Blueberry Patch

For many years now, my sister has generously provided us with lodging each time we travel across the country to visit with our extended families.  During our visit this August, we enjoyed freshly picked blueberries from her blueberry patch. She had such an abundant blueberry crop that she ended up selling some of them to people who were eager to pick their own. To thank her for her hospitality, I decided to surprise her and create a hand painted sign. Next year she can use it to replace the temporary signage that she used this year. It's been awhile since I painted anything like this, but it was great to pull out the paints and brushes and paint again. The sign turned out a bit rustic and each side is slightly different from the other,  but I don't think she'll mind. I shipped it off this morning and it should arrive at her home next week. I hope she will get a lot of use out of it.

Circle Sketch

It's mid-September (already) and The Sketch File DT is still playing with the September "Just a Simple Circle"sketch that Kathy created for us. We hope you will be inspired and play along with us.

For my card, I kept the same layout and same orientation but created a stamped flower to represent the circle. I fussy cut around it and adhered it over layers of pink cardstock, separated by  a white ribbon. I dry embossed the pink layer on the right with a floral pattern. I also punched holes around the flower centerh and backed the flower with black cardstock so they would pop. To finish I added a white gel pen border on the left side of the card as well as the sentiment.

If you'd like to use the sketch to create a project, remember you can twist or turn it to change the orientation. We're looking forward to seeing what you create with this wonderful sketch. See you at The Sketch File!

Braided Gold Ribbon Wreath

I created one last card for the GOLD challenge at Jingle Belles. This one has a braided GOLD wreath. I have included braiding steps below in case you are interested. It's a fun technique and rather addicting. 

I didn't cut the second end of my ribbon because I will probably make this ribbon wreath a little bigger. I just wanted to show the last step.

I've just found a youtube video that shares this technique. Check it out:
Ribbon Weaving

Dangling Circle

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This week at The Sketch File, Kathy released a new sketch. Our DT hopes you'll use the sketch to put together a card, a scrapbook page or any project you can. I have to admit that when I saw the card that Kathy created based on the sketch, I couldn't resist trying a similar style card. Take a peek at Kathy's card and you'll see how she inspired my card. If you check out her personal blog (HERE), she describes how she made her card. I modified her idea and cut my circle completely out of the the card base and adhered a smaller circle inside the circle frame. I adhered a piece of embroidery thread between the two circles and attached it to the card base. To keep the thread in place I layered a second piece of cardstock over the thread and circle opening on the folded section of the card. 

Hope you are inspired and will post your creation with us!

September Sketch File

We've got our September sketch up at The Sketch File and we hope it will inspire you. It's "Just a Simple Circle" sketch and has endless possibilities. We hope you'll join us. It doesn't matter what you create with it. It could be a card, a scrapbook page...anything! We'd love to see it! Just hop on over to The Sketch File and link up your project. While you are there, take a look at the incredibly fabulous card created by Kathy. It's brilliant and so inspiring!

Kathy's sketch inspired me to create this music themed card. Recently I purchased some new dies and the violin/viola die was among the purchases. My son plays the viola, so, I created this card with his music in mind. I simply layered my die cut viola images onto a circle and framed it with another circle with a decorative edge. I adhered the circles to a green and white embossed background separated by washi tape.

Have fun with the new sketch! It will be up all month and you can create and link up as many projects as you'd like. See you at The Sketch File.

Going for the Gold

I'm back again with another card for the GOLD challenge at Jingle Belles. Thanks to Lisa Hausmann of Reckinghausen Musings who suggested this challenge. This time I am using the same ribbon that I used in one of my previous cards. I simply adhered gold ribbon (in the shape of a tree) to snowflake embossed cardstock, then added a gold outer border. I used a handwritten gold sentiment and attached it with two gold brads.

Thanks for the great challenge

Lisa Hausmann and Jingle Belles.

More Gold!

This is yet another card created for the GOLD theme at Jingle Belles. Lisa Hausmann of Reckinghausen Musings is a special guest at Jingle Belles and has suggested GOLD as a theme. I created this card with three different gold products. First, I used some gold bling on a roll. It came in a single strand so I cut various lengths and adhered them in the shape of a tree. Then I wrapped a piece of white cardstock with gold embroidery thread, attached the tree and layered this onto green cardstock, then gold paper.  To finish I added a gold border around the outer edge of the card.

