A Card and a Storm!

This is actually Friday’s post – we had no TV, Internet or phone from Friday afternoon until late Saturday morning…just as we were leaving for the day. So, I’m posting this today instead.

Spring is definitely here with temperatures in the 70’sF! However, we have had a couple days of thunderstorms; heavy rain and very strong winds. In fact, this afternoon we went out to get groceries and there were a couple of times I could hardly take a step because I was walking against the wind.  When we came home there were traffic lights out at all the intersections so it was slow going. We had lots of small branches off our trees but nothing else damaged. We had hydro so we didn’t think anything of it but Joe was talking to the neighbour and he wondered where we were because we missed the storm of all storms. He has lived here for 33 years and it was the worst storm ever. It only lasted about 5 minutes or so but it was scary fierce. Apparently the wind was gale force and several hydro poles were down which is why the stop lights were out – and we had no Internet or phone. He said the heavy lawn chairs out back flew right across the yard and dented his new shed. There are no windows in the grocery store so we didn’t even know it had rained until we came out and saw the puddles. I’m not sorry I missed it. We then went and checked the backyard and found one of our birdhouses that is mounted on a shovel that was firmly in the ground, was lifted out and thrown against the fence and landed on the compost bins. Good job the fence was there.

UPDATE: we went to Rondeau yesterday and today and there are trees down all over and some telephone poles were snapped in half but the wires still intact. A tree came down inside Rondeau Park and took out some hydro lines so they were without power until almost noon today!

Today (Friday) is my granddaughter’s fiancées’ birthday so this is the card I made for him.

 

He loves the outdoors so he got a woodsy card. The window die is from Memory Box – one of my favourite dies. The bird behind the window is from an old greeting card. For the top and bottom of the window frame, I ran a piece of brown cardstock through the wood frame embossing folder, than die cut the window die again, just along the bottom and top; trimmed it off; inked the edges with dark brown and glued them over the original ones. I think this makes it even more ‘woodsy’ looking.

I found that grey cardstock in the stash but it was torn or cut and didn’t fit the card so I trimmed an angle off of it and glued on a piece of left over brown. The rope between them is also from an Elizabeth Craft die. The deer was die cut from an IO (Impression Obsession) die out of light brown cardstock and then I inked the edges with dark brown. The birthday sentiment is a peel-off.

That’s all for a windy and stormy Friday, May 4, 2018. I’ll be back with a card on Monday – my grandson’s 8^th birthday card. Have a wonderful weekend everyone; be creative; be safe and if possible, perform a random act of kindness. Sometimes it doesn’t take much to make a person’s day so much brighter.

Yesterday I stopped in at the thrift store and found four Close to my Heart stamp sets and decided to buy them. As I was checking out the lady in front of me was digging through her purse for change and finally gave up and very apologetically told the clerk she couldn’t find the quarter so she couldn’t buy what ever was in the bag – and then said, “And I really wanted it too”. I asked how much she needed and the cashier said, “30 cents”. I just happened to have only 30 cents in my wallet so I gave it to the cashier. The lady checking out was almost speechless. She finally said she couldn’t believe anyone would do that and thanked me over and over. I told her to just pass it on and do a favour for someone else when she had the chance. See, it only took 30 cents to make her day!

Cheers

Violet

Don’t forget you are more than welcome to save any cards or other items I post to your Pinterest account for future reference. Simply place the curser over the picture until the Pinterest save sign shows up in the top left corner and enter. This will take you to your Pinterest account. If it doesn’t work, please leave a comment and let me know so I fix it. Thanks.

A Salvaged Card

We’ve had a couple of beautiful days here in Ontario although the wind still has quite a bite to it. Unfortunately we may get a thunderstorm tonight and rain tomorrow. Hopefully May will be more in the average temperature range than April has been. May is the month the warblers and other migratory birds land in Ontario on their way up to Northern Ontario to nest and raise their babies – and then fly back to Southern USA, Mexico or South America in the fall. They have no idea why they fly so far just to raise their young but we are so glad they do. It’s our only chance to see some of these birds.

Today I’m posting a birthday card for a man. I have three sons-in-law and my granddaughter’s fiancée who all love the outdoors so I’ve been experimenting with some card ideas using the Stampin’ Up woodland embossing folder. This one didn’t work out well but I was able to salvage it.

