Calling All Cowboys(girls)!

Howdy folks,
Well this past few days I have been working on some Western style artwork as there is a call for it at Operation Write Home and I wanted to share a couple with you. Mainly want you to see the cool leather look background I got from some originally cream colored textured card stock that was gifted to me. By rubbing stamp pads directly on the paper I created some great looking leather, if I don't say so myself! Yes Sireee! I am mighty pleased!

The first one I am showing is how I used the leather look card stock as a frame for a scene I colored. This is an "all in one" scene image from I Brake for Stamps. I purchased it a long time ago but never got it inked until this week. Why I waited so long, I don't know. But I think it is "right purdy".

In this next card you can see a better close up of the leather look. It is a clean and simple design but I thought the leather card stock worked well with my western theme.  The image used on this card is from DRS Stamps and the sentiment is from The Stamp Garden, a Sioux Falls, South Dakota company which I believe is no longer in business.

I hope you enjoyed my little western themed post. I made several more cards using other designs for my packet to be sent to Operation Write Home. I had so much fun working with these western designs and I wanted you to see how I altered the card stock. 

Thanks for looking and hope you have a great weekend! Yeehaw! 

Spring, Sunshine and Warmer Weather!

That certainly is what I am waiting for...as the Winter has been long and so cold. With that in mind, I made a card using the negatives from a Cheery Lynn Designs die. I am very happy with how it evolved and the end results.  I wanted to portray the sunshine with flowers to bring a bit of warmth to everyone who is feeling much the same as I am these days! Bring on Spring!

I used the open daisy spaces created when I die cut the frame from the Cherry Lynn Designs Manon's Wedding Garland die along with the center panel from the frame. I put the yellow and white gingham pattern paper from the Gina K. Designs Sunshiny Day paper pack underneath and added it to the Warm Cocoa card stock from Gina K. Designs. Using brown brads I added them all around the design.  In the center of the daisies I added a button and some brown and white twine. On each corner I added a little bit of the gingham pattern paper again and then mounted the whole thing onto a Sweet Corn card base. The sentiment is from the Gina K. Designs Simple Flowers stamp set by Tami Mayberry.

I entered this card into the Mix It Up Monday challenge at Stamp TV in which we were to get "holey", meaning we needed a hole in our card. I am also entering this in the Mod Squad Blog Challenge for this week in which we are to make something that reminds us of Spring.

Touch of Gold

Yesterday I was playing around with one of the border stamps from the Pretty Patterns 2 set available at Gina K. Designs. I was grabbing various colors (Gina K. Designs Turquoise Sea, Honey Mustard, Tomato Soup, and Cranberry Tart) dye inks and trying to make a cool background for a future card. I really liked the end result too.

But my dilemma was what would go well with the background.  Today I spotted the Dreamcatcher duo set from Gina K. Designs and decided that would be the perfect focal image and sentiment for this background.

So I stamped the image in Gina K. Designs Dark Chocolate dye ink onto Gina K. Pure Luxury Ivory card stock. I then colored only the feathers with a bit of light brown and added just a few flecks of gold with a Sailor gold pen to them and also in the net center..

Using  a Spellbinder die I cut the focal image out with a plain oval die and sponged on a bit of light blue ink. Then I cut a frame out of Honey Mustard card stock with a Spellbinder scalloped die. I was not quite satisfied as to how that appeared, so I again layered that onto Cranberry Tart card stock and fussy cut around it. Ahhhhh! Now that I liked. I placed that over the background, layered the card panel onto more Honey Mustard first and then again onto Cranberry Tart card stock. I stamped the sentiment also in the Dark Chocolate and layered that onto the Honey Mustard and Cranberry Tart card stock as well. I finished the card by adding some gold bling along the sentiment.

I think this would be a neat card for many occasions where you want to give encouragement....perhaps on a new job, starting a blog (haha!), mastering a new technique or even a graduation.

I am entering this card in the Mod Squad Blog Challenge for this week which the theme is based on the Olympics and they said to "Go for the Gold".

