pushing....

...myself to do something different is always difficult for me.  Well, especially when it comes to stamping/card making.  I think that the reason why is because for so long I have had such little free time and so "experimental" card making just wasn't an option.  Think about it...if you have just a little, bitty, teeny, tiny window of time each week to pull out your crayons and have fun then, well, you tend to do something that gives you both satisfaction and enjoyment.  For me, at least, that means simple layouts as well as coloring flowers.  Kinda always the same but made me happy.  So, now, I am facing a time in my life where my windows might open from little, bitty, teeny, tiny to wide open.....at least once in awhile.  And that means I have the time to pull out my dies, my embossing folders, my stamps that take me three, four (yikes! more sometimes) attempts to color them in a way that I am satisfied, content.  Basically, liking the finished product.  So, today I sat down with one of my new Penny Black stamps called Snowflake and Holly.  I really love the look of this stamp but it took me several attempts to get to a card that I liked.  And I liked that process.  And I wasn't rushed and stressed about all my mistakes.  And I got out my cuttlebug....and my die cuts....and I diddled and daddled and, it. was. fun.  Wow-forgot how fun it could be to jump into the "pool" with my eyes closed and just "feel" the process.  Make sense to you all?  Sometimes fun is "just".....just doing, just playing, just making mistakes...whatever...So, I did set myself some challenges...do what I don't usually do.  So, I embossed (never emboss....too messy man-esp if you are in a hurry!) and that embossing is for the Lily Pad Simon Says Stamp Resist Challenge.  I did hold true to something that is always near and dear to my heart and that is unconventional colors....so, meet my blue snowflakes and turquoise holly....and they will be for the cr8fn37 challenge! 

This particular card I versamark pen embossed the colored holly leaves and then clear embossed them. 

This next card uses alot of the same elements as the first card....but in a different way.  I wanted to use the scraps from the first card and see if I could make a card with the same stamp, same colors, many similar elements but with a whole different vibe.  I think I did.  I like them both but I really LOVE the pop of orange on the second one.

Well dearies...thank you so much for stopping by and slogging through my massive post.  I was really pretty long winded here wasn't I?  Guess I just got LOTS to say ;-D

Be well (and well read),
Sheila

                                                                

Projects....

...sometimes get the best of me.  I mean, when I agree to do a project for someone I always agree to it with the very best intentions.  This means, I plan to......

             1. Agree to Do the Project

 2. Start the Project 

       3. Work on the Project

       4. Complete the Project

5. Make Deadline.

....usually I get off track around the "second" step or, the "Start the Project" step.  Of course, when I don't start the project it completely throws off steps 3,4 and most certainly 5!  So, I have a project today.  It is 1. Agreed; 2. Started; 3. Worked on; 4. COMPLETED (yeah, I'm in awe of myself too); and 5. Deadline=Met/Owned!  Who knew I could follow through so well?  My 18 year old is leaving for college {(tomorrow) wow-moment of sadness please :-( } and she requested notecards to be made for some of the kids she babysits.  She has babysat for two families all summer and one family has two of the sweetest girls that you have ever met.  So I got the "order" for notecards, made them AND completed two cases for them...IN TIME.  I know I am belaboring the point but you really need to know how totally unusual this is for me.  Perhaps in turning 49 last week I gained maturity.  Who knew that would happen right?  So, I did take pictures of the sets but since there were so many and there were dupes I will just post some....just please know that I did LOTS more and that is why this achievement is so momentous ;-D  So, without further ado but with lots of "stickle" deliciousness here they are....

                                                                   

                                                                    

Each girl will receive 8 cards as well as a magnet that we made with Clarice's senior picture and college address on it....as well as some other little "goodbye" goodies. I am not entirely sure of all the stamps that I used....but would say that most of them are Hero Arts and Penny Black....I think. Take care and thanks for stopping by!

Be well,

Sheila

Just a quickie....

