Happy Thoughts

Hello Crafty Friends, I feel like August is already zipping by me. Where did the summer go? I know many are ready for fall or winter, but I have to say that I am not. Summer didn't hit here until July, then it hit with a bang. I hope August stays hot here, more pool time. LOL Usually in August we start getting cooler nights, which in turn cools down the pool water. But we will see how it goes this year. Although, I do enjoy what I call "perfect temps" of fall, it is what follows next that I just don't love anymore. 

I have a simple card today. Mostly white on white with a touch of copper. I cut a hexagon out of a card panel, embossed a piece of scrap white paper and put that behind the panel, then popped the panel up on a copper mat.  Then I took two hexagons to make the fame out of the copper paper. Die cut my poppies and glued and popped them up on the front of the card. Added my sentiment and it was done.  I don't hate this card, but not sure if I really love it either. I think it will have to grow on me some. 

Thanks for stopping by to visit. Thank you for your sweet comments, they always make my day. I will be around to visit you all soon too if I haven't been by already. 

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

We R Memory Keepers - Mini embossing folder "dots"

AliExpress - The poppies-I think

Sizzix - Hexagon Dies

CTMH - Sending Smiles

DCWV - Metallic Paper Pad 

Birthday Cards...Warning Picture Heavy

Hello my crafty friends, May is flying by already! At this rate, summer will be over before we know it. It already goes by way to fast. Our weather is still all over the place. Over the weekend, we were in the 90's and now.....back to the 60's. Lots of rain as well. You'd think it was April, not May. Mother Nature is so confused. lol Anyway, I hope you are having nice weather where you are at. 

I have some birthday cards to share. Been making some to add to the stash as it was getting low. I also wanted to play with the sliced circles that everyone is layering and adding to their cards, just for something different. I'm not sure what this design is called, concentric circles maybe?? Some I put sentiments on the outside and some I'm still thinking about whether I want an outside sentiment or just the inside sentiments. And I had another sympathy card go out...again.

Still trying to use up the cute papers I printed a few years ago! I am almost through them all.

This begins these halved circle cards. I didn't do this one the right way, but didn't want to waste the circles, so used them anyway. Still gives a cute look I thought. So you will see a few not done in the right way...if there is a right way.

I think I got the circles half way right with this one. lol 

This one I think I got these circles right...well almost anyway. It looks like they aren't aligned right, but in real life they aren't off this much! 

                                                                    Half right 

Again, half right with these circle, but till think it makes a cute card.

Last one done in this style. It is navy blue and gray. Made it for a guy who does Civil re-enacting. Even though he is "for" the North side, I used both the south and north colors. Kept it very simple since it was a masculine card. Hard to tell, but I did emboss the background with a subtle SU embossing folder.

                             Not crazy over this one, but it isn't real bad either. 

Lastly, my sympathy card. The people this card went to were very outdoorsy people, so thus why this design. I was pleased with how this one came out. 

           And the inside. I had cut a strip off my panel and used it on the inside of the card. 

Gosh, if you stuck with me this long.....a huge thank you!!!! As always, I thank you for taking the time out of your busy day and visiting a spell with me. I know everyone is super busy, nice weather makes one want to be outside and of course doing outside work. I'd rather be mowing that shoveling snow! Your comments always bring sunshine to my day and put pep in my step. If I haven't been by to see you, I hope to be soon! I had a fall from air freshener fall out on the floor, made my feet come out from under me, landing flat on my back. Been healing for over a week now and I am making progress thankfully. So again, I will be around, not sure I will catch up on every post you might have, but will do my best. This is the first time I've been able to have  my laptop in my lap and able to sit up and not in a reclined position. I am getting there slowly but surely! 

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

Circle Dies-Spellbinders Nestiblities

My Creative Time - small butterflies, bee's and little flowers, squares dies

Not sure who makes the flower frames, if you know, let me know

Technique Tuesdays - for the side profile butterfly I think, not sure about the other butterfly but the "happy and birthday" went with that set as well

Simon Says Stamps - for the birthday greetings, it was a freebie set I think and has all birthday greetings in different fonts

Inkadinkado for the wild flower silhouette

Distress and Distress Oxide inks

AliExpress for the Sympathy stamp set

sequins and gems from my stash

SU white embossing powder

Spectrum Noir alcohol markers

Blending Brushes from Amazon

Rudolph Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, I sure hope the sun is shinning where you are. It is a dark, rain dumping, extremely windy day here. Very raw out. Yesterday was so beautiful, sunny and not warm, but not cool either. Just a hint of crisp in the air. I guess it was the sun that made it feel so nice with temps in the low to mid 60's. 

