Make a Joyful Noise Tent and Rainkissed Peonies

I hope you are having a wonderful Memorial weekend!  Ours has been so fabulous weather wise.  It's raining today, but we really need the rain, so I'm not complaining.  I did get my tomato plants planted this morning just before the rain started.  There's nothing like a garden fresh tomato....yum!  Too bad they take so long to grow; it'll be August before I'm devouring these delectable delights.  Anticipation!

Since it's raining, I took the opportunity to participate in the technique challenge on Splitcoaststampers to make a tent card.

I started out wanting to use this darling angel by Rubbernecker for my dangling item, but I couldn't get the balance quite right for her to dangle the right way, so I switched to the ornament instead. I colored my angel with a combination of Copic markers, SU reinker, and gold Zig Painty pen. I put MS glitter on the outer top edge of her wings. She is nestled safely onto these metallic gold leaf punches instead. Here's a close up of her:

I know I should count my blessings that I have a job, but I'm not looking forward to having to go back to work tomorrow.  It's been so nice having a long, leisurely weekend.

Edited to Add:

We've had a brief break in the rain and are going to try and grill our food before the next rainfall.  I was noticing my beautiful peonies and just had to capture a photo of them.  I'm not the photographer like many of you who are experienced at this kind of thing, but I just had to capture these rainkissed peonies.  My darker pink ones will be blossoming soon.

I just love their heavenly fragrance!

Tuesday's Tea and Color on Wednesday

Happy Hump Day, my friends!  I'm happy because my husband's eye surgery this morning went well.  We go back to see the surgeon in the morning to get his bandages removed and learn further details on the condition of his eye and prognosis for his eyesight, but the initial report looks good!

I made this card yesterday for the Teapot Tuesday and Color challenges on Splitcoaststampers, but I'm just now getting a chance to put it up on my blog.  Philsmom was the Teapot Tuesday hostess and had this cute teapot for our inspiration (scroll down to post #8 after clicking on the link to see the teapot).  This is a gel card to simulate bubbly water.  You put just a tad of clear hair gel into a baggie. ...kinda cool, huh?  There's a great tutorial on Splitcoast here if you want to try this technique yourself.

These goofy lookin' fishies are a great stamp by Rubbernecker.  There are lots of fun fish stamps and sentiments to choose from.

I used my Copic sketch markers to color the fish and then I added stickles and glitter pen touches to each one.  Real Red, Kraft, and Bermuda Bay were the color challenge colors on SCS.  I had to substitute Cool Caribbean for the Bermuda Bay.  I made my matted frame with rectangle Nestabilities.

Have a great evening and thanks for stopping by!

More Collectibles and a Shy Bunny

What a fun, fun Sunday this has been! My friend, Lynn, and I met early for a nutritious breakfast of blueberry pancakes, eggs, hashbrowns with onions, and coffee this morning. Num-num!!! We needed to fuel ourselves for a fun trip to our local art festival. There were so many awesome artists there; how I envy them their talent and skill. The weather today has been like a hot summer day, so about halfway through, we needed to replenish our bodies with liquid refreshment from the local Starbucks where we greedily sucked down our iced raspberry chocolate lattes!!! And then we were onto our second round of shopping and spending money! Actually, I was pretty good and didn't spend "too" much dinero, but I did find a really cool summer purse, a floral arrangement, some mystery books written by a Michigan author, and this cool man-tool called the Fire Claw for my hubby. I like finding items for my hard-to-buy-for hubby. This Fire Claw gadget will come in really handy when we have our bonfires, and I won't have to worry about him burning himself when he's putting new logs onto the fire or moving the existing ones around.

Okay. The next fun thing is this video clip I had my hubby put together for me. Lynn loves to garage sale, and she has found some of the coolest m&m collectibles for me. Two of the most recent acquisitions are this telephone and radio which really work!!!! Check out this clip:



Are they not the coolest? They just make me giggle! Thanks for lookin' out for me, Lynn! You're the bestest!

After Lynn and I traipsed around the art festival, I came home and took some time to make a card in honor of the featured stamper on SCS, Nikki. I chose Nikki's cute Changito Paula Deen card.

Of course, we are required to change two or more items when we case the featured stamper. I changed stamps, colors, and embellishments. I colored my bunny image with Copic markers. After I got the image all colored, I happened to notice that I smeared blank ink up at the top (grrrrr!!!) My friend and SU demo, Barb, is famous for saying "for every mistake, there is an opportunity." Well, she is right. So, thinking about Barb's words of wisdom, I thought "what opportunity is there here for me to make this work?" Puffy clouds!!!! Yeah, man! I got out the trusty dusty liquid applique and made puffy clouds to cover my mistake. Problem solved!