I attempted to stamp some old cars on the back of the embossing folder but they smeared and looked like lumps of garbage instead of cars. I liked the top part of the embossed piece though with the trees and sky showing so I decided to try to salvage it. First I die cut it into a square; tied a black and white bakers twine around it and mounted it very dark brown cardstock. It was then mounted on the Kraft card base.

The deer was die cut out of the same Kraft brown using the Tim Holtz deer die; the edges were inked with dark brown ink and it was glued on. The strip along the side was embossed with an old Cuttlebug embossing strip using some of the same very dark brown cardstock. The sentiment is a peel-off. The camera cut off some of the photo but the card is the standard 4.25 x 5.5. None of the guys in my family will see it. A friend of mine saw it and wanted it so it’s gone. Doesn’t matter, I can make more and their birthdays are a ways off.

That’s all for a sunny but clouding over Friday, April 27, 2018. Have a wonderful weekend; stay safe; and if possible, perform a random act of kindness. You may never know whose life you can turn around just by being kind.

Cheers

Violet

Don’t forget you are more than welcome to save any cards or other items I post to your Pinterest account for future reference. Simply place the curser over the picture until the Pinterest save sign shows up in the top left corner and enter. This will take you to your Pinterest account. If it doesn’t work, please leave a comment and let me know so I fix it. Thanks.

A Masculine Card

We had a gorgeous spring day here today! Unfortunately tomorrow and Friday will be more rain and possibly more snow. This could be the winter that hates to end!

         One of my sons-in-law and my granddaughter have a birthday next week. Here is the card I made for the son-in-law.

I used my new Stampin’ Up Woodland embossing folder. I’ve wanted one for months and finally broke down and bought it. The inside was inked with the blue and the green before embossing. I attempted to stamp an old car on the bottom of it like I’ve seen on Pinterest but mine did not turn out. I think it was the ink I used. So instead of wasting the entire embossed piece, I simply cut off the bottom part; put a mask over a couple of the trees and stamped some evergreen trees. Then it was mounted on the Kraft cardstock; then the darker brown and then on to the Kraft card base. The deer was die cut with a Tim Holtz die and it is on the same brown cardstock as the second layer but before die cutting it I glued the brown to a piece of cardboard from a cereal box to make it thicker. The banner was die cut from the same brown and the sentiment is a peel-off.

          That’s all for a lovely Wednesday, February 28, 2018. I'll be back on Friday with the card I made for my granddaughter.

Cheers

Violet

Don’t forget you are more than welcome to save any cards or other items I post to your Pinterest account for future reference. Simply place the curser over the picture until the Pinterest save sign shows up in the top left corner and enter. This will take you to your Pinterest account. If it doesn’t work, please leave a comment and let me know so I fix it. Thanks.

A Woodsy Birthday Card

Most of the snow is gone except where it was piled up…but short lived as we are expecting more. In fact tomorrow could be a mix of rain, snow and freezing rain. I do believe I’ll be staying home tomorrow!

Today’s card was made as a birthday card for my son-in-law but I do believe it could easily be a Christmas card as well simply by changing the sentiment.

 

The background is two pieces of left-over paper that was glued together and then cut on an angle to fit the standard card base. A die cut rope (Memory Box die) was added over the seam. The Memory Box window frame die was die cut from an old Christmas card…and it was almost discarded. I like to die cut two pieces of cardstock at a time …usually an old card in the bottom and the new piece on top….because it embosses the top piece that way. I threw the cut card out and then immediately retrieved it. I liked the different colours – looked woodsy! – so I decided to go with a woodsy theme.

First I die cut just the top and bottom of the window frame in small pieces of that light brown cardstock; trimmed them off; ran them through a wood grain embossing folder and then ran dark brown ink over the top of the embossed bits. Then these were glued over top of the die cut window frame….just to add some extra texture and interest.

The picture behind the window frame is from another discarded card. Plastic was placed behind the die cut window frame to give the look of glass. I just use the plastic wrapping from embellishment packages for that. The deer is a die cut and dark ink was sponged around the edges and a dot for the eye was added. The sentiment is a peel-off.

That’s all for a pretty nice mild Wednesday, December 20, 2017.

