how did i forget this one?

Happy Valentine’s Day…it’s the holiday i pay the least attention to although i do like to send cards out to some of my younger friends.  Friends my daughter’s age.  They are young mom’s and they appreciate happy mail. 

This is a Sizzix die i haven’t had much time to play with.  The hearts DP is leftover from a Simon kit I think.  It was fun to pair this piece of rick rack with the jars.  Do you have any rick rack still hanging around? 

Sentiment is from Kristina Werner set at Simon Says Stamp.

Thanks for coming by.

Challenges:  Simon Says Stamp Anything goes Wednesday

Tommy Died

Last night, this world lost an incredible man. His name was Tommy Ferguson. He was the son of some very dear friends of my parents. He was an inspiration to me, although I didn't realize it until I was well into adulthood. You see, Tommy taught me to appreciate the little things in life! A fireplace hearth made a great stage, and a guitar only had to have two or three strings to perform. You don't have to know all the words to a song...just sing Ring of Fire over and over and you transform into Johnny Cash! He taught me to notice little but important things like the ability to spread out all five fingers. That means something special to someone born with webbed fingers that had to be surgically separated. He taught me that when given a new coat, maybe the right response is to say "I need a hat!" Mostly he taught me that there is a lot of pleasure in just loving people with no motive beyond just loving. That was Tommy's lifelong testimony. Rest in peace, my friend. It should come quite naturally, because you lived, worked, and simply existed in peace. Peace and love are your legacy, and they far overshadowed the Down Syndrome you were born with. I'm proud to have called you my friend. ~~This excerpt was written by a young friend of mine.  Tommy was everyone’s friend.  Growing up, he was the brother of my two best friends.  We always included Tommy though he didn’t always want to be included with all the girls.  Tommy was seven years younger than me and he kept us all laughing all the time.  His humor was contagious.  The legacy he left behind was a legacy of love.  When I told my husband, Tommy died, his response was, “He was well loved. “  The world would be a peaceful place if there were more Tommy’s in the world.  Spread your wings and fly Tommy you are no longer encumbered. 

Challenge: SSS Spread your Wings Monday~~Word Art Wednesday #266

                 

SCS Sketch Challenge 629

Well this was a literal translation of this sketch. I thought it was so cute though and I wanted to use that little trio of rectangles that i purchased at the Vendor show in November.  I still havent inked up all the thing i purchased there.  This is an old SU image and i thought of it as soon as i saw this sweetly simple sketch.  For the curved edge i used a MFT pierced basic border die and i used a marker for faux stitching.  I like the effect of the gold Viva dots.  The heart images are just some seletive die cutting from some DP i had hanging around. 

CHALLENGES:  Work It Wednesday Simon Says January 2017

Water Color Back Ground

At ladies day last Saturday I made a couple of Brush-O water color back grounds as per usual when i do that i am challenged with how to use the back ground.  I saw this Northwoods image sitting on top of my Christmas pile and thought it would look good stamped directly onto the back ground.  This turned out better than i had hoped.  I used a piece of velour back ground paper that i embossed with a new embossing snowflake folder but unfortunately you can’t see that on the picture.  I found some new ribbon in my stash and used Kristina Werners hand written sentiment stamp. 

Challenges:  Work It Wednesday ~Something New

Word Art Wednesday ~Anything Goes

WWW for Simon

Work it Wednesday for Simon is to use something new.  This little stamp set stamps so beautifully.  I received a thinking of you card from my sweet niece a while back and she and i are so on the opposite ends of the color spectrum.  It was such a beauty i wanted to see if i could recreate it with my own stash.  Not too bad…Not too bad at all.  These are brand new stamps but i don’t know who the manufacturer is.  I bought them at a rummage last summer and threw the packaging away.  They take ink beautifully and were the perfect image for this creation. 

I masked off 1 inch from top and bottom first and stenciled with distress inks.  Pulled up the mask, repositioned and drew the lines in with my T-ruler.  Pulled the masks up again and layed them over my stenciling.  Inked the sentiment with the MISTI for rich color and placement.  Then I cut one of the flower stems apart and started strategically stamping.  I used distress inks for everything but the sentiment.  That is Memento.  After finishing i used a finishing glaze to keep the colors from accidentally running if they got wet.  I am so pleased!!  i even had textured cardstock to use.  sqeee!!

Technorati Tags: one layer card,copycat,Troy

looking for cards i haven’t posted yet

I guess that’s it.  smiling about that.

clean the table time

that pile on the corner gets just so big and then I HAVE to use up the things that are lying there.  I made these backgrounds quite some time ago, like maybe two years???  They were hiding in a drawer though and when i found them i brought them into view on the table corner knowing i would then use them up.   The little embossed cup is from one of those Provo Craft embossing folders.  I cut it out and inked it up with Persimmon distress ink.  CAS card

This is a great card to enter into Simon Says Stamp anything goes Wednesday challenge.

