I've Been Coloring!

 Hi There!

I hope this finds you doing well on this Friday before Valentine's Day. I've managed to sneak in some coloring time. Not only coloring, but I created two cards to boot! *Ü*

 I was inspired by cards I saw on the internet. And I tweaked the ideas to become more my own.

Here's the inspiration for this first card.

I pretty well followed the same idea. As you can see, the heart color changed and I chose to use hugs instead of love. I cut that hugs out of glittered fun foam. It's hard to see in the photo, but I ran my Wink of Stella pen around the outside edge of the heart because I felt it needed something. All the stamps are Lawn Fawn. The coral/pink cardstock pretty well matches the heart on the envelope. It's from DCWV. The images are colored with pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits. The heart is inked with Spun Sugar Distress Ink. I die cut a Spellbinders heart to use as a stencil. Gosh, I think those bunnies are so darn sweet!

Here's the inspiration for this second card. My card evolved into something quite different from the inspiration card. Mainly I really liked the colors this cardmaker used on the monsters. I tried to see how close I could get using my pencils. I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. Then I started playing. Not too long ago I got these Stitched Border dies by My Favorite Things from my local scrapbook store. I hadn't used them yet and was itching to play around. I thought the angle of this one was interesting. I heat embossed the sentiment and the hearts onto the black background piece. I originally did the two surrounding the sentiment, but the other side looked too bare, so I added the three, but there was a smidge too much space open, so I added a bit bigger heart at the corner. I liked that look. I used a striped background stamp in yellow just to be very non traditional. I picked Close To My Heart ink colors that I felt looked pretty close to the colored images and random stamped the little hearts on the bottom piece. There are some white gel dots  and some Wink of Stella on them, too.  This card makes me smile like the first one. 

Thanks so very much for stopping by! 

I hope you have a great day and a happy weekend.

Hugs,

Valentine Cards

Hi There!

Happy Day After the Super Bowl. I cannot lie, I'm pretty dang happy that the Broncos got the big win! It was pretty satisfying, actually. I watched the commercials, too, but wasn't as impressed with those. And the half time show? Not that anyone really cares, but I couldn't hear the lead singer from Coldplay sing. Lady Gaga singing the National Anthem. That was beautiful. All in all a great way to end the weekend. :) This was after Amy had a basketball doubleheader on Saturday and we all went to the Father/Daughter Dance for Girl Scouts on Saturday night. The girls and their dad danced the night away while Mom helped at the snack table. Um, I felt like I was working another shift. Ha, ha

I also managed to get two cards made! Go me! I got the image I colored in my last post put onto a card and I futzed around with a second one.

Does inking up a background count as coloring for the 30 Day Coloring Challenge? If so, I did in a little bit of coloring. I think that's stretching it a bit, though. I was trying to channel Kay Miller with the inking of that background. I might have to leave that to the professional that is Kay! I tried it with Picked Raspberries and Festive Berries Distress Inks. The heart shaped sequins I found at Michaels in the kids Valentine section. The other sequins are sparkling clear from Pretty Pink Posh. Sentiment is from Close To My Heart. That little girl is fussy cut. The background paper is Doodlebug Sweet Things.  

My original thought with the little girl was that I wanted to make a shaker card. Only, I couldn't get it to look right. I had die-cut that heart, but the size of the heart with the size of the girl image just didn't mesh well. So I gave up on that idea and opted to put it on its own card. I found a blue glitter paper in my DCWV glitter stack that looked a lot like the blue hearts in the paper. I know you can't tell the scallop heart is glittered, but it is. I pulled out a Memory Box Heart flower die and cut it with glittered white foam. I snipped it off a bit to get it to fit. The blue sequins are from Hobby Lobby and the little iridescent hearts are Martha Stewart. The inking on the background is Peacock Feathers distress ink. The background paper is also Doodlebug Sweet Things. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you have a great week. :)

Valentine's Day Cards

Thank you very much for the kind words you shared about Amy's giraffe. You are very sweet and I appreciate your comments so much.

I made these cards a few weeks ago and meant to share them before now, but life got in the way. Hope you like!

This first one is from a set called Love Grows Here by Taylored Expressions. I found it at Archiver's, just before their going out of business sale started. They had a card using this image on display in the store and I loved what they did. This is my simple version. I used colored pencils and odorless mineral spirits to color the image. I added some Wink of Stella glitter pen to the hearts, but it's very subtle. The paper, tag and twine are all Doodlebug. I popped up the image and the tag with foam dots. On the original card in the store, they had sponged clouds on the background and I really wanted to do that, but I was too afraid I would mess it up, so I instead sponged distress ink on with the image in the Spellbinder's square die. One of these days though, I will get brave enough to practice sponging clouds!

