Pawsitive Vibes

Hello everybody! Surprise, it's me! Yes, I finally got around to poking my head in long enough to say hello. Hope you are well!

Today's card was created for a dear friend of mine who was recently admitted to a nursing facility to get some serious rehab. She has had part-time home health care for a few years, but it's time for some serious full-time nursing care. I wish only the best for this dear woman because she's special to me in a lot of ways.

I used a stamp & die set from My Favorite Things called Meow Mix for images of the cat, butterfly and flowers. The ribbon and patterned paper came from The Stamps of Life. I have quite a collection of  their paper, so I'm sorry I can't tell you exactly which stack it came from. Love the flowers! The green hills came from a Lawn Fawn die.

All images were colored with Copic markers. Basing the cat image on the colors of my own cat, Snuggles, I had to use a combination of brown and grey markers, and I included her orange spot on the top of her head. It wouldn't be Snuggles without it!

Obviously, I didn't get the picture before I signed it, but now you can tell I included Snuggles in the signature so she'd know we are both thinking of her!

Thank you for stopping by today. I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter everybody! To begin, I thought I'd post a picture of my Easter Wreath. It used to be so colorful with pastel Easter colors such as pink, blue, green and yellow. Over the past 20 years, it has faded so I pulled out my watercolors a few weeks ago and began painting layers of light color. You can barely see the colors, but they are there.

These are the Easter cards I created for my family. Since I was mailing them, I kept them rather Clean and Simple - no bling or ribbon, except I did add a little bow on each one of them. I tried to use colors each recipient likes.

Although I've pretty much stopped buying stamp sets, I did purchase the Wreath Builder set from Gina K Designs. It includes a stencil you use so you can stamp a complete, even circle by turning your cardstock as you stamp. You can see I used it to create the circle of bunnies on each card.

I resisted this set for a long time, but in a couple weeks I will go to Greensboro (NC) to take a Wreath Builder class given by Gina K herself! YES! I am SO excited! I thought I'd better practice with it first before trying to do it around a lot of people.

Thanks for stopping by today! I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~

Sympathy

Hello everybody! I've had a hard time getting into my blog lately, but I finally persisted and I'm IN! WooHoo!

During January I found myself needing some Sympathy cards. Looking through my stash, I saw that my supply was low, so I got busy and created some more. These are just a few samples I thought you might like to see. The good news is I sold them as fast as I could make them!

I find it difficult to create Sympathy cards soon after a friend or family member has passed away, so I try to keep a half dozen or so ready to go at any time.

The above card was simple to create. It just took a stencil and some ink, along with Clarity Stencil Brushes. The brushes insured a light coating of ink, and all I had to do to make it more prominent was add more.  I used a stencil by Gina K Designs.

Here another that could be used for Get Well or Sympathy:

For this card, I used a stamp set by Theresa Momber at Gina K Designs called Tropical Tidings. After stamping the image on the Kraft cardstock, I used gamsol with my colored pencils to color. Finally, I added some accents with a white pen. This is one of my favorite cards, so I hope you like it!

Finally, I'm sharing this card created for a dear friend who lost her husband to Colon Cancer just before Christmas.

I stamped a large background stamp (from Gina K Designs) to the card base, then covered with a piece of vellum. "Prayers" (from Simon Says Stamps) was die cut several times, glued on top of each other to make it stand out, and then added to the vellum. To finish the card, I added the rest of the sentiment, sequins and a piece of ribbon.

Despite the concerning messages on the cards, I hope you enjoyed looking at today's post. I thank you for your comments and visits, and hope to see you again real soon ~

Noel

Hello again! I'm back with another quick post of a Christmas card I created. This is my very favorite of all of them because of the unexpected background.

After watching a video by Jennifer McGuire a few weeks ago, I was inspired to get out my old alcohol inks & glossy cardstock. It had been so long, I wasn't even sure they would have any color left. (Most of them did, some of them did not, btw.) Well, I played & played until my hands and fingers were covered. The inked pieces on glossy were set aside until a later time when I would have some idea of what to do with them.

Fast forward to the week before Christmas, and I decided to try my new die from Memory Box that you see above. Once cut, it had many, many little pieces except the scene of Joseph and Mary with Baby Jesus. I saw the scene and suddenly realized the piece that was used with blue alcohol inks might work for the background. Voila! A card was born.

