Kathy's Knook

Inventory Reduction Challenge #65 - Teal and Brown

2012-01-20T06:15:00.001-05:00

Hello everyone! It's Friday and time for another Inventory Reduction Challenge. This week our theme is teal and brown colors. This one was easy for me since I really love teal and brown.

Sooooo - if you think you've seen this card before, you are almost correct. Actually I made two cards very similar - one went to my daughter for her birthday and the other to the Challenge. The flowers on the front are the major difference between the two.

Here is my challenge card:

The cardstock is from Stampin' Up! - Tempting Turquoise, Close to Cocoa and Marigold Morning. Lady Tilda is mounted on Core'dinations Chocolate Box cardstock in teal. After running the cs through the Cuttlebug using CB's Heritage set of embossing folders, I then sanded off the brown with a sanding block revealing the teal underneath.

Tilda was stamped on X-Press It Blending Card, colored with Copic markers and cut out.

The designer papers are from My Mind's Eye Simply Delightful stack. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and the Pinwheel Florettes from Webster's Pages, purchased from Angie Hunt at her store Love to Stamp. I put a tiny rose over the stamped one in her hand.

The Copics I used: Dress - BG18, 49, 45, 01, RV000, 00. Hair - E25, 31, 50. Skin - E11, 000, 00, R21. The tiny rhinestones at her neck are by Crystal Stickers. The tiny pearl in her hair is from the stash. The lace on her dress is colored with a Gelly Roll Clear Star pen. The detail on her hair ribbon is done with a gold glitter pen.

Here is the inside of the card:

These are the same cardstock and dp's as on the front.
The ribbon and lace are from my stash.
The sentiment panel is cut from SU's Crumb Cake cs with Nestabilities Labels Ten die, edged with Tempting Turquoise ink. I added a rose bud from Hooked on Crafts just to dress it up a bit.

Be sure to stop by my team mates' blogs to see their creations in teal and brown!

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Nadine

Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting with me. Hope to see you again soon!
Huggeroonies,

Journals

2012-01-19T11:19:00.000-05:00

Hi everyone out there in blogland!
Today I have two journals to share. One is new. The other one is a couple years old, but unused until recently and now updated!

My friend Lynn commented on how she liked my journal. I had just started using it a couple weeks ago to keep notes from our Sunday sermons. I decided to make one for her.

This is simply a black and white composition book that I got in Wal Mart for twenty-five cents.

I covered the front and back inside and out with cardstock and designer papers. The I did the image panel with 3 layers of cardstock and dp, machine stitched together.

Tilda with Straw Hat was colored with Copics.

The I added the spring flowers bouquet and lastly added the chandelier beads.

I worked quickly so I could give it to her in church last Sunday, but she didn't go.

As I was showing others, several said it "looked like me" so I thought I would update the very plain one I was using.

Here are pictures of my old and "new" journals.

Can you guess which one this is?

I had covered this one for a quickie item for a craft show I was entering.

Here is the "new and improved" version!
What do you think!?!

Thanks for dropping in! See you soon.

Huggeroonies,

Phyllis' birthday card

2012-01-16T22:04:00.000-05:00

I am really on a roll today! I seem to have a lot of time for some reason. The rush to get ready for the Heart-2-Heart Stamp Camp was really intense. Then there was getting all the Christmas cards for family members done and mailed. Since Christmas I haven't had any really pressing things to take care of, so I've been making cards!!!

Here is another birthday card and it's even done early! This one is for my daughter, Phyllis. I've gone with a teal and brown color theme for this one. I love Lady Tilda for a more formal look.
So here she is -

The cardstock is from Stampin' Up! - Tempting Turquoise, Close to Cocoa and Marigold Morning. Lady Tilda is mounted on Core'dinations Chocolate Box cardstock in teal. After running the cs through the Cuttlebug using CB's Heritage set of embossing folders, I then sanded off the brown with a sanding block.

Tilda was stamped on X-Press It Blending Card, colored with Copic markers and cut out.

The designer papers are from My Mind's Eye Simply Delightful stack.
The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Magnolia. I put a tiny rose over the stamped one in her hand.

The Copics I used: Dress - BG18, 49, 45, 01, RV000, 00. Hair - E25, 31, 50. Skin - E11, 000, 00, R21. The tiny rhinestones at her neck are by Crystal Stickers. The tiny pearl in her hair is from the stash. The lace on her dress is colored with a Gelly Roll Clear Star pen. The detail on her hair ribbon is done with a gold glitter pen.

Here is the inside of her card -

These are the same cardstock and dp's as on the front.
The ribbon and lace are from my stash.

The sentiment panel is cut from SU's Crumb Cake cs with Nestabilities Labels Ten die, edged with Tempting Turquoise ink. I added a rose bud from Hooked on Crafts just to dress it up a bit.

This will be going in the mail tomorrow to my daughter.

Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting with me. Hope to see you again soon!
Huggeroonies,

Carrie's Birthday Card

2012-01-16T13:28:00.000-05:00

Hello Everyone! Welcome to winter in my part of the country. It was -2 degrees when I went to bed last night. I burrowed under the blankets like I was in a den for the winter.

I made this card for my daughter-in-law for her birthday. I was only 4 days late getting this one in the mail :(

The card that inspired me to make this one was featured in MagnoliaInk magazine 2011 issue 1 (01101).
The original card featured Fairytale Tilda. I don't have her so I used Beautiful Tilda.

The papers are from My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus and DCWV stack. The lace and ribbon are from the stash. Flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts.
I made this card front several months ago, but didn't finish the inside until now.

The inside of the original card has 4 different Tilda's that stand up and "Happy" is on the inside top and "Birthday" is on the bottom.

These papers coordinate with the ones on the front of the card. The heart was cut with Nestabilities dies. The ribbons are from the stash. The slider heart is from Wild Orchid Crafts.

Thanks for stopping by! I would love to know what you think about this card.
Huggeroonies,

New Baby cards

2012-01-14T14:12:00.000-05:00

Good Saturday to all!
I think I jinxed western NY in my last post by saying we were enjoying the mild weather. At least at 10:30 pm on Thursday we were:) On Friday morning we had a couple inches of blowing, drifting snow and very nasty conditions:( The snow storm has ended for now. My hubby has finished plowing the driveway and shoveling off the deck and steps just getting ready for the next storm sure to come. So much for weather reporting.

I have completed two baby boy cards for special people. Our precious daughter in the Lord, Jodie, had a baby boy on October 12, the same date as our daughter's birthday! I know I am very late getting her card done. In the same package I included her birthday card (Dec 16) and her Christmas card.
Here's her card:

The stamp is Whiff of Joy Willow with Infant.
I colored it with Copics trying to simulate water coloring.

The papers were pre-cut 6" x 6" pieces in my stash, probably Stampin' Up. The larger background piece is embossed with a Sizzix folder from SU. The smaller piece isembossed with Cuttlebug Love Language folder. The paper used on the base is from a DCWV stack.

The image is stamped on Cryogen. I just love the shimmer in that paper. The bottom was Martha Stewart's Floral Lace Punch.

The ribbons and pearls are from my stash. The flowers are Wild Orchid Crafts.

A young couple from our church had their little guy during the holidays. Their family has been our neighbor for years. Their card is nearly identical to Jodie's. The punched edge and ribbons are different.

I ran a very narrow ribbon through the lace and then tied the bow. I had tried leaving the narrow blue ends longer, but couldn't get the look that I had in mind.

I realized I had forgotten the pearls after I had taken this picture.

The punched edges on this card were Martha Stewart's Valentine Lace punch. I remember when this punch first came out, it was nearly impossible to find, but I did find it!!

The sentiment panel was cut with Nestabilities Labels Four dies.

Thanks so much for stopping by and having a look at some non-Maggies cards.

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge # 64 - An Old Maggie Image

2012-01-12T22:12:00.005-05:00

Well, a good, good morning to you all! We have had several days of unseasonably warm weather here in good old western New York. We can handle this very easily, unless you own a ski lodge. Then there's a problem.

ETA: I woke up to 1-1/2 " of blowing, drifting snow this morning. I'm sorry WNY for saying how nice it's been:(

This week our inventory reduction challenge is to use an old Maggie image. I don't remember what my first few Maggies were. So I used some of the older ones from the stamp collections files.

I used the Lap Tilda from Spring 2008, Tilda's Birds from 2008 Spring/Summer, Rufus and Shabby Chic Fence from 2008 Shabby Chic Summer, and Tilda's Wall from 2008 Magnolia & Lilac Summer. They created a really cute scene, I think.

The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Magnolia. The background paper is from Webster's Pages Winter Fairy Tales.

The inside of this card is sort of Blah! I used older papers and very much older ribbon.

The cutting die is from My Favorite Things Die-namics Dizzy Doily. Ssshhhhh!!! Don't tell anyone - it is new! The sentiment is from a Gina K set Tree Silhouettes given to me by my friend Kim Marie about 4 years ago.

That's it for tonight! Hope you enjoyed this "Oldie". Looking through those old Collections catalogs reminded me of so many of the stamps I have, maybe not even used, and have wanted at one time or another.

I hope you will take a few minutes to visit my team mates' blogs to see what they have for "Oldies but Goodies". They always come up with absolutely gorgeous cards!

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Nadine

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge #63 - Let's See Some Charms

2012-01-06T06:00:00.007-05:00

This is the last of the Christmas cards for 2011. We had a two week break in making cards for our Inventory Reduction Challenge. Sure seems like a lot longer. I have been very busy trying to finish up my Christmas cards and December birthday cards. I also have a new baby boy card to get done too. If I wait just a little longer I can do one for his first steps or maybe first day at kindergarten. His birthday was October 12 - the same as my daughter.

Our Inventory Reduction Challenge this week is to use charms on the card. I had to think about what I wanted to do for a long time - nearly all of the two week break :C

I needed a special Christmas card for our mail carrier, Todd. He is just an angel bringing me all my stamping boxes and right to the deck steps if the box won't fit in the mailbox.

Here is what I finally came up with for him.

The background paper is from The Paper Studio A Country Christmas. The ribbon is from my stash, of course. The poinsettia is from Wild Orchid Crafts. The image is Edwin Santa's Little Helper sitting on the Wishful Chair.
Looks like Santa Todd has lots of mail to get delivered before the big day!!

The upper half of the inside has a poinsettia and the Peppermint. The charm attached to the ribbon says "Ho, ho, ho" on it. I couldn't find one that said "Bah Humbug!".

At last Santa Todd is back to ordinary, everyday Todd (Heartbreaker Edwin without his wings)!

He looks like he's thinking about all the work he did to get all those Christmas cards and parcels delivered on time. And now there are lots of things under his Christmas tree.

WOW! Is his tree ever decked all out! Just look at all those ornaments. The star on the top is a brad. That gold bead garland is so pretty. There's a snowflake, a candy cane and holly berries and leaves. The red balls are some beads I came across in a box of stuff given to me by a friend. The small red and green boxes are about 1/2 inch square and really difficult to get to stay put!

I wonder who the sled is for - Todd seems just a bit old for it! Or maybe Santa Todd let him keep it for a day or two until he has time to rest up. He does look a bit tired.

I'm so glad you took time out to stop by for a minute. Hope you enjoyed it.
Now please be sure to stop by my team mates' blogs and see what charming things they have done!

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Nadine

Huggeroonies,

Birthday cards are all caught up!

2012-01-04T22:49:00.000-05:00

In addition to all the Christmas cards I was working on, I had three birthdays in December to make cards for. Obviously they are all late :((

The first was for my grandson, Stephen, who lives in Georgia. I don't get to see him very much at all. Here's his card.

Heartbreaker Edwin with his wings cut off looks so forlorn. But why? Just look at all those birthday gifts around his Wishful Chair.

What more could he want? Could it be that he wants to have a party?

The background paper is from Jo-Ann Fabrics. It looks like swirls of yummy icing with candy sprinkles all over it.

The "gifts" were cut from another paper from Jo-Ann's and adhered with SU Dimensionals.

Inside Edwin's house is all decorated with streamers, noise makers and those things that blow out and curl back up (forgot what they 're called). Appears that there will be some noisy fun shortly. Maybe Edwin hasn't looked inside yet.
All of the stick-ons were from Basic Grey's Cupcake collection pack. I sure hope Edwin goes inside soon and cheers up when he sees the house ready for his big party!

The next card is for my granddaughter Paula, who lives in Colorado. I wonder how much snow she has now!?!

The background paper is from DCWV The Sweet Stack. Tilda's girlfriends are getting together to help her celebrate her birthday.

The corner frame was cut with a Cuttlebug die. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts, Hooked on Crafts, and Jo-Ann Fabrics. The ribbon is from my stash.
The images are all colored with Copics.

Here is the party underway with Tilda's friends all gathered to celebrate with her.

Just look at that cake and all those gifts! What a lucky girl she is!

I really like making the easel cards, but haven't done many lately.
The sentiment panel is cut with a new die - MB Lace Circle purchased from Magnolia-licious.

The last birthday card is for Jodie, our former Adopt-A-Teen. She has matured so much this past year. She had little Sean in October and is a fantastic mom to him.
And at the same time she is going to college and works.

Here is her birthday card.

I used papers from Basic Grey's Two Scoops paper pad. The solid papers are from Stampin' Up! - Blushing Bride and ??? The background papers were layered and stitched. The pearl swirls were from Prima - Say It In Pearls.
The ovals were cut with Nestabilities Petite Ovals dies, layered and stitched together.
The flowers were from Wild Orchid Crafts and Magnolia.

The top inside has a butterfly charm hanging from the bow - ribbon from my stash. The charm is Magnolia I think.

These papers are from Two Scoops.

The oval sentiment panel was cut with Nesties Oval dies.
I found a long string of pearls in my stash. They were perfect for outlining the oval.
The rose buds were from Wild Orchid Crafts.

I hope you have enjoyed your visit.
Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing your day with me. Please leave a comment to let me know what you think about the birthday cards.

Huggeroonies,

The Last of the 2011 Christmas Cards

2012-01-04T21:05:00.000-05:00

Finally I have finished the Christmas cards for some very special people requiring very special cards.
Jodie was our Adopt-A-Teen girl when she was at a facility for troubled teens. After she finished the program, she stayed to work there and help other girls who had backgrounds similar to hers. We have kept in touch since she left there.

Her is her very special card--

This is very similar to a card made and posted a month or so ago. This time I used the cute
Winter Tilda. It is so cold here I really need to borrow her muff. It will be a little tricky driving with it!
It was -5 degrees this morning at 6:00am, but it did warm up a lot today.
The flower is a pinwheel Florette from Webster's Pages purchased from Angela Hunt at Love to Stamp.

The tiny Merry Christmas stamp on the banner on the lamppost is from an SU set.
Tilda's muff and pompoms on her hat are Liquid Applique.

Inside the card has a ribbon from my stash, a charm from WalMart, poinsettias from Prima.

The cloud shapes are from the Nestabilities Labels 14 set.
The papers are from My Mind's Eye Simply Delightful tablet. I am finding those papers are fantastic to work with. There are at least 3 or more papers that co-ordinate so you can have perfectly matched papers on your card.

I didn't keep track of any of the Copics I used to color.

I had overheard one of the young guys at our church make a comment to his mother about "Coal Again!" for Christmas. I immediately thought "I have a stamp for that!!!!!!"

So I made him a card using 3 of my Fluffles stamps, one of which says "Coal Again?!" on it. I gave it to him at church Sunday morning and he loved it!
Here are the pictures !

These papers are from Basic Grey's Nordic Holiday. After I got them I was wishing I had ordered 2 or 3 more pads. They are so cute for kids and fun cards.

The stick-ons were in my stash. I have no idea where they came from or how long I've had them. But - they were a baking theme so were just perfect for this Fluffles stamp.
The ribbon was from my stash.
The red around the image is another Nestabilities set Lacy Squares.

The top inside has more stick-ons and another Fluffles image.
The green is the same die cut from Lacy Squares.

It didn't take very long to color these fun little stamps.

