Little things....

Hello my crafty friends, hope you are having a great ending to your week. Mine has been so so and right now I am taking care of my second to youngest granddaughter. So that will keep me occupied for until Friday evening when her dad comes to get her. 

CAS Mix Up is on it's second challenge and I thought I would try and play along. Luckily I had the stenciled background and leaf already in my box of things that I didn't use. So I just threw a card together. It looks like it too, but I will still use it. I had wanted the brick wall for a window frame, but do you think I can find my window frame die anywhere?!! NO! I know I'm over looking it somehow. Anyway if this isn't CAS enough Loll or Bonnie, please delete it! The challenge this month is to use a stencil, and stamping and other technique of our choice. So I have my stenciled background, and of course my stamping is my sentiment. The technique of my choice is the leaf, I used alcohol inks on the felt pad and pounced the inks on this leaf that was cut from photo paper. Been in my cast off box for over a year, so it is good to use it. Added some sequins and called it done. Not sure if my card pieces are considered snippets or not, so might go over to the Snippets Playground before the door closes. 

As always, thanks for stopping by for a spell. I've had some pretty weather this week and it was good to have visitors on nice days like these. Your comment are so special to me and bring me much joy and smiles. Crafty hugs, Brenda

Outside in the sunshine.

Up close of the alcohol ink.

This one was taken inside without any sunshine.

Recipe:
Leaf from Cricut Cartridge-Art Philosophy
Brick Stencil-not sure who it is by
Sentiment-Cardz TV Stamp Set Simple Thoughts - brand  new stamp set from Mary
Sequins-Pretty Pink Posh-Garden Party, a sweet gift from Miss Emma at MCT

Rudolph Day

Hello my crafty friends, sorry I have been MIA lately. I hurt my ribs right before the wedding, and then there was the wedding, visiting grandkids, a gender reveal party, chemo and of course Father's Day-busy times. Hubby had an allergic reaction to chemo this past time while getting it, scared the daylights out of me but the nurses were quick and had him back in shape. They were really awesome and kept a great eye on him while he finished up chemo. He finished his chemo and he finished up without any more reactions thank goodness. 

Well I finally got into my crafty room and made a card for Rudolph day, which started today. It always starts on the 25th of each month and you have until the end of the month to link up your card. I love playing along as often as I can, it gives me some Christmas cards made ahead of time for once. lol  My card is a total CASE. You can see the original card here. Mine isn't as CAS as Kristie's but I am happy with the way it came out. I fell in love with Kristie's card as soon as I saw it and so I thought I would try to CASE it. I used Lawn Fawn's Joy to the Woods stamp set, my watercolors and water color paper, hot pressed. I ordered hot pressed by mistake and then wondered what the difference was between hot and cold press watercolor paper. I found out that hot press watercolor paper is smooth and the colors sit more on top of the paper instead of absorbing into the paper thus making them look more vibrant. Cold press is textured and the watercolors absorb more into the paper. Both are neat and can have a place in the craft room. So it was a happy mistake, why don't you try both and see if you love them both?! So I took my watercolor paper and cut it to size to fit on my A2 card base. I taped around my paper with micro-pore tape to give a border. Then I water colored a sky background using black watercolor. I heat to dry it, then darken the upper part of the sky some more, then dried it with my heat gun. I popped up my birch trees and glued my cardinal down flat on the birch tree. I cut my "merry" out and glued it down. My "Christmas" was stamped with the rotary alpha stamp by SU. I was a little sloppy with it, I really need to practice using it. lol And I got some black ink underneath my sentiment, so I took a red Spectrum Noir maker and made a red line at the bottom of my card as well as on the inside. I want to see how a few silver stars will look yet in the sky, so may add some of them later. But that is about it. My CASE'd card. I hope you like my little CASE'd card and I want to thank you for popping by for a visit today. It always makes my day when you visit me and I love your sweet, sweet comments! I am going to try and get some wedding pics uploaded as well as the results from the gender reveal party. Crafty hugs, Brenda

Recipe:

