Hip for Summer Halloween

Halloween again. :)  I believe this is the last week of Sizzix's Hip for Summer promotion, so I wanted to get another entry in.  I thought the ostrich would be fun as a witch and I think she is.  I had fun using some different supplies and techniques to create it.  Also a lot of cutting. lol

Little Lady is doing great.  Well, if by great I mean keeping me awake at night I guess.  lol She gets a super playful spell right as it's time for bed.  Then at 3am she comes and lays with me.  That would be awesome, but it's right on my face!  We work through it and then I get snuggles until 6 or 7 when she's up and ready for another round of crazy.  Good thing she's cute.  :)

Hip for Summer

Every now and then I see a stamp set and it makes me laugh.  The Hipster set from Stamps Anonymous was one of those.  I used it here on a monochromatic card and I love how it turned out.  It's one of my most favorite cards I've made in a while.  Sizzix has a fun challenge going on all summer using it, so check that out on their blog if you have the set.

Now I'm off to finish up some chores so I can be ready for Game of Thrones! Anyone else excited about it?

SCS Swipe Your Credit Card

Getting in a last post for the month.  :)  I am finding the challenges on Splitcoast helpful to get back in the groove of stamping.  This card was made for their Monday technique challenge.  Karen has a fun technique this week and I loved her card.  I decided to make a version of hers just to get the hang of the technique.  I can't wait to try it again now!  I love the result! I love swiping my credit card without having to pay it back. Go give the technique a shot and see how you like it!

We had a Silver-Spotted Skipper visit today.  So cute!  We also had a Monarch visit and leave eggs.  More babies!  :) Yay! I'm off to collect the eggs and see how many she left us.

Halloween & Santa

Sharing a couple more cards today.  I came in last night and colored a bit and was able to turn those images into cards for the Falliday Fest challenges.  This one is for a pink Christmas challenge.  A friend sent me this cute Stampin' Up! Naughty or Nice set and the Santa stamp is so cute!   Doesn't he look good in pink? :)

The next challenge I did was a good/bad witch card.  I picked the bad witch and used lots of greens and blacks.  Now I want to go watch The Wizard of Oz.  I miss waiting on it to come on that one time of year.  It's funny how much things have changed from my childhood sometimes.

I'm off to rest a bit.  Jason is working overtime today so I have four days of solo parenting this week.  I hope I make it.  My depression/anxiety is the worst it has even been right and it can be hard to make it through one day.  Four?  Well, send positive thoughts!

Tag of Gratitude

I've been in the mood for Fall things lately, so I decided to make some tags with my Tim Holtz goodies.  I just love distress inks!  I added a beautiful sentiment from Wplus9 to finish it off.  I think this will be great to put on a loaf of pumpkin bread or some other baked good to give to people around Thanksgiving.  :)

Stamps:  Stampin' Up! Sanded, Stampers Anonymous Halloween Blueprints, Wplus9 Grateful Greetings
Ink:  Ranger Jet Black Archival, Distress Inks (I didn't keep track, sorry!)
Paper: Manila tag, watercolor paper
Extras: Stampin' Up! Vanilla seam binding, Studio Calico wood veneer hearts

She really loves the postcards so much.  We are still getting a few a week and it's so fun to see her get excited.  I need to print a list of states so we can check them off as we get one from there.  :)

Blueprint Poison

What?  Halloween???  I know!  I treated myself to a stamp set I found on sale last week and it is Halloween/Fall Tim Holtz blueprints.  I wanted to try some liquid masking using a technique I learned in the Mask-erade Online Card Classes class. I put a ton of time and effort into this card.  So many techniques and drying time!  It is still drying now because there's Crystal Effects on the bottle.  lol  It might be ready to mail by Halloween. ...maybe!

Stamps:  Stampers Anonymous Tim Holtz Halloween Blueprint 2, Stampin' Up! And Many More
Ink:  Ranger Archival Jet Black, Distress inks: Dusty Concord, Spiced Marmalade, Hickory Smoke, Black Soot, Tea Dye, Brushed Corduroy
Paper:  Canson 140lb watercolor paper, My Favorite Things Black Licorace, Recollections Midnight Magic Halloween
Dies:  Lil' Inker Stitched Rectangles

That's all from me.  We are getting ready to go on a little family drive.  Jason has to pick up something about an hour away and there's a Whole Foods near where he's going.  I love going there to look around, so Laila and I might be finding some new fruits/veggies to try later!  :)

Have a great weekend!
Rita

Double the Dirty

So today starts a week of fun Dare to get Dirty challenges at Splitcoast Stampers.  I usually try to do a few, but with my current stamping slump, I thought maybe I should try to do most of them.  We shall see how that goes!  Up first is Lydia's challenge.  Now I can't share the details of the challenge with you as that's a secret for Fan Club members, but they've all been fun so far today.  I think it's well worth joining the site.  :)

I love these crazy birds so much.  I thought pairing this guy with the sentiment and some yellow watercoloring might be funny.

