Autumn Blessing Card

Hey there, today I have a Fall themed card to show you using a Karen Lockhart stamp called Basket of Leaves.

Sometimes it's just nice to sit down with my Copic Sketch markers and color up an image.  Picking out all the colors for each little detail...taking the time to make a special card. Background papers are all October Afternoon and can be found here.  

The pretty little ribbon is my silk Kraft ribbon found here.

Hope you're enjoying this Friday afternoon.  Looking forward to an evening with my family at home.  So nice to be able to just hang out at home.

Friday Fun!

How about some Friday fun??? I have a limited quantity of some kits up in my Etsy shop this afternoon. Enjoy!

With the kits you can make 5 of these cute little boxes...you provide the colored image. I used a Karen Lockhart stamp of wildflowers in a jar. Ellen Hutson has a great variety of Lockhart stamps in her store HERE.
I colored the image with these fabulous and fun Copic colors below:
I love to color little images like these wildflowers...just dabble on the color and it all comes together beautifully.

The kits can be found HERE in my Etsy shop. All supplies to make the kits are sold separately in my shop. TGIF friends!!

Chunky Dunkin...

Hey friends. Today I have lot of shopping to do. It's birthday time for my mom and Josey....plus it's been at least a few days since I've hit the thrifty shops. ;) Before I head out for the day I wanted to share a summery card for you.

Karen Lockhart has yet another darling, whimsical stamp called 3 Bathing Suits. Perfect for us voluptuous gals. You must purchase the stamp and sentiment both, they just make for the cutest cards. The sentiment is called *We're not skinny dippin'*. You can find both stamps at Ellen's online store.

I colored the cute bathing suits with the following Copic Sketch markers: YB03, YG25, BG10, BG11, Y15, Y19 and a Colorless Blender (0) to remove a little color in the lighter areas. Patterned paper is Delovely from Cosmo Cricket. Wrinkle Ribbon is from my Etsy Shop. I love how it resembles blue skies with clouds.
I think these little stamps would be perfect for some summer time notebooks too. Maybe I'll put that on my list next. Have a great day everyone. I've got more photos of my auction finds coming soon so stay tuned!

Pink Apron Button Card

Hey friends. I'm back from sunny Phoenix. My dad and I had a great time visiting relatives.

Here I am back in the Artsy Studio. And today I got the most fun little package from Karen Lockhart. Immediately, I had to create something with the pretty little Daisy Apron stamp. Recently I've divided all of my vintage finds by color. So I reached for my pink basket and found some wonderful laces that are used for lingerie, pretty pink buttons, fake pearls, seam binding and more. Be sure to check my Etsy shop soon for some kits that have a wonderful sampling of some of these goodies.

In the meantime, how about a pretty little project? I stamped the apron with Palette Black Noir ink and allowed my images to sit for little while. This helps to prevent bleeding with coloring with Copics. I then colored the apron using the colors shown below. I kept the apron all pink, just using various shades to add depth and dimension to the apron folds. The E21 marker was used to outline the apron image and a little bit on the apron hem.
Next up, I masked my stamped apron and then used Papertrey background stamps to create a subtle pink and tan background as you can see on the left in the photo below.
I finished off my card with machine stitching, vintage buttons, ivory lace and a Tiny Tag from my Etsy shop.
Such a pretty little, homemade button card that will make a nice finishing touch to a tin full of pink and lacey goodies. I tied the tin up with pink tulle and a button. All ready to be packaged up in a bright pink sack.
Enjoy!

So sweet.....

Hey everyone, hope you're enjoying the weekend. And Happy Spring. We are welcoming Spring with an all out blizzard. :) It snowed hard last night and the wind blew and blew. Eric got stuck this morning while on his joy ride and my dad had to go pull him out with the tractor. I definitely need to have a talk with Mother Nature. Come on lady, it's officially SPRING.

