Rudy Challenge

Hello crafty friends, happy TGIF! Hope your week was a good one and that you are ready to relax or just have fun this weekend. 

It's a short month and I can't believe it is almost over. So I thought I'd better get my card in for Rudolph Day so I can play along. Trying to keep it going, but I'm only two months in, so we will see how it goes. Life has a way of getting in the way at times. My card is CAS and simple, very simple. I went to Design Space to design my word art, then had my Cricut Joy write it. Then I punched a heart and glued on. Stamped the holly and colored it and done. So simple, not much to it so I made 6 of them. 

As always I thank you for stopping by. I know everyone is busy with life themselves, so for you to take the time to visit with me is awesome and I appreciate it! Have a beautiful weekend!

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

Design Space/Cricut Joy

SU Gift Wrapped

Cricut Joy Pens

Heart Punch is by EK Success

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 

CAS Christmas Card

Hello  my crafty friends, I hope you are all doing well. We got some more snow, but it was a very wet snow, so it made the trees look so pretty and it melted pretty quickly on the roads/driveways/walkways. My kind of snow! Friday I got my first dose of the vaccine for Covid. No side effects except it felt like I had a bruise where they injected me but that went away fairly quickly, by the next day. And I didn't notice it unless I touched that area. So all in all it went very well. I know the vaccine isn't for everyone, especially people who have issues with being allergic to a lot of meds and such. But for me, I don't experience any allergies to meds and such, so it was a no brainer. I think those of us who don't have allergy related issues need to get the vaccine for those who do have allergies. Once we can get herd immunity across the world that should help those who can't get the vaccine because we won't be spreading the virus anymore....at least that is my hope and right now, hope is all we got along with the Lord. 

I decided to play in the CAS Christmas Card Challenge for this month to help build my stash. The theme for this month is dogs or cats. Well, I am a dog lover for sure. Not to say I don't like cats, but not as much as a dog. So I went with a dog. Pretty simple card, so not much to tell you. I just stamped my images (dog and Santa hat on watercolor snippet paper and home, trees and Santa/reindeer on a snippet of white) cut out with a rectangular die to the size I was looking for, and popped my doggy up on a pop dot on his bottom and glued the top of his head to my scene because of the layers. I thought this turned out pretty cute and am pleased for once! lol So I made three of them to add to my stash. Edited to add: I am going to play at the Snippet's Playground in memory of Ruby.

Close up of the stickles

As always I thank you for taking time from your busy day to stop by and visit with me for a spell. I always appreciate your visits as well as your comments, they always put a dance in my step! I will be by to visit you as well. Take care, stay safe and healthy!  

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:
Maymay Made It Stamp set: "Dash Away" NBUS

My Creative Time Stamp set: "More Stitched Rectangular Dies"

                                                " Christmas Doggy and More" stamp and die set NBUS

Arteza Real Brush Markers: red and a darker red for shading

Zig Clean Color Brush Marker: light gray

Stickles

Ranger Clear embossing powder: for my doggy and his Santa hat

watercolor paper snippet

Black cardstock snippet

Red cardstock snippet

Rudolph Challenge

Hello my crafty friends, hope you are having a wonderful weekend. Snow for us tomorrow into Tuesday. We will see how much we get. Good new, Bret tested negative as did all the other guys that had to leave work and come home. Bret said that they made more leave and get tested. So that is good news and a load off my mind! He got his test results back on Thursday night, about 11 pm. I was already asleep, he came to the door to wake me and give me the good news. I was so happy. So thank you for your prayers, they were much appreciated!!!

I wanted to get started on some Christmas cards and since we are at the end of January already, thought I'd better get moving on a few. So will be sliding in over at the Rudy Challenge.  Here is one that was simple to do as it didn't require much. This little snowman I've seen everyone have and I had to have him as well as I think he is just adorable. So he is a NBUS as is the vertical sentiment I used. I used distress ink oxides to color him with. I'm not  great at  watercoloring, but was happy with him for the most part. I think next time I will use regular distress inks to watercolor with though. Edited to add: Joining in over at the NBUS Challenge.

Trying to capture the wink/shimmer-didn't work out so well

Very simple card, but cute I thought. I have a few more stamped so I can watercolor or just color. I know it looks like my layers are layered terribly, but they aren't in real life. I think it is because I took the photos laying down instead of standing up. Me bad. And that is it! 

As always, I thank you for taking time out of your busy day to visit with me over here. It is calm before the storm, so just enjoying the bright sunshine and lower winds. I will be by to visit you too soon and thank you for your comments. I know it takes lots of time to comment and I appreciate it when you do. It always brings a brightness and joy to my day!

