TSOT583 Deer John

Happy Wednesday, peeps!  Popping in today with a special card for a special guy...today is hubby John's birthday!  I usually make him a sailboat card but since he is a hunter, I decided to make a "deer" John card, LOL:

Obviously, it's not THAT kind of Dear John card, and hopefully he'll like it!  I stamped the deer on Very Vanilla cardstock in Stazon Black and used Cinnamon Cider ink to color her in.  She was fussy-cut and mounted on another piece of Very Vanilla which was shaded with Misty Moonlight and Night of Navy inks.  The background panels are from some 6x6 pads in my stash, and the horizontal Mossy Meadow strip was distressed and stamped with Gorgeous Grunge.  Sentiment is from Your Biggest Fan!

My sketch came from Try Stampin' On Tuesday:

Thanks for visiting today!

In addition to all the other gazillion things I have going on this week, it's Operation Christmas Child shoebox packing time! We did shoeboxes on our own this year instead of at church, so Cassidy spent Sunday afternoon getting hers ready:

She did one for a boy and one for a girl and she had fun picking out all the goodies to put inside!  It's so fun to imagine the children opening them up!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Your Biggest Fan (ret), Nature's Beauty (ret), Gorgeous Grunge (ret)
Card stock & Papers	Very Vanilla, Mossy Meadow, Cinnamon Cider (ret), Forest DSP (ScrapBerry), Wanted DSP (Cosmo Cricket)
Ink	Stazon Black, Mossy Meadow, Cinnamon Cider, Soft Suede
Accessories	Dimensionals
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Stitched Shapes Dies (ret)

GDP290 Seashells

Happy Wednesday, peeps!  Hope your week is going well so far!  I have another really easy card today using the beautiful set, Friends are Like Seashells.  I just recently got the whole bundle and have been having fun playing with it! This particular card only uses the stamp, dies and DSP, and I used the Global Design Project sketch for it:

This is such a great basic sketch, I love it!  And here we go:

I used two patterns from the Sand & Sea DSP to create a layer on top of a white card.  I refuse to give up my Stitched Shapes dies....even though SU retired them, I am hoping they'll bring them back again!!  I used a circle die and Basic White cardstock, stamping some dots from Nature's Beauty, then simply stamping the shells and starfish in Blushing Bride ink, diecutting them and popping them up:

The sentiment was stamped in Smoky Slate and cut simply into a little banner.  I did coat the shells with Wink of Stella...I so wish it would show up in the photo!  Simple and sweet!

So I have been looking for some other spring birds that usually pass through, but my favorites are the orioles....they have such gorgeous coloring.  I usually hear them first, then run outside with my binoculars to scan the trees to see where they are hiding.  It was exceptionally warm yesterday and I had my craft room window open and I heard one....and it was CLOSE!  I peeked outside my window and almost had a heart attack...there was an oriole on the suet feeder right outside my window!  They never come close to the house!  My camera was handy and I was stealthy enough to get a few shots through the screen...the white blur at the bottom is my window sill!!

It's been a great spring for my birdwatching hobby!  Thanks for popping in today...enjoy it and be blessed!

"Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in your hearts:  Do not fear the reproach of men or be terrified by their insults.  For the moth will eat them up like a garment; the worm will devour them like wool.  But my righteousness will last forever, my salvation through all generations."  Isaiah 51:7-8

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Friends are Like Seashells, Nature's Beauty
Card stock & Papers	Basic White, Sand & Sea DSP
Ink	Blushing Bride, Smoky Slate
Accessories	Dimensionals
Tools	Big Shot, Seaside Seashells Dies, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Stitched Shapes Dies (ret)

IB160 Vintage Hearts

Happy Thursday, peeps!  Danni has a beautiful rustic photo for us today at Inspired By...love it!

 

And here's the optional sketch....I sort of used it!

I was really in the mood to create a vintage, eclectic card and when I saw the photo prompt, I was thrilled!  So here's my take on those cute little hearts:

Gee whizzies, there is so much going on here...I started with a Sahara Sand gingham mat, which I ran through a Perfect Polka Dot embossing folder, then distressed the edges.  

I printed out a digital bingo card in Rococo Rose; you can barely see it, but I took a vellum doily and colored it with Blushing Bride ink and Frost White Shimmer paint and adhered it to the mat.  Then I added some Blushing Bride ribbon and a few punched and diecut hearts:

The main heart was created with Sahara Sand cardstock, stamped with a polka dot patterns from Timeless Textures, and I already had a little snippet of Whisper White cardstock that had been embossed with the Ornate Garden embossing folder.  I used Blushing Bride, Rococo Rose and Sahara Sand inks to color the raised florals with an Aquapainter.  Instead of lace, I used some velveteen ribbon, then added some Linen Thread and a couple more hearts in Blushing Bride and Rococo Rose.  I made a button and banner from some rose-colored glimmer paper, then stamped and fussy-cut the word "love" from Lovely You.  My final embellishment was a little pearl I colored with a Blend.  I shabbied up a lot of the edges with a sponge dauber to give it a more vintage look!  I left the inside plain, and I'll add a sentiment when I figure out how I'm going to use it!

