Halloween Will Be Here soon!

 It's the middle of October.  That means Halloween will be here soon.  I just couldn't pass up the House Mouse and Friends Challenge this week.  The choice of stamps for the challenge is House Mouse or any other of their fun critters.  I did want to use the optional Halloween theme, so I chose a little wood block stamp I've had for ages.  It's called Jelly Bean Thief.  But I've changed his name for today to Candy Corn Thief.  Here's my card. 

I changed the Jelly Beans in his arms and on the ground to Candy corns.  I just drew them and cut them out. I cut a slit above his arms so I could slide the Corns into his grasp.  We don't want more of them to fall on the ground.  I used a very old Stampin Up Stamp of a haunted house (someone gave it to me, so I don't know the name) to show the house that he is coming from as he goes about for Trick or Treat. 

It was fun to re-purpose this stamp for Halloween.  Mudpie is so cute he needs to come out all year.  

Stamping Damper

 Since August 28 I have had a huge Stamping Damper.  I had a surgery on my foot, and I have not been able to get up to my craft room.  I took a few things downstairs before the surgery so I could at least watercolor some images for cards.  In the first three weeks of my recovery, I made one card.  

I had already signed up for The Card Chain Challenge for September before I thought about not being able to get upstairs.  So, I decided the only thing to do was scoot on my behind up the stairs so I could make something fun.  I had to have my husband position a rolling chair at the top of the stairs so I could just get into it and roll around up here.  The hardest part was standing up once I got to the top.  The plan worked and I have been up here a few times now.  It is a lot of work, because I have been sitting around doing puzzles and reading for the first three weeks and a lot of the following 4 weeks.  But it was definitely worth the effort.  I am starting to have fun again!

Here is my card that went out to Arlene in September. I used the colors and the theme of cute.

Gundi used the same prompts for the challenge I think, because the colors are the same.

And the Kitten is certainly cute on to card she sent to me.  

She did such a great job cutting out the Kitten and the feathers.  I love the little flowers added to the background.  It's just adorable all around.  

Soon I hope to be back to normal, (Five days to go I hope.) walking wherever I choose.  

 That will certainly include up the stairs to my craft room.  It's the more fun part of the house.  

Circle Flowers and Sunshine

 I have been spending a lot of time in the house this last week.  It's too hot to go outside for long.  

I pulled out a stencil by Altenew, Polka Dot Buds, for the Wednesday Challenge at Simon Says Stamp.  It fits the category of "Going Around in Circles".  It is an older stencil, but it makes fun flowers.  They are bright and sunny in yellow, fitting to have sunflowers for all the sun we have scorching us every day.  It didn't even make me sweat to make this cute card though, just some stenciling and I added an embossed sentiment from Altenew's Heartfelt Sentiments.  I finished it off with some lemonade flat sequins, more circles. 

I'll be entering this card in the Splitcoaststampers Teapot challenge for Tuesday as well.  This week we are sending cards to another former Hallmark employee.  I worked for the company for 12 years.  Even when I was working for Hallmark I was making my own cards.  There was a period when they came out with cards that looked handmade.   We card makers were setting the trends that they decided to follow for a while.  

Simon and Penny Black

 I love so many Penny Black stamps, but I have only a few and more than half of those sets are sentiment stamps. I have just started to get emails when new things come out.  Now that stores don't carry so many stamps, I just don't see Penny Black much.  Guess I need to seek them out more often.  

"Becoming" is one of the few image stamps I have.  So I used it with a sentiment from "Brighten the World". I love this stamp because it looks so much like watercolor when you get finished.  I usually color the stamp in various shades of the color I choose to get some darks and lights.  

I'm entering this in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.  

Thanks for stopping by and hope you liked looking at this pretty flower.  See you again soon. 

Wings and Things

 It's rare that I post twice in a month.  But it is Time for a Simon Wednesday challenge. And yet, here I am posting it on Sunday.  Because it's Father's Day today, I have to let hubby watch all the sports he wants.  It gives me more time to make a new post.  

The new challenge is Things with wings using Lawn fawn stamps.  I only have two Lawn Fawn stamp sets so I looked at them and figured out a way to give a mouse some wings.  

These little friends have been using leaf wings to float down into the pile of leaves.  I realized after I had the card all colored, that I should have given them a tree to be jumping out of. Next time. 

