Football!

I sure do hope you all had a most wonderful Christmas! December is such a busy month for all of us and I had a few things going on. Being the end of the year and wanting to take care of all those medical things (like that 10 year fun procedure for those over 50) for the two of us and the fact that my hubby will be retiring early in 2016, we both lost a couple of weekends. Not a big deal, but I was already a bit behind letting my arm heal. Well my son in Wisconsin and his fiance thought it would be such a great idea to get married before Christmas!!!!! Oh yes and although it was only a civil type service, we were not going to miss it. Well we had to squeeze in shopping and shipping for family on the West Coast and make flight arrangement. We ended up there for an entire week as no flights were available and ended up flying home on Christmas Eve. Our Christmas was certainly different and I will tell you more about that after I share this fun and simple collaged card!

For this I decided to go with a simple black and white theme using all the stamps in the "Go Team" Artistic Outpost stamp collection. This weekend will be a big football celebration in the US and although I really don't understand the game, I do love the spirit and excitement especially in Green Bay! It just pulls you right in! The background was stamped using a variety of smaller stamps. The rest fussy cut and matted with all be shaded and distressed. Just a fun card for that sports enthusiast in your life.

Call me crazy, but I really love WI and although that insanely cold weather in the winter is scary as can be, that did not stop us from putting an offer in on a home. We decided some time ago that when Steve retired we would move and this is a big one! It is very hard for me to leave my comfort zone as we have been here 17 years and have friends that are family. None of my family that I am close to lives here and even with all the good memories, it is time for a change. Our daughter lives in Oregon and we love it there as well, but it is just more expensive than we feel comfortable with and so WI it is! Thank you so much for stopping by today and I wish you the very best of the New Year. May you be blessed with much love, happiness and good health in 2016.

Christmas Joy!

Oh Christmas Joy and only one week away! Hello and hope you all are more caught up than I am! This little collection of cards uses Artistic Outpost's Toy Emporium and the Winter Collection 2014 from Our Daily Bread Designs!

If you would like all the details and some close up photos, just pop on over HERE as I am sharing these at AO.

Thank you so much for stopping by and have a fabulous weekend!

Santa's Coming!

Hello to all of you and thank you for stopping by! I also want to thank you for the good wishes and prayers concerning my recent skin cancer surgery and am thrilled to report the doctor removed it all! Now that is happy news! While still being careful, I went into my craft room to play with a little shadow box from a Hobby Lobby shopping day with Annie. I am thinking she picked up one as well. With a few challenges in full swing and of course some of the DT are among my favorite people, I had to join in!

My stamps of choice "Toy Emporium" from Artistic Outpost, were all inked in Black Archival and shaded with Distress Vintage Photo and fussy cut. All papers are ODBD "Winter Collection 2014."

The box was gessoed, sanded and then painted with a Delta silver metallic paint which is more of a glaze. Love that! I did a couple of coats. Cut the paper to size, glued down and sanded the edges and then shaded. Also using my fingers added a little of the silver paint and rubbed of the excess and then with a toothbrush flicked on some gold. The inside framing was glazed with both a silver and gold paint. I have had these cheesy colored foam snowflakes for some time and painted them gold to frame around that really cool Santa!

The outer edges were treated with DecoArt one step crackle and gold applied to fill the cracks.

All the tinsel sticks were cut to fit and hot glued down. Boy does that stuff get away from you and on you! Added bits and pieces I have collected.

Now for the fabulous challenges I am sending my little Christmas shadow box off to!

A Vintage Journey "Vintage Christmas" keeping it vintage and used Tim's Vintage Photo and Hickory Smoke Distress Inks, Holiday Word Band and Alpha Tiles.

Frilly and Funkie "Tis the Season" with vintage or shabby chic goodness!

Mixed Media Monthly Challenge "Silver and Gold" and I used both!

Hope you are having a wonderful start to the Christmas and holiday season. I have tons to do as usually, but what will get done will and what won't!!!! Thanks again for visiting! 

Au Bonheur Des Dames

Hello to all of you lovely bloggers! Today I am sharing a fashion tag using those fabulous Vintage Fashion stamps from Artistic Outpost.

The most fashionable lady was stamped in Watering Can Archival ink over the Antique Linen inked tag background shaded with Ground Espresso and Hickory Smoke (love those colors). The dress boots and logos were stamped as well with GE and HS. Using the Boho Background Die from ODBD, I cut and inked a piece of Crinoline, inked over with Ground Espresso, adhered to background and carefully and lightly stamped the lady image again.

The sentiment was stamped in Coffee and shaded and folded over a little hanger and the tie was dyed and crinkled using left over inks.

The mini tag was done again using the same inks and tied all up! Finished the edge using the Beautiful Borders Die from ODBD, shaded with Hickory Smoke. Now with this being the 1st of December the new monthly "Show Us Your AO Art" challenge is in full swing, so those of you who have these lovely stamps, please join in for a change to win a store voucher!

