Penny Black Sweet Home

Sometimes it's just fun to cut and paste!! Long before the digital age the words "cut and paste" meant scissors and good old white paste in a jar with a brush attached to the cover.  And I did have fun paper-piecing this scene using Penny Black's transparent set "Sweet Home".

Well, for this card my paste came in a handy pen and I had such fun picking out pretty patterned papers, mostly from Penny Black's Madison paper pad.  Hope this cheery neighborhood brings a smile!

Speaking of a reason to smile, my husband's new electronic pull-behind golf cart just arrived via UPS. He is doing his own cutting right now, trying to get the tightly taped and bound box open!! He is a happy golfer! His last remote-controlled cart ended up in the pond when the controls went haywire and wouldn't respond. I wonder if this one came with water wings??

Ahhhh, life is good! Thank you for your visit.

A Garden Critter

Anytime I want to smile, I reach for a Penny Black hedgie stamp! This is another image in the Garden Critter transparent set.

Hedgie is colored with Copics and I've added white enamel dots to the bougquet. I cut the patterned paper into strips, just to be a little more interesting! The sentiment is from PB's Treemendous set.

How about some really exciting news?  Penny Black has a new release that will be in their online store this Friday.  And you might win the whole collection!!  As always, there are images from elegant to cute and I want them all.  Just click here to read the details.

Enjoy this holiday Monday here in the U.S.   I am so grateful for the people who sacrificed to preserve our way of life.

Singer's Muse by Penny Black

I don't seem to have much ability to create a collage when using my stamps. I appeciate when a stamp includes all the elements necessary for a lovely collage. If you have a bird, some flowers and musical notes all you have to do is add color and there you have it!  Penny Black put it all together for me!!

I colored the images with Copics. I double stamped the bird and colored the second image and trimmed it out and popped it up in order to have dimension to the card.

"Friend" is part of a sentiment from the Edge to Edge transparent set by Penny Black. Love the size of it!! I couldn't resist putting a little wooden bird on the sentiment tag. And of course a line of stitching!

It's Memorial Day weekend here in the United States. Our family has a strong military tradition with all four branches represented among the generations. I was an "Army brat" growing up and saw firsthand the difficulties of frequent transfers and separations.

My grand nephew Michael was severely wounded and lost both legs serving his second tour in Afghanistan. I am happy to report he is doing extremely well. He and his boyhood friend Tony, who also lost his legs, have partnered in starting a nonprofit to provide hunting and fishing trips to fellow wounded warriors!

Enjoy your holiday weekend; but please remember the meaning behind it.

If you stop by my home, be sure to notice the seven flags proudly waving in the front yard!

Penny Black Blooming Garden

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This is one of two "shades of grey" cards I made yesterday while practicing this technique. I love the effect, but found it difficult to know when to quit. My first few attempts ended up too dark as I continued to add darker shades of grey.  The flower is colored with five shades of grey Copic markers.  I want to take on more complicated images as I learn more about shading and light sources, which really become more obvious using only grey markers.

I am currently spending my crafting time trying to figure out the "new and improved" Flickr! So far I've learned that what once took one click of my mouse now takes two or three. I am trying to be open-minded, but what I really want to do is bang my head and pout.

And then I remembered the people in Oklahoma who are dealing with such massive devestation and I am reminded my little irritations are not important.

I appreciate your visit today.

Tiddly Inks Wryn Digi

The Tiddly Inks Challenge this week is to use a Wryn image.  In order that everyone can play, they provided this Wryn digi image FREE!! How's that for being nice people?

I've colored Wryn and her bouquet with Copics and fussy cut the image to mount on my Sizzix shaped card die.  I cut the diecut in half and then ran it through an embossing folder, lightly "dusted" it with distress ink and added white enamel dots. A girl needs texture!!

It's a beautiful day where I live; temperature is 84 degrees. In Alabama, that means humidity, too!!

Hope your Sunday has included time just for you! Thanks for stopping by.

A Garden Critter by Penny Black

I love all the "critters" in this transparent set but chose the bunny to make this get well card. Who wouldn't feel better after this little fella showed up?

That patterned paper is from the Madison collection by Penny Black and I've added some die cut trim to brighten it up a bit. I have had that ribbon for ages and love how it goes with that paper. Some things are meant to be

It's been a pouring down rain kind of a day. Tonight was the Relay for Life event I have been looking forward to. We did make the trip to the park and dropped off our 30 cupcakes and stood in the rain for an hour and decided the smart thing to do was to take our soggy selves home. Our team exceeded our $5,000 goal by $500. Way to go team!!

Hope your day hasn't been as damp and dreary.  So glad you took the time to visit.

Quick and Easy Penny Black

Look what I did!! I had this card laying on the desk with several other cards I had made and my husband pointed to this one and said "I like this one the best; great coloring!" That would have been fine, but this card is made with a Penny Black sticker and I didn't color it at all!

These stickers are not only a good way to make a quick and easy (and beautiful) card, but they can provide a guide to professionally coloring your own stamped image! The yellow bg paper is from Penny Black's Madison paper pack.

Have you used stickers on your handmade cards? I think the sticker is a great base that allows you to add your own touches (I've added stitching and some white accents). This card will find its way to my sister who is recovering from surgery.

I so appreicate your stopping by on this sunny Monday!

