First Card of 2019!

Hello again! 

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

But first, had to share this picture. 

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

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

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

And that's it from me today. 

Thank you so much for stopping by! 

I hope you have a terrific day.

Crafty hugs!

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

Hello!!

Happy New Year! 

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

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

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

I've got a few things to show you. 

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

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

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

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

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

I know I really enjoyed creating them. 

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

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

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

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

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

Here's a bit of a close up.

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

Thank you so much for stopping by. 

I appreciate the visit. 

Hope you have an awesome start to your new year. 

Crafty hugs,

Quick Life Update and a Snowmanpalooza!

Hello there!

It's been a minute, hasn't it? Life sure has a way of getting in the way of doing some of the things we enjoy in favor of other priorities. I've missed you all though, and sharing. I'll give you a quick update and then get to the cards I want to share. 

It's been a busy fall season with school being back in session. The girls had their marching season, which is always very hectic. This is Amy's Senior year and I am trying to savor all the "lasts."

This is from Senior Night where the seniors who are in the band, on the football team or are cheerleaders and poms honor their parents. It's a nice tradition. 

Here's her Senior poster. I thought I had designs of a trumpet and treble clef to cut with my Cricut or Cameo, but couldn't find any. So, I used some Casual Fridays stamps instead. Amy loved it and we got lots of compliments on it. Yay for stamping!

And if you will forgive a very proud mama moment, Amy is still in Girl Scouts and is working on earning her Gold Award (the highest award in Girl Scouts). She had to come up with a community service type of project as one of the requirements. She planned a CPR training and first aid class/workshop to be held at her high school. It was open to teachers and students. She held the workshop last week. A local news station interviewed her and filmed the workshop. They aired the piece that night and to our surprise, they started the newscast with her story!

Here is a link, if you are interested in watching.

News Story

I'm very proud of her. 

As for me, work has been a challenge so far this year. Our school was one of several schools selected for an upcoming audit by the state department of education. Many people from the head office are coming in almost daily and many procedural changes are being made to make sure we are in compliance for the audit. I've never been through one before and it's quite interesting and a bit(okay, a lot) nerve wracking. A couple of more weeks til the audit and hopefully we do well and things will settle down. 

I have been doing some creating here and there, but not consistently and I miss it. 

The cards I have to share today were inspired by this card by Christy Gets Crafty.

I just loved how she colored the adorable little snowmen in the Mama Elephant Little Snowman Agenda set. The top card is a copy of her version, but I Copic colored all the images(and fussy cut them out) and used the rest for the second version. The little iridescent snowflakes are from a little bottle  that I found in the Target Dollar Spot a couple of weeks ago. The die with the square openings is from MFT and the sentiment is from Lawn Fawn. 

Thank you so much for stopping by.

I hope you have a lovely holiday season. 

I also hope to be back before the start of the new year. 

Crafty hugs!

Penguin in a Floatie

 Hello!

Before we left for vacation, I had been working on a case of a Kay Miller card using some images gifted to me from a new Instagram friend(Thanks so much, Esther, if you ever read my blog). I had most of it ready to go. Yesterday I finished it.  For my background I used a alcohol inked background that I had created a few months ago. I love how it looks like water. I colored my images using Copic markers and added some Spectrum Noir sparkle. Unfortunately, the camera didn't capture that. I had fun creating this one.

I recently got a new light box in the hopes I can get some better pictures of my cards. I liked this style, which was recommended by a blogger, Debbie Olson, because of the LED light strips which help to brighten the box. I'm still learning with how best to take pictures using it. Haven't had much time to do much since I received it.

One of the highlights when we go to Sioux Falls is taking the Sculpture Walk in the downtown area. I love the small town feel of the walk and how pretty the main street is. They change the sculptures each year. This one is my favorite from this year. I adore Laura Ingalls Wilder and really enjoyed this one of her and Jack.

This Sea Horse was pretty cool, too. 

Another look at my card. 

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

Hope you have a terrific day.

Hugs!

Butterflies and a Dragon

Hi There,

Last week we drove to Sioux Falls, SD to visit my husband's family. It's our annual vacation. While there, we visited the Sertoma Butterfly House and much to my surprise, I was "kissed" by butterflies several times. Usually they like my husband, but I'm thinking they were drawn to my white hair and possibly the bright blue top I was wearing. 😉It was fun. 

