Oh, for the Love of Paper

Keeping quite busy!

2012-02-22T08:31:00.000-05:00

For those of you who don't know me personally, I have been keeping quite busy in the background. Our female blue Great Dane had puppies last week. She had 12 babies, 11 lived. That is a huge litter so for a while I am living, sleeping, breathing and eating with the puppies and their mom in the whelping room. This year I get to use the bed in there, last time I had to sleep in the whelping box with mom because she had complications with her delivery and ended up getting toxic mild syndrome. This year she has most of the feeding under control, but 11 is a lot to feed, so I help supplement every four hours. Then Great Danes are so big that I stay close to make sure mom doesn't turn over or stretch out in the middle of the night and smush a baby (they only weight 1 pound 4 -8 ounces.) I took a video after they were born and posted it on youTube for the future owners to see, if you would like to watch, click on the video below. I'll be back soon, I am working on some projects for Grandbabies, so I'll get them up as soon as possible. Have a wonderful week!

Just checking in and my G45 mini-album "ABC Primer"

2012-02-03T15:31:00.001-05:00

Good day everyone! I know, I have yet again been gone for quite a while, but it was all good :) You see here in KY we have been having one of the nicest winters in a long time. Day time temps have been between 50 and 60 degrees outside. Perfect weather to weed a garden, so that has been what I have been doing with most of my time. On the off chance of rain, I have been working on a project for one of my newer Grandchildren (we have two under 2 and one on the way!) And frankly, I have been lax in getting things out to celebrate the births. So now I am working on personalized mini albums so that all mom has to do is put in the pictures, jot down a little note about what's happening and Viola! A complete album. This first mini-album is made with Graphic 45 papers, specifically from a line called ABC Primer. There are a lot of pictures in this, so it might take you a minute. I show each page with and without the photo pages and tags. All paper is G45, the black cardstock is Hobby Lobby. Trinkets, odd Alphas, etc all come from my stash over the years. My glue is either 1 - wet: Clubscrap binder's glue or 2 - dry: ATG gun with double sided tape. Inks were TH's Distress inks, Vintage photo and black soot. When completed the covers were both covered with Matte Medium to protect the papers from moisture and other damage. Final embellishment was a black Grosgrain ribbon and buckle to help keep the book closed and the future pictures safe inside. Enjoy looking and I'll keep my comments very short :)

The book is six regular pages and two pocket pages thick, you can see here the depth of the book. The book is bound as opposed to rings. I personally prefer the look of a finished book, gives is a little more classy look. Front and back covers were made of chipboard, the regular pages were made with cereal box cardboard painted black with acrylic paint.

Front cover inside has a pocket page that holds two journaling tags and one photo mat.

Pocket page with all it's elements out.

This page is a pocket page behind a flap, you can see I have already pulled out the photo mats for display. I still need to put tabs on these photo mats.

This page shows the p.m. back in and then flap flipped up. On the top flap you can see the magnet for closure. Underneath the flap there is another side pocket with a tag and a small envelope.

This next page is also a flip up page, this one has an old antique button with Jute twine for a lifting agent.

When you flip this page up, you have two side pockets of which each contains a tag. Also the flip page can be used as a photo mat and or journaling page.

This next page is a slider page. Sliders never work quite right for me, so this one has been improvised upon as well :) You are supposed to have a single tab at the top to pull up and push down with, but mine has a tab at the top and at the bottom, it works best of you pull both simultaneously.

Here the tabs are just started partially pulled out.

Here the slider is fully extended. This page is just for pure entertainment, there are no tags or photo mats.

This next page is a time page, the second clock face has crystal effects on it. The numerals on the left are left over from a clock making kit. The stop watch charm at top is out of my stash. Contained in this page are two tags and one photo mat.

Another tag that needs a tab yet, and now a side view so you can see the dimension. I love texture and dimension :)

The next two pages are Envelope pocket pages. Each contains a small photo mat and one has a tag, while the other has a small envie.

Love how the ruler holds the tags in and the little half sphere on the bottom is popped up with foam tape so that the articles being held don't slip out the bottom either.

Envy Pocket page 2:

The next page:

is a corner pocket page containing two photo mats. Then I found this cute little glassine envy so I made a tag to fit it and put it on the corner pocket so it too could have something done with it.

This next page is strictly a photo mat page.

This next page has two pockets the back one of which contains a photo mat, and the front which contains a small book for a child's story, writing, first letters written, or whatever.

The little booklet has also been distressed and is tied together with Jute cord.

This next page is another side pocket page with a photo mat.

This page is another flip page. Lift the red tab and . . .

You've got three file folders with three tags and a couple of loose flashcards. An alpha strip secures the tags in place.

The flip page has room for a photo on the front and journaling or another photo on the back. The small nameplate on the bottom is usable as well. The top is open to slide a name or whatever down into the display plate.

Another corner pocket page with a photo mat and then a small side pocket with a tag, the button holds the tag secure so that it doesn't fall out :)

Another photo only page with a name place at the bottom.

Finally the back page inside the back cover. It is an Envie pocket with a photo mat and a tag.

Well, that's it for this book, as I mentioned I have a few more tabs to put on tonight, and then I have to make a couple of cards for some birthdays I have coming up. Hope you enjoyed looking at my version of the ABC Primer mini-album. My inspiration is Charlie Jones and if you look on YouTube you'll find her many tut's on how she does different things. Thanks for looking! Keep checking back, I'm here, just playing out in my gardens (My helebore is blooming so perhaps I'll take a pic and show you one of the many reasons for why I love being outside

Blessings!

Busy in the background

2012-01-09T22:01:00.000-05:00

Good evening everyone! I know it has been a moment since I posted last, but I just wanted you to know that I have several things going on and in process. I am also learning yet new finishing touches for some of the articles I am making. So be patient, perhaps if I find a moment in time I will make a quick (haha) card, but with the weather we have been having (50+degrees almost daily Thank the Lord!) I just can't manage to keep myself in the house. I wasn't made to be a housekeeper, I was made to design flower beds, and garden art as well as my indoor creations involving multi-media and paper. So hold onto your horses, go out and enjoy the day if it's nice where you are, and I"ll be back as soon as possible to share the projects I have been working on. Oh, by the way, Son and DIL loved thier painting! Yea! for both me and them :)

Blessings!

Maple Walnut Pumpkin Pie

2012-01-02T15:14:00.000-05:00

A quick post for those of you have have asked for my recipe for the Maple Walnut Pumpkin pie. Please forgive me for being so slow in getting it to you, sometimes I just let life get in the way. So this one is for you. You will really like this, and I will tell you it is the most diferent recipe I have ever made, but it tastes great!

Crust:
1 box Pillsbury Refriderated pie crust, softened
Filling:
1 can (15 oz) pumpkin (Not pumpkin pie mix)
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk (not evaporated)
2 eggs
2 Tbsp real Maple syrup
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
Streusel:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts (I have tried this with pecans too - very good!)
2 Tbsp all purpose flour
2Tbsp. cold butter
Topping:
1 cup whipping cream
2 Tbsp packed brown sugar

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 425 degrees F. Place pie crust in 9 inch glass pie plate as directed on box for one crust filled pie. In large bowl, beat filling ingredients with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Pour into crust-lined pan. Bake 10 minutes.
2. Meanwhile, in small bowl, mix 1/4 cup brown sugar, the chopped walnuts and flower; cut in butter until crumbly. Set aside.
3. Reduce oven temp to 350F. Sprinkle streusel over pie. Cover crust edge with 3 inch wide strips of foil to prevent excessive browing.
4. Bake 30 - 35 minutes longer or until knife inserted 1 inch from edge comes out clean. Cool completely, about 2 hours. Serve or refrigerate until serving time.
5. To serve, in medium bowl, beat whipping cream and 2 Tbsp brown sugar with electic mixer on medium high speed until soft peaks form. Serve pie with whipped cream; garnish with chopped walnuts as desired. Store in refrigerator.

Enjoy!

Recipe book

2012-01-02T14:38:00.001-05:00

Good Afternoon Everyone!
Today I would like to share a recipe book that I made. I wanted to try some new techniques and it just worked out that I needed to work with heavy paper and chipboard to be sure everything would hold up. So I played and played and really liked what I came out with in the end. I am not normally a big Orangey color fan, but this worked out just fine :)

The first thing I tried (or should I say went back and did after several years of not) was playing with fine glitter. I found a stencil that had a beautiful rooster on it and I wanted this Paper and glitter rooster to look as beautiful as my real roosters outside, so I went to putting one color down and then another, letting each one blend gently into the first. Once I had the rooster finished to my liking, I needed a background that would be as outstanding as he was. I wanted to try and make my colors/papers look somewhat like leather. So starting with a medium yellow/orange print paper I began blending, distressing and blending again. Until I finally had a back ground that I was happy with. So my cover finished off looking like this:

A close up of the rooster at a different angle so you might be able to see all the colors and not quite so much glitter reflection:

The flower is a papertreyink flower die. After the flowers were put together they were brushed with Lindsy's Gang mica magicals paints.
Page 1 with and without a recipe card:

Page 2 w/o recipe card:

The next page and the previous page have a new embossing technique I found on YouTube. Using a stencil and stencil gel, you put your embossing powder on the gel and then heat to emboss the two together. The result is phenomenal, check out this texture! I love texture so this made me really happy :)

Again, playing with things, I put the dark EP on first, then put on the lighter, then put on the lightest to get the gradation of colors you see. Here you can see the whole page both with and without a recipe card.

The flower is oil paint stenciled on canvas.

If you are looking close right now, you probably are noticing that I am using the same recipe card on each page, don't worry, when I finally give the book out, each page will have at least one different recipe per the type listed on top. The next page looks much simpler, but you'll notice that I have yet again used the stencil gel/embossing powder technique on the medallions (I've added a close up at a different angle to hopefully make it easier to see. I also tried distressing around it to make the stenciling/embossing more prevalent:

In addition to the Embossing, I also strung some waxed string through the small holes from the MS edge puncher, and also added some magic mesh in the upper right hand corner. The pocket as aged with distress inks as well.
The next page shown with and w/o recipe card:

This page is just a lattice work set on a page and then embossing frost on the bottom. Eyelash fringe lines the upper edge of the lattice. I am not sure why the second picture washed out so much, but as you can tell by the previous pages, the first post of this page is the more correct color. This page also has one of the PaperTreyInk flowers on it as well, and also a sizzix branch. The stripes of darker color behind the lattice is washi tape that compliments all the colors of this album quite well.

The paper that I used had some areas that were more pink than orange, so I used them right along and just added some pink mica to the embossing on the more orangey page, then tied a piece of ribbon near the base of the open pocket. The "dots" that you see are yet again some more stencil/gel/EP technique, the upper right corner is a pergamonno stencil that I have embossed into the paper then lightly rubbed with Dried Marigold distress ink, the hen had to fit in somewhere for the handsome rooster on the front ;) and the flower is again a mica painted Papertreyink flower.
The back cover is just plain and "Sweet" The recipes that I am putting in here are some of my fav's and have been recipes that I have honed until I can say that they are mine. Recipes that my kids grew up with and will remind them of "Home Sweet Home". Done again in the raised stencil gel with embossing powder.

The stamps of the chicken wire and the hens are from Layers of Color, the banners are SB, wording in banners is from Recipe set obtained Years ago. Most of the ribbon came from RRR, the rest I am not sure. I haven't figured out who is going to get this yet, but I am sure now that it is made, someone will express a desire for it and will get it. I had tons of fun experimenting with colors and techniques. And can't wait to try some of them on cards. Thanks for stopping by and looking, hopefully you enjoyed looking as much as I enjoyed making. Have a great day!

Blessings,

Happy New Years Eve and welcome 2012!

2011-12-31T20:07:00.000-05:00

As this year quickly comes to a close, I am stopping by to wish each and every one of you the most wonderful upcoming year. 2011 was a great year, especially if you remember to count ALL the good times, look at all the good days, and rethink all the good thoughts. Yes, it was a good year, and good things can only get better ;) Blessings to each of you this evening, be safe, be happy, and be blessed. Happy New Year/2012!

Jamaican Bobsled!

2011-12-28T21:31:00.000-05:00

Good morning blogworld!
Yes, I know lately I have been gone from my blogging post. But it has been with good reason, and those reasons you are going to see in the next few days. I have been busy with some multi-media art work :) I love to create, and a couple of weeks ago as I was continuing on my cleaning/organizing journey, I found a picture of our youngest son and DIL on their honeymoon in Jamaica. The picture was so fun that it instantly told me that I needed to get all my "stuff" out and produce a memory for them that they could show off. So the first thing I did was make a larger copy of the picture they had, grab a brand new fresh canvas, gesso of different sorts, all my many brushes, paints of all sorts and anything I could find that might fit the scene.
Here is the final piece of work, which I think my hubby is going to deliver this next weekend (when he goes to see his father.)

Hopefully as I do the close ups, you'll be able to see the vibrancy of this. It is so bright sparkly and inviting. While the kids were in Jamaica, they went to a theme park, and one of the rides was the Bobsled. The picture itself was bright with colors, the sleds are black, chartreuse and yellow, the foliage is a myriad of greens with bright pink flowers interspersed throughout, and then touches of the blue sky peeking through the trees. These are the colors I tried to mimic the most.

The canvas was painted with acrylic Luninaire paints - Green, purple and blue. They were allowed to dry and then were sprayed on the following day with Lindsy's Cornflower blue, Fern green, and Tattered Angels purple. The edges of the colored mica sprays were allowed to mingle, making the colors fade in and out of each other. This was allowed to dry for half a day. Later that evening I took string gel mixed with metallic silver acrylic paint and drizzled over the canvas in swirls and dots. This was covered and sealed with a plain coat of gesso. The flourish above is a Fancy Pants chip that was covered first with black and then with Tim Holtz DI Fired Brick. After drying I took a Viva decor pearl pen and placed the bold highlights, then covered the flourish with goosebumps. You will recognize the SB vine and foliage die cuts out of cereal box board. Letters for Bobsled are some leftover things I found in my stash. Again I tried to keep all letters in the same colors as the picture. The small butterflies on the piece are from PizzazzAplenty. The metal flowers are left over from the Oriental Trading company years ago.

