Island Dreams

Aloha!

It is the beginning of a new week, and the year continues to fly by!

When the stamp set "My Island" was released from Gina K. Designs, my heart immediately swooned! No matter where we live, I will always be an ocean girl. The majestic mountains with snow, the green lush valleys with meadows and deer, the swaying golden crops in the autumn sun - everywhere in each season touches my heart. But the ocean always calls to me, and me to it.

This is a thank you card for a dear friend who sweat side by side working on our kitchen with Bruce on a very hot and humid day. We are grateful for so many friends!

For the Make a Scene Challenge at StampTV hosted by Susie!

Stamp Set: "My Island" by GKD illustrated by Claire Brennan
Cardstock: GKD Dark Chocolate and Ivory
Inks: Memento Warm Cocoa; VersaFine Warm Sepia and Onyx Black; Distress "Vintage Photo"
Prismacolor Pencils "White, Black, Dark Brown, Light Aqua"
Copic Marker: W3, W5 (shadows)
Spectrum Noir Clear Glitter Pen

Thank you for visiting and leaving your love!!!

♥

My Hero, a Weekend Warrior Bandit

Aloha!

We are remodeling (well, Bruce is) our home. 1 wall is pretty much off the house and tarps, sheets hang down to keep a few of the bugs out (not working). At least today Bruce is finishing the front entrance flooring so we won't have to use a ladder to get into and out of the house (whew, I hate ladders). Bruce is trying to get as much as he can done during the month off from work. Poor guy. He'll be 79 this year. I wish I could get up and help him like years ago when we worked on homes as a team, and I loved to landscape, even pull weeds :)  Yup, weeding was therapy, went by quickly and my mind cleared like the weeds I pulled. Now? Cardmaking is my speed, and slow at that.

You know, I can't help but gush over my main man - Bruce, I love you and don't know what words to say how much. You've taught me everything about building and doing-it-yourself whenever possible. I am posting pics on FaceBook as Bruce goes through all the process of moving the front door, building a new entrance porch, ripping out and installing a new kitchen, then tearing off and re-roofing the house and garage. As you can imagine, prayers are fervent on this end. With his age, Hawai'ian heat, and a pacemaker, my baby is at the top of my concerns. And as always, much love to all of you, too ♥

Entered into Art Impressions Slide On By Challenge

Stamp Set: Art Impressions "Weekend Warrior"
Inks: Memento inks (direct to embossing, bushes and grass in scene) and Copic Markers (all the house planks behind him are Copic markers with nails from Sakura navy gel pen)
Cardstock: GKD Sand, American Crafts dark brown & Neenah Solar White
Dies: SB circles and Tim Holtz tag dies; SU circle punch
Perfect Pearls in black, Woodgrain embossing folder, lots of adhesive foam (had no clue how to engineer this slider) and sketched in the house and flowers for the scene. Sakura navy gel pen and 3D Crystal Lacquer. His tools are colored to be DeWalt and his hat was supposed to be like a Home Depot hat. Add some lines on the shirt to make it plaid-like. Twine SU Crumb Cake (I think).

 The "card" is a shallow box, so I wrote a note on the back)

Open (Bruce was tickled and laughed when he pulled the image out==success!)

Thank you for coming by!!

Much aloha to each of you ♥

Desert Arrangement

It's me again - aloha! Over the last few weeks I've been coloring. Little by little, I put the pieces into cards. This is a Hero Arts stamp set filled with all kinds of succulent plants that I stamped and cut masks for, then piled them on top of each other to create a desert-type plant arrangement in a clay pot.

Coloring quiets the inner soul. (And in the loooong run, it's even cheaper than therapy! So COLOR ON, especially when life happens and you just have to turn off the news.)

While I cannot recall which pattern paper pack the background is from, it does have some brush strokes for a texture-like look, but quiet and simple.

