Purr-Fect Playdate

 Hello my friends. Happy Thursday. It's been a busy week with school work and getting in some weeding and house chores. It's never ending. I finally got the front flower bed mostly weeded. You know that they are not all completely gone, but the big ones have been pulled and dug out. I still have a ways to go in the back yard. I'll probably have to replace a couple of shrubs. My gardenia bush is starting to put out some new shoots, but they are just tiny and way down at the root. It will take years for it to grow to like it was. I'm considering digging it up and replacing it along with my hibiscus that doesn't seem to be showing signs of new growth. 

In between all that, I was able to get a card done for the Splitcoast Stampers Challenge Your Stash group. For this group, we have a hostess every month who picks a theme for us all to use to create our card. We have to only use items from our stash - no going out to buy new things to create the card. This month the hostess was Shelly (mcschmidty) and the theme she gave us was ~~Kiss Your Mate Day is April 28th. Lets make cards showing a kissing couple, a couple in love, even love for a pet!

I don't have much use for a kissing card so I opted for a loving kitty pair. 

 Materials Used:

• Image - Heartfelt Creations - Purrfect Playdate
• Sentiment - Heartfelt Creations - Purring & Playful
• Cardstock - Stampin Up - Pink Pirouette
• Designer Paper - Heartfelt Creations - Purrfect Posies
• Accesories - Heartfelt Creations - Die for Purrfect Playdate; Stampin Up sequins
• Copic Markers - BV0000, BV000, BV01; E01, E02; E23, E25; G21, G24; R21, R81; Y15; W0, W2

That is all for today. I hope you like it and wish you a great week!

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Vintage Sport - International Art & Soul #107

 Good morning and Happy Sunday! I hope you are all doing well. It's a beautiful and sunny day here in H Town. Started off with having the sprinkler repair guy come out. The zone for my front flower bed and the one side of my house was not working. One of the sprinkler heads was just gushing water out. He said that's why the others weren't working because all the water was going to that one. Got that all fixed and a couple adjustments and now everything is working great. He even checked all the other zones to make sure they were all working as they should. This was the first time I've used this company and will call them again if I have any others issues. The company I used before couldn't give me an appointment until the second week in May. Couldn't wait that long since my front flower bed was not getting watered.

Today I have a card to share for the International Art & Soul challenge. The theme is A Card or Gift for a Man which was chosen by Design Team member Jennie. I've had this stamp for some time and haven't used it yet. I don't do a lot of masculine cards, but thought this one would be perfect. Most men love cars. 

Materials Used:

• Image - Lili of the Valley - Vintage Sports
• Sentiment - Stampin Up - Big on Birthdays
• Card stock - Stampin Up - Buckaroo Blue
• Designer Paper - American Crafts - Ready, Set, Go
• Accessories - Silver gel pen
• Copic Markers - B0000; E30, E31, E25; G21, G24; W1, W4; Y13, Y15

Simple card for today. I hope that you will check out our posts for this fortnight over at International Art & Soul. See what the rest of the Design Team has created. Then join in the fun and be creative. You could be the Winner or picked as one of the Top 3. Have fun.

Flowers For Someone Special - Creative Card Chicks

 Hello my friends. Happy Saturday. I hope you are all doing well. The weather was beautiful here in H Town today. A bit warm for weeding the flower bed, but I got some of it done this morning. Now just a small patch left. I'm not sure exactly what it is that is growing out there, but it is trying to take over the flower bed. I'm having to dig out the volunteer plants that are growing. It could be some Lantana that I had planted there some years ago and keep trying to get rid of it every year. It will just take over the whole bed if I don't keep it under control. My sprinklers that water that flower bed are also on the fritz and I have the repair people coming tomorrow to fix the ones that aren't working. 

That said, I do have a card to share with you today. I'm only three days late with getting this posted. Sorry, Kelly! It's been a little crazy here with school starting up again and so much to get done around the house - inside and outside. I'm trying to get ready for my kids to finally come back to my house to have dinner here again after more than a year. We've been getting together at their house - eating outside and playing games where we can social distance. I did get to have dinner inside their house two weeks ago and finally got a hug from my daughter. That was very nice.

Splitcoast Stampers Creative Card Chicks is the group that I'm spotlighting today. We have a hostess each month who puts together a card kit and sends one out to each of the members of the group. Then we are to make at least one card from the group to share. We post between the 21st and 23rd of each month. April was the month for Kelly (ScrappinCEO). She sent us some pretty flower images. 

I was going to use the other side of this paper because it has butterflies on it, but when I decided to use this flower stamp, I liked using this side of the paper better. It's from Stampin Up Butterfly Bijou. The stamped image is from the January 2018 Quick Cards Made Easy publication. The sentiment I used and the Just Jade leaf embossed strip is from the August 2019 Cardmaking & Paper Crafts publication. The butterfly was made by Kelly and I used one of my Spellbinders die for the flower image and some twine from my stash. 

That's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow with another card.

Winged Things - IAS Challenge #106

 Hell my friends. Happy Sunday. It's a beautiful day here today in H Town. So ready for winter and cold to be over. I spent a little time outside yesterday trying to get the flower beds cleaned up and ready for some more planting since everything died over the week of the Big Freeze! My Knockout Roses survived and are beautiful. I had the yard man cut them back about two weeks before the freeze and they also survived and are putting out a ton of new growth and dozens of beautiful flowers. So thankful.

