Color Challenge Quickie

I thought I'd be on the road by now, but as I was packing up a few things to make the trip with, (like copics, you really can't leave home without them...) I decided to make a quick card using today's color challenge on SCS colors: Kraft, Night of Navy, and So Saffron.
For this, I used my Scor Pal for the kraft panel, I outlined the leaves in navy marker, and used the birds and vines embossing folder. I had one single bit of ribbon that sported these nautical colors of navy and yellow!
And there you have my quick card...but I love these colors together.
Thanks for stopping by!

And the Winner Is...

Just a quick post today...returned home from California last night, and we are leaving for our mountain condo today! How come vacations make you so tired?? I have to say, I'd like one more day of recovery from our travel time, but it's not going to happen.

So I wanted to say thank you again for posting your wonderful comments on marriage. I had my husband pull a name from the paper to go cup in our hotel room, how techno is that?? LOL...but anyways, here it is:

Dawn!! (Flowergal36) Congratulations!! Dawn's 10 year anniversary was the same day as ours...isn't that so cool?? She also had some great advice full of huggin and kissin, you can read it in her post on the link below the previous one! I will be so thrilled to send you your new stuff as soon as I get back. Meanwhile, have fun looking for a Magnolia stamp of your choice, and just send me a pm with a link (of your favorite Tilda stamp) and I can get that ordered for you. Please be sure to include your address for me!!

So, the picture is of some coasters I made...remember my posting about marriage being a sheltering tree? Well, these are the trees from the SU set, "Thoughts and Prayers", stamped in olive green stazon. The word, "blessings" is stamped in brown stazon...then the outside of the tiles is lined with Krylon copper marker for a little more finished look! These are simple but have a nice look to them. I have done a water dunk and soak just to be sure they are waterproof, and they are!

Hope everyone is having a nice summer. Tea will be on the boat tomorrow on the lake...anybody have a recipe for an Arnold Palmer? I've heard they are good, but have no idea what's in them!!

Thanks for stopping in...see you soon!

It's my Anniversary!!

Edit to Add:
Thanks so much for your thoughtful comments...the post deadline is Sunday at midnight...now that might be midnight California time so you figure out the time zones...anyway you know what I mean!!


Hi, just a quick post from California...and no it's not really sunny, I am in the Northern part and it's kind of cool and a bit of fog but always beautiful!
Today is my husband and my anniversary, and to celebrate, I want to give something away!
So I've done some creative thinking, and decided that I will be giving:
1. 27 feet of a variety of pretty ribbons (Can you guess the length of our marriage?)
2. 27 1/4 sheets of Bella's designer paper (Bella, Bella Bird, etc...)
3. One bottle of my favorite glue. (Because we all need glue to hold our marriage together.)
4. One Tilda stamp (your choice) **only if you love her as much as I do!! (Tilda has no mouth, so she knows when to keep hers shut...wink!!)

To enter, just leave me a comment...in your comment tell me how long you've been married and one small piece of advice for the secret of maintaining a happy marriage. If you're not married, you can still enter, of course...this is just in celebration of marriage.

So here's my small piece of advice,
Marriage goes through stages...if you don't like the one you're in, just wait it out and it will change to a new one!! Now that almost sounds like I'm talking about the weather...But in honesty, I fear too many people give up on their marriage too soon. Women
typically rely on those magical feelings from love songs to validate their relationships...but our feelings do change... just like the weather. And when the storms hit, and they will, where do you go for shelter? I like to think of marriage as a sheltering tree from the storms of life...where you can be safe with each other. That is my goal for my marriage...to make it a shelter from the storms of life.

I am so thankful my marriage has lasted through the years and give God all the glory for that...He is the sustainer of all relationships!! He handpicked my husband just for me, and I am in awe of what a great job He did!! :)
Thank you for visiting my blog and for your comments!
I truly hope we can all be encouraged from reading through these~

The winner will be picked and posted early next week after we return from our trip!