Here is a closeup of the flecks of gold in the feathers and the center of the dream catcher net..

Well, that's all for today. I hope you enjoyed my project. Have a wonderful evening everyone and thanks so much for stopping by. God bless!

Shabby Chic????

Oh, dear! I joined in a challenge at Stamp TV for the Mix It Up Monday challenge to do a Shabby Chic card with an envelope to match. The envelope was the easiest as I am not normally one to do shabby chic designs. Not sure if I pulled it off or not. I will let you be the judge! LOL

The floral image I used is from the Gina K. Designs Heart Blooms duo set. I colored it with alcohol ink markers and then fussy cut it out. The background for the flowers is some textured card stock from Die Cuts With a View and it was dry embossed using the Cuttlebug Flourish Frame folder design. With sandpaper I removed enough of the embossing to show the cream color which was placed between the layers of the pink colored card stock. I added some lace, pearls and a ribbon along with the popped flowers and put it all on a ivory base card. Again, the bow was done with my Craft-Dee BowZ bow maker. I would be lost without that tool!

Oh, and if I should suddenly not be posting anymore it may be because my computer will be either in repair or awaiting replacement. Some days it doesn't seem to work very well. I have had it for seven years so guess I should not complain that much. But I hate getting used to new techy things. In fact, just acquired an iPad recently and that has been a learning curve for me as well. But I think I have mastered enough to probably still do some internet things.

Well, thanks again for looking and hope your day is going great.

Birthday Borders

I find that this time of year for the next several months I will be in need of lots of birthday cards, so I thought perhaps I should start gearing up and make a few for those occasions. Here is the one I did this morning.

This particular one used several borders on it along with the pretty pattern paper from The Journey of the Heart paper pack by Gina K. Designs. I also used the Birthday Border stamp from Gina K. Designs. My punching layer was done with a border punch from Martha Stewart. I used my Craft-Dee BowZ bow maker to make a bow of that gorgeous gingham ribbon. I also added red and white twine fiber.

I worked for two hours on this design. And, believe me that is a long time for me as I am mostly a quick and easy type of card maker. But after I tweaked and tweaked it I finally came to the conclusion that this was the end result. I am happy with it so hopefully whomever receives it will like it too.

Again, I thank all who stop by and leave comments. I enjoy hearing from you.

Love and Prayers

This week was another sad week for us as we learned of the death of the father of our grandson. I struggled as to what to do for a sympathy card and finally settled on this design. I hope it gives his family comfort at this sad time.

I chose the beautiful solid daisy image from the Love and Prayers set available now in the Journey of the Heart set by Gina K. Designs. I stamped the image and the sentiment in Gina K. Designs Dark Chocolate ink onto Gina K. Pure Luxury Ocean Mist card stock. This had been cut out with the Nestabilities Majestic Labels 25 die set. The frame was also cut out with this lovely labels set too with a brown tone stardream card stock. . This was all placed onto a base card of the Ocean Mist. I finished the card by adding some Ocean Mist colored ribbon and some pearls.

 I must day that the flower and sentiment on this card could be used for so many occasions but I felt this was a message of comfort for the family and that was why I put it on the front so it would be an immediate boost to them hopefully!

I am entering this in the Mod Squad Blog Challenge in which we are to use flowers.

Thanks everyone for your wonderful messages and I want to let you know I appreciate each and every one of them. I hope your day is wonderful and remember....each day that passes is a little bit closer to spring. Isn't that a great ray of hope for all of us? God bless.

The Glitter Affect

Brrrrr! It is another cold day in South Dakota but it is nice and warm inside and since my hubby is off at his part time job working today, I am again playing with the glitter affect. But this time I am using a Sakura Clear Star pen to get the same affect.

Again I used the darling image and sentiments from the Heartfelt Wishes set from the Everyday With Barkley line that I purchased from Crafter's Companion. Note how the Sakura pen which I used around the heart shows up as a glittery look! It is a clean and simple way to dress up your card designs. I love my Sakura pens for this reason. They come in lots of colors too.

