Favorites of 2015 Part 2

Continuing with yesterday's post, here are the second half of my favorites from last year.  :)  

July:

I don't like swimming or boating, but I love nautical stamps for some reason.   I think it's because they work so well with red and blue   Those are two of my favorite colors and I enjoy working with them.   This was made with one of the Simon Says Stamp card kits that I was getting for a while.  I keep thinking about subscribing again, but I have so much to use up as it is.

August:

Two from August.   I made this pretty sewing card for my mom of course.  I love the designer paper; it's from a pack that Jason got me for Christmas in 2014.   I paired with blacks of the cards with a favorite color, Coastal Cabana!

Play with distress inks again here.  I love the look of the space backgrounds and this was my first attempt at one.  I love  how it turned out!   I need more star themed stamps so I can make them more often.  :)

September:

This is one of those "embracing the white space" cards for sure.  :)   Again, Coastal Cabana and black accompany the white.   I just love those two colors together!

October:

October is my big stamping month, so I have three cards that were favorites.   The first is this gorgeous card that took me days and days to make.  I still can't believe in all those circles!   The result was totally worth it though.

Sunshine stamps are a favorite thing of mine and I love using them for my HYCCT cards.   I love this card and several others did as well.   It just makes me happy to look at and was one of my favorite cards from the challenges.

I discovered a new digital stamp company during HYCCT and this sweet little snowgirl is from them.  I think this is one of my most favorite cards that I've ever made.   I love the way the coloring turned out and the design just makes the image pop!  

November:

 More white space!  I was gifted this lovely poinsettia set from a friend last year and this was my first time using it.  It was fun to color and I love the result of the extra stamping/layering.  

Stencils are always fun to use and I love the background my hexagon stencil helped me make on this card.   It's such a fun backdrop for the beehive.   

December:

And finally, December.  I had two favorites even though I didn't get a lot of stamping in.   The sweet owl card I made for Jason just makes me happy.   

I love polar bears, so this card just had to make the favorites.   The fact that it uses Coastal Cabana helped a bit in making it a favorite too.  lol 

I hope you enjoyed a look back and I look forward to sharing another year of creativity and inspiration with you.  

Favorites of 2015 Part 1

I thought I'd start the new year by sharing some of my favorite cards from last year.  It's always nice to look back and see changes in style and (hopefully) improvement in coloring ability.  I have been enjoying my Copics so much and white space is finally my friend.   This year I hope to learn some new techniques, improve even more with my coloring, but most importantly, get cards in the mail!   I am also planning to sell more of them, so I need to figure out a way to do that.   Do you have crafty goals this year?

January:

I finally got some distress inks and started learning a bit on how to blend them.   I just LOVE them and hope to add more to my collection this year!

February:

I love all things retro, so these cute canisters from Two Paper Divas along with some retro colors just makes me happy!

March:

I love this beautiful stamp from Stampin' Up! and enjoy coloring it so much.  It is one I will be keeping in my stash for a very long time!  

April:

I couldn't decide on just one for April, so here's three.   This card just makes me happy.   I love the bright yellow and the sweet flower.   The tilted panels make me a bit anxious, but I'm still working on embracing them.  lol

 Another favorite stamp set.   I just love how super she is!   I love coloring her and love how this one turned out!

These little Lawn Fawn monsters are so dang cute!   I love using them and this combination of colors is a favorite of mine!  

May:

I am NOT a sewing person, but my mom is and I love making cards for her.   I love the fun, bright colors of this one and I hope she did as well.  

June:

 Two cards for this month caught my eye.  It must be the cute rainbow colors.  :)   This little unicorn from Paper Smooches is the most adorable thing and I just LOVE it.  I need to get it out again and color it!  

I am not a watercolor person, but I had fun with this one.   I love the origami map stamp from Neat & Tangled.  

I'll be back tomorrow with the rest of the months!

Happy New Year!

Two Paper Divas Hearts

Have you started thinking about Valentine's Day yet?  lol   I loved this last release from Two Paper Divas and haven't had a chance to play with all the stamps yet.   I won't be on the team in 2016 as I needed a break to get my life in order, but I will still be sharing projects with their stamps.   I hope I might can sneak in as a guest designer every now and then as well.  Gayla and Melissa are wonderful ladies and I encourage you to check out the shop if you haven't already.

My favorite part of Valentine's Day is the candy of course.  The conversation hearts are such a tradition and I love that they released a stamp set of them. (Large Conversation Heart).  I used the big heart and two of the sayings for my card.  I added a simple watercolor in the background in pink of course.  This card took me forever to finally leave alone and then it wouldn't photograph well at all.  The rainy days didn't have enough light and then I don't know what happened.  lol  See?  I'm a mess!

The fireworks are starting up, so I think I'm going to go set up the bed so I can snuggle with Sadie and watch some Breaking Bad.   I hope you have a wonderful end to 2015!  I'll be back with a post tomorrow sharing all my favorites from 2015.   I planned to do that today, but I had cards I needed to share.

