Scooping Up a Card or Two Plus ICAD Week 3 results

Hello friends!  You ever have one of those weeks where no matter how you try to make ends meet, something always goes wrong to mess you up again and get you off track?  This week was just one of those weeks!  No matter how hard I tried to stay on top of things, something would go wrong and so much so that supper has been really late almost every night.  So I am glad to post something here and glad it is Friday honestly!  LOL!

On another note, I’m thinking it’s a huge glitch in the system, but it’s telling me that I have 569 people following my blog!?  (Thought is was more like 25 or something!) Weather that’s true or not, if you are following along with me, I am truly grateful you are here!  You can now follow me on instagram as well.  Had many people asking me about that, so I thought I might as well!  🙂  (I actually have a huge number of subscribers on my You Tube channel as well and I feel bad wtih an empty video cache on my channel, but someday soon I hope to get back into that!)  I need a new camera and editing software, but that’s another whole issue that I’m sure you’re not here for!

I have a mixed bag of creations to share with you today, so I hope you enjoy this post and get some sort of inspiration with it!

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Let’s start with this fun birthday card I made using that piece of background paper that I made at the stamp convention!  (If you don’t remember it, check out THIS POST to see it!)  It seemed to be the perfect colors to use with this new Brutus Monroe “Sprinkled with Love” card kit!  I actually die cut the background piece using the Lawn Fawn cross-stitched rectangle dies and then heat embossed the sentiment from the BM Sprinkled with Love stamp set from the kit.  I took the ice cream cone image, stamped and colored it in and cut out that panel with the same die as the background.  Mounted it over black along with the background piece, added some glitter touches with gel pens, Spectrum Noir glitter pen for the heart and then covered it with glossy accents.  I then added a black piece of twine to the cone and then took those gorgeous colored pearls from the card kit and glued them in the upper right corner of the design.  All was mounted onto an A2 sized card base.  I have sooooo many things left from this kit, so I know I’ll be sharing more!  Yummy stuff! 🙂

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And speaking of the Stamp Convention goodies, I fell in love with the sparkly bird card that I made from one of the vendor booths and bought up a couple of packages of the kits they had!  My mom bought a couple of them as well.  When we got back to our room, we decided it would be fun to split up the kits so we have a variety of the images to use!  (Each kit contained enough to make 12 cards!)  So she bought this eagle set and this is what I’ve used for this card.  The sparkle against the transparency looks amazing!  I embellished the corners and added the sentiment with the foil stickers from the kit.  The paper and envelope are furnished in the kit…pretty much just assemble…can’t get any easier than that!  Check it out from Stamp On It!  (They have many of them!)

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So as you know from the last couple of weeks of postings that I’ve been participating in this Daisy Yellow ICAD challenge.  You can find my postings about the past ones I’ve created by clicking on the “ICAD” archives link at the top left of this post.

As mentioned before, I cannot share the prompts or themes, but it is something that I work on each day…yes…no matter how hard it gets, I’m getting out my index card and playing around with something!  Today’s card is not shown (it’s in next week’s grouping), but I’ve noticed that my “makings” are in conjunction with the mood I have for that day…pretty interesting I’d say!  If you haven’t looked into this challenge, I encourage you to give it a try.  Some days are just hard to figure out what you’re going to be doing and other days you just know.  🙂

On another note, I got a couple of hand-made cards in the mail and I think they always deserve special attention and I’m very grateful for recieving them…always brings a smile to my day when I get one!  Here they are:

handmade cards from friends

The card on the left came from a dear friend that I came to know as being apart of the Splitcoaststampers Dirty Dozen design team.  A special thank you to Jacquline for the stunning card and lovely note!  The card on the right came from my aunt who is an avid stamper and into the Stampin’ Up! products due to my own fault!  LOL!  She made me a very sweet and clever pet sympathy card.  As you may have seen on the sidebar of my blog -my sweet little Mocca passed away this last February.  My heart still aches and I miss her so very much every single day.  I will post more on that later on, but I so appreciate the thoughtfulness of these lovely cards!