The Christmas tree, gifts and fireplace are Magnolia stamps. Fluffles is looking in his stocking and finds -- COAL AGAIN?!

The Merry Christmas sentiment is another stick-on from the same set.

This was very fun to do and Kaleb just loved it!
He then explained to me that "Coal again" is a family joke on him. One year his family cut up some candy bars then wrapped the pieces in black foil to look like lumps of coal and put them in his stocking.

And my last Christmas card will be posted on Friday morning as it is my Inventory Reduction Challenge card for this week.

Huggeroonies,

Almost the end of Christmas cards!

2011-12-26T23:51:00.000-05:00

Where has the time gone? It seems like just a couple weeks ago was Labor Day weekend. People who say that time goes by faster the older you get are very right.

At any rate, I have been furiously trying to finish my Christmas cards. I think I have only one more that is a humorous one not needed until next Sunday.
Here are the pictures ---

This one is for Jeff, my son-in-law. The front is the same as the one for my son. The inside is very different though.
I added a mix of Shamrock Green and Christmas Green Flower Soft to the Christmas tree and added a gold star brad at the top.
The Sweet Christmas Welcome scene is colored with pastel Copics. Lightning Edwin is colored in brighter colors.
The lights on the string are colored with glitter pens.

Here's the inside of Jeff's card. The designer paper is from Webster's Pages Botanical Christmas.
The red ribbon from the stash.
The charms are a spatula and crown - Jeff is King of the Grill at their house. He does a lot of grilling even in winter. It is not unusual to see steam from the grill when it's zero outside!
The jotting panels were cut using the Nesties Labels Three set.

This is for my daughter, Becky. This is one of the four I made using the "no lines" Tilda images from the Inventory Reduction Challenge a couple weeks ago.

My granddaughter Megan received this blue card from the "no lines" group.

My grandson Jake has always loved the snow, snowboarding, building snowmen - anything outside in the winter. Shoveling the driveway - not so much.
I don't remember where the background paper came from, but it looked like a winter sky. I added the snowflakes die cut from Cuttlebug Snowflakes #2 set.
Edwin on Christmas Eve is from the new Sweet Christmas Dreams and is colored with Copics.

The inside of his card carries along the snowman-snowflake theme. The charm is a snowflake from Magnolia.

The ribbon is from the stash. (If any of you are wondering about how often I say "from the stash", believe me I have a HUGE stash of everything. While I was working, I was preparing supplies for years of card making after I retired!)

The large snowflake is a Martha Stewart punch; the smaller one is a Cuttlebug die.
The label is a Stampin' Up punch.

This little cutie Halo Tilda was for my great granddaughter Dakota. Tilda was colored with Copics, with Clear Star glitter on her wings and yellow glitter pen on the halo.
The mitten was die cut with Nesties Mittens die.
I cut one pink checked and one blue and offset them just a bit so the pink would show against the background.
The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Magnolia. The papers are from the Magnolia Fairytale Paper pack.

The inside of Dakota's card was lined with another Magnolia paper and one from SU's Sweet Pea tablet.
The ribbons are from my stash.
The mittens are smaller dies in the same Nesties set. I stamped Merry Christmas on the tiny mittens, threaded a 1/8" ribbon through the slots in the cuff and tied them together. I added a tiny rose and leaf.
The medium size mitten is the jotting panel.

My granddaughter, Paula, who lives in Colorado and is going to college out there will get this card shortly. Her birthday is in a couple days, so both cards will go together.

I love Tilda with all those presents! She too was colored with Copics.
The tag is a Magnolia Doohickey die. The ribbon is from the stash.
The corners are from a Cuttlebug die set.
The designer papers are from the stash.

I think the stripe papers are from Webster's Pages; the holly paper is Magnolia.
The ribbon is from the stash. The Christmas carnations are from Hooked on Crafts.
The charm is from Magnolia.

And last is the cutesy card I did for my stamping friends. Not very intricate or fussy at all, but a quick fun card to do.

The stamp is House Mouse Wrapped and Ready. I colored them using Prismacolor pencils.
I added Vintage Christmas Flower Soft to the shadow lines.
I found the very small bows while browsing the Christmas aisles in WalMart. They are a little large for the mice, but do look very cute.

When I ran out of bows, I used glitter pens.

Inside was stamped "Welcome Christmas into your heart" - from the Stampin' Up set Heard From the Heart.

This is a really long post. Thank you for sticking with me to the end!

Huggeroonies,

Christmas Cards for Dale's Family

2011-12-19T14:50:00.021-05:00

WHEW!! I've been really busy getting Christmas cards done that needed to be mailed.
The cards and gifts for my son and his family are in the mail!

I was up until about midnight again (Is it any wonder I feel so tired?) getting their cards all finished. Here are the pictures of them.

The wreath is a Cuttlebug die and embossing folder called Holly Wreath. What a clever name!?! I covered it with Vintage Christmas Flower Soft and added red Stickles for the holly berries. Gold Stickles are on the bow. It looks a lot better IRL than this picture.

The window is Old Window stamp from Magnolia. It was stamped twice, cut out and glued back to back on the card stock.

The red paper is from a Basic Grey paper pad - no idea which one.

The inside wall paper is from SU's Sweet Pea
paper stack.
I stamped Magnolia's Fireplace and Stockings
in Memento Rich Cocoa ink after stamping
off once on scrap paper.

The image is House Mouse Micely Opening
Presents, stamped with Rich Cocoa and colored
with Prismacolor colored pencils.

It's popped up with dimensionals.

Here is the full inside. Snowflake wreath is stamped around the window. I added some silver pearl drops around the wreath.

Jeremy's card is very much the same.
The grayish white paper is from a Basic Grey paper pad.

The wreath and window are the same as on Stephen's card. The blue paper is Basic Grey again.

I thought it would be fun to have the window cut out so the Christmas morning scene would show behind the window.

The inside uses a different wall paper design. The stamp of the fireplace doesn't show as much, but once the stamp is removed don't try to re-stamp - just won't work.

This stamp is House Mouse For Me?
The gifts are wrapped more like birthday than Christmas. Just depends on what colors you use.

This is also very much like Stephen's card.

This is the front of my son's card. I can just picture him trying to untangle the string of lights and getting them on the tree - finally.

The tree is Magnolia. After stamping, I put glue on it in small sections and covered it with Flower Soft Shamrock Green and Christmas Green mixed together.
The star is a brad from my stash. I thought I had some very small tinsel garland, but can't find it in the mess I call the Stamp Mansion.

I put the Sweet Christmas Welcome in the background and colored it with light Copic inks so it wouldn't over power Edwin, who is colored with much brighter Copics. The lights are done with glitter pens.

By the time I reached this point in making these cards, I was very tired and my creative brain was saying "Bedtime! Bedtime!"

This cute scene with Santa's overloaded sleigh is from Webster's Pages Botanical Christmas Winter Fairy Tales papers.
The stamp is from SU Loads of Love set.

Thanks for stopping by. I hope you have enjoyed seeing these cards and maybe getting in a bit more of a Christmas mood!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year wishes to each of you and your families.

Huggeroonies,

Christmas cards made from "no black lines" samples

2011-12-18T20:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I spent the whole day making cards out of the practice "no black lines" images I colored. I don't usually sew on my cards, but I did on these. Each layer is 3 cardstock/designer papers thick. One card will go to my daughter-in-law; one to my daughter and don't know at this time who will get the last one.

The blue card was stitched with silver metallic thread. The pink and green ones were done with gold metallic thread. Sewing metallic threads on that many layers caused the thread to shred and break several times.

So without further delay, here are the finished cards.

The card stocks are from Stampin' Up!, and Magnolia-licious. The flowers, leaves, and pearl sprays are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The gems and ribbon are from the stash. The doily behind Tilda is cut with a Marianne Designs Die and sponged with Pacific Point ink.

Here is the inside using the same papers as on the front. I have added an angel charm to the ribbon.

The lower inside paper is from Webster's Pages Botanical Christmas and Winter Fairy Tales. The sentiment is from SU Snow Swirled set.

Here is a close up of the colored Tilda stamped using a very light ink.

Coloring with no black lines was a little hard, but by the fourth image, it was getting much easier.

On the mauve Tilda, the plaid paper is from my stash. The designer papers are from Magnolia.
This card is stitched with gold metallic thread. It just barely shows across the top of the panels. The ribbon is SU Purely Pomegranate. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Magnolia. The gems in the corners are from the stash.

The papers and ribbon are the same as the front. I have added a holly leaf and berries charm.

The jotting panel is die cut with the new Magnolia Doohickey die Dream Tag. The inner panel of the tag is Cryogen White card stock sponged with SU Old Olive ink.

And finally the last card -

The designer papers are from Magnolia. The gold/ecru check is from my stash.
The poinsettias are from a Prima tin of flower pieces and leaves purchased at AC Moore several years ago. The stamen are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The ribbon is from my stash.

The corner gems are from my stash.

I've added a snowflake charm to the upper inside.
The jotting panel is the Doohickeys Dream Tag.

Attached to the bottom flower is an embossed ornament that was in the flower tin.

Here is the close up of the green dress.

Thanks so much for stopping by to see the cards from the remaining "no lines" Tildas.

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge # 62 - No Lines

2011-12-16T01:12:00.000-05:00

Today has been a really yucky rainy day even though the temps were high 50's. Very rare for western New York a week before Christmas. We'll take it! We'll take it!!

Our Inventory Reduction Challenge this week is to stamp and color a "no lines" image. This is done by stamping in a very light color ink or by "stamping off" until very little ink remains on the stamp. I've not tried this before even though I have seen some very beautiful cards using this technique. The image looks more like a painting than a stamped image.

I was very unsure of my abilities at this point, so I stamped off about a dozen images. A few of them were light enough to use. Then I colored them with my Copics. Here are the results of my test images.

I really had fun coloring these little gals and will turn each of them into Christmas cards tomorrow.

Here is the card I made using the teal one.

So here she is! What do you think?
I so admire the cards that Jacque Bettingfield makes and so I tried the multiple layers, machine stitching and minimal flowers.
I really like the way this turned out. Thank you Jacque for the inspiration!

I tried keeping track of the papers I used, but they are from several different paper pads from Basic Grey, Webster's Pages and Stampin' Up.

The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Hooked On Crafts. The ribbon is from the stash.

Here is the inside of the card, again inspired by Jacque.

I didn't have enough of the ribbon to make the double bows like Jacque does, but this looks OK with the little flower in the center.

This is a Marianne Designs doily die. I added tiny rose buds to dress it up a bit.

I hope you will be inspired to try the "no lines" technique on a card soon.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Now scoot on over to my team mates' blogs and look at their fabulous creations.

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Nadine

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge #61 - Monochromatic card

2011-12-09T06:15:00.001-05:00

I'd like to welcome our newest member of the Inventory Reduction Challenge group - the wonderful and talented Nadine St-Pierre! Be sure to check out her blog to see more of her fabulous work.

Our Inventory Reduction Challenge for this week was to make a monochromatic card - all one color. Sounds easy enough. BUT--if you don't want your card to just lay there looking all flat and lifeless, there needs to be some contrast somewhere.
I did mine using several shades of brown. How much more blah a color could I have chosen? I am really an earth tones person. I did struggle with this one.

Here she is - Holly Tilda!

The card base is SU Close to Cocoa. The edge is punched with an embosser/punch. On solid paper there is an embossed snowflake between the punched out snowflakes. The roses are from Wild Orchid Crafts. Sheer ribbon from my stash. The oval behind Tilda is cut using Nesties. Tilda is colored with Copics and of course, I didn't keep track of the numbers. They are all from the E family:(

To add a bit of "color" I added the tiny roses to the sheer ribbon. The glue dots on the flowers were just enough to go through the sheer and hold the ribbon ties in place.

The inside is very simple. The cotton crocheted lace is from Magnolia; the sheer brown ribbon threaded through the lace is from my stash. Both the designer papers are from SU.

The lower half dp is from one of my big stacks from DCWV from Jo-Ann Fabrics.
The scalloped oval for the jotting panel is cut using Nesties.
The sentiment stamp is from SU's Heard From the Heart set.

Here are close ups of the inner panels.

Now that I've been looking at all those Close to Cocoa colors, I'm thirsty for some hot cocoa myself! Come on and join me!!

Be sure to check out all my team mates' projects. They're sure to have some really gorgeous ones.

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Nadine

I'd love for you to leave a little comment while I'm preparing our hot cocoa drinks.
Huggeroonies,

Stamp Camp Was A Huge Success!!

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

Now that Stamp Camp is over, it is a let down not to have to be working on Stamp Camp stuff every free minute. It was a HUGE success!! Everyone was very pleased with everything.

So here is a picture of the three forces behind the whole endeavor -

Deby Scott is on the far left. She's our pastor's wife and a great stamper! Roxanne (Roxy) Stevens is in the middle. She is a fabulous card maker. That's me - Kathy Gerace - on the right.

I'm not supposed to call us the "instigators" or the "co-conspirators", but that's about what we are!!

As each attendee entered the church, they saw these bags sitting on a bench and the floor. Each person received a decorated gift bag containing the card kits for each of the 15 cards they would be making and a packet of envelopes with a candy cane attached.

Here is a close up of a couple of the bags.

Each bag had a winter design wheeled across near the bottom. Then the bag was Spritzed.
Name tags were stamped and cut out with a Deckled Rectangle Nestie. There is a tiny candle in the lower right corner of the tag that was colored with a cream shimmer paint, red, yellow and green Copics. Kim, another stamping lady, did all the names in her beautiful calligraphy.

As everyone entered the area where we were set up, they saw the tables all decorated with pine garlands, ornaments (one for each person), cups of M&M's and Hershey Kisses and small candy canes.

I think everyone had a fabulous time. There were many there who had done a little bit of cardmaking and others who had done none. Everyone helped everyone else.
When special techniques were required, the three of us (D, R, & K) did one on one instructions. There was a huge variety of techniques to be tried.
Here are random pictures from around the room.

And - yes we did have a gentleman attend with his wife. They shared the load and worked together.

There were printed instruction sheets and a sample for each card. The tables were set up so people opposite each other were working on the same card.

As people needed to use the heating tool for the heat embossing, each of us went to the heat embossing station to assist them.

At the Cuttlebug stations the folks needed help deciding which embossing folder was the correct one for their card. After the first trip to emboss with the Cuttlebug, most of them didn't need any help.

Here is a very happy Justina showing off one of
her completed cards.

Of course we had to have a break for lunch! Our church is blessed to have a group of ladies and gents who do baking and cooking for special functions like our Stamp Camp and for refreshments after church every Sunday.

They put on a lunch fit for a queen for us. There were turkey salad sandwiches, macaroni salad, fruit kabobs, chips, punch and a dessert too pretty to eat - a chocolate boat filled with cream, topped with whipped cream and a candy cane.

The little desserts don't show up very well - only the tops of them.
All in all we had a very successful stamp camp and were very pleased how well everything came together.

Thank you for staying with me for such a long, long post. I have lots more pictures, but these really show best what we were doing. It was so much fun! Most of the ladies asked if we would be doing this again next year. Of course we are!!!!!

Huggeroonies,

House Mouse Calendar in Color

2011-12-08T22:03:00.000-05:00

A group of my husband's high school classmates meet the first Wednesday of each month for lunch and to just chat and catch up.
This month was the Christmas gift exchange. Who do you think was assigned the task of getting a small gift? You got it -- ME !! So I suggested one of the House Mouse calendars I had made a couple weeks ago. I worked furiously getting it all colored Monday and Tuesday.

Here it is in all it's colorful glory!! (Please excuse the fuzzy pictures)

Thanks so for your visit today! Hope you enjoyed seeing some of the House Mouse antics. They sure are cute little guys. Leave a comment and tell me what you think!

Huggeroonies,

Only Two Days Until Stamp Camp!

