Grateful Heart

 My next card for Beccy's Month of Holiday Cards challenge is for the letter G. I picked "grateful" for my G word.

This is a card for Thanksgiving. In the U.S. we celebrate in November. It's less than 2 weeks away. The image I used is from Beccy's Place called Autumn Blessings. I colored the image with Spectrum Noir markers, die cut it with Lawn Fawn Stitched Party Banners, and used MFT Chunky Herringbone stencil to create a background on the tag with Fossilized Amber Distress Oxide ink. The sentiment is from the same set, double die cut with MFT Pierced Fishtail Flags (retired), and inked with Wild Honey Distress Oxide ink. The leaf paper in the background is from my stash on a brown card stock base. I finished it off with two brown self-adhesive gems. I am entering these challenges:

• Beccy's Month of Holiday Cards: Day 8 the letter G (grateful)
• Scrapping 4 Fun challenge: give thanks, Thanksgiving, Grateful
• Simon Says Wednesday challenge: thanks, Thanksgiving
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• Tuesday Morning Sketches: sketch 
  

Today we met with a builder who actually showed up to talk about building a house for us. After he left we cut, split stacked the wood of a tree that Tom cut down. It was in the way of the new driveway. A lot of work so I am tired tonight. Hope your week has been awesome. Thanks for stopping by. Stay safe. Peace and all good!

Donna

Hello

 It's been another busy week again! And not much crafting time. The good news is that the deck that my DH was replacing for the neighbors is finished! Yeah! So I won't need to help with that anymore. The bad news is that the next project is to replace flooring in our washer/dryer area that was damaged when our wash machine overflowed a couple weeks ago and the flooring buckled from the water. So I am sure that I'll have to help with replacing that. 

We usually have the twins on Sunday, but this weekend we had them today instead, so I keep thinking this is Sunday instead of Saturday. I thought I wouldn't have time for the Tuesday Morning Sketch but since today is Saturday I worked it in after dinner. The only problem was that I forgot it was supposed to be a mini slimline so it probably won't count for the challenge, but I loved the sketch.

I tried a tone on tone background and it doesn't show up well in the photo especially in the bottom left corner. The base is kraft card stock and I used Delicate Branches stamp set from Inkadinkado with MFT latte ink. The two smaller red birds are from the same set and stamped with MFT Cherry Crisp. The designer paper is from my stash. The larger cardinal is recycled from another card and popped up on foam tape. The sentiment is from Lawn Fawn and stamped in the MFT Cherry Crisp ink. I am entering these challenges:

• Tuesday Morning Sketches: sketch 
  
• Crafty Critter Crazies challenge: use a critter
• Penny's challenge: anything goes
• Love to Craft challenge: anything goes
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes

We had a very gray and rainy day today. The morning was very rainy but the afternoon got a little better. We got the twins out for a bit this afternoon. Took a wagon ride around our neighborhood and stopped at the playground before we took them home. It was a wonderful day with them. Of course I'm tuckered out after chasing them around. Thanks for stopping by today. Stay sage. Peace and all good!

Donna

Happy Birthday!

 I had a little bit of time this afternoon in-between our two volunteer Thursday jobs. So I played with a card. 

The image is Bugaboo Flower Teddy. I colored the image with Spectrum Noir markers and inked the background with distress oxide ink. The dotted paper is a 12 inch scrap that I pulled out of my box. The image was die cut with Lawn Fawn Stitched Party Banners and I die cut the rest of the dotted paper to add it to the bottom middle of the card. I tied the top of the banner with a scrap of green ribbon. I am entering these challenges:

• Catch the Bug challenge: anything goes
• Seize the Birthday: scraps
• 2 Crafty Critter Crazies: use a critter
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• QKR Stampede: anything goes

That's it for me this evening. Have lots to do before the twins come for the day on Saturday. Then we are taking a short trip in to Cincinnati to help my FIL with jobs around his house. So my crafting time won't be a lot in the next few days. Thanks for stopping by! Stay safe and God bless!