So that’s all the shares I have for you today and hope that will be enough to tied you over until next week as I will have a bit more time for a routine after this horrible week is now over with! LOL!    I thank you for your continued support by following, liking, commenting or just looking, it is always appreciated!  Enjoy your weekend!

challenges I’d like to enter my ice cream cone card for:

  1.  Crafty Gals Corner – Anything Goes
  2. Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + sentiment
  3. Seize the Birthday – Anything Goes

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Going in Circles for Cute Card Thursday

Hello friends!  It’s another Thursday that has gone by this month already!  This Summer seems to be going very quickly and I hope you’re out enjoying it!

There is another fun challenge this week at Cute Card Thursday!  I hope you will join with us to share your “Circles” themed creations!  Here’s the creation that I’ve come up with for my card:

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I have decided to make a circle shaped easel style card along with using even more circles within my card design!  With the exception of the circles for the card shape, everything else I’ve used is from My Favorite Things stamps!  I thought it would be fun to take the Stitched Tripple Peek-a-Boo Window die to cut out the circle windows to fit these adorable pigs in from the Hog Heaven stamp set.  I cut out an additional circle for behind the window and sponged some different colors of distress ink behind them.  I colored and die cut the images out with the coordinating dies and popped them in various places behind the circle windows as well.  I stamped the sentiment and cut it out using some circle dies and this works as a “stopper” for my easel card design.  I popped it up with some foam tape.  I stamped the flowers from the same stamp set.

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And here’s a closer look at the front of my card.  I just love how the top piggy is leaning over the circle and window and the bottom piggy is peeking out with a wave from the bottom circle window!  I thought he needed a little twine bow tie too!  Finished it out with some circle sequins with a little glitter Stickles in each center.

Hope you’ve enjoyed my card today!  Please be sure to stop by the challenge blog to see the other wonderful circle creations from the team!  See you tomorrow!

challenges:

  1.  Allsorts – Use at Least 2 dies (3 circle type dies)
  2. Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes
  3. Tuesday Throwdown – “You’re On My Mind”
  4. Addicted to Stamps & More – Make Your Mark (ink blending + Copics)
  5. Sunny Day Crafting – Any Animal on Project

Father’s Day Makes

Hello friends!

Hope that you had a good weekend!  Since the celebration is over and there are no “peekers” to worry about anymore, I can post the cards that I’ve made!

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First, I have the card that I’ve made for my dad.  He used to own an old Model-T and tinker with it and take us “down the road” in it once in a while.  So when I see an old truck like this one, it always makes me think of him.  This truck image is part of my purchase from the Stamp Convention that I went to from the Rubber Cottage booth.  As a matter of fact, I purchased this kit from them which is where the embossing folder and silver metallic paper comes from on my card.

I just colored the truck with Copics, cut it out with the die and popped it up over the “tree scene” with foam squares to make it look like the truck is driving into the scene.  The papers in the background along with the tree image and rest of the card comes from some old Stampin’ Up! products in my stash…too numerous to count all the old! LOL!

This next card was made especially for my husband:

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This one took me a bit out of my comfort zone as I basically watercolored the entire scene.  The only set of watercolors that I own are the Kuretake Gansi Tambi ones.  I really do like using them, but the pans are starting to empty out on a few colors now.  So I’ve been looking into different kinds to see if I will try some new ones.  Do any of you have watercolors that you like using?

I did have a bit of help with the trees from the Newton’s Nook Whispering Pines stamp set.  I took the images, scribbled some watercolor crayons (very old SU! ones!) over them, misted them with water and stamped them where I wanted them to be.  I used my paint brush to move around the colors a bit so they blended with the scene a bit more.

I stamped the silhouette images from the Newton’s Nook Serene Silhouettes and the greeting from the Winton’s BBQ set with black ink using my MISTI tool several times as it was watercolor paper which is always hard to get a complete impression on.  I also used a Spectrum Noir clear glitter pen to go over the blue for the water area.  Layered onto a piece of black and then onto a white side folding A2 sized card.

Sometimes it can be a challenge making masculine cards appropriate for each male you need a card for, but I think I did fine keeping in mind the people they went to and they were really fun to make!  Hope you’ve enjoyed them too!