2011-12-01T23:18:00.000-05:00

I am getting so excited! I have been working so hard getting everything ready for our HUGE Christmas Card Stamp Camp coming up on Saturday, December 3. We have 32 people signed up for this event, including 2 husband/wife teams.
Since I'm the only one of the coordinators who doesn't work, I volunteered (more or less) to do a lot of the prep work for the event.
I decorated 36 white paper bags with winter theme SU wheels. Then I spritzed them with different colors spritzes I had in my stash, added 5 ribbon streamers, a hand stamped name tag and a Christmas bow. Another one of our stamping friends did the names in calligraphy - beautiful job too!! I started out with a stack of narrow Christmas ribbon spools. As I ran out of one ribbon, I just added another!
Here are pictures of a couple of the bags showing the gorgeous name tags and decorations:

When spritzers aren't used regularly they do tend to glob :( In each bag will be a packet of 15 envelopes and card kits for the 15 cards we're doing.

I am amazed at the mountain of card stock I went through cutting pieces for 180 cards. Fortunately there were five different designs so I didn't get really sick of just one. I posted pictures of them 4 or 5 posts ago. I had to go buy more of a couple of the ribbons, but I did empty several spools. Talk about and inventory reduction project!!

We will also have 6 door prizes - 3 Magnolia Tilda calendars and 3 House Mouse calendars. The idea for these calendars and the Excel files are from a Splitcoast Stampers group who did 2011 calendars. One of the ladies posted some of her pages and I loved them. The files for the calendars was emailed to me. I am so sorry, but I cannot for the life of me remember who it was.

They are not colored so the winner can color however they would like. I used a different stamp for each month that would represent something that month is known for.

Here are the Tilda calendar pages -

I edited these pics so they were all the same brightness, but as you can see ---

And here are the House Mouse pages -

Again I had all the pages looking the same when I did the edits on them. Oh well --- I'm tired, it's letting late and I'm using Kodak EasyShare and Blogger. What more do I need to say!?!

I hope you have been able to stay awake through this looooooong post! Please leave a comment to let me know what you think!

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge # 59 - Snowflakes

2011-11-24T18:37:00.014-05:00

Happy thanksgiving to everyone! Gobble, gobble, gobble!!
Our Inventory Reduction Challenge for this week is "Let me see some snowflakes". What a fun theme this is! What a needed break from cutting papers and ribbons for our upcoming Christmas Stamp Camp.
I have gone through so many packs of paper, I've lost count. Then there are the spools of ribbon and other embellishments - WOW!!

Here is my card with snowflakes.

That luscious paper is from Webster's Pages petite papers Botanical Christmas - long name for a collection of great papers.

The snowflakes were die cut using Cuttlebug Snowflakes #2 and DCWV Glitter card stock.

Mini Snowy Hugs was so fast to color. The shading is a bit tricky on those tiny images. I put Liquid Applique on the hat bands, pom poms, top of broom, bottom of Tilda's jacket and on the ground under Snowy.

Here is the inside of the card opened. The ribbon was from my stash. It was wired ribbon that I removed the wire from.

The paper is from the new Sweet Christmas Dreams paper pack.

The charm was from Magnolia's Christmas theme charms. It says "think snow" with a tiny snowflake attached at the end of it.

The snowflakes are the same as on the front. The jotting panel was cut using Cuttlebug's Labels Four dies.

The holly leaves and snowflake on the jotting panel are from Magnolia's Sweet Christmas collection.
The background DP is from DCWV Christmas Stack from 2 or 3 years ago.

Here are close ups of the embellishments.

Thank you all for stopping by and leaving some sweet comments to make my day extra special!
Be sure to stop by my team mates' blogs to see the wonderful creations they've made!

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge #58 - Thanks giving

2011-11-18T10:57:00.000-05:00

Good morning everyone! I spent a lot of time trying to come up with a card for this challenge. Why? you ask - because I had a particular stamp in mind for the inside and needed an appropriate front of the card. After a full day, it's a bit difficult to think creatively at midnight - especially when the body says "Bedtime" and the mind says " Just a few more minutes".

I did get the card finished about 1:00 am. At that point I wasn't in any mood to deal with Blogger :(
So -- here is the masterpiece!!

I used Tilda with Pumpkins (Pilgrim Tilda - my name) and Native American Tilda and Log.
The large background wreath is from Debbie Mumm's Harvest & Holiday stack from JoAnn Fabrics. It is so glittery. I colored all the images with Copics. And YES! I have the numbers this time.

Pilgrim Tilda - B99, 95, 93, 00, C6, 7, E35, YR24, 21, 18, 15, 12, YG67, 63, E000, 00, 11, R21.

Native American Tilda - E39, 34, 31, 15, 13, 11, 00, C9, 7, 5, 3, BG49, 45, Y06, 02, YR07, 04, R08, and Red metallic pen.
Log - E25, 29, 53

Here is the inside of the card:

This image is from Cornish Heritage Farms Stamp of the Month, November, 2007. I colored this goofy looking guy with Primascolor pencils that I did not keep track of.

I hope you are having a huge laugh at this turkey!!! He really is very funny ;D.

Thanks so much for stopping by. As you're preparing your Thanksgiving feast, please remember this poor scrawny bird.
Be sure to check out my team mates' blogs to see what they have done with this challenge.

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge #57 - Something with Wings

2011-11-10T21:43:00.000-05:00

Our challenge theme this week is Something With Wings. I had thought of an airplane, butterfly, and Beautiful Tilda. She has very large wings in that stamp.

I finished up this fairly clean and simple card last night. So if you were looking for a complicated scene with stand up figures and big floral bouquets which I love doing, you will be disappointed -- I'm sorry.

I've had this gorgeous Cornish Heritage Farms bluebird stamp for about 3 years. I inked it up and stamped out several images but never colored them up. After taking Suzanne Dean's Color Me Creative Copic coloring classes, I have learned how to blend and shade colors. The color blending is precisely what this image needs.

Here is the card -

It's a regular size card, not the 6" large ones I make with the Maggies.

The card base is SU River Rock cardstock.
The background is light green from Scrapblocks Layers papers. The design is Cuttlebug Floral Screen.

The bluebird is stamped on Whisper White and River Rock is the scalloped frame. I put Liquid Pearls drops on each scallop. I really need to practice that technique! Behind the bird is from SU Herbal Expressions and is stamped with Always Artichoke. The ribbon and bow are from my stash.

The Copics used are B21, 23, 24, YR00, 01, 02 for the bird. The branch - W0, 2, 3.

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking some time to look at my latest creation! Be sure to stop on by my team mates' blogs to see what they have chosen with wings!

Christina
Danielle
Rene

By the way - have you heard that Cornish Heritage Farms will be having a Grand Re-Opening November 19? They will have digi stamps and are offering a free one for just a few days at
www.cornishheritagefarms.com. I can't seem to get the link to work, but copy/paste the link and it should work.

Huggeroonies,

Heart -2 -Heart Christmas Stamp Camp

2011-11-08T23:16:00.000-05:00

Several of the ladies in our church are part of our Stampin' Up! group. Our pastor's wife is trying to get the ladies interested having a once-a-month meeting with a different activity each month.

On December 3rd we are having a Christmas card stamp camp. There are three of us - Roxy, Deby and me - who are the co-conspirators, as my DH calls us. Each of us have created 5 cards for the participants to make. We will have individual kits made up for each card with instructions and the sample card placed on tables. As folks arrive they will receive a decorated bag with the kits for all 15 cards in it. They will then go from table to table and make the cards. The three of us will be available to help anyone who needs it.

The cards range from very easy to just a bit more complicated. We'll do some Cuttlebug cards, heat embossed designs, simple coloring, stamping directly on the cardstock.
Here are pictures of the five cards I'm doing.

I like House Mouse stamps almost as much as the Maggies! This one is Christmas Tale and features Mudpie and baby Monica.

The card base is SU Real Red. Snowflakes are embossed on silver glimmer paper with the Cuttlebug folder. The image is stamped on SU Whisper White and colored with Prismacolor pencils.
The 1/4 inch satin ribbon is from my stash.

Ya gotta luv Fluffles the Cat!!
No matter how hard he tries, things just don't ever seem to go his way. The stamp is from Stampendous! and is called "Fluffles Tree".

The card base is SU Cherry Cobbler; Garden Green is the second panel. The sentiment is stamped on Cherry Cobbler with black ink and is from SU Frosty set.

Fluffles is stamped on Whisper White and colored with SU markers. The star is colored with a gold metallic pen; the green in the pot with Gelly Roll Green Star pen. The ribbon is from my stash. I was thinking about Stickles for the ornaments, but they take way too long to dry and would smear all over.

Both the tree and sentiment are from Snow Swirled by SU.
This card base again is Real Red. The tree is stamped with VersaMark on Real Red, covered with Stamp-n-Stuff Winter Wonderland embossing powder, and heated with a heating tool.
The embossed panel is layered on Whisper White, Real Red, then to the large Whisper White panel. The sentiment is stamped in Real Red.
The sheer red ribbon is from my stash.

This fun guy is from Stampavie Rachelle Anne Miller Moose.
This card base is Poppy Parade. The green plaid paper is from DCWV Christmas Stack from about 3 years ago.
The gold corners are die cut with a Cuttlebug corner die from DCWV Glitter stack. The image panel is SU Whisper White layered on Handsome Hunter (no longer available from SU). He is colored with Koh-I-Noor pencils. The lights are done with metallic markers.
The flowers and leaves are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The ribbon is from my stash.

This card is one of my favorites. It is very fast to make and is very elegant looking.

The card base is Real Red. The embossed panel is Shimmery White cardstock. The design is Holly Ribbons from Cuttlebug. There is a very subtle shimmer to the paper which did not show up in the picture.

The poinsettia is from Wild Orchid Crafts. Ribbons are from my stash. The tag is punched with SU's Large and Small Tag punches. The sentiment is from SU and stamped with Real Red ink.

For something a bit different, I turned the embossed panel and trimmed off the corners.

We had 17 people sign up for the stamp camp last Sunday. This week will be the last day for sign ups.
If you have not had the opportunity to go to a stamp camp, try to arrange one or to attend one. They are so much fun and you leave with a lot of nice cards.

Thank you so much for stopping by and looking at my Christmas card samples. Wish you all could be here for the big day on December 3rd!

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge # 56 - Get Well

2011-11-08T21:44:00.001-05:00

This past week was probably one of the least productive I have had in many, many years. So my Inventory Reduction Challenge #56 - Get Well is really late getting posted.
Get well cards are usually pretty simple to make. However, this one certainly was not. I started this one last Monday - a week ago. I just finished it this morning - UUGGHH:(

I had some really gorgeous paper in the My Mind's Eye Simply Delightful stack that I fell in love with when I saw the stack at JoAnn Fabrics. It goes beautifully with SU Purely Pomegranate or Cherry Cobbler papers.

I stamped the Park/Pond background with SU Soft Suede ink. I wanted to have those beautiful snowflake-like flowers show as much as possible.

Sweet Christmas Tilda is sitting on the Pink Bench. Both images are popped up on Dimensionals. Sorry, I didn't keep a list of Copics used.

The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Magnolia.
The inside of the card is covered with two coordinating papers from the Simply Delightful stack.

The ribbon is SU Purely Pomegranate. The heart charm is from my stash. The tiny silver cord holding the heart is from my friend Doris who was cleaning out her sewing/craft room. She thought I might like some of her project leftovers.

I really LOVE this plaid paper. Only wish there were a lot more sheets of it in the stack.

The cloud shapes were cut with Nestabilities Labels Fourteen. The tiny rosebuds were from WOC.

This card is going to my friend Pam O. who had open heart surgery last month.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed this little bit of cheer from Tilda!

Huggeroonies,

Happy Halloween!

2011-10-28T06:00:00.002-04:00

Happy Halloween a few days early. Our Inventory Reduction Challenge #55 theme is Halloween.
I don't usually do Halloween other than having Peanut Butter Cups for the 3 or 4 trick-or-treaters who come to our house and the rest of the bag are my hubby's, if I don't get them first. When we first moved here we would have 10 to 15 then they all grew up.
Now the fire department has a very nice party for the kids. The last 3 or 4 years our church also had a party, but the fire dept. is just around the corner so it was duplication of efforts. This year the church is taking a group to a corn maze on Sunday afternoon instead of a party.

Here is my Happy Halloween card.
Tilda is all ready to create havoc on her broom. Oh no!! She is stuck in the tree already!

Where is Edwin when Tilda really needs him ?!?

EDWIN TO THE RESCUE

in his Super Edwin costume!! Oh My! Look at that spooky black cat sitting on the Trick or Treat fence Tilda decorated this morning.

What in the world is that scary looking thing with Edwin?!?

If you look very closely maybe you will recognize RUFUS!! He had enough of being left out of the fun on Halloween eve so he dressed himself up as a chicken or maybe a bird! Good job, Rufus!!

I took extra "Edwin heads" and cut out the masks for Tilda and Rufus. The eyes have Crystal Effects on them so they real shine. The black cat has green pearls for it's eyes, but they don't really show in the picture. And bless Rufus' heart! He covered himself in feathers! Yes, real feathers from my hubby's pillow. SHHHHHH! Don't tell him. Then I added some black and yellow Dew Drops on the bottom edge and the front top corner.

This card was really fun to make. Please stop by my team mates' blogs and see what spooky, scary things they may have come up with!

Christina
Danielle

Rene

Thanks so much for stopping by! I love having you visit and please do leave a quick note to say you were here.
Huggeroonies,

Halloween card

2011-10-24T21:41:00.000-04:00

Our regular mailman has been on medical leave for the last 5 weeks or so. He should be coming back to work in a week or two. He is such a nice gentleman and I really miss him. If I have packages that won't easily fit in the mail box, he drives in the driveway and toots the horn. He always has a smile on his face no matter what the weather.

I told him I would have to make him some get well cards while he was off since he is so great at bringing my stamping stuff packages to me.

Here is the Halloween card I made. I wrote a get well note inside for him.

This was difficult to get a non-shiny picture. The embossed panel was copper metallic paper and the pumpkin border has glitter all over it. The Ott light made everything VERY shiny. I actually took four pics to get one that looked like the card.
The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts (where else?), Hooked on Crafts and Wal Mart.

My friend Jean H. sent me this fantastic pumpkin shaped doily! It is just the perfect size for the inside of this card. Super Edwin is ready to save the world or at least help Tilda stay out of trees while she's learning to steer her broom. Rufus is not to be left out of the Halloween festivities. He's ready to scare everyone behind his mask.

I stamped off extra Edwin "heads" and cut out the masks for Tilda and Rufus. The eyes all have Crystal Effects to make them shiny.
I hope my mailman enjoys his card! I had fun making it for him!

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a quick note that you were here.

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction #54 and October Mingle

2011-10-20T23:14:00.000-04:00

This is the first time I've used the same card for two very different things - Inventory Reduction Challenge and the October Mingle. I didn't have enough time to make two cards this week and still get everything else done around the house.

The twist for the Mingle this month was to send snowflakes of any type or kind along with your card. The snowflakes I sent were on ribbons, punched out, embossed, and stickers. I just am not ready to think snow and winter. So my Mingle card had a fall theme. Taaa daaa:

This is my first attempt to make a Criss Cross Card. I will reserve judgement until I've made a couple more. The Inventory Challenge theme for the week was Create a Tag or Tag card or Card with a Tag. So I guess the sentiment is on a tag.

Sweet Christmas Tilda is from the brand new Sweet Christmas Dreams collection. She is sitting on a punched fence - Martha Stewart Garden Trellis - with the top scalloped edge cut off. Brown felt rick rack covers the bottom edge of the card where the criss crossed edges don't meet neatly.
Tilda is sitting in front of a Lacy Square die cut with my Nesties.
The designer papers are from Stampin' Up!
The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts, JoAnn's and Hooked on Crafts.

The tag insert is SU Very Vanilla cardstock stamped with the Fall Background stamp and colored with Copics. The Moon is in the upper corner. Lap Tilda is sitting on a log by her Jack-O-Lantern, probably waiting for Edwin again. Is that boy ever on time for anything?!?
The Jack-O-Lantern is an MS embossing punch. Not sure if you can see the embossed lines on him or not.