Penny Black Uptown

This card uses a combo of two of the slapstick stamps in the Uptown set by Penny Black. I colored with Copics, cut out and mounted the buildings on pop dots. I added Glossy Accents to the roofs and windows. Washi tape anchors the buildings; and a wooden charm just for fun! The sentiment is from PB's Eloquence transparent set. Washi tape sky with punched out clouds finishes the scene.  I am going to enter this card in the Penny Black challenge "for family".  The challenge closes on May 19th, so you have time to play, too!

Speaking of Uptowns, our city is working on reviving our downtown and has added condos to the mix of buildings. Unfortunately, the people living in the codos are not happy with the noise from the music scene that they have found themselves in the midst of. So, the city passed noise ordinances and now the music venues must play their music softly!! One establishment has already gone out of business due to the lack of interest in softly played rock!

Has no one heard of soundproofing? Did no one realize that downtown living is not the same as rural?

Hope they get this straightened out before the downtown collapses!

We celebrated Mother's Day today by driving across the city to PF Changs for lunch, courtesy of gift cards from the family. A sudden rainstorm thwarted any further plans and we headed home ... where it hadn't rained at all. Life in Huntsvile! .

Have a great weekend and thanks for stopping by!

Note to Scott:  You are developing your own little fan club, thanks to your comments!!  Sorry about the return of the exclamation marks ... just can't help it!!  Love, Mom

Comments

For the past two days, some very inappropriate comments have been left on my blog in a foreign language.  In an effort to discourage this type of comment, I've turned on "comment moderation".  Hopefully, this will discourage the person leaving such messages and we can go back to the way things were! 

Thanks for understanding.   Hugs, Judy

A Family Card

There is a challenge taking place at the Penny Black blog with the theme "family". I think this card using the Penny Black cling set "Every Happiness" could be used for many family occsions. This set is pretty enough for a Mother's Day card, yet clean and simple enough for a Father's Day card or for any member of the family that you wish to honor.  You can find out details about the challenge here. 

I used Penny Black's cling stamp "Dots in Space" to make that dotted background. I used a combination of VersaMark, Distress and midtone inks to stamp the images. The sentiment is from the PB transparent set "Edge to Edge". Love how the sentiment really speaks up!!

I colored a wooden leaf embelli with a Copic marker and dyed some seam binding with midtone ink to finish the card.

I am back from my trip to Wisconsin with a head and heart full of memories of time spent with family and friends. I love being in Wisconsin where everyone has the same midwestern accent I do! (and if you read my previous post about exclamation points, you will notice I am sprinkling a few into this post. I just cannot help myself).

Thank you for your visit today!!

The Baby Shower

Well, I am home from my trip to Wisconsin. This is a photo of me with my daughter-in-law Sara (the honoree at the shower) and her Mom Laura.

Laura was the perfect hostess and treated us all to a wonderful lunch as well as providing a beautifully decorated room in which to celebrate. Sara is married to my youngest son Scott and their baby, a girl, is due in late June.

Baby Evelyn Rose was showered with many lovely gifts from friends and family. There will be no shortage of people to love her.

You stampers and crafters would have been as amazed as I was at how talented Sara's Mom is. As gifts to the baby, she made a beautiful stained glass hanging featuring a pink elephant with a silvery background; she also crocheted one of the most beautiful baby afghans I have ever seen. She also hand crafted the table decorations and gift bags for all of us to take home. The room was a delightful place to be with silvery and pink bouquets of helium balloons as table decorations and focal points around the room.  As you might gather, Baby Evelyn's nursery is decorated with a pink and grey theme.

I don't know if you have noticed that this posting so far does not include one exclamation point. While staying with my son and his wife and joined by another son and my daughter, the group visited my blog.

It was pointed out to me (they call it "feedback") that I greatly overuse exclamation points. I tried to explain that I am merely showing passion for what I have to say, as well as some excitement.

I'm not sure I like this new look of just periods at the end of my sentences ... maybe they will tire of checking my blog and I can go back to my favorite punctuation mark.

Aside from the "feedback" I had a wonderful time and have memories to keep me going until we gather again after the baby is born.

Thanks for your visit. I had a wonderful trip but there is no place like home.

Every Happiness by Penny Black

Who can resist red and white? When I saw this bright and cheery chevron patterned paper in the PB Madison paper pack, I knew it would be the background for my next card.

I used the frame and one of the botanical images from the recent transparent set Every Happiness. I stamped the flowers using HA's mid-tone ink soft tomato and popped it up on dots. Couldn't resist adding the cheveron strips now that I have a punch to make them!

I am leaving Friday morning for a long weekend in Milwaukee to attend the baby shower for my daughter in law Sara and my son Scott who are expecting their first baby in late June. We will also be walking a 5k to benefit cancer research. My very pregnant daughter in law is planning to do the walk and I hope I can keep up!! Sara says it will be family bonding time for my daughter, two sons and a daughter in law. We will be celebrating my 17 years as a survivor!!

My suitcase is packed, but at this stage that doesn't mean much!! I still have a couple of days to change my mind and repack. For some reason when I am choosing what clothes to take on a trip, I get very sentimental about my clothes and hate to leave any behind! And I am most bewildered about getting my liquids down to the allowable three items of no more than 3 ounces each. Obviously no one took into consideration how many products it takes for me to look put together!!

Hope your day is going well and I am so glad you stopped by!!