Back to the basics!

My days have happily been filled with grandkids the past couple of weeks (11, 9 & 5 yrs) including a very demanding little 5-year old grandaughter who is becoming an avid stamper! She wants to learn everything I can teach her and wants to use every product she sees!! I'm really happy that I can share this with her, but I sometimes have a hard time sharing my 'hoarded' stuff with her!  :o)  (It's hard enough for ME to use that hoarded stuff!!)  She's so cute though and I really can't believe how she's picked up things like shading and blending! I'm making her use her Crayolas...even though she tries to cajole me into letting her use my Prismacolor Pencils. (Ha! No way, Jose!)

Back to the cards!  One is for my friend, Ruth, who is turning 87 in a few days and the other is for her son who is turning 59 on the same day. They are both wonderful people and I love them to pieces!  I was kind of in a time crunch to get these done in time to mail, so went back to the old 'basics' with both of these.  

For the first one I stamped a single flower on SU's Baha Breeze cardstock with Versamark and embossed it with white embossing powder then layered onto Chocolate Chip cardstock and some paper from Basic Grey's Offbeat collection. I stamped the sentiment from the same set in Chocolate Chip ink, cut it out added a few flat-back pearls, a little SU ribbon and ooaalaa! First one done! (whew!)


The second card needed to be more masculine, which I have to admit I struggle with sometimes.  I chose SU's Trendy Trees set for another quick and simple card.

I stamped the trees onto white cardstock and layered onto good old Chocolate Chip and Old Olive cardstock then machine stitched around the edge with brown thread. For the background, I used one of Basic Grey's Mellow collection papers also layered onto the same cardstock then zig zag machine stitched. I added a strip of old olive ribbon and a brad and .... another one complete!


I love coloring with my prismas, but every once in awhile it's kind of nice to go back to the basics and just do some stamping!  These weren't at all complicated, but I was very pleased with the results. 

Off to the mailbox these go!!  Hope you have a wonderful weekend!!

Sending Donkey Smiles....

Below is a card that I made for sister-stamper, Michelle Oatman. 

I recently found out that Michelle, who is a design team member for A Spoon Full of Sugar, had a life changing accident about three weeks ago, which left her with the loss of her right eye and a long road of recovery ahead. In an effort to show support, cheer her up and raise awareness for what happened to Michelle, A Spoon Full of Sugar is holding a card drive in her honor.

This cute digital stamp set was created by two of Whimsy Stamps' artists in honor of Michelle. The image is available for free on the Whimsy Stamps store page. Whimsey Stamps and many others are joining together to help with a card drive for Michelle. They are asking you to download this image and sentiments, create a card for Michelle, and help with their card drive from now until Tuesday, July 27th.  More details about this drive can be found on the Spoon Full of Sugar blog. 

 

Stampavie is also having a "Kickin' it" for Michelle drive trying to help raise money for Michelle .... besides sending cyber-hugs, they are asking for PayPal donations which will be sent directly to Michelle to help “kick” the mounting medical costs associated with her surgeries and also to help her obtain an artificial eye. Visit Stampavie's blog to get all the details of how to contribute.

Tina Wenke has produced a special digital download of a very cute donkey to use!! Just go to Stampavie's blog, click on the image and save the larger version to your computer. In return, they simply ask that you donate $3 or more to Michelle's PayPal fund.

My 5-year old grandaughter saw me making my card and was very concerned about Michelle. She asked me if she could make a card too....I couldn't believe what a great job she did!! (see how she tried to mimic my blue shading around the donkey? is that cute or what?!!)  On the inside she wrote, "Sorry about your accident. Hope you are alright.  Love, Lucy". I'm going to send her card to Michelle too....I hope it brings her a smile!!

Please visit both of A Spoon Full of Sugar and Stampavie sites and help support Michelle in her recovery!! 