I chose my color palette from the Global Design Project, which worked beautifully with our inspiration photo:

The Inspired By design team outdid themselves with their creativity this week!  I hope you'll stop by the blog, check out what the made and then share your sweet creation with us as well!  Thanks for popping by!

It's just about finished!  A few more finishing touches and it will be done!

I am pretty sure Mommy had a big hand in the decor!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Lovely You, Nature's Beauty, Timeless Textures (ret), Digital Bingo Card
Card stock & Papers	Sahara Sand, Whisper White, Rococo Rose, Sahara Sand Gingham DSP (ret), Blushing Bride Prints DSP (ret),. Rose Glimmer Paper (ret)
Ink	Sahara Sand, Blushing Bride, Rococo Rose
Accessories	Blushing Bride Ribbon, Vellum Doily, Blushing Bride Reinker, Shimmer Frost Paint, Pearl, Linen Thread, Velveteen Ribbon (ret), Dimensionals
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Be Mine Dies, Ornate Garden Embossing Folder, Sponge Daubers, Aquapainter, Perfect Polka Dot Embossing Folder (ret), Triple Heart Punch (ret), Button Die (unknown)

PP491 CAS Masculine Cards

Happy Sunday, everyone! Hope your weekend is going well!  Ann is our Paper Players hostess and it's Clean and Simple week!  Be sure to stop by the Paper Players blog for a refresher of the definition of clean and simple!

I always like to use Nature's Beauty for masculine cards; the animals are perfect images for guys!  I saw this card yesterday and I liked how Lisa created a frame around the edge of her card, although mine doesn't look quite as good as hers, LOL!  I used the tree image from the same set to frame my little fox:

I stamped the trees on a piece of Crumb Cake cardstock with Crumb Cake ink, then inked up my fox in Memento Black and colored him with watercolor pencils, first with Pumpkin Pie, then Real Red, and then Early Espresso, to get the rusty color I was looking for.  I blended the colors together with a Blender Pen, then added some White and stamped a sentiment in Cajun Craze.  It looked a little blah, so I diecut it with the Stitched Rectangle die and did some sponging, and that helped give it a little definition.

It went on a Crumb Cake card base and I stamped a simple birthday sentiment on the inside, along with some more trees:

I had a few scraps sitting on my desk; this embossed Merry Merlot panel as well as a diecut Gold Foil panel, so I put them together, stamped the deer image from the same set, colored her with some Blends and added a get-well sentiment:

It felt good to get them off my desk!  I hope you'll find some inspiration from our challenge this week; to me, masculine cards are always a challenge, but if you make them clean and simple, they needn't be!  Please share yours with us at the Paper Players blog and while you're there, check out what the design team created as well!  Thanks for popping in!

Using the little fox on my card reminded me of my grandfather; he passed away before I was born, my dad was in college when he died.  But he was an avid fox hunter and often went hunting with his beagles.  (Before anyone gets upset, fox hunters don't kill the fox...they just enjoy riding their horses and testing the mettle of the dogs!) There are still fox hunts around, but with the developments and building boom, it is more challenging to find places to hunt.  Anyway, all that to say that this is the only photo I have of my grandfather; he is sitting on his horse and I think maybe he was ready for the hunt?  Not sure, but in my imagination that's what he is doing!  My dad was born in 1929, so I am guessing it was in the 30s, but again, I am not sure.  He certainly is handsome and I can see where my dad got his looks, LOL!

 Thanks for indulging me!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

First Card Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Nature's Beauty, Itty Bitty Greetings
Card stock & Papers	Crumb Cake
Ink	Crumb Cake, Memento Black, Cajun Craze
Accessories
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Sponge, Watercolor Pencils, Blender Pen

Second Card Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Nature's Beauty, Itty Bitty Greetings
Card stock & Papers	Very Vanilla, Merry Merlot, Gold Foil
Ink	Memento Black, Merry Merlot, Early Espresso
Accessories	Dimensionals
Tools	Big Shot, Pinewood Planks EF, Sponge, Stitched Rectangle Dies

GDP222 Fox Hello

Happy Friday, peeps!  A quick post today for the Global Design Project sketch:

I recently saw a card where the image was colored with SU's colored pencils alone, and left  unwatercolored and unblended, and it had a nice rustic look, so I thought I would try it with Nature's Beauty.  Although my fox looks like he is on a baseball team with those black smudges (I tried to fill in his eyes), I thought it okay enough to use on a card:

After stamping the image on Crumb Cake, I softly colored in the image with the pencils and added some shading for the sky behind him.  I diecut it with a Stitched Rectangle die and added a pretty little sentiment from Honey Bee and a braided twine embellishment:

I embossed a piece of Cajun Craze with the Woodland EF and added some Cajun Craze DSP to the front of the Crumb Cake cardbase to finish it off.  Thanks for popping in today!

