February 16th Weekly Post

 Hey there!

Hope your weekend went well.

The theme this week at Sunday Postcard Art is being hosted by Sandie and she wants us to Add Wings and a Crown. For some reason, I immediately thought of Elvis Presley.

And a "shine" shot.

I used shiny gold alpha stickers and gold embossing on the stamped wings and crown.

I ink-blended a rough whirlwind motion of colors (Tumbled Glass, Honey and Shabby Shutters DI's) on the 4X6 card base and edged with a black alcohol marker.

I had these Cornish Heritage Farms Elvis stamps that I've only used once before on a card for a girlfriend who was a big fan. I stamped them with Versafine Clair on separate paper and fussy cut them out. to adhere.

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But I didn't stop there because I'd also thought of Mary, mother of Jesus. And I had this Divinity Designs stamp of her and the sentiment that I'd never used. So I stamped her with Versafine Clair and let dry. I also stamped a mask for her and applied it to stamp the Maya Road wings Stamped with Versamark and gold-heat embossed), and do the background, which is a mixture of Tumbled Glass Distress Ink and colored pencils. The stamp has her on a bit of clouds, so I drew them out to each side. I stamped the Funky Fossil star border at top and bottom with Versamark and heat embossed with the gold powder. I colored her with Castle Arts colored pencils and metallic and glitter gel pens. I stamped a tiny crown, fussy cut it and added it to her head. I edged the card with an alcohol marker.

And the "shine" shot. 

I had fun with this theme, even though it was a challenge at first. I wanted add both wings and crown to my pieces and so I stubbornly decided to go with only dead people because I didn't want to put wings on a living person. (It never occurred to me to go whimsical with butterfly wings!) So my stamp choices became limited. Anyway, I'm happy with them and may use Mary on a Christmas if I need her. And as an aside, I enjoyed giving her that crown because I've always thought the Catholic Church slighted her by not making her a saint. Like the biggest one. LOL

Well, I think I'll end here for this post. I apologize for being late with it. I did begin it on Sunday, lol. Sigh. I'd probably be better off making it a Monday post. I'll be thinking about it.

Thanks for visiting and I hope your week is lovely!

XOX

Happy Valentine's Day Special Post

 A happy heartfelt Friday to everyone.

I'd bought Honey a huge 6-qt. Lodge enameled cast iron Dutch Oven for Valentine's Day and it arrived Wednesday, so Thursday he cooked a delicious roast braised in red wine for us. (Here's the recipe if you are interested.) We spent this afternoon and evening cleaning out our store room in the back of the garage. We just barely made a dent, but it felt good to start what we'd been procrastinating for a while. And we enjoyed it and had fun together. So much fun that I forgot I was going to post today, leaving it until the very last minute for me to get this all together. Better late than never though, right?

My Valentines:

I made this 7-inch deco for our foyer table because I didn't have one for V-Day. It gave me a chance to use up sone old white scalloped trim and a Webster's Pages 6-inch round die cut piece from a huge pack I bought years ago. I picked out the german scrap kids and pup, a few candy heart die cuts that were in my stash and red-striped Lawn Fawn designer paper. I cut two kinds of MFT photo corners from red card to layer the hearts onto. I then used Strawberry Versafine Clair ink to stamp the sentiment. And done. Simple and sweet.

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I also made this card, using a PoppyStamps Love die that I won last year. I cut the thin white strips using a Pink Fresh slimline stripes die and the little red and pink hearts were punched out of scraps. The designer paper was printed from Joyful Hearts Designs Digital. I distressed the edges with a Tim tool and ink-blended them with Peacock Feathers DI ink and a blending tool.

And here is the sketch I used.

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The next 3 cards were made using the 4X6 art I shared last post:

This was the card I made for Honey. I paired the focal with some black and gold checked paper and a hot pink card base. I created/printed a heartfelt message in PSE for inside. He loved it.

And here is the sketch I used. 

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For this card, I paired the grungy background I'd made with some stitched nested heart dies I cut out of card that I'd sprayed with Candied Apple and Abandoned Coral Distress Spray Stains and then splattered with water. I made the arrow look with Avery Elle's Chevron Bits dies cut out of white card. I also used Avery Elle dies for the LOVE and YOU. I framed it with some 7Gypsies black designer paper and used a red card blank.

And here is the sketch I used.

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Finally, I made this card for Daughter and Son-in-Love's 5th wedding anniversary. I cut off the bottom of the 4X6 focal card to get the banner look and placed it on a piece of Marah Johnson designer paper on a red card base. I cut the WPlus9 XO border die out of red card to add across the top.

And here is the sketch I used.

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Well, that does it for my V-Day edition.

I hope everyone's day was fun, whether or not romance was involved.

