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!