Hello, Sunshine

This is a card I made this morning for a very special little boy named Ben. As Ben's mum describes him, Ben was born "blessed with an extra chromosome," (Down Syndrome), and is the sparkling light of her life. In May 2007, Ben was diagnosed with leukemia, and has recently come out of remission. His only hope of long term survival now is a bone marrow transplant. He's on a waiting list for a match.

Ben loves things typically loved by all 7 year old boys and animals are among his favorites so I wanted to make him a little "thinking of you" card with this darling and whimsical turtle image.

Card Recipe Ingredients:
Stamps: Turtle is by the digital company, Whimsie Doodles. Sentiment is from Papertrey Ink
Paper: Making Memories
Coloring: Copic Markers
Accessories: Nestibilities hexagon and scalloped hexigon dies, Prima flowers, button brad, yellow Stickles



Cheers!

Cultivate Love

Would you like to join me on a SERENDIPITY STAMPS blog-hop? Today's cards blog-hop tour will be the theme of GARDEN. You can join me and the rest of the Serendipity Stamps design team members by clicking on their name to take you to their cards.

For my Garden theme card I used three different Serendipity stamps. If you look closely you'll notice the background script the names a variety of flowers. The heartshaped spade and sentiment "Cultivate Love" complete this card using three of my new Serendipity Stamps.

CARD RECIPE INGREDIENTS:
Stamps: Serendipity Stamps
Cardstock: Stampin' Up!
Coloring medium: Copic markers
Accessories: Nestibilities oval and scalloped oval dies, gingham ribbon, miscellaneous buttons and jute, Stickles and clear dimensional glaze.

Be sure to stop by the rest of the Serendipity Stamp team's blogs for their garden themed cards:

Amy Cokley
Anya Schrier
Kathie Bailey
Kelli Richardson
Lynda Benden
Shannon Teubner
Sue Eldred
Yvonne Hagane

Enjoy your garden tour!

Cheers!

Just dropping you a line

One of my new Serendipity Stamps and I just had to ink it up. I have many ideas for different ways to use this darling dresses on the clothesline stamp. I think that this stamp really caught my eye because growing up with three sisters and having a mother and two grandmothers who sewed all of our little dresses, this stamp just took me back to my childhood.

Card Recipe Ingredients:
Stamps: Serendipity Stamps
Designer Paper: K&Company
Colored with Copic Markers
Accessories: Lace seam binding and buttons, Stickles, pinking sheers, machine stitching, pop dots



I'm sure you'll recognize this stamp on my cards many times in the future.

Cheers!

Old MacDonald had a farm, ee ii ee ii oooooo

Every year, since moving here 7 years ago, I have had a little garden. Now mind you, I don't have a green thumb at all. It started off in the beginning as about 5' X 5' and had a couple of tomato plants just to see if anything would grow. That was the sum total of my vegetable garden. Over the past couple years my little garden has expanded and this year it I expanded it 3/4 of the length of the backyard - it is long and narrow. Our winter has lasted almost to summer but finally the fear of frost has passed and I was able to plant. So without further ado, here is the start of my little garden. I want to post now so I can do a comparison this fall. Hopefully I'll have a lot of tomatoes to can and make into sauce and vegetables to not only eat fresh but also to freeze.

A panoramic shot of the garden.

Some of the tomato plants. We have Cherry Tomatoes, Romas and also Beef Steak tomatoes.

Broccoli (with a few stray radishes growing near them). The broccoli has really grown a lot the last couple of weeks. Fun to watch!

Carrots and radishes. My radishes have gone nuts!

Finally the beans are coming up. It was a slow start but they usually do quite well later in the summer.

Peas! Yummy fresh peas. We have two varieties: sugar snap peas as well as regular shell peas.

The peas and Brussels Sprouts.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS! Woo hoooooooo I'm growing Brussels sprouts. Now this is a first for me but it is really fun to watch it grow.

The brussels sprouts will eventually be about 5 feet high. You can actually smell a bit of cabbage-like aroma in the air near the plants.

Paige and Willow find gardening very hard work. They fell asleep head to head.

