Tis the Season for Pumpkin

I love pumpkins, love to decorate with them, love when pumpkin becomes the flavor of donuts and bread. I love to add pumpkin spice to my hot cocoa!  Pumpkins are beautiful, reminders of fall -the change in seasons.  I had fun with this card nothing fancy, just chocolate brown ink and a very loved stamp of pilgrims.  I  have been inspired by simplicity in stamping  of late, so this stamp just has a shot of color, as you can guess Pumpkin yellow!  Some buttons, embossed paper, twine and mat with a lovely chocolate brown cardstock.   Simple but expressive.  A couple of years ago I grew little smoky pumpkins, all white and tiny. I put them in a hurricane vase on my mantel and they made the most "Martha" decoration I have ever had!  Beautiful.  A little bit of nature brought in.  I this past week for cooking club, tried a yummy gooey pumpkin butter cake inspired in part to try  by my friend Carol who makes such yummy gooey butter cakes!  Can you smell the spice?  I forgot to take a picture-maybe on the next one...

Pumpkins & Leaves

Today we have a much needed break from heat and are blessed with a little rain!  The leaves have started to change and I think are going to just fall off before anyone can take the trek to the mountains to see them "change".  It does feel nice though to enjoy the cooler weather. Good time to make cards and oatmeal cookies!  I love pumpkins in case you can't tell so it was easy for me to break out this pumpkin stamp and some beautiful fallish paper and create this card.  A tag and some natural twine complete the image.  I love paper and love creating cards using lots of paper.  I really like cards I see that use white space-but when I create them they look scary?  Does this ever happen to you?  You think to yourself  I am going to try something new and then you look at your new creation with dismay and doubt your creative ability at all...so I will work of creating a card with good white space use and you can laugh at my creation.  Ok maybe not laugh out loud!  What are we without challenges which help us grow in different directions and get out of ruts?  I love witches and once I get all my Halloween out and push out all the scarecrows that are currently decking the house and mantle I will photograph my witches!  This boot was simple to make, I drew it, cut it out laced it up-what are a witches shoes with out laces? Used some great paper from my stash to accent the background and it is done.  Simple statement. The witch is in! Have a great day!

Fall in the Air

Ok maybe not-still really hot here. But in the effort to wish for a little cooler weather I have made some Halloween cards.  The funny thing about Halloween and fall in general for me is I love all the decorations, pumpkins, gourds, leaves, witches-but I am not a big "Halloween" person. I haven't dressed up in years and don't go to parties- I just love all the decorations.  We do have a spooky dinner every year-where we make scary food, only looking hopefully not tasting!  So in that frame of mind I created a few cards to share and I am trying out a chocolate (of course) quick bread.
This witch is paper pieced and I love to paper piece turn on my TV and work while catching up with my favorite shows like White Collar...I can't just sit and watch TV my hands need to be busy and cutting out lots of little pieces keeps me busy!

One more for the road-since for me it seems like creativity comes in waves and I can't seem to post regularly...good thing I don't get paid as a blogger.  I have been busy working on my "studio" creative space what ever you would like to call it-in my spare (ha ha) time.  It is starting to really come together and I am excited-even though it is in an unfinished basement.  So I will follow soon with some photos.  Just so you don't think I am slacking or anything. Time to make dinner.  A yummy pasta salad.

If you know me at all you know I love roosters-I used to have Rhode Island red hens growing up and love the french country feel.  Black furniture, chicken wire, deep reds and of course polka dots! I saw this card in a challenge and decided to try it-I used this great double sided paper (a must) it is so whimsical and goes well with the roosters and script on the background.  I love this saying-it goes along with my "every day matters".  It was a little challenging for me to get the folds just right.  I practiced on a plain piece of paper first-good thing!  It was just plain fun to make and I can think of lots of fun ideas to use this pattern for-birthday's and manly man cards.  Makes a statement without being frilly.

Well I think that the jump to Summer came a little quick for me-and everything seems to be on fire all over the place.  No BBQ on the 4th this year.  HOT HOT HOT...  I am posting a few new cards from my card class (sadly named, card class) I think that the 4th represents the middle of Summer for me-even though I know it isn't.  Summer just speeds by and before I know it, I don't have all my Christmas stuff done. 

 I had fun making this pop up Uncle Sam.  He folds up flat for easy sending.  I paper pieced him from an idea in a painting book.  I love to paper piece, for me it is relaxing to cut out and glue.  I embossed his beard and mustache to give him some extra dimension and added the stars to the front.  I am loving this fun fold card, so I know you will see more of them!

Here is to the cranky ladies that are so fun to stamp and imagine what they are saying.  I will call her Gladys and I imagined that she was sunning herself by the pool and thinking about key lime pie...

Time is just speeding by as usual.  We have jumped right into warmer weather-not so sure how I feel about that...Today though I have finished folding a few more of these darling little shirts that Cambria Turnbow posted.  I love folding them I have a nice little stack-now what to do?  I made a couple into Father's Day and birthday cards.  Seriously they are just too fun to fold.  I am an Aunt again today as well!  Lots to celebrate! 