Lawn Fawn, Joy to the Woods

My Creative Time, Boughs of Holly

hot press watercolor paper

Loi Water colors Pocket Field Sketch Box 

Rudolph Day

Hi my crafty friends, I have two Christmas cards I wanted to share with you. The first one I'm entering in the Rudolph Day challenge. Rudolph Day always starts on the 25th of each month and ends on the last day of that same month. So it is always fun to play along so I will have a nice stash of Christmas cards when the time comes. For this Rudolph Day card, I used a stencil from Stamplorations that I won over at Darnell's NBUS challenge one time. I used white embossing paste with the tree stencil, it actually has to trees in this stencil! Then I put SU gold embossing powder on it. Let it dry and then heated the gold. I popped it up on foam tape to my card base.  I need a little more practice with getting the embossing paste smooth. lol  I did the sentiment the in the same embossing paste. Just a very simple CAS card. 

For my second card, I was going to enter it into the Muse Christmas Vision challenge, but of course I didn't get the card photograph so it didn't get entered. But I did play along! So that makes two more Christmas cards for my stash. For this one I used a SU stamp set, added some stickles and some Wink of Stella to the pine cone and needles. I also moved the pine needles just a smidgen and re-stamped with white ink to make the pine needles not so stark looking. Not sure I like it though, but it is done, so it is staying that way. lol  Nothing really to this one either. Cut my ovals using a My Creative Time die. Just easy peasy, plain Jane. 

Thanks for taking the time from your busy day and visiting me. I so love when you do and your comments always lift my spirits! Crafty hugs, Brenda

Muse-Christmas Visions Challenge

Hi my crafty friends, a little update on hubby and then I have a card believe it or not. Hubby had a partial treatment today, the one chemo he didn't get because that is every two weeks, so next week he will get it. He is have some better days, not great, but better and better is always good! Still getting fevers as well, but they aren't as high, but we have been keeping on top of them with the Tylenol and ice packs. Next week he will get everything in his treatment including the pump he will wear for 48 hours. But it will be done differently this go around. The pump gets dropped off here at our home and then a nurse will come to the house will hook hubby up and then will come back to take it off. Last time the nurse in the chemo center put it on for him and then we would go back in to get it off. It will be nice not to have to run back in just to get it taken off. Now it is a wait and see game, hopefully this treatment will shrink the larger tumor and make the smaller ones disappear like it did last time. So keeping the faith and fingers crossed and looking forward to better days with some normalcy. This care giver is getting worn out! But will continue to care for hubby as long as needed. The funeral for my mother went well and it was good to get together with family. DS has been home from college for a week now and it is good to have him home. I think. He still has boxes and his crap all over the house. lol He has been working in the fields and working at the movie house, so not much time for him to clean up his stuff. Hopefully soon! It is just finding a place to store everything until Aug. when school starts again. Hubby isn't able to get into the fields yet, so some of our sons are doing what they can. Hopefully soon hubby will be able to get in the tractor and go, he really needs to and I really need him to be able to do just that! 

There's a new challenge in town and it is called Muse-Christmas Visions. A designer team member posts a card and you are to take inspiration from that card. Here is the card that was posted by designer Kimberly Wiener:

Beautiful isn't it?! Well I happened to receive a box of watercolors from my Momma Mary for my birthday, wasn't that so sweet of her?!! Thanks Momma Mary!! I haven't done much watercoloring, in fact, I don't think I've done anything but smooshing with distress inks and a spritz of water. lol So this may very well be my first time watercoloring. And even though it isn't great, it isn't to bad either. I will take it! The inside turned out better than the outside did, but that's ok, I'm still pretty happy with it. I took Kimberly's card and kinda' CASED it-I did say kinda' didn't I? lol  So besides my new Koi Watercolors which are NBUS, I also used a NBUS stamp set that I won in a NBUS challenge by my Auntie Darnell! Thanks Auntie!!! I was happy to be able to play with some of my NBUS, got plenty  more to go though. 