Edited to add the other two cards i made later from the same type of background.

Ladies Day

Here’s a couple of pictures from our very wonderful day.  We have pot luck and lots of good visiting and chatting and laughter while we each do our own thing.  It’s a wonderful day that my daughters good friend hostesses every year for us.  I couldn’t go last year and that made it more special this year.

Interesting

Interesting piece.  Does this look like it came off from a wall at the art museum?  Saturday several moms and daughters got together at a friends home and we all worked on our own projects.  There were three sewing machines, a silhouette, a scrap booker, and me playing with water colors.  I made a couple of Brusho back grounds just to get the creative juices flowing and then I stamped on this back ground.  At the end of the day it was the one piece i had done that i didn’t really like.  I had only taken my Distress Markers and the pinkish color that i had used on the stamp just didn’t stand out on the background and looked quite boring. 

Today I positioned the stamp a bit offset on my MISTI and inked it up with gold embossing ink, sprinkled some ranger gold powder on it and heated it.  Wow, what a difference.  I took my green marker and added a bit of detail to the stem and leaves that i had drawn on free hand.  The tim holtz sizzix Friends die went perfectly with this loose looking image. I mounted it on a piece of black with a very thing border and also onto a piece of gold that if you look closely you can see.  To add some texture i used my kiwi green Viva Pearl Pen for the flower center.  I now LOVE this card.  I can hardly believe I made it.     don’t you love it when that happens?  I hope you enjoy it as much as i do.  Thanks for stopping by again.

simple MFT Sketch

It’s been on my mind to make a card with a gold glitter strip.  the MFT Wednesday Sketch challenge #316 was the perfect time to try it.  I used two strips of 3/8 inch wide Sookwang tape and then peeled the backing off and sprinkled with Art Impressions gold glitter.  Oh my, how sparkly and fun it is.  I wanted just a simple image after seeing the beauty of the gold strip and i chose these LJD Wildflowers from MFT.  The sentiment is also MFT and the sentiment die is from a blue prints set,   #6 ,  I think.  A spot of gold Viva Pearl pen and this elegant card is complete.

Thanks for stopping by.  Hope your week is fabulous.

playing around

Just playing around and using stuff up.  Playing with NBUS and scraps.  Enjoying the process.  The flower dies are MFT and the other card is all MFT.  Friend Angie gifted me with those sweet clips.  She always uses clips so beautifully on her cards and when I try to use a clip it looks like,  “oh here’s a clip, maybe i should add that to this card. “ The diamonds are embossed with Ranger Espresso embossing powder kind of a dark grayish color.  the faux stitching is that Technique Tuesday set that i haven’t used in years becaus i could never get them to line up straight but ah the MISTI…it is such a card saver.   I am entering the masculine card into MFT Color challenge 61.  You can’t see it but this front panel is adhered to a 8 .50 x 5.50 piece of coral colored card stock.  (peach bellini)  

SCS Sketch 627

It’s been a while since i took a look at SCS challenges.  I found this cool sketch challenge for last week and thought it would be fun to work with it.  Because this was a more difficult sketch i pretty much interpreted it literally.  I like the visual aspect of the circle with the rectangle strips for balance.

I used a curved edge to give it a softer look (a more relaxed chilled look) for Simon’s Chill out Monday Challenge. This card was made from scraps only.  I love it when that happens.  Another thing that I chill with is using my scraps up.

Native American look

The MFT sketch this week is open to a lot of CAS creations.  Heres another loose interpretation of the sketch using all MFT dies.   I have been wanting to use coral color on my cards.  I wish I could find a really pretty coral color.  SU used to have Cameo Coral which was beautiful.  Maybe if a MFT DT stops by they could tell me which color in the MFT lineup would be comparable.  I got to play with my new Nuovo drops.  I love them!!

MFT Sketch 315

With that idea in my head to create MFT Sketch challenges with a loose interpretation I love the way this one turned out.  I  have gotten so much use out of my LJD Wildflowers stamps, dies and stencils.  For this one i mixed a bit of very old and hard Viva Inka-Gold in violet along with some fresh embossing paste.  It didn’t break down completely and gave a wonderful texture that looks like tiny raindrops on the stenciled pasted.   The sentiment banner was cut with a teeny little scallop scissors (it’s covering up the stamped sentiment that was crooked) don’t you just love it when you make a mistake and your creation turns out better because you had to be inventive?  Faux stitching across the top of the little banner.  There’s a little bit of Morrocan Tile going on in the back ground.  MFT stencil and sponged with MFT whipped cream white.  My Wink of Stella pen was running out of glitter and i added water and shook it.  WHOA!!!  I have glitter now on that MFT stitched heart!! and last but not least……….remember paint chips???  Anyone else still have some hanging around? I laughed when i found them hiding in my stash. 

