Merry Christmas Everyone!

Merry Christmas my crafty friends! I know I have been MIA lately. Just been going through some "moods" and been busy. But I wanted to take the time to come on and wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy New Year! I also wanted to thank you all for the beautiful cards I have received!!! Getting a homemade card always lifts the spirit!!! I hope to be back in the new year more often and back to commenting as well. Here is a picture of my little window tree that I always have because of the dogs. I went very minimalist this year and it only has faux popcorn/cranberry garland and rusty jingle bells on it. I am loving it! The girls are sending their happy wishes for a very Merry Christmas as well!

 Please excuse my floors, been doing nothing but raining here still! So muddy paw prints on the floor and having to mop all the time. You would have thought I would have waited to take this photo until after I mopped, but you have to get the photo when you can! lol

Love and crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

October CAS Watercolour Reminder

Hello my crafty friends, I'm here with a reminder that we are half way through the October CAS Watercolour Challenge. Don't forget to tell them Happy Birthday as well! Their 2nd birthday to be exact!

 As usually the CAS Watercolour Team has lots of inspiration for you as well as the gallery of cards from those who are playing along. I hope you will come and play with us as it is a super fun challenge!

For my card, I used some Distress Inks to make a water color wash for my background in our challenge colors. I almost ditch it, but decided to try to go over them again and then I liked it better. Then I stamped my dandelion, little extra bits and the sentiment with Distress Oxide ink. I  then matted it onto some acorn brown paper, although you can't see the acorn pattern. lol I wanted the brown, so used it.It looks like it is on crooked, but in real life it isn't. I also splatter the brown ink on to my washed background. Mounted it to my card panel and called it done. Now, what will you make with orange, green and brown in watercolour?! You have until the 24th of October and you can link up 3 times! Make sure to come and link up with CAS Watercolour Challenge, it's such a fun place to play and Loll and Bonnie are amazing and welcoming women as is the Design Team! 

As always I thank you for taking the time to visit with me for a spell. Your comments always add rays of sunshine to my life! I will most certainly be by to visit you soon too. I want to take this time to thank Loll, Bonnie and the Design team for having me as Guest Designer this month!! It was so much fun! 

Crafty Hugs,

Card Recipe:
Distress inks: Ground Espresso, Carved Pumpkin and Twisted Citron
Distress Oxide: Walnut Stain
Gina K: Peaceful Roses Stamp Set for the sentiment-NBUS
Maymay Made It: Sorry Stamp Set for the dandelion

Guest Designer for CAS Watercolour for October!

Hello my crafty friends, it is CAS Watercolour's 2nd Birthday and they are having a celebration! How fun is that and can you believe it has been 2 years now?!! I can't! Congrats to Loll, Bonnie and the Design Team!

Guess who is Guest Designer?! Yes, me!!! I'm still pinching myself that my sunflower card here won me this guest spot! I hope I do CAS Watercolour proud, it's a heavy burden as these ladies are extremely talented. Thanks Loll, I am very humbled to be Guest Designer for the month of October! Here is the challenge for the month of October-a fun one for sure and I can't wait to see where it takes you all!

Here is what I came up with. I did the splash technique using Distress Oxides. I know my orange kinda looks yellow, but it is an orange. I also took my brown oxide and splattered dots as well.  I was please with how it came out, but I could have used some more green. I then die cut my butterfly image in dark brown card stock from my snippets box. I hand cut one of the circles off at the bottom. I see now I should have cut the top one off, live and learn. I popped this panel up on foam tape and placed it on my card base. I then stamped my sentiment and heat embossed it in white onto some more of that snippet brown cardstock and placed it on my card. I hope you go check out the design team's inspiration and then play along!

As always, I thank you for taking the time to visit with me for a spell. Your comments always bring rays of sunshine into my life and I appreciate you all so much! I will be stopping by to visit you as well. 

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
Distress Oxides: Wild Honey, Walnut Stain, Peeled Paint
Penny Black die: Butterfly Circles-NBUS
My Creative Time: Window Sentiment

CAS Christmas Card Challenge

Hello crafty friends, I hope your Thursday is going well, it will be the weekend soon! I am taking off for the weekend and having a little get-away. Bret will be holding down the fort as well as the dogs. I'm anxious to get away just for a few days. So keeping this post short and sweet for once as I have much to do yet before I leave at noon tomorrow.

