Cards and Butterflies

My daughter has asked why I'm always making square cards now.....well, you can put a bit more on them....duh! I have grown accustomed to them.
Saturday Spotlight's challenge this week is to find something from around your house to add to the card....but it can't be a craft item. I decided what DSP to use first and went from there. The playing card is so old - it's unbelieveable....it's yellowed so it went well with the paper. I put 4 layers of circles together before adding the little poker chips so they really stick up off the page. I figure I can give this to either of my two nephews, so it's all good. The sketch is Sweet Sunday Sketch #76 over at The Sweetest thing....


The second sketch is from I{heart}to Stamp -
SFYTT (Sketch for You to Try). I've used a butterfly from Sugar Creek Hollow which you can find in the freebies section!!!! I used my watercolour crayons for the Pretty in Pink on the inner wings - trying to get some dimension. This image does have printed antennae for this beauty, but I thought I'd try giving her wire ones.

I took the Grades 4-6 to the city today to see the Edmonton Symphony Orchestra. I had a class with the 6's later in the day and the thing they were talking about most was how impolite and disrespectful some of the students from other schools were who were sitting around them. I'm sorry that they had to experience that, but I'm also happy that they are learning how to be good audience members themselves. They did enjoy the music too - which was geared for their ages and the conductor is awesome with a crowd of kids. The test will be when I take grades 1-3 in June. (I may be crazy on that count!)

Anyway - I hope you had a terrific Tuesday or are working on a wonderful Wednesday. Thanks for dropping by,

Success!!!!

Our Creative Corner has challenged people this week to use something that they purchased a while ago, but haven't used yet. I bought this wonderful "Chairs for You" set from Flourishes almost a year ago. They got buried and then one day I saw a card someone had made where they used DSP for the upholstery of the chair - that clicked in my head, but I still didn't pull out the set. So - today I did. I used Bella Bleu paper for the entire card - I just love it! The sketch is from Sweet Stop Sketch.
The flowers are from Mulberry Street. I don't have much of this sort of thing in my house - but I did buy these on an outing not too long ago. The middle flower is actually white, but I took my SU water colour crayons and Aqua Painter and touched it up with Creamy Carmel so it wasn't so stark against the Vanilla/Kraft base.

My second card is for yesterday's Featured Stamper Challenge on SCS....HamiltonGal. I picked Laurie's card - here - as my inspiration. I changed the colours and used DSP which was not on the original card. I hadn't used my "Build-a-Brad"s for ever so long that I figured they would work well on this card.

And finally - I know it's not that big a deal to the world - but I FINALLY finished my 2000 piece candy cane puzzle today. My husband bought it for me about 4 years ago, and though I am a professed puzzaholic, I balked at this one. I just
couldn't get my head around it. I was told I wouldn't get any more puzzles unless I finished it - that didn't even get me started until this year. I began about a week or two before Christmas - and put the last piece in today. Now I just have to decide which puzzle to do next - until I buy a new one!!!!

I hope you are having a wonderful day - and that you're enjoying watching the Olympics - if it is something you do.

Joan

Stitched Angel

Well.....a number of old and new blogging friends have set me in motion for today's card.

I was visiting Dani's website - a fellow DT member for Sugar Creek Hollow and saw a cool looking sketch she had used. I used her link to the sketch - copied it - worked with it - and then discovered that it was a sketch by LuvLee for GKD Release Party Challenge #3!!!! I've been visiting Lee's blog ever since I started blogging. Woo Hoo!

Finally, while visiting Catt's Scratching Post, a former Little Sister from the Devine Secret Sisters on Splitcoast, I saw a card she created for The Corrosive Challenge Blog!! - it required the use of sewing on your card. Well, always looking for a new challenge - addict that I am - I headed to my stamp room.
So, this little angel is surrounded by friends. She is an adorable image by Tracy at Sugar Creek Hollow. You can find her under the New Releases Button. I printed her out onto white paper - which is why I was able to keep her wings white, and cover them with Dazzling Diamonds, while the rest of the card is Vanilla.
For the sketch, I punched out three little hearts, covered them with Tom Bow Glue and doused them with chunky red glitter. The Specialty DSP is "Sending Love Specialty" and has glitter already included on one side of each sheet!!!!!

Wherever you see stitching on Tracy's image - I have embroidered....which is why some of the stitches along the wings are so so close together. I used French Knots for the bottom of her dress and cross stitches in the middle. Her eyes and mouth are stitched too. If I could have curly cued her hair - I would have. I had so much fun making this card. So my thanks to Tracy, Dani, Lee and Chris!!!

