A Booboo and More...

I spent the last four days with some wonderful friends scrapbooking and paper crafting.  It was great to get away for a few days and devote some uninterrupted time to crafting.  Our accommodations were great and I had an entire 8 foot table to myself.  Did I get a lot done?  Heck no!  But I still had fun.

I did work on my grandson's album and jokingly told everyone I got 20 plus pages done on it and was already up to October 5, 2013.  Well, he was born on October 4!  LOL! Yep...over 20 pages and I hadn't even finished his first 24 hours! HAHA!

But it was fun...and one day I will get to October 6, 2014.  ;)

I also made a MESS of cards.  In the south we say "mess of" to indicate a bunch of.  A mess of cards.  A mess of turnip greens.  A mess of biscuits.  Got it?

Here is one card I made:

 I made it with elements from the Simon Says Stamp June Card Kit which you can see here:




I really loved the stamp set included....the stamp sets are usually filled with images and are often so very versatile.  I love that.  Money well spent, I believe.

I also love the Studio Calico wooden elements and the My Mind's Eye papers that were included.  And the glittery enamel dots were just perfect to put on the flower centers which you can see here:

I also made this card with elements from the same kit.

I cut out the circle with some Quikcraft dies I had and made the little green frame.  I stamped Love is everything and the border around it with stamps from the same stamp set as the card above.

So...what's the booboo?  Well, after I made this card and had it all finished I realized that my background paper was upside down!  HAHA!....although if you look at the bottom right corner it does look like the blue flower in the bottom is growing in the right manner!  OK, so now I will just pretend that those daisies and rosebuds were cut and are hanging upside down and drying.  And I KNOW the person I send this to will not care one bit and probably won't even notice!

My card blooper...

LOL!

Well, that's it for today...Happy Crafting and Keep Creating!

New Favorites!

I had ordered the Scribbled Flowers stamp set and dies from Simon Says Stamp and they came yesterday.  I had it in my cart and took it out...had it in and took it out.  And, uh, finally left it in.  I'm so glad I did.  I love it!  I love the look of hand drawn things and this one is perfect for that!
Here are the stamps and coordinating dies (if you click on the image it will take you to Simon Says Stamp and the featured set):
 
And here is a card I made with it which was CASED from a card I saw by the fabulous Shari Carroll.

 

  The "hello" sentiment was from a Lawn Fawn set and the "you're one of my nicest thoughts" came from a Hero Arts set which I heat embossed with white embossing powder.  
I love this bright and happy card stamped with Memento Luxe inks and will make more!

Gotta run!

Happy Crafting and Keep Creating!

Life is a Beach!

I love the beach.  Going to the beach is probably my most favorite place in the spectrum of  "naturey" kinds of things.  I love art, history and architecture and am happy wandering around Europe and seeing all it has to offer but if I have to choose a spot of nature I'll choose the beach over a lake or the mountains or a canyon or a river any day.  In fact, I have nothing against those other places and enjoy visiting them, too.  Well, I do have a problem with the mountains.  Getting there is a problem.  Winding roads and me just do not get along.  Even if I drive.  Blech. 

Back to the beach.  We are fortunate to take a family vacation for a week to the beach each year.  We all love it and look forward to this getaway each year.  I've been to a lot of beaches in my life....Cape Cod, Southern CA (San Diego and LA), Atlantic City, Long Island (New York), Virginia Beach...most of the east coast of Florida, and even beaches in Hawaii, Italy, Spain and Greece (ok, I did love the Mediterranean and the beach there off of Crete) but my favorite go to beaches are on the Gulf of Mexico.  The water is so pretty to me and I love, love, love the white sand.  You just don't see that at many beaches. 

Sigh......wish I were there instead of metro Atlanta suburbia right now.  LOL!

A friend of mine commissioned me to make some cards for her recently.  She has some beach property and has need of cards to send to renters.

This is what I came up with using some Hero Arts stamps I've had.  (Note to self...time to get more beachy stamp sets!)

I inked the blue background with a variety of Distress Inks and then spattered it with some water to react with the ink.  That is so much fun and I love watching the color of the Distress inks move away.  (It takes little to impress me sometimes!)  I stamped the fish and crab in black ink and then heat embossed with clear embossing powder.  I used some ink daubers and colored them in with additional Distress Inks and then colored in some of the scales and other areas with some Distress pens.

 

The "sand" was done with some kraft paper torn and inked.  And finally the sentiment came from the Girlfriends set by Art Impressions.
And lastly I used some Wink of Stella clear glitter over the little critters.

I think she will like then!

Happy Crafting and Keep Creating!