Thanks for the visit and I'll be back on Sunday for my normal weekly post.

XOX

February 9th Weekly Post

 Happy Sunday to all!

Hope everyone had a good week.

It has warmed up here, so much that the bluebonnets, which don't usually bloom until March-April, are already blooming in some areas around Texas. I read an article that said they are confused by this spate of warmth, lol, and it happens occasionally. We call this variation in temps Yo-Yo Weather (think dieting).

😁

This week's post is all about GRUNGE.

I'm guest-hosting at Sunday Postcard Art and that's the theme I chose, mostly because the grunge style of art fascinates me (as opposed to being good at it, which I'm not!).

 A deep-dive on Google reveals that it really cannot be described succinctly. In music, it means Nirvana. But in visual art, it means many things. Street graffiti, scribbling, messy, dark smokey edges, layers of peeling paint, splatters, water spots, etc. Tim Holtz's art is often thought of as vintage grunge. There is also clean grunge, which is probably what I create here, given that I am not real comfortable with being messy. 

Anyway, I played and created 4 different grungy samples that I think(?) are grungy enough.

And since we are so close to Valentine's Day, that's my subject as well.

What do you think? 

Let me know your thoughts about Grunge.

I used Distress Inks to blend out a honey-colored background on 4X6 card, then splattering it with water to get droplet spots, then giving it dark-inked edges. I stamped some flourishes on another piece of card, cut it into a banner, ink-edged it and layered it onto the base. I cut a Spellbinders heart die from red card and some digital grunge hearts paper I printed out from Joyful Heart Designs. I stamped the lips and !Mua!, added the WPlusNine XOXO die cut strip and then added 2 punched hearts at the bottom.

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For my second sample, I added a sheet of Marah Johnson designer paper to a 4X6 piece of black card stock. I stamped the man's face from Tim Holtz Artful Artifacts set (coloring him with pencils) and the girl guitarist silhouette from Inkadinkado. Added some washi tapes and then dark-inked the edges all around.

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For Sample #3, I used collage medium to cover a 4X6 piece of card with a piece of Craft Consortium Cracked Wood tissue paper, then I applied a thin coat of gesso to it. After that dried, I sprayed it with Dylusions Bubblegum Pink, Peony Bush and Rose Quartz inks. After that dried, I used a Bo Bunny stamp set to stamp the hearts: white pigment ink on the left and red on the right. I then clear heat-embossed the stamping. I also dark-inked the edges. 

Next, I cut the top piece out of a scrap of pink checked paper using a Kat Scrappiness clouds border die. I dark-ink edged it but used a white Distress Crayon on the stitched cloud edging to highlight it. I drew three lines for the hanging hearts with an Artist Big Brush pen and glued on the foam hearts from my stash. Lastly, I cut the Lawn Fawn sentiment border out of a scrap of card and glued that on at top.

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This fourth sample is my most grungy one, and I kept it unadorned here to show off the grunge.

It has many layers of inks, paints, stain sprays, splatters.

Although you really can no longer see it, the 4X6 card base has the cracked wood tissue paper on it and a layer of gesso. To that I added a layer of burlap die cuts before beginning the inking, spraying, etc. I used DI Abandoned Coral and Candied Apple Spray Stains in addition to the Dylusions spray inks listed above. I also used Tim's splatter brush with white acrylic ink for some splatters and I dark-ink edged all around by ink-blending and also using/smudging a dark grey Big Brush pen. I sealed this with Liquitex Matte Varnish because of all the water-reactive inks used.

To me, this last one is Grunge for sure. NOT sure that I really want to devote the time and energy a lot to achieving this look, though. For occasional use only.

I mean, I'm slow enough as it is, lol.

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Well, I'll call it quits for this post.

But I will be doing an extra post on Valentine's Day to share some art I made for it, in addition to my regular Sunday postings.

Thanks very much for visiting me today and I hope to see you Friday! 

XXO

February 2nd Weekly Post

 Happy first Sunday of February!

Thanks for all the well wishes. I'm doing much better now.

🙏

Sunday Postcard Art's theme this week is Frogs, hosted by Sabine.

I thought of this Art Impressions Frogs stamp set I have, so I stamped this little leapfrog scene with Versafine Clair ink and heat embossed it.

Then for some reason I pulled out my Tombow watercolor markers because I've had the mindset to use stuff I haven't used ever or in a while. And I thought I'd try scribbling the colors on an acrylic block and using a damp brush. But on the grass I used a Promarker and the sky is stippled with some Tumbled Glass DI. I used my pre-cut 4X6 card stock from Cut Cardstock. 

Finally, I got out my Castle Arts colored pencils and drew a million blades of grass, lol.

