HOT! HOT! HOT!

Here in Plymouth we have a heat index approaching 105....I cannot even begin to tell you how unusual that is for us!  So today I decided to stay indoors.  Lately my daughter and I have been watching Downton Abbey and so each night when we watch an episode I pull out my images and copics and color while we watch.  So, today was more of an assembly day as I put colored images into cards.  The cards today both use the same image and I really enjoyed coloring it.  In the first card it is sorta difficult to see a real difference between the sunflower's colors and the butterfly's colors but in real life the two are very different....with the butterfly being deeper and much more intense.  Much more orange and red.  I think it was the glare of the outside lighting that made it all meld together. Anyways, on both cards the butterflies are accented with stickles.  I also have begun dying my ribbon with my copics and I love how it has been turning out.  Usually I always left my ribbon white but I think that the "custom" color really looks great!  I may never buy colored ribbon again!

Both cards are a bit over 5" square and that is a great size to work with for me.  Tomorrow I hope to have some (hopefully a set) of cards made up for the person that I am a ChemoAngel to.  I found some breast cancer ribbon and want to play around with a simple but nice design that I have in my head for Thank You notes.  If I get them done I will certainly post!  Thank you for stopping by and I hope that you have a great day!

Be well,

Sheila

Having a breakdown....

Yep!  I finally broke down and bought myself a Spellbinder's Grand Caliber and I LOVE IT!!!!!  Wow- so easy to use.  I have always loved Spellbinder dies....they were first given to me by my husband and kids several years ago for my birthday.  And I have used the Wizard for years with them.....and it now is pretty difficult to use.  I do have a big shot but have been coveting those HUGE Grand Nesties......I think they are the coolest thing ever for scrapbooking but have really held off on getting them due to the fact that I haven't had a  die cutter that was big enough to accommodate them.  But since I really like how they look when I am trolling scrapbook sites  yesterday I took the plunge at Hobby Lobby with  my 40% off coupon!  And have been playing ever since.  I love how I am able to cut and then emboss many dies at once.  I can literally cut out each section of a card, all at once, in one or two pass throughs.  That for me is a huge improvement especially as I love to layer up my cards.  Before, I had to cut and then emboss each single layer.....and if I had a card with, say, 5 layers, that meant 10 pass throughs for cutting and embossing.  Now it is down to two as I load up the big plate with several dies at once.  So, I just thought that between yesterday's post about the AMAZING rulers I found and today's post about my the Grand Caliber and grand dies I would pass on how much I like these new tools and how much easier they make some of my crafting!  As for yesterday's post....I know that rulers don't seem like a tool that would be so "exciting" but really, seriously....go to the site I have linked up and watch the videos.....I find they are really great for cards and sooooo great for scrapping.  Really. Every mount is perfect.  Ha!  Done with my exciting testimonials!  Today's card features a shaped card that is basically me  trying out my Grand Caliber and one of my new grand nesties.  I am pretty happy with how this turned out and will def play around with these larger dies more. A lot more.  The stamp is a Northwoods Rubber Stamp Company beauty that I actually fussy cut out from it's background and reset.

Thank you for stopping by and for those of you who have sent me private emails on how my training is going for my 60 mile walk I will tell you it is going GREAT!  I am putting in app 75 miles a week and am loving it!

Be well,
Sheila

Roses!

I adore this stamp!  It has so many possibilities. Today, I wanted to do really traditional red roses but add a little something different in the way of color....hence the purples and yellow.  What is a little hard to see in this picture is that the yellow is then "distressed" with copic blending solution and that created a really nice, mottled look.  Kinda like painted aged plaster.  I also tried something different, well, at least different for me by embossing part of the white mounting but leaving some "flat" in  order to have a space for a sentiment.  I really struggle with sentiments on the front of my cards and and saw someone over blog surfing do this and thought "great idea"!  Wish I could remember where I saw it but really, it is probably a very obvious technique to just about every crafter but me!  Anyways, I like how this turned out and will definitely play around with this idea.

