Something "they".....

never tell you about is there are some bonuses to your kids growing up.  My "kids" are 21, 18 and 16.  The two older ages are my daughters and they are both away at college.  My youngest is my son and he leaves early every morning (5:15 am) for swim practice.  My husband leaves shortly after that,  after the Dear makes a pot of coffee for the two of us.  So, by 7:30 it is me and my two dachsies/dogs....and, believe me, those dogs  can keep a secret.  Like the one they witnessed this morning when I, age 49 and definitely old enough to know better...sat down with my steaming mug of coffee, my delicious square of chocolate drizzled scotttish shortbread, a handful of grapes and called it breakfast!  Now would I have had chocolate dipped shortbread for breakfast when my kids where home, eating with me and watching every move I made???  No, of course not because parenting involves lots of lessons such as teaching your children how to eat right, proper nutrition, balanced meals and breakfast foods that "start the day off right!"  Right?  Well, it is now a little after 3 in the afternoon and I can unequivocally say that for this 49 year old chick her day started off RIGHT and a whole lotta that "right" had to do with one very buttery, very dense, very chocolately, very decadent menage a trois between the sweet shortbread, the bitter coffee and my oh so willing tastebuds....yeah--sometimes breakfast at my house just ROCKS!

Hokay...onto my real reason for posting.....a card I made after watching the PB&J video on the Penny Black Blog today.  And, I seriously would post a copy of the sketch but I have no clue how to do it so, work a little extra/extra here if you're interested and follow the pink link above.  Sorry-must be the shortbread!  Anyways, I watched the vid and thought-whoa...I'm totally trying this sketch the minute I finish with the beds, the kitchen, the dishwasher, the vacumning and the laundry!  And that is precisely what I did.  All images are from the Penny Black Let it Snow transparent set.

                                                                           
I have also added lots of stickle-licousness because stickles are like gooey bling in my mind.  And, well, bling.  'Nuff said there!

Take care, thanks for popping in and enjoy the warmish Wisconsin weather....if you aren't in Wisconsin take my word on it....it is fabulous out today!

Be well,
Sheila

Woo-Hoo....

...starting to feel a bit better (I mean come on!-it has been like 10 days now of this nasty bug!) and today I was able to be up , about and crafting!  Fun, like seriously, just plain fun to be back "at the table".  So, the out put is low, the enjoyment factor is high and basically, this is what I got'....I thought that I would try and do some more tags for the Penny Black Gift Tag Challenge.  Honestly,  I made two cards with the same materials....just slightly different.  Because I offset the flower that I had colored in copics I was able to get the two tags from one stamped image...you know how it is...being a crafter it's all about "waste not/want not"! And, because I don't make tags as often as I could I try to stretch my materials, work and time to get more tagbang for my effort. (yeah/yeah-I know that tagbang is not really a bonafide word but you get my drift) .  So,  I used the Penny Black Sundail flower  and the sentiment is also Penny Black.

Then I had time to make a card and I just purchased this adorable Penny Black stamp .  And, usually, I don't "do" adorable.  I mean, other people do it so well that I haven't been nerve-y enough try  those images but for whatever reason this little mouse (and seriously???? I HATE RODENTS!)  really tickled my fancy.  Something so fun about the bed in a teacup....It reminds me of a book that was a fav when I was younger and one that I also read to my kids when they were younger...Beverly Cleary's book about Ralph S. Mouse and his red convertable ( which he got after his red motorcycle was destroyed.  I remember he wore half of a ping pong ball for a motorcycle helmet...but I,  quite embarrassingly, digress).  Here's my card and the sentiment is Penny Black again from the same transparent sheet listed above....

  And, I don't know why I can't get that darn card centered.....ugh.  So, well, thank you for stopping by.  Thank you for eyeing my tags and cards and I hope you are at the start of a great week!  I hope that I am at the start of a great week too! ;-D

Be well,

Sheila

This is why....