Thank you for stopping by today and have a fabulous start to December. I don't want any of you to think I have turned into a blog snob as I have not been visiting or commenting as much. It is easy to like on "FB" and not as easy to spend so much time typing. I had a biopsy done on my arm, near the elbow joint about a month ago and it came back positive for an aggressive from of Squamous Cell Carcinoma that had advanced into the skin tissue. No I was not happy about that and surgery was scheduled for the 20th and left me with a good size oval incision (excision) and also tissue was removed. Now I was told to pretty much do nothing and certainly no bending of the arm or lifting, but I can move it a bit better now, so here I am! Still waiting to hear if all the cancerous growth was removed, but this all fell around Thanksgiving, so delays! I get my stitches removed this Thursday and I think I will have a little more flexibility! Anyway my arm has been a bit out of commission with first the biopsy and then the surgery, but I have been using my eyes to enjoy all your wonderful artwork and will be getting back into the swing of creating and blogging!

Fashion Fades

Remember me? So much has been going on and we went away for a week and now just trying to catch up again! Hope all of you are doing fabulous! Today I am sharing a card using Vintage Fashion from Artistic Outpost.

I started by stamping the dress form in Coffee Archival on ODBD Vintage Ephemera paper and inked a little Frayed Burlap through a precut stencil using the ODBD Boho Background die.

Next I applied a piece of the Boho Background die over the lower edge and on top of that the address stamp to find those fabulous fashions!

Other than the dress form all images were stamped in Black Archival and inked in Antique Linen and Frayed Burlap. Added a few embellishments and distress edges.

I very much appreciate your visiting and will be doing my rounds really soon!

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town!

Hello and hope you all are enjoying the week! It is a Blog Hop at Artistic Outpost and we are still showing off the October New Release, Vintage Fashion, Go Team and Toy Emporium, which is my choice for today! Visit the rest of the DT for more fabulous AO inspiration!

Lisa, Shari, Kate, Tracy

As soon as I saw this adorable Santa, I knew I had to have him in view through a Christmas decorated window. The window frame was cut twice once from chipboard painted red and then another from green card stock using Tim's die and then decorated with lights. The background paper is from the Winter Collection at ODBD and was inked over in Fired Brick and Pine Needles, clear sealed and the using a toothbrush added a little snowy effect with white acrylic paint.

The images were stamped in Black Archival and colored with Stampin Up chalks, markers and Distress Antique Linen and Pine Needles.

Thank you for joining in on today's blog hop and have a wonderful day!

Christmas Tag Week #4 2015

Hope you all are doing fantastic and enjoying the Autumn season which of course brings about the Christmas season! I am determined to play along with Linda's 12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style and already have to catch up! For Week 4, I have taken inspiration from Linda's plaid work and stenciled background and of course added a little poinsettia! The Funkie Junkie Boutique has so many wonderful products and many that I have used and always at 20%, so take a look at this fabulous store of goodies!

As I do not have Tim's Stripes stencil, I used a Prima Static one I had, which looks more like polka dots in Festive Berries and Mowed Lawn on one of Tim's Carved Ornaments. Both the tag and ornament were also slightly inked over with both colors. I cut two layers from the movers and shapers poinsettia and creased and highlighted the areas.

The tag background was stenciled using the Holly Bough in Mowed Lawn and while still in place I used a cotton swab to add the berries. The stamped images from Mini Holidays 3 were stamped using Black Archival and then clear embossed. All edges were shaded in Walnut stain.

Have a wonderful weekend and thank you for stopping by to visit!

Are You Ready For Some Football?

Well are you? It is football season and although I do not fully understand the game, I do love the excitement! Today I am sharing a tag using the New Release "Go Team" over at Artistic Outpost, so for all the details, please visit Here.

Hope you have a most fabulous weekend and thank you for stopping by!

Vintage Form!

I hope you all are doing well and want to remind everyone to get those yearly mammograms! We all hate them and have better things to do then go through the squeeze test, but it really is important. When the New Release "Vintage Form" came out, the first thing that came to my mind was to find a dress form or bust to share the importance of that yearly test!

I picked up this Styrofoam form at a craft store and gave it two coats of gesso and then a later of crackle paint from DecoArt. When good and dry a layer of DA Raw Umber Antiquing Cream was applied and the excess wiped off.

The images were stamped in Coffee Archival on tissue paper and colored with markers in pink shades. The sentiments were stamped in Tea Rose Archival and a Beautiful Border Trim from Our Daily Bread was cut and shaded and applied along the edge.

Have a most wonderful weekend and thank you for visiting today!

A Vintage Christmas!