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

Penny Black for the cutie snowman  NBUS

Maymay Made It for the vertical sentiment "Up Lifting" NBUS

Distress Oxides: Fire Brick, Salty Ocean, Iced Spruce and Worn Lipstick

A white chalk marker from Dollar Tree for the polka dots 

SU Sizzix Embossing folder

Birthday Cards

Hello my crafty friends, I hope you are all well and healthy. We are not sure around here as Bret was told Sunday that a co-worker has Covid (there have been quite a few).  Well he gets into work this morning and now they said he and another fella has to get tested and quarantine from home while working from home until he gets the results. So he had to come back home after they made them stay for a meeting first. Not sure we understood that one?! So stay and infect other people maybe, but leave then. Makes no sense. He is going to work from his bedroom in the basement and only use the bathroom since we only have one bathroom to try and keep me as safe as possible. Happy Birthday to him!!! We knew it was bound to happen since they made them return to work last May. So keep us in your prayers if you pray please and hopefully he will test negative. He said that he was around the guy but long before he went to get tested. But that this fella probably got it from the guy he sits near as this other fella is out with it too. Sigh. 

I am in birthday card mode since I need a lot of them. I wanted to try and build my stash so I don't have to make them each month. So since my mojo isn't with me at the moment nor am I in the mood to even get crafty, I went to Pinterest for inspiration. I found two designs and tried to made them my own. You can see them here and here. I got out my little Cricut Joy machine and got to work. I found a font I liked and welded together my letters to my word, then I welded together 5 of the words. Got out my Oxide inks and got inky. Then for my other card, I sliced out my word in a rectangle and cut those out in rainbow colors using snippets of paper for all the cards.  Well I guess I pretty much CASED both designs, but did it using not dies, but my little machine. Made three of each, so that give me nine extra cards. Now to make some more CAS birthday cards to add to the stash. 

                             Did this card in two different layouts, but still the same.  

As always I thank you for taking time out of your day to visit with me a spell. I always enjoy your visits and comments, they always make my day brighter! I will be by to visit you soon too. 

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

Cricut Joy and Design Studio

Distress Oxides in Fire Brick, Spiced Marmalade, Cracked Pistachio, Faded Jeans and Wilted Violet

Maymay Made It stamp set for the "birthday to you" called Big Time Sayings

CAS Christmas Card Challenge-Silhouettes

Hello my crafty friends, hope you are all doing well. The weather has been pretty decent with some sun and clouds and just  cold at night, day temps a little above normal.  Not much going on around here. I have been super tired and just trying to get back up and running from my fatigue. Some days all I want to do is sleep, so I sleep while the dogs sleep and then am awake when they are. That makes for not much going on except doggie potty breaks.

I have some Christmas cards that I made in Dec. of last year. They were Pinterest inspired although the idea is the same, I changed mine up some. Anyway CAS Christmas Card Challenge is looking for silhouettes and I figure these fit. So will be taking these over to play with the gals over there. As long as they don't mind these cards being in a group and not individual. Not much to them, some splats water colored distress oxide inks, a silhouette, a sentiment and some sequins. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to visit with me for a spell. I always enjoy your visits and comments. They make my day! If I haven't been around to you, I will be soon. Stay well, stay healthy and remember to wear those masks as they keep us all safe if we all do it. Hopefully we will be able to get those vaccines soon, the more people that take them, the sooner we can get on with "normal" once again. Happy Crafting!
 
Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

Distress Oxide inks: iced spruce, barn door, tumbled glass, lucky clover (I think)

Sequins from my stash-no set name brand for them as they came from everywhere

My Creative Time for the pine bough

Ali Express for the stag and poinsettia

Snowflake was cut using a friend's die, so not sure who made that one

Sentiment is from a Hero's Art monthly kit if I'm not mistaken-I don't do the monthly kit, but       bought just that one at the time. 

Christmas Baby Gift

Hello my crafty friends, thank you so much for all your sweet comments on the Christmas gifts I made. They were fun to make. 

I didn't tell you that in the time I wasn't blogging, a granddaughter made her way into the world. So in November Wynter Grace came. For Christmas, again, another Christmas gift, I decided to personalize a little giraffe I got her with a little blanket attached. I used Cricut Infusible Ink in Gray-only needed a tiny piece, so used some snippets. Using my Cricut Mini Press, I pressed her name on. It isn't quiet as crisp as I wanted, but it is still readable and her parents will know that it is definitely her toy. 

As always, I thank you for taking time out of your busy schedules to visit me and see what I'm up to. If I haven't been by to see you, I will be shortly. So very thankful for you all and please stay safe, stay healthy and keep hanging in there! 

Crafty hugs,

Card Recipe:

Cricut Joy

Cricut Design Space

Cricut Infusible Ink Sheets