Hi everyone. Happy Sunday. It's the fabulous Joanne's turn to host our Paper Players challenge and it's theme week: This challenge was right up my alley! I've spent the last two weeks making cards for my final 2019 batch to be sent off to SendaSmile4Kids. The hardest part was choosing which card to showcase for the challenge:-) In the end, I went with a Christmas card. The snowman and the sentiment are from an Echo Park scrapbooking kit that I repurposed to make Christmas cards for the kids. I mounted both of the elements on fun foam and put them... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Saturday. It's the fabulous Barb's turn to host our AddictedtoCAS Challenge this week and it's one of my favorites :-) I love one layer cards as they are always a challenge. This time I decided to go with a monochromatic approach of various shades of grey and featuring one of my all time favorite flowers - Good Morning Magnolia from Stampin' Up! I began by stamping the image onto a soft grey card stock from Simon Says Stamp and set about coloring it with my Prismacolor pencils. I used cooler and warmer shades of the greys to... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Monday. It was choose a winner today in the jaydee/Lou household. Before we announce the winner, we wanted to thank those of you who left messages or sent emails wishing Lou a happy birthday. We really enjoyed reading all of them and Lou felt very special because you choose to participate. I wrote everyone's names onto pieces of paper - one for each person, every time they commented - and scrunched them up. I then handed them to Lou and he threw them in the air and said that the first one to land would be the... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Sunday. It's my turn to host the Paper Players challenge this week and it's color week. So, black and white and ONE other color. As fall is just around the corner, really?! We only started summer about three weeks ago, didn't we? Anyway, I digress.... where was I? Oh, yes! As fall is just around the corner, I decided to go with orange. But, today's card has NOTHING to do with fall :-) As a last minute purchase, I slipped Stampin' Up's! Nine Lives into my basket. as I adored the little cat. I love the way... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Friday. This is the last of the cards that I made for Lou. So, you have until around 5.30 cst on Sunday morning to make your last round of birthday wishes for Lou to be entered into the draw for the tonic kit. As a reminder this is what is up for grabs. What's the blog candy on offer? It's the Tonic Craft Kit #13 Snowflake Gift Card Box. I've been waiting to add this as blog candy as the timing for it is perfect. You can see all the details on the craft kit at this... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Thursday. If you missed my initial post about Lou's birthday and the blog candy, you can check out all the details here This is the second card that I made for Lou. Jeanne, this is for you - another SU card :-) I love this Sailing Home set and the papers are fabulous. I decided to try my hand at a layered card using some of the papers and the die-cuts that come with the set. I blended some Neenah White card stock with blue ink to serve as the focal layer. I die-cut it with my... Continue reading

Hi everyone. happy Wednesday. Today is Lou's birthday. Lou categorically told me that he did not, in any way, want to celebrate his birthday and wanted to breeze right past this year. Really???? So, being the cantankerous wife that I am :-), I decided to make a big deal out of it here on my blog and I am hoping that you will all help me do that. I made 3 different cards to help Lou celebrate his birthday (remember he didn't want any!) and I will be sharing each one over the next three days. A couple of weeks... Continue reading

HI Everyone. Quick post for you tonight. I went looking for some inspiration and found two challenges that provided just that at casethissketch and at lessismore: I inked up two sets from Stampin' Up! one called Very Versailles and the other one is Free as a Bird. I loved the challenge of using tangerine and aqua - colors I never usually put together, but loved the end result. I stamped the single bird onto Neenah Solar white card stock and used my zig brush watercolor pens and a very small paint brush and very carefully colored the bird. I then... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. My 2nd post for today! I needed a birthday card, so went looking for a sketch for some inspiration. I am always guaranteed to find that at Freshly Made. Here's their sketch this week: I had to think about this sketch for a while, and in the end decided to go with the smaller flower from the new Stampin' Up! set - Beautiful Friendships. I used some Altenew inks for the elements and I like the way it turned out. You can't see it, but I added a little bling on the flowers with my glitter pen. Here's... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. It's the fabulous Claire's turn to host our Paper Players challenge and it's theme week. I don't have any back to school related items, so had to try to find something that might work. I remembered I had some fun papers and ephemera on hand for cards that I am making up to send to children in hospital. I thought the paper and the speech bubble could work for someone returning to school :-) Here's my card: I hope you will join us and play along this week. As usual, the design team have some fabulous inspiration for... Continue reading

Hi everyone. Happy Saturday. It's the fabulous Stephanie's turn to host our challenge this week and this is her code word: I hope you will play along with us this week. The design team have some wonderful inspiration and I hope you will check out their blogs, including our guest designer: Joyce Mehrberg Here's my card, featuring an old My Favorite Things set: I popped the little fishes on wobblers and foam dots, and glued the puffer fish directly to the card base. I wanted to try to create - at least somewhat - the illusion of depth :-) I'll... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Sunday. I hope you are all having a great weekend. It's the fabulous Anne Marie's turn to host our challenge this week and she has this great sketch for us: I made a couple of different cards using this sketch, but decided to showcase the one featuring that wonderful new set from Stampin' Up! - Good Morning Magnolia. I fell head over heels with this set and think it's one of the best things SU has done for a number of years. I can see this becoming one of my "keeper" sets. I did some quick and... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Sunday night. I have a card for you tonight - and the winner of the-mystery-white-blob photo blog candy! Firstly, let's start with the sketch. The thing about the ladies at FMS is they have fabulous sketches and some of them really do challenge - and that's why I like doing them :-) This sketch had me scratching my head (with my one good hand!!), but I was determined to do something with it. I really did spend quite a while going through my stash trying to work out this sketch. I even made 3 thrown away attempts... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Sunday. It's the fabulous Ann's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's Clean and Simple week. I recently bought some SU sets and today's card features one of my favorites. The hardest part for me is taking some of these sets, like Sailing Home, that are just screaming to be used on cards with lots of wonderful details and layers, and paring them back. I stamped the image of the lighthouse and yacht and cut them out with their matching dies. The front layer was mounted using fun foam and the two images... Continue reading

