A friend celebrated her repeated 29th birthday last night and it called for a quick but special card. Thanks to Birch Press Designs, voile`! This shows an up-close look of the Swarovski crystals; it's difficult to photograph just how brilliant these crystals shine. Using an A-2 card base with Tsumugi, a Japanese linen card stock from Hanko Designs, in yellow, I also made a score line down the front of the card (left center) just to add a little interest. From the 3-layer die

My card for a friend who recently lost her husband unexpectedly. My first inclination was to color the image with watercolors. My mind was scattered. I decided to rely on my Prismacolor colored pencils. I stamped the image with VersaMark ink and heat embossed with white embossing powder. I colored in with my colored pencils. I've always loved how the pencil colors really come out on black paper. Using an A6 black card, rub your embossing buddy* over the entire surface of the

Know what happens when you bury yourself in the studio to continue with the ongoing never-ending clean-out, purge and organize task? Nothing real creative. It's Halloween month and as I unbury more and more Halloween stuff, I am working to resist the want to stop the organizing and start the Halloween fun. I have managed to organize all of my dies from Memory Box, PoppyStamps, Elizabeth Craft Designs and most of the Spellbinder dies. I still have the dies from Savvy, Penny Bl

Ack! What happened? What did I miss? A calendar page has been turned from September to October. I swear I had another week and a half before the month ended. WOW! But that means Halloween is nearing and I'm the Halloween Queen in this household. If my energy holds out this week, I'll have the house decorated; I think I have more Halloween treasures than Christmas treasures, including a snarly tree. So I spent the evening making a Halloween card. I used three PoppyStamps' dies

It doesn't seem possible that my last posting was in late July, just before I left on the 3-week trip to England, France and Italy with my sister-in-law and nieces. We had a fabulous time. That long of a trip really set my body clock on the wrong time, almost on a semi-permanent basis. I'm still going to bed early and getting up early, but perhaps that's a good thing. I've kept saying "tomorrow" I'll post to the blog for the last few weeks; however, I've not been home much. I

I belong to RubberMoon's MoonMail Club. For the low monthly subscription fee, we are sent a stamp that is designed just for Moonies, along with an extra goodie or two. RubberMoon and Inchie Arts work together very closely and I usually enjoy one of their Art Square Boards, i.e., inchies, twinchies, Art Swatch, etc. You can click on this link to read all about joining the MoonMail Club: https://rubbermoon.com/pages/moonmail-club. Some Moonies swap Moon creativity with that mo

I am staying with the Penny Black Stamp set, "Bouquets." Yesterday, I featured one of 4 bouquets in the set. Today's bouquet is my favorite of the four. I stamped it onto an Inchie Arts' art board and used watercolor brush markers. The art board accepts the watercolor markers exceptionally well. This was my first attempt. What's nice about the brush markers is that the fine point of the real brush applies color in very tight corners and crevices. Those teeny spots are sometim

Another graduation card ready to go. I came upon my stash of Lost Coast Designs' stamps and this stamp I've waited and waited to use. I thought all of the pencils were appropriate for a high school grad, since Lord knows how many pencils a student goes through over the years. I stamped the background stamp with VersaFine in Toffee onto white card stock. It was matted with a piece of So Silk card stock in purple because that's one of the school colors. Both panels were adhered

It's been such a short time since I remember Els first demo'ing at CHA with the micro fine glitter and Shimmer Sheetz! Both her son, Mark, and her daughter, Josette, were there helping out and seemed so young. Now, the Elizabeth Craft Designs product line is extensive and quite popular. I bought a few things at the consumer show I attended in Anaheim, and I've just now taken some of the ECD goodness out of the bag! Adhered adhesive sheet 3.5" X 3.5" to the same size piece of

I promised something totally different and I think I found a very simple "different" from what I've posted the last couple of days. LOL! Meet a new stamp line I discovered, Stamping Bella's Cool Chicks Collection . . . full of humor! My sis-in-law has been trying to exercise and I haven't quite jumped up to join her yet. So I thought this card would be most appropriate to send to her. On white card stock, I stamped with Memento in Tuxedo Black. Used my Copic Markers to color

