Sad Sympathy and yet another winner

I've had absolutely no mojo to blog lately. I haven't had trouble creating but posting it is a different story. Tom and I will be leaving to visit our son in North Carolina on Thursday. But I have to schedule a couple of posts while I am gone so stay tuned.

My winner didn't contact me so I'm posting another winner. Come on down Stef Hughes (Glitterbabe). Please contact me so you can claim the embossing machine.

It's been an unusual week. I don't very often have to make sympathy cards but this week I've had to make 4 of them. I forgot to take a picture of one of them. I have two of the this evening.

The sentiment on the front of the card is a Heartfelt Creations stamp from the Sympathy Sentiment set. The silhouette flowers are stamped in VersaMark ink and from the Gina K set called Comfort and Peace. I continued the pattern to the inside of the card.

Thanks for stopping by tonight. Hope your week is going well.

Donna

New Winner and Happy Birthdays

My winner of the embossing machine didn't contact me, so I have picked a new winner. Congrats to Angie from Angies Handmade Crafts with Love. Please email me with your address so I can mail the embossing machine to you asap. You have until Saturday evening at 8pm EST to contact me. Looking forward to hearing fro you!

I did have some time to craft last weekend but I didn't have time this week to post. So I'm posting three cards tonight. A record for me I'm sure! All of these are birthday cards because I have a bunch of family and friend birthdays before the end of August.

Here's my cupcake birthday card. The image is from Designed 2 Delight cut with Spellbinder's dies and I used a corner rounder on the image and the backing. The borders are punched with a Martha Stewart punch.

My background is another recycled scrap background. I love doing those backgrounds and it uses up scraps that I hate to throw away. I'm not sure where I got this image. If you know who's it is, please let me know. The sentiment is from Doodle Pantry cut with dies from Clear Dollar Stamps.
Edit: Thanks to Cheryl for letting me know this is a Squigglefly image called Brr.thday Chef! He is so cute!

This image was a freebie on the Outlawz challenge site. And yet another on of my recycled backgrounds. The inside sentiment reads: 1. Forget the past.  You can't change it anyway. 2. Forget the present. I didn't get you one.

Hope your week has gone well. Have a wonderful Friday and a great start to your weekend. Thanks for stopping by today!

Donna

Winner, Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinners

I have the winners for my weekend blog candy! Winners will have until Thursday night at 8pm (EST) to contact me with their address. If I don't hear from those listed below I will pick new winners. If you see your name here, please send an email to drinckel at yahoo dot com. And now for the winners.

The embossing machine goes to Nancy N. If you live in the U.S. I couldn't find where you might live.

The stamp package goes to meemee48.

And the mystery prize goes to Rosie Guiher.

Congrats to all my winners. I'm looking forward to hearing from you. Email me soon

Happy Monday!

I hope your weekend was spectacular! Our weather was picture perfect and we had a very nice visit with Tom's parents. So the weekend went well. I did get some play time over the weekend and made several cards so I'll have some fun things to show this week.
One of my projects last week had some butterfly cut outs from Cheery Lynn dies. And after I cut them out it occurred to me that I could use the cut out sections too. So I came up with this card.

The Thank You sentiment is a retired Stampin' Up! stamp. The background is embossed with the Victoria embossing folder. I didn't emboss the black background so I could use the faux stitching around the edges. I edged the black section with white gel pen and the white with a fine point black pen. I really like the way this card turned out!
I'm entering this card into these challenges:

• Hiding in my Craft Room challenge: limited layers (only 2 and base doesn't count). Hiding in my Craft Room is looking for more crafters to play along. You will be so inspired by their challenges. Check it out!
• Paper Playtime challenge: polka dots and a sentiment. You have until August 31st to play along. It's easy peasy!

Thanks for stopping by. I'll be back soon with the winner to my candy! Stay tuned!

Donna

Sean & Regina's August Blog Hop

WELCOME TO THE AUGUST BLOG HOP!

Hi everyone!  Thanks for playing along in our August blog hop!  The Blog Hop with Sean and Regina is featuring cards and sentiments celebrating the fall season this month! After a very hot and humid July, most of us are looking forward to a cool and colorful fall! When we think of fall, our minds swirl like we are surrounded by falling leaves and a crisp cool breeze in the air. Each host/hostess will have a card creation posted that is his/her representation of what fall means to them.    