I took a pause from Christmas gift making to make a card for the Rudolph Challenge. I haven't played in so long, I don't play much in challenges because mostly I forget about them and then they are over. lol I've tried writing down the challenge and date to close, but then forget I wrote it down. Anyone else as bad as me?! No, ok.....even Bret is worried about me. haha. 

Maureen is honoring Kath, a blogger who recently passed away by adding a twist of paper piecing since Kath paper pieced a lot. So if you do paper piecing, she had an extra gift in honor of Kath. I'm not playing for the price, God knows I have enough crafty goodness to last me forever. I love how paper piecing looks, but rarely do it so I thought this was a great time to make a Christmas paper pieced card. As usual, it didn't come out as well as it did in my head, and while I don't love it, I don't hate this card either. But I do have a lot of ink where it doesn't belong! Rudolph's face, on the white part of my card, etc. I think it came from the stamped glittered cardstock, the ink had a hard time drying on it. I should have used Stazon, hindsight! 

So while this card isn't perfect and didn't turn out like I "saw" it in my head, I think it is still cute. So I think this will be a grandchild card. lol They don't notice your mistakes! I also am going to enter this into the Snippets Playground (Ruby's Memory) and NBUS challenges. 

Thank you for stopping by today and visiting with me. Your comments always bring rays of sunshine to my day. If I haven't been by to visit you,  I should be soon. 

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

Maymay Made It-Santa's Stuck, Again! stamp set NBUS

AliExpress-House Dies NBUS

Dress My Craft-Rectangle dies

Snippets

Viva Pearl Pen in White

Red Stickles

Cheap Dollar Tree white chalk marker for the "grout" of the chimney

CAS Christmas Plaid Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, I hope this Monday is off to a great start and that you had a good weekend. It was definitely an emotional weekend with the 9/11 20th anniversary. It seems like just yesterday and not 20 years later. I was weepy as I watched some of the specials and relived that day myself. My son, in the military already and trying to get in touch with him (thankfully he got into touch with me), my other son's in school scared, me offering to come get them but they decided to stick it out. Bret almost missing the bus for Kindergarten because I was glued to the TV after Dwayne called me from work and told me to turn it on because a plane flew into one of the World Trade Center buildings and they think it was on purpose. It was a terrible day for us Americans, but also a day where everyone came together. I pray no country has to go through something like this again, but I have my doubts. I know I will never forget that day or the lives lost. Or the change to my world as my 19 year old deploys soon after 9/11. A day that changed everyone. Dwayne and I kept the TV on all night long because Lance said he was "going away" for a while. Of course we knew exactly what he meant! I will never forget running into the bathroom as Dwayne was showering and said, "The war has begun!" when it was announced on TV. Chilling to us both as we knew Lance was already there. Yes, an emotional time for everyone in this country. Never Forget!

I love plaids, who doesn't right?! So I had to play along with CAS Christmas as they are asking to see plaids. Again, just a really simple card, but I love it. My little silhouettes of the tree's don't show well in the photo, but in real life it does. 

As always, I thank you for taking time from your busy schedule to stop by and visit me. Your comments always bring a ray of sunshine to my life and if I haven't been by to see you, I will be soon. Have a wonderful week!

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

Gnome-Simon Says Stamps-NBUS

Plaid paper-Paper Studio @ Hobby Lobby

Snowy mat-AliExpress

Hill/snow-My Creative Time

Trees/sentiment-SU Happy Scene's-NBUS

Stickles

Twofer Challenge

Hello crafty friends, I hope your week has started off nicely. For those who are in the path of these storms and have no electric, I pray that your electric will soon come back on, I pray for the people who are cleaning up this storm mess and I pray for the people trying to get the electric back on for so many. With this cold, people need their heat! We have dodge many of the icing bullets thankfully. But we do have more snow coming on Thursday. Snow I will take, ice I don't want! 

My financial guy is a young man in his thirties. He came into my life out of the blue one Oct. after Dwayne's passing and has been a God send since. He is like a son. He stopped by on Friday with this little bouquet of flowers. Wasn't that just so sweet?! He and his assistant are both so sweet and nice. He always tells me to call if I need anything. His Mama sure raised him right! It helped what is usually a difficult time to get through as the 13th is Dwayne and Mine's anniversary, then of course Valentine's the next day. This sure helped brighten that weekend for sure!  So I want to get something baked to take into them as a thank you. I just had to share this little special moment I had and the amazing people who made it possible for me. 

