Last Day to Enter Rudolph Days.....

Wow again I'm flying in at the last day for the April Rudoph Days, you know the challenge is every month on the 25th to the end of the month so I've had 25 days to make a card but here I am racing to get it done for the last day. I have been working on it and it wasn't going as expected and it is still not finished. Under the image is a blank spot.....that is where the Merry Christmas die cut was to go, I thought I found the die on my table so cut it out and went to attach it to the card and realized Happy Birthday just didn't cut it, then the search is on, finally I decided I needed to get the card on the challenge  so just pretend you see a very nice Merry Christmas in blue. I'm sure as soon as I have blogged this and I'm looking for something else the die will appear.

It certainly looks better IRL, I've had the die for over a year and finally found some time to play with it, I diecut white foam core so it pops up a bit, found a background I made for an ATC and after trimming it was a perfect fit. The EF I used is probably 20 years old it was my first folder and I won it on a give-away before I even had a machine to use it in.

Finished the inside with a Hero Arts sentiment (won at the Jingle Belles Challenge last year)  It has become my very favourite sentiment for horizontal cards. And a few scraps of leftover cardstock from the front.

I am entering this in:

 Rudolph Days ~~ April

Thanks for stopping by today and stay in stay safe stay healthy.

Shopping Our Stash is Celebrating "Mothers"

Chris is our "hostess" for Challenge #419 at Shopping Our Stash and the theme she picked is Happy Mother's Day, you can get an early start on your Mother's Day card or project,  Mother's Day in Canada and the U.S. is May 10th so lots of time to get some done.

You know how you look things up on Pinterest and next thing you know you have a barrage of Pins they found just for you. Well had one in my mail and I always check and there was a card made with the Botanical Builder dies, so of course went and had a look and thought I can make that since I have the dies.  I want you to note the "white" space in the upper corner, it took all my restraint to leave it alone, and I'm very pleased. The patterned paper is from a pack I bought last year at Dollarama.  It's been a long time since I have been doing any fun shopping.

Close up of the flowers, the pearls are from Stampin'up and the sentiment from a SU set called Teeny Tiny Wishes, after stamping and trimming I added it to a banner from a set from We R Memory keepers I bought at Winners at least 5 years ago. 

Finished inside using a couple of scraps of paper, a die cut flower and a sentiment from Stampworks.

If you haven't checked out the rest of the Design team project head over to the MAIN BLOG and check them out.

I'm entering this in:

Use Your Stuff #396 Mood Board. I picked out the blue, pink and flowers.

Thanks for stopping by and I'm looking forward to seeing your Mother's Day projects.

April 22, 2020 it's Earth Day

Today being Earth Day I decided to join the Jingle Belles Rock for their challenge, they celebrate Earth day every year with a Christmas challenge. It was a comedy of errors, first I couldn't find my "recycle" piece, then I did, took a picture of it to show you, then looked for the dies I needed to use, well I really wanted the larger set of IO deer dies but had to settle for the smaller version, ok trees cut, birds cut where did I put that piece of vinyl wallpaper sample? That meant I went back to where I took the picture and pretending to hold the sample in my hand walked back to the other room and it worked I lifted a paper an voila missing sample found.

This is a vinyl wallpaper sample I've had in my stash for a long time, the store is no longer in the Simcoe Mall. I loved picking up different samples of wallpaper and even counter top chips.

Here is what I did with my sample.

The Birch tree die is from the Frantic Stamper, the deer and cardinals are from Impreesion Obsession and the three dies are my very favourite to use for winter scenes, the background paper (didn't have time to make my own) is from a 12 X 12 paper pad I bought at Walmart 

Finished the inside with some extra cardinals, the set of birds has both small and large cardinals, I used the small on the front and the large on the inside.

Here you have my projectd for Earth Day 2020

I'm entering this in:

Jingle Belles Rock ~~ Peace on Earth Day

And because I made a winter scene

Christmas Kickstart Challenge ~~ make a Winter Scene #30

So with less than 2 hours left for the Jingle Belles I'd better get moving. Thanks for checking in again today and stay home stay safe stay healthy and craft!!!

