Christmas Card-Advice Please

Hello my crafty friends, I hope your weekend has been a good one. It's been a nice sunny one for us. Which is a nice change after all the rain. We have been trying to put things away for winter. I would have preferred to have it already done, but the weather stayed warm for so long and then I was gone most of Oct. Then I have to wait for a "bye" with Penn State Football team because of course Bret can't do anything when football is on! 

I wanted to join in the Rudolph Challenge, but of course I didn't make it in time. Little Maverick has kept me busy with potty breaks and keeping him from chewing on things he isn't supposed too. I finally got a card made but it didn't come out the way it was in my head and I need some advice on how to make it look better. So please let me know what I could do to help it as it needs something!! I just don't know what that something should be. So  suggestions please!!!

Card Recipe:
background frame was cut from Design Space using my Cricut
image is from Maymay Made It-Adore Him
SU gold embossing powder 
holographic paper from Walmart I believe-have had it for years

Twofer and Snippets Playground Challenges

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you all had a blessed Easter! We had a good one here, very low keyed which is nice, just myself, Bret and my step father for a meal. We had to eat off paper plates because I'm having septic issues and having a hard time getting any kind of help about it. As Bret has told me before, you just can't give work away. sigh One day hopefully we will have it fixed!! It all has had me in a tizzy and thus resulting in some flares, so haven't felt the best either. But we will get there eventually.

I wanted to play in the Twofer Challenge, but really had no clue what do make. I don't have much in the way of Zoo animals either. But that is the point of a challenge, right?!! So I went to Pinterest for inspiration. I saw a few cards that I thought were cute and that I could kinda' put my own spin on. I decided to use a SU panda bear for both my cards. The bear has a balloon in his hand and I didn't want it, so I masked it off before I stamped him. As always I will have the supplies I used in the recipe section below. I also used snippets on both cards, so will go and see if I can play in the Snippet's Playground.  It will be my balloon card, using black snippets for my stacked "hooray". 

As always, thank you so much for stopping by to visit with me for a spell. Your visits always make my day and make me smile! If I haven't been by to visit you, I will be soon. I do get behind or don't make it every time. Trying not to spend so much time on the computer and do things. Have a card party coming up, so keep your fingers crossed that my potty and sinks works by then!!!

I had a play with Brusho's powders one day and I didn't think anything was looking very good. I'm not very good with them or don't know how they are supposed to look, not sure which! So I quit but kept everything I had done as I figured I could die cut something and get my use from them. Well, glad I did because it worked out well for my balloon. It's much greener in person and has some browns in there as well then what it shows in the photo. I stacked three layers of the "Hooray" to get some dimension to it, added my twine and called this one done. 

This one is very simple, just a frame, some die cut letters and a star in my Panda's hand. I might go back and put "to the world" on yet for Joy to the World. Not sure. Or maybe "Christmas" for Christmas Joy. 

Crafty Hugs,

Card Recipe:
My Creative Time-Stitched Circle Balloon Dies, Bunch of Stitched Stars
Amazon-Hooray Stamps and Dies-no name, so unbranded I guess NBUS
Stampin' Up-Party Pandas NBUS
Brusho's powders
Canson Mixed Media paper
Snippets
twine

Stars and Snippets

Hello my crafty friends, Happy Friday evening to you all. I hope you all are well and are ready for the weekend. These weeks seem to fly by, the months seem to fly by even more! But that is ok for now as I'm looking forward to spring like many of you are. The bird are really singing so maybe soon!

I wanted to slid in to the Twofer Challenge which I believe ends on Sunday evening. So not sliding in by the skin of my teeth, but still sliding in a little later than normal. I really had to think on this one and nothing really ever came to me, so off to Pinterest I went. So my cards are down right copied!  You can find the original cards here and here. Of course the originals are much better than mine, but still happy with how mine turned out. I used some NBUS as well as  snippets, so will join in over at the Playground.  As always I will have my supplies listed down below in the recipe section. 

