Hello Everybody!!!

It's been quite a while and much has happened in our family life.

We had a grandson graduate from Michigan Tech and that has been so exciting for our family. He is a remarkable young man: loves the Lord (absolutely the best part), graduated in 3 years, is only 19yrs old, his Bachelor's is in Chemical Engineering, AND he is going on to Massachusets Technological Institute (MIT) to earn his PhD. The school gave him a full scholarship plus a salary for living costs. GOD HAS BLESSED!!!

It made me  realize that there are a lot of wonderful, dedicated young people out there, we just don't hear about them very often.

I also have a lot of cards and lo's to show so I will start with this flower card. Hero Arts challenge for May is flowers and I decided to do these flowers from their "Thanks" collection. I stamped the flowers twice and layered them for a 3D look.

I made this card for a friend's Birthday.
The flowers are stamped twice and layered.
They are colored with colored pencils then added stickles for the center for sparkle.
The corner is cut with my Cricut, Storybook cartridge.

I have also entered this into the http://movingalongwiththetimes.blogspot.com/
They are doing the "two B's" challenge. Two things on the card that start with "B".
In this card we have "Best" friends and "bling" There are purple square rhinestones and lots of sparkles on the center of the flowers. PLUS the purple background circle has sparkle on the design (I know it's not visible...sorry).

That's it for today.
Eat lunch and then take my phone in....it's not working AGAIN!!! UGH!!!

ttfn
e

I love embossing....

Hello again,

I am home from work today and thought it was a wonderful time to catch up with my blog because there were several challenges I wanted to enter.
I made this card for a friend, with these challenges in mind. So here's my info and my card:

The challenge is embossing on http://thestampmanchallenges.blogspot.com/
and for http://samueltaylors.blogspot.com/ the challenge is distressing.
At http://papersundaes.blogspot.com/ they have a challenge to include texture.
The http://tuesdaytaggers.blogspot.com/ challenge is to use something recycled.
I love these sites...go take a look, see if you like them too.

Here's my card:

I don't know why the background took on that pink cast. This is the first time that has happened...I'm going to move the place where I photograph...and, now that I think about it, this is the first time I have used a white paper under the card.

Now that the apology is over, I will tell you about the card. I really enjoyed making it.
The butterfly and the flourish are embossed with UTEE and clear glitter powder on the butterfly.
The flower and  the edges of the card are Distressed  The flower is also sponged with distress inks and edged with turquiose Stickles.
Lots of texture here with the lace, glitter, embossing and a flower made with several layers.
Recycled items are the lace, which is from a wedding a long time ago and the flower is made from leftover paper from another project.

The flourish is a die from Sizzix, I bought it a couple of years ago.
The flower is cut with the Tim Holtz flowers die. I really like that die, it makes perfect flowers for almost any project.

Thank you so much for stopping by.
Please leave me a comment and let me know you were here.

Blessings,
e

Spring Snow.... hmmmm

It's almost Easter and we got about 3" of snow overnight last night. We have already had 70+ degree weather...what's with the snow??? This HAS to be the last hurrah of winter!!! RIGHT????

Well, onward with better things...Easter IS almost here....we are going to my sister's house for Easter, and I can't wait!!! It will be fun, visiting family, long talks and games...it's always best to be with family and friends!
I remember when our kids were home, there would be new outfits, the excitement of children at anything having to do with surprises, and a big dinner to organize, prepare and CLEAN UP after. Now, with all our kids living out of state, those memories are sweet rememberances that we think about and are so very glad that we had the opportunity to experience.

Things are certainly different now...not worse, just different. New memories, new pictures to take and cherish, new traditions to make. Life is GOOD...but we have to embrace the new things, cherish the old, and thank our Heavenly Father for His gifts. And when circumstances that are not good come our way...we have Jesus to talk to, lean on and trust... After all, LIFE IS A TEMPORARY ASSIGNMENT!!! Never forget that!!!

 Okay, on to my card...I have been making a lot of cards lately, for birthdays, etc. but have not watched the challenges to make them fit and have not taken the time to blog. Just too many things on my mind, I guess...I have to FIX that.... Sooooo, finding something to enter a challenge with is kind of difficult. I did make a couple different versions of the one I am going to show you here....I really liked it...it turned out to be very versatile and I was able to fit it for several occasions...Mine never look altogether the same anyway so no worry about sending friends the same card :o)

Pretty simple, easy to make, but it looked nice.
First I stamped the leaf stamp from HERO ARTS on the right side of the cardstock.
Then I cut an opening with a ripped edge look that went into the leaves a little bit for some extra interest.
The designer paper with the butterly is a piece of "Mariposa" paper from DWAV. I love those papers. Of course I embellished the butterfly a little to make it brighter and stand out more because of the dark background.
The writing around the butterfly is done in a very shiny gold, so I used gold to stamp the sympathy sentiment.
I used a pen to run an edge around the opening (4 times) and put rhinestones on the corner.
Also, I stamped the leaves inside the card...I always stamp inside my cards with a coordinating or complimentary stamps or use an embellishment.

Thank you for stopping by.
Please leave me a comment, I would love to hear from you.

ttfn,
e

Butterflies mean spring!!!!

We are having cold weather right now...but I am NOT complaining. I KNOW THAT SPRING IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER!!! It's already in my heart, and I will see it outdoors soon!!!
Michigan takes a long time to get around to being warm. We get teased with a few sunny days and then back to the cold and grey skies...but when it comes, it's AWESOME!!!

