Garden Thanks - Creative Card Chicks

 Hello my friends. Happy Friday. I hope you all have a great weekend.

I'm finally getting back to doing some more card making and playing in my craft room. It's been a trying month and a half. I can't believe June is almost over.

I spent some time in my craft room last night working on this card. It's very plain, but I had a hard time coming up with something that didn't include stamping. I could have stamped a sentiment, but decided to use my thank you die instead. This card is for the Creative Card Chicks monthly challenge. Each month there is a hostess who either sends us a kit or gives us a theme or idea to use to make our card. Then we each post our card between the 21st and 23rd of the month. Yes, I am way late getting mine done. On the 20th I had a cortisone injection on the side of my left hand right where the thumb meets the wrist. Yes, OUCH! It was painful, but it has helped so I'm not complaining. 

This month our hostess was Sue and she sent us some designer paper and some corresponding card stock. We were to make a card using just the dsp she sent - no images and no stamping. The products are all from Stampin Up - Fresh as a Daisy designer paper; Garden Green, Wild Wheat, and Daffodil Delight card stock; brass butterflies. I used a strip from each color of the cardstock to make a pennant and then added a brass butterfly at the point. I don't recall where the Thank You die is from, but I used a bit of the Daffodil and then some white card stock and layered the words. I love flowers so I'm sure I'll use the rest of the dsp at some point to make more cards.

Beautiful You - Challenge Your Stash

 Hello again, my friends, This is my second post of the day. I'm playing catch up for May now that June is here. I hope to  be back in my groove as days go on. 

This card is for the Challenge Your Stash group. In this group, we have a hostess each month who posts a theme for us to follow that month and then we use the items that are already in our stash to create a card for the challenge. We are not to buy anything new to use. The month of May our hostess was Vickie Y. Her challenge was to create a card using black and white. It turned out to be pretty easy for me because the designer paper I chose was perfect for the image.

The image and sentiment are from Stampin Up Beautiful You. I used black cardstock for the card base and for the oval mat for the image. The image and sentiments were stamped using Memento Tuxedo Black. The designer paper is from Black Market Ebony and Alabaster. Simple and sweet. No Copics were used in the creation of this card.

Kitties on the Prowl - Creative Card Chicks

 Hello, my friends. I hope you are having a fun and relaxing Sunday. It's been quite the month of May. On May 16, we had a "Derecho" storm come through H Town. If you don't know what that is, it is a "widespread, long-lived wind storm associated with a rapidly moving shower or thunderstorm." There was also a tornado associated with the storm, but the Derecho moved through H Town and headed into Louisiana with winds up to 100 mph. There was widespread damage along it's path and people lost power from a few hours to a week. I was without power for six days. Dealing with all that, I then had a surgical procedure done on May 20. I've suffered with bursitis in my right hip area for many years and finally decided to have it removed. So now, I'm recovering from that. I haven't been able to sleep on that right side yet which is terrible because that is the side I always fall asleep on although I wake up sleeping on my left side. As my doctor said, "It was surgery." So I just have to let it heal. The storm did some damage around here - a small tree in my back neighbor's yard took my fence down. Luckily I had already decided to replace it so I had an appointment with a fence company to replace it. It took down a small tree in my front yard that had replaced an old oak tree about 8 years ago. I also had damage to my pecan tree in my back yard and ended up have most of that cut back yesterday so none of the remaining limbs would fall on my house. I did have one limb fall out of the tree during a previous storm about a week before the big one. It had a pointed end which came down directly over my dining room and punctured a hole in the roof and caused a drip from the ceiling. Luckily at the time it wasn't raining that hard, so I was able to catch the dripping and it didn't last long. I did have a roofing company come patch it, but they didn't fix it. After having my insurance adjuster come on Friday and telling me I could get a new roof, I called a few roofing companies to come give me estimates on cost to replace it. So, it's been quite the month. I haven't spent a lot of time in my craft room, but I did get a few cards done before all this happened. This is one of them for Creative Card Chicks Monthly Challenge.

This kit came from Terry Serman our hostess for May. We are starting our17th round (or 17th year). We only have six in our group now, but it works out and each of us have two turns during the year to be hostess. For one month, we must send a kit with images, sentiments, designer paper, and any embellishments we care to include. The second month, we can send a kit, post a challenge, post a layout or a theme - whatever you want to do. 