Today I have a card to share with you for the International Art & Soul fortnight challenge. The theme this time is Winged Creatures which was chosen by DT member, Christine. This was not hard for me because I love winged creatures - fairies, butterflies, birds, etc. 

Materials Used:

• Image - Whimsy Stamps - Maya
• Sentiment - left it open
• Card stock - Stampin Up Blushing Bride
• Designer Paper - Stampin Up - Birthday Bouquet
• Accessories - Stampin Up Blushing Bride ribbon; Nestabilities Die- Marvelous Squares; Stickles.
• Copic Markers - B00, B0000, B12; E25, E27, E29; E50, E51, E53; R20, R21; G24; R81, R83; Y18

That's it for now. I hope you'll pop on over to the http://intaas.blogspot.com/ and see what the rest of the design team has created. They are very talented ladies.  Join in the fun and let's see what you come up with. You could be chosen as the Winner or one of the Top 3. Have a great week.

Christmas Tree - IAS #105

 Good morning. Happy Sunday! I hope you are doing well. It's a little on the cloudy, rainy side this morning, but that is not dampening my spirits. A week and a half left in this semester! It's also exam week in Math 108X so not looking forward to that. 

I do have a card to share with you today for International Art & Soul. Our challenge this fortnight is Shaped Card (no squares/rectangles) and has been chosen by DT member CG. I am not good at doing shaped cards but when I remembered that I had these great dies from Heartfelt Creations that I have not used before, I knew they would be perfect. 

 

This really came together pretty quickly. There was no coloring done on this card. I started out with a white 10x 7 piece of white cardstock, folded over to 5 x 7. I then use the Booklet Basics Die set to cut out the base of the book pages. I used the largest of the basic dies and a piece of Stampin Up Glitter red cardstock and which was glued to the white base card. That was then glued to the Booklet Frame die which I cut out of Stampin Up Cherry Cobbler. Two pieces of designer paper were cut out and adhered to the top of the Basic Die for the book. The top layer is from October Afternoon - Make It Merry collection called Make a Song. I made sure to cut it so that the song title and the tree were showing with some of the music bars. The flowers and leaves are from my stash. I didn't make them. I wish I could find more of those poinsettia flowers though. I love them. 

That's my card for today. I hop you will pop on over to IAS and see what the rest of the design team has created for your inspiration. Give it a try and join in the fun. I'd love to see your shaped cards to give me inspiration.

Easter Boy - CCC

 Hello my friends and Happy Sunday. Also, Happy Spring! I'm so glad to know that the cold weather is on its way out and it will start getting warmer now. We have still been having chilly mornings, but it turns out really nice in the afternoon. I've been getting out the last few days and with some help have gotten the flower beds all cleaned out from the leftovers of the big freeze! Sad to see everything go that has been growing for some time in the beds. I guess it's time for a do-over. Not sure yet what I'm going to do. Going to take my time and decide what would be best. Glad to know that my fig tree made it through without any major issues and it is starting to put out new leaves. I cut it back too so hopefully that will help with getting more and better fruit this year. I play to cover it with tulle netting to try to keep the birds and squirrels from grabbing the fruit before I can. The grapefruit tree looks terrible, but I see some very tine green spots on the limbs, so I'm hoping in time it, too, will start putting out new growth. I probably won't see any fruit this year, but hopefully next year we'll have some again.

On to my card for this month. This is one I did for the Creative Card Chicks group on Splitcoast Stampers where we have a hostess every month who sends out a card kit to everyone and all the members make at least one card from the kit and post it on the 21st of the month. For March, Roxie was the hostess and she sent us some cute bunny rabbits to use and we were to make a masculine card. Since it was to be a boy card, I used all the "blue" items that came in the kit.. Mine came together pretty easily.

 The image Roxie sent is from Inky Antics. I suppose that the sentiment is also, but not sure. The paper and the enamel dot are from Stampin Up. I mounted the d/p on some Stampin Up cardstock - Dapper Denim. I used a few of my Copic Markers to color in the bunny - G24, R30, YR02, YR04, YR09, W1.

I hope you are all doing well and able to stay warm. Have a great week.

Fancy Fold Snowman - CYS

 Good morning and happy Monday. I was able to enjoy a nice day yesterday and dinner with my daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren (who are adults) last night. We are still eating outside and it was pleasant. Today, the pleasant has chilled down a bit and gotten somewhat windy out. I think we'll be back to warming up by the middle of the week.

I have a card to share with you today. I made this for the Challenge Your Stash group over on Splitcoast Stampers. The idea is to just use items from your stash to make the card to go along with the theme of the month. This month's theme came from Danielle and it is to make a fun fold card- any fold as long as it's not just folded in half- and include the color red.

 The image and sentiment inside come from an unidentified stamp set. I believe it came in a stamping/papercraft magazine, but I wasn't able to find the correct one. The fold is made with a 5 1/2" x 12" piece of cardstock, scored at 2", 4", 8", and 10". There is designer paper on the inside and outside of the two folded sides. The snowman was stamped with Memento Tuxedo Black ink on Xpress It Blending Card. It was then matted on a 2" square piece of red cardstock and then mounted on a piece of SU Whisper White. The image was colored with the Copic Markers - G05, R46, YR04, W0, and W7. I used some white liquid applique on his hat for the fur trim. The designer paper is from Stampin Up This Christmas collection. The snowflake die on the right side is from Memory Box - Frosty Border and then I finished off the card with some glitter red bling dots. I would love to have more time to play in my craft room.