Today I have a card for a friend that I have known for over 30 years.   I miss her terribly.  She is just one of those people that makes you laugh, and always makes you feel welcome.

My friend loves animals.  Before we moved to Arizona, she had two small dogs and a bird.  Whenever I see a bird or bird cage, I think of Maria and especially her bird.  I decided today to pull out my Tim Holtz' "caged bird". I hadn't planned on aging the paper, but when I was putting all of the pieces together, I decided to give it a distressed look.

I hope you enjoy!

Totally Tess Framed

Last year I got to know a dear woman.  Her name is Louise.  Her son mentioned to me yesterday that he had to call and wish her "happy birthday".  That got me to thinking that I would love to send her a card.  I admit in this extremely fast-paced, busy world, I have had a hard time sending out cards and this was an excuse to work on something.  I was going to make it very bright and flowery as that is what I think of when I think about my friend.

However, my daughter had been in my craft room and my Stampin' up "Tess" stamp was on my table.  I thought I could color her hair yellow so she looks a little like me so its like a personal greeting for my California friend.  I used my pleated satin ribbon to give it more texture.

Mazel Tov

My nephew, Zach celebrated his Bar Mitzvah last weekend.  I was so excited when I saw the Stampin' Up new set Jewish Celebrations because it was perfect timing for me to be able to make a beautiful card.

I used the Midnight Muse paper and ink and also the new Illuminate ink.  I am very happy with the results.  I also pulled out the Textured Impressions Embossing Folder.  I got it several months ago but nothing seemed to work.  I love this great product and know I will be using it for new cards I will be making the next few months.

I know it has been way too long that I have posted.  Tomorrow I will be showing you how to make a customized card.  I needed to make a card for a student just accepted into medical school.

I am not a Stampin' Up Consultant but I love their products.  I ordered also recently some fun new products and can't wait to make some cards using them.  Also, as soon as I can, I am going to order the new Christmas products...  So exciting...

New Year Card

Well, I was late with my Christmas Cards so I decided to send out New Year Cards instead.  This was one of the designs that I sent out.  I made this card with two thoughts in mind.  I wanted to submit a card for the Created byhand Challenge (Old with the Old/Flower Die Cuts) http://createdbyhandchallenge.wordpress.com/, and for a Happy New Year card.  I put the lighter colored paper in Tim Holtz' Textured Flourish Folder.  The flower was also made using four small flower dye cuts.  I put stickles around the border of each layer of the flower.  And because it needed more color and sparkle, I added a brad to the card.

Winter Scene

Last week I could hardly contain my excitement over Christmas.  I just can't help myself.  Christmas always brings back fond, warm and cozy, happy memories. 

I have been keeping journals the last few months.  Mostly I have been rewriting verses with the hope that they would sink in.  Sometimes I add my own thoughts or little prayers to my almost daily verse writing.  And sometimes I feel inspired to add pictures of some sort. 

I needed to start a new notebook and since I will be running into the month of January I didn't want it to be all Christmas looking and decided to go into snowflakes and such.  Because I live in the desert, it is very difficult to find snow.  So, I went online and found some beautiful winter pictures.  I don't like the cold of winter but I do love the snow.  I found some really great winter scenes at this website.  http://images.search.yahoo.com/search/images?_adv_prop=image&fr=yfp-t-701&va=winter

I took the above picture and added Stickles.  Both Crystal and Icicle Stickles and some Liquid White Pearls.  I used my newest little toys (Big Shot by Stampin' Up) and (Tim Holtz Alterations Townscape) the other day and cut out a row of houses on colorful paper.  I covered the houses in Crystal Stickles and added the Liquid White Pearls to the roof tops and house fronts to give it dimension and make it look like snow.  I then added the Townscape cut out to give the picture a pop of color.

I hope you enjoy this wintry image!

Christmas

First, let me make a disclaimer that once again I didn't get my Christmas cards out.  So for my family and friends it will once again be a New Years Card most probably.

Second, I also didn't get Hanukkah Cards done this year so to my Jewish Family and Friends, Happy Hanukkah.  Hanukkah 2011 started the evening of Tuesday, December 20 and ends Tuesday, December 28.

Thirdly, I did make three Christmas Cards; they were for the teachers at my children's school.  They came out so warm and cheery that I thought I would share them with you. 

DABBING AWAY

Once again I put my Adirondack Acrylic Paint Dabbers to work. I dabbed away with Celery, Sunshine Yellow and Pearl and put a simply stated Happy Birthday on the front.

I used Sail Boat Blue and Pearl for the background.  I also took a paint brush and went over the bird with the same colors.  For the branch I used one of my Stampin' Up markers.

 Once I got started dabbing away, I got carried away.  I wanted to try different colors and mixtures and styles.  I first stamped away with the presents stamp from one of my Stampin' Up sets.  I then went over the stamp images with the dabbers.  I decided to highlight the one image in Turquoises Stickles.

This one I used Celery and Red Pepper on the background and then dabbed the Red Pepper over my "Celebrate You" stamp also from Stampin' Up.  I put a dot of Black Diamond Stickles in the center of each of the Celebrate You image.

 Once again I took a paint brush and went over the bird with Pool and Pearl.  I outlined the bird in in Patina.  I filled in the white area with Crystal Ice Ice Stickles.

 This one I used Sail Boat Blue, Sunshine Yellow and Pearl.  I dabbed with different colors each of the birthday hats and went over the hats with Stickles as well as going over parts of the card again to give it more sparkle.

I briefly went over the card with my Pool and Pearl Dabbers.  I got the bird to peak out a little and went over the head of the bird with Stickles just to sparkle him up.