On her blog, Michelle says that mail time is now her favorite time of day - when her hubby goes out to the mailbox and comes back with all the beautiful cards everyone is sending. She says they have lifted her spirits and brought her hours of smiles!!  Let's flood her mailbox with cards and well wishes!!

King of the Wild Things...

Happy Friday, everyone!! My DH and I have been busy the past couple of days helping our daughter get her new condo (new to her!) in shape. The previous owner had a large dog that shed like crazy and we've been cleaning up hair for days! Who knew a dog could shed that much hair?!!! Yesterday, I spent a large part of the day just cleaning the kitchen. It felt so good when it was all sparkling and shiny clean! Why is it always so much easier (and more fun!) to clean someone else's house than your own? :)

This is a card I made some time ago and totally forgot about. You know how sometimes you just have to clean up your stamping area for one reason or another and things get stashed away and forgotten? Well, that's what happened with this card, so I was really excited when I came across it!

"King of the Wild Things" (one of my all time favorite Stamping Bella images!), was colored with Prismacolor pencils and blended with OMS/gamsol.  I sponged around the edges with my Deckle Edge Nestabilites in place and stitched around the edges of the Basic Grey Archaic paper matted with SU black cardstock then glued that to SU Kraft cardstock.  I love this paper - it's so perfect with this image and for other dinosaur images for little boy cards. 

 The King's dinosaur skin texture was created using a technique taught by Paula, who is my IDOL when it comes to prismas!!!  (If you're lucky enough to live in the southeastern Michigan area, you should try to get in a class with her - she's the best!!) This was an easy, fun card to make and perfect for Jeanie's That's Krafty Thursday Challenge!! 

I just noticed that I didn't even add a single "sparkle" to this card!! Do you believe it?! No Stickles, no sparkles of any kind....I'm amazed I could let this card go without a single jewel!

That's it for now....hope you have a fantastic weekend!!

Keeping cool....

Whew! I don't know what it's like where you live, but this past week has been HOT, HOT, HOT here in southeastern Michigan!  Most of the week was sunny and beautiful, perfect for playing on the lake. We had our three grandkids during the day most of the week and we really took advantage of the gorgeous weather. Between the sun, the fun and the grandkids, we were totally exhausted at the end of every day....I think the kids were too!  We all thoroughly enjoyed just hanging out, cruising around in the pontoon boat, fishing, swimming, having lunch on the boat or just trying to catch minnows and playing in the sand (that was just the kids!).  Boy, did we miss them on Friday when they weren't with us!!  Here are a couple of photos I took:

So, as a result of all this fun in the sun, I haven't had a whole lot of time for card making. I already had this image colored and just didn't know what paper to pair it with - I grabbed the same paper I used in my last card and it worked (at least I think it worked!) - what do you think?

The image is another one of Mo's Digital Pencil ~ "It's Hot". This card looks soooo much better IRL!! That grass color looks pretty putred in the photo, but honestly...it does look better than it shows here. (My photography still needs some work!)  I colored him with prismacolor pencils, blended with OMS, added some Crystal Glaze on his goggles and the pool water...with a little stickles thrown in there for some sparkle! I couldn't resist adding some water drops too!  I tried to make this as 'boyish' as I could, hopefully the ribbon didn't ruin that.

This coming week looks like it might be a little rainy, but still HOT!  When the sun's shining, I'll be keeping cool lounging on the boat, swimming, and enjoying another week of my first summer being retired! 

Keep cool!!

Cinema Saturday Challenge #86!

As guest designer for this week's Cinema Saturday Challenge, I am privileged to announce this weeks movie: "Bend it Like Beckham"!!  "Bend it Like Beckham" is a heartwarming movie about a teenage girl who is struggling with her Indian traditions and her dream of becoming a world-class soccer player. In the movie, Jess, the main character (played by Parminder K. Nagra), is befriended by another girl, Jules (played by Keira Knightly), who recruits her to play on a real soccer team, gives her support and encouragement, and shares her love of the game. The relationship of these two girls is where I got the inspiration for my card. Even though Jess has a real sister in the movie, the ‘sisterhood’ bond that stood out and inspired me was the one between Jess and Jules. I don’t think you have to be blood sisters to feel the bond of sisterhood!