Cheers

Violet

Don’t forget you are more than welcome to save any cards or other items I post to your Pinterest account for future reference. Simply place the curser over the picture until the Pinterest save sign shows up in the top left corner and enter. This will take you to your Pinterest account. If it doesn’t work, please leave a comment and let me know so I fix it. Thanks.

A Very Masculine Card

We just had a rainy weekend with some pretty wild thunderstorms! It will be dry for a few days and then more rain. We went for an hour’s walk this morning and it started out very cold but then the sun decided to come out and it was a lovely walk. Although it gets near freezing at night; most of the days are in the 10C (50F) range and it has confused the flowers to no end. Here’s a picture of some daisy-like flowers that are in my garden…I took this photo this weekend from the house when the rain stopped for awhile. I also have snapdragons, coneflowers, black-eye susans and some petunias still blooming. Odd fall weather.

  

My brain disorders do not like it when we have thunderstorms and do not like listening to the sewing machine running either so I head on down to the lower studio to do some scrapbooking or card making. I found this cute meme on the Internet and it pretty much says it all.

 

 Do any of you suffer from this? I'm lucky that my hubby does all the laundry and most of the housework!

Today’s card is another one made in section but this time I left some un-inked sections. I think I like it just as well but not sure I like it better.

 

I made this one with a man in mind – the kind that likes to read a lot and likes vintage things – like one of my sons-in-law. The stamps are mostly from a stamp set I picked up at the dollar store and I was surprised to find this many images for $1.25. I used Stampin’ Up Early Espresso ink thinking it would be a nice contrast to the creamish background paper….and it was. The splatters and blobs were from a Stampin’ Up grunge set. Once the stamping was completed I decided it needed some twine so I twisted some twine together and then taped it at the back before gluing it all to a Kraft card base.

That’s all for a cool Monday, November 6, 2017.

Cheers

Violet

Don’t forget you are more than welcome to save any cards or other items I post to your Pinterest account for future reference. Simply place the curser over the picture until the Pinterest save sign shows up in the top left corner and enter. This will take you to your Pinterest account. If it doesn’t work, please leave a comment and let me know so I fix it. Thanks.

Multiple Technique Card

Halloween is over! It was a bust here last night. We used to get over 100 kids but it has been going steadily downhill for years. Last year it was raining and we still had about 50 kids. This year the weather was better so I had two bags of candy just in case we went over the 50…..we only had about 35! This is a fairly busy street and the new street lights the city installed last year are no where near as bright as they used to be so I think a lot of parents took the kids to the survey instead.

Oh well, we’ll add the extra bag of candy to the stuff we take to the food bank.

Today’s card is another mixed technique one. I seldom ever have a plan or sketch in mind when I make cards so it’s more like ‘try it and see if it works’ method for me.

  

I like the masking tape technique but it’s a pain getting a rough edge on the masking tape but I did that for the darker teal lines. I thought two strong lines would be too much thought so I used a Stampin’ Up grunge stamp and Crumb Cake for the other areas. I wanted a high contrast card so this piece of purple in the stash looked great against the teal but it was blah….a run through a large circle embossing folder fixed that! I wasn’t sure what to put as the embellishments but finally decided on feathers.

The feathers were die cut from some ‘altered paper’ that I made. I took some very, very ugly scrapbook paper and covered it with paint; ink; gesso; stamps and stencils until I liked the look. I’ve been cutting into every since. The overall page is pretty wild but cut down, it’s very effective. The bottom feather was glued down flat; the other two are on dimensional strips. A simple twine bow and a button finished it off. The birthday greeting was from on old stamp set. This would be a good card for an adult man; young man or even teenager.

That’s all for a cold, overcast and sprinkling rainy Wednesday, November 1, 2017. We went for an hour and fifteen minute walk this morning and it kept sprinkling a few times but never amounted enough to get us wet….typical November day!

Cheers

Violet

Don’t forget you are more than welcome to save any cards or other items I post to your Pinterest account for future reference. Simply place the curser over the picture until the Pinterest save sign shows up in the top left corner and enter. This will take you to your Pinterest account. If it doesn’t work, please leave a comment and let me know so I fix it. Thanks.

A Card and a Layout

This is Tuesday, not Monday!...I have to keep reminding myself of this fact because yesterday was our Canadian Thanksgiving day but it felt like a Sunday so today feels like Monday! Obviously I’m easily confused.