All our kids live out of state and we still have three Birthdays to celebrate...so the next month will be filled with long rides and family fun. I LOVE travel of any kind and being with family on top of that, it's like icing on a cake!!! CAN'T WAIT!!!

I've been working like crazy around here! Had lots of Birthdays to make cards for and then have to do taxes on top of that...AND I still have some winter decorations up. Christmas is such a short season and I really enjoy some of the wintry stuff, so I leave it up for a while...BUT IT'S TIME to get SPRING in here.

So anyway, here is one of the cards I made.

 
My inspiration came from Brenda of "Infinite Possibilities". She had a very cute card. All white with a cut-out that she filled with flowers. I just loved it...and came up with this card. Check out her blog, you'll like her stuff.

The deets on my card: White cardstock stamped with Hero Arts "leaves" in black StazOn.
The opening is cut with Spellbinders rectangle (ragged edge).
I cut a piece of designer paper to fit the rectangle and glued it to the back of the opening.
I scribbled three times around the hole and then attached rhinestones to the edge.
All the edges of the white cardstock was roughed up with my scissors...that works better for me than using the tools made for that purpose.

Time to tell you that I am entering this card in thia challenge:
http://samueltaylors.blogspot.com/

God bless you,
ttfn

Orange, Blue and Pink....hmmmmmm

Orange, blue and pink are the colors for this week's challenge on the PLAY DATE CAFE blog.
I saw those colors and I KNEW I had to try a card. What a combination!!! .I knew it would work because ALL colors work in different shades and different amounts... but I just really wanted to try it!!!
How fun!!!

So here's what I came up with. The heart, which is really the center of the orange/pink combo was a piece I had done while playing around with embossing powder and Pearl Ex thinned out with water. It turned out to be totally the right colors. YAY!!!

 That little strip under the double circle Martha Stewart punch is little beads. Doesn't that add a nice happy touch to the card? I love it. I haven't used beads for quite a while. I'm glad I tried it there. I really like it.

http://theplaydatecafe.blogspot.com/
I am also entering it in the Hero Arts Challenge for Birthdays.
I love their blog too. Check it out.
http://heroarts.com/blogs/club/march-2011-contest-details/

Thanks for stopping by.
e

A Birthday Card!

Here is a Birthday card I made for my boss...I'm a little late with giving it to him, but that's been my life lately...the ideas are there and I can't wait to get in there and start putting it together, but it seems that stuff just keeps coming up and keeping me from what I REALLY love to do...

I wish I had made the words a bit smaller...they look too big to me now, even though it didn't seem that way when I was putting them together.

The paper is from the Mariposa pack by DCWV...I love that pack.
The bird, butterfly and birdcage are cuts from that paper. Isn't that birdcage the prettiest ever? All the little wires on it are gold glittery. You can't see it here but it is very lovely (and I don't use that word often!!!)
The words are cut with my Cricket. I still find that a very useful tool in my craft room. I've had it for almost as long as I've been crafting (almost 6 yrs now). I couldn't work without the Cricket, dies that can be cut with my Cuttlebug and punches. These tools make most of my embellishments.
Last but not least is the heart at the top. I am disappointed that it doesn't show up too well in the photo. I cut it from grungeboard. embossed it 4 times with a turquiose powder and then painted with different colors of Pearl Ex. I made a bunch of these embellies in different shapes and I love most of them. I don't go for grunge that's too weird but that look of being artsy and kind of out of the ordinary is my "thing".

So, here's the two challenges I am going to enter this card into:
http://toptiptuesday.blogspot.com/
http://abc-challenge.blogspot.com/
http://www.simonsaysstampschallenge.blogspot.com/

Thanks for stopping by.
ttfn

A Gatefoild Card....

This was such an interesting project. I haven't made too many of these, but I really like the result and it's fun to "get out of the box" so to speak. I'll have to do more of these.

I wasn't quite sure where to start and then I saw that Timeless Tuesday Challenge required 3 design papers; There She Goes Challenge required colors pink, kraft and ivory and Simon Says Stamp required making your own embellishment. That really got my mind going...I had just bought a pack of papers from DCWV, called the Mariposa Stack...It is beautiful and I couldn't wait to use it.

So, I picked the appropriate colors, cut bits and pieces apart for matching what I wanted and started glueing.
The card base is kraft cardstock and I used an old rub-on I had for the words "YOU ARE SPECIAL". It went so well on that front panel.

There is a large flourish on the inside panel. It came from that same sheet that the words were cut from.

The butterfly is a Martha Stewart punch. I punched it out on white slightly glittered paper from SU and then embossed it three times with kaleidescope powder. I have a sheet of transparency that I colored with Alcohol Inks in different colors and then I use it to cut out embellishments. So I placed the glittered butterfly on top of the transparency, cut around it and glue dotted just in the middle, leaving the wings free Comes out really nice.  The black pearls are from ZVA.

Like I said, this is beautiful paper, doesn't need a whole lot of additional embellishments.

Here's the challenges:
http://tsgclearstamps.blogspot.com/search/label/TSG%20Challenges
http://thecuttlebugspot.blogspot.com/
http://simonsaysstampschallenge.blogspot.com/

Thank you much for stopping by.
Hope you enjoyed it.
Be blessed,
e