbon and the card is done. I added the Summer Flower Soft in smallish sections until it looked finished.

Oh....do you want to see the card I've just blathered about? You do? Silly me! Here you go...

Kim...I thought of you the whole time I was making this card because I know how much you like trees...hope you enjoy this one. *Ü*

Thanks again for stopping by!
Jeanne

Flower Soft Butterfly Card

Happy Earth Day! Hope it's been a good one. The girls' school celebrated during the day today with activities/stations organized by my good friend Susi (Hattie's mom). I couldn't really help out during the morning as I had Jessica, but we went to school a little early so we could check out all the stations, which were all held outside. At one, the city trash truck was there and the kids got to toss empty milk cartons into the "scooper" after they heard about trash pick-up. At another they planted a tree (so cool) and a city employee was telling the group about trees. At yet another, the kids got to plant seeds in a little peat pot. There were a couple of other stations, but by then, I had to get Jessica over to her room to start her school day. Jessica's class wasn't left out...they got to plant geraniums in wine barrels to decorate a patio area at the school. All of this was organized by Susi and I'm SO impressed! She has worked really, really hard volunteering her time to start a recycling program at the school and now this awesome Earth Day event! Actually, the recycling program has been so successful that the district has sent representatives to the school so Susi could share with them how it all works. They are thinking of implementing a similar program district wide! THAT is awesome! Yea, Susi (who won't ever read this, but who cares, she truly deserves a shout out)!

I decided not to run around during my limited kid free time today (early release day) so I was able to make a card. Actually I worked on two, but the other one isn't quite finished, plus I'm not real happy with how it is coming along. But I do like the one I am sharing today...

I used the Summer Flower Soft today...similar to the Sweet Pea, but a little more bold in the color palette don't you think? AT one of the demos for this at the show I went to, the gal wrote an initial in glue and sprinkled the Flower Soft onto the line of glue. That got me to thinking how I could use it in a similar way. This is what I came up with. I ran my butterfly die through the Cuttlebug (thanks for the enabling Ms. Kathi...I could no longer resist the lure of the butterfly) and then ran it through again using the Swiss Dots embossing folder. (I personally like the wider spacing of the dots for this particular use-the die comes with a dotted embossing folder, too). I didn't buy any Flower Soft glue because the gal told me it was pretty much just like Aleene's Tacky Glue. I was told I could use any kind that would dry clear. So, I used my Scotch Tacky Glue because it does set really well and dries clear.

As you can see, the card itself is very simple as I hoped it would allow the butterfly to be the focus. The paper is from Making Memories' Flower Patch paper. The green cardstock is CTMH's Clover Meadow. The silver flower is a bead cap flattened with a glittery green Paper Studio brad. The sentiment is stamped in Clover Meadow and is from Papertrey Ink's Mixed Message set. Oh and I added a couple of rhinestones on the antennae.

That's it for now...thanks so much for stopping by. I hope I am not boring people with my posts. I've been getting unsubscribe notices the past few weeks. Ah well...that's the way it goes, I guess. I'll just keep plugging along even if I do end up chatting with myself...

Jeanne