If you want to take a look at the top of my blog, you will see a new page that I’ve created that sort of explains why I started this blog.  CLICK HERE if you care to read my mumblings.  More and more creations are sure to follow and I look forward to sharing them here!  🙂

I would like to enter these challenges:

  1.  Try it On Tuesday – For the boys
  2. Crafty Creations – Anything Goes
  3. Creative Moments – Anything Goes
  4. Watercooler Wednesday (WWC174) – All About Occasions – Father’s Day
  5. Crafty Catz – Anything Goes
  6. Crafty Friends – Anything Goes

King For a Day and ICAD 2018-week 2 results

Hello friends!  The weekend is upon us and I’m told it’s going to be a hot one here, so I think I will be hosting the Father’s Day celebration inside where it’s cooler!  Always fun spending time with family no matter what we do though!  Speaking of Father’s Day this Sunday, this is a card that I have made with my brother in mind.  (Probably won’t share this on FB as he will see it, but don’t think he visits my blog!  The other Father’s Day cards I made will have to wait until afterwards as people that I don’t want to see it, will!)

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Thought it would be fun to take the Lawn Fawn Wild For You stamp set and use the lion with the crown image for a Father’s Day card.  I colored the image and crown and cut it out with the coordinating dies.  I stenciled some clouds on the stitched circle background and stamped the sentiment from the same set by curving it to fit the circle along the edge and then die cut a couple strips of grass and cut that with the same stitched circle die.  I nestled the lion in between.  Layered that onto a mirrored gold circle die cut from the Lawn Fawn Zig Zag Circle dies.  I’ve also used the cloud stencil to cover the background of the card along with my envelope for the card.  I used the rectangle stitched dies to cut out the front panel of my card and attached a banner cut from some LF papers.  The sentiment comes from the LF Happy, Happy Happy stamp set and dies.

I think he may get a kick out it! LOL!

Also, wanted to share the second week now of the ICAD 2018 Challenge that I’m doing!  Yes, I even took things with me to the Stamp Convention last weekend and worked on the days that I needed to so I stayed with it.  Never stamped in a motel room before, but luckily there was a nice sized desk to spread stuff out on!  🙂  – check out the details if you want to join in the fun too!  Nope, it’s never too late!

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It looks pretty random, but that’s what this challenge is for…pure randomness in creating and I think that’s what I love about it, not to mention that I don’t feel as pressured because it’s just playing on a little index card!  The coffee one was made with a coffee cup I had sitting on my desk…it smells lovely!  This is how my mind works…randomly in thoughts and so different from day to day.  Hope you like seeing the results each week!

Thanks for stopping in as I always enjoy seeing what you have to say!  Not sure if any of you are receiving my replies, but I truly appreciate each one and your support in my love of creating.  If you would like for me to visit your blog, please don’t be shy…leave me a comment and let me know you are here!  Have a wonderful weekend!

I would like to enter the Father’s Day “lion” card in these challenges:

  1.  Lawn Fawnatics – Cards for Guys
  2. Cardz 4 Guyz -Father’s Day
  3. Sweet Stampin’ – Father’s Day
  4. Splitcoaststampers “Free For All” Challenge (F4A33) – Father’s Day

Sun, Sea or Sand at Cute Card Thursday

It’s that time of the week again, my friends, for another CUTE CARD THURSDAY CHALLENGE!  The theme for this week is an appropriate “Sun, Sea or Sand” challenge.  As hot as it’s going to be this weekend, I think I’d take the sea waters out of those three choices!  🙂  But since I’m inside the air conditioning, I decided to go ahead and use all three of them for my card today:

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Our sponsor for this week is All Dressed Up Stamps.  I have chosen to use this fun Summer Time digital stamp for my card.  I first printed out my image and colored her in with my Copics.  I then used the Molotow masking liquid -(Dick Blick was the cheapest found for me in the U.S.) to cover it up (yeah, it gave me a bit of a heart attach, but it worked!) and once it dried, I used several different stencils and distress inks with a blending tool  to create the beach scene behind her.

I have used a craft knife to cut a small slit in one of the waves just enough for the beach ball (MFT Penguins in Paradise) to fit inside so that it looks to be floating along the water.  I just used my Copic markers to make the dotted lines for the beach sand.  The sun (Lawn Fawn Spring Showers dies) was die cut from some glitter paper that I also colored with a yellow Copic marker.  The sentiment along the edge is from a Tim Holtz sticker book.  The front panel cut from MFT Wonky Stitched dies and mounted on a top folding A2 sized white card base.