Scrapbook Stamp Society is our blog hop sponsor!  The overall winner will receive digi’s from our sponsor.  Please visit them at http://scrapbookstampsociety.com/index.php?! Also some of our blog hop host/hostess designers will be offering blog candy as prizes on their blog sites, so please do not forget to visit all the blogs (and leave a comment) to be eligible for bonus blog hop prizes!

 My card is A2 size. I used a base of light brown and added a dark brown background embossed with the Diamond Pattern embossing folder. The image is from Dearie Dolls and the sentiment is from My Grafico.

I cut the edges of the sentiment with a square punch and sponged the edges with Memento Dessert Sands ink and added brads to hold the sentiment in place. The image itself is cut and embossed with Spellbinders oval die cuts. I faux stitched the oval with a fine point black marker and added some punched oak and maple leaves in various colors.

Now it is your turn to blog hop with all of our friends!  The rules are simple:

1.     Leave a comment on Regina’s blog first (and become a follower to enter a chance to win the grand prize from Scrapbook Stamp Society!  

2.     Go down the list of blogs visiting all of them (see below).  Leave comments on their blog pages to be eligible for bonus blog candy from select blog hosts. The blog hop host/hostee offering bonus blog candy will indicate that he/she has a bonus blog candy prize so read their blog post carefully.  Each blog will have the name and blog address for the next host/hostess in line for the blog hop.  Our number 2 on the list is Regina at http://cardsbyregina.blogspot.com (The next blog will be Regina’s and so on).

3.     At the end of the hop, a random winner will be chosen for the Blog Hop prize from our sponsor and select blog hop hosts for Bonus Blog Candy.  The deadline for leaving comments is Monday, August 20, 2012 at 8pm CST.   Winners of the Grand Prize and bonus Blog Candy will be announced Tuesday, August 21, 2012.

The Blog Hop with Sean and Regina participants are as follows:

 Sean Fetterman

Regina Hardy

Melissa Cash

Linda Anderson

Kay Simmons

Donna Rinckel

Ina Grehan

Roxie Nitti

Aixa Mercado

Jennifer Restivo

Tracy Palmer

******** BONUS BLOG CANDY HERE ********

Here is my blog candy for you.  I have two prizes and possibly a third mystery prize to give away. I haven't decided what it will be so there is no picture but I promise it will be paper crafting goodies. All you need to do is leave a comment and spread the word about the candy and blog hop on your blog or yahoo group or email. On Monday evening I will pick a winner of the prizes and announce the winners. 

Prize #1

Sizzix Embossing Machine (U.S. residents only)

Prize #2

Sweet November Stamps Darby and Skip stamp (sent anywhere)

Pack Your Bags Cardstock Stickers

Pack Your Bags Envelope Album Kit

Prize #3
Mystery Prize (sent anywhere)

Thank you for visiting my blog.  Now, go to Ina’s blog at: http://littlebitsofcraft.blogspot.com
Hope you enjoy the hop and come back on Tuesday to find out the winners. Good luck!

Donna

More Snow Pokes

Happy hump day! We're on the down side of the week. Yippee! Tomorrow will be my last day at work. I took Friday off to take my daughter to her first physical therapy session. The surgeon didn't agree with the referring physicians diagnosis, so she isn't having shoulder surgery. She'll start therapy on Friday. I also have to get my driver's license renewed on Friday and we have my in laws arriving Friday afternoon. So I'll have a busy day on Friday. My cards tonight are a continuation of the Snow Poke set that I showed earlier. Here's two new cards from the Doodle Pantry Set: Snow Poke Digi PDF Card Kit.

I added the ribbon and the backing for some of the images. The rest of the materials come from the set after printed. I just love these kits. Your Christmas cards can be made in a flash. Check out all the Christmas card kits at Doodle Pantry. I am entering these cards in Christmas Stampin' All year Long. Their anything goes challenge is still on.
Thanks for stopping by today. Be sure to come back on Friday as I will be part of an awesome Blog Hop with Sean & Regina. There will be lots of prizes. I will have at least 2 prizes on my blog so you won't want to miss it. Have a great Thursday!

Donna

There's No Place Like Home

Happy Monday! The day went by quickly but I can't tell you what I accomplished today. Not much! But the weather is cooler and I am thankful for that. Last weekend we helped one of DH's co-workers move into a new house, so I made her a card and we bought a new bird feeder for her as a house warming gift.

