Swirls and Flowers

Happy Wednesday everyone !!! 

I do not know about where you live but where I live, it just seems like spring is having a hard time coming out of hybernation. I do take advantage of any days nature provides so I can get some yard projects done. Oh so much to do and so little time.

I have an easel card to share with you today. I made it in a nice sunny yellow to bring in a little sunshine at least on paper. I mixed in some purple... I love these colors together. You cannot see from the picture but the swirls are punched out of a shimmery cards stock. I found a small flower and it fit perfectly in the center of a flower on my designer paper.

Supplies
CS & DP - DCWV
Image - SU
Sentiment - Hero Arts
Dies - Spellbinder
Punch - EK Success & Martha Stewart
Flowers - Silk & Prima
Others - Rhinestones, brads and beaded spray

Thats about it for this one, I hope you like it.
Until next time...
Have a great day.
Hugs, Karen

Calm Before the Storm

Happy Wednesday everyone. I hope that this finds you all well and happy.

Yesterday, we decided to clean up the patio, it had items that should have been put away last fall (I suppose that is part of my lazy side...lol) and just a few misc trashy items... oh where do they come from...lol.
Then we cleared everything off and used the blower and then the power washer to really clean the patio.. oh my, it was a lot dirtier than I thought but it looks so nice now. So now everything is in it's place and awaiting the finishing touches which will be pots of flowers that I will plant later this month when I KNOW that the weather is cooperating with us.

Today, we (my sister, friend, hubby and I) took a lovely drive around the various neighborhoods (especially the larger expensive homes) to get ideas of what plants they used and how they looked after they have matured. We need to replace a few of our shrubs for they have or are dieing. I think we have some in mind and will do some on line research to decide which ones we will get. We also went to a LARGE nursery that we have always wanted to go to and they had just about any type of plant you would want.... oh so cool. We will go back there again soon. We drove to a nice park to eat our brown bag lunches and enjoyed watching the people and kids playing.

After we were home, I mowed the lawn since it was the day before our lawn recycle day and before it is suppose to rain again. While I was pulling weeds, my hubby was edging and then decided to use the blower to tidy up a few areas.... while doing this, he had a seizure. I am so thankful that he wears his helmet for he did hit his head on the curb and it could have been so much worse. After he came out of the seizure, I helped him into the house to sit and rest. Unfortueatly he has had three more since then.... he had low blood sugar and so we tried to balance that but after dinner, it shot way too high and I had to give him insulin to balance it yet again. By his normal bedtime, his blood was looking better but I have had to give him two doses of this special medicine. Now I pray that the seizures will stop and he will be able to rest during the night. We were going to do some errands tomorrow but looks like we will be staying home so he can rest... seizures take a LOT out of a person.

Well I will sign off for now. Thanks for stopping by.
Hugs from the Pacific Northwest.
Karen

Tilda with Peach

Happy Monday everyone... at least here it still is for a little longer. I hope this finds everyone happy and well. We are FINALLY starting to get some normal spring weather and have been taking advantage of it. We had been so cooped up for so long, I enjoy to get more fresh air and be outside.

I apologize for not sending a post sooner, been busy doing other things. I have completed a card that I want  to share with you. I colored up this Tilda image and liked how the colors blended together but struggled at finding the right papers to compliment her. I punched out some leaves and put them together to create the look of tree branches, a perfect combination for Tilda who is picking some peaches. I colored a white little flower to better accent the card.

Supplies
Image - Tilda picking peaches from Magnolia
Sentiment - Dream Impressions
Card Stock & Designer Paper - from Stampin Up
Flowers - from Prima
Punches - Leaves (Martha Stewart), Corners (EK Success), Circle Dies (Spellbinder)
Ribbon and Pearl to finish it off.

I hope you like her and would love to read your comments.

I will try to get a new card posted at least once a week unless something requires my attention. As I had mentioned in an earlier posting, my husband has epilepsy and it can be challenging for they (doctors) have not been able to find anything to control them. He struggles with multiple seizures every 1-2 weeks and I need to keep an eye on him and help as needed. It can be stressful for his congnitive abilities are continueing to decline. I am not complaining, just stating a fact that affects my daily life.

Hugs,
Karen

Happy Easter & Conner's Birthday

HAPPY EASTER to everyone !!!

What a truly BLESSED day and my heart is filled with joy to know that our Lord gave His life to save mine and all of yours too. I do hope that you will take a little time to reflect on how much He sacrificed during His life and at that final hour to save each and everyone of us.

To my followers.... I apologize for not posting anything for awhile - we managed to get about 4 'rare' days of dry sunny weather and so had to take advantage of that and do some much needed yard work. Due to these activities, I strained my back so now I am also struggling with back pain, it can really get me down.
I have been coloring up some images and eager to start making a card so you will see one soon.

Meanwhile, I thought that I would share with you some pictures of my grandson's (Conner) birthday. He is such a cutie.... I just LOVE his freckles which are a little hard to see in the pictures. My favorite is the one with his new baseball cap on. I also have a few of my new granddaughter 'Faith' and another of my oldest granddaughter 'Isabella' with her mom.

This is Conner with his new baseball cap on and he looks really nice in his plaid flannel shirt.

This is Conner, contemplating whether he is in the mood to eat his lunch or go outside to play.

This is Isabella and a friend being silly during lunch.... when kids see a camera, then they feel a need to 'pose'.

This is Isabella and her mom showing her how to use their new baseball bat/ball and tee. I am sure they will get a lot of use out of this.