But I do have a nice, cheery card for you today. I used Karen Lockhart's Cherries in Colander stamp to create a fun background for my card. Usually I would color this type of image but I thought it would be fun to see what I could do with the stamp to create a background. I like it. I stamped the image in PTI Pure Poppy onto PTI patterned paper in an Aqua Mist color. I love the colors of red and aqua and cream together. So fresh and fun.
I stitched together some circles stamped from October Afternoon cherry patterned paper and a sentiment from Papertrey. Red sequin hearts finish off the sentiment along with a dotted circle outline stamp from Papertrey. The scalloped paper is October Afternoon and was cut with PTI's scalloped die. Crinkly ribbon, a Vintage Button and red and white twine finish off the card.
Well, I'm off to enjoy my Saturday. Hope you're having fun. Get crafty today!!!

Check out this card I did a while back using the cherries stamp as a main image. I love it.

Pink Apron

Since I've been on this sewing themed kick lately, I just had to pull out one of Karen Lockhart's aprons to work with. This image is called Vintage Apron. I love paper piecing Karen's apron designs, it's like playing with paper dolls again. I stamped the apron image onto some Fancy Pants patterned paper and colored the trims a little with a pink Copic marker. For the background I scrunched up a piece of old sewing pattern. A pretty ribbon and tied pink buttons just add to the feminine sewing theme. For the inside of my card, I used some Crafty Secrets stamps for the sentiment and stitching line.
With all the crafty crazy going on, it's fun to reach for other types of crafting supplies....like the sewing themed stamps, old sewing patterns, my sewing machine, vintage buttons, etc. Oh how I love to dig through my goodies. Hope you're having a fabulous day!

Springtime chair

Edit: Thanks for the Spring wishes everyone! It can't come soon enough, I think most of us are ready for some new weather. Many of you have been asking for more Butterfly Parcel kits, should I make a new batch???? Just leave a comment on this post. Also, new uploads to my Etsy Shop today, link on the left sidebar. Hope you're all having a great day. I'm digging into the freezer today to bake up one of my meals I made last week. Tonight it's Tater Tot Casserole.

Even though I'm stuck inside sitting in my big comfy, green chair because the weather is still freezing....I'm longing to sit outside in my wicker chair and look at my pretty flowers, with the sun shining on my face. Karen Lockhart's wicker chair stamp makes me think of those fun times.
I stamped the image and colored it with Copic markers. I paper pieced the purple cushions using Papertrey's Egg Hunt paper. The punched flowers and background papers are also from the Egg Hunt collection. The *sit back and relax* sentiment is from Karen Lockhart's collection.
So, are you longing to be outside with your flowers too? Somebody send me some sunshine and warm weather!

Red and Yellow Tulips

I really want Spring to be here. I am itching for it. I want to see those first signs of green sprouting up in my flower beds. I want to see the tulips that don't exist anymore in my yard because Eric ran over them with the lawn mower too many times. I know he killed them on purpose because he hated to weed eat around them. Well, at least I can think about how pretty they were.

I guess I'll have to keep coloring flowers for now. I was inspired once again by these red and yellow tulips.
Today I'm using Karen Lockhart's Tulips stamp. The image has a pretty vase of tulips with a nice bold border, perfect for coloring with Copics. While I had my markers out, I decided to do a little mass production. But I shook things up a bit and colored three images three different ways, as shown below. The polka dots were made with a white gel pen.
Here's my finished cards...very much alike except for the colored images. I used polka dot papers from Cosmo Cricket to tie in with the red and yellow them. The bright green PTI ribbon adds a punch of color, representing the green leaves in the colored images.
So bright and cheery, perfect for spring. I finished up the cards with a little machine stitching around the image piece. The inside of my cards has a nice PTI sentiment stamped on more Cosmo Cricket patterned paper.
And here's the sketch I used from my idea notebook. Instead of the buttons across the top, I opted to use the tied ribbon.
And here's the lineup of Copics that I used to color my images...reds and yellows for the flowers, greens for the leaves and blues and blender for the background.
Hope you enjoy! It's been cold and actually snowing here a few days this week but nothing is sticking. Hurry up Spring!