Gold Tree with Braditude

Jingle Belles has a special guest this week. It's Lisa Hausmann of Recklinghausen Musings and her challenge is fabulous! She's challenging us to use GOLD! Who doesn't have a stash of embellishments and products that are gold?  I found all kinds of lovely gold products hiding in my stash! For this card I started with gold brads and created a tree with them. My son recently mentioned that he hadn't seen me use any in my projects lately. So it was high time to use some of them!  After attaching the brads in a tree shape, I cut the tree from the green mat and wrapped gold trim around the tree. I adhered gold ribbon to the top and bottom of the card and then added a gold dotted border with a marker. 

Gold Challenge

Jingle Belles has another wonderful challenge for us this week. It was actually suggested by Lisa Hausmann of Recklinghausen Musings. Lisa suggested that we use GOLD on our card. I just happen to have a few gold embellishments in my stash. For my card, I adhered gold clips to gold circles. I added a gold top and a gold string to create ornaments.  I also added gold gem ribbon and a gold border. I have a number of different ideas buzzing around my head so I'm sure to be back with another card!

Let it Snow

Just a quick post to share my second card for the Jingle Belles non-Christmas card challenge. For the current challenge we are encouraged to create a card for our friends who do not celebrate Christmas. We can create a New Year's, Kwanzaa, Hanukkah, Solstice, or a general winter themed card. I decided to use the general winter theme because I am more likely to actually send it to a friend.

I used blue and white for the card because it makes me think of winter. However, photographing the dark blue was a challenge. After several attempts, I decided that this was the best it was going to get. The dark blue still looks black, but it's really a deep, dark blue.

Warm Wishes

I'm  playing along with the current challenge over at  Jingle Belles. The challenge is to create a non-Christmas card for our friends who do not celebrate Christmas. I decided to create a winter themed card by using a snowman as the focal point. Since the individual I have in mind for this card, loves bright colors, I used a rather bright colored scarf and top hat.  I think she'll like it!

2 More for the August Sketch

It's hard to believe that the end of August is just around the corner. However, there is still time to use Kathy's "Bouncing Circles" sketch. We hope you will play along with us and post your creation over at The Sketch File. The sketch will be available until the end of the month. I found the sketch quite inspiring so I am posting two cards. Kathy has also posted an additional version of the sketch, just in case you don't find inspiration with this one. So what are you waiting for?  Hop on over and post your creation.  I am looking forward to seeing what you create.  

Gearing Up For....

This is my second card for our August sketch challenge at The Sketch File. I am just getting around to posting it because I returned from vacation yesterday.  The card is based on this sketch from Kathy:

I kept my card very simple. I began by embossing gears on black cardstock, inked over the top with white ink, then fussy cut them. I adhered some of the gears with dimensional adhesive and layered them on printed cardstock.  I printed the sentiment with my computer and added brads to each side of the sentiment strip. 

The sketch will be up for the entire month of August, so we hope you'll show us what you do with it. If this version doesn't inspire you, Kathy also posted a second version at The Sketch File. Hope you'll play along with us.  

Go Wild...On Your Birthday

I recently purchased some Die Versions wild animal dies and just had to sit down and give them a little workout. I purchased the dies to use at work, but knew I would be able to create a few cards with them as well. I simply ran them through my die cutting machine and adhered the images to a dry embossed piece of cardstock (a leopard pattern).  I added a tag and twine for the sentiment: Go Wild...On Your Birthday.

August Sketch File Sketch

I put this card together for our August sketch challenge. It's based on the sketch Kathy created for all of us over at The Sketch File. She calls it "Bouncing Balls".  It's a super fun sketch. We'll be sharing other design team cards throughout the month. Each Tuesday, we'll post a few new cards to inspire you to play along.  I hope to see you there.

My card came together very quickly because I used my computer to print all the text. It was just a matter of layering the text on cardstock and patterned paper.

I'm sure you can be more creative then I have been! Please join us and let us see how Kathy's "Bouncing Balls" sketch inspired you. 

