Sunday, September 30, 2012

Lovely Lenten Roses


This card is going to someone today who could use an extra word of love and encouragment in their recovery.  It's really not easy when illness is prolonged, so I wanted to send something cheerful...with this beautiful reminder from Psalm 46.  "Be Still and know that I am God".  

I had a lot of fun coloring this Flourishes Lenten Rose up on Flourishes Classic Ivory Cardstock with Copics and pairing it with this beautiful paper from Authentique - Gathering.  It's orange and soft blue tones were the inspiration for the palette. I've edged out parts of the design with my Spellbinders Classic Scallop Edgeabilties, and then accented with thin light blue/aqua velvet ribbon, some pretty peach Satin Finish Cotton ribbon, and finishing off with some facted hearts.  


Here's the Copic Collections I used:


+ BG09, BG93, BG96, BG0000


Thanks for stopping by today!  I hope it's a good Monday for each of you!  Our daughter has the day off so I'll be spending it doing some girl bonding with her!

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Project 365 - Week 38


A little spot to rest at a park.  I always feel funny taking pictures of strangers.  I don't ever want them to feel uncomfortable or that I'm some sort of stalker! :)  But, seeing this person sitting out on the bench with all the gorgeous green was a lovely shot.  

Provincial Legislature.  This is the seat of government for our province, and it's a gorgeous building.  Sometime I'll take some more pictures of the other parts of the building.  


Guess who's lawn needs raking?  

Leaves like rain.  This is about a block from Church and as I was driving home one day the leaves that form a canopy over the street were falling like rain.  It was so beautiful I had to pull over, stop the car and take a picture.  Of course, it's hard to tell how the leaves were falling now in the picture - but you can just see that one on the foreground close up...so many more were falling in real life.  If you click on it to make it larger you might be able to see some more.  


A visit with friends.  More shots of strangers :)  But they looked like they were having a nice conversation so I caught it quickly before they noticed me!


Canada Geese at the park.  These birds will soon make their trips south to warmer parts....but right now they're catching their breath in the beautiful fall weather here.  We've had a gorgeous summer and fall.  One of the nicest I can ever remember.  


Roating Tomatoes.  Today I picked a bunch of our tomatoes and decided to try something new by roasting the roma and cherry tomato ones.  A little olive oil, sliced garlic, fresh rosemary and oregano and 40 minutes in the oven.  It smelled SO good in the house.  And later I made homemade tomato sauce.  It was delicious, the whole family gave it many thumbs up :)



Thursday, September 27, 2012

Falling Leaves



Today's Free For All Friday is showcasing a gorgeous Flourishes set called Falling Leaves.  Perfect for the season where leaves are falling all around me!

Before you think I'm too brilliant on this one, I was inspired by Maile Belles' card with the colour gradient and leaves from way back in 2009.  I wanted to give it my own twist and use our gorgeous Flourishes stamps.  I began by stamping on Flourishes Classic Ivory Cardstock with Memento Toffee Crunch to give the leaves the "no-line" look for colouring.  I LOVE the effect with this set.  So much realism to the leaves without the black lines.  Coloring is done with Copics to get really vivid color.   As you can see I tore various shades of burgundy, red and rust papers to create the gradient on the top border, and then did some embossing on the main panel, houndstooth seems perfect for fall.  







I finished the design with some pretty iridescent ribbon, Ivory Jute string and Basic Grey Jovial buttons.  



Need to stock up on decorative paper? Well, now is your time! All decorative paper in the Flourishes store has been marked down a whopping 25%! No codes needed, the price has already been marked down. So, hit the store and stock up! We have some beautiful papers with shades of autumn, Christmas papers, plus some oldies but goodies as well! Click HERE to see! This sale will take place for 48 hours -- FRIDAY and SATURDAY ONLY! So, head on over before some of your favorite papers are gone! ;-) And... while you're hopping, be sure to check in to see all the creativity our design team whipped up!  

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Wild about You Baby!

Our oldest niece and her husband  - on my husband's side of the family just had their first baby.  So, I'm a "great-aunt" again!  (I think I'm a great as in awesome aunt...but GREAT AUNT sounds so old!)  My husband's siblings range in age from 10 years older than him, 6 years older than him and then 8 years younger.  It makes for a very spread out family.  So, I have a niece having a baby, and one who's just  4.

But for this new little great-nephew I bought some cute baby clothes...and I better get them sent FAST because he's growing like crazy!

Here's his card:

I played around with this weeks TSG Sketch (flipped), and this very fun Zoopendous set from TSG.  I love the little pair of rhinos snuggling :)  I colored them up with Copics, giving the parent rhino a light blue tone to help receed into the background a little.  

Here's the sketch - and you can see how I flipped it.  



Pretty cute right?  I used Authentique's Loyal for the papers.  

Gotta run!  We've had a dripping toilet in our bathroom that we didn't know about.  Yeah.  Damage upstairs and down....which means some fixing in our future.  :(  

Copics:  W00, W1, W3, W5, R00, B21

Monday, September 24, 2012

Ballooning

Would I ever love to go up in a hot air balloon.  We see them a lot right now flying near the house.  The other day they flew right over us...so low too, we could see and hear the woosh of the flame.  They must have been landing really close by.  I so love seeing the colors of the balloons in the sky.

