The Shining Moon

 

Hello strangers!  How is everyone?? Surviving COVID? Election? It's been crazy, right?  I know my mental health is in the crapper, so I made a deal with myself to try and stamp every day this month. I've made it so far! I've been doing the Falliday Fest challenges on Splitcoast along with a friend. It's good to have accountability, huh? This is the card I made for the challenge using a source of light. 

The tree die cut is Tim Holtz, the moon is Altenew, and the sentiment is from Neat & Tangled. It was simple, but my Facebook friends loved it. 

We're still just here. Laila's still a work in progress. We found a new psychiatrist and she seems to actually listen. Hopefully we can get her stabilized and happy. I had to stay goodbye to my 18 year old kitty last week so I've been struggling a lot with missing her. I got her ashes back today. 

FMS307 with Neat & Tangled

It's time for a new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches. One of our fearless leaders, Jen T, is our sketch designer this week. She must have known I was trying to figure out how to get more use out of my circle frame dies! :) I just got this cute new set from Neat & Tangled, so I thought my cute foxes would be perfect to add.

Neat & Tangled has their own challenge called Little Tangles and I wanted to enter my card there as well.  This month is to make a matching inside or envelope. That was super fun!

Isn't that cute?  I love decorating the inside of my cards as well, so I'm planning to do that before I mail it out. I just ran out of time yesterday.  Now I'm off to see what kind of crafty fun I can get into today!  

Paper Craft Crew 231

I haven't played around with my distress inks and stencils for a bit, so this sketch from the Paper Craft Crew seemed perfect for that.  I don't know if it's too much brown, but I kinda like it.  Monochromatic cards can be fun sometimes.  The stencil and butterly are Tim Holtz stamps and the sentiment is from Neat & Tangled.  (On a side note, I used up my first reinker last month.  Early Espresso, of course.  It's my favorite Stampin' Up! color, so I need to get a new one! I love that color so much.)

Now I'm off to clean up my desk.  I made a huge mess making this one.  I changed my mind a million times on various things, so my desk is a pile of maybe, maybe nots.  :)   Have a great end to the week! 

Freshly Made Sketches 270

Back with our new sketch at Freshly Made Sketches for the week.  Our sketch this week comes from the fabulous Kim. It took me a bit to figure out what I wanted to do with it, but this set seems to have worked out great.  I had so much fun coloring her.  I am trying to use some colors that are a bit tricky for me to get blended, so the pinks were a challenge.  I love it with the gray and black though.  Just ignore her hair.  I'm sure I'll never be able to color hair.

  

I can't wait to see what you create.  I hope you'll come join us.  Challenges are such a great way to get in practice and up your skills.  I know I always improve when I set a goal to do them often.  :)

It was a beautiful day in Texas yesterday, so we found a new park to explore.  Laila did great!  She interacted so well with the other kids and no meltdown when we left.  Her testing/evaluation is a week away, so keep your fingers crossed that we get some answers soon and can all learn to cope better with whatever it is.  

DTGD 2016 Two More

Ice cream!  It's so hot in Texas so ice cream sounds great to me.  I went a bit more grown up with my icy treat today and a frappuccino with an added espresso shot.  You'd think it would have me a bit more awake after that!  lol   Anyway, this is another card for the Dare to Get Dirty challenges.  I love this cute ice cream set from Simon Says Stamp.   I was feeling orange today, so I went monochromatic and did some shades of orange.  I like it!

Stamps:  Simon Says Stamp Ice Cream Dream, Stampin' Up! Happiest Birthday Wishes
Ink:  Memento black, Stampin' Up! Chocolate Chip
Paper:  Neenah Solar White, Stampin' Up! Pumpkin Pie
Dies/Etc:  MFT Stitched Mini Scallop Circle dies, Wink of Stella
Copics:  YR01, YR01, YR04, YR07, YR09, E33, E35, E37

And my second project is using a favorite set, Neat & Tangled Origami Map!  I love the fun geometrics of it and it's even more fun to use now that I have the matching die.  If you get this set, grab that at the same time.  You won't regret that.  I used my distress inks again to make some fun backgrounds.  I stamped and cut out the map after I made the green background.  It was way easier that way!

Stamps:  Neat & Tangled Origami Map
Paper:  Canson 140lb Cold Press watercolor paper, Neenah Solar White
Ink:  Distress inks:  Twisted Citron, Cracked Pistachio, Peacock Feathers, Tumbled Glass, Broken China, Mermaid Lagoon, Ranger Archival
Dies:  MFT Blueprints 22

Laila has been having a blast learning geography with her USA puzzle and our new globe.  I recently asked my FB and Instagrm friends if they might be willing to send her a postcard from their state/country so we can make a little scrapbook to go along with our learning.  If any of my blog readers would also like to send one, just email me at kyann22 at yahoo dot com and I'll send you our address!  I can't wait for them to start to arrive.  She loves mail and is always sad when none of it is for her.  Poor dear.

Freshly Made Sketches 200!

Can you believe we are at sketch 200 at Freshly Made Sketches? Wow!!!   It seems like not long ago that I got the email asking if I'd like to be on the team.  It's been an amazing experience and though I struggle to keep up with it, they keep me around.  I love my team!  Here's our sketch this week:

Now it's pretty basic, so have fun coming up with ideas!   I made this panel for Kathy's Pop Up Challenge and thought it might be fun for my card this week.  I just drew some lines by hand, colored with my Copics, and then added some thicker black lines.  Easy, but fun!

If you need more reasons to play along, look at all the awesome sponsors who are giving away prizes to our participants!  Amazing!   Come play along and good luck!

Watercolored Origami Map

Have you guys been joining Kathy in her second round of The Daily Marker 30 Day Coloring Challenge?   This is what I made with my first day of coloring.   I think it's fabulous that she's encouraging everyone to take a bit of time, even 5 minutes, to sit down and color something each day this month.  It is so relaxing and good for the mind!  It's never too late to join in, so go check out her blog.  She has a lot of great video tutorials and cards too!

I decided to ink up one of those stamp sets that I HAD TO HAVE OR I WOULD DIE that was sitting unused.   It's Origami Map from Neat & Tangled.  I love it!   It's super fun and you can use it with a lot of techniques.

This is my child and my cat fighting over an empty box.   So crazy! Why do I even buy toys????