(notice how the doily still keeps the fishtail banner look of the sketch)  Click HERE for link to this fun challenge.

       

4 square

The little critters from this SU set are so cute.  I fussy cut him out and used pencils and blending pen to color him in.  He sits on a square postage stamp die cut that i stamped with the teeny back ground stamp from another SU set.  I cut the sentiment off the image when i cut the little guy out and turned it into a little label to add to the upper part of the card.  Now this DP.  Traditionally the iamges are way too large for such a small card.  4.25 squared.  But i learned in the online card class to change up the DP to make it work.  From the same set as the teeny back ground on the postage stamp, comes this sweet little solid flower.  I inked it up with two different Memento inks and visually cut down the size of the big white dots.  Adding the little pearl dots helps to keep the eye moving and not focusing on the big dots.  There how did you like your free “lesson”  LOL.  Thanks for coming by.

Challenges:  Word Art Wednesday  *  Simon Says Monday

one of a kind

This cute little seahorse has been hanging around since last winter i think.  Look, he’s turning blue with cold.  When I decided to use my postage stamp die my first thought was to cut four of them and arrange them like tiles in the middle of the card with a die cut or stamped and cut image right in the center.  For some reason i just didn’t like that look and decided to use each of the four squares as a background for a cute image.  I sponged each of the squares with a distress ink in an ombre look and found my images to use.  This guy is so happy to be anchored to something that looks like the sea instead of floating randomly on my crafting table. 

The paper is back ground paper not something i stenciled.  Even though it looks like a stencil.  It was fun to pair this guy with the wonky stitched die from MFT.  To have the stitching show up a bit more i ran a blue marker over the pointy edges on the die before sending the DP through the Big Shot.

Thanks for stopping by.  Love all my crafty friends. 

Challenge: Simon Says Be Square  *  Word Art Wednesday

 

one layer valentine

Clean, simple, one layer, beauty!  In that pack of Michaels layovers I purchased there was this heart in a not too nice of an ugly green color.  How to use it then?  Paint it or turn it into a stencil.  oh yeah, i love that effect.  The stamp across the top is a from very very old technique tuesday set that has six different strips of “stitches” I rarely used it and am surprised i even kept the set but now with the MISTI and the success of today’s card border I will re-visit that set and have fun with it.

Two different distress inks.  Fired Brick and Aged Mahogany gives the hear an embossed look and a bit of ombre.  As long as i have this stencil going on I hope to make a few more of these for a couple of my daughters friends that quite often send us cards and little gifts.

unused dies

how many of you still have the dies that came with your cuttlebug when you purchased it.  i don’t know if i have ever used them beyond running them through to see the magic when i first got the bug.  Now i have the Big Shot which i love and these dies are those little metal and sponge kind of dies from Provo Craft and to be honest they really don’t work all that well.  But…since they are in my stash why not drag them out and see what happens.  Here is the oh so cute result.  that little bee just makes me smile and the flower looks, well, it looks happy.  Using the embossing folder that came in the Simon November kit really set this little creation off.  I rounded the opposite corners to give some softness and as an offset to the square.

Challenge:  Simon Says Monday-Square

#815 #816 #817 #818 #819 lucky dog

Oh look, the little pair of paws i got from somehwere or someone showed up when i was cleaning.  Rather than let them disappear again I decided to make a card and use at least one of them up.  I have so many dies that are wanting using also.  These large speech bubble dies seemed so cute when i saw the release on them, then………hmmm….how was it I wanted to use these.  I stamped the back ground with other of the Whipper Snap stamps in that set.  I used a combination of copics and water colors to get the bubbles to look realistic. 

I really like the technique of embossing the dies too.  That’s going to be my theme for the year, I think.   

It’s Hip to be Square

Be honest, did you start singing that right away?  I love most of the eighties music.  Maybe cuz our kids listened and appreciated all the nuances of the shift in music at that time.  Okay, here’s the song for ya.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LB5YkmjalDg&list=RDLB5YkmjalDg

Simon Says is HIP.  they have a Monday Square challenge going on.  I made four cards and will post each separate for their challenge.  I’ve been wanting to use my postage die for about four months now and just never had an idea for it.  I saw Kristina and Jennifer I think using their postage stamp edges way back in the summer and I liked the look and filed away the nudge.

