Unity Stamp Company Kit of the Month Sketch Challenge

This card is being sent under the wire with hopes I can get it all uploaded and linked in time for the Monthly challenge.

Background is different Distress Stains used with a paint brush and water.  The stamps, clocks and bird are by Unity Stamp Company from their monthly kits.  I love these kits, so many cool and different types of stamps all on one full sheet of rubber.  Wonderful!

Here is the sketch:



 I thoroughly enjoyed doing this sketch challenge since the finished card is it so out of character for me.

New Beginnings - Unity Challenge

Our son and his wife just bought their first house.  It is truly a new beginning for them and we are so excited for them.  I remember when I and husband bought our very first house and how, “Home is where you park your heart.”    Home is where the closest people in your life reside, where you let down your hair, kick back, play, love, cry, and relax like no other place on earth. 

With each and every home we have bought over the years as we moved from one place to another each house was another new beginning in a home.

Stamps used: Unity Stamp Company

How to Win a Vagabond

Go here and follow the directions.  This young man is amazing - a young Tim Holtz.  He has a YouTube channel - http://www.youtube.com/user/cardofmyeye

The directions to win are there.

Until another day....blessings.......Deborah

You Make my Heart Sing Gift Box

Unity Stamp Company's Challenge this month is gift tags, gift giving etc.  I have wanted to do a few of these little boxes cut from a Sizzix die by Stampin' Up! I have also wanted to play some more with Tim Holtz's rosette die so here I have paired them both along with a some wonderful stamps from Unity Stamp Company. I really like Unity's Heart Background stamp, so many uses for this, here I have stamped it several times on tissue paper. Unity's Music symbol was used for center stage on this card and on the side I added a small tagged stamped with another Unity stamp.

Thanks so much for stopping by.  Have a great creative day!
Blessings....Deborah

Happy New Year!

Last day of 2011 and another number comes rolling in a few hours.  Is it just me or are the years going by faster than they use to?  I feel as if I can hardly get things done and often do not; whereas I use to do so many projects and have relaxing time on top of it.  And that was the time frame of taking care of three little ones, a husband, a house, a yard and working too!  I get exhausted just thinking about it.  More than likely today I spend too much time on the internet and too much time playing with my ink and stamps – but hey that is my life today.  Still a husband and house to care for and the little ones have little ones of their own who are growing in leaps and bounds through this journey we are on in time.

I am posting a card from the Unity Stamp Company’s Kit of the Month sketch Challenge here: http://theunitystampco-kotmsketch.blogspot.com/

May the following Year bring you blessings, love, hope and health.

Thanks for stopping by.....Deborah

Unity Stamp Co. Kit of the Month Challenge

Sometimes a sketch challenge will grab me and I just have to
see what I can come up with using that sketch. Today I did this little snowman card for the Kit of the Month challenge over at Unity Stamps. It is the last day for posting and entering the challenge and rather I win or not I have finished a pretty cute little card which I can now sent do someone.

I know it has been forever and a day since I have blogged but that is another story altogether and one I won’t get into for the time being. Right now it is all about this card. I love this little round snowman from Unity Kit of the Month January 2011. Greeting is computer generated.

What do you think?
Here is the sketch and then the card:

Thank you for stopping by.....Deborah

Have You Found Lily Pad Cards Yet?

“I became a Member of Lily Pad Cards today! Go become a member for a chance to win a collection of Hero Arts stamps. Contest closes at 11:59 p.m. EST on Friday, July 15!”

If you haven't been to Lily Pad Cards yet, hop on over there and take a look around. There are usually lots of contests to enter as well as challenges. Click the blinkie on the right to go there.

Happy Summer, Deborah

Another challenge card with Unity Stamp Co.

I couldn't resist passing up another monthly challenge at Untiy Stamp Co. http://www.theunitystampco-challenge.blogspot.com/

I love this bird image by Unity Stamps. The stamp set is called "Free To Be."
Each of the stamps are rather large too, something that is rare to find in a stamp set. The greeting is also by Unity Stamp Co.

I kept this one simple with an alcohol ink background on glossy paper before stamping the images. I also added some little tiny gemstones just to give the over all card a bit of sparkle.




I am still hoping to find more time to keep up on my blog and posting the many cards I have been making. However the nice weather finally arriving and landscaping here at the house to get finished in the short summers here in north Idaho I may not get that done. I also need to keep up on making more new cards which go over to Earth Rhythms and are for sale there. I am also thinking of adding special made cards which you can contact me to do and will write more about that as the plans get formulated.