Thank you for taking the time to stop by and visit me for a spell. I know the weather has been rough, but hopefully spring will be here soon. I also thank you for your sweet and lovely comments, you always brighten my day bringing much sunshine to my life. I will be by to visit you as well. Even though I do get behind on my visiting! Yikes! Just bare with me and I will be by. Have a wonderful weekend everyone!

Crafty Hugs,

Card Recipe:
Card 1
My Creative Time-Bunch of Stitched Stars dies NBUS
                               Wow, So Many Candles-sentiment
Simon Says Stamp-Seeing Stars-for the itty bitty stars- NBUS
Hero Arts Ink Cubes-Crimson, Orange Soda, Tide Pool, Pastel Mint,
Delicata Gold Ink
Versafine Onyx Black Ink
Snippets from the snippet pile

Card 2
My Creative Time-Bunch of Stitched Stars dies
Paper Trey Ink-Birch Background stamp NBUS
Delicata Gold Ink
Versafine Onyx Black Ink
Stampin' Up-Peaceful Wreath NBUS
Snippets from the snippet pile

Happy New Year! My First Challenge/post of 2019

Hello my crafty friends, I know I am late in wishing everyone a Happy New Year, but better late then never right?! Wishing so much happiness, blessings and good health to everyone!

Ok, I wanted to keep up with my Christmas card stash this year, Kahlua is getting better and not quite getting in to as much trouble as she was. Still gotta keep cords up though! But since she is being better, I was able to get some cards made. I wanted to join in on the CAS Christmas Card Challenge, the prompt is blue and silver. A color combination that I love, but never remember to use it. Dumb I know! So I thought, yep, I have to play along with this one. So out came the stamps and inks. As always everything I used will be in the recipe section below. I am also trying to use some of the many NBUS or stamp sets that haven't been given much love this year. Wish me luck. lol I even used some of my many snippets! So might go and join in over at the Playground, haven't been around to see Parsnips, Dudley or Di in a long while!

This card didn't quite turn out the way I envisioned it, but it is still ok and I'm good with it.  So I made 17 of them, well 18 but messed one up. lol But at least I have 17 cards ready to go for the coming Christmas season! I hope you enjoy it too. 

As always, I thank you for taking time from your day to stop by and visiting me. I love it when you do and I know that I have been slack on my visiting. But hoping to get better with that! Hope everyone has a wonderful week!

It doesn't show well, but I have a blue mat and then the white, blue is matted on a silver mirror card foil. I also know my baby Jesus looks black, but he isn't. 

Trying to tilt in the sunlight to show the shimmer of the silver ink. Not sure if you can see it or not. 

 And the inside, which I kept simple but matting matches the outside.

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
Close to My Heart Remarkable Wreath and Reason for the Season (Reason for the Season is a NBUS set) stamp sets
Delicata Silvery Shimmer ink
Stampin' Up Night of Navy ink
Navy blue card stock scraps
DCWV Foil Paper (mirror card stock)
My Creative Time Belly Band stamp set for Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
Maymay Made It Joyful Stamp Set for the His Presence brings....

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

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

CAS Christmas Card Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, hope all is well in your neck of the world and you are enjoying lots of sunshine and not so humid temps. We are having lots of rain. Yes, we were dry and now we are flooding. Feast or famine-never fails. More rain and storms to come this week. In my area we just have minor flooding, but in the Hershey area they had some heavier flooding. Flooding, boat sinking, shootings, it is just all over the place around the world. My heart and prayers go out to all who are living with loss, whether from flooding, buildings falling or shootings. It's just so sad and makes my heart sad. 

On to my card. I'm slipping in sideways as the challenge over at CAS Christmas Card is closing tomorrow. But I wanted to play as I doubt I will get anything made in time for the Twofer Challenge as it closes tomorrow tomorrow too-which I did really want to play along with but it has just been to busy around here. This card I had started but didn't finish, so thought I'd get it finish to play along. So here is my little CAS Christmas card, I didn't put a sentiment on the outside as I didn't think it needed one. Supplies used will be down in the recipe section of this post. 

We've had some wild looking sky's around here, so thought I would share a photo of one storm that went all the way around us. No rain from this one, but other towns really got it hit with a good storm.