Seize the Heroes #2

I am playing along with Seize the Heroes at Seize the Birthday. This is my second card and it has been lovingly made as my husband was a firefighter for many years, it was a job he loved.  I found a super cute firefighter at Dearie Dolls Digis, they no longer make new digital images but you can go and look and still download them free.  Here is my card.

I must admit this was pretty easy, after I coloured the image (due to a miss with the red marker) I had to fussy cut him out, The background I had made early March but abandoned it for a different one, so when I saw it in my "parts box" I thought wow this is perfect!!. I then layered it on a red base and die cut two red sentiments and a white shadow. 

Love this Thanks die and thought it deserved a "selfie" 

I am entering this in:

Seize the Heroes #188 

Happy Little Stampers ~~ Anything Goes with Dies

I am so happy for this challenge as I have been struggling to be motivated just to sit at the desk and work on something, this has gotten my mojo working as I still have more on the desk. 

Thanks for visiting today "again" and don't forget to say Thanks to all the front line workers. 

Seize the Heroes!!!

There is an extra challenge at Seize the Birthday blog and it's called Seize the Heroes, make a card for one or more (up to 3) for the challenge to say Thanks to our frontline workers. The first card I made is to honour my daughter's profession, Cleaning!! Along with their regular cleaning of buildings they were asked to disinfect a retirement building.

The digital image is from Lacy Sunshine, I love these images and it's hard to find something pertaining to cleaning, I'm glad I had this one in my stash. I followed the sketch from Sweet Sketch Wednesday 2 There are two sketches to choose from. Thanks was cut three times from navy cardstock and glued together for elevation. After playing around with many many many pieces of cardstock to match the turquoise paper I had to go with navy and I love it.  "note to self AGAIN...pick paper first)

Couldn't resist a close up, look at the "dust bunnies" 

I am entering this in:

Seize the Heros ~~ #188

Sweet Sketch Wednesday ~~ 

Thanks for visiting today and check out the the challenge and make a thank you card for our frontline workers. (I will be dropping this off at my daughter's house tonight so she finds it when she gets home from work)

U is for Upcycle at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers.

It's Saturday and time for a new challenge at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, U is for Upcycle, April 22, 2020 is Earth day so in it's honour we present an upcycle challenge. It's nice to reuse, repurpose, an upcycle an item. For my card I used a Christmas card I had received maybe last year or the year, I save all my cards for verses, ideas and of course the usual challenges that ask you to upcycle.

This was the back of the card, I just thought the plaid was too great to throw away, the banner is covering up the company name. I used a snarky Dolly Mama Christmas stamp.

Close up of the image and sign,

I am entering this in:

Jingle Belles Rock ~~ Peace on Earth Day

Finally the ordeal of doing my blog post is over, I'm not sure if it is me, Windows 10, Blogger or the Photo program but it has taken way too long to do this.  The last update of Windows `10 has messed more things up than it has fixed, (can you tell I detest Windows 10) 

Rant is over.

Thanks for visiting me today and head over to the Main Blog check out the rest of the upcycle projects that the design team had made (they are much more creative with their upcycle product)

It's Time for a New Challenge at Shopping Our Stash

Hello friends, family and followers it's time for a new challenge at Shopping Our Stash and the theme it Happy Passover, Happy Easter or Happy Spring. I chose to showcase a couple of Easter cards I made for my great grandsons although with the social distancing I think I am now putting them in the mail, they will be a little late but at least they will get to see them before summer.  I have time to craft and really haven't been doing much at all, I have great ideas, perhaps I get overloaded with ideas and then don't do any, time to remedy that one.  I always try to make a different fold, different technique or something moving and I'm running out of ideas especially since there are two. Here is what I came up with for this year.

Something I have not made in eons, a Waterfall card, of course I went looking for tutorials and there are many some very hard to follow but I used Dawn's Stamping Studio tutorial, it's the one I have always used. I made just a card front and a trivet to go with it. Talk about using stash, nothing on this card is less than 5 years old with the exception of the bunny dies which are probably a year or more but never been die cut before. The brads and ribbon are about 10 years. 