This view shows how the tag goes into the pocket formed by the crossed front flaps

Now for the cutest pictures from the real punkin patch in our garden!

That little cutey in the back is my great granddaughter Dakota Jane. The little heart breaker in the front is our neighbor's little guy Gavin. They each got to pick out a punkin from our patch.

I hope you have enjoyed the seasonal card and pictures!

I am just not ready for the cold and snow that New York winters bring.
Be sure to stop by my team mates' blogs to see what they made for gorgeous tags.

Christina
Danielle

I'm so glad you stopped by! Leave a little love! See you again soon!

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge #53 - Embossing

2011-10-13T17:38:00.000-04:00

I've been missing in action quite a bit lately with computer issues. First it was getting a new computer and setting it up. Then the new computer wouldn't allow Firefox to connect to the internet. The problem was/is Windows 7 assuming that my router was spam/virus or whatever and would not allow Firefox to go beyond the Windows 7 built-in firewall. My computer man was here bright and early today fixing the problem by removing the router for now. And now that I've bored all of you, here is my card for the Inventory Reduction Challenge.

This is not one of my fancier cards. It looks more clean and simple.
The stripes in background are from Stampin Up!
The white shimmer paper is from DCWV Shimmer stack. The embossing is Cuttlebug Holly Ribbons. The red tag was from an old Christmas assortment and cut using Magnolia DooHickey die Vintage Tag. The poinsettia is from Wild Orchid Crafts. The holly leaf brad and red tag paper are from my stash.

The green shimmer paper is from the DCWV Shimmer stack. It was embossed with Cuttlebug Holly folder.I added red Stickles to the holly berries.
The red card base is SU Real Red.

The stripe is SU. The ornaments are shimmer paper cut with Cuttlebug For You die. The poinsettia is from Wild Orchid Crafts.

I thought the ornament shape would be nice to use as the jotting panel without embossing the words "For You".

I hope you have enjoyed your visit. Please leave a comment so I'll know you were here!

Please be sure to stop by me team mates' blogs to see their fantastic embossed cards.

Christina
Danielle
Rene

I hope these posts have inspired you to try some of our projects.

Huggeroonies,

September 3x3 Swap Cards

2011-10-01T14:50:00.000-04:00

The September 3x3 card swap my stamping buddies and I participated in had Christmas as the theme. What a varied set of cards we made!!

Here is a group pic of them.

The cards were made by -
Top row - Angie, Roxy, Jennifer, Deby

Middle - Lynn

Bottom row - Jeanine, Peggy, Kim Marie, Kathy (Me)

I had briefly toyed with the idea of using some of my 3x3's as Christmas tags on gifts this year. After thinking about it for a minute, I decided I absolutely could not bear to part with any of these little beauties!

Thanks for stopping by and enjoying the mini cards with me.

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Challenge #51 - Polka Dots

2011-09-29T23:31:00.000-04:00

HELP! ! ! I'm seeing spots before my eyes!

Polka dots was a really easy and very fun challenge for me since I had recently started sorting my designer papers into categories - Dots, White Dots, Stripes ...

Without further ado - my card!

Like I said I have lots of polka dotted papers all sorted and easy to locate!

The stamps I used are Tilda with Tulips and Yummy Muffin.

All the designer papers are Stampin' Up!
The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts, Magnolia, Hooked on Crafts. The ribbon is from my stash.

Tilda and her muffin tuffet are colored with Copics. The tuffet dots and ribbon are covered with Stickles.

The inside is decorated with more SU papers, flower sprays, ribbon. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts.

The jotting panel was cut using my Cuttlebug and Labels Four nesties. It is also polka dots, but very light so it can be written on.

Here is a close up of the flower bouquet. The stems were tied together with the sheer ribbon, than attached to the card with glue dots. Some of the flowers were kept in place with tiny glue dots.

Since I don't have any long thin leaves to help cover the stems, I just left the stems long as a real bouquet would be.

Here is a close up of Tilda and her tuffet so you can see the detail in her outfit and the muffin.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing the dots before my eyes. Hope you enjoyed them as much as I did!

Be sure to stop by my teammates' blogs and see what they have done with polka dots.

Next week will be the first year anniversary of the Inventory Reduction Challenge with a theme of "Anything Goes". Be sure to stop back to see what we've done with that challenge.

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Sandy

Huggeroonies,

Wedding card for friend's daughter

2011-09-28T11:33:00.000-04:00

My friend Lori's daughter was married the beginning of September in a beautiful ceremony. She loves the fall colors. Her girls' dresses were cocoa brown and the bouquets were fall flowers. When Lori asked me to do a special card for her daughter, I thought the wedding was early October. At any rate the card was three weeks late :C. Lori said that was OK because there was so much going on at the wedding and reception that it would have been "just another card". By the card being late, her daughter would have time to really look at it.

Here is a picture of the card:

What fun this was to make!!

The background paper was from DCWV Luxury stack. The copper-y paper was from DCWV Shimmer stack. The image panel was cut from extra Luxury cardstock. The swing and bride images were stamped on Cryogen and colored with Copics. The edge of the copper-y layer was punched with a Fiskars punch. The corners of the image layer were punched with SU's Notched Corner punch.

The flowers and berries were from Wild Orchid Crafts, Magnolia, Hooked on Craft and WalMart. The sheer brown ribbon was from my stash.

The inside paper is from The Paper Studio Mirabelle stack. The sentiment is from Whiff of Joy Wedding Wishes. The other images were also Whiff of Joy Rose Swing and Willow Sitting Bride. Suzanne Dean had made a card using these images several years ago and it still inspires me! To dress up the inside a bit, I put some fall flowers and berry clusters over the printed flowers.

I had a lot of fun making this card. I hope you had some relaxing moments and fun looking at it.
I would really love to hear what you think about the card, so leave me a little love!

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Challenge #50 - Bookmark or Door Hanger

2011-09-23T16:24:00.009-04:00

Hello everyone! Hope all of you are having a great day!

First let me apologize for being so late in getting my challenge pieces posted. I am about buried in tomatoes and peppers. The good news is that yesterday I picked off the tomatoes so they will come to an end very soon. YEAH!!

The Inventory Reduction Challenge theme for this week is to create a bookmark or door hanger. I made two bookmarks thinking they would be faster than a door hanger. Silly girl that I am ;0

So here they are:

I thought that Tilda and Edwin with glasses would be great images for a bookmark. A lot of us can relate to needing glasses to read.

The kids are colored in fall Copics colors. I find the earth tones are much easier for me to work with, especially when I'm in a hurry.

Tilda was colored with the following Copics:YR18, 16, 12, BG18, 15, 11, E25, 31, 50,and R22.
Edwin was colored with the following Copics:
B97, 95, 93, 91, YR18, 16, 12, E37, B37, E40, 41, 43, 44, 47, E25, 31, 50, and B37.
The books they are sitting on: E35, 42, 44, 47, B29, 26, 24, 21, R89, 85, 83, 81, and YR24.
The background paper is Basic Grey Out of Print paper pad. The back is covered with SU's Autumn Traditions. The ribbon is from my stash. Those wonderful colors are perfect for these bookmarks. I put just a couple drops of Crystal Effects on the lenses of their glasses.

Here are close ups of Tilda and Edwin:

I'm thinking they don't look very happy about school starting. But they get to wear some of their new school clothes. Maybe the other kids will be very jealous.

I'm so glad you took time out to visit my blog and see more of Tilda and Edwin.

Please stop by my creative sisters' blogs to see the beautiful things they have created for their bookmarks and door hanger.

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Sandy

I hope these posts have inspired you to try some of our projects.

Huggeroonies,

September, 2011 Mingle

2011-09-21T22:57:00.000-04:00

YEAH! The Mingles are back! Isn't it strange how we miss something as simple as doing one special card a month for one special person!?! The Mingles have no theme. The only requirement is to make one card a month and send it to your Mingle partner by the 20th of the month. Very simple yet very fun.

Here is my Mingle card for September:

The background is Magnolia Fall Background. I stamped it on SU's Sahara Sand using Memento Rich Cocoa. Then I used my daubers and daubed each leaf with fall colors. I added light blue on the wind swirls.

I used Tilda with Sunflower for my main image and colored her with Copics. I put Cinnamon Toast Fun Flock on the center of the sunflower. Tilda was popped up with Dimensionals.

The banner is a piece of grosgrain ribbon from my stash stamped with "Fall is in the Air" and attached with two dark green brads.

The ribbon behind the bouquet is from the stash. The flowers and berry clusters were from Wild Orchid Crafts, Hooked on Craft and Magnolia.

The inside of the card is also very fallish!

Tilda seems to be enjoying the last days of Indian Summer with Rufus and Kitty Cat.

The stamps used here were Sitting Fall Tilda, Picnic Quilt, Oak Tree, Rufus, and Kitty Cat.

All images were colored with Copic markers. I had so many out, I didn't even try to keep track of what ones I used on the card.

I love the way this card turned out - very fallish and fun to put together.

I am entering this card in the Magnolia-licious Highlights challenge for the Fall or Back to School Projects. I think it qualifies for rich fall colors.

Thanks so much for stopping by and sharing a few minutes of fall leaf beauty. Please leave a comment so I'll know you were here!

Huggeroonies,

Christmas theme 3x3 card swap

2011-09-20T21:59:00.000-04:00

Our September 3x3 card swap theme was Christmas. What a fun theme to work with! It took me some time to decide exactly what I wanted to do. I have TONS of Christmas stamps in Magnolias, Mini Maggies and other companies.

I finally decided on using Mini Maggies. Here is my card:

I used Mini Tilda Hanging Ornaments and Mini Christmas Tree. I added lots of self-stick pearls in different colors on the tree. Since I don't do very well doing really fussy cutting, I just outline cut the tree. Tilda is popped up on dimensionals. The star at the tree top is a brad. Both images were colored with Copics. The background paper is from Debbie Mumm's Harvest and Holiday stack.

Here is the inside of the little card:

These papers were in a stash of precut 6x6 squares labeled "Christmas", so I have no idea where they came from.

The sentiment is from Friendly Kritters Holiday Expressions from Cornish Heritage Farms (no longer in business).

I also try to make a similar full size card for the swap hostess. So here is the card I did for her:

For this card I used the full size Tilda Decorating Tree and Christmas Tree.
I put a star brad at the top of the tree and lots of colored pearls all over the tree. The charm is a candy cane from Magnolia-licious store.
The tree is again outline cut. Tilda is popped up on dimensionals. What would we ever do without those little goodies!?! Images are colored with Copics and Diamond Stickles are on Tilda's wings.

The inside of the card is lined with a designer paper from Stampin' Up! and the DCWV Christmas stack.

The poinsettias are from Wild Orchid Crafts.
I die cut a scalloped oval in the red paper and put a piece of white card stock behind it rather than on top.
Hope you have enjoyed seeing this set of 3x3 and full size cards for the swap I'm in.

Thanks for stopping by and leaving some love in a comment.

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Reduction Challenge #49 - Happy Birthday

2011-09-16T06:00:00.002-04:00

Shortly after I uploaded my card for Inventory Reduction Challenge 47 - Among My Favorite Things my computer died. At that point my computer was NOT one of my favorite things.

I now have my new computer up and running, but I changed operating systems from Windows XP to Windows 7. My computer savior man was able to copy all of my files from the old hard drive to the new one. My only problem is finding where everything is now. Do you think it would be a help if I just took time to read the "Get Acquainted" file and did the tour?!?

Anyhow, I did get my card done for this week. So without further ado --

Here is the front of yet another easel card. I really love easel cards!! Can you tell?

Tilda is getting so excited! It's time for her birthday party and she has invited some of her very best friends to celebrate with her. She is so excited to see what her friends have brought for gifts.

The background paper is from DCWV Sweet stack. The ribbon is from my stash. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts, Hooked on Crafts, and WalMart.

At long last all of Tilda's friends are here and in a very festive mood. Unfortunately the real birthday cake is a little smaller than the one in the background!

And just look at the neat packages everyone has for Tilda.

Tilda stamps used were Tilda with Balloon, Christmas Eve Tilda, Birthday Tilda, Tilda with Small Gift, and Congratulations Tilda.

Everyone is here now - Let the Fun Begin!!

Here is an overhead shot showing the placement of the figures and flowers along the front edge.

Thanks so much for stopping by and be sure to check out my teammies to see what they have done for the Happy Birthday theme for our Inventory Reduction Challenge.

Christina

Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Sandy

I have also lost my fancy signature and haven't had time to search for another one.

Huggeroonies,

Kathy

Inventory Challenge #47 - Among My Favorite Things

2011-09-02T11:56:00.009-04:00

First off let me apologize for being so late in posting my inventory recduction challenge card. Sometimes life just gets in the way.

The theme Among My Favorite Things so difficult because I have SO MANY favorite things. I decided to use the favorite things for this fall season. I started this card for the Magnolia Highlights Blog challenge of Paper Only, but it just was not doing what I had in mind. At the last minute I did another card for that challenge.

Now for today's card -
Are you guessing already as to what some of my favorite things are?

First off is my home. It's really tan with brown trim.

We have three flowering crabapple trees in our yard along with hybrid poplars and shademaster locust. I know this is a magnolia - had one once that got sick and died.

The bluebird represents the bluebirds that have nested in our nesting box for several years.

Of course there are my flower beds with an occasional butterfly flitting around.

This time of year always brings with it apples to make into applesauce and apple pies for the freezer. If I had more time I would have put in a pile of tomatoes, peppers and pumpkins that are growing in the veggie garden. The first batch of spaghetti sauce should be going this weekend. I've already done two pickings of the peppers. That's part of the life that got in my way!!

If you look closely at the above picture you can see that the screen door looks like it might open.

Sure enough!
Welcome to my kitchen where jars of applesauce and spaghetti sauce are waiting to be passed on as gifts.

I just finished baking that apple pie.

The kitty is our indoor kitty Mee-Ow. Yes, she is that dark with only one small white circle on her chest, but that doesn't show in the stamped image.

Please take careful note that screen door handle is on the correct side of the door to match the outside. I had to cut and paste it from one side of the door to the other.

The other two kitties live in the garage. The dog spends a lot of time outside in warmer weather too.

Yes, the animals are really funny colors. I tried my best to be a little realistic with them.
The kitty by the apple basket is Puddy, an orange stripe tiger. She is a little reserved and shy and tends to stick close to the garage - her safe haven from the dog and especially the very noisy train that passes by here a couple times a day.

The kitty on top of the barrel is Abby. She's a tortoise shell calico and into everything she can get at. She is a daredevil climber and very adventuresome. She figured out how to open the little drawers in one of my hubby's storage cubes and constantly gets out the little plastic pieces and strews them all over the floor. Blue is her favorite color.

The dog is Daisy Too, a Australian Sheperd/Beagle mix. She has one blue eye and one brown eye. I did color them that way, but it doesn't show very well in the pic. Her favorite pasttime is herding the kitties and she does a pretty good job. When she and Abby curl up together, it is hard to tell where kitty ends and doggie begins - they are colored so closely the same.

The sentiment panel is about the only normal thing on this card! It's cut with a Nesties Beaded Oval Die. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts.

I didn't keep track of the Copics I used. At one point I had about half of them out. All the images are Magnolia stamps purchased from Diana.
The butterfly on the screen door is a Martha Stewart punch.
The designer papers were in my stash.

I hope you have enjoyed this little glimpse at some of my favorite things. Thanks for stopping by and leaving a little love in comment form.

Please stop by my team mates' blogs to see the fabulous creations they have done for their favorite things!