But before I left, I wanted to jump in and join the CAS Christmas Card Challenge. I wanted to join in on another of the CAS challenge, but time isn't allowing. The prompt word as you can see is "wreath". I hope my card is CAS-if not please delete it Loll. I had fun playing with the wreath builder stencil, but didn't use it for this wreath. A snippet from my ever growing pile was used as well. As always the recipe will be below. I thank you for your visit and your comments bring so much sunshine to my life. Especially this year as all it has done is rain, rain, rain. More rain in our forecast for 3 days next week, Mon-Wed and fall temps. Usually Sept is sunny and perfect temps, but not this year! Not much of a summer at all, so sad about that. Anyway I will be back on Monday and will catch up on my commenting once back home. Have a great weekend my crafty friends!

Crafty,

Card Recipe:
Maymay Made It Build A Wreath-wreath, sentiment, accents
Gina K ink cubes
SU Gold Embossing Powder

Twofer Challenge-Leaves

Hello crafty friends, I know some of you are in the path of Hurricane Florence and I pray you are safe and sound. Let's pray for the ones who didn't evacuate and for the first responders as they try and rescue the ones who didn't leave. I'm praying for my family who lives 14 miles from Myrtle Beach in Conway. I've texted my cousin, but haven't heard back from her. Going to try and text another cousin and see if I hear from him as I know he has a generator cause we rode out Hurricane Charlie at his house. So please pray for those in the path of this hurricane!

Well I decided to try and join in on the Twofer Challenge which is leaves. Great prompt word as the leaves will start changing around here come Oct. Some are changing now the farther north you go. So here are my twofer's. Let's have a closer look shall we? I used some NBUS too. Am I the only one that has piles of NBUS for years?! I hope not!!

 This card is a simple card. I just stamped my leaves in different color inks and cut my panel down, added a brown snippet and glued her down. I think this sentiment is cute so I made this into an encouragement card.

 I used the Gina K Wreath Builder stencil to make this one. Using the same leave, I stamped it in two colors as I made my way around the wreath stencil. Then went back in and stamped the outline on top in gold embossing powder. I also put the gold around the panel as well as the sentiment. Splattered some brown splatters. Got a little busy, but I think I like it. Made this one a Thanksgiving card. 

Tilted to show the gold embossing.

Well that's it for me. If the pup behaves, I'd like to enter a few more challenge. Will see how that goes. lol As always my list of supplies will be down in the card recipe second below. We have had dreary days with some rain, so your comments actually bring me sunshine to my dreary days, for that I thank you! I will be around to visit you too, although I'm slow at times but will get there! The hurricane isn't to effect us until Monday into Tuesday with moderate to heavy rain. As if we need more rain! But it could be worse, so I'm trying not to complain to much. lol Have a wonderful weekend my crafty friends and please keep those in the Carolina's in your prayers.

PS: I did hear from my one cousin and they are riding out the storm. They have a generator so that is good. Not sure about my other cousins, aunts and uncle. Hopefully everyone is well but she asked for me to keep them in my prayers, which I will most certainly will!

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
SU-Gently Falling
Maymay Made It-Fall Stitched Up-NBUS
My Creative Time-Piles of Smiles
Inkadinkado-Kid Quotes-NBUS
SU Gold Embossing Powder
Gina K cube inks: Charcoal Brown, Prickly Pear, Tangerine Twist, Key Lime, Red Hot

Buzzing by.....

Hello my crafty friends, hope you all are having a great Sunday. Me not so much. I fell yesterday and broke some ribs again on my right side under my breast. Goodness, you'd think I'd learned to stand on my own two feet! Good thing was so many good Samaritans came over to help me as my friend was helping me get up. We were going to go do some shopping at Hobby Lobby. I don't know if I stepped on a stone in the road or what cause my ankle to roll, but it did and I could't recover from it. I just knew I didn't want my head to slam into the curb so I tried to get to the side walk before going down and I did. We shopped anyway, but as the time wore on, it got worse. So got my Motrin and slept in the recliner last night. sigh I need to be wrapped in bubble wrap me thinks! lol Surely don't want to be reporting all my falls to the doctor as they have to report them now and then you are made to use a walker and if it continues they can put you in a home. Not what I want...to young for that! And on top of that, it has been raining since Friday evening...we have gotten at least 6 to 8 inches of rain if now more and it is still coming down like crazy! Water laying all over the backyard and flooding once again in other areas. Our church picnic grounds are underwater as well. But it lies low and when we get lots of rain, it floods. We still have the other hurricane to get through yet, hope it turns and goes back out to sea!!!