If you look closely, you might be able to tell some silver alcohol ink was used along with the blue on the glossy cardstock. Amazed, I was able to place the diecut piece with the scene so the silver looked like a bright glow around the baby's head. I couldn't have planned that if I'd tried!

Thank you for stopping by again! As always, I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~

Christmas Cards

Hello everybody! Today I'm posting several Christmas cards that I have been creating during the past few weeks. I've had my head buried in cardstock, inks & stamps so much I haven't taken the time to post them. I had a deadline! Fortunately, all 50 went out in the mail yesterday. Whew! That was close.

To avoid a super-long blog post, I'm not going to describe every detail of every card. I think most of you have seen foiled cards before like you see above. Most products are from Gina K Designs and/or Thermo-Web.

The two cards posted above are for fun. The first one is from a Sizzix Flip-It Die and a "Pudgie" stamp from The Stamps of Life. For the second one, I used reindeer stamps & dies from Mama Elephant. (Please excuse the poor coloring on these fellas - I was trying some new markers and turns out I didn't like them! Going back to my Copics.) The sentiments used on both of these cards are from Gina K Designs.

The 3 cards posted above are some of the prettiest cards I created this year (in my opinion). The card with the wooden piece and flowers was created after watching a video by Lisa Hedtrick at Gina K Designs. I absolutely LOVE this set and plan to use it a lot more in the immediate future, possibly for Valentine's cards.

The two cards with poinsettias are favorites, as well. I used an old Tim Holtz die on paper stamped with a background stamp then inked the edges before adding Stickles. The ribbons are from Gina K, as well as the sentiment. The photograph does not show the glistening gold very well. It looks darker here than it really is.

Following this, I will have another post that shows a rather unique background I created using a different technique. Stay tuned!

Thank you for stopping by! I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~

Sharon

Happy Birthday Cory!

Hi everybody, and Happy Thanksgiving! As you can see, I still have Baby Cory on my mind. His pictures are the first thing I look at in the morning and the last in the evening. Now that the baby is two weeks old, I thought it was about time to show you his Birth Day card I created immediately after he was born.

I used a Sizzix die for the card arrangement, and a variety of colored Gina K Designs cardstock that worked together to keep the spirit happy and bright.

The little "poem" on the front is a sticker from my stash. (I've been waiting on a grandchild a LONG time!) I included other various stickers throughout the card that were related to babies.

Then, for my second part of this post, after I created the card, I went to Shelly's Scrap N Design and got help with my Cricut and some vinyl to create this shirt.

Thought it was appropriate, and I'm more than proud to use my new name!

Before I go, I MUST show you another picture of the new man in my life...

Isn't he adorable???!!!

I hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and can enjoy your family & friends today. Thank you so much for stopping by. I appreciate your comments & visits and look forward to seeing you again real soon ~

Shout Out!

Hi everybody! Hope you're having a wonderful day.

The card I am sharing was created for a friend to give to a minister for her birthday. We knew it should be a CAS card with a cross on it, so this is what I came up with. The inside says "Happy Birthday," which is the perfect occasion to "sing for joy!"

The cross and bible verse came from a stamp set by MayMay Made It. I belong to their club and get spiritual stamp sets every month. It's a true joy to discover what's next!

The green strip is simply a piece of Washi Tape. The oval dies are from Gina K Designs, as is the cardstock I used.

On a personal note, I have BIG news! I am a GRANDMOTHER! Cory Oren Richardson was born 5 weeks early on Nov 6, weighing in at 6 lb, 6 oz. I am SO EXCITED!

OK, thanks for stopping by today. I appreciate your comments and visits very much and hope to see you again real soon ~

Frames

Hi everybody! I think I'm about recovered from the past two Hurricanes (Florence and Michael) so it's time to get back to cardmaking!

For this one I used Mama Elephant's Little Frames set stamped in Gina K's Black Onyx ink. The top piece was layered onto a Red Velvet card base. I also used Red Velvet ink by Gina K Designs for the hearts.

This was a very simple card to make, but it was fun. I saw a similar card design somewhere and decided to try it. Thanks to whoever posted the original. Hope you don't mind I CASEd it!

Thank you for coming back to me! I appreciate your comments and visits very much, and I hope to see you again real soon ~