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Sandy

And be sure to stop by next week to see what we do with the theme Distress It All! Should be fun! Hope to see you then.
Huggeroonies,

Magnolia Challenge - Paper Only

2011-08-31T18:52:00.000-04:00

Here's my card for the Magnolia-licious Challenge using only paper. This was really one that I had to think about a lot. I'm so used to using Stickles and Wild Orchid flowers it was tricky to think without them. I know the flowers are paper, but ----

I used lots of punch outs and die cuts though! Here's my card -

The designer papers are from Stampin' Up! I fell in love with those papers the instant I saw them. I hated to cover them up, but.... The flower in the lower corner was die cut with the Doohickey die sets Doily Flowers and a small flower and leaf set (forgot to write the name on the dies :() The one in the upper right corner is the wax paper from the Doily Flowers. Rather than toss it away, I made another flower from it. Someone else had done that a while back and posted about it. The fence is Doohickey die Lovely Fence. I had to wait for weeks for it to come back in stock.

The green swirly vine and leaves is a Cheery Lynn Design Fanciful Flourish. The die embosses the leaves as it is cutting - very nice.

The large butterfly in the corner is a Martha Stewart punch - not sure of the name.

Tilda is Hello Little Butterfly for the Butterfly Dreams Collection.

I had started a different card for this challenge, but it wasn't coming together at all. So this card was done today, so I just worked fast and didn't keep track of the Copics I used.

I thank you for stopping by and spending a minute or two. I hope you enjoyed sharing my card.

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Challenge #46 - Trees

2011-08-26T06:10:00.016-04:00

This week's theme for the Inventory Reduction Challenge is Trees! What a fun challenge this turned out to be. Jacque of jacques joie de vivre has some wonderful news on her blog here http://jacquesmagnolias.blogspot.com/. This card is dedicated to her. Trees just seem to depict Jacque's journey and outlook these last many months. To quote Danielle, "a magnificent symbol of life, trees are strong and weather a lot of adversity." So Jacque, this inventory challenge is for you and the inspiration you are to all of us!

My card is very similar to one that was featured on the cover of the March, 2011 issue of CardMaker magazine and created by Christine Okken. The instant I saw that mag cover, I knew I would make that card.

The card base is Stampin' Up! Pretty in Pink with Early Espresso, Garden Green cardstock and watercolor paper. The designer paper is from My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus.

The tree is colored with Copics and the background sponged with Pretty in Pink and then covered with Sweet Pea Flower Soft.

The lace is from Wild Orchid Crafts. The ribbon is from my stash.

The inside features the same dp as on the front. The ribbon is slightly wider than that on the front.

The jotting panel is Pretty in Pink and Early Espresso die cut with Nesties.

I had a grand time making this card. It was so much fun that I actually made two of them!!

Grab a cup of tea, pull up a chair and let's visit for a spell!
Glad you could stop by.

Now please stop by my teammies' blogs and see their creations using trees!

Christina

Danielle

Rene

Cathy-Lynn

Sandy

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Challenge #45 - Fairies

2011-08-19T06:05:00.003-04:00

Good morning, everyone!!
Today is week #45 of the ongoing Inventory Reduction Challenge that I am privileged to be a part of now and I am loving it! The idea is to use what we have on hand and not buy anything new for our cards.

This week's theme is Fairies. I'm not a fairy person, so I had no stamps that would work and had to borrow from two wonderful friends - Rene and Kim. Then I couldn't decide which card to use. I also don't know if a Maggie image had to be used. So today you get two for the price of one.

This is the card I made using Kim's stamp set. The fairy is in silhouette and really doesn't show very well. Tilda is very absorbed in watching little miss fairy do her thing. She may be dreaming of flying away to a far mystical land and maybe taking Edwin with her.

I used my Stampin' Up! markers and colored the stamp, then stamped the paper. I wanted more than one flower as the original stamp had, so I stamped all the flowers first, then did one with the fairy and mushroom colored. Then I did the fairy and mushroom again, cut them out and added to the card. I found a bunch of thin round plastic pieces I had been saving and glued one over the fairy to give her a little bubble. It shows a bit in the picture.
I colored Dreamy Tilda with my Copics and cut out and popped her up on dimensionals. The cloud with the sentiment is also popped up.
I didn't keep track of the colors I used though.

On the left inside the sentiment reads "All you need is faith, trust and pixie dust". The gray areas around the words and the wand and stars is Shimmerz Pixie Dust.
The right hand side has "go ahead WISH" stamped several times. I inked the stamp and then hit the dp three times and inked again and stamped a couple more times. I glued three more of the round things on some of the bubbles on the dp. The word "wish" is coated with Pixie Dust. The flower is popped up on dimensionals.

My friend Rene sent me this digi stamp to help me out with this week's theme. Isn't this little fairy gal just the cutest? Now you can see why I couldn't choose between the two!
I used my Prismacolor pencils and Gamsol to color this card. I put Star Dust Stickles on her wings and the bee's wings. The flower centers are yellow Stickles.
The cardstock is DCWV Shimmer and Cryogen White. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Hooked on Craft. The ribbon is from the stash. The sentiment is from the set Kim loaned me.

The inside paper is from Magnolia's Fairytale Paper Pack. The stars were cut using my Star Nesties. The sentiment is from Kim's set. The stars were sponged and popped up on dimensionals. The star flowers are from Hooked on Craft. I really like how this card turned out!

Hope you have had an enjoyable jaunt down Fairytale Lane with my cards. Please leave a little love so I'll know you were here.

Huggeroonies,

Please be sure to stop by my team mates' blogs to see their fabulous creations!

Christina
Danielle
Rene
Charlene
Sandy

Wedding Shadow Box

2011-08-12T16:47:00.000-04:00

One of my friends from church had asked me to make a wedding card for her. After she ripped my arm off and nearly beat me to death with it, I agreed! If Diane happens to see this, I AM JUST KIDDING! Working with Diane was a lot of fun!

She is a quilling person and wanted to make some quilled flowers for the piece. While she was looking for her quilling supplies, she found a brand new white shadow box frame. So the wedding card became a wedding shadow box.

She had given me some preliminary background and her ideas for the card/box so I had already chosen several papers and accessories for her to look at.

Here is the final product!

The background paper is from DCWV Luxury stack. The swirls are from Prima Say It In Pearls. Flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Magnolia-licious. Butterflies are punched from scraps using a Martha Stewart punch. Ribbons are from my stash. The sentiment in the upper left corner is from a DRS stamp, retyped to fit the space we had.

Tilda and Edwin are the Bride With Tiara and Groom from Magnolia-cious and are colored with Copics.
Tilda's dress - YR24, Y32 Flowers - B91, YG63, B24 Veil - B000 and Diamond Stickles Hair - E18, 17, 19, 13 Clear Star Gelly Roll pen was on her tiara and the lace under her bouquet. A left over piece of the pearl swirls is on her tiara.
Edwin's suit - C9, 7, 6, 4 Hair C00, 1, 3, 4 Cane- C2, 3 Flower - B91, 24 Tie matched Tilda's dress
The sentiment in the lower right corner is a scripture verse.

Here are close up pictures of the different sections of the shadow box.

My friend was so thrilled with what I had created for her, she decided not to add the quilling. She also asked me if I would consider making two more for her to give as anniversary gifts for her parents and in-laws. Of course I will!!!

I hope you have enjoyed looking at the Wedding Shadow Box, all of the nifty little details, and maybe got an idea or two for a card or shadow box of your own.

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Challenge #44 - Frame

2011-08-12T06:30:00.002-04:00

My card for Inventory Challenge #44 - Frame is the beautiful Lady Tilda. She's looking very regal dressed for her portrait in her red ball gown. Edwin is a little tardy, as usual, for escorting her to the ball.

To color Tilda I used Copics R29, 24, 22, B000, 01, for her dress; B21, 23, 24, YG63, 67 for her flower; E25, 31, 50 for her hair.
The detail on her headband, lace at her neckline and at her skirt bottom were traced over with Clear Star Gelly Roll pen - love that pen!!

The background paper is from My Mind's Eye Wild Asparagus. The frame is Core'dinations The Chocolate Box. After embossing in my Cuttlebug, I sanded the brown off so the pink would show through. I added small rosy pink brads to the corners.
The oval behind Tilda is cut from an Antique Lace postcard I received as a thank you gift for an order. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Magnolia-licious. The lacy leaves were cut with a Marianne Designs die. The brown satin ribbon is from my stash.

The inside top is another piece of the paper from the front. The brown ribbon goes around the front, under the Tilda image and ties in a bow. The bud sprays are from Wild Orchid Crafts.

The bottom is another piece of designer paper from Webster's Pages - Trend Setters. This certainly looks like frames to me!

Thanks for stopping by and sitting for a bit. I hope you enjoyed seeing my card. Now hop on over to see what my teammates have done with their frames!

Christina
Danielle

Cathy-Lynn
Charlene
Sandy

Huggeroonies,

Two Wedding Cards

2011-08-12T01:25:00.000-04:00

It seems that the theme for my projects this past week was weddings. I had two cards to make for a mother and daughter going to the same wedding and a third card for a friend from church.

I have one very favorite stamp I love to use for weddings - Whiff of Joy Willow Sitting Bride. Suzanne Dean did a card with this stamp several years ago that was drop dead gorgeous. Aren't all of her cards!?! She and Lucille Ball are my idols. Mine don't look nearly as nice as hers though.

So at this point I was panicing trying to think of where I could get another nice bride stamp immediately. The wedding is August 13 - no time to order one. Then I remembered Tilda - I have two wedding stamps - Bride with Tiara and Groom and Loving Bridal Couple. OK - Relax - Breathe - Problem Solved.

Here are pics of the cards I made for them.

Willow and the swing are colored with Copics and I didn't keep a list of the colors I used. Willow has Diamond Stickles on her veil and Shimmerz Pixie Dust on her gown. There are Baby Blue Stickles on the flowers on the swing ropes. I put Flower Soft Shamrock and Christmas greens mixed together on her bouquet and added a tiny light blue rose in the center of it.
The cardstock is Stampin' Up Marina Mist. Designer cardstock from the DCWV Luxury stack is mounted on plain white. The bottom edge of the white was punched with a Fiskars border punch that Suzanne lead me to. Willow is popped up on dimensionals on the swing.
The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Magnolia-licious. The crystal wheat stem came from Michaels. The leaves are punched from DCWV Shimmer cardstock using Martha Stewart Branch punch. Tiny butterflies were punched from scraps of the Luxury cs using another MS Butterfly punch. The ribbons are from my stash.

Here is the card opened up.

Both mom and daughter wrote out what they wanted for the sentiment on their cards.
I stamped a moon and stars in VersaMark and mounted the sentiment at an angle to cover part of the moon that smeared.

Here is the second wedding card.

This one is Bride with Tiara and Groom. This one had a little more coloring. I used some of the C Copics on Edwin's suit. Tilda's veil has Diamond Stickles on it. I had some left over pieces from a Zva pearl accent design that I used to put "diamonds" on Tilda's necklace and pearls/diamond on her tiara.

The flowers and pearl stems are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The Chandelier beads are from Magnolia-cious. Cardstock is SU again and the designer paper is another piece from the Luxury stack.

The tiny hearts are ribbon slides from Wild Orchid Crafts. Ribbons are from my stash. Little butterflies are the MS punch and Luxury cs scraps.
Again this sentiment was given to me when the cards were ordered.
I stamped wedding cakes with VersaMark to the left and right sides and put the sentiment slightly over them. You can just barely see the bottoms of the cakes.

These wedding cards were really fun to make and my customers were thrilled with them!

What was originally going to be a third card turned into a shadow box. I'll do the shadow box another time as it has several pictures to it. This post is long enough.

I'm so glad you could come over, relax and look over the cards. Huggeroonies,

3 x 3 Swap Cards

2011-08-09T22:25:00.000-04:00

Several girls in our Stampin' Up! gang did a 3x3 card swap in July. The swap has only a very few rules so it is very fun for all of us, especially the beginners. Each card is to have a base and 2 more layers and some type of embellishment. How's that for easy!?!?

Here are pictures of the precious tiny 3 inch x 3 inch cards.

These were made by Deby and Jeanine.
Deby is our SU demo! She is one very creative lady too, as you can tell by her card.
Jeanine is new to our group. She did a great job coloring her card. She also stamped windmills on the inside of her card and put a parchment paper for the jotting panel.

Jennifer and Peggy did these little cuties!
Jennifer embossed her dark panel with butterflies and used glitter over the flower. She also included a jotting panel.
Peggy embossed her tulip with black EP, the colored the tulip. That tag is so tiny!! The flower and tag are popped up on dimensionals.

Kim and Lynn did this set. Kim is so clever using Liquid Applique for the puffy popcorn.
Lynn embossed the background and popped up the butterfly on dimensionals. The sentiment was cut out with a die cut.

This trio were done by Kim, Kathy and Roxy.
Kim signed up for two spots.
I think Kim used a daisy punch and made her own flower.
Roxy die cut her pineapple circle and added a tiny white dot to each scallop. The circle was popped up on dimensionals.
The image of Tilda with Daffodil was masked and Summer Fence was then stamped. They were colored with Copics then die cut. The dark blue panel was also die cut. The papers and ribbon are from my stash. The image panel was popped up on dimensionals.

Our next 3x3 swap will be in September, so watch another group of these little darlings then.

Thanks so much for taking time to stop by.

Huggeroonies,

Inventory Challenge # 43 - Swirls and Curves (or Curls)

2011-08-05T06:00:00.003-04:00

I am really excited today! This is my first Inventory Challenge card. I've seen the cards on some of the girls' blogs and wondered what it was all about. So to satisfy my curiosity I asked! That was easy. Now getting everything to upload correctly may be another story.

Having said all that, let's get to the card pictures.

There are lots of swirls, curls and curves on the front of my card.

I colored Tilda several months ago so I don't have the Copics I used.
The swirls are a Magnolia Doohickey Die - Leaf and Swirl.
The flowers are from Magnolia-licious and Wild Orchid Crafts.

Here is the inside where I've used another Doohickey Die - Antique Lace - across the DP bottom edge.
The sheer ribbon was from my stash.
The flower spray is Wild Orchid Crafts.

The cardstock is SU's Regal Rose and retired Taken With Teal.

The next pic is a close up of the jotting panel.

The jotting panel was die cut using a Marianne Designs doily die.
The Regal Rose paper was cut using Nestibilities Scalloped Circles - Large.
I glued small pearls in each of the scallops.

Please stop by my team mates' blogs and see what they've done.
Christina
Danielle
Rene
Cathy-Lynn
Sandy

Hope you have enjoyed your visit!
Huggeroonies,

New Birthday Card

2011-07-28T21:19:00.000-04:00

Yesterday was my son-in-law's birthday. I managed to get his card done and to him a day EARLY this year. I'm not working any more so I really have no excuse!

He is a water and boat lover so Edwin with Binoculars and the Sea Background seemed like perfect images for him.

I really enjoy doing the easel cards. They just seem to have so much more space to work with.

I think all the designer papers are Stampin' Up.
The star brads and brads around the image frame are from my stash. I actually colored this a long time ago, then went back and added more ink after finishing the Copic 2 class on coloring water. I put Star Dust Stickles on the tops of the waves.
What a difference it made : D

Here is the card open with Edwin standing up and the pelican wishing he would just go away!

The pelican is colored with Copics C0, 1, 3, 5.
I also had colored Edwin earlier and went back and added more dark to his pants. I put 2 small brads on his pants for the buttons. I don't remember what Copics I used, but the blues are most likely B99, 97, 93, and 91.

Thanks for stopping by and taking in the really cool sea breeze.

Huggeroonies,

Riley's Life Is Not Easy

2011-07-27T13:31:00.013-04:00

It seems that Riley had a mooseable (miserable) winter and spring just like so many of us. In typical Riley fashion, he overcame all the issues he was snouted with!

Because of all his misadventures, he hasn't visited Nate in several months.
So here goes with the saga of Riley's mooseable winter.

Poor Riley! Sure hope Nate remembers him.

Snow, snow and more snow. I'm sure all the northerners remember!

All that snow and no time to play in it, ski or make snowmooses.

Then the floods came to the states along the big rivers and poor Riley and all his auntlers and unclers and coumooseins had to deal with that too and move on again!

While Riley was trying to have a little fun playing moose games, Sophie was not nearly so adventurous and stayed in the center of the herd.

