Christmas Wreath

It's been a while since I've posted. The flu took it's toll. I had no motivation to create for the last week and even now I am thinking quick and easy when I make a card. We have to drive to Cincinnati late tomorrow evening for a funeral on Friday, drive back early Saturday morning for a Beach Boys concert on Saturday afternoon. So not much creating going on this weekend. We'll see how next week pans out. But here is my quick and easy card from this evening.

I was looking through my Christmas dies for something else and realized that it's been forever since I used this wreath die from Cheery Lynn. So I used some scraps from my scrap box and popped out this wreath pretty quickly. The sentiment is from Creative Visions Holiday Sentiment stamp set.stamped in my MISTI. The green wreath was inked around the edges with Distress Oxide Lucky Clover. I glued the wreath and bow to the card and then added some tiny pearls around the wreath. I am entering these challenges:

• Rudolph Days: anything goes Christmas
• Crafty Hazelnut Christmas: anything goes
• Simon Says Wednesday challenge: anything goes
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• Outlawz Festive Friday: Christmas
• Addicted to Stamps and More: holiday

That's it for me tonight. I am hoping that my motivation will be back next week. Have a lovely rest of your week. Thanks for stopping by.

Donna

A Walk in the Rain

I really wish I hadn't had to make this card today. This card is for a good friend and the message says it all.

My card is rather clean and simple. The image is from Bugaboo Stamps and called Brat Boy Spring Umbrella Digi. I colored him with Spectrum Noir markers. He's printed right on the front of my card. The sentiment was a freebie from Piece of Heart (couldn't find the website now). I added some silver sequins for a little sparkle and then added Dimensional Magic on the sequins and on the raindrops on the image. I used my Zig pen and Tim Holtz ruler to make the faux stitching to frame the card. I am entering these challenges:

• Catch the Bug February Bingo challenge: I used the middle row: sparkle Bugaboo image, stitching
  
• Simon Says Wednesday: add a sentiment
• Addicted to Stamps and More: make your mark 
  
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes 
• The Outlawz Monday Greeting challenge: use a sentiment anything goes

I am feeling a bit better today but still not doing my regular activities. I didn't take a nap today and I might pay for that later on. We'll see hoe it goes. Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day!

Donna

Sweet Cocoa Time

Happy end of Tuesday, almost! I haven't been able to craft much these last few days. Yesterday my DH took me to Urgent Care and they diagnosed the flu so I've been sleeping a lot and just not really in the mood to move around much. But tonight I wanted to get something done so I made a card.

The image I used is from Bugaboo Stamps called Girl Ginger Cocoa but I wasn't able to find it on the web site. I colored the image with Spectrum Noir markers and fussy cut it. I added Worn Lipstick Stickles to the bow and headband and also to the marshmallows. I think colorful marshmallows are so fun! The designer paper is from my stash but I think the red strip paper is from Close to My Heart. the dotted brown paper is from a second hand store/ The sentiment was a long ago freebie from Paper Craft World. The banners were die cut from the speckled brown paper with MFT Pierced Fishtail Flags. I am entering these challenges:

• Catch the Bug February Bingo challenge: Horizontal: heart, Bugaboo image, dots/stripes
  
• Tuesday Morning Sketch: sketch 
  
• Christmas Card Throwdown: cocoa 
  
• Incy Wincy Designs: anything goes
• Crafty Hazelnut Christmas challenge: anything goes
• Simon Says Wednesday challenge: 2 or more patterned papers

That's it for tonight. I am definitely ready to sleep for a while. Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed and healthy day!

Donna

Hello

I woke up this morning feeling pretty lousy. I guess I finally succumbed to my DH's cold that he had all last week. I can deal with a cold but I sure don't want the flu. I feel so bad for the twins who came down with that on Friday. I hate when they can't tell you what's wrong. I didn't really feel much like creating today but I managed to put one card together tonight.

