KID'S BIRTHDAY CARDS

Before I went for my hip replacement, I created a couple of kid's BD cards using the Penny Black stick figure girls. I made a little kit out of the images after stamping and cut everything to shape ahead-of-time. Then when I went to my son's house for dinner, I was able to set the grand daughters up and showed them my sample and they colored the images as they wished and then used the pop dots to stick things together and adhere what needed to be where it needed to go. The image at the left is of the little girl with the pony tail and flowers. The curly headed girl has stars on her outfit. Both use the same Happy Birthday paper and the same sentiment. The ones the grand daughters made looked just like these samples I made to share with you. Pretty cute and happy cards for kids. Makes one want to be happy, which is a choice we all have. Happiness comes from within each of us! Thanks for stopping by and BE HAPPY!

BACK TO WINTER

Here I was getting all ready for spring, and a major snow storm rolls across the upper Midwest. We received 6" of fresh new white stuff and the wind was blowing making drifts even higher. So last night when I could not sleep, I got up and colored this cute snowman that had been stamped in Momento black ink back in Dec. He is so cute holding the little birds nest with a bluebird in it (The beak was not like a cardinals beak, so had to be a small seed eater bird...details.) I wanted to use my Copics, and I have three shades of pink, so I guess the snow"man" is really a "woman" since I colored the scarf and hat in the pinks. I used a pale lavender and pale blue to indicate shape and shadows on the snow woman. I like the magenta buttons particularly.

For the card...
I am the kind of person who doesn't throw away items that I see possibilities in. I am not a junk saver or trash saver per say, but if an item looks of interest creatively, then I will hang onto it a while. I buy my red double stick tape from Hobby Lobby and it comes on a card board with a plastic cover that is a 1/2" deep circle. The plastic circle has always looked interesting to me, so I have saved several of them. I decided to make a snow globe out of the circular plastic and used the snow woman image behind it with some glitter inside. I probably should have used more glitter or some tinsel glitter I have, but I was afraid to over do and it is "nailed shut" with double stick tape and would be destroyed if I tried to add some more now. Oh well, experience is the best teacher, right!

Boy, this was an engineering project and I am not the greatest in measuring or cutting. There are 4 layers of matting. I stuck the lightest pink down and did not realize I needed or should have cut a circle out of it. I did learn one of my Spellbinders classic circle dies fits very nicely over the plastic circle. But I did use that die to cut a circle out of the next three layers. I used some Martha Stewart punched snowflakes to cover up some of my edges that were not uniform. I used a swirly hot pink CS that reminded me of swirling winds. I am liking the brightness of the hot colors of this card. I added a small hand written (in white) sentiment "Happy Winter" and matted in hot pink. I honestly could not find anything small enough to fit, so had to write it myself.

So for those of us who are still in the throws of winter weather, take heart and keep warm. Spring will come when the good Lord allows it to. God is faithful and He gives us the beauty of renewal and rebirth on the earth and in our lives if we believe that Christ died for us and we will have eternal life. Thank you Father for all your wonderful blessings and gifts. Thanks for stopping by.

HEARTS AND FLOWERS

Here is a heart of flowers that I colored with Copics and SU markers several months ago, not sure what I would do with it. I fussy cut around it and matted in pale pink and ran a darker pink marker around the edges to define it a bit.

I had used my CB to make this argyle #2 background and matted that in Bazzill strawberry splash. I had a medium piece of pink left over and ran it through the Swiss dots and then edged it with the Martha Stewart scalloped scallop punch. I felt the white looked really plain, so stamped a small double heart outline stamp in each of the diamonds that would show using Versa Mark and heat embossing in white Zing EP. It is a subtle addition but made me happier.

I adhered the pink strip, the heart and tied my pink dotted ribbon using my Bow-Easy. The sentiment is only half of another one and I stamped it in pink and matted in pink and popped it on to look like it is hanging from the bow. I then adhered the whole top down to the card. Now for some, this card may seem lopsided with most everything to the left. But I kind of like the negative space on the right. Thanks for stopping by.

SENTIMENT FOCUS

Hi everyone! The card I have for you today uses a sentiment for the focal image, and hearts, but can be used for someone you love and not just on Valentines Day.