I thought I would play with the gals over at the Twofer Challenge, the theme is balloons.  My cards are not original. Shocking right?!! I CASed from Pinterest. Again.....Here and here are the cards that I CASed. I didn't have the dies they used, but I do have my Cricut machines. The one I used is the Cricut Joy because it is a tiny but powerful machine that I can use out in the living room so I can keep an eye on Bret's dogs. Cause as soon as I go to my craft room, they get in trouble! So my Cricut Joy lets me do some crafting out in the living room. A win for me in so many ways. So to my design studio I went to design. Then I got inky. And this is the results of my CASed cards that I designed the cut files in Design Studio. Sorry for the dark photos but it is has been gray here. Sun is finally out today but it took a while. 

My Twofers, see that little machine in back of the cards. It's barely bigger than the cards themselves. That is my little powerhouse Cricut Joy. Isn't it cute?! It's where all the magic happens, that and my laptop or iPad or even my phone as I can design on all three of them. 

This happy birthday circle was the one die I knew I could "copy". I wasn't sure how it was going to cut since I was cutting it on the smaller scale, but it cut wonderfully. I made mine different from the die one on Pinterest and kept a large area open so my balloon or whatever could fit in-between the happy birthday's. 

The balloons were a premade image, I just took three of the balloons and sliced out the letters. I also had my Cricut Joy write my sentiment in the fishtail banner for me instead of searching for one in my stamping stash. All papers but the card base are snippets, yay for using up some more snippets from my mountain of snippets! 

And that's it! As always I thank you for taking time out of your busy day to stop and visit me. Your comments and visit always brighten my day! 

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

Cricut Joy and Design Studio

Snippets from my snippet mountain

AliExpress for the Scallop Stitched border dies on the second card. For the white, I just cut the scallops off.

SU for the white twine balloon strings

Distress Inks and blending brushes 

Twofer Challenge & Christmas Items

Hello my crafty friends, I have went dark for a while now. I haven't visited any of you and I'm sorry. I hope to get back at commenting again real soon. October isn't a great month for me, used to be one of my favorite months, but now I tend to struggle with it. So I kept busy working on some Christmas items and then saw the Twofer Challenge come out and thought I would have a go at it. Not very creative, but at least they are done and I'm happy with how they came out. 

So many stamps that could have been used, it was hard to decide on which to use. But I finally decided on a stag. Here is my Twofer together:

I had two separate play dates with two friends. The first friend came here to make fall cards, she brought her newest stamp set from SU and I cut out a bunch of wreaths from the set. Then I used Brusho's to "doll" them all up. Used two of them on the first card after seeing this card design on Pinterest. Thought it was so pretty, so put my spin on it using my supplies. 

Then for my second twofer, I added two stags and a baby deer. I thought I had a deer family, but it turns out this set had two stags instead with a baby. Not sure what that was all about, if it was an accident or what. But used what I had, so two stags and a baby is what it is. Didn't get the baby standing upright to well, but it was glued down and it wasn't coming back up. The background was made at the second friend's house. We were playing with Brusho's, Distress Oxides and pearl powders. This background was made with the Distress Oxides. I was going to save it for a Halloween card as it looked Halloweeny to me, but then I liked it behind the birch trees so used it. Do you think it looks Halloweeny??? Should I have not used it??? So that's my Twofers. 

Here are the Christmas things I've been working on. Little ornament or wall hangings, whatever someone wants to use them for. Used 4" embroidery hoops, some fabric and iron on vinyl, then some little decorations. I made a dozen of them using my Cricut to cut out the iron on vinyl with and my little Mini Press to press them onto the fabric. 

My next little projects were pot holders from the Dollar Tree. I want to get more, but haven't seen them back in the Dollar Tree's around me. I sure hope they get some more in soon as they are nice little gifts to have on hand for when you need a little something something. I cut the sayings out with my Cricut and once again ironed them on with my Mini Press. I will tuck a little mug cake pouch in the pocket before giving out. Might even do a vinyl mug to go with it. Definitely giving one to my mail carrier with one of the little ornaments above. 

Since I've used some NBUS and Snippets, I will be off to play in the NBUS challenge and the Snippet's Playground. 

Well that's it from me, I hope to be by to visit you soon. Thank you for stopping by and visiting with me. I always appreciate your visit as I know everyone is busy so for you to take the time to visit me is so kind of you! 