I hope you will stop by the Cute Card Thursday challenge and check out the rest of the inspiration from the design team and join along with us this week!  Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your day!

These are the challenges I’d like to enter this card for:

  1.  All Dressed Up Challenge – Anything Goes + ADU image
  2. Stamps & Fun=Creativity – Travel/Holidays
  3. Fab ‘n’ Funky – Bring me Sunshine
  4. Crafting From the Heart – Anything Goes
  5. Addicted to Stamps & More – Anything Goes
  6. Aud Sentiments – Anything Goes + sentiment
  7. QKR Stampede – Anything Goes

Stamp Convention Photos!

Hello friends!  Hope you had as great of a weekend as I did!  I came back Sunday evening from a wonderful stamp convention in Collinsville, IL and created, purchased, spent time with some amazing people too…it was so fun!  It was fun to talk to other stampers and just enjoy our time there!  I thought I’d share some of the fun I had with you!

First, I would like to say that I was honored to finally meet up with a wonderful blog friend who inspires me with her creative art, Patti from Cherish Each Precious Day.  I was so happy to actually see her in person and meeting her lovely friends as well!  Thank you for taking the time to spend lunch with me and my mom! 🙂  I really wish I had remembered to take a snapshot with you though!

This was my first time in many years that I had actually even been to a stamp convention and I really hope to go to another one again next year as we had such a great time!  I always love going and seeing demonstrations and make-n-takes from the vendors…so of course I had to take part in the fun and here are some of the cards that I made there:

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This was made from the Stamp On It vendor (Kim was the lady who taught the make-n-take) which sold these amazing kits with a variety of stunning images printed on acetate sheets.  You would use this sticky glitter adhesive to go over it and create this amazing look.  Of course it’s much more stunning in person!

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This make-n-take was made from the Rubber Cottage vendor.  I just fell in love with that gorgeous floral background image and bought it! 🙂  The lady that taught the make-n-take showed us a clever way of keeping the card protected while the stickles glitter dried.  Again, it’s so pretty and sparkly in person!

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These fun designs were from the Marco’s Paper vendor.  The “Woohoo” card was created with Nuvo paste at the bottom corner and a strip of Nuvo glitter with score tape.

The other piece you see was something that was made using a gel press and oxide ink pads.  We just had fun playing around with it and got some great tips from the lady sharing it.  I have a gel plate, but have yet to use it!  Hopefully I can pull it out soon and just play now that I’ve actually seen it in action! 🙂

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This card was made from The Stamp Pad vendor.  She does not have a website as of yet, but she is a store located in the small town of Kimmswick, MO.  I was talking with the owner and she was explaining what a nice little town it was.

We used stencils with distress ink and Nuvo paste.  I thought the butterfly and papers were so pretty.  The sentiment was already previously stamped when given the kit.

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This card was made from the Taylored Expressions vendor (You can actually see another version of this card on the front of her website!).  From what I heard from others at the event, she was new to this stamp convention and she seemed to be a very busy vendor there!  She had many different things going on with demos and several different make-n-takes.  I just loved her products and you will see something below that I got there! 🙂

This card was just a matter of adding the decorative paper in the background and then placing the colored card stock popsicles over the already cut out border.  We stamped the sentiment using the MISTI, colored the popsicle sticks with a Copic marker and added the twine.  She even provided an envelope.  Taylor helped me with my bow! LOL!  When I got home, the only thing I did was add some sparkle with my Spectrum Noir glitter brush.

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Lastly, we created this alcohol inked background card from The Paper Cut vendor.  The lady there showed the different looks you get from dabbing verses twisting the applicator.  I twisted my background.  The frame was already die cut, but I ended up saving those tiny dots from the die and added them back onto it.  (We were provided with enough rhinestones for each dot in the sentiment as well as the corners.)  We used the alcohol inks to color the rhinestones in the corners and then we popped it up with foam tape.  An envelope was provided for this make-n-take too.

The stamp convention also held a card contest where you could make up two cards based on the theme provided for each day.  The themes for this year were Saturday:  “Ahoy Matey!” and Sunday:  “Time for a Nap”.  I decided to send in the limit which was two cards per theme.  Of course, silly me didn’t remember to take a photo of the cards BEFORE I mailed them off…so sorry about the quality, but I took photos on my phone of the cards that I made that were displayed:

Ahoy Matey contest pirate

I made this card using of course a My Favorite Things stamp set called Party Like a Pirate.  Where you see the girl pirate inside the port hole looking out, this is actually cut out with real wood veneer paper and it acts as a flap to open the card from the center so you can see the line where it opens.  I had so much fun with this one!