I'm entering this card in the simonsaysstampblog.com/wednesdaychallenge/.  

I enjoy these challenges so much because it reminds me to use stamps from many companies that I seem to forget I have stamps from.  So go out and give something some wings or use something that already has wings and come and join the challenge.  I'll be looking for your entry.

Here are a couple of other things I have been working on lately.  

I made several of these cards to sell at a Quilt Show that our local guild had a couple of weeks ago.  There were a few left so I will make use of them for sending to members of the guild. 

This is a card I made with a new set I got from Pink Fresh Studios.  

It has stencils and dies to go with the stamps.  It went together fast, so I used this for a card we made in my class this month.  Everyone really liked it.  

See y'all in July

Wow! What Happened to May!

 Yeah, I don't what happened to May.  Other than I spent it trying to straighten out all of our TV and internet issues.  It's a long story that I would really rather not think about too much.  Some of it is still ongoing and that is why I have come to show you the few things I did to release the stress.  Just today I played with a Concord and 9th die so I could enter in the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge.  They are featuring Concord and 9th products this week.  

My card uses the Hello and Thanks dies. That is the name of the die set, but my card only uses the Thanks dies (words and shadow).  It was fun to make.  I took some of my ink spots and dragged them in stripes across the semigloss paper that I have a ton of.  I think it made a pretty awesome background.  I matted that with Bermuda Bay CS from SU and cut the letters of THANKS in the same card stock.  A white card base and shadow for the letters finished off the card.  I had a small strip of the background left after trimming so I added it to the inside of the card to tie it all together.  

Good ole Simon keeps me coming back to my blog, just so I can enter the challenge.  I needed it this week.  A great break from all the non-fun things of the week. Keep your chin up everyone!

March blew by and April is here

First things first for April is to do the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge.  

I have had these Hoppy Days Ahead Stamps for a couple of years now and don't pull them out other than at Easter.  I decided that had to change and I am using them for the Anything Goes challenge.

I stamped the bunny and one daisy and cut them out.  the remainder of the card is stamped directly on the front panel, which is cut with the SSS Wonky dies.  I love the little detail of the wonky lines around the panel.  My bunny is smelling the one flower I cut out.  I decided not to raise up the bunny or the flower since my post office is getting pretty picky about the thickness of a card.  So much fun to make a card with the set that is not an Easter card.  

 

I do want to show you all some of the Easter cards that I did make this year.  I wanted to make this accordion fold flag book card.  It's really quite fast to make and the inside is a nice surprise.  Although I did have to have the thickness checked to make sure it would mail okay.  

See the fun surprises that are on this inside.  I used some of the images from an older Stampin up Easter set to make the side panel and the flags with the greetings on them. 

And then I had to use up the extra cross I got when I cut the colored one for the first card.  I inked it darker brushing ink over it on the edge of an envelope, so I got a matching envelope to go with the card.

This card came together from pieces I had in my extra bits box.  I just throw things in that box that I colored but didn't use or extra things that I cut while using a die or something I colored just for something to do.  The background was made as an extra for my card class while showing them how to use ink direct to paper.  The tulips were a small image I had colored one day. They were all in the box and just looked like they would go together well.  I even had the sentiment in my book so I didn't have to stamp one. 

I got this Pretty Pink Posh Valentine Cupcake a couple of months ago, I've made a few cards with it.  They all seem to look a lot like this one, because the cupcake is so large on an A2 card that there is not much space left.  I may have to try a larger card to have a little more design space.  But I do love the simple design and the large cupcake you get from it.  

Using up a few scraps for this card.  I love to make patchwork on a card front.  Then I used the very pretty tulips in the Stampin Up set called Mixed Florals. They are fun to color, and I decided to cut them out as well.  The lady bugs had to be added because we seemed to have a lot of the about the time I made the card.  

Just the other day I realized I was falling way behind in making my Christmas cards.  These fun Frosty Littles from Hello Bluebird Stamps seemed to be the perfect thing to make a couple of cards come together fast.  I stamp the whole stamp set and color everything at once. Then You can die cut the ones you want and use all or some of them.  I still have enough for another card after making these two. 

That's it for now.  Hopefully April will not fly by like March did.   

I've got more Christmas cards to make to get caught up. See ya soon!