I wanted to show you a sampling of a card set I've made this week using Our Daily Bread Designs Stamps, "Lift Up Your Hands." Every once in awhile, I am inspired by one piece of designer paper and that was the case with this set. This paper was so serene in beautiful peach and greens...all I needed to do was accent it with these meaningful scripture verses. The fonts of this sentiment set is so elegant it doesn't need much in the way of embellishments. I like to have these on hand for gift sets for friends in need.

Recipe:

Stamps: ODBD Lift Up Your Hands

Paper: Designer, Sparkly White, Sage Shadow

Ink: Always Artichoke

Accessories: Martha Stewart Peach ribbon, pink pearls, K& CO 3 D sticker dimensionals, Labels One Nestabilities, CB textile folder for background texture

Thanks so much for stopping by!! Our weather is turning to iced tea, it's about time since we're in the month of June! But you can have your coffee iced if you'd like!!

Fifty Two Teapot Celebration!!

Today is the one year anniversary of Cindy (Mothermark's) Teapot Tuesdays! This card was inspired by Cindy's found on her blog here:

http://www.mothermark.blogspot.com/

My little teapot is shrinky dink plastic...I found these cool markers yesterday that you can use on plastic and colored this little stamped image in and then shrunk it in the oven for 7 minutes to make a teapot charm. I don't think the picture shows the detail, but it has color in real life. This is a 5 x 5 square card with the bottom border trimed about an inch and then scalloped. A strip of this cute designer paper from Cosmo Cricket was added along the inside bottom of the card. The plastic charm was mounted on the curly label punch stamped in kiwi kiss, and the matting is also kiwi kiss.

Congratulations on your one year of teapots Cindy!~ It has been so much fun joining you!

Feathered Hope for Father's Day

Hope everyone is enjoying their weekend so far. I always have a difficult time with masculine cards, but I know my own Dad appreciates my efforts in watercoloring, so I watercolored this old favorite image with watercolor crayons. I mounted it on copper paper, then added some irridescent beads in blues, golds and copper to dress it up a bit. I don't know the name of this fold, but I like it for small images. The copper flap opens up and the paper underneath folds down to reveal an inside mount that is just small enough to write a little note or sentiment. It also works pretty well as an easel card.

My own Dad has had a rough year and has come through with perseverance and added character. I wanted to make something a little more special to honor him this year.

Thanks for stopping by today~

Tilda Times Three

Good morning!!

I have fallen in love with Tilda, she is so fun to create with!

This card is for this weeks' Just Magnolia challenge to paper piece a Magnolia stamp! I combined several challenges, just because I wanted to try them out...the last two were to use distress ink for an antique look, and the layout was similar to the layout given a couple of weeks back.

Have you ever come to a dead end in a card when you realize that you don't have just the right shade of prima? That happened to me, then I remembered these beautiful fairy primas given to me by my good friend, Joanne, (JoJot) in Steamboat...and I have to say, they were a sigh of giddy relief. Thanks so much Joanne~

One thing about Tilda, she is never in a hurry. She just bides her time and goes around spreading sunshine everywhere!

Thanks for stopping by today, and Tilda has some iced tea on the porch if you have a minute...

Sumo Wrestling meets Refinement

Today is another Tuesday...my wonderfully fun friend, Cindy, (Mothermark) has a Tuesday Teapot Challenge that always has me giggling the day away!! Today's challenge was inspired by a very unusual teapot and challenge card by Cindy herself. The card was a Sumo wrestler...oh my...and so I knew there'd be a rowdy group today. So my idea was to bring a bit of refinement to this party, and stand way back, hey where's my fan? There is flying sushi in here...duck!!

