Happy New Year

This is my last post for 2013 and I want to wish everyone a safe and very 

 

This card was made at one of our SU Stamp Club get togethers last year.  We have a wonderful bunch of Ladies and we all love to stamp and some even scrapbook. We get together at our SU Rep's home one evening a month and our hostess (we have a different one each month) brings snacks. Sometimes the snacks could take the place of dinner and often do, especially for those that work.

One of us brings the project for the evening, a new technique or special card that we all make. She provides all the materials and we all bring our own cutter, adhesive, etc. Our next meeting is a little over a week away and I can hardly wait. 

Again, I want to wish you a...

Winter is for the brids

 

From the Heart December Stamps of the month had two stamps to choose from this month. Decisions, decisions, decisions.

Aren't they simply adorable?

I think the little girl is just too cute, but I'm not good at the coloring thing, so I chose the snowman. All I have to color is the hat and scarf.


I made my card...

 

And then...I made another

and another...

I had fun with this little snowman. I made several cards with each card being a little bit different.  The SU Top Note die was just perfect for him. The papers are also SU and most of the coloring was done with SU pens, but I did use some Gelly Roll Metallic and Twinklett glitter pens to add some sparkle. 

That's my creation for December's  Stamp of the Month challenge. Hop on over to Faith's blog to see more of her digital stamp creations.

Don't forget to check out December's image challenge and see what others have done with these images.

No matter what you celebrate at this time of year, I wish you a safe and happy holiday.  Thanks for stopping by.

Happy Birthday

I needed (and was delighted) to make a birthday card for one of my SU Club sisters. My SU enabler lives just down the block from me, a nice two minute walk. She has SU club, SU Camp and Birthday Club in which there are a dozen or more regulars. There are eight ladies in our SU club group and we have been together for two, maybe three years now.
Our birthday cards are suppose to be 100% SU. Well, this month I fudged and used this darling digi stamp from From the Heart Stamps Free digi of the month challenge. Click here for more information on this fun challenge.

The patterned paper is from the Birthday Basics Designer Series. The colors I have used are So Saffron, Gumball Green and Raspberry Ripple. The sentiment is from SU Bring on the Cake stamp set. After coloring the letters with the pens, I shinned them up by using clear embossing powder. The digi is Balloon Ride and just seemed perfect for a birthday card. I printed the digi several times, then cut out the balloons and glued them on. Some of them are layered to give some depth to the balloon bouquet. Thanks Faith for this darling image.
I hope Cynthia likes her card and the confetti I tucked inside. Shhh, don't tell her, I want her to be surprised. 
Thanks for stopping by. Please take extra care this holiday season.

Harvest Medley

Its that time again. Posting my From the Heart Stamps free digi challenge some times is a challenge of it own. Love this challenge

This is the free digi from From the Heart Stamps (Inspiration). I love this digi called Harvest Medley. For the challenge, I don't know if we are suppose to use all of it or if part is permissible. I used only the sentiment as it fit my feelings at the time. I did try to use one of the other images, but neither one fit into the circle. The image in the circle is from another one of Faith's designs.  
I used papers from my stash. That print paper was purchased a few years ago and I never really found anything I wanted to use it with until now. I used a whole 12 x 12 sheet on this and other cards. I bought the paper because I fell in love with it. The card was made for the Recipe card swap at SSSD. The parts to be used were one circle, two images and three fibers.

Card open - Outside

Card open - Inside

Just Because

Fall is here! Well, according to the calendar it is. I'm enjoying bright sunny warm weather. However my card is a fall card with a touch of Summer thrown in. The digi is from (From the heart) Inspiration for their free digi of the month challenge.     Bobbing for apples... I think this is such a cute digi.

I used Copics and SU pens and color pencils.The butterfly is SU and the paper is from the Venetian Romance designer series paper. After coloring the apples, I heat embossed them with clear embossing powder.
.
Thanks for stopping by...

Title Needed

I was given a challenge to do a layout about me and what I like to do. I have many things I like to do; read,  play on the computer and a variety needle work. Two things that make this challenge very hard for me; making a page about me and a title. The "what I like to do" is the easy part. I like to knit, crochet, cross stitch and read. For my page, I decide on the crochet, since that is what I have been doing these past few months. As I got pictures of some of my projects, it went through my mind as to what I would do with my page(s) after I had finished them. There is no album about me and never will be. I could just toss them out after posting, then it came to mind as I worked with the pictures where I could put these pages. With that decided, I needed a title. I still don't have a title, can you help me?

