Cell Phone Stands

Good afternoon.  A couple of weeks ago I was on the Deco Art Facebook page and an artist had made some beautiful cell phone stands.  So, I inquired where to get the blanks, and ordered a few to make for my girls for Christmas.  I will put the link here, but they are now more than double what I paid for mine...just so you know.  Creative Arts Lifestyle 

 

So, they came, and I got out the acrylic paints, some stamps, and some ink.  I painted mine so they are double sided...gives you two surfaces you can interchange. 

My granddaughter likes camo and cats, so that was easy.  I chose 3 pinks, a gray, and some silver foil and made some camo.  I stamped her name using a Stampin' Up alphabet and Gina K Amalgam ink. I love this ink and used it on all the images.  When dry, it doesn't smear or bleed, so it's great for coloring with alcohol ink markers or watercoloring.  It's my new go-to ink.

For the other side, I painted bright colors and stamped one of the Tim Holtz Crazy Cats along with the fish bones, milk and ball of yarn.  I used a stamp positioner to stamp the images, then I painted them with acrylic ink, then stamped them again to make them pop.  

The white part can be removed and the back turned around, which is why I left it white.

For the next holder, I used a Stampin' Up mermaid stamp and free-handed the fish and kelp.  Again, I used a stamp positioner to stamp the mermaid, painted her with acrylic paint, then stamped her again, for a crisp image.

There is glitter on the mermaid tail, and glitter on the bubbles.

The other side of the holder I painted white, then stamped the flowers (Gina K, I think), dragonfly (Stampin' Up), and leaves (Ranger Dylusions).

I painted the images with acrylic paint and then stamped again when it was dry. I put glitter on the dragonfly for some sparkle.

I'm not a great artist, but I am happy with the way they turned out.  I have a couple more to make and will share them at a later date.

Hope you are staying cool.  It's still hot as blazes here.  I am waiting for late October for some relief from the heat.

Happy stamping...

Galaxy Background

I recently needed to make a galaxy background for a group I'm in.  I love making these backgrounds, so I made a few extra. I'm glad I did...this is the cute card I made using the Half Pint Heroes stamp set illustrated by Claire Brennan and sold by Gina K. Designs.

The inside of the card says, "love you to the moon and back."

This card went in the bag of cards that went to Ronald McDonald House of Central Florida - Nemours.

With Sympathy...

Good morning, friends. Still waiting for cooler weather.

Nobody likes to have to send sympathy cards, but occasionally it's necessary.  I found myself in that position this week.  A friend from a card swapping group I'm in lost her husband, and so I found myself having to make a sympathy card.  Since this card is going overseas, I didn't want a lot of bulk.

I grabbed some spray inks and spritzed white cardstock.  Then, when dry, I ran it through an embossing folder.  I liked the texture it gave.  I added some silver pen highlights to some of the embossed flower centers.

Next I got out some Stampin Up!™ flower stamps (Flower Shop #130942 and Petite Petals - retired) and stamped them in a light blue on white cardstock, punched them out and adhered together.  Added some Nuvo Crystal Drops in the center. 

I needed some leaves, so I got out my Gina K. Designs Stitched Leaves stamps, and die cut and stamped the leaved. 

The With Sympathy stamp is also Gina K. Designs, but I can't find the name of it, so it may be discontinued.  There is a beautiful sentiment for the inside that goes along with it.

Happy with the results, but sad for the circumstances.

Inky hugs,

Another Orange, Rust and Gold Card

Love these fall colors.  Here's another one.

This one uses a stamp from the Stitched Leaves mini kit by Gina K. Designs, along with the "you" die.  The "did it" is from an unknown stamp. Lots of gold shimmer on the leaf and die.

Half Pint Heroes and Heroines

Hello, and welcome to my blog.  Lots happening since last I posted, so I'll get right to it.