Donna

Chase the Falling Leaves

 I can't believe it's been an entire week since I posted. I have been crafting but I didn't take pictures. I made 40 thank you cards this past week for Teacher's Warehouse. They give them to the teachers and ask them to send a thank you to donors and volunteers. They went though 250 thank you cards during our first few weeks open so I said I'd make some simple ones that I could mass produce and I used a lot of images and sentiments that I already had printed/stamped and colored so that I could make a lot of cards in a short time. But tonight I wanted to make a card for my stash and here's what I came up with.

The leaves are from Lawn Fawn called Stitched Leaves. I die cut the leaves from paper that I got from Teacher's Warehouse (TW). They had a huge amount of paper and gave me a big box of the excess. None of it is printed with the manufacturer. The background paper is from the TW stash and die cut with the A2 stitched die from MFT Blueprint 13 (retired). The sentiment is from Create with TLC. I used an EK Success punch to punch out the sentiment and then inked it with distress oxide inks: Abandoned Coral, Fossilized Amber and Orange Marmalade. I mounted the front on a brown base card stock. I am entering these challenges:

• Tuesday Morning Sketches: sketch 
  
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• Hand Stamped Sentiments: fall inspiration photo 

  
• The Outlawz Monday Greeting challenge: for him 
• Scrapping4Fun: anything goes

Thanks for stopping by today. I will try to get some other cards completed this weekend as I have a few birthdays coming up soon. I hope you are stay safe and healthy. God bless!

Donna

Day 1 Masking

Spring Card Camp 2 began today and it was all about masking. I decided to try reverse masking first and love the results I got.

The photo is terrible to actually see the mask and if I would do this over, I'd make the circle mask in the middle bigger so it was more noticeable. Live and learn. But the reason I went with this circle was the scalloped edge from MFT Blueprints 13 (retired). I really liked that. And to make that more prominent I started by inking around the mask with Seedless Preserves DOI. You can barely see that in the photo. I cut the front panel with MFT Blueprints 13 stitched die. Then I inked stamps from Gina K Wreath Builder stamp set in shades of purple (flowers and hearts) and green (foliage). Inks used: Seedless Preserves, Shaded Lilac and Mowed Lawn from Distress Oxide; Cosmic Berry and Purple Wine from AlteNew; and Spring Rain from Simon Says. The alphabet is Lawn Fawn Quinn's Alphabet dies. "mom" is popped up with purple fun foam.  The underlying sentiment is from MFT More Essential Sentiments and die cut with MFT Essential Fishtail Sentiment Strips and popped up with foam tape. Another fun class. I'll try to get the other masking project done later today. I am entering these challenges:

• Modsquad challenge: a day for mothers
• Double D challenge: use shades of purple as your main focus 
  
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• Crafty Cardmakers: celebrations
• Simply Create Too: use flowers

This card is for my daughter. Hope to do something on the inside that the twins can help me with and then they can give it to their Mom for Mother's Day. Working on a couple more card today too. So hope to get back again. Take care and stay safe!

Donna

Second Generation Stamping

Day 19 of our Spring Card Camp was all about second generation stamping and making multiple cards using it. This wasn't a new concept for me but I really don't use it much; so it was fun to really try it out.

I'm sure you can tell which flowers I stamped first and which ones I stamped second. It amazes me how much ink is still on the stamp after you stamp it. I guess that's kind of wasteful. I used AlteNew Bold Blossom stamp set and coordinating dies. I used this before and had such a difficult time lining up the second layers that I put it aside and haven't tried it for quite some time. But it worked out fairly well this time. The background paper is from my stash. I found a pink and green gingham paper and just interchanged them on the two cards. The banner die (in white) is from Lawn Fawn's Stitched Party Banners as is the circle die I used. I used black card stock for some of the layering to pop the colors.

This is the first generation card. I used AlteNew Puffy Heart and Purple Wine ink to do the flowers and the leaves are Twisted Citron DOI and MFT Elf Green inks. The sentiment on this card is from Simon Says Watt's Up? stamp set (retired) and I stamped it right to the paper with VersaFine Onyx Black ink.