The images and sentiment are from Colorado Craft Company. The card stock is from Stampin Up - Crisp Cantaloupe and designer paper also Country Floral Lane. I did include a couple of enamel dots on the side and popped up some of the images with dimensionals. I used Copic markers to color the images. It was fun to play with the images that Terry sent.

Smiles Across the Miles - Creative Card Chicks

 Wow! I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted here on my blog. The days just slip away. I hope you are all staying safe from the bad weather creeping across the country. Texas has been slammed with heavy rain, tornadoes, and flooding in a lot of places. Thankfully, we have just been getting some heavy rain here in H Town. 

I have been crafting some during the last month or so, but mostly working on some mini albums. I really love some of the Graphic 45 papers and have been watching a lot of YouTube videos using them. I have also found Club Scrap. They have some fabulous card layouts. A new company that I have recently come across is Stamperia. I just had to buy their Orchids and Cats collection and I'm currently working on a album using this collection. 

Back to card making. Today I do have a card to share with you. This is for the April card kit for Creative Card Chicks on Splitcoast Stampers.  Each month the hostess will send out a card kit or give us a challenge of some sort to make with our own stash. Then we all make at least one card which we post to the Forum between the 21st and 23rd of each month. Yes, I'm late posting, but to my defense I didn't receive the kit until late into the month. Weather and the P.O. have not been helpful.  This kit is from Roxie. She sent us the stamp set to use and then we could just use all our own stuff. I found some old October Afternoon paper in my stash. I don't think they are still in business. The last blog post was in 2016. Anyway, I thought this paper would be a good fit for the image.

The cloud dies are from a different set I had in my stash. I think they did very well with the balloon image and the sentiment. I would love to go to a balloon launch some time. I see them on TV and in photographs and they always look so amazing.

Thank you Roxie for the cute stamp set.

Darlene's Card Kit - 2023 Catch Up

 Hello my friends.  Happy Saturday. I'm finally getting the chance to post some cards I made with card kits I received last year. I'm one of six members of the Creating and Making Fun Card Kits. We each have two months during the year when we get to choose the theme for the card kits we want to receive. Each month we will either send out a kit to the person who's month it is or we will receive a kit from the other five members of the group. Sadly, I have not posted some of the cards I made with kits I received last year. Sometimes Life gets in the way. 

These are two cards I made with a kit sent by Darlene. My theme for the month was masculine cards. These images were perfect.

What guy doesn't like cars. Thanks Darlene for the great kit.

Thinking of You With Roses - CCC Monthly Challenge

 Hello, my friends. I hope you are having a great week. It's been crazy weather down here in H Town. One day warm, next day cold, next day stormy, next day sunny, etc. You get the picture. It's always something different here. 

Today I have a card to share with you for the Creative Card Chicks Monthly Challenge over on Splitcoast Stampers. Each month we have a hostess who either sends each member a card kit to work with or gives us a challenge and we use our own supplies. This month our hostess was VikkiJo and she sent us a lovely set of images of various flowers. So far I've only made one card using her kit, but I know I'll be making more using the rest of the flower images. I love working with flowers. I also love butterflies, and Vikki Jo including some really cute little golden butterflies in the kit. 

The butterflies really pop out except for the tiny one on the leaf down in the lower right corner. I used SU Blushing Bride for the card base. The image is from PSX and it says "Rosa" on the image. Not sure who the designer paper came from. I checked SU and didn't see it there. It's very pretty and very bold. My sentiment came from Whiff of Joy (retired) General Sayings II. I used Copic markers to color my rose - R20, R81, R83, G21, and G24. That's it for now.

Ewe Okay? CCC

 Hello, friends. I hope you are having a great day. We have finally started having some warmer weather. So happy for that. I hope it lasts now that February is almost over. Yikes!! I can't believe we are two months into the new year.

Today I have a card to share with you. This is for the SCS Creative Card Chicks forum. Each month we have a hostess who either sends a card kit to the other members or gives them some sort of a challenge to do. This month it was my turn to be hostess. I decided to do a challenge. It is to honor our team member, Debby, who passed away last year. She was really into livestock shows and 4H and loved animals. The challenge is to make a Thinking of You card using any kind of animal image (NOT one with wings) that you want to use. It would be great if it were some kind of livestock animal, but that doesn't have to be the case. I decided to use this cute Ewe image from SU Farm Fever.