Thanks so much for stopping by, it is much appreciated.

Deborah

I was just out Internet surfacing and ran across this new blog and a really cool contest. Here is the information. There’s a new challenge blog in town with articles, swaps, interviews, videos, challenges, great prizes and MORE! Check out Lily Pad Cards! [Link: http://www.lilypad.inlinkz.com/

This was just a fast post cause I am headed back over there to check it out further and complete the entering of the blog candy.


Have a great day.
Deborah

Playing with a Challenge

I decided to play in a Challenge over on the Unity Stamp Company Challenge blog here: http://www.theunitystampco-challenge.blogspot.com/ This is the first card challenge I have done in many years and for some reason when I saw the challenge I just had to do it so I gave in …he …he…he…we stampers all know how that happens. I will probably make another one, it came together pretty fast once I got the sentiment worked out on the computer, printed it out, and used a Spellbinders Nestabilities die on it. When I saw the challenge and remembered I had this shoe stamp from Unity the sentiment just appeared in my head and main reason why I had to do this card. I next stamped the shoes across the top and put glossy accents (crystal effects) over the shoes to give them some high fashion shine. Image: Unity Stamp Company

A Signal That Winter's End is Near

The Canadian Geese are on their way north again which signals for me the nearing end of long winters here in north Idaho. Each spring and each fall they stop to enjoy the mowed hey in our field and the neighbors. This picture was taken a few weeks ago on one very cold bitter day in the teens with about six inches of new snow on top of a few older inches of snow. They were happily eating and enjoying the warmer water of the flowing creek here in our field. I took the photo from a distance from our house on the hill with a 10x optical zoom. I guess it didn't turn out too badly from as far away as I was taking the picture. The snow is now all gone but for a few piles where the snow blower or our shovels made it deeper and in some area where the sun does not yet reach around the trees. I long for the brightness an warmth of the sun and look eagerly for the warmer summer months, which are always too short here in the north.

The card below was stamped with white ink and than colored with color pencils. The paper is a dark blue star paper, which has a soft glitter like sheen to it. I do not recall the name of this technique but it was fun to do and very easy. Daisy image is by Stampin' Up!

The next two cards are the same but for the color of the paper. Both were embossed in a Tim Holtz embossing folder after applying ink to the folder itself in order to get the dark and light impressions. The birdhouse is stamped and cut out, applied with dimensional glue dots. Image of birdhouse is by Unity Stamps.

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking a look. Enjoy the coming weekend and blessing to you and your loved ones.

Deborah

Will Time Ever Allow

There was once a time when I took pride in being this woman who could multi-task and finish all the projects, plus having everything neat, tidy and organized within the sphere I lived in. I don't know where that girl went because these days I am anything but neat, tidy and organized as you can see the disorganization of my studio in my long ago last post. And frankly I want that girl back!

I think I have added to many things to that "to do list" and there are not enough hours in the day, let alone the energy to do it all and get it finished. With the internet it has brought me a multitude of things I want to read about. Google Earth has me traveling the globe looking at earth features I would not have seen otherwise. The other day I took a trip, by internet of course, to the possible place where Moses led the Israelites across the Sea and then on to the mountain where God YHVH gave us his laws for worshiping Him and living with our fellow man/woman. The terrain is so barren and rugged, there is no way anything could have survived for very long out there without the provisions that God YHVH provided.

In my art, stamping world I have some cards for sale at a little shop in Ponderay, Idaho called Earth Rhythms. It is a little store where one can buy needed items as well as yummy takeout food. They also have in house seating where you can crab a quick bite to eat. I don’t have eight cards there at a time and go in about once a week and either add to them or change them out with something different. If I display any more than eight at a time some cards would be hidden behind others, however I will probably do that in the future.

Below are some recent projects: Enjoy and have a day filled with blessings and love.
Deborah




Images by Stampin' UP! This is the first note pad holder I've made. The clasp is cut using Tim Holtz grunge paper and then inked. The grunge paper won't tear or fall apart with multiple openings and closing.

The image of the butterfly is embedded in embossing powder while still molden hot.

Images by Stampin' Up! and Inkadinkadoo.

I've been busy making cards.

Very very busy, making cards like crazy. Below is a picture of a very messy studio because I am not taking the time to put away whatever ink, stamp, paper or elements I dig out of their resting places. I usually don't let my studio get this bad, but I am pressed for time right here before Christmas and in the middle of doing several other things as well, like, well yes, still unpacking. I feel like that is going to take the rest of my life to accomplish but I keep working away at it.

