Many Cards....

It's been a long time, friends, and I'm sorry for being so inactive with blogging. Everything went well with the surgeries the end of April. I've been feeling really good lately and we're done with homeschool for a while so I've been busy getting back into the card making. There is a lot on this post so read on... ( if you want to!)This was a really simple, quick and easy card. Not much to it at all.

I used Sweet N Sassy stamps for the sentiment, Stampin Up (mini mates) for the hearts. Ribbon I found at Michaels while I was in Anchorage. Added some teal design paper, nestibilites for the oval shapes.

This layout I had in my notebook. It was pretty easy to make a bunch of cards in this style. The sentiment in from Sweet N Sassy, the flower from Stampin Up, also cut with a scalloped cutter that fits the stamp.

This embossed paper has a velvety texture. The happy birthday sentiment is from Stampin Up. I colored the letters with markers before stamping it and sponged the edges of the paper with ink.

I did the second thank you card first, then used the leftover scraps to make another one with a different layout.

Next are a bunch of Eskimo Girls Birthday cards. I make these for the little girls who have come to our church for VBS or Bible Time on Sunday's.

This is the Polar Pals set from Stampin' Up. I've been making the parkas out of paper with small designs. I made a template so I could trace and cut out the parkas. I stamp out the Eskimo girl first, then put the parka on her. Then I stamp another girl and color her hood & face, cuffs and bottom ruff with prisma color pencils, then gamsol them. Then I cut these pieces out and attach them.


I have a bunch of little parka's all cut out and ready to use, plus all the other pieces that I'll need. So when I need a new card it's pretty quick to assemble them. The Eskimo ladies up here make such beautiful parkas so I thought my little cards should reflect what is worn by them.

Art Gallery III

It's been awhile since I was able to post anything. Life has been busy around our house lately.

Here is some more art work from my kids. These were from their last quarter of home school We're so close to being done with our school year. Just about one more week and the kids will have it all completed.
Our oldest is graduating this year also! What a busy time this has been!

Toy Drawing- 6th grade son- "Woody"

Toy Drawing " My Little Pony" 4th grade daughter

"Inside/Outside" painting. The purpose was to create a painting either looking out a window or in a window with cool colors outside and warm colors inside. This is from 12th grade daughter.

"Mola" based upon native artwork that is done on fabric. The different pieces are cut through the black paper or laid on top with various colors. 12th grade daughters work.

"Close up animal textures" 12th grade daughter

A lesson on Marc Chagall and art work done in similar fashion to his. 6th grade son.

Marc Chagall by 4th grade daughter.

Now that all that is done I will be away from the blog for awhile. I'm heading out for surgery this coming week and probably won't feel like being on the computer for awhile when I get home. I'll update when I can and hope to be feeling better soon. I'm anxious to have time for card making again also.

Another Art Gallery

These are clay pots made by forming coils and building up as you go. However, I discovered I got the wrong kind of clay! It was supposed to get hard after about a week. Three weeks later these pots are still soft enough to squish back together!!!! The red one is by 9 yr old daughter, yellow one is 12 yr old sons.

Oil pastel drawing made by 12th grade daughter.

Painting by 12th grade daughter. This is the Laura Ingalls Wilder home in Mansfield, Missouri. She used the photo we took on our trip last spring to paint the picture, with a few changes to reflect how it might have looked when the Wilder's lived there.

"Egyptian Art" by 12th grade daughter. This is done on black paper using soft pastels.

"Paint & Scratch" by 9 yr old daughter. A really cool technique is to make layers of different colored paint and then scratch through it to expose the color underneath.

"Paint & Scratch" by 12 yr old son- I like how he made the northern lights behind the caribou.

"Overlapping Animal Shapes"- 9 yr old daughter

"Overlapping Animal Shapes"- 12 yr old son

"Magic Circus" - this was really cool! For the background it was painted on wet paper. You put splatters and different brush strokes on the paper to make a really neat design. You can even tilt the paper to let the paint run together. Then the objects are drawn with marker on paper, cut out and glued to the background. This picture is 12 yr old son's.

"Magic Circus" by 9 yr old daughter.

Sweet Eskimo Twins B-day

These sweet Eskimo girls have a Birthday today! I made a card to send to each of them. I thought everyone would enjoy the pictures of the girls also! Their parka's are handmade by their Grandmother ( Aaka in Eskimo language!)

Card Details: SU Polar Pals set. Their parka's are paper pieced. I actually cut a template out of card stock and did them like paper dolls clothes. I didn't like how the fur trim was hidden so then I also stamped, colored, and cut out the cuffs and bottom ruff. I also stamped the face and hood image, colored, cut it out and reattached it to the image. The circles are cut with nestibilities, the blue background was run through the big shot with the snowflakes embossing folder. The image is also attached to the circle with dimensionals.

Lots-a-layers birthday card

Here is another fun, Sweet n sassy, lots-a-layers sketch. The Balloons are from sweet n sassy stamps, accented with stickles. I can't believe I have only one Happy Birthday sentiment in my whole collection of stamps! I used this one from TAC.

Lots-a-layers sketch

This was a fun card! This is made with Sweet n sassy stamps, Pond Pals. There is a button under the dragonfly and lots of stickles everywhere!

Happy Valentines

I made this card using the February contest sketch from Sweet N Sassy Stamps. This was a big challenge to me since I'm not used to using so many layers, but once I got started I was surprised at how it all came together so well. The Sentiment is from Sweet N Sassy's Heartfelt sentiments set. I had this DP in my stash that had purple background, orange, gold and red hearts, so I basically used that to get my colors together. I found the striped gold and silver background paper and it seemed to balance well with the gold in the hearts. The little sayings of Be mine and Forever were cut from some 6 x 6 DP. Buttons and small heart stamp is from Stampin Up.