I am back from our trip to London to visit our granddaughters. The weather was cold, windy, rainy, icy and snowy, as well as sunny. I had vertigo that kept me in bed on 2 different days, and I ended up falling in the shower two days before we left. It was quite an eventful stay. The best part was spending time with Cecilia and Hailey. Our hearts were warm the entire time spent with them. Hoping to get back into sync with the local time, I actually didn't start reading in bed

In my reorganizing, I came across this stamp set from Impression Obsession. I had never used it yet because I needed to brush up on using a stamp positioner (the old-fashion ones). Along comes the MISTI stamp positioner and I want to immediately work with it. On white card stock, stamped each peony stamp in the set with Distress Inks. After it was dry, I made a watercolor palette with 3 of the green Distress inks. With a small watercolor brush, I colored around the peony. The

Tomorrow is my grandniece's 15th birthday. Of course, she's going to be 15 going on 42! I thought I'd make a quirky card to lighten things up. And this card couldn't be any more of that. That crazy bird was colored with colored pencils, as well as the hat. The hat was covered with Glossy Accents for a little dimension, as well as a bubble at the top. After stamping the bird, a stencil design was applied using Memento inks. I stenciled after so I could see where the bird was t

Do you own a MISTI? MISTI = Most Incredible Stamp Tool Invented. Art 'n Soul cannot keep them stocked; they sell out almost immediately. I've read that more are on order! On Dina Kowal's blog, she has made a MISTI cover using canvas material, IMAGINE Crafts' Memento Luxe craft pigment ink that is permanent when heat set, and stamps from Impression Obsession. Click on this link to go to Dina's blog posting for the details: http://mamadinis.blogspot.com/2016/03/mini-misti-canva

Yesterday's Easter celebration with family was a wonderful time spent. My 2 year-old great granddaughter provided us with lots of love and loads of entertainment. The food was yummy, too! Easter has always been filled with children; in addition to my great-granddaughter, we had 4 other small ones to prepare an Easter "basket" for. On Saturday, I discovered the sweetest stencil from Echo Park Paper Co. I had to purchase it because it was perfect to make Easter cards for the li

Eeek! It's Friday already and I have several Easter cards to make today; a few of them have to be in today's mail drop, too. Of course, I have to take Hannah to the vet in Olympia for a follow-up on her ear infection and a booster shot for her flu shot. If there's time after the vet appointment, I'm hoping to make the lunch with my stamping club. And then there's the Friday afternoon traffic on I-5. Here's the start on my Easter cards. This is a card using an adorable stamp f

Another day of cardmaking fun with Dina Kowal's Brushstroke stamps from Impression Obsession; I also added a Grunge Circle stamp to the mix from IO, designed by Yvonne Blair, and an Open Brush Swirl stamp by Alesa Baker. Cleaning, purging and organizing is a two-fold dichotomy. I find things forgotten about or found; and I'm limited as to what's around my work table because of the ongoing work. I reorganized my stash of IMAGINE Crafts' Amplify! and StazOn Glaze, so Ithought i

Yesterday was another day of not a lot of time in the studio for anything. So, I spent a good deal of time last night into the wee hours continuing to undo what is visible in the main area of the house from my organization and purging project. My dear husband is getting somewhat anxious because we have a St. Paddy's dinner party for 12 on Thursday. In between clearing away, I had to do something in the studio. I had come across these mixed media boards we had worked on at a M

I am slowly wading my way through the stacks of mail, to-do lists, and other must-do's since our return from LaQuinta, CA almost two weeks ago. Since that time, my husband had back surgery this last Wednesday. The pre-op and post-op requirements have been extremely time consuming but necessary. No more do I finally rebound from the coughing crud than my husband has his operation. We are definitely the walking wounded at this household! On Valentine's Day, Tom's uncle passed a

One of the fun artsy activities is to stroll around the internet and see what folks are up to by looking at the various blogs. I've always had my favorite "route", and occasionally I would discover a new site. You'll never be disappointed. You just have to be careful how long your stroll takes; sometimes, you'll find hours have passed. One of my favorite blogs to visit each and every day is Magenta's blog . . . Magenta Style. I love this Christmas card by Carole Dion. by Caro