What?!!!???

Happy Easter everyone! Since I am not hosting Easter and I am caught up on school work, I decided to join in the fun at a few challenges with this extremely CAS and graphic card. And what the heck is going on?!!? Not one stamp inked in the making of this card!!!! Holy cow!!! This is way out of my comfort zone. I wanted to add an embellishment or a stamped image, but I resisted (and it was so hard!!). This is a card worthy of the queen of graphic cards- Ardyth at MASKerade. 

I was inspired by these three challenges.

Addicted to Stamps and More. They are having a photo challenge .

 

 My old teamies at Just Us Girls are hosting a CAS challenge.

 Lastly, Shopping Our Stash is asking you not to use any ink.

Check out the challenges and join in the fun- just after youput down those jelly beans and  wipe that chocolate off your face!!

Easter Chicks

If you read yesterday's post, you know I was off to create my fun Easter card for all my fav peeps. As usual I purchased a few new Easter stamps for my cards this year, but again as usual I end up using a stamp that is afew years old! This Rubbernecker stamp is at least 4 years old and has never been used until this year! I suppose the stamp I bought this year will be used in a few years!!! LOL!!! Do any of you do that? I heard Sandy Allnock say she did the same thing. Is it something pecular to us stampers?

I thought it would be fun to see the chicks hatching from the eggs with the same color as the eggs. The saying is from a new Newton's Nook set and it was perfect for this card. I love it when cards  come together this easy.

I am entering this in two challenges. Shopping our Stash"s theme is "Here comes Peter Rabbit". All things Easter. Clean and Simple on Friday are asking for Easter cards.

Sadly,  no more time to play, I have a presentation for school to practice and a paper to start on.

I wish all of you a blessed Palm Sunday and rejoiceful Easter.

Risen

I think it is important to understand the true meaning of Easter and I have a few friends who get that also. I always send a religous card to them. Like most CAS cards this took a few hours to come together. I tried making the images in pastel colors but it just didn't look right. I finally though wait this card has to be in shades of purple. One ahha moment later and this wonderful card came together.

I used Simon Say Stamp's "Rejoice" stamp set, which it appears has been retired. What a shame because it is a lovely Easter set.

I am entering this in two challenges. Shopping our Stash"s theme is "Here comes Peter Rabbit". All things Easter. Clean and Simple on Friday are asking for Easter cards.

Head on over to both these challenges and join the fun. I am off to work on a more secular card for the kids and friends. If time permits I will post them tomorrow.

Winter wonderland

Hey everyone! I hope you all had a great holiday so far. I had a fabulous one. This was the first year I was ahead of the game. The tree was up and decorated, my cards were done and mailed and gifts made 2 weeks before Christmas!! Unheard of!!

So with Christmas 2016 under my belt, I decided to get back to blogging a bit. This card was a last minute card that I made with a Tim Holtz die that I forgot I had. I decided to use the negative for this simple but elegant holiday card. I only sent this card to one person and will be using this idea for my cards next year.

I entering this into my alma mater  Happy Little Stampers, the "anything goes with dies" challenge.

 Another fav challenge site, Shopping our Stash is looking for "winter themed, but not not Christmas related" Do you think the star on the tree will disqualify me?!!?

Donna from Cards in Envy asked me to post my card for their "celebrate the  season" challenge. How could I resist?!!?😀

I am hoping to spend the next few days doing some serious stamping before school starts back up.

Check back in soon,

where have I been?

I'm baaaaaack........

OMG!!! Where has the time gone and where have I been and what have I been doing? I haven't blogged since August!! This is the longest drought that I have ever had since I first started blogging.

Life has so gotten in the way of my creativity. I have been in a stamping slump. Despite the purchase of a bunch of cool new stuff, it has taken awhile to get my mojo back.

Usually a look at pinterest or challenges helps. I just had to let it go and wait. Today inspiration hit. Shopping Our Stash had a challenge with "trees" as the theme. You could go anywhere with that one. Since the holidays are just around the corner, I decided on a Christmas card.

The trees are a bit subtle, my friends at SOS my choose to disqualify me, but all I know is their challenge gave me mojo back!! Thank you SOS!!!

I used this Hero Arts stamp for the trees.  Where the moon is on the stamp I added a bit of bling.

The deer hanging in front of the trees are also Hero Arts.

Add any saying and you have a quick and easy OLC. Just perfect to get the creative juices flowing again!

Hopefully, I won't let so much water flow under the bridge before I blog again!!

Chomp, chomp, chomp

Ahhhhh another day to enjoy before my weekend camping at work. I am always a day behind on the online card classes.  I have watched a number of videos on the no-line stamping but the videos by Kristina Werner were especially good. She said to start out simple and that critters were  a good way to begin. 

I just discovered an AWESOME new company- Reverse Confetti. Hey Jennifer, Kristina.... hey Simon Says Stamp, Ellen Hutson.... come on you guys ya gotta  promote and carry these awesome stamps and dies!!

The set I used my my first real foray into no-line stamping was "later alligator". How fun is this whimsical critter! I used my new Zig Kuretake Gansai watercolors. I got my set from Amazon and with Prime, I received them the day I ordered them!! Talk about instant gratification!!  

I will admit, my shading isn't perfect, but that is the great thing about using critters to start- they are forgiving.

Shopping Our Stash is having a very cute challenge this week- "show us your smile" Oh come on I couldn't not show off my grinning alligator, and well while this stamp set isn't the oldest in my stash, it has been lonely for the last week waiting for me to ink it up!