A big hello to all of you and today I am sharing a little more of the October New Release from Artistic Outpost, "Toy Emporium." Over the next several weeks, I will share more projects that I created and I hope you enjoy them as much as I did creating with the NR!

For all the details and the full picture please visit Artistic Outpost right HERE.

Thank you for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Artistic Outpost October New Release!

How exciting is this NEW RELEASE from Artistic Outpost for October??? I am so happy that you have stopped by today, because the design team has some really inspirational art to share with you and three random winners will have a chance to win a $15 AO Gift Certificate just by visiting and commenting on all the design team blogs. You have until October 9, 2015 at 10:00 PM CDT and winners will be announced on October 10, 2015. Also you can now order AO products as well as NCC and ODBD all from Our Daily Bread Designs website to save shipping!

Tracy, Shari, Kate, Lisa.

For my first project using "Vintage Fashion," I altered a cigar box. After I applied two coats of gesso, DecoArts Traditions Raw Sienna and Raw Umber were slip slapped on with a double loaded paint brush. While in the drying process, I cut a piece of card stock leaving some of the edge to show and covered with Distress Inks, embossed the panel using a buttons folder from Darice and highlighted the raised areas with Frayed Burlap and then shaded with Walnut Stain and Black Soot. Next I finished the surface of the cigar box by sponging on the same paints and some Delta Dresden Flesh.

The images were stamped in Coffee Archival and fussy cut, added some buttons along with other fashion elements and a bobbin for a little handled.

The sides were finished with some zipper trim with a little stamping on it and ODBD Beautiful Borders Trim.

A little McCall's magic for the box lining and some added little spool feet and all was done.

Now onto my second project for the New Release, "Go Team."

The fact that I love Green Bay, Wisconsin and am a Packers fan when I returned home from a visit there and saw this new release, it was like a sign! I obviously went with the colors of the Green Bay Packers for this and also used a souvenir beer mat from Titletown Brewery Company, making it a bit more personal! Using a sheet of ODBD Winter Collection paper, I stamped the trophies in Coffee Archival and the Footballs in Tree Branch

The young football player and sentiment were stamped in Coffee Archival. I cut the oval from ODBD Stitched Ovals from green paper and and threaded with gold. The banners were stamped in Olive Archival and inked over in Mustard Seed.

Thank you for visiting today and I hope you have enjoyed this New Release as much as I did!

Christmas Tag Week #1 2015

Happy Sunday to all of you and hope you have had or are having a great weekend! This year I sure hope to play each of Linda's  "12 Tags of Christmas Funkie Junkie Style" and so I start with Week One! Most of the supplies I used for my tag can be found at The Funkie Junkie Boutique, which is my favorite shopping spot for all my crafty addictions!

I took inspiration from Linda's tag using lots of gold, stenciling and poinsettias! The tag background was sprayed in reds and green using leftovers in the misting tool and then I flicked on some water drops and dried with the heat tool. Using Tim's Holiday Knit Stencil, I gold embossed with VersaMark and gold embossing powder. The poinsettias were cut from the Tattered Poinsettia and movers and shapers, inked in Mowed Lawn and Festive Berries layered up and finished off with a Faceted Acrylic Snowflake which I colored using Watermelon Alcohol Ink.

Shaded the edges with Ground Espresso and distressed and a Merry Christmas from Tim's Mini Holidays!

Thank you for visiting today!

Chalk It Up!

Hello to all of you! When I saw the current challenge chosen by the Shelly at Frilly and Funkie "Chalk It Up," well I had to get busy with my Artistic Outpost's Chalk It Up and Christmas Chalk stamps!

I painted a black tag with DecoArt Chalkboard paint in black and while still wet grated on a little white chalk and using brushed it with a mop paint brush. Gave this a spray with clear sealer. A few chalk lines were scribbled in as well.

The frame was stamped with VersaMark and embossed with white. The snow flakes, deer and sentiment were stamped in VersaMark and sprinkled with a mix of grated white chalk and Perfect Pearls Confetti White.  To finish I added some of those brads from years back and layered up with paper. Easy enough for those many cards/tags we need to send at Christmas!

Thank you for visiting today and there are only a couple of days remaining at AO's "Show Us Your AO Art" challenge, but October is just around the corner and a hole new challenge will begin!

Robins!

Happy Fall to all of you! We certainly are not enjoying the cooler days and temperatures, but hopefully soon!

This is a little altered cheap birdhouse that I decided to make all pretty and used those fabulous "Birds of a Feather" stamps from Artistic Outpost! Will be joining the challenge at Simon Says Wednesday Stamp Challenge "No Designer Paper."

For all the details on how this was born, please pop on over to AO right HERE and have a look.

Sorry I am still lagging in blog visits, but I am trying to catch up as quickly as I can! Oh and for fun Verizon decided to breakdown again, so I had no home phone or Internet for two days, how fun! Have a beautiful weekend and thank you visiting today!