This was pretty simple. I used Lili of the Valley (retired) Nit Wit Enchantment collection designer paper and just a small piece of ribbon. The couple Copic markers were E00; N7, and W2.

Playing Catchup - Barb's Cards

 Hello, my friends. I hope you are having a great Sunday. So far it is good here where I live although there is stormy weather off to the North of H Town. It's hard to believe that it is almost the middle of February and I only have a week and a half left in one of my classes. Then just one for another seven weeks. 

I've been working on purging my craft room of a plethora of crafting supplies. As I've been going through things, I've pulled out some that I'm hoping to sell, some things I just trashed, but the majority I'm taking to a donation center and hope that everything will find a new home. In addition, I'm going through all my old photos from when my children were born until the beginning of digital photos. That's going back quite a few years since my daughters have both reached the big 50. I'd like to start scrapbooking some of them, but in the meantime, I want to get them digitized to save them. I'm surprised that they are still in pretty good shape except the color in the really old ones is not so good. I hope the computer will help clear them up a bit. 

In the meantime, I have been working on some cards. These are mostly for the Card Kit group I belong to. There are six of us and each month one of us is the recipient of card kits from the other five members. We each got to pick two months that we wanted to receive cards and then we are able to pick the them of the card kits we receive. I had April (Masculine) and October (Thinking of You). I still have card kits from 2023 that I have not posted all of the cards that I made from the kits. Today I have four cards from two kits that I got from Barb (barbaralynn). Sadly I don't have all the information for how I made these cards. The first two card shown here are from last April (masculine). I think Barb did a great job with the kit that she sent me for these. The top one did not need any coloring. I did use Copics and a gold gel pen for card #2.

This second set of cards was for last October (Thinking of You). I love flowers, so both of these were so perfect. I also love coloring. I used Stampin Up Blushing Bride for the card base and mat and the Nestabilities 25 Label die. The Copic markers were R81, R83; G21, G24; Y15 and Y17. I added some ribbon and a couple of enamel dots along with the sentiment using SU window punch.

For this card I used Stampin Up Raspberry Ripple for the card base and sentiment mat. I love this designer paper that Barb sent. I finished it off with some gold dots and a piece of ribbon tied into a bow.

Such fun and still playing catch up with a couple more kits. Be back later.

Winter Masculine Birthday - CYS

 Hello friends. I hope everyone is doing well today. We are having a little bit warmer temps today. It's so nice to see the sun shining. It should be this way all week. After a month of cold and rain, I'm happy to have the sunshine again.

Today I have a card to share for the SCS Challenge Your Stash challenge. Every month there is a hostess who selects the theme for the month and then the rest of the group will make a card using that theme and only items in their stash. No new things are to be purchased to make our cards. For this month our hostess was Anne (jsmommy). She posted "We have a number of January birthdays on my family, all men. Make a Winter birthday card for a man." I took a little license with my card. I did try to keep it masculine with the designer paper i used and not to add any bling to it. It's winter and I think a snowman can be masculine and it says Happy Birthday.

The image is from Inky Antics. The sentiment is from See D's (an old stamp set) Piece of Cake. I used Stampin Up Baja Breeze for the mats and card base and My Mind's Eye (MME) Lost and Found collection. The coloring was done with Copic markers. 

Thanks Anne for a fun challenge.

 

Friendly Hello - Creative Card Chicks

 Hello, my friends. I hope you are all doing well. It's a very chilly day down here in H Town as it has been for the last week or more. I'm ready for it to be over. I do have an almost new addition to my house. The night before we were to have our hard freeze with temps down in the upper teens, I brought Frosty, one of my outside kitties inside. She's the friendly one. She has been staying in a small separate room away from the other inside kitties until I can take her to the vet and get her examined to make sure she doesn't have any contagious disease after ten years of living outside (seven with me). She has an appointment for tomorrow. If she passes, then we'll see if she and the other inside kitties will get along with each other. Hopefully they will and she'll be able to stay inside. I'm not making any other decision until we see what happens tomorrow.

For now, I do have a card to share with you. This is for the SCS Creative Card Chicks Monthly Challenge. It's made with an image that we have used before. This month our hostess was Sue (stampinspooky). She picked the image for us to use. The stamp set was previously gifted to us by Kelly. We were to use our own supplies to make at least one card for the challenge. We always post our cards between the 21st and 23rd of each month. I can't believe I'm actually on time this month. Will wonders never cease!