This is the second generation stamped card. The ink is much lighter than the first. Using my MISTI makes the stamping go much faster as I just rotate the card stock to stamp again. The sentiment for this card is also from Simon Says called Prayers. I stamped the lead in sentiment at the top with VersaFine Onyx Black ink and they die cut the word prayers twice: once with black card stock and once with black fun foam. I glued those two together and popped up the word. The flowers on both cards are also popped up with the leaves tucked underneath.
I am entering these challenges:

• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• Simon Says Wednesday challenge: anything goes
• The Outlawz Wednesday sketch challenge: sketch 
• Scraping4Fun: use die cuts

Today is the last day of Spring Card Camp 1. They have decided to do a Spring Card Camp 2 at Online Card Classes. The new class begins May 6th. If you've ever wanted to take a card class or learn something new this would be an awesome class to take. I've loved every minute of it and I still have several days that I haven't even gotten to work with yet. Lots of fun and I have a lot of cards to send out. Thanks for stopping by today. I hope you are safe and healthy!

Donna

Spring Card Camp Day 3

I am a little further behind in my class than Id like but we had the twins yesterday. Typical 3 year olds; they are into everything. They open all the drawers to see what's in them. And Valerie loves anything small and shiny so he loves my jewelry. It's on my list to clean my jewelry out soon but she seems to be helping me out. LOL! Arthur loves to climb so it's not unusual to find him on my sink trying to get a banana or orange. In other words there isn't a minute to spare when they are around. I did manage to finish off my cards for Day 3 before they got here.

The technique for today is kind of like paper piecing. I stamped Penny Black's Allover Pattern background. Then you fussy cut pieces and adhere them to the base. The video showed how you could create a scene but I just went for a pattern on my cards. I went through my scrap box and pulled out color pieces that were big enough for the background stamp. I realize now that I could have used smaller pieces but this worked.and I have lots of leftovers to make more cards.

On this card I went for spring colors and created a pattern with the pieces I cut. (This is time consuming for sure.) After I had my pattern glued into place I used a stsiched die from MFT Blueprints 13 (retired) to die cut my paper to fit an A2 card. The center seemed the perfect place for a big sentiment so I stamped another background on white and then fully cut it to match the opening. (That was a challenge!) Then I flipped it over so I could use the side without the pattern and stamped the sentiment from Simon Says Big Birthday Wishes. To finish it off I added the candle and flame from the same stamp set and popped it up off the card.

Beccy from Beccy's Place is challenging us to get more organized in the month of April and so earlier this month I catalogued all my stamps and dies into a spreadsheet on my computer. I found dies I didn't even know that I owned. This adorable Lawn Fawn and Simon Says stamp set called Merry Christmouse was a set I won put away and never used. So I needed to give it some love. Some of my scraps were read and green so I decided to make a Christmas card with this set. The base was green and I use red and white scraps to fill in the pattern. I again die cut the background with MFT Blueprints 13 stitched die. Then I stamped colored and die cut the images to embellish the card. The little pieces are popped off the background with foam tape. The sentiment is die cut with MFT Stitched Ovals. I love this!
Like I said I have lots of leftovers to make more cards. Some evening when we are watching TV I'll fussy cut more of these out to use later. I am entering these challenges:
Birthday Card

• Cupcake Inspirations: sentiment is the main focus 
  
• A Bit More Time to Craft: anything goes
• Pattie's Creations: birthdays

Christmas Card

• Crafty Hazelnut Christmas: anything goes
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• NBUS challenge: never before used schtuff
• Sparkles Christmas: Christmas critters
• 2 Crafty Critter Crazies: use a critter

Off to get some lunch for my DH who is outside with a rented stump grinder. All the brush/trees we pulled out for the elderly neighbor needed more clean up. And we had another large tree that we removed last fall. So he is grinding up the stumps so they can grown grass and mow over those areas. No good deed goes unnoticed. I managed to get poison ivy from all that brush removal. Can't say that I remember seeing any in the mix but I guess there was. It's not too bad; just on my right arm so far. Thanks for stopping by. Be safe and stay well! 

Donna

Happy Birthday

After several weeks away and a wonderful trip to New England that gave us some time with our sons, we are back home and almost back to normal. I got through the mountain of laundry and dishes and shopping for the twins' 3rd birthday on Sunday. I can hardly believe it's been three years. We are having a party at brunch tomorrow. Our youngest is visiting for a wedding this weekend so he's really excited to be here for their birthday party. Since we were gone 3 weeks in September I didn't get their cards made but I did have a tag done for Arthur (last year) and I finished Valerie's tag today. So this year is the tag year.