This is Faith with a neighbor friend holding her... while grandpa is making faces at her to get her to smile and we caught one - oh so cute.

This is the creek that runs by the house and through their property. It looks so pretty but right now, it is deeper and runs faster due to all the rain we have been getting. This picture was actually taken from 'inside' the house.





Hope you enjoyed these pictures and I will go spend some time today making a new card for everyone.
Until then,
God Bless you ALL
Karen

Edwin with Butterflies

Happy Saturday everyone.

It is hard to believe that it is taking me so long to send you another post. I was working on a card but was not done with it and so I wrote a different post... I guess it was not meant to be for by the time that I was just about done, the system went down. I was NOT going to start over. Has that ever happened to you??

Anyways, I have been working on a birthday card for my grandson for the past few days. I kept changing my mind on what I wanted to do but in the end, I feel it has turned out pretty well. It reminds me of him, since he is 5 years and love to run and play on the farm.

I made it 3D so that it looks like he is running in a field of grass and flowers, chasing butterflies. I inked around the edges of the wings and put a little glitter on the wings of the butterflies so that they stand out a bit more. I inked and cut out three layers of grasses and used pop dots so that they stand out, also had to use pop dots on Edwin.

Challenges:
Midnight Madness MMSC99
Papertake Weekly - Truely Dimensional
Cute Card Thursday - Weathered Inspired #160
Just Magnolia - Happy Birthday #102

Supplies:
CS - Stampin Up
DP - Basic Grey
Image - Edwin (do not know name) from Magnolia
Sentiment - Stampin Up
Grass images - Onyx Expressions
Punches - Leaves by Martha Stewart, Swirls by EK Success, Butterflies by Cutting Edge and Scallop circle die by Spellbinders
Flower by Prima
Others - brads, glitter glue, Prismacolor color pencils, CTMH ink pads.

I hope you enjoyed this one... it sure took me a long to time to complete.
I would love to read your comments.... until next time.

Hugs, Karen

Tilda with Roses & Sketch n Stash

Happy Tuesday everyone.

Yea!!!! We are getting a very welcome dry spell, I was even able to get out and mow the lawn. Although the rain is due back tomorrow.

I have a big PRAISE to share with you all. My son in law struggles with severe back pain due to his disinegrating discs in his lower back. He is not able to work, it is challenging enough to keep up with farm activities and the kids while my daughter is at work. Today he had his disability hearing with the judge and it was approved... Praise God!!! This has answered many, many prayers. The next struggle will be surgery, they really want to have the disc replacement surgery but the insurance companies will not cover it... the only other option is disc fusion but this will cause him to have limited mobility. They are not sure just how much longer he can wait but God will guide them to the next step.

Today we went out to pick up a birthday gift for our grandson who will be '5 years' tomorrow. They have a large creek that runs through there farm and so we bought him his first fishing pole. I cannot wait to see him use it, the only challenge I see is whether he will have the patience to wait for the fish to bite - time will tell. His party is this coming Sunday, so I will have some birthday pictures for you next week.

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Onto my card... I have been playing around with my colored pencils with a blending pen. It actually turned out really well.... the picture does not give it justice at all. The layout is from Sketch n Stash, stop over there to see all the great cards the DT made. I made the corner designs using a corner punch and snipped them out and layered to help them stand out. I used the same punch accent poking out from the sentiment. I used flowers, leaf punch and a teeny, tiny butterfly to finish it off.

Here is a close up of Tilda but it still did not bring out the true colors and details on Tilda.

Supplies:
Image - 'Tilda with Curls' from Magnolia
Sentiment - Unknown
DP - DCWV
Punches - Corner Swirls by  EK Success, Butterfly by Cutting Edge, Branches by Martha Stewart, Image cut out with Spellbinder die.
Others - Prima flowers, brads

Hope you enjoyed stopping by and would love to hear your comments.

Blessings
Karen

Bunny and Soccer

Happy Sunday everyone. I tried to put together a post a couple days ago but for some reason, the program would not let me download any pictures... well I did not want to publish the post with out the picture so I just deleted it and decided that I would try later. Just hate when that happens....

Hope everyone has had a wonderful weekend. We had a great time yesterday watching our grandkids 'first' soccer game. The oldest is in first grade and really enjoyed herself. Her father is the coach and the main goal 'at this early age' is to learn to work together as a team and have fun. It was pretty cold out and the ground was wet and muddy but that is normal for soccer games. I remember when I took our kids to there games, so much fun. At this age, they are fun to watch since they are 'all feet'. Here are a couple of pictures of there game, Isabella is the one in the middle with her leg in the air just after a kick.

This is Isabella with her littler sister 'Faith'.  

This is our newest grandchild 'Faith', who is all bundled up since it was pretty nippy outside. Oh so cute.








Hope you enjoyed those pictures of my grandkids. I did not manage to get a one of my grandson for he was too busy playing over on the playground. He was on another team but when it came time to actually go out to play, he could not do it. He started to cry, took off his shirt and took off... so they will try to see if he wants to play on Isabella's team next week. He is only 5 and struggles with social scenarios.

Now I have a card to share with you. I colored this little bunny up so it is bright and sunny and decided that I wanted to keep that bright and cheery feeling throughout the card. I decided that I wanted to keep the card a clean and simple design and even though I could have added a lot more bling, I decided against it.



I hope you like it and would love to hear your comments.


My God Bless You
Karen