MOJO 24

This is going out as a get well card. I used the sketch from this week's mojo challenge and the stamp set is from Sweet N Sassy's Trust in the Lord set. All of the paper is from my scraps. The tiny brads on the ribbon are from the hodge podge hardware set from Stampin' up

Cute panda graphic art

This is my oldest daughter's creation. I just had to put in on my blog because it's so cute! She did it with Adobe photo shop cs2 program. She's so talented with any kind of art and enjoys playing with graphic art on
the computer as well.

Mojo23

This is for the mojo 23 contest at Poetic Artisty. It took me several days to decide which stamp set to use for the sentiment. This one is from Stampin up's Happy Harmony set from last years sell-a-bration. Here are some details for the card: First I used acrylic paint left over from my daughter's art work to paint on white cardstock. I used a technique the kids learned recently and first wet the card stock then stroked red paint across the paper. It did curl up when it dried, but I was able to flatten in out before attaching it to the card stock. I matted this piece onto Pink passion card stock. The next layer is pretty in pink matted on pink passion. The ribbon is light pink and red, tied onto a dark pink swirl clip from TAC. The dp is from my scrap pile ( Dick Blick) The red circle was cut with nestibilites and the sentiment on the circle is also from some misc. dp in my scrap pile. The sentiment was stamped first with versamark and then cameo coral over that. The Happiness Always is pink passion ink and the edges of the sentiment are lightly sponged with cameo coral. This was a fun card to create and I'm already thinking about some more square cards I could work on.

Soccer Birthday Card

My nephew is in a little league soccer team so I thought this would be the perfect birthday card for him. I used stamps from the Angel Company for this one. This also uses the sketch #2 from Techno Stamper's Monday Lunch time sketch. The circle for the soccer ball is cut with the largest nestibility circle I had. I wish it had been larger! It was a little challenging trying to design the lines and markings on the soccer ball but since most of it is covered up that helped a little bit. I used prisma color pencils and gamsol to color the image, trying to make it look just like my nephew's picture and using the colors of his uniform. Card stock colors are Only orange, brilliant blue and garden green. The green circle was cut with the nestibilities, the white one I did by hand. Also the background uses the spots and dots cuttlebug folder.

Birthday Fun!

Another Birthday is coming up soon so I needed to get this card made. I used Sweet N Sassy stamps Birthday Fun set. I had the cake and balloons colored then went to my cabinet and saw the stickels. Of course the cake needed some and then I just had to do the balloons also. I also glued and tied on some fancy fibers for the balloon strings. It still seemed to need something so I added some stickers to fill in more background. The oval is cut with nestabilities, yellow grosgrain ribbon from stampin up. Card stock colors are Yo Yo yellow, Rose Red, Brilliant Blue, Orchid Opulence and Handsome Hunter
Also the sketch idea came from Techno Stamper's Monday Lunchtime Sketch #1 http://technostamper.blogspot.com/

Basketball Birthday Card

This is for a boy who turns 5 tomorrow. Basketball is the favorite sport here. This card is made with his school colors, Red and Blue. The stamp set is from TAC. Ribbon from stampin' up. The background paper is sizzix paper that was embossed with the circles cuttlebug. I then brushed a red ink stamp pad over it to help the texture to show up. The sketch is this weeks Mojo Monday #21 sketch from Poetic Artistry.

Another knitting project

My daughter has really impressed me with her knitting! She decided to tackle a bigger project and make a hat. It was almost finished Saturday but she had dropped a stitch somewhere and had to undo a good portion of it. She got it done the next day! By the way, she does all the photography for my projects and took these pictures today.
Head on over to her blog at http://hiswondrousworks.blogspot.com/ for a picture of the SUN! Yeah, our sunlight is returning! We got our first glimpse of it today as it was shining in our house. We all crowed to the window to get our turn at basking in the glorious sunlight! For those of you who don't realize it, we are so far north that we don't see the sun from the end of November to late January! What a welcome sight it was today!

Art Gallery

For today's post I thought I'd do an art gallery of my kids creations. I never enjoyed art as a kid. I guess I didn't like getting my hands dirty. At first when homeschooling I was hesitant to get out the paints etc. I didn't want the kids to "make a mess" After getting some art curriculum going for them (and learning how to manage the mess) I've discovered a whole new world. I don't even mind getting my hands all inky doing cards now! The kids look forward to their art time 3 or 4 days a week.
We started off using How Great Thou Art curriculum, which I really enjoy. It's taught on video and is a Christian Curriculum. This year we are doing Ateiler Art, which is also on DVD- It helps to have an experienced art teacher to guide them through the lesson!
Enjoy your visit to our little gallery!

Still life- 12 yr old son

still life- 9 yr old daughter

Positive & Negative Collage- 12th grade daughter
Pieces were cut out of dark paper and then laid on the white paper next to the cut out piece.

Horizon Line- Expressionism- 12th grade daughter- this isn't finished yet but I love how it looks!

Horizon line- expressionism- 12 yr old son

Horizon line- expressionism- 9 yr old daughter

Color lesson- tropical bird- 12th grade daughter

Crowd and Action painting- a swimming meet- 9 yr old daughter

Crowd and Action painting- dog sled race- 12 yr old son

My happiest memory- self expression- 12 yr old son
Camping out and hunting with Dad!

My happiest memory- self expression- 9 yr old daughter
Being at Grandma's in Iowa ( swinging in her tree swing!)

Contour drawing/still life
12th grade daughter.

More is coming in another post.... stay tuned!