Details:

Stamps: Bugaboo Autumn Brat Leaves

Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Party Banner, My Favorite Things Happy Birthday Circle, My Favorite Things Stitched Circle, Lawn Fawn Quinn's ABCs

Paper: My Favorite Things Sweet Celebrations 6x6 Paper Pack, purple card stock

Embellishments: ribbon, flowers, ric rac, and enamel dots from my stash

I am entering these challenges:

• MFT Sketch challenge: sketch 
  
• Catch the Bug: anything goes
• Creative Knockouts: lots of layers
• A Bit More Time to Stamp: anything goes
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• Addicted to Stamps and More: anything goes 
  
• Seize the Birthday: geometric shapes
• QKR Stampede: anything goes

Now I need to go wrap gifts for tomorrow's celebration. I'll be back with pictures of the twins party/ Thanks for stopping by. I hope to get back to crafting this next week. Hugs to you all!

Donna

Guest Designer for C.R.A.F.T. Challenge

Today I am honored to be a guest designer for the C.R.A.F.T. Challenge blog. We had some really fun images to work with for the challenge with a theme of Mother's Day. It's coming up soon. They have two wonderful sponsors this week.

Pickled Potpourri ($7 voucher)

and

Digital Paper Craft (3 digital images)

For my project I used a stamp set from Pickled Potpourri called Cupfuls of Happiness. Images are colored with Spectrum Noir markers. I fussy cut the images.

Dies: Paper Smooches Paw Print Dies (hearts); Lawn Fawn Quinn's ABCs coordinating dies (mom); MFT Essential Fishtail Sentiments Strips (Sending a Latte....); Spellbinders Large Octagons (hugs and kisses)

Papers: Papers by Lozzy Checkout
Embellishments: Wink of Stella on the cups; Glossy Accents on the dots and hearts
I hope you will honor a Mom this week and join us at the C.R.A.F.T. challenge blog. My Mom is resting in heaven but I made this card for my daughter. She of course is the Mom to our twin grandbabies, that's why I used two images on my card: one for Arthur and one for Valerie. Thank you to Jo at the C.R.A.F.T. Challenge for asking me to be a guest designer. Thanks for stopping by.

Donna

Happy Cake Day

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Are you going to watch the game? I probably won't. But maybe I'll crochet through it. I need to make a pair of slippers. Need more birthday cards. That's going to be my mission this week. So here's the first of several I'm working on.

Cupcake stamp: Limited Runs Progressive stamp of the month colored with Spectrum Noir markers. (If you join their Facebook page you can get this one for free until Feb. 13th)
Background Paper: the Paper Studio (confetti paper) and Recollection (yellow dotted across top f banner
Dies: Lawn Fawn Stitched Party Banners
Scrabble tiles: from Pinterest

The inside sentiment reads: 

Birthday ...

It's all about the cake

Pass the cake!

I am entering these challenges:

• Tuesday Morning Sketches: sketch 
  
• Seize the Birthday: anything goes
• Lil Patch of Crafty Friends: anything goes
• Addicted to Stamps and More: anything goes 
  
• The Outlawz Festive Friday: birthday

Thanks for stopping by today. If I watch the Super Bowl I'll be routing for the Rams. I'm just tired of seeing New England in the Super Bowl. May your snacks be plentiful for the game!

Donna

Birthday Tag

Happy World Card Making Day! Happy birthday Arthur and Valerie! The twins turn two today so I probably won't have much time to craft the rest of the day. I did manage to finish a tag for Arthur's birthday gift this morning.

I used the MFT Cross Stitch Tag die (without the cross stitch) and the MFT Happy Birthday Circle die.  I die cut Arthur's name from Lawn Fawn Quinn's ABCs. The cute little dog and cat are from MFT Little Buddies, colored with Spectrum Noir makers and die cut with the coordinating dies. Those images are popped up with foam tape. This turned out so cute. I have the letters cut to make Valerie a tag also. I thought my FIL would need something to identify his gift but it turned out that he bought cards. So I will save these for Christmas or something. I am entering these challenges:

• Simon Says Monday challenge: tag it
• Catch the Bug: anything goes
• Crafty Friends challenge: use more than one die
• ABit More Time to Craft: anything goes
• The Outlawz Thursday Twist: anything goes circles and stripes

I hope you have a wonderful weekend. We are busy the rest of this weekend so hope to find some crafty time on Monday. Next weekend I am signed up to go to Jasper, IN for a workshop  with Gina and Rina K for their wreath builder workshop. I'm really excited about that! Thanks for stopping by. See you next week!