You can check out her teapot card here:

http://www.mothermark.blogspot.com/

I used my Artfully Asian stamp set and gold embossed, then filled in with a blender pen using ruby red and blue bayou inks. The insert is a bookmark using an antiqued brad. The outside belt is some of this wonderful designer paper and some Papertrey ribbon gifted by my dear friend, Linda Borneman...and her kimono card is where I found today's inspiration. Thanks so much Linda! Here is Linda's card:

http://www.splitcoaststampers.com/gallery/photo/1144490?cat=500&si=hearth_cricket

The tutorial for this kimono card can be found here:

http://stampingdoc.blogspot.com/2008/09/eastern-blooms-kimono-bookmark-card.html

I admit to not following written directions well, so the pictures were a big help to me in the tutorial. It still took me three times to get this right...my advice...start with copy paper to not ruin good cardstock!!

Thanks for coming by today, and no coffee, but would you like a cup of sake??

It's the Most Wonderful Time...huh???

If you live in Colorado, you would know that we have had 9 straight days of severe weather...including sleet, baseball sized hail, tornadoes...and overall just yucky!! Even our weather reporters are starting to look a little haggard on the 9 o'clock news!! Yesterday's news showed a snowman constructed from hail complete with hat and glasses...

So that explains my confusing card today! My friend Charlene (Lilluvsstampin on SCS) issued a challenge on the CCEE blog today to make a Tri-Shutter card. Now, I have never made one of these and just the thought of cutting/scoring etc...was enough to slightly overwhelm me so I had to keep the rest just as simple as I could...Enter this adorable little gingerbread cooking set I purchased a couple of years ago...these little gingerbread men, mixing bowl and rolling pin, and cookie cutter pack were some left from cookie packages I made last year. I figured I can use this card to accompany some Christmas goodies, but more importantly, I completed a challenge on the same day!! Whoa, that's an accomplishment right there, plus I am ready for something come Christmas...maybe a cookie baking party. You want to come over??

You can see the CCEE blog here:http://www.cceestampers.blogspot.com/ and view all of the 8 entries for this friendly challenge! There is some truly amazingly talented women and you've got to take a look!!

This was actually pretty easy, but my little card won't fit into an A2 envelope because I really did go outside the box...oh well!

For the tutorial on how to do one of these Tri-shutter cards, visit Bonnie's blog here:

http://craftiblog.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/2009-04-23-quad-fold-card-sample-tutorial/

Thanks for stopping by today, and thanks for the challenge, Charlene!!

Botanical Gardens

Steamboat in the Spring

Just wanted to share a few photographs I took this weekend at our mountain retreat in Steamboat Springs, Colorado!! Hope you enjoy these...The last one with the poppy, it was the only poppy that had bloomed...so it should be the lone poppy I guess!

Serious Sunday Stamping!

After the past post, I decided it was time to go back to visiting my serious self with stamping today! I love this Friends 24-7 SU stamp set and have turned to it a few times...that damask single stamp keeps bringing me back! The damask was stamped in soft sky, then the bird was overstamped in black. It is easier to see if you click on the picture...this gives such an elegant feel to a card, I think!

Today was Featured stamper at SCS, and that was the momentum I needed to stamp this birthday card for a very good friend I've had since 8th grade. I just visited her home in Dallas a couple of months ago, and it was so cool to look out her family room window and see a variety of birds that are new to me. I even spotted a cardinal, it was gorgeous, but I don't have a cardinal stamp. Anyway, her love of birds also inspired this card, and the inside saying is a really cool font to pair with flourishes. It should say, "keeping friends" rather than "making friends..." but I went with what the stamp said. I hope you like my creation today, and that you have a special friend you've had for years in your life. My friend, Geri and I have known each other for 39 years, hard to believe!

Have a wonderful day, thanks for coming by to visit~

Tilda Recovers from Spray Tan

Tilda Two Weeks After Spray Tan

The other day I started my Tilda card with the wide wavy gingham background paper. I have had that paper for eons, and thought it paired well with the marigold gold. I colored and colored, and kept noticing that the more I colored this little girl, the darker she became, and more mottled her face appeared as I tried in vain to "correct" her skin tones. It dawned on me a little late, that I had stamped this image earlier in the wrong ink for copics, and the copics were bleeding slightly. It kind of reminded me of many summers ago when one of my daughters, on a vacation trip to Florida, insisted that she and her girlfriend get a "spray tan." I agreed with hesitation, figuring it would go down in history as a fun memory. Well, the next day she was distraught as she woke up to her skin with patches of varying pigments of brown, and she tried to exfoliate and wash and shower to get the scales to release themselves. I could almost hear my Tilda telling me to change the angle of the lens so as not to show off her mottled tan, but you won't say anything will ya?So, she insisted I take another photo later after her skin had renewed itself, and there she is in all her fair glory! (scroll up!)