I also decided to practice on my bow making and found this cute heart ribbon I had purchased several years ago. I used the Craft-Dee BowZ maker. I have tried other ways of making bows but this seems to be the one where I can get reasonably good results.

The pattern paper on the card is from Gina K. Designs to which I added some more red color with a sponge. And the gems are unknown to me as I lost all the paper information to accompany them. I, know...shame on me! But sometimes that happens!

I am entering this card in the Mod Squad Challenge for this week since I used a glittery affect with my Sakura pen and that it contains hearts!.

Thanks everyone for looking and commenting. I hope your day is an awesome one.

Got My Glitter On

This week at the Mod Squad Challenge we were to make a valentine card using glitter and at least one heart. Well, believe me, I got my glitter on with this challenge, My floor looks great too! LOL

I am also including this in the Sparkle N Sprinkle Monthly Challenge.

 I decided to try a technique with lace and glitter to make a background for my card. I used a Shell Pink G1022 and Burgundy Glitz G1047 which are both from Sparkle N Sprinkle. They are known for all their wonderful glitters and embossing powders.

First take sticker paper, remove the outer paper so that the sticky portion is up. Carefully lay your piece of lace down on that sticker paper, being sure to adhere it well. Then use one of the glitters for the first layer. And, to make sure it sticks well, I take my fingers and rub it in. Carefully remove the lace. You will see exposed the design from the lace. Then you add the second color of glitter and again, rub it in well. Voila! You have a wonderful background. Now this would be perfect alone with just a ribbon, but I since it was a Valentine I wanted to add a special greeting and some hearts.

I used the sentiment and hearts from the Clearly Gina K. Lots of Lines set by Beth Silaika. I stamped them in Gina K. Designs Cranberry Tart dye ink onto the pink card stock. My base card is a dark burgundy color so I used the pink card stock for my layers too. As another added embellishement I added the burgundy ribbon and bow.

You know I got so involved in this card, that I forgot to eat lunch. It was about 1:30 when my tummy began to complain, that I realized I had not eaten. I never spend this much time on a card and seldom miss a meal, but I really like how it turned out. I hope you do too.

Well, lunch is ready! Thanks for stopping by!

My Heartfelt Wishes

I made a card CASEing a card done by Taylor Usry who is a designer for Crafter's Companion. She posted it on her blog http://taylorusry.blogspot.com/2013/08/heartfelt-wishes.html and since I also owned that cute image from the Everyday With Barkley line called Heartfelt Wishes, I wrote her to ask if I could CASE her design. You can see if you click on  her blog post how lovely her card is. I hope I did her justice in my rendition as well.

I used pattern papers from Gina K. Designs. The Cuttlebug embossing folder I used was named
Victoria. I took Gina K.Designs white pigment ink pad and swiped across the black embossed design. I also added some ribbon I acquired from Gina K. Designs. Oh, and I colored the image in with water based markers of various brands.

This is a super cute and adorable image for a Valentine and I think it is one that will appeal to all ages too. I am using this darling image on my cards for the shut-ins this year.

Thanks again for stopping by and I so appreciate your visits.

Masculine Using Photo

The Mix It Up Monday Challenge at StampTv was to Make It Cheesy! So that meant using anything that pertained to photos, cameras etc. I chose a family photo to use in my card design. I just love this vintage photo and so therefore, scanned it and made myself a black and white copy. I will be giving this to a special gentleman who will soon be having a special milestone birthday.

I used a frame made with the Spellbinder's Majestic Labels 25 using Stardream card stock to frame the photo which was then mounted onto a black/white duplex card stock base. The sentiment was added to the bottom and it is from the Gina K. Designs Beautiful Banners set by Rebecca Oehlers. I stamped it with Versamark ink and added black embossing powder and heat set it. The sentiment was popped up with doublesided photo tape. I finished the card by adding  a ribbon bow made with my Craft-Dee BowZ maker and some bling from Basicgrey

Thanks for your visits and for all the nice comments everyone is leaving on my blog. I sure appreciate each and every one..