Last time I posted we were waiting on Hurricane Irma.  She was supposed to be a Category 5 hurricane when she hit the east coast of Florida.  We prepared (mostly I prepared, hubby is incapacitated), and decided since we have cats and chickens that we would ride out the storm at home.  I could probably find a hotel that took cats, but I don't think they would like my chickens (I only have 2). Irma lost a little steam and moved a little further to the west before she came roaring up through the state.  We were very lucky. Very lucky.  For the very first time during a hurricane we didn't lose power, during or after, and had little yard waste to pick up.  No damage to our house, so we got off very easy, unlike a lot of folks, who had major damage.  I can't remember a hurricane covering as large an area as Irma did. She impacted all but 3 counties of Florida, and they were in the Panhandle.  Some people in our county still don't have power.

Took hubby to an orthopedic doctor this morning, and his ankle has a fracture, so he's wearing a boot. I wish the insurance company would have sent him to this doctor in the first place, instead of letting him walk around with a fractured ankle for a month.  The kind of fracture he has didn't show up on an x-ray, but it showed on the MRI.  He has to go for a CT scan to see if the fracture is healing, and then physical therapy for the sprained ankle.

And Emilie, my granddaughter, seems to be on the road to recovery with her platelet count.  They are now over 100,000, so we are all pleased.

And now we come to the reason for my post.  When Emilie was at Nemours Children's Hospital in Orlando, FL, her parents stayed at Ronald McDonald House.  They were so impressed with the staff there, and so I wanted to do something for them.  Since I love to make cards, I figured that would be a great solution, and I called the Ronald McDonald House there and asked if it would be okay for me to do that.  They said "Yes!"  It would be great for their guests to have handmade greeting cards to use.  So I got busy and whipped up some Thinking of You, Thank You, Birthday Cards, etc.  But I didn't have many children stamps.  Time to go shopping.

I looked at many stamp sets, and decided on the Half Pint Heroes and Half Pint Heroines, designed by Claire Brennan and sold by Gina K Designs.  These stamps fit the bill exactly.  The 2 sets are interchangeable, so I get more bang for my buck.  And they are adorable.

You can use either the girl heads or the boy heads for the car, which is in the heroes set.

Again, you could have the boy riding the elephant.

The fish and turtle are from a Stampendous set, and the sea grass, shells and coral are dies.

Love this elephant.

This is the only stamp in the set that isn't interchangeable.

I die cut a circle and sponged gray ink in spots to recreate the moon.

So far I sent 25 cards the first time, and my daughter will be delivering 35 more cards to them on October 8th.  I have had so much fun using these stamps, and for such a good cause.  I plan on adding to that total before the 8th.  These cards are mostly encouragement for the kids.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing what I have created. They are simple, with simple coloring, but I think the kids will enjoy them.

See you again soon.  Unless Hurricane Maria comes to town.  :-)

Cards for Little Hearts Card Drive

Although I was unable to participate in the Blog Hop due to other obligations, I still want to share information about this wonderful event.

The purpose of Cards for Little Hearts is to collect handmade cards for the Heart Center staff at Nationwide Children’s Hospital to distribute to children with congenital heart disease and to help lift their spirits while they are hospitalized and need major heart surgery or are having a particularly tough time.

The current 2017 card drive runs from July 1st - August 25th with Winter Wishes or Holiday Wishes cards collection.  And there are sponsors and prizes.

You can find all the information you need about the the guidelines and packaging your cards on Christina's blog at http://www.christinahordesigns.com.

You can contact Christina at info@christinahordesigns.com for any questions you may have regarding the card drive.

Here are the cards I made for the drive:

Dearie Dolls digital image

Dearie Dolls digital image

Dearie Dolls digital image

Dearie Dolls digital image

Stamps from Gina K Designs

I used the Stampin' Up owl punch to make these cute penguins.

Sparkle N Sprinkle stamp and die cut trees

Gina K Designs stamps

Some used digital images and some were stamped, but all were handmade with love. I will be mailing these to Christina at   CHRISTINA HOR, P.O. Box 517, Dublin, Ohio 43017  U.S.A.

Won't you make some cards to share?

Curves

Good morning!  I hope you have a fun and/or restful weekend, whichever you prefer. I got a chance to play a little this weekend, and it was fun AND restful, so I'm always happy when that happens.

