I'm Back and Get Well Greetings

Our trip to VA was nice, the weather was decent (below 80 most of the time,yeah!) and it was so pretty there! We went to the Shenandoah National Park and the Skyline drive through it is so nice. Lot's of Vista's where you can pull over and see layers and layers of hills and valleys in the distance and then another mountain range beyond that even! Meadows and trees and places to stop to hike along the Appalachian Trail. We did the trail. OK we did 2 miles of the trail LOL! I worked with a guy a few years back that hiked the trail. The whole thing, from GA to Maine. I can't image! It took him 6 months. Since it goes through all the mountains it is nothing but up hills and down hills and no, no restrooms or showers! I am sure it would be a life changing experience. Anyway we also went to Luray Caverns. I have been to 5 different caverns now in 4 different states and by far this was the prettiest and most impressive. The entire 1.25 mile tour was floor to ceiling and sometimes 45 feet high stalactites and stalagmites. Huge ones, not just a few skinny ones here and there but massive 500 ton ones and curtains that were 4 feet long and 12 feet wide etc. Amazing place. My 6 year old loved it. There is even a lake in there that is about 4 feet from the ceiling and it reflects the stalactites perfectly in the pool. No picture can show the beauty of that let me tell you :)



So now for a card. My brother-in-law had surgery last week and I wanted to make a card for him and send it. Sometimes I wait to long to make these and then I don't send it because I procrastinated! So this was #1 on my mind this weekend after we got home. I love the colors, and the tree was my attempt at masculine. Thanks for being patient and coming back to my blog even after a brief break :)

Lori

Color and Sketch Challenge

An Apple A Day
This is this week's color challenge and a week or two ago's sketch challenge on SCS. I just got this stamp, I received a few stamped images a while back and loved it so much I had to buy it. I actually bought it as a gift for a friend before I even got it for myself. I am always trying not to have too many stamps around! Anyway the colors are SU- always artichoke, riding hood red and basic gray. I think they look pretty good together, many people used it for Christmas cards. I thought apples and red and that is why I used this adorable Happy Hopper. My good friend told me a lot of people were embossing the stamped image and then coloring it so I thought I would try it. It makes the lines appear a lot darker but it is a whole lot easier to watercolor! I think it looks nice, not sure I like how dark the inked part is but I will definitely try it again. Just a side note, I am going away to VA. for a few days and won't be making cards or posting unless I load some nice pictures of where we go, so I have not disappeared and I will be back :)

September HM SOTM

House Mouse Stamp of the Month... Isn't this stamp adorable? I have been seeing a few cards with the image embossed after it is stamped and colored so I wanted to try it. I like it, adds something to the card don't you think? Now as for the layout of this card, I found a cool blog site called sheetload of cards that gives you a sketch and directions on how to cut the paper to make multiple cards out of one set of paper! Too cool, check it out works great for swaps. I was going to put candy corn brads on the corner of the image but the only place I could find them was online and the shipping cost 3x as much as the brads! So I went out to the craft stores trying to find something interesting to add to the card and found this cute self-adhesive Halloween ribbon. I also found a cute set of dollar stamps that had this trick or treat stamp in it, I stamped it then heat embossed it with UTEE and cut it out and put it on the card with pop-dots. It still needed something so I added stickles glitter glue to the white part of the candy corns. You can't see the glitter but it looks good :) That's all for today!

Brayered Halloween Card

I made this card for the TechnoStamper Sketch Challenge, you can read about it here. I used desert heat Kaleidacolor ink pad with a brayer onto glossy card stock. Then I stamped the image with Versamark and embossed it with black e.p. Cut the image out with Nestabilities circle with my Cuttlebug. I used my new leaf punch (from my good friend again who I sent this card to!) on the scraps, I love how the leaves are varied in color like real leaves. When I was done I felt like the left side was sort of empty so I went back and put some orange brads to finish the card.

Sun or Moon Card from Tutorial on SCS

I saw this a few weeks back on SCS and decided to give it a try. The only thing different I did was start with more mustard card stock rather than white so I wouldn't have to brayer that layer first. Skipped a step :) This really is easy and has lots of potential to make many different kinds of cards. Basically you cut a circle, tape it on temporarily and then sponge different colored inks on in layers. Then you stamp your trees or bushes or whatever you want in black or in this case chocolate chip ink and it appears as a silhouette type card. Pretty cool, huh? I just wish now I used different paper for the card and layers, the green and cocoa just don't match the sunset very well. So I like the sunset scene but not the card! If you want a link to the tutorial ask in the comments section and I will hunt it down and post it. Thanks for looking! Have a beautiful day :)

Sunflower

I love Sunflowers and when I saw this stamp I had to get it. It is called Potted Sunflower Frame by Great Impressions. I used my gift certificate that my good friend gave me for my birthday. Just as soon as I got it someone on SCS asked for it in the WishRAK, I just had to grant that wish :) It had ink on it the second it was in my house. I stamped the images for her and then had to make a card. This was the sketch challenge on Weds. and it is a rather nice one I think. I used some Basic Grey papers I had in my stash and used my favorite blue and yellow color combo (Summer Sun, Brocade Blue and Bashful Blue). The metal charm on the circle sentiment is a sunflower, I used a pop-dot to attach it and in person it looks a little more interesting than in this picture!