We didn’t have any family over….they all live too far away for a day trip and we didn’t visit them because I have total laryngitis again. I went from a soft voice on Friday to absolutely no voice at all within 5 minutes and it has not come back. No use visiting when you can't talk! I get the results of the thyroid biopsy next week so maybe I’ll get some answers then.

Seeing it was just the two of us we went to one of our favourite place, Point Pelee National Park. It was so crowded it was insane! Luckily we have a lot of patience and don’t let little things like waiting in line upset us. I took a few photos and immediately after downloading them, I added them to some scrapbook templates. Here they are:

 As you can see, not much colour in those leaves! Usually by our Thanksgiving the leaves are a riot of colours of red; green; yellow and orange….but not this year. That bird is a Golden-Crowned Kinglet and its the first time I got a photo of the crown showing.

   

Now I just have to add them to 12x12 layouts; add a title; journaling and embellishments and done!  Hopefully I’ll get that done and post the finished product in a few days.

The card I’m posting today was an experiment that I wasn’t sure I liked but, as usual when I don’t like something, a friend of mine saw it and loved it and wanted it for her father. I was happy to see it go!

  

This was made by masking off parts of the card and stamping an image in the centre and around the edge and continuing all around the card. The shore birds; lighthouse and flying birds are from the Stampin’ Up High Tide stamp set; the others are from others. I’ll make another one because it was fun to do but I’ll use smaller images maybe. We shall see.

Tomorrow is Wednesday….and as long as I remember it’s Wednesday, I’ll be posting a card to get back on the Monday, Wednesday, Friday posting schedule.

That’s all for a sunny Tuesday, October 10, 2017.

Cheers

Violet

A Masculine Card

  

Our heat wave ended last night; the A/C is off; windows are open! We had an ‘it’s-going-to-rain-any-minute’ weather on Saturday so we opted to stay home – but it didn’t actually rain here until after supper but it was hot and humid so not very pleasant outside. Sunday was also a chance of a thunderstorm but we decided we were tired of staying home and we decided to take a trip up to Sarnia and take a nice leisurely ferry ride up and down the St. Clair River. We invited one of my best friends to join us. She is a widow and a bit lonely and bored on the weekends. Here’s a picture of us by the ferry. 

 The ferry - family run;  friendly staff; wonderful cruise!

 On the Ferry

And after the ferry ride we bought veggie burgers and fries under the Blue Water Bridge. It didn’t rain until late last night when another thunderstorm came through.

  

I will get to the card in a minute but first I want to share this picture with you.

The lady on the left is my almost-79 year old sister, Pearl. The lady on the left is her daughter, Jennifer. They are with their guide. They just did a six hour white water rafting trip down the Ottawa River! She is something else, that sister of mine. She is a stage 4 colon cancer survivor too! Her huge garden, which she looks after herself, is like a miniature Royal Botanical Garden and is a favourite on the garden tours; and she loves zip lining too! What an inspiration for all!

And now for the card! I’m always trying to find new ways to make masculine cards….so they look nice but no bows; glitter, etc. Here’s one that I quite like.

I used the same technique as described in a post from last week by sponging on ink through a die cut template. This time I made a straight line near the bottom in darker ink so the truck (an old Tim Holtz stamp)  would not look like it’s floating – it looks like it’s a bit airborne on a rough road but that’s okay. This was then mounted on a piece of designer paper from the stash that luckily was in the same colour family and then onto a Kraft card base. I hand cut the banner and then added the black peel-off sentiment. The inside says, “You’re not old; you’re a classic”.

That’s all for a cool and cloudy Monday, July 24, 2017.

Cheers

Violet

Simpler Version

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend – we did, except for the rain showers yesterday afternoon which interrupted our ‘sitting around doing nothing” at the bay. Today was absolutely beautiful weather with a nice breeze blowing and I wish it would just stay like this for the rest of the summer….and maybe into the fall a bit. It was grass cutting and yard work day today for us….. and I think pretty much everyone in the neighbourhood as well.

Today’s card is a simpler version of the one I posted last Friday – slide down to see if you missed it…..to view the techniques used.

  

I’m not sure who is going to receive this card but birthday cards are always nice to have on hand. I used the same technique as the card posted Friday to get that nice oval in the centre. The sailboat (Close to My Heart stamp) was stamped with Stampin’ Up Night of Navy as was the birthday greetings. Then it was mounted on a blue card base. Quick and easy but very effective.

