Happy Birthday

It is Monday - time to show some love for your old supplies.

The paper is a spring bundle from Die Cuts With A View from 2014.  I need to keep that pad out to make some Easter cards.  The stamp is an old favorite from Stampendous colored with Copics.  The sentiment stamp is new.

Remember to dig out your old supplies and show them some love.

Here Comes Another Monkey

Another card for the Collins Home in Seneca, SC.  This is a Stampendous monkey and paper from Doodlebug.

Thanks for stopping by.

You Rock

This cute little frog is a digi stamp.  I do like to use digi stamps because you can adjust the size of the image to the project you are making.  Even though I thought the frog would be used for a card for a boy - I could not resist using Stickles on his dots.  Actually I could not get my Glossy Accents to come out of my bottle and I was impatient and too lazy to go find a pin to open up the tip.

The papers were laying on my design tables and the sentiment was done with the computer.

Remember we all "rock" in one way or another.  Have a wonderful day.

Male Encouragement Card

Here is a card I made - it can be used to encourage a young man or uplift their soul.  It really has so many uses.

Enjoy.  This uses supplies I had on hand plus I have had this stamp for a long time.

Quick and Easy Cards

What can you do with one sheet of double sided scrapbook paper?  You can make six cards.

I cut the paper 12 x 6.  I then cut each piece into 3 pieces 4 x 6.  Each 6 inch piece was cut into 4 inches and 2 inches.  I used a edge die from Lawn Lawn to cut the curved stitched edge.

I cut a card base 4 inches by 5 1/4.  I first adhered the orange piece to the card front and then carefully adhered the floral piece over the top.

The sentiment was a digi I found on the internet.  I sized it so I could cut it with a stitched circle I had.  I used pink chalk to color the digi. I just adhered them to the front of the card off center.  I added a little blink to the centers of a few flowers.  It was very easy to do.  The other five are in a kit for when I go to my daughter's.  I can assemble them there.

Everyone have a lovely Tuesday.

Oldie Moldie Monday

Oldie Moldie Monday - time to show some love for your old supplies.

Today I am sharing a card I am sending to a little boy in my hometown who is battling cancer.  I hope it brings a smile to his face.

The dog reminds me of my daughter's dog - Rocky (aka Rock Star).  She loved to chase her balls.

Remember to show some love for your old supplies.  They still make great projects - all they need is your creative hand to make a beautiful project.

ATC's With the Canvas Corp Brand Team

I recently became a new design team member with Canvas Corp Brands.  A team building activity was to make ATC's.  There were 12 people in my group.  Each ATC I have received have been beautiful and everyone of them very unique.  Today I am going to share my ATC.

I think of all the ATC's I received mine was the only painted/stamped one.  I guess I had a hard time leaving my card making skills behind me.

Here are the supplies I started with.  The base of my ATC was Canvas Corp ATC Artist Trading Cards (White).  There were 25 ATC's in the package.  They have the basic ATC cards in many different bases - ie black, kraft, cream, burlap.....

I used all these paints from the Tattered Angels line at Canvas Corp to achieve my watercolor look on my ATC.

The flower stamp is from Penny Black and the sentiment is from Paper Smooches.

Here are pictures of the process of making the ATC's.

Yes the color of those poppies started out with yellow with pink on top.

See what a beautiful orangey color I achieved.

I then watered down my paints and colored the background of the cards.

I decided my cards needed just something a little extra on the left side.  I found my trusty Cardstock Pad and carefully cut a single row of black with ivory dots.

They were adhered  to the side of the ATC.  After this step was done, I am sure I went and placed all the ATC's in the press.  The press is four books.  It is amazing what a good heavy press will do to flatten out painted paper.

I sent my ATC's to 12 people and I believe half of them were outside the United States.  It is nice knowing that a small piece of my creative soul is now all over the world.

If you have not tried ATC's, you really should.  It is fun but sometimes difficult to work in such a tiny space.  It is always good to stretch our creative souls.

Here is a look at the finished ATC.

Thanks for stopping by.

Laugh, Create, Smile

I think those words are perfect words to base your retirement on.  I love to create and now I have time to create - my job will no longer suck the creativity out of my soul.  I can get up every morning and if there is nothing on my calendar for the day, I can create anything I wish to.  This makes me smile and sometimes I even start laughing.  It is a laugh of joy because now my time is my own.

I am on the Design Team for Canvas Corps and they asked up to create a 4 x 4 canvas that somewhat describes us.  Here are the things from the canvas that represent me.

