Flora to Fauna Snow Globes

Hello!  I hope everyone had a Happy Memorial Day.  Our holiday was rainy and cold, and I've been having back pain all weekend, so ours wasn't too fun.  But, it was still nice to have the three days off of work and catch up on some much needed rest.  In spite of my back pain,  I did spend some time in my garden, and in my church's garden, but I also had a little time today to spend in my craft room too.  I am in need of two anniversary cards this week, so I pulled out this lovely K & Co 'Flora to Fauna Bell Jar Snow Globe Stickers' that I bought on clearance at JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts.  These stickers are so pretty in real life.  They are very three dimensional, have a lot of glitter inside and feel like a soft plastic.

Here is my first card.  The paper used in both cards is also from K & Co and is called 'Nature's Designer Mat Pad'.  The flourish and sentiment tag are dies from MFT.

 And here is the second card.  It's hard to tell in the photo, but there are two birds in the snow globe.  Perfect for an anniversary, don't you think?  The leaf die is from Sizzix, the flower and sentiment die are from MFT, and the lattice background die is from Spellbinders.  The sentiment in both cards are stickers.

Have a great day! Amy

Flowering Trees

Hello!  It's been raining non-stop here in Northern Wisconsin and my backyard is looking very lush and green....I feel like I'm living in Seattle!  Here's a few pictures of what my yard looks like in Spring when all the flowering trees start to bloom.

This is the view of my yard from the front porch.  I have four flowering crab apple trees in the front of the house that all bloom at different times and in different colors.  Here is the white and pink ones.

 Underneath the flowering crab apple I planted some Bleeding Hearts that have reseeded and produced more bleeding hearts.  I thought it was interesting that a pink and a white bleeding heart reseeded in the same spot to produce this beautiful mixture below.

 The lilacs are just starting to open up.  Here is one in the foreground in front of the white flowering crap apple tree.  My garden shed is in the background.

 A close up of the white flowering crab apple.

 The ferns are loving this moist, damp weather.  I love all the colors and texture in the ground covers below the trees.

 A better view of the garden shed and ferns.

 The view of my front yard from the road.

 A close up of a viburnum bush.

 This is a picture of a river that runs below my property.  I have the joy of listening to running water every time I'm in my backyard.

 And my last picture shows the southern, terraced garden with the garden shed down below.

Have a Happy Memorial day! Amy

May Christmas Cards

Hello!  Today I have my May Christmas Cards to show you.  As most of you already know, I play the Christmas Card Challenge on Splitcoaststampers where we make Christmas Cards all year long so that were not stressed out making cards during the busy holiday season.  I make four Christmas Cards a month so that I'll have about fifty at the end of the year.

Because May is a busy month for me due to the Garden Season, I decided to use the same MFT image ('Thanks Snow Much') on all four cards, and I also cased all four cards from the divas.

My first card uses a layout from Dawn Easton.  (Sorry, I couldn't find a link to the original card.)   I changed the image, papers, and sentiment.  My sewing machine does not like to stitch on paper, so it is what it is, but I really don't mind messy sewing on cards, some designers to that on purpose! LOL!

 My second card is also cased, but I have no idea from whom.  The original artist didn't use a watermark and there were no clues in the title of the picture.  I kept the same layout, but changed the papers.

 The next two cards were cased from Jodi Collins.   HERE is the first card.  I changed only the designer papers.

 I put crystal effects and glitter on the scarf, then sprayed the whole image with a shimmer spray.

 And HERE is the second card I cased.  Again, I only changed the designer paper, but added a felt snowflake instead of a button.  I also stamped the image twice; the first time on an ivory designer paper, and the second onto white card stock.  Then I cut only the body of the snowman out and pasted it onto the designer paper.  The snowman looks really white this way!

I sprayed him with shimmer mist too.  Here's another close up for you!

Have a great day! Amy

Daffodil Delight

Hello!  It's finally spring here in Northern Wisconsin.  It sure took it's time getting here, but I couldn't be happier that it finally arrived.  It was a beautiful evening, so I decided to take some pictures of what is in bloom in my yard.

I have a hillside filled with every type of daffodil you could image.  Here is a clump of little yellow ones that have a beautiful scent.

 These jonquils are white with a peachy/yellow center:

 The ones below left are pale yellow with an orange trumpet and the picture to the right shows two types of daffodils growing happily along side each other.

My plum tree is always the first tree in my yard to bloom.

 The tulips are also blooming now.  Here are some common yellow ones.

 One of my favorite ivory colored tulips.

 And finally some cheerful, bright red tulips.

 And now for the finale,,.a picture of my favorite spring bird.  Can you see him?  He's in the branch above the feeders....that's right...a Baltimore Oriole.  I look forward to the Oriole's arrival every spring.  They are so gorgeous, somewhat friendly, and they have a beautiful song.  I often see 7 or more at my feeders at one time.  The sight of one always thrills my heart.  My son said to me the other day 'They look to exotic to be in Wisconsin.  They look like they should be in an Rain Forest or something."  You could probably tell by that statement that we don't have too many colorful, pretty birds here in Wisconsin, so we appreciate them when they do visit.

Have a great day! Amy

Shell Postage Stamps Cards

Hello!  It was a cold, dreary day on my day off so I decided to hibernate in my craft room with an electric space heater and play with my K & Co Stickers again.  You'll be seeing a lot of these guys in the near future, because I bought a ton of them on clearance at JoAnn Fabrics and Crafts.  