As I work I like to wrap the media around the sides of the canvas, it just makes me feel like it's more 3D.
As I mounted the picture on the canvas, I wanted to muddy the definite edges. So in keeping with the chevrons on the fronts of the bobsled, I put gesso chevrons on the sides of the picture.

I also let the foliage and flowers go over the edges of the picture to make it harder to distinguish between painted and captured. Look at those faces - They are having a blast :) I smile every time I look into their faces. You can see on the pink flower that the Gesso isn't quite completely dry yet, but by the end of the day it will be.

Above you can see the letters for Jamaica. I chose a larger and different font for the J versus the rest of the letters. I just felt it needed to be Big and Flamboyant like every thing you could see in this picture. Needless to say, chartreuse was the natural color to fit the size and fun. I chose to let the rest of the Chip Chatter letters be plain white and full of sparkle (sorry you can't really see the sparkle). A little glitzy, but not overbearingly so. I also felt I needed a balance in the colors without over doing it. Here you can see the chevrons lining the edges as well.

The upper right corner has three metal bands, one silver, one an antique gold and the last is one bronze. Lots of fern fronds every where (Cheery Lynn Dies) I've lived in the deep south(Naples/Marco Island, FL) and ferns are just a natural thing to find in a jungle type setting.
I had a lot of fun with this even though it took a lot of time (not bad really, just more than I had planned on). I am excited for them to get this, I wish I could be there to see their faces (Hubby has instructions to film as they open). Oh well, I'll wait to hear and in the mean time, I am going to finish up another project I have been working on. Until tomorrow :)

Blessings!

Happy Birthday Bret!

2011-12-17T23:48:00.000-05:00

Today is my brother's birthday. I have three brothers and they are all younger than me. Bret is the oldest of them and he is 1 1/2 years younger than me. Both of us are over 50 years old, so needless to say, when he went over 50, I began teasing him and his "old age'. So, all that to say, this card is just another reminder to him that he is still getting old ;) Age bothers him, and frankly half the time I don't know how old I am! Seriously, in fact I am one of those people who feels that I am as old as I feel. That means some days I am quite young, and others I am feeling very very old :) So, here is his card:

I love to do work in multi media and this is a technique with Aluminum Foil scrunched up, pulled flat gently, then molded over items stuck down. Normally this is done on wood or a very sturdy substance. You generally see it done over wooden boxes, but I needed a card, so I did mine on cereal box cardboard. Overall it worked pretty good. It is definitely not as stable wood, but it worked. My brother is a truck driver, so he more than understands the need for "SpareParts". The items embossed over are fairly easy to pick out;

there is a ball chain w/ clasp, a regular type chain, a pop-top, 2 medium and 2 small washers, two small sprockets, a long spring, a jump ring, a tile spacer and the big circle is the ring left from an empty red sticky tape roll. (He'll never guess that one! lol) The "header" is foil covered corrugated cardboard with some miscellaneous letters put together to spell spareparts.

The paper behind the black painted foil is a foiled cs that has had TH alcohol ink (mushroom) wiped on it to look like oil. I am telling you - This is truly a Man Card!
The inside of the card has a verse in it that says: I Thank God for Every Remembrance of you, (Stampin'Up) and a short note that I wrote about us all getting older and needing spare parts to replace the ones we have that aren't working quite so well anymore.
Well, I have to get back to my Christmas present making, lots going on in that department as far as multi-media art as well. You'll get your peeks as they finish. Thanks for looking. For those of you who are traveling for the holidays, I pray for safe traveling mercies that you arrive safely at both your destinations (away and home). To those that are staying home, I Pray that God blesses you and your family richly as you reflect on His love for us, so great, that He sent His perfect son to a place filled with evil and sin just to save us. What a Gift! Until later . . .

Blessings,

Sending you Hugs and Prayers

2011-12-11T22:18:00.001-05:00

Good Evening Everyone!

Well, today was a beautiful day outside, quite cold, but the sun was shining and the wind was light. So I went outside and moved some mulch around on some of my flower beds. Then I came inside and finished up this card I have been working on. With all the Christmas cards I have been working on, I was getting sick of doing Christmas cards, so I strayed just a bit ;) I did make a card (but I have a couple of other non-card projects going on) but I had a stamp from last year that I hadn't had a chance to get inky and thought it was time to do so.
The card is of a Praying little girl (I think I picked her up at SCAD) in her jammies, so needless to say, I felt it should be in pinks. I have never done a card in pinks so I struggled a little with this, but all in all, I think it turned out pretty good.

For the first time in years I pulled out my Circle Scissors. I cut the large Circle with it and then cut the smaller Circle offset to one side. Then took a darker color cs and did the same thing but made it thinner. Placed one on top of the other, glued them and then Embossed them with a folder. After dry embossing, I rubbed some DI over the raised areas and then sprinkled on some Stampin Up Hologram EP. Cs is PaperTrey Ink, Distress Inks used were Spun Sugar, Victorian Velvet, and Frayed Burlap. I used SB's Labels 13 and Foliage dies, Cheery Lynn Victorian Flourish, and leaf dies, My Favorite Things Flourish die and Marianne's Corner Flourish.

Most of the flowers are Wild Orchid Crafts, the lace and most of the bling is PizzazzAplenty.

Sentiment is from Layers of Color, their Encouragement clear set. That's all for tonight, tomorrow hopefully I'll have one of my first projects finished to show off. So far I am very pleased with both - let's just hope they finish that way. Hope you all had a wonderful Sunday, a perfect day to begin the week with :)

Blessings!

This card will be entered into the following challenges: Totally Paper Crafts - Anything But Christmas

Just a quickie :)

2011-12-08T23:06:00.000-05:00

It's past my bedtime, but I will quickly show you another Christmas card I have made and am sending out.

This is a quick and easy card, made with my cricut, copics, cuttlebug with embossing folders and stickles. I used the copics to add the shadows and the stickles to make the star sparkle. I had a little 4 year old boy that I watch who helped make the cards. He loves to turn the handle of the cuttlebug (hopefully that is not against child labor laws lol) so I would load up the papers (Stampin' Up) into the embossing folders and he would crank away. These cards have a beautiful verse inside:

These cards will be used for our church's Christmas card exchange. I didn't want to put to much time into them because we had to make over 75 but we got them finished. (Whew!) Tomorrow I'll show you the ones we made for family (brothers & sisters, sons, DIL's and Grands). Now I need to get some sleep. Thanks for looking!

Blessings,

Well, it's time to get ready for . . .

2011-12-05T22:13:00.001-05:00

that most wonderful time of the year. I love to craft and make things that make people smile. But in this day of money means all, it is hard to change people and their thoughts/wants/desires. What do I want for Christmas? To make people happy, to share a legacy with family who care about who we are, not what we can give monetarily. So this year I have decided to begin making products that share my heritage/ancestry. My grandmother left all of her recipe's behind in an old dinged up metal recipe box. I have kept everything the way I received them years ago, but have decided to make them into something that hopefully one of my children will see and appreciate for what it truly is. You will get to see more of my thoughts on this subject in the near future. For now, you get to see some of the Christmas cards I have been working on and started sending out today. For starters, here is the card that I sent to my parents:

My mother is a wonderful down to earth person. She finds beauty in simplicity. So my challenge was to make her a simple card that was at the same time elegant. I seem to find the most elegant cards are those made with whites and golds, so that was where I was going to start. With a white card base, I looked around for something to add depth for a background with. As I began looking through my stencils, I found a beautiful ornate vintage medallion stencil from Layers of Color (LOC). This was going to be my building block. I layered the stencil outline with Momento's Galaxy Gold and I liked what I saw. Then I started looking for something that would be a perfect sentiment that would speak from my heart to hers. It took a little while, but I found that too. Embossed in Gold on pearl white Bazzil cs. I layered that on a piece of matt gold cs and again, liked what I saw, but now I needed to find something that was a simple yet elevating addition that would bridge between the sentiment and base gold medallion. After playing around for quite a while, I came across Spellbinder's Symbology dies and there found my answer. The array around the oval is a single die cut ten times and then placed behind the oval so that it would radiate outward.

I finished off the sentiment by adding in a gold glitter heart that I had gotten with an order from PizzazAplenty, it was obvious it belonged with what I had going on so far, and then I just needed to finish off underneath the sentiment with some pearls. The card looked beautiful at this point, but it just needed a little bit more so I began to work a small flower corner in the lower corner. Again, for mom, less is more, so keeping that in mind I ended with this:

A few flowers from WOC (Wild Orchid Crafts) with a few leaves, all lightly spritzed in Lindsy's Cactus Gold Glitz Spritz. Snuggled nice and neatly in an open corner gracing the bottom of the card.

Well, that's it for tonight folks :) I will be back tomorrow to show you some of the other cards I've been working on.

Blessings,

The above card will be entered into the following challenges:
Fab N Funky Challenges: Anything Goes, Paper Crafting Journey: Anything Goes;

28 days of Thankfulness

2011-11-28T09:57:00.000-05:00

Today, I am thankful for warmth. It's been cool, dreary and rainy outside for almost a week now. We did have a 1 1/2 day break with sun and warmth, but then we headed back to the cold and wet. I am fortunate enough to be sitting inside our house and it is nice and warm inside here :) I am a creature requiring warmth. I love the sun, I enjoy sitting in the sun and just soaking up the warmth. Sometimes when I am gardening there may be a chill in the air and I will just sit in the sun and let it beam down on my face, kissing it softly with it's delicate warmth. One of my Danes is quite like me in that matter, you can look out and see Calypso sunning herself to warm up. She also sleeps with a blanket over her most every night, yes, it is not uncommon for me to "tuck" her in at night making sure her blankie covers all of her body. We live in the northern end of "the South". Zone 7 for you garden buffs. Most of the time it is more than warm enough for me (there is a saying around here for me -- if it's not 80, mamma's not happy). In the winter the cold sometimes bothers my arthritis that has set in from my past injuries. When that happens, my dear hubby likes to "crank" up the heat to warm us back up. We have wood heat, so we keep it nice and toasty in the house during the winter. I don't care for cold, I can never have on enough clothes when it gets cold. You have to put on so many layers for the cold that it is hard to move. I just picture that little child with it's arms sticking straight out and it's legs stiffly non-movable because of all of the layers on. I remember being a child and my mom "bundling" us up to go outside. You can hardly walk! And you had better go potty BEFORE you start dressing! No thanks, I prefer warmth. A layer of clothes and perhaps a sweater is fine, a jacket is okay. Things grow during the warm parts of the seasons, these things warm and brighten my soul. They make me smile. When it is cold out, everything looks dead. Browns, grays, blacks, dusky blues are the colors you see. The cold has it's purpose, it makes me over joyed to see the warmth return! I love to see the first blooms of my Hellebore (aka Lenten Rose) in February, or the daffodils in March. The sweet peaking of the crocus from beneath their shelter of the decaying leaves of the winter. Yeppers, there is no question in my mind, I appreciate the winter cold and rain and snow (I guess), but only so that when spring and warmth returns, I Thankful for it even more. In the meantime, I will try to emulate nature and warmth in my cards and other media. Have a nice warm day inside! I know I will :)

Blessings,

27 days of Thankfulness

2011-11-28T08:39:00.000-05:00

Today I give thanks for Hope! I have hope, lots of hope. I have been given a promise by my Father in Heaven that He will always be with me, never leaving me what ever may happen. There are many who have no hope, you read about them all the time. Some commit suicide, some hurt others feeling there is no other way out. I will never be in any of these situations because my beliefs constantly provide me with LOTS of hope. I know I am loved by my earthly family, but they can't always be here for me. My parents live 10 hours north of us, my brothers live 6 to 10 hours north of us (Yes, we live in the south where it is nice, warm and sunny most of the time). My husband's family lives 6 hours north of us as well. Although my hubby is near me almost everyday, he can't always understand my feelings. Being a man, he frequently doesn't have a clue on how to nurture. But I believe in God. A heavenly creator who created me for his delight and pleasure. He made me to praise Him and as I do so, He also promises that He'll be with me at all times, in fact He asks many times in the Book he wrote through God inspired men, that He wants us to pray in all things. Not just when we need something, but also when we celebrate everything, or question anything. He gives me Hope. He gives me reason to live, reason to love and most of all, reason to hope in and for all things!

Blessings,

26 days of Thankfulness

2011-11-28T08:25:00.000-05:00

On this wonderfully blessed day, I want to give thanks for my voice :) I love to sing. I try to sing in everything I do. Actually, I don't try to sing, I do sing. My hubby mentioned a while back that he can tell when I am not doing as well as I don't sing when I am hurting or ill. I still enjoy hearing the music, but I just don't have it in me to let it express itself. But, that doesn't happen often, because I love to sing and dance. I used to sing in our church choir, on our praise team and I also did solo specials. My dogs get to hear my solos quite often and they love it. Their tales wag, and they come over to where I am at and just rub against me showing their return of affection. Singing in the mornings is my most favorite time to sing, then I can join in with the birds and whatever. A natures chorus at sunrise if you will. So if you stop by our house to visit, you probably won't have to knock on the door to find me. Just stand still and listen. I'll be in one of my gardens, working a way and singing my heart out :)

Blessings!