Anyway figured it was a good time to share some other cards I had made a while back. As always I will have supplies listed below in the recipe section at the end of this post. 

Printed my papers for this one from a Nitwit Digital Collection. I think they are so pretty and cute!

 Again, all papers were printed from the collection.

 And here is the encrusted jewel technique I did on this heart. I don't know what sentiment I'm going to place in this one yet, so left it blank for now. Was hard to get a good photo of it because of the holographic paper I used in gold. But love how it looks in real life!

I hope you enjoyed these couple of cards as much as I enjoyed making them. Always nice to have a few more cards for the stash as they never last for long do they?! lol But that is a good thing I think!

As always I thank you for stopping by and visiting with me a spell. I'm kinda laid up and can't go to work right now, so the visit is special for me right now. You know how much your comments bring rays of sunshine to my life and right now in this dreary world of mine it is so welcomed!

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
Nitwit Collection: Bee-lightful
My Creative Time (didn't look to see what the name of the stamp set is, so if you'd like to know let me know) for the bee's and sentiments
Glitter paper from my stash, which I am pretty sure is DCWV
Holographic paper is from Walmart I think. Not sure about that though!
Striped Washi tape from my stash and could be SU or could be generic from ACMoore-not sure about that either!
Zig/Arteza clean color markers for coloring
Vintage Photo DI for ink my bee hive and papers in the 2nd card.

Random Cards

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you are having a wonderful Labor Day! It's going to be a hot one here today and I got mowing to do. And then this evening we are trimming bushes that should have been trimmed in July, but the rain prevent us or Bret was gone for the weekend. Bret is also replacing the kitchen faucet as it has been dripping for the past 3 years and I have to adjust the handle to prevent it as much as I can. So we will be laboring. lol But I think at some point I will be getting into the pool to vacuum and cool off! We also had some heavy rain again. In my area, we made out pretty good. In other counties, they got 9 inches of rain in 3 to 4 hours! Flooding was bad once again in Amish country of Lancaster and in Bret's work area, York County. Thankfully Bret was home that day as Kahlua accidentally scratched his eye and he had to go to the eye doctor. He is fine and the scratches aren't deep, thank the good Lord. So he didn't have to worry about having to drive home with all the roads that were closed. I am very blessed to live in the area I do!!!

I have some cards that were made a while back but never shared. Not sure if I will share all of them or save a few for another post. Probably will save some for another post. lol With this first one, I used the Gina K build a wreath template. I didn't do a great job so I just filled the card and cut it down for a panel. I still think it is ok, but obviously I need practice on making wreaths with this template! Still made a pretty card I thought. I used snippets on this whole card, so will be joining in over at the Snippet's Playground and seeing what Di and Parsnips are up to. 

 This card is a very simple card. I had won a paper pack from SU over the summer and I used a piece of it for this card along with some snippets as well on this one for my diamond/square shapes. Added the "happy birthday" die cut and called it done.

Thanks for taking the time to stop by on this hot holiday here in the States. Your comments always bring much needed sunshine into my day. I will be around to visit you too soon!

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
Maymay Made It Garden Stamps
SU Paper Pack
SU Glitter dots
Gina K. Wreath Builder Template and ink cubes

Rudolph Day!

Hello my crafty friends, I hope this Sunday finds everyone doing well and happy. I am happy to say that my new tires are on, oil is changed and fluids are checked and ready to go  for this winter! A load off my mind for sure. 