The image is My Best Friend from. All Dressed Up and it's the image for the Outlawz Progressive challenge for February. I colored the image with several different kinds of markers (Bic, Spectrum Noir, Copic and American)and die cut it with MFT Cross_Stitch Ovals.  The paper is from Basic Grey. The sentiment is a die from Momenta. I bought it at Hobby Lobby. I finished it off with a piece of twine left over from a kit I received. I am entering these challenges:

• Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2 February challenge: sketch 
  
• The Outlawz Progressive challenge: use My Best Friends by All Dressed Up
• 613 Avenue Create: anything goes' option: banners and bows
• 2 Crafty Critter Crazies: use a critter
• Crafter's Cafe: use pink or red

That's it for me tonight. Early to bed tonight and hope tomorrow is a better day. Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day!

Donna

12 Months of Christmas Link Up

Normally I post for the 12 Months of Christmas Link Up challenge on the first of the month. This time we were away from home on vacation and I didn't have the supplies needed to make and post my card on time. So this month I am posting with the Merry Maidens instead of the Sleigh Belles. Our theme is always anything goes but we offer a twist in case you'd like a little extra challenge. This month the twist is Winter Blues. Lisa designed a set of gorgeous papers for this month. I am using two of the papers on my card.

Our sponsor this month is Sheepski Designs and I am using Andrea's Snow Happy image. I colored the image with Spectrum Noir and Copic markers. The wings have Wink of Stella on them. The image and backing is die cut with Spellbinders Large Octagons and popped up with foam tape. The designer papers are from Decosse's Dynamite Doodles.

The large quilled snowflake isn't attached to the project. That's my second quilled project that I've done and I haven't gotten it affixed to a card yet. Just used it as a photo prop. I am entering these challenges:

• Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2: sketch 
  
• The Alphabet Challenge: W is for anything you wish
• A Bit More Time to Craft: anything goes
• Crafty Hazelnut Christmas: anything goes
• Simon Says Stamps Wednesday challenge: 2 or more patterned papers

We were supposed to have the twins all day today, but their Dad caught the flu and then passed it on to them. So say an extra prayer that they are up and around really soon as their normal happy little selves. I hope you will check out the 12 Months of Christmas challenge and play along with us. What  a great feeling to have those Christmas cards started for 2020. Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day! Big Hugs!

Donna

Personal Challenge Day 2

Yesterday I started a personal challenge to use up some image strips that I found. You can see yesterday's post here. It explains what I am trying to do and gives a picture of the image strip I'm using. I think I said that I found 13 of them but found another one today so I think I have a total of 14 of the strips. Last night before I went to bed I looked through a bunch of sketches that I've saved and pulled some that I thought would work with the strips. So this card was inspired by a sketch from Christina Griffiths.

I used 2 of the floral image strips. The sentiment is from Create with TLC and die cut with Spellbinders Labels 13.  The backing for each of the pieces is textured card stock from my scrap box. For embellishment I used some self-adhesive gem stones with a purplish color. I am entering these challenges:

• Addicted to Stamps and More: anything goes 
  
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes

That's is for me today. I am tired this evening and tomorrow is my really busy day so I'm heading for bed. Hope you have a blessed day and thanks for stopping by.

Donna

Birthday Love

We are headed for some wintry weather tomorrow. We are right on the edge of snow and rain which usually means we'll get ice. Yuk! We volunteer at Head Start tomorrow morning so we'll see how that goes.
One of my personal goals for the year is to try to use up images,die cuts, and other things that I have in a box near my desk. I could probably make cards for the rest of the year with just what's in that box. So to get me started on this goal, I found 13 of these  strips with a floral image. I have no idea where I got these strips from.

So my personal challenge for the next week or two is to use these up on cards. I may make more than one of the cards if I really like the design. So I may have 13 different cards or I may decide to make duplicates. So my first card using this image is below.

So the other flower in the die cut circle is a free image from Beccy's Place:Clematis. I used the pre-colored image. The image and sentiment are die cut with MFT Stitched Circles. Then I distressed the die cuts with Mowed Lawn distress ink. The blue backing card stock is a scrap from my scrap bin and matches the card base. The doily was sitting on my desk from another project. The polka dot paper is also from my scrap bin. The sentiment is from Jak Heath. I am entering these challenges.