Ahoy Matety contest map

this is the second card I made in the same category.  I used stamps and a marker to make a map background and distressed the edges.  The skull and treasure chest come from an older set in my stash from a company no longer in business.  The parrot is from the same stamp set listed in the above card.

Nap time context snoopy

For the second day Sunday’s contest of “Time for a Nap”, this is one of the cards that I made.  It’s so hard to see the details in this photo, but obviously I’ve used a Snoopy stamp and colored it with colored pencils on kraft card stock.  I took a play on the sentiment and added the “Z”s in place of “be” that would be there.

Nap time contest penguin

And for my second card in this category, I’ve made this fun penguin beach theme using the My Favorite Things set called Penguins in Paradise.  I thought it would be fun to add a summer beach scene with a penguin taking a nap!  LOL!  The sky and the water were masked to create the different looks.

I have to say that it paid off in sending in my cards!  On Saturday, I had no luck at all with any prizes.  On Sunday, when they announced 3rd place, 2nd place and then the first place winner….I was so excited to find out that my penguin card won 1st place at the stamp convention!!  My prize award was $100 to spend with ANY vendor there at the show!  Believe me, it didn’t take long at all to spend it!!  LOL!

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So I thought I’d just share a quick photo of some of the items that I got while I was there!  Notice the bag I’m holding above…so it gets MUCH bigger after that!  🙂

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As you can see, I had no problem spending the prize winnings there!  I have to say though that this all equals out to much more than my prize winnings…believe me!! LOL!!  I can’t wait to start playing and using up all of my new goodies now!!  I think there are some items underneath all of this that you cannot clearly see in the photo either!

So after the exciting weekend, long drive home…I ate a late great supper that hubby made for me and pretty much collapsed that night.  Yesterday, I had been sorting, photographing and trying to “catch up” with normal life now.  🙂

Hope you’ve enjoyed my share and thanks for stopping in!  Hope you can share a smile with someone today!

Week One – ICAD 2018

Happy Friday!  Wanted to stop in with a quick post to share with you what I’ve been up to with my daily creating this past week for the start of the ICAD 2018 challenge!  I go into my stamp studio/room each day to use the prompts/themes given and use this as a basis (or not) to create something on an index card every day up until we’ve done 61 days all together! You can click on the link above for information in case you’d like to join in the fun too!  When I finish, I post it to the ICAD FB group and there is so much inspiration from everyone else that it just makes it a really fun experience.

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I have enjoyed the process of being able to just play on a small piece of card as to not have it be so intimidating and gives you the freedom to just “play around” with your craft stash!  This is how I am storing/displaying my index cards:

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Since the index cards already have a hole in the corner, I am using a metal ring to keep the finished cards all together in one place.  The first one is the “cover” that I’ve made for this year’s ICAD challenge.  I am not supposed to share the “prompts” or “themes” given so that if you are curious enough or want to try yourself, you can CLICK HERE to see all about it!

So since the first week is finished and the second week has already started, I will share what I’ve done for the first week’s cards:

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I enjoyed playing with different media and some that I’ve already had and tried in new and fun ways!  I even attemped to draw my own image which I never do!  I love using both the prompts and themes for a starting point especially since I would be stuck not knowing where to start without them.  And since it’s an index card….so what if I “mess up”, but I have decided that no matter what, I’m not throwing it away or startin over…it’s just how it happens to turn out on that day.  I also made notes and have a date stamp for the back of the cards so that I know the prompt, theme and media used for the card on that day.  I may even use notes about how I was feeling.  I’m also looking forward to seeing how I progress throughout this challenge each week.  Hope you are too!

I am also going to have an additional challenge since I’m headed off this weekend to a stamp convention in Collinsville, IL!  I have taken some items with me so that I can continue with the daily challenges.  I’m excited about going and look forward to meeting a fellow crafty friend or two while I’m there! 🙂

Wishing you a wonderful Summer weekend my friends and thanks for dropping in!