I love the internet and the feeling of help and support that I find through some of my blogging friends.  Bear with me please....this is a bit of a story.  Yesterday my 21 year old woke me up with a text saying a college friend of hers had received a call in the night that his father had passed away from a sudden heart attack.  This man was probably about my husband's and my age.  His oldest son is 21, like our oldest daughter.  Anyway, she texted Joe and me, on her way to class, to let us know about this death and to tell us that she loved us.  She is 21 and just learned that sometimes calls come in the middle of the night when you least expect them and they can carry devastating, tragic news.  I talked with her then, after her class, and she asked me what she could say, how should she reach out...she didn't want to do the wrong thing.  And I told her a simple, "thinking of you" or I'm so sorry that you have to go through this..." is all that is needed.  That it is a beginning and it is honest and from the heart.  I say this because I lost my own father around her age and my friends didn't know what to say,  they didn't reach out.  We all lived in different towns, were graduating and starting our lives and some important people in my life, through their youthfulness, didn't reach out-just really, I believe now, didn't know what to say. ..how to make "that" call.   Last year, over 25 years after my dad's death, a girl that I hadn't heard from who was a close friend all through high school called me from across the country, after finding my name through the internet.  She called to apologise for not being there 26 years ago when my dad died.  She apologized for being young, and awkward.  And I appreciated her call.

After I talked with my daughter I scrolled through my "blog list" updates....just blindly looking at new postings and eventually went to Jill Foster's "Inspired by..." blog and she was focusing on a beautiful card by "Mel" HERE .  Jill then went on to show her card that she made HERE   .  And I looked at Jill's card, which was inspired by a card made by a crafter who lives a world away from me in Australia and I saw in her card the fences and the landscape of the farms around me.  Now, I am not a good sympathy card person.   My colors tend  to be too bright, and, sympathy cards are a hard card to make.  You know, they just are.  But I saw Jill's card and knew this man who died to be a farmer and then my card was "made"....all before I sat down to my crafting table.  And my sentiment? The exact same thing I said to my daughter...be honest, let your friend know that you are "thinking of them".  So, thank you Jill, and thank you Mel (whose card it turns out was inspired by another crafter, Kathy Racoosin, living in another part of our world. So, I went and looked at Kathy's card HERE and went pretty much full circle as Kathy used the same stamp that Jill used.  I ended up using/borrowing elements from Kathy, Mel and Jill's cards.  Thank you, all three of you, thank you all for helping me to make a difficult card.  I appreciate it.

I made two-slightly different than each other.  I hope I don't have to use the second one for quite awhile.

Be well,

Sheila

                                       

I have been...

...sicker than a dog the last few days.  So, I apologize for not posting....believe me I would have LOVED to have been crafting and posting rather than being in bed, out of commission feeling like something the cat dragged in.  Today however, was the first day that I had a little energy and so I set myself upright and did a lil' somethin'somethin'.  I was looking over blogs (and sooo sorry for not commenting these last few days...there are a few blogs that I always try to comment on and just couldn't) but I was intrigued by the Penny Black "gifttag" challenge over on their blog.  I haven't done a tag in forever and so thought it would be fun.  I also wanted to try something different with the tag and since I had purchased the Penny Black Fashionably Wrapped here I thought that this styling fashion girl would make a great tag.  I also used the Penny Black Sentiment Transparent Stamps here for the stars in the sky and the the little floral detail on the package. So, here she be.....

I first stamped the image onto a tag so I would know how far to take my distressing in.  I then distressed tumbled glass,  broken china, and finally faded jeans ala' Kathy Racoosin seen here .  She does amazing cards/backgrounds/everything!  I then colored the package with copics, cut it out and adhered to tag.  Then I colored the fashion girl, cut her out (which, yes, took a loooong time) and then popped her up on foam dots and, voila!  It's a tag!  And, I do believe I will make another because, this was purty darn fun.  And, thanks for stopping by!

Be well, (or at least more well than I have been ;-D )

Sheila

Digging....