25 days of Thankfulness

2011-11-26T21:59:00.000-05:00

Good Evening everyone!
Well, I know I am writing this a little late, but I have been so busy around here it's been silly. My girlfriend is having surgery today and I offered to puppysit one of her dogs for her for several days. Although I frequently sit dogs for other people, this one is what you might call a handful, as he is 1 1/2 years old, and my friend has neglected to train this pooch at all :) So we are in major training sessions now lol. That on top of my cleaning, organizing and rearranging and we are enjoy life. Go ahead and laugh. That is what I am thankful for today. Laughter, the ability to laugh, to live and laugh at life and just to smile. There are so many I know that just grump their way through life, not enjoying a minute of the time they have been given here on earth. On of my friends is that way, over all she seems to be happy, but when I reflect on our conversations, there are very few things she talks about that doesn't involve complaining. On the other hand, I love to laugh, I love to smile. Give me a happy romantic comedy movie any day. I will laugh out loud, sometimes I think it embarrasses my hubby that I laugh, but other times I know it makes him smile. Have you ever tried driving to work and smiling a BIG smile at everyone you see. You will watch literally tens of faces transform into a smile. Smiles are contagious, laughter is too. Sometimes people don't know what to do when they see you smile, but they do smile back, but you can see their minds just a whirring trying to figure out what you are smiling at. But it's my secret, and it makes me smile even more! My secret? I have someone who loves me unconditionally. I know I will never be alone, and He would never want me to be sad. He provides everything I absolutely need, and never lets me down. Everything He does he does for my good. That includes letting me make a few mistakes throughout my life -- OK, maybe more than a few lol. But I know that he stayed by my side, even when I thought he was no where alone. Just over 23 years ago years ago I rededicated my life to Him after a long detour of my own. When I did that, he welcomed me back home with open arms. Just like that story - The Prodigal ~~daughter~~ Son. A while after that He arranged my meeting my now hubby, who is also a Christian, and the rest of the story is History. I don't tend to keep my secret very closely guarded. In fact I am willing to tell anyone who will listen. Anyone can be happy all the time, or at least most of it. Give your life to the most caring being you'll ever know. He has many names, Father, God, King, and many many more. He wrote a really awesome book too, if you enjoy reading and the stories in this book are phenomenal! He has one true son as well, and many adopted. I/we are some of His adopted. I love God, my Father. I want to please Him in every thing I do. I want to make Him happy, and the only way I know to do that most continuously is to be happy and spread the happiness. That is my secret. Love God, Love yourself, Love your neighbor and you will smile most of your moments here on earth. I hope and pray that your days are filled with laughter, that your sad days can look through and find His comfort and the happiness that can be shared as long as you share with Him. Smile and enjoy the Laughter!

Blessings!

Thanksgiving Day a special day of Thankfulness

2011-11-26T21:26:00.000-05:00

Today is Thanksgiving and I just want to wish you, my followers/readers a very blessed Thanksgiving. I am very thankful for you and the time you take out of your day to read my blog, and check out my cards or other art work. I know of late I have been lax on getting cards out, it is for a good reason, I have been rearranging and finishing my organizing of my scrapping area. I do have several images I have been coloring, so hopefully soon you will get to see what you usually come here for. But until then, Thank you so very much for your blogship. Every one of your comments makes my day and puts a special smile on my face. Thank you so very much for your kindness. Happy Thanksgiving to each and every one of you and your families. May God bless you all with His greatest gift for each and every member of your household -- salvation and a promise of eternity for those who love and believe on him.

Blessings!

23 Days of Thankfulness

2011-11-23T21:22:00.001-05:00

God has blessed me with many talents, art is one of them, but one of the others is my ability to cook. Some people say the closest thing to cooking they can do is burn water, fortunately for me I don't have that problem. I was born and raised in the country. My parents were not well off, so my mother did what ever needed to be done to provide food when there wasn't any money. That meant my mom canned, froze and dried everything in the garden. Nothing was wasted. But preserving food is a labor intensive job, so having a daughter, my mother regularly put me to work. Consequently once I became an adult, I took on many of my mother's habits. She required me to start cooking around the house by the time I was 10. Now, I will tell you I am not as young as most of you. When I was a kid, there wasn't such a thing as overprotecting your child to the point where they did nothing. Child safe everything didn't exist, therefore, I grew up learning everything I was willing to put my mind to. To this day, on a regular basis my hubby says I should start a restaurant. I can watch something on TV and emulate it on the table without missing a beat. Read a recipe, and know how to manipulate it to fit our tastes and it be out of this world in flavor. I love food, I love to eat, and I love to cook. I have been very blessed to have been given parents who felt that cooking and the knowledge of how to do it from garden to table was one of the most important things they could teach me. Thank you God, for the blessings and talents you have given me. I pray that I use them to your glory and honor. And tomorrow, as we celebrate a day of Thanksgiving for many things, don't forget to give thanks for those who prepared the food as well as those who taught them how to prepare it. Be thankful for ALL the wonderful blessings you have been given. Just look around, there are more blessings around you than you can count, things you can see, do, feel, smell, touch, and the list goes on and on. Enjoy your Turkey tomorrow, or what ever you enjoy celebrating life eating, and don't forget to give thanks.

Blessings!

22 days of being Thankful

2011-11-22T15:17:00.000-05:00

I am thankful for Water. I love the stuff! To drink, to play in, to clean up in, for almost everything! Not to mention we are 98% water :) But my favorite aspect of water comes in certain forms. I love to sleep with my windows open and hear water outside. When I lived in Florida I could hear the waves lapping quietly up on the shores at night, and during the day, I could watch it sparkle in the sun and see the dolphins or manatee rolling in the backwaters. Take the boat out on the water and you can enjoy the ride and the view. It wasn't anything to see a sea turtle paddling along way out in the middle of nowhere. Very Cool. I have also had the wonderful privilege of living on a river and I could hear the water tumbling over the rocks. It is such a soothing and serene sound, it puts me to sleep in just moments. You can listen to the frogs croaking and making territory challenges at night, or the bullfrog making his loud Harrumph! Every once and a while you can hear a fish jump and re-enter into the water. During the day you can dip your toes into the cool waters and they flow by, or perhaps your feet. On really hot days, just going for a dip in the cool, clear water is a true blessing. I do drink a lot of water. Although some say water has no taste, it is only because they don't drink much of it. When I visit my brother's they have city water and it is so strong with chemicals it nearly takes my breath. Up near where my parents live there are sulfur springs everywhere and the water there has a slightly sulfur taste. You can easily taste the iron in hard water. When we go out to eat, I prefer my water to have a little lemon in it, it seems to mask most of the city water tastes. I use water for lots of things, like wetting paper so I can crumple it and give it dimension or texture in a project. I use it to clean my paint brushes, I usually have a cup of tea (made with water) or just a regular glass of water nearby so that I can grab a sip whenever I get thirsty. Yep, I am very thankful for water. It tastes good, looks good and feels good, Best of all, it's good for you :) Thanks for stopping and have a great evening!

Blessings,

21 days of being Thankful

2011-11-22T14:47:00.001-05:00

There are so many things we take for granted. One of those things is having a roof over our heads. When I go outside to run errands and it is raining outside, I am always happy to reach the indoors where I can dry off and get warm again. When the wind blows, it is nice to come in the house and relax from being blown around. We each have our own house, with our own stuff, and in the areas we like to live in. There are still 3rd world countries where people still live in huts that have thatch roofs, and they have a tendency to leak on occasion. But we don't even have to go to third world country to find people without roofs. All we need to do is look in our downtown cities and look under the bridges and in some woods to find those less fortunate than us without a roof over their heads. In the really big cities you find they each have their own box to live in to try to keep the rain out. Now that in itself is some food for thought.
Even though I like rain, I don't think I would be quite as happy if it was raining in my house. Sleeping in a wet bed just doesn't get me all excited. And working with constantly wet paper would get to be a pretty mucky job after a while. So I am very thankful that I have been provided for in such a way that I have a roof over my head (and my crafting paper stays dry too {c: )

20 Days of Being Thankful

2011-11-21T21:04:00.000-05:00

They say Music soothes the savage beast. I don't know about the savage ones, but I do know that I love music and so do my fur-kids. My favorite music is light jazz, but I enjoy many other types. It is probably easier for me to list the types that I don't care for rather than the ones I do. I prefer music of nature and instruments to vocals. I like to get lost in my music while I work or study, it seems to free my mind and my movements. Sometimes I just like to move to the music and the fur-kids are sure that they need to move with me. Imagine 3 or 4 Great Danes trying to move to the flow of music with a human in the midst, I see you smiling! Music goes back to the beginning of time, my favorite book of music is the book of Psalms, here we have the words, but not the actual instruments, oft times I try to listen to what my heart tells me the sounds were then. So many songs, so many different ways to hear. Try to listen to what the artist is trying to tell your heart, feel with your whole body, open your mind and soul, reach deep inside yourself and just enjoy any type of music for the pure enjoyment of it all. I am Thankful for the gift of music given to us through others.

Love To Stamp Thanksgiving

2011-11-20T18:41:00.004-05:00

Good Day everyone!
Well, I finished this card this past Friday, but haven't had enough time to really spend loading it up, but I do want to get it up before it is too late :) Especially since this is Thanksgiving week, and this is a Thanksgiving card. This year we are not going to be able to get up north to visit our parents so I made each a card. This is the card I will be sending to my Mom and dad for Thanksgiving:

I won this rubber image and four others in a blog hop for Love to Stamp in late October. They are called Little Darlings, and most of them are :) I chose this little girl because she will remind my mom of us kids playing in the leaf piles she would rake up in the fall. You couldn't keep us out of those leaves for anything. We would use them to rake out walls for our pretend "houses", pile them up to jump in them, and then just have all out leaf throwing wars. We were always outside playing, there were no such things as computers, and TV was very limited so that our minds wouldn't get completely polluted from watching that "schmut". Oh, if our grands could see what is on TV now! But, I digress. Every year we would carve out pumpkins that we picked from out of the fields. So of course, the card had to have pumpkins on it too. The ribbon is Earth Elements and it just sort of set the tone for the colors I was looking for. DP is PTI's Autumn and cs is Bazzil.

I really like the center step card because you can add so much texture, and I love texture :) I colored the image with copics, but the pumpkins and Sentiment were colored with my Prismas. The grassy area below the leaf thrower was colored with Shimmerz mossy green paint with lots of mica glimmer in it. Distress Inks (Peeled Paint and Tea Dye) were used on the edges of all cs and DP's. SB Long Classic Ovals/scalloped were used for die cutting the image out. Pumpkins and maple leaf on inside are old Cuttlebug cut/emboss. And yes, I did do the inside as well:

The inside sentiment was stamped and then embossed with Clear Stampin Up EP. EP were layered up on the edges of the inside, I just love the look it gives in real life. It's quite sparkly as well as I used Shimmerz Enamalz Sparkilicious EP. That's it for this card, no extra bling, just coloring, one of my favorite pass times :) Hope you have had a great weekend!

Blessings,

This card will be entered into the following challenges:
Card Makin Mamas: Thanksgiving or Thank you, Joyful Stamper: What inspires you, Craft Your Passion Challenges: Photo Inspiration (leaves), Crafts and Me Challenges: Simples, Creative Craft Challenges: Minimalistic, FabNFunky Challenges: It's cold outside, Our Creative Corner Challenges: Photo Inspiration (chandelier), Papercraft Journey: Embossing, Patti's Creations Design Challenge: Birthday or Thanksgiving and Digital or Stamped image, Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenge: Giving Thanks, Pile It On: Anything with a "P" (Pumpkins!), Raise the Bar challenge: Anything with some type of food (Pumpkin!), Stamp, Scrap and Doodle Saturdays: Embossing,

Day of Thankfulness #19

2011-11-19T20:32:00.001-05:00

Today, as most days of my life for the past 6 years, I am grateful for modern medicine and the doctors who pioneer, develop and practice medicine. I know that encompasses a lot of people, but I am very thankful that these people are out there. Without them, I wouldn't be here anymore and when many of you look at your life and health, you would be in the same boat I am. Those of us who have survived any type of cancer, probably wouldn't have survived without modern medicine and doctors. The same goes for victims of accidents of any type that are catastrophic to any degree. My husband had a quintuple by-pass two years ago. When he went in for experiencing a tight chest, they wouldn't let him leave because they said he wouldn't make it back if anything started happening. Needless to say, he wouldn't be here if it wasn't for modern medicine. We live to ripe old ages only because of the major developments of medicine and the physicians who practice. Babies are living that without the doctors, medicines and instruments, wouldn't. I am sure that I need not say more, you get the idea. Today, I say Thank you to all those in the Medical world.

Blessings,

Day 18 of being Thankful!

2011-11-19T20:09:00.000-05:00

Today, I must admit I am thankful for the Internet. It has many great points, a way to meet new friends, a way to keep up with the old. A much easier way to do term or thesis papers, or research papers. A tool for being inspired, and a chance to inspire. It's a great place to share concepts, ideas, challenges and seek answers, solutions and resolve dilemmas. There are also many negatives, but I think if you can properly manage your time spent in cyber-space, the benefits far outweigh the negatives. Thanks for joining me on this wonderful journey of Thankfulness.

Blessings!

Grateful day #17

2011-11-18T09:57:00.000-05:00

As I was to and walking from the mailbox yesterday, after the rain had subsided, I noticed so many smells. The smell of the rotting leaves was more pronounced, the wet-worm smell was quite prevalent, and when I walked into the house, I could smell the warm wax pot I have going everyday. When I proceeded to make and apple pie, needless to say the smells were wonderful and I thought, "I am so happy I can smell!" And I am. Without smell there is little that we would taste. When a person has certain medical treatments, they lose their sense of smell, nothing smells good, therefore they loose their appetite. I am Gratefull that I can smell -- it means there is little wrong with me right now - medically anyways lol. And it helps me appreciate many of the other gifts God has given me. Inhale, think about what you can smell. Enjoy your day!