• Sketch Saturday: sketch 
  
• Beccy's Place: use a Beccy's Place image
• Sweet Stampers: hearts and/or flowers
• QKR Stampede: anything goes
• Outlawz Festive Friday challenge: birthday

Not looking forward to the nasty weather coming in. I don't think we've seen the sun since we've been home from vacation. Send me back to Florida please! I'll leave you with some pictures of the twins I took over the weekend. 

Arthur with their new toy from Opportunity House. Valerie liked it as much as he did.

Valerie having fun at WonderLab with one of the bubble activities.

Thanks for stopping by today. Hope your week is off to an amazing start!

Donna

Love Warms Your Heart

I saw this wonderful card at KT Fit Kitty's blog the other day, and wanted to use the same image since Snow Kisses is one of my favorite images from Scribbles Designs. Although Kitty did a much nicer job on her card, I needed a Valentine for little Arthur, my grandson. My last Valentine card that I need for this year's Valentines.

Arthur can be a little snuggler at times and in his alphabet, P is for penguin, so I thought this was perfect for him. I colored the image with American Craft markers. The hats have Ruby Stickles for the brim and balls. The background is inked with Salty Ocean Distress Ink and my blending brushes. The sentiment is from Create with TLC. I punched a bunch of these hearts out earlier this week. I covered this heart with Spectrum Noir Clear Crystal glitter. One of my goals this year is to use up as many scraps as possible. The snowflake paper is from my scrap box. The band of snowflakes is a die cut sent to me by one of my friends. Thanks to KT Fit Kitty for the inspiration for my card! I am entering these challenges:

• Scribbles Designs 7th Birthday Celebration challenge: penguin power 
  
• Atlantic Hearts Sketch challenge: sketch 
  
• 2 Crafty Critter Crazies: use a critter
• Creative Knockouts: love or Valentine's Day
• Double D challenge: hearts 
  
• Modsquad challenge: you're all heart

I finished writing the rest of my Valentines tonight. Getting them out kind of late but not creating in January while on vacation kind of put me behind. Yesterday we had the twins most of the day. Took them to Wonderlab our local Children's Science Center. They had a ball. Tomorrow morning I'm volunteering as a cashier at Opportunity House. Hopefully tomorrow afternoon I'll get time to craft. Thanks for stopping by. Have a blessed day!

Donna

You Wow my Heart

Happy Friday! The weekend is here. I kind of had a free day today. Dishes and laundry were caught up. I didn't have to make dinner tonight as we are having dinner with friends. So it was kind of nice to kick back and play a bit. I finished several cards. One is a design team card coming up next week and then I was able to get this card done.

The adorable bear is the digital stamp for the Progressive Challenge at Limited Runs. I didn't color the bear except for a few spots of Copic R20. I did fussy cut him out and added a small little heart in his hands. The plaid paper is from MFT Merry and Bright 6x6 pack. I used the sketch from this week's My Favorite Things sketch challenge and one of the inspiration cards had a similar black strip. I thought it really gave it a nice definition and decided to copy that part.The large heart is from Spellbinders Classic Hearts. The sentiment is from MFT More Essential Sentiments and I drew a thin-lined box around the sentiment to make it stand out. And my final touch were the three little hearts raining down. I have no idea where I got these but they are like magic. Depending on how you look at them they change colors. When I looks at the card straight on they are pink, but two of the three have a blue tint to them in the photo. I am entering these challenges:

• My Favorite Things Sketch challenge 475: sketch 
  
• If You Give a Crafter A Cookie: hearts and animals 
  
• Double D challenge: hearts 
  
• The Male Room: Heart You 
  
• The Modsquad challenge: You're All Heart
• Simon Says Stamps Wednesday challenge: with love

Feeling better today so hope that continues. Thanks for stopping by. Hope you have an awesome weekend!

