Coloring Challenge!

Hi There!

We got a snow day off from school today. Whoo hooo! We've done our shoveling for now. That meant I had some free time today to actually participate in The Daily Marker's 30 Day Coloring Challenge. This is the 4th challenge that Kathy has hosted. My friend, Barb, participates faithfully and I always look forward to her posts about what she is coloring. Makes me happy! I know there is no stress involved and if you can only color 5 minutes, that is good enough. But somehow I feel bad if I only do a couple of minutes. 

I don't have a card, but I just finished coloring a Whimsie Doodles image called Heart Strings. I took a quick picture for you. I added a bunch of Stickles so I can't do anything with this until it dries. I was inspired by this card here.

That's it from me for now. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! I hope you are having a good day!

Hugs,

Faux Mother of Pearl Technique Card

Hi There!

That subject line is a mouthful, isn't it? I follow a blog called Stamping With Loll. Loll shares a lot of wonderful techniques on her blog. Not long ago she shared a beautiful card with a gorgeous butterfly on it. I really liked the background behind the butterfly. She said she used a technique called Faux Mother of Pearl. She linked to a video she had made showing how to do the technique. I may have done this way back when, but I didn't remember using the paint she used. I couldn't find the Tsukineko brand paint, but I did find some Martha Stewart pearl paint at Joann's that seemed like it would do the trick. If you want directions on the technique Loll shares, check it out here.

And here is my attempt:

As I said I used Martha Stewart paint and Wilted Violet and Milled Lavendar distress inks. I really like the effect. Unfortunately, the camera absolutely does not pick up just how nice it looks in real life. You will have to believe me when I say it has a pearl like shine. The heart flower is a die from Memory box. I added Wink of Stella to give it a bit of sparkle.  Yeah, you can't see the sparkle either. 

I wanted to add a sentiment on the front, but didn't like how any looked so I took the easy road and left one off. 

I think I want to try this again with different color combinations. I sure wish I had that butterfly die she used in the card that inspired me. Might have to look it up. I liked all the variations Loll created with that one. :)

That's it from me today. 

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I hope you are having a great weekend so far

A Couple of Birthday Cards

Hi There!

We are on the downward slide to the weekend now! Whoo hooo. Thanks for the lovely comments on my last post. So nice to know that people still visit even though I am so sporadic about posting anymore. I do have a couple of cards to share. I have to apologize as both needed to get sent and the only time I could take the pictures was when it was dark out, so the pictures are a bit dark even with lots of editing. Both are CASEs with my little tweaks. :) Of course!

Remember that card from my previous post where I was trying to get a certain look for the background of the card? Well this is the card. Here is the original card that struck my fancy. I really liked the watecolor background and think those cupcakes are so adorable. I first thought the watercolor was done with distress inks, but the colors I had didn't come out right, especially the purple. When I read the text again, I noted she used Artist Loft watercolors from Michaels. I had that set. Yay! The images are colored with pencils and I added those little hearts, die cutting them out of glitter cardstock. The shaker bottle has Stickles on it. This was a fun card to make.

This card is a CASE of my friend, Alanna's card here. I loved the rainbow of color! Alanna has been having fun with her distress inks and inspiring me to keep playing with them as well. You can see I went a different way for the sentiment using Lawn Fawn's Scripty Sayings. I decided to add the little sequin stars individually. Then I added the sequins. I'm pretty sure there was a smudge or something some where and I wanted to cover it up. Thanks for the inspiration, Alanna! Hope I did it justice. :)

That's it from me this time around. 

Thanks so much for stopping by.

Hope you are having a good week. 

Hugs,

Wintery Thanks and Snowpeople, too!

 Hi there!