Didja check out that cute mini-sized pink clothes pin and the pom pom bunny butt? It's little (fun) items like these that just tickle me pink!

Well, I better sign off. Sweet hubby is cooking dinner tonight and the smells are wafting all the way to my stamp room, beckoning me to the kitchen. See me smiling? I am so blessed with a great husband and great friends and being able to do the things I love to do (hanging out with friends, family, and stamping, to name a few). I hope you are having a great Sunday, and I wish many blessings for you, too! Thanks for stopping by and visiting me today!

Hugs, snugs, snorts, and giggles!

B-A-B-Y Spells Baby!

Frances, aka StampOwl, is the CCEE challenge hostess this month and for this third week in May, she has challenged us to make a baby card.  Could it be because she's gonna be a first-time grandma this month?  I'm so excited for her and can't wait to hear when the baby is born. 

I wanted to do something different from past baby cards I've made and had this idea in my head to block the word Baby.  I cut my letters with my Cricut and then stamped them with either my Canvas or Polkadotted background stamps and adhered them with dimensionals to 2x2 dotted swiss embossed squares in Pretty in Pink, Barely Banana, Sage Shadow, and Bashful Blue.  I stamped images from Bundle of Joy on the background in the various coordinating colors and then sponged the edges of the cardstock in the same color I used for that particular letter.

We hope you'll find time to play along with us.  You can get all the details, as well as see the cards my friends made, on our CCEE blog.

Have a terrific day!

Playing Catch Up

I haven't had much time to blog lately, so I'm playing catch up with a few cards I've made in the past few days.

Today is Teapot Tuesday, and Barbara20 is hostessing for Mothermark this week.  She's got a fabulous nautical-themed teapot she's given us for our inspiration this week.  You can get the details here.  This is a one-layer card.  I brayered all the various colors to create my sand, ocean, and sky.  I used my Cricut Life's a Beach cartridge for the ship, lighthouse, sand dollar, and starfish.  I used Liquid Applique for the water's foam.

My next card is in honor of my friend and fellow Rubbernecker DT member, Cathleen (aka ctorina), who was chosen as the featured stamper on Splitcoast this past Sunday.  Cathleen makes such elegant and beautiful cards.  It was an honor to case her.  After I settled on wanting to use Blush Blossom, I knew I was going to have to make my own designer paper, which I love to do. I stamped Baroque Motifs and Linen bg in Blush Blossom and then finger walked French Script in True Thyme over that. I used my finger dauber in Blush Blossom reinker to sponge the edges of each piece of cardstock.

This last card I made for the Inspiration Challenge this past Saturday.  I used a napkin transfer technique.  This is where you split the top layer of the napkin from the back, place it on the shiny side of freezer paper, put a piece of paper on top of the napkin and press with a hot iron.  The napkin sticks to the freezer paper.  Then you can adhere this to a piece of cardstock.   I love these napkins I bought at Michael's.

Thanks for stopping in!  I hope to get to your blog soon, too!

I'm a Little Teapot

Are you ready for another CCEE challenge?  Frances is continuing our May themed challenges celebrating Mothers & Babies, and this week she's given us a Inspiration challenge:   create a card/project using a nursery rhyme as your inspiration.  You can get all the details on our CCEE Blog as well as see the designs my incredibly talented teammates (Frances, Cindy, Joanne, Tosha, Shirley) made.

I chose I'm A Little Teapot:

I'm a little teapot,

Short and stout!

Here is my handle;

Here is my spout.

When I get all steamed up,

Hear me shout!

Just tip me over

And pour me out!

 

I used my Teatime and Coffee and Tea Inchies from the Party sets by Rubbernecker.  I stamped the teapot onto white cardstock and stamped it again onto designer paper and cut that one out and adhered it over top the stamped image on the white cardstock.  My tea bags were colored with a Pale Olive Copic marker.  The little tea bag is from the Inchie stamp set and I cut that one out. The designer paper is from the retired Rockabilly dp by Stampin' Up.

A few weeks ago, Linda (aka Snail) was the Queen for the Day on Splitcoaststampers, and I didn't get a chance to honor her with a casing of one of her cards at that time.  Therefore, I chose her adorable Snowmen card as a basis for my CCEE challenge card today.  I changed everything on my card except for her basic sketch design.
I hope you're having a wonderful day and will find time to play!!!