Donna

Brrr-Birthday

I feel like I've been away for weeks. Oh, I guess I have. But glad to be back to my crafty stuff. This card has taken me three days to finish. I've had a mountain of laundry and volunteer obligations after we arrived home on Tuesday. And grocery shopping as we had not much in the house that was edible. So my time has been taken up with other things. But I finally finished a card!

Scribbles Designs is celebrating their 7th birthday and their challenge is Penguin Power. I used Brrr-thday Chef on my card, one of Sandy's adorable penguin images among many others. I framed him with Birthday Wishes Border. The image is colored with American Craft markers. I used Wink of Stella on Brr's hat, towel and the cake slice. The image is die cut with MFT Inside and Out Stitch Stacked Hearts.ed Rounded Squares and backed with black card stock. The banner is MFT Essential Fishtail Sentiment Strips and I cut off one end. The hearts are the same colors as the candles on the cake and were die cut with Simon Says Stamps Stacked Hearts. The background paper filled with the fun happy birthday banners is from Decosse's Dynamite Doodles. I'd like to enter these challenges:

• Scribbles Designs 7th Birthday challenge: penguin power
• Tuesday Morning Sketches: sketch 
  
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything
• 2 Crafty Critter Crazies: use a critter
• Seize the Birthday: birthday card featuring creatures great and small 

All the traveling has me feeling off a bit so I am hoping to get to feeling a bit better so I can get in more crafting time. Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed day!

Donna

My First Quilling Attempt

I didn't think I'd have any other posts this month as we are on vacation. I really didn't bring much with me for paper crafting but I brought a beginner kit for quilling with me. And low and behold they have a craft group that meets on Monday mornings. I met a woman who taught me some of the basics of quilling so I thought I'd share my first attempt.

This is a poinsettia pattern that was in the quilling kit. I've never tried this before and it's fairly easy once you get the hang of it. One of the other things that I brought with me was files with stamped images that have been lying around for a while. I found this sentiment in my Christmas file and decided to use it on a card with the quilling. The sentiment is a freebie from Beccy's Place and I had already had the black card stock backing on it, so that worked out well because I didn't bring any colored card stock. I did bring a few pieces of white card stock so I was able to make a base. So that's my first quilling project. I've also made a quilled snowflake that I'll make into a card once I get home. I am entering these challenges:

• Rudolph Days: Christmas anything goes
• Beccy's Place January challenge: use a Beccy's Place image
• Christmas Crafts All Year 'Round: anything goes
• Crafty Hazelnut Christmas challenge: anything goes
• The Outlawz Festive Friday: Christmas

I thought I'd share with you the sunrise this morning.

The dark figures on the right are campers in the campground we are staying in. You can almost see the sunrise from our camper. We have to walk a few feet to see this gorgeous scene every morning. Such a hardship. LOL! We have had a lot of wind since we have been here. In fact we had a wind storm the day we arrived and there is supposed to be another later this week. We will leave here first thing on Friday morning. We'll make a stop in North Carolina to visit some family and should return home by mid next week. I'm not looking forward to returning to the cold weather but I am looking forward to my bed. Have a super week. I'll return in February!

Donna

Bug Birthday Bash Day 7

And for the final day of the Bugaboo Birthday Bash they have a photo inspiration.

This challenge is associated with the Friday Freebie. I already had the free image so I used it on my card.

I like the bright colors of the photo and used some of them in my card. The Bugaboo Image is Sheep Trio (free right now over at Bugaboo Birthday Ewe Trio. If you've been to my blog before you know I love plaid so I used MFT Merry and Bright Plaid Patterns. I colored the image with American craft markers and die cut with MFT Stitched Ovals. The sentiment comes with the image and is die cut with MFT Essential Fishtail Sentence Strips. I backed the layers with blak card stock to make the color pop. To finish off I added some self-adhesive gem stones as accents. I am entering these challenges:

• Bugaboo Down on the Farm Birthday Bash Day 7: photo inspiration
• A Bit More Time to Craft: anything goes
• Crafty Friends challenge: anything goes
• Lil Patch of Crafty Friends: anything goes
• QKR Stampede challenge: anything goes:

Thanks to Bugaboo Stamps for posting the challenges ahead of time so I could work ahead since we were traveling this week. And for giving us a few extra days to post. That was a tremendous help to me. I'll be taking a little break now from blogging. Internet here is hard to work around. Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed rest of the month!