This next one uses Lawn Fawn's Science of Love stamp set and dies, again purchased at Archiver's (I sure am going to miss that store. :( sniff ). I wanted to link the set to their website, but it is down as I am writing this. This link will take you to the blog post showcasing the set.  This is the card though that inspired the one I made. I put my own spin on it and am very happy with the result. 

The sentiment was stamped with some old, old Close To My Heart alphabet stamps called Sans Small Uppercase. I added some Stickles in the heart on the sentiment. Again the background paper is Doodlebug and I colored the images with colored pencils and odorless mineral spirits. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.

I hope you are keeping warm wherever you are.

It's currently 2 degrees outside right now. 

Brrrrr.

But, the sun is shining, so it's a good day.

*Ü*

Jeanne

A Little More Decor...

It's a balmy 9 degrees outside today. Still pretty dang cold, but better than below zero right? Not sure what the windchill is though. The girls and I hung out this morning, then I took them to McDonald's for lunch so they could run off some energy in the play area. When we got home, they wanted to go to a friend's house to play. While they've been gone, I took the opportunity to create some more decor items for Valentine's Day. All you need are some (okay, a lot of) circles of felt, pins and a styrofoam ball. I got the felt and styrofoam at the thrift store (not all at the same time). Pins are from Walmart. You fold the circles in half and then in half again and pin them to the styrofoam. And you end up with these:

Oh, you might want to get some ribbon from the Dollar Tree, too. I also added a couple of packages of Red Hots to the vase to "ground" it.

This little vignette is the bottom shelf of the tea cart I bought at the thrift store last year. And I've added a few more thrift store finds. *Ü* I really like the dark gray thing. It came without a tray (and cost me $1.50), so I hunted around and found a cookie pan at Home Goods that fit pretty near perfectly.

Here you can see them separated.

And how nicely it fits.

Add a little thrift store tray and it's the perfect spot for some felted decor. 

I can't take credit for the decor idea. I've seen them popping up all over the crafty blogs I read. 

This is a pretty easy craft idea, but a little tip or two for you might help. The middle red one above, I made last weekend. I used a Nestability circle and my Cuttlebug to cut the felt. I realized after I was done, I had felt dust everywhere! I knew I wanted to make at least three more, so I figured that wasn't going to be the best idea. Today I cut a paper circle and used it to trace circles onto the felt and cut them out by hand. I still have some felt dust, but not nearly as much. My hand it a little tired, but if you make just one, it shouldn't be too bad. I didn't even count how many circles I cut. I just traced a bunch, cut them out and stuck them on. Then cut some more. I started around 1:30 or so and finished them about 3:45 with a few breaks in there to rest my hand. Not bad, I don't think.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you are having a wonderful Wednesday!

Baby, It's COLD Outside!

This number doesn't tell the whole story...according to the news, there's a windchill factor to consider. -32. That's 32 degrees below zero. Baby, I don't care who you are, that's flippin' cold.

Guess what? There's no school today! Steve snorted when the girls told him last night. He thought "they" (the powers that be) were wimps. LOL The roads aren't bad. But then, he grew up in Sioux Falls, SD. Where it gets pretty darn cold, pretty darn regularly. And I wonder if Kathi is snickering a little, too, up there in the frozen tundra. Me, I'm happy not to have to be out and about today. Yeah, this born and raised Southern California transplant, who actually enjoys snow, doesn't like so much this type of cold. No school means no parent teacher conferences today and no Girl Scout meeting tonight. 

So we can hunker down and do a little of this:

and a little of that:

and maybe bake, play some games and generally just keep warm.

No word yet on school tomorrow, when it's supposed to be 9 above zero as a high, not sure on the wind chill. A peek into the forecast shows 40s by the end of the week. Gotta love the extremes of Colorado.

Thought I'd share a little of the Valentine's decor I've put out:

Red Hots and Roses 

*Ü*

Marshmallows, licorice, mints and you've gotta have conversation hearts. 

Oooooh, I have Cupid Corn tucked away...maybe I'll switch the mints out.

A little love on the mantle. Those red and pink balls in the hurricane lamps are two packages from Hobby Lobby (by the floral department) 1 red, 1 pink, mixed together. Those pink suckers were chock full of static electricity! LOL Dollar Tree wooden frame with a glittery puffy heart. Loved the color of the wood in the frame.

More Dollar Tree heart picks.

I wanted to fill this large container and the little balls seemed to work well. The heart wire thingies are from Joann's.

As you walk in the door, this is what you see.

