It's been awhile....

I can't believe how long it's been since I posted anything here!! The sunny summer weather, vacation and grandkids being out of school have been sucking up my time - and I've been loving it! It hasn't left a whole lot of time for making cards, but it's been a lot of fun.  They just bring so much joy to our lives!!



Max and Grandma playing his favorite game
"3 of a Crime"!



Grandpa, Cole and Lucy

We just got back from a week long family vacation on a lake in northern Michigan. Our 3 grown kids and their spouses/significant others, grandkids, a couple of neices & nephew, and our daughter-in-law's mother and step-father. There were 15 of us at one point! We rented a house right on a lake: 6-bedrooms, 5-bathrooms, huge house! The weather could've been warmer and sunnier, but you'd never know it was cool most days because the kids were always in the water anyway.

One of the things that kept the boys going back to the water was two stand-up paddle boards. They had so much fun on these things that we have decided we need to get a couple to use at our own house on our lake!!  My oldest grandson, in particular, is pretty addicted to video games and he was perfectly happy to be outside on this paddle board for hours on end.  That in itself makes these a worthwhile purchase!!

Our second day there was Father's Day and it was a wonderful way to celebrate the day!  Our youngest son, who has the 4 young ones, was given a mouse-pad with all of the kids pictures on it - signed by them and/or doodled upon! The kids then presented Grandpa with a cornhole game they helped their dad make for him.  All the dads were in their glory!!

I must confess that I purchased a 'store-bought' card for our son for Father's Day.  Time got short and sometimes I just fall prey to the commercial cards and their beautiful sentiments.  I was able to squeeze in enough time to make my husband a card though.  I saw Mo Manning's "Big Guy Grilling" image and knew it would work for him!!  Here is the card that I did ........

I cased this card from one I saw done by another blogger.  I used much of her design, changed up some of the paper used, but kept a lot of the original design just because I loved it the way it was! I even tried to emulate her coloring - I feel like a total 'copy cat'!! That is how I've learned to color with both Copics and Prismacolor pencils though - by studying how others color and trying to do the same. I love the way the grill guy's hand holding the burgers/dogs extends off the cardstock - that's what compelled me to stay with her design.  This is the cutest stamp and inside the sentiment said something like ...."to the best 'flippin' Dad and Husband around".  I paper pieced his shirt and used Copics & Primacolor pencils to color. I was in a huge hurry when I got to the shading for the background so I just masked the image and sponged around, but I got a little messy and it surely isn't my best work, but I really like this card!  The clouds were found on the internet, printed out on cardstock and cut out. I just hand wrote "Happy Father's Day".

This next card was done for my oldest grandson's birthday (he's 12). As I mentioned before, he is a total video game-aholic so this Mo Manning image 'Video Boy' really hit the mark! The kids aren't usually all that impressed with my cards....in fact, they barely even look at the cards I make for them, but this one he noticed and it actually got a big smile out of him!!  (yaaah!!)

I liked the kind of funky designs in this pack of paper, which I think is from Cosmo Cricket's "Boyfriend" collection.  I colored him up with my Copics and did some of the shading with Prismacolor pencils.  I added a little Glossy Accents to the game control he's holding - although it doesn't really show up in this picture. I wanted to add some different shapes and texture so I cut the paper in circles and a triangle. That didn't quite do what I wanted, so I punched a large star out of cork and added the smaller stars and some silver Stickles. That did the trick!

Well, two cards in one post - hard to believe, huh?!!  I really need to get working on a couple of birthday cards for friends of mine so maybe I won't be MIA for so long next time I post!!

Hope you're all having a wonderful 4th of July weekend!!