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Since it's the beginning of February, I thought I'd share the 2025 Christmas cards I finished in January.

I usually do the Christmas Card Challenge (CCC) at Splitcoast every year and January is Doves (we are doing D words this year). I participate because there is no challenge time pressure and it does help me get my cards done.

First off is the card I made using last week's 4X6 snake. I used Basic Grey designer papers and some glitter rickrack. No Doves, but he does have a bell on his tail so that can be for August which is Ding Dong.

And the sketch I used.

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Okay no Dove again, but I have a lot of glitter on this one, so it qualifies for May which is Dazzle. I went to town with the Blueberry Ice Stickles on the scarf and hat! I like the effect and it does dry rock hard. It's like 4 regular layers. That's the famous Penny Black Snowy snowman stamped with Versafine Clair ink and colored with Promarkers. I found a scrap of corrugated card to use for the ground and I stenciled the snowy sky using Ranger Texture Paste. The MFT sentiment was stamped on a die cut label.

And the sketch I used.

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I pulled out this dove die set I've had for a while so I could actually do a Dove card, lol. I stamped the Crafters Companion sentiment in Versamark and heat embossed with gold powder. Then I drew a frame around it with a white gel pen. The DCWV kraft card had that pretty gold embossing already and I added the dove die cut.

And the sketch I used.

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My Dove die set also has this other large dove, so I cut it out of white card to use on this card. I also cut a Sizzix Embosslit star die out of the white card and found a scrap of gold foil to punch the circle behind it. The card has a Kraft card base (the vertical flag banner was cut from the scraps, and the Verve sentiment was stamped on it in Versamark ink and heat embossed with white powder). I used a white gel pen to dot stars or snowflake balls, whichever. The foiled designer papers are from DCWV and The Paper Studio.

And the sketch I used.

Wow, four whole cards. I need to step it up a bit. Maybe I'll raid my 4X6 album and pull out any I can use on A7 size cards, like I did the snake. Hmm...

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Well, that's enough from me in one post.

Have a great week and hope to see ya next Sunday!

I'm guest hosting again for SPA and the Super Bowl is also on.

We are rooting for the Eagles at this house!

Their quarterback, Jalen Hurts, went to Honey's high school.

XOX

January 26th (on the 27th) Weekly Post

 Hey there, Friends. Hope everyone is starting off a good week.

Yes, it snowed for us and exceeded our wildest expectations.

We got 5.5 inches, more here than I've ever seen.

I also got to see it snowing in the daytime for the first time ever.

And it lasted longer. Snow in the parts of our back yard that get only morning sun did not thaw until Thursday morning! That really surprised me.

Took this first shot looking out from my front porch to my left on Tuesday as soon as it quit snowing, around noon. I took several photos but just chose a couple to share for brevity's sake.

My town led the Houston-area snowfall, probably because we are on the east side. As the storm moved east, Beaumont got a half-inch more than us, New Orleans 2 inches more, and so forth. 

This was taken Wednesday morning, once I could safely walk out to the street.

The power and internet never went out.

I pulled the night shift like I do during hurricanes, dripped the faucets and washed a load of clothes every night it was below freezing.

So it was quite an experience for us.

And then, I came down with a horrendous fibromyalgia flare which is still with me.

Hard to focus, think, remember right now, and that's why I'm late posting this.

Just getting this written is so difficult, so please bear with me being late to visiting blogs and commenting, I will catch up soon.

Now, onto the art.

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The theme at Sunday Postcard Art this week is Snakes, hosted by Anne C.

Since I have a phobia about them this is not my favorite subject. So I went with this Whimsy digital stamp set, printed out in black and white on a light blue background and colored with colored pencils and glitter gel pen.

This took me forever to color so I'm very proud of it...now!

LOL, it got hissed at a time or two.

Here's a close-up of the glittered sentiment and bell.

I will put him on a 5x7 card base for a Christmas card.

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A birthday card for Honey's mom who turned 95 years young on Thanksgiving Day. (I have quite a backlog of stuff to share since going to weekly posts.) I had this poppy stamp and die set that I colored with Promarkers, arranged on a Spellbinders oval die with a Crafters Companion die cut sentiment. The designer paper is Colorbok and I added some gold foil trim around the perimeter of the card front. I also dotted the poppy stamens with a gold marker.

The Splitcoaststamper sketch I used.

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A card for a girlfriend made with my Craft Consortium Sandy Paws 3D Decoupage kit, Basic Grey designer papers Doodlebug flower trim and a HunkyDory die cut sentiment. The focal image is 3D decoupaged.

 

And the Splitcoaststampers sketch that I used.

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I made it through! Yay!

Well, I'd better end this now and go lay down.

Thanks for visiting and I hope you have a lovely week.

XOXO