spring cleaning

Just a short post today. I am in the process of spring cleaning my house. Washing walls, curtains, bedding and such. This week I am painting my livingroom and hall. It has been about 13 years since it was done last. We will also be putting in new flooring in livingroom, hall, and 2 bedrooms. So I don't think I will have much time for crafting this week. But it will be so nice when I do get it done.

Here are a couple cards I made a few weeks back with the Sizzix tall trees embossing folder. This is a very neat folder for masculine cards, which seem to challange so many of us. The one on the left is is made on cordinations foundation cardstock. The trees were embossed on the same paper, matted on dark green cordinations foundation, and adhered to the como layer with black brads. The sentiment is done with Versamark ink and chocolate embossing powder. The one on the left is on the cordinations foundations cardstock. I used a Versamark pen on the trees and copper embossing powder and mounted it on some brown plaid HOTP Masculine papers and attached it to the left flap of the center opening card. I stamped the right panel with a text background stamp in timber brown staz-on. The sentiment panel is cut with spellbinders, the sentiment stamped with versamark and copper embossing powder.

What happened to Spring?

Mother nature played a cruel trick on us this weekend. Our snow was completly gone, I had even been able to clean out a couple of my flower gardens. Well, Saturday morning we woke up to sleet and freezing rain, nasty, sloppy stuff on the roads, ice on the trees. AND I HAD A STAMPIN' UP WORKSHOP SCHEDULED! Debated whether I should cancell, talked to my demonstrator; we decided to wait until noon to decide. By then it had warmed up enough that we decided to go ahead-even though I didn't think I'd have much of a turnout. I actually had 11 people show up. Goes to show that winter weather is a piece of cake for us Yoopers (We call people who live in Michigan's Upper Peninsula 'Yoopers'), just a normal spring day up here. I had a great  party, and am getting all kinds of free stuff. Yahoo! Can't wait. It snowed a bit off and on all Saturday, then Saturday evening really cranked up. Sunday we had about 3" of new snow, high winds, but not extremely cold. So I played with paper most of Sunday afternoon. Made a couple cards, did a bit of straightening up in my craft room, and poured over my SU catalogs to see what I will order for my specials. Hm, still undecided.

Please keep all those who live in the tornado ravaged part of the country in your prayers, as well as those who have lost loved ones because of these storms.

Here are a few cards I managed to make over the weekend. One is an Easter card and the other 3 are Confirmation cards. Hope you enjoy them.
 

Sweet violets just for you

Good morning. Thursday is my favorite day of the Week! Why? Because our craft group meets every Thursday night and it is alway fun to see what everyone has made during the week. Tonight is birthday night for 2 of our group. I will post the cards I made for them, too.
But this card is for the Flourishes Timely Tuesday challange, if I can figure out how to link it up!
I absolutely love this image Flourishes Spring Violets set. This is stamped with Memento Tuxedo black and colored with the colored pencil magic using Primsa colored pencils. I added Stickles to the leaves and flowers.
The design paper is K & company, the cardstock is Bazil, I ran the middle layer through the cuttlebug with the SU square lattice folder. The butterfly is cut with the SU butterfly embosslet. I also added some gold corner stickers, as well as a gold sticker for the sentiment. The ribbon is some I had in my sewing stash, so I really don't know what it is.

Here are the cards I made for my friends birthday's.

 The paper and cardstock are SU. The poppy image is stamped on Bazzil Simply smooth white with Memento Tuxedo Black and colored with Prisma colored pencils. I added some stickles stardust to the petals and leaves. The image is cut with Spellbinders classic octagon and matted with pink cut with the scalloped SB octagon. Traced around the scalloped die and cut by hand to get the black layer. Sentiment stamp is from Verve, and I added some black corner stickers.

 I'm not sure what the cardstock and dp is in this card as it is one I started sometime ago and finished last for my friend, who loves dragonflies. I do know that the stamped image is a Northwoods rubber stamp, and I colored it with prisma colored pencils, and added some stickles and the ribbon. Sentiment is stamped and heat embossed in black sparkle embossing powder.

SCS upload

I would say a Sunday afternoon wellspent. I made some changes on my blog (I hope), I figured out how to put my card pictures on this blog :), and I successfully uploaded my first card picture to Split Coast Stampers. NOW I need to figure out how to link to the challanges, which is my goal for this week. As it is a nasty, cold, foggy day here in the UP of Michigan, I don't mind being inside working on this, althought I really should be working on my spring cleaning. Because, hopefully, later this week it will be nice enough to get outside and play in the dirt and then I won't feel like spring cleaning! I have crocus blooming in my gardens; we had rain overnight, and the snow is really taking a beating, it's nearly gone (but here, that could change at any time!). And I really need to get my house straighend out before next Saturday as I will be having a Stampin' Up workshop. Can't wait to get some of the new stamps and papers (as if I REALLY need anymore). So better get to work, Have a great Sunday all.

Oopsie Daisy

I am still trying to figure this blog business out. I'd love to be able to enter my card creations in some of the challanges, but as yet am not sure how to go about that.

I won the "My Favorite Things' stamp set from Cammie at 'My Blog' by Cammie. I received the set yesterday (4-9) and was able to sit down and make a card with it in the afternoon. That bear is just so darn cute!
 I used the colors from 'crazy for challanges', being brown, green and vanilla. I just happened to have these very colors sitting on my craft table that I had been looking at the evening before. They were perfect for our friendly little bear. I am not even sure where the papers are from, as they were out of my scrap basket. I'm thinking the DP was from one of the HOTP paper pads I bought when I first started scrapping. I colored the bear with Prisma pencils using the colored pencil magic method. The bear and mat were cut out with spellbinders label 4 and 4 small.I then highlighted the edges of the panels with a copic. I used the fancy labels, cut in half, to add some interest behind the bear, he was popped up using SU dimensionals.  Used the arched punch with vanilla cs at the bottom and tied it up with some blue ribbon. Added some stickles to the flowers, and there you have it. I just love him!