...and I will be out of your way.  LOVE this stamp by Penny Black.  It just is one of those nice, go to images.  Background stamp is a huge card cover by Impression Obsession.  I like the big, loopy cursive....it actually looks like my own handwriting.  Lots of distressing...and, um...that's all folks!

I actually hope to get some stamping done this weekend....am working on several projects for people so am trying to carve out that much needed "me" time....take care!

Be well,

Sheila

                                                          

Dis-Satisfaction...

...with a card is annoying.  I mean a person works hard with a vision or plan of the finished product in mind...oblivious to what is going on in the house around them.  Then, the card is finished and the maker sits back to look at it and it's just..."eh".  I seriously went "eh" with two cards I made recently.  And, the problem was that I felt that since I had put time in on making them they had better turn out good....or at least to my liking.  The reality was, although other people may have liked them, I thought they were, just, "eh".  So, they have sat on my desk.....taunting me with their "eh-ness".  Till today when I faced them and their eh-ness down....did some minor card-ergy (get it? I took "card" and "surgery" and combined them.....oh well-it's funny in MY head heheheh) and made them into cards that I like.  Maybe other people won't like them now that they have changed but for some reason I like them more and this is why....my first card started out like this...

...and while I initially like the off-balance image placement, the distressing and the white ribbon the more I looked at this card the more I felt it looked unfinished and off balance.  So, today, I tinkered, tore, distressed and remounted the image and now the card looks like this.....

                                                                       

I wanted the card to look older, smudged, sort of like a treasure you find in an old box in the attic. I like it LOTS now....reset the placement of the image....balanced out the composition with a sentiment and bling, smudged it up more by placing darker distress inks on the orange  background and "stained" the ribbon also...one thing that I didn't feel that the first card did was "marry" the original backround to the heavily distressed and ripped image panel...now I feel it does. When I took the adhesive off the stamped panel it ripped the background panel....so then that required me to do more smudging...it was a happy moment for me ;-D...because I like what I "mistaked" .  Opinions?

For my second "do-over" I used a card that I made for a 90 minute scramble....and I like the overall design of this card but anyone who knows me knows that I stink at scrambles....never make the time limit etc....so when I finished this card I wasn't happy with it but wasn't really sure why....just knew I didn't LOVE it.  So, this is the original....

...and while it has some cutie-pie moments I don't like the black bling on the ribbon (too dark and too small) and the chick is missing some over-all "fab-u-lous-ness"....know what I mean?  I like the sentiment and the chick is "one of a kind" but the "kind", again, is "eh"....so I tinkered, and tampered and here is the the card that I am now happy with.....

                                                      

the chick is "stickled" into sparkley fabulousness...she is rockin' some bling in her hair and the ribbon now sports a pink bling which. for one, is bigger and then the pink  ties in the "fun" color of the card....and finally, the "1" is stickled up too.  Like this and now would definetely send it to someone....and I know who that someone is 'cuz she is def' some 1 of a kind fabulous chick who stands out in a crowd!  So, I hope you all like the changes....talk amongst yourselves (heheh)....and, if you have time, let me know what you think! Appreciate you visiting!

Be well (and satisfied),

Sheila

                                                          

Mojo Monday Sketch and City Crafters.........

...I did this card for the Mojo Monday sketch and the City Crafter Challenge Blog.  I really like the card.....although I am not sure how much it actually represents the sketch.  I have a hard time with sketches...I mean I like them and all because they are huge "jumping off" points for me.  I really don't have it in me to come up with my own design and so I do like to follow sketches; it is just that when I do follow a sketch I tend to veer off path until I am in the "woods" so to speak.  I usually like what I end up with but it often looks like a very loose interpretation of the original sketch.  Maybe it is a "discipline" issue....like I am not disciplined enough to follow a sketch completely.  Well, what ever, I will keep following sketch based blogs 'cuz they definetely get my creative juices going! And the City Crafter Challenge this week was to use our scraps....and man o' man....I totally have the scraps..... The main image is a fave of mine and one that I sent recently to a very talented cardmaker.  When I stamped up some images as a gift to her I also stamped up extra images for me to color when I am sitting around.  The orange'y distressed paper was already colored but then I over-stamped it with a new HA stamp.  The brown was distressed on a leftover sheet of white.....if you were to turn the brown paper over you would find a mis-stamped, blurry image of a flower bouquet on it and the metal tag is leftover from when I made a necklace for one of my daughter's friends...and now have like 6 or 7 of those tags that I found when I cleaned my room last week.  It is AMAZING what one finds when they clean their craft room...... So, wow- what a "rambley" post today....well, here is the sketch:

...and here is my card.  