A Dollar Tree plastic plate decorated with paper. Hard to see, but the word love on the heart and the arrow through it are glitterized with Stickles. Next to the plate on the left, a thrift store candlestick and to the right and apothecary jar filled with Hot Tamales, Valentine colored.

I saw this at the thrift store for a couple of weeks in a row and passed it up thinking, I could stitch that up for sure. The reality is, I probably won't get to that, so this past weekend, I found it again and bought it, for all of a dollar. I'm so glad I did!

I thought some extra heart ornaments looked good on this wire piece hanging over the bench.

I still have a few more things I want to work on. I would like to hang a garland and create a few more decor items. Maybe today? Most likely not. But soon!

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you are staying safe and warm in your neck of the woods. 

A Couple of Valentine Goodies

Hello! I hope you are doing well this wonderful Wednesday.

Just yesterday I tucked away the last of the winter type decorations (for going up to the attic) and have been thinking about things to create for Valentine's Day this year. I haven't actually made it up into the attic to pull out what I already have(or to put away the bag I just packed up, shhhhh). That would probably be a good idea, huh? Tomorrow will probably be the day. Today I was working on this card:

I was completely smitten with this card I saw on Courtney Lane Designs. This is a fun blog to read if you are interested in seeing projects made with the Cricut.

Anyway, I thought it would be cute to make this card (well 2 of them) to tuck into the girls' lunch boxes for Valentine's Day. The only thing is, I really, really liked the look with the polka dot paper. Only, I don't have any polka dot paper like that. And neither do the local stores apparently, I looked. But I DO have PSE and lots of digi supplies. So, I searched and found this overlay by Katie the Scrapbook Lady (she doesn't sell her designs anymore, though). She has a great blog if you are interested in checking it out. So, I printed off a sheet of the dotted paper. Yay! The cut is from Paper Lace and is cut at 3 1/2. Then I tried to pen-stitch with a white Signo pen. Um, I'm pretty rusty at it, so please forgive if it doesn't look all that great. I cut little bits of Holiday Red cardstock to glue behind the open hearts and snipped away the excess. There were solid black hearts and I decided to fill them with red Stickles. I added a bit of pink Stickles to the small open heart after I glued the pieces together. And I popped the heart with pop dots, although you can't tell in the picture. All in all, I'm pleased with this little project. I hope the girls will be pleasantly surprised (and not embarrassed).

Last week I worked on this little project. Very simple, but I like how it turned out. I and U are from Storybook and the fancy heart is from my new Lacy Labels cartridge. The frames are from the Dollar Tree. I just bought new ones, since I tucked the JOY ones away with the Christmas decorations. It's hard to see, but there is a rose on the heart and a little bitty piece gets cut out to be the rose. I put glue on it and sprinkled some Martha Stewart glue onto it and stuck in place. Since I don't really have any Valentine themed paper (that I could find) I just used white cardstock run through the Cuttlebug with the heart shapes. Works for me to add a little texture and interest.

I have more ideas that I want to try, the trick is to actually get to them. I hope to do so very soon!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Have a great day!

Be Mine...

Happy Tuesday to you! I hope you've had a great start to your week. The girls were off school yesterday due to MLK day and we went to Amy's friend, Hattie's, 10th birthday party. Oh my, she's in double digits now! And it seems like yesterday the girls were in Kindergarten. The time sure is flying by. 

Today I worked on cleaning up around the house after the weekend tornado that is my family blew through. But, I made sure to have enough time to wander into my craft space. I even got a card made. Whoo hooo! And this is after I cleaned up in there first, too. I had scraps of paper every where from my last crafty efforts. So, I spent some time putting those away and neatening things up before I sat down to mess it all up again. LOL

Last month I received the sweetest of surprises from my blogging buddy Alanna. She sent me some fun embellishments for my crafting including some fun ribbon and a jar of flowers. She also included some stamped images for me to color! She is so sweet to have done this. Thanks so much Alanna! Anyway, I have been itching to get some coloring time. Last week, or maybe the week before, I did sit down to try my hand at coloring an image she sent with markers.

To be honest, I really thought I screwed up my first attempt. I only have a couple of Copics (for coloring faces), but after trying to color the sweet image with my Sharpies and Bics, I am understanding more and more the appeal of the Copics. If only they weren't so darn expensive. The face came out fine, I think, but the  Sharpie pen nib makes it really hard to not have the ink bleed into other spaces, which is what was happening. The image looked really sloppy and I almost pitched it. But I set it aside instead and came back to it later. I got the idea to cover up those areas with Stickles. So, I used Frosted Lace to add some bling and cover up. I think it worked pretty well. 