Subsequently, I didn't get as much done as I thought I would, but that's how it goes sometimes.
I hope you have a wonderful Monday -

A Day of Triples

I think Saturday has got to be my favorite challenge day on Splitcoast. I love the sketch and colour challeges because the stretch me sometimes. But on Saturday, I anticipate which website is going to be the headliner for the challenge of inspiration - and whether it will be art, clothing, or food.
This week I visited Etsy's Geninne's Art Store. There were so many wonderful bird pieces to choose from but these three caught my eye right away. If I was more of an artist I'd have worked with these two-step punch birds a bit more so they did their "cousins" proud. I am happy with the way the card turned out though - except for the glistening glue spots. I've also used the sketch for this past week from Splitcoast on this card and the Ways to Use It Challenge which was to use an odd number
of things on your card; whether it was images or embellishments.

For my second card I used this week's Colour Throw Down
which was Blush Blossom, Sage Shadow, and Riding Hood Red. I've used the SCS sketch again but flipped it on it's side.

I should really try to get some school work done tomorrow - report cards are going to be coming out again soon. I can always reward myself with more stamping if I work hard.
Blessed Sunday to you all - thanks for stopping by -

Sugar Creek Hollow Preview Week Finale

Good Morning Friends....
Welcome to the final day of Sugar Creek Hollow's Preview Week. Throughout the week, members of the Design Team have been introduced and shared some of their projects with you. We were provided with a three piece digital stamp set by Tracy Vinson, the owner of the company, and challenged to come up with projects that included all three images. You HAVE to be sure to hop through everyone's blog to see the variety of beautiful cards which have been created by this talented group of women.

Digital stamping is new for me and I am thankful that Tracy has provided me with this opportunity to delve into this brand new world. I have had a lot of fun learning how to manipulate images and have come to appreciate the versatility that comes with
that manipulation.

The first card I have shown here, is actually the third card I created with this set. I couldn't seem to make only one card with this set. I used "My Digital Studio" paper to fill in some of the squares on the quilt block and then paper pieced the rest. Because Sugar Creek Hollow offers primitive and vintage designs, I have been learning about that style of "art". I believe I have a long way to go to master it, but I'm having a blast learning along the way.

For my second card, I paper pieced all of the quilt pieces and overlaid the quilt with a piece of velum that I printed one of the images onto. The flower is coloured in with marker and I applied microbeads to the centre.

It's wonderful being part of this design team. I am learning about digital stamps, vintage styles and I have the privilege of working with a group of Christian women who
are extremely talented and wonderfully supportive.

The other two team members being introduced today are

Nancy - Southern Yankee Crafter
and
Kelly - Sandcastle Stamper our March Guest Designer.

Be sure to hop on over to their sites to meet them.

I hope you have a stupendous Saturday - Thanks for dropping by

Love Birds

Just a quick post before I get busy working on my Newsletter and stamping. I spent most of the morning rearranging/cleaning/organizing my stamp room. Why does that job never seem to end??

I created this card last night using the challenge from CCEE Stampers. This week the challenge was to be inspired by Valentine from ImageKind. The Valentine I chose is called "The Overseers" in the thumbnail. An odd sort of valentine, but the black and white called to me....plus - it gave me a reason to use this fantastic bird punch. I used Nouveau Chic paper for both the matt and the wings.

Well - off to chores - Thanks for stopping by.

Durango Sage Friends

Good Morning -
I am actually still trying to figure out how I feel this morning. I ended up with a very sore neck and migraine yesterday. I did manage to get a challenge card done before settling down early for the night.

The colour challenge this week is Sage Shadow, Dusty Durango and Chocolate Chip. I thought I could make a perfect masculine card with these colours - but this emerged - so it will be more of a fall season card. The sage piece is a left over from something else.

The sketch is from last weeks OCC (Our Creative Corner) Weekly Sketch. I see they have a new one posted this morning - so I'll have to work on that one today.

When making the flower - which I generally have a hard time doing - I bent each one of the petals. I've seen other cards with this done and WOW does it help immensely with the look of the flower. Thank you to everyone who is such an inspiration to me.

Well, off to get ready for work. Have a thoroughly wonderful Thursday.

Snow and Collage

Good Morning:

I had fun creating this first card. The Ways to Use It Challenge last week was to create a collage card/project. I decided that I would go into my little drawer of bits and try to piece the card together that way.

What I have ended up with is a collage about myself - I guess. The ONLY thing that I had to stamp for this is the Philippians verse at the bottom...which of course represents my love for God and my knowledge that I can do all things because of the strength He gives me. The cups represent the mega amount of coffee/tea I tend to drink, the butterfly is for my love of them and if I could have included a dragonfly I would have. The tiny little bird is on top of the cello which , along with the treble clef stands for my love of music - listening/singing/dancing. The bird itself represents the fact that I will stop in my tracks just to listen to a birds' song. Buttons and ribbon match my history of sewing and crafts......and the Favorite Teddy - yeah well - I may be 51, but I find absolutely NO shame in cuddling a stuffed animal!