Not wanting an opportunity for some fun to pass, Riley thought about using his antlers as wings during the tornadoes.

Hmmmmm!!!

Maybe not such a good idea.

Just when Riley thought things couldn't possibly get any worse, the wild fires headed in the herd's direction.

Will herd life ever return to normal grazing and browsing for Riley and his famoosely?

Will there be a big famoosely reunion with all the auntlers, unclers, coumooseins?

Things are not looking good for Riley and his herd.

But we all know that Riley doesn't get discouraged very easily.

Maybe Sophie was busy baking those delicious looking mooseins and brewing that hot cocoa!?!

As always, Riley makes the best of every circumoosestance in his life!

Thanks for stopping by and enjoying another weird and whacky Riley adventure.

Huggeroonies,

For those of you who are new to the adventures of Riley and Sophie and would like to know a bit of background, please email me privately and I will tell you the story of how and why these Riley cards began.

Color Me Creative Copic Classes

2011-07-26T12:56:00.000-04:00

For the last two months or so I have been working really hard to finish up the on-line Copic classes I have been taking from Suzanne Dean. That lady has more creativity in her little finger nail than I have in my whole body. I have learned soooooo much from these classes. If you have the opportunity to take a class from Suzanne, I highly recommend that you do so.

Class 1 introduced the basics about Copics and several beginner coloring techniques. As I worked through each lesson, I put the practice pieces in a notebook with the downloads provided for each class. I now have a great reference notebook to look back to later.

Here is my piece I did for the final homework that was to include as many as possible of the techniques and color combos from the classes. The colors used are listed by each image.

This little group is perfect me - a flower and vegetable gardener!

The stamps used are Garden Tilda, Seeding Tilda, Watercan Tilda and Strawberry Yummy Tilda.

I have the perfect background paper to turn these into an accordian fold card just as soon as I have time to think it out and put it on paper! I finished these up on June 25, 2011.

I went on to Class 2 the next day. The techniques taught were more advanced and used different color combos - some difficult to blend smoothly. Again I learned far more than I ever expected.

Here is my final project done using 12 of the 14 techniques taught.

The stamps used in this piece were Sea Background, Sign, Tilda and Edwin Dancing and Small Shell from Bon Voyage. The color combos used were all presented in the individual classes. The sky was lightly sponged with SU Bashful Blue. The sand/ground was sponged with SU Sahara Sand.

The sign and Tilda and Edwin are popped up on dimensionals. This piece was fun to put together and color. I have no idea at this time what I will do with it other than put it in my notebook. I finished these classes on July 23, 2011.

Maybe we can meet up with Tilda and Edwin at the beach. Don't forget your sunscreen!

Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting!

Huggeroonies,

Yummy Ice Cream

2011-07-26T12:16:00.000-04:00

My husband's school van rider, Abby, is usually very good while being transported to and from school. As a special reward for her this year, he got permission to stop at a local ice cream place and get her some as a treat. She was very surprised.
She and her father came to visit us a few days later. While dad was using tools in the garage, she and I made a House Mouse card - Mice Scream for Ice Cream.

Instead of using my Copics, I colored the image with my Prismacolor Pencils. I haven't practiced coloring the mice with Copics and didn't want to spoil the card with a poor coloring job.

The ice cream cone paper is from Magnolia's Sweet Rainbow paper pack.

Isn't it just the most perfect thing?

The inside paper was from a Gina K birthday paper pack from several years ago. The sentiment and stamped cones are from Gina K's 100% Sweet stamp set.

The hearts are cut with Nesties Scalloped Hearts dies.

The card is signed from Daisy, Mee-Ow, Abby Cat, and Puddy - our pets. Abby girl named Abby Cat and Puddy for us.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoying a cool ice cream treat with me!

Huggeroonies,

A very late birthday card

2011-07-09T14:51:00.000-04:00

I finally finished up my grandson's birthday card and gave it to him the end of June. His birthday was April 5 while his mom and I were still in Florida. Having Mom come home a few days after his birthday was the best present he could have received. The check in Grandma's card wasn't too bad either!!

This was my first attempt at a twisted easel card. I'm not sure that I like that technique. I'll have to try a couple more. For this card I used the Fishing Shack building, an older Edwin Fishing and the Bridge Deck stamps. Copics I used were - Building: E40, 42, 43, 44, 47, 17, G28, 05, 94, 99, YG97, 63, B16, 21, 24, 26, 000, R81, 24, Y08. Edwin was colored using the following: E13, 47, 44, 43, 81, 77, 71, 70, G05, 09, 07, 03, R27,Y28, 26, 21, B99, 97, 95, 91.

Here's a side view so you can see the "twist" in the easel.

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you can sit a spell and relax watching Edwin fishing!

Huggeroonies,

A beautiful Bridal Tea Party Card and July flower bed update

2011-07-09T14:31:00.000-04:00

My friend Lori's daughter is getting married soon. Last weekend was her bridal tea shower. Her mom came over and we made a beautiful Magnolia Tea Cup card for her. Making this card was soooooo fun. Lori had a good idea of what she wanted and did a great job choosing the flowers and embellies. With only minimal instruction, she colored and shaded the tea cup. Everyone at the shower especially Lori's daughter loved the card!

I finally finished weeding out the triangle flower bed so you can see the flowers. The hostas now completely cover the open space along the deck edge. The hostas are so dense that nothing grows underneath them so I don't have to weed under them.

The flower triangle looks a bit sparse right now, but in a few days everything should begin growing very rapidly.

The thing leaning over toward the back is a Foxglove. I have it in a tomato cage to help hold it up.
The spikey green thing is a Yucca plant. We removed about a dozen of them and just kept this one. When I was finishing the weeding, I noticed several more small ones coming up around the one we saved.
The large green plant towards the left in the pic is a lavendar plant. It bloomed earlier in the spring and now appears to be setting a second blooming.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoying the flowers with me!
Huggeroonies,

Flower beds updated

2011-07-09T14:29:00.000-04:00

These pictures were taken early in June. Since then I have fixed up 3 porch boxes for on the railing. I also started weeding the triangle flower box (no picture yet). That was about half done when I pulled the hamstring muscle in my right leg and had to stop everything for a couple weeks. My hubby helped me get the tomatoes and peppers in the garden. I would work in the flower triangle for no more than 15 - 20 minutes at a time. It still isn't totally cleaned out, but enough so that I got a few annuals planted. My leg is still sore, but at least I can get through the day without pain pills every 6 hours.

The hostas have grown so much they are now covering the opening under the deck and look great!

My husband finally put the snow shovel away a couple weeks ago. He wasn't taking any chances on needing it again for a few months.

This fuschia is hanging on the garage where it gets a little bit of shade from the hot afternoon sun. It is really beautiful and covered in flowers and buds.

The petunias are extraordinarily nice this year. The hummingbirds like the flowers better than the sugar water feeder. When we are sitting on the deck, the hummers will come right up to the feeder and plants.

A couple times one has hovered a couple feet from us, looked us over, and after giving us his approval, he went on to feed.

I'll try to get updated pictures tomorrow.

Thanks for stopping by to "smell the roses" and enjoy my flowers with me.

Huggeroonies,

June Mingle Cards

2011-06-29T21:58:00.000-04:00

I'm trying to get all my back posts caught up. I've been working really diligently to get my Copics Class #1 homework assignments done and uploaded for Suzanne to check. Now I'll be starting Class #2 tomorrow.

On to the June Mingle Cards.

The very talented Cordine made this beautiful card for me using Tilda with Blueberries. The papers are from an older Magnolia paper pack. I sure wish I could find some of them. I love them.

Tilda is just perfectly colored using the blue-grays to match the papers.

And did you notice all those layers? I LOVE layers and more layers!

This is my "spring-y" card that went to Rhonda McGibbon. I sure hope she likes daisies.

There wasn't much coloring on this card.
Copic marker colors I used were Y08, 06, 11, YG01, 05, G07, 05, E25, 31, 50, 47, 44, 43.

The designer papers are from Stampin' Up! Tilda is mounted on ovals cut using my Cuttlebug and Nestibilities ovals. I added some yellow Stickles to the daisy centers.

The sentiment panel was cut and embossed using my Cuttlebug and Nesties.

The sentiment stamp is a Magnolia from Diana's store. The daisies were from my stash. The leaves were punched using a Martha Stewart branch punch.

Thanks so much for stopping by. I hope you enjoyed your visit.

Huggeroonies,

May Mingle cards finally posted

2011-06-29T21:23:00.000-04:00

I just realized that I had not posted pictures of the May Mingle Cards that I had sent and received.

This is my May Mingle card sent to Corry Smyrski. I saw a card Jeanette Comerford had done using the Watering Can and Tilda with Daffodil on a round card. I had just received my order from Diana that had the Watering Can in it. Sooooo-
Tilda is colored using R24, 22, 00, E35, 34, YR21, 20, 24, G07, RV14, Y06
The watering can used C00, 1, 3, 5.

The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The ribbon is from my stash.

On the inside I put a butterfly charm, the Romantic tag cutout, and some small flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts, ribbons from my stash.

The designer papers are from my stash, probably Stampin' Up!

This is the May Mingle card I received from Donna Jean Eno.

It had been raining for several days when I received this gorgeous card from Donna Jean. What a beautiful bright spot it was!!! This picture does NOT do justice to the bright colors and glitter all over this card.

I kept this sitting above my work space until last week when I had to clean up my mess. It seemed that every time I looked at it I saw something I had missed before.

The inside is just as bright and sunny as the front!

My drooping spirits were lifted everytime I looked at this card. I love it!!

I hope your spirits have been brightened by just looking at pictures of my "Spring is here!" card.

Huggeroonies,

More Birthday Cards!

2011-05-17T16:18:00.009-04:00

I've taken a couple days off from making birthday cards. I got out the glue gun and foam core board and made a unit to hold several of my card making and finishing items. The things I put in it are Stickles, Flower Soft, Memento Dew Drop inks, glue dots, acrylic blocks, full size Memento Tuxedo Black ink pads, Glimmer Mists, Shimmerz, Robin's Nest Dew Drops, Crystal Effects, Tack It Over and Over, hand sanitizer and a small basket to hold my scissors and bone folders.

My hope is that with all this wonderful stuff right in front of me, I will use it more often on my cards. Here's a picture of it.

Ok, now on to the next three birthday cards that I made recently.

This one of Tilda in Rubber Boots was a lot of fun to make and went to my older daughter. Reminds me of being a kid and wearing boots to play outside after a rain storm.

This card was originally created by Peggie Wilkins. You can see Peggie's card here: http://stampingwithpeggie.blogspot.com/

I put the Open Gate and Spring Lamp Post behind Tilda to build a background. The lavendar DP has faint flowers on it to go along with the spring theme.

The flowers were from Wild Orchid Crafts and the ribbon from my stash.

I used my Copics for coloring, of course!
E37, 35, 33, 31, 25
YG06, 03, 00
R21, 20, 11 G94, 82, 40, 99
Y02, 23, 02 YR23 B000
C5, 4, 2 V15, 12, 000

I think that's all the Copics used.

My friend Kim received this card. She is the one I blame for my addicition to stamping. She did a quick class for our Creative Women's group at church. Then she invited me to a workshop at her house. This has become very contagious and I am doing my best to spread it everywhere!!

I used several Maggies on this card - Tilda with Puppy, Swing, Little Birds, and Butterfly.

The lace around the circle and the ribbon were from my stash. The leaves and swirls were cut with Doohickey dies.

The image background was sponged with SU inks.
Copics used were - YG03, 06, 00
B99, 97, 95, 93, 23, 21 YR02, 21 Y06 R29, 27, 24, 20 W3, 5 C7, 5, 3, 9 and E57, 55, 53, 37, 35, 18, 15, 33 Sure doesn't seem like that many colors when I'm doing it.

The inside is pretty simple.

The last card for this post was for my friend Roxy. She is the one who made the Master Chef certificate for me. So you know that she loved this card!

I didn't have the small wall shelf, so I cut the bottom off another kitchen image, put a piece of Tilda lace under it and added the items on top.

Instead of Tilda dropping the egg, I replace it with a cupcake. The cake, cupcake, piece of cake, tea pot and candy tray were all cut from glitter designer papers. The flower is from Magnolia.

I used Crystal Effects on the window glass and drawer pulls.
Copics used were E18, 15, 11, 40, 25, 31, 50, 13, 17, 29 BG000, 10 B24, 28, 21, 16, 14, 12
R85, 83, 81, 00, 89, 00 Y06, 00 Y06, 00 C00

This image was Yummy Muffin. The ribbon daisies were from my stash. Flowers from Wild Orchid Crafts. The DP are SU Paisley Petals.

Sure hope you have enjoyed your visit. Please leave a comment and lots of Maggie hugs!

Huggeroonies,

Lots of Birthday Cards

2011-05-16T17:24:00.000-04:00

January through April are the peak months for my family to have birthdays. At least it seems that way! I had six birthday cards that were late or very late due to my being away much of the winter. Last week I managed to get four of them in the mail - three to the same family.

The first one was for my precious daughter-in-law. She is such a joy! She lives in Georgia, but I sure wish she was closer.
Here is Tilda with her Bunny. The papers are from Magnolia, flowers from Magnolia and Wild Orchid Crafts.
Copics used for coloring are -
R81,83, 85 E30,33, 35 YR20,21,23 W2 ,4, 5, 7
C2 Hair E25, 49, 53, 59
All skin in all cards are E000, 00, 11 and R21

The Magnolia Tag is perfect for this neat sentiment from a birthday sentiments pack.

My grandson Jeremy turned 16 this February. Where has the time gone?
I used the Magnolia Sea Background, Sea Banner and the Howser on the inside. This adorable little aviator is from Penny Black and was a "miss you" gift from my friend Roxy.

The Copic colors used on this card _
G24, 21, 20, 82, R11, 17, 14, 12, 20, 000, 46, Y08, 02, 11, 26, 21, 000 C0, 3, W0,
E01, 00, 13, 17, 37, 43, 42, 41, 30,
B95, 93, 91, 0000, 24, BG10, BV20,

The inside was very simple.

This was my son's card. They really aren't into boating, but these just seemed like really great cards for guys.

These image are all from the Bon Voyage collection. The eyeltes, pearls and ribbon lace are from my stash. Stickles cover the tops of the waves.
The Copics I used for this Sea Background are BG000, B91, 93, 97, 99, C1, 4
E25, 21, 27, 29, 50, 51
Edwin Copics - E000, 00, 11, 29, 25, 31
R20, 17, Y19, C0, 1, 2, 5

The sentiments were stamped in Chocolate Chip SU ink. The DPs were all from my stash. The sea shells were from a K&Company stick-on assortment.

These three cards all went to the same family. It was a real feeling of accomplishment to pack them up and get them mailed!

Thanks for stopping by. Please take a minute to leave a little Maggie love in a comment.
Huggeroonies,

My Flower Beds Are Dressed for Spring

2011-05-10T11:19:00.033-04:00

After a long, cold, snowy winter, my flower beds are looking forward to spring. All of the pictures in this post were snapped on May 1.

The bleeding hearts are loaded with buds. In another week or two they will be almost to the top of the skirting.

This flower box around our deck has a few crocuses, tulips and grape hyacinths for early spring color. When they are done blooming, the hostas begin filling in and will get high enough to hide the open spaces where the deck supports are.

There are two pipe plant holders on the deck rail. I put a hummingbird feeder on one and hang petunias on both of them. The birdhouse on the corner has a sparrow nest in it now. We also put nest boxes on the top peak of our mini barn and in the triangle (next pic). Within an hour of my hubby putting them up, the one on the mini barn had sparrows moving in!

This is what we call the "triangle". There are several early spring flowers here. The crocuses are done for this year. The grape hyacinths are all around the edge. The tulips and daffodils are even more beautiful now.
The green spikey plants are yuccas. They get gorgeous buttery yellow flowers on tall spikes mid-summer.
I plant annuals around the edges after the flowers in this pic have died back. The are also a couple heather plants, euonymous, amd foxglove that are getting started, but don't show yet.