Hey, for you all fans of flowers that are grown from bulbs....when do you plant your bulbs? I really want to plant some more tulips and daffodils and those sweet grape hyacinths this year. It's been so long though since I've planted any that I forgot when to plant them. Spring? Fall?

Loads of love...

It's Monday folks. My girls were expecting that 8-12 inches of snow but we only got a slight dusting. They were bummed that we didn't have a snow day. I think that lately I could predict the weather better than the meteorologists if I stood in front of a map and pointed to things with a yard stick. So with that said, I'm officially predicting Spring weather......bring it on! :)

First things first, how about some laundry? It's on my list today. And Karen Lockhart has a new stamp out called Laundry Basket. There are loads of ideas I have for this stamp set, let me show you my first sample today. When I'm coloring in images with Copics, I like to color several of the same image if time allows. I like to work on wide open spaces so that I can use part of the open space to test my colors.....make a color palette of sorts as you can see in the top right corner of my white piece of cardstock. I also like to have my inspiration piece for my chosen colors close by. For this coloring session it was this cute laundry line paper by Cosmo Cricket.
Using some fun color combinations I whipped up a batch of cute cards:
I used Papertrey's Orange Zest ribbon and buttons to add a punch of color. The black and white polka dot paper is from PTI along with the Ocean Tides base cardstock.
I colored my laundry baskets by using the patterned paper as inspiration.
And here are the Copic colors I used:
And here's a fun sentiment I created on my computer. I printed these off before my last computer crashed so I can't remember the particular font I used. The scalloped circles were punched from scraps of the patterned paper, helping to continue the laundry them from the front of the card.
I hope you have loads of fun today. Or maybe you need to just take a load off. Perhaps you should just load up and take off somewhere. Or maybe it's too early on a Monday morning and you feel I'm feeding you a load......... :) ........whatever the case, I hope your week is off to a great start.

Tonight we head off to yet another school board meeting. They will be officially announcing the closing of the girls' school after this year. I am very sad that our country can find ways to support so many in need yet we can't keep our schools open.

You warm my heart..........

Hi friends, today is a new day. There was a fresh snowfall last night and the world is beautiful around me. It looks like a winter wonderland outside. I have a new project for you today too!

I was so tickled to see this Coffee to Go stamp from Karen Lockhart's new collection. We've been enjoying caramel cappucinos from the local gas stations......hey, they're a lot cheaper than Starbucks and my girls like them because they're sweeter. We love the warm cups and steamy goodness, right down to the last drop. Karen's new Coffee to Go stamp reminds me of our coffee ventures so much. I thought it would be fun to do a little masking with the stamp. I started by stamping the image as usual onto cardstock and then colored it with my Copic markers. Next I used Eclipse Masking Tape to stamp another image.

Then, using fine tip scissors I precisely cut out the part of the image I wanted to mask. No need to cut around the top because I knew I wasn't going to stamp over that part of the image.

Next, I placed the mask carefully over the stamped image. I used a little oval stamp from PTI to stamp over the mask.

Next is the fun part. Peel up the mask to reveal the entire stamped image. Viola! Now you've got a new stamped image that's multi colored and more dimensional looking. Tip: When you're done with the mask, place the mask right on the wood stamp of the same image. It stays in place and you'll always know where it's at.

And here's my Copic colors I used on the coffee cup image.

Have you had your coffee yet today? Doesn't it smell sooooooooooooo good? Enjoy!

P.S. Stay tuned a little later because I have a darling piece of artwork that Jordan did. She's been making so many pieces in fact, this one will be for sale in my Etsy shop. She's very excited to see her artwork on my blog when she gets home from school. I can't wait to show you....coming in a bit.

sweet

I have another Valentine card today to show you using Karen Lockhart's new Cupcake with Sprinkles stamp. I used more papers from Making Memories for the base of my card and for the main image focal piece. I colored my cupcake with Copic Sketch markers, using the gray (t) colors to tone down the brown on the cupcake liner. I glittered the hearts on the cupcakes too.

The inside of my card is embellished with scraps of the patterned paper and a Valentine sentiment from Papertrey Ink.

