Framed Roses

Happy Saturday!  After making all those mail-friendly Christmas cards I decided to make something pretty just for me.  It’s got all the layers, shapes, and doo-dads I love, plus a favorite Flourishes floral (A Year in Flowers 2).  I really must use more of the florals from these sets (note to self) as they’re all so beautiful.



I cut out the roses and glued them to the center circle after coloring with Copic markers, and used rather muted colors for the framing and matting to let the roses pop.  I think the recipe below will explain all the other elements.

Well, that was fun!  If I don’t make it back here in time, I’d like to wish you all a happy new year!

Stamps:  A Year in Flowers 2  Paper:  Stampin’ Up! Crumbcake textured, Flourishes Classic Ivory, Prima Romantique designer paper  Ink:  Memento Rich Cocoa, Copic markers for coloring  Accessories:  Pearls, silk ribbon, corner punch, Spellbinders Large and Small Standard Circles, Lacey Circles (used the negative cut to form the scalloped frame), Basic Lattice, Floral Flourishes

Merry Day After Christmas!

I hope you all had the most beautiful Christmas ever and will continue to enjoy the season at a more relaxed pace for a few days yet.  The days leading up to our Christmas were full of the usual – shopping, wrapping, cleaning, decorating, baking, a potluck and gift exchange at work, visiting friends and family to spread Christmas cheer and deliver gifts, making more long distance phone calls than usual – it’s all fun and all part of the season.  In the photo above Rich and I were visiting the spectacular light display at our local Shore Acres Botanical Garden.  If only I had a photo that did it justice, but you’d really have to be there…







Wally and LuLu opened presents on Christmas Eve, just like the rest of us.  Here’s LuLu…



And Wally…



They loved their new squeaky toys, and Christmas Eve got a little noisy for a while there.



I’m looking forward to the rest of my (much needed) post-Christmas vacation.  I plan to spend some quality time in my stamp room when I’m not out having fun with the doggies.  Wishing all of you merry days as we count down to the new year.  See you again soon!

Pretty Ornaments

I hesitated to share this card because I can’t tell you where I got this image.  It was a free digi from somewhere.  I saved it to my computer and then promptly forgot where I found it.  The thing is, I’ve been enjoying Pinterest lately and one of my boards is titled “Free Digital Stamps”.  Mostly I repin other free images I find on Pinterest.  I repinned one such image recently and shortly thereafter got a message from Pinterest stating that the original pinner had taken the image without the owner’s approval and it had been removed from all boards.  I sincerely hope I’m not doing wrong by sharing this today, and I’d love to say “thank you” to whomever made this very pretty image available.



This is another one of those simple cards – a pretty image surrounded by pretty paper (BasicGrey Jovial).  I printed on Flourishes Classic White cardstock and colored with Copic markers.  I dared to add a gold glittered sprig and bow, hoping it will be indiscernible to the post office officials.  The ornaments are glittered as well.  Perhaps you can see it a little if you use your imagination.  The sentiment is from JustRite.

Happy Holidays!

BaZoople Christmas

I finally finished the last of my Christmas cards and, as fun as they are to make, I’ll be looking forward to moving on to other things now.  I tried to keep them all lightweight and not too bulky this year and I can tell you it’s not easy to resist adding that little something extra.  Buttons and bows, flowers, rhinestones, pearls, lots of layers and dimension – I love all those things and they’re part of what’s fun about card making.  I think I’ll not worry about it next year and just figure the extra postage as part of the expense of Christmas.



Today’s card uses an Inky Antics Holiday BaZooples set which I bought last year.  I love the fun of these characters almost as much as I love the fun of coloring them.  This one was watercolored on 90 lb hot press watercolor paper with Stampin’ Up! inks.  The layout, such as it is, was determined by the shape of the designer paper scraps.  I save every tiny piece as though I have a shortage of designer paper.  Perhaps that’s why I have so much designer paper – if I would ever give up any of these trimmings. . .

Enjoy this last week before Christmas.  I’ll be plenty busy, but after this week I’ll be on vacation till after the first of the year.  So looking forward to that!  Thank you for coming to visit!

Hello from the Kids

Time out for a quick pic of Wally and LuLu just to let you know they’re as happy and well as ever.  I took this photo in front of a little studio (?) in the back yard of our son’s new home on a recent weekend when we helped him move in.  My newly retired husband has plans to help with repairs and improvements so I can see us dividing our time between our home on the coast and his in the valley.  It’s not much of a picture, but at least they’re dry for a change.



Remember LuLu a year ago?



She’s grown and changed a bit, but still just as sweet as ever.

I’ll be sharing Christmas cards the rest of the week.  Happy holidays!

Dover Butterfly and Cosmos

Hello!  Thank you all so much for the warm welcome back on my last post.  It’s good to be here and to be out visiting again.

I’ve been doing a mighty lot of stamping lately, not all of which will make it to the blog, but I do want to share this card so I can tell you about another great resource for free digital images to color.  A friend directed me to a site called Dover Publications.    The link will take you directly to where you can sign up for free samples.  Each week they’ll email you a sampling of books.  You can click on the books, particularly the ones that mention coloring, and there you will find sample images to save to your computer.  It’s different every week, but I always come away with something I like.  This is one of them.



The butterfly is a Great Spangled Fritillary and the flowers are Coreopsis.  I love how the two coordinate in color.  I printed on Flourishes Classic White Cardstock and colored with Copic markers.  With a craft knife I cut around the petals of the uppermost flower in order to slip the sentiment panel behind it.  I sanded CTMH cardstock and the designer paper for an earthy look.  I hope you enjoy!

Sorry, no puppies today but bless your hearts for loving them as I do.  Happy holidays to all!