That’s all for a beautiful Monday, July 17, 2017.

  

Cheers

Violet

Don’t forget you are more than welcome to save any cards or other items I post to your Pinterest account for future reference. Simply place the curser over the picture until the Pinterest save sign shows up in the top left corner and enter. This will take you to your Pinterest account. If it doesn’t work, please leave a comment and let me know so I fix it. Thanks.

Birds and a Card

Oh what a busy weekend! (Long post, card at the end if you want to skip down) Saturday (Canada Day) was threatening rain in the morning so we opted to do just go to Rondeau at noon and eat a veggie burger in the restaurant there instead of BBQing. After relaxing for awhile we walked down on of the trails but kept an eye on the weather which was clouding up. We decided to turn around and get back to the car when the sky started to turn black and boy was that a good call! We were in the car for about a minute and the sky opened up and it poured! End of that day’s celebration….well after a bit of ice cream while waiting for the rain to end.

Yesterday we took my sister to Point Pelee because I really wanted to see the Magnificent Frigatebird (yes, that is its real name) that was spotted there. This is a warm ocean loving bird from south of Florida that obviously got blown off course in a hurricane! It’s a huge bird with a wing span of 7.5 feet and it is the first time one has been seen at Point Pelee. She (they determined it was a she by the white patch) has been roosting just off the park and the people who own the Pelee Wings Store and a couple down the road, welcome people to go up on their decks to get photos. Some people are just so nice.  We managed to see it and get some great photos…..and I’m so glad we did because it flew off last night and no one has seen it today! Here is one of the photos I took of it.

While I was waiting for the Frigatebird to fly back closer to us a Great Blue Heron landed by us so I took his picture too. He was very light in colour for a Blue Heron but I got this shot of it.

Then it was on to Point Pelee Park itself and oh boy was it busy. We had to wait in line for about 20 minutes to get into the park and there were cars and people every where. But, we are patient people and we found a great spot for a BBQ and enjoyed the rest of the day.

Today our girls wanted us to join them for another BBQ but Joe was not feeling well and as it was last minute, I had nothing prepared so we postponed it to next week. You can only celebrate Canada Day so many times! Good job we stayed home because I think he has a bit of a flu bug, not just over tired.

I do have a card to share….another funny masculine card.

The image was coloured with pencils and blended with gamsol – my favourite medium! The sky and ground is sponged on chalk. I had a piece of navy blue the right size to hold the image and the hand-cut banner so I used it and mounted it on the Kraft card base. The “happy birthday” sentiment was a gold peel-off that I sponged blue alcohol ink over to change the colour. The sentiment at the bottom is computer generated.

That’s all for a sunny Monday, July 3, 2017. Tomorrow is a holiday for those in the USA. So happy July 4^th to all my USA readers. Have a safe and happy holiday.

Cheers

Violet

A Humurous Masculine Card

More rain and cool weather here in Ontario which means the A/C is off once again. It was nice out in the sun today but a bit cool in the shade when the wind picked up.

I think we all have that one friend or relative who refuses to grow up so I made a card just for that type.

The image was coloured with pencils and blended with gamsol. The sky and ground were chalked. The sentiment started out as a gold peel-off but gold would not suit here so I went over it with a blue alcohol marker to change the colour. You did know you could do that, right? Silver ones are easier to colour but the gold does work almost as well. I wasn’t sure what to use as background paper but I found that bottom piece in the stash so I sponged Stampin’ Up Crumb Cake over the top of the dots to hi-lite them a bit. For the top piece, I took a piece of white cardstock and stamped a couple of very old Stampin’ Up stamps on it….one says Howdy and the others are just dots and markings. They were stamped with Crumb Cake as well. The blue cardstock that mounts everything is from the stash as well. The sentiment was computer generated. Everything was then mounted on a Kraft card base.

That’s all for a sunny but cool wind blowing Monday, June 26, 2017.