Bret has been after me about getting rid of a huge pine tree at our driveway. Dwayne was going have it taken down, but that didn't happen before he passed. Well now Bret has his new "professional" vehicle and he was getting mad every time sap dripped on it and on his hair. So got it taken down. The guy took it down by himself so I helped to drag limbs over to the chipper to save him some steps. Boy some of them were very heavy and some I couldn't hardly move! Hope I was a little help to him. I told him if I was more of a hindrance to just let me know and I'd get out of his way. He assured me I wasn't and I was doing well, so I kept helping. This is my huge pine, I will miss it, but won't miss all the pine cones in the driveway to clean up nor the sap. lol  You can't even see how tall it is in this picture, but just look at the guy cutting the limbs off and you get the jist of how big it is. He estimated about 40 ft and he said it was still growing. We've had it for about 30 years, Dwayne got it from a wedding he went to. Before "our" time so it was already planted here when I met him but was very tiny. 

Then I found a little monkey in my Mimosa tree. My granddaughter. lol She loves to try and climb this tree, but this is all the farther she can get.

Well that's it for me my friends. As always I thank you for stopping by and visiting with me a spell. We've had some pool issues but Bret got it all taken care of now, now we need the rain to stop so we can vacuum the pool. It is filled to the brim with all the rain water and cold! When it is that cool I have to have lots of hot and very bright sunshine to get in. lol So  hopefully it will warm back up and you can have a dip while you visit. Your comments always bring sunshine into my life and I thank you for that!

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
Sunny Studio's Poinsettia stamp and die set
Gina Marie for the wreath
Martha Steward branch punch
My Creative Time Christmas stamp and die set for the bow
Stampin Up for the embossing folder
Altnew ink cubes for the ink to stamp the poinsettia
Some holograph paper in my snippets stash for the bow
SU Glitter enamel dot for my poinsettia center

Tree Twofer Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, hope you are having a beautiful, sunshiny day! It is nice and sunny here today with balmy temps of 77 degrees. So lovely. Still soggy though, but slowly we are drying out. Then it will be back on the mower once again. lol

I wanted to participate in the Twofer Challenge, but really didn't know if I was clever enough to come up with any clever ideas for the tree challenge. What I had thought of, which was to use a tree and make a snowflake, someone already did. So to Pinterest I went. So I grabbed the SU Thoughtful Branches stamp set, a NBUS for me, one that I got at the SU Yard Sale last summer and got to work. As always, the recipes for what I used will be at the bottom of my post.

Here is a look at my twofer's

My Christmas Card. My one tree is decorated for Christmas. There is some sparkle on the snow drifts and snowflake using the Nuvo Sparkle Pen.  I should have gold embossed the sentiment but for some reason I didn't! 

Inside

My flower card using my tree top. I didn't get the leaves on like I wanted because I forgot to do them and then had to add them in. Should have left well enough alone!

Inside

As always, I want to thank you for stopping by and visiting with me a spell. I will be around to visit you too! Thank you for your kind comments as they always bring so much sunshine to my world. 

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

flower card:
SU Thoughtful Branches for my "trees"-flowers NBUS
My Creative Time-Mini Butterfly Dies NBUS
My Creative Time-Build a Pretty Flower-for my "flower" stems
SU Love and Sympathy-for my inside sentiments
SU Peaceful Wreath-the bow NBUS
Altenew inks-Frayed Leaf, Coral Berry, Sand Dunes
My Mind's Eye-Miss Caroline Paper Pack
EK Success (I think) Scallop Scallop punch

Christmas Card:
SU Thought Branches-Trees
AliExpress Snowflake Dies NBUS
Avery Elle-Winter Wreath-inside sentiment
SU Wonderland-outside sentiment NBUS
Altenew inks-Fired Brick, Expresso
Versa-mark ink
WOW White Pearl Embossing Powder
SU Gold Embossing Powder
DCWV-metallic blue paper
Nuvo sparkle pen on the snow and snowflakes