Another fun challenge, more watercolors!  I figured I'd use them a bit while they are on my desk, so it might be the theme of the day.  This one is for Teresa's challenge.  I love the pretty color of the paint I used on this one.  Those Gansai Tambi colors are amazing!

You'll be seeing more frequent blog posts from me this next week or so, so I hope that's not annoying.  I want to get them uploaded as I do them and as I get a chance.

12 Tags of 2016: July

I'm a little behind this month, but I did get my Tim Holtz July tag finished today!  It's been a work in progress and sitting on my desk for a week.  I've added and worked on it as I had a few minutes here and there.  I am so excited about how it turned out!  I still need to go back and do the months I've missed, so watch for those as I find some extra time.  lol

What do you think?  I think I got pretty close this time!  Yay!

Isn't she the cutest?  lol  So crazy, but that means there's never a dull moment around here.  :) 

Rainbow Tag the Remix

I thought I'd share another project I made during my stamping time with my friend Meg.  We worked on a rainbow coffee tag similar to the one I did for the last coffee blog hop.  We added a bit more to it this time and I was so happy with the results.  It really allows the coffee cup to shine!   

Tim Holtz's style of tags and fun came into my life at just the right time.  Life right now feels messy and crazy, so it's good to carry that over into my stamping.   Now I have a way to craft that doesn't have to be perfect or frustrating.  If I make a mistake I can make it work.  I know it's just ink, but it is also therapy and sometimes therapy is a big hot mess.  If I cry on my tags, it just adds more to it. If I rip it, more character.  There's no wrong way, no mistakes, just art. 

Supplies:

Stamps:  Stampers Anonymous Fresh Brewed Blueprints, Bo Bunny Stained Textures

Ink:  Ranger Distress Inks, Ranger Archival Jet Black

Other: Manila tag, seam binding, Tim Holtz Idea-ology Small Talk stickers

Coffee Lovers Rainbow Tag

Today I got to play around a little and I made a tag for the Summer Coffee Lovers Blog Hop and for Day 3 of the Online Card Classes Summer of Creative Chemistry challenge.  I grabbed distress inks and got busy.  Boy were my hands messy!  I've been working on getting a lot of cards out in the mail along with making more things, so my desk is in a constant state of MESS!  It's crazy!

Here's another card I made with a rainbow theme. I forgot to snap a photo with my camera before I sent it off to some dear friends who I know are hurting this week.  

Freshly Made Butterfly

Hello!  This week has been one of those crazy ones where I completely lost track of what day it was.  In addition to the holiday on Monday, Jason was off on Tuesday and is working tomorrow, so that makes it even more confusing.  He normally works Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, so this was a big change.  Even poor Laila is all confused.  lol   I didn't get my Freshly Made Sketches card made in time for the beginning of the challenge, but I made one this morning.  I combined it with the Summer of Creative Chemistry going on over at the Online Card Classes site.  It's fun to use distress inks and keep it clean and simple.  I will be using this same technique and mix of four colors for a more traditional Tim Holtz type project tomorrow.  :)

Here is Cindy's awesome sketch for the week:

We are having more crazy storms today, so it will be a stamping and relaxing day.  Texas is going to float away soon if all this rain doesn't go away!  It's just been too much! 

Stenciled: The White Space

Another card using stencils!  This was the first example taught in the Online Card Classes Stenciled class and I tried to copy Debby's technique and card.   It's a lot of white space for me, but I like how it turned out. I am enjoying going back and doing some of the lessons from this class!  I think I'll look back at the other classes I've taken there as well, so stay tuned for weeks of masking and one layer cards too!

I surprised Laila with some bristle blocks this weekend.  She loves playing with them at school and I wanted to have them here for her.  We decided this week to pull her out of the MDO program she's been attending.  The teacher had a talk with me about teaching Laila to obey people other than her parents and during that discussion she told me that Laila's spirit needed to be broken.  I was upset to hear that.  I know Laila has problems, but she doesn't need to be broken.  :(  Out of nowhere at breakfast on Thursday Laila told me that there were too many kids and that the teachers didn't listen to her, so I think it's just been a bad fit.  They never have anything nice or positive to say about her, so I just can't keep taking her to that type of environment.  We are going to an appointment with the nurse at the local elementary school on Thursday and will follow through with an evaluation to see if she has any issues that are leading to these problems at school. I am also going to talk to her peditrician to see if we need to have any other evualuations or assessments.  Everyone I've talked to seems to think she's just gifted, but I don't know...  She does seem to have some social issues, but we are working on those as best we can.   This parenting thing sure isn't easy!