The birdhouse in the triangle has housed bluebirds for several years. Just yesterday we saw the first bluebirds and hummingbirds of 2011.

Thanks for stopping by and enjoying my flowers.
Huggeroonies,

Belated Cards

2011-05-07T22:39:00.000-04:00

I have been on a real tear getting cards made for the last few days.

This is one of two identical sympathy cards I needed to make. My dad's only brother passed while I was in Florida and couldn't make it home for his memorial service. He was in his late 80's and was in very good health until the last 6 months.

The second one was for a friend whose father passed a couple weeks ago. He had been ill for several years and had dementia. His memorial was on a day when I had another appointment, so didn't make that one either.

This card was for Lillian Abrams, who was my January Mingle partner. I sent her an email explaining the Florida situation and she excused me from having to do the card then. I made this one and mailed it out to her this week and she has it already!!
Snowy Hugs is such a cute stamp and seemed appropriate with all the snow that was in this region in January.

The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and some that our precious Diana included as a gift with one of my orders.

This one is an oldie. My pictures are labeled "Wendy Bradley". She was on my BRAK list for November, 2010. I mailed the card back then - I have the post office receipt for it, but just didn't post pics of it.

The silver metallic is embossed with a Cuttlebug Heritage frame folder. Isn't it just beautiful?

Princess Tilda is colored with Copics, but I haven't a clue which ones. Wish I knew - I really like them!
The flowers are Magnolia and Wild Orchid Crafts.

Thank you for stopping by and taking time to look. Hope your weekend is fun filled and relaxing.
Huggeroonies,

The "Master Chef" Lives at My House!

2011-05-06T22:13:00.000-04:00

My dear husband was so understanding while I was in Florida with my daughter. He had to learn a whole new group of domestic skills. I have royally spoiled him for over 25 years. He rarely had to fend for himself. So doing any cooking was a new learning experience for him.

As my daughter and I were watching the Top Chef competition on TV, I got this idea of having my friend Roxy make me a Culinary Master Chef certificate for him. Here is the Certificate!

He has Mastered the following techniques -

Freezing of Ice Cubes

Boiling Water

Thawing of Meatballs

Preparing Jell-O

Cooking Box Mac & Cheese and Spaghetti

Whipping up a Western Omelet.

Succeeding in these techniques in such a way that he is capable of

staying by himself for an extended period of time without starving,

qualify him as a Culinary Master Chef.

He laughed when we presented it to him in the Cafe' after church the first Sunday I was back home! He was a very good sport about it. When I would call him with updates from the hospital, he would tell me about something he had just figured out how to make like Jell-O.

Of course this doesn't cover over-the-phone instructions for operating the washer and dryer. He never did go for the vaccuum and very minimal use of the broom and dustpan. He did keep the dishes done every couple days. He did a great job and I am proud of him!

Thanks for stopping by! Hope you have enjoyed the Culinary Master Chef certificate!

Huggeroonies,

Riley and Sophie Try to Visit Santa

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

I started this Riley card about Thanksgiving time.
I just finished it this past weekend. With all that was going on with my daughter, I just couldn't focus on making a funny card. I feel so bad that Nate hasn't received any Riley cards in a long time.

This is the Stand image from Magnoli-licious. I though it looked like a great place for Santa to set up for visits from the little mooses. The Santa hat is from Edwin as Santa that I colored and cut out.

When Riley and Sophie arrived, Santa had left for break for 10 minutes. At least that's what the sign said.

They were very patient and waited for about a half hour. When Santa didn't return, they went off to play.

There weren't any other mooses around to play with.

Riley loves skiing and found a hill nearby to try out.

Sophie is a little more cautious. She made a snow moose. It was very difficult for her to resist the temptation to throw snowballs at Riley though. She remembered the last time and how hard Riley could throw them back at her!

When they got chilly and tired, they went home. Sophie was such a sweet moose. She made some very yummy cupcakes and a pretty birthday cake for Jesus for Christmas.

Like most of us, they had so much snow. Riley got very tired of having to replenish the hay supply.

Here's an overview of the opened easel card showing Riley and Sophie waiting at the Santa House and off playing. I made the figures stand up using plastic strips taped behind them.

I know this isn't one of my better Riley cards, but at least it's done and in the mail now.

Thanks for stopping by.
Huggeroonies,

More Easter and Miss You Cards

2011-05-05T20:22:00.000-04:00

My friend Roxy makes the most gorgeous cards. We did the Delft Tile technique at her SU workshop the beginning of April.

She used that technique to make this fabulous card! Her sponging on the tiles is perfect. This is one very elegant card and she made it for me!!

This is the Easter card I made for Roxy.
Not nearly as elegant as hers was.

Roxy made me this card while I was still in Florida and had my hubby put it in my Stamp Mansion so I would find it when I got home.

She used a beautiful DP - can't remember where she said it was from - maybe Basic Grey. The pink strip was embossed using SU's Square Lattice embossing folder and edged with the SU Scallop Trim Border punch.

She also included a Penny Black stamp of a boy holding an airplane, his puppy with a flying helmet on and the sentiment "Wish You Were Near..." I don't have very many stamps that are "boy" type, so it is greatly appreciated. She is just sooooooo good to me.

Thanks so much for stopping by for a visit. Please leave a comment so I'll know you were here!

Huggeroonies,

2011 Easter Cards

2011-04-23T21:04:00.000-04:00

In the Magnolia Ink Spring Special there was a gorgeous Easter Card created by Debbie. I fell in love with this very cute card. I didn't have the Tilda with Big Ribbon stamp, so I substituted an older Tilda with Tulips. She fit nicely on the Swing. The article showing this card was a Step by Step - Create a Scene using masking, which I have done many times. I also substituted the Shabby Chic Fence for the fence Debbie used. I had the Butterfly Background and Tilda's Birds, so I had most of the stamps that were used.

Here is a picture of the seven cards I made.

The flowers used were from Wild Orchid Crafts or JoAnn's. Ribbons were Walmart - if you like the ribbon, buy it in every color available!!

Here's a close up of a couple of the cards.

The purple iris was a Walmart stem. The tiny buds hanging down were Wild Orchid Crafts. Every card had one of the daffodils from WOC on it in the corner. Every card had a different color scheme which was really fun gathering papers, cardstock and flowers to coordinate.

Have a very blessed Easter and enjoyable, restful Sunday! Thanks so much for stopping by and leaving me some Maggie love!

Huggeroonies,

It's Great Being Home, Happy Birthday Abby!

2011-04-23T20:40:00.000-04:00

After spending much of the winter in a Florida hospital with my daughter, I am very happy to report she is back home next door to me and doing very well.

I didn't realize just how much I missed my stamps and inks until I went to an SU workshop the Saturday after I got back. All my stamping buddies were there and we chatted and stamped and chatted and made cards and chatted and had snacks and chatted - YEAH!!! After I got home, out came the stamps, inks, papers, etc and I stamped and colored until bedtime! What a great feeling that was. Even though I took some stamped images and Copics with me to FL, it just wasn't the same. Know what I mean?!?!!

My husband's bus rider turned thirteen on April 14! Happy Birthday, Abby! I finally was able to meet Abby - such a cute girl! She helped us name our new kitty last summer. We now have to specify if we are talking about Abby girl or Abby cat. For this very special occasion, I naturally had to make a card. Here it is -

I used Tilda with Balloon and the Balloon Background from the new You Are So Special collection. The paper was from JoAnn's. The flowers are individual stems from a flower bush from Walmart. Ribbon was Walmart too.

Twice in the last week about dinner time we had a very colorful visitor to our front yard. A ring-necked pheasant drake was helping himself to the spilled birdseed under our feeder.

I took 6 or 7 pics, but this one turned out to be the best and most colorful. Two days after I took this pic, he was back for seconds. I didn't see him today, but then it was raining.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing Abby's birthday card and our pheasant visitor with me!

Huggeroonies,

Christmas Scene for my Daughter

2010-12-27T23:51:00.000-05:00

I created a very large Christmas scene for my daughter. I sure hope this will brighten her holiday season as she has been hospitalized in Florida since the end of November. She is improving, but was not at a point where her medical team felt she could safely fly home to New York for Christmas. Her sister went down on December 24 so she wouldn't be alone. She'll leave for her home on the 30th or 31st.

So here goes - there are a lot of pictures so you can have a really good look at what I did.
I made an easel card adding an extension that folds up from both sides and then to the easel base. The top folds down like a normal easel card. It's much harder to explain than to just show the pictures.

This is the left panel. I used one house from Edwin's Town, Mini Snowy Hugs, Tilda with Jolly Wreath, Winter Forest cut apart, Large Sled and Jolly Tilda. I used stiff clear plastic to get the figures to stand up. I glued cotton ball bits around the bottom of the figures to look like they were standing in snow. Liquid Applique was use on the figures for snow and fluffy hatbands. I also dotted Stickles on the trees for lights.

This panel is on the right side.
Stamps used on this side are Winter Forest cut apart and decorated, Rufus, Wishful Chair, Santa Edwin and Post Bag of Love Letters - if you look closely you can see they are really letters to Santa!

Santa's hatband and cuffs are Fun Flock Cotton Ball White. The trees are decorated with Liquid Applique and Stickles.

This is the center panel with the easel background. I covered the background with Sparkly, Chunky Glitter Glue containing stars and snowflakes. Stamps used are the other 2 houses from Edwin's Town, Mini Edwin on Sled, Winter Lamp Post, another tree from Winter Forest, Tilda with Coat and Hood, Tilda with Dress Coat, Cozy Tilda and Edwin in Winter Sweater sitting on the New Bench.
The lamp post, bench and tree have Liquid Applique snow on them. All the figures have cotton ball "snow" at their feet. Edwin's hat was actually trimmed from a Tilda (?) and glued to his head. It really looks pretty cold to be outside with no hat!
The Christmas tree was decorated with brad candy canes, a star, round brads and some Stickles.
Now that you've read all of the above babbling, here is a picture of the whole scene.

I wanted to have this very large so you could easily see all the scene. Sorry about Rufus being on the side bar. All of the figures fold down - some forward and some backwards. I folded the center panel first, put a piece of plain paper over them, then then folded down the right side, then the left and finally the center panel with the scene on top. The folded card was tied together with a blue ribbon with silver snowflakes on it.
I worked on this for 2 days just getting the figures where I wanted them and adding the final embellishments.

It probably took me another 3 or 4 days to color and cut out everything. I sure hope she likes this!!

Here you can see how I have the figures standing on the left side.

Here is the right side.

This is an overhead shot.
I hope you have enjoyed a journey to Tilda and Edwin's Christmas wonderland!

Thanks for stopping by and saying Hi!

Huggeroonies,

Card and keychain for a wonderful postman

2010-12-27T13:39:00.000-05:00

This will be a very short post.
The postman who delivers all my packages, junk mail and bills is just an angel! If it's raining, he will meet me part way to his vehicle. If it's really cold out, he is willing to get out of his vehicle and bring the packages to the door for me. What a pleasure it is to have a considerate mail carrier!

So I made him a special Christmas card this year featuring Lightening Edwin and attached a bookmark and keychain with the same Edwin on them.

I have no idea what Copic colors I used as I was doing several cards at the same time and had at least a third of my markers spread all over my work area.

The keychain was done on Shrinky Dink Frosted Ruff and Ready plastic and "shrunk" using my heat tool. They were very fun to make and everyone loved them!

Thanks so much for stopping by!
Huggeroonies,

Too Much Time on My Hands

2010-12-14T21:44:00.000-05:00

My husband has decided that I have too much time on my hands. Oh, if only.....! I have purchased some of the Mini Magnolias and really LOVE them! They are just too cute.
If you remember, in the Fun in the Summer Sun Magnolia Ink magazine there was a tutorial on making charms using Shrinky Dink plastic and Magnolia images. Hhhhmmmm - Mini Maggies - shrink plastic Maggies !?! WELL ---- here are mine!!

I don't wear much jewelry and especially not bracelets, so I turned mine into keychains!!

When I showed my hubby, he remarked that I really did have too much time on my hands if I could make these.

The charms have Glossy Accents on them so they were difficult to photograph. This is the third pic I took and the least glaring of the three.
These were quite fun to make, really easy and fairly quick. I made matching bookmarks and attached the keychains to them. I have already given several away with Christmas cards.

So what do you think?
Thanks for stopping by and having a look!

Huggeroonies,

December Mingle from Janet Berezowecki

2010-12-14T21:06:00.000-05:00

Here is the gorgeous December Mingle card I received from Janet Berezowecki.

Everything is such pretty pinks! Janet added liquid pearls around the burgundy oval and on the Tilda's Doily.

The centers of the pink flowers on the background paper are all glittery and sparkly.
Tilda is colored just beautifully.
Thank you so much Janet.
Thanks for stopping by!
Huggeroonies,

Christmas Cards Galore!

2010-12-05T22:29:00.002-05:00

ETA: The Tilda and Edwin Ice Skating card was originally made by Rene. You can view her card at http://cardsbyrbowen.blogspot.com/2010/10/edwin-and-tilda-skating-in-park.html
Thank you, Rene, for letting me know. I loved making that card!

I was invited to attend a Craft Show and Sale yesterday, December 4, at Odosagih Bible Conference in Machias, NY,which is about 50 miles from where I live. So I spent most of the last two weeks or so frantically making Christmas cards. Of course most of them featured Tilda and/or Edwin. There are three that are more traditional designs for those who don't know and love Tilda and Edwin as we all do!
This will be a long post as there are several cards. I made 6 to 8 of each design.
OK, so here goes --
Tilda and Edwin didn't let the intense snow fall the last few days keep them from enjoying some playtime on their sleds.

Stamps I used are:
Winter Night Background
Edwin on Sled
Winter Day Background
Tilda with Sled

I used a very generous amount of Liquid Applique to add snow to the scenery trying to make it look like western New York.
All coloring was done using Copic Markers. (If I listed all the markers I used, this post would be very, very, very long.)
The iridescent snowflakes came from AC Moores or Michaels and have been in my stash forever.
They are mounted on other flakes punched with Martha Stewart Arctic Snowflake and cut from DCWV Glimmer paper. The layers are held together with glue dots.

The dp's are from a DCWV Christmas Stack from a couple years ago.

And did you notice? No flowers on these two cards!! I only made four each of these.

Stamps used on this card are:
Snowy Circle Background
Large Sled
Tilda Santa's Little Helper

I put Fun Flock Cotton Ball White on her hat brim and Liquid Applique on the pompom.
The snowflakes were cut using the MS snowflake punch and I added some large gemstones to the centers. They looked bare with nothing in the center. The poinsettias are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The dps from the same DCWV stack. The ribbon is from AC Moore or Michaels.

Don't Tilda and Edwin look like they are having soooo much fun? I especially like this stamp.
Stamps used on this card are:
Tilda and Edwin on Ice
Park/Pond Background

I copied someone else's idea for this card, so if it's yours, please let me know so I can give you credit for a funtastic idea!!
The background stamp was not wide enough for a 5-1/2 inch card, so the trees were trimmed from a second image and the glued in place under Tilda to hide the cut edge. Then I extended the curved pond outline.
The snowflake is the same MS punch with 2 flakes held together with a silver brad. All coloring was done with Copics. The skate blades were done with a silver metallic marker. Ribbon is from the stash.

This card idea was copied from Kylie of Kylie's Kraft Room. Thank you so much, Kylie, for such a cute card. I really LOVED making this one. It was much easier than I had anticipated. I cut the star from a tablet back using my Nesties Star die then covered it in a very generous coating of Gold Stickles - another idea from Kylie! I put gold Dew Drops at the corners of the image panel. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts, the ribbon from my stash, the papers are from the DCWV Shimmer Stack, Christmas Stack and SU Handsome Hunter.
Flying Angel Tilda was colored with Copics.

Lots of people looked at this card and were surprised when Tilda floated across the oval!