Blessings!

A CAS card, I think ;)

2011-11-18T09:49:00.000-05:00

This next card is another one of my attempts at a CAS card. I just can't seem to get past the card seeming empty without just a little bling, but there are no layers, no flowers, no extra stamping, just a basic white card with some ink, some rhinestones and a butterfly (from PizzazzAplenty), some Twine, a button, scalloped edge die and sentiment (PTI), Embossing Powders (Stampin Up) and a doily stamp (Hero Arts S5319).

Cardstock is Bazzil. Whew! I think I have everything listed now. I must admit, although there isn't what I would call layer's on this card, if you look at the "belly band" you might challenge me on this.

But when the layered area is only 1/2" wide, I don't think that counts. I have seen a lot of "CAS" cards out there that just didn't fit what I thought was CAS, so, I went and looked up what CAS actually meant and the definition that I found was: a card with more open white than any other color, typically with no layers, and generally with only one or two other colors". Well, this one fits the description and I guess it isn't too bad looking. I'll send it off as a Birthday card to someone who is homebound and I am sure they will like it. Hope you enjoy :)

Blessings,

Day 16 of Gratefulness

2011-11-18T09:31:00.000-05:00

Well, I am so surprised that I posted my card and forgot my day of Gratefulness. I had thought of it, just don't know why it didn't get written down here. I am so very thankful for Transportation! Sound strange? Think about it, it really wasn't that long ago when the only transportation was walking (OK, if we still walked, not quite so many would have the weight problem I do LOL). With the passage of time and man's innovation to make things go faster, we now have automobiles to get us from here to there usually in less than a day! And if you include flying, you can get almost anywhere in 24 hours. Sure beats the horse and buggy. But I must admit, the horses breath smelled a lot better than car exhaust does! And the waste by products are a lot more useful in my garden :) Thank you Mr. Ford and your competitors for being diligent in your dreams and making our lives easier.

May the Bounty of the Season

2011-11-16T13:39:00.002-05:00

Well, I am guilty of getting behind in posting my cards. Mostly because my computer runs so very slow, anything that involves pictures means the molasses in the cupboard has found it's way into my motherboard :(
Since I don't think we will be able to go to our families who live out of state for Thanksgiving this year, I am working on making cards to send. There are several cards with folds that I haven't had the opportunity to try, so I decided to roll the two together. My first card is one of those cards where the top and bottom rails fold one way leaving the middle to be part of the regular card, but it bends and folds too. Not sure of the name of this one, but you'll recognize it:

See, I knew you would recognize it. I enjoyed playing with this card, lots of little cuts and fittings, but that leaves for lots of opportunities to do something different. The papers are from PaperTrey Ink. The stamps are old Hero Arts (and I mean old!), but they were exactly what this card needed, so they got to get inky instead of something new :), these sentiments were embossed with VersaMark and StampinUp Clear EP.

I have used SB labels 4 and CheeryLynn dies fern frond and Sweet William (Calyx for fluffy flower). Edges were inked with Distress Inks, Tea Die and Shabby Shutters. Pin and rhinestones are from PizzazAplenty, small roses are from Wild Orchids. Ribbon so pretty and sparkly came from LOC, it was a piece that they wrapped my shipment in. You can see the ribbon better in this picture in the top corners:

The leaf in this picture is one I cut out by hand, folded in half and ran through my corrigator. Rhinestone flourish was an old one from Kaiser. I love routing around through my supplies and finding bits and pieces that I can put together and make everything come out looking somewhat unified ;) Well, onto my next project! Thanks for stopping, have a wonderfully blessed day!

Blessings,

This card will be entered into the following challenges:
CherryLynn Designs: Autumn, Celebrate the Occassion: Thanksgiving - must use a die, Craft Your days Away Challenges: Embellishment Bingo (Gems, Flowers, Pin), Crafty Creations Challenges: Recycle Recycle, Recycle!, Do You Stack Up Challenge: Inspired by Song (Give Thanks with a Greatful Heart), Kaboodle Doodles Challenges: Thanksgiving, PaperCrafting Journey: Embossing, Pattie's Creations Design Challenge: Birthday or Thanksgiving, Penny's Paper-Crafty Challenges: Give Thanks, Saturday Challenge: Dots or Stripes, Paper Players: Red, Artichoke and River Rock

15 Days of Thankfulness

2011-11-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

Good Morning everyone!

Today is a beautiful day. Some of you would see it as a terrible day because it is dark, dreery and rainy out. But I look out and see many things. One of which is the rain washing away the dirt that gathered during the summer on the leaves and trees. It reminds me of life and Forgiveness. I am so thankful for Forgiveness. God has gracefully forgiven me for all my past wrongs, and now it as I live my life, I am required to forgive others. Sometimes it is easy, others it is so very hard. It was very hard to forgive the young person who took my life as I knew it away. At first I thought it was easy, but as more obsticles came up, hate would try to sneak in. I have forgiven him though. I have no right to hate. God could have chosen to turn away from me, but so very fortunately He didn't. It has become fairly easy to forgive and forget. Not necessarily completely, because I would prefer not to let you hurt me in the same way again, but I don't hold grudges. I am thankful for Forgiveness, and I try to be graceful in giving it. And I pray that those I've hurt or offended, either knowingly or un, will forgive me as well. What a wonderfully blessed thing -- Forgiveness :)

Blessings and Love,

Day 12 of being Thankful :)

2011-11-14T20:22:00.000-05:00

Today I am at a Specialty Dog Show, and yes, I am going to say it, I am thankful for my dogs. Dogs are some of the most wonderous gifts God gave man. They are a perfect example of Unconditional Love. They are almost perfect in forgiveness. I have six Great Danes and a Cocker Spaniel. Each one is sweet in it's own way. There are a few who are closer in my heart than others, but it would be hard to replace any of them. When I am gone to a show like this, they miss me, and they let me know by refusing to eat for my hubby while he takes care of them. I know that they are spoiled, and that is okay, because they spoil me with all the love they have to give. They help me around the yard, if I fall down, one or a couple comes over to help me up, they know when I need help and are willing to pitch in whenever they can, and they are not trained professionally to be service dogs. I do have one that I own that is a show dog, and one that I co-own that is a show dog too. Shows are fun, We tend to win at the beginning, but haven't managed to win many big shows yet, but all things in good time. But the long and short of it is, I love my dogs and I know that they love me too, and sometimes they are the best listeners, the best friends. I hope you have a special pet of some sort that you can speak your heart to, that can always be there for you, that can show you unconditional love, so that we might learn to do the same. Thanks for stopping!

Blessings!

Day 11 - Most thankful for Veterans and Service people

2011-11-11T08:54:00.000-05:00

Today is Veterans Day. I am so grateful to veteran's and servicepersons for the freedom I enjoy today and everyday of my life. My freedom to write uncensored in my blog, my freedom to practice the religion of my choice, and my freedom to love my God. Our priveldges are countless if you think about it, and if you don't just take a quick look at a communistic country like Cuba, few live the way they want or like. Many's destiny is chosen by their government. Yes I am very Very grateful for our Servicepersons and Veteran's throughout this country, but in specific, my nephew who currently serves in the US Marine Corp., and my brother who served in the US Navy. My hat is off to you, I thank God for you both and all the rest of you daily. I will stand up for your rights, fight for what you deserve. I love you all, Thank you all for loving us and the US!

Blessings,

Day 10 of Being Thankful

2011-11-11T08:48:00.000-05:00

I must say that today I am very thankful for Flowers. If you read my bio, you know that I am a Horticulturist by degree. I love plants. Every plant in my yard (and I have literally hundreds) is planted with a post next to it with the latin name and the common name. I have over 300 daylilies alone, nearly a hundred hostas, trees of all different types, shapes, flowering abilities, and bark textures. Many of these plants inspire me in my card creating journey. Some of the most beautiful flowers are the ones that seem to be understated in the botanical world. Yesterday I posted a Chocolate and lattee based card, I have a Daylily called "Milk Chocolate" and the colors in it are reflected in the card. On my worst day, hand me a flower and you'll instantly watch my face light up. My hope for heaven is that God will let me work in His beautiful garden, to me, it would be the most wonderful labor of love that there is, in fact, it wouldn't be labor at all ;)

Blessings,

Thank you for Music Director

2011-11-10T12:52:00.002-05:00

Good Afternoon Everyone, It looks beautiful outside, but my body knows that it is only in looks. When I step out the door, the wind is sharp and the temperature is cold. That makes for a day that I would rather be inside than out. So Today is Laundry day for me and while I do laundry, I usually do card making :) It is a mix of things I must with things I want, not a bad mix if I do say so myself :)

Today I have for you a card that I have made for my Music Minister/Director. For years I have been on both the praise team and choir. I have really enjoyed sharing my love of God through music every chance I get to anyone who would listen. But this spring I was diagnosed with COPD (no, I am not a smoker and never have been, this is due to second hand smoke from when I was a child.) Unless I take all my meds everyday, I can't catch my breath, so obviously singing is no longer in my life, except for at home where no one but me notices that I have to takes short stops to breathe while I sing. But, I will miss my music minister a lot. He not only honed us to as close as perfection vocally as he could, he also cared for our spiritual grouth. He directed us in Bible studies, led us in prayer and petitions, encouraged us to fast, and only desired the best for each and every one of us. If you remember, I started a thank-you card that turned into a Birthday card for my brother. This is who my card was supposed to be for. I have really wrestled with making Dale a card that fully encompassed who he was, what he did, and how he and I felt. Here is the card:

To keep the card "manly" I needed to have some "manly" components, so my thoughts leaned toward cardboard. So I split a piece of card board and then filled the ribs in slightly with light scuplting paste. It helped give depth and character. I think Dale had a piano with him in the womb, so this cherub conducting a choir of birds to sing praises was more than appropriate for him. I stamped first in VersaMark and used Stampin Up's Clear EP to set. Then I took some DI (Frayed Burlap) and lightly went over the image to darken the paper around. Next I streaked on some Malted Milk Acrylic Paint by Jenni Bowlin (Ranger), I let it dry for a bit and then wiped off what ever wasn't dry. Then to give just a bit of color I painted ever so lightly some Distress crackle paint in Peeled paint. Again, I let it set for a couple minutes, then wiped it off. Finally I grabbed the frayed burlap DI and went over the image again lightly and wiped off again. Finally I took the SB Label 10 and die cut the image and then thin cut a mat of muted green. Rhinestones are from PizzazzAplenty.

The woodgrained ribbon was just a small piece left in my stash, so don't remember where that came from. The full card mat was embossed with PC's Kassies Brocade which I inked up with the Frayed Burlap first. The Thank you banner is from Layers of Color, the die is SB. The wording is embossed in black to be sure that it would stand out with all these deeper browns. I think that is about it. Card is in the mail and he should be getting it today :) Thanks for looking!

Blessings!

Challenges this card will be entered into are:
Our Creative Corner: manly, Craft Your Passion: Browns, Crafty Creations Challenges: Kraft, Cream & one other, Do You Stack up? : Inspired by song (I will sing Praise!), Dream Valley Challenges: Anything Goes, Kaboodle Doodles Challenge: Fall colors (browns) Lollipop Crafts: Thanksgiving or fall colors, Stampin Sisters in Christ: Use an old stamp (Magenta 2001)

Day 9 of being Thankful

2011-11-09T14:54:00.000-05:00

You know, this sounds kind of strange and selfish, but I am very thankful for Food! lol, I know, the answer is yes, I do enjoy eating. I enjoy the taste and layers of flavors. I usually have a garden every year and at the end of the year I put the garden "overages" up in the form of canning, freezing, drying or whatever. I do this because I have very sensitive taste buds and I don't like the taste of "tin" or aluminum in my food. I like it to be fresh. When I can, I have control of what is going into my body, not to much salt, plenty of herbs and other spices and no preservatives. That way when I make something, I can take a basic sauce and layer it up with all the different herbs I want and I can taste each one. It tastes soooo good! Like the Maple Walnut Pumpkin pie I made last night. It is the first recipe I have made that you don't sweeten the pumpkin, but instead make a streusel topping that starts out on top, but then ends up in the center. The streusel topping only has 1/4 c sugar, and that is all the sugar in the whole pie! Well, let me tell you, that is one of the best pumpkin pies I have ever eaten! To top it off, hubby normally doesn't like pumpkin pie, but let me tell you he is all over this one! lol. Well, this is all a bit off the subject of food. I talk of pie, but there are many who have only rice and water each day and sometimes not even that. Again, I look at myself and know that God has blessed me to be born and live in a country where most everyone has at least one meal a day. So yes, I am Thankful for food ;) Blessings!

Day 8 of Thankfulness

2011-11-09T08:37:00.000-05:00

Today I give thanks for the ability to walk. I have a pup of mine that is getting ready to go to the show ring this weekend. As we get ready for the show, I have been walking about a mile every day. This doesn't seem like much to you, but for me it is a milestone. At one time they thought I wouldn't walk again on my own two feet. But God has provided generously otherwise. I may not be able to go far, but go I can :) A couple of months ago my Hubby and I went to MI while it was still hot out. We went to the beach and I think it was 90 degrees that day, the sand was so nice and very warm. We walked the beach that day and for the first time since the accident, I was able to walk miles without pain. That is/was a very big deal, not only did I walk that far, but I wasn't sore afterwards and was able to complete my day as normal. Praise God for miracles! Now I can hardly wait for the next nice warm day at the beach walking in the sand. Such a wonderful thought.