I took a long time stamping, masking, cutting, stamping, masking, cutting, then coloring until my heart's content. I hoped this to be a masculine card to surprise a friend who is also a stamper at STV but his age and health are really restricting him and hope this will bring a smile to his heart. Cause that's why we make cards. We send smiles across the miles to all our buddies, connected by the invisible thread of cardmaking. It's a love that is real, palpable, and lessens the loneliness we all feel, especially after losing a mate like our stamping buddy this is going to.

Stamp Set: Hero Arts "Stamp Your Own Succulents" (yes, it's really called that)
Cardstock by GKD
Image and background colored with Copic markers (BGs and YGs, Gs, Es, Cool Grays and a couple Bs) (no, I don't keep track. it's a hobby, not a profession) Use the Blender Marker to create white swirlies or dots in your background for some interest.

Here is a link to see this ultra cool stamp set that you can combine any which way you want to: HA Stamp Your Own Succulents

With lots of aloha to each one of you. 

Spread the love and mail your cards to make hearts smile ♥

Pheasant, Thinking of You

This is a card for a dear friend's husband who is up against serious illness. I didn't know what kind of a card to make other than it being masculine.

I used Stampin' Up "Walk In the Wild" pheasant image, and some B and B tree stamps. I cut out a mask for the mountains, then sponged Memento inks for the sky, mountains, land. I drew in some grass and highlights with Memento markers. There is a faint touch of Wink of Stella on the pheasant neck and breast for iridescence. Inside says "Thinking of You" part of the same Stampin' Up set, with a larger fir tree stamped in Cocoa Brown. The envelope has oak leaves and acorns, the back has faint pine trees as a small forest.

Thank you very much for stopping by and taking a look! With aloha ♥

An Anniversary Card for my Sweet Husband

I can't help but gush when I talk about how much I love my husband. But I'll restrain myself lol. It was our 21st celebration. How quickly the years have flown by.

Stamp Sets: "Life is Good" and "Country Roads" by Theresa Momber for GKD
Tree stamps: B&B stamps (red rubber, premounted wood stamps) I think they're very old
Cardstock: 120# base and 80# layering weight GKD Pure Luxury White; DCWV dark brown for layering
Stamped with Memento London Fog gray ink
Colored with Prismacolor Pencils
Snow made by Signo Gel Pen in white
Mod Podge and snow gel mixed and splattered with paint brush

Thank you very much for stopping by!

Friendly Pheasants

Hello friends,

I'm having some tech difficulties with Blogger asking me for passwords, then not letting me post and it's getting tiresome trying to problemsolve this. But I will try to upload two cards I made recently.

The first is a simple stamp with Memento Rich Cocoa. Image is from Stampin' Up, I layered the image onto chocolate brown and beige colored cardstock, one embossed with twigs by Cuttlebug. I added  two eyelets, tied twine to a large beige button, and felt like this would be a nice place to stop to send as a get well soon cad to a man we know. 

The second card is a fun beachy scene with Snoopy. He just looks cool no matter what setting he is placed in! Colored this with Sharpies regular markers for the larger areas, and the ultra fine for smaller areas. hey really do come out in the exact colorsr :)

Thank you everyone for stopping by to see my latest endeavors!

Ancient Voyages - Distressing Edges and Colors, a Masculine Card

I wanted to make a masculine card that felt like an Old World ocean log book entry. I used a stamp set from Stampin' Up called "The Open Sea." The large circle in the bottom left is a world map, but it didn't turn out too well. I distressed all the pieces and added some Delicata Gold inks to the muted colors of Memento inks. Four copper nail heads hold down the picture of the ship, a micro rhinestone in black centers the Compass Rose, and I used some Metallic Rub On pastes to tone down the bright golds of the Anchor hanging from the twine. The background was a dark wood grain, but after I got done with it, no one knows what it was LOL!!!!

Finally, I typed up a sentiment to appear like a log entry by Captain Cook :) who visited the Bay below where we live, Kealakekua on the Big Island of Hawai'i. Then I distressed it, rolled the edges to look more like a scroll.

Thank you for stopping by ♥

Thank you for stopping by - I appreciate you!