A Little Dab Here and There and Pool Update

I LOVE the Adirondack Acrylic Dabber Paint by Ranger Ink.  They are so versatile.  I have been using the Pearl one for about a year now with various projects.  It adds a beautiful shimmer to projects.  Recently I tried some new things with my dabbers.  For the first time I took the chance with my rubber stamps and dabbed the paints on them.  I love the bold color that is left behind and also it is fun to touch because it creates a little texture.  The fun part is dabbing or painting your stamp and then dabbing it over with one of the metallic dabbers. 

This is a card project that I worked on for mothers of my MOPs group.  It was a fairly simple project because there were a lot of card with little time.  This is an example of  how you can make  an elegant card quickly.  I just added pretty paper and tried something new by dabbing paint with my paint dabbers  instead of using regular ink on stamps. 

I bought some letters a while ago for my one daughter.  I was waiting until the right time.  I had read something about engaging your children with your craft projects and realized I should just give up my idea and let her do what she wants with the letters since it is for her.  My younger daughter wanted her own letters to paint and so she got some too.  I want to hang these up in there room so I'm delighted with the results.  Both girls painted their letters with acrylic paint and then went over some of the letters by just dabbing circles on them with the paint dabbers and then they added some bling to their letters as well.

First there was the breaking of the ground and clearing away the grass, and then they came with a Bobcat and dug a huge hole that I've been looking at now for a couple of weeks. They then added medal bars to keep the structure for the shockcrete.   Last Friday they came and sprayed the shockcrete.  Today they are coming to lay out the decking.  It is fun to watch the progression of our pool.  I am hoping that it is done by Labor Day but cannot plan anything yet because it will be done when it is done and not before.  At least I have my friend Julie's annual pool party!

Created ByHand Challenge - Peridot/Shades of Green

I learned a new word today.  Peridot is one of the few gemstones that occur in only one color, an olive green.  It also is August birthstone, and I since I have a long time friend whose birthday is in August, I should have known what Peridot means.  However, now I know, and it is indeed a a very beautiful colored gem.  

Thank you to Created by hand Challenge/Quietfire Creations for their Peridot/Shades of Green challenge http://quietfire.ning.com/group/createdbyhandchallenge which had expanded my mind and creativity today.  I woke up early thinking about what I was going to do with this challenge and I was very eager to get started.  But first, there was work (I work from home part time) and then I needed to get the children off to school.  I knew that I wanted to use my Tim Holtz Regal Flourish textured folder and I wanted to try an Adirondack Dabber (Celery) with Pearl Dabber.  I also knew that I wanted to use it as a frame so I took my Spellbinders Custom Design Die Template Elegant Ovals (Our Daily Bread http://www.ourdailybreaddesigns.com/images/ODBD_Labels_One.jpg) and put it through my Cuddlebug so I would have an opening in the middle for me to decorate.  I then used my Tim Holtz blending tool and alcohol ink applicator tools and various Distress Inks:  Bundled Sage, Crushed Olive and Pine Forest.  I stamped my floral background (Stampin' Up) in Crushed Olive and the bird (Stampin' Up) I stamped off once with Pine Forest.  I then used stamps from Our Daily Bread Eternity stamp set.  I finished it off with 3 brads from Stampin' Up.


Thank you for looking.  I was on a bit of a roll today.  I used several of my Adirondack Dabbers and hope to show those off tomorrow.

 

RU! RU! RU!

If you are ever trying to make a special card for someone, there are lots of fun ways to customize.  Once I was asked to make a card for a nursing student that graduated and found a nurse stamp.  The past couple of weeks I added buttons that represent or symbolize things that my in-laws enjoy.  And I even managed to find a paper that had Coney Island on it for a nostalgia piece for my mother-in-law who grew up there.  I recently was asked to make another graduation card.  I could have just put a graduation cap on the front and be done with it.  However, I decided to print out the Rutgers "R" and color it in to make it a special card to give to this graduate.  I used the red and black colors and black ribbon and tied it into a bow and add a pearl bead in the middle to give it a nice touch.  When I use people stamps, I love dressing them up.  It reminds me of being a kid and playing with paper dolls.  To make an outfit with designs on it, all you need to do is stamp the same image on designed paper, cut the area out and lay on top of the original image and glue it down. 

Today I am meeting with my MOPS friends and then my mother-in-law.  I am hoping to have time to try the Created ByHand Challenge.  In the meantime here is the link, if you want to try it out http://createdbyhandchallenge.wordpress.com/.

Texas Hold'em Card

I promised myself I wasn't going to make another birthday card for my brother-in-law that had a game theme.  However, when I was shopping for something 3 dimensional for my mother-in-law's birthday card a few weeks ago, I came across this fun package of buttons "In the Money".  I just knew I could use them for Jeff's birthday card.  So I had the buttons, but I didn't have any paper with card or dice images so I was a bit at a loss.  I decided to look around Splitcoast Stampers.  I came across this project
http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1605696?&si=dice
that inspired me very much and thought I could alter a playing card from a deck that was missing some cards.  I decided to use a Queen of Spades and thankfully, that card was there. 

I first put some glaze over the card because I wanted to make it shiny.  I then decided to use Gold Stickles.  I had wanted to alter the card some more by changing out the queen but I didn't like the way it looked and so just decided to stay with the queen.  I first had it against red paper which looked okay but new it needed more than just the card and some buttons.  I looked through my collection of papers that I just purchased not sure what I would find, but I had this beautiful gold and white paper that I thought I would use for some of my Christmas paper and knew it would make a perfect background and cut that down so the red paper would frame it and then put everything together.

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Lindascozycraftcorner's photostream on Flickr.

Our yard is being transformed. After 7 years of living in hot, dry and sunny Arizona, we are getting a pool. We are in the midst of the process and having a lot of fun.