Donna

Birthday Bash Day 6

Still working on Bugaboo Birthday Bash cards. The wind is still howling outside so I'll get right to the fun.

Day 6 is a color challenge. Not my favorite kind of challenge but I seem to be doing okay with these. I have to plan them more carefully to make sure I have all the colors.

I embossed the yellow card stock with the Spots and Dots embossing folder. I used a black card stock base. The image is colored with Spectrum Noir markers and die cut with Gina Marie Designs Cross Stitch Rectangles (no longer available). The checked paper is from my stash. I added the "clucks" to the image from Gina K's Funny Farm stamp set. On the inside the card reads: "Holy Cluck! Another 'bird' day." I am entering these challenges:

• Bugaboo Down on the Farm Birthday Bash Day 6: color challenge
• The Outlawz Monday Greeting: embossing
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• 2 Crafty Critter Crazies: use a critter

My DH Tom looked at the wind map a bit ago. The southern part of Florida is very windy. We are getting gusts up to 30 miles per hour. Even the birds are having trouble flying around. Thanks for stopping by and hope your day is calm and relaxing!

Donna

Day 5 Make Us Laugh

We made it to Florida yesterday. Stayed at Flying Js for two nights. We set up in our campsite here at Big Pine Key and a neighbor camper said we were supposed to get hit by a wind storm in a few hours. Rain came first but then the wind came in and howled all night long. It's still very windy and shakes the trailer. I wouldn't want to be here in a hurricane, that's for sure. Hoping it will die down sometime today so we can get outside. Here's my Day 5 card for Bugaboo's Down on the Farm Birthday Bash. The theme is make us laugh.

I used Bugaboo's Farm Critter Stack for the front of the card. I colored the image with Spectrum Noir markers and I inked the sky with Salty Ocean Distress ink. I die cut the image with the tag from MFT Blueprints 13. The haystacks are from Clear Dollar Stamps Fun on the Farm (no longer in business).The background paper is from my stash. The sentiment is from Gina K Funny Farm. I forgot to take a picture of the inside of the card but it has a pig stamped on the inside and says: "Sent with Hogs and Kisses." I am entering these challenges:

• Bugaboo Down on the Farm Birthday Bash Day 5: make us laugh
• Crafty Friends challenge: anything goes
• A Bit More Time to Craft: anything goes
• Lil Patch of Crafty Friends challenge: anything goes

I'm not sure how long I will have Internet. The campground Internet is not working so I am using my phone as a hot spot. So I'm signing off so I can get the rest of my cards posted before I lose it all together. Have a blessed day and thanks for stopping by.

Donna

It's Bingo Day

We made it to Cincinnati without any problems this afternoon. Took us the better part of the morning to get the trailer packed and ready. I think they want to leave tomorrow morning by 7am so I'll be heading to bed a little early tonight. So today is Day 4 at Bugaboo's 10th annual Birthday Bash and the theme is bingo. Here's my card.

I used the Bugaboo image called Cownt Your Blessings. I colored with Spectrum Noir and die cut with My Favorite Things Inside and Out Stitched Rounded Squares. The sentiment is computer-generated. I punched some hearts to add to the sentiment strip. The paper is an animal print collection from Michael's. The layers are backed with black card stock. Here's the bingo board.

I am entering these challenges:

• Bugaboo Down on the Farm Birthday Bash Day 4: bingo (board above) (stripes, Bug image, gems)
• Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2: sketch #152 
  
• Through the Craft Room Door: anything goes
• 2 Crafty Critter Crazies: use a critter

Off we go to Florida in the morning so I'll be off grid for three days. When we arrive in Florida on Friday I'll get the Internet back so I'll be back then. Thanks for stopping by and have a blessed week!

Donna