 Cheers

Violet

A Masculine Card

This has been a crazy busy week…..and a hot and humid one! We had new laminate floors installed this week so we had to remove everything except the large pieces of furniture out of two rooms so things were stacked up in the rec room and the eating area – and hubby HATES a mess. They installed the floors (two adjoining rooms) in one day and installed the new baseboards the second day. What a difference! Love it! While they were installing the floor I had to leave. The noise was causing my brain disorders to act up so I went to Michaels (picked up a couple things) and then wandered through Wal-Mart…..not my favourite store and bought nothing; came home for lunch; and then visited my sister for the afternoon. While they were installing the baseboards I worked in the garden to avoid the noise. Glad that reno is done; the bathroom is next and maybe in the winter we’ll do the kitchen/eating area flooring. Hubs can only stand a little bit of a reno at a time.

Just a few minutes ago I went to pick up a container of 12 tins of beads and it flipped over – and yes, all the tops came off except 3 but luckily they went into a larger container I had them in. But, as I lifted up one of the ones with the top still on, it flipped off and beads flew all over the carpeted floor! AAAGGHHHHH I will be sorting beads tonight. I like the beads all sorted by colour and size…..its a Virgo thing!

Today’s card that I’m posting…..finally I know……is one made with Stampin’ Up High Tide stamp set.

The shorebirds and flying birds are part of the set. The sky and sand was sponged on with a darker ink under the shorebirds to cast a shadow. The image was die cut with a stitched oval (Stampin’ Up) and then placed on the Spellbinder’s die cut brown oval. The designer paper is from the stash....they and the backing brown paper were die cut with the Spellbinder's Create-A-Card die set. The sentiment is a black peel-off. The leaves were die cut from a different Stampin’ Up die and glued on.

That’s all for a lovely sunny, and not quite as humid, Friday, June 16, 2017. Have a wonderful weekend everyone and if possible, perform a random act of kindness and ask them to pass it on.

Cheers

Violet

Hot Flash and a Card

Wow! When Mother Nature has a hot flash it’s a doozy! It is so hot and humid here it takes your breath away. This afternoon we had to go do a couple of errands and coming home the car said it was 34C…93F! On Saturday we had a BBQ and sat around in the shade at Rondeau Park with my sister and on Sunday we took her to Point Pelee National Park for another BBQ. It was just way too hot to think about getting the bikes out. Besides that I’m still fighting this odd virus….or whatever it is….and I still have laryngitis (on week 11 now...maybe 12) and not much energy.

Tomorrow and Wednesday they will be installing our new laminate floor in the living room and dining room so it will be very noisy and dusty here….I may be escaping!

Today I’m posting a card I started quite awhile ago and just recently finished. I think this card was made at our local scrapbook store as a make-and-take or at a card night.

 

The leaf was stamped and cut out. Distress embossing powder was then added….which is odd stuff but I like it for masculine cards. It leaves a rough finish….follow the directions if you have never used it before because it is not like regular embossing powder. Then the white script bit was stamped on acetate; adhered to a piece of yellow cardstock with brads and then the leaf was glued on top. This was then glued to the background paper. I think it was about then that I realized I had the script upside down…..and set it aside. I pulled it out and decided to finish it and it would be okay to send to one of my sons-in-law because quite frankly, like most men, they are not all that observant or interested in cards. So, I glued it to a rusty coloured card base and added the black peel-off sentiment. One of my friends saw it and immediately asked if she could have it! I pointed out the error and she laughed and said, “Like a man would notice that!” I let her have it. I’ll make another one but this time I’ll make sure the print is right side up.

That’s all for a hot and humid Monday, June 12, 2017! Of course with this time of weather what follows are thunderstorms – every day starting tomorrow until Sunday! Windsor Ontario has more lightning strikes than anywhere in Canada and it is only about 45 minute drive from here so we get a lot of them as well. In fact, our neighbour's tree in his backyard was split in two by a lightning strike several years ago and it landed on my roses. Luckily we did not have a fence between us at that time or it would have been flattened for sure.

Cheers

Violet

A Blue Card

The long weekend is over – Saturday during the day was cloudy and cool and then it was raining….and raining hard starting Saturday afternoon until late Sunday afternoon. Today was cool and windy again. We had the two grandsons here for the weekend and we did spend a few hours at Rondeau and took them bird watching. They were pretty good at finding the birds by sight but no so good at getting them in the binoculars….but they still had fun and enjoyed the walk through the trails so all was well....and they really liked having Chinese for supper. 

Coats and extra hoodies - it was cold! And in case you are wondering, the socks are over the pant legs so ticks cannot get on their legs. It's not an attractive fashion statement but it is recommended.