Hey Dude

Finished up day camp last week and it took me most of the weekend to put everything away, laundry and dishes caught up and pricing for Opportunity House. I worked as a cashier this morning and they neglected to get a second person so I was by myself today. Not too bad. Last week I did win a seat in an online class called One-Layer Wonders at Altenew Academy. Of course I am getting started way late because the class began last Friday but I did manage to get one card done so far.

So this is really one layer. The shadow for the banner was created with markers. In no way does it looks as good as the sample for class. I really need to practice my flicking technique. The stamp set I used is a retired stamp kit from Simon Says Stamps. I used masking to create the banner. The "Dude" is a stamp from the retired kit and I used Lawn Fawn's Quinn's Alphabet for the "hey". It's the only alphabet stamp set that I have. This is colored with Prismacolor pencils, except for the shadow on the banner. This will be my nephew's birthday card.

I am entering these challenges:

• Simply Create Too: for a male
• A Bit More Time to Craft: anything goes
• Digi Stamps 4 Joy: for the men
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• The Outlawz Friday challenge: birthday

I have to scurry off and pick up the twins from Head Start. They took their Dad to the hospital a bit earlier so we may have them all night tonight. Just not sure what's going on yet. Thanks for stopping by.

Donna

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Happy Father's Day

I ran out of time to make a lot of Father's Day cards this year. The twins kind of took precedence lately but I did manage to get one done for Tom's Dad.

Jennifer McGuire had a video the other day for layering stencils to make backgrounds for cards. I used a couple of her ideas on this card. I used the Neat and Tangled Polygon stencil with Salty Ocean distress ink. I then moved the stencil and used Peacock Feathers DI to create another pattern. But I thought the Peacock Feathers overwhelmed the Salty Ocean so then I put the stencil back to the original set up and ran it through my embossing machine. It embossed the stencil area and gave the whole card a really neat textured affect. I cut the Happy from paper from my scrap box. The die is from Simon Says Painted Happy Birthday Wafer die set. I added some little hearts from Spellbinder's Sweet Wishes die set. The bigger heart is from Lawn Fawn's Stitched Party Banner set. I added Glossy Accents to the large heart and Wink if Stella to the Happy and the small hearts. The Father's Day was computer generated and die cut with MFT Pierced Fishtail Flags.
I am entering these challenges:

• Creative Knockout challenge: anything goes
• A Bit More Time to Craft: anything goes 
• Simon Says Wednesday challenge: emboss it
• Inspiration Destination: anything goes
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes

We are on the downside of the week. I hope it's been good for you. I found out tonight that the other twin watcher came down with bronchitis so it's back to just me again. Won;t get much crafting done for a while. Next week is Girl Scout Day Camp so I'll be at camp all day and come home to watch the twins in the evening. I'm going to be one tired person next week. Thanks for stopping by.

Donna

Happy Fall Y'all

Happy Sunday! I hope your weekend is going well. Fall has set in here. We had frost two night in a row. It's colder than I like but then again it is October and winter is one it's way. Today I have a card for the fall. The new CAS challenge at the Outlawz is ready to go. This week we want to see your fall foliage.

I used watercolor paper and colored a large piece. Then I cut the leaves from the Lawn Fawn Stitched Leaves dies. The Happy Fall Y'all sign is from My Paper Craft World which morphed into My Paper Crafting. The background paper looks like wood grain and I added the yellow ribbon for a burst of color. I hope you will be able to join us this week and show us your foliage. I chose fall foliage but it can be any kind of foliage. Try out the Outlawz CAS challenge.
I am entering these challenges:

• The Paper Players: clean and simple with leaves
• Hiding in my Craft Room: use your favorite cutting tool (used my Grand Caliber to cut the leaves)
• Creative Card Crew: ribbon

I hope you had a wonderful weekend. Here's to a great week ahead. Thanks for stopping by. See you again soon.

Donna