Today I'm playing in the TCP Color Challenge, and I even have the correct challenge for the correct week!  :)


Such rich colors aren't they?  And I took a little imaginary trip on this balloon ....


I pulled out the very cute TCP Set, Away We Go, and used the colors in the balloon from the challenge.  I used an older sketch from Chupa's Sketchbook Saturday.  


There's a little striped embossing on the daffodil strip, some old SU papers, some faceted gems in pairs and then the fun polka dotted ribbon tied into the Spellbinders Scalloped Circles Die.  

Copics Used:  C1, C2, C5, YG0000, YG61, YG63, YG67, Y11, Y13, Y15, B21, B34, B37, B39, BV00

Ciao baby!  See you soon!


Sunday, September 23, 2012

Project 365 - Weeks 36 & 37

Greetings after a bit of a photography hiatus!  I've been taking pictures for my 365 Project, but with no time to post them.


The weather has been amazing the past 2 weeks and we've had some amazing sunsets, this one was right outside our front door one night.  



Decided to make some yummy vegetable soup for supper one night.  



See what I mean?  Another one of those gorgeous sunsets.  And this one was even taken from the car! (I wasn't driving :) 


Negative space x 2.  The sunlight coming in through the blinds made for some interesting shadows on the negative space from diecuts I had been doing in my Silhouette.  


Fall has arrived and our tree in our yard is in a bit of denial :)  Half of it is trying to stay green (left) and the other half has started to turn gold.  


A short walk in the ravine to see how the leaves were looking and I stopped at this spot near a bridge.  



One of the bridges across the river in our city.  It's a long black metal one, holds car traffic, foot traffic and an old vintage train crosses on top seasonally.  



My beautiful city in the fall.  As you can see the river valley shows signs of the leaves changing color too.  It's pretty awe inspiring in the fall.  Click on this one to see it larger.  It's really pretty.  



This weekend we took 49 of our students and leaders for a fall Kick-Off Retreat at our Camp. It was an amazing weekend, and the surroundings at camp are so beautiful.  The aspens are so tall and beautiful up the ridge!  



The bridge over the creek at Camp.  One thing I really miss from the US Midwest in Autumn is that we don't have as much red in our autumn colors.  More gold, orange and rust.  Still beautiful thought mixed in with the evergreen trees.  


But if you look hard enough you can find some red leaves too.  



This is on one of the walls at Camp.  I love this verse.  I didn't even watermark it in case you might want to copy it for yourself!

Enjoy your Monday friends!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Creamy Poinsettias


Welcome to Free for all Friday where we show you another look at the Newest Releases from Flourishes!  This release was fantastic wasn't it?  Some gorgeous sets to get you ready for Christmas creations.  


I decided to pull out all the stops on this one!  I wanted to showcase this gorgeous poinsettia from the very beautiful Poinsettia and Pine set.  And I love the elegance of creamy/green poinsettias at Christmas, so here you go....

I began by stamping on Flourishes Classic Ivory Cardstock with Memento Ink, and then coloring up two poinsettias with Copics (see Collections below) then cutting out a few of the petals and popping them up.  I added some warmth to the whole design by using some Antique Linen Distress Ink and my Ink Blending tool to the main image and the Spellbinder's shape behind the main image, as well as giving the designer paper (Kaiser - December 25) some warming up...it gives it a better tone to match the poinsettias.  And you just might be able to see a hint of glitter from the Gelly Roller Glitter pen in the center.  


There are lots of beautiful accents.  Some pretty Nestabling Rhinestones to accent the corner, some crushed velvet ribbon, plus a double bow of Satin Ribbon in Green and some pretty iridescent purple.  then I finished off the bottom of the card with some beautiful Spellbinders Edgeabilities dies.  Classic Petal and Classic Edges One.  






Join the rest of the Design Team to see their beautiful creations with the September New Releases.  And remember that today is your LAST day to order the New Release Bundle at a 10% discount.  Don't want you to miss out!

And finally our Christmas Catalogue in all its beauty...is now available to order in print version for $8.  I have to say, Julie really outdid herself on this publication.  You'll find the beautiful Flourishes Christmas sets in it (and sneak peeks at NEXT month's sets!) as well as Tutorials and inspiration with samples throughout!  

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Autumn Apples


I'm sitting here with a whole box of apples from my Dad's tree on my kitchen counter, they're really fragrant too!  Last night my husband made some apple crisp with them...so it's put me in the mood for apples.  And there's nothing better than Flourishes Apple of My Eye set.  Here it's stamped on Flourishes Classic Ivory with Memento Tuxedo Black, and coloured with Copic Markers (see Collections below).  


Lots of rich colouring which I love.  It gives the apples so much vibrance.  


Here is the fishtale banner detailing.  I added a tag with Flourishes Tailor Made Classic Tags by Spellbinders, and tied it with some Jute Twine, and accented with some thin velvet ribbon in a deep red.  Do you see the pretty lattice behind the design?  It's a new die from Spellbinders, and I've sponged it up and the red fishtale banner as well as the main image with Ranger Tea Dyed ink and our Ink Blending tool.   

Here's the Copic Collections I used.  





Back tomorrow with Flourishes Friday!