Okay - enough about me!
This cute little snowman was drawn by Tracy Vinson's niece. Tracy is the founder of Sugar Creek Hollow. The DT were given this cute little guy to work with a couple of weeks ago - He's now a freebie available at the Sugar Creek Hollow website. You should pop over there today to meet more members of the design team.

It's hard to see in the picture, but I cut each of his snowballs out and layered them with dimensionals - his middle section sticks out a bit further than the other two. I covered each snowball with Two way Glue and then added the Dazzling Diamonds. He has black seed beads for his mouth and eyes.

I hope you are working your way into a wonderful Wednesday!
Thanks for stopping by,

PS - ONE MORE FANTASTIC EXCITING PIECE OF NEWS I HEARD YESTERDAY - My Up-Up line in Stampin'Up! - Tamye Dunbar - won one of the Workshop(s) of a Lifetime - so sometime in the near future we'll be having an event with Shelli Gardner - WoooooHoooo! Tamye Rocks!!!

Catching up on Challenges...

Well, I spent the afternoon catching up on challenges that I missed last week because of being at teacher's convention. I haven't even looked at my Monday challenges for this week. I was lucky because, although I wasn't able to stamp in the hotel room, I was able to check challenges and blog hop. So I had an idea of what I was wanting to do when I got home.

Saturday's Inspiration challenge came from Erté. The art was so fabulous and as I was looking at the dresses that were featured - I immediately thought of Haute Couture. I love this dress!!!!! My inspiration is in the little thumbnail - I coloured the dress with Bashful Blue, covered it with Crystal Effects and then doused it with microbeads. The flash on the camera added the bit of pizzazz.

Tuesday's Colour Challenge on SCS was Burgundy, Basic Grey and Crushed Curry. I'm not altogether happy with the way that I coloured these flowers...the shading isn't the best. I used a white gel pen to accent the centres before adding the rhinestones.

The next three cards are done with images from Sugar Creek Hollow. The images are available at the website under "New Releases". We're also having a Preliminary Preview this week and each day a couple of the Design Team are being introduced. Hop on over there to meet them, they're a fantastic group of women.

My first card uses this beautiful cross. It makes me think of a wrought iron fence and yet it's so soft and gentle also. I sponged gold ink around the outside of the white block and used gold cardstock to print the scripture verse. I broke down and purchased a set of Nestibilities on the weekend and tried it out for this piece. The pearls come for Stampin'Up!'s pretties kit.














Over at Our Creative Corner, they are challenging people to create a masculine Valentines card this week. When I created this card I had my husband in mind - I know the image is a bit "soft" and the sentiment is mushy - but it's heartfelt and I hope he likes it.

Finally, CCEE Stampers is having a heart challenge in preparation for Valentine's Day. The heart filligree and the "Forever" are separate images available at Sugar Creek Hollow. Somehow I also think this was a sketch challenge from a while ago - but I can't remember.

My husband is making supper right now - gotta love him!!!! - so once this is posted and supper is done I will be going around visiting my blog list.

I hope your Monday was wonderful and thanks for taking the time to stop by.

Navy Kraft

I've taken an old card and revised it again with current stamps and papers. I've included a picture of how the card opens because it's another fold that tucks under something on the front. I created the floral image by stamping without re-inking and I only added Dazzling Diamonds to
the faint flowers in the bunch.

I love these colours together and am planning on using this card in my March technique workshop.

Now that teacher's convention is over I will be able to be in in my stamp room again....once I've
completed some school obligations. I'm in charge
of volunteers for the Young Author's Conference that our school division holds at the end of the month.

I hope you are having a wonderful weekend so far! Happy Stampin' and thanks for dropping by!

Clean and Simple Circles

Monday's Clean and Simple Challenge on Splitcoast was inspired by the card on the left by kmahany. I love how brilliant and bright her images are. When I began working on the challenge, I decided to pick the paper first and then select the inks based on that. I just love this particular piece of paper in the Kaleidoscope DSP. I then used "Circle Circus" and especially the Stamp-a-ma-Jig in order to line everything up. Now that I have the picture in front of me on the computer I realize that I didn't add any greeting - duh!!!!! I will add one when I
use the card!

Hope your day is bright and colourful!!
Happy Stamping,

Bamboo Framed Strength

This scripture verse is one of my favorites and I've framed it with a digital frame from Sugar Creek Hollow. I love the intricacy of the pattern and it can have a variety of looks depending on whether or not you colour it.

I inserted the scripture with the computer, cut out the frame and added some square brads in the corner for a bit of bling and raised it with dimensionals.

I love this Nouveau Chic paper because Sage Shadow is one of my favorite colours and it's featured wonderfully in this paper. I used the Double Rectangle Punch along the bottom of one of the sheets to weave the Sage ribbon through.