Oh golly, it's hard to believe we are at the end of January, 2016! Happy New Year just a tad bit late. I hope it's treating you well so far. Life hasn't slowed down much since our Winter Break ended. From time to time I've managed to get a card or two made, but my computer is giving me fits these days and getting them edited has been problematic. Sometimes just navigating the internet has been an issue as well. I had some time today and edited them all at one time. I hope I don't have any problems posting this. We've tried a couple of fixes, but the issue remains so obviously those weren't actually fixes. Sigh. Gotta love technology.

Anyway, onto the cards. They are copies of cards that I have seen in blogland and liked. I've added my own little tweaks.

Here's the card I copied. (sorry it's so dark, I tried my best to lighten it up)

My tweaks: colored with colored pencils and the pattern paper. I sent this is in the mail and could hear the beads shaking. Wasn't sure if the post office would get all worried at the noise, but it got to the recipient, so all is good. :)

Here's the card that inspired these two cards.

My tweak: I used glitter paper from DCWV. The snowflakes and thanks die-cut are sparkly even if you can't tell in the photos. I softened the stripes big time on the top card. The second one, I was playing around with the color combo for a different card, but I didn't like the end result for that card, so I used it here and felt it worked really well. 

The new year has been pretty good to us. I never mentioned it here on the blog, but my husband got laid off from his job way back in April of last year. Anyway, after all these months, he recently  accepted a job offer. Yay! While he hasn't started just yet, he should be back to work soon.  The girls are as busy as ever. Amy's Winterguard had an evaluation performance last weekend. They got positive and encouraging comments from the judges on their show so far. We also worked Bingo last weekend. Jessica has been busy with clubs and is going to a dinner theater tonight with one of them. This week has been filled with Girl Scout meetings as well. It's always something. This mom is doing her best to keep up! 

:)

That's a very brief update on us. I thank you very much for continuing to stop by from time to time. 

I so appreciate the visit! 

See you again soon!

Hugs.

It's So Sparkly, Too!

Hi There!

I hope you had a lovely holiday and are ready for the start of a brand-spanking new year. Our Christmas was quiet, but nice. It's been quite nice to have some downtime. Wish it was a smidge warmer, but it's winter, so I guess I can't complain too loudly.  Amy got a new Wii U game called Yoshi's Wooly World. It's pretty neat because all the graphics look like the things are created by being crocheted or knitted-if you watch the little video you'll see what I mean. The girls are much, much better at the game than I am, but I keep playing, dying, and laughing like a loon.

Today I managed to do a little playing in my crafty space. Here's what I came up with. I didn't "copy" anyone here (and you may be able to really tell). I pulled out a bunch of snowmen and snow related products and told myself to just play. This is what I ended up with. There's lots of sparkle!

The stamp set is Lawn Fawn's Ready, Set, Snow. The pattern paper (which you don't see used too often these days) is Doodlebug's Frost Friends (as are the snowflakes). The glittery base is glittered fun foam from Michaels. There's a Hero Arts background swirly stamp used. I remember being so enamored with that stamp a couple of years ago and I had to have it. Of course, I've not used it nearly enough. Today, I pulled it out, stamped it with Versamark ink and poured a silvery sparkly embossing powder from Michaels over it and heat embossed. Then I tried adding some distress ink (Broken China and Milled Lavendar) to create a sky. I probably should have done the inking first and then the embossing, but I was really playing and going with the flow. The images are colored with my colored pencils and today is the first time I played the purple pencil. It's gorgeous!! 

Edited to add: My friend, Carol, of Just Me:c left me a comment about a challenge on the Simon Says Blog here. She felt I should enter this card into the challenge. I decided to go ahead and try it. Thanks for the information and the link, Carol. We'll see what happens. There are a lot of entries. Great place for inspiration, that is for sure. :)

That's it from me for right now. Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you are having a great day.

Tags and a Santa

 Hi There!