Recipe:
watercolor paper
Koi Watercolor Pocket Field Sketch box paints
DCWV Gold Foil paper
My Creative Time Stitched Rectangular Frame Dies and More
Stamplorations Holiday Sketches Christmas Flower stamp set
SU Vanilla cardstock for the card base
SU Gold Embossing Powder
Sequins from Peachy Cheap

Rudolph Day

Hello my crafty friends, I have just a little update before I show you my card. We went to see the family doctor again on Monday and he is running more blood tests on Lyme's, Pancreatis and the usual blood work and a abdomen/pelvic CAT scan. Saw our local oncologist today and he was more concerned this the fevers are higher than we first suspected. Our thermometer wasn't working right and we got a new one. Hubby's fever went up to 101.8 on Sunday evening, so doc didn't like that. He added on more blood work, port blood withdrawal and he added a chest CAT scan to the family doctors scan. Hubby has already did the blood work today and the CAT scan is for Thursday afternoon. So now it is just a matter of trying to "catch" whatever is causing the fevers with the blood work and scan. I know stuff going on in the blood work doesn't always show up right away. It took almost 2 years to get the "right" blood work to show up with my Lupus when they were trying to diagnose me. Doc talked to us about that and I told him I could relate, and when he found out that I had Lupus and RA, he said that I know exactly what he is talking about. Even now my doctor doesn't "catch" my Lupus acting up with blood work because the timing is usually off. So hopefully they will find something. If they can't after extensive testing,  doc said he will start hubby on the backup chemo plan and if it is his tumors causing the fever, and if the treatment works well like it did the first time, that could make the fevers go away. So we will see how it goes. I feel much better now that they are taking these fevers more serious! Last time hubby had a fever was when his tumor ruptured in the colon making him a lifetime chemo patient, but we didn't know he had a tumor. Family doc didn't take his fevers serious then either because his blood work was perfect. Well his blood work has been perfect this whole time all through chemo! So you can't go by just the blood work. Sorry, I said this was going to be quick and it wasn't. lol

Ok, I have been so tense, stressed and just plain in a funk so I had to go into my craft room for a while just to get away from all of this health stuff. It's weird because part of me wants to craft, but another part of me doesn't want too. But I forced myself to make a card for Rudolph Day. And low and behold I made two Christmas cards to go into my stash for this Christmas. But the one I'm entering into the Rudolph Day is the first one. Rudolph Day  always starts on the 25th of each month and runs to the end of that month. It's a great way to build your Christmas card stash, so I've been trying to play along each month, but I missed March's. Anyway I'm entering my card over at Rudolph Day. My card is a standard A2. I used some cork board material that Loll sent to me, bless her heart, she is just the sweetest! I also used SU's Wondrous Wreath and a sentiment from My Creative Time, as is my stitched layer. I embossed the sentiment in SU gold embossing powder along with the second layer of my wreath. I used my Misti to stamp the layers to my wreath, that worked out perfectly, I just didn't die cut it perfectly. lol But it wasn't to bad and I am please with how this card came out. I hope you like it too.

 Showing the gold shine. May stamp this bow and emboss in gold and then cut it out. I don't like that the bow loops don't have any "holes" in them. lol

My second card is just a simple little card too. I used My Creative Time Products on this one.

Thanks for stopping by to visit me, I always appreciate when you stop by. I love the love you guys always leave me, you are just the best!! Crafty hugs, Brenda

NUBUS and Rudy Day Challenges

Hello and yes I'm back again. lol I had some cards made for Rudolph Day and for Darnell's NBUS challenge and I have just been sitting on them for about a week now. Don't ask me why,  just not been in the groove at all. Anyway, I made 2 each of the skate's and mitten's cards. I used My Creative Stitched Oval dies, the skates and mittens are also from MCT and the poinsettia's are a die from Simon Says. Sentiments and pine is from MCT stamps. I like how cute and simple these cards are and I love that I added 4 more cards to my Christmas card stash. Yay for me! The NBUS was the oval dies as well as the mittens, skates and poinsettia dies. 

These two cards I made last month, but because the month was short I didn't get them in to play along with Rudy day, so I'm showing them here.  I think I used the Cricut cart Simple Holiday Cards to make this one. I kept my pieces and made another card just like it only in reverse. I think it made such pretty, simple cards for my Christmas stash. 