                                                               

I love these colors together and at first I wasn't sure about the seam binding being so white...but now I actually like it as it is such a contrast.  And seam binding is so "un-elegant" that I like to add it to my cards that are distressed. The background is a new HA one that I received from Maureen as part of my goodie win.  She had a wonderful one year blog-a-versary and I was the lucky winner....and believe me, it was a great haul of loot!  Maureen was very generous and I will have to follow her lead when I hit one year for my blog!  Here is Maureen's blog.....check it out!  

Thank you for stopping by!  I hope you all have a great weekend... I plan to be crafting this weekend and to take part in the HA scramble that will be tomorrow hosted by Marcy on the Hero Arts Flickr Thread...stop by and have some fun!

Be well,

Sheila

                                                        

Sunflower's CAN be blue......

...especially if one is making a card for Kathy's Color Palette  challenge over at Lily Pad Cards. This particular color grouping caught my eye this week.  The colors look to me to be two different blues, two different creams or beiges and a brown or taupe color.  I like this because nothing about this particular color scheme "popped" and I thought it would be a real challenge personally to make a card that would appeal to ME.....a person who likes that big POP of color.  So, I sat down and messed around and finally came up with a card I really REALLY like.  This was so unexpected too.....I mean there is no orangey reds, purpley pinks etc.....my usual pop-a-licious colors.  Now, I did make a "mistake" where my buttons are.....that was supposed to be a row of three pearls but for whatever reason my hand jittered and I smeared a somewhat largish bit of Glossy Accents.  So instead of my usual bling I had to go all button.  Anyhooo...here be my card.

                                                            
I hope you like it too!  The Stickles aren't quite dry yet .....I noticed it looks kinda chungy in the photo but, in REAL life it is sparkly and pretty cool!

Thank you so much for popping by....I always appreciate your visits and comments.  Have a good one!

Be well,
Sheila
                                                         

Card Challenge...

...and this was seriously a challenge.  I am entering this into the monthly Lily Pad Card Challenge. I am trying to get back into this card chain.....I always loved doing it when Deborah used to host it on her blog and for whatever reason (and I'm sure there are lots of them!) I have fallen off the card chain challenge wagon.  I am glad to have gotten a card done for this month but  found the color scheme really hard....I mean REALLY HARD!  And actually, I wasn't rocking the sketch either....oh well, sometimes that happens.  I DO like this card but think that I would do something different....maybe a smaller flower or perhaps change up the background to blue...I don't know....anyways...here's my card.  I hope that whoever gets this card enjoys it!

                                                          

I used Hero Arts for the large flower image.  I also used a Jill Foster technique of coloring the image with Faber Castell Big Brush Markers and then highlighting the image with white chalk pencil.....I will be the first to say that Jill does it MUCH better than me but I'm working on it!  Thank you for stopping by!  I always appreciate your comments!

Be well,

Sheila

Using ink in a way that...

...I haven't really tried before.  That is for the Less is More challenge. Actually, the whole challenge is to make a one layer card using ink in a new way or an old favorite way.  I kinda combined both aspects of this challenge regarding the ink.   I used my Distress Inks which are my all time favorite "go to" inks....I absolutely love the intensity of color that I get from them.  Then my "using ink in a new way" is to mask off a "window using post it notes and just keeping the color in a prism like rectangle shape.  I never mask and this particular card was really different for me.  I like it alot though and think I will try this technique again.  The leaf stamp is Hero Arts Delicate Leaf Cluster and I think that this might be the first time I have ever inked it up!  I also am entering this card into the Cas-ual Friday's Challenge #15. I don't think that I have ever entered either of these challenges before....so this is me....stretching my wings ;-D

                                                                  

Again, thank you so much for stopping by....I always appreciate the company!

