Masculine Cards, oh my!

I don't know why masculine cards are so hard to do!

Maybe because men don't really appreciate a card!

For these cards I goggled sunsets, I wanted them to be somewhat accurate.

Very easy to do, you just use a square of a sponge, I buy mine at the dollar store and cut them up.

Then you press the sponge on the ink pad then rub it on the paper, easy!

For the sun, I punched a circle out of a sticky sheet so it wouldn't move as I was rubbing ink.

I used just a piece of paper to get the straight line,

I always do the black last!

For the sunset use the lightest color first.

The animals that I stamped aren't solid so I filled them in with a black marker.

Simple and pretty!

I Love this card, it is simple yet so pretty!

I now have a sewing room, so it makes it very easy to add a few stiches on a card:

which you will notice I do often now.

This winter I remounted most of my wood stamps,

to clear mount which made lining up the words so much easier!

 

Supplies used:

old olive, whisper white, tempting turquoise, tangerine tango, Daffodil delight and melon mambo cardstock and ink.  Rhinestone basic jewels, button and butterfly punches, bigz butterfly die and  butterfly embosslit.  I also used the chevron folder for the one butterfly.  Everyday flexible phrases, and Happiest birthday wishes stamp sets.



How God sees us!

     As I was painting this canvas I saw this scripture in a new light!  

      Our son has been going through a dark place doing dark things

but as I was painting,

I thought,

God you see my boy as beautiful and with no flaws, wow!!!

Somehow we think if we are doing everything right,

 then this scripture is true!

 no!

It is true, no matter what, whether we are living right or not! 

 So as I painted,

I thanked the Lord,

for how beautiful my kids are!

I thanked God that he made them without flaw!

 I love how the spirit of God can shift your thinking!

Spring has arrived!

 

Since the beginning of March I have been hearing people say, "I don't think we are going to get spring" and I would reply, "I am pretty sure we will"!  The seasons come and go but they do for sure come every year, Spring always comes! 
Yesterday I was out cleaning up all the dead plants, leaves from last year and I was amazed at the new life.  Just a couple of days before it was winter, with snow and the whole bit and now there was already plants growing, bees were buzzing and there were lady bugs, Everywhere!  When you live in Saskatchewan you learn to go with the flow because it will probably snow again and actually it is in the forecast but the fact is Spring is here.
I was pondering all of this and I thought, we always hear about this next move of God, how it is going to surpass anything the previous generations have ever experienced.  We pray for it, we hear preaching about it and I think sometimes we just think it will never come but like Spring it will come and one day it will be winter, cold and lifeless and the next day it will be here, with new life and miracles and we will be in it. 
I was also thinking about how we say Jesus will come back but we don't live like he will come tomorrow.  He is coming back it is a promise and it very well could be tomorrow or today and we will be like, He is here, wow, I am sure we will be surprised but we shouldn't be because He said He would be back.

 

After all that I do have a card for today!





I finally used my sticky rounds, I bought them probably a year ago and have never used them,

 until now!

If you haven't used them it is the same material as the sticking tape, really sticky,

that ribbon is not going to come off!

Also a first time use is the lace tape!

Products used:

Stamp set: Happiest birthday wishes

Cardstock: Crumb cake, melon mambo, Chocolate chip, Whisper White, Marina Mist and Old Olive

Ink: Chocolate Chip ink pad and marker 

Happy birthday!

It was really hard to capture how this card looks in person, on camera.

The butterfly and the Happy Birthday are both embossed with silver embossing powder.

I used Pool party ink and CS, Summer Starfruit ink, Soft Suede ink and Vellum paper.

For Stamp sets I used Papaya Collage and Happiest Birthday Wishes.

I should also say, this card was not inspired by me it came right from the pages of the current Stampin Up Catty.

I actually did quite a few cards by copying the samples.

The Catty is great for getting inspiration!

Back at the card making!

I haven't made any cards since before Christmas and my stash was VERY low.

It was my mother-in-laws birthday last week and she loves my homemade cards,

 so I made her up a package of ten cards!

I also made 2 of each cards, plus extra ones, so I will have lots to blog about in the next two weeks.

All summer long, I look forward to crafting!

We have a very large yard that requires quite a bit of work and by the end of each day I am too tired to craft.

Sad to say, I never really took advantage of the winter months and here I am in the spring with lots of

yard work to do, oh well! 

My Mom loves all things antique, so I tried to gives this card the  antique feel.

For the first time, sad to say, I used my envelope board to make the envelope, it makes it so easy, a must have for every card maker out there.

I can't tell you the name of this DSP, it is from a previous catty.

I used very vanilla, marina mist CS, Soft Suede ink, rose ribbon and pearls.

I don't think you can get the rose ribbon anymore, I have to say it has been by far my favorite ribbon!

 

Watercolors and faces!

It has been sooo long since I posted last.  I have been so tired, that I have only been managing the daily needs of my family and if I did have the energy to make cards I didn't have enough energy to blog about it.  Hopefully I am coming out of my slump.  I have been playing with my watercolor crayons and watercolor paper, so fun!  I don't know what I will do with them but everything doesn't have to have a purpose.  I just simply feel better when I create, it is like I am connecting with my inner spirit man.

This is the first girl I did, not very realistic but I didn't want her to be.

I painted this girl on a bible page, Is. 40, I put gesso where I wanted to watercolor. 

At my ladies prayer group we were praying about how we seem to make everything harder than it needs to be and that if we just spend time with Jesus, He lifts us up on wings of eagles high above all our worries.

I really need to do this more!!!

I taped this picture to the inside of my prayer journal, as a reminder!

My last girl!  I really like her, she looks a bit like me with the streaks of gray, my eyes aren't as cool though!