Happy New Year!

From The Heart Bear

I'm so behind!  I just can't seem to get good photos lately, but I'm going ahead and posting anyway.  This adorable image is December's Stamp of the Month challenge stamp at From The Heart Stamps.  I loved coloring it, so I wanted to be sure I got it posted before the month (and year!) ended.  I am loving digital stamps lately!

Laila loves to help cook and we try to let her as much as we can. It makes me a nervous wreck, but I just try to teach her to be careful and we talk about safety and all that.   She made her scrambled eggs the other day and had a blast.   :)  

Cool Day Bear

I thought I'd share the one card I was able to get a good picture of today.  I have several others that I just can't get photographed well, but the sun is finally coming out so maybe in a couple more hours!  That rain we've been having makes it tough to get a decent picture.   This card is for the MFT Card Challenges sketch challenge.  I am so in love the polar bears from Cool Day.  I am totally using them for cards all year so that I have some winter cards to mail out. I failed on getting Christmas cards mailed, so I'm going to switch to just making winter ones.  Surely I can get those sent since I have 3 months to do so. lol

I hope everyone had a good holiday.  Ours wasn't so great, but it is just normal for things to be that way lately.   Laila is having a lot of issues and it just makes things frustrating and difficult.  I am putting her in play therapy next month and we are doing an evaluation through the school to see if there's something there they can help with.   She is almost more than we can handle these days and we've found that it's not just us. The teachers at Mother's Day Out have a hard time as well.   We go and get her from there early now because it's too much for them to keep her all day.   I'm at a loss, so fingers crossed that the professionals can help.  Most people say she's just really really smart, but it's much more than that.   Sigh. 

Santa was still good to her and she got a train table.  She loves it and has played and played.  It keeps her busy and the tantrums/screaming aren't quite as frequent while she's playing.  I am hoping it will allow me to catch up on the house since I'm so behind and it's making me nuts.   I am ready for the tree and pine needles to go away!   I don't know if we'll do a real tree again or not.  lol  SO, MUCH. MESS.  

Okay, I'm off to finish up my bit of cleaning and figure out what we will be having for lunch.   I hope you are having a good Monday! 

Santa!!!!!!!

Sharing this card I made ages ago.  It was from my last class I held and my answer to their request for a Christmas gift card holder.  The inside has a little pocket at the bottom to hold one.  12 x 12 paper comes in handy sometimes for things like this!  :)  The card itself is just the Santa Suit die-namics from My Favorite Things.  I won it on World Card Making Day and it is so fun!!!   Easy too!    Who wouldn't want a card that looks like Santa?  

Laila's absolute favorite thing is trains.  In fact, she's getting a train table, Thomas engines, and Thomas rain boots and a raincoat for Christmas.   Last week we drove 3 hours each way to take her to ride the Polar Express to the North Pole.  She LOVED it.   She was so excited and watching her was so worth the cost and the drive.  It was the perfect year to go since she is so obsessed with trains.   I can't wait until Christmas morning when she sees her table!  She loves the one at Mother's Day Out so much.  

Share Joy with the Grumplings

I know I am!  lol  I love these Grumplings from Taylored Expressions so much.   This one and the sentiment are so me at the moment.  I feel like we just skipped weeks ahead and now I'm behind.   I haven't mailed out any cards, wrapped any gifts, or even hung the stockings!   Tomorrow is going to be a super busy day!   The layout for my card is from the sketch at the current TE Share Joy Challenge.  I just fudged a bit and made it into a rectangle since I have a mental block with square cards.

Hopefully I'll be back soon with my Two Paper Divas card and a couple of other miscellaneous cards I made a while back and haven't shared.  Until then...  

I thought I'd share my birthday gift before I left.  I turned forty (ugh) on Saturday and Jason gave me money to go shopping for the animal shelter as my gift. It's what I asked for and I'm so happy he listened.   It was great to fill the cart up and then drive it all down to the shelter.  I hope it helps the animals!  

Owl Birthday for FMS

Wednesday again?  It is going to be Christmas before we know it!   It's Freshly Made Sketches day!  This will be our last sketch of the year, so you have some extra time to play along!  It's always nice to have a little less stress over the holidays, right?  :) We will be back on January 6th for a brand next sketch in a brand new  year!  Linda is our last hostess of the year and her sketch is just awesome.  I made a birthday card for someone special for my card.  I'm also entering in MarkerPOP's challenge since it is anything goes.  :)  

I just love owls. Monday night I was watching some being released from a wildlife rescue here in Texas and I think that influenced what I used for my card.  The cute Winter Owl mini set from Lawn Fawn is just adorable!  The sentiment is from a flamingo set from Newton's Nook.   

I hope you have a great holiday!  I should be back with more cards before then, but you never know...  I have some crafty Christmas gifts making their way here to me, but who knows if I'll get time to play!