Day 7 of being Thankful

2011-11-09T08:30:00.000-05:00

This seventh day I give thanks for my friends. You know there are so many of them. There are those from childhood, from church, my neighbors, and yes, even my dear blogger friends. Friends give love and encouraging words when you need them most. Many have delivered meals to our house during long recuperation times after my accident and the many subsequent surgeries. You gave me rides when I wasn't allowed to drive because of the condition of my legs and feet. I pray that I am there for each of you as you go through your ups and downs and trying times of life as much as you have been for me. I love you, each and everyone of you.

The sixth day of Thankfulness

2011-11-06T22:19:00.000-05:00

Today is Sunday. It is beautiful outside, blue skies, crisp warm fall wind. You can smell the leaves decaying. I had the pleasure today of going to church and singing hymns of praise, celebrating God's mercy and Grace. And while I was sitting in the pew this morning before service started, I knew what I was thankful for today -- I am a chosen child of God. Nothing could be better. He chose me to love me, to hear my adoration for Him and all that He does for me. He chose me in all my ugly sinfulness and sent His son to die on a cross to pay my debt, so that I could be with Him when that time comes. He can chose you too. All you have to do is tell Him you are sorry for your sins, that you know and believe that Christ was sent to die and be risen again to sit at the right hand of God the Father, then tell Him you know that Christ is your Saviour and Redeemer. He IS our Blessed Redeemer, our comforter. He is with us at all times, through times of no money and plenty of money, through times of loneliness and times filled with friendship. When you accept Christ as your one and ONLY Saviour, you join a family called the body of Christ. He is the head of this body, and we are His parts. He takes care of us as He cares for the lilies of the field. He is wonderful and if you want to get to know Him even more, please, read His story. A book of love, hate, tragedy, Grace, and more love. The story covers journeys, building, destroying, running, walking, crying, weeping, laughing and more loving. I pray that you too join our family, Chose Christ and you chose everlasting life. Yes, I am Extremely Thankful for being Chosen!

Blessings,

Thankfulness, Day 5

2011-11-06T00:09:00.000-04:00

Today as I was working out in my garden, I realized that I often forget how lucky I am to be able to see all the beautiful creations around me. I can see colors, designs, still life, moving life, everything! Not everyone has that ability, I am blessed. I am thankful for my sight or I could not write this blog, and I would not be able to see if I spelled a word incorrectly. We depend on our eyes so much, try and go a day without seeing. Your shins will be sore in an hour. Yes, indeed I am very Thankful for my eyes and sight <3

Day 4 of Thankfulness

2011-11-04T10:58:00.000-04:00

Today I want to express my thankfulness for family. I have three brothers, one of whom has a birthday in a couple of days, my mom and dad and my two sons with their families, my husbands: father, sons, brothers and sisters and all of everyones kids and grandkids. Our family is very extended as we are blended on both sides. We have 12, almost 13, grandchildren and they are all the pride and joy of our life. None of our family lives near us anymore so we don't get to see them very often but when we do, it is always a joyous occasion. Of our six sons only two are Christians, so we pray earnestly for our other sons and their families. With all of our brothers and sisters with their families, our prayer lists are very long, but we love each and every moment that we are honored to pray for them in their daily walk in life. We have one granddaughter who is very special to us as for the most part we had custody of her and raised her for the first 12 years of her life. Family is such a wonderful gift, and there are so many different types of family, but today I talk of Marital and blood family. Those who care for you and love you like no other. My MIL passed about 6 years ago, but until then, she was a wonderfully Godly woman who raised my husband and his siblings with God's help. A wonderful woman, a wonderful man who produced God fearing wonderful children. Yes, I am very Thankful for my blood and Marital family.

A Thank you turned Birthday

2011-11-03T23:32:00.008-04:00

I have a Thank you card that I need to make for our Music Minister. I have started making a card with the intention of giving it to him a couple of times now. Today I took the MOJO sketch, grabbed out some different papers and started cutting and stamping away. But about 3/4 of the way through, I noticed that the card was no longer going in the direction I had intended but had instead taken on a life of it's own. As I continued to work the card I picked up a Happy Birthday stamp and used it. Now I was committed and as I thought about it I realized that it was actually meant to be as one of my brothers birthday is in three days. So I finished off the card and will mail it out tomorrow. Here is the challenge:

Here is my take on the MOJO 213 Sketch:

I normally don't work with blue, and wasn't even sure I would have enough "stuff" to make this turn out right, but the more I pulled out, the more my mind started working and eventually I had enough papers to make this work. I love to see tears in papers with another paper with a different pattern peaking through. The main DP has light gray swirly waves on it, but it was just begging for more so I added some stamped swirls in a darker color. I cut a doily out in white, but felt is was too white, so I sprayed some Tattered Angels Walnut gold and Blue Frost on it, and then I was much happier. Next I grabbed some SB's Label 2, and cut out a mat and inlay. I didn't want to put a flower on the card or anything like that because I knew this was going to be for a man, so instead I grabbed my Blueberry Twine and went to wrapping the diecut in layers. When I was finished I didn't like the "white" on the twine, so I sprayed that whole piece with the walnut gold TA and again was much happier. Then I topped that with a blue stick pin, not to fancy, but something more "masculine" like. All components for the stick pin came from PizzazAplenty.

Next I started working on the edges, used some verve flourish stamps first, then distressed. Once I had that finished I inked up the edges with DI Stormy sky. The raw edges of paper were touched lightly with the Stormy sky, but some Old Paper was added to it to give it a more grunge look. Finally I pulled out labels 10 to make the spot for the sentiment. I made the layers and even cut out a piece of transparency to put on top. But the sentiment I wanted to put on this didn't fit, so as I looked around I saw Happy Birthday and my hand just picked it up, inked it in Stormy Sky and stamped it, I distressed and inked the edges, lined up the clear over the top and used two brads to hold the transparency down. It looked like it still needed more, so I started tapping versa mark on the edges and adding embossing powder, light in some spots, heavier in others.

All the while leaving the peaky paper alone except to spray some TA on it. Then I just put everything together and started working on the inside.

I again treated the back paper just like the front paper, let a piece of "wrought iron" fall askew and layered a lighter DP on top that was inked on the edges as well. The verse is Verve. I will be entering this in some challenges that will be listed below tomorrow morning. I wanted to get this up tonight yet so I don't fall to far behind. Hope you had/have a great day.

Blessings!

This card has been entered into the following challenges:
Mojo Monday Sketch: Sketch 213, Moving Along with the Times:Card for male, Crafts and Me :Something Blue, Scrap, Stamp and Doodle :Monochromatic, Dream Valley Challenges: Anything Goes, Lollipop Crafts: Anything Goes, Pollycraft Challenges: Anything Goes, Make it Monday: Anything Goes, Paper Playtime: Anything Goes

Day three of being Thankful

2011-11-03T22:52:00.001-04:00

Today is really easy to give Thanks. Today I called my mom. She is my best friend. She lives about 10 hours north of me so we don't get to see each other very often and that really hurts sometimes. We absolutely enjoy spending any time together that we can. We can almost finish each other's sentences, we enjoy the same crafts/hobbies, and we both love nature and the gifts God has given us. My mom is my role model, she was a SAHM while us kids grew up which was pretty normal in those days and is becoming so again. My mother always wore dresses (when she was younger -- not any more lol) even when she shoveled snow. She has a great sense of humor, she loves to laugh. In those ways we are very much alike. Simple things make both of us happy. I wish I had discovered what a wonderful mother I had when I was much younger. Now that I look back, I see that I could have made her alot happier in a lot of simple ways. So I take the opportunity as much as I can now. God has blessed me with a Proverbs 31:28 mother, beautiful inside and out. She taught me all she knew about God when I was a child, and she rejoices that I too am a Christian.

God is so very good, and He has blessed me so very much. Thank you Father.
Blessings,

The Best Thing to Hold On to is

2011-11-02T22:55:00.000-04:00

We have a very elderly couple in our church who are celebrating their anniversary this month. They have been together since they were in their teens and now they are in their late 70's and early 80's. Wow! I have so much respect for any couple who sticks it out through thick and thin, through good times and bad. Through times when you are not sure if you love each other and other times when you know there has been no other one you could have loved. Wow! I have a 8" X 8" Wedding paper pad from Memories and I had decided that I wanted to make their card from these papers. And Verv's layout for this week was perfect for these papers. So this is what I made:

The die cuts are SB Labels 10, Ovals, Classic Circles and Classic Scalloped circles. The Sentiment in the circle is from Just Rite Stampers, the sentiment on the oval vellum over the branched paper on labels 10 is from an Anna Griffith stencil I purchased years ago. The stencil had three elements to it, the sentiment, the border that you see in black on the upper third, and in white on the lower third, and fnally the light silvery leaf on the vellum around the sentiment. The rhinestone/black pearl flourish is from Kaiser. The ribbon is satin white from Michael's. The roses are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The Cameo, most elements of the stick pin and the rhinestones in the upper left corner are from PizzazzAplenty. Another look at the card from a different angle.

I know that this type of bow is supposed to be easy to do, guess I need to get on YouTube and look it up, because it gave me a dickens of a time. But it's overall look with the cameo and stick pin is wonderful. The silvery beads on the stick pin are really bright in real life, neither picture does them any justice. I took a "closer" picture, but it turned out to blurry. So this one will have to do for now. Thanks for looking :)
Blessings!

This card will be entered into the following Challenges:
Wags and Whiskers: Black and pearls,

Day two of Being Thankful

2011-11-02T21:02:00.000-04:00

As I sit and reflect on my life and the gifts given to me, the second thing that I am the most Thankful for my dear loving husband. During a time in my life when I had decided that I didn't need a man in my life, God showed me otherwise. He blessed me with a man who was caring, full of passion, had humor and brought with him 4 sons to add to my own 2 sons. Together we managed to raise all six boys to adulthood and they have blessed us with over 11 grandchildren already. Five years ago, I was hit by another driver and the overall prognosis was not good. But with God, my husband and my mother, I am a living testament to love. My husband even to this day constantly worries that I am pushing my body to far. He is always willing to help and I know he loves me more than I sometimes feel I deserve. And I say this not because I know he reads my blog, but because I do truly love him. More and more as we conquer our first 20 years together I can not imagine being with any other. I love you honey <3 and I regularly thank God for you ;)

A month of Gratitude

2011-11-01T22:32:00.000-04:00

I almost forgot something I had decided to do, something that I should do every day of the year and not just during November, but for now it is for November. This month I will daily express a point of gratitude I have for things in my life.

My first thing that I am full of gratitude for is that I am blessed to live in a country that permits and even promotes freedom of religion. I am a Christian. A very devoted Christian. I love my God, I believe He sent His only Son to die for my shameful sins. Then He raised His son from death to sit with Him in heaven and prepare a place for me (and other true believer's) when I die. I believe in the Father, the Son (of whom I believe is my one and only Savior from death and eternity in hell) and the Holy Spirit. And I am very grateful that I live in a portion of the world that allows this without persecution or prosecution. This is one of the most important things in the world, of my life, to me.

2011-11-01T22:09:00.000-04:00

I am not sure why, but lately I don't seem to be getting to the computer until evening/night time. It has been wonderfully beautiful out lately, so I have been spending lots of time out with the dogs and gardens the last couple of days. Mornings have been spent working on cards and having fun while the chill of the morning warmed up.
So while I am waiting for it to warm up out side I decided to try something I have not ever done before. I decided to try to make a single layer card, using nothing but Ink, embossing powder, stamps/stencils, and one punch. This is what I came up with. Not bad, but even better IRL.

I started with a piece of shiny silver cs, not sure who it is from, but I would bet Club Scrap left overs. The first thing I did was stamp and emboss the butterfly and flower corner by Our Daily Bread Designs. Then I took some white ink and a paint brush and painted all the daisy's white. Then I went and got out my magical mica's from Lindy's Stamp Gang, sprayed a little water on my Teflon sheet, cleaned up my brush and went to work.

The micas and silver EP really sparkle here, sure wish you could see it. Next I wanted to fill in the large vast space of the other half of the diagonal. I knew right away I wanted to grab my Layers of Color (LOC) stencils. Starting with Distress Ink, Pumice stone and the Victorian corner stencil, I laid a base with sort of a directional pointing in the direction the butterfly was going. On top of that I laid down the Natural Flourish art stencil and began lightly pouncing a light sponge with white ink. I kept turning the stencil to get the flourish to look very "wispy". As I looked a the card, it said it needed a sentiment that was VERY full of flourish. So I went digging through all my stamps and finally found this Happy Birthday on wood. To make it stand out, I stamped it in black mixed with hologram - sooo sparkly. When I was finished I took a simple Martha Stewart punch and did the edge. The inside is very simple with a bit of the butterflies flow.

Hope you enjoyed this. I doubt there is or will ever be a challenge for this type of card, but it was ton of fun to do, and like I said IRL it is simply gorgeous. It is definitely hard to believe that it has no layers or raised/touchable bling, Bet this one fits in an envy! lol, hubby will love it ;)

Wishing Two People

2011-10-31T21:53:00.001-04:00

Good Evening everyone!
Well my card today is a Wedding card. We just found out that a young couple of our church have decided to get married and it's in just two weeks (they have been dating for four years). So since I am not one to wait, I jumped right on this one!

Since it is a fall wedding, I wanted to use subtle fall colors. The panels in the forward background were embossed with Spellbinders Flourish Impressibility panel. The larger of the three flowers is a homemade embellishment as well as the leaves and branches. The medium roses are princess roses that I sprayed with Lindy's Fuzzy Navel Peach Stardust spray. The smallest flowers are from Wild Orchid. The lower edge was punched with Martha Stewart. The butterflies are also MS punches. The tag is also SB Fancy Tags, the center sentiment is from JustRite Stampers. I wanted to keep this simple and elegant. The kraft paper cs (Paper Trey Ink) is layered on an eggshell Bazzil cs. The Fancy Tag was cut out of some Club Scrap cs scrap that I had around and helped tie the back paper to the front. Tim Holtz Distress Ink Antique Linen was used to shade the eggshell paper in the raised parts of the embossing. Finally some antique eggshell lace was draped across the upper right hand corner. Before the final embellishments were added everything was sprayed lightly with Heavy Metal Shimmeringz for a glimmery finish.