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

Stag Wreath Card:

SU stamp and die set for the Wreath, don't know the name but I'm sure many of you guys do

SU Gentle Peace for the sentiment-NBUS

AliExpress for the Stag-NBUS

Mirror paper from my stash, the stag is a snippet

Gansai Tambi Starry colors for the splattering

Vanilla card base

Vanilla snippet for the mat

Brusho's 

Birch Tree Card:

Gina Marie for the birch tree coverplate-NBUS

Pebble's chalks to highlight the tree's

Distress Oxides for the background using a blending brush

AliExpress for the stags and baby deer

My Creative Time Mini Tag Dies for the sentiment tag

My Creative Time Teeny Tags Holidays for the sentiment

black snippet

Ornaments:

Cricut

fabric from Amazon

embroidery hoops from Amazon

ribbon's from my huge ribbon stash

Dollar Tree for the berries, greenery, twine and rope

pompoms from my stash

Hot Pads:

Dollar Tree for the hot pads

Cricut for "Life is Short" SVG

SVG "It's Mine" and "Sweet Smell" are from Jennifer Maker's files

CAS Christmas September Tree Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you are all doing well. Oh how we complained about the hot weather and now it is chilly willy. We've been in the 30's/40's at night and 60's in the day. But Wednesday we are going to be 80. That will be welcomed! A chilly September for sure, which is not the norm for us. Feels more like October than September! It's what comes after fall that I'm really not loving and it looks like we probably won't have much of a fall, and will go right into winter. I sure hope not, but it's not looking good. 

I wanted to try and play in a few challenges this month and I'm getting in just shy of a couple days before closing with CAS Christmas September Tree challenge. I haven't played in any challenges to much, so playing along with a few this month was fun. As you can see my card is CAS as that is a rule, but even more than that, it is really simple and easy to do. I just used my ink blending brushes and "tapped" my inks on until I got all the way to the bottom then stamped. Cut a frame and done. 

Then I made this one, not so CAS so couldn't enter it. But I thought I would share it too, a twofer as you will. I'm not the best at making snow banks/hills, but I am pleased with they way they came out-pleased for me anyway. lol  Not sure why this photo is blurry, it wasn't when I edited the photo, only since I brought it over to blogger. So still a simple card that didn't require much for it. I really love the sentiment and figured it would go with the snowy scene. 

As always, I thank you for taking the time to stop by and visit with me for a spell. I hope you weren't to chilly while here. Your comments bring much sunshine to my life and I am thankful for you all! I am keeping the people in the path of this latest hurricane, Beta, in my prayers. They sure have been hit hard down south with these hurricanes! 2020 just can't leave early enough I don't think! 

Crafty Hugs,

Card Recipe:

Tree Word Card
My Creative Time-Christmas Word Tree stamp

AliExpress-Wonky Stitched die frames

Distress Oxides-Peeled Paint, Iced Spruce, Cracked Pistachio

Blending Brushes

Misti

Naked Tree's w/Snowbanks

Gina K.-Merry and Bright tree stamp

Maymay Made It-Sleighrides for the sentiment and snowflakes

Distress Oxides-Walnut Stain, Broken China

Blending Brushes

Score board

Misti

A Masculine Card & A Sympathy Card

Hello my crafty friends! I'm not sure where the months are going, but they sure are zipping by fast. Hope you all are having a great end of the summer season/Labor Day!! We had a quiet Monday, but I sat around a fire Sunday night and had a S'more. Was a beautiful crisp evening, perfect for a fire.

I have a masculine card to share today. I need to work on my ink blending, I think it looks good until I see a photo of it and then realize it doesn't look as good as I though. lol Still, I thought the card came out decent and it is good for a guy. 

My second card is a sympathy card. I did my sentiment on the Cricut (which I had seen on Pinterest I think) and printed it onto my card panel. I wish I had used a few different greens for with my stencil, but I didn't. Will try different colors of greens on the next one as I made a few panels with this sentiment on it. 

So that is it for me. I want to thank you for stopping by and visiting a spell with me. I appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to stop by as I know we are all busy. Especially in the summer months. I enjoy your comments and they bring me much joy and sunshine. I will be stopping by to visit you as well very soon! 

Crafty Hugs,

Card Recipe:
Deer Card:

Distress Oxide Inks

AliEpress Die

I can't remember the circle die-think it was hemline stitch or something to that effect

My Creative Time for the sentiment

Sympathy Card:

Distress Oxide Inks

Not sure who does the stencil either, so sorry

Cricut