Silly little Rudolph!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

More Toile Christmas

Happy Monday, peeps!  Boy, it was a cold weekend...yesterday, in the space of three hours, we had rain, snow and sunshine!  We are gearing up for Thanksgiving, too...looking forward to it!  I wanted to share a couple of projects made with Toile Tidings DSP, Toile Christmas and Nature's Beauty; they all coordinate so beautifully!  The first one is a buckle card; this is the card my club girls learned to do, and I got the idea from my sweet friend Cindy; you can see her YouTube video here!  She made a fall card, but I changed it up to make a Christmas card.  The cardinal is big, but he is quite easy to watercolor..it works up fast!  

And here is the inside of the card...you can see where the "belt" fits into the slot from the front, underneath the stitched oval on which the cardinal is attached:

I had an extra card packet cut, so I decided to make another, changing the image to the deer from Nature's Beauty because the patterned paper featured the wildlife:

I fussy-cut him out, then adhered him on top of the same image I stamped on the stitched oval, and I added different sentiments from Itty Bitty Christmas:

While I had Nature's Beauty still on my desk, I noticed a little branch stamp....I am bad for ignoring the little images in a stamp set and just focusing on the big ones!  This little branch is a real sleeper!  I lightly traced a circle on a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock and stamped the branch around it in Garden Green five times; I then stamped again, filling in the "gaps" and stamping off once on my scrap paper to get a lighter image.  It created the nicest wreath! 

I diecut it with a Stitched Shape square die and added a piece of (retired) Brushed Gold cardstock behind it.  The gold Metallic Pearls and some retired gold ribbon finished it off perfectly.  My sentiment was from Shine Bright, and it was stamped with the Gold Delicata pad:

I mounted it on some green Toile Tidings DSP and mounted it on a Garden Green card; the inside sentiment was from Shining Brightly as well!  What a gorgeous sentiment!

Thanks for popping in today!

While we were running errands on Saturday morning, Cassidy and I went to our neighbor's farm to get eggs.  She likes to go to the calf barn to see the kittens, but it was all closed up and the farmer wasn't around to open it.  When we got back in the car, we saw this:

Hmmmm...she is supposed to be IN the barn, not outside of the barn.  Someone left the gate open, so I went and got Mrs Farmer (we went to school together!) and by the time she came out to corral it, another one had escaped!  They weren't in any hurry to get anywhere...they were just eating the grass around the barn!  But we thought it was funny!  Escaping cows!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

IB97 Warm Woolen WIshes

Happy Thursday, peeps!  Time for another Inspired By challenge and with the upcoming COLD weather forecast, I think it's very appropriate! So here we go:

And here's Laurel's prompt....check out those warm blankets!  We're going to need them this weekend!

I know my background is more plaid than striped like the blankets in the picture, but while checking some cards out on other blogs, I came across this card by Heather Telford, and I loved the background so much, I just had to re-create it!  I actually had it lying on my desk, waiting to be embellished, when I saw Laurel's inspiration and I thought it might work!  I also used the Global Design Project's sketch for this week:

So to create the background, I stamped the Buffalo Check stamp in Smoky Slate on Smoky Slate cardstock, then added Cajun Craze stripes with a SU marker.  The bunny from Nature's Beauty was stamped on a stitched panel with Memento ink and colored with Blends, and the little stitched sentiment piece is from an old Whippersnapper set, stamped in Cajun Craze.  The Nature's Beauty set happens to have a little "snow" stamp, so I filled in the background with it, then added some Ice Stampin' Glitter snow: 

This pretty little sentiment from Greatest Part of Christmas hostess set was stamped on the inside:

These are unusual colors for a Christmas card, but sometimes it's fun to think outside the box!  I hope you'll play along with us and use the inspiration photo to create something warm and fuzzy!  And check out what the DT created at Inspired By too! Thanks for popping by today!

A little snuggle time:

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Buffalo Check, Nature's Beauty, Greatest Part of Christmas, Winter Schminter (Whippersnapper)
Card stock & Papers	Whisper White, Cajun Craze, Smoky Slate
Ink	Smoky Slate, Memento Black
Accessories	White and Silver Baker's Twine (ret), Ice Stampin' Glitter
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Blends

TSOT430 Red Fox

Happy Saturday, peeps!  It's supposed to be a beautiful day today, finally without gale-force winds blowing us around!  I made a few cards yesterday using the beautiful Toile Tidings DSP, it is really gorgeous and easy to work with!  I started with the Try Stamping on Tuesday sketch:

chose a couple of patterns and went to work.  So here we go:

I like that the images in the Nature's Beauty set coordinate nicely with the prints in the DSP; I simply stamped the fox on a piece of Very Vanilla, made a mask with a post-it note, and stamped the trees behind him.  The sentiment is from Cup of Christmas, and just for a bit of contrast, I matted the image in Crumb Cake:

I made a little scallop diecut border of Crumb Cake to accent the red ribbon, add a bit of snowy glitter, and it was done!  I love this layout, and I love these papers!  Thanks for popping in today!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Nature's Beauty, Cup of Christmas
Card stock & Papers	Very Vanilla, Crumb Cake, Toile Tidings DSP
Ink	Real Red
Accessories	Real Red Cotton Ribbon
Tools	Big Shot, Stitched Rectangle Dies, Be Mine Dies, Dazzling Diamonds Glitter