My title page. Nothing is adhered permanently except for the border on the bottom. Between the little picture and the checked throw will be the words
"from this to this in three weeks"

The multicolored throw is still in process. It has about an hour's work to complete it. It needs one side to be finish off. I hate to do borders and hate to hide and clip yarn ends, so they get to this point and I walk away. 

Here is page two.The red, blue, brown and yellow blanket (yes, its yellow not white) took me three years to finish. I worked on it only when we went camping. Back in June I decided that it needed to be completed. Now its done, cleaned and blocked and looking for a home.

Everything on these two pages were hand crocheted by me. The baby items were made for my grandson you see pictured. Have you guessed where these two pages are going? Isn't he an adorable baby? He is one month old in that picture, today he is 13 and stands 6' 3". And he's still adorable.

That's my challenge layout and it needs a title.

If you got this far, thanks for visiting.
 Take care 

I'm late...

I'm late, I'm late for a very important date. Well, not really. I have one more day to get my swaps done and two days for them to be in the mail.

You know the foam sleeves you put on a can to keep the contents cold? I have one that  says "If it wasn't for the last minute, I wouldn't get anything done". It seems to be my motto. I'm a procrastinator and have been for most of my life. Actually, I'm not posting to tell you my life story, but to show you the card I'm entering in to the August FREE Stamp of the Month Challenge over at Delightful Inspiration. I so enjoy doing these challenges. Here is my August entry.

Isn't that cat adorable? This card is also one of my swap cards. Its the Build a Sketch that we have monthly at SSSD. This month pieces were the 5.5 x 4.25 foundation, 5.25 x 4 background, .75 x 4 rectangle, a star any size and the 4.5 x 2.5 rectangle with a < cut out of it.

More swaps for August. I love doing swaps and challenges. Keeps me busy, keeps me thinking, even tho I wait until the end of the month to do them. Actually, I had all of them done except for the Mystery item card. This one was a hard one for me. We were sent cutouts of a rooster, a cow and a pig. I can use one or all of them. My partner used all three animals. I only used one.

I Googled, Yahooed, and Binged cards using pigs, roosters and cows. I didn't find any that I really liked, so I came up with what you see above. My sentiment was done in Word and printed on Vellum, and the map card stock is from Farm House Paper Company. I couldn't find a wagon that would work, so I made my own. the paper for it is also Farm House. The "wheels" were black (I thought) until I scanned the card. Oops, green is good. The white spots are felt. Not a very useful card for my partner, but I hope she likes it.

My recipe card. I had fun making this one. Items needed are one glitter color, two pumpkins and three strips 1 x 5.5 or 4.24, depending on the layout

The glitter technique I used on the pumpkins was July's technique swap. I also took a class using the technique. I love it. The glitter doesn't show up here, the card is prettier in person because the pumpkins sparkle.

My final swap card is the technique swap. I don't do well with free hand stuff. I like to use the embossed image and color it in, but I don't do well shadowing the background. The effect of this was to look like watercolor.

I love SU's Boarding on Romance stamp set. I probably should have used a more open stamp, but I like this set. I also didn't read the directions correctly and made a minor mistake that doesn't affect the card. My card is plain and simple. I like it that way.

Those are my August swaps. I still have another challenge I need to do for August, but it won't get posted until September. I'm going camping in two days. Whoopee!!

Thanks for stopping by and have a safe Labor Day weekend.  Take care

My July swaps

Its August and I haven't posted for a few weeks. I don't have the scrapbook page I want to post completed, so I'm going back to July and post the swaps I did.

 The card above is the Build A Sketch. We had five pieces to play with. 4.25 x 5.5, 5.25 x 4, 3.75 x 2.5, 2.25 x 7/8, 4 x .75 and 2.5 x 4.5 with a < cut in it. Colors I used are Baja Breeze, Cherry Cobbler and More Mustard. The large cupcake is SU Build a cupcake punch and the little cupcakes I found online.

 The card below is the Recipe Card, recipe being: No rectangles at all, one ribbon, two punches and three buttons. I used SU Build an Owl punch, the card was made using Spellbinders Labels Twenty-Four, I used the largest of the five. The buttons, well they have been hanging around my craftroom for years.

