Back on your feet

 One of my favorite get well stamp sets is the Back on your feet set ... such cute renderings of animals. This turtle on his back was perfect for my friend who just underwent surgery.

Fall Thanks

 A few months ago, a friend gave me some calendar pictures she thought would make nice cards. I made several at the time but then I put the rest of the pictures away for later use. I pulled them out of storage when I needed two thank you cards.

They were perfect!

One was the picture of an apple ... a perfect selection for this time of year. Here is what I did with the apple ...

I backed the apple photo with some gold metallic paper and added "thanks" in green on that same gold paper.

The second card is very different. I had a picture of some orange flowers but the flowers were not very big, so I cut the photo into three small sections and backed them with some brownish-greenish paper and layered them on a soft orange background. I like how it turned out.

I am entering this second card into the Word Art Wednesday challenge for this week.

Swirl Cards

I tried my hand at making the fascinating (to me) swirl cards, and I am hooked.

The orange and coral card is on a light beige background and the circles are evenly centered on each other.

For a slightly different look, the blue circles (on a white background) are offset, changing the entire look. 

I already cut some pink circles to try this one again!  

I do not know if "swirl" is the correct word to use for this design, but that's what I am calling it.

God's Masterpiece

 I entered this in the Word Art Wednesday challenge. I love the messages both on the front and inside. The front stamp is one stamp, then I re-stamped it on coral, yellow, green, and blue card stock and cut out each letter to add to the black and white stamp. That added a bit of dimension. I also added some neon colors to each letter with the corresponding neon pen.

Happy Birthday, FMS Style

 Freshly Made Sketches has an interesting sketch this week.

 It intrigued me to the point that I decided to enter the challenge with this card:

Psalm 145:2

 I have been enjoying Word Art Wednesday challenges for a few weeks now, and I really like using their scriptures on cards. This week was a verse I especially like, and it inspired me for this card, which I will submit to the "Anything Goes" challenge.

I used my new "Around the Bend" dies from Stampin' Up for the card.

Blessed

 I love the new Thankful Sunflowers stamp set from Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps. I've been using it quite a bit since I got it last week. After all, August is a sunflower kind of month, and the colors lend themselves to the month, I think.

Anyway, I made this card using that set and then discovered that AAA Cards Challenge #246 is a perfect place to show off my latest creation. 

No Cone

 

I think this sentiment is soooo cute and bound to bring a smile to my sister-in-law, recovering from a broken leg.

Lemons in August

 

I tried something new with this card. It is not a card to open. Instead, I made the pocket corner and added a tag with a message on the back of the tag.

I made this card in response to Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps August challenge.

Hummingbird birthday

 

I used one of my newest stamps from Maymay Made It for this card. I fussy-cut the little hummingbird and popped him up on foam tape. I think I am continuing to improve in my coloring technique! I used white card stock but put it on a cream card stock card base and I like the slight difference of color for interest.

A new blog is born!

When I began this blog, my plan was twofold: to share cards I made along with some other papercrafts, and to share devotional thoughts from the Bible as I studied it.

Over time, I have shared more crafting than anything else, and I have enjoyed doing that, but lately I have been thinking about my second goal and realized that I needed to change things up a bit and push myself to share more spiritual things as well.

As I thought about this, I came to the conclusion that to do a better job at both goals, I needed a separate blog for them. That is why I have created Thinking My Way Through The Bible, following up from the book I wrote a couple of years ago.

I'd love to have you take a look at it and let me know if you find it helpful in any way. My goal is not to be your resident Biblical scholar! I just feel compelled to share some of my personal insights as I read and study the Word of God.

Lilacs or Wisteria

 I found a small piece of sparkling blue card stock in my stash so I used that for the "sky" in this card. I had a fairly old Stampin' Up stamp set that I really like but have not used much for some reason.

Bloom where you are planted

 I made this card for my SIL who broke her leg and is in rehab. I had just watched a video not long ago about using glitter on cards in a way that limited the amount of sparkles that usually end up all over everything, so I tried that and it really did work well. My end problem stemmed from finding a way to photograph the glittery background that still allowed me to see the rest of the card! 

You can't see it very well, but I heat embossed the word with a sage colored embossing powder and it actually goes really well with the rest of the card.

Thank you again, Sweet 'n Sassy Stamps, for the stamp set I used!
 

Sylvia's birthday

I created a card for my very dear friend Sylvia using a new Sunrise Stem die I purchased from Simon Says Stamp, and I love how it turned out. 

I used a Stampin' Up die for the white background and backed it with one of the papers from Simon Says Stamp Color Blend set.  It is not clearly visible in my photo, but I embossed the stem and leaves with green embossing powder and feel quite pleased with how well I was able to cover the leaves and still have the embossed lines show.

Fourth flowers

 I was challenged at Sweet 'n Sassy stamps to make a card using at least one of their products and a red, white, and blue theme. This is what I came up with.

I made the background from strips of card stock, then colored the flowers, die cut them, and arranged them on the front. I used a sentiment from another Sweet 'n Sassy set for the front sentiment.

On the inside,

I stamped one of the flower images then heat embossed the sentiment from yet another Sweet 'n Sassy stamp set on top of it. Finally, I outlined the flower image to add some extra color to the inside.

All in all, I was pleased with the outcome.

I also posted this on the Word Art Wednesday page for the Anything Goes challenge.

Spring Fling Experiment

 I have been following Kristie Marcotte for some time on her blog The Best Things in Life are Pink. What fascinates me most about her work is the many times she takes a pad of 6 x 6 paper and shows how many cards she has made from that one pad. I have always wondered how many cards I could come up with using that same principle.

When I purchased several pads of pretty paper from Honey Bee Stamps a couple of months ago, I decided I should try my hand at Kristie's process. I chose the Spring Fling paper pad as my trial.

The pad had 24 sheets of two-sided decorated paper, so I had a lot to work with.  I started off using some card designs that used larger pieces of paper, but as I worked, the pieces got smaller and smaller as I used up the larger ones, until I had only small strips and/or blocks left. Low and behold, I ended up using all but a very few very small pieces of the paper ... 30 cards in all!  I shocked myself! I did not know I could get that much creativity out of my fairly small creative brain!  Only one side of one design did I not ever use, otherwise something of every design in the pad got used somehow, someplace, on a card.

So ... without further adieu, here are my 30 cards. Some have already gone in the mail, others await that day in my card box.