Red, White & Blue

Just a quick post today! I'm very busy creating a mini baby album, but I am taking a break to post this card. I can't believe I'm just getting around to posting it! I created it based on our July sketch at the The Sketch File and since it's already the end of July, I figured it was time to post it. As you might have guessed, I was also inspired by the July 4th celebrations here in the US. I ended up using red, white and blue as well as stars.

Please come on over to The Sketch File and post a card or two based on our sketch.

Summer Streamers

We're still playing with STREAMERS at The Sketch File! This is the second week for our Summer Streamers July sketch. Kathy has created a wonderful sketch for all of us to play with so I hope you'll join us for this sketch challenge.

I love the bunch of flowers in the corner of Kathy's sketch, but rather that re-create the lovely sketch just as it appears, I decided to use a cluster of butterflies. They were sitting on my desk top begging to be used, so instead of finding a place to store them, I used them as a focal point on my card. I also replaced the streamers with small dots to represent the butterflies flight pattern.

Kathy has also posted an alternate view of the sketch just in case this one doesn't appeal to you. Both sketches will be up all month. I am looking forward to seeing your creation.

Warm Winter Wishes

I'm back with a second card for the "two-fer" challenge over at Jingle Belles. Here are the details that I shared in my previous post:

The most recent challenge at Jingle Belles has us looking no further than our own craft rooms! We've all gathered quite a stash of crafting goodies (at least I know I have a room full), so the challenge is to use something that is at least a year old to create a Christmas card. Jingle Belles is teaming up with Shopping Our Stash or SOS where the challenges always invite us to focus on supplies and materials we already have on hand. These are always great challenges for me because as I paw through my stash I often discover something I have totally forgotten. With this challenge we also get to link our card up with BOTH Jingle Belles and Shopping Our Stash (thus the "two-fer" challenge)! 

My second card had me reaching for some very old patterned paper. I can't remember when I bought it, but it was many years ago. I think I bought it from Oriental Trading. This particular patterned paper has mittens and hats printed all over it and there are lovely white snowballs as well. I also dug out my Shape Boss....remember those? Mine was a gift from my husband years and years ago. I remembered that the Shape Boss had a mitten image, so I used it to dry emboss the mitten shapes onto green cardstock and white cardstock. Then I fussy cut around the green mittens and adhered the hearts and cuffs from the white embossed mittens.  I attached the mittens to a piece of purple cardstock, inked in some snowballs with a gel pen and matted this on white cardstock. Next I adhered this to the patterned paper and trimmed around the patterned paper with a pair of decorative scissors. These scissors were among the first tools I purchased when I first started paper crafting. (I really should be using them more frequently!) The inside sentiment reads "Sending Warm Winter Wishes".

Thanks for the challenge 

Jingle Belles and Shopping Our Stash!

Let it Snow

The most recent challenge at Jingle Belles has us looking no further than our own craft rooms! We've all gathered quite a stash of crafting goodies (at least I know I have a room full), so the challenge is to use something that is at least a year old to create a Christmas card. Jingle Belles is teaming up with Shopping Our Stash or SOS where the challenges always invite us to focus on supplies and materials we already have on hand. These are always great challenges for me because as I paw through my stash I often discover something I have totally forgotten. With this challenge we also get to link our card up with BOTH Jingle Belles and Shopping Our Stash!

For my card, I found a lovely little stamp from Stampin' Up. I had purchased it at an incredible craft supply garage sale about two years ago. Sadly, I don't think I have ever used it. I used Memento white ink to stamp the image onto a square scrap piece of dark blue cardstock. The cardstock is also old. It was given to me many years ago and it's from a company called Fox River Company. After I stamped the image, I used an Xacto knife to cut around the image, then trimmed a bit more from the frame to leave a bit of white space between the image and the frame. I adhered the snowy image to a white cardbase that I dry embossed with snowflakes. Inside the card the sentiment reads "Let it Snow".

Thanks for stopping by! I'm off to create a second card for this challenge.

July Sketch

Happy JULY! I can't believe how quickly the summer is passing by! I wish things would slow down a bit!

Are you ready for the July sketch. Our DT at the The Sketch File has some very inspiring cards for you! I hope you'll take a peek. Kathy has created a wonderful sketch which at first had me stumped. Then as I looked at it, I saw a waterfall, so I created this waterfall card.

What do you see when you look at the sketch? I hope you will be inspired by the sketch, then link up a card or two with us.