I have been playing with Dylusions sprays and I love the results. I'm also in love with watercoloring at the moment, so I got to do a little bit of both.  Throw in some curvy dies, and it was heaven.

The first card was made with Lawn Fawn Stitched Hillside Borders dies.  I love these dies. I wasn't sure what to do with the card after I mirror cut the borders and inserted the patterned paper.  I was toying around with maybe adding some retro flowers or something like that. While looking through my stamps for stamps that would be compatible, I found the "Let your dreams take flight" stamp from Gina K. Designs,  and using a butterfly punch, I punched the white butterfly out of cardstock, and the patterned butterfly out of a scrap of the patterned paper, and the card was done.  I like that it looks like the butterfly just decided to take off out of the patterned paper.

The underneath panel of reds was one of the Dylusions sprays that I used. I made a bunch of these backgrounds one afternoon sitting outside at the picnic table while my chickens wandered around the yard catching bugs.  I have to supervise them when they are out so that hawks, dogs, or other animals don't get them, and it's the perfect time to play with these sprays.  I splashed some gold ink on the background, but you can't see it in the scan. 

Pearl and Harriet

When I came inside I die cut the white panel and glued it down on the red background.  I tried to mirror image the dies, and I think I did a pretty good job.

This was a water colored background I made, also while supervising the chickens. I'm waiting for them to hop up on the table and "help me out", like they did at Christmas time when I was trying to wrap presents and supervise them.  Might make for some interesting art.  

With this background, I flipped the dies so they are going in opposite directions.

I haven't decided what I'm going to do with these 2 backgrounds yet. Maybe flowers, or maybe something else. My muse it keeping it a secret from me right now.  :-)

I turned one of the cards on the side, and it works that way, too.

Hope you've enjoyed my weekend art.  Have a happy stamping day.

Thank you...

Good morning!  It's been awhile since I posted, but I've been busy, busy, busy.

I have discovered Mixed Media and have made one journal and am in the process of making another journal.  I have fallen in love with the Dylusions paints, and I have the newest colors on my website at My Paper Moon, under Ranger Products.

Also, I was commissioned to make some thank you note cards, and I finally finished 24 of those and delivered them to the person who ordered them.  They loved them, I'm happy to say.

And now to my latest "Thank You"...a card I made to send to the person who commissioned my work.

I sponged various colors of yellow/orange/brown ink onto white cardstock to make the background, masking off the horizon. The stamps are all from Gina K Designs, and were stamped in a dark brown (almost black) ink to make the silhouettes. I used a golden glitter glue on the water to simulate reflections.  The glitter glue doesn't scan well, but it looks stunning in real life.

I hope you and she like the card.

Happy crafting...

Ombre Technique

Oh, my goodness, it's been awhile since I've posted. It seems like the holidays came very quickly this year, and I just simply ran out of time.  Also, I've been playing in mixed media a bit, and that took away from my cardmaking.  But it's fun.

Anyway, I will try to do a little better in posting.

This week the Mod Squad Challenge was to make an ombre card.  I had bought a Penny Black stamp that I love, and thought this would be the perfect time to use it.

I made the background using 3 shades of blue, then stamped the tree image with Versamark and heat embossed it with detail white embossing powder from Gina K Designs.  I added the sentiment (from the Frames and Flowers 1 kit) and also heat embossed it with white.  I added Diamond stickles (which you can't see in the scan) to give it a twinkling effect.  It's actually matted on white cardstock (which you also can't see in the scan), but in real life it's very pretty.

Since I was making ombre backgrounds, I made another, stamped and embossed some butterflies and the sentiment in white. The sentiment is also from Gina K Designs.  I wasn't happy with the butterflies, so I cut out an overlay from vellum and used white liquid pearls for the bodies.  It also is layered on white cardstock.  The vellum and the scan didn't do the card justice, but in real life it's very nice.

I hope you've enjoyed seeing my ombre technique. 

Until next time, do something crafty.