I had lots of fun with such a simple piece.  My first card is 4.25 square with it’s own matching envelope.  The overlay is from a pack of 30 that i purchased on Michaels clearance.  You can’t see from the picture but when I used spray adhesive on the back and tried to lay the piece straight onto the card base it shifted and left me with a bit of a glue problem.  I grabbed my Art Impressions crystal glitter and made it work FOR me.  It turned out so beautiful.  Wish you could see the sparkle.

Just Playing

I had some scraps left over from an experiment and thought i would put this card together.  Another different look with this MFT die.  Just having fun, sometimes, it’s fun not to have an agenda and just see what happens when you pick up a piece of cardstock. i needed this kind of card making after being so structured with the Susan Louise images.  A little bit of Native American look going on here.  The two lighter blue pieces are the die cut pieces i used and they are mounted on black which looks like navy on here.

Distress Crayons #1

These crayons came to live with me several months ago and i never even tried them.   Now I have  I used Strathmore water color paper on the rough side.  My spray bottle came in handy to completly wet the paper before playing.  After spraying i scribbled with three different crayons and then moved onto the blending step.  I just used my finger to push the colors into one another and PUSH, I did!  For me the colors did not move easily and they are a bit waxy.  When I stamped my images on the blended color it didn’t take the ink very well.  I couldn’t re-stamp as I was using wooden stamps.  I will try again but I think i would much rather use the distress inks and markers to get an easily smooth blend to the back ground.  I don’t feel the coverage was really good with this either.

New Stamps #813-814

Yep, those teeny little stamps have never been inked.  They are new to me from Hero Arts.  I think that qualifies me for an entry into Simon’s Monday Challenge Something New and also playing in MFT Color Challenge #60

Using MFT dies (this was a free with $60 die)  I never would have purchased it on my own but i am so glad i have it.  Thanks MFT.  You Rock!   hmmm…you can barely see the three embossed lines across the top of that panel.  Look really really close?  Thanks.

MFT Sketch Challenge

Sketch challenges are so much fun.  One of my goals this year is to do loose interpretation of sketch challenges.  I’m so literal, usually.  And here goes the first sketch for the year 2017.  This was the first time i used my MFT pierced heart dies that i purchased over the holidays and i get to enter this beauty into two challenges.  MFT SKetch Challenge and Simon Says Wednesday I made the stencil from a sizzix die that i have and sponged worn lipstick over my stencil for this.  wasn’t sure how that would turn out but i do like what it did. The little cream heart is covering up a smudge.  where did that black ink come from ??????

Water Color stamps #811-812

At the vendor show in Novembert Bella Rose was featuring their Art Impressions water color stamps.  Designed specifically for the loose color application of water paints.  This covered bridge can be made for any season.  The trees are a separate stamp in the set. I will be happy to play with it again.  It was fun to make the wintry looking sky.  We have had lots of skies like that already this year.  Which mean’s it’s freakin’ cold.  When you can see the sun here in Wisconsin in the winter you know it’s cold.  The cloudy days the temps rise about –15.  Three days in a row of that now and I’m sitting here making frozen picture images???? it’s gone to my head, i tell ya!!

ABC Christmas Challenge

B is for what ever we want that starts with B for the first challenge of the year at  ABC Christmas Challenge.  I chose Birds.  Aren’t they ever so sweet.  I am working on using up my pre-printed images from Susan Louise.  They make such wonderful cards.  I do hand stamp something on each card even if it’s just the inside sentiment.  For this one i added the red berries with my Viva Pearl Pen and used distress inks on the specialty paper this is printed on.  It’s Tim Holtz Ranger specialty paper and takes the ink and water droplets beautifully. I found this scrap of cheese cloth in a drawer when i was organizing and it worked so well for this card.  I was really looking for my crinkle ribbon which i have no idea where i put it.  So much for that organizing effort. 

 

One more card to add to my pile and it is so satisfying to have the sentiments stamped and an envelope with each card as I put it into it’s storage box.  Yep, i think every year i get a teeny bit more organized.  Thanks for stopping by.  Hope your New Year is being fantastic for you.

A & B Christmas Challenge

Taking the challenge to keep the ball rolling.  I so enjoyed having several pre-made cards ready this year when the holidays rolled around.  Then I went back and caught up on every single ABC challenge that I had missed to prepare for next year.  I am now 27 cards to the good for this years cards.  Why let that go untended and so i jumped right in to join ABC Christmas challenge with this pre-stamped image from Susan Louise.  A is anything goes.  He doesn’t look too Christmasy but the sentiment came from a christmas set and i used a Christmas greeting inside.  He is green and gold though and would make a lovely duck dinner for the holidays.