Of course the first thing they did when I gave them binoculars was to look at each other...boys!

We ran into some friends who were birding so I introduced the boys …..who were taught as pre-schoolers to shake hands with people they meet…so they did and it’s quite funny to see the reaction of the adults. They start out waving and then quickly realize the boys have their hands out to shake....so funny to watch. Sunday afternoon we played Rummoli with my sister and once it quit raining I took them to the park so run off some energy and this morning we played UNO and they both love to read so that’s nice. They are easy to entertain even when they are not playing video games.  We took them home this afternoon and the house is so quiet.

Today’s card is a quick and simple but very nice masculine card. 

I’m back to trying to use more of the stash. These blue papers were just calling out to be used so I did! The striped paper was not quite wide enough so I added the blue one on the left and then die cut the stitched circle (Stampin’ Up die) out of another piece of blue cardstock. I took some feathers…. that I also have a stash of by the way….and glued them together and then wrapped a piece of baker’s twine around them. The dark blue banner was hand cut and a peel-off sentiment added.

That’s all for a cool Monday, May 22, 2017.

Cheers

Violet

A Dramatic Card and Birds

This will be a long post because I first want to share some bird photos I took this week – in between rain drops! We had a very cold, windy and wet weekend. Today we are staying home and taking it easy.

Here are a few bird photos. The card is after these.

The wind was playing havoc with the bird's feathers.

You can tell how windy it was even in the bush.

This is one of Joe's favourite spring birds.

It's so hard to get a good photo of this bird. It seldom sits still at all so I was thrilled to get this one.

And now for the dramatic card!....at least I think its dramatic!

I decided I wanted to make as many different cards as I could using the Stampin’ Up High Tide stamp set my friend lent me. This one, obviously, is a masculine birthday card. The background is a piece of red cardstock that was run through a nautical themed embossing folder; then white ink was smeared across it just hitting the embossed areas. It is subtle but it just brings out the embossed areas a bit. The birds were stamped on a piece of water colour paper that was coloured with water colour paint. This was then glued to a piece of red cardstock – same as the embossed piece – and then onto the grey.

The tags were die cut with a QuicKutz die set using the same cardstock as above; tied with grey bakers twine and glued on. The sentiment is a peel-off.

That’s all for a sunny but still cool Monday May 8, 2017

Cheers

Violet

Rain, Rain and More Rain...and a Card

I’m sure some people are thinking its time to build an ark! It has been raining here non-stop for about 20 hours – and it will continue until sometime tomorrow night! That’s three days of solid rain. There are many reports of flooding and road closures. I feel sorry for the farmers as they are usually busy planting their crops now and the fields are just saturated with water.

I braved the rain this afternoon and took my sister to our quilt guild’s quilt show. We had a wonderful time. Of course all my quilting friends are upset that I still cannot talk and they all want me to see another doctor but there is nothing a doctor can do about a virus. It just has to run its course…or in my case, walk slowly!

Once the rain clears up it will be time to get the BBQ going so I made a card about BBQ’ing. This is a very old Stamping Bella stamp so I have no idea if it is still available.

 

The background was made using various pieces of paper from a 6” paper pack. This is a 5 ½” square card. The man’s shirt was paper pieced. I love to do that. All you have to do is stamp the image on patterned paper; cut it out and glued it to the image you have also stamped for the card. The rest of the image was coloured with pencils; blended with gamsol. Then three black dew drops were added and a gold peel-off sentiment.

That’s all for a very wet and rainy Friday, May 5, 2017. Have a wonderful weekend everyone.

Cheers

Violet

A Lighthouse Card

Finally a day of sunshine…still a bit of a cool bite to the wind though but overall a beautiful day……..which was nice because we are now in for another four days of rain! A lot of low lying areas are already flooded from the weekend rain so they are very concerned now. So, did we go bird watching today? No, unfortunately the grass had to be cut so we had to stay home. Oh well, there should be a few days next week when we can go to the park.

My friend and I exchanged dies/stamps again and this time she lent me the Stampin’ Up High Tide stamp set. Love it! If it comes on sale I’m buying it. I seldom buy anything unless it’s on sale….I like to think of myself as frugal but in honestly I’m just a bit cheap.

Here’s the first card I made with the set. Yes, I actually got to go down to my lower studio and play!

