Tuesday, December 31, 2013

New Year's Wishes



Again, I don't have a card or project to share with you today, but this being New Year's Eve, I wanted to pop in for a few minutes.

I've noticed a lot of different people commenting on Face Book that they are ready for 2013 to be over. This wasn't particularly a good year for many, so they look foward to the new year with hope that 2014 will be a better year. While 2013 wasn't exactly one of MY most favorite years, I am thankful that I was given the opportunity to experience it. (When one passes the mid-point of the sixth decade of life, nothing is taken for granted - smile.) I hope and pray that I have learned and grown from the different experience the year brought me. 

We all know we cannot undo the years past, and we recognize we cannot always control events of years to come. However, each New Year's Eve, we all look forward to the possibility that the new year will hold wonderful things for all of us. It is with that hope that I wish each of you a very happy 2014. May the year hold many blessings, surprises, love and goodness for all of you, and may you have the ability to see and receive all regardless of the form they take.

As the Psalmist reminds us:

                                      "Shout to the Lord all the earth;
                                      break out in praise and sing for joy."
                                                                        Psalm 98:4



Tuesday, December 24, 2013

Merry Christmas




I don't have a card to share with you today (although my team mates at Tuesday Morning Sketches did get their cards done, so do stop over there and have a look). However, I did want to take a minute to wish all of you a very merry Christmas.

May your days be merry and bright, and may we see mankind through the eyes of God, with compassion and love, always hoping the best and believing the best, encouraging each to follow as we walk in the ways of the Lord. Merry Christmas from my heart and family to yours.

God bless,

                Jenée


 

Friday, December 20, 2013

Deck the Halls


There are only four more days until Christmas so by now, you should have your halls all decked out. In fact, by now you have probably finished all of your Christmas cards and are (hopefully) just doing the finishing touches to the holiday such as maybe some cooking or wrapping of gifts. I just have one last gift to wrap (that we purchased yesterday), and I'll be ready.

This week at Card Crafter's Circle, our theme is Deck the Halls. This is a pretty "open" theme in that you can do lots with it. Our sponsor this week is Robyn's Fetish Stamps, and our winner will receive five images of their choice from Robyn. 

I have used Robyn's lovely image called Beautiful Bow for my card. I do think of red bows at Christmas. In fact, I have small red velvet bows on the ends of limbs on my Christmas tree. I've colored my image with Copic markers and then combined DP with red, white and green to create the card. I've added paper poinsetta and small pinecones and red berries, a red bow and whtie pearls to finish off. 

Have a good day. If you can, stop by the Card Crafter's Circle blog. Several of our talented DT ladies are tied up with Christmas preparation, so there are only a couple of inspirational cards for you this week, but they are lovely, so please take a look.

Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Skiing Christmas


Good morning! Today would normally be my Inky Impressions post, but sadly I've stepped down from the Inky DT. I really enjoy the adorable Inky Impressions images (and of course, will continue to use them), but I had to reevaluate some things in my life and make some hard decisions. One of those decisions was to cut back on DTs. I've felt, for some time, that my creativity and my cards were getting a bit "stale." My Muses totally deserted me, and no matter how much coaxing, they would not return. My cards were starting to look, to me, repetitive and boring. I also felt my coloring was starting to suffer. Anyhoo, to make a long story short, I realized I just had too many irons in the fire and the stress and lack of time was showing in my work. With all that having been said, I would like to share a card I made with one of the newest Inky Impressions stamps.

The stamp is Nicholas Skiing. It was just released last week. Isn't it cute? My oldest grandson is named Nicholas, although he is not much into snow skiing (he lives near the beach where it doesn't snow). I colored this Nicholas with Copic markers and then cut the image into a circle using one of my Spellbinder dies. I inked around the circle with Colorbox ice blue ink.

My card is a white base with a piece of embossed blue card matted with navy. The blue is embossed with a Darci snowflake embossing folder. The two snowflakes are cut with Impression Obsession die DIE024-X. After adhering the snowflakes to my card, I added a rhinestone to their centers. The ribbon is a silver, glittery ribbon, and the charm (two mittens) is from the Inky Impressions store. The sentiment, which is stamped with navy, is from a free set I got with a British magazine. (I may swap out the sentiment to a winter saying since I will probably NOT use this card for Christmas.)

There you have it. Take care.

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Tuesday Morning

Good morning. Have you missed me? I hope some of you noticed that I did not get a blog entry posted last week. The holidays, a family situation and winter colds (hubby) left me short on crafting and computer time. However, I think I'm back on track.

This week our challenge at Tuesday Morning Sketches  is being sponsored by Sweet n Sassy Stamps. Sadly my card is not using one of Korin's adorable images (please forgive me, but again, that time crunch thing). I did, however, not want to miss another week, so I used our sketch to showcase for you. Here is a picture of our sketch:


Pretty sketch, isn't it? It is very versatile (as you will see from the DT samples on the Tuesday Morning blog).

I have used a white card base with a layer of DP from the 6 x 6" pad called Christmas Cottage by Teresa Collins. That was topped with a white piece of card. The border on the white piece is punched with a Martha Stewart punch. My green tree was cut using Spellbinder's Mini Holiday Tree die (S2-055). I added red gems to the tree. The sentiment at the bottom is placed atop silver glitter ribbon. I finished the card off with slightly larger red gems in the bottom corners.