No, I'm not making Christmas cards yet. This is the Technique card. It was lots of fun and I think I'm hooked on the technique. Items that needed to be used were outline sticker, ultra fine glitter and markers. I used Copics for the coloring, and not sure what brand the glitter is, it also has been hanging around for ages. I'm going to be using more of it in the future. The whole card base is bathed in glitter after applying the gold outline sticker. and then the colors were applied to the glitterd areas.

The Mystery card. I had an item sent to me that I was to use on a card. July's item was a fancy wood toothpick. Can you find it? The layout is Delightful Inspiration Sketch #26.

Now I must go work on a scrapbook page that's all about me and one of my favorite things. Its a challenge in an SCS forum group.More about the challenge in a future post.

Thanks for stopping by. Take Care

You Color My World

July's free stamp of the month challenge at Delightful Inspiration is over at midnight tomorrow. I'm certainly late this month. Anyway, the digi for this month is Painting Ladybug. It is a cute digi and I enjoyed coloring it. The color possibilities were endless, however, I decided to make it into my SSSD August Color of the Month card. The colors for August are Gumball Green, Melon Mambo and So Saffron.

After coloring with my SU pens, I applied SU Candy Dots in Melon Mambo, So Saffron and Garden Green. I didn't have Gumball Green in the dots.  I used Black Diamond Stickles on the ladybug's back. For the first time in several years, I used my QuicKutz mini alpha dies, CK Typist font.

Thanks for stopping by. Take care

Ford's Theater

We finally made it to Ford's Theater in Washington DC. It was quite interesting. Before we even left home, Jeffery had put Ford's Theater and the Petersen House on our "to see" list. We didn't get to it until our last trip into Washington DC by ourselves. We rode the Metro into Washington and our Metro trips were adventures of their own, but I digress. While we took lots of pictures in the Theater and at the Petersen House, not many get onto the scrapbook pages. 

These are the first pages I have done in a long time that include journaling. While I had planned on putting pages together of our trip to VA and surrounding areas, a forum at SCS had a challenge to make a vacation page. No notoriety, no prize, just satisfaction. Whoopee! I did it and on time.

Hope you like my pages. Thanks for stopping by. Take care

Washington DC

We went into Washington DC today and had a tour of the Capital. I did take some pictures, they weren't good but will be a reminder to us of the things we saw.  While not very good, we do have proof that we were there and this is the first time, in a long time, that I have pictures of me in front of any of the things we have gone to see.  So here goes...

First stop was the Capital building. We had a tour scheduled for 11:40 a.m. today.
After watching a short film we began our tour in the rotunda
then on to a room where Congressional meeting were held when the Capital was first built. After that we went down to a room directly under the Rotunda. They call this room "The Crypt". It was built as a final resting place for George Washington. As often happens even with the best of plans, he is not buried there, in fact, no one is. The story about why was interesting. The rooms we saw held beautiful paintings such as the Rotunda ceiling and there were many statues. Now how does one decide which statue to take a picture of? The pictures below are the only ones I took. Blogspot won't play nice and let me put the pictures where I want them or in the order I want them in, so...

Rotunda Ceiling

plaque

From the Crypt

After our tour of the three rooms of the Capital we went for lunch. We went to Old Ebbit Grill. I had salmon and it was delicious, I forgot to take a picture of it before I ate it. However, I did get a picture of my dessert, Peanut butter pie. It also was delicious.

After eating a scrumptious lunch we took a walk over to the White House.

It wasn't too crowded out on the street so we were able to get some nice pictures. There were fourteen of us and we all took pictures of each other in our little family groups and the group as a whole. Below is a picture of my grandson in front of the White House. It really is a shame that they have suspended tours. It would have been wonderful to get pictures of us closer and without the fence behind.

As we were leaving, it started to rain. Thank you, rain, for waiting till we were ready to go back to our hotel. It really only sprinkled and it was nice to walk in the rain.

It was a very nice day spent with family. Tomorrow we go again.
I will try to do a better job of taking pictures. LOL

Never, never again

I am never going to visit VA again! Oh, the people are very nice, the roads are nice and the area I'm in is absolutely beautiful. We went to a nice little zoo and had a good time. I will put a few pictures at the bottom of this post. We went to a 50th wedding anniversary party and had a great time. More on that in another post.

So why am I never visiting VA again? Because every time I get on the road to go someplace I GET LOST!! I have never had this problem before. When I left the airport to go to our hotel, I took HWY 28 as directed, but I went South instead of North. I pulled off to call for help. I haven't been in VA for more than an hour and I'm already lost. It took my GPS a good 20 min. to find the satellites. I finally got to the hotel. Later in the evening we went to Five Guys. Got lost again. I never get lost. I'll save this story for the scrapbook. Its too embarrassing to go public with. I did make it to my brother's and back without any missed turns. That was day one.