I also practiced my sewing a bit and after a couple of messed up attempts, came away with a card I'm pretty happy with.

I was completely inspired by this card on the Playing With Paper blog. Andrea creates awesome cards using digital images all the time. She is on the creative team for Mary Fran (among other design teams) at NitwitCollections, which is how I came across Andrea's blog. You're in for a real treat if you check it out.

My card ended up taking a slightly different path than Andrea's, but not for lack of effort on my part. I wanted to CASE it, but the image of my little girl was a bit too large for that layered look. I discovered via Andrea's blog, that there is a digital file of my image(and the one Andrea used), so I may have to buy a few as I sure think they are adorable. They are By Lori designs called Lollipops and you can find them here. Their names are Gracie and Ella and you'll have to scroll down to find them. As you can see, I sewed on the card and that silly sewing machine foot I found made it way easier for me to get in fairly close to the edge of the paper. Yay.

The white flower "ribbon" is also from Alanna and I thought they added some fun texture. The pin is a Making Memories one I've had for along time. The twine is the DMC floss twisted together. The sentiment is from PTI. The organdy ribbon is CTMH. I ran the sewed piece of cardstock through the Cuttlebug after I stitched on it and attached it to my card base.

Whew, that's an awful lot of explanation for one fairly simple card. Like I said, I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. Hope you like it, too.

Tomorrow is Wednesday already. Hope it's a good one.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I sure appreciate the visit. Hope to see you again soon.

Sweet Valentines

Happy Valentine's Day! Hope it's been a sweet one for you like it has been for me.

As you can see, I managed to create one more thing to help decorate for the holiday. I just finished putting the garland together this morning, but I've been crocheting the hearts for a day or so. There are 9 in all. They are "Granny Hearts," a version of a granny square. I'm sorry the pictures didn't come out better, but I think you get the idea. Anyway, I've wanted to create a heart garland to take the place of the snowflake one I had up for my winter decorations, but I was having trouble finding a heart pattern I liked. Wait, I take that back, I did find one I liked and made one heart, then got side tracked by wanting to finish Amy's giraffe. When I sat down to make the next heart, I couldn't get it to come out right at all. I don't know why. Obviously, I figured it out once, but I couldn't do it again to save my life! I about gave up on it for this year, but then I came across this tutorial on a fairly new to me blog called The Royal Sisters and I fell in love with the hearts. (about as much as I fell in love with the blog itself-lots of crochet goodness there) Granny squares are pretty easy to create because there are lots of double crochets, one of my favorite stitches! I made 9 hearts and then worked a cord of sorts to connect them. I'm so tickled I got it created. I will leave up the decorations for a while yet, so I'll be able to enjoy them. *Ü*

 

 

Here's what the girls created for me. Apparently, unbeknownst to me, Steve took them to Lowe's yesterday for their kids building project, which happened to be a jewelry holder. (don't you love the bed head?) Steve picked up the plant for me while they were there. The necklace hanging on display was not a gift this year, it was one I already owned, Amy grabbed it to show me how the holder worked. They also made me two of the sweetest cards! Oh and Jessica informed me I wasn't getting her jewelry hold, since I got Amy's and I didn't need two of them. Okay then! They had fun and that's all that matters.

I also received a couple of surprises in the mail. My sweet blogging buddies Kim and Barb decided to spoil me!

Isn't this a lovely card? Thanks so much for thinking of me, Kim!!

 

And Barb just blew me away. Look at the goodies she included in the "candy" rolls! I love the flowers and of course, the chocolate! I wonder if she thinks that is what I do all day? Sit on the couch and eat chocolates?(Nah, she's a mom, too, but one can dream right?) Barb, you are just too sweet! Thanks so much for spoiling me!

I spent a couple of hours in my craft room, too. But unfortunately, I can't share what I created just yet. It's for the upcoming Blog Hop(e) for Haiti, so you'll just have to be patient until Tuesday.

I went to our local take and bake pizza place and picked up a heart shaped pepperoni pizza for dinner tonight. Yum!

Thanks so much for stopping by and for your sweet comments about the treats I made for the girls. I'm so NOT any best mom ever as the number of times Jessica decides not to love me anymore when she's mad at me can attest! I just have fun creating and they get the benefit (?) of those efforts.

Happy Valentine's Day to you!

Been Creating Again...LOL

Although I hope you won't be too disappointed that it's not a card. This is something I've been working on for several days. Not that it was so very hard, but time consuming. I didn't want to work on it while the girls were home, so they'd be surprised.