Gellin' Corvette

Jeanne has us all "gellin" today for the Free for All challenge. She challenged us to make a card using gel pens.

I first colored my corvette with Copic markers and then I went over the coloring with my red glitter pen to make it look like a metallic paint job on this snazzy car. I used a silver glitter pen on the chrome pieces to the car. Those are yellow pearls for the headlights.

I attached a black jumbo grommet with a silver hodgepodge silver brad inside of the grommet to a piece of real red cardstock punched with the wide oval punch. I then popped it up on dimensionals to hold my easel card in place.  Here's a closer picture to see the grommet and a little bit of the glitter shine from the red gel pen.

I made this for my nephew's birthday. He's a real classy kinda guy, so I wanted to keep this clean and classy. This black striped dp is from the old SU Rockabilly dp, which was some of my favorite.

Blue Tulips for Mother's Day

Frances, aka Stamp Owl, is our May CCEE challenge hostess with the mostest.  Frances is pretty fired up this month because she is going to be a first-time grandma...this month!  How exciting, huh?   The May CCEE challenges, therefore, are going to be centered around mothers and babies. We hope you'll join us each Thursday!

To kick off the first week in May, Frances challenged us to make a Mother's Day card.  My mama loves to garden and she loves butterflies, so I chose my favorite tulip stamp from Gina K's A Year of Flowers.  I heat embossed the tulip image with PearlLustre Sapphire Opaque embossing powder on vellum cardstock.  I then used my blender pen to paint in Broken China Distress Ink.  I let that dry and then used my Stampin' Up Metallic pencils to add a touch of purple to the base of the tulips and to color the stems.  The leaves were stamped in Broken China and colored and blended with a metallic pencil as well.  I added Crystal Effects for the dew drops on my tulips.  Here's a close up of the tulips to show you the dew drops.

See the butterfly?  After I punched it out on black cardstock, I got the idea to color it with the same Stampin' Up metallic pencils, and I love how it looks! 

I used my octagon Nestabilities to cut out the vellum cardstock and then a piece of white cardstock.  I embossed the white cardstock with my dotted swiss embossing folder and then adhered the vellum tulip panel onto that.  The sentiment is from Stampin' Up's Well Scripted set.

Please stop by our CCEE blog to see the beautiful projects my friends made and get the details for how you can play along with us! 

Bold and Bright

Hello, ya'll!  I hope you've been having a splendiferous weekend.  It's raining here this morning, but that's okay.  Everything is so lush and green this time of the year, and I love it! 

I wanted to post a couple cards I made yesterday.   I had some time to play in a couple Splitcoaststamper (SCS) challenges and both cards are bright and bold so prepare your eyes!

First off is a card I made to honor Carol (aka Carol_PA925) as Queen for the Day.  This is where you go and select one of the Queen's SCS gallery creations and make your own version of it.  Carol's bold and beautiful Red Birthday Floral really called to me.

I didn't get time to play in one of my favorite challenges----Teapot Tuesday----last week, so I made this card for that challenge as well, which was to use daisies in your creation.  I love these Gerber daisy images.  They can be a little labor intensive to cut out, but it is so worth it for the added dimension.  You can't see it very well in my photo, but I did score a grid pattern on the red cardstock with my ScorPal. I colored the center of my daisies with Adirondack Butterscotch ink with one of my finger daubers (love those things!).  The leaves are from Stampin' Up's In Full Bloom set which I water colored with Mellow Moss and Always Artichoke reinkers.

My next card was made for the Inspiration challenge on SCS.  Anne was our hostess this week and she provided us with a really jazzy website for our inspiration called.....Jazz It Up Interiors.  If you scroll down on my link, you'll see the hot pink wall art canvas that begged me to make something from it.

I stamped my Pick a Petal image in Pink Passion ink onto white cardstock and then onto Pink Passion cardstock and cut them out. I ran the darker petals through my crimper. I punched the little flowers from Pink Passion cardstock and sponged the edges for depth. I used my double circle punch on Rich Razzleberry for all the tiny circles piled in the center of the flower as well as for the orange centers on the small pink flowers.  The little purse/sentiment image is from Stampin' Up's Tag Time.  I used my black marker to add some tiny dots around the outer edges of the flower petals.  Last, I added these larger black eyelets with my Cropadile.

Okay, hubby and son were up very late last night watching movies (my night owls for sure), so they are still asleep.  Think I'll hop on over to SCS and play in the featured stamper challenge while they are snoozing.  After all, how can I run the vacuum while my precious family sleeps?  Giggle.  Come on over if you have time to play!