Joy

 

Joy to all of you this Christmas season! Getting ready for some much needed time off. Can't wiat to spend time with family.

 

Homeless Women and a Happy Holiday Season Card

There have been alot of changes in my life. I am working toward a weight loss goal of losing 50 lbs. I have already lost 25 of that using Weight Watchers. I have also voluntered and joined the board of a local ministry that opened a temporary shelter for women and children. Unfortunately the location did not work and we have the shelter on hold for the time being. Our hope is to reopen in a permanent location one day. 

It has always been in my heart to do women's ministry and I am finding this is one thing that I feel I need to persue. There are so many women out there who are just struggling to make ends meet. They are not the stereotypical type of people that come to mind or are portrayed on TV when you think of homeless people. Not on drugs or drinking, not law breakers ,not doing anything wrong they just ended up in unfortunate circumstances that lead to them being homeless. More women than you may realize end up living out on the streets, in their cars or jumping from friend to friends house to have a safe place to stay.

The problem is there are shelters for men, women who suffer from domestic violence but there are not very many shelters out there who serve women or women with children who just fell under hard times. I urge you to look up your local Urban Ministries or Google shelters in your state or area to see the number of people they serve a year. You may not think your neighborhood has homeless especially if you live in a small town like I do. I was quickly brought to the light when I volunteered one day. The need is vast and I hope that you will take the time to look up and help your local shelters.  

Another Christmas card

 

I have been so busy this holiday season. Church, work, shelter and family things going on. I am so ready for Christmas break. I hope you like the card. I used stickers from Walmart and my Spellbinders dies to make this card.

 

Penguin Card

 

Hi all! Been pretty busy all week making cards to send out for Christmas. Here is one of them. I had purchased Christmas stamps and stickers for 75% off last year after the holidays at Walmart. Well I hope you like the card!

Deco Wreath #2

I am having so much fun making wreaths to decorate my house. I think this one s my favorite so far. I posted them on facebook for my mom to see and I have had a couple people ask me to make them for them but I am not sure how to price them if I do decide to sell them.

I hope you have a great week.

My First Deco Mesh Wreath!

I am so excited. I made my first deco mesh wreath last night and it only took about 45 minutes and $20. For my first one I think it turned out pretty good. I used two colors of mesh green and white then added the decorations. I bought most of the stuff at Hobby Lobby for 50% off. The sign in the middle was bought from Dollar Tree. At our fall festival people were selling these for smaller ones for $50 up to $175. I could not believe how cheap and easy it was to make it.

Here is a link to a good video on how to make it.

YOU TUBE DECO MESH WREATH

Happy crafting my friends!

Precious Kitty Card

I made this card using the Blossoms and Butterflies Stack from DCWV. U printed of a free Digi Stamp from internet and then colored it with colored pencils. I used mineral spirits to blend the colors. I love this technique. I am horrible at coloring with markers and found that I can do well with the coloring pencils. I also can't afford Copics at this time. I hope you enjoyed the card!

Very easy alcohol ink spray recipes

I decided to try my hand at making my own alcohol ink since I had everything on hand already.  All I needed to do was buy the bottles. It was a very simple recipe. Fill the bottle 3/4 full of rubbing alcohol then add food coloring to your desired color. I mixed blue and red for purple. Yellow and red for orange. I was very pleased that this simple recipe turned out so well. I would not use these with a scrapbook but I am planning on starting art journaling.
I have also seen another interesting recipe I may try. Using Sharpie, Bic or even Dollar tree permanent markers. You fill your spray bottle about 3/4 full of alcohol. Then you pour that into a plastic cup (ink stains glass of ceramic). Take the tip of the marker out of the tip of the pen and place into the alcohol. Let it sit until you get the desired color. If you want a deeper color open the pen and place the entire ink filled center into the alcohol. I have seen that several people have bought the Dollar Tree marker sets and have been pleased. They are usually only 4 colors but the Sharpie, BIC permanent markers have wider ranges of colors.

Using Coloring Pencils and New Tanner Bell Designs Stamps

I have been seeing alot of cards made with stamps and colored pencils so I decided to try my hand. I bought a few Prismacolor pencils and the cheapest brand I could find CraZart Pencils from Walmart. Honestly in trying both I really did not see much difference between the two. I used the shading technique of blending with mineral spirits with both and the results where very simular. So since I can't afford buying too many Prismacolor pencils at one time I will be glad to used the craZart pencils. 

If you like the Just a note stamp it is from the Mr Cricut Crazy Office Office Stamp set. Mr. Cricut Crazy is now known as Tanner Bell Designs. To check out his other stamps click below on the pictures. He has two awesome new sets.

Butterfly card and problems with imagine

This card was a simple card to make. All I did was cut blue paper with the Wild Cards Cricut cartridge. I then used Lori's Garden Cricut Imagine cartridge to print and cut the butterfly design. For some reason when the imagine got done printing it woud not cut. The print cartridges stop reading. I had to pull them out and put them back in for one of them to read again. My color cartridge would not read and I know it was over half way full. I had to put a completely new cartridge in for it to work. Made me so frustrated since they are so expensive. If yu know of a good place to get new ink cartridges for cheap prices please share. Have a blessed day.