Well, truth be told I did both of these for the Magnolia Blog Challenge only to realize I was late with the waiting for Tilda's skin to improve...oh well, today's a new challenge and I will look into it.

I used my wonderful Magnolia Tilda's for both of these creations. I even went on a shopping spree to find these little butterflys, they were on a flat ribbon trim sold by the yard at Joanne's . The challenge was to include a bug or insect, so that was my insect!

There is no moral to this story, only another challenge to conquer within the given time frame, wish me luck on that one...I only have one more week!

Thanks for stopping by on this fine spring day, and don't forget to wear sunscreen!

Oh Columbine

Good morning~ I just wanted to share a photograph I took about this time last year at our mountain retreat ...these columbines were clustered next to an Aspen tree near the front walkway. I love columbines, and have a few growing randomly in our "garden" here at home. The garden is a loose term, it is a patch of dirt that my youngest daughter took upon herself to plant a variety of flowers with no real design or taking into account the sun and soil requirements. She was about 13 at the time, and even this many years later, the columbines have thrived. I think that is why I like this flower so much, besides the fact that it is our state flower here in Colorado. It grows without notice, without much work on the gardener's part. In spite of it's delicate look and tendrils, it is a very hardy yet beautifully detailed flower. If you click on this photo you can get a better picture.

Today is one of those running around days, and even though I have a couple of unfinished cards on my desk, they will have to wait. But wanted to share this little bit of inspiration with you! Hope your day has a touch of awe somewhere, so many times it is the little things that we just need to pause and notice~the little gifts God provides along the way. Thanks so much for stopping in.

Flourishes Timeless Tuesday, SCS Color Challenge

Good almost noon!! Some days there are just too many challenges, and today was one of them. I will attempt to explain where this card comes from: two challenges.

The Flourishes Timeless Tuesday published in the Flourishes Newsletter: http://http//flourishesnewsletter.blogspot.com/

has a challenge on every Tuesday. Today's was to frame your image, so this is what I came up with, a squared frame hung on the diagonal with some pretty wide scrap piece of grosgrain ribbon. The flourishes were added with white craft ink to spruce up the bare corners just a bit!

The color challenge on SCS was: Riding Hood Red, Tangerine Tango, and Kiwi Kiss. Now at first I didn't think I'd be able to do anything with these colors, as I was always told not to mix red and orange. But I remembered this paper that I had made over the weekend, and put it against the Riding Hood Red and it was a very close match-up. Good thing, because even though I thought I had that ink, I couldn't find it with my stamp pads. My main tulip bulb was paper pieced!

This paper was using a technique found under the "Resources" tab on SCS called "Wrinkle-Free Distress." by Sherry Cheever. At this stage in life, I am all for anything wrinkle-free so the title caught my interest...but the paper is a wow!! You use ranger free distress inks and swipe three different colors across a craft pad. Here is my tip: If you do not own a craft pad, the acetate sheets work really well and you can see exactly where your inks are, and they clean up like a breeze so you aren't wasting foil or wax paper!! After you swipe your inks, you mist lightly with water and then set your paper on top of the inks. The inks will run slightly...this gives it that swirled mottled effect you are going for. After that you simply heat set your ink with a heat tool and admire your pretty paper!! So, long story short, my tulip was paper pieced with the handmade paper. I used the white sparkly paper from SU, that way I didn't need to add any more shimmer to my paper!

Well, I hope you like my attempt at something new today, and I hope it doesn't look like Halloween, yikes!!

Thanks for stopping by, and have a wonderful day!!