I began with a white base, punched two strips of Heidi Grace DSP using a Martha Stewart lace hearts border. I matted those with a Bazzill watermelon CS. After getting those adhered on the card, I stamped the Tim Holtz sentiment using Versa Mark on a separate white piece, heat embossed with black Zing, and colored the roses and leaves on the image. I used my CB to cut the image and emboss the extra edge and I also did a lighter shade of Bazzill strawberry splash as the matting, doing the double edge there too. The top image was also distressed using the Tim Holtz "old papers" ink. At first I thought it was way too dark, but decided to continue on and see how the whole thing looked. I used a runner glue to put the two Nestie scalloped rectangles together and popped the whole up at an angle. I punched two different Martha Stewart hearts out of the two shades of pink I had already used, and layered them up with pop dots. The lower left corner looked plain, so added a small dotted sheer pink bow made with my Bow Easy.

This card fits the following challenges:
Crazy 4 Challenges- Hearts
All sorts-Focal image

VALENTINE CARD #3

Yes, there is another card with the Penny Black hedgie and it is a "gate card". I fussy cut the Copic/SU colored hedgie out and I stamped a big dotted heart from Imagine That in black Momento ink, and matted it in a darker pink and then black. Then I sat looking at it for more than a day. I decided to make a gate card in the same pink and used the Martha Stewart Gothic Fence corner punch to decorate the corners of the gate (love that look!). The large heart is adhered to the left side of the "gate" only and the hedgie is popped up for some dimension. I added some Glossy Accents on the hearts stuck on his fur. I stamped "I really do love you" (2001 Penny Black) in black and added a tulle bow in pink on the front. It is very simple, but I do like CAS! The only thing I wish I had done differently would have been to stamp the sentiment higher but at that point, I did not know I was going to add the big tulle bow. Oh well, next card maybe!

Thanks for stopping by.

Challenges:
Weds 7 Kids College Challenge (hearts)
Tues Paper Take Weekly (hearts)
Tues A spoonful of sugar (love)

VALENTINE CARD #2

This card is a step card with three "mountains" and two "valleys" between. I found it difficult to get a good picture of this. The front face of the first "mountain" has pink matting and a strip of scalloped DSP I found at Archivers. I had a bag of shiny red buttons and tied the three largest with pink crochet thread which was a little soft and difficult to keep tied. I of course did NOT have a heart button in that bag and I wanted one. So I just punched one from shiny paper and it can be seen clearly in this picture.

The second mountain has the same pink matting and scalloped punched DSP. I stamped "Happy Valentines's Day" in red on white and cut out using my CB and embossed the framed edge. Then I mounted a red CS scalloped oval behind, which was also cut out with the CB and a scalloped die. This piece is popped up.

The third "mountain" face also has pink matting. My piece of DSP was a little short, so I added a punched scalloped Martha Stewart border in white, but it doesn't show much. I then added a cut out heart in white behind the red doily to give it support. I cut the image out using the CB using the oval nestie. I popped the hedgie up on pop dots on the heart doily and flat adhered the whole thing on the left side. I stamped the little stamp "XOXO Hugs & Kisses" and used a small tag punch to punch each part out. I matted each with red CS and added a pink bow made with the crochet thread.

This is on it's way to our daughter who is so special to us. Happy Valentines Day, Beth!

This qualifies for these challenges:

Tuesday Throwdown-"buttons"
Monday Flourishes- "buttons"
Monday Crafty Card Makers- "hearts"

HAPPY vALENTINES DAY TO ALL

LOVE (or the material manifestation of it) is everywhere. All the stores have heart balloons, candy, heart decorated paper plates, napkins and cups, stuffed animals with hearts on them, coffee mugs with hearts, cling decorations for the windows depicting hearts of all kinds, and that is only at the grocery store. At other stores you get the same push for buying something with hearts.

Why does Valentine's Day need to be only one day in the year? Aren't we supposed to love others and do nice things all year long? This question has been on my mind and probably will be there a long time. I know what my Bible says about LOVE.

GOD is LOVE and HE never changes, never lies, and keeps HIS promises.

JESUS loved us (His creation) so much that HE willingly sacrificed HIS holiness, His kingship, and gave HIMSELF to die for our sins that we might be forgiven. HE wanted to please GOD and so came to earth as a man, went through a horrible death, the grave, and rose again. Such a love was for all who would believe in HIM.

We don't talk much about sacrificial love in our society. It is mostly about what can we get from someone, and NOT what can we give for the benefit of others.

Something to think about on this day of celebrating LOVE!

Here is a card I made several weeks go using the Penny Black hedgie with hearts stuck on his fur. I have made about four cards using that image. He is so cute! The red mesh is a metallic ribbon I bought after Christmas. It is full of wires and so I had to just stick it down with double stick tape. I could feel the tape through the mesh, so threw some diamond dust glitter on it to cover. (Necessity IS afterall, the mother of invention!) I ran the red yarn with silver threads over the mesh three times and secured it by tying a bow on the front. On the inside, where it criss-crosses, I punched a tissue heart and a solid CS one and adhered those over that point. I cut the hedgie out using the deckle edged rectangular Nestie, and matted with red solid CS. I stamped the sentiment, punched it out using the Stampin Up slot punch and mounted with red. I gave the hearts in his fur a coating of Glossy Accents. I think it turned out pretty cute and I have more of this same image to use. (maybe next year!) I hope to make them all totally different...we shall see.