...this amazing Fall weather that southeastern Wisconsin is experiencing at the moment.  It is rare....like really, really rare that folks around my area are doing their yard work in mid October in tank tops and shorts....!  Mine is an area where we send our kids out Trick or Treating with their winter jackets....snowsuits on OVER their costumes.  Yeah, the kids love that!  But, my windows are open, the birds are singing, the leaves/trees/sky have created a palette of glorious color that make me soooo happy to be alive!  I mean, really now, how nice is it to go out on ones' porch or deck with a cup of coffee/tea/(wine?) in hand and just breathe in the beauty of the air and all of nature around them?  Okay-okay, I'm getting CRAZY sounding.....now I suppose you can guess what was in MY cup! hehehe-anyhoo---all this fabby autumn color is spurring me on to make poor imitations of what I see around me ;-D and so today I have an autumn themed card that looks like one of the decorations that I have on my front porch.  My husband was kind enough to get me some cornstalks, pumpkins and hale bales and wrap them around our porch posts for a party we gave a few weeks ago.  This particular stamp is an image from the Northwoods Rubber Stamp Co mounted on some distressed patterned paper.  I popped up the line of pumpkins and then stickled various parts of the image.  Why the stickles?  'Cuz glitter is GOOD and makes me indescribably happy.  AND, yesterday's card (please scroll down) had NO glitter on it and that  was somewhat difficult and painful for me but I think the no glitter decision was, ultimately, the RIGHT decision on that card.  Hokay....still with me?  Here is my card....

I hope you are having as good a day as I, obviously ;-) am having.  Take care and danke for stopping by!

Be well,

Sheila

I think that...

...this is such a darling image.  It is a stamp by LaBlanche that I purchased through the i{love}mementos  online store sometime back but just found the time to sit down and work with it.  Darling, darling.  And, I am sooooo not a person who would willy nilly bandy about the word "darling".  I love the pensive, absorbed expression on this child's face....it is like a rendering of a photo...the type of photo that I often like to take; one where the person is very much "in the moment" and somewhat forgetful that there is another person flitting about taking photo's.  Anyways, it was a fun image to color and I am still practicing (translation=having a BLAST) with my new copics.  I used patterned paper for the card but did distress a strip of white paper with stormy blue distress ink. I have no idea who I might send this too and so didn't put on any sort of sentiment...I think that more of my cards from here on out might be sentiment-less so that I am able to have more options when friends or fam need a card to use.  Also, sentiments tend to send me into a cold sweat....I never know where to put them.  Here is my card....I hope you like!

                                                                            

I can totally see coloring this girl differently, using Christmas colors, and then translating the field of flowers into a poinsettias...I mean, who cares that it isn't really "accurate" right?  Anyways...Thank you for stopping by today and as always I appreciate any comments and/or suggestions you might have ;-D

Be well,

Sheila

I got some.....

...COPICS!  and I am mighty excited with them!  Totally loving the feel of  the markers as they literally "glide" and "skate" across my paper. So, I have not been blogging lately because I have been coloring.  And coloring.  And coloring. Really, seriously, I have that feeling that I had as a kid when I would get a new box of Crayola Crayons....the BIG 64 count and I would immeadiately want to squirrel away with them where no one could disturb me and then just color, color, blissfully color to my heart's content.  Okay, you probably got my point by now.  So, I needed to make a card for a friend who just had surgery and I went for my trusty Scarecrow....I love this little image and only seem to use it for "get well soon" type of cards...go figure.  Any ways, here it is...

                                                              
And my next card is one I made for my niece. It was for her bridal shower today.  She is getting married at the end of the month and is having fall colors in her wedding. I wanted to make her a card that was using some of the most vibrant colors Autumnal Wisconsin has to offer and yet was still elegant.  I also wanted it to look young/fresh too....I know, I am asking ALOT out of a card.  I pulled out my go to fav-o-rite sunflower stamp from LaBlanche and duplicated a card design that I made a while back and posted if you want to scroll down some.  And here is Em's shower card....

So, while I won't be giving up my beloved colored pencils I am LOVIN' these copics!  And, I plan to colorcolorcolor till my heart's content...just like I'm 8 again.  Thank you for stopping by.....and I hope you had a great weekend!

Be well,

Sheila