After All That Blue. . . . .

. . . . .I just had to create a card using my favorite color combo. I suppose it was to remind myself that these colors are so pretty together! I flipped one of the sketches from the Hero Arts October challenge.


The Hero Arts ornament was embossed in white, then colored, using distress inks. The green panel was cut from a 6x6 piece of the Memoir Collection from Studio Calico. The snowflakes are also from Hero Arts and are stamped in two different pink inks, and clear embossed.


We've been having very summer-like weather here this week and I am sooo enjoying it! The little critters are all busy getting ready for winter and boy, oh, boy has my cat, Murphy ever been loving it too! I thought I'd share a few of photos. Remember now, he is strictly an indoor cat.

Here he is, relaxing by the ground level, window.



"Oh! I see something! What's that?!"



"I need to creep up a little closer. . ."



Here's what my sweet kitty was staring at!
Aren't they cute? Getting their fill of acorns.


After they left, Murphy sat like this for a long while, patiently waiting for their return.
Yes, he is tail-less. He is a "Manx" and they breed them that way. And I know, I know, he is quite the large cat! He weighs 18 pounds, but the Vet says he's very healthy. He really doesn't even eat that much, he's just a big guy and such a joy!

Thanks for stopping by! Enjoy the rest of your week! :)

Non-traditional Christmas and CAS-ual Fridays

Hi there,

I promise this will be the last blue card I make for awhile. I'm sure you're all getting tired of them.

I wanted to try creating a Christmas card, using a non-traditional stamp, for this month's Hero Arts contest. I love the Fabulous Flourish and think it's a perfect stamp for so many occasions, so why not Christmas?!

I strated out using some distress stains again, and after inking the main panel with them, I stamped it with Old Letter writing. Then I stamped the flourish, using my pearl paint dabber, for a soft look.


I also used a traditional Christmas stamp for the panel behind my flourish. It's from Hero Arts too, and it's called the Holiday Background. The ribbon is one I received from Vanessa and I wanted to use the ribbon technique we learned from Shari Carroll at Scrapfest, so I can enter this into the CAS-ual Fridays challenge too, which is to use ribbon loops.

Thanks for the visit! :)

Hello and Happy Monday!

I don't normally work on Mondays anymore, but my fellow, floral employee is on vacation this week, so I was at work all day and really missed my creative time! Before leaving this morning, I took a quick look at the new contest over at the Hero Arts blog. Love that it's Holiday cards, but love even more that there are three fabulous sketches to use!


I had some ideas swirling around in my head all day and when I got home I went right to work - umm - I should say "play!"

I really love one of the sketches and knew I wanted to use it. Last night I saw a gorgeous card on Joy's blog, here. She used distress stains on canvas and I wanted to use that technique along with this sketch. Here's what I came up with, after lots of inking, thinking, waiting, staring, walking away, thinking some more. . . .seriously, it should not have taken as long as it did!



There is quite a bit going on here. To create the pattern on the canvas panel at the bottom, I white embossed the Hero Arts, Branch and Flourish Tree, several times, then used distress stains for a resist look. I also sprayed it heavily with perfect pearl water. I created the shimmer on the small, white panel by swiping it with a pearl colored Paint Dabber. The third panel of the sketch was stamped with the friend definition, from the Dictionary Greetings, clear set. The loopy scallops were a gift from Marcy. . .thank you again, Marcy! I stamped the sentiment on some pretty blue ribbon, given to me by Rosemary. She also sent the felt flowers. . .thank you, Rosie, I love them both!

I think that covers it all. Here's a close-up so you can see the shimmer and texture of the canvas, and the fun swipes from the paint dabber.



Thanks for stopping by today! I'm looking forward to having Wednesday off work this week because we are having theee most gorgeous weather right now. 75 to 80 degrees, beautiful, sunny, blue skies and all that, along with the changing of the leaves, is just amazing! Suppose to be this way until the end of the week. Hope it's sunny where you are too! :)