A bird in winter....

Here is a card I made for the challenge over on "Our Creative Corner". I fell in love with their inspiration picture...a chickadee in winter on a bush with red berries... Can't think of anything lovelier than that. I LOVE,
LOVE, LOVE birds...bird pictures, live birds, watching birds... all a favorite pasttime of mine. and I love rich, vibrant colors, like the red berries. So I just had to make a card for the occasion.

I have made a commitment to myself for this year...every card I make will have a new technique or feature that I had not done before. On this card, I cut the frame out into two parts, and then put a thin piece of black cardstock on to my background picture to look like a double frame. It took a lot longer than just matting once or twice, but I like the effect.

The background branches and berries are a Penny Black stamp I bought a while ago but haven't used it much. It's a beautiful stamp, I need to drag it out more often. I stamped on watercolor paper, I'm not sure I like the effect all that much. I'll have to do a card on my regular cardstock and see how that turns out. The branches on the watercolor paper kind of mottled together and I'll have to see how they look without the watercolor effect.

The bird is a punch from Stampin'Up!  I have used that punch over and over. It just works. I cut it out on a swirly red patterned paper, then double backed it with black cardstock so that I would have a black edge on top and bottom. I inked over the paper with a deeper red and then covered it with PPA glaze. The glaze made the bird...it just looks thick and rich and shiny. The branches under the bird are on the bird punch, and they always seem to add just the right touch.

Challenge entered: http://ourcreativecorner6.blogspot.com/

Well, thanks for visiting my blog.

Please leave me a comment....I LOVE comments.

ttfn

e

Brrrrrrrr...it's cold outside!!!!!!

Hey everybody....January is here, in full blast...Snow and cold in most of the country, including Michigan!!! I am a sun and beach kind of a girl....so what am I doing in Michigan you ask....I DON'T KNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well, on to card talk... I was so excited to get back into my craft room after the busy holidays. I loved every moment of family, friends, church and other activities... but I really missed seeing the ideas that roll around in my head come to life on my crafting table.  We all need that release. That fulfillment of creativity going from an idea to a real thing you can look at and touch. Not that it all comes out as beautiful or as perfect as it does in our imagination, but what we do end up with is wonderful and our own creation. That's the best part... knowing your heart is in the project you just created. So, we share it with our friends and hope that it gives them pleasure knowing that we are sharing ourselves with them.

Here is a thank you card I made. I really like the clean colors and the large white pearls.
 I bought my first gold resist pen for this and I really love it! Very easy to use too. I edged all the layers with the gold resist, using a ruler to keep the edge even.

The rosette is new to me. I don't like them all that much but I wanted to try my hand at it so that I would at least know how to make them. Pretty simple. This one is much fuller than it needs to be. I cut two 12" strips. It did make it kind of hard to handle. The strips were 1 1/2" wide. Since then I have used just one 12" strip and 1 1/4 - 1 1/2" wide. That seems to be just about right. I scored the rosette every 1/4". I like that because that keeps the rosette pretty small in height. I used a lot of strong glue to keep the rosette together. Wouldn't want it to unravel in a few weeks.

I have entered this card in these challenges:
http://www.flourishes.org/category/challenges/timeless-tuesday/
http://ourdailybreaddesignsblog.blogspot.com/


Well, that's it for me.
Keep warm and be blessed.
Love on someone today.
ttfn,
e

 

A NEW YEAR!!!

Hello to everyone who read this
I want to wish you a very BLESSED and WONDERFUL 2011!!!
May it be the best year of your life!!!

To start the year we had a wonderful church service.... GREAT sermon to start the new year.
We were challenged to fast for 21 days to focus on our relationship with God and seeking His will for our lives. AWESOME!!!

Want to share a winter card with you:
Our need for Birthday cards never stops so I actually make many more Birthday cards than I do Holiday cards. Here is a card I made for a December Birthday.

I love the colors on this card. The background is a shimmery white with a subtle swirley design. Silver ribbon, silver pearls, silver hearts. The snowflake was cut with my Cricut and embossed with Kaleidescope shimmer. I LOVE that embossing powder. The card, of course, is the same cardstock as the snowflake.

I hope you like this card as much as I do.... I think it's one of my favorites.

I have entered this card into the following challenges:

http://marksfinestpapers.blogspot.com/search/label/Speedy%27s%20Friends%20Challenge

http://www.flourishes.org/category/timeless-tuesday/

Thank you for visiting my blog.

Blessings,

e

2011 Coming Up!!!!

Hope you all had a very BLESSED CHRISTMAS...
We have our daughter and family visiting and are enjoying our time together. It makes our holidays very special!!!  Right now it is noon, all of us are still in our pyjamas, and watching "The Aristocats"!!! how fun is that??????

I do not have a card for you today... I do need to go make a couple though, so I will be putting some on really soon. I have a lot of ideas flying around in my head and I'm really getting anxious to go and play with my "STUFF" :O)  I have some new items that will be really fun to try out.

I am looking forward to a wonderful, blessed 2011!