I have a few cards now listed for sale at the local co-op SixRiversMarket.com, which is the reason my studio is a mess and why I am so busy right now. I love it; it is something I had hoped to do when I moved here. I have started with several Christmas cards but my head is swimming with so many more ideas that I would love to do but time will only allow that for next year’s Holiday season. Thus far I have made fairly simple cards just to be able to get some finished right away.

I have also started thinking about Valentine’s Day cards as well as general greetings, thank you cards, birthday’s, baby and sympathy and thinking of you cards.

So just in case I don’t get back to my blog as I had planned to do often may I now wish all of you a very Merry Holiday Season and Blessings in the New Year.

Happy Thanksgiving Week

I had hoped to get some card pictures up however my husband bought me a new computer and everything and I mean everything is different on the Windows 7 and Microsoft Office.   To start with it took five days just to get a good internet connection. First I was told I needed a new router, the old one was a G (whatever that means) and that I would now need a N since there was no new drivers to use the G with the new Windows.   So off to the closest office store to buy the N router and adapter for the desktop computer, hooked everything up and I could barely get an internet connection, we are talking as slow as dial up, twiddle your thumbs and hope the page will eventually load up.    But the older computer did a pretty fast internet connection and I was told the N router would do as good or better.   Who were they kidding?   After many hours with tech support I finally called the store where I bought the router and finally got a hold of someone who knew something, and it saved me money too.      Turns out I did not need a new router but only a new adapter which would work with the G router, and sure enough I now have a pretty fast internet speed considering I getting internet from a tower several miles away and then wireless once the cable comes into the router.

It has taken another day plus to get Outlook up and running, several tries to figure out where to put the old Outlook files so they are now in the new Outlook.      But for the most part I am now running along smoothly in the new Windows but I do miss the simplicity that XP had.     I guess Microsoft thought they were making it easier, but who did they ask - computer geeks to begin with?     Not sure I like the new Word or Outlook, though there are some cool features and perhaps once I know it better and can find my way around it I will come to like it better than the older version.    I still have a few programs to get loaded in one is Corel Paint Shop and Photo Album, hoping all that will go smoothly.

I am hoping now to get the new pictures up this week, since Thanksgiving for us this year will be a quiet affair
of just me and my husband.

May God Ceator of Heaven and Earth bring Blessings to each of  you.

Deborah

I'm Back

I am so sorry that my blog was put on the side lines these past months. It was an extremely busy summer and early fall. We worked on landscaping nearly every day till dark and still have more to do next year. Our summers are so short here in the northern Idaho. When we lived in central California Sierra Nevada Mountains at 4000 feet above sea level the summers were much longer and the fall was warm and dry with many months to work and play outside in the sunshine. It was rather dry there in the fall months for living in a forest full or trees I worried about forest fires each fall. No need for that here as it pretty much stays green most of the summer months with rains off and on. I do love the green thought out the summer months this area has to offer.

I will be posting a big variety of cards and other items I have made over the past few months within the next few days so check back to see what I have been doing. The studio is pretty much unpacked, organized and finished. Still a few things to put away yet which are sitting on the floor here and there but it is all getting done even if it is slower than I had hoped for. I am not sure if one can ever get papers organized anymore they seem to multiply overnight, but even I have gotten those into categorized piles which now need to go into folders and filed away in hopes of being able to find certain ones later on.

Next week is Thanksgiving which is one of my favorite Holidays. Thanksgiving is not as busy or hectic as Christmas, and I think it lends itself more to family gatherings especially for the host. There is more time to chat and just be with each other, sitting comfortably about the table sometimes for hours after the meal. This year it will be even quieter for us, as our Idaho children are in California and the California children aren’t coming northward. My parents are four hours south of us and we have been tossing around the idea or traveling down there depending on the weather. It snowed some this morning and next week it is supposed to be in the teens with more snow on the way. This has always been a problem with Holidays when one lives in the north as traveling is not as safe or easy in the winter months. I grew up in north eastern Oregon and there were many times we could not travel to my grandparents’ house in Vancouver Washington. Thankfully the cars of today have better winter traveling capabilities.

Thankfulness is a feeling of gratitude, to be glad for or about something. I am thankful for the family and friends that give my life color and character. I am blessed to be married to wonderful man for 40 years now. And I am grateful to God who not only created me but gave His life for me, covering my sins with His blood pardon.

May each of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving filled with blessings.

Don’t forget to check back to see some of the cards I have worked on lately.

Thanks for checking in and saying hello.