 

Thank you for all that you are!

I have been playing alot with embossing lately. I just love the look. This card has turned out to be one of my favorite ones I have made lately. I heat embossed the green on the card then cut out flowers and placed them on the green like a vine. I used the Circut Imagine to cut the scalloped edge then took pink ink and shaded the edges.

Sorry if this isn't what you came here for but I want to start sharing a little more of my life with you. That includes my faith. I will miss you if you unfriend me but this is me and I love the Lord! 

 I had an awesome day today. I lead worship service today at church and really felt that God presence could be felt during the service. Not because of me singing only because of him.  I had struggled so badly at the practices with the timing of a couple of the songs. I was so worried I would mess up the service. One of my good friends talked to me and said just let go and to worship God instead of singing for an audience. Don't worry about the technical parts of the music just let God take over and worship. I prayed very hard before service that God would take over for me because I couldn't do it on my own. I was so thankful that God answered my prayers and the service went well. I could just let go and praise Him. It is amazing what can happen when you let God take over. Letting him take over in all areas of your life. So this is a big part of my life. I hope you all understand and keep visiting.

 

Triple stamping

I tried my hand at triple stamping. To triple stamp you cut three layers of paper in three different sizes. You then layer the paper on top of each other then stamp all three layers at one time. After you tamp you add a background color to accent your stamping areas like I did with the green paper.

I also found a cool bundle of colored metalic yarn from Lion Brand yarn in the yarn section at Hobby Lobby. I campaired the cost and look of the bakers twine to this and thought this was a much better deal and a whole lot prettier. You get much more yarn than the bundles of bakers twine I found.

 

Time to re-organize cuttlebug embossing folders!

 

I decided it was time to organize my Cuttlebug embossing folders. I had them in a drawer but I had to pull several ut at a time to find what I needed. I bought page protectors and used some left over tape from our plastic window cover kit. It sticks really well. Better than regular double sided tape. I then sealed the middle and the top of the sheet protector.

I then cut a slit on one side of the sheet protector about an inch away from the side. This way the egde woul catch the foldr if it decides to slide.

I put it in a binder and now I am a little more organized. I found several ways to organize embossing folders on pinterest. Look to see what would work best for you.

 

 

Corny Card

 

Just a fun little card I made for a friend. I used Smiley cards cricut gypsy download to cut the corn and the word corny. I used a spellbinders die to cut the rectangle. Embossed the card then inked the edges with orange ink. I finally used my Peachy Keen Everyday Character Face stamps to make a face for the corn. A little glitter and presto it's done.

 

 

Grateful embossed card

I thought I would make a few cards just using heat embossing. It is amazing how elegant a card can look with a few simple designs embossed on it.

Embossed Thank You Card

 

I made this card for a special new friend. I really hope she likes it when she gets it. I used my fiskers stamp press to lace the different lace circles in random areas. I then used embossing glue and embossed the white card with white embossing powder. I inked the top with two different colors of blue. I was hoping that both blue inks would leave the embossed area white but one colored the area. Funny since it was the exact same brand ink. I used my cricut to cut out the tag then repeated the same process. Added ribbon and wallah!

 

Oh My Goodness! I actually won something.

I can't believe I actually won blog candy! Awesome blog candy at that! I entered Deanna's 300 follower giveaway and to my surprise I actually won. I really am excited to see what comes in the mail. I want to thank Deanna for having the drawing for everyone and congratulate her on 317 followers! Please visit her site to see her inspirational projects. Thank again Deanna!

Die Cuttin Diva's Color challange #79

Die Cuttin Divas Challange

The challenge...colors

Use yellow, orange, grey and purple.

Now that is a challenge. Let's see if you can do it!

Here is my card for this color challenge. I embossed the purple white core card stock then sanded it. I then used yellow ink on top of the areas I sanded. I cut the pumpkin with the Cuttlebug Pumpkin Spice die cut and embossing set. I hope you enjoy the card.

You're my cup of tea card

I had the best day with my mother Saturday. It is so nice having her around to spend time with. She took me out and I had my very first pedicure. I sure did not know what I was missing all these years. I can understand how some people can get addicted to it.  For me it was a really great experience but I am pretty frugal on some things so I don't see doing it that much. Don't get me wrong the whole experience was great but I get free foot massages at home. LOL

I made this card with the Better Together Imagine Cartridge and the swirls cuddlebug embossing folder. I distressed the edges of the paper with the Tim Holtz distress ink.

 

 

 

Congrats card

You ever make a card then tear it apart and start all over again? This is one of them. I don't knwo why I could not get this card the way I wanted until i found the tak bubble punch to put the words in. It was one of the punches I got at TJ Maxx for $2.99.  I used the Imagine more cartridge for the chicken.  The paper is from Creative Memories. I them used a gel pen for stitches and gems to add a little bling to the country theme. hope you have a blessed weekend!