Lots of layers on this one. The card base is white card stock. There's a black background with a blue embossed piece of paper. I used the Victoria embossing folder. I stamped the wreath and sentiment from a Gina K stamp set called Wreath of Wishes and cut it with Spellbinders circle dies and backed it with a black scalloped circle. I added a punched picket fence from a Martha Stewart punch. The butterfly is a die from Cheery Lynn. I punched two corner brackets from a Stampin' Up! punch.

I am entering these challenges:

• Sketches by Carly challenge: blast from the past; use any sketch from the past (I used sketch #57)
• Clearly iStamp challenge: things with wings

Hope your week is off to a fabulous start. Thanks for popping by!

Donna

One Stop Craft Challenge

Oops! I forgot to post for a challenge sponsored for Doodle Pantry this morning. Better a little late than never. So here's my quick post. Today Doodle Pantry is sponsoring One Stop Craft Challenge. The theme is a summer holiday. I took that as what you like to do in the summer. So here's my card.

This is one of the new releases from Doodle Pantry called Float Your Goat. It's free with any purchase from now through August 24th. This is for my SIL's birthday. She raises goats so this is just perfect. The inside reads "Whatever floats your boat." The background paper is included with the set. This is the colored version of the digi but they come in outline also. The brown strip is embossed with D'vine Swirls. I added a few rhinestones in the corner and on the sentiment tag.

I am entering this card into these challenges:

• Outlawz Paper ala Mode challenge: cool and refreshing
• Do You Stack Up challenge: four legged friends

Hope you are having a wonderful weekend. It's the first weekend in I don't know how long that we've had nice weather. We are in the 80s instead of triple digits. So this is perfect. Hope yours is too. Thanks for stopping by!

Donna

Chicken In On You

Just a quick post tonight. I was intrigued by a challenge today that asked for just one layer. I'm not always great at CAS cards and one layer is sometimes even worse for me. But I like the way this one came out. It's a belated birthday card for my BIL! How did I miss his birthday? Sorry Mike!

So I stamped the sentiment and images, all from the same Clear Dollar stamp set called Fun at the Farm. I sponged the background to be clouds in the sky. I stamped the cow on the inside and the sentiment said "Better Late then Never" and "Greetings from the Funny Farm." I would have taken a picture but I wrote a note in it before I took the pictures. What was I thinking? Oh well.

I'm entering these challenges:

• Lawnscaping challenge: one layer

• Outlawz Sentiment challenge: anything goes with a sentiment

Thanks for stopping today! More to come this week. I am on a roll!

Donna

Spectacu-LURE

Happy Monday night! Hope your first day of the week was fabulous. My card tonight is a masculine birthday card. I have a bunch of family and friend birthdays coming up. So my card tonight is for my BIL.

The image and sentiment are from a Doodle Pantry set called Reel 'em In. I used the line art image and colored with Bic and Copic makers. The background embossing  was done with the distressed lines folder. The border is punched with a Martha Steward punch. The sentiment is punched with an EK Success punch and finished it off with 3 masculine looking buttons.

I'm entering these challenges:

• Hiding in my Craft Room challenge: masculine birthday
• Delightful challenge: birthday
• Outlawz Twisted Thursday challenge: things that fly
• Flourishes challenge: birthday celebration

Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful Tuesday!

Donna

Doodle Pantry Sponsoring Craft Your Passion

Welcome to Monday morning and another week. Why do the weekends go so fast? We got a couple drops of rain today but not much compared to what we need to catch up for the year. Most everything is brown and dying here, including my poor garden.This morning I have a card using another new August Doodle Pantry set called School Birdie. This week Doodle Pantry is sponsoring the challenge at Craft Your Passion and it's easy peasy: anything goes.

I used the already colored image for my card. The sentiment is from the same set.  I just used cardstock from my stash and the Swiss Dot embossing folder. I also used a scrap of ribbon from my collection. I hope you  will stop by and play along at Craft Your Passion. You could be the lucky recipient of some Doodle Pantry goodies! I'm not eligible so you can win for me. Hehehe!
I'm entering the card into these challenges:

• Do You Stack Up challenge: polka dots
• Outlawz Twisted Thursday challenge: things that fly
• CAS-ual Friday challenge: use things you'd see in the sky
• The Paper Player challenge: back to school rules

Thanks for stopping by today. Hope your week is off to a fantastic start!

Donna