That's it for tonight, hope you enjoyed your visit. I'll add all the challenges this has been entered into in the morning. Thanks for stopping :)

Blessings.

This card has been entered into the following challenges:
Card Making Mama's: Cards Only, Die Cuts, Craft your Days Away: Autumn Colors, Crafty Creations Challenge: Leaves or Fall Palette, Friends of Speedy: Use Scraps, Joyful Stamper: Anything Goes, The Paper Shelter: Anything Goes, Patties Challenges: Halloween or Fall colors, Creative Craft Challenges: Fancy Edges, Paper Pretties: Use a Sentiment

My Tribute to Breast Cancer Awareness

2011-10-30T22:00:00.004-04:00

We are in the last days of October, a month that has the great designation of Breast Cancer Awareness Month. In other words "Pink" month. This has special meaning to me because I am a survivor. In 2006, October, I had my usual check up, but things were all so usual. By the middle of the next week I was in for a biopsy and a week later was in the hospital for a lumpectomy. I thank God for each opportunity that He gives me to witness about the comfort and Grace of my Heavenly Father. I can't tell you how important it is for each and every woman to have regular check-ups. I did and we caught mine, if we had not caught it, because it was in the lymph nodes, the end could have been much different. Survivors have the special privilege of having required check-ups at least every 6 months, and I make those too. God is good, He has blessed many men and women with the brains and integrity to become doctors. To diagnose, find and remove cancer cells, tumors, etc. Then there are reconstructive surgeons who do their part in making women who have mastectomies feel and look nearly normal again.

So here is my card. My Pink card as a tribute to Breast Cancer Awareness. Pink is in!

As usual I have sprayed this with Tattered Angels so the sparklies make it harder to take a great picture. To give an idea of depth I took a picture from a different angle.

I made both flowers by hand, the lower flower just by taking a 12" strip of paper at 1 1/4" wide, scored every 1/2". The little flowers are just small punches that I have cupped and layered to give a small bud look to. The upper flower was an attempt at making a mum centered whimsical flower. The die cut branches, leaves and swirls are Marianne and MFT. The hat pin I made again with whimsy in mind. The cute jeweled butterfly is the perfect addition to the cute littler flowers. Most of my hard embellies like pearls and the hat pin are from my favorite spot - PizzazzAplenty. Finally there is a verse of encouragement on the inside from ODBD. The bright center in the flower is from Stickles.

The end of October is here, but that doesn't mean taking medical responsibility of your body is over, or it's to late for this year, "I'll do it next". If you haven't had your appointment for this year yet, stop. Take the time to do it now. If you have kids, do it for them, Every child deserves to grow up with their mom ;) Blessings and special love for those of you who are survivors as well <3

Thanks for stopping by!

This card has been entered into the following challenges:
Charisma Cardz: Anything Goes, Craft your Passion: Flowers and Bling, Crafty Ribbon Challenge: Bingo (all but Lace), Our Daily Bread Designs: Pink

Art Log Journal and Gift box

2011-10-28T19:15:00.000-04:00

After weeks of work, lots of redos, much thought and contemplation I am finally finished with my gift for my friends daughter. There are lots of pictures so I will keep my comments short and sweet. If you don't like long blog entries, please feel free to skip this one. In an earlier post I showed you the outside of the journal's storage box. Now I starting at the point of opening the box and peeking inside :)
When you open the box your will see that the top of the inside is decorated with some ribbons and a verse.

Laying inside the box bed is the journal.

The journal was measured to fit precisely inside the box. So although the pages may seem a "strange" size, they are that way for a reason. Now I will pull the journal out of the box so you can see the pages.

The cover page is the inner half of a report folder that has been sanded, sprayed with Tattered Angels mists, adorned with a remixed sizzix die cut, with a title square layered on a gold adorned clear label surrounded with red stickles. The TA makes the front cover very shiney, but I couldn't get a good picture of it.
Opening the first page:

You see the pocket of the folder with some words of encouragement and wisdom (Verve) The inside of the folder is lined with a matching red & white DP and a small black tag folder placed inside. The opposing page has been stamped all over with script of varying sizes, larger at the top, smaller at the bottom. Die cuts from Marianne and MFT were treated with Lindsy's Stamp Sprays, the edges of the page were dipped in Ranger's Gold EP and heat set. The upper right corner was stamped with moth to butterfly progression stamp., each type of moth was embossed in a different EP from Shimmerz. The tag on the left side opens up

This is the tag book opened up. Both sides have room for her to either journal or put a picture of a friend or something special, both sides have words of encouragement. Everything is done in silver EP or Silverfoil papers. The butterflies are silver charms.

The next set of pages are for putting in pictures and/or journaling.

The butterfly on the left page was stamped on vellum twice, embossed with black EP and halogen highlights, then the spaces between were done with Tim Holtz's Alcohol inks.

The next page is just a "sweetheart" page, not sure if she even has one, but she can always put in a couple of good friends or something :)

Both of the tags remove so she can either journal on one side and put a picture on the other or do what ever she wants.

The next page is a three way folding panel with a verse on it. Again for journaling, pictures or whatever. the closure is a flower shaped paper clip.

Turning the page brings us to another journaling page with a pocket and then next to that is a piece of Strathmore Watercolor paper for her to do what ever she would like on.

On the other side of the watercolor paper is a very thin paper that I got from Club Scrap, it's not vellum, but it is pretty close. I lightly stamped Paper Trey Ink's Violet in Distress Ink Spun Pink, again usable for placing a pic with hidden journaling if she wants or she can put the pic on the inside and journal on the front.

On the inside I have "hidden a couple of verses as well.

Room for more journaling, tags remove and both sides are usable. Next page is reminescent of my love for music and also the 23rd Psalm, embossed in Gold.

The next page is my favorite. I did alot of embossing and everything is reflective. Of course there is the peacock feather, the sun in the coner reflects the rays of the feather and the change in colors, the background has different color feathers floating downward, each feather is a color that is in the real feather. The background has been sprayed with Tattered Angels. Then . . .

Behind the eye of the feather, is the eye of Isis. I so enjoyed making this page with it's subtle references back and forth.

This next page is an envelope to keep "special" things in, graced by a vintage swimsuit photo with another verse embossed on it.

The last page of the journal is more journal space and tags. On this last page her name is on the tag in bubble letters, something fun and whimsical. A small painted flower on canvas graces the lower right hand corner. That didn't turn out quite like I liked, but sometimes our greatest critic is ourselves, someone else said it was fine, so I let it be. Last page

is back to being light and lacey with a lacey butterfly, with a lacey flower set on a page from a book that I keep just to use it's pages on something like this. The folder was embossed with a music folder. All pearls, rhinestones, charms etc found throughout this Journal are from PizzazzAplenty. I made one BIG mistake in making this journal. The center page. I created a beautiful center folder that is not in the book because it wouldn't fit in my zutter after I had textured and embellished it. So you take lemons and make lemonade. I placed the folder in the bottom of the bed of the box, she can keep some other type of memorabilia from her first year in college in it.

The exterior has textured gesso gracing the corners like icing. Sprinkled with micro beads and glitter from bedazzels. On the upper left corner is real hydrangea flowers from my large shrubs out in the yard, the same one that my picture is taken by. Here is a quick close up.

Again, it was all spritzed with Tattered Angels to give it even more sparkle. The inside has some beautiful homemade paper.

The paper is beautiful IRL. I tried to take a pic to do it justice, but, it just doesn't show the shine and sparkle.

finally a beautiful woman, embracing life, something I hope and pray this young woman does. Learning all she can now while in college, and later as she continues in life. Be free in the Spirit, comforted by the hands of her Father, and Embrace the life full of Grace that He has provided.

The inside of the bottom of the box, more sparkles and dazzles. This was a lot of fun making, and this weekend she should be home to visit and I'll give her the box and journal then. Hope she enjoys it as much as I enjoyed making it. Hopefully you enjoyed looking :) Have a wonderful evening.

Blessings!

2011-10-25T20:01:00.000-04:00

Yes, I know we are going into fall and not into spring, but I do so love coloring flowers and this tulip was calling my name and the prisma pencils and just a few copics. As you can see, it kind of has a sketchy type of feel to the stamp so I didn't want to do a "perfect" coloring job, but rather something that looked like it was being sketched in color as well. A few of the challenges out there are looking for lots of layers, and if you look at this card, you can see it has lots of layers :)

My hubby supports my card making/playing part of life, but when I send out these cards they are so heavy with all the layers that it doubles and sometimes triples the price to send them as you well know. And so does he! He is always telling me to decrease the number of layers, save the trees, save the planet and save our life retirement. He is just to funny sometimes. I feel quite lucky that he supports me like he has over the last 20+ years of scrapping and card making. Oh well, back to the card. Here is the full picture of this one.

I never seem to have enough encouragement cards and keep making them as quick as I can. This one and several similar took a few minutes to make, but they all look so very nice (IMPO) I almost felt this needed a bow, but couldn't figure out where to put it without making everything look off balance or to cluttered. Hope you enjoyed peeking at todays project. Tomorrow I will be putting up the Art Log Journal that I made for Cori Beth. Until then, have a wonderful evening.

Blessings to all!

Fall Colors

2011-10-23T15:52:00.003-04:00

Good Sunday Afternoon all!

The weather here has been so lovely lately. So nice in fact, that last Sunday my hubby asked if I would like to just drop everything and go take a ride with the top down in the beautiful sunshine and smell the scents of fall. Needless to say, I didn't need a second invitation. The ride was sensational, so exhilarating, so romantic. I love fall, just as I adore spring and summer. For me it is the years last "hurrah!" before winter comes and puts everything to sleep. I am not into Halloween, but Fall colors are some of my fav's. Over the last couple of days while I have been working on my multi-media project I have told you about, I have made a couple of cards of which I will share with you in the next couple of days. They resonate the Fall symphony of colors that we enjoyed last week and this next month as trees are just starting to turn colors. We are a little behind those who are north, but at least we are finally in the last throes of fall. So take a moment and see what I have done, then head outside to find your inspiration.

My original inspiration came from a piece of paper that I had cut out a leaf from for another project and some brocade type lace the had at Hancocks. I usually cut out my items that don't have dies with an Exacto knife, so you can see as I get closer that there are a few small overcuts.

I started the card base with some fallish print cs from Club Scrap, that was layered with some black cs (PTI) that I had brushed and swirled., The next layer is the piece with the leaf cutout. While I was busy painting the gold on the black cs, I decided to do some small stamping on the burgundy cs piece that the leaf had been cut our of. Then I punched the sides with a MS punch and adhered the brocade. It looked to plain, so I decided that a flower with the fall mum colors would be good. So I took some pages from a book I purchased specially for the printed pages, inked them up randomly and then cut them out with the Spellbinder's Peony die.

I sprayed some Tattered Angles on the paper and also some water so that I could lightly crumple the paper to give it some texture. I put it all together with a sparkly brad that I picked up years ago from Oriental Trading Co. The stem is from Marianne. Also on a plain green Bazill cs that had been sprayed lightly with Tattered Angles. The final touch was adding 3 clear Dew Drops to the top left corner to balance everything out.

Now I am off to work on my other project, of which I am almost finished, I think :) Have a wonderful Blessed day and I'll be chatting with you again soon! Thanks for looking!

Blessings,

This card has been entered in the following Challenges:
Top Tip Tuesday -- Layers upon Layers
Totally Paper Crafts -- Layers
Colour Create Challenge -- Burgandy, Black, Gold & Cream

A Gift for a dear person

2011-10-19T12:36:00.000-04:00

Several years ago I was in a fairly bad car wreck. I lost the use of my feet and legs for nearly a year and still don't have full use of my right foot anymore. There were some really dark times during this period. I am a horticulturist, I love the outdoors, I love animals. Now I was basically housebound due to the fact that wheel chairs don't really go through the grass very well, and traversing 6 + acres on your hands and knees just isn't very realistic. I have a friend who's daughter came over several times. As a family they brought over meals for us several times to help alleviate the pressures and demands on my husband as he had not only my regular duties to take care of on top of his already huge list, but he had to take care of me as well. Cori Beth came with her mom bearing gifts of culinary delight for me each time she came. I cherished those gifts greatly at that time. Now Cori Beth has gone off to college, she is quite a ways from home and her family life was always close, so distance does make this new journey in her life just a little harder. So I have been making her a little Art Journal to keep a record of this up and coming year. To hold this journal I have "re purposed" a wooden cigar box. I will show you the Cigar box outside as it is pretty much complete at this point

First I painted the whole box black, then sprayed it with Gold decor String. Then I wrapped the entire box with 1 1/2" pleated black ribbon, and wrapped that with a lace that had a pearl string tied into the middle of it. Next I put on the legs/feet that Tim Holtz designed. They give such a nice continuance to the feeling of the box. Finally I put a Crown front and center by the box opening divit, for the little princess who helped reach me in my dark pit.

Here favorite color is red. Her prom dress was my inspiration here. Her dress was a beautiful red with lace and lots of sequens and rhinestones down the front. To emulate the dress I used Bedazzles to brighten up the top of the box, and added a metal embellishment that I have had for years and just couldn't find the right place for it. Here it fits perfectly!

She looked rich and I wanted the box top to be rich looking as well.

With Lots of details, I am hoping this gift will make her smile as she journals about things that make her happy and smile as well. Thank you Cori Beth for inspiring me, now I hope I inspire you ;)

Blessings,

Distressed Thank You Card

2011-10-19T11:23:00.000-04:00

Good Morning Everyone!