• The words are a favorite of mine now, especially the CREATE.  
• I love flowers.  I love to play in my flower beds.  Before I had paper therapy I had dirt therapy.  Now I have several drawers full of flowers for card making and I also love to make my own flowers.  (The orange flowers on the canvas were made from burlap from Canvas Corp.)
• I love bright colors.  Teal/aqua is a favorite.  I love pink (there is both a light pink and bright pink on this canvas).  Pink is also my Mom's favorite color so I always think of her when I create with pink.  Orange has also become a favorite.  At one time in my life, I thought orange only belonged to fall and Halloween but I had a student worker whose favorite color was orange so she opened my eyes to how versatile the color orange is.
• Do you see the fabric on my canvas?  My first love was fabric and sewing.  Although paper has become my favorite things to craft with, you will often see fabric showing up in my designs.  
• There is a twine bow in the flowers.  I know if you asked many of my card making friends, they would mention all the bows I make.  

I am having so much fun creating for Canvas Corp.  I love the versatility of their three lines:  Canvas Corp, Tattered Angels and 7Gypsies.  

I hope you enjoy this glimpse inside of my creative soul.

Here are some close ups of different parts of the canvas.

Here is a close up of two flowers that I made.  The orange flower is made from burlap which was painted orange.  If you have trouble with your burlap fraying, paint it with gel medium and it will not fray.  The aqua flower is strands of threads pulled from canvas fabric.  It is colored, wet with gel medium and wound into a coil.

The sentiment was stamped with black Versafine Ink and clear embossed.  It was fussy cut and was pop dotted on the front of the canvas.

Here you can see the different flowers and also the colored twine bow tucked among the flowers.

Thanks for letting me share a part of me.  Have a very wonderful day.  

Oldie Moldie Monday

Oldie Moldie Monday - time to show some love for your old supplies.  Well I dug out my monkey stamps and a 6 x 6 pad from My Mind's Eye.  There is no date on the paper so I can't tell you how well I have aged the paper.

Remember to show some love for your well aged supplies.  They still make wonderful cards.

Happy Valentine's Day

What better way to celebrate Valentines Day than to post a Christmas Card.

The current challenge at Jingle Belles is "text me" - to use text in your Christmas card.  

This challenge reached right out and grabbed me; I knew exactly what stamp I was going to use and miracle of miracles, I knew where the stamp was.  I had bought it last fall and never used it.  It is from Hero Arts.  I also have another stamp which is perfect for the inside:  Sending you peace, love and joy for the holidays.

I made my own background paper.  I started with a piece of watercolor paper.  I put one shade of distress ink and water on a piece of acetate and then squished it onto the watercolor paper.  I kept doing this with this color until I had this shade of blue all over the paper.  I let it dry.  I then repeated the process with another shade of blue distress ink.  Here is a look at the piece of paper I made and yes there are two shades of blue on this paper.

I inked my stamp with VersaMark ink and used Silver embossing powder.  I then cut out the design with a die cut.  This was matted with a dark blue metallic paper.  Silver thread was wrapped around the card and a bow was added.  The image is pop dotted on top of the card front.  A couple silver glitter dots were added to the opposite corner.  A very simple but beautiful card (In my opinion).

The inside is finished also.  Yeah Barb.

Lazy Blogger

I have been such a lazy blogger.  I have been making cards and projects but just don't blog.  You would think with retirement I would be blogging my heart out - no - I am lazy.  Today I will share one of the cards I have made for the Collins Home in Seneca, SC.  I have asked some of my card making friends to make cards to send to the staff at the Collins Home so they can be used for the children.  Sometimes card makers need a purpose for their card making or an outlet for the cards they make.

I have been using my supplies that I possess (just a few).  One of my favorite things for children are my Stampendous monkey stamps.  I am reinking them and making some fun simple cards.  Here is one to inspire you today.

Isn't she the sweetest little monkey?

It is cold here in Wisconsin - a wonderful day to hibernate and create.

Valentine Card

I could not resist this moose stamp when I saw it.  My daughter lives in Alaska and they see moose all the time so I had to have it for a valentine card for her.  I made a total of 4.  Two I left with my friend Mary in South Carolina to send to her grandsons.  The other card I kept I sent to my Ganny baby along with a book I bought for her in South Carolina.

Isn't he the cutest moose in the entire world.

The post office will be kept in business for a couple more days since I was there.  Two packages and many valentine cards - $21 later.  Ouch.

Oldie Moldie Monday

It is Monday, time to show some love to your old supplies.

I have a wonderful collection of monkey stamps so decided I wanted to make a somewhat non traditional valentine card for a little boy in my home town who is battling cancer.  Every couple months I try to send him a card to maybe bring a smile to his face.

The paper is a 6 x 6 pad from Basic Grey called pb&j.  It is from 2011.

I used my Silhouette to cut the heart and the banner.  I was attempting to do a sketch challenge but it was not working so I went off on my own design tangent with my card.  If you look closely, I did some embossing with clear powder on the heart with a new background stamp I bought from Hero Arts.  The heart was a little blah - but this dresses it up.  The sentiment is from Simon Says Stamp.  The monkey is colored with Copics.