Rudolph Days

Hello my crafty friends, I hope your week is going well. It's hump day so we are on a down hill slide to the weekend. It's been rainy and very dreary here, but temps have been up. One day of sun and that was yesterday. More rain to come as well as snow showers. Crazy weather but spring is definitely on it's way. I'm laid up for a bit. Fell back when we had all that ice and no I didn't fall on the ice. Fell coming up the steps out front after getting all the mail for the week it was icy. Re-injured my ribs I felt it, but it wasn't that bad. Then it just kept getting worse until it finally stopped me in my tracks. Rested last Friday all the way through to Sunday. Went to work on Monday but didn't do much. Yesterday I thought I was feeling pretty decent, still could feel the ribs, but not so bad. So I did a few things. Well paying for it now. So resting and trying to get them to heal once again.

Today is the last day for Rudolph Days over at Maureen's blog, Scraps of Life by Scrappymo!. Maureen is always such a gracious host so I hope you go check it out and play along each month. I got my cards made and thought better get them posted as this is a short month and today is the last day of the month! How did that happen?!! It's amazing how losing 3 days makes a huge difference. So without farther ado here are my cards. I made 6, 2 of each design. I think I kinda wish I would have left the plaid paper off but it's done now and so it will stay. 

As always the recipe will be below. I am slowly trying to make my way around to your blogs, no notifications so having to "find" your blogs on some. Please be patient with me, I feel like such a failure in so many ways but I'm trying. lol Thank you so much for your loyalty to me and my blog. Your comments always bring much needed sunshine to my life! Have a wonderful week!

Crafty hugs, 

Card Recipe:
Maymay Made It-Joyful Stamp set
My Creative Time-Stitched Rectangular Frame Dies and More
Paper Studio plaid paper
Assorted Colored Ink Cubes
Versafine black ink

It's Time for Rudolph Days!

Hello my crafty friends and since it is past the 25th that means it is time for Rudolph Day! I love Rudolph Day even though I don't always get to participate each month. My goal is to do just that, but I tend to fall short. Maybe this will be my year....we shall see. Anyway it starts on the 25th of each month and all you have to do is make a Christmas card to play along. There might be a few rules, but just go over and read for yourself. It's a great way to keep adding to that stash of Christmas cards all year long. If I'm not mistaken there are lots of Christmas challenges all year long. I have problems just keeping up with one, so that is what I will stick with. lol 

So my card is a complete CAS from Bev over at Happy Dance blog. (Please check our Bev's blog, you won't be disappointed) I saw her card a few years back and fell in love with it but didn't have that stamp set. Wanted to buy it but never did that either. You can see her card here.  It's the last card before the comments. So I had this digital kit from Nitwit Collections and I knew how I wanted to use this certain image to recreate Bev's card. Bev's card is a CAS card where as mine isn't, but other than that it is a complete copy. sigh Be nice if I came up with my own ideas wouldn't it?!! Anyway I hope you still enjoy this card, I think it came out so cute and I made 6 of them. Might even make some more cause I think it is so dang cute! lol Thanks for the inspiration Bev!!! I used my Cricut and the digital files to print and cut the Santa face, the plaid paper and the sentiment. Easy peasy!

As always I appreciate your stopping by and visiting with me a spell. You always bring much needed sunshine into my life! I am still working on getting by to your blogs as well, so please be patient with me. I know I tend to disappear at times but my life seems to be going in different directions as of now. But I will be around from time to time.

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
Nitwit Digital Collection: Dec. Memoirs

Rudolph Days and Snippet Playground Challenges

Edit-I was racking my brain trying to figure out who I saw this card by that I CASED, then Carol from "Our Little Inspirations" emailed me and it literally dawned on me that it was her card I CASED! Here is her original post. Her card is more pretty than mine, but I am still happy with how mine came out.

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! I'm back today so I can play in two challenges, Rudolph Days and the Snippet Playground. I'm coming in just under the wire with Rudolph Days so I need to get moving here. 

My card was done with all snippets except for the card base. This was a Pinterest inspired card, so NOT my idea. I did this with my teacher buddies at one of our card making sessions and we made a lot of different ones. This is the one I am sharing today. 

