Happy Anniversary, You are an inspiration

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

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

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

     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!

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 :)