The 25th of August (yesterday) was the start of Rudolph Days. If you don't know about Rudolph Days, it runs from the 25th of each month (except Dec.) through the end of each month. Christmas cards only and only one entry per person. Maureen is a wonderful host and always has plenty of inspiration from herself and her DT. It's fun to go over and play, although it has been a while since I've played. No, not keeping up with getting my Christmas cards done! But I am playing along this month!! Yay! So here is my card, a simple and CAS one, but I am loving it. I will be making more of these I think. I cut out the die cut and colored the letters with a black Zig marker. It is different from the one like it I made, this "home" is a die that cuts out the whole thing, house included where as I cut out the letters last time and stamped a house in place of the "O". As always my supplies will be listed in the recipe section at the bottom of this post. I also used snippets for this card, everything but the card base is a snippet, but the Snippets Playground has closed today. So will have to play along another day.  But I did get an honorable mention for playing along with my hexi card!

I just had to share some photo's of the babies in my life. Kahlua had a vet appointment for some more shots and to start her rabies shot. Poor little girl was all stressed out and we are finding out she is a shy one too when we take her out. We were waiting for her daddy human to pay the bill when I snapped this photo of her. She didn't feel good the rest of the evening and into the next day. How sweet is this face?!! You'd never know it, but she can get pretty sassy!

This photo I'm about to show you just cracks me up! Kahlua always gets in Savannah's huge bed, so I guess Savannah thought if Kahlua can get in her bed, then she will get into Kahlua's bed! I'm not sure how she got her huge body in that tiny bed, but she got most of it! What cracks me up is that she is giving me that look of...."What??? She's in my bed!". lol 

My last photo share is my granddaughter with the pup's. Just a sweet photo of them all being quite for a change! lol

Thank for stopping by and visiting with me a spell. Your visits always leave me rays of sunshine and happiness and I thank you for that! I will be by to visit you as well soon. Right now I am keeping pretty busy with these pup's and working to help out an elderly lady that is a sweetie. So it might take me a while to get around, but hopefully I will eventually!

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
AliExpress "home" die
My Creative Time-for sentiment and holly/berries
My Favorite Things Die-namics-Cross Stitched Dies
Paper Studio's plaid paper pack
Black Zig Marker

Sunflower Thanks

Hello all my crafty friends, I hope you are having a wonderful Tuesday! Heavy rain in the forecast for us again today-but nothing new there, an impact day for us is what they are calling it now. I think by the end of the week we are supposed to get 2 or 3 days of dry weather with sunshine. Won't that be nice?!!!

I wanted to play along with the sunflower challenge over at CAS Watercolour Card Challenge. I was sent this beautiful NBUS sunflower die by a very special, sweet and generous lady for my birthday a while back so I wanted to use it finally. I had fun with this die. I water colored it after cutting it on watercolor paper. Created a background using Distress Oxides and the splash technique that Loll has a video on. I'm not very good with it, I think I needed more water to dilute my color. Oh well, I am still pleased with how it turned out. I need two thank you cards for some special people. So I made this one and one on a kraft colored mat which I didn't take a photo of.

I need new tires on my car, so my neighbor works part time for a friend of his, who owns our local tire place. He told me there was a sale on tires, but that it ends on Saturday, this past Saturday. So on Saturday he gets my tire size and gets me prices on the tires. Then arranged for his friend to pick up my car on Monday (everything was put through on Saturday to get the sale price) and put the tires on and I wanted an oil change and all my fluids checked. Not used to this since Dwayne always did all this stuff. But with the help of these two men, it is getting done. Now the other guy, well he is the son of my late husband's boss, so Dwayne and this guy grew up together and worked together. He left me his own vehicle so I wouldn't be without a vehicle since they would have my car until sometime today! So not only did he come and get my car right at my home, he also left me a nice vehicle in case I had to go somewhere. So I wanted to send thank you notes to both families. It takes a village to raise me! lol That's what it feels like-but in all seriousness I am so blessed to have such wonderful people in my life that help me navigate life after Dwayne. Sometimes it is hard to see your blessings when you lose someone so important to you, but I have been blessed and know I'm very blessed! So thank you to all of you out there as you are a huge blessing in my life as well!!!!

As always I will list the items I used down in the recipe section at the end of this post. I thank you for stopping by and sticking with me this far and I thank you for your sweet comments. They always bring rays of sunshine to my life! I will be by to visit you all soon as well. Keeping busy with these dogs, but Kahlua is doing well and getting taller. Pictures of the girls next time around. We are slowly getting the hang of potty training. lol The girls are getting along so well and I am thankful for that. Have a lovely week my friends!