 

The background was done with Distress Inks. The birds are part of the set as well as the waves in the water; the sand and the grasses. Once the background was completed I stamped the lighthouse in Espresso….ooops the yellow sky shows through where it is light brown on the lighthouse. So, I used a paint brush with some Espresso ink on it and filled it in just enough that the yellow did not show through. I had a few other backgrounds already completed so I simply stamped some lighthouses on white cardstock and I’ll cut them out and glue them in place.

The paper and ribbon is from my stash. The buff piece of paper behind the lighthouse was die cut with an old Sizzix die and then the edges were inked with Distress Walnut Stain ink. I also used a sponge with some Walnut Stain on it to form a shadow for the lighthouse….its faint, but there. The ribbon was glued down and behind the card front before gluing it to the card base which is a 5 ½” square kraft card from Michaels. The anchor was die cut using an old QuicKutz die and then three black dew drops were added. The brad in the anchor was gold but it was too shiny so I ran a black alcohol pen over it.

That’s all for a sunny Tuesday, May 3, 2017.

Cheers

Violet

Don’t forget you are more than welcome to save any cards or other items I post to your Pinterest account for future reference. Simply place the curser over the picture until the Pinterest save sign shows up in the top left corner and enter. This will take you to your Pinterest account. If it doesn’t work, please leave a comment and let me know so I fix it. Thanks.

A Different Masculine Card

Well this past weekend was very unproductive. On Saturday I decided to walk to the nursing home to drop off the church’s newsletter and chat with the residents that I visit there. It’s about 3 city blocks away. I noticed walking that my legs felt heavy and tired. When I got to the nursing home there was a sign on the door that read that they did not want visitors as they were in midst of a severe influenza outbreak – I quickly made a U-turn and went home….was very tired by the time I made it back home. And then I got cold…shivery cold. And I was cold most of yesterday. I spent the day bundled up in heavy clothes, wrapped in a valour blanket and worked on getting photos ready for scrapbooking. I thawed out around supper time and this morning I was able to go for an hour’s walk and felt just fine. I was talking to my sister this morning and she has the same thing….and then another friend on Facebook said her grandkids had it. Some weird bug must be going around. Hopefully I’ll get more done this week.

Luckily I have extra cards made that have not been posted yet. One of the cards I just made is really different than my normal cards…..but I rather like how it turned out.

 

I actually like making masculine cards….maybe because they are a challenge and I like to challenge myself. So, I took a 5 ½” square piece of off white cardstock and divided it into 9 panels. I put post-it notes along the light lines I drew and stamped images in each one using brown ink and used the same ink to sponge along the edges. The middle square was stamped with a HOTP stamp and then a smaller stamp was used to say ‘It’s your day” and hand cut into a banner and attached with a dimensional glue strip. Then brown thin ribbon was glued over the lines. The ribbon looks purple in the photo but it is actually brown. Once it was completed it was glued to a 5 1/2" Kraft card base.

That’s all for an overcast, rainy, yet mild Monday, March 6, 2017.

Cheers

Violet

A Masculine Card

Brrrr. Again! The temperatures have plummeted to below freezing and with the cold wind it feels even colder than the thermometer registers. This will continue for a few days and then Mother Nature has another hot flash or two and we will be having temps in the 50’s again. The odd winter weather continues…but still no snow here. However, just east of here they had white-out conditions and multiple accidents. We are so lucky that the snow storms usually misses us…..usually, but not always!

One of my sons-in-law is having a birthday this weekend and this is the card I made for him.

 

The base card is a kraft 5 ½” x 5 ½” card from a pack from Michaels. The paper is from the stash. The die is one of my favourite Memory Box dies.  The small banners were die cut from the same paper as the top part using Hero Arts dies and the edges were inked with green ink. Then I just tied a hemp cord bow and glued it on. The dogs were die cut out of left over bits of black cardstock and tied on. I love these dog dies and the cat ones I bought.

That’s all for a cold Friday, 2017-03-03. Have a wonderful, safe and creative weekend everyone.

Cheers

Violet

Don’t forget you are more than welcome to save any cards to your Pinterest account for future reference. Simply place the curser over the picture until the Pinterest save sign shows up in the top left corner and enter. This will take you to your Pinterest account. If it doesn’t work, please leave a comment and let me know so I fix it. Thanks.