Day two didn't fair much better. We did get to Wagman's with no hitches. Feeling better about going out on the road we went to the zoo just 20 mins. down the road. Only one "U" turn. However it took us nearly an hour and three tolls to get back to the hotel. I am not going to share that story except to say that when you type an address into the GPS, ya better make sure its the right city before ya tell it "GO". Ok, go ahead, laugh, I did later on in the evening. I'm seeing a lot of VA that I didn't expect to see and if it keeps going like this, I'm gonna see a lot more of it.

If you have stayed with me so far, let me share a couple of pictures with you. I think you might enjoy them.

This was taken from our floor looking across inside the hotel.

Isn't he just the cutest baby camel you have ever seen? Sorry its fuzzy, but he wouldn't stay still.

Jeffrey is talking to the baby camel.

Baby camel is telling Jeffrey a secret. Actually, he's trying to eat Jeffrey's hair.

Outta my way!

Told ya to move, its my board.

Can I help?

 We enjoyed looking at the animals, hope you
enjoyed our pictures. Thanks for stopping
by.

Flight reservations made, car and hotel reservations are made. Necessary addresses in the GPS and important phone numbers in my phone. I can now relax. Oh no, I can't relax yet, I still have to pack.

I'm heading to VA for my brother's 50th wedding celebration.I have had a lot of ups and downs with getting things set to go. Making reservations, cancelling reservations, making more reservations and cancelling. I'm pretty sure everything is set now. It better be, I leave the end of the week.

I'm quite nervous about this trip. I'm using an airline that I haven't used before and its a "red eye" flight. Landing in Washington DC at an obscenely early hour in the a.m.

With all my preparing and anticipation, I have had a lot of nervous energy. Wish it could have been directed at house cleaning, but it wasn't. Here is what I did with that nervous energy.

 I do hope this is an ok host/hostess gift. I  made it with the idea of giving it to the family that may be putting up with me, oops, putting me up. They have been a big help in getting my hotel lodgings for the first few nights while all the relatives are there. . I'm going to be there for nine days I think I will be shuffled around from couch to couch which is ok, it will give me more quality time with individual family members. I will be putting some thank you gifts together for others that may put me up.

As for a gift for the honored couple, I have absolutely no idea.

Welcome little one

I've never done a baby card of any kind. However, when I saw the Free Stamp of the Month from Delightful Inspiration, I had to make one.The image is Sea Turtle Beach and I think it is adorable.

 After downloading the image (thank you Faith) I opened it in Word. I then re-sized it, placed it where I wanted it on my page and printed it out. I then cut the page to make a card base 5.5 x 4.25. I printed several copies of the image in order to cut out mom's shell, the starfish and the seashell. After coloring with pencils, I pop dotted these items While it doesn't show, I used some sparkly markers on various parts of the image. The sentiment was computer generated.
Now that arrow stands out like a sore thumb,doesn't it? This was the card I made for the "mystery" swap I'm in. I had to use an arrow and didn't have any creative arrow moments, so there sits the arrow There were three arrows to use, so I slipped the other two into the card and sent it all to my partner.  I hope she likes my card and can use the arrows. The arrows were a real challenge for me.

June Color of the Month

Its June, one month closer to the winter holidays; Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Hanukkah . Don't remind you? Okay, I won't, just pretend you didn't read  that first sentence. Now for the June Colors of the Month.

 So Saffron, Perfect Plum and Wild Wasabi.

Unlike May's colors, these go together. I cheated and used the Color Coach.
 

Besides the SU papers, I used D'Vine embossing folder, SU blossom punch, the flower is from SU Button Buddies stamp set and the center of the flower is Stickles. The sentiment is from Judith.

That's my June COTM card and I'm wondering if I will see any of these colors used when I visit your blogs.

Thanks for stopping by and Take Care

It'l tickle your funny bone

I bought the SU stamp set  Not so Seriously and I have used two stamps out of it once. Recently I saw a challenge that I could use this set again. Over at Perfect Sentiments, the challenge this week is "Make them Laugh". If you click on the aforementioned link, it will take you directly to that challenge.

Stamped inside is:

...IT'S A LOT BIGGER 

THAN MY HEART!

Now, isn't that cute?