Hopefully in a few months I can post photos of our produce. Meanwhile I keep humming....."Old MacDonald had a farm..........."

Cheers!

Penny Black Happy Anniversary

June is the month of anniversaries and this week's Penny Black Saturday challenge gave me the perfect opportunity to create some whimsical anniversary cards because the challenge this week is titled "CELEBRATIONS." So what better time than now to get out my Penny Black stamp titled "Furry Embrace" and create a card or two.

Card Recipe Ingredients:
Stamps: Penny Black Furry Embrace and The sentiment is from Papertrey Mega Mixed Messages
Patterned Paper: Making Memories (English Garden Collection)
Colored with Tombow markers and a water brush
Accessories: Prima Flowers, Offray satin ribbon, Making Memories brads and Stickles glitter (red and crystal)


Thanks for dropping by.

Cheers!

Butterfly Bush

Was I ever excited on Friday when my Serendipity Stamps arrived. I have been coloring every spare second I've had since then. Today I want to show you my first card using the Butterfly Bush stamp.
You may have noticed on my sidebar the logo for Serendipity Stamps and the entire Serendipity Stamps Design Team's blogs too. Be sure to check out these ladies gorgeous cards too.

For this card I wanted to add a bit of dimension so I popped the main image up on foam dots. As well, I used Lavender Flower Soft on the petals of this pretty lilac branch to give the petals dimension.



Card Recipe Ingredients:
Stamps: Serendipity Stamps (Butterfly Bush Code 718E)
Patterned Paper: Anna Griffin
Colored with Copic Markers
Accessories: Nestibilities Ovals and Labels Four dies, Lavender Flower Soft, Satin Ribbon, Hero Arts Lavender colored gem stones, Stickles

I need to head back outside now and into the garden to do a bit of weeding and pruning before the rainstorm hits this afternoon. I hope you are enjoying a beautiful Sunday.


Cheers!

Touch of Nature

"One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." Isn't that lovely? That is a quote by William Shakespeare and it is also the theme and stamp set from Stampin' Up!

Today is Friday and that means that the Friday Sketchers challenge site has a new sketch challenge. I like the simplicity of this sketch and decided to use a nature theme. Below is the sketch layout I followed:



Card Recipe Ingredients:
Stamp: Stampin' Up! (Touch of Nature)
Patterned paper: Making Memories (Country Garden Collection)
Colored with Tombow markers and a wet brush.
Embellishments: Flowers from Prima Nursery Tales collection, Nestibilities die, Martha Stewart Border punch, Labels Four die, machine stitching, organza ribbon.


It is such a lovely day today. I hope it is where you are too and can take time to listen to the birds and smell the flowers.

Cheers!

Happy Howl-i-days

I couldn't make a cat Christmas card without one for the dogs too. Happy Howl-i-days is another PURRS AND PANTS rubber stamp design.

Card Recipe and Ingredients:
Stamps: Purrs and Pants
Patterned: Paper: Bo Bunny
Colored with Copic Markers
Accessories: Nestibilities rectangle and scalloped rectangle dies, Christmas Green Flower Soft, Offray ribbon, Stickles

So now I have a pair of Christmas cards finished intended for the dog and cat lover in mind.


Cheers!

Meowy Christmas

Christmas cards in June? This is a quick Christmas card using one of the whimsical kitty Christmas stamps available at PURRS AND PANTS.

The green background embossing is done by using my cuttlebug and one of my large hollyberry brass stencils. The impression isn't quite as defined as when you use a cuttlebug embossing folder, but the subtle results are nice.

Card Recipe and Ingredients:
Stamps: Purrs and Pants
Cardstock: Stampin' Up red and green
Colored with Copic markers
Embellishments: Nestibilities oval and scalloped oval dies, Christmas Green Flower Soft, Prima Poinsettia flower and leaf, crystal brad and stickles.

Cheers!

The fun starts now!

What could be more fun than seeing a bunch of playful kittens? This is one of the new kitten stamps by Purrs and Pants.



