AHSC653 Christmas Cardinal

Hello, stampers! Time for a new Atlantic Hearts sketch: 

When I saw that banner, I immediately thought of  the retired Toile Christmas and that beautiful cardinal and pretty scrolled sentiment!  So here we go:

I stamped Mr. Cardinal in Versafine black ink and watercolored him as well as the greenery.  In hindsight, I am thinking I should have made my oval a little more "stand-out", but sometimes one just needs to leave well-enough alone!  

The background paper is from Unity and is mounted on a (retired) Certainly Celery card base.  The inside sentiment is from the same set:

I added a few red sequins and it was done!  Tis the season to ramp up those holiday cards, so this one will go into the stash!  What will you create with our sketch?! We hope to see you in the gallery at Atlantic Hearts!  Thanks for visiting today! Enjoy it and be blessed!

"The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness."  Lamentations 3:22-23

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Toile Christmas (ret)
Card stock & Papers	Thick Basic White, Certainly Celery (ret), Winter Flowers (Unity)
Ink	Versafine Black, Calypso Coral, Old Olive, Real Red, Pretty in Pink, Smoky Slate
Accessories	Dimensionals, Sequins from my stash
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Christmas Cardinals Dies (ret), Layering Ovals Dies (ret), Stitched Shapes Dies (ret), Aquapainter

PP621 A Tree of Words

Happy Sunday, peeps!  Today is the Paper Players' last challenge of the year and Ann has a lovely color palette for us; check it out:

I just love those rich tones!  I wanted to make a special Christmas card for my neighbor, and I had an idea in mind, and these colors worked perfectly!  Here we go:

I had gotten the Impression Obsession set called Christmas Words at the end of last year and hadn't gotten it inky yet.  I remembered at a stamp weekend many, many years ago that Korin from Sweet & Sassy stamps used a word set to create a Christmas tree, so I worked with the words in the set, lining them up on my Stamparatus, and created my "tree":

I thought lining them up would be a breeze...but it was NOT!  I still didn't get a few of them spaced out exactly as I wanted, but I was ready to say "Good enough"!!  I stamped them in Evening Evergreen on Very Vanilla cardstock, then added an Evening Evergreen mat.  At the bottom, I embossed and diecut a sentiment from the retired Toile Christmas on Brushed Gold cardstock and mounted it on another gold panel:

I embossed the front of the Cherry Cobbler card with the Wrapped in Texture EF, and added a sentiment from the Toile Christmas on the inside:

The sketch is from Freshly Made Sketches:

I hope you'll find time in your busy schedules to play along with us this week!  You don't have to make a Christmas card, either...these colors can be beautiful with florals too!  Check out what the whole DT made over at the Paper Players blog, then share yours with us too!

On Friday night, Cassidy, Dana and her friend Lisa and I went to a crafty neighbor's house to make little seaglass Christmas trees.  It was a lot of fun and we used a lot of hot glue!

For some reason, I missed taking a picture of Dana's and Lisa's, but here are Cassidy's and mine:

She added little bits of glass as "ornaments"; I did a rather poor job of mine, but I am giving it to the girl who owns the apartment that we rent each summer in Lewes, Delaware...her decor is beach-themed and will look much better there than in my house!  A tealight fits underneath the plastic form and really looks cute when it is lit! 

Thanks for visiting today...enjoy it and be blessed!  The Players will see you again in 2023!

"I am the way, the truth and the life.  No one comes to the Father except through me." John 14:6

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Toile Christmas (ret), Christmas Words (Impression Obsession)
Card stock & Papers	Very Vanilla, Evening Evergreen, Cherry Cobbler, Brushed Gold
Ink	Evening Evergreen, Cherry Cobbler, Gold Encore (ret)
Accessories	Gold Metallic Pearls (ret), Mini Dimensionals, Gold Embossing Powder
Tools	Cut & Emboss Machine, Wrapped in Texture EF (ret), Christmas Cardinal Dies (ret), Layering Oval Dies (ret), Heat Tool, Stamparatus, Star Punch (ret)

100th Birthday Cardinal

Happy Friday, peeps! I got a request to make a 100th birthday card for a Christian lady who loves cardinals!  It's a challenge, though, to get out of the mindset of using cardinals only for Christmas cards!  I looked through my plethora of various 12x12 scrapbook papers and came up with a pretty pattern that I thought would look good with a red cardinal, and since I wanted to make it extra special, did a fun fold on it as well!  Here we go:

I stamped the cardinal from Toile Christmas on Shimmery White cardstock in Stazon ink, then watercolored  and diecut it, adding a branch from the Seasonal Layers dies and greenery from Rooted in Nature:

My card base is Soft Sky, and it's a wee bit larger than a standard-sized card.  The DSP is from Recollections, called Floating Flower. I cut pieces to fit each panel and stamped sentiments from Friend to Friend on the front panels in Smoky Slate, adding foam-cut numbers for the 100:

The center panel has some background stamping with stamps from Graceful Words and Wonderful Words:

And on the back, a sentiment from an old Cornish Heritage Farm set, with room for a signature!

My customer loved it and hopefully the recipient will as well!  Thanks for popping in today!  Enjoy it and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Toile Christmas, Rooted in Nature, Friend to Friend (ret), Graceful Words (ret), Wonderful Words (ret), Birthday Centers (Cornish Heritage Farms ret)
Card stock & Papers	Shimmery White, Whisper White, Early Espresso, Soft Sky (ret), Floating Flower DSP (Recollections)
Ink	Stazon Black, Real Red, Calypso Coral, Smoky Slate, Basic Gray
Accessories	Foam Adhesive Sheets
Tools	Big Shot, Christmas Cardinal Die, Seasonal Layers Die (ret), Little Letters Dies (ret), Aquapainter

Life is Beautiful X Two

 Happy Labor Day to all my American friends! I am a little late today....I've been "laboring" all morning in the garden and the laundry room, LOL!  Too bad those green beans, peppers and tomatoes didn't take a vacation, too!

I made these two cards before going on vacation, so I thought I would share them today; they both use the new set Life is Beautiful!  So here we go:

Both cards use DSPs from Plaid Tidings; for the fall one, I stamped directly onto the DSP.  The trunk is Crumb Cake and the leaves are Cherry Cobbler, Pumpkin Pie, Crushed Curry and Terracotta Tile.  I couldn't really figure out if the leaf stamp nestled a certain way into the tree branches, so I just stamped away, and I like the effect...like leaves blowing in the wind!  

The sentiment is from the same set, stamped in Cherry Cobbler to coordinate with the mat around the DSP.  The second one is a Christmas card; the tree is stamped in Misty Moonlight and the snowflakes are stamped with Seaside Spray:

I stamped a sentiment from Toile Christmas in Poppy Parade and diecut it and another banner with the matching dies.  I also added a couple little "swirls" in Seaside Spray to add to the wintery feeling:

That's it for today...back to the beans and laundry!  Thanks for popping in today!  Before I go, here's a couple shots of Cassidy and family on a recent nature hike to Ferncliff Wildlife and Wildflower Preserve:

"Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed."  Proverbs 16:5

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

AYSI231 Christmas Wishes Sketch

Happy Friday, peeps!  Gosh, it's hard to believe that is the last day of JULY!  Time for a new As You See It challenge...it was fun to see what everyone created with the Speed Challenge last week!  Today we have a sketch for you....my favorite!  Here we go:

I have so many new goodies to play with, it was hard to come up with what I wanted to play with...in the end, I used some old and new things!  Here it is:

My DSPs are from the Flowers for All Seasons pack, a pretty wintry pattern of Misty Moonlight and Seaside Spray, and a polka dotted pattern.  I stamped a sentiment from Toile Christmas and diecut it with the matching die to pop up on the polka dot layer:

I diecut some white pine cones from the retired Pretty Pines dies, and I had another scrap of Misty Moonlight DSP laying on my desk, so I diecut some pine branches to put behind them.  I added a wee bit of ribbon and some faceted gems as well:

Another diecut sentiment for the inside, and my card was finished!  Easy peasy, and another Christmas card for my stash!

I am sure you can come up with something creative using our sketch this week!  Be sure to share it on the AYSI blog...can't wait to see it! 

Cassidy got her red belt earlier in the week and also broke a board with her foot...quite impressive!  No one will be messing with her!