Since I don't have three or four hands (would be nice some days) I couldn't hold the card operate the waterfall and take a video at the same time, so this will give you and idea of how it worked. 

Next is a "Spring" card I made for the younger great grandson.

There were a few tutorials some were 5 1/4" square but because the bunny wasn't that big I made it 

4 1/4 inch square. It is called a spring card as it "springs" up when taken out of the envelope. These are really great cards for a graduate card. 

This is called Lucky Bunny and is from Elizabeth Craft Designs

The bunny is a great frustration builder, all those many parts but it was fun.

Another great stash buster, I think I've had the bunny die for 3 years and it was the first time I have played with it, the rest of the card was made out of scraps. My scrap file box is getting too full I need to make more use of the scraps that are in there, 

I'm entering this in:

Use Your Stuff ~~ #395 Easter

Thanks for visiting today and don't forget to head over to the Main Blog and check out all the awesome projects the design team has made.

It's Vintage time at the Jingle Belles.

I love the vintage challenge at the Jingle Belles, I had 4 of my vintage stamps out on the table to use for this challenge, with each day that went by one of them had to be deleted from the line-up and with today being the last day I was down to one simple stamp.  That simple stamp turned into a production but I'm happy with the results. Simple but nice.

I'm sure 98% of you stampers recognize the stamp, Santa Collage from Rubber Stampede circa 2003. I used several older dies, Spellbinder large and small ovals, scalloped oval, and fancy oval, along with the textile embossing folder. I used Very Vanilla and gold papers.

The sentiment is from Stampendous and I added the embossing folder around a shim that has an oval space in the center. I think I've used it once before.

I am entering this in:

Jingle Belles Rock ~~ Have yourself a Very Vintage Christmas

Thanks for visiting today stay home and stay well..

Happy Little Stampers April ATC Challenge is live!!!

Wow I can't belive we are in April already, it's a beautiful day, sunshine and some warmth is in the books for today. Unfortunately we have to look at it from our homes, so many more businesses are being relagated to on-line and pick up at the store. I just tried to manouver a site and gave up it was very discouraging, I'm really not out of anything, I took three separate days, 7 a.m. three different stores and got almost everything I needed. The good thing is I have more time for crafting.  Well on to the Happy Little Stampers April ATC challenge.

There you are the challenge is make your own background.  I'm not really big on making my own background I'm not very proficient with stencils, paste, sprays or anthing mixed media related but I do like to make galaxy backgrounds which works well with some cute little alien monsters.

The aliens were coloured with spica glitter pens and cut out with the accompanied dies, I also cut three more "aliens" and layered them o it popped them up on the 2 1/2 X 3 1/2 base. added a scattering of tiny sequins (I am so sequin challenged) and a sentiment. 

First is my "greeter" coloured him like Mikey.

I picked smile for her sentiment because she has a big smile .

Laugh because he needs a good tickle. 

Now this guy is just FUN!!

There you have my ATCs that I made my own background, now it's your turn to join in and make your own background and post it for the HLS April ATC Challenge. Now for more   awesome handmade backgrounds check out the Main Blog.

The Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers is going RETRO.....

R is for Retro

R is for Retro at the Sisterhood of Snarky Stampers, lots of choices for the challenge and if you check out the rest of the design team projects you will see how diverse it is.  I decided to go back to the age back when I was born to the Black and White era. Photos were all in black and white, t.v. was black and white (in the 50's).  Now people are taking their coloured photos and haveing them done in....you guessed it, Black and White.

The stamp is from Riley & Company, Wonderin Midge and the sentiment is from Art Impressions and seemed rather appropriate for the image. The background paper reminded me of the wallpaper in the apartment Mom and I lived in way back in the 50's, except it was green. 

Close up of the sentiment and it ws cut with speech bubbles dies from Stampin'up.

Finished inside with some leftover paper and a sentiment from the $2 bin at Michaels.

Thanks for joining me here today and head over to the main blog and see the Retro projects the rest of the design team have made.