The challenge requirement this week, along with inspiration from the movie, is to create a card in any shape other than A2!! These days I pretty much always do square cards so this was right up my alley!! :) I used another image from Mo's Digital Pencil: 'Sisters'.  As soon as I saw this image, I knew it was the perfect one for this challenge! I usually like to start with my background paper and color to coordinate with that, but this time I just started coloring and then had to hunt to find some paper. :)  I'm not very adept at Copics yet, but decided to give them a try for this challenge. It worked pretty well, but the color I used for the older girl's top just wasn't working...so I fixed it by paper piecing with a coordinating paper - ooaallaa!!  A little shading with my Prismacolor pencils and blending with OMS completed the coloring portion. The background paper was so 'busy' that I didn't want to add too much in the way of embellishment, so I just used some paper lace in one strip then scrunched some of that same paper lace to form a backing for my hand written sentiment: "My sister, my friend".  I found a few sentiments that I liked.....

"Sisters are blossoms in the garden of life"

"A true sister is a friend who listens with her heart"

"A sister is one who reaches for your hand and touches your heart"

"A sister is a forever friend"

but ended up with the short and sweet, 'My sister, my friend'. I added a couple of Dew Drops to the bottom and some Star Dust Stickles (the best Stickles color in my opinion because it just adds sparkle, not color!) to the blue shoes, barrette & to the lace around the sentiment....there's just something I can't resist about adding some "sparkle"!!

I hope you like my card and that you'll be inspired to play along this week in the Cinema Saturday Challenge!!  It's a lot of fun....and YOU could be the next winner of the "Audrey Award"!!

Have a great 4th of July weekend!!  Great big{{hugs}} to all my sisters/friends!!

I must be dreaming!!

Okay.... in my very, very wildest dreams, I might have imagined that some day I could be chosen to be a guest designer....but to actually have it happen?!!!!  The news of my "Audrey Award" for the Cinema Saturday Challenge and invitation for me to be a guest designer next week had me positively giddy with excitement!!

The challenge this past week was to create a card inspired by the 1991 movie "Father of the Bride" starring Steve Martin; and drawing from the old wedding saying: "something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue"... to use "something blue” in our card. Well, I thought the Father's Day card I just did for my DH fit the bill perfectly!! It was definitely wedding inspired and had the blue in there too!

You can get a sneak peek into next week's challenge by clicking here and you might just want to play along when we find out exactly what next week's challenge is all about!

p.s. Thank you to everyone for leaving so much love in your comments!!

Late Father's Day card!

It only seems appropriate that since I did an 'early' Father's Day card a couple of weeks ago, that now I'm posting a 'late' one! The early one was for my son since he would be gone on his honeymoon over Father's Day, and the late one is for my DH. I actually gave it to him on Sunday, just getting around to posting it today! I also wanted to get it posted for the That's Krafty Thursday challenge over at The Spotted Chick's blog. (double-duty!!)

As soon as I saw this image over at Mo's Digital Pencil, I knew I had to have it for my DH's card!  I just love it!  My DH is such an awesome Father and Grandpa...and this image so brought to mind he and my 5-year old grandaughter at my son's wedding last weekend. :)  I started with Kraft, Chocolate Chip and ...I think...Baha Breeze cardstock ~ colored with Prismacolor Pencils blended with OMS, stitched around the bases and added as masculine a punched edge as I could find! Then a couple of Dew Drops to complete it!  I really wanted to add ribbon too, but couldn't make it work! (Don't look too close!! I was experimenting with 2 different pencil colors and wound up mixing them....thought it still looked okay and I was running out of time so kept it.) What do you think? 

Don't you think it's kind of reminiscent of these wedding photos of my DH & our little grandaughter Lucy?

Have a great day!!