Spring Coffee Lovers Blog Hop

I'm a bit behind on playing along with the Coffee Lovers for the Spring blog hop, but I'm sneaking in on the last day!   I had a little stamping time with a friend  yesterday and I took my new watercolors and some Copics over and made this card.  I am not really a pastel kind of gal, but they totally say Spring to me, so I used them.  :)   I added a little sequin flower embellishment to my cup because hey, what else says Spring like flowers?!

It's been quite a week.  We had some awful storms come through on Wednesday night and man!  They woke us up at 5am and made for a very long Thursday.  I think I could take the longest nap ever.  Today I need to clean a bit and go shopping for Easter dinner.  It's just the three of us, but we still like to make ham and all that goes with it.  It makes for a lot of leftovers, so less cooking for a few days.   I hope to color eggs with Laila today and start putting Easter baskets together.  I have no idea what I've bought at this point and I hope I can find all the stuff I hid around the house for them.  lol  If not, Christmas stocking stuffers they will be! Ha!

...and DONE! Yay!!!

So happy!   I stayed up last night and managed to finish my last three cards!   I almost gave up around 9, but one last episode of Private Practice helped me stay and finish.  :)   I had to do fussy cutting, a new technique, and even managed to use an image I colored ages ago but hadn't used.   Whew!  Another year in the books!!

Yvette's challenge was to use construction related materials or stamps for a card.  I looked but we must not be very handy because I couldn't find anything.  I did have this awesome set from Two Paper Divas called You Are a Handy Guy that was perfect! I enjoy coloring these images a lot and cutting them out doesn't bother me at all because I love the look of them.  

This was my card for a try a tutorial from the SCS resource section.  I've been wanting to try the Iris Twist technique for ages, so I went with it!   It wasn't as difficult as I thought and I think the result is so neat!

And finally, Lydia asked us to cross the finish line.  We were to draw a line on our card and have something cross it.   I had colored this crazy bird back at the beginning of the challenges and hadn't had a chance to use her on anything.  I decided she was perfect for the finale.

Thanks for visiting and seeing all the cards from the past five weeks!  I hope they inspired you and I hope you will join in next year and make some of your own!

Coffee and Poppies

Well, we haven't floated away here in Texas...yet.   lol   It's been raining since yesterday evening and still going.  Thankfully it's been mostly light rain with a few heavy showers thrown in.  I haven't really stamped as much as I've wanted to because I've been sick, but I am still working on more cards for Hope You Can Cling To here and there.   I did this one yesterday while I had a break from coughing.  lol    I love this coffee set and thought it might be fun to use with the torn edge challenge.  

I made this very simple card today for the "masterpiece" challenge where you were to be inspired by a work of art.  Georgia O'Keeffe was one of the suggested artists and I saw a lot of poppies when I did a search for her, so I went with that.  I wanted to use my beautiful  new sentiment I got from Hero Arts and I think it gets to shine on this card.  :)

Fall Freshly Brewed Coffee

Still catching up on all the cards I want to make this week!  This card is one I finally got to make for the Fall Coffee Lover's Blog Hop!   I can't believe I'm only getting one done on the very last day.   I did just get this new coffee set though, so it was a bit of perfect timing.   It is also for today's Hope You Can Cling To challenge to make a collage card.  I don't know if I did a good job with that, but I tried.   :)   This is also my coloring for day 2 of Kathy at The Daily Marker's 30 day coloring challenge.

Stamps:  My Favorite Things LLD Perk Up, Stamper's Anonymous Fresh Brewed Blueprints, Bo Bunny Stained Textures

Ink:  Memento Black, Stampin' Up! Early Espresso, Stampin' Up! Crumb Cake, Copics

Paper:  Stampin' Up! Crumb Cake, Stampin' Up! Very Vanilla, Stampin' Up! Early Espresso

Tools/Embellishments:  Lil' Inker Stitched Rectangle Dies, Simon Says Stamp Stitched Circles, MFT Blueprints 20, Simon Says Stamp Medium Dot Line die, Stampin' Up! Doily, Stampin' Up! Neutral buttons, Stampin' Up! Linen Thread