Since I used some snippets on my first two cards (for the skates, mittens and poinsettia) I'm going to go over the pond to play at the Playground.  I haven't been there in quiet a while so I'm looking forward to playing along. Of course I will also link up with Darnell's NBUS challenge to use your never been used schtuff, which I'm so sad to say I have a lot of! And last but not least I'm playing along with Rudolph Day. Thanks everyone and thanks for taking time from your day to visit me. Your comments always make my day brighter! Crafty hugs, Brenda

Hello Beautiful!

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you all are having a lovely Sunday afternoon. It is beautiful here, so sunny and actually pretty nice out. Hubby and I took a 4 wheeler ride around the farm land in the snow. Very wet snow, so it was flying all over me. lol Very wet under the snow from all the rain we got before the snow came. It is going to have a lot of drying to do before any crops will be able to go in the ground. And that depends on how much wetter it gets with the April showers. Keeping my fingers crossed that hubby will be able to get the crops in the ground in a decent time frame. We will see how March and April play out.

Well I got a little crafty today taking care of some DT projects. I also was kinda' challenged by Michele over at I Card Everyone to enter the Muse Challenge. Well more like she talked me into it. lol So the Muse over at Muse Challenge is Vickie Dutcher and we are to use her card for inspiration. Well, I'm not great with putting together pattern papers at all. But thought I would give it a go since Michele wanted me to play along. The inspiration I got from Vickie's card was not to use pattern paper but to use washi tape instead! I hope I'm not illegal and still will qualify to play along. I took some washi that came together in a box, so I figured they had to go together, right? I loved the colors a lot, so I began. I took a scrap piece of paper and started adding the washi tape. The flowery blue tape, I put on twice to make it wider on the panel at the bottom of the card. Then I just keep adding the washi. When I thought I had enough on the bottom, I started on the top. Then I cut it apart and popped each panel up on my card. I used a MCT stamp and die for my Hello Beautiful. I practiced stamping on the washi tape and did great, but when I did it on the card I rocked my stamp some, bummer-but I didn't think I warranted peeling off the tape and starting over, so I left it. I added some black sequins like Vickie did and it was finished. I am pretty happy overall with this card. I think it is beautiful and I don't often say that about anything I make. lol 

Vickie's Amazing Card:

As always thanks for popping by to visit me, I love it when you do! Your comments sure make my day as well. Crafty hugs, Brenda

Project Life

Hello my crafty friends, I sure this post finds you gearing up for the Super Bowl! Who are you rooting for?? I don't have a particular team I'm rooting for and I watch mainly for the half time show and the commercials. lol And to be with my guys, which this year it will be just hubby and I. But that is ok, I'm sure our youngest will be texting his dad about the game. Our oldest won't be home to see it, he is training in LA with the Army. He always misses out on these fun times and I won't be sad when he finally retires from the Army and is home with his family. But that is a mother's perspective as a mother always wants her kids safe at home with their families. We are also gearing up for the snow. Looks like we dodge another bullet as we are only supposed to get a coating to 2 inches of snow-mixed bag and then turn to rain, DS at college will be getting close to 4, 8 or 10 inches so say the weathermen. Glad that isn't us. I'm good with just a coating or 2 inches. Now the mixed snow and ice-yeah I could do without that but it will be coming when we are in bed and then it is changing over to rain, so should be fine as far as the roads go around here. 