Card Recipe Ingredients:
Stamps: Purrs and Pants
Patterned Paper: Making Memories (the English Garden collection)
Image colored with copic markers
Accessories: Nestibilities hexagon, scalloped hexagon and tag dies, satin red rose, dotted organza ribbon, pastel raspberry colored Liquid Pearls.


Cheers!

"Woof" means Friend!

It is raining dog and cat cards in my stamp studio. I've been having a lot of fun playing with some new PURRS AND PANTS stamps.



These two scruffy dogs look like they are ready for some fun together.

Card Recipe Ingredients:
Stamps: Purrs and Pants
Patterned Paper: K&Company
Cardstock: Papertrey Craft
Colored with Copic markers
Accessories: Brown and green grossgrain ribbon, Nestibilities oval, scalloped oval and take dies.

More fun critter cards coming soon!

Cheers!

Let's work in the garden!

Have you seen all of the colorful garden boots in the stores lately? They used to be solid colored and usually green or maybe yellow, but lately I've seen so many colorful, patterned and striped gum boots. A girl's gotta have the right shoes for the right occasion!

This weekends layout sketch over at Our Creative Corner Challenge site is calling for a card using the layout below:

The recipe for this card is pretty simple but I think you'll agree, it is colorful!

Card Recipe:
Stamp: Impression Obsession (Garden Boots)
Patterned Paper: Nature's Garden (Marjolein Boskin)
Coloring medium: Copic Markers
Embellishments: Nestibilities rectangle and scalloped rectangle dies, Stickles, pink gingham ribbon, and a miscellanious bee button from my button box.

Cheers!

Friends to the end

I'm having just the best time playing with my new copic markers. Today's card is a vintage Penny Black stamp that was a lot of fun to color. If I'd colored this with my Prismacolor pencils (which I do enjoy very much using) the image would have taken me an hour or two to color and blend. With the copic markers, I think I colored this in about 15 minutes. I don't have a lot of markers yet so finding good color combinations for blending is tricky, but I was quite pleased with this card once I finished it.

This week's Penny Black Saturday Challenge site offers the challenge to make a card using only Penny Black stamps with the theme, BLOOMING GORGEOUS. Interprete the theme in any manner you wish. I think this Penny Black stamp is blooming gorgeous and fits the challenge.



Card Recipe:
Stamps: Penny Black and the sentiment is Papertrey Ink.
Patterned paper: K&Company
Coloring medium: Copic Markers
Embellishments: Stampin' Up! pink gingham ribbon, and Stickles glitter

It is a sunny with blue skies Sunday and I'm going outside. Lately that has been a rarity around here so I'm going to enjoy it.

Cheers!

My first copic markers arrived!

I've learned my lesson: one should never swear! I swore I'd never get sucked into the Copic Marker craze. Nope! Not me. Nuh uh! I have every coloring medium imaginable. Why would I want just another kind of marker? Well...I caved in and jumped on the bandwagon. My first markers arrived on Thursday and I've been a coloring fool ever since! Wooo hooooooo. They are wonderful!



Now don't be too critical of my coloring skills thus far. I really want to take some copic classes and learn how to manipulate these colorful babies better. But this is my first card using my new copics.

The current Roses on Paper challenge blog has its challenge to make a card using the colors: PINK, GREEN and YELLOW. This is my card following the required color combination. If you enjoy challenges, be sure to check out Roses on Paper's monthly challenges. Roses on Paper is also adding a new division called Belles and Whistles and I'm sure you'll want to click the link and read about this exciting new venture. While you are at it, they are also looking for guest design team members. Read all about it at Roses on Paper.

I'm really excited about learning more about my copics. I got the CIAO type. If you use copics, what type do you have and please leave me help, hints, suggestions as I learn to use these new coloring tools. So far, I have to say that I'm having a blast with them. I can hardly wait to add more new colors to my collection.

For this card, here is the Card Recipe and ingredients:

Stamps: Sarah Kay

Paper: K&Company

Coloring medium: Copic Markers

Accessories: Ribbon, machine stitching, button brad, Nestibilities die, copper and crystal stickles.

Until next time...

Cheers!