Remember to show some love to your old supplies.  They still make wonderful projects.

Valentine's Day Ensemble

So you may ask, what is a Valentine Ensemble.  My ensemble consists of a card, a candy jar (which is a recycled dressing jar) and a small bag which could be used to hold treats or a gift card.

The bright pink dots paper, solid pink paper and white paper bag are products from Canvas Corp.

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the circles, scalloped circles and hearts for my ensemble.  I used my Cuddlebug and a dot embossing folder to dry emboss the bag, background on card and white centers on the pink scalloped circle.  Isn't that bag cute embossed.  The embossing dresses it up.  The sentiment is a stamp from Simon Says Stamp that I won commenting on a blog hop.  I have used it so much this year on my cards.

I am entering this set in the Wednesday challenge at Simon Says Stamp where the challenge is "heart".  There are a few hearts on my project.

Well I must confess the candy jar is almost empty.  Those M&M's taste wonderful.  I hope the remainder of your Friday is awesome.

Christmas in February

I am trying to make Christmas cards throughout the year so I have enough in December to mail out to everyone.  I have even decided to do some multiples of cards.  This is a card that will have 6 made just like it.

I like to buy gift tags at the end of the holiday season  to use on cards.  I have many that have not been used yet but this particular gift tag was just bought this year at Tuesday Morning.  I believe there were 12 in the packet so I will get my money's worth out of my 99 cent investment.

The paper is from a new American Crafts 6 x 6 I bought when I was in South Carolina.  I only bought three 6 x 6 pads while I was there.  It was my first time in AC Moore and they had quite a few but I only got one there.  The two Christmas ones were bought at a scrapbook store in Seneca, South Carolina.

I am playing along with the challenge at Merry Monday Christmas Challenge.  The challenge is to use Santa on a card.

Isn't he the sweetest looking Santa?  The cord I used on the card is the cord for the gift tag.  It matched perfectly so use it.  The sentiment is from Hero Arts.  The card is also fairly flat so should only cost me the extra for being nonmachinable.  I have 5 more cards to make just like one.  I also have all the insides ready.  I am going to be "somewhat" prepared for sending my Christmas cards in December.  Maybe I will even get them addressed in November.  Wouldn't that be a novel idea.

Have a wonderful day.  I am recovering from my vacation in South Carolina.  I am having lunch with a friend today.  I am looking forward to that.

Pretty In Pink

As the cold winds blow in February and the snow falls, I start to think about flowers and spring.  Canvas Corp has a beautiful collection called The Watering Can.  I used the sheet of paper from this collection called The Watering Can:  Seed Packets on Ivory.  There are six images on the sheet that called out to me to make cards.

The images are beautiful in the black and cream but I wanted to highlight the flowers with the color pink.  Pink is my Mom's favorite color so I am very partial to it.  I colored the flowers with the Plain Jane Baseboard paint (Gerber) which has been mixed with water to make it more transparent.

The images are matted with black.  The images have rounded corners so I rounded the corners on the black mats. 

I colored seam binding with the paint.  I wet the seam binding and then put some paint and water in a small container with the seam binding.  Once I achieved the color I wanted, I scrunched it up in a ball and let it dry.  Once it is dry it keeps this crumpled look and makes the most beautiful bows.  These bows are very easy to make and because of the crumples, they hide any mistakes in your bow making.  (As an afterthought I wish I had added some Tattered Angels mist to the ribbon when it was wet to make it sparkle.) 

I wrapped a small piece of the ribbon around each of the matted card fronts.  After this was done, foam tape was added to the back of the fronts and mounted on the card front.  

Bows were then tied and adhered to the front of the card.  

   

Do these wonderful images make you think of spring and flowers?  I am looking forward to having some time to work on my flower gardens this year.  My Mom loved her flowers and so I plant lots of pink flowers since she is no longer able to have a flower garden.  

Oldie Moldie Monday Valentine Card

If you look at last week's Oldie Moldie Monday post you will see that this card has the same layout.  I was trying to come up with a prototype that my friend and I could make for the shut ins in her church.  We decided this card would work.  A bible verse will be added to the inside.  We will have made 20 of this card by the time you read this post.

Happy Monday/actually Tuesday because Monday I needed to post my Mixed Media Mojo monthly challenge post.  Show some love to your old supplies.

Mixed Media Mojo February Challenge

The February challenge on Mixed Media Mojo is Heart with the added twist of Paper Piecing.

Since it is winter I decided to use some bright wonderful colors for my challenge piece.  I used some of my Dylusions paints.  Love the bright cheery colors.  A piece of cardboard was sitting around so it was asking to be used on the challenge also.  I hope you enjoy my creation.

Please come back later in the month and I will talk about the steps I used to make this canvas.  Come join us - you know in the month of February you need to make something with a heart on it.