Monday Lunchtime Sketch Challenge

Over on technostamper, even if I did do it Tuesday :) This is a nice sketch! I already had the scallop edge square and I just hunted down the perfect piece of Basic Grey paper for the background. Perfect as in the mood I was in today. I decided to ink all the edges, haven't done that in a while! I was trying to figure out a way to get the little birds colored in white, short of embossing, and had one of those chalk ink cats eyes - worked great. I love it because you don't have to heat set it or wait hours for it to dry like the SU craft ink. There is a little white bird on the paper in the upper left hand corner by the way, that is what I was trying to match. Then with all the floral/paisley background I decided to just do a sentiment instead of an image. That's all for today!

What's Brewing?

Now this was a fun card to make! Just had to use orange and coffee. The orange is pumpkin pie designer series paper, the background of what's brewing is sponged with olive, tangerine and cocoa and the mugs are all colored with Twinkling H2O's. It is kind of plain though - I just couldn't think of anything else to do with it. Now my favorite part is how good the new pacific point color looks with pumpkin! Love the two together :)

A little note, our house leaked with Tropical Storm Hanna, we got 7 inches of rain and somehow a vacuum formed up under the air dam on our roof and is sucked the water in! It poured from the ceiling into the kitchen which is a bummer, our beautiful new Brazilian cherry hardwood floors have to be replaced. I am glad it happened now while the house is still under warranty though!

Monochromatic challenge

Ahhhh monochromatic cards. Love them, love the look and love how easy they are to make! So here are two I did this week for the challenge. Used Tilda again, I only have 6 of the images left. I foresee buying a Tilda in the future :) It is also the challenge on Tilda & Co. challenge blog of using embossing folder on the card. The other I was trying to stretch myself a bit and do the TechnoStamper sketch and the square was just too small for any image I wanted to use so I used the square but cut out the butterfly and put it on top. Hope that is acceptable! Love Pink Pirouette, ordered the designer series paper in it and that is the paper you see plus the Bella Rose paper of course :)

I am on a roll this week, I have designed my House Mouse card for the SOTM swap and cut all the paper for the 6 cards. Also made yet another card today which I will post coming up. Too much fun! We are expecting Hurricane/TS Hannah this evening late and tomorrow so let's see how much rain we get. I doubt we will lose power but you never know the path it will take. If it goes ashore in SC it will go through our area oddly enough (due to the curve of the coast). If it hits NC shore it will skirt up the coast and go North and we won't get much.

Now a quick note to my mom, HAPPY BIRTHDAY today!

This boy has talent!

Ok so I am trying to make a card for a challenge on SCS and my 6 year old is dying to do one himself. He just amazes me sometimes, he knew exactly what he wanted to do! He asked me for a Halloween stamp set, the watercolor pencils AND blender pen, a black ink pad and he went through my card stock scraps and ribbon and picked out what he wanted! I didn't offer this mind you, he asked for it! So he sat down, stamped his images, colored his pictures (all by himself mind you) cut his paper (I did show him how to use the cutter and how to mark the size with a pencil) and he made up his design and glued, with a gluestick no less, the paper and ribbon down. I did not design these nor did I tell him what to do. He just looked at my stuff lying around and did it. It took 2 1/2 hours but that is ok, I did mine at the same time :) So here are his creations, unedited and unassisted :) Oh and I couldn't resist taking a picture of my little card maker at work!

Note: Not sure why the last picture keeps loading sideways, I have fixed it several times and it isn't cooperating! I will try to turn it again later.

Pop-Up Card

This is a fun and yes, easy little card! I wanted to use some of my brighter pink paper and came up with this. I am in a pink mood lately! I keep wanting to make pink projects and somehow they end up different colors. The directions for these are on SCS and if you want the link to it let me know, I will hunt it down and post it. It lies flat to mail and is 5-1/2 x 4-1/4 when flat. I made two, much easier to do two at once! Really cuts down the time and why not have one extra one on hand or to keep for those that don't mail their creations (you know who you are LOL!). I used a Cuttlebug embossing folder on the leaves and blue strip to add a little texture. Kind of neat effect. Anyway these colors are happy and the cards are cheerful so I thought I would post it! Have a great day :)