Unfortunately there are a number of people in my life right now who could use this card...so I may just be using it as a template.

I also want to let you know that Sugar Creek Hollow will be posting a free image every Friday! Just look for the Freebies tab in the sidebar. Today's freebie is an elegant lacy butterfly! Also,on Monday there will be a preview of a set that the Design Team is currently working with. You'll be blown away be the creations...become a follower on Sugar Creek Hollow and you won't miss out on any of the exciting things that will be happening.

Thanks for dropping by - Have a wonderful Friday.

Sing to the Lord

I am so excited that I can start sharing some of the cards I've been creating on the Design Team with digital images from Sugar Creek Hollow.

Any time I see a music themed stamp I want to have it because I give out so many cards as thanks for parents who help at school....or my musical friends. I really liked this image also because of the tiny little flowers that are surrounding the violin.

Our Creative Corner is having a Music Card Challenge this week, so this one fits into that category just fine.

I'm sorry that the words are so small for you in the picture - I'm still learning about how to manipulate digital images. I am having an extreme amount of fun being on this Design Team!!!

Digital images are now available for purchase at the store. You may pre-buy prior to our Grand Opening. Simply click on "New Releases" to go enter the store on our website. I have a button to pop your over there along my sidebar.

Hope you have a wonderful Thursday!!!

Scrappy Music

I had a couple of minutes between workshops Tuesday night and threw this card together. It was quick and easy because every piece of it was scrap that I had in my little drawer.

The Bella was already coloured with a blue dress - I just added the contrast colour in the pleats and added gold pen to the Treble Clef and note.

The Hearts were left over from a previous project a couple of weeks ago. I punched holes in them once I decided how I was going to attach them.

The entire Saffron layer was already put together - Saffron, Bordering Blue and DSP. I added the Always Artichoke base and matt to the Bella - strung the organdy gold ribbon through the hearts and around the layer....and Viola - a done deal.

It was fun to put together. I bet I could spend a whole weekend putting left over pieces together. Maybe I'll challenge myself sometime. Not this weekend though!!!!

Hope all your bits and pieces are fitting together well today; thanks for stopping by,

Mojo All in White

While I was jumping around in Blog Land Monday, I came across a mostly white card made by Kim over at "From My Stamp Room" - She had completed the "Mostly White Challenge" from Squigglefly. I have always wanted to try an all white card - so I did.

I used two different embossing dies for the Big Shot to add texture; came across some white "fancy" paper that I hadn't used in a long time, and cut out the awesome little butterflies. I created their bodies by using Tombow Glue and Dazzling Diamonds. I embossed one of the Vintage Labels onto the fancy white paper using white embossing powder. The tiny bit of "colour" is from a piece of Kraft ribbon and although you can't see it, there is a piece of Organdy white ribbon also.

I'm happy with the result and will want to get some more embossing dies so that I can do it again. Oh - And to top it all off - I used the sketch from Mojo Monday. I've had a happy happy evening.

Thanks for dropping by -

Bold and an old Revision

Saturday's Inspiration Challenge was from a website that had purses - Espe - and Oh my word I love purses. I believe it has become my "midlife" obsession. The one I chose for my card is at the left - My card turned out NOTHING like I would have
wanted, but close. I've included a couple of other challenges with this card too....

Thursday's Ways to Use It Challenge was to add some textile to the card and over at Saturday Spotlight the challenge was to add something bigger than you usually use. I have a very hard time with these big Pretties flowers so thought it would become my challenge. I used a dauber with Gable Green so it
matched the one on the purse. I then layered some felt flowers which I keep forgetting to use.
To Centre it all off I added a rhinestone brad in the middle - can you tell??? :) WOW!

Next, I've started to think about cards for March's Technique Tuesday Workshop. I came across a card which I did at an Extravaganza a couple of years ago and I liked the layout. I don't have either of the stamp sets, and the colours were old "In Colours".....so I revised it into the card you see at the left - I used "Special Blessings" and "Three Little Words" I had to play around with the colours a bit because I knew I HAD to use
Cameo Coral.....I ended up with a whole bunch of packages and can't remember why.

The technique I used was Rock and Roll which you can find here through a tutorial by Beate Johns.

The body of the card is 4.25 X 11". It's scored at 5.5 and 2.75''. Only half of the bird layer is attached to the body of the card. The Scallop section is put on with a dimensional and then the frame is tucked underneath at the corner to keep the card closed.

Well, I'd better get to bed - gotta teach tomorrow. It's also my birthday and we just never know what the staff may have in store - so I'd better be rested and prepared. It's a short week too because Teacher's Convention is Thursday and Friday - Woo Hoo!!!

Thanks for Dropping by -