Tag: balloons

Hello friends!  Hope you’re having a great week so far.  The month of October is flying right through and I know once Halloween gets here, it will be the end of the year before we know it!

Today starts a new challenge over at Cute Card Thursday this week!  We are looking for “Spots and Dots” on your creations this time!  We look forward to seeing your take on this one!

For my card, I decided to keep it rather simple as I needed a card for my brother’s birthday this past weekend, so I didn’t want to add too much to it:

This card is using items from the Simon Says Stamp Sweet Birthday Limited Edition card kit which has since been sold out, but I know that you can still purchase a few of the items that were included in the kit.

I started out by taking the SSS Celebrate stencil from the kit and spread on some Deco Foil Transfer Gel over a white piece of cardstock from the kit and let it completely dry before moving on.  After it was dry, I took the Rainbow Shattered Glass transfer foil sheet and put it through my laminator.  It looks so pretty and shinny with a wow factor to it!  I cut this piece down and layered it over a black scallop square die cut panel.  I then layered these pieces over the green colored Tim Holtz Metallic paper from the kit.

For the square card, I used a black top folding 4.25″ black card base and then layered another piece of that green metallic paper over it.  I took a ‘dotted’ piece of paper from the Honey Bee Over the Rainbow papers (included in the kit) and layered it over top of the metallic green.  Then I added my foiled balloons panel over this.

Lastly, I took the sentiment from the Simon Says Stamp Sweet Birthday stamp set and white heat embossed it over a piece of black cardstock that I trimmed down to a banner and popped up over the card with some foam tape.

I really didn’t want to add too much more to it as it was for a male and I think with all of that foil and shine, it really didn’t need much else!  I think it’s fun, simple and really cheery looking especially with that foiling done.

I was able to pop this in his door before we left for the weekend and he let me know that it brightened up his day, so that was great to hear!

I know that I’m getting this fun kit out again very soon as I am in need of another birthday card to send to someone that needs a good birthday cheer and I’m happy to do it!  Besides, this kit looks to be so much to play with for sure!  🙂

Be sure to join us over the Cute Card Thursday Challenge this week!  Thanks so much for stopping in and I’ll see you soon!

**Please scroll down if you care to see some personal photos of our recent trips!**

Challenges:

1.  Pammie’s Inky Pinkies – PIP1941 Anything Goes
2. Crafty Cardmakers – Sparkle
3. Through the Craft Room Door – Anything Goes
4. A Bit More Time to Craft – Anything Goes
5. Watercooler Wednesday – WWC243 Masculine Anything Goes

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**Below are some photos and details of our recent trips if you’re interested!**

Now I wanted to be sure to share some photos with you as promised from hubby and my last two weekends out and about with our shenanigans!  LOL

The first weekend in October we visited Hannibal, MO and visited the Mark Twain museum and even went for a tour in the Mark Twain Cave!  It was very interesting!  You couldn’t be claustraphobic as there were a few tight areas in there!  I didn’t get any photos of the cave, but it’s so amazing in person!

This photo above shows us after we came back down from seeing the Mark Twain Memorial Lighthouse.  As you can see there are several steps to get up there, but what you don’t see is how many steps we took just to get to the point of where we are in the photo too! Whew!

My husband finally decided to take me on that cruise…along the Mississippi River that is! LOL!  They had a Mark Twain Riverboat tour that we took and it was a fun boat to check out along the river while listening to the stories from the captain.

So while listening to the stories from the Captain on the riverboat cruise, we heard about the story of “Lover’s Leap” and so we decided to investigate it before we left.  In the background you can see a view of the Mississippi River.  It was pretty up there and a long way down!

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So we came back home for some “downtime” and to unwind before going out this last weekend for another trip near the Starved Rock Park area:

We decided to get going in the morning but it had really cooled down over night and we knew starting out we would need our heavy coats.

And all I can say is that the photos do not do justice to what it was actually like over here.  It is absolutely gorgeous!  The photo above is our “lowest level starting point” during our ‘hike’ and that is the Illinois River behind us.

We came through the Visitor’s Center and briefly went through the small museum and started going through some of the trails.  They seemed to wind all over the place with many different areas to go to!

The main trail going straight was a slow incline and then several stairs to go upwards to where the top of Starved Rock was.  Here we are at the top along with tons of other people.  That is the Illinois River behind us again.  This was later in the day as you see the sun shining on us and getting warmer.

And here we are with this gorgeous feature behind us among the trees where shelves of rock walls lay and water running down.  It had warmed up enough for me to take my heavy coat off while walking around.  I think we look more serious as we were trying to capture the pretty view behind us.  LOL!  Nothing like seeing it in person of course!  (I just wish I was able to do more than what we did, but was still excited about what we did accomplish!)

We wanted to get up the next day and try to walk around a small town festival going on along with catching a tour to the Reddick Mansion later that day before we left, but we weren’t able to get there and had to get back home. (I will try again another day.)

This was fun to just get out and enjoy nature especially this time of the year.  I look forward to many more fun little trips in the future…especially with the love of my life!

Thanks so much for stopping in and sharing a bit of myself with you!  Wishing you a beautiful day friends!