Below are the Copic colors that I used for the cupcake image:

February will be here before we know it. Do you have any special plans for Valentine's Day this year? I'm looking for fun ideas for a family night......a special dinner menu, maybe some games and little gifts. I would love to hear of any special traditions or fun new ideas you have.

Valentine Angel

One of Karen Lockhart's specialities is her darling angel stamps. Her new Valentine Angel is sweet as can be. I colored the Valentine Angel with Copic Sketch markers. I always like to color the angels with red hair. I colored the rest of the image to match the patterned papers. By Bo Bunny, I think. I used a Spellbinder's die to cut out my image. The background and sentiment stamps are from Pine's Simple Valentine stamp set from PTI.

And here are the Copic colors I used:

I hope you're having a great weekend. My brother went back to the hospital yesterday with heart complications. He suffered a heart attack last fall so we're always very worried about him. He should be home today but will need some major bypass surgery in the future.

It's times like these that always make you take a step back to look at what you're really thankful for. I just wanted to let you all know that your kind comments are always appreciated so much. It's so nice to come back to a post and see that you've left some comment love. Thank you so much, my friends.

How sweet it is...

At a recent trip to Archivers I headed straight for the Making Memories display. It's my favorite part about Archivers that I always look forward to. I wasn't disappointed when I found the new Valentine items. I purchased several sheets of patterned paper, including this collage sheet below. It has great images that can be cut up to use on projects. And that's just what I did for my Valentine card below. I paired a cut image from the patterned paper with Karen Lockhart's new Cupcake With Sprinkles stamp. A perfect combo, just like cupcakes and frosting. While at that link above, you can see all of Karen's new releases on her homepage.

I colored my cupcake image using the Copic Sketch markers shown at the end of this post. A little glitter makes the cupcake extra special. If you want to cut out stamped images to use on projects like I did, here's a little tip for you: Leave a white border around your image when you cut. It makes it look like a store bought embellishment, very cool.

Here's my Copic Sketch colors used for coloring the cupcake:

The rest of my card was embellished with more Making Memories patterned paper, pink rhinestones, Papertrey Kraft cardstock and Papertrey Scarlet Jewel Luxe Satin ribbon. Hope you enjoy my card today! Have a great weekend everyone.

Pickle Pinwheels

Hey folks! We are stuck at home today..again! Our roads are totally drifted shut, although the road maintainer guy just plowed through. It barely makes a dent though in the 4'-5' of snow in the roads though. Could someone drop ship us some milk, bread and eggs please? Eric and the girls are home for the second day from work and school. This Kansas winter is crazy!

And I'm kinda wishing we had some of these too. These are the Pickle Pinwheels we made for New Year's Eve. This plate of goodies was devoured in minutes after I shot the photo!
All you do is take dried beef slices.....slather them with a layer of cream cheese......wrap around a whole dill pickle.......slice.......and eat! Yummo, the perfect party appetizer. They are always a big hit!! And the kids can make these easy peasy too.

And of course I had to make a recipe card. Card size is 4" x 6". I used PTI Ripe Avocado for the base and then Rustic Cream to print my recipe. Patterned paper is from October Afternoon, one of my favorite designs ever. Twill is Ripe Avocado from PTI. I stitched around the cream layer with my sewing machine.

For my colored image, I used Karen Lockhart's Pickle Jar stamp. Who knew a stamp with a pickle theme would come in so handy! I colored my image with the Copic Sketch markers shown in the next photo down. I cut out my image with fine tip scissors and then added some Ranger Glossy Accents to the jar. The swirly stamp is also an image from Karen Lockhart.

In the photo below, the greens are for the pickles, the gray is for the wire handle, the tan is for the wood handle and the BG colors are for the glass jar. Ohhhhh how I still love to color in images. Makes me feel like a kid again!

Okay, I gotta run now. Lots of design team work to do, more kits to prepare, gotta help Jordan with some adorable projects she's working on.....then I'll probably have to crack the whip and delegate some chores......hollar at Josey to get off whichever electronic device she's connected to......and who knows what else. Have a warm and wonderful day wherever you are, my friends!