Here is a little collage of some Charleston pictures that I thought you might enjoy. Just a few of the market place, some sweet baskets, the original narrow homes, the iron work and the harbor. And a picture of the steel they put through the homes after a huge earthquake years ago. That is the third photo on the left going down-some homes they "concealed" them as decorations, this house had not. 

As always thanks for stopping by and visiting with me a spell. Your comments always bring me sunshine and joy and I thank you for that! 

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
quilt die-Gina Marie
snowflake-Simon Says
sentiment-My Creative Time

Bells Will Be Ringing

Good golly Miss Molly, it's been over a month since I've posted!!! Hi my crafty friends, did you miss me? lol It's been crazy around here, lots of rain, lots of mowing and other chores. Drove 2 1/2 hours up to my son's college on May 5th, left a little after 8 am with Savannah in tow driving in pouring down rain. Got up there and then got to work. I had no idea how many clothes my son had or how many shoes! Let me just say he doesn't need any clothes!!!! And shoes, he is worse than a woman. He had 40 pairs of shoes!!! Yes, you read that right! The kid was shopping all year I guess cause he didn't leave with that many. lol So I packed all his clothing and a huge long tub and it couldn't hold all his clothing. I'm serious! Had to put the rest in his big duffel bag and that was stuffed. That wasn't including his dress button up shirts, they went in another tub with his suit! He and a friend took some stuff to storage, took a couple of trips. While they were doing that, I was cleaning upstairs-vacuuming, dusting blinds, sills and baseboards. It was bitter sweet cleaning his late roommate's room. I cried a little and talked to him a little. Next I did Bret's room.Then got started down stairs. Cleaned in the kitchen-the stove, fridge, washer, dryer, cabinets, etc. Then washed up the floor. Bret came back and cleaned the bathroom and washed that floor. All was left to clean was the living room. So while he loaded stuff up in my car and his truck, I dusted blinds, sills and baseboards and then vacuumed. 8:30 pm we were out of there and boy were we tired!!! Another 2 1/2 hour drive home, no rain on the way home thankfully and we finally got home. We just brought the cold and frozen food in and threw in the basement fridge and freezer and hit the bed! Savannah did really well, that was her longest trip away, so I was happy that she did so well. Not in any routine yet, as so much as been going on here. Had to buy a new mower. Bret and my step father got it yesterday early evening, so Bret mowed til dark on a high setting-and it was a hay field too!!! Then he turned around and mowed again tonight. I did a little bit. I have to learn this new mower as it is a zero turn mower. It's gonna take me a while, but I did ok, not great, but not bad either. Of course my son was laughing at me. lol

Ok enough chatter, I do have a card. Last month, I wanted to play along with Rudolph Day, but my editing program-a free one-wasn't working. New computer remember. lol So I couldn't edit my photos. So had Bret look at it finally and all I had to do was sign in. Duh to me!!! Now it is completely different and I don't know how to add my watermark. Sigh Anyway, I did make my cards but didn't post. But I did do them! Not much card making going on right now as I am working on a recipe mini album for a gift. So here is my card and sorry I don't have the names of the supplies I used with me at this time to do the recipe. Just ask if you want to know anything and I will let you know what I used. I made three of these, need more practice with the bells, so might make more of them. Need some different grey's too so need to work on that as well. The stamp company was Sunny Skies or something to that effect. 

And that's it. All I have for now. Not much, but still have so much outside work to do now that Bret is home. Poor kid hasn't even unpacked yet, so he will be doing that the rest of this week in the evening after work. I also have a ton of curtains to hem for my other son and DIL for their house. So got to get on that as well! Not sure how I got so busy so fast! lol 

As always your comments bring sunshine to my day and I appreciate you all so very much! Thanks for stopping by and visiting a spell with me. The rain has stopped and this week has been beautiful. I don't want to go for 6 weekends in a row of rain! Will need to get the pool open soon, to bad it wasn't already open as the rain could have raised the level for me. lol Until next time.....

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
Sunny Studio's Stamps