Imagine my complete surprise  early this morning to get a phone call from my manager telling me that schools are closed today! A forecasted snowstorm came through overnight, but the totals weren't supposed to be very impressive. I hadn't even turned on my tv because our district very rarely ever calls a snow day.  Usually when I do check the news, it's only to be disappointed. I think there must be 7 inches out there right now. Whoo hooo for a completely unexpected free day! Now I can try to catch up on getting ready for the holiday. I'm now doubly glad that I pushed myself to get the packages I needed to mail out to the post office yesterday. :) 

My assistant manager asked me if I could make some tags for little gifts she is making for some of our co-workers at the school. She is making homemade caramel popcorn and we got to test her first batch yesterday~yummy! I agreed and immediately wanted to make snowglobe tags using Lawn Fawn's Ready Set Snow and Let's Toboggan Together stamp sets. I even splurged and bought the dies to cut the snowglobes and boy am I glad I did. Made creating the globes ever so much easier!

I spent a good chunk of time on Saturday afternoon coloring the images and fussy cutting the critters out. Sunday afternoon was spent creating the tags. 

Here's how they turned out. They are colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with odorless mineral spirits. The hat bands and snowballs are "winked" as well. 

Here are close ups for your viewing pleasure (I hope).

I  actually made 2 of each of the designs above!

 I decided to add the ribbon in case the recipients wanted to use them as an ornament. 

They were a bit more work than I anticipated, but so worth the effort in the end. 

Here's the Santa I made. Actually I crocheted two of these and I'm really bummed that the backside photos didn't work for whatever reason. I can't re-take the photos because they are in the mail. 

Anyway, I saw this in the December issue of Crochet World. 

This Santa works as an ornament and as a gift card holder! When you crochet the back side, you create an opening to slip the gift card into place. 

That's it from me for now.

Thanks so much for stopping by!

I hope you have a great day and I hope to see you again soon!

Hugs!

Three Cards!

Oh golly, I can't believe how long it's been since my last post! Yikes! It's been hard for me to get into my crafty space much anymore. I debated on whether to space out my cards, but not knowing when I'd get back to it, I figured you would get a feast today.

Hope you had a fun Halloween and a Happy Thanksgiving. Amy and I had to work Bingo on Halloween night. She was a little bummed at first, but did a great job. Her sister has been good about sharing her candy, too. That helps take the sting out of it.  ;)

We had a nice Thanksgiving. My dad flew in from CA to visit for 11 days. Two of my brothers also came to celebrate with us. They stayed the weekend. It was nice having family here. It was the first time my girls met one of my brothers, too. Now there is only one they haven't met. He had to work and couldn't join us. It was a great time, but I'm not used to so many people in the house!

We had some work done on our house thanks to a grant we received from our city. They upgraded our electrical panel, replaced 8 windows and replaced a gutter that was full of holes. This work also contributed to my not getting to my crafty space. But on Sunday I was bound and determined to work on some cards. All the family has gone home and the repair work has been completed. Steve took the girls out on an errand for a while and I got to work.

One of these days I will refrain from CASEing cards, but yesterday wasn't one of them. Two are pretty much copies of the card that inspired me. One of them I did change up a bit. All are cards I have seen online.

Sandy Allnock did a video on how she colored a card with these adorable elves. I copied what she did with the Inktense pencils I had. She used a MISTI to stamp them. I don't own one and a couple of colors are different than hers. But, everything else...copied!

I follow a blog where the gal does most of her Copic coloring using a no line technique. I've long wanted to see if I could mimic the idea using colored pencils. This is my attempt. Blatant copy of the Swanky Snowdudes card(Paper Smooches) she made, only using Flirty Frames from Lawn Fawn. I guess I put my own spin on this using a silver pigment ink to add ink to the edges and then the snowflakes. Frames are cut from Doodlebug paper.

This card is a bit different than the card that inspired me. You can definitely tell I copied parts of it. I love the look of watercolor and those little snowmen are so cute. I added the trees and some snow falling. Then I "winked" the snow bank. 

I hope you are having a wonderful holiday season so far. 

Thank you so much for not giving up on me. I will try to get back soon!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great week. 

Hugs!