Well enough about the weather! Janice over at Bimini Moose has a challenge going on with Project Life. I've decided to get into PL (I've done a few already) because I'm so far behind with scrapping my pictures and the guys have been giving me a hard time about it. So PL to the rescue! This should help me get my back pictures done, but still give me the feel of scrapping some too. I don't plan on giving up scrapping the traditional way though. So I picked a year that needed scrapping and got started. This layout is from New Year's Eve. We don't usually stay up to ring in the New Year, but we would have friends and family over to celebrate New Year's Eve, then everyone goes home and we either go to bed or ring in the New Year-mostly we went to bed and now that we are older we still go to bed. lol We always get woke up though from the other people around celebrating, and we will give each other a kiss and say Happy New Year, then roll over and go back to sleep. We're lots of fun aren't we?!  I used a PL kit from SU. Becky Higgins teamed up with them to bring some kits in SU colors and I have to say that I love these kits. I didn't get "scrappy" with this layout because there wasn't much I wanted to do or had to use. So I kept it simple.  I did use My Creative Time alpha dies for my title and her PL numbers for my date. I also used a SU date stamp as well. Janis sometimes has a twist to the challenge and for this time it is to make a list on your PL layout. I hope you had fun looking at my PL layout, it is simple yes, but it has the picture in now and the guys can look at the albums once again. 

As always thanks for taking time from your busy day and visiting little ole me. Your comments mean the world to me. Have fun watching the Super Bowl! Crafty hugs, Brenda

page one

page two

close up of my list and filler cards

another filler card and journaling, my journaling goes to the back but only has list of people who where at our house

another filler card

 

Rudolph Day & Snippet's Playground!

Hello my crafty friends,  I hope your day is going great! More snow for today but it should only be a dusting to 2" and it is supposed to come this afternoon. Ok, that I can live with even though I don't want it, I will live with it. It's not like I have a choice, right?! lol

A long while back I entered a challenge one time. I wanted to enter more, but always forgot about it or was to lazy. It's called The Rudolph Challenge and if you haven't already guess it, they have a Christmas card challenge on the 25th of every month. Yea, I could definitely use a jump start on some Christmas cards!! So even though I don't make new year resolutions, I did challenge myself to play along each month with this challenge. Well I had from the 28 to the end of the month to get a card in. The end of the month is coming up fast, so I got on it before I already blew the first month!  For my cards, oh yes, you heard that right, I made 2-yes I'm so proud of myself. lol I'm gonna try to do at least two cards and more if I can. Both cards are the same design but with something different on it. I used My Creative Time dies and stamps to make this simple but pretty card. I tell you the pictures don't do them justice, they look much better in real life. Oh and wait, I can also enter the Snippet's Playground challenge because I used some snippets of Christmas papers. Yay!! Here are my two cards. I popped my layer up on white card base and used holographic paper for the deer. My layer is stitched even though I'm not sure you can see it. I waited to late in the day to get good pictures, sorry about that! My bracket, which I used snippets to cute, is stitched too, love stitched dies! Then there is the file tab that has my sentiment embossed in SU gold embossing powder. Over all I'm pretty happy with the way these turned out. 

As always thank you for taking time out of your busy day to visit me. It means the world to me and I love sitting with you a spell! Crafty hugs, Brenda

You Make My Heart Sing

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you are having a wonderful weekend. I don't know how Sunday got here already, but it's here.

I love to visit a fellow blogger and her name is Michele over at "I Card Everyone" and she has encourage me to enter the challenge over at Muse, where it is their 100th challenge and 2 anniversary. And that challenge is to us her card as your inspiration, to have negative space on your card and to have a song incorporated in to it. Soooo, here is Michele's card and then I will show you mind.

Michele's Beautiful Card

My card-Can you guess my song?? My potty people were inspired by Darnell's card.

If you guessed Wild Thang, then you are right. Well I don't really know the name of the song, but it goes like this:

Wild thang, I think I love you....you make my heart sing. Ok I don't know the lyrics real well, but it is a fun song and it always cracks me up. lol I hope you know what song I'm talking about.  I used a My Creative Time Heart die to cut out my negative space, Then I took the positive part of the die cut and inked it with Hero Arts shadow ink Pale Tomato using a stamp from My Creative Time. The red heart came out the center of the die cut and I colored it with a Spectrum Noir marker, then popped it up on double thickness of foam tape after stamping my music notes on. I used Viva Decor pearl pen for the black pearls going around the heard. My potty people are a die also from My Creative Time as well as my stamped sentiment.  I got my sentiment on crooked though. I think  I will be using this card for hubby since we have an anniversary coming up next month, it will be our 22nd one and the chemo center gave us a very nice Christmas present. A night in Gettysburg at a very nice hotel, dinner for two and movies for two, we plan on going for our anniversary. We figured it up and he should be on his break from his pills then so he should be able to enjoy our meal. Wasn't that so sweet of the chemo center?!! Not sure why they pick us for this gift, but they did and we are very grateful. 