And here are a few more birthday cards that I received:

From Bonnie:

From Karen:

From Kathy:

From Denise:

And from Peggy:

Thanks, ladies!  How nice to get these in the mail!  Thanks for popping in today--enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Toile Christmas
Card stock & Papers	Misty Moonlight, Seaside Spray, Whisper White, Flowers for All Seasons DSP, In Color DSP
Ink	Misty Moonlight
Accessories	Misty Moonlight Ribbon, Dimensionals, In Color Faceted Gems (ret)
Tools	Big Shot, Christmas Cardinal Dies, Pretty Pines Dies (ret)

More Toile Christmas

Happy Monday, peeps!  Boy, it was a cold weekend...yesterday, in the space of three hours, we had rain, snow and sunshine!  We are gearing up for Thanksgiving, too...looking forward to it!  I wanted to share a couple of projects made with Toile Tidings DSP, Toile Christmas and Nature's Beauty; they all coordinate so beautifully!  The first one is a buckle card; this is the card my club girls learned to do, and I got the idea from my sweet friend Cindy; you can see her YouTube video here!  She made a fall card, but I changed it up to make a Christmas card.  The cardinal is big, but he is quite easy to watercolor..it works up fast!  

And here is the inside of the card...you can see where the "belt" fits into the slot from the front, underneath the stitched oval on which the cardinal is attached:

I had an extra card packet cut, so I decided to make another, changing the image to the deer from Nature's Beauty because the patterned paper featured the wildlife:

I fussy-cut him out, then adhered him on top of the same image I stamped on the stitched oval, and I added different sentiments from Itty Bitty Christmas:

While I had Nature's Beauty still on my desk, I noticed a little branch stamp....I am bad for ignoring the little images in a stamp set and just focusing on the big ones!  This little branch is a real sleeper!  I lightly traced a circle on a piece of Very Vanilla cardstock and stamped the branch around it in Garden Green five times; I then stamped again, filling in the "gaps" and stamping off once on my scrap paper to get a lighter image.  It created the nicest wreath! 

I diecut it with a Stitched Shape square die and added a piece of (retired) Brushed Gold cardstock behind it.  The gold Metallic Pearls and some retired gold ribbon finished it off perfectly.  My sentiment was from Shine Bright, and it was stamped with the Gold Delicata pad:

I mounted it on some green Toile Tidings DSP and mounted it on a Garden Green card; the inside sentiment was from Shining Brightly as well!  What a gorgeous sentiment!

Thanks for popping in today!

While we were running errands on Saturday morning, Cassidy and I went to our neighbor's farm to get eggs.  She likes to go to the calf barn to see the kittens, but it was all closed up and the farmer wasn't around to open it.  When we got back in the car, we saw this:

Hmmmm...she is supposed to be IN the barn, not outside of the barn.  Someone left the gate open, so I went and got Mrs Farmer (we went to school together!) and by the time she came out to corral it, another one had escaped!  They weren't in any hurry to get anywhere...they were just eating the grass around the barn!  But we thought it was funny!  Escaping cows!  Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Cardinal Christmas Wishes

Happy Tuesday, peeps!  Doesn't it feel like Monday?  Labor Day always messes my schedule all up!  Anyway, my friend Michele has been making these amazing box cards using Shari Carroll's YouTube video (which you can see HERE, and you can see Michele's blog with her amazing creations HERE).  SO....I made up my mind to give one a shot and it was a lot of fun, and easier than you might think!  So here is my first attempt using Toile Christmas:

All images were stamped on Whisper White cardstock, colored with Blends and diecut with the Christmas Cardinal Dies.  I randomly stamped the branch on the Crumb Cake card with Sahara Sand ink and lined the inside with Shaded Spruce DSP.  Here's a side view so you can see the "box"; it folds flat to fit in a standard size envelope, too!

The pretty sentiment banner is part of the set too....even though the images in this set are large, they're easy to color and not intimidating at all!  And they'll be available tomorrow!! Woohoo!

Thanks for popping in today!

Sunday morning before it got hot, I was in the garden picking (more) green beans, and I heard a "whoosh" and looked up to see this:

Over the years, we've seen a couple of balloons fly over, but it's been several years since we've had any, so it was really fun to see!  And it was a perfect day for it!

Enjoy your day and be blessed!

Project Details—All Products SU! Unless Otherwise Specified
Stamps	Toile Christmas
Card stock & Papers	Whisper White, Crumb Cake, Shaded Spruce DSP
Ink	Memento Black, Shaded Spruce, Sahara Sand
Accessories
Tools	Big Shot, Layering Ovals Dies, Christmas Cardinals Dies, Sticky Strip, Blends in Real Red, Cherry Cobbler, Shaded Spruce, Crumb Cake