I used Authentique Delightful collection for the designer paper and Stampin Up Soft Sky for the card base and mats. I only needed a few Copic markers to color up the image and added a bit of bling and the card was done. I'm liking simple and easy these days, but wish I had more time to create.

Chocolate -- Challenge Your Stash

 Hello again. Here I am with card number three for today. Yes, I'm playing catch up. This card is for the SCS Challenge Your Stash monthly challenge. Each month there is a hostess who picks the theme for the month. Then all the players make a card using only the items they already have in their stash - we are not to purchase anything new to use. We are supposed to post our cards on the 28th but as you can see, I'm running way late. If you look at my other December post,  you'll see why - lots going on in my household.

Our hostess for December was Lisa and she posted her theme - Dec 28th is National Chocolate Day. Use chocolate or chocolate color as the main theme of your card. I did use SU Chocolate Chip cards stock and had chocolates in the image on my card. I hope that was enough. I think you could use this for a birthday or for Valentine's Day.

Penguins - December CCC Monthly Challenge

 Well, I am back again to share another late challenge for the Creative Card Chicks. The month of December was another busy month including Christmas. I did forget to mention that I had cataract surgery on my left eye back in November and have been having follow up appointments for that. Then in December I had another low back procedure - a lumbar radial ablation where the doctor burns the nerves that have been causing back pain. I'm still not sure after a month whether the procedure worked or not. I also have bursitis in that right side, so some of the pain I'm experiencing now could be as a result of that. I'll check on that when I have my follow up appointment in about ten days.  I have also been having pain in my left wrist. (I know - don't get old - you get all kinds of aches and pains). The orthopedist diagnosed me with tendonitis in that wrist. It took a month though before he would actually do anything about it. I went in after Christmas and he gave me an injection in that wrist. That hurt like crazy!!!!!!!!! It sort of feels somewhat better, but not 100% and I still get a little kink in it every now and then. It also started bruising about a week after I had the injection. Not sure why it took that long for the bruising to show up. I have quit wearing my brace unless I'm doing something very strenuous. I'm hoping that it will get better over more time.

So, here is my card. This one was for December and the kit was sent to us by Terry. She sent a few images and I picked this one. It is from Memory Box. We were to add one other color to it since the images were black and white as well as the designer paper Terry sent us. I chose to use pink and added some pink ribbon to the card. 

Thanks Terry for the fun kit. I still have some images and paper left over so I'll probably make some more cards during the year.

November CCC - Fond of Autumn

 Hello, my friends. It has been way too long since I've posted anything here on my blog. The last three months of 2023 have been packed with all kinds of things going on that were vying for my attention rather than posting here. After my October birthday month, I went on a long weekend cruise with my two daughters, a granddaughter, a grandson, and a son-in-law. We cruised down to Cozumel, Mexico. It was my first time there, but I had been to Puerto Vallarta way back when my girls were in high school. The cruise was great. We had a sea day down, then all day Saturday in Cozumel, and then a sea day back to Galveston. Royal Caribbean really knows how to treat you on their cruises

We went to the Mayan ruins, the Bee Sanctuary, made a stop at a beachside restaurant for lunch and a little bit of ocean time, and then the Chocolate Shop before heading back to the ship. It was a long day, but we had a great time.

Of course, then it was getting ready for Thanksgiving which I spent with my daughter here in Texas and her family. We enjoyed all the normal Thanksgiving dishes and some fun game time. With all that, it took me a while to get this card done even though it is pretty simple. This card was for the SCS Creative Card Chicks Monthly Challenge. Our hostess this month was our leader, Suzy. She sent us some images and some designer paper and we could use whatever embellishments we wanted. I didn't really use anything except what she sent and added my own cardstock for the base. The stamp set she used is SU Fond of Autumn and the matching dies Autumn Bouquet. I added my Copic markers and use the SU window punch for the sentiment and added an off center mat for the sentiment.

The creative card chicks have been active for many years. The earliest thread I could find was from 2015. Each month there is a hostess who sends out a full kit her first month with images, some pattern paper and embellishments. For the second half of the year, the hostess's second kit will contain only images and pattern paper. The hostess also has the option for her second challenge to give us a theme and have us create something out of our stash. It's always fun to see when the hostess has in store for us.