I know that for many of us, time is getting "tight" the closer we get to Christmas, but if you find yourself with a little creating time, we'd love to have you join in our challenge this week.

Friday, December 6, 2013

Celebration Time, Oh Yeah!

How many of you remember that song, "Celebration Time?" It popped into my head as I was creating my card, and now I'm afraid it is back (grin)! Our challenge theme this week at Card Crafter's Circle is CELEBRATIONS. This is a nice, broad theme in that you can use it for Christmas cards (if you are still working on them) or any other type celebration, such as birthday, anniversary, promotion -- anything one might celebrate.

I have several December birthdays in the family, so I chose to use the image "Three Cheers" provided by our wonderful sponsor, The Doodle Garden. The prize offered by The Doodle Garden is the images showcased by the DT, so you will want to stop by the Card Crafter's Circle blog and have a look at the DT cards featured.

The card is a 5.5" square white base. The rosy pink card is from CTMH, and all of the DP is from a pad by My Mind's Eye called Lost & Found Blush. The swirls behind the image is cut with a Memory Box die. The flower (which is actually a deep rose color and not red, as are the roses on the DP) is by Recollections. The leaves are punched with a McGill punch. The sentiment was printed off and cut out. The pearls are by Recollection.

Whether you are celebrating the season or a special event, collect your Muses/Mojo together, put your party hats on and show us your best celebration card(s) this week!

Red or Green or Both

Sami's Stamps challenge #8 starts today, and the challenge is to use red, green or both on your card. Sami has a wonderful new release called "Christmas Joy," and the images are totally delightful. Want to see them? Well, here they are:


For a better look, you can go to Sami's blog or to her online store

I've used "Candy Cane Elf" for my card this week. Isn't she a beauty? I've colored her with Copic markers, and have added a tad of glitter to her hat and belt buckle with a gelly roll glitter pen. My card base is white card with a layer of red card. On top of that, I've used a piece of white embossed using a Provo embossing folder. I "created" my ribbon by combining two different ribbons -- laying the dotty ribbon on top of the solid red. The sentiment is an acrylic stamp which I stamped off using CTMH Holiday Red ink. I cut it into the oval with a Nellie Snellin die and then matted it with red card. I finished off my card with red, glitter dots at the top and bottom.

Sami has added a new freebie and a $2.00 image to the shop so you can play along in our challenge. Remember, you MUST use a Sami's image, so you'll want to grab the freebie if you don't have any of Sami's images. The prizes are a $12.00 gift certificate for first place and an $8.00 prize for second. 

Have a great day.

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Let It Snow


Hello! Did you wonder where I was this morning? I have been having a dickin's of a time with my computer lately. Sunday, a week ago, my service provider went down. As if that wasn't irritating enough, when it did come back up, NOTHING worked the same -- not my email nor my browsers. Now, I don't do change well. I NEED my life to flow in a nice, easy, predictable manner, so needless to say, the inability to open URLs, receive email or do any of the other functions on which I depend has been more than slightly disconcerting for me. I have two different browsers on my machine (although Chrome is my preferred one and the one I use most). However, neither of them would take me to URLs, open files or let me upload as I needed.  Well, enough moaning about that. Let's get on with the task at hand.

Today's Inky Impressions challenge is SNOW! We'd like to see the most frosty, chilly, snowy card you can make (smile). OK, it doesn't have to be "that" frosty, but we would like you to emphasize the snow aspect in some way. As always, you do not have to use an Inky Impressions stamp or digital image, but if you do, we will reward you with an extra entry in the drawing. Your prize will be four wonderful Inky imagines of your choice.

I have used our rubber stamp (SSB10-SSS06) called Sophia's Sweet Snowman. I stamped the image off onto X-Press It brand card using Momento black ink. I then colored it with Copic markers. I found the green piece of paper in my stash and thought it made for a different and interesting snow card. Usually we think of blue or white or even red at times for snow flake papers, so I really liked the green for a change.

My card base is a white 5.5 x 5.5" square with the snowflake piece on top. I didn't have any snowflake dies large enough to use as my background, and I didn't have time to pull out my Cricuit cutting machine, so I found two Spellbinder dies that resembled snowflakes (Floral Doily Motifs and Ironworks Motifs) to use. The white one is the floral doily, and the green one is the ironworks motif. I cut my image into a square shape and matted it with green and then again with white. I added a few rhinestone gems (Inky Impressions) to the center of some of the snowflakes and to the ends of the green snowflake. I added my ribbon and bow and then used a cute mittens charm (Inky Impressions) hanging from the bow.

I do apologize for the photo (another thing I'm having problems with recently). Please take a few minutes to stop by the Inky Impressions blog and have a look at the cards the other DT members have made this week using more of our cute, cute Inky images.

I'm off now to (hopefully) have a productive day. This time of year always seems to have more on the "to do" list and less time to get them done (or is it just me - smile).

Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Tuesday Sketch #227

Good morning friends. I hope your week has started off well. Today is a special day! In addition to providing you with a new sketch with which to work, it is also my wedding anniversary!



Oops, sorry, you aren't here for a walk down memory lane. You're here to see this week's sketch, so here it is:



Isn't that a great one? This week our sponsor is the wonderful Stamp Fairy. Gerda ceates such wonderful, adorable images. You will also want to take a few minutes and visit the TMS blog to see the fantastic line-up of cards by our DT members. 

Have a wonderful day. I'll see you back here again tomorrow.