The inspiration for these two cards came from Norma and her fantastic tutorial for making them.

Vintage Tilda looks so ready to get her tree trimmed as she is patiently waiting for Edwin to get it set up for her. Lucky for her the Holly Letter was there for her to sit on while she waited.
The sentiment is from SU Bells and Boughs. Flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The cardstock is SU Handsome Hunter, Real Red and Whisper White. Coloring was done with Copics.

Here is a closeup of the cards set up for display. These are a very different take on the easel cards which I love to make.
Thank you again, Norma, for being so wonderful to share your cards and tutorial with all of us.

The snowflake is an SU stamp. I used VersaMark to stamp the image and heat embossed it using SU Iridescent Ice embossing powder. The shapes for the sentiments were cut using my Nesties Deckled Rectangles and Labels Four. People were really surprised when I showed them how to open the card to expose the jotting panel.

Poinsettia Swag card. This is a really traditional card and I love the way it turned out.

The image is from SU's Bells and Boughs - love that set!
The base cardstock is SU Riding Hood Red layered with Deck the Halls dp and Crumb Cake cs. The image is stamped on Whisper White and layered on Always Artichoke. I sponged the edges of the image layer with Always Artichoke. The sentiment was stamped with Riding Hood Red. The image was colored with Copics. The ribbon and the rhinestone flower were from my stash.

This lantern stamp and the next hurricane lamp stamp came from Blue Ridge Impressions. They have some very beautiful stamps and sentiments with Scripture verses.
The card and matching envelope were purchased a couple years ago. The lantern was stamped on SU Whisper White and colored with Copics. The scalloped oval was cut from Handsome Hunter with my Nestie ovals. The leaves were punched from DCWV Glitter cardstock using the MS Branch punch and attached using glue dots.
The sentiment was heat embossed using SU silver embossing powder.

This card was also a purchased set. The hurricane lamp was stamped on SU Whisper White and mounted on Handsome Hunter.
Copics were the coloring medium. The leaves were punched using the MS Branch punch from DCWV Glimmer cardstock.
The sentiment was heat embossed. Not sure where that stamp came from, but it's nice for a more formal card.

Aaaaaahhhhhh!!!!! Time for a rest. So - now you know what I've been doing for the last two or three weeks ! It took me a couple hours to put everything away that I hauled out to make these cards.

I sold a few of the cards - not nearly what I had hoped to sell, but some vendors there didn't sell anything.
I hope you've enjoyed your visit and maybe I've inspired some of you to make some of these cards.

Have a blessed Christmas season!

Huggeroonies,

November Mingle card from Marcia Duncan

2010-12-05T15:57:00.000-05:00

Marcia Duncan sent me the cutest November Mingle card using Dreamy Tilda. I love it!!!
Tilda is lying on a scalloped circle on two gorgeous designer papers. The white cherry blossoms have Shimmerz on the petals and are so sparkley!
Here's a picture of my card.

Isn't she just the cutest thing you ever saw??

Thanks for looking
Huggeroonies,

November BRAK cards

2010-12-05T15:45:00.000-05:00

Hello again! Hopefully things will settle down to a slow roar in my house! Yesterday was the craft show and sale that I spent the last 2 weeks making cards to sell at. More on that later and with pics of the cards!!

Here are pictures of the November BRAK cards I've sent out. I don't remember who got which card, but they went to Karma Wood, Caroline Weir and Joanne Mullin.

I'm not sure what the third BRAK card was that I sent. My very copious notes say "pop-up Tilda". Good grief nearly every card I've made lately has been a "pop-up Tilda"!
Someone gave me lots of pieces of advice about getting older, but I simply cannot remember any of them :(
Thanks for stopping by and try to leave a comment to help jog my memory!
Huggeroonies,

Snowy Cheers and Hugs to Daughter!

2010-12-05T15:39:00.000-05:00

Here are pictures of the card I made for my daughter. She had to have some "repair" surgery done again. She told me she loved Snowy and Snowy Hugs when she first saw then. So to help cheer her up I made her an easel card with both stamps. Here are the pics. What do you think?

I really went wild with the Liquid Applique to add lots of snow effects to the card!

My granddaughter was having a not-so-good day, so she came down and made cards with Grammy!

Here is her card for her mom:

Meg did a great job coloring her Tilda. She took several graphic art classes so she already knew about light source. Blending the Copic colors was a snap for her!

Thanks for taking a few minutes out of your busy holiday preparation time to visit. I'd really enjoy a comment from you.

Huggeroonies,

Ann's Blog Candy

2010-11-26T22:50:00.001-05:00

Check out the fantastic blog candy Ann is giving away. Just click on the blinkie in my side bar or click on this link to her blog http://raindropechodesigns.blogspot.com/2010/11/thank-you-blog-candy.html . There are 2 give aways so that's double your chances!!

Hugs,
Kathy

The Dudes - Riley and Sophie!

2010-11-26T16:33:00.000-05:00

After leaving Him-icane Earl behind, Riley and Sophie head west, well out of the storm's path.

Their continuing driving vacation has taken them to a real Dude Ranch (maybe in Texas) this time.

Things were really not what Riley was expecting!

Riley really was not prepared for this!

I think Riley has a valid point - a moose is a lot bigger than a horse.

Here is a close up of Sophie on a horse.

I had a lot of cut-and-paste time in getting this picture so it looked like Sophie was riding the horse and that she looked a lot bigger than the horse. Then there was getting that hat to look big on her!

Did you notice the hoofkerchief around Sophie's neck?

So off they go for a horseback ride along some beautifully scenic trails.

They had a rather uneventful ride and returned to the ranch.

The horses had to be groomed and wiped down after the long ride.

Riley just happened to look closely at the horse Sophie had been riding.

That girl just cannot leave well enough alone!

After the long trail ride, everyone was ready for chow!

Image how proud Riley was when he was allowed to help moose the grills for dinner!

But, like all very good things, summer was nearing an end and Riley and Sophie would soon be heading home and back to school.

Thanks for stopping by and sharing another adventure with Riley and Sophie! Please leave a comment if you have enjoyed these whimsical flights of fancy of mine!

Huggeroonies,

November Mingle to Robin Fulbrook

2010-11-26T16:02:00.000-05:00

Robin Fulbrook - don't look if you want to be surprised!!
Here is the card I made.

The front was a very pretty fall paper I had in my stash. The sentiment was stamped using a Kaleidacolor stamp pad in Autumn Leaves colors. The ovals were cut with my Nesties and Cuttlebug. Chocolate brown ribbon is from my stash.

I tried to envision what my kitchen would look like on Thanksgiving morning. There would be a pie or two cooling, a turkey baking in the oven and, of course, a basket of warm rolls!

The potatoes and corn are in the pots on the stove.

I used lots of stamps - Magnolia Apple Pie Tilda , Shelf with Kitchen Towels, Kitchen (cabinet in back), Stove and Oven Mitt, Tilda's Table, and Kitty Cat.The pie on the shelf, basket of rolls and turkey are Cornish Heritage Farms stamps.

Kitty's rug and under the table were cut using Nesties Petite Scallops dies.

Here's a side view showing the images standing up. I used clear plastic strips to hold them up.

This view shows the table and kitchen cabinet.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you have enjoyed the Thanksgiving kitchen scene. Hopefully it brought back memories of pleasant times with your family and friends.

Huggeroonies,

The GIANT Pumpkins!

2010-11-18T22:12:00.000-05:00

Watch out, Charlie Brown! I know where the Great Pumpkin grows. The kids go to our church. The two girls were adopted from Brazil, where their new Mom grew up. The boy with the curly hair is her son. They were so intrigued with the pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns on display for Halloween.

One of our neighbors grows these giant pumpkins for competitions he goes to. This particular one weighs approximately 800 pounds. The kids were amazed at the size of the pumpkins and that there were 5 or 6 all about the same size. Their mom had never seen a pumpkin plant. Everyone had a great time looking at and touching the huge pumpkins, although they could not sit on them!

Thanks for stopping by and looking at the giant pumpkins. Wouldn't Charlie Brown love this!?!

Huggeroonies,

October Mingle Card from Dewi

2010-11-17T22:00:00.002-05:00

This is the adorable Mingle card I received from Dewi Hasan for the October Mingle.

Little Tilda looks so scary in her pirate costume! Maybe she was very afraid of the skulls hovering around behind her.

At any rate, it is the cutest card and I love it. Thank you Dewi!!

Huggeroonies,

Happy Birthday Megan!

2010-11-10T22:07:00.000-05:00

My oldest granddaughter turned 25 last month.

Could you guess that her favorite color is purple?
And she loves to shop!

This cute little Tilda Goes Shopping is just perfect for Megan. On another blog someone had used this stamp with an ATM machine behind Tilda. I looked for that sticker but couldn't find it :o(

The trellis behind is a MS punch with a piece of satin ribbon covering the seam between the lattices. The buildings are Edwin's Town. The swirls are Magnolia Doohickeys Leaf and Swirl dies. Leaves are another MS punch and the flowers are Magnolia and Wild Orchid Crafts. The images are colored with Copics - didn't keep track of the colors used.

This is a piece of gorgeous dp that I had in my stash. I have no idea where it came from, but I love it and so did Megan. The background is purple even though it looks very blue in this picture.

Thanks for taking the time and stopping by to look at my card!

Huggeroonies,

Sweet card from my friend Sue

2010-11-10T21:56:00.000-05:00

My friend Sue S. made me this really darling card. Thank you so much, Sue, I just love it!! She said it reminded her of me while I was doing all the canning and freezing this fall.

She stamped the jar outline first, then stamped the jar contents and colored them. Then she stamped the jar again on vellum, cut it out and put it over the jar contents.

It makes it look like a real jar! Very clever!

The inside sentiment was cut using Nesties dies in three sizes and stacking them.

Thanks so much for stopping by. Please leave a comment and tell me what you think of this very clever card from Sue S.

Huggeroonies,

Riley and Sophie Almost Meet Earl

2010-11-10T12:43:00.000-05:00

I had mailed this card several weeks ago to Nate's aunt and uncle who own a general store in Elkin, North Carolina. Hopefully this postmark will get Nate thinking that maybe they are the creators of the Riley cards!! I had downloaded the pics from my camera, but forgot to do the blog post.

While Riley and Sophie were traveling along the Blue Ridge Parkway and in Elkin, North Carolina, Hurricane Earl was approaching the eastern seaboard.

They had a great time sightseeing and visiting with some of their famoosely antlers and unclers. The coumoosings were still away at summer grazing camp.

Riley was able to get in some quality fishing time. Sophie usually wants to swim while Riley fishes, but this time she stayed out of the water.

This is a real picture of the Yadkin Valley General Store owned by Nate's aunt and uncle.

Sophie does love to graze and especially where there are different grazing locations to try out.

Ice cream was a real treat on a hot summer day!

Riley found a new thing to try too - miniature golf.

His frustrations with how people do and say things only continues with the golf thing.

The final straw for him was seeing an ELK Pharmacy. He got plenty "rileyed" with the lack of a MOOSE pharmacy.

Then along came Him-icane Earl and they had to leave quickly so they wouldn't get blown away.

Riley tries to encourage Nate by reminding him of all the good things that have happened to him this summer.

As always, Riley rides his red tractor into the sunset onto his next adventure.

Thanks so much for stopping by and visiting with Riley and Sophie. Please leave a comment so he'll know you were here.

Blessings and Huggeroonies,

October BRAK cards

2010-11-03T22:41:00.087-04:00

Here are the BRAK cards that I made for the October birthdays.

Tilda in Autumn Leaves is just the cutest stamp I could ever imagine! She reminds me so much of my daughter when she was little.

The flowers are Magnolia and Wild Orchid Crafts, leaves in the floral arrangement are a MS punch. The leaves scattered over the dp are punched from DCWV Shimmer paper with a small EK Success punch. The Jack-o-lanterns are another MS punch. The sheer ribbon is tied with raffia. Tilda was colored with Copics. This card went to Deana Farley.

Cathy-Lynn Tkalcevic received this adorable Tilda with Pumpkins card. I think Tilda looks more like a pilgrim than a witch.

The very large flower was in a package of different flowers that I got on line. The leaves are an MS punch and from my stash.

The sunflowers and pumpkins are GinaK. The fence and pumpkins are pop-ups and stand away from the background. The little flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts. The images are all colored with Copics. Again, I didn't keep track of the colors.

I really like making these easel cards! It just seems that there is so much more room to work with.

Here is a side view so you can see the fence and pumpkins standing away from the background.

Wendy Kaput was the recipiant of the last card for October. Tilda in Windy Weather was a natural to pair with the Fall Background. The blowing leaves on the background were colored with Copics, as was Tilda. The wind blown flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts, ribbon from Wal Mart and the leaves are a MS punch.

The fall trees dp is from Joann's. All cardstock is from Stampin' Up!

Again the little maple leaves are punched from DCWV Shimmer paper stack.

Sure hope you have enjoyed your visit and will leave me a message.
Huggeroonies,

Journals for a Retreat Craft

2010-10-14T14:59:00.000-04:00

I am getting sooooo excited! Tomorrow afternoon I leave for the weekend Ladies Boosters Fall Retreat at Odosagih Bible Conference in Machias, New York. It starts Friday with dinner and goes through Sunday brunch. Just think - NO cooking for 2 days, NO dishes for 2 days!

I am also teaching a craft class on Saturday afternoon. We'll be making a Prayer Journal using the black/white hard cover composition books. I got the basic idea from a Gina K video on StampTV.

The book is covered with cardstock on the binding, front, inside front and back. A ribbon can be added to cover the edge of the cardstock on the front. I made a place marker using ribbon and the Vintage Tag DooHickey from Magnolia.

A coordinating design paper is glued to the front and the Tilda image on top of that. I cut Tilda with Nesties Labels Four. A second choice will be Labels Ten.

I colored Tilda with my Copics. NO! NO! NO! The Copics are NOT going! I'm taking my SU markers for the coloring part!

This is a very quick project and can be done using any color combo and image you would like.

Another option for a journal would be a Christmas Journal or any special occasion.

This would be an excellent place to keep that ever-hiding, just walking away Christmas card mailing list with addresses! I also keep a list of what gifts I give to whom each year to help this "Swiss cheese" brain to remember so I don't duplicate things from year to year. This was especially important when I was making most of my gifts.
Special Christmas memories can easily be added in journal form, with plenty of space for pictures. Maybe even notes from guests.

Again I covered the binding, front, inside front and back with cardstock. I used Crumb Cake (Kraft) on the binding and Handsome Hunter on the front and back. The front inside was a Christmas Stripe from DCWV Christmas stack from 2 or 3 years ago. The ribbon is from Michael's or AC Moore.

The Tildas used are Fireplace with Stockings, Tilda with Jolly Wreath, Large Sled and Jolly Tilda.
I made tiny slits alone the inside edge of the wreath and wrapped a 1/8" ribbon around the wreath, bringing it to the front and tying a bow. The wreath is covered with Flower Soft. All the images are colored with Copics. I did the coloring last Christmas and didn't keep track of what I used. These journals would make quick and simple gifts for any occasion simply by changing the images used on the fronts.

Thanks so much for stopping by. See you when I return from Retreat all refreshed, rested (maybe) and brimming over from great teaching.

Blessings and Huggeroonies,

Daughter's Birthday Card

2010-10-14T13:42:00.000-04:00

I finished my daughter's birthday card last night. She lives next door so I will walk it over later today.

The first time I saw Tilda playing in the leaves, I knew it would be my daughter's birthday card!

I used SU Autumn Traditions designer paper, Always Artichoke and unknown reddish-orange from my stash. The flowers are from Wild Orchid Crafts and Magnolia. A piece of sheer pale green ribbon is tied with raffia, both from the stash. I punched the jack-o-lanterns with a MS embossing punch and the maple leaves from DCWV Shimmer stack. The oak leaves are another MS punch.
The tag is Shapebilities Fancy Tags. Sentiment from SU.

I had a lot of fun making this card!
Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment.
Huggeroonies,