Isn't this a great stamp?  She has so much character and is so easy to use with almost any sentiment.   I couldn't help but color her bright and use this great sentiment-it is always nice to have a quick card that can be a "just thinking about you" kind of card.  I know that card making is becoming somewhat of an anomaly-but honestly, there is nothing nicer than reaching in your mail box and seeing a small envelope with handwriting and know that it isn't another bill or piece of junk mail, that someone was thinking about you! What a great feeling!  I recently saw this cheesy TV movie about an old man who sent these fabulous letters to strangers that he picked out of the phone book-it really got me thinking how hard would it be to sit down and send a card a week to someone I love? So keep checking your mail, and send a few yourself-just a quick note to let someone you love know that they are loved!

Card Inspiration

Hi fellow card lovers.  I have been seeing a lot of the pure innocence stamps and loving them.  So I saved my pennies and purchased a couple.  I have had lots of fun coloring with my Copic markers and discovering what flesh colors I like the best.  Sometimes it is hard to tell from the pen alone-  I love patterned paper and of course embossing folders.  I believe I am a polka dot lover.  Of any sort, embossing folder, every color of Bo Bunny polka dot paper-they just seem so friendly and happy!  They match with almost everything and add just the right pop.  I have tried very hard not to use so many polka dots but as you will see-have failed miserably.  Oh well, tomorrow is another day...

I also wanted to show the card I taught at our Inkblots stamp group.  I struggle with always giving the best directions especially with a difficult folding card.  So I let the ladies look at the base and do it their own way.  Everyone seems to understand directions differently and that worked out for the best.  I like to watch it, then do it.  Read about it, not so much.  This is one of those side step cards-super fun to make after you spent some time figuring out the easiest way to make it for yourself!

I also made a couple of more cards for my Etsy shop so here is one of my favorite Penny Black stamps. Frogs in real life are not this cute!

Spring Fever?

With the beautiful sunshine I get itchy to start spring cleaning...nah,

 I will stamp and make cards instead! 

Yes, the day will come that sweeping and scrubbing will need to take place, but for today  I am going to throw open the window and enjoy the sunshine and fresh breeze.









Creating is so much fun! I have been trying to use up ( as always) the tons of paper I have.  And I will admit, some I can't believe I bought and some will never match with anything, I am not kidding.  I have searched high and low.  I have about decided that I should only buy paper in matching, coordinated sets.  It just takes the guess work out of will this match with something else? I know, I know, where is the challenge in that?  I am a person who doesn't like to waste paper so I try to make all my cards economically.  It is not that I don't love different shaped cards, sorry square cards, I do like to admire them and their crisp shape-it is just the pain at the post office,  I like to avoid. I have a good friend who inspires me to "do the math" in my creating of cards.   I have also recently, yes, don't be shocked just started to throw away my scraps.  I just amassed so many and couldn't in a lifetime use them all.  I know, I might seem a little unadventurous, I am working on trying new things.  I have really gotten into fun folds and creative uses like that.  I just don't want to have to spend a dollar to send a card. Ok maybe a special one...

Ground Hog Day

Well the furry critter said more Winter for us.  I can't complain, it hasn't been rough at all where I live.  I don't mind the cold but I am looking forward to opening the windows again.  I love  when you can smell in the air the earth warming and readying itself for Spring. We have had some lovely 70 degree days.  SO I have been busy again making cards.  I have finished the birthday cards for all the nieces and nephews (yahoo!)  now I just have all the friends to create.  I love stamping. I love all the dies available today as well-I used the memory box dies of the flower border, the lovely branch and the little clouds to add just the right touch.  I used an embossing folder to accent the spellbinders die background in blue, some raffia and a tag and a happy little bird in red. 

  I love how creative we can all be with a few pieces of paper, some stamps and a handful of embellishments.  I realize, of course, that some of our carefully made creations just end up in the circular file-but hopefully for one brief moment the card brought a smile to the lips and the knowledge to the receiver that they are thought of and loved.

February the month of ?

Well, I am proud to announce that I actually may accomplish the goal of having all the birthday cards for the year done!  Wahoo!  It really has been kind of fun.  After I made the fun fold Valentine I decided to try the same design out as birthday cards-I love the plane die from Papertrey Ink and I needed to make masculine birthday designs so I folded the card with a creamy cardstock base and embossed the one end that tucks into the fold.  I used a spellbinder die to cut the great shape-I put argyle paper on the top and cut the plane from black & white polka dot, pop doted on top.  Loved it- I then added the tag and the twine.  This card was so fun to create and I love the embossed front -added dimension without overly papered-

  I love when something creative inspires even more creativity-it has been way too long for me!  It just kind of snowballs and creativity flows, so needless to say I have only a few more cards to make to be done!

Fun with Hearts

Time is speeding by as usual-and this year I am determined (re-determined) to keep up with card making for the holidays and birthdays and just because events!  Of course I start out every new year like this-  I have started reorganizing my crafting space (again).  I am determined this time that it will be finished the way I want on it. (OK not very realistic, but I can dream right?) That helped motivate me, seeing all my fun dies, paper, and stamps while I worked through finding them a permanent home.  That did stall the reorganizing process-but restarted the creative process. Do you ever find that you can spend all this time collecting ideas, and creative stuff, but not really use it? Sometimes I think I have as much fun organizing all my things as I do using them. Anyway I made these cards for a class and I think they each turned out fun and I really enjoyed using my Spellbinders dies and Papertrey Ink Stamps.  As well as a new die company I just found that I love to use-Memory Box Dies.  Some beautiful images and super creative dies.  Too much fun with folds. I can't help but love them. Folding is an easy way to really make your card fun to open and have without too much stress or time to create.  Sorry about the dot on the photos-don't know exactly what that is?