Here is my first combination of cards.  All the paper is from K & Co "Travel/Voyage".  The solid colors are natural ivory and groovy guava.  I used the same layout on every card so I could mass produce quickly.  I popped the postage stamp sticker up on dimensionals and my only embellishment is ribbon since the sticker already had glitter and pearls on them.

Here are pictures of each individual card:

 Here is a close up so that you ca see the glitter and dimension.

 This second set of cards uses a different shade of paper from the same paper stack.

I left off sentiments so that I could use the cards for any occasion as needed.

Well, it's a beautiful mid 70's spring day....so off to my garden I go.  I'm so happy summer/spring is finally here.  There's nothing I love more than plopping on a pair of jean shorts and flip flops in the morning!  I'll probably be 80 years old and still wearing jean shorts and flip flops! LOL!

Have a great day! Amy

K & Co. Lighthouse Card

Hello!  Sorry for the week long absence.  Life has been unusually crazy busy lately.  My son is home for the summer from college and there was a lot of reorganizing and restructuring around the house to get him settled in, plus it's spring and I have to spend at least two hours a day in the garden, so my craft time is limited.  I will try to post something at least once a week.  So, since all my design team commitments have ended, I decided to start using all those pretty embellishments I've been collecting but never using for the past several years.  Since I'm always in need of masculine cards, I  started with my beautiful collection of K & Co sea side themed stickers.  The set I used today is from 'Travel Map'.  It's a clear epoxy sticker with a slight raise to it.  I used one of the main lighthouse images and a few little epoxy stickers for embellishment.  My sketch is from Splitcoaststampers (SC434) and the paper matches all the embellishments in the K & Co line and is called 'Travel/Voyage'.    I sponged all the edges of all the paper with some Tim Holz distress ink and then added some rustic hemp Ric rack for embellishment.  The sentiment was computer generated and cut out with a MFT die.

 Here are a few close ups of the epoxy stickers.

They make so many beautiful stickers nowadays, I think they really make home made cards very special.

Have a great day! Amy

Goodbye, Digital Tuesday Challenge

Hello.  Today I have a sad post to share.  Normally every Tuesday I welcome you to the Digital Tuesday Challenge, but this will be the first Tuesday in years I won't be able to do that because the Challenge Blog has come to an end.  The owner of the blog decided that she just didn't have the time to keep it going anymore, so after four long years, it is sadly over.  I was a part of the Digital Tuesday Challenge from the very beginning and I swore I would always be loyal to it and never quit until I was forced out.  It was the first Design Team I was ever asked to be a part of, so it held a special place in my life.  My very first post was April 28, 2009 and this was my card:

Normally when I look at my older work I cringe and think 'Was I really that bad back then?'.  Of course I know it's not necessarily talent, but styles change in paper crafting just like they do in fashion, interior design, and other arts; so older works or designs tend to look bad, when really they just represent the style of the time.  But this card, I still really like.  Blue, yellow, and white are still one of my favorite color combos...and still the colors of the kitchen in my home.  I don't think these colors ever go out of style.  I love the image, the dimension on the flower, and all the pretty ribbon.  Plus, it was my very first Design Team Challenge Card, so that alone holds a special place in my heart.

So what new adventures are for me?  Well, I think nothing for now.  It's Spring, and I'm always so busy in the garden that it makes completing  inside hobbies very difficult.  Plus, I'm kinda tired of the whole design team thing.  Initially all the free 'toys' were nice, but I really don't need anymore 'freebies'.  I have more digital images than I will ever be able to use in a lifetime, and my enormously huge craft room is filled to overflowing with stamps, die cuts, and paper I never even touched.  I could probably open my own scrap booking store with all the stuff I own!  Plus, I'd like to get back to paper crafting for just the fun of it.  I'm so tired of the stress of meeting deadlines, or having to make cards I don't really need, or use images and products I really don't even like.  It'd be nice to actually make what I want to make when I want to make it for a change!  I'm not saying I'll never join another design team some day, but for now, I'm happy with just creating for me.

So Goodbye, Digital Tuesday Challenge.  It's been a fun  ride!

Have a great day! Amy

April Christmas Cards - A Little Late

Hello!  As most of you already know, I play the Christmas Card Challenge on Splitcoaststampers where we make Christmas Cards all year long so that were not stressed out at Christmas trying to get our cards done on time.  I make about four cards a month so that I'll have about 50 cards at the end of the year.  I already made one card which I posted HERE,  and these are the final three for the month of April.

For my second card, I used the MFT image 'Thanks Snow Much'.  I put glitter and Flower Soft on the Snowman.  I used both pre-purchased felt snowflakes and acrylic snowflakes for embellishment.  The paper is DCWV 'The Winter Matstack'.

 For my third and final card, I used Crafty Secrets 'Snow Globes' stamp set which is the same set I used last month which you can see HERE.  This set comes with so many images, that I was able to use four of the main images last month and I still had two main images left to use this month.  Plus there's lots of 'little images' I haven't even used yet.  And, these image can be used either as Snow Globes (which is how I used them last month) or as Ornaments.  The set comes with two separate bases to use if you want to make globes, or an ornament top if you want use them as ornaments.  Since I made Snow Globes last month, I decided to make ornaments this month.

This card used the Splitcoaststampers Sketch 426.  The image is stamped twice and embossed with black embossing powder and popped up on dimensionals.

This final card also uses a Splitcoaststampers Sketch (SC394), is stamped twice, and popped up on dimensionals.  I also embossed the sentiment with Black Embossing Powder and used a gold glitter pen  to color the ornament holder.  The tree is brad, and the paper is from an old DCWV Christmas Stack.

 
Have a great day! Amy