Happy Father's Day

Father's Day is right around the corner.  Although my own father, whom I adored, has been gone a long time I am surrounded by really great dads.  My son in law is a wonderful and very involved father to his 3 little ones.  I think he gets a little overwhelmed with them sometimes but he plugs through it!  He is a hands on, diaper changing, story reading, juice fixing, fort building, tickling, rough housing, baseball coach,  "you can ride on my back" sort of dad.  When he walks in and sees Taylor he always says "Hello, Beautiful!" to her.  So sweet.  He loves his children and his family and I know his kids will grow up with a great role model. Here he is with 2 of his 3.  :)

I made this card using a cut file from the Silhouette store which was designed by Jennifer Lane (Jenni Cripps).  She does some amazing stuff!

Simple card here....just cut the front out and backed it with some foam adhesive and some printed paper.  The word "dad" has a little Wink of Stella clear on it to give a bit of a sheen.  I stamped "You're the best" with a Papertrey Ink stamp and "Ever" is a Penny Black stamp.  I heat embossed with some clear embossing powder over some black versafine ink.

And here it is:

I love how simple this is....and I love the tools.  They cut so well!

Happy Crafting and Keep Creating!

And a Thank You to You!

I made a couple of thank you cards to send to some dear friends who had showered me with some wonderful gifts and well wishes on my birthday last month.
One is a blue lover and one likes pink so that's why I chose the colors I did! :)
For the first one I laid down a sort of wash of water color with Distress Inks and then spritzed it with a bit of water. The water reacts with the distress inks and moves the color away.  So fun!  I used a Simon Says Stamp die cut that I inlaid with some black cardstock.

Here is the blue version...without the splotches of water resist:

Simple cards...flat to mail...lots of fun to make!  And thanks to my friends for being so sweet to me!

Happy Crafting!!!

Happy Birthday, Amanda!

We had a week of birthdays....my granddaughter, Taylor's, was on Monday and her mother...my wonderful daughter, Amanda's was on Tuesday.
She turned 29+.  LOL!

Here we are 34 years ago:

We didn't realize it at the time but the film in my 35mm camera was not loaded properly...and in those days we didn't take many photos anyway because processing was so expensive!  Anyway, we only got a few polaroids at the hospital.  Here we are on our way home.  I look dazed.  I was.  Amanda weighed 9 1/2 lbs.  She was 3 days early.  I am short...5 feet tall.  Yep, there were 30 babies in the nursery at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital in Tallahasee, FL on June 3 and she was the biggest of 'em all.  Back 34 years ago a 9 1/2 lb baby was considered a very large baby.  Nowadays those big 'uns are more the norm, I guess.
Anyway, since I am in my watercolor mode I made her this card:

 I used distress inks on water color paper and made a gradient type thing...the colors here are not "true" as there really was a little more color variation in the actual paper card.  I added a little wooden heart I also used distress ink on...and here is another disclaimer....it matched the paper better than it looks here in the photo.  I promise!

I

Oh, and after I posted my card that I made for Taylor's birthday I thought it looked so plain online so I went back and added some sequins to spiff it up a bit.  Here's the card I posted the other day:

 And here it is with a bit more flash!

What a fun week with lots of birthdays and birthday cake! Yum!

Happy Crafting!

Happy Birthday, Taylor!

Today is my darling granddaughter's 3rd birthday.  I remember Taylor's birth as if it were yesterday.  My daughter called me in the morning to tell me she thought she might be in early labor.  Well, I had a tennis match and figured I had plenty of time before this little girl would make her way into the world.  I played my match...checking my phone constantly to see if there were updates.  And of course that particular match was very long....I believe we played two tiebreakers.  It was hot and I got a terrible dehydration headache...but I made it to my daughter's house to get my grandson and my son and daughter sped off to the hospital and that little girl was born soon after!  Oh...and we won the tennis match, too!

Here is a photo of her taken at her Chuck E. Cheese birthday party on we had for her the other day:

OK, so you think...why did Susan post a picture of her when she obviously closed her eyes?  Well, that's the look we get when we say "Taylor, smile!".  LOL!!!
Here is one taken the day of the wedding recently....I love this photo of her.

She is a very sweet, loving, and silly little girl.  Happy 3rd Birthday, Taylor.

For the occasion I made this simple flat card:

I had wanted to play with a watercolor background and did this with lots of water and several Distress inks.  I just smooshed the pads on an acrylic block and then lifted the color with a wet broad paintbrush.  Just swooshed the color on...misted the paper a bit more to get the colors to blend a bit and that was it.  Oh yes...and the new thing (for me) was to use some liquid frisket which I dripped on the paper.  You let it dry and then it creates a mask.  So that's how I got those cool white dots of drip!  The one thing I learned is that the frisket smells like teetee as my grand-kids would say.   Lots of ammonia in it!  P.U.!!!
It was fun, though and I'll use it again! :)
I stamped the number and sentiment with Paper Smooches stamps and Versafine ink and heat embossed them with clear embossing powder.
That's it for today...off to celebrate with a very special little girl!

Happy Crafting!