Hi Everyone,. Happy Saturday. I have a very quick post for you tonight,. It's the fabulous Bobby's turn to host our Addicted to Cas Challenge this week and this is her code word: I decided it was time to pull out my old Altenew Spring Daisy set. I paired it with a die from Ellen Hutson Essentials and a sentiment from Stampin' Up. Here's my card: I stamped the outline of the flower in Stazon Timber Brown and used some Altenew inks for the inside of the daisy. I needed a horizontal element to ground the sentiment and the Ellen... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Tuesday. I have a quick pos for you tonight. Now y'all know by now that I'm crazy about animals and am "that" crazy cat lady and I always feel for fellow nimal lovers when they lose a four legged friend. Two weeks ago I heard about a fellow crafter who had to unexpectedly say goodbye to her beloved dog. This was a very special dog - a dog who had helped an owner get through chemo. She posted some photos on her blog and one of them stuck with me - a beautiful dog running along the... Continue reading

HI Everyone. Happy Sunday. It's the fabulous LeAnne's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's color challenge week. When I saw these colors, I could hear my mother saying to me, in a disdainful voice, "blue and green should never be seen"! However, I think it depends on the shades :-) I don't have these colors in my stash, so I had to go to the nearest match. Earlier this year I bought a geometric stamp set from The Stamp Market called Detailed Diamonds. I decided to challenge myself... I mean... how was I going to... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Sunday. Its the fabulous Laurie's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's a theme challenge: I needed a sketch to help me along, so visited my favorite sketch site - FreshlyMadeSketches I don't really have many water sport stamps, but was looking through my stash and found this wonderful set that came free with a UK crafting magazine. I used three stamps from the set and decided it would work :-) I know Puddle Jumping isn't an Olympic sport, but it was one I used to love as a kid and would do... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Hppy Saturday. It's the fabulous Ceal's turn to host ouor Addicted to CAS challenge and she has a theme that most of us can really relate to right now! I also want to thank my Addictd to CAS team for their patience and picking up for me whilst I was unable to card! Considering it was over 90 degrees with 88% humidity when I made this card, it was certainly hot:-) As I am still recovering from hand surgery, CAS is as much as I can manage right now, this was a perfect challenge. I used my Tim... Continue reading

Hi everyone Happy Sunday. I managed to get into my craft room yesterday to make a card. I won't tell you how long it took me to make this card but it felt good to be able to craft again. It's the fabulous Joanne's turn to host our Paper Players challenge this week and it's a tic- tac- toe challenge. I also have to say a huge thank you to Joanne for hosting my challenge at the Paper Players last week. Let's see what Joanne has in store for us this week: I needed to sketch to get my creative... Continue reading

Hi everyone. Happy Monday. It's been a while since my last blog post and I wanted to give you an update on what is happening and why it has been so quiet around here for the last couple of weeks. The last card I made is the one that I'm sharing with you tonight and when I made the card it was intended for a work colleague who was having a very bad week and kept saying "I don't have enough coffee to cope with today". A few months ago I bought a Casual Friday stamp set with some prize... Continue reading

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Hi Everyone. Happy Sunday. It's the fabulous LeAnne's turn to host our Paper Player's challenge this week and she has a great sketch for us: I really like this sketch and immediately knew what I was going to do with it. I began by masking off an area for the vertical element. I used my make-up brushes with a stencil to create the pattern. I then used one of my Ellen Hutson essentials stitched dies to emboss a border on either side of the stencil pattern. Here's a closeup: The rest of the card came together very quickly. I adhered... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Saturday. It's the turn of the fabulous Angie to host our Addicted to CAS challenge this week and here is her code word: I needed graduation card for a good friend of mine who is celebrating graduating from a six month long local leadership class that she has been doing it's been a fascinating journey watching her go through this class and all of the exercises that help ready the next generation of leaders in not-for-profit organizations. This class has meant a great deal to her and she was very excited when she graduated last Friday. Blue... Continue reading

Hi Everyone. Happy Wednesday. For reasons I'll share with you on Friday, this is going to be a very short blog post. Let's just say it involves Drs with pins and leave it at that for now :-) While I was crafting this weekend, I made a card using the sketch over at CaseThisSketch I needed a birthday card and decided to use my new Ellen Hutson purchase. I was tempted to color it but wanted to go really simple. I embossed it using the lawn fawn blush embossing powder and then die cut with the matching die. I di-ecut... Continue reading