Ok go check our Michele's blog (she is so awesome and fun) and Muse cause maybe you may want to join in on a challenge there!! As always thanks for taking your time to stop by and visit me. I always love reading your comments. Crafty hugs, Brenda

Hubby's Birthday Card

Hello my crafty friends! I hope this Tuesday finds you all well in this new year and I hope you are warm. It is snowing here today, but it is a light snow that can be swept away with the broom. That's the kind of snow to get if you are going to get it. lol  And it is bitter cold! We have had a pretty good winter so far so all is good. 

We have 4 birthday's in the month of January. Hubby's is first, then our little granddaughter who is 3, then son #3 and last but not least, our college boy-son #6. So I guess we will start with hubby's card since his birthday was the 3 rd of January. It's our granddaughters birthday too-how fun to share a birthday with her Papaw! Her party will be this weekend, so I will show you her card soon.

Hubby's card is a simple but pretty one I think. My Momma Mary had send me this die, so it was a NBUS for me and I love it so much! Thanks Momma Mary!!! I cut it out in black cardstock. Took some white cardstock and distressed it to try and make it look like the sun is setting as the geese are flying over. Didn't quite pull that off, need more practice!! But it is still pretty to me. And hubby liked it. I used a stamp from CTHM to stamp the happy birthday and that is it. A very easy card and simple card that works for the man in my life.

Since I used another NBUS, I am entering this into Darnell's NBUS challenge: 
http://www.djkardkreations.com/2015/01/happy-new-year-2015-nbus-challenge-3.html

Your Smile....

Hello my crafty friends, I have another quick post today. Put up lots of corn last night and will be continuing tonight. Then I have to get things ready to go to VA for the weekend. One of our DS's is holding down the fort for us. Do any of you ever feel like you spend all your time in the kitchen?! I swear I am in the kitchen all the time. Good thing I am old now and can't be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen. lol  Anyway, I got off topic here. I have another CAS card for today. I used once again My Creative Time stamps. I stamped the little camera's using Hero Art Shadow Inks, love those shadow inks! I love how this card came together, just so simple but I think it is really cute to send anyone. Like my son at school. lol Do you think he will get a lot of cards from me while he is gone?!! lol He won't want to come home will he? Well gotta go get my grass mowed before our son, DIL and granddaughters come over to do corn again tonight. I am going to do supper as they brought pizza last night. I hope you all are having a great hump day! Thanks for stopping by again today, you know how much I love and appreciate you all! Crafty hugs, Brenda

Entering my card over at Moxie's Fab World challenge on using clicking camera's. Thanks Carol!!

Another NBUS!

Hello my crafty friends, I have another simple CAS card for Darnell's challenge of "never been used stuff". I got the die to die cut this cute vintage typewriter but hadn't used it yet. Oh boy I am so loving have a die to cut this baby out! It has stitching on the "paper" that is in the typewriter, how cute! Anyway the typewriter (which is popped up), sentiment, paper plane and plane "tracks" are from My Creative Time. I used some sequins and popped my white layer up on my white card base called it done. Simple, simple and very fast! Well fast if you don't drop the stamp and have to go looking all over creation for it. I was panicking for a while and then decided to pray to St. Anthony and of course he came right through for me and I found the stamp in the trash can. It must have bounced off my leg and right into my full trash can!!! It never fails, when I lose something I will just pray to St. Anthony-he has never left me down yet! Anyway go check out Darnell's blog, you will be greatly amused and walk away with a light, happy heart and while there why not join in on her challenge. She has some awesome blog candy up for grabs! Thanks again for stopping by for a spell, you know how much your visits me to me cause you know I only have men to talk too and my men don't talk much!! lol Until next time...crafty hugs, Brenda