We left on Saturday and I was unable to do any coloring on the last day of the challenge. I was a little bummed about that as I managed to post something that I had worked on for all but the last day of the challenge. A definite record for me! Ah well, it was fun doing all sorts of coloring. Scroll down to see the completed dragon that I colored from Ivy and the Inky Butterfly.

Butterfly kisses at
Sertoma Butterfly House

Sertoma Butterfly House

Sertoma Butterfly House

Sertoma Butterfly House

Day 29 of the 30 Day Coloring Challenge
From Ivy and the Inky Butterfly

Thanks for stopping by. It's good to be home.  I hope to get to do some creating very soon!

Crafty hugs,

Coloring Gnomes for Coloring Challenge

Hello there!

It is with huge thanks to Darnell and her Mister that I am posting today. I expressed to her that I haven't been posting much on my blog recently because it's become very inconvenient and time consuming for me to do so with the purchase of a new camera several months ago and the fact that my phone only uploads a single picture at a time to my Photoshop Elements program. First world problems to be sure, but annoying and made me avoid uploading and editing photos for the blog. She responded with questions about why I didn't upload to the cloud. Um...because I never thought about it and more importantly didn't really understand how to do it. I knew vaguely that Google has a drive and photos and all that, but this old gal never really paid attention. My interest piqued, I started looking into it. So I'm trying upload pictures to Drive and Photos and I get a new email from Darnell and her hubby about being able to upload pictures  to my camera's cloud. So, now I'm looking into that as well. I think I'm going to have pictures in several clouds at this rate. I don't care as long as they are safe and secure and EASY for me to access for editing and posting to my blog. As I tell most people, I only know enough about technology to be dangerous. :)

All that to say...here's my first attempt at uploading from one of the clouds this morning. I was able to get it to my editing program and then uploaded to Blogger. Yay, me!

This stamp set is from My Favorite Things and is called You Gnome Me. I had been on the fence about getting this set for some time, but after seeing this pop up card from Rachel at The Unpampered Stamper that I jumped off the fence into ownership. Rachel was kind enough to share with me the Copics she used to color her gnomes so vibrantly. I copied as closely as I could and took a liberty or two to make it my own. I didn't buy the dies, so I will have to fussy cut the images here pretty soon so I can make something with them. 

This is one of my shares for The Daily Marker's 30 Day Coloring Challenge. Speaking of which, I haven't colored yet today. I've been a little preoccupied with my head in the clouds. 

Oh and I  have Darnell to thank again because she shared something about comments coming to our inboxes again without having to leave ourselves one first. Go here to read what she found out.  Let's hope it works with any comments left on this post. 

You may be seeing posts from me more consistently!

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

I hope you have an amazing day.

Coloring Challenge Efforts

Hello!

Kathy Racoosin is hostessing her 10th 30 Day Coloring Challenge all this month. And I've been able to participate every day, in one form or another. Thank you, summer break from work and school! I have been sharing my efforts on my Instagram account, but wanted to share with you a few of the coloring projects I've worked on. I'll do my best to share more during the second half of the challenge. It's a lot of fun and if you only have 5 minutes to color, go for it. It's just for fun and to give you some "me" time to relax. 

Anyway, in no particular order, here are a few projects. I've been practicing my Copic coloring by following videos of different artists and CASEing the cards they share. 

Here I cased Mayra's cards.  She is so talented! I know I've sung her praises here before. 

On this card, I cased Eloise Blue and used Sunny Studio Stamps. These kiddos make me smile. 

Here is was playing with some shimmery watercolors I bought at Hobby Lobby. The mermaid theme works so well for this time of the year. This is a panel from Carolee's Creations Art Play Paintables, that I found here at Scrapbook dot com. Too bad this shot doesn't fully show just how shimmery this Master's Touch Metallic Semi Color Cake Paint Set is. You can find this watercolor product in Hobby Lobby stores and it is very affordable. The purple pink color looks iridescent to me. So fun!

And finally, here are some adorable Viking Kids I found at CC Designs. They come in stamps or digital. I bought the digital format. I was inspired by a wonderful video by Laura Volpes. She colored her images with different markers, but I played and practiced with my Copics. I really enjoy watching Laura's videos. She does a great job showing what she is creating, but I also enjoy her accent. I don't own the powders she used to make the backgrounds, but they look pretty fun!

That's it for me today. I hope you have a wonderful weekend and I really appreciate your stopping by.
Hugs,