Be well,

Sheila

wow....it's been awhile....

...since I have had the opportunity to craft.  I have missed the "me time" that crafting gives me.  You know, that little slice of time that allows me to disappear from all the demands of life, of family, simply all the demands of the day and instead retreat into my own little world for a few minutes, for a few hours.  Last night we had our very last graduation party to attend....for a wonderful daughter of a friend of mine who graduated from college a year early and will be going to  spend a year studying in Argentina.  I wanted to make a grad card as special as this girl.  Something beautiful, rare, and dazzling in personality.  I had this wonderful stamp set from Hero Arts that I have never had the opportunity to ink up yet and never actually thought of it as a "grad" image before but when I sat down to make this card this image immeadiately popped into my head....and, I love the end result.  And the really funny thing is, when we went to her party she had on a adorable sun dress in the colors of peacock blue, turquoise, shades of green, purple, shots of silver and a huge flower in her hair.  Seriously...how perfect right?  Anyways, here is my card....and I will definetely be using this stamp again.  So fun!

                                                          

I am also entering this card into the Hero Arts Challenge for Creatures for the first half of the month of August.

Take care and thank you so much for stopping by....I really appreciate your comments.

Be well,

Sheila

Another quick...

...one. This weekend will bring about a widerange of emotions and "life events."  We have a wedding, a funeral and a 60th birthday party to attend for a very dear friend.  Today is the wedding...tonight the birthday and tomorrow the wake followed by the funeral on Monday.  Lot's of emotion at all....it is odd how this weekend turned out this way.  But, back to the card.  This  wedding that we are attending will be held in a beautiful park.  It is a picnic wedding.  Very laid back.  The invites were beautiful but very untraditional in that they were, bright, colorful and featured large, bold sunflowers.  So, I went with an untraditional wedding card.....featuring some images that I thought we  would  see around us  at their wedding site.  So here is my card and I hope you likey....and I hope Lisa and Brian do too!

I used colored pencils and stickles on the images and then popped up the butterfly with a second colored image.  The way I like to pop up butterflies is to put glossy accents down the middle of the first butterfly and adhere just the middle of the second butterfly.  Then I cover the second butterfly with glossy accents or stickles and when it dries the butterfly wings naturally lift and curl. This particular butterfly I covered with Stickles Diamond and also put them around the flowers too. Here is a close up of the wings in action.  

Thank you so much for stopping by.  I hope you have a good weekend and I really appreciate the time you take to leave a comment.  

Be well,

Sheila

                                                                  

Actually....

...I did have this card I made for my sweet Aunt.  Her name is Rose and she came to stay with us last night on the way to my FIL's funeral.  She is my FIL's sister, and she and my daughter drove from Minn together which is a lovely bonding moment (6 hours worth of conversation) for my daughter to look back on in the years to come. Anyways, I wanted to have a super special, pretty feminine card for Rose.  I DID NOT use a "Rose" on her card as I am sure in her well over 70 years that image might be a little overdone for her but I did pick a flower that would burst with color for her....and then I played up it's colors by adding the glimmer of stickles to the image.  I am also entering this into the CardPatterns Challenge # 126.  I always like the sketches that they challenge us with and find that they can really be interpreted very loosely to inspire me!  Here is the sketch to follow:

And here is my card.

Thank you so much for stopping by....I hope to be back with more regular posting after the funeral and when life settles down a bit.

Be well,

Sheila

                                                    

                                                          

So Sorry.....

...that I have been neglecting my blog for such a long while.  The reason is that my very loved and sweet father in law had surgery in early July, continued to decline and,  just passed away this week.   I adored my father in law.  He was a kind, open soul.  He will be missed by myself and all who knew him.

Be well,
Sheila