I also have been multi-mount crazy lately.  I ordered these really amazing rulers called Perfect Layers Rulers.  They are fabulous!  I will inculude the link here in case anyone is interested.  I find these rulers on Jenny Gropp One Krafty Kat's blog and because I have always admired greatly her cards....and the beautiful way she sets off her images I decided to go ahead and get the rulers that she uses.  Well, I couldn't be more pleased with this purchase! And they can be used in scrapbooking....they make the mounting of pictures just so easy-peasy. Here is the link to them!

http://www.perfectpapercrafting.com/perfect-layers-brand-ambassador-gropp/ 

And here is my card.  I colored with copics and the sentiment is Hero Arts.

Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope you are having a nice day.  In Plymouth it is mild and breezy.  Lovely sun and even lovlier temps....highs in the mid 70's!  Take care ;-D

Be well,

Sheila

And, big flower.

Yep....whenever I see one of these Stampendous large flower stamps in store I snap it up!  I love how BIG they are and how much fun they are to color.  Just pure coloring enjoyment although it could probably be paper pieced to really nice effect too.  So, nothing more to say here.....some coloring, come pretty patterned paper, some lovely die cut butterflies....and that's about it!  I will put a sentiment on the inside.....I believe that this card will be part of my chemo angeling and I think I will enclose a burned cd of music to her.  I love to do that with square cards!

I think the card might be too "busy" but in general I like it!  The flower's color looks really intense here in photo....much more that it does in real life.  I'm not sure why that is.  I did take the photo outside in the sun and perhaps that is why?  I usually take my photo's in our home office by a window and most of the time I end up needing the flash.  Anyhoo.....enough techie talk.  I hope you all have a wonderful day in your neck of the woods....it has been in the 90's for several days here in Wisconsin.....pretty warm for us!

Be well,
Sheila

Wow!

...what else can I say but wow - it has been a loooong time since I have posted!  Life has been fun and crazy busy in ways that I could not have foreseen since my last post and as a result my crafting time has fallen by the wayside.  Ach! - if you're lucky life is like that....you find other fun and captivating things to do and for a bit they replace the time spent crafting.  At least me for they do.  Very spur of the moment  my husband and I woke up one morning and decided since our 17 year old was in Costa Rica on a school trip and our middle, college aged daughter was home for the summer and could take care of our house and dogs then we would take off on an adventure.  And we did.  We packed up our bikes and just sorta left!  Took some play clothes and drove to a bike trail.  Then we found an adorable place to stay and the next day canoed down the Wisconsin River.  And then the next day went to some Devil's Lake Bluffs and went on an all day hike around the lake and through the bluffs!  What a nice little mini getaway.  I will post pics another day....we totally scored BIG on the weather.  Yesterday however, I finally had a bit of time to get to my favie blogs (for  a look around....unfortunately no time for commenting ;-( ) , and I happened to see  the ATC swap thread on the HA Blog.....YIKES!  Totally forgot about the fact that I had entered this  swap....I contacted "Karen" in Canada who so sweetly told me that yes, I could still get the ATC's to her...I was so glad too as ATC's aren't something that I do very often but really, it is fun to work with such a small canvas!  So, I got down to business and these are the ATC's that I came up with.  The rules were to make 8 ATC's and that they could all be different from one another.....but all using Hero Art's stamps.  I liked this as sometimes it gets boring making the same image over and over again.  So, I used Ha Newspaper Background and either Elegant Weeds or Two Birds (the roses) on my ATC's.  I also used some Tim Holtz medallions that I had in stash too.  These will show my lack of photography skills so....I have added several pics.

I really had fun making these....I used copics to color the images and then distressed and stamped the background text.  I love the little size and can see why people make these up and store them for future card use.  Really fun and so quick and easy to do.  Thanks for stopping by.....I hope you all have been enjoying your summer as much as I have been enjoying mine!  Take care and although I haven't been able to comment I have been trying to blog around as much as possible in the past few weeks.  I envy you all your amazing creativity!

Be well,
Sheila