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
unbranded sunflower die
Oxides Distress inks: Broken China, Mustard Seed, Peacock Feathers
watercolor paper: Canson XL
Maymay Made It stamps: Positive Vibes
My Creative Time: More Stitched Rectangular Dies (I extended the length)
Zigs/Arteza watercolor pens

Twofer Challenge

Hello my crafty friends! I hope this Tuesday finds you all well and having a great week. It's the same ole, same ole here. 

The 10th of August started a new challenge over at the Twofer Challenge and I really wanted to play along this month. So while the "girls" were napping, I got started. Took me a while between naps, but I got two done! Yay!!! Now I hope I can join in a couple other challenges. Will see how it goes. The challenge word prompt is geometric shapes. That should be easy right?! Well, we will see. I went perusing Pinterest for some ideas and I found two that I was inspired by. Here and here are the cards that inspired me. Both of my cards use snippets, so I am going to enter them also at the Snippet's Playground across the pond. It will be good to see Di and Parsnips!  My shaker card isn't the greatest as I always have problems with them but it isn't to bad either. It shakes some. lol Other than that, I'm pretty pleased with how these two cards came out. As always the supplies I used will be in the card recipe at the bottom of this post. 

Let have a close up look at each one separately shall we?

And there you have it! My twofer cards for this geometric challenge. Hope you like them, I am liking them pretty good. Always room for improvement on my part, but pretty satisfied with them. As always, thank you for stopping by and visiting me even though it is soggy. Still raining if you can believe that! Your comments always leave a ray of sunshine which I adore! Have a beautiful week my crafty friends!

Edited: Joining in over at the Snippet's playground since I used snippets on both of my cards.

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
DCWV Linen Closet for the papers on card 1
My Creative Time-Stitched Hexy Dies, Stitched Honey Comb Dies, It's All About You, Stitched Bees and Beehive Dies, Bee Happy stamps
Zigs and Arteza's to color with on the bees

Let's Bake a Birthday!

Hello my crafty friends, I hope your Saturday evening is going well. I know I've been MIA in keeping up with my comments and with posting. I have a good reason.....at least I hope it's a good reason. I've been keeping very busy with a new puppy. What?!!! Yes, Bret decided he wanted a puppy and of course who do you think needs to care for it while Bret is at work? Yep, me. So between babysitting my granddaughter here and there and training a new puppy, I am running ragged. Here is the new little girl, her name is Kahlua. Savannah is great with her so that is a good thing!

This new little girl chews on Savannah's tail, pulls out Savannah's undercoat all over the floor and takes Savannah's bones away from her and Savannah just lets her. Then when Savannah has had enough, Savannah will get up on the couch as little Kahlua can't get up there....yet. They are so funny together and I laugh so hard sometimes. But they are also exhausting. Especially this little girl-she is fast, she is a puppy and she finds all kinds of trouble when you aren't looking! lol So I have to keep my eye on her at all times. I will be glad when she is potty trained as well!!!!  Anyway, she is cuteness overload isn't she?!

I do have some old cards that I never posted about. They all have been mailed out long ago, so thought I would share them tonight. I do have some more to share and will share the others at a later date. These cards are all baking birthday cards. I thought they turned out pretty cute, but want to make some in CAS style at a later date. As always the recipe will be at the bottom of the post. 

Card 1

 Inside of Card 1

 Card 2

 Inside of Card 2

 Card 3

 Inside of Card 3

 Card 4

 Inside of Card 4

If you stuck with me this far, thank you! Your comments always bring sunshine into my rainy days and yes it is still raining here. Everyday just about it. Never saw this much rain during the summer before. Anyway, I will be around to your blogs soon if I haven't been yet. I'm trying to keep up here and there, but it is hard sometimes with the new pup. Hope you all have a wonderful Sunday!

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
Gina Marie for the circle grid
My Creative Time for the baking items and most sentiments and the cherries from another set
Maymay Made It Stamps for the inside sentiment of cards 1 and 4
Colored with my Zig's and Arteza's