Well, ok, so my tomorrow morning is a day late, somehow the day just seems to get past me before I get a chance to do everything. It also doesn't help because my computer is just a little old and VERY SLOW, so for me to even just pick up my email takes hours instead of minutes. Oh well, no time to complian, and lots of time to smile :)

My card today is a Distress card that I was originally doing for a challenge, but time ran out before I managed to get it finished. As I played with this card I found a technique that I had forgotten about and wanted to play with again. Here's the card.

I love to distress edges, I have a tool to do it with, but somehow it has gotten misplaced during my "cleaning up" process. So this card was distressed with an open pair of scissors. I actually like the look of it better because sometimes the edge cuts the paper deeper and makes it really look distressed. The designer papers are PTI, cs is Bazzil. SB long rectangles in the second, third and fourth sizes. I wanted to do some embossing, but embossing tends to give finished/polished look, not necessarily a distressed look. So I took my VersaMark pen and just randomly stroked up the rough edges, then dipped it into the pile of EP in the container, and then immediately hit it with the Heat gun. As soon as the EP melted I threw it back into the EP and heated it again, I moved the VM Pen to another side and then the corners and repeated this process until I have a very worn, distressed look in the EP's to match the rest of the distressed look.

You can see some of the EP and destressing pretty well in the picture and the very sparkly EP.
To finish everything off as I lay the card together I pulled out a tape embellishment for lamps with dangling beads.

It was the perfect fit for this with it's irregular sizes and looks. I still needed just a touch of something for balance and a small bow was the final addition.

As I progressed through the card I also found other embellishments that added little touches here and there. A couple of Spellbinder die cuts to give some 'umph' to the plain DP were inked and distressed. The upper right hand corner still needed something so I found three small pearls up there to help give balance as well. My final addition was the banner and Thank you stamp from LOC and the die from SB. This was treated the same way that the larger pic of the flower was done.

Thanks for looking, and may each of you have a wonderfully blessed day :)

A Prayer Box for a Friend

2011-10-17T23:15:00.002-04:00

Good evening everyone! Yes, it has been a couple of days, but I have been busy. I enjoy paper crafts of all types and I have been working on not just only paper crafts but also a couple of mixed media projects as well. Today I have something that I made for a dear friend who has been under a lot of stress lately. I tell her constantly that she needs to find a de-stressor in her life, she needs to take time to herself to reflect on her life, where it is, where she has been, and where she hopes to go. Meditation is something that helps to soothe the mind and body, so I decided that I would like to make her a Prayer Box to help direct her reflective thoughts and hopefully be a witness to her as well.

The outer sides of the box are either embossed or have a verse/quote on them. The cover side are spellbinders. The butterfly is LOC on vellum with copic and DI, then sprayed with Tattered Angles, these are sides 1 & 2.

These are sides 3 & 4.
The top is another of the Tissue paper Roses topped with another LOC butterfly and some Spellbinder's Fleur d' Lis small pendants.

The rose has a Large Pearl in a gold setting for a center piece, the butterfly has two blue Svorski rhinestones for it's body.

As you lift off the box you can see it is just stuffed with flowers and some butterflies, it is a very intriguing peek :)

As the box continues to unfold, you can begin to see that the sides are actually beginning to each have it's own purpose.

And then finally it is open. Every other side is a basically flat fitting piece that can fit snugly behind a flowered piece. All the flowers and butterflies fit into the center area where they don't get crushed. A quick look at each panel so you can see some of the intricate detailed work.

Here is a Spellbinder's Peony with inked edges, MS butterflies one in a pearlized vellum, the second painted with Shimmerz Paintz. All set on an AC silver foiled cs. The flower the lg. butterfly is on is a composite flower made with some medium sized flat flowers that I rounded up and put a coordinating wild orchid rose on the center.

This next panel is a verse panel with one of my more favorite verses on it when I was a single mom. The flowers were some precut pieces that I embellished a little more to make them look like old gold with a patina type finish, and a light blue pearl center. The butterfly is vellum painted with Shimmerz and all the die cuts are Spellbinders. The scalloped oval is embossed and the last layer is AC gold foiled cs in the large Fleur d' Lis pendant. All large and small pearls are Kaiser.

This next panel starts with a Marianne design corner flourish die cut. My friends favorite color is orange, of any and all shades, so you will see it from light to bright, rust to tarnished. the small roses again are Wild Orchid roses, as well as the glass spray. The butterfly is from Layers of Color (LOC) which I am sure you know by know is one of my more favorite stamp suppliers. The branch is MS. The multi faceted "bling" is from a wonderful little place called Pizzaz Aplenty. It is an on-line store that I check about every 3 months cause she is always getting new and neat stuff in and the prices are absolutely wonderful! Most al the small detailed bling is from http://www.pizzazaplenty.blogspot.com/, be sure to stop over and tell her I sent you :). Everything has been sprayed with a light mist of tattered angels marshmallow, just enough to give it a little glitter.

The color on this is hard to see, the colors are a pine green. This verse is layered on silver foil cs, SB Faire Isle Pendant, cs is Club Scrap. The piece of 12 X 12 that this all rests on is a Bazzil.

Back to another flowered panel. The white flower is made from a special paper that I received from Club Scrap when I subscribed to them years ago. Each flower petal was lightly brushed with stickles on the inside tip for a light look of dew. The lower end of each petal was brushed very lightly with DI Marigold to give the flower depth. The center is a cluster of iridescent beads stuck in glue. The mini pompom Dahlia's are handmade (I watch a lot of YouTube videos), the leaves were handcut and embossed and veining lightly painted in to give depth. All sits on a sm gold foiled Fleur d' Lis pendent.

Mother Teresa made doing not such a chore, elevating self-worth for those who feel they almost constantly give and receive nothing in return. Another favorite quote, this one by Our Daily Bread Designs. Set on a light peach cs, and matted again with a rust cs. The copper embellies are all "cut-outs" from all the other larger background SB pendants and then everything was lightly misted with Tattered Angels.

The last flower panel was in blues/light violets. A sm MS butterfly graces another composite flower arrangement that is placed on another Marianne Corner Diecut, with MS branches and WO roses and crystal cluster.

This final verse is also another one of my favorites. Full of encouragement and love from our precious Lord., this panel is very sparkly and gorgeous, but after several tries with the camera, I gave up and just posted the best one.
Finally, is the center. My favorite piece. I am a horticulturist, and I love to try and make realistic paper flowers on occasion. This lily was a simple enough piece that I felt I could do it. Using Heartfelt Creations Lily die, I cut the petals.

Then I folded and pinched the center of each petal and lightly painted in the center veining with Lindy's stamp Gang Spritz. Once dry, I rolled each of the petals so that it would gracefully turn out and back the way the flowers in my garden do. The stamen I made by folding a 4" piece of cs in half and glued it together. Then I cut it into skinny strips, one of the strips I took and cut into 1/2" pieces, folded it over the ends of the other stamen and glued it on. Once dry, I covered it with stickles. On the Pestle I took a larger piece of the glued cs and put it crosswise, and then brushed it with white liquid pearls from Viva. The leaves I hand cut, then embossed in veins. I roughed up the edges just a little to try and emulate the small ridges that some of the larger leaves have. Here is another view of the center piece:

In this view you can see the pestle better as well as the iridescent blue butterfly from LOC. It is also easier to see the painted veining. The background paper this piece is sitting on is a piece from Club Scrap that tied everything together, it has every color in it that is in this box. I pray that this box blesses my friend and helps move her to a place of comfort and peace. I had a lot of fun making this piece. While I made it, I took a break and also did a card which I will show you tomorrow. Hopefully within the next couple days you will see another 3D multi media project I have been working on for a young lady who helped me immensely when I was recovering from a very bad accident. She brought light into a very dark time for me, and I hope that what I am making will bring light into a stressful time for her. Until tomorrow, blessings to you all. Good night.

2011-10-11T15:10:00.001-04:00

Good Day Everyone!

Well, First of all, I need to start out with saying Thank You! to all the following:
Crafters Companion - for the Envelobox and the Boxer
ODBD (Our Daily Bread Designs) - for picking my card as one of the top three for the week ending 8 Oct
Verve Stamps - I won a $30 gift Certificate!
Jacque with Magnolicious - I won a Tilda stamp on her Sunday Sensations contest posted every Sunday.
***And best of all***
I actually have followers! (Other than my hubby!)

I follow a lot of blogs and blog hops. The cards and projects usually dazzle me and renew my fervour for making cards for those who could use a little lift in their day. Weekly I put my name in at Jacques' site to win a Tilda stamp along with about 550 others. On all of these I really don't expect to win anything, it just isn't my luck. But I do purchase most of my products from these businesses for card making. But last week, a sweet someone encouraged me to post one of my cards in a challenge. So I did. Well, that was the beginning of a waterfall :) Within 5 days I have been notifed 4 times of such wonderful winnings. If you can imagine a crazy lady doing cartwheels through her living and great rooms, that would be me! Life is fantastic, I really needed this to brighten up. To hear each of you tell me your thoughts on the cards I have made really moves me far more than you could imagine. I only hope that as time goes on I can keep everyone smiling and still visiting on occasion. So with this all said, I must get back to my craft room and finish a card I started earlier. Thanks again to each and everyone of you, you make my heart sing :)

Blessings,

Handmade with bling

2011-10-10T12:46:00.001-04:00

Good morning all!

One last beautiful fall day we are promised here before the temps start to drop and the cool damp weather begins to set in. Today I am posting a card I made after visiting two of my favorite blog feeds. The colors were inspired by someone I dearly enjoy following for her intricate work in creams, tans and other light colors - Ms. Elly. You'll have to take some time and browse through her blog, her work is phenomenal! Another person who inspires me is someone who enjoys making as many of her own embellishments as she possibly can, and most of you know her, Ms Becca Feeken. Becca is always looking for a new way to do things and because of that I love following her, you never know what she is going to come up with next! In this card I have used her Tissue Paper Rose,

if you would like to try it on your own, her tutorial is excellent :) And now here is the card:

This card has lots and lots of layers, and uses many dies, a couple types of paper (mulberry, tissue, vellum, & regular cs)Distress Inks, Embossing powder and Embossing Folders. The inside takes elegant simplicity to it's best.

One of my favorite stamp places is Layers of color. I have everyone of their stencils and this flourish is one of them, placed on an unknown DP from a stack pack. Distress ink Wild Honey was lightly rubbed into the stencil followed by a beautiful verse from OBDB. The verse like the flourish grows in wonder and in grace as we draw closer to Him. I hope and pray each one of you takes time to draw near and get to know Him better today. Blessings!

This card has been entered into the following blog challenges:

http://www.ourdailybreaddesignblog.blogspot.com/, http://www.stampingsistersinchrist.blogspot.com/, http://www.doyoustackup.blogspot.com/, http://www.thesecretcraftersaturdaychallenge.blogspot.com/, http://www.craftyourpassionchallenges.blogspot.com,/ and

www.pennyschallenges.blogspot.com

Happy Anniversary, You are an inspiration

2011-10-09T11:11:00.000-04:00

Good morning! Finished this last night but was to tired to post, so you get it this morning.

I love to stamp and color, so I took a couple of challenges and rolled them into one so I could cover a couple of bases. Fall is one of my favorite seasons with all the oranges, yellows, browns, greens, just everything and always so beautiful, almost no combination is wrong. Here the stamp is MFP sunflower (retired) popped up with a dimensional, banner and sentiment on front page are from LOC (Layers of Colors).

The center is "Puff" embossing powder from Ranger, kind of a nice touch, I love the texture from this. Close up you can see I have sponged the background with Pool Party ink, and have blended the petals of the flower with yellow first and then Rusty Hinge closer in to give depth and life. Finally sprayed it all with Shimmerz Goldie Lox mist to give it sparkle. DP's are older and unknown, but the base paper is old Olive spritzed with Olive Branch Spritz also from Shimmerz.

The inside is just simply stamped just plain in old Olive onto a Spellbinders deckled rectangle. Thanks for looking!

Blessings,
Cindy

Card Recipe:
Stamping Up CS: Old Olive, White, Stamping up inks: Old Olive, Pool Party, & Chocolate Chip, Summer Sun. SU Embossing Powder. Crystal Clear. Distress Ink: Rusty Hinge. Spellbinder's: Deckled Rectangle. Offray: white semi transparent, olive zigzag.Ranger: Puff Embossing Powder Deep Brown Shimmerz: Old Olive Spritz, No Yolking Coloringz, Goldie Lox Shimmeringz, Stamps:Mark's Finest Paper Sunflower and bee Banner and Sentiment - Layers Of Colors. Embellies: Pearls by Reminisce

2011-10-07T21:00:00.000-04:00

Still working on our pastor appreciation cards, this one is for our youth pastor. It is for two challenges, the first is the ODBD metal, using AC foil paper in silver, with lots of silver filigree embossed over the front of the card using Ranger's SuperFine Silver EP. Papers are old Renovation tack and buttons in sanded black and white.

A close up of the LOC Touch of Elegance filigree and MS punch to help the silver to shine through :) The lower half of the card only was also misted with Tattered Angels Glimmer Mist Marshmallow spray for added sparkle.

The verse is from a vellum page I purchased years ago when it was hard to find stamps with verses on them.
A quick look at the inside.

Inside verse is Our Daily Bread Designs Lift Up Our Hands surrounded again by the LOC Touch of Elegance filigree stamp with room to sign. The inside is Framed with lines using the scor-pal. All ink used was Tim Holtz Distress Black Soot. I wish you could see this card in person, it looks so much better than it does here. Even my hubby likes this one alot. Thanks for Looking :)

Blessings,
Cindy Lou

A "Masculine" card

2011-10-04T21:19:00.002-04:00

Well, now you've done it. Someone told me my cards were worth putting into challenges, so I figured if you think so, then I will. I have had my friends tell me that, but they could just be being nice, and I appreciate that ;) So, I am in the process of making cards for some of our pastors for appreciation for thier time and service in our church. This one is for our Associate Pastor.

