An Honor and a Card Share!

So today got a little derailed for me!  I ended up being at work most of the night last night.  I am running on a total three hours of sleep in two separate segments. So be lenient on me and understand why this is late in going up and also understand why it will be short and sweet!!

First of all I received the sweetest honor of being Featured on the Artful Inkables blog as their first Friday's Featured Stamper last week and since I didn't blog over the weekend, I hadn't had the chance to share it with you yet!!

You can see the blog post that I was featured in by visiting their blog HERE.  I really appreciated Jackie contacting me and inviting me to be on their blog.  It gave me a great reason to pull out one of the AI stamps that I had never used before and actually and put it to good use!!  I hope you will take the time to look at their blog.  They have some amazing designers (some of whom like Alicia Ekerman who I have designed for before and now co-design with her for Whimsie Doodles!

Here is the new card that I created for this feature!

The stamp is from Artful Inkables and is called Daring Duo and comes with a frog and lily pads too.   I placed it on some adorable October Afternoon papers from last years line called Ducks in a Row.  I colored my image with Copic markers and added some fun ribbons.  The golden colored one was a recent find from my LSS that already had a stitch line down the center that when you pulled one of the threads it causes the ribbon to ruche up.  I love it, but unfortunately do not know who makes it because it was sold in precut 1 yard pieces with no tags on it!  The buttons are from Clear and Simple Stamps.

I know it might seem like a strange sentiment for a card, but I think it is so sweet looking.  I plan on sending it to a friend who might be struggling someday and I could put a sentiment inside that says something like "Feel like you are just treading water?"  "I am here to throw you a line!"  Or some type of encouragement during a  time of need!

I hope you enjoy the rest of your day and may your bucket overflow with the kind of friends that will help you if you felt like you were swimming in a no swimming zone!  :-)  I am sure thankful for those of mine that I have!


I will be back hopefully in the morning tomorrow with some more goodies to share!!  Have a great night!

Artful Inkables Birthday/ Color Challenge Card!

Happy Sunday blog buddies!!

With yesterday being the first day of spring I decided it was time to start my spring cleaning this year.  I spent many hours yesterday deep cleaning parts of our house with intentions to do the same thing today!!  It is no fun doing it, but sure wonderful when you can sit back and relax and enjoy the fruits of your efforts!!

So I finished this card earlier this week and hadn't had a chance to post it yet.

It combines a Think Ink #16 challenge on the  Artful Inkables blog to make a Birthday card and this week's SCS Color Challenge (CC262,) to use Elegant Eggplant (or Rich Razzleberry), Old Olive and Orchid Opulence.  At first I wasn't sure I would like those colors together, but in fact I really do love that combo.  And what was even a greater surprise was that those colors are some of the colors in the new line of Kioshi papers by Basic Grey.  So it was nice to use some of those papers for my creation.

I used the AI stamp set called Fairy Whimsy.  I thought these flowers and butterflies were so pretty to wish some one a magical birthday!  The birthday sentiment on the ribbon tag is actually made on the computer, but the rest of the words and images are all from Artful Inkables.  I colored the images in with my Copics.

The butterflies were stamped twice with the second set mounted on top of the first with dimensionals to give it depth and dimension.  I created the background effect by sponging on inks and then spritzing with Tattered Angels Shimmer Mist.  The color challenge had a "dessert" option to add swirls which I did by using my paper piercer adding a trail for one of the butterflies!

I hope you have a wonderful day and may your bucket overflow with blooming flowers, flittering butterflies and other reminders that spring is here!!

Belated Father's Day Post!

OK, better late than never! I came home to Internet issues and wasn't able to stay connected to update my blog last night, so finally here is the post I promised yesterday!!

I am sure that there aren't many fathers out there who will be reading this blog post, but I did want to acknowledge a few special fathers in my life.

Last week we celebrated Father's Day early with my dad. My dad is a really special person in my life and one of the people that I can say has had a very strong influence on me and my developing character while growing up. He has always been a positive influence, with consistency and good direction. My dad is the kind of person who I can rely on to give me sound advice when I need a little help in my life. Here is a picture of my dad, his wife and me last weekend at my brother's house celebrating Father's Day with a delicious brunch!

Ellen, Dick (my Dad) and me!

The card that I made for my dad used that cool coloring on acetate technique that I used on the butterfly and zebra cards that I posted recently. It was from the Try a New Technique challenge on SCS TLC224 where you print out a photo in black and white onto acetate and then color on the back of it to allow color to come through. The card also uses the requirements for the Limited Supplies Challenge on SCS a week ago which was to use only the colors of water and sand plus add to it, ribbon, twine or hemp, brads and piercing. It was just what I needed to produce this card for my dad!

This past weekend we travelled to the east coast of FL to see my DH's dad for Father's Day. Jim isn't his biological dad, but the man Tom considers to be his "real" dad!


Here is a picture of my DH Tom and his sister Susan with their dad on Father's Day morning!

Susan, Tom and Jim (seated!)

Here is a picture of the card that I made for Tom's dad. It uses the "Oh So Cute Shirt" tutorial by Cambria Turnbow that I believe came from the Scor-Pal website. It was such an easy creation to make starting with just one 4x6 piece of DP that gets folded into the shirt that you see.

We had a cookout with hamburgers, hot dogs and fresh fish that Tom, our nephew and my son caught last week while deep sea fishing. Tom's daughter Ashley came over to visit with her boyfriend and their son. Little Chris is just about to turn one! He is so adorable!

Grampa Tom, Baby Chris, Ashley and Chris!

I also can't let Father's Day pass without acknowledging how thankful I am for having Tom in my life and the lives of my children. He is such a wonderful influence on my kids, especially my son Ricky! They are both avid fishermen and get out on the boat together as often as they can! We are very thankful that he is with us and love how he completes our family so well. Many years had gone by without a positive male role model for my kids. Tom has changed all of that for us!!

Here is a picture of Tom, my DH with the newest addition to our family, Tasha!!

Tom and Tasha!

This is the picture of the card that I made for Tom. It uses the motorcycle image from Artful Inkables called Road Rider!. The DP is from Paper Salon.

Sorry for the long post but there was a lot to cover as I wanted to share not only the cards I made for the Father's in my life, but also a glimpse into some of the people that share my life with me!

Have a great day and may your bucket overflow with wonderful Internet connections!! Ha Ha!!