Quick (Birthday Card) Post....

My middle child turns 18 tomorrow/today....hard to believe.   In fact, this was a banner year for birthdays in our house.  My oldest turned 21, my middle is now 18 and my youngest turned 16.  All birthdays that  have a lot of significance attached to them.  And my dear husband, well, he turned 50 a few months back.  Me you ask?  Well, I'll be turning, um, ah 30!  Yeah, that's right....30 near the end of summer!  Anyhoo-here is the card I made for Clarice.  I used a Northwoods stamp, watercolor pencils and then stamped the butterfly a second time on a piece of acetate and then popped it up, wings in flight, over the colored butterfly.  Think I like this...I will have to work with style more.

                                                                    
Take care and enjoy your day.  And, Thanks for stopping by!

Be well,
Sheila

Sally Sells Sea Shells....

I made a card that is a little out of the box (envelope?) for me.  I left my comfort zone of square cards and instead followed Card Pattern sketch 124.  I really liked the sketch, alot, but whoa...that card was long and definetely not square.

I also wanted to enter a card into the City Crafter Challenge 

                                              

for this week which was called "It's a Shore Thing".  The ladies there had the most wonderful image for their challenge...

...and I so was going to follow that image....use all those lovely colors (cuz I do love my colors) and I was all set to go except the directions for the challenge were to create a card based on our recollections of the beach, the shore etc....and my memories are not filled with colors that stray to much from blues, browns and blinding white.  I grew up in Racine, Wi which is on Lake Michigan.  And I spent alot of time there.  I also spent almost every summer of my life as a kid swimming at Rehoboth Beach, Deleware or at a cottage at Chesapeake Bay.  So, there were endless beaches, brown boardwalks, blue upon blue ocean all frosted with blinding white sun glare.  It was a lovely way to spend summers.  And the best part....I actually had all these little seashells and stuff from a project that I did a few years ago for my daughter!  Yeah!-Love it when the supplies get all used up....

After I made my card I felt like maybe some of my proportions were off...funny how I don't "see" that until I upload and look at the card as a "picture" but, next time I stray from my square card comfort zone I will have my dimensions down!

Thank you so much for stopping by and I really appreciate the time you spend visiting!

Be well,

Sheila

                                                                       

                                               

                                                                  

A Bit O' the Green.....

Yesterday I went to Chicago and had a truly wonderful day...when I came home, after taking a seriously wrong turn out of Chi-Town, during rush hour traffic and returned home quite late this (instead of my children!) was what met me at the front door.

How absolutely charming and perfect to be greeted by a lovely green frog at the end of a really wonderful (driving direction skills aside) day.  It is super hot here in Wisconsin - we actually are in the middle of a heat wave and I think that this little guy hopped way up to my front door window to press himself against the cool glass.  Well, at least that is my theory...conceivable he could have climbed up there to peer through the glass and taunt my two dachsies who were barking furiously at him from inside and below!  Anyways, I thought that his color was so beautiful...it is hard to see the shades of green as well as the glisten and shine that his skin had.  So, this wonderfully unexpected guest became my inspiration for my next card.   

                                                                

I wanted to enter the Play Date Cafe's latest Challenge here of creating a card with a Color Splash.  I liked this challenge as it allowed me to use whatever color I wanted as the accent.
        

...and if this is Jello then I seriously want it with a dollop of whipped cream on top. Yum.  I also am entering this card into the Moxie Fab World Challenge of Fanatical Botanicals.  I have never entered anything there before but am loving the theme so....I might just have to enter a few....maybe.  Finally, I used favorite Hero Arts stamp as well as HA bling and a really lovely sentiment from Penny Black that I hold very dear to my heart after my husbands sudden illness and subsequent recovery.  Life should be celebrated!  Sometimes we expend all our energy into the "living" aspect of life and very little into the reveling, the utter celebration that each moment contains.  I am trying to be more cognizant of the small celebrations in my life....like being greeted at the door by a very green, diminutive, wannabe handsome prince.

Be well,

Sheila

                                        

Just a quick shout out....

To Nancy who is doing a great job today guest blogging on Jill's Inspired by....blog.  If you follow her requirements she presents a GREAT chance to win some wonderful blog candy.....seen here!

Take a moment and stop by Nancy's Happy Heart Studio and check out both cards....they're great!

Be well,

Sheila

                                                                          

Sun! Sun! Mr. Golden Sun, Please Shine Down on Me.....

Ok....I'm into suns at the moment.....we are having a record heat spell this week.   I totally loved the challenge at City Crafter Challenge Blog and then I remembered that  I had this old-old-old sun stamp of mine along with an old sentiment in my hardly ever used bin.  Love it.  It's funky.  So, another card for that particular challenge!    

                                                                   

                    

I like this card and the overall design but think that if I were to do it again I would try to space the sentiments a little farther away from the stamped image....otherwise, to make this look "hot and sunny" I first colored with Distress Inks than accented those colors with similar but a shade darker markers. Then I added glitter pen or stickles to make it "sizzle"!  Finally, all sections of the card where cut out and layered on top of each other using pop dots. Thanks for stopping by again...I always appreciate it!  Really!

Be well, 

Sheila                                                                

A Quiet Saturday....

Today was a quiet day all to myself.  That hardly ever happens!  My 17 year old went to spend the weekend with my 21 year old in Minn, my son was invited to a friend's cottage for the weekend and my husband went down to spend the day with his father.  And I stayed home and it was glorious!  I puttered, cleaned, crafted, read and went on my daily 2+ hour walk.  I loved every minute of today.  I hope you all loved the day that you had!  I crafted a card for a new challenge.....I have seen alot of people coming across my feed who are doing the challenge on the City Crafter Challenge Blog.    I had never heard of this blog/challenge before so I thought I would check it out.  And when I saw that the current challenge was to make a project that used the word "sun" or used an image of a sun a card, completely formed, popped into my head - really, that never happens.  I had made a flower a week ago for a HA scramble and while I was making it I thought to myself that the flower looked so sunny so today I decided to make another one in hot sun - type colors and use that as my sun image.
  

I also was able to use the word "sun" in my sentiment so it all worked out perfectly....and I really like this card alot!  The stamped flower and leaves are Hero Art and the sentiment is Magenta.  Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you're also having a wonderful weekend!

Be well,

Sheila

Summer Card Camp....(trying hard to be a good camper)

Hokey....trying very hard to be a good camper and work with the colors that are assigned to us this week.  Which, I actually like.  But, I just have all these other card ideas in my head at the moment and so it is always difficult to sit down and do my "assigned" work....ha!  So here are this week's colors....

And here is my card....I am actually going to put it in here twice so you can see the dimension that the "inchie'twinchie" squares give it. I also followed Card Patterns Sketch 123

                                               

                                                         

I really debated about adding a sentiment...the card  above the ribbon looks somewhat bare.  But, ultimately I decided against adding anything else as I just really like (love?) the way the the distressed card stock looks.....all mottled and shade-y-ish.  Thanks for stopping by and I sure appreciate the time you spend visiting!

Be well,

Sheila