I am sure this would fit a couple of challenges, but it is late in the day, so I won't hunt for them right now. I plan to make my hubby a nice grilled NY strip steak dinner for his Valentine dinner.

Thanks for stopping by.

LUCI CAT

At night I begin my sleep in bed with Bill, but somewhere about midnight -2am, I get up to go to the bathroom and since he is snoring pretty good, go sleep in the craft room on the day bed. I use my walker at night for stability in walking and as I go by the main bathroom I turn the light on and close the door almost shut and use that as a night light. When I went into that bathroom sometime later in the wee hours, here sits Luci in the sink. With the bathroom light on and the door almost shut, it gets very warm in there and I think the sink picks up that warmth. She is the one who likes to lie on the back of the couch under the pole lamp, kind of like taking a sun bath with a heat lamp. So I guess she is just keeping warm up here in these frigid temps. It was -20 degrees wind chill a couple of nights. I am so thankful for our warm houses and so is Luci.
Thanks for stopping by.

BELATED BIRTHDAY CARD

This last week was my son's 37th BD and I completely forgot the date. Grrr! Lately I have to look at my cell phone to see the date. When you don't have any reason to keep track of the date, it kind of gets lost. Plus I am more concerned with my walking skills right now and so am not thinking about other things much.

I made my son a quick belated card the day after. His oldest (Emma, who is almost 6 yrs old) picked out this House Mouse image because they were having fun in the snow. I matted it with some blue solid CS and some birthday paper behind the image and heat embossed some snowflakes all over the image to make it look like snow falling. I ran Scotch tape around a Q-tip to make it as small a circle as I could, then dipped it into the Versa Mark and made the dots. I used white embossing powder and heat set it. Some of the dots were made prior to coloring, and some after. But they all look the same! : ) I colored with a mixture of Copics and Stampin Up markers. I gave it to Bill when he and the girls came for dinner. Happy Birthday Som!

MY MOTHER"S VALENTINE

This little girl on this Penny Black image reminds me of a picture of my mother when she was 5 or so. She had a little Dutch boy hair cut with bangs and her angelic face looked just like this stamp. She was standing by the roadster that her mom and grand mother had driven down to Mexico for a road trip back in the 20's. It is a cool picture, and if I can get a copy, I will post it.

Mom likes blue and pink a lot so I tend to gravitate to making her cards with blue or pink as the main color. I began with a black and then blue matting, adding a white lace layer and the light blue paper both punched using a Martha Stewart punch (Vintage Lace) I stamped the inside of the card and then adhered the ribbon on the front and back and tied the whole card shut. It will give her something new to do...untie her Valentine card!

I colored the image using my few Copics and some Stampin Up markers, and added the magenta Stickles for some glitz. I popped the image and sentiment up with pop dots. The sentiment is stamped in pink, and punched with a Stampin Up slot punch, and then matted with blue. I added a pink pearl heart to her hat, which is the only heart on this Valentine card. But I think she will be pleased with it. We mailed it with a small box of chocolate candies, and a cat comb for her cat. We comb our 3 cats to keep their fur smooth and they have less shedding. Mom expressed a desire to try a comb like ours and so she shall. She likes little gifts and I try to surprise her from time to time.
Thanks for stopping by.

SIMPLE

Here is a card I have thought about making for a long time. It requires that you stamp it 3-4 or more times, depending on the layering you plan to do. I stamped it 6 times and then set it aside months ago and didn't do anything with it until now.

It is a large Holly Berry House (has nothing to do with the movie stare Haley Berry) medallion stamp which I have lots of different ones ( an Ebay collection of mine) LOL! I decided to color this medallion with shades of pink and combined my few Copics with my Stampin Markers to get enough shades. I colored the bottom layer completely first so I would know where I was going with it, and then each layer above just got that layer colored. The cutting took the longest and deciding where to cut. I popped the three layers up. I was surprised that there is a "right" placement to the layers where the lines line up correctly.