I made this card for that challenge, but its also for the Build a Sketch swap I participate in each month. We were to use a card base, background layer, a 3 1/2" square, 2 1/2" circle and a rectangle that is 2 1/2 x 1 1/2. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I'm using this sketch for most of my swaps in June.
My color combination is Poppy Parade (retired) and Tangerine Tango, an SU dynamic duo. Now I must go over to the Perfect Sentiments challenge blog and enter my card.

Thanks for stopping by and Take Care

A little late

Actually I'm quite late since this is my Color of the Month for May. Tomorrow is the last day of May, so hopefully, its better late than never.

I don't know how I choose these particular colors, but I did. and it's  the proof that color coordination isn't one of my strong suits.

Colors for the Month of May were: Pool Party, Wisteria Wonder and Lucky Limeade and I had the hardest time with these colors.
 

I hope the receiver of this likes it. I had such high hopes when I started it. I like the LL and WW together, but I had to use all three. PP just didn't seem to fit in on this card. My SU friends said it was great. Hmmmm. But I still don't like it.  I should have started over, but I didn't have any more of the LL. Lesson learned; "Don't cut until your sure it works."

 

This is the card I received from Barbara. I hope she doesn't mind that I have posted it. But it is quite pretty. When I first saw it, my response was: "Now why didn't I think of that?" Ever have one of those moments?

Even tho May is nearly in the past, give these colors a try.

Thanks for stopping by and Take Care

Faux Tiles

I'm not a big fan of this technique, but if you can do it right, it is really pretty. I did about eight of them before I got this one. I just couldn't seem to get the faux coloring right or the placement of my image. Isn't he the cutest? He is a digi from Delightful Inspiration that I got for free because I entered April's challenge. If you follow the link, you will see this little mouse and the rules for entering the May challenge.

Back to the Faux Tiles, which is the May technique swap over at SSSD.

This technique was to be done using a stamp for the image. However, I wanted to use this darling mouse which is a digi. To do this, after scoring my cardstock, ran it through the printer to place the mouse. I then proceeded to do my coloring.

I used SU chalk to do the faux tiling. I don't know what color it is except that its orange and my chalks are at least ten years old. I used SU pens to color this darling little mouse, added googly eyes and the sentiment.

So go check out the Delightful Inspiration challenge while I get this card into the mail and on its way to Nancy. Hope she likes it.
Take Care

Build a Sketch

One of my favorite swaps is the Build a Sketch. Its much like the Sketch challenges, except we make the sketch from the pieces given. Here are the pieces for May

  <  from this

                  to this  >

The paper is SU Pretty in Pink and Daffodil Delight. I'm not sure what the dark pink is. It may be from stash. But I thought it blended well, so I used it. I used the cupcake builder punch for the cakes. I also embossed lines on the bottom of the cakes to give them some depth.

Sentiment is from the Bring on the Cake stamp set, the gems are Reflections Iridescent rhinestones and the tiny star brads are from stash.

Thanks for stopping by. Take Care

A few posts ago, I bragged about my grandson. I couldn't figure out how to post videos so there weren't any. I was shown how and I am posting some of them now. I use an old Powershot camera and the zoom doesn't work once the recording has begun and I can't judge how much zoom I need before he starts his event. You may need a magnifying glass, but here he is on

 The Pommel Horse.

The Rings 

The High Bar 

The Parallel bars 

These are four of his six events, missing are the Floor and Vault. There were too many people in the way to get good pictures.Hope you enjoy these videos and thanks for dropping by. Take Care

Paper Bag Purse

Here I go again, jumping out of my box. Its a really cool world out there in craft land. Thanks to Youtube I made a paper bag purse. Scrapbook Place is doing some daily challenges. I check them out each day, and this one caught my fancy. I made it, but never uploaded it to contest.

I decided to use my paper bag purse as one of my swaps. The swap is Recipe card. We are given items we use for our card. This month it is 1 layer, 2 colors and 3 embellishments. The yellow is my one layer, added to a pink base gives me two colors. The flower and butterfly are two embellishments and the third one is the ribbon handle.

This is a side view showing the paper bag inside.
I found the instructions for making this on Youtube. The video is by Kristan  Wilson and you can visit her blog by clicking on her name. I don't know how to link to her Youtube channel, but I noticed on her blog that she has her videos on the side. So if you are interested in making this darling purse, you know what to do. Let me know if you make one of these paper bag purses and what you used it for.

Thanks for stopping by. Take care