As you can see I started out with a piece of chocolate cs that I embossed using Tim Holtz Woodgrain. Layered that and sprayed it with Lindy's Starburst Cocoa Bean Copper. Next cut out ovals with Spellbinders and matted them together Next I die cut Bird and Branch, also Spellbinders, and sprayed the branch (cs brown) with Lindy's Witches Potion Purple

and then painted the bird (PTI white cs)with Shimmerz Blueberry Cobbler and Apricot (I love blue birds), the wing was accented with cream cs swirl leftovers and then add some highlights with Rangers Perfect Pearls Blue Patina.

The squared corner work is Sizzix and the cream Kaleidoscope strip is Spellbinder's also. Banner Tag is Spellbinder's, the sentiment and Banner outline is LOC (Layers of Color). All inks used are Tim Holtz Distress (Antique linen and Old Paper). Last but not least, pearls are from Kaisercraft. I wish you could see this in person. All of the sprays I have used have this all just sparkling, the blue bird feathers shimmer just like they would if you looked at them in person. I love Shimmerz paints, they spread easily and evenly and clean up with water. Great stuff :) Thanks for looking!

Blessings,

Cindy Lou

Renew, Refresh, Rejuvenate, Revive

2011-10-02T15:46:00.001-04:00

Well, I promised to finish the card I started yesterday late afternoon, and I did. It is a very basic simple card, and I am telling you right now, the colors you see are not the true colors of the card. I took lots of pictures trying to get the colors to turn out right, but you are just going to have to take my word for it.

I wanted something simple and soft, so I went searching for a simple sketch and found this one (sorry, I don't remember where, I just saw it, closed up shop here, and ran to the craft room.) The stamps used are PTI's Harvest Berries, and Clubscraps Refresh and swirls. I stamped the original white cardstock with Versamark ink and the used Stamping Up's clear embossing powder. placing swirls all around where the Refresh sentiment was going to be, the Refresh sentiment was stamped and then embossed with Lindy's Stamping embossing powder Reindeer Moss Green. Then I moved on to making the top panel. I cut a 2" by 7" piece of true black cs and punched with MS double loop punch, attached it to the back of a 3" wide piece of plain white paper, then coming off the edges trying to mimic the way the Ginko tree grows I stamped the limb/leaves in Distress Peeled Paint and then used Lindy's stamping powder Weeping Willow Green on the top two stamps. The bottom stamp, I custom blended the two EP powders, 2 parts light to 1 part med. and embossed the lower leave to mimic the lower younger, more fresh green leaf color. Then I grabbed a multi-colored vellum paper from club scrap and punched out MS large butterfly, bent at the body and popped up on a pop dot.

Then adheared the front panel to the front of the card. Next I went to my sentiments and found last year's Verve For the Cure collection and pulled out three of the encouragement stamps (This morning I woke knowing who this card was going to go to) and stamped them with Versamark and then the custom blended EP from earlier, and heated with heat tool. After stamping, I matted on a PTI's New Leaf cardstock that matched the EP, then matted again on MS punched on black. Then mounted this on the inside.

There are also two verses stamped inside and on the back that are very encouraging. This is going to a person who is my age, and is suffering from a rare liver disease. She has two sons, both grown, but still living at home, and is married. This family can use all the prayers that can be offered up for them. They also need lots of encouragement as they go through this very rough road in their lives.
Now for me, back to the craftroom to make yet another card. Since cleaning up my CS with the organization class I have been taking, I have all kinds of creative energy and just want to put lots of cards together, and know lots of people who are needing them. So hopefully I'll be back again tomorrow with another card I have made. Until then, Enjoy your Sunday giving glory to the Creator of this beautiful Universe that we living in. Blessings!

Thanks for reading :) Cindy Lou

Pumpkins!

2011-10-01T21:32:00.000-04:00

Well, I had intended on working on making cards yesterday, but instead got side tracked into canning pumpkin, and making pumpkin pie and pumpkin scones. The pie and scones are delish! Then I decided to make hubby a dinner that he hadn't had before. Since my garden is overflowing with eggplant, I am preparing and freezing most of it. But last night I decided to make him some Eggplant Parmesan. He loved it! The recipe for the scones came off the Internet and is was billed as Starbuck's Pumpkin Scone recipe, it was close, so perhaps it was. The Pie recipe is an old family recipe, and the eggplant Parmesan was off the new show called "The Chew" on ABC. This was the second recipe off the show that I tried and so far we are batting 100! Both recipes were great and used foods that my hubby had never tried before :) The first recipe we tried off there was Symon's Pork and Beans Supreme. No, not your regular pork and beans that you are thinking. The pork was in the form of pork cutlets, served on a bed of wilted kale and cannelli beans, covered with a light white wine, garlic and butter sauce - amazingly great! Today/tonight I did however get to start on a card. My craft room doesn't have sufficient lighting in it for me to work after dusk though, so I am almost finished and will finish and post tomorrow. Thanks for stopping and reading, stop back tomorrow and you'll get to see the card! Blessings :)

Oh, Taste and See

2011-09-26T21:55:00.001-04:00

Good evening! It's been quite a day today, I woke up with part of our ceiling letting go of a huge leak right over my head! Not a fun way to wake up and then to see the mess that had to be cleaned, well, let's just say my whole day was quickly rearranged for me. Obviously I had to strip the bed to wash all the linen's, so, I thought while I was at it, why not just rearrange the whole room as well! LOL That proceeded to take all morning before the room was back to usable again, but in completely different order. I didn't get back as soon as I wanted with another card because I am participating in a webinar series called "From Overwhelmed to Organized" put on by the ScrapRack. The class can be used to utilize their system that they sell, or you can apply it to what you have on hand and make it work. The first session required us to empty all of our drawers, tables, totes, etc and put all of our "stuff" in one of four groups. We had to know the madness behind the method, and then know the steps of the method. First week was pretty easy, all I did was take most everything out of my craft studio and through (not literally) everything on the Great Room floor -- What a mess!!!!! Week two, which is this week, we are to go through all of our paper(s)/cardstock, pads, etc and separate them into 3 of the 4 groups. The first group I have is Rainbow, all the plain cardstock and plain papers are put together in stacks that coordinate in Rainbow colors. Then we are to take the loose printed papers and separate them likewise. Pads of papers we are to let be, but make a color reference, theme ref, or Holiday reference for them. We are only required to get 8" completed for this week, but I have mine almost completely finished. I would have finished today if I hadn't had the bedroom ceiling emergency. The best part of going through all this paper is finding so many pages that just seemed to disappear from the top of the piles I had into never-never land. I found so many possibilities for card making that I was going nuts! The hardest part of the job soon became staying on track. I finally rewarded myself Sunday afternoon and made a card for our pastor since October is Pastor appreciation month. That is the card I have to show you tonight :)

One of the first papers that caught my eye was this We R Memory Keepers Restoration road and Restoration Upholstery Tacks. I love the muted greens, blues and Latte type browns in this set of papers. The papers seemed kind of plain though, so I took a Touch of Elegance flourish stamp from one of my LOC (Layers of Colors) stamps and used different sections of it inked up with Distress Ink Peeled Paint. Then I smudged up the edges of all the papers and die cuts and sprayed all of them with Lindsy's Stamp Gang Starburst Spray Bells of Ireland. The die cuts are Spellbinder's Label 10. The smallest die cut is on a 'Starburst" vellum I found at my LSS back when we had one. With the edges hit lightly with the Peeled Paint, it just seemed like it was just to plain, so I grabbed the LOC flourish stamp again and this time some SU white craft ink and stamped some white swirls, twirls and leaves on the edges of the vellum. To make the white stand out a little more, I embossed the white ink with clear embossing powder. Next I stamped a verse from LOC in PP and clear embossed it also. Finally I layered everything up raising up the verse layers off the card front with dimensional Dots. Finishing up with 3 small Wild Orchid Roses and one liatris stem, one Fairy Tale rose, and two self-made mums. I quit with the decorating here because this card is as I said before going to our pastor, I am sure he will appreciate some "pretties" but to much and well, you get the picture. Below are some close ups so you can see the stamping and raised layers.

The last picture you can see the Fairy Tale Rose that I colored with Bachelor Button Blue from Lindsy's as well, to match the blue blocks in the harlequin and Tack Papers. I spritzed it with a touch of Walnut ink afterwards to tone it down just a tad. Well, hope you enjoyed my "time off" project. Tomorrow I must finish my paper clean up and organization, and prepare for tomorrow nights class. If Time allows, I will make and post another card from some of the wonderful Long Lost Papers I have found during my organization . I'll be back soon regardless :) Until later, Remember to take time for yourself and reward yourself for great accomplishments, be it in paper or something else. Blessings to all,

Cindy Lou <3

Busy, Busy, Busy

2011-09-21T08:57:00.002-04:00

The past few weeks have been crazy busy! All the tomatoes in my garden got ready at the same time, so I put up (canned) 40 quart jars of tomato sauce. There are still more tomatoes out there, but there is no more energy left in me. In addition to the tomatoes, my green beans second sowing came in so I froze them after blanching and also Eggplant which I grilled and then froze for later use. I still have more Eggplant to go. Then on the lighter side I made some blackberry/strawberry/blueberry/raspberry jam, turned out very tasty! Nothing better than fresh homemade jam :) Then at the beginning of the week, Wal*mart had Georgia peaches in, so I bought 4.5 pounds and made peach jam. Had to test that too, even though I don't care for peaches, and must admit that was tasty as well. In between all of that, we went up to Michigan to hubby's families rental on Lake Michigan. We had a blast there and best of all, the nice warm sand allowed me to easily balance and I actually walked more than 2 miles each day! That was such a treat since I haven't walked more than 100' without pain since the accident in 2006.

But alas, amidst all the fun, I received an email that a dear friend's mother passed, and two days later our neighbor's father passed. So once I got home it was time to make some cards.

Both cards were to be sent to men, so I took a more masculine approach to the sympathy cards. Using spellbinders and MFT dies, foil paper, Archiver's Navy Cardstock, a type of vellum I had recieved in my club scrap kit, and some unknown DP, this is what I came up with:

I used cuttlebug's fluer d'lis on the navy cardstock and the spellbinder's Impressibilities Fluer d' lis on the vellum. Pearls are from the $1.00 bin at Archivers. The silver accents in the corners don't photograph well, but you can see one corner that does show it fairly well. The inside is just simply another spellbinder label 10 size 3 layered on a size 4 regular blue cs with a sentiment. Today, I am hoping to participate in a tag challenge that is going on. We'll see how that goes, I have lots to do today again, more than I have time for, so playing with paper may not be in my schedule. I am hoping though ;) Have a great day and hope to be back again soon! Blessings.

There are some days, and then there are Some Days!

2011-08-23T13:09:00.000-04:00

Well, I finally got the blog working and now our computer breaks down! I have a separate computer that I do all our picture work on, downloading, image setting, cropping, saving, etc., and when I went to download a card from my camera to the puter . . . The computer was off, or so I thought. Turns out it must have been zapped by lightening during the last storm. The surge protector is red and the computer won't come on regardless of what we do, so . . . I will get the card on, but it might take me a minute. I have to find my camera software to put it on this computer and then move everything around. So please, be patient, and you'll get to see my most recent playing. And boy have I learned alot and love the playing I have been doing! Later everyone! off to see if I can get things moving in the right direction. Blessings!

I think we have it figured out!

2011-08-16T09:06:00.000-04:00

With the help of my sweet hubby, I think we have figured out my "blog issues". I am much happier dealing with paper, so this technology stuff kind of stumps me on occassion. Fortunately for me, my hubby likes to play on the net and figure out issues and finally came to my rescue. Now I just have to add in my pictures that I have been storing up of all the cards and things I have been making. And all the new play things I have discovered over the past few months! Lots to play with, lots to stimulate the mind! My gardens are looking better and better each day so there is lots of stimulation there also. I am blessed in many ways, I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I enjoy creating them.

This is just a simple card, I love playing with new techniques, here I was playing with gamasol over copics. My favorite fall flower is the Sunflower. The center is with Flowersoft, dies are Sizzix, bow with the BowMaker, edging with Martha Stewart. Paper from PTI. Thanks for visiting!

Working at making it work

2010-03-11T17:11:00.010-05:00

I have been working at making cards and trying to both post them and blog about how they were made and my inspiration for them, but for some reason I can't comment on my card or give credit for the products I have used. So bare with me as I continue learning about technology and blogging. Have lots more cards to get up, but am working on all this one step at a time. Have a wonderful Thursday!

Flourishes Sketch Challenge

2010-03-08T20:09:00.002-05:00

Inspired by a Flourishes Sketch Challenge, a friend who hasn't been feeling well, and new Magnolia stamp, I made this little card. Ingredients: PTI cs -lemon tart, Berry sorbet, ocean tide, berry sorbet was edged with Brilliance Moon light white. pp -K&Company. Stamps: girl - Magnolia, sentiment - Clear Stamps, Copics Colorless Blender, V04, V09, V15, Y00, Y11, Y13, E00, E11, YR20, E33, E44, YR14. Misc: Momento Ink - Tuxedo Black, Diamond Stickles, Prima flowers, Kaiser pearls, satin ribbon, Bow easy, Cuttlebug - paisley folder, Fiskars, Cut & emboss punch, SU black embossing powder. Thanks for looking. Sorry for the poor quality picture, camera broke, so had to use the cell phone. Have a great day!