I cut a plain white piece of CS with my CB and ran it through the Swiss dots folder and adhered it flat behind the medallion.It only shows near the bottom under the medallion (rotten camera skills here!) I stamped "be mine" (from Amuse) in pink and added some very small magenta heart rhinestones to the medallion and one beside the saying. I am liking simple more and more, every time I am able to accomplish it. I think it really requires a different skill set. Anyone can clutter up the card inside and out with bunches and bunches of layers, embellies, etc, but to make a simple card that seems to linger in the mind and make you smile at its simplicity is an artistic accomplishment, IMO! Don't get me wrong...cluttered cards can be pretty too, they are just different from the simple ones.

The opinions expressed here are mine alone and it is my blog where I share what I am thinking about and what I am thinking. I don't expect everyone or anyone to agree with me. It is JUST MY OPINION! Thanks for stopping by.

A FAVORITE

This card is made using one of my very favorite kinds of stamps...a swirling flourish, which I embossed in white and then colored in two shades of pink. I covered the elongated card with a soft diagonal striped paper and then matted the flourish with two shades of pink. I stamped "love" in a pink after popping up the flourish. It doesn't need ribbon or any extras. LESS is MORE!

I believe my card qualifies for the SimonSaysStamp challenge "Love is in the air" and the the SimonSaysStamp and Show challenge "emboss".

HERE GOES!!!

I am attempting to enter some challenges tonight. I made one card in red, black and white for the Magnolia Bi-Monthly challenge. It also will fit the Just Magnolia Challenge of Anything Goes with Ribbon. I have lots and lots of older Tildas, and have decided to use them even though there are some really precious new ones I would like to get soon.

My card is pretty simple. I matted the black dotted paper with red and black. I added the row of Martha Stewarts dotted border along the opening of the card. The red panel was run through the Cuttlebug using the large rectangular die, and then I used the Swiss dots folder to give it texture. I matted it in black and stamped the Tilda on a white CS using Momento black ink, cut her out using the CB and my new Labels 16 Spellbinder die, and colored her with mostly Copics. I ran the ribbon on the black dotted paper layer and left long tails to tie later. The red panel is flat mounted and the Tilda is popped up on dimensional pop dots. I added the two red heart rhinestones, and some glossy accents on the hearts in her apron (which ran together a little! Boohoo!)

So best get this posted and logged in on the challenges mentioned. There are some nice prizes but it is a random drawing for the winner. Who knows! I might get lucky one of these days. Thanks for stopping by.

GETTING BETTER!

No, I am not talking about my health! LOL! Although the hip is getting better. I was making reference to almost getting a card done on time for a challenge. SHEESH! I need to pay better attention to times. I've never been good with deadlines and such.

My card is a Penny Black image I planned to enter into the Penny Black challenge which I found out ended GMT on Friday. I wonder if they might like to see it anyway but of course not be in the random draw? I will need to try anyway. Well, I looked and of course it was closed. So I hope YOU enjoy my little creation! He is so darned cute!

Thia card is made with a flourish/dotted paper I just bought at Archivers...and it was the last sheet of it! I turned the sketch up and down since I was making a smaller card, and added the horizontal piece of Valentine paper. I used two sizes of Spellbinder plain circles to do the image, added some red satin ribbon, some red rhinestone hearts (I did not have any suitable flowers), and a small saying up in the upper right from Amuse stamps. I also covered the hearts on his body with Glossy Accents. Thanks for stopping by.

A DAY LATE

I had finished this card several days ago but did not know the deadline for the Rainw Lady challenge and am a day late. I know I am not in the running for anything but I decided to post my "bear" card on their blog anyway. Thought you might like to see it too. I used a Penny Black image, colored with a variety of markers (Copics and Stampin Up) and I matted with several shades of pink card stock and crocheted my own little flowers. I used a sparkly brad in the center of both flowers. The very back panel was run through the Cuttlebug for some texture. I used a nice corner punch on the corners of the image panel and added some Martha Stewart punched leaves for my flowers. I would have crocheted some leaves but had neither green thread or white that I would have ink dyed. Guess I am going shopping! This makes a sweet Valentine, although not an obvious one. Thanks for stopping by.

ONLY REHAB PHOTO

I know it isn't very interesting, but here are our grand daughters as Emma reads one of the two books she brought to share when they came to visit in rehab. We had eaten pizza for our supper down in the family area and were back in the room so I could get back in bed. Emma is in Kindergarten and learning so fast. Matti was more interested in my walker and the balloon bouquet and the baggie of chocolate kisses tied on the bottom as a weight. I also showed them my nifty bed and the different positions it could go for my comfort. I wore my Minnesota shirts all the time and every one knew we also have a house in MN. All in all, the rehab part was OK and gave me time to rest up. Here at the house I sleep in the front room for the "quiet". Jack has been sleeping with me most of the time. The day bed is lower to the floor and easier to get out of too.