I am going out on a limb and enter a second card at Inkspirational. They want green and orange cards.

Pleeeeeeeeeease check out Reverse Confetti. You won't be disappointed!

Ombre blooms

So once again I was out walking with my good buddy Miss Patricia and we were yakking about stamping. the topic of Hero Arts ombre inks came up. I mentioned how I had them on my wish list at Simon says Stamp and Ellen Hutson. Pat said she had three, but she wasn't feeling them. She just didn't see the ombre. When we finished our walk she lent me the three HA ombre inks she had and said play with them. See if you like them any better than me. Well, if that wasn't a challenge!

I went right home and starting playing. Guess what? I thought they were amazing!! I want all of them. You definitely should use them on bold stamps with a lot of surface to stamp on. I started with the pink to red ombre  and the mint to green ombre inks and used the bold bloom set from Ellen Hutson. I loved how they worked and I could totally see the ombre. Can't you?

The bold pinky ombre blooms with the minty leaves totally felt like this inspiration picture from the Card Concept. And while my card is a bit more muted than this photo at Time Out challenges the blooms reminded me of the wall paper.

The pink card is going to my friend Margarita for her birthday. She is all about pink. But for Miss P, I made the same card with butter to orange ombre ink. I think the ombre is just a little more difficult to see with this ink than the pink to red ink.

Shopping Our Stash is having their 200th challenge!! Can you believe that! They want something BIG, BOLD and BEAUTIFUL. I used big and bold blooms and bold beautiful inks. I mean entering this card was a no brainer. Congrats to Shopping Our Stash for such an awesome milestone!

I hope you enjoyed this review of ombre inks. Let me know if you have any and what you think of them.

Thankful

Sundays seem to be challenge day for me. I wake up and sit in front of the puter and go through all the challenges and see what inspires me and then I go to work. I am in a Thanksgiving mood and have been making quite a few to send out to those peeps I am thankful to have in my life.

This card was inspired by several challenges. First over at the Male Room (  a new challenge site I discovered and really like) we are asked to use wood in our design. Well, I used real wood on my card. The wheat sheafs (from Impression Obsession) were die cut from a thin piece of balsa wood and lightly sponged with khaki brown ink. What is more male than using real wood huh?

TIME OUT challenges has a photo inspiration and while it is somewhat Christmasy I thought the cream sofa and the wood crate coffee table was the perfect inspiration for my card. 

The Pink Elephant challenge also has a photo inspiration, I  hope you can see the elements that inspired me.

Lastly I am going out on a limb, but Shopping our Stash has a word theme of leaves. I know this is not a conventional leaf card, but those wheat sheafs are full of wheat leaves. I pulled out the balsa wood and the Tim Holtz Thanksgiving folder from the stash, dusted them off and used them for my card. Hey if you folks over at SOS think I am stretching it, I totally understand.

So wow weeee, one card, four challenges!

Thanks for taking a look and if you like what you see leave a comment- and hey if you don't like it don't leave a comment- I am very sensitive! :)

Halloween fun

Halloween is quickly approaching and usually I have had several varieties of cards made. Not so this year. I have been way to busy with work and school. It just isn't right that they interfere with my valuable crafting time!!. Last Sunday I had a pocket of time and quickly made this set of cards to send out. 

I am entering theses cards in two challenges. At Addicted to Stamps they are having a holiday challenge and while many folks entered Christmas themed cards I am clearly going for a spooky holiday. Be sure to check out the challenge and see the card Cornelia posted- it is so stinking clever!!

Over at Shopping Our Stash it is clearly a Halloween challenge. My cards are totally from stash items- black card stock that I have had fore ten or more years, washi tape that I have hoarded, those little googly eyes that I have been waiting for just the right moment to use and all kinds of Halloween paper scraps.

I have discovered a new challenge that these cards totally fit for called the Male Room for masculine based cards- what a great idea! This weeks challenge is Halloween.

Lastly another new challenge for me to enter. AAACards is another CAS challenge with a Halloween theme this week.

Here are all three cards together- what's that sticking in the middle of the cards? Any guesses? 

Shopping my Stash

The new challenge at Simply Create Too is to "shop your stash". I wasn't quite sure what that meant. I even had to ask. Basically, it means using what you have and not buying something new. At least I think that is what they said.

For me, I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to use only what I have in in scrap bins. As you can see I have a lot of scraps saved! My cards today were made totally from the scraps in these bins. the only thing I stamped for these cards were the sentiments.

This challenge is the your opportunity to show us at Simply Create Too what you can make with your left overs! So get out your carts and shop your stash!!

Yay for the Red, White and Blue!!!

I just love the 4th of July, when  was a kid, I so wanted to have been born on the 4th of July (is you follow my blog you know that yesterday- the 2nd was my big day) that I told people that the 4th was y birthday! I wanted to be a fire cracker baby! Well, I may not have been born on the 4th, but ask most people and they would say I am a firecracker!

I used an oldie, but good stamp, It's a parade by Hero Arts and a brand new stamp- Lawn Fawn's Happy 4th. If you click on th picture, you will see all the fireworks are coated with glitter.

My patriotic card this year reminds me of when I was a kid and a whole group of us would to head to the hollow for the town fireworks. I am entering this in the CASology firework challenge.

Because so many challenges naturally are calling for a red, white and blue theme this week, I am also entering this at Craft your Passion, Paper Playtime ,Shopping our Stash and the Color Throw Down.

Wishing all of you a firecracker day!