I got the triple heart decoration at Joann's the same day I got the other stuff I posted earlier. I really liked the hearts, but it was a teensy bit small for the area where it's hung. I saw this idea. I just tried to find the link that led me to this blog, but I can't. I'm sure I clicked on a link from another blog, then I bookmarked the blog where she shows how to create this.  It's supposed to be a heart and I hope you can sorta see it. I cut three different fabrics into squares and hot glued them to a styrofoam heart. Then I added some tulle glued to the back for hanging. Anyway, I thought it sure added a nice touch to the wooden hearts.

And, I found this cute little angel at the thrift store this weekend. I've had my eye on it, and it went on sale this past weekend, so when I saw it again, I figured I was supposed to have it. *Ü*

Oh and I was able to find where I got the inspiration for the candy hearts topiary. Here you go!

Normally, I'm not so "into" decorating for the holidays, but lately I've had a strong urge to spruce things up a bit. I've been reading several crafty type blogs and some of the crafts they show are just too fun to resist. It helps that the girls really like seeing what I come up with. *Ü*

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you are having a great week.

Valentine Decorations...so far!

Hi there!

I thought I'd share what I've done for Valentine's Day decorating. I'm not quite finished making the things I want, but I'm getting there. Top left corner is my breakfast bar.  I've got ribbon in one jar, Red Vines in another, large conversation hearts in one and in the fourth jar are Reece's peanut butter cups in heart shapes. I've also got a few in the center. The jar in the center piece has acrylic hearts I found at Michaels. The placemat and ribbon are from Joann's. The upper right is what I did for the hanging baskets. I found the heart picks at Joann's. The rose bushes are from Dollar Tree as is the netting/ribbon.. In the lower left is a topiary I made using conversation hearts hot glued to a styrofoam heart. The hearts in the basket are from Dollar Tree. 7 in a package and I took them off the picks. The pillows are from the thrift store, as is the placemat for the topiary. I got the topiary idea from a blog, but danged if I can remember which one. If I do, I'll come back and link it.

Hope you are having a good day. Mine was busy, but didn't involve going to the doctor's office at all! Yay!

Thanks for stopping by!

Another Crocheted Heart Card!

Happy Tuesday to you! It's stopped snowing, the sun is shining and it's a balmy 20 degrees F out right now! I just knew we were going to "pay" for the near record breaking warmth we enjoyed last week! Yesterday it didn't get above the teens! LOL Starting tomorrow it's supposed to warm up again and be in the 50s this weekend.

I found a book recently called Crochet Embellishments by Jean Leinhauser. I found the book at Joann's and used a trusty 40% off coupon. I'd been eyeing the book for awhile. I'd pick it up and put it back I don't know how many times. Finally, I just decided to get it and be done with the wishy washy-ness. Am I glad I did. Even though most of the samples are done using a worsted weight yarn, you are not limited to that type of yarn. I decided to try out a shape...a heart...using crochet thread. I even tried a border! Here are the results of my efforts...

I actually got the crocheting done yesterday, but just didn't have enough time to finish the card properly. I'm glad I didn't rush things.

I used Basic Grey's Bittersweet paper and chose crochet thread colors to complement the colors in the pattern, which turned out to be CTMH's Hollyhock and Vineyard Berry with a little Baby Pink ink thrown in sponged around the edges of the white paper.

I used a concave corner punch (EK Success) and Martha Stewart edge punch as well as some pearl stickers. I had a scrap piece of white that I had already run through my Cuttlebug with the Swiss Dots folder. The sentiment is from Stampendous' Paisley Spring stamp set from Archiver's.

All in all, I'm very happy with how this card came out. Hope you like it, too! I've started on another card with some crocheting, but ran out of time to finish it once again. It's not that it takes so long to do the crocheting, it's that I am doing a few other things first before I sit down to craft and am not getting the full time that Jessica is at school to work on cards right now. Hopefully that one will be ready to show-off tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by...I can't tell you how fun it is to combine the crocheting and card-making! My mind is spinning with ideas of cards I want to make.

Oh and before I forget, thanks so much for all the support and encouragement to start selling my creations. I've honestly been thinking it over, and have decided not to delve into it. The main reason being...I don't design what I create, I copy ideas from others. The critters I've been making are all from patterns/books. The authors of those patterns/books specifically say not to sell the items made using their patterns. The cards I make are usually lifts of cards I've seen on a blog somewhere. Since I'm not coming up with original ideas, I don't think it's ethical to sell what I am creating. I hope you understand! If you have a request of a card or project let me know and maybe we can work it out as a gift from me for your support and encouragement of my efforts. That's the best I can offer. Thanks for understanding. I truly appreciate your encouragement!

Hope you have a great night!

Jeanne